I am grateful for this opportunity to initiate a debate on an important, if rather abstruse, issue of local government finance. Just the name of capital financing adjustment seems to lead to people's eyes glazing over and their turning quickly to another matter. However, it is important that we consider the issue. It is particularly important that the Minister should hear the views of hon. Members on this important element of capital financing for local authorities.

The issue sounds dull and complex. Sadly, little attention has been paid to it. It is fortuitous that this debate is taking place only one day after a debate on the hidden tax increases that the new Government have already introduced. For my constituents—and all the residents of the borough of Trafford—this is yet another hidden tax. The Government's changes to the calculation of the capital financing adjustment will mean a tax increase for millions of people throughout the United Kingdom.

Like many of the Government's changes, those changes have been introduced by stealth, taking funds away from Trafford and many other local authorities. Perhaps worse than that, not only have the Government taken funds from authorities that have traditionally been prudently managed, but they have transferred them to some of the most profligate and ill-managed authorities in the country.

Trafford councillors are appalled as much by the way in which the new charge has been sneaked into place as by the financial penalty that is being imposed on them. The complexity of the matter is being used to cover the Government's tracks. That tactic has also been used for the introduction of the £5 billion annual pension tax through a technical adjustment that was little understood at the time. The same approach to taxation was shown by the Government's shift to quarterly payment of corporation tax. At the time, it was portrayed as a benefit for business, but it will be a £22 billion cash flow cost for businesses during this Parliament.

During this short debate, I hope to shed a little light on the complex matter under consideration and to attempt a simple explanation of the impact of the Government's changes. The previous Government calculated the capital finance standard spending assessment on the basis of a notional 1990 debt level. That rewarded councils that had behaved thriftily and responsibly during the 1980s—councils such as Trafford, which had benefited from good Conservative administration through the 1980s. Indeed, Trafford had benefited from Conservative administration from its inception in 1974 until the tragic events of a couple of years ago, which, I trust, will be only a brief interlude of insanity for the borough.

The Government's new system adopts a different approach, taking into account the higher of either notional or actual debt in calculating the capital finance SSA. That reallocates the given cake that is available to favour profligate authorities—very often, it hardly needs to be said, Labour authorities—at the expense of those that have been better managed. Many of the councils benefiting from the change are those that flouted public spending controls in the 1980s, often through creative accounting techniques that have since been made illegal.

Such as?

If the hon. Gentleman is patient, he will hear some examples. I know that he does not expect to be disappointed.

The history of the capital financing adjustment is like a trip through an old Labour theme park. From newspaper reports from the 1980s, I have found a series of examples, which the hon. Member for Harrow, East (Mr. McNulty) has asked for. The Times of 24 June 1987 stated:

"Local ratepayers could face a 357% increase to finance creative accountancy debts: unions in Manchester fear 16,000 council workers may have to be dismissed",

and

"David Blunkett admits that his authority's capital programme stands to be 'devastated'".

That was at a time when Manchester city council raised £200 million by selling civic buildings, including the central library, to a company that it wholly owned, and arranged a two-year rent holiday. Similar tactics were used in Brent and Lambeth. Some of the perpetrators of such scandalous abuses are now members of the Government; others sit on the Government Back Benches—although I do not see any present for this debate.

Labour claims to have changed, but in office, stealthy changes to the capital finance system for local authorities are often portrayed as technical changes, which people will not understand or notice. Changes are being introduced in a quiet, cautious way, with no fanfare or announcement of the impact that they will have. Such changes are rewarding old friends and punishing well-managed authorities.

My borough of Trafford will lose £700,000 from its SSA. That equates to the cost of 28 teachers, whom the borough could otherwise have employed. It amounts to the funding of two primary schools for a year. It could have been used to reduce each council tax bill by £10.

Is my hon. Friend aware that, in West Sussex, the result of fiddling with the formula is a £2 million reduction in our central Government grant, which is equivalent to a rise of 1.5 per cent. in council tax?

I am grateful to my hon. Friend for bringing that to my attention. It is by no means an isolated incident. The change in capital financing has shifted funds from prudent authorities, from authorities that have borrowed sensibly or not at all, to authorities that indulged in very high levels of borrowing before April 1990. Such a perverse policy rewards activities, policies and management techniques in local government that any Government would say they wish to avoid. The Minister must therefore explain why his Government feel it appropriate to reward authorities that have behaved badly at the expense of those that have behaved well.

The reduction in Trafford's SSA is equivalent to the cost of 350 secondary school places, which could otherwise have been provided. That is particularly relevant in Trafford, because our excellent local schools are so popular that they should be given funds to expand, and not be deprived of the funds that they need. The loss of £700,000 combines with other factors in this year's SSA settlement to mean a real-terms cut of £3 million. That will mean higher taxes, together with lower service levels. The same pattern is being repeated across the country as local authority budgets are fixed for the coming year.

Is the hon. Gentleman saying that, until 1 May, all local authorities were given lots of money and that the activities that he is describing have occurred only since 1 May? Many of us were in local government for a long time and experienced the previous Government's restrictions on local authority capital financing, which were far worse than anything that the hon. Gentleman is describing. He ought to be addressing the previous Government.

We would all be delighted with more resources in national and local government, in order to provide services. Such resources must be divided fairly, in an understandable way, which rewards and is seen to reward good, not bad practice.

Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

No, I am dealing with the previous point. My contention, which the Minister must answer, is that the Government's policy on changing the way in which the capital financing adjustment is calculated effectively rewards bad practice and penalises good practice.

The overall loss to well-managed authorities will be significant. The loss of about £50 million in the shire counties compounds the sense that they are being penalised, often at the expense of cities. The example of Trafford illustrates that the change is not simply a raid on shire counties. The policy also penalises metropolitan boroughs that have been better managed.

The worst thing about the policy change is not its day-to-day effect or its effect on particular local authorities—it is the principle that the Government are setting out as a guide for local authority practice. The message of the policy is that the Government intend to reward and encourage bad management, profligacy and waste, and to punish good, thrifty councils.

Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

I am coming to a conclusion; I shall not give way.

If Labour has changed, it must review the decision and reverse the policy. I urge the Minister to address that.

I am grateful for the opportunity to speak in the debate. I had not intended to do so, but, given the remarks of the hon. Member for Altrincham and Sale, West (Mr. Brady), I felt it necessary to spell out some of the thinking in Labour-controlled local authorities during the 1980s and to support the steps that the Government are taking.

The hon. Gentleman is quite right that local government financing is extremely abstruse. I and many of my colleagues wrestled with it in the 1980s and the early 1990s, so we know very well that, when spending allocations were fixed around some notional figure, strange anomalies sometimes arose. One found that spending programmes were moved between revenue and capital purely because of the availability of finance and not necessarily because that was the best way of financing or because the projects concerned were top priorities.

Underlying what the hon. Gentleman said, I detected a desire to draw distinctions between good and bad local authorities, and the implication that the good ones were Conservative and the bad ones Labour. That is the complete opposite of the truth. If Conservative authorities had been so good, more might have been left. Conservatives lost profoundly at the ballot box, which, in any democracy, is the ultimate test.

I am sure that the hon. Lady is well aware that, over the years, many factors have resulted in certain changes in local authority control. One of the principal factors in recent years was that the Conservative Government had become unpopular. There is no question about that, and we are well aware of it. Even though that happened, the borough of Trafford remained under Conservative control from 1974, when it was set up, until 1995. The Labour party has only a very tenuous grip on it, and should wisely consider some of the specific examples that I quoted.

That was a speech, not an intervention. The reason why people supported Labour-controlled local authorities in the 1980s and the 1990s when, I admit, some of us made mistakes, was that we were overwhelmingly seen to be supporting the communities that we represented. People supported us because we had that link. As leader of an inner-London authority, I had to grapple with supporting and protecting communities against the appalling scandals of Tory economic policy and the impact that it had.

During all the Tory years, male unemployment in the ward that I represented was about 35 per cent., and unemployment among women was so high that I think that it would have been virtually impossible to calculate. Local shops closed down not because of lack of trade but because people in the community did not have enough money in their pockets to be able to buy enough to keep the shops open. There was low income and unemployment. Whole communities were discarded by the Tory Government as being unworthy of, for example, job creation schemes. Disadvantages were not tackled. Such communities were deemed unworthy of programmes that could deal with disadvantages of race, sex and disability.

Labour councils had to pick up the tab for protecting the communities that Tory central Government had discarded. In Southwark, we used to call the Tory Government the "shower across the water". It was apparent what was happening. In examining our management of local finances, we had to bear certain things in mind. My council was much criticised by the shower across the water—I was going to say "you lot", but I thought that I might get into trouble.

Most local councils look to maximise spending on local services, because they are the only services that people will get. Labour councils offered the only lifeline out of poverty and unemployment. By reorganising their operations, most Labour councils sought to maximise spending on services and not on bureaucracy.

The hon. Lady is obviously concerned that Southwark should have enough money to spend on services. Does she share the concern expressed by my hon. Friend the Member for Altrincham and Sale, West (Mr. Brady) about the effects of the change to the capital financing adjustment? In Southwark, the standard spending assessment for next year will be reduced by £860,000 as a direct result of that change. Does the hon. Lady believe that that will help the voters about whom she is so concerned?

I do not represent any of the Southwark constituencies, so it is difficult to comment on the details of those figures. I am talking about the council's history and how we have arrived at our present position. In that context, I am explaining why the Government are taking the right decisions. The council sought to maximise expenditure on services, which meant that the money spent—be it revenue or capital—was geared directly to ensuring maximum service provision.

Does my hon. Friend agree that all debt entered into during the 18 years of Tory central control was approved by the then Department of the Environment? Local authorities could not go it alone: their debt was always fully approved by the Tory Government of the day.

Exactly. I thank my hon. Friend for that comment, which brings me to my next point—and if the hon. Member for Altrincham and Sale, West objects, I shall certainly give way.

Southwark council was aware that, despite opposition to Conservative policies on local government finance, we had an obligation to operate within the law and to ensure that we made sound financial arrangements for local services upon which the community relied. That is why we adopted both capital and revenue spending regimes that were not always incredibly helpful: we had to live within them in order to ensure that services were not disrupted by intervention from central Government via the Department of the Environment. That is why my hon. Friend's point is so important.

I am keen to reply to that specific point. It takes no account of the case that I made regarding some of the creative accounting techniques used. A key problem in the 1980s was not the levels of debt authorised by the Department of the Environment, but the mechanisms that local authorities sometimes used to avoid those controls.

I am sure that those creative accounting techniques have no bearing on the changes that we are discussing today. The most scandalous accounting—I shall not call it creative accounting—was practised by Westminster council. Southwark council examined the local government spending rules and worked out how we could use those rules—completely within the law and approved by the Department of the Environment, as my hon. Friend the Member for Putney (Mr. Colman) said—to maximise spending on the local services on which our community relied.

That brings me to a matter which I am sure that my hon. Friend the Minister will mention. The experience of those years left me—and probably most my colleagues—in absolutely no doubt that the rules for local government spending were abstruse and chaotic and urgently needed reform. Both the revenue and capital rules should match closely the needs of the area, so that SSA calculations are not based on the nonsense of hotel nights, and so on. Capital should reflect expenditure. It should be calculated in such a way that money allocated may be spent on capital projects, such as schools, and is not allocated to different forms of notional spending that would ultimately skew the way in which the money is spent.

I had to wrestle with those problems for eight years, and for three years as leader of Southwark council. I am extremely pleased that the Government are considering ways of changing both revenue spending and capital spending to ensure that they provide a good, sound basis for service provision. I am absolutely delighted that, through some other departmental and job creation programmes, the Government are addressing some of the employment issues that were such a problem for the council. That will automatically ease the serious pressures on council revenue spending with which I and many of my colleagues have wrestled in the past.

I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Altrincham and Sale, West (Mr. Brady) on the way in which he introduced the debate. He put his finger on a complicated matter which has a great effect across the country, particularly in councils such as Trafford and Tewkesbury. I thank my hon. Friend for bringing the issue to the attention of the House.

The information that I shall use in my brief contribution was provided by the Under-Secretary of State, the hon. Member for Greenwich and Woolwich (Mr. Raynsford), a short time ago by way of a written answer. I am grateful for his assistance. When I examined the settlement in Tewkesbury, I found that the council faces a 5.1 per cent. reduction in its standard spending assessment. I found that quite odd, so I examined the situation more closely—the Minister was kind enough to provide the details—and I discovered that, if national totals had been taken into account, Tewkesbury would have received an increase of 0.8 per cent. If demographic changes in Tewkesbury had been taken into account, it would have had an increase of a further 0.6 per cent. However, the method of distribution would have meant a loss of 6.5 per cent.

Because of the changes, the net reduction in Tewkesbury is 5.1 per cent. I am told that changes in the composition of the indices in the all other services block and changes in the treatment of debt are responsible for that. That seems rather unfair. Tewkesbury does not have any debt, and that seems to have cost it dearly. My office contacted Tewkesbury's finance section yesterday, which agreed that the settlement was unfair. The council said that it might not have paid off its debts if it had known that the new system would be introduced. I am sure that many councils will be encouraged to take on more debt, in the knowledge that the Government will bail them out. The Government seem to have created a rather odd system that will encourage debt, which must lead to a reduction in council services throughout the country.

Will the hon. Gentleman join me, as a Member of Parliament with a Tory-controlled council—Wandsworth—which has reduced its services, in condemning Tory Wandsworth for sitting on more than £30 million of balances and refusing to pass a Labour group proposal for a lower council tax of £295, when it has been affected in a similar way to the hon. Gentleman's council?

I will certainly not join the hon. Gentleman in condemning any council. I am not making that point, and I do not have the knowledge to speak about Wandsworth, although I understand that it has held a responsible level of council tax, community charge or rates for many years.

If a council increases its debt, the voters in the area should, unfortunately, have to pay for it until the next opportunity to kick out that council. I do not see why people in Tewkesbury, which has incurred no debt, should have their grant reduced simply to pay for the sort of councils that my hon. Friend the Member for Altrincham and Sale, West discussed.

Can the hon. Gentleman relate figures for finances to the services provided? People are extremely interested in what they get for their money. In particular, could he say what his county council is doing about some of the services that are most important to local people, for example, nurseries?

The hon. Lady may recall that I asked a question of the Secretary of State for Education and Employment about Gloucestershire county council. Mistakenly, the right hon. Gentleman assumed that it was under Conservative control and condemned it for its nursery policy. In fact, for many years, it was controlled by the Liberal Democrats, so he got that wrong. He also got another aspect wrong, as the Labour group on the council has tried to deny passported money going to schools, and it is going to the schools only because of the Conservative group on the council. Therefore, perhaps the hon. Lady ought to look a little more closely at the matter than the Secretary of State did on that occasion.

To return to the reply that the Under-Secretary was kind enough to give me, it seems that the reduction in total of revenue support grant and redistributed non-domestic rates in Tewkesbury exceeds the reduction in the SSA. The hon. Gentleman informed me that that follows changes to the SSA system and, crucially—this will come across to council tax payers in the near future—one of the causes of the change has been a shift in the cost of local authority services from central Government to council tax payers. With the new change, it seems that the cost has been shifted only to certain council tax payers—in other words, those in prudent authorities and not those who live in the sort of authorities that my hon. Friend the Member for Altrincham and Sale, West so eloquently described.

I am grateful to you, Mr. Deputy Speaker, for calling me rather earlier than I had expected. That gives me the chance first to congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Altrincham and Sale, West (Mr. Brady) on what everyone present would recognise as a speech impressive in its command of a complex subject, eloquent in its trenchant denunciation of the extraordinary change that the Government have made in the capital financing adjustment this year and powerful in its conclusions, to which I will return.

The debate is important because we are just beginning to see the consequences of the changes to the capital financing adjustment and timely because those changes will become apparent to council tax payers throughout the country in the next few weeks as demands hit mats. Although change in the capital financing adjustment is a complex issue, the consequences of that change are fairly simple and I shall concentrate on them. The effects of that change, and a number of other changes in the way in which SSAs are calculated, are beginning to be revealed in a series of record increases in council tax. In the next five or six weeks, council tax increases in a large number of authorities will be higher than any increase since the system was introduced.

In the 1996 Conservative Government's Budget, it was stated that council taxes for last year and this would be raised far higher than inflation, to shift the balance back to local tax payers. That was the your Government's policy, but you seem to have forgotten that.

Order. I must remind the hon. Member that I was not a part of any Government.

I am glad that the hon. Member for Milton Keynes, North-East (Mr. White) raised that point, as I intend to come directly to it. The Secretary of State for the Environment, Transport and the Regions has confirmed that, had the Conservative party remained in power, the average rise in council tax would have been significantly less than the rise that results directly from the Labour Government's decisions. We have him on record in the House saying so, and I shall quote the relevant section of Hansard in a moment. This year will be notable for record increases in council tax and, unfortunately, for reasons that I shall explain, it may not be the last year in which we have such increases.

I was surprised by the speech of the hon. Member for Northampton, North (Ms Keeble), who spoke of her experience in Southwark. Given the record of that borough, frankly, I would rather have kept quiet in the House about my involvement.

As I said, all of us have made mistakes. However, is the hon. Gentleman aware that Southwark was the only council that froze the poll tax for the whole three years that it was in existence?

I am afraid that we are not debating the poll tax and it was not even directly the cause of the Conservative defeat at the election last year, since it was abolished before the previous election, which the Conservative party won. It is difficult to see how one can relate that tax to the change in the capital financing adjustment, which is the subject under debate. The hon. Lady referred to Southwark at some length and, given the borough's record, I should have thought it wiser to keep quiet about any connection with it, had I had any such connection—I am glad to say that I do not.

If the hon. Lady had troubled to inquire about the subject that we are debating, she would have found that Southwark has lost £862,000 of SSA directly as a result of the change. Like many other inner London boroughs, it has suffered badly in the SSA calculations this year because the Government and the Labour party are so consumed with envy at the outstanding success of Westminster and Wandsworth they have deliberately fiddled the formula to attack Westminster and, unfortunately, have swept up a lot of other inner London boroughs as well. I hope that, after they have seen enormous rises in council tax in London, that point will not be lost on voters in inner London on 7 May.

It is not merely the London borough of Westminster that has lost out in the settlement. One of the other changes in the formula has been the adjustment to the bed nights, which has cost many coastal resort local authorities and areas that receive visitors a great deal in their SSA this year—something which the Minister, in a recent debate, agreed to reconsider for next year. I hope that the hon. Gentleman will re-emphasise that. The restoration of the special recognition of the extra costs of being a tourist area, such as providing more public conveniences, car parks and leisure facilities, would be welcome. The loss of that recognition has also cost council tax payers dear.

The hon. Gentleman is right to draw attention to that matter. I confess to having some sneaking sympathy for the Minister. Dividing up the cake among the local authorities is a problem for any Government. They will never produce a formula that will satisfy every local authority or even every group of authorities, because they have directly competing interests in this matter. Whatever the size of the overall cake, some will be disappointed.

As my hon. Friend the Member for Altrincham and Sale, West rightly pointed out, the problem about those changes is that they seem to have been motivated by a desire to penalise authorities that have been acting responsibly. Southwark has lost out, and I hope that the former voters in Southwark of the hon. Member for Northampton, North will be aware of that. Northamptonshire county council has also lost badly as a result of the change, and I am sure that her voters will be interested in the enthusiasm with which she supported the Government's decision to make the change when it has clearly penalised them so directly.

The consequence of the changes is a huge rise in council tax. Throughout the country, council tax payers and service users are starting to learn exactly what it means to have a Labour Government at Westminster. It is clear, even before next week's Budget, that Britain cannot afford a Labour Government.

