Before the hon. Member for Putney (Mr. Colman) addresses us, let me make the point that, as there is excessive heating in the Room, I am prepared to relax the normal rule on dress. Jackets need not continue to be worn if Members feel uncomfortable.

Thank you, Mr. Deputy Speaker, for that ruling. We will have read in the newspapers today about the advance of global warming; it has certainly arrived in Westminster Hall.

Thank you also, Mr. Deputy Speaker, for agreeing to this Adjournment debate on aviation policy. This is the first opportunity that hon. Members have had to express their views in the Chamber on the Government consultation paper "The Future of Aviation", which was launched outside the House on 12 December 2000.

I thank those who have helped me to prepare for this debate. The views now expressed are mine alone, but I hope that they are shared by many Putney residents and other Members of Parliament. I have already passed a copy of my speech to the Under-Secretary, my hon. Friend the Member for Sunderland, South (Mr. Mullin), so I hope that he will be able to respond to my questions and comments.

The consultation document is comprehensive, and I commend two of the Government's proposals in particular: first, the polluter pays principle has been applied to the aviation industry; secondly, the Government are advocating the taxation of aviation fuel on an EU-wide basis. The Minister may be able to bring the Chamber up to date on the meeting of the International Civil Aviation Organisation in Montreal last week. The United States rejected the EU proposal for such a tax in September. Has it now been agreed and, if not, will the EU decide to go it alone?

The need for action on pollution, especially on emissions from aircraft, was made even more urgent by the report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, announced in Shanghai, China yesterday, which stated that the panel's previous reports had gravely underestimated the extent to which the world may heat up. It calculates that that could now happen almost twice as fast, with a rise of 5.8 deg C by the end of this century. It is the first report to conclude unequivocally that global warming is taking place and that pollution is to blame.

In my Adjournment debate on 21 March last year, I drew attention to the culpability of the aviation industry and to the need for action by Governments, airlines, aircraft manufacturers and airports. The call by Mike Hodgkinson of BAA plc for a sustainable aviation forum should be heeded. Perhaps the Minister can state whether he will set up such a forum, with all of the stakeholders involved? On what basis could that be done and when? What success did my right hon. Friend the Deputy Prime Minister have in ensuring that aircraft emissions were discussed and incorporated at the sixth conference of parties to the Kyoto protocol, at The Hague in November 2000 and subsequently? If that has not been achieved, will the Minister confirm that such incorporation remains UK and EU aviation and environmental policy?

The other pollutant from the aviation industry is, of course, noise. I welcome the Government's decision, announced last month, to impose lower noise limits for aircraft departing from Heathrow, Gatwick and Stansted—and cut by half the number of night flights over Putney. Those changes start to recognise the concern of our constituents who live under flight paths about the impact of noise on their daily lives—and even, as research has clearly shown, on the learning ability of their children.

However, the situation remains unacceptable for my constituents and, I am sure, many others. I have tried, as the Minister knows, to remove all night flights from Heathrow. The current regime of 16 flights runs out in 2003, and I hope that a night flight ban can be imposed. I took that matter up in debates on 28 October 1997 and 10 March 1999. I hope to take it up again in the new Parliament, if I am re-elected, well in time for a ban in 2003. In the meantime, the airlines concerned have agreed a ban on flights before 4.30 am and I am persuading them to move to a curfew before 5 am. I have yet to find a single flight that cannot be moved to an arrival after 6 am.

It has been said that if the Government agree to terminal 5, a condition could be that a ban on night flights could take place. Mr. David Radcliffe of the Putney Society states this week in the Wandsworth Borough News:

Voters in Putney who suffer from aircraft noise, who extend well beyond the boundaries of the Putney Society's 1300 members need firm guarantees (from our MP) that if the Government gives T5 the go ahead after the election, it will implement a night ban within a reasonable period afterwards. Nothing less will do.

My hon. Friend mentioned the prospect of terminal 5. Does he, like me, find that the timing of the consultation paper is rather odd, as it is too late to influence the conclusions on terminal 5 and too early to reflect the findings of the inquiry?

I agree with those sentiments entirely. That is one reason why I called for an aviation policy debate today. It is a source of great regret that the White Paper did not come out earlier; I shall deal with issues to do with terminal 5 later.

To return to night flights, I agree that nothing less than a ban will do for the people of Putney. However, I do not wish to see or hear of such a ban coming as a result of terminal 5: there should be a ban anyway. Any day now, the European Court of Human Rights is due to pronounce on the case of Ruth Hutton et al v. the United Kingdom Government on the human right of an individual to have a good night's sleep. Conjoined with Ruth Hutton are Tony Anderson, Richard Bird, John Cavalla, Philippa Edmunds, John Hartley, Peter Thake and Jeff Thomas, all of whom I praise for their initiative and purpose. The case started in 1994 and the court decided in 2000 that the UK Government had a case to answer. I regret that the Minister has not accepted the justice of the case. There is a Europe-wide swell of opposition to night flights, and the European Parliament has twice supported a ban. Will the Minister call a meeting of his EU counterparts to establish one? I intend to take a UK delegation to meet the Swedish ambassador to see whether such a ban could be advanced during the Swedish presidency of the EU.

On page 44, paragraph 157, the consultation document states:

The Government has funded two new research studies on the adverse effects of nighttime noise. They include a trial study on objective measurement of sleep disturbance in the home under controlled conditions, and a public attitude survey of people's perceptions of the effects of aircraft noise at night. We expect to publish both studies very soon.

Given the fact that the document was issued on 12 December, would the Minister give an indication of what date is signified by "soon"? Was he disappointed that the ICAO meeting in Montreal on 17 January only agreed a new noise standard 10 decibels lower than the current chapter 3 standards, which will become effective only in January 2006, rather than the minus-14 target advocated by the Airport Operators Association? Does he agree with Keith Jowett, chief executive of that association? He said:

As air traffic levels continue to increase, every effort must be made to limit the nuisances caused to people by aircraft noise. That's why we see quieter aircraft as vital to the future of air transport in the UK.

Yesterday, The Times reported:

BAA, which owns Heathrow, Gatwick and Stansted, had been pushing for the 14-decibel reduction; without it they feared expansion plans would be jeopardised by local objections.

Airlines, which faced a £100 billion bill to make aircraft comply with the tougher limit, expressed delight at the announcement.

The new limits are planned for 2006. New aircraft can be phased in to meet the 14 decibel reduction and more without large bills to the airlines or the ultimate payers—the passengers.

The last study on noise impact around Heathrow was in 1982. Very close to the airport, noise from each aircraft may be better, but the approaches to Heathrow that now cover practically the whole of London—and particularly the dreadful noise-polluted stretch from Putney and Fulham through Richmond and Barnes to Hounslow—have had an increase in noise, as the rising tide of complaints clearly shows. Will the Minister commit himself to renewing and reviewing the LEQ index and monitoring around Heathrow and its approaches to ensure that updated figures can be made available on an unbiased basis?

The consultation document is light on the other aspects of aviation that impact on noise. My constituents, for example, suffer badly from flights in and out of Battersea heliport. The flight path is along the Thames as far as Barnes and duplicates, at even lower levels, the Heathrow flight path over Putney. A much more convenient location than Battersea for London's heliport should be proposed, preferably outside London and with a high-speed public transport link. There is also no discussion in the document of airships, which can have great lifting capability, are silent and do not require long glide paths prior to landing. I believe that the new, safe gases could be used for them. Could the Minister look into why helicopters, heliports and the use of airships have been largely discounted in the consultation document?

Current trends in air travel have been plotted in the consultation document, but no one has contradicted Nick Nuttall, the environment correspondent of The Times, who wrote last June:

The government is facing a political timebomb as official projections show that Britain needs four more airports the size of Heathrow if it is to meet air travel growth over the next 20 years. Experts claim that the figures have put ministers on a collision course with councils, residents and "green groups". Statistics show that the number of passengers at British airports was 160 million in 1998. Forecasts produced for the DETR say this will have climbed to between 401 million and 404 million by 2020.

The mainstream forecast is that the number of passengers using London-area airports will increase from 109 million passengers per annum in 2000, to 250 million in 2020, and to 320 million by 2030.

My hon. Friend will be aware that, because of those projections, some people in the south-east business community have advocated that RAF Northolt be developed as another terminal for Heathrow. Does he recognise the concern that that suggestion has created among my constituents? Does he agree that the proposal should be flown into the dustbin of history and parked there?

I totally agree with that comment. I also believe that the Prime Minister's commitment not to proceed with such a proposal should assure my hon. Friend's electors that there is no commitment in any shape or form on a sixth-terminal development at RAF Northolt.

I have outlined the forecast for huge growth in the number of passengers using London-area airports. One question is whether such growth is in the interests of the United Kingdom economy. The industry-funded report by Oxford Economic Forecasting, entitled "The contribution of the Aviation Industry to the Economy", makes no mention of environmental and social costs, the lack of contribution in VAT or fuel tax, or the cost of each aviation job to the economy. I support the view of John Stewart, of the Heathrow Action Committee Against Noise, that there should be a move to a demand-management strategy along the lines of that being proposed for the rest of the European Union, rather than the predict and provide approach of the Tory years.

Even with modest growth, there is a need for expansion to the north and east of London. The Deputy Mayor of London, Nicky Gavron, has made plain her support for such expansion. She points out the benefits to the Lee Valley regeneration corridor of expansion of Stansted airport. However, she says:

London has no major airport to the east—only London City, which is constrained in the size and number of aircraft it can take. Yet it is to the east that London and its surrounding regions have the huge opportunities for development in Thames Gateway.

A little verse from the 1970s sums up the issue nicely:

Put your airports out to sea

Where the real estate is free

And where they're far away from me.

Nicky Gavron continues:

If we are going to plan, monitor and manage air transport long term, we have to look east to a "super airport" coming on stream after 2020. The only options for that super airport are estuarial, or further out, land reclaimed from the North Sea—for example, Maplin Sands…

She also remarks:

It is a fact of life that indefinite expansion of London's existing airports is technically and politically impossible.

That brings me to my key point, which hon. Members have already mentioned in interventions—the planning application for terminal 5. Perhaps the Minister will confirm that the inspector's report is with the Deputy Prime Minister, and say when he expects a decision to be announced. Although I realise that the usual time for consideration of such a report is at least six months, if not a year—which has been my experience with similar planning applications—in this case, it is important that we have a decision before a general election to avoid the charge that a decision was delayed for political reasons.

I was disappointed to learn that the Mayor of London, my hon. Friend the Member for Brent, East (Mr. Livingstone)—I have informed him that I would be making this point—has decided to be silent on the issue. In chapter 41.8 of the document "Improving London's Transport System: London's International Link", he states:

The Mayor has no role in determining the Heathrow Terminal 5 decision.

He goes on to say that, if T5 goes ahead, certain conditions should be met; and I agree. However, it amazes me that, on perhaps the most important planning issue before Londoners today, the Mayor believes that he has no role. I suggest that leaders of London local authorities such as my own Wandsworth council should call on the Mayor to state where he stands on the issue. The planning inquiry has clearly finished, but no decision has yet been made. I want to know where the Mayor of London stands on the issue and I call on him to come off the fence. I agree with the Mayor on many public transport issues, but I cannot understand why he is unwilling to provide a lead on the issue.

If I may unequivocally state on which side of the fence I stand, I oppose terminal 5. I do not believe that any of the conditions on terminal 5 can control major expansion of the airport in the future. The fact is that—as I have made clear to BAA and to the planning inquiry inspector again and again in the past five years—existing terminals can be redeveloped to deal with larger aircraft. The last thing that London wants is another mega-shopping centre, but that seems to be the only justification in terms of airport capacity for T5.

The hon. Member for Richmond Park (Dr. Tonge), who represents a neighbouring constituency to mine, is unable to attend this debate, but she asked me to register her opposition to terminal 5.

My last point concerns the accountability of the aviation industry to the public. I welcome the proposal for a statutory consumer body for air transport. Currently, the Air Transport Users Council represents the views of air travellers and is financed by the airlines through the CAA. Any new body should ensure that the consumer's voice is heard across the full range of aviation policy, not simply on matters concerning passenger rights.

Health issues have suddenly come to the fore—particularly concerns about deep vein thrombosis. I pay tribute to my hon. Friends the Members for Norwich, North (Dr. Gibson) and for Vale of Glamorgan (Mr. Smith) for their work on those issues. However, before hon. Members conclude that dealing with the concerns is merely a matter of spreading out the economy seats, I should point out that a report in Saturday's Financial Times stated that the chief executive officer of J. Walter Thompson—one of the world's biggest advertising agencies—has quit at the age of 45 after being stricken by DVT, and certainly not travelling in economy class. The article states:

He was hit by deep vein thrombosis on his way to a client meeting with Nestle in Switzerland last spring. After he had disembarked from the aircraft, his leg started to swell and Nestle summoned medical help.

Mr. Jones was rushed to hospital by ambulance and underwent emergency surgery. Afterwards, JWT said, doctors told him he had been lucky to escape with his life.

I was pleased to read the Minister's comment, in reply to last week's Adjournment debate, that

If it emerges that regulation on health grounds is necessary, we will not hesitate to act.—[Official Report, Westminster Hall, 16 January 2001: Vol. 361, c. 28WH.]

Yesterday, on the "Today" programme, Professor John Whitely of Liverpool John Moore university and Transport 2000 was interviewed about a new study of US airports, particularly Chicago and Seattle, and the increased rate of cancer registered among those living near airports. Apparently no such epidemiological survey has been carried out in the UK, and Professor Whitely was calling for one. Could the Minister add that concern to the list?

Will my hon. Friend confirm reports that he will be meeting the airlines for an aviation summit, on 20 February, to discuss EU regulations that would also force operators to publish figures on punctuality, cancellations and—more important—complaints? Would he support the publication of league tables on customer complaints—as is done by the US Department of Transport following an aviation summit held by ex-President Clinton in January 2000, when all airlines operating in the US agreed to provide such information?

The consultation on aviation policy—the first since the 1985 White Paper—is to be welcomed. It could be comprehensive. I welcome its support of the polluter pays principle and its emphasis on taking into account the environmental and social costs of aviation. Emission and noise pollution must be dealt with. I look forward to a total ban on night flights for UK airports and—with residents' pressure—across Europe. I hope that the new Swedish presidency will take on the issue.

I am appalled that the decision on terminal 5 is to be taken without reference to the issues raised in the consultation paper and without waiting for the White Paper. I am also amazed that the Mayor of London has decided not to become involved in the most important planning decision in London. I also support the moves, outlined in the consultation, for a consumers' voice in aviation policy, and for action on the health issues that must worry all air travellers. I have been told time and again when preparing for this debate that I must realise how important the aviation industry is to UK plc. However, any industry must convince the public that it should have a licence to operate. We cannot simply say that anything goes if it ensures competitiveness with the rest of the world. Those were the arguments that were used against the minimum wage and the abolition of child labour.

One airline representative told me that he was disappointed with the consultation paper because it concentrated on what he called consumer issues. He felt that those issues were already being dealt with by EU Transport Commissioner Mrs. de Palacio, and he wanted to know why the UK Government did not deal in their consultation paper with what he believed to be the real issue: options for capacity, such as an additional runway for Heathrow. He implied that the most important question was how to continue future expansion unchecked. For him, the issue at Heathrow was not terminal 5, which was going to happen anyway, but an additional runway to enable use of the additional airport capacity that terminal 5 would provide. Of course, that runs totally in the face of the evidence given to the T5 inquiry.

There is a perception that the Department of the Environment, Transport and the Regions and, more precisely, the transport department, bend over backwards to satisfy the airline industry and do not listen to the needs of the electorate. My hon. Friend the Under-Secretary has shown in his time in his current role that he is willing to listen and act. I look forward to seeing him ban night flights, refuse permission for terminal 5 and ensure that aviation policy for the future takes account primarily of the views of the people as a whole and not simply of aviation industry aggrandisement.

I admire my hon. Friend for representing his constituents' views, but does not UK aviation policy mean policy throughout the country?

I agree with my hon. Friend, but one of the issues at Heathrow is the grandfather rights of particular airlines on the slots that they can use there. Many of the regional airlines are desperate to access Heathrow. Any review of airport landing slots should ensure that regional airlines can access the capital. The value attached to the slots is unhelpful in terms of ensuring that the industry works for the interests of consumers throughout the country, rather than for its own aggrandisement.

My hon. Friend makes valuable points about the economic contribution of the aviation industry. We know that two thirds of all flights depart from the south-east, and that three quarters of all airport and airline jobs are based there. Does he acknowledge that far tighter regimes should be established in regional airports before any expansion is exported to them? Should not they learn in some way from the regimes at Heathrow and elsewhere?

I am sure that other hon. Members will want to put the case for areas outside the south-east. I feel strongly that the overheated economy in west London and the overbearing noise and pollution to which I have referred are such that a cap should be placed on development at Heathrow. We should move away from the predict and provide method and towards a more sane situation, especially given the information on global warming that has been revealed in the past 24 hours. For the first time, we have been shown that the Tory way of rushing willy-nilly into development for the sake of airlines rather than of the consumers or the electorate, and into unbridled development in the south-east, should be challenged.

I have taken two interventions at the end of my speech and I now want to give other hon. Members time to participate.

I congratulate the hon. Member for Putney (Mr. Colman) on initiating a debate that is timely both in terms of the consultation paper published just before Christmas and in terms of my constituents' interests. Of course the hon. Gentleman did not know that the latter were involved. I apologise for missing the first couple of minutes of his speech, but I think I have got the thrust of it from listening to the interventions and to the substantial part of his comments.

It will not surprise hon. Members to learn that I do not want to speak about Heathrow. I should like to mention two other issues: first, the environmental impact of growth in air traffic; and, secondly, the proposal for a regional airport in my constituency—indeed, the hon. Gentleman referred at the end of his speech to the regional aspects of aviation policy.

It is a pity that aviation is currently outside the Kyoto protocol. We know about the environmental effect of aviation in terms of fuel use, growth and especially freight traffic. Kiwi fruit and all sorts of exotic vegetables are flown in at various times of the year. Such products are often cheaper than those produced here, partly because there is no tax on aviation fuel. We are facing a 70 per cent. growth in freight traffic. Furthermore, it is estimated that fuel use will increase by 3 per cent. a year for the next 15 years. That will lead to an increase in aviation emissions of at least 75 per cent. by 2015, despite improvements in fuel efficiency.

The hon. Member for Putney referred to the American report—I think that it was made public yesterday—that makes a link between cancer and fuel use and storage, with special reference to the carcinogenic substances benzine and toluline. As the hon. Gentleman said, we have no way of saying whether the same is happening in this country, as we have no studies on the matter. We must, however, consider human and public health as well as the environmental impact of aviation growth.

On 31 October, when the Deputy Prime Minister had just released a report on flooding, I asked him about aviation fuel tax. In reply, he said that

we need a global agreement and a global solution.

I think that we agree on that. The right hon. Gentleman added:

we are pressing the case very hard.—[Official Report, 31 October 2000; Vol. 355, c. 622.]

I have had only a brief opportunity to read the consultation paper on the future of aviation, but I cannot see in it any suggestion that the Government are pressing hard on the question of aviation fuel tax. It is mentioned as an optional way forward for controlling the growth in air freight and traffic, but it is not identified as a Government priority or objective. Will the Under-Secretary make it his priority objective for the Government to adopt the international proposal to agree on some form of aviation tax? Allowing the consumption of such a huge amount of fossil fuels to be outside the Kyoto agreement is remiss in modern society and should be addressed.

If aviation tax were introduced and the cost of flights were similar to that of other forms of transport—or at least on an level playing field with them—the growth being experienced by the south-east in particular might be limited and more realistic. Such a tax is not by any means an answer to all the problems, but surely the noise and environmental and social impacts of the growth of air traffic should be paid for in some way by those who use aircraft. That means the operators themselves and also passengers. It is currently much cheaper for me to fly to Dublin from Wales than to travel to London or Cardiff. Clearly there is a strange relationship clearly in that respect.

