House Of Commons
Wednesday 6 December 1995
The House met at half-past Nine o'clock
Prayers
[MADAM SPEAKER in the Chair]
Common Agricultural Policy
Motion made, and Question proposed, That this House do now adjourn.— [Dr. Liam Fox.]
9.34 am
I regret to say that I have an interest to declare. I am a shareholder in a company which, among other things, owns what I think in Europe would be called a large farm but in Britain is a small farm. I receive subsidies through the common agricultural policy.
I understand that a resolution was passed in the House recently—I voted against it—whereby, if one has such an interest, one is not allowed act as an advocate for that interest. I will do my best and be very careful, but I am in fear and trepidation of the parliamentary beak, he who has been appointed to supervise those of us who have been elected. Northampton, North is an urban constituency, and my constituents might well wonder why I am on my feet talking about the CAP. Some hon. Members may remember that I and some of my hon. Friends were rusticated from the Conservative party for a period earlier this year. That was a desperate and deeply worrying situation, if for only one reason: we were deprived of the tender loving care and advice of my right hon. Friend the Patronage Secretary. We therefore had to think for ourselves, which was a very dangerous thing. We looked at the various areas of policy, and we tended, one by one, to look at particular areas of policy. My hon. Friend the Member for Ludlow (Mr. Gill) concentrated on fisheries, and I looked at agriculture, which is one of the reasons why I have some limited knowledge of the subject. I would submit to my constituents and to the House that the CAP is very important to them, as I will go on to prove, as it is to the rest of the country. Why is that? First, there is the cost. This country spends each year on European policies some £10 billion. Over half the money that is spent on programmes—up to 80 per cent.—is spent on the CAP. We will spend this year and next year a likely net £3.5 billion—that is money into thin air, money for nothing. One of the main reasons for this expenditure is the CAP. The CAP is the wrong policy, and it affects everybody in the country through their pockets. The CAP also affects people through their pockets because of the very high level of consumer prices. There is an artificial price level in Europe, above the world market price, which means that everybody has to pay more for their food than they would otherwise have to. Since the MacSharry reforms, and since world market prices have gone up, that is not as marked as it has been, but it could become marked again in the future. Thirdly, we lost our Icelandic waters, and were not allowed to regain fish in our own waters because of the common fisheries policy. We had a bad deal on fish. We had a bad deal on the budget, the net payment that we have to make. As with fisheries, we have also, with regard to rest of Europe and despite some brilliant work by Ministers of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food—not least by my right hon. Friend who is now Secretary of State for the Environment—a bad deal for agriculture, even within the bad CAP in Europe. The CAP also, as everybody in Europe is increasingly coming to recognise, gets in the way of the sort of Europe that we in Britain want. We want an enlarged Europe—enlarged to the east for its own sake, for security, for the well-being and decency of the people of eastern Europe, and for the security of Europe. Also, an enlarged Europe will have to have a variable geometry, which is very much in the UK's interest—otherwise, we would have a federal European state, which we do not want. We want an enlarged Europe, but that is impossible with the existing common agricultural policy. The consumer pays higher than necessary prices; the cost to the taxpayer is higher than necessary; and we are paying for an agricultural support system that discriminates against efficient UK agriculture and in favour of less efficient continental farmers. The CAP is a system of agricultural support that is wrong for the United Kingdom, was wrong in the past for Europe, and is certainly wrong for the future Europe for which we should be aiming. Why do we need a system of agricultural support? My hon. Friend the Member for Southend, East (Sir T. Taylor) has often said that, given the right subsidies, he could grow tomatoes profitably at the north pole. There is a certain Powellite logic to that argument, but it is not right to apply it to agricultural support. We need a system of agricultural support for various reasons. First, the risks in agriculture are much greater than in any other business. There are not only risks involved over what might happen to the market and prices, but climatic risks. Without the limited level of certainty that is provided by a system of agricultural support, no farming community would have sufficient confidence to invest in and maintain—as British farmers do—one of the world's most efficient and cost-effective agricultural industries. What should a good system seek to achieve? First, there has to be an element of self-sufficiency for strategic reasons—one never knows what will happen in the wide world, so we need the ability to feed ourselves. Secondly, we want an attractive countryside—we have not achieved one by developing a rural theme park throughout the UK. An attractive countryside has been developed through the activities of our farmers over hundreds of years. We shall continue to have an attractive countryside if it is farmed well and properly. Thirdly, we need a system of agricultural support that optimises the balance of output, profitability, sustainability and value to the taxpayer. The system must also supply the cheapest basic food commodities, which has the added benefit of reducing the cost to the taxpayer of many of the programmes that he and she has to provide. Those who are less well off typically spend 25 per cent. of their budget on food; those who are better off spend perhaps 10 per cent. of their budget on food. The social security budget is massive, but in real terms it would become less of a "burden" on the taxpayer if we had a policy of cheap rather than expensive food. As we consider the various systems of agricultural support, any calculation of the cost to the Exchequer has to take account of the fact that cheap food would reduce that cost. What is wrong with the existing system of support, the CAP, for the United Kingdom? The first problem involves the overall cost: a £10 billion gross contribution, which is a lot of money, and a £3.4 billion per year net contribution. The second problem relates to the specific cost of some of the programmes, such as the tobacco—the poison weed—regime. That regime costs Europe—and we contribute—£1 billion a year; half the tobacco is virtually unusable, cannot be smoked in Europe and has to be dumped on the world market. Why should we subscribe to that regime? The olive oil regime costs, on average, over five years, £1.5 billion a year. In addition, the regime means that the price that housewives and shoppers in this country have to pay for olive oil is more than they would otherwise have to pay in the world market. There is a wine regime—is there a hops regime? Why should Britain contribute to the annual £1 billion cost of shoring up the vineyards of Europe? The third problem involves bureaucracy. I do not know if hon. Members follow "The Archers", but poor old Brian Aldridge seems to be in a bit of a hole at the moment because he filled in his forms incorrectly and is losing tens of thousands of pounds—Nine thousand five hundred pounds.
I am sorry—£9,500. I said "tens of thousands of pounds", when I should perhaps have said "nearly" tens of thousands or "fractions of tens of thousands of pounds. Someone follows these matters more closely than I do.
I am not particularly sorry for Brian Aldridge and people like him, but farmers have to become more skilled in filling in forms than in agriculture—looking after their crops and animals—which is bizarre. Many farmers who are not trained in such skills find it difficult to cope. They are concerned that they put the wretched forms in the post in April or May, no one tells them whether they have completed them properly and will receive their money until December, when they receive no cheques either because they have been lost in the post or because the forms were not completed correctly. That system causes many people grave anxiety, and they find it difficult to cope; it is also bureaucratic nonsense. Bureaucracy does not only produce costs for the farmer, who might have to pay for expensive advice: we have to pay for bureaucrats to look at the forms and try to make sense of them. Bureaucracy costs money and wastes time and space, and the system should be abolished. Bureaucracy also encourages fraud. In Greece and Italy, the CAP has been ripped off by the Mafia and various other unscrupulous groups. It is estimated that there is currently £4 billion a year of fraud in Europe, and I am sure that much of the fraud occurs in the CAP. Greeks and Italians will not prevent fraud occurring in relation to a European policy in which they spend European money in their own countries—and neither will anyone from Brussels. The only way to prevent that fraud is to change the CAP. The fraud partly explains why this country—and Europe as a whole—is becoming increasingly Euro-sceptic. We believe—I think with justification—that terrible things happen in other countries because their officials allow it, but our officials do not let us get away with anything. That is a deeply unhealthy by-product of the CAP and builds up a culture of cheating, which, mercifully, has not been part of our country's culture until now. The United Kingdom also faces problems relating to the specific crop areas. We probably have—to borrow from the Carlsberg advertisement—the most efficient arable farmers in the world, yet we in Britain have to take more of our arable land out of production than any other country in Europe. We probably have the most efficient dairy producers in the world hut, owing to the quota system, we are not allowed to produce enough milk products even to satisfy our own market. The quota system is nonsense—it is a restrictive structure that is doubtless necessary under the existing regime, but if we changed that policy, perhaps we could abolish the quota system. The quota system is politically embarrassing, because people are paid to set aside land and grow weeds on it. Could we not devise a better system? Most people are irritated by the present system, and any wise Minister should take account of that. What should we do? I shall grossly over-simplify what I know to be a complicated subject, and set out a few principles. I believe in free trade, and I should like to see free trade among agricultural products in Europe and between Europe and the rest of the world. There should be a common price level throughout Europe, as at present, but at world market prices. That would not only be suitable for the old and developing Europe, but, owing to the cheap cost of agricultural commodities in the east, it is essential if we are to expand Europe. We must repatriate our system of agricultural support, so that each country has its own support regime and each country pays for its agricultural support. Agricultural commodities in Europe should trade at world market prices, without levies, without duties and without restitution. I shall discuss that in more detail, commodity by commodity. Let us start with pigmeat and poultry. I do not want to upset the animal welfare lobby, but, these days, pigmeat and poultry have become effectively a manufactured commodity. It is possible to produce plastic from oil—one feeds in oil at one end and produces plastic at the other end. To a certain extent, one feeds in grain and proteins at one end and produces a poultry product; further down stream, one may produce a detailed product. One may produce a poultry commodity or a pig commodity at the other end. There is no system of agricultural support for pigs and poultry, and there needs to be no succinct system for support in the future. Arable is a very important sector. We should go back—or go forward—to a new system of deficiency payments. I shall take wheat as an example, although, obviously, other cereals would tie in. One would have a reference price, and if the price in the market fell beneath the reference price, there would be a make-up between the market price and the reference price. The reference price would be calculated to be what arable farmers would need to receive, year on year, to have sufficient confidence to become effective and efficient, and to carry out their business. There would have to be a cap on the tonnage for which that support could be paid, so the total support would be the cap tonnage multiplied by the difference between the reference price and the market price, and the deficiency payment, in the event, per tonne would be the total support paid divided by the actual tonnage. Capping would have three effects. First, it would limit Treasury expenditure. Treasury expenditure would be determined solely by the difference between the reference price and the world market price, and the cap would prevent the Treasury from having to spend any more money if there were a bonanza harvest. Secondly, capping would enable such a system to comply with the GATT regime. As the House knows well, the GATT regime allows a system of acreage payments, and such a system of deficiency payments would accord with GATT, because it would not encourage increased production against GATT, or provide subsidies for exports, which would be contrary to GATT. Thirdly, if there is a bumper harvest and superabundance, why should the Treasury pay? The farmers are doing quite nicely anyhow. There should be a new system of deficiency payments for milk and dairy products. Before the farming year, a reference price would be agreed. Deficiency payments would be payable between the average achieved price and the reference price. There would be capping, such that, if production increased, payment per litre would reduce commensurately. In the dairy sector—I know that this goes against all the market tenets—I believe that it is essential to safeguard the position of the small farmer. Socially and environmentally, it is essential that we maintain those prospects, to ensure that our rural areas remain vital and vibrant communities. To achieve that, it may be necessary to give every dairy farmer a minimum gallonage, on which a full make-up could be paid. As marginal overall production increased and the marginal payment decreased, the lower price would increasingly fall on the larger farmer. If we get our figures right, I am sure that it would be right for the small farmer and for the large farmer. For wonderful, tasty, lovely beef and lamb, we might also have a new system of deficiency payments. They may not be necessarily especially high, and they may potentially be at a reducing level, because there is a massive potential world market out there. At the moment, with quotas sitting on our sheep industry, we are discouraged from taking advantage of it. That would be the system. As circumstances, needs, the world markets and fashions change, my hon. Friend the Minister would be able to play whatever tunes he felt were right for the country, for British agriculture and for the interests of GB Ltd. on the world market. He would be able to do it, and we would not have to go to Brussels to have it done; we would be able to do it here. Can we do it? Can we get away with it? Is it possible? Who opposes it? I wonder what the position of the National Farmers Union and the Country Landowners Association would be. The National Farmers Union is a good union, but it is a union, and unions—if Labour Members will forgive me—tend to be conservative. Unions like to bind in their members, and they like what they have at the moment. Everyone is okay at the moment. I know that the NFU is saying that things might not be quite the same in future, and that we must think awkward thoughts about the future, but it likes to think of its members and tell them:"always keep a hold of Nurse
If the union frightens its members about such changes, and if its members are frightened anyhow, I am afraid that they will continue to be conservative. They like what they have, and they are frightened of change. They should not be frightened of change. Farmers love quotas. Quotas now have capital value and are traded. One litre of milk quota sells for 60p or 70p. It costs 10p to trade or lease 1 litre of milk quota for a year. It is big money. A while ago, some farmers' milk quota was worth as much as the land and the cattle put together. It is nonsense, but people like it, and they are frightened of losing it.For fear of finding something worse."
Those who have it.
As the hon. Gentleman says, those who have it. For those who do not have it, it is a great block, preventing them from entering the market. I am glad that the hon. Gentleman agrees with the philosophy of Conservative Members that we should have flexible markets and allow people to enter them, and that we should not structure things in the way that they are at the moment.
There is fear of the Treasury. There is a feeling that, if we repatriated our agricultural policy and the Treasury were responsible for it, the Treasury would be mean and would bear down, and there would be no proper system of agricultural support, so all the other farmers in Europe would do better than farmers in the United Kingdom. No British Government would turn their back on their own farmers. They have not done so in the past—we had an effective system of agricultural support before we joined the Community. I do not believe that any British Government would allow a system of agricultural support to devastate our countryside, which is one of the jewels of the United Kingdom. Besides, given the potential savings if we were not making the massive contribution to Europe that we make at the moment, given the fact that we would have cheap food, and therefore the bills to the Treasury for social security would be less than they would otherwise be, there would be money for the Treasury to be more generous with agriculture than it is at the moment—not that that would be necessary—and at the same time to make savings on its existing expenditure. It is a great world out there. There is a growing population. Some parts of the world have rapidly increasing living standards, but a decreasing ability to grow their own food. We have a powerful agriculture here, which is encouraging. Would our partners accept those changes? Some would not like it at all. Each Greek at the moment gets £285 a year from Europe. Each Portugese gets £391 a year from Europe. So be it; too bad. I do not see why they should. That must be stopped. The Irish are getting £447 a year. A new system of agricultural support might benefit Ireland, as it would us. Ireland has potentially a very prosperous agriculture. It could benefit from those changes. France is a net contributor. Why should not France, in the long term—looking at the world market out there, France being an agricultural exporting country—go along with those changes? If Europe expands, there will be social payments to eastern Europe. Can we afford it? There will be agricultural payments to eastern Europe. Can we afford it? No; we cannot. So there have to be changes, and those changes will be of benefit to France. Germany likes the common agricultural policy for one reason—that it must support its farmers, it feels. It has many small farmers. If those farmers were supported through German taxation, it would be politically unacceptable in Germany. As the support is routed through Brussels and comes out again, apparently the German public do not know what is being done in their name, so they are satisfied with it. However, Germany now has the overriding priority to join up with eastern Europe, and the Germans cannot have both the CAP as it is now and a greater Europe, moving to the east. Something has to give. I suggest that the change in the common agricultural policy would do it. Germany makes a massive net contribution to Europe. Germany is getting increasingly restive about that net contribution to Europe. This is the way that German demands and desires can be satisfied. I summarise the advantages of the changes that I suggest. First, we could do away with the iniquitous dock labour scheme type system of quotas, which would allow—with difficulty, but it is very difficult anyway—more newcomers to come into agriculture. That would allow much more efficient use of the land, because it would not be artificially structured as it is now. It would allow increasing opportunities for agricultural entrepreneurs, so that we could optimise agricultural output and production. The changes I suggest would allow the Italians and the Greeks to pay for their fraud. That would be fair, and the British public would enjoy that. The British public resents keeping those states in the manner to which they feel they should be accustomed. My changes would lower food prices. If, at any stage, there were low world food prices, the British consumer would be able to take advantage of them. The changes would be of great benefit to the Treasury, because lower food prices would lower the transfer payments that the Treasury has to make annually. My suggestions would lead to an opportunity for Britain to increase sales of agricultural products in a growing, wealthier world, and, as I have said before, they would increase the sovereignty of the House and the Government. We would once again have control over affairs that should not be controlled from across the channel. Yesterday's events in Paris, with the declining probability of monetary union and a single currency, the political reaction to those events that is likely to follow, and the realisation that the Maastricht treaty has been imposed by an elite against the wishes and interests of the people, mean that there is potentially a new destiny for Europe that is yet to be moulded. Let us try this time to mould it in the interests of the people of Britain and Europe, not in the interests of the institutions. I have one piece of advice for my hon. Friend the Minister of State—courage, mon enfant.10.1 am
My middle name is Archer, but I predate the programme. When my ancestors arrived in Cornwall in 1066, presumably with an unpronounceable Norman name, they were simply known by their occupation.
I have news for the hon. Member for Northampton, North (Mr. Marlow)—"The Archers" is make-believe. Incidentally, he seems to have seriously misread the plot by referring to "poor" Brian Aldridge. He has misunderstood what is happening in the British countryside. There is nothing poor about Brian Aldridge, because he is a cereal farmer on a big scale. However, the livestock farmers, good and bad, in Ambridge may share the concerns of the hon. Member. Throughout the British countryside, there is a recognition that the status quo is not a long-term option. Back in 1992, when the Secretary of State for the Environment, the right hon. Member for Suffolk, Coastal (Mr. Gummer) was the Minister and he came to this House with his bit of paper—the "peace in our time" of the countryside—some of us expressed real concerns about the extent to which that reworking of the CAP could possibly be sustainable. I have some sympathy with the hon. Member for Northampton, North, because he too was worried at that time, although his was a lone voice in the wilderness on the Government Benches. Liberal Democrats represent many rural areas, and we were worried that the over-concentration on area payments and on set-aside revealed a degree of mismatch and mis-targeting that was agriculturally, economically, environmentally and politically unsustainable. We have been proved right. We also felt that there were insufficient mechanisms for adjustment if world prices changed at a different speed or in a different direction to the forecasts. We have recently heard the frank confessions of large farmers, such as Oliver Walston, about the extent to which they are reliant on huge cheques from the public purse. Those confessions show that the lack of any efficient mechanism was a serious deficiency. Most seriously, Members of all parties, and Commissioner MacSharry, were worried that those reforms were represented by the then Minister as the last word for the foreseeable future on reform of the CAP. Clearly that is not true, and today we know it not to be true. Those reforms were the first step, and the momentum had to be maintained. The Government frequently tell us that they are in favour of reform, but that everyone else still wants to sin. Apparently we are the only country in Europe recanting our sins. I do not believe that to be so, and the discussions that I have had recently in other member states, new and old, suggest that that is not the common view of those who have a real appreciation of what is happening to the CAP. That is particularly true of the new members. In the rural policy White Paper, there is an admirably succinct summary of what is wrong with the CAP. I draw attention to the fact, which the Minister recently repeated to me in the House, thatIn other words, half the total investment never reaches farm incomes, and farmers do not benefit. The leakage down the chain is comparable to, and exceeds, that of the water companies, about which hon. Members have been so critical. The investment that we hope will reach the countryside and the primary producers does so to the extent of only one half. The other criticisms in the rural White Paper are valid and right. We now need to know how they will be communicated to our partners and be turned into real reform. On that issue, the Government's White Paper is sadly silent. One would hope that the Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food and the Department of the Environment would have some influence on the Foreign Office. The Minister of State has experience in the Foreign Office, so it will be interesting to hear his comments on the extent to which we can rely on allies and friends in Europe. I suspect that many in Europe wish to take the same route as ourselves, with adaptations to suit their circumstances. However, our record of making friends and allies is not good; nor is our diplomatic success in trying to ensure that specific British interests are well represented. The hon. Member for Northampton, North referred to the milk quotas debacle, which stems from the negotiations by British Ministers in Brussels in 1986. They negotiated away 15 per cent. of our total national milk need, and we are now allowed to produce only 85 per cent. of our total needs. That is not a failure of the European Union, because one could say that it is a success for all the other member states in obtaining a quota higher than their national needs. Those negotiations were a direct failure of our Ministers to represent the industry effectively. The hon. Member for Northampton, North would like to renationalise agricultural policy. He should know by now that our agricultural interest is comparatively small, and the influence it exerts over Whitehall is limited. We have huge problems in trying to ensure that the ministerial interpretation of European Union policies is to the advantage of British farmers. Is opting out of the European Union realistic? We could not be a member of the European Union and be a semi-detached member of the CAP. There are two possible scenarios. The first, and I suspect the real motive behind the hon. Member's suggestions, is to cut our links with the European Union and float out into the Atlantic. Not only farmers but those who are concerned about the future of countryside would regard that with grave suspicion. The second scenario would be for every other member state to repatriate its own agricultural policy. We know what would happen then."total transfer payments from EC consumers and taxpayers (including national budgetary expenditures) are estimated by OECD to have exceeded total EC farm income in 1993 by 50%".
It is a little tiresome that, whenever anyone suggests any change, reform or differences within Europe—I am not just suggesting that Britain should repatriate its agricultural policy but that every country in Europe should—the Liberal Democrats' unique response is to say that one wants to leave Europe and drag Britain off into the Atlantic. I have never suggested that, nor am I ever likely to do so.
I am grateful. That view is not shared by all the hon. Gentleman's honourable colleagues, as I have heard in recent weeks. However, I take him at his word.
If his purpose is to encourage other member states to repatriate their agricultural policies, the immediate effect would be that those member states which count their agriculture industry and vote rather more highly in their lists of national priorities than do the British Government, will inevitably seek every way possible to make the present uneven playing field even less even. For example, there will be no motive power, no momentum, to level up standards of animal welfare, either in terms of rearing methods or animal transport. That will go by the board. The already high burden that is carried by British producers would be made that much more difficult in competitive terms, because every other member state with a large agricultural community would do everything it could to ensure that we were at a competitive disadvantage. Repatriation of British agricultural policy means repatriation of French, German and Italian agriculture support. The effect on our position in the wider market would be disastrous. The hon. Gentleman has rightly referred to Ministry of Agriculture red tape. At present, it is our most successful home-grown crop. The Minister himself has noticed that, over the past 16 years, it has grown apace—far more quickly, far more effectively than anything that is achieved in any other member state. Would that all be swept away by repatriation? I do not believe it for one minute. Consider the new consultation paper on the transport of livestock. It seems that nothing comparable is being produced in any other member state. We are binding our industry hand and foot in a way that is simply not experienced in other parts of the Union. The hon. Gentleman seemed to say that his remedy was based on the old traditional slogan of the Conservative party, "Trust the Treasury". Anybody in agriculture, having seen last week's Budget, knows that to be moonshine. The Treasury cannot be trusted for one minute to look after British agriculture. If the Minister was in a quiet corner and was not on the record, I think that he would agree. Many former Ministers would also agree. Consider last week's Budget. Incidentally, the Budget is now the only opportunity that the House has to consider in full the way in which agriculture and the rural community are being supported. All the schemes in the rural White Paper that are said to be beneficial or helpful to the rural policy of our country, to its development, to the enhancement of the environment and to employment prospects, are cut. The hill livestock compensatory allowance will not be restored, against all the logic of previous Governments' positions. Dirty water schemes, essential for the pollution prevention schemes of the past, have all gone and will not come back. Farm and conservation grants have gone. Extensification and organic food supplies, which are being extensively supported by other national Governments in the union, for which purpose they can draw down European funds, have all gone. All the highly targeted and well thought-through schemes for British agriculture, supported by those who believe in its future, have gone. They are at the mercy of the Chancellor. He can wield his axe over them. If it were not for the representations that we all make to the European Union, I suspect that the situation would be even worse. As the hon. Gentleman rightly said, the Government are now faced with a choice. In the past, their strategy for the union has been enlargement rather than deepening, widening rather than intensification. In those circumstances, I hope that they will today be able to give us a considered response to the extremely important new paper that has been delivered in the past few days by the Commissioner, Mr. Franz Fischler, in which he says, quite uncompromisingly, that there is no way in which the Union can enlarge to the east, to the former Communist countries—Poland, Hungary, the Czech and Slovak Republics, Slovenia, Romania, Bulgaria, Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia—until major structural reforms are made to the CAP's format. I understand that the Commissioner and other members of the Commission go further, saying that other structural changes of considerable importance will be necessary to the very institutions of the union itself. Hitherto, Ministers have said that they can have their cake and eat it. They can delay reform of the CAP until a more propitious time, but they want to proceed with enlargement to the east as fast as possible. In an extremely important article in the Financial Times last week, headed, "No farm reform, no EU enlargement", it was made clear that that it is not just the view of the Commission, but widely shared among other member states, that radical reform is essential. Let us not forget that that reform can be achieved by consensus as long as the structural problems are addressed at the same time, particularly the democratic deficit. The hon. Gentleman, and some of his hon. Friends—by whom I mean those who were rusticated in the recent departure into the countryside to which he referred—are fond of saying how important it is to retain the British veto. Retaining the British veto over social, economic, employment policy is all very well, but retaining the British veto over that means that the Greeks will seek to retain their veto over any real, deep-seated, far-reaching reforms of the CAP. The same will be true of the Italians and others. I hope that we shall have an explicit commitment from the Minister today that, at the ministerial meetings that will be taking place in the next few weeks in preparation for the intergovernmental conference, the Government will make it a specific objective to put the reform of the CAP on the agenda for the IGC next year. That is of critical importance, not just for the reasons that the hon. Gentleman mentioned, but so that farmers can know that there is a long-term sustainable policy by which they can chart their course for the future.10.16 am
As in the case of my hon. Friend the Member for Northampton, North (Mr. Marlow), the Register of Members' Interests will show that I too am walking on eggshells during this debate, so I shall be extremely careful in what I say and not speak with too much authority on those subjects about which I know a great deal because I have studied them. I shall speak with great caution.
I have total common ground with my hon. Friend, but I must disagree with what he says about repatriating the CAP and giving each country more control over its agricultural policy. If the United Kingdom were to do that, we would marginalise ourselves in the European Community. That is something that the British farmers do not want—nor, I believe, do the British public and all those who work in industries which add value to foodstuffs. It would be a disaster. Some countries, as we have already seen, would favour their farmers at the expense of other farmers in Europe—I cannot say "within the Community", because, if we were to repatriate our own agricultural policy, we would not be in the Community. We have seen examples of how discrimination or subsidy by other countries can disadvantage our business. At least within the CAP there is some method of enforcing a level playing field and stopping other countries blatantly subsidising their own agriculture. The French gave a 120 per cent. capital grant for the construction of a turkey processing plant in Brittany in order to swamp the British market with oven-ready turkeys. We were able to stop that. The French have also given special subsidies to their pig farmers, which has also been brought to a halt under the CAP. The Dutch Government have subsidised heat for their glasshouses, which the European Community, under its policy to treat all countries the same, has also stopped. The Irish have in the past given special help to their mushroom growers, and the Agricultural Commissioner has taken considerable interest in sorting out that mess too. As the hon. Member for North Cornwall (Mr. Tyler) said, animal welfare would not be standardised throughout Europe, which would go very much against the grain of those interested in animal welfare and rights.My hon. Friend is talking about agricultural industrial products. There are in Europe and the single market constraints against some Governments subsidising their own industries while other Governments do not. I would imagine that the same principles would apply in future to agricultural industrial products, so my hon. Friend does not have to worry about that.
With respect, my hon. Friend is assuming too much. I assume that, if we repatriate agriculture to individual countries, there will be no controls whatever, and countries will be able to do what they wish with their own agriculture and agricultural production. That is the rub.
The CAP is expensive; it needs reforming and tightening up, so we are on common ground. That is happening, but not speedily. I agree with my hon. Friend that tobacco growing in Greece is utterly ludicrous and must stop. It is, however, important to keep matters in perspective. The single market across Europe in agricultural products provides a great opportunity for British agriculture and those who add value to agricultural products in Britain to export into a free market. There are no tariff barriers against our exports into Europe. If we repatriated our own agricultural policy, tariff barriers might be erected against our exports. For example, the export of lamb has improved enormously as a result of the efforts of British farmers exporting into France, and we now export 30 per cent. of our cereal production and a large and growing proportion of our beef production. Turning to value added products, we all know about the British manufacturer exporting pizzas to Italy, but there is a mass of other products. It is interesting to look at one or two sectors in which value is being added to raw agricultural produce and the manufacturing industry attached to agriculture is making profits, adding value and creating wealth in Britain as a result of those activities. We can buy prepared bags of salad containing a number of different varieties of lettuce and other salad products, all washed and ready for the table. One has only to open the bag and shake it up. Those are being exported, and rightly so. There is no reason why only British housewives should take advantage of those products. Potatoes of different varieties—large ones for putting straight in the oven and roasting, and small, new potatoes—are being washed, packaged and exported from the United Kingdom. Eggs of different varieties, sizes and colours are also packaged well and exported to Europe. One may think that bottled water comes to Britain from Europe, especially from France, but an enormous amount of bottled water is exported from Britain into Europe, and many farmers have bottled water enterprises on their farms as alternative earners. We do not only import yoghurt from France and Europe. Value is added to raw milk in Britain to make expensive, value-added dairy products, and we export yoghurt to France, especially fibre-added yoghurt, which is being sold as a health food. Our industry has created an excellent opportunity for export into France, creating wealth and opportunity in Britain. Branded cheeses such as double Gloucester, which is manufactured in Gloucestershire, as my hon. Friend the Member for Cirencester and Tewkesbury (Mr. Clifton-Brown) knows well, are also being exported.If we did not have such a ridiculous system of quotas, would we not be able to sell rather more branded cheeses in Europe and the rest of the world? My hon. Friend will forgive me, but I was saying that we should still have a free market for agricultural products in Europe. There is no way that there would be tariffs. Was my hon. Friend suggesting that I was saying that there should be tariffs?
My hon. Friend cannot say that for certain. In my hon. Friend's dream scenario, if we repatriate agricultural policy to individual countries, how will we know whether any country may decide in future to protect its own farmers and food manufacturers and erect a barrier so as to free exports of agricultural and fresh products?
Change is necessary to the common agricultural policy, but it should be gradual and fair, and should apply equally through all European countries. The present form of the CAP is working much better than it did in the past, and has reduced stocks of surplus food substantially. In my constituency in the Forest of Dean, an industrial estate in Lydney used to rent out massive warehouses for stockpiling surplus grain that had been bought in under the common agricultural policy and could not be sold.It also happened in Scunthorpe.
It was bought in and stored at enormous expense, and exported at a knock-down price. That was even more costly than the current set-aside scheme, which seeks to reduce the output of cereals. I am not saying that the CAP is perfect—it needs reform—but there have been strides in that direction.
A balance is emerging in stabilised farm incomes in the United Kingdom, which have generally moved up in the past few year. That is a good thing for rural communities, because farmers do not sit on the cash; they spend it in the local rural community in which they are living and operating. That is good for maintaining population in isolated areas. The overall budget of the CAP is now under stronger control than ever before, but fraud remains a serious problem, taking some 1 per cent. of the budget. It may be more than that, but that is a ball park figure. The Commission is determined to tackle the problem more rigorously than it has in the past, and we give it every support we possibly can. Perhaps Labour Members might have a word with Commissioner Kinnock, so that he might turn his attention to it when he has sorted out the air miles. Further reform of the CAP is under way. That is inevitable, forced on by the enlargement of the European Union and another round of GATT in 1999. Increases in agricultural efficiency also drive forward the need for reform. Although we devote a smaller area to cereal production, improving techniques and methods of production, collection and storage make a terrific difference to the output in agriculture; whether it is an acre of land, a cow, a pig, or a flock of chickens, a variety of technical advantages are being made every year to make it more efficient. That represents another way of driving forward the reform of CAP. The change in agricultural support must be given time to take effect, because agriculture is a business with a slow turnover. A cereal farmer turns over his entire stock only once a year, so notice has to be served on the producers of the products of what future changes will be made, so that they can plan ahead. I am pleased that farm Commissioner Franz Fischler has confirmed that reform to the CAP is necessary, and that EU agriculture must become more market-oriented and closer to the market. That will undoubtedly lead to greater stability, security and dignity for farmers, and will enable payments for specific objectives to be targeted more accurately. We are all in favour of more assistance for environmentally friendly schemes for environmental care, and for isolated areas to get special assistance for projects that may enhance the standard of living of the people in those communities. I spent quite a bit of my holiday in isolated parts of the United Kingdom. On the island of North Uist, at a small town called Loch Maddy, there was a slaughterhouse that killed all the animals that were produced on the island. That had great appeal, as the hon. Member for Glanford and Scunthorpe will know, because the animals were slaughtered on the island and not exported on the hoof. I understand that the slaughterhouse had to be closed because of changes in hygiene regulations. It is a travesty that that little business should fail as a result of hygiene regulations if there is no money to seek to put it right. I very much hope that there may be some way of targeting money on such schemes, instead of building a dual carriageway round the island of North Uist, which is currently being undertaken using European funds.Is the hon. Gentleman aware that, in the past 10 to 15 years, the number of abattoirs in England, Wales and Scotland has halved as a result of the imposition of regulations emanating from London rather than Brussels, while in Northern Ireland, where those regulations have not been imposed, there has been nothing like the same reduction?
In some instances, that is a good thing. Some slaughterhouses were definitely not up to standard. However, the slaughterhouse on North Uist should have been saved, so as to create wealth and opportunity on the island and to ensure that the animals were killed at home rather than having to make a journey on the hoof.
It would be a huge mistake to repatriate the common agricultural policy. Reform is vital, however, and agriculture must get closer to the market and become much more market orientated. We must support reforms and fight against fraud. As I have said, we must take a step at a time. The House must maintain pressure to ensure that the CAP is reformed equally for all countries within the Community.10.30 am
It is a great pleasure to take up the remarks of my hon. Friend the Member for West Gloucestershire (Mr. Marland). I congratulate him on his advocacy of British agriculture. He has illustrated the many great successes that British agriculture has chalked up.
My hon. Friend talked about farm incomes. British farmers are enjoying tolerably good incomes at present only as a consequence of the United Kingdom having been thrown out of the exchange rate mechanism on 16 September 1992. Throughout the 1970s and 1980s, in spite of the common agricultural policy, farm incomes were falling. My hon. Friend referred to other issues, and made various comments to which I took exception. I would take them up if time permitted. I have interests on both sides of the farm gate. These interests are declared in the Register of Members' Interests. I hope that my declaration will be sufficient for the House. My hon. Friend the Member for Northampton, North (Mr. Marlow) talked about the high cost of the CAP. Not least among my concerns is its wastefulness. It is wide open to fraud and abuse. I shall demonstrate that it is harmful to many interests. It is, of course, fundamentally socialist. Members have already referred to the diabolical expenditure of taxpayers's money on growing tobacco in Greece that nobody can smoke. In the past, the CAP has encouraged enormous surpluses. Disposal of those surpluses has cost a great deal of taxpayers' money. The surpluses were a huge embarrassment to the Commission and to the Governments of member states. FEOGA grants have created enormous problems in the abattoir industry, a sector of agriculture of which I know a little. The grants have created over-capacity. More than anything else, the abattoir industry suffers from over-capacity. Unfortunately, that over-capacity has been encouraged by the availability of FEOGA grants. It has been forced upon the industry also by legislation emanating from Brussels. Many of the FEOGA grants given to agriculture have disappeared with the enterprises to which they were made available. Many enterprises turned out to be non-viable or economically unsound. There has been a huge on-cost as a result of taxpayers' money being funnelled into unviable businesses. The cost has resulted in the rest of the industry being put at a severe commercial disadvantage. The hon. Member for North Cornwall (Mr. Tyler) referred to the relatively tiny amount of money that is paid out by the taxpayer that actually reaches the practical farmer. I agree with his analysis. That, however, is the extent of my agreement. I cannot possibly agree with his further thoughts on the subject. I do not share his optimism that remaining in the CAP will lead to a resolution of the present difficulties. We do not know the cost of fraud in the Community, which last year was estimated to be anything up to £6 billion. When the Court of Auditors reported last month, there was speculation that it might be only £2 billion. A national newspaper stated that the only quantifiable amount of fraud was £400 million. When it comes to fraud, we pay our penny and take our chance. There is no doubt, however, that fraud takes place. Various initiatives have been taken to control it. The burden of controlling fraud falls not upon the Mafia or the big-time fraudsters but upon my constituents. For example, it falls upon the farmer in the Corvedale who owned two farms and handed them over to his two sons to be farmed as two separate entities. To this day, he cannot persuade the Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food that the farms are two separate enterprises. Consequently, all his grants and subsidies are held up. Control measures bear down heavily on a farmer near Bridgnorth, who has lost subsidy as a result of having made a mistake in his application form. He declared a heifer instead of a bullock. The cash would have been the same, but there has been disqualification because of the control measures that have been introduced. There are farmers in the Bishop's Castle area who have experienced enormous difficulties over their suckler cow subsidies, because the information they gave in their application forms was slightly wrong. These are the people who are paying for the control measures which are introduced to counteract the fraud of the Mafia and the other big-time fraudsters who continue to defraud regardless.Is my hon. Friend aware that farmers in New Zealand had tremendous problems with form filling, and were being driven mad by bureaucracy? The New Zealand Government—incidentally, a Labour Administration—have dumped the subsidy system and returned to a free market. The New Zealand farmers are now doing wonderfully well without bureaucracy on their backs.
My hon. Friend makes an extremely good point. The New Zealand Government stopped subsidies. They also stopped many welfare payments. Why did they do so? They took that action because the money ran out. Having weaned the farmers and others off subsidies, the New Zealand Government find that they have a much more vibrant economy than that of the United Kingdom or anywhere else in western Europe. They have a strong currency, low inflation and low unemployment. As I understand it, there is scarcely a farmer in New Zealand who wants to revert to the previous heavily subsidised system.
There are four reasons why the CAP is making things so difficult. As time is limited, I shall be brief in describing the harm that it is doing. It has had a disastrous effect on the pastoral economies of the third world. It negates the law of supply and demand. It is harmful to innovation in agriculture. It is almost immune to the real needs of the marketplace. It is socialist. It imposes quotas, specifies qualities and fixes prices. The end result was surpluses. We have tweaked the CAP again, with the result that there is more political interference and more of the planned economy, which is in great danger of creating shortages in the cereal market because of the introduction of set-aside. I understand why the hon. Member for North Cornwall can support the CAP. Doubtless the spokesman for the Opposition, the hon. Member for Glanford and Scunthorpe (Mr. Morley), will jump to his feet to support it. They should support it, because it is a socialist concept. I cannot understand, however, why a Conservative Government can be such a willing accomplice to Soviet-style central planning. It is simply naive to believe that the system is capable of reform. It is fundamentally flawed. It is impossible to police and control. It is hugely expensive. The public pay twice: once as taxpayers, and a second time as consumers. All that is in complete contrast to the old British system, the deficiency payments scheme, which had the advantage of redistributing money. Money was taken from the taxpayer. It subsidised the production of food, which reached the marketplace at a cheaper price, to the ultimate benefit of those on low incomes. It was a good system. We were told that we would persuade our continental partners to adopt that when we went into the European Community. We lost on that count, just as we have on so many others. To believe that one can reform the CAP is a triumph of hope over experience. It is time for those who advocate reform to stand up and spell out exactly what those reforms are. The onus is on those people, because the farming industry cannot prosper in this present state of uncertainty, and it certainly cannot go on if it continues to go further and further away from the realities of the marketplace.10.40 am
I congratulate the hon. Member for Northampton, North (Mr. Marlow) on securing the debate today, as these are important issues—there is no denying that. There are severe problems with the CAP that need to be dealt with. It needs to be reformed. That is the position of the Labour party. I have to say, however, that it is going it a bit to describe the right hon. Member for Suffolk, Coastal (Mr. Gummer), when he came back in 1992, as some kind of red commissar presiding over a centrally planned economy within the CAP and the European Union. That is somewhat stretching the point.
Although I listened to the hon. Gentleman's argument carefully—indeed, the argument for repatriation is a position that has been taken by a number of commentators, and there are a number of options for reform—the concept of repatriation and a free market are a contradiction in terms. One cannot have repatriation of European funds to member states and allow them to subsidise different sectors of agriculture in different countries, and then hope to have a free market on a level playing field. That just could not be done. I hope that the hon. Gentleman will accept that. I have a constituency interest in the pig and poultry sector. Although there is a little truth in what the hon. Gentleman said about the poultrymeat sector, in the pig sector there has been a major move to extensive field systems, and that is a welcome change in terms of pork production. So he can eat pork with a clear conscience in terms of the way in which it is produced in this country. I was also surprised with the storyline in "The Archers", which has been touched on. The story was that, although Brian Aldridge lost his £9,500, he was receiving an integrated administration and control system cheque for nearly £110,000, and that caused particular offence to another character, a business man whose business had gone bust in the recession. As he pointed out, the whole idea of the changes in 1992 was to give compensation to the area payments for reduced prices, yet cereal prices have gone up. It is true that is partly as a result of the fallout in the devaluation of the pound—there is no denying that—but there is no doubt whatever that, in the arable sector at the moment, it is a win-win situation for farmers. Indeed, the monthly IACS cheques are just like monthly lottery wins in some sectors.Is the hon. Gentleman saying that it is the policy of the Labour party that large farmers should not get compensation for land that is taken out of production?
It is certainly the policy of the Labour party that we should move away from production subsidies. I want us to be absolutely clear about that. Although we recognise that there is a need for agriculture support in certain sectors, we believe that there are better ways of doing that. I will touch on those in a moment.
When approaching the issue, it does not help to take a negative isolationist view within the European Union. I notice that, in Farming News, Sir David Naish said:He continued:"Internal sniping by politicians is jeopardising Britain's chances to win allies before next year's EU inter-governmental conference".
Although there is a perfectly respectable case for arguing the different ways of approaching reform of the CAP, it does not help to be in the Government's situation, split between the different wings—the Euro-sceptics and the Europhobes. That has paralysed their approach to the way in which it should be done. To be fair, the hon. Members for Northampton, North and for Ludlow (Mr. Gill) have won their arguments with the Conservative party in many ways. The Government are the prisoner of the right. They have moved towards the positions of other Conservative Members in the campaign that they have been running. It is the first time that a Government have gone cap in hand to a group of rebels rather than withdrawing the Whip. The Labour party recognises the problems of the CAP, and they are also recognised in Europe. In a recent report, Mr. Fischler stated that there was a need for simplification of the CAP. He went on to say that it has"And that made it extremely difficult for the NFU to make its case for UK agriculture within Europe".
He is absolutely right, and I am pleased to see that it is recognised at the highest levels of European policy-making. I very much want to see something stem from that. I make it clear that we in the Labour party are committed to radical reform of the CAP. We are not afraid to argue for that, both in this country and within the European Union. But the difference between the Labour party and the Government is that we have allies in the European Union, and we can find consensus in terms of getting that agreement. We want to uncouple agricultural support from production. We want an end to quotas. We believe that set-aside is a negative use of public funds, except when it is used for conservation purposes—long-term set-aside. We want to move towards world pricing for agricultural products. We also recognise that there is a need for support, but, as part of the change within the CAP budget, we want to see the available funds redirected towards environmental support, and—perhaps as important—support for the wider rural economy, in creating jobs and supporting businesses. We want to recognise the problems of upland farms and their needs. Although we want to press for radical change, we believe that we can encourage and support the approach towards a better rural environment with the funds available. If one contrasts that positive approach with that of the Government and their priorities on CAP reform, one will see that, according to their Budget statement, within the areas where they have some influence of reform, they want to cut the EC surplus food scheme altogether; restrict eligibility for the R3 carcases category—a stunning 3 per cent. reduction in the number of carcases available—withdraw from the school milk scheme; end the EC processing and marketing grants scheme; end the fisheries grants; and cut back on research and development, at a time when there is a great deal of consumer concern about food, and there is a pressing need for R and D in all areas of agriculture. That is a glimpse of the Government's priorities for reform—snatch the milk from our nation's schoolchildren, mug our pensioners and poor for the cheap butter and mince, and invite redundancies from our major team of scientists who are doing vital work on research on the risk to consumers from bovine spongiform encephalopathy. At a time when everyone in the agriculture sector agrees on the need for increased marketing and added value, particularly in developing a high-value meat export trade and moving away from live exports, funds through European Union schemes are to be axed. I have seen at first hand the advantages of the marketing and processing scheme in expanding food companies, both in my constituency and nationally, including Lincolnshire."become quite complicated over time, and increasing complexity has made policy management increasingly difficult. In addition it has led to a negative image of the CAP in public opinion (complicated, opaque, bureaucratic, not understandable, open to abuse and fraud)".
The hon. Gentleman says that he wants to do away with production subsidies. Does he count area payments for arable farmers as production subsidies? If he does, and he is to do away with them, what agriculture support will he offer in the arable area?
Area payments are a negative use of public money. I do not think that they are efficient. Indeed, they do not meet the hon. Gentleman's criteria. He was talking about money going to large farms instead of small farms, but the area aid system works against that.
I know that there are arguments both for and against modulation, as it is called, but the hon. Gentleman says that he wants more support for small farmers, and the present system of arable aid payments will not achieve that. We want a support system that is based on giving farmers the opportunity to opt into various environmental support and management programmes—and, of course, an extension of the existing environmentally sensitive area schemes, which we have long supported. We believe that they have a very useful role to play. Reform must have a social and environmental objective. We must seek consensus and co-operation with our European partners in order to secure change of that kind. It can be done with good will and determination, but it will not be done if we act on the basis of opting out, adopt negative attitudes, criticise and insult foreigners at party conferences. That is why it cannot be done by the present Government.10.50 am
I am genuinely grateful to my hon. Friend the Member for Northampton, North (Mr. Marlow) for giving the House an opportunity to debate the important issues surrounding the common agricultural policy. We have had a thoughtful and informed debate, in which constructive speeches have been made by hon. Members on both sides of the House, and a range of philosophical approaches to both agriculture and Europe have been aired.
The current common agricultural policy has few supporters in this country. It attracts much criticism. It costs taxpayers a great deal of money; it raises food prices for consumers, albeit not by as much as is sometimes claimed; it is vulnerable to fraud; and it imposes a number of bureaucratic restrictions and controls on farmers that increasingly limit their initiative. It disadvantages both our farming industry and the food industry that relies on its products. For those reasons, we have long pressed for reform of the CAP. There has been some progress. First, owing largely to United Kingdom pressure, a ceiling on CAP spending has been in place since 1988, and only unanimity can alter it. That single change has helped the proportion of the EU's budget that is spent on agriculture to fall from nearly 70 per cent. in the late 1980s to 50 per cent. now. Secondly, in 1992, CAP reforms dramatically reduced cereal and beef support prices, and reduced the reliance on intervention as a market management mechanism. Those changes have contributed to the almost complete elimination of the food mountains of the past. Intervention stocks of frozen beef in the EU stood at nearly 1 million tonnes early in 1993, and are now down to a minimal 12,000 tonnes. Intervention stocks of cereals in the EU totalled nearly 32 million tonnes two years ago; the total last month was under 5 million tonnes. Thirdly, and most important for the future, the United Kingdom played a major part in ensuring a successful conclusion to the GATT Uruguay round negotiations, including a far-reaching agreement on agriculture. That agreement set world agricultural trade on a liberalising course, and paved the way for further market-led reforms of the CAP. Fourthly, the United Kingdom has argued strongly and successfully for better controls on CAP fraud and financial mismanagement. We have secured the adoption of several tough pieces of legislation, including the CAP "blacklist" regulation. There has also been a 50 per cent. increase in the reporting of irregularities, and much tougher action by the Commission—in the form of disallowance of spending—when member states' controls are found to be inadequate. That is extremely welcome. The United Kingdom is leading the debate in Europe on CAP reform. The report of the CAP review group has been widely read throughout Europe. We have set out our aims clearly in the rural White Paper, published in October. Our overriding objective is to secure an efficient, prosperous, competitive and outward-looking agriculture that can operate and compete in increasingly open world markets, providing high-quality raw materials at competitive prices and paying due regard to the environment. I do not think that there can be any dispute with our aims. In the discussions that I have held with farmers and their representatives, there is a basic and general recognition that the CAP is bound to change, and that their interests—all our interests—lie in a more open, market-oriented policy in which UK farmers, because of their efficiency and competitiveness, will be in a strong position to do well. Many farmers are understandably concerned about the number of bureaucratic controls that now seem to be part and parcel of the CAP. Some of those controls are necessary to protect public money and reduce the opportunity for fraud; others are there because of artifical constraints on production, and are more difficult to defend. Creating the conditions in which quotas, set-aside and other supply controls can be removed will lift a major burden of bureaucracy from our farming industry. In our view, that must be the way forward. It will mean continuing the process of progressively reducing production-related support, bringing EU support much closer to world market levels. That would substantially reduce the economic costs of the policy, and allow the eventual abolition of supply controls. It does not mean renationalising the CAP; nor can radical changes in policy be introduced overnight. Reform must be introduced steadily, at a pace with which farmers can reasonably be expected to cope, and it must be Europewide. It will be no less important under a reformed CAP than it is now to ensure that member states cannot give their farmers national subsidies to snatch illicit competitive advantage: a level playing field is an imperative. We do not seek to do away with a common policy for agriculture in the European Union. That would not be in our interests. It is also clear that cuts in production-related support will not be negotiable without some compensation for the farmers who are affected. Our aim will be to ensure that such compensation is fully uncoupled from production, is time-limited, and does not discriminate against United Kingdom farmers.Does my hon. Friend agree that absent from this feast of information about the CAP is any mention of our urban population, whose taxes are paying for all this? Because of the CAP's inefficiency, they are being forced to pay through the nose for their food, to the tune of around £25 a week. Is that not a disgrace?
My hon. Friend clearly was not listening to what I said at the beginning of my speech. I said that the CAP had few supporters in this country, that it cost taxpayers a great deal of money, and that it disadvantaged both our farming industry and consumers—and that, for those reasons, we had long pressed for its reform, which we intend to secure.
A reformed CAP will also need to place more emphasis on environmental concerns, although we must always remember that the primary purpose of farming is food production. The 1992 reforms introduced several important environmental elements, most in response to United Kingdom pressure. Future reforms will need to build on those, reflecting the importance that the public attach to the conservation and enhancement of our farmed environment. Such a package of reforms is coherent and logical, and the right way forward. Alas, our approach is not yet universally shared by other member states, many of which are broadly happy with the way in which the CAP operates at present and would prefer to consider that the 1992 reforms were upheaval enough. It is, however, becoming increasingly clear that, as we move towards the 21st century, pressures for change will intensify. The EU's existing GATT ceilings on subsidised exports will exert pressure on the policy, and without reform, growing surpluses could again begin to emerge. The next round of negotiations in the World Trade Organisation, which are due to start in 1999 and are designed to take further the process of trade liberalisation and subsidy reduction, will increase those pressures. The forthcoming enlargement of the EU to include the countries of central and eastern Europe will also be an important factor. Extending the current CAP to those countries would be prohibitively expensive for the EC budget, and would further increase the danger of growing surpluses; it would also be contrary to the interests of the aspirant countries, whose economies could not afford the high prices and economic distortions associated with the CAP. Against that background, I welcome the European Commission's new report on agriculture and the accession of the central and eastern European countries to the EU. That report is to be presented to the European Council in Madrid later this month. Although it does not go as far as it should have, the report marks an important change in policy, recognising the validity of much of what we United Kingdom Ministers have been saying for some time. It makes it clear that prolonging the status quo is not a feasible option. and that further reform of the CAP must come. Our task now must be to build on that important step, and persuade our partners in Europe of our vision of reform. My right hon. Friend the Prime Minister will be urging his colleagues in Madrid to ensure that the European Commission's work is taken forward expeditiously. Inevitably, it will take some years to achieve the sort of CAP changes that we think are necessary, but I strongly believe that the changes that we are promoting are in the interests of farmers, consumers, taxpayers and the country as a whole, and we shall continue to fight for the interests of farmers and consumers whenever we can.Young People Leaving Care
10.59 am
This morning's bitter weather is a reminder that many people in this city and throughout this land will be sleeping on the streets tonight. Sadly, a high proportion of them will have been in care.
