May I ask the Leader of the House to give us the business for next week?

The business for next week will be as follows:

• MONDAY 17 APRIL—Second Reading of the Finance Bill.
• TUESDAY 18 APRIL—Remaining stages of the Postal Services Bill.
• WEDNESDAY 19 APRIL—Remaining stages of the Utilities Bill.
• The Chairman of Ways and Means has named opposed private business for consideration at 7 o'clock.
• THURSDAY 20 APRIL—Motion on the Easter recess Adjournment debate.
• I remind the House that that sitting will follow a Friday pattern: I would hate to see hon. Members arriving for a different pattern of sitting.
• The House may also be asked to consider any Lords messages which may be received.
• The business for the week after the Easter break will be as follows:
• TUESDAY 2 MAY—Progress on consideration in Committee of the Finance Bill.
• WEDNESDAY 3 MAY—Conclusion of consideration in Committee of the Finance Bill.
• THURSDAY 4 MAY—Debate on the Royal Commission report on the reform of the House of Lords on a motion for the Adjournment of the House.
• FRIDAY 5 MAY—Private Members' Bills.
• I should like to inform the House of business to be taken in Westminster Hall for when the House is sitting during May.
• THURSDAY 4 MAY—Debate on a sporting future for all.
• THURSDAY 11 MAY—Debate on a Select Committee report—subject to be announced.
• THURSDAY 18 MAY—Debate on the future of the construction industry.
• THURSDAY 25 MAY—There will be no debates in Westminster Hall.

The House is grateful for next week's business and an indication of business for the week after the Easter recess. Does the right hon. Lady envisage making a business statement next Thursday?

I am glad that at long last we are to debate the Wakeham report, although I note that the chosen date of 4 May is one when the country's attention may be focused on other events. The House is due to debate the Utilities Bill on Wednesday. Has the Leader of the House anything further to tell us about Government amendments to the Bill, as 359 have already been tabled? Do the Government plan to withdraw even more clauses?

In view of the growing interest in the way in which the House operates, may we debate the Liaison Committee's report promoted at Prime Minister's Question Time by the hon. Member for Thurrock (Mr. Mackinlay)—possibly the only promotion that he is likely to see?

There is continued concern in the House about events in Zimbabwe. Will the Foreign Secretary undertake to keep the House informed?

Will the Leader of the House tell us whether statements are expected next week on defence procurement or on the future of the Defence Evaluation and Research Agency?

Could we have a statement from the Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport clarifying whether the Government have prejudged the bid to run the lottery? On Tuesday, the Under-Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport, the hon. Member for Rossendale and Darwen (Janet Anderson), declared in Westminster Hall:

The Government always have been, and still are, committed to a not-for-profit lottery.—[Official Report, Westminster Hall,11 April 2000; Vol. 348. c. 11 WH.]

Does that remain true when there are two bids?

Finally, can we have a debate on the report on Rover by the Select Committee on Trade and Industry, in view of continuing concern about the future of motor manufacturing in this country?

It sounds as though we will be here all Easter.

My hon. Friend is right: that is an extensive programme.

I anticipate making a business statement next Thursday and hope, through discussion with the usual channels, to establish a time that is convenient for the House.

The right hon. Member for North-West Hampshire (Sir G. Young) was uncharacteristically ungracious about the timing of our debate on the reform of the House of Lords. He has been calling for the debate for some time and the day set is, after all, a sitting day. He argues that there will be passionate interest in local elections; I hope that he is right.

The Utilities Bill will be debated in the House in the near future. I do not anticipate dramatic changes, although it is right that the House should make that legislation effective.

I have taken note of the desire expressed by my hon. Friend the Member for Thurrock (Mr. Mackinlay) that the Liaison Committee's report should be debated. The Government are giving the report's many profound recommendations careful consideration, and we will report to the House in due course.

We shall endeavour to keep the House informed about Zimbabwe.

I cannot say now whether or when a statement is likely on the defence issues raised by the right hon. Member for North-West Hampshire.

Furthermore, having already had several debates and statements on Rover, I do not anticipate that another is likely in the near future, although I shall certainly bear the right hon. Gentleman's remarks in mind.

The claims that either the Department for Culture, Media and Sport or the Government have prejudged the award of the lottery contract cannot possibly be true. As I am sure the right hon. Gentleman knows, the selection of the next operator of the national lottery is not a matter for the Government; it is a matter for the National Lottery Commission. I understand that my hon. Friend the Under-Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport, has written to him about the matter, and that my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State will be answering a question in the near future to put the matter beyond doubt.

Has my right hon. Friend had time to read early-day motion 614, on free long-term care for the elderly?

[That this House warmly welcomes the support for free long-term nursing home care for the elderly expressed by the Secretary of State for Health following his speech to the Royal College of Nursing Congress in Bournemouth on 5th April; notes that this is in line with the recommendations of the Royal Commission Report on Long Term Care, With Respect to Old Age, published in March 1999; asks the Secretary of State to make a formal statement to the House at the earliest opportunity; and urges the Government to bring forward legislation as soon as possible, abolishing means-tested charges for elderly, nursing and residential home care and lifting the burden from all those elderly citizens who are in, or soon to enter, long-term care.]

My right hon. Friend will be aware of the awful current arrangements, under which the elderly and the sick are subjected to means-tested nursing charges—a concept quite at odds with the ideals of the national health service. Has our right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Health said whether he intends to make a statement in the near future?

I am well aware of the great interest taken by my hon. Friend and many other hon. Members in those issues, which are of considerable importance. The Government are considering all the recommendations of the royal commission on long-term care in the context of our overall spending review. My hon. Friend can be confident that, when we have announcements to make, they will be made to the House.

We strongly endorse the call for an early debate on the Liaison Committee's report, but may I draw to the right hon. Lady's attention the fact that that is a House of Commons matter? It is not primarily a matter for the Government, so to hear that the Government are giving careful consideration to the report's profound recommendations fills me with considerable concern; that is the nearest thing to a kick into the long grass that we have heard this afternoon.

I endorse the view of the right hon. Member for North-West Hampshire (Sir G. Young) that an early debate on Lords reform is extremely important, if we are obtain a statement from the Government on the timetable for phase 2. There is a widespread view in the House that the status quo is not a long-term option; it can only go on for a year or two. The appointments system is so ridiculous and has been brought into such disrepute by recent events that it cannot continue.

Will the Leader of the House find time after the Easter recess to debate the continuing and increasingly obvious problem of political amnesia which appears to have struck some hon. Members in recent days? Not only have Conservatives failed to remember their tax increases, but, yesterday, they completely failed to remember their own action in respect of the closure of post offices, if the right hon. Lady was present for Agriculture questions a few minutes ago, she will know that they now have the nerve to have forgotten completely not only their mismanagement of the BSE crisis, but their demolition of the milk marketing scheme, which completely destroyed dairy farmers.

I heard, with astonishment equal to the hon. Gentleman's, the remarks that the Leader of the Opposition made yesterday about the closure of post offices, and I have frequently heard extraordinary remarks about tax increases. I missed the Conservatives' forgetting that they had some hand in the BSE crisis, but I am most grateful to the hon. Gentleman for calling it to my attention. I shall certainly bear in mind that that is yet another area in which Conservatives, who were still talking about the record of the previous Labour Government 18 years after they had ceased to hold office, do not seem to be able to remember what they were doing little more than 18 months ago.

With regard to the other issues that the hon. Gentleman raised, I hope that we will have a constructive and useful debate about Lords reform. As I hope the hon. Gentleman is aware, the Government are keen to proceed with further reform, which we hope to be able to do on the basis of common ground and consensus. It is not clear whether that is a possibility, but the Government are anxious to explore it. There was an earlier debate in the Lords, and it will be helpful to see how the debate goes in this House.

On the Liaison Committee report, I fully accept that that is a matter for the House. I understand the hon. Gentleman's remarks, in the knock-about of this place, about the Government saying that they would give it careful consideration, but he would not be very pleased if we said that we would not give it careful consideration.

Any progress on the Intelligence and Security Committee annual report debate?

Shh! It' s a secret.

I am afraid that I am not in a position to give my hon. Friend any information about that. [Laughter]

Does the Leader of the House recognise that the principal example of political amnesia in recent months has been the inability of the Prime Minister to remember that the fox hunting Bill of the hon. Member for Worcester (Mr. Foster) never went near the House of Lords at all, delighted though I am that we are to debate House of Lords reform?

I understand the right hon. Gentleman's point. However, the Prime Minister has always made it plain that it was consideration of the impact on the Government's programme primarily, though not solely in the House of Lords, which led the Government to the conclusion—[HON. MEMBERS: "Come on!] There is no point in Opposition Members whingeing about it.

As it was made crystal clear to the Government that in the House of Lords there were Members who felt even more strongly about the freedom to continue killing foxes than about the freedom to continue operating as the House of Lords—in other words, they attached greater importance to that issue than to House of Lords reform—the Government were under no illusions. Indeed, we were explicitly threatened that it would cost us the rest of our legislative programme if we did anything in that Parliament further to progress that private Member's Bill. It was clear, therefore, that there was nothing to be gained—certainly, the Bill could not be gained—by finding extra time. That was the Government's conclusion. If it is the view of Opposition Members that these are not matters of balance and judgment as to where advantage can be gained and lost, no wonder they are in opposition and we are in government.