Of course I have to go to Cardiff to get the flight to Dublin, which brings me to my next point: the proposal to develop a regional airport in my constituency, at what is now the Defence Evaluation and Research Agency base in Aberporth. DERA has been privatised and the Under-Secretary has no responsibility for these matters. However, there are one or two related issues for which he may be responsible. The change from military to civilian use means that the airport in Aberporth has to meet Civil Aviation Authority guidelines. That means a larger runway. Consequently, according to planning proposals that are currently before the local authority, the airport will become a class 2 airport. That means that it will be the second largest airport in Wales after Cardiff Wales, which is our main regional airport.

Any hon. Members who have visited Aberporth or Cardigan or that area of the west Wales coast may think it somewhat strange that there is a need for a regional airport where there is no major centre of population. However, there is a proposal, which is linked with DERA, for a technology park. The idea is that the regional airport and the technology park will work together in a cluster development. That is an interesting and exciting proposal. However, my constituents have raised one or two questions.

First, it is clear that there will be a policy on regional airports. The consultation document states that a series of regional airport studies will be made. Will there be a separate study for Wales, or one study for Cardiff Wales airport? How will the proposal for Aberporth fit in with the putative regional airport studies?

The flight path is the second aspect that worries my constituents. As the Ministry of Defence range will continue to exist down to the sea, flying in over the sea will not be a feasible or safe approach. That means that the main approach will be over land. I echo some of the comments of the hon. Member for Putney about noise and night flights.

I ask the Minister and hon. Members to consider carefully how we can encourage regional airport growth when 80 per cent. of the traffic that flies into Gatwick and Heathrow is destined for the south-east. It is not easily transferred elsewhere. That is a difficult consideration. If a regional airport is to be developed in Aberporth, we will have to create a completely new market. It could not compete with Cardiff Wales airport because it is two hours away.

The hon. Gentleman is making an interesting speech on behalf of his constituents. Does he acknowledge that Cardiff Wales international airport has a much greater capacity than is being used? Only 1.5 million passengers a year go through the airport, but it has the capacity to accommodate 4 million. The real challenge is to improve surface access to regional airports. I am pleased that the Welsh Assembly is doing that—indeed, it has announced the opening of a railway line which could connect directly to the hon. Gentleman's constituency.

I strongly support the rail link, although I am not so enamoured of the road link that some people advocated. I accept that Cardiff Wales is capable of expansion to meet the needs of the whole of Wales, not only south-east Wales. That is analogous to the pattern in England.

I ask the Minister to produce the regional airport studies as soon as possible so that we can ascertain the way in which the proposal for Aberporth fits into the bigger picture, how Cardiff Wales airport can develop for the benefit of the whole of the Welsh economy and how my constituents can be assured that they will not have to tolerate the jumbo and Concorde flights which they assume will come as a result of the development of the regional airport.

Regional airports are different from airports of the kind to which the hon. Member for Putney referred, but they have an environmental and social impact none the less. It is important that Government documents take that into account. I welcome the consultation paper and the Government's moves. I hope that the debate will assist the Government in including even more environmental considerations in their consultations.

I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Putney (Mr. Colman) on securing this important debate. I was interested to hear about the legal action on the human right to a good night's sleep. If it is successful, we look forward to its extension to Members of Parliament.

I want to make a few comments about the role of regional airports, especially Manchester airport. As hon. Members know, passengers regularly vote for Manchester as one of the best airports in the world. Last year, it handled 19 million passengers—1 million more than the previous year. Some 85,000 full-time equivalent jobs, mostly in the north-west, depend on Manchester airport; 19,000 of those people work at the airport.

Manchester airport has three terminals. In the next few weeks, its second runway will open. That will give it the capacity to handle 40 million passengers a year. The airport aspires to handle that number by 2015. However, the existing pattern of the United Kingdom aviation industry is fixated on London and the south-east. As my hon. Friend the Member for North-West Leicestershire (Mr. Taylor) pointed out, two thirds of all UK air travel originates from the three London airports.

If Denmark, which has a smaller gross national product than the Manchester catchment area, can have an international hub airport at Copenhagen, and if Milan and Frankfurt, as regional capitals, can also have such airports, why not Manchester? There are two barriers: the first is the cultural mindset in the UK, which prioritises the interests of London and the south-east over those of other regions, and the second is the system of negotiating air service agreements, especially between the UK and the United States, which always places a higher priority on the scarce slots at Heathrow and Gatwick than on the spare capacity in our regional airports.

Order. I apologise for interrupting the hon. Gentleman's speech, but I know that another hon. Member is anxious to speak, and the Minister will have to rise at 10.15 am to reply to the debate. I should be grateful for brief speeches.

Thank you, Mr. Sayeed. I will be brief.

I applaud British Midland's commercial decision to open new transatlantic routes from Manchester. However, we will ultimately need a fully liberalised system of air service agreements, which puts the consumer's interest first.

My hon. Friend mentions British Midland. He knows that it has applied to run the service not only from Manchester but from Heathrow.

Indeed. I believe that that can be a win-win situation. It is a significant development for business at Manchester airport.

Will my hon. Friend give way?

I am reluctant to do so because I have been given a fair warning that I need to be brief. I have only a few more comments to make.

Those who disagree with full liberalisation say, with some logic, that there is a danger of the UK giving something for nothing. I fear that the consequences of not liberalising are that international passengers will go not via London but via other European hub airports such as Paris and Amsterdam. A third of all transatlantic passengers who start their journeys in the north-west already travel via a European hub airport rather than via London. The answer to the capacity problem is to increase regional capacity, and especially to develop Manchester as an international hub airport.

I want to ask the Minister to deal with a specific, urgent point about Manchester in his winding-up speech. The aviation consultation document includes a section on integrated transport and deals with the need for airports to develop as transport hubs. As part of the planning agreement for the second runway at Manchester airport, there is a commitment to ensure that 25 per cent. of all passengers travel to the airport by public transport by 2005. That aspiration has been supported enormously by the Deputy Prime Minister's announcement last year of the development of the Metrolink system, which will reach Manchester airport.

There are ambitious plans to develop a ground transport interchange at Manchester, which will co-ordinate the trams, buses, coaches and trains. The shadow Strategic Rail Authority has backed the scheme and work is due to begin in March. So far, the expected contribution from Railtrack—between £9 million and £13 million has not been forthcoming. Given the urgency of the circumstances—the work needs to begin in March—I ask the Minister to respond to the point, and more important, to pursue it vigorously with Railtrack so that it makes a speedy public commitment to providing its full and proper contribution to the important project.

I thank the hon. Gentleman for his help. I call Mr. John McDonnell.

I welcome this timely debate, and congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Putney (Mr. Colman) on securing it.

The debate is timely because of the publication of the White Paper and because of the delivery to the Deputy Prime Minister of the inspectors' report on terminal 5. Heathrow is in my constituency, so I naturally take a great interest in the matter. Heathrow has made my constituency a logistical centre not only for the south-east and for the rest of the country, but for Europe.

There is a definite need for a new policy approach. I agree with the Deputy Prime Minister's foreword to the White Paper, which states that there is a need for a long-term framework to ensure that we maximise the beneficial effects of the aviation industry and minimise the negative effects. I agree that that needs to be a long-term strategy over 30 years, and I look forward to the publication of the regional consultation papers, because there has to be a genuinely national policy that takes into account the impact on the regions.

The decision on terminal 5 will be the defining moment for the Government in determining whether they are truly pursuing a national policy based on sustainability. It will be a genuine test of whether they are going to break with the policy of demand-led decision making. Over the past half-century, there has been an incremental expansion of airports without control by central Government. However, we now have the opportunity to take a planned approach, and Heathrow will provide the best example of how we can tackle the unrestrained free-market airport expansion of the past.

Heathrow has developed over the past 70 years from a row of tents in the subterfuge of the second world war into a military base, and then into a major airport for the country. There have been pretences of Government planning, but we have also been faced with Government cowardice in the past, and no attempt has been made to control the expansion of Heathrow in a way that benefited not only the local community and London but the country as a whole. There was no real discussion about an integrated transport strategy for Heathrow until this Government arrived on the scene to insist on that debate taking place.

I attended the terminal 4 inquiry, which forced the Government of the time to recognise that there had to be some form of control over Heathrow. A decision was made at that inquiry on a potential terminal 5. Mr. Justice Glidewell made it clear at that time that there should be no further expansion of Heathrow. Unfortunately, six years later, the Government of the day tore up the agreement. There has been a doubling of air traffic movements since then: hence the demand for terminal 5.

If the terminal 5 project goes ahead, it will inevitably mean a third runway. Terminal 5 would involve a virtual doubling of the airport's capacity. It would not be just one more terminal. It would introduce a new airport the size of Paris Charles de Gaulle into the area. Even in BAA's own terms, that would increase noise pollution by 50 per cent. It would increase environmental pollution in my area, which would add to the tragic cases of respiratory disease, from which my constituents already suffer. The report published yesterday demonstrated the carcinogenic effects of airports on local communities. That is a serious matter which must be investigated urgently.

If we build terminal 5, there will be a third runway. To my constituents, that would mean the loss of 1,100 houses in three villages, and the desecration of some of the most rural areas of west London. British Airways is already buying up land. It has made two public statements over the past year calling for a third runway as a result of terminal 5. It has such confidence that it has the Government in its pocket that it believes that the terminal 5 decision has already been made. We need to achieve a genuinely sustainable aviation policy for the country, starting with Heathrow and with a commitment to the development of a regional airport strategy.

The chief executive of BAA made a major speech in which he invited us all—environmentalists, politicians and the aviation industry—to work together. I agree. The start of that collaboration could be BAA's announcement that it no longer requires terminal 5, and that it will bring into line the aviation industry overall. From my constituency's point of view, that collaboration could also start with BAA and its partners, including Railtrack, building the Hayes hub for rail transport into Heathrow, which they have been promising to do for five years.

There is a duty on the Government to recognise that we have to set environmental limits on airports. The White Paper contains that idea as a suggestion. Setting in advance the environmental limits to the expansion of airports would give confidence to the communities living near them. Those limits in terms of noise, pollution and transport problems in the area, should not be exceeded. In that way, we would inspire confidence that the Government were tackling the unrestrained growth of airports by introducing a national policy for the benefit of the whole country.

I agree with the proposals on the need to put pressure for technological advance on the industry, and tax incentives would be an important way of achieving that aim. We must tax the polluters. We should lead the world in ensuring that we gain the international agreements that we would require to do that. In that way, the Government could lead the way in tackling the key environmental issues that are having such an effect on the ozone layer and on global warming.

My hon. Friend the Member for Putney (Mr. Colman) raised some important issues, and I commend the intelligent interest that he has taken in aviation policy over a long period. He has been a tireless advocate on behalf of his constituents' interests in relation to noise and night flights. He and I have had a number of interesting discussions on those subjects, and I look forward to more in the future.

The debate has provided a good illustration of the competing pressures involved. Some hon. Members spoke about the national interest, and about wanting to expand their local airport, while others rightly drew attention to the effect of environmental pressures on the lives of their constituents who live close to an airport. National interests have to be reconciled with local and environmental interests.

The contradiction that I have just mentioned is reflected in all our constituencies, including Putney, Richmond, and Hayes and Harlington. I imagine that the constituents of those areas make as much use of airports, if not more, as my constituents or others who live further away. Some people demand greater access to air travel and an end to delays, while others are rightly concerned about the environmental aspects. Sometimes, the same people have all those concerns. That is one of the difficulties with which politicians have to grapple.

My hon. Friend the Member for Wythenshawe and Sale, East (Mr. Goggins) mentioned the development of regional airports, particularly Manchester. That is part of the Government's strategy. One way of relieving the undoubted pressure on airports in the south-east is to develop regional airports, and we are encouraging that. My hon. Friend also mentioned our desire to encourage the use of public transport in getting to and from airports. I welcome the progress that has been made so far on that, but in my view there is still considerably more to be done, in terms not only of passengers but of those who work at airports, the overwhelming majority of whom, I notice, travel by car to their place of work. My hon. Friend also asked about Railtrack, and I will chase up the point that he raised.

My hon. Friend is right to say that the continued expansion of aviation will pose a major challenge to the Government in the years to come. The Government are well aware of that, which is why we are preparing carefully for the aviation White Paper, which will be published early next year and will set out our policy for the 30 years ahead.

I entirely endorse the suggestion made by my hon. Friends the Members for Putney and for Hayes and Harlington (Mr. McDonnell) that demand will have to be sensibly managed, and that predict and provide is not the answer. It did not work for roads or for housing, and it will not work for aviation. Had my hon. Friend the Member for Putney been present at the launch of the Oxford Economic Forecasting report—perhaps he was—he would have heard me make precisely that point. Indeed, I make it whenever I am faced with an audience of movers and shakers in the aviation industry, and I believe that many of the key players, certainly the more responsible ones, recognise my argument.

I endorse the point made by my hon. Friend the Member for Putney and other hon. Members that further expansion must be sustainable. We have made it clear from the outset that aviation should meet its external costs, including environmental ones, and we shall take seriously Mr. Hodgkinson's call for a sustainable aviation forum.

My hon. Friends the Members for Putney and for Hayes and Harlington raised a number of issues, and I shall do my best to address them in the time available. They will understand, however, that, for good legal reasons, I am unable to comment on terminal 5 or on the current case involving the European convention on human rights—

Go on.

Hon. Members know that this issue is crawling with lawyers; it is more than my life is worth to express a view on it now. Nor am I able to comment on the ECHR case—beyond saying the only thing I can say: I note the interesting suggestion from my hon. Friend the Member for Putney that any go-ahead for terminal 5 should be linked to a ban on night flights.

Does my hon. Friend understand that, as well as the environmental impact, safety is of paramount importance to Heathrow and the surrounding area, and that the question of who should be awarded the air traffic control contract is therefore a live issue? Does he agree that the best option is the consortium proposal that is before the Government for consideration?

No, that is another area that is crawling with lawyers. My hon. Friend has raised the point at a very late stage and I shall not get involved in it now. A decision will be forthcoming, probably in the next couple of months or so, and then we shall know.

My hon. Friend the Member for Putney mentioned helicopters, which were covered in the consultation paper announced on 12 December. He may like to know that a stricter noise standard was agreed last week at the ICAO. So far as I know, however, there are no plans to relocate Battersea heliport. In any case, that would be a matter for local planning authorities.

My hon. Friend referred to capacity issues. We have been carrying out individual regional studies of air services across the United Kingdom, which examine those and other issues specific to each region. A series of regional consultation documents will be published later this year and those will include an appraisal of the economic, environmental and social impacts. Options in the south-east of England are being considered separately. The south-east study, which was announced in March 1999, continues to examine options for the sustainable development of airports and air services in the area over the next 30 years. That is a major exercise.

rose—

Forgive me, but I have only a few minutes left and have to answer rather a lot of questions, to which I shall try to do justice.

We are considering scenarios that incorporate additional capacity and those that do not—nothing has been ruled in or out. As regards the aviation summit on 20 February, which my noble Friend Lord Macdonald and I shall attend, just over a month ago my noble Friend challenged airlines and airports to improve passenger standards in 10 key areas. Those include better information on health issues, prompt information about delays or cancellations and improved complaint procedures, all of which will be discussed on 20 February.

My hon. Friend the Member for Putney asked me to bring him up to date on the outcome of the ICAO meeting in Montreal last week. The polluter pays principle is central to our policy. The UK has been arguing strongly—not just last week, but for many years—for better noise and emissions standards. Reducing environmental impacts at source is the most effective way to reduce their impact on people and on the global climate. More recently, we have also been in the lead in arguing at the ICAO for economic incentives for aviation to reduce its impact on climate change.

My hon. Friend referred to the recent confirmation of the global warming temperature effect. We have known for some time that aviation is an important contributor and, although that contribution is relatively small, high growth is forecast. Almost two years ago, the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change published a report on aviation—the first such report on an individual sector—with major contributions from the UK. That is one reason why we have argued for action within the ICAO.

Unfortunately, it is not always clear that the Rio principle of polluter pays is shared by all the interests in the ICAO. There are strong national and industrial interests there, just as there are in the climate change discussions themselves, as we saw at The Hague last year. There is very strong resistance among leading states and developing nations to an aviation fuel tax. Without international agreement, the imposition of a tax—perhaps limited to within the EU—would be liable to provoke strong sanctions.

The more forward-looking parts of the industry recognise that some system of charging for emissions, perhaps along the lines proposed in the EU, is inevitable and perhaps a more practicable alternative to a tax. However, we shall not know the final outcome of the ICAO discussions on fuel tax or emissions charges until all the ICAO states meet in the autumn. We shall continue to work with our European partners to ensure that there is action to reduce emissions in the shorter term. It is not enough to look forward to emissions trading, which cannot be implemented quickly, as the answer.

On noise, there is similar opposition from some Governments and some sections of the industry to any measures—for example, a new standard or phasing out older aircraft—that would impose costs on manufacturers and airlines. Like my hon. Friend, I agree with the chief executive of the Airport Operators Association that quieter aircraft are vital to the future of air transport in the UK. Again, I give some credit to those European airlines that have recognised that they need to reduce the environmental impact, but their voice, I regret to say, was not heard at the ICAO last week.

I share my hon. Friend's disappointment that the proposed new standard is only minus 10. That is not enough to achieve the continuing and long-term noise reductions that we need. Almost all aircraft in production already meet that standard, yet it was doggedly opposed by the industry. We shall certainly continue to argue for a standard that ensures improvements in future designs, especially the workhorse medium-sized aircraft. We also need to phase out the noisiest aircraft, which are often the oldest, including those with hushkits. Although there are relatively few of those operating in the UK, they make a disproportionate contribution to noise impacts.

It was clear from the analysis presented at the ICAO that action on noise is urgently needed at European airports. Arguments that a phase-out would be unreasonably costly were disputed on economic and policy grounds by the UK, by other European countries and by Australia, but without success. We shall have to consider our options in the light of the expected further negotiations involving the ICAO, the European Commission and the United States on action to resolve the current dispute procedure invoked by the United Stats on the hushkits regulation. However, it is clear to me that controlling noise at source through ICAO agreement is at best likely to provide only part of the answer on the reduced noise impact that we need around our airports in the UK.

The second plank in the Government's policy on noise is to maintain and improve the framework within which the noise from aircraft landing and taking off is controlled and its worst effects mitigated. A wide range of measures are in place at Heathrow and we have taken steps to improve their effectiveness—hon. Members will probably know about that. On 18 December, I was pleased to announce new lower noise limits and better monitoring arrangements for aircraft departing from all three London airports. We expect that the lower limits will lead to a small but worthwhile reduction in noise.

My hon. Friend touched on the announcement of 21 December, which I was pleased to make, that changes would be made to the use of Heathrow's runways at night. Those will achieve a fairer and more equitable distribution of aircraft movements and noise between midnight and 6 am. Under the current arrangement, approximately 90 per cent. of Heathrow's night flights overfly the densely populated areas of London, including the constituencies of my hon. Friends the Members for Hayes and Harlington and for Putney. That is a legacy of the westerly preference introduced in the 1960s, which reduces take-offs over London where routes cannot be designed to avoid the main built-up areas. That contrasts with the position to the west.

We consulted extensively on that in two stages over two years and concluded that it makes no sense to continue to operate the westerly preference at night now that there are few or no departures most nights. Instead, there will be a weekly rotation between westerly and easterly operations. I hope that that brings some comfort to the constituents of my hon. Friends, although I appreciate that it is not as much as they would like.

On night flights, in June 1999, the then Under-Secretary, my hon. Friend the Member for Hampstead and Highgate (Ms Jackson), announced tough new night restrictions for the London airports. For Heathrow, we reduced the noise quotas by 20 per cent. in summer and 17 per cent. in winter to increase incentives for airlines to use quieter aircraft. The restrictions at Heathrow are more stringent than those at any other major European airport. I regret that I do not have time to deal with all the questions that have been raised, but I look forward to pursuing some of those other matters with my hon. Friend the Member for Putney and his colleagues in the near future.

I welcome the opportunity to raise a number of important issues relating to Government funding for victims of crime, especially victims of terrorist violence. It is my opinion, and a widely held opinion in Northern Ireland, that that funding has been inadequate.

