I start the debate by noting that not as many hon. Members are present in the Chamber to discuss pensioner poverty in London as I would have liked, but let us hope that more will come and join in the debate as we proceed. It is an important topic and one that we should spend some time discussing, not least because next Wednesday the Chancellor of the Exchequer will make his pre-Budget statement to the House. In July, the right hon. Gentleman announced an additional £43 billion of investment in public services through the comprehensive spending review, a great deal of which I welcome—especially the investment in health and education. However, not a penny more was announced for pensioners—in a year when their basic state pension has risen by only 75p. We know that the Prime Minister has got the message about the anger that pensioners feel about that miserly increase, but the question is whether the Chancellor can now assure us that the Government have understood it.

As a London Member of Parliament, I make no apology for making London the focus of this morning's debate. I am not saying that pensioner poverty elsewhere is any less of an issue. Indeed, some of Government's own indicators show that that is clearly not so. However, one indicator of pensioner poverty overshadows all others. More pensioners die in London as a result of the cold than anywhere else in the United Kingdom. According to the warm homes campaign, on average 5,486 London pensioners die prematurely each year due to the cold. Research recently published in the British Medical Journal found that London had the worst record for cold-related deaths anywhere in western Europe. Even when compared with Scandinavia where the winters are longer and harsher, London comes out worse.

Research makes it clear that the cold will continue to cause thousands of deaths every winter unless effective steps are taken to improve protection against it. When reading such facts alongside the results of the 1996 English house condition survey, which shows that one in five pensioners lives in poor housing and that a higher concentration of that poor housing is in the oldest parts of London—mainly inner London—we begin to see how such conditions make matters worse.

An important part of the picture is not only poor housing but isolation. One in three of London's older people lives alone, which is above the national average. In its report on isolation and older people, Age Concern London stated:

Isolation in old age is commonly associated with frail, housebound older people but it is in fact more widespread. Older people find themselves isolated in a range of circumstances—their isolation may be triggered by the death of a partner or the loss of close friends, by a change in culture or social situation, or by a loss of health or mobility.

Those who are most likely to live alone are elderly women. Moreover, older people in inner London are more likely to live alone than their outer London contemporaries. The Sutton seniors forum is an active pensioners group in my outer London constituency. It holds meetings each month at which more than 200 to 300 seniors discuss a range of issues. From a survey of its members, the forum found that 10 per cent. of pensioners never received visits from friends or members of their family and that as many as 50 per cent. of those pensioners were visited only occasionally. The chairman of the forum, David Dombey, said that that was

a terrible indictment of today's society.

I agree. Isolation increases vulnerability. It can fuel the mental and physical decline that, in turn, leads to crisis and even premature death. The impact of isolation on older people, and the need for a multi-agency approach to tackle the complex range of causes, warrants a debate of its own. There is certainly no time to do the subject justice today.

Organisations such as Age Concern London and others do much to highlight the issues and to develop and promote good practice on the ground. I want to focus on one of the causes of isolation, which is pensioner poverty—the subject of our debate. It does not take a genius to link London's appalling death toll with fuel poverty and its concentration among the older population. According to the 1996 English house condition survey, 52 per cent. of single pensioner households have to spend more than 10 per cent. of their income to achieve satisfactory indoor heating. The only way to tackle fuel poverty and poor housing, and to cut winter deaths, is to raise pensioner incomes.

This is not the first time that I have highlighted pensioner poverty in the House. I was fortunate enough to secure a debate on the issue early last year. Since then, the Select Committee on Social Security has cast its critical eye on pensioner incomes. Its report puts on record many key facts that should inform this debate and many others in this place on the subject.

There is no such thing as a typical pensioner. Statistical averages mask at least as much as they inform. The Select Committee found that the bulk of pensioners were in the bottom half of incomes, and that there was a widening gap between the relatively few rich pensioners and the rest. The majority of pensioners during the past 20 years have not become well off. The poorest have seen their incomes rise by less than half the rate of the better-off. The gap between the better-off and less well-off pensioner has much to do with age and length of time in retirement.

Older pensioners, even those fortunate enough to have a second pension such as an occupational pension, have fallen behind people who have retired more recently, let alone the wider population. Index-linking the basic state pension and occupational pensions to prices has eroded their value, and will continue to erode them. Using evidence from the National Pensioners Convention, the Select Committee's report identified a difference of £54 a week between the incomes of a recently retired person and someone aged over 75.

Beyond that gap is the fact that the oldest pensioners tend to be women. Half of women pensioners in London—310,000—receive less than the full rate of basic state pension. Of those, 186,000 receive a pension of only £40.50 a week, and a further 93,000 receive even less. That is due to broken contribution records. As a result, many women rely on their husbands' contribution records to claim a full spouse basic pension set at 60 per cent. of the full personal basic pension.

I am sure that the Minister will point to the minimum income guarantee and the Government's take-up campaign. As I meet older people in my constituency, I take every opportunity to encourage them to avail themselves of that provision. However, figures from Age Concern England show that as many as 120,000 pensioners in London are entitled to the minimum income guarantee, but are not receiving it.

In 1998, a Department of Social Security report called "Helping Pensioners: Contextual Survey of the Income Support Pilot Areas" drew on 10 pilots in various parts of the country and found that 40 per cent. of pensioners would definitely make a claim. However, it also found that 36 per cent. would not make a claim in any circumstances, for reasons such as stigma, uncertainty and an unwillingness to deal with the Benefits Agency. Therefore, we can begin to question a strategy that relies so much on the minimum income guarantee.

The people who do not claim and will not claim are, according to the Department's own research, the poorest of our pensioners. They will derive no help from MIG. The non-claimers are older pensioners; six out of 10 non-claimers are over 75. It seems strange that a take-up campaign should fail to look for entitlement to benefits such as attendance allowance, which extends a person's entitlement to a minimum income guarantee.

The Select Committee also highlights the difficulties faced by ethnic minorities in terms of pensions, which is an especially appropriate topic in a debate focusing on London. Sadly, there is a dearth of information about the extent of pensioner poverty among ethnic minority groups. Given that London will see an 80 per cent. increase in ethnic older people between 1996 and 2006, it is vital that more research be undertaken by the Department to ensure that the take-up campaigns are properly tailored to deliver the extra help that is needed, especially if the evidence from the Minority Ethnic Black Elder Strategic Alliance is correct. Last year, it reported that 67 per cent. of black and other ethnic minority elders received a pension, compared with 88 per cent. of their white peers. The only way in which we can help the poorest pensioners—those who miss out on the minimum income guarantee—is by giving a substantial boost to the basic state pension.

The Government's own research shows that that is what people want. According to research report No. 83 on pensions and retirement planning, almost no one wants the state to withdraw from pension provision. On the provision of a basic foundation pension, the research found that the fairness, universality and dependability of the basic state pension counted for a lot. The research bears out the views of many of the members of the Sutton seniors forum and many other pension campaigners across London. The research document states:

Most people feel that a state pensioner should not need to claim income support—indeed, they see this as paradoxical.

That is right, yet Government policy is driving more pensioners into means-testing. Indexing the minimum income guarantee to earnings while the basic state pension remains tied to prices will, year by year, increase dependency on means-testing.

The basic state pension is set to rise next April by at least £2.25, but that will do little or nothing to arrest the long-term decline in its value. I want to make it clear that, unlike the Conservatives, Liberal Democrats are not calling for the winter fuel payments, free television licence or Christmas bonus to be scrapped to pay for an increase in the basic state pension. Those payments and concessions should continue, because they are making a difference.

The November issue of Saga Magazine reports that, when the details of the pension plans proposed by the right hon. Member for Richmond, Yorks (Mr. Hague) are explained in detail to its readers, 72 per cent. reject them out of hand. It is worth bearing in mind that pensioners have seen through the Conservatives' plans and understand that they are not being offered new money, but that this is the first case of robbing Peter to pay Peter. When the plans are boiled down to their core, we find that pensioners would receive just 42p on top of the £2.25 inflation increase next April. A real increase is needed. Pensioners need extra cash, not smoke and mirrors.

This year, Age Concern published work that it had commissioned from the Family Budget Unit, which set out to measure objectively the level of pension required to achieve a low-cost but adequate standard of living. The point is that a pension should do more than simply keep pensioners alive; it should add life to those years and enable older people to take part and pride in their community, not feel shut out and isolated. The FBU research suggests that a single pensioner needs £90 a week and a couple needs £135 to avoid living in poverty. I hope that the Government will incorporate that approach in their strategy for tackling pensioner poverty. The research seemed to persuade the Select Committee.

I am delighted that the Minister has taken down from the shelves the Department's copy of the Liberal Democrat manifesto for the 1997 general election. I am sure that reference will be made to it. It is correct that the position taken by the Liberal Democrats at the previous election is not dissimilar to that taken by the Government in the past three years, particularly on targeting extra help through the minimum income guarantee. However, I think that we put our hands up and admitted that we got our policy wrong. We have reviewed it; it is right to keep policies under review.

We increasingly take the view that targeting extra help through the basic state pension is the right way forward. Given the erosion of its value, an across-the-board increase is needed now to halt the decline. That increase should be at least £5 on top of inflation. However, given the clear evidence that old age and poverty go hand in hand, the Government must go further. Targeting extra help on older pensioners through the basic state pension is far more cost-effective than relying on means-testing. Evidence about fuel poverty reinforces that view. The 1991 English house condition survey found that eight out of 10 people over 80 were living in fuel poverty. The 1996 house condition survey suggested that that figure had improved. The winter fuel allowance may have improved it further, but not enough.

Age additions are not new to our social security system. Since 1971, pensioners have received, at the age of 80, the princely sum of an extra 25p on their basic state pension. Twenty-five pence was worth something in 1971, but today it does not even pay for a first-class stamp. In his evidence to the Social Security Committee, the Minister of State, Department of Social Security, who has responsibility for pensions, rightly described that 25p as a festering sore on the social security system. However, the Government would be wrong if they concluded that they should scrap that provision; instead, they should increase it substantially to at least £10 a week. Six out of 10 of those eligible for but not claiming the minimum income guarantee are 75 and over; there should be a new age addition at 75 of at least £5 a week.

Those proposals are affordable, and the Select Committee has shown one way in which they could be paid for—by applying some of the £3 billion surplus in the national insurance fund. Indeed, the Department of Social Security research note No. 83 is also helpful on that matter. Most participants in that research favoured raising the basic state pension to between £80 and £120 a week for a single person. When asked about the cost, working participants said that they were willing to pay more in national insurance to fund a pension increase of £10 a week, or even a £20 to £30 increase.

The hon. Gentleman knows perfectly well that the surplus in the national insurance fund might cover the costs of his proposals in the first year, but would not do so in the long term. What would the Liberal Democrat policy be on that? Where would the money come from for long-term increases?

I am happy to deal with that point. We would reintroduce a new tax rate of 50 per cent. for those earning more than £100,000, which would unlock additional resources. Those people who have done well in our society should pay a little more in tax to allow our pensioners to have a decent income.

The hon. Gentleman says that that additional taxation could be used for the pensioners—but would it be used for them, in fact? If it were, it clearly could not be used for other spending plans, such as education or health.

The hon. Gentleman needs to get down from the shelf the document that was discussed at our conference in September, if the Department has a copy. That document shows the way in which our various proposals for additional spending on education and pensions would be funded. All too often, the Government conveniently confuse our proposals to increase to 50 per cent. the tax rate for those earning more than £100,000 in order to fund pensions with our proposals for a penny in the pound on income tax to fund education. Those tax increases are not the same; the proposals would achieve different things and would earmark specific funds for specific purposes.

The hon. Gentleman is extremely generous in giving way.

How much money would be raised by his 50p-in-the-pound income tax proposal, and how much would be spent on increasing pensions?

The hon. Gentleman knows from the figures published in our alternative Budget earlier in the year and from our detailed costings that that tax increase would generate sufficient funds to cover the cost of the age additions and the £5 across-the-board increase. That proposal is based not on costings plucked out of the air but on detailed costings checked by the Library. If the hon. Gentleman would like to see those costings, I would be happy to pass them to him later.

Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

As we have had a debate on this issue, I will be happy to take one more brief intervention before I conclude my remarks.

I am most grateful. I do not want the hon. Gentleman to feel that he is under a pincer attack. Will he clarify whether the Liberal Democrats plan a one-off increase in the basic state pension, which would continue to be linked to prices, or whether they plan to link the basic state pension to another figure?

The hon. Lady will know that we propose to use the work done by the Family Budget Unit to provide a much more transparent method that would enable pensions to rise in relation to the growth in the economy. It would provide an affordable, low-cost pension package that would relate to the various extra costs that pensioners face and ensure that pensioners were given sufficient income to play an active part in the community and enjoy some leisure time. The figures suggest a pension of £90 for a single person and £135 for a couple. Anyone who reads this speech can do the sums and I am the first to admit that our proposals will not reach that stage in one go. The increases are not viewed as a one-off increase for ever. We need a less blunt mechanism than indexation to prices, which has brought rough justice over the past 12 months and has caused much anguish, anger and fury among pensioners. We know from our surgeries that pensioners viewed 75p as an insult. It was the product of an indexation system related solely to prices and not flexible enough to take account of the overall growth of the economy.

