I am grateful to you, Madam Speaker, for granting this important debate this morning. I feel enormously privileged to open the first of two debates on the White Paper on the intergovernmental conference. As we all know, the IGC is scheduled to start its deliberations on 29 March and, in the intervening period, right hon. and hon. Members will have the opportunity to form opinions about whether the negotiating position set out in the White Paper reflects their aspirations for the future of the European Community and, more to the point, their aspirations for the future of the country to which we all belong and to whose sovereign we have all sworn an oath of allegiance.

It is a sad commentary on our times that, at this defining moment in our nation's history, the White Paper makes but a passing reference to the single currency, which is pivotal to the debate about the future of the Community.

That has nothing to do with the IGC.

Doubtless that is because the Government believe, or have been pressured into believing, that economic and monetary union do not lead to political union. I hope that my hon. Friend the Minister of State, when he replies to the debate, will confirm or deny that the statement made to me by the Economic Secretary in her letter of 15 February—that

"any move to monetary union … does not necessitate political union"—

is an accurate representation of Government thinking.

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I intend to give way to hon. Members, and I notice that two of my colleagues wish to intervene. I wish to reach the end of my first section and then I will give way. I have a long speech to make and I do not wish to prolong the debate unduly.

Notwithstanding the answer to my question that my hon. Friend the Minister of State will give the House, let me remind him that there is a strong and growing body of opinion in Parliament and in the country that will not accept the abolition of the pound sterling and the consequences that must inevitably stem from that decision. So the second question my hon. Friend must answer, assuming that the Economic Secretary's statement is correct, is how the Government will persuade the people of this country that they have genuinely set their faces against political union.

I thank my hon. Friend for giving way to me because I may be able to answer the question that my hon. Friend the Member for St. Ives (Mr. Harris) tried to put. From a sedentary position, he suggested that monetary union was nothing to do with the IGC. The IGC is about any reform of or changes required to the Maastricht treaty, and half of the treaty is to do with monetary union. Therefore, monetary union is a proper subject to discuss at the IGC.

I agree with my hon. Friend and I hope that he has satisfactorily dealt with the point that my hon. Friend the Member for St. Ives (Mr. Harris) made from a sedentary position.

I remind my hon. Friend the Minister that I asked whether the advice that I have been given by the Economic Secretary is correct and, if it is correct, how we will persuade the great British public that economic and monetary union does not lead on to political union. When he answers that second question, may I urge my hon. Friend to recognise the fact that we are long past the point at which mere rhetoric will satisfy the voters, because for 25 years or more they have been duped and deceived by politicians whose hidden agenda is only now revealed? My hon. Friend must explain how, in logic, it is possible for a nation to surrender its currency without at the same time surrendering its sovereignty. Without a satisfactory answer to those questions, the House is entitled to conclude that the end game—as many of us have long suspected—is not a Europe of nation states, but a totally integrated United States of Europe. Why else is it that Governments have signed not one but three significant treaties, all of which have imposed ever-increasing hegemony on Europe? I trust that the Minister will answer that question too.

I turn next to the submissions that Ministers have received in advance of yesterday's publication of the White Paper. Quite apart from representations from individual Members of Parliament, my hon. Friend will also be aware of the papers submitted by the Conservative 2000 group, the British committee of the European Research Group—comprising 12 right hon. and hon. Members—and the group of eight Conservative Members from whom the party Whip was withdrawn on 28 November 1994, because of their refusal to support a Government motion to send an additional £75 million to Brussels. I trust that the Minister will not be dismissive of the views expressed in those submissions, and that he will not underestimate the huge body of public opinion that supports them—a body of opinion that will be profoundly disappointed by the Government's failure to produce proposals for treaty amendments.

Although I welcome the modest objectives that Ministers have set themselves, I will not be alone in expressing the view that failure to identify treaty changes will come to be regarded as a missed opportunity to recover competences that should never have been given away in the first place. While I am grateful that Her Majesty's Government have acceded to the request from the so-called Euro-rebels for a White Paper, I hope against hope that the statement in the conclusions of the White Paper—that the Government are still considering their detailed approach—is a sign that Ministers, even at this late stage, are prepared to modify their negotiating stance in the light of today's debate and in the light of the debate that will take place on Thursday week. Perhaps when he sums up the Minister will be kind enough to give me that assurance.

I should like now to draw the House's attention to the submission of the European Commission—

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I will give way to my hon. Friend provided that he is not going to be a complete nuisance.

I am afraid I am. We dislike party splits, but I am afraid that there is a split between my hon. Friend and me. He says that the Government are not asking for treaty amendments, but in yesterday's statement the Foreign Secretary said:

"The Government do not believe that directives, once enacted, are irreversible, and will press for treaty amendment if that proves to be the best way".—[Official Report, 12 March 1996; Vol. 273, c. 786.]

I am grateful to my hon. Friend for pointing out that error in my speech.

The submission by the European Commission is entitled "Reinforcing Political Union and Preparing for Enlargement". On the very first page of the document it is unequivocally stated in paragraph 2 that since 1993 the member states have adopted and given effect to the treaty on European union, which derives from

"a broad, twofold aspiration: a determination to extract all the positive effects of the internal market by adding to it a single currency … and … to give the union a genuine political dimension".

Later, in paragraph 6, it is stated that

"the deepening and widening of the Union are intertwined."

Barring the odd detail here and there, the Commission's opinion probably reflects the views of a majority of the member states. It is instructive, therefore, to compare it point by point with our Government's White Paper. The Commission says, for example, that there should be a stronger role for the European Court of Justice. If there is one special disappointment in the White Paper, it is that Her Majesty's Government's stated position on the ECJ is far less robust than we had expected. My hon. Friend, the Minister will not be surprised to hear me say that the House will want to examine the Government's proposals for reform of the European Court in some considerable detail when the promised memorandum is eventually published.

The Commission states:

"The social dimension should be one of the central themes at the Conference".

On the other hand, Her Majesty's Government make it clear beyond all reasonable doubt that they will not accept the social chapter, when they state that

"the United Kingdom will not give up its opt-out and cannot be forced to do so".

The Commission says that

"it should have the power of initiative in all fields."

Our Government say that

"the EU is not a state and should take care not to develop ideas that feed people's fears"—

they are real fears—

"that it has a vocation to become one."

In this connection I welcome the statement that the Government are considering ideas for limiting the scope for Community action in certain areas—in particular, to prevent the health and safety article being used for social policy by the back door. What a hollow ring that statement has in the light of yesterday's recommendation by the Advocate General concerning the working time directive; and what a vindication for all of us who have been warning the Government that Britain's opt-out from the social chapter would be circumvented in precisely this way.

I am most grateful to my hon. Friend for giving way and I am sure that my he, like me, will welcome the fact that after a number of outrageous and deeply offensive decisions by the European Court of Justice and the—entirely separate—European Court of Human Rights, Her Majesty's Government are at last facing up to these matters. I hope, however, that my hon. Friend will spell out what further practical measures he would like HMG to adopt in this respect, because I foresee difficulties.

I am grateful for that important point. There is increasing resentment among the people whom we represent at the ever-increasing number of decisions taken by this people's Parliament which have been overturned by the European Court of Justice. Many of us, like my hon. Friend, feel very strongly about that—as I am sure the Government know.

The Commission believes that

"there should be a transfer of justice and home affairs to the Community framework."

That stands in complete contrast—to answer my hon. Friend's point—with what is advocated by the Government, who seek

"a greater role for national Parliaments in the justice and home affairs pillar."

Similarly, the Commission says that the contents of the Schengen agreement should be incorporated in the treaty; but Her Majesty's Government have refused to accept that agreement. The whole House will welcome the renewed commitment to the third pillar given in paragraph 49, and the pledge in paragraph 51 to

"take whatever steps are needed to maintain our frontier controls".

On foreign policy, the Commission says that

"the Union must be able to present a united front."

Her Majesty's Government say, quite rightly, that

"the common foreign and security policy can never become an exclusive policy that would replace national foreign policy. The Commission takes the view that qualified majority voting should be the norm for the CFSP. The British Government do not accept that the unanimity provisions for the CFSP constitute a restriction on its development, or that it would be strengthened by the introduction of voting models that overrode the key concerns of member states."

Still on the subject of external relations, the Commission believes that a proper common foreign and security policy should also extend to common defence, and that this requires the better integration of the armaments industry in the general treaty rules. The Government's oft repeated view is that

"decisions on defence policy should remain where they belong—with sovereign nation states".

I am quite sure that the House welcomes that adamant statement in the White Paper.

While I agree that we should welcome the Government's commitment to maintaining our border controls, will my hon. Friend make it clear to the House and the country that if the European Court of Justice tells us that we cannot maintain those controls any longer, there will be nothing the Government can do about it?

I am grateful to my hon. Friend for adding to the burden of my submission.

Still on the question of defence, all the lessons of history demonstrate that it is quite right and proper for Britain to take the view that she does—that decisions on defence policy should remain with nation states. It must be made clear to our European partners that anything which takes away from or undermines NATO is simply not acceptable. The White Paper commitment that any review of article J4

"should aim to reinforce NATO as the bedrock of European security"

is most welcome; as is the statement that it would be inappropriate for the Commission, the European Parliament or the European Court of Justice to have any role in defence decision making.

On voting procedure,

"the Commission … proposes that qualified majority voting becomes the general rule".

Her Majesty's Government are opposed to further extension of qualified majority voting.

Finally, the Commission concludes by advocating

"the shift to a more genuinely Political Union"—

a determination powerfully articulated only yesterday by Messrs Maartens and Santer, who make no secret of the fact that the pre-eminent objective in Europe remains, as it always has been, political union.

Throughout the 20 pages of the Commission's opinion, I can find only three phrases with which I can agree: first, its conclusion that

"this debate must be opened up at once, in order to give the negotiators their bearings";

secondly, its opinion that

"Europe must do less, so as to do it better";

and, thirdly, its statement that

"only a competitive economy can create lasting jobs"

platitudes that are practically meaningless in the circumstances in which the voice of the people has either been ignored, as in the case of the first Danish referendum on Maastricht, or not even sought, as in our own case; circumstances in which all the indications are that far from doing less the Commission continually seeks to do more, as evidenced by the opinion to the IGC from which I have quoted; and circumstances in which whole industries face an uncertain future due to the overweening interference of a bureaucracy in Brussels that has an interventionist approach to economic affairs which is totally at odds with the policies of our Conservative Government.

The prospects of the United Kingdom getting satisfaction in almost any subject area are, on any rational analysis of the evidence available, remote. Our objectives, as I have demonstrated, are in many instances totally opposed to those of the Commission. We are poles apart. It is unlikely that other member states will take our part, and on the basis of past performance I am sad to say that it is highly probable that we shall seek to appease and compromise rather than challenge and confront.

But there are those of us who believe that some good could come out of the IGC if instead of playing on our weaknesses we played to our strengths. Having already given so much away—our fishing rights are a good example of this—we have little to barter with, but in that context I should remind Ministers that although I welcomed the commitment to end the abuse of quota hoppers, nothing short of the restoration of full national control over our exclusive fishing zone will satisfy the fishing industry and those of our constituents who are equally incensed by the common fisheries policy.

The time has come for us forcefully to remind our European partners that we in the United Kingdom contribute 60 per cent. of the EU fish stocks, that we are a net importer of goods from other countries in Europe, and that with Germany we effectively bankroll the rest of the Community. At the end of the day, we have a veto and we must not be afraid to use it.

I conclude by saying what I have said on so many occasions. In the final analysis, if we cannot get a deal that protects British interests and is acceptable to the majority of the British people, Her Majesty's Government must be prepared to get up from the conference table and walk away. Taking the lead in Europe is not about rushing to the head of a queue that is going up a cul-de-sac. It is about persuading Europe's political elite that the whole concept of European Union is doomed to failure unless they can carry the people with them.

Once again, it is Britain's historic destiny to champion the cause of freedom and guide our European partners away from the totalitarianism that threatens to engulf them. I urge the whole House, in giving our negotiators their bearings for the forthcoming IGC, to make clear its opposition to political union and, indeed, to any other proposal that would lead to that same conclusion.

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It is most unfair of the hon. Gentleman to interrupt my peroration, but as I have not given way to the Opposition, I gladly do so now.

Did I hear the hon. Gentleman clearly? Did he say that the British Government should walk out of the IGC?

Yes, indeed he did. I very much take the view that the British Government must approach the IGC as hard-nosed business men. They have to strike a bargain there, not to please the Foreign Office or the Front Bench but to please this Parliament and the people. It will not work if they do not. I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for his intervention, as it gave me the opportunity to make that very important point. Sadly, the House lacks people with experience of having to strike bargains. It seems to me that the history of our overseas negotiations in the post-war period is to approach negotiations in a spirit of compromise. "We have to get a deal" is the attitude that seems to pervade the Foreign Office. I do not share that attitude. I feel most strongly, as do many of my constituents, that unless we can get a deal that is good for Britain, good for British industry, good for Britain's farmers, and good for Britain's fishermen, we cannot afford to sign up any further.

I trust that my hon. Friend the Minister will recognise that, in not going far enough with the White Paper—either in the direction of our European partners on the one hand; or, on the other, in the direction of British public opinion—the Government risk falling between two stools. At the end of the day, I trust that Ministers will recognise the inescapable reality that in all these matters it is British voters who will have the final say. I am quite sure that my hon. Friend the Minister, who is an astute politician, will recognise that fact.

I congratulate the hon. Member for Ludlow (Mr. Gill) on persuading you, Madam Speaker, to allow us to have this debate. It is timely—

The debate was won by ballot. It has nothing whatever to do with me.

I am sorry about that. That is why I have always been polite to you, Madam Speaker. I was always living in hope that I might succeed.

I congratulate the hon. Gentleman on this timely debate. I am pleased to take part, as a large number of us will be squeezed out of the main debate on the IGC White Paper to be held a little later. It should be a two-day debate, not a one-day debate, but I guess that the powers that be on the two Front Benches will concoct that it will be a one-day debate. We shall see.

I approach the debate as someone who describes himself as a European. I believe in the concept of the European Union. I was keen to contest European elections long before it was fashionable in the Labour party to do so. I make that declaration. I have spoken before in the House about the need for the whole-hearted consent of Parliament and the people to any further integration or treaty arrangements. Therefore, if there was to be any significant constitutional change following the IGC, it should be put to the people by referendum.

I do not argue for a referendum as a political expedient, which is why the Prime Minister is now contemplating one in order to get himself off a dangerous hook, or indeed which was the motive of Harold Wilson. I believe that referendums are a good practice in our democratic processes. We should have referendums more often where there are constitutional changes. I would like to see legislation that would allow Madam Speaker to decide that matters that were of paramount importance relating to the constitution were subject to ratification by the people. I believe that that is what should happen with regard to this and other important matters.

I believe that the IGC will soon discover that there is limited scope for deepening the Community. That may be a good thing. Public opinion, not just in this country but elsewhere in western Europe, needs a few years—perhaps a decade or more—to digest what has been a rapid change in the European Union. There needs to be consolidation, a bedding down, before people, Parliaments or Governments contemplate any major changes.

I shall deal with an issue that is often thrown across the Chamber, that somehow my party is federalist whereas the Conservative party is not. That is absolute rubbish. I have never heard or known of a Labour Member who is a federalist. I have noticed, however, that there are always at least two or three federalists on the Conservative Benches—I notice that they are not in their place this morning, but hon. Members will know precisely who I mean—those who are prepared to contemplate a formal European Union on a federal basis. The federalists are on the Conservative Benches. That needs to be made quite clear.

For me, a priority is not the deepening but the widening of the Community. A historic window of political opportunity is open to us—the opportunity to entrench, preserve and promote the emerging and, in some cases, delicate democracies of central Europe. I see membership of the European Union as part of that. I would give a great deal to bring Poland in particular, Hungary, the Czech Republic—the Visegrad countries—and some other states into the Union—and, for that matter, NATO—as soon as possible.

I was somewhat irritated by the Government's failure officially to mark the 50th anniversary of Winston Churchill's speech at Fulton, Missouri. It was wrong on a number of counts to abdicate that to Lady Thatcher. I mentioned the speech in the Chamber some months ago, and also asked the Foreign Office to mark the anniversary officially. Let us remind ourselves of what was said in 1945: "From Stettin in the Baltic to Trieste in the Adriatic an iron curtain has descended across Europe behind which we must refer to it as, the Soviet sphere."

For half a century we have been saying to the countries of central Europe, "Look over the wall. See how wonderful things are in the west." Anyone who believed our propaganda would think that the sun always shone and the rain never fell in western Europe. What happened then? Communism collapsed, the wall came down and those countries asked, not unreasonably, "Can we join the club?" We said, "Hang on a moment. There are a good many things to decide."

I do not want to minimise the hurdles that stand in the way of facilitating the entry of Poland, Hungary, the Czech Republic and other states into the European Union, but our moral obligation is not being recognised by our Government and, perhaps, others. There is an urgent need for us to fulfil duties of which we spoke for over 50 years, and which constituted the raison d'être for the cold war. Now we are trying to find excuses to keep those countries out, which is entirely wrong. I stand by the commitment made at Fulton: we should not now concede, instead of a Soviet, a Russian sphere of influence. There should be no Russian veto on the legitimate aspirations of free democratic countries.

Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

No, I will not. Time is limited. Moreover, the hon. Lady speaks about Europe a great deal, whereas I do not speak about it very often. Page 9 of the White Paper states that Parliament must approve any new treaty that emerges from the IGC. May I ask the Minister whether that constitutes a change of policy on the part of Her Majesty's Government? One point on which I agree with some Conservative Members is that our Parliament is always denied the right to approve treaties. We approved legislation subsequent to the Maastricht treaty rather than approving the treaty itself. Is it true that our Parliament will approve our treaty accession if a new one emerges from the IGC? If so, I welcome that, but, if not, the Minister should clearly state that we will not have such an opportunity, and that approval will be given by means of the royal prerogative. That would be entirely wrong: treaties should be approved by the legislature, as they are in other countries.

On page 15 of the White Paper, a great deal of humbug is spoken about the role of national Parliaments in relation to the business of the European Union. Having been in the House for nearly four years, I must say that I think that the way in which we scrutinise European legislation is a sham. This lovely Parliament, of which I am proud to be a Member, needs to crank up its machinery so that we can probe and criticise European legislation much more effectively. It is interesting to note that European Standing Committees A and B sit in Committee Rooms where there are no television cameras. I think that television is an important part of scrutiny. Everything is loaded against the possibility of holding a full debate and public understanding of what is going on. Parliament should be much more proactive, and should be able to initiate developments in Europe; but there is no real scope for that here.

Paragraph 30 of the White Paper, on page 15, refers to new competences, and mentions areas of competence that the Government do not think it appropriate to cede to the European Union. I shall not comment on what is said there, but I note what has been omitted. I am interested to note that there is no reference to aviation policy, airports and air traffic control. Do Her Majesty's Government concede that such matters are to be a European competence? As it happens, I think that that is inevitable and might even be a good thing, but I should like to know the position. If it is not the case, however, the Government clearly needed my assistance when preparing the White Paper, because they overlooked these matters.

