Commons Chamber

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House Of Commons

Wednesday 20 October 1999

The House met at half-past Nine o'clock

Prayers

[MADAM SPEAKER in the Chair]

Grammar Schools

Motion made, and Question proposed, That this House do now adjourn.— [Mr. Robert Ainsworth.]

9.34 am

I am delighted to have secured this debate on an important topic for the education of children in many parts of England. The question of the future of the grammar schools, which is sometimes dismissed by some hon. Members as a sideshow or an irrelevance, is deeply important not only for the schools concerned, which are doing an excellent job, but because of what it tells us about the nature of education and how education systems can be run most effectively for the benefit of all our children.

It will come as no surprise to hon. Members to learn that during the Wirral, South by-election—I see the hon. Member for Wirral, South (Mr. Chapman) in his place—the Prime Minister, who was at the time the Leader of the Opposition, told the electorate:

"A Labour Government would not close your grammar schools. That is my personal guarantee. I am not interested in closing good schools."

That may have given heart to parents in Wirral, South and other constituencies, but I am not sure that it is entirely consonant with events since the new Government came to power.

More recently, we have seen the Prime Minister declare to the Labour party conference that the class war is over. In that context, I thought that it might be useful to draw the attention of the House to some comments that have been made by Andrew Adonis, who is now an adviser to the Prime Minister on educational matters. In "A Class Act: the Myth of Britain's Classless Society"—published by Penguin Books in 1998—which Andrew Adonis co-authored with Stephen Pollard, a former research director of the Fabian Society, they state:

"The comprehensive revolution has not removed the link between education and class, but strengthened it."

They continue:

"In 1965, the Labour-controlled House of Commons resolved that moving to a comprehensive system would preserve all that is valuable in grammar school education for those children who now receive it and make it available to more children. Few would maintain that this has in fact been the case."

Later in the book the authors state:

"The comprehensive revolution tragically destroyed much of the excellent without improving the rest. Comprehensive schools have largely replaced selection by ability with selection by class and house price. Middle class children now go to middle class comprehensives. Far from bringing the classes together, England's schools—private and state—are now a force for rigorous segregation."

That is what the Prime Minister's adviser thinks of the policy of further comprehensivisation of England's education system. However, one of the earliest steps taken by the new Government, in the School Standards and Framework Act 1998—I had the privilege of serving on the Standing Committee—was to introduce measures that placed the remaining grammar schools in peril.

The Government implemented a one-way ratchet that allows the removal of grammar schools, but not the introduction of grammar schools. Labour Members claim that the issue is one of parental choice, but that is not true. Parents are free to choose not to have a grammar school, but they are not free to choose to have a grammar school. The ballot question is loaded, because it does not even refer to grammar schools or the intention to abolish them.

The balloting and petitioning system leaves many disfranchised voters. Parents with pre-school children or children at private schools are disfranchised for the purposes of the petition, although they can go to the trouble of registering for the purposes of the ballot. In the borough of Trafford, some 400 children attend St. Bede's college, which is a private Catholic grammar school, but they are funded as state grammar school pupils by the borough. The parents of those children are also disfranchised.

The petition provides for no mechanism to check whether signatures are genuine. The signatures will simply be checked against the list of eligible voters. The Government have not contracted the Electoral Reform Society to engage in any proper check or scrutiny of whether those people who appear to have signed a petition have in fact done so.

Two and a half years into the Labour Government's term, several grammar schools are threatened, including 33 in Kent, seven in Trafford, eight in Birmingham, three in Barnet and one in Ripon. Margaret Tulloch of the Campaign for State Education—CASE—has identified the five grammar schools in Sutton and Surrey as probable targets for this year. Why? In my view, the attacks are entirely prompted by mindless, outdated ideology. The whole debate on the Government's side has been dominated, tragically, by the ideas of an education system that Labour Members saw or experienced in the 1950s, not the reality of selective education as it is today.

In that context, I draw the House's attention to some press comment on the subject, especially from my own area. For example, the Manchester Evening News, although not noted for its right-wing sympathies, on 17 November 1998, in an editorial entitled "Caning the Able", stated:

"One may imagine that, with failing schools all over the country, the government would not want to waste any effort tinkering with those which are the most successful. You may think that an education system so popular that parents move home to take advantage of it would be safe from interference.

Yet the consistently high achieving grammar schools of Trafford are among selective schools which could be forced to go comprehensive as a result of a Commons vote today which will allow ballots among parents and feeder primary schools."

The article got the details of the School Standards and Framework Bill slightly wrong. It went on:

"It has been a long-held Labour philosophy that selective education is unfair. Latterly, it had seemed that the pragmatism of New Labour might allow them to turn a blind eye to those remaining pockets of non-comprehensive schooling.

Plainly, we were wrong to think that.

For the sake of their principles, the Government may be about to compromise the educational opportunities of generations to come."

I am also pleased to see that the right hon. Member for Birkenhead (Mr. Field) is in the Chamber, as I should like to quote an excellent article that he wrote in the Sunday People:

"Grammar schools are the outstanding success of public education in this country. They act as beacons shining out so that all can see what can be achieved in the State system."

I entirely concur with those sentiments. I am especially pleased that the right hon. Member for Birkenhead is here today, as it demonstrates that this issue is not confined to one political party.

I hope that the hon. Gentleman will tell the House that the theme of my article was that both main political parties in this country have found it terribly difficult to get secondary education right. My article also stated that we should try to spread around the successes that are achieved, and that we should want all schools to succeed in their different ways, whether it be in technology, arts or languages. If that is to be our strategy, it would be as wrong to discriminate against schools because they are academically good as it would be to discriminate against others because they excel in some other aspect of education.

I am delighted to confirm that that is the theme of the right hon. Gentleman's article. In this, as in many other areas of policy, the right hon. Gentleman's thinking is some way ahead of that of the Government and of many commentators. Later in my speech, I shall argue that the borough of Trafford, if it has not achieved the ideal that the right hon. Gentleman described, has at least approached it quite closely, as is shown by the overall standards and levels of achievement of its schools.

The success of grammar schools is well known and easy to identify. This year, half the top 200 places in the A-level league table were occupied by grammar schools, as were nearly half the top 300 GCSE league table places. In 1998, the 12 local education authorities at the top of the GCSE achievement tables all offered some elements of selection.

Labour Members may say that such results are surely inevitable, given that the most academically able children have been selected to go to those schools. However, I invite them to look at the overall achievements of the LEAs, as that evidence lays to rest the myth about the selective system. Of the 149 LEAs in England, 29 have a significant element of selection. In 1998, all the top five places in terms of performance were occupied by selective LEAs. Trafford came first, followed by Bournemouth, Sutton, Southend and Buckinghamshire. Twenty-three of the 29 fully or partially selective LEAs achieved above the LEA average for the country as a whole.

The evidence in my constituency fully supports those findings. Schools such as the Blessed Thomas Holford Catholic high school, Green Lanes high school, New Wellington school, and the Ashton-on-Mersey school all achieved outstanding results. Indeed, the Secretary of State himself declared the Ashton-on-Mersey school to be a beacon school—one whose achievements are so excellent that it shows the way for other schools in the surrounding area.

Strikingly, the success of selective LEAs becomes even more marked when like-for-like comparisons of areas' socio-economic profiles are made. A comparison between 22 LEAs that offer similar numbers of free school meals shows that selective LEA areas come top in 16 instances.

I have a question that I hope the hon. Gentleman will clarify. In 1971, under a Conservative Government, a Conservative council in my county of Suffolk abolished grammar schools and introduced a comprehensive education system. Today, that system enjoys the confidence of the people of Suffolk. It achieves good standards according to the league tables, and no school opted out of it to go grant maintained. Does the hon. Gentleman maintain that the system in Suffolk is less good than that obtaining in the area that he represents, or does he wish to introduce a grammar school to every town in Suffolk?

It is not really a question of what I say or think. I simply point out to the hon. Gentleman that the figures show that the system in the borough of Trafford achieves better results than the one operating in Suffolk. That is not a matter for us to quibble over: I have stated a simple matter of fact.

Does not my hon. Friend agree that what we consider to be the appropriate system in Suffolk is not the important point, but that what parents in Suffolk choose is? Did not my hon. Friend make the point earlier in his excellent speech that the Government have deprived parents of choice? Although parents can choose to allow grammar schools to become comprehensives, the Government have decided—disingenuously and in a manner that lacks balance—that it is not possible for parents to decide that comprehensive schools can become grammar schools. Is not that what is so unfair?

My hon. Friend is right. The one-way ratchet enshrined in the legislation is entirely wrong. I can tell the hon. Member for Waveney (Mr. Blizzard) that I do not think that there should be a grammar school in every town unless parents want that. However, parents and schools should have the freedom to decide the arrangements that suit them. It should not be left to Government diktat.

Why not give them a choice?

That is a remarkable question, given that the right hon. Lady was the Minister who, in the Standing Committee considering what became the School Standards and Framework Act 1998, opposed my amendment to give parents in all schools precisely that choice. So my record on the matter is entirely clean; the Minister should look to her own record before casting aspersions on mine.

Like me, my hon. Friend belongs to the growing tradition of Conservatives who pay mortgages and buy their own furniture. Does he not agree that it is especially unfortunate, as he develops his arguments, that he should be chuckled at by the hon. Member for Slough (Fiona Mactaggart), who represents the wing of her party that has inherited wealth and privilege?

I need hardly comment. As ever, my hon. Friend has made a fascinating contribution to the debate that will enlighten hon. Members on both sides.

Pathetic.

I hope that the hon. Lady can contain herself, as I should like to return to the evidence of the achievements of selective systems of education. I was seeking to destroy the myth that selective systems perform better only when they are in wealthier areas.

That that is palpably untrue is borne out by the facts in Trafford, which is not the wealthiest part of the country. It has some wealthy areas, and some with considerable deprivation. In Trafford, 18.9 per cent. of children receive free school meals. That is higher than the national average, yet the LEA is arguably first, second or third in terms of academic performance. So Trafford demolishes the myth. I compare that with Kirklees, an LEA which has a slightly smaller 18.8 per cent. figure for free school meals. While Trafford was third in the 1998 GCSE results, Kirklees was 89th.

If we lose our grammer schools, selection by ability and merit will be replaced by selection by mortgage or postcode. Altrincham boys grammar school—my old school—and Altrincham girls grammar school are located in perhaps the most prosperous parts of Trafford. Under a comprehensive system, they would draw their pupils from some of the most expensive housing in the north of England. In the wards of Hale and Bowdon, new three-bedroom apartments have recently gone on the market at £500,000. That would not open up the best schools in the country to all pupils regardless of ability. It would do precisely the opposite, depriving access to the best schools to pupils who have the ability but whose parents do not have the wealth to secure that education.

The situation is similar in Barnet, where the Henrietta Barnett school would draw its catchment from Hampstead Garden Suburb, which has some of the most expensive housing in London. Destroying selection and the grammar schools would achieve precisely the opposite of what so many of the enemies of the grammar schools seek. Professor John Musgrove, former professor of education at Manchester university, said:

"You might have expected the Labour Party to abolish the public schools … It really was an astonishing historical irony that they should have abolished grammar schools instead. It was idiocy of the highest order and a disaster for academically gifted working and lower middle class children."

That case is further illustrated by the results achieved in 1998 by Altrincham girls grammar school. It is an exceptionally good school and 99 per cent. of the girls achieved five or more A starred to C passes at GCSE. By comparison, Eton college achieved 97 per cent., Harrow 92 per cent., and Cheltenham ladies college 89 per cent. That is the reality of an education system that provides the best possible schooling for children, regardless of their parents' ability to pay. Those public schools are selective, but extremely expensive to enter.

May I take the hon. Gentleman to another flagship area of his party's policy—the private sector? How many public schools are selective?

I chose the future of grammar schools for today's debate. The hon. Gentleman knows that I am no great champion of private schools. I believe that people should be free to choose private education if they wish, but I champion grammar schools precisely because I believe that they open up to all, regardless of ability to pay, an education for the children of parents who might otherwise have to pay. If the hon. Gentleman wants to enlighten the House by giving the statistics that he seeks from me, I shall be happy to give way again, but they would not add anything to the debate.

I cannot help with those statistics, but others are revealing. Since the abolition of grammar schools, the popularity of private schools among parents has gone up.

My hon. Friend is absolutely right. The people who will be hurt by the Government's measures—if they proceed—will be those who cannot pay for an alternative. As happened when grammar schools were abolished, those who have the parental wealth to go elsewhere will do so. The polarisation of our education system and of opportunity for our children will thus increase, not diminish.

It may be worth noting that many successful independent schools resulted directly from the move to the independent sector of direct-grant grammar schools when the Labour party last chose to mount an assault on the education system.

My hon. Friend is entirely right. Many of those schools were also able to preserve a tradition of free places through the assisted places scheme, another measure that the Government removed in order to diminish opportunity for ordinary children.

The Government's proposals diminish opportunity for those from working class or lower middle class families who do not have the ability to pay. However, they will also affect other groups, particularly ethnic minorities. A perfect example of the detrimental effect of the Government's policy is the Queen Elizabeth grammar school in Barnet, which draws 41 per cent. of its pupils from other cultural groups, according to the categorisation of the Department for Education and Employment. Most of those pupils are Asian people who got into the school on ability, not because of where they live or their ability to pay. The wards that would comprise the feeder area for the school under a comprehensive system have an ethnic minority population of 7.5 per cent. Members of ethnic minority groups are benefiting from the massive opportunity of fantastic education standards, and it would be snatched away from them by an unthinking and outdated policy.

A further effect of change would be a need for reorganisation in many education authority areas. Again, we face wasted opportunities for ordinary children and wasted money in LEAs that seek to amalgamate or close schools or rationalise school estates. In Kent, education officers estimate that that would cost £150 million. Replicate that sum across all the areas that have grammar schools and the cost would be £0.5 billion—money wasted on destroying good education rather than trying to improve bad education.

Old socialists and new Fabians—there may even be one or two of them on the Labour Benches today—frequently have more sense than to support the policies that the Government are pursuing. Stephen Pollard, former research director of the Fabian Society, has made his views clear:

"you don't overcome failure by destroying a success—grammar schools. Indeed, so true is this that the real motivation of the educational establishment is all too clearly revealed: to preserve its current power."

Sydney Webb, one of the founders of the Fabians, argued:

"What we have learned gradually and slowly is that nothing worthy of the name of a national education system can be built up of schools of a single undifferentiated type."

What he learned gradually and slowly seems to have been unlearned rather quickly by Labour between the Wirral, South by-election and today.

In 1999, the Select Committee on Education and Employment reported on highly able children, noting:

"Overall, the evidence showed that different types of schools, selective and non-selective, suit different kinds of pupils."

We have been left with a poor set of regulations that will influence the future of the grammar schools. They were criticised by the House of Lords in May 1998 when concern was expressed at how the proposals had been put in place through regulations rather than primary legislation. We are stuck with a flawed procedure, loaded against the remaining grammar schools.

At the very least, parents around the country have a right to expect that those regulations will be observed and policed by Ministers. The Minister will be well aware that one of the regulations requires a prohibition on the use of public funds. Let me enlighten the House by drawing attention to some past exchanges between the Minister and me during the School Standards and Framework Bill's Committee stage. She said:

"The Bill prevents them from using public money … Local authorities cannot use public money to campaign. Therefore it is right for that restriction to apply to schools and governing bodies."

I returned with the question:

"Will the Minister clarify whether a governing body could campaign corporately, provided it did not use public money?"

The Minister answered:

"No … The governing body as a legal entity would not be able to campaign."—[Official Report, Standing Committee A, 24 February 1998; c. 678-9.]

It is not only the use of public resources that is banned under the regulations; there is a prohibition on the entry into the debate of legal public bodies, such as schools, governing bodies and local education authorities. They are not permitted to incur expenditure to assist anyone else to publish such material or to influence or assist anyone else in influencing the outcome of a petition or ballot.

Regardless of the use of public money, schools and LEAs are barred from involvement as corporate bodies. That is why I wrote to the Secretary of State for Education and Employment a little over a week ago to ask him to look into the situation in the borough of Trafford where evidence has come to light of a school across the boundary in Manchester writing to parents who are Trafford residents and using school letterheaded paper, school facilities and the school roll, thereby incurring public expense. In writing formally on letterheaded paper, signed by the headmaster of the school, it has not only used public funds but engaged as a corporate body in the campaign against the Trafford grammar schools.

Given that several hundred parents have received this one-sided propaganda campaigning material from the Stop the 11-plus campaign, I have asked that the Secretary of State use his powers to declare the process void for this academic year in the borough of Trafford. I seek nothing more than fairness and an evenhanded approach. I look forward to hearing the Minister's response, which may come today or, as she suggests, a little later.

I hope that Ministers will enforce the regulations on all schools and on both sides of the debate and take this caution to heart. If they do not, they will not merely be refusing to implement the regulations in this instance, but setting a precedent for all schools, LEAs and interested parties that will define the point to which the regulations will be enforced or ignored. That threatens a free-for-all in the areas where we face campaigns for the abolition of the grammar schools.

That instance was not the first contravention of the rules. In January 1998, I had cause to report Trafford borough council itself, which had sent misleading advice to parent teacher associations, warning that they would lose their charitable status if they sent information to parents relating to the ballot and the future of selection. I took advice from the Charity Commissioners and found that the council's advice had been totally unfounded and that only party political campaigning would have contravened charitable status. That showed not a school but the LEA, through the borough council, engaging in the debate and trying to influence the future of selection in contravention of the regulations set out by the Government. I reported it to the Secretary of State but, perhaps unsurprisingly, no action was taken.

There have been reports of other abuses around the country. It has been reported that anti-grammar school campaigners have booked council chambers as if for union meetings and so not paid for the facilities. There have been reports of children signing the petitions. If they signed in the name of their parents, the situation would not be covered because the Government have made no provision for verifying whether signatures are genuine. There are reports of trade union funding of the anti-grammar campaign, which results in an unfair imbalance of resources. There are also reports of names being transferred to petitions directly from the list of electors en bloc, which again could not be discovered because the Government did not take the trouble to contract the Electoral Reform Society to check whether people have really expressed their wishes in the petition process.

What now? It is time for the Government to admit the truth: selection works. It works for pupils in grammar schools but also for those in high schools, who achieve better results under a selective system than they would under a comprehensive one. It works for low and middle-income families who cannot afford to go elsewhere for their education. It works for the ethnic minorities, who have a route out of poverty and a chance to achieve according to their abilities.

It is time for Ministers to get a grip of the situation and either enforce the regulations by declaring the process in Trafford void and setting a precedent to show that the regulations will be enforced properly around the country, or by recognising that the regulations are not tight enough and repealing them because they do not properly protect the process and ensure fair, balanced, and open debate. They do not provide for a fair question to be asked or for a proper decision to be reached.

We cannot proceed with an unfair campaign, in breach of the rules, that could destroy the very best education in the country. That would harm the interests not of a few children in grammar schools today but of millions of children all over the country for many years to come

10.6 am

I am grateful for having been called in this debate secured by the hon. Member for Altrincham and Sale, West (Mr. Brady). Like him, I am the product of a grammar school. My school offered an excellent education. It is true that I did not take advantage of that, but that was my fault rather than the school's.

When I fought the Wirral, South by-election, one of the main themes was that grammar schools would be safe in Labour's hands. There are only 163 grammar schools left in Britain and we took the view that if they provided good education—as I am sure that most, if not all, do—they should go on providing it. Where they were better than other schools, the other schools should be advanced to the same standard. In the Wirral, while, as my right hon. Friend the Member for Birkenhead (Mr. Field) has often said, grammar schools are beacons of excellence, they sit alongside other schools that perform to very high standards.

for example, I recently visited Plessington high school and technology college and South Wirral high school, both of which, like other schools, achieve excellent results in every sense. High standards and co-existence are perfectly possible, but what we are about is improving education for all of the people—for the many, not the few. We are about standards rather than structures. With 26,000 schools in the United Kingdom, there is no point in tilting at the windmill of grammar schools when they are so few and, in any event, doing a good job. We are not like Margaret Thatcher, who, as Secretary of State for Education, set the world record for the closure of grammar schools. We are about educational standards rather than dogma.

It is against that background that we established the grammar school ballot regulations, providing for parental—and no one else's—control of the future of schools. That took decisions out of the hands of politicians and put them firmly into the hands of the parents concerned. That is as it should be.

As the hon. Member for Altrincham and Sale, West said, politicians, whether local or national, are specifically excluded from taking part in the ballot process on a party political basis. Councillors need to be careful to state that they are expressing personal views, as the local education authority is bound to provide only factual information, a fair and reasonable assessment of the consequences of the ballot and a statement of its intentions.

I was struck by the hon. Gentleman's comment that it would be for parents to make up their own minds. In Buckinghamshire, where selective education continues, the first meeting initiated to try to get rid of grammar schools was chaired not by a parent but by an individual who came from outside the county, and whom I understand to be a member of the Labour party. How can the hon. Gentleman say that it is being left to the parents when it is an orchestrated campaign that seems to come from his party?

I do not know of those particular circumstances; certainly, any voting in a ballot is for the parents and nobody else. Ultimately, the decision lies with the parents. It is right that they should make decisions on the future of their children's education.

I thank the hon. Gentleman for his courtesy in giving way. Does he agree that, if parents are to make a genuine decision in a genuine ballot, the wording on the ballot paper should itself be genuine? Is he satisfied that the wording is genuine? If so, can he explain why—as I understand it—the words "grammar schools" do not appear anywhere in any wording proposed for any ballot?

I have not studied the wording of the voting terms, but—

Does my hon. Friend agree that, in Wirral, our parents are so intelligent that they would not need to have grammar schools put on the ballot paper to know which schools we were speaking about? Similarly, if any agitators from outside Wirral came in to try to initiate meetings, the local Members of Parliament would give them a pretty good run for their money.

In my part of the world, parents continue—as they should—to have high aspirations for their offspring. As a result, many put forward their children for the 11-plus, in the hope that they will pass the examination. I visit the grammar schools, as I visit other schools in my constituency, and talk to the heads and teachers, and to the pupils, whom I receive regularly at the Palace of Westminster. I give the grammar schools, and other schools, whatever support and help I can; I hope that today is no exception.

In Wirral, to the best of my knowledge, there is no groundswell of opinion against grammar schools. I hope, therefore, that they can be left alone to establish a sense of security and to continue performing to high standards. That is not to say that there are not current issues in respect of children who sat the 11-plus and failed, and then went to secondary modern schools. By the nature of their being "secondary", children might have been seen to be branded as failures from day one at their senior schools.

Wirral council has tried to address that by establishing all-ability schools to sit alongside the grammar schools. As I have pointed out, that is perfectly possible with standards of excellence. I have much sympathy with the concept, but there are difficulties in translating it into reality. For example, there are no resources to help the process forward. Some parents feel that they may be hindered from sending their children to the school of their choice, or that all-ability schools will not offer the full range of the curriculum. They have made their views on the subject clearly known to me, and I have passed those views to the local education authority. Their concerns are sincere and need to be addressed.

I have said before that if the 11-plus did not exist, I would not seek to invent it. However, in some areas it does exist, and its consequences are grammar schools. What grammar schools need is stability. The perpetual threat of balloting is corrosive of the sense of security of the school, its staff and pupils. The opportunities for ballots, while rightly existing, should be less frequent. The absence of a ballot, like a failed ballot, should make for a moratorium on balloting for a reasonable period. Only in that way can schools plan ahead.

I shall not delay the Chamber for a moment longer. This is a plea, once again, for standards rather than structures.

I am most encouraged by the sensible contribution made by the hon. Gentleman. In order to be clear, if he had a vote as a parent in the Wirral, would he vote to retain or to get rid of the grammar schools?

Given that I stood for election on the basis that grammar schools were safe in Labour's hands, I would vote for the retention of grammar schools.

If our grammar schools are doing a good job, and in my patch they certainly are, let us leave well alone—"If they ain't broke, they don't need fixing."

10.15 am

The more I come into the Chamber, the more I realise that the whole world seems to have changed around. To hear the hon. Member for Wirral, South (Mr. Chapman) arguing for the retention of grammar schools is quite an interesting development.

I congratulate the hon. Member for Altrincham and Sale, West (Mr. Brady) on securing the debate. In many ways, it clearly demonstrates that the Tory party has reached its new common-sense revolution—back to the R. A. Butler Education Act 1944 and division by ability. That is what is being argued for. A mere 72 days before the end of the millennium, when many are striving to create a more inclusive society, where inequalities are minimised and opportunities maximised, the hon. Gentleman and his party want to retain—

Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

I have just started and, as the hon. Gentleman had 32 minutes in which to speak, I shall carry on.

The hon. Gentleman's party wants to create, re-create, retain or enhance a system of education that, across the world, has largely been abandoned—a system that is as divisive as it is archaic. Yes, I did go to Burnley grammar school from 1953 to 1960.

The hon. Gentleman is in self-denial.

Yes, I received an excellent education—to respond to the comments made by the hon. Member from a sedentary position. Yes, I was privileged to be taught by a largely well-qualified and dedicated group of teachers. However, if the hon. Member for Altrincham and Sale, West went into Harrogate grammar school in my constituency today, and spoke to pupils or parents, the majority would make exactly the same comments about their education as I made about my education between 1953 and 1960.

The essential difference is that Harrogate grammar school is now a fully fledged comprehensive school. Furthermore, the other five secondary schools in my constituency are also comprehensive schools. Each one is different in character and ethos. Each offers parents choice and diversity. Each one produces results that are above the national norms in every case. Statemented children are not barred at the gate of St. John Fisher high school; every child in Knaresborough automatically has a place at King James's school; and Down's syndrome children can sing in the choir at St. Aidan's high school. However, all three schools regularly feature in the annual league tables among the country's most successful schools—this year, one of them was among the top 25 comprehensive schools.

All have flourishing musical, artistic and sporting traditions. No student is made to feel a failure at the age of 11, as my brother was when he failed his 11-plus and was sent to the secondary modern school in Burnley. No parent has to make excuses for their child's lack of success. No teacher has an excuse for a student's lack of achievement. That is an important issue which must be constantly addressed. For far too long, the 11-plus was regarded as an excuse for children's failure. Of course, the hon. Member for Wirral, South is right; there are some superb secondary modern schools—if I may use that term—throughout the country. They are doing a marvellous job and good luck to them. We should congratulate and celebrate them.

However, in reality, the 11-plus was an excuse for failure and far too many students, such as my brother, not only suffered at the time as a result of that failure, but suffered for the rest of their lives. So attractive are the schools in my constituency that about 300 pupils from Ripon—where selection is retained, and the grammar school and the secondary modern school are across the road from one another within the same community—regularly opt to come into Harrogate and Knaresborough's comprehensive system. A large number of them pass the 11-plus, but their parents decide on an inclusive, comprehensive education for their children.

The hon. Member for Altrincham and Sale, West mentioned LEAs. North Yorkshire, which has only three grammar schools—two in Skipton and one in Ripon—is consistently among the 10 highest achieving LEAs every year. In North Yorkshire, comprehensive education is not only alive and well, but is succeeding throughout.

I accept that not all children have access to schools of the quality found in my constituency. I have worked in areas where failing schools were all too common and were all too commonly excused because of various socio-economic factors.

If, as I hope, part of this debate is about raising standards and increasing opportunities for all our children, let us not start by preserving the drawbridge mentality of yesteryear. Surely, it is indefensible for Kent's 33 grammar schools to admit only 29 children who are statemented as having special educational needs, while its 72 other schools—the secondary moderns and comprehensives—welcome 1,979 such children. The hon. Member for Altrincham and Sale, West did not refer once to special needs children and their access to grammar schools; that is because, by and large, such children are denied access to grammar schools.

I am glad that the hon. Gentleman has finally given way, because several of the points he has made so far are entirely inaccurate or red herrings of some sort, and his point about special educational needs is utterly erroneous. Of course I did not mention special educational needs in the context of access to grammar schools: I spoke of a selective system of education achieving the best results for all children and it is highly improbable that most SEN children would find their best place in a grammar school that caters especially for the academically most able children.

There we have it. If a justification for the debate was needed, it can be found in the hon. Gentleman's statement, which sums up Tory policy on division. If that is the Tory party's common-sense view of special educational needs as we move into the next millennium, God help us if it ever gets back into power. We have fought tooth and nail for an inclusive system for all our children, yet the Tories say that, because a child has a statement, that child is automatically excluded. The presumption that special needs children do not have innate ability is anathema to me and contrary to the principles for which I have fought.

Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

No, I will not.

The Tories had 18 years to reverse the comprehensive system. That they did not do so was because the majority of parents recognise only too well that a system that creates grammar schools also creates secondary modern schools. I have yet to hear any hon. Member propose the extension or, indeed, the retention of secondary moderns. Noticeable by its absence from the speech of the hon. Member for Altrincham and Sale, West was any argument in favour of the retention of secondary modern schools in his constituency.

May I enlighten the hon. Gentleman by telling him that, in my constituency, the success of the grammar schools is entirely dependent on the high standards in the secondary modern schools that remain? Their standards are well above the national average and I am quite sure that it is because of satisfaction with those schools that there is no desire to change the current selective education system.

I have no knowledge of the hon. Gentleman's constituency. If he wanted to put that statement on the record, he has succeeded.

The right hon. Member for Huntingdon (Mr. Major), the former Prime Minister who is now airbrushed out of Tory political history, wanted a grammar school in every town, but where are those schools? Only Solihull took up the challenge, but that ended in dismal failure. When she was Secretary of State for Education and Employment, his right hon. Friend the Member for South-West Norfolk (Mrs. Shephard) tried to divide our school communities by offering bribes to schools to opt out and become grant maintained, but fewer than a thousand schools took those bribes. The message from parents was clear: the vast majority do not want division.

I have mentioned Harrogate grammar school. Under the Conservative Government, appalling attempts were made to divide the six brilliant comprehensive schools within my constituency. The then Secretary of State was to announce the result of the ballot at the Tory party central council meeting in Harrogate; sadly, 80 per cent. voted against going grant maintained, so she never turned up.

My hon. Friend the Member for Beaconsfield (Mr. Grieve) has spoken of our experience in our county of Buckinghamshire. The hon. Gentleman is leaving hon. Members and spectators outside the House with the impression that grammar schools are bad for the non-selective schools in the area, but that is quite false. I carried out a study of Salisbury and south Birmingham, where grammar schools and non-selective schools co-exist. In both areas, the proportion of pupils in the non-selective schools who achieved GCSE grades A to C rose significantly faster than the national average. That proves that grammar schools are good for us. I hope that the hon. Gentleman will now correct the false impression that he has given.

I shall make my position absolutely clear: I do not accept the premise that having grammar schools is good for non-selective schools in the area. I defy the hon. Lady to go to Kent and ask parents of children at most of Kent's secondary modern schools whether they believe that grammar schools are doing their children a service.

When the new common-sense policy on education was launched by the Tories in Blackpool, no mention was made of a return to grammar schools. Only their stealth policy was announced: to hold ballots to close failing schools—and then, presumably, to recreate them as grammar schools, as those are the excellent schools. Of course I agree that the current farce surrounding ballots should be exposed as a sham, but it is no more of a sham than allowing only parents of children at a so-called failing school to vote in the ballot on its closure. Each ballot is a sham in its own way.

During the passage of the School Standards and Framework Act 1998, my hon. Friend the Member for Bath (Mr. Foster) and I consistently opposed the proposal to ballot parents on the closure of grammar schools, because ballots are such an imprecise tool in that context. The whole community, not only parents of potentially affected children, should have a stake in local schools. Like the creation of a grant-maintained school, the closure—or, indeed, the opening—of a grammar school is like throwing a stone into a pond, with the effect felt much more widely than merely at the point of impact. That is why we have consistently opposed any further selection in schools, be it based on aptitude or ability.

For the sake of clarity, will the hon. Gentleman state, once and for all, whether it is Liberal Democrat policy to close all grammar schools without ballots?

I am delighted that the hon. Gentleman has, once again, come in on cue to enable me to explain Liberal Democrat policy in all its clarity. He is such a diligent researcher that I am sure that he has read through the Hansard record of the debates on the School Standards and Framework Act and has discovered that Liberal Democrat Members consistently opposed the extension of selection, whether based on aptitude or ability.

We have also made it clear that the local education authority should decide the admissions policy within its area. Elected representatives should make such decisions, because they have been elected to consider the broader aspects of education in the local authority area. They remain when parents have moved on, so it is they who can plan for the future, rather than for the moment. Although I realise that it is a difficult concept for Conservative Members to understand, it would be quite presumptuous of me to impose a solution on local elected representatives.

No ballots?

I have made it absolutely clear that we are opposed to ballots on that matter. The decision should be made by the local education authority, not through a potentially rigged ballot. At least the hon. Gentleman and I agree on the subject of ballots.

The current proposals, whereby 72 grammar schools will be covered by feeder school ballots rather than area ballots, are as illogical as they are controversial. It is nonsense that, in feeder ballots, parents of children at key stage 1 in a primary school will get a vote, but parents of children at key stage 1 in an infants school that feeds a junior school that might feed a grammar school will not.

How cowardly the question on the ballot paper will be. The hon. Member for New Forest, East was right to raise that issue, because the question will be:

"Are you in favour of all the schools listed introducing admission arrangements which admit children of all abilities?"

What would any reasonable parent answer to that? Surely the only straightforward honest question would be: "Do you want to see the 11-plus, or 13-plus, examination scrapped?"

I know how passionately the hon. Member for Altrincham and Sale, West feels about the grammar schools in his area, and I do not wish to denigrate in any way the quality of the education provided there. That would be wrong. Moreover, the hon. Gentleman is not personally responsible for the current ballot farce; the blame lies firmly with the Government, who, as a result of feedback from their focus groups, have bottled out of making a principled decision about the future of grammar schools. Indeed, we have seen some of those focus groups in action this morning.

The Secretary of State made it clear before the election that selection by ability would be abolished. There was no ambiguity about it. He said:

"Watch my lips—no selection, by examination or interview".

That means exactly what it says; it means "We are getting rid of it." Even as late as 13 November 1998, Lord Hunt said in another place:

"We do not support selection by ability at age 11; and we do not wish to see it extended".—[Official Report, House of Lords, 13 November 1998; Vol. 594, c. 926.]

Yet the School Standards and Framework Act 1998 extended selection to enable schools to select 10 per cent. of pupils for aptitude—and we have never been told whether aptitude and ability mean the same thing. The whole issue was fudged.

Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

I shall bring my remarks to a close now, if the hon. Gentleman does not mind. I have given way to him once already.

For too long, the threat to abolish or create grammar schools has been kicked about like a football. The hon. Member for Wirral, South was right to say that that is not fair on the people in those school. Either the Government should have the courage of their pre-election convictions and legislate to remove grammar schools or they should leave the decision to local authorities. At least local councillors can be booted out of office, as we can. I suspect that the parents who vote in the ballot may be less interested once their children have left the system.

10.32 am

I hesitate to speak in the debate because every time I speak on education we hear the constant refrain of the hon. Member for Buckingham (Mr. Bercow) about the school that I attended. However, I had no more influence on my education than the hon. Gentleman had on his lack of stature—and they have probably had an equal influence on us.

I wish to contribute to the debate because I represent the constituency which I believe has the largest proportion of pupils in grammar schools; 37 per cent. of secondary school pupils in the town of Slough are in grammar schools. That has a dramatic effect on education in my town. Our experience is different from that in North Yorkshire, where only a handful of children go into the grammar schools, because in Slough, two out of three children feel like failures at 11. That is the real experience of children, because their parents put so much energy into helping and supporting their children pass the 11-plus. It has a devastating effect on the year 7 curriculum in our secondary schools, on the self-esteem of a large group of children, and on the quality of education in the town that I represent.

Do not get me wrong; I believe that the schools in Slough are trying hard to do a good job—and some of them do an excellent job. However, I am concerned about the impact of the disproportionate number of grammar schools. About 16 or 17 per cent. of our year 7 pupils come into the grammar schools in Slough from outside, so many of the grammar school places are taken up by pupils coming in from outside a town that is already highly congested.

Many pupils are refugees from the system. I vividly remember that, last year, I advised the parents of twins, one of whom had just passed the 11-plus while the other had failed. That experience within a family shows us the truth about the divisions caused by the 11-plus. The family did what many parents of pupils who have just missed passing the 11-plus in my town do; they escaped from educational apartheid into the comprehensive schools of Windsor.

I have no objection to testing. I was a teacher, and I know how important testing is in developing the curriculum for children and in finding out what their skills and attainments are. However, I am worried about a system that creates inflexibility between the secondary modern and grammar schools, and does not allow for different speeds of development. It does not have the flexibility to match the curriculum to each child's growing and changing needs and abilities.

It should be up to the parents of Slough and nobody else to decide the future of their schools. There is some hocus-pocus going on among the Conservatives, and I have been the victim of what I can only call a smear campaign. One of the Conservative councillors in a nearby county has been suggesting, first, that I am leading a campaign to abolish the grammar schools in Slough.

That is not true; the only campaign that I have led in that context was for the grammar schools, the secondary modern schools and the local education authority to be united in making representations to Ministers about getting fair rules for ballots, and that neither side could use public money. The system would not then descend to include abuse of the sort that we faced in our town when we changed the age of entry into secondary education and abolished middle schools. I am pleased to say that many of the representations that we made were incorporated into the regulations.

The second suggestion that has been made is that the question on the ballot paper is misleading. The question on the ballot paper in Slough will mention the words "grammar school" three times, but it will focus on the real question, which concerns the admission policies of the schools in question.

As the hon. Member for Harrogate and Knaresborough (Mr. Willis) said, the name of a school does not necessarily describe its character. Harrogate grammar school is a comprehensive school, and in Slough, seven so-called comprehensive schools have intakes that we would normally associate with secondary modern schools. The right question to ask is about the admission policies of the named schools.

The third lie being peddled is that parents will not be able to vote in the ballots. Let us be clear: every parent in Slough with children under school leaving age will have the right to vote in the ballot.

Finally, it has been said—we have heard it today—that the governing bodies have been banned from speaking out. Any governor can make his or her views heard, but, rightly, nobody should use public money to influence the ballot. Parents should make up their own minds. That is what I expect and want to happen in Slough.

In the meantime, I am focusing on the real issue, which is not whether we have an 11-plus or not. We should be asking, "What are you doing to make the schools in your constituency better?" The education action zone in Slough is now being launched, and I have put a huge amount of effort into persuading the Department for Education and Employment that we need that scheme.

For example, our secondary schools have real problems in recruiting and retaining excellent teachers. We need a structure for better collaboration across the 11-plus divide, so that every child in Slough can have an excellent education. The education action zone represents one step in that direction.

However, we should not get hung up on structures, on the names of schools, or on who is allowed into them. Our duty as politicians and as people who care about children's learning is to ensure that every school, whatever its entry policy, is excellent, and that all children get the best education, as they deserve. I promise the people of Slough and Members of the House that I am running that campaign and no other.

10.40 am

I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Altrincham and Sale, West (Mr. Brady) on securing this debate and on his highly effective advocacy of the case for retaining grammar schools. At the risk of embarrassing the hon. Member for Wirral, South (Mr. Chapman) and doing grave injury to his future political prospects, I congratulate him too on his powerful, honourable and brave speech, which was applauded by Conservative Members.

Nowhere is the chasm between the Labour party's pre-election rhetoric and its post-election reality more eloquently illustrated than by its policy on grammar schools. On 7 February 1997, the then shadow Secretary of State for Education and Employment, the right hon. Member for Sheffield, Brightside (Mr. Blunkett), referring to grammar schools, declared that a Labour Government would pose

"no threat to their continuance or to their ethos or to their quality."

Following that lead, on 3 April 1997, the then Leader of the Opposition said of the existing 160 grammar schools, "Let them remain".

"What matters is what works",

he said. "Standards, not structures", he said.

"A Labour Government will not destroy your grammar schools. That is my personal guarantee",

he said.

My hon. Friend makes a powerful point. There has been and always will be serious debate about the principle of selection in the education system, and if all schools in the country were of a standard of which we could be proud, there might be some point in focusing on that debate. However, schools in many areas are of such a low standard that the Secretary of State himself is deeply anxious, and to attack schools that are acknowledged to be successful is a disgraceful diversion from the proper focus of our debate.

My hon. Friend is absolutely right to point out that we will not improve the rest of our schools if we destroy the best of our schools. Why did shadow Education Ministers and the then Leader of the Opposition give those reassurances about grammar schools? They knew that grammar schools were successful beacons of excellence in our education system and they sought to assuage the concerns of those who supported those schools.

Grammar schools are renowned for their academic results, sporting prowess and cultural achievements. They have a long tradition of sending people into business, the professions, the media and public service. There are many grammar schools of outstanding calibre across the country. I shall mention only one, which is in my constituency. The Royal Latin grammar school, whose head teacher, Cecilia Galloway, provides inspirational leadership, has outstanding governors, supportive parents and motivated pupils.

The Government sought, when they were in opposition, to reassure us. What is the post-election reality? As my hon. Friend the Member for Altrincham and Sale, West pointed out, it is different from what the Government promised. First, the Government have created in the petition process a potential charter for cheats. My predecessor on the Front Bench, my hon. Friend the Member for Ashford (Mr. Green), and I have had two letters from Electoral Reform Ballot Services Ltd, dated 15 June and 28 September. Neither of those letters was remotely successful in reassuring us that there was no possibility of fraud. There is clearly a likelihood of fraud because there is no requirement for signatures to be validated.

Secondly, the electorate in stand-alone ballots and group ballots is perversely chosen. It is monstrous that parents of grammar school pupils, who have a direct interest in the outcome of the ballot and in their children's educational life chances, will not be entitled to vote.

Thirdly, as my hon. Friend the Member for Altrincham and Sale, West rightly pointed out and the hon. Member for Slough (Fiona Mactaggart) failed to recognise, the question is loaded against grammar schools principally because it does not make it clear that votes against grammar school status would sound the death knell of the schools and result in the abolition of grammar schools throughout the country. Fourthly, the Government have provided a one-way ratchet that facilitates the destruction of grammar schools, but does not permit their creation.

What are the likely effects of grammar schools being abolished? There are two effects of which the House should beware. The first is damage to education: lower standards, reduced choice and guaranteed disruption during the transition period. The second effect is financial cost due to the impracticality of converting schools. It is estimated that if grammar schools in Kent were scrapped, we would be faced with a £150 million bill simply for bricks and mortar, and a conservative estimate of the nationwide cost is £500 million.

Labour Members too often display a breathtaking naivety about the prospects of conversion. The director of education in Buckinghamshire has pointed out that the size and configuration of grammar schools do not readily lend them to conversion into comprehensive schools. They are full to bursting; they are built on the green belt, where there is no scope or desire for additional development, and the capital costs of reorganisation would be prohibitive. In those circumstances, it is absolute nonsense for the Government, who have emphasised the importance of standards, not structures, to interfere with the structure of some of the finest schools in the country. That is a disgrace.

The disgrace seems even greater when we reflect on another fact of which I know my right hon. and hon. Friends will take note: the campaign against grammar schools throughout the country is not spontaneous and is not conducted by well-meaning, independent-minded individuals acting alone, of their free will, against the best schools in the land. As The Sunday Times reported on 27 June, it is

"a carefully planned assault on grammar schools"

which is being aided and abetted by dozens of Labour party activists the length and breadth of the United Kingdom. As the report said, it is a centrally co-ordinated campaign by egalitarian hooligans and educational vandals. They want to destroy what exists and, as the then Leader of the Opposition said, what works, in favour of an untried and untested method that conforms to the egalitarian prejudices of Labour party members, who think that children should be used for social engineering. We believe that children have innate rights and should have the opportunity to fulfil their potential.

Does it not stick in the gullet of my right hon. and hon. Friends, as it does in mine, that the Prime Minister—who is himself the product of privilege—is standing idly by with a grinning countenance, allowing to go to the wall prized institutions that, for generations, have provided a ladder up which bright children of modest means can climb? That is the disgrace of the Prime Minister's position. He is more interested in the internecine politics of the Labour party and in deal-making, brokering and keeping the peace than in the prospects of this country's children.

Members of the Labour party and, I regret to say, the parliamentary Labour party think that their children are a class apart and that what is all right for them is unacceptable for everybody else. I give fair warning to the Labour Members concerned—they know who they are—that they can, if they wish, lurk in the darker corners and more secluded recesses of the Palace of Westminster, but lurk, and not for very long, is all that they can do. They can run, but they cannot hide because there will be no hiding place for Labour Members who speak with forked tongue, who practise double standards, and who say one thing and do another.

Those standards might be acceptable to the Labour party, but they are unacceptable to the Conservative party and to the hundreds of thousands of parents of all political affiliations who support the grammar schools. They support them not because they are politically motivated, but because they are concerned about education, and rightly so.

Tawney, the great egalitarian socialist philosopher, said that it was important that there should be the maximum diversity of type among secondary schools. How right he was. Tony Crosland it was who declared, in unprintable language, his determination to destroy every last grammar school in England and Wales. How wrong he was, and how fortunate that he failed.

However, I say to the Minister, whose local newspaper has accused her of doing an incredible disservice to Birmingham's grammar schools, that Tawney's and Crosland's statements had one thing in common: they were honest positions. This Government's position is not. It is slippery. It is disingenuous. It is designed to cause confusion, and it is a back-door method of destroying the best schools in this country. That is wrong. We will resist it, and we will support those throughout the country—head teachers, parents and pupils—who know that their schools are successful, who resent the Government's intrusion in their affairs and who are determined to fight, fight, fight and win.

10.50 am

I add my congratulations to the hon. Member for Altrincham and Sale, West (Mr. Brady) who, whether I agree with him or not, has been assiduous in representing what he sees as the interests of his constituents. In that, at least, I support him. I fear that that will be the end of my kind words in response to his comments.

I want to start where the hon. Gentleman started. In almost his opening sentence, he said that attitudes to grammar schools tell us something about the type of education service that we want. I absolutely disagree with that; that is where we differ.

Grammar schools have become fewer in recent years. They were set up when all that this country needed to survive economically, to flourish, to compete and to win was for a few people to be educated to the highest level. The grammar school system achieved that aim exceptionally well. That is why, in years gone by, we were a nation that competed so well and succeeded against many of our European competitors and those elsewhere.

However, I must tell Opposition Members that the challenge for this nation and the education service is no longer that of providing good education for the few—the top 25 per cent. It is—

Will the right hon. Lady give way?

Not at the moment. The hon. Gentleman spoke for 32 minutes and squeezed out the comments of many others. Our challenge is to bring about a school system that raises standards for every child, and which ensures that 24,000 schools are good, and good enough for the hon. Gentleman's child and my child, for his constituents' children and my constituents' children.

I have to conclude that a party that chooses to use all its education debates and all its education energy in a fight to save the admissions arrangements of 162 selective schools in 29 local authorities, and which rarely utters words of concern about the rest—which are also, in some cases, the best—is a party that has not caught up with the needs and demands that are currently being placed on our country and on our education service.

rose—

I will give way to the hon. Member for Buckingham (Mr. Bercow) when I have made progress.

That is what divides the parties. It is the Labour party—the Government—that has taken on the challenge, never taken on by any other Government, of not being content with being able to say that our system delivers the best for a few, and which is determined to deliver the best for everyone.

rose—

I shall give way when I have made this point. Anyone would suppose that there was no threat to the grammar schools—that no grammar school closed—until 2 May 1997. We know, because we have heard it often said, that Lady Thatcher was the Secretary of State for Education who closed more grammar schools than any other. In the past quarter of a century—when, for all but five years, the Conservatives were in power—the number of grammar schools fell from 809 to as few as 166. Why, in 18 years, did the Conservatives not stop the closure of those grammar schools?

rose—

Why, in 18 years, was no new grammar school opened? Where was the legislation to give parents the power to vote to open grammar schools? Where was the legislation to stop local authorities closing grammar schools? It was not there. The need to protect the admission arrangements of grammar schools is an idea hooked into because, quite honestly, the Opposition have nothing else to say about the education agenda.

The right hon. Lady's position is fairly apparent, but may we clarify one matter beyond doubt? If she had a vote in a ballot, how would she cast it—to retain the grammar school or to abolish it? Secondly, is she prepared, on the Floor of the House today, to give an absolute and unequivocal guarantee that the stupid regulations that the Government have pushed through Parliament will not allow for widespread fraud?

Of course I will give that guarantee—that the regulations passed by the House will not be subject to fraud. We based a lot of those regulations on the ballot regulations for GM schools. Interestingly, whereas the Conservative Government never made any provision to prevent the use of public money in opt-out ballots for GM schools, the Labour Government have put in a provision to prevent public money being spent in that way; and we certainly will respond to the hon. Member for Altrincham and Sale, West. In the regulations that we passed on grammar school ballots, the provisions to protect public resource and to avoid fraud are far stronger than ever they were for GM ballots.

Whether we like it or not, the issue of selection has always been there and always will be. For as long as I can remember, the question whether we should select—comprehensive versus grammar—has been there. It will not go away; and if we had not passed the legislation, it would not have gone away. It has thwarted our education service for too long. It has taken our energy, our resource and our efforts, when we should have been concentrating on things that matter more. No magic wave of the wand can stop the debate.

As a Government, we had to decide. As that debate continued, whom did we want to have the say? To whom did we want to hand the reins of influence in that decision? We had three choices. We could have kept those powers to close grammar schools to ourselves—as the previous Government did—and I suspect that, with our majority, we would have got the legislation through Parliament. We could have done what the Liberal Democrats want us to do—handed the power to local education authorities. We chose neither. We chose to hand the reins of power about the future of admission arrangements for 160-odd grammar schools to the parents whose children will be affected.

rose—

I shall give way later.

I am prepared to defend our decision on two counts. First, that is where the power should be. Secondly—and more importantly—it frees leaders of education on the Government Benches to do what they should be doing: picking up the pieces and ensuring that the education service, which has been so badly neglected for the past 18 years, is fit for all our children for the millennium.

The Minister has made a powerful case that grammar schools would probably have withered on the stem anyway, and that there were many more important things to do in the education system, yet one of the first pieces of educational legislation that the Government introduced was to create the mechanism for destroying something that she regards as almost an irrelevance. Why?

The hon. Gentleman knows well how legislation works. I believe that the Bill that became the School Standards and Framework Act 1998 was the largest education Bill that had ever been passed. It set the new framework, and the new set of relationships for schools. It was out of the way in our first year, freeing us to concentrate on other things.

In the past two years, we have focused on numeracy and literacy, where standards have risen by the biggest measurable amount ever. In each of the years since standard assessment tests began, exclusions have dropped and GCSE and A-level results have improved.

I read a comment in this morning's press by the hon. Member for Buckingham, in which he attacked the Government for vandalism of education. The biggest vandals in the education world today are those who oppose the literacy hour and the numeracy hour, which have patently raised standards for children. The biggest vandals are those who oppose performance-related promotion and the reform of the teaching profession that the Government are working on.

The biggest service that the Government can do the children of this country and their parents is not to waste our time on the future admission arrangements of 160 schools. We should leave that to the parents. The biggest service that we can do the children is to ensure that every one of them gets a good nursery education, that at 11 they can all read and write, that they go to schools that are fit to learn in, that they have teachers who are well trained and well rewarded, and that society has the highest expectations of every single one of them. That is what we are delivering, and that is where our focus will remain.

Car Pricing

10.59 am

It is appropriate that the House should debate this issue on the first day that the public are being admitted to this year's London motor show. It was trade day yesterday, when the lads from the motor trade—they are mainly lads—had first sight of the new models. Doubtless they slapped each other on the back, talked about great deals and discussed their bonuses in the run-up to Christmas.

Bonuses for those in the motor trade may be fewer and a little thinner this year than in the past. Earlier this year, it was assumed—it was not estimated because the men from the motor industry know their business very well, and when they say that something will happen, they try to make it happen—that 425,000 models would be sold in September 1999. According to Hugo Andreae of the Daily Express on Monday of last week, the official figure is now about 387,000 registrations. That figure has apparently been inflated by the registration and pushing on to the market of tens of thousands of unwanted cars, which are described in the newspapers as pre-registered cars. It is estimated that 300,000 instead of 425,000 cars have been sold.

A spokesman for Mitsubishi said:

"After a bright start to September the market stopped dead."

What has happened? Perhaps my hon. Friend the Minister, who has recently arrived in the Department of Trade and Industry from the Treasury, will be able to tell us whether there has been an economic crisis that we have not heard about, as a result of which interest rates for motor cars have risen independently. Or have the words of my right hon. Friend the Deputy Prime Minister at last been heeded and people have decided to stop using or acquiring motor cars?

It would seem that neither of those possibilities is of any relevance. Instead, the British public have said, "Enough is enough. We are waiting to see what will happen to prices. We have read about cheaper cars being available on the continent. We may not want to buy by post, through the internet or go abroad to purchase cars, but we shall certainly not be ripped off any longer."

Twelve months ago, almost to the day, I and my colleagues who sit on the Select Committee on Trade and Industry held a public hearing on vehicle pricing. We had all the usual suspects in the Box, including representatives from the Consumers Association, the National Franchised Dealers Association, the Society of Motor Manufacturers and Traders and the Office of Fair Trading. Committee members arrived with the usual arsenal of misinformation, prejudice and half-digested facts that comprise the main weapons of politicians. We received additional written evidence from a wide variety of other sources. It became clear before long that the British car buyer was not doing as well as his continental neighbours.

Figures provided by the Consumers Association showed sustained price differentials between the United Kingdom and certain other European states of 30, 40 and 50 per cent. European Union limits require that the differential be no higher than 18 per cent. in any one year, and no higher than 12 per cent. over a longer period. We found that the price discrepancies were due to selective and exclusive distribution arrangements, which allow manufacturers to set standards and criteria and determine the territory in which dealers can operate. That can be done under the block exemption, which will have to be reconsidered in 2002.

Manufacturers can tell dealers what they may sell and at what price, and where they can source their vehicles. Dealers are not even allowed to vary invoice prices. Moreover, they are not offered discounts for large volumes of sales to individual members of the public. On the other hand, discounts are offered to fleet purchasers. They are able, through various arrangements, to put their heavily discounted vehicles back on to the market at the normal recommended resale price. Franchise dealers are in a position to offer a specialist after-sales service, which the purchaser of an expensive item would expect.

Under the block exemption, there is the sweetener that a member of the public may buy a car from a recognised dealer in the certain knowledge that he will receive a consistent maintenance service. Unfortunately, that service seems to be indifferent. At best it is not bad, but more often than not it is unsatisfactory. That is the conclusion to be drawn following research involving a wide variety of organisations, and not only campaigning groups such as the Consumers Association.

The House will be aware of a "Panorama" programme on the issue and an article in The Sunday Times. Many organisations are carefully considering the issue and arriving at the consistent conclusion that the present arrangements offer the motorist little protection. If our cars are being badly serviced, there is always the worry or anxiety that unsafe cars that are hazards to the public in general are going on to the roads.

There are other reasons why the price of cars might be higher in this country than elsewhere. Apparently we are a high-wage, strong-currency economy—although we can probably set aside the high-wage issue. Simple economics tell us that if we have a strong currency it is cheaper to import. Cars imported into the country should therefore be cheaper—although perhaps that does not apply to all cars.

