With permission, Mr. Speaker, I wish to make a statement about the Command Paper "Criminal Justice: The Way Ahead", copies of which are available in the Vote Office, together with the criminal justice system business plan for 2001–02. Both are published today.

Throughout their period of office, the Government have been determined to tackle crime and the causes of crime, and to build a fair, effective and swift criminal justice system, which commands the full support and confidence of victims and the public.

Reducing crime carries wider responsibilities than those of the criminal justice system alone. The Government have invested in a range of cross-cutting programmes, which tackle the underlying causes of crime. They include sure start for pre-school children, the new Connexions programme, the children"s fund, the welfare-to-work programme and the new national treatment agency, which deals with drug abuse. The programmes are a key element in our approach to crime reduction, but they must go hand in hand with changes in the criminal justice system. I am pleased that profound improvement is already under way.

Following an inquiry under Sir Iain Glidewell, the Crown Prosecution Service has been restructured in line with police force boundaries, and a local chief crown prosecutor is now in place for each area. Criminal justice units, which are responsible for processing cases to court, and are now collocated with the police, are being trebled.

The youth justice system is being transformed. The national Youth Justice Board and a network of local youth offending teams are co-ordinating effort against youth crime as never before. Repeat cautioning of juveniles has ended. Graduated court sanctions are helping to ensure that young offenders, and their parents, take greater responsibility for their behaviour, and allow for the active involvement of victims in the process.

From April, for the first time, police, probation, CPS and magistrates will operate in the same, coterminous boundaries. Statutory partnerships between the police, local councils, the health service and voluntary organisations have been established across the country to ensure that everyone works together effectively to reduce crime and disorder. Those partnerships benefit from significant investment under a three-year crime reduction programme, including the biggest ever expansion of closed circuit television, to help drive crime down locally. New antisocial behaviour orders have removed a climate of fear and intimidation from many neighbourhoods, while more than 1,100 successful prosecutions have taken place for new offences of racial violence and racial harassment.

The system for community punishments is being reformed to ensure better enforcement by a new national probation service. The Prison Service is investing large sums in drug prevention, accredited offending behaviour programmes, better education and training, and an extra 2,660 prison places.

The strategy is bearing fruit. Against demographic projections that crime would rise between 1997 and the end of 1999, the British crime survey shows that overall crime fell by 10 per cent. in that period, with reductions of 4 per cent. for violent crime, 15 per cent. for vehicle crime and 21 per cent. for domestic burglary. Since 1997, overall recorded crime has fallen 7 per cent. to a total of about 5.2 million offences, with reductions of 28 per cent. for domestic burglary and 20 per cent. for vehicle crime.

I pay tribute to the efforts, commitment and dedication of the police, all the others who work in the criminal justice system agencies, and the hundreds of thousands of volunteers in victim support, neighbourhood watch and many other local organisations for that achievement.

The recent improvements have, however, taken place in the context of more fundamental and deep-seated problems. Over the past 20 years, the performance of the criminal justice system has kept pace neither with long-term trends in crime nor with new types of crime. Too few of fences are detected and prosecuted successfully. Between 1980 and 1995 the number of recorded offences doubled, but the number of convictions in respect of those offences fell by a third. To put it mildly, the system has not been as successful as it should have been in catching, prosecuting and punishing criminals.

Cases still take too long, and sentencing is too variable, and insufficiently focused on reducing reoffending. Within two years of starting a community sentence or finishing a prison sentence, more than half of all offenders will be back in court to be convicted and sentenced for further offences. TN legacy of those failures is that crime in this country is still too high, in comparison not only with the levels here 20 years ago but with those of many other western countries. Furthermore, the British crime survey showed that although violent crime has fallen by 4 per cent., there are worrying increases in street crime, including robbery.

In the Command Paper, the Government have set out to tackle the longer-term problems. Alongside the continuing improvements put it place over the past four years, the paper describes our further strategy for reducing crime and reforming the criminal justice system. It describes a demanding programme for delivering the targets set out in the criminal justice service public service agreement, and identifies a wide range of new areas in which we are seeking improvements.

Those improvement are focused on four key themes. The first is crime prevention, and dealing with the factors that appear to increase the chances of a person"s getting into crime in the first place. The second is catching and convicting more offenders—especially persistent offenders—to close the justice gap between crimes reported to the police and those resulting in a criminal being brought to justice. The third theme is ensuring that punishments fit the criminal as well as the crime, thus reducing reoffending and crime itself. The fourth is radically improving treatment for victims, to ensure that their need for information, support and advice is better met at every stage of the criminal justice process.

Research that we have undertaken shows that a small group of hard-core, highly persistent offenders—fluid, but probably no more than 100,000 strong at any given time—may be responsible for about half of all crime. Our strategy, involving both investment and reform, is intended to help catch and convict more of those serious and persistent offenders, and to do so more often.

The police will have the means to give priority to those serious and persistent offenders. The entire active criminal population will be on the DNA database by 2004. The national intelligence model will be adopted by every police force to establish a consistent basis for gathering, sharing and using intelligence. In addition to previously announced measures to increase the number of police officers to the highest-ever level by March 2003, the document details proposals to improve detective capability, leadership and the management of senior careers in the police service, and to enhance the prospects of those who make a career of being a front-line constable.

As a whole, the criminal justice system will receive the biggest injection of new resources in 20 years. This will deliver more staff, more capacity, and the modernisation of information technology systems for all those working in the criminal justice agencies. A 23 per cent. real terms rise in funding for 2001–02 will enable the Crown Prosecution Service to recruit scores A extra prosecutors, remedying the underfunding that has bedevilled the service ever since it was established.

With that investment and reform must come results. There will be a criminal justice system-wide target for 2004 to increase by 100,000 the number of recorded crimes ending in an offender being brought to justice.

The document sets out why we also want to consider fully and carefully the scope for improving court organisation and procedures and the rules of evidence, and codifying and clarifying the criminal law itself. In December 1999, we asked Sir Robin Auld, a Lord Justice of Appeal, to conduct a comprehensive and independent review of the criminal courts. The Government will take final decisions after carefully considering his recommendations.

To achieve our broad goal of punishment that fits the criminal as well as the crime, we aim radically to reform the present sentencing structure, focusing on preventing reoffending as well as on punishment, and ensuring that persistent offending leads to an increased severity of punishment. There will be a new approach to community punishments and better enforcement.

From April this year, the new national probation service will have its funding increased by more than a fifth in real terms over the next three years, to Deliver a 5 per cent. reduction in reoffending. There will for the first time be proper supervision of short-sentence prisoners after their release, and a new emphasis on sentence management and review. In making final decisions in this area, we shall take full account of the review of the sentencing framework under Mr. John Halliday, a senior Home Office official.

There will be a range of new measures to deal with young offenders, including a commitment that every young offender in custody will get a minimum of 30 hours a week of education, training or similar development work.

Many of the 100,000 most persistent offenders are hard drug users. We must better target our efforts to break the link between drugs and crime. New measures include the introduction nationally of drug treatment and testing orders. There will be more referrals into treatment at the point of arrest, and drug testing at the point of charge, to ensure that we identify drug misuse problems and intervene much earlier. Over the next three years, spending on drug treatment is due to rise by 70 per cent., to more than £400 million.

There will also be a lot more money to help to educate prisoners and ensure that they are able to get work on release.

Finally, I would like to speak about victims and witnesses. Support for victims in the United Kingdom is already high by international standards—I am delighted during my period as Home Secretary to have doubled the amount of financial support available to victim support—and we have the most generous criminal injuries compensation scheme in the world, but the Government are determined to do still more to deliver a better deal for victims and witnesses.

Tomorrow, I will publish a consultation paper that will include details of our proposals for a new charter of victims" rights and a victims" ombudsman. That will include a commitment to ensure that victims are kept properly informed throughout the progress of their case.

We want the criminal justice system and everyone working within it to focus on two clear and linked outcomes: the delivery of justice and the reduction of crime. That is the goal of the programme that I have set out today. I commend the Command Paper to the House.

I thank the Home Secretary for his customary courtesy in providing the Opposition with a copy of his statement well in advance, but I draw his attention to the fact that, despite the supposed Home Office embargo, the press have had the details of the announcement drip-fed to them by Downing street over the past week. Perhaps the right hon. Gentleman would comment on that and tell us precisely who authorised it.

I welcome the Home Secretary"s intention to expand the number of secure training places by 400, but does he accept that that is modest compared with the 1,000 places that we have already announced we will provide? If the menace of youth crime is all that he claims it to be, why will the right hon. Gentleman not match our proposals? However, bearing in mind his opposition when the previous Government introduced secure training centres, I suppose that we ought to welcome the U-turn.

I also welcome the Home Secretary"s decision to consult on a new victims" charter. Will he be implementing the proposals that we have put forward for statutory rights for the victims of crime and if not, why not?

The right hon. Gentleman"s document says at paragraph 3.109 that victims and witnesses—[Interruption.] Labour Members just do not want to hear this, Mr. Speaker; that"s okay. The document says:

"Victims and witnesses want to be kept informed. Current performance is not good enough."

Is that not a damning indictment of the record of this Government, who in their manifesto four years ago pledged to ensure that victims were kept fully informed of the progress of their case? That manifesto pledge was broken and now we are supposed to rejoice at a consultation document, just a few weeks before a general election.

The right hon. Gentleman said that antisocial behaviour orders had removed a climate of fear and intimidation. How many orders did the Home Office estimate would be issued, and how many have actually been issued over the past two years? Are the 2,660 extra prison places on top of the 12,600 extra places over the 15 years to 2011 that were announced by the previous Government in March 1996? Will the right hon. Gentleman confirm that at any one time around 2,000 prisoners are out early on the Government"s home detention curfew scheme, in which case the extra places that he has announced should be occupied by those prisoners anyway?

Will the Home Secretary tell the House—no doubt his special adviser will have told him—how many prisoners will be released earlier than they are at present as a result of the proposals in his document, especially those on custody-plus sentences? Will he also spell out in detail exactly how persistent offenders will receive tougher sentences under the Government"s proposals? Will those sentences be mandatory and, if not, what guarantee is there that they will be imposed?

What exactly is the status of the Home Secretary"s so-called crime plan? Despite the spin doctors" efforts to convince us otherwise, there are hardly any firm detailed proposals on the courts or on sentencing. Throughout the document, the words "consider", "examine, "might" and "possibly" are used in relation to proposals that the right hon. Gentleman"s spin doctors have been putting forward over the past week as the Government"s firm plans for action.

Why is the right hon. Gentleman making what is billed as a major 10-year announcement on the court system and sentencing before either the Auld report on the criminal court system or the Halliday report on sentencing have been produced? Is he aware of Lord Justice Auld"s statement last week that the Lord Chancellor has assured him that, pending receipt and consideration of the report, the Government do not intend to take final decisions on issues within his terms of reference? Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that Lord Justice Auld has said that his review is

"unassociated with and uninfluenced by current Governmental and political initiatives"?

So, is what is in this so-called crime plan final or not? If not, how can the Home Secretary claim any credibility for proposals with which the senior judge conducting the Government"s own review of criminal justice clearly wants nothing to do? Should there not be a "check against delivery" sticker on the plan as well as on the right hon. Gentleman"s statement?

Under this Government, police numbers have been slashed by more than 2,500, violent crime is rising and more than 30,000 criminals have been let out of jail early. Many of the right hon. Gentleman"s flagship policies have been abject failures. In other words, the Government have produced endless spin and no delivery. Even the Prime Minister said this morning, "Clearly we haven"t done enough." What he actually meant was that, clearly, he has done very little.