Three reasons make this debate crucial and timely. The first concerns the reminders that we have had in the West trial. The pitiful vulnerability of young, defenceless people was exposed to us all in the stark horror of that trial, which has invaded all our imaginations with fearful images of young people who were unprotected and who faced people such as the West family. We know now that 10,000 people leave care every year. Many of them disappear into the urban jungles of our cities. No one would notice if they discontinued their existence in this world. No one cares about them. That position was well recognised before the Children Act 1989 was passed. The second reason, and it is the urgent one, is the cold cynicism of yesterday's Budget cut in the already paltry income of young impoverished people. In future, they will have to share accommodation, possibly with complete strangers, robbing them of what they need: safety, privacy and the stability of life. The Government should hang their heads in shame about the reasons that they came to that decision. We have read the leaked published correspondence from the Secretary of State for Social Security, in which he has announced his despair, talked about the chaos in his Department, but identified a housing benefit cut for young people as an easy option. They are a soft target. In a giveaway Budget, where billions of pounds were given to people who were well off already, the Government put in that mean cut against people and against all the evidence that the House and its Committees have heard of how the abolition of income support entitlement for 16 and 17 year-olds damages that group of young people. The third reason is the encyclopedia of evidence that the Children Act is not working. Dozens of organisations—and I thank them for the help that they have given me in relation to this debate—have prepared searching reports on the Act's effects. It is now six years since it passed through the House and four years since its implementation. There were high, idealistic and practical ambitions for that Act, which was supported by hon. Members on both sides of the House, but the shadow of failure falls between that dream and the reality. There has been some success—of course, there are examples of good practice. There is a fine after-care team in my constituency, but it is one of the few: only two operate in Wales—but there are also huge deserts of Great Britain in which there is little happening with the Children Act. We must rethink it, because the cause of its failure will be multiplied by yesterday's Budget cuts. The third problem is the shift of spending from national to local government, which will mean an horrendous problem in Wales. where we are going through local government reorganisation, with an already fragile system is passing from eight county councils to 22 unitary authorities. We must ask: where will after-care support come in the list of their priorities? I have written to all the authorities in Wales and I fear that, despite the great ocean of good will that exists there, with the problems of finance, the after-care of people leaving foster homes and care institutions is a low priority. Every year, 10,000 people leave care. Many of them are denied adequate support, adequate money and decent accommodation. Often, they are bewildered and damaged by their experience and are pitchforked from full-time care into little more than full-time neglect. Their experience is different from that of the children of most hon. Members. They leave our family homes at an average age of 22 and often they come back. There are often strong links there, but how on earth can we expect 60 per cent. of these young children, who have been hit with every misfortune that life can offer, to set up a fully independent life at the age of 16 to 17? Those young children take on such adult responsibilities at that immature age at the same time as they are moving from school to a job, unemployment or a training scheme—another traumatic move. They are moving from an institutional life where they were financially dependent in all their decisions to responsibility for managing a woefully meagre budget. At the same time, there is a collapse of their network of friends, teachers and acquaintances when they go into an alien environment in which that support is not there. In addition, they face what all young people face: all the bewildering problems of adolescence. Only the strongest characters can come through that. Many of them do so unscathed, but that says a great deal for them. This morning, I met a group of six care leavers for the first time and they are all bright, highly intelligent and highly articulate young people, but they share another characteristic: they are full of anger at a system that has robbed them of part of their childhood and of their early adolescence, and that has heaped unreasonable burdens on them when they should be enjoying the prime of their lives. Remarkably, many such young people go into care work. I am sure that those who have experienced care themselves are the most able in such work, so I do not want to add to the negative image of care leavers. There is a problem involved in that: the public perception is poor. There is a great wall and a cliff of public prejudice against such people, who are reluctant to say that they have been in care, but many come out of this and we want to take a positive line and rejoice in those who, unscathed, have come through the problems that we as a society have heaped on them. The figures are startling and depressing. Thirty per cent. of single homeless people have experienced care. A study of homeless care leavers by Centrepoint found that more than half of those surveyed became homeless immediately after leaving care, and that nearly all of them had on some occasions slept rough. Imagine doing that yesterday evening or tonight. A study by Leeds university found that more than a third of its sample had incomes of less than £30 a week and that only 7 per cent. earned more than £70 a week. The research also found that, in 1993, 22 per cent. of males and 16 per cent. of females aged 16 to 19 in the general population were unemployed. However, between a third and a half of its sample of care leavers were unemployed, so they are suffering disproportionately. A survey by Save the Children found that more than half the respondents were not encouraged to continue with their education, and that 40 per cent. had no help in finding a job with curriculum vitae, application forms and letters, in an increasingly competitive world of job search for young people. Care leavers are at greater risk of offending and of getting into other activities than other young people. According to First Key, 23 per cent. of adult prisoners and 38 per cent. of young prisoners said that they had had experience of local authority care as a child, although less than 1 per cent. of them were taken into care because they were offending. If people are not stirred by our pleas on the grounds of common humanity and compassion, perhaps they will accept the argument on the ground of the damage that we are doing to society by providing inadequate care. The Minister has the uncaring, flinty exterior of all Conservative Prime Ministers, but inside there is a warm, compassionate human being fighting to get out. I hope that he will succeed. The Minister knows about the lack of preparation and support for those leaving care. I have no wish to give instant remedies and condemn everyone. Many marvellous people whose life's work is care devote their time, energies and skills to it and achieve great things. But the general picture condemns us all. There is inadequate preparation for leaving care, and the lack of support is revealed by the Save the Children survey. It showed that 60 per cent. of respondents lacked life skills on leaving care. Half of them did not know how to manage their money, and nearly a quarter did not know how much things cost. We are failing in that vital area. Although all those matters were identified during the passage of the Children Act six years ago, according to the whole catalogue of research that has been published, we have not succeeded in changing the system to any great degree. According to the Save the Children survey:The young care leaver received some money in the form of vouchers. Through savings while young people are in care, by postponing the age of leaving care, to which I shall shortly come, and by ensuring financial responsibility through running a budget, people should be taught, not in one fell swoop but over a long time, the great skills of managing their finances. A report from Leeds university states that a survey of 102 local authorities found that only 42 per cent. offered an automatic leaving care grant. Of the remainder, some operated a discretionary system. Matters can only get worse following the shift of spending from central Government back to local government and the enormous challenges that local government will face in the next financial year. There are positive aspects, because good preparation and support has plainly had a wonderful effect. The research by Leeds university showed that leaving care schemes are beneficial to young people when they are properly organised, especially in securing good accommodation and improving life skills. One care leader from west Glamorgan made plain the difference that decent accommodation made to her when she said about her new flat:"The amounts young people received ranged from nothing to £1,800 with most receiving under £1,000 … from 'Don't know'—gave me £5 and some sandwiches and said I don't want to see you again".
Public prejudice on the issue must be tackled. A MORI poll found that almost all those who were surveyed would not risk employing someone from a care background. More than half of the young people surveyed by Save the Children said that they rarely told anyone that they had been in care. That is the truth, ugly as it is, and the Government and the country must work to get rid of the foolish and damaging wall of prejudice. It makes no sense and greatly hurts the life chances of young people who have already faced so many challenges in life. I have made some study of the position in Wales. I wrote to all the local authorities there and read all the reports that have been made, especially that by Dr. Hutson of the university of Glamorgan. She points to the unevenness of the situation in Wales and mentions the two excellent teams in Wales. There were cases of great distress among the young people whom she interviewed. The feature of all these reports, most of which have been published within the past year, is the evidence from young people. It was not a case of academics telling us what was going on or laying down theories; the reports contain practical quotations about what has been happening to young people. That is the strength of every report. Leaping from the pages are pictures of young people's faces, and their words are used to describe what has happened to them. All of them talk about running out of money because of lack of organisation. There are images of young people sitting in the dark because they have run out of tokens or money and have no gas or electricity. Welsh care leavers were dumped in unsuitable accommodation. One young care leaver from west Glamorgan said of private rented accommodation:"It is the best property I have ever had. It makes me feel proud of myself."
and also apparently drunk most of the time—"The other bloke in the room was a rapist"—
A young woman who wanted a flat in Pontypridd where she had been in care was told by the council to take a flat in the Rhondda. Three months later the council knocked the flat down. I wrote to the Minister in August about these matters and about the need for mandatory monitoring. The Government and local authorities do not know what happens to care leavers or where they have gone. We could well be replicating the West tragedy many times over and nobody would know. There is an overwhelming case for a check, because we have to know the whereabouts of everyone who has left care. It is said that young people have gained A-levels and degrees and now say, "We are adults now and we do not want to be mothered." One such young person said to me, "I would like someone to knock on the door now and again to ask me how I feel and whether I am all right." Care even on that basic level would be an improvement. The Minister said that some young people might not welcome it, but it is not compulsory for those who make it clear that they are managing perfectly well on their own. The problem is with the many young people who have disappeared from the system, and unless there is mandatory monitoring there will be no major improvement. In his letter, the Minister said:"I couldn't take my girlfriend there … It's a dump. The windows are coming out. The walls are damp. The electric fire is expensive."
That may be true and such young people do not have to accept those services, but they should at least be available, and at present they are not: it is up to local authorities to do their own thing. The Minister's argument is not at all convincing and I hope that his thoughts have advanced a little since August. In his fair-minded way, the Minister states:"Whilst we would expect local authorities to adopt an active stance on this issue, the introduction of a statutory requirement would be inappropriate, because there will be those care leavers who do not seek, wish, or require continuing support services from local authorities."
That is as much of an admission of failure as one is likely to get from a Minister, and I welcome it. The Minister's letter continues:"I fully accept that there is some way to go before we can be satisfied with the level of provision in all local authorities."
We all have one chance of life, youth and adolescence and we cannot continue in this leisurely way by saying, "Things are getting better, they arc slowly picking up." By the time that young people leaving care today have reached adulthood, their lives could be damaged irreparably by lack of provision. We cannot rely on a slow evolutionary improvement. Action has to be taken now. One new development is the requirement that health education services contribute to the planning process to help children who are leaving care. That was mentioned in a recent paper, and perhaps we can debate that. Many hon. Members who are in the Chamber made creative and productive contributions to the Children Act, and it was felt that progress was being made when the Act was passed. However, in many areas the situation has not improved: it has deteriorated. A recent survey by the social services inspectorate found that more local authorities now have leaving-care teams, and at least, 50 per cent. of social services departments have some form of monitoring system. That is fine, but a national survey by the Aftercare Consortium, which attempted to assess the situation after the implementation of the Children Act, came to a much more negative conclusion. Although most of the people working on care projects reported that there was a leaving care policy in their area, they said that it was not always followed up. The survey also found that only in the affordability of supported lodgings and the availability of leaving-care grants had any real improvement been made between 1992 and 1993 in the provision for care leavers, and in the case of leaving-care grants, improvement had only been slight. Significant deterioration was found in nine areas of provision: housing, benefits, income support for under 18-year-olds, community care grants, social fund loans, education grants, financial support during vacations, youth training, and employment and financial support from social services. That is an horrendous list of areas in which the provision has not improved—it has not increased as the Minister has suggested. It has in fact deteriorated according to the Aftercare Consortium report. One of the main problems with the Children Act is the fact that is does not ring-fence funding. Also, the provision of services is very much at the discretion of each authority. According to First Key,"progress is being made and I am sure this will be maintained."
"The Children Act provisions need to be amended to give strength to the current duties to prepare young people for leaving care and to advise, assist and befriend them once they have left care.
now more than ever—The primary reason for the failure and poor quality of preparation for leaving care is that the provision of services relies on discretionary interpretation of powers. Local authorities"—
between the rhetoric and the reality, between the belief in what is being provided and the considerably lower level of services that result. The Act was supposed to improve things for care leavers—that was its whole purpose—but it has not done so, due to the position of local authorities. As we know, under the Act local authorities are required to provide befriending services for care leavers up to the age of 21, but that is very rarely done. If local authorities fail to provide such services, they are breaking the law. The Act has failed, and the Minister must accept that. There should be a statutory duty on local authorities to provide services for young people leaving care. We know all about the various problems with social services departments and the difficulties that they have in so many other areas of work, but I wish that the Government would consider reversing the planned housing benefit change. If it cannot be reversed—unfortunately, it seems that it cannot—the Government should instruct local authorities to interpret it in such a way that every after-care leaver is automatically considered a hardship case. That seems to be one of the only ways in which one can guarantee that progress will be made and young people will get a fair deal. We are seeking some undertakings from the Minister on improvements that should be made to that Act. We want to hear that he will introduce mandatory monitoring for local authorities, they he will decide to say to them that the money they receive is ring-fenced and that it must go towards services for those who leave care. We want some indication from him that he recognises the failure of the Act and the need to introduce reforms. Many areas of reform are being pressed on him by Community Care and concerned groups, which would ensure that people who leave care do not enter a period of steep decline in their fortunes and Members could look with pride on their work. Images of young people such as the haunting one of the young lady who said that she was virtually expelled from a community care home at the age of 17—with all her possessions in a black plastic bag, a fiver in her pocket and the message, "We hope never to see you again," ringing in her ears—is shameful to the House and to the country. We must do far better"faced with the demands of child protection services and more recently community care legislation are prioritising their constrained resources and leaving care services are losing out. Consequently, there is a credibility gap",
11.25 am
I am grateful to be called in this important debate. I am sorry that, at this stage, only the Minister and the Whip are on the Conservative Benches. Certainly, Opposition Members are concerned; they believe, rightly, that the subject of this debate has to be addressed. I commend my hon. Friend the Member for Newport, West (Mr. Flynn) on his passionate and well-researched speech.
My thoughts are based on a number of experiences, partly to do with my background as a Front-Bench spokesman over three years. For part of that time, I shadowed the Minister, whom I respect. I recognise that he is interested in and cares about this issue. Although I would not say that about many of his hon. Friends, I think that he has genuinely attempted to look in detail at the matter and to listen to people's concerns. Like me, he has met many young people who have been through the care process and has addressed conferences of young people. Indeed, I pay tribute to the articulate voice of the young people who have left care and have organised themselves in a number of ways to press, quite rightly, for changes to the circumstances that they have experienced and that others are still experiencing. As the Minister and my hon. Friend knows, I also have personal experience of social work—over almost 20 years before I entered Parliament. It is very interesting to meet as adults people whom I took into care as babies. Talking to them about their life experiences in the care system is very traumatic. When I was a very young man, I was responsible in some instances for taking decisions about their lives. They were taken into care as babies on the assumption that the care system would offer them something better than they would otherwise have had. From meeting the one or two whom I know now and listening to their experiences, I have to say that I am afraid that the system has let many of them down very badly. I feel deeply about that because clearly I have some responsibility for their lives and the way in which they have been treated. Many have undergone all sorts of appalling experiences that should not happen to anybody. The issue is brought home to me regularly by my wife, who works for an organisation in Leeds called Caring For Life, which is concerned with addressing specifically the needs of young people leaving care and attempts to care for them for life. That is a key factor, because, as my hon. Friend the Member for Newport, West demonstrated, once they leave the system, many are dropped, forgotten about and allowed to undergo appalling experiences. Some go into the penal system, to disappear for ever—sadly, sometimes in such circumstances as the recent events in Gloucester. Many others have gone through very bad experiences—not perhaps as bad as those in Gloucester—and have ended up in an environment that is totally unacceptable in this day and age. My wife's work has brought home to me the need for immense improvements along the lines of those mentioned by my hon. Friend. On entering Parliament in 1987, I had the great privilege of being involved in the passage of the Children Bill. It was one of the first major pieces of legislation on which I worked. There was all-party consensus that that Bill offered a major improvement in protecting children and in alleviating the plight of people leaving care. Despite that cross-party support and the whole-hearted endorsement of the House, one or two reservations were expressed about the Bill. One reservation mentioned by my hon. Friend was the limited time and responsibility that the Bill devoted to care leavers. I served on the Standing Committee and I remember the attempts by a number of Opposition Members to persuade the Government to extend those responsibilities in the way referred to by my hon. Friend. In that respect, and despite the great success of the Act in many other ways, our concerns have proved justified. Another fundamental weakness, which is much more difficult to overcome, is that the Act fails to require a co-ordinated approach, both nationally and locally, to child protection and to services for children and young persons. One department, at either Government or local level, should not be able to initiate something that has not taken into account the responsibilities of other departments. The benefit changes initiated by the Departments of Social Security and of Health are examples of that. I do not believe that the Under-Secretary of State, the hon. Member for Battersea (Mr. Bowis), acceded to the benefit changes—I know him too well. He understands as well as I do the impact that those changes will have on young people leaving care. A classic example of a lack of policy co-ordination between Government Departments can be seen today. After this debate, I shall be serving on a Statutory Instrument Committee discussing a Government proposal to remove the social work training element from the qualifying courses for probation officers. That might appear to be irrelevant to what we are discussing this morning, but it is not. Unfortunately, a number of the people with whom probation officers have to deal have offended as a result of difficulties which they faced very early in their lives and which, sadly, have led them to end up in the penal system. I am sure that, privately, the Minister would not disagree with a word of what I am saying. I become angry when I hear the latest proposals from the Home Office—the tough approach, going back to the short, sharp, shock treatment that was such a miserable failure. I know that because one of the experimental camps was in my constituency. Now, the Government want to bring in boot camps. The same kids will be going through those camps—they are the kids who have gone through the care system. Sadly, I see some of them in Wakefield prison serving life sentences. We must tackle the problems much earlier. If we fail to do that, we will have to try to deal with them through the penal system, which is a much more expensive process. I appeal to the Minister to fight his corner against some of the nonsense that we hear from some of his colleagues in the Home Office. He knows that it will permanently damage some already damaged young people. That point will be made in Committee this afternoon. I hope that we carry the day, but I fear that we will not. The Minister understands why social work training should be part of the probation officers' brief. They are dealing with social work issues and with some very damaged people who need skilled intervention. I mean no disrespect to ex-police officers or ex-Army officers, but I cannot accept the suggestion that authoritarian-style people, marching up and down and shouting like a serjeant-major can deal with very damaged people. The Government's own figures prove that. We have a very effective probation service with social work training which steers people away from the penal system. No doubt other hon. Members will want to expand on the implications of the income support changes on young people. I know of many examples where they have resulted in immense difficulty for young people leaving care. The housing benefit changes that are due to take effect on 2 January next year and the restrictions on hardship payments will specifically impact on care leavers. The Minister should tell his colleagues at the DSS, loudly and clearly, what the Chancellor's proposals will mean for the sort of people about whom we are talking. I am not simply pointing a finger at different Government Departments; I am aware that there is a lack of collaboration and co-ordination locally. In October 1991, two years after the implementation of the Children Act 1989, I did a survey of all English local authorities. I discovered that, at that stage, only three of them had developed cross-departmental strategies on family policy. It is not just Government Departments but local authority departments that do not talk to each other, and even sometimes contradict each other. There is a lack of clarity about the role of social service departments and housing departments, especially in relation to the definition of "vulnerability". I wish that I had a pound for every case that I have come across of a dispute between a housing department and a social services department about whether a young person is vulnerable. It is my view that, by definition, if a young person has been through the care system and is leaving it, he must be vulnerable. People must be vulnerable if we have intervened in their lives and placed them in the care system. They are disadvantaged and worthy of additional support and care when they leave the system. Many local authorities have worked hard to overcome the problems. I know that many of them have tried desperately to improve the plight of young persons leaving care, but they have to wrestle with the local consequences of Government policy. Housing policy is probably the most important area, and there has been a complete rundown in investment in social housing. Whether it be housing associations or local authority housing programmes, there is no doubt that the housing stock for people in social need has been markedly reduced. That has impacted on young people leaving care. Of course, it is easy for the Opposition to argue that the Government do not invest enough money and that there is a lack of resources. However, the Minister talks to local social services departments and he will have been told of the way in which the child care budget has been raided to prop up the huge demands resulting from the community care changes. There is a ring-fenced community care budget, but not a ring-fenced child care budget. Social services departments have told me that they have had to move resources away from care leavers and child protection to meet the massive demands of the community care changes. The Minister should consider education policies and their impact on young people in care and leaving care. There has been a huge increase in the number of exclusions of young people from schools. Many of them have been through very difficult home circumstances and some have ended up in care, yet they are excluded from school. There is now a climate of league tables. They show academic success, but they do not show the nature of a school's clientele. They do not highlight the difficulties faced by schools and the admirable way in which they deal with them. Unfortunately, in some cases schools are only too happy to exclude certain pupils. I know that some of those within the care system are easily excluded because the difficult circumstances that they have experienced occasionally show in their behaviour at school. It is sad that the current education environment is not conducive to supporting many of the young people about whom we are concerned in this debate. There has been a move towards local management of schools and grant-maintained status. Social services departments and teachers have told me that that has resulted in less willingness to participate in collaboration on child protection and the care of vulnerable young people. Those are wider policy issues that need to be considered in this debate.I agree with the hon. Gentleman's points about education. However, is it not true that within the care system there may be provision for young people to have leisure and television rooms, but no place that they may use for study? That point must be within the remit of the Department.
The hon. Gentleman makes a valid point. The educational needs of young people, especially those in the care system, are often overlooked. We look after the more basic caring needs, without really considering other needs. I know some people who, despite all the disadvantages, are highly academic and have gone to college or university and done very well. We must give them credit for having overcome those disadvantages.
There are three specific points which summarise the present position and, in making them, I am very much reliant on my wife's experiences and on her feelings about where we need to go in respect of young persons leaving care. First, there is the question of preparation. We still do not properly prepare young people in the care system for the kind of life that they will face when they leave care. Hon. Members should think about what they were like when they were 16. Could they cook or sew? There are some of us in our 40s who still cannot cook or sew.Some people in their 60s cannot do that.
My hon. Friend is right. If hon. Members could not have carried out those tasks at 16, why should we expect young people who have gone through far worse experiences in their childhood to be able to do so? Cooking, budgeting, use of leisure time and choosing the right company are all important. It is easy to be placed in accommodation in certain areas where the company is not particularly positive, and we must look at that issue.
Suitable housing is the second crucial point, and it is not just a case of putting somebody in a flat. In many instances, that person needs supervised lodgings, or perhaps a motherly landlady. The third and final point is that the person leaving care needs somebody in loco parentis. As my hon. Friend the Member for Newport, West mentioned, we need to pinpoint somebody who will follow the young person through after leaving care. My wife's organisation, Caring for Life, cares—or attempts to care—for life for the many people who will always need on-going care. Many people do not need on-going care throughout adulthood, but many others do. We need a person to be pinpointed who can provide that support. My main point is that we clearly lack a national strategy of co-ordination which can resolve all the boundary disputes which result in people falling between the different agencies. More than ever, we need collaboration between local authority departments. We need a Minister whose remit ranges across Government Departments to ensure that there is a national strategy for young people in these circumstances. I believe that the Children Act was a very important move forward, and I commend the present Minister's predecessor—the right hon. Member for Putney (Mr. Mellor)—who was very much involved in the passage of the legislation. He listened to the concerns of many people, and amended the legislation accordingly. That Act was a major step forward, but—as the Minister will be aware—there is still a long way to go in addressing the needs of young people in care.11.41 am
First, I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Newport, West (Mr. Flynn) on creating the opportunity for the House to consider these matters today. He has done a remarkable job, and I commend him on his complete, well-measured and well-prepared speech. I must also commend my hon. Friend the Member for Wakefield (Mr. Hinchliffe) on following the matter up so effectively.
Indeed, if we put the speeches of my hon. Friends together, there is not a hell of a lot left for Opposition Front Benchers to say, and I sympathise with my hon. Friend the Member for Darlington (Mr. Milburn), who winds up for the Opposition. My hon. Friends the Members for Newport, West and for Wakefield made astonishingly complete, compassionate and considerate contributions, and I am very pleased that I was here to hear them. I must also register my gratitude to the Chairman of the Defence Committee for liberating me from the need to hold witnesses under scrutiny upstairs and allowing me to add to some of the points which have been made. I must declare an interest, in that I was a consultant and parliamentary adviser to the Gracewell Institute until it went out of existence. Currently, I am a trustee and director of the Faithfull Foundation. I must add that I was pleased that the Under-Secretary of State, the hon. Member for Battersea (Mr. Bowis)—who is to reply to the debate today—came to the launch of that foundation in the House of Lords some time ago, and made an excellent speech. I know of the machinations that he went through to make that presentation. I am not supposed to know, but I do, and I commend him for making that speech. It confirmed in my mind the Minister's commitment to the issue. I shall not declare any details of the incident now, and I have no intention of doing so elsewhere. Our secrets are safe. My involvement in this matter goes back to Cleveland, the Butler-Sloss inquiry—in which I was involved—and my experiences since then. When I told my soulmate in my office, Christopher Kelsey, that I was going to try to contribute to the debate today, he asked whether I had prepared anything. I replied that I had not, but he said that that was all right as I knew all about the issue. I said "No, Chris. No one knows all about it. We are still scratching the surface." We have barely embarked on a journey that we really must complete because, to date, we are making a dog's breakfast of it. Perhaps the starting point is that everybody—regardless of who we are or what station we occupy in life—seeks approval and recognition. In order to gain that approval and recognition, we respond inevitably to example. It does not matter whether that example is good or bad, because when we start to receive it we are incapable of judging whether it is good or bad. If we receive that example from the people who are caring for us and feeding and clothing us, we naturally assume it to be proper. No matter what a person shows us to do or how he shows us to do it, we expect it to be the right manner in which to behave. If we are later subject to the shock of realising that we are badly in error, we have huge feelings of guilt, remorse, confusion and regret which put us at a disadvantage. A person is put into care usually because he or she is in some kind of danger, be it from mental or emotional cruelty or from physical or sexual abuse, although someone can be put into care if there is no one else to care for him or her. Generally, children are put in a form of what we hope is positive custody, but they are placed with other youngsters who have had similar unfortunate experiences. In doing that, we add to the series of unfortunate experiences that have been visited on them. We make that error not only at that stage, I have to say. We make the same error with the people whom we find guilty of abuse, because we usually put them into some kind of protective custody in a penal institute. They are banged up with people who have been guilty of similar transgressions, and once again there is an almost organic cycle of amplification and multiplication. We must try to break that cycle, and break the relentless repetition of damage that we are allowing to be visited on future generations. I was greatly taken with the comments made by my hon. Friend the Member for Wakefield, who called for a change in ministerial remit, as that was a point that I wanted to raise. In my work with the obscene publications department of Scotland Yard, one thing seemed to me to be profligately wasteful. We would place a fairly experienced police constable—male or female—in the department, and would allow him or her to be trained in somewhat distressing circumstances. Some of the stuff that the department must examine, scrutinise and evaluate is so bloody foul that the effort to stay sane while observing it stretches the mind. Just when the constable was becoming mature and seasoned in that work, he or she would be moved to traffic because otherwise that person's career prospects could be damaged. That is fine from the point of view of career development, but it is not much bloody good in terms of taking care of children.Order. I know that the hon. Gentleman feels strongly about the matter, but I would ask him to moderate his language somewhat.
I apologise, Madam Deputy Speaker, for using the term "bloody", if that was the word that caused offence. Was there any other?
Not yet.
I had no intention of causing offence, I promise you, and I promise the House. I apologise for using the term "bloody"—but I still feel as strongly as that, or even more strongly.
It does not make much sense to train people, to give them that degree of expertise and then to remove them from the position of responsibility. The same applies to Ministries. My hon. Friend the Member for Wakefield referred to the plethora of departments that have to cope with the problems that have been described. Health, education and social services are all involved, as are Home Office responsibilities such as probation and the police. Somehow the poor individuals fall down the cracks on the keyboard. We are trying to play a minor tune on a keyboard capable of performing only in a major key. My plea, extending those that have already been recorded, is that we should create another kind of agency. I have pleaded for some time for such an agency, to concentrate on family matters. What would we call it? Perhaps a support availability agency. What we need is a police force that is not police, social services that are not social services and probation services that are not probation. Such an agency would need the responsibility and authority to stretch further than other bodies and, as a single agency, to care for the particular needs of every individual who required such attention. Every family should be able to call on such services as and how it sees fit. The courts, too, should be able to identify people whom they consider to be in need of such attention. I could talk at great length on the subject, but I know that other hon. Members want their turn. I hope that my comments have been of help to the House.11.51 am
I begin by declaring an interest as a practising barrister, and the few remarks that I shall make will relate purely to that sphere. I have spent about 30 years in court in one form or another, and in that time I have seen thousands upon thousands of children and young persons who have ended up before a court simply because they have been neglected.
None of us chooses his or her parents, but for most of us life is quite happy; our parents care for us, guide us and see that we are educated, housed and eventually launched upon the sea of life. But for some, that is not to be. For some the path is care, or even custody. That sometimes happens because of the death of parents, leaving their children alone in a society in which there is no one to care for them. Over the years, much good work has been done by various adoption societies, children's homes, and so on—but that can never replace a parent. All of us who have children know that. For instance, if my sons want advice they can ring me up today, wherever they may be. They may not get especially good advice from their father, but at least they have someone to whom to turn. When, for whatever reason, a child has been in care, to whom can that child turn? Can he or she go back to the matron or whoever else ran the home and say, "Please, what do I do?"? The answer is inevitably no, because the throughput is so great, as is the pressure on space and time, and the lack of resources. Other children end up in care because they have broken the law. We have all seen youngsters such as the young tearaway who is put into care, unless he ends up in one of the more contained establishments run—although "run" may be too kind a word to use—by Her Majesty's Prison Service. In such units there is little education, little support and little, if any, after-care. The various agencies such as the probation service and social services have done a superb job over the years. But what happens to such children now? They are contained and restrained. And now the Government want to take the social service element out of probation training. How stupid can they get? The idea is negative and stupid and will actually he costly. When children in care are 16, we say to them, "Where now?" Some authorities give them £1,000, and some the proverbial sandwich and a fiver. Then they are supposed to find their way in the world. It is not their fault that they do not have parents or that they grew up in a broken home in a destroyed society. They did not ask for that. Tell me of one child who wants a life of misery. There would not be many volunteers. None the less, there those children are at the age of 16. What do we do with them? And now we are to tell them that they cannot have as much housing benefit or support as before. Yet those are the very children who need support and benefit. Ten years ago in America, in Boston and other places, there was the Massachusetts experiment in which, with the aid of the probation service and social services, children who came out of the penal system were fed back into society. They lived in almost sheltered accommodation at first, but they could work their way up the ladder and get a better flat, and were helped and advised about getting jobs. They were gently cared for and led back into society. Why can we not do that? I do not say that every child who leaves a children's home this year will fall into the problems of criminality, but it was found that there was not much offending among the children in the Massachusetts experiment. When is a child most vulnerable and most likely to be caught up in the web of offending and reoffending? We know that the peak age of offending is 14, and at 16 one is not far away from that. Yet a young girl who leaves a care home is put into a bedsit. She may have her £1,000, but to whom is she to turn? Along will come some nice kindly person, as she thinks, and before she knows where she is, she will be in the wrong company. How is such a child to judge the quality of the company that she keeps? She has no experience against which to balance it. Unfortunately, we do not have many wise people in government at present—except, of course, the Under-Secretary of State for Health who is here today, the hon. Member for Battersea (Mr. Bowis)—but if the Government were wise in such matters, they would consider the overall cost. How much does it cost to put a 16-year-old into a secure environment, by which I mean somewhere warm, dry and affordable, where there is support and someone to whom to turn? Perhaps £100 a week. Contrast that with the £400 a week that it costs to put someone into a penal establishment. So, to save £100 a week, we risk spending £400 a week. That is the mathematics of the madhouse, but the Government do not take that fact on board. We have a Home Secretary who seems to think that if we march people up the hill and down again often enough, we might achieve something, although all that he will find out will be what the rest of us found out 10 or 15 years ago—that the faster we march them up the hill, the more quickly they think of ways of getting away, the more crimes they learn and the worse they turn out at the end of the day. Why can we not get away from all that and simply build and rebuild? It would not cost a fortune. I heard what was said about the Children Act 1989, and I know from professional experience that there are many holes in the legislation. However, I do not propose to trespass down that road now, because I am watching the time with great care, and watching my Whip, to whom I have to be nice, with even greater care. Let me finish as simply as I began. When a child is vulnerable, we as a society should care for that child. And which children in our society are more vulnerable than those in care? Therefore, when they reach the age at which they must leave the environment that has looked after them hitherto, that is the important time when they need support. We do not give it. We do not try. We abandon them and, years later, say, "Gosh, how did that all start?" We have only ourselves to blame. To a Conservative Government this must come as manna from heaven and music to their ears, but sometimes there is benefit in investing. That is their motto. I merely ask that the Government should try investing in our kids; they deserve it.11.59 am
My hon. Friend the Member for Newport, West (Mr. Flynn) deserves the thanks of the whole House for bringing this important subject to public attention. It is also important to pay credit to all the organisations that have mounted such a spirited campaign in defence of care leavers and their problems. I am thinking of organisations such as Save the Children Fund, Barnardo's, Community Care magazine, Centrepoint and many others.
Today's debate reflects the growing concern about a neglected group of some 10,000 young people a year who leave local authority care. We know where those young people came from and why they went into care but until recently we knew little about what happens to them once they leave it. My hon. Friend the Member for Stockton, North (Mr. Cook) made the important point that there is a long way to go before we correct that information deficit, but, thankfully, a spate of recent reports has begun to unearth what has all too often been a hidden problem. The picture that those reports paint of life after care for young people is bleak. We have heard about unemployment and homelessness. My hon. Friend the Member for St. Helens, South (Mr. Bermingham) made the important point about the all too frequent appearances of young care leavers before the courts and how they eventually enter the prison system. However, the organisations that produced the reports are to be commended for involving young care leavers in their preparation and production. As my hon. Friend the Member for Wakefield (Mr. Hinchliffe) said, care and after-care services will only improve if we listen to the voices of those who have experienced them. The stories that young care leavers have told in the various reports to which my hon. Friend the Member for Newport, West referred will, I hope, help to shape a better future for the next generation of care leavers. It is easy to forget that all young people who leave care have exactly the same aspirations as any other young person. They want to raise families, to have homes, to prosper and enjoy the best that life has to offer. It is common ground that the aim of all policy, whether local or national, is to ensure that young care leavers make the transition from care to independence as quickly and easily as possible. My hon. Friend the Member for Newport, West made the important point that there are good examples of local, and national, organisations working together to ensure that that transition is made, but such experiences are all too limited. The reality is that, too often, young people leaving care find the path to independence blocked. As a consequence, young care leavers find the opportunities that are available to others denied to them. They face the worst of all possible worlds: an early ejection from a supported environment into an often prejudiced society with no stable family support system to fall back on when the going gets tough. Invariably, the going does get tough. They find themselves competing for jobs in a labour market where 600,000 young people are already out of work but face the additional handicap of public prejudice against care leavers and, often, lower educational attainment. The result, not surprisingly, is that a high proportion of young care leavers become unemployed. Life without work, and on the breadline, is the biggest single obstacle to the search of young care leavers for meaningful independence. Unemployment and poverty also inhibit their search for appropriate housing. The Centrepoint study that was mentioned earlier in the debate found that more than half the young care leavers who were surveyed had been homeless, and nearly all had slept rough. Without a job or an income, finding a rented flat becomes virtually impossible. To compound the problem, Social Security Ministers say that social fund payments cannot be used to pay rent deposits. That situation will be made worse by the Government's plan to have housing benefit paid in arrears. The social security system is also set to militate against the development of what I think everyone is agreed is an excellent halfway house between care and independence—ssupported lodging schemes. They provide support services that are unavailable in any bed-and-breakfast accommodation but since housing benefit is to be capped against assumed shared costs, supported lodging schemes will be priced out of the reach of young care leavers. Already, organisations involved with running such schemes are warning that the latest planned changes to housing benefit policy risk throwing more vulnerable young people on to the streets. At best, the proposal to limit housing benefit for young people under the age of 25 will force them out of half-decent accommodation into inadequate, unregulated and potentially dangerous multi-occupation dwellings. Already, 16 and 17-year-olds face exclusion from the benefit system with access to income support and housing benefit virtually unobtainable except in cases of exceptional or severe hardship. There is even evidence that social fund officers have refused community care grants to care leavers on the basis that social services have a power to make leaving care grants under the provisions of the Children Act 1989. They have that power, but, with the best will in the world, it is unrealistic to expect social services departments to pick up the tab for the Government's refusal to allow young people access to benefits that are available to everyone else. That is not their role and nor do they have the resources to be able to do it. The Minister will have read the recent report from the Association of Directors of Social Services, which warns that already more than three in four social services departments are projecting substantial overspends on their 1995-96 child care budgets due to the pressure of rising demand. Indeed, the ADSS president Tad Kubisa explicitly warned last month that services for young care leavers could face cuts as a result. As with other matters, there seems to be total confusion between the objectives of different Government Departments. The Minister will no doubt say that he wants care leavers to be able to live independently outside the care environment—and rightly so—but the Department of Social Security is engaged in an exercise of restricting choice and limiting independence. Unfortunately, the piggies in the middle are the care leavers, who find themselves bereft of support, and social services departments, which find themselves under more pressure to compensate for failures in national policy. There is a need for national policy to reflect the best examples of local policy, where education, housing and social services co-operate together to ease young people's transition from care. My hon. Friend the Member for Wakefield pinpointed the problems and failures of the Children Act 1989 in ensuring proper co-ordination. I hope that the Minister will address that point. Similarly, there is a need to build on best practice. The document produced by the First Key national standards working group is a welcome step in the right direction. National standards would considerably strengthen the existing guidance to the Children Act 1989 by defining the sort of after-care services that local authorities should work towards. However, if new duties are to be imposed on local authorities, it is clearly important that appropriate resources are identified to ensure that change happens. In that regard, work by the social services inspectorate is to be welcomed, especially if it helps to identify the cost of a comprehensive leaving care policy. Crucially, there should be improved monitoring of care leavers. My hon. Friend the Member for Newport, West mentioned the almost unspeakable murders committed by Fred and Rosemary West. They are a tragic reminder of the failings of the current system and the dangers faced by lonely and vulnerable young people. I have listened carefully to the organisations which were most closely involved in the West case about the lessons that they think can be learned from it. The Bridge child care consultancy, which was appointed by the Gloucestershire social services committee—I understand, with the Department of Health's recommendation—has called for national action in relation to children who run away from care or their families or who place themselves at risk. The ADSS is calling for a national register of young runaways, and the British Association of Social Workers is calling for a register of convicted abusers. I should be grateful to know the Minister's views on those proposals. Will the Minister also tell us how the monitoring of young care leavers in general could be improved? Frankly, there are some problems with mandatory monitoring, but I think that it is possible to consider a number of important improvements that could be made. First, we could ask local authorities to collect factual information when young people leave care, which would provide some basic data on their accommodation, educational attainment, employment and training prospects. It is important to monitor the first moves that young care leavers make when they leave their care placements. We could ask the social services inspectorate to monitor more of the long-term outcomes for care leavers, perhaps by studying a selected sample of experiences from individual local authorities. Will the Minister give us his views on those proposals? The particular difficulties that young care leavers face call for a twin-track approach from the Government. One track would involve the pursuit of policies to improve young people's general opportunities and prospects. One policy would involve a jobs and skills training programme that would use the talents of the young and, incidentally, help to cut the benefits bill. Another policy would entail a housing investment programme that would use the locked-up capital receipts from council house sales to create badly needed and innovative social housing schemes. A rejuvenated economy would provide resources for essential social services. The other track of the programme would involve more specific action to ease young people's transition from care to independence. It would necessitate co-operation rather than conflict between Government Departments; a resolution of the benefit anomalies that currently frustrate independent living; earlier and better preparation for leaving care; new standards of after-care services; improved monitoring of young people's progress when they leave care; and the involvement of young care leavers in the process of improving support in future. Improved support is necessary and is long overdue. Young care leavers have to contend with a range of difficulties. Such young people lack the bedrock of a stable family background. In care, they often have to contend with a traumatised personal history and, not surprisingly, they often feel marginalised from society as a consequence. After leaving care, they all too often become unemployed and homeless. As we have heard this morning, many of those young people tragically turn to crime. Having rightly assumed responsibility for their care, society cannot simply wash its hands of them immediately they leave the protected environment of care: the costs, both to care leavers and to society, are too great for that. There have been some excellent contributions to this debate and they have pinpointed some problems in the aftercare services. More positively, the contributions have clearly suggested how the problems can be resolved. I hope that the Minister will, in turn, respond positively to those suggestions.12.13 pm
This is the moment when I have to try to expose my flinty exterior for what it is. I welcome the introduction to the debate by the hon. Member for Newport, West (Mr. Flynn). I also welcome the contributions by the hon. Members for Wakefield (Mr. Hinchliffe), for Stockton, North (Mr. Cook), for St. Helens, South (Mr. Bermingham) and for Darlington (Mr. Milburn) and the brief but important contribution by the hon. Member for Belfast, South (Rev. Martin Smyth).
I have heard much during the debate that I welcome. The tone of it was right. We are here to seek to care for people who need our care in a particular and continuing way. If I have one quarrel with the subject of the debate chosen by the hon. Member for Newport, West it is over a matter for which he cannot be blamed: the fact that we talk about "leaving care." That is the wrong terminology. We should not talk about young people leaving care; we should talk about young people moving, over a period, from care to independence. The concept of leaving contains the notion of a cut-off, which the hon. Gentleman and I reject—I think that we all rejected it today. Our message is that there should not be a cut-off point, certainly not at the age of 16. When he and I talk to young people who have left care recently, and who often contribute to our debates and conferences, we do well to listen to their message. They ask, "Who was getting to know me while I was in care? Who was preparing me for the moment when I would leave or move out of care? Who kept in touch with me once I had made that move?" That is the theme of today's debate and it is certainly the theme of my response to it. We have to use the phrase "leaving care" as a convenient shorthand and I shall prove as guilty of doing so as anyone else, but it is only shorthand. The phrase is familiar to all those involved with the provision of services and opportunities for young people who are looked after by local authorities, many of whom, as we have heard, will have come from disadvantaged backgrounds—the hon. Member for Stockton, North listed some of the disadvantages. The shorthand phrase does not and cannot describe the wide variety of circumstances in which young people are looked after, nor the individual needs that they present as they move from care. A number of hon. Members have acknowledged the Children Act, which I welcome. That Act probably gave the greatest ever impetus to the provision of leaving care services. We can argue whether the Act is perfect, whether it needs amendment or whether it could be better implemented, but it give local authorities a clear responsibility—particularly under section 24—to provide a range of services and assistance. It also gives local authorities the discretion to provide additional help for young people where appropriate. Under that Act, the local authorities have the new statutory responsibility to prepare the young people they are looking after for the time when they leave care. They have the power to provide after-care support in certain defined circumstances until the young people reach the age of 21. They also have the power to provide financial assistance in appropriate circumstances. The Act requires local authorities to advise, assist and befriend young people with a view to promoting their welfare when they cease to be looked after in the legal term. Local authorities also have the power to provide financial assistance connected with a young person's further education, employment and training—that assistance can extend beyond the age of 21 to enable the young person to complete a course. Comprehensive guidance for local authorities and voluntary organisations on all those matters was issued to accompany the legislation. Section 24 is the key to the Act. The hon. Gentleman referred to the amendments that he would like to see implemented. I sought to intervene towards the end of his speech and I should be grateful if he would give some thought, not necessarily now, to the ways in which he would like the Act to be improved. I shall be happy to listen to his suggestions. The message that I heard today was that hon. Members want the Act to be better implemented, not necessarily changed. However, we can all consider that together. I believe that the duty placed on local authorities to prepare children for the day that they leave care is of fundamental importance. Whenever I am asked to speak on the subject of so-called "leaving care", I make a great effort to emphasise the fact that the arrangements for leaving care are not matters that can be left until a few weeks before the young person leaves care. The day that a young person arrives in care should ideally be the day when preparation for leaving care begins. In one sense, the best preparation is to ensure that the young person receives the highest quality of care and education while being looked after. Special attention may need to be paid to equipping him or her with the skills required for living on their own. That should be integral, not a stand-alone element in the programme of help. I want a seamless range of services—that has been mentioned—to be available for each young person. Leaving care arrangements must be evolutionary and must be put in place, quite often, over some years, but that can be achieved only if the young person receives good quality care. That is why we have taken several initiatives to make residential care a more positive experience for them.The main recommendations that we would make are to strengthen duties of local authorities in the Children Act 1989, to make them mandatory on local authorities, to ring-fence those funds for the financial provisions for care leavers and to raise them to an adequate level. I want measures of choice to prevent young people leaving care too young. They will have a great deal of say in that. Most important of all, there should be measures to iron out those disparities that exist between local authorities or care services. We want national co-ordination, to ensure that the level of care provided does not depend on the address of the person who applies for it.
As I suspected, much of that is to do with implementation rather than changes in the law. I acknowledge that that is what the hon. Gentleman appeared to be saying in much of his speech.
The requirement in section 24(1) of the 1989 Act is mandatory, not voluntary. That section says:the child being looked after by a local authority—"it shall be the duty of the authority to advise, assist and befriend him"—
That requirement is certainly mandatory. I believe that the hon. Member for Newport, West is asking for other things to be made mandatory, such as monitoring. As the hon. Member for Darlington said, that might not be as simple as he suggests. Nevertheless, I will listen if the hon. Member for Newport, West suggests possible improvements. However, if—although I should be surprised if they are—local authorities are telling me that they will do what they are required to do in law only if we make those things mandatory or if we require them to do what is best practice, I shall listen to them. Similarly, if local authorities want us to top-slice the money that otherwise would be given to them to be used at their discretion—to ring-fence a budget for those aspects—we shall listen, but they have not so far asked us to do that."with a view to promoting his welfare when he ceases to be looked after by them."
It would be impossible to iron out those difficulties in the final eight minutes. Will the Minister agree to meet a delegation consisting of myself, some other hon. Members, representatives of some of the organisations and some care leavers, so that we may explain and discuss the fine details of what we propose?
I am always happy to meet the hon. Gentleman and people involved in that sector. I meet them and have met them. I have attended conferences and seminars with them and sat down and chatted to them. I am happy to take that a stage further, if the hon. Gentleman wants to do so.
Some interesting and justified arguments were made about the reputation of residential child care. It is important that we do not allow its name to be muddied by highlighting examples of things going wrong. Too often, perhaps, it has been regarded as an option of last resort, and if people regard it in that way it can become self-fulfilling. I am keen that we improve the standing, status and quality of residential child care. That is why our residential child care support force has travelled throughout the country, under the leadership of Adrianne Jones. It has worked with about 76 agencies in the public, private and voluntary sectors to try to improve the quality of residential child care. There is evidence from that exercise that authorities are making solid progress in implementing many of the good practice recommendations from the Warner and other reports. In relation to foster care and residential care, we have promoted our looking after children project, which is being implemented in 39 local authorities and has attracted widespread, indeed international, interest. That provides a complete system of planning and decision making, reviewing and monitoring the care of children away from home with the aim of improving day-to-day standards and thereby offering a better chance to a child to fulfil his or her potential in life. In spite of those improvements, it is true that substitute care can never entirely replace the benefits of a child being brought up in his or her own family. Many of the children in care enter care at a very early age and already have a disturbed and disadvantaged history. Many will experience multiple placements, including perhaps a mixture of foster and residential care. Some, as the hon. Member for Stockton, North said, may have suffered emotional, physical or sexual abuse or neglect, or a mixture of those. Such young people have different backgrounds and have few of the opportunities that may be afforded to young people brought up in what may be termed a "normal" family environment in which, even after children leave home, they continue to look to their family for support, help and advice. That is why I urge local authorities—and I shall go on doing so—to ensure that there is a continuity of relationship between the young person and key individuals to provide that essential continuum in managing the transition between being in care and adulthood. Above all, those young people need adults to stand by them; to be committed in the way that we expect parents to champion their own children. "Key workers", social workers or volunteers may play that role, which we consider to be so important for individual young people. When I visit local authorities and speak to staff, I ask them to consider what they would expect for their own children. It is a simple, effective question, and I have witnessed some immensely positive outcomes from it. Not so long ago, I visited a London borough that had a policy of positively encouraging young people to return to their children's home for advice and support or to stay for a short time, remembering birthdays and so on. It is all part of that continuum of care, which is a very important message that we bring. Listening to young people is crucial. The conferences in Bolton and London that the hon. Member for Wakefield mentioned, which attracted 1,000 people from social services and elsewhere, were especially valuable, because, not only were we launching the training pack and the Leeds research, but they showed how important it is to listen to young people and hear their perspective. Young people contributed to those conferences, and we intend to go on listening to them, not least by including them, as we are doing, in some other social services inspectorate work. They form part of the inspection teams that we send out, and that is part of the monitoring, which I hope is acknowledged and recognised by hon. Members. I know that First Key and other organisations such as the Who Cares Trust and the Save the Children Fund place great store by direct consultation with young people. I know, from meeting First Key, of young people who are members of consultancy teams brought in by local authorities to help them plan their services. In all those aspects, we need to, and we shall, liaise closely with local authorities and other statutory agencies to effect the changes that are seen to be necessary. Many authorities have developed imaginative, effective schemes for supporting care leavers. That is why I have confidence that we can do better nationally. However, we need to recognise that provision varies throughout the country. We need to reduce that variation by monitoring and development, and our social services inspectorate is currently preparing a set of standards, which has been asked for, for local policy and good practice, as a basis for its inspection of local authority leaving care services next year. That will be published as part of the report of the inspection and will provide a benchmark against which all local authorities will be able to measure their existing policy and practice. In addition, we issue guidance for our children's services plans. That will give us another opportunity to enable local authorities to develop their services in that sector, and I take the point that, just as Government Departments must talk together, so local authority departments must talk together and work with education and other agencies. Education should be part of young people's experience in care. There are many other points that one could make. We have had an interesting range of contributions. I welcome the debate and I thank the hon. Gentleman for initiating it. We are agreed that we need to do more to support young people as they move from care to independence. We need to support them not as an intrusive and unnecessary exercise, but in the way they tell us they want. If we listen, we find they want what we as parents would want for our own children. If we keep asking whether the provision is good enough for our own children, we will begin to find the right answer for children leaving care or, as I prefer to put it, moving from care to independence. That will be good for society as a whole.Planning (Public Participation)
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I am pleased to have the opportunity of raising a matter that has interested and concerned me for many years—public participation in planning.
Nearly 500,000 planning applications were lodged in England in 1993-94. Of those, only 99 were "called in" for decision by the Secretary of State for the Environment, or 0.02 per cent. of all planning applications submitted in England in that year. In the 1995 annual report from the Department of the Environment, entitled "This Common Inheritance", I was pleased to note that the United Kingdom's green belt has been increased in size. The protection of the green belt is essential, particularly in densely populated areas. Sheffield used to be known as a dirty picture in a beautiful green frame, but that is no longer the case. Since the Clean Air Act 1956, the vision that people had of Sheffield belching out filthy black smoke is no longer accurate. Without the smoke, Sheffield still produces more steel each year. Planning policy guidance 12 requires planning authorities to test all their policies against the statements in "This Common Inheritance". The Government confirmed that permission can be refused or restricted on grounds of demonstrable harm to the policy, even when the particular case does not cause such harm. "This Common Inheritance" adds that sustainable development means not sacrificing tomorrow's prospects for a largely illusory gain today. In my constituency, trees have been chopped down that should not have been; sites have been developed that should not have been; and token consultation has taken place and then been ignored, which it should not have been. Mature trees have been chopped down at Willow Croft in Fulwood. Sheffield city council acted only after the trees had been felled, and following a huge public protest. Thankfully, those trees were not chopped down in vain. The council has now decided to place tree preservation orders on sites it sells off, and has appointed members of the public as watchdogs to monitor such matters. My hon. Friend the Under-Secretary of State for the Environment, the hon. Member for Croydon, Central (Sir P. Beresford) was most helpful in responding to my questions at that time, and that helped to bring about the change in council policy. However, we were locking the door after the horse had already bolted, because the powers to prevent the loss of the trees already existed. My hon. Friend the Under-Secretary is only too aware of the problems with three sites in my constituency, because of the barrage of letters from and lobbying by residents and myself. The planning actions on those sites are the reason for the debate. The secure unit at Limb lane, Dore, in Sheffield is a prime example. Sheffield city council owned the land and proposed to develop the site, funded by the Department of Health. The council acted as prosecution and defence, judge and jury, as it granted itself planning permission. However, as the site was in the green belt, the case had to be referred to the Department of the Environment. As the development did not conflict with national policy, the planning permission was not called in, even though it was advertised as a departure and accepted as such by my hon. Friend. He acts in a quasi-judicial role, and cannot be involved in lobbying on such planning matters. His ear was hardly burnt, let alone bent. There was a six-month consultation period on the Limb lane site. However, one questions what notice the council took of the objections. The original publicity resulted in 334 letters objecting to the development. A petition objecting to the building of the unit contained more than 1,600 signatures, and a further petition contained nearly 1,800 signatures—all objecting on the grounds that there were no exceptional circumstances to warrant an exception to green belt policy being made. I fully accept that planning permissions are generally called in only if they involve issues of greater than local significance, or give rise to substantial national or regional controversy. Despite all the objections, the council's planning committee granted itself planning permission. The implication is that councils can nibble away at the green belt, while paying lip service to public consultation. That may result in large chunks of the green belt, which the Government are preserving, being eroded by stealth.I do not know whether my hon. Friend is aware that, yesterday, a significant planning application was granted by the Cotswold district council for a supermarket on the highest point of the Cotswolds area of outstanding natural beauty. Gloucestershire county council has an interest in that application, because it is likely to receive £1 million from the sale of a residential care home.
The county council sent me an extraordinary letter yesterday. It has objected to every application for planning permission on that road on highway grounds, and I had asked why it was not going to object to this application for the same reasons. I shall paraphrase the council's letter. It said that it was aware that it had objected on previous occasions on highway grounds, but that it could find no written evidence to that effect. In other words, it has lost the records. Would my hon. Friend care to comment on that application, as the circumstances seem to be similar to the example he has raised?The circumstances are similar, and prove that the problem is not confined to Sheffield but is happening throughout the country, as I have always believed.