May I issue a gentle reminder? I remind hon. Members that today's subject is pensioner poverty in London, and it would be better if we focused more on that.

Thank you for that reminder, Sir Alan.

I was concluding my remarks by referring to further evidence of pensioner poverty in London. I was arguing that directing extra help to the basic state pension would eliminate any danger of a low take-up. Clearly, take-up would be universal. There would be no stigma and administration costs would be low. That is not just my view of administration costs; it is also the view of the Minister of State, Department of Social Security, as expressed in the House earlier this year. He said:

The figures for 1997-98 show that the administration costs of income support were 6 per cent. of benefit expenditure. The figure for retirement pensions is 0.9 per cent. A means-tested benefit will inevitably cost more because of the calculations involved.-[Official Report, 3 April 2000; Vol. 347, c. 685.]

Directing extra cash through the basic state pension will also address another issue identified in the DSS research report, which states:

There is also often disquiet about the fact that Income Support thresholds can leave those who have worked to provide for themselves with a small occupational or personal pension worse off than those who have made no provision at all. This appears unfair and demotivating.

It certainly is, as many of my thrifty constituents have made clear.

I began by referring to the Chancellor's pre-Budget statement next Wednesday. The Chancellor has an opportunity to demonstrate to pensioners that the Government have not only got the message, but have understood it. One in three of London's pensioners lives in poverty. There are 300,000 pensioners in London—20,000 more since the last general election. Pensioners deserve more than a subsistence pension. Tackling pensioner poverty is the only way to stop the scandal of preventable premature death from cold of 5,400 of London's elders.

I shall remember today with some sadness because my post this morning included a letter from the Benefits Agency about my retirement pension. It tells us all that I am nearly 60 and tells me about the handsome and princely sum of £48.41 to which I shall be entitled as my state pension. I have not read the detail so I do not know how it was calculated. I am one of the lucky ones because I have an occupational pension as well as a pension from Parliament. I certainly do not include myself in the category of pensioners in poverty in London, but it was interesting to receive that letter on the same day as speaking in this debate.

I was a GP many years ago and used to witness pensioner poverty in London on a daily basis. It is still there. We used to call it the burnt legs and bacon sandwich syndrome. Pensioners still live in fuel poverty and single bar electric fires with dangerous wiring are still about. That is what causes the burnt legs syndrome, when the rest of the body is freezing cold; pensioners do not have enough money or energy to make meals other than, perhaps, a bacon sandwich and a cup of tea. I have checked with my hon. Friends, who confirm that that is still a common finding in many parts of London.

I admit that that is not such a common finding in my very affluent constituency, but some elderly people in their 80s and early 90s live in extremely valuable houses in Richmond Park on the minimum income. They have a very poor life style, in a house that drives them crazy because it is crumbling around them while they are unable to do anything about it because they do not want to move out of the neighbourhood or because they are terrified of not having something to leave to the children. If they can hang on as long as possible, they know that they will be reported in the local paper as having left a little bit to their children, which is desperately important to older people. Very old people want to be able to leave their mark when they die; they want to be able to say, "Well, I have done something in life and I can leave something to my children." Although the burnt legs and bacon sandwich syndrome is not prevalent in Richmond, there are other problems.

I came across someone recently who was living on £129 a week, which is extremely difficult to do, but whose house was worth in excess of £400,000. Some people, even though they are extremely poor and on a limited income, try to scrape out of that meagre income a contribution to a club for the elderly so that they can get out and meet other people, which is essential to prevent their becoming isolated. Some may go the adult education college in Richmond upon Thames, which provides many courses and activities for older people, but it is expensive. I want the Government to tackle that problem, because these courses are so important for people living in poor circumstances in the London area, yet they are getting more and more expensive. Taking courses and participating in activities helps people to have a useful and vibrant old age, but the increasing cost of some of the education courses means that many elderly people cannot take advantage of them. Do the Government make that connection?

My hon. Friend the Member for Sutton and Cheam (Mr. Burstow) mentioned the problem of income support. We know that 200,000 pensioners living in London receive income support, and it is estimated that a further 62,500 people are eligible for it but do not claim it. In London, 18 per cent. of people over the age of 60 claim income support; the figure for England as a whole is 15 per cent. People need to be encouraged to claim that extra benefit and we must consider the reasons why they do not do so. Many have been brought up to feel that they must be self-sufficient and that they must not depend on charity; they do not want to go to the state for more help than they already have. Some may not claim extra benefit because they do not know about it or because their eyesight is too poor or they are too feeble and frail to fill in the necessary forms.

Several people, especially men, who had failed to claim their winter fuel payment came to my surgery last winter—I do not know why men are so un-sharp about these things. When they went to their local post office to inquire about it, they found that it was no longer available to them. They had to go through a great rigmarole to be able to receive the payment. The Government should tackle that problem. Some people are not getting their winter fuel payment because they do not know about it in time, or because they have been ill and unable to claim it.

There is also the problem of reduced retirement pensions—I would come into that category. If the state pension were my only pension, it would be a great problem for me. I would have to do something pretty swiftly about income support. Of course it is not, but if it were and I did not know what to do to increase my income, the stuff that I received this morning would not be much help. It is difficult to read. It says:

Have your pension paid straight into your account.

Yet I know people who still do not have bank accounts at the age of 60. That is a problem. They will argue that they do not trust banks with their money and that they like to go to the post office for their weekly allowance. I will not carry on along those lines, as that is not a London problem, but a national problem.

As has already been pointed out, there is an excess of winter deaths in London as a result of pensioner poverty. That is a disgrace. I urge the Government to do something nationwide about not just fuel poverty but the insulation of houses. Our housing stock in London is poor and badly insulated. The emphasis must be on winter warmth and insulation and not just handouts from the Government, which is how old people see it. The Government have done some things; I recently saw Thora Hird, bless her, on television. I am a great supporter of TV adverts. Most people in this country, even the poorer pensioners, have television sets. The Thora Hird campaign is great and I hope that it is successful.

We must ensure that isolated people are aware of what is available and are getting the help that they need. GPs, social workers and health visitors are useful people but they often do not have enough time to address these problems. Post offices are often the centre of the universe for old people. Whether they live in a tiny village in London—we are always told that London is a collection of villages—or out in the country, the weekly trip to the post office to collect their pension is something that old people make the effort to do. They may have to send someone else, but that is their point of contact. More information should therefore be available in post offices.

I have another suggestion. One of the most useful people in London for the elderly is the milkman. He calls at every house and delivers all sorts of goodies. Why can he not also deliver some information to elderly and isolated people? When my elderly mother was alive and living just around the corner from me, the milkman would give me a regular update. If I had not seen her for a couple of days, he would tell me how she was getting on. The milkman knows whether elderly people take their milk in. He knows the level at which they are living and whether they can pay their bills. Let us have a campaign using such people.

We should always remember that elderly people—I include myself in that category—become increasingly hard of hearing and their eyesight fails. As one gets older one realises that the old senses are failing a bit. However much one tries to wear contact lenses and kid oneself that it is just like it used to be, it ain't. Things get more and more difficult to read and extra help is needed and that help must be sensitive. Nothing will answer the problem more than upgrading the basic amount of money that people receive. I should like the Minister to address that problem and to answer one question. I am a great believer in people receiving all benefits. I am in favour of winter fuel payments and free television licences for the over-75s. They do not discriminate between people and make them have to admit that they are poor and are therefore entitled to some help.

Surely the best way of dishing out a better standard of living for pensioners in poverty in London is to give them a rise in their basic pension and to leave their fuel payments and television licence payments intact. Those who are rich and can afford things—I place myself in that category, in a few years' time—will be taxed accordingly. Surely the simplest approach would be to introduce a blanket rise in benefits and to deduct tax. I should like the Minister to respond to that.

The Government seem to be planning to give everyone winter fuel payments, but we are told that only the poorest pensioners will receive extra help with their pensions. I do not understand why the system cannot be simplified. Winter is approaching, and we have already experienced the most fearful conditions for elderly people to cope with this autumn. I urge the Minister to ensure that the Chancellor of the Exchequer takes extremely swift action.

I begin by wishing the hon. Member for Richmond Park (Dr. Tonge) a happy 60th birthday for when it arrives. It must be a defining moment when a letter falls through the letterbox stating how much the basic state pension is. I throw into the pot the thought that perhaps the hon. Lady did not elect to pay the full national insurance stamp but is probably on the married woman's earned income allowance. I am sufficiently young to have been able to make that choice, and I contributed for a full basic state pension. However, that raises an issue that all women pensioners will face as they approach their 60th birthday.

I am glad that the hon. Lady emphasises that point. I should have said that I too made that decision, having other arrangements. However, people in that category do not realise during their working life what is happening to them. They are often poor or single parents or have small children to look after. They may not make a conscious decision but want to make a saving so that they have more money to spend each week, and are then even poorer when they become elderly.

The hon. Lady is correct. Any Government will have to face that issue. I am sure that she, like me, already receives letters from people complaining that they did not know what they were doing or were not given the option. It is 20 years since people were given the option. Memories fade: who knows? However, I fear that, as a result, a category of ladies will not receive what they expect to receive. Many would have expected their husbands to live sufficiently long, but even as a result of better health provision they may not.

I am interested in the comments of, and especially the analysis and research cited by, the hon. Members for Sutton and Cheam (Mr. Burstow) and for Richmond Park. I find it slightly ironic that all three of us who have spoken so far represent outer-London seats. We would all agree that although pockets of deprivation exist in the boroughs that we represent, we represent areas that contain relatively wealthy pensioners. However, that does not preclude the problems of isolation that have been reinforced by some of the care in the community changes. As families fragment and people become older, care packages in the home do not make up for people popping in. I have long been critical of the fact that the care package that provides the district nurse, meals on wheels and the home help does not compensate for normal human contact. I have long felt that a much more sophisticated way of helping elderly people who are isolated in their homes is necessary.

It is worth while paying tribute to the many voluntary organisations involved, which include not only Age Concern and Help the Aged, and I am sorry that hon. Members have not already done so. In practically every borough, significant groups help elderly people and provide the clubs and facilities that so many of them need. Such help goes well beyond the two big established lobbying charities, and those groups do a wonderful job helping the elderly. In fact, they act almost like the milkman because they know whether an elderly person is missing his or her visit to the hairdresser or chiropodist. Such charitable organisations provide basic services and provide them well but under increasing pressure.

Under the Government, social services budgets have increasingly been cut. Only last night, the authorities in Bromley held, for the first time in many years, a special meeting to discuss bed blocking by elderly people. The problem is not the fault of elderly people, nor was it their fault throughout the summer. It is happening because social services departments do not have sufficient money to provide the correct help for people who leave hospital and whose health deteriorates at home.

I understand that, in the last year, 150,000 nursing home beds throughout the country have been taken out. That is mainly because the Department of Social Security and the Department of the Environment, Transport and the Regions have not increased the standard spending assessment effectively so that boroughs can properly fund the beds that are required to help elderly people, first, to recover and, secondly, to live out the remaining years of their life. It costs elderly people roughly a minimum of £500 a week to stay in a nursing home. As for the standard spending assessment and what social services departments are prepared to pay for nursing homes, we are lucky if that hits more than £300 a week. The huge deficit cannot always be taken up by people who require such care.

Health authorities and health trusts are no more flush than social services departments. Whatever the Government's claims about putting extra money into the health service, that money is not going into the intermediate care that is required. Ironically, I expect that over the winter, Bromley and other London boroughs will find that money will be poured into trying to get people out of hospitals to unblock the beds, and that those people will be placed in inappropriate care. The scandal will be dissipated because, instead of a large number of people blocking beds, one or two people will be inappropriately placed but one or two people do not make news headlines. Twenty to 30 people blocking beds, as occurred throughout the summer in Bromley and in most other health authority areas in London, create a scandal; one or two people who are inappropriately placed do not create the same scandal.

I am deeply cynical about what the Government will do over the winter to ensure that bed blocking is mitigated. We do not want beds to be blocked, but the possible result of their action will be the wrong treatment of elderly people who should receive much better care. I lay the blame at the feet of the Government because they have not provided sufficient funds to social services so that they can meet the demands of elderly people as they reach the last years of their life.

I hope that the hon. Lady recognises that the families of those who are discharged from hospital into long-stay care have the choice of where those people stay and that, if the social services are contributing to the care, they must agree that the accommodation is appropriate to the care needs of those people. Why is she creating the scare that people will be discharged to inappropriate places and why does she think that her party's policy would achieve more appropriate placements when it is not proposing to spend more money on the problem?

There is a problem because so many beds have come out of the sector. As I said, 150,000 nursing home beds have come out this year alone because those homes cannot meet their costs. The banks are foreclosing. People are getting out of that industry. It is ironic that county councils have been forced to sell their homes because their beds did not meet the standards required by social services and the health authority for modern day, residential and nursing home care. That is another reason why beds have come out of the sector.

Surely the hon. Lady is not suggesting that the regulatory regime should be lightened so that inappropriate beds that do not provide adequate care are retained?