When can we debate the extraordinary recent history of British Nuclear Fuels, which has been condemned internationally for falsifying safety reports? This week The Guardian and "Dispatches" revealed correspondence—the documents look impressive and appear to be genuine—which claim that British Nuclear Fuels public affairs department has allegedly conspired with hon. Members to undermine the work of one Minister and one Back Bencher.

I have seen brief reference to the documents to which my hon. Friend refers. I have no knowledge as to whether they are genuine. All I can say is that the attempts appear to have been conspicuously unsuccessful.

Will the right hon. Lady acknowledge that it is time that we had a proper debate on foreign affairs, not only in view of the extremely grave situation in Rhodesia, which potentially affects the livelihood and security of British nationals, but because of the bizarre statement by the Minister of State, Foreign and Commonwealth Office, the hon. Member for Leeds, West (Mr. Battle), who called on Premier Oil to withdraw from the Yetagun oil project in Myanmar, without any legal basis for such an instruction? Is not the Government's foreign policy totally discredited and increasingly embattled? If China acts against Tibetans, or the Russians obliterate Grozny, the Government do not seem to care, but a British company legally doing business in Myanmar must pack its bags and go home.

At Foreign Office questions, some 40 minutes was spent on Zimbabwe, which is the country's name.

The hon. Gentleman is entitled to differ from the Minister's attitude to Burma. However, it is widely acknowledged that the civil and human rights position in that country is appalling. Indeed, many people would argue that it was uniquely awful. I am surprised that the hon. Gentleman does not believe that it is right for Ministers at the British Foreign Office to bring pressure to bear to improve that position.

The all-party group on domestic violence has recently concluded an online consultation—which involved 1,000 contributions from communities throughout the country—with survivors of domestic violence. The powerful contributions include evidence of violence and abuse against children, and even child death through the courts granting child contact orders to families with a history of domestic violence. Will my right hon. Friend agree to an early debate to enable hon. Members to consider ways in which we can amend the Children Act 1989 to protect children who desperately need our help?

I understand my hon. Friend's anxiety about this important subject. I also understand her wish to remind the House of the value of the online consultation, in which she has taken a great interest and which she is trying to develop so that hon. Members can use modern technology to gain even more information, and to give people the opportunity to make their views and concerns known here. I fear that I cannot undertake to find time for an early debate on the specific subject to which she refers, and that the Government are not in a position to consider the Children Act 1989. However, the issue is worth airing, and I recommend to my hon. Friend the proceedings in Westminster Hall.

Will the right hon. Lady cast her mind back to yesterday's debate on sub-post offices, when the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry mentioned the possibility of subsidies for sub-post masters and mistresses? So little detail was provided that I said:

There was talk of subsidy. How much? How is it to be dealt with? Has it been agreed with the Treasury? I hope that the Minister who replies to the debate will clarify the matter.—[Official Report, 12 April 2000; Vol. 348, c. 394.]

To be generous, perhaps the Minister did not spell it out because of time constraints. Nevertheless, the matter was not clarified. It is so important to the lives of sub-post masters and mistresses that we should have a statement next week so that they know what the Government are up to.

We shall have a debate on the remaining stages of the Postal Services Bill on Tuesday, and an opportunity to raise the matter may arise then. Of course, my right hon. Friend had clearance from the Treasury to make his observations. However, details of the proposals may still be under consideration; we are talking about proposals that will be considered if problems arise. I hope that the right hon. Gentleman will welcome the steps that the Government are taking to safeguard the future of small sub-post offices. Those steps were not taken or even contemplated by the previous Government.

I ask my right hon. Friend to reconsider the possibility of holding an early debate next week on Rover in the light of today's Select Committee report. Tomorrow many thousands of Rover workers at Longbridge will go on a two-week shutdown. They do not know whether they will return to jobs or whether their futures will have been traded away to a group of venture capitalists. Today's Select Committee report emphasises the importance of careful consideration of alternative bids. Can we have a debate next week to ascertain how hon. Members and the Government can assist that process?

Of course I understand, and the whole House recognises, that my hon. Friend and his parliamentary neighbours have done a great deal to advocate the cause of the workers at Longbridge and continue to keep up their great interest in and advocacy of that work force's perfectly understandable concerns. He rightly says that the Select Committee has produced an important report, but he will know that the Government have not had much time to consider it. I shall draw his remarks to the attention of my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry; he may wish to draw them to the attention of the Liaison Committee, which makes proposals to the Government on debating Select Committee reports.

Will the Leader of the House consider having a debate after Easter on accountability for ministerial statements? I ask for such a debate because on 13 April 1999 the then Minister for Transport in London, the hon. Member for Hampstead and Highgate (Ms Jackson), made a remark. By correspondence, I sought a justification for it. A year later, I have received a letter from a private secretary in that Department saying:

Ms Jackson's remark was based on briefing from the Labour party and your correspondence has accordingly been treated as political.

I seek a debate because that is a method by which Ministers can side-step their accountability to Parliament for remarks made at the Dispatch Box. We also need to know when Ministers are making party political statements on behalf of the Labour party and are therefore not accountable and when they are speaking as Ministers with proper briefing. That is an important matter and I hope that the Leader of the House will be able to accede to my request.

I can think of few less profitable ways of spending time.

My right hon. Friend may be aware that the deadline for adding herbicide-tolerant maize to the national list of seed varieties is only a week away. If that maize is added to the national list, it will, for the first time, enable genetically modified crops to be grown commercially in this country. Given the public concerns that have been raised over GM technology, will the Government find time for an early debate on that important issue?

I fear that I cannot undertake to find time for a debate in the near future, although, like my hon. Friend, I recognise how close that deadline is. I am aware that the relevant Ministers have the matter under review, and she will probably know that it has been made plain that the Government do not intend to allow commercial planting until tests have been extensively studied. However, I shall draw her remarks to the attention of my right hon. Friend.

May I follow up the question asked by the hon. Member for South Swindon (Ms Drown)? The Leader of the House says that the Government will not allow planting, but once GM maize is on the seed list there will be nothing to prevent it from being planted, other than the good will of the manufacturers involved. Will she find time for a debate? People who rightly want to object to the addition of GM crops to the seed list have to pay £30 for the privilege. As if that were not bad enough, they will not be able to object at all in future years because the matter will be entirely for the Minister to decide. Will the right hon. Lady consider that?

Again, all I can do is undertake to draw the hon. Gentleman's remarks and concerns to the attention of my right hon. Friend. I fear that I cannot find time for a debate in the House in the near future, but the hon. Gentleman, like my hon. Friend the Member for South Swindon (Ms Drown), may want to consider the merits of Westminster Hall.

Does my right hon. Friend fancy having a statement next week encapsulating her thoughts on what happened on the Floor of the House this week? On Monday, a question on asylum, which is a very important subject, took 21 minutes. Tuesday was much better as an answer on Zimbabwe given at the end of Foreign Office questions rescued Question Time, but on Wednesday, by my calculation, the Leader of the Opposition occupied some 18 minutes of Prime Minister's questions.

By what alchemy or authority does a Leader of the Opposition have a right to ask six questions? Is it understood how demeaning it is to Parliament to see the ranting that is now Prime Minister's questions? Can we not go back to the old custom of addressing questions not to the day's engagements, but specifically to the Prime Minister's responsibilities? Anything else should be transferred.

I fear that I cannot undertake to find time for a discussion of the kind proposed by my hon. Friend, but I agree that there are occasions on which Prime Minister's Question Time may not be a good advertisement for the intellectual qualities and capacity of the House. You, Madam Speaker, frequently point that out to us all.

My hon. Friend's last point about the content of Question Time is very important. The trend that he identified has developed over many Parliaments, and I cannot say that I anticipate a likely return to a more subject-based Question Time; but I understand his concern, and I know the Chair feels that the House might have more regard to the way in which we conduct our debates. Perhaps all Members will heed those remarks.

We are about to debate the longest Finance Bill for a century. Will the Leader of the House assure us that the Government's allocation of time for that debate will reflect the huge length of the Bill, and that we shall have time for proper discussion of, not least, the climate change levy—which, according to the Financial Secretary to the Treasury,

will be revenue neutral for the private sector?

A representative of a company in my constituency—LINPAC Group, one of the most successful private firms in the country—wrote to me saying of the Financial Secretary:

I do not know which planet he is from but I notice that he says the Levy package is expected to be broadly neutral between manufacturing and services!

A debate is urgently needed, because the prospect of the levy is causing real hardship and concern to local manufacturers.

We have just engaged in debates on the Budget itself. I am not sure whether the hon. Gentleman was able to contribute, but certainly a number of days are available on which Members can raise such concerns.

I recognise that this is the longest Finance Bill in history; indeed, I am particularly mindful of the fact. The hon. Gentleman may not be aware that the Bill contains measures that repeal other legislation, including, I understand, some 40 pages of complex legislation on paying and collecting agents. Nevertheless, the Government appreciate that the House will want proper arrangements for discussion of the Bill. As I hope the hon. Gentleman knows, that is one of the reasons why the Government continue to promote the attractiveness of proper programming of debates: only by such means can we ensure that issues that are rightly of genuine concern to Members can be aired.