For example, Saab has announced that it will cut the prices of its cars by 5 per cent. because of the slide in customer demand that I have already mentioned. If Saab can do that on the basis of one month's poor figures, perhaps others could do the same. I think of Volkswagen and BMW. After all, we have had an exchange rate of about DM2.70 to the pound, or even better, for the best part of three years. Organisations of such sophistication, size and skill could surely accommodate the minor arithmetical problems that are involved in currency exchange rates.

There is also a technical argument, which has been trumpeted over the years as being of far greater significance than other considerations. The argument is that we drive on the wrong side of the road. Of course, we all know that it is the others who drive on the wrong side. Regardless of who drives on the wrong side, we are in the minority. Perhaps it is fair, therefore, that we should be punished for being British and driving on the wrong side. However, if we are being punished, why should the Irish not be punished? I shall take the case of Fiat—which sells cars in Ireland—as an example, and use euros as a simple basis for comparison.

In 1998, according to figures produced by Directorate-General IV of the European Commission, a Punto in Eire, on the basis of an index, was 104.9 euros. In the UK, it was 141.6. The Bravo was 100 euros in Eire and 149.9 in the UK. The Marea was 102.6 and 148.6 euros respectively. So much for driving on one side of the road as against the other.

I know that my hon. Friend will want to draw the attention of the House to the fact that motorists in Japan, which has one of the biggest car markets and some of the biggest manufacturers, drive on the same side of the road as us, yet the price of Japanese cars here appears to be extraordinarily higher than in Japan.

I do not want to go around the world, but I am grateful to my hon. Friend. I chose the simplest example and the nearest at hand. It is a wee bit awkward taking the boat to Tokyo to buy a car, but it is not that difficult to go to Dun Laoghaire and up to Dublin to pick up a motor, or to drive down from Belfast.

If higher prices are not the result of wages, our currency and the side of the road on which we drive, taxation could be the reason. I suppose that there is an assumption that because the British pay too much tax on everything, we pay too high a tax on motor cars, too. However, it is not quite like that. If there are demons and villains in this scenario, they must be the representatives of the Society of Motor Manufacturers and Traders. They are the guys with the black hats who do not ride white horses. They might drive white cars, but, in my book, in the parlance of the old westerns, they are the bad guys.

The SMMT stated that in a low-volume market where taxes are high, manufacturers set local prices to support sales and dealer viability in the short term. The National Franchised Dealers Association put the matter somewhat less elegantly, stating that consumers in countries with high car taxes are being subsidised by those in countries with low car taxes. We pay too much in the United Kingdom because in other countries the taxes are higher, so the prices are lower and the revenues are equalised across Europe.

Car manufacturers are helping our Chancellor by maintaining high prices, which enable him to take more tax, albeit at a lower rate. We hear much about whether we should cede the power to tax to the European Union. That may be an exaggeration, but the setting of car prices strongly influences the revenue that the Chancellor gets as a consequence of the taxation regime. It is up to Parliament, not some board of directors in Detroit, to determine the level of tax revenues for motor cars in this country.

I have mentioned the Consumers Association, which has ploughed a long and often lonely furrow in the campaign to highlight the differentials in car pricing. Another body involved, which is generally agreed to be the most cautious, was the Office of Fair Trading.

indicated assent.

My hon. Friend the Member for Chorley (Mr. Hoyle) nods in agreement. He was perhaps a trifle severe on that organisation, but that eventually had the desired effect.

John Bridgeman, the director general of the OFT, said that he did not think that there was active collusion between car companies; that there was not a world conspiracy whereby the guys in the SMMT got together in some international forum where they set prices. However, he did say that there was the possibility of a complex monopoly. Put simply, that occurs when a company acts in a monopolistic fashion in its dealings with its retailers in controlling pricing and supply. It does not require the perpetrator to work in concert with others, but simply to act in a particular way with regard to its own outlets and customers.

The early thinking of John Bridgeman was confirmed in March when the OFT referred the new car market to what is now called the Competition Commission, following evidence that practices employed by manufacturers' dealers were distorting competition. In announcing the inquiry, Mr. Bridgeman endorsed many of the Select Committee's conclusions: the market was not working, manufacturers had too much power, the 1992 Monopolies and Mergers Commission report recommendations had failed, and second-hand car prices did not represent the value of the car. Evidence suggests that recommended resale price fixing enables even the most inefficient car dealers to make adequate returns. The OFT backed us on volume discounts, and questioned bonuses as a way of recompensing dealers and discouraging parallel importing.

Having referred the matter to the Competition Commission, the OFT took on Volvo. With a robustness not usually associated with regulatory organisations, it accused Volvo of being involved in disgraceful practices and of fixing prices and penalising distributors who would not toe the line. The impression was that the OFT would have liked to go the distance with Volvo, but was unable to do so because of legal limitations on immediate action. All that it did, which was in some ways disappointing, although understandable, was to tell Volvo that it had been caught. Volvo said that it was sorry and would not do the same thing again.

By 1 March 2000, the OFT will have the power to levy penalties of up to 10 per cent. of turnover on any company caught doing what Volvo had done. Moreover, a company could be liable to prosecution if it tried to interfere with the inquiry.

The Competition Commission for its part will report in December, but, in an almost ground-breaking approach towards establishing a broader view, it has already indicated its first thoughts and sought opinions on various matters that coincide with the recommendations made by my colleagues and myself, which were broadly agreed with the OFT.

The Competition Commission is considering forcing manufacturers to supply cars to virtually any dealer, ending territorial allocations, abolishing recommended retail prices and other controls, allowing dealers to choose whether they wish to repair, abolishing preferential fleet discounts, and reducing manufacturers' power to end dealerships arbitrarily, within a redefined block exemption. That seems to be its thinking. We have not yet had its final report, but we have had a clear indication of the direction that it will probably take.

In response, the SMMT stated that the separation of sales and servicing is not in the customer's interest and probably will not reduce costs, and that the block exemption is not responsible for price variations in the UK and throughout Europe. The SMMT did not go through the usual litany—tax, wrong side of the road, and the other aspects that have been mentioned this morning—but it suggested that the Competition Commission had not thought the matter through properly or understood the industry. Perhaps the truth is that the Competition Commission has understood it too well, and that the SMMT is running out of places to hide.

Ford, one of the leading members, responded by inviting people to buy its cars and promising to reimburse them if it later decided to cut prices. In effect, Ford was saying that it would have to cut prices, but did not propose to do so immediately and certainly would not get involved in a price war. Vauxhall, on the other hand, recognised that it is now possible to make purchases via the internet. The car companies are not slow. The erstwhile Mandelson message about e-commerce obviously got through to Luton. Vauxhall has offered a £1,000 price cut on a new car purchased through the net.

What about the dealers—the men who provided specialist advice and help, who allowed prospective customers to sit in the leather-upholstered car, even if they wanted only the one with felt-covered seats, and who were solicitous to a fault about customers' requirements? They will still be responsible for handing customers the keys. In the motor trade, dealers are akin to the nurse in the maternity ward handing the child in swaddling clothes to the mother. That link with the past will remain. The truth, however, is that Vauxhall could not give a toss about its dealers if it is obliged to cut prices, especially if the cheapest way of doing so is through the net, ignoring the dealers.

Suffice it to say that, by and large, the dealers are not impressed, and they are beginning to break ranks with the motor trade. They recognise that the manufacturers' stranglehold is almost a thing of the past. Dealers have been unanimous in their opposition to the Consumers Association for having the audacity to propose setting up a not-for-profit internet service that will enable people to obtain advice and assistance in purchasing cars from abroad.

That is a fairly modest attempt by the Consumers Association, but it is a logical step, providing a recognised means, using the net and taking advantage of the opportunities of e-commerce to allow the public to get in on the act. It is a helpful start, which will be followed by other purchasers and organisations. It is clear that few industries have responded to criticism with such characteristic arrogance and disdain.

For once, however, consumers are fighting back. They resent having to pay £12,870 for a British-built Rover 214 in Britain when in France, according to European Commission figures, the road price is £8,217. It costs £4,650 more to buy a British car in Britain than to buy one in France. We, the British public, resent having to pay more for 62 of the 74 main types of car. We resent the poor service and the shoddy maintenance, which the block exemption protects and sustains. Our car industry employs many thousands of honest and dedicated people. Their products stand comparison with any in the world, but they are depressed and embarrassed when the industry to which most of them have devoted their lives is selling their fellow citizens short.

The Competition Commission is to report soon; its warning shots have already been fired. The Government know the arguments; I know that my hon. Friend the Minister has been listening. The Select Committee was unanimous and there was a clear view that rip-off Britain must stop. Let us start with the car industry: a car is the biggest single purchase that members of the public make, apart from taking out a mortgage to buy their home. People usually live in their home for a long time, but the pain, anxiety and suffering of buying a car is repeated every three or four years when they buy another.

The Government have said that they are prepared to take action on mortgages and to protect the home buyer. Let us see them show the same commitment and support for the consumer that they have shown in that area, and let us stop rip-off Britain in car showrooms and car factories.

11.22 am

I welcome the presentation made by the hon. Member for Ochil (Mr. O'Neill), the Chairman of the Select Committee on Trade and Industry. It is almost impossible to disagree with much of what he said and I hope that that suggests that there will be unanimity across the House as we try to deal with what is a genuine problem.

Rip-off Britain must indeed stop. Let me make it clear that the Liberal Democrats fully support that concept. We believe that it is in the interests of society as a whole for the consumer to be looked after. That is done by achieving diversity of supply and ending artificial and inappropriate distortions in the marketplace. We want a fairer market and if we achieve that we will have proper competition, which will be to the benefit of all. The present pseudo-cartel arrangements benefit no one apart from those who operate them.

Having been reshuffled across from the environment brief, I should say that environmental benefits would flow from the course of action that the hon. Member for Ochil described. It cannot be good for the environment if people have to disappear abroad to buy cars and then drive them back again—extra transport movements that would otherwise not be required. It could be argued that discounting or bringing car prices back down to a realistic level in the European Union would artificially encourage people to buy cars. However, new cars are far less polluting than older vehicles and high car prices in this country act as a disincentive to people to buy cars, which will disbenefit both the economy and the environment because people will be encouraged to use more polluting cars for longer. The pollution caused by a 20-year-old car is of huge compared with that caused by a new car, so the hon. Gentleman was absolutely right to make that case.

The Consumers Association investigation found that Britons pay the highest price for 60 of the 74 best-selling cars in the EU. As the hon. Gentleman said, the estimates suggest that the average excess amount is more than £3,000. Overall, UK motorists are being overcharged by £6 billion a year. That huge sum, which is being kept by those in the motor trade, would not be available to them were the artificial cartel arrangements removed. The Chairman of the Select Committee referred to particular examples. My example is a Rover 414 built in Birmingham, which costs about £3,000 or £4,000 more here than in Portugal. The hon. Gentleman referred to France, but the same situation applies to other countries in the EU.

The whole basis of the EU is the securing of level playing fields across Europe—it has always been committed to free trade—and I cannot understand how on earth that body, and the European Commission in particular, could grant the motor vehicle industry a block exemption from article 85(1) of the treaty of Rome and then extend it in 1995. How could it possibly conclude that that was in the interests of the consumer? It seems to be contrary to the very essence of the EU. I hope that that exemption, which is currently being reviewed, will end in 2002; in my view, it is indefensible in any terms.

The Competition Commission has condemned those arrangements, as well as appointed dealerships, which are an odd way of approaching the sale of any product. It would be very odd to go into a record shop only to be told, "This is an EMI record shop so you can buy the Beatles here, but not the Rolling Stones." I am sorry if I am not very up to date; perhaps I should have mentioned Blur and Pulp. When they send down their envelope, I expect that the Hansard reporters will want to know who Blur and Pulp are. No, they are shaking their heads.

As the hon. Member for Ochil said, the excuses have largely been dropped. The one about right-hand drive cars is nonsensical. How expensive is it to produce a right-hand drive car?

I have done a little personal research on this matter, which was fairly easy to do. For a UK exporter of Mercedes-Benz cars, for example, the disparity in price between a left-hand and right-hand drive is approximately £400 or £500 at the very most.

I am grateful to my hon. Friend who, if anything, overstates the case, though he is no doubt being generous to the Society of Motor Manufacturers and Traders. Certainly the disparity is not £3,000 or £4,000, which is the disparity between UK prices and those found elsewhere in the EU.

We have also heard the nonsense about the strong pound and the impact of currency value. Presumably prices should go up and down when the value of currency goes up and down, but it does not seem to happen that way. That is a bit like supermarket prices for farm goods: we are told that supermarkets have to deal with a strong pound, which is why their prices have gone up when prices have gone down at the farm gate. That does not add up and some people are maximising their personal profits at the expense of the consumer. That is not something that any party in the House would seek to defend.

I want the arrangements to be changed. I want an end to the block exemption and an end to rip-off Britain, and I want a fair deal for those who want to buy cars or any other commodity in this country. The House must champion the consumer cause. The Liberal Democrats will certainly do so, and I hope that there will be unanimous support for the Select Committee report.

11.28 am

I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Ochil (Mr. O'Neill), the Chairman of the Select Committee, who has ensured that we can have a fair and open debate, but I am sorry that the Conservative Benches are empty because we ought to discuss properly the important subject of the great British rip-off. There are no two ways about it: we in this country are totally ripped off from start to finish and people who buy a new car are paying way over the odds. We are subsidising the rest of Europe and the rest of the world market.

The Ford Mondeo is supposed to be the car of the world—built to be bought anywhere throughout the world. What do we find? It is up to 53 per cent. cheaper in Spain than in the UK. The Mondeo does not seem to be the car of the world, after all. The Great British customer is subsidising the rest of the world and those car products so that Ford, Nissan or whoever may achieve a percentage market share throughout the world. That is what we are paying for, and it has to end: it is not acceptable and we should not put up with it.

I agree with the examples given by the hon. Member for Lewes (Mr. Baker). The car that we buy may have a compact disc player, and in some cases we pay twice as much for CDs. Spare parts are another example. People think that they will derive some benefit somewhere because they pay so much more for their car, then end up paying 30 or 40 per cent. more for spares as well. The car and everything on it are expensive commodities. A new car is probably the second most expensive purchase that people make—after the purchase of a property. It should therefore be pointed out that, if people buy new cars, it is better for the environment if they have lean-burn engines so that there is less pollution. The price of new cars should be brought down and the standard of MOTs lifted so that we get rid of polluting vehicles and everyone has the ability to upgrade to a better car. That would be more in keeping with our environmental aims.

There are many gains to be made from selling cars more cheaply. I cannot understand manufacturers' reluctance to reduce the price of cars. They seem to feel that it is all right for people in other European countries to have cheap cars, but not for people in this country. Although, if cars were cheaper, our factories would not make as much money per vehicle, they would sell many more vehicles, which would ensure that profits did not fall and more people were employed in the manufacture of cars in this country because the turnover would be greater. We should consider those benefits. It is naive to believe that simple gains can be made by inflating prices; that is not the way forward. It is not good for British business or jobs.

The time has come to put British workers first. We should create more jobs through better pricing. The price of cars is just one good example of the British rip-off—the price of CDs is another. I could list many products in respect of which people are ripped off, and the time has come to end it. Yet another example is the price of motorcycles—part of the motor industry. This country used to manufacture great motorcycles. Now, however, motorcycles—even a Triumph built in this country—can be exported to America, taken out of the crate, taken round the circuit a couple of times, put back in the crate, shipped back to this country, and it is still cheaper than buying it through an official dealer. A Nissan built in Sunderland and sent all the way to Japan, then shipped back, is still cheaper than if bought direct from the Nissan dealership in the UK. That just proves that a cartel is operating. The cartel must end—there are no two ways about it.

As the pound got stronger, did we see Volkswagens coming in more cheaply? No, the price actually went up. We cannot and should not tolerate that. We are always told about the benefits of Europe. Instead of always taking the disadvantages from Europe, it is time to take the benefits, one of which is better pricing across all products.

It is no use fining companies. Volkswagen did not mind paying £50 million when it was found to be in breach of EU law. Instead, we should impose mandatory prison sentences. Company directors might then think twice and realise that they cannot rip the British public off in that way. When the good consumers of Chorley go to their dealer, he cannot offer a higher discount because he will lose his franchise, so I do not blame the dealers. Dealerships could improve, but ultimately they operate in a straitjacket: if they do not accept the manufacturer's rules, they lose their dealership. Thus consumers in Chorley do not get a fair price for the product.

The only alternative is to buy in Europe and ship the car back to the UK, or buy on the internet. Vauxhall accepts the fact that people can save £1,000 by using the internet. Why do not Vauxhall, Ford and other manufacturers act as honest brokers by slashing prices tomorrow and ensuring that consumers in Chorley and the rest of the country can benefit from cheap prices, as consumers do in Europe?

11.34 am

I shall say just a few words because the point has already been powerfully made by my hon. Friend the Member for Ochil (Mr. O'Neill). He covered all the necessary ground and I would find it hard to believe that anyone in the Chamber today would disagree with what he said.

One way to measure the degree of the rip-off in car pricing in this country is to look at the price of cars as a percentage of annual income. The price of a new car is more than the annual income of many people. If one wants to buy a new car—or even a nearly new car—one must devote a huge percentage of one's annual income to it. It is a much higher percentage than in Europe or north America.

In their efforts to persuade people to use their cars less, the Government have drawn analogies with Germany, where there is greater ownership but where people use their cars less. It is difficult to convince people in this country that they should not use their car to capacity when they have invested such a huge proportion of their annual income, or their income over many years, in buying it in the first place. The Government's transport policy would benefit from getting car pricing right.

My experience of one-make car dealers is that they are not wonderful salesmen. Most salespeople for different products target people and follow-through. When I have wandered around forecourts looking at cars—I have never bought a new car, but I go round to see what is on offer—I have found that there is very little follow-through. It strikes me that many dealers are happy to make their money each week or month by selling just a few cars rather than charging less to see whether they can sell more. A friend of mine sells in the secondhand car market and I have watched his progress over the years. By knocking down the prices, he can sell more cars and make a living as well as anybody else, and customers benefit. Most new car dealers sit in their showroom all week and make their money by selling just one vehicle.

My hon. Friend the Member for Chorley (Mr. Hoyle) mentioned the cost of spare parts, particularly parts of the bodywork and trim of a car. My hon. Friend the Member for Ochil said that the nightmare of buying a new car recurs every four or five years. Those of us who have never bought a new car do not go through that, but we experience a nightmare every time someone knocks into our car. I wonder how many other hon. Members have parked their car in a station car park, only to find on their return at the end of the week that the piece of plastic that covers the rear light has been smashed. One then goes to the dealer to see how much such a tiny item costs. Usually the price is colossal, outrageous and unfair.

I absolutely agree with the hon. Gentleman. Another example of a rip-off is when the consumer has to buy a huge replacement part such as a sealed unit or computer-operated unit. Whereas previously one could have bought a bulb, one now has to buy a sealed headlight and the cost is far higher. It is also much more wasteful in environmental terms.

I absolutely agree with the hon. Gentleman. Until a few years ago, I tried to carry out some repairs by myself, but the invention of all kinds of weird clips and specialist tools now prevents me from performing a simple repair. Various ways have been devised to continue to rip off the motorist.

Once when my car engine malfunctioned, I was told that it was caused by the leads—my car had leads, plugs and other conventional things. I took the car to my friend, whom I trust and who has a good garage—I shall not mention his name—who told me, "I have some leads for you, Bob, although the ones for your car would have cost £120. These are the same leads as those for the Vectra and they are half the price." The manufacturers obviously think that people with a slightly larger car will pay more. That kind of practice needs looking into. Will the Minister therefore say whether an investigation into the pricing of spare parts is part of the Competition Commission's remit? If it is not, could it be something else for the commission to consider? Plainly, not merely a new car but motoring itself has become far too expensive.

The cost is completely out of kilter with the rest of Europe and the world. We are being ripped off. It would be an important victory for the British consumer if, at the Government's instigation, the inquiry brought some justice and fairness into the prices of new cars.

11.40 am

I add my congratulations to the hon. Member for Ochil (Mr. O'Neill) on securing this important debate and I welcome the Minister of State, Department of Trade and Industry to her new position. It is nice to be opposite her once again so soon after leaving the shadow Treasury team.

Real concern exists about the higher prices paid for cars in this country compared with the rest of Europe and the Opposition share that concern. The European Commission's latest six-monthly price survey shows that the United Kingdom is the most expensive market for 61 of the 72 best-selling models in the European Union, followed closely by Ireland, which was referred to in the debate. Price differentials in excess of 20 per cent. have been found for all manufacturers throughout the European Union and for 16 out of 72 models there are variances of about 40 per cent. in price.

The Opposition's approach is that the Government should deal firmly with any cartel or restrictive practice, if that is the conclusion of the Competition Commission. However, it is important for hon. Members to understand the reasons for the discrepancies before jumping in with remedies and regulations. Those reasons are many and varied.

The Select Committee on Trade and Industry, which the hon. Member for Ochil chairs, states in paragraph 38 of its report:

"A number of factors account for the high prices paid by the UK consumer for new cars. Exchange rates and taxation levels influence the validity of comparisons and affect manufacturers' pricing strategies. The unique elements of the UK market—particularly the power of the fleet operators and the size of the second-hand car market—account for some of the differentials from EU prices".

It goes on to conclude something different, but I wanted to quote that section initially.

I hope that the hon. Gentleman will agree that disparities due to taxation are grossly exaggerated. For example, compare a car that is manufactured and sold in Germany with the same car in the United Kingdom—the value added tax disparity is 1.5 per cent.

My point is that the reasons for the price discrepancies are many and varied and I listed some. There are others and I will come to those.

The 1992 Monopolies and Mergers Commission report, which was also referred to in the debate, cited those factors as the principal causes of the price differentials. The Select Committee went on to conclude, differently from the 1992 MMC report, that the dealer network—the selective and exclusive distribution arrangement—was the "key factor" behind higher UK prices. That led the Committee to conclude that it

"can see no justification for retention of the block exemption and recommend that it be not renewed."

That same conclusion is reflected in the remedies letter that was issued by Competition Commission a couple of weeks ago, which states:

"The Commission has not reached final conclusions on any aspect of the inquiry. Its present view is that the selective and exclusive distribution system in its existing form has a number of disadvantages and that, as a result, prices of new cars in the UK are higher than they would be in a less restrictive environment."

Interestingly, that letter goes on to state:

"the SED system may be contributing to a lack of arbitrage which is enabling the continuation of significant price differences between the UK and other EU member states."

We need to ask ourselves why that arbitrage takes place in the European Union, but not between the continent of Europe and the UK, given that the block exemption applies throughout the EU and SEDs exist in Europe as well as the UK. The initial response of the Society of Motor Manufacturers and Traders to that remedies letter makes that very point. It states:

"It is disappointing to note that while the Competition Commission clearly fully understands that Block Exemption is an EU policy matter, it fails to grasp that Block Exemption cannot therefore itself be held responsible for price variations … across Europe and at work in the UK."

That is a valid point. Surely, as the exemption applies to the whole of Europe, it cannot be the only factor that has led to the differential in prices.

On a cautionary note to the Government, when the Competition Commission reports in December, will they respond rapidly? There is much uncertainty in the industry and a rapid response would be helpful to put an end to it.

The answer to the dilemma of why the block exemption is causing price differentials in the UK but not in Europe might lie somewhere between the opposing views of the SMMT and the Select Committee. It revolves around arbitrage, which was highlighted in the letter from the Competition Commission. SED might have delivered higher prices in the UK but not in Europe simply because of the practical difficulties that a UK consumer faces in buying a car from a European supplier. It is difficult to shop around when that means crossing the channel rather than driving across a nearby border. The fact that the UK consumer needs a right-hand drive car, is not the overall reason, but it is a factor making it slightly more difficult for that consumer to go to a dealer in Belgium or France. Our company car fleets have an effect by raising expectations for higher specifications in cars.

As a result of the impact of all those factors on the ability of the UK consumer to shop across EU borders, there is a blockage in the arbitrage that should take place with such glaring price differentials. We are now seeing some arbitrage with the Consumers Association's moves to provide it.

It is worth noting that Britain has such a large company car fleet because company cars were used to avoid the strictures on pay rises during the 1970s—the era of prices and incomes policies. The company car was a way to deliver a pay rise without appearing to do so. It was a response to Government interference in the free market. In turn, it has had a lasting effect on the free market in new car sales, which ought to provide a salutary lesson to Ministers that when they respond to all the reports and investigations into this serious problem, they should not simply make matters worse for the consumer by adding further distortions to the market that will damage consumer interests in the long term. Competition and the free market are the consumers' friend. Ministers who reach for the statute book add to costs and generate unforeseen consequences, which invariably result in the consumer receiving a worse deal.

The Government need to look to themselves to find out whether and by how much they contribute to higher prices in the UK, not merely in the motor industry but in other areas, for example through higher taxes. The Minister is a great supporter of the climate change levy. What effect is it having and will it have on the manufacture of cars in this country? There are more and more regulations. The proposed new directive on end of vehicle life in its current retrospective form would add hugely to the costs of UK car manufacturers and thus to UK car prices.

Clearly, if the Competition Commission finds a cartel or restrictive practices, the Government must take firm action, but I counsel caution about precipitate regulatory measures, which would in the long term add costs and restrict and distort the market further, thus further damaging the interests of the consumer.

11.49 am

First, I apologise to you Mr. Deputy Speaker and, through you, to the House for being fractionally late for this important and interesting debate. I join my hon. Friends and hon. Members in congratulating my hon. Friend the Member for Ochil (Mr. O'Neill) on securing this important debate and on doing so so early in our resumed Session.

Through you, Mr. Deputy Speaker, I also thank not only my hon. Friend the Member for Ochil, but other members of the Select Committee on Trade and Industry for the inquiry into an issue that has caused great public consternation and is a matter of such important public interest. We heard a thoughtful and wide-ranging speech from my hon. Friend, as we would expect, in which he considered each of the arguments advanced to explain or justify the higher car prices in the United Kingdom. In fact, we almost had a round-the-world tour, as my hon. Friend admitted. He comprehensively demolished each one of them.

We also heard a thoughtful and interesting speech from the hon. Member for Lewes (Mr. Baker), a forceful speech from my hon. Friend the Member for Chorley (Mr. Hoyle) and an interesting speech from my hon. Friend the Member for Waveney (Mr. Blizzard), who rightly drew attention to the importance of the Government's policy of promoting the ownership of cars, especially smaller and cleaner cars, while helping car owners to use their cars more sensitively and in a way that does less environmental damage. I am also rather pleased to say that he shares with me a deep and extensive technical knowledge of motor car maintenance.

We then heard a thoughtful speech, as ever, from the hon. Member for Bognor Regis and Littlehampton (Mr. Gibb). I thought that I had left the hon. Gentleman safely in the confines of the Standing Committee on the Financial Services and Markets Bill, but it is a pleasure to see him here on the Opposition Front Bench.

My hon. Friend the Member for Ochil (Mr. O'Neill) called for action to protect consumers. The Government are already acting to protect consumers. We want to make sure that, for cars as for all other services and goods, consumers get a fair deal within open and competitive markets. That is why we have already introduced and secured the passage of the new Competition Act 1998. That is why we have created the new Competition Commission, with much tougher powers to fine companies for anti-competitive behaviour. I have to observe that, although the hon. Member for Bognor Regis and Littlehampton spoke, as one might expect, of his devotion to free markets, it was the Labour Government not the last Conservative Government, who introduced the Competition Act and have created the Competition Commission with the powers that it needs to do the job on behalf of the consumer.

There are other forces making for greater competition within the marketplace. I want to touch on one that was mentioned in passing. We are seeing the beginnings of electronic commerce and shopping for cars on the internet. I have a role as the new Minister for Competitiveness, Business and E-Commerce. As we see—already in the United Kingdom—more consumers shopping on the internet, so we will see a powerful competitive force bearing down on retailers and manufacturers alike. The more transparent information consumers have, the easier it becomes for them to access car purchases in other parts of the European Union and the more manufacturers will have to respond. I welcome the fact that one or two have already seen the writing on the wall and are making their models available to internet shoppers.

Will my hon. Friend take account of the fact that within government there seems to be a varying response to the attractiveness of the internet? The internet does not seem to have reached Swansea yet. A firm in my constituency about which I am in correspondence with the Department of the Environment, Transport and the Regions is having considerable difficulty getting a rapid response from Swansea once it has obtained the car from abroad after purchasing it on the internet on behalf of a British customer. It seems that things get clogged up in Swansea. Will she look into whether Swansea is on line or, if not, on the ball? It does not seem to be at present.

I am grateful to my hon. Friend for raising that extremely important point. The Prime Minister is determined that we should drive the benefits of digitilisation and electronic access right through government. He has set stretching targets for access to electronic government services, and that certainly includes Swansea. I know from my previous role in the Treasury that the Driver and Vehicle Licensing Agency is already engaged in an extensive upgrading of its information technology in order that it can—this is important to the point that my hon. Friend makes—achieve on-line, real-time connections with car manufacturers, dealers and importers and deal with the very blockage that he specifies. I certainly undertake to follow up the specific point that he raises, if he will let me have further details.

In addition, last May we announced plans to lift restrictions on the import of cars from outside the European marketplace. That, too, will result in increased competition and a better deal for consumers. As a result of that decision, many cars will cost thousands of pounds less than they do at the moment. Some 55,000 cut-price cars will be allowed into the United Kingdom between March and the end of next year. From January 2001, the limit on non-EU imports will be completely removed.

We welcome the expiry at the end of this year of the voluntary restrictions on imports of new Japanese vehicles that was provided for in the 1992 agreement between the EU and Japan. Once again, the transition to a truly free market in Japanese cars will give customers increased choice and competition. It will also encourage Japanese companies to expand their activities here and in other countries within the EU.

As has already been said, in March this year the Director General of Fair Trading, after an extensive inquiry, referred the supply of new motor cars in the United Kingdom by manufacturers and wholesalers to the Competition Commission. He expressed his view forcefully that the market was not working properly and in particular that there was an imbalance of power between manufacturers and dealers that was distorting and impeding competition. In July, the Director General of Fair Trading also concluded that some Volvo dealers, to which hon. Members have referred, had not been offering discounts beyond set levels. An agreement and an admission was reached with Volvo which made it clear that such restrictive cartels would not be permitted in the future.

We now have the Competition Commission investigation. Earlier in October, it issued its remedies statement. It is a discussion document and the commission has invited comments from the industry, consumers and other stakeholders, but it has suggested a number of possible remedies, some of which have implications for the European regulations on the block exemption. I shall come back to that issue in a moment.

The Competition Commission has also suggested that, for instance, suppliers should be prohibited from recommending retail prices; that they should be required to offer franchised dealers who wish to buy cars on firm sale terms no less favourable than those offered to fleet customers—something that would make a real difference to the prices made available to individual consumers. It has suggested that suppliers should be prohibited from discriminating in the terms offered to contract hire companies and that dealers should be able to opt for an equivalent reduction in the wholesale price in place of the bundled financial and other benefits often offered by suppliers with their cars.

The report from the Competition Commission will be delivered to my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State in December and he will decide what action, if any, is appropriate if the commission makes adverse findings. We will publish the report as soon as we possibly can. I certainly take account of the comments made by the hon. Member for Bognor Regis and Littlehampton and other hon. Members about the need for action following the report, depending what it says, as rapidly as possible.

My hon. Friend the Member for Waveney asked whether the Competition Commission inquiry specifically covered spare parts or after-sales service. The investigation is into the supply of new cars so it does not, I understand, cover the issue that he raises. But the commission is certainly aware that the supply of parts is an important part of the dealer's business and so has some bearing on its investigation.

The Government's general approach was set out in our response to the Select Committee's report. As I have already said, the answer to the difficulties lies in the development of an effective, transparent, competitive market. We need distribution arrangements that promote competition. As I have already explained, the Competition Commission is specifically examining the selective and exclusive distribution system that is used by car manufacturers. Its findings will help to inform the Government's response and contribution to the European Commission's evaluation of the block exemption regulation which must be completed by the end of next year.

It is essential to have open and effective markets throughout Europe. We seek to ensure that any infringements of European Commission competition law that restrict imports into the United Kingdom are vigorously pursued by the Commission. It is also important that we have within this and other markets demanding and informed consumers. My hon. Friend the Member for Ochil was right to stress that, increasingly, we have demanding and informed consumers. Whatever the short-term pain to the manufacturers, demanding and well-informed consumers are an important part of ensuring that we have healthily competitive markets.

It is also essential that we have an efficient and innovative car manufacturing and distribution sector. My Department has worked for many years with the motor industry to improve efficiency and innovation in the supply chain, but also to consider how the distribution system can be modernised and improved.

As the hon. Member for Bognor Regis and Littlehampton said, the block exemption applies throughout Europe; it does not bear down solely upon British consumers. The European Commission is required to draw up a report evaluating that exemption by the end of next year, taking particular account of price differentials between member states and the quality of service to final consumers. The Commission has recently circulated a series of questionnaires to interested parties throughout the EU, seeking information and views on the workings of the system.

My officials recently met the Commission team undertaking the review and we have impressed upon it the importance that we in the United Kingdom attach to the issue. I want to ensure that the review is undertaken in as transparent a way as possible and gives the fullest possible opportunity for all interested parties in the United Kingdom to make their voices heard. I hope that the Commission, if it has not already done so, pays close attention to the Select Committee's report as well as to the Government's response. The Competition Commission's inquiry's findings will provide invaluable material for that review.

But we should recognise that restrictive practices are not confined to the United Kingdom. In January 1998, the European Commission fined Volkswagen 102 million euro for breaking rules on cross-border trade in motor vehicles. The matter allegedly involved the company trying to obstruct sales of its cars in Italy to non-Italian purchasers, mainly from Austria and Germany, who wanted to take advantage of lower pre-tax prices there. That ruling is subject to appeal. But similar cases have been brought against DaimlerChrysler and Opel's Dutch subsidiary by the Commission, again involving alleged improper restrictions on cross-border car sales. More recently, the Commission has begun investigations into Renault and Peugeot.

I assure the House that the Government are committed to a policy under which British car consumers will get good value for a good product. We have strengthened competition authorities which are already taking the necessary action to deal with any evidence of restrictive or anti-competitive behaviour. The Government are committed to strong competition and powerful, well-informed consumers. The European Commission is already taking action where restrictive practices are seen to operate in the EU, and we now have the review of the block exemption to which we and I hope other hon. Members will also contribute.

All that, as well as the technological changes to which I have already referred, means that we shall see an increasingly competitive car market not just within the United Kingdom but throughout the EU. That will be to the benefit of British consumers, but it will also be to the benefit of British and European car manufacturers alike.

12.6 pm

Sitting suspended.

Royal Hospital Haslar

12.30 pm

On resuming—

I am grateful for the opportunity to raise an issue of overwhelming importance to my constituency and to everyone in the armed forces. I congratulate the Minister of State on his promotion, and look forward to seeing him in Gosport when he visits Haslar hospital on 2 November. He will find that loyalty to the armed forces—Army, Navy and Air Force—is second to none in Gosport. He will be greatly impressed by the fervour with which local residents wish the hospital to be retained.

Although I welcome the Minister, it would have been appropriate if he had been accompanied by a colleague from the Department of Health. This matter has two aspects—defence, and health and the local civilian population. We can agree on two points. First, we can agree on the importance of defence medical services. Medicine is an integral part of defence. Every ship carries medically trained staff and every four-man Army stick going out on patrol—wherever it may be—has one man who is trained in medicine. The medical background involves proper training somewhere, and there must be a centre of medical excellence.

That centre is Haslar hospital and the accompanying Blockhouse, which contains the Royal College of Defence Medicine. Between them, they provide background basic training for everyone in the armed forces. Specialist staff are also trained in other hospitals, but the centre is Haslar.

The second point on which we can agree is that defence medical services have been through an exceptionally difficult period. The Government's document "Defence Medical Services: A Strategy for the Future" points out that the armed forces are manned by only 50 per cent. of the doctors required and only 75 per cent. of the nurses. That is a serious situation. With the collapse of the Berlin wall and the end of the cold war, it was possible and appropriate to reduce our armed forces. Across the board, the forces have been reduced by about 25 to 30 per cent., but the reduction in medical services has been greater, at around 40 per cent.

The number of hospitals in the armed services has gone from seven, to five, to three, to one in a surprisingly short time. In 1994, the Government, knowing all the facts and having investigated the subject with extreme care, produced "Defence Cost Study 15", which suggested that there should be a single tri-service hospital. After a great deal of further discussion, it was decided that that hospital should be Haslar, then renamed the Royal Hospital Haslar. It was proposed that the hospital should be increased from 200 beds to 375. The fact that that was never done is the root cause of our present difficulties.

The Select Committee on Defence, of which I was a member, has been much quoted after saying in February 1997:

"We can only report to the House our fine view that the state of morale at all levels of the Defence Medical Services is lower than we have ever encountered in the armed forces."

Some other criticism has been similarly quoted, but a sentence that I helped to write, at paragraph 71 of that report, has been less quoted:

"In view of the fundamental changes which have been made over the last five years, nothing would be achieved by imposing on the Defence Medical Services any further structural changes."

We were adamant that that was the case. It would be quite wrong to deal with defence medical services by trying to change them dramatically, yet that is exactly what the Government did with their astounding decision in December 1998 to close Haslar.

Broad reasons have been given for the closure. First, the Ministry of Defence hospital units at Peterborough, Derriford and Frimley have proved a good means of training and retaining medical staff. The Ministry has said that MDHUs work well. They may work satisfactorily when it comes to providing medicine, and it may be that they are adequate for training staff. However, they do not give armed forces personnel what they joined the forces for. I talk to many people who say that the MDHUs are all very well, but—they always use the same words—they are not what they joined for. If the Government rely too much on MDHUs, they will lose even more staff.

The Ministry's second reason for closing Haslar is that there has been a change of strategy by the local NHS trust, which is in a period of some movement. Queen Alexandra hospital, Cosham, which has 600 beds, is in the process of taking over the acute function of St. Mary's hospital, Portsmouth, which has 550. That will provide turmoil enough for one period. It is not thought that the new construction, backed by the private finance initiative, will be commissioned until 2005. We face five years of intense movement involving Portsmouth hospitals. The PFI bid does not include a military element. The Minister will find, if he is accurately advised by those in the locality, that the Portsmouth area is most uncertain about accepting an MDHU at Cosham. Nor has the Ministry yet got round to specifying what the unit might be.

The third reason given for the closure of Haslar is that the running costs are quite high. In a letter to me, placed in the Library following a parliamentary question about the costs of building new military hospital facilities to replace Royal Hospital Haslar, the Minister wrote:

"As far as building costs are concerned, these will fall to the private sector partner … The Ministry of Defence will not pay direct running costs since Portsmouth Hospitals Trust will recover these costs through its treatment charges".

I think that the Minister was saying that the costs of replacing Haslar would be nil. That does not bear proper financial scrutiny.

The tide is turning as regards ideas about the size of hospitals. Recently, it has been believed that larger hospitals are more efficient. However, I refer the Minister to an authoritative article in last week's British Medical Journal, which noted:

"The literature shows quite conclusively that there can be no general presumption that larger units produce better outcomes for patients."

The summary of the article says:

"Service planners would do well to give more prominence to the importance of ensuring that hospital services are local and easily accessible."

The consequences of closure will be dramatic for defence. Already, there is overstretch in the armed forces, as the Minister well knows. The overstretch in defence medical services, which have requirements to man areas including Bosnia, Cyprus, the Falklands, Northern Ireland and others, is dramatic. Only one figure is required as an example: the establishment for orthopaedic surgeons at Haslar is eight; the hospital had six, but five have resigned.

What the Government plan for defence medical services might work. But it will not work next year, or in three or five years' time. I submit that it will take 25 years to rebuild the defence medical services and the consultancy skills of those leaving them. That serious national problem has an immediate local focus for Gosport and the surrounding area. Haslar is effectively the district general hospital for Gosport, and it has superb facilities. In the past 10 years, £35 million has been spent there, and it has excellent MRI and CT scanners, a hyperbaric unit and a much needed accident and emergency unit in an area where road access to the next closest hospital can be slow.

I have long and close family associations with the hon. Gentleman's constituency. I should like to put it on the record that I know how valuable the emergency services at Haslar are. A member of my family owes her life to the fact that after a serious road accident she was able to go to Haslar for excellent long-term treatment which restored her to health. In the absence of those services, the road link to the Queen Alexandria hospital in Portsmouth is totally inadequate for getting people in emergencies to hospital in time.

The hon. Gentleman has been staunch in his support of Haslar, as have colleagues from all parties. I am grateful to him for his support today. He knows, because he was there, that the reaction to the closure of Haslar in the Gosport area was instinctive and dramatic. When I announced a rally and march, I thought that we might get a few hundred people, but 22,000 turned out. The Library cannot find a record of a rally or march of that size anywhere about the closure of a hospital. Petitions were signed by 250,000 people. I presented a parliamentary petition signed by 45,000. We had "Save Haslar" in lights and we have received thousands of letters. The reaction has been overwhelming.

The more people locally look at the issue, the worse they find it. Travel from Gosport to Queen Alexandra hospital, Cosham is either by bus, boat and then two more buses, one of which goes once an hour, or by the other way, which is longer, by bus and similarly inconvenient. Car parking at that hospital is notoriously difficult and a taxi costs £11. My constituents who might have to travel there as patients or to see friends or family would find it incredibly inconvenient.

The area is calculated to need 13 intensive care beds. There were 10 such beds at Queen Alexandra hospital and four at Haslar. The Haslar beds have closed, so we now have 10 of the estimated 13 required. On accident and emergency cover, almost 20,000 people are seen each year at Haslar. Of those, on the health authority's own figures, it is estimated that 5,000 will need to go each year to Queen Alexandra hospital by ambulance. That is 13 visits a day and a dedicated ambulance will be required simply to run A and E cases to Cosham.

I asked the local ambulance trust if I could do a practice run. I thought of simulating rushing a heart attack case to Cosham at 7.30 am. The word "rush" is misleading, because the notorious Gosport bottleneck, with only two main roads to take people in and out of the peninsula, would probably mean a journey of 45 minutes. There is no doubt that lives will be lost on the roads between Gosport and Queen Alexandra hospital if Haslar is to close.

There has been a local consultation procedure about the alternative to an accident and emergency unit at Haslar. The health authority suggested a nurse-led casualty unit somewhere in the Gosport area. The response to that was vehement and unanimous: thousands of people said no. The health authority has now advertised for a nurse for an exciting new venture: a nurse-led casualty unit in the Gosport peninsula. The Minister looks surprised. It may be that he is unsighted, as civil servants say, on the issue. It would have been helpful to have one of his colleagues here to advise him on the point.

Ministers have given every kind of assurance. The document in my hand shows their happy smiling faces promising that Haslar's services will be saved. All the assurances that I have here are worthless because there is no doubt that health services on the Gosport peninsula will deteriorate if Haslar hospital is closed. What a mess. My constituents want me to express that not in sorrow but in anger and frustration that Ministers do not appear to be listening to local views and the health authority appears not to be taking account of the representations that have been made. There is no doubt that if this hospital closes, lives will be lost.

I know that the Minister has his brief, prepared for him by his officials. He may well believe, on the advice that he has been given, that he is doing the right thing. I have been a Minister, too, and, unlike every current defence Minister, I have served in the armed forces. I know the special loyalty and deference paid to Ministers and senior officers. Not for nothing was the television series called "Yes, Minister". When a general or admiral asks a man or woman in the armed services, "Everything all right?", he only ever gets one answer: "Yes, Sir." That is how the armed forces work. I know from talking to a wide range of people in the defence medical services—majors, colonels, many of them my friends—that they are deeply upset. Many of them are leaving and more will leave.

I have a solution. In November 1997, the Government announced the closure of the coastguard station in my constituency, and, just as today, I got an Adjournment debate. As today, I said that I thought that the decision was wrong. The Minister said that the Government would go ahead. We lost the battle, but in politics the important thing is to win the war. Someone with more wisdom than the Minister showed in turning my advice down suggested that Lord Donaldson, a man of wide experience, should investigate the coastguard service and advise the Government whether their decisions were right. He looked carefully at the facts and decided that the decision to close the Lee-on-the-Solent station was "not appropriate". The result was this headline: "Rescue Station Escapes Closure".

As the closure of Haslar involves local issues of defence and health, the Government should set someone with sufficient authority and wisdom to study the subject and decide whether the closure is the right course for both defence and civilian interests. If the closure goes ahead, the costs in terms of money, suffering and even lives will be incalculable.

12.46 pm

The hon. Member for Gosport (Mr. Viggers) has raised important issues. I am fully aware of his longstanding interest in the Royal Hospital Haslar and in the defence medical services generally, which he demonstrated in his speech. I am also pleased that other hon. Members with an interest in the hospital are here, notably my hon. Friend the Member for Portsmouth, North (Mr. Rapson) and the hon. Member for Eastleigh (Mr. Chidgey).

I recognise the concerns of people in the Gosport area about our plans for the Royal Hospital Haslar and about the recent changes in the hospital's paediatric and intensive care services. It is appropriate to remind hon. Members of the problems faced by Haslar and the reason we decided that it should close. The intention to close it is part of the future strategy for the defence medical services announced by noble Friend the former Secretary of State for Defence in December 1998. I assure hon. Members that that decision was taken only after very careful consideration and that closure will happen only when suitable alternative arrangements are in place.

As hon. Members know, Haslar was originally selected by the previous Administration to be the tri-service core hospital following the notorious defence costs study 15 in 1994, to which the hon. Member for Gosport alluded. It was expected to provide the number and variety of cases to enable our medical personnel to develop and maintain their skills and professional accreditation so that they could support operational deployments and provide a high standard of health care. In the event, there has been a considerable shift since then in conventional wisdom in the national health service towards much larger acute hospitals that can sustain a high degree of sub-specialisation. That does not apply only in this case; it is a much broader national debate.

Unfortunately, Haslar does not have a sufficient population fully to support modern specialised services or to maintain training accreditation for our medical personnel. In addition, it is fair to say that our working experiences of closer co-operation with the NHS at the three Ministry of Defence hospitals units in NHS district hospitals at Plymouth, Frimley Park and Peterborough have shown that there are many benefits to be had from such arrangements in this sort of organisation. At the same time, it has become clear that Haslar's running costs are significantly higher than possible alternatives. That matter has been carefully examined.

Our plans for defence secondary care in the Portsmouth area are, therefore, now based on the establishment of a new Ministry of Defence hospital unit in a local NHS trust hospital—the Queen Alexandra hospital at Cosham—swhich is represented by my hon. Friend the Member for Portsmouth, North. The Portsmouth Hospitals NHS trust plans to redevelop that hospital under a private finance initiative. Hon. Members may be aware that the trust's proposals were approved earlier this year. The Portsmouth and South East Hampshire health authority is leading the process in planning the shape of new services in the Gosport area, and our Defence Secondary Care Agency is a full partner in that process, together with local NHS provider units and primary care groups.

I should like to take the opportunity to make it clear once again that we are committed to retaining Haslar until our new MOD hospital unit is in place at the Queen Alexandra hospital. Any rumours that we have plans to close the hospital before that time are unfounded. I very much welcome the opportunity to reaffirm that. However, that is not to say that there will be no changes in the way services are delivered, as Haslar and the Portsmouth Hospitals trust work increasingly closely together. We have not said that exactly the same services would be provided on the Haslar site right through until its final closure. Hon. Members will, therefore, understand that the timing of Haslar's eventual closure will depend on the establishment of that new hospital unit. That, in turn, will obviously depend on progress on the redevelopment of the Queen Alexandra hospital by the Portsmouth Hospitals trust. As the hon. Member for Gosport will understand, we cannot say categorically how long Haslar will remain open. However, through discussions, we are aware that the redevelopment of the Queen Alexandra hospital is expected to take several years, and, once again, I can confirm that Haslar will remain open during that time.

The former Secretary of State for Health, my right hon. Friend the Member for Holborn and St. Pancras (Mr. Dobson), said that the people of Gosport are entitled to top-quality health care. That is why we are working closely with the Department of Health to ensure that the standard of health care is maintained throughout the transition to new arrangements. As hon. Members will be aware, a partnership board has been established to ensure effective management of local health care during that period. As hon. Members would expect, that board includes representatives from our Defence Secondary Care Agency, from the Portsmouth and South East Hampshire health authority and the Portsmouth Hospitals trust—as the main providers in that area.

We had realised that the partnership board might identify services that could sensibly be re-configured before Haslar's closure. That has proved to be the case in respect of paediatrics and intensive care services. The decision to close in-patient paediatric services was made as a result of low activity levels and child patient occupancy, and—an important point that carries weight in all these matters—the impact of those factors on the accreditation of paediatric staff by their professional organisations. On average, only two of the 12 paediatric beds were occupied. Children's acute in-patient and day-case services were thus transferred to the Queen Alexandra and Queen Mary's hospitals on 31 July this year.

I realise that that change caused understandable concern among local people. However, we are assured that the alternative care arrangements put in place will ensure that a high standard of care is maintained locally. Furthermore, out-patient clinics continue to be held at Haslar. The accident and emergency department there continues to treat children who are not seriously unwell, nor suffering from major trauma.

The transfer of intensive care services also became necessary as a result of low patient throughput, which additionally caused problems with the new requirements for training accreditation in intensive care. That is a subject over which we have little control, because the matter is decided by the professional associations which provide accreditation. Furthermore, there were problems as to the availability of service personnel. The transfer of services to the Queen Alexandra hospital took place on 31 August this year. However, Haslar retains a high dependency unit, and there has been no reduction in the overall volume of intensive care services in the Portsmouth area.

Further re-configuration of services may be necessary. The hon. Member for Gosport has rightly drawn attention to local speculation and concerns about the future of the accident and emergency department at Haslar. He will be aware that the MOD, the Portsmouth and South East Hampshire health authority, Gosport borough council and the save Haslar task force are participating in a workshop on 22 October to review models of accident and emergency care. The workshop will explore alternative ways of providing services with the help of experts in accident and emergency care and emergency medical transport. When a decision is made on future arrangements, it will then be the subject of statutory public consultation.

The priority in any such changes is to ensure that high quality services continue to be available to residents of the Gosport area. The Defence Secondary Care Agency is working with the Portsmouth and South East Hampshire health authority and the Portsmouth Hospitals NHS trust to achieve that. I can assure the House that my Department will continue to work closely with the Department of Health on future health care in the Portsmouth area. The importance of joint management during the transition programme leading up to the closure of Haslar is fully appreciated by all concerned.

Under the local partnership board, a joint implementation management team and a clinical integration board have been set up to plan and manage the transition—including the move of services between sites where that is necessary in order to sustain training and patient care. There is also close co-operation at senior level between my Department and the Department of Health. That co-operation will be not only at official level. Shortly, I shall be meeting my noble Friend, Lord Hunt, the Under-Secretary of State for Health to discuss health care arrangements in the Portsmouth area and other related matters. As the hon. Member for Gosport kindly mentioned, I also look forward to visiting the Royal Hospital at Haslar on 2 November and discussing those issues with task force representatives.

I fully appreciate that the future of Haslar is of deep concern to hon. Members and their constituents. I can assure them that the Government recognise that concern. That is why my Department will continue to work closely with the Department of Health to ensure that effective health care arrangements are maintained both for the service and the civilian populations in the Gosport area—not only during the period up to the closure of Haslar, but beyond that time, as our new developments begin to bed in and the new services start to take effect.

Pensioners

1 pm

On occasions, we rightly debate what we sometimes describe as minority issues. However, this debate concerns not only the plight of 10 million pensioners, but the problems that face all of us—problems facing Members of Parliament, but, more important, those facing people outside Parliament who have not been as fortunate in the wages and pensions that they receive and will receive.

Next spring, if the Government insist on linking pension increases to prices, a single pensioner will receive an additional 75p a week, bringing his pension up to £67.50, while a couple's pension will increase by £1.20 to £107.90 a week.

If we as a Government allow that to happen, we shall be in the obscene position of having Cabinet Ministers who earn in excess of £94,000 a year lecturing senior citizens on why a 75p rise is adequate, why £67.50 or £67.70 a week is an adequate sum on which to live. I do not know whether that is the third way, but I do know that it is wrong. I suspect that few Labour Members would be willing to defend it and I am sure that pensioners will be outraged. I do not believe that the Government would act like that and I am confident that the settlement will be more generous, but the question is how generous? The Government will have to build on the positive initiatives of the past couple of years, including the reduction in VAT on fuel and the additional winter fuel allowance.

Today's debate is about beginning to rectify a wrong, that wrong being pensioner poverty. One of my predecessors, Nye Bevan, was fond of reminding us that

"Socialism is the language of priorities".

I believe that there are still some Cabinet Ministers who remain proud of their socialism; that being so, they have a duty and an obligation to prioritise the attack on pensioner poverty. Nye was also fond of the quote:

"This is my truth, now tell me yours."

The truth of pensioner poverty is that, from April this year, means-tested income support for pensioners rose to £75 a week for a single pensioner and £116.60 for a couple; for a couple with a non-means-tested pension, the figure is £106.70, while a single pensioner receives £66.75 a week.

The Government claim that, by raising income support, they are helping the poorest pensioners, but that is not so, because although the poorest pensioners live below the level set for income support and are entitled to income support, for a variety of reasons they fail to claim it. It has been estimated that as many as 860,000 pensioners are in that position. That is not all: as many as 600,000 pensioners below income support level cannot claim, because their savings are taken into account, with the result that the guaranteed minimum does not apply to them.

Another truth is that the value of the basic pension has fallen dramatically as a proportion of average earnings. If pensions had continued to be linked to earnings, as they were until that link was broken in 1980, a single pensioner would now receive £95.05 a week. In addition, the Green Paper "A new contract for welfare: Partnership in Pensions" shows that the combined value of the basic state pension and the proposed second pension will reach only about 21 to 26 per cent. of the average male wage by the middle of the next century.

When the Labour Government introduced their pensions reforms in 1975, they included a compulsory second tier, the state earnings-related pension scheme, and guaranteed that pensions would rise in line with earnings or prices, whichever was the higher. The two pensions combined were to be equal to almost half the average earnings. That is far better than the proposals in the current pensions Green Paper, which shows that the Government are determined to privatise much of our pension provision, despite the scandal of private pension mis-selling in the 1980s. If anyone doubts that, they should take note of what my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Social Security said:

"if people stay in the state system, they will lose money".—[Official Report, 15 December 1998; Vol. 322, c. 771.]

That might be an honest statement of intent, but it signals disaster in terms of providing for future pension needs.

It is possible that the Minister who winds up this debate will express sympathy with the demands of pensioner organisations and myself, but he will quickly follow that by saying that the money to meet those demands is not available—indeed, he might challenge me to state where the money is to be found and who is to pay. Anticipating such a challenge, I shall suggest how the bill for increased pensions can be paid.

I remind the House that immediately after world war two this country faced bankruptcy, yet we still managed to finance the transfer of millions of workers from military to civilian production; to introduce a massive housebuilding programme; to create the finest piece of socialist legislation this century—the jewel in our crown—which established the national health service; and to legislate for a major welfare reform programme. All that and much more was achieved by a country which faced bankruptcy. Now, 50 years later, we are one of the richest countries in the world, so our potential achievements are far greater.