That is the furthest thing from my thought. I am suggesting that the Department of Health must look much more closely at the standard spending assessment and how much it is prepared to pay to social services departments for those beds. At present it offers money below the cost. Many people can afford to pay the difference, and do. As the hon. Member for Richmond Park said, it causes huge family problems because it requires the sale of the family home. There are other pressures, too.

I am grateful to the Minister for giving me the opportunity to explain our policy on the compulsory annuity. It is an issue that comes right into his Department and it needs to be addressed. At present, many people in retirement have had to take out a compulsory annuity. That annuity, for reasons of which he is well aware, has dropped in value in recent years so that people are getting less per year. Indeed, people on long-standing annuities have seen their value eroded.

Our policy of ending that compulsory requirement for an annuity would, in effect, enable people to have two streams of income when they need any form of longterm care. They can either sell the house or the family can inherit what is in the pension fund. That reduces the antagonism between the generations. It allows people who want to retire to take out, ironically, an annuity or an insurance product to cover the costs of their care, thereby freeing up income to use within the family and avoiding any destabilisation.

The Government must address the issue of the compulsory annuity. I represent an outer-London constituency and, believe me, it is a live one among my constituents. They feel that they are being done down by the achievements of low inflation, which we put in place and which has been continued by the Government—but then there is not worldwide pressure on inflation. Other factors are increasing longevity—as a result of improvements in health care over many years—and, ironically, the lack of provision of gilts. The Government could help themselves out of the hole that they are getting into by taking away the compulsory requirement for an annuity.

Having lectured everyone on the new Conservative party policy on annuities, I will return to the subject before I am brought to order.

I have been listening to the hon. Lady with great fascination: she has not yet tempted me to intervene to say that she was out of order.

I would hate ever to stray out of order when you were in the Chair, Mr. Deputy Speaker.

Interesting issues have been raised in the debate so far; I have tackled those of poverty and isolation. The points made about people having greater access to funding for warmer homes fall into the same category of criticism as those about the Government's funding of social services or local government. They have extended grants for insulation, but I am not aware of any publicity for that purpose; a few years ago, under the Conservative Government, there was a lot of publicity for the easy access to grants for heating schemes and much was done to insulate homes. Although a lot more money is going into the present schemes, I suspect that people have not heard about them, as there is little evidence of take-up by the public.

The hon. Lady makes a fair point about the take-up of home insulation grants. In my constituency, publicity was given to one of the schemes at a seniors forum but, despite great interest in it, few took it up because the gateway to the scheme was through income support. If people were not already claiming income support, they were not entitled to the grant. That is yet another barrier, and a justified criticism of using income support as a mechanism for targeting extra help.

I understand that problem. In previous years, the criterion was not income support but how cold someone's house was, which was a much more efficient and effective way to evaluate the need for insulation.

That brings me to the minimum income guarantee; I, too, have seen the advertisements featuring Thora Hird and have heard much criticism of them. Despite all the ads, and the letters that people have received, I have had to ask the people who attend my surgeries whether they are claiming minimum income guarantee, to which they reply, "What is that?" When I ask them whether they have had a letter about it, they reply, "I don't think so." Somehow or other, people who are entitled to minimum income guarantee slip through the net.

It would be most helpful if the Minister could tell us how many people have applied for the minimum income guarantee, especially in London, how many packs have been sent out, and how many people are now receiving MIG who previously did not. Until we have those figures, we cannot evaluate its success. Despite the Government's much-vaunted emphasis on helping people through MIG, the amount spent on increases is about £290 million, compared with £1,440 million spent on free television licences and the winter heating allowance. That does not indicate that a large number of people are benefiting from MIG. In fact, most people, whatever their income, get the winter heating allowance, and most will, I hope, for their sakes, get their free television licence. That helps everyone; it helps my wealthy constituents, many of whom are paying 40 per cent. tax in retirement, and it gives some money to those people on the basic state pension with, perhaps, some council tax benefit and housing benefit. That is not the best way to help pensioners. It would be infinitely better to go down our route. Many pensioners have told us that they want their own money in their own hands to take their own decisions about how to spend it. It is ironic that the hon. Member for Sutton and Cheam adopts the Government line to attack us in terms of the increase, but he ignores the fact that people over 75 need more income and will have a greater increase in the basic state pension.

Let me correct the hon. Lady's misrepresentation of the source of my figure of 42p. I relied on the House of Commons Library to analyse the proposals and I understand that the hon. Member for Havant (Mr. Willetts) also relied on the Library to prepare his proposals in the first instance. I went to the same source to check the figures. Will the hon. Lady also confirm that when her party's proposal is boiled down to the minimum, it amounts to only 17p extra for the over-80s?

I am delighted that everyone uses the House of Commons Library. I do, too, and I assume that the Government compiled their figures from the same source. All power to the Library. Pensioners believe that it is patronising to be told what to spend their money on. They much prefer having their own money in their own pockets to spend however they want.

I listened carefully to the hon. Member for Sutton and Cheam and asked questions to clarify what he said. He proposes a basic increase in the state pension to £90 and £135 for singles and couples respectively. It is to be paid for by a 10 per cent. increase in taxation on people earning over £100,000. I was not clear about what happens thereafter: is it linked to earnings or to the nebulous concept of the shopping basket? How will it be paid for? If I understand the hon. Gentleman's answer to the Minister's question correctly, the increased tax for higher earners will pay for the single basic hike only. Thereafter, one must assume that further pension increases will come from further rises in general taxation or from national insurance. Otherwise, there would be the one basic pension increase, which would continue to be linked to prices. Will the hon. Gentleman please clarify?

It would require another full speech to do so, so I shall respond to one important point. It is incorrect to characterise the Liberal Democrat proposal simply as prescribing a rise to £90 and £135 pensions. We propose an across-the-board increase in the basic state pension of £5 above inflation, plus an extra £5 at age 75 and an extra £10 at 80. Those figures do not equate to the hon. Lady's, which came from the Family Budget Unit's costings for a low but adequate standard of living.

Order. I am worried that the Minister is being left out of the debate. We appear to be conducting a debate on the relative merits of Conservative and Liberal Democrat party policy. I have allowed wide discretion on the subject of pensioner poverty in London, but the poor Minister will not want to be left out entirely.

I have no intention of excluding the only non-London Member present today. [Interruption.] I am sorry—there are two non-London Members present. I am trying to help the Minister by clarifying Liberal Democrat policy because, as ever, it is about as clear as mud. I am pursuing the point on behalf of my constituents in Bromley, but it is not much clearer. I accept the hon. Gentleman's correction and clarification and am delighted to hear what he is suggesting. However, he did not say whether the proposal would be covered entirely by the increase in the taxation level for some higher-rate income tax payers and where the money for further increases would come from. I should be most interested to hear him deal with that.

The yield from a 50p rate would provide sufficient funds to cover the £3.1 billion cost of the proposals that I enunciated. We propose to establish an independent body to assess and advise on the level of pension required in future. I recommend that it uses in its calculations the FBU's method of assessing pensioner incomes.

I am pleased to have that answer, as it will enable us to work out by how much income tax must be increased to meet the Liberal Democrats' proposals. As soon as people realise the impact on income tax rates or VAT, they may reassess their attitude to those pensions proposals. We have achieved a great deal in this debate, because we are a little closer to understanding the Liberal Democrats' policy.

Will the hon. Lady deal with her own party's policy and explain why an extra 42p a week would help pensioners?

I have explained our policy at least twice, as I am sure that Hansard will confirm. People want control over their own money; they do not like being patronised and told how they should spend it. Giving people control is one of our clear commitments, on top of any inflation-linked increase. Who knows what will happen next week when the Chancellor spreads largesse around the country? I can see that you are becoming restless, Mr. Deputy Speaker, so I shall return to the issue of pensioners in London. I shall not speak for much longer, because I am sure that all hon. Members want to hear the Minister justify what the Government are doing.

Poorer pensioners, whom the Chancellor has targeted for extra help, are not receiving that help, because the minimum income guarantee is not reaching the right people and the increases constitute one fifth of the money spent on the heating allowance. The Minister said in Hansard on 12 June that the amount so far is £2.2 billion, not the £6 billion claimed by the Chancellor. Pensioners are not doing well under this Government: relatively more of them are living in poverty. There are problems with bed blocking and isolation in the home. Social services or local government cannot help people to insulate their homes at the rate that many of us would like. There is, therefore, a strong case for the Government to deal with pensioner poverty in London.

The unusual occurrence of the Chair defending the rights of Ministers in the Chamber is very pleasant, and I am most grateful for that welcome development. I pay tribute to the hon. Member for Sutton and Cheam (Mr. Burstow) for securing this important debate. Like the hon. Member for Beckenham (Mrs. Lait), I extend my best wishes to the hon. Member for Richmond Park (Dr. Tonge) for her birthday, which I hope that she celebrates well. I am sure she will be celebrating her birthday rather than an imminent retirement.

Every Member of Parliament of our generation owes a special debt of gratitude to today's pensioners—the war generation. The rights that we all enjoy in our democratic system and the right to stand in elections to this place, we owe to those who fought against tyranny and to protect democracy. In London, especially, we remember the war generation who went through the Blitz. After the second world war, those who are now pensioners created the welfare state and rebuilt our country. Many of them feel cheated by the Conservatives. Some did extremely well and retired on much higher incomes than pensioners had in the past, but the gap between better off and poorer pensioners widened remarkably during the 18 years of Conservative Government. The hon. Member for Sutton and Cheam referred to the widening gap between the better off pensioners and the poorest pensioners. That is something that the Government must address, and we are doing so with our policies.

I was pleased to hear the hon. Member for Sutton and Cheam disowning at least part of what the Liberal Democrats said in their manifesto, which stated:

The basic state pension will remain indexed to prices.

The 75p uprating was an indexation of the basic state pension to prices. The Liberal Democrats now recognise that that policy was a mistake. The Labour party manifesto, by contrast, stated:

The basic state pension will be retained as a foundation of pension provision. It will be increased at least in line with prices.

We were committed not only to price indexation, but to doing better as the country's financial position allowed. That is why we introduced the winter fuel payments, which last year were £100 per household—almost £2 a week on top of the 75p—and other benefits, especially the minimum income guarantee. Tomorrow, 1 November, sees the introduction of free television licences for the over-75s.

I want to say a word or two about future generations of pensioners. The hon. Member for Richmond Park said that it was wrong that pensioners had to rely on the minimum income guarantee for a decent standard of living. In an ideal world, people would not have to apply, through a means test, for an uprating in their living standards. Therefore, we are reforming the pensions regime so that future generations of pensioners will have a second pension on top of their basic state pension, which will raise them to a level above the minimum income guarantee.

Now, however, we need to do something for today's pensioners, who did not have those opportunities under the Conservatives, and who retired on low pensions—perhaps below the basic state pension level, as in the example given by the hon. Member for Richmond Park. She said that she was fortunate enough to have been able to save in an occupational pension scheme; she made an informed decision that that was the best way for her to provide for her retirement. The hon. Lady also made the point that many people, especially women, were unable to make contributions to a second pension because they had household responsibilities. A caring Government who want to help the poorest pensioners—those who have been unable to make the national insurance contributions to guarantee themselves the basic state pension—have to introduce special measures precisely for that reason. That is what we have done through the minimum income guarantee. We seek to improve the situation for tomorrow's pensioners.

I hope that the Minister will not leave the subject of the minimum income guarantee entirely, because I asked some specific questions about the effect of the campaign.

I would not dream of saying so little about what is the foundation of the Government's response to pensioner poverty. I will come back to it, but first I want to say a little about the Government's plans to ensure that fewer pensioners in future generations rely on the minimum income guarantee.

We have said that the basic state pension will remain the foundation of our pensions policy. It will, but the state second pension builds on SERPS, the state earnings-related pensions scheme. As a result, 18 million people will have significantly better second pensions than they would have otherwise. The problem of SERPS is reflected in the name: it is earnings related. Those on the lowest earnings received the lowest pensions. The state second pension will double what is received by people on the lowest earnings. As a result of a state second pension, someone earning £120 a week will be £40 a week better off in retirement. People who in the past have not been able to earn second pension credits, such as carers or disabled people with broken work records, will be able to earn up to £50 a week more through the state second pension.

We are introducing stakeholder pensions that will provide a better rate of return for people on middle incomes about £10,000 to £20,000—as personal pensions were not attractive to them because of the administration charges.

I have listened to the Minister's explanation of the Government's plans. With the introduction of the state second pension on top of the basic state pension, will he confirm that many pensioners in the latter part of their retirement will still be led back into means-tested benefits, even once maturity has been reached and the full state second pension is paid out?

The hon. Gentleman must wait a little longer. Next week, the Government will publish the consultation paper on the pension credit. We want to reward pensioners who save, either in a bank or building society or in a pension scheme. That will reward those who have not so far benefited from the minimum income guarantee. Some people will have made their own provision through paying into an occupational pension scheme, a stakeholder pension or the state second pension, and will still receive benefit from the minimum income guarantee. That is because we will propose in the consultation paper to broaden its range, so that those who have been prudent and saved also receive further support.