Is it not the reality that the right hon. Gentleman was rushed into his announcement by a Prime Minister who has realised that his Government have failed to be tough on crime and to deliver on their promises? The Prime Minister thinks that the solution lies in making another set of promises in time for the election. The reality was stated by the Home Secretary"s own special adviser, Mr. Justin Russell, who said that the right hon. Gentleman"s policy "doesn"t look very impressive", and that it would be, in practice,

"a significant softening of sentencing arrangements".

In reality, is not today"s announcement a desperate attempt to cover up the failure of child curfew orders, antisocial behaviour orders and the special early release plan, which has created more than 1,000 victims of crimes committed by perpetrators who should still have been in jail, and who would have been in jail if we had been in office? Does not the announcement attempt to cover up the first rise in crime in six years and a huge decrease in both regular police officers and specials?

Far be it from me to reject a repentant sinner, but let me say this. When we proposed measures to give victims more rights, the Home Secretary was silent. When we proposed to expand secure training centre provision, he said that it would be too costly. When we proposed cops in shops and better use of part-timers, the right hon. Gentleman shrugged When we proposed more purpose in prison regimes, he laughed. Yet today he proposes all those things. If it has taken him so long to catch up with the Opposition, he should make way for us, which is exactly what he will have to do in a couple of months" time.

As usual, I shall endeavour to answer the right hon. Lady"s questions. She spoke of the time when her party was in office. Indelible from the record of the previous Government are the facts that crime doubled while the number of people convicted of crime fell by one third. They did nothing to bring together the disparate aspects of the criminal justice system. If one thing, above all others, led to the degradation of our criminal justice system, it was the botched reorganisation of the Crown Prosecution Service in the mid-1980s and its continued underfunding throughout the remainder of the Conservatives" period in office. That is one of the many things that we have determined we will put right. Now that the economy is on track, we are able to do so by increasing total spending on the CPS by 23 per cent. in a single year.

The right hon. Lady asked a series of questions. She noted that we are promising 400 extra secure training centre places for young offenders, but asked why we would not match her pledge of 1,000 places. The reason is simply that we are not in the business of spraying promises around like confetti without any resources to pay for them, as the previous Administration did with catastrophic electoral consequences.

The best illustration of the difference between what the Conservatives said and what they would have done had they returned to office in May 1997 lies in the spending plans that they published in the month of the election. They promised 5,000 extra officers, but, as the right hon. and learned Member for Folkestone and Hythe (Mr. Howard) will remember well, they also promised less money in real terms. That was the reality. Time and again, they made promises and refused to match them with money. We have matched our manifesto promises with action, and we have put those promises into practice.

The right hon. Lady asked about persistent offenders and whether the changes that we are flagging up would necessarily result in mandatory sentences. We shall not make a final decision on that point until we have received the report from John Halliday. What is plain, however, is that the Criminal Justice Act 1991, which established the present sentencing framework, is fundamentally flawed in that it does not give proper weight to the persistence of offending. That sentencing framework certainly needs to be changed. How exactly that is to be done remains to be seen, but I do not rule out the use of more mandatory sentences or of steps to ensure a proper gradation into custody if people do not accept the opportunities to get out of crime offered through more effective community punishments—just as we have provided similar steps for young offenders.

The last of the charges made against us by the right hon. Lady is that the Command Paper has, from time to time, used the words "consider" and "examine". I plead guilty to that charge. We do indeed say that we will consider and examine a number of proposals. If only the Opposition considered and examined ideas and proposals before they spoke about these matters, they would be much more effective as an Opposition.

I welcome the emphasis on victims in the Home Secretary"s statement. Does he agree that many communities throughout the country experience the occasional relief of seeing an individual or a small group of people consigned to prison and a consequent reduction in crime in their area, but fear a fresh wave of crime when those people emerge from prison? Does he agree that the strong message must be, first, that if people reoffend, punishment will be strict and will follow quickly; and secondly, that there will be the hope of rehabilitation—not least through a job—for those who chose an alternative way of proceeding?

I entirely agree with my right hon. Friend. We have to tackle the causes of crime We have to provide convicted offenders with a better or opportunity to get out of their life of crime, but as my right hon. Friend makes clear, we must also raise the game against persistent criminals. That is what we propose to do by ensuring effective supervision of short-sentence prisoners.

The right hon. Member for Maidstone and The Weald (Miss Widdecombe) asked me about the number of prisoners who were released early Last year, 95,000 prisoners were released early under her sentencing legislation.

No Opposition party can fail to welcome a Government who take an interest in trying to deal with crime and its causes—to that extent the Home Secretary"s statement is welcome. However, does the right hon. Gentleman agree that the launch of the plan comes after we have followed a four-year road that has been paved with failed intentions and full of falsely raised expectations? The Labour party still has a long way to go before it can persuade people throughout the country that it is effective in dealing either with crime or with the causes of crime.

On the deterrence and detection of crime, will the Home Secretary admit that it was a terrible mistake to let police numbers fall by 2,500 over he past two years? There should be a target, with a Government guarantee, that, within a few years at most there will be no community in the country that does not have enough police officers to do the job.

On conviction rates and the prevention of reoffending, does the right hon. Gentleman agree that we must do much better than we have done over the past year, when convictions dropped by 60,000? We must do much better on constructive activity in prison than at Pentonville, which he visited this morning, where such activity dropped from 24 to 20 hours a week under the previous Tory Government, and from 20 to 17 hours a week under the Labour Government. There should be a guarantee that every prisoner—not just young offenders—will have a full working week of constructive activity with, in addition, a full system of continuing rehabilitation for as long as they need it when they leave prison.

On victims, especially the victims of the alcohol and drug-related offences that are such a terrible scourge, will the Home Secretary reconsider the Government"s refusal thus far to accept the establishment of a permanent advisory body, like a royal commission, on the abuse of alcohol and drugs? Victims should have the right not only to give written statements—that is welcome—but to appear before the court after conviction and before sentence if they choose to do so. Such initiatives would be much more effective than either the gimmick of curfews or the attempt to get rid of the right to choose jury trial on which the liberties of many people depend.

I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for his constructive approach to the proposals. I do not accept what he says about our record. He would be hard-pressed to find another incoming Administration in the past 50 years who have had a better record in reducing crime. Crime increased by 40 per cent. in the first three and a half years of the Major Administration and by 20 per cent. in the first three and a half years of the Thatcher Administration, but in the first three and a half years of the Blair Administration, crime has decreased by between seven and 10 per cent. That is the truth of our record.

I regret the fact that police numbers had fallen until about a year ago, just as I regret the fact that they fell, from 1993, under the previous Administration. However, I regret very much more the fact that there were boom-and-bust policies in place that would have led, and would have continued to lead, to an even larger reduction in police numbers under the previous Administration"s published spending plans. That is the truth, and the simple fact is that we have put more money into the police service than the previous Administration had planned to do. In many cases, chief constables chose to spend the money in other ways, and the number of civilian officers has increased by 1,000 while the number of uniformed officers had decreased by 2,500, but that is now turning around. There is a 75 per cent. increase in the number of new recruits going to the training schools, and the number of police officers will rise to record levels within two to three years.

I am not sure that the hon. Gentleman is correct to say that convictions dropped by 40,000. The figures, which I looked at this morning, show that convictions increased from 300,000 in 1996 to about 340,000 last year.

We want a clearer definition of purposeful activity. At the moment, it includes, for example, time spent seeing visitors, which is important but does not stop people reoffending. We are doubling the number of places in education available to prisoners and doubling the number of opportunities for prisoners to go straight from prison to work, and I think that that will work.

The hon. Gentleman is right to talk about the problems of alcohol abuse. I do not think that a royal commission would solve that problem at the moment, but I am willing to consider the matter. I believe that, although people are increasingly aware of the problems of hard drug abuse in this country, we are only beginning to understand how serious is alcohol abuse, which is linked not only to violent crime, but to many other crimes. We are doing a lot in the Criminal Justice and Police Bill, which is currently before Parliament, but I know that there is a lot more that we should do.

Will my right hon. Friend tell the House more about the plans to deal with those who reoffend and commit further crimes when out on bail—a matter of intense frustration to the police in Greater Manchester? Is he aware that the Greater Manchester police—whose numbers have risen, are rising and are programmed to rise still further—are being caused great offence by posters scattered around Manchester from the Conservative party that describe the police as paper shufflers? Given that civilianisation has reached 90 per cent. among the Greater Manchester police, is it not time that the Conservative party supported the police instead of insulting them?

Yes, I entirely agree with my right hon. Friend. Only last week I had the privilege of discussing the problems, especially that of bail bandits, with Mr. David Wilmott, the chief constable of Greater Manchester, and his colleagues. I am pleased to say that, last weekend, the Minister of State, my right hon. Friend the Member for Brent, South (Mr. Boateng) announced changes, which will be included in the Criminal Justice and Police Bill, to make it easier for courts to place on remand young offenders who break their bail. That is long overdue. We strongly support the change, which is suggested in "Criminal Justice: The Way Ahead", to the way in which the Bail Act 1976 is drafted so that there should be a presumption against bail wherever bail or its conditions are broken. My right hon. Friend and I hear far too many stories from police officers about cases where courts have granted bail—often on certain conditions—but where, when the offender has been brought back before the court for breaching those conditions, instead of immediately remanding him into custody, which is where he should be, the court has either continued the bail with conditions or, in far too many extraordinary cases, has abandoned the bail conditions altogether. That is simply an invitation to those offenders to continue spree offending, and it must be ended. That requires changes to the law, but we already expect changes in practice by the courts.

I agree with my right hon. Friend the Member for Gorton about paper shuffling. The police do not take kindly to the near insult that they have received from the Conservative party about their work. The simple truth is that, under our Administration, we have cut by a third the paper burden on the police. We introduced the Narey reforms and they are reflected in the indicators of police morale, which show that sickness rates have gone down very significantly and that assaults on the police have dropped by a quarter.

When will the Home Secretary abandon his ludicrous practice of comparing his performance with that of the first four years of the incoming Conservative Government more than 20 years ago—a Government who themselves inherited from their predecessors a legacy of apparently inexorably rising crime—and start to compare his performance with that of the final four years of the previous Government, when crime fell by an unprecedented 18 per cent? That was the legacy that he him self inherited.

Given the unprecedented rebuke that Lord Justice Auld administered to the Government last week, may I also press the Home Secretary on the relationship between his proposals and the Auld report? In view of the Lord Chancellor"s assurance that no final decisions would be taken on anything within the terms of reference of the Auld report until the report had been received and considered, how many of the proposals that have been issued with such a fanfare today should have been marked "purely provisional"? Would it not have been better to wait until the Auld report had been received and considered?

The right hon. and learned Gentleman became something of a connoisseur of rebukes from the judiciary when he was Home Secretary. Under our proposals, his offending record would certainly qualify him for a lengthy period inside while, even under the stricter regime that I am proposing, I would probably get off for a first offence—and it is a first offence—with a caution.

I do not recognise the description of Lord Justice Auld"s remarks as a rebuke. His work is independent and I am quite clear that his report will be independent. He placed the emerging themes of his report on a website for everyone to see. They were not his recommendations, but they were themes and we have drawn on them. I happen to think that the whole House will welcome this indication of the direction in which we wish the criminal justice system to go.

With regard to the right hon. and learned Gentleman"s first point, he cannot have it both ways. At the last election and the previous one, he campaigned time and again on the Conservative Government"s record on the economy and many other things. He cannot pick and choose the dates that suit him. [HON. MEMBERS: "You did."] I am picking a date when there was an election—May 1997. The right hon. and learned Gentleman cannot continue like some Pol Pot figure declaring a year zero—but if wants to pick and choose, I have the figures for his period with me. Between April 1991–92 and April 1996–97—that is he period he wanted—total violent crime increased by 28 per cent. and robbery increased by 52 per cent.