The National Pensioners Convention, Age Concern and Help the Aged campaigned for a 1999 increase to £75 per week for all single pensioners and £116.60 for pensioner couples. That, they emphasised, would be the first step. I am sure that they will agree that those sums are still a pittance, well below the 50 per cent. of male average earnings which, it is normally argued, represents the poverty line.

The Government obviously support means-testing and would probably argue that it is wrong for the richer pensioners to receive as much from the state as poorer pensioners. In my opinion, the answer is not means-testing, but a progressive tax system that taxes at a higher rate those on high earnings when they are in employment. That is the way we should tackle inequality. I shall make some suggestions in that respect later in my speech. For now, I shall simply state my belief that the principle of universality in pension provision is just as important as in other public services.

The £75 non-means-tested pension, with proportionate increases for married couples, demanded for 1999 would have been a step forward, but only a single step. The other demand made by the National Pensioners Convention is that the Government should recognise the need to restore the link between wages and pensions—which, as we all know, was broken by the Tories in 1980—and begin to move toward setting pensions at the levels they would have been in 1999 had the link not been broken. That is obviously fair, given that national insurance contributions are linked to earnings.

The cost of meeting the £75 and £116.60 non-means-tested pension would be £4 billion—a tiny sum compared with the savings that have been made and the moneys now available. I shall suggest a few areas in which the money could be found to ensure that pensioners receive the income and the justice they deserve. Many of the figures I shall use were provided by the House of Commons Library statisticians. They emphasise that we can meet our manifesto commitment to ensure that pensioners share the benefits of increasing national prosperity. We have rightly placed considerable emphasis on fulfilling our manifesto commitments and I am sure that we do not want to break that one.

First, the Government Actuary estimates that there will be a surplus in the national insurance fund of approximately £5.9 billion in 1999–2000. Secondly, the breaking of the link between pensions and wages has resulted in massive savings. Answering a question in the other place in February 1998, Baroness Hollis said that those savings now totalled £10.1 billion a year. Since 1980, when the link was first broken, savings of about £85 billion have been made—at the expense of senior citizens.

Thirdly, about £4 billion is spent—and therefore wasted—each year on the administration of means-tested benefits. Fourthly, many people, including up to 860,000 pensioners, do not claim the benefits due to them. The Government recently announced that for the year 1997–98 the savings amounted to between £1.6 billion and £4.1 billion.

Fifthly, budget forecasts show that there is now a budget surplus of about £12 billion. That is almost certainly a conservative estimate, because we know that the economy has expanded far more rapidly since the forecasts were made, and the budget surplus for the years 2000–01 and 2001–02 is likely to be about £20 billion.

Sixthly, if we linked our defence expenditure to the average expenditure of other western European countries we could save about £4 billion.

Finally, the money could be found by changing tax rates. For example, if we taxed incomes over £100,000 at 50 per cent. we would raise an additional £2 billion, and increasing that rate to 60 per cent. would raise an additional £4 billion. It is important to apply the fine socialist principle of the redistribution of wealth by taxing the highest earners at a higher rate.

Redistribution is necessary because under the previous Government—unfortunately, this has continued under the present Government—the gap between the rich and the poor has widened, with the poorest 20 per cent. experiencing no change, or even a decrease, in their real income. Again, pensioners are a significant number within that group; again, they are losing out.

Those are just a few suggestions about where the money could come from to meet pensioners' demands. I emphasise that fact, because I am sure that other hon. Members, including my hon. Friends—and, who knows, perhaps even the Minister when he responds to the debate—may have other suggestions about how the money can be raised. I do not suggest that all the savings that I have mentioned should go to pensioners, although much of the money thus raised should go to them. We are no longer facing bankruptcy, as we were in 1945. We are an extremely rich country, awash with money that could meet the pensioners' demands.

Of course other issues, too, affect pensioners, and the Government must address those as well, including the costs involved when pensioners enter nursing homes. The Royal College of Nursing has called for nursing care to be free under the NHS to all who are assessed as needing it, wherever it is provided.

Finally, as I switch on my television every night I am confronted with news of the plight of the farming community, yet hardly any mention is ever made of the plight of the pensioners. There are far more pensioners than farmers—10 million of them. All of us, not only politicians but people in the media, too, should concentrate a little more time and effort on highlighting the plight of the pensioners.

I also saw on television that Prince Charles had come to the assistance of the pensioners. May I, through this debate, invite him to my constituency of Blaenau Gwent? Perhaps he could chat with some of the senior citizens organisations; I am sure that he would learn a lot about the plight of those 10 million pensioners.

Pensioners demand not the third way but justice. That is why we, the Labour Government, were rightly elected a while ago. For me, it is as simple as that, and I look forward to sitting on the Government Benches and sharing the joy as the Chancellor announces policies to ensure that justice is done for our pensioners.

1.15 pm

I am glad that my hon. Friend the Member for Blaenau Gwent (Mr. Smith) secured this debate, and I congratulate him on raising the issue so early after the recess. I am also glad about what he said in his last sentence, because I, too, will be on the Government Benches when the Chancellor makes his Budget statement in due course, and many of the issues that my hon. Friend has mentioned are for my right hon. Friend to decide. Clearly, my hon. Friend will not expect me to make a Budget statement today. However, I will do my best to deal with some of the issues that he has raised.

I make no apology for taking as my theme one of the first points that my hon. Friend made. He was, I believe, paraphrasing Nye Bevan when he said that we should prioritise our attack on pensioner poverty. That is what the Government intend to do. We cannot have more than one priority. If we are to prioritise our attack on pensioner poverty, pensioners who are not in poverty will not be the priority. That is self-evident, but it has to be said.

My hon. Friend made some fair comparisons when he talked about the way in which things have developed in the past 20 years. Those are fair and appropriate points. Since 1979, pensioners' average incomes have grown, but the fact remains that inequality among pensioners has also grown. A significant number of people have been left outside the improvements in general living standards. It is because we are not prepared to leave things like that that we intend to prioritise the issue.

I shall try not to use too many statistics, because sometimes they get in the way of the argument. However, the incomes of the least-well-off 20 per cent. of single pensioners have risen by only 28 per cent. since 1979, whereas there has been an increase of 80 per cent. for the richest 20 per cent. of pensioners. One can see that there has been a widening gap.

In the poverty report that we published three weeks ago, entitled "Opportunity for all—tackling poverty and social exclusion", we said that there had been a widening gap of inequality in society. That includes the gap between the poorer and the better-off pensioners, and the main reasons for that gap are the tremendous increase—162 per cent.—in the real value of occupational pensions and the rise of more than 100 per cent. in investment incomes.

As a result, the proportion of pensioners dependent on means-tested benefits fell from 57 per cent. in 1979 to 40 per cent. in 1996–97. I shall return to the issue of take-up later because, as my hon. Friend said, it is crucial.

At the moment, 28 per cent. of recently retired pensioners are means-tested in the widest sense, in that they are on state benefits. Talk of certain types of welfare reform and help with savings is much too late for those people. We need two separate policy initiatives, one for today's pensioners and one for tomorrow's pensioners. Many of the issues that my hon. Friend raised relate to today's pensioners, who need help now to enjoy a decent retirement. The Government have taken action in many areas, and will continue to do so.

I claim no special rights in this respect, but I was a Member of Parliament between 1974 and 1979, and I know that the link with earnings rather than prices lasted for only four years; it was a very short period. Indeed, when I was first elected, pensions were not even uprated annually. I believe that there was one period of two or three years in which pensions did not change.

We made it clear in our manifesto commitments that the basic pension would remain, would not be means-tested and would be raised in conformity with the rise in prices. I am not picking and choosing among our manifesto commitments, but I cannot pre-empt what my right hon. Friend the Chancellor will say in his statement about social security benefits next year, because that statement has not yet been prepared. However, my right hon. Friend is required to take into account a range of factors, including recent changes in the retail prices index.

Pensions may be linked to prices in future. Is the Minister saying that the 75p increase for a single pensioner next spring will be adequate, taking into account the possible price rises by that time?

No; I am saying that there is press speculation, and everyone knows the level of the retail prices index. A statement will be made in due course, as normal. We are not required to make a statement until the second or third week of November. I do not know when that statement will be made, but it will be made at the appropriate time and in good time. At this time, I shall not debate whether that increase should be one figure or another.

There are now just under 11 million pensioners. Over the next 30 years, that figure will increase to almost 15 million, and there will be fewer people of working age. We must consider those long-term issues. We must also provide a help package to today's poorest pensioners. My hon. Friend referred to the minimum income guarantee. No pensioner in any hon. Member's constituency, whether or not he or she is listening to this debate, should have a total weekly income of less than £75 a week, provided that they have no more than £3,000 in savings. However, we know from estimates that there are several hundred thousand pensioners who receive less than £75 a week, and we can correct that situation.

There are difficulties in the take-up of benefits. We have done more to solve those problems than previous Governments and have recently published research on that subject so that we can introduce a specific Government-led campaign to reach those pensioners. Ministers cannot simply say that the minimum income guarantee exists so no pensioner should be receiving less than £75 a week, without introducing an active, positive campaign to seek out every one of those poor pensioners, and that is what we intend to do. The basic figure for the minimum income guarantee is £75 a week, and the figure will be higher for older pensioners and those who are disabled. About 1.5 million pensioners have already benefited. Single pensioners have gained £160 a year in real terms.

The Chancellor has made it clear that the guarantee will be increased in line with earnings. That is important for today's pensioners, but it has consequences for our plans for stakeholder pensions and the state second pension, which we must tackle in due course. We are prioritising our attack on the poverty of today's pensioners. The guarantee means that pensioners over 80 will be more than £400 a year better off after two years of increases. No one can argue that we are not taking action.

We have just published a large programme of research into why some pensioners do not claim benefits. I regret, as do the Government, that we cannot run the campaign this autumn. It must take place early next year. It is not possible for the Benefits Agency to carry out that work before Christmas. We are preparing for that campaign and we shall ensure that it is effective. We must focus on building links with partner organisations, including those in the voluntary sector and local authorities. Pensioners who are identified as being potentially entitled to benefit will be issued with a specifically tailored leaflet that will provide information. There is no leaflet and no application form relating to the minimum income guarantee. The relevant application form is that for income support, which is 40 pages long.

It is not necessary for pensioners to visit a benefits office to claim the minimum income guarantee. If they do not want to go to the office, the information can be taken over the telephone or during a home visit. I encourage hon. Members to make that abundantly clear to pensioners in their constituency who argue that they do not want to go to the social. We shall explore ways to work on a permanent basis with our partners in local government to offer pensioners services relating to benefit entitlement.

My hon. Friend referred to the capital limits for the guarantee as a disincentive for saving, including saving for long-term care. We recognise that those limits can appear to be—and are—unfair to those who have saved. The present capital limits, which have been frozen for a considerable time, have been a disincentive and send the wrong message to the people who will be the next generation of pensioners. The message is that it does not pay to save, which is the exact opposite of the message that the Government seek to send out. We are therefore considering the rules on capital. They are not straightforward because there are different rules for different benefits. We shall make an announcement on that as soon as possible. I regret that I cannot give a date for that.

Our package for pensioners is not only for those who are the least well off. As my hon. Friend acknowledged in an earlier meeting, the £100 winter fuel payment will go to all pensioner households and is not means-tested. People do not need to apply for that payment, which will be paid to 10 million pensioners in 7 million households before Christmas. That is a substantial increase on last year's payment. Pensioners are not a homogenous group and one cannot treat them as such, but, by and large, that payment should mean that people should not be afraid to keep warm this winter.

My hon. Friend mentioned SERPS. Many people retiring today, who have been fortunate enough to have 20 years' work, will receive SERPS. SERPS is not to be sniffed at, despite the previous Government's attack on the system in 1986. The average male retiring today will receive £49.44 a week from SERPS, and women will receive between £22 and £24. That is a tribute to the planning of the previous Labour Government. Unfortunately, it is not possible to turn back the clock and reverse what happened in 1986. We are grappling with the major problem of the mis-selling of pensions and the changes to SERPS for widows, which the previous Government deliberately hid for over a decade. We must get to grips with that within the next three weeks because of the Welfare Reform and Pensions Bill, which is being considered in the other place. That legislation may entail the expenditure of billions of pounds.

We have made progress on the tax guarantee for pensioners. Under the guarantee announced by the Chancellor, two thirds of pensioners will not pay tax, and this year 200,000 fewer pensioners are paying tax than last year. My hon. Friend was generous enough to mention VAT on fuel. People tend to forget that 5 per cent. is the lowest that we can set VAT on fuel. We have reintroduced free eye tests for pensioners.

We are conducting a listening process across the country. Ministers are listening not to organisations but to ordinary people. I have participated in two such events. The first was in Liverpool last week, and the second was in Southampton on Monday. We are listening to people so that we can construct policies that are effective for today's pensioners and tomorrow's pensioners. We need to make two specific policy efforts because if we introduce our measures for tomorrow's pensioners using the normal methods of the House, they will not help today's pensioners. We are prioritising today's pensioners in our attack on pensioner poverty. That means that we have to target our resources and we make no apology for that. We shall be judged on what we have done for the poorest in our society, and we shall be judged at the next election, not halfway through the next century when our new pension programmes will have come on-stream.

Victims Of Crime

1.28 pm

Today, although I am usually on the Front Bench, I take my place on the Back Benches to represent a constituent. I shall describe a shocking constituency case that I believe highlights a failure in the criminal justice system, and I hope that once hon. Members have heard that case, they will agree with me. The case is not isolated; it is one more example of a system that is no longer trusted by large numbers of the public.

You, Mr. Deputy Speaker, will know that I tabled this debate before the House rose for the recess some months ago, so I did not know that in the past seven days other cases would come to public notice which reinforce what I am about to say.

Over the weekend, an award was announced in the Silcott case. When a person who is doing time as a murderer finds himself better off to the tune of £50,000 or £60,000, it sets the public wondering. They say that something seems to be wrong. In the past few days, the case of Dr. Joan Richardson was concluded. It appears that, were it not for the fact that the family were in a financial position to bring a civil prosecution, that would have been yet another case of injustice, and Dr. Richardson's killer would have gone free.

Last night, in an Adjournment debate on rural crime instigated my right hon. Friend the Member for South-West Norfolk (Mrs. Shephard)—my colleague and friend—she drew attention to a case in her constituency. In doing so, she again highlighted what has gone wrong with the system.

I hope that those three incidents give some idea of what I consider to be wrong. However, today I shall focus on one case in my constituency, about which I am concerned, and draw some conclusions. In December 1998, I was contacted by Mrs. Hockley, who had just written to the Home Secretary—he or his office took more than six months to reply—and to the Prime Minister. On reading her letter, I was reminded of an article in my local newspaper entitled "Rough Justice?", which was about the murder of Mrs. Hockley's son, Matthew Hockley, and the subsequent trial. She had written movingly about the failure to convict two men for her son's murder.

However, it was the last sentence in Mrs. Hockley's letter to me which set me on the course of action that has culminated today. She wrote:

"I am at my wits' end knowing that the two murderers are free and living while my beloved son is dead. Please help me."

I am afraid that an examination of this case illustrates so much of what is wrong, and shows how urgently action is needed. I hope that the Minister will respond.

On 11 October 1997, in the evening, at the Fox and Hounds pub in Chingford, Matthew Hockley was stabbed to death—not one stabbing but multiple stabbings, in a brutal assault. The police charged two brothers with the offence, and with the joint offence of wounding with intent in respect of a different victim. Before the case came to court, the accused absconded but were eventually brought back into custody. The case commenced on 3 August 1998 at the central criminal court at the Old Bailey.

Before the case began, the Crown Prosecution Service was so certain that the evidence and the witness statements stacked up that it informed my constituent, Mrs. Hockley, that, in its opinion, the case was 99.5 per cent. sure to result in a conviction, and that the perpetrators would serve at least 15 to 20 years for what they had done. Yet before August had finished, the accused were acquitted and Mr. and Mrs. Hockley—and their family, Matthew's brothers and sisters, and nieces and nephews—are left surveying the ruins of their lives, with the desperate and constant reminder not only that their son was murdered, but most particularly that those whom the police, the Crown Prosecution Service and witnesses believed to have committed the murder are now free.

When I took up the case, I tried hard to understand how such an injustice could have come about in a system that I had grown up to believe was one of the best in the world. On 9 December 1998, I wrote to the Home Secretary, and that letter was passed to the Director of Public Prosecutions. When I read his reply, I felt that, while he was outlining the CPS version of events and how it had arrived at its conclusions, he was already starting to distance the CPS from the whole process, and especially from the failure. Intriguingly, the director said that the senior Crown prosecutor who had said that the CPS believed that the case was 99.5 per cent. certain of success could not recall ever saying that.

Once one has read to the end of the letter, one is left with the strong impression that the CPS never thought that the case could possibly have arrived at a successful conclusion. That strikes me as strange, because I cannot conceive of why the CPS would have gone about prosecuting the case if it genuinely did not believe that it would be successful. That is not the impression that the CPS gave to the police or to my constituents.

Some other very serious issues required some answers, which were not given. For example, the Queen's counsel who had started the case with the CPS found that he was unable to take the case to court because he had other commitments. That is fair enough; it does happen. Some cases go on longer than expected. A week before trial, a new prosecutor—a new QC—was given the case. That prosecutor had less than seven days in which to understand the intricacies of the case and prosecute it, but, despite, that there was no discussion by the CPS about postponing the trial or finding another way round the problem.

How can a prosecutor come to such an important case with just seven days preparation, and how can the CPS gamble that such an individual can master that brief and prosecute successfully? Surely it would have been better to go for some form of postponement, but that suggestion was refused.

When I inquired into the circumstances of what happened during the case, it became apparent to me, from discussions with the police, that several times during the case it was quite clear that the command or knowledge of what happened during the investigation was simply not there, and that elements were left unprosecuted.

For example, Mrs. Hockley maintains that the accused absconded for three weeks, which seems to be the recollection of the police, but during the case the prosecutor simply allowed that to be referred to as a matter of a few days. When the accused stated that when they left the pub, the victim was still sitting happily on a chair smoking, that apparently was not challenged although, according to all the witness statements, at that stage Matthew Hockley was already dead, or very seriously wounded, and the individuals were throwing bottles and chairs at him.

I do not intend to describe all the problems. I mention a few to highlight the mess that the case got into. Surely a week is not enough time in which to master such an important case. More important, when I then received a letter from the Attorney-General, whom I have known for a long time, about the case—to his credit, he was genuinely sympathetic—he seemed to be saying that the problem was simply the witnesses' failure to back up their witness statements. He said:

"It is important to remember that the decisions of police and CPS were based on the statements that were taken from the witnesses not the evidence that they gave in court which departed from their statements."

One is left wondering why that was not ascertained before trial. How can one go to trial in such a case and not try to discover whether the witnesses will back up their statements or are likely to agree with what they said at the time when they were interviewed?

I hope that the Minister takes some account of the fact that, on this occasion, the police, to whom I spoke at great length, said that that was not the whole story. I do not know whether the Minister is aware of an organisation called Victims Voice. I was in contact with it some years ago about another case in my constituency. The organisation represents people like Mrs. Hockley. It has tried to contact the Government to get a response from them since they came to power. It maintains that it has done so without any success. I remember taking representatives of Victims Voice to see my right hon. and learned Friend the Member for Folkestone and Hythe (Mr. Howard) when he was the Home Secretary and having discussions with him. However, Victims Voice is saying clearly that it receives no response from the Home Office or the Home Secretary, or even the Prime Minister, to whom it has written. That is not good and I am sad that that is the position.

Victims Voice has said that when Labour was in opposition, it had the clear understanding that a different view would be taken by a Labour Government. It is worried that the position is changing since the Opposition became the Government. I shall not draw conclusions about that; I simply say that an examination is needed. If what I have said is correct, I suspect that the Government need to have a rethink about their attitude.

I understand that Victims Voice organised a launch and that a letter to the Home Secretary last October, in which it asked him to attend, went unanswered. A fax to the Prime Minister received a rather bland reply two weeks later. Victims Voice has a serious issue to raise. It represents people like Mrs. Hockley who have suffered, and it has a right to be heard.

The Lawrence case is a recent example. I know that there are huge debates about other issues surrounding that case, but we should not lose sight of one simple fact arising from it—the parents have no redress, so their son's murder goes without answer. Like Mrs. Hockley, they are ultimately the victims of a system that seems to have failed them.

I have said that the Hockley case is not an isolated example, and from that I want to draw another conclusion. Over the past 24 hours, Victims Voice responded to my request for some other examples. There was the Crown v. Skeets and the Crown v. Skeets again in 1999. That was where the dismissed individual went on to commit another murder. There was the Crown v. Terrance Maul and Craig Maul. There was the Crown v. Donald Forbes followed by the Crown v. Donald Forbes again. That was a second homicide. There was the Crown v. Wayne Scotland. There was the Crown v. Scotland again. That represented a failure.

There was the Crown v. Anthony Diedick, the Crown v. Freddie Foreman, the Crown v. Jennings, Parker and Parker, the Crown v. Duffy, the Crown v. Colin Stagg, the Crown v. David Fields, the Crown v. Dunlop, the Crown v. McCluskey, Khan and Hunter, the Crown v. Stephen Plank and the Crown v. Keith Nicholas Whitehouse. I could go on, but I shall not do so. I simply say to the Minister that this pattern cannot be allowed to continue, otherwise people will lose faith in the system.

I ask for some redress for those who are now the victims, who are the families. It is clear that some cases will fail and we need to have a mechanism whereby, in a criminal sense, it is possible to have a rethink about certain cases and allow the families of those who have been murdered some form of redress. At present, if someone is sufficiently wealthy or manages to secure enough money, he can pursue some action through the civil court. However, in my constituency case—I discussed the matter at length with Mrs. Hockley—that is not an option because she does not have the money. Therefore, she is left staring at the ruin that is now her life.

The families of these victims do not want to create a victim culture. They would not call for that. They are not chasing for more money because they know that that will not bring back those who have been murdered. However, they do not want to see criminals benefit financially from any of their previous activities. Most of all, they want to be able to see justice done if the process fails in the first instance. It is the inability to deal with a failure, such as the one that I have outlined, that creates a terrible sense of injustice, and which can lead to problems in future.

I know that there will be problems. I am the first to accept that there are always problems with prosecutions because there is no absolute certainty. We all know that sometimes prosecutors do not get it right. However, when they do not get it right—not because of the innocence of the accused but because the prosecution has failed—the question that needs to be answered is how we deal with that failure. Justice must be done and be seen to be done. My worry is that if the Hockley case and other cases become known as the norm outside the House, and if newspapers represent them as real failures, ordinary men and women will think seriously about taking the law into their own hands. None of us in this place wants that. Any Government need to face that situation and find some way to deal with the anger and concern.

I quickly examined the number of cases tried in the Crown courts where there were no guilty pleas and the cases were contested. There were about 22,229 during 1998–99, with 11,561 convictions. Therefore, there was a failure to secure convictions in 8,668 cases, about 43 per cent. of those brought to trial. There were 8,668 Mrs. Hockleys; 8,668 cases that make people wonder on whose side the system is.

It is probably a conservative estimate that about £3.5 million is spent on failure. That should wake us up to the real failure that the system represents. No Government can possibly allow that situation to continue if they have any belief in the criminal justice system, as I do. I believe that we still have a great criminal justice system. It is still a system where justice can be found. However, I am afraid that ordinary men and women will find themselves so worried about the outcomes of serious cases that they may end up trying to take the law into their own hands. Now is the time for the Government to face that. Surely now is the time for them to make clear observations and statements of policy and deal with the matter.

1.46 pm

First, I congratulate the hon. Member for Chingford and Woodford Green (Mr. Duncan Smith) on securing a debate on the operation of the criminal justice system in respect of victims of crime. I have great sympathy with him on the specific cases that he raised and thank him for the way in which he put his case, which raised profound issues about the opacity and lack of clarity in the way in which the criminal justice system operates in many cases. I, too, have had constituents who have felt extremely frustrated, to put it mildly, about the way in which the system operates. I am sure that all right hon. and hon. Members will have had a similar experience.

I know that the hon. Gentleman appreciates that I am not in a position, any more than he is, to put myself as judge and jury in particular cases, nor to comment on the range of cases that he has mentioned. I simply say that the cases that he mentioned at the beginning of his speech—those of Silcott and Joan Richardson, the Emneth murder very near my constituency and the case of Matthew Hockley—are very different in character and raise different issues that need to be addressed. I am grateful to have the opportunity to tell the House what the Government are doing and will do to help victims of crime, and also deal with a number of the points that the hon. Gentleman raised.

First, I place on record that we acknowledge that the previous Government took some steps in the second half of their period of office to move forward in this matter, and we have sought to move further. We believe, as we have heard today in respect of Matthew Hockley's case and the other cases that the hon. Gentleman raised, that first and foremost victims want offenders caught, charged and convicted. However, as he acknowledged, sometimes there is simply insufficient evidence to bring charges. Sometimes a jury will decide that guilt has not been established beyond reasonable doubt. As I have said, I cannot comment on specific cases, although I have sympathy with the particular case that the hon. Gentleman raised.

The hon. Gentleman is correct to say that it is our duty—not only the Government's duty, but that of the system—to establish a criminal justice system that is responsive to the wider needs of victims. Evidence suggests that, first, the victims want from the criminal justice system a simpler, clearer and less opaque process so that they can understand exactly what is happening, and a system that deals with cases much more speedily and effectively. Secondly, they want to be treated with dignity and respect, and in far too many cases that does not happen. Thirdly, they want to get proper information about their cases from the various agencies that are involved in the process, and the hon. Gentleman named some of them. Fourthly, they want their views taken into account in the process that goes forward. Fifthly, they want protection from intimidation and repeat victimisation, which is too often a feature of the cases that we are discussing. Finally, they want compensation for the injuries or loss sustained. I shall deal with each of those factors.

As for simpler, clearer and faster justice, we have taken steps, following the Narey and Glidewell reforms, to try to expedite the process. One of the most frustrating features for the hon. Gentleman's constituents and for mine is the very long time that is often taken as the various agencies within the criminal justice system interrelate before being able to resolve a case in the most effective way.

We are actively considering how we can create a simpler and clearer system. As I know the hon. Gentleman will acknowledge, there are important issues of human rights and the rights of victims, as well as the rights of those who are prosecuted. We must secure a balance between the various agencies operating in the field. The present situation is too complex and too opaque and needs to be changed.

Secondly, with regard to victims' dignity and respect for victims, since May 1997 we have increased by 50 per cent. the grant to Victim Support, an important organisation in this field—a grant that had effectively been frozen by the previous Government.

The hon. Gentleman mentioned Victims Voice. As it happens, I had a fringe meeting at the Labour party conference which dealt with many of the issues that have been raised today. Representatives of Victims Voice attended that meeting and made a powerful series of interventions. I spoke directly to them about the issues that the hon. Gentleman raised and about more general issues, and I committed myself to studying their material, of which they gave me a substantial quantity, and from some of which the hon. Gentleman may have drawn. I also undertook to speak further with Victims Voice, and I can confirm to the House that that is my intention. My previous meeting with the group was not arranged in advance, but, as I said, I met representatives at the Labour party conference, where we discussed some of the issues.

Our increased grant to Victim Support has enabled that organisation to use the new money to establish a new national telephone helpline for victims, which has made a major difference, and, more importantly, to start introducing a support service for victims and witnesses in magistrates courts. The support service for witnesses that has been developed is an important element in securing convictions. As the hon. Gentleman would no doubt acknowledge—although I do not make the point in any way about Matthew Hockley—in many cases securing a conviction depends on the preparedness of witnesses to stand up, even though they may feel intimidated by the criminals. That is why we have given support to Victim Support, which, in turn, has been able to enhance the support that it provides to victims in its local community-based schemes, and for witnesses in its Crown court support service. We are looking to extend the scheme in that area.

In addition, for the first time, this year we have provided a grant of £100,000 to an organisation called Support after Murder and Manslaughter, all of whose members have suffered bereavement as a result of homicide. We seek to give concrete support in specific ways. I hear the hon. Gentleman's point about Victims Voice, one of the organisations involved, and will deal with that specifically.

The third aspect is information about developments in a case. That was one of the most powerful points made by the hon. Gentleman. We have taken forward the pilot project introduced by the victims charter to establish ways of providing more timely and better quality information about a case to the victims, from the time that a crime is committed to the eventual possible release of the offender—right through the process.

It is our intention shortly to issue national guidance on the matter, as we acknowledge that the organisations concerned need better quality advice. In particular, we have asked the Crown Prosecution Service, which featured several times in the hon. Gentleman's speech, to take responsibility for conveying information to victims about the decisions taken by the CPS. I can tell the House that it is actively working to put in place an effective system for that. It is intended that that should be in place by April 2001, and, to that end, a series of pilots is being run in various parts of the country. As I am sure the hon. Gentleman would concede, there are serious difficulties surrounding how to give information, at what stage, and with what authority. I hope that the hon. Gentleman will support the steps that we are taking.

The fourth important aspect is to take victims' views into account. Of course, those views are already taken into account informally in respect of some decisions, but I place no substantive weight on that because an informal mechanism is not a good way of proceeding. We are considering the introduction of a system enabling victims in all but the most relatively minor cases to have the opportunity to explain the effect that crime has had on them—physically, emotionally, financially or in any other respect.

It is important for victims to give as well as to receive information, as a way of bringing them closer to the heart of the criminal justice process, and ensuring that, in reaching decisions, the system takes greater account of the experience of the victims of crime. It is not an easy matter, but we are actively considering it and believe that it will be an important development.

The fifth aspect relates to intimidation and repeat victimisation. I do not suggest that that is an issue in the Hockley case, but in many other cases it is significant. Provisions in our Youth Justice and Criminal Evidence Act 1999 fulfil our commitment to provide greater assistance to rape complainants, children and other vulnerable and intimidated witnesses, who for obvious reasons may find it particularly difficult to give evidence in court.

The 1999 Act gives authority to the courts to provide a range of special practical measures to help witnesses to give their best evidence in court. The measures include screening the witness, allowing evidence to be given through a live link rather than in the courtroom, and banning defendants from personally cross-examining their alleged victims in sexual offence cases. As I mentioned in relation to Victim Support, I highlight that aspect because it was one of the weaknesses in the system identified by the hon. Gentleman when he referred to the proportion of convictions in the cases that go to the Crown court. We must do everything possible to strengthen witnesses who might feel anxious about going to court, and enable them to give evidence truthfully and straightforwardly.

Will the Government give serious consideration to redress in cases that have fallen not because the evidence was dismissed, but because of ineptitude and incompetence in the process of prosecution? Is there any way that the Government could deal with that through the criminal system?

As I said at the outset, we are examining the entire way in which the criminal justice system operates, to ensure fairness. The hon. Gentleman makes a fair point, and it is one of the aspects that we shall consider.

On reparation and compensation, the United Kingdom currently has the most generous system of state compensation in Europe. In 1998–99, the criminal injuries compensation scheme paid out almost £200 million to more than 46,000 successful applicants. Nevertheless, we did not think that that was adequate in all respects, and the Government earlier this year issued a public consultation paper on the scheme, inviting suggestions for possible changes to the rules of the scheme and for eligibility for payment—a relevant point in this discussion.

We had a large number of responses to the consultation paper, which are being analysed. We shall announce our conclusions as soon as we can. I can guarantee the hon. Gentleman that his comments this afternoon will be taken into account in that process. Compensation is also provided to victims through compensation orders made by the courts. It is estimated that about three quarters of all compensation orders are in paid in full within 18 months.

My conclusion relates to the hon. Gentleman's final point—the Lawrence case. Sir William Macpherson's inquiry into the murder of Stephen Lawrence made recommendations about the treatment of victims and witnesses, which we are taking forward together with the other measures that I have outlined. We want to build on the start that we have made. We want to provide greater protection, better information and more opportunities for victims to have their say. Above all, we want to restore victims to the heart of the criminal justice system and maintain this country's growing reputation as a European front-runner in victim care.

It being Two o'clock, the motion for the Adjournment of the House lapsed, without Question put.

Sitting suspended, pursuant to Standing Order No. 10 (Wednesday sittings), till half-past Two o'clock.

Private Business

Baxi Partnership Limited Trusts Bill Lords

Read a Second time, and committed.

Oral Answers To Questions

Northern Ireland

The Secretary of State was asked—

Decommissioning

What progress has been made through the Decommissioning Authority on the proposals for the purchase of decommissioned weaponry. [92968]

Decommissioning schemes were published in June 1998 after extensive consultation. They make no provision for the purchase of paramilitary weaponry as that option was not supported by any of the parties. The people of Northern Ireland need to know that paramilitary weapons have gone for good and I believe that they would not find the concept of giving money to terrorists acceptable.

I thank my right hon. Friend for his reply, but the purchase of decommissioned weaponry has played a part in internal conflict resolution in various parts of the world. Would not it be wrong to rule it out even at this stage?

I note what my hon. Friend says. Although that is a matter not only for the Government, but for all the parties, I think that I have made our view clear.

Does the Minister recognise that there is no democracy in western Europe where terrorists or insurgents in possession of weapons or associated with those who are in possession of weapons enter government? Will he reassure us, as Parliament reassembles, that it is still Government policy that no one who is a terrorist or terrorist linked can enter government while those terrorist organisations continue to hold weapons?

Those matters undoubtedly are subject to the discussions currently taking place under the Mitchell review. Clearly, the principles set out in the Good Friday agreement are ones that the Government uphold entirely. I am sure that that is consistent with the views the hon. Gentleman has expressed.

Does my right hon. Friend agree that the key question in determining whether an individual is a terrorist is attitude and commitment to peace? Without wishing to downgrade the importance of decommissioning, perhaps even more focus should be put on the commitment to ending the war.

This is undoubtedly a difficult process. What the Good Friday agreement has set in place, and what previous Governments and this Government have sought to achieve, is a new climate of opinion to persuade people away from the culture of violence and into the culture of democratic politics. The Good Friday agreement established a good framework for that, which is why we ask all the parties associated with the review to proceed with all haste and good intent to bring it to a conclusion.

On decommissioning, does the Minister agree with the Prime Minister that

"Adams and McGuinness are sincere"

and that the IRA leadership are prepared to give up violence for good when there is no evidence at all that they are prepared to give up violence? Not one ounce of Semtex or one weapon has been surrendered, although we read that the IRA is recruiting students at Belfast freshers' fair, and we know that it is torturing and intimidating people daily on the streets of Ireland. When will the Minister and the new Secretary of State take action against that serious security problem?

The Government take all those issues seriously, which is why we keep the status and the quality of the review under close scrutiny. To do otherwise would fail all the people of Northern Ireland and what we are trying to achieve through the Good Friday agreement. The hon. Gentleman uses emotive language, but he should apply some good common sense to it and try to look at the matter in a much more balanced and progressive way, because that is what the Good Friday agreement did.

Devolution

What progress is being made towards devolution in Northern Ireland. [92970

]

If he will make a statement on progress with the Belfast agreement. [92971]

If he will make a statement on the setting up of the Northern Ireland Executive. [92972]

The parties are currently engaged with Senator Mitchell in a review of the implementation of the Good Friday agreement. The review's aim is to reach an agreed basis for establishing an inclusive Executive and securing the decommissioning of all paramilitary arms by May 2000. The agreement is crucial for the future of peace and stability. I would urge the parties to use this opportunity to deliver its full benefits to the people of Northern Ireland.

May I welcome my right hon. Friend to his first Northern Ireland questions and wish him well in his work to further the peace process? Does he agree that there is no alternative to the Good Friday agreement, which has been overwhelmingly endorsed by the people of Ireland, north and south? Will he join me in encouraging all those taking part in Senator Mitchell's review to show the courage and flexibility to bring it to a successful conclusion?

I am grateful to my hon. Friend. May I say at the outset that, whatever I am able to achieve as Secretary of State for Ireland—[HON. MEMBERS: "Oh."]— for Northern Ireland, I shall be doing so on the basis of a tremendous legacy, which I have inherited from my predecessor, my right hon. Friend the Member for Redcar (Marjorie Mowlam). Were it not for her, we would not have this ceasefire or the Good Friday agreement. Northern Ireland would be a less friendly place were it not for her contribution while she was in office.

It is absolutely essential for the Good Friday agreement to work. There is no alternative to that agreement; there is no plan B, should it fail. If it were to fail, I have no doubt that what would follow would be a collapse of the ceasefires and renewed violent confrontation. I pay tribute to Senator Mitchell and all those from Northern Ireland parties who are currently involved in the discussions, which are taking place as we meet this afternoon. I trust that all Members of this House will acknowledge the magnitude and importance of that work, and will give those parties their unequivocal support.

I, too, welcome the Secretary of State to his position and echo exactly what he said—and rightly so—about his predecessor and her immense contribution to trying to bring peace to Northern Ireland. Does my right hon. Friend agree that it will be a tragedy for both communities in Northern Ireland if no progress is made in implementing the agreement? Will he give a clear pledge today that, whatever happens, there will continue to be close working co-operation between the two Governments, British and Irish, at both ministerial and senior civil service level?

Yes, I can give that undertaking to my hon. Friend. I readily acknowledge the work that is done by him and his colleagues on the British-Irish Inter-Parliamentary Body, which makes a valuable contribution to the close working relations between ourselves and the Government of the Republic of Ireland. Those will be maintained.

I entirely echo my hon. Friend's earlier remarks. In Northern Ireland, nationalists and republicans are rightly looking to the early implementation of the power-sharing Executive. Unionists, on the other hand, are looking for unequivocal evidence that republican violence is ended for good. Each party is entitled to what it wants. They need each other to make that possible; both aims need to be fulfilled. There must, therefore, be considerable give and take, and I hope that from the talks taking place this week will emerge the necessary clarity, but also the certainty, that each side needs in order to make the progress that we want to see.

Does my right hon. Friend believe that the quality of life in Northern Ireland is now far better than it has been for a generation? Do we not have the best chance for a stable future that we have had for the past 30 years, with, for example, the ceasefires holding over the summer, the parades passing off without too much trouble and, importantly, 20 out of 26 councils having some form of power sharing? Will he impress on all the parties involved in Northern Ireland that they should not lose sight of those achievements in the current wranglings over the agreement and the setting up of the Executive?

I strongly agree with my hon. Friend. It really is difficult to overestimate how much progress Northern Ireland has made during the 1990s. A decade ago, 80 to 100 people were being killed each year in Northern Ireland. Violence was a daily reality, politics were in a stalemate and there was little or no dialogue between the parties. Today, the picture is very different indeed. That is due to the enormous efforts of representatives drawn from each party, but due more than anything else to the overwhelming demand and desire for peace that is expressed by those in all communities. It behoves politicians of all parties to listen to the public in Northern Ireland and to ensure that they deliver to those people the unbreakable peace that they need for their future happiness and prosperity.

I also welcome the right hon. Gentleman to the Dispatch Box in his new role as Secretary of State for Northern Ireland. I assure him that my colleagues and I will do all that we can to assist him and others to bring about the full implementation of all aspects of the Belfast agreement. Does the Secretary of State recall that only last Saturday, our party conference once again committed itself to a fully inclusive Executive, so there can be no doubt of our commitment on that? However, we require at the same time clear evidence of irreversible commitment to peaceful means. I welcome what the Secretary of State said about the need for clarity and certainty. We are not interested in a fudge; we are interested in what will work.

I am grateful to the right hon. Gentleman for his remarks and his welcome. I look forward to working closely with him and all his colleagues in the months and years ahead. It is entirely reasonable that he and members of his community should demand and receive that reassurance and certainty of intention, which it is an obligation on those in the republican movement to give him and the people he represents if we are going to make the progress in the implementation of the Good Friday agreement that we want. The key to peace is persuading republicans and other paramilitaries to engage exclusively in democratic politics and to renounce violence now and for ever. They have come a long way. They are still travelling in the right direction, but many have not yet completed their journey. We look forward with some certainty and clarity to those people setting out exactly how they are going to arrive at the end of that journey so that peace can be secured for ever.

Does the new Secretary of State accept that we will support him in his endeavours to implement the Belfast agreement in full, which will hopefully one day bring lasting peace to Northern Ireland? Will he further accept that, as the Opposition, we have a constitutional duty to speak out where we feel it necessary? We cannot give him a blank cheque—unlike the previous Paymaster General.

As it happens, the cheque was not blank and I am glad to say that it has now been repaid with interest, but I am grateful to the right hon. Gentleman for his welcome. I hope that with a new Secretary of State in place, it is possible to make a fresh start and to return to the bipartisan spirit that has always characterised relations between the parties on Ireland. If that is the case, I can assure the right hon. Gentleman that I will reciprocate. That unity of purpose between the parties is more important than ever now, as we move into the critical phase of the implementation of the Good Friday agreement, and I look forward to a constructive relationship with the right hon. Gentleman and his colleagues.

May I move on to another aspect of the Belfast agreement and ask the Secretary of State about the Patten commission report on policing in the Province? Clearly, the overwhelming number of recommendations should be implemented very quickly and are straightforward, but he will be aware that some of them are security sensitive. Surely it would be wrong to implement those recommendations until there is an end to violence for good. Can the Secretary of State give us an assurance that those that are security sensitive will not be implemented until there is a lasting peace?

I can assure the right hon. Gentleman that while I am Secretary of State, I and my colleagues will always act in the best interests of the security of Northern Ireland and on the basis of the security advice that we receive from those who are our professional advisers. The Patten report is an honest and a good report, and I very much want to hear everyone's views on it.

I should like to take this opportunity to refer to the Royal Ulster Constabulary. I honour those in Northern Ireland who have taken so much and have sacrificed so much in the course of their duties to protect all the people of Northern Ireland. They deserve our gratitude and from me they will get it unstintingly. Our job is to develop a police service in Northern Ireland that builds on the best traditions of the RUC—its integrity, its courage and its discipline—but a service, too, that all communities in Northern Ireland can identify with and feel protected by. It is that goal by which I shall be guided throughout.

I should also like to welcome the right hon. Gentleman on what turns out to be national stress-free week. I have no doubt that he will enjoy his new role every bit as much as his predecessor did. The document "The Way Forward" put together by the two Governments in July indicated that we might expect a report from General de Chastelain around September. I am just wondering whether there is any sign of that report.

I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman. I had not noticed that it was national stress-free week so far, but it is only Wednesday. The decommissioning report to which he refers would, of course, have flowed from the implementation of the "Way Forward" proposals, had they been accepted by the parties. I assure the hon. Gentleman that I had a long and constructive discussion with General John de Chastelain and his colleagues last week. I am pleased to say that they stand ready to assist Senator Mitchell and any outcome of the review that is taking place this week. I suspect that, should those talks go well, we shall have every reason to call on their services.

Might I remind my right hon. Friend that the Equality Commission has an important role to play vis-a-vis the Good Friday agreement and the peace process, but may I point out that the commission is distressingly under-resourced in terms of staff and office accommodation? I hope that he and his Ministers will do something about that.

My hon. Friend makes a good point. I am grateful to him for referring to the immensely important role of the Equality Commission. I shall certainly be listening to the representations that they have already made about what they consider to be a shortage of resources and staff in carrying out their job. They are building up their work and operation, and they will certainly receive every encouragement from me in the months and years to come.

I am sure that all of us wish the new Secretary of State well as he sets out on his daunting task. Does he recall that the Prime Minister sold the Good Friday agreement, in the summer after it had been reached, when he went to address the people of Northern Ireland before the referendum, on the basis that he would guarantee parallel movement towards full implementation? Is he aware that there has been no parallel movement, and will he make it his first task, as he sets out on this job, to insist that there is?

The hon. Gentleman is quite right to stress the important dimension that the terms and conditions of the Good Friday agreement must go forward together and must be taken forward by all the parties in unison. I attach enormous importance to that. But the reason there has not been parallel movement is the reason the Good Friday agreement is not being implemented at the moment, which is what Senator Mitchell is addressing during the talks this week. I remain hopeful that a proper agreement and sequencing of those steps forward, which accommodate the goals of devolution and decommissioning, can go forward hand in hand, because I have no doubt that if they do not do so, we will not have the implementation of the agreement that we want.

Lifelong Learning

What proposals the Government have for lifelong learning in Northern Ireland. [92973]

The policy statement on lifelong learning in Northern Ireland was published in early 1999, and contains a 12-point action plan and related targets for the next three years. A copy has been placed in the Library of the House. In addition to the UK-wide initiatives of university for industry, new deal and individual learning accounts, a range of local initiatives is also being implemented.

Will my hon. Friend join me in paying tribute to the trade unions which have worked closely with employers to provide learning opportunities for working people of all ages and from all walks of life? How will the university for industry work and build upon such initiatives so that we can see further educational development in Northern Ireland for all?

My hon. Friend will be pleased to hear that the university for industry is taking shape in Northern Ireland and in the next month, we shall be announcing three or four learning projects. The Irish Congress of Trade Unions in Northern Ireland is bargaining with the Training and Employment Agency for a skills initiative which will promote learning in the work force. Northern Ireland suffers from a high level of adult basic literacy and numeracy problems, and the trade unions are playing a full part in ensuring that that is corrected.

Does the Minister agree that, in apprenticeship schemes and, therefore, in lifelong learning, priority should be given to those who take the practical rather than the academic route so that they obtain the skills and qualifications to enable them to succeed in their chosen field?

The hon. Gentleman has mentioned these issues to me before in the Chamber and outside. He will be pleased to know that yesterday, I was involved in the signing of a concordat on the plumbing industry, from which he comes, to ensure that those in that industry have great training and enterprise. The hon. Gentleman can relay that to his constituents and I shall be delighted to talk to him about it.

Unemployment

If he will make a statement on recent figures for unemployment in Northern Ireland. [929741

Latest estimates from the labour force survey for the period from June to August 1999 show that approximately 58,000 persons are unemployed in Northern Ireland. That represents a decrease of 3,000 over the year and the current unemployment rate is 7.8 per cent.

I welcome that announcement, but will my hon. Friend join me in welcoming the Chancellor's statement at Bournemouth that the Government's target is full employment? Does he agree that, if that can be achieved, it will represent one of the best ways of eliminating discrimination in the workplace, including religious discrimination?

I agree with my hon. Friend that the Chancellor's statement at Bournemouth was a signal statement. The Chancellor made his contribution to Northern Ireland in May 1998 when he produced a £350 million package for his initiative. That covers several areas, including investment funds, skills and entrepreneurship. The fact that the new deal is turning into a permanent deal is another good sign for the young people of Northern Ireland.

We all acknowledge the fact that unemployment is still far too high in Northern Ireland and we recognise the success that Government policies have had recently in reducing unemployment and providing new jobs. Will the Minister reassure those who may lose their jobs in the Mother's Pride bakery in Londonderry and in the Larne paper mills that the Industrial Development Board is doing everything possible to encourage new investment in such areas to give hope for the future?

The hon. Member mentions the loss of 84 jobs at British Bakeries in Londonderry, but that has been partly offset by the additional 50 jobs created in Belfast. With regard to the IDB and its involvement in new projects, he will be pleased to know that of the 21 inward investment projects in the past year, 13 have been placed in areas with high unemployment and social disadvantage.

May I take this opportunity to welcome the new Secretary of State for Northern Ireland on behalf of my party and promise our fullest co-operation for the welfare of all our people? I also welcome the new Minister, the hon. Member for Knowsley, North and Sefton, East (Mr. Howarth). I express our sincere gratitude to the outgoing Secretary of State, the right hon. Member for Redcar (Marjorie Mowlam), who will always be remembered in the hearts and minds of the people of Northern Ireland.

The Minister has welcomed the unemployment figures, but is he aware that they will be increased in the near future when those engaged in agricultural industry—the farmers, their families and workers—become unemployed? In his capacity as Minister with responsibility for economic development, will he create a special interdepartmental task force, including the Department of Economic Development, the Department of the Environment and the Department of Agriculture, to assess the needs of the farming community, and make drastic proposals to keep them on the farm and taking part in our rural community?

The hon. Gentleman will be aware that in his constituency, British Aerospace has announced a £2 million expansion and 195 new jobs in Kilkeel. The issue of farmers is being addressed in the economic development forum, involving all the social partners, that I have established in the Department of Economic Development. Yesterday, I opened a £5 million project—the Government contributed £1 million—for Linden Foods in Dungannon, to ensure that the rural and agricultural elements are maintained. That project was well received by the farmers.

Is the Minister aware that in the past year, the number of people directly employed in the pig industry in Northern Ireland has fallen by more than 50 per cent., from 4,000 to 2,000? That number is likely to fall further. What efforts has the Minister made to support the pig industry and to alleviate the acute financial and other distress suffered by farming families involved in the pig industry?

The Government acknowledge the serious situation of the pig industry and my noble Friend Lord Dubs is addressing it in his capacity as Minister with responsibility for agriculture. I mentioned earlier that I visited Linden Foods yesterday. My right hon. Friend the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food has also visited that project, as has Lords Dubs himself. We are working with the industry in Europe to ensure that we get the best possible deal.

Policing

If he will make a statement on the Patten commission's report on policing in Northern Ireland. [92977]

On 9 September, the Patten commission issued its report and the Secretary of State announced that the Government accepted its findings in principle. A copy of the statement has been placed in the Library of the House. As required by the Belfast agreement, the Government are consulting various parties. Consultation will last until the end of November and an implementation plan will then be published.

Does my right hon. Friend agree that the Patten report provides a blueprint for the future policing of Northern Ireland which has the potential to take the politics out of policing and to take forward the political process? Does he also agree that political progress will aid the implementation of the Patten report?

I think that that would have resonance in many of the key sectors in Northern Ireland, as my hon. Friend says, and my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State made clear in an earlier answer the way in which the Government are taking the matter forward. This is an important report, which will lead to better policing in Northern Ireland in the future. That is what all communities in Northern Ireland want.

Prime Minister

The Prime Minister was asked—

Engagements

Q1. [92998]

If he will list his official engagements for Wednesday 20 October.

This morning, I had meetings with ministerial colleagues and others. In addition to my duties in the House, I shall be having further such meetings later today.

Does the Prime Minister support the right of state school governors to solicit top-up contributions from parents to maintain essential staffing levels and the core activities of their schools?

Schools are perfectly entitled to ask for voluntary contributions from parents; they have always been entitled to do that. What must not happen is people being forced to pay such contributions.

May I congratulate my right hon. Friend on the common approach to asylum seekers achieved at the recent summit? However, does he agree that it would be totally against the British national interest—and entirely crazy—for a British Prime Minister to threaten to block, or indeed to block, the enlargement of the European Union to include countries such as Poland, Hungary or the Czech Republic? That is what the Leader of the Opposition proposed at his recent party conference.

We shall certainly not take such a course. I notice that the Leader of the Opposition is shaking his head, but that is precisely what the Opposition have proposed. In case any doubt remains, let me make it clear that the Opposition have said that, in government, they would insist on an amendment to the treaty of Rome. If such an amendment were not granted, they have said that they would block all European Union change, including enlargement.

If anyone wanted a clue to the real Conservative intentions, how about the following quotation, which I did not read out yesterday? The Conservative pressure group on Europe contains 13 Front-Bench Conservative spokesmen, and its vice chair, Mr. Roger Helmer, a Conservative Member of the European Parliament, said:

"The big stick is the threat of withdrawal … I don't rule out withdrawal as an option."

Perhaps the Leader of the Opposition will finally disown remarks such as that.

Whose fault is it that the Home Secretary was allowed to make an announcement about 5,000 more police officers that bore so little resemblance to the truth? Was it the fault of the Home Secretary, or of the Prime Minister, who allowed him to do it?

What my right hon. Friend the Home Secretary said was as follows:

"So, over the next three years, on top of the 11,000 recruits already planned, we will be giving the police the money they need to recruit 5,000 more officers. That's 5,000 more police officers over and above the police service's recruiting plans."

That is what my right hon. Friend the Home Secretary said. That is what he meant, and that is what he will do.

What the Home Secretary said is what he repeated in an article on Monday, when he wrote:

"There will be 5,000 more police officers."

However, in a letter to the Home Secretary, the Chief Secretary to the Treasury wrote:

"Dear Home Secretary,

I must stress that, as has been discussed at length … the package does not provide for 5,000 "additional" police officers … There should therefore be no references to this package being one for 5,000 additional officers … I am copying this letter to the Prime Minister".

So the Prime Minister must have known, before the Home Secretary's speech, that the promise of 5,000 more officers was not the truth. Did the Prime Minister read the letter, and what did he do about it?

It is exactly the truth. Perhaps the best evidence of that came from the Association of Chief Police Officers, which, when the Conservative party got this matter off the ground, said:

"We regard Jack Straw very much as a man of his word. He has repeated his commitment … and we see this as real new money for extra recruits."

There will be 5,000 more officers. The distinction lies between those 5,000 more officers and what happened when the right hon. Gentleman was a member of the previous Government. They cut police numbers by 1,500.

When the previous Government left office there were 16,000 more police officers in this country, and 16,000 additional police officers. Under the previous Government, "more" and "additional" meant the same thing, as they usually do in the English language. Is the Prime Minister happy that the Home Secretary should write articles saying that there would be 5,000 more police officers? Was he happy for his press secretary to say on Monday that

"there will be 5,000 more police officers as a result of what Jack announced"?

Will the Prime Minister clear up this matter? Will he tell the whole country whether, over the next three years, there will be 5,000 more police officers than there are now?

Yes, there will be 5,000 extra police officers. Yes, the £35 million is new money. Yes, as opposed to the plans that we inherited from the previous Government—of whom the right hon. Gentleman was a member—which predicted a fall in police recruits, we will have a rise in police recruits.

Given that the number of police recruits is scheduled to be 16,000 over the next three years as opposed to 18,000 over the past three years, the Prime Minister's comment is no more truthful than those of the Home Secretary before him. Let him answer the question that I have asked. Let him cut the waffle—and cheer up about it; we have weeks of this before Christmas. Will there be 5,000 more police officers than there are now?

I have just said that the Home Secretary said that there would be 5,000 more recruits in addition—[Interruption]—yes, in addition to the 11,000 that there are already. Let me correct the right hon. Gentleman's statement that the previous Government increased the number of police officers. I have the figures, and from 1993–94 until the Conservatives left office, they cut police numbers every single year.

The evasion by the Prime Minister of such a straight question is a truly pathetic spectacle. Is he not ashamed that, for a few cheap, misleading headlines during the Labour party conference, his Government have behaved in such a way that the chairman of the Metropolitan Police Federation has said:

"This is a complete betrayal of the people and the police officers of this country"?

As I have just said, the Association of Chief Police Officers has said that this is real new money for real recruits. There will be 5,000 extra officers.

Another point is worth making. Under its guarantee, the Conservative party is committed to cutting public spending. The Conservatives have made a commitment on tax policy that cannot be financed without that cut. Let me tell my hon. Friends and the Opposition that whenever the Conservatives raise any question on health spending, school spending, transport spending or police spending, we know that they propose to cut Government spending, and that this Government are raising it.

These questions are about the integrity of the Government. Is it not part of the Prime Minister's job to set standards of truthfulness and integrity for the Government? Is that not what he spectacularly fails to do? He says that waiting lists are down when they are up, that class sizes are down when they are up and that taxes are down when they are up. Now he says that police numbers are up when they are down. Is it not time that he looked around the Cabinet table and was tough on lies and tough on the causes of lies?

First, as I have already said on police numbers—[Interruption.]

Order.