That comes to the crux of the interaction between the minimum income guarantee, the pensioners' credit whatever it is; we are glad to know that details of it will be published next week—and the desire to save for a stakeholder pension. Logical people will consider the minimum income guarantee and the potential pensioners' credit, if they are eligible for it, and not save for a stakeholder pension.

The hon. Lady will see the answer that she wants when we publish our proposals. We have introduced the pension credit precisely to provide protection for the poorest pensioners, which a Labour Government are strongly committed to continuing to do, while ensuring that people have a strong incentive to save.

Our first priority when we came into office was to tackle the needs of the poorest pensioners; we did that by creating the minimum income guarantee. The hon. Member for Richmond Park asked me to respond to her proposal that the best way in which to tackle pensioner poverty was to increase the basic rate of the state pension. That policy ignores the startling increase in inequality between the better off and the poorest pensioners, which has taken place in the past 20 years. The Government must do more for poorer pensioners than for others to address that inequality. That is why we have introduced the minimum income guarantee.

With respect, I do not understand one point. If one increases the basic income for pensioners, single parents or any other group, those who have or acquire another source of income will be taxed heavily at the upper end of the scale. The way to help the poorest is surely to improve the basic income, from whatever source, and then to recoup it on tax. Do Governments not do that because they do not like imposing taxes? Is that what you are telling us?

Order. I am not telling hon. Members anything, although the Minister may be.

By the end of this Parliament, the Government will be spending about £6.5 billion more on pensions than was being spent when we came to power. If we were to spread that money equally across all pensioners through the basic state pension, it would provide nothing like the increase that we have been able to give the poorest pensioners. They would be much worse off under such a proposal. Unless there were an income tax rate of 100 per cent., which even the Liberal Democrats do not propose, the richest pensioners would get a much larger increase from the state than they would receive otherwise. If we want to do something about inequality, we must target; there is no alternative. If we do not target, we allow greater inequality.

The minimum income guarantee helps 1.6 million pensioners, of whom 200,000 live in London. The national proportion of pensioners receiving the minimum income guarantee is about 10 per cent., whereas in London it is 13 per cent. The take-up rate is higher, despite the fact that average pensioner incomes in London before housing costs are slightly higher than the national average. Therefore, take-up is an issue, but we have made greater progress in London than in other parts of the country.

The hon. Member for Richmond Park made an important point, to which the hon. Member for Beckenham also referred. Pensioner poverty is a real issue across the whole of London. Of course, it is a real issue in the inner cities but, if one looks behind the net curtains in Richmond or Beckenham or the suburbs, one also finds poverty. It may not be so concentrated in those places, but one still finds people in difficult circumstances who need help now—that help comes from the minimum income guarantee.

The Government have recently launched the biggest ever take-up campaign for any benefit. Pensioners can claim by phone on 0800 028 1111 to inquire whether they are entitled to the minimum income guarantee. Through calls to the helpline and the return of the tear-off slip on the letters that we have sent out, about 500,000 pensioners have made inquiries about the guarantee. I am afraid that I cannot do as the hon. Member for Beckenham requests and give a breakdown by region at this stage, but we shall give a full report at the end of the campaign. We are only part of the way through the campaign; not all the letters have been sent out.

The hon. Member for Sutton and Cheam raised the important point about the worrying number of excess deaths of older people during the winter. I wish that he had acknowledged some of the things that the Government have done to address that situation; we have taken and plan to take further action. We have cut VAT on fuel and we introduced the winter fuel allowance at the rate of £20 per household, which was increased last year to £100 and is to be increased this year to £150. Also, we are about to publish our fuel poverty strategy.

Several hon. Members have made the point that we should not only provide cash to enable people to meet fuel bills but do more to insulate homes and make them more energy efficient so that the bills are not as high. The Government agree with that absolutely. About 800,000 homes will have benefited from the new home energy efficiency scheme by 2004, with help of up to £2,000 per household to put in better heating systems and insulation. Sixty per cent. of those receiving help from the home energy efficiency scheme will be pensioners. Over seven years, the affordable warmth programme will make grants to 150,000 pensioners.

Before the Minister goes on, will he explain who would receive those grants for insulation? Will it be only those on the minimum income guarantee?

No, not only those on the minimum income guarantee will benefit. People can access the system through their local authorities.

Is it means-tested?

Yes, there is a means test on the scheme. I can drop the hon. Lady a note to give her further details.

I listened carefully to the Liberal Democrats' proposals to increase the basic state pension by £5 with an additional £5 for the over-75s and a further £10 for the over-80s. It is a generous scheme, which, as the hon. Member for Sutton and Cheam acknowledged, would cost more than £3,000 million. The question that pensioners are entitled to ask, and which has not been answered today, is where that money will come from. The Liberal Democrats seem to suggest that they were mistaken in making a proposal in their manifesto before the last election that was similar to the Government's MIG proposal. By cancelling the whole of MIG—if that is the Liberal Democrats' proposal—they would only save about £2,000 million; they would still be about £1,000 million adrift. Raising the cost of pensions increases through raising the rate of income tax for people on higher earnings, as they propose, could cover the cost for year one but not in subsequent years. They would have to press ever higher rates of income tax to achieve what they intend. They owe it to pensioners and to the working population as a whole to explain where the money would come from.

Restoring the earnings link would cost the country an additional £20 billion by 2020, a 50 per cent. increase in today's pensions spending. Most important of all, that would not address the needs of those pensioners on low and modest incomes, who have saved through pensions schemes or have savings in the bank and who are precisely the people whose needs we shall address through the pension credit.

As we have already announced, from April next year. people with savings of up to £12,000 a year will be able to benefit from the minimum income guarantee. As a result, some 500,000 pensioners will gain by an average of £5 a week. However, we plan to go further still. We recognise that a system of capital rules for the MIG discourages saving, and we plan to abolish capital limits and to consider instead income from savings, because we believe that that would mean a fairer system.

I am interested to hear that incomes will be considered. Will the Minister be considering tariff income, which assumes a 20 per cent. rate of return on people's savings? I should love to find the bank that pays that rate, as would many pensioners.

As the hon. Gentleman knows, tariff income is not and was never intended to be a rate of interest. However, his point highlights the problem of capital limits, which, unlike us, the Liberal Democrats have not said that they would consider abolishing. We believe that it would be fairer not to provide a disincentive to save, although obviously account must be taken of the interest that people receive on their savings. Pensioner credit will go further. It will reward saving on the part of those who have a modest occupational pension. In addition to the minimum income guarantee, for every pound saved, pensioners on the credit will receive additional help. The Government will publish their consultation document on the credit next week.

The changes and our proposals will be subject to consultation, and any legislative changes will have to be presented to the House. Changes therefore cannot be introduced before 2003. However, the needs of pensioners whose income is just above the minimum income guarantee level must be dealt with now, and the Chancellor will announce transitional measures in the pre-Budget report.

I believe that I have covered the issues raised by hon. Members. When we took office, the Government made it clear that our first priority was to do more to help the poorest pensioners, and we have done so, through the minimum income guarantee. At the time of the previous election, in cash terms the basic state pension was £62.45. The current minimum income guarantee level is £78.45 in cash terms, £16 a week more than when we came to power. The Chancellor has already made it clear that for a single pensioner, the MIG level next year will be £90—a dramatic increase in the standard of living for the poorest pensioners.

As a Government, we have taken measures to help all pensioners. All pensioners receive the winter fuel payment, not a week after the event, following seven days of below-freezing temperatures, but as of right, at the start of the winter. It was introduced at £20, was increased to £100 this year, and, as I said, will increase to £150. The hon. Member for Sutton and Cheam believes that more should be done for older pensioners. From tomorrow, we are introducing free television licences for the over-75s. That is a measure that we have introduced for older pensioners, targeting help for them through free television licences.

Through the proposal for pension credit, which will be open to consultation next week, we shall do more for those on modest incomes, who have not hitherto benefited from the minimum income guarantee. Our policies are radical, but they are workable and affordable and will ensure that pensioners in London and throughout the country are able to share in the nation's rising prosperity.

Once again, I welcome the opportunity to put the case for completion of the road link between the port of Heysham and the M6 motorway. On 11 February 1998, during my previous Adjournment debate on the matter, I and my hon. Friend the Member for Lancaster and Wyre (Mr. Dawson), who is in the Chamber today, told the House why it was essential that that link should be completed at the earliest possible moment.

It is not my intention to reiterate those arguments today, because the need for the road has been established; indeed, it has been incorporated into the strategic plan of the relevant local, county and regional organisations. As long ago as 1995, the panel that conducted the public examination of the Lancashire structural plan concluded that improved links between Morecambe and Heysham were needed and that another river crossing would help improve the movement of traffic in Lancaster. Since then, Lancaster city council, Lancashire county council, the North-West regional development agency, the North-West regional assembly, the local planning inspector, the Confederation of British Industry, the Morecambe and Lancaster chambers of commerce and the overwhelming majority of people who live in the area have recognised the need for the road. I invite the Minister to confirm that the Government, too, recognise that need.

My purpose today is not to give global reasons why a link road should be built, but to put on record the reasons why the bid for that major scheme, submitted by Lancashire county council as part of the Lancashire local transport plan for the years 2001-06, should be supported by the Government. The proposed Heysham-M6 link would be a 9.7 km, single-carriageway, all-purpose road. It would extend from stage 1 of the Lancaster-Morecambe bypass at White Lund, pass through open countryside to the west of Lancaster city centre and join the M6 at junction 33. It would allow traffic travelling between the M6 and the towns of Morecambe and Heysham to bypass Lancaster. It would provide access to new and existing areas of employment in Morecambe and Heysham and to the west of Lancaster and it would improve access to the major port of Heysham and the smaller port of Glasson dock.

Improved access would considerably enhance the prospect of attracting much-needed new business and employment into areas of high unemployment and social exclusion. Lancaster and the surrounding areas suffer a significantly higher rate of unemployment than the average for Lancashire—or for England. As a result, all the existing and proposed employment areas, except for the Bailrigg business park, would be in wards that qualified for European objective 2 status and regional selective assistance; the business park would qualify only for the latter. The Lancaster single regeneration budget also provides special funding for the inner wards of Lancaster—including, as an industrial area improvement scheme, the Lune industrial estate. It also identifies the Marsh estate and the adjoining private housing area as one of its main communities. It would be highly perverse of the Government to recognise that the district urgently needed assistance to regenerate itself but fail to remove the biggest barrier to regeneration—the appalling road links.

The new road would be of particular importance to Heysham port, which is the only port on the north-west coast that is accessible at all states of the tide. There are four daily freight sailings to Belfast, three to Dublin, two to Warrenpoint, two to the Isle of Man and two passenger Seacat sailings to Belfast. It is also the main port that serves the Morecambe bay gas field. Between 1990 and 1998, foreign and domestic traffic increased from 1,485,000 tonnes to more than 3,585,000 tonnes. Ship arrivals have increased from 1,729 to 3,278 and container units have risen from 98,000 to 273,000. Such developments have resulted in a significant increase in heavy goods vehicles using the port, 85 per cent. of which arrive from or proceed to destinations south of Lancaster.

While there is no doubt that Heysham is the fastest growing port on the north-west coast of England, it faces severe competition from other ports such as Liverpool, Holyhead and Stranraer. There is growing evidence that Heysham's further development is being put at risk by its poor road access. Surely it would be a grave mistake to allow a flourishing enterprise to be strangled by its own success. The Government must ensure that that does not happen.

The proposed new road would provide much more than the economic benefits and regeneration opportunities to which I have referred. It would relieve the awful congestion on the approach roads and bridges into Lancaster and reduce dramatically the number of traffic movements within the city. It would bring environmental improvements to many thousands of people whose lives are currently blighted by traffic, noise and air pollution. It would also enable the full implementation of the Lancaster transport strategy, a package of measures aimed at promoting alternative modes of transport in and around Lancaster, and bring about a significant reduction in road accidents and injuries.

If opened in 2005, the Heysham-M6 link would carry 20,500 vehicles a day over the River Lune and more than 16,000 vehicles a day south of Ashton road. It would remove 10,600 vehicles per day from Skerton bridge, 9,700 vehicles per day from Greyhound bridge and 15,300 vehicles per day from Morecambe road. The real significance of the traffic reductions is probably best understood by considering them as a percentage of the existing traffic levels. For example, traffic on the A6 would be reduced by 56 per cent. at Galgate and 57 per cent. at Scotforth. Traffic would be reduced by 27 per cent. on the city centre northbound gyratory road and by 23 per cent. on the southbound road. The A683 Morecambe road would benefit from a 37 per cent. reduction in traffic. The traffic on the Skerton and Greyhound bridges would be reduced by 33 per cent. and 30 per cent. respectively and the traffic on the A683 Caton road would be reduced by 25 per cent.

