Thank you, Madam Deputy Speaker, for giving me the opportunity to draw attention to the safety of meat imports. It could not have come at a more appropriate time given that we are celebrating—if that is the right word—the anniversary of the appalling outbreak of foot and mouth disease, which started at a pig farm in Heddon-on-the-Wall in my constituency. Coincidentally, the outbreak almost finished in my constituency. It did untold damage to farming there and throughout the north of England, Scotland and the south-west and caused devastation to the tourist industry.

On Monday, I visited the farm adjacent to Burnside farm where the first outbreak occurred. It was the anniversary of when the first pyre was lit at Burnside farm. Pictures of the blazing carcases of cattle, sheep and pigs were shown throughout the world and were a wonderful invitation to those in America to visit Britain. If we had wanted to put off tourists, we could not have done more. As a result of the disease, 6.5 million animals have been slaughtered. We have lost untold millions in tourism revenue—all because of imported meat. The cause of the outbreak must be linked to the illegal importation of infected meat.

The story was the same in 1967. The cause of that outbreak was never traced but again suspicion fell on lamb that was imported from Argentina. Furthermore, there was uncertainty about the cause of the outbreak of classical swine fever in 2000, but veterinary evidence tracked it down to a pork product. Fancifully, it was said that a pig was fed a ham sandwich in a pig unit. Whether that was true is not clear, but the three outbreaks can be linked to imported food.

The victims of the outbreak cannot understand why, 12 months on, stricter controls on the importation of meat products are not in place. All we have seen so far is posters at Heathrow airport advising people not to bring meat products into the country. We have been promised a forum to discuss the issue next month. The matter is urgent. People are staggered when they discover that, at Heathrow airport—one of the biggest cargo handling ports in the United Kingdom—the front line against such imports is manned by 10 environmental health officers employed by the London borough of Hillingdon who have 10 assistants to help them.

Those who read last night's Evening Standard will know the extent of what is brought into the country through Heathrow airport. The BBC alleged that, from May 2001 until a few weeks ago, no checks were made on meat at the airport. However, a spot check was made last week and, according to reports, that produced more than 300 kg of meat products.

The imported goods are not regular meat products. Many of them are endangered species that have been brought into the country by airline passengers. One aircraft from Nigeria had a vast quantity of chicken, fish and meat in passengers' luggage. I was told that one suitcase in the cargo hold was leaking blood. The list of imports is fantastic. Live crabs, chimps, goats, anteaters, rats, antelopes, monkeys, snakes, different types of dried meat, fish, even tiger parts from Sri Lanka, India and Japan and bear parts from Russia have been brought in through Heathrow airport. All such meat carries considerable risk of disease, and not only for animals. As Professor Joe Brownlie of the Royal Veterinary College said, it could pose a risk to humans through the spread of tuberculosis or other diseases imported from Africa. This is a serious matter.

The real problem is not so much the products that make headlines, but the importation of large quantities of illegal meat. We legally import large quantities of meat from countries in which foot and mouth is endemic. In the other place, Lord Vincent questioned the Minister about the amount of meat imported from such countries. We import 81,000 tonnes of meat from Brazil, 11,000 tonnes from Botswana and 8,000 tonnes from Namibia. In all, we import more than 100,000 tonnes of meat products from countries that have endemic foot and mouth disease.

The problem of illegal meat is, of course, much more complicated because we cannot tell how much comes in—much of the evidence is anecdotal. However, I believe that several thousand tonnes of illegal meat are imported every year, some of which come in directly and some of which are illegally imported into other European countries, re-boxed and re-labelled in false boxes, or simply put into freezers and sent here.

The National Farmers Union has carried out research in the port of Hull, for which I am grateful. Before 1992, when the port authorities were allowed to inspect all meat products, the port of Hull inspected 35,000 tonnes of meat. In 1993, after a European directive declared it illegal to inspect meat previously inspected by another member state, the port inspected 5 tonnes. So, 30,000 tonnes went through the port of Hull uninspected.