There is a clear disparity between the funds provided for groups representing ex-prisoners—ex-paramilitary prisoners, that is—and those provided for groups representing victims of terrorist violence. Ex-prisoners' groups in Northern Ireland have received more than £6 million from the Government and the European Union over the past five years. That is in addition to institutional support given directly to groups representing and including ex-prisoners, in particular by the Northern Ireland Association for the Care and Resettlement of Offenders. It is clear, if we view the position on a like-for-like basis, that over the years more money has been provided for the care, support and resettlement of ex-prisoners than has been provided for the victims of terrorist violence, even though the tragedy of the past 30 years and more of violence in Northern Ireland is that there are more victims than ex-prisoners.

Sadly, South Armagh is one of the areas where a great deal of violence has occurred. To date, the victims' group known as FAIR—Families Acting for Innocent Relatives—has received £102,000 in Government and European funding, while the republican ex-prisoners' group in Crossmaglen, also in South Armagh, has received £166,000. Yet there are many more victims than ex-prisoners in South Armagh.

South Armagh has been the scene of some of the cruellest atrocities of the past 30 years. The date of 5 January this year marked the 25th anniversary of the Kingsmill massacre. Members of the Provisional IRA, using a name of convenience, stopped a minibus, ordered workers returning from the local mill out of the bus, lined them up at the side of the road and massacred 10 of them, all Protestants.

The so-called Darkley massacre also took place in South Armagh. On 20 November 1983, members of the Provisional IRA, again using a name of convenience, entered Mountain Lodge pentecostal church and opened fire on the worshippers, committing murder and mayhem. I could give many other instances of atrocities in South Armagh, which has also been home to some of the most notorious members of the republican terrorist organisations, particularly the Provisional IRA. Commentators have often described it as bandit country. It is sad, indeed appalling, that victims in that area should be given less support than the ex-prisoners who caused much of the suffering of the people of South Armagh.

There is growing disillusionment among victims' groups, and among victims themselves, about the role of the intermediary funding bodies. I am thinking particularly of the Northern Ireland Voluntary Trust, which has a major responsibility for administering funding for victims' groups. It is little wonder that that is so.

An article published on 25 March 1999 quotes Avila Kilmurray, director of the Northern Ireland Voluntary Trust, as saying, when addressing a conference held to launch a report entitled "The Cost of Imprisonment",

politically motivated ex-POWs

—as she described them—

are at the forefront and actively continuing the struggle.

I wonder what Ms Kilmurray means by "the struggle"—and who are the prisoners of war? I was not aware that the Government had declared ex-prisoners to be ex-prisoners of war. This lady, however, is the director of the intermediary body responsible for funding victims' groups.

Ms Kilmurray went on to speak of the often hidden cost of imprisonment and of the former prisoners who were unable to come to terms with the brutal treatment they received from the "justice" and jail systems. I wonder what she meant by that. I repeat that those are the comments of a person in charge of the provision of funds for victims' groups. How must the victims feel about such remarks? It is little wonder that they have become disillusioned with the Northern Ireland Voluntary Trust, and the uneven-handed way in which it has approached the issue of funding.

FAIR, which I mentioned earlier, is currently in dispute with the NIVT about funding. FAIR represents a large number of victims in South Armagh. It has given me a copy of its membership list, comprising well over 300 victims in the area. Do not those people deserve a proper share of the funds? Their share contrasts with the generous amounts given to ex-prisoners' groups. Victims' groups feel, rightly in my view, that they are not being treated with parity of esteem, and that there is a lack of understanding of their situation.

Groups established by republican activists, including the families of so-called IRA volunteers who were killed by the security forces, are now masquerading as victims, and attracting funding away from legitimate victims' groups. They include the families of IRA activists shot dead by security forces during an attack on Loughgall RUC station. Provisional IRA members who engaged in an action that meant murder and destruction are nevertheless seeking funds from the Government as victims. There is also evidence that ex-prisoners' groups are using their funding for party-political purposes.

An umbrella group established by republican ex-prisoners' groups has attracted funding from the European special support programme for peace and reconciliation, administered by the Northern Ireland Voluntary Trust. The organisation represents republican ex-prisoners groups who employ 50 full-time workers. It states that its objectives include helping ex-prisoners with freedom of movement and pursuing the arguments in favour of the need for an amnesty for those convicted as a result of the conflict. Such groups are being funded to pursue political agendas. That money could be going to the victims instead.

I welcome the recent publication of the report by John Steele on the establishment of a new police fund. That is a welcome development and a long-overdue recognition of the need to provide support to the families of RUC officers who have made a huge sacrifice in protecting the people of Northern Ireland. Many of the recommendations in the Steele report are commendable. However, I have a number of concerns that I want to put to the Minister.

The Minister will be aware that John Steele proposed to pay a one-off lump sum to the pre-1982 RUC widows who have had a particularly difficult time financially because of the differential between their compensatory payments and those made to RUC widows post-1982. John Steele describes the proposals to provide the equivalent of £1,000 for each year of widowhood up to the date of the commencement of the new police fund as

a token of the state's concern for the plight of these widows.

I urge the Minister to look again at the proposal because we need to provide more than a token. Those widows are looking for proper and adequate compensation for the significant differential between their financial position and those of the post-1982 widows. The proposal in the Steele report for the one-off payment does not adequately compensate those widows.

Having discussed the matter with the group representing these RUC widows, I know that they object to the proposal for a means-tested fund. These ladies are proud and courageous. They have struggled for many years to bring up their families, in the absence of a husband and breadwinner, in difficult financial circumstances. It is sad that they have to apply to a means-tested fund for support. I urge the Minister to look at this matter again.

I urge the Minister and the Government to intervene on the tax liability for those widows in respect of the one-off payments. It would significantly undermine the value of the payments if they were to be taxable, and I hope that the Government's generosity will extend to a commitment to make the payments tax-free.

The new police fund should also give priority consideration to other police families whose circumstances are slightly different from the pre-1982 widows, but who have suffered due to the loss of a loved one who was murdered while serving with the RUC or as a result of their past service with the RUC. I want to give two examples to the Minister so that he can understand the point.

Recently, I received a letter from Ann Dougherty, who lives in Omagh. Her father, constable Andrew Alfred Woods, was murdered by the Provisional IRA on 2 August 1981 in a land mine explosion at Loughmacrory near Omagh. He left a widow and six children. On 16 August 1982, his wife died of a broken heart; just over one year after her husband's murder. At 21 years of age, Ann was left to provide for two brothers and two sisters. At the time of her mother's death, she was in full-time employment, which she had to terminate to look after her younger siblings who were then all below the age of 12.

Ann struggled to be a "mother" and many other things. At the time, she was paid approximately £25 a week for each child and found it difficult to cope financially. People such as Ann should be given support. Their contribution should be recognised and I hope that the new police fund will do that in recognition of what Ann and others have done in circumstances such as those I have described.

I want to bring to the Minister's attention an excellent article by Gail Walker in the Belfast Telegraph on 5 December last year. The article contains an interview with Anne Anderson who, at the time, was 81 years old. On 18 October 1977, her husband, a retired RUC reservist, was murdered by the Provisional IRA near Armagh. As Anne's husband John had retired and had been a reservist, he did not qualify for many of the benefits that would go to serving RUC officers. As a result Anne struggled for many years after her husband's death. She said:

"Although John had been shot because he'd been a policeman I was not entitled to be treated as a policeman's widow because he was retired from the force."

The article continued:

Last month, however, with the publication of the Steele report into the setting up of a Police Fund to compensate RUC widows and injured officers, Anne thought she might be eligible for some money.

After all, the RUC crest is on her husband's headstone. She has two medals he was awarded for bravery and service. Besides, her home is basic and in need of redecoration and repair but she only receives the basic widow's pension. Some cash, even a little, could make a difference.

But, once again, she was told that she didn't fall under its auspices. There was no category that included her.

Anne Anderson said:

"So, you see, at the end of the day, you are only a number, yet you don't actually count.

I hope that the new police fund will be able to do something for Anne Anderson in recognition of her years of struggle and heartbreak.

These are some examples of what I am talking about; the innocent victims of 30 years of conflict and terrorist violence in Northern Ireland. They deserve better than they are getting.

I know that the Government have made efforts and I commend the Minister, who is responsible for victims issues. I do not want this to be a criticism of the Minister, as I hope he understands. I am trying to highlight how the victims feel and I hope that he will take my comments in that spirit. These are difficult issues and there is a perception of a disparity between the treatment of those who were involved in violence and those who were the victims of that violence.

I have a couple of proposals that I hope the Minister will consider. First, the victims' liaison unit, which he established, should be expanded to become a proper victims' commission, with an increased remit and greater resources, to focus specifically on providing funding and support for the victims of terrorist violence in Northern Ireland. This is not just about money, however—it is about much more than that.

Secondly, I urge the Government to make greater assistance available to bona fide victims' groups and to ensure that provision is made for future funding for those groups so that there is continuity of support. My concern, and theirs, is that much of the funding will come to an end—that this is a short-term fix. However, we all know that the hurt, the pain and the needs of the victims go on and on. Therefore, the support must be continuous. I ask the Minister to address the need for continued funding for bona fide victims' groups in Northern Ireland.

I have to say, with some regret, that the NIVT's role as an intermediary funding body for victims' groups should cease, and that the role should be passed to a new victims' commission, dealing specifically with victims. I do not mean to criticise the Minister when I say that it is insensitive that the NIVT, in the light of the remarks made by Avila Kilmurray, deals with funding for both ex-prisoners' groups and victims' groups. The victims' groups and the victims deserve specific and particular resources to be made available for them. I believe that that can be achieved through the establishment of a victims' commission. It is important that such a commission should be properly funded and resourced. No money can ever compensate adequately for the pain and suffering of the innocent victims in Northern Ireland.

I do not make a distinction between victims from the Unionist or nationalist communities. Victims on both sides have suffered from terrorist violence. They need support, and I urge the Minister to take steps to improve and increase that support.

I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Lagan Valley (Mr. Donaldson) on securing this important Adjournment debate. He has covered the issue remarkably well.

I want to highlight one or two of the human issues that are sometimes forgotten, especially here in the Palace of Westminster and in Great Britain. People here do not realise that there is still a deep sore within Northern Ireland. I agree with my hon. Friend that we are not dealing with victims from any particular group or in any particular part of our society. However, I have two illustrations, showing something of the barbarity with regard to loyalist terrorists.

A young man—a member of my congregation—was innocently caught up in one of the gang fights that has gone on over the years between two loyalist factions. For three years, he has been in a hospital, and has little recognition of anything. His father and family sit with him as regularly as possible. They have been forgotten, except by the hospital authorities.

I also think of the young man who is doing some work on the windows of my office. He said to my secretary, "It's a wonderful world. Here am I, toiling and grafting, and driving an old banger. I was getting petrol the other morning when I saw a leading ex-prisoner, now a loyalist politician, driving a Mercedes." I wondered what it was all about—so much so that when I attended the opening of the police ombudsman's office, I saw the Chief Constable and the chairman of the police authority, and I said, "Could you give me the name of so-and-so's stockbroker?" They knew what I was getting at, because one ex-prisoner attributed his wealth to the fact that he got £3 a week in prison and, with careful investment, had made his fortune. Those illustrations help us to understand something of the depth of the sore felt by people who have suffered and have been regularly forgotten by the state.

My hon. Friend referred to Mrs. Anderson. It appears that her husband and her family have been completely overlooked by the state. It has happened time and again—servants of the state have suffered not only at the hands of terrorists but at the hands of their employers, who have forgotten them.

I should like to highlight the problem of the court settlements which took place earlier in the conflict. A parishioner of mine, working as a bin man in Belfast, was killed in the dastardly bombing in Donegal street. He left a widow and two boys. Compensation had to be pursued in the courts. The solicitor representing the widow said, "They're offering £1,500. It's all you're going to get." Some lawyers are very blunt with their clients, and he actually said to the widow, "You don't have to feed him." That is the way in which the law quite often treats victims. We argued the case, and finally got £2,500.

Thank God there have been those in Northern Ireland who have rallied round and helped such people. However, that does not allow the state to abrogate its responsibilities. Former Ministers over the years did not do the work to discover what was going on. I trust that the issues that have been raised by my hon. Friend will be investigated. When we consider his illustration of the amount of money given to the relatives of the perpetrators of the attack on Loughgall station and compare it with what other families have received, it is an abomination.

A situation is developing in which the state is under siege by paramilitaries seeking compensation. In a case reported last week. Danny McNamee and Liam Coulter, two IRA prisoners, sued for injuries sustained by them when prison officers prevented their attempted jail break. I understand that that happened in Great Britain, not within the Northern Ireland prison services. That is what our state is faced with. Gerry Kelly, who has managed to make a living out of compensation claims, was awarded £9,000 in an out-of-court settlement for an injury received.

People compare the settlement in South Africa with the situation in Northern Ireland, but if we press that comparison further we see the tragedy of the victims of Kingsmill and Bloody Friday and others who will receive no justice. There will not even be transparency through a truth and reconciliation process, because—unlike South Africa—prisoner releases are not conditional. In South Africa, the amnesty was conditional on co-operation with the commission. Our plea to the Government is that they re-examine that matter.

There is no reason why people involved in committing acts of terrorism should be compensated for injuries received therein. I support the law that previously prevented such compensation. However, sometimes, men—from whatever background—who were involved in terrorist activity when they were young, who have served their prison sentence and have begun to redeem their lives and to make positive contributions to society, become the innocent victims of bombs or shooting. I know of one man whose pal received compensation for a graze, but although the man was seriously injured, he was not allowed compensation because he had served a prison sentence years ago. Will the Government re-examine the whole matter?

I congratulate the hon. Member for Lagan Valley (Mr. Donaldson) on securing the debate and on all the work he undertakes to highlight injustice in the compensation of victims in Northern Ireland.

Many people ask me why I take such an interest in the affairs of Northern Ireland. I have never lived there and have no family there, although I make regular visits. There are several reasons for my interest, one of which is my sense of injustice over certain matters. It is always a great pleasure to visit Northern Ireland and to see how resilient the people are. However, their resilience should not mean that they suffer injustice—the two should not go together.

We need to create a climate of peace in Northern Ireland. Many people will say that that is what the Belfast agreement was all about. However, it is tragic that, during discussions on the agreement, when we focus on so many things, we tend to forget the victims of the crimes committed from both sides of the divide.

It is difficult to create that climate of peace while the violence continues. We are not talking only of past victims—there continue to be victims in Northern Ireland every day. In answer to my questions, the Minister of State, Northern Ireland Office kindly supplies figures about the numbers of murders, shootings, beatings, bombings and explosions in Northern Ireland; that reminds us that the violence has not gone away. It is important to create a climate of peace.

On my most recent visit to Northern Ireland in November, we went to a loyalist area. I was with my daughter and her young daughter, who will soon be starting school. We passed a primary school, surrounded by murals, in the middle of areas controlled by the gun. I shall never forget the looks on people's faces as they saw the atmosphere in which children in Northern Ireland have to grow up. That is not the climate we want to create.

Surely, in order to counter the violence, we must pay more respect to victims. When I speak to victims' groups in Northern Ireland, they tell me that they do not want retribution but justice. Yes, of course, they want the people who commit atrocities to be punished—they are entitled to expect that justice—but they also want decent treatment for themselves and their families. They want compensation.

The recent prisoner releases have not helped to boost the morale or to ease the suffering of victims. The victims will not go away—nor should they; they should never be forgotten. The tragedy of the past 30 years in Northern Ireland is the number of victims who have been created.

During my recent visit, the hon. Member for Lagan Valley and I spoke to members of the group representing RUC widows. Some of their husbands had been murdered many years ago, but the pain remains. The hon. Gentleman drew attention to the pre-1982 situation. Women who were widowed many years ago have suffered greatly; they have struggled financially and personally. When I talked to them, it was obvious that the pain had not eased. The last thing they need is a slap in the face—we must provide help for them. Where is the justice for them?

We should remember that the RUC is not an ordinary police force. The officers do not only counter the type of crimes that are committed in England—bad though those are. We are talking about the IRA: an organisation which not only murders people in Northern Ireland—that is terrible enough—but tried to bring down the whole British Government; indeed, it tries to remove the British Government by force. That is the opposition to peace that members of the RUC try to counter.

I support the proposals made by the hon. Member for Lagan Valley. I draw attention to the suffering endured by members of the RUC—especially that of widows. It should never be forgotten—certainly not when the Government are reviewing current policing in Northern Ireland. As the hon. Gentleman says, compensation cannot fully make up for that suffering, but I suggest that such compensation—especially when compared to that given to the criminals—should certainly not be an insult.

I congratulate the hon. Member for Lagan Valley (Mr. Donaldson) on his success in securing the debate and on his choice of subject. From our previous correspondence and conversation and from his contributions to debates and to parliamentary questions, I know of the hon. Gentleman's particular interest in this subject; he is not new to the issue. That is also true of the hon. Member for Belfast, South (Rev. Martin Smyth); I thank both him and the hon. Member for Tewkesbury (Mr. Robertson) for their contributions.

I welcome the opportunity to speak about the Government's record on this important aspect of public policy and, in particular, about the special attention that has been paid to the victims of the past 30 years of terrorist and paramilitary violence. It has been my privilege—albeit a difficult one—to oversee this matter in my role as Minister with responsibility for victims, and I shall comment further on that aspect of my role in Northern Ireland later in my contribution.

The hon. Member for Lagan Valley makes a serious charge on the funding awarded to victims of terrorist violence. I ask him to bear several points in mind. The Government have been in office for only just over three years. He paid tribute to some of the work that the Government and I, as a Minister, have undertaken. We have tackled the issue with vigour and determination. I shall set out—unfortunately, it will have to be at length—the various, specific funding measures that the Government have undertaken, which I think will rebut the view that he expressed.

Overall, the Government place great emphasis on the needs of all victims of crime. Clearly, we have to cover the wider aspects of support to victims—not only the issues that have been raised this morning. Of course, that touches on the question of funding, which in many ways is central to the delivery of any policy. We have put in place policies and funding to address the needs of victims of crime. We also have partnerships with organisations that work directly with victims to provide appropriate support to those affected by crime in all its manifestations.

The Government are committed to ensuring that victims of crime in Northern Ireland are properly supported, and many direct funding initiatives are in place. For example, we provide core funds to Victim Support (Northern Ireland). Last year, that amounted to £787,000—an increase of 5 per cent. on the previous year. Victim Support handled almost 40,000 referrals last year and had a network of around 300 volunteers. I am considering further support for the organisation in that important work and hope to make an announcement shortly. I take this opportunity to pay tribute to all those who provide such valuable work in a most difficult area.

There is concern about the problem of sexual abuse in Northern Ireland and how it impacts on the victims and their families. That is why I have taken the initiative to provide support for the Nexus Institute. It is a registered charity offering counselling and other support to a particular category of victims—the victims of sexual abuse and their families. Last summer, I provided a grant of £153,000, over three years, to fund the appointment of two trauma counsellors based in Belfast. That is new funding and it has ensured that an additional 476 counselling sessions for the victims of sexual abuse have been carried out in the past five months alone. During the same period, the waiting list for appointments in Belfast reduced from 16 to eight weeks. In many ways, we are only beginning to touch the surface of that complex problem, and I would anticipate further initiatives in the years ahead.

The Government are also keen to ensure that the victims of crime are kept informed throughout the criminal justice process, and we have funded some initiatives in this area. Several years ago, all organisations in the criminal justice system endorsed a code of practice for the victims of crime, which sets out the minimum standard of service that victims can expect. Leaflets and information packs have been prepared and distributed to provide victims with relevant information on, for example, who to contact and how to seek assistance in dealing with their trauma. That includes the information pack for the families of homicide victims that I launched last year. It is important that the victims should not feel isolated as they work through their problems arising from crime. They should know that help is only a phone call away.

In addition, a review of the criminal justice system has been completed as part of the implementation of the Belfast agreement. The review made 15 recommendations about victims and witnesses, all of which have been endorsed by the Government. We appreciate that victims and witnesses—not least those who are vulnerable and intimidated—have special needs in the criminal justice system, and the Government remain committed to improving access to justice for those people.

The criminal injuries compensation scheme provides compensation for individual victims of crime. Payments are made in respect of criminal injuries and criminal damage. Since the scheme was established, more than £500 million has been paid as a result of criminal injuries, and almost £1 billion for criminal damage. Those figures represent a significant amount of Government funding for the victims of crime.