Will my right hon. Friend find time for a debate on the impact of the high pound on the car components industry, especially in view of the recent closures and job losses in Wales? Aeroquip, in my constituency, has lost 140 jobs, and Alloy Wheels in Whitchurch—also in my constituency—has lost 250. Both announcements have been made within the last 10 days.

I understand my hon. Friend's concern for her constituents, and for the prosperity of businesses in her constituency. She will know, however, that much depends on the degree to which individual companies are exporting to Europe rather than elsewhere, and that the situation is complex and difficult. She will also know that my right hon. Friend the Chancellor sought to ease the position of the business community through a variety of means in the Budget. Members will have an opportunity to air these matters during the debates on the Finance Bill, to which my hon. Friend no doubt hopes to contribute.

rose—[Interruption.]

Order. The hon. Lady should not mind what the Opposition are saying. I will deal with them in a moment.

Will my right hon. Friend find time for the House to debate whether legislation is now necessary to make kerb crawling an arrestable offence? There are particular areas in my constituency where residents feel extremely threatened by the activities of kerb crawlers and are understandably worried about the safety of their children. Local police have made it clear to me that a change in the law is necessary. Can my right hon. Friend give me an assurance that she will look at the issue seriously?

I am well aware of the fact that my hon. Friend has long campaigned on that important issue. Kerb crawling causes great distress to families, particularly because of its effect on children. The Government accept that there is a strong argument that a specific power of arrest would assist the police in dealing with the problem. I am not in a position to tell her at present that we are likely to introduce such a provision in the very near future, but we are looking at including it in some of the draft legislation that the Government are considering and hope to publish for consultation in the not-too-distant future.

Is not the problem with Prime Minister's questions that the Prime Minister does not like to come to the Dispatch Box? Let us go back to having two Prime Minister's Question Times a week—on a Tuesday and a Thursday for 15 minutes each. I was quite happy with that.

We failed to get the Prime Minister to the Dispatch Box to make a statement following his summit with farmers, so is it possible to have a full day's debate on the state of agriculture, which is in the worst crisis for 60 years—indeed, it has been exacerbated during the past three years of the Labour Government? Even post the aid package that was announced, farmers are still reeling and suffering—farmers such as Paul Kenny in my constituency, who cannot make a profit out of farming.

During today's Agriculture questions, aid to pig farming was mentioned. The Leader of the House may not have noticed, but the protest is still taking place in Parliament square. Winnie the pig is still there. If the right hon. Lady cares to come with me after Prime Minister's questions to have a chat with the farmers there, I will hold her hand as we cross the road.

As I am sure the hon. Gentleman is aware, the National Farmers Union has welcomed the package that the Government have announced. I fear that he is nurturing an illusion. There may be only one Winnie the pig, but there is a substantial number of pigs—they are working shifts, I understand—on the demonstration. The hon. Gentleman will be happy to know that it is not one solitary pig being progressively poisoned by fumes in Parliament square. [Interruption.] If they are all called Winnie, I hope that they are all female pigs.

I do not know why the hon. Gentleman keeps making that rather tedious point about the Prime Minister not liking to come to the House. As I have pointed out to the hon. Gentleman on many occasions, the Prime Minister attends Prime Minister's Question Time more frequently than his predecessor. If the hon. Gentleman is saying that he is happy with the way it was before, when the then Prime Minister came less often, that is less than kind to the right hon. Member for Huntingdon (Mr. Major).

Apparently, the Home Office is sitting on a report that it commissioned from Professor Paul Weller, which suggests that the next monarch should be crowned by Buddhist priests and representatives of other religions in a ceremony not entirely dissimilar from that which opened the millennium dome. Might we have a statement on those proposals? It seems to some us rather odd that the first commandment seems to have escaped the Government, which contains so many professing Christians.

I am happy to say that I am entirely unaware of any such report. I am not entirely sure how accurate—if such a report exists—the hon. Gentleman's description of it is. lf, however, it is accurate, perhaps it is a good thing that the Home Office is sitting on it.

Is my right hon. Friend aware that it is about six weeks since the Northern Ireland Assembly was suspended after the threats by the Ulster Unionists? Will there be a statement soon as to what will happen about the Members who are still being paid? It seems odd to some of us that that Assembly needs to get back to how it was before, yet, at the same time, the Members are drawing the money. It looks to me as though they will continue in that vein for ever unless, at some point, someone says that the Assembly has to start again. What are the conditions for that happening? Will there be a statement on the matter? Are we going to get that Assembly back on the road? If we do not, those Members will continue being paid a salary for not attending, and that will produce only gridlock.

As my hon. Friend will know, the Government are very anxious indeed to see the institutions begin to work again. I am very mindful, having heard from someone who has been close to some of the negotiations, of what a pleasure it was to hear Members from Northern Ireland begin to argue about matters such as housing and education. We all wish those discussions again to become the focus of political concerns in the Province. I fear, however, that I cannot find time in the near future for a debate on the further implications of the suspension to which my hon. Friend referred. Perhaps he will have a chance to the air the matter at the next Northern Ireland Question Time.

Madam Speaker, you probably are not familiar with European Commission document COM (1999) 719 Final, which proposes the establishment of a European food authority and was debated yesterday in European Standing Committee C. The debate was attended by only 15 hon. Members. If the 84 action points in the document's annexe were implemented, it would effectively usurp all British law on food production and agriculture. It would also make redundant the Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food, the recently established Food Standards Agency and much local authority activity.

Yesterday, I pressed the Under-Secretary of State for Health, the hon. Member for Birmingham, Edgbaston (Ms Stuart), three times for a White Paper on the matter to be debated on the Floor of the House. The document's consequences are so momentous that they could effectively result in a programme that is larger than this Session's Queen's Speech. Will the Leader of the House give serious consideration to a full Government White Paper and a full debate on the document on the Floor of the House?

As I am sure the hon. Gentleman is aware, the preparation of a Government White Paper is not the work of a matter of moments. However, I certainly understand the concern that he expresses, and I shall draw his remarks to the attention of my right hon. Friend. I cannot, however, undertake readily to find time in the near future for such a debate on the Floor of the House.

Could my right hon. Friend find time for a debate on the plans recently announced by the Whitworths Group to close its plant in Warrington, with the loss of approximately 250 jobs? In view of the high-handed way in which that company has behaved, and its failure to recognise trade unions in its Warrington plant, is it not time that we had a debate, with a Minister at the Dispatch Box, so that we could discuss the role of companies that behave more like 19th-century mill owners than modern employers?

I am certainly sorry to learn of the concerns that my hon. Friend identifies and of the problems that are caused to her constituents. I fear, however, that I cannot undertake to find time in the near future for a debate in the House on the matter. May I, however, again recommend to her the virtues of Westminster Hall, which I believe has doubled the opportunities for Back-Bench Members to raise such issues in an Adjournment debate.

Given the uncharacteristically brusque response of the Leader of the House to the important question on parliamentary accountability asked by my right hon. Friend the Member for Fylde (Mr. Jack), I hesitate to ask another question on the subject. [Interruption.] I shall, nevertheless, risk it.

Will the right hon. Lady find time for a statement by the Minister for the Cabinet Office on the role of prime ministerial special envoys who are, of course, unaccountable to Parliament in relation to their security clearances and to briefings that they may have had from either United Kingdom or foreign intelligence services?

Lord Levy.

Such a statement would give the House a chance to obtain more information from the Minister than I was able to obtain on Tuesday, when I asked a very pertinent related question of the Minister of State, Foreign and Commonwealth Office, the hon. Member for Neath (Mr. Hain) on Lord Levy.

Quite properly, the hon. Gentleman and other hon. Members have taken the opportunity to raise the issue of the role of Lord Levy. The Government have made it plain that Lord Levy has occasionally played a valuable role, and that the processes and discussions in which he has occasionally been engaged have been ones that we hope will help to facilitate the cause of peace. I should hope that all hon. Members would support such processes.

Although the twice-weekly Prime Minister's questions may have provided more time for Back Benchers, there is—as my hon. Friend for Linlithgow (Mr. Dalyell) said—a feeling of dissatisfaction over Prime Minister's Question Time now because of the very limited opportunities provided to Back Benchers. Although the Conservatives will make spiteful remarks about the Prime Minister, would it be possible to examine the matter through the usual channels? Far more than half the half-hour is given to the two Front Benches, and time is then given to the leader of the Liberal Democrats. The opportunities for those of us who table questions regularly—and who are lucky if we get into the top four or five more than twice a year—are very limited.

I understand my hon. Friend's concern. As the record shows, he is entirely correct to say that the concern expressed by the Opposition is more than a little spurious. The Prime Minister has withdrawn from Question Time the supplementary remarks that used to be interspersed between questions, which has created more time. The Prime Minister has answered more questions than his predecessor in the equivalent period of time. Given the time and the number of questions that may be answered, I understand my hon. Friend's concern that Back Benchers do not have as much time as most hon. Members would think desirable. I hope that hon. Members on both sides of the House will take heed of his remarks.