On tax lies, some people remember VAT before the last general election. On waiting lists, the right hon. Gentleman is wrong. They are 60,000 below the level that we inherited. On class sizes, for five, six and seven-year-olds, they are now almost 300,000 below the level that we inherited. None of those things would have happened if we had taken his advice. His advice was not to cancel the assisted places scheme, so we would not have had the money to cut class sizes. [Interruption.] I was just trying to turn up this letter from him. A year ago today, he said:

"The shadow Chancellor and I, and many independent economists, have warned that your three-year spending settlement was reckless and based on hopelessly over-optimistic growth estimates."

The fact is that we are spending more money on schools, hospitals and the police. He opposed that extra spending, called it reckless and irresponsible and asked for us to cancel it. The one group of people who can make no complaint about anything to do with public services are those who would privatise them rather than modernise them.

Will the Prime Minister join me in congratulating all those concerned with producing the Government's imaginative proposals for objective 2 areas, especially on having the good sense to include many traditional seaside resorts? Does he agree that the benefits that objective 2 funding brings to areas such as mine are a good example of how Europe really works, and expose the anti-European rantings of the Leader of the Opposition for the jingoistic nonsense that they are?

My hon. Friend is right, but it goes further than that. The Conservative party proposal, which is to have opt-outs for all countries in any area other than free trade and the free market, which is what the shadow Foreign Secretary said, includes structural funds. I do not know whether the Leader of the Opposition even knows that that is a consequence of his policy. We would not have a structural fund settlement under the Conservative party proposal. It is not merely that the Conservatives would be on a conveyor belt to withdrawal because that is the only way they could make their policy stick: they would be giving up literally billions of pounds from Europe that would go to hard-pressed constituencies the length and breadth of this country.

rose—

Hear, hear.

That is probably as good as it gets. [Interruption.] I know that my friends will do their best to help me.

Does the Prime Minister agree that it must be a source of political frustration to him and his colleagues that, after more than two years of Labour in office, the gap between rich and poor remains distressingly wide and deep? In particular, does he acknowledge that offering pensioners a miserly 73p basic state pension upgrade is adding insult to injury? If, as a member of a fairly poverty-stricken category, he was offered 73p extra income per week, what would he advise people to spend it on?

The gap between rich and poor is actually narrowing as a result of this Government's policies. There are hundreds of thousands fewer children in poverty. By the end of the Parliament, there will be 2 million fewer in poverty. The working families tax credit, the new deal and the extra increases in child benefit all contribute to that and were all, of course, opposed by the Conservative party.

Something else that is opposed by the Conservative party—and I hope when the right hon. Member for Ross, Skye and Inverness, West (Mr. Kennedy) is talking about pensioners he will take this into account—is the £100 that will be given to each pensioner household this November. That goes a very long way to boosting the incomes of pensioners. If we take into account all the help that this Government have given to pensioners, the average pensioner is actually getting more than if we had indexed pensions to earnings.

Will the Prime Minister acknowledge that, as well as the income levels of pensioners, the other big issue about which everyone in the House should be concerned is the need for all of us—who, one day, will face pension provision ourselves—to have some continuity of policy?

Does the Prime Minister agree that one of the great failings of British politics is that, since the consensus over the former state earnings-related pension scheme was broken under the previous Administration, we have not been able to re-establish all-party consensus for long-term basic state pension provision? Would he be willing, as Prime Minister, to hold talks on that matter with the leader of the Conservative party and myself to see whether we can achieve—[Interruption.]

Order. The House will come to order. Mr. Kennedy, continue.

Many people want to answer for the leader of the Conservative party. Would the Prime Minister be willing to try to re-establish a tripartite basis on which long-term pension provision in this country could be conducted? That would make sense for all concerned.

As the right hon. Gentleman knows, I am always willing to try to move across party boundaries when it is in the national interest to do so. He is right that pensions are a very important area indeed. I would be very happy to work with him in relation to that, but I point out to him that the strategy for pensions reform, in respect of the new stakeholder pensions and of the state second pension, that we set out in the pensions Green Paper has received a widespread degree of support.

We are well on the way to formulating the right framework for pensions in future, but I agree that this is something that will transgress all political parties and will move through Governments—[HON. MEMBERS: "Transgress?"] I was trying to think of a polite way of putting it for the Conservative party. The issue will cross political parties and also move through Governments. I am perfectly happy to look at how such a cross-party consensus could be established, but must say that, on the basis of the Conservative attitude so far, I am not very hopeful.

Does my right hon. Friend agree that Britain's air traffic control system is the safest in the world? Does he accept that there is real apprehension throughout the country about the complex part privatisation scheme that was announced by the Government just before the House rose for the summer recess? In recognising the importance of public opinion and the fact that such concerns are shared by air traffic controllers themselves as well as by airline pilots, will the Prime Minister assure us that there will be the fullest consultation with the whole aviation industry before any decision is taken to introduce legislation on that matter?

Of course there will be a full process of consultation. As to safety, my right hon. Friend will be aware that, as a result of the Deputy Prime Minister's proposals, safety will—for the first time—be separated out and dealt with properly in the public sector. Whatever the public-private sector partnership proposed for air traffic control, in respect of safety, we shall be improving the present situation.

Q2. [92999]

May I remind the Prime Minister that my question to him of 9 June showed that, during the two years to March 1999, the 13-week-plus out-patients waiting list for Mid Essex had increased from 555 people to 2,422 people? Is he aware that, since then, the number has increased by a further 862 to 3,284 people? Does the Prime Minister not understand that fiddling the in-patient lists by allowing the out-patient lists to balloon out of control is a cynical exercise that is causing patients grave distress and suffering?

The hon. Gentleman is simply wrong to say that the out-patient lists have grown as a result of the in-patient waiting lists. Actually, in his area, the in-patient waiting lists have fallen, and more out-patients are being treated—not less. More are being treated than before. More than half of out-patients— this is part of the confusion that lies at the heart of his question—never become in-patients. In fact, we are treating more out-patients and we are getting in-patient lists down.

Finally, the only way that we can get all lists down is by extra investment and reform, and change in the health service. The hon. Gentleman and his party are against that extra investment. It is no use the hon. Gentleman shaking his head. A few months ago, the Conservatives said at the Dispatch Box that extra spending of £21 billion on the health service was reckless and irresponsible. They cannot turn around now and say that they want even more spending than the £21 billion that we are putting in.

Q3. [93000]

Does my right hon. Friend recall that, at Prime Minister's questions a year ago, the Leader of the Opposition claimed that there was an economic crisis and demanded that the Chancellor be summoned to the House to explain the mess into which he had got the country? May I renew the demand for a statement from the Chancellor, so that he can tell us about record low inflation and interest rates, more jobs and less unemployment—policies that we would not get off the back of a lorry?

My hon. Friend is absolutely right. A year ago, the Tories were telling us to cancel the spending plans, saying that we had produced an economic mess and recession. In fact, as my hon. Friend says, we have the lowest inflation for 30 years, interest rates down, debt under control, employment up by 600,000 since the election, unemployment down and long-term unemployment halved. All of that would be at risk if the Conservatives' policies were pursued. They would scrap the working families tax credit, scrap the new deal and scrap Bank of England independence.

Although they tell us that they want to cut social spending, I can tell the House that, in the past few weeks, they have tabled amendments to the social security legislation for an extra £3 billion of spending. The truth is that their policies do not add up and they are not thought through. For that reason, among many others, they will never get the chance to put them into practice.

Does the Prime Minister accept that, if he continues with the fuel price escalator for the course of this Parliament, it will be the equivalent of putting 5p on the basic rate of income tax, except that it will take the form of an unfair, back stairs form of taxation? When he was campaigning so hard during the Hamilton, South by-election, did he detect growing public opposition to fuel taxes, toll taxes and tuition fees? Is that why the Labour majority went from 16,000 to 500, or does he prefer the explanation offered by the Secretary of State for Scotland, that people are so happy and contented with the new Labour party that they cannot be bothered to vote for it?

The hon. Gentleman is the one who fought the Scottish elections on putting up income tax. That was his very claim, and there is no point in his denying it now, let alone turning around and accusing us of putting up taxes. What is more, when we add up the spending promises of the Scottish nationalists, there is no way 1p on income tax would be enough. The truth is that their spending pledges and tax pledges are about as coherent as the Conservatives'.

Q4. [93001]

What advice will my right hon. Friend offer the Leader of the Opposition when the right hon. Gentleman visits a betting—[Interruption.]

Order. Let me hear the hon. Lady.

What advice will my right hon. Friend offer the Leader of the Opposition on Friday, when the right hon. Gentleman visits a betting and gaming establishment in my constituency—a constituency in which unemployment has fallen by more than 22 per cent. since the general election? Given the Tories' record of economic failure, their opposition to the new deal and the minimum wage, and their hostility to Europe, what odds does my right hon. Friend recommend the Leader of the Opposition take on a Tory return at the next general election?

Order. I must remind the hon. Lady that the Prime Minister is responsible only for Government policies and that Prime Minister's questions have nothing whatever to do with the Leader of the Opposition. She has had a good try, but we must now move on.

You will remember, Madam Speaker, that during yesterday's statement on the Tampere agreement, I asked the Prime Minister whether he could explain how we could have a common system of judicial authority when there was no common legal system. After some consultation with the Home Secretary, he told me that the common judicial authority would apply only to serious criminal cases where the countries concerned agreed that there was a case to answer that was applicable in either country. However, I see that paragraph 5 of the annexe to the report issued on the Tampere agreement states:

"Judgements and decisions should be respected … while safeguarding … legal certainty … and economic operators."

It is clear that paragraph 5 envisages that common authority applying to civil cases as well. Will the Prime Minister explain?

I can explain it. Things such as small claims will be dealt with by co-operation between the judicial systems, and things such as extradition cases will be dealt with by the application of the court decisions of one country in another country; where serious crime is concerned. Neither of those things, however, imply any common judicial system.

Q5. [93002]

Will my right hon. Friend acknowledge the efforts made in Kent by local authorities and others to deal fairly with asylum seekers, and will he assure me that those councils will receive their fair share of funding? Is he aware that many of our problems in Dover stem from the asylum system shambles that we inherited from the Tories? Does he accept that the Immigration and Asylum Bill and the agreements secured in Finland earlier this week will go a long way towards relieving the pressure on us? As all that hard work is being done, will he also join me in condemning those who would exploit Dover's difficulties for their own political ends? Some of them are sitting on the Opposition Front Bench now. [Interruption.]

As ever, the Conservatives want to deny their record in government. I gladly acknowledge the efforts made by local authorities in Kent to deal fairly with asylum seekers. They can now reclaim costs associated with supporting asylum seekers of up to £150 a week for single adults and £220 for families. My hon. Friend is right to say that the system that we inherited was a complete shambles. That is why we want to introduce fundamental reform—and the only way in which we shall achieve that is to have a simplified, far more streamlined procedure, and to deal with the cases more quickly. That is precisely what we are introducing—[Interruption.] It is no use the shadow Home Secretary shouting. The right hon. Member for Maidstone and The Weald (Miss Widdecombe) was a Home Office Minister when the Conservatives introduced the shambles that we are having to clear up.

Q6. [93003]

Wales trusts the Prime Minister, because he told us to. Does he remember talking about objective 1 and 2 funding on 30 April—coincidentally, that was just before the Welsh Assembly elections—and saying:

"I won't let the people of Wales down"?

In the spirit of that good faith, can he confirm whether he will provide new money from the Treasury for objective 1 and 2 matched funding?

I think that I said that after the election, as well as before. On both occasions I explained that within the comprehensive spending review, all those things have to be looked at. [Interruption.] We do not intend to let the people of Wales down. I have also said throughout that the only reason why we can have this discussion is that we achieved objective 1 and 2 status for Wales. We know that we have to make it good, but that must be decided in the proper normal way, through the comprehensive spending review. That is what we said at the election, and that is what we will hold to.

Q7. [93005]

Does my right hon. Friend agree that the members of the official Opposition and of the press who are anti-Europe refuse to recognise the benefits of the jobs, training, transport and community development that European funding has helped to bring to my constituency and to many other parts of Scotland, England, Wales and Northern Ireland? Does he also agree that as the United Kingdom negotiates further funding from Europe, it will speak with a stronger voice because of devolution and the partnership approach, which has already been demonstrated by the Scottish Parliament and the United Kingdom Government towards Europe?

I pay tribute to my hon. Friend's work in putting forward a case for funding for her area. Our proposals for objective 2 coverage in Scotland for the next seven years will target the most needy areas of the country, and we envisage significant coverage for south Fife. She is absolutely right—we obtained a very good result for this country by patient, sensible and constructive negotiation.

As I pointed out a moment ago, Conservative party policy is to renegotiate the basic terms of the treaty of Rome and to block any change unless it is allowed to do so, and there is no support anywhere in Europe for that. [Interruption.] Let Conservative Members name a country that supports their policy. They can shout it out; they have done enough shouting. There is no country that supports them. [Interruption.] Norway? Norway is not a member of the European Union.

The plain fact is that we can make progress with sensible engagement under a Labour Government, or we can go along with the far right Thatcherites who now control the Conservative party and who have the right hon. Member for Richmond, Yorks (Mr. Hague) under their thumb.

Control Of Hedgerows In Residentialareas

3.31 pm

rose—[Interruption.]

Order. Will hon. Members who are leaving the Chamber please do so quickly? They are passing in front of the hon. Member who is on his feet. [Interruption.] Order. Will hon. Members please not pass in front of the hon. Member who is on his feet? About 12 hon. Members have done so.

Thank you, Madam Speaker.

I beg to move,

That leave be given to bring in a Bill to amend the Environmental Protection Act 1990 by extending powers to environmental health officers to intervene in neighbourly disputes involving hedgerows in residential areas; and for connected purposes.

I thank Hedgeline, which has campaigned hard for a change in the law regarding nuisance hedges. The Styvechale Rate Payer Association in Coventry and constituents have written to me in support of the Bill. I also pay tribute to the hon. Member for Faversham and Mid-Kent (Mr. Rowe) and my hon. Friend the Member for Birmingham, Selly Oak (Dr. Jones) for their tireless work on the issue. Their efforts demonstrate the cross-party support for the Bill.

From the outset let me say that there is no proposal in the Bill to ban leylandii or any other tree or hedge. It provides for conciliation between neighbours by environmental protection officers. If that does not work, officers will be able to make a decision about the height of trees or hedgerows which will be binding and enforceable.

We should not dismiss nuisance hedges as a trivial issue—they cause suffering to thousands of people. Over the years in which I have served as a Member of Parliament I have received a number of letters from constituents complaining about the issue. The social and emotional problems described in those letters persuaded me to try to do something about the problem. I am sure that hon. Members on both sides of the House have received similar letters in their postbags and are all too aware of the distress caused by disputes involving nuisance hedges.

Problems with overgrown hedges are not new, but the advent of the leyland cypress has made those problems far more widespread. This is a new tree, which is an unlikely hybrid between two distantly related North American cypress species. It was first bred towards the end of the previous century and its phenomenal growth rate is alarming because it is not known how high the trees can eventually grow. For example, there is a tree in Kent that is over 150 ft high and still growing well. That is unusual, and no one is suggesting that the tree be cut down if it is not causing a nuisance to anyone. However, we need to take action now to prevent the situation getting far worse in the future.

An offending tree can threaten roofs, guttering, drains and, in more serious cases, even a building's structure. Furthermore, not only can they deprive unwilling sufferers of light in their homes, but they can prevent them from using their garden in the way that they choose. The law as it stands is biased almost entirely towards protecting those who want to grow leylandii and other high hedges. The law offers no protection to the people affected by an intruding hedge. People can grow rows of fast growing conifers to any height, and as close to other people's properties as they like. They can even grow trees that lean over someone's roof without having any responsibility in law to maintain them.

Neighbours can, however, cut branches that overhang fences, but frequently, the continual expense and demands on time fall on the person who derives no benefits from the trees. Fast growing hedges, often untopped and lacking maintenance, can be grown by an individual, so that the burden of continual, sometimes hazardous work falls on the offended neighbour—a neighbour who does not want a high hedge and who is prevented from reducing its height by law.

The task of cutting back a high leylandii hedge to the perimeters of one property can be daunting, especially to the elderly. These trees can grow between 3 ft and 4 ft a year, and some of the many offending hedges now stand at considerable heights. As these hedges increase in size, they can play an ever more dominant role in the victim's thoughts. They can cause extreme anxiety.

Civil law has proved inadequate at dealing with hedge disputes among neighbours. Such action can drag on for years, bringing further stress to a victim's life. The legal costs can be enormous. The sums involved can threaten life savings and sometimes even one's own home.

The present legal situation forces the victim to plead with his or her neighbours to take action—in a sense, he or she is forced to rely on the good will of others. The individual has no legal recourse to demand that an offending hedge be shortened or removed.

The situation can often develop into a neighbourhood squabble, and it can escalate into something worse, with the added injustice of one party suffering as a result of weak legislation and the other secure in the knowledge that the law will protect them.

The Environmental Protection Act 1990 outlines a variety of nuisances, ranging from noise pollution to the treatment of animals. My Bill would seek to include tall hedgerows as an environmental nuisance. In doing so, it would give legal recognition to the grave impact on people's lives often caused by nuisance hedges. At present, environmental health officers are reluctant to act. Unless a court has ruled in favour of action, the legal position for officers is unclear.

The Bill that I place before the House will clarify that position, allowing environmental health officers to make a judgment. That will, in turn, resolve disputes much more easily and quickly, and without half the distress and cost now caused.

We must strike the right balance between rights and responsibilities. No one wants to dictate the plants or furnishings that a person enjoys in his garden, but the right to make such choices should be accompanied by a responsibility not to intrude into other people's peaceful lives.

I hope that the House will agree that the measures in my Bill do not unnecessarily erode an individual's right to enjoy his property as he chooses, because it is equally an individual's right to be free from the tyranny of the invasive practices of another. We must take action now. I beg the House to support the Bill.

Question put and agreed to.

Bill ordered to be brought in by Mr. Jim Cunningham, Mr. Alan Hurst, Mr. Tom Clarke, Dr. Lynne Jones, Mr. Simon Burns, Mr. Andrew Rowe and Mrs. Christine Butler.

Control Of Hedgerows In Residential Areas

Mr. Jim Cunningham accordingly presented a Bill to amend the Environmental Protection Act 1990 by extending powers to environmental health officers to intervene in neighbourly disputes involving hedgerows in residential areas; and for connected purposes: And the same was read the First time; and ordered to be read a Second time on Friday 4 November, and to be printed [Bill 152].

Opposition Day

[20TH ALLOTTED DAY]

Food And Farming

We now come to the first Opposition motion on the Order Paper. I have selected the amendment which stands in the name of the Prime Minister.

3.39 pm

I beg to move,

That this House notes with dismay the plight of British farmers whose incomes have plummeted to record lows in the last four years, as a result of higher costs and lower farm gate prices producing rapidly increasing losses, despite continually high supermarket profit margins and costs to consumers; further notes that the extra costs imposed through regulation and public health protection that fall directly on the industry should more properly come from the public health budget; deplores the failure of the Government to provide an adequate response to this national food crisis; and therefore calls on the Government to recognise that its latest financial package is insufficient to tackle the fundamental restructuring of UK and EU agriculture policy, necessary for a secure future for British farmers, consumers and the countryside.

I notice from the Order Paper that we have the obligatory amendment from Her Majesty's Government, but that we do not have an amendment from the Conservative party. We shall find out in due course whether Conservative Members will support our motion. I hope that they will, but it seems unusual that one of the other Opposition parties has not put down on the Order Paper its views on such an important issue.

The importance of this issue is self-evident to all of us who have a constituency concern, a parliamentary concern or a public policy concern in terms of rural Britain generally. Indeed, that has been further recognised by the Government, who have come forward with additional financial support. The Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food has been the first publicly to recognise in the media, in public prints and in discussions with my hon. Friends and with others representing the agricultural community, the extent of the difficulty that is being faced. That is why with the resumption of Parliament after the summer recess the Liberal Democrats were determined to take the earliest possible opportunity to give the House an opportunity to express the concern that has been made clear to all of us from all parties over the summer months about the degree of difficulty and, although it is a much overused word in politics, the degree of crisis that is facing the rural sector, rural interests in general and the agricultural sector, in particular.

Let us consider some of the basic headline facts. The National Farmers Union has estimated that net income has fallen by 75 per cent. in the past two years and is certainly on a continuing downward spiral. It is estimated, if we take the figures for England alone, that the average net farm income for 1998–99 is a mere £8,000. It is not possible to run a business or a family enterprise on that level of income nowadays. After a recent audit of 5,000 farmers, the NFU estimates that we are now entering the worst agricultural depression since the 1930s. For all those headline reasons, it is essential that Parliament should be seen to be debating the issue.

We should also be seen to be debating and discussing the issue because there is a much wider public policy that goes beyond the immediate difficulties that are being confronted. On a European level, there is a broad agreement among member states, the United Kingdom included, and the Government, with all-party support, that we must seek and achieve further reform of the common agricultural policy, and that there will have to be a further emphasis or shift in the balance of approach away from direct sector support in terms of prices and price maintenance and towards environmental husbandry and countryside management.

Is there not a great contradiction? If the family farm as a base unit within this country continues to implode, what will happen? More and more amalgamations will take place. We shall end up with a structure of family farming that will be more like that in North America than in the UK at the moment. We shall not then have the custodians of the countryside who for generations have been working, managing and looking after it to deliver the very environmental and countryside objectives that as a country and as a European Union we want to see achieved. It is surely of fundamental importance that in tackling the farming crisis we put it in a broader context and get across to the Government, and the Government get it across to the decision makers and policy makers at a European level, that unless something is done with even more urgency to redress the catastrophic state of income and the depressed state of morale among our fanners, we shall thwart the longer-term policy that we all think is a sensible way in which to move.

We welcome the package with which the Government have come forward but what further policy objectives should they as an Administration within a UK context be pursuing? My hon. Friend the Member for North Cornwall (Mr. Tyler) and some of my other colleagues met the Minister fairly recently and rehearsed some of the arguments that we feel and argue as Liberal Democrats should be put forward.

First, there should be a Government-funded calf disposal scheme. That is surely essential given the difficulties in that sector. Secondly, there should be a national ewe cull scheme. Given the efforts made recently by my party colleague, Ross Finnie, in his capacity as a Scottish Agriculture Minister, and given the rebuff that he suffered at the hands of the European Commission, I shall be grateful if the Minister or whoever responds to the debate will give some further indication of what further discussions, if any, have yet taken place with the Commission to see what else can be achieved.

Thirdly—

I thank the right hon. Gentleman for his courtesy in giving way. He mentioned Scottish agriculture. Will he explain to the House why his colleagues in Scotland are keen that the Government should maintain the ban on beef on the bone?

My colleagues in Scotland are operating, as indeed are the Government here, on the advice of the relevant chief medical officer. The Agriculture Minister and the Deputy First Minister, my hon. and learned Friend the Member for Orkney and Shetland (Mr. Wallace), made it clear that the objective must be the earliest possible lifting of that ban. That remains the policy and the approach.

That is what devolution is all about. I appreciate that the hon. Gentleman has a healthy interest in constitutional matters of one kind and another, both internally and in relation to Europe in the broader sense, and that he pursued an honourably consistent argument against devolution, but those of us who have argued consistently for it have always been quite happy with the fact that devolution, by definition, means that there might be different policies running in different parts of the United Kingdom. We should lose no sleep about that. It is a healthy democratic development, for which we should make no apology.

The right hon. Gentleman is very gallant, and I am grateful to him for giving way. Will he explain to British farmers, and my farmers in particular, how the policy evolved? Will he explain how the Liberal Democrat party in Scotland or elsewhere can still support a ban on beef on the bone, against all the best scientific advice? Can he further tell me how the Minister for Agriculture can try to kick the French into touch, when he is being undermined by the Scottish Parliament?

I am beginning to lose the plot, but perhaps the hon. Lady lost it earlier than I did, in the course of her question. The Minister can speak for himself in due course, but I do not think that he feels that the Scottish Parliament, by any of its efforts or activities, is undermining the legitimate legal recourse, which we strongly support, that he is pursuing against the quite unacceptable activities of the French with regard to British beef.

Will the right hon. Gentleman give way?

I shall give way to the hon. Gentleman in a minute. I just need to work up to that moment. I am sure that the House shares my sense of anticipation.

To return to the serious point made by the hon. Member for Congleton (Mrs. Winterton), I reiterate to her that within a devolved United Kingdom set-up, there can be differences of approach in different political circumstances. That does not remove the basic Liberal Democrat commitment, which we share with the hon. Lady and her colleagues: we would never have imposed the beef on the bone ban in the first place. She may remember that when I moved the opposition to that on the Floor of the House, we were delighted to have Conservative support. I look forward to being even more delighted to receive further Conservative support from the hon. Member for New Forest, West (Mr. Swayne).

I thank the right hon. Gentleman for his courtesy. I followed entirely the logic of his answer to my hon. Friend the Member for New Forest, East (Dr. Lewis), but will he recognise that it generates frustration and is clearly not devolution, as the right hon. Gentleman calls it, when the policy of the Liberal Democrat party and the party of government in Scotland is allowed to force the beast ban—the beef ban—to remain in England? Our policy is being driven by the policy of the devolved regions.

It would be almost unparliamentary for me to speculate why the hon. Gentleman might be against beast bans. However, I simply say to him that if one is serious about the devolutionary process—this party certainly is serious about that and about moving towards a more federally constructed constitution for this country—people in this place such as he and I are no longer in a position to discuss whether a different coalition is on the move in Edinburgh or a different set of political circumstances are in place in Cardiff. It is no longer our job to second guess.

I am going wide of the motion, and you may soon upbraid me, Madam Speaker, but I say to those Conservatives who care and are concerned about these matters that, although we may disagree, the sooner the Conservative party in this place accepts the new reality of British politics and starts to apply its mind collectively and constructively to that, the better. We would stop wasting time on exchanges such as this and get on with serious policy issues that Westminster should be concerning itself with. That is what the argument has to be about.

rose—

I shall give way to the hon. Gentleman, who is an old pal, and then I must make progress.

I am glad to be described as an old pal.

I am not on my feet to defend that remarkable Agriculture Minister, Mr. Ross Finnie, but I say to the right hon. Gentleman—my old pal across the way—that I have every sympathy for the hill farmer, the crofter and the small farmer. May I point out to him that the richer farmers have had a hell of a lot more out of Brussels than, for example, our fishermen? I hope that, on another occasion, he will argue with the same vigour on behalf of his fishermen constituents in Ullapool and elsewhere.

We can happily give that guarantee. One need only look at the spread of seats represented by the Liberal Democrats to understand the inherent importance of the fishing industry, whether in Cornwall, in Berwick, in my own part of the country or wherever. We will come back to that issue on another occasion, but I am sure that the hon. Gentleman understands that on the first day in the job, in a parliamentary sense, one cannot do everything.

I am delighted that my hon. Friend the Member for South-East Cornwall (Mr. Breed) will be winding up the debate on our behalf. He has already established a track record on this issue, which has had a direct impact on the Office of Fair Trading. There are further searching questions to be asked of the role of the supermarkets in all this. Why are prices so depressed at the farm gate when the consumer, far less the farmer, sees no merit or benefit accruing from that? I know that that has been looked at in terms of competition policy, but it is essential that the Minister redoubles his efforts to get some of the supermarket chiefs—the big hitters who are calling so many of the shots—in for discussions and to call them to account.

I hope that some of our Select Committees will look at that matter in the new Session of Parliament. The Select Committee on Welsh Affairs has already considered it and it is absolutely essential that the supermarkets are called to account with greater rigour and greater vigour, because common sense and our own local experience tells us that there is something fundamentally remiss when the income level is dropping, the purchase level is collapsing and the supermarkets do not seem to be passing any of the effects of that on with the interests of the consumer in mind.

rose—

I know that my hon. Friend has been much involved in this issue.

I thank my right hon. Friend for giving way. The Select Committee on Welsh Affairs made its report 18 months ago and our family farmers have experienced depressed prices for the past three years. Is not a resolution of this problem long overdue? There is no income and farmers are in a great state of personal depression because they are making no profit whatever on our family farms. This urgent matter must be resolved immediately.

I agree with my hon. Friend and pay tribute to the role that he played in the Select Committee's work on that report. The Minister and his Department have to get motoring. We can all issue complaints and constituency press releases and we can have debates on the Floor of the House, but the Ministry is best placed to tackle the issue. There is no doubt that there is cross-party agreement that something is wrong. Consumers perceive that a rip off is taking place and it is high time that those responsible were called to account. I hope that the Minister will do that.

In addition to the decline in income that is being suffered, the Government are piling on the charges, which is a perverse thing for any Administration to do, given that there is not the income base, in a family-run farm business, to sustain those charges. As my hon. Friends have told the Government on many occasions in recent times, it would be sensible to postpone, if not abandon, the policy of cattle passport charges. Why load more costs on the industry at a time when it cannot sustain them?

Stick the charges on the supermarkets.

That is an idea worth looking at. Perhaps the Minister might like to respond to it.

The second issue is that of importation. It is crazy that we load regulations and standards on ourselves and our domestic producers, which we cannot impose, on an equivalent basis, on some of our European competitors who provide lower quality importation products. Because of insufficient labelling, those products are then passed off to British consumers. That is a daft state of affairs. We have asked the Government repeatedly to do something about that. They need to move with more alacrity.

Has my right hon. Friend noted today's press release about chicken imports from Thailand? It says that EU inspectors approved a number of chicken factories there without visiting them, and that the potential use of antibiotics in Thailand is not regulated, known about or exposed to our consumers.

I am grateful to my right hon. Friend for that. I read those reports this morning. Given that this party supports the Government when they are positively engaged in Europe, we should use that positive engagement to insist that such ludicrous states of affairs are not allowed to be maintained. I could not agree with my right hon. Friend more.

This is a short debate and I am anxious that as many hon. Members as possible from all parties can contribute. I wish to deal with two other issues. The first is that of genetically modified products, which is capturing people's imagination and triggering anxiety—and rightly so.

The Government have inherited a series of contractual relationships and decisions from the previous Administration. That is understood. However, they must recognise that the GM issue goes much wider than the rights and wrongs of the issue itself. Scientific input is essential for any Administration. It would be highly irresponsible to suggest otherwise. Clearly, however, the Government are not carrying consumer confidence with them. It would therefore be best to opt for a five-year ban on the commercial exploitation of GM foods. The Government should recognise the extent of public opinion and the fact that they are not carrying public opinion with them on this issue. Ultimately, that will do more damage to the general credibility of agriculture and the food chain, which will benefit nobody, least of all farmers.

The second much broader issue is that of the single currency. I am glad that Britain in Europe campaign was launched last week and that it has a healthy degree of cross-party support, which is important. The Government must recognise, however, that there has been a significant change in grass-roots farming opinion on this matter. My view is based on discussions that I have had in the past couple of years. Because of the strength of the pound over the past period, the increasing perception among the agricultural community in this country is that a commitment on the part of this country to a single currency would be in the long-term interest of UK agriculture.

Will the right hon. Gentleman give way on that point?

I can hardly not give way to the hon. Gentleman on that issue, but may I finish this point first?

I appreciate that the Minister is constrained by the policy of the Chancellor, the Foreign Secretary and the Prime Minister, who from time to time seem to have the same policy on this issue. None the less, I hope that he will acknowledge that there will be real long-term benefits to British agriculture if we are coherently and sensibly part of a single trading currency zone within Europe.

Does the right hon. Gentleman accept that many people, himself included, who should know better and probably do, know that the rate at which the United Kingdom would be permitted to join the single currency would be as laid down by the treaties? It would not be a figure plucked out of the air that would suit the British farmer. Is it not time that the House faced the reality and told the British farmer that the single currency is not the panacea for all ills because we will have to go in at the mid-point of the exchange rate mechanism, which is DM2.95?

No one who has considered the issue sensibly would argue that the single currency is the panacea for all ills in the agricultural sector or elsewhere. Of course it is not. It is a technical as well as a political and a constitutional judgment. On balance, it brings merits and benefits and that is why I am in favour of it for agriculture, as for other things.

I would gently point out to the hon. Gentleman, as I do not necessarily concur with him but respect his views and the consistency with which they are argued, that equally if one is trying to take a balanced view of the problems afflicting agriculture, one must agree that they did not all begin on the stroke of midnight of 2 May 1997. Many of the endemic difficulties affecting countryside and rural issues predate the advent of this Administration by some considerable way and I am afraid to say that some of the guilty people are now sitting on the Opposition Front Bench and used to sit on the Government Front Bench. That is an important political point of which we must never lose sight.

On behalf of my right hon. and hon. Friends, I conclude by saying that, first, it is important that Parliament is seen today, here and now, to draw attention to the extent of the crisis. Secondly, it is important that all of us in all parties and all parts of the country reflect what we have heard from our constituents during the summer recess about the depth of the depression and the extent of the doom and gloom out there in the agricultural community.

Thirdly, in considering the broader issues—labelling, importation, GMOs and so forth—we will face an even bigger problem in time to come if we cannot take consumers with us. That is essential both to underpin our domestic agricultural production base, but equally to instil a new sense of confidence in what those in politics and behind public policy are telling the people. That is what lies behind our debate and our motion and I commend it to the House.

4.3 pm

I beg to move, To leave out from "House" to the end of the Question, and to add instead thereof:

"recognises the difficulties faced by agriculture and the wider rural economy as a result of the depressed level of farm incomes; approves of the special measures the Government has taken to assist the industry through three aid packages plus EU agri-monetary compensation worth in total £742 million; endorses the establishment of industry-led working groups to examine urgently the regulatory burdens on agriculture; supports the Government's promotion of collaborative working throughout the food chain to add value and generate the price premium that high-quality United Kingdom produce deserves, while noting that the Competition Commission's investigation of supermarket pricing includes an examination of trading practices throughout the supply chain; welcomes the Government's achievement of significant reform of the Common Agricultural Policy in the interests of producers, consumers and taxpayers; and fully supports the Government's commitment to the future of United Kingdom agriculture as a competitive, flexible and diverse industry, and the use of options available under Agenda 2000 to help secure this."

First, I offer my congratulations to the right hon. Member for Ross, Skye and Inverness, West (Mr. Kennedy) on his election to the leadership of his party. I also congratulate him on having selected a debate on food and farming for his debut in the House as leader of his party. I also pay tribute to him for the interest that he has taken in this subject in his time as the Liberal Democrat spokesman and for his constructive approach in what are difficult times for the sector. For completeness, I also welcome the hon. Member for South-East Cornwall (Mr. Breed) to his new Front-Bench responsibilities.

These are important issues and it is right that we should debate them today. We are not quarrelling, I hope, about the facts. Certainly I have no quarrel about the key fact, which is that farm incomes have fallen dramatically in the past three years and now stand at one of the lowest levels for the past 25 years. The Government see helping farmers through the deep and enduring depression in farm incomes that they are experiencing as one of their priorities. There is no doubt that the whole industry, and the livestock sector in particular, is facing severe difficulties. We are still feeling the effects of the unavoidable implications of the BSE crisis. That runs not only through the beef sector, but throughout livestock.

Will the right hon. Gentleman give way?

I will first list the difficulties. I promise to give way to the hon. Gentleman when I come to the response to them.

The recession in the far east and the collapse of the Russian economy have increased pressures. While the strength of the pound, particularly in relation to the euro, to which the right hon. Member for Ross, Skye and Inverness, West referred, is a reflection of the strength of the wider UK economy, it makes agricultural exports more difficult, draws in imports and reduces the real value of support payments to farmers under the common agricultural policy.

I welcome the right hon. Gentleman to the House this afternoon and thank him for the statement that he recently made about giving more money to the farmers. That has been very welcome to the farmers in my constituency. May I remind him that there are still major concerns among farmers and that they see the money as a sticking plaster rather than a long-term solution. He may be aware that I have written to his office to ask him to come to my constituency office to meet my farmers. Can he give me an assurance this afternoon that he can fit that into his diary?

I am under enormous pressure to make constituency visits and to meet local groups of farmers. I try to meet as many farmers as I can. It has helped me in undertaking my responsibilities to have farmhouse meetings with groups of farmers. A number of Members have invited me to their constituencies. I make no distinction between political party because by and large these issues are not party political, or at least they should not be. I am happy to take the hon. Gentleman's invitation, put it with the other invitations and come when I can. I should like to do so.

The Minister adopts a characteristically conciliatory tone. One of the problems is Ministers themselves. Is it more arrogant to act as the Welsh Minister of Agriculture has done and refuse to leave the field even for a veggie burger when she has been given out by the umpire, or to act as he has done in relation to the ban on beef on the bone? He no longer has English scientific advice compelling him to continue with the ban and he is maintaining it simply for the convenience of his colleagues in other parts of the United Kingdom. Is it not legally perilous to withhold trade in circumstances in which he no longer has advice to maintain the ban?

I do not agree with the thrust of either of the hon. Gentleman's points. I think that it is right to lift the ban on beef on the bone. I have said consistently since becoming the Minister that I wanted to lift the ban as soon as I could. I have relied on the advice of the United Kingdom chief medical officer, who now tells me that he believes that it would be right to lift the ban for retail sales, but not for manufactured products. That is what I want to do, but I want to lift the ban across the whole of the United Kingdom. It is perfectly rational to allow a short pause for reflection for other authorities with devolved competence to see whether we cannot lift the ban together in a uniform way before Christmas. I hope that that is a complete answer to that part of the hon. Gentleman's intervention.

As for the hon. Gentleman's point about the Ministers with devolved responsibility for agriculture, I have no quarrel with them for exploring schemes to help farmers through difficult times. That is a perfectly proper thing for them to do. I accept, exactly as the right hon. Member for Ross, Skye and Inverness, West accepts, that it is implicit in devolution that we get different outcomes in different parts of the United Kingdom where there is devolved competence. The fact of the matter is that it is difficult to devise schemes on the supply side that supplement the supply-side measures of the CAP. But why on earth people have fallen to complaining about the Welsh Minister and the Scottish Minister for trying to do so, and for trying to do their best, beats me. Of course, I was aware of the difficulties, and, in our discussions, we candidly discussed them, but the Welsh Minister set out to try to overcome them. The fact that she has tried for farmers but on the specific cull ewe scheme has not succeeded reflects no discredit on her at all. I am surprised that she has come in for the criticism that she has. She has tried to help, and that is a perfectly honourable thing to have wanted to do.

Will the Minister give way?

This is a Liberal Democrat Supply day. I hope that there will be other opportunities to discuss these matters in the House before long. I do not want to eat into the time of Back-Bench Members, but I give way.

I shall be brief. Can the right hon. Gentleman clear up the confusion? Is he telling the House that the policy of maintaining the ban on beef on the bone is his policy and is not a consequence of his being driven by the policies of the devolved regions?

My policy is to lift the ban in a co-ordinated way throughout the United Kingdom. Because competence in this area has been devolved, clearly the policy requires the consent of others as well; others examine the issue, too.

This is not the consequence of devolution. When the original decisions were taken in government, and when Liam Donaldson's report in January was discussed within government, there were discussions between Agriculture Ministers—those representing Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland—as well as myself as the UK Minister, so there is nothing new in this. Since the early 1980s, with regard to the sale of unpasteurised milk, there has been separate legislation in Scotland from the legislative arrangements in England and Wales. There is nothing new in having different legislation in this respect. We might do so in the future, but it is more desirable that we proceed on a UK-wide basis. That is why I pause before advocating an England-only policy or one for some parts of the United Kingdom and not others.

The fact that there is devolved competence and people can do different things does not mean that we should always want to do different things just for the sake of it. In this regard, it is sensible for us to discuss the evidence and make the decision together; but for the Scottish authorities that has to be consistent with the advice that they receive from their chief medical officers, and the same applies to the other devolved authorities, just as it does to me. If the hon. Gentleman can bear to contain himself for a little longer, we will achieve the outcome that he wants.

Let me return to the farm income difficulties which, in some sectors—for example, the beef sector—it is fair to describe as at crisis point. I take the beef sector first. We have been denied export markets for more than three and a half years and that has had dramatic consequences for the beef industry. Those markets will be hard to recover, particularly at retail level, but now that the ban has been lifted—at least in 13 of the 15 states in the EU, and a 14th is in the process of lifting the ban—exports have recommenced and we are starting to rebuild our markets.

As all hon. Members will be aware, we are pressing the French to lift their illegal ban. I hope that we can come to a resolution soon, but, if we do not, I assure the House that we will press home our claim with all the rigour, vigour and means open to us. Initially, we look to the Commission to defend its decision and our corner in the matter, but that does not pre-empt us from taking other action.

I am sure that the Minister knows that he has our full support in ensuring that the French observe their responsibilities in lifting the ban. None the less, does he accept that the once prime beef exporters in my constituency are telling me that, whether or not the ban is lifted by the French, we will not achieve the sale of a single kilo of Scottish beef until we can be competitive on prices? Will the Minister undertake to continue to work with the industry to ensure that the costs that have been imposed to deliver the conditions for the lifting of the ban are brought down to a level that will make it possible to develop new export markets?

I shall have something to say about the regulatory burden later. I am alert to the point. I work closely with the Meat and Livestock Commission and others with responsibilities for the beef sector, but clearly, a precondition of being able to export is to obtain the lifting of the ban, which was implemented worldwide, which the EU has done, to ensure that our partners in the EU implement that decision where it is enshrined in their domestic legislation—not all countries did enshrine it in their domestic legislation—and then to go out and build the markets. Although the ability to transport through France is not the main issue, it is an important one. The transport ban is important, alongside the actual ban on sales. All we are asking for is the right legally to offer for sale a product that is among the safest in the world and commanded a premium price—this is especially so of the Scottish sector—because it is a premium product. We want to get back to that state of affairs, and I will not be happy until the markets are working normally again as they do in the rest of the European Union. That is my objective.

As we know, the market for lamb is in severe difficulties for the third year in succession. Key problems include the strength of sterling, the apparent decline in export demand and the surplus of cull ewes and light male hill lambs. In the past, there has been good export demand for those animals in southern Europe, but, given the strength of sterling and the loss of overseas markets for sheepskins, it is becoming difficult to find sufficient export outlets. That has meant that the product has spilled over onto the domestic market.

An additional cost is associated with necessary BSE-related controls, which require the splitting of ewe carcases to remove the spinal cord. Given the current state of the market, that is a significant issue because of the proportionate effect on producer margins. I shall take a hard look at what can be done about that within the law and consistent with the need to protect the public.

Similar issues affect the pig sector, which we have discussed on several occasions. The position is grave because prices are depressed below costs and have been for almost two years. I have had three meetings with industry representatives in the past fortnight, and we are working closely on a range of measures to help. I hope to have something to tell the House in the next few days, but similar pressures now exist in all UK agricultural sectors, including dairy, poultry and horticulture.

Before the Minister leaves the subject of pigs, does he envisage some relief on the some £5 a beast that it costs the industry to undertake the measures inspired by the BSE crisis, which have nothing to do with the pig industry?

The hon. Gentleman makes a good case: BSE has no direct connection with the pig industry, but that sector has to bear the costs of the recommendations from the Spongiform Encephalopathy Advisory Committee about meat and bonemeal to protect against the dangers of cross-contamination. I am taking a hard look at what can be done on that specific point.

The hon. Gentleman offers one way forward. It is not the only possible way, and we are examining whether it is possible to return an economic value to the product by going back to SEAC and examining its objections. The hon. Gentleman will recall that I have done that once already, and SEAC confirmed its belief that the rules should remain in place. It set out its reasons, but I intend to return to SEAC, in a November meeting with the Meat and Livestock Commission, to explore our proposals for meeting its objections. We have also explored informally with the Commission how far the Government can assist in that sector. The news is disappointing, because the initial outcome was not hopeful. Any intervention would constitute state aid in what is otherwise a light regime, but discussions are continuing.

Will the Minister also take into account the position of the egg-producing industry? My constituency contains Stonegate Farmers Ltd., which has a turnover of £100 million, with farms in Sussex and elsewhere. It is suffering badly. The cage, food and hygiene standards regulations have been imposed on it, but not on those who market eggs from abroad. If that situation continues, the industry will go out of business.

Separate issues affect the poultry meat and the laying hen sectors. I shall meet the industry soon for a summit to examine all those issues and to consider what can be done. However, as with the pig sector, the regulatory regime in the European Union—the right hon. Member for Ross, Skye and Inverness, West rightly pointed out the overarching impact of the CAP on the different regimes—is light, and I can do little by way of direct state aid, which is what people tend to ask for first. However, we shall explore all that in some detail.

I shall take two other interventions, but I am conscious that I am using up the time of the House on what is, after all, an Opposition Supply day. I shall give way to the hon. Members for Buckingham (Mr. Bercow) and for Somerton and Frome (Mr. Heath), and then that is it.

I am most grateful to the Minister for giving way. A young pig farmer in my constituency—Mr. James King of Cowley farm, Preston Bissett, near Buckingham—expressed concern about the Belgian report on dioxins in Danish and Dutch meat. [Laughter.] This is a matter of the utmost seriousness and should not arouse levity among Liberal Democrat Members. What specific representations has the Minister made to Danish and Dutch Ministers about this crucial matter?

Nobody takes this important issue lightly, and the Liberal Democrats have devoted one of their Supply days to discussing it.

I can tell the hon. Gentleman that I am looking hard at implementing the advice on labelling regimes emanating from my Department. I hope to have something to say about that matter to the House shortly, but any proposals would deal specifically with the question of country of origin.

I wish to return to the vital issue of how we can help the pig industry. The Minister suggested that any support to deal with what are effectively public health issues would be interpreted as state aid. The Belgian Government's actions in relation to dioxins appear to have been accepted without challenge, so why cannot the Minister act similarly to help our hard-pressed pig industry?

The rules allow for action in what the European Commission deems to be exceptional circumstances. In the case of Britain, BSE was deemed to be an exceptional circumstance. The over-30-months scheme is a very good example of the regimes in this country that protect the public. That scheme, which is also a powerful market intervention measure, is a European Union regime that is unique to the United Kingdom. Similarly, the effect of the dioxin crisis on the Belgian markets persuaded the Commission to allow the Belgian authorities to introduce unique state aids to deal with that crisis. However, it will not be possible for me or any of my counterparts in other countries to argue that a sustained downturn in price comes within the definition of a crisis.

I hope that that answers the question. The fact that I know the answer illustrates that I have had a hard look at the problem. I want to do all that I can to help the sector get out of the deep trouble that it has been in for some time. We thought that what we achieved in the spring and early summer, when we secured the 20 per cent. premium in the marketplace, would be enough to lift the industry to the break-even point. Disappointingly, the gap between the UK price and the continental European price narrowed. Worse followed when the price started to fall again.

The problem requires a further considered response from the Government. I am working very hard on it, and hope to have something new and comprehensive to tell the House in a matter of days.

I shall now deal with what the Liberal Democrat motion has to say about farmgate prices and the prices that show up in the supermarkets. The motion alleges that profiteering takes place. The Government's approach to the problem is to rely on the investigation of supermarket pricing by the Competition Commission. However, it is worth noting that, although that investigation will look at prices to consumers, it will also scrutinise trading practices throughout the food supply chain. If market power is being exploited anywhere in the chain, the Government will respond very strongly.

In that respect, I repeat what the House will have heard me say before: I am convinced of the importance of getting all elements of the food chain working together collaboratively and co-operatively. I have set up a food chain group of senior figures from the industry, which will report on how best to improve understanding of the chain and how the different parts can best work together for mutual advantage. Part of the way forward lies in adding value and seeking out market premiums for UK produce.

I shall meet the British Retail Consortium shortly, and have arranged a series of meetings with senior management of all the large retailers and major caterers in the UK. [Interruption.] I am being invited to get on with it; I am getting on with it, and have been for some time. I regularly meet representatives of the retail, processing and distribution sectors as well as representatives of farmers and farm businesses.

The National Farmers Union strongly suggested when I met representatives recently—the suggestion is included in the Liberal Democrat motion—that the burden of Government regulation was making a bad situation worse. In response to that generalised charge, the answer to which will be found in the detail rather than in general charges, I have, in partnership with the NFU, set up an industry-led review of the regulatory burden on agriculture. I hope that that review will go across government, not being confined only to matters for which the Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food is responsible. I have the support of my ministerial colleagues on that.

Will the Minister give way?

Let me finish my point and then I shall give way, despite what I said earlier about not taking more interventions. The hon. Gentleman is an old hand at agriculture debates, and it would be wrong to keep him out.

We want to minimise bureaucracy. We want to find out how to do things better and to root out all unnecessary restrictions. I have set up three working groups, chaired by representatives of the industry, to examine what the NFU and I felt were the three most urgent—though not the onlyߞareas for review. One group will consider the operation of the integrated administration and control system and on-farm inspections. The second will look into the meat hygiene rules and slaughterhouse regulations. The third will examine the workings of the intervention system.

I am most grateful to the right hon. Gentleman for giving way. He has spoken of understanding the problems of over-regulation and the added burden of costs on the industry. Will he therefore take this opportunity to tell the House that he will abandon the pesticides tax?

If I were the Chancellor of the Exchequerߞgiven the promotion of the hon. Member for South Suffolk (Mr. Yeo), there is hope for us allߞI would willingly do so. I am not the Chancellorߞ[HON. MEMBERS: "Split."] I am giving no secrets away here. The whole world knows that I am an opponent of a pesticides tax. Tax policy is, however, a matter for the Chancellor, not me, although my views are widely known and loudly put.

In fairness to the Liberal Democrats, I remind my right hon. Friend that the motion welcomes the Government's achievement of significant reform of the common agricultural policy in the interests of producers, consumers and taxpayers. The Minister and his colleagues have achieved reform, but does he agree that the CAP is badly flawed? Among other things, it protects and promotes the interests of richer farmers and presents formidable problems for the enlargement of the European Union.

My hon. Friend is absolutely right. As we go into the detail of these matters, we must not lose sight of the fact that the CAP is the overarching policy instrument for agriculture and farmers. The case that my hon. Friend makes for reform is also the Government's case. He is right to put it. Not only does the policy impact on how farm business decisions are taken, but it is bound to influence our ambitions for enlargement of the EU. It favours those who produce most because it is essentially a production subsidy. About 20 per cent. of farmers receive 80 per cent. of CAP subsidies. That is logical because of the way the system is structured: it is intended to be a production subsidy.

The case for reform and for moving away from the crude link with production towards the second pillar of the CAP-the rural development measures-as a way of getting moneys to farm businesses and the rural economy is clearly the right way forward. The Government have made a start on all that. In our negotiations, we secured the largest ever reform of the CAP and, more than that, we got each and every regime moving in the right direction. Should we have done more? Of course, I would like to do more, but I am in the vanguard on all this and I have to carry others with me.

Will the right hon. Gentleman give way?

I shall have to call a halt soon, but I will take some interventions and curtail my speech.

Some of the changes to Milk Marque may not be helpful in achieving the Minister's goal. Does he agree that, for a long time, Milk Marque has defended the interests of the small farmer?

I worked closely with the Milk Marque leadership through what I acknowledge has been a difficult time for it. I also met representatives of the dairy processing industry and tried to act as an honest broker through a time that was difficult for both sides of the industry, but particularly difficult for the producer side when producer incomes have been low. I yield to no one in my support for farm and producer co-operation in the dairy sector. The leadership of Milk Marque, given the Competition Commission report, which I know farmers do not like, has been right—indeed, brave—to respond in the way in which it has. This is the right way forward for dairy producers.

I am delighted to hear that there is to be a review of bureaucracy in agriculture. Will the Minister assure the House that it will consider the introduction of an appeal mechanism against the decisions of the Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food, which currently acts as judge, jury, prosecutor and defender in giving decisions to individual farmers?

It is not for me to tell the review what response I want from it. My understanding is that that issue is being considered, and certainly I have considered it within the Department. The difficulty is that the rules are very rigid and there is a risk of disallowance with substantial penalties if they are not rigidly followed. In our country, there is a tradition, in most aspects of our administrative life, of being tolerant of genuine errors. The European Union rules are much more rigidly drawn because they have to apply across the whole European Union. Within the constraints that the rules place on us, we are looking at what could be done and, in particular, whether it would be possible to operate a workable appeals mechanism. However, I do not think that an appeals mechanism under the CAP schemes could ever deliver as much as something devised more generally to suit public administration in the United Kingdom. The constraints are very tight.

I said that I would curtail my speech because I have taken interventions. I think that that is what the House wanted. I do not want to eat into the time of other hon. Members, but it is right to respond to some of the key points made by the right hon. Member for Ross, Skye and Inverness, West and to the specific ways forward advocated by the Liberal Democrats. They are right to identify the overarching importance of the CAP and the case for reform. The motion is light on advocating specific remedies, although the right hon. Gentleman advocated some in his speech. He mentioned the calf disposal and cull ewe schemes.

I looked hard at the representations that I received from the Meat and Livestock Commission, among others, on the cull ewe disposal scheme proposition. It is being considered by Ministers in other Agriculture Departments, in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland. Alongside that is the request for a modified calf disposal scheme. Both schemes come up against a difficulty with which many of us will be familiar: the Commission's attitude to extra and unlawful state aidsߞstate aids additional to the CAP. As a general point, we all want to help agriculture to get through what are acknowledged to be difficult times, in some sectors more than in others. It would be better to put our efforts into devising workable schemes on the demand sideߞI shall say a little about that in a momentߞrather than trying to supplement the supply side of the CAP. That is the hurdle at which these ideas have fallen.

The only alternative would have been to reopen the whole calf-processing aid scheme in abattoirs in parts of the country, or perhaps throughout the whole country, until the end of the year. I thought carefully about that, and listened carefully to the representations that I received from the NFU when the scheme was due to close last November, because that was the position that I inherited. Hon. Members will know that I managed to obtain money from the reserve to continue the scheme until April, when I used moneys that I was able to draw together within the Department to continue the scheme, at a reduced rate, for as long as I could. I would have liked to reduce the rate further and to continue the scheme for longer in order to provide a market signal and a period of transition towards the eventual ending of the scheme EU-wide. That will happen at the end of this year. Some EU countries have closed the scheme; others still use it.

The Commission took the view that it could allow only a modest variation in the EU-wide scheme for any individual member state. It relied on the figure of 20 per cent. It would be difficult to get the Commission to agree if we tried to introduce a scheme with a variation of more than 20 per cent., but, in any event, any EU scheme, under the CAP, must be open to all. Under the CAP, it is not possible to bring in partial schemes unless they are specifically permitted. Of course, the calf-processing aid scheme is not such a scheme.

I pay tribute, as I have done before, to the Ministers with responsibility for agriculture in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland for trying to help the industries, in their Administrations, through difficult times. It is wrong for parliamentarians to criticise them for trying.

I have already dealt with other matters that were mentioned by the right hon. Member for Ross, Skye and Inverness, Westߞsupermarkets and the regulatory burden. I intend to say something about labelling soon; I am currently considering the regulations. In relation to standards abroad and at home, it is not legal to offer for sale goods, whether produced at home or imported, that do not meet our health and hygiene standards. I warn the whole House against trying to go down a protectionist road, with the use of instruments such as article 36—the example that is usually quoted by the Conservatives—as somehow allowing us to ban the import of produce from abroad that does not meet domestic welfare standards. I have sought the best possible available advice on that point, and I intend to put it in the Library so that we can all share it. However, it is clear that article 36 will not serve for that purpose. I intend to put the evidence in the Library; more than that I cannot do.