I shall highlight yet another example in Hallam. A piece of land on the former bus terminus site is bordered by Terminus road, Abbeydale road, Pingle road and Hartington avenue in Millhouses, Sheffield. Despite many letters expressing overwhelming opposition, planning permission has been granted by the city council. Many shops visible from Abbeydale road south for over 50 years will be hidden by the development on that site. The application to develop land at Abbeydale Grange school playing field also met overwhelming opposition, and yet was granted planning permission by the city council, which owns the land. Two public meetings were attended by a total of 300 residents. A motion was passed stating:I shall spell out the problem: the council owns the land; the council applied for planning permission; the council granted planning permission; and the council considered and ignored the objection. According to a brochure entitled "Planning—Charter Standards", should one have any complaints about the way the council handled an application, one can complain—no prizes for guessing to whom—to the council. In August, Sheffield city council proposed, under the Sheffield unitary development plan, which will be subject to public inquiry under an independent inspector, that many parts of Hallam constituency be removed from the green belt. The city council has received 10 petitions, representing just under 4,000 signatures, objecting to the 47 sites identified by the council, including an objection by the Government Office for Yorkshire and Humberside. Val Malthouse, whose name will be indelibly engraved on the Minister's heart as a result of the Limb lane discussions, advised me by fax only yesterday:"we deplore the intensification of use of this school sports fields, and demand that a public inquiry be held before planning permission is granted."
She continued:"one of the local farmers only found out about the possible sale of their farmland through Radio Sheffield and subsequent reports in the Sheffield Star. No intimation of this was received from the Council.".
1,000 forms to object to the UDP—"in our dealings with the planning department we have not found them helpful, in fact when we asked for a supply of objection forms"—
There are no prizes for working out whom she will have to complain to—the council. I can vouch for that condemnation of the planning system, as, when I originally wanted to object to the UDP, the forms were not yet printed, and when they were, obtaining one demanded skill, resolution and patience—as a former Whip, I would add, cunning. It was worse than a treasure hunt, without the clues. All three of those examples do not fit the NIMBY—not in my back yard—criteria. People are concerned that their views are being dismissed out of hand, with no way of bringing them to anyone's attention. Accordingly, people say that it is the fault of the Member of Parliament, the Government—or, indeed, the Minister, who just does not care. That is not true, but it is a typical expression that people use. The planning system does not appear to have satisfied them that their views have been heard, considered and acted upon. My understanding is that Sheffield city council has interpreted PPG2 incorrectly and that the cavalry—in the shape of the Government—may be on the horizon. The planning committee in Sheffield met only yesterday to recommend amendments to the further proposed changes to the UDP that will be presented in evidence to the unitary development plan public inquiry, and there may be a change in the council's position. I wonder whether the fact that the inquiry is to take place in public and not behind the closed door of a planning committee meeting influenced the council's decision. How much was it affected by the fact that the Government Office in Yorkshire and Humberside fired a warning salvo? My hon. Friend the Minister may wish to comment on that. My hon. Friend the Member for Cirencester and Tewkesbury (Mr. Clifton-Brown) disproved the possibility that the problems that I have outlined do not arise in shire counties where the council owns the land and the county council has planning powers. Let me make it abundantly clear that I am not advocating the return of the metropolitan counties or the GLC, but there should be a way to ensure that a city council owning the land and applying to itself for planning permission seeks public consultation and takes notice of it. Although the majority of planning applications are not opposed, an independent system of scrutiny is required. It could be based on the public inquiry system without the cost, or by written submission to an independent inspector appointed to examine the proposals. That would enable the objectors' case to be examined by an external source. I have given some examples of where a local authority owns a site and plans to develop it and grants itself planning permission, albeit by a planning committee with delegated powers. Despite overwhelming opposition to proposals, and because of the lack of skills, facilities and funds, many objectors feel that their views are totally and utterly ignored. Although the Minister has been most helpful with the many planning matters that I have raised with him, I consider that the objectors' case requires raising at the highest possible level, which is why I raise it here. Not all councils act in such a cavalier manner—nor does Sheffield, on every occasion—but the anguish they cause by holding public meetings and then apparently ignoring the wishes of the overwhelming majority of residents cannot be right, and it should not continue: a method of dealing with these matters must be evolved. In one sentence, the debate seeks to ensure that objectors such as those to Limb lane, Terminus road and Abbeydale Grange have a right to be heard, during and after consultation, and have their views judged by an external examiner. I look to my hon. Friend the Minister for assistance to ensure that is done soon."we were told we couldn't possibly have them under any circumstances, and that only two forms were available. In the local libraries where they were supposed to be available there were in fact none. Everything seemed to be rubber stamped and objectors not taken any notice of. We intend to complain of our treatment in the new year."
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My hon. Friend the Member for Sheffield, Hallam (Sir I. Patnick), in his usual style, has emphatically raised matters that have concerned us both since our days in local government. He is correct to say that far and away the majority of local authorities are fair, clear and open, and, as he said, so is Sheffield in most cases. However, we are aware of the possible difficulties of which some local authorities may be justifiably accused along the lines that my hon. Friend has described. I shall consider the points that he has raised, and touch on some of the safeguards that are already in place.
My hon. Friend is aware that the planning system must provide a means of ensuring that development and growth are sustainable. A new development has to be provided for and should be accommodated sensibly. At the same time, we have to take proper regard of the need to conserve our natural and built environment. The town and country planning legislation provides a comprehensive framework for the planning system so that the future use and development of land can be debated at an appropriate level—that is locally, regionally and nationally. There are opportunities for public debate and involvement in planning decision at all levels. In contrast to other countries not too far away, Britain has a strong tradition of public participation in planning matters. That is extremely important and very welcome. It is important that people should have the opportunity to contribute to decisions that will influence the shape and appearance of their environment for many years to come. We have built on that tradition, and we seek to foster and encourage public participation in many different ways. Many planning decisions require the consideration of opposing views about the best use of land. The planning system allows those differing views to be considered within a clear and structured framework. However, when there are contrasting opinions, one side of the argument may not agree with the ultimate decision. In the Planning and Compensation Act 1991, we introduced the plan-led system of planning. Since September 1991, decisions on planning applications—the great majority of which are taken by local planning authorities—must accord with the development plan for the area, unless material considerations indicate otherwise. The statutory procedures governing development plans make clear provision for the public to be involved in the plan preparation process. That is done through the pre-deposit consultation and the public local inquiry mechanism, which represents an important opportunity for my hon. Friend and many of his constituents. The local planning authority can take into account the differing views that have been expressed before adopting their plan proposals and, because of the significance of the development plan for the future use of land, it is important that all those with an interest in the planned proposals should participate actively in the formulation of local authority's plan for the area.My hon. Friend is aware that there are a number of major supermarket applications in my constituency. One was granted yesterday, and others are in the pipeline. The large residential supermarket companies are deliberately targeting the smaller market towns in my constituency and putting in applications prior to the local plan hearing by the planning inspectorate. Can my hon. Friend comment on the possibility of refusing those applications on the grounds of prematurity?
My hon. Friend has raised an important point. Such a decision is normally delayed on the grounds of it being too early in relation to the plan. That happens quite often, unless there are exceptional circumstances. It might be appropriate for an application to go ahead, particularly if it affects the likely outcome of the plan. In some circumstances development should not be delayed, but I am not necessarily applying that approach to the individual case that my hon. Friend has presented. He will recognise, of course, that I am not in a position to discuss that case.
My hon. Friend the Member for Hallam mentioned that Sheffield city council proposed further changes to the unitary development plan, seeking to identify 47 "major developed sites" in the green belt. Annex C of my Department's planning policy guidance note 2—that is, PPG2—advises that, subject to certain criteria, redevelopment or limited infilling of sites so identified in an adopted development plan is not inappropriate development. I believe that my hon. Friend has raised objections to the identification in the plan of these sites, 11 of which—surprise, surprise—are in his constituency. As my hon. Friend may know—indeed, he referred to this—the Government offices for the regions scrutinise closely all development plan policies and proposals, to ensure that they accord with the published national planning policy that is set out in PPGs and circulars. As my hon. Friend has said, the Government office for Yorkshire and Humberside has formally objected to Sheffield's proposals to identify 47 "major developed sites" in the green belt, on the ground that they conflict with national green belt policy. My hon. Friend's interpretation is being followed as well. It is for the city council, as the plan-preparing authority, to consider the objections that it receives in respect of its plan proposals. In the light of responses received to public consultation, including the formal objections of the Government office, the city council's planning and economic development programme committee yesterday resolved to withdraw all 47 sites, subject, as my hon. Friend said, to ratification by the full council this afternoon. I am sure that the council will ratify the decision, especially given the pressure of my hon. Friend. It is obviously an important issue, which I am sure the council will consider carefully before taking steps towards adopting its plan. The Government firmly believe that those likely to he affected by a proposed development should have every opportunity to express their views before decisions are taken on planning applications generally. Where these raise issues relevant to planning, the local planning authority has a duty to take them into account when determining the planning application. In 1992, we introduced arrangements for compulsory publicity for all planning applications. As a minimum, councils now have to notify neighbours directly, or place a notice on or near a site. For major applications—including, for example, the erection of 10 or more dwellings—a local newspaper advertisement is additionally required, to canvass views more widely on the likely impact. All notices and advertisements should give a date by which comments should be submitted to the council. As well as setting statutory minima, the publicity provisions are designed to allow planning authorities maximum discretion to use any additional methods of publicity which they consider necessary in the light of local circumstances. There might be a cynical sigh from those on the Benches behind me, but I hope that we can encourage authorities to use that discretion. We are not content to set statutory provisions in place and leave it at that. We are keen that wider participation should take place, and that the public generally are able to make a positive contribution to the quality of new developments. Along these lines, the Department has issued a circular to planning authorities giving advice on best practice for publicising planning applications and involving interested parties. As I have explained, development plans provide the keystone of our planning system. It is therefore only right that planning applications that depart from the plan should be brought to the attention of local residents. We have amended planning legislation so that all departures have to be advertised, giving the public a chance to comment on them. That procedure applied to the development proposed at Limb lane, Dore, to which my hon. Friend referred. It was effectively planning permission to develop a site that was historically already developed in the green belt. My hon. Friend referred also to other applications which were decided by Sheffield city council. He will understand that it would be inappropriate for me to comment on detail on the way in which the council has handled particular applications. As he has expressed concern about the general procedures governing local authority development, however, it might be helpful to examine more closely how the procedures work. They were revised as recently as 1992, and are now contained in the town and country planning general regulations of 1992. The procedures which the regulations replaced—those set out in the 1976 regulations—had been criticised on the ground that local planning authorities could not act impartially when they were plaintiff and jury in their own cause. It was suggested that, because a local authority may gain financially when disposing of land with the benefit of planning permission, planning permission might be granted, which would be refused if the applicant were not the authority. The fifth report from the Select Committee on the Environment for 1985-86 concluded that the regulations had a built-in conflict of interest without balancing safeguards, and recommended that the Department should review the existing procedures. As my hon. Friend will understand and expect, the Department took the recommendations to heart, and published a consultation paper proposing reforms in February 1990. The proposals, revised to take account of consultation responses, were implemented through section 316 of the Planning and Compensation Act 1991 and the 1992 regulations made under that section. The general principle underlying the 1992 regulations is that local planning authorities must make planning applications in the same way as any other person, and must apply for planning permission. Except in special circumstances, they must follow the same procedures as would apply to applications made by anyone else. County and district councils may grant themselves planning permission for their own development on land in which they have an interest, but that ability is subject to several important safeguards. For example,the proposals must be advertised and decided in public by a committee that is not responsible for land management. The public cannot be excluded from committee meetings at which local authority development proposals are discussed—as my hon. Friend suggested, that could have had an influence on some recent decisions. To avoid a conflict of interest, applications may not be determined by a committee or officer responsible for the management of the land concerned. Local authority development proposals or development on its land must also be notified to the Secretary of State if it is not in accordance with the provisions of the development plan in force in the area, so that he can consider whether to call in the application for his own determination. It is worth stressing the importance, as the UDP is being developed or revised, that local residents, including astute local Members such as my hon. Friend, keep a close eye on proceedings, especially if they have suspicions about the local authority. Unitary authorities can grant planning permission for their own development on land in which they have an interest, or for development by others on their land, but they are subject to the same safeguards of accountability and publicity. I have no doubt that, in the overwhelming majority of cases, local authorities are scrupulous in following the procedures to which I have referred. In a decision of the sort that we are discussing, where there are two sides, not everyone will be entirely satisfied. Local authority development proposals, like those of other persons applying for planning permission, must be decided in accordance with the development plan unless material considerations indicate otherwise. Sheffield city council is no different from any other local planning authority in that respect. Nor, indeed, are its proposals any different from those submitted by other developers. They must all be judged against the same criteria. In reaching their decisions, local authorities must also take into account relevant objections by local residents. I am sure that my hon. Friend will remind Sheffield city council of that if he feels that there is a need to do so. Only genuine land use planning concerns are material. In some instances, there may well be positive reasons in favour of development that may outweigh local objections. My hon. Friend will understand that, given his days in local government. I can understand that some of my hon. Friend's constituents may be disappointed by decisions that are made on their behalf, as every planning decision has difficulties, but it is important that the 1992 regulations are followed. Coupled with the requirement to refer the departures to the Secretary of State, the regulations provide the right balance between the local planning authorities' need to carry out their statutory functions and the importance of safeguards on accountability and publicity. It is worth reminding my hon. Friend that it is open to any third party who is aggrieved by a local authority's decision to grant planning permission to apply for a judicial review. Although that is a frightening course, my hon. Friend is very experienced and could guide them. In addition, the local government ombudsman can be called on to investigate if they consider that an injustice has been caused to them as a result of maladministration. This has been an opportunity to raise concerns that a number of hon. Members, on both sides of the House, have on planning matters. It is also an opportunity to remind local authorities that they cannot and should not ride roughshod. I believe that, in the main, they do not.Agriculture (Wales)
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I welcome the opportunity to debate agriculture in Wales. I am grateful to the Under-Secretary for attending, because he has just finished responding to the debate in the Welsh Grand Committee. I gave him an idea of the issues that I intended to raise in the debate, and I hope that he will be able to respond positively to a number of my suggestions.
One of the important issues is the difficulty that many young people experience in entering the industry. The Minister is aware that agriculture makes a vital contribution to the economic, social and cultural life of rural Wales: indeed, it is the backbone of the rural economy. There is considerable concern about the difficulties faced by young people in entering the industry, bearing in mind that the average age of farmers in the United Kingdom is about 51, and there has been an upward trend in recent years. Although the matter has been discussed for generations, very little has been done to address the problem. As far as I am aware, the Government have not suggested any solutions. As a member of the Agriculture Select Committee, which investigated the tradeability of milk quotas, I was struck by how little progress had been made in assisting young people to enter the milk sector. Some of the farming unions proposed a siphon system, whereby quota is sold on the open market. That proposal is currently being considered, among others. I must criticise the Government, because although they said they were prepared to consider initiatives made by the industry, they have not been able to give any idea which initiatives might be acceptable. Another way to assist young people to enter the industry would be to introduce low or interest-free loans. The capital cost of entering the industry is a problem, and subsidised loans would be a way of cushioning the impact of crippling loans in the early years. Historically, the Government have refused to accept that proposal, preferring to provide capital grants to the industry as a way of investment. In recent years, the value of capital grants has reduced dramatically. I want to know whether the Government are more receptive these days to the idea of subsidised loans. Young people need some idea which initiatives the Government would be prepared to consider. Another area of immediate concern to the farming industry, as the Minister heard in the debate in the Welsh Grand Committee this morning, is the hill livestock compensatory allowance payment. Two years ago, the Agriculture Select Committee held an inquiry into the cash cuts that were made at that time. I share the view of many in the industry that the Government are quite happy for HLCA payments to wither on the vine. Year after year, there is either a cash cut or a freeze, which, in effect, is a cut in real terms. Over a decade or more, the value of HLCA payments has been eroded year after year. That might fit well with the Government's intention to introduce a more market-oriented approach for agriculture. How committed are the Government to maintaining HLCA payments? The Minister must be aware that the payments are much more important in Wales than in any other part of the United Kingdom. Less-favoured areas cover 80 per cent. of the land mass of our country, whereas the figure is 53 per cent. in the rest of the United Kingdom. Net farm incomes in less-favoured areas in Wales are less than £11,000 a year—hardly an income for a young family. Low incomes and cuts in HLCA payments have led to a gradual reduction in the number of people employed in rural areas. In England and Wales since 1987, the number of people employed full-time in agriculture has decreased by 35 per cent. The purpose of HLCA payments is, first, to maintain incomes and, secondly, to maintain the number of people in employment in rural areas, but the Government are effectively contributing further to the depopulation of rural areas in Wales by constantly eroding the value of the payments. We want to hear from the Minister that the Secretary of State for Wales is prepared to stand up to his colleagues in the Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food and in the Treasury and demand measures to protect those who live in our countryside. It is worth noting that the Government are out of step with other European Union member states on the issue of HLCA payments. This year, for example, France has increased its payments. Finland, Austria and Sweden pay the maximum available under EU regulations. No other member states cut HLCA payments in 1993-94. The Government's proposals to reduce the maximum number of ewes on which HLCAs may be claimed in disadvantaged areas is fiercely resisted in Wales. The cut from nine to six was slipped in surreptitiously in the general debate on HLCA payments in October. The Minister will be aware that farms in disadvantaged areas are quite small, and average incomes are even lower than in the upland areas. The average income is about £8,000 a year. These are small farms, and their economies are fragile. Will the Minister listen to representations on these changes, having tried to slip them in through the back door in October 1995? The Government say that, effectively, they are trying to get rid of an anomaly between disadvantaged areas and severely disadvantaged areas, but it is an anomaly of their own creation, because they cut HLCA payments in 1993-94. There is a simple way to correct that anomaly: by returning the payments to their 1992 level. As I understand it, the European Commission has not demanded that this anomaly be addressed in the way that the Government propose. Welsh farmers are also concerned about the possible threat to the transfer of their sheep and suckler cow quota from the Welsh LFA ring fence. I am aware that the Government have to reassess all the applications for developers' quota from the 1993 reserves, but any move to pinch quota from the Welsh LFA ring fence will be fiercely resisted. We know that the Government are under pressure to pay compensation in other parts of the country, but the Welsh LFA quota is not for transfer, and we demand an assurance that the Minister will stand up for the interests of Welsh farmers on this issue. If any quota is under-subscribed in the Welsh LFA, it should be used to assist young entrants in Wales. The Government could face a challenge in the European Court, because they may breach European Commission regulations if they act in the way that I have described. Over the years, farmers have come to accept that agri-environmental payments will play an increasingly vital role in support mechanisms for the industry. Any reform of the CAP must be seen in the context of further aid for uncoupling from production and increasing payments to farmers as stewards of the countryside. Such payments are entirely consistent with the general agreement on tariffs and trade. Agri-environmental schemes have had mixed success in Wales. There is no doubt that Tir Cymen has proved much more successful in its pilot phase than environmentally sensitive area payments. In my area, for example, ESAs have not been as successful as predicted, and fewer farmers have joined the schemes than I expected. Will the Minister assure us that, when the Tir Cymen scheme is being evaluated and the pilot scheme is being concluded, the Welsh Office will consider the introduction of an integrated agri-environmental scheme operated by a single organisation? Such a scheme could involved tiered payments; farmers could participate at whatever level they wished. That would save on administration, make the scheme easier to understand and ensure a consistent and coherent approach throughout the country. Wales could be a pioneer. The Minister will be aware that the European Commission will shortly consider further reforms to the CAP. As agriculture is so important to Wales, I hope that the Secretary of State will play a leading role in the discussions, and will attend the Council of Ministers to ensure that the voice of Welsh agriculture is heard in the forum where real decisions are made. Eighty per cent. of decisions affecting agriculture are made not in Westminster but in Brussels. I am sure that I need not remind the Secretary of State for Wales that he is also Minister with responsibilities for agriculture in Wales. He should not take his lead from the Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food or from anyone else; he needs to understand that we in Wales have different needs and concerns. In the past few days, the European Commission has produced a paper on CAP reform and enlargement. It proposes incremental reform rather than a radical programme for change. We need to consider the issue differently in Wales, because our economy has a different agricultural base. We are primarily a livestock-producing country; we have small and medium-sized family farms, and few opportunities for diversification. Wholesale reform of the CAP in a short time, which the Government seem to be proposing, would be disastrous for our rural economy. In the early 1990s, when these matters were last discussed, the Government attacked the MacSharry proposals for reform on the basis that they did not go far enough and seemed to protect small and medium-sized family farms. It must be said that the Commission and MacSharry understood the problems of Welsh agriculture much better than the Minister of Agriculture in the United Kingdom. As it happened, when the package of proposals was agreed, it was, on the whole, well received in Wales. We feel that any proposals for change must build on the MacSharry proposals. The Minister must remember that most Welsh farmers work in an inhospitable climate, with difficult land and—as I have said—little scope for diversification. We cannot afford to introduce overnight drastic changes that would threaten an already fragile rural economy. Support measures are vital if the economy is to prosper. As the Minister knows, the way in which support is given may change. The structure of payments may alter, and more emphasis may be placed on agri-environmental payments than on aids to production. Nevertheless, maintaining support is crucial, and the Welsh Office must argue that case where it counts. I am aware that one of the reasons that the Prime Minister has given for wanting expansion of the European Union is the fact that it gives us an opportunity to revamp the CAP. That means radical change. It means cutting the budget, and it means that Welsh farmers will be affected. In its proposals for change, the Welsh Office must argue the case for Welsh farmers, the Welsh countryside and the Welsh rural economy. I hope that the Minister will be able to reassure us. I am sure that the Minister will wish to pay tribute to the tremendous contribution of Welsh farmers to the Welsh economy. I have highlighted some of the problems that we face in the short, medium and long term; I feel that the industry needs a clear indication of the Government's attitude. As I have said, those farmers have made a tremendous contribution to our economy over generations. The Minister should recognise the contribution by offering not just words of praise, but a detailed programme of action and support.1.15 pm
I congratulate the hon. Member for Ynys Môn (Mr. Jones) on securing this important debate. I thank him for his acknowledgement of what was necessary to enable both of us to appear here this morning—the unusual coincidence of the Welsh Grand Committee's sitting ending just as this debate was due to begin—and for giving notice of the matters that he intended to raise.
The hon. Gentleman's concerns and my opening of the Royal Welsh winter show in Builth Wells yesterday seem to have coincided. Indeed, I was struck by the similarity of what the hon. Gentleman said about the importance of agriculture to the rural economy with what I said yesterday, to which this morning's Western Mail has helpfully given full coverage. The hon. Gentleman asked about the support that the Government give to people entering the agriculture industry. Both the quota schemes that currently operate in the beef and sheep sectors include special arrangements allowing new entrants access to quota from the sheep and suckler cow scheme national reserves. The introduction of farm business tenancies will help to ensure that more land is available for new entrants to rent. A wide range of courses is available to prospective new entrants through agricultural colleges. New entrants can also take advantage of the extensive range of training courses that are available through ATB-Landbase and other training providers. We are working with ATB-Landbase to raise awareness of skills gaps and deficiencies, and the benefits to both new and established businesses of strategic business planning and training. The agricultural element of the objective 5b programme is partly financed by the European agriculture guidance and guarantee fund, which provides opportunities for the farming community in relation to business development, agri-tourism and countryside enhancement. Young farmers have been identified as a priority group to receive benefit from that programme. Training and enterprise councils also have a role to play through business start-up activities, and business links will be an important contact point for new entrants seeking advice on business set-up and development matters. I can tell the hon. Member for Ynys Môn that, at the end of 1994, bank borrowing advances were lower than they were in 1993. That reduction reflects the improvement in incomes that occurred in 1992-93 and 1993-94. Last week, we announced that the 1996 rates of hill livestock compensatory allowance would be maintained at 1995 levels. That is a positive step, which demonstrates our continuing commitment to upland farmers, despite another tight public expenditure round this year. Net farm incomes are forecast to increase by an average of 13 per cent. in the less-favoured areas as a whole in 1995-96 compared with 1994-95. Notwithstanding reductions in HLCA rates in 1993, real-terms incomes in 1995-96 are still 27 per cent. above the average for the difficult years of 1990-91 and 1991-92. That economic data, which form the basis of the autumn review, did not support the farming industry's call for a restoration of the amount cut in the previous year. The forecasts do not take account of the recent devaluation of the green pound, which will result in a further increase in sheep annual premium rates from 1995 and an increase in suckler cow premium scheme and beef special premium scheme rates from 1996. Going beyond our determination to sustain current hill livestock compensatory allowance payment rates for a further year, I am aware of the anxieties that have been expressed about the recent statutory instrument relating to a number of eligible sheep in the disadvantaged region. I reiterate what has already been said in the Welsh Grand Committee: that was a technical amendment necessary at the time in order not to prejudice the outcome of the autumn review. The final decision on the stocking rate will be taken once we have a clearer idea of the exchange rate that will apply for the 1996 scheme. Meanwhile, producers should understand that the exchange rate fluctuations that have forced that amendment mean that the payment rate will be at least that of 1995—£2.44—and probably higher. It must be remembered that hill livestock compensatory allowances are neither the only nor the most financially significant of the subsidies being paid to farmers. As my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Wales explained at the Welsh Grand Committee, planned expenditure in the next financial year on the three main market support schemes—the sheep annual premium, the suckler cow premium scheme and the beef special premium scheme—is £43 million, 28 per cent. higher than expenditure only two years ago. Concerns over the safety of beef have increased recently. I think that the hon. Gentleman would join me in saying that we must not overreact to that issue. There is no scientific evidence of a link between bovine spongiform encephalopathy and Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease. The latest report from the national Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease unit confirms that there has been no change in the epidemiological or clinical characteristics of CJD since the occurrence of BSE. The incidence of the disease is similar to that in countries with no BSE or scrapie. All the available evidence continues to confirm the Government's view that the feed ban will lead to the disease's end. The number of suspect cases of BSE reported up to October 1995 was nearly 43 per cent. lower than the same period in 1994. The Government have introduced a comprehensive range of measures, based on the best independent scientific advice available, to safeguard the public from any remote risk to human health from BSE. Beef is recognised as safe by the Department of Health's chief medical officer, and I freely say that I find that advice totally reassuring. I am more than content to continue eating beef on a very regular basis. I think that the hon. Gentleman will agree with me about the considerable inroads that we have made in Wales in implementing schemes approved by the European Commission.The greatest step that the Minister and the Government could take would be to introduce an early retirement scheme, favoured by the European Union and in fact, to a large extent, financed by it. Why will not the Government put their hand in their pocket and do the right thing?
As I have tried to explain before to the hon. Gentleman, when making spending decisions, one must make choices about priorities. I was going to acknowledge later that his party is the exception in that it is committed to increasing taxation on the people of Wales. [Interruption.] The people who had to go to the High Court or wherever else may also be in favour of it, but he and his small party say that the people of Wales should pay higher taxation.
I know that, if his party's policies were followed through to the ultimate and we were separated from the rest of the United Kingdom, we would pay very high taxation, but decisions must be made: either we put taxation up—and I believe that we are absolutely right in responding to the public demand to return to cutting taxation—or we must take money from elsewhere. I invite the hon. Gentleman to volunteer whether we should take it from health, from education or wherever else to fund such a scheme, if we do not increase taxation. I acknowledge that there is a difference between us on that matter. He is in favour of increased taxation. I remind the House of the considerable progress that we have made in Wales in implementing schemes approved by the European Commission. Schemes for Wales encourage farming methods that will help to protect the Welsh landscape and habitats, and provide opportunities for people to enjoy the countryside. New measures approved by the European Commission include an organic scheme launched on 1 September 1994, a countryside access scheme launched on 8 September 1994, a habitat scheme launched on 9 January 1995, and a moorland scheme launched on 1 May 1995. Wales has six environmentally sensitive areas, covering about one quarter of the land. On 1 March this year, new payments to promote public access were launched for all Welsh environmentally sensitive areas. The environmentally sensitive areas scheme is innovative, in that it was the first to adopt a "whole farm" approach rather than to target individual habitat types. It has been approved by the European Commission, along with the Countryside Council for Wales's pilot Tir Cymen scheme, which also has a strong agricultural and environmental focus. Taken together, environmentally sensitive areas and Tir Cymen schemes cover about a third of the agricultural areas in Wales. I think that the hon. Member for Ynys Môn will have heard me say at Welsh questions on Monday that Tir Cymen is to be reviewed at the end of its planned five-year life. I am confident that the review will consider all the points that he has in mind. We are paying 99 per cent. of management agreement claims within the two-month charter target, but we are taking longer than I would wish to process new applications. That is partly because we are providing farmers with more help in preparing their applications, which takes time, but in the end it will lead to a better arrangement. It is in the long-term interests of farmers, consumers and taxpayers that there should be a fundamental reform of the common agricultural policy. At present, other European Union member states remain to be convinced of that, but the European Union's commitments under the general agreement on tariffs and trade and the potential accession of eastern European countries make change inevitable. We need to move away from a production system to a market-driven one. Any change must allow a period of transition during which farmers can adjust, but now is the time for producers to consider how best to meet the market's demands. The industry in Wales is well placed to meet the greater challenges of a more competitive market. In leading the Welsh Office trade mission to Australia and New Zealand, I was struck by comments about what New Zealand had done in its agriculture sector. That was initiated by a Labour Government who have revolutionised the approach. One comment that I recollect from my visit to New Zealand—which was far too brief, and I do not claim to be an expert on the matter there—showed that the relevant standing of farmers had been increased. That appeared to be acknowledged on all sides. This is not the stage to say that what has been done in New Zealand must be done here, but it shows that there is room for study. The hon. Gentleman drew some European comparisons, not all of which were strictly relevant, as it is always difficult to take things in isolation, but what happens in some other countries could be examined to find out whether they apply here. I give no more commitment than that, other than to state my interest in the revolutionary approach in New Zealand—a country that has many similarities with Wales, including size and devotion to our national game.It is much better than us in that.
Only at the moment. I remind the hon. Gentleman that we won the last game.
The Government continue to provide substantial support for the agriculture sector in Wales. As my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State announced earlier today, planned expenditure will rise by £9 million—a 3.4 per cent. increase—to £271,500,000 for the next financial year. I should have thought that this morning's debate in the Welsh Grand Committee would have established the point that we are responding to an overwhelming demand—it is coming from practically everywhere except Plaid Cymru—that we should return to cutting taxation.In a very wide poll in last Sunday's edition of The Sunday Times, 70 per cent. of respondents said that they were not in favour of tax cuts. Conversely, they wanted more public spending.
There are lies, damned lies and statistics, if I am permitted to make that observation in this place. I certainly hear those demands from constituents and others throughout Wales, and I should be surprised if the hon. Gentleman did not hear substantial demands. As I have said, his party is one of the rare exceptions in not calling for more tax cuts.
We do not know where the official Opposition stand in Wales, because they will not come clean on the subject. Their only approach to the debate on taxation is that they do not know. However, they broadly agree that we should return to cutting taxation. That is evident from their not voting after the Budget debate last night. We are responding to the public demand to cut taxation and, in our honest way of managing Government business, we are ensuring that that is balanced by expenditure. In so doing we have placed a high priority on farmers.Health Services (Barking)
1.30 pm
I am pleased to have this opportunity to set out my real concerns about the state of the health service in my constituency. Two weeks ago I published and sent to the Minister a document entitled, "Health in Barking: Getting a Raw Deal?", a dossier of the worst health cases that have come to my attention during my 18 months as a Member of Parliament. I have been deeply shocked by the poor quality of health care that is encountered by all too many of my constituents. A Member of Parliament's surgery is the last resort for many people, yet we see probably only the tip of the iceberg because, as we all know, many people do not know who their Member of Parliament is, do not know that we hold surgeries and do not think that we can help.
Of course there are many highly skilled and dedicated professionals in the health service in Barking, and I know many of them. But too many of my constituents are being short-changed by the national health service. Too many of those who have come to see me have suffered unnecessarily and for the wrong reasons. Their stories are partly about under-resourcing, but they are also about bureaucratic bungling and unacceptable standards of care. What about those who do not come to the surgery? I spend a great deal of my time visiting the old people's luncheon clubs in Barking where I meet the people who are most dependent on the health service. Elderly women with chronic conditions often say to me, "I can't get to my hospital appointment any longer and the GP is just too busy." For those women the hospitals are too far away, ambulance services have been cut, public transport is hopelessly inadequate and they cannot afford the taxi fare, so they do not go. Their health is not regularly checked, so they lose out and will probably never know the impact that that will have. Barking is served by the Barking and Havering health authority. My constituency is the area of greatest need in that district, yet it has the poorest services. We have the highest concentration of elderly people. Infant mortality rates are twice those in the more affluent neighbouring Havering, and 10 per cent. higher than the average for England and Wales. However, the hospitals are all concentrated in the areas of lesser need. That is happening in the knowledge that 40 per cent. of local people do not have access to a car. The area is changing. The Barking reach development will not only increase the population but will mean an expanding number of children. By the year 2001, the number of under-14s in Barking will have increased by 10 per cent. Those changes will bring new challenges tomorrow to a health service that is already failing to meet the challenges of today. Barking has long been denied its fair share of health resources, and decisions in recent years have made a bad situation even worse. There is no hospital in my constituency: Barking hospital was closed. There is no hospital in the borough. Rush Green hospital in Dagenham has gone and, despite protestations from all local Members, the Government recently condemned the nearest hospital at Oldchurch to a slow death by deciding to close its accident and emergency unit. Unbelievably, within months of deciding to close Oldchurch, the health authority has decided to conduct a new review of acute services in our district. The acute services have been reviewed and re-reviewed, and are now to be reviewed again. What bungling incompetence. Hardly is the ink dry on the Minister's signature on a document to close yet another accident and emergency unit than the authority realises what we have been telling it for months, that the other hospitals simply cannot cope. I shall briefly reflect on the miserable story of Barking hospital. Shortly before the first world war, local people collected money to build a hospital to meet their medical needs. The hospital was built by the voluntary efforts of local people. New blocks were added in the 1930s and 1960s. In the 1980s, some £6 million was invested in a new maternity wing which opened in 1987, and further moneys were spent on a nurses' training centre. Just four years later, despite a vigorous campaign that was led by my predecessor, Jo Richardson, it was decided to close that hospital. Anyone who visits that site today would see a shocking testament to the Government's health reforms. Perfectly sound buildings are lying empty, windows are smashed, and forgotten beds are strewn over empty wards. Money has been wasted while patients suffer. Little remains on the site. There are four acute elderly wards and a minor injuries unit which, ironically, is housed in the £6 million purpose-built modern maternity unit. It is a tragic waste of hospital resources. The withering away of Barking hospital is just one of many causes for concern in my constituency and, taken together with the decision to close the accident and emergency department at Oldchurch hospital in Romford, it is a disaster. It means that poorer people in Barking will have to travel to the richer edges of Essex, which is 12 miles from the centre of Barking, to be treated in what is now their local district hospital. Many of them have never heard of Harold Wood hospital, nor have they been to it. They cannot even find it. Public transport is dire and they cannot afford taxis. I have long argued that one accident and emergency unit serving 400,000 people is just not enough, and that is evident from the cases that I describe in my dossier. The majority of those cases are of people who have been let down by the various local hospitals and they include several which, tragically, ended in death. Each case is unique, but there is a pattern consisting of a mixture of long waiting lists, under-resourcing and occasional incompetence. I shall illustrate that with just one example, which is by no means the most extreme in the dossier. Mrs. T, a constituent, went to King George hospital a year ago. She had very high blood pressure and her heart was beating erratically. In the casualty department, she was left without help for hours. She complained, and was finally given an ECG. After that, she was again left for 35 minutes waiting to be examined by a doctor. Mrs. T is diabetic and has to have a regular eating pattern. She felt so ill that she left the hospital without seeing a doctor. Six months later, she was admitted to King George hospital with acute pancreatitis. She was told that she needed a gall bladder removed, and an appointment was set for a month later for an internal camera investigation. On the morning of her appointment, Mrs. T rang to check that a bed was available, and was assured that there was. However, later that day the hospital rang to say that no beds were available and that her admission would be delayed by another month. Subsequently she was put off twice again because of a lack of beds. She was so appalled that she and her husband reluctantly joined a private health scheme. I know of dozens of similar cases, but I have to say that I expect that they are only a small proportion of the total. The people of Barking are remarkably reluctant to complain. That was brought home to me by the stark contrast between the campaign over the closure of the A and E service at Oldchurch and the massive campaigns around St. Bartholomew's and Guy's. I am seeking to give voice not only to the 60 or so constituents who have taken the trouble to come to see me, but to the hundreds of people in Barking who have not had the confidence to do so. Much of this might not matter so much if the primary health care service were good. It is not. Some dedicated and skilled practitioners work in Barking, but the infrastructure is not sufficiently robust to cope with the additional pressures brought about by the hospital closure programme. Recently, the family health services authority conducted a survey on the quality of premises in Barking. Patients have to see their doctors under unacceptable conditions. Of the 55 GP premises in the borough, almost three in four are classified as poor, only three are considered to be good, and none falls into the best classification. If one then considers the statistics on GP case loads and GP support, one finds equal cause for concern. One in four GPs in Barking work as single practitioners. The average list size for GPs is almost 2,500 patients—it is 2,464. If one compares that with the national statistics, one finds that only 8 per cent. have a list of more than 2,500 patients. Barking residents are again getting a raw deal. Indeed, there is more cause for concern. One in 10 practices have no practice nurse, there are few training doctors, and professional training facilities for Barking GPs are not good. All those factors show. My dossier does not simply describe cases in which individuals were given the runaround by their GPs: it includes two cases where, on the face of it, death might have been avoided if the GP had acted properly for the patient as a first point of call. My constituent Mr. Ayling is still in regular contact with me. He lost his daughter Maria because nobody spotted early enough that she had a thrombosis as a result of taking one of the pills that we now know to be dangerous. Mr. Ayling is still fighting for an honest account of the treatment that his daughter received from the local health services. He has been forced to take legal action to obtain even a proper inquest into Maria's death. In the end, I think that he will receive some financial compensation, but we all know that nothing is enough to make up for the loss of one's child. It is in the memory of Maria and others like her that I am fighting in this public way for the Government's recognition and for action to give my constituents a fair deal from the NHS. The local health authorities may not like this and may want to work behind the scenes. In a recent letter to me, the chairpersons of the FHSA and the district health authority stated that:Indeed they are, but that shows a lack of understanding by the authorities of Barking people. They do not easily complain; they are not comfortable in challenging authority. But since I have started raising the issues locally, I have been inundated with constituents' letters supporting what I am doing. My first duty is to them. Barking is a wonderful part of east London, with strong, close-knit communities. It is an area rich in tradition, which is about to undergo major changes with the advent of the channel tunnel rail link and the massive new community of Barking reach. Our local health service is under strain. I want to be sure that we can meet the new challenges and opportunities that we face. I ask the Minister to respond to three specific issues. First, I ask the Minister to halt any closures—including the planned closure of the A and E unit at Oldchurch—until two things have happened. We must have in place good primary health care that can cope with the legitimate demands of people in Barking, and the authorities must complete their latest review of the acute services for local residents, to ensure that we do not simply close facilities today and find that we have to create new ones tomorrow. Secondly, I urge the Minister to instruct the authorities to expedite the review of the Barking hospital site so that our precious health resources are not left to waste and decay. We want that site used for health purposes, and brought back into use quickly. Thirdly, I ask the Minister to examine new ways in which we can recruit and retain quality GPs in urban areas such as Barking. We will never get the health services to which my constituents are entitled if we do not bring in effective measures to tackle the problem. Those are practical measures that will offer reassurance to people in my constituency who are desperately worried about the state of the local health service. My constituents are not professional whingers. The complaints that I have compiled in my dossier are real, and an enormous cause for concern. There are many dedicated and hard-working people working in the health service in my constituency. There are also many elderly and deprived people whose needs are not being met. We owe it to both groups to make things better, so that, once again, people feel safe and certain that they will enjoy the first-class service to which they are entitled."the number of complaints are few."
1.45 pm
I am pleased to have the opportunity to respond to the hon. Member for Barking (Ms Hodge) and I congratulate her on securing time to debate the very important topic of health care in Barking. Although it is obviously important to her, it is important to all of us. I listened carefully to her points, including the three final issues. I can confirm that I have read her report, which she kindly passed to my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State.
Obviously it is always regrettable when a patient has to wait for a lengthy period for necessary treatment under the national health service. It is equally regrettable when operations are postponed at the last minute—the hon. Lady cited the case of Mrs. T, which was certainly regrettable—or when the care provided falls below the highest standards. However, the hon. Lady failed in her report and in this debate to take account of the very real improvements taking place in her area, as well as nationally, under the NHS. In any part of the country there will inevitably be problems from time to time in an organisation as large as the NHS, but what is rarely mentioned by Opposition Members is the huge proportion of patients—I am sure that that must include patients in Barking—who are more than satisfied with the service that they receive. In the majority of cases quoted by the hon. Member in her report, the main cause for complaint has been a delay in treatment being received. I certainly agree with her wholeheartedly that people have had to wait too long for treatment. That is why reducing waiting times has been a priority for the Government in their handling of the NHS. In 1979, more than 185,000 patients in England were waiting more than a year to enter hospital. Today, that figure is down to 28,000 and falling. I am sure that that drop has affected Barking. That statistic alone demonstrates the scale of the progress that we are making. Admittedly, progress in reducing waiting times has varied—and still varies—throughout the country. It is undoubtedly true that some patients in the North Thames region, which includes Barking, have had to wait longer than patients in other parts of the country, and I consider that unacceptable. I am glad to be able to tell the hon. Lady that concerted action is therefore being taken by health authorities in North Thames precisely on that point, so as to reduce waiting times for its patients. That action is already producing results. Over the past year, the number of patients waiting for treatment in the North Thames region has fallen more quickly than the national average, and the number waiting for more than a year has fallen by more than 21 per cent. The hon. Member's local hospitals are at the forefront of those developments. In the past year, Havering hospital's NHS trust has seen a fall of almost three quarters in the number of patients waiting more than a year—that is a huge improvement. The number waiting for more than a year at the neighbouring King George hospital has fallen by more than a quarter in the three months from June, and that improvement is continuing. I am also pleased to report that, from 1 April 1996, Barking and Havering health authority expects and hopes that no patient will have to wait longer than nine months for treatment from the time that they are placed on a waiting list. That is obviously its intention and aim, and I certainly hope that it fulfils it. Indeed, we shall be seeing whether it can. Decisions about how and when to treat patients are of course made by clinicians—not by politicians or by managers. A doctor decides whether a patient is not yet ready for treatment or whether he needs treatment immediately, and his decision stands. Of those patients nationally who doctors judge can wait for treatment, the figures show that fully half are admitted to hospital within six weeks and almost three quarters within six months. The hon. Lady complained about a lack of resources being devoted to the health service. Obviously, it has escaped her notice that the figure for 1978-79 was £6.5 billion, since when there has been a 70 per cent. increase. My right hon. and learned Friend the Chancellor of the Exchequer announced further substantial increases immediately after the Budget. Current spending on health will grow by £1.3 billion in the next financial year, equivalent in real terms to 1.6 per cent. Therefore, the Government have every reason to be extremely proud of their record on funding and support for the NHS. In fact, the Barking and Havering health authority has received a increase for next year of 3.79 per cent.—about £171 million. Obviously, I fully accept that, as the hon. Lady said, historically primary care in London, and especially in her area, has been underdeveloped and in need of substantial improvement. That goes without saying. However, welcome improvements are taking place as a result of the Government's efforts. The hon. Lady made a point about quality general practitioners. That is being tackled through current measures. Therefore, I take exception to her comments that over the past few years all the decisions have been the wrong way. The decisions in this area are profoundly in the right direction. An example of that is the London initiative zone, which was established to concentrate effort and investment in those areas of London where primary care services are weakest. As a result, almost £4 million has been allocated over the last three years to improve the primary care facilities in the Barking area alone. The number of general practitioner practices in Barking and Havering classified as poor has fallen from 72 per cent. in 1992 to only 31 per cent. this year. That is a staggering improvement. During the past five years, three purpose-built health centres have been opened. Indeed, the hon. Lady performed the opening ceremony for one of them. A further four health centres have undergone extensive refurbishment or been extended in the same period. More than 20 other GP practices have received funds to improve their premises. Other improvements to primary care services include the near doubling of the number of practice nurses working in Barking and Dagenham since 1993-94 and an increase from 37 per cent. to 93 per cent. in the level of computerised GP practices since 1992-93. The hon. Lady referred to the problem of GP recruitment and spoke about the quality of GPs in her area. There is a high proportion of one or two-doctor practices in Barking. The Government are well aware of the problems and, from September this year, introduced a series of special allowances for London to help deal with them. They are designed to attract new GPs into London, to encourage high-quality GPs to stay, to create capacity for practice improvement and to encourage GPs in single-handed practices and partnerships of two doctors to meet to work together on the development of primary care services. All those allowances are payable only if progress is made in improving patient care through better practice organisation and training. They will encourage collaborative working and help to overcome professional isolation, which is a problem in areas such as Barking and which can be experienced by some GPs in small practices. Those initiatives complement new educational opportunities for London GPs, which we announced in October last year. They were drawn up with support from the London FHSA management and the local medical committees. We are making £15 million available for 1995-96, increasing to £20 million for 1996-97, to support that programme. All the initiatives and improvements that I have cited demonstrated the great progress being made in primary care in particular, both in Barking and nationally. Obviously, in no way would I wish to play down the highly regrettable individual cases that featured so largely in the hon. Lady's speech. However, as I said, there is very firm progress in reducing waiting times still further, and, equally important, in improving primary care in an area that historically has been very deprived. The hon. Lady can be assured that I have absolutely no doubt of the Government's determination to achieve that. I believe that, in the hon. Lady's part of the world, the local health authority, NHS trusts and GPs are working together very effectively. I hope that she will pay regard to that in any future remarks. She mentioned the letters of complaint that she had received about her remarks from the chairmen of the health authorities and from local doctors. I understand her position—a Member of Parliament must raise these matters. However, she should remember that it is right to be fair and to remember the effect of her comments on the morale of those working in the health service. Therefore, I hope that she will always present a balanced report. I assure her that progress is being made in the way that I have outlined.It being six minutes to Two o'clock, the motion for the Adjournment of the House lapsed, without Question put.
Sitting suspended, pursuant to Standing Order No. 10 (Wednesday sittings), till half-past Two o'clock.
Private Business
Bill Presented
Church Of Scotland (Property And Endowments) Amendment Order Confirmation Bill
Mr. Secretary Forsyth presented a Bill to confirm a Provisional Order under the Private Legislation Procedure (Scotland) Act 1936, relating to Church of Scotland (Property and Endowments) Amendment (to be presented under section 7 of the Act).
Oral Answers To Questions
Trade And Industry
Public Sector Research Establishments
1.
To ask the President of the Board of Trade what was the cost of the recent efficiency scrutiny of the public sector research establishments. [2599]
The scrutiny was carried out by the efficiency unit within the Cabinet Office. As stated in the report, the cost of undertaking the scrutiny was approximately £157,000. The Office of Science and Technology is co-ordinating the action resulting from the scrutiny.
Is the Minister aware that, quite apart from the efforts of the scrutiny team, an enormous amount of fact finding had to take place in the institutes themselves, leading to scientists carrying out administrative work rather than scientific research? Those involved are now to be rewarded with yet another departmental review, which could lead to threats of redundancy and privatisation at institutes such as the one at Babraham near my constituency. Are the Government really aware of what efficiency means?
The hon. Lady needs to know that it was exactly in response to the scrutiny process and the extensive consultation period that we entered into the prior options reviews. Many laboratories need to be looked at to see whether they are best positioned to serve the customer. One fifth of the Government's research expenditure is spent through research establishments, and it behoves the hon. Lady to join the Government in making sure that that money is properly spent.
Natural Gas Reserves
2.
To ask the President of the Board of Trade what estimate he has for the length of time that proven reserves of natural gas will last; and if he will make a statement. [2600]
Reserves which have been fully tested and proven would last 10 years at current rates of production. Other UK reserves and known geological potential could raise this to some 58 years.
No doubt more gas will be discovered, but with the benefit of hindsight does the Minister not consider it folly to have collapsed a large part of the coal industry, to have encouraged gas-fired power stations and to have made us dependent on a fuel of which there are only 10 years' of proven reserves left?
I thank the hon. Gentleman for providing me with two golden opportunities. First, I must point to the success of the gas industry. The hon. Gentleman may remember that, back in 1975, all the pundits and experts were saying that this would be the year when all the supplies would run out. As I have said, however, proven resources will last for at least 10 years, while others could potentially last for up to 58 years. Looking at the hon. Gentleman, I can say that that will see him out without any difficulty whatsoever.
Secondly, the hon. Gentleman's question enables me to say that production levels in the coal industry—now that the industry has moved into other hands—are up by some 9 per cent. That is a huge tribute to privatisation. I thank the hon. Gentleman very much for allowing me to state that.Who does the Minister hold responsible for the locked-in, take-or-pay, long-term North sea gas contracts? Should not the Government be acting now to sort out the mess before the new Gas Act comes into force and the whole gas industry is faced with full-blown competition?
I should point out that the contracts were entered into when the industry was in its nationalised state. The Government have made it clear that some modification in British Gas's old contracts is inevitable, and we have called for serious and detailed discussions.
Confederation Of British Industry Conference
3.
To ask the President of the Board of Trade if he will place in the Library a copy of his address to the CBI conference. [2601]
I have placed a copy of my speech to the CBI on 14 November 1995 in the Library.
If the President insists that job insecurity is just a state of mind, is his own marginal majority of 2,468 just a figment of his imagination—or does he ever sense the reality that his own jacket is on a shoogly nail?
The hon. Gentleman misquotes me in order to misrepresent what I said about job insecurity. We all recognise that job insecurity exists; the important thing is to do something about it. The Government have created an economic recovery in which more than 500,000 jobs have been created since the end of the recession. Those increased jobs and the fall in unemployment represent the best way of creating job security for the future.
Does my right hon. Friend agree that the social chapter is not an à la carte menu? If so, will he tell that fact to the leader of the lot opposite, who when he addressed the Confederation of British Industry either told a pack of lies or did not understand the implications of the social chapter? And did that not show everyone how totally lacking that man is in the qualities necessary to become leader of this country?
My hon. Friend is absolutely right. In my speech in Birmingham, I pointed out how the CBI might have been misled by the speech of the Leader of the Opposition suggesting that the social chapter was just a set of principles and involved no detailed legislation, when in fact we would not be able to pick and choose which parts of it to accept and which to disregard: measures subject to qualified majority voting would be forced on Britain whether we wanted them or not—that is why we must not accept the social chapter.
Does the Secretary of State recall that, when he went to the CBI, its message to Government, as to Opposition, was that it sought support for investment in industry, the sustaining or improvement of investment in education, and no cuts in infrastructure spending? Will he confirm that his speech, like the Budget, either ignored or rejected all those representations? As the Red Book shows that investment growth, predicted last year to be nearly 6 per cent., turned out to be a mere 1 per cent., is it not gross dereliction of duty for the Government not to heed those requests to support investment?
The right hon. Lady may like to know that the president of the CBI, Sir Bryan Nicholson, was quoted in The Scotsman on 15 November as having said, after my speech at the CBI conference, that the CBI was "appreciative and strongly supportive" of the Government. The CBI also warmly welcomed the Budget, and it was right to do so, because the business community recognises that the economic recovery now under way will be strengthened and carried forward by the Budget that the House approved last night.
As my right hon. Friend is placing a copy of his speech in the Library, will he also deposit a copy of an article by Stanley Ka1ms, chief executive of Dixons, who also attended the CBI conference? Stanley Kalms is a business man who knows what he is talking about, and he referred to a growing credibility gap for the Leader of the Opposition, with figures which do not add up without a massive increase in taxation. Finally, he asked who would look through the smokescreen that the Leader of the Opposition had tried to erect. Would it not be a good idea if a copy of that article, too, were placed in the Library?
My hon. Friend is right. I am keen to have the Labour party's detailed policies fully exposed to the business community and to the rest of the country—for example, Labour's polices on the social chapter, on a national minimum wage and on the trade unions, all of which would cost jobs.
Rural Areas
5.
To ask the President of the Board of Trade what initiatives his Department is pursuing to bring further trade opportunities into rural areas; and if he will make a statement. [2603]
The DTI offers a range of export services which are integrated as Overseas Trade Services and include export services provided by the Welsh Office Industry Department, Scottish Trade International and the Industrial Development Board for Northern Ireland. A range of other services to assist in the development of rural areas is offered through Business Links.
I thank the Minister for that reply. He may be unaware of the vast rural depopulation of large areas of Wales and England. According to recent university research, there is a great deal of serious rural poverty. The initiatives to which he has referred will not even scratch the face of the problem.
I appreciate the hon. Gentleman's points, but his own constituency has benefited from no fewer than 11 inward investment projects over the past few years, and unemployment is down by a quarter over the past three years. While problems exist, it is wrong to suggest that Government policies are not affecting them beneficially.
Does my hon. Friend agree that, for anyone who wants to make trading opportunities in the countryside—whether in Wales, Scotland or, in my case, the Forest of Dean—what is required is that wealth creators go and set up in those districts? Does he recognise what a magnificent contribution the Rural Development Commission has made to helping businesses set up in rural areas?