The capital finance adjustment and the other changes to the calculation of SSAs will result in an increase in council tax in Devonshire of 19 per cent., in Northumberland of just under 18 per cent., in Cheshire of 17 per cent. and in Norfolk of nearly 16 per cent. I could name several other councils that face equally formidable increases. For example, Gloucestershire, which includes the constituency of my hon. Friend the Member for Tewkesbury (Mr. Robertson), faces an increase of almost 11 per cent.

Does the hon. Gentleman accept that the standard spending assessment is a complex issue? Last year, under a Conservative Government, my local authority of Charnwood—of which I was then a member—faced a 12 per cent. increase because of the changes in the SSA, despite the fact that it raised its spending only in line with inflation. Does he accept that, because the SSA is so complex, there will always be such variances?

As I said in response to an earlier intervention, I recognise that any change in the SSA formula is likely to produce losers as well as winners, which is a matter of concern to those authorities and residents that are affected. Our concern is whether the capital financing adjustment is justified, why it was made and what its consequences will be.

The effects of the change are by no means confined to the shire counties that I mentioned. In Wakefield, for example, the increase in council tax will be nearly 12 per cent. and in South Tyneside it will be nearly 10 per cent. Even in London, where there will be elections on 7 May, there will be substantial increases—Hillingdon, for example, faces an increase of 12 per cent.

Is my hon. Friend aware that none of those figures take into account the consequences of the Government's decision to end dividend tax credits paid into pensions funds, which means that there are further increases in the pipeline? The county council in West Sussex, which covers my constituency, is £4 million a year short because of that measure, which is equivalent to a further 3 per cent. rise in the council tax.

My hon. Friend makes a most important point, to which the House will soon want to return, especially when, in the next few months, the results of the actuarial valuation are published. The Government have been waiting for those results to establish what action should be taken to deal with the huge burden that has been placed on all employers, particularly local authorities.

The pensions tax will lead directly to substantial increases in council tax or to substantial cuts in services unless the Government give an unequivocal assurance that the full amount of any shortfall—any additional employer's contribution that councils will have to make—will be covered by an increase in the SSA. The Government have refused to give such an assurance, which is extraordinary, as the more prudent councils may want to start taking into account that huge new burden in their longer-term spending plans. Without that assurance, they may find it necessary in the next budget round to start planning substantial service cuts or even more swingeing increases to the council tax.

I declare an interest as the chair of the United Kingdom standing committee on local authority superannuation funds. The average funding is just over 90 per cent. of the full funding level. For a number of local authorities, it is significantly higher—way above 100 per cent. The main reason why the figure is 90 per cent. is that, in 1990, the previous Government asked for a reduction in funding levels to 75 per cent. to pay for the implementation of the poll tax.

The hon. Gentleman emphasises the gravity of the situation. If he is concerned that the funding level is inadequate, how can he support a tax that makes the position very much worse? He has made the case for the Opposition more eloquently than anyone has before. It is precisely because there is concern about funding levels in local authority pension funds that it is a disaster for the Government to refuse to give the assurance that the councils need.

Council tax payers in the various types of authority will face increases—if I had time, I could give a much longer list. The local authorities that I mentioned have one factor in common: they have all suffered as a result of the Government's decision to change the treatment of local authority debt that was incurred before 1990—in other words, to change the capital financing adjustment.

The constituency that I represent is covered by Wandsworth local authority, which has also "suffered"—to use the hon. Gentleman's word—because of the change. Will he join me in condemning the fact that Wandsworth has refused to reduce its council tax to the level that the Labour group wanted—£295—despite the fact that it was able to build up a balance of £30 million through the Tory years of special treatment?

I am happy to debate with the hon. Gentleman—all day, if necessary—the merits of the London borough of Wandsworth, which is an absolutely outstanding example of how to run a local council. It is a byword for efficiency, innovation, satisfactory service and value for money, as the residents have shown by continuing to return a Conservative majority.

I had the pleasure of visiting Wandsworth the other day; it was the same day that I happened to visit Hampstead, in the London borough of Camden. In Wandsworth, I was told how public libraries were to be open on Sundays; in Hampstead, I was told that public libraries were closing—they were closed not only on Sundays, but on every day. That is the difference between an authority that embraces the opportunities of partnership with the private sector and is determined to continue increasing value for money and the quality of its services, and one that sits back and adopts the old socialist local government nostrums, which have been tried and which have failed so many times.

I was intrigued by my hon. Friend's mention of libraries. He may be interested to note that, in my constituency, the borough of Trafford, which is now under Labour control, has recently decided to close three public libraries. The Government are supposed to be championing literacy, but they are taking away money from the borough.

My hon. Friend makes a most important point. That is another example of how the Government like to say one thing when their actions cause the opposite result. We have seen that time and again.

Each of the authorities that I have mentioned have suffered as a result of the change to the capital financing adjustment. On 2 December, in the statement on the revenue support grant settlement for next year, the Secretary of State for the Environment, Transport and the Regions confirmed—it can be found at column 161 in Hansard—that the council tax rise should be 7 per cent. if the Government continued to use the Conservative Government's figures and estimates on public spending. By the time that the Secretary of State and his fellow Ministers had finished fiddling the formula, many local authorities faced increases of double that amount—some of the ones that I have mentioned face increases substantially more than that.

My hon. Friend the Member for Altrincham and Sale, West rightly described the changes in the capital financing adjustment as a stealthy and hidden way of taxing people. As he pointed out, the effect of the change is to penalise local authorities that have chosen to repay their debts rather than to spend more money. That is a legitimate choice—many people would call it prudent. It certainly should not lead to council tax payers being penalised by a funding fiddle and a distortion of the formula.

Let us consider Hampshire county council, whose SSA was cut by more than £;3 million as a result of the change. Not surprisingly, on 2 January, the council wrote to an official at the Department of the Environment, Transport and the Regions about the change. It says in paragraph 14.1—in case the Minister's officials happen to have one to hand for his benefit:

"Hampshire County Council considers the change to the 1990 debt indicator in the Capital Financing SSA a retrograde and unfair amendment to SSAs. It effectively transfers support from councils who prudently used capital receipts to reduce debt to those who used them to increase their capital programmes. Whilst this was a perfectly legitimate decision to take, it should not result in higher SSA. This breaches the fundamental principle that SSA distribution should not be influenced by the spending decisions of individual councils…councils like ours are being unfairly penalised for their prudent policies."

My fear, which I think may be shared by my hon. Friend the Member for Tewkesbury, as well as by my hon. Friend the Member for Altrincham and Sale, West, is that the change has been made not for reasons of need or because a careful study has been made of the relative levels of deprivation in one authority as compared with another, not because there has been some move of population, not even because the Government have reconsidered what kind of facilities are needed in places such as holiday resorts on the south coast, but purely for political reasons.

It is mostly—not all, I accept—Conservative local authorities that prudently repaid their debt, so it is mostly Conservative local authorities that suffer under the change. The trouble is that, whichever party controls the local authority affected by the change, it is the people who live in that area who suffer and will have to pay higher council tax, and will find that local authority services in their borough, district or county are reduced.

As the change rewards authorities that were high spenders, people are likely to suffer even more in the future. Councils can read signals as well as hon. Members. My hon. Friend the Member for Altrincham and Sale, West was right to draw attention to this point. The Government are encouraging spendthrift councils and penalising prudent councils.

I am surprised that the hon. Gentleman regards the measure as unfair. Surely, if councils do not have capital spend because they have repaid debt, they do not need recognition of the impact of their capital spend on revenue budgets. Surely it is right that the Government should take cognisance of the impact of capital programmes that were approved by the Department of the Environment on revenue budgets. Otherwise, revenue budgets, especially for road improvements, get clogged up by the servicing of debts.

The difference between us is simply that the Conservative party has a different approach. We believe that, if a council can see ways of saving money on behalf of its taxpayers, it should be encouraged to do so, not discouraged from doing so. That is why we structured the SSA calculation to give that encouragement. That is why I find the change so alarming, not just for this year—although it is bad enough for this year—but for future years. If councils are told, "Don't worry. Don't bother to do anything prudent. Don't say that you believe in saving or investment but just go ahead and be as extravagant as you want," that is what some councils will do. Not all councils will do so. Councils under Conservative control—too few at present, but about to increase in number, I am sure—are unlikely to respond to that signal, but other councils may do so. That is what is so worrying. People in those areas will suffer.

I apologise to you and the House, Mr. Deputy Speaker, that I cannot be here for the whole of this debate.

The point that my hon. Friend makes is a good one. Does he recognise that the authorities that underspent on capital in respect of debt interest payments in relation to the SSA, such as mine in Cambridgeshire, were able to use that excess headroom to support service provision elsewhere? Is there not a corollary that those who were spending on debt interest over and above the SSA ought not to be bailed out so that they do not suffer the income detriment?

My hon. Friend has put his finger on an important point which goes to the heart of the matter. I agree with what he says. I am glad that he has drawn attention to the record of his authority. Hon. Members on both sides of the House ought to be aware of the consequences of the change now and in the longer term for their local authorities and the people who live there.

On a number of matters, the Government have been at pains to lay great stress on the importance of consultation. I pay tribute to the volume of consultation papers coming out of the Minister's Department in recent weeks. I believe that we shall be getting some more on such alluring subjects as whether the Minister will honour the Government's election pledge to end crude and universal capping. We await that one with great interest. I hope that it will give some explicit answers, perhaps more explicit than the recent paper on best value, which left unanswered almost as many questions as it dealt with. If the Minister would like to give us any hints of what will be in the paper on capping, it would be riveting information for those of us who have troubled to come along for today's debate. Everyone in the House has an intense interest in the financing of local government. It is not a particularly fascinating debate for those who do not have an interest, but we should like a clue about what is coming up on capping.

The Government have laid great stress on consultation. That is why I was surprised to read in the letter from Hampshire county council, to which I have already referred, in paragraph 14.3:

"It was not the subject of consultation with the Local Government Association in this year's SSA SubGroup meetings."

I find it rather shocking that a Government who keep telling us that they want to consult before they make changes have slipped this one through. Perhaps they were afraid of the response that the consultation might produce.

Overall, the effect of the change has been to remove £52 million from the SSAs of shire counties. It has added £33 million to the SSAs of metropolitan districts. Once again, the Government's priorities are clear. When it comes to allocating public money, new Labour always favours the towns and hits the countryside. My hon. Friend the Member for Altrincham and Sale, West drew attention to Trafford council libraries in his constituency. We keep hearing from the Government that they are governing in the interests of all the people and want to respond to the recent impressive demonstration of concern by people from rural areas, yet when it comes to making a hard choice between town and country, they choose to take the money away from the shires.

Out of the 34 shire counties, all but two lose SSA directly as a result of this change in the methodology. Lancashire loses more than £3 million and will have to raise its council tax by 14 per cent. Essex loses close to £3 million and will have to raise its council tax by almost 15 per cent. Lincolnshire loses more than £1.5 million and will have to raise its council tax by more than 13 per cent. The list goes on and on.

The list could go on. Will my hon. Friend reflect that it is not only that a county council such as mine will lose £1.5 million and will have to increase its council tax by 10.2 per cent. but that, as a consequence of capping—Cambridgeshire is capped at a relatively low level of council tax—it will have to cut services? There is a threat to close four old people's homes in Cambridgeshire alone.

My hon. Friend is right. I am glad that he quoted Cambridgeshire. I should have included it on my list if I had realised that he would be present, but it is better that he should do so. He is also right to draw attention to the fact that not only is this about increases in council tax—painful as they will be for people who were told last year that Labour would not increase taxes—but it is a clear example of broken pledges even before we have had what we understand will be further substantial taxes on motoring. My hon. Friend is right to say that this is also about cuts in services. We shall see wholesale cuts in services throughout the country in the next few months, made by Conservative, Labour, Liberal and coalition councils. They all face the same dilemma. That is the direct consequence of the decisions made by the Labour Government since 1 May last year.

I thank the hon. Gentleman for giving way again. I appreciate that I have been up and down quite a lot in this debate. I do not understand why councils should have to make cuts. If the SSA provides them with an element of spending to service debt and if your argument is that good councils have paid off their debts and do not need the money to service their debts, they should not have to raise revenue to compensate. That is my understanding of your argument.

Order. The hon. Lady has been here long enough to realise the form of address.

That is what I understand the hon. Gentleman's argument to be. He undermines his own argument.

Those authorities could see what the standard spending assessment calculations were last year. As we learn from Hampshire, they did not have a chance to express a view about the changes this year. I see the Minister shake his head. He will be able to respond in due course. I quoted from a letter.

The change clearly has an adverse effect on the authority's SSA. To compensate, it will have to raise tax or cut its services, and many authorities will do both.

My hon. Friend has been generous in giving way to me, as I arrived late. Does he recognise that, last year, for authorities such as mine, a notional debt level was built into their SSA allocation and, because they had extinguished their debt, they could use that SSA for service provision whereas, this year, because of the Government's change in funding, that notional debt has been reduced, the SSA has been reduced, and the money is not available for service provision?

That is exactly the point. I congratulate my hon. Friend on expressing it so succinctly. A change that was not based on an assessment of changing need, but was simply a financial change—made out of pique, I suspect, for political reasons—has reduced the resources available to authorities such as Cambridgeshire county council, which will therefore have to cut services, raise council tax or both. The service cuts will be painful for those who have relied on local authority services hitherto.

The settlement will be expensive for council tax payers throughout the country, especially in the authorities to which I referred. In the shire counties, the average council tax rise is almost 12 per cent.—three times the rate of inflation. Band D taxpayers in shire counties will pay an extra £120 next year. The average council tax rise across the country looks as though it will be about 8.5 per cent. Even in the metropolitan districts, the group most favoured by the Government, the increase will be more than twice the rate of inflation.

Does the hon. Gentleman accept that Charnwood borough council hardly represents an urban area, yet our council tax increase this year will be 7 per cent., and the Labour-controlled local authority there, in a shire borough, will raise its spending by 3.4 per cent. again, almost in line with inflation? Does he recognise that the urban-rural myth that he is trying to perpetuate is unacceptable?

It is not a myth, but a fact, and it is unacceptable. It is revealing of the situation that we have now reached that the hon. Gentleman gets up and says proudly that, in his area, the council tax will be up by only 7 per cent. If we had had a Conservative Government, that would have been the average for the whole country. A loyal Government Back Bencher would not get up and boast what a wonderful outturn it was for Charnwood that its council tax was up by only double the rate of inflation, and only double the rate at which actual spending has increased. That would have been the case across the country, had the Conservatives still been in government.

I have had rather longer than I expected to explore the subject, and I am grateful for that opportunity and for the contributions of my hon. Friends. There are plenty of questions for the Minister to answer. I hope that he will explain why the change is justified, and confirm that the consequences are as they have been described. I hope that he will give an assurance that, next year, proper account will be taken in good time of the concerns of authorities that are adversely affected by any proposed changes.

We have concentrated this morning on the capital financing adjustment, but, as the Minister knows, there were other changes to the SSA methodology about which we were concerned. It is an important and complicated subject, on which genuine consultation is necessary. I hope that he will give us some assurances about that.

I congratulate the hon. Member for Altrincham and Sale, West (Mr. Brady) on his success in securing this debate. By the end of it, he may feel a little less satisfied at having chosen the subject because a great deal of the innuendo and comment from his side of the House has been incorrect, is based on a misunderstanding of what has happened and has no substance in fact, as I shall demonstrate during the next 20 minutes or so.

As we probably expected, the debate has ranged more widely than the SSA element for debt repayment. It might therefore be appropriate if I make some general points before dealing with the specific subject raised by the hon. Gentleman.

This Government have a new agenda for Britain's future and a vision for local government's place in that future. We want to reinvigorate local government in ways that encourage increased democracy, with local people having the chance to have more of a say in the affairs of their council; increased autonomy, with more freedom for authorities to take their own decisions; increased accountability, with elected representatives being more visibly accountable for their actions; and increased partnership between central and local government and between local authorities and people, businesses and groups in their areas. As the hon. Member for South Suffolk (Mr. Yeo) observed, we are issuing a number of consultation papers that focus on those and other matters to encourage a serious debate about how we take forward the future of local government.

As part of the process required to achieve our aims, a review of local government finance is being carried out by our Department, working closely with local government, business and other representative organisations and other departments. Consultation papers on possible changes to aspects of the local government finance system will be issued over the next month or so, as part of the wider consultation on modernising local government.

The volume of local government business reflects the importance that we attach to local government. The local government agenda will keep us all busy over the current parliamentary term and, I hope, beyond it. We need to make prompt progress. Our agenda is positive. We are a Government who want to be judged on our success in improving the quality of life for all people and by the extent to which we have made a difference. The extent to which local government is delivering services efficiently and in an accountable way to local communities is extremely important to us.

On local government funding, all public expenditure programmes must be examined rigorously each year; local government spending, which accounts for a quarter of all public expenditure, is no exception. Decisions on local government spending must look not only at the pressures on local authorities, but at the scope for greater efficiency and effectiveness within local authorities.

We are committed to working within the public expenditure plans that we inherited from the previous Government. While keeping within existing spending targets, we have reorganised priorities. We have put £835 million more into education, every penny of which will be covered by an extra £835 million of revenue support grant. That is a better, fairer, more flexible settlement than in previous years and has allowed an increase of total standard spending by 3.8 per cent.

We have provided an extra £350 million for community care. We have also provided £1.3 billion for capital spending needs to improve the state of school buildings through the new deal for schools and £800 million extra for housing through the capital receipts initiative.

We are committed to reviewing the local government finance system in future years, but we will continue to expect local authorities to behave prudently and responsibly.

I was interested in that list. How much did the Minister allocate to local government when he heard the July Budget and the announcement that dividend tax credits repayments would be ended? What assessment has he made of the impact that that will have on local authority pension funds?

The hon. Gentleman raises an issue which was raised in the earlier debate. He will know from earlier discussions that there is no impact in the current year as a result of that change. As the hon. Member for South Suffolk recognised, the actuarial assessment is currently taking place. The Government have always made it clear that as and when that assessment has been made and the net cost—I emphasise the net cost, after compensating savings have been taken into account, rather than the gross cost figures which are misleading and have been unwisely bandied about in recent months—is known, the Government will take those figures into account in framing the appropriate support for local authorities in future years. I repeat that there is no impact in the current year.

I am concerned by the Minister's suggestion that there is no impact in the current year. Surely the fact that there has been no actuarial revaluation yet does not mean that there has been no impact in the current year. It simply means that in a future year, when the revaluation has taken place, a greater provision will have to be made to make up for this year when nothing has been done.

The hon. Gentleman fails to understand that local authorities must act on the basis of an actuarial assessment and that their contributions are fixed on that basis until the next valuation. When the next valuation takes place, the impact is taken into account and the contributions, net of savings which may result, will be decided. That is why there is no impact in the current year.

SSAs are the basis for the distribution of revenue support grant. They are based on measures of spending need that apply to all authorities and are discussed with local government representatives. I want to knock on the head one of the falsehoods that have been peddled this morning—the suggestion that the changes have been introduced by stealth and that local authorities had no opportunity to discuss them. That is not true. They were discussed at the SSA sub-group which discusses the local government settlement each year. The issue has been debated on numerous occasions and was raised at the sub-group this year.

The SSAs for 1998–99 were debated in the House on 5 February, and the local government finance settlement for 1998–99 has been agreed. Having said that, we are committed to a fair distribution of Government grant among authorities and believe that there is still scope for improvement in the arrangements in future years. My colleagues and I will look closely at the current SSA system. We will listen to local government views on how SSAs might be improved, both for 1999–2000 and in the longer term.