Given that it is only two days since the Under-Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport, the hon. Member for Rossendale and Darwen (Janet Anderson), said explicitly in Westminster Hall that the Government were committed to a not-for-profit lottery—only to be comprehensively contradicted within 48 hours by her boss and by the Leader of the House—is it not essential, under the terms of the ministerial code of conduct and the guidance to Ministers, for that Minister to come to the House without delay and offer a full explanation and apology? Does the Leader of the House acknowledge that, if the Minister for Tourism, Film and Broadcasting does not do that, the suspicion that the Government are zealous lobbyists for Richard Branson, and that they have fatally compromised the independence of the National Lottery Commission, will inevitably gain ground?

No, I do not think that any reasonable person would draw such a conclusion, nor do I think that there is a need for what the hon. Gentleman suggests. My hon. Friend the Under-Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport made the Government's position perfectly plain in Westminster Hall. She also commented on the Government's welcome for not-for-profit bidders, as well as for bidders who are not not-for-profit, if I may put it that way. My hon. Friend the Under-Secretary wrote to the Opposition spokesman setting out the position. The hon. Gentleman has now tabled a parliamentary question, which has been answered. The Government's position is clear and on the record, and the matter has been dealt with.

Following the question from my hon. Friend the Member for Newport, West (Mr. Flynn), can we find time to debate the need for a public inquiry into the management and future of Sellafield, particularly in view of the growing evidence of a culture of institutional falsification, as well as the allegations to which my hon. Friend referred? Can we review the economic, employment and environmental implications of ceasing reprocessing and switching work to decommissioning and safety?

My hon. Friend calls for an announcement of a public inquiry, and I understand that he is anxious for the many issues surrounding operations at Sellafield to be aired. However, such inquiries take considerable time. If he would like the Government to consider the problems, BNFL to take action within its remit, and the Government and the safety inspectorate to take action within their remit, a public inquiry may not be the fastest course of action. I undertake to draw my hon. Friend's concerns to the attention of relevant Ministers.

Can my right hon. Friend find time for a debate on health, and in particular this week's report from the National Institute for Clinical Excellence on hip replacements, which goes a long way towards fulfilling the Government's commitment to abolishing the postcode lottery? That approach could then be contrasted with the approach taken in an article by the hon. Member for Woodspring (Dr. Fox), the shadow Health Secretary, in which he proposed that all hip replacement operations should be private, at a cost of £5,000 each.

My hon. Friend is entirely right: the guidance issued by NICE is both authoritative and welcome and is a clear indication of the improvements that we are gradually beginning to make in the health service, although there is much more to do. He is also right to say that that stands in stark contrast to the pronouncements of the Conservative party, whose policy on health seems to target the elderly, as it is predominantly elderly people who are most in need of the operations that the shadow Health Secretary wants to be handled only by the private sector. Tempting though that makes such a debate, I fear that I cannot undertake to find time for it in the near future.

I wonder whether my right hon. Friend will consider a debate in Government time on the way in which local authorities use bailiffs. Such a debate would enable the House to consider the rules and procedures that local authorities use when sending out bailiffs and might help to prevent the further incompetent deployment of bailiffs by Westminster city council, which caused considerable distress to my constituent, Mr. Lanning, and his family by sending out bailiffs to collect fines that had already been paid well within the council's required period.

I am certainly sorry to learn of the distress caused to my hon. Friend's constituent by the actions of Westminster city council, and I understand his concern, but I fear that I cannot undertake to find time for such a debate in the near future. He will be aware that the Local Government Bill is under discussion and proceeding through the House, and it may afford him an opportunity to raise these matters. I believe that the issue of the use of bailiffs is already under review.

Will my right hon. Friend find time for a debate on class sizes? In Croydon, the proportion of five, six and seven-year-olds in classes of more than 30 has fallen from 32 per cent. to 10 per cent. since 1997. I understand that, a year ago, on the "Today" programme, Steven Norris, the Tory mayoral candidate, said that he was concerned that the Conservatives had failed to deliver improvements in public sector education. In that year, the proportion of children in large class sizes has been halved. It is important to have a debate to set the record straight: we have delivered where the Tories have confessed to failure.

My hon. Friend is right. Not only in Croydon but throughout the country the number of children in very large infant classes has halved. It is generally accepted in the world of education that, as the evidence suggests, class sizes are most crucial in those early years. That is why the Government have focused on that area. However, although such a debate would indeed provide an opportunity to examine the record of both the Conservatives and the Government, I fear that it is yet another attractive opportunity that I shall have to decline for now.

On a point of order, Madam Speaker. Yesterday, you were kind enough to hear my point of order, and you were also in the Chair for business questions today. In the light of the response of the Leader of the House to what I said, may I ask you to reflect on the resolution of the House, detailed on page 63 of "Erskine May", that

ministers have a duty to Parliament to account, and be held to account, for the policies, decisions and actions of their departments …?

I do not believe that I have had a satisfactory reply to the important point that I raised. I ask you to reflect on the matter and give a ruling on how Ministers should be accountable for what they say in the House.

At the risk of appearing brusque to some hon. Gentlemen, I refer the right hon. Gentleman to the reply that I gave yesterday, which was a considerable and considered one. I heard the exchange today and I was happy to give the right hon. Gentleman the opportunity to raise the matter with the Leader of the House. As he requests, I shall refresh my memory of "Erskine May" and see what I can do about the matter.

On a point of order, Madam Speaker. The hon. Member for Linlithgow (Mr. Dalyell) raised his concern about the conduct of Prime Minister's questions, but you will have observed that several hon. Members, including me, were exercising their leg muscles to no productive effect during questions to the Solicitor-General and were disappointed that we got through only three questions in the 15 minutes allotted. Is it not reasonable in the circumstances to advise the Solicitor-General that he is deputed to answer questions, not Adjournment debates?

Three questions were taken, but the hon. Gentleman will, I am sure, readily accept that there were supplementaries to those questions. However, I am sure that the point has been taken.

I hope to be able to spend a little longer addressing the House than I was able to do on Third Reading of the Armed Forces Discipline Bill. Before I move on to the details of our current policies and programmes on personnel, I want to put the debate in its broader context. It can almost seem a cliché these debates when hon. Members refer to our armed forces as the best in the world, but it is certainly justified. That is also the view of the British public, who regularly in opinion polls put the armed forces up at the top of the groups they admire. The good thing about journalists is they sometimes prevent us politicians from being at the bottom of those tables.

That view is shared by the armed forces fellow military professionals around the world and by the wider international community who regularly look for contributions, particularly early contributions, from our armed forces. Whether fighting or peacekeeping, their reputation and their record is superb. But what is it that brings that about? We need to stress that it is not primarily equipment, very important though that is. After all, any country with sufficient resources can buy new kit.

The key element is the quality of our people both individually and, even more significantly, collectively. It is certainly true that individually our service men and women are superb. They are bright, capable, committed and enthusiastic. One of the best things about this job is getting out to meet our troops and hearing them describe what they do, the satisfaction they have in a job well done and the impact that has on the lives of others. However, in the broader context, even more significant has been the forces' ability over many years to create an identity, an ethos and a system for moulding the collective effort that is the key to their internationally recognised quality. We, as Defence Ministers, and the current service chiefs have to consider how we can best build on that.

The measure of our success as a Government is whether we enhance or erode that common purpose, and in what shape we hand it on. Now I realise that that could be seen as a hostage to fortune, but I believe it is, and should be, proper and agreed common ground on both sides of the House.

Is not the Minister concerned that a doctrine of political correctness—some of it imported, but a measure of it home grown—is undermining that ethos and constraining service life and training? What will he do about that?

If that were the case, we would of course be concerned. As it is not, we are not.

So how are we doing? The answer is not badly. We have dealt with some of the more glaring problems, we have reacted quickly as new ones have arisen, and in some areas we still have some way to go—but we have plans for progress.

What does the situation look like on the front line? In the past 12 months, I have made a point of visiting our personnel whenever possible, to see what they do and to hear what they have to say. During my visits, I have been struck by a fact that is sometimes sadly overlooked, not least by the media. It is that our people greatly enjoy what they do. Again and again, talking to defence personnel, I and other hon. Members hear the refrain, "It's the best job in the world." That should not surprise us. We are employing people whose careers give them quite extraordinary opportunities to travel, to learn or to make a difference. Increasingly, that is what they do. They truly are a force for good worldwide.

We have forces deployed globally, reflecting Britain's interests as a key international player and a trading nation. In addition to our major deployments in the Balkans and the Gulf, personnel are deployed in support of United Nations operations in Cyprus, along the Iraq-Kuwait border, in Georgia, Sierra Leone, the Democratic Republic of Congo and East Timor. They are all making a magnificent contribution to ensuring peace and rebuilding shattered communities.

There can be little that is more rewarding than seeing that one's actions make people's lives better and knowing that one is making the world a safer place in which to live. Whether it is a pilot delivering supplies in Mozambique or a soldier bringing stability and safety to the streets of Pristina or providing advice in west Africa, our people can see that they are doing good.