I welcome my right hon. Friend"s statement and wish to point out that West Midlands police has, in the past year, achieved a cut of one in eight in the number of burglaries, improved by one in five the number of robberies detected and is charging substantially more people with offences involving cocaine and heroin. Given that too many prisoners return to prison, can my right hon. Friend confirm that he expects the Prison Service to set and meet high targets for work on rehabilitation and resettlement as the most effective way of preventing reoffending, and that it will have the resources to do that?

Yes, I can. I also pay tribute to the West Midlands police service, which with a budget similar to those of many other services increased its police numbers by nearly 240 between April 1997 and September last year.

The Home Secretary has said that at last there will be a significant increase in the budget of the Crown Prosecution Service. Will he confirm that the service remains independent? Will he explain what is meant by the criminal justice system-wide target to increase by 100,000 the number of recorded crimes ending with an offender being brought to justice? Does that mean that, this year, 100,000 such recordable crimes are going unprosecuted, or are we to expect an increase of at least 100,000 in such recordable crimes? Is it not a matter for the Crown Prosecution Service to decide where and when it is right and fair to prosecute, and not for the Home Secretary?

Of course the Attorney-General and the Director of Public Prosecutions properly remain independent of, for example, the Home Secretary. However, the antediluvian approach that the right hon. and learned Gentleman has exhibited shows precisely why we need far better to co-ordinate the work of the criminal justice agencies. Independence in decision making on individual cases cannot equal immunity from any effective management or co-ordination of the different criminal justice services.

Is my right hon. Friend aware that, all too often, criminals on council estates go free because witnesses are terrified to give evidence? They know that when they go to if e police, their name will somehow get out, and the next day they find that their car has been vandalised, they get phone calls at midnight from heavy-breathers and they are abused and shouted at in the street. Those witnesses come ot their MPs and give us names and addresses, and we take the matter up with the police, but the culture of fear goes on.

Even in drugs cases, people on council estates who let the police take pictures or film a video from their bedroom window have their name read out in court, which is a load of nonsense. Communities in Northern Ireland and New York, for example, have realised that there should be rewards, even cash rewards, for giving evidence. There must also be protection for witnesses who live on the estates and who have to suffer the consequences even after the criminals have gone to jai. Until we eradicate that fear, more and more criminals will get off scot-free.

I share my hon. Friend"s concern about the intimidation that takes place not only on council estates but elsewhere. Fortunately, although there has been only a relatively small increase in the grand total, the number of people being brought to justice is going up while crime is going down. A great deal more needs to be done to rebalance the criminal justice system so that there is a fair balance between the defendant, the public and the victim.

I was astonished to discover that when the right hon. and learned Member for North-East Bedfordshire (Sir N. Lyell) was Attorney-General, fees for defence counsel were allowed to grow significantly in advance of those available to the prosecuting counsel in the same cases. That was a scandalous situation—which arose I am sure inadvertently, but under the right hon. and learned Gentleman"s nose.

We are including in a Bill currently before Parliament much better protection for witnesses, particularly in cases involving antisocial behaviour orders. The right hon. Member for Maidstone and The Weald (Miss Widdecombe) asked me about the number of ASBOs, which I found extraordinary because the Conservatives" policy is to tear up that law altogether so that people in those communities would have none of the protection afforded by those orders. Some 150 ASBOs have been put in place, which is 150 more than there would have been under the previous Administration. We want that number greatly to increase, but the Conservative party would leave communities without any proper protection.

Is the right hon. Gentleman aware of the great concern in rural areas about low police numbers? When will he introduce the recommendation of the external consultants whom he employed that the sparsity factor in the police funding formula should be increased? When the right hon. Gentleman has taken advice, will he tell the House when he proposes to pay special constables?

On the right hon. and learned Gentleman"s first point, although the standard spending assessment formula for next year does not provide for that, we have followed a different route and provision is made in the formula for Lincolnshire. [Interruption.] No, I am talking about the next three years. Rural forces will receive £30 million over the next three years, based on the equivalent of the sparsity formula. We believe that we are greatly helping rural forces.

My right hon. Friend knows that I always welcome statements that announce his intention to deal robustly with offenders, especially persistent young offenders. I am happy to say that I represent one of the safest boroughs in London. It is so safe because its police have welcomed my right hon. Friend"s policies and have targeted persistent young offenders. Is he aware of the pioneering system that they use to get the local community to help them to find persistent young offenders? As part of the "ringmaster" system, the police forewarn people about possible crimes in their areas, which encourages members of the community to be more vigilant and respond more quickly to the police. In targeting persistent young offenders, especially those who consistently offend in particular areas, can my right hon. Friend say how we can expand the Lewisham system to ensure that such people are brought to book?

I pay tribute to the Lewisham police and local authority and to everyone else who has helped to reduce crime in that area. Lewisham"s experience shows that, for the same resources that are available to many equivalent London and other metropolitan boroughs, a great deal can be achieved by having good leadership and management and a clear focus on crime reduction. My hon. Friend asks about the "ringmaster" system. I do not know a huge deal about it, but I am looking forward to receiving further details on it, especially on how we can make better use of it, for example in the crime reduction plan and crime reduction toolkits that we are making available across the country.

The Home Secretary mentioned codification of the criminal law. Does that mean that he recognises that annual legislation on criminal justice has not proved helpful in removing inflated expectations of change? Bearing in mind that the Law Commission"s proposals for codification have been lying on the table for many years, what does he intend to do about it?

I have in front of me the Canadian "Pocket Criminal Code" from 1996 which contains in one volume Canada"s human rights Act, all its substantive criminal law, its procedural law and matters of jurisdiction. We should aim to have such a simple code. I am aware that the Canadian Parliament regularly amends the law. I do not accept that the sensible and widely welcomed amendments that I have introduced over the past four years could not happen under a codification system. However, if we move towards a codification process, Parliament will need to examine its internal procedures. We have sensible procedures to deal with consolidation, but do not have up-to-date modern procedures to deal with codification. We would need those if such a code were to be kept regularly up to date.

Can we have an assurance that the next Labour Government will hit the ground thinking on drugs policy? We will soon be marking the 30th anniversary of the Misuse of Drugs Act 1971. During that time, the greatest failure in almost every European country has been an inability to reduce drug use, drug death and drug crime, which have increased by 2000 per cent. Can my right hon. Friend re-examine the Police Foundation report and consider the examples of Portugal, Spain, Belgium, Austria, Germany, the Netherlands and Switzerland, which have redefined drug use? As a result, they have reduced drug-related crime and have redirected money to other purposes. That has saved money, especially with regard to crimes that create victims. Are we going to be one of the last countries in the world to continue to use our criminal justice system to persecute and imprison seriously ill people for using a drug medicinally?

Of course, we shall continue to think very carefully about this issue. We make our own decisions on cannabis, as does the House, but we are led by scientific evidence. That does not come full square to my hon. Friend"s view. He needs to bear in mind the fact that, although we all recognise his evangelical zeal for a particular solution, it does not follow that just because everybody thinks about an issue, they come to only one conclusion: the one that he happens to draw.

Does the right hon. Gentleman still hold the view that successful prosecution of local criminals is based very much on the willingness of local witnesses to come forward to assist the police? That depends to a considerable extent on magistrates courts being near the community that they cover. Therefore, will the right hon. Gentleman have words with the Lord Chancellor to try to overcome the right hon. and noble Gentleman"s desire to close magistrates courts throughout the country? The closure of seven near or around my area of Devon is quite unnecessary.

I am sure that my right hon. and noble Friend the Lord Chancellor would be very interested in any evidence—and I mean evidence—of a shift in the numbers of people prosecuted as some courts are closed. I have not seen that evidence, but I am sure that my right hon. and noble Friend would be open to argument about it. We are concerned with a modernised criminal justice system, end to end, letter to get the criminals who have committed offences into justice.

An anti-crime strategy depends on effective partnerships at local as well as national level. I wonder what my right hon. Friend thinks about the decision of the Lib-Dem council in Stockport to remove funding for a post on the youth offending team, which shows very little commitment to tackling youth crime. Will my right hon. Friend be tough not only on crime but on the councils that fail to deliver their part of the crime bargain?

I was not aware of that; I shall certainly look into it with some care. I am of course aware that not a day goes past—indeed, not an hour goes past—in this place without the Liberal Democrats promising to spend even more than the Conservative party on one thing after another. It is a different story locally. I know the youth offending team in Stockport; I have high admiration for it. One of its greatest success stories—ensuring that a persistent young offender got custody and then moved out of criminality—is highlighted on page 31 of the Command Paper.

Is the Home Secretary aware that, shortly, when Sevenoaks police station is closed, there will not be a single fully manned police station in my constituency, and that all these cross-cutting programmes and partnerships are no substitute for proper, locally based policing of our streets and villages? Does he also accept that one cause of the justice gap to which, he referred is the police gap that he created?

I am aware that at any time individual chief officers will make judgments about how they use their resources. As people"s patterns of life change, there will be some changes. That led to the closure of many more police stations while the Conservatives were in office. In North Yorkshire—I speak from recollection—75 police stations were closed during the five years immediately preceding this Administration.

As for Kent, David Phillips and Kent constabulary have one of the best records of any chief constable and of any police service in the country. I should have thought that, rather than whingeing about that, the hon. Gentleman would be praising the success of a very good police service.

Does my right hon. Friend agree that drugs are the root cause of many crimes? On a recent visit to Armley prison in Leeds, I was told that more than 80 per cent. of offenders there had some connection with drug abuse; yet, when they are released, they are too often and for too long left to their own devices, and return to the cycle of drug abuse. What measures can be taken to encourage former prisoners to adopt a more positive and productive, rather than destructive, life style?

I entirely accept my hon. Friend"s observation. A significant proportion—at least half and probably two thirds—of the hard core of 100,000 persistent offenders are heroin or cocaine abusers. We are intercepting drug abusers at the point of arrest through arrest referral schemes. Compulsory testing at the point of charge will ensure that that information is available to the courts when deciding whether to grant bail: in general, a court dealing with a persistent drug abuser should not provide bail, as that will simply lead into a continuing cycle of drug abuse. We are also setting specified community punishments, such as drug treatment and testing orders. Persons going into custody will have clear through-care, with detox, education and treatment in custody and steps taken to ensure that they continue that treatment on release. That is one of the reasons why my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Health and I are establishing a national treatment agency for drug abuse and increasing its funds by 70 per cent.

The Home Secretary asked for evidence of the effect on the criminal justice system of the closure of magistrates courts. Victims of crime in my constituency tell me—and, through me, the Home Secretary—that they do not want to travel two hours to have their case heard in a magistrates court. How can the people of Wales, especially those living in rural areas, have any faith in the latest bunch of promises when the Government propose to close two thirds of the magistrates courts in west Wales?

I know that my right hon. and noble Friend the Lord Chancellor is always open to representations. However, as people"s pattern of life changes, so, too, does public service provision. Police numbers in every police service in Wales have increased since 1997, and the crime reduction record of those police services has been exemplary. South Wales has had one of the best records in the country, with a reduction in crime of more than 20 per cent. since 1997.

With permission, I wish to make a statement about the outbreak of foot and mouth disease.

As my right hon. and noble Friend Baroness Hayman reported on 21 February, the first case of foot and mouth disease in the United Kingdom for 20 years was confirmed on the evening of last Tuesday, 20 February, in pigs at an abattoir and in cattle on a neighbouring farm near Brentwood in Essex. The number of confirmed cases of foot and mouth disease rose to nine this morning; two further cases, bringing the total to 11, have been confirmed early this afternoon.