As the hon. Member for South Suffolk said, changes inevitably produce gainers and losers. Some authorities will plead for changes that benefit them—it is the nature of their role—and others will plead against them because they adversely affect their future prospects. That is why the Government must reach an informed judgment about the balance of merits and disadvantage in deciding what is best. That is what we have done this year and it is what we will seek to do in the future.

The Government felt able to make changes to the SSA methodology for this year, but they failed to live up to their promise to introduce the changes recommended by the Elliott review into the area cost adjustment. Will the Minister give a pledge that the review will be completed in time for changes to the area cost adjustment to occur for the 1999–2000 financial year?

The area cost adjustment has been debated previously: the hon. Gentleman raised it in an Adjournment debate I answered some time ago. I made it clear at the time that we had undertaken to review ACJ this year before the settlement was reached. The fact that we have not carried out the proposed changes is simply a reflection of the fact that there was a stark division of opinion in local government about the impact. Some authorities—notably the hon. Gentleman's local authority, Cambridgeshire—were keen because they would gain from it. Others who would lose were opposed.

In our discussions, it emerged that there were possible alternatives, including a specific cost option, which had not been researched thoroughly. We believed—it is an entirely responsible decision—that that research should be undertaken and evaluated before any final decision was taken on a matter that is inevitably controversial, as it benefits some authorities and damages others. That is in train and we will discuss it further when we have the benefit of the further research on the specific cost option.

If the hon. Member for Altrincham and Sale, West believes that the SSA system does not treat Trafford fairly, I would be happy to examine any proposals he has for different methods of calculation. However, I stress to him—and to any other hon. Member who raises these issues—that any decision has to be universal and the changes must apply to all authorities. We must consider the impact in the round—both the negative and the positive. We want to feel confident that the changes will produce a sounder assessment of need.

I thank the Minister for his generous offer to take account of any proposals I may make about a fairer way of assessing SSA for the borough of Trafford, provided they can be taken in the round. The point he made about gainers and losers is important. As a matter of generality and principle, will the change reward or benefit authorities with high levels of debt in the 1980s and penalise those with low levels of debt in the 1980s?

I will come to that point in a moment. I have advised the hon. Gentleman that he might not be happy with the evidence I shall present to him.

For 1998–99, we decided that it was sensible to change the method of calculating the capital financing SSA. During the 1980s, local authorities had a choice of whether to use capital receipts to pay off debt or to finance new capital expenditure. That choice was made available by the then Conservative Government and it continued until 1990. Decisions taken on whether to apply receipts for debt redemption purposes or for new investment were entirely legitimate, and authorities were perfectly free to come to a decision under the arrangements.

When SSAs were introduced in 1990, the previous Government decided to favour those who had applied capital receipts to debt reduction and penalise those who had chosen new capital expenditure by treating everyone as if they had chosen to use capital receipts to repay debt early. I stress that that was not a requirement of the regime that existed prior to 1990. There was a retrospective process of rewarding some and penalising others for decisions taken prior to the introduction of the new arrangements.

Does the Minister think that it is wrong to reward prudent councils?

It was wrong to introduce regulations that had a retrospective impact when authorities had no way of knowing that they would be penalised as a result of acting in a way accepted by the then Government as entirely proper. It was a shabby change in the regulations and it caused widespread concern in local government. I am surprised that the hon. Gentleman is defending it.

If the Minister thinks it is so shabby, why is he doing exactly the same thing now?

If the hon. Gentleman listens, he will hear that we are making a change to restore the fairness that should have existed from 1990. We are not making a change that will benefit any authority as a result of their decisions on whether to use receipts for one purpose or another. Their decisions will have no impact on their SSA entitlement. Decisions taken prior to 1990—decisions taken one way or the other in a perfectly proper way within the rules that applied at that time—should not retrospectively result in an authority getting more or less SSA than they should be entitled to. That was the error of the Conservative Government. I am surprised that the hon. Gentleman is defending it.

The only difference between what the Minister is doing now and what the previous Government did—which he says was shabby—is that the effect of the change made by the previous Government was to benefit prudent authorities and to damage spendthrift ones. In line with old Labour thinking on this matter, he is making the same type of change—the only difference being that he has chosen to benefit the spendthrift authorities and to hit the prudent ones.

The hon. Gentleman is wrong on this, as on so many other issues. The change is creating a fair framework that will treat all authorities on an equitable basis. The debt is being assessed on either the actual or the notional—whichever is the greater. This will be a fair system, reflecting the position as at 1990, so that authorities will be subject to a regime they can understand and of which they know the consequences. However, they will not be retrospectively penalised for decisions they took in good faith before that date—perfectly legitimately—for which the previous Government penalised them.

That was a typical example of the previous Government making assumptions after the event about how local authorities should have treated capital receipts. Authorities that had properly decided to use their receipts to finance new capital expenditure felt justifiably aggrieved. To correct this, we decided that the debt calculation for the 1998–99 settlement should be based on an estimate of 1 April 1990 debt which is the greater of actual or notional debt. This will enable authorities that chose in the 1980s to undertake capital expenditure rather than repay debt early to meet their unavoidable loan charges while allowing them to spend at SSA on services such as education, health and police.

The change in the formula will result in West Sussex receiving £2 million less from central Government. How can that be fair?

The hon. Gentleman clearly has not been listening. Any changes in the formula will have an impact. There are gainers and losers. If he will wait a moment, he will understand that the changes will not have the consequences that he and his colleagues have suggested. They are not designed to reward the profligate and penalise the prudent. That is simply not the case, as I shall demonstrate in a moment.

By taking the larger of the actual or notional debt, we have ensured that other authorities that chose before 1990 to repay debt early will continue to receive SSA provision for the capital expenditure required to provide necessary services. Thus both groups of authorities are treated fairly, whereas the previous arrangement penalised one and rewarded the other.

As the hon. Member for Altrincham and Sale, West pointed out, the change to the treatment of debt at 1 April 1990 has resulted in a reduction in the SSA element of debt charges for some authorities, including Trafford.

That is not the case in Tewkesbury. As a result of the adjustment to the capital spending SSA, some —20,000 extra was given to Tewkesbury.

rose—

From the hon. Gentleman's earlier intervention, he seemed to have a rather different impression.

I am grateful to the Minister, who has been generous in giving way. I was quoting from the written answer that he gave me.

The hon. Gentleman must look carefully at the response. The overall impact was a reduction, because there were a number of changes. In terms of the change to capital financing, Tewkesbury was a gainer, so the change does not have an adverse effect at all on Tewkesbury, which demonstrates the incredible complexity of the process. When one is juggling a number of different indicators, there will be some that gain and some that lose. The overall impact is not terrifically predictable. That is why it is so important to try to ensure that we are as fair as we possibly can be.

It is inevitable that there will be some losers when there is a change to SSA methodology, particularly with a service such as debt charges, where the national amount is determined in relation to the amount that authorities will in aggregate spend on borrowing costs in the coming year. However, I am convinced that the change to the methodology was fair and proper. It was discussed with local authority associations in the SSA sub-group and the outcomes are a major improvement on the previous methodology. There would, of course, have been no need for any painful adjustments in the coming year if the previous Government had adopted a fairer basis for sharing the costs of borrowing when SSAs were introduced.

Is the debate not connected to the use of the public sector borrowing requirement and how it impacts on local spending decisions on capital items? Does the Minister favour the alternative—general government financial deficit system—which would iron out many of the anomalies that stem from the 1990 changes?

The debate has ranged widely, but I suspect that I would incur your wrath, Mr. Deputy Speaker, if I were tempted to stray into the territory of the public sector borrowing requirement, which the hon. Gentleman invites me to do, so I shall stick closely to the subject of the debate—capital financing SSA rules.

It has been argued that the change allows authorities to influence their SSAs. That is one of the charges that the Opposition have made. Let me make it absolutely clear that we have no intention of allowing authorities to take decisions that will affect their SSA entitlement. The adjustment simply reflects the position before the introduction of SSAs in 1990. There is no possibility of authorities taking decisions that will influence their entitlement in any way.

The Minister is mis-stating the proposition in order to attack it. The point is that, through the change, he is seeking to replace a notional basis of debt calculation in an SSA with an actual debt calculation from the 1980s, when the SSA, as we know in respect of expenditure, is a notional rather than an actual figure. It is not a target for spending but an assumed level of spending, just as there was an assumed not an actual level of debt.

The hon. Gentleman has clearly not been following the debate closely. The whole basis of the assessment is to ensure that legitimate decisions taken by authorities before 1990, when the new system was introduced, should not have an adverse impact on authorities' entitlement to SSA.

Neither does the change condone creative accounting. The suggestion that it does is one of the more preposterous arguments advanced by the Opposition this morning. Any creative accounting would, by definition, have been used to get outside the normal borrowing procedures. It is not taken into account in the provision of SSA cover for debt repayment.

It has also been argued that the change to the debt charge methodology is designed to favour so-called high-spending profligate Labour authorities at the expense of low-spending Conservative authorities. That is not the case. It is always difficult to convince Opposition Members of this because there are so few Conservative authorities left where one could demonstrate the impact, but one of the largest gainers from the change is the royal borough of Kensington and Chelsea. I hope that the hon. Member for Altrincham and Sale, West will recognise either that that borough is profligate and Labour controlled or that his argument is false.

The reality is that the royal borough of Kensington and Chelsea has been Conservative controlled throughout the past 20 or 30 years and is one of the largest gainers from the change, which entirely kills the preposterous argument that we are acting in a partisan way.

I thank the Minister for giving way once again, but is the best that he can do to find a particular case that he claims disproves the generality of the situation? Boroughs such as Trafford, which was under Conservative control throughout the 1980s and, like many other local authorities, ran its affairs prudently, are being punished. The Minister cannot escape from that by using Kensington and Chelsea as an example.

I thought that the hon. Gentleman might say that, so I have some examples of prudent authorities that have been penalised as a result of the changes. Those suffering a larger reduction than Trafford include Lancashire, Sunderland, Coventry, Liverpool and Tower Hamlets. Does he regard those as prudent, well managed and being penalised unfairly? If he does not, his argument is false.

The principal mass of authorities that are being hurt by the measure are in the shire counties. My authority, and others that the Minister has named, may be exceptions of metropolitan areas that are suffering from the Government's attack, but the shire counties are losing £50 million.

The hon. Gentleman is extremely confused if he believes that Liverpool, Tower Hamlets, Sunderland and Coventry are shire counties. Even my authority, Greenwich, is in virtually the same position as Trafford, so I hope that Opposition Members will recognise that the change has been introduced because we believe that it is right, not because of its impact on the party political nature of any authority, or on particular benefits to any local authority.

No amount of selective quotation from the list of more than 400 authorities can alter the fact that it is primarily, but not all, Conservative authorities that have been penalised, and it is primarily spendthrift Labour authorities that have benefited. If the Minister publishes the complete list in Hansard, those facts will be apparent to even the most casual reader.

The hon. Gentleman, like his hon. Friends, is confused. That intervention was in the same vein as his speech, which was full of inaccuracies and verged at times on the hysterical. He made a number of ill judged and unfounded allegations. The reality is that we have introduced the change because we believe that it is logical and that there is justice in it.

The particular circumstances of metropolitan districts such as Trafford are recognised in SSAs in several ways, including population density, shared facilities and various indices of need.

Trafford's 1997–98 SSA has increased by £4.75 million—3 per cent.—for 1998–99. That is the figure arrived at after adjustments for changes in function have been made. Much of that rise is due to the adjusted increase in SSA for education, everyone's top priority service, which in Trafford represents an extra £4.031 million—a 5 per cent. increase. The hon. Member for Altrincham and Sale, West must recognise that the Government are putting money into education in his area, which is right both for the nation and for the people of Trafford.

The RSG distribution for the 1998–99 settlement is a closed matter, following approval of the local government finance settlement by the House on 5 February, and it will not be reopened. It is now up to authorities to set their budgets in the light of all their circumstances, including the provisional capping principles.

We shall consult widely on the best way to take forward the future financing of local government. As I have already said, we are issuing several consultation papers, and will enter detailed discussions with representatives of local government on the matter. We also intend, as my right hon. Friend the Deputy Prime Minister has made clear—

Order.

I am grateful to have been allowed a debate on this important issue. I declare an interest—the profound debt of gratitude I owe to the BBC for having dismissed me some 20 years ago. I joined the corporation as a journalist straight after university, and had a wonderful six or seven years.

However, I became involved in politics, standing for Parliament in Solihull in 1974 and arguing, in the way that embryonic politicians do, that the BBC should change itself. I argued that it should allow women to read the news, and should employ more black and Asian journalists. At the time, those were outlandish ideas. I also said that BBC journalists should be better paid—a preposterous notion.

Alas, I committed an inexcusable professional error, so the BBC, rightly and condignly, dismissed me. That probably saved my sanity. I cannot imagine what would have happened to me if I had remained a BBC employee.

I do not want the debate to take the form of BBC bashing, which is an occupational malady for politicians. Politicians who complain about the media are rather like sailors who moan about the weather, and spin doctors who complain about the media are rather like snakes who protest about being in the snake pit.

We are discussing not so much the right of Members of Parliament to be heard on the BBC as whether the BBC is taking steps that will lead to its decoupling not so much from Parliament as from the people.

I am no unconditional worshipper of Parliament. Frankly, much of what is said here is tawdry, tedious and, as we have heard during some recent days and nights, time-wasting. The modernisation of the House is long overdue. The people's will and the people's voice have been heard, are being heard and will be heard in many different ways; expressions of the people's views will be heard other than through the House.

I would make a small wager that Parliament will survive. Ministers will come and go, Speakers and Deputy Speakers will come and go, but Parliament will go on and on. The purpose of the debate is not to substitute Parliament for the editorial control of the BBC, but gently to suggest that the BBC may not survive as a publicly funded institution if it insists on de-linking itself from Parliament.

Politicians, separately from what is heard in the House and its Committees, will of course continue to be heard on the airwaves. Ministers will queue up to be "Paxmanned", and will stumble out of bed for early morning television and radio shows. I do not suggest that the voice of politicians is likely to be unheard or even reduced.

The voice of politicians as Ministers, as the Executive, will continue to be powerfully heard, and the rent-a-quote merchants, the stunt boys and girls who force their way on to the airwaves now and then, will be heard, too. Indeed, if the BBC reduces its parliamentary coverage, we shall see more of politicians in other ways, on the streets with stunts and cheap campaigns designed to get coverage.

Although the BBC has a justifiably excellent reputation both in Britain and abroad—we must remember what happened during the attempted coup in the Soviet Union in 1990—what sort of BBC would there be without this place? Without parliamentary democracy, the BBC would be merely a state organ, such as exists in countries that lack parliamentary democracy. Is it not a pity that the BBC bosses do not recognise that?

My hon. Friend makes a valid point, but I am trying to keep my speech as short as possible so that as many hon. Members as possible can contribute to the debate.

We are not talking about politicians being kept off the airwaves; the loud, the powerful and those who represent Government will always get a hearing. However, beyond those people are the myriad voices and views of Members of Parliament working in the House and in its Select and Standing Committees, raising all sorts of issues and reflecting all sorts of perspectives.

It is true that many of those are "off message", as we now say—idiosyncratic or difficult. So be it. The BBC may want to make its coverage of Parliament as bland as possible, but we do not have to sit idly by while that happens. It is essential that the House, and, through the House, the nation should understand what is happening.

The BBC is proposing a fundamental and permanent downgrading of its parliamentary coverage. First, "Yesterday in Parliament"—probably the main link between Parliament and the people—is to disappear. Secondly, "The Week in Westminster" is to lose its present format and slot. Thirdly, the excellent "In Committee" programme is to go.

My hon. Friend may not be aware that the Liaison Committee, which consists of the Chairmen of all the Select Committees, met last week and authorised me to write to the chairman of the BBC about the importance of "In Committee"—a letter to which Sir Christopher Bland has replied.

Select Committees now have much more important tasks, seen by the public, than they used to. On many days, including today, what happens in them is front-page news. However, such items do not show how Committees come to their conclusions, which is of enormous importance. Would it not be a disaster if the BBC failed to recognise its obligation in such an important matter?

I am most grateful to my right hon. Friend. One of the critical remarks often made about the House is that, as today, the green Benches are relatively empty. However, it was ever thus. When Sir Martin Gilbert, the distinguished biographer of Winston Churchill, walked around here with me once, he said, "Do you know that, when Winston Churchill made those memorable speeches warning of Nazism in the 1930s, the House was empty?" It is not the presence of Members on the Benches that makes the debates and the voice of the House important, but what is said here, free of any influence other than the duty to conscience, constituents and the national interest.

I commend the hon. Gentleman on his excellent judgment in choosing the debate, and also on his opening remarks, one of which I believe was a quotation from Enoch Powell.

May I reinforce what was said by my predecessor as Chairman of the Public Accounts Committee, the right hon. Member for Ashton-under-Lyne (Mr. Sheldon)? Of course, Select Committees' deliberations occasionally make the front page of the newspapers, but the only leverage that a Select Committee has—this is much truer of the other Select Committees than of the PAC—is exposure to the light of the aspects of government that it scrutinises.

The "In Committee" programme provides the only real exposure that the scrutiny carried out by many Select Committees receives, and it is vital not only for the task of the BBC but for our task. If the BBC removes "In Committee", as appears to be the plan, it will cut the effective powers of scrutiny of the House of Commons.

I hope that the chairman of the BBC will listen to those two powerful interventions from the previous and present Chairmen of the most important, senior and influential Committee of the House.

As I said, "Yesterday in Parliament", "The Week in Westminster" and "In Committee" are to go. BBC2's morning report of Parliament will disappear and I understand that the BBC is threatening to do away with the regional television parliamentary programmes. Any one of those changes would have been cause for concern, but in their ensemble, they represent a concerted attempt to downgrade coverage of Parliament in a fashion unprecedented in the BBC's history.

In its defence, the BBC has been disingenuous, if not deceitful. Its army of spin doctors has been fanning out, pretending that what is proposed is only a minor change. Yet at stake is nothing less than a dismantling of mainstream, accessible broadcast coverage of Parliament. The transfer of programmes to graveyard slots or on to the ghettos of long wave, or the absorption of parliamentary coverage into generalised current affairs programmes, will massively reduce the opportunity or choice of listeners to hear what is said in Parliament.

I am particularly concerned about the BBC's cleansing of "Yesterday in Parliament" from the "Today" programme. It has been more than disingenuous in its justification of expelling parliamentary coverage from "Today". The BBC says that, as soon as Members of Parliament come on to the air, audiences plummet, but the BBC's figures do not remotely justify that claim.

The chairman, in his letter to Madam Speaker dated 21 November 1997, said that Radio 4 loses 1.3 per cent. of its audience between 8.30 am and 8.45 am and, when "Yesterday in Parliament" comes on, it loses 0.9 per cent. Frankly, 0.9 per cent. is not a massive loss. Most people have finished their breakfast and are on their way to work after 8 o'clock, and that is when the "Today" audience plummets.

According to the chairman's own statistics, in the period between 8.30 am and 9 am, it is the sweet and caressing tones of Jim Naughtie and Sue MacGregor that lose more audiences at a faster rate than the voice of parliamentarians.

The hon. Gentleman will not be invited on to the "Today" programme again.

Alas, the only time I was on the "Today" programme was when I attacked the BBC, so I have some hopes. Those who stay on message never get on it.