The White Paper makes great play of the size of the Commission. I do not understand why that is a big issue. As I have said, I look forward to enlargement. I suspect that some small states will join the Union in the not too distant future; I accept that not every state should necessarily be able to nominate a Commissioner, but certain portfolios such as transport and foreign affairs can clearly be broken down, in the case of transport, into various forms of transport, and in the case of foreign affairs, into geographical areas. All Parliaments have junior Ministers. I know that Commissioners are not the equivalent of Ministers, but surely enough portfolios are available for each country to be able to nominate a Commissioner or an assistant Commissioner.

The White Paper makes various suggestions about how progress should be made as enlargement continues, and they are worthy of consideration. As I have said, I do not think that there is much scope for change. Existing arrangements should be allowed to bed down; by and large, qualified majority voting should remain as it is now.

Euro-sceptics have repeatedly referred to the decisions of the European Court, but the White Paper reveals that its judgments have gone against the United Kingdom on relatively few occasions. I do not say that; the Government do. We must see the position in perspective. On occasion the United Kingdom errs in its interpretation of European Union treaties, and it is in the nature of court cases that we are sometimes disappointed. You win some, you lose some.

It should be said that some recent judgments are very welcome, because they will protect workers. It should also be said that Ministers who go on about resisting the social chapter are talking absolute rot. In this regard, I probably agree with some Conservative Members. As sure as night follows day, much of what is in the social chapter will be conceded by the Government. They will huff and puff, and pretend that it is all the doing of a load of judges in Europe, but they will concede it. I welcome that; I part company with my Essex colleagues who disapprove of it. We can agree, however, that the Government's protestations of innocence are cosmetic rubbish. Inexorably changes will come about that will improve the lives of working people, increasing their capacity to shape, influence and have access to developments that affect their working lives.

The White Paper is silent on two issues. One is the size of the European Parliament. I believe that there should be a European Parliament, although I do not think that its powers should be significantly increased. It has an important role and function, but, if enlargement takes place in the Community, it is absurd that it should continue to grow. It already has 670-odd Members; I think that it is already too large. The IGC should decide to "downsize" it.

I realise that there is a problem in relation to Luxembourg, but exceptions can be made. Luxembourg was in at the beginning: it is a foundation member, and its number of Members of the European Parliament should therefore be protected. However, the size of the European Parliament should be capped. Its membership should certainly not be enlarged, and I think it should be gradually reduced. That might also push us, and other countries, into thinking in terms of an alternative voting system for Ministers of the European Parliament that reflects views in this country. I welcomed and played a full part in the Labour party's great win in the last European elections, but clearly Labour's representation in the European Parliament is disproportionate to its electoral vote. Conversely, in 1979, when my hon. Friend the Member for Gateshead, East (Ms Quin) was first elected to the European Parliament, Labour was substantially disadvantaged because of the crackpot electoral voting procedures for the European Parliament. That should be changed and the number of Members of the European Parliament should be reduced. The Parliament is also extremely costly.

There is a danger of the European Parliament becoming an absurd assembly moving between Brussels and Strasbourg. The Government should tackle the nonsense of there being sessions in Strasbourg. The only logical place for it to meet is Brussels, to which Members of this Parliament should have access. I know why the Government do this—

The hon. Gentleman has been speaking for 15 minutes.

The hon. Gentleman says that I have been speaking for a quarter of an hour, but he speaks time after time on Europe and I know what he is going to say—he is like a long-playing gramophone record. Now it is the turn of the hon. Member for Thurrock to have his say on Europe. I want to give a balanced view on the way in which we should proceed. Nevertheless, I take the hon. Gentleman's point, and I promise that, if he does not interrupt me again, I will conclude my speech more quickly.

If the European Parliament was in Brussels, we could go there more and understand more of what is going on. More facilities to travel to Brussels should be available to hon. Members than the one absurd concession a year, which is no good. I want to understand what is going on to be able to probe, examine and check up what is being discussed.

If there is enlargement, we must stop additional languages being made official European Community languages each time a new country joins. It is crazy. In many cases, applicant members that join the European Union will be prepared to use English or other existing official languages. There is considerable language competence elsewhere. Many people in applicant countries can speak other principal languages of the European Union. The cost and the bureaucracy is so absurd that we must say, "Enough." That should be one of the prices of new countries acceding to the European Union.

If those countries find that uncomfortable, we must say to them that, if, after they become members, they want their language to be an official language, they must pay the total cost involved, in addition to their normal contributions to European Union costs. I think they would consider that to be an absurd and unnecessary additional cost, and that is why the number of official languages should now be capped.

The real decisions will have to be taken by my hon. Friends when they are in government. The conclusion of the IGC will mean that a Labour Government will be at the helm. I hope that they will realise that Europe is universally popular in this country, provided that there are no great concessions or that further tranches of sovereignty and this Parliament's capacity to control things are not lost. I hope that they will accept that treaties should be ratified by the House and that they should make institutional arrangements whereby this Parliament can improve its capacity to probe, examine and be proactive on European matters.

Above all, I hope that my hon. Friend the Member for Gateshead, East will acknowledge the overwhelming and legitimate case for central European countries to join the European Union and NATO, which is referred to in the White Paper. That case is compelling. We should recognise it as a moral issue, an obligation and a matter of our own self-interest.

I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Ludlow (Mr. Gill) on his foresight and on his fortune in instituting this timely debate, which gives not only the hon. Member for Thurrock (Mr. Mackinlay) but me an opportunity to get in a word on Europe. Like him, that is not something that I do frequently, in contrast with some of my hon. Friends.

I agree with the hon. Member for Thurrock about widening rather than deepening the European Union, although I would not go along with all that he said. As to whether the Labour party is federalist or more federalist than the Conservative party or some individuals in it, I draw attention not only to the social chapter but to several other items on the European Commission's wish list, which my hon. Friend the Member for Ludlow set out in detail, and which the Labour party supports.

Those items include the size of the European Commission. Unlike the Government, the hon. Member for Thurrock wants a larger Commission. That should not surprise us. The shadow Government is a good deal larger than the actual Government. There are more appointments in the shadow Government.

I am not in it.

I know, but more people are appointed to the shadow Government than to the actual Government. That will cause a bit of pain if the Labour party ever forms a Government, but never mind—that is the position.

My hon. Friend the Member for Ludlow quoted extensively from the Commission's wish list at the start of the great process of the intergovernmental conference. I recall the start of the last IGC and the atmosphere then. Many continental politicians thought that Europe would take great leaps towards federalism. They confidently expected that foreign affairs, defence, home affairs and justice would become Community matters in the full sense. The Germans were not just paying by far the biggest share of the Community's costs but happy to do so and to pay more. In effect, no one else except the United Kingdom was making a substantial financial contribution to the Community's costs.

The British Government were therefore faced with considerable difficulties at the start of last IGC, but, as we know, my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister and his colleagues blocked all the worst federalist proposals. They were extremely successful in the negotiations and all the alarmist talk at the beginning was not justified. My right hon. Friend won or reserved the UK's position on all the important points by quietly and firmly saying no and by arguing the case in detail. He did not have a great showdown or walk out; he argued his case in his own effective manner. That is what he will do again with his colleagues.

The White Paper puts the issues and the British position with great clarity and firmness, which is the right thing to do as we approach the IGC. I welcome the fact that it has been published. I am sure that it will be studied carefully throughout Europe in all the Foreign Ministries and that it will be a useful basic document to refer back to as events proceed.

The atmosphere this time is different from that at the beginning of the last IGC. The political atmosphere, the economic background and the financial position have changed. In many respects, the Commission's wish list is not too dissimilar from the wish list of those people at the beginning of the last IGC, but the background is different.

On the political position, obviously, some of the principal characters have left the scene, notably President Mitterrand and Jacques Delors. Chancellor Kohl is still in power, although he escaped defeat by a small margin at the last elections. He has, however, begun to shift his position. That is evidenced by the speech that is quoted on page 4 of the White Paper and to which reference was made yesterday—one of several speeches in which he has placed a slightly different emphasis.

Recently, the socialists have been defeated in Spain. Since the last IGC, everyone has lived with the problems of ratification—not only hon. Members, who dealt with them at some length, but some of the other countries in the Community, notably France and Denmark. The political background, therefore, is different in relation to Governments and public opinion in Europe.

Economically, the position is also different. Problems of recession have arisen across the Community and are still much more obvious in countries on the continent than in the UK, which is further forward in coming out of the recession and building its prosperity.

It is already becoming absolutely clear that economic and monetary union cannot be achieved in the way envisaged in the Maastricht treaty. Of course, in view of the currency markets, Finance Ministers are bound to keep talking about sticking to the timetable and the criteria—such phrases are still used throughout Europe. The truth is that we cannot do both: we can have a timetable for some sort of union or co-operation if we wish or we can stick to the Maastricht criteria.

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If the hon. Gentleman will forgive me, I shall not give way as a number of hon. Members wish to speak and time is limited.

We cannot have both the timetable and the criteria, so renegotiation is inevitable. The ultimate proof of that is Belgium, which can never fulfil the criteria within the timetable; it will need decades more. That puts the whole of Benelux in doubt. I accept that, if the criteria were to be waived or altered, it might be possible to proceed on a different basis—but it would be a basis different from that envisaged at Maastricht. Renegotiation will become essential.

The financial position of the Community has changed completely. Germany is the biggest single financier of the Community, but its finances have come under strain since the last IGC and it is extremely conscious of that. Germans are still paying an additional 10 per cent. tax to cover the costs of the reunification of eastern and western Germany. They also have to pay a premium on their bond rates for three or more years because of the possibility that those loans will be repaid in a different currency from the mark. Those considerations will bear harder and harder on, first, the Bundesbank and then on German financial thinking. Germany has become much more reluctant to continue to finance the Community with a more or less blank cheque.

The Dutch are now having to pay heavily into European Union coffers—more heavily per head of population than Britain, I believe. No one is more conscious of that than their Prime Minister, Wim Kok, a former Finance Minister with whom I had to deal during the former British presidency when I was President of the Budget Council.

At that time, the French were beginning to be on our side because their bills were getting bigger. Since then, they have had tremendous difficulties with their economic policy and a change of Government. The socialists were defeated in the presidential elections—and, indeed, looked like being defeated so far in advance that Mr. Delors withdrew from standing, as he had been expected to do and had appeared to be making moves towards doing. The Italians are having to pay more and are worried about that—and who would not be, given their financial position?

The result is that the whole discussion of EU finances takes place against a background very different from a few years ago. That puts the squeeze on the common agricultural policy.

It is going up.

My hon. Friend is right to say that the CAP has gone up; it will do so again. Nevertheless, the different background to Community finances is a lever that will help to reform the CAP. In order to work, any lever needs a fulcrum, which in this case is expansion to include the countries of eastern Europe. We all recognise that it is impossible to widen the Community without reform of the CAP. That is also recognised on the continent and it will lead to reform in due course.

Another aspect is the home affairs pillar. It was and remains important to keep that as an intergovernmental matter. We must build on operational and intelligence co-operation between the police, the customs services and other agencies across the borders—not just within the EU, but much more widely. European terrorism is one matter; European organised crime is another within Europe, but it has a much wider base than that so co-operation needs to be very wide.

The home affairs pillar cannot be put within the framework of the treaty of Rome. No country would entrust the operational control of its police force to that sort of framework, not least those countries with close land borders. Britain is primarily an island, but we have a border between Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland. I have some experience of that border and I know how difficult co-operation across it can be. The considerations for the Royal Ulster Constabulary and Ministers dealing with policing matters north of the border are different from those of the Garda and Irish Ministers who must deal with those matters south of the border.

I am not for one moment criticising the co-operation we received from the Irish; on the contrary, we had some very good co-operation for much of the time. However, their operational considerations were different from ours—and, sadly, still are. That is one, admittedly acute, example of the differences in policing either side of a land border. A sea border makes it easier, but there are land borders across most of the continent. As part of the changed atmosphere, countries have had to face the increasing problem of immigration and asylum seekers, and nowhere more so than Germany.

I want to say a few words about referendums. Sir James Goldsmith, a French Member of the European Parliament, has written to many of us calling for a referendum in Britain on the Maastricht treaty. It is far too late for that. Whatever the arguments were for such a referendum, they were made some time ago. Much of the outcome of the Maastricht negotiations was, in any case, favourable. If there were a referendum, the voters would have to consider all sorts of matters, both favourable and otherwise. It would be difficult to frame a question on the Maastricht treaty as a whole.

It is quite different to talk about a future referendum on a single currency, but that is not what Sir James is calling for in his letter. If ever a single currency became reality—I have already expressed doubt about that—it would be a long way off. It will be the result of many complex considerations at that time. It may be desirable to hold a referendum before clinching the matter because undoubtedly, as my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister has made clear, it will have political and constitutional implications. Given that we do not know how negotiations will go, except that they will not follow the pattern set out at Maastricht, I see very little point in a more firm opinion being given at the present time.

All in all, the White Paper is very positive. It sets out a practical approach to the IGC, which I welcome. The tide of opinion is running in the same direction on the continent as it has been in this country, to a much greater extent than before. We are therefore well placed to get a good result from the IGC.

From where I stand, the approach of the hon. Member for Ludlow (Mr. Gill) is wholly negative, and compares, as the European Commission said, predictably with the Government's largely negative White Paper. I am getting rather tired of all this rubbish about hidden agendas. I have fought nine elections and never concealed my belief in a federal Europe. It is simply not true that we engage in all sorts of fancy scheming. I say positively and clearly that I do not fear a federal Europe; it is an ideal to which I aspire.

The hon. Member for Ludlow opened his speech with a few remarks on the single currency, which will not, as we know, be dealt with at the intergovernmental conference. I agree with him that it is, however, behind the whole argument. Perhaps he has not noticed the most recent information about business attitudes to a single currency. A report published earlier in the year by Coopers and Lybrand found that 57 per cent. of British businesses favoured a single currency. The hon. Gentleman might take that into account. A single currency and a single market are no more than common sense, and business men, many of whom support his Government, clearly recognise that. I doubt very much that business men in Ludlow think differently from those anywhere else. They may simply like the hon. Gentleman and thole his eccentricities, but he should not assume that they all agree with him. I am sure that they do not agree with the hon. Member for Northampton, North (Mr. Marlow).

Does the hon. Gentleman think that there is any significance in the pronouncements of Professor Otmar Issing, who, as he knows, is a director of the Bundesbank? He is apparently on record as saying that monetary union could destroy the European Union.

I have just visited the Federal Republic of Germany. That view, if it is quoted accurately—I have a feeling that it is somewhat out of context—was not held by any part of the German political establishment, including the Social Democratic party.

One passage of the speech of the hon. Member for Ludlow reflected the weakness and the negative nature of the Euro-sceptic attitude. I do not think that there is a Euro-sceptic case at all. The hon. Gentleman—I do not think that I am quoting him accurately, but he is present and can correct me if I am wrong—said that the Government should challenge and confront rather than compromise and reconcile at the IGC. If it is necessary, he said—there was an intervention at that point—they should walk out. Such rigid, confrontational politics is bad and one of the major weaknesses of the British political system. It is reflected in the House and maintained by an unfair and undemocratic electoral system. I am therefore afraid that I do not think that that is a good way in which to approach anything.

The right hon. Member for Northavon (Sir J. Cope) quoted Chancellor Kohl and said that he thought that his attitude was changing. I had an hour with Chancellor Kohl on Monday night and saw absolutely no evidence of such a change. He was still very much convinced that the only sensible thing for the European countries to do was to come closer together. He could not understand the arguments for pulling the countries apart, creating difficulties and erecting barriers. He wanted barriers to be broken down.

I also had the opportunity to speak with others in the Federal Republic's political establishment and one thing that struck me forcefully was their desire to adhere to the economic and monetary union timetable. Personally, I share the views of some that it will not be possible to adhere to such a timetable for a variety of reasons, mainly because the criteria will probably not be met by a number of countries. Nevertheless, I was rebuked quite properly by the chairman of the Christian Democratic Union, who said that if I began by thinking that the timetable could not be met, it never would be met. I had to admit that that was perfectly good logic.

I apologise for interrupting the hon. Gentleman. A quotation of Chancellor Kohl—he has said similar things on other occasions—is repeated on page 4 of the White Paper, in which he says to the Bundestag:

"We do not want a centralised European state that subsumes regional, national and cultural traditions or dismisses historical experience."

I do not think that he would have said such things a few years ago and that led me to make my remarks.

With great respect, that is completely untrue. Kohl has been saying such things all along; that is his view of federalism. I remember him making a speech at Edinburgh university when he was given an honorary doctorate about six or seven years ago, in which he said that we would have unity in diversity, a federal, decentralised Europe—not a centralised Europe. Kohl has always believed that. It is strange—almost self-inflicted and blind—how many people consider federalism as if it were centralisation; it is not. We gave Germany a federal system because we wanted it to be decentralised. That is why it happened.

I shall conclude because I gather that there is some kind of pact between the two Front-Bench teams that they should deliver of their wisdom shortly. I would not want to prevent that. I shall make four quick points. We believe that qualified majority voting should be extended and that there will not be effective reform of the common agricultural policy, the environment and other matters unless it is. QMV will become even more important if there is enlargement.

Agriculture has majority voting already—now, today.

Not in all cases.

I have checked it out and discovered that 98 per cent. of decisions on the CAP are taken by majority voting.

I accept—[Interruption.]

Order.

I accept that the majority of decisions are taken by QMV, but, still, some are not.

The hon. Member for Thurrock (Mr. Mackinlay) said that he wanted the Visegrad countries to join the European Union as quickly as possible. That will be hellishly difficult. Poland, for example, with its textiles, steel and agriculture, could not be taken in before the common agriculture system was reformed. I do not see any great advantage in extending NATO at the moment if its consequence is to alarm Russia. That would not necessarily be a good thing.

Finally, one of the things that we shall have to do very soon is to reform the method of financing the Community. The Germans all said the same. Simply going on with the present system, including the British rebate, is unsatisfactory. We must develop a system that relates capacity to pay more directly to the contribution made. The Government would do us all a great service if they bent their mind in that direction.

I can assure the hon. Member for Inverness, Nairn and Lochaber (Sir R. Johnston) that, rather than there being some sinister pact, I expect to have the same amount of speaking time as he had. I congratulate the hon. Member for Ludlow (Mr. Gill) on his good fortune in winning the ballot and on being able to introduce this subject—but I am not sure whether all his right hon. and hon. Friends will congratulate him in the same way. However, as my hon. Friend the Member for Thurrock (Mr. Mackinlay) said, the debate is a curtain-raiser for our debate on the White Paper next week.

I was intrigued to hear whether the hon. Member for Ludlow would be pleased with the White Paper that was presented to the House yesterday. The fact that it appeared at all is something of a victory for the hon. Gentleman and his fellow Euro-rebels, because the Government did not originally want to produce a White Paper. None the less, I am sure that much in the document is a disappointment to him. Indeed, at times he described it as "modest" and said that it did not go far enough.