I entirely endorse the comments of my hon. Friend, and I would go further. Many companies which operate in rural areas are, of course, small companies. The Budget will help those small companies by cutting their rate of corporation tax, which will help 300,000 companies—many of which will operate in rural areas. The cut in the base rate to 24p will help 3 million self-employed people. That will make a further contribution to the fairly significant fall in unemployment in my hon. Friend's part of the country.
The Minister is one of the glittering stars of the London social scene and has probably never had time to visit my constituency of Rotherham, where he will find that 65 per cent. of Rotherham metropolitan borough council is rural and a wonderful site for inward investment. Why, according to figures that I have just received, have the rateable values for businesses, factories and offices increased in the past five years by between 30 per cent. and 50 per cent. in Yorkshire but decreased in inner London? Could he do a little less for his cronies on corrupt city councils such as Westminster and a little more for industry and business in Yorkshire?
It would be churlish of me not to start by thanking the hon. Gentleman for his heartfelt tribute, which I know was meant warmly. As for corruption in local councils, the hon. Gentleman may have thrown me a boomerang by mentioning that. Just down the road from his constituency is Derbyshire county council, which has been indicted for corruption many times. We do not have only to consider Derbyshire; we also have Lambeth—[HON. MEMBERS: "Answer the question.]—and the failure of local government in Islington.
Does my hon. Friend agree that a key to inward investment, especially in rural areas, is communications? Will he consider the decision to put on to the long-term programme the Kingskerswell bypass, which is a key to prosperity south Devon? It is a key link in to all the constituencies of south Devon, which will rely for future employment on that road. Will he have a word with his colleagues in the Department of Transport?
I will pass on my hon. Friend's comments to my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Transport, to whom those comments would be most appropriately addressed. My hon. Friend mentioned inward investment. There is a massive contrast with the late 1970s, when international companies were falling over themselves to move production from Britain, and when Germans were refusing to buy cars made in the UK plants of Ford and General Motors. Now we attract 40 per cent. of the inward investment into Europe from Japan and the United States—including Ford and GM, which are once again large exporters from Britain along with Toyota, Nissan, Honda and, I am pleased to say, Rover.
Does the Minister recognise the importance to rural areas of the Post Office and the Royal Mail network? Why have the Government decided to impose a steeper external financing limit on the Post Office, which goes back on commitments given in the House by the President of the Board of Trade on 11 May? What does the Minister estimate the effect of that will be on investment in and the competitiveness of the Post Office?
First, the price of sending letters has fallen in real terms over recent years. Even if the Post Office raises its prices, it is unlikely that they will be in excess of inflation over the three-year term. Secondly, the best way to ensure that the people who use postal services get the good service that they deserve is to ensure that the Post Office is efficient. We believe that there is further scope for efficiency improvements, as shown by recent reports.
Will my hon. Friend do his best to ensure that the Government maintain their present course in relation to unemployment in rural areas? Will he take it from me that my constituents do not believe the political rhetoric from the Opposition parties, because in my constituency over the past decade employment has increased at the rate of almost 500 new jobs per year?
My hon. Friend makes a good point. It is sometimes forgotten that, under the last Labour Government, unemployment doubled, manufacturing output fell and manufacturing productivity was stagnant. For the first time since the second world war, over the past 15 years we have closed three quarters of the productivity gap with Germany. That improvement contrasts starkly with the mess that we inherited from the last Labour Government.
Beer Orders
6.
To ask the President of the Board of Trade what representations he has had on the Beer Orders. [2604]
Representations recently received by my Department include those on the guest beer provision; whether there would be a review of the brewing industry to consider the effects of the beer orders; the terms of leases offered to tenants; and the refusal to supply beer if a brewer suspects duty fraud.
I welcome the Minister to his new job. The Chancellor's decision last week not to increase the duty on beer is clearly welcome, but there is still considerable concern in the brewing industry and particularly in the licensed trade that current arrangements for the licensed trade work against the survival of the local pub. I am not making a party political point, but this year could the Minister look again at all the interrelated issues to secure the future of British beer and of the British pub?
The effect of the Beer Orders has been to weaken the tie, introduce greater versatility in financial matters and introduce guest beers, giving the consumer much more choice and binging competition into the trade.
Is my hon. Friend aware that British brewers strongly welcome the Chancellor of the Exchequer's action on beer in the recent Budget? Do not British beers remain the best in the world?
My word, they certainly do. I wholeheartedly agree with my hon. Friend, but I stop short in my enthusiasm and will not comment on anything that falls within the province of the Chancellor of the Exchequer.
I welcome the Minister to his new position. Does he agree that the Beer Orders have had a dramatic impact on jobs in the British brewing and licensed retail trade? Does he further agree that those jobs are threatened by the 1.1 million pints of beer flooding into Britain, mainly in the back of transit vans? Does he agree that at least 10,000 jobs have been lost in the industry already, causing uncertainty and insecurity? Does he accept the importance of tackling that job insecurity, or is it just a state of mind?
Perhaps I may reciprocate the hon. Gentleman's kind opening comment by wishing him a happy birthday. As the ills of which the hon. Gentleman spoke concern duties charged on beers, they are not matters for me. If the hon. Gentleman is aware of fraud or criminal activity, he should tell the prosecuting authorities as well as the Government.
I join those who have congratulated my hon. Friend on his promotion to the Department of Trade and Industry, and I repeat what other colleagues have said: the greatest threat to the brewing industry is the level of tax. This year we welcomed the first reduction in whisky duty for a century. May we look forward next year to the first reduction in beer duty for many years?
I am not supposed to comment on the last Budget, so I shall certainly stop short at commenting on the next one.
Export Opportunities
7.
To ask the President of the Board of Trade what steps he is taking to assist small and medium-sized enterprises to explore new export opportunities. [2605]
Through Overseas Trade Services, my Department provides a range of assistance to companies wishing to explore new export opportunities. We are also helping smaller firms by the creation of the Business Links network.
Does the Minister accept that there is a widely held opinion that the support in exporting that British small and medium-sized enterprises receive does not compensate for what is offered in countries such as Germany or Japan? Does he accept that it is vital that that sector of industry receives dedicated assistance which recognises its special needs? Does he accept that it is especially important that small firms should have access to decent language training and to the type of support that the larger firms sector can give them, if small firms are given the opportunity to take that in a way that they find user-friendly?
I do not accept the first of those propositions. The Government do indeed attach importance to helping small firms to export. That is precisely why we have given an export element to the business links. That is why we have established 100 export promoters. That is why we have set up some export development counsellors through business links. I agree with the second of the hon. Gentleman's propositions—that foreign language teaching is important.
The most important thing for small businesses is to keep their costs down and encourage them, through campaigns, to enter new nearby markets, such as those in Benelux and Ireland. In that way, we can bring about a much-needed substantial improvement in the number of small firms which export.Would it not be wise if my hon. Friend emphasised that neither wealth nor happiness nor employment will come from political action, and that he will not help the exporters and take away all their problems any more than the President of the Board of Trade will help all those people who have, sadly, been made unemployed as a result of technological change? Otherwise, if we continue to pretend that all those things will be cured by the politicians, the people may look to other politicians to solve their problems.
All I can say to my hon. Friend is that that is not what business tells me. Businesses tell me that they would like a helping hand from Government, and that what we are doing, specifically through business links, is very valuable. I agree with my hon. Friend that whatever Government do by way of clever schemes and promotions is very little compared with the importance of macro-economic stability and sound economic finances and management. That is what the Government are doing, and that provides the firmest possible foundation for business and the expansion of small businesses.
Given that Barclays bank told the Trade and Industry Select Committee that exporting for the first time represented a significant barrier to growth for many small firms, is it not about time that the Minister ensured that the export intelligence service used its time and taxpayers' money to help small and medium-sized enterprises, rather than producing large and very generalised reports for use by large companies?
The hon. Lady makes a constructive criticism. It is the case that we are trying to improve the dissemination of information to small businesses, and I will carefully consider the hon. Lady's argument. We want to make that information friendly to the companies which use it.
Barclays is well placed to recognise that as a bank it has helped not only nationally but in, among other places, the north-east of this country, where Barclays has a great tradition of helping exporters-—any of which are small firms—to jump that initial barrier. It is difficult for many, and it is costly for them. That is why we have a range of schemes and programmes to assist them. Information is part of it; taking them by the hand to some of the closest markets in Europe is another. I repeat that that is very little compared with the importance of a sound economic background against which such companies can grow and expand the base of the markets in which they operate.Does my hon. Friend agree that some of the measures in the Budget—reducing corporate taxation and helping on the business rate—are some of the best ways of helping small firms? That leaves more money in the business, and then those firms can afford to organise their exporting on their own. As my hon. Friend the Member for Wolverhampton, South-West (Mr. Budgen) says, it is much better to take less money in taxation and let them get on with running their business with more money in the bank to expand overseas.
My hon. Friend is spot on. Of course most investment in the business sector comes from reinvested profits, and the extent to which one enables companies to reinvest those net returns is a big determinant, not only of their future expansion, but of their growth into export markets.
I would mention, however, that in addition to the arguments that my hon. Friend made about the Budget, one of the sectors of increased public expenditure that we herald and welcome is the extra provision for export promotion. That will be very good news for companies which will be left with more resources out of their profits to help themselves, and for companies that cannot help themselves but want to build up new markets. New facilities for export promotion and more money will be available, thanks to the Chancellor.Yorkshire Water
8.
To ask the President of the Board of Trade what representations he has received from companies in West Yorkshire following advice given by Yorkshire Water in respect of relocation. [2606]
My Department has received no formal representations from companies in West Yorkshire on this point, but I am well aware of the concerns that the local business community has about the prospects of cuts in water supply. My hon. Friend the Minister for Local Government, Housing and Urban Regeneration met local business representatives to discuss their concerns when he visited the area on 29 September and 14 November.
Does the Minister understand that the suggestion from Yorkshire Water that firms should relocate outside West Yorkshire was one of the dafter ideas to come from the unfunny comedians running Yorkshire Water? Does he understand that many firms and businesses in West Yorkshire are extremely worried about the security of water supply for the indefinite future, and certainly for next year? Does he also support a wholly independent inquiry to consider all aspects of the management of Yorkshire Water, the activities of the water regulator and the involvement of the Government?
I have been in the House long enough not to try to defend the indefensible. My right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for the Environment (Mr. Gummer) has stated clearly that the company should have acted much earlier and more comprehensively. I understand that the prospect of cuts is extremely worrying for industry, and my right hon. Friend has said that cuts would be the last resort of last resorts.
I am able to give the House the good news that, from the low point of 11 November, the levels in the reservoirs have started to rise, and a £50 million-plus programme has been introduced to ensure that the situation does not happen again. That programme will be finished by some time in the middle to late spring. On the question of an inquiry, the Government have kept in touch with two independent reports already, but my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for the Environment announced a wider-ranging review on 1 September to consider issues arising from the drought.Perhaps my hon. Friend cannot agree that it is not Yorkshire businesses that should relocate, but some of the managers and directors of Yorkshire Water who should find employment somewhere else—perhaps running a retirement home. Will my hon. Friend apply pressure on the Department of the Environment and his Department to ensure that the reservoirs are kept as full as possible, and that a proper, sensible grid system for Yorkshire is imposed as quickly as possible?
I can tell the House that my hon. Friend the Member for Calder Valley (Sir D. Thompson) has been exceedingly active, both publicly and behind the scenes, in pressing the case for Yorkshire companies. I agree that perhaps the shareholders of Yorkshire Water may wish to consider other matters within the company at some time.
I have already mentioned that £50 million-plus is being spent to ensure that the situation does not occur again in the future. I hope that that gives comfort to many Yorkshire companies.Lancashire Aerospace Industry
9.
To ask the President of the Board of Trade if he will visit the Lancashire aerospace industry to discuss European aircraft collaboration programmes. [2607]
I visited the Consortium of Lancashire Aerospace last month, and had a useful meeting with representatives of that important industry.
I am glad that the Secretary of State has met the consortium. He will recognise that aerospace is a crucial industry in Lancashire. Would not the Lancashire aerospace industry be helped if British Airways bought more British engines and the Airbus? Will he do everything possible to ensure that Lancashire and Britain get their fair share of work from the European fighter aircraft?
The hon. Gentleman is absolutely right. The aerospace industry is extremely important to this country. It employs some 130,000 people, and is the third largest industry in the western world. British Airways' purchasing policy is a matter for that company. Engine makers have to sell their goods in a very competitive market. I am sure that the House will be as pleased as I am with the great success that Rolls-Royce has had recently by selling its Trent engine to Singapore Airlines, in a deal worth more than £1 billion.
Is my right hon. Friend aware that most of my constituents and many of my colleagues representing Lancashire constituencies know only too well how much the Government have done during the past 16 years for the British aerospace industry and will continue so to do? But can he also understand that there is some concern relating to Eurofighter about the proportion of the work share, and will he, along with the Secretary of State for Defence, continue to press his German counterparts to ensure that the British aerospace industry gets the right share for the number that it has purchased?
My hon. Friend draws attention to an important point. The United Kingdom has a good record of collaboration with other countries on aircraft projects of various kinds, starting from Concorde and going through Airbus, Tornado and others. It will be our purpose to ensure that there is a fully justifiable level of British participation in the componency of the Eurofighter.
With regard to Airbus, when will the Government formally rejoin the future large aircraft project? Why cannot the Government persuade British Airways to buy Airbus? Will the right hon. Gentleman understand that answers to those questions will be carefully scrutinised by 2,000 of my constituents who work for British Aerospace? It is our greatest industry. Will the Government back it?
The Government have extensively backed the industry. As I said earlier, British Airways' purchasing policy is a matter for that company. Airbus is an extremely successful initiative. The 500th A320 was delivered last January and last year Airbus received more orders than Boeing. With regard to the FLA, the United Kingdom will rejoin that programme once certain conditions have been met, in particular the condition that the programme will be managed on a commercial basis.
Does my right hon. Friend agree that the most important aerospace project in Lancashire is Eurofighter? Does he further agree that the Opposition's defence policies would almost certainly mean that that project would be cancelled, and the industrial consequences to the county of Lancashire would be horrible?
My hon. Friend is absolutely right. The Eurofighter is important not only for our defences but for our aerospace industry, and in both respects the Government's commitment to it is, I think, welcome.
Nuclear Privatisation
10.
To ask the President of the Board of Trade what plans he has to bring the date for privatisation of the nuclear industry forward. [2608]
The privatisation of the nuclear industry remains on track for the summer of 1996.
I am pleased to hear that the Secretary of State is not bringing forward the date of privatisation of the nuclear industry. However, is he aware that the proposed two nuclear companies will provide 24 per cent. of the United Kingdom's electricity and that that will all be base load electricity which will be bid into the pool at zero? Therefore, those companies will be in an advantageous position if they are allowed to diversify into gas. If they do diversify into gas, their gas units will compete not with their nuclear capacity but with other gas units and other coal units, possibly pushing coal further down the grid. In such a situation, will the Minister ensure that there are restrictions on the new nuclear companies to provide only nuclear generation, or will they be free to distort the energy economy?
I cannot give the hon. Gentleman the undertaking that he seeks. This is a competitive industry and it is important that, both domestically and industrially, electricity is supplied at the most competitive price available.
While we are discussing the nuclear industry and privatisation, would my right hon. Friend care to comment on the significant contribution of the late John Collier, latterly chairman of Nuclear Electric, and his significant contribution during many years to the nuclear industry in general and the privatisation of that industry in particular?
I am grateful to my hon. Friend for giving me the opportunity to pay tribute to the late John Collier, who served Nuclear Electric with great distinction and who worked extremely positively towards the nuclear privatisation and the successful future of that industry to which we all look forward. He will be sadly missed.
What public liabilities will continue after privatisation of the nuclear industry?
I think that the hon. Gentleman knows that the Magnox liabilities will be retained with the Magnox stations, and the other liabilities will pass into the private sector with the nuclear stations.
Heavy Electrical Product Exports
11.
To ask the President of the Board of Trade what is the estimated annual value of heavy electrical product exports; and what are the principal markets. [2609]
Exports of heavy electrical products, comprising electrical equipment for power generation, transmission and distribution, were £130 million in 1994—up 47 per cent. on 1990. The principal markets are the United States of America and the far east.
I thank my hon. Friend for that extremely encouraging reply. Clearly, British manufacturing industry is in good heart and very successful at selling abroad. Is my hon. Friend aware that GEC Alsthom in Rugby produces probably the finest heavy generating sets in the world? Will he join me in congratulating the management and work force on their exemplary record? Does he agree that the success of GEC has contributed a great deal to the splendid figures that he has just announced?
I am happy to join my hon. Friend in the congratulations he gives GEC Alsthom. It is a great success story. I know that my hon. Friend visited the plant in his constituency recently, as did my right hon. Friend the Minister for Industry and Energy. GEC Alsthom and other companies involved in power generation and transmission, such as Rolls-Royce and Davy, represent one of the great British success stories. We very much hope that it will continue.
We of course welcome the fact that exports of heavy electrical goods have increased to £130 million. That is good news for the hon. Member for Rugby and Kenilworth (Mr. Pawsey). Why is the Minister so complacent when, for every £100 we export, we import £110 and our manufacturing exports have been less than our imports every year since 1983? The French have an export surplus of £7 billion; we have a deficit of £11.4 billion as of August, and confidence in our exporters is at its lowest level since August 1993. That is not according to those on the Labour Front Bench but according to the Confederation of British Industry. Is it not a matter of perception and reality—the perception of the Government and the reality of our exporters?
This Minister is not at all complacent about our export performance. I want Britain to be in the black on the visible account and the invisible account. I was simply pointing out a great success on which the House should be united, instead of constantly listening to the dreary litany of failures to which the Opposition would spuriously draw attention. That particular sector is leading the country in record exports. Last year, we had a substantial surplus of £8.9 billion, not just on the visible account but on the invisible account. We are making more money than we are spending on the capital account and in returns on our investments abroad. It is good news for Britain. Let us hear a little more of it from the hon. Gentleman.
Will my hon. Friend redouble the efforts, which are already extremely well appreciated by industry, to ensure that our exports are sold abroad, particularly in China, Nepal and Indonesia? Does he understand that it is important for the Government to give British industry that support, to counteract the negative vibes from the Labour party?
My hon. Friend hits the nail on the head. It is important to support, advise and enable those companies to succeed abroad. We endeavour to do that through a range of support services, including domestic policies that enable them to expand investment in their own markets. Through assistance such as the overseas projects fund, we endeavour to help them with pump-priming to get the business in the first place.
In the United Kingdom, we have to export for our lives. That is not a party political statement but a statement of the obvious in truth and determination. The fact that we are exporting at record levels owes something to the economic and industrial policies pursued by the Government, but it is absolutely key that, if we are to retain employment at home and the prosperity that goes with it, we have to be big exporters, and our great companies have to lead the way.Chinese Bicycles
12.
To ask the President of the Board of Trade if he will make a statement on the effects in the United Kingdom of the dumping of cycles made by China; what actions have been taken to prevent this; and what assessment he has made of how effective the measures have been. [2610]
The European Community imposed anti-dumping duties on Chinese bicycles on 5 March 1993, since when imports have fallen by 97 per cent.
Has the Minister even understood the letter sent to him by the chief executive of Raleigh in my constituency on 10 November, in which he detailed criticisms of the Government's policies that have assisted the Chinese in dumping bikes in this country as a result of concessionary rates of duty? The Government have colluded with the Chinese in avoiding duties by importing bikes through third countries. Britain has been made the laughing stock of Europe by becoming known as the dodgy dealers' route into the European Union.
The Government have assisted in the process of duty evasion by allowing up to 800,000 Chinese cycles to come into Britain and the rest of Europe in kit form without any duties being payable. They have now grant-aided a Chinese firm to assemble the duty-free kits, after which the bikes will be sold within the British market. Is this yet another example of the Government peddling rubbish in its industrial policies?It may be a tribute to the rightward lurch of new Labour that yesterday, when I had the pleasure of debating against the hon. Gentleman at the university of London Labour club, I had the uncanny feeling that most members of the audience were closer to my position than to his.
The hon. Gentleman knows that the EC has some of the most draconian anti-dumping regulations in the developed world. Raleigh has already massively benefited from reduced sales of Chinese bikes. We have also to consider jobs that are created by companies which invest in Britain, the interests of bike retailers and the interests of those who buy bikes, who suffer poorer choice and higher prices as a result of any protectionist duties.Does my hon. Friend agree that one of the cycles that the United Kingdom does not need dumped on it is the inevitable downturn in the economic cycle that would flow from the imposition of the social chapter and a minimum wage? Does he—
Order. Hon. Members must ask specific and relevant questions. The hon. and learned Member cannot get away with that supplementary question. We shall move on.
British Airways
13.
To ask the President of the Board of Trade what representations his Department has made to British Airways following its decision to purchase the General Electric GE90 engine. [2611]
None.
Is it not remarkable that there is a major order for aero-engines and the Department is not even making representations to British Airways? Should the Department not be saying to BA that, if it wants to fly the flag on its tail, it should fly the flag on its engines?
Naturally, I wish every company to buy British. The thrust of the hon. Gentleman's supplementary question is that old Labour is alive and well and itching to intervene.
I do not have the confidence of the hon. Gentleman to run British Airways better than those who have spent a lifetime in it. The House might be interested to know that, since privatisation, BA has given £476 million in corporation tax to the Treasury. It has 53,000 employees now as opposed to 40,000. It now carries about 35 million passengers as opposed to 20 million. I do not think that I will second-guess BA's management.Is my hon. Friend aware that the Italians are constantly giving such orders to Alitalia, as are the Portuguese to TAP and the French to Air France? Does he realise that all these airlines are huge burdens on national economies and that tax moneys are going into them instead of being directed into education and health, as they are in the United Kingdom?
My hon. Friend makes a self-sustaining point that I can only endorse. I can only stress the huge success of privatisation and the contributions that have been made to the Treasury. It is interesting to note that, despite everything we hear from the Opposition, they have no intention of reversing any of the privatisations.
Steel Industry
14.
To ask the President of the Board of Trade what assessment he has made of the impact on the British steel industry if Irish Steel Ltd. is allowed by the European Council of Ministers to increase its output; and if he will make a statement. [2612]
Any impact on the British steel industry of an increase in output by Irish Steel Ltd. would depend on the size of that increase, the type of products and where they were sold. The Government are determined that any decision to allow state aid for Irish Steel should not result in job losses in the UK.
The question remains how the President of the Board of Trade can actually deliver on that answer, because, bearing in mind the damage caused to the British steel industry by his Government and the European Union, is it not ridiculous that the European Union is considering a £27 million subsidy to the Irish Steel company? Will he give a categorical assurance that that subsidy will be vetoed by the British Minister at the Council of Ministers, and that he will stand up for British jobs?
I recall how hard the hon. Gentleman and his colleagues pressed me and my predecessor as Secretary of State to increase subsidies to the steel industry in this country. However, the hon. Gentleman asked me how we shall deliver. Article 4(c) of the European Coal and Steel Community treaty prohibits all state aids to EC steel producers. We cannot contemplate a situation in which jobs in Britain should be lost in order to save jobs in Ireland.
Manufacturing Industry
15.
To ask the President of the Board of Trade if he will make a statement on manufacturing industry. [2613]
While manufacturing output fell between 1974 and 1979, it has risen by 12 per cent. since 1979 and grew by more than 4 per cent. last year. The reputation of British manufacturing industry with regard to quality and delivery has improved beyond recognition over the past 16 years.
May I, as chairman of the Manufacturing and Construction Industries Alliance Ltd., tell my hon. Friend that, in the absence of any progress in further capital allowances for industry, and in the absence of pegging business rates, if our manufacturing industry—which is the only source of on-going, sustainable, non-inflationary economic growth—is to survive, reductions in interest rates are vital so that we can invest in new technology and equipment? That is essential if we are to remain competitive. If the Governor of the Bank of England is in any way obstructing the Chancellor of the Exchequer and preventing him from reducing interest rates, will the Department of Trade and Industry recommend that he receives his P45 and gets his marching orders?
Although I agree with parts of what my hon. Friend just said, I would not dream of second-guessing my right hon. and learned Friend the Chancellor. Investment has risen six times as fast under the Conservative Government as under Labour, and there is one big difference with the investment now. Investment in Britain goes into high-quality, sustainable businesses, in contrast to the heroic days of Labour's industrial strategy, when huge chunks of Britain's investment were directed into dossed-out, low-grade, poor-quality industries, at the whim of politicians and bureaucrats.
Does the Minister recognise that the words of the hon. Member for Macclesfield (Mr. Winterton) found great sympathy with Opposition Members, as many people earned their livings for most of their lives in the manufacturing industry? Was it not a revelation to hear the voice of the old Tories when the hon. Member for Wolverhampton, South-West (Mr. Budgen) rose earlier and advocated firmly the hands-off, laissez-faire, devil-take-the-hindmost approach to that industry—the very attitude that the Engineering Employers Federation called unhelpful, and went on to ask the then President of the Board of Trade to be the champion for manufacturing? Is it not time that we had a manufacturing champion in the current President of the Board of Trade?
I do not disagree with much of what the hon. Gentleman says, because it is indicative of the rightward lurch of Labour that we had a Labour Member urging free markets in steel. That would not have happened 10 years ago, but Opposition Members have seen the success of Government policies in manufacturing. Since 1980, Britain's manufacturing productivity growth has been the fastest of all the industrial nations. In the 1970s, under Labour, it was the slowest, and those were the proud days of Labour's industrial strategy, when British Steel was the world's largest loss maker and British Leyland was the butt of international jokes.
Is my hon. Friend aware of the massive investment in our manufacturing industry in Yorkshire in the past 10 years? In fact, in my constituency of Batley and Spen, some £200 million has gone into new technology, jobs and factories. Will he take the opportunity to congratulate all those who have had the entrepreneurial spirit to put that money into manufacturing and into the future of this country?
I endorse all that my hon. Friend has said. I also applaud her role in encouraging industry in her part of the world. It is becoming increasingly clear that—in contrast to the position in the 1970s—British manufacturing industry is a success story. We in Britain are now known for producing quality goods, delivered reliably and on time. That contrasts starkly with what happened when the lot opposite were in power.
Does the Minister appreciate that, in saying that my hon. Friend the Member for Glasgow, Rutherglen (Mr. McAvoy) advocates a free market in steel, he misunderstands the true position? What is proposed in return for a huge European subsidy is an increased capacity on the part of the new owners of the plant, ISPAT. It proposes almost a doubling of capacity.
We are being asked to give a subsidy not in return for closure or a reduction in capacity but in return for an increase in capacity that will damage British Steel and jobs in Britain, particularly in my constituency. Does the Minister understand that, and will he guarantee—as his Secretary of State seems to be doing—that he will use his veto to protect our industry and provide a level playing field?I agree with most of what the hon. Gentleman has said. It is marvellous to hear a Labour Member speak so cogently in favour of free and open markets, and against subsidies. It is notable that, in the old days, when subsidies were poured into British Steel, the company was a massive loss maker. Since then, its position in the world has improved enormously: it is now the world's fourth largest steel maker. It is highly successful, exporting 40 per cent. of its production. That is due to the less hands-on, more free market policies implemented by the Government.
I was born in Macclesfield, and I am sure that my hon. Friend the Minister will want to join me in congratulating our hon. Friend the Member for Macclesfield (Mr. Winterton) on his work and advocacy. He is right to contrast the recent growth of exports and investment with what happened in the 1960s and 1970s, and—if I may say so—in the first half of the 1980s. But will my hon. Friend and his colleagues concentrate on enabling smaller manufacturing businesses—I have corresponded with his Department on this matter twice recently—to be fully aware of the sources of advice and assistance that the Department and other agencies provide? Many are not aware of those sources.
My hon. Friend's points are entirely fair, but it is also fair to say that the growing business links network will play an important part in that.
The Minister will recognise the enormously valuable role in investment and export earnings that is played by our pharmaceutical and manufacturing industries, but is he aware that those industries are in danger of losing markets as a result of the hawking of cheap copies of their medicines around Europe by companies based in Spain, where there is a complete lack of patent protection law?
Given that the process of developing a new medicine typically takes between eight and 10 years and costs £300 million, does the Minister accept the urgency of exerting pressure on the European Commission to ensure fair competition and to protect the patent rights of our pharmaceutical and manufacturing industries?The hon. Gentleman is right to highlight the success of the United Kingdom's chemical and pharmaceutical industry. I believe that it is now the world's biggest exporter, which is a great tribute to the work done by management and all who work in the industry, at every level. I accept much of what the hon. Gentleman says. As he knows, negotiations are currently proceeding in Europe. The Government will take account of the interests of what is a fine example of British manufacturing, as well as the interests of consumers.
Does my hon. Friend agree that the economic fundamentals that we have pursued—low taxation, low inflation and low interest rates—have enabled British manufacturing industry to increase its investment by 11 per cent. over the past year? That is a huge figure. Indeed, the figure for plant and equipment was 14.5 per cent. Does my hon. Friend accept that, if Labour were ever to have a chance of gaining power, those fundamental rates would have to be increased to finance its spending plans? Would that not cause tremendous damage to the prospects of manufacturing investment?
My hon. Friend is right. In the third quarter, manufacturing investment was up by over 12 per cent., and investment in plant and machinery was up by 18 per cent. British industry has undergone a productivity revolution over the past 16 years. We have closed three quarters of the productivity and competitiveness gap with Germany. That, not the minimum wage, is the best way in which to ensure good-quality, well-paid, secure jobs for our people in the future.
North Western Electricity Board
17.
To ask the President of the Board of Trade what representations he has had on behalf of consumers about the North West Water bid for Norweb from the National Consumer Council. [2615]
One such representation was received. The chairman of the National Consumer Council wrote to my right hon. Friend about the proposed merger on 13 September. She wrote in similar terms to the Director General of Fair Trading, who took account of the NCC's views in his advice to my right hon. Friend on the matter.
I thank the Minister for his answer. He will of course be aware that the Office of Water Services is holding an inquiry into claims that North West Water, along with others, has charged for improvements that have not been carried out. In view of those extremely dubious management practices, what guarantees can he give to consumers in future?
I am not sure about the dubious practices to which the hon. Gentleman refers. What I am clear about is that the privatised utilities have been a gigantic success. They have been more successful than projected and have done well. That is a matter for congratulation. They have proved, if it ever needed proving, that the best interests of shareholders and of consumers are not mutually exclusive.
Unfair Competition
18.
To ask the President of the Board of Trade how many cases of unfair competition have been reported by United Kingdom companies to the European Commission in the last three years; and if he will make a statement. [2616]
I understand from the European Commission that, between 1 January 1992 and 1 January 1995, it received 260 complaints from the United Kingdom of unfair competition under articles 85 and 86 of the treaty of Rome.
Is my hon. Friend aware of a complaint of unfair trading against a company employing disabled workers, and will he discuss with his colleagues how to avoid the risk of any further such charges arising?
Yes, I will. In connection with the case of which my hon. Friend is aware, I should like him to know that the Government have demonstrated to the European Commission that the assistance that they give to disabled people or to Remploy in particular is not state aid in the context of competition policy.
Does the Minister accept that Shelton steelworks in Stoke-on-Trent is the most profitable and efficient rolling-mill in Britain and in the European Community, and that it is directly threatened by unfair competition and subsidies proposed by the European Commission in support of Irish steel? Does he understand that British Steel has identified directly the threat to Shelton steelworks as a result of that deal? Will he now give a firm commitment that the British Government in no circumstances will allow that deal to go ahead?
I have nothing to add to what my right hon. Friend the President of the Board of Trade said earlier this afternoon during questions.
Manufacturing Industry
20.
To ask the President of the Board of Trade when he next expects to meet the President of the Confederation of British Industry to discuss manufacturing industry. [2619]
Other Department of Trade and Industry Ministers and I regularly meet the Confederation of British Industry to discuss a range of issues.
Will my right hon. Friend confirm that a major objective of Government policy is to prevent wild fluctuations in the exchange rate, as both upward and downward movements are especially detrimental to the manufacturing sector? Will he discuss that matter with the president of the CBI in the near future?
My hon. Friend makes an important point. Obviously, we are conscious of the effect that such fluctuations can have on manufacturing industry. However, my hon. Friend will have heard the points made earlier in support of the great successes of manufacturing industry in recent years. Employment in that industry has risen by 28,000 in the past year alone. In the past two years, investment in manufacturing has risen by no less than 20 per cent. That is a sign of a flourishing and successful manufacturing industry, something that was never experienced during the Labour party's period in government.
The President of the Board of Trade and his team today have been extraordinarily pleased with themselves and terribly complacent. Why is it that, after 16 years of Conservative government, only 2 per cent. of British manufacturing enterprises are rated as world-class?
My right hon. and hon. Friends and I are not complacent but proud of what has been achieved by our manufacturing industry in Britain in recent years. The Labour party is always ready to talk about the disappearance of this country's manufacturing sector. The fact is that manufacturing output is higher now than ever before. That is a measure of the progress that has been achieved in recent years.
Does my right hon. Friend discuss with the president of the CBI the impact of the minimum wage and of the social chapter on on-costs in this country's industry, and how it would affect our at present successful export business, which exports mainly to the world's growing economies?
My hon. Friend is absolutely right. The only way our manufacturing industry will continue to survive and prosper is if we remain globally competitive. That is a measure of our achievements in recent years. The imposition of a national minimum wage would make our industry much less competitive. The CBI estimates that it would impose a burden of £4.5 billion on our industry. If only half the differentials were restored above a £4 minimum wage, it would cost about 900,000 jobs in this country. I am quite sure that a national minimum wage would be greatly to the detriment of employment and prosperity in the United Kingdom.
Trade (India)
22.
To ask the President of the Board of Trade if he will make a statement on trade with India. [2621]
Trade with India has increased by some 50 per cent. in both directions in the past three years. United Kingdom exports to India amounted to £1.5 billion in the 12 months to the end of September this year. UK imports from India in the same period amounted to £1.3 billion. The Indo-British partnership—set up following the Prime Minister's visit to India in 1993—has contributed greatly to the strengthening of trade relations between the UK and India.
Does my hon. Friend agree that the major expansion in the telecommunications network in India offers exciting prospects for British exporters? Will he encourage his hon. Friends to do all that they can to back British industry in winning exports there, and will he also encourage his Ministers to emulate the excellent example of the Minister for Science and Technology, my hon. Friend the Member for Esher (Mr. Taylor), who is to visit India tonight to promote British interests?
The answer is yes, yes, yes. As my hon. Friend knows, my hon. Friend the Minister for Science and Technology is being dispatched to India this very night to do just that. Department of Trade and Industry Ministers are into India. It was my first port of call on my appointment. As I have said, my hon. Friend is going there tonight. My right hon. Friend the President of the Board of Trade will visit India early next year, and they will both do exactly what my hon. Friend asks.
Fuel Bills (Elderly People)
3.30 pm
I beg to ask leave to move the Adjournment of the House, under Standing Order No. 20, for the purpose of discussing a specific and important matter that should have urgent consideration, namely,
The matter is certainly specific, because of the present very cold weather all over the country. I submit that it is important, because of the immense difficulties faced by pensioners in particular in keeping their homes adequately heated because of the lack of money. Under the social fund cold weather payments scheme, it has to be freezing for seven consecutive days and nights—seven days and nights—before the trigger mechanism applies. That is quite wrong, because this week it could be freezing for three or four days, as it is now outside, but if the weather changes, not an extra penny will be paid. That is why the scheme is a mockery. There are no fewer than 59 weather stations all deciding whether, in their respective areas, the trigger mechanism should apply. I understand that in not one of the areas of those 59 stations has the trigger point been reached, despite the present cold, harsh weather. It is disgraceful that, in a developed country such as ours, the elderly poor have to put their health at considerable risk—the risk of hypothermia and other dangers—simply because they are unable to pay their fuel bills. They are frightened; despite all the warnings by Ministers and the medical profession, they do not turn on the heat properly, because they lack the money to pay the quarterly bills. Fifteen to 20 per cent. more elderly people die in Britain during the winter months than at any other time. The figure is higher than that in any other European country. In most such countries, which have harsher winters than ours, the figure is about 5 per cent. Surely that demonstrates the immense hardship, misery and deprivation that so many elderly poor people have to suffer during the sort of cold weather that we are now experiencing. How they would like to be in the warmth of the House of Commons. I believe that the matter calls urgently for a debate."the urgent need for a different arrangement to assist the elderly in need with their fuel bills during the present very cold weather."
I have listened carefully to what the hon. Member has said, and I have to give my decision without stating any reasons. I am afraid that I do not consider that the matter which he has raised is appropriate for discussion under Standing Order No. 20 and I therefore cannot summit the application to the House.
Points Of Order
3.34 pm
On a point of order, Madam Speaker. Will you please give me some guidance on a very important matter? Are you aware that, under the Nolan rules, no Member of Parliament may raise in a debate anything that they have learnt on a fact-finding mission to an overseas country that has been hosted by that country's Government? As things stand, it would be deemed to be advocacy, even if the Member of Parliament had no contract with the country concerned. Therefore, he would be under an obligation—frankly—to stand down.
That affects all Members. We are all effectively gagged by rules that I hope will be discussed with Sir Gordon Downey. Perhaps there will then be a little sanity on this very important issue.The hon. Lady has raised a most important issue. I am very understanding of her predicament and—perhaps—that of other hon. Members on both sides of the House. At the same time, however, I must remind her that the House has given the responsibility of making detailed judgments on what is and what is not paid advocacy not to me but to the Commissioner, and, importantly of course, to the Committee on Privileges and Standards. The hon. Lady must pursue the matter there—I know that she has already had some talks with the Commissioner.
In that connection, that I hope that the usual channels will find it possible to put Committee nominations before the House very soon indeed. We have been waiting long enough for the Committee. There is much urgent work for it to do, and Members who find themselves in a similar predicament to that of the hon. Member for Sutton and Cheam (Lady Olga Maitland) are awaiting its recommendations. We look forward to it being established very soon.On a point of order, Madam Speaker—or it may be a point of taste. It is on whether the recently departed and dead are entitled to be quoted accurately from the Dispatch Box.
During Question Time, it may be within your recollection that the hon. Member for Rochford (Dr. Clark), very gracefully and very properly, from the Government Back Benches raised the question of a tribute to the late John Collier, the former chairman of Nuclear Electric. From the Dispatch Box, the Minister used the occasion—I think a little tastelessly—to point out how enthusiastic the late John Collier had been about privatisation. Those of us who were privileged to work with John Collier know that his attitude was far more complex than that. I do not think that senior Ministers should use the Dispatch Box to make party points in relation to the dead.That is obviously a matter of opinion, and not one for me. It is about the way in which all of us interpret such issues.
On a point of order, Madam Speaker. Earlier today, I raised with you in writing what occurred last night. Opposition Whips were standing shoulder to shoulder at the No Lobby, stopping Members of Parliament from exercising their right to vote in that Lobby. This bully-boy tactic—[Interruption.]
Order. I wish to hear the hon. Member.
This bully-boy tactic is not in keeping with the House of Commons, or with page 399 of "Erskine May". Speaking as a former Whip, although I have been intimidated by some of the former Opposition Whips—not the present crop—I have never known Whips, including a lady Whip, to stand shoulder to shoulder to stop Members of Parliament from exercising their proper duty of voting.[Interruption.]
Order. I am quite capable of dealing with the matter—in fact, I dealt with it at the time last night. Let me say quite seriously that no hon. Member complained to me of being unable to vote. All those who wished to vote were able to do so. That is the important point.
How do you know?
I will tell hon. Members how I know—because no complaint was made to me. As Members of Parliament complain to me if the air in this Chamber is not fresh enough for them, they would have certainly have complained to me if they could not vote—[Interruption.] Order. I have not finished yet. I stood here last night, and I saw the Opposition Whip standing by the Door. He was by no means intimidating. As a former Whip, I can tell the House that, when I wanted to keep Members out of a Division Lobby, it was a single Nelson; when I wanted them to go into a Division Lobby, it was a double Nelson—[Laughter.]
It is not funny.
On a point of order, Madam Speaker. I wish to seek your guidance, as I take a serious view of what happened last night, as I am sure you do. Page 148 of "Erskine May" refers to the
which is certainly what I saw last night. In fact, "Erskine May" describes it as"assaulting, insulting or menacing of any Member of this House",
"Erskine May" does not make it clear how that matter should be dealt with, but the fact is that last night was not the first time that I have seen such intimidation. What was done was done out of your eyesight, Madam Speaker, so that you could not see the intimidation that was taking place. I think that something should be done about that."a most outrageous and dangerous violation of the rights of Parliament and an high crime".
Last night, I drew the attention of hon. Members to the Door on my left, which was clearly open.
That is not the Lobby.
The entrance to the Lobby is also here, and I drew—
rose—
Order. Will the hon. Gentleman allow me to speak when I am on my feet? I drew the attention of hon. Members to the fact that this Door was open last night, that they could proceed through it, and that, if there were any problems, I would take responsibility.
The hon. Member for Harrow, West (Mr. Hughes) has raised a serious point. However, there was no violation. If there was, any hon. Member who sought to vote last night should have reported that situation to the Speaker, and it was my responsibility to ensure that that Member was able to go through the Door, which was open.rose—
Order. Is it the same matter?
Yes.
I have dealt with the matter.
You have listened to two Tories.
Order. I have dealt with the matter.
I was one of the 10.
Who voted?
Yes.
I saw that; I looked at the Division list this morning.
I spent 10 minutes with a Whip before I went into the Lobby, and I almost persuaded him to go into the Lobby with me.
That is a different matter.
On a point of order, Madam Speaker. I am sure that the House is grateful for the advice that you gave earlier to my hon. Friend the Member for Sutton and Cheam (Lady Olga Maitland) about the Commissioner and the Privileges and Standards Committee, which needs to meet to clarify rules.
I understand that, within the next day or so, the Government will make a statement about the franchises on railways. As you will know, every hon. Member is entitled to claim free rail travel, for both his business purposes and his personal purposes, to and from his constituency and this place. Therefore, we clearly have a personal financial interest in the good running of the railways. When the statement is made, will it be in order for hon. Members to press upon the Minister how important it is to have late-night trains, especially as such a facility affects hon. Members even more than their constituents?I am afraid that late-night trains are not a matter for me. However, I take the hon. Gentleman's point very seriously. It is a matter for the Commissioner and the Committee. As I have said, it is time that the Committee was established, because there is a great deal of work waiting for it to do.
On a point of order, Madam Speaker. This may be a mundane point, but it affects every Member of the House. It concerns the continuing use of a corner of Palace Yard by those who are tunnelling underneath the river and God knows what else. The result is that taxis cannot see when the taxi light is on, and therefore are not coming into the Yard.
All those who frequently wish to leave the Palace of Westminster—[Laughter.] I make this point quite seriously, because right hon. and hon. Members, in their daily business, have to come and go. Could not some arrangement be made so that taxi drivers would realise that taxis were needed?I will refer the matter to the Serjeant at Arms. The hon. Gentleman's point of order recalls my earlier comments to the hon. Member for Sheffield, Hallam (Sir I. Patnick), that Members who could not reach the Division Lobbies last night would have certainly complained to me about it. Hon Members complain to me about the quality of air in this place, and about whether lights are flashing on and off. Members who were not able to vote last night would certainly have approached the Chair immediately to complain.
Orders Of The Day
Audit (Miscellaneous Provisions) Bill
Order for Second Reading read.
3.46 pm
I beg to move, That the Bill be now read a Second time.
It is with some trepidation that I suggest that this is genuinely a non-controversial measure, but I believe that to be the case. The Bill is a small but useful piece of legislation, which relates to the functions of the Audit Commission for England and Wales. Two of the provisions also relate to the functions of the Accounts Commission, the equivalent body in Scotland. The three measures are as follows—to give the Audit Commission powers to work alongside the Department of Health's social services inspectorate on studies of the performance of local authority social service departments, a measure which will apply in England and Wales; to change the financial years of the two bodies, so that, instead of having a financial year which runs from 1 April every year, they will have a financial year which runs from 1 November; and to enable local authorities to publish annual information about their performance in a free newspaper. At the moment, they are only allowed to publish the information in a paid-for newspaper circulating in their areas. The last measure would apply to England, Scotland and Wales. The Audit Commission's main function is to arrange external audits for local authorities and health service bodies in England and Wales, a task it carries out very well. The commission has established a reputation for professionalism and independence. When the Audit Commission was set up in 1982, it was also given a specific remit to carry out studies to promote value for money in the provision of local authority services. Over the years, the Audit Commission has produced a number of excellent reports, such as "Tackling crime effectively" and "In the line of fire", a report dealing with the fire service. The commission has also covered social services issues, most recently in "Seen But Not Heard", about planning services for children in need and improving co-ordination between agencies on health and social services. Much of the Audit Commission's work is naturally of interest to the Department of Health. But as the commission at present has no power to charge the Secretary of State for its work in this field, it cannot help with studies commissioned by the Secretary of State. The Bill will enable the Audit Commission to do that, and to be paid by the Secretary of State for the work it does. We believe that it would be useful to have an independent assessment of the performance of the whole of a social services department. The assessment should cover the department's efficiency, effectiveness and economy, together with its attention to service delivery and to systems for ensuring quality. We think that the best way to achieve that is to bring together the complementary skills of the Audit Commission and the Department of Health's social services inspectorate. The Government are planning to introduce a rolling programme of studies covering England and Wales, and every local authority will be covered during a five-year period. The second provision in the Bill—to change the financial years of the Audit Commission and the Accounts Commission—is a technical one. Both bodies organise their work programmes to run from November to October, because that is what fits in best with the annual cycling of auditing local authority and health service accounts. If the bodies line up their financial year with their operational year, it will be easier for them to budget and to plan their work. This is basically an efficiency measure. The Audit Commission would make the change during 1997 and the Accounts Commission would follow one year later, once it had dealt with the changes resulting from local government reorganisation in Scotland. The third provision in the Bill relates to the publication of local authority performance indicators. Performance indicators tell people the basic facts about their local authority's performance. Equally importantly, they encourage local authorities to think about the standards they are setting themselves, and their performance in meeting those standards. The Government wish to encourage people's interests in how their local authority performs. Public information must be readily available and easy to understand if it is to be useful. That is why we have accepted suggestions from the Audit Commission and from local government that the options for publication of performance indicators should be broadened. The free newspaper industry has grown substantially in recent years, and for many people it is an important source of information. Free newspapers have the advantage that they are delivered directly into people's homes, and many authorities believe that they can reach a wider audience by publishing in them. The Bill will allow them to do so. None of those measures can be regarded as controversial. They build on our existing policies in those areas, which centre on sound management, improving standards and promoting openness and accountability. In all cases, they will be welcomed by those most closely concerned, and I commend them to the House.3.49 pm
The Labour party broadly welcomes the intentions behind the Bill. We are deeply committed to having tough regulatory inspectorates to secure national standards from local authorities. That is why we would like the audit service's remit to be extended to provide for the establishment of a quality inspectorate in parallel with its investigations and reports on value for money.
However, we also want a rigorous audit service that protects public funds and combats fraud and wrongdoing, and it is our belief that, in many places, the audit service singularly fails to carry out that task. The basic problem with the Bill is that it does not go anything like far enough. First, I shall deal with what is in the Bill; as the Minister demonstrated when he introduced it, that will not take long. Then I shall tell the House what we believe should be in it. The Bill's first provision is to make it possible for joint studies of council social services departments to be carried out by the Audit Commission and the social services inspectorate of the Department of Health. That is a welcome proposition, but we have reservations about it, which we shall pursue in Committee. The Audit Commission is, at least relatively speaking, a body independent of the Government, whereas the social services inspectorate is not. It is a straightforward part of the Department of Health, controlled by Ministers, and there may therefore be conflict between an independent body and one that, ultimately, simply has to do what it is told by its ministerial bosses. Furthermore, the social services inspectorate does not have an especially good record in doing its current job. Several times in the past, it has investigated a council or a particular service provided by a council's social services department and has pronounced it okay; something has then gone wrong, and the inspectorate has been among the first to jump in and denounce the department that it had just given a clean bill of health. There are many examples, but I shall give just one. A few years ago, the social services inspectorate reviewed Kent county council's social services department, and in particular its registration and inspection unit, which was responsible for registering and inspecting private residential homes for the elderly. The inspectorate gave that unit a very clean bill of health, commending it on the way it was run and on the job it was doing. No sooner had that happened than there was a great scandal in Thanet, involving a residential home in which there was virtually organised granny-bashing. The social services inspectorate immediately leaped to join in the criticism of Kent county council's registration and inspection of private residential homes. Inspectorates should never have to take responsibility for what other people do wrong, but they must take responsibility for what they themselves do wrong. If the inspectorate gives something a clean bill of health, it has some explaining and apologising to do if anything then goes wrong. We must ensure that inspectorates behave responsibly, and do not try to shuffle off responsibility on to everybody else when things go wrong. I know that what is proposed in the Bill is not a set of investigations of that type, but joint studies. Nevertheless, we need to pay attention both to the status and to the generally irresponsible approach of the social services inspectorate in the past. The Bill also provides, as the Minister said, for councils to be allowed to publish performance indicator information in free sheets. That is obviously a sensible measure, for which people have been pressing for some time. There is one other item. The Bill provides for changes in the accounting year of the Audit Commission. I should like a guarantee now from the Minister that the change in the audit year will not he used by either the Department or the Audit Commission to make it impossible to compare, year on year, the growing staff numbers, costs and top salaries in the Audit Commission. We all know that, when businesses or other parts of the Government start changing the way in which they present financial information, it is usually to mislead and obfuscate. If the Audit Commission is to maintain its credibility, it is crucial that its own figures are beyond reproach in presentation and content. I hope that the Minister will either get up now and give that guarantee, or that it will be given at the end of the debate.Without for a minute accepting the implications of the hon. Gentleman's remarks, the intention of the change is simply technical. I will ask the Audit Commission to undertake that whatever figures are produced are absolutely comparable, so that there is no question about their transparency.
I thank the Minister for that undertaking.
That is all the Bill does, so it is now a question of what it should it do. All over the country, people feel that the audit service is not doing its work properly. It is not coping with the major scandals which have arisen in councils of all political persuasions. I am not making a party political point. It has not coped well with scandals in Labour, Tory and Liberal Democrat councils. It is no good going on as we are. Not long ago, I listened to a former Environment Minister moaning on the radio about wrongdoing in Lambeth, which he was perfectly entitled to do. The interviewer then asked him what he was going to do about it, to which the former Minister replied that there was nothing he could do. There has been nothing they could do about Lambeth for a decade, or about Westminster for the past eight or nine years. There has been nothing they could do about wrongdoing in Wandsworth over the past few years, or in Brent over the past five years. "Nothing we can do about it" is no longer the answer. If it is a truthful answer, it shows that the present law on auditing is not up to the job, because all the scandals have occurred under the present laws—laws that were introduced by the Government. Some of the major scandals have not even been dealt a glancing blow by the audit service. Take the example of Lambeth council, which, until the last council election, was controlled by the Labour party. Its record was a disgrace, and what it did was damaging to the people of Lambeth. It now has a new chief executive, and, following the Appleby inquiry, and with a great deal of good will, generally speaking, from most councillors of all political persuasions, there is a commitment to sort things out. Some of that was done at the instigation of my hon. Friends the Members for Norwood (Mr. Fraser), for Vauxhall (Miss Hoey) and for Streatham (Mr. Hill). Things are being turned round, but the council needs a lot of help. Let us consider the role of the audit service in relation to a decade or more of things going wrong in Lambeth. The audit service itself has a lot to answer for. I make no excuses for what the council did. There were financial scandals, incompetence and fraud. Most of it was committed by officials of the council or by private contractors who had relationships with the council, but it continued for over a decade, and the audit service did little about it. Scarcely anybody had their collar felt as a result of the audit service's activities. It produced a number of public interest reports but, once they had been produced, under the current law the council was not required to do anything in response to them. Under the present law, as I understand it, the Audit Commission could not step in and do anything to correct what was wrong. There were limited powers for the Secretary of State to step in if he decided that something was wrong, but it is not clear in the current law whether the auditor or the Audit Commission can ask the Secretary of State to step in. It would be useful to know whether any approaches were ever made to Ministers. We may never know whether approaches were made, because the Government prefer to make Tory propaganda out of the problems in Lambeth, rather than promote public propriety in that borough. The history of what has happened in Lambeth, and the present system's incapacity to deal with what is going wrong, is one reason why we believe that substantial change is necessary. Our document on the future of local authorities, "Renewing Democracy, Rebuilding Communities"—which is usually mocked by the Secretary of State, if he can get to the Dispatch Box and if he does not rant on about something else—is committed to toughening up the audit service, so that it can deal with precisely the sort of situation that prevailed in Lambeth. Our document is also committed to tougher practices, and to giving the audit service more power. All over the country, many hard-working councillors and council officials who are trying to promote public-private partnerships—which are, in theory, endorsed by the Government—find themselves obstructed at every turn by the district audit service, which ploughs through, asking them whether they have a statutory right to do this or that. While all that is happening, to the detriment of practically everybody, and at immense cost to local people and local businesses, the audit service performs poorly in picking up outright wrongdoing and fiddling, which is its primary purpose. In future, councils should be required to publish plans for their services each year that set out cost and quality targets for each service. At the end of the year, councils would have to explain to the local people and to the audit service if they have not met the targets. We suggest a new role for the audit service, if there are deplorable standards of service or things are persistehtly going deplorably wrong. Ministers cannot continue to say that there is nothing they can do. We believe that the law should be changed, so that, if the Audit Commission concludes that a service is continually and unjustifiably failing, it can require a council to prepare a plan to put things right, to set a timetable for them to be put right, to send in an advisory team to help the council to put matters right, and to check on the progress. If the council is still failing, and if the Audit Commission recommends it to the Secretary of State, we believe that the Secretary of State should be empowered to appoint a management team to take over the service or services that are failing, and put them right. Far too frequently, the Government's answer to abominable management services is to put the services out to tender, thus endangering the jobs of the blue collar service workers, who are in no way responsible for the mismanagement that initially led to the problem. It is the management that needs to be sorted out. It is not only in Lambeth that there have been persistent failures to do things properly and lawfully. Similar problems have been occurring in Brent for a long time. I shall leave it to my hon. Friends who represent that borough to spell out some of the things that have been happening there. Those improper practices have been unhampered by the audit service, because of the weakness of the present provisions in the law. It is worth while to draw to the attention of the House the fact that, under a Government who claim to be committed to open government, there has been a scandal in Brent involving the Ad Shop, as it is called, on which a report has finally been prepared. I have in my hand a sheet of paper setting out the undertakings that an elected councillor in Brent must sign before they will be given a copy of that report on the scandal of what has happened to public money in Brent. It is scandalous. They must undertake that they will not disclose its contents to anyone else. They must undertake to return the document to the chief executive for disposal. They must undertake not to discuss it, reveal it or pass it on to anyone else. That is about a scandalous and corrupt misuse of public money, yet councillors who are elected to represent local people and bring people to book are expected by a Tory council to sign that disgraceful undertaking.I have seen a copy.