Today"s cases are, first, in sheep at Hatherleigh near Okehampton in Devon at another farm in the same ownership as the one confirmed yesterday; at Bromham near Chippenham in Wiltshire, in sheep at an abattoir that received animals from the Devon source; in a farm between the two cases in Northumberland, which is likely to have been windborne spread; and at a farm near the Welsh border in Herefordshire, which had also received sheep from Devon. Infected area restrictions are being imposed. A decision was taken at lunchtime today to kill the remaining animals on the several premises in Devon under the same ownership, and on one neighbouring farm, as dangerous contacts.

Investigations are continuing into a number of other premises where there is reason to believe that there may be disease. The Government"s overriding priority is the containment and eradication of this disease. On 21 February, the United Kingdom Government and the European Commission acted swiftly to prohibit temporarily the export of live animals, meat, fresh milk and other animal products from the UK. Given the acutely infectious nature of foot and mouth disease, that was a necessary step in helping to prevent the spread of the disease to other countries. We are able to export non-susceptible animals and their products, provided that they meet certain conditions and are accompanied by veterinary certificates. Appropriate certificates are now available for issue from MAFF animal health offices.

We immediately ceased issuing export health certificates for export to third countries for any animals or products which cannot also be exported to other European Union member states. Let me make it absolutely clear to the House that that applies whether or not the import conditions for a given country would allow us to export. We are urgently tracing all exports of foot and mouth disease susceptible animals from areas under suspicion to other member states since 1 February, but before the export ban came into effect. The European Commission has been kept informed at every stage, along with our EU partners. I shall be updating the Council of Agriculture Ministers tomorrow. In particular, we advised the German authorities of a consignment of sheep from the Devon outbreak, and those sheep were slaughtered by the German authorities yesterday.

Some of the cases have been on premises which are associated with substantial movements of animals. The confirmation of the cases in Northumberland on Friday 23 February showed that the disease was not confined to Essex, and had been in the country longer than had at first been apparent. In those new circumstances, the chief veterinary officer advised that stringent controls were needed. After discussion with the food and farming industries, and with the devolved Administrations, I announced later on Friday 23 February that there should be a seven day standstill of livestock movements throughout Great Britain. That exceptional measure was imposed at 5 pm on Friday, and is due to expire at midnight on Friday 2 March.

The Department of Health and the Food Standards Agency have confirmed that foot and mouth disease has no implications for human health or food. The disease causes serious loss of condition, and therefore commercial value, to the main farmed animal species of cattle, pigs and sheep. The presence of disease also blocks our export markets. The disease is highly infectious between animals and it can be transmitted by movements of people and vehicles. Unlike classical swine fever, which we had to deal with in East Anglia last year, it is carried through the air.

Firm control measures had to be taken. The Government are well aware of the disruption that the temporary controlled area in Great Britain has caused to farming, the food chain and the wider rural community. I pay tribute to the responsible approach that the industry and the public are taking. During the course of this week, the state veterinary service, under the chief veterinary officer, will continue its huge task of tracing and controlling the disease. It has been assured of all of the resources that it needs for that task. The Government are calling on the private veterinary profession and other countries" state veterinary services for assistance.

Baroness Hayman, the Minister of State, will be meeting industry and veterinary representatives tomorrow with the chief veterinary officer. Among other matters, they will discuss whether it is possible, consistent with a rigorous approach to the control of disease, to allow for some tightly controlled movement of livestock for slaughter. Consideration is also being given to the temporary closure of footpaths and rights of way. We are keeping in the closest touch with retailers and food producers to ensure that there should be no serious disruption to food supplies. I am grateful to consumers who have, as I requested, continued their normal pattern of buying.

The House will know that the policy of successive Governments has been that compensation is paid only for animals which are slaughtered for disease control purposes—in the case of foot and mouth disease, at full market value. Foot and mouth disease presents a relatively clear clinical picture. Incubation periods tend to be short. I therefore hope that the movement restrictions necessary for disease control will not have to be too protracted.

The Government are determined to eliminate this disease. My ministerial team, my Department"s staff and I will give this work the highest priority. I welcome the firm support that we have received from the industry, people throughout the country, our European partners, and others further afield in our efforts to do so.

I welcome the Minister"s statement. I am grateful to him for letting me have a copy of it about 45 minutes ago.

This matter is extremely serious. I am sure that every Member will join me in expressing profound sympathy for farmers who are affected and in the front line of the crisis, and full support for everyone who is involved in the struggle to contain the disease.

The Opposition will give full backing to all the measures that are needed to contain the spread of foot and mouth disease, to assist livestock farmers through the crisis, to maintain food supplies and to restore export markets. We fully support the steps that have already been taken by the Government. I join the Minister in recognising the work of the state veterinary service, other vets and the many other people who have been under great pressure. It is likely that the work will have to continue for some time.

Will the Minister make it clear, at least in principle, that the Government recognise the problems of farmers who cannot move animals off their farms? Given the confirmation in his statement of further cases of foot and mouth disease, can he confirm that the seven day standstill of animal movements announced on Friday is likely to have to be extended? Does he appreciate that cashflow problems for many farmers will quickly become extremely acute? What help does he expect to offer those farmers and when is it likely that he will be able to make an announcement about such help? Does he agree that the £200 million of unclaimed agrimonetary compensation on the table in Brussels, much of which is due to the livestock sector, should be claimed in full immediately?

Containment is clearly the top priority, but understanding how foot and mouth disease came to Britain is crucial if the risk of a recurrence is to be minimised. What steps are the Government taking to identify the source of the outbreak? If it appears that the source was imported meat, is the right hon. Gentleman ready to tighten controls on imports? Is he able to confirm reports that the unit in Northumberland was feeding pigs on swill, and bought its supplies from airports whose own sources may have been overseas?

I endorse the Minister"s advice to the public to avoid visiting livestock farming areas. Reports over the weekend suggest that not everyone has heeded that advice. I hope that the right hon. Gentleman will be able to conclude his consideration of whether action can be taken temporarily to suspend the use of footpaths and close rights of way. The Opposition will strongly support such moves. If parliamentary action is needed, we shall give it as fast a tract as we reasonably can.

Does the Minister agree that the crisis is sufficiently important to warrant an urgent debate in Parliament? It is a pity that the Government have not seen fit to change their business this week. I can announce that the Opposition will use half of our day on Wednesday for a debate on the matter to provide an opportunity to explore the subject in more detail.

Does the Minister agree also that the industry is too weak to survive such a crisis without urgent help? Does he recognise that the heartbreaking prospect for many farmers is not only the loss of their livelihood, but the destruction of their life"s work? Does he understand that the risk of human tragedies in these circumstances is real? Will he therefore assure the House that no stone will be left unturned in tackling the threat that faces one of Britain"s most important industries?

That is a very welcome change of tone from the hon. Gentleman. I confirm that no measure will be left untaken and no stone left unturned in suppressing foot and mouth disease. The Government"s policy is to contain the disease and then to eradicate it.

I do not welcome the idea of an urgent debate. It will divert both ministerial resources and scarce veterinary resources from the front line that is bearing down on the disease—[Interruption.] This Opposition have just said that they will do everything they can to help the Government to suppress the disease. If their idea of helping is to divert resources, including ministerial time, from dealing with the disease outbreak to dealing with a parliamentary debate, I am glad that they are not setting out to disrupt us—[Interruption.]

On the question whether we will close the—[Interruption.]

Order.

It is absolutely disgraceful that the Opposition should try to shout down a Minister who is trying to respond to questions that they raised under the pretence of trying to help, but with every intention of gaining party political advantage from what ought to be an issue that unites us all in the national interest.

On access to the countryside, as I said in my statement, we are considering taking legal action to close rights of way temporarily.

On our understanding of the origin of the infection, I have already said in public that I have asked officials, first, to type the strain and give Ministers a list of potential sources if they cannot narrow it down to one; secondly, to consider whether our control measures are being enforced adequately—clearly, the law is firm but the question is whether controls are being enforced adequately; and thirdly, to examine the way in which the food chain works nowadays, with intensive farming and just-in-time delivery, and to consider whether that makes us more vulnerable to disease.

On compensation for consequential losses, no Government have ever paid compensation for consequential losses. The previous Government did not; the present Government have not, except where animal welfare issues were involved in the recent outbreak of classical swine fever in East Anglia. The question of agrimonetary compensation is a separate one and is being considered separately.

As for future movement restrictions, of course that issue is being kept under review. As I pointed out in my statement, it is likely that the regime will have to be reshaped, and, subject to veterinary advice, that will happen.

I have to tell the House that I have just had a twelfth case confirmed to me—a further Devon case, which is linked to the farm near Okehampton.

I congratulate my right hon. Friend on moving so quickly and comprehensively to freeze livestock movements. Does he agree with the British Veterinary Association that vaccination is not currently a viable policy? Vaccinated animals carry the virus, so all susceptible animals would have to be vaccinated repeatedly. That would mean that the disease would become endemic and would block exports from this country to a large section of the world.

Does my right hon. Friend also agree that the outbreak is further evidence of the importance of a well-equipped state veterinary service? Does he recall that under the Conservatives, between 1992 and 1997 the number of state vets was allowed to fall by about a third? Will he make it his objective in the medium to long term to restore the state veterinary service to its previous strength?

I have pledged to the chief veterinary officer, Jim Scudamore, all the resources that he needs to contain the outbreak, and he assures me that he is getting the resources that he needs.

On vaccination, I am advised not just by the chief vet, but by the National Farmers Union, the livestock industry and the major processors and retailers, that they would not welcome the use of vaccination to control the disease, rather than the use of movement restrictions, quarantine and extinction. There are two reasons for that: we would lose our export markets for a very long time, and we would be acknowledging that we had foot and mouth disease here in the United Kingdom. Our intention is not to acknowledge that it is here, but to exterminate it and get back to our disease-free status.

I thank the Minister for his statement and for his usual courtesy in providing an advance copy.

I have a few questions. The ban on livestock movement will expire this Friday. What regime of controls is the right hon. Gentleman considering to follow the present ban? On the importation of food supplies, is he satisfied that food is being imported from foot and mouth disease-free countries? What consideration is he giving to banning the importation of food from countries that are known to have endemic foot and mouth disease?

Will he comment on the position of farmers with cattle that are approaching 30 months of age? Such farmers may have significant problems in respect of the over-30-months scheme. If they are prevented from selling cattle that are currently of 29 months of age, they will suffer considerable loss when those animals are more than 30-months-old. Finally, who has overall decision-making responsibility within the United Kingdom, bearing in mind the devolved responsibilities? What liaison is under way with Scotland in particular?

The devolved authorities and the Ministry are working closely together and are devising common approaches. Before any change is made, we speak at official level and, if necessary, consult on the telephone at ministerial level. What the hon. Gentleman said about the over-30-months scheme is true and we are keeping the matter under review. I cannot promise a relaxation of the regime to deal immediately with animals that are caught by the current circumstances, but I have it at the forefront of my mind. When veterinary authorities tell me that is possible to relax movement restrictions, that will be a priority for consideration.

On the question of food imports, it is already unlawful to import from an area where foot and mouth disease is endemic any product that might bear the virus. On livestock movements, although I cannot make a comprehensive statement to the House today, I can say two things: there is bound to be a successor regime

following the expiry of the present regime this Friday, and I am considering how it should be shaped and what exceptions should be allowed.