A review of the criminal injuries compensation scheme in Northern Ireland, led by Sir Kenneth Bloomfield, was established in October 1998. It examined the fitness for purpose of the current arrangements and was asked to make recommendations for improvements in the future. The final report was published in July 1999, and a post-publication review on its recommendations was conducted during the latter half of 1999. In July 2000, the Government published their response to the report and accepted the broad thrust of its recommendations.

The key change involves the simplification and speeding up of the process of awarding compensation through the introduction of a tariff scheme, with award levels based on recent settlements in Northern Ireland. That will result in tariff payments higher, on average, than under the Great Britain scheme. That change and various others, such as the ability to provide structured payments rather than lump sums, the facility to reopen settled cases in certain circumstances, increases to bereavement awards and some discretion on time limits, will be introduced in April 2002.

We aim to publish draft legislation for the new compensation scheme in April this year. Accepting those recommendations has not been cost neutral. In the 2000 spending review, I successfully bid for an additional £74 million over the next three years to introduce the improved arrangements.

As the hon. Member for Lagan Valley has said, European funding has been an important aspect of the funding route involved in the matters to which he referred. It is undoubtedly an important source of funds for victim support groups under the peace and reconciliation funds. That programme is administered by the Northern Ireland Voluntary Trust, as an intermediary funding body.

The hon. Gentleman made strong allegations about the chairperson of that fund. She is not here to defend herself today. I have taken note of what he has said and, no doubt, that debate will continue between us. However, those who serve on that body have a very difficult task. They are undertaking a role on behalf of the rest of society in Northern Ireland. It is not an easy job, and many politicians have walked away from it in the past. The hon. Gentleman and the hon. Member for Belfast, South (Rev. Martin Smyth) do not fall into that category, but many politicians have suddenly alighted on the issue of victims. Meanwhile, hard work has been done and difficult decisions have been taken by people such as the chairperson of the NIVT and the others who serve alongside her, but, of course, the handling of such matters is changing anyway.

Negotiations are currently under way on the allocation of peace 2 funds—the latest round of funding from Europe. Policy on the allocation of those funds is now the responsibility of the Northern Ireland Assembly, and I understand that the Executive Committee has agreed that the victims of violence should be specifically identified in that programme as a group requiring continuing support. I welcome that recognition of victims' needs. However, such matters are the exclusive responsibility of the Northern Ireland Assembly; they are not matters for the United Kingdom Government, and it is inappropriate for me to comment further on them.

I realise that such matters are the responsibility of the Northern Ireland Assembly, but criminal justice Bills are dealt with by this House. Can the Assembly retrospectively help those folk who may have been missed in the past?

It is not for me to say what the Assembly can and cannot do, or how it applies the law of the land. If the Assembly decides to spend money from its allocation of funds, that is a matter for it. Of course, it has established means by which it can examine victims issues, but I was specifically explaining how the new peace 2 funds will be handled. Such decisions are matters for the Assembly, not central Government.

On the special needs victims of the troubles, one of the Government's early initiatives was to commission Sir Kenneth Bloomfield to

look at possible ways to recognise the pain and suffering felt by victims of violence arising from the Troubles.

Sir Kenneth's report, entitled "We Will Remember Them", was published in May 1998. The Government immediately accepted its recommendations. I was appointed Minister with responsibility for victims at that time, and I can honestly say that such matters are difficult to deal with because they involve sensitive issues for victims and groups of victims.

The Bloomfield report challenged everyone to begin to consider the trauma that more than 30 years of violence had wrought on the community in Northern Ireland, and further afield. Incredibly, very little recognition had been given to the bereaved and injured in the preceding years. Although some good work had undoubtedly been undertaken by the statutory and community sectors, there was no overarching or systematic approach to the problems faced by individual victims and survivors and their particular needs. That is perhaps understandable.

Victims often felt unable to articulate their views in a society where business as usual was the order of the day. However, the ceasefires and the political progress that led to the Belfast agreement allowed the previously silent voice of victims to be heard. The failures of the past are now being dealt with constructively and meaningfully. The silent voice of the victims has become stronger in recent years, and I attribute that in large measure to the impact of the Bloomfield report, which is one of the most humane and sensitive reports to Government that I have read.

I have met many individuals and have heard their demands and needs, and I have tried to take on board what I heard. I know that the hon. Member for Lagan Valley speaks from deep personal experience—experiences shared by too many families in Northern Ireland and beyond. I also know that grief is grief and that the loss of one person in a single incident long ago that is long forgotten by most people is a daily remembrance for the family left behind.

I understand that the peace process has been difficult for many victims, not least the early release of prisoners which was, and remains, particularly painful for many. Many of those people feel that they have paid the price for peace and that, having paid that price, think that we will abandon them. The Government have not and will not abandon the victims and survivors. We have made a good start, beginning as we did from virtually nothing. I have said before in the House and elsewhere that we effectively inherited a blank sheet when we came into government. We have had to build on that.

The Government allocated an initial £5 million to support the implementation of the Bloomfield report. This was subsequently and quickly increased to £6.25 million. A number of important initiatives have also been put in place to support individual victims and survivors, and the groups that support them. The initiatives include the provision of £700,000 towards the establishment of a new family trauma centre in Belfast for young people and their families and the provision of £2 million for the Northern Ireland memorial fund that the Government established in 1997 to provide support to individual victims, to raise awareness of victims issues and to raise funds to support the work of the fund. In addition to that funding, the Government have also allocated staff to help with the fund's running costs.

I am delighted with the progress of the Northern Ireland memorial fund and with the commitment of its chairman, Professor George Bain, the vice-chancellor of Queen's university, Belfast, and the other directors of the fund. The Government are also committed to support further the NI memorial fund.

We have also provided £3 million for the core funding of victims groups over a two-year period. This fund is being administered by the Northern Ireland Voluntary Trust. Despite reports, no victims group has been turned down for funding through this scheme—although a few have been offered capacity building grants before larger core funding grants are approved. The scheme will be evaluated later this year and we will consider how the scheme might be developed further.

I wish to point out that some groups demand funding simply because they are a group. We are talking about public money and those who are charged with responsibility for its disbursement have to evaluate critically the schemes that are suggested to them. When we judge that the schemes do not stack up in terms of what is claimed for them, we usually tackle the problem by offering the group a sum of money so that it can begin to identify in a much more precise manner what it is trying to achieve. That is capacity-building funding, which allows the group to build a business case—although that may not be the best phrase to use. However, that is the way that any group seeking public money must approach the source of funding. I stress that no groups have been refused public funding even though there have been press reports to that effect.

The Government also provided £300,000 to run an educational bursary scheme on a pilot basis. About 350 individual victims received payments to undertake a variety of academic and vocational courses. The Community Relations Council was also given £225,000 to operate a grants scheme for victims groups. This gave small grants for activities that were not applicable under the core grant scheme

The resources so far allocated to victims have been significant. To date, in addition to the £6.25 million provided through the victims liaison unit—which reports to me—£2.2 million has been allocated through European Union peace and reconciliation funds. Victims groups have also been eligible to apply for additional EU funds, which have been distributed by the district partnerships and other funding bodies.

I seek clarification of one point. The Minister referred earlier to the Northern Ireland Assembly's responsibilities for victims issues. However, he correctly said that the victims liaison unit reports directly to him, and it has a significant responsibility in this regard. Therefore, is he able, as the Minister, to consider my proposal for a victims commission that would supersede the victims liaison unit? Is that not properly part of his responsibility, rather than that of the Assembly?

I was going to deal with that point in my concluding remarks, but I shall deal with it now. I am not unsympathetic to that concept, but perhaps not in the way that the hon. Gentleman describes it. However, such a body cannot simply be delivered by me alone. There is now a shared responsibility for victims, and much of the provision for victims is now done through the devolved Administration in the health and education sectors and elsewhere. I cannot direct the Administration on that. Therefore, we must consider in partnership how we evolve the policy.

Sir Kenneth Bloomfield talked about a champion for victims and that phrase struck a chord. If such a person or body were set up, it would have to be resourced. The debate is then about which agency would resource it. However, if the body were resourced, the money for it might not go directly towards victims groups. Judgments must be made. Although I am sympathetic to the hon. Gentleman's proposal, I do not think that we have yet reached the point where we are able to see how best to take it forward.

The Assembly has established its own victims unit under two junior Ministers, and I am in constant discussion with them about how we evolve the relationship between central Government and the devolved Administration. Since I become involved in the issue—and even before the devolved Administration was in place—I have always taken the view that responsibility does not rest just with central Government. The policy must engage the whole community if it is to succeed. Therefore, we need constructive voices to suggest how we can move forward.

Will the Minister give way?

I will, but that may mean that I am not able to respond to all the issues raised.

Will the Minister at least give a commitment to discuss the possibility of a victims commission with junior Ministers in the Assembly to see whether a joint approach can be developed?

I can give that guarantee. Such matters are on-going, but I would not necessarily like to develop the policy in the way that the hon. Gentleman suggests. Sir Kenneth Bloomfield talked about a victims champion. Although this may not be the best place to share my thought processes, my instinct is that such a body should be created at minimum cost. Otherwise, money will be spent on bureaucracy rather than on the distribution of funds. I know that the hon. Gentleman shares my view on that. We must consider how the policy can best be delivered.

In the time remaining, I shall turn to the important issue of RUC widows and widowers. There are too many widows and too many injured RUC officers, and I echo many of the points made by the hon. Gentleman. The Government have no lack of sympathy for, or appreciation of, those people. The Patten report undoubtedly caused particular concern for those members of RUC families, but, in paragraphs 10.20 and 10.21, it recognised their plight. Those paragraphs refer to officers who have not been treated as well as they should have been and they recommended

that a substantial fund be set up to help injured police officers, injured retired officers and their families, as well as widows.

That is what we have set out to do.

The hon. Gentleman also referred to the Steele report, which was a comprehensive analysis of the situation. It was a difficult issue for John Steele to deal with, because he had to try to square many different points of view. He consulted widely and listened carefully to what members of RUC families said to him. His report was published last November. He proposed that a police fund be set up and said that

the establishment of such a fund is certainly required

and that the fund's role should extend widely. He also said:

It is … right that the State should recognise the special place of those RUC families which have suffered most grievously.

He came reluctantly—that is his word—to the conclusion that the fund should be limited to deaths and injuries caused directly by terrorist violence, because that distinguishes the RUC from other United Kingdom police services.

I wanted to make several points about the fund, and I regret that I will not have the opportunity to do so. I shall write to the hon. Gentleman about some of the points that he raised. However, I want to point out that £11 million will be allocated to the support mechanisms, which is substantially more than he said was available to ex-prisoners. We should also add to that figure the £4.5 million that has been given to the Police Rehabilitation and Retraining Trust and all the other figures that I have mentioned. That funding rebuts the hon. Gentleman's core charge that there is an imbalance against victims. That may have been the case, but it is no longer.

Timing is sometimes a problem when initiating such debates, but this time it has been fortuitous. Only this week, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change added weight to the issue of energy efficiency by publishing its report on climatic change. It makes grim reading and suggests that global warming will be more severe than previously thought.

Launching the report yesterday, the head of the United Nations environment programme, Dr. Klaus Toepfler, said:

The scientific consensus presented in this comprehensive report about human induced climate change should sound alarm bells in every national capital and every local community.

The report itself says that the present concentration of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere is now a third higher than in 1750, a concentration that

has not been exceeded during the last 420,000 years, and likely not during the past 20 million years.

The report also reveals that scientists believe that man is involved in climate change and sets out the impact of such change, which is also expected to be worse than previously thought. Sea levels might rise by up to 88 cm, which could have a devastating impact on tens of millions of people who live in low-lying areas. The need to take the issue seriously could not be made clearer.

I know that the issue of saving energy in offices in the United Kingdom is a narrow aspect of the climate change agenda, but I hope that that background gives an idea of the importance of relevant policy. I decided to initiate the debate because the report "White-Collar Co₂", which was published by the Association for the Conservation of Energy, made me fear that energy consumption in offices has recently been neglected, both in terms of recognition and scrutiny of the problem, and of the application of policies and programmes to solve it. I hope that the debate will begin a process that moves us towards improving energy conservation in offices.

The rate of growth in energy consumption in the past 25 years has been approximately three times greater in the commercial sector than in the domestic sector. Energy use in the commercial sector is projected to exceed growth in all other sectors, except transport. The warning from the IPCC yesterday, and the Government's commitment to reduce carbon dioxide by 20 per cent., show that we cannot afford to continue to ignore the commercial sector.

The growth in energy consumption is partly explained by rapid expansion. Offices occupied twice as much floor space in 1994 as they did in 1970. There has also been an increase in information technology and other equipment, which, of course, require electricity. Demand for air conditioning has grown rapidly, causing a dramatic increase in CO₂ emissions. However, regardless of the increase in the area that offices occupy, the figures still show an unusual failure. Whereas newer homes, appliances and machinery tend to be more energy efficient than earlier versions, office buildings have bucked the trend. A modern office today is likely to use more energy than it would have used 20 years ago to make the same contribution to the economy.

The prospects for saving energy in offices have benefits beyond reducing CO₂ emissions. Just as improving energy efficiency in homes leads to improved comfort and, in the most extreme cases, even saves lives, improving energy efficiency in offices also pays off in other ways. Improvements to worker comfort can produce healthier and productive working environments, and carrying out improvements to offices can also create jobs.

However, there are significant barriers to energy efficient construction and retrospective fitting in the commercial sector. Although fuel bills represent a single proportion of occupancy costs, occupiers are usually tenants and generally pay an overall service charge that is based on occupied area. That leaves people who run offices unaware of their energy consumption and they are unlikely to be keen to spend money to improve the fabric of a building that they do not own.

Furthermore, large institutional investors who take a hands-off approach to managing their assets own almost half the UK's commercial property stock. They have been unconcerned about energy consumption in their properties because they can simply pass the cost on to the occupiers. Ironically, many offices are owned by the very insurance companies that bemoan the fact that climate change will force them to increase premium prices; yet the buildings in which they have invested money are the only part of the UK economy that is getting less energy efficient and, therefore, making the situation worse.

There is an historic lack of interest, formidable hurdles to action and a failure by big players in the relevant industries to see the logical benefits of such action. It will take a determined effort by the Government to turn that around. There are various ways in which they can do that. They need to commit themselves to providing the tools that allow us to monitor and address the problem.

The problem with the commercial sector is masked by the way in which energy consumption data are compiled by the Department of Trade and Industry. In the annual digest of UK energy statistics, the commercial sector is included in the category of other final users, which also includes public administration and agriculture. The Department reported that other final users increased their energy use far less than other sectors. That use rose by 16.6 per cent. between 1973 and 1998, compared with 22.5 per cent. in the domestic sector and 62.5 per cent. in the transport sector. Understandably, given those figures, offices have been given little attention.

However, the figures hide the problem of offices because the aggregation of other final users combines the commercial sector, which is rapidly growing, with the agriculture sector and the public sector, which are growing very slowly, or even falling. The commercial sector's final energy consumption grew by 65 per cent. between 1973 and 1996, but that incredible increase was hidden in the figures. It grew faster than even the transport sector and compares with just 1 per cent. growth in the energy consumption of public sector services.

Most critically, the commercial sector has shown no improvement in what the experts call energy intensity for well over 10 years. That is defined as energy consumption divided by contribution to gross domestic product, and effectively measures the energy efficiency of an entire sector. The sector has, therefore, become less efficient in its use of energy. While there has been a rapid growth in economic output from the service sector, energy consumption has increased just as rapidly.

Indeed, according to the energy consumption guide for energy, there has been a significant deterioration in the energy intensity in the UK tertiary sector. In 1995, it consumed 30 per cent. more energy per unit of value added to the economy than it did in 1990. However, those facts have not been spotted, reported or addressed. My first suggestion is that the Government commit themselves to publishing additional figures that identify the increase in energy use in the commercial sector. We must prevent the figures from masking the problem and therefore hindering action.

My second suggestion is that the Government encourage specific programmes to promote energy efficiency in offices. As far as I am aware, the only programme to encourage energy efficiency in offices is the lightswitch programme, run by the Energy Saving Trust Ltd, which promotes the use of energy-efficient lighting in small and medium-sized enterprises. I hope that the Minister will inform me that there are more schemes, but I confess that I have not found them.

Detailed research as part of the best practice programme has shown the scope for saving energy in offices. It found that typical offices use 60 to 90 per cent. more energy than the minority of offices that follow good practice. The Government should ensure that the EST and, indeed, the new Carbon Trust, when it is in operation, have the resources necessary to run promotional schemes that encourage and publicise energy in offices. The EST has had a considerable success with its domestic schemes. That must be built on and extended to introduce the necessary shifts in the commercial sector.

The Minister must also address the major barriers in energy efficiency in offices, the biggest of which is probably the classic landlord-tenant barrier. Tenants are understandably reluctant to invest in energy efficiency measures for a building which they do not own, and landlords are reluctant to invest to save money on tenants fuel bills or service charges. Only 10 per cent. of offices are occupied by the freeholder. All these factors constitute an important barrier to energy conservation.

Although the climate change levy will send a small signal to the market about the need to save energy, it will not help to overcome that barrier. The Association for the Conservation of Energy has suggested that an obligation should be placed on freeholders of commercial properties to ensure that their buildings meet a minimum energy efficiency performance standard. The obligation to undertake an energy audit and improve energy efficiency should be enforced every five years, or whenever the building is sold, re-let or subject to rent review. The average period between rent reviews in the United Kingdom is five years.

The policy should be framed so that it sends to those developing new properties a clear signal that prevention is better than cure—in other words, that from the outset the building should be designed for low energy consumption. There should be a requirement for consultation with occupiers and unions before refurbishment plans are made for existing buildings. Consideration should be given to ways in which the costs and financial benefits of energy efficiency improvements can be shared among owners, occupiers and energy service companies.

This idea is ambitious, but it should be considered seriously by my right hon. Friend the Minister. Much detail would have to be sorted out, but the principle that freeholders should take responsibility for ensuring that their buildings meet minimum standards seems sensible. There is a similar requirement on private car owners, who must ensure that their cars meet certain emission standards in the annual MOT test. An equivalent measure is essential for the commercial sector, which over the past two decades has outstripped the transport sector in environmental impact.

Finally, it is worth pointing out that the insurance industry, which owns almost £40 billion worth of the commercial property assets in the UK—15 per cent. of the total value—has in a few cases begun to improve energy efficiency in its property stock. Prudential Property Portfolio has called for legislation to ensure that every commercial building is audited every five years, and that the recommendations are implemented before the next audit.

Prudential has already taken steps to assist its tenants to save energy, in particular by making efforts to ensure that all tenants receive individual bills based on their energy consumption, rather than on floor area alone. That is a positive step, but only a limited amount of energy can be saved until attention is turned to the building fabric and the heating and cooling systems. Improvements to those should be the responsibility of the freeholder.

The insurance industry is concerned about the impact of climate change, especially as extreme weather events could lead to heavy insurance claims. In a position paper dealing with the framework convention on climate change, which was presented by member companies of the United Nations Environment Programme on 9 July 1996, the industry stated:

Man made climate change will lead to shifts in atmospheric and oceanic circulation patterns. This will probably increase the likelihood of extreme weather events in certain areas. Such effects carry the risk of dramatically increased property damage, with a serious implication for property insurers."

The paper continued that

without political initiatives, market forces alone may not result in the efficient use of investment potential."

If the industry itself believes that nothing will happen without political intervention, we must act.

I hope that my right hon. Friend will seriously consider policy ideas to effect change, and will particularly study the possibility of regular surveys and improvements to offices. I thank him for coming to listen and take part in the debate, which I hope will be the beginning of a more careful look at energy efficiency in offices and commercial buildings. As I said, we need new data to highlight the problems and new policies to address them.

I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Eltham (Mr. Efford) on securing the debate. Although the subject does not have a high political profile at present, as the attendance this morning indicates, it is important and will become increasingly so as the nature of service economies changes and the demand for energy triggered by increasing use of new technology in offices results in a continuing increase in emissions from the commercial sector.