Our personnel are chosen because of the people that they are: self-starting, enthusiastic and active. They enjoy being engaged on operations and relish the challenges that operations present. They take immense pride in doing what they do to the highest professional standards. Time and again, when talking to personnel on operations I, and others, encounter enthusiasm, pride and professionalism, even when a specific isolated task may be unpleasant and, indeed, even dangerous. I am sure that the House hardly needs me to remind it of the exemplary conduct displayed by our troops worldwide, including in such difficult circumstances as the unrest in the town of Mitrovica earlier this year. We are proud of them.

This House and the British people owe our personnel an enormous debt of gratitude for that unstinting enthusiasm and professionalism. By the same token, the support that our personnel receive from the British people, much of the media and this House means a great deal to them. It shows them that the great value of what they do is appreciated by the people back home. That is tremendously important to them, particularly when the immediate crisis has passed and their task has slipped from the public consciousness and from media attention.

It is important that all in this House remember that, away from the headlines, we have personnel on duty 24 hours a day, 365 days a year—366, this year—often in trying circumstances. In Ulster, the Balkans and the Gulf, our people are risking their lives day in, day out on our behalf. I am sure that the whole House will join me in expressing our thanks and appreciation for what they do.

We cannot, however, ignore the price of such commitment. There is no doubt that the services are extremely busy and that is not just the front line. To keep units on operations requires a tremendous support organisation and that, too, has to work extremely hard to make operations a success. That high level of operational commitment has a number of effects. The first, and most obvious, is the pressure on personnel and their families, with long periods of separation, uncertainty and disruption—none of these are good for family life. While an individual may be enjoying the challenges and excitement of an operational deployment, it can be a different story for the family left at home.

Early on, this Government recognised the pressures on our personnel and determined that we would take major steps to lessen those pressures, and we have. Whenever and wherever we can, we have been reducing commitments. The percentage of the trained Army that is now committed to operations is 27, which is slightly below that committed in 1997. Our ongoing restructuring of the armed forces will help.

We are being proactive and imaginative in reducing commitments. For instance, earlier this year we awarded a £20 million contract for the installation of a telecommunications network for our forces in the Balkans—that network will free 260 Royal Signals soldiers from their Balkans commitments by the end of this year. We all know of the pressures on our signals personnel. I will return to other measures to improve the lives of our people shortly.

My hon. Friend the Minister mentioned the families left at home. Of course, families are also left in the Rhine Army, when personnel have gone to serve in Mitrovica or elsewhere in the Balkans. Can my hon. Friend say anything on the vexed question of overseas allowances? It is totally unsatisfactory that people should be getting less for serving in the Balkans than they do when they are in Rhine Army.

My hon. Friend will be aware of the substantial amount of the overseas allowance that is still retained. I will deal later with the additional allowances that we have been providing for separation. I take my hon. Friend's point that there is a difficulty. This is an extremely complicated issue, which relates to taxation issues as well. I would be more than happy to correspond with my hon. Friend to explain some of the problems that we have encountered.

Everyone in the House will welcome the Minister's announcement about signallers. I think that the interval between operational tours for signallers in the current year is down to six months—a long way short of the 24 months that is supposed to be the ideal. What effect will the hon. Gentleman's announcement have on the interval between operational tours?

It will assist. I take the right hon. and learned Gentleman's point about the difficulties with signallers. The market in the telecommunications industry is extremely buoyant. I sometimes wish that the industry would train some more of its own people rather than benefiting from the excellent training that our people receive. We recognise that there is overstretch, which is why we are taking measures such as this to ameliorate the problem—not to solve it, because there is a substantial underlying problem facing us and other armed forces. We also need to look to the future to see how we can involve the reserve forces more and retain our training.

In the light of the Minister's very specific answer on the Royal Signals and his mention of the reserve forces, can he explain why the number of permanent staff in the signals regiments in the Territorial Army has been reduced? How also will it assist standards in the Territorial Army if we take out the signals regiments from their professional signals brigades, which emphasise professional standards, and put them in with the ad hoc so-called regional brigades?

That will relate to the operational requirements of the Army, because there are signals detachments in various parts of the Army. I will have to look into the other aspect of the hon. Gentleman's remarks, but there is always a balance to be struck between the highly skilled people who are required for operations and those who can provide training. There is always a difficulty, particularly when there is undermanning and a large number of engagements. It is within those broad parameters that we face difficulties and need to strike the right balance.

I recognise that the Minister wants to get on, and I do not want to delay him too long. He made a point earlier in his speech which led to some interventions. He said that the level of commitment was down to 27 per cent. for the Army. What is the figure for the armed forces overall, including the other two services?

I am sure that my hon. Friend the Under-Secretary will give the hon. Gentleman those figures in his reply. However, we all recognise that the most substantial pressures have been in the Army, and we are very pleased to have reduced the figure to a more acceptable and manageable level.

A less obvious effect of operations is the impact on the training of our personnel. It may seem paradoxical, but being engaged on operations, particularly those undertaken in the Balkans and the Gulf, leads to a degree of skill fade among our personnel. The most difficult and collectively demanding thing our forces are trained to do is engage in high-intensity warfighting operations. To maintain their ability to conduct such operations, they need sophisticated and challenging training. This—particularly large-scale collective training—is, by and large, simply not possible for personnel deployed on operations.

It is crucial that our forces do not lose their ability to operate at the very highest end of the conflict spectrum. We cannot afford to relax standards here. Had we needed to fight our way into Kosovo last year, our forces' warfighting skills would have been at a premium. Not only is warfighting our forces ultimate raison d'être, but long experience has shown us that training hard for the high end of the conflict spectrum equips our forces with the sort of skills that we see put to valued use on non-warfighting operations too.

Successful collective training is, of course, dependent on successful individual training. It is, therefore, crucial that we have the best training system in place for the individuals in the armed forces and for the civilians who support them. That is why Lord Robertson announced, last July, a wide-ranging and fundamental review of individual training and education for the armed forces and Ministry of Defence civilians. That review is complementary to the strategic defence review.

Training is a large and diverse business in the Ministry of Defence, which is the largest single supplier of training in the United Kingdom, and one of the largest in Europe. We train many thousands of people each year, from fast-jet pilots to finance officers. We run more than 40 training establishments, including a joint service command and staff college, a university and a sixth-form college. Like any large organisation, we must also ensure that not only those in the front line but those working in support are trained to conduct their business efficiently and effectively.

As with any other aspect of business, we must ensure from time to time that our training requirement is right and that it is being delivered to the proper standard, achieving the right result and providing value for money. We recognised that the time to do that was now. We need to ensure that the training and education that we provide will meet our operational and business needs in this new century. We need to make sure that our training is delivered by the most effective means, taking advantage of modern technology and methods of learning.

As a wider Government aim, we want to ensure that as much armed forces training and education as possible is relevant to, and recognised in, civilian life. We seek to provide skills for life, not just for the duration of a service career. That has been much appreciated by the service men and women with whom I have had discussions.

These considerations provide a compelling case for a review of our training and education activities. We have now completed the first stage of the review, identifying the key objectives and the areas on which we should focus. Like the strategic defence review, this review will be open and transparent. The House may be aware that I recently chaired a seminar at the Royal United Services Institute on this very subject. A range of distinguished participants from the services and from industry and education attended, all of whom made valuable contributions. I thank the hon. Member for Salisbury (Mr. Key) for participating in the seminar; his presence was appreciated.

The high value of our people and the need to do more for them have been constant themes of this Government. Improving the lives of service personnel and their families is a long-term goal that we set ourselves from the outset. We are achieving it through our "Policy for People" strategy.

We set out in the 1999 Defence White Paper how far we have come towards implementing that policy. We have introduced measures for individuals, and for families too. We have modernised the facilities available for our personnel. We said that we wanted modern forces for a modern world, and that means that we are committed to being modern also in our approach to personnel policies.

Clearly it is important that we get right the relationship with families and other dependants. However, when I was doing the armed forces parliamentary scheme last year, I was struck by the lack of appropriate accommodation and support for single people. Will my hon. Friend describe some of the action taken in that regard?

I fully recognise the strength of my hon. Friend's point. My hon. Friend the Under-Secretary of State will deal with the question of accommodation at greater length when he replies to the debate. The subject of single living accommodation has been neglected for many years. Buildings need to be repaired and refurbished, as my hon. Friend will describe.

I support the hon. Member for Stroud (Mr. Drew). The Minister will be aware that Aldershot has some very substandard accommodation. The Normandy, Bruneval and Rhine barracks—a legacy of Poulson—are especially bad. I understand that they will not be removed until 2005. Given that a lot of single people will be coming to Aldershot with the Princess of Wales Royal Regiment and the Welsh Guards, will the Minister say whether there are any plans to bring forward the refurbishment programme?

The hon. Gentleman is right. The major and significant problem to which he refers is one of long standing. My hon. Friend the Under-Secretary will deal with the time scale at greater length later, but we recognise the problem.

If the rumours in the newspapers are right, the whole Aldershot site will be sold off. If so, are not the chances of the accommodation to which my hon. Friend the Member for Aldershot (Mr. Howarth) referred being improved almost nil?