What else do we know about the audience for "Yesterday in Parliament"? Between June 1996 and June 1997, the audience for "Yesterday in Parliament" went up, not down. We also know that, when other material is broadcast in the Monday morning slot, the audience is no greater. We also know from evidence given by the BBC to the Select Committee a fortnight ago that only 80 per cent. of Britain can receive long wave, to which the BBC proposes to transfer "Yesterday in Parliament". If one goes into Dixons to buy a modern radio, one often finds that long wave is not available on the radio.

We know, too, that up to 1.3 million people—about the combined sales of The Times, The Guardian and The Independent—are connected to Parliament on week-day mornings. That is a goodly part of the population. "Yesterday in Parliament" represents less than 1 per cent. of all that Radio 4 broadcasts, so sacrificing it seems wholly unnecessary. Its slot in the "Today" programme is vital because, like it or loathe it, "Today" cannot be ignored; it is our national newspaper of the day. It is not just for Members of Parliament or, as The Guardian so charmingly put it the other day, for pointy heads and policy wonks—whoever they are. It is listened to by civil servants, business leaders, journalists and teachers throughout the country, wanting to hear, wanting to know, getting a chance to learn what Members of Parliament have to say in the Commons and in Select Committees and what is said in the other place.

Listeners can hear the awkward squad—those parliamentary roundheads and cavaliers who dare to be Daniels, who dare to stand alone, who dare to have a purpose firm and dare to make it known. Cleansing them from the "Today" programme may suit some spin doctors on both sides of the House and the Executive, but their voices should be heard.

Still, the BBC, like all great bureaucracies, is made of rubber; it comes bouncing back with unconvincing arguments. "We are giving you more time," it says—yes, but fewer listeners. As the Critical Quarterly, in its remarkable black paper on education, put it 30 years ago, "More means worse." We already have a parliamentary channel on cable broadcasting Parliament around the clock. Hansard is available on the Internet. Wall-to-wall coverage of Parliament will not help anyone.

As a former journalist, I am particularly saddened because "Yesterday in Parliament" is a superb piece of broadcast journalism. It distils, into a little under 15 minutes, 12 or more hours of parliamentary proceedings. Extending it to 30 or 45 minutes, or even two or three hours, will weaken the force of that journalism. I do not want more Members of Parliament on the air, but I want the nation and its listeners to have the possibility of hearing what is said and done in the House in their name at a time and on an airwave when they are tuned in.

I have said that the BBC's arguments are disingenuous. Its statistics simply do not add up. But the BBC has been more than disingenuous; it has been deceitful in promising that real consultation would take place. In essence, what was floated, proposed and lobbied for last summer is what will take place.

I do not like to use the word "contempt". That is an overused word in Parliament. But the BBC chairman has not been straight with the Speaker. As so often happens to the great and the good when they accede to that post, they immediately go native and become mouthpieces for whatever the BBC bureaucratic moloch wants to do.

We must be realists. The BBC is not King Charles I in a fight with the Commons. The world will not stop if 15 minutes of my hon. Friend the Member for Bolsover (Mr. Skinner), the right hon. Member for Kensington and Chelsea (Mr. Clark), my hon. Friend the Member for Linlithgow (Mr. Dalyell) or the hon. Member for Billericay (Mrs. Gorman) are replaced by Mr. Humphrys making sure that no Minister or shadow spokesman can form a sentence with a beginning, middle and end without being interrupted.

Yet I fear for the future if the BBC refuses to listen and act on this debate. If the BBC thinks that Parliament is no longer important, the time may come when Parliament attaches no importance to the BBC. As someone who believes in the BBC, I ask myself whether that is the end game—a furtive, shabby, dishonest decoupling of the BBC from its unique character in the world as a publicly funded, editorially independent but parliamentary accountable broadcaster.

Are those who dream of privatising the BBC—we know some of their names—pushing forward that agenda? The broadcasting of parliamentary proceedings in a mainstream outlet of the BBC is nearly as old as the BBC itself. In ending that service, the BBC is telling the nation not only what its chairman and his officials think of Parliament, but he is announcing urbi et orbi, that the marriage between the BBC and the British public may be drawing to a close. Is that what the BBC wants? Is it what Britain wants? I urge the chairman, even at this late stage, to think again.

I am delighted to follow the hon. Member for Rotherham (Mr. MacShane) and I congratulate him on securing the debate. He supported me when I raised the issue at business questions some 10 days ago, and I am delighted to endorse every word that he has given us this morning. I am sure that other hon. Members on both sides of the House will share that view.

My text is C. P. Scott:

"Comment is free but facts are sacred",

which we might update by adding that commentary is fun but reportage is serious and sacred. That is what we are discussing today. We are addressing not simply the numerical figures of audiences or the new ghetto which will be created for those who take an interest in our proceedings, but the character of some of the programmes that the BBC now proposes to give its listeners and viewers.

It is not only Members of Parliament who have considered those programmes to be important in the past. The BBC itself has always viewed those programmes as extremely important and as part of its duty to its public and the nation. I have quotations from several episodes in the BBC's history to prove that point. The BBC's annual report and accounts for 1945 state:

"From the opening of the new Parliament in August 1945, a quarter hour period (10:45 to 11:00pm) was devoted in the Home service to a summary of each day's proceedings, under the title 'Today in Parliament'. This made it possible to keep listeners more closely informed on Parliamentary matters."

In 1946, the then assistant Postmaster General, Mr. Wilfred Burke, said:

"Another new condition is one to which the House will attach considerable importance. That is the new obligation laid upon the Corporation to broadcast a daily report of the proceedings of both Houses of Parliament."

No less a person than Mr. Herbert Morrison, the then Lord President of the Council, said in 1946:

"It is one of the duties of the BBC to keep the country informed about Parliament."

In 1982, a report from the House of Lords Select Committee on Sound Broadcasting stated that the BBC

"shared the wishes of members of both Houses that the proceedings of Parliament should reach as wide an audience as possible; in their judgment"—

the BBC's judgment, not that of the House of Lords—

"the new format of 'Yesterday in Parliament' was more likely to achieve this than the old."

The BBC's annual report in 1985 stated:

"Recorded actuality from both chambers and from committees regularly finds a place in news and current affairs programmes in the networks, the regions and local radio where there has been growing demand."

There was no sign then of the BBC claiming that parliamentary coverage was, literally, a turn-off for its listeners and viewers. The 1985 annual report also commented:

"The BBC's commitment"—

a strong word—

"to full and serious reporting of parliamentary affairs is reflected in such programmes as 'Today in Parliament', 'Inside Parliament' and 'The Week in Westminster' where recordings are used to good effect. The new format of 'Yesterday in Parliament' within the 'Today' programme has improved audiences."

As the hon. Member for Rotherham said, that comment does not suggest a falling audience—far from it.

Perhaps the most important statement of all was made last December by the Minister for Arts, whom I am delighted to see in his place on the Government Front Bench. He said that the BBC agreement

"contains one specific programming requirement introduced…in 1948 and re-iterated in 1996, that the corporation 'shall transmit an impartial account day by day, prepared by professional reporters, of the proceedings in both Houses of Parliament.—[Official Report, 11 December 1997; Vol. 302, c. 1258.]

Given that background of commitment to regular reporting and its importance to our House, the other place and the world at large—the programmes are popular and people want them—why are we now given several extraordinary excuses as to why those programmes no longer have a place in the schedules? The hon. Member for Rotherham effectively dealt with the ludicrous argument about the fall in audience between 8 am and 9 am. It is absurd, and I do not know how anyone could come before the Speaker or any other House authority and pretend that that was a good reason.

The figures show that, outside the "Today" programme itself, there are more listeners for "Yesterday in Parliament" and "Today in Parliament"—the listenership is growing—than for any other programme on Radio 4 except "The Archers". I am devoted to "The Archers", but if we have to start having murders, suicides or tractor accidents to persuade the BBC that we are important enough to be broadcast at a reasonable hour, that implies that the BBC is tearing up the commitment given under Lord Reith and in every era since.

I come from a scattered and sparsely populated rural area in Cornwall and I am, therefore, especially concerned about the notion that long wave is somehow an adequate substitute for FM. That is patent nonsense. Ever since this debate was announced, I have tried to persuade the BBC to provide me with a map to show the coverage of the United Kingdom achieved by long wave. I am told by the BBC that it is an "imprecise science"; in other words, it does not know. It can provide a map of the FM coverage of the United Kingdom, but it cannot provide a map that shows the areas in which long wave is easily received. Even some parts of London find it difficult to achieve good reception of long wave. The sudden suggestion that the quality of the receivers and the transmitters will be dramatically improved in weeks so that everyone can listen to long wave is patent nonsense.

All those arguments were "exposed"—I use the word advisedly—by Mr. Peter Hill in The House Magazine in October last year. He wrote a skilled, careful, scientifically based article, as we would expect from a former senior and distinguished reporter of the BBC. I find it extraordinary that the chairman and senior officials of the BBC are still repeating the arguments that have been so effectively disposed of. At a cross-party meeting that several hon. Members had with the controller of Radio 4, he was still repeating some of those arguments even when they no longer held water.

As I implied at the beginning of my speech, I believe that there is a hidden agenda behind the BBC's moves. It is not simply a numbers game, because the very character of the programmes is at risk. I shall take one example of that. "The Week in Westminster" is to move to Thursday evening, which will more than halve its audience, and that is bad enough. However, as a sop to the House, the BBC proposes to broadcast the programme in weeks in which the House does not sit. How can a programme called "The Week in Westminster", which purports factually to report parliamentary matters, be broadcast when the House is not sitting? The answer must be one of two options. Either the programme will become a report of the week in Whitehall and be all about the Government, not the House—but that is not what the BBC is pretending—or it will not be reportage at all, but commentary. We have a huge amount of commentary already on all channels, radio and television. We ask only that a small portion of the schedule is consistently addressed—every week and to a real audience composed of the whole United Kingdom—to reportage of the Houses of Parliament, including, as the hon. Member for Rotherham said, what happens in the Chambers and in Committees.

By definition, "The Week in Westminster" on a Thursday evening will not look at the whole week. It will contain nothing about Fridays. Is Friday now unimportant in the House? If so, someone should tell the Speaker, the Whips and the House officials. It appears that Friday will no longer exist, simply because the BBC, at the stroke of a pen, is to dispose of the programme to Thursday nights.

More important, "The Week in Westminster" would dramatically change in character. It would no longer report what the nation's representatives are saying and doing in this place—it would be about the Government or would be a commentary on the parties and political affairs outside this place.

I have followed the hon. Gentleman's speech carefully and he is doing a great service to the House. Does he agree that, to all intents and purposes, the executives of the BBC are trivialising and making peripheral what goes on in Parliament? We do not want that, and I do not believe that that is what the people of this country want.

I agree with the hon. Gentleman. We do not agree often, but he has put the point succinctly and it leads precisely into my concluding point. Those who want to see and hear their parliamentary representatives working in this place, representing them, will be treated by the BBC as a tiny, insignificant and unimportant minority. They will be consigned to a scheduling ghetto. That is not just an insult to Parliament but an insult to our constituents and to the BBC's listeners and viewers. I hope that the BBC will think again.

The other day, I received a note from the public affairs unit of the BBC—I presume that one has gone to other hon. Members—that began "Dear David" and asked whether I would signal my support for the proposals. It is surprising that I received such a note, whether it began "Dear David" or otherwise, bearing in mind my earlier interventions on the matter, including my Adjournment debate on 11 December 1997, during which I was, to say the least, extremely critical of the proposals. My hon. Friend the Minister replied to that debate, as he will to today's.

As my hon. Friend the Member for Rotherham (Mr. MacShane) and the hon. the Member for North Cornwall (Mr. Tyler) said, we must emphasise that what appears to be a technical matter—broadcasting on long wave or on FM—has great relevance to the proposals. I said in my Adjournment debate that "Today in Parliament" had lost more than half its audience since it went over to long wave in 1994. Parliamentarians as well as listeners would agree that it is an excellent programme. It is perhaps too long for the morning, but in the evening it provides good coverage of what has gone on in both Houses of Parliament. The BBC must have known that putting "Today in Parliament" on long wave would substantially reduce its audience. The BBC cannot be naive about the matter, and I can think only that it deliberately made the change because it believes few people want to listen to Parliament's proceedings and few are obsessed by politics and current affairs, and that it could find other listeners.

As the hon. Member for North Cornwall said, the BBC is making a great deal of the fact that the Friday programme, which is briefer than the Monday to Thursday programmes, will be extended. However, that late evening programme, which is the only one broadcast on FM, will move to long wave only, so there will be no real gain for it, as the BBC is perfectly aware.

The BBC has taken a propaganda line since last July when the proposals were leaked. Points of order were made in the House, and hon. Members will remember that Madam Speaker said that she was displeased by BBC proposals, but, all along, the BBC propaganda line—as has been shown during the debate—has been that people switch off because they are bored by the 15-minute or 16-minute recording of what occurred the previous day in Parliament. The reasons for fewer people listening from 8 am have been stated, although the BBC was originally reluctant to give the figures. Even now, the audience of "Yesterday in Parliament" is well over 1 million, which is larger than that of "Newsnight"—who knows what proposals the BBC has for that excellent programme?

Most people have no desire to switch off at all. I rang the BBC during the summer recess to ask how many people were listening to the substitute slot. The answer was that there was little difference between the number of people who listen to "Yesterday in Parliament" and those who listen to the substitute slot when Parliament is not sitting. Where is the evidence that listeners are bored and fed up with listening to parliamentarians for 15 or 16 minutes a day, and switch off such programmes when they come on air? There is no reason to believe that there is any truth in the BBC propaganda line.

The controller of Radio 4 said last summer that 350,000 listeners switched off when "Yesterday in Parliament" came on in the morning, but the BBC is now reluctant to repeat that comment. My hon. Friend and the hon. Member for North Cornwall explained that people switch off between 8 am and 9 am for obvious reasons: they are taking their children to school, going to work, and so on. The BBC was willing to use its propaganda line, when it seemed that it might be effective, to discredit the reporting of Parliament.

One cannot have a great deal of respect for people who use such tactics, but I have the greatest respect for the journalists who are involved in "Yesterday in Parliament" and the evening programme. One can criticise from day to day, and ask why one item has been excluded and another has been given so much time, but the people involved are skilled, and there is no doubt that they do an excellent job, and have done so on radio and television since the broadcasting of the proceedings of the House. Their position is being undermined by their bosses, who give the impression that what they do is not of great value, which is unfortunate.

I shall not mention the other changes, because my hon. Friend and the hon. Member for North Cornwall discussed them in detail. The essence of the matter is whether the BBC recognises that it has a public service duty adequately to report the proceedings of Parliament. I have concluded that the BBC has a different view. I have said that I have the greatest respect for the BBC, its coverage and the way in which it broadcasts overseas events. I referred to the attempted coup in the Soviet Union, and said that it took place in 1990, but I was a year out: it took place in 1991. One remembers that Mr. Gorbachev learned the details of what was going on from the BBC.

One wants to defend that fine reputation; indeed, whether the BBC has been underfunded or had difficulties with the Foreign Office over funding for its overseas broadcasts, parliamentarians have come to the rescue and intervened constructively. Unfortunately, the view on domestic matters, and certainly on the reporting of Parliament, is that listeners are not interested in politics, and any old excuse is made to cut such reporting. Hon. Members are right to think that Ministers and spin doctors will benefit at the expense of parliamentarians. I do not believe that should happen without a great deal of criticism.

I said in business questions and repeat today that we know what sort of institution the BBC would be without this place and without parliamentary democracy. Its freedoms, like the freedoms and civil liberties of all the people of this country, come from one place only—the Houses of Parliament, where the rule of law is established. It is unfortunate that the BBC does not recognise that and act accordingly.

The proposals, which I understand the chairman of the BBC will discuss when he comes to the House on Thursday, should be thrown in the dustbin. Despite all our protests, including that of Madam Speaker, the chairman, the director-general and the controller of Radio 4 may push them ahead. That is their right, and we cannot tell them what to do, but if they treat Parliament in such a contemptuous way, and refuse to listen to our justified criticism, we shall inevitably show contempt for those who control the BBC.

This is a unique debate. I am not entirely sure, because my hon. Friend the Member for North Thanet (Mr. Gale) has just entered the Chamber, but I suspect that there will be virtual unanimity on the anxieties expressed by the hon. Member for Rotherham (Mr. MacShane) about the BBC proposals for the reporting of Parliament.

Yesterday, I chaired a meeting of the all-party media group, at which Matthew Bannister put the case for the BBC. He put a good case, but a number of people disagreed with it. I repeat what I said in my intervention on the hon. Member for North Cornwall (Mr. Tyler): the BBC is seeking to peripheralise and trivialise the coverage of Parliament. That concerns me very much. I have been here for more than a quarter of a century, and over that time the BBC's serious coverage of Parliament has been reduced. I believe that the current proposals will reduce it further.

The hon. Member for North Cornwall referred to Peter Hill, a BBC journalist with considerable experience, who is totally committed to Parliament and who covers it remarkably well. As has been said, last autumn he wrote an article severely criticising what the BBC intended to do. Nor do I think that the House should take lightly the concern expressed by Madam Speaker. It is not often that the Speaker of the House of Commons publicly states her concern about what is going on, but Madam Speaker believes fervently in the role of Parliament, and thinks that it should be covered properly by the BBC.

Uniquely, I must agree with every word said by the hon. Member for Walsall, North (Mr. Winnick). He and I are generally very much on opposite sides. It is good to note the virtually unanimous condemnation—I use that word advisedly—of what the BBC intends to do.

I shall not repeat the arguments about the change from FM to long wave, for the simple reason that they have already been fully and accurately deployed; but I sometimes wonder why the BBC keeps referring to audience figures. I believe that the figures are wrong. Moreover, the BBC is funded in a unique way, and, in accordance with its charter, has a serious commitment to providing a public service. That commitment will be greatly damaged if it implements its proposals.

I mentioned Matthew Bannister. He is very articulate. I knew him for many years before he rose to the higher echelons of the BBC, and I have a high regard for him and his ability. When he came to the all-party media group last night, however, it seemed to me that he was very much carrying out the instructions of his media bosses. As my hon. Friend the Member for North Thanet will confirm if he catches your eye, Mr. Deputy Speaker, he tried to justify the proposal by saying that, far from cutting coverage of the House, the BBC was giving it extra time.

As the hon. Member for North Cornwall pointed out, the BBC says with great sincerity that it will broadcast "The Week in Westminster" when the House is not sitting. I agree with the hon. Gentleman that "The Week in Westminster" will become a programme about Whitehall and government. It will consist merely of reporting and comment, rather than being a serious programme giving people what I think they want to hear. As an evergreen Back Bencher, I think that it is important to Members of Parliament that their constituents can hear what their representatives have said on the Floor of the House from time to time—with, of course, appropriate editorial treatment. After all, we believe—mostly—in the impartiality of the BBC's editorial staff.

It is amazing how many letters I receive from constituents saying, "Oh, Mr. Winterton, I heard you say so-and-so in the House of Commons last week." I find that very rewarding, and I think that rather more people follow what goes on here than the BBC would have us believe. You may say that this is not the right place for me to say this, Mr. Deputy Speaker, but Mr. Tony Hall, the head of BBC news, is coming to the all-party media group on 25 March, and I hope that as many people as possible will come and tell the BBC's senior executive exactly what they think of its proposals. As an Opposition Back Bencher, I cannot stress enough how concerned I am, and how important I consider the BBC's public service duties.