The right hon. Member for Ross, Skye and Inverness, West raised the issue of genetically modified materials.

Will the right hon. Gentleman give way?

I really must come to a conclusion.

Will the right hon. Gentleman give way?

I am a soft-hearted character; I shall give way to the right hon. Gentleman.

Everyone understands the Minister's difficulty in trying to impose a ban on imports from countries that do not share our animal welfare standards. Although we want the highest welfare standards to apply in this country, when any new requirement is introduced is it not important to bear in mind the fact that that requirement cannot be imposed on other countries and that we are unable to prevent imports from countries whose producers do not have to bear the same costs as ours?

I made exactly that point in almost the same way at the Council of Ministers meeting that discussed that issue in relation to the poultry sector. I was one of several Ministers who advocated taking forward the trade aspects of animal welfare in the coming World Trade Organisation round, and I received the support of other Ministers in that. Moreover, we got the toughest ever statement from the Commission on the subject of farm animal welfare.

The right hon. Gentleman has correctly identified one of the dangers, which is that we insist on the highest standards, but find that, by so doing, we have exported the industry and so end up with neither a victory for animal welfare nor an industry. In my view, that would be a foolish course of action and I said so at the Council of Ministers. However, I do not conclude from that that we should resile from our ambitions for farm animal welfare. We should fight to obtain a premium for higher farm animal welfare standards in the domestic marketplace and take a hard look at how farm animal welfare issues can be accommodated within the CAP. The matter will inevitably come up for discussion during the WTO round. It is early days yet, but no one should doubt the line that I shall pursue. In the meantime, I am alert to the impact on the domestic market, especially in a time of difficulties.

The right hon. Gentleman will remember that, in 1991, when we introduced changes in the pig sector, including the stall and tether ban, we allowed an eight-year conversion period. I make no political point: those, including myself, who voted for those measures believed that what we were doing was right in terms of animal welfare and that the industry could accommodate the changes. If we had asked pig farmers in 1995 and 1996 whether the industry could accommodate the changes, they would have said yes, of course, in part because, for a range of reasons, the new production systems were better than the old ones. Now, when margins are pinched or non-existent—producers in the pig sector now sustain losses—the effect of those changes on those who invested and are carrying debt is hard to bear. I want to find a way forward that specifically addresses the circumstances of the pig sector.

The right hon. Member for Ross, Skye and Inverness, West raised the subject of genetically modified organisms. He is right to emphasise the scientific impact and the need for the Government to stick to the science and to ensure that we are professionally advised. He is also right to say that consumer confidence has been badly shaken. We are setting up the Food Standards Agency to ensure that the professional advice given to Ministers, including me when I attend policy meetings of the Council of Ministers, is seen to be independent of ministerial or departmental government and to have been cast in an independent and scientific setting. I accept that it will take time, but I hope that the creation of that agency and the drawing together of the public protection work undertaken within government will have an impact on consumer confidence and trust. That trust has been shaken, and it is the duty of Government to restore it.

I have been generous in giving way and I do not want to take up other hon. Members' speaking time, so I shall draw my remarks to a close by drawing the House's attention to some of the ways forward. As I said, we should look more at the demand side and less at the supply side when trying to help the industry through difficult times. There are good prospects for farmers' markets, a movement that is in its infancy in this country. I lay great personal emphasis on the farm assurance schemes, such as the Meat and Livestock Commission's British meat pork mark, which give the consumer the opportunity to purchase goods that have been produced to the higher United Kingdom standards. I should be willing to give my support to marketing schemes that emphasised the advantages of farm-assured produce.

The recent growth in the organic sector, prompted by support from my Department, is welcome. So popular is the scheme that not only is it oversubscribed for the current year, but the waiting list for next year is now oversubscribed. I am considering how we can take that forward. We doubled the support given to the sector, and even that has proved insufficient to meet demand.

There are great possibilities in making use of regional speciality food endorsements and in trying to link the food industry, especially the farmgate food industry, with regional tourism. There are opportunities there, and we can also make use of the European Union legal protection of registered names.

Diversification will continue to be important. About 40 per cent. of all farm businesses have a significant non-farm-based income stream, and I expect that to continue. I do not want to see the eastern part of the country turned into a prairie or the western part into a single ranch, but the trend for farm businesses to merge and grow larger is remorseless, and I expect that to continue. However, we must ensure that it does not become the dominant outcome.

I believe in producer co-operation, and everything that I have said about the dairy sector underpins that. I believe in producer clubs, too, and the joined-up food chain with producers, processors and distributors recognising their community of interest and the long-term nature of the investment that they put into their businesses. In summary, the future is with the demand-side measures, rather than struggling to supplement the common agricultural policy on the supply side.

We are going through a period of change. In 10 years' time, the position will not be the same as it is now. I am committed to working in a non-political way with the industry and others affected by it. Many of the issues are economic rather than political, and it is important that we find a response that is rational and will work and will help the industry through the difficult times that are partly cyclical, but partly structural as well.

I welcome the contribution that the right hon. Member for Ross, Skye and Inverness, West has made to our discussions of such matters in the past, and the constructive attitude taken by his party towards those issues. Nevertheless, I urge the House to support the amendment.

4.47 pm

I congratulate the right hon. Member for Ross, Skye and Inverness, West (Mr. Kennedy) on his elevation to the leadership of his party; I am sure that he will provide us with plenty of entertainment in that role in the months and years to come. I have not tabled an amendment to his motion because I agree with many, in fact most, of the sentiments in it. I shall therefore not ask my hon. Friends to vote against it at the end of the debate.

I welcome the chance to debate the crisis in agriculture and in the countryside, and to examine the solutions that the Government have so often ignored or rejected. I was disappointed by the Minister's speech; it was similar to many of the offerings that we have heard over the past year, and can be summed up as follows: "I'm frightfully sorry about the ghastly mess, chaps, but there's nothing I can do about it."

As usual, we are debating agriculture in Opposition time. In April and July we had Conservative Opposition day debates on agriculture, and I welcome the Liberals' decision to use their first available half-day for that purpose. Only the Government consistently refuse to debate agriculture in their own time, perhaps because Labour policies have made the crisis in agriculture worse, not better—or perhaps because they refuse to recognise the central role of farming both in the rural economy and in the protection of the environment.

Only today we read in The Times about a Cabinet Office proposal to end the protection of prime agricultural land. Here is a litmus test for Labour. Any weakening in the restrictions on developing prime farmland will not only be disastrous for the environment, but will send a chilling signal to farmers that the Labour party does not believe that agriculture has any long-term future in modern Britain, and that cool Britannia means covering prime farmland with houses and theme parks.

On 20 September, the Minister announced a package of measures to which he made little or no reference during his 45-minute speech.

The only reason that I did not refer to the package of support that I announced for the industry is that I told the House that I would curtail my speech so that I could take interventions, and that was precisely the part of the speech that was curtailed.

That shows what the Minister thinks of the package.

As my hon. Friend suggests, the fact that the package found no place in the Minister's 45-minute speech suggests that he does not attach much importance to it. It is fortunate that I shall now deal with the matter.

Many of the individual measures were very welcome, but as so often happens with the Labour party, the reality did not live up to the spin. The package's cash value to farmers was not as high as the Government implied. Perhaps the Home Secretary had a hand in preparing the figures. Most of the money is European Union agrimonetary aid, paid directly from EU funds, which had been agreed before the announcement. Only £150 million of the package remained, and that consisted partly of a postponement of specified risk material removal charges and charges for cattle passports. In other words, those were decisions not to increase existing burdens on an almost crippled livestock sector for the purpose of swelling the Treasury's already overflowing coffers. The third element was a decision to maintain hill livestock compensatory allowances at the current rate for another year. In other words, that was a decision not to withdraw help from an extremely hard-pressed sector.

Against that background, it is understandable that farmers were less than ecstatic. It is hard to quarrel with the verdict in the leader in the Farmers Guardian, which said that the package would not

"make any real difference across the farming industry as a whole."

The hon. Gentleman has been a Minister, and he will know that the £150 million is new money. It ensures that burdens that were to be placed on farmers will not be placed on them. There is new money also in the hill livestock compensatory allowances, which are easily the best way to help the livestock sector in the uplands, where the key problem for sheep farmers lies. When I announced the £60 million last year, I said that it was a one-off and that the allowances could not continue in the future. I said that it was a specific programme designed to help people who needed it immediately. As the problem endures—indeed, it is proving to be intractable—the Government decided to make the aid available again. That is new money, which I was careful to ensure people did not anticipate because the allowances were intended to last for one year.

The Minister is a little sensitive on that point. I cannot find many farmers who think that deferring the imposition of an additional charge for cattle passports represents the provision of new money. The Government have decided not to take from farmers as much money as they had intended at a time when the Minister has himself acknowledged that farm incomes are lower than at any time during the 18 years of the previous Government. I welcome that decision, but it does not qualify for the Minister's generous description of it.

A particularly startling aspect of the package is its complete failure to mention pigs. I wonder whether the Minister, when he made his announcement, realised the severity of the problems with which pig farmers are grappling. British pig producers are teetering on the brink of disaster. The British sow herd is contracting, in contrast to the herds of Denmark, Spain, Germany and Holland. British imports of pigmeat from the rest of the European Union are rising. The British pig industry is now being exported, partly to countries that have lower animal welfare standards than ours. Week by week, the Government's policy of malign neglect is destroying the British pig farmer. I urge the Minister to take further action before it is too late.

The first step must be to introduce honesty in labelling. It is outrageous that British consumers are sold items of pigmeat that may be labelled British even though the pigs were reared abroad, under conditions now considered too dangerous or cruel to be allowed in this country. The fact that those imports are produced in ways that are illegal in Britain need not even be disclosed at the point of sale to the consumer. Every food item should be labelled with the country of origin—showing where the food is grown, not where it is processed—and with the method of production, so that those consumers who want to do so can support high standards.

What the hon. Gentleman says is very fair, and I am looking very hard at the discretion that I have within the labelling regimes. However, could tell the House the constraints that there were on the previous Government in doing what he now advocates?

I shall tell the Minister the exact position. Under the previous Government, the British pig industry was not being exported. The need for desperate measures has arisen because of the present crisis in the pig sector. If I took the Minister to any pig farmer in the United Kingdom, he would say, "We would love to get back to where we were before May 1997." Desperate measures are now needed as a result of the Government's neglect of the issues, their hostility to the countryside and their contempt for agriculture.

This debate is being listened to extremely carefully by pig farmers throughout Britain, many of whom have been in touch individually with me and with my hon. Friends over the past few days, and they will be dismayed to hear the Minister falling back on a cheap party political point at a time when they will be calculating—possibly even this evening—how much longer they can continue in business. We now know the truth about how much Labour really cares for pig farmers.

Hon. Members frequently use the word "crisis" and it becomes almost meaningless, but I fully concur with what my hon. Friend says. This summer in my constituency, I have met dozens of pig farmers who are facing bankruptcy in the next few weeks. What we are looking for from the Minister—I accept that he hopes to announce some proposals next week—are some real, hard proposals to lift this crisis from the pig industry. Good words and phrases will not be sufficient. Many pig farmers will go bust in the next few weeks.

My hon. Friend is absolutely right.

The second step that is needed is to block the imports of food that has been grown in ways that are not allowed in this country. The Minister mentioned that in his speech. I welcome the fact that he will publish the advice that he has received. We shall study it with great interest.

This week, the Minister wrote to me saying:

"Member states cannot introduce a unilateral import ban or impose national standards unrelated to public or animal health".

If our ban on feeding meat and bonemeal is not related to public or animal health, what on earth is it related to?

The third step that is needed is to prevent the public sector from buying pigmeat that does not meet British standards. The Minister has told the House:

"I have on my desk draft letters waiting to go out to the major public authorities—the prisons, the health authorities and local authorities—not via other Departments but directly, urging them to source products of the highest welfare and animal hygiene standards".—[Official Report, 1 July 1999; Vol. 334, c. 422.]

Before Agriculture questions in the House tomorrow, will the Minister place in the Library copies of those letters and the replies that, in the past three and a half months, he has received from the recipients of his letters, so that the pig farmers can see precisely which authorities are ready to support them?

I shall not do that; I shall make my own announcement in my own time in the next few days.

When the Minister makes his announcement, will he publish those letters so that we may see exactly whom he wrote to and exactly who bothered to reply?

The fourth step that is needed—which has been mentioned—is to help pig farmers meet the extra costs of offal disposal. The Select Committee on Agriculture made a recommendation on that subject in January 1999, and in the past few weeks the British pig industry support group has again raised the subject. That is another burden that many competitors overseas do not bear. Recently, Belgium secured European Union approval for the help that it has given to its pig farmers in the wake of the dioxin crisis, and I hope that Britain will be able to do the same.

The beef on the bone ban was imposed by the Minister's unlamented predecessor, and we know what has happened to him in the past 10 days. The ban has exposed Labour's disastrous combination of weakness and muddle more clearly than any other issue. The Minister keeps saying that he cannot lift the ban because of the scientific evidence. However, last month, as he has acknowledged, the chief medical officer for England said that the ban on the retail sale of beef on the bone could be lifted. Nevertheless, the Minister still will not act. Apparently, this is because officials in Wales and Scotland do not agree with the CMO. Does devolution mean that the UK is a convoy that can travel only at the speed of the slowest ship? Does it mean that unelected bureaucrats in Cardiff and Edinburgh now make the policy that applies to England? Does it mean that the Minister is too weak to stand up for the rights of English consumers? How can he expect the French Government to have confidence in British beef when the British Government do not have it?

It is almost 11 months since the Minister announced to Parliament:

"We have achieved a major objective of our policy towards Europe in the lifting of the beef export ban."—[Official Report, 25 November 1998; Vol. 321, c.190.]

On 17 December, the right hon. Gentleman referred to that as

"a major breakthrough reflecting months of dialogue within the European Commission and with our European partners."

He made a confident prediction about the timing. He said:

"I anticipate that we will be able to start exporting deboned beef by the spring of next year."—[Official Report, 17 December 1998; Vol. 322, c. 1091.]

That timetable has slipped a bit. However, on 21 April 1999, during an Opposition debate on the crisis in farming, the right hon. Gentleman was at it again. He said:

"We are on target towards the lifting of the beef ban. We are on timetable."—[Official Report, 21 April 1999; Vol. 329, c.991.]

Three months later, he was back in the House announcing once again the lifting of the ban. This time we were given a date—1 August. When I had the temerity to suggest that it might be well into August before exports actually started, the Minister slapped me down in a rather uncharacteristically petulant way. He said:

"1 August is the start of August. How can that possibly be grudgingly described 'as well into August?"'

For the record, the first beef to be exported—not sold but taken abroad for a promotional lunch—was on 23 August. For anyone who wondered how this great achievement was secured, the Minister told us, again on 14 July, that

"Labour leadership in Europe and our constructive approach towards our European partners has clearly been shown to succeed."—[Official Report, 14 July 1999; Vol. 335, c. 405-07.]

So now we know. However, three months later hardly any British beef has been sold abroad. When the Minister came to Parliament to boast of his success in lifting the export ban, he had not even checked with the French authorities that they would accept British beef.

We get used to this bombastic twaddle, but I shall correct one factual point. As the hon. Gentleman says, those who are watching the debate and following what he says may think that he is making a serious contribution. Incidentally, there is not a word of apology from the hon. Gentleman about the BSE crisis nor a reference to the Government who presided over it in the first place. There is not a word of apology from him about the previous Government's misguided and disastrous approach to the negotiations within the European Union when they were in charge.

As I have said, I shall correct a factual point, which is important to the industry and important also to those who may be following the debate. The fact is that beef on the bone has nothing to do with the export of British beef through the date-based export scheme—the arrangements for which were devised under the previous Government—which is for de-boned beef. The hon. Gentleman knows that because he read it out. He should not mislead people into believing that somehow the two issues are connected. They are not.

I think that even the Minister acknowledged in one of his previous statements on this subject that the agreement of the European Commission was secured on the basis of the terms set out at the Florence summit, when Conservative Ministers were negotiating the details. I welcome the fact that the Minister has been able to continue that process, but I deplore the fact that on several occasions he has raised the hopes of British beef farmers that the export ban was about to be lifted. On too many occasions, those hopes have been dashed.

It is deplorable that the Minister made a statement in the House without having established clearly with France—which, incidentally, abstained at the Council last November, so he was on notice that it would need more persuading than some other countries—that one of our most important markets was ready to take British beef. That had nothing to do with the Conservatives. It was the Minister's statement, for which he must take responsibility, just as Labour must take responsibility for the absurd ban on beef on the bone, which, like it or not, is damaging confidence in a British product at home and abroad.

The truth is that the statements made by the Minister on the subject at regular intervals, just like the statements of the Prime Minister himself, are not designed to help Britain's beef farmers. They have been designed to win Labour headlines, like the rest of the Government's agricultural policy. It is about spin, not substance. The price of that obsession with headlines has been paid week in, week out by Britain's farmers.

To help the Minister to learn the facts of life, I invite him to join me on a fact-finding visit to France in the very near future, to learn at first hand about French attitudes towards British beef and about food standards in France, especially those relating to meat.

Beef is not the only issue on which the Government have been undermining our farmers. That has happened in the dairy sector as well. The Minister will recall that discussions about the common agricultural policy reforms were concluded in March, and that after the settlement the Prime Minister's spokesman was quoted in The Times as saying that the outcome was

"not satisfactory as far as we are concerned."

That deal proposed that milk quotas, which currently prevent Europe from responding to growing world demand for dairy products, should continue until 2006. While Britain's milk quota will be effectively frozen until 2003—I know that there is a very small increase—four countries, including Ireland, which is already four times self-sufficient in dairy products, will receive a substantially higher quota next year.

The direct result of that negotiation will be that Britain's dairy farmers, already struggling with low prices and denied the chance to meet the needs of British consumers, will be further undercut by cheap Irish exports next year, while they remain prevented by quota limits from increasing their own production, despite having some of the best dairy-farming land in the whole of Europe.

If that was not bad enough, the Prime Minister, chasing his headlines about Britain's budget rebate, made it clear to fellow Heads of Government at Berlin that farming did not matter to him, so they gratefully accepted the offer to sell British farmers down the river and they extended the quota regime for a further two years, till 2008.

I thank the hon. Gentleman for giving way. Unless the Opposition have changed their minds over recent months, I understand that it is Conservative policy to end the quota. Given that there is currently a surplus of milk in Europe, how do they intend to keep prices up if the quota regime is removed?

Ending the quota is a necessary objective if we are to allow Britain's farmers the opportunity to compete, as they should, against other dairy farmers. I do not suggest that ending the quota would suddenly have some miraculously upward effect on the milk price. Of course it will not, but it is not intended to do that. It is intended to allow Britain to take advantage of the conditions that we enjoy in this country to compete more freely than we can do at present against dairy farmers in other EU countries.

Labour's milk policy has not ended with the damage done in the CAP reforms. In July, the much delayed Monopolies and Mergers Commission report was published. Labour decided to prevent Milk Marque, the largest dairy farming co-operative in Britain, at least at that time, from doing what other European countries encouraged their dairy farm co-operatives to do—to invest in processing and to use vertical integration to give farmers a chance to benefit from higher value added products. At the very time that it is preaching to farmers about the need to be more market oriented, Labour is blocking dairy farmers from moving in that direction. As usual, Labour is saying one thing and doing another.

In the interests of time, I also shall omit some of what I wanted to say, but I gather from the Minister's remarks that we may get another opportunity to debate these matters in the House before long. I shall touch briefly on three subjects. Badgers and bovine tuberculosis are a growing problem that is a real threat for many farmers. My hon. Friend the Member for South-East Cambridgeshire (Mr. Paice) wrote to the Minister over a month ago asking about the progress of the Krebs trials. He is awaiting a reply. There are worrying reports about laboratories being shut down. Ignoring the problem certainly will not make it go away, and I hope that Parliament will be informed of the steps that the Government are taking to address it.

On abattoirs, the much-delayed publication of the Pratt report on the impact of meat inspection charges confirmed what everyone knew, except perhaps the Minister and his officials. The report states in its conclusions:

"It is clear that … the British meat industry is seriously disadvantaged compared to other member states through a whole range of costs to do with meat inspection".

When another slaughterhouse closes down every week, forcing fanners to send animals on ever-longer journeys, and when the costs and burdens on slaughterhouses cut the prices paid to farmers for their livestock, still further action is needed at once. I and many others have warned for months of the damage that over-regulation and excessive costs are inflicting on the industry. The Minister's reaction—the announcement of yet another review—is simply too little, too late.

A few moments ago, the hon. Gentleman said that he would omit part of his speech. Is he planning to omit his solutions to the problems that we have been discussing? All I have heard so far are four proposals for pig farming: two are illegal, one is already being implemented by the Government and one, concerning labelling, was not implemented by his party when it was in government. Then there was a lot of hot air about the beef on the bone ban, which is irrelevant, and criticism for delay—[Interruption.] It is irrelevant to the lifting of the beef ban, which he is criticising the Government for delaying. Their policy is an absolute success compared with the policy of non-co-operation in Europe, or "PONCE", that his Government pursued disastrously for this country and which got us into this mess.

I hope that every consumer and farmer in the Waveney constituency notes carefully the hon. Gentleman's statement that the ban on beef on the bone is irrelevant. I was going to omit, but shall now reinstate in my speech, the fact that last November, when the Minister made the first of the many statements about the lifting of the beef export ban, the hon. Gentleman told the House that champagne corks were popping in his constituency. I hope that he will now apologise to those farmers, who are still unable to sell beef on the bone to the customers who want to eat it, for reacting so absurdly and ignorantly.

Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

Not again; we have had enough nonsense from the hon. Gentleman.

Will my hon. Friend ask the Minister to prepare a scheme whereby any further regulation in the agriculture sector will be tested against the overbearing and overarching costs that are driving farmers to the wall? I understand that the dairy herd tags are to be changed yet again, putting another obligation on already hard-pressed dairy farmers. What on earth could have prevailed on the Ministry to make it insist on a further change?

My hon. Friend is absolutely right and I welcome his suggestion, which is made with the benefit of his period as a Minister at the Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food. We need to test regulations much more carefully for their impact, particularly on the small businesses that dominate the agriculture sector. I also suggest—this arises directly from the Pratt report—that we should stop interpreting these regulations over-zealously. It is clear that even those regulations that we have accepted for perfectly good reasons are interpreted wholly differently in Britain, and usually much more onerously in respect of farmers, than in many other European Union countries.

I make the hon. Gentleman an offer: if he can give me a specific example of that, I shall have it looked at, at once.

The ban on beef on the bone and abattoirs. I refer the Minister to the Pratt report. His officials should be following up its recommendations and finding out exactly how the inspection regime is operated in other EU countries. I know that they tried to suppress the report for several weeks, because they were embarrassed about the conclusions, but now it is in the open I hope that there will be a systematic response to find out exactly where we are going further than other EU countries. I shall certainly respond to the Minister's suggestion in more detail after the debate.

The debate is timely because the crisis in agriculture became significantly worse during the parliamentary summer recess. The British pig industry is being destroyed; dairy farmers are being driven out of business; beef farmers suffer as muddle and incompetence put off the day when the task of rebuilding confidence in their product can begin; sheep farmers are reduced to the heartbreaking task of shooting their own flocks; and cereal farmers are threatened with new burdens, though I welcome the Minister's statement about his opposition to the pesticide tax and hope that he will not be forced to resign should the Chancellor of the Exchequer overrule him. Horticulture farmers face an arbitrary and ineffective climate change levy and slaughterhouses disappear week by week, but all he can offer is a package postponing the imposition of yet more burdens and yet another round of consultation and review.

All that has taken place against a background of a recommendation from the Cabinet Office that prime agricultural land should be taken out of production so that it can be used for housing. The Minister needs to understand that his failure to respond to those challenges and Labour's neglect of agriculture and the countryside is leading directly and rapidly to a rural crisis so severe that the damage from it will take generations to repair. Only a change of Government will avert that crisis and, for the sake of the countryside, the sooner that happens the better.

5.17 pm

It will not be too difficult to rise above that contribution.

In the European context, British farming has many natural advantages, certainly in terms of scale and climate, yet we have a struggling sector. The Opposition's response is that the problem is lack of Government intervention, and that we need further protectionism and cash support. Uncomfortable though it is to say this, I firmly believe that farming needs less Government intervention, rather than more, and that cash support needs to be reduced over the long term and transferred to payment towards social, environmental and welfare goals.

Subsidising production—particularly inefficient production offering no other gain—is harmful to farming. Regulating and organising the sector through state and parastate bodies stifles innovation, discourages market awareness and encourages dependence. Such regulation as we require should be constantly reviewed against tests of effectiveness and competitiveness. I shall concentrate on what we are achieving by what we are doing and on what impact we are having on the competitiveness of the sector that we are supposedly trying to help.

Much the most significant feature of the welcome recent aid package was the announcement of a series of joint working groups to examine the weight and cost of regulation in the sector and its impact on competitiveness. That represents a change of stance by the Government. I have pursued this issue relentlessly in my time as a Member. Early last year, I tabled a parliamentary question asking the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food

"if he will publish comparisons of charges made to ensure public health in the slaughter process in the United Kingdom with those prevailing in other EU states",

to which the answer was:

"The information requested is not available"—[Official Report, 12 February 1998; Vol. 306, c. 373.]

The response added that this issue was essentially a concern of individual member states and that it was for the European Commission to pursue any discrepancies. At the end of that month, when I pursued the matter further and asked

"pursuant to his answer … concerning charges for veterinary inspection and controls, if he will make it his policy to collect the information necessary to allow comparisons of charges across the member states of the European Union."

the former Minister of State, who is always a straight man, replied:

"No. Given the flexibility of the EC rules"—[Official Report, 26 February 1998; Vol. 307, c. 317.]

He then gave the same explanation, which was that this was a matter for individual member states and the responsibility of the European Commission.

The hon. Gentleman makes a serious and important point. Does he agree that, if the idea of a regulatory impact assessment were being taken seriously, in relation to all the regulations that he describes, the regulatory impact assessment would inevitably also look at the comparative costs of the countries with which we compete.

Yes, I agree with the hon. Gentleman. I would extend that view to my experience of regulation in other sectors. I spent my career in the private sector before joining this House, and I have puzzled over the process of regulatory impact reviews and their effectiveness. The hon. Gentleman therefore makes a fair point.

Fortunately, the Government's attitude changed, and in the autumn of last year a review—perhaps partly prompted by my further letters to the Minister saying that the matter needed to be looked at further—produced a study of comparative costs and approaches to regulation within the European Union for the slaughter sector. The study, which lies in the House of Commons Library, reveals that some countries openly subsidise the slaughter sector, and that Government subsidies are available to the various slaughter operators. For other countries, the information was so hazy that it was hard to say exactly what was going on. In Spain, for instance, the study says—it is couched in careful wording—that

"Anecdotal evidence suggests there may be considerable variation in the pursuit of charges. Information received from unofficial sources suggests that charges may not be collected in all regions. Evidence to support this has not been provided."

Sadly, a picture emerged of extremely incomplete information about the regulations and charging structure in that sector, and certainly of substantial variances from the British practice. I am glad to say that that has been built on by further Government research demonstrating that that is indeed the case, and that the matter has been pursued with the European Commission, which is responsible for ensuring that regulations are imposed evenly across the European Union.

That is welcome, but the next step, in which the Government are engaged in their latest review, is to involve the industry in looking closely at how the regulatory burden works, and the costs associated with it in the competitive context, which is the real world of much of our livestock sector. We trade most of our livestock products internationally—although sadly not fully in beef as yet—and we must face the fact that the costs borne by our producers are also experienced in different forms by our competitors. If we choose to levy different burdens, that has an impact on our competitiveness.

That is a welcome and realistic recognition of the significance, in both financial and morale terms, of the perceived inequities in the burdens faced by the sector. Farmers constantly tell me of the burdens which they think other member states' farmers face, and of the lack of regulation in other member states. We need truth and transparency, which is what we are gradually working towards.

I also welcome the hold placed on increased charges in the last package pending a full appraisal of their competitiveness impact and a review of their effectiveness in achieving public health goals. That is an important initiative, which is belittled by Opposition Front-Bench Members, who say that the Government are putting off a charging regime which perhaps should not have been imposed at all. The announcement is much larger than that and looks at deferring the charges and at the effectiveness of the whole regime. That is welcome, too.

I also commend the review of common agricultural policy administration conducted within MAFF last year. That is another subject that produces laughable anecdotes from farmers whom I represent about how inspection regimes operate in other member states. The review highlighted both significant savings that might be available in the administration of the CAP and the potential reduction in the bureaucracy that faces farmers in carrying out their tasks and conforming with the regime.

It is perhaps regrettable that it took that review, which was conducted externally by Coopers and Lybrand, to recommend establishing something as obvious as a best practice unit to identify the best ways to implement the rigours of the common agricultural policy across the various regional centres through which MAFF delivers the CAP process. It is surprising that such an initiative needed to be made and had not been identified previously.

Properly addressing the concerns of over-regulation is one strand of a strategy for assisting farming, but there are others. As parts of farming move progressively from being regulated and directed, farmers need specific help. The recent MAFF publications on how to use the additional flexibility after Agenda 2000 make some interesting suggestions on how we should develop current initiatives and look at other ways of assisting farmers. Early retirement, support for marketing initiatives, training and retraining for farmers and support for co-operatives all feature, and those are steps that I would commend. I would add to those the encouragement that could be given to joint ventures along the food supply chain, which the Minister mentioned in his speech.

We must consider how to improve the supply chain throughout its length. Let us take milk as an example, and step into a future in which we have no quotas. I agree with the Opposition spokesman that we should move in that direction, although the hon. Gentleman is not sufficiently economically literate to understand its implications in terms of pricing. Nevertheless, efficient and well-organised British farmers would welcome that prospect. We must look at how to take maximum advantage of that freedom and the particular strengths that we have in Britain, which would enable us to have a highly competitive dairy sector. It is crucial to look at the various links in the supply chain, and at the inefficiencies that exist.

There is clearly a problem with the efficiency of our dairy processing sector, whose costs—in raw terms—are probably twice as high as those of its foreign competitors. We could not possibly sustain that in an open marketplace. It would be a burden on our sector and would hinder innovation and competitiveness. We must focus our efforts on attempting to improve our performance. Part of that improvement can come from a bottom-up process of encouraging farmers to move further up the food supply chain and take more responsibility for processing and retailing.

That is one area where further work is required. Let me give a specific example of another way in which we could proceed.

If the hon. Gentleman believes that dairy farmers should move up the supply chain as he describes, will he explain why the Government have taken great steps to tell Milk Marque, which produces only 38 per cent. of milk, that it may not be a processor?

Indeed. Milk Marque's mistake was to attempt to integrate the processing of milk, in which it was making commendable and intelligent steps through the acquisition of Aeron, for example, and other businesses, with the collection, transport and selling of milk. Obviously, that would place the sector at a disadvantage.

Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

Will the hon. Gentleman allow me first to finish my answer to the previous intervention?

The major purchaser and seller of milk would also be processing the milk in one corporate environment. In discussions with Milk Marque, I suggested to it that it should put the processing sector in a separate co-operative under separate management, thus freeing up the relationship between the purchasing and transport operation and processing. That would have solved many of the problems.

I seek to help because neither the hon. Gentleman nor the hon. Member for North Wiltshire (Mr. Gray) who just intervened were involved in the previous Parliament in producing the legislation on which the decision about Milk Marque was based. It was entirely owing to Conservative legislation that the mess occurred. The failure of milk marketing is entirely due to the previous Government's failure to understand the need to free up the co-operatives to enable them to perform effectively.

I welcome that contribution. Perhaps I am insufficiently party political to be able to make such points freely. Essentially, I took them as read—perhaps the hon. Member for North Wiltshire (Mr. Gray) had forgotten that piece of history and I did not want to waste time reminding him of it, but nevertheless it is true.

As the Minister rightly said, the Government have substantially increased the aid given for the conversion of farms to organic produce. Those of us familiar with the sector recognise the problem. Farmers go through a period of no or minimal income as they convert their farms to an appropriate organic environment. Clearly, they have cash flow problems during that time.

What has puzzled me is why the retail sector, which is doing extremely well with organic produce and is seeking more of it, has not been more active in assisting farmers in going down that path. It is assisting farmers by looking at longer-term contracts to try to ensure that those making the change can be confident of a market for their produce later, but the cost of dealing with that gap in production has been left very much to the Government to support, together with the farmers themselves.

I see no reason why the Government should not encourage the retail sector to engage in cost-matching the conversion process. Increasing the amount of organic produce available to customers is very much in the interests of the British retail sector. That is what customers want and, as far as one can tell, the retail sector should be able to achieve good margins from selling such produce. It should be in its interests to move down the value chain to assist that process of change and to make up for the present gap in production. That is my concrete suggestion.

The development of regional economic strategies, which offer huge potential. I particularly commend the east midlands draft strategy, which places the food sector at the heart of the document with an innovative proposal for a university for food to combine the research, educational and industrial interests of the sector. Those regional strategies are developing only as a result of the Government's policies. That particular development is welcomed and has been commended by farmers in my constituency as clear support for the long-term health and success of the food sector in the east midlands. I have also heard of the Welsh food strategy—again, a welcome initiative to highlight and build on the brand strengths of regions.

Those are the ways ahead for agriculture. As hon. Members will recognise, most of them are the responsibility of the industry. Farming has been ill-served in the long, if not the short, term—many farmers remind me of the times that they have received aid packages of some scale, which are sometimes not even needed, from Governments. In the long term, farming has been ill served by state controls and misdirected aid.

I have found it puzzling—I have found this in meetings of the Select Committee on Agriculture—to have to defend free enterprise and entrepreneurial skills in farming to the Conservative party, which spends much of its time advocating protectionism, state aid and additional controls. That is a puzzling position, but it is one to which I have become accustomed.

Farming and food need more enterprise and entrepreneurs, not further Government controls or misdirected aid.

5.37 pm

We seem to have had a general tour d'horizon of some of the ghastly circumstances that we all face and most of the points that need to be made about the crisis have been made. The Minister rightly said that in many respects it can only be described by that term. However, four points have not been covered and I intend to deal with those.

The first matter results from direct experience of fanning in west Dorset. Two years ago—even as recently as a year ago—my farmers were complaining and upset, but they had not reached the end of the road emotionally. They thought that they would grit their teeth and get through. I am sure that the Minister must have gained this impression from his visits, but certainly this summer there has been a detectable change of mood. Many of those farmers who have struggled and survived—that includes some who are remarkably efficient when compared with their peers—have come to think that they may have reached the end of the road. That applies in particular in the pig sector, which has been much discussed and to which I will refer again, but it is also true more widely.

One part of the explanation is odd. Having to kill their calves as they emerge, after having spent the night bringing them to birth, has brought home to farmers emotionally something that the economic difficulties they were facing did not.

The Minister spoke—rightly, I am sure—about the likely results of the problems. If nothing is done, a large number of farmers will go out of business. If they do not do so, it will be their children who suffer because they will not take over the farms.

West Dorset is a land not of small but of medium-sized farms of 100, 500 and sometimes 1,000 acres, many of which could survive in an open market under the right circumstances. That will change if nothing is done but there are three ways in which it could change. First, the area could change into a wasteland and I do not think that any of us would welcome that. The environmental consequences would be permanent. We would return to a sort of countryside that this country enjoyed—suffered would probably be a better description—before the 10th century. That is not a realistic prospect for a civilised nation.

We learned the second possibility today and my hon. Friend the Member for South Suffolk (Mr. Yeo) referred to it. The Cabinet Office may be considering it. I never know whether to trust leaks from the Cabinet Office, but from my experience of working in Downing street the leaks are often more accurate than the announcements. Perhaps there are people in the Cabinet Office who think that it would be advantageous if land such as that in west Dorset changed its nature, stopped being agricultural and was used for housing. I do not share that view and neither do the local people. Much more importantly, the country as a whole does not share it because the countryside is not there merely for those who live in it. I suppose that this will sound overblown, but it is our most precious resource. The thing about this country that makes it most tolerable to live here is that we can get out of our necessarily rather ghastly cities—for all their cultural merits, they do not look very beautiful—into a place that feels different. If we lose that, we shall have lost an irreplaceable part of our civilisation.

It is not just a matter of trying in a nimbyish way to protect my constituents against acres and acres of ghastly new housing. Goodness knows under the Government's present policies and, I regret to say, the policies of Administrations past—now, thank goodness, my own party has come to its senses, long ahead of the Government—we have enough housing already. To move to a world in which agricultural land, which is the last land that has been protected against housing, suddenly becomes the new bonanza for house builders is to move to a world that is culturally desperate.

The third possibility is the one to which the Minister gestured. In his usual way, he gestured towards it a great deal more nicely and gently than his predecessor, but his predecessor was very straight about it. On many occasions from the Dispatch Box—it was one of my first experiences on coming to the House—I heard him talk in very robust tones about the necessity to sweep away large tranches of small farms and end up with some big ones which he thought would be efficient. Now it is perfectly true that there has been a secular movement from smaller to larger farms and that we benefit economically, or we would do if it were not for the Alice in Wonderland world of the common agricultural policy, from having on the whole larger farms than many of our competitors.

However, the society of West Dorset—there must be many hon. Members on both sides of the House who have similar constituencies—does not depend alone on having farms. It depends on the numbers of farmers in the place. Rural life would not be rural life as we know it if it consisted of 30,000-acre, huge farm management operations with no farmers. The fact is that farmers are not just farmers. They and their wives are the school governors in my constituency, the people who keep the womens institutes open, who go round and collect for the Royal National Lifeboat Institution, the people who keep the place what it is. If they go, and they really are going now, we will not replace them. We will not have the same kind of place. Yes, there may still be, thank God, open fields instead of housing, if the Cabinet Office does not have its way, but those open fields and the villages and towns that are supported by rural life as we know it at the moment, will not feel the same when the rest of the population goes to visit it, and we will still have lost a precious asset.

Worse, we shall have destroyed the one part of our society that really works. West Dorset is a place that has schools that are schools. They have never had all the nonsense of the 1960s. They are places to which middle-class people, without having to move and buy expensive houses, are happy to send their children. West Dorset has almost no crime. I exaggerate slightly, but it has one of the lowest rates of crime in the whole of the United Kingdom and always has had. Why? It is because of the character of the society, and that depends incredibly on the existence of a fabric of small and medium-sized yeoman farmers and their families and the network of social support that they provide. One could run a whole university course on the sociological advantages of a farming community. All of that stands to be lost not in the next year or 10 years, but in the next few months. That is what I mean when I say that this a crisis.

Much has been said this afternoon about the beef ban, the ban on beef on the bone, the slaughter of calves and cattle passports. All of those are important, but I should like to draw the attention of the Minister and the House to the long-term problem that the calf sector faces. It is not just a short-term problem. We may get sex-based semen; we may have some new ovulation techniques. I do not know. I do not know how long they will take to be introduced or how far, if the Minister will forgive me, the bureaucrats will let them be introduced. It may be that we do not have a huge pile of surplus calves five years or even two or three years from now.

Barring those developments, something has to be done with the bull calves. We do not have an indigenous veal industry. We do not have the right to export the live animals. I would welcome a scheme to enable us to export them. That would require the Minister to go and do business in places such as France and make agreements which would enable people to check on the survival of the dam six months after the export, or five months if export takes place when the calf is one month old, to ensure that the BSE rules have been complied with. I am sure that that is achievable.

Even if that were done, the amount of live export is never going to be very great. If I can put it in these terms, the sandals brigade, who are actually the poll tax protesters and anti-nuclear protesters repackaged, will be out there throwing stones in the apparent pursuit of animal welfare and making the life of the calves hell as they approach the dock. It will be very difficult to get a live export scheme going again.

So the only long-term solution, unless we can move to sex-based semen or whatever, is an indigenous veal industry. I have not seen any sign of the Meat and Livestock Commission or the Minister putting their hand to the task of trying to develop such an industry. I speak from a vested interest because half of the United Kingdom's veal producers are located in west Dorset, but the whole of the dairy sector would benefit if the Minister directed his attention that way.

Does my hon. Friend agree that the likelihood of any such live calf export scheme being introduced by the Government becomes even more remote if one considers the precedent of beef on the bone? Even supposing Europe thought that the Minister's scheme was a good one, he would have to consult his colleagues in the Scottish Parliament and the Welsh Assembly, and the likelihood of them giving him permission to do what he wanted seems extremely remote.

I agree that that is a bizarre consequence of devolution. My hon. Friend knows that I spent a large part of the first year of my tenure in the House arguing about devolution, albeit not with this Minister but with others. We never spotted that one of the consequences could be the ruling of England not by a majority founded on Scottish Members—the well-known West Lothian question—but indirectly by Ministers in other parts of the kingdom. My hon. Friend is right. There is a problem.

An indigenous veal industry would not cause such problems. We could create one in England and, I am sure, in the UK as a whole, with universal support. I press on the Minister the need to take that seriously.

Much has been said about pigs this afternoon, and rightly. I want to make one or two ripostes to the Minister's assertion, which I take to be the kernel of his argument, that it would be an improper state aid to do something about offal disposal costs. I understand that it would be a state aid. We must not be confused in debates about state aids by the words "state aid". A state aid is a classification. It is not ipso facto a definition of something that is illegal or improper. Manifestly, the Commission and the treaties allow all sorts of state aid, as is proper, if they are properly notified and fall within certain rules.

The question is whether providing aid for offal disposal costs would be an improper state aid. The Minister said that aid would be introduced only to deal with exceptional circumstances. If the disappearance of our pig industry due to exogenous influences, namely the BSE crisis, is not an exceptional circumstance, I do not know what is.

If that is right, why did the then Government not introduce some state aid when the restriction was imposed in 1996?

The honest answer is that I have not the foggiest clue, but I do not think that the fact, if it is a fact, that a mistake was made by legal advisers and by Ministers then, ought to deny us the possibility of rescuing the industry today. I am perfectly prepared to admit—God knows I have to admit—that we made very many mistakes. I do not think that they ought to be repeated.

That is a new doctrine.

I believe that we benefit from the splendid doctrine of conceding and moving on. That is exactly what I am doing here. It is in the interests of Britain that we should do that.

Is my hon. Friend aware of a draft European directive which could put an enormous additional cost on pig suppliers in Britain in that it sets technical, non-mandatory standards for vehicles transporting livestock, the actual cost of which will fall on the pig producers? Does my hon. Friend agree that the Government should do everything possible to make sure that that directive, which at the moment is voluntary, does not become mandatory, so that additional costs do not fall on our pig producers?

No, I was not aware of that. One of the defects of the Alice in Wonderland world in which we live is that one can hardly live another day without hearing of another proposed directive or regulation. My hon. Friend is obviously right. Any additional mandatory burden on pig producers today would be a nail in a coffin to be resisted.

I come to the second part of the Minister's defence against action in this sphere, because it is important. He based part of his argument on the assertion that to subsidise offal disposal costs would be an improper state aid because, in some important way, such a subsidy is not similar to the cattle passport subsidy. Incidentally, I do not quite regard it as a subsidy because I have never been able to understand, on the basis of pocket handkerchief calculations, how the real cost of a cattle passport could be £7. Other countries appear to be able to provide that for £2. I beg the Minister to ask someone in his Department, or perhaps outside it, to investigate how the resource cost of a cattle passport could genuinely be £7. However, that is by the by. No doubt it has a cost and the Minister is subsidising it, which is splendid.

The question is what is the relevant disanalogy between the subsidy of the cattle passport cost and the subsidy of offal disposal costs. Both are regulatory costs which apparently arise for health and safety reasons. We would not have cattle passports if there was no health and safety reason for them. We clearly have a health and safety reason for the offal disposal costs being imposed in the first place. They seem directly analogous, in which case I cannot understand what the relevant disanalogy could be.

I admit that the legal gums in the Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food and in the Foreign and Commonwealth Office will have their views on what is or is not a proper state aid, but I beg the Minister to consider that the whole experience of the UK Government during the past 10 or 15 years is that we have been peculiarly timorous in stretching the boundaries of what we can get away with vis-á-vis state aids, or anything else, in the EU. That is one of our disadvantages.

There is a matter of realpolitik here. If this was an open and shut case, if such a subsidy was clearly an improper state aid, I would not recommend this course of action, but if, as I deeply suspect, there is ground at least for legal argument, and if the Minister were to take the action of funding these costs only for the Commission later to decide to take him to court, it would be one, two or three years down the line before the matter was determined, and by that time we would have a pig industry. In a similar environment in Paris, that would hardly need to be said because everyone would know that that was the way one played the game. But for some reason it sounds odd to English ears.

I welcome that it sounds odd to English ears because I welcome the fact that we still have—although the Government are still trying to destroy it, in co-operation with their colleagues from other countries—an English judicial system and a respect for it. Therefore, we are attuned to the idea of not taking—the Government in particular—the slightest risk. The Treasury Solicitor's Department is peculiarly well organised to help the Government to avoid ever taking the slightest risk. Spiritually, as an Englishman, I welcome that. But here we have a national crisis and a possible means of solving it, and there is a practical way of doing that if the Minister will take it.

Should we not also pray in aid of what my hon. Friend says the fact that, if the Minister was concerned that, given that legal advice suggested that he probably would not get away with it, he might be at some political risk as a result of an application under article 36 of the treaty, my hon. Friend the Member for South Suffolk (Mr. Yeo) has made it abundantly clear from the Dispatch Box on a number of occasions that, if a challenge under article 36 were to fail, far from criticising the Minister for his venture, we would praise him for the attempt?

My hon. Friend is right, we would, and it would be disgraceful if we did not. Therefore, the Minister has some political choice. I am sure that Liberal Democrats would take the same view. This is a national concern. The Minister was right to say that it was not a party political concern. It is difficult for anyone who has been captured for any Department to see the matter in quite the same way as it appears to the rest of us, and, in this case, the outsider's perspective is closer to reality than that of the insider.

I come now to pesticides and the pesticides tax. The infamous leak from the Cabinet Office suggests that, after all, the pesticides tax, to which the Minister so nobly objects, may be on the agenda. I do not have the slightest idea whether it is or is not, and it may be that the Minister does not either. But for a long while it looked as if it was, and the only person standing out against it was the Minister. That was an odd situation. I cannot recall a time in the recent past when an important member of the Cabinet avowedly opposed something and yet it continued to be spoken of as it was about to be introduced.

Then there was a ray of hope because one of the Minister's colleagues, the Minister for the Environment, was rumoured in the media to have sprung to the astonishing perception that the time was not quite right for the introduction of the new and swingeing tax. Hurrah. It is marvellous that the Minister for the Environment should have spotted it. If the Minister played any part in enlightening him on that, we owe him a deep debt of gratitude.

But now we have the Cabinet Office. Like most hon. Members, I know something about how government works. I have sat for endless hours with that little coven of witches in No. 10 Downing street and I know that when the Cabinet Office, or someone in Downing street, starts to cook up a proposition it is a powerful device. One never knows what will happen next. The Minister might find that the Chancellor has announced a pesticides tax without telling him in a Budget statement that was too secret to be let on about until two hours beforehand.

There is a real danger that we will have a pesticides tax and there is a real problem with it. I apologise for making a party political point, but the Government are brilliant at introducing stealth taxes. The phrase has become so common that someone recently asked me why the Conservatives were not going on about stealth taxes. The phrase has become common property now.

The first characteristic of a stealth tax is that no one notices it until it has happened. A pesticides tax would be like that because most people in the UK do not have the slightest idea that there are pesticides in the first place. In fact, roughly £1,000 million worth of pesticides are used each year, as the Minister knows. Therefore, a pesticides tax qualifies as a stealth tax in that regard.

The second characteristic of a stealth tax is that it almost never achieves the effect that it purportedly attempts to achieve, and this is exactly such a case. A bizarre feature of a pesticides tax is that it will not achieve a reduction in the use of pesticides. Farmers cannot use fewer pesticides. If the organic aid scheme, instead of being cut off for the next two years, were slightly larger than a pocket handkerchief, farmers might be able to stop using pesticides. However, we have intensive farming. The hon. Member for South Derbyshire (Mr. Todd) made a rational case for a more rationally disposed market—he did not mention that we would have to get rid of the CAP to do it, but I was with him all the way, cheering inwardly—and he said that farmers should be economically rational and that, I regret to say, implies intensivity and, inevitably, pesticides.

Farmers the length and breadth of Britain have to use pesticides. One cannot imagine a farmer using more pesticides than he needed. If farmers had to meet a bill of £1,000 million simply because they liked throwing the stuff around, they would be carted off to a lunatic asylum. Farmers use the least amount of pesticide that they can get away with. The stuff is jolly expensive.

When the tax comes along, when the other Mr. Brown, the Chancellor, the much less nice Mr. Brown, stands at the Dispatch Box to make the pre-Budget announcement on 8 November, or whatever, and tells an expectant House that he has managed to find another £5,000 million of our money with which to swell his coffers in order to do we know not what, yet, £200 million or £300 million of which a year will come from the pesticides tax, he will not say that that is £200 million or £300 million which will come from the farmers without a single drop of pesticide less being used in Britain. That would not be an environmental measure. If the Minister for the Environment had really considered the issue, he would have said not that it is not a good time to impose such a tax but that it would never be a good time. If the Government wish to reduce pesticide use, they would do much better to subsidise organic farming more.

I hope that the Minister will pick up the telephone when he returns to his office and talk to his right hon. Friends the Chancellor of the Exchequer and the Prime Minister. He should say to them, "Whatever you do to surprise me, for goodness sake do not surprise me with a pesticide tax." The farmers will never forgive this Government if at this time, of all times, that tax, of all taxes, is imposed.

6 pm

I am happy to follow the hon. Member for West Dorset (Mr. Letwin) because I agree with several of the remarks in the middle of his speech, although less with his causes and conclusions. Several hon. Members have mentioned the supposed leak, which appeared in The Times, from the Cabinet Office about a relaxation of Labour's attitude to the countryside—presumably in relation to planning policy.

We can all agree that farmers face difficulties at the moment, and the high price of land is one of the reasons. Of course, agricultural land is measured in terms of development value. I do not suggest that a crash in land price in agricultural areas is what is needed, but it is difficult for farmers to envisage a recovery with land prices so high. That causes many problems, because better-off farmers still seek to buy land, and they keep up the price of land for agricultural use. The alternative is to consider other uses for the land, but the development potential of land keeps the price up. That is an economic argument, not a political or moral one, but it is one of the paradoxes that farming faces and that causes many of the present difficulties. The hon. Member for South-East Cambridgeshire (Mr. Paice) looks quizzical, but it is an economic concept, and not one on which I seek to find argument.

The crisis in farming has a knock-on effect on the whole rural economy, although we must be realistic and accept that farming is now a relatively small part of that economy, and we do not face a rural crisis caused by the decline in agriculture. However, the agricultural situation is not helping the rural economy, and its difficulties, which are caused by a galaxy of different factors, need to be addressed.

We now face the impact of the integration of the supply chain, which was to some extent encouraged by farmers, some of whom have come to rue that attitude. They have started to realise how they have lost control of the food chain and are angered and disillusioned by the way in which that has removed their ability to control what they produce and the price at which they are able to produce it. We need to learn from those mistakes, which go back decades, not just two years. We must learn lessons and reach for radical new solutions.

One factor is the globalisation of the food chain. Different countries are now able to supply this country much more easily. Indeed, until the BSE crisis, we were able to supply internationally, particularly in sectors such as beef. We may understand that point, but doing something about it is more difficult—if only we could wave a magic wand and persuade the French to rethink their position. I am sure that my right hon. Friend the Minister is doing everything that he can, but the problem is not only Governments but the way in which consumers react. I understand the farmers' frustration, but causing a massive upsurge of unrest will not persuade consumers. Instead, it will draw attention to the continuing crisis.

We are indebted to an earlier Liberal Democrat debate on BSE for the realisation that we must also deal with the impact of the north Americans and what they would like to do, as well as our friends across the channel. We know from experience that what starts as a reaction soon becomes a retaliation. The danger is that understandable reactions become retaliatory policies that cost millions of pounds in lost revenue and threaten jobs that have nothing to do with the immediate cause of the dispute. Nobody gains from such situations. However, I do not argue that we should throw in the towel: we should vigorously do all we can to make the French see reason. There is no reason why British beef should not be sold on the continent and throughout the wider world. We have argued our case, successfully so far, with the Commission which has accepted that it is wrong for individual Governments to do what they are doing. It is still true that the negotiations are difficult and tortuous, and I wish my right hon. Friend the Minister every success.

Unlike the Conservatives, I welcome the proposals that my right hon. Friend the Minister made in the summer. It has been argued that they were too little, too late, but the whole package is important. No one has yet argued that the package should be rejected, and certainly all the money will be taken up. The distribution of funds will always be disputed, and I heard an argument—at the conference in Dartington, Devon attended by my right hon. Friend—that lowland farmers also needed help and too much aid went to the highland areas. However, we must be realistic and recognise that the crisis is most deeply felt in highland areas. Immediate action was needed to help those farmers at the sharp end at the earliest possible opportunity.

It is recognised on both sides of the House that we should move towards environmental payments rather than producer payments, so that subsidies are not directed at increasing the amount of food produced. Progress in that direction has been disappointing, and the need for that change in farming has been lost sight of in the immediate crisis. I am disappointed that we have not been able to put more money into environmental payments. The issue is one of helping not only the environment but those who farm and manage the land. We have managed to find £100 million to allocate so far, but—and it is difficult to say so—that is not a great sum in terms of the billions of pounds spent on other support measures. However, that is because we do not start with a blank sheet of paper. My right hon. Friend the Minister is nodding, and he knows far better than I do that we are stuck with existing procedures, partly because the previous Administration did not see the issue as a priority.

It does seem daft. One of the things that is wrong with the CAP is that we are always stuck with history: because something was not done in the past, we cannot do it in the present, let alone in the future. That has to be changed, but it explains why it is so difficult to introduce new agricultural and environmental measures. Historical constraints mean that not enough money is available for those purposes.

It is easy to talk about modulation, cross-compliance and the need to find national envelopes that will provide greater flexibility for individual countries to do what they want. However, these are difficult matters as we are locked into the CAP negotiations and cannot simply do our own thing, however much we might wish to.

I hope that I can help my Front-Bench colleagues by setting out my personal views about how to move matters forward. As I have said already, the problem is that the whole sector is full of paradoxes. For example, food safety is very important to consumers. That is shown by their reaction to BSE and to the introduction of genetically modified organisms. I too have sometimes been critical of the Government's approach, which I do not believe has always been sufficiently rigorous in its opposition to GMOs. How that rigour might be achieved is a difficult problem, but such matters are part of the attempts by consumers to exert sovereignty over the food that they buy.

Ordinary consumers, however, are also interested in the price that they have to pay for food, which at present has never been lower, in relative terms. Much less is spent on the ordinary person's food budget than ever before, yet we have failed to crack the problem of food poverty—the very poorest people now spend a greater proportion of their income on food than previously. That is another of the paradoxes that remains to be solved.

I very much welcome some of the approaches that the Government have adopted. My right hon. Friend the Minister mentioned farmers' markets, of which the one in Stroud is a successful example. It was founded by a lady called Clare Gerbrands, and her enthusiasm and effort have attracted farmers to participate in the venture. More would be welcome, however.