I have learned not to believe everything I read in the newspapers, not even when I put material into them. That applies especially in this instance. A report on initial training has been prepared for the Army. It focuses on the locations for that training throughout the country, on whether the training takes place at the right places and on whether there is a need for a rebalance, especially in terms of where we recruit for the armed forces, particularly for the Army.

A substantial part of Aldershot is not in the training area. I have already discussed the matter with the hon. Member for Aldershot (Mr. Howarth), and provided him with an answer. I cannot be responsible for the headlines in the media, especially those in the Sunday press.

rose—

No, I will not give way.

I am able easily to move into the subject of recruitment. We are doing more to encourage young people to join the armed forces. We wish to make them a career of first choice, and we are doing well. We are also doing more to encourage personnel to stay, although we still have some way to go.

I have already mentioned the effects of high levels of operational commitment. There are pressures on families and family life as well as on individuals. We are determined to do what we can to ensure that family life does not suffer as a result of the demands that we place on the armed forces. When we were conducting surveys during the strategic defence review, service personnel told us that separation was a considerable problem.

Not only did we listen to what we were told, we took action. We have made improvements to the package of benefits that personnel receive while on operations. We have increased the telephone allowance twice, from three to 20 minutes a week, so that personnel can better keep in touch with those at home. I am sure that right hon. and hon. Members will recall events in East Timor and Mozambique, where British forces were deployed rapidly and at short notice to lend assistance to the United Nations and to disaster relief efforts. In both instances, welfare lessons learned in the Balkans were put to good use. Specifically, we learned that getting the provision of welfare telephones right was crucial. We acknowledged that there were problems in the Balkans and we did something about them. We introduced Project Welcome, a new contact for the provision of welfare telephones.

Project Welcome will ensure that personnel deployed on operations are able to keep in touch with their families back home. It is now working very well in the Balkans. It worked well in East Timor, and in Mozambique telephones were deployed with the lead elements of the force and were operational within 24 hours. However, in the Gulf region, where we have almost 1,500 personnel maintaining the northern and southern no-fly zones, we know that there have been some technical problems with the introduction of Project Welcome telephones. The speech quality of the original system was not good, and it was difficult for untrained personnel to use. These difficulties have been raised with us constructively by the Select Committee on Defence and by the hon. Member for Grantham and Stamford (Mr. Davies), and I thank those involved for so doing.

We have taken temporary measures to resolve the problems. For the longer term, we shall shortly be changing the communications system used in the Gulf region. We are determined to make Project Welcome work for our personnel. We are not in the business of making hollow promises. Instead, we are delivering.

We are alive to the potential of modern technology. As I have reported before to the House, we have trialled an electronic bluey, an electronic version of the traditional forces aerogramme, with forces deployed to the Balkans and the Falkland Islands. We provide internet terminals at units and family centres throughout the country so that as many people as possible can have access to it, and we have installed internet communications on Royal Navy ships. Carriers are taking up to 1,000 e-mail messages a week and destroyers and frigates are taking about 50 to 80, and that is on a rising trend. We have introduced guaranteed periods of post-operational tour leave so that personnel can be assured that they will be able to spend time with their families when they return from operations.

I am particularly proud of the achievements of the service families taskforce, which I lead. It is continuing to address and overcome problems faced by service families that fall outside the scope of the Ministry of Defence alone. Many of these problems have been drawn to our attention by the excellent work of the families federation, to which I pay tribute. The taskforce is truly an example of joined-up government in action. We have brought together Departments and Ministers across Whitehall to resolve difficulties that have previously been significant disincentives to service life.

I am grateful to ministerial colleagues for their help in resolving these issues. The taskforce began its work in the autumn of 1998, and in its 18 months of existence impressive results have been achieved.

For the first time, the code of practice on schools admissions now makes specific reference to service children. Service children's education is now represented on new local authority admission forums in most areas where there are many service children, and local education authorities are now directed to be sensitive to the position of service children returning from abroad.

I was pleased to announce during my recent visit to RAF Waddington that children of armed forces personnel are now exempt from the three-year residence requirement normally needed to qualify for student loans. That means that service children will no longer be disadvantaged by the fact that their parents are serving abroad. As a result of problems brought to light by the service families taskforce, the national health service has established 24 incentive schemes for dentists to take on more NHS patients in areas where there are many service personnel.

We identified the fact that service spouses were failing—through no fault of their own—to meet the criteria to allow them to claim jobseeker's allowance when they moved around the country. Working with the Department for Education and Employment and the Department of Social Security, we have therefore produced guidance to overcome that problem. We are also considering a number of other issues, such as how to help service children with special educational needs and, with the credit organisations, how to tackle the refusal of credit to service personnel. It is quite wrong that the men and women who serve their country should be denied—simply because we require them, as part of their duties, to move around more than the average, or to serve overseas—what so many of us take for granted.

Does the Minister not agree that one of the finest facilities for service children with special educational needs is provided at the school in the Cotswolds services centre in my constituency? Will he wish the centre his very best and assure it of its continued existence?

The hon. Gentleman has been in correspondence with me about the centre. We face a difficulty, because that excellent facility, which provides a first-class service, is underused. We have to consider how we best provide the range of services offered by the centre, which is used by personnel for several different reasons. We have to decide whether the centre is the most effective way of providing those services. As he knows, we are in consultation on the future of the centre and we are considering how we can best proceed. We are considering whether it should be a service base and assessing whether the service should necessarily be provided from a particular centre. None of that in any way detracts from the excellent work that is undertaken by the staff there, but we have to consider whether the facility is the most effective way of providing a necessary range of services.

If anybody doubts the case for joined-up government, or its effectiveness in action, they need look no further than the service families taskforce to see the real benefits that it is bringing. However, I recognise that there is still work to be done. Enabling someone to be given credit for time already spent on an NHS waiting list on moving to a new area has to be balanced against the clinical needs of those already on the waiting list in the new area. Enabling the portability of child-minding registration—a matter that has been raised with us—has created understandable concerns about whether child safety might be compromised. The taskforce is continuing to work on these and other problems, but their successful resolution will take a little time.

Retaining our personnel remains an issue on which we need to do more. It is not easy, as we all recognise, to persuade people to stay in the armed forces once they have made the decision to go. We know that many of those who have left in recent times have done so not because they no longer wish to serve their country, but because they are no longer willing to put up with the pressure that their career places on their families. We must recognise that some of that pressure is inevitable; it goes with the job and it is not something we can change. However, we can do much and we can do more to mitigate the consequences. Of course, we do not want to lose people when we have made a considerable investment in time and money training and developing them and when they still have much to offer.

We have taken action to encourage people to serve longer. That action is not just for those deployed on operations; it also supports their families. We have already increased the allowances for separated service to acknowledge and reward those individuals who have experienced the greatest separation. Those who suffer more than 280 days paid separation in a two-year period will receive a £1,000 bonus, and those who are separated for more than 365 days will get £2,000. We have already reduced the qualifying periods for those allowances and, as part of this year's pay deal, increased the daily rates at which they are paid. For families, we have introduced improvements and greater flexibility in the concessionary travel scheme, so that families based overseas can have more choice of how they return to the UK; for instance, they can now use Eurostar.

For the longer term, we are looking at a number of ways to encourage people to serve longer. They range from addressing sources of irritation identified by services personnel themselves—such as accommodation—to considering the provision of incentives, financial and others, to continue a services career.

In the latter category, our learning forces initiative is providing recognised, highly sought-after skills and qualifications. We have also introduced targeted schemes. Currently, 3,500 personnel are in Kosovo and 3,300 are in Bosnia-Herzegovina—although the latter figure will drop to about 2,000 by the end of this year. As well as contributing to the maintenance of peace and stability and to the building of democracy in the region, we are enabling our personnel to train. In Croatia, the Army has established a theatre education centre in Split to provide education services to personnel deployed in the area. The RAF has installed IT-based learning facilities at stations and detachments in the Gulf, Italy and Bosnia. Last year, when I visited Cosford, many of the personnel who had used those facilities told me that they had found them extremely useful.

Our efforts do not stop there.

The Minister said that, in addition to enforcing peace and stability in former Yugoslavia, our forces there are being given the opportunity to train. Will he confirm that our Challenger 2 tanks deployed in that area have no training ammunition at present? They have only war ammunition, which cannot be used in training as it contains depleted uranium. The forces are unable to undergo training—an extremely important matter for our armed services.

The hon. Gentleman may have misunderstood my remarks. I was making a point about individual training and education programmes. We are providing facilities for our forces to undertake such programmes. I was not, in this instance, referring to the military training described by the hon. Gentleman. As the hon. Gentleman correctly points out, and as I mentioned earlier in my speech, operations can be detrimental to the broader training required by our people. We need to find a balance; that is why we have introduced the initiatives that I described earlier.

As I was saying, my right hon. Friend announced on 22 February that we had completed development of the armed forces overarching personnel strategy. That will provide a coherent framework within which we can develop policies that will allow us to recruit and retain the best and brightest that society has to offer.

That new approach, which is currently being introduced across the armed forces, will allow us to identify issues of concern to services personnel and to address them before they become major disincentives to service life.

Previously, we were told that it was hoped to achieve the full manning target for the Army by 2004. The date has been revised and has now slipped to 31 March 2005. Will the Minister confirm that and comment on it?