Later in the hon. Gentleman's speech, he seemed to recommend that, if the Minister did not get his way, and did not manage to go even further than the White Paper, he should walk out of the intergovernmental conference. The hon. Member for Inverness, Nairn and Lochaber talked about hidden agendas. There may be one behind the words "walk out"—that is, withdraw.

indicated assent.

The hon. Member for Southend, East (Sir T. Taylor) obviously agrees with that hidden agenda. It has been behind much of what we have heard this morning.

The White Paper is a strange document, in that it alternates between positive and negative sentences. It is clearly designed to try to appeal to two very different audiences. Its schizophrenic approach is evident in the section that deals with the European Court of Justice. In paragraph 36 we read:

"The Government is committed to a strong independent Court without which it would be impossible to ensure even application of Community law, and to prevent abuse of power by the Community institutions."

At the same time, the White Paper makes an attempt to respond to some of the objections to the recent court decisions about which the hon. Member for Ludlow and his colleagues feel so strongly.

The position is very straightforward. There are some things that Europe has agreed to do, on which the court should adjudicate, and there are some things that Europe has not agreed to do, concerning which the court has acquired powers to itself to make political decisions that should be made in Parliaments within the Union, not by the court. What the Government seek to do, in which we wish them success, is to ensure that the court concentrates on the areas with which it has the proper authority to deal.

We feel that, in many the cases, some of which were mentioned by my hon. Friend the Member for Thurrock, the court has acted properly. What is straightforward is the split within the Conservative party on the issue. There are some court judgments, whether made by national or by European courts, with which people agree and others with which they do not agree. The Government should be careful about what they propose, because they might end up with a worse situation.

In the White Paper the Government suggest that

"a Member State should only be liable for damages in cases of serious and manifest breach of its obligations".

That could prove a hostage to fortune, because we want many other countries to abide by the obligations that they have entered into. The Government must think the problem through more carefully than they seem to have done so far. We have much to gain if other countries fulfil their obligations, especially on internal market matters.

Finally on the European Court, will the Minister confirm that, when he raised the question in the reflection group, he got no support from any other country? In that case, how does he expect to deliver on the attempts outlined in the White Paper?

One reason why Conservative Members do not like judgments by the European Court is the fact that many of them relate to social matters. Although in his statement yesterday the Foreign Secretary said that he would maintain the Government's commitment to the opt-out from the social chapter, which would not end during their no doubt short-lived existence, it is clear from what has been said, both by the hon. Member for Ludlow and by others in interjections, that the so-called Euro-rebels do not believe in the value of the opt-out. They clearly think that there are other ways, via other parts of the treaties, in which various social measures can be applied across the European Union.

Will the hon. Lady give way?

No, I shall not give way to the hon. Gentleman again. I have already given way to him once, and I have little time left.

Will the hon. Lady give way?

I shall give way to the hon. Member for Scarborough (Mr. Sykes), but this will be the last time.

I am grateful to the hon. Lady for giving way and indulging me. Is she aware that, in my constituency, there is a large company that could not afford to build a factory in France because of the social chapter and the minimum wage and that, as a result, it doubled its production in Scarborough? How would she answer that?

By referring the hon. Gentleman to the speech recently made by President Chirac, in which he said that, these days, France is taking the lion's share of United States investment in the European Union. France is now second to the United Kingdom in terms of inward investment. That change has happened in recent years and it shows that, whatever the reasons are for inward investment going to particular countries, they have nothing to do with the social chapter.

That fact was confirmed to me by some of the Japanese firms that have invested in the United Kingdom. Perhaps the hon. Gentleman would like to read the evidence given to the Employment Committee by the personnel director of Nissan, who said that the social chapter had no influence in its decision to invest in the United Kingdom.

Yesterday, the Foreign Secretary made a rather strange claim about subsidiarity, which I would like the Minister to address in his reply. We all agree that subsidiarity is a good principle, but yesterday the Foreign Secretary claimed that the United Kingdom had introduced that vital concept into the Maastricht treaty. My understanding is that that is not the case.

Subsidiarity already existed, under article 130S of the Single European Act. Treaty buffs will know that that is in the section of the Act that relates to the environment, which talks about working out which decisions should be taken at EU level and which should be taken at other levels. The concept of subsidiarity is not unique to the British Government and their approach to the European Union. Perhaps the Minister will say something about that.

The hon. Member for Ludlow and his Euro-rebel friends said that they wanted the power of the European Union to be cut. I have a feeling that the White Paper does not offer them anything like enough in terms of cuts in EU power. Perhaps the Minister could also address that point.

My hon. Friend the Member for Thurrock rightly stressed the importance of the enlargement issue—something about which I feel strongly and passionately.

Having encouraged the changes in central and eastern Europe, we have a moral, political and economic responsibility to make our relationships with the countries there a success, and to bring them into as close an arrangement for membership of the European Union as we can, as quickly as we can. Continued enlargement should not be regarded only as a problem, which it is often presented as being, but as an exciting opportunity.

There is not much vision in the White Paper. The Government mention enlargement, but not its exciting possibilities. They mention common agricultural policy reform, but express no specific ideas about the reforms they want. If they had suggested that we should reform the common agricultural policy to improve its impact on the environment and to try to make it more helpful to developing countries outside the European Union, that would have been welcome. The Government have blocked a welcome move to tackle the problem of racism and xenophobia at European level. We feel strongly about that omission.

The White Paper is a desperate attempt to please two different audiences. It is a thin document. Is will not win the Government friends in their party, in the country, or among our European partners.

I should like, finally, to refer the Minister to an article in the press this week by the former Foreign Secretary, Lord Howe. He said that the Government's approach to the European Union

"has engendered the view in European capitals that it will be difficult, if not impossible, to do serious business with the UK this side of the general election."

I start by congratulating my hon. Friend the Member for Ludlow (Mr. Gill) on obtaining this debate, and at such an appropriate time. It will fall neatly between yesterday's statement by my right hon. and learned Friend the Foreign Secretary on the White Paper on the intergovernmental conference and the full debate on 21 March 1996.

Only one day?

Yes. I do not have to debate the business of the House with the hon. Gentleman. I shall come to one or two of his points later.

I shall try to concentrate on points that were not covered yesterday and those made by my hon. Friend the Member for Ludlow, and if we do not cover them all today perhaps we shall pick some up later.

I wish to dismiss almost out of hand the comments of the hon. Member for Gateshead, East (Ms Quin). They were a mixture of three not very desirable things. The first was ignorance. The White Paper was written in response to a request from three Select Committees, and the hon. Lady should have known that, especially as I told her in European Standing Committee B only the day before it was announced. Secondly, Labour policy is partly a lame shadowing of our policy when the Labour party is too afraid to have a view of its own. Thirdly, it is a pathetic wriggling on hooks—

Will the Minister give way?

No, I shall not. The hon. Lady has already taken enough time.

It is a pathetic wriggling on hooks that the Labour leader has impaled the hon. Lady on in moments of Europhoria.

On the social chapter, the hon. Lady took an intervention from my hon. Friend the Member for Scarborough (Mr. Sykes). She admitted that France was second, not first—we are first—in terms of inward investment. She should read some of the French press of recent weeks, such as Le Monde recognising for the first time that perhaps France should learn from the British model in generating employment. Perhaps she should have seen "The Money Programme" earlier this week, in which several German business leaders spoke about the need for Germany to adopt the British model of deregulation and employment creation.

rose—

rose—

I shall not give way.

Modern Europe is based on the concept of nation states. The nation state attracts the allegiance, affection and pride of its people. People's sense of identity derives principally from their sense of nationhood. Any democratically elected Government must base their policies on that clear political imperative and act first and foremost in the people's interest.

Our membership of the Union has delivered important benefits. From within the Union we have been able to lead the drive for a European market that is open internally and which we intend to open to the rest of the world. European Union membership has been crucial to attracting inward investment to this country. The European Union is a major force for peace and stability in Europe.

That is right.

The hon. Member for Thurrock (Mr. Mackinlay) made some good points about that. It is in the context of the Union that we shall be able to heal the divisions of the cold war on our continent. The enlargement of the EU is an historic responsibility for Europe and a long-term British interest.

My hon. Friend the Member for Ludlow is right that the Union will remain a force for prosperity and security only if it is a Union that people feel comfortable with. That means remaining truly a partnership of nations based on consent, freely given, of its members.

Will the Minister give way?

No, I shall not. If the hon. Gentleman will forgive me, I have very little time to answer most of the points made by my hon. Friend the Member for Ludlow.

No change should be brought about by dogmatic beliefs or zealous pursuit of some remote, unjustified or unaccountable centralism. If the need for change is not clearly demonstrated, change should be avoided. That is the basis on which we approach the IGC. The European Union should concentrate single-mindedly on what needs to be done at a European level and doing it well, and not interfering where it is not needed.

Will my hon. Friend give way on an important point?

If my hon. Friend is very fast.

The Foreign Secretary rightly referred to President Santer's observation that the European Union should do "less but better". Cannot the British Government hasten that process by seeking to recuperate powers to this country at present undertaken by the European Union so that it can indeed do less?

I recommend that my hon. Friend reads the items on page 12 of the White Paper on limitation of powers and some passages about common fisheries. I shall discuss some of those points specifically later.

Will the Minister give way?

If the hon. Gentleman will forgive me, I have five minutes to make several points.

The Minister just gave way to someone who just walked into the debate.

The hon. Gentleman is wrong. My hon. Friend the Member for Ruislip-Northwood (Mr. Wilkinson) was here at the beginning of the debate.

Oh no he was not.

Oh yes he was. I shall continue my point, if I may, Mr. Deputy Speaker.

Of course, many member states are still attracted to elements of a federal vision for Europe. We have heard that the Liberal party is also attracted to it. My hon. Friend the Member for Ludlow outlined the views of the Commission in that respect, and they are not a bad proxy for several of those member states, as is demonstrated by the Benelux position taken last week, so we obviously have something quite difficult to deal with.

We still encounter the school of thought that says that the answer to popular disenchantment with Europe is more Europe. That is reminiscent of the Socialist party in the 1980s, when it was beaten in the elections, saying that the answer was more socialism. That view was as wrong then as this view is for Europe now.

Our approach to the IGC, set out in the White paper, will have to contend with the committed federalist positions of many of our partners, so there is a hard pounding ahead in the negotiations, but I am not as pessimistic as my hon. Friend the Member for Ludlow about our chances of success. We have force of will on our side. We have a constructive and coherent approach, backed up by solid and convincing arguments. In many ways, the flow of events is on our side; that point should not be ignored.

Another factor is on our side. As my right hon. Friend the Member for Northavon (Sir J. Cope) said in his excellent speech, all over Europe, people are expressing unease about the direction in which the European Union is going. Support for the Union is falling. It is our duty to stand up for those people, articulate their anxieties and develop constructive solutions to promote their and our interests.

My hon. Friend the Member for Ruislip-Northwood said that Mr. Santer had espoused a view of "less but better". That is an accurate description of what we want to do first.

My hon. Friend the Member for Ludlow mentioned monetary union. That issue will not, or is unlikely to, come up at the intergovernmental conference. That does not mean that we shall be inactive on it. My hon. Friend witnessed the actions of the Prime Minister with respect to the ins and outs and the real problems that monetary union already poses to the single market.

I do not intend to intervene in my hon. Friend's correspondence with the Economic Secretary—I am sure that she can put the Government's case pretty well—but I say more generally that many of our fellow Europeans regard monetary union as a stepping stone to political union, and for that reason alone we must be hawk-eyed about it. A wide variety of people—such as Otmar Issing, who was mentioned by my hon. Friend, Ralf Dahrendorf and Bernard Connolly, for that matter—have expressed the view that EMU could break up Europe. Those people represent a wide spectrum of opinion, and there are many points of view in between, but that spectrum reinforces the wisdom of my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister's position in maintaining the opt-out for Britain while maintaining influence over the outcome of events. The range of possibilities is exactly why that is the right position to take.

I have only a minute to answer my hon. Friend's other points. At the beginning of this week, I had the pleasure of seeing him on television, asking, "Where's the beef?" in the White Paper. It was appropriate that he should ask that question. Afterwards, I went through his document—his green paper, as he called it. We drew up the policies in the White Paper in the course of—

Order. Time is up.

I make no apology for this being the fourth occasion in as many weeks on which I have raised my concerns about the fire service. On previous occasions, those concerns were related to the situation in London. Today I wish to widen the debate in view of the fears expressed by other hon. Members about the situation in their constituencies.

We now seem to be embroiled in an annual ritual fight over budgets for fire brigades: a fight to save fire stations, to save fire engines on the road, to save firefighters' jobs and, ultimately, to save lives. Implementation of the proposed fire service cuts will cost lives that the firefighters are there to protect and also the lives of firefighters themselves.

Earlier this year, hon. Members received a letter from Dennis Davies, president of the Chief and Assistant Chief Fire Officers Association, in which he stated:

"The fire service is facing a serious financial situation which needs to be remedied if it is not to create major operational difficulties."

Mr. Davies, who is chief fire officer for Cheshire, said that current expenditure in real terms on the fire service exceeds formal allocations, as expressed in the revenue support grant, by about £80 million. He said in his letter:

"To date the service, locally managed through Fire Authorities although substantially centrally funded, has sought to keep its quality by internal changes and innovation."

He added, however, that a crisis had been averted in many cases because

"local government has consistently placed Fire higher in the list of local service priorities, often to the detriment of other services."

The Under-Secretary of State, the hon. Member for Leeds, North-East (Mr. Kirkhope), agreed with that point when he said in a reply to the hon. Member for South Worcestershire (Sir M. Spicer) that

"a shire county is not limited in its spending on its fire brigade by the fire service share of its SSA. What matters is the overall SSA for the county council. It is for the county council to decide its priorities for spending across all its services."—[Official Report, 29 November 1995; Vol. 267, c. 1175.]

So there we have it from the mouth of the Minister. Fire cover can be maintained in the shire counties, despite underfunding, by cuts in education or social services. The hon. Members for Wyre Forest (Mr. Coombs) and for South Worcestershire were rightly concerned about the possible risks to their areas from the proposed closures of Beudley and Pebworth, the halving of staffing at Kidderminster, the reduction in the number of appliances and the removal of a hydraulic platform.

Principal fire officers have instituted countless reviews and embraced many new ideas. The Audit Commission has also conducted an in-depth review. It is now estimated that that review will result in only £7 million savings from improved performance, whereas the initial optimistic forecast was for £67 million. Either figure would leave the service with a substantial shortfall.

I share Mr. Davies's concern that, despite routine local reporting of fire service difficulties and the generally held belief that our communities should be safe, the fire service predicament has not yet reached the national consciousness and we have not yet had a national debate. I hope that today's debate will lead to a full national debate.

Fire services have a responsibility to comply with operational standards set by the Home Office. Increasingly, however, performance to minimum standards—measured, in the case of the fire service, by speed of attendance at the scene of a fire—has become the acceptable quality standard. Attendance times are important—they can mean the difference between life and death—but as the Chief and Assistant Chief Fire Officers Association said,

"achieving a fast arrival is just the beginning of our task."

What real value is there in the fast arrival of an ill-equipped or ill-trained fire crew?

The current situation—and this trend is accelerating—is that the absolute need to ensure a fast response is taking money from training, vehicle replacements, equipment purchases and public education and prevention programmes. The association has warned that the fire service—which needs technical development to meet more complex hazards, with better information systems and personal protection—is short of basic capital investment, that new skills training is stagnating when it should be growing and that research into better options for public protection is slowing down.

Last month, firefighters from Tyne and Wear came to Parliament to spell out the consequences of the £2.3 million shortfall in their 1996–97 budget to hon. Members.

I am grateful to my hon. Friend for mentioning Tyne and Wear. As I believe he knows, we are faced with losing, through natural wastage, 92 front-line firefighters. That is bound to have an impact on a service which has always received the auditors' approval for its cost-effectiveness.

I certainly take that point. The loss of 92 firefighters' jobs and the loss of five firefighting appliances in my hon. Friend's area will obviously affect public safety.

It is seven appliances.

I stand corrected. Those losses are happening in an area in which three members of the public died in a fire after a fire station less than one minute from their home had been closed.

The problem does not exist only in urban and inner-city areas. In Scotland, many rural areas may be left to burn when stations in Balmoral, Gordonstoun, Rothes, Cullen, Banff and Kintore are closed. When a firefighter lost his foot, the fire authority concerned was criticised by the court for inadequate training; yet the current funding levels will mean further cuts in training for firefighters.

The Government's approach to the fire service has been typical of their approach to all public services: they want to know the cost of everything but recognise the value of nothing. The Fire Service college is a case in point. That former centre of excellence and one time world leader has been reduced to agency status, and profit rather than professionalism has become the priority. Throughout Britain, firefighter training has been restricted as a result of understaffing and underfunding, and many brigades can no longer afford to send staff to the Fire Service college.

The key issue is insufficient total funding of the fire service, and the situation is bound to worsen due to the effects of the pensions time bomb. Eighteen months ago, in the debate on the Queen's Speech, I drew the Minister's attention to the problem facing the London fire authority and warned that unless that problem was dealt with, there was a

"real prospect that we face dramatic cuts in the cover provided by fire and civil defence authorities in the next financial year."—[Official Report, 18 November 1994; Vol. 250, c. 293.]

In the debate on 9 February this year, I pointed out that in London the fire authority is already devoting 19 per cent. of its budget to pensions. I further stated:

"The estimate of the pension requirements in 1996–97 is £45 million. The calculation in the SSA is £41 million—a difference of £4 million".—[Official Report, 9 February 1996; Vol. 271, c. 630.]

Nationally, it is estimated that in 10 years' time employers' contributions to the pension fund will absorb 25 per cent. of total fire service revenue expenditure. In London, the 25 per cent. level will be reached by the year 2002 or 2003. Throughout the country, the result of the Government's financial settlement will be a loss of hundreds of operational posts and a virtual freeze on recruitment. That will inevitably exacerbate the pension problems as fewer firefighters will be contributing to the pensions of more retired firefighters.

The Minister tells us that authorities have reserves or that further savings can be made, but it has already been shown that the efficiency savings identified by the Audit Commission are more likely to yield only £7 million rather than the £67 million hoped for by the Government. Services have already been pared to the bone. The Government claim that that is political posturing by Ken Cameron and the Fire Brigades Union, or by Councillor Tony Ritchie of the London fire authority, but the truth is that anyone who knows anything about the fire services holds the same view.

Mr. Clarkson, the previous chief fire officer for London, is on record as having said that he had already cut the service to the bone and that there was no more room for cuts. He is not a member of the Fire Brigades Union, and he is certainly not a member of the Labour party. It was revealed by my hon. Friend the Member for Lewisham, East (Mrs. Prentice) in a debate on 1 February that Mr. Clarkson is in fact a Conservative nominee for the police committee in Kent.

Does my hon. Friend agree that the loss of 15 fire appliances from the capital is particularly absurd at a time of threats of disruption from bombs and that it is particularly inappropriate that as we develop the site for the millennium festival in Greenwich the two stations next to that site are to lose fire appliances? Does he further agree that Londoners would prefer to pay 4p per week and feel secure in the knowledge that they have a good fire service rather than face the cuts imposed by the Government?