To ensure that food is safe, we rely on the good offices of other European Union countries. Although the majority no doubt enforce regulations well, some do not, and with enlargement the problem could get worse. Customs or health inspectors in countries where heavy lorries are in transit for only a few hours may not bother to carry out the inspections necessary to ensure that meat arriving at its destination is safe.

In the port of Hull inspections, considerable quantities of illegally imported meat were found such as spare ribs and pork scraps of different types. A considerable amount has also been found in Middlesborough, including chicken stock cubes, corned beef and fish products that had been transported in container lorries carrying other products—the classic method is to hide food behind a pile of vegetables. A substantial amount of illegal products is coming into this country.

What shall we do about the problem? We must end the confusion surrounding what imports are allowable. No one is suggesting that we should not be allowed to bring home shopping bought in French supermarkets— that would be nonsense. However, I am told that a personal allowance of 1 kg of meat products can be legally brought in from a country that has endemic foot and mouth disease, which is ridiculous and defies any sense of responsibility.

Before my hon. Friend leaves French supermarkets, does he agree that much of the meat sold in such places is produced under conditions that would not be allowed by law in this country?

In terms of certain support products, that may be the case. My hon. Friend has a strong interest in this issue. I do not agree wholeheartedly that the way in which meat is produced in European countries is much worse than the way in which it is produced here, with the exception of pork, where producers are still allowed to use stalls and tethers. I take my hon. Friend's point. I agree about meat products that come into Europe from non-European Union countries. Certainly, some of the conditions in which animals are brought up are way behind what we and our consumers expect. I also agree that some of the products that we buy in this country contain imported meat, particularly chicken, from countries about which there are suspicions that rearing is not up to our standards.

Perhaps the Minister would explain what has happened since May 2001, when we were promised a coordinated approach to improving checks at ports. We have not had an update since. It would be helpful if hon. Members heard what has happened since then. It is vital that the EU works more effectively. It is not enough to leave the matter simply to the good efforts of other European countries.

I should point out a potentially alarming development that I have noticed recently. Veterinary scientists have been considering the question of the transmission of BSE from mother to calf. I understand that transmission from one generation to the next is now ruled out. The 11 calves that developed BSE since the meat and bonemeal ban seem to have been fed contaminated food. How could that happen? As I understand it, in the EU, pigs can still be fed meat and bonemeal. That suggests that somehow there has been cross-contamination of animal feeds imported from Europe.

Meat and bonemeal may be carried in the same containers and stored in the same feed mills as other feed coming into the country. Policing that is a real problem. It is vital that we have the right to inspect food containers coming into the country much more regularly. I accept that such a right should not be used as a restraint on trade. The object of the European regulations is to stop unfair competition. I believe that, on health grounds, we need a European agreement that allows us to check our imported foodstuffs much more readily.

We should take the issue out of the hands of local authorities. It is nonsensical that the London borough of Hillingdon—I am sure that it is an efficient borough, although I know nothing about it—has responsibility to deal with Heathrow airport. What intelligence is shared between Heathrow airport environmental health officers and those in, for example, Southampton, Scotland, Hull or Newcastle? None. We need a centralised system, because intelligence is vital.

We will not be able to catch all the illegal foodstuffs coming into the country; that is impossible. However, we can concentrate on the people who are likely to use them. That is where intelligence should come in. The technology for checking passengers is not rocket science. In Australia, a little spaniel comes up and sniffs passengers as they wait to show their passports. That is extremely effective, but we can also get machines that test for the presence of meat products in cargos.

Those measures should be taken urgently. We cannot wait for another outbreak of foot and mouth or some other disease to strike us again. The cost was too great last time, and it will be too great if it happens again. Travel and trade enrich us both as a society and as individuals, but not if they bring with them devastation and disease, as has happened in the past.

I congratulate the hon. Member for Hexham (Mr. Atkinson) on securing the debate. It seems that there is good news about the suspected new outbreak at Thirsk. The initial results appear to be negative. We all hope that the next two or three days will confirm that they are negative and that we do not experience what we did in the past 12 months.

As many hon. Members know, Dumfries and Galloway was one of the worst affected areas in Scotland. It is a rural area, and was decimated by the outbreak. Agriculture plays a significantly greater role in the economy of the community than in many other parts of the UK. It provides approximately 24 per cent. of the region's gross domestic product.