In the past two or three years, since the Government announced their intention to introduce the climate change levy, it is striking that in the manufacturing sector there is a growing understanding of the significance of climate change, of the urgency for manufacturing to increase the efficiency of its energy use, and of the opportunities for manufacturing industry to save money by investing in energy efficiency.

In my discussions with the Engineering Employers Federation in the north-west during the past few weeks, I have been struck by the extent to which the opportunities provided by the drive for greater energy efficiency are now understood. That is not to say that all manufacturers are enormous fans of the climate change levy. Clearly, there are reservations about and particular difficulties in the implementation of the levy, but the intellectual argument with manufacturing has been won, and more and more manufacturers see financial and business opportunities in moving to more energy-efficient forms of production.

In the commercial sector, that is not yet the case, with a few honourable exceptions. In many ways, that is understandable. The reasons highlighted by my hon. Friend make sense: the fact that responsibility is split between the landlord and tenant in commercial premises; the fact that in the commercial sector, the proportion of the business cost consumed by energy is comparatively low, and in recent years the unit cost of energy has fallen year on year, even though the total demand has increased; the fact that accountancy practices often write off investments in conservation over a shorter period than the full physical lifetime of the investment; and the lack of awareness of best practice in many offices.

There is little discussion of energy efficiency in the commercial sector, in contrast with the manufacturing sector. That is evident in the parliamentary estate. The last Adjournment debate that I attended in Westminster Hall took place last week. I estimate that the temperature in the Chamber was about 80 deg, so even in Westminster Hall, where the design and fittings are new, there are still problems with the control of temperature.

If we look around the parliamentary estate, with the honourable exception of Portcullis House, we can all see examples of the profligate use of energy. Sometimes the only way to maintain a balanced temperature in a room is to open a window, because the radiators do not have adequate controls. There are lessons to be learned by Government in the management of the parliamentary estate.

In the commercial sector, rents are often determined by location, rather than by the performance of the building. For obvious reasons, people will pay more to be in the city centre, regardless of the energy efficiency of the building that they choose. Energy service charges are usually incorporated into the overall rent, and are thus somehow invisible to the tenant. These factors make it entirely understandable that, in the commercial sector, energy efficiency has not had the highest priority.

As the service economy becomes more important, as the balance between services and manufacturing shifts, and as a greater proportion of our overall economic output is in the domain of the service sector, practices will need to change. I mentioned the huge increase in equipment in the service sector in recent years. The growth of computers, fax machines and now the internet is escalating at a rate that we could not have anticipated 20 or even 10 years ago. The consumption of energy will increase continuously, so the issue cannot be ignored. It must be confronted.

The matter has been highlighted yet again by yesterday's report from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, to which my hon. Friend referred. We cannot afford to ignore the startling results of the IPCC's second report, and the fact that the IPCC has revised its figures upwards by such a significant amount. The IPCC now predicts that the average temperature of the planet may increase by up to 6 deg C over the next 100 years. In its first report, the IPCC put that rise at a maximum of 3.5 deg C. Current estimates are therefore 80 per cent. higher than previously.

In addition, the IPCC now says that climate change and global warming are almost inevitably the result of human activity, whereas in its first report it said that human activity had a discernible influence. The science of analysing the causes of climate change is becoming more secure. It is rare to hear people dispute that climate change is taking place, or that its main cause is human activity and the burning of fossil fuels.

The IPCC report published yesterday should concentrate all our minds. It means that actions taken by Governments on the basis of the first report, and of the Kyoto agreements, need to be revised. To their enormous credit, the British Government published their climate change strategy towards the end of last year, but the assumptions on which it was based are now out of date and obsolete. We should consider how it can be adjusted to take account of the latest evidence and statistics contained in the second report from the IPCC.

Policies need to be developed to deal with energy efficiency in the commercial sector. Implementing some of those policies may need primary or secondary legislation, but others could be implemented by means of codes of practice. I shall offer several examples of what could be done.

It would be possible to place a duty on freeholders, when new leases are granted or rents reviewed, to undertake an energy efficiency survey of their property. They would then be required to provide the details of the results to their tenants. In the domestic sector, the importance of such an idea is close to being accepted. A lively debate is taking place in connection with the Homes Bill about whether the energy efficiency survey should be part of the seller's pack, and whether that requirement should be written into the Bill or it is adequate for it to appear in later regulations.

If the argument that energy efficiency ratings should be documented and available to purchasers or tenants of a property is accepted as sound in the domestic sector, it should also be so accepted in the commercial sector. The same responsibility should be placed on commercial freeholders.

Another possibility would be to extend the duties on councils as energy conservation authorities under the Energy Conservation (Housing) Act 2000 to include all offices in their areas. Again, that would transfer a principle already accepted in the domestic sector to the commercial sector.

It would be possible to require each public limited company to publish a statement in its annual report setting out its fuel consumption per square meter. An increasing number of the major private companies include an environmental element in their annual reports. Some have taken a lead and have produced a separate environmental report, in which energy efficiency is a key performance indicator.

A slightly more aggressive tactic would be to target those freehold companies that have an especially poor energy efficiency record. Adopting a name-and-shame policy with regard to the most profligate users of energy in the commercial sector would be newsworthy and would concentrate the minds of other companies in a beneficial way.

There is clearly no shortage of ideas and policies to help increase energy efficiency in offices, which could be implemented without the need for a lot of new primary legislation. I shall conclude with three points that I hope my right hon. Friend the Minister will consider, in the context of the commercial sector and of ensuring that our overall climate change strategy is properly monitored and, in view of yesterday's second IPCC report, adequately updated.

First, does my right hon. Friend have any plans to update continuously the Government's climate change strategy? I accept that it was published only recently, after a long period of consultation, but would it not make sense to revisit the strategy to take account of the new figures contained in yesterday's IPCC report?

Secondly, does my right hon. Friend agree that it would be valuable for the House to have an annual debate on the Government's overall sustainable development policy? I suspect that he will agree, given his response to an Adjournment debate last week. Such a debate would provide an opportunity to discuss the annual progress of the climate change strategy, and to look in detail at issues such as energy efficiency in the commercial sector. It would also give hon. Members the opportunity to check progress and to generate new ideas for further policy change.

Thirdly, will my right hon. Friend discuss with ministerial colleagues the question of a formal review of energy efficiency throughout the parliamentary estate? I appreciate that the Government do not have direct responsibility for management of the estate, but the House of Commons Commission would be likely to take the matter of energy efficiency more seriously if the Government set objectives and took the lead in raising the issue.

Finally, we need to secure in the commercial sector the sort of change of thinking that has already been secured in the manufacturing sector. The commercial sector must be encouraged to understand that investment in energy efficiency is not a cost and that introducing it should be not be done grudgingly or as a result of Government diktat. Energy efficiency can bring about significant financial savings, and it will also help us to meet our carbon dioxide emissions targets. Achieving those targets is even more important in the light of yesterday's IPCC report.

I support what my hon. Friend the Member for Bury, North (Mr. Chaytor) said in congratulating my hon. Friend the Member for Eltham (Mr. Efford) on securing this debate. It is true that the Chamber is not exactly crowded, but there is no doubt that this subject is very important and that its significance goes far beyond the number of people present for the debate.

My hon. Friend the Member for Eltham was right to place the debate in the context of climate change. Arguably, climate change is the greatest challenge facing the world. It is certainly the greatest environmental challenge that we have to meet.

The latest Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change report estimates that temperatures will rise over the next 100 years by 5.8 deg C. That compares with that organisation's previous estimate of a rise of 3.6 deg C. The figures may appear small, but their implications are massive. For example, 150,000 years ago, a fall of only 5 deg C meant that an equable climate became an ice age, in which ice came down from the north to cover Siberia, the northern European plain and north America. An increase of some 6 deg C from current levels is not without precedent in the Earth's history, but it is without precedent in the recent history of mammals, including human beings. The wider consequences are totally unpredictable. In those circumstances, the Government take the view, which I am sure is right, that we certainly should make a very precautionary response.

We know the causes of the increase in carbon dioxide. The first is the profligate use of energy—much of which is wasted extensively into the environment—by the domestic and industrial sectors. The second is the increasing number of vehicles, not only in this country but throughout the world—including the developing world, which will, in the next 50 years, rapidly move to our levels of mobility by vehicles. The third cause is the continuing, massive use across the world, especially by industry, of fossil fuels, with the consequent need to shift to renewable sources of energy.

My hon. Friend the Member for Eltham was right to point out that, in the 200 years since industrialisation began, in the late 18th century, concentrations of CO₂ in the atmosphere have increased by about a third, from about 270 ppm to between 360 and 365 ppm. That increase is highly significant in such a short time; in geological time, 200 years is the twinkling of an eye. The key point is that concentrations of CO₂ are not cyclical, like the economy; the upward trend will continue unless we reverse it.

As my hon. Friend the Member for Bury, North rightly said, the IPCC report draws attention to the fact that there is not just a discernible anthropogenic influence, but that the scientific community—this report is underpinned by 2,000 or 3,000 scientists worldwide—is increasingly sure that, although it may not be the only influence, man-made global warming is certainly a significant, and perhaps an increasingly dominant, influence on our climate, with all the consequences.

My hon. Friend asked whether we would review the climate change strategy in the light of the most recent figures. We must of course take them into account and review our programmes. I shall set out the immediate programmes.

First, we must reach the agreement that we narrowly failed to achieve at The Hague, so that the countries of the world agree on the steps to achieve at least the Kyoto protocol of a 5 per cent. reduction in CO₂ emissions compared with those for 1990. We have not done so yet. The climate change programme in the United Kingdom is not in place yet, although I believe that we are probably more advanced than any other country in setting in quantified form the range of measures that will be necessary to deliver our commitments. Legally, those are a commitment to reduce CO₂ and other greenhouse gases by 12.5 per cent. from 1990 levels, and our own domestic target to reduce CO₂ by 20 per cent. by 2010 compared with 1990. We are very close to achieving that, and I firmly believe that we will do so.

We will of course review those figures. It is more in the international field that the message of urgency and the need for rapid action by all the countries of the world needs to be heard, when we resume after what I hope was the temporary failure at The Hague. I believe that the message will have a major impact.

I should have liked to be able 1o tell my hon. Friend the Member for Bury, North that we would hold an annual debate on sustainable development. I was in this Chamber only a week ago when we were discussing greening government, and there is an admirable recommendation that we should hold an annual debate on that subject. The decision to hold such a debate lies not with me but with my colleagues collectively and with the Leader of the House, but I am only too pleased to convey the request emanating from this debate for such an annual discussion on the Floor of the House. I shall respond to my hon. Friend's request for a report on the energy efficiency of the parliamentary estate a little later.

My hon. Friend the Member for Eltham, entirely appropriately and with great force, has focused on the role of the commercial sector. Undoubtedly, its role in generating climate change is greater than many people—and many people who own offices—realise. It shocked me when I was first informed that the increase in greenhouse gas emissions generated by the commercial sector in the period up to 2010 was expected to be greater than that for the iron and steel sector or the chemical sector, which are widely recognised to have a major impact. That is the collective aggregate of the effects of buildings and equipment, which may be small individually but which are widely spread across the country. Thus the commercial sector is very important.

I paid careful attention to my hon. Friend when he said that the way in which we present the statistics conceals the role of the commercial sector. I hope that he will accept from me that that is not the intention, but that form of presentation is not helpful and we will look into it to ensure that the generators of climate change are properly identified.

My hon. Friend is right to say that it is not very informative to have a category of other final users that shows a net increase of about 16 per cent. which is made up of a much bigger increase on the commercial side and a small or even negative impact on agriculture and the public sector. That compares with the really big increases of more than 60 per cent. in transport, and 22 per cent. in the domestic sector. I shall certainly see whether we can present the statistics more meaningfully.

To re-emphasise the point, there is a 16.6 per cent. increase across the other user sector, but a 65 per cent. increase in the service sector alone. Although I have no figures to prove it, that suggests that in the agricultural sector and the public sector there are likely to be owner-occupiers, who are more closely attuned to the costs of heating, lighting and fuelling equipment in their properties, whereas in the service sector, rentals are dominant, and businesses are likely to be unaware of the specific costs of running the premises and equipment that they rent.

That is a fair point, which I shall come to shortly.

My hon. Friend urged that a discrete figure be published for the commercial sector; I will look at that.

On encouraging energy efficiency in offices, I hope that the remarks that I am about to make will persuade my hon. Friend that there is more than one driver; there are a range of measures here. They may not yet be sufficient, but they are reasonably extensive. My hon. Friend also wanted the Energy Saving Trust Ltd. to have a remit to promote energy efficiency in offices. I undertake to look into that. That is not its main thrust, but I understand my hon. Friend's arguments entirely.

My hon. Friend has a track record, and an honourable history, in this area. He introduced a private Member's Bill—the Energy Conservation (Housing) Bill—to require mortgage lenders, as part of any survey carried out, to provide mortgage applicants with information on the energy efficiency—the standard assessment procedure rating—of a dwelling, and a practical means of improving it.

In the Homes Bill, my hon. Friend the Minister for Housing and Planning has made clear the Government's commitment to ensure that energy efficiency information will be part of the home condition report produced as part of the seller's pack. I hope that the long and determined efforts of my hon. Friend the Member for Eltham to ensure that that is finally achieved will secure their goal.

May I refer to the point that my hon. Friend has just made about barriers? Key barriers are a lack of commitment from the freeholder and the barrier to occupier action caused by leasing arrangements. Through the energy efficiency best practice programme, we encourage freeholders to carry out energy audits on their building stock. Advice and support are certainly available to them through the programme, but perhaps my hon. Friend wants rather more direct measures. That is beyond the Government at the moment, but it is not as though we neglect the matter. We encourage tenants to ask their freeholder about the energy performance of the buildings when rent reviews and changes to the leasing conditions are carried out. Again, it is not automatic that that will happen at such moments, but we are trying to secure an agreement from both sides that it should happen regularly.

Have any targets been set in relation to those measures to achieve a reduction in an area that has experienced substantial growth in consumption?

At the moment, there are no targets and no strategy requirement for a rent review. Those matters are entirely a contractual arrangement between the landlord and the tenant, but we can and should look at that issue further if we do not secure the objective of the exercise.

I deal now with the detail of what we are trying to do. Retail premises, hotels, commercial offices, non-industrial warehouses and sports and leisure facilities are collectively responsible for about 10 million tonnes of carbon emissions every year. That needs to be set against total emissions in this country of about 160 million tonnes of carbon as of 1990. That is roughly the ceiling that we have to reduce by about 12.5 per cent. or, in the case of CO₂, 20 per cent. The figure of 10 million tonnes is therefore significant.

Savings of 20 per cent.—the figure used in the report of Lord Marshall, an ex-president of the Confederation of British Industry—are certainly achievable if businesses adopt cost-effective measures. I think that my hon. Friend the Member for Bury, North said that energy efficiency does not impose a cost burden on business; it does not saddle them with further bureaucratic requirements. It is about getting them to make changes that are in their own interest. Although there is a capital outlay at the outset, savings in a relatively short payback period—three to five years in most cases—are considerable. Measures that would, for example, reduce considerably typical office fuel bills of up to £30 a year per square metre of treated floor area fall within the range of 20 per cent. savings in energy use.

A commercial building that is designed, commissioned and built to appropriate high energy efficiency specifications will, as I said, bring business benefits through its use and maintenance. As my hon. Friend the Member for Eltham said, the beauty of that is not just an environmental gain—it is a win-win situation. The resulting energy savings benefit the environment, and the consequential social benefits of improved comfort and productivity are good for business and create jobs. There are few examples of necessary reform which bring together so neatly benefits across the piece. We highlight those opportunities in our sustainable construction strategy "Building a better quality of life" which, my hon. Friends will recall, was published last April and identifies 10 key areas for action, including energy in construction processes and energy in building use.

My hon. Friend the Member for Eltham is right to say that there are barriers, to which I have already referred. We are not going to achieve 100 per cent. improved energy efficiency in commercial buildings overnight—no one is suggesting that—nor should we expect to, as there are real cultural barriers to overcome. The Property Advisory Group identified the inherent inertia among most owners and occupiers in its 1998 report "Sustainable Development and Buildings". It is a good report, and I am grateful for the considerable work that went into it. Lack of awareness and a perception of associated higher costs undoubtedly pose additional barriers, which the Government cannot overcome alone. Frankly, they will be overcome only if industry bites the bullet.

The report considers the contribution that commercial buildings could make to sustainable development in a broad sense and acknowledges that many existing commercial buildings are inefficient in their use of energy. As I said, inertia, lack of awareness, and scepticism about the financial advantages of energy efficiency are barriers to be overcome. The report makes specific recommendations. Building regulations, for example, are to reflect best practice—we are tackling that through the current review of part L of the building regulations and through initiatives such as the energy efficiency best practice programme. If I have a chance, I shall say a little about that before I finish.

The report recommends that the Government consider the scope for a compulsory environmental audit—again, that point has been made today. The energy efficiency best practice programme actively encourages greater use of energy audits. The report recommends appropriate taxation to encourage more environmentally friendly use of buildings which, of course, the climate change levy is designed to tackle. It also encourages more information sharing on environmental issues among stakeholders, which we are addressing through our support for more extensive and fuller environmental reports. I am still considering whether that should be made statutory, but that is not our current intention. However, we will have to look at that if we do not get much further with companies that are outside the FTSE 100. We are also encouraging information sharing through MACC2—Making a Corporate Commitment 2. That is how those barriers can be overcome.

I shall now talk a little about the legislative framework. We shall provide an appropriate underpinning legal framework. Our proposals to amend the energy provisions of the building regulations—the part L proposals—would raise fabric insulation, heating and hot water efficiency standards and introduce new lighting and air conditioning standards. My hon. Friend the Member for Eltham mentioned lighting, but it is not just about the light switch programme. Our proposals would introduce standards for the commissioning, testing and provision of operation and maintenance information, and would widen the application of technical requirements to encompass more work on existing buildings.

I underline the fact that the anticipated maximum construction costs of £10 extra per square metre that those more demanding requirements could place on commercial buildings would be more than offset by future fuel cost savings. I do not deny that there is a significant cost, but, for the benefit of the environment, jobs and, above all, of business and its energy bills, those costs are well worth incurring, given the longer-term gains.

We hope to make first amendments in the summer, but those changes are just a first step. We want to raise performance standards even further in the next 10 years and grant new powers to regulate building energy performance in use.

My hon. Friend asked how we will achieve those goals and what measures will be used. I shall therefore now say a little about the economic instruments that offer an additional and important lever for change. The most important instrument, of course, is the climate change levy, which will provide a major incentive for greater energy efficiency in the business sector. It will increase awareness and encourage a step improvement in energy management, and I think that that makes it worth it.

As a result of privatisation, the industrial costs of energy, both electricity and gas, have been very substantially reduced. The effect of the reduction is that industrial energy costs as a proportion of total costs are relatively small. Therefore, although I would not say that energy costs are not on the radar screen for a busy departmental manager, senior manager or chief executive, they do not feature very strongly. The whole purpose of the levy is to ensure that those costs register significantly, so that action has to be taken.

The levy package is expected to save at least 5 million tonnes of carbon annually by 2010. As we have to reduce carbon emissions by about 25 million tonnes, that reduction is a substantial part—about one fifth or one sixth—of total savings.

The levy package will be a burden only to those who refuse to seize the opportunities for action and greater competitiveness, and the Government will certainly facilitate those opportunities in the supporting package. We shall, for example, be introducing a 100 per cent. first-year capital allowances scheme to encourage investment in energy saving technologies, such as good-quality combined heat and power and energy efficient lighting systems and boilers.

Awareness is another widely recognised barrier. Far too few people realise the significance of wasted energy in their own homes, in industry and in offices as a cost to them, as damaging to the environment and as a generator of climate change. The Government therefore provide, and will continue to provide, easy access to a wealth of information aimed at encouraging business to become more energy efficient.

Our energy efficiency best practice programme, for example, promotes strategies to motivate the different players in the commercial property sector in a suite of publications setting out best practice in design, construction, occupation and energy services. The publications are really trying to challenge conventional thinking. They are trying, for example, to encourage people to ask themselves whether full air conditioning is really needed. I was present for the debate, last week, when the temperature seemed to be 80 deg; it was certainly clammy. It is absurd to raise the temperature to such a level as it is costly, uncomfortable and wasteful of fuel and it affects the environment.

