I am grateful for the opportunity to raise the important subject of helicopter and light aircraft insurance and regulation. I look forward to hearing the reply of the Under-Secretary of State for the Environment, Transport and the Regions, not least because all the information at my disposal has been put at his disposal, so that he can give an informed response. I shall be focusing on a particular tragic accident in Leicestershire just over three years ago, when a helicopter crashed killing all on board.

The case is important for three reasons. First, it highlights the hardship faced by the Linhart family in my constituency. Secondly, it shows severe shortcomings in the law and regulations concerning light aircraft and helicopter insurance, and pilot training. Thirdly, on the day when we all expect to hear when Parliament will be dissolved, it is as good a demonstration as any of how a Member works in Parliament to help those in tragic circumstances and puts forward ways in which to avoid similar incidents in future. I pay tribute to those who have been involved in the case during the past three years, in particular my long-serving private secretary, Mrs. Thurza Rowson, who has worked hard on the case, and Philippa Carling from the Library, who has also provided invaluable support.

On 19 April 1998, a Robinson 44 helicopter crashed into a hillside near the village of Gumley between Leicester and Market Harborough. The pilot, James Coulter, and his three passengers, sisters Katie and Helen Linhart, and Helen's husband, Andrew Byrne, were killed. Helen and Andrew's three young children were orphaned and are now being brought up by their grandparents, Michael and Mary Linhart who, sadly, are unable to attend today's debate. I feel strongly about the case. Michael and Mary Linhart have suffered a terrible tragedy, losing two daughters and a son-in-law, as has Rachael Linhart—the surviving sister—who lost two sisters.

The case has several wider implications. It has revealed a serious inadequacy in the insurance requirements for private pilots, helicopters and light aircraft. Three small children, one of whom suffers serious health problems, have been left without compensation and proper provision for their upbringing, welfare and education. Not one penny has been paid to these children for the loss of their parents. In fact, it has cost Michael Linhart, a 75-year-old pensioner, a considerable amount finally to establish the position.

The three children now receive a total of £68.60 a week between them. It is made of £32.40 guardian allowance and £36.20 child allowance. That cannot be right in a society where such emphasis is placed on the provision for all eventualities and for the victims of every type of misfortune. From my involvement in the case, I have found that anyone listening to an account of the accident and its consequences for the first time expresses considerable amazement and anxiety about the situation. I can think of almost no other circumstances in which the children would end up with no compensation.

Before discussing how I understand the insurance situation, I shall briefly outline the circumstances of the crash. We must understand what happened to consider the insurance implications. The crash occurred on 19 April 1998 in Leicestershire, but not in my constituency. The party in the helicopter was returning from an evening meal at a nearby hotel, and the conditions were dark. Within five minutes of take-off, the pilot became disorientated, and the helicopter crashed. The Department of the Environment, Transport and the Region's air accidents investigation branch at Farnborough concluded that

"at the time the pilot took off the weather was unsuitable for his proposed flight."

The report also pointed out that the pilot had ignored the manufacturer's operating handbook, because guidance note SN-26 states:

"Be sure you never fly at night unless you have clear weather with unlimited or very high ceilings and plenty of celestial or ground lights for reference."

On that night, a front brought rain and a cloud base between 300 and 600 ft above ground level that made conditions unsuitable for flight. As the area is rural, the general lighting is sparse. Coulter, although a qualified pilot, had little night flying experience, and the helicopter was inadequately equipped for safe instrument flying—I see the Minister nodding.

The East Midlands police air support unit, which is based 9 km south of the accident site, was scrambled but the weather conditions were so bad that their take-off was precluded. As the accident report states, at the time that the pilot took off from the hotel, the weather was unsuitable for his proposed flight. The accident that followed was catastrophic, and all people on board were killed.

I turn to the specific aspect of pilot training. Although I shall focus on insurance, I know that Mr. Linhart, who is looking after the children, feels strongly about that subject. I agree with him that the case raises important questions about helicopter pilot training. According to the accident investigation into the case, the pilot had completed the night instrument training necessary for a night rating. The night rating was achieved with only five hours flying at night, and entitled the pilot to fly at night, although outside controlled air space he was to fly in accordance with instrument flight rules. The so-called night rating does not qualify a pilot to fly with instruments at night if appropriate weather conditions do not apply. In other words, the pilot is qualified to fly at night with the appropriate visibility, providing that the aircraft remains clear of cloud and in sight of the surface. The Robinson 44 helicopter in question had limited flying instrumentation.

A Civil Aviation Authority review of general aviation fatal accidents from 1985-94 commented that

"usually, training for the Private Pilot's Licence takes place in good weather—and with the advent of more candidates training for the PPL overseas, the trend is likely to increase. The average PPL student has little if any exposure to adverse weather during training and, on obtaining his licence, is unlikely to understand how to assess weather conditions or be able to relate his own skills to a deteriorating weather situation".

The review recommended that training should be subjected to greater CAA oversight, particularly in matters of weather appreciation, calculation of safety altitude, flight planning and diversion techniques.

I apologise for not being here for the outset of my hon. Friend's remarks.

Increasingly, flying training organisations in this country are finding that their business is haemorrhaging, particularly to the United States. The US has virtually wall-to-wall blue skies, which is not the case here. Pilots who train in this country are subjected to bad weather; indeed, they train for bad weather, because otherwise they cannot get airborne.

My hon. Friend makes a valid point. I enjoyed clear skies in America when I was 23 and had the opportunity to fly in a light aircraft from Boston to Los Angeles and from California to Colorado. I remember what a wonderful way of seeing America it was, and how many light aircraft were buzzing around in America. By way of analogy, one could say that when diving—I am a diver—in the Red sea or the West Indies, the conditions are clear. The Professional Association of Diving Instructors in America runs courses that are designed for fair weather. However, the British Sub-Aqua Club trains in different and difficult conditions. I know that you, Madam Deputy Speaker, may call me to order. We are not discussing diving today, although we could move on to sky diving. I do not want to make the debate flippant. We do not intend to spin out the debate—not that we ever do in the House of Commons.

My hon. Friend makes a good point. We are discussing the safety of passengers and how to protect them. I have always believed that the training afforded by British establishments generally, whether for the air or diving, to be among the best in the world. In this instance, however, insurance seems not to be right, and the aspects of training and the notification of qualifications are involved. These are key matters for the Minister to consider.

The issue is whether the pilot's qualifications are properly known and his insurance is properly advertised. In this case, the pilot took off in conditions that were unsuitable for his proposed flight. Other fatal accidents have resulted from rapidly changing conditions or circumstances that had no bearing on pilot judgment.

On the key issue of insurance, I am worried about what insurance cover is required and whether the pilot has been negligent. It is precisely when the insured is negligent that victims in the aircraft or on the ground require adequate liability cover. I have some connections with insurance, being a member of Lloyd's—an interest that I have registered in the Register of Members Interests, although it has nothing to do with this constituency case—and some appreciation of insurance matters. I understand that most claims are made by passengers rather than as a result of surface damage or injury to persons on the ground, but rare claims must be covered.

In January, in another potential accident, a pilot heroically guided a faltering Piper Seneca away from a school at Shoreham, bringing it down without loss of life, although damaging property. At the same airfield yesterday, a small aircraft made a crash landing coming into Shoreham airport, on the beach at Lancing. No one was hurt, thanks to an observant bystander who cleared the beach. One wonders about the frequency of such accidents. All too often we read in the newspapers about aircraft getting into trouble. I am reminded of the accident that happened at the weekend in France, in which a pensioner and, from memory, his daughter, who was about 20, were killed in similar conditions. An aircraft—from memory, a helicopter—came down. I wonder what the insurance situation was in that case.

In the Linhart case in Leicestershire, the pilot, Coulter, seems to have been seriously irresponsible in many respects, and my constituents were the innocent victims. I understand that when the coroner announced the verdict of accidental death, those present at the inquiry gasped in astonishment.

Coulter had hired the helicopter from a local company, Heli Air Ltd., on a self-fly, hire-only basis. As such, he was neither allowed nor qualified to give instruction to others, yet it emerged during the coroner's inquiry that he had offered shares in the helicopter and had received more than £3,400 from various sources, including Mr. Andrew Byrne, who paid £3,400 in cash, which was receipted. In return, those who had paid received a part share in the aircraft or helicopter, as well as instruction from Coulter. Although it is accepted practice for pilots to take petrol money, that does not seem to be the case in this instance. Mr. Coulter, under the name Helitravel Ltd., advertised services of sales-hire-charter-pilot training through local leaflet drops. He was, therefore, flouting the rules, just as he went on to do at the controls of the helicopter when he took off at night in breach of regulations.

Apparently, Mr. Coulter held no personal insurance but was insured by the owners of Heli Air Ltd. for flight subject to all warranties, terms and conditions of policy, which are the normal terms of an insurance policy. However, because he flew the helicopter in conditions that were manifestly prohibited by the insurance agreement and the aircraft's manufacturers, the leading underwriters, Ace Global Markets, denied liability to indemnify Heli Air Ltd. in respect of the accident on two grounds: illegality and failure to comply with air navigation orders and manufacturer's instructions. The underwriters further stated that Mr. Coulter had taken the helicopter without permission, in direct contradiction to the sworn statement given to the coroner by Mr. Mark Greenway, who was in charge at Stoughton airdrome, that he had given permission for the flight that night. The underwriters refused to pay compensation to the relatives and, when liability was denied, Maxwell Marland and Associates of Wandsworth, the aviation loss adjusters, stated that they had no authority to let Mr. Linhart's solicitors see a copy of the insurance policy. Essentially, the underwriters, on behalf of the hire company, denied liability on the ground that the pilot had broken conditions of the insurance cover.

The weaknesses in the law appear to be as follows. Insurance should be a buffer to provide protection against human error, but liability in this case manifestly did not apply when error occurred. That seems ludicrous. In the three years before I was able to bring the case before the House of Commons, Mr. Linhart instructed Mr. Paul Balen of solicitors Freeth Cartwright of Nottingham to act on his behalf. Despite every effort, Mr. Balen was unsuccessful in obtaining compensation for the children. However, he had other important qualities and responsibilities.

Many passengers are carried by aircraft helicopters and balloons, almost certainly believing that they or their relatives are covered when, in fact, they are not. That will continue as long as there is no statutory requirement for operators or pilots to hold third-party insurance. That is the nub of the case that we are discussing. The requirements for light aircraft, including helicopters and balloons, are in stark contrast to those for car drivers, who must have third-party insurance under the Road Traffic Act 1988. Hon. Members will recall that extensive negotiations took place years ago between the insurance industry and the Government to ensure that third-party cover. I suggest that the Government need seriously to consider such provisions for the light aircraft industry.

There is no scheme similar to the Motor Insurers Bureau to deal with uninsured losses. Furthermore, no legal requirement exists for pilots to show their passengers and the company from which they hire aircraft evidence that they have insurance. In the case to which I am referring, it seems that everything was jolly; the parties involved were friends with a part-share in the helicopter. However, basic, fundamental issues were not addressed; insurance cover was not in place and no questions were asked. That brings us back to pilot regulations. Perhaps insurance certificates should be placed on the wall. After all, hon. Members must have an insurance certificate for liability insurance on the walls of their offices. I wonder whether that applies in the light aircraft industry. I look forward to the Minister's comments.

At present, there is no statutory requirement in the United Kingdom for aircraft insurance of any sort. That is astonishing but true. The Civil Aviation Act 1949 included provisions setting out a scheme for compulsory insurance for third-party liability. It included a limitation of liability provided that an appropriate insurance policy could be issued, and further restricted the right of the insurer to repudiate claims up to the specified limitation of liability. However, those provisions were never brought into force and were subsequently repealed by the Companies Act 1967, which changed the insurance terminology used in the 1949 Act.

In the United Kingdom, it is obligatory to obtain insurance only if an operator applies for an air transport licence. Such a licence is essentially required only by scheduled carriers and not by all public transport operators—taxi operators, for example. The law is deficient because it is full of holes and complexities that often preclude relatives or passengers from obtaining compensation. That is what happened in the Linhart family's case—for various reasons, the insurance companies involved have denied liability and there is no cover in place, which has had awful effects. As I said, the children receive only a tiny amount of money.

In developing the arguments on insurance, it would be remiss of me not to mention the Warsaw convention, which is a set of legal rules governing—among other things—the liability of carriers for death and personal injury of passengers. The rules were originally written with regard to international carriage by air. The Carriage by Air Act 1961 makes the Warsaw convention part of English law for international carriage by air. The Carriage by Air Act (Application of Provisions) Order 1967 applies a modified version of the convention to non-international carriage, which includes carriage entirely within the United Kingdom. Hon. Members must forgive me; this is technical, but it is important that we address such technicalities.

The Warsaw convention applies only to carriage of persons for reward and to gratuitous carriage performed by an air transport undertaking. Therefore, in order to qualify for the compensation levels fixed by the convention, the passenger must be a paying or a nonpaying passenger who is flown by an air transport undertaking. Unfortunately, many flights are undertaken without charge by non-air transport undertakings. In my constituents' case, liability was denied on two fronts. First, if the pilot was carrying passengers for reward, he was in breach of the terms of hire for the helicopter. Secondly, if he was not carrying passengers for reward, he was not covered by the Warsaw convention—or the policy, which, in any event, would have been voided by his negligence.

There is no insurance or scheme to act as a back-up to protect victims. Some pilots have hire arrangements with air transport undertakings for the provision of light aircraft, balloons or helicopters and carry passengers without charge. When such pilots crash, causing injury or death, the passengers and their relatives are not protected by the Warsaw convention. The pilot could still be liable for negligence, if negligence were applicable, but is unlikely to be adequately insured or, as in the Linhart case, insured at all.

When the Warsaw convention does apply, the liability of the carrier is strict—without proof or fault. However, the carrier may be able to avoid liability by proving that it did everything possible to avoid the accident. The carrier may also be able to avoid liability if the pilot was negligent. However, an individual claimant cannot bring a claim against the carrier for negligence. We examined all such matters in the hope of finding a way for Mr. Linhart to claim insurance, but following a decision in the House of Lords on Sidhu v. British Airways in 1997, that type of claim is not available in the United Kingdom. Most standard aviation insurance policies covering convention liability exclude liability if the carrier—including the pilot—has not done everything reasonably practical to avoid the loss. Yet, many accidents are caused by error. However, a CAA official said that most responsible operators in the general aviation sector do have insurance, as was the case with Heli Air Ltd. I remind those present that liability was denied due to a breach of warranty stipulations, which must be adhered to, although warranties have been consistently criticised.

The 1979 Law Commission working paper noted that

"the present law of warranties fails to strike a balance and…should therefore be changed."

The commission recommended two possible reforms. First:

"The abolition of warranties and the substitution of a continuing duty to notify increases of the risk, together with a provision that in the event of a breach the insurer's liability to pay claims should be governed by the proportionality principle."

That is a mouthful, but that is what was said. Secondly, it recommended a

"modified system of warranties: that is a system including provisions that a warranty should only be effective if it is material to the risk, and provisions limiting the right of the insurer to reject a claim for any loss when there has been any breach of a material warranty, where the breach is quite irrelevant to the loss."

Nothing came of the Law Commission recommendations.

Robin Allan, who is the deputy secretary and legal adviser of the CAA, was involved in the consultation set up by the Department of Transport for a possible general scheme within the UK for compulsory third-party insurance for all UK operators and pilots. In 1990, Mr. Allan delivered a speech to the Insurance Institute of London, entitled "Compulsory Third Party Insurance for Aircraft and its Implications for Insurers". The situation has not changed since he made that speech. Although he pointed out that it seems certain that the vast majority of aircraft are insured, as I mentioned, he said that it was less certain whether policies were sufficiently comprehensive and whether the amount of cover was adequate, and raised questions of what should be done in the event of uninsured risk, which is a central issue.

Mr. Allan suggested that the following four questions would need to be addressed if a compulsory scheme were considered:

"What are the appropriate levels of cover? What is to be done if the amount of cover proves inadequate? What is to be done in the case of uninsured risks? What is the position where any insurance policy may be avoided or cancelled because of a breach of condition"—

that is exactly the situation in the Linhart case—

"eg. a breach of a condition requiring compliance with the provisions of the Air Navigation Order?"

The starting point for the CAA's feasibility study was that the impossibility of a entirely comprehensive scheme should not necessarily rule out the imposition of some sort of compulsory scheme. I shall not go into the details of Mr. Allan's comprehensive assessment. I do not have the time to put forward proposals for what is a highly complex and technical aviation insurance matter, and it would not be desirable to do so. However, I am convinced that the issue can and should be considered again.

I have shown today that the concerns that I have raised in this debate have been considered in the past. Sadly, however, proposals have been shelved, possibly because it would be by no means easy to tackle such issues. Although I wholeheartedly support the avoidance of red tape, which may have been part of the thinking in the past—perhaps the inadequacies that I have highlighted today were not given sufficient airing previously—I have come to understand, following extensive investigation of Michael Linhart's case and the devastating impact on his family, that regulation and a positive response from the Government are necessary, albeit that the Government may not be in office much longer. I hope that my hon. Friend the Member for Poole (Mr. Syms) will be sitting on a Conservative Government's Front Bench in a few weeks' time. However, the Minister has an opportunity to go out in glory and tell us his Department's considered proposals. Although I say that with a smile, I do not jest, as this is a serious subject.

I have argued that the law must be reviewed in respect of both helicopter insurance and pilot training. It is fundamentally wrong that effective third-party insurance, along the lines of motor car insurance, is not available for helicopters, light aircraft and balloons. A strong case also exists for reviewing helicopter pilot training and regulation to make rogue flights by rogue pilots less likely. I urge the Minister to agree closely to examine the present situation, which—almost beyond belief—has left three young children orphaned with just £68.60 a week between them and no legal remedy.

I am pleased to take part in the debate and I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Bosworth (Mr. Tredinnick) on securing it. As it happens, I was about to lodge a piece of paper with the Table Office two weeks ago to secure a debate on the wider issue of general aviation and not just insurance. However, today's debate ranges wider because my hon. Friend was clever enough to include the word "regulation" in its title. That enables us to debate more widely than his remarks about a tragic episode suggested.

I declare my interest as a life long aviator. I have held a pilot's licence since I was 17 and one of my claims is that I received three licences in four days: a licence to fly an aeroplane on 10 September when I was 17, a licence to drink on 12 September when I turned 18, and a licence to drive a motor ear on 14 September. 1 will not embarrass myself by informing the Chamber of the year in which all those events took place.

I have a close personal interest in the debate. Only yesterday, as a treat for my chairman's father-in-law, whose birthday it was, I took him on a surprise flight from Blackbushe airport in my constituency. The last time that he flew was about 40 years ago in a Mosquito when he was in the Royal Air Force. I was not quite able to emulate the manoeuvres of a Mosquito, but had a good go within the safety parameters that the Chamber and the Minister would expect.

I want to address a few points arising from the speech by my hon. Friend the Member for Bosworth, and some wider issues about which I have given the Minister's office notice. The Minister has been briefed and I thank those in his office for their courtesy in doing so.

My hon. Friend raised a tragic case. 1 put it to him, however, that it is exceptional. One rather crude adage states that sad cases make bad law. I would not want him to believe that I think that it is a sad case in the popular sense—it is a tragedy. However, I am not sure that we should extrapolate a huge raft of regulations from that specific incident to deal with it and prevent it from happening again. My hon. Friend rightly said that we are both members of a party that believes in the reduction of red tape. As an aviator, I have seen regulation after regulation piled on. We need to consider carefully how far we continue to pile them on—always, of course, in the interests of safety—before we finally throttle an industry in which Britain leads the world.