I agree with my hon. Friend. I am intimately concerned about Greenwich, which is in a neighbouring constituency. It is true that East Greenwich fire station, which is east of the millennium site, is to lose an appliance, as is Deptford fire station, to the west of the site, which is eventually scheduled for closure. That problem in London must be addressed.

The major difficulties faced by the fire authorities stem from the local government settlement for the current year and the next. Last year's settlement, which was generally accepted to be one of the most difficult on record, meant a planned overall increase of 3.3 per cent. in public expenditure, whereas most local authorities were required to manage budget increases limited to 0.5 per cent. No increase in provision was made for the fire service and the spending caps remained screwed down. The 1996–97 settlement shows little change, with an increase of just 1.5 per cent.

I accept that the SSA formula now includes a pensions element, but that is not the same as injecting additional money to cover costs. Nationally, the settlement for 1996–97 represents a cut in real terms of £70 million. That is the shortfall between actual budgets and the settlement. In London, that means a gap of £7 million. The 1995–96 budget of £258 million would need to be increased to £266 million to maintain current levels of service—a service already "cut to the bone", in the words of a former chief officer.

Some rather over-enthusiastic prospective Conservative parliamentary candidates in London, worried by the growing tide of public anger at threats to their fire stations, swallowed whole the propaganda from Tory central office. Those candidates were ready to rush into print in their local newspapers to say that it was all the fault of a wicked plan by a Labour-controlled authority which could not manage its finances. If only, instead of relying on the provenly unreliable central office machine, they had consulted their own Tory colleagues on the London fire authority. They should have read the letter, jointly signed by the leader of that authority, the leader of the Conservative group, Councillor Adrian Fitzgerald and the leader of the Liberals, Councillor Rowlands. If those candidates had consulted Tory councillors on that authority, they would have realised that the statements made by Baroness Blatch in her letter to hon. Members were at best misleading and that the document from Tory central office was a total distortion of the facts.

I regret that the SSA formula does not measure real fire cover needs. It is important to consider risk categorisation. Attendance times—and hence resources—are based on that categorisation. I welcome the comments of the Audit Commission in its report of last year, "In the Line of Fire". The categorisation of risk dates back to the days when insurance companies ran the fire service and graded their risks on the basis of property liability and not the saving of lives.

Many modern buildings incorporate sophisticated fire prevention and detection features, something which is absent from most inner-city and urban homes. It is in densely populated urban areas, however, that most deaths occur. Under the Government's categorisation of risk, most urban areas of terraced, detached and semi-detached housing and blocks of flats are categorised as C risk. That means that one fire engine should be sent to arrive at a fire within eight to 10 minutes. I believe that the current level of service in London is appropriate. The fire authority treats a domestic fire in a C risk area as one in a B risk area, where policy dictates that two appliances should be sent—one to arrive within five minutes and the second within eight minutes. There have been countless instances in London in which the lives of members of the public and of firefighters would have been lost if just one appliance had been sent to a house fire and arrived within 10 minutes. In some of the outer areas of London, including parts of my constituency, properties are categorised as D risk—which means that one fire appliance is sent, to arrive within 20 minutes. Thankfully, it is the policy of the London fire authority, supported by Conservative councillors on that authority, to send two appliances to any house fire.

I am extremely grateful to my hon. Friend for his comprehensive account. Can he tell me whether an arrival time of 20 minutes is sanctioned by the Home Office?

I regret to say that it is.

The Minister of State replied to my Adjournment debate on the fire service on 9 February and the Under-Secretary of State for the Home Department, the hon. Member for Bolton, West (Mr. Sackville), replied to a debate initiated by my hon. Friend the Member for Lewisham, East on 1 February. Both Ministers said that the London fire authority could make cuts and still meet the Home Office's recommended attendance times, and they were probably telling the truth. The Under-Secretary of State quoted the authority's report, which said that the reductions could be made

"without affecting the Authority's ability to meet Home Office recommended times."

What Ministers did not admit, however, is that that guarantee represents a dramatic reduction in service. Following the intervention of my hon. Friend the Member for Newham, South (Mr. Spearing), I ask the Minister whether he thinks it reasonable that a fire in a flat on the Glyndon estate in Plumstead should be responded to by one fire engine, arriving in 10 minutes, without any further back-up. If he does, I must tell him that lives will be lost. The later an appliance reaches the scene of a fire, the greater the risk to the building and to any occupants, and the later a firefighter arrives, the greater the risk to him or her from flames, suffocation or falling debris—as in the case of Fleur Lombard.

Cheshire's chief fire officer makes the point that fast arrival is just the beginning; what then comes into play is the equipment, the back-up and the fact that the crews are well trained. A fire dealt with at its inception is much easier to extinguish than one that has taken hold. That makes sense financially, too, as resources are tied up for less time, allowing other incidents to be dealt with. If the fire gets worse before an engine arrives, the crew will be there much longer and will be unable to respond to other calls. If a crew turns up and there are people to be rescued, it can usually rely on the second crew to do resuscitation and first aid. The first few minutes are vital.

The health and safety of crews is also at risk when just one appliance is used and approved procedures have to be ignored. Imagine a fire on the 20th floor of one of the blocks on the Glyndon estate. The five firefighters have to take into the building two lengths of hose, two sets of breathing apparatus, one branch, one adaptor, one breathing apparatus control board, one dividing breach, one radio, breaking-in gear, a first aid kit, one or two axes and a resuscitator. The officer in charge must stay downstairs to implement command and control; the driver operates the pump to ensure that the water gets upstairs and another firefighter will set in the hydrant and dry riser to allow the passage of water. That leaves two firefighters to carry all that equipment. There is no breathing control officer and no one to carry out first aid.

Such is the result of a one-appliance response, with which the Minister seems quite content. Does he believe that a one-appliance response within 10 minutes is adequate in such a situation? That is, after all, the Home Office minimum standard. Minimum standards should be a safeguard for the public. Instead, those standards are being used as a lever to cut spending. As the screw tightens, either the service copes, but at a cost in terms of quality, reliability and morale—the lowering of any one of which puts lives at risk—or a major disaster occurs. It has not yet happened on a large scale, but any fire officer can cite one example after another of instances in which the outcome could have been disastrous. Every turn of the screw brings us closer to that disaster.

In the debate on 9 February, I compared two incidents in Woolwich. One took place when Shooters hill fire station had two appliances, and the other when it had one. In the first, four people in Rowton road were saved. In the second, in Llanover road, four people died; I do not claim that they would have survived if two appliances had been available, but it remains in the minds of everyone involved in that incident that a second appliance might have made all the difference.

As I have said, some parts of Woolwich are categorised as D risk. The Minister believes that it is reasonable for a fire in property there to be dealt with by one engine, arriving within 20 minutes. Thank goodness a Labour councillor and not the Minister is in charge of the London fire authority.

I speak with experience of London, but there is a nationwide crisis. In Greater Manchester, budget reductions have averaged £1 million a year over the past two years. Vacant fire safety officer posts have remained unfilled and repair and maintenance work has been reduced. Tyne and Wear has had to take off two front-line fire appliances and suspend its safety education programme. West Midlands has had a £4.6 million budget cut, with major cuts in training and no capital available for replacement fire stations. South Yorkshire has a shortfall of more than £1 million and the district auditor has warned that reserves are at the minimum acceptable level, so there is no possibility of their being available to help support the budget in future years.

The crisis is not only in London and the metropolitan areas; it is nationwide. I could give endless examples of cuts in services being made by brigades in county areas. In the home counties, there will be no minor works, no provision for information technology or for fire safety work as set out in the Audit Commission report, and 50 per cent. cuts in training at the Fire Service college. In the north-west, there are no resources for hazard management to deal with chemical spills and fires, and fire safety officer inspections have been reduced.

In my constituency in the north-west, there is a category A fire risk in close proximity to Victorian housing. Does my hon. Friend agree, given such situations, that the cuts—which are spread across the country as he has described—typify the way in which the Government are mismanaging the situation? If we do not do something about that as a matter of urgency, the "What happens if …" question that arose from the Associated Octel fire last year will hit us very seriously.

I share my hon. Friend's concerns. I know that the Cheshire area has several establishments which use hazardous industrial processes and chemicals. I agree about the potential danger, which I shall come to because there are some risks with which fire authorities have to deal for which there is no adequate recompense or any funding arrangement. They include dealing with spillages of hazardous chemicals. Fire brigades are effectively funded only to deal with fire operations.

In the south-west, there have been reductions in essential training and community fire safety units have been abolished. I mentioned earlier the cuts in Scotland. The list goes on and on, and it makes depressing reading.

Capital funds are an essential part of fire service development. I live in Thamesmead, a new town built on the Thames marshes. No additional fire cover has been provided for it, although a dedicated fire station was once promised. When I complained, Baroness Blatch replied that it was nothing to do with her but a matter for the authority—yet she controls the authority's capital expenditure.

For the London fire authority, the basic credit approval for 1996–97 has been set at £5.5 million—£3 million less than for the current year—nearly halving the authority's capital programme so that it is unable to sustain the level of investment needed in vehicles and equipment without reductions in appliances or crews. On Merseyside, the credit approval is £2.1 million against a requirement of £3.5 million. The money available for vehicles is less than a third of what is required.

If we take the figures for all fire and civil defence authorities, basic credit approvals have been cut from £23 million in the current year to £15 million in the coming year—a decrease of almost 35 per cent. for Greater Manchester, Merseyside, South Yorkshire, Tyne and Wear, West Midlands, West Yorkshire and London.

What my hon. Friend describes is common in north Wales. We have had a major cut in the capital programme. On top of all that, local government reorganisation has reduced the number of fire services from eight to three and created additional difficulties that have not been recognised by the Government.

My hon. Friend points to the fact that several factors are not fully taken into account in calculating a fire authority's spending needs. They are certainly not adequately taken into account in the standard spending assessment.

I shall briefly describe the background to the cuts. In the 10 years from 1983 to 1993–94, the operational establishment in fire services in Great Britain went down from 40,000 to 39,438, while fire calls rose by 28 per cent. and false alarms rose by 116 per cent. Calls for special services went up by a staggering 82 per cent. Special services include attending road traffic accidents and releasing trapped people; releasing people trapped in lifts; dealing with spillages of hazardous chemicals; pumping flood water out of premises and similar services. However—wait for it—the Government do not take account of any of those services in deciding funding for fire authorities. In London, the number of such incidents, at more than 61,000 a year, exceeds the number of fire calls, excluding false alarms. No wonder Mr. Davies of the Chief and Assistant Chief Fire Officers Association said:

"Fire service funding would be a farce if it wasn't so serious. The Standard Spending Assessment is worse than the National Lottery—at least there, somebody wins."

Most people would be surprised—I suspect that some hon. Members are surprised—to learn that the fire service receives no funding for turning out to road traffic accidents or rail crashes. There is no funding and no obligation to assist. Nevertheless, the fire brigades turn out, as we expect them to. That part of their work has grown by 82 per cent. since 1983. Is it not time that the Minister recognised that in the funding formula?

I hear that some brigades may be planning to charge victims of road accidents for cutting them out of vehicles. Will they ask to see our credit cards before rescuing us—"Yes, that'll do nicely sir"? I also hear that some brigades are contemplating setting up driving schools as a nice little earner to boost their inadequate budgets.

Recently, we mourned the deaths of three firefighters. On 6 February, the Prime Minister referred to

"the selfless bravery of the fire service."—[Official Report, 6 February 1996; Vol. 271, c. 133.]

Why, then, do the Government refuse to fund this selfless service? It is intolerable that it should take the tragic deaths of courageous public servants to draw attention to the dire state to which the fire service is being reduced. As the Fire Brigades Union has said:

"how many firefighters and members of the public must continue to die as a result of fires and fire related incidents before the parliamentarians that represent the people of the UK will in fact listen to us. If such views are unpalatable to some, then that is a reality that they must come to terms with, the FBU only relates the experiences and concerns of firefighters.

Must we really, as a nation that has led the world in so many areas of excellence and endeavour, enter the next millennium and the 21st century on the basis that only disaster and significant casualty and fatality figures or losses arising from such occurrences are necessary to even spur the policy makers into considering what might be done to protect us all collectively from such circumstances?"

The answer must be no. The Government must think again and we must have this national debate now.

rose—

It is obvious that a large number of hon. Members wish to speak. I make a plea for short speeches.

I congratulate the hon. Member for Woolwich (Mr. Austin-Walker) on winning this important debate, which I am pleased to be able to participate in, especially as a London Member. He is a London Member who has spoken before on the subject regarding London, but this morning he has given the House the opportunity to debate the fire services in the rest of the country. I shall concentrate on London.

Congratulating the hon. Gentleman on getting the debate and choosing this subject is about the last compliment that I shall have for him. The hon. Gentleman has given us a tour d'horizon of the fire services and the arguments that many of us have heard before from representatives of the Fire Brigades Union in our constituencies. I wonder, with all his hopes and wishes, whether his speech has been looked over by the hon. Member for Dunfermline, East (Mr. Brown). There were considerable cost implications in what he said. I imagine that the Under-Secretary of State, my hon. Friend the Member for Leeds, North-East (Mr. Kirkhope), will have something to say about that and that our colleagues in the Treasury will examine closely what Labour Members have said about the fire services. Costs are vital in every area of government and of public service, and the fire service must be subject to rules of efficiency. The hon. Member for Woolwich said that the Audit Commission's assessment of savings of £67 million in the fire service across the country is on the high side—a fact that he claims the Audit Commission now acknowledges. I have not seen any documentation to that effect, but, if about £67 million in efficiency savings can be achieved across the nation, presumably we are talking about possible efficiency savings of £12 million to £15 million in the London fire service. The Audit Commission suggested efficiency savings in a number of areas.

I turn now to the specific arguments regarding the London fire service. I praise the bravery of the fire service and the enormous skills of the front-line firefighters in our capital city. I am sure that everyone agrees that London has a fine fire service, which is well above the minimum standards laid down by the Home Office in terms of fire appliances and fire stations.

Therefore, I was amazed when I heard that the London fire authority was considering closing four fire stations and reducing the number of fire appliances in London. According to figures provided by the fire authority, it has substantial reserves totalling £27 million. Its standard spending assessment has increased this year and the level of the cap has also increased by £5 million.

I am glad that the hon. Gentleman has managed to praise the London fire service. Does he agree that, if the fire service in London is funded by eating into reserves, those reserves will vanish by 1998–99? Does he agree also

Order. Only one point should be raised by way of intervention.

The two matters are linked.

Order. Hon. Members should recognise that it is a tradition of the House that interventions deal with a single subject.

As she also represents a London constituency, the hon. Member for Barking (Ms Hodge) may wish to catch your eye to speak in the debate, Mr. Deputy Speaker.

We are talking about £27 million in reserves for the London fire authority. I understand that the Birmingham fire authority has only £2 million in reserve, so reserves of £27 million are far and away above the level required. The hon. Lady has led a local authority—we all have views about it—and she must recognise that £27 million is an enormous sum. At the beginning of the year, the director of finance for the London fire authority said that the reserves were too high and should be reduced. He revealed also that the fire authority underspent by £3.7 million last year. What possible reason could it have for threatening to close four fire stations and reduce the number of fire appliances—two of them in Twickenham and in Wimbledon close to my constituency? Naturally, I deplore such plans.

A remarkable thing then occurred. Hon. Members and the London local authorities complained about the plans previewed by the London fire authority. Quite mysteriously, about a week before it was to meet to decide on the budget cuts, we heard that a Labour party caucus meeting somewhere in London had decided that the four fire stations would not close and that several fire appliances would not be removed. Councillor Ritchie, the Labour leader of the predominantly Labour-controlled London fire authority, then announced to the nation what had been decided in the Labour party caucus meeting. That is a disgraceful way to run the fire service in the capital.

We have heard much about the level of protection needed for the millennium celebrations in Greenwich and the protection necessary for the great stores, Government buildings and our built heritage in central London. Fire safety has been undermined by the disgraceful actions of the fire authority which, after scaremongering and politicking, reached a decision in a Labour party caucus meeting and announced its decision via a press release.

Is my hon. Friend aware that 22 Labour councillors, six Conservatives and one independent serve on the London fire and civil defence authority? In addition to the funding that the authority has put aside and its underspend, the Audit Commission conducted an inquiry and found that the authority's training methods and its expenditure were above the level requested by the commission. As a consequence, is my hon. Friend aware—

Order. I have made it clear that interventions should comprise a short question and not a speech.

I am well aware of the situation that my hon. Friend the Member for Brentford and Isleworth (Mr. Deva) describes. He has been at the forefront of the campaign against the disgraceful cuts which would have reduced the number of appliances in his area.

I shall draw my remarks to a close as I have highlighted my anger upon hearing about the nonsensical actions of the predominantly Labour-controlled fire authority. Its behaviour has mirrored that of Labour local authorities around the country. There is no basis for the authority's assertions. My hon. Friend the Member for Croydon, North-East (Mr. Congdon) has tried for three weeks to get details from the fire authority about why it suddenly reversed its decision to close four fire stations and reduce the number of fire appliances. Perhaps he will catch your eye, Mr. Deputy Speaker, and explain the situation.

I believe that the London fire authority has engaged in a particularly squalid exercise. The final straw was Councillor Ritchie' s announcement that the London fire authority intends to increase overseas travel allowances—heaven knows why—by £5,800 and to increase members' expenses by £43,200. That shows what the London fire authority is made of.

Shortly after I became a Member of Parliament, I was holidaying in the former Yugoslavia when a charter plane crashed. Many British people died in the accident and those who survived suffered appalling burns. I spent four days with my doctor husband in the hospitals that were treating the victims, and the sights, sounds and smells of what fire can do to human beings will remain with me for the rest of my life.

Therefore, when I learnt that the Cheshire chief fire officer was saying, in an extremely responsible way, that the fire service was now at a considerable risk of not being able to provide adequate and proper fire cover, I took it seriously. I took this issue seriously—not like some hon. Members who seem to think that it is a suitable subject for squalid party political arguments—because there are men and women in the fire service who daily risk their lives and considerable injury. They have a strong belief that our constituents are entitled to high-quality fire services and protection.

It is important to take seriously what the Cheshire chief fire officer is saying. He has looked at the cuts—not one set of cuts but a series of cuts across the budgets over a number of years—and has concluded on behalf of the Cheshire fire service, and many fire services across the country, that one can no longer seriously talk about providing the level of cover that is essential. He has not said that the fire services cannot respond to an external audit that says that there should be some efficiency savings and a rearrangement in the way in which they work.

The chief fire officer has said something more fundamental: that we have now undergone a series of changes, we are still undergoing a series of changes and we are no longer able to provide the level of care that the general public are entitled to assume we will provide. That is the issue—it is an argument about not the political views of individual fire committees, but whether the House of Commons will face up to the fact that we are not allowing sufficient money for the fire service to do the job for which it is retained. That seems to me to be so essential and simple, and I cannot see why it is difficult for hon. Members to understand it.

The Cheshire chief fire officer said—I am talking about Cheshire, but what I am saying applies to many brigades:

"Our study indicates that the Brigade is very efficient. The Brigade has been required to make significant savings in each of the last three years, in 1994/95 these amounted to £195,000".