We have to get people to understand that energy efficiency considerations really have to be taken on board at the design stage. As proper consideration of those factors will create long-term fuel savings, it is in people's own interests to consider them. Another issue is whether building services have user-friendly and appropriate controls.

How do we get all those points across to people? Reaching out to business by direct contact is fundamental to the programme. We have workshops, seminars, boardroom briefings and site visits, all of which—I hope—offer valuable opportunities to increase awareness in a targeted manner. It is not a matter only of advertisements—whether on radio and television or in newspapers—but of going and talking to people on site. However, there is a vast number of business premises, and getting through to the small and medium-sized enterprises—of which there are between 2 million and 3 million—is extremely difficult.

The topics that are dealt with range from strategic advice on the merits of energy audits to detailed information on energy-efficient lighting options. An excellent example of our hands-on approach is the design advice service which offers tailored energy efficiency guidance for larger construction and refurbishment projects. So far, more than 700,000 sq m of commercial building space has benefited from the scheme. We still have a long way to go, but the measures to achieve the objectives are steadily being put in place. I believe that, in the next 10 years, they can have a major impact.

We are seeking in the best practice programme also to develop voluntary agreements with organisations that can commit to energy saving for specific sectors. We have, for example, an agreement with the very important hospitality sector. Other sectors are beginning to consider whether the approach would work for them, and we are doing our best to get them to respond.

Just as we need to drive forward industry action, of course the public sector has to get its own house—or offices, such as Portcullis House—in order. My hon. Friend the Member for Bury, North took us to task on energy efficiency on the Government estate, and there is no doubt that there is plenty of room for improvement there. I should say that we inherited from the previous Government a commitment to reduce energy use by 20 per cent. between 1990 and 2000. The latest information we have is for 1999, and it shows that the reduction had reached 19 per cent. I am sure that, in future years, we can probably double that figure. Nevertheless, we are making progress, and there is something to build on.

Departments have signed up to an action plan that was prepared by the Government construction clients panel and published last year by the Office of Government Commerce under the title "Achieving sustainability in construction procurement". All new construction procurement should have targets for energy consumption that at least meet current best practice. Within three years, all projects are to be reviewed after completion to measure and report on their performance against established energy consumption benchmarks.

I also for my sins chair the Green Ministers Committee, and maintenance of the Government estate in an environmental manner, let alone the application of environmental policy in policy making, is one of its essential roles. The Committee deals not only with energy efficiency, but with waste generation, water consumption and transport impacts. However, there is no doubt that energy efficiency is central to the Committee's work. The application of that work to Government offices plays a large part in the figures that we produce annually for each Department and non-departmental public body. We compare those figures with our current targets, and we will be comparing them with the tougher targets that we are setting, particularly on energy efficiency.

I believe that energy efficiency in commercial buildings is an exceptionally important subject, and I shall certainly follow through on the eminently sensible recommendations pressed on me by my hon. Friends the Members for Eltham and for Bury, North. Perhaps when I have reviewed the debate, I shall follow it up with a letter setting out in detail precisely how the Government will respond.

We need a major shift in the way that energy is used in commercial buildings; that is absolutely correct. However, I believe that the framework is in place in legislative, fiscal and promotional support. In this pre-Budget period, we always discuss with the Treasury how fiscal and other promotional measures can be introduced, and I am sure that that will continue for many years.

We shall continue to enhance and strengthen the underpinning drivers. However, achieving the potential for energy savings will require a commitment from industry, not only from the small companies but particularly—as we have been discussing today—from the commercial sector. We need a commitment also from the public sector, including central Government, local government and the domestic sector.

I am grateful to my hon. Friend the Member for Eltham for drawing the issue to the House's attention. The Government agree with the thrust of his argument, and we shall follow through on the recommendations that he has made.

I thank the Under-Secretary, the hon. Member for Birmingham, Edgbaston (Ms Stuart) for attending the debate. I should like to give her a couple of assurances: I do not intend to make any partisan remarks; and I have no criticism of Government policy in respect of Helme Chase. Although I fully recognise that the matter will not be decided by Ministers anyway and that that might be the case indefinitely, there are points that are relevant to them.

The story of the maternity unit is not one of failure or problems in the national health service, but one of a genuine NHS success that had strong cross-party and cross-community support in my constituency. I hope to demonstrate that there is almost complete unanimity among my constituents about the issue, but also that they have some medium and long-term anxieties.

I should like to start with the history and geography of Helme Chase. Until 1993, the Helme Chase maternity unit was located outside Westmorland general hospital. It was originally situated close to where the hospital is now based, in Kendal in my constituency. For many decades—indeed, for most of the 20th century—it was separate from the area's hospitals: Kendal hospital and then Westmorland general hospital. Generations of Westmerians, as those who live in Westmorland like to call themselves, have been born there.

I shall not disguise from the Minister the fact that some of the public feeling about the unit is based on sentiment, but sentiment is not unimportant in such matters. Westmerians would like to know that future generations can be born in Westmorland and not in the slightly more alien territory of Lancashire, to our south.

The geography of the Morecambe Bay health authority area is slightly complicated, as it crosses county boundaries and encompasses a large chunk of southern Cumbria. It includes both the southern lakeland area in my constituency and the Barrow district, which is situated in the constituency of the Minister of State, Department of Health, the hon. Member for Barrow and Furness (Mr. Hutton). It also embraces large chunks of north Lancashire. The Morecambe Bay Hospitals NHS trust is now coterminous with the authority area, in which it has three hospital sites. It has one hospital at Barrow, Westmorland general at Kendal and the Royal Lancaster infirmary at Lancaster.

One of the key issues at stake is the concern among people in and around Kendal about whether decisions about their hospital—they take pride in Westmorland general hospital—are taken locally and in the interests of people in south Cumbria. Obviously, the health authority and the trust must consider the wider perspective and community, but that should not be at the expense of the residents of south Cumbria.

As I said, the Helme Chase maternity unit moved only in 1993 into what was then the spanking new Westmorland general. The unit is now within the hospital, but it has maintained its great tradition of being a friendly place to which mothers are happy to go. In contrast with some of the more clinical, less friendly and more antiseptic environments of maternity units elsewhere within the health authority area, Helme Chase has the reputation of being a place where there is love, tenderness and care. Given the geography of our part of the world, its accessibility to husbands, grandparents and partners, who can visit the mother before, during and after the birth, is a significant advantage.

If a large number of births are transferred from Westmorland general hospital to Lancaster, the possibility of such visits will greatly diminish. Mothers who live in outlying areas and who might already be some distance from Kendal will be anxious about getting to Lancaster when their time comes. The community health council public meeting held in Kendal 10 days ago was attended by a mother who lives in Windermere, which is in my constituency and is a good 20 to 25-minute journey from Kendal. She was worried about having to travel yet another 30 minutes or so to Lancaster. She said that she was expecting her fourth child and that the previous two had arrived after a labour of only 25 minutes. Her concern about being faced with a 50-minute journey to the local maternity unit is readily understandable, as such loss of time could cause grave difficulties.

As the Under-Secretary knows, the Morecambe Bay health authority is currently in the throes of a consultation exercise. I appreciate that she is not in a position to prejudge the results of that exercise and I would not expect her to do so. Indeed, I make no complaint about the way in which the health authority is conducting the process, as it has done so perfectly properly. It has released a multiplicity of options for public consultation, which will conclude next month. There are three basic options: retention of the status quo; outright closure of the unit; or establishment of a midwife-led unit.

The Under-Secretary may have been briefed on the local anxiety about whether the consultation initiated by the authority includes all the viable options for the unit's future. The answer to that question largely depends on what the definition of a midwife-led unit turns; out to be. The midwives at Helme Chase have a clear view about such a unit: they want it to carry out the same sort of deliveries that are conducted now. Those that are currently dealt with by the unit cover a pretty wide range. Difficult, dangerous and potentially risky deliveries are transferred to Lancaster under present procedures, but deliveries at the unit currently include elective caesareans and induced births. There is some anxiety that those slightly more complicated births might not occur in Kendal under the health authority's preferred option of a midwife-led unit and would instead be transferred to Lancaster.

The concerns are twofold. First, such an option might transfer from Kendal to Lancaster nearly 50 per cent. of births. Currently, about 600 babies a year are delivered in Kendal, but, under the health authority plans, that number could conceivably drop to about 350, meaning the transfer of 250 births out of the area. Secondly, even though it is recognised as unlikely that the health authority will recommend outright closure this year, there is a longer-term concern about the other options in that respect. The introduction of an option that causes the number of deliveries dealt with this year to drop could mean that people come back in five or 10 years' time and say, "As most babies in the area are not delivered at Westmorland general hospital, there is now a case for closure."

Sister Anne Carruthers works in the gynaecology ward at Westmorland general hospital. I should be happy to provide the Under-Secretary with a copy of the letter that she sent me, in which Sister Carruthers makes an important point that is relevant to the future of Helme Chase. As I am sure the hon. Lady recognises, many people share the concern expressed in the letter. Sister Carruthers writes about the role of the royal colleges, with whose recommendations I am sure the hon. Lady will be very familiar.

The colleges' recommendations are usually produced for the best possible motives and often result in the raising of standards. That, of course, is not the problem. The difficulty lies in the implication that, in respect of the responsibilities of the various royal colleges, fewer and fewer units throughout the country are acceptable. Time after time, services are moved steadily away from outlying areas and towards central points. I have caricatured the matter, but the caricature has a grain of truth. Ultimately, I think that the royal colleges will be happy only when there is a single hospital somewhere near Birmingham to which all patients in the country are shipped. [Interruption.] I see that the Minister recognises the truth in that assertion.

A balance must be struck. The point made by Sister Carruthers is valid and should be considered not only in the context of Helme Chase, but more widely. She says that there are two sides to the matter. Her letter states:

The consultants tell us that RCOG guidelines stipulate that they should be within half an hour of reaching their patients. That appears to be illogical when looked at from the opposite perspective, because it apparently does not matter how long it takes for patients to reach them—patients who may be travelling from outlying districts.

She puts her finger on the issue, which is that the royal college guidelines are often constructed for perfectly logical and sensible reasons, but are organised from a producer rather than a patient perspective. I shall be interested to hear anything that the Under-Secretary has to say about that issue, as it is relevant not only to south Cumbria, but to the whole of the NHS.

I applaud many of the steps that the Government have taken, not least through NHS Direct, to expand access to the NHS. However, it is important that, whenever possible, we are seen to be following public wishes for an accessible health service. We should not use safety, which is vital, especially in maternity services, as an excuse to provide one giant hospital in the midlands. I appreciate that if it were in the midlands, the Under-Secretary would not suffer as much as some others.

The health authority has categorically stated that its decisions are not prompted by a resource problem. However, I wish to put on record for the Undersecretary and her civil servants that the health authority has occasionally been tempted to cite statistics to show that the delivery costs of Helme Chase and the Morecambe Bay trust in general are among the highest in the country. Such statistics are slightly misleading because they do not take account of the significant number of deliveries to mothers who are not resident in the Morecambe Bay health authority area, but come from further afield, partly because of Helme Chase's reputation. I am sure that the Under-Secretary can reassure us that resources will not drive the provision of maternity services in south Cumbria. I should be grateful for such a reassurance.

The Under-Secretary will know that, under the current arrangements, the community health council, which has been considering the issue diligently and carefully, has what could be described as a nuclear option. If it is not happy with the health authority's solution, it can reject it. The matter would then be referred to the Secretary of State. I profoundly hope that that will not happen because it will delay matters and cause greater uncertainty. A solution that attracted strong local support would be far preferable.

If the nuclear option is taken, it will be helpful for Ministers to be aware of some of the background and the strength of local popular support for the unit. I should also be interested to hear the Under-Secretary's comments on the position after the community health councils are replaced. I appreciate that Ministers intend to replace them with an alternative mechanism for assessing local wishes, but I should like to know precisely how it might apply in the case that we are considering.

I promised that I would comment on the cross-party nature of the anxiety about Helme Chase. A march of approximately 3,000 people took place 10 days ago through the small town of Kendal. It was attended not only by me as the local Member of Parliament, but by John Bateson, the Labour prospective parliamentary candidate and Tim Farron, the Liberal Democrat prospective parliamentary candidate. There is genuine support for Helme Chase throughout the community—from farmers, businesses, mothers and midwives, who feel very strongly. Nicola Kaye, a Kendal mother, has started a huge petition, which some 6,000 people have signed to date. More signatures are expected.

Helme Chase constitutes a genuine NHS success story. All hon. Members—the Under-Secretary more than most—receive letters that relate instances of public services that do not always provide exactly what people want. Helme Chase is not an example of that. My constituents regard the maternity unit with huge affection; it would not be putting it too strongly to say that it is loved. That is underlined by the fact that 3,000 people came out to march at short notice on a cold January morning.

I acknowledge that the decision is not currently up to the Government. However, they may have to consider the matter. Perhaps the Under-Secretary can suggest how the Government would hope to respond to the clear public outpouring of support for Helme Chase. I hope that she will say that it is possible for such a much-loved, successful and appreciated service to continue for many years.

I congratulate the hon. Member for Westmorland and Lonsdale (Mr. Collins) on securing the debate on the future of Helme Chase maternity unit. I appreciate that the subject is important to his constituents, and I commend him for making it clear at the outset that the issue is not party political but is about meeting the needs of his constituents. I am grateful for the hon. Gentleman's public statements; he has gone on record long before today to say that he wants the matter to be resolved locally, and not adversarially.

The hon. Gentleman mentioned the restructuring of community health councils. The nuclear option, which allows for the decision to be referred to Ministers, is undesirable, especially when the issue can be resolved locally. However, that provision will continue to exist under the new structure. A new element is that the matter will be referred to independent reconfiguration panels. We always want such matters to be resolved locally if possible.

The hon. Gentleman rightly said that a debate, at a time when consultation is taking place about the future of a unit, does not allow Ministers to make firm statements; it is an opportunity for us to listen. Debates on maternity have an additional element: women do not wish pregnancy and childbirth to be perceived as an illness. They want childbirth to happen as naturally as possible. The royal colleges sometimes give the impression that the primary function of hospitals is training doctors, not serving patients. We must tackle that.

It is important to ensure that the environment in maternity units is not only clinically safe, but friendly and that relatives have access. Birth should be treated not as an illness but as a family event. It should therefore take place as locally as possible. However, mechanisms must be in place to provide good clinical care quickly. I speak with some passion because I gave birth to both my children in a small unit, which carried out 300 deliveries a year, so I am a great advocate of such units. I reassure the hon. Gentleman that such considerations are taken into account.

As the hon. Gentleman clearly outlined, consultation started on 1 December and concludes on 28 February. A report must then be prepared. It may be ready for the March meeting or the April meeting, and the next steps will depend on the preferred option. Surrounding health authorities have also been consulted and I hope that those areas and their Members of Parliament will contribute to the debate. The hon. Gentleman also rightly said that community health councils could object to the decision. However, we hope that the final decision will be made locally.

Over the past 50 years, childbirth has become much safer for mothers and babies. We must not lose sight of that in our discussions. There has been a continued drive to attract more qualified midwives to the NHS by, for example, persuading them to return to the service by offering free refresher courses, mentoring schemes, flexible working and improved pay structures. The hon. Gentleman is fortunate that his constituency is in such a desirable area that recruitment is not a problem there.

Our success is shown by the fact that figures for infant mortality, perinatal mortality and maternal deaths all show a continuing downward trend. We must not lose that gain. It is safer than ever to have a baby. However, we cannot be complacent. We need to support families and promote the health and well-being of disadvantaged children to give them the best start in life.

As a Government, we remain fully committed to the principles of women-centred maternity services that offer greater choice, continuity of care and give control to women. The ethos of putting women at the centre of maternity service planning is now firmly embedded in mainstream practice. We believe that further improvements in maternity services can and are being made through wider Government initiatives to modernise the NHS, improve public health and strengthen family life.

Clearly, our policy of putting women at the centre of maternity service planning and offering women informed choices about the type of care that they receive has to run alongside the need for local trusts and health authorities to provide care that is cost effective and clinically appropriate.

It is for local health authorities and trusts to develop effective maternity service provision that takes account of the needs of local people, the evidence of effectiveness and the need for clinical safety. Decisions regarding service provision are best made locally because it is at local level that people's needs and circumstances are known and that services can be tailored to meet those needs.

I was interested to hear the hon. Gentleman refer to having to be born in alien Lancashire. There is undoubtedly some significance in what is written on a child's birth certificate. We should not underestimate that. The word "Essex" appears on both my children's birth certificates. I am not quite sure what they will make of that, as I am now a midlands Member of Parliament. Perhaps they will wonder why they were born in Essex.

Individual trusts and maternity units operate a variety of methods for organising midwives to deliver maternity care, including one-to-one midwifery practice and case load midwifery schemes. It is important to recognise local cultures in terms of what women want. For example, the demand for home births might be higher in some areas than in others. We need to be very sensitive about such issues.

We recognise that, in many cases, women prefer to give birth at small, local, midwife-led units. Indeed, a number of such units throughout the country offer a very effective service to women with low-risk pregnancies. However, the Government would not wish to support one model of maternity service provision in preference to all others.

The report from the Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists and the Royal College of Midwives, "Towards Safer Childbirth", published in 1999, seeks to establish benchmarks for the provision of a standard of care that will offer women a safe and pleasant childbirth experience.

I smiled when the hon. Gentleman rightly acknowledged his slightly exaggerated version of what some royal colleges would like to happen, because he chose Birmingham as his hypothetical location. As a Birmingham Member of Parliament, I could not possibly object to such a proposal. However, I accept the point that he made.

Difficulties can sometimes arise, even when midwife-led units may be the preferred option, if, for whatever reason, local midwives do not wish to take on responsibility for leading the unit. It is, therefore, important that midwives, local GPs and other professionals work together. It is never easy to make universal comments on this issue.

I want to make it clear that the midwives at Helme Chase are enthusiastic about the idea of taking ownership and control of the unit. They would, however, like to do so across a range of services. I am delighted that the Minister said that there is no preferred model. May I take it that the Government—as a general principle; I accept that the Minister cannot be specific—take the view that having a maternity unit in which the midwives are happy with the range of services provided is a good thing?

It will not come as a great surprise that I think that any service in which the key professionals who deliver it are comfortable with the framework within which they operate will have better clinical outcomes.

The report acknowledges the need for expert medical advice in the care of women with high-risk or complicated pregnancies. In cases involving difficult pregnancies or pre-term babies, highly sophisticated medical equipment needs to be in place. Sometimes, the appropriate equipment and skills may be available only in certain centres. Tensions naturally arise in such circumstances.

The report also highlights the importance of good working relationships between the multidisciplinary team midwives, obstetricians, anaesthetists—we should not forget them—and paediatricians, so that women receive optimal care and the best outcomes.

The recommendations and audit standards contained in the report will provide health care planners, unit managers and clinical directors with the means to improve standards of care for women in labour. That sits well with the Government's programme to promote high-quality health care and clinical excellence throughout the NHS, setting clear standards for services and delivering them locally through the framework of clinical governance.

I shall now turn to the detailed position in south Cumbria and the history of the proposed changes. In response to one of the hon. Gentleman's questions, the changes are not about money or a lack of staff. Nor are they driven by financial or managerial considerations. The hon. Gentleman will be aware that Morecambe Bay health authority has been allocated £242 million for 2001–02, an increase of 5.8 per cent. in real terms on this financial year. Furthermore, the income of Morecambe Bay Hospitals NHS trust rose from £111.3 million in 1998–99 to £123.9 million in 1999–2000. I am told that there have been no problems in recruiting midwives at Helme Chase, and that the unit's charter mark has recently been renewed for the second time. I should like to take this opportunity to congratulate the staff on that renewal, because it represents official recognition of their good work from beyond the local community.

Regarding the proposed changes, it is important to remember that there are maternity units at Furness general hospital in Barrow and at the Royal Lancaster infirmary, as well as at Helme Chase. All three are managed by Morecambe Bay Hospitals NHS trust.