May I join those who have said how awful this tragedy is, not only for farmers but for all those who live in the countryside? My right hon. Friend has the support of men and women of good will for the rigorous manner in which he has approached the situation. That is clearly the right way forward. I have two brief questions. First, will my right hon. Friend ensure that every facility is made available to local authority trading standards officers, who are responsible for monitoring the movement books for cattle and other animals? Secondly, will he reconsider the issue of imported feedstuffs? I understand what the regulations say, but there is a feeling in the farming community that they have not always been adhered to.

I thank my right hon. Friend for his remarks. We have been inundated with expressions of support for the approach that we are taking—expressions that have come even from those who are most affected by it. My right hon. Friend is absolutely right to stress the importance of the work of trading standards officers. Of course, they are employed by local authorities, but we are in touch with their central co-ordinating body and they will be present at our meeting tomorrow with other interested parties. On imported feed, I have asked for work to be done to consider whether our enforcement of the current rules is as rigorous as it should be, or whether there is some other area that we need to address. The continuing inquiries into the source of the outbreak will inform that trawl of the regulations.

The Minister will understand the great shock in my constituency and the fear within the local farming community, which has been reinforced by the billowing smoke that is over Warley. Over the weekend, I spoke to Mr. Gemmel, a farmer who is one of the victims of the foot and mouth disease outbreak. He is showing great restraint and dignity while seeing his life"s work destroyed. I spoke a short time ago to Mr. Cheal, the owner of the abattoir, who is working to eradicate the disease. He commends to the Minister and the House the sharp-eyed veterinary officer who spotted it. If that had not happened, the outbreak would undoubtedly have been more serious.

A couple of lessons can be learned from farmers in my constituency. The Minister will recall that I rang his office on Friday to ask that farms in the immediate vicinity receive information and advice. I am pleased to say that they have now done so. I hope that that is now commonplace where outbreaks occur. Unhappiness was expressed over the weekend because the Ministry website, the prime source of information, had not been updated. I am pleased that that has now happened.

Farmers in my constituency, especially those affected by the restrictions, stressed that the nature of farming has changed since 1967. Much diversification has happened into, for example, farm shops. Such activities are affected by movement restrictions. The problem that my hon. Friend the Member for South Suffolk (Mr. Yeo) raised is therefore acute. I hope that, when examining the new regime which will replace the current system on Friday, the Minister will carefully consider that problem and realise that farming in Essex is on a knife edge.

The hon. Gentleman makes four fair points. He is right that farmers and abattoir owners are the victims, not the cause, of the problem. They deserve sympathy and support, not blame. The best thing that the Government can do is to eliminate foot and mouth disease and help return the industry to normal trading as quickly as possible.

I am grateful for the hon. Gentleman"s comments about sharp-eyed vets and abattoir workers. Their prompt action in alerting the Ministry may well have helped contain the spread of the terrible condition, and the hon. Gentleman is right to praise them.

I want to provide information as quickly as possible and to be candid with the public. Circumstances are changing quickly, and there is a great hunger in the media for information. We are therefore holding regular briefings to tell them how matters have advanced. The media provide information immediately and everything that is said is broadcast at once. Many people may well find out about developments for the first time through the media. That is the way of the modern world. We are doing everything we can to ensure that the National Farmers Union and other interested parties get information as quickly as possible. However, the media tend to get there first nowadays—and that applies not only in the circumstances that we are discussing.

I congratulate my right hon. Friend on the prompt and rigorous action that he and his officials have taken, not only in the United Kingdom but with our European partners, to try to counteract the deadly and frightening outbreak of foot and mouth disease. Does he recognise " that all reasonable people, not only in the House but throughout the country and especially in farming communities, will strongly support the measures that he has to pursue, however widespread they may become, to eliminate the sources of the infection? Will he refuse to be deflected by Opposition calls to take action on compensation that the Conservatives never took when in government?

Will my right hon. Friend pursue with Ben Gill, the president of the NFU —who has shown more statesmanship than the Conservative spokesman ever displayed—and the farming communities and their representatives all necessary action to eliminate foot and mouth disease and thus remove the threat from the thousands of farmers who are living in fear and trepidation?

The approach that my right hon. Friend outlines is right. Everyone contrasts the attitude of the NFU and others who earn their livelihoods in the livestock and food processing sectors with that of those who try to make political capital out of a national tragedy. My right hon. Friend is right to draw the House"s attention to the irony of demands for agrimonetary compensation from a political party that lid not pay a penny when it was in government.

The Minister will realise that the main suspect is a waste food feeder and that that was not the case in the swine fever epidemic. Will he focus attention on that and tell the House when there is something to report? Identifying the cause is crucial.

Does the right hon. Gentleman acknowledge that footpaths and bridlepaths were heavily used in, for example, North Yorkshire at the weekend? The Government should take urgent action to close them, albeit temporarily, and perhaps issue red notices to bring home to people psychologically the importance of what is at stake. Will the right hon. Gentleman also bear in mind that farmers have to take their stocks to abattoirs, and that we do not want thousands of trailers running round the countryside trying to deliver livestock? What attention will he give to using some form of collection centres, such as auction marts, where proper disinfectant can be applied and where vehicles that we can be sure cannot transmit the disease can be provided?

On the right hon. Gentleman"s third point, consideration is being given to exactly that matter, and I hope to have something to say on it relatively soon. It is being considered in the context of the way in which the current movement restrictions work. The right hon. Gentleman asked a perfectly fair question about footpaths, and consideration is being given to whether more needs to be done. I am grateful to those members of the public who have heeded my request that they stay away from livestock farms for the time being. As the right hon. Gentleman knows, laws work best when they have consent behind them, but there are obvious questions of enforcement.

Of course, we all want to get to the absolute root cause of the matter, and as I said earlier to the hon. Member for South Suffolk (Mr. Yeo), work is under way in the Ministry to get as close to that as we can. The right hon. Gentleman invites me to say more, but I am afraid that I cannot—at least in part for legal reasons.

Is my right hon. Friend aware of the anxiety among the people in the west of Newcastle and in southern Northumberland at the events of the past week at Burnside farm, which is partly in my constituency? That anxiety has been fuelled by the further revelation today of a suspected outbreak at Westerhope farm, which is probably almost entirely in my constituency.

There is an overwhelming demand from all those within and outside the farming community that politicians do not bicker about this matter but deal with the real problems. Those people are asking how this could possibly have occurred at this farm in our area. I know what my right hon. Friend said in response to an earlier question, but will he say what time scale will apply to any investigation into the root cause? It has been reported that some of the conditions at Burnside farm partly contributed to the spread of the disease. Will my right hon. Friend confirm whether his officials have identified that as a possible reason for the spread?

I agree with my hon. Friend that this should not be a party political issue. Indeed, the entire nation should unite behind the Government in our stated objective of containing and eliminating the outbreak. The farm at Heddon-on-the-Wall is believed to be the farm at which the outbreak has been in the United Kingdom for the longest time and, therefore, as far as we know at the moment, the first source of the disease. Investigations are continuing, and I do not want to say any more on that—again, partly for legal reasons.

It is likely that the spread to the farm in my hon. Friend"s constituency was windborne, and we have placed the area under strict quarantine. By far the best thing we can do is to quarantine the problem, bear down on it and eliminate it, and get back to a disease-free status as quickly as possible. I am grateful for what my hon. Friend said about the Government"s approach.

There has been a number of confirmed cases of foot and mouth disease in my constituency and, given the parlous state of agriculture, that is a catastrophe for farmers and for many in the allied industries. I have spoken to Mr. Cleave in my constituency a number of times; he tells me that the work of MAFF and the MAFF vets is excellent and wants me to pay tribute to them. Nevertheless, I must raise a number of points on behalf of my constituents.

The first point relates to agrimonetary compensation. The Minister will be aware that all the eligible European Union countries draw that down. We hoped to hear from him a date when the money could be drawn down for our agriculture industry.

My second point concerns consequential loss. There is now much feed and fertiliser that is unusable. Agriculture has lost a great many markets. The market for exporting sheep has disappeared, and towards the end of last week the sheep price was about 30 per cent. less than the day before the announcement. Will the Minister consider some heads of consequential loss, not least, as my hon. Friend the Member for South-East Cornwall (Mr. Breed) said, for cattle that are nearing the 30-month limit?

My third point is that the compensation that will be due and payable should be paid at once.

Where we have an obligation to pay compensation at 100 per cent., with independent valuation and an arbitration system, we try to get the money out to the farmer as quickly as we can.

Of course I cannot promise compensation for consequential loss—no previous Government have, and I do not believe that any future Government will. Am I taking a hard look at what could be done in the circumstances? Of course I am, and I am especially mindful of the animal welfare consequences, just as I was during the classical swine fever outbreak in East Anglia. There is a distinction between those farms that have suffered consequential losses as a result of their animals having been purchased and destroyed for disease control reasons—I understand that it is possible to insure against that—and those that are caught by movement restrictions imposed to prevent the spread of the condition but are not affected by it themselves. It is harder to get insurance against that.

As the hon. Gentleman knows, discussions are continuing between the Ministry and industry representatives, including from the NFU and the National Pig Association, on how we should handle the problem, because I believe that a scheme should be put in place. The discussions arose out of the classical swine fever outbreak.

The key issue on agrimonetary compensation, as always, is that there is not a pot of money waiting in Brussels for me to collect. The problem is not a lack of political will but the fact that 81 per cent. of the cost of the measures comes directly from the United Kingdom taxpayer and has to take its place in the public spending round with competing priorities from other Departments.

Can my right hon. Friend give any details on the situation in Wales, and specifically in north Wales, where there is great anxiety? Does he remember the occasion, a year or more ago, when I brought a deputation of the leadership of the Flintshire NFU to see him? He received them well, discussing matters with them for well over an hour. They have asked me to ask him what help he may give, in any way, shape or form, on loss of earnings, and whether there is to be any compensation, bearing in mind the terrible blow that is now falling on family farms. I express my thanks to him for his reception of the earlier deputation.

My right hon. Friend and the leadership of the NFU in Flintshire did indeed make a very persuasive case, and I am not surprised that he echoes it now. I cannot add anything on Wales to my statement on the current foot and mouth outbreak, which covers the whole of the United Kingdom, not just England.

We have been able to confirm positives relatively swiftly, but it takes longer absolutely to confirm a negative, because the virus could be incubating but not yet showing up in laboratory tests. All the comfort that I can give to my right hon. Friend"s farming constituents today is that we have not had any further positives confirmed, and the passage of time, with continued negative test results, is a cause for hope.

The Minister will be aware of the role it is thought was played by imported meat in the recent outbreak of swine fever in East Anglia. He will also be aware of the huge anxiety in the industry about the effect of illegally imported meat and, indeed, imported meat generally. He will also be aware that the supermarkets and those who speak for the food industry have been saying that there will be no problems for consumers because the shortfall that results from the current restrictions on our domestic industry will be made up by imports of foreign meat.

What measures does the right hon. Gentleman plan to put in place to ensure that there is the greatest hygiene and safety surrounding legally imported meat? He will know how much anxiety farmers and others have about that.

The regulatory regime is essentially the one that I inherited from the right hon. Lady when she was Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food. She will readily understand that the problem is not the regime itself but whether our enforcement of it is working as thoroughly as we who make the laws intend.

It is fair to say that there is a trade problem with import substitution. I am very conscious of that and want to do everything I can to help the domestic industry, consistent with doing the most important thing which, as the right hon. Lady will appreciate, is to isolate and extinguish the disease.

As for imported meat being the root cause of the problem, it is clear to everyone that something imported into this country must be the root cause of the problem because we have had disease-free status for 20 years. The disease has not been hiding somewhere in the United Kingdom, only to emerge suddenly. Precisely where it came from is not known; work is continuing to find a single source, or a range of possible sources, and then to work back and see what new public policy decisions, if any, must be taken to ensure that we block that potential route of infectivity as well.