Such a considerable reduction in traffic levels would allow the further introduction of bus priority measures, such as bus lanes over the Lune bridges, thereby improving timetable reliability, which will significantly increase the attractiveness of bus travel as an alternative to car use. It would also allow the extension of cycling facilities in the centre. Such reduction in traffic would provide a much-improved environment for pedestrians and lower levels of noise and pollution. More than 10,000 properties would be subject to lower noise levels and almost 6,000 would benefit from better air quality. It is estimated that in excess of 30 road accidents a year would be prevented as a result of building the link road.

The estimated cost of the road is £55.6 million, and its net present value is more than £104 million, with a benefits-cost ratio of 3.577. If provided, it would meet all its stated objectives, which are to improve communications between Morecambe and Heysham and the M6 motorway; to release land allocated for industrial regeneration and improve access to the port of Heysham; to relieve traffic congestion in and around Lancaster city centre; and to permit the continued development of alternative travel modes, particularly buses and cycles. All in all, it represents a much-needed, value-for-money solution to the traffic problems that have blighted the Lancaster district for many years.

I shall now refer to the report and recommendations of the inspector who chaired the public inquiry into the Lancaster local plan. Following the recommendation of the panel that conducted the public examination of the Lancashire structural plan—that a bypass to the west of Lancaster may not be the best solution and that a northern bypass should be considered—three routes were identified, one to the north and two to the west of Lancaster. After much argument and debate, both Lancashire county council and Lancaster city council chose the western route, initially as the preferred and subsequently as the sole option. An amendment was accordingly written into the local plan. That route was chosen because it was the only one fully to address the area's problems and to meet its needs. The decision was fully supported by myself as Member of Parliament for Morecambe and Lunesdale and by my hon. Friend the Member for Lancaster and Wyre.

The local plan inspector produced a report in June this year that recommended that the pre-inquiry change to the local plan, which had confirmed the proposed route, should not be accepted and that the proposal to set aside the land to build the link road be deleted. The inspector had concluded that a northern bypass would provide similar benefits at a lower cost, and declared that the funding for the proposed scheme during the period of the Lancaster district plan—up to 2006—would not be forthcoming.

The inspector reached his conclusion on the basis of a comparison between the identified northern route and the proposed western bypass. At the time of the inquiry, both those roads were envisaged as illuminated dual carriageways and the estimated costs of building them were £65 million for the northern route and £90 million for the western route. Subsequently, however, significant modifications were made to the western scheme and the estimated cost was reduced by £34.4 million. That was achieved through lowering the road specification to a wide single carriageway and avoiding disturbance to a pipeline carrying ethylene gas.

Despite the reduced specification, the revised scheme retains virtually all the economic benefits and road congestion relief capabilities of the originally envisaged dual carriageway and it certainly outperforms the alternative northern route in virtually every aspect. It is cheaper and more cost-effective; it provides greater relief from traffic congestion both on approach roads and within the city of Lancaster; and it does not have the adverse environmental impact of the northern route. The environmental factor weighed heavily against the northern route throughout the process.

The reduced specification has other positive benefits because it substantially reduces the impact of the road on wildlife in the Lune estuary and is less likely to induce additional car journeys through spare capacity. Accordingly, the county council and the city council determined not to accept the local plan inspector's recommendations.

The proposed scheme is the only major transport scheme included in the Lancashire county council local transport plan. It has the support of the North-West regional development agency, which believes that it will do much to resolve current problems of congestion, pollution and environmental damage, especially in the centre of Lancaster. It has been included in a draft regional planning guidance as a priority scheme to be completed by 2007. I believe that the foregoing demonstrates that an integrated approach has been adopted at all levels of local and regional government in producing the proposed scheme. Government approval and funding are required for it to become a reality. The Government are due to respond formally by the end of the year. I hope that what I have said today will help clear up any confusion at the Department of the Environment, Transport and the Regions about possible changes to the scheme resulting from the local plan inspector's report.

Can my hon. Friend point to any areas of Government concern about the scheme? In view of the importance of the link road to my constituents and to the Lancaster district overall, will he undertake to visit the area to discuss any concerns in an appropriate forum before the Government give their formal response to the scheme?

rose—

Order. The hon. Gentleman rises in his place. If an hon. Member wishes to intervene in an Adjournment debate, it is traditional to get the permission of the initiator of the debate and the Minister, which the hon. Gentleman may have done, and to notify the Chair of his interest in speaking. Does he have the permission of his hon. Friend the Member for Morecambe and Lunesdale (Miss Smith) and the Minister?

I apologise, Mr. Deputy Speaker. I have the permission of my hon. Friend, but I have not had an opportunity to speak to the Minister.

I will use my discretion on this occasion and call the hon. Gentleman, not least because his constituency has been mentioned in the debate.

I am extremely grateful to you, Mr. Deputy Speaker. I apologise for any discourtesy. As you say, the proposal has profound implications for my constituency. Indeed, the majority of the road runs through it. I should simply like to reiterate some of the points that my hon. Friend the Member for Morecambe and Lunesdale (Miss Smith) made in her superb speech.

The provision of funding for the western bypass of Lancaster in December 2000 would be the single best thing that the Government could do for Lancaster, and this is a Government who have done a great deal for Lancaster in the past few years. The western bypass is a green measure. Not only would it significantly improve the Lancaster's environment, which suffers grievous traffic congestion and terrible levels of pollutants such as benzene and carbon monoxide, it would relieve rural roads. One of the 10 most heavily used rural roads in the country runs between Cockerham and the M6.

This measure would support the development and improvement of an integrated public transport system for Lancaster by removing congestion, removing the weight of motorised traffic from city centre roads, creating another bridge across the Lune and creating opportunities for the development of park and ride and the further development of bus transport and cycling opportunities on roads that would be freed from traffic. As my hon. Friend has ably demonstrated, it would be a tremendous boon to assisting the regeneration of rundown industrial areas that are currently landlocked and badly need this sort of investment and the access that this road would create.

I should like to congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Morecambe and Lunesdale (Miss Smith) on securing the debate and setting out so clearly, strongly and in such detail the interests of her constituents and the problems they face. I should also like to congratulate her on the energy, commitment and tenacity that she has shown in pursuing the matter. Indeed, this is the second debate that she has secured on this subject recently.

I am well aware of the problems highlighted by my hon. Friend and of those faced by Lancaster. My hon. Friend the Member for Lancaster and Wyre (Mr. Dawson) has shown similar commitment to the interests of his constituents and has spoken with typical brevity and force.

Unfortunately, traffic congestion has an adverse effect on many urban areas. I emphasise that I appreciate the need to improve access to the port of Heysham and Morecambe. That is important if the port and tourism in the area are to prosper. As my hon. Friend the Member for Morecambe and Lunesdale said, single regeneration budget funding is assisting economic and social regeneration. The area qualifies for European objective 2 funding and assisted area status.

Before I deal with Lancaster and Morecambe, it might help if I describe the progress that we have made with our transport policy to deal with some of the concerns outlined by my hon. Friends. Since coming into government, we have made it clear that transport is one of our top priorities. Tackling congestion is a key element of our integrated transport policy. Good transport is essential to a better quality of life, a strong economy and a better environment. Improving public transport is also vital to reducing the social exclusion of people without access to a car. Delivering better transport means tackling problems caused by decades of under-investment and a lack of strategic planning, which have left us with crumbling infrastructure, public transport in decline and increased dependence on the car.

We face major challenges. Economic growth continues to bring rising transport demand. In turn, that leads to congestion, especially on key road links between towns. Public transport in many areas is inadequate. A lack of choice in public transport sends people back to their cars, adding to congestion. Our ability to find a way out of all that is hampered by a lack of integrated strategic planning.

The 10-year plan, published in July, is our response. Our goal is to transform the nation's transport system in the next 10 years. The £180 billion programme of public and private spending is designed to tackle the legacy of under-investment and is based on the public and private sectors working together. Almost 75 per cent.—£132 billion—will come from the public purse. The increased spending starts right away. In the next three years, public spending on transport will rise from £5 billion per year to £9 billion per year. For local transport, the plan provides £50 billion in public spending and £9 billion in private investment, which totals £59 billion over 10 years. It identifies national priorities. It will be the job of key partners in the regions to interpret them according to the needs of their areas.

I have focused on transport issues, but they are part of a much wider picture. Regional transport strategies are part of the regional planning guidance, which considers all aspects of development. North-west regional planning guidance will face an examination in public next February. We are keen to see regions adopt an integrated approach, so that provision of transport infrastructure complements the economic, social and environmental priorities embedded in planning guidance.

Crucial to the delivery of many schemes are the first five-year local transport plans, which were submitted to my Department in July. We have made a lot of progress on assessing the plans, leading up to the announcement of funding decisions in December, as my hon. Friend the Member for Morecambe and Lunesdale anticipated. I am encouraged by the overall standard and commitment shown by all authorities in completing their plans.

We are committed to improvements in local transport. We have provided for £4.5 billion of investment in the next three years. Last year, £755 million was allocated to LTPs—up 21 per cent. on the previous year. That investment is set to rise to £1.3 billion next year and continue rising to £1.7 billion in 2003–04. Those are large sums, but we are ambitious. We have set demanding but achievable targets to ensure that we can measure improvements in our transport infrastructure and public transport services. For example, by 2010 we want to see congestion reduced below current levels on the inter-urban trunk road network and in large urban areas by promoting integrated transport solutions and investing in public transport and the road network. We also want a 50 per cent. increase in passenger rail use, with improving punctuality and reliability, and bus use increased by 10 per cent., also with improving punctuality and reliability; the doubling of rapid transit use—light rail and trams; a one-third increase in the proportion of rural households within about 10 minutes' walk of an hourly bus service or better; and a tripling of the number of cycling trips. We shall monitor our progress in achieving those and other objectives. To provide independent scrutiny, we have asked the Commission for Integrated Transport to report regularly on progress with the plan. It is in everyone's interests that we should succeed. Better public transport and reduced congestion will deliver a better quality of life and contribute to economic prosperity by reducing time lost through congestion and delays.

I now move to the specific issues raised by my hon. Friends the Members for Morecambe and Lunesdale and for Lancaster and Wyre. Although I have not yet had an opportunity to visit the area, my predecessor, the hon. Member for Hampstead and Highgate (Ms Jackson), did so when she officially opened the port of Heysham's £2 million linkspan, a road bridge that allows freight to load on and off the ferries. I understand that she saw some of the work already being done to tackle Lancaster's traffic problems, and she discussed with councillors their proposals for improving access to Morecambe and Heysham. Lancashire has also made a good start in tackling transport problems through the provisional local transport plan and the full local transport plan that was submitted to Ministers on 31 July.

The road that we are debating has some history. Following public examination of the Lancashire structure plan, the independent inspector's report recommended that the Lancaster western bypass should be deleted, as the traffic benefits were unlikely to outweigh the combined effects of the visual impact on the landscape and the potential harm to conservation interests on the Lune estuary site of special scientific interest. The structure plan includes the M6 link, but takes no view on which route should be chosen.

In 1998, Lancashire county council consulted the public on three different routes to complete the road link from the M6 to Heysham. I understand that the consultation showed considerable support for completing the link. The three routes considered were the so-called orange route, a northern bypass of Lancaster; the green route, a western bypass of Lancaster and Galgate; and the blue route, a shorter route to the west of Lancaster that involves the construction of new junctions on the M6 south of Lancaster. For various reasons, I understand that the blue route has been ruled out.

At the Lancaster local plan inquiry, the inspector was not prepared to make a reservation of the green route, mainly because its cost, and the problems that it raised, meant that it could not realistically be brought forward within the plan period. He would have made a reservation for the orange route—

Will my hon. Friend give way?

If my hon. Friend will forgive me, I must respond to the points raised and I have little time in which to do so.

The inspector would have made a reservation for the orange route, but the city council would not accept it. That council now proposes to make a reservation for the green route.

The M6-Heysham link scheme also features in the north-west regional planning guidance and regional transport strategy that was submitted to the Secretary of State in the summer. The opening of phase 1 of the Heysham to M6 link in July 1994 removed a significant volume of traffic from the built-up areas of Morecambe and Heysham, including a large number of heavy goods vehicles travelling between the port of Heysham and the M6; completing the link could further improve access and reduce congestion.

Proposals for the road have been submitted as part of Lancashire's local transport plan. It will be carefully considered against our five criteria—economy, safety, environment, accessibility and integration—and against the wider benefits that it might bring to the local transport plan as a whole. Any decision will form part of the local transport plan settlement to be announced in December. My hon. Friend the Member for Morecambe and Lunesdale will understand that I cannot comment on the assessment process, on individual plans or on the merits of particular schemes within them at this stage.

On the point about the planning inspector, does my hon. Friend agree that the circumstances have changed? We are now discussing a single carriageway road and the cost has been substantially reduced. That changes the comparison with the northern route.

I am aware that the cost of that scheme has been reduced from £95 million, if my memory serves me correctly, to about £55 million. Clearly, changes have been made. However, I should like to assure my hon. Friend that the issues she has raised will be examined closely and taken into account in consideration of the local transport plan.

It is good to see the Minister in his place. I understand that it has not been too easy to get here from Kirkcaldy in the last day or so.