He continued:

"One of the best indicators of the overall cost effectiveness of a brigade is its gross cost per pump. Other statistics may provide an indication of the efficiency … but the gross cost per pump, when compared to benchmark figures, gives an indication of the likely savings".

He then details the figures, which prove time and time again that the fire service is doing a good job. The Cheshire chief fire officer has also given me the effects of the underfunding over these years, including capital costs. It has meant a cut in operational officer cover, a reduction in managerial posts, changes to staffing practices at shift changeover and bank holidays, a reduction in rescue tender provision, a rationalisation of special appliance provision—I could go on. In capital costs, it means that equipment is not being replaced, that modern equipment that is available to save lives is not being supplied and that there are real problems in finding the money for core training for officers.

I shall briefly say what I think of a Government who allow an important service like the Fire Service college to be treated in that shabby way. The Government have seen fit to write off the debts of innumerable companies when they want to sell them on the private market. The Government have no difficulty whatsoever in writing off billions of pounds of taxpayers' money, but when the fire college was set up as an independent agency, it was lumbered with considerable debts and was told to recover them from the fees that it charges.

The result is terribly simple and plain: throughout the United Kingdom, fire services are not sending the same number of fire officers for core training, which their chief fire officers believe to be essential, because of the cost. Such training is down by 25 per cent. Fire officers in need of proper training are not receiving it, not because no one accepts the need for it but because they cannot pay for it. That is a simple formula. What will it lead to? It will lead to death, to injury and to lifetimes of unhappiness for our constituents who are caught in major fires. It is unacceptable for a so-called civilised country to have got its priorities so badly wrong.

I have listened with care to the various debates as to whether the money is available. Is it not astonishing that when the Government want to spend a great deal of money on arms, they can find however much money they want? However, when we want to find money to provide a high-quality fire service—to protect our constituents, to carry out the training programmes that fire services are increasingly doing and to teach small children what to do if a fire breaks out—it is not available. That is despicable and unacceptable.

If this debate awakens in the Under-Secretary of State for the Home Department, the hon. Member for Leeds, North-East (Mr. Kirkhope), even a tiny voice of conscience, it will have achieved more than what my hon. Friend the Member for Woolwich (Mr. Austin-Walker), who introduced the debate, set out to achieve.

I am delighted to have the opportunity to take part in the debate. I congratulate the hon. Member for Woolwich (Mr. Austin-Walker) on securing the debate and I am pleased to follow the hon. Member for Crewe and Nantwich (Mrs. Dunwoody). She has given me an ideal introduction to the debate, because I want to say a few brief words about the Fire Service college at Moreton-in-Marsh, which is in the heart of my constituency. The college employs 250 of my constituents in a rural area. It is a national asset.

I shall briefly describe the college to hon. Members. It comprises 500 acres of an old airfield. It has magnificent facilities: a mock motorway, so that it can stage mock pile-ups; an office block, so that it can stage fires in a three-storey office block; and an entire mock ship, so that it can stage fires on it. The college teaches British firemen with the best facilities and training in the world. The college has excellent information technology laboratories and it has the national fire service chapel. It is an absolute gem—it is a national asset. We should be able to train British firemen to the highest standards at the college, and market its services to the rest of the world because there is nothing else like it, except in the United States.

I have had discussions with Baroness Blatch about the future of the college. It was set up as an independent trading fund in 1992 and it has consistently been making a loss. In case any hon. Member jumps to the conclusion that it is being run inefficiently, I emphasise that that could not be further from the truth. The college was set up as an independent trading fund on 1 April 1992, and it was the first such independent trading fund to be set up by the Government. Unfortunately, the Treasury had eyes on a milch cow that was non-existent and it set it up with several severe disadvantages, which I shall outline to hon. Members.

When the Treasury set up the Fire Service college, it made it honour its commitment to prices of courses before it was set up as a trading fund. That reduced the college's profit in its first year of trading by £1.2 million. Much more importantly, a valuation of the college was carried out by a well-known firm of chartered surveyors at £33 million. Being a chartered surveyor, I hesitate to criticise a fellow firm of surveyors. However, I am reliably informed that that was a gross overestimate of the valuation of the college at that time and that it should have been less than £10 million. The problem is that, because of that trading fund status, the college is obliged to pay notional interest on half the loan because half of it is deemed public interest capital, and the notional loan in the accounts this year amounts to £1.7 million.

The college is thirdly disadvantaged by a further £1.25 million as a result of a decision last year by Her Majesty's Customs and Excise that the college has to pay VAT but cannot reclaim it. The notional interest, and the fact that it cannot reclaim VAT, amounts to about £2.5 million. Last year, it made a loss of £2.75 million. The chief executive, Nigel Finlayson, and the commandant, Mr. David, do an excellent job, but it is tremendously dispiriting to be saddled with such on-costs about which nothing can be done.

I have had discussions with Baroness Blatch to see what can be done to secure the college's future. I have been trying to encourage other Government organisations to place their training at the college, most notably the Ministry of Defence. However, I have received a reply from the MOD saying that it is not prepared to commit its training requirements to the national Fire Service college while there is a question mark over its future.

The chief executive goes all over the world. I pay tremendous tribute to him because he increased the non-UK training budget last year by more than 10 per cent. He is doing a magnificent job, but he has one hand tied behind his back when the accounts for the past three years show that the college has been making a loss of more than £2 million.

I do not want to take up too much of the debate, but I suggest three courses of action to the noble Baroness in order to secure the college's future. First, as has already been mentioned by the hon. Member for Crewe and Nantwich, the Government should, having set up the college as a trading fund on the wrong basis, now write off all past debts and notional interest rates, allowing it to start with a clean sheet so that we can see whether it is run efficiently.

If the Government are not prepared to do that, they should consider—I hope that my hon. Friend the Minister will take these concerns back to Baroness Blatchallowing the college to revert to the former Home Office vote. The college should be run directly from the Home Office and everybody should accept that the college will make a loss of about £2.5 million a year.

If neither of those two alternatives is acceptable, the college should be sold off to an entrepreneur, with appropriate safeguards for training the UK fire service, with a remit to go out into the world and obtain as much non-UK fire service business as possible. It should then be required to make a profit. The Government would benefit from the sale of the college and the people running it would not have the burdens around their necks.

As has already been mentioned this morning, there is considerable concern about the adequacy of the training of UK firemen. At the moment, the college provides just over 16,000 man days of fire training. But there is great concern that, with the squeeze on the SSAs of each fire authority, that figure may drop to 14,000. If that happens, the college will make a substantially bigger loss next year, and that will not be caused by the college's inefficiency in organising itself.

It would be a tragedy if this national asset were to be let go. I urge my hon. Friend the Minister to take those concerns back to Baroness Blatch. I have written her a detailed letter, to which I have yet to receive a reply. However, I reassure the Government that I shall continue to battle for the future of the college because it is a national asset.

I do not agree with everything that the hon. Member for Cirencester and Tewkesbury (Mr. Clifton-Brown) said; none the less, his speech was like a breath of fresh air coming through the smoke compared with some earlier contributions. I feared that the debate would deteriorate into a Conservative and Labour battleground over the particular problems in London. I hope that that will not happen, because the problems affecting the fire service concern hon. Members on both sides of the House and are of great concern to our constituents.

We know from the remarks addressed to us all by Mr. Davies, the president of the Chief and Assistant Chief Fire Officers Association, of his concern that, across the country, the fire service is, in effect, facing death by a thousand cuts—the gradual erosion of standards which is taking place year by year, yet is going largely unnoticed in the communities in the areas served by local fire brigades.

As has been said before, in Greater Manchester cuts of £1 million a year have been the fate of the local fire service during the past couple of years. Towards the end of last summer, I had the opportunity to visit firefighters in Oldham and Littleborough, serving my constituency, and to learn at first hand just how our firefighters spend their time. They had just finished a period which had seen some of the most intensive use of fire tenders and fire crews for many years, with a spate of moorland and heath fires in other parts of the country which had stretched their resources to the limit and beyond. Retired firefighters had to be called in to eke out the resources at that time.

General concern was expressed at both those fire stations that the squeeze on finance was likely to reduce the number of tenders available in their stations if a major incident took place across a wide area. There was also concern that access to the most modern equipment being developed by the fire brigade would be denied to them and they would have to make do with equipment which, while good in its day, would not meet the most modern requirements, placing the lives of firefighters at risk.

It is obvious that the vast majority of a firefighter's time is not spent fighting fires. It is spent in training, in maintaining equipment and in dealing with false alarms. Some 40 per cent. of incidents are cited as false alarms and, in practice, I suspect that that number is growing rapidly. The introduction of smoke alarms has been a major asset in saving lives in the home, but they have led to many additional call-outs for fire crews.

The fact that firefighting crews are not fighting fires does not mean that their time is not being spent usefully or that it is being wasted. They have to be equipped to deal with emergencies as and when they occur. They do not occur neatly, as a Government accountant might require them so to do.

When the bell rings in a fire station, the officer taking the call cannot know whether it will be a false alarm or will lead to tenders being sent out to deal with a life-threatening major fire or a major incident on a motorway in which a driver has to be cut out of the wreckage of a crashed vehicle. He cannot know whether it will prove to be a major city centre incident, perhaps the result of a terrorist outrage, something to which we have been alerted recently, requiring fire crews from across the county to meet the needs that arise. The service must be equipped to deal with those worst case scenarios.

Sadly, I fear that that is not the approach being taken by the Government. They seem to require brigade officers to use their equipment and resources as efficiently and effectively as possible. That, of course, is right, but the mechanism that they are using is the crude one of spending cuts requiring officers to face up to a crisis and to adjust to it accordingly.

The basic assumption for planning purposes is not the need to meet the worst case scenarios, but the need to deal with the average demands being placed on the service. That approach, which might be admirable if applied to an efficient quality manufacturing industry, is not appropriate to a fire service which has to meet the needs of people in situations which cannot be predicted. When the call comes, our firefighters need to be equipped and ready. The Government must address their concerns and ensure that they have the resources to meet the requirements placed on them and to maintain the confidence that the public rightly feel in the fire service.

I apologise to the House for the fact that I will not be able to stay to hear the end of the debate. I shall finish my remarks and allow other hon. Members to speak, but I wish to remind the House of the remarks made by Mr. Davies in the letter that was circulated to all hon. Members. He said that "delay is not acceptable" because it is "dangerous to firefighters". The House should accept that the cuts in expenditure are threatening a quality public service of which we can be proud, and they must be halted.

I wish to take only two minutes of the time of the House. Although the debate has given a general impression of the fire service, it has centred almost entirely on the London scene and I was quite surprised to learn that there was a deposit account for the London fire service of £27 million. That may have made the authority change its mind when it considered closing down four stations, but in Hampshire it is a totally different story.

The fire service in Hampshire is very efficient and modern in its approach. All the observations that my hon. Friend the Member for Cirencester and Tewkesbury (Mr. Clifton-Brown) made about the training college in his area are duplicated in Hampshire.

There can be no doubt that cost is the issue. People in all grades of society are worried about cost and maximum efficiency. The way to get the message over is to ask the fire service to do the tasks and, if it cannot, exceptions can be made. The plan of Baroness Blatch and her colleague is to meet groups of Members of Parliament. All the Hampshire Members of Parliament have been given the opportunity to meet Baroness Blatch, and instead of all the argy-bargy and semi-political chitchat that some hon. Members have raised in the debate, we can have a balanced debate about the pros and cons. I am sure that, after meeting the Ministers, the Hampshire Members will put forward a formula that could carry the day.

Thank you for calling me, Mr. Deputy Speaker. I am sure that the debate has been extremely useful in highlighting another problem in modern society.

I shall speak as rapidly as possible because I wish to deal exclusively with the Greater Manchester fire service, its resources and its role.

In 1986, the Audit Commission reported that the fire services generally were "notably well managed", great value for money and, in efficiency and effectiveness, were second to none in the United Kingdom and the world. That is a glowing tribute to our fire services. The problem is the inability of the fire services to fulfil the statutory functions that are placed on them, because of the cuts imposed on them and their ever-increasing work load. The work load is rising at the same time as a static amount of money is available to the fire services to cope with the explosion in the number of incidents.

The incidence of fires in Manchester has constantly increased at a rate that is not commensurate with the amount of money available to increase the facilities to cope. In 1985, 48,000 incidents were recorded in Manchester, and in the past decade there has been a 70 per cent. increase, to 81,000 in 1995. Operational resources remained virtually unchanged in the same period. In 1994, the fire service in Manchester had just 68 appliances available to deal with that work load, and every single fire tender available had to deal with between 3,500 and 4,000 incidents.

When the fire service is forced—I use the word "forced" advisedly—by economic and financial constraints to impose a series of measures that impede or weaken the efficiency of the force, it gives rise to concerns that we all share, nationally and regionally. In my area, there has been much alarm about that problem. Budget reductions over the past two years have been about £1 million. This year—as was announced only yesterday—the chief fire officer of the Greater Manchester brigade said that there would be a £1.9 million deficit. That sum can be taken out of available balances, but the Audit Commission made it clear that it believed that no further injection of funds from the balances could be reconciled. That means that no more reserves will be available until 1998.

We have seen reductions in recruitment. Recruitment courses have had to be revised because of the cuts. The reduction in the use of the Fire Service college has been mentioned today, and I congratulate the hon. Member for Cirencester and Tewkesbury (Mr. Clifton-Brown) on the way in which he put the case for the college. I disagree with him on privatisation, but the college is first class and that is recognised by all the brigades throughout the United Kingdom.

We have seen a decrease in repairs and in the efficiency of vital fire appliances. Further funding deficiencies, for obvious reasons, will accelerate the problem and make it harder for the fire services to fulfil their role. The prime example is the use of the fire college and the impact on core and non-core training of brigades. Future training is necessary—indeed, imperative—to give a first-class service.

In spite of the reduction in funding, the fire services are now expected to finance more and more high-tech equipment, which is more sophisticated and more costly than previous equipment. The new equipment must be used to its maximum efficiency to get value for money for the fire services, which do such a necessary job.

There is also increasing pressure to devote more resources to fire safety education. We need to do more work in fire prevention and to educate the general public. I tabled an early-day motion recently, which was signed by some 60 Members of Parliament, about the tragic death of a 15-year-old girl, Melanie Ellison, who suffered horrendous burns when the modern padded shirt that she was wearing—like the shirts and anoraks worn by many young people and, indeed, adults—ignited through a single spark from a cooker.

Some hon. Members will remember the campaign on foam in furniture. Such shirts should be labelled to show whether they are non-flammable or inflammable, according to the type of material used to fill them. Such tragedies could be avoided if warning labels were used. I have pointed that out to the Home Office, to the Minister for Competition and Consumer Affairs and to the industry. They have a clear responsibility to ensure that imported goods, many from third-world countries, should be subject to safety standards when imports are licensed. Labelling for such garments is imperative.

Last year, we had an unusual summer followed by a harsh winter, and the demands on fire brigades have been heavy. In the first three weeks of August, many specialist uniformed staff manned vans and cars to deal with the grass fires, and off-duty personnel were recalled for duty. Some departments have not yet recovered from the backlog of administration work that was caused. For such unusual circumstances, compensation ought to be paid.

Bonfire night and the end of December, when there was severe weather, saw more increases in activity. On 30 and 31 December brigade control handled 763 and 728 calls respectively—twice as many as the norm. A great deal of additional overtime and wear and tear to vehicles was incurred in 1995 owing to the additional number of incidents, but no additional funding has been provided to help the service cope with these unpredictable circumstances.

I do not want to make a political point directly, but in the long term if we are penny wise and pound foolish there will be a regrettable loss of life and limb. That will have certain political consequences for the Government at the next general election.

I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Woolwich (Mr. Austin-Walker) on winning the ballot, and on raising this important subject. I also congratulate him on his thoughtful and effective speech.

My hon. Friend the Member for Crewe and Nantwich (Mrs. Dunwoody), in her customary way, made some sound, commonsense points not just about Cheshire but about the fire service's wider problems. My hon. Friend the Member for Leigh (Mr. Cunliffe) has just given us a detailed account of the difficulties confronting the Greater Manchester fire authority. I know that he takes a great interest in that topic.

I begin with two statements which I suspect will attract consensus. The first is that firefighting is a dangerous occupation. The recent deaths of a couple of firefighters have served only to underline that point. Every hon. Member will want to be associated with sending to the families of those who lost their lives our deep appreciation of the risks they took and the price they paid on behalf of the general public.

My hon. Friend may be aware that two part-time firefighters in my constituency died a few weeks ago attempting to save the life of a child. Their deaths were mourned, and their courage was saluted by all. But the local community is very angry, because the common-law wife of one of them, who was in a caring and loving relationship with him for 17 years and who has a child of 10, has been informed that she will not receive a pension, because she is not married.

I contacted Baroness B latch to express my concern and anger. She responded by saying that, although the matter was under review, even if the outcome of the review was positive, it would not be retrospective. May I have a commitment that a future Labour Government will not just review the situation but will ensure that this woman receives the pension she deserves, so that justice is done?

My hon. Friend and I have discussed that. I should first want the review to reach its proper conclusions, and then to examine them. Generally speaking, we now recognise all sorts of relationships. Divorce law, in the context of pensions, recognises differing relationships outside marriage, and I am almost certain that the review will reach a similar conclusion.

As for my hon. Friend's specific constituency case, I know that there is a great deal of anger in his community. The public admire this country's firefighters, and it would be a nice gesture if the Minister promised to raise the matter with Baroness Blatch and gave a commitment that any regulations that may apply would be waived and the pension granted in this case. That would not necessarily be a precedent—each case is different—and I hope that the Minister will be sympathetic.

My second general point centres on the fact that the fire services offer an emergency service. People in difficulties call out the fire service, and rightly expect help to arrive almost immediately. That may not always be possible, but people certainly expect a fire crew and an engine or two to be in attendance within a short time. Our charge against the Government is that they have refused to face up to the growing crisis in the fire services.

Some of the evidence has already been covered. For 1995–96, the standard spending assessment shortfall arrived at by the Association of Metropolitan Authorities and the Association of County Councils amounted to £52 million, and the shortfall for 1996–97 is forecast to be at least £70 million. Removing so much money from a relatively inexpensive national emergency service is bound to create problems.

I believe that every hon. Member has received a copy of the letter sent by the president of the Chief and Assistant Chief Fire Officers Association, Mr. Davies, who states:

"What has happened so far is that a series of issues like capital financing, pensions, fire service training costs, national employee conditions and standards of fire cover have all been examined in isolation, only to find that they are one and the same problem—the need for adequate basic funding to meet objectively set quality standards—and that is a nettle not many people want to grasp".

My hon. Friend, as a Merseyside colleague, may be aware that Merseyside fire and civil defence authority, on the advice of the chief fire officer, has just set a budget of £52.7 million, which is £2.139 million above the cap. Her Majesty's chief inspector has agreed with the chief fire officer's assessment of these needs of the service.

Merseyside is dear to both our hearts, and my hon. Friend has put his finger on the problem. Statutory obligations and expectations are not matched by resources—that is true across the country.