Let me say to the hon. Members for Rotherham and for Walsall, North that I am not one of those Conservative and Unionist Members who believe that we should privatise the BBC or, force it to raise funds from advertising. I have never believed that, although I want it to become commercial in the sense of exploiting some of its services—for example, the tapes and compact discs that it produces. I think that it could market those more aggressively, and thus increase its revenue. It does a pretty good job—which could, however, be improved—in selling its fantastic programmes overseas; but it has a prime duty to give Parliament adequate coverage. I do not want to go into this in depth, but the BBC is right in saying that long wave is unreliable in many parts of the country. Is it therefore surprising that the BBC can state that audiences have been reduced, when not many people can receive long wave broadcasts of the standard that they expect?

I congratulate the hon. Member for Rotherham on securing the debate, and on the reasoned and robust way in which he put his case. His view is shared by Conservative Members and by the minority parties, particularly the Liberal Democrats. I hope that the unanimity in the House continues, and that, when Sir Christopher Bland and John Birt come to the House to try to explain what they are doing, they will receive a positive response. They, too, are coming to the all-party media group later in the year, on the day when they publish the BBC's annual report. We have a responsibility to give them a platform.

I agree with the hon. Members for Rotherham, for Walsall, North and for North Cornwall. We must not allow the BBC to implement changes to the disadvantage of this place, or allow such changes to be accepted by default.

I do not entirely share in the unanimity. I have known four Members of Parliament for Rotherham, every one of whom has made a contribution to the House. My hon. Friend the Member for Rotherham (Mr. MacShane) made an elegant and important contribution, and we are in his debt.

I do not always agree with my hon. Friend the Member for Walsall, North (Mr. Winnick) on every subject, but I strongly agree with what he said about public service obligations.

The discordant note that I introduce is this. We shall have to cast a particular mote out of our own eye. The problem is that it is all very well for the hon. Member for Macclesfield (Mr. Winterton) to say that, in the past quarter of a century, serious coverage has been reduced, but something else has been reduced: ministerial interest, in both parties, in the proceedings of the House of Commons. I am concerned about the gradual bypassing of Parliament, which I think started with Mrs. Thatcher. More and more, statements are being made in Millbank or in Conservative central office, long before they are made on the Floor of the House. It is a question not only of etiquette but of the amount of attention, particularly of Ministers, that is paid to the House of Commons.

Yesterday morning, there was a major event in the history of the Labour Government. I am not concerned here about the merits or demerits of the minimum wage legislation, but it is something that was very close to the heartstrings of my party. I shall put it gently. If such a measure had been passed after an all-night sitting, and if their colleagues had been up all night getting it through, Harold Wilson and Jim Callaghan would have made it their absolute business to be on the Treasury Bench at least for the final speeches, and probably—certainly in Wilson's and Callaghan's case—for all the speeches on Third Reading.

For much of the legislation that has been passed in the past few months—it was the same during the Conservative Government—the Secretaries of State whose legislation it was were very seldom to be seen on the Treasury Bench. They left it to junior Ministers. What more important thing do Secretaries of State who are conducting legislation through the House have to do than to listen—on their own legislation, which they are promoting—to their parliamentary colleagues of all parties?

If the Government cease to listen to the House of Commons—as Governments in general are ceasing to do—what do we say to BBC senior executives, one of whom, who must be nameless, has asked, "If you do not take yourselves that seriously, and if Ministers do not take the House of Commons that seriously, why should the BBC take you so seriously?"? The debate is part of a wider argument on the bypassing of Parliament.

I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman, and entirely agree with the important point that he is making so strongly. However, I think that he will agree that two wrongs do not make a right, and that it is not entirely clear which is cause and which is effect. I think that one of the reasons why successive senior Ministers, and Governments generally, have treated the House with less courtesy and respect for its role is that they do not think that they will attract the media's attention if they do so. We witness today an empty Press Gallery for this debate. I think that the hon. Gentleman will agree also that the media are not excused in paying increasingly less attention to the proceedings of the House simply because Ministers have followed them in making that mistake.

The hon. Gentleman has made the point more eloquently than I would have done. Others wish to speak. I shall only endorse what he has so pointedly said.

I congratulate the hon. Member for Rotherham (Mr. MacShane) on making his case, and also on the restraint, in several senses, that he showed in developing that case. Specifically, he made no reference—he might have some acquaintance with or memory of them—to the complexities and, in a literary sense, corruptions of the career structure inside that enormous and—as he eloquently described it—rubbery corporation. He did not mention the pressures that those pressures generate, or the contribution that they make to an anonymity of responsibility, which makes it difficult to fix on a particular target or individual and to say, "If we can bring our case to them, perhaps we can correct this."

Meanwhile, as hon. Members have already said, we are witnessing the standard corporation technique, whereby, if one wants to get rid of a product, one makes very little of it. As supply is so limited that people cannot get the product, one says that there is no demand for it. It is a cyclical process. The BBC is engaged in that process, transferring programmes that it admits have higher ratings to "listening ghettos"—where no one can get at the programmes, or where one can hear them only with great difficulty, because they are broadcast at the wrong time of day. The process is self-fulfilling, and enables the BBC to say, "There is no demand for those programmes, so we may as well get rid of them."

The process is part of a larger one that I see developing within the BBC. It is a type of dumbing down. The BBC is giving much more air time and exposure to special interest lobbies and mini-focus groups that argue their case, although almost in political isolation, because they are not really politicians. They do not understand—as we do, as we are sent to the House by our constituents—political pressures in the round, although they have good soundbites, mini-rows and disturbances, and give trouble. However, those groups should be only on the fringe of politics, not at the centre, as the House certainly should be.

As the hon. Member for Linlithgow (Mr. Dalyell) so eloquently said, for a variety of reasons, the House finds itself under pressure from many different sectors. In the eyes of many, our importance is diminishing. Therefore, rather than pay attention to what the House of Commons says, it is legitimate to listen to those various little focus groups, pressure groups and people who will make a scene on air or on television and give the programme "more of a kick".

I should like briefly to deal with the matter of that "kick"—the matter of ratings. It is no business of the BBC to determine its output by ratings—which are not and never have been part of its charter. I went to a lunch hosted by Sir Christopher Bland—I hope that I am not abusing his hospitality. He invited some prominent parliamentarians, and gave us a résumé of his future programmes and of what the corporation was doing. On all the items that he showed us, he declaimed their ratings and the acclaim from critics. He told us that the ratings for this or that programme were as good as those for ITV's programmes. That is not his business. Lord Reith never concerned himself with a programme's ratings. His duty, as he saw it, was to inform and to educate. That is how the BBC was conceived.

We can complain about the process, and we have right to do so, because it is deplorable. I know from my own mailbag that many individual constituents complain about it. The process can be corrected only by a strong and forceful personality who is not concerned with ingratiating himself with the establishment. The BBC requires an individual who will promote his various officials, editors and producers not on the basis of their impact on ratings or the acclaim that they garner, but on the basis of how they fulfil the BBC's fundamental duty, which is quite different from that of independent television companies—which have no duty except to their shareholders, and only minimal constraints imposed on them by censorship and the dictates of so-called good taste.

We shall have to initiate a fundamental change in the BBC—in attitude, conscience, responsibility and the sense of duty of those at the top. Until we do that, we shall have debates such as this one. The Press Gallery will remain empty, and no one will pay the slightest attention.

I am grateful to the hon. Member for Rotherham (Mr. MacShane) for giving me a chance to raise the issue of regional television broadcasting of parliamentary affairs.

Many of us will have built up a quite close relationship with our regional BBC outlets and participate frequently in their programmes. It seems to me that there are two essential components in that regional broadcasting: first, that there are correspondents who go out of their way to build links with all the region's Members of Parliament, irrespective of party and position; and, secondly, that they are given adequate air time and are able not only to provide pieces for regional magazine programmes that follow the news, but to have their own slots throughout the week to broadcast genuine regional coverage.

That is especially important in areas such as Yorkshire—an area of interest both to myself and to the hon. Member for Rotherham. That we have a Leeds-based team is very significant: it is important that our coverage of Westminster comes from "John Turnbull, our man in Westminster", not from a national feed, and gives a genuinely regional perspective. People in Yorkshire and other peripheral regions respect that. The breadth of coverage is significant, as those in the team are able to move into the wider arena: for example, we have recently discussed issues such as the Child Support Agency and alternatives to prison sentences—broader issues, discussion of which involves residents of the region and their parliamentarians. I ask myself where else we could get that sort of coverage.

Hon. Members have recently waxed lyrical about the importance of the constituency link as we discuss alternatives to the present electoral system. If we are not to have regional coverage, all we shall be left with is the Government's pronouncements and national spokespeople talking; people will never hear what their region's Members of Parliament think from a regional perspective.

The other key issue is the following of political careers. In Yorkshire, we report the Leader of the Opposition as the right hon. Member for Richmond, Yorks (Mr. Hague). We have followed the career of the right hon. Member for Sheffield, Brightside (Mr. Blunkett), who is reported as such, all the way from local councillor to his current position as the esteemed Secretary of State for Education and Employment. It is that ability to engage with local politicians as local characters that is important, in that it cuts behind some of the hype and spin that are often seen here.

I hope that, as well as debating the topical issue of "Yesterday in Parliament", we shall seriously look at the future of regional broadcasting. We should treasure it and continue to provide to people in the regions a genuinely regional voice, instead of their having to rely solely on Government pronouncements and national spokespersons' responses.

I apologise to you, Mr. Deputy Speaker, and to the hon. Member for Rotherham (Mr. MacShane) for the fact that I was unable to be here for the first part of the debate. The hon. Gentleman knows, because he was in the same Committee earlier this morning, that I have been chairing the Committee on the Public Interest Disclosure Bill and was therefore unable to be here earlier. I hope that the House will accept my apology.

Despite having heard only part of the debate, I should like to make a couple of comments on the remarks made. It has been suggested that the BBC is in danger of sidelining Parliament into ghettos and, by that means, demonstrating that no one is listening, thereby putting itself in a position of being able to kill off the programme. Some of that is going on: I, like my hon. Friend the Member for Macclesfield (Mr. Winterton), heard Mr. Bannister last night indicate that "The Week in Westminster" was to be moved from its current Saturday morning slot to an hour on Thursday evening when, quite clearly, fewer people will listen. I regard that with sadness, because the breadth of Saturday morning programming means that people who ordinarily would not listen to "The Week in Westminster" might catch some of it and learn something that they might otherwise not have learnt.

Is the hon. Gentleman aware that the audience for "The Week in Westminster" on Saturday is greater at its end than at its beginning? Believe it or not, it is actually an audience grabber.

I understand what the hon. Gentleman is saying, although there are those who are unkind enough to say that that is because people are tuning in for the programme that follows "The Week in Westminster", rather than for "The Week in Westminster" itself.

Be that as it may, that argument fits uneasily with that advanced by my right hon. Friend the Member for Kensington and Chelsea (Mr. Clark), who suggested that the BBC should not have to search for an audience. That is an elitist argument, which we have heard long and often. My right hon. Friend said that what is happening would not have happened in Lord Reith's day, but I hope that he will forgive me for pointing out that Lord Reith and his corporation did not face the competition in terms of outlets that faces the BBC today.

There are a dozen and more radio and television channels nationally, plus very good local radio channels and information available on the internet. Mr. Bannister told us last night that he was having great difficulty in persuading children to listen to the sort of programmes that the BBC puts on in the evenings, because young people have access to so many alternative information outlets. It is not surprising that the BBC has to consider whether anyone at all is listening to what it broadcasts. I suspect that, if not my right hon. Friend, then others would say in fairly short order, "Hang on—why are we paying our licence fee? Nobody is listening." I am not suggesting for one moment that the BBC should be populist, but I do believe that it has a duty incumbent on it to be popular and to present a breadth of programmes that attract an audience. Otherwise, as a broadcaster, I would have to say that there is no point in broadcasting.

My hon. Friend's remarks are making me extremely concerned. His argument is essentially populist. There is strong competition to supply what it is thought people want and to titivate them and attract their attention by various means. However, the business of the BBC has always been to present the truth, the facts and objective commentary—to inform and to educate. It is a fact of life that that does not attract big audiences, but the BBC has to lump it.

On the contrary, the BBC over the years and currently does, on occasion, attract very large audiences, and all power to it for doing so.

I do not want to take much more time, but I want to comment on what Mr. Bannister said, because his views have been, not misrepresented, but partly represented this morning and I should like to present an alternative view. Matthew Bannister told Members of Parliament last night that the BBC was in fact extending the hours of coverage of Parliament. My hon. Friend the Member for Macclesfield recognised that fact in his speech, but what he did not say was that Mr. Bannister has also given a clear undertaking that, as and when—it would be sooner rather than later—digital sound broadcasting becomes widely available, instead of being available to an elite few who are able to afford expensive receivers, the BBC expects to be able to dedicate an entire channel to the broadcasting of Parliament. That seems highly desirable.

My hon. Friend the Member for Macclesfield said that Radio 4 on long wave was hard to receive, but I have to say that I listen to Radio 4 on long wave, not on FM, and I have no difficulty with it at all.

I am glad that the hon. Gentleman has pointed out that the proposals represent a huge expansion of parliamentary coverage, which builds on the large expansion in recent years. That contrasts with the attitude of newspapers and other media, which tend to ignore Parliament. Does the hon. Gentleman agree that it is up to schedulers, not politicians, to schedule programmes on the BBC? Does he accept the point made by my hon. Friend the Member for Linlithgow (Mr. Dalyell), that part of the problem is us: we are boring and announcements are made on the "Today" programme and "The World at One", not in this place?

I was coming to that point, and I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for making it for me.

Radio 5 Live is an excellent service: it comes to the House and covers live Prime Minister's Question Time; in addition, when Ministers are good enough to come to the House to make the occasional statement, it covers those as well. Radio 5 Live covers in a very good form a great deal of current affairs, news and politics throughout the evening. Radio 4 currently provides excellent coverage, and it is clear that that will be extended.

The hon. Member for Exeter (Mr. Bradshaw) is absolutely right, as is the hon. Member for Linlithgow (Mr. Dalyell), to lay the blame fairly and squarely in this Chamber. For this debate, there are more people in the Public Gallery than there are in the Chamber—there are about 13 Members of Parliament present. We are all aware of the pressures on Members' time resulting from constituency work or Committee work—I myself was guilty of that earlier this morning. It is not necessarily a fault that the fulcrum of debate has shifted from the Chamber of the House of Commons to other places, including the media, but we cannot blame the BBC for that.

Although critical of some aspects of Mr. Bannister's proposals, I broadly support them and I wish him well. I want to hear the extended coverage, because I believe that the BBC does a very good job.

It is right that we should be having this debate about the future of the BBC's parliamentary broadcasting, not just because it is a subject of close interest to Members of Parliament but because the broadcasting of the proceedings of Parliament to the public plays an essential part in our democratic process. I congratulate the hon. Member for Rotherham (Mr. MacShane) on securing the debate and making his case so cogently. I also congratulate the other right hon. and hon. Members who have contributed.

The BBC is so well established; also it is not just a British institution. I share the high esteem and affection in which it is held. It has brought the most important events of the century into the homes and lives of millions of people. Highly professional BBC commentators and interviewers have become household names. The BBC also performs an invaluable function through its regional broadcast services, strengthening the identity of communities and highlighting issues of local interest.

More recently, the BBC began to broadcast the proceedings of both Houses of Parliament, providing a direct link between the people and their representatives. There is no filter, no comment and no spin. Politicians are shown not as they might wish to present themselves to television and radio presenters and the public, but as they make their arguments and are held to account by their political opponents. Parliament is the heart of our democracy. Coverage of it is an unparalleled insight into how our democracy works.

The BBC is subject to pressure for change in the same way as other institutions. It has to adapt to changes in contemporary society. Not all such pressures are necessarily for the good or are likely to endure. In succumbing to them, the BBC may risk its unique relationship with Parliament and do a disservice to the democratic process.

The emergence of rich, vocal and powerful single-issue pressure groups as a major influence is one of the most significant changes in our national life in recent years. Campaigners have discovered that they can be more influential in impacting political decisions from outside the party political process than from within it. In Parliament, competing claims are balanced by Government and Opposition in the knowledge that both will eventually be held to account for their actions by the electorate. Outside Parliament, there is no counterweight to the shrill claims of single-issue groups. One example of how a decision on a serious issue can be derailed by a pressure group was the Brent Spar episode. Ironically, the ultimate effect was the reverse of minimising the environmental impact. The biggest challenge for the BBC and the other media is how to deal with the influence of pressure groups in their political coverage.

The growing importance of the media in political debate in recent years has led to the professional packaging of political arguments for the media as almost an art form. The soundbite culture has emerged. The tendency for Government policy announcements to be made outside the House of Commons, whether in exclusive press briefings or amid the razzmatazz of press launches, has undoubtedly reduced the accountability of the Government and the scrutiny that their policies receive. That practice has grown over the years, but it has mushroomed recently.

More seriously, Madam Speaker has repeatedly criticised Ministers for making announcements about Government policies outside the House. Regrettably, the desire to control the news has resulted in an incessant drip feed of headline-grabbing stories that often damage the credibility of the Minister, the Department or the project involved.

The BBC is caught between the need to preserve and enhance its audience figures and its overriding duty as a public service organisation. In the age of the soundbite and instant response, there is not the time for broadcasters to give the detailed consideration to political issues that Parliament can. Broadcasters are not in a position to demand information of the Government as Parliament does.

We live in an era of unprecedented news management. Perhaps it was ever thus, but the practice has latterly scaled new heights. The Prime Minister's press secretary recently complained that the BBC has become a

"downmarket, dumbed-down, over-staffed, over-bureaucratic, ridiculous organisation."

Indeed. Governments can be tempted to avoid public accountability, but Oppositions have a duty to hold them to account. The BBC has a public service duty to assist that scrutiny fairly and openly.

Alastair Campbell's comments were greeted with dismay. However, commentators missed the point. As a professional news manager, he wants nothing more than dumbed-down, downmarket coverage. The raison d'être of his ilk is to replace substance with spin.

All Governments have sought to manage the way in which their policies are reported in the news media, but, by any objective standards, this Government have gone to extraordinary lengths to present themselves in a favourable light. That is why it is vital that Parliament should continue to be able to hold the Government to account and that the public should know about it.

The specific changes proposed by the BBC are not acceptable or appropriate. The number of long wave listeners is in decline. The BBC's audience figures for the two key programmes—"Yesterday in Parliament" and "Today in Parliament"—do not bear close scrutiny. We have all taken on board the comments of the right hon. Member for Ashton-under-Lyne (Mr. Sheldon) and my right hon. Friend the Member for Haltemprice and Howden (Mr. Davis) about the removal of "In Committee".

We are told that the public find our proceedings boring. That does not absolve the BBC from its duty to present our proceedings to the public as they are. It is not their duty to make Parliament more entertaining by jazzing up their coverage or concentrating on the more trivial exchanges.

Increasing coverage by an average of eight minutes a day is no compensation for switching Parliament to the wavelength with a declining audience. I do not accept that the format of "Yesterday in Parliament" is what makes people tune out or switch off when it begins. Let me be clear: the Opposition oppose the proposed changes. I should be grateful for an unequivocal statement of the Government's position from the Minister.

Over the years, Parliament has sought to protect the finances, integrity and independence of the BBC. I was among the many Members of Parliament on both sides of the House who sought to prevent cuts to the World Service budget. The importance of the BBC is its unique status as a public service broadcaster funded by the licence fee. That funding arrangement frees it from the financial pressures that beset purely commercial broadcasters. With that comes a special obligation to pursue the highest standards of broadcasting and reporting.

Just as Parliament has a duty to the BBC, the BBC has a duty to inform the public about the role of Parliament, including those aspects of Parliament that, while not dramatic, are an essential part of the democratic process. We believe that the proposed changes undermine that public responsibility. I hope that the BBC will accept its duty and urgently think again about the changes that it is proposing.