It is another paradox that, although it is relatively easy to attract people who want to sell craft goods and knick-knacks to such markets, it is hard to attract farmers. That is not because farmers are unwilling to try such markets, but because they lack the ability to market themselves successfully. Also, because they have been so driven towards the centralised food chain, it is difficult for farmers to lock into a localised food chain. We should provide money, help and advice to make it easier for them to make the change to localised markets, because in that way everyone can gain: farmers win by having access to a local market, and consumers tend to trust locally produced food.

Moreover, retailers can also benefit from such a system. My hon. Friend the Member for South Derbyshire (Mr. Todd) is not in his place at present, but he intimated that retailers should provide support for conversion by farmers to organic methods. That is a thoroughly good idea. Those of us who are Christians may not like the idea of shops being open seven days a week, but farmers and consumers alike would benefit if shop space were reserved for locally produced food. My challenge to the supermarkets is that they should set up attractive spaces in which people can see the benefits of locally produced food.

People want good-quality, wholesome food at a price that they can afford. The GMO debate has shown that people are interested in what they eat. Professor Tim Lang, professor of food policy at Thames Valley university, spoke in my constituency a few weeks ago. He said that the threat from GMOs is minuscule compared with that posed by what he called functional foods—for example, foods produced for specific sports or dietary needs. How will we cope with such foods when they enter the food chain?

Perhaps that development will be the solution to all our problems. People may be able to eat exactly what they want to eat, because all their food will have been specially prepared for them. However, the threat is that there will be an even greater centralisation of the production, processing and distribution of food.

Debates on these matters must be held: hon. Members must ensure that farmers can remain in business and that consumer needs are served. Those two aims should not be mutually exclusive. We must therefore look at new structures.

I am a Co-operative Member and a co-operative person, and it gladdens my heart to hear co-operation and collaboration being talked about in this place. Yet how can we achieve such co-operation when 20 per cent. of farmers receive 80 per cent. of the available support? Tenant farmers are always vulnerable and at a particular disadvantage. I mentioned land prices earlier, but they affect tenant farmers too, as they are keen to get the best return from their annual rent. Theirs is therefore a difficult existence. We may need to make a special allowance to ensure that tenant farmers, who are the backbone of the farming industry, can continue to exist. In the main, they are smaller farmers, often in difficult locations. However, they are important because they are the ' ones who implement the agri-environment schemes and who look to go organic.

If tenant farmers were to disappear, the impact on the countryside would be entirely negative, yet the present structures are especially disadvantageous to them. That is why we may need to examine measures to ensure their continued existence. The problem is that tenant farmers are not common in Europe. The small farmers tend to be owner-occupiers, or part of co-operatives. How do we persuade our friends in Europe that our tenant farmers are an important part of our social fabric as well as of our agricultural industry? We have managed to skate around that question on many occasions, but now we really must try to find a solution.

I could speak about Milk Marque, but I shall say only that it was set up by the previous Administration. I can tell my right hon. Friend the Minister that I would not wish on anyone the problems that he faces with regard to bovine tuberculosis. That enormous problem is devastating our milk industry, and it can be resolved only by means of science. It may not be as great as BSE, but it will have a big impact on the milk industry unless solutions are found soon. Magic wands and loads of money will not provide those solutions; only science will discover why TB arises in the countryside and how it is spread.

I am sure that the House endorses the hon. Gentleman's faith in science, but the Government stated that 10 triplet areas were to be set up to study TB. However, so far only two such areas have been established. Is the hon. Gentleman satisfied with that?

I am not satisfied, as I believe that the priority is to develop solutions to the problem. However, I want to choose my words carefully. I understand—as I am sure the hon. Gentleman does—some of the reasons why it has proved more difficult than expected to get the trials under way. For example, there has been a great deal of opposition to and, at the same time, pressure for the drastic culling of badgers. Yet the difficult problem of bovine TB, which also affects milk industries in other countries, must be solved.

I accept what the hon. Gentleman says about the difficulties associated with establishing the tests for bovine TB, but does he not understate the case slightly? Bovine TB is approaching the status of a huge crisis. Is not it necessary to ensure that all the stops are pulled out to implement the recommendations of the Krebs report as fast as the science permits? Surely no impediment should be allowed to delay that.

I do not disagree. All hon. Members have faith in the Krebs report, and in the Bourne group that has actioned it. However, I have always been somewhat sceptical about the possibility of producing speedy solutions. I wish it were that easy, but it is not—this is a very difficult problem. Although I do not disagree with the hon. Gentleman, I urge caution when it comes to going full speed ahead with the trials. The question of how they should be implemented is not at all easy.

I have covered a wide range of the issues and paradoxes with which we must deal. We have to consider radical solutions, asking whether we have gone as far as we could. Some of us would argue that we have not done so when it comes to the centralisation of the food chain. Is it good, or should we encourage supermarkets to look back towards local supply and sourcing, which could benefit everyone? We must reform the CAP. Dare I suggest that we need to see how it can be reformed for our national needs as well as for Europe as a whole?

We must remember that Europe is changing. In Poland yesterday, I saw some of the ways in which agriculture will seek to feed people in western Europe. Whether that is good or bad, it will happen and it will have an impact on us. I was told that a major processing company is investing in a new plant in Hungary which will dwarf some British processing. Whether or not we want that, it is happening. We cannot persuade ourselves otherwise.

Agriculture is in crisis and there are no short-term solutions. We must consider how to dig ourselves out of the crisis, taking the farmers with us but not avoiding the paradoxes that we must face up to. We can do all that only by travelling the route outlined by my right hon. Friend the Minister. Important wider issues must be taken into account, and I hope that the White Paper due early next year will allow us to put agriculture in its proper context as an important part, but not the only part, of what happens in rural Britain.

6.22 pm

I shall be brief because I do not want to take up too much of the Liberal Democrats' day.

One issue not addressed so far is the problem of fallen stock in the countryside. Some weekends ago, the Sunday Post—not, perhaps, a mass circulation newspaper down here, but one which percolates into the north of England—carried a picture of a farmer shooting lambs on his farm. We all know why farmers have been dragged into doing that, but the picture and the report omitted the next stage of the process—how farmers get rid of stock that dies or is shot.

Before BSE, the system was that the knacker—there were yards in many areas—would collect fallen stock. After collecting cattle, the knacker often picked up sheep for no charge. The cattle were taken back to the plant and stripped of usable material for pet food and other things. What the knacker could not dispose of, the renderer collected—even, in good times, paying for it. That material went to the renderer's plant to be disposed of as bonemeal or tallow. The system allowed and encouraged sensible disposal of fallen stock without damage to the environment. It also created some employment in rural areas.

Today, of course, the market of the renderers—for bonemeal and tallow—has almost totally disappeared, although some tallow may return. The renderer must now charge the knacker if he is to collect what the knacker disposes of. The knacker, who also faces high investment in pressure cookers if he is to produce for the pet food industry, must charge the farmer for the collection of fallen stock. Meanwhile, farmers are less able than ever they were to pay the charges that the knacker is imposing.

Farmers faced with the lowest incomes in generations—often negative incomes—will bury stock on their farms. As far as I can ascertain, provided that a farmer disposes of stock away from water courses, there is no regulation to stop him disposing of stock on his land, although the practice is banned in most other European Union countries. If fallen stock goes to the renderer, it is classified as high-risk material, but if it stays on the farm, it is simply classed as agricultural waste. We may wish to ponder that anomaly.

One consequence is unemployment: knackers have gone out of business, and the one in my constituency closed some time ago. Then, there are consequences for both health and the environment. Other EU countries do not allow such burial. Recently, the Scottish Environment Protection Agency produced a report on the matter, which said:

"Fallen stock does not yet pose a problem but difficulties may be expected in future years due to cumulative effects of increased disposal. In view of the changing circumstances which are likely to lead to more on-farm burials and the unknowns relating to the environmental issues of larger-scale burials, it is recommended that alternatives to on-farm burial are encouraged."

I believe that the agency is being too mild in saying that there will be a problem and that we must do something once it arises. The time to do something is now—a lesson we should perhaps have learned from past agricultural crises.

We should not underestimate the scale of the problem. Figures are not available for the number of stock buried. We have passport and traceability systems, but traceability ends when the animal dies. No one knows what happens to animals then. In Dumfries and Galloway alone, I estimate that we dispose annually of 9,000 cattle and 36,000 sheep. The possible consequences of burying those animals in pits in the countryside are fairly horrible to contemplate.

Even if, suspending disbelief, we assume that we can continue to bury a large number of stock in the countryside without environmental problems, we still have to remember the effect on public perceptions. We are trying to get across the message that we have high-quality agriculture that we want to keep. How can we do that if we are burying large numbers of fallen stock in the countryside? Does the Minister see any prospect of a scheme for collecting fallen stock so that stock is picked up, without payment to the farmer, to be taken away and disposed of safely and in an environmentally sensitive way?

The pig industry receives virtually no support from the CAP. We have one of the world's most modern pig industries, but it is suffering burdens due to events outside the industry and bearing costs that are nothing to do with the industry. People in the industry believe that they face imports from regimes that are less strict, and labelling problems too. All that has combined to mean that pig farmers are going out of business. The remaining pig farmers must believe that the Government want to allow the industry to compete fairly with competitors abroad.

I am glad that we are debating agriculture and that another debate will be held shortly. Agriculture is important to the economies of many of our constituencies. Some 25 per cent. of gross national product produced in Dumfries and Galloway is tied up in agriculture. We heard earlier about structural funds, but the area receives almost three times as much from the common agricultural policy as from structural funds.

Every industry occasionally needs to restructure and to adapt to changed circumstances. In agriculture, however, that process seems to be happening by default, not design. Farms, especially in less-favoured areas, cannot simply be closed, then reopened a few years later when things get better, as if they were factories making widgets. The Government must do more to address the agricultural industry's justifiable concerns.

6.29 pm

In the brief time left, it is not possible to cover all the difficulties of agriculture, but all of us who represent rural constituencies know the depth of the crisis—that is not an exaggeration—that affects not only agriculture, but the downstream industries. That is the crucial point. This is no longer about farmers. The people losing their jobs and going bankrupt in the first instance are the agricultural engineers, the people who do the books for farmers, and those who run the shops. This is fast escalating into a major economic downturn in rural areas.

There has, properly, been a tendency to concentrate on the upland areas, but the crisis also affects the lowland areas, such as my constituency in Somerset, where people do not farm enormous ranches. On Monday, I was sitting at a table with a farmer who farms 40 acres. He has 17 cows plus followers, which is near marginal agriculture, yet nothing is being done to support such farmers.

Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

No, I do not have time. We have had hours of the Conservatives in this debate.

Our pig and poultry sectors are suffering to the same extent. Pig producers are losing £12 per finished pig and poultry producers are losing £2 a bird. Those losses are not sustainable. Analysing the reasons is not simple; manifold reasons are evident to anyone who looks at the problems. There is BSE and its consequences, such as the lack of confidence. There is the strength of the pound and the imports that displace home-produced material. There are still serious question marks over the attitude of the supermarkets.

On occasion, Government action, not necessarily in the Minister's Department, has made matters worse. We need only consider the delay at the Department of Trade and Industry in producing the Milk Marque report and the conclusions that were reached. That was extraordinary and had a serious effect on the dairy industry in my area. When the newspapers talk of the possibility of the agriculture industry being absorbed by the DTI, we must say, "Nick, please tell us it ain't so." That would be a desperately disadvantageous position in which to put agriculture.

There is also unfair competition. Farmers often tell us about that, and they are right because different welfare and health standards apply in other countries—but there are few barriers to such products reaching our supermarket shelves. We heard earlier about the move away from antibiotics in chicken production in this country and the openness of our markets to birds from Thailand, Brazil and around the world that are not produced under the same amount of regulation.

We have a great deal of regulation in our industry. I hear what the Minister says about the working party that has been set up. It is a welcome approach to the problem, but it would be more fundamental and useful if the Ministry applied tests before making regulations to determine whether they would have a negative effect on the competitiveness of our industries and could be justified by their result.

We have had a brief discussion of the common agricultural policy. I make no bones about it: the CAP is a disgrace and needs complete remoulding and drastic reform. What happened in the intergovernmental conferences was a very small movement. It is welcome and, as the Minister said, it goes across several sectors, but we have only to look at the results in the dairy sector to see that it is unsustainable. It will not survive the World Trade Organisation round, let alone anything else. It must be returned to time and again.

Further problems with the WTO were mentioned by the hon. Member for Stroud (Mr. Drew): bovine somatotropin and its American corporate backers. I have a long history of battles with Monsanto, whose representatives I met back in 1986 to complain about bovine somatotropin. Nothing seems to have changed. The Americans are determined to foist upon European markets products with which we are not happy.

There is also the Government package. We have not had sufficient debate in this Session on its parameters. I join other hon. Members in saying that it is welcome that the Minister has responded. Equally, few pints of cider were drunk at Frome market on the day of the announcement when people worked out what it meant for areas such as mine. Much of it was deferred gratification, or whatever the reverse of that is, in that it prevented something awful from happening that the Government had had in train. Its prevention was welcome, but it would have been better still had it not been there in the first place. Examining the consequences for lowland farmers shows that there is very little that is of direct benefit in the here and now.

I want to use my remaining five minutes to discuss positive suggestions about what might help. I do not want to deal in the hyperbole of political argument, because that is not the point of today's debate. We are looking for ways in which we can help the agricultural industry and the rural economy. We need what the Government often boast about in other matters—joined-up Government. We are dealing with a crisis of the rural economy that cannot be handled within MAFF. Other Departments must pay the same attention to the rural economy. They must converse with one another and produce cross-departmental thinking that will address the issues.

We need to deal with some of the immediate problems. One matter not mentioned today was the over-30-months restriction. The scheme is reaching the end of its life, but the restriction is still in place. I question the logic of that. If it was right that cattle over 30 months old eight months ago should be caught in that net, surely the limit should now be 38 months. Any logician applying his mind to the matter would accept that. There are dangers in that approach. We could flood the beef market with culled dairy cattle. That is not a sensible solution, but the matter should be examined.

We need to reconsider calf slaughter, which many hon. Members mentioned. The Minister of State, Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food, the right hon. Member for Gateshead, East and Washington (Ms Quin), attended the south-west dairy industry dinner with me a few weeks ago. I do not think that it was an entirely pleasant experience for her. There was widespread surprise when she appeared to say that everything was now all right with calf slaughter. I do not think that she meant it, but that is how it was taken. As the hon. Member for West Dorset (Mr. Letwin) said, some people understand the desperation and futility of their industry when they have to spend all night calving a bull calf only to shoot it in the morning. There is no method of disposal and we must address that.

On the pig and poultry sectors, we have already discussed why we do not use the latitude that the Belgians are happy to use in dealing with dioxin to deal with the animal welfare and health restrictions placed on those industries as a result of BSE and other matters. I agree that we need to test the parameters of what is permissible within law. We are far too well behaved in this country on such matters. We do not take a sufficiently rigorous view and so do not find out what we can do to support our industry. I also accept that if, two years down the road, it is proved to be an unlawful act, it is a great shame, but we would have saved our pig industry, and that is the primary responsibility of the Government and this place.

We have mentioned the cull ewes scheme, for which we will continue to argue, but we should also consider specified offals in cull ewes. Was there a scientific basis for that or was it part of the package put together to convince others of the safety of British meat? If there is no scientific backing, let us reconsider whether we are putting an irreducible cost on the industry that bars export possibilities.

We need to deal with the whole question of bureaucracy. I agree with my hon. Friend the Member for Torridge and West Devon (Mr. Burnett) about the need to be able to challenge MAFF decisions. We need an agricultural ombudsman who can deal with the issues sensibly.

We need to deal with some of the over-officious regulation that we sometimes see. There is a strong suspicion that, having given green-top milk the all-clear rather banning it, there is now an alternative move to kill it by over-regulation and additional cost. I invite the Minister to examine that matter.

We have already talked about the essential element of labelling in relation to imports. With exports, we must of course lift the beef on the bone ban at the earliest opportunity, but we then have to do far more on marketing. MAFF will not do that well; indeed, MAFF should not do it at all. We need to use marketing experts for generic marketing and for regional and brand-name recognition. In Somerset and the south-west, we have extremely good names for our produce, which are recognised as meaning good produce. We do not make sufficient use of them. We need to examine the corporate structures—to make co-operatives work better so that they are more suitable for the job we want them to do. We need to reconsider agricultural credits.

Finally, if we are to make progress in reforming the CAP in the direction that we want, we need allies; we need a coalition of interests. I invite Ministers to set aside the domestic agricultural aspect and establish bilateral relationships with countries that have similar agricultural profiles to our own—perhaps the countries of northern Europe, for instance, the Swedes—so that we can arrive at a commonality of interests that will win us some of these arguments. One could bet one's life that the mediterraneans are doing just that in their councils, but we have always failed to do so. It is essential that we make progress.

The right hon. Gentleman has a reputation as a rational and listening Minister. He has shown that again today. The problem is that we now need much more action. I do not criticise him for some of the things that he cannot achieve, but some things that he can achieve would make life a lot easier for an extremely hard-pressed industry.

6.42 pm

We have heard wide-ranging and thoughtful contributions to the debate. I am especially pleased that we have been able to initiate a debate on agriculture so soon after the recess. I do not want to repeat what has been said because I agree largely with all of it; there is much consensus in the House.

We have not touched on one small part of the farming industry, and although it is small, the people in it will not want to be left out. That is the free range egg industry, which has also had its income slashed enormously—up to 25 per cent. The producers have met, continue to meet, and often exceed Government demands on welfare, food safety and traceability, but those farmers now face operating losses. It is not difficult to understand why.

There are no imported free range, farm-assured eggs sold in the supermarkets. There is no evidence of a significant over-supply, yet the contract price for a dozen free range medium eggs with a typical packer has dropped from 69p to 43p in a year. In an industry with capital inputs of about £20 a bird, to meet the high standards that we require, that price cut is absolutely devastating and cannot be sustained. A medium egg, for which the farmer receives less than 4p, can sell for up to 19p in the local supermarket. A mark-up of 475 per cent. between a packer and a supermarket on the sale of an unprocessed product is unbelievable. When the Minister meets industry representatives and the supermarkets, perhaps they could explain where that mark-up goes and who receives it.

These debates are often characterised by what farmers want and by farmers' demands. Perhaps we could concentrate on what farmers do not want. They do not want a continual diet of subsidy and grant to sustain their businesses. That is all right in an emergency or for the short term, but it is now almost continuous. Farmers do not want that. No self-respecting business man wants to be dependent for his whole livelihood on a hand-out, subsidy or grant. Farmers do not want to have to compete with their hands tied behind their back all the time—sometimes even with their legs tied together. They do not want to see a joint of meat with a whopping great union jack on it in their local supermarket, knowing that it has not come from a British animal. That is abhorrent to them.

Farmers do not want any more interest rate rises. The Chancellor may support the tough action of the Monetary Policy Committee, as we read in today's papers, but not only will interest rate rises increase the costs of farmers' bank borrowing, they will further strengthen the pound and there will be another round of uncompetitiveness. Farmers do not want any more regulation or costs in the immediate, foreseeable future; they cannot cope with what they already have.

Farmers do not want to continue in business, getting up every morning in fear of what will come in the post—a letter from the bank or a bill from a supplier—and living from day to day, with their whole livelihoods, their homes and their families under threat. That is what drives so many of them to suicide.

I agree with the Minister that we need to concentrate more on what we should do on the demand side. The industry will improve and will give a secure future by providing a demand side commensurate with what can be produced.

First, we talked about the promotion of farmers markets, which should certainly be considered. However, they are fragile and fragmented—run voluntarily in village halls and so on. We need to be properly organised and licensed so that we can set up farmers markets in appropriate places. What could be more appropriate than many of the markets that are falling into disrepute in our market towns? They would often provide an ideal location. Not long ago, in my town, we tried to set up a market, but we were told that, because of a charter of 1760-something in a nearby city, we were not allowed to do so. That is wholly ridiculous. We need concerted action to provide a framework within which farmers markets can flourish. We need to strengthen co-operatives and farmer-controlled businesses.

Secondly, we need to restore premiums for the quality of the products. At one time, they existed in pigmeat, but they have gradually been eroded. We must find a way to restore those premiums—perhaps as a part of education—for all the hard work and investment that has gone towards attaining the quality that we have.

Thirdly, we rightly referred to the beef ban, but we sometimes tend to forget that our special-relationship friends across the Atlantic still have no intention whatever of lifting their ban on our beef. I should like some pressure to be put on that part of the world market. Instead of suffering their genetically modified products and goodness knows what else, we should push our good beef into their markets.

Fourthly, we talked about labelling. That is a difficult issue, but there must be labelling for ready identification by the housewife, the purchaser and the consumer. It does not need legislation; the supermarkets dictate what is on every part of every label. They can be made to ensure that what is on the label demonstrates what the product really is.

Fifthly, we talked about the organic side. There is no doubt that the organic sector is the one sector that is receiving premium prices for its products. I cannot understand why we cannot expand what is clearly a successful scheme—there is a waiting list. If so many people want to go into it and it is a demand-led route, providing premiums for the work, surely that is something that we can do.

I have referred to five aspects of the demand side, which could start to turn matters around. However, all that will be to no avail if there is no industry; we are talking about weeks, not years. Today, I learned that seven pig producers in Devon and Cornwall went into receivership over the past 10 days. At that rate, there will be no industry to provide those demand-side facilities. I know that the Minister is aware of the crisis and that the Government have the money. We need the will and the action to address it.

6.49 pm

Overall, this has been a good and serious debate. I welcome the chance given to us by the Liberal Democrats to debate these issues at such an early opportunity after the resumption of Parliament. There have been many good contributions from both sides of the House—perhaps with the exception of that by the hon. Member for South Suffolk (Mr. Yeo).

As a new Minister at the Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food, I had not previously heard the hon. Gentleman's contributions to agriculture debates and so was unaccustomed to what my right hon. Friend the Minister described as the hon. Gentleman's usual "bombastic twaddle". The hon. Gentleman's speech was not worthy of the seriousness of the occasion, nor of the fact that we are all looking for ways to address the difficulties affecting the agriculture sector.

The hon. Member for South Suffolk said that our decision to defer the charges for cattle passports for the next three years was unimportant. In my first few weeks as a Minister, that issue was raised with me at every meeting, so I know that the decision to defer those charges was extremely welcome—[Interruption.]

Order. Such interruptions are not worthy of a Front-Bench spokesman.

Thank you, Mr. Deputy Speaker. Other hon. Members, among them Conservative Members, have made more measured speeches and interventions than the hon. Member for South Suffolk.

As I said, I could not fail to appreciate in my first few weeks in office as an Agriculture Minister the severity of the difficulties facing several sections of the agriculture sector. The right hon. Member for Ross, Skye and Inverness, West (Mr. Kennedy) spoke of the audit recently prepared by the National Farmers Union. I have looked at the figures and at some of the facts that lie behind those figures, especially the stress caused by financial difficulties that is experienced by farmers throughout the country.

In my first few weeks, I have also been struck by the way in which the common agricultural policy has developed in the past 10 years. Ten years ago, when I was a member of the European Parliament's Agriculture and Rural Development committee, the CAP was a monster, but it has become even more complex since then. It does not surprise me that farmers raise with the Ministry problems of bureaucracy and red tape. That is why I attach importance to the review announced by my right hon. Friend the Minister and the short time scale given for it. We do not want that exercise to be long drawn out, but to bring speedy results.

The views of farmers in this country on the common agricultural policy have changed greatly: there used to be far more support for the CAP than there is today. One of the encouraging developments in the medium and long term is the way in which Government and industry can work together to press for the changes we want to be made to the CAP. I welcome the comments of my hon. Friend the Member for Stroud (Mr. Drew) and others on how that policy should develop.

It is no surprise that today's debate has focused on current problems, but we have also looked ahead. The hon. Member for South-East Cornwall (Mr. Breed), whose speech contained many good points relating to our approach to the future, said this morning on "Fanning Today"—essential listening for new Ministers—that Ministers had failed to look at the medium and long term. I do not accept that: the consultations on Agenda 2000 and the way ahead signal clearly that we are looking to the medium and long term as well as concentrating on current problems. We have a responsibility to do so, and I accept that responsibility.

Hon. Members have raised many issues which it will not be possible for me to answer in the few minutes allotted to me, but we shall have opportunities to explore those issues in the coming weeks. We have questions on agriculture tomorrow and I expect that there will be further opportunity for debates in the near future. The issues thoughtfully raised by Labour Members give a clear lie to the ridiculous claim which is sometimes made, that the Government are not interested in farming or countryside issues. Since we entered office, there have been many occasions on which that claim has been proved false, whereas the sparsity of Conservative Members present in the Chamber does not indicate huge interest on their part.

The right hon. Member for Ross, Skye and Inverness, West did not appear to be aware that we had decided to defer cattle passport charges, so let me make it clear that, as part of the aid package announced by my right hon. Friend the Minister, the Government will not impose such charges before 2002–03 at the earliest. Those charges include the charge that would have been levied at abattoirs for the checking of passports by the Meat Hygiene Service.

It is not surprising that many hon. Members raised the issue of the French attitude toward the lifting of the beef export ban. I am glad that my right hon. Friend stressed so strongly the impeccable legal grounds on which we are objecting to the French action. The French scientific committee has come up with no new evidence and we believe that the Commission has every reason to pursue an action against the French if they refuse to lift their ban.

I have to tell the hon. Member for South Suffolk that we reject the Conservatives' pick-and-mix approach to Europe and their argument that we should apply all sorts of import restrictions even if those are against European law—it was said that we could do that and, even though the European Court might get us in the long run, we should not worry about the consequences. That would be a disastrous approach if it were adopted by all European Union countries, because it would jeopardise the single market. Given that we export a great deal, we could find that, by such action, we had harmed our own agriculture industry as well as many other industries in this country.

Does the Minister not recognise that some of us drew a distinction between open-and-shut cases such as the French ban, in respect of which we should certainly not act in such a fashion, and other cases in which there is wide scope for legal argument?

I certainly accept that some Conservative Members took a far more measured approach than others, but the official Conservative policy of pick and mix would damage the EU internal market on which we all depend. If other countries adopted such a policy, the internal market would fall apart. I assume that that is not what the Conservatives want to happen.

The hon. Member for West Dorset (Mr. Letwin) asked about veal production and I assure him that we are working with the NFU and others to build up domestic veal production. We are not ignoring the issue.

I wrote to the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food about the calf scheme on 19 August. On 30 September, I received a reply from Baroness Hayman that revealed abysmal ignorance of why there are so many male dairy calves. Dairy farmers breed calves and cannot choose to produce only cow calves, but the Minister in the other place clearly does not understand that male calves are an inevitable by-product of breeding cow calves.

We believe that some of the better quality calves are now finding a market. That also answers in part the hon. Member for Somerton and Frome (Mr. Heath), who said I did not appear to be aware of farmers' difficulty in disposing of calves. I am fully aware of that difficulty, but in the speech to which he referred I was making the point that the better quality calves are now starting to find a market, and we must build on that for the future.

There are many other issues that I would like to talk about, but time does not permit. I shall pick up one point that was made about the importance of regional sourcing by supermarkets, and of giving a boost to regional and local production. Last week I was involved in an initiative of that kind in the south-east of England; a supermarket was making precisely such a commitment. That is the kind of initiative that we want to pursue with the supermarkets in the coming weeks and months.

Price is not the only factor affecting the purchase of food. We know that organic produce commands a premium, and that is also possible for regional and speciality food. I endorse what various Members have said about the importance of regional and local branding of products, which can be an important asset in the production of diverse and quality products for consumers to buy.

Several hon. Members rightly emphasised the importance of rural issues as part of the regional development strategies being worked out by regional development agencies. I strongly endorse that. It is vital that RDAs see the importance of agriculture and rural issues, and see the rural economy as part of their regional development packages and strategies. I attach particular importance to that, so it is especially regrettable that the official Opposition are committed to dismantling the regional development agencies, which could play an important part in the regeneration of the rural economy in various parts of our country.

The debate as a whole has shown the Government's commitment to agriculture both as a key industry on its own, and as part of the wider rural economy and the overall national economy. For that reason, and for the other reasons advanced by my right hon. and hon. Friends, I commend our amendment to the House.

Question put, That the original words stand part of the Question:—

The House divided: Ayes 50, Noes 326.

Division No. 274]	[7.2 pm
AYES
Allan, Richard	Jones, Nigel (Cheltenham)
Ashdown, Rt Hon Paddy	Keetch, Paul
Baker, Norman	Kennedy, Charles (Ross Skye)
Ballard, Jackie	Kirkwood, Archy
Beggs, Roy	Livsey, Richard
Beith, Rt Hon A J	Llwyd, Elfyn
Bell, Martin (Tatton)	Maclennan, Rt Hon Robert
Brake, Tom	Michie, Mrs Ray (Argyll & Bute)
Breed, Colin	Moore, Michael
Bruce, Malcolm (Gordon)	Morgan, Alasdair (Galloway)
Burnett, John	Oaten, Mark
Burstow, Paul	Öpik, Lembit
Cable, Dr Vincent	Rendel, David
Campbell, Rt Hon Menzies (NE Fife)	Russell, Bob (Colchester)
	Salmond, Alex
Chidgey, David	Sanders, Adrian
Cotter, Brian	Smyth, Rev Martin (Belfast S)
	Taylor, Matthew (Truro)
Davey, Edward (Kingston)	Thompson, William
Donaldson, Jeffrey	Tonge, Dr Jenny
Ewing, Mrs Margaret	Tyler, Paul
Fearn, Ronnie	Webb, Steve
Forsythe, Clifford	Welsh, Andrew
Foster, Don (Bath)	Willis, Phil
George, Andrew (St Ives)
Harvey, Nick	Tellers for the Ayes:
Heath, David (Somerton & Frome)	Sir Robert Smith and
Hughes, Simon (Southwark N)	Mr. Donald Gorrie.

NOES
Abbott, Ms Diane	Campbell, Alan (Tynemouth)
Adams, Mrs Irene (Paisley N)	Campbell, Mrs Anne (C'bridge)
Ainger, Nick	Campbell, Ronnie (Blyth V)
Ainsworth, Robert (Cov'try NE)	Campbell-Savours, Dale
Alexander, Douglas	Caplin, Ivor
Allen, Graham	Casale, Roger
Anderson, Janet (Rossendale)	Caton, Martin
Armstrong, Rt Hon Ms Hilary	Cawsey, Ian
Ashton, Joe	Chaytor, David
Atkins, Charlotte	Chisholm, Malcolm
Austin, John	Clapham, Michael
Barnes, Harry	Clark, Dr Lynda (Edinburgh Pentlands)
Barron, Kevin
Battle, John	Clark, Paul (Gillingham)
Bayley, Hugh	Clarke, Charles (Norwich S)
Beard, Nigel	Clarke, Eric (Midlothian)
Beckett, Rt Hon Mrs Margaret	Clarke, Rt Hon Tom (Coatbridge)
Begg, Miss Anne	Clelland, David
Benn, Hilary (Leeds C)	Clwyd, Ann
Benn, Rt Hon Tony (Chesterfield)	Coaker, Vernon
Bennett, Andrew F	Coffey, Ms Ann
Bermingham, Gerald	Coleman, Iain
Berry, Roger	Colman, Tony
Best, Harold	Connarty, Michael
Betts, Clive	Cook, Frank (Stockton N)
Blackman, Liz	Cook, Rt Hon Robin (Livingston)
Blair, Rt Hon Tony	Corbett, Robin
Blears, Ms Hazel	Corbyn, Jeremy
Blizzard, Bob	Corston, Ms Jean
Blunkett, Rt Hon David	Cousins, Jim
Boateng, Paul	Crausby, David
Bradley, Keith (Withington)	Cryer, Mrs Ann (Keighley)
Bradley, Peter (The Wrekin)	Cryer, John (Hornchurch)
Bradshaw, Ben	Cummings, John
Brinton, Mrs Helen	Cunliffe, Lawrence
Brown, Rt Hon Nick (Newcastle E)	Cunningham, Jim (Cov'try S)
Brown, Russell (Dumfries)	Dalyell, Tam
Browne, Desmond	Darling, Rt Hon Alistair
Buck, Ms Karen	Darvill, Keith
Burden, Richard	Davey, Valerie (Bristol W)
Burgon, Colin	Davidson, Ian
Butler, Mrs Christine	Davies, Rt Hon Denzil (Llanelli)
Byers, Rt Hon Stephen	Davies, Geraint (Croydon C)

Davis, Terry (B'ham Hodge H)	Jones, Mrs Fiona (Newark)
Dawson, Hilton	Jones, Helen (Warrington N)
Dean, Mrs Janet	Jones, Ms Jenny (Wolverh'ton SW)
Dismore, Andrew
Dobbin, Jim	Jones, Jon Owen (Cardiff C)
Donohoe, Brian H	Jones, Martyn (Clwyd S)
Doran, Frank	Jowell, Rt Hon Ms Tessa
Dowd, Jim	Kaufman, Rt Hon Gerald
Drew, David	Keeble, Ms Sally
Dunwoody, Mrs Gwyneth	Keen, Alan (Feltham & Heston)
Eagle, Angela (Wallasey)	Kelly, Ms Ruth
Eagle, Maria (L'pool Garston)	Kemp, Fraser
Edwards, Huw	Kennedy, Jane (Wavertree)
Efford, Clive	Khabra, Piara S
Ellman, Mrs Louise	Kidney, David
Ennis, Jeff	Kilfoyle, Peter
Field, Rt Hon Frank	King, Andy (Rugby & Kenilworth)
Fisher, Mark	King, Ms Oona (Bethnal Green)
Fitzpatrick, Jim	Kingham, Ms Tess
Fitzsimons, Lorna	Kumar, Dr Ashok
Flint, Caroline	Ladyman, Dr Stephen
Flynn, Paul	Lawrence, Ms Jackie
Follett, Barbara	Laxton, Bob
Foster, Rt Hon Derek	Lepper, David
Foster, Michael Jabez (Hastings)	Leslie, Christopher
Foster, Michael J (Worcester)	Levitt, Tom
Foulkes, George	Lewis, Ivan (Bury S)
Fyfe, Maria	Lewis, Terry (Worsley)
Galloway, George	Liddell, Rt Hon Mrs Helen
Gardiner, Barry	Linton, Martin
Gerrard, Neil	Livingstone, Ken
Gibson, Dr Ian	Lloyd, Tony (Manchester C)
Gilroy, Mrs Linda	Love, Andrew
Godman, Dr Norman A	McAllion, John
Godsiff, Roger	McAvoy, Thomas
Goggins, Paul	McCabe, Steve
Golding, Mrs Llin	McDonagh, Siobhain
Gordon, Mrs Eileen	Macdonald, Calum
Grant, Bernie	McDonnell, John
Griffiths, Jane (Reading E)	McFall, John
Griffiths, Nigel (Edinburgh S)	McGuire, Mrs Anne
Griffiths, Win (Bridgend)	McIsaac, Shona
Grocott, Bruce	McKenna, Mrs Rosemary
Grogan, John	McNulty, Tony
Gunnell, John	Mactaggart, Fiona
Hall, Patrick (Bedford)	McWalter, Tony
Hamilton, Fabian (Leeds NE)	McWilliam, John
Hanson, David	Mahon, Mrs Alice
Heal, Mrs Sylvia	Mallaber, Judy
Healey, John	Mandelson, Rt Hon Peter
Henderson, Doug (Newcastle N)	Marsden, Gordon (Blackpool S)
Henderson, Ivan (Harwich)	Marsden, Paul (Shrewsbury)
Hepburn, Stephen	Marshall, Jim (Leicester S)
Heppell, John	Martlew, Eric
Hewitt, Ms Patricia	Maxton, John
Hill, Keith	Meacher, Rt Hon Michael
Hinchliffe, David	Meale, Alan
Hoey, Kate	Merron, Gillian
Hope, Phil	Michie, Bill (Shef'ld Heeley)
Hopkins, Kelvin	Milburn, Rt Hon Alan
Howarth, George (Knowsley N)	Miller, Andrew
Hoyle, Lindsay	Moran, Ms Margaret
Hughes, Ms Beverley (Stretford)	Morgan, Ms Julie (Cardiff N)
Hughes, Kevin (Doncaster N)	Morris, Ms Estelle (B'ham Yardley)
Humble, Mrs Joan	Mudie, George
Hurst, Alan	Mullin, Chris
Hutton, John	Murphy, Rt Hon Paul (Torfaen)
Iddon, Dr Brian	Naysmith, Dr Doug
Jackson, Ms Glenda (Hampstead)	Norris, Dan
Jackson, Helen (Hillsborough)	O'Brien, Mike (N Warks)
Jamieson, David	O'Hara, Eddie
Jenkins, Brian	Olner, Bill
Johnson, Alan (Hull W & Hessle)	O'Neill, Martin
Johnson, Miss Melanie (Welwyn Hatfield)	Organ, Mrs Diana
	Osborne, Ms Sandra
Jones, Rt Hon Barry (Alyn)	Palmer, Dr Nick

Pearson, Ian	Southworth, Ms Helen
Pendry, Tom	Squire, Ms Rachel
Pickthall, Colin	Steinberg, Gerry
Pike, Peter L	Stevenson, George
Plaskitt, James	Stinchcombe, Paul
Pollard, Kerry	Stoate, Dr Howard
Pond, Chris	Strang, Rt Hon Dr Gavin
Pound, Stephen	Straw, Rt Hon Jack
Powell, Sir Raymond	Stringer, Graham
Prentice, Ms Bridget (Lewisham E)	Stuart, Ms Gisela
Prentice, Gordon (Pendle)	Sutcliffe, Gerry
Prescott, Rt Hon John	Taylor, Rt Hon Mrs Ann (Dewsbury)
Primarolo, Dawn
Prosser, Gwyn	Taylor, David (NW Leics)
Purchase, Ken	Temple-Morris, Peter
Quin, Rt Hon Ms Joyce	Timms, Stephen
Quinn, Lawrie	Todd, Mark
Radice, Rt Hon Giles	Touhig, Don
Rammell, Bill	Trickett, Jon
Rapson, Syd	Truswell, Paul
Reed, Andrew (Loughborough)	Turner, Neil (Wigan)
Robinson, Geoffrey (Cov'try NW)	Turner, Dennis (Wolverh'ton SE)
Roche Mrs Barbara	Turner, Dr Desmond (Kemptown)
Rooker Jeff	Turner, Dr George (NW Norfolk)
	Twigg, Derek (Halton)
Rooney, Terry	Tynan, Bill
Ross, Ernie (Dundee W)	Vis, Dr Rudi
Roy, Frank	Ward, Ms Claire
Ruane, Chris	Wareing, Robert N
Russell, Ms Christine (Chester)	Watts, David
Ryan, Ms Joan	Whitehead, Dr Alan
Salter, Martin	Wicks, Malcolm
Sarwar, Mohammad	Williams, Rt Hon Alan (Swansea W)
Savidge, Malcolm
Sawford, Phil	Williams, Alan W (E Carmarthen)
Sedgemore, Brian	Williams, Mrs Betty (Conwy)
Shaw, Jonathan	Wills, Michael
Sheerman, Barry	Winnick, David
Sheldon, Rt Hon Robert	Winterton, Ms Rosie (Doncaster C)
Shipley, Ms Debra	Wise, Audrey
Singh, Marsha	Woolas, Phil
Skinner, Dennis	Worthington, Tony
Smith, Rt Hon Andrew (Oxford E)	Wray, James
Smith, Angela (Basildon)	Wright, Anthony D (Gt Yarmouth)
Smith, Miss Geraldine (Morecambe & Lunesdale)	Wright, Dr Tony (Cannock)
Smith, John (Glamorgan)	Tellers for the Noes:
Smith, Llew (Blaenau Gwent)	Mr. Greg Pope and
Snape, Peter	Mr. Mike Hall.

Question accordingly negatived.

Question, That the proposed words be there added, put forthwith, pursuant to Standing Order No. 31 (Questions on amendments), and agreed to.

MR. DEPUTY SPEAKER forthwith declared the main Question, as amended, to be agreed to.

Resolved,

That this House recognises the difficulties faced by agriculture and the wider rural economy as a result of the depressed level of farm incomes; approves of the special measures the Government has taken to assist the industry through three aid packages plus EU agri-monetary compensation worth in total £742 million; endorses the establishment of industry-led working groups to examine urgently the regulatory burdens on agriculture; supports the Government's promotion of collaborative working throughout the food chain to add value and generate the price premium that high-quality United Kingdom produce deserves, while noting that the Competition Commission's investigation of supermarket pricing includes an examination of trading practices throughout the supply chain; welcomes the Government's achievement of significant reform of the Common Agricultural Policy in the interests of producers, consumers and taxpayers; and fully supports the Government's commitment to the future of United Kingdom agriculture as a competitive, flexible and diverse industry, and the use of options available under Agenda 2000 to help secure this.

Transport Safety

We now come to the next debate. Madam Speaker has selected the amendment in the name of the Prime Minister.

7.15 pm

I beg to move,

That this House notes with extreme sadness the recent Paddington rail disaster and the ensuing injuries and loss of life and extends its deepest sympathies to all those affected; congratulates the emergency services on their outstanding work in very difficult conditions: urges the Government not to respond prematurely but to ensure that swift action follows the enquiry into rail safety systems by implementing the key recommendations due in December 1999; condemns past Governments for failing to invest in an effective advanced train protection system; calls on the Government to remove responsibility for the setting of safety standards from Railtrack; further notes the serious concerns that exist over safety in other modes of transport and draws specific attention to the continuing pressure on safety standards in the air transport industry due to the vast rate of growth in journeys; notes the considerable opposition from all sides of the House to the Government's plans to privatise the National Air Traffic Services (NATS) and the London Underground and the possible effect this could have on safety standards; urges the Government to re-consider its proposals and instead to make NATS and London Underground public interest companies, ensuring safety remains a core priority; further urges the Government to ensure that maritime safety standards are not compromised by the closure of coastguard stations around the country; and calls on the Government to reduce the possibility of road safety incidents by setting national targets for reducing overall traffic levels and encouraging nationwide implementation of initiatives such as "Safe Routes to School".

In this debate on transport safety it is appropriate for me to begin by repeating the sympathies expressed yesterday on all sides of the House for those involved in the tragedy of the Paddington rail crash. I also, as hon. Members rightly did yesterday, extend our congratulations to the emergency services and our thanks to the individuals who were prepared to come and assist at that tragic accident.

I pay particular tribute to the hon. Member for Crewe and Nantwich (Mrs. Dunwoody) who, as Chairman of the Environment, Transport and Regional Affairs Committee, has made very helpful safety recommendations to the House. Liberal Democrat Members support the Committee's recommendation to establish an independent transport safety body. We hope that the recommendation will be accepted by the Secretary of State and his team. We hope also that if such a body is established, it will include people who not only are experts in transport safety, able to bring independent thinking to the issues, but have the courage to speak out on those issues.

I emphasise how much Liberal Democrat Members support the Deputy Prime Minister's remarks, particularly in the past few days following the Paddington rail crash, about the importance of moving from a culture of blame to a culture of safety. As he has rightly pointed out, a number of inquiries can consider who is to blame, but it is important now to learn the lessons from that tragedy and others so that we can think positively about the future, and I hope that the motion and the debate will contribute to that.

The whole House will be aware that concerns about safety on public transport are not confined to rail but extend to all other modes of transport.

My hon. Friend mentioned his concern that inquiries should be followed through, and I believe that he was echoing the Deputy Prime Minister's view. Does he recall that 10 years ago, after the Clapham rail crash, Mr. Hidden conducted an inquiry and issued an authoritative report that made important recommendations for rail safety, particularly for the removal from the system of the old, slam-door rolling stock and for the introduction of the automatic train protection system? There was general, cross-party acceptance of those recommendations. Does my hon. Friend share my concern that 10 years later, we still have thousands—

Order. I cannot allow the hon. Gentleman to make such a long intervention.

I am grateful for my hon. Friend's intervention. He is right to say that we must move quickly to ensure that carriages are safe and to introduce the automatic train protection system. I shall return to that issue.

Many of us will have listened to the Deputy Prime Minister speaking on the "Today" programme this morning and noted his comments about the running of the railways and safety legislation. He said:

"I don't think it's being done as good as it could be done. There can be changes."

I believe that we all accept that changes are needed, and I hope that some of my remarks in this speech will be acted on.

The Deputy Prime Minister and the other Ministers present would probably agree with my next remark, although I suspect that Conservative Members will not agree with it. Many of the problems in the railways have resulted from the way in which privatisation was carried out, especially the confusion between safety and the other aspects of the railway—not least the confusion between safety and profit.

Is the hon. Gentleman seriously suggesting that there were no unfortunate and tragic accidents on the railways before privatisation?

No. Of course I am not saying that, and we acknowledge that there were accidents before privatisation. However, several incidents have shown that the confusion that has been created by privatisation has left many people uncertain about who is responsible for the various things that have happened. That is one of our real concerns.

Not the least of our concerns arises from Railtrack' s continuing responsibility for setting and monitoring safety standards. We welcome the fact that the Deputy Prime Minister is minded to separate out those functions. We believe that it would be helpful for him to say immediately that that is his intention, although we acknowledge that he was right to point out the difficulty of deciding where that responsibility should then be located. He is right to wait until he has received advice on that issue. However, in our view, Railtrack, which is a for profit company, must not be judge and jury on rail safety issues and, if we are to regain confidence in our railways, Railtrack must no longer have power to set and monitor safety standards.

Responsibilities are confused in several areas. My hon. Friend the Member for Eastleigh (Mr. Chidgey) mentioned automatic train protection. Of course we want a failsafe automatic train protection system to be introduced, but problems arise because responsibility is fragmented.

The House will be aware that ATP has two key aspects—first, an on-board system, and secondly, a system by the side of the track. Some of the problems in the trials have arisen in the interface between those two systems, and it is unclear who is responsible for those interface problems.

There have been other problems with ATP. The tachographs that are attached to the axles, which were intended to have a lifespan of five years, are breaking down after an average of five months because they have to operate on very out-of-date stock and on somewhat bumpy rail lines. We understand that, as recently as last autumn, Great Western Trains was given the right to turn off the trial ATP system because of that old problem of leaves on the track; the wheels were spinning, so the tachographs were giving a false indication of the speed of the train.

It is clear to us that it will be some time before we find a failsafe ATP system, so it is absolutely right that we move ahead with the introduction of the train protection and warning system, as the Deputy Prime Minister is so anxious that we do. So far I have been praising the right hon. Gentleman in this speech but, given his keenness to see TPWS introduced quickly, it is odd that nearly a year passed between the final deadline for comments on the proposal and his giving approval for the go-ahead.

However, given that we are where we are now, I reiterate a concern that I expressed yesterday—that Railtrack has asked the potential contractors to bring forward the date by which they submit their bids for the introduction of TPWS, and yet Railtrack has made no commitment to let that contract sooner. I hope that the Minister will say that he is prepared to discuss that issue with Railtrack, and perhaps to discuss with it another of our concerns—that the trained and skilled personnel may not even be available to introduce TPWS. As a result of the on-off introduction of funding by Railtrack for that type of work, the three main contractors that might be involved in the work have laid off staff in the lean periods, and the majority may not now have sufficient staff to do the work so that TPWS may be introduced in the time scale that the Deputy Prime Minister and we would like.

There is also doubt as to whether sufficient funding will be available for the work to be done in time. We have all heard that Railtrack is to invest £27 billion in the next 10 years. Only £16 billion of that is actually Railtrack's money; the remaining £11 billion will come from various partnership agreements. Much of that £27 billion will be used for routine repair and maintenance, and a lot more of it will be spent on station upgrades. It is unclear whether there is enough money in Railtrack's current budget to provide the sums of money that will be necessary for some of that important safety work.

Obviously, a very important inquiry is under way and we must await the outcome. However, would the hon. Gentleman care to comment on the Health and Safety Commission report, "Review of Arrangements for Standard Setting and Application on the Main Railway Network—Interim Report", published in September 1999, which concludes:

"We do not see any cause for immediate concern on safety grounds in the way that"

Railtrack's safety and standards directorate

"has operated its key safety functions"?

In those circumstances, is it right for the hon. Gentleman to be, in a sense, smearing Railtrack and the whole privatisation process, when an independent body says that there is no cause for immediate concern, and when there is an on-going inquiry, which should be given the opportunity to make its findings?

I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for his intervention. The Deputy Prime Minister—

Who runs the Health and Safety Commission?

The Deputy Prime Minister mentioned that report in his remarks yesterday. However, some of us, including Liberal Democrats, believe that, as a matter of principle, the setting and monitoring of safety standards should not take place within a for profit company. That is the key matter of principle.

In other countries, investment in these matters is significantly greater. Germany will spend £27 billion not over 10 years, as Railtrack will, but over three years. In France, twice as much will be spent as in this country. Therefore I very much hope that the Deputy Prime Minister requires Railtrack to include a comprehensive safety strategy policy in its network management statement next year.

As many train operating companies are now seeking an extension of their franchises and will soon be looking to renew them, I very much hope that there will be no opportunity for train operating companies to use what is effectively blackmail on the safety issue. It is vital that no extensions of franchises are granted unless the train operating companies can at the very least show that they are running a safe, efficient and prompt service. There must be no opportunity for blackmail. I note that already Thames Trains says that it will make no further investment unless its franchise is extended. I am sure that that important issue will be taken on board. We hope to hear from the Minister what he is doing on that issue.

Some confusion remains about where funding for some of the safety improvements will come from. The Deputy Prime Minister has said in some comments to the press that when we have the report from Sir David Davies, cost will not be an issue and the Government will find the money; but yesterday, in his response to questions on his statement, he implied that the money for TPWS would come from train operating companies and Railtrack. I hope that we may have clarification as to where the money for those improvements will come.

I shall deal briefly with two other rail issues before I move on to some other areas. I suggest that it would be well worth considering whether there should be a separate and independent rail accident investigation unit. There are such units for maritime and air accidents. We are making no criticism of the work of the British Transport police, but in other areas of public transport we have independent investigation bodies and perhaps such a unit could be part of the new independent body proposed by the Chairman of the Select Committee.

It is increasingly clear that among the 25 train operating companies there are enormous variations in training procedures. I hope very much that the Cullen inquiry will examine this issue and make appropriate recommendations. I hope also that it will examine supervision. It is becoming increasingly clear that since privatisation a number of TOCs have significantly reduced the number of their staff who are involved in supervision. It is vital that that issue is considered.

I shall refer briefly to other areas of transport safety, but I hope very much that my hon. Friend the Member for Tweeddale, Ettrick and Lauderdale (Mr. Moore) will be able to contribute to the debate and pick up on some of the points with which I have not dealt. Road safety is vital. There have been reductions in the number of road deaths in recent years. We welcome that, but more than 3,500 road deaths in one year is still a significant worry.

It is worth noting that in Oxfordshire, for example, there was one murder over the past 12 months, but 63 people died in road accidents. Although the numbers are reducing and despite the fact that we do better than many of our European counterparts, much work still needs to be done, not least when we analyse the figures and find that perhaps one of the reasons why the number of road deaths is coming down is that fewer and fewer of the most vulnerable road users are using the roads. There has been a significant reduction in the number of people making journeys on foot or by bike. That is all the more reason why we continue to press for road traffic reduction, something that the Minister who is about to respond has professed himself keen to see.

We are totally opposed to the selling off of National Air Traffic Services. That would be an entirely wrong move and one that would run counter to some of the concerns that have been expressed in relation to the Paddington rail crash. We note that 95 per cent. of the staff at NATS are opposed to the proposal. We note also that the pilots are opposed to it. We note especially that 115 Labour Members have signed early-day motion 446 in opposition to the privatisation.

We believe that privatisation is wrong. It could delay the introduction of the air traffic control system at Swanwick.

There was already an overspend and Swanwick was already more than three years late under the existing system.

The Deputy Prime Minister rightly points out that there have been many delays, and I do not necessarily blame him for some of them. However, the right hon. Gentleman will know that the very staff who will be involved in the work to introduce privatisation should be spending their time getting problems solved. Given that there are alternative ways of bringing money into NATS without an impact on the public sector borrowing requirement, such as the setting up of a not-for-profit public interest company, we urge the Deputy Prime Minister to consider them. We are concerned about maritime safety issues and about the plans for the closure of coastguard services.

I have touched only briefly on some issues. I hope that there will be an opportunity for other hon. Members to pick up on them. As I have said, we welcome the Government's review of transport safety. We are certain that there must be quick action when we are aware of the findings. We must move from a culture of blame to one of safety. We must learn the lessons from the past but we must now look to the future. We want to get more and more people on to public transport, but we shall be able to do so only if the public have confidence in all its different forms. We have initiated this debate to begin the process of improving public confidence in all forms of public transport.

7.35 pm

The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for the Environment, Transport and the Regions

(Mr. Keith Hill)

I beg to move, To leave out from "House" to the end of the Question, and to add instead thereof:

"notes with extreme sadness the recent Paddington rail disaster and the ensuing injuries and loss of life and extends its deepest sympathies to all those affected; congratulates the emergency services on their outstanding work in very difficult conditions; welcomes the prompt and comprehensive actions taken since the tragedy at Paddington, which demonstrate how serious the Government are about transport safety; notes the Government's continuing determination to take real steps to make transport safer for the public and the workforce; acknowledges the long-term reduction in fatalities on roads, in the air, at sea and on the railways; recognises specific action taken to improve rail, road, marine and air safety; commends the Government for setting up a comprehensive Transport Safety Review to look at how to improve the organisation of transport safety in the United Kingdom and whether there is a case for a single independent authority for transport safety regulation; and further notes that one of the prime aims of the Government's Public Private Partnerships for National Air Traffic Services and the London Underground is the enhancement of safety by securing high and stable levels of future investment, which are essential for safety as travel increases, and that safety regulation will be kept firmly in public hands in both cases."

Let me begin by thanking the hon. Member for Bath (Mr. Foster) for the way in which he has introduced the debate. I thank him specifically for the supportive remarks that he has made about the response of my right hon. Friend the Deputy Prime Minister following the terrible events outside Paddington, under the shadow of which we hold this debate.

I am grateful for the opportunity to set out the Government's policies on transport safety. I propose to address myself to the terms of the motion on the Order Paper. However, I share what I am certain is the unanimous feeling of the House that it is tragic that we should be discussing this subject in the context of the nightmare event at Ladbroke Grove junction outside Paddington station two weeks ago.

Yesterday my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State made an important statement about the Ladbroke Grove disaster and the actions that we have taken since it happened, which include the establishment of the Cullen inquiry into the causes of the crash and the inquiry by Sir David Davies into train protection systems and the means of reducing the number of signals passed at danger. I say to the hon. Member for Bath that we shall expect Sir David to report to us on the readiness of the rail industry to implement either the train protection and warning system or other train protection systems. My right hon. Friend announced that he has asked for a weekly report to be sent to him on the number of SPADs. He has arranged for a monthly analysis to be placed in the Library. He confirmed that the chief inspector of railways hopes shortly to produce a second interim report on the Ladbroke Grove crash, following his first interim report issued on Friday 8 October.

My right hon. Friend expressed his full support for the action taken by the independent railway inspectorate—in instructing the train operating companies to improve, among other things, their arrangements for driver training and briefing on suspect signals, in issuing three enforcement notices related to the use of signal SN109 in the approach to Paddington and dealing with other signals with a recent history of having been passed at danger.