I believe that one or two copies have got about in spite of the undertakings, because, of course, fatuous undertakings are not binding on anyone; people should remember that.
We could achieve socialism with the aid of a few leaks and one or two photocopies.
What has happened in Wandsworth? The auditor reported that the council had acted unlawfully in relation to some of its housing duties. Nothing has happened.
That brings me to Westminster, which is a spectacular example all of its own. It has now descended into the depths of scandal, for three reasons. The first scandal, which I shall return to, is the scandal of the political fraud and corruption that has been inherent in that council for a long time, and has resulted in the district auditor—we are discussing the audit service—currently investigating the misapplication of £106 million by Westminster City council. Secondly, there is a scandal that does not relate directly to the district audit service, but should relate to the Comptroller and Auditor General. That is the grotesque scandal by which Westminster City council receives enormous sums, far above those that are received by any other comparable area, all on the basis of that preposterous idea to which the Government subscribe—that Westminster is the fourth most deprived place in Britain. No one in their right mind believes that Westminster is the fourth most deprived place in Britain.The Audit Commission has never had sufficient money and resources to do the job properly, and has always attacked Labour authorities, in the main, that might spend a bit over the odds, rather than Tory authorities that spend underneath the odds. In addition, I have always believed that, since rate capping was introduced by the Tory Government, in many ways that has undermined the auditor's authority, because the Tory Government have decided on a political basis which councils should be hammered, with the result that the Audit Commission is not able to make the proper judgment, because it is clouded by the political actions of the Government.
There is a great deal of truth in what my hon. Friend says.
To give some idea of the preposterous nature of the ranking by which Westminster is placed fourth in the scale of deprivation, Rotherham—which has suffered severely from steelwork closures and engineering work closures in the past few years—is 284th in that scale of deprivation, and it is obviously a preposterous and unjustifiable position. Not only members of the Labour party say that. Ministers claim that the list was produced independently, but it was nothing of the sort. It is produced in the Department of the Environment. Ministers have claimed that it has been accepted by the local authority associations. It has been accepted by them because they have no alternative, but they do not believe that it is right. Above all, the chief executive of Westminster—except that he has some other fancy title—has acknowledged that Westminster gets £20 million more than it is entitled to. Westminster gets special allowances for the number of visitors who come in each day, but it also gets in a year about £20 million from those self-same visitors by way of parking charges. For some reason, the parking charges are not offset against the extra grants the council receives because of the number of visitors. That is basically a racket. That leads to a third consequence, directly related to what the district auditor investigates. According to the figures on the cost of providing services in Westminster, it is the most profligate, expensive and inefficient council in Britain. For example, refuse collection costs £53 per head in Westminster. I shall compare not Westminster with St. Helens or Scunthorpe, but with Camden, which is next door and is exposed to roughly the same inflation and higher costs that are incurred in central London. Camden's refuse collection costs £24 per head of population. Westminster spends £36 per head on street cleaning—the highest in the country. Camden spends £14.42. Another matter of great importance is the administration of benefits. Westminster manages to pay housing benefit within 14 days to 66 per cent. of the people who apply, and that costs £226 per transaction in administrative costs. Camden, next door, manages to pay out within 14 days to 95 per cent. of the people who apply, at a cost of just £104 per transaction. Camden is 50 per cent. more efficient—at less than half the cost—than Westminster. That shows how profligate and inefficient Westminster is. All those matters concern the audit service, nationally or locally. But I come back to the main issue of the scandals in Westminster. Far from taking action on the scandals in Westminster—the misapplication of £106 million—the Government have done nothing. Far from condemning the wrongdoing in Westminster, the Government have done nothing.My hon. Friend might recall that I was the original objector in the late 1980s to the sale of the cemeteries by Westminster, and I went to the district auditor. One matter that concerns me arising out of the affair is the way that Mr. Magill was treated by elected councillors. Mr. Magill acted with great courage in the face of great adversity, and he was regularly insulted by councillors who obstructed him in every way. He must have been more than distressed on many occasions, but he clearly hid his distress and, one way or another, managed to produce a number of reports.
It would be good if we could enshrine in legislation some form of protection for public servants who diligently do a job even when they are faced with the kind of attacks that Mr. Magill suffered, particularly from Lady Porter.I entirely agree with my hon. Friend. In particular, I commend him for the distinguished part that he has played in attempting to bring Westminster council to book. As an objector, he may know that, far from toughening up the law and strengthening the hand of objectors to prevent a recurrence of what has happened in Westminster, the Government are excluding Westminster from their investigation of the role of objectors and the functions of the audit service. The Government are studying every council and every audit service in the country except Westminster.
Bar one.
As my hon. Friend says, they are investigating all bar one. Their official report says:
they can say that again—"The study will exclude Westminster City Council which has already been the subject of a separate inquiry"—
That is an inadequate description. There have been objectors and objections to about another 25 items of expenditure. It continues:"following objections to the council's 'designated sales policy' in relation to housing."
I bet it will focus on the generality of cases. The last thing they want it to do is focus on what has gone wrong in Westminster when they have done nothing about it for so many years. My hon. Friend the Member for Workington (Mr. Campbell-Savours) and other people who had to pay the poll tax or the council tax in Westminster raised formal objections. As I have explained, the district auditor is now investigating the wrongful misuse of more than £100 million of ordinary people's money. It makes every other financial scandal that has ever occurred in English local government pale into total insignificance. Such figures have never been bandied about. What happened, the length of time it continued and the obstruction by officers and elected councillors in Westminster demonstrated just how much the audit service needs to be strengthened. There have been five major scandals. In any other council, the other scandals would be major ones, but in Westminster there have been five major scandals. There was the "homes for votes" scandal in 1987-89. Originally, the district auditor said that it had cost £21 million. Lady Porter and her friends objected to the quantum of £21 million, and, having looked again at the matter, the district auditor agreed that £21 million was the wrong quantum, and that in fact £29 million had been lost. The next item was the second part of the "homes for votes" scandal, between 1989 and 1994, involving losses of another £21 million. Then there was the council's failure to collect service charges and to bill many new leaseholders. It cost £13 million. Councillors knowingly did not collect service charges, because it might upset the voters. They knew that it was wrong. They were advised by their lawyers and finance officers that it was wrong, but they still persisted, and they are now being investigated. There was also an indemnity and abatement scheme that was intended to help leaseholders, at a cost of £18 million. The district auditor is investigating whether the council even had the power to start an indemnity and abatement scheme. The final scandal, which has cost a great deal of money and will cost more, was the absolutely scandalous decision to put homeless families into life-threatening, asbestos-ridden tower blocks. That was totally unjustified, and, once again, against the advice of the council officers. In case anybody should think that is the sum total of the scandals in Westminster, I shall whizz through the others, as they would represent enormous sums of money for any other council. There was the scandal of the property disposal of Cheylesmore house—costing £3.5 million—and the Ambrosden hostel—costing £2.5 million; a scandal involving Monck street and Bishop's Bridge road cost another £1 million; the famous cemeteries reacquisition cost £3.5 million; MRS redundancy costs when Westminster privatised some of its services were £1.5 million; and what were described as "Quality of Life initiatives" and were probably unlawful cost £5 million. Some £1.5 million of local taxpayers' money was spent on propaganda in the run-up to the 1990 election, and another £400,000 was spent on consultants. Other capital grants, which may very well be unlawful, cost another £3.5 million. On any other council, those would be absolutely momentous items of wrongdoing and misexpenditure, but they pale into insignificance compared with the really major scandals in Westminster. One of the problems is that the inquiry has been extremely protracted. That is because the inquiry has been extremely obstructed, both by those who were charged with losses and by present councillors and council officers, who are trying to protect those who have been charged. At one stage, the district auditor was told that some of the most important papers could not be found. They had been issued to a dozen or more people, but not one example of them could be found. The district auditor resorted to a dawn raid on some of the offices. Lo and behold, he found the papers. It was a bad mistake on the part of those who were trying to put him off, because he picked up as well many other papers that he did not know existed. I understand that the other papers were extremely illuminating, and put the council in an even worse light. I am told that obstruction of the sort that I have described is not an offence under current law. If it is not, it clearly should be. I cannot believe that anyone disagrees with me on that. It is clear also that both council members and officers have repeatedly lied to the district auditor during his investigations. It seems that, if individuals have said things that are plainly contrary to the written evidence of what happened at meetings or to written advice—for example, people saying that they were given legal advice that they could do something and that advice, when examined, revealing that they were told that they could not do what they wanted—that should also be an offence. There may be genuine difficulty in recollecting exactly what happened, but plain lying to the auditor should be an offence. Enormous costs have accrued. The district auditor has had to run up an enormous bill in carrying out his work. The council is running up enormous bills in trying to obstruct him. The obstruction has not stopped: as recently as 21 November, the district auditor complained to the council that it was not supplying him with material on the notorious cemeteries sale. He is investigating the council's decision to bring a legal action against its previous legal advisers on the sale. It claims that it has been wrongly advised by its legal advisers. The decision to spend money trying to initiate a legal action against the council's previous legal advisers was against the legal advice of those advising the council when it took that decision—in other words, another lot of legal advisers. That is clearly a waste of public funds. In other areas, Labour councillors had been told that, if they, against the advice of council officers, turn down applications for opencast coal mining against legal advice—this turns on certain principles that have been laid down in earlier cases—they will lay themselves open to surcharge. What is sauce for the Labour goose must be sauce for the Tory gander at Westminster. The unique feature of the Westminster case has been the spending of public funds to mount political campaigns of vilification against the auditor, simply because he has been doing the job that Parliament gave him. The case is unique in another respect, because Members have been involved in it up to their ears from the start. That includes Cabinet Ministers, former Cabinet Ministers,*** current occupants of the Government Front Bench, Members who were on that Front Bench, and Back-Bench Members. They have all been involved as Members or councillors throughout the piece. That is one explanation why they are reluctant to criticise what has been going on. For instance, councillors tried to get the official press officer of Westminster to plant hostile stories against the district auditor in the news media. They made a fatuous charge, and wanted to blame the district auditor for not stopping them not collecting the service charges. The problem with that charge is that the district auditor is on record repeatedly telling them that they were breaking the law in not collecting the service charges, so it is another lie. It is quite clear, and it is becoming clearer, that that council knowingly moved homeless families into blocks that were known to be dangerously riddled with asbestos. The council has still produced no apologies. An independent inquiry was carried out, and a report is due to be published, but people familiar with Westminster council are becoming more and more concerned that the report may not be published. The Minister here today has responsibility for housing—we know that he is excluded from all other things—in Westminster as well as the rest of the country, and this is a housing issue. I challenge him today to tell the House that he will insist on receiving a copy of the report, either as a Tory Member of Parliament or as Minister—I do not mind which—and to undertake to place it in the Library of the House, so that this wrongdoing and the official inquiry into it is not hidden away. I will give way if he is willing to get up and give that undertaking, but I can see that he is not giving any sign that he will do so—the usual thing. It is a matter for the audit service and the Audit Commission, but I also think that it is a matter for the Health and Safety Commission, the police and the Director of Public Prosecutions. I have therefore written today to ask the DPP, the police and the Health and Safety Executive to investigate the scandal of people who knowingly moved children, women and men into places that were known to be dangerously contaminated with asbestos. It is my view that, before the asbestos scandal arose, Westminster had dragged London politics into the gutter. It has now got it down into the septic tank. There is no excuse for anyone knowingly endangering the lives of other people's families. That is what it did. Anyone with a degree of fairness would accept from what I have spelt out very briefly about all the scandals that have happened in Westminster in recent times that there is clearly something wrong with an audit service that cannot get a grip on this, deal with it quickly and get these people sorted out. That is why we are determined, as soon as there is a Labour Government, to strengthen the powers and practices of the audit service to sort out the fraudulent, to get rid of the wrongdoers, and to ensure that scandals are not allowed to drag on for decades, as they have been. That is why we consider the Bill inadequate, and that is why my hon. Friends will be tabling amendments in Committee to strengthen it substantially. At the moment, it is a useful but trivial measure. We cannot make do with trivial measures. There are important matters that need to be sorted out."The Department wishes to avoid the high profile and significant costs of this case from distorting the results of the current project, which will focus on the generality of cases.".
4.29 pm
The hon. Member for Holborn and St. Pancras (Mr. Dobson) started his speech by saying that he did not want to be party political, and recognised that Labour as well as Conservative councils were guilty of fraud, corruption and inefficiency, but he then spent almost his entire speech criticising pretty well the only Conservative council that has had difficulties in recent times.
Is the hon. Gentleman not aware of the appalling abuses of power that have occurred in the London borough of Brent, bringing local government generally into disrepute? To pretend that Westminster is the only borough affected by scandal is to live in cloud cuckoo land. Brent is certainly among those boroughs, and so is Wandsworth.
There is, however, a much longer list of Labour councils that have been guilty of fraud, dishonesty, corruption and gross inefficiency. If we were a little more objective, we might recognise the existence of faults and difficulties in councils of all complexions. We should be concerned with trying to establish a system that will get to grips with those problems. I agree with the hon. Member for Holborn and St. Pancras about that, but I do not agree with his contention that the Audit Commission, or the district audit service, has been at fault. I think that, when the investigation into the current series of scandals has been completed, we shall need to establish what is wrong with the system, but I think that the present system and the present law are inadequate. The hon. Gentleman recognised that. The present system is not based on the Local Government Finance Act 1982; it predates that considerably. I believe that the right of objection to local authority accounts goes back to the last century, and I doubt that the present system is capable of dealing with the complexity of inquiries such as the one that is going on now.
Local government expenditure accounts for 25 per cent. of all public spending, so large sums are involved. We shall need to examine all aspects of these matters. For example, I think it wrong that the district audit service can—as it did in Westminster—reach a preliminary conclusion, and effectively find councillors guilty before they have an opportunity to put their side of the case.That is not true.
It is true.
Is the hon. Gentleman not aware that, before the district auditor reached his preliminary conclusion, he had innumerable meetings with those whom he subsequently accused of wasting money? They were heard, at enormous length—when they finally turned up in Britain to be heard.
I was aware of that, but I still consider the present arrangements inadequate. The findings were preliminary, but they were presented in a way that suggested that those councillors were guilty, period. The system is not satisfactory. A much more satisfactory system operates in relation to inquiries into companies: independent inspectors are appointed to whom, under the Maxwell rules, the case against those involved must be put on more than one occasion. It may not be appropriate to transfer that system in its entirety to local authorities; I am merely saying that I believe that the system requires thorough examination to establish what changes need to be made.
The hon. Member for Holborn and St Pancras did not seem to recognise the existence of a constitutional difficulty in relation to the independence, or autonomy, of local authorities. He advanced a series of proposals that might compromise that independence considerably. As it happens, I agree with what he said about the independence of the Audit Commission and the district auditor. It is important that that independence is preserved, and is not compromised by the provisions in the Bill which concern the social services inspectorate. The fact that the Bill adds to the Audit Commission's obligations and duties is recognition of the fact that, since its establishment in 1982, the commission has done an extremely effective job. The district audit service has always conducted a regularity audit of local government accounts; it is the addition of a "value for money" element that has been so important. In 1982, for the first time, the Audit Commission was obliged to conduct value-for-money studies of local councils. It has done an enormous amount of good work and contributed substantially to the improvement in the quality of local government services. In 1990, the health service was added to that. That was clear recognition by the Government that the Audit Commission had been doing valuable work in local government. Now the commission does a great deal of useful work in the national health service, examining what can be done to improve value for money, to establish performance indicators between one part of the service and another and between one hospital and another. I pay tribute to the work of the first two Audit Commission controllers, Sir John Banham and his successor Howard Davies, both of whom went on to become director general of the Confederation of British Industry and both of whom came from Mckinsey and adopted a Mckinsey-type approach to the commission's management. That was important because the commission has no sanctions when it comes to trying to ensure that its recommendations are implemented. It was important therefore that it should have a high profile and obtain a lot of publicity for its recommendations. It has achieved that and succeeded in putting pressure on local councils to pick up the recommendations and implement them. There is no way in which it can require local authorities to do so. It must do so by force of persuasion. I also pay tribute to Sir David Cooksey, who recently retired as Audit Commission chairman. His contribution to its work should not be underestimated either. Anyone who has read his valedictory report in the latest annual commission report will know that he had considerable command over the commission's work during the years that he served as its distinguished chairman. The commission has brought an interesting and attractive new approach to value-for-money audit in government. Until its advent, we simply had the National Audit Office, which has a different approach. It tends to consider central Government from the top downwards, whereas the Audit Commission tends to consider local government from the bottom upwards, considering what goes on in individual local authorities and drawing its conclusion from many different examples. I consider that to be an extremely constructive approach. It was well exemplified when, six or seven years ago, both bodies decided to investigate the management of police forces in England and Wales. The NAO concluded that yet more Home Office interference in the management of police forces was needed, that more obligations and more duties should be placed on Her Majesty's inspectorate of constabulary, and that that would ensure that the quality of management and of service to the public by local police forces improved. The Audit Commission, considering precisely the same questions, came to precisely the opposite conclusion, which was that there was too much interference by the Home Office and that, instead of the Home Office telling each police force precisely how many constables it could employ each year and so on, we needed to give chief constables far more management autonomy, to tell them to get on with the job and to assess their performance against whatever targets were set subsequently. That is the path that the Government chose. The law has been reformed so that police grant is paid in that way, starting from 1 April last year. As time goes on, considerable improvements in value for money will take place in local police forces. That was directly as a result of an Audit Commission recommendation. There is a need for more co-operation between the National Audit Office and the Audit Commission. There tends to be rivalry, which is fine as long as it is healthy. The Public Accounts Committee recently considered an NAO report on the Metropolitan police's response to 999 calls. It is anomalous that the PAC can investigate the Metropolitan police but no other police force in England and Wales simply because the Met is funded directly by the Home Office while other police forces are funded indirectly though local authorities. In this case there was some co-operation between the National Audit Office and the Audit Commission. Information was obtained from the Audit Commission about the response by other police forces to 999 calls. It could have gone further. The Audit Commission could have produced a report covering all other police forces at the same time, and that could have been considered simultaneously. There is a question about parliamentary accountability of the Audit Commission. In an appendix to the Butler report on the commission it is stated that the commission is accountable to Parliament, and the appendix sets out various ways in which that occurs in practice. It would be a good idea for Parliament to take more interest in the commission's reports and to follow them up. We ensure that central Government is operating properly by allowing the PAC to investigate National Audit Office reports and to publish a report. The Treasury has to respond by saying what is being done to ensure that the recommendations are being implemented. In the context of the Audit Commission I am concerned that there is no similar mechanism. For the reasons that I gave earlier relating to the independence of local councils, it would not be easy for Parliament to start investigating council matters. But we could make a start with the health service because there is no question of comparable local accountability. The Audit Commission produces excellent reports on the NHS and the Public Accounts Committee or some other committee could consider the reports and call the chief executive of the NHS management team to give evidence. It could produce a report and could try to ensure that some of the recommendations were implemented. We should look at that, but before we do, perhaps the recommendations of the Nolan committee, which considered the whole question of audit, need to be followed up. I understand that the Treasury is carrying out a review in response to the Nolan committee's recommendation that arrangements for the external audit of public bodies should be reviewed with a view to applying the best practices to all. The Nolan committee seized on that point: that there is not the same automatic public scrutiny of the Audit Commission. It stated that that,The committee said that it was good that there were now two audit bodies. To some extent the NAO is a sort of public monopoly, and it is beneficial to have a bit of healthy competition between the two. The committee stated:"does seem to us to represent an anomaly."
I certainly agree. When the review is complete the House should consider further how it follows up audit reports, whether they relate to central Government, local government or the national health service. I certainly support the Bill, however modest its provisions, because it is further recognition of the Audit Commission's valuable work. That could be used to more effect by the House and by its Committees."We are not here recommending an extension of the NAO's role as auditor. The existence of two bodies supervising the audit of different public bodies provides a valuable creative tension which can only serve to raise standards."
4.43 pm
I apologise in advance because I fear that I shall have to speak at some length. When I learned about this debate I realised that it gave me a chance to bring together several issues that I have raised, many of them when you, Madam Deputy Speaker, had the misfortune to be in the Chair. For that reason you may recognise some of the issues. Sadly, I cannot say that these matters have been resolved. I shall do my best to be brief, but hon. Members will see that I have a pile of papers about 9 in high from which I have extracted half an inch. If I were to go through my entire file on corruption in Brent council I fear that we would soon run out of time.
It is quite opportune that this debate is taking place today because yesterday members of Brent council were able to get round the most extraordinary conditions imposed on them, as reported by my hon. Friend the Member for Holborn and St. Pancras (Mr. Dobson). Of course, completely ignoring the nonsense of forbidding the council to talk to anybody else, I immediately met members of the council, asked to see the report and shall now report its conclusions to the House since every attempt is being made to prevent that from being done. Before I start down that route, I should like to support the comments of the hon. Member for Beaconsfield (Mr. Smith). No one is suggesting that corruption solely concerns one party. There have been corrupt Labour councillors and corrupt Labour councils. There is corruption in all parties. The issue before the House is whether we are sufficiently engaged in rooting it out, not only among our opponents but on our own side, and whether we are interested in a district auditor having the powers to be able to react much more swiftly than has been the case. Events surrounding occasions on which corruption has occurred—in both major parties—have tended to drag on for months. Now it is becoming the norm that they drag on for years—usually beyond the next election. The issues of corruption in Westminster between 1986 and 1990 may not be resolved until the next century. That is absolutely bizarre. Therefore, in all that I say about Brent council—I am restricting myself to Brent council—I do not for one minute suggest that corruption is simply and solely a problem only of the Conservative party. I went to the Metropolitan fraud squad and asked it to investigate four Labour councillors on Brent council almost a decade ago. I regret the fact that the Metropolitan fraud squad was unable to find sufficient evidence to proceed, because I had not the slightest doubt that there was a real case to answer. The problem with the Bill, as much as everyone welcomes it and will vote for it, is that it will not really help root out corruption. What I have discovered in endless sessions with Price Waterhouse and Co., the current auditors for Brent council, the district auditor, who was the council's auditor until recently, the Metropolitan police fraud squad, and in other communications with the charity commissioners and everybody else, is that there is not one body with which one can raise a concern which has the whole range of powers to get in there and sort it out quickly. I have not the slightest doubt that corruption relating to public officials, whether councillors or Members of Parliament, and however small the sums of money, is more damaging than corruption in the private sector, because it corrupts the whole structure of government and the public perception of it. When people get away with corruption, the way is opened for people who want to get involved in politics in order to enrich themselves. Therefore, I would like an audit service with almost a subsidiary police department that would be able to haul such people in for some pretty grim questioning and to keep them in custody, without any right of silence or legal representation, until the issue is resolved. A much tougher standard should apply to public figures than to the general public. When one volunteers to enter public life, one should be prepared to accept and work under such a constraint. Given the amount of time that the Government spent investigating what went on at the Greater London council without ever finding any discrepancy or anything on which they could proceed, I make it clear that I had no objection to the work of the GLC being investigated and took considerable pride in the fact that nothing was ever produced to stain its 1981-85 administration. I turn to the Ad Shop and the scandal on Brent council. I have tabled two early-day motions that summarise the report. It is a vast and bulky report which, in the way that it has been presented, has attempted to intimidate councillors and therefore prevent them from raising its contents. How bizarre! The loss of £400,000 of public money by one small council department comes to light, and an independent police officer is appointed to investigate it. He conducts a detailed investigation and produces an enormous report—pretty much the size of a substantial English dictionary—yet it is not then given to councillors so that they can discuss it openly. Instead, the leader of council, Councillor Blackman, insists that it is dealt with in the closed session of the council meeting. He insisted that it was given to Securicor to distribute. Presumably, Securicor staff turned up with their helmets and batons in case the councillors turned nasty. Securicor was told by Councillor Blackman, "You cannot give it to the councillors until they have signed an undertaking that they will not talk about it to anybody"—including local Members of Parliament—"otherwise they will be at risk." There were all sorts of threats. The report is printed on bright red paper so that it cannot be photocopied. To be doubly certain, every sheet of the report, which is several inches thick, has the name of the councillor receiving it woven into the paper. Can hon. Members imagine the cost of producing a report on that basis, in an attempt to suppress debate? It will not work because the report says that the allegations about corruption are true. It says that the Ad Shop, the semi-privatised section of Brent council that placed adverts and recruited staff, managed to lose £400,000. Why cannot the auditor investigate that? Why does Brent council have to go outside the normal audit service and, at additional expense, bring in a former police officer to investigate it? Councillor Buckley, who was the chair of the Brent Business Board and therefore directly responsible for the Ad Shop, had what is now called "a clear and substantial non-pecuniary interest" in respect of Ruth Jackson, the officer concerned. I understand that, in Private Eye, it is to replace the concept of "Ugandan conversations". The affair was reported to the chief executive—a change in local government procedure of which I was not aware. Apparently, when a councillor has an affair with a council officer it is one's duty, under the national code of conduct, to report that matter to the chief executive. The affair was reported to the chief executive in November 1993, a month after it began. Therefore, we must ask whether the chief executive told the leader of the council about the affair and whether he warned the councillor concerned that it would be unwise of him to chair meetings dealing with the particular area of council business where he had a personal involvement with a member of staff. Now, the district auditor is to be called in. The former police officer, Derek Owen, says that he has found £23,800 of the expenditure—out of the £400,000 that has been lost—and which has been spent on alcohol, lunches and flying the entire department to Schiphol international airport, where it hired the VIP lounge for a one-hour business meeting of the department. We can only imagine what would have happened if Lambeth council had done that. Conservative Members would have been very unhappy. Of course, there could be no justification for any council doing that. I hope that the district auditor, even with the present limited powers, will investigate the matter and, if it is necessary, issue a surcharge. The report shows that at every stage Councillor Buckley intervened to try to prevent the matter from coming to light. He had the support of the leader of the council, Councillor Blackman, who was complicit at every stage. The final devastating point is that the report concludes that the problem arose because of the drive to privatise everything without proper thought and planning. I shall directly quote the report as it is another matter that should be investigated. It is clear that it has incurred considerable losses for the council, not just the Ad Shop. The report states that the drive to privatise Brent council into 170 separate business units was flawed byand that this"the failure … to implement a sound infrastructure in support of the business units from inception, coupled to an almost total lack of positive or effective monitoring"
I hope that, as the auditor begins his investigation, other hon. Members on both sides of the House will sign the early-day motion calling on Councillor Blackman to ensure that the matter is debated in public and that both he and Councillor Buckley do not vote on an issue for which they clearly have a direct responsibility."was the primary cause of the Ad Shop's demise and subsequent closure."
Order. Before the hon. Gentleman continues, I should point out that we are debating the Second Reading of a Bill. The hon. Gentleman's comments are interesting and fascinating and while they may well have a bearing on the Bill, he has not established that for some time. Therefore, I ask him to relate his comments to the Bill.
I was about to refer to the Bill when I moved on to my second item, which is the range of investigations which are currently under way. I have seen the auditor, the old district auditor, Price Waterhouse and the Metropolitan police fraud squad. I have written to the Director of Public Prosecutions. I have been all over the place, and written to the charity commissioners and Her Majesty's Customs and Excise, because VAT fraud is involved. At every stage, people have passed the matter on to somebody else, or said that if I had information, I should give it to somebody else.
I would like to see amendments to the Bill—I hope that they will be tabled in Committee—which will give the audit system total power to get stuck in to these matters. I have had endless correspondence with the DPP and the police, and both have said that they have looked at different parts of the matter. But we need someone who is able to look at the totality of corrupt practices in local government and someone who has enhanced powers to deal with the problem. Nowhere is that more necessary than in the case of Brent council. I shall give a list of the present problems in Brent. Police investigations have taken place into Councillor Bill Duffin, former councillor Leslie Winters, former councillor Nkechi Amalu Johnson and former councillor Judith Harper. These investigations are on different matters. The ombudsman is investigating Councillor Duffin again, and Councillor David Tobert. The district auditor is investigating the council leader Councillor Blackman, and Councillors Cormach Moore—the Conservative chief whip—Alan Wall, Jack Sayers and Richard Buckley. An internal council auditor is investigating Councillors Buckley, Blackman, Wall, Moore, Sayers and Carol Shaw. This is nonsense. There should be one body or one individual to whom members of the public, councillors and Members of Parliament can go to make their complaints. Such an individual would be able to draw all the matters together and come to the right conclusions, because—at present—that is impossible. I estimate that I have spent an entire working week in the past 18 months in the company of Price Waterhouse, the district auditor and the fraud squad. How many members of the public can do that? How many councillors have that time? I have been ably assisted by two diligent councillors from Brent, Steve Crabb and John Duffy, who have spent virtually their entire time on the council digging into the files. That is not going to happen in most areas, as most people do not have that sort of time. What we have discovered in all this is an endless series of multiple and overlapping examples of corruption. I have referred to the case of Bill Duffin. Although the Metropolitan police fraud squad recommended prosecution to the Crown Prosecution Service, the CPS—quite unwisely—decided not to proceed. Mr. Duffin was in the ridiculous position of being chair of the housing committee while working for a local landlord specialising in bed-and-breakfast accommodation. Mr. Duffin took his employer to meet officials without revealing who he was. He did so to try to find out ways in which his employer could increase his take on housing benefit, a matter of immediate concern to the Government who are concerned about current housing benefit bills. Fortunately, when the matter came to light—and despite the fact that the Crown Prosecution Service decided not to proceed against him—Mr. Duffin was removed from his position by the whole council. Individual Conservative councillors, to whom I pay my respects, voted to remove one of their colleagues because they felt that corruption had been sufficiently proved. The most serious example of what has been going on—I know that you will remember it from some Adjournment debates on the subject, Madam Deputy Speaker—is the Irish centre. This is the most distressing case, and the case on which I spent virtually all of my working week spread over 18 months with the auditors and the fraud squad. I was desperately trying to push everyone in the same direction so that we could reach a conclusion. The simple facts of the case are that a council grant of £231,000 was paid for building works to be done at the centre. Not all the works were done, and not all the money was spent. Three councillors—Councillors Wall, Moore and Sayers, to whom I have referred—sat on the management committee of the Irish centre. They were present when it was decided not to proceed with spending the grant for the purposes for which it was given—namely, to provide access for disabled persons and changing rooms for actors, singers and dancers. Instead, it was decided to spend the money on building a bigger bar. Those councillors felt no need to report that to the council. Instead they sat there and decided all sorts of other peculiar things. Although they were in receipt of public money they decided not to have a contract with a regular recognised builder, but to do a great big "on the lump" job, with people turning out day by day and being paid cash in hand without any real records or other checks. I wrote to the leader, Councillor Blackman, asking what he intended to do about that, but I have never had a reply. Rather than trying to sort out what had been going on, Councillor Blackman had been trying to secure political support, and was prepared to pay out council tax payers' money for that purpose. I have written to the present district auditor, and things are slowly trundling on. But we are talking about events that happened in 1992, 1993 and 1994, and I am still not in the happy position of being able to see a district auditor's report, because it is still being worked on. Things are not yet as bad as in Westminster, which is the most serious case, but they are bad enough. We want a new set of powers to enable district auditors not only to proceed on such issues, but to move speedily, so that their investigations do not become almost historic. By the time the situation in Westminster involving Lady Porter is sorted out, she may well have died, in view of the length of time that it is taking. I see Conservative Members chuckling at that idea. Perhaps they are not fans of Lady Porter any more—although at the time they could not get enough of seeing her and advocating her cause. What concerns me most is the length of time involved. Where there is a suspicion of fraud the issue should be resolved rapidly, so that even if the police decide that there is no case to take to court, and there will be no prosecution, the issue is resolved so that the public can make up their own minds. Even if there is no question of simple illegality, the issue is whether things have gone beyond the bounds of what is considered broadly acceptable. I shall not go through all the details, because they have been the subject of various Adjournment debates. However, the key to the issue is the fact that when people started to raise concerns about the Brent Irish centre, rather than resolve the matter, Councillor Blackman covered it all up. When members of the public wrote to him saying that there was a problem and that things were going wrong, his supporters on the management committee voted to expel the people who were raising the concerns. People have often come to me and said that they are unhappy about something being done by a Labour council or a Labour councillor, and my first response is to say, "Let me send the matter straight to the police. Let us call in the auditor." I do not have the resources to investigate such matters, and it seems bizarre that even with the new powers in the Bill there will be no real compulsion for a council leader to act decisively to bring matters forward. I hope that an amendment will be moved in Committee to give councillors a duty to go immediately to the appropriate authority, whether that be the auditor or the police, with any matter of concern. That duty should extend to Members of Parliament too. The conclusion of the sorry tale of the Brent Irish centre is that while all that was going on, the 1994 elections hove into view. Brent would be a much sought-after jewel in the crown for either party. Brent elections always bring much welcome publicity for Front-Bench Members on both sides of the House, so it tends to be fairly bitterly contested. Clearly in 1994, with a hung council, that was going to be the case. I have referred all the matters to the district auditor, but I am still waiting for him to resolve them. That is sad, but it is probably not his fault, but that of the present limited powers. As in Westminster, people have been tardy in agreeing to meet him, and it has been difficult to get responses from them. In the run-up to the local elections, Councillor Blackman met the organiser of the Brent Irish centre privately, and on 17 March 1994 he agreed to give the centre another £70,000. Part of that money was to pay for the works that the council had already paid for, but which had not been carried out. I am not aware of any other example of a council paying twice a grant to do basic works, yet nobody raised a question. I would have expected the leader of the council to say, "Haven't we paid for this already squire?" But that does not seem to have crossed Councillor Blackman's mind. His only answer was, "How much do you want, and when can you take it?" Another bizarre feature of the further £70,000 grant is that the application was too late. The council's cut-off date for new grant applications had passed, but an exception was made by Councillor Blackman and the deadline was overridden. What is more, when the grant was received the financial year had barely started. I often wait eight or 10 weeks for a reply from Brent council to a letter about a housing benefit case, yet here we have someone who asked for £70,000 in March and received it eight weeks later, with all the terms on which it was to be given changed without reference to a committee. One aspect in particular depresses me, and we need to think about it in connection with the Bill. When I was in local government, as leader of the Greater London council, I could not move without a finance officer and a legal officer authorising every penny of expenditure by the council. If we wanted to spend money there had to be a report, and that report had to be seen by a lawyer. There had to be a concurrent report, and it had to have been seen by the treasurer, too. Yet in Brent £70,000 was paid out, and the only monitoring was that the person who received it would tell the leader of the council what had happened to it. I am amazed that that is legal, and I hope that the Labour party will propose an amendment to the Bill to make it impossible. No council money should ever be spent until there has been an authorised report to a committee. I thought that that was already the law. Clearly there has been much damaging drift in the normal checks and balances in local government. No sooner had Brent Irish centre received its £70,000 grant than an illegal leaflet—I have a copy of it here—was circulated in the main Irish areas of Brent saying, basically "Vote Conservative and defeat the Labour candidates". Lo and behold, the largest swing to the Conservative party anywhere in England took place in the wards where that leaflet was circulated, and control of the council hangs on the casting vote of the mayor. That was not simply a question of financial corruption, and the leader of the council bribing a community group for support. The corruption may even have determined the outcome of the election, so the case is very serious. That was another issue that I raised with the auditor and the police. The police were very helpful, and made a report to the Director of Public Prosecutions, and I got back a nice letter saying that it had not been possible to identify who was actually behind it all. The DPP should have an overall report about the totality of the events, rather than the police investigating the narrow issue of who produced an illegal leaflet while the auditors investigate where the £70,000 has gone. There should be one overall unit. Calling it the district audit service is meaningless to the public; it should be called the anti-corruption unit—a much more popular title, which people would understand and which would clearly define its remit. If one person had been overseeing the whole matter there would have been a firmer response. I wrote to all the individuals concerned and raised the matter with Ministers, saying that I was worried because everybody was looking at separate little bits of the jigsaw and no one could see the influence of the Mr. Big, Councillor Blackman, who had been pulling all the strings. I wrote to the councillors concerned—the three councillors on the management committee and Councillor Blackman—asking them a series of detailed questions. I shall not go through them all now, because I do not want to stretch your patience, Madam Deputy Speaker, but there were three pages containing 13 questions in all. I asked questions such as whether they remembered agreeing the expenditure, whether they remembered seeing the monitoring report, why they had not pointed out the discrepancy to council officers, and whether they had told the leader of the council. I also wrote asking the leader of the council what he had done about it all. Silence. Not a peep. In any new powers for the district auditor we should make certain that the power of prevarication is removed from corrupt officials, Members of Parliament and councillors. I want there to be somebody who can say, "I want those people in today," and they will come in—and if they do not, the police will feel their collars and bring them in. The most obvious example is the delay by many members of Westminster council who wasted the district auditor's time month after month by finding reasons not to meet him. It is outrageous. We would not normally tolerate that. When people commit serious crimes, the police pick up them up and bring them in. Councillors should be grateful that they are invited in to meet the district auditor. Councillors should not have the right to negotiate about when they should meet the district auditor. I have a letter from the Department of the Environment raising those issues. It says:I have a letter from the Treasury Chambers. Customs and Excise had discovered that a lot of money had disappeared and there were irregularities. I asked for a meeting with Customs and Excise to find out where the money had gone. The letter said that, under its rules, Customs and Excise cannot discuss individual issues. That is fair enough in protecting the ordinary taxpayer or honest business from political intervention. However, when VAT fraud by Mr. Brendan Mulkere is part of an overall pattern of corruption, it should come within the district auditor's remit, which should not be narrowly defined. I also have a letter from the Crown Prosecution Service about the leaflet, a copy of which I have here if anyone wishes to see it. The letter says that the CPS has decided not to proceed. I did not, in the first instance, write to the chairman of the Conservative party but a resident in Brent did. That resident had been aware of what was going on with the fraud on the council and wrote to a Mr. Hanley, whom I assume to be the Minister of State, Foreign and Commonwealth Office, the right hon. Member for Richmond and Barnes (Mr. Hanley), on 15 March 1995 detailing £137,000 of grant that was being imaginatively recycled and a whole range of other problems. I shall not mention the constituent's name in case that person does not wish to be pestered by the media. The reply was a letter from Tim Rycroft, special adviser to the party chairman, dated 22 March which said:"Ministers have no general powers to intervene."
he did not do anything about it though—"Thank you for your letter of 15th March 1995 on the subject of the London Borough of Brent. The Chairman has read it with interest"—
"and asked me to thank you for taking the trouble to send it to him.
If I get a letter from a member of the public saying that there is corruption on the local council, I do not pass it to the Labour party and say, "Get a leaflet up about this." I send it on to the police. Why did not the right hon. Member for Richmond and Barnes pass all the allegations, which were clearly overwhelmingly about Labour councils, to the police immediately instead of holding them back for party advantage? The letter concludes:Since the Chairman raised the issue of waste, bureaucracy, mismanagement and corruption in Labour-controlled councils we have received a great many letters on this subject. All are passed to our Research Department who will consider how we might use the information you have given us in our campaign."
This Mr. Rycroft was not even aware that he was talking about a Conservative council. He just thought, "It's another Labour council, let's bang out a leaflet." That is a complete negation of the responsibility of the right hon. Member for Richmond and Barnes to the law to pass damaging matters that have been communicated to him immediately to the proper authority. Finally, I thank the House for having tolerated me. There is one last matter of interest, which I have also raised before: the role of the leader of the council, Councillor Blackman. By one of those accidental miracles that occasionally bring joy to politicians, Councillor Blackman asked if he could have a larger computer. It is right that councils should provide leaders of councils, and the leaders of the opposition groups on councils, with proper computer facilities so that they can conduct their business. No one objects to that. At the same time the leader of the Labour group asked if his computer could be upgraded. One weekend, council officers came in, unaware that there might be a problem, and gave Councillor Blackman a new computer. His old one was so much bigger than the Labour group leader's computer that they decided that rather than waste the taxpayer's money—and I applaud that—they would give the old computer to the leader of the Labour group. It never occurred to them that anything dodgy was happening in the council, so they did not think that there was any point in deleting the files of leader of the council before passing the computer to the leader of the Labour group. No one noticed anything for ages until someone touched the wrong key on the computer and a whole wad of the previous correspondence of Councillor Blackman suddenly spewed forth in great detail. I will not embarrass the Government by repeating that correspondence. Broadly, it was what you would expect: the leader of the council writing to the Secretary of State for the Environment and officials in No. 10 Downing street asking them to rig the rate support grant settlement because there might be a by-election in Brent and they did not want to lose the council. That is rather tasteless but it is not illegal, as I am the first to admit. What was found afterwards was much more sinister—the transcript of a private conversation that a Labour councillor had held in his own home with a member of the public who had come to see him about the corruption at the Irish centre. It is clear that the leader of the council in Brent was worried that Councillors Duffy and Crabb—the people I worked with to expose this stuff—were getting close to exposing the corruption of Brent council and his corrupt use of council funds to bribe the electorate through the £70,000 paid to the Irish centre. Councillor Blackman was involved—I cannot say that he originated it but he was certainly in receipt of what resulted from it—in sending someone to interview Councillor Duffy. That person was wired up to make a clandestine recording, went to Councillor Duffy's house, had a long conversation and passed the tape recording to the leader of the council in Brent, who then no doubt used council staff to transcribe it on to his computer. Councillor Blackman then started a whispering campaign saying that Councillor Duffy might be sued about what he had said at the meeting. I do not know about other hon. Members, but I find it hard to believe that any hon. Member would resort to wiring up members of the public to bug conversations in the homes of opponents. It is certainly not lawful to use council resources to transcribe, circulate and use such transcriptions. I wrote immediately to Councillor Blackman asking for some justification. I have never had a reply. I am not normally one to invoke the Evening Standard in my defence, but it took up the matter up very well and ran a headline that stated:"Although our priority during this local government election campaign remains the promotion of the positive case for voting Conservative, we do intend to continue to expose the lamentable record of our political opponents in local government. Your letter will help us to do so."
That is an honest assessment of the situation. After a long story, the article concluded:"Computer secrets land Tories in rigging row".
Nor was he the day after or any other day since. Councillor Blackman has never once explained anything relating to the grants, the bugging of Labour councillors or his attempt to suppress the debate on the Ad Shop report. I do not believe that corruption is a party issue. What has happened in Brent is that the corruption that people got away with in the last Labour council emboldened others to think that they could do the same. When that happens, people join the party to line their pockets. That has happened in my local party. A local property developer who saw what was happening in Brent joined the local Labour party, signed up all his employees as members of the local branch, took it over and got two cronies selected to stand for the council. He then employed two Conservative councillors, and perhaps even a Liberal, and got them all on the planning committee so that he controlled it. In the time that he was effectively in control of the planning committee, 100 separate planning applications which the council officers had recommended against were granted. That caused some concern in the area. That is why I say give us a district auditor with real powers, who can strike fear into the hearts of corrupt people in whatever party, and give him the powers so that those who abuse their public position cannot hide behind delaying techniques, such as the use of legal advice and so on, to avoid being held to account. Give the district auditor powers to seize documents and meet people immediately so that such matters can be dealt with in the financial year in which they take place, not after the books have been closed some years on down the road. Let us create an audit system with real powers which will mean that corrupt people will lie awake in their beds at night thinking that they may not get away with it. At present, I fear, as what has happened in Brent demonstrates, that it is all too easy for corrupt local councillors to get away with corruption because those who investigate corruption are spread over so many different departments. I hope that by the time the Bill comes back for its Third Reading, we will have created a new national audit service with real teeth and strong police powers to get in there and sort things out a damned sight quicker than is happening at the moment."Mr. Blackman was not available for comment today."
5.19 pm
Hon. Members will be surprised to hear that my speech will not be about Brent but about the Bill, which contains some useful provisions and some measures that are, at the very worst, harmless. I have some concerns about the Bill that I wish to flag up. As the Minister has told us, the Bill falls into three main sections. I do not want to comment on the Bill's second section, which concerns the change to the financial year for the Audit Commission. That seems to be one of the more harmless parts of any Bill that I have seen since I was elected to the House.
I should like to make one or two comments on the third part of the Bill before I return to its heart, the first section. I welcome the third part of the Bill, which concerns the publication of performance indicators, and the fact that local councils now have some flexibility in how they publicise them. In so far as it goes, that measure is welcome. That is a comparatively minor change, however, and does not go far enough. I say that not so much because—as might have been expected—I am concerned about the possibility of local councils publicising their performance indicators in their publications as because I am concerned about the inflexible way in which those indicators will now be publicised in free newspapers. The Bill allows publication in free newspapers so long as those newspapers are delivered to each dwelling in a local authority area. In some of our inner cities, in the more tightly bound urban areas, there may well be places where freebies genuinely are delivered to all the buildings and dwellings. But where a local authority has even a small area of rural countryside, freebies are unlikely to be delivered to each dwelling in that area. After all, it is unreasonable and unrealistic to expect the publisher of a free newspaper to spend money ensuring that his newspaper reaches every little farmstead, where a paperboy may take half an hour to cycle there and back. There are many areas of the country where the distribution of freebies does not extend to every house in the area, nor is it necessary that they should do so for our purposes. Surely the important feature about the publication of performance indicators is that the greatest public breadth of distribution is achieved, the information provided is clear, the scope of the information is right, the information is relevant to local people, and that it is what they want to hear about. At present, we do not have a total distribution system. The problem with performance indicators being publicised only in newspapers that can be purchased is that, as is well known, not every household purchases the local newspaper. We do not have total distribution at present. Surely, we wish to enhance distribution to ensure that more dwellings—not necessarily every dwelling—receive the information. For that reason, this part of the Bill should be greeted with only a half cheer. The heart of the Bill is contained in its first section: the extension of the Audit Commission's remit. The Liberal Democrats do not object to the principle of a commission, which is independent of government, examining the performance of local or national government for the purposes of a genuine audit. That would be valuable, and I support much of what has been said about the enhancement of the Audit Commission's powers. The commission is useful in helping local people to make judgments about the performance of their local authorities and in exposing corruption and general malpractice. We should enhance the commission's powers if possible as it also keeps local councillors on their toes. I should like to criticise some of the aspects of the commission's enhanced role which have been introduced by the changes contained in the Bill. Let me start with a few specific criticisms that worry some of our local authorities now. Over the past few years, local authorities' financial resources have been cut severely. They often have too little money to fulfil even their statutory responsibilities, let alone their discretionary responsibilities. As local authorities have so little money—largely as the result of Government cuts in the money provided—they may be unable to do what they ought to do, let alone what they would like to do. They are concerned that they may, quite unfairly, be blamed for any such failures. It is therefore reasonable that local authorities should, where possible, be given a right to reply to any audit criticisms that are published about them. There is a strong case to be made for any reports based on the new procedures contained in the Bill to be handed to local authorities in draft form before they are published. The authorities should have the right to comment on the reports and to publish their reply to any criticisms that they contain at the same time as they are published. Secondly, there is concern about over-inspection. The Government are supposedly keen on deregulation and on removing the bureaucratic controls that harm the organisations in this country. They seem to be concerned about deregulation mainly where it affects businesses, but local authorities also need to maximise their income and minimise their expenditure. There is no doubt that the inspections in local authorities which are now taking place with ever-increasing frequency take up a great amount of the time of officers, particularly middle-management officers and the management tier that has been particularly hard hit by Government cuts in local authorities. Thirdly, I do not yet believe that the Government have given us sufficient assurance that they understand the need for confidentiality over some of the material involve. That is particularly true in the social services sector, which contains some highly sensitive material which would be seen if an audit inspection was carried out. It is important that the confidentiality of that material should be properly safeguarded. I hope that when the Minister winds up the debate he will give us further assurances that he recognises the importance of the issue and has considered all the difficulties that it may entail. There are some more general criticisms of the Bill that need to be aired. The central principle underpinning the concept of auditing local government is that the auditors are independent of central Government and of the governing political philosophy of the day. That condition has not been satisfactorily met, even under the present arrangements; but the Government are clearly determined to tighten their grip still further on the Audit Commission, which is one of the Bill's dangers. The Bill goes some way towards transforming the Audit Commission into an instrument of the centralised state, in confrontation with local government— a significant danger. But of course we have come to expect such measures from the Conservatives. They have taken every opportunity to centralise power around their governing clique; they have undermined democracy at every turn and they have even pulled the rug from under their own Back Benchers and the House. We no longer have even Cabinet government; we have bureaucratic government through quangos—that is the Conservatives' way and they now seem to be seeking to impose an ever-more centralised bureaucracy on local authorities. It is interesting that the Labour party is now taking very much the same track. It also intends to bureaucratise local government in a way that might even make Conservative Members wince. The Labour party is convinced that it will soon be pulling the Whitehall strings and it finds centralised bureaucratic government all the more attractive now that it believes that it may have the pleasure of inflicting it. We all know why the Tory and Labour parties are so keen to increase central Government's control over local authorities: they are both terrified—we have seen examples of it this afternoon—of the way in which some of the councils in their control may carry out absurd policies that destroy their reputations as political parties. However, neither of those parties is prepared to set up a new democratic system for local authorities that could return real control to the local electorate and ensure that those councils were made properly accountable once again. That is what the Bill needs; it needs the local electorate to be in charge, not just the auditors. The problem is that sober auditing of government at any level is all very well, but in the end the only real test of the performance of government or of local councils is the judgment of local people—the judgment of the electorate, expressed through the ballot box. That judgment can be properly expressed only if we use a fair and representative voting system. That is not nowadays self-interest from the Liberal Democrat point of view. Liberal Democrats benefit from the present voting system in local elections. It is the Conservatives who have been annihilated in local government, in spite of the fact that they retain a certain share of the vote. I have no doubt that the over-representation of Liberal Democrat councillors at the expense of the Tories does produce better local government; nevertheless, it is unfair and reduces accountability—unfair, that is, to Tory voters. I am sure that local people are better judges of the performance of their local authority than the local auditor. Arming people with properly audited information can only enhance local people's judgment. However, let us have the courage to ensure that, when people cast their vote, that vote counts and makes a real difference. That is what gives people control over wayward local authorities. The Bill further shifts the balance of scrutiny of local authorities from local people to central Government, and that cannot be right. The Bill compromises the financial independence of the Audit Commission, and that cannot be right. The Bill changes the commission's reporting function so that it is an instrument of Ministers, destroying the arm's-length relationship that is intended to encourage impartiality, and that cannot be right. Those changes signify a fundamental shift in the role of the Audit Commission. They undermine the principle of local accountability. I do not expect many Labour or Conservative Members to give open support to that view, but they would be wise to contemplate what type of local democracy is being built. With no written constitution, local democracy depends on Members of the House exercising restraint in seeking to consolidate their grip of local government. Local government is not meant to be convenient for the governing party of the day. It is meant to serve local people and to reflect their wishes. Auditing has a role to play in that process, but the Bill carries with it the danger that it may be used to strengthen the powers of central Government at the expense of local government, and that is something that the Liberal Democratic party, at least, will do anything that it can to prevent.5.32 pm
The Bill is broadly to be welcomed, and I join my hon. Friends in doing so. However, I am worried that, unamended, the Bill does not tackle the significant problems that confront us in Brent in my constituency, alongside that of my hon. Friend the Member for Brent, East (Mr. Livingstone), or take into account the considerable anxiety that constituents throughout the country have about the quality and probity of local government.