On insurance, my hon. Friend made a fair point: anyone taking to the skies should ensure that they are properly insured. However, that is not without its difficulties. Having led a hitherto fairly carefree existence, on getting married I faced up to the realities of life and my new responsibilities and, like others in my situation, took out various life assurance policies. However, I discovered that a loading was placed on my life assurance policy, in that any private flying that I did would invalidate it. I am happy to tell my hon. Friend that that loading was dropped within a few years, and in recent times none of my life assurance policies has incurred such a loading as a result of my flying activities.

However, my hon. Friend will find that it is fairly common practice among insurers to provide exclusions for activities that they deem particularly dangerous, such as mountaineering. I am not sure whether diving falls into that category. [Interruption.] My hon. Friend indicates that it might well do so, and it is certainly true that private flying sometimes does. Different insurers take different views. Specialist aviation insurers recognise the associated risks, but because those risks are perceived as relatively low, the insurance market is lively. If the risks were intolerable, no one would insure private fliers, but the fact is that everyone can obtain insurance for their aircraft and their flying activities.

There is the ancillary point that passengers are also at risk. How many people who, on a glorious sunny day such as today, are invited by a friend or relative to fly to, say, Le Touquet for lunch, consider insurance cover before taking to the air? I suspect that most do not. Indeed, the very act of looking up one's insurance policy would probably inspire a nervous reaction. Despite the statistics quoted by my hon. Friend, flying in the United Kingdom is a relatively safe activity. There are some 60,000 private pilots in this country —of whom about 30,000 are active at any given time— and approximately 10,000 aircraft. Putting the accidents to which my hon. Friend referred in that context shows that flying is a relatively safe activity. Of course, the moment that one leaves terra firma, one is in a third dimension that brings added risks, but I believe that those risks are quantifiable.

Is my hon. Friend saying that third-party insurance for motoring has not been a success? Surely it is possible to apply the same principle to the aviation sector without overburdening pilots with masses of regulation. I am not sure that I see a difference between motoring and aviation in that regard.

My hon. Friend makes a good point, but there is a fundamental difference between motoring and aviation. The motoring market consists of millions of policyholders, but the aviation market is very much smaller. I am told that the aviation industry cannot operate a scheme such as that run by the Motor Insurers Bureau because the levy required would be great and would bump up costs enormously. A huge levy is not necessary in the motor industry because the scale of the operation is much larger, and most of the millions of motorists in this country get through a given year without an accident. Nevertheless, my hon. Friend raises an important issue and it is right to consider ways of ensuring that the tragic circumstances that he has described are not repeated.

I return to the point that my hon. Friend made about weather, on which I intervened. It is important that flying training organisations in this country should flourish and that we should not export the business to Spain or to the United States of America because weather conditions in those countries are wholly different from those here. The Minister will recognise that my remarks are addressed largely to him.

If a person is to obtain a pilot's licence to qualify them to fly in this country, it seems less than sensible for all their training to take place in a climate where weather conditions are so favourable that, when they return to this country and are pitched into low cloud or fronts suddenly coming through, they will be completely at sea. Being subject to adverse weather is part of the experience of flying training in this country. People must make calculations.

I had to make a calculation yesterday morning. I got up at 7 o'clock, looked out of the window and saw that the cloud base around Farnborough was low. I headed off to Blackbushe airport and saw that the cloud was breaking. I checked the weather forecast from Avbrief—there is the commercial plug for avbrief.com, a very good company that provides private pilots with aviation briefing—and found out that at Farnborough there was a cloud base of broken cloud at 1,000 ft, which tallied with what I could see in the sky. The forecast was good, so I took off and found that the weather improved as the day went on.

Private pilots in the United Kingdom must make such calculations all the time. A pilot who learned in the United States or in Spain would probably not encounter any bad weather apart from looking out for the odd tornado here and there. Here, the only Tornado that one needs to look out for is one coming the other way, up a valley in the Lake district or in Wales, in which case, one hopes that it is a bit lower than oneself. That is one of Her Majesty's Tornados, rather than the Almighty's, and is not quite as potent, although a potent weapon nevertheless.

Every flying club operates proper insurance cover so that aeroplanes are hired with insurance. No one can fly solo who has not had a check during the previous 28 days. I belong to the Defence Evaluation and Research Agency flying club, which has its own aeroplane maintained by members of DERA. It has a self-imposed rule, whereby someone who has not flown for 56 days has to have a check. The activity is becoming ever more regulated, ever more draconian.

It is all very well talking about more regulation and about making aeroplanes safer. The ultimate safety is not to leave the ground. but I remind my hon. Friend and the Chamber that aerospace is the one area where the UK is not struggling to keep up. We are a world

leader, with the United States, France and possibly Germany. We rank equally with the United States in terms of talent, although not in terms of size.

We should not kill the golden goose. We should not make it completely impossible for ambitious and inspired young people to learn to fly. That would kill the business. I believe that there are plenty of safeguards. Air traffic control services in this country are absolutely brilliant. Although human error accounts for virtually all accidents, air traffic control is there to help. If one gets into trouble, the first thing to do is to call it and ask for help. It is only too willing to help. It is not there to try to catch private pilots out, and I think that it does a first-class job.

The cost is increasingly becoming a deterrent. It costs £140 an hour to hire the most basic of aeroplanes. That is a huge amount of money, especially if one does a 35 or 40-hour course—my hon. Friend can do the mathematics as well as anyone else. It is not just a rich man's game. Many people who learn to fly are young boys and girls who do a newspaper round or work in Tesco at the weekend to try to earn the money to do so. The consequence of more regulation is that the cost is pushed up, so that people cannot afford to go flying and lack the necessary experience, which has an adverse impact on safety.

That brings me to my second point. We need a national private pilot's licence that is applicable to people who fly in the United Kingdom but do not wish to fly beyond it, as is mostly the case. Some choose to go abroad. It would not apply to me, for example, because I have flown in France and in Germany and have a JAR—joint aviation requirements —licence anyway. Eighteen months ago, I suggested to the Civil Aviation Authority that we should have a national private pilot's licence. It seems to be coming round to the view that it is a good idea, and has undertaken negotiations with the Aircraft Owners and Pilots Association. The Under-Secretary of State for the Environment, Transport and the Regions, the hon. Member for Coventry, North-East (Mr. Ainsworth), said in a letter to me the other day that he hopes that it will be effective from the beginning of next year. I welcome that prospect.

Private flying clubs are up against it. The lousy weather has meant that they have been unable to fly. Huge and onerous conditions have been imposed on them by the JAR flight crew licensing requirements. They now see the prospect of a national private pilot's licence, but it will not be effective until the beginning of next year. That means that people are standing off, saying, "I won't start a flying course until the new NPPL comes in." No flying hours that are carried out now will qualify for the NPPL, which is nonsensical. I take this opportunity to say publicly what I have said to the Under-Secretary: any flying that is undertaken as from 1 June should qualify for the NPPL. In his letter to me, he said that

"training to the NPPL syllabus will not be permitted prior to its coming into effect, and no credit will be granted for flying hours acquired under any other training syllabuses.

That suggests that there will be a completely different syllabus for the NPPL, but I cannot think why that should be so.

I shall give some examples of the exercises that are carried out by private pilots in securing their licence. The first exercise is aircraft familiarisation, which I imagine would be common to both licences. The second is preparation for action for and action after flight, which I imagine would also be common. The next exercises are air experience, effective controls, taxiing, straight and level flight, climbing, descending, turning, slow flight, stalling, spin recovery at the incipient stage, spinning, take-off and climbing to a downwind position —I am halfway through the list already. I cannot imagine that those exercises will be in any way different under the NPPL. I urge the Minister to give the industry a lifeline by saying that from 1 June it will be perfectly lawful for any flying that is undertaken to count towards the NPPL, as long as the student makes it clear at the outset that that is the licence that he or she wishes to go for.

I recognise the concerns expressed by my hon. Friend the Member for Bosworth. It may well be necessary to ensure that people are properly covered when they go flying. An element of caveat emptor is involved. Someone who is not a pilot and goes private flying should first check whether the pilot is insured and that they are not invalidating their own insurance cover. If a company hires an aeroplane to someone, it has a responsibility to ensure that that person is competent and has the necessary insurance cover. I should like to see common sense applied to those matters rather than further regulation.

All of us who are engaged in aviation in Britain know that the number one priority is safety, the number two priority is safety and the number three priority is safety. The Royal Air Force trained me, and I can assure my hon. Friend that safety is the number one interest of all of us engaged in aviation, because our lives are at risk.

I congratulate the hon. Member for Bosworth (Mr. Tredinnick) on securing the debate. He has set out the tragic events at Gumley in April 1998 and the frustrations and difficulties that followed for the Linhart family, which was tragically affected. He has opened up a range of issues that deserve serious consideration and I look forward to hearing the Minister's response to them.

According to the hon. Member for Aldershot (Mr. Howarth), sad experiences make bad law. However, he has not made his case because the important issues raised by that tragic accident have wider repercussions. I hope that the Minister has listened carefully to the hon. Member for Bosworth and that he will have something positive to say at the end of the debate.

The debate has highlighted not only the horrific lack of regulation or control that started the chain of events, but, despite comparisons with car accidents, that there are many accidents that involve helicopters, light aircraft and microlights. Indeed, the relevant statistics were laid out at the beginning of the debate. The consequences for insurance or regulation will not necessarily be the same in each instance, but we cannot be complacent and ignore those issues; we must treat the matter seriously.

The hon. Member for Bosworth focused on training. He highlighted the adverse weather conditions on that night and questioned whether the pilot was properly experienced and should have decided to fly. He also raised issues from the accident investigation report about its recommendation that there should be additional Civil Aviation Authority oversight of that type of aircraft. It would be useful if the Minister can tell us what changes, if any, have been made as a consequence of that.

The main thrust of the argument has rightly and properly focused on insurance. In the Linhart's case, liability was denied and compensation removed because of the illegality of the operations undertaken by the pilot, which ignored whether air navigation orders were followed and whether manufacturer's directions were complied with. Shockingly, in all the inquiries that took place afterwards, relatives were unable to see the documents that were at the root of the insurance cover.

The hon. Member for Bosworth said that insurance should be a buffer to protect individuals in the event of error. However, it appears from the way in which current legislation is crafted that exclusion seems possible when error has occurred, which makes nonsense of that principle and makes that a fraught area to consider. The worrying aspect highlighted by the hon. Member for Bosworth is that many passengers may be uninsured, perhaps inadvertently, but perhaps, occasionally, with knowledge. Without a requirement for third-party insurance, that is likely to continue.

The hon. Member for Aldershot referred to the sense of ensuring, before flying, that insurance is in place and regulations are followed. That may be sensible and proper, but perhaps defies reality. How many of us check the insurance status of our driving companion when we accept a lift? The system includes checks and balances, and reviews by the Department of the Environment, Transport and the Regions and the CAA of the issues may have suggested that belt-and-braces provisions existed. The Linhart case—I believe that there will be other, similar cases—illustrates that although logical protection seemed to be in place, a family suffered a tragedy for which there was no compensation available. Compensation cannot bring back those who have died and cannot hope to make up for the resulting difficulties and emotional traumas, but it would at least provide a future for the family and the young children who were affected.

The hon. Member for Bosworth said that the law must be changed. He made an eloquent case for that and I hope that the Minister will be able to assure us that something will be done.

I shall be brief so that the Minister will have time to do justice to the subject. I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Bosworth (Mr. Tredinnick) on securing the debate and on the work that he and his staff have done in pursuing the issue. It is a serious issue because, as we have heard, when people get into an aircraft, many do not realise the difficulties that can arise for their friends and relatives if the aircraft crashes and they are killed. My hon. Friend set out the difficulties experienced by the family with three young children, and we should consider carefully how to improve the situation and ensure better insurance cover.

My hon. Friend the Member for Aldershot (Mr. Howarth) made a balanced and sensible contribution, and it emerged from both contributions that it is necessary to make changes in the requirements for insurance. My hon. Friend also referred to the problems that pilots sometimes have in obtaining the most appropriate insurance. To move forward, we need a balanced approach in which passengers are covered and pilots are helped to obtain proper insurance cover.

As my hon. Friend the Member for Bosworth said, international flights are covered by the Warsaw convention, which allows compensation to be paid without passengers having to prove fault. That is critical, because it takes a while to investigate air crashes and if legal action is taken the process can continue for years. My hon. Friend's suggestion for third-party insurance was very reasonable. There is no statutory requirement in general aviation for operators or pilots to hold third-party insurance. That is a matter of concern and contrasts with the requirement for third-party insurance for car drivers under the Road Traffic Act 1988. The Motor Insurers Bureau scheme might be worth investigating. We are aware that the narrower market may make it more difficult to set that up, but it should be investigated.

My hon. Friend also referred to the difficulty of warranties and set out the Law Commission's comments on breach of warranty and the fact that suggestions have been made over the years to improve the situation, but, thus far, no one has taken it up. The matter was raised in a ten-minute Bill on the Floor of the House in 1993 by Anthony Coombs, the then Conservative Member of Parliament for Wyre Forest. He said that there were 11,000 small aircraft and expressed his worry about microlight aircraft not being covered by insurance, particularly were they to crash and cause damage to an individual or property. We must review the position and investigate the possibility of such a scheme, as that operated by the Motor Insurers Bureau.

Gliders are required to have third-party insurance. At present, hobby fliers and those with small aircraft who do not ply them for hire are not required to have insurance in respect of passenger liability or third parties. Such a position should be put right. Section 76 of the Civil Aviation Act 1982 imposes on pilots and fliers an absolute liability to pay compensation to people who are injured and or when property is damaged as a result of their activities.

As my hon. Friend the Member for Aldershot said, unless pilots can receive adequate insurance and be confident that insurance companies will not use small print to get out of paying such insurance, they can end up being sued and lose their homes and businesses. Some years ago, the racing driver, Graham Hill, crashed when flying back his formula one team from the south of France. The resulting legal action wiped out his estate, so his widow and his son, Damon, virtually had to start from scratch because all the money earned from motor racing and sponsorship over the years had suddenly disappeared. Damon Hill has been successful in starting from scratch to becoming a top racing driver. There seems a great deal of sense in our looking not only into insurance matters to cover passengers, but giving private pilots greater protection who otherwise might face a lengthy legal battle that might eventually wipe them out.

My hon. Friend the Member for Aldershot made some good points about training pilots in the United Kingdom, given our delightful weather and the difficulties that that creates. The only time that I have ever considered learning to fly was when I went to the Cranfield air show. While talking to a salesman of a light aircraft, I watched an aircraft take off after which time it stalled, crashed and killed two people. At that point, I decided to stick to less dangerous pursuits such as politics. The debate has been good and I look forward to hearing what the Minister has to say. We should be examining ways in which to plug the gap and avoid some of the tragedies referred to by my hon. Friend the Member for Bosworth.

I congratulate the hon. Member for Bosworth (Mr. Tredinnick) on securing this debate on such an important subject. He has carried out enormous research and he understandably feels strongly about it. I thank him and the hon. Member for Aldershot (Mr. Howarth) for their courtesy in giving me notice of the key points that they wished to raise. The worry of the hon. Member for Bosworth certainly led me to study the report on the crash by the air accidents investigation branch. I am also grateful for the helpful interventions of the hon. Members for Poole (Mr. Syms) and for Tweeddale, Ettrick and Lauderdale (Mr. Moore). I hope to deal with most of the questions that have been asked. Those that I do not deal with today, I shall follow up in writing.

I much regret the tragic circumstances that have prompted the debate. It has drawn attention to several important issues in relation to aviation insurance, compensation and the training of pilots. I welcome the opportunity to explain the Government's policy on such issues. I shall also say something about how that sector of the aviation industry is regulated. Helicopters and light aircraft that are flown for commercial purposes usually require the operator to have a licence issued in accordance with Council regulation 2407/92 and to be adequately insured. The Civil Aviation Authority stipulates the minimum level of insurance required for the purposes of holding an operating licence. For single-engined non-turbine aircraft and all non-turbine helicopters, the minimum amount of insurance required is —3 million, which includes an element relating to third-party risks. Obviously, the figure is higher for larger aircraft. However, for helicopters and light aircraft operated privately, for pleasure or some other purposes, no statutory insurance obligation exists.

That situation may seem anomalous to the hon. Member for Bosworth, and he has so argued, but there are good reasons why successive Governments have not seen fit to introduce a requirement for mandatory third-party insurance cover for private pilots.

First, no evidence exists that those seeking compensation for damage caused to people or property on the ground by helicopters and light aircraft are unable to recover the cost of their damages. The number of accidents involving third-party damage is, thankfully, low and, even when significant damage occurs, we are not aware of claims for compensation not being met.

Secondly, most helicopters and light aircraft are kept at airfields, where it is normally a condition of storage that adequate insurance cover is arranged. People who own and operate such craft, which are expensive items to purchase and maintain, are unlikely to be foolish enough not to ensure that their asset is adequately insured for all risks.

Thirdly, introducing a statutory insurance requirement for pilots would need to be administered and enforced, which would necessarily impose a cost on private pilots. Unless a strict enforcement regime were implemented, there would be no guarantee that those who fly without adequate insurance would comply with the law. Although car drivers are required to have third-party insurance, a significant minority of irresponsible people continue to drive without insurance.

I hope that it will be understood that, for those reasons, the Government do not intend to impose a requirement for insurance on private operators of helicopters or light aircraft. Even if such a requirement were imposed, there is no evidence that those affected by the— thankfully—low number of accidents would do any better than at present. If I have correctly understood the case to which the hon. Gentleman referred, the details would suggest that, even if the pilot had been insured, he would have invalidated the terms of his insurance by attempting to fly in the poor weather conditions that prevailed at the time of the accident. The accident that we have been discussing was a result not of error but an illegal act by the pilot in choosing to fly when conditions were unsuitable. He was insured by Heli Air, but he invalidated the insurance by his action. We may legislate on many things in Parliament, but we cannot prevent people from breaking the law.

The Minister makes a good point. However, do not ultimate decisions on whether to fly and, particularly. whether to land in adverse weather conditions, always remain with the commander of the aircraft? The pilot himself made the decision.

It certainly was his decision, and it is a matter of the pilot's judgment. However, I want to explain the conditions, which are clearly laid down in law, that may guide the pilot's judgment in those circumstances.

The only way for provision to be made for compensation to be paid when such uninsured losses occur would be for the industry to introduce a scheme similar to that established for road vehicles, by the Motor Insurers Bureau. The hon. Member for Bosworth mentioned that body, as did other hon. Members. However, it is doubtful whether such a scheme would be economically viable, given the relatively few private pilots compared with the millions of motorists. The hon. Member for Aldershot made that point. Furthermore, it would be necessary to introduce legislation requiring all pilots to be insured, thereby imposing a regulatory and financial burden on this sector of the industry. As there seems to be no compelling case to do that, successive Governments have been reluctant to regulate in an area in which, as far as possible, industry self-regulation is to be preferred. I might also add that private boat owners have no obligation to carry third-party insurance cover.

The hon. Member for Bosworth mentioned compensation. I shall explain the circumstances in which compensation is payable in the event of an accident. He mentioned the Warsaw convention, which was first adopted in 1929 but has since been amended several times. It sets out the basis on which victims or their relatives may request compensation from air carriers in the event of an accident.

Although the convention apples to international carriage by air, the UK has adopted the same basic provisions for the purposes of domestic flights. More recently, Community legislation I as been introduced that has resulted in much better terms becoming available for air passengers. However, in both cases, the provisions apply only in relation to commercial operations, and exclude private, flying. In such circumstances, no statutory right of compensation applies in the event of damages caused by the actions of private pilots.