Will the Minister give way?

I shall give way but I wish to lay down a benchmark: I know that many Members are eager to participate in the debate and I will take only a limited number of interventions.

My intervention will be brief. The Minister has mentioned signals. Following the Paddington tragedy, 10 black spots were highlighted. One of them is in Southport at Birkdale station. The situation is urgent because every 20 minutes a train passes the black spot. Is the Minister saying that we must wait for inquiries and for action, or will action be taken this week on the blackspots?

I am saying that we have asked the inspectorate to look at precisely that issue, and we expect a report in the near future. We shall certainly be considering all the blackspots, including those in the hon. Gentleman's constituency about which he rightly expresses serious concern. We share that concern and we hope to have a positive result in the nearest possible future.

My right hon. Friend the Deputy Prime Minister was able to confirm both that following receipt of the independent Health and Safety Commission's report, which he initiated last year into concerns expressed about the wide range of responsibilities residing in Railtrack's safety and standards directorate, he has requested the HSC to report on necessary follow-up action, and that the Government are minded to transfer those functions out of Railtrack, provided that that does not result in an increase in risk. Finally, my right hon. Friend announced the convening of a rail safety summit for next Monday.

That comprehensive list of actions reflects my right hon. Friend's total commitment to securing the best possible safety regime on our railway network. Concern for transport safety has been a guiding light of his long and distinguished record in public life. He will be expanding on these matters when he appears before the Select Committee on Environment, Transport and Regional Affairs tomorrow. It is entirely typical, as well as right and proper, that he should be in his place for this debate.

Sadly, we cannot bring back those whose lives were lost in the Ladbroke Grove disaster, but it is my duty as a Minister to make every effort to ensure that avoidable accidents are not repeated, and that we have the safest possible transport system in this country.

I am grateful to my hon. Friend for giving way. Does he agree that one of the most harrowing aspects of the Paddington disaster was not knowing for such a long time how many people were in carriage H? Is he aware that there is no numerical limitation on the number of people who can ride across the country in a passenger rail carriage—unlike an aeroplane, bus or any other form of transport? Does he agree that we should examine that as a matter of urgency?

I am grateful to my hon. Friend for his remarks. It was, indeed, a source of great concern that we did not know how many people were in that carriage. There is no evidence whatever that the number of people travelling in a carriage contributes to accidents, but it is clear that, when an accident occurs and there are a large number of people in the carriages, it can only exacerbate the situation. That is an important point, which I can assure my hon. Friend we will consider seriously.

There can be no more important matter for a Government—any Government—to address than public safety. That is why issues such as crime reduction, public health, environmental responsibility and effective safety regulation are all central to the work of the Government.

Transport safety is at the very heart of policy making in my Department. Transport is essential for the sustenance of everyday life. We all need transport to get to work, to visit friends and family, and to make our shopping trips. We need transport that provides comfort, convenience, reliability and affordability, but above all else, we want assurances that we can get to our destination safely.

I am grateful to the Minister for his commitment to safety. That matter is extremely important to my constituents, who were shocked by the train crash in my constituency—which fortunately did not result in any loss of life—only two weeks after Paddington. My constituents want to know when the Government will be able to say that a system is in place to prevent trains from passing a red light. That is the question that they have asked me to ask Ministers tonight.

The hon. Gentleman is right to raise the disturbing accident that occurred in his constituency on Monday evening. We await the findings, at the earliest possible moment, of the internal railway industry inquiry into the accident, and also the inquiry being carried out by the Health and Safety Executive. We are anxious to move quickly to the institution of a train protection system that is as safe as possible. That is what we have asked Sir David Davies to look at, and we expect his report before the new year. We also expect to start work on implementing his recommendations at the earliest opportunity. I hope that that will reassure the hon. Gentleman's constituents.

There are a number of key considerations that I believe it is important to keep clearly in focus as we address transport safety. First, all public transport operators, whether privately or publicly owned, need to make safety their first priority. It would be totally unacceptable for financial interests to take precedence over safety.

Another key consideration is that safety standards should be declared and enforced. That means open information, and effective monitoring and enforcement. The safety culture needs to be intrinsic in every organisation, from top to bottom. It is not good enough to try to shift blame or castigate individual workers. It is the clear responsibility of management at all levels to make sure that a working environment does not develop in which accidents can happen.

Finally, the Government will not let cost considerations alone drive decision making on transport safety. Of course, there must be an assessment of cost-effectiveness when major capital expenditure is required, but we are committed to improving transport safety and we will weigh all the factors necessary to reach sane and sensible decisions.

Will the Minister give way?

On that point, but this is one of the last interventions that I shall take.

Can the hon. Gentleman undertake that the subsidy for rail, which is to fall from £1.9 billion in 1997 to £900 million in 2002, will be increased? Is that what he is saying?

I am not saying that, but on the issue that is germane to the debate—rail safety—let me reiterate the clear assurance given by my right hon. Friend the Deputy Prime Minister in his remarks yesterday that when it comes to train safety, the money will be found.

rose—

Let me continue for a moment. May I say, too, that common-sense safety considerations apply to every single person in the country, not just to workers and managers in the transport industries. Putting safety first is a responsibility that we all share.

I shall deal now with some facts. I do so not with callous intent, and certainly not in a spirit of complacency. I cannot stress strongly enough that the Government are not complacent about safety—very far from it. However, we need to have a rational debate if we are to work together in avoiding future tragedies across transport modes.

Since the Ladbroke Grove disaster, a suggestion has crept in that somehow that accident is symptomatic of a decline in transport safety generally. I have even read newspaper commentators suggesting that it proved that we have a third-world transport system. That is simply not so. There are parts of the world where fatalities among bus passengers caused by badly maintained vehicles, speeding or overloading are almost everyday news. In Britain we do not, and will not, tolerate such levels of transport fatalities. Indeed, it is the relative rarity of major disasters that makes accidents such as Ladbroke Grove so shocking for us.

In any case, we should not focus exclusively on spectacular disasters; that is a media temptation. The truth is that every transport accident that involves death or serious injury is a disaster for those involved.

Let me illustrate with a few facts and figures the gradual improvement in transport safety. For a start, we live in an ever more mobile society. Between the mid-1980s and the mid-1990s, the average distance travelled per person per year in Great Britain increased by 27 per cent. That level of mobility inevitably brings with it increased exposure to risk, yet over the same period, the total number of transport fatalities in Great Britain fell—from 5,296 in 1987 to 3,516 in 1996. That is a fall of one third in absolute terms, and an even greater fall in terms of the increasing amount of travel that we all undertake.

Of course the great majority of transport deaths do not occur in rail, air or maritime catastrophes, but in the daily toll on our roads—yet even on the roads the picture has improved significantly in recent years, as personal behaviour, technology and design standards have all improved. Between 1988 and 1998 the number of people killed on Britain's roads fell from 5,052 to 3,421. The number of child pedestrians killed has more than halved, from 282 to 103 per year. That is still far too many, but the trend is in the right direction, and we are determined to keep it that way.

Let me say it again: every one of those deaths is someone's tragedy, but let us not fall into the trap of supposing that travel in this country is becoming more unsafe. It is not. The figures demonstrate as much.

I believe that the House and the wider public understand that however much we regard safety as the first requirement, in practice absolute safety is unattainable. Comments are made about safer systems overseas, but those are not foolproof either. Planes crash in the United States, high-speed trains crash in Germany, and even nuclear installations in Japan can go wrong.

The House will also be aware that, in road safety terms—roads account for the vast majority of fatalities around the world—Britain is just about the safest country in Europe, and probably in the world. Again, I would totally refute any suggestion that the Government are in any way complacent about transport safety. As I have already acknowledged, my right hon. Friend the Deputy Prime Minister is recognised for his very deep and personal commitment to safety, and we arrived in government determined to take substantive steps to make transport safer for the public and the work force.

That commitment was made absolutely clear in our White Paper on the future of transport in July 1998, which had much to say on the subject of travelling safely, and set out some of the many actions that the Government are taking to improve transport safety.

The list of our initiatives is long, and I will not delay the House by reciting them all, but let me cite a few examples. On the subject of railways, we announced in August the introduction of the train protection and warning system, which is a huge improvement on the existing automatic warning system and would have prevented the Ladbroke Grove junction disaster had it been installed on the Thames Trains commuter service. It was intended that that system would be in place across the entire network by the end of 2003.

We have brought forward by two years the removal from the network of all remaining mark I slam-door carriages and launched the secure stations initiative. Last year we commissioned, and have now received, the Health and Safety Commission report on Railtrack' s role in safety and standard setting. We are following up with an urgent review, minded, as we are, to transfer the main functions of the safety and standards directorate out of Railtrack.

We have also launched a review and restructuring of London Underground's safety case. There are few, if any, transport systems more suffused with a safety culture than London Underground. Under the proposed public-private partnership, public sector London Underground Ltd. will continue to have responsibility for the railway safety case for the whole underground, and the PPP will simply not go ahead unless it can be shown to contribute to improved safety.

In the air, we have subjected our aviation safety oversight system to a rigorous audit by the International Civil Aviation Organisation. We were the first major aviation country to do so, and were pleased to receive an excellent report. We have intensified our programme of ramp checks of foreign aircraft coming into UK airports and a number of actions have been taken against unsatisfactory operators.

Against that background of proactive concern to improve safety, it was absurd for the hon. Member for Bath to suggest, in what I thought was the weakest part of an otherwise good speech, that the Government would be willing to compromise on air safety in pursuit of their proposal for a National Air Traffic Services PPP. I find it bizarre to describe as privatisation a share proposal that will leave the Government and the work force with a majority of shares, with the Government's 49 per cent. shareholding underpinned by golden share powers. That is emphatically not a privatisation. It is a public-private partnership that is designed to lever in from the private sector the vital new capital—£1 billion over 10 years—that is necessary to ensure that NATS maintains the highest standards of safety in a constantly expanding aviation market.

The hon. Member for Bath should also be aware that responsibility for aviation safety does not lie with NATS, which is the service provider, but with the Civil Aviation Authority. To be precise, that responsibility lies with the CAA safety regulation group, which has wide-ranging powers and ample experience in the UK of regulating the safety of private air traffic control services with no suggestion of a problem.

Indeed, as part of the PPP, we propose to reinforce the separation of safety regulation from service provision. That will ensure that those two functions are undertaken in two separate organisations, which is an objective that airspace users, the Environment, Transport and Regional Affairs Committee and the former Monopolies and Mergers Commission have long recommended.

Safety in the air will always be the Government's overriding priority. We have placed the same high priority on safety on the seas. We have reopened the investigations into the Derbyshire and Gaul sinkings, merged the former Marine Safety and Coastguard agencies to form a new integrated Maritime and Coastguard Agency, and established the Thames river safety inquiry.

On the roads, we have given local authorities the power to impose 20 mph speed limits without recourse to the approval of the Secretary of State, undertaken a major review of speed policy and championed the development of crash testing of cars for consumer information to standards higher than those set by regulation. In addition, we have reviewed our road safety strategy and targets with a view to introducing demanding fatality reduction targets by 2010. We will make a major announcement about our road safety plans shortly.

That is no more than a brief summary of some of our transport safety initiatives. I could offer the House many other examples and I should emphasise that none of the actions I have mentioned is an any way directly related to the Ladbroke Grove rail disaster. These are actions we have been taking ever since we entered office, which demonstrates beyond any question that transport safety is an absolute priority. However, the Ladbroke Grove crash forces us to re-examine everything we have been doing and to redouble our efforts to achieve the safest possible transport systems.

I remind the House that we are investigating wider structural questions in relation to transport safety. We have under way a transport safety review, which was launched at the end of last year in response to recommendations from the Environment, Transport and Regional Affairs Committee. The review, which has undertaken consultations and an analysis of transport safety structures overseas, is nearing completion. It will advise us on whether the structure of transport safety regulation and accident investigation in Britain is balanced correctly.

I know that my hon. Friend the Member for Crewe and Nantwich (Mrs. Dunwoody)—my mentor, whose knowledge of and concern for transport safety is unrivalled in the House—is waiting keenly for the review's conclusions. I want to assure her that we are working hard to complete the task by the end of the year and that we will benchmark our conclusions against the lessons from Ladbroke Grove.

I want to pay tribute to people involved in transport safety in this country. The detailed inquiries that we have set up may find fault with the actions or inactions of individuals, but I know that many people in the transport world who have devoted their careers and lives to safety issues will be feeling very bruised by association with the Ladbroke Grove disaster. I emphasise that it is not the intention of the Government to find scapegoats. It is all too easy for politicians and journalists to point the finger when they do not have to take the critical life and death decisions that they are debating. I hope that the House will therefore join me in commending the important safety work done by many people in all sectors of transport, on which we all rely for our safe journey home.

The House will note that, like the hon. Member for Bath, I have sought throughout my speech to refrain from trying to score party political points. That was very much the spirit of the House during yesterday's exchanges, which took place in response to my right hon. Friend's statement, and it was also largely the approach taken by the hon. Gentleman. The safety of the British people is far too serious a matter for petty political squabbles. The whole country expects everyone involved in transport—whether they be company directors or train drivers, politicians or civil servants—to work together to ensure that we have the safest possible transport systems.

Safety is far more important than old arguments about ownership. I believe that we can make Britain the safest place in the world to travel, whether for work or pleasure, but sometimes, tragically, we have to learn the hard way. Ladbroke Grove causes us all to reflect on what more we can do to enhance safety and prevent the recurrence of such a terrible tragedy. I trust that every Member of the House will join the Government in working constructively on the ideas and solutions that will save lives now and in the future.

7.58 pm

All Conservative Members and Members across the House continue to share the sense of appalling loss that the Ladbroke Grove tragedy has created. Nothing can bring back those men and women who perished in the accident and the terrible fire that followed in seconds.

The public are worried about safety on our trains, and I very much want to associate myself with the opening remarks of the hon. Member for Bath (Mr. Foster). We definitely want, and believe that it is in the public interest, to move away from a culture of blame to one of safety. The Minister's remarks, which paid tribute to those involved in transport safety, were well judged. They do a terrific job—under terrific pressure, sometimes—and we fully acknowledge the role that they play, but we must also recognise that the public want urgent answers to vital questions. They want to know why and how the accident happened and they want to be reassured that such a tragedy will not be allowed to happen again.

The public also want to know whether lessons that all those responsible for rail travel should have learned before 5 October were relevant—lessons that might have meant that the Ladbroke Grove disaster could have been avoided, and obvious lessons in common sense, which might have been drawn without waiting for the conclusion of the Southall inquiry.

An obvious common-sense lesson is how to stop trains going through red lights. People want to know whether enough on that issue was done, not only by the train operating companies, Railtrack—which has received an extraordinary amount of attention in a culture that is apparently not about blame—and the HSE, but by those charged with governmental responsibility for ensuring safety on the rails so that red lights on the track mean that trains stop.

Over the past few weeks, Railtrack has come under close scrutiny. Lord Cullen's inquiry will doubtless produce a verdict on just how much responsibility it should bear. It will not escape the House's attention that, in Railtrack's evidence to the Transport Sub-Committee of the Environment, Transport and Regional Affairs Committee in March 1998, the company said:

"We believe Paddington to be the best protected major terminal station anywhere in the world."

We shall see whether it is the best protected. Judging by the events of 5 October, it is not protected enough.

Anyone who reads last year's Select Committee report on railway safety, which must include Ministers, will find that such a judgment about Paddington was, at best, in doubt. It does not take more than a cursory glance at the daily diet of our newspapers to recognise that the public feel that action to promote railway safety could, and perhaps should, have been taken many months ago.

Let me deal with the issue of red lights. Information about trains going through red lights is collated by Her Majesty's railway inspectorate, which is part of the Health and Safety Commission. Those figures go to the Government. Figures for trains passing danger signals make alarming reading. They were higher in 1991, when 944 trains went through red lights. Those who have jumped to the hasty and premature conclusion that a railway system in private ownership means that safety will be compromised must acknowledge that, since the railway system passed out of Government ownership, the number of danger signals passed has declined. In 1997–98, the figure had fallen to 593—still, in the judgment of many, far too high.

The Health and Safety Commission report of 2 September 1999 says that, of those incidents, 42 could have had

"potentially severe consequences where the train passed the overlap, and there are connections ahead, over which another train may be passing."

The public are understandably concerned to know that Ministers were told that in 1998–99—figures which we know from Lord Macdonald's recent statement were in the Department's office in August this year, two months before the disaster—the number of trains passing through red lights

"no longer followed a downward trend".

Last year's figure of 593 had increased to 643. Worse, the number of incidents which the Health and Safety Commission defined as

"having potentially severe consequences"

also rose by 25 per cent. on the previous year to 52.

As Lord Macdonald acknowledged, those incidents "over-ran safety margins". In straightforward terms, once a week, what may well have been the major contributory factor that caused the Ladbroke Grove disaster was, and perhaps still is, being repeated across the country.

I acknowledge the remarks made by the Deputy Prime Minister in his statement yesterday, in which he said that safety was his primary concern. I am sure that safety is the primary concern of every member of this House. We are all concerned about safety, but we must be certain that any changes to those charged with responsibility for safety will improve standards, not imperil them. In the past few weeks, Railtrack has provided an all-too-easy target for that criticism. However, there is concern and we can all understand why. The public want us to be not only concerned about safety but, when safety may be at risk, they want us to take responsibility and action, where and when appropriate. They will not and should not tolerate undue delay or the failure to assume that responsibility.

There certainly should be concern about the length of time taken for the official response following the Environment, Transport and Regional Affairs Committee report on 4 March 1998. Nineteen months ago, on 4 March 1998, the Select Committee report on the Strategic Rail Authority first recommended the transfer of the standards and safety directorate out of the hands of Railtrack. Whether that is the right decision is another question; the crucial question was one of safety, which presumably is why that recommendation was in the report. Two weeks after the report was published, the then Minister of Transport asked the Health and Safety Commission to commence the proposed review of railways standards arrangements to include consideration of the extent to which Railtrack' s current role in enforcing standards might be transferred elsewhere. I remind the House that that was 19 months ago.

It is perhaps not surprising, therefore, that the public have begun to ask why the response seems to have taken so long. Some months after its first report, the Select Committee returned to that issue. It is noteworthy that eight months after that first report in November 1998 it said that

"the present regulatory system gives Railtrack's Safety and Standards Directorate too much responsibility. The directorate needs to be free-standing and should pass to an independent safety authority, as already recommended."

The Select Committee said that nearly 12 months ago. What action did the Government take? How did those responsible respond?

The Government asked the Health and Safety Commission to respond. Its response did not, in either timing or substance, indicate a serious or immediate enough concern for the issues raised. Four months after that November report, the Health and Safety Commission produced a four-page special report, which said that the HSE

"is conducting a thorough review of Railtrack's role"

and would be expected to produce a report in the spring for the Minister of Transport containing a range of options. That report did not come in the spring. The report, called the Tansley report, came several months later—this October. That was 19 months after the issue was first raised by the Select Committee.

The Tansley report was not the only report about railway safety that was sitting on Ministers' desks in October. There was another, which was specifically about signals being passed at danger—the so-called "SPAD" incidents. It was published on 2 September and should have alarmed any Minister. It was highly critical of elements of rail safety. As well as reproducing figures about rail safety that showed a rise in SPADs, it made recommendations—22 in all—to deal with the problem of signals passed at danger.

After the rise in SPAD figures, the report should surely have been referred to Ministers. Can the Minister tell the House when officials first saw that report? When did the Secretary of State first see the report on SPADs published in August?

A number of questions arise that concern not only Railtrack, whose role in safety had already been seriously questioned by the Select Committee 19 months ago, but what action was being taken within the Department during that time, who assumed responsibility for it and who did they meet. The public want to know what happened when the HSE figures landed on Ministers' desks in August of this year showing the dramatic rise in figures. Were they referred to Ministers and what action did Ministers take? Following the HSE report on 2 September, which further drew attention to those figures, what action did officials and Ministers take and whom did they consult?

In his statement yesterday, the Deputy Prime Minister said that the Tansley interim report reached his office on the day of the Paddington crash. Will he confirm that that was the same day that it reached officials in his Department?

The right hon. Gentleman rightly said that the report raised

"serious concerns about the rail industry, largely relating to priorities and decisions on safety standards".

Undoubtedly, there are questions to be asked not only on the priorities and safety standards but on decisions and priorities in the Health and Safety Executive and the Department itself. The public will want to know whether Ministers think that, 19 months after the Select Committee expressed serious doubts about rail safety, the production of not a full report but only an interim report with no firm conclusions demonstrates that the Government made an appropriate response, especially in the light of the Southall disaster.

Secondly, the public will want to know why, within five days of the publication of the Tansley interim report, the Deputy Prime Minister should make a statement in which he said that he is

"minded to transfer the main functions of Railtrack's Safety and Standards Directorate",—[Official Report, 19 October 1999; Vol. 336, c. 268-69.]

out of Railtrack. That decision is particularly surprising because the Tansley interim report, to which the Deputy Prime Minister referred and for which he had asked, states:

"any decision on the way forward should be taken in the light of a wider and more formal sounding of views in the industry … we would recommend this as the next step."

Therefore, the public will want to know—and indeed have a right to know—why Ministers and the Deputy Prime Minister specifically rejected that advice and with whom the right hon. Gentleman consulted before making his views known on the Saturday following his rail summit with the Prime Minister.

I have been listening carefully to the hon. Gentleman. I hope that he will forgive me, but I am not sure whether he is in favour of an independent safety authority. Would he make that clear?

The hon. Lady's point is extremely well made. I am in favour of the Government getting on with the task—[Interruption.] The Deputy Prime Minister does not like it. He delegates responsibility to others to produce a decision, yet when he has to make a decision, he flies in the face of those who advise him otherwise. He may not like to be reminded of his decision, but he made it—[Interruption.]

Order. I cannot have hon. Members and, for that matter, right hon. Members shouting across the Chamber.

It is odd, is it not, that for 19 months—

Does my hon. Friend agree that the Health and Safety Commission is an independent safety commission? Is it not extraordinary that the Deputy Prime Minister should ignore its viewpoint?

It is not only extraordinary but astounding.

It is odd, is it not, that for 19 months it seemed impossible for the Government to reach any firm view other than to continue calls for further reviews. Suddenly, following the disaster, it seems that a decision can be reached in a few days—even hours—even though that view flies in the face of those independent people who told the Deputy Prime Minister:

"any decision … should be taken in the light of a wider and more formal sounding of views in the industry."

We will answer and respond to many detailed questions in the debate or by letter if they need to be answered. The hon. Gentleman asks when I was concerned about signals passed on red. Yes, I was—not just now, but last year. I ordered the Health and Safety Executive to bring in an automatic train protection system, which the previous Government had put off because they said that they could not afford it.

That is not exactly what the right hon. Gentleman has been saying, but perhaps he is now telling us that he took action in August when he had those figures. We would be delighted to hear this evening what action he took this August when he realised that serious incidents had increased by 25 per cent. It seems tragic that it took a rail disaster to force sufficient attention to be paid to the issue, which had been flagged up 19 months before in the Select Committee report.

During those 19 months, great priority was given to the decisions that were required to deal with the Railways Bill, as well as discussions about punctuality, performance and investment levels. That certainly occupied Ministers and officials. During that time, was equal attention given, and by whom, to the serious questions about safety that had been so blatantly flagged up by the Select Committee—the August figures, the HSE report of September and now the Tansley interim report? What was going on in the Department during August and September?

As the Deputy Prime Minister seems so keen to rise to his feet, perhaps he will tell the House at which point he had a meeting to discuss the rise in SPAD figures, about which he would have received notice in August.

Railtrack's role has borne and will continue to bear considerable scrutiny, but others must bear responsibility as well. We now know that both the Health and Safety Commission and Ministers have long been aware of the dangers courted. We need to know, and the public have a right to know, what action the Department and Ministers were taking during the summer when those figures dramatically changed.

The calls for freedom of information have been much heralded by this Government and yet they have been remarkably secretive about information on some aspects of Railtrack. The Government have been conducting negotiations with Railtrack to award it a contract to run a number of London's tube lines. Yet when pressed on the conditions and terms of that contract, the Deputy Prime Minister refuses to make the information public or to put the contract out to tender. Whatever the merits of the case, what is surely clear now is that the Government have a duty to make all that information publicly available—information on Railtrack, including the secret deals that the Deputy Prime Minister has been conducting regarding the future of London Underground.

Was the hon. Gentleman aware, when the Conservative Government were in control of our railways, that employees in the industry were afraid to speak up about safety concerns because they were afraid of losing their jobs and of being disciplined in an era of job insecurity? During that time, that Government did nothing to allow those people to speak out about their safety concerns in the industry.

That is an important point because part of the culture of British Rail was that it was difficult to speak up and there is still a culture in which it is difficult to do so. We welcome the fact that people are speaking up and revealing malpractice—of course, that is right. Whatever the merits of the case, one person we want to speak up is the Deputy Prime Minister. We want him to tell the House and to publish the terms and conditions under which Railtrack will be given the underground lines. I am sure that the hon. Gentleman will agree that the interests of the House and the country would be better served if the Deputy Prime Minister did not conduct those negotiations in secret, but published the details.

Confidence in transport safety needs to be restored, but it will not be in a climate of secrecy. A culture of safety rather than one of blame, requires—

Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

No, I am about to finish. Such a culture requires the Government to be wholly transparent in their dealings with Railtrack and other transport companies. If, as is true of their dealings with the overground, the Government are transparent about the underground, the public will be reassured. Perhaps tonight the Deputy Prime Minister, who seems so keen to intervene from a sedentary position, will agree to publish that information and allow all the public to see his plans for the underground and his secret deals with Railtrack.

8.19 pm

I must declare an interest as a member of the National Union of Rail, Maritime and Transport Workers, and someone who spent his working life in the railway industry. I am also a director of a National Express subsidiary, which is exclusively a bus company.

I congratulate the hon. Member for Bath (Mr. Foster) on the way in which he introduced the debate. He did it non-controversially and briefly, for which we are grateful in such a short debate. I welcome my hon. Friend the Member for Streatham (Mr. Hill) to the Dispatch Box. I always thought that I was his mentor, but he has given that job to my hon. Friend the Member for Crewe and Nantwich (Mrs. Dunwoody)—[Interruption.] Whichever one of us is responsible, we have done a pretty good job, given his performance tonight. He was both lucid and informative, and I am sure that the House looks forward to hearing from him again.

I am afraid that my congratulations end there. This is the second time that I have heard the hon. Member for Witney (Mr. Woodward) speak in recent weeks. He and I addressed a meeting of the Railway Development Society a few Saturdays ago here in London. He demonstrated on that occasion the same weakness that he has demonstrated tonight. If one turns up with a pre-prepared speech, it is a bit hard to ad lib. At that meeting, he accused me of saying various things that I had not said because they were on his brief. Tonight he accused the Government of various things that they had not done because they were on his brief.

How would it be possible to conduct negotiations with Railtrack about the future of the London underground—not that this has very much to do with transport safety—in the full glare of publicity? I do not think that the hon. Gentleman knows very much, given his track record, but I presume that he knows enough about business to be aware that a certain confidentiality must be observed. To accuse my right hon. Friend the Deputy Prime Minister in the way that he did was deplorable—it suggests that the person who prepared his brief does not know any more about business than he does.

As for the other accusation that the hon. Gentleman made, I find myself, like my hon. Friend the Member for Crewe and Nantwich, confused. I am not sure whether he was complaining that my right hon. Friend had spent all the time since the preliminary report first appeared in spring last year not doing anything or that he acted precipitately in making his decision post-Paddington. He did not make clear which of the two things he was complaining about, but perhaps that is not surprising given the confusion of his speech.

The hon. Gentleman mentioned signals passed at danger. He was right to point out that such incidents had increased in the past 12 months. It is fair to point out that the number of trains on Britain's railways increased by about 1,000 a day in the past 12 months. Given those circumstances, perhaps it is not surprising that the number of SPADs has increased.

The hon. Gentleman is complacent.

I am accused of complacency by the sidekick of the hon. Member for Witney. He is another one I would not trust to wind up a Hornby 00 on the nursery floor. The number of SPADs has always been fairly high. The difference between the old days and the present day is that they are impossible to conceal. Present day signalling sensors produce their version of a black box so if a driver passes a signal by a few yards, it is automatically recorded.

In the days of oil lamps and steam locomotives, we kept these things quiet to avoid reporting each other. Those days are now gone, perhaps happily, and the vast majority of SPADs are comparatively insignificant matters, although the ones to which the hon. Gentleman tried to draw the House's attention may well merit further investigation. SPADs ought to be seen in the context of the number of train miles. The appalling tragedy at Paddington ought to be seen in the context of other modes of transport. We are rightly horrified by what took place at Ladbroke Grove junction, but two and a half Paddingtons take place on our roads every week of the year in terms of fatalities, largely without the hysteria—I choose my words carefully—that greeted the latest accident.

I know that it is not a fashionable thing to say, but I shall risk saying it. I hope that I do not get too much odium for it. The final responsibility for driving a train lies with the driver. Drivers at Paddington, Southall or Lewes do not suddenly come on red lights, whether they are concealed by overhead gantries or whatever. Drivers get a preliminary caution and a caution signal beforehand, both of which must be acknowledged, as must the approach to the red light. Sadly, both the drivers at Paddington paid the ultimate price for whatever went wrong. It appears that the driver of the Thames turbo passed a signal at danger. The fact is that we pay drivers to drive trains.

I took part in various radio programmes following the Paddington accident. One or two former drivers who called in said that they wondered how the present crop of drivers would have handled trains into and out of Paddington in the old days when they were signalled by oil lamps and automatic train control on the Great Western trains. Great Western was more advanced than any of the other train companies. It was operated only on semaphore distance signals. The general view expressed on the radio was that the problem with driving trains today is that it can be seen to be too easy. People become complacent because they sit in the warm environment of a cab pressing the automatic warning system cancellation button in built-up areas all too frequently. Eventually, the inherent weakness of AWS is demonstrated. Drivers press the button approaching a red light, having pressed it passing cautionary signals, whether double yellow or yellow.

The answer is not to rush into spending £1 billion on the advanced form of automatic train protection. The time to spend that money was after the Clapham disaster in 1988. Railway safety and signalling structures and safety measures have moved on since then.

The hon. Member for Witney demonstrated the unfitness of the Conservative party to be in opposition, let alone in government. The Conservatives criticise the Government for what they term their tardy reaction to the Select Committee report. Let me remind the House that my right hon. Friend the Deputy Prime Minister and I were the Opposition transport spokespersons after Clapham in 1988 when Cecil Parkinson, as he then was, pledged as Transport Secretary that £1 billion would be spent and ATP would be provided throughout Britain's railways.

I cannot remember the number of Transport Secretaries between 1988 and 1997.

Seven.

They came along more frequently than some of the trains did in those days, as my hon. Friend reminds me. The pledge so publicly given in 1988 was never implemented by the Conservative party.

Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

Although the hon. Gentleman refused to give way to me, I will demonstrate that I am a little more mature by giving way to him.

I am extremely grateful to the hon. Gentleman for giving way; he has demonstrated his maturity in spades by doing so. I draw to his attention the remarks made by the Labour Minister for Transport in another place. He said on only 6 October this year:

"to be fair to the previous administration, they weren't able to take action on introducing new systems because other alternatives weren't available."

Does he disagree with the Minister?

The hon. Gentleman quotes out of context. He makes a clever public school debating point that has no relevance to what took place between 1988 and 1997. That pledge was given publicly and never implemented. There may well be good reasons why it should not be implemented now. I have tried to explain some of them.

Railway signalling and safety practice has moved on considerably since 1988. The hon. Gentleman shakes his head, but let me tell him that on the west coast main line, when it is ever modernised—someone said that in a good week its modernisation is announced twice and there is a press conference to follow—ATP will not be of any value. For much of the line, the visual signals will presumably be removed. We will have the continental system of signalling in which the maximum speed for that stretch will be shown to the driver, and if he exceeds it, the brakes will come on automatically. But that is not ATP; we have moved on from there.

I hope that Sir David Davies will not seriously say that we should spend £1 billion on yesterday's technology, given the changes that are likely to transform railway signalling practice in the years to come.

Is my hon. Friend aware that TCS, the continental train control system to which he referred, is part of the contract for the updating of the west coast main line?

I am sure that that is the case. Tilting trains will not work to their proper capability without it. In the meantime, we cannot go on, year after year and, in some cases, month after month, having drivers pass signals at danger.

I do not want to prejudge the results of the inquiry into the Lewes accident, but it appears that a driver set off from a platform against a signal at red. That is a pretty common phenomenon in recent years. Mr. Stanley Hall, who was British Rail's safety expert, wrote a book about train accidents in recent years. That phenomenon is known as "ding, ding and away". It happens so often that, on much modern railway stock, including, as I understand it, the Connex South Eastern trains which were involved at Lewes, an additional safety system is fitted—a driver's reminder device—which, if the signal controlling the exit from the platform is at danger, should be applied in the cab to remind the driver not to pull away if the station staff give him the proceed indication. If that was the case on this occasion—my information is that it was, but I do not wish to prejudge the inquiry—spending £1 billion on ATP is not much good if drivers are incapable of doing the basic part of their job, which is what that particular case amounts to.

Some of my hon. Friends believe, as the papers did in their hysterical reaction to Paddington, that the disaster was all down to privatisation. There are some aspects of privatisation and railway safety about which the House should be concerned. The number of interfaces between the various people involved in railway safety is far greater than it ever was with a publicly owned railway system, but it is not in the interests of Railtrack or the train operating companies to have rail accidents. To put it bluntly, they are bad for business. They will not wish such situations to arise.

Those of my hon. Friends who believe that the Treasury would have provided ATP—it did not provide it under a Conservative Government from 1988—should take a train up to Manchester. The hon. Member for Witney heard me recount this story at the Railway Development Society meeting. Before they get to Manchester, they will pass through Stockport where they will see a signal box where I used to work nearly 40 years ago. That was supposed to be removed as part of a modernisation scheme, but it is still there.

Let no one be kidded into believing that the Treasury will provide unlimited funds to modernise Britain's railway system. The privatisation argument is over. We must ensure that there are no further Paddingtons which can be attributed to the number of people who have to be consulted before fairly basic and simple changes are made to the railway network. The fact is that the Treasury never provided for railway safety under successive Governments, Labour and Conservative alike. We are where we are today, and we must go forward on the basis of the private operators and Railtrack.

I hold no particular brief for Mr. Gerald Corbett. I am told that he has lots of share options and has made lots of money, but that does not mean that the press should hang him at dawn because two trains collided outside Paddington. Given some of the hysteria in the press against Ministers and Railtrack bosses, it is no wonder that people are inclined to keep their heads down when anything goes wrong if that is the way in which the press conducts itself following a tragedy on the scale of the one we saw two weeks ago.

My final word concerns my right hon. Friend the Deputy Prime Minister. In the years that we spent working together, I probably fell out with him more often than any other hon. Member, but I never lost my admiration for the fact that his concern for the railway and for transport safety generally was always paramount. I am confident that the decisions that he has taken so far during his term of office and the decisions that he will take in the years to come will give us a better railway system, something that all three parties represented in the House tonight should want. But, listening to what is laughably called the official Opposition, I sometimes wonder exactly what sort of railway they want and exactly who they want to blame for tragedies such as the one that we are discussing tonight.

8.34 pm

I start by commiserating with those of my constituents who were in any way involved in the Paddington crash and also with its victims. We hope that they will make a speedy recovery and that everything possible is done to ensure that our railways are safer in the future. That involves some short-term and some long-term measures, but before I go into those I want to nail one or two misconceptions. It is utter nonsense to say that somehow the safety of the railways has been prejudiced by privatisation. It is also utter nonsense to say that the safety of the railways was in any way prejudiced by the current health and safety regime.

In the short term, it is odd that one of the country's leading signal experts should say that there are still signals at Paddington that are partly or totally obscured by metal girders. Such problems should be put right tomorrow, not next week, next month or next year. Some measures could be put in place immediately. It is completely wrong that each year there are 52 serious incidents, one a week, of drivers passing red signals—SPADs. That requires immediate tough action. There should be a proper investigation of every SPAD incident. All drivers involved in such incidents should be properly accountable for them and should be properly trained so that they do not take them as lightly as they have done in the past.

Another common misconception is that somehow the previous Government did not introduce the proper train protection and warning systems, or the ATP system. [Interruption.] It is all very well Labour Members saying that they did not do it, but the ATP system was fitted to this particular train and it is thought to have been on—that will be confirmed by the current investigation—so it does not seem to be the system that was at fault.

Before rushing to conclusions, we should consider the Tansley report, paragraph 46 of which states:

"We therefore think it important that any decision on the way forward should be taken in the light of a wider and more formal sounding of views in the industry".

Those are the short-term measures that should be taken. Meanwhile, apart from the measures that I have outlined, the Government are rightly speeding up the introduction of the train protection and warning system. I welcome that, but it will take four or five years to introduce, so short-term measures must be taken now.

One particular aspect of the Tansley report which has not been referred to this evening, but is worth looking at, relates to the further report of the Select Committee of 9 December last year. Referring to the Health and Safety at Work, etc. Act 1974, it said:

"In common with all areas of commercial endeavour, the prime responsibility for ensuring safety on the railway must rest with the party who is in control of the activity."

Therefore, whatever the Government do to alter responsibility for ensuring safety standards, safety as such will always be a matter for those involved, and that will be either Railtrack or the train operating companies. We cannot take away that responsibility. The question then is who should set the standards—the British Standards Institute or the Health and Safety Executive—and who should ensure that they are met. One aspect of that must be the proper training and supervision of the drivers. That is a short-term measure that could be taken immediately.

Tonight we have heard a lot about railways, but the Liberal Democrats' motion is wide, so I want now to deal with the possible sale of National Air Traffic Services. I do not care whether the Government call it a public-private partnership or whatever; I shall be delighted if they bring new badly needed investment into Britain's air traffic control system. It is a highly complex matter which needs new investment. Our already hugely overcrowded sky needs the most advanced information technology systems available. In that respect, the sky over Heathrow is, at certain times of the day, and even with the most sophisticated IT systems available, too overcrowded. I urge the Minister to develop a better regional airport structure. There is no reason why we should not make better use of regional airports. Birmingham, for example, is under-utilised at present. In any event, I welcome the Government's proposals to bring badly needed private investment to the air traffic control system.

Mention has been made tonight of road safety. Although the number of deaths on our roads has fallen dramatically—as the Minister has confirmed—2,421 deaths is still too many. The Minister is nodding; that point is, and should be, uncontroversial between us, but the Government propose to cut the road building programme to shreds. We will not get rid of cars and motorists by cutting the road building programme and it will not improve road safety.

The key aspect of improving road safety is maintenance and I wish to point out to the hon. Gentleman that the Government have put an extra £400 million into road maintenance.

Yes, that is part of the solution, but some severe accident black spots still require capital investment. I am grateful for the Minister's intervention because it makes my point. The A417/419 runs through my constituency. It is an arterial road that forms a strategic link between the M4 and the M5 and is a modern dual carriageway that has been upgraded so that one can drive from Sicily to the north of Scotland. However, on one small stretch of the road—the Nettleton Bottom link—in my constituency, the dual carriageway is missing and fatalities have already occurred in that area. The Government say that they cannot afford capital programmes, but how many more fatalities will my constituents have to suffer? How much more misery and congestion will my constituents suffer from the motorists who are funnelled in from every direction to that strategic chicane?

We must get our priorities in order. A senior official from the Highways Agency described that stretch of road as one of the worst bottlenecks in the country. Every fatality on our roads costs £1 million, with the inquest and other procedures. How many more fatalities must we have on that road, with the grief and misery caused by every serious accident? An accident is waiting to happen, because the pub at the bottom of the worst bit of the road holds public functions. It needs only another lorry to shunt a car into that pub and many fatalities will result.

I see the Minister nodding again, and I will write to him on the issue. Last week, we had a public meeting in the village hall, which was full; and people even stood outside to listen at the window. It is a serious issue for my constituency and for the nation, because that road links the north and the south, and London to the midlands because it cuts off the Bristol link. I appeal to Ministers not to slash the roads programme. Instead, roads should be improved to make them safer for motorists—who should not be penalised by severe petrol and diesel increases either; they simply make life a misery for those in rural areas.

Another aspect of transport safety affects schools and schoolchildren. Accidents happen every day involving schoolchildren crossing busy roads, with too many cars driven by a single adult coming to drop off and pick up children. That is environmental nonsense. I wish to suggest to the Minister and to the Deputy Prime Minister, if only he were listening instead of talking, a good scheme that was pioneered in my constituency 15 years ago. The dial-a-ride bus is a good model for the rest of the country. [Interruption.] I wish that the Deputy Prime Minister would listen to what I am saying about a sensible system that works, instead of muttering. A group of mothers could dial up the bus instead of all driving their cars singly. [Interruption.] The Deputy Prime Minister sighs, but I do not know why he is making such a fuss about the suggestion.

The scheme has been going for 25 years.

That may be true, but it is a good system and should be extended elsewhere. If the Deputy Prime Minister would provide more than the paltry amount he has allocated for rural buses, perhaps it could be extended. It could reduce school accidents and it would be beneficial for the environment. The Government could do far more for road safety.

8.45 pm

I thank the Liberal Democrat party for devoting its valuable parliamentary time to debating the increasingly important subject of transport safety. My brief contribution will be mainly about the future of safety on our rail network, and I make no apology for narrowing the debate to that issue. We railway enthusiasts must repeat, wherever and whenever possible, that rail is still the safest way to carry people or freight from point A to point B.

When the driver of a local train went through a red signal near Ladbroke Grove junction on 5 October, 30 people were killed and 245 injured in the carnage that ensued. That was bad enough, but the tragedy may have caused thousands of people to move back to using their cars due to services terminating at Ealing Broadway, and the ripples of anxiety extend well beyond the Thames valley. When commuters resort to their cars for travel, their chances of suffering death or injury are 15 times greater.

I therefore welcome wholeheartedly the actions of my right hon. Friend the Deputy Prime Minister. He has speedily put in place a thorough investigation of what went so terribly wrong that fateful morning two weeks ago. He is also determined to put matters right and, where necessary, to make available the money needed for essential improvements to the system. Lord Cullen is to look into the precise causes of the Paddington disaster. His inquiry will go much wider, and examine the safety of our rail network in general. It will also consider whether the privatised industry has the correct safety structure.

It was such a very great pity that the previous Government were so keen to sell off British Rail on the cheap that, through British Rail and Railtrack, they invested £548 million of taxpayer's money in the hiring of accountants, barristers and City experts to promote the sale. I believe that that money could have been invested in the promotion of safety on our railways, possibly through the installation of train protection and warning systems throughout the network.

Sir David Davies, the president of the Royal Academy of Engineering, has been asked to assess the efficiency and costs of train protection systems, so that the Government can formulate an action plan to reduce the incidence of signals passed at danger. By that means, it is hoped that future disasters will be avoided.

Apparently, the interim report from the chief inspector of railways, compiled immediately after the Ladbroke Grove crash, suggests that it could have been prevented had the train protection and warning system been installed and functioning, both on the track and on the Thames train.

Does my hon. Friend agree that it is important that Sir David Davies bases his conclusions on engineering factors, rather than on financial considerations? As he is acknowledged to be an expert in engineering, will not his conclusions show whether it is sensible to go forward with TPWS, or some alternative system?

Yes, I agree with my hon. Friend. Clearly, the matter of cost will have to be considered, but that should be of negligible importance in comparison with considerations of railway safety.

The three enforcement notices that have been issued by the railways inspectorate are welcome, if somewhat belated. One prohibits the use of signal 109 at Paddington; the second requires Railtrack to introduce, within the next three weeks, additional controls at the 21 other signals passed at danger most frequently. The third will reduce risk at all remaining signals with a recent record of being passed at danger.

The Government's policy of getting people out of their cars and on to trains—or buses for short journeys—and of encouraging the movement of goods by rail freight rather than by heavy lorry has my full support, as I believe that it will prevent injuries and loss of life and improve the environment. However, to achieve those changes, passengers and the movers of goods must have confidence that the alternatives being promoted are cheap, reliable and safe.

If any of those three essential elements are lacking, our battle for the hearts and minds of commuters, families on the move and manufacturing industry will be lost, and the carnage of Ladbroke Grove will be repeated time and again on our roads. There may not be the same visual impact but, every day, families will be bereaved and individuals terribly injured. There must be a severe conflict of interest when an organisation is under pressure from shareholders to make profits and yet also has a duty of care for the safety of its passengers. I trust that the measures already announced and the advent of the Strategic Rail Authority will remove the possibility of such a conflict. I also hope that the Government will reconsider—even now—their commitment to the privatisation of national air traffic control in the light of the Paddington tragedy.

Will the hon. Lady give way?

I am sorry, but I have finished.

8.50 pm

Like all hon. Members I want to offer my condolences to all those involved in the Paddington rail crash. I was shocked to hear of the crash: just two years after Southall, we were once again faced with a crash that would bring the safety of our railways into question. What dismayed me most was that the tragedy in Watford in 1996 seemed not even to have been taken into account, given what happened at Southall and Paddington. I have been further disappointed by the debate tonight; in all the speeches that I have heard about reports, about signals passed at danger—SPADs—and about safety, there has been not one mention of HM railway inspectorate's report into the Watford accident, a report that makes fascinating reading.

I was working in the constituency when that crash occurred, and I called for a public inquiry. I do not repeat that call; I am well aware that it is no longer realistic. However, I hope that the recommendations made in the Watford report and the circumstances of the Watford crash in August 1996 will be taken into account. I have made representations to the chairman of the Southall inquiry, and I hope that the report will be taken into account in the Paddington inquiry. Any recommendations made after Paddington and Southall should be tested against the circumstances of the Watford crash.

From what we know so far about Paddington, the similarities between that crash and the one in Watford are striking. People whose knowledge is much greater than mine suggest that those similarities are greater than the similarities between Paddington and Southall. Paddington and Watford had in common multiple SPADs—judging from the speculation that we have heard so far about Paddington. On 8 August 1996, a driver passed a red signal on the route from Euston to Crewe. The signal had been passed at danger several times. The crash resulted in the death of one person and injuries to 68 more. How must my constituents and the families of those who were involved in that crash feel about the fact that the subsequent recommendations of the inquiry report have not been acted on?

The report was published in April 1998, and I refer hon. Members—particularly my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for the Environment, Transport and the Regions—to its recommendations. One of the issues regarding SPADs was that the British Railways Board group standard was superseded in March 1995 by the Railtrack group standard, which clarified certain duties and obligations that Railtrack and train operators were meant to put in place. That became effective in April 1995.

One of the key changes was a requirement that Railtrack should convene signal siting committees wherever a signal had been passed at danger more than once in 12 months or three or more times in a three-year period. Those circumstances certainly applied in the case of the Watford crash.

I want my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State to question whether a signal siting committee was in operation in respect of the Paddington crash and whether previous SPADs reported at that junction had led to the convening of a signal siting committee. If they had, the committee might well have found that the signal was not easily seen by drivers. That was one of the issues that came out of the Watford crash. The report recommended that Railtrack should review its procedures to ensure compliance with its own group standard in respect of the convening of signal siting committees. It was further recommended that the standard itself be reviewed so that following multiple SPAD incidents at any given signal, the SSC could assess all risk factors that could contribute to a SPAD incident. Had that happened after previous SPADs, we might not have got into the situation we now face with Paddington. I cannot overstress my disappointment that the recommendations following the Watford crash do not appear to have been implemented by Railtrack yet.

I want to draw attention to other issues relating to the Watford crash. It was recommended that train drivers who repeatedly passed SPADs should have special training from the train operating company. I would be interested to learn whether my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State believes that that policy has been adopted by the TOCs since the recommendations were produced.

Her Majesty's inspectorate recommended that the TOCs audit their SPAD management systems to ensure that driving briefings are effective and that signal issues that concern drivers are pursued vigorously with Railtrack to provide satisfactory solutions. Over the past two weeks, several train drivers have said in the media that they have repeatedly reported signals that are difficult to see and where there are continual problems. I am concerned that, yet again, a recommendation that came out of the Watford crash that may well have prevented the Paddington crash has not been implemented. I would be interested to hear my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State's views on that.

This is a serious issue for my constituents. They faced the problems of the Watford rail crash and saw the deaths at the Southall and Paddington crashes. They wonder how many times this has to happen. How many reports, how many inquiries, how many different recommendations do we have to hear before something is done? I know that my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State has been working hard on these issues but I would like a specific answer on this report. If he cannot provide it to the House in his reply, I would like to hear from him in writing. Like most hon. Members, I will have to respond to my constituents, who are concerned that despite the crash in Watford, there are several similarities with the Paddington rail crash that have not yet been dealt with and recommendations that have not been implemented.

Of course, other issues are raised by the Watford rail crash and the report—especially the fact that nobody has been blamed for the crash. The driver was prosecuted and acquitted, but nobody—Railtrack or the train operating companies—has been called to account. The inspectorate made several recommendations, some of which have been implemented by Railtrack and the train operating companies. However, at the end of the day, no one has been held to account for the 68 people who were injured and the one woman who died in that accident.

I want to raise some wider safety issues with my right hon. Friend. During the past two weeks, we have heard much about whether Railtrack should continue to be responsible for safety. Railtrack cannot remain responsible for controlling all safety matters. As a result of the crash, public confidence in Railtrack is low.

I want to make one point about where that responsibility should lie. It has been suggested that it should go to the Health and Safety Executive. I have some concern about that possibility. As we know, even if the HSE were responsible for setting those new safety standards, it would, through the railways inspectorate, investigate the circumstances of a crash. In the event that the safety standards were not fulfilled, the organisation that set them would end up investigating itself. Will my right hon. Friend carefully take that point on board?

So much blame is put on individuals—whether they are train drivers or company management. People who have been involved in crashes want to know two things: what happened and why it happened. Most important, they want to know that it will not happen again. We can blame a range of people—Railtrack or drivers—but we must all work together to ensure that these types of tragedy do not happen again.

I want to raise with my right hon. Friend the safety of our railway tracks and of our trains generally. On Saturday, I was on a train from my constituency to Manchester—unfortunately following Watford football club on its trek to Manchester United and the rather disastrous turn it took there. On the trip to Manchester, the Virgin train was subject to an attack by some mindless idiots who threw something from a bridge, hitting the power cables of the train. In the light of the Paddington rail crash—we did not yet know of the crash in Lewes—hon. Members can imagine the fear that struck the passengers when they heard an almighty crash on the roof of the carriage and one of the power cables smashed into the glass on the side of the carriage.

Unfortunately, we were stranded six miles from Nuneaton for an hour and a half while we waited for a diesel engine to take the train to Nuneaton before we could regain some power. Of course, the people travelling on that train automatically thought about what had happened two weeks before. However, in relation to safety, I am also concerned as to how we secure our lines and trains from those mindless idiots who throw things from bridges. Unfortunately, that is becoming all too common an occurrence—objects thrown at trains or on to railway lines that could derail trains, or the general access to tracks by children in school holidays, who put their own lives at risk as well as those of train travellers. I have written to my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for the Environment, Transport and the Regions on that subject. I urge him and other hon. Members to consider ways in which we can improve security along our railway tracks, for the sake of all concerned.

9.5 pm

I shall confine myself to asking two brief questions of Ministers, the first of which relates to the public-private partnership for London Underground. One of the main criticisms of rail privatisation is that the proliferation of companies involved in providing rail services has led to, for example, communication problems, the culture of blame mentioned several times tonight and to insufficient investment by Railtrack in the rail network. How will the Government ensure that the same communication problems and culture of blame will not arise in an underground system that is split into three separate companies plus one company running the train services, with Railtrack a major player in the system?

My second question is about National Air Traffic Services. The Minister stressed repeatedly that safety is paramount and I accept that he believes that that is so, even if many Labour Back Benchers have expressed their concern by signing an early-day motion on the Government's proposals. I seek confirmation that the Government have assessed the impact of NATS' part privatisation in relation to the implementation date for the Swanwick system. The Minister must know that, if that system is further delayed, there will be an impact on safety—there can be no dispute about that.

I want to be reassured that the Government have considered that issue: the Minister must confirm that it will not affect the implementation date and cause it to slip even further. The Deputy Prime Minister has already said that the date has already slipped a long way and I hope that he was not suggesting that it could slip further still. All I seek tonight is reassurance on those two key questions.

9.7 pm

I am grateful to have the opportunity to speak on an issue that is of great immediate concern following the tragedy of the Paddington rail crash.

The Under-Secretary of State for the Environment, Transport and the Regions, my hon. Friend the Member for Streatham (Mr. Hill), whom I congratulate on his appointment, set out several of the initiatives that the Government are taking to ensure that the highest safety standards are adopted throughout our rail system. We are doing as much as possible to prevent similar accidents from occurring.

There is no doubt that most people living in our modern society expect to be able to travel quickly, easily and safely. There are far greater demands on our transport system than ever before and our economy and businesses depend on good, safe transport to succeed. The development of that transport system has brought greater mobility for individuals, but it carries inherent dangers. Other speakers have referred to the need to improve safety in the rail industry, but, as the hon. Member for Bath (Mr. Foster) and my hon. Friend the Minister have said, it is also important to consider what we can do to improve road safety.

I remind the House of some of the statistics on road fatalities. Each year 3,500 people are killed and 150,000 people are injured on our roads. It is not only the cost in terms of human tragedy that could have been avoided; those accidents cost about £11.5 billion in real terms—money that could be saved if we did more to prevent them.

We all welcome the decrease in road accidents in recent years. We now have the lowest rate of road deaths among the main industrialised nations, and that is most welcome, but we must constantly try to find out what we can do to bring those figures down even further.

No doubt reducing speeding could play a vital part in improving safety on our roads, and I welcome the fact that, as the Minister said earlier, the Government are reviewing their speed policy. I know from my constituency experience how strongly people feel about reducing speed limits in residential areas. I am sure that all Members here will have been to meetings at which their constituents complain constantly about the danger to their children caused by speeding in residential areas and outside schools, which causes enormous problems and makes parents worried about their children's safety. The hon. Member for Cotswold (Mr. Clifton-Brown) mentioned that subject.

The Minister said that the Government had recently given local authorities the power to introduce 20 mph zones without having to seek the consent of the Secretary of State. That is welcome, especially because a recent Transport Research Laboratory study showed that the average number of accidents in areas in which 20 mph zones had been introduced had been cut by 60 per cent., and the number of accidents involving child pedestrians and cyclists had fallen by 67 per cent.

The Royal Society for the Prevention of Accidents has estimated that inappropriate speed is a factor in about one third of road accidents, which cause 1,200 deaths a year. We know that the severity of accidents, too, is linked to speed. Five per cent. of pedestrians hit by a vehicle at 20 mph will die, whereas if the vehicle is travelling at 30 mph the proportion of deaths increases to 45 per cent.; 85 per cent. of people hit by a vehicle at 40 mph will die.

The powers granted to local authorities could play a vital part in reducing accidents. Will the Minister tell the House to what extent local authorities are taking up the new powers, and whether there is anything else that he could do, perhaps by encouraging councils to exchange best practice in setting up 20 mph zones? I know from my discussions with local authorities that they would like guidance from the Department about where such zones have been set up to the best effect. They would also like to know whether the Government intend to set targets for local authorities, and monitor the effectiveness of the zones and the reduction in accidents that may result.