The date was 2005. We have been moving towards more positive figures for the Army. Although they are not yet satisfactory, fortunately they are rising. As I have been pointing out, we need to achieve the right balance between recruitment—last year, it was at its best for about 10 years—and translating initial recruitment into trained personnel. We have been refining our procedures for that, especially on fitness training, so that we lose fewer people during the build-up. We are not compromising on standards for the completion of training; we are doing more building up for several reasons—not least the reduction in sport in schools over several years. We are also incorporating the measures on retention that I outlined. That has resulted in a positive balance, although I acknowledge that the figure is not yet satisfactory. The trend is in the right direction, however.

We all welcome the initiatives that the Government have introduced to help to deal with our inheritance from the Conservative Government—the huge shortfall in establishment in all the services. Is my hon. Friend a little concerned that, because of the Government's success on employment—800,000 new jobs during the past three years and employment rising every day—our job will be more difficult in future years?

It is a great tribute to our training and recruitment teams that, in the face of a substantial increase in employment throughout most of the country, we have been able to achieve substantial recruitment figures. Traditionally, high employment has had an impact on retention, and it still does. That is why we need to try harder to do away with many of the irritants in service life, for both service personnel and their families, to sustain retention in the face of attractive employment prospects, especially among those qualified to work in the telecommunications industry.

We are looking ahead to the challenges of tomorrow, not only on the world stage, but in the lives of our people. The armed forces overarching personnel strategy epitomises our approach to joined-up government. For the first time, the armed forces collectively have a coherent, overarching strategy within which to develop their personnel policies.

Talking of the need to recruit, figures to date indicate that nearly 25,000 people have joined the armed forces in the past 12 months: that is 96 per cent. of our target for the year. More than 3,000 of those recruits are women. However, we acknowledge that we have a way to go before we have armed forces that are sufficiently representative of our society.

The first year in which there were Government-set targets for the recruitment of members of ethnic minority communities has just ended, on 31 March. Does my hon. Friend have the figures for the year, and did the armed forces meet the target set for them?

We fell slightly short of the targets, but were well ahead on the numbers of the previous year. The ethnic recruitment team is doing a tremendous job. I hope that, like many hon. Members, my hon. Friend has met the members of that team as they go around the country, putting across our message in a highly effective way to youngsters, many of whom have had no previous contact with the armed forces. As I often say, however much Ministers say about the opportunities available to youngsters from the ethnic communities, nothing is more effective than a member of that community in our uniform putting across our message. That is why recruitment is increasing among youngsters from ethnic communities and why many personnel from ethnic communities are moving up through promotion.

Will the Minister for the Armed Forces bear it in mind that one of his own hon. Friends, the hon. Member for Ealing, Southall (Mr. Khabra), served in the Indian Army during the last war? It might be worth giving him some prominence, so as to reach back across the generations and influence grandmothers and grandfathers who still have a say in encouraging youngsters to join up.

The hon. Gentleman is absolutely right about the importance of speaking to those who have influence in the community as part of our effort to persuade youngsters that the armed forces offer a good career. We want to send the message that many members of the ethnic communities who now live in this country have previously served in the armed forces. I thank the hon. Gentleman for his kind comments, and he will be pleased to learn that, at the reception for the Royal Navy held the other day, Commander Manchanda of the ethnic minorities recruitment team had a long conversation with my hon. Friend the Member for Ealing, Southall (Mr. Khabra) about involving him in the team's work in west London.

We have some way to go before we reach the numbers required, but we are determined to continue our efforts to attract into the armed forces the brightest and the best, whatever their gender, ethnic origin or social background. I am pleased to say that we offer taster days for young women in the armed forces and the MOD civil service to show them the exciting opportunities that are available. Finally, to return to the theme of modernising our approach, the armed forces are dramatically increasing their use of the internet as a recruiting mechanism. I hope to report further to the House on our success in this regard.

I do not have time today to list all the measures that we are taking to improve the lives and careers of our forces. I know that in his closing speech this evening, my hon. Friend the Under-Secretary of State for Defence will address some of the measures on which I have only touched, in particular improvements to service accommodation, which we recognise is a longstanding and legitimate grievance of both married and, as was rightly stressed earlier, single personnel.

The measures that I have mentioned demonstrate, as I am sure the House will agree, how much we—the Government and the House—value all our defence personnel, and show what we are doing to help them to continue to perform their job, which they do so magnificently for our people and our country.

I start by thanking the Minister for the Armed Forces for a very good annual report. It was a lot better than this year's defence White Paper, and a lot more fun, too. We start on a good note—it was a good speech, if I may say so.

Since we last debated armed forces personnel, a great deal has happened, and much of it has been good. Inevitably in these debates, we concentrate on problems and challenges, though the Minister of course presented an up-beat report. It is important to remember that most of the time, most armed forces personnel and their dependants are doing a superb job, usually—in spite of everything—pursuing a challenging life style and enjoying a high quality of life. I agree with the Minister about that.

I know that my right hon. and hon. Friends hope to raise a number of issues. Between us, we will draw to the House's attention facts that Ministers will find less palatable, but which they cannot ignore.

It is a pleasure to see the hon. Member for Fermanagh and South Tyrone (Mr. Maginnis) in his place. I look forward to his contribution from the perspective of Ulster.

I would be remiss not to point out that in spite of the new constitutional relationships with Scotland, there is not a single member of the Scottish National party present, even though this Parliament continues to have responsibility for defence in Scotland.

I remind Ministers that, this year, the Ministry of Defence faces a real-terms percentage budget cut since 1998–99 of 3.8 per cent. Furthermore, the 1999–2000 winter supplementary estimates noted that the MOD's departmental expenditure limit after the first six months of the year was running 4.3 per cent. ahead of forecast. If that continues unchecked for the entire financial year, it could result in an overspend of £950 million.

The Select Committee on Defence was told that the additional costs of Kosovo operations falling on last year's budget were likely to be almost £400 million. Even if that were met from the capital reserve, it would still leave a significant margin to be clawed back by the Department in order to avoid breaching its cash limit.

The strategic defence review settlement was based on achieving 3 per cent. a year cumulative efficiency improvements over the four years to 2001–02. That means £500 million worth of new efficiency measures every year. We are told that that has been achieved, but the Defence Committee concluded:

We cannot be expected to believe the MOD's assurances that these measures are genuine efficiency savings, and not cuts, until it produces this evidence. A year-on-year programme of efficiency savings can have a debilitating effect at all levels of command and can be destructive to the quality of life that will sustain retention in the armed forces.

The Committee concluded that

if the wheels have not yet come off the SDR, they are certainly beginning to wobble alarmingly… Commitments and resources have to be brought back into line, or we risk finding ourselves stumbling from one crisis to the next.

The Armed Forces Pay Review Body has taken into account recruitment, retention and motivation of the armed forces and has recommended an increase in basic military salary of 3.3 per cent. for all ranks, with the exception of privates, lance corporals, captains and lieutenants, who should receive 3.8 per cent. An increase of 1 per cent. in the X factor is also recommended.

That means an additional cost to the defence budget of £260 million, which must be met within existing departmental expenditure limits. Will armed forces personnel be better off in real terms, or will the increases once again be swallowed up by rising messing charges and rents?

Air Marshal Pledger, Deputy Chief of the Defence Staff (Personnel), told the Defence Committee that the attitude surveys of people leaving the armed forces showed that operational tempo was the main reason for people wishing to leave. The adjutant-general confirmed that overstretch and undermanning remain top of the list. There is a 5 per cent. shortage of personnel on Royal Navy ships, which are already lean manned. That must have an effect on education, individual and team training, and drills.

The Army has an agreed period of 24 months for tour intervals, yet no Army units achieve that. The Royal Engineers and the Royal Signals have tour intervals of seven months and six months respectively. In the Army, nights out of bed have accounted for as much as 31 per cent. of the time. That assessment did not cover the period of highest commitment last summer.

The position remains critical in the Royal Air Force, which is 95 fast-jet pilots under strength. Ministers have failed to explain how they plan to reverse that dangerous downward spiral.

I am grateful to my hon. Friend for giving way so early in his speech. The devastating figure that he has cited for pilots is underlined by the fact that, unlike many other industries, the aviation industry is currently depressed and airlines are not recruiting large numbers of pilots. It is difficult to imagine what will happen when there is an upturn in recruiting.

My hon. Friend is right. I am the first to acknowledge that Ministers have a difficult task. Last year, when I accompanied the Minister's predecessor to Corsica and Italy to visit Royal Air Force personnel at the end of the Kosovo conflict, it was clear that they felt that they had achieved all that they could hope to do. One unit had carried out 900 bombing missions between 16 pilots in four months. The personnel said that they would never do that again. It is true that there are great temptations in the civilian world, but Ministers must decide how they will reverse the downward spiral.

The naval service is 1,900 short in trained strength; the Army is 5,600 short and the RAF is 1,200 short. I am the first to congratulate the Army on a substantial improvement in recruitment, but retention remains a serious problem. My worst fears were confirmed this week in an answer to a parliamentary question in which Ministers revealed the gravity of the position of the Scottish regiments. They are undermanned by approximately 600 people. That is the equivalent of a whole Scottish regiment, given that those regiments are mostly battalion strength. It is bad news for Scotland as well as the United Kingdom. That underlines my earlier point that Scottish National Members should be here, participating in the debate.