I, too, commend my right hon. Friend on his prompt action in trying to stop this terrible outbreak. What discussions is he having with the industry on possible insurance-based arrangements for consequential loss?

My hon. Friend makes an important point. Discussions were opened with the industry—including, in particular, the NFU and the National Pig Association—as a result of the classical swine fever outbreak. Controlling diseases in pigs necessitates movement restrictions, which may well have to be placed on farms that do not actually have the disease and will never have it. Such restrictions are imposed entirely for reasons of disease containment. Because of the modern ways in which the industry works, that can have economic consequences for the farm businesses.

Who should pay for those losses? I am making it absolutely clear chat it is not the taxpayers" responsibility—no previous Government have ever thought that it was. However, it is fair to consider whether it is the responsibility of the industry as a whole to make some arrangement to compensate farms that are under movement restrictions for the burden that they bear on behalf of the whole of the industry—which, of course, has a vested interest in disease control. Those discussions, which are a result of the classical swine fever outbreak, are continuing.

I am sure that the Minister will sympathise with the two farmers in my constituency who were the innocent victims of the outbreak which, sadly, started at a third farm at Heddon-on-the-Wall in my constituency. Both men were reaching retirement age and have seen their life"s work destroyed at a stroke. Those commuting into Newcastle this morning will have had the reality of the situation brought home to them at the sight of the 150 yd long funeral pyre of burning carcases by the main road leading into the city.

An animal welfare group based near Norwich first reported this farm and the conditions on it in mid-December. That led to an investigation by the RSPCA, but I understand that no further action was taken. There were subsequent visits to the farm by Northumberland trading standards officers and MAFF officials, yet nothing was done about the conditions at the time. Will the Minister thoroughly investigate that situation?

I have looked into that last point. I can assure the hon. Gentleman that when veterinary officials inspected the farm, there was no trace of disease in the farmed animals. The chief veterinary officer has satisfied himself that that is the case. Nor were any welfare infringements discovered. As the hon. Gentleman rightly pointed out, the inspection was made primarily for welfare and environmental reasons, rather than for reasons of disease control.

The hon. Gentleman"s constituents have my sympathy, and that of every right-minded person, for what they are being put through. He is absolutely right to say that the huge blaze at the edge of the motorway last night and in the early hours of this morning provided a highly visual reminder to those travelling into Newcastle of the consequences of this terrible outbreak.

How should I respond to a farmer who exploded, saying that it would be grossly irresponsible of politicians to hold a general election, with people trampling around the countryside? What thought is being given to that serious issue?

I am appealing to members of the public to avoid unnecessary visits to farm premises, regardless of the reason or justification for them. As for the remainder of my hon. Friend"s remarks, I shall ensure that they are passed on to those who take more interest in those matters than I can.

Will the Minister re-emphasise that he understands that we face not just an economic catastrophe for rural industries and a financial disaster for individual farmers, but a growing animal welfare problem, since beasts that should be at the slaughterhouse are accumulating on farms? How optimistic is the Minister that the discussions that he has mentioned will lead to controlled transportation—perhaps under licence; certainly supervised by the Meat Hygiene Service—from individual farm to slaughterhouse so that we can get the food chain moving again?

I welcome the statement made by the Minister on "Breakfast with Frost" yesterday that, if they remain disease free, the countries of Scotland and Northern Ireland could have the ban lifted early. What time scale do he and his colleagues envisage for that most desirable objective?

The hon. Gentleman is right to say that it may be possible at some future stage, although we most certainly have not reached that stage now, to regionalise the ban. The initial beneficiaries of such an approach would clearly be those areas that could demonstrate to our trading partners that they were free of foot and mouth disease and that measures were in place to keep them so. I have an open mind on whether that would be the correct approach for us to take. We shall have to see how the disease develops, since further cases from the primary source may remain to be reported. However, we may very well end up taking that approach.

On the food chain, I am conscious of the points made by the hon. Gentleman. I hope to be able to make an announcement soon, by which I mean within a matter of days. The hon. Gentleman was right to say that any responsible Government would want to keep animal welfare consequences closely under review. We must balance animal welfare considerations with disease control considerations, but disease control must be the priority. If it is necessary to find an alternative route by which to deal with animal welfare problems, the Government will have to do so.

May I, too, congratulate my right hon. Friend on his decisive action?

Farmers in Cornwall tell me that they are unable to obtain disinfectant. Is my right hon. Friend aware that that is an emerging problem, and will he act to resolve it?

The issue of disinfectant supplies was raised with me by the president of the NFU earlier today, and I am asking for urgent inquiries to be made to ensure that we have sufficient supplies of materials essential to helping control the outbreak.

Does the Minister accept that farmers in my constituency, who are deeply apprehensive about the current position, will have been appalled to hear him say that, because the Government have to contribute 80 per cent. agrimonetary compensation, even with the massive war chest that they have built up by stealth taxes, they will not make that money available to farmers?

Secondly, on the legal reasons that the Minister mentioned, does he agree that, if there is any responsibility or any question of negligence on the part of officials as regards the place in Northumberland where the initial outbreak occurred, those officials should not invoke Crown immunity, and that consequential loss could thus be payable?

The hon. Gentleman is on to entirely the wrong point, given the thrust of his final question. As for his first question, he should tell his constituents that the Labour Government have paid out about £630 million in agrimonetary compensation. The previous Conservative Government, whom he did not support as enthusiastically as he might have done, paid nothing at all in agrimonetary compensation. The state of the public finances is the result of good stewardship by the Labour Government; it ill behoves the Conservative party to tell us how such money should be spent.

I visited the MAFF website today, to find out what a pig infected with foot and mouth disease looked like—its snout looked very strange indeed. It is intriguing that the farmer at the centre of this—at the farm in Northumberland—was unable to spot the virus for so long. Is my right hon. Friend happy that farmers nationwide know how to spot the symptoms of this and other diseases? If they cannot do so, what educational programmes is he putting in place to ensure that such a horrific disease never takes hold again because of the ignorance of the people who should be looking after the animals?

We have not had the disease in this country for 20 years, so many people will not have seen it. The disease is called foot and mouth disease because that is the literal description of its early symptoms. As for the other matters that my hon. Friend raises, I hope he will understand that I do not answer them for pretty obvious reasons.

Will the Minister pay tribute to the organisers of the countryside rally that was due to take place on 18 March on taking the sensible decision to postpone that march? That could not have been an easy decision, but it is the right one in the circumstances.

The Minister says that he is not prepared to consider any consequential compensation. Does he accept that many abattoirs and auction markets throughout the country are currently operating at the margins? If they fall through, that could have even more damaging consequences for this country"s agriculture industry once foot and mouth disease is completely eradicated.

I am looking at what we can do to help, but I cannot, on behalf of the taxpayer, accept an open-ended commitment to compensate for the consequential losses arising from an outbreak of animal disease and the steps that the Government have to take to control it.

I have not requested the postponement of the countryside march, but I pay tribute to the organisers for having postponed it as a contribution to the national effort to control this foot and mouth outbreak. I congratulate them on the decision that they have made.

Many contributions to this discussion have highlighted the cashflow problems for farmers and those in other sectors of the farming industry. Can we look at that matter, rather than compensation, as a key priority? It might be possible to consider ways in which loans and advances against future moneys payable into the sector could be brought forward so as to assist people who are currently in desperate trouble.

In the longer term, once we have eradicated this disease, may I urge my right hon. Friend to reflect on whether we need to examine further the mechanisms currently in place—intensive farming and increasingly large abattoirs that are ever further apart—and the possible contribution of such methods to the rapid spread of this disease?

I have already asked for the work that my hon. Friend requests—on whether current structures in the industry make us more vulnerable—to be done. He is absolutely right to ask for an examination of such matters, and he is also absolutely right to want to help. I have to be mindful of the state aid rules and of the cost to the British taxpayer of any commitment that I make, but I want to help and am looking very carefully at what the Government can properly do.

Does the Minister recognise the devastating impact that the outbreaks could have on such a prime livestock-producing area as Northumberland? Although he cannot make an open-ended commitment, will he consider the interdependence of those farmers who are affected by the movement restrictions and the hauliers, traders and other rural businesses, whom he must take into account in future measures because of the outbreak"s effects? Although he cannot now comment on the rumours about whether airport pigswill was used in this case, surely we must be certain that no airport or ship docking place anywhere in the country will provide pigswill or other animal feed now that the seriousness of the matter has been recognised.

The right hon. Gentleman is right; I must not comment on the specific case. More generally, he is absolutely right to point out the dangers to farmers in Northumberland and elsewhere. I am considering what I can do to help. A number of avenues are open to the Government, and I hope to have more to say about that in the future.

It always comes as a surprise to some hon. Members to hear that there are farms in my constituency. Earlier today, I spoke to Mr. Ian Frood, who is a farmer and an NFU regional organiser for the area. He put to me points similar to those made by the hon. Member for Brentwood and Ongar (Mr. Pickles) about information and stressed how important it is that MAFF officials locally keep the NFU fully informed because they are better placed with local farmers to do away with the kind of rumours that circulate in these circumstances.

A further issue was raised with me by a farmer in my constituency. Today, a national newspaper reporter walked through his farm and knocked on his front door to ask questions about the outbreak, even though he is in an area where no cattle can be moved. That is completely irresponsible. My constituent did not take my advice and hose the reporter down with disinfectant, but, given the problems that we face, would it not be wise for reporters to realise that the best story for farmers is that there are no new outbreaks, and that all reporters and members of the public should act with the utmost responsibility?

My hon. Friend is absolutely right on both points. I have already appealed to print journalists and those in the broadcast media to stay away from farms and, if they absolutely have to go on to farms, to ensure that they take the appropriate precautions. I have also asked those in the media organisations not to fly over the infected areas in helicopters. The virus is airborne, and stirring it up with helicopters is a very bad idea indeed, so I appeal again to people not to do it.

On information and input from the local NFU, my hon. Friend is on to a good point, which I discussed in some detail with the president of the NFU at our meeting earlier today. The NFU has offered information contacts, area by area, and we are putting in place a departmental structure to make full use of that because local knowledge can sometimes play a valuable part in helping to control the outbreak locally.

Farmers in my constituency and in that of my right hon. Friend the Member for Devizes (Mr. Ancram), on whose behalf I also speak, will have been devastated by the announcement that the case in Bromham has been confirmed. They will have welcomed much of what the Minister has said today, but will he accept that although farmers and other people in the area accept the restrictions that he describes, many of them have no idea what to do? For example, those in the village of Lacock, which is a tourist attraction and 1 mile from Bromham, or in the town of Chippenham, which is covered by the restriction, do not have a clue about what the restrictions will mean.

Will he clarify that and find ways to pass information on to the public so that they know what they may or may not do?

In response to my hon. Friend the Member for South Suffolk (Mr. Yeo), who requested a debate on the subject, the Minister said that he had no time for such a debate. Is it not a rich irony that the House will spend 10 hours tomorrow discussing foxhunting, but we will not have an opportunity to discuss this appalling catastrophe for the countryside?

It is not a question of not wanting to debate important countryside issues—in normal circumstances I am very willing to come to the House to take part in a sensible discussion of the issues. However, in the middle of a disease management problem the proportions of which are not yet properly understood, it would not be right to divert ministerial, administrative and, above all, veterinary resources away from controlling tie disease and into discussing it here. Perhaps we can hold a debate after the outbreak has been brought under control, and not in the middle of a rapidly changing situation

The hon. Gentleman"s other pint was perfectly legitimate. Many people earn their livelihood in the tourist industry and in areas that attract visitors. There are, of course, difficulties when such activities take place side by side with the livestock sector. All I can do is repeat the advice that I have given, and I hope that the hon. Gentleman will echo it locally: the public should refrain from going on to livestock farms or near to farmed animals.