In my borough, the well of local government has been poisoned by the ruling Conservative clique on the council. I very much hope that the Minister, in replying to the debate, does not seek to push to one side the anxieties expressed by my hon. Friend the Member for Brent, East on the basis that they are purely partisan and party political. To do so would be not to do justice to the significant worries among all decent people, whatever their party, about what is going on in Brent. Brent is truly a scandalous borough. We need the auditors to start work in the town hall as soon as possible, with a full range of powers, but Brent is a diabolical borough—diabolical almost in the literal sense—and there are some ways in which Brent town hall has as much need of an exorcist as it does of an auditor. It is as though, like something out of a movie by John Carpenter, a fog has descended on Brent town hall, and within that place all sorts of murky goings-on and doings occur, the fallout of which descends on the hapless people who are under its auspices and who dwell in the borough and rely on services under its control. The stories relayed by my hon. Friend the Member for Brent, East all have a basis in fact and all are a cause of concern, but the deepest on-going public scandal in Brent is the crisis in public services that affects each and every one of my constituents. I shall simply outline that crisis in respect of one matter of genuine concern to all the people of Brent, South—a matter that should not be the subject of party political controversy, because, apparently, hon. Members on both sides of the House agree about it. Indeed, if the Prime Minister is to be believed in relation to that subject—nursery education—it is as much a priority for the Minister and Conservative Members as it is for Labour Members, because the Prime Minister made great play of his commitment to nursery education for three and four-year-olds in speeches that he has made this year. However, in Brent, nursery education has been the subject of a massive continuing scandal. We are entitled to ask ourselves whether, if the Bill were in place, it would enable the citizens of Brent—those men and women worried about their children and about what happens to the nurseries that they attend—to be satisfied that the Secretary of State has given the Audit Commission the power to end the crisis that afflicts Brent nursery education. The one great flaw in the Bill is the extent to which it relies on the willingness of the Secretary of State to make the referral to the Audit Commission—to make the request of the Audit Commission that is referred to in clause 1—before the Audit Commission is empowered and able to carry out the works necessary to produce a report on the condition of that aspect of social service provision. It requires the Secretary of State to be satisfied; it requires an act of will on the part of the Secretary of State for the Audit Commission to become involved. My constituents are worried because they have little confidence in the Secretary of State. They have little confidence in his willingness to take account of their worries when that would require a criticism of a council controlled by members of the same party. In Brent, we live with, on one hand, a Conservative Government, albeit one supposedly committed to nursery education, and, on the other, a Conservative council whose actions threaten every voluntary nursery in Brent—every voluntary nursery in my constituency—with closure as a result of the cuts that are to be imposed by the council on the voluntary sector. Young children are currently receiving high-quality nursery education within the voluntary sector. I received an anguished letter from a parent of a child at Stonebridge community nursery, in one of the most deprived areas of my constituency. It is so deprived that a housing action trust has been established on the local estate. Unless the Secretary of State for the Environment is prepared to intervene, parents and children from that nursery are faced with a cut of some £625,000 in the budget of the 12 voluntary sector nurseries in the borough of Brent. That cut will reduce the provision from the council to zero. With a cut of more than £500,000, there is no way that the voluntary nursery sector in Brent will be able to continue. People simply are unable to afford nursery education without the commitment of the local authority to its provision. The council has received deputations and petitions. The Stonebridge community nursery had a tea party outside the town hall, with tuna sandwiches and orange squash—not perhaps the most appealing fare, but it tasted good on that particular occasion because the cause was a good one. Some Labour councillors turned up, but not one Tory councillor came to that tea party. Maybe the diet was not rich enough for them. Not one turned up, but those councillors know what the impact of their policies will be on voluntary nursery sector in my constituency. What they do, they do not because they do not know the consequences: what they do, they do because they are playing a nasty, political game. The Tories are cutting the budget of the voluntary sector, with a view to setting a council tax figure that will act as a bribe—they believe—to the electorate in Brent to return them at the next local council elections. In that, they are sorely mistaken. People are not fools, and they will not be deceived. Nevertheless, the game is being played, and it makes nonsense of the Government's commitment to nursery education. The citizens of Brent want to know that their interests and their children's interests will be protected by legislation that does not rely on the Secretary of State's willingness to bring in the Audit Commission. They want legislation that creates a sufficiently robust, independent and vigorous process of audit which can highlight the sort of scandal and neglect of basic social service provision represented by that reckless budget cut. That assurance is simply not in the Bill. The Opposition want the people themselves to be empowered. I want those mums who brought their kids to that nursery tea party outside the town hall to know that they do not have to rely on the Secretary of State to bring in the Audit Commission, or on me to request—as I do now—the Under-Secretary to ensure that the Secretary of State intervenes in the case of the scandalous attack on nursery provision in Brent. Those mums, of their own volition as citizens and electors, should be able to bring in the Audit Commission to expose the scandal. We need the sort of robust and vigorous inquiry that the Audit Commission is capable of applying to such a crisis. Clause I recognizesThat is all that those parents want from nursery provision. They want efficient and effective nursery provision, and they want voluntary nurseries to be able to continue to provide high-quality nursery provision to their kids. They want the means themselves to be able to ensure that that happens. My plea today is for the Under-Secretary to do two things, and I hope that he will respond specifically in his reply. First, I want him to agree to meet a deputation of parents from the nursery sector in Brent, with all the Members of Parliament for the London borough of Brent—Conservative and Labour alike. At such a meeting, we could discuss the crisis in provision that affects Brent's nursery education—the threat to the funding of the voluntary sector, and also the pressure on the local authority sector. That is a simple request, and it is one to which the Minister, if there is a genuine commitment on the part of Government to nursery education, should be willing to accede. Many months ago at the start of this crisis, I asked the Conservative chairman of social services in Brent, Councillor Irwin Van Colle, to join a deputation to Ministers. He refused. I made that request in a totally non-partisan spirit to explore—[Interruption.] I see the Under-Secretary, the hon. Member for Croydon, Central (Sir P. Beresford), chuckling. There are people who are willing and prepared to act in a non-partisan way. Very many parents, and workers in the voluntary sector, give their time voluntarily to provide nursery education. Their concerns should not be met by a chuckle from the Under-Secretary, the former leader of Wandsworth council. We know how partisan the hon. Gentleman is, and what he did to Wandsworth. We know how he traduced local government. Just because he is temporarily the Under-Secretary, he should not believe that everybody in local government—of any or all parties—behaves in the same way in which he and his cronies behaved in Wandsworth and in Westminster and the way in which we see them behave in Brent. The Tory party in certain, but not all, of its aspects has made a mockery of local government. The reason why the Tory party is so riven and so split is that there are many good Conservatives who are sickened by what some Conservatives have done to local government. Let us have no more chuckles from the Under-Secretary. He should try to treat this issue with the seriousness that it deserves. That is the first thing that I ask. The second is that careful thought should be given in Committee to the need to ensure that the Audit Commission is empowered and enabled to act at the behest not just of the Secretary of State but of the council tax payers. They have a vested interest in local government and the quality of services and we should be in the business of enabling and empowering the people whom we represent. That is the business of the House and I hope that, in considering the Bill, it performs that business with the interests of the consumer of local government services at heart, rather than those of the political masters who, all too often, in town halls throughout Britain where problems have arisen have acted in a way that is quite contrary to the interests of the people whom they supposedly represent."the importance of improving the economy, efficiency, effectiveness and quality of performance in the discharge of social services functions by local authorities."
5.50 pm
We have had an interesting debate, which I suspect has been more wide ranging than the Government were expecting. However, it should not surprise anyone in the House that Opposition Members are concerned to find means of tackling corruption at every level wherever it may occur, in whatever party or local authority. As my hon. Friend the Member for Brent, South (Mr. Boateng) said, corruption and fraud undermine public service and politicians, so it is in all our interests to take whatever measures are possible to tackle them.
Opposition Members have raised some concerns about aspects of the Bill, but on Second Reading our main concern is that the Bill misses the opportunity to tackle problems in ways for which we have been calling for many a long day. The gaps in the Bill are serious and, in Committee, we shall table amendments to address those failures. Clause 1, as the Minister explained, enables joint studies between the Audit Commission and social service inspectorate into individual authority's social services departments. The principle of that is to be applauded, but there are concerns about changing the role of the Audit Commission, which other hon. Members have expressed and which again we will want to explore in Committee. It is interesting that the Department of the Environment's press release should tell us that the clause fulfils a manifesto commitment—a rare event in this Parliament on which the Minister should be congratulated. It would be niggardly of me to fail to recognise that it is good for Ministers occasionally to fulfil a manifesto commitment. I was last in the shadow Treasury team and we spent most of our time identifying a number of manifesto commitments, particularly with regard to tax, that had been broken. Therefore, I welcome the fact that the Government are at last addressing this matter, albeit that it is a small manifesto commitment. If such joint initiatives between the Audit Commission and the social services inspectorate are to succeed, joint underlying principles need to be behind such work. Not least, client carers and the local authority need to feel ownership of the process. Unless that happens, there will not be any real change or response to ideas generated by such an inspection. That has been a major problem with the reorganisation of the education inspectorate. The reorganisation addressed by the Bill should give the people involved a real feeling of ownership. The outcome of the study in which the Government are engaged should assist in focusing on effectiveness and quality as much as on economy and efficiency. That is particularly relevant when we are considering some of the newer areas of social services responsibility and some of local government's new community care responsibilities. However, as my hon. Friend the Member for Brent, South said—I am not a Londoner so I may confuse bits of Brent—with regard to education, it is not just economy of the service that is important but quality of opportunity and quality of the service. If economies undermine the value and quality of the service, we shall pay the price for many years to come. The social services inspectorate and the Audit Commission should be able to work across the plethora of agencies involved. The role of the private and voluntary sectors in the delivery of service is important throughout local authority services. The Bill should provide much greater clarity on how that will work. I think that most people agree that clauses 3 and 4 are technical changes. We welcome the Minister's response earlier to my hon. Friend the Member for Holborn and St. Pancras (Mr. Dobson) with regard to ensuring that the transition to a new accounting year is transparent and does not hide any problems. We have some concerns about clause 5, particularly those of us who live in rural areas where no newspaper covers the whole area. That is an issue that we shall take up in Committee. Again, it is dogma that is stopping the Government allowing or examining other means of ensuring that performance indicators are properly and widely distributed. As I say, the Bill is a lost opportunity. The Government could have confronted the legitimate public concern that there are gaps and weaknesses within the current system which mean that allegations of maladministration, corruption and serious incompetence within local authorities are either not properly investigated or are investigated only after exceptional diligence on the part of individual councils and citizens. When undertaking lengthy investigations, the district audit service has insufficient local resources and powers. Even when reports are written, leading councillors and officers have considerable power to prevent information from coming into the open. In that regard, I disagree with the hon. Member for Newbury (Mr. Rendel). There is a relationship between the centre and local government. It is important that we shore up and bolster local democratic accountability. That is why the Labour party has addressed in a document the importance of annual elections, of increasing the number of people who vote and of examining how local democracy can be made more effective so that local people feel that they have more influence on what is going on. In addition, there should be the assurance that the relationship with the Government and external organisations, such as the Audit Commission and the district auditor, is such that when local people have a legitimate complaint which has not been properly addressed and which they do not have the power or the means to investigate, the power and the means exist for their complaints to be properly addressed. We have heard some shocking examples of how the system has simply failed. I have been involved in local government for many years and I have disagreed with the actions of several councils. When I was on the national executive of my own party, I was involved in making sure that any concerns in the party or in Labour-controlled local authorities were investigated and addressed. I have always taken that view. However, having recently become local government spokesperson, I have been shocked by the documents concerning the scandals that have been aired in the Chamber this afternoon. They reveal guile and obfuscation, and attempts to ensure that people do not find out about what is happening. Councillors have said, "Yes, I was at the meeting, I even chaired the meeting, but I did not hear the aspects that were discussed when the decision was taken to send homeless families into an asbestos-ridden property." Those scandals beggar belief. Ministers had access to the same documents and did nothing. It is beyond my understanding that they decided to wait. They said, "We cannot do anything, we must put it off and we shall not ask any difficult questions about why this has occurred." We all suffer when such scandals are allowed to continue without being brought to public account. We have seen what has happened in the House in the past year. People outside say, "If one of them is at it, they must all be at it", particularly when Ministers, who must have the right to intervene, decide not to do so. We believe that the district auditor, as an external, independent officer, should have the opportunity properly to investigate and pursue allegations of corruption, fraud and maladministration. The Bill gave the Government the opportunity to pursue them much more vigorously. We have heard examples in Westminster, in Lambeth and in Brent that do nobody any good and are a matter of shame for everyone in public life. That is why those of us who are in public life and who want high standards in public life are determined that there should be mechanisms for external independent assessment that can be followed up by action. The Government have dragged their feet and have neglected to give the Audit Commission or district auditors the power that they need. The stories that we have heard about Westminster councillors being supported by their local Members of Parliament in vilifying the district auditor and the Audit Commission are a disgrace. The Minister should say today that such behaviour is not acceptable. My hon. Friend the Member for Holborn and St. Pancras asked the Minister whether he would guarantee that the report on asbestos and sending homeless families into those two contaminated blocks would be published in the House so that we could make sure that it was available for scrutiny by the electors of Westminster. The Minister did not give that assurance earlier. I hope that he will do so now because there is every indication that the council does not intend to publish that report. That in itself is a scandal, and if it is true I hope that the Government will put it right. The Minister has an opportunity to do so today. My hon. Friend the Member for Brent, East (Mr. Livingstone) mentioned the lack of openness in response to two reports. The first deals with the Brent Irish centre. Brent council intends that the district auditor's report, which includes the report on the Brent Irish centre, will go to a sub-committee that about eight councillors are entitled to attend. In the past, Labour councillors have been refused the right to ask questions or raise issues concerning reports. They were told that they have that right only at full council meetings. The district auditor's report will go to a sub-committee on 20 December. It is clearly intended that it will disappear or nobody will notice it. Subsequently, it will have to be considered by the full council, although on past experience, because it will have been discussed by a so-called sub-committee, attempts may be made to say that the report or part of it has been agreed and therefore cannot be discussed by the full council. No Minister would want to uphold that position. Therefore, I seek an assurance that the Minister will say that the district auditor's report should not be considered in that way and that he will promise to do what he can to ensure that it is considered openly and can be discussed. The second report discussed by my hon. Friend the Member for Brent, East is the subject of an external report by an ex-police officer. That report is now available, but is not intended to be made public. It will be discussed by a sub-committee, but great efforts have been made to ensure that councillors are intimidated and feel unable to discuss it, even with the people they represent. It appears that one of the main people named in the report—the chairman of the business committee—may well turn up at the meeting to defend himself, although the report makes it clear that he has a direct interest in the matter and should take no part in any discussion or decision. He has insisted, however, that the relevant part of the report be taken below the line although the advice from council officers is that it should be taken above the line. That is local government jargon for whether that part of the report is considered in secret, in closed session, or in open session. I believe that it should be taken in open session. It relates to serious allegations and concerns about the spending of public money in the borough. The electors of Brent have a right to know what has been found. They have the right to know what is set out in the report. I hope that the Minister will say that he believes that the report should be discussed in public and that the electors of Brent have the right to know what is contained in its findings. I hope that the Minister will take the opportunity to support what the Prime Minister has said about the citizens charter and the free availability of information, especially when it relates to the public sector. In many senses the Bill seems innocuous. In reality, however, it raises incredibly difficult problems and issues for us all in determining the probity of public office and what Parliament should do to ensure that public probity is upheld at every step of the way and that fraud and corruption are tackled seriously at every turn. The Government and the Minister have the opportunity to demonstrate their commitment to upholding the public service and probity within it. I hope that they will begin to show this evening that they will work with us, the Opposition, during the Bill's passage to ensure that everybody knows that we, hon. Members on both sides of the House, are determined that no one who is in public office will be colluded with or given the opportunity to wriggle, squirm or anything else. We must give the Audit Commission and district auditors every power to ensure that they are able properly to tackle any abuses.6.12 pm
As everyone is aware, it is a short Bill. During the debate I suddenly recognised that it was seasonal and was turning into a Christmas tree. When a plea was attached to it for proportional representation I thought that we had reached the pits. To use the phrase of the hon. Member for Durham, North-East (Ms Armstrong)—
Durham, North-West.
Retaliation has struck home early. I have in mind the hon. Lady's phrase "the bits of Brent".
I was intrigued by the points made by the hon. Member for Brent, South (Mr. Boateng). If we followed his suggested procedure, the auditor would be a policy maker. The hon. Member for Brent, East (Mr. Livingstone) made a spectacular range of accusations. I hope and anticipate that my right hon. Friend the Member for Richmond and Barnes (Mr. Hanley), the Minister of State, Foreign and Commonwealth Office, was notified of the accusations and the fact that his name would be mentioned. I assume that that is the position.I overlooked that and I apologise to the House. I was dealing with the letter that was read out.
I shall leave my right hon. Friend to respond to that. It is sad that the usual courtesies were overlooked in the light of the comments that have been made.
Much has been said about quality. It forms part of the drive of local authorities and the auditor and it is reflected in the various restrictions and pressures that are applied by Government upon local authorities. I was intrigued when the hon. Member for Holborn and St. Pancras (Mr. Dobson) talked in one breath about quality and then about differences in costs for various services between Camden and Westminster. I suspect that the hon. Gentleman's figures are wrong. If he checks them—I have yet to make a check—I suspect that he will find that there is a difference between collection on one side and collection and disposal on the other. If he examines quality of service, he will learn how often bin service and street cleaning goes round Westminster, especially some areas of it, compared with those services in Camden. It is a matter of paying appropriately for quality.The figures that I quoted were from the indicators of performance published by the Audit Commission. The Minister should not question them. If he has other figures, they cannot be right, or else the Audit Commission is wrong.
The hon. Gentleman's intervention shows a lack of understanding. There is a difference between collection and collection and disposal. Some constructive points have been made. Two of them were introduced by the hon. Member for Newbury (Mr. Rendel) and reiterated by the hon. Member for Durham, North-West. They were related to the distribution of a newspaper. There is a reference in the Bill to "all reasonable steps". That is one of the provisions that we may have to consider in Committee.
The district auditor system, which is an attachment, as it were, that provides rations to the Audit Commission, the police, the fraud squad and the monitoring officer, has had considerable success in reducing corruption, improving quality and bringing some of the malcontents or difficult people who have broken the law before the courts. Perhaps the most obvious example would be Preston, which is a fairly well-known Labour authority where there was marked corruption by a combination of officers and Labour members. The proper forces took action. People were fined and others went to gaol. I understand that one gentleman is still being sought. He is in India. The authorities there are looking after him because he has been involved in drugs and drug importation. I shall be succinct, bearing in mind the time that we have been discussing the Bill. Three measures were outlined by my hon. Friend the Minister of State. First, the Audit Commission should have powers to work alongside the social services inspectorate of the Department of Health. I think that everybody understands that. There is an independence of that inspectorate that has not been recognised to date by Opposition Members. I think that the power to work alongside will be generally welcomed. Secondly, there is the change in the financial year. I think that that change is a correct one and is understood. An awkward question was asked, to which there was a response. Thirdly, local authorities, as they have asked, will have greater freedom to publish annual information in the form of statistics in alternative free newspapers. We shall certainly reflect on what has been said about that. In conclusion—Will the Minister give way?
No, I shall not give way. The Bill is not a Christmas tree.
On a point of order, Madam Deputy Speaker. Will you intervene to inform the Minister that many of the issues raised during the debate are worthy of consideration and that he should respond to them?
That is not a point of order for the Chair. The Chair is not responsible for the content of speeches.
On a further point of order, Madam Deputy Speaker.
I hope that it is a different point of order.
It is, Madam Deputy Speaker. My point of order relates to the usual customs and courtesies of the House, of which you, Madam Deputy Speaker, are the sole arbiter.
We have been debating the Bill for about two-and-a-half hours. Important and detailed questions have been asked about specific clauses. I raised a question in relation to clause 1 about the independence of the Audit Commission and its right in publishing the figures that it produced recently on the funding of education in boroughs—Order. The hon. Gentleman must come to the point of order.
I raised a specific point in relation to the Bill, arising from the Minister's opening speech and from other matters that were raised during the two and a half hour debate. Is it in accordance with the usual customs and courtesies of the House, with which the Minister must surely be acquainted by now, to ignore completely those points in summing up, and to proceed willy-nilly without any reference to the debate that has taken place? Is not that treating the proceedings of the House with contempt, and should not that be deplored?
That is the same point of order as before, because the Chair is not responsible for the content of speeches. I point out to the hon. Gentleman that if the Bill receives its Second Reading there will be ample opportunity in Committee to deal with more detailed points.
I was trying to keep to the Bill—
Then deal with clause 1, will you?
Order. No seated interventions. I know that the hon. Member for Brent, South is very keen to observe the courtesies and conventions of the House, and that is one of them.
There is no doubt about the independence of the Audit Commission and the social services inspectorate, and its equivalent in Scotland. Its independence is quite clear, and I think that every hon. Member in the House sees and accepts that.
Local authorities need clarity in preparing the performance information for 1995-96. The Bill will help that. As I said, it looks as though it will become a Christmas tree, with extra additions, which should make its Committee stage somewhat more interesting than it might otherwise have been. In general, I think that everyone in the House accepts that the clauses as outlined are for the betterment of the people of this country in relationship to the Audit Commission's role in producing a good quality service through local government.Question put and agreed to.
Bill accordingly read a Second time, and committed to a Standing Committee, pursuant to Standing Order No. 61 (Committal of Bills).
Chemical Weapons Bill
Considered in Committee.
[DAME JANET FOOKES in the Chair]
Clause 1 to 19 agreed to.
Clause 20
Licences
6.23 pm
I beg to move amendment No. 10, in page 14, line 29, leave out subsection (5), and insert—
'(5) An order under subsection (4) shall be made by statutory instrument and shall not be made unless a draft of the order has been laid before and approved by resolution of each House of Parliament'.
With this, it will be convenient to consider amendment No. 9, in clause 23, page 16, line 23, leave out subsection (6) and insert—
'(6) The regulations shall be made by statutory instrument, and no such regulations shall be made unless a draft of them has been laid before and approved by resolution of each House of Parliament.'.
The amendments seek to change the powers vested in the Secretary of State to introduce regulations under clauses 20 and 23 by negative order and make them subject to the affirmative procedure.
We must be clear about the extensive powers that are given to the Secretary of State under the Bill. Clause 20 gives the Secretary of State substantial powers in the granting of licences to operate under the chemical weapons convention. Clause 23 lays down the punishments, which include prison sentences, for those who fail to comply with the terms of the legislation. The powers proposed in clauses 20 and 23, to which the amendments refer, were mentioned by a number of hon. Members on Second Reading. In response, the Minister said:clause 23—"if hon. Members are worried about it—
I think that all hon. Members who took part in the debate, and probably those who are prepared to take part tonight, would accept the underlying principles of the clauses, but on Second Reading they were described as "draconian". I do not think that I used that word, although I was accused of doing so. I do not think that I would use that word, but if I did I would not want to continue to use it. The word was used by at least one other hon. Member in the debate, and I can understand why, because quite extensive powers are vested in the Secretary of State to take action in relation to those who default on the legislation. It is important that the powers should be open to proper scrutiny by the House, and that is the purpose of the amendments that we are considering. The best way to achieve that is by affirmative order. We do not say that simply for the sake of argument or to delay the House but rather because the scientific community, which will be most affected by the clauses, is somewhat apprehensive about what will be produced in the regulations. It is calling for more transparency and more direct parliamentary scrutiny of all aspects of the Bill, and we shall deal with some of the concerns later. It is in the day-to-day running of the UK national authority—the function that the DTI will perform on behalf of this country—that the effectiveness of the Bill will be measured. It is essential, therefore, that the regulations are effective if we are to keep to the spirit of the convention. Increased parliamentary scrutiny will lead to more thought and debate on the minute details of the regulations, and therefore ensure that they are more likely to be workable. On Second Reading, the Minister gave certain assurances on appeal procedures, which will apply to licence applications under clause 20. His assurances are undoubtedly welcome, but why will he not accept the next logical step and allow them to be subject to the affirmative procedure? Clause 23, to which amendment No. 9 refers, can be described only as being somewhat obtuse. Subsection (1) reads:we shall listen to their concerns."—[Official Report, 23 November 1995; Vol. 267, c. 846.]
If anything is an all-singing, all-dancing clause, this must be it. As was stated on Second Reading, it is a wonderful piece of parliamentary draftsmanship, but its precise meaning and implementation cause concern within the scientific community. Amendment No. 9 seeks merely to ensure that when the Secretary of State finally decides who will be covered by the clause his decision should be subject to the open scrutiny of the House. Again, I would argue that the best means of doing so is by affirmative order. Let me stress again that the scientific community generated the aims of the amendments. It is not a case of arguing for arguing's sake, or of advancing a negative view that should be positive. Those who will be directly affected by the legislation feel that the clauses will have a significant impact on their work in science and with chemical products. They believe that, in the cause of transparency and accountability, all aspects of the Bill should be dealt with openly by the House. The best and most effective way of doing that is not to slide regulation in through the back door, in the dark of the night, by means of the negative procedure: it should be done by affirmative resolution. The Minister has shown a willingness to listen to some of the reasoned arguments that have been advanced in our debates on the Bill. I hope that he has now given more thought to the points that were made on Second Reading, as well as what I have said. I ask him to respond positively, and to accept the principles and spirit of the amendments."The Secretary of State may make regulations requiring persons of any description specified in the regulations to inform him that they are of such a description."
6.30 pm
Clause 23(1) is important as it stands. It is not in the least confusing. It is because of such provisions that we have such high standards: it is because of the wording of subsection (1) that we can expect the entire scientific and industrial community affected by the legislation to accept the responsibility to say, "This applies to me. It applies to my scientific institution, and to my company."
It is because such standards can he guaranteed as a result of the Bill that Britain will be at the forefront of countries promoting the convention. I hope that my hon. Friend the Minister will feel able to suggest that I might be right about that, and will robustly defend the way in which the legislation has been framed. We are talking about only one sentence. Like the hon. Member for East Kilbride (Mr. Ingram), I am opposed to parliamentary gobbledegook—I like crystal-clear English—and I believe that we have it here.The hon. Gentleman has made an important point. I hope that he will not think it offensive of me to ask him whether he speaks for his constituents in Porton.
I hope that I do. I have not conducted a referendum in my constituency, but my constituents have not said that they are concerned about this provision; nor have they asked me to promote the idea of a positive resolution of the statutory instrument or regulation that will follow.
The hon. Gentleman may not have received such representations, but does he accept that representations to that effect have been made in the scientific community? We are now speaking not just for our constituencies but in the wider scientific interest. Does he accept that such concerns have been raised in the wider community, and does he accept the reasons for that? The concern is less about clause 23(1) than about the way in which the regulations will apply, and the need for the House to exercise proper accountability and scrutiny by using an affirmative rather than a negative procedure.
Of course I accept that. According to the briefing on the Bill that hon. Members have received, a body of opinion is in favour of it, and I am sure that my hon. Friend the Minister will argue his corner. Later, when we deal with another part of the Bill, I shall seek to demonstrate that some of the "scientific advice" that we have been given is flawed.
Perhaps we should wait to hear what the Minister says, but I agree with my hon. Friend the Member for East Kilbride (Mr. Ingram) that there is concern about transparency. The Royal Society of Chemistry is not alone in asking for a proper, well-defined and transparent advisory structure within the Department of Trade and Industry. We shall listen carefully to what the Minister has to say in answer to the question that has been asked.
In regard to transparency, it is not just this Bill with which we must be concerned in the long term. I believe that 1996 is the time for the review of the 1972 convention on biological weapons. Transparency may be even more important in that connection.I support my hon. Friend the Member for East Kilbride (Mr. Ingram). In fact, amendment No. 9 was tabled in my name. I am pleased to have had the support of the Leader of the Opposition and the rest of the Front-Bench team, but it happened merely because I got in first.
Both amendments are simple. They call for an affirmative procedure when the regulations are made. Clause 23 confers wide-ranging powers. Those powers will clearly be necessary if the convention is to be enforced properly, but there will be civil liberty implications and I do not think it unreasonable to demand an affirmative rather than a negative procedure. That will allow much more accountability. I have consulted a Library paper, which suggests that the system is basically the same as that applying to early-day motions. No time has been fixed, and in regard to the majority of cases no time is likely to be available for a debate. The affirmative procedure involves more stringent parliamentary controls: legislation must receive parliamentary approval before it comes into force. That does not necessarily mean that there must be a debate, but it gives us an opportunity to examine objections based on civil liberties if many Members of Parliament submit them. I believe that Parliament will pass the provisions come what may, provided that their impact on civil liberties will not be devastating, because we want the principles of the convention to be enforced, but we need accountability to Parliament.I understand hon. Members' concern that the appeals process should be fair, independent and transparent, and I thank the hon. Member for East Kilbride (Mr. Ingram) for his comments. I agree with my hon. Friend the Member for Salisbury (Mr. Key): it is intended that the Secretary of State will use the order-making power in the clause to adopt the model appeals provisions that are seen to be prescribed by order under the Deregulation and Contracting Out Act 1994. That Act requires model appeal procedures to be prescribed by order, so that they can be incorporated in legislation with or without modifications. We intend to adopt the model appeal procedures with modifications, should that prove necessary.
As I think hon. Members accept, it is important to standardise appeal procedures wherever possible to achieve some consistency—particularly in cases such as this, in which we expect appeals to be relatively infrequent. An appeals committee will need to be established. Its members will be drawn from research, academic, medical and other disciplines. We want to ensure that the committee has the breadth of knowledge to judge the types and quantities of chemicals to be licensed against the intended use, be it academic or industrial. It is open to the Opposition to pray against a negative resolution. In an extreme case where a Government tried to implement a procedure that was especially odious to the House—I suspect that if a Government sought to do that it would not be only the Opposition to whom it would be odious—the Opposition could pray against a negative resolution, so an important safety valve is in place.On the question of the committee, do the Government have a chairman in mind yet? Can they announce that to the House?
No, we do not have a chairman in mind yet. The hon. Gentleman raised not only issues relevant to the clause, but the question of an advisory committee in the context of transparency, which we shall, I think, consider later. It is important to separate the issues. Clause 23 must be read not in isolation but with clause 22. Clause 23(2) restricts the scope of the regulations to persons covered by clause 22. That is the important point. The effect of clause 22(1)(a) is that the scope is restricted to persons likely to have information needed for the purposes of the convention. That power is therefore clearly restricted. It is not an open-ended power and I would be uncomfortable if it were open-ended and unrestricted.
The convention is explicit about the information needed. As we know, there are four categories of chemicals—schedules 1 to 3 and discrete organic chemicals—and declarations are required for activities beyond the specific thresholds outlined in the annexes. Those must be reflected in the regulations. It is fair to say that the regulations must also reflect some detailed technical points, some of which have not yet been resolved. For example, if a chemical has been diluted, the question arises whether the concentration of the chemical is such that the dilution has put it beyond the requirement to be declared. That and other similar technical issues are currently under discussion internationally. They could change with the experience of the regime when it is under way. To ask the House to confirm all such changes by positive resolution would be onerous and unnecessary. I return to the fundamental point that if a Government tried to impose something by negative resolution that was onerous and odious to the House, it would be open not just to the Opposition but to Government Members to pray against it in extreme circumstances, which I do not think would arise. We need this power because the convention requires that all sites covered by declaration requirements must be included in the United Kingdom declaration. Inspections will take place to check declarations and the UK is, of course, open to challenge inspections if other states believe that we have not declared any site or that we have misdeclared any site. It is fair to say that other states' experience is that industry's response can be poor where there is no statutory requirement to give information. The experience in Australia was that 36 per cent. of companies failed to respond to a carefully structured convention-related survey.I want to ask about the challenge inspections. Do we have the guarantee, in so far as the Government can give it, that any challenge inspection, even if it seemed frivolous, would be accepted? For example, we are challenging—or Ralf Ekeus is challenging—the Iraqis, not that they are members yet, on the question of VX, which is worse than the Sarin that was used in the Tokyo underground. Rightly or wrongly, we might be angry if we were challenged by some Arab nation on a tit-for-tat basis. Do we have an undertaking from the Government that, however irritated they might be, they would feel it incumbent on themselves to accept such a challenge? The Minister might say that it is a hypothetical question, but it is important.
I would not say that that question is necessarily hypothetical. One would hope that it might be, but in the world as it is, it might not be. The only answer that I can give the hon. Gentleman is that, if there were a challenge inspection within the terms of the convention, we would be obliged to accept that. If a challenge were outside the terms, obviously we would not be so obliged. I think that is the best answer that I can give him.
I understand the feeling behind the two amendments, but they are unnecessary and would restrict the convention's application. The powers that we are taking are not draconian, but the House's ultimate defence is that, if the Government did try to propose any regulations that were especially odious to the House, it could pray against the negative resolution.It is a matter of regret that the Minister is not prepared to move on this matter as clearly there is a point of difference between us, although we are trying to reach the same objective: to ensure that the convention is properly implemented in this country and, more important, internationally. To try to achieve that, however, there must be openness, although the Government have moved substantially on what they were originally proposing as a result of representations received from a wide body of opinion.
6.45 pm That same body of opinion—the Royal Society of Chemistry and other experts in this sector—is making the point about the need for an affirmative approach in relation to these two clauses. As I said, I am arguing not about the underlying principles of the clauses, but about the need for proper parliamentary scrutiny of some of the details and of the way in which the legislation will apply. Although powers are vested in the Opposition to pray against negative orders, that puts the onus on the Opposition to oppose. The onus should, however, be on the Government to be open, but they appear to be unwilling to be open about the application of the regulations. As it appears that I shall be unable to persuade the Minister, I beg to ask leave to withdraw the amendment.Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
Clauses 20 to 24 ordered to stand part of the Bill.
Clause 25
Rights Of Entry Etc For Purposes Of Inspections
I beg to move amendment No. 3, in page 17, line 9, after 'the', insert 'Convention and the'.
With this, it will be convenient to discuss also No. 7, in clause 35, page 22, line 19, after 'Convention', insert 'and its annexes'.
I am happy to move my amendment No. 3, which is linked to amendment No. 7. Amendment No. 3 relates to clause 25, and amendment No. 7 to clause 35.
The amendments that I have tabled are mainly probing amendments, to obtain information from the Minister, or tidying-up amendments. Amendment No. 3 falls into the category of a tidying-up amendment. In one of those clauses, the convention is mentioned, but not the annexes to the convention; in the other, the verification annex is mentioned, but not the convention. I have tabled amendments that link the two, so that, on the face on the Bill, it would say, "the Convention and the annexes". That relates to amendment No. 3 and the rights of entry for inspection purposes, which is tied up with article IX of the convention. Clause 35 gives the Minister powers to amend the Act if an amendment to the convention is subsequently agreed to by the various parties to it. The amendment refers to both the convention and the annexes. It would stop anyone using the legislation as a loophole, perhaps, to avoid inspection. They could say that it related only to the convention and not to the annexes. It might also prevent any future legal dispute over that matter if the two were put together. It is a simple tidying-up amendment, and I hope that the Minister will accept it.What is the Government's attitude to generic licensing? If the Minister would rather deal with that when we come to schedule 1 or later in his brief I should be prepared to wait. However, I have put down a marker now because generic licensing is important.
I shall do my best to answer that, although it is not directly related to the clause or the amendment. We shall consider it where it is sensible and within the bounds of the convention. I do not think that the hon. Gentleman could expect me to say any more about that issue. If he would like to discuss the matter at some future time, I should be happy to do so.
I appreciate the spirit of helpfulness with which the amendment was moved, but, with respect, amendments Nos. 3 and 7 are based on a misunderstanding. The articles of the convention place certain obligations on state parties. The verification annex itself defines the verification procedures, and that contains the rights of the inspection teams. Article 17 of the convention makes it clear that all references to it include its verification annex, with all the powers and rights of the inspection teams. Consequently, a reference to both would be basically confusing and unnecessary, because the reference to the verification text as it stands is correct. The same applies to amendment No. 7, which introduces a reference to the annexes to the convention in subsection 1 of the clause. The reference is again unnecessary, because article 17 of the convention states that the annexes form an integral part of the convention. I thank the hon. Gentleman for the spirit in which he moved the amendments, but, with respect, they are unnecessary.I understand the Minister's answer on generic licensing, but the mind boggles at having to license every individual chemical, because that would be a gargantuan task. I suspect that, at the end of the day, generic licensing will have to be accepted.
I shall try my best to respond to that. Licensing applies only to the most harmful and dangerous, and quite often complex, chemicals that are licensed, rather than to the reporting requirements. We are dealing here with chemical substances that are not used by many organisations, but obviously we have to try to look after the interests of those organisations that legitimately use them. I shall certainly consider the hon. Gentleman's point, and if it is possible to be helpful in the context of generic licensing and stay within the terms of the convention, I assure him that we shall certainly look at that.
I am grateful to the Minister for his explanation that the convention also covers the annexes. Hopefully, there will be no loopholes. I beg to ask leave to withdraw the amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
Clause 25 ordered to stand part of the Bill.
Clause 26
Offences In Connection With Inspections
I beg to move amendment No. 4, page 18, line 24, at end insert—
I am quite keen on this amendment, which is about offences in connection with inspections. At the moment, there are three main categories of offence—refusing to comply; interfering with any object, for example a container; or wilfully obstructing. There should be a fourth category, to deal with someone who knowingly makes a false or misleading statement to any member of the inspection team or to the in-country escort or the observer during the conduct of that inspection in accordance with the verification annex. During an inspection, it is vital that the correct information is presented to the inspection team. The Bill would not make the giving of false or misleading statements an offence, and that is wrong. Clause 26(1)(c) covers only physical obstruction, and does not cover false or misleading statements. I have looked up a couple of Acts in which this issue is raised. Section 33(1)(a) of the Food Safety Act 1990 refers to a person who'(d) knowingly makes a false or misleading statement to any member of the inspection team or of the in-country escort, or the observer, in the conduct of that inspection in accordance with the verification annex.'.
That covers wilful obstruction. Section 33(2)(a) of that same Act refers to someone who"intentionally obstructs any person acting in the execution of this Act;".
Plainly, earlier legislation drew the distinction between wilful obstruction and the furnishing of false information. That means that the distinction has been recognised by the Government. Section 35(1)(a) of the Radioactive Substances Act 1993 refers to any person who"furnishes information which he knows to be false or misleading in a material particular;".
That again relates to wilful obstruction, but section 35(1)(b) says that a person who"intentionally obstructs an inspector or other person in the exercise of any powers conferred by section 31,".
"refuses or without reasonable excuse fails to provide facilities or assistance or any information or to permit any inspection reasonably required by an inspector or other person under that section,
That again shows that we need to go beyond wilful obstruction in which false and misleading information is a factor. Clause 23 of the Bill would make it an offence for anybody knowingly to make a false or misleading statement to the Government. The same should apply to the inspection team. I was too late in suggesting that when the Act which implemented the treaty on conventional forces in Europe was going through the House. It did not appear in the Act, although the Minister responsible for the legislation said that he would look at it. It should have been incorporated. It is not right that anyone should be able to lie to an inspector from wherever he comes, or mislead him, and not be committing an offence. We should make it clear that such conduct is an offence, and if the amendment is accepted, that can be shown. I hope that the Minister will accept the logic of that, and the logic of previous legislation, and accept the amendment.shall be guilty of an offence."
I am concerned about the role of the organisation at The Hague in all this, and about what is said to the central body. That issue among others was raised by the Royal Society of Chemistry. For the convenience of the Minister and his officials, I shall read from page 9 of the briefing of 28 November which I know has been sent to the Department. It states:
"The regular returns of industrial data on Schedule-2 and Schedule-3 chemicals will take their place alongside various other declarations of data to the OPCW Technical Secretariat which the Convention requires of States Parties.
Gathering the data and then transmitting appropriate aggregations to The Hague will be one of the two main occupations of the National Authorities. (The other main occupation will be preparing for, and liaising with, visiting OPCW inspectors who have been asked either to validate declared data by routine on-site inspection or to perform challenge inspections.)
The questions that my hon. Friend the Member for Leyton (Mr. Cohen) has rightly asked about the national situation I am sure also apply to the international situation. One wonders what powers, if any, the organisation of The Hague has to ensure that it is not being deceived or lied to.Some of the declarations are needed only once, for example the declarations of historical information on past chemical weapons activities. Other types of declaration, including the industrial data, are to be submitted each year … HMG informed Parliament as follows, in a written Defence Ministry answer on 22 November 1995: 'Details of UK's declarations required under the chemical weapons convention will be made available to the public when they are passed to the Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons."
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That really resides with national Governments, who have an obligation under the convention to ensure that there is full and open reporting.
I agree with the logic of the argument of the hon. Member for Leyton (Mr. Cohen). I think, however, that it is a matter of degree. I shall try to explain the different situations that might arise. For example, it would be extreme to penalise a person who might just be a plant worker who knows little about the chemical weapons convention, and who may not have been warned formally not to make a misleading or false statement, especially bearing in mind that the inspectors may well be international and not UK citizens, which might lead to some confusion. Also, given that the chemical industry competes internationally, plant workers might be keen not to breach commercial confidentiality, which is understandable. When genuine mistakes are made and they are not significant, we must have the scope and flexibility not to prosecute, especially where people will be making statements without being either under oath or under caution. I emphasise that we would leave ourselves scope to prosecute any significant breach of faith, misleading information or covering up. We just do not want to be obliged to prosecute for every little technical offence, which might well be non-malicious. In serious cases, the Bill clearly makes it an offence to give false information in response to a notice served under clause 22. In that case, it is quite proper that there should he a penalty, as the recipient will have been clearly warned that it is an offence to give false information in response to the notice. Where the provision of false information amounts to obstruction, an offence may also be committed under clause 26. We do not want to have to prosecute every tiny, technical, insignificant offence. Quite clearly, we will prosecute major offences and instances in which misleading information has been given in order to mislead and is significant.I hear what the Minister says. I do not want to prosecute every minor matter, either, but that would not be the consequence of my amendment. Omitting the point about false and misleading information would open up quite a serious loophole. I am not going to press the amendment to a vote. I think that my hon. Friend the Member for East Kilbride (Mr. Ingram) is going to intervene.
I certainly think that the Minister should look at the matter, because it relates to inspections. He has taken the power for himself in an earlier clause about the provision of information about chemical weapons, and it is important that that same power should be given to the inspection teams, so that they can be assured that they are receiving information in good faith. They have a limited time under the convention to carry out their inspections. Any misleading information could point them in the wrong direction and take up that time. That would be very serious, in my view. Although I shall not press the amendment, I will not withdraw it yet, either, because I know that my hon. Friend the Member for East Kilbride is about to comment. I ask the Minister to reconsider the matter. Perhaps, when he brings forward the regulations under clause 23, he will consider tightening up those covering inspections, while obviously granting himself the power not to have to prosecute in every case. I do not want that—nobody in the House wants that.Obviously the amendment has provoked a little interest. I was neutral on the matter, and waited to hear the debate. My hon. Friend the Member for Leyton has made a very strong case in support of his amendment, and has accepted some of the Minister's points about being careful to avoid punishing every slight indiscretion. But we should remember that that is not what is being sought.
The amendment says that a person is guilty if heWhen someone knowingly does that, they have clearly done something wrong, and should not be allowed to do so, as the Minister was suggesting, because they were acting in the interests of their company's commercial confidentiality. That is a very dangerous route to go down. Is the Minister arguing that, because commercial confidentiality is involved, people can tell lies on behalf of their company? I hope that that is not what he is saying in the context of the Bill, because it would have wide-ranging implications. I certainly hope that he is not saying, in the case of any Government legislation, that people can knowingly mislead or give false information which is tantamount to the perpetration of a crime. If the Minister is advancing that principle, it is totally wrong. I am grateful to my hon. Friend for not yet withdrawing his amendment, and for the fact that he has asked the Minister the right question. I suggest that the Minister take the amendment away and look at it. There will be time during consideration in the other place to take account of all the points made. But if the Government still feel strongly at that stage that they not do want to accept the amendment, they could argue their case if the matter is raised. Clearly there is merit in my hon. Friend's arguments. I do not, however, think that the Minister's arguments are wholly satisfactory. The best solution is to put the matter on the back burner; let us consider it further. That would help the understanding and progress of the Bill in another place."knowingly makes a false or misleading statement."
It may well be that the Minister is being only realistic when he says that it is a matter for the nation states. Do we then take it that, in fact, the Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons has virtually no powers at all? If so, how does it set about trying to impose what it believes to be right? I think that it is very difficult.
There will be scope for the House of Lords to reconsider the matter if it proves to be a problem. The feeling that we have, though, is that the Bill has sufficient powers. It is a matter of degree. I think that I have made it clear that we would expect prosecutions to occur when significant misleading statements are made.
The hon. Member for Leyton should consider the scenario of a foreign inspection team visiting a factory, where someone at that factory is not under oath, is not given a warning, is asked a question that may not be very significant, and, yes, may, eve knowingly give a wrong answer without really considering the implications. We want the scope to allow people to do that, because people are fallible. Someone who does not necessarily speak the best English may visit a factory and ask a plant worker questions. The worker may be a little concerned, not know the implications and not be totally au fait with every aspect of the Bill. Questions may even be asked about chemicals which the plant worker does not necessarily know are dangerous. Some of the chemicals in the lower schedules are not obviously dangerous. We want to allow scope not to prosecute under those circumstances. I should, however, like to make it clear that, when people are under oath and have been warned, and then make knowingly misleading statements, they will be prosecuted. Even if a warning had not been issued, there would be scope to prosecute people who knowingly make misleading statements which are significant and detrimental to the working of the convention. Although I would like to leave it like that, there will be an opportunity in the other place, should there be genuine concern, to amend the Bill.I again appreciate what the Minister has said. I am grateful to my hon. Friend the Member for East Kilbride for reminding me that the amendment refers to people knowingly making misleading statements. Nobody wants to punish genuine mistakes to which the Minister has referred. But quite a dangerous loophole is opening up, which could undermine the inspection process. I do not think that we should let that come about.
I hope that the matter will be reconsidered in the other place and that, in the interim, the Government will think about it and agree to a suitable amendment—with wording of their own choice—that would protect those who have made genuine mistakes but deal with those who have made a deliberate attempt to mislead. If the inspection team or the management of the chemical factory explains the law under the Bill, matters could be further clarified.It would be a good idea to have some sort of statement on the leverage that is available to the Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons. I am afraid that I am not very clear about what it could do if it found that it was being deceived or if it faced other difficulties.
I beg to ask leave to withdraw the amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
Question proposed, That the clause stand part of the Bill.
The Minister nodded when I asked about some sort of statement on the OPCW. Nods are not recorded in Hansard—
Order. I do not usually work by nods or by interruptions when I am putting the Question. Is the hon. Gentleman referring to a matter that arises under clause 26 stand part?
Under clause stand part, I am simply asking that the Minister's nod be interpreted in Hansard as a yes. These things happen by alchemy. I hope that there will be some statement in the other place about the powers or otherwise of the OPCW. It is an important matter.
It is nice to be thought of as an alchemist, although a nuclear weapons Bill would be more appropriate if we wanted to change one substance into another. I was nodding to show that I was listening carefully to what the hon. Gentleman was saying. The international body has quite clear sanctions when a country is in breach of the convention. It may help the hon. Gentleman if I write to him outlining all the sanctions. Then, if he wants to speak further about it, I shall happily arrange that.
Question put and agreed to.
Clause 26 ordered to stand part of the Bill.
Clauses 27 to 30 ordered to stand part of the Bill.
Clause 31
Offences: Other Provisions
I beg to move amendment No. 6, page 20, line 35, leave out 'section 2 or 11' and insert 'this Act'.
With this it will be convenient to discuss amendment No. 5, in page 20, line 41, leave out subsection (2).
The amendments relate to offences, as defined by the Bill. The clause refers to sections 2 and 11 , which relate to the really serious offences—for example, those with potential life sentences for possessing, using, developing, producing or transferring chemical weapons. They require the consent of the Attorney-General to any prosecution.
There is a split in the authority to prosecute offences under the Bill. The serious offences require the consent of the Attorney-General, but for the minor offences scattered throughout the Bill it will be for the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry to say whether there should be prosecutions. I am not sure why there should be such a split. I am concerned that there could be a conflict of interest relating to the prosecution for smaller offences. I can give a topical example—although I do not do it to make the Minister irate—which is the Scott inquiry. It is possible that a Minister would want to block a prosecution if going ahead with it would cause some embarrassment to his Department. Currently, the Scott inquiry is examining the failure of export control procedures, which is a matter for the DTI. If a Minister were to be embarrassed by such a failure within his Department, he might not authorise a prosecution under the Bill because he would not want to advertise that embarrassment. 7.15 pm The possible conflict of interest is serious. It is certainly not hypothetical because it is exactly what Lord Justice Scott is examining. The matter needs explanation and some assurances from the Minister that prosecutions will not be stopped just to cover up embarrassments. There is the question of how the Bill applies to Scotland. The only Law Officer in Scotland who can bring prosecutions is the Lord Advocate. He is responsible for any prosecutions for both the serious offences and the other minor offences that are scattered through the Bill. If, in England and Wales, all the decisions to prosecute rested with the Attorney-General, that would be equivalent to the position in Scotland. I do not understand why there is a different prosecuting system in England and Wales from the one in Scotland. These are probing amendments, but they raise substantial points that are worthy of consideration and answers from the Minister. Clearly, the Secretary of State will be responsible for securing Britain's compliance with the convention. There should not be any conflict of interest when it comes to prosecuting for offences.I understand the hon. Gentleman's concern and I have some sympathy with it. He made a fair point in saying that the Secretary of State would be both the regulating authority and the prosecuting authority. I hope that I can put the hon. Gentleman's mind at rest by saying that with large and significant cases, the Attorney-General in England and Wales or the Lord Advocate in Scotland will be involved. It is only with the relatively minor cases that the Secretary of State will make the ultimate decision on whether an offence is worth prosecution. I hope that that reassures the hon. Gentleman.
The position is fairly consistent with what happens in other areas. The Attorney-General really deals only with fairly major cases. He is not geared up to deal with all the minor cases. It would cause problems for the operation of the convention and the Act if we were to put all cases before the Attorney-General. It would clog up his office. If—to take the opposite end of the spectrum from the hon. Gentleman—it was thought that in certain cases the Secretary of State was taking action in a frivolous way, the courts would be the arbiter of that. Of course, the Secretary of State ultimately would be accountable to Parliament. I hope that what I have said reassures the hon. Gentleman that the Secretary of State would not bring frivolous prosecutions for relatively minor offences. On the other hand, it is clear that the Attorney-General or the Lord Advocate would be involved in major offences. Therefore, I cannot imagine any cover-up in major cases because all such cases would be referred to the Law Offices.I wish to draw the Minister's attention to the comments of the Royal Society of Chemistry, which has said that if the Department of Trade and Industry or the national authority were ever to have to confront a rogue agency—that is not a hypothetical question—it might need all the support and safeguards it could muster, including parliamentary protection. Presumably that parliamentary protection will not be a great problem under the legislation we are debating tonight. But such protection would be no bad thing under less apocalyptic circumstances, such as the Department of Trade and Industry merely seeking the assistance of other Departments or reminding them of their obligations under the convention. This could be a problem. While one does not expect frivolous prosecutions, it sometimes turns out that prosecutions are less well-founded than people acting in good faith once thought.
I take on board what the hon. Gentleman says and, in the circumstances he has described, such prosecutions would be found out by the courts. I do not think that it would be sustainable for the President of the Board of Trade to go down that route too often, because ultimately he would be accountable to Parliament. Quite often prosecutions are started which are not considered to be frivolous, and presumably it should be open to the Secretary of State or the prosecuting authority to withdraw a prosecution when it becomes apparent that it has no real substance. I hope that that gives the hon. Gentleman some reassurance.
I hear what the Minister says, and I have some sympathy with his point that the Attorney-General's Department would get clogged up if it had to deal with all the prosecutions. I understand that point, and I heard the assurances that he gave on the matter as well.
I am still concerned about the potential conflict of interest within the Department, despite the Minister's assurances, which I appreciate were important. I wonder if I could entice him further along the road in his assurances. Perhaps he could put on the record—although I know that he cannot bind any future Minister or any future Government to this—that any parliamentary question in this delicate area which relates to the role of Ministers in the prosecution of offences will receive a proper answer and will not be blocked, because I know that there is a procedure to block sensitive questions. The public interest immunity certificate procedure is coming under scrutiny from Lord Justice Scott, and it may be that the procedure will change. But the fact that a PII certificate has been issued should not get in the way of answering a parliamentary question about the prosecution of offences under the convention. I know that the Minister cannot bind any future Government, but if he could give an assurance that he would like that to be the case, that would be another step forward and I would be happy to withdraw my amendment.I think that I can give the hon. Gentleman that assurance. First, it would be a matter of parliamentary accountability and scrutiny that, under those circumstances, such questions should be answered. The only example that I can think of where parts of questions may not be answered for such reasons is in cases where there is commercial confidentiality. But as the Minister responsible, I can give my assurance that we will do our absolute utmost to be as transparent as possible and to answer questions where it is reasonable and fair that we should do so without going outside the convention by breaching commercial confidentiality. I hope that that statement assures the hon. Gentleman.
In the light of the Minister's further assurances, I beg to ask leave to withdraw the amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
Clause 31 ordered to stand part of the Bill.