I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Rotherham (Mr. MacShane) on securing the debate and introducing it with such clarity and force. The subject has been of considerable concern to the House since the BBC announced its proposed changes last July: there have been many written and oral questions Madam Speaker has corresponded at considerable length with the chairman of the BBC; my hon. Friend the Member for Walsall, North (Mr. Winnick) secured an Adjournment debate on the subject last December; and the Select Committee on Culture, Media and Sport took evidence on 24 February. It is clear from all that that Parliament is exercised. As the hon. Member for Macclesfield (Mr. Winterton) has noted, it is nearly unanimous in its view today.

We have had an excellent debate. There has been general agreement about the excellence of the BBC's political journalism. It is because of that excellence and the proper rigour of scrutiny that that coverage puts on the Government and the work of the House that hon. Members are concerned about possible damage to its quality or effective reach. Two basic questions have run through the debate: what precise effect will the changes have; and, will they be consistent with the obligation placed on the BBC in its 1948 royal charter and agreement to

"transmit an impartial account, day by day, prepared by professional reporters, of the proceedings in both Houses of Parliament"?

Decisions about programme content and scheduling that express that obligation are, as my hon. Friend the Member for Exeter (Mr. Bradshaw) said, wholly a matter for the BBC, which has and must have complete editorial independence, but the fulfilment of that obligation is important. Its purpose is not in doubt: to allow the public to hear the work of the House and to draw their own conclusions.

Some people have commented on the lack of hon. Members present. Is my hon. Friend aware that no fewer than 12 Standing and Select Committees are at work this morning, with up to 20 hon. Members in each? Is he also aware that the parliamentary Labour party is meeting at the moment, attended by between 40 and 150 Members? The absence of hon. Members in the Chamber does not mean that this House and MPs are not at work. To deny that work to listeners of "Today" will be a serious diminution of the reporting of the House.

I am grateful to my hon. Friend for making that important point. The right hon. Member for Haltemprice and Howden (Mr. Davis), the Chairman of the Public Accounts Committee, and my right hon. Friend the Member for Ashton-under-Lyne (Mr. Sheldon), the former PAC Chairman, made that point in their very important speeches. I am glad that the right hon. Gentleman has returned to the Chamber. His speech reflected exactly the importance of Committee work.

Let us be clear about what the changes consist of. "Yesterday in Parliament" is to be broadcast for 23 minutes instead of the current 14 minutes, but it will be broadcast only on long wave. "Today in Parliament" is to be extended on Fridays by 15 minutes to include coverage of Select Committees, but will also be broadcast only on long wave. A new Sunday evening programme, "The Westminster Hour" is to replace "In Committee", to which we will come in a moment. As hon. Members have pointed out, the new programme will, rather bizarrely, run throughout the year and therefore during weeks in which the House will not be sitting.

There will be a new nightly television programme covering Parliament, a new parliamentary web site as part of the BBC's News Online, and "The Week in Westminster" is to move from 11 am on Saturdays to 8.30 pm on Thursdays—a slot devoted to Parliament and politics all the year round. Again, the same point about the sittings of the House applies.

The BBC claims that the proposed changes represent a net gain in parliamentary coverage. Overall, there will be an additional 55 hours of parliamentary and Westminster-related programming a year on radio and an additional 24 hours a year on television. However, much of that radio coverage will be on long wave.

Arguments expressed in the debate have tested the effect of the new schedule. Will there be a net loss of listeners in the shift to long wave? The answer is clearly yes. On the BBC's own projections, the audience for "Yesterday in Parliament" is likely to fall from 1.3 million to 700,000, so a 50 per cent. increase in programme time will be offset by a near 50 per cent. fall in audience.

The move of "The Week in Westminster" from Saturdays, following Ned Sherrin's "Loose Ends", to 8.30 pm on Thursday evening, is likely to produce a fall in audience from 732,000 to—probably—nearer 300,000. As hon. Members have made clear, that is a particularly strange change as the week ends on Thursday evening for very few of us, especially not in the House. As much as hon. Members like getting away quite early on Thursday evenings, the House has been sitting and working hard until late on Thursday evenings—and last week one of the most significant debates of the year, which reflected the concern of people who live in the countryside and touched many people, occurred on a Friday. It would have been missed by the new programme on Thursday evening. The answer to the question about loss of listeners is therefore clear.

Will the quality fall? The right hon. Member for Haltemprice and Howden and my right hon. Friend the Member for Ashton-under-Lyne made important points about the loss of "In Committee". Although the multi-item, magazine format programme, "The Westminster Hour" will run for 50 minutes—instead of the 30-minute "In Committee"—will that compensate for hard, detailed reporting of Committees? It is not comment on that work that the public ought to have the opportunity to hear; the question is how the PAC and other Select Committees are scrutinising the work of government. That is why Select Committees were set up in the first place.

The Minister has already referred to the curious fact that some of the programmes will be broadcast when Parliament is not sitting. Have the governors and the chairman of the BBC given Ministers any indication of exactly what reportage they intend to include in "The Westminster Hour"? Will not it simply be speculative comment?

They have not done so yet; that remains to be seen. As hon. Members have said, it is likely that the programme will talk about politics generally—perhaps the work of Whitehall particularly. Although such general political comment is important all 52 weeks of the year, it is rather different from the BBC's charter obligation to cover the House day by day.

Unless broadcasters provide the dedicated channels for Committee work and proceedings on the Floor of the House that I and others have advocated for a long time, there will be some selection. The Minister is being slightly churlish. If the programme continues when the House is not sitting, one of the criticisms—which we have all made—that an enormous amount of Committee and other work is never covered, may be addressed. There is no reason why, in hindsight, a look at some of the very important work in Select Committees and other Committees should not be taken. I would hope to hear and see such material used when the House is not sitting.

The hon. Gentleman makes a point. In fact, although Select Committees do some work when the House is not sitting, they are notable for their work load during such times.

I should make clear that, my concern is not for the PAC, which gets enormous coverage on a weekly basis, but for the sterling work done by other Select Committees, which is not often covered on any other medium but "In Committee" and will be lost in an hour-long, magazine format programme designed to cover something exciting rather than valuable.

Behind all this there is a general concern about dumbing down. The hon. Member for North Thanet (Mr. Gale) made a good point about a dedicated programme, which would be possible now. Further opportunities will be possible once we have digital broadcasting. However, the problem of reach also applies to digital broadcasting. Is the charter obligation fulfilled by digital broadcasting to a very small audience, or are we talking about a more complicated matrix of reach and quality?

In some areas, reception on long wave, which is crucial to the changes is, according to the chairman of the BBC governors in a letter to Madam Speaker, "poor". Additional medium wave transmitters are used in Northern Ireland, northern England, east Scotland, Devon and Cornwall.

Mr. Bannister, who has been referred to, believes that the package taken in the round will enhance coverage of the proceedings of Parliament. It is clear that the strategy does not commend itself to the Public Accounts Committee—its Chairman has expressed his view forcefully—Madam Speaker or the House.

In the remaining few seconds of the debate, will the Minister indicate clearly his view and what he will say on behalf of the Government and his Department in discussions with the BBC about the future broadcasting of proceedings of the House?

I make it clear that the Government's proper concern is the fulfilment of the charter and the charter agreement, which is what we are debating today. It is a complicated matter and I shall turn to it precisely.

Do the changes satisfy the obligation in the charter and the agreement? Does the way in which the BBC has proposed the changes satisfy the obligation to be accountable to Parliament? The answer to the first question must be yes. The programmes fulfil the obligation to transmit an impartial account day by day—even If that account is consciously scheduled so as to attract a smaller audience. The wording of the charter is about whether there is reporting day by day; that obligation is fulfilled. However, it is a matter of the spirit as well as the letter of the agreement, and that is what we are debating today.

Tomorrow, Sir Christopher Bland will hear in person the views that have been expressed today. In the next two weeks, before the Radio Times schedule is printed for 6 April—when the new programming is due to commence—he will have the opportunity to listen to the clearly expressed views of Parliament.

My constituents who live in the district of East Devon have for some time faced the prospect of a new town being built immediately adjacent to the village of Broadclyst, which is quite close to the Exeter city boundary. When the Devon county structure plan first review deposit version was published in 1996, I sent—as the Member of Parliament representing the area—a written submission in response to that plan. In the main, I supported the views of East Devon district council. In my letter to the county environment director in December 1996, I said that my views reflected those of the district council in that I felt that a new town would be highly inappropriate, and I expressed some sympathy with the proposal for a limited village.

We all accept that there must be new housing—I do not approach the debate from the point of view that we do not need new housing. However, I hope that the debate will identify what is appropriate in terms of the number and location of houses. I said in my submission that the decision to build a new town in my constituency should be deferred for five years while a full audit of brown-field sites throughout the county of Devon was conducted. The term "brown-field sites"—which is common parlance these days—refers to disused land that was used for domestic or commercial purposes and can be recycled.

My view remained unchanged in September last year when the examination in public met at county hall for three weeks. I spent three days giving evidence to the public inquiry on behalf of my constituents about the overall number of new houses proposed in the county structure plan for Devon, and specifically about the proposed new town at Broadclyst. I repeated to the inquiry my request for a deferment of the decision to build the town until a full audit of brown-field sites throughout Devon was completed.

The inquiry heard evidence from many representatives, including some from the city of Exeter and from Torbay—I see that the hon. Members for Exeter (Mr. Bradshaw) and for Torbay (Mr. Sanders) are both in their places. Perhaps not surprisingly, the representatives of the two local authorities declared that they had virtually no brown-field sites within their boroughs and that there was no alternative but to begin to encroach on the green-field sites in my constituency.

We must address two key questions when identifying housing need in Devon. The first is the assessment of total future numbers. An imperfect science seems to determine how many houses will be needed well into the future—in this case, we are looking beyond 2011. The Liberal Democrat-controlled county council has used inward migration figures of 7,330 a year to support its claim. In fact, the average over the past seven years has been just 5,000 a year, so there is already a difference of opinion in anticipating housing need.

At the examination in public, all parties around the table spent a great deal of time examining changes in social patterns within the region and discussing why we now needed more, and a greater variety of, housing. The inquiry engaged in constructive discussion, but there is always a thorny issue. Devon is a popular part of the country, where I am fortunate to have lived for 30 years. Other hon. Members will know Devon through their visits to that county. Devon is the sort of place where people from other parts of the country want to live. They often cannot fulfil that ambition until they retire, so Devon is known as a retirement area.

I do not wish the House to suppose for a moment that I am one of those who think that we should "keep those foreigners out" or that I am not receptive to the idea that others would like to enjoy the Devon life style. I do not want anyone to misinterpret the case that I am making. However, there is a difference between natural inward migration by people who choose to live in Devon and what I would describe as an out-and-out marketing campaign by those who have a vested interest in persuading people to move to Devon. As I said at the examination in public, I believe that such action distorts the figures.

The county believes that we must accommodate inward migration of 7,330 a year, but the historic figure is 5,000 a year. The difference equates to about 1,000 homes a year. If we apply the 5,000-a-year formula, we see that we would not need a new town in numerical terms—and certainly not one at Broadclyst. The second factor that comes into play is location. The East Devon district has no indigenous need for new housing on this scale. The location, which is adjacent to the Exeter city border, is an important reason why Broadclyst has been chosen: it is intended to accommodate the growth and overspill of the city of Exeter.

I have every sympathy with Exeter's need for housing. My constituency shares services and facilities supplied by Exeter, including the general hospital, and the city provides employment opportunities. We understand the importance of Exeter to our part of Devon. I am very fond of Exeter: both of my sons were born there, so what more can a mother say? I can pay no greater compliment to the city of Exeter. However, I do not believe that it is in the interests of my constituents in neighbouring East Devon to accommodate Exeter's problems on such a large scale. It is proposed that 3,000 homes be built in the new town to accommodate 8,000 people eventually.

The Liberal Democrat county council and the examination in public have ignored what local people want and the views that they reflect through me, their democratically elected representative. Before the examination in public response was published recently, I was advised by the county council that the lobby groups would not be pleased by the result of the inquiry. I was obliged to inform the council that I am the lobby group in my area, so I have no problem with the Council for the Protection of Rural England or any other lobby group approaching me and saying, "Look at this terrible result from the examination in public". I argued against the new town during that hearing, and I shall continue to lobby against it.

In the Western Morning News on Monday, deputy leader of the town council Rod Ruffle said:

"The view that I and some others in the group take is that providing two new towns in East Devon and the South Hams"—

a second town is planned for Devon—

"will create less damage to the countryside than expanding existing towns and villages."

Let us examine that claim. If he meant that the way forward was to expand on to green-field sites around and within existing towns and villages, he might have a point. However, I and others have called for an independent audit of brown-field or recycled land to identify land suitable to accommodate new houses. If, at the end of such an audit, it was found that those sites would not accommodate a sufficient number, there might be a case for saying that we should consider having a bigger settlement. Areas of land in my constituency would then need to be considered, as would land in other constituencies.

However, that is not what has happened. At the EIP, we heard that Exeter city council had carried out an audit. Indeed, certain developers attended the EIP and said that they had also carried out an audit of brown-field sites. I am asking the Minister for an audit carried out, or certainly scrutinised, by a body that does not have a vested interest in the outcome. Clearly, if developers have their eye on a certain piece of land, they have everything to gain and nothing to lose by carrying out an audit that does not really reflect the full potential of brown-field sites elsewhere. I and many of my constituents are not convinced that a proper independent audit to determine potential brown-field sites has been carried out in Exeter or around it—certainly not in the county of Devon.

Surprisingly, and probably for the first time in my life, I found myself agreeing with the Deputy Prime Minister, when he said in a recent statement to the House:

"In future, we shall expect each regional planning conference to make a proper assessment of land availability and set regional targets for the use of recycled land. That has never been done before. It is an important change."

When the right hon. Gentleman tells us at the Dispatch Box that that has never been done before and is an important change, it begs the question of what sort of audit was carried out in the evidence to the EIP last September at county hall, Exeter. I welcome that news from the Deputy Prime Minister. He continued:

"it will sharpen the focus of policy and action on the ground",

and that is exactly what this debate is about. He went on to say:

"Last week, I asked my Department to work with English Partnerships and local government to create a national database of land use, which will give local authorities reliable information on the amount of recycled land available for housing."—[Official Report, 23 February 1998; Vol. 306, c. 23.]

Clearly, since the Devon county structure plan was laid and we all took part in that examination in public in September, certain things have changed. In that spirit, I ask the Minister to intervene by giving me his support today for my original request. I am asking him to give guidance in cases such as that of Broadclyst, where we are caught between the devil and the deep blue sea. The county structure plan has been laid, we have had the examination in public and yet a useful policy is about to come forward that could affect the outcome. I repeat my request to the Minister to give guidance and to intervene, and to support what I asked for in 1996, which was a moratorium while the exercise is carried out. When we have examined fully exactly how much brown-field land there is in Devon and whether it is appropriate for the new housing need, a decision can be taken about whether to proceed with a new town.

Many people may think that no real decisions are taken until the democratic process—whereby all those different stages in the county structure plan invite people such as myself and others to participate, to make proposals reflecting our local views and to explain what residents think—is completed. I will, therefore, now turn to the examination in public held at county hall last September. Just after the first deposit version of the county structure plan was laid, a company called Wilcon Homes—

Surely the plan stems from a planning conference in 1992, when the Conservative party was in control of county hall as well as central Government. I agree with much of what the hon. Lady has said, but she is not going back far enough to find the origins of the plan. I hope that the Minister will impose certain duties on Devon to look at more brown-field sites, which could be done. However, the origins of the plan are not as recent as she is leading us to believe.

I am about to read some correspondence from the previous Administration, as I took the matter up with them as well as making my representations to the Minister this morning.

As I was saying, in November 1996, Wilcon Homes put out literature and held a travelling road show to promote "Clyst Hayes". I had never heard of the place, but I have a leaflet here describing it and Clyst Hayes turns out to be the name that the developers had already given the new town. As is evident, this leaflet is not some cheap piece of literature—it is in full colour and glossy.

The road show went round many towns in east Devon, travelling as far away as Sidmouth and Axminster, which may not mean much to people here, but they are some little way from Broadclyst. Wilcon Homes asked people in neighbouring towns whether they wanted a new town at Broadclyst. Of course, they were told that without it, their own towns and villages would be developed further, so it is not surprising that they ticked the yes box in support. That was presented to the EIP as evidence of local support.

I wrote to the then Minister of State, Department of State for the Environment, who replied on 27 January 1997:

"It would not normally be appropriate for detailed discussions about the merits of a particular site to take place at an examination in public. The need to respect local preferences means that specific proposals for new settlements should normally only be promoted through district wide local plans. If, following the examination,"

which had yet to take place,

"the new settlement strategy is retained"

we are talking broad principles and not specifics—

"then it would be for the East Devon District Council, as the local planning authority, to consider whether the location proposed by Wilcon Homes is acceptable."

However, the EIP was specific. The land in question—Clyst Hayes, the town named by the developers although they had not gone through the full democratic process—is mainly farm land and stretches from Broadclyst station to the A30, where it meets Exeter airport.

Is the hon. Lady aware that one of the farmers who could make much money out of this project is the chairman of one of her local parish councils and was a leading light on the recent Countryside march? Does she not think that a little hypocritical?

I am aware, as I was about to get to that point in my speech, that Wilcon Homes had taken options on the land some period beforehand and said so at the EIP. So the site was not being discussed in general terms. The EIP was site specific. In fact, it was so much so that technical experts were called to give evidence about the noise of ground testing aircraft engines as the proposed land runs up to the perimeter of Exeter airport, where some companies service engines. Exeter airport falls in my constituency, as the hon. Member for Exeter will know.

When it was revealed that the developers had already secured options on the land, as the hon. Member for Exeter said, and that the democratic process of the EIP was taking evidence from people whose businesses could affect the noise distraction for houses on a specific part of that land, I was extremely suspicious. What price democracy if democratically elected representatives such as myself take the trouble to go through the process of the county structure plan, make written submissions, consult constituents and give up three days in September to give evidence on their behalf, only to find that all that has gone on in the background?

The EIP found in favour of the new town—I was not terribly surprised. Moreover, it recommended that east Devon should accommodate 1,500 houses over and above those proposed in the structure plan. Frankly, I hold out little hope in either county hall or the results of the so-called democratic process of the county structure plan review.

Although I have written to the chief executive, again requesting that a moratorium be placed on the decision to build the new town, I would appreciate—especially in the light of the Government's recent announcement—the Minister's help and support, as I do not think that the democratic process has been properly observed. I believe that my constituents, particularly those who live in the Broadclyst area, deserve better.

I congratulate the hon. Member for Tiverton and Honiton (Mrs. Browning) on securing this Adjournment debate, as I know that she has maintained an interest in this subject for a considerable time—indeed, since Devon county council first proposed its strategy for two new communities to help to provide for the county's housing needs. I noted her comments on both her constituency and the adjacent town of Exeter, which I know well. I entirely endorse her view that it is an extremely attractive town—

City.

It is an extremely attractive city—I am delighted that my hon. Friend the Member for Exeter (Mr. Bradshaw) is present for this debate.

The debate is very timely, following so closely the publication on 23 February of our paper, "Planning for the Communities of the Future", to which the hon. Lady referred. The paper sets out the results of our analysis of the system that we inherited for calculating and providing for the country's housing needs. It sets out our strategy for promoting more sustainable patterns of development and for encouraging urban renewal. We want to ensure that, where development is needed outside or adjacent to urban areas, it is sustainable—it must be combined with an active approach to the protection of the countryside.