I do not want to diminish the tragic circumstances surrounding the case that has been brought to our attention this morning, but such events are rare, and the incidents of victims or their relatives being unable to obtain compensation are few and far between. I am inclined to agree with the hon. Member for Aldershot: I am not sure that it is right to legislate to cater for virtually one-off events. Sad or hard cases make bad law.

On pilot training requirements under the Civil Aviation Act 1982 and the Air Navigation Order 2000, the Civil Aviation Authority has responsibility for regulatory oversight of a wide rang of aviation-related matters, including training standards, licensing and aircraft certification. The Government have consistently made it clear that they are not minded to interfere in the CAA's day-to-day regulatory functions.

Pilot training requirements for helicopters and aeroplanes are set out in the joint aviation requirements on flight crew licensing—JAR-FCL—which are issued by the Joint Aviation Authorities and implemented in the UK through the Air Navigation Order 2000. The requirements comply with internationally agreed minimum standards and are aimed at ensuring that the student pilot can fly safely and efficiently under visual flight rules, which generally exclude night and poor weather conditions.

The JAR-FCL syllabus covers theoretical and flight instruction, including supervised solo and cross-country flights. Typically, helicopters flown by private pilots are simple in design and are equipped and certified for flight only in good weather conditions. Even in the case of more sophisticated, better-equipped helicopters, pilots are still limited to flights in visual conditions unless they hold a full instrument rating.

The CAA has been worried about the high rate of small helicopter accidents caused by pilot disorientation following inadvertent entry into poor weather conditions. Since the accident, the CAA, supported by the UK helicopter industry, has introduced a range of measures to educate pilots about the risks of encountering poor weather unexpectedly, which is a particular danger at night, when bad weather is harder to detect until too late.

One of the measures introduced recently is the new private pilot licence (helicopter) qualification for night flight, which includes much more instrument flight instruction than formerly. Although the qualification does not permit a pilot to fly in other than good conditions, the additional instrument training provides him with a better chance of recovering safely should he inadvertently lose sight of the ground. However, the best way to reduce the risk of such accidents is to educate pilots better about the dangers of operating small, inherently unstable helicopters in anything other than good visual conditions.

If a pilot flies outside controlled airspace at night, he must fly in accordance with instrument flight rules, which require that the aircraft remains clear of cloud and in sight of the ground surface, unless the pilot holds an instrument rating and the helicopter is suitably equipped. Given the additional training necessary to obtain the new helicopter night qualification, the cost to an individual pilot has increased, but the previously high accident rate suggests that that is fully justified in the interest of flight safety.

The national private pilot's licence is intended to provide an alternative to the JAR-FCL private pilot's licence for pilots who wish to fly simple aircraft in good flying conditions within the UK. A major concern of the general aviation community about the implementation of JAR-FCL was the increased cost burden on pilots obtaining and maintaining the private pilot's licence. In particular, more stringent medical requirements mean that private pilots are now required to undergo an increased number of expensive medical examinations throughout their flying careers. The NPPL's training and medical requirements, although not as demanding as those of JAR-FCL, will be appropriate to the limitations placed on the exercise of the privileges of the licence, and will enable many hobby aviators to continue to fly safely in UK airspace.

The hon. Member for Aldershot raised the question whether there may not be many areas of flight training that are common to all syllabuses and that could be undertaken and credited against the NPPL syllabus. Presently, private pilots are free to commence training under JAR-FCL. If the NPPL subsequently came into effect and the pilot decided instead to train to that new syllabus, he could apply to the body responsible for administering NPPL to apply for credit to be given for common areas of training. However, as the hon. Gentleman will know, the NPPL proposals have yet to go to consultation. Therefore, it would be wrong for the Civil Aviation Authority to allow pilots to commence training, particularly on a non-JAR-FCL course, in the hope that the NPPL will come into effect in future.

I cannot understand why there has been a huge fuss made about the differences. A part of the parliamentary answer given by the Under-Secretary of State for the Environment, Transport and the Regions, the hon. Member for Coventry, North-East, that I meant to quote and did not, states:

"As regards previously accumulated flying hours, the NPPL is envisaged as being a 'stand alone' licence, with no read across of equivalence to the Joint Aviation Requirements — Private Pilots Licence."—[Official Report, 10 April 2001; Vol. 366, c. 500W.]

I accept that the Minister is not a pilot, but I say to the CAA through him that the syllabuses simply cannot be completely different. That is absurd. I hope that I have made my argument to the Minister so that he can tell his officials and the CAA that the matter is perceived as an absurdity.

I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman, who makes his points in a forceful, through reasonable, manner. I appreciate that they are based on his own experience and expertise in these matters. Of course, officials and the CAA will carefully read the remarks made by all hon. Members. I am sure that the CAA will give genuine consideration to the points that the hon. Gentleman made effectively.

I shall clarify the regulatory controls that apply to non-commercial flying. As I mentioned, the CAA has ultimate responsibility for aviation-related regulatory matters. The authority has sought to achieve a reasonable balance between maintaining central regulatory control and the devolution of certain flying activities to approved sector bodies. However, there is no suggestion that the CAA should divest itself of its core safety responsibilities. Therefore, for instance, the development of the technical requirements for the proposed new national private pilot's licence is being carried out by representative bodies from the industry, but the CAA will retain responsibility for the auditing of quality and safety standards. "Devolvement of responsibilities" is a much-misunderstood phrase, and the CAA will continue to hold ultimate regulatory responsibility, but will devolve certain oversight activities to approved organisations to act on its behalf. Again, safety standards will be assured.

In conclusion, I thank the hon. Member for Bosworth for the opportunity he has afforded the Chamber to discuss these questions in some detail.

I am grateful to the Minister for giving me a cue to intervene because I wish to address one or two of the points that he made for further comment.

My hon. Friend the Member for Aldershot (Mr. Howarth) made the point that law should not be made on the basis of one bad—or, rather, exceptional—case. I gave the Minister a list of 120 fatal accidents. It would be instructive if his Department examined them, as that might lead it to decide that the matter encompasses more than just one exceptional case.

Reference has been made to new licences that are being introduced, such as new night licences and new standards. Does the Minister not think that there is a case for ensuring that pilots operate within the existing regulations? Greater emphasis should, perhaps, be laid on ensuring that they do not stray from the fold. That could be easily achieved.

Guidance for passengers should also be provided: perhaps it should be a statutory requirement that a leaflet should be given to them. It might be argued that an organisation similar to the Motor Insurers Bureau should not be set up because, although there are millions of passengers in cars, there are only a few pilots. However, there might be inexpensive ways of overcoming that problem to ensure that passengers and their dependants are aware of the horrendous risks that they might run when they fly, notwithstanding the expertise and good faith of most pilots.

I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for discussing this tragic case in such a reasonable manner.

I have been informed that, during the past three years, there have been, on average, 190 accidents involving helicopters and light aircraft with a gross weight of less than 2,370 kg. Of every 100 accidents, fewer than eight were fatal. On average, two people were killed in each fatal accident.

With regard to third-party damage, during the past three years there have not been any reported injuries to people on the ground, and only 10 instances of damage to property.

I take on board the hon. Gentleman's point about the need for pilots to operate within the existing regulations, but it is important to remember that, on the night of the tragedy in Leicestershire, the police and Royal Air Force helicopters were grounded due to poor weather. On the whole, public agencies and private flyers operate within the regulations, but that was not the case on this tragic occasion. That reinforces the hon. Gentleman's point about the need for education, and I and the Government concur with that.

The Government are not complacent about these matters. The training requirements for helicopter pilots have been improved in the three years since the accident. I do not wish to minimise the tragic consequences of the accident, but there are few such incidents, and there is little, if anything, that Government can do when all means to cover uninsured losses prove to be ineffective.

I congratulate my hon. Friend the Under-Secretary of State for Defence on taking over responsibility for war veterans, and I am delighted that he is present. The creation of such a post was consistently blocked by the previous Government. In 1993, the right hon. Member for Huntingdon (Mr. Major), who was Prime Minister at the time, said, in answer to a written question, that its creation was unnecessary and would merely add another administrative tier. It has taken the election of a Labour Government to recognise the need to designate a specific Minister to deal with the issues and concerns of war veterans. I applaud that decision.

Many issues are of concern to War veterans, ranging from the recognition for service in the Suez canal zone to compensation for ex-prisoners of war in Japan. The Government have taken those issues seriously and they are taking action in relation to them. Today, I shall examine two other issues of particular importance to the welfare of war veterans: homelessness and medical treatment for ex-service men suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder. Those issues are not the concern of only one Government Department. Therefore, given his new responsibilities, they would best be dealt with by the Minister.

Partly as a direct result of the rough sleepers units, we have seen a real drive under this Government to eliminate homelessness, with earmarked funding for people on the streets, co-ordination between Departments and a clear target to reduce the number of rough sleepers by two thirds by Z002. In the past, Governments reverted to short-tern solutions rather than dealing with the long-term needs of the homeless, which put us in the position which we are in today. To tackle homelessness successfully, we must have a broader policy approach that includes provision for follow-up advice and support. The rough sleepers report from the social exclusion unit acknowledges that. It states:

"There is a central role for Government here, both in what we can achieve directly, and in what we can achieve through the work of others, especially local authorities. This is a crucial challenge for us all. We must ensure that those who have been in our care as children, as prisoners or as servicemen. are properly equipped for and supported towards independent living. Rising to this challenge must be a major component not only of our work to tackle rough sleeping, but also our efforts to deal with social exclusion more widely."

Ex-service personnel, especially single men, are vulnerable to becoming homeless, accounting for at least a quarter of the total number of homeless people in Britain. According to recent research by Crisis, that figure could be as high as a third. Crisis also found that, once on the streets, ex-service men stay homeless for longer. More than half of all homeless ex-service men are homeless for more than 10 years. Ex-service men are more likely than other groups to become homeless for complex reasons: some entered the Army after being in care, while others know little adult life outside the forces. The nature of life in the forces may not prepare them for life outside. In some cases, ex-service personnel suffer psychological damage as a result of serving in the forces, which affects their personal lives and well-being and indirectly affects family relationships—an issue to which I shall return later in my speech.

Another factor to emerge from the Crisis report is the pattern of homelessness among ex-service men that results from the difficulty of finding suitable accommodation on leaving the forces. More than 50 per cent. of homeless ex-service personnel initially moved into accommodation that they did not want and 60 per cent. stayed in their first accommodation for less than a year. Nearly 60 per cent. took five years to find a settled home, and nearly 40 per cent. had not had a home at all since leaving the forces.

Much work is currently being undertaken by the armed forces to resettle those leaving the services at risk of experiencing housing problems. Indeed, over the past two years, the situation has transformed dramatically. I congratulate the Minister and his colleagues at the Ministry of Defence on the progress that has been made. Four developments over the past five years are likely to have a positive impact on future homelessness: the reorganisation of resettlement services, including the establishment of the career transition partnership; the provision of improved employment and accommodation services; wider access to skills and qualifications that are recognised in civilian life; improved provision for medical discharge, especially access to full resettlement packages; and a smoother handover from military to civilian services, including housing and finance briefings, workshops, seminars, training and help with finding a job, which is now being routinely offered.

How can we build on that work? We must acknowledge that gaps in provision still remain and work to deal with them. For example, while resettlement support is provided for many, there is no such support for those who served for fewer than three years, unless they were medically discharged. Those people are especially vulnerable to becoming homeless. We must identify personnel who are at risk but have served fewer than three years—for example, those who have been administratively discharged but have recognisable problems—and begin to create a package of measures of support for that group. Resettlement services for those personnel might be delivered as a specialist project by ex-service welfare agencies in partnership with other voluntary sector agencies that have a track record in working with clients with similar difficulties.

I am aware that a working group of officials from the Ministry of Defence and the rough sleepers unit at the Department of the Environment, Transport and the Regions has been set up. A pilot project called the single persons accommodation centre for the ex-services — SPACES —has already been launched at Catterick garrison. It is run by the English Churches housing group and provides accommodation advice to service personnel who are about to be discharged from the armed forces. Has the Minister any plans to extend that model to other areas of the country?

Homeless and service charities will need to work closely with local authorities to meet the needs of ex-personnel who are already in civilian life. I welcome the proposal in the housing Green Paper to widen the definition of categories of people vulnerable to homelessness and applaud the Government's decision to add ex-service men to the priority need list so that

they can be prioritised in local housing strategies. The measures introduced in the Homes Bill, which is being considered in the other place, will put an obligation on local authorities to implement strategies to deal with homelessness. That is a huge step forward. The emphasis on prevention as well as cure in that Bill is a step forward. Many ex-service men do not become homeless immediately on leaving the armed forces. The new emphasis should mean that local authorities would have correct support structures in place to address their problems before homelessness arises.

Although local authorities may prioritise vulnerable ex-service men in their housing strategies, defining vulnerability will be important. The housing Green Paper suggests that local authorities are to determine vulnerability on an individual basis. However, as many ex-service men spend years in accommodation before becoming homeless, housing departments would have to consider circumstances going back many years when reviewing an application under homelessness legislation. Length of time in the forces, for example, is not necessarily an indication of the degree of institutionalisation or housing need. We should also consider the needs of those who have served only a limited time but have nowhere to return to after discharge, because they were in care or have no family to return to, for example. People who have been discharged after court martial or time spent in military prison should also be considered carefully. Will the Minister tell us whether the definition of vulnerability could cover all ex-service personnel leaving the armed forces? Will any guidance to local authorities be laid before the House?

Many ex-service men who become homeless in London are not from London. Resources should be used to prevent that concentration of homelessness in the capital. Will the Minister tell us whether extra resources or attention could be given to local authorities that, on paper, have a small number of homeless people in their area, but have an Army base nearby, for example? There should be clarification, too, about which local authority is responsible for whom. For example, would it be the nearest authority to which the ex-service man was based, the authority he left when he joined the armed forces perhaps 10 or 20 years before, or the authority where his family was living?

I bring to the Minister's attention the valuable work undertaken by the Sir Oswald Stoll Foundation, which has set up an ex-service resettlement project, partly funded by the rough sleepers unit, that specialises in assisting homeless ex-service men. The project addresses needs, secures accommodation and gives support in the vulnerable early stages of resettlement. Such knowledge and experience should not be overlooked when guidance is drawn up to include ex-service men in the priority need group and when local authorities develop their homeless strategies. Perhaps the project could act as an example of good practice for local authorities.

Two in five homeless ex-service personnel have alcohol problems, compared with one in four non-service homeless people. There is a clear need for outreach teams to work with ex-service men on the streets and in hostels to deal with alcohol dependency and to provide on-going support. Local authorities will have to work closely with homeless and ex-service charities to develop rehabilitation and resettlement programmes for those with substance abuse or mental health problems. The consultation and involvement of service charities such as the Royal British Legion and Combat Stress is vital, as they, rather than local authorities, are likely to be the first ports of call for many homeless ex-service men.

The rough sleepers unit recommended various initiatives to help homeless ex-service men. I am pleased that action has been taken on many of them, but continued monitoring and evaluation are essential to ensure that resources are properly targeted. I note with concern that the ma in subject of inquiry to the special helpline set up for ex-service personnel with health, housing and other seeds has been lost war medals—although that is very valuable.

I welcome the Government's recognition that the problem of homeless ex-service men needs to be addressed and I support the many measures already taken. However, given the characteristics of homeless ex-service men, more resources must be directed towards ensuring that contact is maintained between the Ministry of Defence, and ex-service men. The hurdles that they face in l reintegrating into civilian life can emerge years after they have left the armed forces.

Perhaps we should rethink the current system and institute a new one that is more like the system available to children leaving care, whereby a caseworker is assigned to each individual. A point of contact could then be established with vulnerable ex-service men leaving the MOD and with their families.

I turn to the availability of treatment for ex-service men suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder. That was brought to my attention by the families of two of my constituents, both of whom wish to remain anonymous. Both constituents were having difficulty in obtaining funding for the treatment of post-traumatic stress disorder. Is it not a paradox that we recognise the role played and the work undertaken by the armed forces during conflicts through statements in the House, awarding service medals and erecting memorials, yet a large proportion of our homeless are from the armed forces, and ex-service men are being denied medical treatment for psychological damage caused while serving their country?

Ex-service men suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder can commit suicide, slip into alcoholism or end up divorced or in prison. Some to whom I have talked believe that the incidence of post-traumatic stress disorder in ex-service men has been exaggerated, but I disagree. My view seems to be backed by a paper published by the British Medical Journal in January 1999. The paper was based on the first 1,000 patients to attend the gulf veterans' medical assessment programme and reported that post-traumatic stress disorder was the most common psychiatric disorder found.

For years, post-traumatic stress disorder in ex-service men was hardly acknowledged and it has been taken seriously only during the past few years. Are we saying that those who served in the two great wars were immune to it? No. It was then termed shell shock, and sufferers who admitted to it were accused of cowardice and desertion and were in danger of execution. I am glad that we have at least moved on from that line of thought.

Many cases of ex-service men suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder still go unnoticed, perhaps because of the dismissive reaction of the general public, the perception that the ex-soldier is to blame or the masculine culture associated with the armed forces. For the ex-service man suffering from the disorder, the problem is serious and has been overlooked for too long. It can have a major impact on ex-soldiers, their families and society as a whole.

I illustrate the problems associated with the illness by drawing to hon. Members' attention some incidents clearly associated with post-traumaic, stress disorder that have been covered in the press. The Evening Standard contained an article on 17 January about the tragic death of Colleen Chudley, who was knifed in the chest several times by her estranged partner, a Gulf war veteran, while her two young children were in the house.

The incident had all the signs of a person suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder, evidence for which was contained in an interview that the veteran gave to his local paper approximately six months before the incident. He was quoted as saying:

"Until the Gulf War, I had never been in trouble."

He went on to say that, on returning from the Gulf,

"I started to have problems. Suddenly I'd just had enough, I didn't want to see anyone, I couldn't face anyone, I felt depressed. I couldn't talk to anyone because I didn't know how I was feeling. It was the first time that I had felt like that.

He went absent without leave, but was caught and held in military custody for some time. That scenario was repeated several times until he was dismissed from the Army because, according to the Army, he was too violent to serve. No help or assistance was given to reintegrate him into civilian life. He also claimed that, because of the stress that he felt lie was under, he suffered nightmares and could not hold down a job for any length of time. He turned to drink as a form of escapism.

The second case is more recent. Last month, an 80-year-old ex-Royal Artillery private who served during the second world war pleaded guilty to the charge of manslaughter on the ground of diminished responsibility. He was awoken by the sound of fireworks and had a flashback, thinking that he had returned to the battlefields of north Africa. When his 85-year-old neighbour appeared, he believed that the enemy was breaking in, so he stabbed her.

Those two tragic examples illustrate that post-traumatic stress disorder can ruin, and even end, a person's life, and we should do everything possible to stop such situations occurring again. Because those examples are extreme and involve the loss of life, they have caught the attention of the media. However, there are many other cases—involving domestic violence, family breakdown and crime—that can be attributed to post-traumatic stress disorder.

What help is available to ex-service men suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder? The MOD has put in place measures aimed at preventing post-traumatic stress disorder and treatment is available at the Duchess of Kent's hospital in Catterick. According to MOD figures, approximately 20 soldiers a year are discharged solely or mainly due to post-traumatic stress disorder. People may think that that is a small number and wonder what the fuss is about, but it is only the tip of the iceberg. The symptoms of post-traumatic stress disorder can occur days, weeks, months, or even years after the incident. They can occur on its anniversary, or on the anniversary of the end of the conflict in question.