Prisoners of war are an important issue. This is the third time this year that they have been the subject of an Adjournment debate. That reflects the nature of the issue and the wide support that there is and has been across the House for paying a gratuity to this small band of surviving British heroes, whose heroism and service have not been sufficiently recognised until now. We are not, sadly, talking about very many. We are talking about 7,500 men and perhaps 3,000 widows. Since the case came to Downing street for the Prime Minister's personal attention in a meeting with the Royal British Legion last April, some 250 more of them have died. There is a sense of urgency here, of time running out and, as the Prime Minister himself put it, there is a debt of honour to be paid. I trust that the Minister will reply in a positive vein.

I want to give thanks at this point to some remarkable people. One of them is Arthur Titherington, the chairman of the Japanese Labour Camps Survivors Association, who has single-handedly kept the flame alive on this issue. Another is his deputy chairman Mr. Sid Tavender. I am honoured to have been asked to be the president of that association. I am out of my company in such a band of heroes, but I had to accept. Thanks must also go to the Royal British Legion, which has led the campaign, and to many Members of Parliament, especially the hon. Member for Walsall, North (Mr. Winnick) who secured an Adjournment debate in June and the hon. Member for Winchester (Mr. Oaten), who leads the all-party group on the issue.

This is not a party political issue and it never has been. It is an issue of national honour and natural justice. The facts are fairly plain. Battalions were raised in 1941 at the worst time in the second world war. Many of them were formed into the Eighteenth East Anglian Division and they were preparing for service in Iraq. They were diverted to Singapore and they arrived there just in time for the surrender. They were in fact sacrificed. We sent the men, but we did not send the tanks or the artillery. We did not have the land defences and, most of all, we did not have the air cover that would have enabled them to fight.

Included in the 50,000 men who surrendered at Singapore are the Fourth and Fifth Battalions of my own regiment, the Suffolk Regiment, the Fourth, Fifth and Sixth Battalions of the Royal Norfolk Regiment and the First and Second Battalions of the Cambridgeshire Regiment. It is something of an East Anglian role of honour. The young men from the farms, fields and factories of East Anglia were sacrificed. There is not a village that does not bear the scar in some way. Of course, that is extended across the country because others were attached to the battalions from many places. I receive letters every day from the few survivors and their widows asking what has happened and whether their service will be recognised. I trust that this time finally it will be.

Let us consider the costs and casualties. The rate of casualties was higher among those 50,000 service men than among British service men in any other theatre of war from 1940 to 1945—much higher, for instance, than in the Normandy landings. I think that it was Laurens van der Post who said that those soldiers showed and needed more courage than any other British soldiers in the whole of the second world war. We do not learn much about our defeats. I served for two years in the Suffolk Regiment without ever being told what happened to those soldiers. For three and a half years they suffered in conditions that are unimaginable to us. It is astonishing that they endured at all.

A quarter of those 50,000 died. Some were executed on beaches. Some were executed in prison camps. Some were machine-gunned at sea when their ships went down. The majority died from starvation, neglect and disease. Those who came home in 1945 were broken in body and, in some sense, in mind. The old men who write to me—the youngest is 78—tell me how their prison camp experiences come back to them in nightmares. Many are unable to leave home. Many are widowers, and in their loneliness the experiences come flooding back. It is touching to read those letters—

The hon. Gentleman has referred to prisoners of war. Will he mention the civilian internees who were held and suffered a great deal of hardship, and urge the Government to look favourably on them when considering any compensation?

I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for raising a good point. I believe that the civilian internees were excluded from the Royal British Legion's campaign simply because it was necessary to get something quickly to some of the most deserving cases. However, many families, including young children, were held captive at the same time.

The mental scars are with those prisoners of war to this day. I received a letter from the chief psychiatrist of Combat Stress, a mental welfare society for ex-service men with which I am associated. He screened many of the prisoners years later, in the early 1980s, and wrote to me that what struck him most about them was their quiet dignity and their refusal to ask for anything for themselves. That was the kind of people that they were. They came home in 1945 and were told to get on with their lives; they got a medal. In 1952, they received a compensatory payment of £76 from sequestered Japanese assets, which was trivial, even by the monetary values of those times, and insulting.

We do not deal well with our retreats and defeats, but I believe that out of the debacle of Singapore one group of people—those soldiers—emerged with enormous credit. When they write to me, they do not ask for anything except clarification of what is happening in this year-long campaign that seems to be so close to success—but their wives and widows do ask for something. A couple of letters that I have received in the past two days strike me as extremely eloquent. One of them is from a Mrs. Aldridge of Atherstone. She writes:

These men really suffered cruelty beyond all recognition and are still suffering. Only those who were there and actually went through it and survived it really know the true facts. My husband was one of those unfortunate people and I know he's still re-living it. They really were slaves and I sincerely hope that you will please continue to keep bringing this issue of compensation up as the P.O.Ws have had their hopes built up on several occasions but as yet nothing has happened and these men are getting fewer daily.

Mrs. Sowerby from Christchurch in Dorset writes:

My husband was in Changi prison camp for 3 1/2 years. It was cruel to learn what all these brave men had gone through. I keep asking myself why and what for. Our lives are coming to a close now. It would be lovely to get some compensation so we can just go out and treat ourselves not to keep watching our coppers.

I get letters like that every day and find them very moving. I hope that when the compensation is announced—and I trust that it will be, because the Prime Minister was positive in his hints on the subject last week—it will be ring-fenced so as not to affect entitlements in other areas and so that the Government do not take with one hand and give back with the other.

It can be argued that the Japanese Government should have provided the necessary restitution, and of course they should have done. There is an extraordinary contrast between the behaviour of the Japanese Government and people and that of the German Government and people. The Germans confronted the realities of their past, whereas the Japanese tended to draw a veil over it, partly because those war crimes were committed in the name of their emperor. I have received an eloquent, bitter and moving letter from Jack Caplan, who burned the Japanese flag when the emperor visited a few years ago. I do not think that it is for us to insist on reconciliation and that those prisoners should forgive and forget; they can never forget and whether they forgive is entirely up to them.

It would have been possible to reopen the discussions that led to the treaty of San Francisco in 1951; that could have been done in 1955, and the Japanese Government could have been required to pay restitution then. So as not to disturb our relations with the Japanese Government at the time, which was building an economy and a democracy, that was not done. Looking back, I think that that was probably a mistake but, as I said at the outset, the issue is not a party political one. However, it is possible for this Government, in the millennium year, to take a decision that would bring huge credit on themselves and for which they would be thanked by those old soldiers and their friends and relatives across the country—

I am most grateful to the hon. Gentleman for initiating the debate. I certainly agree that the compensation should have been paid by the Japanese Government, and it is a discredit to the Japanese authorities that that has not been done. Does the hon. Gentleman agree that if, as we fervently hope, compensation is paid by the British Government in the near future—as was suggested by the reply given to me by the Prime Minister last Wednesday—it would be appropriate for that to be done by Remembrance Sunday? Paying the money to that brave and dwindling number by Remembrance Sunday would be a good way of showing that when we remember all those who fought in the last war, we mean it. I hope that the Government will do that.

I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for his constant interventions in this matter; as I said, it is not a party matter. He is entirely right. We are approaching the season of remembrance and it is right that we remember the living as well as the dead. I am hopeful that the decision will be taken and will be announced by the pre-Budget statement on 8 November; that date, before Remembrance Sunday, would seem an appropriate time for it.

I sometimes desert my parliamentary duties to speak to military audiences. I also speak to students—the kids—who are aware that the peace and freedom in which they live was earned by the sacrifices of another generation—that of their grandfathers and great-grandfathers. They are receptive to that message. As parliamentarians, we have a duty to make clear our debt of honour and our determination to pay it. We should support the Government in the decision that we believe they are about to take.

I hope and trust that this is the last time that a debate of this kind will be necessary. I trust that the gratuity will be announced before remembrance Sunday, to ease the loneliness and difficulties of old age—all those men are in the evening of their lives—and show that their heroism is recognised. It is a matter of recognition. The sacrifice has never been recognised, and it is as if the nation has drawn a curtain over it or been gripped by a sense of collective amnesia. Now is the time to expect and hope that that debt of honour will be paid to a band of British heroes whom we all salute and to whom we owe so much.

I congratulate the hon. Member for Tatton (Mr. Bell) on securing this debate on what is clearly an important issue. All hon. Members have a considerable interest in the subject, and the debate is a demonstration of the hon. Gentleman's support and concern for those held as prisoners of war in the far east during the second world war.

The hon. Gentleman has pursued the cause in the House on several occasions, through debates and questions. Other hon. Members have similarly championed the cause of those ex-service men, on their individual account and on behalf of constituents, as have Members involved in all-party groups on this and related matters. I should also mention the efforts of the Royal British Legion, which has worked hard to support the claims of former prisoners of war in the far east.

I must apologise; this is the third time in the Session that we have debated the issue, but the Government have still not come to a decision for me to announce. There will therefore be a considerable element of déjà vu in what I have to say. Hon. Members will recall that my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister and I met senior representatives of the Royal British Legion earlier in the year to hear at first hand their views on the matter, which we undertook to consider carefully.

I should remind hon. Members that the issue of further compensation for those held as prisoners of war in the far east during the second world war involves several Departments. Those Departments have been considering the question of an ex gratia payment, which the hon. Member for Tatton, other hon. Members and the Royal British Legion are seeking.

I should recap on the facts, although we heard them in similar debates earlier in the year. The Japanese captured a little more than 50,000 British service men. Most of them were taken prisoner in the initial phases of the second world war in the far east in late 1941 and early 1942, when Japan attacked and captured first Hong Kong, then Malaya and Singapore as well as the Dutch East Indies and Burma. Our fellow Commonwealth forces also suffered the loss of men taken prisoner. The Australians lost more than 18,000 in Malaya and Singapore, and the Canadians more than 1,600 in Hong Kong.

Under international conventions, the treatment of prisoners of war was governed at the time by the 1929 Geneva convention. Although Japan had signed the treaty, it had not ratified it. Japan stated that it would in general recognise the provisions of the convention, but we all know the regrettable historical fact that it did not. Those held as prisoners of war were detained in camps throughout the far east. Conditions and the level of supplies in the camps were at best harsh and poor, although the British Government made considerable efforts in conjunction with the protecting power and the Red Cross to provide relief supplies.

As a safeguard to the prisoners of war, the Japanese should have permitted inspection visits by the protecting power and the Red Cross, but they were refused in many areas. Even where visits were permitted, with considerable obstructions, little could be achieved. That measure produced improvements in the conditions and treatment of prisoners of war in Europe but achieved little for those held in the far east.

As we know, prisoners of war were obliged to work for their captors under the Geneva convention. Unfortunately for the prisoners of war in the far east, especially those involved in the construction of the Burma-Thailand railway, the work was improperly arduous. That, coupled with poor and unsuitable rations, the generally poor conditions, and the climate to which few of the men were accustomed, made them much more susceptible to disease. The indifference of the captors to the men's plight and the often brutal ill treatment combined to take their toll on the prisoners' health, so much so that 25 per cent. of them did not survive captivity. That figure must be compared with that from the German and Italian camps of 5 per cent., and the figure of 8 per cent. for those held as prisoners of war in the later Korean war.

Although the Government were unable to achieve any real improvement of conditions in camps in the far east during the war, steps were taken to demonstrate that the ill treatment of service men was unacceptable, by means of the war crimes trials at the end of the war. Through the Tokyo trials and others in Singapore and elsewhere, some of those held responsible for the ill treatment of our detained service men were brought to justice for their crimes.

It must also be remembered that, uniquely among British prisoners of war, those held in the far east received some compensation for their ill treatment as a result of the 1951 peace treaty with Japan. In addition, further funds, released by Japan to the Government under that treaty, were distributed to POWs and British civilian internees. We accept that many consider that the amount made available by those means, which is the equivalent of about £1,200 in today's money, was too small. None the less, some compensation was paid by the country that had inflicted that suffering on its prisoners. Furthermore, the payment established the principle that the captor is responsible for the proper treatment of detainees-which, it must be remembered, was then the firmly stated primary goal of the representatives of former far eastern prisoners of war.

Hon. Members will recall that the possibility of reopening the peace treaty to seek higher compensation from Japan has been raised many times, but we have accepted legal advice that the treaty has closed the matter of gaining further compensation from Japan. We are aware of the argument advanced recently that the Government consciously let down far eastern prisoners of war in 1955 by not reopening the treaty and gaining more money for them. However, we have explained many times that contemporary records show that it is extremely difficult to ascertain what, if any, additional benefits this country would have been entitled to and what their worth would have been. In addition, there is no basis for reopening the treaty to gain further compensation, as Japan has signed no agreement subsequently conferring on the prisoners of war of other countries greater benefits than those already awarded under the treaty. Thus, we cannot accept the view that the actions of the then Government form the basis for taking action now.

Hon. Members will be aware that the current campaign, which is being co-ordinated by the Royal British Legion and is eloquently supported by many hon. Members, suggests that, as it is generally accepted that the avenue of further compensation is closed, further compensation should be paid not by Japan but by the Government with an ex gratia payment. It has been explained to the House on several occasions that that claim would require a major shift from the policy of successive Administrations.