Last summer, Morecambe Bay Hospitals NHS trust advised the local health authority of the findings of a report by an independent steering group on the maternity services presently based at Helme Chase. It is generally referred to as the Turnbull report. The trust board had accepted the recommendations of that review, which supported the development of a midwife-led service for the Kendal area. The hon. Gentleman will be aware that the Turnbull report was centred on Kendal. The health authority, in acknowledging its requirement to ensure the provision of safe and effective services for its entire population, decided to extend the scope of the review to take in maternity services across south Cumbria and Lancaster, with particular emphasis on the changing childbirth criteria of improving flexibility and continuity of care, which I outlined earlier.

The health authority's report sets out three options: the first would be to do nothing; the second would be to cease providing in-patient maternity services in Kendal; and the third would be to introduce an integrated, midwife-led service. Without outlining each option in detail, I shall briefly touch on each one. I am mindful of the hon. Gentleman's concerns about the precise definition of a midwife-led unit. That may need to be taken on board in further discussions, so that all the parties involved talk about the same thing and we do not end up with a consultation in which one group suddenly says, "That is not what we meant by a midwife-led unit."

The first option was to do nothing. However, we would have to take care with such an option as safety and professional standards may not be able to be met. The second option, closing in-patient maternity services in Kendal, would mean that services would be provided at Furness general hospital and the Royal Lancaster infirmary, which would meet the safety and professional standards but limit the degree of choice that local women would receive.

The hon. Gentleman will be aware that the health authority's preferred option is to introduce an integrated, midwife-led service, which is the third option. That would involve Helme Chase continuing to serve the local community as a birth centre. It is argued that the more flexible deployment of midwives envisaged by that plan would bring potential benefits in terms of continuity of care. Whenever possible, a woman would see the same professional throughout her pregnancy, delivery and immediate post-natal recovery.

If that final option were to be approved, I understand that a team of community-based midwives, working closely with GPs, would provide ante-natal, confinement and post-natal care from several centres in the Morecambe Bay area, including Kendal.

The hon. Gentleman mentioned travelling distances. Consultations have taken place with the ambulance trusts, which would provide the relevant services. They are confident that, if any unforeseen difficulties were to arise, there would be no problems with patient transport. They are also confident that any increase in patient numbers could be accommodated, because the hospitals in Lancaster and Barrow would continue to offer the full range of maternity services. The arrangements for home deliveries will remain as at present, but the continued existence of a dedicated in-patient unit nearby would be a reassuring sign for mothers-to-be.

I would like the hon. Gentleman to take away from this debate my reassurance that we have not yet made any decisions. We support his view that the matter should be resolved locally. The option of closing Helme Chase maternity unit does not form part of any option put forward in the consultation. I assure the hon. Gentleman that the record of this debate will be read widely by those people who need to hear what has been said today.

Time is short, but I begin by expressing some well-intended and sincere courtesies—first, to you, Mrs. Michie. You travelled from beautiful Argyll to my constituency a while ago, and that visit was much appreciated. Although there is a great contrast between our constituencies, you will have seen the Lowryesque beauty along the river frontage at Thurrock.

I also welcome my real friend—I do not say that to everybody—the Minister. He and I have collaborated over many years and served on the Transport Committee under the distinguished leadership of the late Conservative Member, Robert Adley, who used the phrase, "Poll tax on wheels," in relation to rail privatisation. I mention that because many of the problems that I shall address have their roots in the absurd rail privatisation pushed through by the previous Administration in the face of criticism from Robert Adley and other Conservative Members who dominated the Transport Committee when the Minister and I were members of it.

I also welcome my hon. Friend the Member for Basildon (Angela Smith), who represents about a third of the borough of Thurrock and has two c2c railway stations in her constituency. I have six: South Ockendon; Chafford Hundred, which serves the Lakeside shopping centre; Purfleet; Grays; Tilbury; and East Tilbury. This is an aside, not the main thrust of my complaint, but c2c is a daft name for a railway and totally meaningless. It is indicative of the kind of people who are trying to run the service that they chose such an absurd name.

I have been seeking for a long time to initiate this debate and much of what I have to say pre-dates Hatfield, so it is no good the operators, or Railtrack for that matter, using it as an excuse when they read or comment on my observations. I shall also refer to the leasing companies: they, too, are signally failing my constituents and those of my hon. Friend the Member for Basildon.

I have a catalogue of complaints—primarily against the rail operator, but also, to some extent, against Railtrack and the leasing companies. I raise them not only as the Member of Parliament representing constituents who are suffering from this service failure, but as a commuter and user of trains myself. I find, as does my council, that we can no longer acquiesce by our silence in abysmal service failure and ripping off the travelling public.

Following a council meeting on 29 November, the leader of the council wrote to the shadow Strategic Rail Authority to draw attention to a unanimously agreed motion

to the effect that the woeful record of C2C warranted the immediate removal of its franchise and that an urgent investigation should be conducted into the running of trains on the LTS line.

He continued:

Whilst I appreciate that a franchise cannot be terminated immediately, you will appreciate from the motion the depth of feeling; held by myself and other Members of the Council about the very poor service available to the community in Thurrock.

The withdrawal of the new 357 Electrostar trains and the return into service of the old stock is an absurdity further adding to the misery of passengers.

He reiterates the view that I share: if and when an opportunity arises to take the franchise away from those operators, the sooner it is taken away the better.

The vein running through all the complaints is that the company simply does not care and does not want the public to have access to it. If hon. Members think that that is an exaggeration, they should study the company letterhead—it does not contain a telephone number. What organisation, except c2c, does not have a telephone number on its letterhead? That is a small example of its general approach to customer communications, and my constituents find, as I do, that even if they can find a number for c2c and try to contact the company, the telephone rings and rings. There is rarely any response.

A constituent wrote to me at the beginning of January saying:

c2c appear to never reply or even acknowledge customer comments forms. I have tried by printer card, letter and e-mail. To date I have 12 items unanswered starting from July…I have however had a reply from Mrs Gill Tiernan—

I understand that she works for c2c—

to a point I raised via Thurrock Council.

Mrs Tiernan has informed me that I cannot expect the trains to run as fast as they did in the 1970s because of the impact of the two new stations. She has failed to mention that the timetable which provided for stopping at West Ham had to be abandoned last year because the delays it was causing were having such a bad effect on performance.

She also failed to note that there are only 2 direct trains via Chafford Hundred in the peak period and therefore Chafford Hundred has very little effect on performance at this time. She also failed to point out when comparing the figures between British Rail and LTS/c2c that British Rail did not have the benefit of the brand new signalling which was installed at the taxpayers' expense and handed over lock, stock and barrel—

by the previous Tory Government—

to the private company only days after it took control!

Last summer, I contacted Bill O'Connor, the c2c operations manager, about the indicator boards all along the line and in particular at West Ham, where I encountered a failure. The boards are often changed after trains have departed, giving incorrect information about the destination of the departing train or one that is about to arrive. The company's failure to communicate was admitted in a letter to another constituent, Mr. B. Newell of Grays, on 8 January. Annette Ayers, the customer relations officer, said:

Station staff are informed of service alterations via a pager system and therefore are only able to make announcements when this information is received although regrettably, in times of severe disruption it is possible for messages to be delayed due to frequent use of the system.

We are aware of the need for accurate and timely information in such times and this matter is being addressed in order that the dissemination of information can be improved.

My constituent Pauline Cridland wrote to me on 2 November saying:

The staff on the platforms are linked by radio to the "white house" at Upminster but the people operating the indicator boards and making the announcements are taking little or no notice of them. Consequently boards show trains as being for destinations they are not, often two boards will show different information! To my knowledge last week one board showed a train as being for Tilbury—its first stop was Laindon and in excess of 50 passengers had to make their way back…

right along the system.

That problem is compounded by frequent platform changes, mainly at Fenchurch Street. Severe congestion has caused safety hazards at Fenchurch Street when people have been told to get on a train to a particular destination, only to be informed that the platform has been changed. They either had to return to the overcrowded concourse or find a new train. That happens all too frequently.

On 21 September, I wrote to the same Bill O'Connor to complain about the problems caused by a train cancellation at Tilbury. Communication was totally absent and those of us on the platform were bewildered to see a fast train rush through past Tilbury Town station towards London. It did not stop to remedy the cancellation of the earlier train. When I tackled him about that, he tried to blame Railtrack, saying that it often demands the company to run trains past for operational reasons. I said that that was unacceptable and that I wanted from him documentation as to how often that happened. Mr. O'Connor then conceded that the operators sometimes decided to accelerate a train to pass through a station. I asked for a list showing when Railtrack had demanded that a train rush through stations leaving people on the platform, and how often the operator had made that decision. I got no reply, although I pressed him and pressed him. The letter that I eventually received still did not answer the question, which is indicative of the fact that the operators will blame Railtrack whenever they can. Railtrack may sometimes be to blame, but my view is that operators deliberately try to fudge the issue by blaming others when the failure is theirs.

In October, I complained to the operations manager—wait for it, the same Bill O'Connor—about the fact that Tilbury Town station had no ticket machine on the upside. There was not even a machine dispensing permits to travel. It will not have escaped your notice, Mrs. Michie, that MPs have to have a rail ticket when travelling. Their spouses, too, have discovered that, and it is also true for the butcher, the baker and the candlestick maker. They need and want to buy a ticket. Only last week, however—after I had secured my debate—did the company begin the process of installing the necessary ticket machine. I am told that it is now removing the machine on the downside, which will mean a further delay.

All that represents an abysmal failure on the operators' part to ensure that those who wish to buy tickets can do so, thus avoiding anxiety and embarrassment or missing a train—which often happens, especially if there is a queue at the booking office or if no booking office is open. That, too, often happens. Similar problems have occurred at Grays, where ticket machines have not been working. This Bill O'Connor, the operations manager, is either unable or unwilling to respond to my complaints and those of others, which is quite unacceptable.

My constituent Noel Edwards, who represents the cycling interest, says that c2c is wholly insensitive to the needs of cyclists. He says that the company is overbearing and too rigid, lacking flexibility in regard to the access that it gives cyclists. Because time is limited, I will pass my constituent's representations to the Minister, and, obviously, will refer them to c2c. I wanted to mention the matter, because the constituent—very courteously—had written to me about it.

There is another enormously irritating problem affecting those who, in the middle of the night—well, at about nine or 10 in the evening—want to return to Essex, and have to decide whether to travel to Fenchurch Street or Liverpool Street. It is absurd that the arrangements should change at that time of night. Moreover, after Hatfield—this is the one aspect of Hatfield that I shall mention—the system was altered to involve all trains leaving Fenchurch Street. Although I personally welcomed the change, some of my constituents may find it less convenient. The point is, however, that the company did not communicate with its customers—my constituents, and those of other Members—about what was an arbitrary and sudden alteration. We need some certainty in the evenings: we need to know whether we should catch our trains at Fenchurch Street or Liverpool Street. In fact, I think there should be only one terminus, and I hope the Minister will look into that.

My hon. Friend the Member for Basildon will probably concentrate on the issue of rolling stock. Having engaged in informal chats with the Minister, I know that he shares my concern, and I look forward to hearing what he has to say. The fact is, however, that we have clapped-out slam-door trains, almost as old as me. Not only are they old and decrepit; they often fail, which means reduced accommodation and overcrowding. We now need to blow the whistle: someone is to blame, and someone must pay. We certainly will not tolerate: the situation any longer.

As I have said, this is a mean company. It is so mean that it will not even buy labels to put on its maps of the railway network to show, for instance, that there is a railway station at West Ham. That is so mean! I almost want to treat the company to some labels.

The point is not unimportant. We are talking about a major new station linking the network to the Jubilee line, which c2c will not even advertise on its maps. Furthermore, the station represents an important part of our transport strategy, and was provided at enormous expense by the taxpayer.

In the couple of minutes that remain, I want to raise important issues that are blurred, in that it is not clear whether the operator or Railtrack is responsible. For one thing, Tilbury Town station provides no access for disabled people. At a meeting with the Council, Railtrack and c2c on 12 December, I demanded an immediate remedy.

I should describe the station. All the residential accommodation is on the north side, facing towards Southend; there are no residential properties on the south side, which faces London. Any disabled person wishing to go to London, or to go west to Grays, must travel for a mile to reach the other side of the station. There is a footbridge, but disabled people will not be able to use it. That too is unacceptable.

Before anyone says, "It must have been the same for a hundred years," let me say that that is not so. In the old days there were platform ramps, but those—rightly, in fact—have been removed for safety reasons.

We need an immediate remedy. I know that the Minister also has responsibility for mobility, and I know that—against his better judgment—he has agreed to visit my constituency soon and to look at the line. In the meantime, however, I hope he will press the operators at least to accept an interim remedy. I stress the word "interim". A bus, which is part of the network, waits for every train arrival at Tilbury Town station to take passengers to what was Tilbury Riverside station, which has now closed. It could be used to convey people from the north side to the south side, where the booking office is—a mile-long journey. We suggested that to c2c, but again there was no response, which I find deeply disappointing.

I am concerned about representations I have received from Mr. B. Sheppard, of East Tilbury residents and tenants association. He drew attention to the repeated failure of the automatic barriers at East Tilbury station, which have caused many delays. We are talking about an isolated community. I use the word "isolated" deliberately: if the road that contains the level crossing were not accessible, the community would be more or less cut off. Apart from the frustration experienced by residents finding barriers closed and apparently unliftable, there are serious problems for the emergency services. The matter has repeatedly been drawn to the attention of Railtrack and, to some extent, that of the operators, but we are not satisfied, and I hope that the Minister will apply pressure.

Let me raise another blurred issue. The late operators of the LTS line built a rather attractive new station at Tilbury, thus improving our environment. We now find, however, that—on land leased by the operators and owned by Railtrack—an unauthorised, illegal advertisement hoarding has been put up in front of the station. Despite being asked by my local authority to remove it, the company is disregarding those representations. It is unacceptable that a so-called responsible organisation should allow its agents to continue their illegal advertising despite requests by the local planning authority. It shows the organisation's disregard for the community.

Time does not allow me to raise the many more issues I should like to raise, but it is interesting to note that following the securing of an Adjournment debate it is possible to get some action after months of representations, on such matters as ticket machines. Yesterday the company's press officer telephoned me—the audacity of it!—asking what issues I intended to raise. He received no response, of course, but in such circumstances people start to panic.

C2c—silly name, as I have said—is a wholly-owned subsidiary of National Express. National Express should be ashamed of the way in which its company is managed. It cannot hide its responsibility, and I will not let it forget that if and when it seeks a franchise for another line, or the renewal of its present franchise.

I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Thurrock (Mr. Mackinlay) on securing the debate—I envy him that—and also on his choice of debate. His forceful manner conveyed the frustration and anger felt by us and our constituents.

I thank my hon. Friend for giving up some of his time to enable me to add weight to his arguments. We are not talking about isolated incidents, or about moaning constituents; we are talking about a day-in, day-out grind. People are having to deal with a second-rate service that is entirely inadequate for their needs.

In the last couple of days, my constituent Denise Cooper found that 13 of the 20 train journeys that she had to make to commute to London were delayed. I do not think that my constituents should tolerate that.

After many, many letters to c2c, I asked the director and general manager, Mr. Andrew Chivers, to meet me here at the House of Commons, and he did. We had a long discussion about what kind of service we should expect. The main problem seems to be the inadequacy of the current rolling stock and the fact that the new rolling stock that was ordered was untried, untested and had no track record—pardon the pun. However, it has been bought and paid for by c2c.

I want an assurance from c2c—I am sorry to say that I have not received one—that it is doing all it can to put pressure on Adtranz to deliver the trains that the line needs. This has gone on for more than two years and I am not satisfied that enough pressure is being brought to bear on behalf of my constituents. Following that meeting, I remained deeply dissatisfied.

On 15 December, I received a letter from Mr. Chivers in which he picked up on some of the issues that I had raised at the meeting, including my two local stations where disabled access is extremely poor. He said that he would report progress on new train introduction in mid-January 2001. It is now getting towards late January; the company's timekeeping in terms of keeping a promise to a Member of Parliament is indicative of the way in which it treats the people who pay for an inadequate rail service. If the company cannot respond to me on time, it is no wonder that it cannot run its trains on time.

I do not think it is too much for constituents in Thurrock to ask for a decent train service; a service that they are paying for. Trains are dirty, late and overcrowded. I wonder how long people will have to tolerate this before c2c gets its finger out and does something.

I begin, as is usual, by congratulating my hon. Friend the Member for Thurrock (Mr. Mackinlay) on securing this debate and providing an opportunity for the House to discuss rail services on the c2c network, formerly known as London, Tilbury and Southend—or LTS—Rail. I am grateful to my hon. Friend—a true friend—for his courtesy in giving me advance notice of his many issues of concern. In the course of this debate, my hon. Friend has fully justified his reputation as a most assiduous advocate of his constituents' interests. I agree to his request to visit his constituency and I hope to make arrangements to do so in due course.

I pay tribute also to my hon. Friend the Member for Basildon (Angela Smith) for her vigorous representations on behalf of her constituents. I take seriously the issues that she has raised and I hope to deal with as many of them as possible in the rather constrained period that I have remaining to me in the debate.

The tragic accident at Hatfield and the subsequent widespread disruptions resulting from the imposition of emergency speed restrictions and Railtrack's track recovery programme have had huge ramifications for the railways. However, unlike the majority of train operators, c2c has not had to implement an emergency timetable and has managed to operate services pretty much as normal. My hon. Friends would argue that "normal" is not very satisfactory. The company has three speed restrictions in place. I know that Railtrack is working hard to remove all speed restrictions as soon as possible, and it is to be hoped that the remaining speed restrictions on c2c's network will be removed in the coming weeks.

Although c2c passengers have avoided the worst of the disruptions suffered by other passengers in recent months, c2c's performance in general—as my hon. Friend the Member for Basildon has made clear—has been far from satisfactory over the last year. In the autumn national passenger survey, only 63 per cent. of passengers were satisfied with their journey and 21 per cent. were dissatisfied. Only 33 per cent. of passengers thought c2c provided value for money. Compared with the 10 other train operators serving London and the south-east, only Silverlink trains scored lower than c2c on value for money.

The company has agreed with the shadow Strategic Rail Authority an action plan to address the concerns that the survey highlighted. My hon. Friends will be pleased to hear that this includes measures to improve communication with passengers, both on train running information at stations and in responding to feedback from passengers. The shadow Strategic Rail Authority is monitoring progress with the plan and I hope that tangible improvements will be seen in the near future.

I am pleased that, in recent weeks, there have been improvements in c2c's performance. However, I know that technical problems with new rolling stock introduced last year have caused widespread disruption and overcrowding, particularly on peak services. Passengers who had looked forward to travelling in comfort on new, reliable, state-of-the-art trains are understandably frustrated and disappointed.

Faulty electrics and software problems rendered the new trains unreliable and prone to breakdown. Of the 44 units that were contracted to be in operation by November 1999, only 12 have been introduced. These are currently being used to provide off-peak services only and will not be used for peak services until c2c is confident that they will provide a reliable service.

Last year, my right hon. Friend the Deputy Prime Minister asked Sir Alastair Morton, chairman of the shadow Strategic Rail Authority, to set up a pan-industry working group to identify and tackle the problems being encountered in bringing new stock into service. Some progress has been made, but clearly there is much more to do. I assure my hon. Friends that Ministers will continue to meet manufacturers and make it clear to them that their current performance in delivering new, reliable stock is simply not acceptable. Manufacturers must redouble their efforts to provide new stock on time and to ensure that new stock is reliable from the word go.

In the light of c2c's rolling stock delivery problems, the shadow Strategic Rail Authority negotiated with c2c a package of passenger benefits to compensate passengers for the late introduction of the new stock. This included an increase from 44 to 46 in the order of new units and a commitment to procure a second tranche of 26 new four-car trains to be delivered and in service by 30 June 2002 to deal with the issue raised by my hon. Friend the Member for Thurrock—the replacement of c2c's remaining slam-door stock. The company is also committed to extending booking office hours at various stations.