The Government simply have no way left to explain their case. The only argument they have been able to produce so far is based on selective quotations from the Audit Commission's report last year, entitled "In the Line of Fire". On that, they base their idea that there is scope for saving £29 million. A more realistic figure, quoted by my hon. Friend the Member for Woolwich, would be £7 million, which, in a global service of this type, does not add up to much in the way of efficiency savings.

Fire authorities in Tyne and Wear, Cheshire, Manchester and Merseyside—and many other places—are having to make reductions that will have a measurable impact on services. It will mean that fire engines will be mothballed, stations will be closed and there will be job losses among firefighters.

Similarly, capital expenditure was reduced last year by 50 per cent., and it is forecast, from what we know about basic credit approvals, to do so again by an average of 35 per cent. The Government say that the private finance initiative can bridge the gap, but they have not yet been able to point to a single case in which the PFI could be made to work in the fire services.

The Audit Commission report "In the Line of Fire" shows that there are many in-built problems with the SSA formula: pensions, as my hon. Friends have mentioned, the assessment of risk, the application of minimum standards and special services, which are not covered by the formula. None of that is covered. What we have is a working party here, an inquiry there, a special investigation elsewhere. Government by working party does not add up to proper management of our fire services.

I ask the Government to look further at transitional costs, particularly those in Wales and the shire counties, because they are a serious problem. We have government by working party, a Government who have failed and refused to face up to the in-built problems in the fire service. I suspect that it will take a change of Government before anybody with responsibility faces those problems. The sooner we have a Labour Government prepared to accept these responsibilities, the sooner we can start moving again.

The recent tragic events in Gwent and Avon have reminded us yet again of the risks that firefighters take every day of their working lives. I share hon. Members' feelings about that, and pay sincere tribute to the dedication and selfless courage of all those who work in the fire service.

Will the Minister give way?

No, I have only about eight minutes.

The service performs an essential public duty; whether it is operating as an emergency service or responding to a more routine call for assistance, it is rarely, if ever, found wanting. We are all profoundly grateful for that.

The fire service has been a local authority service since the second world war. Local "fire authorities" have a statutory responsibility to provide an effective and efficient fire service. As a result, funding for the fire service is included in the local government finance settlement, which my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for the Environment announced in January. It is, I believe, a fair settlement.

In 1996–97, central Government support for local authorities will increase by £966 million. Total standard spending in England for 1996–97 has provisionally been set at £44.9 billion. That is an increase of 3.3 per cent. on 1995–96. The fire service standard spending assessment for England in 1996–97 has been increased by £17 million. But it is ultimately for local authorities to decide how much is spent on individual services, in the light of their local circumstances.

It is true that the fire service is being asked to make efficiency savings, but so is virtually every other public service. It is essential that we ensure that the taxpayer gets the best value for money, as was said by my hon. Friend the Member for Surbiton (Mr. Tracey), who has explained to me the reasons why he has had to leave us.

When the Audit Commission looked at the fire service, in its report published last year, it concluded:

"There are local opportunities that can be taken now within the current framework. The locally achievable savings identified by this study are £67 million a year. This represents 5 per cent. of the total expenditure on the fire service".

Although some people—some hon. Members, even—may take issue with the Audit Commission's conclusions, I stress that it is totally independent and has an excellent track record in this area. Moreover, its report highlights specific areas in which efficiency savings can be made. It suggests that

"reducing sickness rates in all brigades to the level of the lower quartile would save £17 million a year nationally."

Bringing the level of leave in all brigades down to the level of the lower quartile would lead to savings of £8 million a year; and moving all brigades' management costs to the performance of the most efficient quarter would save about £29 million a year nationally.

The fire service element of the SSA is distributed to individual authorities via a formula that is reviewed every year in consultation with local authority associations. The Government carefully considered the formula for the fire service element of SSAs for 1996–97. We decided that it should be adjusted to include factors for fire safety enforcement, fire safety education and firefighters' pensions. That is in line with recommendations by the Audit Commission.

The process of reviewing the SSA formula for the fire service for 1997–98 has just begun. To help inform the review, the Department of the Environment has commissioned research on the costs of providing services in densely and sparsely populated areas and the area cost adjustment. That adjustment is included in the formula to compensate for the additional cost of providing services in south-east England.

The Home Office is also participating with local authority associations in a technical group, which is exploring the possibility of an alternative formula based on the number of fire stations in each brigade area. Any change to the formula must not unreasonably increase the grant to some brigades and disproportionately reduce it to others. However, the Government are always willing to see what improvements can be made.

The provisional council tax capping criteria for 1996–97 set by the Secretary of State for the Environment allow an increase in net budget of 2 per cent. for metropolitan fire authorities and 3 per cent. for shire authorities as the norm. However, in many cases, authorities were permitted an increase above that norm if the result otherwise would have been to prevent them from receiving the full benefit of agreed increases in SSA.

If an authority believed that it could not set a budget for 1996–97 that would allow it to meet its legal obligations, it had the option to set a budget higher than the proposed capping limit, and to apply to my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for the Environment for redetermination of the cap. Some authorities have taken that option. The outcome of such applications will depend on the quality of the case that is made.

Many hon. Members referred to London, the SSA of which will increase by £1.1 million in 1996–97. Under the proposed capping criteria, the authority was able to set a budget of up to £5.1 million—or 2 per cent.—more than in 1995–96. In setting its budget, the authority would have taken these factors into account, as well as the scope for savings and the availability of its reserves.

As £27 million of reserves have emerged only belatedly after the consultation period by the LFCDA, will my hon. Friend urge our right hon. Friend seriously to consider rejecting these unnecessary proposals from the London fire brigade?

My hon. Friend is right to raise that, as was my hon. Friend the Member for Surbiton. The relatively high reserves of about £27 million were referred to even by the authority's own director of finance as needing to be reduced. It is important that the Labour party should remember that so much political activity, which has been referred to by my hon. Friends, is not particularly in the interests of the fire service for London. Indeed, I am aware that my hon. Friend the Member for Brentford and Isleworth (Mr. Deva) has asked that an investigation take place into the activities of the authority in that regard.

rose—

I shall not give way.

As hon. Members will know, the authority has decided to set its budget for 1996–97 at the capping limit. It has decided not to proceed with the closure of four fire stations, recommended by its own fire cover review. Nor does it propose to seek approval to withdraw appliances from seven stations, which was also recommended. It has, of course, applied to my right hon. and learned Friend the Home Secretary for approval to withdraw pumping appliances from 15 fire stations. The authority also intends, as I understand it, to provide an additional appliance at two fire stations. As hon. Members will know, that does not require approval, and was mentioned by Opposition Members.

Under section 19 of the Fire Services Act 1947, my right hon. and learned Friend's approval is required if a fire authority wishes to reduce the number of its fire stations, fire appliances and firefighting posts. My right hon. and learned Friend has a specific but limited role in considering applications, and grants approval when the conditions are met.

Will the Minister give way?

No.

My right hon. and learned Friend will also consider representations in addition to those already forwarded to the fire authority, provided that the individual or organisation concerned forwards them promptly on being advised that a section 19 application is to be submitted.

The standards that are applied dictate the initial response to a fire in weight and speed of attack. They rest on four main standards of service, according to the risk category into which an area has been placed. This system of risk is based on the characteristics of the buildings and property in an area, and assumes for each category that a predetermined number of firefighting appliances should attend within a certain time.

The standards are not just nationally recommended, but are nationally agreed in the Central Fire Brigades Advisory Council.

The Government consider that the standards have served the country well, but that is not to say that we regard them as immutable. The Audit Commission's report recommended another fundamental review of the levels of fire cover, and we are proceeding with that review.

We are grateful for the assistance of my hon. Friend the Member for Cirencester and Tewkesbury (Mr. Clifton-Brown) in our consideration of the future of the Fire Service college. We are keen for it to remain in existence. Although it is subject to financial constraints, we want it to succeed, and will do all we can to preserve it.

The fire service in England provides an excellent public service. We value the work of firefighters—

Order. Time's up.

This debate takes place at a particularly opportune time, in view of the unfolding drama involving mainland China—the People's Republic of China—and Taiwan. I speak as chairman of the British-Taiwan parliamentary group; my interests are fully declared in the Register of Members' Interests, but let me add for the avoidance of doubt that I have visited Taiwan twice as a guest of the Government of the Republic of China on Taiwan.

There is no doubt that relations between Great Britain and Taiwan have improved enormously in the past few years, and that that has resulted from a great deal of hard work on both sides. I pay tribute to members of the British Government who have been involved, and to our representatives in Taipei who have worked so hard to build up trade and cultural relations with the Republic of China. The House and the country owe a great debt to those involved in such work—for instance, Mr. Mon-ice and his successor, who has recently gone to Taipei.

I also pay tribute to the work done by representatives of the Republic of China in London, particularly Dr. Eugene Chien and his admirable staff, who have worked hard in recent years to make relations between our two countries increasingly warm. And I pay tribute to the remarkable and redoubtable Dr. David Liu, head of the cultural office in this country, whose distinguished work in building close educational and cultural ties was recently and appropriately recognised by the University of Central England in Birmingham. The university awarded Dr. Liu an honorary doctorate, a thoroughly well-earned tribute and distinction.

The objective indices of the improvement that is taking place can be found everywhere, but let me highlight two or three that really matter. There is no doubt that trading and commercial ties are becoming much closer. That is a two-way process: although the balance of trade is not to Great Britain's advantage, ICI, Glaxo-Wellcome and many other British enterprises are investing in Taiwan, and the Taiwanese are beginning to invest in the United Kingdom. Most recently, a huge investment in Scotland was announced. I particularly welcome that, because many of my constituents have relatives who live in the part of Scotland where the enterprise is to be based. I hope that their families will secure employment in the Motherwell area.

That is by no means the only investment, however. There are successful Taiwanese enterprises on Tyneside, in the west midlands and elsewhere, and the Taiwanese have invested in the City of London. I hope that there will be further inward investment. I pay special tribute to all who are working so hard in this country, and with the British Government, to secure those investments.

There has been a huge increase in the number of Taiwanese tourists coming to this country. Until a few years ago, it was very difficult for people from Taiwan to travel to Great Britain. Although niggling difficulties remain, much hard work has been done to try to reduce them, and I pay tribute to all those involved. We have much to gain from the Taiwanese students who come here. The staggering increase in their number is the most dramatic development of all. When I first became interested in the subject, only a handful visited this country each year—certainly fewer than 100. Now, the number is rising 10,000.

It is understandable that the Taiwan authorities should want only the best for students who go abroad to enter further and higher education. It is therefore not surprising that they wish to send so many to our universities and colleges. Although some of those in higher education are pessimistic about their financial opportunities, the fact remains that our further and higher education institutions are the best in the world, and are recognised as such. It is not surprising that so many students want to go to Cambridge, Imperial college, the London school of economics, Oxford and scores of other institutions, and I hope that they will arrive in ever larger numbers.

The figure that my hon. Friend has quoted is truly remarkable, given that the figure for the People's Republic of China is only about 8,000. That is a major achievement.

We should bear in mind the current tensions between the two countries, and the fact that the Chinese authorities in Beijing have repeatedly suggested the concept of one country, two systems for Taiwan along with their plans for Hong Kong. Notwithstanding the current dangerous circumstances—one wishes that both sides would cool it—and bearing in mind the fact that Taiwan is historically a province of the Chinese motherland, does my hon. Friend agree that it would be a great mistake for the American authorities to encourage the Taiwanese population, or politicians, to think of future independence?

I thank my hon. Friend for his observations. He chairs the British-Chinese parliamentary group, and has extensive experience of relations between Great Britain and China. I know that his words—along with mine and those of my right hon. Friend the Minister—will be minutely scrutinised by people in Beijing, Hong Kong and Taiwan, and throughout the Asian Pacific region. The debate is taking place at a time of extraordinary sensitivity in the development of Chinese relations and policy towards all China—in which I include Hong Kong, the People's Republic, Taiwan, Macau and the whole Chinese world. My hon. Friend is right to sound a note of caution, and I hope that it will be heard and acted on by the authorities in Beijing.

Tension is clearly rising rapidly, and the danger of a miscalculation could be considerable. It is important that every effort should be made in the international community to lower the temperature and reduce the danger of any such miscalculation. Taiwan's greatest triumph has been its moves towards establishing a genuine popular democracy. It is extremely difficult to do that—not merely to hold an election and to ensure that it is the only election that is ever held, but to establish genuine and legitimate democratic institutions and ensure that freedom can be fully exercised in all areas of life, not just in the election of a national leader.

The election of a President, which will take place next week, is only the latest step in a process that has been going on for nearly 10 years—since 1987—to establish fully democratic institutions. We should be proud of any country—any region. indeed—that takes such steps. The greatest tribute that I pay those who lead Taiwan is to the courage, persistence and steadfastness that they have shown in unfolding their programme of democratic reform. Only 10 years ago, the stage of democracy that is being reached would have been unthinkable for people who knew Taiwan. Not least for that reason, we should do all we can. I know that my right hon. Friend the Minister and my right hon. and learned Friend the Foreign Secretary are working hard to ensure that the danger of enhanced tension is reduced as much as possible. The People's Republic has announced that the military exercises in the strait of Taiwan are to last nine days. Clearly, prolonging them would be a dangerous step.

Equally, if the People's Republic enhanced the degree of the exercise and, instead of conducting what it calls air exercises over the sea, tested live missiles, leading to aggression against the islands of Quemoy or Matsu, or against the main island of Taiwan, that would lead to a most regrettable and difficult international position. As someone who has tried to study these matters intensely in recent years, I look forward to a time when Taiwan and mainland China can be reunited, but that should not be achieved by coercion or by trying to undermine the remarkable progress of liberalisation and democratisation that has taken place on Taiwan.

Nevertheless, I hope that it will be possible for all Chinese people to come together in one country, even if it involves more than one system of government at some stage. That policy is being pursued by the Government of Taiwan and by President Lee, who has been responsible for that remarkable programme of liberalisation and democratisation. I therefore support reunification, but not reunification by means of coercion, which is not the way to conduct international relations at this stage in the world's history. As the people of Taiwan rank, by reason of their history, as the most sophisticated in the world, to imagine that the rest of the world community will accept an attempt to achieve by coercion an objective that is shared on both sides of the strait of Taiwan, will cause considerable problems in the rest of the world.

Taiwan's revolution has been peaceful and economic. It has led to enormous prosperity and to huge investment by Taiwan in southern China. Let no one for a moment imagine that what has taken place in southern China to the north of Hong Kong would have been possible without Taiwanese capital, which continues to pour into southern China and to build the Chinese economy. Of course, there is a natural partnership between these people and the wish to bridge their political gulfs is a legitimate aspiration.

In recent years, many hon. Members from both sides of the House have had the opportunity to visit Taiwan. I hope that more will go to see for themselves the remarkable developments at Hsinchu science park, the original one-stop shop for the world, now covering 140 acres. Taiwan's gross national product is bigger than that of Scotland, Wales and the whole of Ireland put together.

I congratulate the hon. Gentleman on raising this issue and on the way in which he has sensitively dealt with the topics—the way in which he has talked about the immediate issues and the future will unite the House. His comments about the advance of democracy in Taiwan will also be supported by hon. Members on both sides of the House. It is a great shame that we do not have more time to debate this issue, but I congratulate him on raising it.

I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman. It is important that we speak in the House with one voice on this matter because there must not be any miscalculation of where we stand in these sensitive days. Equally, the future matters. Taiwan, already the 12th largest economy in the world, will play a substantial part in that future. It is an economic powerhouse.

I know that my right hon. Friend the Minister is doing all that he can to improve relations between Great Britain and Taiwan on a number of fronts. My final point may not be my most popular point with him. As Taiwan is the source of the second largest reserve of savings in the world, it is absurd that some international institutions—I have in mind especially the World Trade Organisation, which supersedes the general agreement on tariffs and trade, the International Monetary Fund and the World bank—should not have Taiwan as a participating member.

Some mechanism will have to be found, which may initially amount to less than political recognition of Taiwan, but which will enable it to participate in the world community to a much greater extent than has been possible. I hope that part of the Government's work will involve trying, with other countries, to enable Taiwan to play the full part that her economic power dictates she should play.

That having been said, these are serious times in Taiwan. I hope that the international threshold of anxiety will be lowered. That will be to the advantage not only of Taiwan, but of Hong Kong, of China and of her reputation in the rest of the world.

My hon. Friend the Member for Corby (Mr. Powell) has done the House a service by raising the important and topical subject of Taiwan. The tribute paid to him by the hon. Member for Leeds, Central (Mr. Fatchett) is wholly appropriate and agreed by all hon. Members.

In 10 days' time, the people of Taiwan will go to the polls to elect their President—the first time that they have had the opportunity to do so. It represents the last stage in the development of democratic institutions in Taiwan, a development that hon. Members can only welcome and applaud. It is therefore a matter of grave concern that the People's Republic of China should be conducting missile tests and military exercises with the apparent aim of influencing those elections and of intimidating the electorate.

Four missiles have been fired into the sea near Taiwan's two main ports. Aviation and shipping have been warned to avoid an extensive area near the Chinese coast in the strait of Taiwan, where the exercises will include live firing. Such activities have caused anxiety to people in Taiwan—including the British community there—in Hong Kong and throughout east Asia. They have led the United States of America to take precautionary action. Anything that affects the stability of the region that includes Hong Kong affects us all.

Let me make the Government's position clear. We acknowledge the Chinese Government's position that Taiwan is a province of China. The Taiwanese should be singularly ill advised were they to proceed to a declaration of independence or some similar initiative. Our understanding is that the Taiwanese authorities seek negotiations about reunification, not independence. That echoes the view of my hon. Friend the Member for Harrow, East (Mr. Dykes).

Equally, on the Chinese side, we have no current reason to believe that the present activity is the prelude to a military attack on Taiwan or that the Government of the People's Republic have abandoned their long-standing policy of seeking peaceful reunification, the policy repeated by the Chinese premier Li Peng to our Prime Minister less than two weeks ago. Nevertheless, it is clear that the present position has heightened tensions in the region and is potentially dangerous—indeed disastrous. There is a risk of error or a miscalculation that could have the most serious consequences.

Taiwan is one of the economic powerhouses of east Asia. It is the 14th largest trading entity in the world. As my hon. Friend the Member for Corby said, its foreign exchange reserves are the second largest in the world—they are second only to Japan. For its security, Taiwan has always looked to the support of the United States, which has already backed up its warnings about the seriousness of the position by moving two task forces near to Taiwan. We support and welcome the sensible precautions that the American Government have taken.

My right hon. Friend widens the point to encompass the whole world. Those of us who are concerned about Taiwan and China are obviously here this morning for that reason. Is it not right also to widen the debate so that concern for democracy is shared world wide? Even if we support Beijing, we do not want it to force the extinguishment of democracy as it begins in Taiwan.

I can only agree with my hon. Friend. That is why I welcome the elections in Taiwan, which should not be interfered with by anyone outside, not even China.

The risks of any escalation of the present crisis should be evident to all. I hope that all concerned, but especially the Government of the People's Republic of China, will pay heed to the dangers and proceed with the greatest possible caution and restraint.