That differs from the previous system, which has been seen as top-down, inflexible and too rigidly wedded to the principle of predict and provide. Our proposals represent a sustainable, democratic and comprehensive approach to meeting the country's housing needs—which, as the hon. Lady rightly stressed, is an important issue—while respecting the need to protect the countryside.

On the specific subject raised by the hon. Lady, my understanding is that the only proposal currently in the public domain for a new community in east Devon relates to the county council's strategy that was set out in the structure plan. The local planning authority has, as yet, no firm proposal to build a new town at Broadclyst. East Devon district council has not yet progressed its local plan to a point at which specific sites have been identified to accommodate growth in the district to 2011. Moreover, to my knowledge, no application for planning permission to build a new town has yet been submitted to the local planning authority.

I am aware, however, that in 1996, shortly after the Devon structure plan was placed on deposit, Wilcon Homes identified an area of land between Broadclyst railway station and Exeter airport on which it suggested that it would be possible to locate a new settlement of some 3,000 houses to be known as Clyst Hayes. The hon. Lady referred to some of the publicity that was attached to those proposals.

A new community in east Devon is a key element of the county council's strategy for accommodating growth, but the structure plan contains no site-specific locations—indeed, that would not have been appropriate for such a document. All the parties involved in the structure plan process accept that the appropriate place to identify site-specific locations is the local plan, which is to be prepared by the district council.

I hope that the Minister heard even a small portion of the discussions about the site at the EIP.

I assure the hon. Lady that I shall mention the EIP in a moment.

Proposal N2 of the structure plan states:

"A new community should be provided for within East Devon District, within the Exeter Area of Economic Activity as shown on the Key Diagram. The new community should include provision for about 3,000 dwellings, associated employment land provision and a range of community and other associated facilities."

The proposal also sets out the general criteria to be met before the community could be permitted. Those criteria provide for the community to be located where it can, first, be assimilated into the landscape of the area; secondly, avoid as far as possible the use of significant areas of the best and most versatile agricultural land; thirdly, be related to, but separate from, existing settlements; fourthly, access the Exeter-Waterloo rail line by means of a new railway station; fifthly, be accessible to the high-quality road network and the local highway system; and, sixthly, be developed without adversely affecting the operation of Exeter airport—it should not be affected by unacceptable levels of aircraft noise.

The county proposed to provide in East Devon district some 9,700 new dwellings, of which some 3,500 should be in the main area of economic activity—about 5,600 new dwellings were proposed for Exeter. The Exeter main area of economic activity was identified by the county council as a key location for the future development of the county's economy, which was reflected in the provision for 9,100 dwellings in the area between 1995 and 2011.

The county considered that there was insufficient capacity in existing settlements to meet such provision. It found that expansion on the periphery of Exeter was severely restricted by topography, agricultural land and other physical constraints, that opportunities to expand other settlements in the area were limited, and that the scale of such expansion would in any case be such that the character and setting of an expanded settlement could not be retained.

That is the problem—Exeter has expanded to its limits. It is surrounded by lovely green, rolling hills, and further expansion on the periphery would alter the character of the city out of all recognition.

I entirely accept my hon. Friend's point, which highlights the dilemma of trying to ensure that development pressures are accommodated in such a way as to respect the character of the area and the countryside, and to avoid creating an unnecessary urban sprawl that would damage people's enjoyment of the countryside.

I cannot let the hon. Member for Exeter (Mr. Bradshaw) get away with his comment. Those lovely green, rolling hills on which his constituents look out are all mine.

I am delighted that there is unanimity across the Chamber on the attractiveness of the countryside in that area, which, as a regular visitor, I entirely endorse.

To meet the identified need, the county believed that a new community offered the only satisfactory and sustainable solution. To accommodate the proposed level of development for the Exeter area, it considered that the new community would need to provide for 3,000 dwellings and land for any associated employment. That provision was considered the minimum at which a new community could achieve some self-sufficiency and support an adequate range of local facilities and services.

The county accepted that new communities represented a major new approach to development in the county. It wanted sustainable development of the highest-quality design; an integrated transport system that would promote the use of modes of transport other than the private car; and development that would minimise not only the need to travel, but waste and pollution.

After the structure plan had been placed on deposit in November 1996, there was a six-week period for objections and representations to be submitted to the county council. A panel was appointed, led by an independent chairman, Professor Graham Shaylor, to conduct the examination in public to which the hon. Lady has referred. The EIP was held between 16 September and 9 October 1997. The panel submitted its report to the county council in January 1998—it was made public shortly afterwards.

A number of key issues were debated at the examination by selected participants with a range of interests—I know that the hon. Lady took a close interest in that process. Relevant discussions included the strategy, the countywide provision for housing and the distribution of development in the Exeter, east Devon and mid-Devon areas. In those discussions, the county council's proposals for the overall level and distribution of housing provision and the proposals for two new communities were debated in considerable depth.

Having heard all the representations to the EIP, the panel concluded that the overall housing provision for the county should be increased, in line with household projections, from 74,500 to 79,000, which was some 4,000 less than the figure that was given in the regional planning guidance for the south-west. The allocation for Exeter city was recommended to be increased by 800 to 6,400.

The panel felt that, in east Devon, there was sufficient scope for new development to be assimilated into the landscape and that the existence of a good road and rail infrastructure would help to ensure that new development was not entirely dependent on the private car. It therefore recommended that housing provision be increased by 1,500 to 11,200.

While the panel supported the concept of a new community east of Exeter, arguments about the specific location were not part of its brief. The panel felt strongly that the strategic importance of this area to the county as a whole, its benefits in locational and economic terms and the high level of unmet need in that part of the county should be considered.

The structure planning authority for Devon currently comprises the county council, along with Dartmoor and Exmoor national park authorities, and, with effect from 1 April, they will be joined by Plymouth and Torbay unitary authorities. Together, they will consider the additional information provided by the examination in public, along with the written objections and representations received, and decide whether a new community is the most sustainable solution to provide for the housing needs—

Order. We now come to the next Adjournment debate.

I am grateful for the opportunity to raise with the House and with my hon. Friend the Minister important questions that face health services in England's second city. It is particularly appropriate that the debate takes place today, as Birmingham health authority is in the middle of a major review aimed at developing a strategic framework for health care in the city into the new millennium. In putting behind us the destructive, dog-eat-dog days of the internal market, the Government have urged health authorities to take on a strategic and visionary role. I welcome the fact that Birmingham health authority is attempting to do that and I emphasise the importance of a full partnership with the people of the city.

It is difficult to look to the future of health care in Birmingham when the legacy of the past hangs over us so much. In the last Parliament, I had several Adjournment debates on bungled reorganisations and financial scandals in the then South Birmingham health authority and West Midlands regional health authority. There were Public Accounts Committee reports on those authorities. My hon. Friend the Member for Birmingham, Selly Oak (Dr. Jones) was also very vocal on the issue. A climate of mistrust remains about any proposals for change and for the future of health care in the city. I understand that. As well as addressing my hon. Friend the Minister today, I address people in Birmingham. The time has come to put that mistrust behind us.

The services offered by health service staff in Birmingham are nationally and, in many cases, internationally renowned. The work of Birmingham Children's hospital and of the burns unit at the University Hospital Birmingham NHS trust, and that hospital's work on cancer and renal disease, are all internationally renowned. The University Hospital Birmingham NHS trust, Birmingham Women's hospital, Birmingham Children's hospital, Birmingham Heartlands hospital, the City hospital, Royal Orthopaedic hospital and Good Hope hospital are internationally and nationally renowned, and that remained the case throughout the scandals. As far as the health authority is concerned, those days of financial scandals and deficits are over. It was painful, but the problems were faced and dealt with.

Now pioneering work is being done in Birmingham on the local commissioning that forms the cornerstone of the Government's policy and is a consistent theme running through the recent White Paper and the Green Paper. Birmingham health authority, in conjunction with the voluntary sector and the city council, has recently made a bid for a health action zone.

We are getting things together in Birmingham, but our needs are still acute. The care provided by staff is second to none, but all too often it takes place in buildings and surroundings barely fit for this century, let alone the next. The last hospital built in Birmingham was Queen Elizabeth hospital. People in Birmingham sometimes think that the name refers to the present Queen, but it does not. The hospital was built in 1938.

I crossed swords with the former regional health authority on several occasions over its bungled reorganisations, but one matter about which it was right was Birmingham's major capital investment needs. It estimated that about £500 million of capital investment was needed in Birmingham's health infrastructure over 12 years. We have seen between £120 million and £130 million of that so far. We still have no news about the rest.

Let us take the example of breast cancer services at the University Hospital Birmingham NHS trust. The services are first class and Calman accredited. An integrated approach is taken to breast care. However, if a woman goes for a mammogram in a hut at Selly Oak hospital and there are more patients than chairs in that hut at any one time, there is nowhere for her even to sit down. That is not appropriate in this day and age. If she needs a biopsy, that will be done the same day and she will get the results the same day. That is great, but she will probably have to sit in a corridor at what may be the most stressful and distressing time of her life. If she then needs breast surgery, she will go Queen Elizabeth hospital. She will be treated on a ward where the staff are first class, but there are simply not enough toilets for the patients.

The £200 million that the Government have made available to improve breast care is welcome. It will significantly improve radiotherapy services in the city and at the trust, but there is still a massive job to be done to tackle problems such as those that I outlined. Breast care is just one example. Many other examples could be given.

We need new investment; of that there is no doubt. We need a major programme of building refurbishment and replacement in Birmingham's hospitals. The health authority has some ideas and others have come from many quarters. I ask my hon. Friend the Minister to speak to his right hon. and hon. Friends in the Government and recognise the real needs in Birmingham.

On the framework in which any future investment will take place, I understand that the private finance initiative remains the cornerstone of major capital investments under this Government. Under the previous Government, there was one major problem with the PFI. Whatever else could be said about it, it did not produce any hospitals. At least under the new Government it is working far better.

However, the PFI can be a straitjacket to investment. In meeting investment needs not only in Birmingham but elsewhere, my hon. Friend the Minister must ensure that the needs of the service and of patients are put first and the investment framework is built around it, rather than trying to shoe-horn the needs of patients and services into a given investment framework.

Not only hospital development is important to Birmingham's health services. One of the strengths of the local health authority's review is that it places hospital development in a context and reinforces and embodies the vision in the White Paper. Unless primary care works, the rest of the health service cannot work properly or effectively. Pioneering work has already been done in Birmingham in developing locality commissioning. A multi-fund has been set up. Fundholders got together, even under the previous Government, perhaps to the embarrassment of the Conservatives, to work co-operatively and pool their resources in the interests of patients.

The problems that we face are still huge. In Birmingham, life expectancy is below the national average. We have one of the highest perinatal mortality rates in the country. We have one of the highest proportions of babies of low birth weight. We are in the worst quartile for coronary heart disease. Birmingham is the seventh most deprived health district in the country. Integrated primary care and anti-poverty strategies are therefore vital. That is why I welcome the White Paper, the Green Paper and the new deal. That is why it is so important that we have a national minimum wage to tackle poverty. However, if those policies are to work, we also need to tackle the problems of the infrastructure of primary care in our city.

In the next 10 years, between 35 and 40 per cent. of general practitioners who serve the most deprived areas of our city will retire. Unless we tackle that problem, we cannot develop the type of primary care that we need in our city. The health authority, GPs and other health professionals are adopting imaginative and innovative approaches to developing primary care, but they need support. They are getting that through the White Paper and the Green Paper, but they need infrastructure support and resources.

I shall deal briefly with the way in which resources are allocated in the health service and the problems that that creates for Birmingham. Sadly, the current resource allocation formula does not meet Birmingham's needs. As I said, the city suffers from multiple deprivation. The great flaw in the resource allocation formula is that age-related need is not related to deprivation in the city.

The formulas are rather complicated, but the effect is real enough. As we know from the days of the Black report onwards, if substantial parts of the population are poor, that means lower life expectancy: people die in greater numbers before they reach old age. The current allocation formula can mean that such a city gets relatively fewer resources, rather than more. The result is that in Birmingham the health service gets about £533 per resident, which is less than many other cities and less than Kensington and Chelsea, and Westminster.

Studies undertaken by Birmingham health authority show that if the age and deprivation measures were taken into account in the same formula, the city would get an extra £17 million in resources to support its health care.

I welcome the Government's approach to the national health service. We are putting the days of the internal market behind us. The Government have shown that we are prepared to put more resources into health care and to give the NHS the priority that it needs, which is especially appropriate this year, the 50th anniversary of the NHS.

In Birmingham there is a climate of mistrust and problems from the past, but we as a city must come to terms with them. We must come to an agreement about the kind of health care that we want and how to develop it. We are making a start and looking towards a primary care-led national health service, with clear pathways to quick diagnostic treatment where that is appropriate, and stays in hospital for the necessary time, without keeping people in hospital if that is not the most suitable place for them to be. The necessary support must be provided, whether through intermediate care or home support. Where medical conditions require specialised treatment, we have the people in Birmingham who can provide that in tertiary centres in our magnificent hospital services, but the buildings are not up to scratch.

We need to develop innovative plans to take those services into the next century. We are prepared to do that, but we need support from Government. I hope that my hon. Friend the Minister will study closely what is happening to the health service in Birmingham. We welcome the reviews that are taking place, but we recognise that for those reviews to result in agreement among Birmingham people and to overcome the climate of suspicion that has lasted too long, the resources must be made available to ensure that we have the primary care networks that will be vital to health services in the future, and the investment in our hospital services that Birmingham needs.

My hon. Friend is right to refer to the climate of mistrust that has developed in Birmingham whenever we consider proposals for the reconfiguration of our health services. That is largely because people feel that change is finance driven to make savings and cut hospital resources. If we are to overcome that mistrust, it is essential that the health authority brings people along with its plans. Because of the perception that private finance is the only way to get capital resources into the health services, only schemes for which private finance is obtainable will be promoted, rather than schemes that are genuinely needed. That problem must be addressed if we are to get confidence in Birmingham—

Order. The intervention is far too long.

My hon. Friend makes an important point. The debate around private finance will go on.

It is important for my hon. Friend the Minister to hear what I am about to say, and for it to be heard outside the Chamber. The climate of mistrust is understandable, as my hon. Friend and I have acknowledged. As the debate continues, people must listen to what is being said, whether by the health authority, the trusts or the other stakeholders, rather than the worst possible construction immediately being put on every document and submission. That results in trench warfare that sends all the wrong messages to Government and does not move the health debate forward in Birmingham.

My hon. Friend the Member for Selly Oak has adopted a highly constructive and positive view of health services in the city and has worked on that for a long time. My other hon. Friends in the Birmingham group of Labour Members have also done so. It is important that, as a city, we get ourselves together, work out what we want and go for it. If we do that, I am sure that we will get support from the Government.

I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Birmingham, Northfield (Mr. Burden) on securing time to debate this very important subject. In a health authority area that encompasses seven acute trusts, two community trusts and two mental health trusts, and spends over £500 million annually on health services, it is critical that the long-term strategy for those services is robust. My hon. Friend's interest in the matter and his contribution over a number of years enormously assist us in taking forward the health interests of Birmingham constructively, as does the involvement of several of my other hon. Friends from Birmingham in the debate.

It is important to note that the debate—the tenor of which we got this afternoon—and the discussion are far from over. The conclusion of Birmingham health authority's recent public consultation on 2 March was an important starting point in developing a long-term strategy. The term "starting point" is probably a misnomer, because, as my hon. Friend mentioned and as anyone who takes an interest in the matter will know, there is a lively history of such reviews in Birmingham.

We must make sure that we do not end up with a bungled or botched job. That characterised the activities of the previous Government in relation to the health service in Birmingham. We must move to a sustainable and sustaining settlement of the outstanding issues.

A previous plan developed in the late 1980s, entitled "Building a Healthy Birmingham", failed because of the sheer scale of the capital investment that was required and its tendency to exclude primary care. It required an investment of £550 million, mainly for acute services, and a significant increase in acute beds. The previous Government's obsession with the market, the introduction of capital charges and the way in which health care was developed meant that the scale of the investment required became unsustainable.

My hon. Friend graphically described the need to invest in Birmingham, not least in a respect dear to this Government—the importance of ensuring that we tackle the scourge of breast cancer in a way that does not add to the suffering and pressures of those experiencing this condition. There is a need for more investment and to take forward proposals capable of commanding the support of the entire community.

The debate in Birmingham is taking place against a background of what my hon. Friend described as mistrust and suspicion, but we must look at the positive aspects. The relocation of the cramped and rundown Birmingham Children's hospital to the site of the former Birmingham general hospital—which will be completed in May 1998, and forms an investment of some £30 million—is good news and will deliver health gains.

There have been achievements in terms of the reprovisioning of the existing single-specialty hospitals on to acute hospital sites, where they would have all the clinical and support service back-up needed for modern health care. This has taken place after public consultation and—excluding the Royal Orthopaedic hospital, where special considerations applied—has been achieved with success.

The newly merged health authority in Birmingham must ensure that momentum is not lost, and it will ensure that steady development, year on year, keeps pace with the changing NHS. Birmingham health authority held a series of stakeholder conferences in June and July last year, each one based in the catchment area of one of the cities for main acute trusts. The contribution from those conferences formed part of the strategic planning which culminated in the consultation document.

The document sets out a number of choices, each reflecting an aspect of health care and looking at the effects of social deprivation on health. My hon. Friend is right to draw attention to Birmingham's specific problems. We have seen a positive change in the introduction of the needs element of the weighted capitation formula. Birmingham was the eighth highest gainer in the country and is now within 0.03 per cent. of its weighted capitation target.

My hon. Friend referred to the problems associated with providing high-quality primary care and the reliance on single GP practices and aging GPs, and the retirement which inevitably follows. Those will require careful managing. Inevitably, that must take place within the key principles laid down in the White Paper. The emphasis is very much on partnership.

The days in which the NHS was bedevilled by the obsession with competition and the market, which characterised the previous Government, are over. The emphasis in the new NHS is on co-operation and collaboration. That is good news. We want to maximise care for patients and shift the focus on to the quality of care, so that excellence is guaranteed to those patients.

Will the Minister take account of the lack of GP recruitment within Birmingham? Simply saying that that "needs careful management" may not be adequate, given the tremendous need in some parts of the city—particularly around the city hospital.

My hon. Friend speaks with authority on these issues, and she is right to draw the attention of those with responsibility for recruitment in Birmingham to the need to ensure that the requirements she has highlighted are taken on board.

In responding to the needs of the times, we must look at a number of models for primary care and the possible creation of ambulatory care and diagnostic centres. We must examine acute assessment, emergency admissions and intermediate care facilities for rehabilitation. The consultation document addresses those issues, which are important—particularly to the care of the elderly. We want to make sure that the lives of elderly people in Birmingham are improved in terms of their capacity to contribute actively to the community.

On rehabilitation services, there is a worry in Birmingham that the use of nursing homes and other facilities for care which was previously provided in hospital could lead us down a slippery slope towards charging. Will my hon. Friend assure us that the Government will reject that approach?

I am anxious to make sure that we have a mixed market. We must recognise the contributions of the voluntary and private sectors, and we need to make sure that managers are innovative and prepared to look at new ways of delivering rehabilitation and recuperation. I strongly urge Birmingham health authority and the local authority to think boldly and imaginatively. They must work together to meet the needs of this vulnerable section of our society.

We have issued guidance to the health authorities as part and parcel of the White Paper principles and how we intend to implement our proposals. The integrated programme of action that we set out in "The New NHS" and those elements of the Green Paper "Our Healthier Nation" is where early progress needs to be made. That is the background against which decisions will be made about health care in Birmingham.