I congratulate my right hon. Friend on the decisive steps that he has taken to isolate and eliminate this dreadful disease in this country and on the actions that he has taken to ensure that the disease does not spread to other countries. That is in marked contrast to the attitude that the previous Government took to BSE. BSE has had incalculable consequences on world trade, particularly in third-world countries, but, if we consider the lessons that we can glean from that, is it not true that modern, intensive, globalised management grossly magnifies the risk of the spread of disease? Has anyone tried to calculate the cost-effectiveness of cheaper food when it is compared to the enormously increased risk of the spread of disease, considered whether we should nave huge global regulation to prevent the spread of disease or less intensive, less globalised food production?

The implications of the modern methods of agricultural production for the livestock industry and other processes further down the food chain are issues that I have asked my Department to consider. When we have its report, we shall consider the consequences for policy makers. Indeed, we may even want to debate them here. My hon. Friend says that we are trying to contain and then exterminate the problem and must not export it. He is absolutely right.

No one in the House envies the Minister in his job, but we all wish him and his officials every possible success in what they are trying to do. That remains the case despite one or two of the slightly unfortunate partisan remarks that he has made today.

I wish to press the Minister on one issue. He talked about the possibility at least of providing new advice on the closure of footpaths and other points of access. He was quoted—possibly inaccurately—over the weekend as advising walkers to go into national parks instead of on to farm land. Parts of two national parks are in my constituency, so may I point out that 80 to 90 per cent. of the area of national parks is made up of farm land? I have received reports today that, unfortunately, very large numbers of people ignored the warnings and walked over livestock land this weekend. Will the Minister therefore work with the national park authorities to deal with that issue as part of the many other measures that he needs to put in place?

As the hon. Gentleman knows, I have time after time appealed for people not to go near farmed livestock. When I suggested that they visit a national park instead, it was of course implicit in my remarks that I meant national parks that do not have farmed livestock. I understand his point, but there are areas where it is perfectly possible to go for a walk in the country without going near farmed animals. There should be no disagreement on that point. I thank the hon. Gentleman for his support for the measures that the Government are taking.

It is impossible to overestimate the gravity of the situation facing us. In his responses to Labour Members, my right hon. Friend has said that it might be possible to undertake a wide-ranging investigation into animal health, the problems that we have come to realise recently and their link to intensive farming. Will he go as far as to say that he will include other parts of the food chain in that investigation, so that farmers are not singled out? Other parts of the food chain may bear some responsibility for the risks that we now face.

My hon. Friend is right. The study that I have asked for does not focus exclusively on farming practices; it is designed to consider more broadly whether the industry"s current structure, throughout the supply chain and including the catering sector and export industries, makes us more vulnerable to disease outbreaks than the way in which it operated some years ago.

I do not think that I have heard any Opposition Member criticise the work of the admirable state veterinary service or, indeed, that of MAFF to contain this wicked disease. It is therefore all the more surprising that the Minister should cavil at the prospect of a debate in Opposition time on such a fundamental matter affecting the survival of agriculture in this country.

Having said that, may I ask the Minister to take a more robust line on footpaths? I urge him to work with local councils to enable farmers to shut paths if they feel it necessary to do so, because people are tramping across those paths without disinfectant, and, when asked not to do so, are often extremely abusive to the farmers concerned.

I would be grateful to the Opposition if they could postpone their debate and let me and my officials get the disease under control. The hon.

Gentleman made a perfectly fair point about footpaths. We have that matter under review, and I anticipate announcing further measures shortly.

I congratulate my right hon. Friend on his immediate introduction of robust measures. That contrasts with the action taken on BSE, which was always too little, too late. It is much wiser to take vigorous action from day 1.

If the newspaper reports are accurate, the living conditions of pigs on the farm in Northumberland give serious cause for concern. It defies belief that the farmer involved could not recognise the symptoms of foot and mouth when they were well advanced—seven or 14 days into the outbreak on his premises. MAFF"s animal health inspectors inspected the farm two or three times in December and January, but apparently did not comment on how bad the animal welfare conditions were. Do we not need a full inquiry into animal welfare, particularly for intensively farmed livestock, including pigs and poultry? There is something badly amiss here.

The veterinary inspectors" reports on the farm at Heddon-on-the-Wall are consistent with what we know about the incubation time of the disease. The chief vet is satisfied that the disease was not present on the farm when the inspections took place. The whole issue is being considered by the appropriate authorities, and it would be wrong for me to say more about that now in the House.

My constituency abuts that of the hon. Member for Torridge and West Devon (Mr. Burnett). As south Devon is a peninsula, has the Minister considered asking local authorities to put matting on all roads leading into the area? Is he aware that farmers are having problems because disinfectant supplies are drying up?

Will the Minister say something not only about national parks but about the south Devon coastline, which has a heritage trail that people have continued to walk during the weekend and today? Those people, who include farmers from Norfolk, have walked on livestock farms.

As a result of the NFU president"s representations to me earlier today, I have asked for inquiries to be made so that we can be certain that we have sufficient stocks of disinfectant. That is a perfectly proper point for the hon. Gentleman to raise.

It is hard to make regulations that enable people to enjoy the countryside while ensuring that they stay away from livestock and other farmed animals. However, I appeal to people to do so. The most important point is to make sure that we do not spread the disease, and then we can contain and extinguish it. As the disease is primarily spread by the movement of animals, we have halted that practice so that we can isolate and extinguish it. I appeal to people to stay away from farm animals. Although it is a more remote possibility, there is a chance that such a virulent strain of the disease will be spread by people and vehicles.

Since the 1967 outbreak, fundamental changes have altered the risks that the farming community and society face. People are more mobile, animals are moved more frequently, vets and farmers see the early evidence of this virulent disease infrequently and, indeed, some of the animals at risk are kept as pets. Although information on the MAFF website about the more advanced stages of the illness is good, is my right hon. Friend satisfied that farmers and veterinary practitioners receive sufficient scientific training on the early stages of the condition? The Leahurst faculty of Liverpool university"s large veterinary school is in my constituency and has a worldwide reputation. However, I suspect that a generation of veterinary scientists has left there without seeing the disease in its very early stages.

I am satisfied that the veterinary profession can identify the disease. I think it is harder for farmers to identify because we have not seen it in this country for 20 years. Nevertheless, we have a two-way method of control. In addition to our vets following up the cases that might have got the disease from contact with infected areas, we rely on farmers an I their private vets to ring the Ministry and prioritise what they believe are suspicious cases. My hon. Friend is correct to say that the vulnerable animals are sometimes kept as domestic pets.

There is a considerable sense of foreboding and anxiety in Anglesey because there is a suspected case of foot and mouth at the abattoir in Gaerwen I understand that tests have taken place. Can the right hon. Gentleman say when the results will be available? If they confirm the first case in Wales, will that be announced by his officials or the Welsh Assembly, or will a joint statement be issued?

Does the right hon. Gentleman know about the reports of people walking in Snowdonia at the weekend, although there were requests not to do so? There will be considerable support in Wales for the temporary closure of footpaths and rights of way. I remind the right hon. Gentleman that farmers in Anglesey in particular are concerned about the operation of the over-30-months rule and the delay in taking animals to market. What hope can he give to those farmers, bearing in mind that the animals might be more than 30 months old when the restrictions are lifted?

The hon. Gentleman is right. Those people who are proposing to submit animals under the over-30-months rule could be caught by the restrictions on movement. As we reshape those restrictions—although that is conditional on our getting a firm grip on the outbreak of the disease—I promise to keep the over-30-months scheme and those affected by it at the forefront of my mind. I am afraid that I cannot say more than that now.

There is close co-operation between my Department and the officials who work in the agriculture section of the Welsh Assembly. There is also close communication between myself and my counterpart in the Welsh Assembly. We are trying to take a common approach to the temporary closure of public rights of access. What has happened in Snowdonia is one of the matters at the forefront of our minds as we consider this difficult issue. I am grateful to people who have taken heed of appeals not to go near farms livestock or animals, but I am aware that not everyone has responded in that way. We must consider what else we have to do.

I know that the suspected case will be a cause of great anxiety to the hon. Gentleman"s constituents. It is a tentative hope rather than anything firmer, but we do not yet have a positive finding—at least, I am not aware of it. The passage of time gives more grounds for optimism in that local case; it takes longer to confirm a negative than to confirm a positive.

We have heard what the Minister has had to say about compensation for consequential loss, and we might want to return to the issue when we see for how long the ban on movements continues, but he could do too specific things immediately to help farmers, who are already in a difficult financial position, who suffer such loss. One of those things, for which many have asked, is to claim the agrimonetary compensation. I think that the £202 million must be claimed by the end of April, if at all. More than three quarters of it would go to the livestock sector. The Minister might point out to the Chancellor that our friends in the European Union pick up 20 per cent. of the costs of very few public spending programmes.

Secondly, when the Minister this evening meets our friends in the EU, will he suggest that farmers who are having to keep animals on their farms for longer than planned might be allowed temporarily to graze them on set-aside land in order to alleviate tin problem of having to buy additional food? That was permitted during the BSE crisis. It is something for which the right hon. Gentleman could ask which would cost nothing.

I am looking at whether there are derogations that we could seek from the Commission in the management of the current outbreak that would give some help and assistance to those who are caught by it. I have a range of points, such as the one that the hon. Gentleman makes, that I want to take up informally with Commissioner Fischler before we make formal representations. I understand the hon Gentleman"s point about agrimonetary compensation. I remember him as a Treasury Minister; I wonder whether he would have taken the same view of the 19 per cent. EU contribution and the domestic contribution of only 81 per cent. when he was at the Treasury.

Although the right hon. Gentleman deserves unqualified support for the measures that he has taken—he has received it from those of us on the Conservative Benches—does he accept that he would better create a mood of national unity if he treated this House with a little more respect? His answers on appearing before Parliament have been disgraceful. To suggest that we should not have a debate is quite wrong. Will he bear it in mind that, when this country was at war, Churchill constantly reported to the House? Does he remember his former colleague Lord Robertson, former Secretary of State for Defence, reporting to the House day after day when we were engaged in hostilities? The Minister"s prime duty is to be answerable to the House. Will he therefore reconsider his ill-judged remarks and give a categorical undertaking that he will make regular statements at that Dispatch Box?

No, I will not. My priority is to confront and extinguish the disease. The hon. Gentleman"s remarks are distinctly unhelpful. I have always treated this House with courtesy and restraint, but to haul Ministers here as part of an Opposition day debate when we will be in the middle of disease control seems highly irresponsible.

I thank the Minister, his Department and the veterinary service for the very prompt response to this hideous virus. Is he aware, however, that Thirsk auction mart—and, I understand, many auction marts throughout the country—has received a very confusing briefing from the Meat and Livestock Commission? Entitled "UK Foot and Mouth Update No 1", last week"s MLC briefing said that the foot and mouth export ban will be in place for six months

"after the last confirmed outbreak has been fully dealt with".

That is totally confusing; it seems to contradict advice from MAFF and the Commission that there will be only a one-month export ban. Will the Minister please explain the provenance of that briefing? Did it come from his Department? Will be please eradicate the confusion today?

May I also ask the Minister to take the prompt legal action to close footpaths which he said he is considering? Confusion arises when livestock are inside and the public simply do not know that livestock are present.

On the issue of footpaths, I give the hon. Lady the assurance she seeks. I have the matter under active consideration with the devolved authorities and I hope to make a further announcement shortly.