Clause 32
Disclosure Of Information
I beg to move amendment No. 11, page 21, line 35, at end insert—
'(2A) The reference to this Act in subsection (2)(c) does not include a reference to section (Annual reports by Secretary of State).'.With this, it will be convenient to discuss also Government new clause 3—Annual reports by Secretary of State—and new clause 2—Annual Report—
`(1) The Secretary of State shall prepare an annual report to be presented to both Houses of Parliament on his activities in relation to this Act. (2) The annual report shall contain the following information for the year in question in pursuance of the provisions of this Act—
I listened extremely carefully to the points made by hon. Members on both sides of the House on Second Reading, during a debate which I thought was extremely useful. I understand the concerns that the work of the national authority should be subject to proper scrutiny, and I told the House at Second Reading that the national authority would issue an annual report. Clearly my assurance on that occasion was not enough for hon. Members, although I do not take any offence at that. [Interruption.] Perhaps I should.
We have consulted on the issue, and we came to the conclusion—rightly, I think—that to put this into statute was the right thing to do. I have no doubt that the annual report will enhance the process of parliamentary scrutiny of the work of the national authority. Therefore, we have no objection to the annual report being included in the Bill. I think that that reflects the wishes of the House. I should add that the amendment means that those who compile the annual report will properly be subject to the requirement to safeguard confidential information, which I think is reasonable. I should also make it clear that our intention is for the report to be as informative as it can be within the clear requirements to protect commercial confidentiality and national security which are included in the convention. It is fair to say that the report might include information on a number of companies providing information for the purposes of a United Kingdom declaration, the number of licences issued, the number of appeals, the number of prosecutions and the number of inspections. We also expect the report to contain a clear explanation of the national authority's work. But of course the report will be laid before both Houses, and hon. Members will have a duty to tell us if not enough information is being provided. If that is the case and the request is reasonable, we will make all reasonable efforts to ensure that the extra information is included. Finally, we should not impose rigid requirements on the contents of the report. We should be flexible, as ultimately we are accountable to the House for the matter. The Secretary of State must decide ultimately what information will demonstrate to the satisfaction of both Houses that he has undertaken his duties under the Act effectively and efficiently. He obviously has a requirement under the convention and under the Bill, and he must balance that with the need to protect commercial confidentiality and national security. I hope that by putting the matter into statute, we will make the Bill more transparent and the national authority more accountable.I welcome the Government's conversion to agreeing that there is a need for the annual report to be written on to the face of the Bill. I do not know why they have had this last-minute change of mind, but clearly it is to be welcomed. I know that three ex-presidents of the Royal Society of Chemistry—Lords Dainton, Lewis of Newnham and Porter of Luddenham—had submitted a letter to The Times to be published this morning calling for the report to be included in the Bill. Those three are very weighty people in this field, and they were pleased to learn yesterday that the Government had tabled this amendment and new clause. Clearly they did not proceed with the publication of the letter. I do not know whether the Minister was aware of the level of support that was coming forward for the annual report to be put on the face of the Bill. If he was, it must have encouraged him to come to the conclusion that he did.
New clause 2—tabled in my name and those of my right hon. and hon. Friends—was tabled in advance of the Government's tabling of amendment No. 11 and new clause 3. We sought to go further in new clause 2 than the measures announced by the Minister this evening. I take the point completely about the question of commercial confidentiality and those matters which affect national security. The items are covered within the convention, and the Opposition clearly understand the need to be circumspect if matters relating to such sensitive issues were to appear in any annual report. I suggest that there is still a difference between the Government and the Opposition as to what is required in terms of the annual report. I did not quite catch all the points that the Minister was saying he would like to see in an annual report, but I think that he mentioned the number of companies and other organisations providing information to the Secretary of State, the number of licences granted and the number of appeals against refusal. However, new clause 2 is much more comprehensive than that. There is much merit in taking on board the points that it lists, because it is right that the House and the country should be told about the number of prosecutions under the Act, the number of routine inspections of premises and the audit of the outcome of those inspections. The text of the report prepared in accordance with article X.4 of the convention, which is to be sent to the central body in The Hague, does not exclude matters of a confidential nature, and that, too, could be included in the annual report. The information is to be sent off somewhere else in the name of the United Kingdom, so why should it not be included in the report produced for the consumption of hon. Members and others interested in the subject? New clause 2 suggests other topics that could be included in the annual report, such as the identities of any chemicals not listed in the schedules which pose a risk under the terms of the convention. On Second Reading we talked about the annual report produced by Porton Down. That is comprehensive and highlighted certain activities connected with chemical weapons which caused concern, and rightly alerted the wider public to what is happening in the former Soviet Union. That is the type of information that would he of benefit to all interested parties. It would secure proper scrutiny of what was taking place, and make the report as comprehensive and detailed as possible. 7.30 pm It would help if the Minister went further than simply listing three or four possible items for the report and saying that the Secretary of State would be keen to ensure that it was as comprehensive as possible. He has not taken on board some of the other suggestions in new clause 2. I have not listed all those, because they are on the amendment paper for all to see, but I have highlighted some of the more important areas of concern. We are pleased that there is to be an annual report, but it must be as comprehensive as possible, while allowing for matters of a confidential nature and matters of national security. Has the Minister considered the points raised by new clause 2 and thought which of them he feels could be included in the report? It would be useful if he could notify us of the items that he believes could not be included, so that we could have a debate on the merits of all the points in the new clause. The Government have made an important concession. First, they did not want to produce an annual report, then we had to rely on the Minister's word that they would produce one, and now we are on the point of having a statutory annual report. We are grateful for that, but let us take things a little step further and define properly what would be in the report. It would speed up the deliberations when the Bill is discussed in another place if the House of Commons were given a proper explanation of what the Minister and the Secretary of State have in mind. I should therefore welcome any comments the Minister can make about the points in new clause 2.I too welcome the fact that the Government have decided to introduce a new clause and put the report on a statutory footing. It is entirely right that the requirement should be written on the face of the Bill. The Minister should not take offence that anyone might cast doubt on the assurances that he gave last time, because they simply do not have the same standing as words in an Act.
Tomorrow morning I shall give written evidence to a current judicial review which proves that assurances given by Ministers two years ago have been broken—in that case by a quango. The Government's change of mind reassures us that the same thing will not happen in relation to the Bill. Although I welcome that fact, I echo the hon. Member for East Kilbride (Mr. Ingram) in saying that it would be helpful to see more specific details of what will appear in the report. I hope that there will be further opportunities to debate the matter during the passage of the Bill.As I made a so-called parliamentary song and dance a fortnight ago about the need for statutory implementation, it would be churlish of me not to acknowledge what has happened now. None the less, I echo what the hon. Member for North Devon (Mr. Harvey) said about Ministers' assurances. Assurances are frequently given in good faith but broken long after the ministerial incumbent has either been promoted or has left the House altogether, so the Minister need not be offended.
Having been a Member of Parliament for 13 years, I find it difficult to take offence. I must tell the hon. Member for East Kilbride that we took the decision some time ago that there should be an annual report, and that we also decided to write that on the face of the Bill some time before we heard about the letter from their Lordships—although obviously we listen carefully to their views, because they are all distinguished chemists.
I see no difficulty in including some of the information suggested in the new clause, and certainly would expect much of it to appear in the report. However, the hon. Gentleman asked me which items I would specifically exclude, so I must mention subsection 2(b), which asks that aggregate quantities of individual declared chemicals should be incorporated into the report. That could compromise commercially sensitive information where only a few companies, or sometimes only one company, produces a chemical. Certainly it would be in breach of the convention. The whole spirit of the convention relies on our obtaining the co-operation of chemical and pharmaceutical producers, as well as of researchers and academics. I genuinely believe that if producers felt that we were going outside the convention and were likely to breach commercial confidentiality, it could compromise the proper working of the convention. Another area that causes concern is subsection 2(j), which would require unscheduled chemicals with the potential to be used in chemical weapons to be identified in the report. There is a danger that that could help proliferators by alerting them to the fact that there was something to look for. It could also lead to confusion. The point of the convention is that there is a schedule of chemicals, which can be added to. If we unilaterally added a whole lot more chemicals without their going through the convention procedure, it could lead to confusion and difficulties. Any information about chemicals with the potential for chemical weapons applications, especially information on novel compounds, should be carefully controlled. I would be concerned about the idea that those be included in an annual report. I accept the intention behind the new clause, and we intend to make the report as informative as is consistent with protecting commercial confidentiality and national security. As for the push behind our concession, or new clause, and the Government's present desire to make the requirement for an annual report statutory, the point of debates such as Second Reading, of the consultations and of the representations made by hon. Members on both sides of the House, is that we are all aiming at the same end; we are all trying to make the convention work. It is most important, not only for us in Britain but for the future of the globe, that we succeed. We were prepared to listen to what hon. Members said, and we have responded in a spirit of co-operation, to ensure that the convention will work as well as possible. I hope that if our positions were reversed, the hon. Member for East Kilbride would do the same."If" is a big word; we prefer to use the word "when". I entirely take the Minister's point, and I appreciate his explanation of the list of items in new clause 2 that could be included in the annual report. I listened to what he said, and the details can be considered elsewhere, when the Bill goes to another place. The Government will then be able to take on board the points that we have made—hence our reason for raising the question in the first place.
There are 12 items listed in new clause 2 and the Minister ruled out only two of them, so we are making considerable progress. I hope that the other 10 items will be included either in the form in which they are laid down in new clause 2 or in some variation of it. That would prove helpful in producing the annual reports. It would assist all those who want to ensure that the convention is being properly monitored and implemented by Britain. I recognise the spirit in which the Minister has responded.Amendment agreed to.
Clause 32, as amended, ordered to stand part of the Bill.
Clauses 33 and 34 ordered to stand part of the Bill.
Clause 35
Power To Amend This Act
I beg to move amendment No. 8, page 22, line 21, after second 'order', insert 'solely'.
This is the last of my amendments and I shall not take up much time with it. Clause 35 deals with the power to amend the legislation when it is passed. Any major change of principle to the convention that would need a change in the Act must be dealt with by some form of primary legislation, such as a new Act or a statutory instrument under the affirmative resolution procedure, as we discussed in earlier debates. There is also the question of amendments to the schedule that lists chemicals. It may well be that that list has to be amended in a hurry, and rightly so. A new chemical could come to notice which could be used as a chemical weaponry agent. Such a chemical would have to be added to the list as quickly as possible and a negative resolution statutory instrument seems appropriate, solely in that instance. My amendment would give the power to add a new chemical to the list quickly while changes of principle should be enacted after thorough consideration by the House of Commons.I accept the intention behind the amendment. The power to make amendments to the schedule should not be used to make amendments to other parts of the legislation at the same time. That was certainly not our intention.
The hon. Gentleman has tabled so many amendments and made such a contribution to the Bill, both on Second Reading and in Committee, that it would be churlish of me not to accept his amendment. I am told by the parliamentary draftsman that this is only the second time in 25 years that an unamended Opposition amendment has been accepted. However, it was a close-run thing. The parliamentary draftsman suggested that we use the word "only" instead of "solely" and table a Government amendment, but it would have been churlish to go down that route. I thank the hon. Gentleman for his amendment. It is a small step for him and a large step for the Chemical Weapons Bill.I thank the Minister.
Amendment agreed to.
Clause 35, as amended, ordered to stand part of the Bill.
Clauses 36 to 38 ordered to stand part of the Bill.
New Clause 3
Annual Reports By Secretary Of State
'The Secretary of State shall in each calendar year—
(a) prepare a report on the operation of this Act, and
(b) lay a copy of the report before each House of Parliament.'.— [Mr. Oppenheim.]
Brought up, read the First and Second time, and added to the Bill.
New Clause 1
Advisory Committee
`(1) The Secretary of State shall establish a committee to give advice, either when requested to do so or otherwise on any matters relating to the control of chemical weapons in furthering the general purposes of this Act.
(2) In pursuance of subsection (1)—
Brought up, and read the First time.
7.45 pm
I beg to move, That the clause be read a Second time.
There is obviously a spirit of good will on the Government Benches.indicated dissent.
The Minister indicates that there is not too much, but perhaps the power of persuasion can be applied.
We have made considerable progress with the Bill. We now have an annual report which, from the indications given in our previous debate, will be fairly comprehensive and satisfy many people. Some of the submissions in support of the annual report were from eminent individuals and bodies who were seeking improvements to the Bill. The Royal Society of Chemistry, which has been mentioned several times during the passage of the Bill, was one of the main bodies that had an input. It should come as no surprise that the Royal Society of Chemistry is supportive of the principles of new clause 1, which would introduce an advisory committee to assist the Government, as a national authority, in the implementation of the legislation. The best arguments are those used by the Royal Society of Chemistry. We could all make our own interpretations of the matter, but, given the weight of the arguments advanced by the Royal Society of Chemistry, it would be useful to read from its briefing to place its concerns on the record. The Royal Society of Chemistry states:"The DTI must also be held to account in regard to less tangible but no less central aspects of UK compliance with the Convention, notably: maintaining the integrity of the General Purpose Criterion; the accuracy of the Convention-required industrial data that it submits to the OPCW on behalf of the UK; the protection of UK national programmes related to protective purposes; the accuracy of the annual reports made to the OPCW on the UK protective programmes; ensuring, insofar as the UK is competent to do so, that the treaty regime is fully reflective of the latest developments in science and technology; and the protection of UK compliance against pressures to develop breakout options, such as ones which new technical developments might come to suggest.
The society makes a strong and irrefutable case for an advisory committee or body to work alongside the DTI as the national authority. The Royal Society of Chemistry goes on in its briefing document to specify how an advisory board should operate. It states:The DTI will be in no position to assure Parliament on these matters unless the National Authority has the active co-operation of both governmental and non-governmental organisations: CBDE Porton Down, private chemical industry, the wider scientific community, and others. Such support will surely not be forthcoming to the extent necessary if the National Authority falls short of modern standards of openness and accountability (having due regard to the necessary confidentiality of some categories of relevant information). Nor may the support be satisfactorily forthcoming if interests affected by the work of the National Authority are entirely unrepresented in the Authority itself or bodies associated with it."
The report refers to details relating to that and continues:"An Advisory Board should be constituted in order to receive reports from the National Authority. The frequency of the reports should be in phase with the roughly 180-day cycles that will direct the National Authority's routine reporting to the OPCW".
"The contents of the reports to the Advisory Board would be considered and discussed at meetings between the Board and staff of the National Authority.
The society again makes a strong case. It is not an instance of the Opposition arguing for the sake of argument, trying to find some flaw or weakness. We have tried to take the arguments advanced by the Royal Society of Chemistry and others and put them into parliamentary language. That is manifested in new clause 1, which replicates the provisions which apply to the Food and Environment Protection Act 1985 in relation to the Advisory Committee on Pesticides. That advisory committee has existed for more than 40 years and became a statutory body in 1985. It is well respected and proved itself to be useful and helpful both before and after becoming a statutory body. During our discussions on Second Reading, it was stated that the activities of the Advisory Committee on Pesticides had been favourably commented upon by the Select Committee on Agriculture in its fifth report to the previous Parliament. That raises the question: if such an advisory committee is deemed to be necessary for the control and regulation of pesticides, why is not a similar committee deemed necessary to regulate and control substances such as the chemicals mentioned in the Bill and covered by the convention, which are potentially more dangerous? The Minister has shown a willingness to listen and to bend to expert opinion as the Bill has developed from its first draft to its second draft. Tonight—I think for only the second time in 25 years—an amendment presented by an Opposition Member has been accepted. That demonstrates substantial movement, particularly by the Under-Secretary of State for Trade and Industry, my hon. Friend the Member for Amber Valley (Mr. Oppenheim). He told us on Second Reading that he did not favour regulation, but I think that he has come to recognise the benefits of regulation in relation to matters as critical as chemicals and chemical weapons. New clause 1 has much merit. As I have said, it replicates what is already laid down in statute in relation to the regulation of pesticides. Chemicals are potentially much more dangerous than pesticides, and great benefits could be obtained from an advisory committee working alongside the national authority. That is why I quoted in detail from the advice given by the Royal Society of Chemistry. I know that the hon. Member for Salisbury (Mr. Key) said that he would make a detailed contribution to the debate because advice that we had received was wrong or misplaced—I cannot remember his exact words.Representation on the Board would reflect the various domestic communities affected by implementation of the Convention, as well as sources of expertise essential to the work of the Authority. So there should be representation not only of CBDE Porton Down but also of any CBDE advisory committee involved in overseeing Porton's work for the National Authority. Membership of the Board should also include any UK expert there might be on the OPCW Scientific Advisory Board."
Flawed.
Flawed—that is useful. Obviously, he will participate in this debate and we shall listen with interest to hear how he intends to contradict the Royal Society of Chemistry. He told us during the Second Reading debate that he taught the Minister during his A-levels. I do not know whether the cane—or, as we would say in Scotland, the belt—was still in use at that time and whether he had to use it on the Minister. I hope that I do not have to use it on the Minister tonight should he reject our position, and that we can, instead, reach agreement.
New clause 1 contains the last major issue that we must tackle in the Bill. If we accept the principle of an advisory committee, we will send out the right message to the wider scientific community. It would be warmly welcomed and greatly appreciated and received, and it would ensure full co-operation on the convention across the full range of scientific opinion in this country. An advisory committee would also, importantly, conclude the arguments about transparency and accountability in relation to the Bill.On the face of it, the new clause is tempting. The Minister will recall that shortly before midnight last night I was discussing it with him and trying to persuade him of some of its merits.
Before I explain why I have concluded that it would not be sensible to accept the new clause, I must express my gratitude to the Royal Society of Chemistry. Were it not for that society, we would scarcely have had any briefing and we would have had an extremely short debate today. I wish to make a serious plea to the scientific community of this country to recognise their interest in legislation that passes through the House. It is extraordinary that we had to rely so heavily on the Royal Society of Chemistry. We have not received anything—at least I have not—from the Chemical Industries Association in the way of briefing. I say that the Royal Society of Chemistry has been briefing us, but it was in fact one man—a very talented man—who has been briefing us on behalf of the society. The briefings from other organisations—the science policy research unit at Sussex university and the international security information service-have come from one and the same man. That one gentleman has been quoted extensively in the briefing of the Royal Society of Chemistry. I have managed to identify three scientists in this country responsible for briefing Parliament on the Bill. They are excellent scientists who have done us a great service. We receive criticism from the scientific community for not taking them seriously, but they could have given Parliament a better briefing.A number of people in the scientific community say that the man in question, Dr. Julian Perry Robinson, who has spent 30 years of his life studying the problems, knows more about them than anyone else. If members of the scientific community think that one of their colleagues knows more about the subject, it is in their nature to say, "Get your advice from those who know most." There is nothing dishonourable or lazy about that.
I have not suggested that, nor would I suggest that Nicholas Sims or Mr. Benn is any less distinguished. That is not the point. I would have expected more briefing on such a delicate subject—I shall leave the matter there.
When we discuss the new clause, I suspect that we are really talking about transparency and public confidence, which must be the two key issues. I think that the hon. Member for East Kilbride (Mr. Ingram) is seeking to establish that. If we had not had an annual statutory report, we would have needed some sort of advisory committee. Now that the Government have given us that statutory report, which is to be laid before both Houses and is to report to Parliament on the operation of the Act, we do not need the new clause. The new clause demands not a report on the workings of the Act or the convention but on the performance of the advisory committee's function. That would be bureaucratic, expensive and unnecessary. I thought that we might have a small advisory committee because in July the Government announced, through the Ministry of Defence, that they would set up an animal welfare advisory committee to look into much of the work that is done at Porton Down and elsewhere within the Defence Evaluation and Research Agency. I thought that it might be a good model—it has only three independent members and is an important, tight, little advisory committee. But then I realised that the fourth term of reference of that committee stated that the committee's function was not to monitor the Act—the Animals (Scientific Procedures) Act 1986—but to monitor other committees, to monitor ethics, to monitor evidence on the reduction of the use of animals, to monitor statistics, to review training and education of DERA personnel, to review initiatives and to maintain high standards of animal welfare. Therefore, the committee's function was quite different and could not easily be read across to the Bill. New clause 1 would clearly require a large committee. The hon. Member for East Kilbride should realise that establishing the sort of committee that he wants would require a large bureaucracy and be expensive. It would be a large committee, representative of all the interests. The compliance cost assessment of the DTI quotes the Chemical Industries Association as saying that there would be up to 2,000 plants to be declared twice a year. If the committee were to look at each of those plants twice a year, it would have to be a large committee, working full time. If I have correctly understood what the hon. Gentleman is suggesting, I cannot see it working.I did ask the Minister about generic testing.
I will allow the Minister to give his own answer, if I may.
One of the main reasons why I regard the new clause as unworkable is confidentiality. We know that industrial espionage is rife on an international scale and is a significant problem. Confidentiality is crucial, and it is an international issue in the convention. It is not only a matter for this Parliament. The excellent Royal Society of Chemistry, in its excellent briefing, which I shall now quote, if I may, to the Committee, spoke of the chemical industries negotiating with the Department of Trade and Industry. It said:"The key to their accepting it was express recognition by the negotiators that the industry's intellectual property, which was often the product of great investment in research and development, would need to be safeguarded against abuse of site inspections and other controls … The bias towards secrecy which this device imposes on many of the operators of the treaty stands in contrast to the transparency mechanisms which the treaty in its domestic implementation also require. This, however, was the price which had to be paid for creating conditions within which the chemical industry would be willing to co-operate.
That is terribly significant, and that is one reason why we cannot accept new clause 1. 8 pm I wish to make one more argument—the argument to which I referred when I said that some of the advice that we had been given was flawed. It has been suggested in some of our briefing that the Bill—and the end of chemical weapons, which we hope will occur—is compromised by the constitutional, legal and commercial position of the Chemical and Biological Defence Establishment, Porton Down. I believe that that is simply not the case. ISIS briefing paper No. 48 has, I believe, mistaken that position. I wish that people would not speak about "Porton". There is a large civilian community in the village of Porton. There are two distinct scientific establishments there—the CBDE and the Centre for Applied Microbiology and Research, sponsored by the Department of Health. On behalf of my constituents, who work at both, I draw attention to the fact that they are different. I ask people please not to confuse them. ISIS asks, where is the assurance that Porton, part of the next steps agency, will in future provide the Department of Trade and Industry with the assistance that it requires for the convention? ISIS alleges that assistance would be "of course" a public service, but then it declares that that would have to beSo huge is the chemical industry and so multipurpose its facilities and feedstocks that there was never any real alternative to cooperation. If there were one, it would have had to be a control regime for chemical industry in which whole areas of chemical technology were subjected to prohibition and repressive surveillance."
To make that happen, ISIS suggests that further legislation might be necessary, even in the Bill. Let me try to explain why that argument is flawed and try to allay those fears. The assurance that ISIS seeks may be found in the Defence Evaluation and Research Agency framework document. Every member of the staff at CBDE Porton Down is a civil servant attached to the Ministry of Defence and, through their Ministers, is accountable to the House. The activities of the agency are determined in that framework document, which is published. CBDE operates with a trading fund. That does not mean that it tries to rob Peter to pay Paul, nor does it equate to private sector accounting. A trading fund is a discipline and a mechanism to introduce to the public sector the rigours of private sector budgeting, accounting and management. I believe that, together, the framework document and the trading fund encourage just the type of transparency that we all seek."paid for out of someone's budget".
I have listened carefully to what the hon. Gentleman has said. Can he confirm that the CBDE has advisory committees, and that those advisory committees work successfully alongside CBDE? We seek in new clause 1 something analogous and similar to that, using the expertise from CBDE to assist the DTI as a national authority.
I have sought the advice of CBDE about advisory committees, and it is beset with advisory committees. Not only does it have advisory committees for the DERA establishments, but it told me that the international bureaucracy from The Hague will be very substantial. CBDE will spend its time coping with the international bureaucracy in The Hague and inspecting other nations, because we happen to be the best in the world at doing that. If we, on top of that, impose more committees to oversee the work of the committee that must look after them, it becomes absurd. I believe that CBDE will not be able to do its job properly as a result.
As for public confidence, which is so important, my constituents would wish to assist the Department of Trade and Industry under the legislation. Ever since CBDE was established, in the early part of the century, its mission has remained the same. It exists to provide the best scientific advice to protect the citizens of the United Kingdom from chemical and biological weapons and it will continue to do that, with or without another committee and whether it is regulatory or advisory.The hon. Gentleman railed against extra committees, but I would not have bothered to interrupt him had he not been a member of the Medical Research Council—a lucky Member to be so, because it is a very important organisation. It has endless committees, because, if one is to have peer group monitoring, one must have all sorts of sub-specialist committees. If I may say so, it is a little glib to rail against committees which, as the hon. Gentleman should know from his Medical Research Council experience, provide proper peer group control.
It was a huge honour to be a member of the Medical Research Council and I did not enjoy the day when I had to leave it because I was invited to form—to join—the Government of Margaret Thatcher. [Interruption.] Would that I had been invited to form the Government.
However, the hon. Gentleman is mistaken in that we are talking not about sub-specialist committees but about independent outsiders coming in to oversee the work. They are not comparable with the Medical Research Council's committees. Incidentally, it is possible to find scientists working in the Medical Research Council in their various projects who would have said how strongly they believed that all those committees were thoroughly overdone. Nevertheless, let us not argue, because I am trying to come to a conclusion. The CBDE advises the Government. Ministers are responsible to the House for that advice, and for the work of the national authority, under the legislation. I hope that the House will reject the new clause.First, I am overcome by the nerve gas of curiosity to know what was the other occasion in 25 years. Perhaps someone from the Box would come up with the answer to that.
I shall advance one serious argument. Julian Perry Robinson—we should all acknowledge our intellectual debt to a man who has worked for 30 years on that subject—argued time and again that what was important was that the institution should be able to cope with the new chemicals that were being developed every year. I return to the example—heaven help us—of the VX that, I am told by Professor Paul Rogers of Bradford, has been developed in Iraq, and which is worse than Sarin, as a concrete example of how one has to cope with new chemicals as that field becomes increasingly more dangerous. Coping with innovation may be what the institution should be about.I shall not speak at length because there is little that I can add to what my hon. Friend and former teacher, the hon. Member for Salisbury (Mr. Key) said. He covered the area fully. First, there is nothing in the convention that requires an advisory committee. Secondly, the hon. Member for East Kilbride (Mr. Ingram) mentioned the advisory body for pesticides. Simply because there is an advisory body in one of the myriad areas of Government does not necessarily mean that we must have advisory bodies in every area of Government. It is also fair to say that the advisory body for pesticides relates to a different area in that it relates especially to the public, whereas the chemical weapons advisory body, as I understand it, would not especially relate to the public; it would very specifically relate to a very small, or relatively small, number of experts. As my hon. Friend says, the various advisory bodies relating to the CBDE are non-statutory bodies.
The problem is that implementing the convention rightly involves a lot of regulation and bureaucracy. But we do not want to over-egg it. That would lead to bureaucracy, a lack of flexibility, and it would undoubtedly be expensive. I make it clear that we would expect the regulatory body to take advice as widely and as flexibly as possible. We would not want it just to take advice from a statutory advisory body. We would expect it to seek advice as widely as possibly and would rely particularly on the expertise of organisations such as the CBDE. I am sorry that I cannot extend further the spirit of good will and bridge-building which, as the hon. Member for East Kilbride knows, comes difficult to me at the best of times. I have stretched my good will as far as possible by accepting the amendment in the name of the hon. Member for Leyton (Mr. Cohen) and I am sorry that I cannot accept the new clause.I am sorry that the Minister has reverted to type at the tail end of the debate, but he may change his mind at some stage in the future. The hon. Member for Salisbury (Mr. Key) and the Minister do not appear to have read the new clause. It says:
Therefore, the committee is under the control and direction of the Secretary of State. The new clause continues:"The Secretary of State shall establish a committee to give advice, either when requested to do so or otherwise on any matters relating to the control of chemical weapons in furthering the general purposes of this Act."
and it goes on to detail from where the members of the committee should be drawn. Therefore, the new clause leaves everything in the hands of the Secretary of State. It could be a small committee. I do not know why the hon. Member for Salisbury came to the conclusion that it would be a large committee. If the Minister had his way, it would probably be a committee of one and he would be the chairman of it as well. The committee is carefully limited by new clause 1. We are not opening up a whole range of new bureaucracy. The new clause is an attempt to ensure that a committee is available with which the wider scientific community can interface and from which the Government could take appropriate advice. That seems sensible. We are dealing with an important area here. I regret the point made by the hon. Member for Salisbury in trying to diminish the expert opinion, advice and help that we have received from the Royal Society of Chemistry. Because a document is written by one man does not mean that it is wrong or flawed."the Secretary of State shall appoint the members of the committee",
The hon. Gentleman really is misrepresenting me. He knows that I did not say that. That document contained expert and excellent advice. What I was saying was that we should not talk about being briefed by the Royal Society of Chemistry when we know that we have been briefed by one expert, however expert he may be, and that it was a pity that there were not more people who were sufficiently interested in the Bill.
It may be that the hon. Gentleman has read only one briefing document and spoken to only one person, if he has spoken to him at all, but I have spoken to many others, not just the person responsible for the one briefing document from the Royal Society of Chemistry. The fact remains that it was produced in the name of the Royal Society of Chemistry and that is what is important. That will obviously be taken account of in the other place where there are senior ex-presidents of the society and widely respected scientists who will consider our deliberations on this aspect.
I suspect that the matter will be debated at length in the other place because it stems from a wide body of opinion; it is not just one man reporting for one organisation. It is a matter of regret that the Minister is not prepared to move further forward on the matter tonight. But having heard what the Minister has said, there is no point in further advancing the argument, so I beg to ask leave to withdraw the motion.Motion and clause, by leave, withdrawn.
Schedule agreed to.
Bill reported, with amendments; as amended, considered.
Order for Third Reading read.
8.14 pm
I beg to move, That the Bill be now read the Third time.
I use this opportunity to respond briefly to an important point made by the hon. Member for Linlithgow (Mr. Dalyell) relating to generic licensing. I think that he is aware that we expect that the burden of licensing can be reduced for a number of users—perhaps almost all users—using the chemicals for certain purposes, by issuing an open licence up to a certain level. That level is likely to be small, such as 5 g. It would be difficult to issue open licences for larger levels such a 100 g because that would take us outside the convention's requirements to limit schedule 1 chemicals to 1 tonne. However, we are looking at ways in which to issue open licences, particularly in order to ease the burden on the academic community. If the hon. Gentleman wanted to talk about that at any point in the future, I would be happy to do so.I thank the Minister for that because thereby lies the way to avoiding a nightmare.
I accept what the hon. Gentleman says.
I do not want to detain the House because I think that we are all moving in the same direction on this. Once again, we have had a good and interesting debate, as we did on Second Reading. I am particularly grateful to the Opposition for their co-operation. I am sorry that I could not accept all their amendments, but I am grateful for the spirit in which they were moved, and I am particularly grateful to the hon. Member for Leyton (Mr. Cohen) for his contributions. This is an important Bill. It is important not just for Britain's future but for the future of the globe. Without more ado, I commend it to the House.8.16 pm
I shall not delay the House long, but I want to make an important point. First, I thank the Minister for accepting my amendment and for the assurances that he gave during the Bill's passage in response to my various amendments. I congratulate him on the effective way in which he has steered the Bill through the House. He has shown a clear and thoughtful mind on the issues. But having given that bit of praise, I hope that he will not close his mind to some of the changes that might be proposed in the other place in order to make the convention and the Act work properly in due course.
I want to use this opportunity to make a brief point which I also mentioned on Second Reading, and that concerns how we might contribute to a voluntary assistance fund. I hope that the Minister will give some consideration to that, perhaps announcing a figure. The Minister said on Second Reading that that did not need legislation, and that is right, but it is important that that money is up front. It does not need to be a large sum, but it is important that financial considerations should not stop British inspectors going to a site where it is believed that chemical weapons have been used. I hope that the Minister will consider that. I agree that this is a treaty of enormous significance, outlawing chemical weapons. I am sure that the House wants to see such weapons eliminated from the face of the world. The next step is for other countries to ratify the convention. I hope that the Government will put pressure on the United States and the Russian federation to ratify it as swiftly as possible and then get many other countries to do so and to comply with its provisions. It institutes a proper programme of inspection and transparency that is very much needed. As I said, I hope that we shall see the elimination of these despicable weapons from the face of the earth.8.18 pm
We have had a useful two days of debate on the Bill, one on Second Reading and one today. On behalf of the Opposition, I reaffirm our support for the Bill which we welcomed on Second Reading.
We recognise that it is an essential and important measure and we have had some informative debates on its key aspects. I pay tribute again to the Royal Society of Chemistry, Julian Perry Robinson, Alistair Hay of Leeds university and other experts who have provided assistance in the understanding of a complex matter. It is important that the United Kingdom should be one of the first 65 signatories to the convention. Our chemical industry is a world leader so it is only proper that we should be one of the leading signatories. The Government have moved substantially from their early draft of the Bill and that is to be commended. I regret that the Minister is not prepared to accept the establishment of an advisory committee. Clearly, that will be considered in another place and there may well be a subsequent change. Given the way in which the matter has been handled and addressed in the House, although it is not yet scheduled for debate in another place, it would be useful if the Minister could let us know when the Bill is due to be considered as we are operating within a time scale. I conclude by thanking all the hon. Members who have taken part in the debates this evening and on Second Reading. We fully analysed the Bill and that analysis will stand proper examination elsewhere. It is an important aspect of our work in the House. We now wish the Bill speedy progress through the House of Lords.8.21 pm
With the leave of the House, I shall answer as briefly as possible one or two of the questions that have been raised. The voluntary assistance fund mentioned by the hon. Member for Leyton (Mr. Cohen) is still being argued in The Hague. When a decision has been reached, we shall decide how far we can support it, but I assure the hon. Gentleman that we shall be as generous as possible.
I was asked when was the other occasion in the past 25 years when an Opposition amendment was accepted unamended, but I require more notice of that question. I join the Opposition spokesman in thanking the many experts, who I shall not attempt to name, who advised us on the Bill. Their expertise and help has been greatly appreciated. Finally, and possibly most importantly, we hope that progress on the Bill in another place will take place early in the new year. We are as keen as the Opposition to ensure that we ratify the convention, in full, as soon as possible.Question put and agreed to.
Bill accordingly read the Third time, and passed.
Criminal Injuries Compensation
8.22 pm
I beg to move,
As hon. Members will recall, the passage last month of the Criminal Injuries Compensation Act 1995 paved the way for a new criminal injuries compensation scheme. The Act provides that a draft of the new scheme must be approved by affirmative resolution of each House. The draft was laid on 16 November and the House's task tonight is to decide whether it should approve it. The criminal injuries compensation scheme was introduced in 1964 to provide compensation from public funds for blameless victims of crimes of violence and to those injured in attempting to catch criminals or prevent crime. Payment is made in recognition of the public sense of responsibility for and sympathy with the innocent victim. Under the current scheme, compensation has been assessed by the Criminal Injuries Compensation Board on the basis of common law damages. That requires finely judged assessments of the degree of suffering and financial loss, which tend to make speedy decision taking more difficult. They also make it hard to predict and control the costs of the scheme, which have been rising at an unsustainable rate while, despite the very best efforts of the board, the backlog of unsettled cases has been continuing to rise. Against that background, we sought to introduce a new tariff-based scheme in 1994. The scheme moved away from common law damages and provided for payment to be made on the basis of a scale of awards for injuries of comparable severity, with the scale or tariff being based on previous awards made by the board. In April this year, however, the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council ruled that the introduction of the tariff scheme had been unlawful. That judgment related solely to the method of the tariff scheme's introduction, not to its intrinsic merits. The ruling necessitated the immediate withdrawal of the tariff scheme and the reinstatement of the former scheme, based on common law damages. It also meant that some applicants were disadvantaged because they would have been treated more generously under the tariff scheme than under the reinstated scheme. They included, for example, some relatives of murder victims. The eligibility criteria in fatal cases were wider under the tariff scheme than under the common law damages scheme, allowing long-term unmarried partners of the deceased to qualify for an award, as well as the parents of a child of any age. Under the enforced reinstatement of the common law damages scheme, those applicants lost entitlement to an award—an unfortunate consequence of the withdrawal of the tariff scheme necessitated by the House of Lords' judgment. We remain firmly of the view that a tariff-based approach was right. A tariff scheme is easier for victims to understand. It is easier to operate, so applications can be dealt with more quickly. It also enables costs to be controlled and predicted more easily. The legal judgment gave us an opportunity to take a fresh look at the tariff approach. In doing so, we took careful note of the criticisms made of the earlier scheme in Parliament and elsewhere. We noted in particular the concern that a too simple tariff scheme could have a detrimental effect on those most seriously affected by their injuries. When, therefore, we invited Parliament to pass the Bill to give statutory backing to a new tariff scheme we sought to ensure that there were adequate powers to enable a number of significant improvements to be made. Parliament clearly agreed with that approach and the new enhanced tariff scheme proposed under the Act's new powers fully addresses the major points of concern that have been expressed.That the draft Criminal Injuries Compensation Scheme, which was laid before this House on 16th November, be approved.
One point that the improved tariff scheme does not address is inflation. The Minister will be aware that common law damages are assessed not as at the time of the accident but at the time of settlement or trial and therefore take inflation fully into account. A degree of interest is added—usually 2 per cent. on personal injury damages. Since the tariff was devised, the award for rape in the civil courts has apparently reached £20,000. Under the tariff scheme, rape awards will be £17,500, so there is already a discrepancy between the tariff and common law damages. Will the Government give an assurance that the tariff will be regularly revised so that it does not lose pace with comparable levels of damages, which are low in the United Kingdom in any event?
Of course we shall keep the tariff under constant review to allow for inflation and other factors. Without examining the individual example that the hon. and learned Gentleman has given, I remind him that the levels in the proposed scheme are already ahead of inflation.
When we introduced the tariff scheme, we rounded up the bulk of the figures, which are now set higher than the amounts usually awarded in the courts. In addition, when we built in the new loss of earnings provision for awards over 28 weeks, we did not extract from the tariff scheme, as we could have done, the element that is already included for loss of earnings. The awards under the tariff scheme were the common law awards put through the computer to produce an average, which obviously included an element for loss of earnings. Loss of earnings is therefore taken into account in the tariff figures. As we are now introducing an element for loss of earnings over 28 weeks, we could have extracted the loss of earnings proportion from the existing tariffs. We decided not to do so, which shows that we are more than taking care of inflation. I shall briefly rehearse the principal features of the new draft scheme. First, all successful claimants will receive a tariff award based on the injury suffered. In addition, in more serious cases, victims will receive extra compensation for loss of earnings and for special care. In fatal cases, payment will additionally be made for loss of dependency—the breadwinner's income—and loss of parental services. Reasonable funeral expenses will continue to be reimbursed. We are doubling the upper limit for awards payable under the old tariff scheme from £250,000 to £500,000. We are making provision for recipients of higher value awards to opt for payment through the purchase of annuities. These arrangements are generally known as structured settlements. They can provide a stream of index-linked, tax-free payments, thereby considerably increasing the net value of the award. There was a provision in the Act to extend the benefit of structured settlements to applicants under the current scheme whose claims have not yet been settled. The complementary change to the current scheme to permit that was made on 8 November, the day on which the Act received Royal Assent. The structured payment scheme has received widespread and warm support from members of the legal profession and from many others. We issued a first draft of the new scheme in August. Those who studied it will realise that that was no small task. Given the additional features in the new arrangements—loss of earnings, loss of dependency and care costs, for example—we had to make it clear, in language understandable to the layman, exactly what was meant by the rather imprecise terms to which I have referred and what would therefore qualify under the enhanced tariff scheme and what would not. That is why the new draft scheme has, of necessity, to be rather longer and more detailed than any of its predecessors. The first draft of the new scheme was circulated widely to Members of both Houses and to interested individuals and organisations, including the police, representative organisations, the Criminal Injuries Compensation Board, Victim Support, the Association of Personal Injury Lawyers, the Trades Union Congress, the Bar Council and the Law Society, as well as to equivalent bodies in Scotland and to many others. We had meetings with many of these organisations to discuss the proposals. We received much useful feedback in writing. The draft helped to inform debate during the Bill's consideration in another place where, as a result, discussion focused not so much on the Bill's provisions but on the terms of the draft scheme. That, too, gave us some useful feedback. In the light of that wide and most useful consultation exercise we made numerous changes to the draft scheme. Among the most significant, perhaps, were the achievement of greater consistency in the terminology used throughout the draft scheme, the inclusion of a table of contents, the more logical presentation of the scheme's provisions, the clarification of the criteria for waiving time limits and provisions relating to loss of income, the cost of special care in fatal injury awards and appeals. We circulated the revised version of the draft scheme on 1 November, in time to inform debate during the final stages of the Bill. That enabled Parliament to complete its consideration of the Bill in the full knowledge of the detailed terms of the scheme that would subsequently be proposed under the Bill's provisions. In our view, the new draft represented a significant improvement on the earlier one. I am glad to be able to tell the House that that view seems to have been shared generally. We received little additional feedback, and most of that was in the nature of seeking clarification or suggesting minor amendments to small or technical points of detail. That feedback, however, helped us to make one or two minor changes to the draft scheme in the interest of clarity and to ensure that all the i's were dotted and the t's crossed. Essentially, the draft scheme that is before the House is the same as the one which was circulated last month, which Parliament had an opportunity to consider before it passed what became the Criminal Injuries Compensation Act. The draft scheme now before us accordingly gives effect to Parliament's wishes as expressed in the Act. It puts the necessary flesh on the bones of that Act and spells out clearly and unambiguously who can qualify for an award, how that award will be assessed and paid and how dissatisfied claimants may appeal. It makes the administration clear and sets out the line of accountability. Once the draft scheme has been approved and the scheme is established, the Act makes it clear that any subsequent change will require parliamentary approval under the affirmative resolution procedure if the change affects a key feature of the scheme, and under the negative procedure if the change relates to a more minor feature. Thus it is Parliament rather than the Executive that will always have the final say over each and every provision of the new tariff scheme. We believe that the draft new scheme provides the right balance between the needs of victims and the interests of the taxpayer. It has the benefits of a tariff-based approach, which will enable most claimants to receive their money more quickly without undue fuss. It will ensure also that the more seriously injured are generously catered for by payments for loss of earnings, the costs of special care and for structured settlements. It will remain a generous scheme. I remind the House that it is by far the most generous scheme of its sort anywhere in the world. Accordingly, I commend the draft scheme to the House.8.35 pm
The Minister has reminded us of the background to the statutory instrument from a view favourable to the Government's approach. The background to the statutory instrument was legislation that cut £700 million from the cash available to compensate victims of violent crime. We opposed that legislation vigorously from its earliest stages.
The Minister says that costs under the scheme were rising to an unsustainable level, but it is crime that has risen to an unsustainable level under the Government. That has led to increased costs in providing compensation. The Minister said with some satisfaction that Parliament will decide on the features of the scheme as well as on the tariff, having ruled on the primary legislation. It is only fair to say that those are three steps towards which we pulled the Government over a considerable period. Initially—the Minister glossed over this—the Home Secretary sought to act illegally by introducing a new scheme without any accountability to the House or to another place. The right hon. and learned Gentleman was found to have acted illegally. We insisted that there should be a proper affirmative procedure for the scheme and for the tariff. We won those concessions along the way. That is the background to the statutory instrument. We should also remember that we are agreeing to the introduction of a scheme that will affect some of those who have been most damaged by some of the nastiest crimes. People will be affected by our decisions. There is still confusion and added pain for many victims because of the way in which these matters have been handled. There are still some anomalies for the Government to resolve. I hope that the Minister will listen and in developing the scheme further, or in making later amendments, will take account of some of the issues that are still outstanding. In answer to a parliamentary question last week the Minister made clear how some people have been disadvantaged because the new scheme, which the Government introduced illegally, made allowance for payments to the relatives of murder victims. When that provision was changed that opportunity for compensation was lost. That compensation will be available again, of course, when the new scheme comes into force, but there will be a gap. Some people will receive compensation under the Government's replacement scheme, but there will be a period during which people in the same circumstances will not receive compensation. I asked the Minister last week if he would make it his policy to allow the families of murder victims, parents of adult victims, the adult children of murder victims, the unmarried partners of murder victims and the fathers of illegitimate murder victims who apply for compensation under the tariff-based scheme of criminal injury compensation, announced in 1994 and subsequently withdrawn, to make a new application under the terms of the new scheme that he proposes to implement from April 1996. The Minister responded by saying that he was not willing to do so, and said:The fact is that we are trying to deal with a situation where some people, because of the ham-fisted way in which the original legislation was introduced, have lost out, and will lose out unless some mechanism is found to address that problem."To allow applicants in any particular category to withdraw a claim lodged between 1 April 1994 and 5 April 1995 and then reapply under the proposed new scheme would be wrong in principle and anomalous in practice."—[Official Report, 28 November 1995; Vol. 267, c. 652.]
The hon. Gentleman mentioned certain categories of victim and asked me to try to make a special exception in those cases, which I think would be anomalous. Why does he limit his demand to those categories of victim? What about all the others who have suffered other injuries but are caught in the same trap as a result of the House of Lords judgment?
They are caught as a result not of the House of Lords judgment but of the Secretary of State introducing changes under an illegal mechanism and then trying to avoid accountability to the House. That was the source of the problem, so let us not have the House of Lords or those who uphold the law blamed for the errors that were made by the Home Secretary. I suggest that he is the source of the anomaly that affects those people, who feel tremendously damaged by it.
We are talking about a specific category and a specific set of injuries. Last week, the Minister said:the original scheme—"A total of 1,192 fatal applications were outstanding when the tariff scheme—
I shall not go into the detail of the Minister's replies, but it is important that when he gave an assessment he put a top ceiling at some £5 million and gave a more realistic estimate of between £1.5 million and £2.5 million as the total cost to correct the anomaly. I appeal to the Minister—he will know that people feel tremendously injured and damaged by the anomaly and that those affected by the most horrendous crimes feel very personally the hurt that has been done to them—to be generous in dealing with this anomaly. Surely, if there are individuals who would have been the recipients of compensation, as a result of a relative being murdered, under the interim scheme, which was found to be illegal, and who would receive compensation again after 1 April under the new scheme—[Interruption.]—it would be wrong for us not to fill that gap and to—was withdrawn. About a third were from a parent or parents, some 30 per cent. were in respect of children under 18 years of age, about 20 per cent. were from children aged 18 or over, and some 15 per cent. were from spouses, whether formally married or regarded as a spouse in common law.—[Official Report, 28 November 1995; Vol. 267, c. 654.]
On a point of order, Mr. Deputy Speaker. Will you be indulgent and allow the hon. Gentleman to take his call and then resume his speech?
Certainly not. I have noticed many times recently that such electronic equipment seems to be operating in here, and it is not good for debate.
I accept that and apologise, Mr. Deputy Speaker. It is an electronic brain, not a means of communication.