As the second case to which I alluded shows, the symptoms of post-traumatic stress disorder can also be prompted by an event that triggers a flashback. Perhaps that is one reason why the issue has not been given the attention that it merits. As Martin Collins said in his article on post-traumatic stress disorder, published in The Guardian in 1992:

"For many soldiers, the war goes on long after the fighting stops: there is the struggle to cope with trauma."

According to the interim report of the ex-service resettlement project, many ex-service men are not diagnosed with mental health problems when they are discharged from the armed services, but suffer from such problems later in life. The report also states that mental health problems frequently come to light in assessments. Perhaps a culture persists in the armed forces that views admitting to post-traumatic stress disorder as a sign of weakness or inadequacy.

In any event, answers to my parliamentary questions have shown that, on leaving the armed forces, a soldier is regarded as a civilian. Any medical issue is therefore the responsibility not of the Ministry of Defence but of the national health service. Given the new role of my hon. Friend the Minister, I anticipate that he will be able to communicate with the Department of Health and other Departments when an issue of concern to war veterans is raised. I should be grateful if he clarified that point, and told us to which Department such questions and inquiries should be addressed.

As I have said, the majority of cases of post-traumatic stress disorder are dealt with after the soldier has been discharged. As the Minister will know, there are two main sources from which help can be sought: Combat Stress and the national health service. Such provision might appear adequate, but in practice it seems not to be working and I shall try to explain why. I should begin by putting on the record my full support and admiration for the work undertaken by Combat Stress, which provides a valuable service that has benefited many ex-service men. However, there are a number of ex-service men whose condition is so severe that Combat Stress is unable to provide the necessary treatment.

Combat Stress funds treatment through the War Pensions Agency. Such treatment is available for a maximum of six weeks a year only, which raises a further issue. In order to be treated by Combat Stress, ex-service men must be in receipt of a war pension, but evidence suggests that those in need of help, such as homeless ex-service men, do not receive one. In the first instance, they must therefore apply for a war pension, which can take months.

Another problem is that many patients who suffer from post-traumatic stress disorder require specialist treatment, but Combat Stress does not have the required facilities. As a result, I understand that it is necessarily selective about the patients that it accepts. For example, it has a low-alcohol policy and, on occasions, it has had to ask patients to leave. Such practices are in place because treatment is provided in nursing homes that do not have facilities for disruptive patients, who would be better suited to hospital treatment.

Based on the evidence and examples that I have mentioned, ex-service men who have become homeless, experienced family breakdown or been in prison have a common characteristic —an alcohol problem—which may divert attention from the symptoms of post-traumatic stress disorder. Consequently, many of those ex-service men—the ones who people see sleeping rough or read about in newspapers—are unable to get treatment from Combat Stress. In a nutshell, ex-service men suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder who are disruptive or have an alcohol problem have no alternative to NHS treatment, which is where the problem lies.

Given the specialist facilities required to treat patients with post-traumatic stress disorder, the level of services available differs throughout the country. In fact, many hospitals do not have the specialist facilities required. In that case, NHS funding can be provided, so that the patient can be treated by an organisation that offers specialist treatment. That structure of access means that individual health authorities determine each application, which results in an inequality of access to post-traumatic stress disorder treatment. However, that was not the reply I was given by the Secretary of State for Health last November. When I asked about waiting times for ex-service men suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder, he told me in a letter that the information was not held centrally. However, he stated that

"in primary care, people with post-traumatic stress disorder have difficulties in accessing specialist mental services through their general practitioners partly because of poor knowledge and awareness of the criteria for assessment and onward referral."

He continued:

"We are aware of concerns about waiting lists within the National Health Service. but that there is no evidence that ex-service personnel are especially disadvantaged; they are equally entitled to receive care and treatment."

The problem is purported to lie at general practitioner level, but when I investigated I found that that is not always the case. I established that it is the health authority that has been refusing to give funding for specialist treatment, despite general practitioners agreeing the need for it.

When my office spoke to a representative from Planning and Healthcare Consultants, an organisation that offers specialist treatment for ex-service men suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder, it was informed that health authorities were refusing to fund applications for treatment. That impasse resulted in endless negotiations with the health authority in seeking funding, a problem that affected my two constituents. If a general practitioner states that specialist treatment is required, why would a health authority refuse to fund it? Is it the case that health authorities do not want to fund the treatment because of its cost? If so, it is unacceptable. The problem is not caused by general practitioners' lack of awareness of post-traumatic stress disorder; it is mainly due to health authorities' refusal to provide the necessary funding.

A possible solution to ensure that ex-service men have access to the necessary treatment would be to authorise a central body—perhaps the War Pensions Agency as it already allocates funding for treatment to Combat Stress—to access applications, monitor value for money, ensure a high standard of treatment and allocate funding to specialist treatment centres for sufferers of post-traumatic stress disorder. That would ensure uniformity of access throughout the country and ensure that all ex-service men suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder had access to treatment. I would be grateful if the Minister considered that suggestion.

The lack of statistics is a key problem when examining issues that are relevant to war veterans. Over the past few months, I have been trying to gain a picture of the profiles of ex-service personnel who become homeless and are suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder. Not only are there few statistics to examine, but there does not appear to be a plan to collect figures in crucial areas such as ex-set vice personnel who commit criminal offences. Perhaps the Minister would examine the issue of statistics with his colleagues at the Home Office and the DETR. Collating statistics on what happens to ex-service men when they leave the armed forces could help to ensure that their needs are addressed more effectively.

Society has an obligation to recognise and care about the needs of those who have served in the armed forces. I am glad to say that the Government have acknowledged that through the Minister's recently added responsibilities. We pay for our armed forces to train and to serve their country. It is right that we should also ensure the welt are of all our war veterans. They may have left the armed forces, but their experiences will never leave them.

This is the first time that I have had the pleasure of contributing to a debate under your chairmanship, Mr. Amess. It is nearly 25 years since we first encountered one another in the dark recesses of the London borough of Newham, and we may now be in the last few days of the present Parliament.

I congratulate the hon. Member for Bolton, West (Ms Kelly) on securing the debate and on her thoughtful and compassionate speech. She touched on the serious problem of post-traumatic stress disorder, which afflicts people who are paying the price of their past war service. I want to discuss what happens to those people and their dependants once they have retired. The Officers Pensions Society campaigns not only for the pensions of retired officers, but for those of their widows after they have passed away For many years, the society has drawn attention to several anomalies that affect situations relating to such pensions. I shall refer to three of those anomalies

My first example concerns post-retirement marriages, whereby service men marry after they have retired from the fighting arm in which they served. Widows of service men who retired before 1978, but who married them subsequently, receive no pension whatsoever. If their late husband retired after 1978, but they married him only after that retirement, they receive a service widows pension only for te years since 1978. The service man will be considered to have made the same contribution throughout the period of his service as that of a fellow service man who happened to be married during that time, yet, whereas the widow of the latter will get the benefit of a service pension, the widow of the former will not. That is unjust

The second concern raised by the society relates to service men who retired before 1973 and who were not given the option to buy in their earlier service for the half-rate widows pensions. That means that their eventual widows—widows who were married to their late husbands during the period of his service—get only the one-third rate. The widow of the man who retired in March 1973 is condemned to a third-rate widows pension for life, whereas the man who retired in April 1973 after making exactly the same contribution is given the option to buy in earlier service for the half rate for his wife for the time she outlives him

Thirdly, there has recently been a surge of publicity relating to the very different pensions that service men receive on an arbitrary basis according to the situation that obtained on the date on which they retired. It seems monumentally unjust that service men should have such differential pension entitlements according to an arbitrary date. To give an example cited by the society, a major who retired in 1977 receives £4,269 per annum less than an exactly comparable major who retired two years earlier in 1975. In fact, he receives less than all those who retired right back to 1964.

When he sums up, I hope that the Minister will make every attempt to deal with my concerns and those of the hon. Member for Bolton, West, and the hon. Member for Thurrock (Mr. Mackinlay), who is about to speak. I hope that the Minister will urge his Department, during the current consultation phase of the pension and compensation reviews, to look closely at the shortcomings in the armed forms pension scheme, which affect everyone who served on pensionable terms. The Minister will be aware of how vigorously in recent months the Officers Pensions Society and many of its members have pressed for the consideration of injustices in the present scheme. The injustices bear most heavily on the widows of our service men —widows who followed the flag and showed as much loyalty as their husbands but now find that the arbitrary date of their husband's retirement may have a permanent and perpetually damaging effect on their own subsequent pension.

The recommendations of the pension and compensation reviews go some way to ensuring that such anomalies do not occur in future but that is of little comfort to those who are disadvantaged by the present scheme. Given the frequent declarations by Ministers that our service personnel are unique in their commitment to the nation, I urge the Minister to keep in mind that those who have served prevously were unique in their era of service and should be looked after as well as those who are serving now and those who will do so in future.

I turn to the activities of some local authorities in relation to pensions for war veterans and war widows, and the for once beneficial work of the broadcast media—in particular, the BBC programme "Money Box." By chance, I heard that programme on Radio 4 on 7 April, when it reported that war pensioners in the Labour-controlled borough of Harrow were about to lose, on average, almost £1,700 a year each. That was owing to the fact that the council, which like the overwhelming majority of other councils in England and Wales takes no account of war pensions when working out entitlements to help with rent and council tax, was thinking of ceasing to disregard the two types of pensions that some of their residents received: the war widows pension and the war disablement pension. The grand total of 53 war widows and pensioners in the borough were affected.

The programme went into some detail on the matter and interviewed, as a typical example, a widow called Dorothy. She said that she felt angry because

"the people sitting behind the desks probably were not even born during the war"

and continued by saying that they had no conception of the struggle that she and her late husband had undergone. She pointed out that, when her husband was transferred from the Somerset Light Infantry to the Black Watch, and sent to Italy to be killed in action in 1944.

"I got just a little bit of paper saying we regret to inform you your husband was killed on 9 July."

She added that she had been on her own ever since. Her daughter had died the previous year and it was being proposed to add almost £1,700 to her personal expenses.

At the time, Harrow council said that it had no choice. The deputy leader, Mr. Keith Toms, was interviewed on the programme. He had twice voted to cut the benefits paid to Dorothy and the other 52 war widows and war disabled pensioners. He said:

"It's not an economy that we look at with a great deal of pleasure, but on the other hand when you come to consider that there are 53 people who are in receipt of £88,000, then, you know, this might mean that we can employ four school teachers or four social workers, so we really have had to look at the budget very hard this time."

As the presenter pointed out, the council was picking on one of the most deserving and poorest groups in the entire community. I am sure that it was as a result of the publicity generated by the programme that the council retreated on the matter a fortnight later. The Sunday Times had reported on 8 April that, although the council was proposing to save less than £90,000 by that dreadful, diabolical step, it had previously approved the spending of £226,000 on laptop computers to enable councillors to work from home and a further £30,000 had been earmarked to pay for a new employee to help to train the councillors in using those computers. That showed a strange sense of priorities. Although Labour-controlled Harrow council was compelled to retreat on the eve of the election, thanks to media exposure and embarrassment, the danger remains that such practices could be reinstated.

For many years, the Royal British Legion has campaigned for war disablement and war widows pensions to be disregarded because they should be seen not as state benefits but as compensation for the loss of amenity or the death of a husband in the service of our country. Under a previous Conservative Government in 1986, the Secretary of State for Social Services decided, wrongly in my view, to maintain local authorities' discretionary powers on whether to disregard war disablement and war widows pensions. Keith Toms, deputy leader of Harrow council, made a strange comment during the "Money Box" programme on 7 April:

"We need to get to the stage where I believe it shouldn't be left at the discretion of local authorities, however small that number"—

the number of beneficiaries—

"is. We need to have a national agreement on this."

It was strange that Keith Toms argued that he wished that he did not have the power to take the disastrous step that he was about to take and from which he eventually drew back, and it is unfortunate, to put it mildly, that councillors are in a position to inflict suffering on such deserving people. I hope that the Minister will address the matter and consider whether that discretion should not be removed from local authorities so that war disabled people and war widows should not go through the anguish and worry unfairly suffered by those 53 deserving people in Harrow.

Finally, I turn to the distress that is being caused to war veterans by diving to wrecks, which hon. Members in my party, as well as Liberal Democrats and Labour Members, have highlighted in early-day motions throughout this Session. I applaud them for so doing. Friends of War Memorials has pointed out that, since August 1914, just under 300 shipwrecks have been designated as war graves. The Government have powers under the Protection of Military Remains Act 1986 to designate those wrecks as controlled sites or protected places, but they have not done so. Until the Government invest those wrecks with the necessary protection, which they could provide if they undertook the necessary paperwork, the wrecks will continue to be plundered for souvenirs, causing massive offence and distress to those who regard the wrecks as the graves of loved ones who never came back from fighting to preserve this country's freedom in the first and second world wars.

It seems strange that such an issue should have to be raised at all in such a debate, at the turn of the century. It only goes to show the monumental insensitivity of people who, while professing an interest in history, defile that history and distress veterans and survivors of terrible conflicts. Without those conflicts and sacrifices, we would not enjoy our freedoms today, and people who engage in such sports would not enjoy the leisure time in which to amuse themselves. They do so carelessly, rather than respecting the graves of those to whom we owe so much.

I am pleased to take part in this timely debate and congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Bolton, West (Ms Kelly) on securing it. During my time in Parliament, I have asked Tory and Labour Governments for an annual House of Commons debate on veterans' affairs. Both have denied it. I do not think that the matter should be left to Back Benchers. There should be an annual day's debate, along the lines of the annual debate on the Metropolitan police, which always falls in the late autumn. I hope that the Minister might take that on board and have a word with the people who work out the parliamentary timetable. It would be not only good politics, but right to have such a debate in Government time.

I am very proud of my associate membership of an ex-service organisation, and I am sure that you, Mr. Amess, are proud of yours. I am an associate member of the Grays, Thurrock branch of the Royal British Legion. Although the views that I utter this morning will be my own, I expect that they will find much support in that quarter and elsewhere.

Walking in Gibraltar, I once saw painted on a wall:

"God and soldier all men adore,

In time of trouble and no more,

For when war is over and all things righted,

God is neglected and old soldier slighted."

That sums up the collective guilt of the House and the people who have filled it for the past 80-odd years. It does not matter whether Governments are Tory, Labour or, as some used to be, Liberal. On failure and neglect of veterans I would, in general, use the words, "They're all the same and they're all to blame."

Each Government can find things that they have remedied. The Minister will undoubtedly refer to some of the things that this Labour Government have achieved with some pride, and I associate myself with that pride. The person who will speak for the Conservative party will, no doubt, try to claim some credit for what Conservative Governments have done.

By and large, however, we have failed. We cannot be proud of that. It is scandal that it has taken 80 years to designate a Minister as having special responsibility for veterans. I listened to my hon. Friend the Member for Bolton, West congratulate the Prime Minister on that, and I also congratulate him—I am very fond of him. However, he has something in common with his predecessor. Both said no to a veterans Minister. I am delighted that the Prime Minister has changed his mind. One lesson that I have learned in this place is that, if one keeps going, eventually one gets somewhere by attrition.

That is especially true when one knows that one is right, when that which is right is sensible, and when that which is sensible becomes inevitable. I have learned that, if one keeps ploughing away, eventually, there is change. I hope that the nest Labour Government, elected in a few weeks' time, wi11 be much more radical on a range of issues, and particularly in the area under discussion. The veterans Minister will need to be much more independent and self-standing. He should not be cluttered with other duties, as the present Minister is. His appointment is a major step forward, but we need to go much further.

I am not making a party point, but the Minister, like me, will take some delight in the fact that, under this Government, there has finally been a very generous ex gratia compensatory payment to people who were prisoners of the Japanese. That is a source of some pride for the Government. Previous Labour and Conservative Governments have considered it, but the present Government have done it, and I give them a bonus mark for that.

The Minister should revisit the reply that he gave to the hon. Member for Twickenham (Dr. Cable) in an Adjournment debate about a month ago concerning compensation for people who were prisoners of the Germans in the second world war, but were not kept in accordance with the Geneva convention. 1 supported the hon. Gentleman in that debate and referred to my constituent, John Stevens. When his ship, HMS Gloucester, was sunk in the battle of Crete, he was one of the few survivors and was marched all the way through Europe. He languished as a prisoner of war in the IG Farben chemical factory, which was essentially a concentration camp close to the Auschwitz campus. He and many others who have written to me since the debate were not afforded their rights.

When the Minister responded to that debate, he did not hold out much chance of a change of view on the matter, but said that he would reconsider it. I urge him really to scratch the surface, not merely to take the brief that he has received from people in the, historical branch of the Ministry of Defence. Successive Ministers have done no more than agree with those people, who come from a template—they are effectively the same people who were there 80 years ago. I want the Minister to say, "I hear what you're saying and now this is what we're going to do." He would do an enormous amount of good if he revisited the matter and met some of the people who have complained about not having been afforded their rights in their treatment by the Germans. Will he agree to do that?

The hon. Member for New Forest East (Dr. Lewis) raised a valid point about the disregard of the war disabled pension, but he over-egged t and fell into the temptation of making a party political point. I have been rehearsing all morning the phrase, "They're both to blame and both the same." The problem does not turn on Labour or Conservative councils, o Labour or Tory Governments, but on the fact that successive Ministers have failed to use legislative opportunities to do away with the discretion. It is absurd that a pensioner in one borough can have his benefits disregarded, while in another area that will not happen. Our next legislative programme should remove the temptation for municipal councils—which face enormous constraints—to do that. It is not fair to them or to other local authorities. I have pursued this matter since 1992 and it is clear that Labour and Conservative and some Liberal Democrat councils are the guilty parties—although that is not the appropriate term, because the temptation should not be there.

We must not allow this myth to perpetuate itself. It is exclusively Labour councils that are behaving in this manner: no Liberal Democrat or Conservative council is doing so. Why do only Labour councils give in to the temptation?

That is not so.

Yes, it is.

The message may have gone out to all Conservative councils that they should now fall into line. If so, full marks to them. However, that is not yet the case. I do not want to labour the point, but it is Governments who have failed to remove the discretion. If the Minister is still in his place after 7 June, I hope that he will reconsider the matter. Will he comment on the injustice involved for widows who married ex-service men after they left the services?

We should not have a debate about veterans issues without referring to the sad story of Gulf war syndrome. Hands up anyone who believes the Ministry of Defence about that. No one does. [Interruption.] I am referring to the Ministry of Defence, not the Minister. It is a fact that the Minister responsible for the armed forces under the Conservative Government was misled by the Ministry of Defence. No one has knocked him for that. In fact, he was the first to rush to the House about it. The Ministry of Defence has misled Ministers about Gulf war syndrome and it is continuing to frustrate some particularly unfair cases. For example, the hon. Member for Woking (Mr. Malins) has diligently pursued a particular case of a civilian who was working for the Ministry of Defence. He was literally in uniform, but the Ministry of Defence will not recognise any obligations to him. I hope that the Minister will intervene on such anomalies and break away from that which is being handed down by the bureaucracy.

The issue of Commonwealth war graves is another illustration of when matters come right in the end. I am pleased that Baroness Dean was appointed by the Government to head the inquiry. It has resolved matters concerning the battlefields of north-west Europe to the satisfaction of my fellow members of the Transport and General Workers Union and other trade unions. It would have been better if the unions had been listened to first, but the settlement is welcome and I am pleased that the Under-Secretary of State for Defence and the Minister for the Armed Forces were able to facilitate a resolution. Both Labour and Conservative Ministers have been sympathetic to the matter, but they have not tackled the Ministry of Defence.