There were 176 confirmed cases of foot and mouth disease in Dumfries and Galloway, and as a result 1,300 farm businesses were directly affected by the cull policy. That led to the destruction of 18 per cent. of the cattle population and more than 30 per cent. of the sheep population. I declared from an early stage that it would take us many years to recover. Thankfully, my area is on the road to recovery, but many difficulties lie ahead.

As the hon. Member for Hexham noted, the first anniversary of the start of the outbreak was 20 February in England. It is 1 March in Scotland. The NFU on both sides of the border has been effective in raising awareness of illegal meat imports, and is justified in doing so. Issues also surround legal meat imports. There is little doubt that we should minimise as best we can the risk of diseases such as foot and mouth entering the country. We must place that high on the agenda of lessons to be learned from last year's outbreak. I am sure that the inquiries into the outbreak will consider the matter and in a time scale that will lead to those lessons being learned sooner rather than later, unlike with a lengthy public inquiry.

The Government have not been idle. I welcome the action that they have already taken to restrict illegal meat imports following the outbreak. Regrettably, much of that work has been done behind the scenes. Illegal importing is like any other smuggling operation. Control depends on effective intelligence. Government action not only strengthens the information-gathering procedures of enforcement bodies such as local authorities and Customs and Excise, but improves the sharing of that information between them. I hope that the Minister will outline how successful that action has been in improving the effectiveness of enforcement activity, and how it has led to improved targeting of resources to where the problem is greatest. As the hon. Member for Hexham noted, some of our busiest airports are the most suspicious locations.

One of the biggest criticisms has been that there is not enough publicity about food imports at ports and airports. Notices are not the only effective way of drawing people's attention to what they should and should not do. I therefore welcome the action that is being taken to improve the situation, as well as the work that is being done to get the message across to visitors through travel agents and our embassies overseas before they embark on their journey.

I also welcome the commissioning of a full risk assessment, which the Veterinary Laboratories Agency will carry out, and the illegal imports forum that will be held next month to consider what can be done to intensify action on illegal imports. The Government have clearly strengthened the import controls that they inherited from the previous Government.

My hon. Friend and the hon. Member for Hexham (Mr. Atkinson) have made a compelling case, and I hope that the Government will consider the amendment to the Animal Health Bill. We must also consider the other aspect of the issue. Who is demanding and buying this meat? The retailer and the catering trade use it for personal consumption.

I agree. The process is about consumers and end-users. Regrettably, other people are profiting from this whole game, if I can put it in those terms. However, no one would dispute that, if more needs to be done, more should be done. The hon. Member for Hexham gave some examples, and many lessons can be learned from other countries.

I am sure that my hon. Friend the Minister knows that each international airport in faraway New Zealand recently introduced a regime of 100 per cent. baggage search or X-ray for all arriving passengers. It would be a mammoth task here, but that does not mean that we should ignore it. We must seriously consider every opportunity that comes our way. The new X-ray machines detect any organic material, whether plant or animal, inside baggage. That is supplemented by sniffer dog teams.

I would appreciate the Minister's comments on the progress being made in the Department to consider similar action in the United Kingdom. I recognise that much hard work is being done behind the scenes to control illegal imports, but I want to give the Minister one message from the farmers in my constituency: the Government must be seen to be taking action, and that action must be seen to be effective, if we are to continue to build confidence in the agricultural industry.

There is some confusion about the divisions of responsibility for food import checks, which I hope the Minister will clarify. A number of bodies are involved in controlling imports, including the Food Standards Agency, the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, the Department of Trade and Industry, port health authorities, the plant health and seeds inspectorate, and, as expected, Customs and Excise. Surely there is a case for a more co-ordinated approach or for bringing together many of those bodies.

There is a case for strengthening the role of the FSA so that it can be more active in checking meat imports. The repeated discovery of specified risk material in carcases of beef from Germany underlines the need for the FSA to maintain vigilance over imports.