My hon. Friend has already acknowledged that the compensation given to those men was woefully inadequate. I pass on a message from Major Philip Malens, the chairman of the Royal British Legion in Birmingham, who says that the matter is urgent because three of those men are dying every day.

I thank my hon. Friend for her contribution; that fact is recognised.

The hardships and needs of all those who become ill or disabled as a result of their military service, including any periods of captivity, are addressed primarily by the provision of war pensions by the Department of Social Security. From the presentations made by some hon. Members and from the case made by the Royal British Legion, it is clear that they believe that the payment of some £10,000 by the Canadian Government to their former far eastern prisoners of war or their surviving widows, and the similar award made this summer by the Isle of Man Tynwald to their very small number of former far eastern prisoners of war, is a vindication of the claim being made for British far eastern prisoners of war. However, we have said before that although we have noted those decisions, it is a matter for each of those Governments to decide. Different countries have different ways of responding to the needs of their populations—including those of ex-service men.

Although I believe that detailed objective decisions about the degree of suffering that occurred many years ago are impossible, I assure hon. Members that the case put forward in the support of the claim for an ex gratia payment has been subjected to the most careful and sympathetic consideration during the past few months. The hon. Member for Tatton will, of course, be aware of the reply given by my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister to a question by my hon. Friend the Member for Walsall, North (Mr. Winnick), who I am pleased to see is present. The Prime Minister said that he had a great deal of sympathy for the campaign mounted by the Royal British Legion for additional compensation for prisoners of war held in the far east, but he asked for patience to be exercised for a little longer for the final decision to be announced.

I am aware that the Minister is coming to a conclusion, but will he give us notice of when we may receive an answer?

The Prime Minister said that we would have to wait a little longer for the decision to be announced. Work is currently in hand that will lead to an announcement being made soon, especially given that a statement on the Government's intentions regarding spending is due in the next week and a half. I hope that hon. Members will accept that I cannot add to what the Prime Minister has said on the matter. They will have to wait a few more days for a conclusion to be reached.

I appreciate that the Minister is giving what could be described as a holding answer in view of what the Prime Minister said last week in the Chamber. I plead with him—as I have done on previous occasions—that, if there is to be a settlement, as we all strongly and fervently hope, it will be made at least before Remembrance Sunday. That day is an important time in the history of our country, when we remember the dead and those who survived wars. I beg my hon. Friend to use whatever influence he has as a Minister to see to it that the payment is made, or at least announced, before 12 November.

I am well aware of the symbolic significance of that date and, although I cannot give my hon. Friend a cast-iron guarantee today, I certainly expect some sign of the Government's thinking on the matter to be available before then.

I know that the Minister was unable to be present at Defence questions yesterday when I raised the possibility of compensation being means-related or in the form of an ex gratia payment. I referred also to payments being made to the widows of those who have died while awaiting compensation. Does the hon. Gentleman know whether the Prime Minister is taking such factors into account?

Such factors are being taken into account. An ex gratia payment is made generally on a per capita basis. As the hon. Gentleman well knows, however, there are complications with rules regarding such capital, and we shall bear them carefully in mind when considering what action to take. I cannot say anything more of any use on the subject. I am sure that hon. Members present will be waiting to see what happens in a few days' time.

I hope that I may be excused for saying from the Chair how much I have been moved by much of what has been said in the debate, and by the fact that it has been said across all political parties. I congratulate the Minister on the sensitive way in which he has dealt with the matter.

I am pleased to introduce the debate, which relates primarily to my constituent, Detective Inspector John Redgrave, whose home was raided on 3 February 1997. He was suspended from office on the following day. He was acquitted at Bow Street magistrates court by a stipendiary magistrate on 17 May 1999. The case related to charges pertaining to perverting the course of justice and the Official Secrets Act 1989. I stress that such charges were dismissed by the stipendiary magistrate and that no other charges are outstanding against Mr. Redgrave.

However, the day after the acquittal the Complaints Investigation Bureau of Scotland Yard initiated an almost unprecedented procedure of making an application to the High Court for a voluntary bill of indictment, which, had it been successful, would have reversed the stipendiary magistrate's decision to throw out the charges. My constituent was not told of that application to the High Court. Notwithstanding that, the High Court judge rejected the CIB's application and reaffirmed the stipendiary's decision.

My constituent has given 30 of his 46 years to the Metropolitan police. He has received numerous commendations for his diligent policing. He was referred to as having given outstanding devotion to duty during the complex operation that netted Kenneth Noye, John Lloyd and other major gangsters from south-east London following the gold bullion investigation in the mid-1980s, and has received countless other commendations.

We now know, as it was disclosed to my constituent's lawyers on 17 June 1997, that the CIB was aware of a £50,000 contract taken out by criminals to kill or discredit my constituent soon after a successful operation against an ecstasy factory in north London. Notwithstanding the fact that this was known to the CIB, as far as we are aware there has been no police investigation into that contract and the motives involved. Such an investigation would probably throw some light on how my constituent has been framed.

Obviously my constituent would have been heading for further promotion, but on 3 February 1997 his world crashed. The CIB broke into his house in the most traumatic circumstances, causing maximum embarrassment to his children and family. He has not recovered. I hope that the Minister can disclose—if he cannot do so today, I shall table a written parliamentary question—the information that was served on the justice of the peace to justify the grant of the search warrant. As far as I am aware, there was none, bearing in mind that we now know that the substantive allegation made by a police informant had been withdrawn by that stage, although that was not disclosed to my constituent for some years.

I could produce much evidence of the tremendous trauma that my constituent has suffered. Last year, he told the Police Complaints Authority:

This had caused the complete destruction of every aspect of my personal and professional life, friends, financial security, family, marriage, career, reputation. The building blocks of life have all gone, with no hope of recovery. The safeguards built into the judicial process to protect all members of our society have been disregarded for reasons of self interest and political expediency.

In December last year my constituent was cleared, after more than six years of CIB investigation, yet he remains suspended and is still fighting to clear his name. I join him in doing so. I have referred to the depression that he endured. Also suspended was his subordinate Michael Charman, a detective constable. They have had to endure the suspension together. On 17 July 1998, to try to cheer up my constituent, who was suffering considerable psychiatric problems, Michael Charman and his girlfriend invited him to their house in Pitsea for dinner. We now know, because it has been documented, that their house had been bugged by the Complaints Investigation Bureau.

During the dinner, Charman's girlfriend explained the extraordinary circumstances in which she, a relatively lowly executive officer of the Crown Prosecution Service, had been handed a confidential package relating to an allegedly corrupt police officer who is relevant to my constituent's plight. The circumstances were extraordinary because she was required to attend a case conference that she would not usually have expected to attend, and because she was handed that extraordinary package, which we now know was electronically bugged, by Detective Chief Superintendent John Coles, a senior officer of the CIB.

During the dinner conversation it was mentioned that that day's news had referred to the cross-examination that had taken place during the Macpherson inquiry into the death of Stephen Lawrence. Counsel for the Lawrences, Michael Mansfield, had cross-examined the controversial senior police officer, Ray Adams, about senior Metropolitan police officer relationships with the Norris family or clan.

My constituent resolved that he should consider revealing some of the information that he had to the Lawrence inquiry and Mike Mansfield. He suggested that an incestuous relationship existed between Metropolitan police officers and the wider Norris family and community, and referred to the supposed investigation in the early 1990s into the murder of a David Norris, who I understand was the cousin of the Clifford and David Norris who were the subject of Michael Mansfield's cross-examination. That David Norris was murdered in the early 1990s. He was a paid police informant.

The circumstances of that investigation were wholly unsatisfactory. The CIB demonstrably knew of my constituent's concern about the incestuous relationship, because of the bugging. It was also mentioned in subsequent correspondence and documents. Despite the fact that it was germane to the Lawrence inquiry and subsequent inquiries, the investigators and the Metropolitan police have never asked my constituent to amplify on his information.

The CIB is riddled with people who want to stop further light being shed on those relationships. However, I understand that journalists from The Guardian are on the brink of revealing more about them, and I look forward to that. I hope that, like me, my hon. Friend the Minister and the Commissioner of the Metropolitan police will study what is written.

My purpose in securing this debate is to seek an end to the agony and unfairness of the inordinate suspension of my constituent. I asked my right hon. Friend the Home Secretary about the cost to the public of suspensions of Metropolitan police officers, but he was unable to give the total sum. It is a side issue, but it is wholly unsatisfactory and must be addressed.

There has been widespread misfeasance at the highest level in the Metropolitan police. I again demand a full judicial inquiry into Operation Nightshade, with which my constituent was involved, and the consequent malevolence and corrupt practice of those who served and serve in the CIB against my constituent and other officers.

I want to halt Commander Hayman's dilatory and partial handling of my constituent's serious complaints of wrongdoing by John Coles and others in the CIB. I want responsibility for the investigation to be removed from the Police Complaints Authority. Commander Hayman should have investigated my constituent's complaints, but is now demonstrably disqualified from doing so. Incidentally, he invited me to have a security briefing, but I declined, because I thought that such an approach was wholly improper. I want someone else appointed who will conduct an investigation impartially and vigorously. It should be completed before any disciplinary hearing against my constituent takes place, although any such hearing would be a charade, because he has nothing to answer.

The inquiry that I seek would complement the KPMG study commissioned by the Home Secretary following recommendation 58 of the Stephen Lawrence inquiry report, which states:

Investigation of police officers by their own or another Police service is widely regarded as unjust, and does not inspire public confidence.

I believe that the KPMG study should be undertaken at the same time as the public inquiry. The Government should then give their view about how to proceed on police corruption investigations.

The CIB has recently fallen foul of several High Court judges as a result of its techniques. Judge Harvey Crush of Maidstone Crown court gave a damning 42-page judgment on the botched Operation Nectarine by the CIB and Kent police. I understand that the Director of Public Prosecutions is conducting an internal inquiry in light of that judgment. I hope that the Minister will say that the DPP's report will be published.

As I said, my constituent, Redgrave, was suspended on the basis of an allegation by a police informant that he had corruptly bunged my constituent stolen money from Operation Nightshade. My constituent was not advised that the allegation, made in June 1994, had been withdrawn. In fact, the informant withdrew it on 27 January 1997. On 11 February 1998, my constituent's lawyers wrote to the Police Complaints Authority. On 19 February, John Cartwright—the vice-chairman of the PCA—wrote back to the lawyers saying that he was not aware of the allegation's withdrawal. He is supposed to be overseeing my constituent's complaints. It was not until the committal hearings on 17 May 1999 that the withdrawal on 27 January 1997 became clear from the bundle of papers disclosed to the defence.

We now know that there are no grounds for the continued suspension of my constituent or for the bugging probe at Michael Charman's dinner. I believe that the warrants obtained for access during the raids were probably unlawful. Police procedures were certainly not followed. I hope that the Minister will investigate further. Despite all that, Detective Chief Superintendent John Coles, unprofessionally and with maximum spite and deceit, continues to traduce my constituent by making baseless accusations that he shared a £50,000 bung with another officer. When will it stop?

There is a serious political dimension to Operation Nightshade—an anglo-American police sting across three continents, costing millions of pounds. It started in June 1993 and a central figure was a registered police informant to whom I have already referred. He was handled by Detective Constable Michael Charman and my constituent was the senior investigating officer.

Operation Nightshade incorporated three elements—a planned cocaine shipment from Venezuela to the UK; a money laundering scam; and, most importantly, an illegal arms deal using Sierra Leone as a trans-shipment point. The British side included Customs and Excise; the south-east regional crime squad; SO10, the undercover outfit in Scotland Yard; and SO13, the anti-terrorism branch. The British worked closely with the Houston branch of United States Customs, the Federal Bureau of Investigation and the Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms Branch of the US Treasury Department. All were in the loop.

The informant had been approached in 1993 by a Texan-based gang with an offer to sell arms. The Americans were in the car business and boasted high political connections in Texas, where they lived in opulent homes. Roger Crooks was one of the group and it transpires from my questions to the Foreign and Commonwealth Office that he met Peter Penfold, our high commissioner in Sierra Leone in recent times. It was Crooks who supplied the helicopter in the Sandline affair and he also runs the Mama Yoko hotel, the headquarters of the United Nations in Freetown.

The informant was asked whether he could find a buyer for a large quantity of arms worth millions of dollars. The weapons on offer included M16 assault rifles, grenade and rocket launchers, plastic explosives, mines and ammunition. Redgrave was notified and obtained further authorisation from several senior Scotland Yard commanders and their US counterparts to mount a well planned sting operation. The informant then helped to introduce the Texans to a British undercover officer from SO10, posing as a buyer for Northern Ireland Protestant terrorists. The weapons were to be stolen in part from an army base in the United States and shipped to Britain via Sierra Leone. Officers were particularly interested in finding out how Barratt sniper rifles were getting into Northern Ireland—at the cost of many British soldiers' lives.

The sting operation was going well and undercover officers were gathering evidence against the American gang. After successfully bugging meetings in London and Houston, Redgrave's team and US customs were poised to make arrests. Then something strange happened during the arms negotiations, which ultimately scuppered the operation. The informant was charged with theft of £400,000, which had been deposited in his account by the Texan gang as part of the laundering scam.