It is not the Ministry of Defence that is responsible.

I am well aware that the Commonwealth War Graves Commission is independent, but the British Ministry of Defence is very much the leading behind-the-scenes influence in the matter. The Secretary of State appoints some of the commissioners. Furthermore, he appointed Baroness Dean to provide the remedy and the outcome has been extremely helpful.

Recently, I questioned the Minister about the 49th West Riding division and 269 Squadron that held Iceland in the second world war, both of which have been denied the Atlantic star. I asked the Minister to meet them, but he ducked the issue.

The answer is no, lest I be thought to be ducking something.

That is disappointing, but it is an example of how I have to use attrition. Eventually, I shall be successful and a Minister will meet both the squadron and the division. Their case is that the committee that decided the award of medals immediately following the second world war was not fully cognisant with the circumstances of their role in Iceland. Surely my hon. Friend should listen to such a well-founded case. It is a wholly unsatisfactory state of affairs.

The hon. Member for New Forest, East referred to war graves in the sea. There is great scope for the Government to take the initiative on that. They need to pursue the UN cultural convention on the matter. A conference should be initiated by Her Majesty's Government that requires the participation of the principal maritime nations and the former belligerent nations of the first and second world wars and subsequent conflicts to see whether common legislation and enforcement can be achieved. I hope that the Minister will take up that helpful initiative. Moreover, off the shores of the Republic of Ireland are numerous war graves from both world wars.

I have raised my final point many times. When we were in opposition, there was a free vote in the House of Commons on pardons for soldiers executed in the first world war. Over half the Labour shadow Cabinet was in the Division Lobby with me. When he was Secretary of State for Defence, my right hon. Friend the Member for Hamilton, North and Bellshill (Dr. Reid) went some way towards acknowledging the wrongs of the executions. The men were suffering overwhelmingly from battle stress. They were denied the rules of natural justice. Their trials were flawed, but the Ministry of Defence resisted granting them pardons.

The Labour Government should revisit the matter. It is popular, although that should not be the reason for doing so; we should revisit it because it is right to do so. It would correct a sad part of our history that has only recently been written with clarity and precision having previously all been covered up. Documents were suppressed by the Ministry of Defence for 75 years. When those documents become available, and jurists, families, relatives, journalists and politicians say, "This is unfair", the Ministry of Defence turns around and says that it is too late to remedy the matter. It is not. Some loved ones of the people involved are alive.

We need to write history with clarity and precision—even matters that make us uncomfortable—and we shall do so if we grant the pardons. I want to mention people such as John Hipkin, Janet Booth and the late Tom Stones, who have campaigned for so long on the issue and were instrumental in creating an arboretum that will open in June to the memory of the 300-plus soldiers executed. Will the Ministry of Defence be present and facilitate the ceremonial, bearing in mind the commitment of my right hon. Friend the Member for Hamilton, North and Bellshill and his moving statement to the House on the matter two years ago? It would be entirely consistent if the Ministry were to support the commemoration of the soldiers at the opening of the arboretum.

If we have such an annual debate, many more hon. Members will be able to contribute and raise issues such as those that have been raised this morning and to pursue much more fully matters such as whether there should be a Suez medal or an ex-national service personnel medal. I shall not labour the Chamber with such matters this morning as such measures are sensitive. However, with courage, the next Labour Government should approach them, discuss them more fully with ex-service organisations and meet the people who are campaigning for those medals. It is their right to have their day in court with the Minister and for him to listen to them. It would be generous of the Minister to suggest that that will be the spirit in which he approaches the subject.

Ex-service organisations should become much stronger and more confident. Uniquely among western democracies, ex-service organisations in this country do not have direct access in the way that ex-service organisations do in Germany or the United States of America. It is partly their fault: they are too much "Mr. Nice Guy". Any Prime Minister or Minister with responsibility for defence should have to defer to them much more enthusiastically. I hope that they will be much stronger in future and perhaps follow the example of the Officers Pensions Society, which raised the question of the trough, which I raised in the House previously. It is the result of—I am not proud of this—a Labour Government in the 1970s having a pay pause, which aggravated the position unfairly for ex-service men. Some 48,000 people—not only officers but people of all ranks —have been disadvantaged.

It is time to put the matter right. We have priorities because of the resources involved, but we must do what is right. I hope that the Minister responsible for veterans will have a long time in office and will scratch the surface on these issues more deeply than the people who held his portfolio, but not his title.

I congratulate the hon. Member for Bolton, West (Ms Kelly) on having secured the debate, which has been fascinating and interesting. I congratulate the Minister on his new role and portfolio.

We heard two speeches from the Back Benches—from the hon. Members for Thurrock (Mr. Mackinlay) and for New Forest, East (Dr. Lewis), who speak on defence issues with great authority in the House. Although I do not always agree with everything that they say, I always listen with great affection. They understand what they are talking about and are a tribute to the House.

I pay tribute to the members of Her Majesty's armed forces who serve on our behalf and protect the freedoms that the hon. Member for New Forest, East discussed. Anyone who speaks on defence issues, who has been through the parliamentary armed forces scheme and who deals with the armed forces regularly never fails to be astonished at their commitment. Since 1945, there has been only on year in which a member of Her Majesty's armed forces has not been killed on active service. Although the big wars of the past may be over, the sort of wars that we are beginning to witness will continue.

We have discussed a number of veterans' affairs. I wish to discuss a specific matter that affects more and more young men—and, increasingly, young women—who put themselves at risk in the defence of freedom. Veterans' affairs ae not only about people who served in the second world. war or first world war: people who serve today in our armed forces are the veterans of tomorrow.

I pick up on a case of which I have given the Minister notice, and which have previously raised in Parliament. It is the case of the last person to die for Her Majesty's armed forces—Bombardier Brad Tinnion. He was killed in Sierra Leone at the end of last year during a paratrooper and special Air Services attack to free the hostages of the West Side Boys.

Brad Tinnion was 28 when he was killed, and the Prime Minister, the Leader of the Opposition and my right hon. Friend the Member for Ross, Skye and Inverness, West (Mr. Kennedy) paid tribute to him for his action. Sir Charles Guthrie spoke of him as a brilliant young man. Brad, like many people of his generation—not perhaps people of my or the Minister's generation—was rot married. However, he had a partner with whom he had lived for 10 years, and they were on their third home together. Anna Homsi and he were regarded, to quote one sergeant major of the SAS regiment, as "more married than married". Indeed, when he died, Brad was aware that Anna was carrying the child, Georgia, who was later born to her. However, because Anna was not married to Brad and had not been through a form of marriage ceremony, the Ministry of Defence has refused to give her a war widow's pension.

The Ministry of Defence did give Georgia—a beautiful young girl whom I have met— a pension for her father, after getting Treasury dispensation. Georgia was granted a generous £2,000 a year until the age of 17, and Anna was given a one-off payment of £ 20,000. In a letter to me and Anna Homsi, the Secretary of State told Anna that, had she lived with Brad for six months before he joined the armed forces, she would be treated as a widow and receive the full widow's entitlement. Brad was only 16 when he joined the armed forces. I am not sure whether the Secretary of State was suggesting that they should have lived together when he was just 15.

The young lady is being deprived of a war widow's pension of £ 18,000 a year. She will have to return to full-time work and will not be able to look after her daughter in the manner that she would want, simply because the couple had not gone through a form of marriage ceremony, which more and more people today do not believe is necessary.

In the past 10 years, 394 members of the armed forces have been killed in active service. On average, 35 per cent. of such people are married. so we are discussing only a few hundred people. Some will have had longterm partners, such as Anna, and many will not. I wonder how many more partners of dead soldiers—male, female or, possibly in a short time, gay—will not be entitled to the recognition that should be given. How many more children will start to grow up thinking that the Army has let down their mother or father?

Ministers have told me that the matter is a big can of worms and that, if we get into it, we will have to start to give partners' rights to many people It is claimed that sailors in Portsmouth will go into a rub in Portsmouth the night before they go to sea, find somebody, sleep with them, and then that person will claim to be a partner and thus entitled to rights. That is rubbish. The majority of private pension schemes accept that there should be a discretionary element and that one should be able to examine each individual case. If there have been only 394 cases in the past 10 years, that is hardly a massive requirement.

I do not suggest that unmarried partners should automatically have a right to service housing or to other effects that service men have. However, if a service man or woman pays the ultimate price for our country, the state should examine the possibility of giving something to that person's partner. After all, one of the last things that Brad did before he went to Sierra Leone was make a will, in which Anna Homsi was sole beneficiary. I have no doubt that he would have wanted her and his child to be treated properly.

It is ironic that, in this House, married and unmarried partners of hon. Members are entitled to be treated the same. Partners of hon. Members, whether married or unmarried—I am married, as is he Minister—are entitled to free rail tickets and the same access to the building, yet the country is not prepared to accept that partners who lay down their lives should be treated in a decent manner.

What is most annoying for Anna, to whom I spoke on the phone this morning, is that, in so many aspects of life, partners are now treated, rightly, as if they were married. The Child Support Agency does not bother to find out, before chasing ex-service men for money, whether they are married. Benefits agencies assess married and unmarried couples equally, as does the tax system. The country is moving forward. Although some hon. Members, who may be of a different generation, may not understand or like that, whoever is the Minister with responsibility for veterans in the next Government needs to address the matter. It simply is not good enough for Ministers to say, "I'm sorry Paul, we'll keep saying no on this." Like the hon. Member for Thurrock, I shall keep battling on the issue, and I hope that progress will be made.

One of the great aspects of our system is that, almost at this moment, the Prime Minister is seeking a dissolution of Parliament from Her Majesty the Queen. Our armed forces are Her Majesty's armed forces, and I am sorry that Her Majesty's Ministers have not decided, in this instance or in other instances like it, that they could be more generous. If the old adage is true that a dying person sees his life flash before him, I have no doubt that, when Brad Tinnion died, his last thoughts would have been for his partner of 10 years, Anna Homsi, and for the child whom he did not see. The next Government should treat such people with the respect that they deserve and with the respect that the regiment in which Brad served believes he should be accorded.

I congratulate the hon. Member for Bolton, West (Ms Kelly) on raising this important issue. I agree with much of what she said. Her remarks about the Ministry of Defence keeping in touch with ex-service men were right. After all, it loses touch with about a third of reservists in the first year, which is not helpful to anybody.

One of the problems is that we do not go to war any more. The Falklands, the Gulf and the Balkans were all conflicts and technically, not, wars. It is also difficult to determine what is the front line and what is not. For all those reasons, it is difficult to know how the Ministry of Defence, when considering veteran's affairs, should treat sponsored reserves, contractors, civil servants who are in the front line, such as my constituents who work at Porton Down and who are in the front line of chemical and biological defence in Kuwait—

And private industries.

And, of course, private industries. We must think afresh and look forward, which is what I intend to do.

There is a large number of war veterans—about 15 million people, of all ages, are eligible to approach the Royal British Legion for support. That includes 291,000 war disability pensioners and war widows. The services provided by the Royal British Legion include resettlement, welfare, pilgrimages, job retraining, counselling and much more. Last year, the legion

received more than 300,000 calls for help from eligible people. The Officers Pensions Society—which, incidentally, also deals with ranks other than officers— has a huge work load and is to be congratulated. I must, of course, mention the Soldiers, Sailors and Airmen's Families Association. On disregards, I entirely agree with the spirit of the remarks of the hon. Member for Thurrock (Mr. Mackinlay). There should be no question of partial disregards. When one considers the roll of honour of which widows are a part, it contrasts with the roll of shame of the only six local authorities in the country that make no disregard for war and war widows pensions—Chester-le-Street district council, Easington district council, Wear Valley district council, Manchester city council, South Tyneside metropolitan borough council and Gateshead metropolitan borough council.

I want to ask a simple question. Why did not the hon. Gentleman support my private Member's Bill, which would have ended discretion? His party is as much to blame as the present Administration. However, I do not believe that Conservative or Labour Governments were to blame, except in so far as they permitted discretion to endure—

Order. That has been a long and passionate intervention.

There are still a few Members of Parliament who, like me, believe in local government democracy. The hon. Gentleman said that we should dictate to local authorities, but I believe that they should have discretion because they, like us, are elected. Therefore, they must accept their responsibilities.

With regard to the excellent speech of my hon. Friend the Member for New Forest, East (Dr. Lewis), I wish to add a small word of caution. Many divers are responsible and we should not include them in the condemnation. I have received many representations from divers who are not careless about where and how they dive. Problems often arise in international waters, and the Government are, rightly, addressing that matter.

The issue of where to draw the line presents another problem. Apparently, although it is acceptable to raise the Mary Rose and to put it on display in Portsmouth, a distinction must be drawn after 1914. The issue is fraught with difficulty. but my hon. Friend was right to highlight the need for divers to be sensitive.

I endorse the comments of my hon. Friend on the service pension and the pension trough. That is a serious matter that must not be ignored. Our nation is getting richer—

What about before?

All I can say with regard to what happened in the past, is that that was then and this is now. Our nation is much wealthier. Although progress has been made, we must continue to move forward.

The issue is important and it requires detailed and very careful consideration. When my party is returned to government in a few weeks, it will commission a review of the current service pension system, which will place particular emphasis on the concerns that have been raised in the debate. The Select Committee on Social Security is also holding an inquiry on the matter and I suspect that hon. Members from all parties would like progress to be made.

I am delighted that the Under-Secretary of State for Defence has accepted the office of veterans Minister. However, much mythology surrounds the post. The comment of the hon. Member for Bolton. West that it had been considered I only during the past couple of years is incorrect. In 1996, the Select Committee on Defence produced a report that recommended that there should be a veterans Minister. That report was unanimously supported by all parties, and I was one of the members of the Committee who signed it. It was inevitable that such a Minster would be created, irrespective of which party was returned to government following the 1997 general election. The Ministry of Defence was heading in that direction.

However, the decision had to be taken whether to establish a Department of Veterans Affairs, such as the one that exists in he United States of America, or a Minister with co-ordinating responsibility. That is the happy position at which we have arrived. The Minister made the announcement on 14 March 2001, but I quickly realised that something was not quite right about it, because we have had a Minister with responsibility for veterans affairs. The Cabinet Office guide to ministerial responsibilities that was published in January 2001 lists the Minister for the Armed Forces as responsible for service personnel policy, including veterans. Therefore, the role has been downgraded from the Minister of State to the Under-Secretary of State. That is an interesting development.

That point is akin to splitting hairs and I shall not dwell on it. However, a considerable amount of spin was put on the announcement, and when I probed the Department about the organisation and membership of the veterans forum and the veterans taskforce, I received a long answer stating that the final decision on such matters had not ye been taken. In other words, there is still a lot of work to do. Perhaps the Minister will fill us in on the detail today.

I also asked how much new money and manpower had been allocated to allow the Minister to fulfil the role, and I received a predictable answer: no new money and three new people. That will make little impression on the 15 million people who, are entitled to seek the help of the Royal British Legion. Nevertheless, it is progress. I merely want the Minister to assure us that there will be more progress and that it will happen a bit sooner. Although I welcome the appointment of a war veterans Minister, given that the Select Committee reported in 1996 and the strategic defence review finally reported in 1998, why has the Ministry of Defence only now got around to writing the press release on what is happening?

I end on a positive note. One of the problems touched on by the hon. Men fiber for Bolton, West was the serious lack of statistics Kept by the Ministry of Defence, although it keeps a large number of them. In the Gulf war, we experienced problems because no records were kept of whom was inoculated, you will not be surprised to hear. Mr. O'Hara, that as Member of Parliament for Porton Down I probed the matter. I was told that the record-keeping in the second world war, especially regarding the inoculation of soldiers in the north African desert, was much better than that achieved by the Ministry of Defence in the Gulf war. We must make progress on that problem.

A measure that was initiated by the previous Government should be accelerated—electronic tagging. That was proposed by my hon. Friend the Member for Mid-Sussex (Mr. Soames) when he was Minister for the Armed Forces in 1996, but progress has been slow, if not non-existent. I have asked parliamentary questions since then and raised the matter in debate as recently as last year. After all, a report in Computer Weekly in October 2000 headed, "US Military Gets Smart Cards", stated that:

"The United States will issue a card to 4 million personnel"

by this year. The cards will cover digital identity and include

"building access and financial access, as well as access to government information"

and personal medical records. We must make progress on such a project, to avoid getting into the mess we experienced in the Gulf war.

I look forward to the Minister's response. I regret only that we did not each have 20 minutes in which to put our points.

I thank, my hon. Friend the Member for Bolton, West (Ms Kell)) for giving us the opportunity to consider the concerns of our war veterans. Many in our country have no direct experience of military service and it is easy to lose sight of the sacrifices made by those who served in our armed forces and by their families. Some are veterans of the major wars of the previous century who are now facing the wide range of problems that come with time—health, making ends meet or simply the concern that their efforts have not been recognised or that their sacrifices have been forgotten.

Many veterans, however, served in more recent operations and their problems can be different. Some have experienced difficultly in adjusting to civilian life or in finding employment. Some have become homeless and some are incapacitated through illness or injury resulting from their service. Our concern should not end with the individual who served in the services. Military service has cost many dependants a wife, husband, father or mother, and relatives of those who died may experience a range of problems, such as single parenthood, financial hardship and the heavy burden of personal loss.

The risks attached to a service career are high and it is right that we should give particular recognition to the needs of those who have served their country. Whatever their particular contribution, our veterans and their families have played a major part in securing the peace and security of our nation. The Government are determined to deal with their concerns effectively and with a proper focus. It was with that aim in mind that, on 14 March, the Prime Minister announced my appointment as Minister with responsibility for veterans' affairs. It is a privilege to be given that responsibility and I am conscious of the expectations that come with the appointment. I am determined to succeed and know that I have the Prime Minister's full support.

My task is to ensure that the response to veterans' concerns is co-ordinated throughout government— whether central, regional or local—to deliver a properly integrated service. Individual Departments and local authorities are invariably conscientious in trying to deal with veterans' concerns, but, in the past, they have tended to do that issue by issue. The role of the ministerial taskforce will be to ensure that veterans' concerns are understood and dealt with as a coherent and seamless whole. We plan the first meeting of the taskforce for later this summer. I am sure that the hon. Member for Salisbury (Mr. Key), who speaks for the Opposition, would be happy to fill that role in the unlikely event that he is called on to do so. I mean that in no personal sense.

We also wish to work more effectively with many veterans' charities. Those groups undertake excellent work in supporting former members of the armed forces, but we are determined that our efforts and theirs be better co-ordinated. We often work in different areas. There can be gaps or overlaps in the support that we provide. We bring different strengths to our work and our individual understanding of the worries of veterans is often incomplete. There are already close working relationships between individual Departments and particular charities, but we can achieve more by effective co-operation.

The veterans forum will provide the opportunity for representatives of several veterans charities to help us to define our agenda for veterans, identify those issues of the deepest concern and ensure that we concentrate our collective efforts on those areas in which we can make a substantial difference. From the Government's perspective, it will also allow us to tap into the knowledge and skills of veterans organisations more effectively. I am confident that those arrangements will bring a new dynamism to our handling of such issues, and veterans, for their part, can look forward to real improvements in the support that they receive.