Fifty-two weeks ago last Friday, I met representatives of my local branch of the NFU. A variety of issues were on the agenda, but the issue of legal meat imports containing SRMs, particularly beef from Germany, was raised repeatedly. I told my local farmers that it was no good telling me at a late stage, "This meat arrived and is now in the food chain." We must act early to warn people about what is happening. In fact, two or three weeks later, we saw the first indications of foot and mouth in the area. One morning, I received a telephone call from a distraught farmer whom I see regularly. He complained about SRMs in carcases from Spain and Italy.

The hon. Member for Hexham talked about end-users and consumers, and we must consider what can be done. Where will we be in a few years' time if there is a major outbreak of new variant CJD? We will all wonder where on earth it has come from. We have tightened up the way in which we conduct business in the UK, but meat imports with SRMs in carcases are clearly still entering the country.

We must consider whether the FSA can carry out far more stringent and random checks. I would even be so hard as to say that if we come across material infected with SRMs, we should have the power to close the relevant premises immediately. That should also apply to all the major supermarket chains, because they are by no means innocent in all this. A supplier must meet customer demand, but we need to tighten up the system. If supermarket chains and everyone else understand that the penalty could be immediate closure, they may be more mindful of what they bring on to their premises.

The most disconcerting aspect of last year's outbreak of foot and mouth disease was that it was not possible to establish its cause. As the hon. Member for Hexham said, there are strong suspicions that illegal meat coming into this country may have been one cause of the outbreak. The meat potentially found its way into pigswill that did not go through the proper process before it was fed to pigs.

Even if we could pin down exactly how the infected meat came into the country in the first place, zero risk from imported disease cannot be achieved, however much we wish for it. Listening to the comments of Opposition Members, one could be forgiven for thinking that the only issue we face is preventing the disease at the point of entry. The idea that import controls are a magic wand that can prevent a foot and mouth outbreak for ever is misleading. I fear that it is a cover for some hon. Members who would like to stop all meat coming from abroad.

The hon. Gentleman referred to Opposition Members, but I am the only one who has spoken. I was not making the point that the hon. Gentleman claims; I do not want to stop all food coming into this country. I said that intelligence was necessary to find out who was using the meat, as well as to catch it. I accept that we will not catch all the meat coming into the country.

I thank the hon. Gentleman for his intervention. I apologise if I gave the wrong impression. My point is that there have been previous debates on the issue. Some hon. Members in my party would dearly love to see more severe restrictions on imports.

Two miles from where I live is a major employer, 98 per cent. of whose business is centred around lamb and sheepmeat exports. Any action to ban imports would affect export markets and thus my constituent, and would do no one any good.

Is the hon. Gentleman aware that this country has the right to restrict imports under article 30—the renumbered article 36 of the treaty of Rome—for the protection of the health and life of humans, animals or plants? It is on that basis—he himself has made the case—that hon. Members on both sides of the House believe action should be taken. Does he agree that that measure could be instigated at certain times?

I cannot disagree with the hon. Lady. We need to operate within the rules, directives and regulations laid down, but, regrettably, as she and other hon. Members know, some wish to take things much further.

I congratulate the hon. Member for Hexham on securing the debate and look forward to the Minister's response to it.

Illegal imports were discussed at length during the passage of the Animal Health Bill. The hon. Member for Dumfries (Mr. Brown) mentioned the amendments tabled by Labour Members. A striking aspect of the Second Reading debate was that Labour, Liberal Democrat and Conservative Members and those from the smaller parties all said that more must be done about illegal imports. One of the most memorable speeches in that debate was a veteran rant by the hon. Member for West Ham (Mr. Banks).

There is evidence that the Government have been complacent about the matter. The Curry report and that of Devon county council flagged up the issue of illegal imports. I quoted on Report what the Minister said on Second Reading:

"DEFRA has been leading interdepartmental discussions." — [Official Report, 12 November 2001; Vol. 374, c. 666.]

I do not know whether it is a coincidence that the column number is also the sign of the beast. I quoted that comment again just over a month later on 13 December. It did not seem that much had happened, certainly considering the Minister's answers. It is now 27 February, nearly four months later, and I have received a letter from the National Farmers Union, for which I am grateful, that says that it welcomes

"the Government's announcement that it will convene a high level forum on this issue, probably taking place next month."