That has been the central message of our own public statements about the matter and of the statement issued at the end of last week by the European Union. The Prime Minister expressed our concerns directly to the Chinese Prime Minister Li Peng when they met in Bangkok at the recent Asia-Europe meeting. We are continuing to follow the development of the situation extremely closely and will take all further opportunities to urge restraint and peaceful resolution of differences.

Such a path is not only in the interests of Taiwan and the east Asia region, but it is very much in the interests of China itself. Even though direct trade is still not permitted by the Taiwan authorities, Taiwanese companies have been among the largest investors in mainland China and the indirect trade is worth billions of dollars. My hon. Friend the Member for Corby alluded to that.

The astonishing economic transformation of the coastal provinces of China has, as my hon. Friend rightly said, benefited greatly from this infusion of capital and business acumen from across the Taiwan strait. These substantial economic benefits would be put at risk if the present crisis were to escalate out of control. There could also be consequences of particular importance for us in Britain—but also for China—if the situation led to a drop in confidence in Hong Kong.

I do not wish to be alarmist. The evidence we possess points to intimidation and bellicose activity, but not an attack. The risks at this stage are potential rather than actual. If all sides act with good sense, as I hope and believe they will, calm should return and tensions be relaxed. I believe that all in this House will join me in expressing concern at the demonstrations, which are unnecessary and an over-reaction, and in urging the utmost restraint.

I have so far spoken of the relations between China and Taiwan, as they are the subject of the greatest topical interest. I want now to put on record the flourishing links between Taiwan and this country. Although, like our main western partners, we have no formal diplomatic relations with Taiwan, it has become an important partner for us in terms of trade, investment, tourism and educational exchange. We continue actively to promote those links that are of considerable benefit to both sides. So far, 11 Ministers have visited Taiwan in pursuit of those objectives. Only recently, three of my ministerial colleagues from the Scottish Office—it is good to see the one they left behind, my hon. Friend the Member for Edinburgh, West (Lord James Douglas-Hamilton) on the Bench this morning—and from the Departments of the Environment and of Health visited Taiwan to secure further commercial opportunities and inward investment for the United Kingdom.

The centre of our activity is our unofficial office in Taipei, the British trade and cultural office, currently under the direction of Alan Collins. The office boasts seven front-line commercial staff dedicated to helping British business. Its cultural section has an excellent record in attracting Taiwanese students to the United Kingdom. Several high-profile events were staged last year, including the British festival in Taipei and a British promotion in Kaoshiung. More events are planned for this year to enhance British interests. The active British chamber of commerce in Taipei, which the DTI helped to establish several years ago, also offers help to British business men. The DTI holds regular talks with the Taiwan authorities on a wide range of trade issues to improve access to the market.

My hon. Friend mentioned the work done by the Taipei representative office in London. Our lack of diplomatic relations means that we cannot afford Dr. Eugene Chien and his colleagues the privileges and immunities that go with diplomatic status, but we do make every effort to minimise any practical inconveniences that they may face. We believe that they share our aim of developing the practical links between Taiwan and the United Kingdom.

In this regard, I believe that our record speaks for itself. Last year our exports amounted to £962 million, a remarkable increase of more than 30 per cent. on 1994. Recent commercial successes included Davy International's £75 million contract from the China Steel company to design and build a new blast furnace. British companies are in the running to construct both a high-speed rail link between Taipei and Kaoshiung and an £8 billion metro project in Kaoshiung. The Government are committed to offering all the practical help they can in pursuit of those opportunities.

British firms are also showing their commitment by investing in Taiwan. Glaxo has completed a major pharmaceutical plant in Hsinchu and Kingfisher B and Q has signed a joint venture worth £10 million and is setting up a pilot do-it-yourself home centre store in Taiwan, which is due to open in March this year. Eagle Star has signed a joint venture to create Eagle Star Insurance Life, whose operations are due to start very soon. ICI plans to build a second chemical plant for completion in 1997, which would put its investment in Taiwan well in excess of half a billion US dollars.

The United Kingdom is also an increasingly attractive location for Taiwanese investment, as my hon. Friend rightly said. In the past, Taiwanese manufacturing investment has been mainly concentrated in the USA and east Asia. The first investment in Britain was when Tatung set up a manufacturing plant in Telford in 1984. Over the past five years, the United Kingdom has become the preferred European location for a further 10 companies with a range of products from penicillin to hard disk drives.

The announcement in November 1995 of the Chunghwa investment of £260 million to build a plant in Lanarkshire, creating 3,300 jobs, is a sign of things to come. It is the largest so far by a Taiwanese investor in the United Kingdom and, I might add, the largest single investment by a Taiwanese company in Europe. We expect it to generate more inquiries from smaller companies wishing to follow Chunghwa's lead.

It is important that we remain active in Taiwan to capitalise on the potential for further investment opportunities on the back of our recent success. The United Kingdom offers a highly attractive environment to Taiwanese companies, with a skilled and flexible work force and a warm welcome from local and national Government.

In recent years we have also made significant efforts in the area of education to attract Taiwanese students to the United Kingdom. An education fair, with representatives' attending from all major British colleges and universities, is held every year. There are now more than 10,000 Taiwanese students at British colleges and universities and the number continues to grow. We are also benefiting from an increasing flow of Taiwanese tourists and business visitors, especially since we simplified visa procedures in December last year.

All this represents a record of solid achievement in deepening the practical links between Britain and Taiwan. Despite our lack of diplomatic relations, we remain wholeheartedly committed to developing closer ties. We see great potential in the future for the promotion of United Kingdom exports and investment, attraction of tourism and the promotion of educational links in the United Kingdom and Taiwan.

Although much has been done, much more could be done. We intend to work closely with British companies to ensure that they take full advantage of the opportunities. We will continue the partnership between the British Council and the universities to promote educational contact. We will intensify our campaign with the regions of the United Kingdom to attract investment and create jobs for British workers at Taiwanese-owned factories. That requires a sustained effort. In the United Kingdom, investors have access to the European single market, but retain the freedom to run their businesses as they wish—and an overseas investor in the United Kingdom has all the rights and privileges of a British investor. No wonder we are doing so well together.

I know that the House will join me in congratulating my hon. Friend on what he had to say about the excellent relationship between Taiwan and the United Kingdom. The fact that he spoke without a note in his hand shows that he spoke from the heart. There are many here who hold Taiwan in their hearts.

This debate has been rather overshadowed by events in Scotland today. I understand that at Dunblane primary school in Dunblane 13 children and two adults have been killed and eight others have been injured. I offer my sincere condolences to the families and relatives of those killed or injured in the tragedy. I understand that, later today, formal statements will be made by the Leader of the House and the shadow Leader of the House. I also understand that the Minister of State wants to say a few words, and I give way to him.

The whole House will share the sense of distress, horror and outrage that children lost their lives at Dunblane primary school this morning in an appalling incident. The whole House will wish the deepest sympathies to be expressed to the families of the victims and to the families of those who have been injured. My right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Scotland and the hon. Member for Hamilton (Mr. Robertson), the shadow Scottish Secretary, left this morning to travel to Dunblane, and I understand that the Under-Secretary of State responsible for education, my hon. Friend the Member for Aberdeen, South (Mr. Robertson), is already there.

The House should expect a full statement to be made as soon as all the facts have been established. My right hon. Friend the Leader of the House will confirm the arrangements for a statement at 3.30 pm today.

I am grateful to be able to present the case in this short Adjournment debate of Charlie Thom of 35, Ashgrove road in Kilwinning, which involves a march-fence division wall. The case could be considered to be very complicated. Indeed, from reading several documents and letters concerning it, I consider it complicated. I shall try to make it as simple as possible and break it down into three different sectors. The first concerns the courts, the second concerns politicians and the Government and the third concerns the Scottish Law Commission.

I shall try to approach the matter from a simple commonsense point of view and outline the case briefly. I understand that the wall was built in the early 1950s and that a wooden fence was subsequently built next to it without Mr. Thom' s permission. Lord Jauncey, the Lord Ordinary, heard the case over 28 days in 1987 and, on 24 April 1987, came to the conclusion that the case was not made by Mr. Thom. He said that huge sums of money had been spent in defending and prosecuting the case. It has been estimated that more than £50,000 was spent—concerning a wall that cost between £700 and £1,000 to build.

In the opinion of the pursuer, Mr. Thom, Lord Jauncey' s statement ignored all previous decisions. To find case history, one has to go back to the 19th century, when there were five cases that specifically concerned boundary walls. The first such case was Wallace v. Brown on 21 January 1808, and the last was Cochran' s Travellers v. Caledonian Railway Company in 1898.

Mr. Thom argues that Lord Jauncey came to his conclusion on the basis of tenement gable cases in the 1900s and took into account the minority view of the last case in the previous century, to which I have referred. Lord Jauncey concluded:

"However I can see no reason why the principles of law applicable to the interest in a gable built half on A's land and half on B's land should differ from the principles applicable to the simple division wall similarly built".

I understand that the Scottish Office Minister became involved on 27 October 1987, when he wrote:

"The Secretary of State cannot interfere in the judgements of the courts. Such judgements can only be overturned in the normal manner by appealing to a higher court and Mr. Thom should consult his own solicitor regarding this."

Two Lord Advocates became involved in the case. The first, Lord Cameron of Lochbroom, said on 21 December that Mr. Thom should refer the matter to the Scottish Law Commission, as did his successor, Lord Fraser of Carmyllie, on 2 March 1992.

At about the same time, Mr. Thom wrote to the Faculty of Advocates, and on 4 June 1993 was told by the dean of the faculty to take the matter up with the deputy principal clerk of session. That had disastrous consequences for Mr. Thom, of which I am sure the Minister is aware. It has caused such a delay that the case has still not been considered by a judge.

After a fairly lengthy written and verbal dialogue with Mr. Thom, the third vehicle in the case, the Scottish Law Commission, produced a consultation document in June 1992. It was very supportive, as was a letter from Lord Davidson, the chairman of the commission. Shortly before the research undertaken by the commission on the subject was completed, Lord Davidson said:

"case law on the subject is in disarray".

I would argue that there is a remedy. It is clear that the law on dividing walls is in total disarray. The law faces two ways and there are two lines of decision that cannot satisfactorily be reconciled. It is clear that my constituent no longer has any confidence in the Scottish legal system—and with some justification, given what I have described. The extent of the events that have occurred in the Scottish Court Service is astonishing, as I understand the Minister is aware.

What can we do to remedy the situation? For one part, compensation is due. We need only to approach the matter from a commonsense point of view. Everyone knows that it is not possible to own half a brick, yet the judgment seems to suggest that it is. As it is not possible to own half a child, it is certainly not possible to own half a brick. Such a premise makes a nonsense of the law, and the law falls into disrepute in the eyes of the public as a result.

Lord Jauncey had absolutely no right or power to change the law. As I understand it, to change a point of law in Scotland, five judges sitting together are required to make a majority decision. A single judge does not have that power.

The only other two ways in which the law can be changed are through the House of Lords, on a case basis, and through the House of Commons, by statute or by parliamentary order. Those are clearly not open to Mr. Thom. In terms of his rights of appeal, it would be nonsense for him to approach the case from the angle suggested by many people. The use of judicial discretion in the case has been highly questionable.

The most recent annual report of the Scottish Law Commission said that the case would have to be set aside because, as with other cases of equal importance, more resources are needed from the Government to continue with it. The Government must examine the resourcing of the Scottish Law Commission. In my discussions with the commission, that fact has been clearly borne out.

The time spent on the case has been inordinate. My constituent has been almost literally banging his head against a brick wall for more than 15 years. He feels that the system of law has been ganging up against him, and that there has been some form of collusion. So far as I can determine, all facets of the law suggest that he has a right of appeal. The Scottish Law Commission alone stands against that possibility.

About 3,000 years ago, in a book called the Mishnah, the Jews determined what would happen if two parties decided to build a dividing wall:

"If they acted with each other's consent, they should build the wall in the middle and make the boundary mark on either side; hence if the wall fell down the place and the stones belong to them both."

I fail to understand why, if the Jews could get it right 3,000 years ago, the Government in Scotland cannot get it right after more than 10 years.

I hope that the Minister will not sit on the fence, so to speak, for another 10 years. Mr. Thom is becoming an old man; he is 79 years of age, and I argue forcefully that he deserves justice today.

I congratulate the hon. Member for Cunninghame, South (Mr. Donohoe) on obtaining this Adjournment debate. I have studied the issue closely, and there is one issue of concern to me that may provide the basis for some claim for recompense—the failure of an officer of the Court of Session to process Mr. Thom's application for a reduction of Lord Jauncey's judgment in 1993. If the hon. Gentleman or Mr. Thom believes that that failure led to additional or abortive costs for Mr. Thom, I ask them to let the chief executive of the Scottish Court Service or myself have details so that consideration can be given to an ex gratia payment to cover those additional costs.

I shall describe to the hon. Gentleman and the rest of the House the present legal position. "Common property" means a single piece of property jointly owned by two or more people. "Mutual property" means a piece of property of which two or more people own a part. The law on boundaries is mostly common law not statute law, and it is interpreted by the courts in the circumstances of the time.

The modern interpretation of the law on garden boundary walls is that each neighbour owns his own half of the wall. The two neighbours have a shared interest in the upkeep of the wall as a whole. That interpretation of the law formed the basis of Lord Jauncey's judgment against Mr. Thom in 1987. In effect, he ruled that the garden wall was mutual property, whereas Mr. Thom had argued that it was common property. That interpretation of the law has been in place since 1886, and the leading authority on property law, "The Laws of Scotland Stair Memorial Encyclopaedia", says that

"The modern law"

on boundary walls

"is not now in doubt".

The Scottish Law Commission is now examining the subject of property law, including the law relating to boundary walls. We shall consider carefully any recommendation that it makes in due course. In the meantime, there is no reason to say that the law is unclear or in disarray.

Surely the Minister must recognise the fact that the Scottish Law Commission has been dealing with the case for seven years. We require a decision in the near future, not one that will take two, three or four years. Some effort is needed, because the Law Commission has no resources to complete the consultation process and present to the necessary authorities the solution to the problem.

My understanding is that the Law Commission is considering its conclusions, which will reach the Government without undue delay. I shall certainly ensure that the commission is made aware of the hon. Gentleman's concern that the matter should be processed without unnecessary delay.

I shall now deal with some of the specific issues that the hon. Gentleman raised. First, he asked about the description of the boundary wall in Mr. Thom's title to his property. In the title deeds, the wall is described as mutual property between the two householders. The hon. Gentleman argued that the terms "mutual property" and "common property" mean the same thing, but I must disagree. That was a key point argued by Mr. Thom in his original case before the Court of Session, and one that Lord Jauncey considered closely in his judgment.

That judgment distinguishes clearly between the idea of mutual interest in property and the legal concept of common property. Lord Jauncey refers to that distinction as it applies in many areas of property law. Put simply, mutual interest means very much what the ordinary sense of the term implies: both parties share an interest in the overall piece of property, although they separately own only individual parts of it.

Having property in common involves a much closer relationship, because the parties are held to be joint owners of the whole property and therefore have to agree about how any part of it is treated, and share the costs of upkeep. As I made clear earlier, the law as it stands treats garden walls, such as Mr. Thom's wall, as mutual between the householders and not as common property. That is a sensible approach.

Indeed, it could be argued that treating a garden wall as common property in the strict legal sense would raise a lot more problems than it would solve. For example, should it be necessary for the party on one side of the wall to get agreement from his neighbour before he can fix a trellis to the wall and grow roses up it? That could be the effect of regarding such a wall as common property. If a garden wall built on both sides of the dividing line between two pieces of ground is regarded as common property, should the ground on which the wall is built not also be regarded as held in common?

The hon. Gentleman also suggested that the papers issued by the Scottish Law Commission following Mr. Thom's case implied that the commission—

On the question of a common wall versus a mutual wall, does the Minister not concede that the Thom case itself changed the definition? Before that, all case law was seen by others as based on 18th and 19th-century case history, and Lord Jauncey could show nothing to suggest that a change had taken place between the 19th century and the 20th century. Clearly from a commonsense point of view, nobody could understand what a "mutual wall" means in real terms. Does not that demonstrate a fundamental failure in Lord Jauncey's approach, in terms of common sense?

The modern interpretation of the law on garden boundary walls is that each of the neighbours owns his or her own half of the wall concerned and they have a shared interest. The hon. Gentleman may disapprove of that, but that is the position. The hon. Gentleman may want to return to the position as it was hundreds of years ago, but I suspect that, were we to do that, many people would argue that we should bring the law up to date.

We are awaiting the conclusion of the Scottish Law Commission, which I hope will not take too long. I strongly disagree with the hon. Gentleman's view that "common property" and "mutual property" mean the same thing. The consultation paper issued by the commission makes clear distinctions between the technical meaning of "common property" and the sense of the term "mutual property".

The paper refers specifically to the outcome of Mr. Thom's original case, not to Mr. Thom's view of the law. It also says that the paper is published

"for comment and criticism and does not represent the final views of the Scottish Law Commission".

As the commission has still to complete its report on those issues, its final views are not known.

I was interested to hear what the hon. Gentleman said about Jewish law on boundaries between property. I admit that much of that was new to me, but the Scottish Office is always ready to consider and learn from good practice from other jurisdictions and I should be grateful if the hon. Gentleman would let me have papers on the Jewish legal framework. We shall study them with considerable interest.

The hon. Gentleman described the law on boundary walls as being "in disarray" and said that the interest shown by the Scottish Law Commission in Mr. Thom's case showed that the commission supported that view. The law is not in disarray. I draw the attention of the House to the firm statement about the law on boundary walls made in paragraph 223 of the current edition of Stair's "Laws of Scotland":

"The modern law is not now in doubt … each proprietor owns to the mid-point".

I am aware of no justification for the suggestion that the Scottish Law Commission supports the idea that the law is "in disarray". The commission has a long-standing project reviewing the whole law of property, the feudal system and the law of the tenement. It has included in that project consideration of the law on boundary walls. It issued its consultation paper in 1992 and has yet to issue its conclusions. If the commission had believed that the law on boundary walls was in a critical condition, it would have made specific recommendations on the subject much earlier.

Following on from that point, I should address the hon. Gentleman's concern—

rose—

May I develop this point? I should address the hon. Gentleman's concern that the commission's review of the issues surrounding property law has taken a long time. The commission's considered views on the specific legal issues relating to boundary walls will not be available for some time but, as I explained, the commission takes the view that there are many detailed and related issues covering the whole law surrounding property where interests may overlap or be shared. The commission wishes to explore all those issues carefully before producing final views about any aspect of property law. The commission is right to take a prudent approach. The hon. Gentleman eloquently argued the importance of the law relating to property, especially domestic property. It is important that all the complex and related issues should be carefully considered.

On the issue of compensation for Mr. Thom, I am sure that the hon. Gentleman will accept that there can be—

Obviously the Minister was not listening to what I said about the Scottish Law Commission. Viscount Davidson, the chairman, wrote to Mr. Thom on 16 October 1990 to say that, having researched the matter, he believed the law to be in disarray. That was in 1990; here we are in 1996, and nothing has been resolved. The latest-30th—annual report of the Scottish Law Commission says about boundary walls:

"Because of the need to divert resources to more urgent matters. this project has been temporarily suspended."