That is not to say that much has not already being achieved for veterans through the efforts of the Government and the charitable sector. It is easy, whether looking at the media or listening to debates such as this, to lose sight of the many good things that are happening. The rough sleepers initiative has done much to deal with homelessness among ex-service personnel. We have recently introduced regulations to extend reservists' eligibility for benefits for illness, injury or death resulting from service. In addition, we have a pensions scheme, which, although I accept it is not perfect, is the envy of many throughout the world. We should not forget the considerable support that we already give our veterans. However, clearly, issues need to be addressed, several of which have been raised in the debate.

My hon. Friend the Member for Bolton, West referred to homelessness. We recognise the problems and we are working closely with the rough sleepers unit at the Department of the Environment, Transport and the Regions and ex-service charities to deal with them. Our approach is focused on the three key points of pre-discharge, the point of discharge and post-discharge. As

my hon. Friend said, Catterick garrison has been chosen to host a pilot project, funded by the rough sleepers unit and run by the English Churches housing group, to provide accommodation advice to service personnel who are about to be discharged from the armed forces.

The project is known as the single persons accommodation centre for the ex-services—SPACES. It is amazing how acronyms can be concocted; it is just as well that we have them, given the lengthy title of the project. It has no housing of its own, but assists in the search for suitable accommodation for single leavers. The point of discharge group should be successfully targeted by the project, which aims to identify vulnerable service leavers and prevent them from falling into the cycle of homelessness and rough sleeping. After 18 months, we shall review the success of the project and, if it is deemed a success, further projects will be set up.

The MOD has long been committed to ensuring that service personnel make a smooth transition back to civilian life. To that end, it has a comprehensive career transition service that is provided by the career transition partnership: a partnership between the MOD and Coutts Consulting Group. That provides a wide-ranging service for all personnel with five or more years' service who are discharged for medical reasons or who are leaving because of redundancy. The service includes guidance on financial, housing and welfare issues together with practical advice on job finding for up to two years post-discharge.

My hon. Friend the Member for Bolton, West made a good point about those with more limited service and we shall certainly be willing to consider that during our review. In addition, financial advice briefings are arranged by the CTP at 10 regional resettlement centres and are open to all service personnel. The briefings provide impartial advice on pension schemes, savings and financial management as well as on how best to obtain suitable living accommodation. All service personnel are also eligible to attend briefings on housing options run by the joint service housing advice office, which include the opportunity to discuss individual cases. About 1,500 personnel attend such briefings annually. We are by no means complacent about the current position and keep it under regular review. However, it is important to recognise that some 20,000 people leave the armed forces every year, and that the overwhelming majority make a successful transition to civilian life.

We recognise that post-traumatic stress disorder is both serious and disabling. Preventive measures are in place, including pre-deployment and post-deployment briefing and counselling during deployments. The strategic defence review recommended that community psychiatric services be enhanced. That has resulted in proposals to increase staffing at some existing defence community psychiatric centres, and the formation of two new centres—one in Scotland and one in England. The arrangements have been developed over a number of years and will continue to be reviewed in the light of medical developments in stress management and treatment.

In terms of the nature of the challenge that we face, the spectrum of psychiatric disorders in the armed forces is broadly similar to that in the community at large. Limited peer review evidence has been published on how to treat such disablements, particularly post-traumatic stress disorder. Evidence exists confirming the usefulness of certain psychological treatments, but many unknown factors remain, including the question of whether treatment should be in-patient or out-patient based, the precise composition of such treatment, and whether it should be based on individual or group therapy. The exact role of therapeutic drugs also remains unresolved.

On treatment of mental illness in respect of those who have left the armed forces, it is Government policy to ensure that the NHS makes proper provision for health services. The Government have identified mental illness as one of their three health priorities and have addressed it in their framework for mental health. The framework includes significant extra investment of more than £300 million in the NHS plan for mental health service development in the next three years. According to that framework, most locally based NHS services should be able to offer effective treatment for psychological injury.

We do not think it necessary to treat psychological injury cases by providing substantial periods of inpatient care; indeed, in general, every effort is made in psychiatry to avoid admitting in-patients. Patients, including those in community psychiatric care, are most likely to be looked after by primary care teams, with a percentage referred to consultant psychiatrists as outpatients. Periods as an in-patient are likely to be brief and, I suspect, will mainly involve those for whom drug and/or alcohol dependence is an issue. Equally, there might well be a need for sporadic acute admissions where symptoms become severe.

War disablement pensioners have been entitled to priority NHS treatment since the former Ministry of Pensions hospitals were transferred to the NHS. Priority is determined by the clinician in charge, and is subject to the needs of emergencies and other urgent cases. Priority treatment is a matter for the Department of Health and the NHS executive, and is the subject of regular circulars to trusts and individual practitioners. I assure my hon. Friend the Member for Bolton, West that I will take a very close look at the matter through the Ministry's taskforce, and see whether anything can be done to improve co-ordination.

Given that I have dealt with the main issues raised by my hon. Friend, and given the limited time remaining, perhaps I should move on to some of the other points to which reference has been made. On the question of war graves at sea, it should not have escaped the notice of the hon. Member for New Forest, East (Dr. Lewis) that I announced a major review of the present system and gave a personal promise to ensure that proper respect is paid to war graves. That does not mean, however, that people will not be allowed to dive on them, just as we would not prevent people from walking through a graveyard. We will take careful action, in co-ordination with other countries—I accept the need for that—to ensure that visitors respect sites. That is the key.

I believe that my role in respect of veterans will lead to better co-ordination between Departments and a much sharper focus on important issues. Although that is but one—albeit the major—aspect of what is an increasingly large and diverse portfolio, I assure all hon. Members present that I will pay very close attention to it. On the question of to whom to write in respect of individual cases, one may write to me or o the individual Department concerned. General issues will be dealt with by me and more specific ones by the relevant Department.

On pensions—I am sorry to appear to repeat the longstanding policy of Governments—whatever changes might be made, there will be no retrospection.

It is most unlikely that we shall consider revisiting that issue, although I recognise that people feel that they have been badly treated. That I do not see us revisiting it does not mean that I shall not reconsider it on occasion. I shall not consider a change in policy, but I might consider whether anything could be done at its margins.

In the Ludlow constituency there are two district councils, six town councils and dozens of parish councils. To put that in context, in the area of Bridgnorth district council there is a population of more than 50,000 and in the area of South Shropshire district council there is a population of more than 40,000. However, in terms of best value, both those district councils must work to the same yardstick as the city of Birmingham, which is not far away, where the population is more than 1 million. Leaving aside the principle, which I shall come to presently, the cost of best value to my constituents is wholly disproportionate. On the basis of the figures available, far from saving council tax payers' money, it causes the council tax to be higher than it need otherwise be.

For example, Bridgnorth town council's budgeting expenditure for the current year is £436,468. The town clerk, Mrs. Kathy James, says that the estimated cost of best value to the town council for 2001 is between £10,000 and £15,000, which is between 2 per cent. and 3.5 per cent. of its total budget. The town clerk also says that no overall savings have been identified. The entire process of operating best value has involved only expenditure and a vast amount of time. The town clerk referred me to a magazine entitled Shropshire Review, in which Councillor Ed Shirley, who is chairman of the town council's best value committee, stated:

"The first year's report gained considerable praise from the independent auditor. The conclusion was that the council is run efficiently and no savings could be made that were not already being implemented."

He continued:

"the mandatory Best Value plan is unnecessary and self-defeating as well as being an administrative and financial burden…There is a new cost to residents of over 3 per cent. of the annual precept, which will be reflected in their council bills. This is to cover extra administration, legal and auditors fees etc.—in effect money spent to show we can't save money."

What that means at district council level is illustrated by Councillor Michael Williams, the chairman of South Shropshire district council, who advises me that the cost of implementing best value is £243,560, the equivalent of no less than 5 per cent. of the £4.8 million total annual budget for that authority. The total savings of £97,264 were gained at a cost of close to ££250,000, which is bad business and not cost-effective. However, that is what the Government oblige the local authority to do. Furthermore, local householders pick up the tab in the shape of unnecessarily inflated council tax demands.

Councillor Williams also took the opportunity to point out that another unwarranted and unwanted impost of central Government£I refer to the new political structures—will add a further £60,000 cost to council tax bills for South Shropshire district council, expenditure which will inevitably be at the expense of first-line services.

Will my hon. Friend give way?

I gladly give way to another Shropshire Member.

My hon. Friend mentioned services. Is he aware that today the Shropshire and Wrekin fire authority is putting in a section 19 application to reduce Whitchurch, Market Drayton, Ludlow, Bridgnorth and Newport fire stations from two pumps to one to save £90,000? The chief fire officer told me in February that best value cost £66,000 and that that, plus the cost of a performance and quality manager and best value support office, is almost certainly more than the cost savings of the two fire engines. He said that the best value process has not, as yet, yielded any savings for the fire authority. The document is costing services in Shropshire.

I am grateful to my hon. Friend for that contribution. He has mentioned the point that I want to make to the Minister: as far as small local authorities are concerned—I think that one can generalise and extend that to all those in Shropshire—the savings are far outweighed by the cost of best value. I talked to Bridgnorth district council and received a letter from it that said:

"The net Budget Requirement for Bridgnorth District Council 2001/02 is £4.253M of which, a 2 per cent. anticipated Best Value saving would free just £85,000."

That is a small saving and the cost of best value—£102,000 per year—far outweighs it. The letter went on:

"In addition to the above, it has been necessary for the Council to purchase an additional 100 days of audit time at an annual cost of nearly £20,000 in order to free up the Head of Scrutiny's time to supervise the whole process. Furthermore, the time invested by officers undertaking the reviews and ancillary procedures, not only detracts from the frontline service to the customer, but also adds significantly to the true cost of best value."

The directly attributable additional cost for the previous and current year is £86,000 and £102,000 respectively. It is likely that the marginal costs of officer and member time could at least double those figures. The acting chief executive said in another letter:

"I share the frequently expressed concern of members here that the costs of the Best Value regime for a small, prudent. rural Authority such as ourselves may ultimately outweigh the benefits and savings from the process."

I also talked to an experienced and dedicated councillor, Michael Wood, who, having previously served on county and county borough councils, now sits on the best value steering group at Bridgnorth district council. He told me that there are no savings, no benefit and very little change in practice as a consequence of implementing best value procedures. He also pointed out that the cost to council tax payers is bound to rise when the Government's subsidisation of the district auditor ends and when, in 12 months' time, the real cost of the district auditor are charged in full. Apart from the directly attributable and identifiable costs of implementing best value procedure, there are the additional costs of senior officers' time spent as monitoring officers of best value study teams, and the consequential, but largely unquantifiable, costs of such officers' being taken off the duties that they were appointed to perform.

The story does not end there. I am reliably informed that in the central region—one of five regions in England—the Government are recruiting up to 80 people at a basic salary of %30,000 per annum to staff a best value inspectorate. To supervise a project the cost- effectiveness of which is already a proven negative, there will now be a whole hierarchy ranging from internal auditors directly employed by the local authorities, to district auditors employed by Government, and the best value inspectorate, which will cost upwards of —12.5 million per annum in salaries alone, will be superimposed on top.

The nub of the question is, why have the Government imposed the new requirements? Is it because there have previously been no. controls? The answer to that is, most emphatically, no. With internal and external audits and a whole range of performance indicators in place, it would be spurious for Ministers to argue that spending, especially in small local authorities such as the Bridgnorth and South Shropshire district councils, was out of control.

Is it because the Government are determined to clamp down on bureaucracy and public spending? Clearly not, when the consequence of best value, as I have illustrated, is at least 400 additional civil service posts in the best value inspectorate and additional, unwarranted and unnecessary expenditure at national and local level. Have the Government identified some significant, specific on-going abuse in local authority spending that comes anywhere near to rivalling their own crass incompetence over, for example, the dome at Greenwich? I think not.

We have here a deliberate assault on the fundamentals of local democracy. We elect our councillors to cam out certain functions and, through the ballot box, have the ultimate sanction, if we wish to exercise it, of getting rid of them if they fail. If it is thought that our councillors are not achieving best value on our behalf, we can remove them. That is how democracy works.

The imposition of best value regulations on local authorities is only one part of the Government's assault on local democracy and accountability. The Government have decreed that the political structures that have served local government so well for so long must be abandoned in favour of structures that are barely comprehensible to the general public.

As if that were not bad enough, the long-suffering council tax payers, having been required to express their views on the new political structures, are now requested to give their views on the annual best performance plans. They are expected to do that not just once, but three times in the questionnaires sent to them by the town council, district council and county council. If, perchance, the councils do not get the requisite number of returns, they must send out the forms again until they do. What a ridiculous waste of time and money.

Such things are not about improving accountability or strengthening local government, but about negating local democracy and imposing the will of an increasingly bureaucratic and authoritarian Government. I suggest that the commissars in the Government—I use that term advisedly, knowing that several members of the Cabinet had links with coy nmunism—get their tanks off the lawns at Stonehouse, Westgate and the Shirehall and concentrate their fit e on getting best value in Whitehall.

As a minimum, the Government should immediately take local authorities where the population is lower than 250.000 out of the requirements altogether and save us all a huge amount of cash. For the small local authorities in my constituency, the requirement are unnecessary, unwanted and totally disproportionate. I trust that the Minister will recognise the strength of that argument and take the necessary action.

Before I sit down, I should like to show the Chamber the collection of papers and publications to do with best value that have accumulated on my desk during the past few weeks, and began to do so before I thought of applying for an Adjournment debate on the topic. Does anyone actually read publications such as the one that I have in my hand—the best value performance plan for Shropshire county council? Is it reasonable to expect councillors to go through such lengthy documents when they know that, at the end of the day. the plans will cost more than the amount that is saved?

I found it very interesting to listen to the points made by the hon. Member for Ludlow (Mr. Gill). Although I did not agree with a word that he said, I am grateful for the opportunity to put a different perspective on best value and the wider local government reforms that we are trying to achieve. We must see best value as part of that wider reform. We want to make councils more accessible and more demonstrably accountable to local people. If the hon. Gentleman does not think that that is necessary, I must disagree with him.

I hope that the Minister recognises that I speak not just personally, but on behalf of all the people whom 1 represent. If she thinks that the councillors in my constituency are not worried about these measures, she has misunderstood everything that I have said.

In the course of my reply, I will tell the hon. Gentleman why I think that he is wrong about that and is not representing the generality of local people's views about their local councils. I make no apology for the fact that the Government are determined to bring the highest standards of excellence and accountability to local government and the services on which local people depend. Best value is at the heart of that. It provides the basis for making local councils more efficient and effective organisations, where performance counts, and they must be accountable for that performance.

Performance plans—which the hon. Gentleman derided—play a central role in delivering best value. They are there to put key performance data and information into the public domain and, partly in that way, to drive up standards. That is why they are so important.

I want to say a little about performance plans. A performance plan is an important feature of any performance-related organisation. In local government, it benefits both the council and local people. First, it enables the council to bring together in one place important corporate information about what has been achieved against the previous year's targets, the future targets that the council is setting itself and the action that it intends to take to try to achieve those targets.

Will the Minister give way?

No; I shall just finish this point.

That information is not bogged down in excessive detail, but it is critical for the effective management of performance in areas that matter.

Secondly, a performance plan is important for local people. They have a stake in all this—they pay for their services with their taxes, so they should know how good or not so good those services are, and should be able to influence the way that the council is going. They can do so only if the information is easily available.

That is what a performance plan does. It is not rocket science. I am stunned that the hon. Gentleman can talk in such a way about the kind of routine practice that any small business with a much smaller turnover than that of either of these two district councils would have to adopt to look to its costs and its quality and to seek continually to drive up its performance standards. That is what best value is about.

Does not the Minister recognise that many of the people who sit on local authorities are business people? Is not the arrogance of the Government revealed by their belief that those people, when left to their own devices, cannot get it right? Does not that demonstrate the philosophy of a Labour Government who always believe that the man in Whitehall is right and who always want to override local democracy?

I say two things in response to that. First, across the board, local councils have not got it right. If they had, we would not see, before best value, such a huge variability in the standards of service that different councils achieve and in the unit costs of providing those services. There is great variability, which cannot be explained by local circumstances. It is explained by the fact that some councils can provide services well and with good value for money, but others, I am afraid, do not.

Secondly, best value is not about telling councils what they should do, but about requiring them to perform their functions within a framework that ensures that they themselves have continually to look to what they are doing, account for what they are doing, try to drive down costs and try to drive up standards of service. What they choose to do, the priorities that they set and the way that they choose to go about it—

Will the Minister give way?

No. I have given way enough and I need to make these points.

The way in which councils choose to go about it is for them to determine. The only non-negotiable points are that they seek best value, produce a performance plan that sets down their priorities and targets, review their services periodically and demonstrate that they are achieving best value over a period.

Will the Minister give way?

No; I will continue because the hon. Gentleman has made his points, and I must make mine.

I am surprised that the hon. Gentleman does not want to require of district councils, whose turnover greatly exceeds that of most small businesses, practices that small businesses, if they are worth their salt, would regard as routine.

Will the Minister give way?

No; I will not give way.

It is not a debate, then.

I have given way twice, but the hon. Gentleman keeps coming back with the same point. I understand the points that he is making. but I disagree with him and I need the time to explain why.

We are now in the second year of best value. Leaving aside Bridgnorth and South Shropshire, which I shall come to in a minute, what is the record so far? Last year, every authority produced a best value performance plan, of which only 6 per cent. received an adverse audit opinion. That, to my mind, is some achievement. Most local authorities got stuck in and did their plan well, although the plans were all different because one size does not fit all. They adapted the process of producing the plan to their local circumstances; there were some imaginative approaches. Councils also put a great deal of effort into getting the necessary information out. Bridgnorth was part of the 6 per cent. of councils that had an adverse report on their best value performance plan because its plan, which was not good, did not approach the exercise in the right way.

Councils said that focusing on and preparing for the performance plan helped them to look closely at their performance. Some 87 per cent. of chief executives said that they would produce a similar plan again, even if they were not required to do so. They found the plan to be an enabling process, which helped them to think more robustly and rigorously about what they were spending their money on and what their priorities should be.

The issue of costs has been an important feature of the hon. Gentleman's complaints. There are concerns, which I acknowledge, but they must be seen in the context of the benefits of best value. There are costs—in terms of time and money—of producing the plan, of carrying out best value reviews, of introducing performance information systems if local councils do not have them in place already and of consulting the community, which is an essential feature of best value.

First, some of those costs are one-off and, if an authority has not been operating in the way that is now proposed, its one-off costs will be frontloaded as it sets up those systems. If a council did not have a proper performance information system, it should have had one. That is a cost to any effective organisation and most in the private sector will already be familiar with that.

Secondly, some of those early costs were self-imposed. Some of the best performance plans—I have already remarked on the great variety—were the simplest and least expensive. They were more focused and had been designed to fit their purpose, rather than being driven by a fear of audit. For many councils, there is great scope for reducing costs. For example, Wiltshire county council, Wiltshire police authority and the associated district councils saved £35,000 by coming together to produce a joint summary of their performance plan in an attractive newspaper format.

Will the Minister give way?

No; I shall finish shortly.

Thirdly, there have been costs of audit and inspection. To offset those costs, the Government have provided grant to the Audit Commission and increased the revenue support grant to councils. The year one audit of the performance plan inevitably had to go into more depth to check on the underlying systems; the year two audit will be integrated with the financial audit and I expect costs to reduce significantly.

Similarly, we are examining inspection. Rather than having a "one size fits all" approach, it is possible to move towards a risk -based approach to inspection. If we can do so, it will bring the cost of inspection down for authorities that perform well and it will be an incentive for those that do not.