Thank God for that. We have gone from interdepartmental discussions to a putative high-level forum. Presumably, if the NFU had known when the high-level forum was going to take place, it would not have used the word "probably". In other words, the Government had not even set a date, although if they have now, I would be grateful if the Minister told us today. The Government do not seem to be taking the issue seriously enough.

I have a letter, which was copied to me, from a constituent, Mr. Rod Tuck, of Diss in Norfolk to the Speaker of the House of Commons. In it he complains about the Minister. The letter says:

"Having read in Hansard details of the parliamentary debate on the Animal Health Bill on Thursday 13th December, 2001, I would like to register an official complaint against Elliot Morley MP, who seriously misled the House as detailed on Page 1025 at 1.45pm when answering a question from Mrs Winterton. With reference to the UK import controls on meat/meat products compared to those of Australia and America he states there is no significant difference between theirs and our custom controls on meat/meat products."

For the benefit of the Chamber, I have the exact quotation. The Minister said:

"On the claims that are being made about measures taken in America and Australia, I have been to those countries comparatively recently and I must say that I have not noticed any particular differences from the checks and security in our country." — [Official Report, 13 December 2001; Vol. 376, c. 1025.]

Mr. Tuck kindly sent me a copy of his correspondence with the US Department of the Treasury Customs Services, which contains a helpful list of the differences between the approaches of the UK and of Australia and the United States, but I will not try the Chamber's patience by listing them all.

Mr. Tuck also enclosed an e-mail that he had received from Mr. Jim Dewhirst, who had recently been to Australia. Mr. Dewhirst wrote:

"The details of the precautions that the Australians and New Zealanders take are as follows:

"1) You receive a warning about 20 minutes before the plane lands that it is illegal to take into the country any product of animal or plant origin. If you are in doubt about anything that you are carrying you should declare it on arrival. You are warned that contravention of the rules will automatically lead to a hefty fine, or worse.

"2) On the flight you are given 'visitor cards' to complete. One of the questions asked is:- 'Have you been on a farm in the last 48 hrs?' Another is:- 'Do you possess any spiked shoes?' We had golf shoes with us, so we had to declare them.

"3) When we arrived at the terminal building all our hand luggage had to go through X-Ray machines."

This is in on arrival, not departure.

"They were looking for any illegal products, including food products and drugs.

"4) After the X-Ray machines we were then confronted by sniffer dogs. These were more in evidence in New Zealand than in Australia. We were even selected out of the crowd to help test a trainee dog: some contraband was hidden on our luggage trolley about 30 metres before we passed the dog. The dog did not fail to apprehend me!"

This is all very interesting, and I should say that I was in Canada two weeks ago and the procedures were no different from those at Heathrow. The hon. Gentleman may be interested to know that a recent report in the Scientific and Technical Review of the OIE, which is in the public domain, calculates that illegal meat imports into the USA each year vary between 450,000 kg and 4 million kg. That is not a criticism of the USA; it just demonstrates that people should not think other parts of the world have a panacea.

The hon. Gentleman should also remember that when we had an outbreak of foot and mouth, other countries rightly introduced procedures because of the risk. My final point is that New Zealand has 3.5 million visitors a year, while Britain has 48 million. There is the issue of managing these things at airports.

I am grateful, and indeed honoured, that I managed to provoke the Minister into intervening so early in the debate. I accept that there is no panacea; no Opposition Member believes that there is. The problems are plainly serious. The United States is a much larger country than ours with huge land borders and five times our population. I would be interested to hear comparative tonnages if the Minister has the figures. The Minister referred to New Zealand and the United States, but I was talking about Australia.

I should like to finish dealing with Mr. Dewhirst's fifth point. He states:

"When we arrived at Passport Control we were again given the third degree about illegal imports—particularly so when we arrived in Australia. It was at this stage that we handed over the cards that we had completed … Our golf shoes were taken away and disinfected, being returned in sealed plastic bags. When we arrived in Australia from New Zealand we had with us some sea shells and some enormous pine cones that Kate"—

Mr. Dewhirst's wife—

"had collected. After inspection of these we were told that we could keep most of the shells but definitely not the pine cones. It's rather ironic that if we had not gone to Australia, but returned straight home to the UK, we would have had no problems whatsoever keeping the pine cones, in fact we would not have even needed to declare them. If I'd had a mind to do it, I could no doubt have waltzed through Customs with half a dead alligator in my luggage, without anyone even bothering to challenge me."