The Minister has an opportunity to put matters right for the individuals who have suffered the worst pain—bereavement—and it would surely be just and generous if he— [finterruptionj I am sorry, but may I point out to my hon. Friend the Member for Birmingham, Perry Bar (Mr. Rooker) that we are talking about the victims of bereavement, and that it is a most serious item? It would be both just and generous if the Minister found a means of correcting the anomaly. I believe that he thinks that he does not have the powers to do so. Obviously, we have not seen the legal advice that he has been given, but a Home Secretary who sought to achieve injustice through the misuse of prerogative powers should surely have no hesitation in taking a risk for justice. If there is a doubt, let him introduce legislation to put matters right. Opposition Members are prepared to ensure that the legislation is not obstructed and goes through the House quickly to correct the anomaly. If the Minister is unwilling to use Government time—it would allow him to take credit for setting right the anomaly, which has been highlighted most strongly by organisations that represent the victims of crime, and by Victim Support in particular—I have spoken to one of my hon. Friends who has secured a high place in the ballot for private Members' Bills, and he has expressed a willingness to introduce a Bill under that system if the Minister and the Government will give an undertaking to allow it a smooth and swift passage. In that way, co-operation across the Chamber could achieve what the Minister must surely accept as justice and correct an anomaly that would otherwise continue to cause pain to the individuals involved. We welcome the introduction of a tariff system to simplify the process of decision making and to speed it up. Many victims have wanted a decision quickly and not to have reminders of their suffering over an extended period, but there are still problems with the scheme and the tariff: for example, some settlements will be less generous than under the previous common law system; there is a less personal assessment in circumstances where more serious injury or damage may be involved; and payments for loss of earnings, which was a concession wrung from the Government, are still not generous and leave a considerable gap. We are asked today to confirm the Home Secretary's proposed scheme, including the tariff that goes with it. I stress that the Minister almost suggested that the Government had gone away, during the minor delay that was caused by the Lords' ruling, and generously considered ways to improve the scheme. It has been a long, drawn-out procedure. I give the Minister credit for the fact that he was willing to publish his draft scheme at an early stage and allow it to be discussed in Committee. That is right, and it is only fair to acknowledge that he was willing to do that, and therefore enter into debate. It is also true that during discussions he has moved his position. As that is somewhat unusual, I pay tribute to him for doing so. On occasions, it has been like extracting teeth from a dinosaur, and there are still improvements that could be made. Concerns have still not been addressed. There are still problems to be overcome, and we hope that the Minister will acknowledge that aspects of the scheme can be improved in future. Some of the remaining flaws will have to be dealt with by changes in the future, but others concern undertakings given by the Minister or lack of clarity on specific points within the scheme and the tariff. Will the right hon. Gentleman give an undertaking that, where possible, such issues will be dealt with in the guide, which is to be published by the criminal injuries compensation authority, so that there is clarity and so that anything that is unclear is avoided? Some of the issues are matters of detail, but I wish to touch on some of the points, and I hope that the Minister will agree to continue to listen to the points that are being made and seek to provide clarification. Will he draw the attention of the authority to these points and ask it to provide a positive response within the guide? It is clear that major concessions have been made, and when compared to the unlawful tariff, provision for loss of earnings, dependency in fatal cases, care costs and structured settlements are areas where there has been an improvement. There are other anomalies in the scheme—in paragraph 38(c) in particular, where reference is made to the children of murder victims. It refers toThe same anomaly may arise in other places, but the definition of a child is a person under the age of 18. It is quite clear from what has been said by the Minister at various times and from the scheme that it is meant to apply not only to children under 18 but to the adult children of murder victims, and murder victims above the age of 18. If that is so, and if the Minister agrees, will he record his agreement and arrange for it to be covered in the guidance so that there is no anomaly? The intention is clear, but more clarification is needed. The provision for structured settlement in paragraph 52 is welcome, but, even if structured annuity payments are made on a tax-free basis, it is improbable that the amount likely to be generated by an award of £500,000 will be sufficient to make adequate provision for the more seriously injured—for instance, those suffering from major paralysis or severe brain damage. Structured settlements are also to be voluntary. The Government have accepted the need to permit structural settlements for awards being processed under the common law schemes, but that has not yet been finalised. An amendment to the common law scheme to permit that in cases that are not finalised is expected. When will that amendment be made? The Minister gave us an undertaking when we discussed the matter in Committee. Does he intend the provisions to apply only from 1 April, when the new scheme is introduced, or will he agree to its operation immediately after the House has approved the subsidiary legislation that we are considering? Surely there is no reason for delay, but I suggest to the Minister that some cases may be delayed to hit the date of 1 April if it is not agreed that structured settlements can be allowed under the old common law system, effectively from today. Speed of decision making is supposed to be one of the important elements that follow the introduction of the tariff system. It does not seem that, in its year of operation, the original tariff system operated more quickly than the original common law scheme: I believe that, of 66,387 cases lodged, only 11,076 were determined—16.7 per cent.—compared with the resolution of 70 per cent. of cases under the last full year of the old Criminal Injuries Compensation Board. That figure comes from the board's annual report. Will the Minister undertake to ensure that there is proper monitoring, and that targets relating to speed of decision making are met under the new tariff system? The loss of parental services in fatal cases also requires more attention. Will the Minister give an undertaking to re-examine the evidence with which he has been provided by a variety of sources? The eligibility rules were debated in Committee. The scheme set a two-year limitation period. The Minister will recall that we wanted a three-year period. The time limit runs from the date of the incident, irrespective of the age of the victim, the nature of the injury or the extent of the victim's knowledge. The three-year period is very important for many victims, particularly those who are suffering from psychological injuries or who are the victims of sexual violence, especially children. Many such claimants do not feel able to make a claim in the immediate period after the incident in which they suffered injury. The Minister has allowed some flexibility in regard to applications that are made outside the time limit. Will he give an undertaking to monitor the position carefully, and to consider, in due course, extending that period from two to three years? We are also worried by the more restrictive qualification rules in the tariff—for instance, for firefighters, who under the 1994 scheme had to show that they were taking an exceptional risk at the time of suffering accidental injury in fighting "arson" fires, an additional qualification beyond that required under the previous common law scheme. That requirement is to continue. The "exceptional risk" exclusion will prevent most firefighters who sustain injury in "arson" fires from recovering compensation—unless, for example, they enter a burning building to effect a rescue. The "exceptional risk" rule also potentially excludes citizens who suffer accidental injury in trying to catch offenders or prevent offences, or in helping police officers to do so—or, indeed, in helping firefighters to deal with "arson" fires. Those aspects still give rise to concern. We do not believe that the passing of the measure should be delayed for that reason, but we hope that, where possible, the Minister will be generous in his guidance, and will undertake to monitor the position as time goes on. One of the most difficult aspects is that of psychological injury. Victims who suffer mental injury alone, without physical injury, are subject to requirements that are basically similar to those applied by the courts in common law damages claims, although there are some differences. I understand that those requirements are very narrow, and the common law is currently the subject of review by the Law Commission. Will the Minister undertake to reflect on any recommendations made by the Law Commission in regard to the general principles applying to psychological injury? Obviously, he cannot anticipate the findings of the Law Commission, but will he at least consider the implications of the recommendations and, if appropriate, amendments to the scheme? I referred to exceptional injury. With one exception, the scheme makes no provision for rescuers, who are now excluded but were not under the common law scheme. Professional rescuers, such as firefighters, police officers or unpaid rescuers—for instance, first-aiders or moors or mountain rescue teams, who provide a tremendous service—will receive compensation only if related to the primary victim of the offence. Simply witnessing the offence or its aftermath will no longer be sufficient. It is easy to envisage circumstances in which problems could arise. Following a horrific incident such as a murder, people will be involved in the search for what turns out to be a body. I am sure that the Minister accepts that, in some instances, considerable damage can be done. Under the old common law system such experiences would have led to compensation, but that will not apply under the new scheme. Again, will the Minister be as generous as possible in his guidance, and undertake to monitor the possible exposure of anomalies? The only exception to the rule that I have mentioned applies to railway staff who deal with the immediate aftermath of a railway suicide or attempted suicide. They have been treated as a special case. I do not argue with that, but other special cases are specifically excluded. There are alternatives to the way in which the tariff has been introduced. I do not intend to go into them now, because they have already been put to the Minister, but I hope that the tariff will be monitored and that the detailed alternatives that have been urged on him will be considered in the future. Certain special cases, although not large in number, are extremely difficult to value and perhaps should have been excluded from the tariff to permit individual assessment — children's cases generally, for which there were more than 7,000 claims, and cases involving, for example, child sex abuse, for which there were only 3,437 claims in 1993-94, psychological injury, sexual assault or scarring. The other special case is the victim of rape who gives birth to a child whom she intends to keep. She will receive a fixed amount up to £5,000. The Government have not, however, recognised that any woman who becomes pregnant due to a rape should have an additional sum, whether she gives birth to a child who is adopted, miscarriages or has an abortion. In those three cases, she receives nothing. That seems to be an anomaly and I hope that the Minister will maintain an open mind and consider ways of changing that in future if there is no scope for change now. The other point about multiple injuries was made clear during a debate in the other place, when Lord Carlisle of Bucklow said:"a child of the deceased, whether or not the natural child, provided that he was accepted by the deceased as a child of his family or was dependent on him."
or her—"there are two major injuries which of their nature are likely to be totally distinct. For example, to take level 12 in the tariff, it seems very hard to say that the person who is partially permanently blind in one eye and at the same time has a fracture of both femurs should receive only 10 per cent. of what would be reasonable compensation for the fracture of both femurs. The fact is, such an injury will be just as grave to him"—
That is an example of the anomalies that exist in the tariff. Inflation was mentioned by the hon. and learned Member for Montgomery (Mr. Carlile) and it is a major cause for concern. There is no specific commitment to an annual uprating of the tariff to take account of inflation. The common law scheme, working to similar compensation rules as the courts, took into account inflation's effects and developments generally in the law of damages. I hope that the Minister will clarify that position and give an undertaking on the way in which the Government will deal with uprating due to inflation. By the time that the tariff comes to be reviewed in April 1999, the 1994 figures could still be in operation and would be well out of date by some seven or eight years. It is a major concession by the Government that loss of earnings is covered at all in the scheme, but hardship is likely to be experienced by people who suffer loss of earnings for periods of up to 28 weeks. No provision is made for them in the scheme because reliance is placed on existing statutory sick pay entitlements. Although many employers make provision for contractual sick pay, many do not. The people who will suffer most will generally be those in low-paid employment whose terms of employment often have little or no contractual sick pay provision beyond statutory sick pay. Such people are often in high-risk occupations—for example, take-away catering. Self-employed people such as taxi drivers who do not receive statutory sick pay will lose out altogether for that period. The position could be even worse for shopkeepers or sub-postmasters and mistresses. They may have to pay locum managers to run their businesses, thus losing income and incurring additional unrecoverable expenditure. Those who have had a prolonged period of sickness before the criminal injury may have exhausted their statutory sick pay entitlement. That applies particularly where there is repeat victimisation. In the categories that I have mentioned, a victim can become a victim on a subsequent occasion. Where that happens, there could be considerable loss. Many people are likely to be affected by that anomaly. The House of Commons Library has estimated that up to 12 million people could be excluded by the 28-week rule. There are 3 million self-employed people, 3 million people below the lower earnings limit, 1 million people on short-term or temporary contracts, 2 million people who work for employers with no sick-pay scheme and about 3 million people who do not qualify as they have not worked for their employers for long enough. The Minister accepted at a late stage that loss of pension rights should be provided for, as in paragraph 31(c). It seems that the calculation of such rights will generally be similar to the old common law scheme. Will he confirm that that is so? Problems arise from the definitions that care costs will no longer include "loss of services" claims, under which the common law entitlement compensated victims who are disabled from tasks about the home, such as decorating and gardening, for the performance of which tasks they now need to pay others. Will the Minister clarify that position? A number of detailed anomalies arise under this scheme. It is perhaps inevitable that there should be some. I hope, however, that the Minister will be willing to undertake to continue to listen, to discuss and to take representations to take account of the difficulties that we have raised with him, either in Committee or in this short debate tonight, and to ensure that the new scheme is as effective as possible. The Government announced on Report that performance targets for the administration of the new scheme will be set and that a complaints procedure will be instituted. The parliamentary ombudsman will not be able to investigate individual decisions but will be able to investigate administrative functions of the scheme. I hope that the details about that will be contained in the advice so that they are clearly available to those who seek information about the scheme. It is clear that the Minister has listened to our debates and that progress has been made, but there are still anomalies and difficulties, some of which I have tried to cover and others that will be extremely difficult and damaging to individuals. Irrespective of statistics, we must not forget that it is individuals who receive compensation as a result of becoming the victims of violent crime. It is rather sad that the Home Secretary's approach to the issue is an attempt to save money at the expense of victims of crime. Many victims will suffer as a result, although there will be benefits from the tariff scheme. In some ways the Government are making victims of the most horrific and damaging injuries pay for the Government's failure to stem the increase in crime and particularly in violent crime. Instead of cutting crime, the Government have cut the help that is available to victims. With some cheers, but with some remaining concerns, we examine the statutory instrument, which, of course, we cannot amend but can only accept or reject. We shall certainly not vote against it because we want the new scheme to be as clear as it can be and to come into operation as quickly as possible. I hope that the Minister will undertake to clarify as many as possible of those remaining areas of doubt and that in future he will listen to suggestions about where improvement is needed for future statutory instruments."whether or not he has been partially blinded in the same attack."— [Official Report, House of Lords, 31 October 1995; Vol. 566, c. 1384-5.]
9.6 pm
There is a slight danger that the Minister will escape from the debate covered in plaudits and with a small halo, suggesting that the Government have achieved a great success in improving the lot of victims of crime. We should not forget the history of the scheme. Under it, as compared with the old non-statutory scheme, victims of crime will receive less money from the Government than they received before.
In the past, victims of crime received, broadly speaking, damages that they would have received in a civil court, taking into account all the elements that form the sophisticated law of damages that applies in a civil court. There has been a significant reduction, and it is quite clear that the sole purpose of the introduction of the scheme and its fated unlawful predecessor, the original tariff scheme, is to cut public spending. The Library's best estimate is that, in the next financial year, there will be a saving of £200 million. That money is a reduction in what would have been payable to the victims of crime. For that reason, it comes ill from the Government to attempt to earn too much praise for what they have done for the victims of crime. The reduction shows that the Government have hardly striven to achieve greater justice for those victims. We must not forget that the Government have been dragged kicking and screaming to this new improved tariff scheme. Its history includes the resignation of Martin Thomas QC, a distinguished practitioner on the Criminal Injuries Compensation Board. It includes complex proceedings for judicial review related to the use of the royal prerogative in unpredictable legal territory. It includes judges intervening, for which they are now being criticised. The Government do not seem to like judges upholding the constitutional rights of British citizens. The history of the scheme includes having to abandon one that was extremely ungenerous and that would have created much greater unfairness for victims of crime than the present scheme. It also includes the anomalies that were mentioned by the hon. Member for Cardiff, South and Penarth (Mr. Michael). Those have been well highlighted by Victim Support, and are well documented. The cost of rectifying those anomalies is small, as the hon. Gentleman said. I am very surprised that the Government, who seek to support victims of crime, or at least say that they seek to support victims of crime, are not prepared to pay up between £2.6 million and £5 million in order to redress what is seen—at least by many people—as an injustice. Of course I appreciate that the whole area of awarding damages for bereavement is difficult—because it cannot be measured by compensation—and that the compensation paid for bereavement in civil cases is very small; nothing more than a token to recognise the feelings of bereavement suffered by the bereaved. It is therefore very disappointing that the Government have not been able to share those feelings of people who have been caught in what was a very small time trap—which, as has been said, could have been dealt with very quickly. It is a disappointment, too, that so few Members are in the House to speak on such an important issue. I understand, however, that tonight is a big night for the Labour party. I believe that it has a greyhound meeting , which has attracted many of its Members. However, to suggest that new Labour has gone to the dogs would not be—perhaps—terribly fair. To return to the motion, I raised with the Minister in an intervention the issue of inflation. I ask him to bear in mind closely the point that I made. Civil courts have always been able to award damages that are the right valuation at the time. Inflation in the civil courts has never been anything more than realistic. If one looks, as I have professionally, over the years at the way in which damages have developed, one sees that sometimes the courts have fallen behind inflation and then caught up later. But when particular types of injuries have been awarded in jerks, rather than in a steady rise to reflect inflation, injustice has occasionally occurred.Given the hon. and learned Gentleman's experience in criminal practice and his work as a recorder, and given the new rules in the House about paid advocacy, has he taken the opportunity to discuss his involvement in this sort of debate with the new Commissioner for Standards?
I have certainly not discussed with the Commissioner for Standards my involvement in this debate, nor would I. What I am doing now falls plainly within the rules.
He is not initiating anything.
I am not initiating anything; I am not advocating anything, except improvement of the law. That is what I am elected to do. I say to the hon. Member for Eastbourne (Mr. Waterson) that if we are to be barred from speaking in the House on matters on which we happen to be reasonably expert, we have reached a poor pass in parliamentary democracy.
You voted for it.
Someone who is usually silent in this House said from a sedentary position that I voted for it. I certainly did not vote—nor did any of my right hon. or hon. Friends—to bar Members from speaking on matters on which they have professional and working expertise.
The rules do not do that.
If anybody is under the illusion that the new rules do that, they are wrong, as the hon. Member for Birmingham, Perry Barr (Mr. Rooker) has just reflected, with all his experience and knowledge of parliamentary procedure.
To return to the point, we want this tariff scheme to work. It is important for the criminal justice scheme that it should work. It is important for the reputation of the House that the scheme should work. Therefore, it is very important that we should be given more than a vague commitment by the Minister that inflation will be taken into account by uprating the tariff regularly. It is bad enough to be a victim of crime, but it would be unforgivable if victims of crime were also made the victims of public spending cuts. We need the clearest of commitments on those issues. I hope that the scheme will work. I hope, however, that the Minister will recognise that—many, many reasons have been given by the hon. Member for Cardiff, South and Penarth—if further anomalies arise, the Government should be willing to address them. I trust that an element of flexibility will be applied over the years to the new scheme, which will mean that victims of crime will still be able to obtain justice for their injuries.
9.14 pm
With the leave of the House, Mr. Deputy Speaker. This has been a short but interesting debate. I shall deal first with the point raised by the hon. and learned Member for Montgomery (Mr. Carlile) about inflation. Of course we are committed to reviewing the scheme regularly. We want to keep all its aspects under constant review, and we acknowledge the need to take inflation into account. It would be politically unsustainable for any Government, of any colour, to run such a scheme without reviewing it for inflation — especially if inflation under another Government were to rise a great deal faster than at present.
Labour Members raised the issue of the treatment of fatal cases. I want to take a few minutes to make it absolutely clear what the position was and is. Under the common law damages scheme—the old 1990 scheme—compensation for dependants or relatives of those fatally injured was and is assessed in accordance with the Fatal Accidents Act and allied legislation. That produced some anomalies. For instance, the father of an illegitimate child could receive no award for bereavement, nor could parents when their child was over the age of 18 when killed. As the whole House knows and agrees, death by accident is always a tragedy. In the light of the cases that arose under the 1990 scheme, we—this Government, who have been reprimanded by some hon. Members tonight—became convinced that there was a case for treating the families of homicide victims rather differently from the position under the Fatal Accidents Act. Thus, when we devised the interim tariff scheme, we made it possible for the first time for parents and a spouse, whether or not common law, and the children, of any age, of a homicide victim to qualify for a share of the new fatal award of —10,000, which had replaced the common law damages scheme award for loss of dependency, loss of support, and bereavement. We estimated that the change would result in more than 80 per cent. of claimants in fatal cases receiving more money than they would have done under the 1990 scheme. The enforced withdrawal of the 1994 tariff scheme and the reinstatement—as had to be done—of the 1990 scheme meant that the more restrictive eligibility criteria of the 1990 scheme had to be applied once more. I wish that people had recognised that the interim tariff scheme that we introduced in certain areas was considerably more generous than the old scheme. It meant that those categories of relatives or dependants who had, for the first time ever under our proposals, become eligible for an award under the tariff scheme were unfortunately no longer eligible. We have considerable sympathy for such claimants. The fact that they cannot now qualify for an award is an unfortunate consequence of the withdrawal of the 1994 tariff scheme, necessitated by the House of Lords judgment. Nevertheless, we still think that it is right that such categories of claimants should be able to qualify for a fatal award. Thus, under the new tariff scheme before us today, the eligibility criteria for fatal cases are the same as they were under the earlier tariff scheme. Once the new scheme is introduced, such people will be eligible for a fatal award of £5,000—or £10,000 if there is only one qualifying claimant. In addition, under the new tariff scheme there will also be payment for loss of dependency—that is, reliance on the breadwinner's income—and loss of parental support. I must tell the House that there is nothing that we can reasonably do for those who would have been eligible under the 1994 tariff scheme and who would again be eligible under the 1996 scheme, but who have been rendered ineligible by the enforced reinstatement of the old scheme. Applications must, in equity, be considered under the terms of the scheme in force at the time of application. That means that, because the 1994 scheme was ruled ineligible, the cases to which I have just referred have to be dealt with under the 1990 scheme. It is not possible to treat such applicants as a special case, and allow them a payment under our more generous 1994 tariff scheme, or let them reapply under the generous 1996 tariff scheme. That would be wrong in principle, and anomalous in practice. Let us not forget that between 50 per cent. and 60 per cent. of applicants would have been better off under the 1994 tariff scheme than under the reinstated 1990 scheme. We cannot move to a situation in which any group of claimants—however strongly they may feel— are allowed to pick and choose their claim under whichever scheme they think would be the most advantageous for them.I have been following the Minister's argument with care. If the House of Commons recognises not the loudness of the voices of those who argue that there is an anomaly, but that there is a case of injustice to be met, why cannot the House decide to correct that anomaly? Surely it is right that the House has such powers, and surely it is right that that can be done retrospectively. Many other measures have been carried out retrospectively by the Government, so all that is needed is the will.
I believe that ex gratia payments can be made, as the hon. and learned Member for Montgomery (Mr. Carlile) has suggested. If the Minister is not willing to introduce such a scheme, will he recognise the justice of the claim and allow the House to decide on the matter? We have given him the means to do so.What an extraordinary suggestion. We were castigated by the Opposition for operating an ex gratia scheme, and they demanded that we introduce a statutory scheme. We have now introduced a statutory scheme, and the Opposition are now suggesting that we go back to making ex gratia payments to a certain group of claimants.
The hon. Gentleman is trying to suggest that we can pick out a narrow category of claimants. If we get into the business of trying to backdate payments for a special group of claimants, why should we limit it to those claimants? What about all the other claimants, including the non-fatal cases and the 50 or 60 per cent. of claimants who would have been better off if the tariff scheme that was thrown out by the House of Lords had stayed in place? In all equity, do they not have a right as well to have payments backdated? Why should we stop there? Why should we not backdate awards to those judged in 1993, 1992 or 1990? The hon. Gentleman, I think, has a guilty conscience.rose—
Let me finish this point.
The hon. Gentleman tonight smells of a guilty conscience. When the Government lost the case in the House of Lords, he was crowing from the rafters about the tariff scheme being thrown out. He put out statements saying that a mean-spirited Home Secretary had been defeated in the Lords. But he has now discovered that one of the bits thrown out in that judgment was a new and generous scheme that we had introduced, which had not benefited victims before. Now the hon. Gentleman has a little bit of a guilty conscience. The Opposition crowed when the scheme was thrown out, but now they want us to put back in a measure. However, they want that measure to be targeted on only one group of people. They want us to ignore all the other claimants who—if we were to make such an extraordinary decision—should, in all equity, be included as well.That was a most extraordinary piece of wriggling by the Minister. The Government were guilty of trying to cut the cash for the victims of crime, and this scheme—which is better than the one they introduced illegally—involves a cut of £700 million in five years.
I will answer the Minister's point in this way—it is easy for us to identify a specific limited number of individuals who are damaged by being caught in the gap which results from the Government's incompetence. We want to ensure that there is continuity between the scheme that was introduced and then withdrawn and the new scheme. That would cost—at the best possible estimate—about £2.5 million, but it would be just and right to introduce it. That is one reason for suggesting to the Minister that he accepts our offer of help in the legislation to correct the anomaly. Surely he should accept our offer.The offer from the hon. Gentleman to help in the legislation is the best proof of his guilty conscience. He claims that these people are being caught in a trap, but they were not entitled to anything at all under the old scheme. We then came along with the best of intentions in our tariff scheme. The House of Lords asked us to withdraw that scheme, and that is where the problem came from.
The hon. Gentleman is trying to weasel out by saying that such a scheme would cost only £1 million to £2 million. He ignores all the other victims, who, in all righteousness and equity, would also be entitled to demand that they should have their awards backdated. The other point that the hon. Gentleman is dodging is his boast of spending another £ 700 million on the scheme. Yes, he said that he wanted to spend only another £2 million, but that would be on top of the £700 million. Apparently he has had the permission of the hon. Member for Dunfermline, East (Mr. Brown) to spend money on the new scheme. I shall now move on and deal with the other points raised in the debate.I confess that I am not a lawyer, and I am in the Chamber only because I hope to listen to the Adjournment debate, but what strikes me about the present debate is the constant use of the word "anomaly". Over the past few days, I have been in the Library reminding myself of the case of Pepper v. Hart, and I wonder whether, when the Minister was preparing his speech, he took advice on the implications of that case for the anomalies, such as who has missed out and who is left in now that we have a statutory scheme.
No, certainly not. Pepper v. Hart is one of those cases that has been grossly exaggerated, and it applies only where there is a clear misinterpretation or misunderstanding of the law. I have not bandied the word "anomaly" about. It is the hon. Member for Cardiff, South and Penarth who believes that he has found hundreds of anomalies. I am satisfied that what we are doing here is just and right, and that the scheme is as clear as we can possibly make it.
To return to the other questions that the hon. Member for Cardiff, South and Penarth asked, of course we want the scheme to be as clear as possible. I assure the House that it is in the interests of the Government and of the civil servants administering the scheme, as well as in the interests of victims, that there is as much clarity as possible in the scheme and in the guidance. We do not want obfuscation any more than the next man does; it simply fouls up the whole system—[Interruption.] If the hon. Member for Cardiff, South and Penarth were in an executive position, he would realise the sense in what I say. If a scheme is not clear, one has to deal with constant phone calls and is always filling in forms and checking up. That is, among other things, costly. I give the House an absolute assurance that we shall monitor everything. We shall reflect on what the Law Commission says, and on what anyone else of any standing says—and even on what people of no standing whatever say. Of course we shall be given advice—from our appeals panel, among others, on changes that it may like to be made to the scheme. We shall consider what the panel says, and decide whether to make changes. I can certainly clarify the fact that it was always the intention that the term "child" in the guidance would cover adult children. How else does one describe the 50-year-old offspring of a 75-year-old? Such people are still the children of their parents, and of course they will qualify. The hon. Member for Cardiff, South and Penarth asked me to listen to a few points about structured settlements. I am grateful for his courtesy in saying that the Government have listened to many comments, but I must make one little point: he obviously did not hear me say earlier in my speech, in connection with structured settlements, that the complementary change to the current scheme to permit the Criminal Injuries Compensation Act 1995 to extend to benefits for applicants under the current scheme whose claims have not yet been settled, was made on 8 November, the day that the Act received Royal Assent. We thought it sensible to do both at the same time. As for firemen, they are now merely being put in the same position as policemen with regard to the excessive risk category. If police officers are injured while arresting a criminal, it is sensible that they should receive compensation. However, if a policeman on duty trips over his shoelaces, he should not get criminal injuries compensation. If firemen were responding to an arson attack or other fire, they received compensation if they suffered injury as a direct result of the fire. However, they also received criminal injuries compensation if they tripped over their hosepipes. That was rather a generous interpretation, so we are removing that provision and putting firemen in the same position as police officers. That is a sensible thing to do. Finally, I make the point again that the scheme that we have introduced under the Criminal Injuries Compensation Act 1995 that is before the House tonight remains the most generous scheme of any country in the world. I make no apologies for mentioning that, especially to the hon. and learned Member for Montgomery, who is a devoted and committed European. He will be interested to know, as the whole House will, that the scheme remains 236 times more generous than Austria's; 275 times more generous than Belgium's; 109 times more generous than that of the Netherlands; and 69 times more generous than Denmark's. Let us consider some bigger countries. The scheme is five times more generous than France's and 27 times more generous than mighty Germany's. All told, little old Great Britain accounts for 33.5 per cent. of all criminal injuries compensation paid out in the world. I have no qualms in urging my hon. Friends and the whole House to support the measures before us tonight, because victims of crime in this country will continue to get increasing amounts of money allocated to criminal injuries compensation schemes by the Government. The amount will go up year after year. Britain will continue, and rightly so, to treat victims of crime more generously than does any other country in the world. I commend the scheme to the House.Question put and agreed to.
Resolved,
That the draft Criminal Injuries Compensation Scheme, which was laid before this House on 16th November, be approved.
Delegated Legislation
With permission, I shall put together the motions relating to statutory instruments.
Motion made, and Question put forthwith, pursuant to Standing Order No. 101(6) (Standing Committees on Delegated Legislation),
Rating And Valuation
That the draft Water Undertakings (Rateable Values) (Scotland) (No. 2) Order 1995, which was laid before this House on 16th November, be approved.
Rating And Valuation
That the draft Docks and Harbours (Rateable Values) (Scotland) Amendment (No. 2) Order 1995, which was laid before this House on 16th November, be approved.
Family Law
That the draft Child Support (Compensation for Recipients of Family Credit and Disability Working Allowance) Regulations 1995, which were laid before this House on 16th November, be approved.
Family Law
That the draft Child Support (Miscellaneous Amendments) (No. 2) Regulations 1995, which were laid before this House on 16th November, be approved.
Northern Ireland
That the draft Street Works (Northern Ireland) Order 1995, which was laid before this House on 16th November, be approved.
Northern Ireland
That the draft County Courts (Amendment) (Northern Ireland) Order 1996 which was laid before this House on 16th November, be approved.— [Mr. Wells.]
Question agreed to.
Licensing (Amendment) (Scotland) Bill
Order for Second Reading read.
Motion made, and Question put forthwith, pursuant to Standing Order No. 94E (Scottish Grand Committee (Bills relating to their principle)).
That the Bill be referred to the Scottish Grand Committee.—[ Mr. Wells.]
Question agreed to.
Petition
Homeless People (Voting Rights)
9.31 pm
I beg leave to present a petition that aims to secure voting rights for homeless people. Homeless people have considerable difficulty registering to vote. It is presented by people associated with CHAR, the campaign for the single homeless, and The Big Issue, which is sold on the street by homeless vendors.
It is appropriate to present the petition now, because the final date for correcting draft electoral registers is 16 December and this is voters' rights week. It links with a petition that was handed in to Downing street earlier this week, which was signed by 7,500 people, 60 per cent. of whom had filled in coupons that had been placed in The Big Issue. The petition states:"To the Honourable the Commons of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland in Parliament assembled.
The humble petition of the People and supporters of CHAR and The Big Issue sheweth that Homeless People do not have a clear right to vote in national, local and European elections and are thereby excluded from the democratic process. The petitioners request that the Representation of the People Act (1983) is amended to guarantee the vote to all homeless people.
And your petitioners, as in duty bound, will ever pray." The petition is in the names of L. Flounders, Caroline Holden, and Paul Himsworth, the last of whom is the author of the report produced by CHAR.Wherefore your petitioners pray that your Honourable House will urge the Prime Minister and the Government not to impede this petition.
Good Hope Hospital, Sutton Coldfield
Motion made, and Question proposed, That this House do now adjourn.— [Mr. Wells.]
9.33 pm
I am grateful for the opportunity of this debate and for the fact that hon. Members in preceding debates have gone so swiftly through their business that we may be able to have a rather longer debate than we might have had otherwise. That enables the Minister's statement to be reported by The Birmingham Post tomorrow morning. It occurs to me that I should at this stage declare that the newspapers from which I shall be quoting are all published by Midland Independent Newspapers, of which I am non-executive chairman.
I welcome the parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Health, the hon. Member for Orpington (Mr. Horam) to his new job. In previous incarnations, we used to joust on transport. He used to sit on the Opposition Front Bench and I used to sit on the Government Front Bench. I hope that our experience will not set a precedent for our exchanges on the development of the health service. The case that I shall advance on behalf of the Good Hope hospital in Sutton Coldfield is overwhelming. I have followed the development of the Good Hope hospital for more than 20 years and in that time it has faced some serious problems. In all fairness, the hospital's problems have not been confined to the past two or three years or even the past 14 or 15 years. One of the worst problems that the hospital ever faced involved the capital cuts of the 1970s which meant that the much-needed modernised new wards did not materialise. One of the great achievements of the Government in the 1980s, when I was Secretary of State for Health, was to make capital available so that the new wards could be built. This evening I present to the House a problem which currently affects the Good Hope hospital and the public, and which requires urgent attention. The demand for beds at Good Hope hospital has always been high, but over the past month or so it has reached new peaks. Some patients who should have been admitted have been forced to wait nine, 10 and 11 hours on trolleys in the accident and emergency unit. The demand for hospital services is so high that there is currently about 97 per cent. bed occupancy at the Good Hope hospital. On Saturday night I paid another visit to the Good Hope hospital without the press or official accompaniment, to see, on the ground, how the unit worked at a crucial time for the accident and emergency unit. Just before midnight there was precisely one bed available for patients in the hospital's regular wards. When that bed became occupied, treatment rooms and day rooms would have to be used to accommodate patients. Over the past few weeks a number of well-publicised cases have proved that the facilities are inadequate. One of my constituents wrote to me to thank me for supporting the proposal to extend the accident and emergency unit at Good Hope hospital. The letter states:The Sutton Coldfield News contained an interview with the deputy president of the Royal College of Nursing, who visited Good Hope hospital. She said:"Earlier this year I had direct experience of the shortcomings of the unit when I was taken seriously ill one evening… I was one of 15 people that night who were unable to be found beds and left on trolleys around the department."
She said that the bed that had been found"We saw a 92-year-old who came to casualty at 9.20 am with a chest infection. When we came back in at 7.35 pm—just three minutes earlier they had found 'a bed' for her".
That is correct. On Monday November 6 the Evening Mail detailed the case of a 58-year-old lady who had spent 11 hours on a trolley waiting for a bed in Sutton Coldfield's Good Hope hospital and a further 10 hours in a day room before being found a bed on a hospital ward. There are other such cases. The Evening Mail of 16 November described a case in which emergency patients, including heart attack and asthma cases, lay on trolleys for up to 18 hours while doctors and nurses treated them in the corridor. That is the problem that we are dealing with at the Good Hope hospital, and especially in the accident and emergency unit. That accident and emergency unit currently works, under any definition, at full stretch. I pay tribute to the staff, especially the nursing staff, for the enormous contribution that they make. Nothing that I say this evening is a criticism of their care or their standards. Indeed, interestingly, when I receive letters, although there is criticism of the facilities of the unit, almost everyone goes out of their way to remark on and pay tribute to the quality and dedication of the nursing staff and the standard of care that they receive. If we can achieve what I shall suggest, I believe that the quality of care can be improved at Good Hope. Let me explain why I have been campaigning for better facilities in the accident and emergency unit. From the patient's point of view, the accident and emergency unit is the face of the hospital. It is where many patients come for the first time prior to admission. It is thus a crucial unit at Good Hope and it can determine how a patient and their relatives—for one should not forget them—look on the hospital generally. Several features of the accident and emergency unit are, I say bluntly, unacceptable. I believe that it is unacceptable that people entering the hospital through the accident and emergency unit should be kept waiting for hour after hour on a trolley. I acknowledge that that is exceptional but, exception or not, it should not be part of a modern health service. It is unacceptable for the accident and emergency unit to be so obviously out of date, with facilities that are so obviously rooted in the 1960s—so clearly incapable of providing the modern surroundings that the public are entitled to expect. It is unacceptable that the design of the unit is such that it is impossible to make better provision for children. It is an issue that has not been fully ventilated in the debate that we have had about the accident and emergency unit. Modern practice and common sense demand that children be treated separately from other cases that come into the unit. Let me explain why. Last Friday night—the night before I visited—there was intense pressure on the unit. There was a series of road traffic accidents and there were some stabbings, which had taken place in fights. Any child who was there—two children were there—would see the injuries inflicted and the state of the people who came in. For children, that is obviously unacceptable. Finally, it is unacceptable that staff, especially nurses, should be placed under the type of pressure that they are being placed under at the accident and emergency unit. Nurses are going home exhausted and sometimes in tears. The number of nurses on shift in the unit is obviously inadequate at times, and that problem needs to be urgently tackled. I pay tribute to the devotion of the nurses because they work under difficult circumstances—I think that anyone who has visited the hospital will confirm that —but they work heroically under those circumstances. Let us dispose of one other issue. The issue here is the demand for medical services at the hospital, not the efficiency of the hospital. Good Hope takes patients from north Birmingham, south Staffordshire and general practitioner referrals. Like the health service, the hospital is treating more patients than ever before in its history. That is a great success. It is treating more in-patients, more out-patients and more day cases. The accident and emergency unit is certainly taking in many more patients than at any stage in the past. In other words, the pressure is immense. Here we come to a curious point about the financing of the cases coming into the unit. Good Hope is contracted to take in advance a particular total of accident and emergency patients for the year. That is set out in advance; a block contract is entered into. But the difficulty comes when the numbers coming to the unit go above that contract. One of the troubles at the moment is that the hospital is finding it difficult to get the resources needed to treat those extra patients. That is an issue of allocation of resources and needs to be tackled. That is a precis of the problem. Good Hope is an excellent hospital. It has dedicated staff and there is a high and increasing demand for the services that it provides. The real irony with regard to the accident and emergency provision is that the position could be transformed by two relatively inexpensive steps which should now be taken. First, the accident and emergency unit urgently needs to be modernised. There is no conceivable doubt about that, as anyone who has been to the hospital will confirm. We need to move from the old-fashioned world of curtained cubicles to something that better meets modern needs. As it happens, the reception area of the unit has already been transformed. I know that because I opened it myself two years ago. There is no doubt that, as a result, the reception area is much more welcoming now than it ever was previously. That has been a great step forward. The new capital works there have resulted in a transformation for those coming to the accident and emergency unit. But that is the outer facade. We now need to transform the area behind the reception where patients are taken, examined and treated. The unit itself needs to be modernised. Secondly, at the same time, a new admissions unit should be built where patients can wait in a small purpose-built ward with permanent beds. That would make long waits on trolleys a thing of the past. Above all, it would give a sense of reassurance to the people being treated—men and women who may be in severe shock and who are certainly extremely concerned about their position. That is why they are so upset about waiting on the trolleys in the first place. Neither of those proposals are exactly revolutionary. Many hospitals in Britain already have exactly what I am describing. Even more to the point—my hon. Friend may consider this—neither of those steps are exorbitantly expensive. We are talking of spending in the region of not millions and millions of pounds but hundreds of thousands of pounds. That includes not only the capital cost—that is obviously vital and I hope that I have made the case for it—but the revenue cost of the nursing staff who would be necessary to staff the unit. If the regional and local health authorities examine the position, they will find that the necessary resources can be made available. I do not believe that it will require any new allocation from the Government or from Whitehall to the west midlands. That is what I urge essentially on the Minister this evening. He will doubtless say that he is not directly responsible for the running of Good Hope hospital, but he has regular talks and regular contact with the regional health authority which is responsible for the allocation of resources. I am making an overwhelming case for the allocation of resources and what is now required is immediate and urgent action along the lines that I have suggested. The Minister will not find many people in the health service or in Sutton Coldfield generally who disagree with what I have said. Let me add in parenthesis that I have concentrated in this short debate on one particular problem in one particular hospital. If we had a wider debate and more time I would go further. I should like to see an outside examination of Birmingham's hospital services. Above all, I would like an outside examination and evaluation of the demand for hospital care in Britain's second city. I propose an outside examination because that would provide an objective view of what is required. There is not much to be gained by claims, counterclaims and swapping slogans. I would prefer an urgent examination to be carried out by one man or woman—perhaps with one or two assessors—not so much on the lines of Tomlinson, but more on the lines of the inquiry that I set up with Sir Roy Griffiths into the management of the health service. He carried out that inquiry speedily and produced a succinct report. It was an objective analysis followed by the action that was required. It was to the benefit of everyone in the health service and it settled a particular issue. I very much welcome the fact that the Secretary of State has made it clear that he will debate health care in Birmingham in the new year. I would welcome it even more if he were prepared to carry out the evaluation that I suggest. The figures that are now being given by the Department on the demand for accident and emergency facilities are understated—certainly in respect of Birmingham. If the figures are increasing by 3 per cent. per year, my hon. Friend will find that the annual increase of demand for accident and emergency facilities in Birmingham are substantially greater. I hope that I have put a comprehensive case to the Minister. My purpose tonight in the Adjournment debate is, above all, to call attention to the accident and emergency unit at Good Hope. The Government make available the resources for the health service and the region allocates them more locally. Between them, they can take the decisions that will solve the particular problem that I have set out and which has caused so much justifiable public concern over the past weeks. Good Hope is an excellent hospital. It provides excellent care and has a devoted staff. I do not want it to be known as the hospital where patients wait on trolleys to be treated. That is totally unjust to the hospital; it is totally unjust to the staff and, above all, it is totally unfair to the patients."could be in a treatment room 'surrounded by syringes' or in a ward day room".
9.54 pm
With the approval of the right hon. Member for Sutton Coldfield (Sir N. Fowler), and with the Minister's indulgence, I wish to say a few words.
Good Hope hospital is in Sutton Coldfield and Sutton Coldfield is in Birmingham. The Minister should be reminded of that because his constituency is several hundred miles away from the city. We are talking about a major Birmingham hospital that, as the right hon. Gentleman said, serves his constituency, a good part of north Birmingham, the constituency of my hon. Friend the Member for Birmingham, Erdington (Mr. Corbett), a goodly part of my constituency and the southern parts of Staffordshire. I agree with the right hon. Gentleman that the issue has not arisen recently. It can be traced back to the 1970s. I was at a major meeting at Good Hope hospital which was attended by about 400 to 500 patients. It took place in about 1977-78. There was a major problem involving the orthopaedic surgeon, whose name escapes me for the moment. He increased the momentum and pressure for change. At the time, there was an horrendous waiting list in north Birmingham. There has been considerable progress since then. I understand that a debate on the health service is to take place in Birmingham during January. I say to all political parties that will be involved that I want grown-up politics from every one of them. I do not want anyone sailing into Birmingham from my party, the Conservative party or the Liberal party preaching political sloganism. That approach does not help the citizens of Birmingham. We want a dose of grown-up politics in discussing the health service crisis in Birmingham. The issue is clouded and I support the right hon. Gentleman's argument that an objective look must be taken. The pressure on Good Hope hospital has been accentuated by the closure of the city-centre general hospital. Despite all the reasons for that, which we understand, we have lost several hundred beds in a small district general hospital. That is bound to put pressure on the other district general hospitals. We know that in recent months there has been a management crisis and a bed crisis at City hospital, Dudley road. That hospital serves a good part of the north and west of Birmingham. That has put further pressure on Good Hope hospital. At 1.30 pm on 17 January, I was taking a phone call from a constituent. It was about Frances Grew, an 88-year-old lady. She had gone into Good Hope hospital with a major blood circulation problem that was affecting her feet. It so happened that Question Time related to health matters that day. I walked into the Chamber and was called to ask a supplementary question to the second question. I raised the issue of Mrs. Grew and my question appears in column 567. That was probably my quickest response to a constituency case during more than 20 years in this place. I shall not go into the details of that case, but it related to the time that an 88-year-old lady had had to wait for a bed. She was dumped into a gynaecological ward, which upset her and her family. There had been a wait of five hours. As I have said, I took up the matter in the Chamber and in correspondence. I received letters from the region and the chairman of the trust that runs Good Hope hospital. On 23 March, I was told that the chairman of the trust was hoping forIn other words, I was told in March that things would be a bit better in 1995-96. Since then, as the right hon. Gentleman and my hon. Friend the Member for Erdington will confirm, the situation has become far more serious. People are now waiting up to 11 hours on a trolley. Good Hope hospital is not a mobile army surgical unit. It is taking mobility to extremes when people are expected to wait on trolleys and to be moved around on them to create space for other people. They are moved out of their beds after 11 pm from one ward to another because of the pressure that is created by people entering the hospital. That situation has not just arisen recently. In the past couple of days, I was contacted by a former constituent, Janet Taylor. She told me what had happened to her husband, Theo Taylor, on 28 October 1991 when, unfortunately, he suffered a stroke at the age of 48 years. He was taken to Good Hope hospital at 11.30 am. He was on a trolley until 7.15 pm. Then it was found that there were no bed sheets in the hospital. They had to go to two other hospitals to get bed linen. That tells me that there is a problem of management. As the right hon. Member for Sutton Coldfield also said, I have not had a single telephone call, constituency surgery visit or letter that has ever criticised the nursing staff of Good Hope hospital. It is the management of the hospital that people perceive is wrong. The situation with the beds and the trolleys is not new."an improvement in the bed situation in the forthcoming financial year."
It being Ten o'clock, the motion for the Adjournment of the House lapsed, without Question put.
Motion made, and Question proposed, That this House do now adjourn— [Mr. Wells.]
I know that the top management have become a bit frustrated with the attacks on them in the press, and in that respect the Birmingham Evening Mail and the other newspapers have always taken a very pro view of our hospitals. If things are wrong, they have campaigned. It has never been a partisan issue for the press. The management has come in for some stick. Managers have became so short with one of my constituents that they wrote:
that the staff are excellent. My constituent had not attacked the staff management; he attacked the management. He was told that the term "management" was old hat. It was old hat because it was not working at Good Hope. That happened in only February this year. There have been other difficulties and major problems, with elderly people being moved around late at night from one ward to another. I understand that a block has now been put on that, and no one, except in the most exceptional circumstances—for example, a clinical need—can be moved from one ward to another after 11 pm. That is the new rule. There is also a new audit so that people do not miss their meals because trolleys are in the wrong place. That issue was raised with me earlier this year. The consequence of people being moved around—not just the wait for treatment and the worry of relatives with the person waiting for a doctor, waiting for a bed or perhaps waiting for a drip—is that people do not get fed. The consequences of all that, subject to the personal circumstances of the individual, can be horrendous, and unfortunately it gives the health service a bad name. I share entirely the views expressed by the right hon. Gentleman: solutions need not cost a bomb. I would have no problem in funding the public expenditure from the Government's balance sheet, because the expenditure is so small that we could get it to about the fifth decimal place when adding up a column of figures. I do not think that any of us is asking for massive amounts of public expenditure, but there is a need to look at what is happening in Birmingham. The Minister is new to his position, and I congratulate him. Nevertheless, I invite him to look at hospital provision in Birmingham dispassionately. The problem is with not only the hospitals but the community facilities. There is a crisis in Birmingham; it keeps breaking out in different places at different times of the year, but it does not go away. There does not seem to have been any solution in the recent changes. I hope that the Minister will take on board what has been said in the debate and look at the position himself."If you thought about matters more deeply you would recognise"
10.3 pm
I make it clear that I do not disagree with a word that the right hon. Member for Sutton Coldfield (Sir N. Fowler)—my neighbour — and, of course, my hon. Friend the Member for Birmingham, Perry Barr (Mr. Rooker) said. Good Hope is north Birmingham's hospital. The Sutton Coldfield Observer said everything about the state of the hospital when it reported on 13 October that a senior consultant at the accident and emergency unit at Good Hope was so fed up with what was going on that he quit. The right hon. Gentleman mentioned nine-hour—sometimes 18-hour—trolley waits.
Three weeks ago, the Birmingham Evening Mail, which I congratulate unreservedly on the vigour and strength that it has shown when backing the campaign to get decent hospital services in our city, reported that there was not a single bed available in the city. A crisis arose at Good Hope. Quite properly, it did a trawl of the other hospitals in the city, including Burton on Trent, and was told that there were no beds. The regional authority was quoted as saying that it did not know what the problem was. There were 25 beds available at Selly Oak hospital. The system clicks into action as soon as any hospital experiences trouble. It is a bureaucratic mess. Perhaps I will be given some latitude at this point. It is difficult to discuss one hospital in isolation from the rest. I pin the blame for the acute bed crisis in our city firmly on the regional health authority: that is where the buck stops. The Minister will have found files inches thick on his desk—plans for a "better, healthy Birmingham". That regional health authority, however, has known for at least three or four years of the rising, steady demand for acute and emergency beds. It even set up a regional working party. As the Minister will know, the same trend can be observed throughout the country. It was originally thought that GPs were using it to jump the queue, but one of the first things that the working party discovered was that that was not the case: more people were more ill and needing acute and emergency admissions, but there were no beds for them. That is the real problem: there are not enough acute beds. Earlier this year, I tabled a question about the number of acute beds in Birmingham in 1979 and 1993-94. According to a written reply that I received on 18 April, in 1979 there were 4,391 acute beds in Birmingham; in 1993-94 there were 2,918. That represents a loss of 1,473. I understand that there is no magic in bed numbers; it is the use that is made of those beds that is important. The right hon. Gentleman said that there had been a 97 per cent. occupancy rate. However, the number of beds and the staff to run them properly become critical if the beds are not there when the crisis appears on the doorstep. That is the real problem in the city of Birmingham. The regional health authority has shown itself to be totally incompetent. That is why the right hon. Gentleman and I have said that we shall never get the matter sorted out unless one or two independent experts from outside the city examine the position and produce an action plan. As the Minister will know, unless that is done the people responsible for the crisis will be the only ones asked to examine the reasons for that crisis, and they will not blame themselves; it will have to be someone else's fault. In fact, they were responsible for allocating the resources, and they have seen what has happened to bed numbers. Along with my hon. Friends, I pay unreserved tribute to staff at all levels—and management—at Good Hope. I thank them for the work that they do under dreadful conditions. I mean that: I am not patronising those people. What I have said has been acknowledged by hon. Members on both sides of the House. I must add, however, that it does not help to be summoned to a meeting in January this year and to be told that three or four departments are to be put out to private tender, and that the trust wants to build three new wards to take in private patients in order to increase its income. I do not want to get into an argument about private patients, but that is what those people were told. Three months later, the trust announced that it could no longer afford those building operations. That is what drives people mad in the city of Birmingham. Plans are made and announced; then, all of a sudden, someone finds that there is no money. In the case of Solihull hospital, with which the Minister will be familiar, the building was constructed, equipped and staffed; a year later, someone said, "We are going to stop that." That drives people mad, but no one is ever responsible. Millions of pounds of scarce resources are squandered and frittered away as a result of the incompetence of the regional health authority along the Hagley road. As for other pressures on beds, for reasons that I understand, under the system that the Government have introduced, all the pressure is on Good Hope and other hospitals to maximise the number of patients whom they treat from general practitioner fundholders, because the more they treat, the more money they receive. For non-fundholding general practitioners, there is a guarantee that no one will wait more than 13 weeks .for an appointment or nine months for surgery. In reality, I suspect that that is a minimum in each case because of a quarrel with North Birmingham health authority over the details of the contract. Someone who works in the hospital has written to me, incidentally asking me not to use his or her name because it could lose that person his or her job. Does that not say a great deal about what is happening in the health service? Someone could lose his or her job for speaking up, on behalf of patients. That person says that the result of that pressure to treat more patients of fundholding GPs is thatI want to Minister to understand this one. I know that he is not responsible for running Good Hope and that the main responsibility rests with those wretched incompetents on the regional health authority, but he has a duty to ensure that, within the money available, Birmingham gets a system that can guarantee that people needing acute and emergency treatment are able to receive such treatment. Two or three weeks ago, in about mid-November, figures for emergency and acute treatment reached peak winter mid-February levels. The logic of that—because there is no sign of that demand decreasing—is that, when we really come to winter, a crisis will come about and lives will literally be put at risk. I do not want to be overdramatic about this, but it follows as sure as Might follows day. I want to ask just for a little more money than the right hon. Member for Sutton Coldfield and my hon. Friend the Member for Perry Barr. Because of the change in the basis on which funding is allocated to Birmingham and the west midlands, it is estimated that there is a shortfall of about £25 million a year in the money that the city hospitals need, and of around £5 million a year for general practitioners and primary health care services. Those are not large amounts of money. No one is necessarily expecting that, when the Minister goes to Birmingham—as I hope that he soon will—he will have such cheques with him, but this problem will not be solved unless there is extra early and new investment. The position demands it and I hope that he will accept the need for that."the wards are full, leaving no room for emergency admissions."
10.12 pm
I am glad to respond to my right hon. Friend the Member for Sutton Coldfield (Sir N. Fowler) on what is an important issue and I, too, hope that our relationship in health matters will be rather different from that which it once was on transport matters: although our relationship was always good in those days, it was somewhat adversarial. I know that he takes a keen interest in developments at Good Hope hospital and how they affect standards of services provided for residents of Sutton Coldfield and surrounding regions.
The hon. Members for Birmingham, Perry Barr (Mr. Rooker) and for Birmingham, Erdington (Mr. Corbett) both spoke with great passion. I was interested in what they had to say. They took the debate rather wider and I cannot reply fully tonight, but I took note of their points. I hope that my right hon. Friend will allow me this opportunity to congratulate all staff working at the Hawthorns surgery at Wylde green, Sutton Coldfield on being one of this year's charter mark award winners. They won their award for the high standards of patient service, of which I am sure he is aware, and that is an excellent achievement and one of which they can be justifiably proud. We should not lose sight of the fact that many other first-class developments are taking place both at Good Hope hospital and throughout health services in Birmingham. My right hon. Friend will, I am sure, be the first to confirm that Good Hope hospital has a strong and positive commitment towards providing high-quality service for its patients, which was reflected in his and other comments. r understand that the hospital recently received provisional King's Fund association accreditation and that it is one of the few hospitals in the country to meet the rigorous requirements of the King's Fund organisational audit programme. Both those benefits stand the hospital in good stead. Although Good Hope hospital is not large it dealt with almost 220,000 patients last year. Well over 50,000 of those attended through the accident and emergency department, just under 130,000 were out-patients, 33,000 were in-patients and about 8,300 were treated on a day-case basis. That represented a 16 per cent. overall increase on the previous year, and I understand that numbers of people treated by the hospital continue to rise. No west midlands resident waits for more than nine months for either in-patient or day-case treatment. That is an excellent record. It is better than the standards laid down in the patients charter which require all patients to be admitted within 18 months, while those requiring coronary revascularisation have to be admitted within 12 months of joining the list. Of course urgent cases are dealt with much more quickly. For those who require out-patients appointments the current maximum waiting time at Good Hope hospital is 13 weeks across all specialities. I share my right hon. Friend's disappointment and concern about the recent spate of reports about patients admitted to Good Hope hospital through its accident and emergency department having to wait for an excessively long time on trollies before being found a bed. Plainly, such waits are totally unacceptable. The patients charter makes it clear that those who are admitted to hospital through an accident and emergency department can expect to be given beds as soon as possible, and certainly within three to four hours. That requirement was clearly not met on a number of occasions that have been cited. We expect all hospitals to work towards meeting this standard and Good Hope is no exception. I am told that the majority of recent trolley waits at Good Hope occurred during a sudden and unexpected surge in emergency demand throughout Birmingham. Hon. Members will be well aware of the nationwide trend of rising emergency admissions. I understand that between Monday 13 November and Wednesday 15 November Birmingham hospitals coped with significantly more emergency cases than expected. In those three days 120 more emergency patients were seen by Birmingham hospitals than is normal in such a short period. It was an exceptional situation and placed all of Birmingham's hospitals under extreme pressure. As a result it was not always possible for doctors to see some patients as quickly as they would have liked, nor, unfortunately, was it possible always to find appropriate beds for patients as quickly as usual. That exceptional situation obviously required urgent action to relieve pressure and free beds to deal with the surge in emergency demand. Therefore, North and South Birmingham health authorities issued a yellow alert cancelling all non-urgent admissions for the rest of that week. That allowed the hospitals to concentrate their efforts and resources on treating emergency cases. I am told that the action that was taken was successful and that the situation in Birmingham was stabilised by the end of the week. However, I realise that for those who had operations cancelled at the last minute that action was perhaps less than welcome. I hope that they will understand the exceptional nature of the situation during that short period. With the benefit of hindsight I have to agree that it would appear that Good Hope hospital experienced more difficulties than other Birmingham hospitals in coping with the problem. That is a matter of considerable concern and it is being addressed by West Midlands regional health authority through discussions between the trust and North Birmingham health authority. I understand that one of the reasons why Good Hope was unable to open more beds to meet demand, thereby cutting the use of trollies, was a shortage of nurses. That problem has already been identified by the trust which hopes that it will soon be resolved following a major recruitment drive to fill vacancies. Contrary to the impression that has sometimes been given in local press reports, Good Hope is a forward-looking hospital. My hon. Friend the Minister for Health recently had the pleasure of opening the hospital's new —600,000, 15-bed day-case surgery unit. Advances in medical technology enable more and more patients to come into hospital, have operations and go home the same day. That is better for the patient, it means that more patients can be treated, and it reflects the enormous steps in medical technology in recent years. The new dedicated day case unit at Good Hope will allow more than 8,000 patients a year to be treated. Also, as I am sure that my right hon. Friend will acknowledge, there have been other major capital developments at Good Hope which have either been completed recently or are planned. For example, £4.8 million has already been spent on refurbishing wards throughout the hospital, £2.7 million is being spent on a new dental and pharmacy suite, and £500,000 is planned for enhanced patient facilities. None the less, the difficulties in the A and E department, which my right hon. Friend so cogently explained, are serious. In response to those problems, I have looked at the situation with considerable care since my appointment as a Minister. It is one of the things that has been at the top of my agenda during that period—a short period, but nevertheless one in which I gave the problems high priority. I am therefore glad to be able to make two announcements. First, the west midlands regional office of the NHS executive has just approved a £1.4 million redevelopment at Good Hope to provide two additional emergency operating theatres. Those new theatres will reduce the strain on resources at times of peak demand in the accident and emergency department. That will mean better services for the patients who are accepted at Good Hope. Secondly, my right hon. Friend mentioned at some length and with some fervour the problems arising from the out-of-date design of the A and E department and the extremely cramped and inappropriate facilities for children and, indeed, all people who attend the A and E department. I am therefore very glad to be able to announce also a major face-lift to the Good Hope A and E department. That will mean structural changes within the department to create more space and thereby allow staff more flexibility to treat patients in a manner which my right hon. Friend would expect. Work will begin as soon as possible and be completed with a minimum delay. That refurbishment has the support of the west midlands regional office, which will ensure that the trust finds the money necessary to meet the development costs.I am not trying to score points. Will the Minister make clear whether new money is involved in this welcome tidy-up of the A and E department?
I should make it clear that both the projects that I have announced are definitely being funded with new money.
In addition, my right hon. Friend brought up the suggestion of a new admissions unit. Although I cannot say anything specific about that tonight, I can tell my right hon. Friend that the idea has already been given much thought. I ask him to suggest to the people at Good Hope that they press forward with their business plan as rapidly as they can. The suggestion of such a new unit is clearly sensible and some work has already begun on it. Those are two clear announcements. I hope that both developments will lead to a significant improvement in the performance of the A and E department at Good Hope hospital, to the benefit of the residents of Sutton Coldfield and the neighbouring areas of Birmingham.Question put and agreed to.
Adjourned accordingly at twenty-two minutes past Ten o'clock.