My hon. Friends will understand that it is not my place, or that of any other member of the ministerial team, to comment on the health authority's specific proposals. There may come a time when that is necessary, but it is not now. The Government expect all strategic plans to take forward the interest of patients and health and social care, and to take into account the principles outlined in the White Paper. We want to make sure that we work together in a way that puts the patient at the heart of all that we do. The primary care groups and their development are important, and we must make sure that the local authority and the health authority work ever closer together.

On a recent visit to Birmingham Heartlands, I was enormously impressed at the way in which the NHS and the local authority are working together, and the real contribution that is made by social workers and clinical professionals alike. It is in that spirit of co-operation and collaboration that we will best serve the interests of all the people of Birmingham.

I am grateful to hon. Members who have contributed to the debate, and to my hon. Friend the Member for Northfield for taking the lead in bringing this important matter to the attention of the House.

I welcome the fact that we are having the first debate this Session on the important matter of animal experimentation, which is of considerable importance to many people in this country and to many hon. Members from all parties. I hope that the hon. Member for Newport, West (Mr. Flynn) will catch your eye, Mr. Deputy Speaker, during the debate.

I have given notice to the Minister's office of one or two of the points that I intend to raise. I hope that he will find that helpful, and that it will mean that the debate is fuller than it might otherwise have been.

In the United Kingdom, 2.7 million Home Office-approved animal experiments are carried out each year. These are

"likely to cause…pain, suffering, distress or lasting harm."

according to the "Statistics of Scientific Procedures on Living Animals". In addition, the Ministry of Defence conducts around 11,000 experiments a year, a figure which has almost trebled since 1992, when the present right hon. Member for Kensington and Chelsea (Mr. Clark) was Minister of State.

I intervene to clarify for the record that it was after I had left the Ministry of Defence that the number of experiments trebled. As the hon. Gentleman put it, it might have sounded as though they increased during my period of tenure. While I was there, I did my level best to keep them to an absolute minimum.

I am grateful for that clarification. I was going to make the point that the number of experiments has risen—unduly, in my view—since the right hon. Gentleman left his post.

Can we as a human race feel comfortable that we are using animals in this way to such an extent; that we place them in unfamiliar surroundings and often subject them to painful and gruesome experiments? I intend to show that the experimentation carried out in this country is excessive, the results are unreliable, and that alternatives exist that have yet to be fully and properly exploited.

I welcome the Government's decision to end the testing of cosmetics products, but, in reality, it has made virtually no difference to the numbers, stopping only about 800 procedures out of 2.7 million. What is more, cosmetic ingredient testing has not been banned, and it accounts for most cosmetic testing on animals. Almost 2,000 cosmetic ingredient tests took place in 1996. A supplementary note from the Home Office, published in November last year, talked about cosmetic ingredient testing. I would welcome clarification from the Minister about whether the Government have reached a conclusion on that matter.

As all cosmetic products can be classified as vanity products, do the Government agree that a comprehensive ban on all cosmetic ingredient testing is essential?

Will the Government set a target to reduce the number of animal experiments that will be carried out during the lifetime of this Parliament, and give an absolute guarantee that fewer experiments will be carried out each year at the end of it than at present? That commitment is terribly important, and I hope that the Minister will respond to it when he replies.

At a fundamental level, animal experimentation rests on a view of reality that sees living beings, in all their individuality and unpredictability, as a set of interchangeable and predictable machine parts. It examines one aspect of the body in isolation from the huge range of influences, both environmental and subjective, that affect it. It ignores the whole picture and focuses on a small detail.

That strictly limiting and short-sighted viewpoint seeks to justify the extrapolation of data from one species of animal to another. I question the very basis of the value of animal experimentation in certain circumstances. There are plenty of examples to show that the logic is fundamentally flawed. All animals are different. It is patently obvious that a mouse does not resemble a human; neither does a rat or a rabbit, yet all those animals are used in experiments, in the claim that they will benefit humans.

The fact is that all animals, including humans, react differently to different substances. They metabolise substances in different ways. They can tolerate different levels of any given substance. They obtain and need vitamins in different ways. They have different life cycles. They have different digestive and circulatory systems. Most important, all species suffer from different diseases. So how can we be sure that the experiments are reliable?

I give the Minister examples of where these experiments are unreliable: lemon juice kills cats; parsley kills parrots; penicillin kills guinea pigs; strychnine is harmless to monkeys, as is arsenic to sheep; insulin causes malfunctions in chickens, rabbits and mice; aspirin causes birth defects in monkeys; and thalidomide is safe to guinea pigs. The list is substantial and clearly demonstrates that we are foolish to rely on the reliability of animal experiments. What will the Minister do to tackle the uncertainty of the results of animal testing?

I deal now with some of the animal experiments that take place, and will look at the matter from not a human-centred but an animal-centred point of view. One of the common procedures is the LD50 test. Animals are dosed with various quantities of a substance to find out how much is needed to kill half the animals in a particular batch. The test is crude and unscientific, and causes immense suffering to animals, yet such tests have risen dramatically in recent years, to almost 200,000 in 1996.

The Government said in November that they would press for the LD50 test to be used only when "absolutely necessary". What does absolutely necessary mean? What steps is the Minister taking to eliminate that test? Why can he not simply ban it? When is it necessary? I am not convinced that it is at all necessary. The Animals (Scientific Procedures) Act 1986 requires animal suffering to be weighed against the benefit of the research before a licence is made. I suggest that, on that basis alone, the LD50 test should be banned.

Another common and particularly painful experiment is the Draize test, which is used to measure irritation. As the Minister will know, rabbits are often chosen for eye studies because they cannot blink. How appalling that animals that cannot blink are used to measure irritation in the eye. Guinea pigs are used for skin experiments. Other tests are simply beyond belief. One has to ask what on earth is the motivation behind them. Rats are forced to breathe smoke bomb fumes to investigate the effects on the lung to see whether oxygen treatment is beneficial. It is beyond belief that such tests continue.

Animals suffer not only during the tests but before and after. I draw the Minister's attention to early-day motion 802, which I tabled, with other hon. Members who are present today, to draw attention to the fact that primates have been transported to this country from Indonesia and other places, with journeys lasting up to 58 hours, in small wooden crates in aeroplane holds. The animals suffer considerably before they even arrive in a laboratory. That early-day motion has been supported by 61 hon. Members from all parts of the House.

So what great human endeavour justifies the imposition of this suffering? Forty-nine per cent. of experiments are carried out for commercial gain, not for health purposes but to produce a washing-up liquid that is more competitive, or a "new improved" scourer, or a shoe polish that cleans more effectively. The other main source is university work, which accounts for a further 29 per cent. A great deal of university work is, of course, funded by commercial concerns. In other words, animals are being made to suffer purely to improve the financial profitability of private companies. That is totally unethical.

Furthermore, the drug industry's involvement cannot be overstated. The structure and context of medical research are such that its fundamental priority is to satisfy the pharmaceutical industry's thirst for profit, which is now the largest in the world. That is the motivation. It seems that, as far as the drugs companies are concerned, a pound of flesh equals a pound of profit.

Large numbers of experiments on animals, many of which are repetitive, are carried out to test weapons—experiments such as firing a bullet into the skull of a monkey or blasting body armour worn by a pig. I have already mentioned the near trebling of the number of experiments by the Ministry of Defence at Porton Down.

Here is another question for the Minister. Will the Government honour their pre-election pledge to forbid the use of animals in the developing and testing of weapons? I hope that he heard that question. It is most important, and it is a matter of ethics.

As I have said, we as a human race are foolish to trust the reliability of medical experiments on animals. I also want to draw attention to the fact that many of the experiments are geared towards the elite end of the market, designed to perfect expensive operations such as organ transplants, from which most of the world's population will never benefit.

Such experiments are for the benefit of a small minority, and do nothing for the basic human health of most people, either in this country or in the rest of the world. While we are busy experimenting and perfecting organ transplants, millions of people lack clean water, basic shelter and food. Perhaps we should devote more of our resources to those purposes.

The Animals (Scientific Procedures) Act 1986 has been subject to some review, but I am still concerned about the work load of the inspectors. In 1996, there were only 17 inspectors whose work load included monitoring 14,870 licence holders, granting 2,202 new licences, assessing progress in 3,869 projects, assessing and approving 667 new projects and inspecting 300 establishments covering 2.7 million experiments.

It seems to me that we need a new super breed of inspector to carry out all those functions. If the 1986 Act, flawed as it is, is to work properly, we need to appoint more inspectors and ensure that they are given the proper resources.

To be fair, I must admit that the Government have recognised the problem. I believe that something is being put back into the budget.

indicated assent.

I welcome that; the cuts have not gone ahead. Credit where credit is due—but, even with that restoration, there will still be a great shortage of inspectors under the Act.

I have other concerns about the openness of the system, and I am unhappy that so much of the information on animal experiments is secret. We are not allowed to know details about the establishments and individuals licensed under the Act. The Government's commitment to freedom of information, which I greatly welcome, means that we should open up the process far more. How does the Minister intend to combine the freedom of information commitment with the secrecy inherent in the 1986 Act?

I must wind up my speech now, because the hon. Member for Newport, West (Mr. Flynn) and the right hon. Member for Kensington and Chelsea want to catch your eye, Mr. Deputy Speaker. They have cleared that with me, and have my permission to intervene in the debate.

We must aim for animals to be respected, with the legitimate rights to dignity and protection that we, as human beings, would expect. They have real feelings and can experience real pain. It is unethical for animals to be seen as a resource to be used as we please, and I await the day when all except the most essential experiments have been brought to an end. The Government should make a clear commitment to starting towards that aim now, by setting a target for reducing animal experiments.

rose—

rose—

Is the Minister happy to allow the two other Members to be called?

indicated assent.

I congratulate the hon. Member for Lewes (Mr. Baker) on securing the debate and thank him for his generosity in allowing me to take part in it. I also congratulate him on his skilful and persistent use of parliamentary questions to reveal much new knowledge about the secretive business of animal experiments, especially those taking place at Porton Down.

I, too, exonerate the right hon. Member for Kensington and Chelsea (Mr. Clark) as regards any suggestion that I might have made that he could have been responsible for any increase in experiments. Indeed, as I understand the figures, he was entirely responsible for a decrease in the number of experiments during his period in office, when he had some influence over such matters.

As someone who worked in laboratories all my life until I entered Parliament, I emphasise that animal experiments are poor science; they are unreliable and ineffective. I agree with every word that the hon. Member for Lewes said, and I advise those who claim that animal experiments give reliable results to consider any one of dozens of cases that I could cite.

I could mention Eralden, Opren and other drugs, but it was thalidomide which caused one of the most painful experiences that we have had with a chemical drug. Thalidomide came on the market having been tested not only on many other animals but on rabbits, which are regarded as being more sensitive, and even on pregnant rabbits, with no sign of difficulty. Only when, after the terrible deformities occurred in human babies, the scientists went back and tried the drug on another breed of rabbit did they reproduce the fault. It is nonsense to believe that there is any kind of exact science involved in that. Far more reliable alternatives already exist. There are simulations and the use of tissue outside the body, both of which are far better science.

We all agree that those experiments represent the abuse of animals on a scale that dwarfs all the other animal abuse about which we get so excited. We have no right to conduct them. It is true that a tiny number of experiments can be defended, but that is all. The scale on which experiments are practised, mostly for commercial purposes, cannot be defended.

As an intelligent species, we stand accused of using defenceless animals as though they were inert chemicals with no feelings. We have no right to do that, and I hope that the Government will hear the debate and there will be a practical and swift response.

I join in the tributes to the hon. Member for Lewes (Mr. Baker), who has a good record on this topic. I always listen to the hon. Member for Newport, West (Mr. Flynn) with interest and enjoy his contributions, even when they relate to subjects that we are not allowed to talk about or expand on in the Chamber. I was interested to hear that his comments today were founded on personal and scientific experience, and they are all the more valuable on that account.

I have two questions to ask the Minister. The first is about the so-called commercial confidentiality, which was raised by the hon. Member for Lewes, and which involves tremendous and horrendous repetition of experiments. There should be some way of ensuring that a particular experiment occurs only once, and the results are then put into a pool from which anyone can draw by paying a fee—preferably to a Government agency to fund more inspectors. Results should not be kept private within whatever corporation funded the experiment, so that the experiment has to be repeated 10, 20, 30 or 100 times to produce the same result on 10, 20, 30 or 100 wretched animals to verify what may happen if an identical or a similar product is marketed.

My second point is about the conditions in which animals are kept. The hon. Member for Lewes talked about primates being brought here in crates in holds on 55-hour journeys, but many of the conditions in which animals are kept in laboratories are by no means perfect, either. Conditions are inhumane both before and after the experiments, when animals are usually simply destroyed.

A serious lack of humanity creeps into the treatment of animals the moment they are regarded as something for commercial and industrial exploitation. They lose their identity as living creatures. Surely this area should be better regulated?

The Minister and his party gave assurances in their election manifesto, which were greatly welcomed by many people in the electorate, including myself, that they would do something about the problem. I cast no aspersions on the way in which the Minister plays his part in the Department, but I know about the pressures that exist when one is behind a ministerial desk, and the way in which officials produce arguments along the lines of "On the one hand…on the other hand…but in conclusion, Minister, we really feel that…".

Those views are reproduced in documents, and I hope that the Minister will be strong enough to override them and discharge the obligation that his party undertook in its manifesto, which gained it many votes. I hope that, in the 12 minutes that remain, we shall not be treated to the Minister's simply reading out a brief composed by his officials to cover everybody's tracks and to explain that "There is really nothing much that can be done for a bit—because…"

That might have been the kind of response that the right hon. Member for Kensington and Chelsea (Mr. Clark) gave when he was a Minister, but I hope that I shall not fall into that trap.

I congratulate the hon. Member for Lewes (Mr. Baker) on his success in obtaining the debate. He has asked 27 written parliamentary questions this year alone on animal experimentation. I make no criticism of him for that; it is a measure of how assiduously he pursues his interest in the subject. My hon. Friend the Member for Newport, West (Mr. Flynn) is also a regular correspondent with my Department on the subject.

I am not entirely confident that, in the time available to me, I shall be able to cover all the points that have been made, so I issue a public invitation to the hon. Member for Lewes to come to the Home Office to discuss the issues that he has raised. My noble Friend the Under-Secretary of State, Lord Williams of Mostyn, and I would welcome such a meeting, and I hope that he will take up that invitation.

I acknowledge, as I am sure will the hon. Gentleman, that my noble Friend, who has prime responsibility for this area, has assiduously pursued the Government's agenda and we are making some progress. The hon. Gentleman was good enough to acknowledge that with regard to a couple of areas.

We seek to ensure that the highest possible standards of animal welfare are implemented and that animals are used in scientific procedures only where there is a clear justification for so doing.

We are promoting what the Department calls the three Rs—reducing the number of animals used, refining procedures to minimise suffering and, where possible, replacing animal use. In particular, with respect to primates, we are making progress on LD50 testing and cosmetic testing.

As the hon. Gentleman acknowledged, we have increased the budget that has been made available to the Animal Procedures Committee to develop alternatives to the use of animals from £182,000 to £259,000. In the greater scheme of things, that may not be an enormous sum of money, but it is a considerable increase in what was a quite small budget. It is fair that that should be acknowledged.

We also intend to pursue relevant measures throughout Europe rather than risk exporting animal experimentation to countries with less rigorous controls than ours. We must ensure that measures are sustainable and do not unnecessarily disadvantage United Kingdom research, medicine and industry or compromise public safety.

The hon. Gentleman acknowledged that we have secured an end to the testing of cosmetic products on animals and we are now exploring the possibility of extending that ban to the testing of cosmetic ingredients intended primarily for vanity products. No new licences to test cosmetic products or ingredients have been issued since May. Our legal advisers have cautioned the Secretary of State that he has no grounds, at this time, to revoke the existing licences.

No new licences to test tobacco or alcohol products have been issued since 1 May, and no new licences are in force which would allow such testing. On 6 November, we announced a ban on the testing of tobacco and alcohol products.

Three new inspectors have been recruited since June and further funding has been secured for a further three inspectors, bringing the complement to 21.

We have announced that some form of ethical review process will be required in all establishments from 1 April 1999.

The review of biotechnology and the patenting of animals is a matter primarily for the Department of Trade and Industry, but it follows such matters closely.

In addition to the pre-election pledges to which the right hon. Member for Kensington and Chelsea referred, we have also announced a ban on the use of great apes, that the use of ascitic animals in monoclonal antibody production will be phased out, and that the number of animal welfare experts on the Animal Procedures Committee will be increased. New appointments are expected shortly.

The hon. Member for Lewes asked about the transportation of live animals. We shall allow the catching of wild primates only if there is a specific and exceptional justification for so doing. Therefore, the onus is on proving that that is necessary. If shorter journey times are possible and animals can be flown directly to the UK, we would welcome that. As the hon. Gentleman will know, many airlines have already stopped such work as a result of public pressure.

The hon. Gentleman, like the right hon. Member for Kensington and Chelsea, referred to the commercial gain of companies engaged in such work. Some suggest that nearly 50 per cent. of experiments are carried out purely for commercial gain. Nearly 50 per cent. are carried out in commercial establishments, but, in many cases, company profitability is not the factor most often taken into account in making a cost-benefit assessment. Hon. Members will be aware that that process goes on. Many experiments carried out in commercial establishments are to meet the requirements of international regulators that products be proved safe for use, manufacture and distribution. Most commercial organisations exist to make a profit—they would not be developing new drugs or other products if they were not profitable—but that fact militates against the argument that such commercial undertakings are entirely profit driven.

With regard to cosmetic ingredient testing, the hon. Member for Lewes referred to previous undertakings. We are exploring the possibility of a ban on ingredient testing, on which I hope to be able to make an announcement in due course. That is a complex area, but one which we are taking forward.

We are considering whether section 24 of the Animals (Scientific Procedures) Act 1986 should be amended, but no decision has yet been made. We are pressing international regulators to dispense with the need of LD50 tests, but, at the moment, they are, more often than not, almost entirely the requirement of international regulators.

rose—

In view of the time, I shall not give way, but the right hon. Gentleman may wish to correspond with me.

Will the hon. Gentleman give way for just half a second?

For half a second.

The hon. Gentleman said that the Government were considering the argument. Why cannot the Minister share the arguments, pro and con, with the House? I should have thought that the whole matter could be settled in a matter of hours.

I have only three minutes to respond to the points that have been made, and it would not be sensible for me to pursue all the arguments in the sort of detail that the right hon. Gentleman might like.

The number of procedures have been reducing steadily since the 1970s. However, in recent years the use of transgenic animals has put pressure on the total number. Transgenic animals allow new lines of important research to be followed. We are aware of the target set in the fifth European environmental action plan to reduce the number of animals used by 50 per cent. by 2000. We have made considerable progress in reducing the number of animals used over the years.

In only 10 months, my noble Friend the Under-Secretary has set out on an ambitious and, I think most people would accept, caring agenda. I hope that hon. Members will agree that a great deal has already been achieved and, characteristically, my noble Friend has done that in a thoughtful but usually effective manner.

May I ask the Minister a question?

I have one minute left and it would be impossible.

There is more to do, but I am confident that we shall continue, as we have begun, to deliver positive improvements to the supervision and regulation of animal welfare. I assure the House that we take that commitment seriously and I ask hon. Members and the wider public to judge us on what we achieve over a reasonable period of time. We are serious, and we appreciate the interest in the subject in the House and among the general public. I hope that the hon. Member for Lewes will take up our intention and that we can make progress and reach a better understanding.

Can the Minister guarantee that, by the end of the Parliament, fewer experiments will be carried out each year? Yes or no?

Order.