That gives no sign of the urgency that should be applied to the matter by the Government and legal departments.

The hon. Gentleman may believe that changing overnight the law on such an issue, the interpretation of which is clear in the courts, would solve many problems, but it might create many more problems. It is the job of the Scottish Law Commission to investigate all the complexities surrounding the matter and reach conclusions. That it will do, and it would be wrong for the Scottish Office to try to pre-empt its consideration because, if it were to do so and it introduced legislation, that legislation might have to be changed immediately in the light of all the evidence.

The hon. Gentleman draws only one case to the attention of the House.

rose—

May I go on to discuss consultation? I am sure that the hon. Gentleman will accept, as I do, that there can be no suggestion of compensation for costs arising from the original court case. Mr. Thom initiated the action against his neighbour at his own instance and chose to persist in that action. The judge found against Mr. Thom and awarded restricted expenses against him. It would be wrong for the Scottish Office to take a different view and award compensation to Mr. Thom, and it would be unfair to the other party in the case, his neighbour, who is also a constituent of the hon. Gentleman.

I can see no case for compensating Mr. Thom for costs that he incurred in pursuing his view of the law with the Scottish Law Commission and others; he did so by choice. Although the commission has been grateful for Mr. Thom's detailed submissions, it does not necessarily share Mr. Thom's view of the law, although it did use some aspects of the original case as material in its 1992 consultation paper. That paper records the position of both sides in the dispute and, of course, Lord Jauncey's judgment.

The hon. Gentleman mentioned a possible judicial review of Mr. Thom's case. I am sure that the hon. Gentleman appreciates why I cannot respond directly: it is for the courts, not the Scottish Office, to decide on individual legal cases. In this instance, Mr. Thom has unsuccessfully sought to bring his case to appeal and has since tabled another application to the Court of Session, which remains outstanding, so it would be inappropriate for me to comment on that aspect of the case at this stage.

The current law in Scotland in relation to domestic boundary walls is clear. Both householders own their half of the wall and they have a shared interest in the wall as a whole. That is a practical and commonsense view, and I suspect that many householders regard it as sensible. There may be a case for placing the current law on a statutory footing, but that issue can be argued with intensity both ways and it is best tackled when we have the considered views of the Scottish Law Commission on all related property law issues.

Finally, while I admire the tenacity shown by the hon. Gentleman's constituent in pursuing his view of the law, I cannot support his or the hon. Gentleman's conclusion that the law relating to boundary walls requires urgent change. The view of the law that Mr. Thom holds is based on judgments made in the 19th century. I cannot help feeling that, if the original case had gone in favour of Mr. Thom, we might now be debating whether a more modern interpretation of the law was required—perhaps at the instigation of another constituent of the hon. Gentleman.

I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for raising this matter, and Mr. Thorn's energy and application in pursuing a complex point of law are worthy of remark. Mr. Thom's case is a telling example of how a small domestic dispute can involve complex legal issues.

I consulted "The Laws of Scotland Stair Memorial Encyclopaedia" on boundary walls and fences. It begins with a short paragraph that hon. Members may believe sounds a warning note. In earlier times, boundaries, or "marches" as they were known, were set out with markers called march-stones, rather than walls or fences. March-stones could be moved and so were not entirely reliable. Stair records:

"When march-stones are solemnly set, boys used sometimes to be laid upon them and sharply whipt, whereby they will be able to remember,^*and be good witnesses as to those marches when they are old, that impression on their fancy lasting long."

The more modern use of boundary fences and walls may lead to some difficult legal problems, but at least small boys can rejoice in that connection.

As I understand it, the original case involving Mr. Thom began as a result of long-standing disagreement between him and his next-door neighbour. It centred on the boundary wall between the two properties. In 1982, Mr. Thom's neighbour created a fence along her side of the boundary wall. Mr. Thom argued that the erection of the fence had damaged the foundations of the wall and that the action of the wind on the fence caused further damage to the wall structure. In 1983, Mr. Thom raised an action in the Court of Session seeking a declaration that the wall was common property and that his neighbour should do nothing that would affect the wall without his consent. He sought to have the fence removed and the wall restored to its original condition.

The case was strongly contested on both sides, with Mr. Thom representing himself from a very early stage in the proceedings. By the time the case came before the court, the judge, Lord Jauncey, was so concerned about the expense of money and time on the case that he tried to encourage the parties to settle their dispute between themselves. He pointed out that the combined cost of replacing both the fence and wall was only about £2,000.

Order. Time is up.

I have to tell the House a cautionary tale of an event that has occurred in a beautiful part of my constituency, called Five Oaks, which lies between Billingshurst and Slinfold. It is an example of what can happen under existing planning legislation through expansion, by stealth in this case, by the utilities.

Without warning, in an attractive rural area, but close to a number of residential properties, a substantial diesel-fired 10 MW power generating station has been added to the three transformers and small brick shed that previously stood on the site.

The site itself has expanded, and the character of the undertaking has totally changed. The five new diesel generators, with tall gleaming chimneys, together with two massive oil storage tanks and associated pipework, completely dwarf the original set of buildings. The oil tanks and the associated pipework lie outside the fenced enclosures that formed the original transformer station.

The new installation is quite unprotected against vandalism. No proper precautions were taken against the leakage of oil and chemicals into the site and thence into the adjoining watercourse. That is exactly what has happened, with neat diesel being discharged from a field drain from the site.

Mr. Kelly, the clerk of Slinfold parish council, has told me that the council was given no notice of the development. He also told me that a fire has occurred, and a spillage of ethylene and 100 litres of diesel oil, which have polluted the river. That river is next to the watercourse, which flows into the Adur river, a short distance to the south. It is clear from what has happened that the development is a major potential hazard.

The other environmental consequence to consider is the damage caused by noise and the smell of diesel as a result of the plan to operate the generator for three hours every day. The five new generators and chimneys are visually obtrusive in the rural landscape, and it amounts to an industrial eyesore in one of the most beautiful parts of West Sussex.

The local community was offered no notice or opportunity to comment on that industrial intrusion. When I heard about it, I naturally took it up with the company concerned, Southern Electric. Mr. Wilson, the chairman, replied that the reliability of electrical supply to the area had given cause for concern since the storms of 1987. The generators were necessary to improve reliability. He did not just stress the reliability of supply, because he said:

"In addition, small generating sets will be operated whenever pool prices of electricity is greater than the cost of generation. This is expected to be in the region of 3 to 4 hours on a winter's week day, and electricity wholesale prices have reached record levels recently."

He went on to describe the efforts taken to minimise the effects of noise and emissions as well the visual impact of the development. It seems to me that the best way to minimise them is not to build the plant in the first place.

The project was apparently discussed with the planning department of Horsham district council, which confirmed that it was a permitted development under conditions set out in the Town and Country Planning (General Development) Order 1988.

I wrote to the Minister for Industry and Energy and asked him why those units, if they had to be built in the first place, could not have been built in an existing industrial zone. I wrote to the chairman of Southern Electric and asked him why he had not consulted local people. I asked him how he would like to wake up one morning to see a large diesel-fired 10 MW power generating station erected outside his office in Littlewick Green. I never had a reply to that point.

I also wrote to the Secretary of State for the Environment, asking him to call in the application, because I could see no reason why that type of development could not occur piecemeal all over the country. I wonder whether that is what the Government are prepared to see. Of course electricity companies want to make the best use of technology, but that natural desire should be measured and weighed against environmental issues in the normal planning process.

The Secretary of State replied to me on 19 January and said that he understood that Southern Electric constructed the station under permitted development rights comprised within part XVII of the Town and Country Planning (General Permitted Development) Order 1995. My right hon. Friend told me that, notwithstanding that statutory undertakers were not required to submit a formal planning application, they had agreed to consult the local planning authority and to publicise their intentions locally well in advance of work starting. In the case of Five Oaks, that, regrettably, was never done. Horsham district council says that Southern Electric's contact was informal, and quite unrelated to whether there would be any significant effect on the environment.

It is possible, apparently, for local planning authorities to make directions under article 4 of the general permitted development order to bring specific cases of permitted development within the scope of the development control system. That is possible, however, only in advance of the development, and depends, of course, on the planning authority being told exactly what the electricity company has in mind.

In any event, any such direction must be cleared subsequently by the Department of the Environment. The record to date shows that the Department seldom overturns the judgment of the local authority. So not only does the local authority require the endorsement of the DOE, but it may find that it is necessary to pay compensation for any development that is not carried out.

There then followed a meeting between Southern Electric and local residents, which should have been held long before, during which the company admitted that there had been just one failure on the 33 KW line during the past three years. There was therefore no need for undue excitement on its part to build the extra plant.

I then heard from Lord Crickhowell, who hon. Members will know is the chairman of the National Rivers Authority. He wrote to me saying that the installation of such a generating station falls outside the control of the planning authority and Her Majesty's inspectorate of pollution. Why should that be? After all, pollution is pollution wherever it occurs and whatever the size of the development.

Moreover, it appeared from the meeting with local residents that the plant is on call to the grid and Southern Electric's supply company. That demonstrates not only that it was intended that the plant should generate extra power for distribution, but that assurances about operating hours were without meaning. So the plant can be called upon whenever commercial logic informs the generating company that it would be wise to use that extra power rather than to rely on the grid. That was never revealed to Horsham district council. It is therefore not merely a plant erected to cover shortages of supply, but a commercial undertaking.

Residents were told that, in an emergency, staff would be summoned from Petersfield, which is about 45 minutes away. They discovered that no arrangement had been made with the fire brigade. It was at that point that the Council for the Protection of Rural England became interested, and lent its support, mentioning not least the fact that, if such a development were to be allowed at Five Oaks under the permitted development legislation, there would be no reason why such developments should not occur in other parts of the country as often as generating companies wanted them.

My hon. Friend the Minister for Small Business, Industry and Energy told me that the procedures under the general development order would not apply where a station had a capacity of more than 50 MW. There lies the beginning of a solution. If that is the case, why do we not reduce the limit from 50 MW to a much lower figure? Southern Electric is planning a 40 MW station near Reading, and perhaps four or five others.

If Southern Electric is planning to do that, what about all the other electricity generating companies? Under existing legislation, they may find it possible to use the latest technology to put up such generators all over the country in the most beautiful rural areas—including yours, Mr. Deputy Speaker. This is a matter of great importance.

What is to be done? My right hon. Friend the Secretary of State will not call in the application, because it is impossible to do so when permission has been granted by the local authority. He says that he is satisfied that the present system whereby the statutory undertakers consult local planning authorities and publicise proposals which would have a significant effect on amenities and the environment works well. He is not persuaded that he should amend the general development order in respect of the permitted development rights of statutory undertakers.

However, this is a case in which the existing system has not worked as intended. I was therefore pleased to learn that my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State intends shortly to seek tenders for a research programme on the use of permitted development rights by statutory undertakers as part of the Department of the Environment's planning research programme for 1996–97.

I understand that the project would, among other things, establish the extent to which statutory undertakers rely on permitted development rights to carry out their activities—here is evidence for them—consider the scope for those rights to be altered, and examine the operation and effectiveness of the non-statutory consultation arrangements.

I hope that this short debate may be drawn to the attention of the researchers and amenities societies, which may have an interest in the matter. The case has shown that the statutory undertakers do not always conform with what is expected of them. They do not always tell planning authorities all they should about their intentions, nor do they consult local people when they should. The result is that electricity generating stations can spring up all over the country, without heed to environmental considerations and without consultation with local people.

One idea might be to limit developments under the existing legislation to, say, 30 MW, and to limit them to existing industrial areas. Why should it be necessary to generate electricity in the most beautiful rural parts of the country when so many industrial zones are available where less objection would be made? Surely it is desirable to do that rather than to have such developments in beautiful countryside like Five Oaks; otherwise, there will be much more invasion of the countryside as power generation technology improves.

I am glad to have had the opportunity to raise what could be a nationwide problem, and I look forward to what my hon. Friend the Minister has to say.

I am delighted to have the opportunity to reply to the debate, because my right hon. Friend the Member for Horsham (Sir P. Hordern), in all his years in the House, has managed something rare—a reputation both for the breadth of his knowledge on key national and international issues, and for being an assiduous constituency Member. On this issue, as on others, he has been tireless in representing his constituents' concerns. He has put his case today with characteristic fairness and accuracy, and so thoroughly that he has almost taken the words of my reply out of my mouth.

My right hon. Friend knows that some Horsham district councillors raised the matter with me on my recent visit to Horsham, and I recognise the concerns that it has aroused. Before I reply, I should like to say how much I was impressed by the town centre development in Horsham, and I congratulate all those who were involved with it. It is encouraging to see a thriving town centre into which a lot of thought has gone, and some fine new buildings.

I have listened carefully to the points made by my right hon. Friend. I hope that he will find it helpful if I first explain the legislation that controls the sort of development carried out at Slinfold, and our role, and that of the local planning authority.

Electricity supply companies, like other statutory undertakers, have permitted development rights under the Town and Country Planning (General Permitted Development) Order 1995, or GPDO. Those rights enable them to carry out certain developments that are necessary for them to perform their day-to-day activities without having to make planning applications.

The rights were given to statutory undertakers because they provide a service to the public and because it was felt that it would be unreasonable and inefficient to require them to make a planning application for routine development on every occasion. Part XVII, class G of the GPDO sets out the permitted development rights for electricity undertakings in connection with the generation, transmission or supply of electricity. Any development beyond the permitted rights as set out in part XVII requires planning permission in the normal way.

In exceptional circumstances, as my right hon. Friend said, a local planning authority may consider that the permitted development rights granted by the GPDO should be withdrawn. In such cases, they may make a direction under article 4 of the general development order, withdrawing the permitted development rights and requiring specific planning permission. Permitted development rights have been approved by Parliament, and consequently should not be withdrawn unless the circumstances are exceptional and the planning grounds for doing so compelling. Such a direction requires the approval of the Secretary of State before it can come into force.

Measures were introduced in June 1995 relating to permitted development and environmental assessment. They mean that, under certain conditions, development under permitted development rights, which normally does not require a planning application, will need formal planning approval if environmental assessment of the project is required.

The measures include a provision for developers to seek an opinion from the local planning authority, with a right of appeal to the Secretary of State, as to whether a particular permitted development project should be subject to environmental assessment, and hence whether a planning application, accompanied by an environmental statement, is required.

Development that is covered by the permitted development order does not require statutory consultation or publicity. However, it is considered desirable for there to be arrangements for advance publicity for individual proposals where appropriate. Arrangements for consultation are explained in paragraph 33 of the Department's circular 15/92, "Publicity for Planning Applications", and in paragraphs 9 to 12 of circular 9/95, "General Development Order Consolidation 1995".

The circular states that, although not governed by statutory provisions for publicity, statutory undertakers exercising their permitted development rights should inform both local planning authorities and the public of developments likely to have a significant effect on the amenity and environment well in advance of work starting. Where a proposal is notified to the local planning authority, adequate time should be allowed for it to consider whether it should advertise the proposal, and for discussion of ways in which the proposal might be amended to overcome any planning objections.

It has been suggested—both by those who feel that it could be extended and by others who consider that it needs to be restricted further—that the scope of the rights of statutory undertakers contained in the GPDO need to be reviewed. We have therefore, as my right hon. Friend said, approved a research project into the use of permitted development rights by statutory undertakers that will form part of the planning research project in 1996–97. It is expected that that will take place this autumn.

In the case of the Five Oaks sub-station, local residents have asked whether the Secretary of State could intervene in some way, but I have to tell my right hon. Friend that there is no scope for that where a development has already been carried out under permitted development rights. It is not possible to call in an application for which permission has been granted, in this case under the general development order, and the development completed.

As I have said, in exceptional circumstances it is possible to make a direction under article 4 of the general development order, withdrawing permitted development rights. However, as my right hon. Friend is aware, the district council maintains that it was given little information on the appearance and potential visual impact of the plant; nor did it have any indication from Southern Electric that the company considered the proposal to have the potential for a significant effect on amenity and the environment.

A consultant's report, commissioned by the company and made available to the council, advised that the development would not affect groundwater or, air quality, or create noise nuisance. In those circumstances, the district council considered it unlikely that it could have persuaded the Secretary of State that the circumstances of the case were so exceptional and the planning grounds so compelling that a direction would be justified.

I understand local concerns that the development has taken place apparently without informal consultation by the statutory undertaker with those most likely to be affected by its impact in terms of amenity and the environment. I was told by Horsham district council that consultation with Southern Electric in advance of the works being undertaken was solely to determine whether permitted development rights applied. Again, on the basis of the information provided by the company, the district council took the view that the generators would be permitted development, and would not therefore require a specific application for planning permission.

In view of the considerable concern about the size of the generators subsequently installed on the site, the council took advice, which confirmed its earlier view that the development benefited from permitted development rights. As I understand it, the critical point is that the generators, flues and tanks that have been installed are regarded as plant and machinery, and can be installed as permitted development without the need for prior approval of design and appearance. Those decisions were matters for the local planning authority as part of its responsibility for the development control system.

It is not for me to comment on the merits of the development, but perhaps wider consultation than that apparently undertaken in this instance might have allayed some of the fears about the operation of the generators and provided an opportunity for negotiation about the visual impact of the development. It is unfortunate that some local residents became aware of the development only when test running of the plant commenced, and certain incidents at the plant gave cause for alarm. I commend the parish council and other residents for their prompt action in pursuing their concerns with Southern Electric and with my right hon. Friend.

Southern Electric has stressed that the generators were placed at the location to improve the service provided to the locality, which should reduce the cost of providing electricity to its customers. Those commercial decisions are, of course, entirely for the company to make. However, it has recognised that the delay in commissioning the plant, spillage and the temporary failure of the generators to meet the noise specification have, unfortunately, caused local residents some distress.

I am pleased that the company has been able to give certain assurances about improvements in the operation of the plant, which should ensure that the effect on the locality is minimal. It has acknowledged that it may be some time before local residents can accept that the site will have minimal impact, but it has assured them that that is its intention.

When Horsham district council mentioned the matter to me, I suggested that representations from my right hon. Friend direct to Southern Electric might assist in achieving some remedial measures to resolve any outstanding problems. His intervention would appear to have had some good effect, because I understand that the metal flues have now been painted green, which has reduced the impact of the development in the locality.

Furthermore, the district council's chief environmental health officer is currently trying to resolve complaints about noise disturbance with the company. It has been suggested that that may be achieved only by erecting a building over the generators. To do that, Southern Electric would have to give the planning authority precise details of the design and external appearance of the building.

I very much hope that negotiations will continue, and that the problems will be resolved to the satisfaction of the local community. In the longer term, the research that we have commissioned can examine the question whether the permitted development rights of statutory undertakers should be restricted or amended in some way. I shall ensure that my right hon. Friend's concerns are drawn to the attention of my colleagues who have jurisdiction over the non-planning issues. I also confirm that the debate will be drawn to the attention of those involved in the research project, as my right hon. Friend requests.

I hope that I have set the concerns in context. I understand why my right hon. Friend's constituents are worried about the issue, and I assure him that he has done a great service in raising it today.