However, the costs are only one side of the coin. There are benefits, as some small district councils—although perhaps not Bridgnorth and South Shropshire—are demonstrating: working in partnership with others, involving the public through the consultation process, and delivering economies of scale that are producing savings as well as improved standards of service. I wonder to what extent the two district councils to which the hon. Gentleman referred have seriously considered using the potential of best value to demonstrate and deliver new approaches to services. Have they develops d a cost-effective arrangement with Shropshire county council, for example, which is doing very well in terms of best value? Have they been willing to work with it to achieve cost savings and improved services?

The short answer to the Minister's question is yes, of course there is co-operation. However, does she accept the central point that it is not good business to allow such savings to be far outweighed by the cost of achieving them? I represent not only councillors but council tax payers and the inevitable result of such measures is that charges will rise. Council tax payers will not be happy to discover that their bills have been needlessly inflated.

What is putting up the cost to council tax payers is not investment in best value and a culture that seeks simultaneously to drive down costs and to improve and increase the standard of service, but councils that are running their services inefficiently and ineffectively. Councils must regard best value as an investment and enter into it in that spirit—indeed, many small councils have done so. Tandrige district council and Reigate and Banstead district council, for example, have jointly tendered their audit services. By issuing a joint contract, they will achieve a 15 per cent. cost saving. Hampshire county council has entered into a countywide waste management partnership with Portsmouth unitary council, Southampton unitary council and 11 district councils. That will not only drive up rapidly the proportion of recycled waste, but achieve a significant reduction in cost. Small councils such as South Norfolk district council and Burgess Hill town council—I could continue with a long list—have approached best value in the spirit in which it is meant to be approached. They are achieving higher standards of services, and cost savings that outweigh the cost of the best value regime.

The hon. Gentleman asked why we are doing all this. The answer is that we want services to improve, we want council tax payers to have better value for their money, and we certainly want more accountability to local people. The hon. Gentleman talked about local democracy. There is nothing democratic about a council that does not open its doors, or involve local people in decisions on the services that it provides and their cost. Nor is there anything democratic in the turnouts for some of our local elections.

Will the Minister give way?

No, I will not.

Some people are so turned off by their local council that they do not even bother to vote

At the heart of the best value process is the principle that local people must be involved. They must be consulted on the priorities that councils set and on the way in which councils achieve their objectives; hence the duty in the best value process to consult local people.

Will the Minister give way on that very point?

I will not give way to the hon. Gentleman. I have only two minutes and I intend to use them myself.

We are not talking about an item on a wish list. When a council publishes its performance plan or implements the recommendations of a best value review, it will need to be able to show that it has taken the views of local people and local stakeholders into account. That will give local people the information that they need to vote in elections in the way that the hon. Member for Ludlow wants, and to say what they think. about how their council is performing. Given the matter that the hon. Gentleman was decrying earlier, I was surprised to learn that he regards as a complete waste of money the requirement for councils to produce, and to provide public access to, information. Unless the public have information, they cannot take action, whether in local elections or in other forums.

In conclusion, best value has been accepted within councils right across the country. We are beginning to see significant changes in service delivery. Best value is beginning to make a real difference on the ground. Quite simply, there are better services for local people, more widespread engagement and lower costs.

I am delighted to have been able to secure this important debate on motor cycling and I am delighted that the Minister is here to respond. I am chair of the all-party motor cycling group. It is extremely active, with members in both the Commons and the Lords. We have taken up some serious issues relating to motor cycling over the past three years while I have been a member.

There are about 1 million motor cyclists in Britain today, which is a substantial proportion of the population. The size of the national fleet is sometimes debatable, but 1 million is a fair estimate. For many people motor cycling is an easy, affordable, accessible and convenient form of transport. They have chosen to use motor cycles to get to work, to see their friends to go out in the evening and to do all the things that we do in our communities.

For many motor cyclists, myself included, motor cycling is also a passion—it is in their heart. They perhaps love their bikes more than most car drivers love their cars. The issues surrounding motor cycling are therefore extremely important to them. I am pleased that we have parliamentary time today to explore some of those issues. It will inevitably be a canter through the issues as it is a big agenda and I know that the Minister will want to respond in detail on some specific issues.

I am pleased that the Government, for the first time ever, have established an advisory group on motor cycling to represent the motor cycle industry, the British Motorcyclists Federation, the Motorcycle Action Group, the Automobile Association, the Royal Automobile Club and a host of road users and people who are concerned about these issues. It is a sign of the Government's commitment: they see the role of motor cycles and powered two-wheelers generally as important in developing transport strategies.

The advisory group on motor cycling has just issued its first interim paper, which is quite detailed. As is par for the course with this Government, they have set up a number of taskforces to examine the issues in greater detail. They are all reporting back and doing excellent work. I want to press the Minister on the development of a motor cycle strategy. We have the advisory group, but we need to move on to a clear set of proposals for putting motor cycles and powered two-wheelers at the heart of transport policy. The report talks about producing a strategy in 2003. I should like the Minister to confirm that timetable.

One of the things for which motor cyclists most often press is the ability to use bus lanes. That would help to free up traffic in cities and towns. As motor cyclists, we feel that we have a major role to play in easing congestion. If motor cycles could use bus lanes we could speed the traffic along, whether for couriers, dispatch workers or people on their way to work. A host of users could get through the traffic much more swiftly. That would not just ease congestion, but would reduce pollution, as there would be fewer idling machines and emissions would be reduced.

There have been a number of experiments on the use of bus lanes in Reading and Bristol, and in Hull, in the constituency of the Secretary of State for the Environment, Transport and the Regions. The local

authorities there have been progressive and have been prepared to look at the use of bus lanes by motor cycles. I am disappointed that the report of the advisory group says in paragraph 34:

"The Department is keen to see proper monitoring and evaluation of the effect of PTWs in bus lanes. It is a practice that has developed in a number of local authorities…However, to date, no thorough evaluation has been done."

Some of those experiments have been going on for many years. The time is long overdue for proper evaluation and research, to discover what does and does not work and its effect on other road users. It is a substantial policy and I hope that the Government will undertake proper evaluation to ensure that we learn the lessons from previous experiments. If bus lanes help to speed traffic flow and to reduce congestion and pollution, we shall urge local authorities to adopt them.

It is not a matter of the Government's dictating what happens; local authorities have an important role in implementing many of the proposals. However, the Government can endorse those proposals, give them a fair wind and say that they are rooted in research, based on fact and a very good thing to do. I hope that there will be a much more widespread use of bus lanes in future.

I want to discuss the need for secure parking. For years, motor cyclists have not had access to secure parking, especially in towns and cities, and the problem of motor cycle theft is immense, perhaps because motor cycles are easy to steal. It is hard to make a motor cycle theftproof; one has to invest in locks, chains, concrete posts and so on to reduce theft. A simple way of cutting motor cycle theft would be for local authorities to provide simple, cheap roadside or kerbside bars to which bikes could be chained, so that there was less chance of their being stolen.

Approximately 20,000 motor cycles are stolen every year. As I said, for most motor cyclists their bike is their passion. When my motor cycle was stolen I went on a crusade to recover it, and was able to wheel it back to my house. I know how angry motor cyclists are about motor cycle theft.

I am pleased that the Government's local transport plan guidance recommends local authorities to consider the appropriate number of parking spaces needed for motor bikes and the need for good access to them. It also encourages local authorities to introduce secure parking where possible. A helpful amendment to the law last year enabled local authorities to provide secure parking without being accused of obstructing the highway. We must encourage more local authorities to take note of these issues.

I spoke recently to people in my local authority about a range of issues such as bus lanes, secure parking, road maintenance and so on. They said, "We have never thought about these important matters because we do not have a motor cyclist on our local advisory group and there is no one to bring these issues to our attention. No one in our department rides a motor bike. No one in the highways department has highlighted these issues." It would help if the Government suggested that local authorities' consultative committees should make positive attempts to encourage motor cyclists from their local community to bring their perspective and ideas to community-based discussions. Local authorities could perhaps place an advertisement in the local paper asking motor cyclists who might be interested in taking part in policy making to come forward.

Does my hon. Friend agree that one advantage of the involvement of bikers in planning and policy making is that it helps to destroy the unfortunate stereotype, to which even Ministers are not wholly immune, that occasionally casts motor cyclists, as aggressive and antisocial? My hon. Friend and I were present at a meeting of the motor cycle group when we heard the hon. Member for Lichfield (Mr. Fabricant) claim that he had once ridden from Great Britain to Greece wearing only a baseball cap. He later qualified that by saying that he was referring to head covering—he did not like crash helmets—but by then an awful image had lodged in the mind, which is the stuff of nightmares to this day. Does my hon. Friend accept that most motor cyclists are not antisocial, but responsible adults who recognise that powered two-wheelers represent a fuel-efficient, cheap, accessible, efficient and guaranteed method of transport in urban areas?

Order. This is a rather long, although interesting, intervention.

I thought that the mention of Greece might distract you. Mr. O'Hara. In conclusion, I say that if, at the weekend, my hon. Friend the Member for Salford (Ms Blears) had been at the London motor cycle museum in Greenford—that temple to the best of British iron, a gallery of motor cycling excellence—she would have seen exactly what she wanted to see: motor cyclists in the London borough of Ealing setting out their stall and Working with the local authority for the betterment of us all.

I am delighted to hear that information from my hon. Friend. He is right that motor cycling used to have an aggressive macho image, but nothing could be further from the truth nowadays. I am proud to ride a Yamaha Virago 535S. More women are taking up motor cycling and thoroughly enjoying it, especially on beautiful sunny days like today. Yesterday I took my bike for a spin and it was great fun.

I want to move on to road safety education. A GCSE that concentrates on motor cycling is available. It has practical and theoretical elements. It teaches young people to be safe on the roads and, hopefully, reduces the number of accidents. Unbelievably, it is accredited as a GCSE only in Northern Ireland. It is taught in this country, but not within the school curriculum, and it is difficult to get it accepted in England and Wales. Will the Minister work with Education Ministers to find a way of accrediting that GCSE in this country? It is useful and engaging, especiall3 for young men of 15 or 16 who may not be turned on by the traditional curriculum but would enjoy taking a GCSE in motor cycling and road safety education.

Another issue is disabled motor cycling. It may be a difficult image to picture, but some disabled people thoroughly enjoy motor cycling and, in common with disabled people with motor cars, might need a small change to their machine—a different gear lever, clutch or brake. It is disgraceful and discriminatory that the Motability scheme is not extended to motor cycles. The excuse given by the trustees is that it is hard to find engineering firms of sufficient depth and calibre to sustain the necessary amendment to motor cycles. I can say categorically that that is simply not the case. Our group has evidence of engineers who have carried out marvellous adaptations to motor cycles and many disabled motor cyclists can now enjoy their sport and use their machines for transport. Will the Minister examine Motability further? It is un fair that people who choose to travel on two wheels cannot access a scheme that people on four wheels can. That anomaly must be investigated further.

Another issue of unfairness—I am sorry if my speech sounds like a catalogue of complaints, but the motor cycling community wants me to press these problems—is the fact that VAT is payable on compulsory, but not optional, training and safety equipment. People need higher and more competent riding skills and they need the best protective equipment to minimise any injuries. Will the Minister examine the merit of a fiscal regime that does not provide incentives to acquire the safest equipment?

Vehicle excise duty, which I realise is not a matter for the Minister, is another issue. We will press the Chancellor to encourage the use of powered two-wheelers. Vehicle excise duty has proved effective at encouraging people into smaller ca, so it might also be used as an incentive to get people cut of their cars and on to two wheels.

The work done by the advisory group is good news and I am delighted at the progress that has been made. A whole section of the report deals with diesel spillage, in respect of which it would be good to make even faster progress. Motorcycle News recently organised a petition—and secured 50,000 signatures—for amendments to be made to the filling caps of heavy goods vehicles to prevent diesel from spilling out. It is amazing how many road accidents occur not as a result of any faults on the part of motor cyclists or car drivers, but because diesel has spilt out of heavy goods vehicles as they negotiate a roundabout. In those circumstances, motor cycles often skid, which can lead to nasty accidents.

I am aware of a new directive on changing tank caps and firmly closing the seal. The advisory group's report stated:

"At a date to be decided DETR will be consulting on the implementation of similar requirements for HGVs."

Will the Minister ensure that consultation takes place, so that he takes into account the views of people with practical experience of what it has meant to them when they have had a nasty crash and have been injured? It is a simple way to reduce the number of casualties from motor cycles.

Finally, I make a plea to car drivers. Motor cycles are often paraded as a dangerous form of transport that is predominantly used by young men and, sometimes, older men—I think that they are called born-again bikers—who have accidents with huge numbers of casualties. However, many motor cycle accidents are caused by car drivers who did not see the motor cyclist coming. Such drivers may turn right out of a junction without looking or seeing the bike. There will be a crash and, usually, the motor cyclist comes off worst in the accident. I plead for much better training for car drivers to make them more aware of the problems, because motor cyclists are blamed too often when it is not their fault. All people who use the roads, using vehicles such as cars, goods vehicles, motor cycles, mopeds and cycles—cyclists are a very important group—have a responsibility to work together when using the roads, and I believe that we can live harmoniously. I am delighted that the Government have taken the matter of motor cycling seriously.

There are a million motor cyclists out there, and I tell the Minister, in encouragement —he has had a tough time in the past couple of weeks, since we were involved in a slip of a tongue in the Chamber—that bikers are voters too and, if it all gets really tough, he can always get on his bike and go.

I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Salford (Ms Blears) on securing the debate. She is. of course, the chair of the all-party motor cycling group. I also thank her for her courtesy in giving me notice of some of the detailed matters that she wished to raise in debate. I reassure her that I will study the Official Report and that I shall respond in writing, where appropriate, to questions asked in her speech that I am unable to deal with in my ensuing remarks. I am also grateful to my hon. Friend the Member for Ealing, North (Mr. Pound) for his important intervention—he is, of course, a vice-chair of the all-party group.

Before I turn to the substance of my reply, I take the opportunity to clear up a deeply unfortunate misunderstanding that arose between my hon. Friend the Member for Salford and myself on 24 April, as a result of which I wrote to her saying:

"I now understand that a remark I made today from the dispatch box at DETR Questions has been open to misinterpretation. My intention had been to describe you as `Blears the Biker' in recognition of your role as a champion of the interests of motorcyclists. I very much regret that the phrase I used, entirely innocently and inadvertently, may have had offensive connotations and, as you know, I have apologised to you directly for my mistake."

I thought it right to place that apology on the public record, so that there should be no stain on the character of my hon. Friend.

The Government decided, at an early stage, to take a positive approach to motor cycling, and to work constructively with the industry to resolve potential difficulties. Our 1998 White Paper on the future of transport set out our position on motor cycling as part of an integrated transport policy. It recognised that powered two-wheelers have an important contribution to make, as did our 10-year transport plan, which was published last year. The White Paper acknowledged that mopeds and motor cycles can provide an alternative means of transport for many trips, and recognised that where public transport is limited and walking is unrealistic, motor cycling can provide an affordable alternative to the car that brings benefits to the individual and widens their employment opportunities.

Will the Minister give way?

Very briefly, because I have much to say and little time in which to say it.

It would be sad if the Minister placed his remarks on the record without acknowledging that motor cycling is a very dangerous form of transport. When I entered the House, 1,000 young men a year riding motor cycles were killed on British roads, and it is an advantage that we have cut down the number of young people riding motor cycles without training. We already see an upward curve in motor cycle deaths, in many cases of men and women in their 30s. Motor cycling is a seriously dangerous mode of transport, and its safety should not be likened to that of the car.

I am grateful to my hon. Friend for that intervention, and I hope to address the safety issue.

The role of motor cycling raises important and complex issues. For that reason we have established an advisory group on motor cycling, as my hon. Friend the Member for Salford said, to discuss key issues, including safety and the environment. The group involves a broad range of interested parties, including those who ride powered two-wheelers. That has helped the Government to move motor cycling policy forward and to define the role of motor cycles in our transport strategy. Last month, we published an interim report on the group's work and I can confirm that the Government intend to publish a motor cycling strategy in 2003.

One of the first things that we recognised was that successive Governments had failed to take proper account of the needs of motor cyclists. We have already done much to remedy that. In March 2000, we published guidance on local transport plans for local authorities, which said that authorities should take account of the contribution that powered two-wheelers can make in delivering integrated transport policies and consider specific measures to help motor cyclists in making integrated journeys. We asked local authorities to consider specific issues, including the provision of appropriate parking for motor cycles and the provision of good access, suitable facilities and secure parking at public transport interchanges. We asked them to remedy deficiencies in the road surface that affect motor cyclists, and to be aware of the role that powered two-wheelers can play in remote or rural areas.

I note with interest my hon. Friend's proposal that local authorities make efforts to involve motor cyclists in their local transport planning. As she said, we have provided powers and money for local authorities. The Transport Act 2000 gave them specific powers to provide secure parking facilities for motor cycles. In November, we announced £1 billion for local authorities to spend on maintenance over the next two years, which is double the amount of money now available. That will help to eliminate the potholes and bad surfacing that cause so many problems for motor cyclists and other road users.

The debate should not simply focus on what local authorities can do. The Highways Agency's safety plan takes motor cyclists into account and the maintenance plan recognises how important a contribution well-designed maintenance can make to road safety. Over the next few years, the United Kingdom will implement new European Union measures aimed at reducing fuel spillage, which represents another danger on the road surface.

The private sector has a role to play, too. We published guidance for businesses highlighting the space-efficient nature of powered two-wheelers and detailing the ways in which employers could help motor cyclists. Those include the provision of safe and secure parking, changing and storage locker facilities and safety training.

We are taking other steps to aid integration and traffic management. Several local authorities are active in increasing the amount of powered two-wheeler parking that they provide, but little technical guidance is available to those IN ho need to take account of motor cycling in the public or private sectors. Therefore, we shall provide advice on various aspects of the planning and provision of parking facilities, including secure parking.

On a previous occasion, my hon. Friend raised the issue of congestion charging. I can now reinforce the reply that I gave her. The Government believe that powered two-wheelers should generally be exempt from road user charging and workplace parking schemes. We intend to leave decisions to local discretion but will publish guidance for consultation in the summer. Some local authorities allow motor cycles into bus lanes, but to date no proper monitoring or evaluation of that practice has taken place. A thorough examination of the traffic and safety implications for motor cyclists and other road users is required to enable us to draw proper conclusions. Therefore. we have approached several highway authorities that are interested in the possibility of allowing powered two-wheelers into bus lanes, with a view to participating in fully monitored trials over the next year or two.

We recognise that mopeds and motor cycles are being used in an effort tc beat congestion, and people have argued that, if more trips were made by powered two-wheelers rather than car, less congestion would result because they take up less road space. A project is under way to consider the impact of powered two-wheeler use on congestion. That will help us to answer questions on the effects that increased motor cycling will produce.

I am confident that all those initiatives will better integrate motor cycling into our transport system but other, perhaps more difficult issues and challenges for motor cycling remain. The safety of motor cyclists is a significant issue for the Government. Motor cyclists represent a large proportion of road casualties in relation to their numbers. Our most recent figures—for 1999—show that there were 10 per cent. more deaths among two-wheeled vehicle users than in the previous year. Although it is true that the casualty rate shows a welcome fall of about 9 per cent., motor cyclists remain our most vulnerable road users.

We must deal with the problem. In March 2000, we published a road safety strategy for the next 10 years. It sets casualty reduction targets to be achieved by 2010, including a 40 per cent. reduction in the number of people killed or seriously injured. Action is required to deliver such targets and we are already taking steps to implement the motor cycling package. Following consultation, we have recently introduced regulations that deliver several of the measures that we wanted and have removed those regulations that have had no helpful effect.