Does my hon. Friend agree that there could be a programme to educate motorway drivers, including those who crawl along in the middle lane and cause bottlenecks, accidents and deaths? Would not that, too, bring about an overall cost saving?

I absolutely agree with my hon. Friend. That needs to be considered, and I hope that the Government will include such a programme in their forthcoming safety review.

I now wish to refer to funding for speed cameras. A report by the police research group reveals that serious accidents decrease by 28 per cent. where speed cameras are sited. There are now about 2,000 speed camera sites throughout Britain, but the cost of installing and maintaining them means that some police forces will have perhaps only one in eight of the devices working at any one time. Drivers then begin to realise that if they speed past cameras they are unlikely to be fined or otherwise penalised, which is clearly unsatisfactory.

The police and local authorities have asked the Government to allow them to use a percentage of the money raised from fixed penalty motoring fines or to impose on the fine an additional charge to pay for the cameras. That money could then be diverted to police forces and local authorities to assist them with the cost of installing and maintaining speed cameras. The Government said in their transport White Paper that they were reviewing the funding arrangements for speed cameras. Will the Minister assure me that his Department is pressing for such hypothecation so that the revenue from fines can be returned to the agencies that maintain and install the cameras?

I take this opportunity to address transport safety for blind and partially sighted people. I recently met representatives from the Royal National Institute for the Blind who raised the issue of train travel. It is hard for those of us who do not have sight problems to imagine how difficult it must be for blind and partially sighted people to access public transport, particularly for train travel. The Government should consider the RNIB's suggestion of having announcements on trains about, for example, which side of the train the platform is on, particularly in areas where the old slam-door carriages are used. Announcements could be made also when there is a large gap between the train and the platform, as on the London underground, where there is a "mind the gap" announcement. That would greatly assist blind and partially sighted people and would have the added benefit of encouraging more of them to use public transport.

Does the hon. Lady agree that one of the key problems is the need to ensure that train operating companies—in my constituency, Connex South Eastern—provide the escort service that they say they will provide to blind and partially sighted passengers? That service would escort passengers from the station to the train and from their destination station to a taxi rank or bus station.

The hon. Gentleman is absolutely right. That was another point made by the RNIB. The key is to ensure that there is consistency. The greatest problem is that one company may offer a good service to help passengers off the train and to a taxi or bus or to help them with their luggage, but passengers cannot rely on that help throughout the system, so they cannot have the confidence to make the journey. I hope that my hon. Friends will consider the RNIB's suggestions, because it would be to the advantage of us all to ensure that rail travel was made easier.

I know that the Government are giving the highest priority to improving transport safety, and I very much agree with the remarks of my hon. Friend the Member for West Bromwich, East (Mr. Snape) about the personal commitment of the Deputy Prime Minister to doing so. Especially important has been the setting up of the comprehensive transport safety review, mentioned in the Government amendment. However, I hope that Ministers will consider some of the issues that I have raised tonight, so that we may make travel safer and reduce the misery of the deaths and accidents that have afflicted so many people in this country.

9.21 pm

I shall not speak for long, but I thought that, as an ex-railway person and ex-chairman of an airport, some titbits of my personal knowledge might help the debate.

I shall start by trying to put things in context. It is important to recognise that in almost every mode of transport—bus, rail, aviation or the car—safety has improved significantly, not only in the two years since the Government came to office, but since 1987. That improvement cannot be attributed to any one Government. I believe that it results from the fact that people have become more safety-conscious in many respects, and from new technology.

We should always aim to make things safer. When I worked for British Railways, there was what was called the failsafe culture. It was drummed into everyone that safety was the most important thing, which must be kept at the back of one's mind—not timetables or profits, only safety.

Everything had a back-up. Then we had the automatic warning system and the dead man's handle. Now that automatic train protection and the train protection and warning system are being introduced, we should not think of any of those things as exclusive. We should not suppose that any single thing will make trains safe, because it will not. The automatic warning system never made trains completely safe. What was called the dead man's handle—it was actually a foot pedal—never made trains safe although it was supposed to. None of the systems that are to be introduced will ever make trains completely safe.

It is a tragic fact that almost all the changes that have made railways safer have resulted from a major disaster.

I do not disagree with anything that the hon. Gentleman has said, but does he agree with his hon. Friend the Member for West Bromwich, East (Mr. Snape), for whose expertise on transport matters I have great respect, who rightly said that it would be pointless for any organisation—public, private or a mixture—to spend a large amount of money on any system unless and until it was proved that that system would certainly work?

No system will work 100 per cent., and it is a false economy to decide not to introduce a system because it would prevent only two thirds of accidents. My hon. Friend the Member for West Bromwich, East is correct; there will always be driver injuries and unforeseen circumstances. Even when we have ATP, there will be a way to isolate that system on every train. It is impossible to have ATP without a way of isolating it. Otherwise, if the system goes wrong, the engine is effectively stranded. If that happens on a main line, an accident will be waiting to happen. It is necessary to get trains off the line if a safety system has failed.

Individual drivers or signalmen will always make mistakes, but that should not rule out the introduction of safety measures. Indeed, we should bring them in as quickly as possible. I congratulate my right hon. Friend the Deputy Prime Minister in that respect. We do not need a crystal ball, because the record book sets out what has happened. In 1997, my right hon. Friend was calling for the Health and Safety Commission to produce proposals on rail safety. In March 1998, the Government were asking the HSC to accelerate its review of Railtrack' s role in the setting of safety standards. I think that it was in July 1998 that my right hon. Friend signed the orders that will allow mark I stock with slamming doors to be dealt with, and the train protection and warning system to be introduced as soon as possible; I think decisions on those matters were brought forward by two years. We shall have none of the mark I stock in use after 2003. Similarly, TPWS will be in place by 2003.

It should be understood that TPWS is not perfect. It will not always be the answer to eliminating disasters. However, if we are to believe the technical advice that my right hon. Friend the Deputy Prime Minister has been given, TPWS could prevent about two thirds of signals passed at danger incidents, which will mean a significant decrease in the number of rail accidents.

I congratulate my right hon. Friend on taking a decision on TPWS. However, it should not stop us examining even more advanced train protection systems. New systems will come on to the market but they will take longer to develop than TPWS. We cannot wait for those systems to be developed. Instead, we must act now and introduce available protection systems. We must then try to ensure that more advanced systems are introduced as they are developed, and as it becomes apparent that they will work. Clearly we do not want to spend public money on things that do not work.

The Government's record on the railways has been exemplary. I am merely stating a fact and not trying to curry favour with my right hon. Friend the Deputy Prime Minister. However, it would be nice to see a smile from him every now and again.

There are other important issues apart from rail safety. We must recognise that the number of people killed on our roads is still significantly higher than we would like it to be. As has been said already this evening, there are still more people killed on the roads than in railway or aviation accidents. Our roads are still the most dangerous places in transport terms.

I hope that the Opposition will not try to play political games in terms of the pro-car and anti-car debate. I drive a car and so does my right hon. Friend, although my hon. Friend the Under-Secretary does not. Most of us drive cars and we want to be able to continue using them. However, we must recognise that we cannot continue using our cars as we do at present.

A significant point has been made by the hon. Member for Cotswold (Mr. Clifton-Brown) about people who use their cars to take their children to school. I pass a school every morning on my way to the office in my constituency. If there is going to be an accident, it will be there, outside the school, where cars jockey for position to park right by the school gates. That cannot continue. There are other options, such a dial-a-bus. Some of the alternatives seem daft, but they are feasible. One suggestion is for people to pick up children on the way to school and take a trainload of them to school. All such ideas could help and should not be ruled out.

The real anti-car policy would be to do nothing. It would be bad for the car driver, bad for the pedestrian, bad for my children's lungs and my grandchildren's health—I do not want any of them to suffer because of the pollution being emitted into the air—and bad for the world. Everybody has heard of global warming.

I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for giving way again; it is very kind of him. Will he encourage the Deputy Prime Minister to build roads that make towns and villages safer by building more bypasses to take dangerous trucks, lorries and fast cars out of villages and towns through which they should not pass in the first place? That is what the Deputy Prime Minister should be doing with the transport budget.

I shall not take the simplistic view. Building more roads does not mean that people will be safer. In general, building more roads means that more people will be killed because there will be more cars on the roads, but there are areas where bypasses should be built. In some cases it is common sense to build bypasses to protect small villages and make them safer. If my memory serves me well, the Government built more bypasses in one year than the Conservative Government did in the previous seven, so we shall take no lectures from Opposition Members. We are not against bypasses—but I return to the issue of safety.

We cannot continue the Conservative policies of removing obstacles from roads. In 20 mph zones and where there have been sleeping policemen and other real obstacles that have made drivers physically slow down—not just a sign showing a speed limit of 30 mph—there has been a reduction in the number of children killed.

I am quite happy if Opposition Members have to spend another 10 or 20 minutes, half an hour or even two hours on their journeys if that means that children's lives are safe. I do not want to be party political, but I am pleased that the Opposition are returning to the views of the earlier Conservative Government on transport, rather than the views expressed by their shadow Secretary of State in his paper on transport, which were crazy and a recipe for killing children on our roads.

My final point relates to the argument about the National Air Traffic Services. Much of the argument is fuelled by a misunderstanding about how air safety operates. NATS is not responsible for safety. That is the responsibility of the Civil Aviation Authority. I am quite happy with the suggestion that 46 per cent. of the assets that are currently in NATS should be sold off to the private sector, but control of that body should be retained to ensure that the public interest is protected. The Deputy Prime Minister has given an undertaking that safety will remain with a public body and will not be allowed to go into the private sector.

I think that the same undertaking works for Railtrack. I shall not argue that we should renationalise the railways. Although I have a sneaking fancy to do that at some time—not necessarily in the near future—I recognise that the billions of pounds needed for renationalisation are not available. We can, however, have the same safety measures by ensuring that the safety aspects at present undertaken by Railtrack are carried out by a public body. The same applies to NATS, and we must not confuse the arguments about assets and about safety.

9.35 pm

Transport safety is clearly of great concern to Members of the House and to the country at large. We have discussed a range of air, sea, road and, in particular, rail issues and, very sadly, we have done that in the context of the Ladbroke Grove rail crash. Like many other Members of the House, I extend my condolences to all those who have been directly affected by the crash and the many others who are still injured and suffering as a consequence of it.

The debate has been sombre as well as wide ranging, although the contributions have been extremely encouraging, and the tone in which the majority of it has been conducted is welcomed by Members on the Liberal Democrat Benches. The speeches of the hon. Members for West Bromwich, East (Mr. Snape) and for Nottingham, East (Mr. Heppell), who have detailed knowledge of the rail safety environment, were clearly informed by their own experiences and concentrated on issues that are of real concern to everybody. The hon. Member for Watford (Ms Ward) made an important contribution about the lessons of the Watford rail accident. Many other speeches, including that of the hon. Member for Doncaster, Central (Ms Winterton), broadened the discussion and took in important aspects of the debate on road safety.

The essential principles that we have been discussing, which are at the core of all the debates about and different aspects of transport safety concerns, come back to public safety and the need for us to address it seriously. I agree with the Minister's opening comments, which were supported by the hon. Member for Witney (Mr. Woodward), about the efforts of the many in all the different sectors of our public and private transport systems who dedicate themselves day after day to maintaining public safety and trying to ensure the highest possible standards.

Closely linked to public safety, however, is public confidence, which routinely takes a battering when tragic events such as the Paddington rail crash occur. We have concerns about safety. Regardless of everybody's best efforts to achieve the highest safety standards, we need to ensure, in all circumstances, that there is public confidence. We have to do that in the context of a rapidly changing world in which the need for modern infrastructure—be it for our airlines, for the railway system, on our roads or on the sea—requires adequate and proper investment and funding. Otherwise, we cannot hope for a properly safe, effective and efficient transport system.

At the root of those concerns, many of which have been expressed this evening, is the matter of where the profit motive and concern for safety come into conflict with one another. Many people recognise that it is not necessarily the first desire of companies such as Railtrack and others to have responsibility for setting and policing standards. My hon. Friend the Member for Bath (Mr. Foster) made our party's concerns about the conflict of interest within the way in which Railtrack operates clear at the outset of the debate. We on these Benches do not think that that built-in dilemma and the serious conflicts of interest between the need to generate profit and to establish safety should be maintained.

We welcome the Deputy Prime Minister's comment, which was echoed by his colleague, that he is minded to remove responsibility for safety and setting standards from Railtrack.

However, I should like to reinforce a point that many others have made: although responsibility for setting standards should be removed from Railtrack, we must not develop the notion that Railtrack will have no responsibility for safety. People at all levels, whether they work in the rail service, on airlines, at sea or on the roads, are responsible for safety, and we must develop that culture.

Time and again, we must return to the core issue of funding. The sums discussed ever since the Clapham rail disaster, and many other tragic incidents since, have brought us back to the issue of funding. The Deputy Prime Minister has said on numerous occasions that funding is not an issue, but we need clarity about who will provide that funding. Will it be Railtrack or the train operating companies concerned, or will the Government support developments in safety with further infusions of cash?

We have had a wide-ranging debate and I wish to deal with the issue of the National Air Traffic Services and the dilemma that the Government now face. This is where the need for new infrastructure and the problems of public safety come into sharp contrast. Demands on air services are increasing and new technology is undoubtedly required, but the question of who should fund the expansion then becomes an issue. Is Treasury nervousness about the cost of the new technology driving the whole issue of privatising NATS? The Liberal Democrats have their suspicions, and we have seen little to make us believe otherwise.

Future costs and investment are significant, but the proceeds from the sale of NATS formed a crucial part of earlier Treasury calculations. The most recent calculations and projections, and regular comments from the Government Benches, highlight the fact that the public finances are now in good shape. In the context of a public debate about the future of public safety and other transport issues, it is now time to refocus and reconsider the proposals being put forward.

Few people believe that privatisation, partial or otherwise, of NATS is a good idea. It causes concern to pilots, air traffic controllers and the public. Moreover, despite the Minister's comments about proceeding on a non-partisan basis, I remind him that an early-day motion has been signed by more than 100 of his colleagues, who are very concerned about the proposals. Even today in Prime Minister's questions, the right hon. Member for Edinburgh, East and Musselburgh (Dr. Strang) raised the issue and urged the Government again to ensure that they do not rush ahead before proper consultation has taken place. If the consultation is as thorough as it should be, I believe that the responses will be overwhelming and the privatisation will go no further.

Demands on the service are growing seriously. We have already seen operational problems in Swanwick, which was due to open in 1996 but was delayed due to a catalogue of problems. However, the question must be asked how privatising the service would help that process, not as a result of funding but, much more seriously, because of the distraction that privatisation would cause to senior managers in the service at a critical time of growing air traffic. There are alternatives. The service does not need to be privatised. The Select Committee chaired by the hon. Member for Crewe and Nantwich (Mrs. Dunwoody) proposed some real alternatives, not least the successful Canadian model, where private bond funding has been found. We already know that the cost of the service is recovered from those who use it and we believe that that principle can be extended.

Briefly, on other areas and the sea in particular, Liberal Democrats are greatly concerned that the campaign to preserve coastguard stations, which has been running for many months, has not resulted in a change of Government opinion or approach. Again, public safety is critical to the issue. Surely the safety of seafarers must come first in this debate. Yes, we accept that more has to be done in telecommunications, but closing coastguard stations smacks more of a need to save money and to fund the new technology, rather than to prioritise safety. The National Audit Office said as much in a report in 1997–98. Another report produced by the Transport Sub-Committee pointed out that local knowledge is essential. Coastguard stations and coastguard officers are a fundamental tool in ensuring safety at sea.

This evening, we heard comments about London Underground from my hon. Friend the Member for Carshalton and Wallington (Mr. Brake). There are concerns. At a time when we are highlighting the fact that the fragmentation of the rail system may be a contributory factor in the worsening conditions on our railways—indeed, it is seen that way by most people—the Government are going ahead with plans similarly to fragment London Underground. That is a matter of serious concern. Surely the Government will now reconsider it.

This is an important debate on public safety. Major concerns have been raised on both sides of the House. As the Deputy Prime Minister and the Minister have said on other occasions, it is important that we all look for solutions as swiftly and practically as possible. Once again we point out that, if we do not move from a culture of blame to a culture of safety, we will have failed those involved in Paddington and elsewhere.

9.47 pm

The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for the Environment, Transport and the Regions

(Mr. Chris Mullin)

On the whole, this has been a serious and thoughtful debate, in keeping with the gravity of the issue. The hon. Member for Bath (Mr. Foster) struck just the right note when he moved the motion, as did his colleague in replying to the debate. I was disappointed—I put it no higher—that the hon. Member for Witney (Mr. Woodward) lowered the tone of the debate somewhat and, perhaps inadvertently, generated more heat than light. I will do my best to deal with some of his questions.

First, I welcome the widespread recognition that there are no simple, knee-jerk solutions to the problems that we face with transport safety. Most of those who spoke acknowledged that fact. Indeed, the chairman of the shadow Strategic Rail Authority, Sir Alastair Morton, rightly warned only today that if we go for quick solutions we may repent at leisure. As my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State said yesterday, if we are to order new safety systems, it is our responsibility to ensure that they work properly.

As everyone understands, there is no scope for complacency. The Government have demonstrated by their actions, both before and after the disaster at Ladbroke Grove, that they are not complacent. Indeed, as a number of those who spoke acknowledged, any fair-minded person would have recognised that my right hon. Friend has a long and honourable record of interest in transport safety, which long precedes his occupation of his present post.

I shall do my best to respond to some of the many points that hon. Members have made. If there is time, I will deal directly with some of the issues in the Opposition motion, some of which were touched on by the Under-Secretary, my hon. Friend the Member for Streatham (Mr. Hill), who opened the debate. Inevitably, I am unlikely to get round to replying to all the points made, so I will look carefully at Hansard in the cold light of day and write to hon. Members about those that I have not answered.

First I shall deal with some of the matters raised by the hon. Member for Witney. There have been rather a lot of reports on transport safety one way or another and there is scope for getting one muddled with another or getting the dates confused. It may well be that I shall have to write to him setting out the precise sequence of events. However, I think that I can deal with some of the points that he made. He asked when the SPAD report was seen by officials and then by Ministers. It was seen by officials and Ministers a day or so before publication in August. Lord Macdonald of Tradeston issued a press statement endorsing the actions that the HSE recommended fairly soon after that. The Tansley report was seen by Ministers and officials on the day of the crash.

It grieves me to have to make this point about SPADs because I recognise that the issue is more complex than the cold dates suggest. If we are talking about action and inaction, the previous Government decided in March 1995 not to fit automatic train protection nationwide on the grounds that it was not justified on cost. As my right hon. Friend the Deputy Prime Minister said yesterday in his statement, we do not want to make a political issue about that because we recognise that there were other factors, but the hon. Member for Witney raised it in a contentious way.

In August 1997, before any of this became public, my right hon. Friend ordered a safety paper on trains passing through signals at danger. He did so at a time when the number of SPADs was declining. There was no panic on and there was not perceived to be a crisis, but he acted as long ago as August 1997. He started a consultation procedure on the precise action to take in early 1998. The consultation ended in August 1998. Final recommendations were available by December 1998 on the train protection system and slam-door trains.

In July 1999—well before the disaster at Ladbroke Grove—my right hon. Friend signed the regulations to introduce a train protection system by 2003. In doing that, we shall take into account whatever conclusions Sir David Davies arrives at in his study of the technical matters.

Will the Minister give way?

I am reluctant to do so as I have limited time. Perhaps I will not give way in the light of the hon. Gentleman's earlier comments. I have only eight minutes left and I do not want to get bogged down in who said what to whom when. It does not strike me as all that helpful to the debate.

My hon. Friend the Member for Watford (Ms Ward) asked what happened to the recommendations from the report on the Watford crash. Some have been acted on, but the HSE has commented critically on the way in which some of the recommendations have been followed up by the industry. The HSE's comments are in its report for 2 September 1999—the report on SPADs—and a copy is in the Library. I shall ask the HSE for a report on progress in implementing the recommendations following the Watford crash and pass them on to my hon. Friend as well as place a copy in the Library. She was right to draw that to the attention of the House.

The hon. Member for Cotswold (Mr. Clifton-Brown) expressed support for the Government's plan for air traffic control. I welcome that and look forward to his voting with us in the Lobby when the time comes. I acknowledge the good sense of the point that he made about the better use of regional airports. If he was suggesting—perhaps he was not—that we need lots more investment in new roads, I am afraid that I am not entirely with him on that. As my hon. Friend the Under-Secretary said in his intervention, what counts in making roads safe is maintenance and traffic-calming measures.

Will the Minister give way?

Forgive me, I have only six minutes left.

The hon. Member for Carshalton and Wallington (Mr. Brake) asked about London Underground and wanted to have the Government's position set out. I am grateful to him for giving us an opportunity to put the Government's position on record.

First, we will take account of any lessons learned from the Southall and the Ladbroke Grove disasters. Secondly, there is no question of entertaining any public-private partnership deal which does not contribute to improved safety, and that applies to Railtrack as much as to anyone else. Thirdly, it is vital that London Underground continues to have responsibility for the safety arrangements for the whole of the underground. Fourthly, all the public-private companies will take over existing safety arrangements, as agreed with the railways inspectorate. Finally, I repeat, the public sector London Underground will remain a single guiding mind on safety matters.

The hon. Member for Carshalton and Wallington also asked about the timing of the NATS public-private partnership, and whether that would have any effect on Swanwick. The Government have commissioned studies into the new Swanwick system which confirm that it is a good system which will work. It is on schedule to become operational most probably in the winter of 2001–02, and NATS is meeting all its target milestones along the way. By the time that we are talking to potential strategic partners about the public-private partnership the state of the project will be further advanced, and there is no question of the public-private partnership delaying Swanwick.

My hon. Friend the Member for Doncaster, Central (Ms Winterton) asked about the funding of speed cameras. She was particularly interested in having the revenue hypothecated. The Treasury has accepted the principle that fines be used to fund the operation of speed cameras as long as it improves road safety rather than revenue collection. We are currently working on a mechanism for meeting Treasury criteria. A project group has been formed involving representatives from all interested parties, including the police, local authorities, magistrates courts and the relevant Government Departments, and we expect to appoint a project manager soon. The group's role will be to offer advice on the financial and organisational arrangements which will be necessary to meet Treasury criteria.

My hon. Friend also asked about the take-up by local authorities of the new powers to set 20 mph speed zones. Because local authorities were given those powers only this summer, it is too early to form a view on take-up. Local authorities are required to set casualty reduction targets in their local plans.

My hon. Friend the Member for Nottingham, East (Mr. Heppell) talked about the need for consensus with regard to the problems caused by cars. I strongly agree with him on that. This is a serious problem which, in some respects, threatens the survival of the planet. About 500,000 people a year are killed worldwide by cars, and it is difficult for one political party to take measures to reduce the use of the car and to contain it and ensure that it is used sensibly if another of the major political parties is pronouncing itself to be the party of the car and appealing for votes on the cheapest possible basis. I hope that it will be possible to reach some sort of consensus.

I echo what others have said during the debate in paying tribute to the work of the emergency services in their response to the terrible event at Ladbroke Grove, and I wish a speedy recovery to all those who have been injured.

rose in his place and claimed to move, That the Question be now put.

Question, That the Question be now put, put and agreed to.

Question put accordingly, That the original words stand part of the Question:—

The House divided: Ayes 46, Noes 329.

Division No. 275]	[9.59 pm
AYES
Allan, Richard	Jones, Nigel (Cheltenham)
Ashdown, Rt Hon Paddy	Keetch, Paul
Baker, Norman	Kennedy, Charles (Ross Skye)
Ballard, Jackie	Livsey, Richard
Beggs, Roy	Llwyd, Elfyn
Beith, Rt Hon A J	Maclennan, Rt Hon Robert
Bell, Martin (Tatton)	Michie, Mrs Ray (Argyll & Bute)
Brake, Tom	Moore, Michael
Breed, Colin	Morgan, Alasdair (Galloway)
Bruce, Malcolm (Gordon)	Oaten, Mark
Burnett John	Öpik, Lembit
Burstow, Paul	Rendel, David
Cable, Dr Vincent	Russell, Bob (Colchester)
	Salmond, Alex
Campbell, Rt Hon Menzies (NE Fife)	Sanders, Adrian
	Swinney, John
Chidgey, David	Taylor, Matthew (Truro)
Cotter, Brian	Tonge, Dr Jenny
Davey, Edward (Kingston)	Tyler, Paul
Ewing, Mrs Margaret	Webb, Steve
Fearn, Ronnie	Wigley, Rt Hon Dafydd
Foster, Don (Bath)	Willis, Phil
George, Andrew (St Ives)
Harvey, Nick	Tellers for the Ayes:
Heath, David (Somerton & Frome)	Sir Robert Smith and
Hughes, Simon (Southwark N)	Mr. Donald Gorrie.

NOES
Abbott, Ms Diane	Beard, Nigel
Adams, Mrs Irene (Paisley N)	Begg, Miss Anne
Ainger, Nick	Benn, Hilary (Leeds C)
Ainsworth, Robert (Cov'try NE)	Benn, Rt Hon Tony (Chesterfield)
Alexander, Douglas	Bennett, Andrew F
Allen, Graham	Bermingham, Gerald
Anderson, Janet (Rossendale)	Berry, Roger
Armstrong, Rt Hon Ms Hilary	Best, Harold
Ashton, Joe	Betts, Clive
Atkins, Charlotte	Blears, Ms Hazel
Austin, John	Blizzard, Bob
Barnes, Harry	Blunkett, Rt Hon David
Barron, Kevin	Boateng, Paul
Battle, John	Borrow, David
Bayley, Hugh	Bradley, Keith (Withington)

Bradley, Peter (The Wrekin)	Foster, Michael J (Worcester)
Bradshaw, Ben	Foulkes, George
Brinton, Mrs Helen	Fyfe, Maria
Brown, Rt Hon Nick (Newcastle E)	Galloway, George
Brown, Russell (Dumfries)	Gapes, Mike
Browne, Desmond	Gardiner, Barry
Buck, Ms Karen	Gerrard, Neil
Burden, Richard	Gibson, Dr Ian
Burgon, Colin	Gilroy, Mrs Linda
Butler, Mrs Christine	Godman, Dr Norman A
Campbell, Alan (Tynemouth)	Godsiff, Roger
Campbell, Mrs Anne (C'bridge)	Goggins, Paul
Campbell, Ronnie (Blyth V)	Golding, Mrs Llin
Campbell-Savours, Dale	Gordon, Mrs Eileen
Caplin, Ivor	Grant, Bernie
Casale, Roger	Griffiths, Jane (Reading E)
Caton, Martin	Griffiths, Nigel (Edinburgh S)
Cawsey, Ian	Griffiths, Win (Bridgend)
Chaytor, David	Grocott, Bruce
Chisholm, Malcolm	Grogan, John
Clapham, Michael	Gunnell, John
Clark, Dr Lynda (Edinburgh Pentlands)	Hall, Mike (Weaver Vale)
	Hall, Patrick (Bedford)
Clark, Paul (Gillingham)	Hamilton, Fabian (Leeds NE)
Clarke, Charles (Norwich S)	Hanson, David
Clarke, Eric (Midlothian)	Harman, Rt Hon Ms Harriet
Clarke, Rt Hon Tom (Coatbridge)	Heal, Mrs Sylvia
Clwyd, Ann	Healey, John
Coaker, Vernon	Henderson, Doug (Newcastle N)
Coffey, Ms Ann	Henderson, Ivan (Harwich)
Coleman, Iain	Hepburn, Stephen
Colman, Tony	Heppell, John
Connarty, Michael	Hill, Keith
Cook, Frank (Stockton N)	Hinchliffe, David
Corbett, Robin	Hodge, Ms Margaret
Corbyn, Jeremy	Hoey, Kate
Corston, Ms Jean	Hope, Phil
Cousins, Jim	Hopkins, Kelvin
Crausby, David	Howarth, Alan (Newport E)
Cryer, Mrs Ann (Keighley)	Howarth, George (Knowsley N)
Cryer, John (Hornchurch)	Hoyle, Lindsay
Cummings, John	Hughes, Ms Beverley (Stretford)
Cunliffe, Lawrence	Hughes, Kevin (Doncaster N)
Cunningham, Jim (Cov'try S)	Humble, Mrs Joan
Dalyell, Tam	Hurst, Alan
Darling, Rt Hon Alistair	Hutton, John
Darvill, Keith	Iddon, Dr Brian
Davey, Valerie (Bristol W)	Ingram, Rt Hon Adam
Davidson, Ian	Jackson, Ms Glenda (Hampstead)
Davies, Rt Hon Denzil (Llanelli)	Jackson, Helen (Hillsborough)
Davies, Geraint (Croydon C)	Jenkins, Brian
Davis, Terry (B'ham Hodge H)	Johnson, Alan (Hull W & Hessle)
Dawson, Hilton	Johnson, Miss Melanie (Welwyn Hatfield)
Dean, Mrs Janet
Dismore, Andrew	Jones, Rt Hon Barry (Alyn)
Dobbin, Jim	Jones, Mrs Fiona (Newark)
Donohoe, Brian H	Jones, Helen (Warrington N)
Doran, Frank	Jones, Ms Jenny (Wolverh'ton SW)
Dowd, Jim
Drew, David	Jones, Jon Owen (Cardiff C)
Dunwoody, Mrs Gwyneth	Jones, Dr Lynne (Selly Oak)
Eagle, Angela (Wallasey)	Jones, Martyn (Clwyd S)
Eagle, Maria (L'pool Garston)	Kaufman, Rt Hon Gerald
Edwards, Huw	Keeble, Ms Sally
Efford, Clive	Kelly, Ms Ruth
Ellman, Mrs Louise	Kemp, Fraser
Ennis, Jeff	Kennedy, Jane (Wavertree)
Field, Rt Hon Frank	Khabra, Piara S
Fisher, Mark	Kidney, David
Fitzpatrick, Jim	Kilfoyle, Peter
Fitzsimons, Lorna	King, Andy (Rugby & Kenilworth)
Flint, Caroline	Kumar, Dr Ashok
Flynn, Paul	Ladyman, Dr Stephen
Follett, Barbara	Lawrence, Ms Jackie
Foster, Rt Hon Derek	Laxton, Bob
Foster, Michael Jabez (Hastings)	Lepper, David

Leslie, Christopher	Pickthall, Colin
Levitt, Tom	Pike, Peter L
Lewis, Ivan (Bury S)	Plaskitt, James
Lewis, Terry (Worsley)	Pollard, Kerry
Liddell, Rt Hon Mrs Helen	Pond, Chris
Linton, Martin	Pope, Greg
Lloyd, Tony (Manchester C)	Pound, Stephen
Lock, David	Powell, Sir Raymond
Love, Andrew	Prentice, Ms Bridget (Lewisham E)
McAllion, John	Prentice, Gordon (Pendle)
McAvoy, Thomas	Prescott, Rt Hon John
McCabe, Steve	Prosser, Gwyn
McDonagh, Siobhain	Purchase, Ken
Macdonald, Calum	Quin, Rt Hon Ms Joyce
McDonnell, John	Quinn, Lawrie
McFall, John	Radice, Rt Hon Giles
McGuire, Mrs Anne	Rammell, Bill
McIsaac, Shona	Rapson, Syd
McKenna, Mrs Rosemary	Reed, Andrew (Loughborough)
McNulty, Tony	Robinson, Geoffrey (Cov'try NW)
Mactaggart, Fiona	Roche, Mrs Barbara
McWalter, Tony	Rogers, Allan
McWilliam, John	Rooker, Jeff
Mahon, Mrs Alice	Rooney, Terry
Mallaber, Judy	Ross, Ernie (Dundee W)
Mandelson, Rt Hon Peter	Roy, Frank
Marsden, Gordon (Blackpool S)	Ruane, Chris
Marsden, Paul (Shrewsbury)	Ruddock, Joan
Marshall, Jim (Leicester S)	Russell, Ms Christine (Chester)
Martlew, Eric	Ryan, Ms Joan
Maxton, John	Salter, Martin
Meacher, Rt Hon Michael	Sarwar, Mohammad
Meale, Alan	Savidge, Malcolm
Merron, Gillian	Sawford, Phil
Michie, Bill (Shef'ld Heeley)	Sedgemore, Brian
Milburn, Rt Hon Alan	Shaw, Jonathan
Miller, Andrew	Sheerman, Barry
Moran, Ms Margaret	Sheldon, Rt Hon Robert
Morgan, Ms Julie (Cardiff N)	Simpson, Alan (Nottingham S)
Morley, Elliot	Singh, Marsha
Morris, Ms Estelle (B'ham Yardley)	Skinner, Dennis
Mowlam, Rt Hon Marjorie	Smith, Rt Hon Andrew (Oxford E)
Mudie, George	Smith, Angela (Basildon)
Mullin, Chris	Smith, Miss Geraldine (Morecambe & Lunesdale)
Murphy, Rt Hon Paul (Torfaen)
Naysmith, Dr Doug	Smith, Jacqui (Redditch)
Norris, Dan	Smith, John (Glamorgan)
O'Brien, Mike (N Warks)	Smith, Llew (Blaenau Gwent)
O'Hara, Eddie	Snape, Peter
Olner, Bill	Southworth, Ms Helen
O'Neill, Martin	Spellar, John
Organ, Mrs Diana	Squire, Ms Rachel
Osborne, Ms Sandra	Steinberg, Gerry
Palmer, Dr Nick	Stevenson, George
Pearson, Ian	Stinchcombe, Paul
Pendry, Tom	Stoate, Dr Howard

Strang, Rt Hon Dr Gavin	Ward, Ms Claire
Straw, Rt Hon Jack	Wareing, Robert N
Stringer, Graham	Watts, David
Stuart, Ms Gisela	White, Brian
Sutcliffe, Gerry	Whitehead, Dr Alan
Taylor, Rt Hon Mrs Ann (Dewsbury)	Wicks, Malcolm
	Williams, Rt Hon Alan (Swansea W)
Taylor, David (NW Leics)
Temple-Morris, Peter	Williams, Alan W (E Carmarthen)
Thomas, Gareth (Clwyd W)	Williams, Mrs Betty (Conwy)
Timms, Stephen	Wills, Michael
Todd, Mark	Winnick, David
Touhig, Don	Winterton, Ms Rosie (Doncaster C)
	Wise, Audrey
Trickett, Jon	Woolas, Phil
Truswell, Paul	Worthington, Tony
Turner, Neil (Wigan)	Wray, James
Turner, Dennis (Wolverh'ton SE)	Wright, Anthony D (Gt Yarmouth)
Turner, Dr Desmond (Kemptown)	Wright, Dr Tony (Cannock)
Turner, Dr George (NW Norfolk)
Twigg, Derek (Halton)	Tellers for the Noes:
Tynan, Bill	Mr. David Jamieson and
Vis, Dr Rudi	Mr. David Clelland.

Question accordingly negatived.

Question, That the proposed words be there added, put forthwith, pursuant to Standing Order No. 31 (Questions on amendments), and agreed to.

MR. DEPUTY SPEAKER forthwith declared the main Question, as amended, to be agreed to.

Resolved,

That this House notes with extreme sadness the recent Paddington rail disaster and the ensuing injuries and loss of life and extends its deepest sympathies to all those affected; congratulates the emergency services on their outstanding work in very difficult conditions; welcomes the prompt and comprehensive actions taken since the tragedy at Paddington, which demonstrate how serious the Government are about transport safety; notes the Government's continuing determination to take real steps to make transport safer for the public and the workforce; acknowledges the long-term reduction in fatalities on roads, in the air, at sea and on the railways; recognises specific action taken to improve rail, road, marine and air safety; commends the Government for setting up a comprehensive Transport Safety Review to look at how to improve the organisation of transport safety in the United Kingdom and whether there is a case for a single independent authority for transport safety regulation; and further notes that one of the prime aims of the Government's Public Private Partnerships for National Air Traffic Services and the London Underground is the enhancement of safety by securing high and stable levels of future investment, which are essential for safety as travel increases, and that safety regulation will be kept firmly in public hands in both cases.

Ricky Reel

Motion made, and Question proposed, That this House do now adjourn.— [Mr. Sutcliffe.]

I ask the hon. Member for Hayes and Harlington (Mr. McDonnell) to wait a moment before opening the debate. Would those hon. Members who are not staying for the debate please leave quickly and quietly? [Interruption.] Would the hon. Member for Waveney (Mr. Blizzard) conclude his conversation?

10.15 pm

I wish to raise once more in the House the case of the death of my constituent Lakhvinder Reel, known affectionately to his family and friends as Ricky. I applied for this debate at the request of the Reel family, and everything that I say tonight reflects their views and is said with their permission.

Sadly, this week we commemorate the second anniversary of Ricky's death, yet two years on we still do not know how he came by his death on that tragic night of 15 October 1997. He went out that evening with his friends to Kingston and was racially attacked and, a week later, his body was found in the Thames. When someone goes missing in suspicious circumstances, it can often be difficult to discover exactly what happened to them. Mr. and Mrs. Reel and I accept that. However, I believe that our system failed, and continues to fail, the Reel family in their search for the truth about how their beloved son met his death two years ago. The purpose of this debate is to learn some of the lessons of the mistakes of the past two years and to seek a way forward in assisting the Reel family in finding the truth and coming to some understanding of what happened to Ricky.

There are two issues that I wish to address. Given the concerns expressed by many hon. Members about this case, I appreciate their wish to intervene. The first issue is the failure of our policing system to respond to the needs of a family experiencing possibly the most traumatic event that can be visited on any family—the loss of a family member. The second is the continuing failure of our legal system to assist the family adequately in their search for the truth of what happened to their son.

Let us examine the policing failures. No matter how unpalatable it is for us to accept, I fear that we must now acknowledge that our policing system has failed the Reel family. This is not an attempt to scapegoat, single out or blame individual police officers or to dismiss the support and hard work of many police officers in the investigation of Ricky's death. I pay tribute to them. However, there were admitted failures in the original investigation of Ricky's death and in the way in which the Metropolitan police service responded to the Reel family. As important, the culture of defensive secrecy that still pervades our policing system clearly undermined, and continues to undermine, the confidence of the Reel family in the capacity of the police to appreciate and respond to their needs.

Let me explain. Over the past decade, the Metropolitan police has changed the way it describes itself from "Metropolitan police force" to "Metropolitan police service". The translation from force to service is intended to symbolise the acknowledgment that our police are not some body of force set above society but a service responsive, and responsible, to our community. Police officers are employed to serve members of the public, but the refusal of the Metropolitan police to operate openly and transparently during this investigation demonstrates that secrecy is still deeply embedded in the Met and that there is an institutional reluctance to accept that the Met is the servant of the public and should therefore be accountable to the public that it is serving.

This continuing culture of secrecy also undermines the potential for building confidence in the Metropolitan police following the Lawrence case and the Macpherson inquiry. The culture of secrecy is best exemplified in this case by the refusal of the Metropolitan police to publish the report of the inquiry of the Police Complaints Authority into its initial investigation of Ricky's death. The recommendations of the Macpherson report state clearly the need for openness and transparency. Recommendation 10 stated:

"investigating officers reports resulting from public complaints should not attract Public Interest Immunity as a class. They should be disclosed to complainants, subject only to the 'substantial harm' test for withholding disclosure."

The PCA report into the Metropolitan police's early investigation of Ricky Reel's death was instigated as a result of a series of formal complaints lodged by Mrs. Reel on 21 November 1997. The PCA appointed officers from the Surrey police in December 1997 to investigate the complaints. That was unusual in that the complaint was being investigated by the Surrey police while the Metropolitan police investigation was continuing. The PCA investigators examined existing and fresh evidence and re-interviewed family, friends, witnesses and police officers involved in the investigation.

From July 1998, the Reel family have sought access to the completed PCA report and its publication. The Metropolitan police are the owners of this report, and it appears that it is their decision whether and to whom it should be released. I find it extraordinary that a matter of such public interest should be left to the decision of the very service that is being investigated.

In 1998, the Reel family, their solicitor, representatives of the Southall monitoring group and I met the Commissioner of Police of the Metropolis to seek publication of the report. That was refused. Some information was provided confidentially, but that was deemed to be useless by the family and was returned. Following meetings with the Home Secretary—I am grateful for the support that he has given us throughout this matter—the report was released, in confidence, to Mr. and Mrs. Reel and their solicitor, but not to myself or to their family advisers. We discovered later that the report had been given to a Metropolitan police advisory group—a group of civilians. The family contest that they were ever informed that the report would be distributed in that way.

Even now, the Metropolitan police refuse to release the report publicly, advising the Home Secretary that it is covered by public interest immunity. We have contrary advice, based on the case of the Queen v. Chief Constable of West Midlands Police ex parte. It was established

"that there was no general public interest immunity in respect of documents coming into existence during investigation into a police complaint."

I believe that that defence no longer exists.

In more recent advice to Home Office Ministers, the Metropolitan police repeat the incorrect assertion that the courts have ruled that investigating officers' reports attract public interest immunity. They now pray in aid the coroner, who is concerned that any disclosure of witness statements will affect the inquest into the death of Ricky Reel in November. Does that mean that the PCA report itself will not even be available at the inquest? It is bizarre and tortuous logic to maintain this culture of secrecy. However, so as not to offend the coroner, I shall not draw on any witness statements and I shall name no names in this debate. I simply want to place before the House some of the findings of the PCA report. Lessons must be learned from that report. The House has an important role, which is to learn those lessons and to ensure that all our public services also do so.

The conclusions of the PCA inquiry are multiple. I draw upon some of them. In respect of communications with the Reel family during the initial police investigation, the need for clear, careful and considerate communication with the family was critical in investigations of that kind—as was learned from the Lawrence inquiry. In the investigation, we discovered that

"Mrs Reel and other members of the family were visited or contacted by telephone by a total of 10 different officers, from 3 different areas"—

in the space of two days—

"Each of them delivering slightly different messages."

The report concluded:

"This situation led to Mrs Reel being provided with conflicting information; being unaware of who was co-ordinating the investigation; believing that there was a conflict"—

between two police divisions, and—

"being unable to gain accurate knowledge of what action was or was not being taken."

The report states that the identification and interviewing of witnesses was vital to the lines of inquiry. It acknowledges that Mrs. Reel herself identified and located some of the witnesses. The inquiry also revealed that, in some instances, no records were checked by the Metropolitan police to confirm or support witness accounts; cross-referencing of information did not take place; and some witnesses were not found until the PCA investigating team found them. Witness information was sometimes not passed on from junior to senior officers. The PCA report states that there were "no debriefings", which would have been

"common in investigations of this nature; as a result, potentially important information was lost."

Does my hon. Friend agree that this is an especially sad case, particularly in light of the Lawrence case from which the House had hoped that some lessons had been learned? I have had sight of the report, which has regrettably been kept secret. One of the things that it reveals is that property records at Kingston police station showed that a videotape from British Rail at Kingston had been seized by a policeman and deposited in the property store. The tape was not viewed. Its existence was not drawn to the attention of investigating officers, and on 17 November 1997 the tape was destroyed. Does my hon. Friend share my shock that the police should treat so lightly such vital evidence?

I can give confirmation on that matter and add to my hon. Friend's remarks. The PCA inquiry reveals that all video evidence from shops was not seized promptly enough to provide information. The PCA states that videotapes from two restaurants

"may have provided information to the investigation had they been seized promptly",

but they were not. The British Rail tape was indeed seized, not viewed and destroyed.

Regarding photographic evidence, the three friends of Ricky Reel were never shown any photos of known racist offenders or offenders who had previously been involved in racial incidents in the area, in an attempt to identify the youths involved in the racial attack on the group.

Can my hon. Friend confirm that it is standard practice for police to hold photographs—rogues' galleries—so that when, say, a victim of burglary makes a complaint to the police, he or she can be shown photographs and asked whether they can identify the perpetrators? Would not that practice have helped inquiries in the Reel case? Would it not have helped to secure justice for the victim's family? What happened appears to have been a flagrant dereliction of duty.

I believe that the PCA investigators considered that that was important. The PCA found:

"The Met did not initiate this type of inquiry at a timely point in their investigation."

The police did not at any time choose to show the photos of known local racist offenders to Ricky's companions on the night. I believe that that was a dereliction of duty and lessons must be learned for future investigations.

On forensic information, the PCA inquiry revealed that no clothing or personal items retrieved from Ricky's body were subject to forensic examination. Details of his clothing were not recorded and the PCA concluded:

"given the high priority accorded to the search for Ricky, the decision to call a special post mortem and circumstances before his disappearance, the way in which forensic evidence was dealt with is difficult to justify".

Can my hon. Friend confirm whether it is normal police procedure to make such records and to carry out forensic examination? I should have thought that in almost all murder cases, such evidence forms the cornerstone of the investigation.

The key issue is that the investigation was into a missing person report, but that the link between the racial attack earlier in the evening and Ricky going missing was not made soon enough. Not only was insufficient forensic evidence taken, but, as the PCA states, it is hard to justify why independent expert judgment was not sought on some issues.

On the post mortem, the report makes it clear that no one was clear about who was in control of the post mortem examination and who should have been asking the right questions. On verification at the scene, the report reveals that no forensic analysis was conducted at the area where it was assumed Ricky entered the river; no fingerprint examination was made of the railing nearby and no foliage was taken; and there was no examination of the concrete block, although photographs were taken. The report concludes that forensic examination of the bank would have been helpful: it might or might not have substantiated the claim that the incident was an accident, but it would at least have challenged that theory.

The PCA report states that a key element in the investigation was identifying the means of escape used by the earlier attackers. The inquiry highlighted the role of the No. 281 bus, which the attackers may well have boarded. The Metropolitan police did not check the records of work or tickets on the No. 281. The report states that the No. 281 was

"the most likely line of inquiry to lead to identification of the youths or other witnesses."

The failure to follow up that line of inquiry was described as "a significant omission".

The PCA considered that there was no evidence that the Met progressed lines of inquiry into other potential witnesses from crime reports, arrests, fixed penalty notices on the night, accident reports, or racial incidents reported since 1997. In its general inquiries, the Met made no inquiries in respect of, for example, Ricky's mobile phone usage that evening. The PCA had to investigate the medical evidence relating to Ricky itself. On the involvement of the community in Kingston, the report states the PCA's belief that active and earlier involvement of the racial equality council would have been helpful to provide lines of inquiry in the area.

Overall, the report condemns the investigation because it lacked focus, it eliminated the racial incident earlier in the evening too readily, it lacked thoroughness, and there was a failure to initiate an early reconstruction of what happened that night. There was also confusion over the ownership of the investigation of the racial incident. The investigators came to the conclusion of accidental death before there was corroboration, and there was a failure to adopt policies that would have ensured that professional standards were maintained in the detail of the investigation.

The purpose of the PCA inquiry was to examine the complaints from the family, but it is clear that almost as soon as it became involved, the PCA team took over the investigation and ran it. The PCA inquiry is the basis on which the Met determined what action to take on that specific case and what general lessons to learn for future practice.

One action that stemmed from the early demands of the family was the introduction of a fresh investigation team, and I commend the Metropolitan police for bringing in that new team. However, in addition, the inquiry set out in some detail a series of recommendations for the reform of policing practices, and the problem now is that those recommendations, commendable though they seem, are part of the PCA report, which the Met keeps secret. That completely misses the point of the Macpherson report into the Lawrence case.

Public confidence can be restored and maintained in any public service only if mistakes, when they occur, are honestly admitted, and any remedial action is openly and honestly displayed. In this instance, the failure to publish the PCA report means that we cannot allow for an honest admission of mistakes. More important, it provides no opportunity for the Met to display what lessons it has learned and what improvements have been made. It thus misses completely an opportunity to regain the confidence of the community in our police service.

Such has been the anguish of Mr. and Mrs. Reel over those events that I appreciate why they feel that only a public inquiry can bring into the open what happened to their son, what went wrong with the investigation and how such problems can be avoided in future. I ask the Home Secretary to consider that request.

The inquest will start in November, and the Reel family are asking for financial support to secure their legal representation. I urge the Government to provide that assistance and to do all in their power to provide the family with the resources to determine the truth about what happened to their son.

I believe that we can all learn lessons from the case—lessons about respect, openness and accountability, and about the relationship of public service to the community that it serves. By highlighting the case again—this is, I believe, the eighth time that I have raised it in the House—we may not only help to discover what happened to Ricky that terrible night, but learn the lessons that will help to prevent further tragedies such as Ricky's death. I certainly hope so.

10.33 pm

I commend my hon. Friend the Member for Hayes and Harlington (Mr. McDonnell) not only for securing the Adjournment debate but for the way in which he put his case, with a restraint and clarity to which I pay tribute. My hon. Friend has raised important points, and he identified at the beginning of his speech the issues related to the failure of the policing and legal systems, and finished by talking about the need for respect, openness and accountability. Those are appropriate words in this context.

I shall begin where my hon. Friend started, by going through the facts and describing the present position. At the outset, I ought not only to pay tribute to the way in which my hon. Friend made his case, but express the sympathy of the whole House for the Reel family following Ricky' s death.

As my hon. Friend said, the circumstances of Ricky's death will be considered fully at the inquest, which begins on 1 November. As he also said, any criminal investigation within the Metropolitan police district is a matter for the Commissioner, Sir Paul Condon. As the law stands, Ministers do not have powers to intervene—although I understand that Assistant Commissioner John Grieve's racial and violent crime task force inquiry team is investigating Ricky Reel's death.

The case has been widely featured publicly—for example, in the BBC's "Crimewatch UK" programme on 12 October, with an appeal for further witnesses. I take the opportunity to associate myself and the rest of the Government with that request for further witnesses to come forward. I understand that a number of inquiries are being followed up as a result of the programme of 12 October. The on-going investigation is an operational matter for the Metropolitan police and I cannot comment in detail on that, although I shall refer to some of my hon. Friend's points later in my remarks.

The disclosure of the Police Complaints Authority inquiry report is a matter for the Commissioner. As I said, Ministers have no powers to intervene. My hon. Friend is right to say, following his meeting with the Commissioner, that the Commissioner does not propose to publish the report. As my hon. Friend said, the Commissioner agreed to disclose the PCA inquiry report to Mr. and Mrs. Reel and their solicitor on a strictly confidential basis. The Commissioner has informed me that his decision was taken on an exceptional basis and the purpose of the disclosure was to assist the investigation of Ricky's death by helping to ensure that every avenue of inquiry had been pursued. The Commissioner's view is that the disclosure struck the right balance between pursuing the investigative aim and minimising any jeopardy to the forthcoming inquest.

My hon. Friend accurately described the coroner's position. The Metropolitan police specifically sought the views of John Burton, the coroner who will conduct the inquest, on wider disclosure. The coroner has expressed his concern at the prospect of wider disclosure because of the potential effect on inquest witnesses.

As my hon. Friend said, sections of the PCA inquiry report were shown to members of the lay advisory panel to the Metropolitan police. The panel's purpose was to review the investigation to help to ensure that no opportunity or link had been missed. The Commissioner's view was that the PCA inquiry report was relevant to the lay panel's role and that the purpose of disclosure was to assist the investigation.

I understand that Mr. and Mrs. Reel's perception is that they were not consulted about the Met's intention to disclose sections of the report to the panel, and they felt that that was wrong. I am advised by the Met that on 15 February this year, Mr. and Mrs. Reel and their solicitor, Suresh Grover, met two members of the lay advisory panel. The Met's view is that the meeting agreed that the lay panel would recommend that the full PCA inquiry report would be made available to the family and the panel. The lay panel has told the Met that it is concerned about suggestions that Mr. and Mrs. Reel were not consulted about that, but I understand that that is an outstanding concern for all parties.

I come now to recommendation 10 of the Macpherson report concerning disclosure of investigating officers' reports, to which my hon. Friend referred. The Home Secretary made it clear in his response to the Macpherson report that the Home Office will consider, in consultation with interested parties, how to overcome the current situation whereby investigating officers' reports attract public interest immunity as a class.

We have set up a Home Office working group to examine how recommendation 10 can best be put into practice without compromising the integrity of the complaints process. We intend to announce our conclusions by the end of the year, so that we can further develop the policy. There are different views on that matter, but it is important for us to assess the recommendation and to make our position publicly clear, which we shall do by the end of the year.

I shall not now go into all the implications of the Macpherson report. My hon. Friend correctly assessed the report's purpose, which is to establish confidence. That requires important changes in a wide variety of procedures and approaches.

Those are the basic facts and they confirm the essential points of my hon. Friend's description of the situation. I turn now to his substantive points. First, he referred to a culture of secrecy that affects the way in which these matters can be discussed. He has raised valid issues. The Macpherson report and other inquiries have concluded that everyone will gain if we have a proper process whereby people fully understand the state of affairs. As I said in an Adjournment debate earlier today on a different case, I believe that the criminal justice system is opaque in too many ways, and that individuals cannot properly understand what is happening to them and how it happens. I am sure that constituents have expressed that feeling to all hon. Members at different times and in different ways.

At the start of his speech, my hon. Friend raised an especially important point of substance—the issue of communication with the family about the process that takes place as it moves forward. We are actively considering a range of proposals to ensure a far better quality of communication with the family.

The Crown Prosecution Service is currently running a range of pilot schemes. We hope that, as a result, by the end of the year 2001 there will established throughout the country a process by which, in all serious cases—as the case of Ricky Reel obviously is—there is proper communication between the prosecutors and the victim about decisions that are taken. One of the greatest sadnesses that people have is the failure to understand why decisions to prosecute are or are not taken in certain circumstances.

I know that my hon. Friend appreciates—because he has paid close attention to the matter—the difficulties in achieving a balance on that aspect, but the Government and the Crown Prosecution Service have a strong commitment to establish a form of communication that would give victims the information that they need to understand how the process operates.

Now is not the time to enter into greater detail on a range of areas where we hope to support victims and witnesses. As my hon. Friend said, there are major issues in ensuring that witnesses feel able to stand up or are able to stand up and develop the situation directly, and it is also important, in that connection, that the victim's views about the process can be part of the legal process. We are actively considering ways in which they may be.

My hon. Friend and my hon. Friends the Members for Hackney, North and Stoke Newington (Ms Abbott), for The Wrekin (Mr. Bradley) and for Hornchurch (Mr. Cryer) made important, serious points about the way in which the police have conducted the inquiry. I cannot, in my position, comment on the precise nature of the police inquiry or on the detailed points that my hon. Friends have made about that inquiry.

I believe that the fundamental point was raised by my hon. Friend the Member for Hayes and Harlington when he said that he felt that the police investigation lacked focus and thoroughness. I apologise for poaching the words that he used. He also said that there was a need to reform police practices to ensure that those issues were addressed in the most effective and powerful way possible. My hon. Friend made his point clearly and strongly. I know that people will study his words extremely carefully to establish how the processes may be improved.

A great many of the issues will be resolved openly and clearly at the inquest, which starts on 1 November. On the more general issues that my hon. Friend has raised, I say only that it is necessary and important to deal, in the way that he has said, with the issue of public interest immunity as a class in this case. That is a profound and important issue.

I conclude by giving my hon. Friend the assurance that I believe that he is seeking—that the Government position on that matter will be absolutely clear before the end of 1999.

Question put and agreed to.

Adjourned accordingly at sixteen minutes to Eleven o'clock.

Volume 336: debated on Wednesday 20 October 1999

House Of Commons

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Ricky Reel