Mr. Dewhirst may be exaggerating, but such checks on arrival—X-ray checks, sniffer dogs, taking items away in plastic bags and disinfecting them—do take place. The story shows how seriously the problem is taken there. Such measures would illustrate to people going through the system the Government's perception that travellers should take the matter more seriously. As the hon. Member for Dumfries (Mr. Brown) said, it is a question not just of doing things behind closed doors with curtains drawn, but of getting the message across to people that it is a serious issue. The Government say that they have put up posters and are trying to do more.

Last Friday I returned to the United Kingdom after a long-haul transatlantic flight. I landed at a Royal Air Force base at which no checks of any sort took place. Signs on the plane reminded armed forces personnel about the dangers of criminal activity with drugs, but no mention was made of animal imports. When we landed at the airport, I saw no posters, no customs officers and no checks. I could indeed have waltzed through with half a dead alligator.

I have written to the Minister about a leaflet that I picked up in Detroit airport, which asked me if I had visited the UK and been on a farm. It specified the UK, which doubtless does untold damage to our tourist industry. On my return to the UK, I went through the airport and searched high and low for any signs asking me whether I was bringing meat into the country. I found one, but I would not have done so had I not been pushing a pram, because it was next to the lift; disabled people may also have seen it.

I am grateful to my hon. Friend. As for writing to the Minister, I wish him luck. Many of us know that the chances of receiving a reply of any sort from DEFRA within three or four months are extremely slim. I recently wrote to a DEFRA official in Bristol in the hope that he might be able to help my constituent. I explained in the letter that there was no point in writing to Ministers. I had explained to my constituent beforehand that that was what I intended to do because I knew that at least two months would pass before I received an apology for not receiving a reply. I certainly wish my hon. Friend the Member for Leominster (Mr. Wiggin) luck.

My hon. Friend makes a good point—the problem is not being flagged up openly enough. As a letter from the National Farmers Union makes clear:

"The admission that no further resources have been allocated to scrutinising personal imports at Heathrow airport since February last year underlines the need for no more delay in a firm grip being taken of this vital issue."

Customs and Excise collects £102,000 million in various duties. Its primary function is obviously collecting revenue, not necessarily deciding how that revenue is spent. It is important to recognise that the resources are there if the political will is there too. There is increasing consensus across all parties about the need to do something about this matter. The political will should be there to take a firm grip on this issue.

Order. It is always a pleasure to see a debate being enjoyed with such enthusiasm and vigour, but there is only 20 minutes left before Front Benchers begin their winding-up speeches. Seven hon. Members are seeking to catch my eye. I hope that all hon. Members will bear that in mind and make their comments concise, clear and pertinent.

I shall be brief as I have spoken on this subject before, and bring in some new information. The Select Committee on Environment, Food and Rural Affairs visited Brussels recently and we spoke to those in the European Commission who lead consideration of the issue of meat imports. We have to recognise that we are in a common market and their approach to this governs much of ours. It was an interesting conversation that was reassuring in at least one respect: those who were concerned that disruption in Zimbabwe had not been identified by the European Commission and had not led to a different approach to meat imports from that country were reassured that prompt action had been taken to prevent further imports of beef from Zimbabwe in view of the risks inherent in its control systems.

Less reassuring, however, was that when the discussion moved to illegal imports, the view was firmly expressed that that was a matter for member states to pursue individually and that the European Union, while conscious of the need for robust controls, did not feel that it had any further role to play. One of the arguments that has been advanced in this debate, and that may be advanced again, is that we must act in partnership with our European neighbours on this matter. That certainly does not imply leaving the matter to Europe. The Commission clearly does not intend to take robust measures itself.