Further passenger benefits were also negotiated in June last year when the shadow Strategic Rail Authority reached an agreement with Prism rail, then the franchisee of c2c, on the restructuring of the group's portfolio of passenger rail franchises. Under the agreement, the c2c franchise is retained through to 2011. Prism committed itself to investing £20.5 million in areas to be agreed with the shadow Strategic Rail Authority. In addition, closed-circuit television will be fitted in all of the current order of 46 new trains.

Shortly after that deal was struck, the National Express group agreed to buy out Prism. I am pleased that National Express has undertaken to honour the obligations that Prism entered into and is currently working with the shadow Strategic Rail Authority, the Rail Passengers Committee for Eastern England and other local stakeholders to determine the best use of the committed £20.5 million.

My hon. Friend the Member for Thurrock also raised the issue of the access arrangements for disabled passengers at Tilbury. He may be aware that, under the Disability Discrimination Act 1995, we have introduced accessibility regulations for new trains to ensure that disabled people, including wheelchair users, are able to travel by rail in safety and reasonable comfort.

I appreciate the serious difficulties that can arise for disabled people who wish to travel from stations where there is no accessible link between the platforms. The provisions of the Act should go some way to improving such access arrangements. Railway stations are covered by part III, which deals with access to goods, services and facilities. Since October 1999, station operators have had to take reasonable steps to change practices, policies or procedures which make it impossible or unreasonably difficult for disabled people to use a service; for example, by providing information in Braille to enable disabled people to use a service, and overcoming physical barriers by providing a service by a reasonable alternative method. There is no prescriptive regulation which sets down what is required, but in the case of a station with access to only one platform, it might be judged to involve the use of an accessible taxi to take the passenger between platforms.

From 2004, operators will have to take reasonable steps to remove, alter or provide a reasonable means of avoiding physical features that make it impossible or unreasonably difficult for disabled people to use a service; for example, by the provision of a ramp to allow wheelchair access to the station.

I regret that I am unable to pursue such matters in greater detail, but I hope that, in my brief remarks, I have been able to give some comfort to my hon. Friends about the planned improvements to rail services in their constituencies. Once the new rolling stock is fully introduced and the £20.5 million of additional investment comes to fruition, I am certain that c2c passengers will enjoy a more reliable and comfortable service.

It should not be forgotten that, not so many years ago, what is now the c2c network was frequently described in the press as British Rail's misery line. We hope that those days will be over in the foreseeable future.

I am delighted to have attracted the presence of colleagues such as my hon. Friends the Members for Chesham and Amersham (Mrs. Gillan) and for Buckingham (Mr. Bercow). I am also delighted that we will have the benefit of the views of the hon. Member for Nottingham, South (Mr. Simpson), the reasons for whose participation I hope to come to in due course.

I am especially glad to have secured the opportunity to raise the subject of NATO, deterrence and a European Union rapid reaction force. Although I am a new MP, having sat in the House for only four years, I have worked professionally on the issues of defence and deterrence for 20 years. During that long period, there have been three major conflicts—the Falklands conflict of 1982, the Gulf conflict of 1990–91 and the Kosovo conflict, which came to a head in 1999. In each case, substantial forces were involved, and in at least two of those cases the involvement of substantial forces came as a considerable surprise. The Falklands crisis came out of the blue and the Gulf crisis came with very little warning. When the Kosovo crisis finally came, it was after a considerable build-up, but it could then have escalated in ways that we were fortunate to avoid.

Why am I so concerned that the benefits of the NATO alliance and the deterrence that it successfully applied in Europe for half a century are now threatened by the prospect of a European rapid reaction force? The answer lies in the fact that, if it is to work, deterrence requires a concept that is the opposite of that which most people who claim to support deterrence have been advocating for many years: they say that the key to deterrence is uncertainty, whereas I say that the key to deterrence is certainty. Of course it is better to have uncertainty as to whether democracies will or will not respond if attacked than certainty that they will not. Far better than either, however, is certainty that they will respond effectively if attacked.

The key to NATO's success was made up of two components: the nuclear stalemate and the automatic involvement of the United Kingdom and, even more important, the United States in any conflict that would be triggered by an aggressor in Europe. That is what is being imperilled.

When the first world war broke out, the people who engineered it had no way of knowing that in 1917 the massed power of America would be brought to bear against them. When the second world war broke out, the people who engineered it had no way of knowing that in December 1941 the massed power of the American military machine would be brought to bear against them.

I ask the Minister and the Government to consider by how much deterrence would have been increased if the aggressors in August 1914 and in September 1939 had known that the immediate effect of their aggression would be to trigger American and British involvement. We know, for example, that Hitler was most anxious to avoid British involvement. Indeed, he gambled that Britain would not get involved. This is where deterrence requires certainty. The prospect that countries only might react may encourage a gambler to take the risk because there is no certainty that they will react. The great achievement of NATO was that, from day one in any conflict that was unleashed in Europe, the Americans and British would react, and react decisively.

We are being drawn towards a situation in which that is being put under threat, even as the Government try to tell us that American involvement remains at the heart of their security strategy. The strategic defence review said in paragraph 18:

We are a major European state and a leading member of the European Union. Our economic and political future is as part of Europe. Our security is indivisible from that of our European partners and Allies. We therefore have a fundamental interest in the security and stability of the continent as a whole and in the effectiveness of NATO as a collective political and military instrument to underpin these interests. This in turn depends on the transatlantic relationship and the continued engagement in Europe of the United States.

However, if the Europeans can, in future, find themselves involved in major conflicts without the involvement of the United States, we are turning the clock back to the uncertainties that allowed dictators and aggressors to chance their arm twice in the 20th century, with disastrous results for humanity.

The Government's response to this is very simple. They say, "You're missing the point." They say, "You claim that the European Union wishes to be involved in intensive war fighting. This is not true because the European Union's rapid reaction force would simply be involved in peace-making and in crisis management." Yet, if one looks back at those two catastrophic wars of the last century, one can see that the first world war, definitely, and the second world war, arguably, grew out of failed attempts at crisis management when the crises concerned spiralled out of control.

Just imagine what might have happened in the Kosovo campaign if one of the key factors that we on the Select Committee on Defence identified as having led to the successful result of that campaign—namely, the attitude of Russia—had been different. The only reason why Russia took a compliant attitude in that conflict was that it was too weak to do anything else. If we had got into a Kosovo-type conflict without the Americans, which is quite possible in terms of crisis management by an EU rapid reaction force, and if the Russians had not been as weak as they were, it could have been a classic recipe for possible escalation to intensive war fighting.

When I challenged the Government on this aspect of the argument, they said that there was no intention to create a separate EU rapid reaction force. I put down a series of questions to the Government on 22 November last; I will refer to three of the answers that I received. When I asked the Secretary of State for Defence what estimate his Department had made of the effect on deterring conflict of the absence of automatic US involvement in crisis management by the EU, he said:

No state is automatically involved in crisis management, either in NATO or in the EU.

It must be a pretty low-level definition of "crisis" to escape the conclusion that America and Britain normally are automatically involved in any crisis developing in Europe. The answer continued:

Where Europeans and North Americans wish to act together in a military response to a crisis, NATO will remain the most likely framework. Where NATO as a whole is not engaged, the EU might launch an operation. In such a case the EU would expect to have recourse to NATO assets and capabilities, if necessary.

All those "mights", "ifs" and "buts" bring back the very uncertainties that used to make it worth while for aggressors to chance their arm, because they could not be sure that condign punishment would not immediately follow.

When I asked the Secretary of State what criteria he will apply in distinguishing between military crisis management operations and war fighting, his answer, printed at the same column, was:

The most demanding case is peace enforcement and armed forces deployed for this task must be able to exercise their authority and ensure compliance by the use of force if necessary. But this would fall short of "warfighting", which is normally taken to mean high-intensity conventional warfare.—[Official Report, 27 November 2000; Vol. 357, c. 427W.]

But would it? When I asked the right hon. Gentleman what UK forces would be allocated to the proposed rapid reaction force, he said—while denying, as the Government ritually do, that there would be a standing rapid reaction force—that

the UK has identified the pool of forces and capabilities which would enable it to contribute effectively to crisis management operations in support of the EU's Common Foreign and Security Policy, where NATO as a whole is not engaged … In the maximum scale operation envisaged at Helsinki—a corps level deployment of up to 60,000 ground troops—the UK component could be around 12,500 strong. Maritime and air deployments of up to 18 warships and 72 combat aircraft could be made in addition.—[Official Report, 29 November 2000; Vol. 357, c. 640W.]

Any crisis management involving military enforcement that engages forces on a scale of the magnitude that I have just described would clearly have the ingredients for beginning a full-scale war.

In the 1920s and 1930s, many attempts were made to avoid the mistakes made in the run-up to the previous holocaust—the first world war. One technique was the 10-year no-war rule. It was predicted that there would be no conflict during the following decade, so forces could be scaled down. That rule came under attack from a senior official, Sir Maurice Hankey, who had been secretary to the War Cabinet during the first world war and had held many major posts thereafter.

In a previous debate, when I argued against such predictions, I quoted some of Sir Maurice's comments, as follows:

As a nation we have been prone in the past to assume that the international outlook is in accordance with our desires rather than with the facts of the situation … We are also apt to forget how suddenly war breaks out. In 1870, a fortnight before the event, we were not in the least expecting the outbreak of the Franco-Prussian War. The same was true in 1914. A fortnight after the murder of the Austrian Archduke, a debate took place in the House of Commons on foreign affairs. The European situation was hardly referred to at all. More attention was given to the preparations for the next Peace Conference! … There was no statement made on the subject of the European crisis in Parliament until July 27.

Sir Maurice concluded:

We really had, at the outside, not more than ten days' warning.—[Official Report, 22 February 2000; Vol. 344, c. 1463.]

There were just 10 days' warning of the first world war—a war that grew out of a crisis that had spiralled out of control. The building up of an alternative to automatic American and British involvement in a future crisis in Europe is putting back together the devil's brew that led to two world wars.

Yesterday, I ran into the Minister of State, Foreign and Commonwealth Office, the hon. Member for Leicester, East (Mr. Vaz) in the Corridor—

Bad luck.

It was good luck. I mentioned that I was initiating this debate. The Minister looked rather nonplussed and asked who would reply. When I told him that it would be a Defence Minister, he looked a little chagrined but there was not much he could do about it.

In fact, two contradictory policies are currently involved. The policy of the Ministry of Defence is to play down the implications of the rapid reaction force, while the policy of the Foreign and Commonwealth Office continues to hope for a world built along peace-loving lines with global collectivism—hopes which have cost us so dear in the past. As I could not quite envisage the Ministry of Defence giving the full picture, I thought that I would invite a contribution from someone who might set out the more traditional approach—wrongly—taken to these questions in the past. As Foreign Office Ministers are unable to be present, perhaps the hon. Member for Nottingham, South (Mr. Simpson)—who is, as usual, sitting well to my left—will make a contribution. I invite him to do so.

I am sure that the Foreign Secretary and the Minister for the Armed Forces will be able to speak for themselves—as will I.

I am grateful to the hon. Member for New Forest, East (Dr. Lewis) for allowing me to make a few comments during his debate. While he was talking, I was reminded of my affectionate regard and respect for my grandfather, whose generation made heroic sacrifices during the first world war—although there were certain difficulties in persuading them not to keep re-fighting it for the rest of their lives. I have similar feelings about arguments about deterrence.

I fully support the Government's proposal that this country should commit itself to involvement in the European rapid reaction force. A degree of honesty is reflected in the figures cited by the hon. Gentleman; they recognise the fact that all major conflicts—probably for the rest of this century—will be people-solved and not solved by military hardware. If Britain has to make a commitment to be part of that process, I welcome it.

We should also take the opportunity of stating that the real challenge is to move from a rapid reaction force to an extended commitment to rapid, proactive peace-building with our European partners. I say that because there are real dangers that in the new US Administration there will be a retreat from the internationalist terms which have previously been used and which the Minister may also use.

I think that the United States will retreat into a military strategy based on long-range retribution rather than long-term reconstruction. It will be up to us and our European allies physically to construct the basis of peace and stability in Europe, in which the notion of deterrence will be that we have too much in common to risk going to war, rather than that there is too much dividing us for deterrence to count. Will the Minister not only endorse policies that support a rapid reaction force, but put them into the context of the way in which they might be undermined by signing up to a commitment to the United States national missile defence programme? That, more than anything, threatens to divide and destabilise us in Europe.

It is highly unlikely that our European allies will sign up to the NMD as a protection for them, us or anyone else. NMD is likely to be deeply divisive. Who is it supposed to deter? It will not deter the people who planted a bomb at the World Trade Centre; it will not deter the bin Ladens of this world. If they have a missile or a nuclear device to deliver, they are more likely to do so in a suitcase than by means of an intercontinental ballistic missile.

NMD is likely to force Russia and China into a new defence coalition and to reopen the nuclear arms race. It will make Britain a front-line target. We would be the only point that needed to be knocked out in order to remove the satellite communication warning bases on which the United States would rely. NMD threatens to turn the United Kingdom into kamikaze kingdom—we would be doing suicide runs for an act of international folly to which we should not sign up. I hope that the Minister will not only reinforce and reiterate the understanding that, in a European theatre, peace, stability and deterrence will be delivered by people rather than by military threats, but agree that—as I cautioned in the House recently—we should be ill-advised to join the Leader of the Opposition and the President of the United States in forming a "Dumb and Dumber" coalition in pursuit of the Armageddon vote. That will not provide Britain with security; it will not deter anyone. What it is likely to do is to make us a target and the world a more uncertain and destabilised place. I hope that the Minister will assure us that that is not the direction that the Government intend to take.

I am grateful to the hon. Member for New Forest, East (Dr. Lewis) for initiating this debate, and, not least, for revealing the entente cordiale between the right of the Conservative party and the Campaign group in the Labour party, but I have to ask him, "Was that it?" His main contribution was to conjure up ghosts and ask hypothetical questions—he even referred to the devil's brew—but he then affected to be frightened by it all. The debate provides the opportunity to correct much of the misreporting in the press on NATO and European defence, much of which has been inaccurate and misleading.

I have to tell my hon. Friend the Member for Nottingham, South (Mr. Simpson) that, in the time available for my reply, I will not be able to go into detail on national missile defence, except to reinforce and reiterate—to use his words—that we have had no approach from the United States. The United States has not yet produced a policy; nor has it approached us for our comments. We would properly await that; we would obviously have to consider an approach from such a serious ally.

Much of the misunderstanding about NATO involves wilful mischief making. The reporting of new US Secretary of State Colin Powell's sensible comments on the NATO-EU relationship, for example, was selective and taken out of context. I hope that what I am about to say will correct some of the half-truths that have gained wider, though illegitimate, public currency.

The situation is simple. NATO continues to be the cornerstone of our security. The United Kingdom is a leading member of NATO, and our forces make a key contribution to the alliance. Since the Attlee Labour Government played a key part in the foundation of the alliance in 1949, Britain and NATO have been indivisible. This Government are also wholly committed to NATO, and to European defence.

I hope that that clarifies the situation for hon. Members. I could not express more strongly the Government's commitment to the alliance—not only in words but in deeds as well. It is regrettable that some Conservative Members consistently try to play politics with national security. The allegation that our commitment to NATO is weakening could be damaging—not to the Government, but to our relationship with allies and our reputation abroad. Given sufficient time to take root, such false allegations could damage NATO itself. Fortunately, there is considerable defence and security experience in the new US Administration, who are able properly to evaluate reality. Let us consider the North Atlantic alliance as it stands in 2001–10 years after the end of the cold war. It has never been in better shape. Rumours of NATO's demise, which were commonplace as the Berlin wall collapsed, turned out to be greatly exaggerated. Much has been said about NATO deterrence. Of course NATO's core business for more than 40 years has been successfully to keep the peace. Without it, the Euro-Atlantic area could never have enjoyed the peace, freedom and prosperity that it has had for the past half a century.

The alliance's capacity to deter rests on article 5 of the North Atlantic treaty. That goes to the heart of what the hon. Member for New Forest, East said. Article 5 states that an armed attack against one or more allies is considered an attack against all. It rests on the cohesion of the alliance as it responds to any challenge. It also rests on a range of military capabilities, both conventional and nuclear, sufficient to convince a would-be attacker that he would have more to lose than to gain.

I assure hon. Members that article 5, on collective defence, continues to form the bedrock of the alliance, and the Atlantic dimension to NATO is vital to that. The US has long recognised the centrality of European security to its own, as we recognise the essential nature of the US commitment to us.

The end of the cold war meant that the alliance had to change, and it did so more effectively than anyone could have anticipated. Who would have predicted in 1989 that, a decade hence, Hungary, Poland and the Czech Republic would be full members of NATO? Who would have predicted then that alliance forces would be engaged in forging peace in the Balkans, or that an alliance born of the cold war would become so adept at coping with the current situation? NATO continues to adapt; the world is changing fast, so must the alliance. It must be even more flexible, even better able to respond to a wide range of crises and other demands—often on a short time scale, as the hon. Member for New Forest, East says.

The defence capabilities initiative, announced at the Washington summit in 1999, is working to make good the shortfalls in capabilities across the alliance. NATO is taking forward the 58 DCI decisions, to ensure that the alliance has the capabilities that it needs for future operations. NATO's force structure review is at a crucial stage. The force structure that emerges from the review will give full effect to the capability improvements sought by DCI. It will provide the alliance with a menu of headquarters and forces, at graduated readiness, to deal with the range of contingencies. Through the "Partnership for Peace" programme with the former Warsaw pact countries, NATO is also helping defence reform and restructuring in the 29 partner nations, and many are making remarkable progress.

What of the European defence dimension, which has recently—and yet again today—caused such an outburst of ill-informed speculation? How does it relate to NATO? The linkage could not be closer. Let us not forget that 11 members of the European Union are also members of NATO. Both organisations share the aim of peace and stability in the Euro-Atlantic area. They are not competing organisations; they are complementary.

Will the Minister give way?

I am sorry, but the hon. Gentleman and my hon. Friend the Member for Nottingham, South did not leave me much time.

The recent work on European defence is nothing fundamentally new. At Maastricht in February 1992; at Petersberg in June 1992; at Berlin in 1996; at Amsterdam in 1997; and at Washington in 1999—conferences covering both the current and previous Administrations—the member states agreed to the foundations of the policy that we are now implementing.

European Union member states have always stated that the new developments in European security and defence had to be compatible with those of NATO, and would respect the obligations of EU allies to the alliance. What we are doing now represents a natural progression of Maastricht, Berlin, Amsterdam and Washington. What we are doing now remains faithful to the principle of compatibility with NATO; enhances and strengthens NATO; and ensures the continued vitality of the transatlantic link.

Britain has played a leading role in those developments. In doing so, we have ensured that the focus remains on the key issue, which was identified not only here, but in Washington: improving European nations' military capabilities. The first step to improving military capabilities was made at the Helsinki European Council meeting, when the EU nations signed up to the concrete target known as the headline goal. Following that meeting, defence planning experts from the member states, with support from NATO, developed the headline goal into a statement of requirements.

In November, the member states and other European partners identified the type and level of forces that they are willing to make available, and from which elements could be assembled, on a case-by-case basis, for crisis management missions, and the hon. Member for New Forest, East drew attention to the details. That did not commit us to a permanent European rapid reaction force; nor did we take the first steps towards a European army. That is not just a question of semantics, as some appear to suggest, but a fundamental point. The report of the French presidency to the Nice European Council stated:

This does not involve the establishment of a European Army. The commitment of national resources by Member States to such operations will be based on their sovereign decisions.

rose—

If the hon. Gentleman wanted to intervene, he should have taken up less time earlier.

European Union member states have now collectively identified where their military capability is lacking. The key areas are the enabling capabilities, such as strategic lift, and availability, deployability, sustainability and interoperability.

NATO is strong because the commitment of individual nations is strong. The United Kingdom has demonstrated, time and again, that our commitment to NATO is absolute. Our security depends on it, and we would not do anything to endanger that. The EU defence dimension is about Europe doing its bit. That is what I do not understand about the current frenzy. Why do critics of the Government's policy think it wrong for Europe to do its fair share? We want a strong alliance and a strong Europe. We want the EU and NATO to form a mutually reinforcing strategic partnership, but we want NATO to be at the heart of our defence and Britain to be at the heart of both Europe and NATO. What could be clearer than that?