To keep Operation Nightshade on track, a financial investigator was appointed by the Metropolitan police to examine the informant's business accounts. Meanwhile my constituent redoubled his and his colleagues' efforts to complete the sting and make the arrest. By autumn 1994, the American gang had backed off. Operation Nightshade, which cost millions of pounds, faded with no arrests on either side of the Atlantic. I would really like to know exactly how much it cost.

The informant disappeared and the theft charges against him were mysteriously dropped. Three years later, in February 1997, as anti-corruption officers raided my constituent's home, it became clear that he and Charman had not escaped the shadow of Operation Nightshade. Subsequently, the CIB told Redgrave and Charman that the informant had been re-arrested for the alleged theft of money during Operation Nightshade. The anti-corruption squad also accused both detectives of turning a blind eye to the theft in return for £50,000. My constituents were not told that that allegation was subsequently withdrawn, which is disgraceful.

The CIB further claimed that in order to disguise the corrupt payment, Redgrave had duped his senior commanders and simply invented the arms deal. That is clearly untrue, as I have ascertained through parliamentary questions and other parliamentary activities. The protection or non-prosecution of people whom Redgrave and Charman tried to investigate through Operation Nightshade is important to understanding what happened to those two officers. That is especially the case when examining the targets connected with the plan to sell arms to two Met undercover officers posing as buyers for Northern Ireland terrorists. I greatly regret that the SO10 officers were not brought before the Select Committee on Foreign Affairs, but Members are well aware of our uphill struggle for transparency in that matter.

Confidential Met and United States police documents on the progress of their joint operation against the United States-based gang clearly showed that all the law enforcement officers involved believed that they were dealing with real gangsters offering an arms deal in return for millions of pounds.

In Redgrave's report to his superior on 26 May 1994, he said that the current position was that Crooks had placed an order for arms, faxed exportation documents and received the undercover officers' dummy end-user certificate. The report stated that the targets had also seen proof of purchase funds and Crooks had said on tape that the shipment was ready in a container for export within 30 days. Redgrave noted that the next stage would be to return to Houston to arrest the principals. In a memo from United States Customs dated 9 May 1994, special agent Leon Guinn said that the targets in Houston had repeatedly made incriminating statements over the arms deal in numerous telecommunications and in three meetings with undercover officers in London. Guinn continued:

Investigation by the SAC—

special customs

in Houston has determined that the targets have made specific inquiries with US arms dealers…further, the co-conspirators have been recorded alluding to the undercover officers that some of the material requested by them will be taken from US military installations.

Guinn ended by saying that the Government attorney handling the case had expressed

a desire to pursue prosecution of suspects

and believed conviction to be "very likely".

In another south-east regional crime squad police report, Crooks is described as

the head of the organisation, a high-profile fraudsman, diamond smuggler and arms dealer known to the American authorities and fully researched by the US Customs.

In a summary of meetings between one undercover officer and Crooks at the Britannia hotel in London on 20 December 1993, the undercover officer said:

Roger again said he had no problem in selling weapons to our organisation but he could only get it out of the United States to, say, Nigeria or Sierra Leone. However, he could put us in contact with the right people who would facilitate its onward shipment to the United Kingdom…Roger again said that we would not have a problem getting it from Sierra Leone as he had all the right contacts, in fact he even had a diplomatic passport for that country—

and indeed he has. There are sensitive diplomatic reasons why that aspect of Operation Nightshade has been fudged, which I may make available to the House on another occasion. Crooks and his outfit had high-level contacts in the United States and I believe that political leverage was used. The Operation Nightshade papers show that both the United States and British officers wanted to arrest Crooks and his gang by the middle of 1994 and that opportunity was botched. It is not clear whether MI5 was involved. It is of course unanswerable and unaccountable to Parliament.

Crooks later claimed that throughout the arms deal he was acting as an informant. Crooks appeared later in history at the heart of the United States navy's plan to rescue American and British citizens stranded in Sierra Leone, and he is still involved in the Mama Yoko hotel.

My constituent has been cleared of corruption, but he remains suspended. He believes that his plight is connected to the targeting of Roger Crooks and British policy, official and deniable, on Sierra Leone. He hoped that a judicial inquiry would uncover whether he and others were the victims of a plot by the intelligence services to undermine Operation Nightshade and to protect its targets.

I remind the House that I received some interesting answers from Home Office and Foreign and Commonwealth Office Ministers and from the Ministry of Defence. Despite extensive evidence of arms deals involving Crooks in Sierra Leone, the Minister of State, Home Office, the hon. Member for Norwich, South (Mr. Clarke), said:

The Commissioner of Police of the Metropolis tells me that no such details were revealed as a result of Operation Nightshade.—[Official Report, 16 March 2000; Vol. 346, c. 268W.]

In other words, no details were revealed of arms deals via west Africa. However, in answer to another question, the Minister conceded that Crooks was interviewed by the anti-terrorist branch in London on 24 June 1993

about matters that involved the supply of firearms.—[Official Report, 3 April 2000; Vol. 347, c. 379W.]

Answers from the Foreign Office were equally revealing. I was told that Crooks had been known

to various members of the High Commission for some time.—[Official Report, 16 March 2000; Vol. 346, c. 287W.]

He had provided assistance in the evacuation of the United States hotel in Freetown in May 1997. The Foreign Office also confirmed that Crooks had had contact with unnamed Foreign and Commonwealth Office and Ministry of Defence personnel during the past few years—but not about arms or military matters. The Foreign and Commonwealth Office confirmed that Crooks was expelled from Sierra Leone; but he has now been reinstated. The website of the Sierra Leone news agency said that he had been expelled for trying to arrange the trafficking of arms between Northern Ireland and Sierra Leone. As we know, he also had discussions with Peter Penfold, our controversial high commissioner in Sierra Leone, who was aware of the Sandline plan to arm a counter-coup to restore Kabbah to power.

Only recently, the CIB wrote to inform Mr. Redgrave's lawyers that a disciplinary hearing had been set for February 2001, but that has been aborted following a complaint about a breach of procedure for setting the date. The CIB apologised and cancelled the hearing, and no further date has been set. Indeed, I believe that no hearing should be held. The disciplinary charges are a nonsense, and it is time for a line to be drawn. I believe that the police have a duty to pursue the investigation of my constituent's complaints independently, but that Mr. Hayman is disqualified from conducting it. In my view, he is partial. He refuses to take the counter-complaint seriously, and I remind the House that it includes a reference to the Lawrence inquiry and allegations of corruption about which my constituent has never been interviewed.

I remind the House of the recent employment tribunal ruling in the case of sacked Asian officer Gurpal Virdi. It is clear that that disciplinary hearing was a sham, a kangaroo court working to a predetermined conclusion. The Metropolitan police have agreed to refer that case to the Metropolitan Police Authority. Will they do the same for my constituent? Mr. Deputy Speaker, I apologise for having detained the House, but I think that you will realise that, prima facie, the case stinks.

I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Thurrock (Mr. Mackinlay) on securing this debate. I emphasise that it is entirely legitimate for my hon. Friend to raise the interests of his constituent but, for reasons that he will understand, I can say little that is specific to the John Redgrave case. However, I shall talk about the questions of discipline and corruption that arise in such cases, and about the role the Association of Chief Police Officers and the Metropolitan police. I shall not respond in detail, but I shall consider carefully what my hon. Friend has said.

At the start of an investigation into alleged corruption, Detective Inspector John Redgrave was suspended from duty on 6 February 1997 and Detective Constable Michael Charman was suspended from duty on 4 February 1997. They immediately reported sick. No criminal charges were brought. In 1998, a second investigation was mounted which led to arrests and charges. The case was dismissed in the magistrates court on the ground of insufficient evidence. However, both officers were then charged with a disciplinary offence under the 1985 police disciplinary regulations.

A police discipline board was to have considered those charges in February 2001, but, because counsel for Mr. Redgrave and Mr. Charman will not be available on that date, the hearing is likely to be put back until April next year. In the event that the charge is proved, the officers will have a right of appeal to the Commissioner and, subject to the Commissioner's decision, to the Home Secretary. My hon. Friend will appreciate that, because the Home Secretary is the final appellate authority for disciplinary matters under the 1985 police discipline regulations, it would be inappropriate for me to comment further on Mr. Redgrave's case today. I shall, of course, respond to further written parliamentary questions, to assist my hon. Friend in dealing with the matter.

I wish to make a preliminary point. I share my hon. Friend's concern about the immense time that it has taken to resolve this and other similar cases. Unfortunately, this is not the only case in which disciplinary matters have gone on for so long. Delays may happen at various stages of the process, sometimes for understandable reasons, which result in it taking a long time to resolve matters satisfactorily. That is why we wish to change the complaints system. A KPMG report and a Liberty report have been completed, and we are now consulting on a series of changes that we hope will make things more transparent and enable cases to be dealt with much more quickly. We are moving rapidly in that direction, and I hope that the House will be able to consider changes to the process when the consultation is complete.

It was for the same reason that we introduced new police discipline procedures, which came into effect on 1 April 1999 after having been in the process of revision for some years. Their main purpose was to establish formal procedures for dealing with unsatisfactory performance by police officers with the availability of a requirement to resign when an officer's efficiency cannot be brought up to standard.

The new discipline procedures have some new features. First, a fast-track procedure has been established to deal swiftly with officers against whom there is very strong evidence of serious misconduct of a criminal nature and against whom it is in the public interest to act swiftly in advance of criminal proceedings. There are full rights of appeal in that process. Secondly, disciplinary hearings are conducted by an assistant chief constable with two superintendents or, if the accused is a superintendent, two more assistant chief constables. Thirdly, the civil as opposed to the criminal standard of proof now applies.

Fourthly, greater powers now exist to hold a hearing in the absence of an accused officer. The hearing can now proceed in his or her absence. Fifthly, a two-stage appeal system has been established. A review by the chief constable is available to all officers, after which there is an appeal to a police appeals tribunal, set up by the relevant police authority, for those officers punished with dismissal, requirement to resign or reduction in rank. There is no involvement by the Home Secretary, who was the former appellate authority. I hope that the proposals concerning complaints that we are currently considering and the new police disciplinary procedures that I have described and which came into effect on 1 April 1999 will help to deal with processing problems. I know that my hon. Friend will welcome several of the changes that we have made.

In general, I should like to think that hard-core corruption is still relatively rare, but that must not make us complacent. By its nature, it is difficult to detect and evidence can be very hard to gather. We must do everything possible to guard against it in the first place. However, when it does occur, corruption creeps almost imperceptibly through an organisation. It can take many forms, which is why it is necessary to deal with it quickly and firmly and why the changes that my hon. Friend advocates in general are ones to which the Government are sympathetic.

The majority of police officers are honest, dedicated and hard working and they deserve public trust and respect for the difficult and dangerous tasks that are demanded of them. We have the job, however, of dealing with the small minority of officers whose behaviour taints the reputation of the police service as a whole. Some areas of policing are more prone to corruption than others. For example, vice, drugs, licensing and other matters where the police exercise regulatory powers associated with extraordinarily large sums of money and high levels of financial temptation are particular areas of concern. It remains fundamentally the case that all officers have a choice to decide how to conduct themselves in such circumstances, and I am pleased that the overall majority of officers faced with that choice behave in the best traditions of the force and the British justice system.

Two reports published in June 1999 by Her Majesty's inspectorate of constabulary and the Home Office were regarded as important contributions to the continuing debate on integrity and corruption. They have given us a better understanding of how to prevent and detect corruption. The Association of Chief Police Officers has been particularly active in that area. In 1998, it established a presidential task force to tackle corruption. It issued guidance covering policy for professional standards reporting, a corruption prevention strategy, a toolkit to assess the vulnerability of forces to corruption and guidance for investigations. That is being carried through extremely energetically.

We recognise and support the action in general taken by the Metropolitan police and, for the reasons that I have outlined, I believe that we can have confidence in the force. Like his predecessor, the Commissioner is determined to tackle corruption in the Metropolitan police. As my hon. Friend the Member for Thurrock said, corruption in the Metropolitan police is dealt with by its Complaints Investigation Bureau, CIB3, whose role is to investigate allegations of serious corruption. It is now firmly established.

In December 1998, the then Commissioner launched the Metropolitan police's corruption and dishonesty prevention strategy with six strands: prevention and detection; inclusion; focus and accountability; supervision and leadership; security, screening and vetting; and corruption and dishonesty proofing. I welcome the Commissioner's commitment to rid the Metropolitan police of corruption. I fully support his efforts to prevent corruption, to seek it out and to eradicate it. I commit myself to considering carefully my hon. Friend's points and believe that the measures that we have already taken on discipline and those that we shall take with regard to the complaints procedure will help to establish a process in which we can be truly confident.

On a point of order, Mr. Deputy Speaker. I do not want to mislead the Chamber. I said that Mr. Hayman had invited me to a security briefing but, I want to make it clear that it was the Commissioner of the Metropolitan police who invited me to a security briefing with Hayman. However, that was still wrong in my view.

I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for raising that matter on a point of order.