The hon. Gentleman makes that point for the second time. I do not want to make a yah-boo point against Scottish National Members, but never a week goes by without their defence spokesmen sending letters from the Mound that make pronouncements on defence policy. The problem is that they believe that defence policy belongs to the Holyrood Parliament.

The hon. Gentleman is right. However, I am a Unionist and I believe strongly in the Union between England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland. I endorse the hon. Gentleman's points by drawing attention to the extent to which the civilian work force at Faslane resent Scottish Nationalists' absurd obsession with a separate defence policy.

An especially worrying consequence of undermanning and overstretch is the rising divorce rates for couples of which at least one spouse is in one of the three services. Since 1990, the divorce rate has risen in the Army from 1.8 per cent. to 2 per cent.; in the Royal Navy, from 3.7 per cent. to 3.8 per cent., and in the Royal Air Force from 2.9 per cent. to 3.4 per cent. Those increases may not seem especially startling, but in the same period, the figures for the civilian population have fallen from 1.25 per cent. to 1.07 per cent. The RAF therefore has a divorce rate that is nearly three times as high as the civilian average.

Sometimes there are major problems. More often, the details of daily living cause the most friction. Friction at home occupies the mind of the service man or woman on the front line. That is why it is right to raise such issues while acknowledging our pride in the success of our armed forces personnel.

It therefore genuinely mattered when the Defence Housing Executive announced that it would cut the £2 million that was assigned for the purchase of carpets and curtains for married quarters. It mattered to service families out of all proportion to the sum saved to the defence budget, as the Army Families Federation has told us. A much bigger problem arose as a bad example of overstretch when the tour intervals for a commando gunner became meaningless because he was posted overseas five times in only two years, during which his eight-year-old daughter attended seven schools. That is just not on.

Although statistics always lag behind events, the serious divorce level among Territorial Army families is becoming apparent. Wives are proud of their TA menfolk, but with 2,800 TA members serving overseas—in spite or perhaps because of the 18,000 cut in TA strength—unreasonable strains are being put on marriages. The Army Families Federation is not alone in looking after the interests of those who follow the flag. I pay particular tribute to Airwaves—the Association of RAF Wives—whose patron is the hon. Member for Tatton (Mr. Bell) and which recently held a highly successful annual conference at the Royal British Legion college at Tidworth.

We are all relieved and delighted that RAF wives and dependants are building a successful and professional support organisation. RAF families are inevitably spread wide and thin across the United Kingdom and overseas, and need all the support that they can get. May I make a particular plea for armed forces personnel in Cyprus? I hope that Ministers will press their colleagues in the Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food over passports for pets for service personnel serving there—Cyprus has particular problems—and elsewhere, in particular Germany.

Also supporting the whole military community at garrison level are the Army welfare services. I pay particular tribute to them. Their budgets are being constantly squeezed by Land Command as the defence budget continues to be cut. Every garrison produces its newsletter, but I pay particular tribute to those who produce "Drumbeat", the Tidworth, Netheravon and Bulford community newsletter, which has run for 35 issues. This substantial source of supportive information contains everything from the times of church services and news on the citizens advice bureau, Relate and family entertainments to Defence Housing Executive and police news, holiday activities and rubbish recycling information.

I am most interested in my hon. Friend's remarks about "Drumbeat". I am sure that he is about to mention the "Aldershot Garrison Herald"—a marvellous publication that occasionally reports my speeches in the House, I am pleased to say.

There is an idea for "Drumbeat". I shall give way to any hon. Member who has recently read his garrison magazine.

I mentioned the RBL training centre, and any consideration of forces personnel must include the RBL's amazing work. It not only looks after former service men and women, but firmly looks to the future and plays an important role, particularly through its training college, in the education and training of those who are about to leave or have left the forces. The RBL has always been about more than poppy day and we owe it not only our thanks and admiration, but our support for its future role.

We should not blame our armed forces personnel or their families if they ask, as they do increasingly, "What is it all for?" General Sir Mike Jackson, Commander-in-Chief, Land Forces spoke about that at last week's excellent Ministry of Defence seminar at the Royal United Services Institute on the future of defence training and education. I am grateful to the Minister of State for inviting me to attend. With characteristic bluntness, General Jackson reminded us that, in the final analysis, a member of Her Majesty's forces knows that it is kill or be killed. In those circumstances, he said, education is all very well, but what is needed are qualifications for the after life.

General Jackson reminded us that British forces need physical, moral and conceptual training that will equip them with an ability to make sensible judgments in deserts and in the Arctic, in towns and cities and in jungles, with allies who speak, train and think differently. Service men must make judgments in the public eye, in the dark, under chemical attack and under attack from the air. British service men and women have to operate in three dimensions. They must handle fear. They must know how to react when they make mistakes. They usually find themselves with insufficient information and maximum disinformation.

Professional forces are a permanent target for deception. They must be highly technical. They face endless intricate requirements for co-ordination with unreliable communications. They will be pitted against a highly intelligent foe. They must make their judgments within the law. Service men and women know that the hardest part is not the physical, but the psychological. As von Clausewitz said, in wartime operations even the easiest things are very difficult.

For our professional forces, day-to-day friction is inevitable. On operations, there will always be uncertainty and chaos, violence and danger and a great deal of human stress. General Jackson made it clear that the course of education and training on which the Ministry of Defence has embarked is for everyone at every level, from general national vocational qualification to higher education. As I added, it should also be for forces families and dependants, and for civilian Ministry of Defence employees. The Ministry has set itself a huge challenge. Last week's seminar was an early point in the process, which Conservative Members warmly endorse. We shall do our bit by keeping the Ministry up to the mark on behalf of our service men and women and their dependants and civilian personnel.

Are the members of Her Majesty's forces different? Do we want Her Majesty's forces to reflect British society? Before 1997, the agenda of political correctness was creeping up on the military, but there was no enthusiasm for it. In the past three years, some of the eight Ministers who have served in the Ministry of Defence have, with their political advisers, been more keen than others, but it is unquestionably true that Ministers now welcome the correctness agenda.

United States forces are ahead of us, of course. President Bill Clinton's agenda has been to build an army whose diversity of race and gender makes it look like America. As The Sunday Times told us last weekend, on American bases special exercise classes are held for pregnant soldiers. Training standards have been lowered. The obstacle course at one base has been renamed a confidence course so as not to intimidate women. Men must be able to throw a grenade 35 m, while women can pass muster by tossing it over a concrete wall. A new book on women in the armed forces by Stephanie Gutmann, "The Kinder, Gentler Military", has raised hackles in the Pentagon. The author writes:

When we are involved again in a real war the fiercer, angrier, most blood-lusting force will win …

and that is not a description of America's new age army.

Do we want such an Army, Navy and Air Force for Britain and is it inevitable that we will get them? The passage of the Armed Forces Discipline Bill through the House and the other place has shown the irresponsible attitude of Ministers. There was no attempt to justify the wholesale weakening of the chain of command and no attempt to answer the fundamental questions put by Conservative Members or, indeed, by noble and gallant peers of no political persuasion in the other place.

With the qualification that, on our return to office, we shall ask the chiefs of staffs to review the impact on operational effectiveness of the change of rules on homosexuals in the forces, we warmly welcome the introduction of the new tri-service disciplinary code, which judges all personal behaviour in all three services against the overriding criterion of operational effectiveness.

Another landmark publication, after many years of work at the adjutant-general's headquarters, is the excellent new document "Values and Standards of the British Army". It is worth reminding the House of the foreword by the Chief of the General Staff, General Sir Roger Wheeler:

The Army is proud of our achievements and our reputation for excellence, none of which would be possible without the commitment, drive, courage and quality of our men and women. These Values and Standards have been developed to underpin our ethos, and formally to codify the standards of conduct essential to sustain the moral component of fighting power. They have to be more than just a form of words; they must be comprehensive yet understandable, inspiring rather than threatening, contemporary yet enduring, underpinning combat effectiveness yet morally defensible, and above all robust enough to sustain us in war. They also form the basis of a covenant between the Army and its soldiers rather than a set of commandments …

Paragraph 11, in the section on the Army's core values and selfless commitment, states:

Soldiers volunteering for the British Army accept that, by putting the needs of the Service before their own, they will forego some of the rights enjoyed by those outside the Armed Forces. But in return they can at all times expect fair treatment, to be valued and respected as an individual, and to be rewarded by reasonable terms and conditions of service.

Paragraph 15, in the section on discipline, states:

Because discipline is so vital to success on operations, commanders must be able to enforce it when necessary. That requires clearly understood rules and a military legal system which can deal with offences such as absence, desertion or insubordination which are not found in civil law. And if it is to work in war, such a system must be in place in peace, for it cannot be turned on and off at will.

A parallel document, "Core Values and Standards in the Royal Air Force", conveys a similarly powerful message.

Those sentiments are wholly right. Long may they continue to have precedence over the tone of the arguments advanced by Defence Ministers during the passage of the Armed Forces Discipline Bill.