As the hon. Lady probably knows, I do not have direct responsibility for the activities of the MLC. She asks about the likely duration of the export bans. It will differ, depending on whether European Union trade or bilateral trade with third countries is involved, because all have slightly different rules of their own. However, we shall never get the bans lifted until we have disease-free status—confirmed disease-free status. In future, we might be able to get the ban regionalised so that parts of the United Kingdom can export again, but it is premature to speculate along those lines today. We simply do not know whether there are animals still incubating the condition, so further quarantine and disease-control measures are required.

I believe that the Minister terribly misjudged his response to my hon. Friend the Member for South Staffordshire (Sir P. Cormack). At a time of national crisis, which this is, the Minister"s real duty is to report to the House at every necessary opportunity.

None the less, I thank the Minister"s private office because, on Saturday afternoon, its staff were most helpful in arranging a licence to be given to my constituent Mr. Richard Bradshaw, who had 17 decomposing carcases in his yard and could not move them without a licence. However, this morning, anomalies have been revealed in the regime for fallen stock and casualties, in that Mr. Bradshaw has been told that he cannot move cattle that have an OTM22 form; although they have been deemed healthy enough for human consumption, the animals must be left on the farm to decompose for seven days. The arrangements have been made in haste and the Minister is caught on Morton"s fork. Will he give me a clear answer tomorrow on how casualties will be dealt with while the crisis lasts?

As well as dealing with the problems of the hon. Gentleman"s constituent, my private office now has to help to prepare for the debate, as do veterinary authorities and senior officials in the Ministry. I repeat that it is distinctly unhelpful to try to make me do things in addition to bearing down on the disease. Nevertheless, I shall ensure that the perfectly proper point the hon. Gentleman makes about how fallen stock and casualties are dealt with is addressed. He is right to say that we have been licensing movements under very strictly controlled conditions to deal with the problem, but complications arise in connection with issuing general licences for normal disposal routes: because they go from farm to farm, such established routes provide a means by which the disease might be spread.

With permission, Madam Deputy Speaker, I should like to make a statement about coalition operations to enforce the no-fly zones over Iraq.

Ten years ago today, we celebrated the success of Operation Desert Storm, the coalition operation to expel Saddam Hussein"s forces from Kuwait. The contribution of the United Kingdom, which included the deployment of 50,000 service personnel, was a significant one on which we can look back with immense pride.

Since the end of the Gulf conflict, the overall aim of the policy adopted by successive Governments has been to contain the threat to regional security posed by Saddam Hussein"s Iraq. That policy has been successful: without our efforts, Saddam would have been free to maintain and develop his weapon; of mass destruction and conventional military capability, and free to bully and threaten his neighbours with impunity, as he did in the past.

A further aim of our policy has been to limit Saddam" s ability to kill and terrorise his own people. That is why we have conducted patrols of the no-fly zones since the early 1990s in support of United Nations Security Council resolution 688, which demanded an end to his brutal repression. The zones have served a vital humanitarian purpose over the past decade in constraining Saddam" s ability to carry out such repression, particularly in relation to the Shias and the Kurds.

The patrols are justified in international law as a legitimate response to prevent a grave humanitarian crisis. Without them, Saddam would be free, as he was prior to their establishment, to use aircraft and helicopter gunships against innocent civilians. The humanitarian consequences would be as unconscionable as they were in 1991. Many tens of thousands would be displaced from their homes, thousands would lose their lives, perhaps—as happened in 1988 at Halabja—following the use of chemical weapons.

Since January 1999, Saddam" s air defence units have made sustained and concerted efforts to shoot down United Kingdom and United States aircraft. During that period, there have been more than 1,200 attempts to target them, using surface-to-air missiles and anti-aircraft artillery. Coalition aircraft are legally authorised to respond to those, attacks in self-defence. They do so entirely in accordance with international law, attacking only those military facilities that contribute, as part of the Iraqi integrated air defence system, to the threat to coalition aircraft.

Military commanders must manage the risk to service personnel. Over recent weeks, the Iraqis have significantly increased their efforts, amounting to a qualitative and quantitative increase in the threat. In January, there were more surface-to-air missile attacks than in the whole of 2000. The Iraqis have used new tactics, including the use of radars and command centres located outside the southern zone to cue offensive systems within it. That threat to our service personnel is real and present.

The operation on the evening of 16 February was therefore planned and carried out against that background. It was a proportionate response in self-defence, taken solely to reduce the risk to our aircrew carrying out routine humanitarian patrols of the southern no-fly zone.

As such, it was entirely in keeping with all such operations conducted over the period since January 1999, when Iraq started attacking our patrols. The operation was planned and cleared by Ministers on both sides of the Atlantic. Targets were carefully selected and precision-guided weapons used to minimise and, if at all possible, avoid any risk of civilian casualties.

Six targets were engaged, comprising elements of the Iraqi integrated air defence system, including military radar, command and communications sites. Five were north of the zone; all were directly involved in threatening coalition aircraft. Aircraft conducting patrols of the northern no-fly zone have previously engaged targets south of the 36th parallel, but this was the first occasion on which coalition aircraft had attacked targets outside the southern no-fly zone—that is, above the 33rd parallel—since Operation Desert Fox.

RAF participation included four Tornado GR1 strike aircraft, supported by two Tornado F 3 air defence aircraft and two VC10 tankers. A Nimrod reconnaissance aircraft was also airborne at the time. All our aircraft returned safely, as did those from the United States. The operation was a success. Both weapons dropped by the RAF hit their intended target, a military communications site. Overall, we are confident that the coalition caused significant disruption to the Iraqi integrated air defence system, degrading its ability to threaten our aircrew. We will, of course, monitor the situation very carefully over the coming weeks.

There have been Iraqi allegations of civilian casualties. No military action is without risk, and we deeply regret casualties, if any were caused. We have no means of verifying Iraqi claims, but we learned long ago to distrust them. In 1999, for example, Iraq claimed on some 30 occasions that there were civilian casualties on days when coalition aircraft did not actually release any weapons, and on several days when they were not even patrolling over Iraq. We know that, on a number of occasions, Saddam has alleged civilian casualties when only military personnel have been injured.

The operation was conducted in response to a deliberate escalation on the part of the Iraqis. Our action does not represent a change in policy. RAF aircrew undertook a difficult and dangerous mission with great skill and great bravery. Faced with a substantial increase in the threat in recent weeks, it was right that we took the minimum necessary steps to reduce that threat.

First, let me thank the Secretary of State for his courtesy in giving me a copy of the statement in advance, to assist me in my response. May I make it clear from the outset, on behalf of the Opposition, that we support the decision to carry out the air strikes? I disagree fundamentally with those who say that the strikes were provocative and will only make matters worse. I agree with the Secretary of State that, while we seriously regret any civilian casualties, the figures for such casualties, as given by Saddam Hussein, are not necessarily to be trusted.

I should like to pay tribute to the RAF and other service men in the Gulf. The events of the past few weeks have clearly shown us that they continue to risk their lives in the service of their country and in support of its allies. The House owes them a debt of gratitude for that service alone.

Whatever anyone says, there is no question but that the weapons" radars were targeting allied aircraft, as the Secretary of State said. When I was in the United States, that was made clear to me, and it has also been clear from briefings over here. I understand that, apart from the radars, missiles and anti-aircraft guns were fired in the last few weeks. Will the Secretary of State clarify that? Admittedly those weapons may not have been as accurate, because the Iraqis kept switching their radars off, but will the Secretary of State confirm that our aircraft were genuinely under threat in the period preceding the strikes?

It makes no difference if the sites that were attacked were outside the no-fly zone, because the Iraqis were targeting aircraft flying within the no-fly zone. That point has often been missed. Those sites therefore became legitimate targets. Does the Secretary of State agree that those who talk about heightened tension in the area miss the point that it is Saddam Hussein who destabilises the whole region and that he alone creates the problem to which we have to react strongly?

Does the Secretary of State agree, and will be say so before the House, that Saddam Hussein has continued to develop chemical, biological and nuclear weapons of mass destruction and the means to deliver them through ballistic missiles? Although there have been many reports on that from the UK and the US, I was intrigued to learn that, at the weekend, German intelligence was reported as showing that Iraq is now capable of producing nuclear weapons within the next three years. That intelligence also confirmed that Saddam Hussein continues to work on his biological capability and can produce such weapons at short notice, should he require to do so. Does not all of that confirm the view of Richard Butler, ex-head of the United Nations Special Commission, who made it clear that that capability continues to grow, regardless of sanctions?

I want to press the Secretary of State on that point. As someone who has fully supported the sanctions regime and the no-fly zone—I do not vary from that—let me ask him this: does he not agree that there is a problem over the implementation and effectiveness of the policy as it stands? Will he confirm that some nations, including one or two that are members of the European Union, do not appear to wish to stand by the sanctions? Regardless of the fact that they signed up to them, they continue to breach them. Does he not agree that the reaction of some of his European Union partners to the bombing is regrettable? Is it not regrettable that they were not able to support the action, and does that not throw some light on the fact that they are still unable to give full support? Is the Government"s position on the Euro defence force not thrown into relief, as they have had to act, not for the first time, with the United States?

Will the Secretary of State confirm that Saddam Hussein is using nations in Europe and elsewhere, including those that are proliferating weapons of mass destruction for hard cash, to bypass sanctions and grow his threat? I was concerned that, during a television interview yesterday, the Secretary of State seemed to indicate that there is a difference of opinion between the US and the UK on the overall purpose of our policy on Iraq. Will he clarify that? He indicated that British policy stopped short of any involvement in toppling Saddam Hussein. I am aware that that has been a continuing policy. However, given that we know with whom we are dealing and that Saddam Hussein has demonstrated on many occasions that he abides by no treaties, has no regard for human life and continues to regard himself as a legitimate threat to others in the region, is it not time to consider whether it is still feasible to deal with him as we have so far tried to do? Is it not fair—the US is perhaps now coming to terms with this—to try to deal, not with him, but with what we do ultimately to replace him, and find another regime that will be more peaceable, reasonable and less threatening in the region?

I thank the hon. Gentleman for his support. I shall endeavour to deal with the various points that he has raised.

I made it clear that there was a change in both the quality and the quantity of the threat to our aircrew. During January, there were as many attacks on our aircrew and aircraft as there had been throughout 2000. We judged that it was right to make efforts to protect aircrew during their legitimate and lawful patrols over the southern no-fly zone. I agree entirely with the hon. Gentleman that Saddam alone is responsible for the situation. He is the author of the policy that leads to the attacks on our aircrew. We understand that he offers a substantial bonus to anyone who is capable of bringing down a coalition aircraft.

I accept the hon. Gentleman"s observations about the importance of identifying precisely what Saddam Hussein is capable of producing in the way of weapons of mass destruction. That is why we were so determined, as part of the negotiations leading to UN Security Council resolution 1284, that an effective system of inspection should be in place. It is important that we should be able to inspect whatever it is that Iraq is trying to produce, given its history, our suspicions and the revelations that are made from time to time.

I accept that there is criticism of the effectiveness of certain sanctions. That is why we consistently review them to try to find ways of making them still more effective in damaging Saddam Hussein"s regime, rather than allowing them to be targeted against the people of Iraq, with whom we have no quarrel.

I resist the hon. Gentleman"s suggestion that there is a difference of opinion with the United States. Our regime-change policy is that of successive British Governments, and the hon. Gentleman knows that full well. In relation to the television interview, that is the only area where there is a difference of opinion between this Government and the United States Government. It is a difference of opinion that has been shared by successive United Kingdom Governments. There is no other difference in policy between the two countries.