We have ended the unpopular "two years on, one year off" rule. From 1 February 2001, provisional licences will last until the age of 70, but people who do not pass a test within two years must remove their compulsory basic training certificate to continue riding. That is more appropriate than a ban, during which time a rider's skills may decline. In addition, the life of a CBT certificate has been reduced from three to two years. That achieves a sensible balance between providing learners with an incentive not to delay reaching test standard, while giving a reasonable period to accommodate individual circumstances.

Until recently, anyone passing a car test was granted a full moped licence without relevant training or testing. We believe, however, that riding a moped safely involves different skills from those needed to drive a car safely. Car drivers who qualify after 1 February 2001 will be required to complete a CBT course before using their moped entitlement to ride on the road. That will ensure that car drivers receive appropriate training before taking to two wheels.

The content of the car and motor cycle theory tests has changed and diverged. For example, the motor cycle test now better meets the needs of learner drivers than it did when it was introduced in 1996. To ensure that learners are tested properly for their mode of transport, the regulations provide that exemption from the motor cycle theory test for full car licence holders, and vice versa, is ended. We have ended that exemption.

Other measures are in the pipeline. We are developing pre-test rider training for all learner drivers, based on a range of competences to be achieved. It will be supported by training logbooks To complement that, we shall be improving the standards of motor cycle instructors. That improvement will be supported by a voluntary register of accredited motor cycle instructors. In the longer term, we want to make that a statutory register. We want motor cycle instructors to be trained and tested to the same high standards that we propose for car instructors.

We are worried about the recent increase in casualties among older riders. We shall therefore develop guidance for full motor cycle licence holders who are turning to motor cycling after a break and for those taking to two wheels for the first time in later life. We want those riders to have a reliable source of training and refresher courses. We shall continue to promote improvements in engineering and technical standards, which could better protect motor cyclists. For example, my Department is leading a European collaborative research project, which we hope will lead to a new helmet standard in about five years.

The Government are also considering how to protect people who ride powered two-wheelers as part of their jobs—a point to which my hon. Friend referred. Initiatives are being pursued in partnership with industry, including the development of agreed codes of practice for motor cycle couriers and for fast food home delivery operators, and improved rider training with national standards for training schemes. The Government understand that motor cycle safety is not only a matter for the rider. Bad or inconsiderate driving by people in cars and other vehicles is a significant factor. Through training and testing, we want to make drivers more aware of the vulnerability of riders.

We shall be introducing hazard perception testing for all test candidates during the autumn of 2002. That will test the ability of a driver or rider to identify at the earliest possible opportunity situations that might require them to take some form of avoiding action, such as a change of speed or direction. We shall certainly have video clips showing motor cyclists.

I hope that my remarks demonstrate that we have taken great strides to move forward motor cycling policy and to take account of the needs of motor cyclists. The Government talk to motor cycling interests regularly and reflect on what is said before developing policy. There is still much to do, but with the help of the advisory group, the Government will see through the initiatives that I have described, and others, to develop good and well thought out policies. We continue to see powered two-wheelers as important in our transport strategy and remain committed to their safe use on our roads.

I am grateful to the Speaker for selecting this debate. Thames Waste Management Ltd. applied for a permit to run an incinerator plant under the integrated pollution control regime in July 2000. The Environment Agency granted the permit in April 2001.

The application could never have been made if the Government had introduced the new directive on incinerators, the integrated pollution prevention and control regime, by October 1999, the deadline set across the European Union. By delaying the introduction of the new regime until the end of July 2000, the Government—inadvertently, of course—allowed Thames Waste Management Ltd. to sneak in its application under the old rules.

Given that they are the old rules, however, having obtained the permit does not entitle Thames Waste to burn a single tonne of waste in Guildford. Even if it gains planning permission for the plant, it will have to go through the whole procedure again to go ahead. By having the licence granted, Thames Waste has been given a spurious legitimacy for its speculative proposals for an incinerator plant in Guildford.

I come here on rather a busy day for politics. I am sure that incinerators, although important, will not be at the top of the minds of most of the country's people. However, I have come here to represent the entire community of Guildford, which is of one mind on the issue. It is concerned that the Government focus on the matter in the short time available before the Parliament dissolves. I have been in this place for four years, and do not expect contrition from the Minister, but I do hope for his co-operation. That is why I have let him know several of the points that I am about to raise.

We do not believe that an out-of-date permission should be allowed to give a spurious legitimacy to a planning application that still has to be resolved. The county council has indicated that it does not regard it as providing that legitimacy, but the authority provided by the Government's view would help to make it clear to all that the fact that the licence has been granted does not give any edge to the applicant's planning proposal.

We have also learned, through our examination of the matter, not only that the opportunity to apply for a licence should not have arisen, but that the Environment Agency should not have granted the licence. I refer the Minister to paragraph 22 of planning policy guidance note 10 on the Environment Agency, which, clearly states:

"Where a waste management licence is sought…for which planning permission is required. planning approval has to be obtained before the Agency can grant a licence, unless the waste management facility is regulated through the integrated pollution control"

regime.

In the case under discussion, we all knew that, although the applicant could obtain an IPC licence, it would not be regulated at any point through the IPC regime. It is now absolutely clear that it will have to be regulated through a new regime. Surely, therefore, it is a breach of the Government's planning guidelines for the Environment Agency to issue such a licence before the planning issues have been resolved.

The only alternative explanation is that the Government might have delayed updating planning policy guidance note 10 to take account of the new situation because it is their intention that all planning applications should have the appropriate Environment Agency licence. If that is their position, there will be a knock-on effect for this proposal, which now has the benefit of a licence, albeit an obsolete one. By comparison, the procedure has not yet been fulfilled for other applications, for other sites in Surrey. Under the planning guidance, no licences should be yet offered under the new regime. That goes to the heart of the matter on which we need clarification from the Minister.

In the course of our inquiries, we came up with a third issue—that, according to a written reply that I received from the Department, a new, more stringent regime is to be imposed by the end of next year. What is important about that new regime is that the public will have to be consulted not only on the planning process, but on the permit process on the granting of the environmental licence. One reason why people in Guildford are dismayed by the whole process is that the Environment Agency, despite receiving a record number of objections—more than 10,000 letters to the agency and more than 25,000 letters to both the agency and the county council—has undertaken no public consultation during its consideration of the licence proposal. Under the new regime that is to be brought in by the end of next year—we have a Government commitment on that—such a public consultation would be necessary and would provide an opportunity to deal with the many concerns that people have about such incinerators.

The whole process has been mishandled in three ways—first, in the failure to bring in new directives in time; secondly, in determining an application in contradiction to Government guidelines; and, thirdly, in view of the fact that more stringent rules are around the corner. That reinforces the call for a moratorium on all new incinerators that is being made by my party and my community. Communities throughout the country want a moratorium. We can then sort out the health risks, impose the more stringent requirements and undertake a strategic Government review of the need for such incinerators, given that so many people are now awake to their risks and would rather put more effort into the preferred alternative of recycling.

I received a letter from Burpham community association that pointed me towards the recent report of the Select Committee on Environment, Transport and Regional Affairs, which I am sure that the Minister has studied in detail. Paragraph 93 of the report states that

"it is generally accepted that emission standards are still based on what can be measured and what is technologically achievable, rather than what is safe."

It continues:

"The Environment Agency told us, more generally, that our understanding of the health effects of air pollution is 'at an early stage."'

For all those reasons, there is a strong case for allowing communities such as the one that I represent to pursue alternatives such as recycling and to wait for the more stringent requirements of the new regulations to come into force before allowing a single further incinerator to be approved in this country.

I am grateful to the leader of our local campaign, the Guildford anti-incinerator network the Reverend Colin Matthews, who has pointed out more generally in the context of the Environment Agency's performance over this application:

"The Environment Agency appears to be entirely on the polluters' side. It has never refused a licence even though it knows no incinerator has kept within the pollution limits set for it."

Indeed, in evidence to the Committee's inquiry, the Environment Agency admitted that even the latest generation of post-1996 incinerators has caused nearly 900 fugitive, unlawful emissions from plants in the short period that those incinerators have been in operation. This morning, when I visited the plant operated by Thames Waste Management Ltd. at Thamesmead, its managers had to admit that these emissions are happening and that there is no way in which they can guarantee that such fugitive emissions can be avoided.

We should therefore like a statement in this debate or an undertaking to write as soon as possible—preferably before Parliament dissolves—to the planning authority of Surrey county council. What is the status of the licence that has been granted? Why have the Government delayed implementing the current rules, which would have prevented the application happening in the first place? Why has the Environment Agency approved the licence in contradiction of the current planning guidelines? In view of the new rules that the Government have undertaken to introduce within the next 18 months, how far should the planning authority take into account the new requirements, which include a requirement for public consultation on environmental implications? I notice that the Minister is nodding his head, and I should be grateful for his co-operation on those points.

In the short time left to me, I should like to raise several planning issues that surround the application. It is evident that the application is a departure from both the local plan in Guildford and the structure plan for Surrey. The local plan requires any planning application to take into account its impact on the landscape and character of the town. How can a structure bigger and taller than Guildford cathedral possibly be in tune with the design, layout, history and character of our historic market town? How can it be right that an applicant can ride roughshod over normal planning guidelines because it says that it must deal with waste in that way?

We know that there is a local will. and the means on that site, to assist a massive increase in recycling. I shall be the first to admit that towns such as Guildford can do a great deal more to recycle. Indeed, if there is one benefit of the process, it has been the wake-up call to our community, and to others, that we must do a great deal more to recycle our waste to minimise the requirement for incinerators. An opportunity for recycling would, of course, be generated by a moratorium on incinerators, which would give communities a chance to prove how much more they can do.

I should like to draw the Minister's attention to the wider issue of the loss of amenity. Section 41 of PPG10 states:

"The effects of waste management facilities"

must be considered in the context of

"proximity to other developments, impacts on amenity".

In the context of telecommunications masts, it is now accepted that the impact on amenity of a mast and concerns generated in a local community are valid planning considerations. If, for example, a mast is proposed next to a school, the fact that its erection might cause the numbers at the school to fall because parents would withdraw their children, which could mean that the school, nursery or other community facility would have to close, is now, according the Government's latest guidelines, a valid planning consideration. By the same token, is the enormous concern generated by a proposal in a town such as the one that I represent a valid planning consideration? Are the effects on local services, schools and businesses near the proposed plant valid planning considerations?

Only the other day, I visited a major international company, Regus, the office providers, which has built a new suite of offices for businesses in Guildford. Along with other leading companies such as Ericsson and Colgate Palmolive, it is concerned by the impact that the proposal will have on its staff, on their willingness to move to the town and, of course, on other facilities in Guildford. If the impact on amenity applies in the case of a telecommunications mast, surely it should apply in this case.

The announcement that the agency had approved a licence for a giant incinerator in Guildford was a scandal. We would not be in the position that we are in today if the Government had introduced the new rules and the Environment Agency had followed the current planning rules. As I said, the company will have to go through the whole procedure again before it can progress with its proposals.

The affair highlights the need for a moratorium, and the need to give alternatives such as recycling the chance to take root and prove themselves in communities such as the one that I represent. Two weeks ago, the Prime Minister rejected my call for a moratorium. The message to the people of Guildford is that the Government do not realise the issue's importance. The Minister has an opportunity to put that right now and to respond constructively to the points that I have made.

I congratulate the hon. Member for Guildford (Mr. St. Aubyn) on securing a debate on the licensing of a proposed incinerator in Guildford, and thank him for making us aware of some of the questions to which he would like an answer. That is most helpful, and I shall try to answer as many of them as possible. I recognise that the issue is attracting considerable public interest in his constituency.

In July 2000, Thames Waste Management Ltd. submitted a planning application to Surrey county council and a concurrent application to the Environment Agency concerning a proposed integrated waste management centre at Slyfield. Surrey county council will decide whether to grant planning permission for the proposed facility, which includes an energy-from-waste plant.

The plant will require planning permission and authorisation under the new integrated pollution prevention and control—IPPC—regime to be built and operated. Planning permission and the granting of IPPC authorisation are two independent processes, which will take different considerations into account.

It would be improper for me to comment on the merits or otherwise of a planning application proposal. Any such comments could prejudice the Secretary of State's position, if the application should ultimately come to him for a decision. However, the hon. Gentleman has set out concerns about the licensing regime for the proposed plant and it will help if I give some background information on the subject.

Until the new IPPC regime comes into effect, large waste incinerators are regulated by the Environment Agency under the integrated pollution control—IPC—regime. Thames Waste Management made its original application to the Environment Agency in July 2000, before the new IPPC regime came into force. In April 2001, the Environment Agency granted authorisation to the proposal under the IPC regime.

The IPC authorisation issued by the Environment Agency does not allow the applicant to operate the incinerator. For the incinerator to operate, the applicant must apply for and obtain an IPPC permit. Should such an application be made, there will be a public consultation.

The IPPC regime 2000 for England and Wales came into force on 1 August 2000. Its basic purpose is to introduce a more integrated approach to controlling pollution. In a recent press release, Surrey county council acknowledged that the IPC does provide information to inform the planning process. Planning permission may be granted without IPPC authorisation if Surrey county council is satisfied with its examination of health and pollution issues surrounding the application. As I said, however, the plant will not be able to operate until it has been granted IPPC authorisation by the Environment Agency.

The Environment Agency considers that, provided that the applicant can demonstrate compliance with the additional requirements imposed under the IPPC regime, the principles of best practicable environmental option, air dispersion assessment and health risk assessment could be transposed into the new IPPC regulatory regime.

It might be useful if I make a few comments on the Government's general approach to waste.

Will the Minister give way on that point?

I should like to make progress because I know that the hon. Gentleman is anxious for me to place certain points on the record and answer his questions.

In May 2000 we published the national waste strategy, setting out the Government's policy for sustainable waste management for the next 20 years. The strategy identified the need for a step change in the way in which we think about the management of our waste. That will mean curbing the growth in waste, and learning to recognise waste as a resource. The Government are committed to dramatic increases in recycling and composting rates.

For the first time, the Government have set statutory targets for household waste recycling and composting, which will require councils, on average, to double recycling and composting by 2003-04 and almost triple it by 2005-06. We have set even higher targets for 2010 and 2015, which we shall keep under review and raise if to do so proves practical.

The key driver behind those goals is the European landfill directive, which will require substantial changes to the way in which we manage our waste. At present, the United Kingdom landfills more than 80 per cent. of its municipal waste. The directive will require substantial reductions in biodegradable municipal waste that is sent to landfill.

The national waste strategy provides a clear framework for decision making. The waste hierarchy, which is a key part of the decision-making process, makes it clear that waste should be eliminated where possible and that the potential for reuse and recycling should be maximised. However, where it does not make sense to recycle or compost waste, consideration should be given to the recovery of energy from waste.

Although the Government have no plans for a specific number of incinerators, they do not rule out their use as part of an integrated waste management plan. Some new incineration capacity might be required if we are to manage all the waste that is to be diverted from landfill in the next 20 years.

The proximity principle, which is another key consideration in taking waste management decisions, advises that in general, waste should be managed as near as possible to its place of production, given that transporting waste has an environmental impact. Dealing with waste in that way is generally preferable to exporting it elsewhere, although the best practicable environmental option for certain wastes—normally those that are especially hazardous or toxic—might be to transport them to facilities that are designed to deal with them. Ultimately, the choice of waste facilities is a matter for local councils, in consultation with local communities.

In determining the application, I am confident that Surrey county council will consider all relevant issues. In particular, it will need to take into account representations from the local community, and the guidance for local planning authorities and others involved in the development process as set out in planning policy guidance note 10, "Planning and Waste Management", and planning policy guidance note 23, "Planning and Pollution Control".

In a plan-led system, consideration of the siting of major waste management facilities begins with waste planning authorities preparing their local waste plans. The plans set out the authorities' policies and proposals for dealing with waste in their areas, and should include the identification of sites for any new or extended facilities that might be required. It is important that the public become involved in this process, so that they can be fully informed about future development and use of land in their areas.

I fully appreciate that local people may have concerns about the proposed development of an energy-from-waste plant in Surrey. Representations from local people will be one factor that Surrey county council must take into account when determining the application. However, modern energy-from-waste plants are strictly regulated by the Environment Agency according to the Environmental Protection Act 1990. The environmental performance of waste incinerators has improved immensely since the early 1990s.

The hon. Gentleman said that he believes that the application was dealt with in a manner contrary to the guidance in planning policy guidance note 10. Under IPPC, Thames Waste Management Ltd. would have had to apply for planning permission before applying for a permit from the Environment Agency. By applying under IPC, it was deliberately avoiding that requirement. In fact, the situation under IPPC will remain the same as under IPC, in that planning permission will not be needed in order to apply for either permit. To have waited for IPPC to come into force would have made no difference, except that it is likely to involve a lengthier process.

The hon. Gentleman also said that it is not normal to do business by seeking IPC, or IPPC, approval prior to planning permission. However, I am afraid that it is quite common for companies to deal with matters in such a way and it does not detract from the requirements of the planning process that must be undergone subsequently. It also means that the IPPC regime will still have to be taken into consideration before the plant can operate.

Paragraph 22 of PPG10 says that where a licence is sought, planning approval must first be obtained unless the facility is regulated through the IPC regime. Is the Minister saying that that exemption will be extended when the planning guidance is revised to include the IPPC regime and that, therefore, the Government's policy is that companies should apply for the environmental licence and have a decision taken on the licence before the planning process is completed?

It will disappoint the hon. Gentleman, but I will repeat what I have already said. Under the IPPC, the situation will remain the same as it is under the IPC. The company will not need planning permission to apply for either permit and it will make no difference to have waited for the IPPC to come into effect, except that the IPPC is a lengthier process.

The Minister is not answering my point that we are not simply concerned about whether an applicant applies for a licence, but about whether it is granted. Locally, people feel that the grant of an environmental licence in some way prejudges the planning process. The application allows the Environment Agency to examine the issues, but it should not issue its final determination of the licence until the planning process is completed. Perhaps the Minister will write to me on that point.

I will come back to the hon. Gentleman if I can and if subsequent inquiries throw up anything that differs from the comments that I have made. It is normal for companies to apply for licences from the Environment Agency first because that agency is statutorily bound to issue or refuse a permit within four months. A planning process may take much longer. There is an incentive for companies to carry out business that way round, and they often do. That is contrary to what the hon. Gentleman believes to be case. If I subsequently discover that what he says has some relevance, I will contact him.

The Government welcome the recent adoption of the EU waste incineration directive, which reinforces the already tough emission standards under domestic legislation.

I assume that we have a few minutes left. 1 also raised the point about a departure from the local and structure plans. We do not expect the Minister to comment on that individual application, but it will be considered alongside other applications, at least one of which will receive an automatic consideration by the Minister as to whether there should be a public inquiry, because it is in the green belt. It has been said of both the other applications that they are departures from the plan. Will the Minister take an even-handed approach to those applications, which are considered at the same time and all of which are, in various ways, significant departures from the local and structure plans? Does he consider that they should be called in or be the subject of a public inquiry?

The hon. Gentleman knows that if there is a departure from the plan, the proposal is flagged up to be potentially called in. If an application is turned down, applicants have an automatic right to appeal against it. Even if a proposal is within the plan, that does not preclude the matter from being called in. Considerations such as whether the application has an impact wider than that on the local area and whether there has been conformity to the plan must be taken into account. Without prejudicing any future decision taken by the Secretary of State, I cannot go much further than that in helping the hon. Gentleman.