The issue of exactly what kinds of risk we are talking about has already been explored: legal imports from risky countries, the concealment of meat within shipments that are otherwise legal and the personal baggage issue. We must recognise that all we can do is limit risk. We will not eliminate it. The Minister was right to point out that even the supposedly robust controls in the United States are relatively easily circumvented by those who are determined to do so or are so ignorant that they do not notice the key pieces of information that are given to them. However, the controls in other countries are of a much higher profile and are therefore much more likely to be noticed by those who are quite innocent in the matter and have simply not grasped that they may be doing something that carries a risk to animal and possibly human health in this country.

Does the hon. Gentleman accept that however many notices are put up in seaports and airports, they will not make much difference while it is still legal for individuals to bring 1 kg of meat into this country and into the European Union? We should be pressing the Minister to get the EU to abolish the rights of individuals to bring in 1 kg of meat.

I disagree. Sensibly managed personal imports are an important part of the liberty of free passage in the European Union. I do not believe that we should seek a total ban on that movement, but we should try to ensure that we police it better. Most travellers are responsible individuals who can work out the risks.

I have been through that process. I brought some salami back from Italy, which was within the weight limit. My wife questioned me about whether it was the right thing to do, but I believed that my decision was legitimate. It did not taste very nice, it made me think that I had made the wrong decision for other reasons. Most travellers are like me. We must consider the issue carefully, understand what the risks are, and be prepared to abide by sensible rules. However, we must recognise that some are ignorant of the rules or are determined to circumvent them.

It has already been shown that the regime of controls is confused. There are too many agencies. Some are ill resourced, and others lack the legislative teeth to do anything about the people who are caught. We have had illustrations of gross breaches of the law, for which some perpetrators have not been prosecuted. Powers do not exist to prosecute efficiently, and changes in the law are clearly required. We also need to examine resourcing. The point has been made that additional resources have not been put into Heathrow, which is a major port of entry into the country.

It is not just about money but about co-ordination and the use of information technology. I am struck by the fact that other European Union states are tackling the issue in a more co-ordinated way and making better use of the information held by the various agencies involved. I do not know of another European Union state that tackles the problem in the same diffuse way as we do. Those who use more than one agency ensure that the data is co-ordinated between the agencies so that people know what others are discovering and where the risks are. That seems to be a sensible investment of resources.

With regard to the politics of the issue, the Animal Health Bill demands that farmers take certain steps, as I said on Second Reading. My hon. Friend the Member for Dumfries (Mr. Brown) correctly identified critical issues of control in this country, which we must deal with regardless of what we do about imports. It is sensible to listen carefully to the stakeholders in these issues. The Bill in general asks farmers to co-operate, and some parts of it compel them to do so. They expect clear controls to be put in place as a quid pro quo, to some extent, for the co-operation that is being expected of them. Their expectation is legitimate. We must take a balanced approach. No one is claiming that tougher import controls make us risk free. They are part of a package that can be supported scientifically, practically and politically to achieve our objectives to make the country less at risk of animal-borne disease.

rose —

Order. I appeal again to hon. Members for brevity. That includes resisting interventions, if at all possible.

My hon. Friend the Member for Hexham (Mr. Atkinson) mentioned that I had more than a passing interest in animal welfare. I share that interest with the Minister.

I want to reinforce some issues. It has already been mentioned several times that much bush meat is smuggled illegally into this country, often by hand. It is no great secret that it is for personal use. More significantly, it is also on sale in shops, and is used in restaurants in London and elsewhere. Many of the animals are endangered and protected species. The trade is undesirable and unnecessary, and I ask the Minister to discuss with Foreign and Commonwealth Office officials and the Home Office the possibility of seeking the right to revoke the visa of anyone who brings in quantities of that sort of meat. It would be a considerable deterrent if people were warned when they went to entry clearance offices in any of our embassies or high commissions around the world, that the penalty for seeking to smuggle meat was the revocation of the visa and their immediate return to the country from whence they came. They probably would not do it.

Animal husbandry and animal welfare are directly connected with the quality and safety of meat imports. The Minister and I have campaigned long, often and hard to raise standards of farm animal welfare in this country. I believe that we have been right to do that and will be right to continue, but we must recognise that enhanced levels of animal welfare place a considerable cost on the British farmer. If we are to require the farming community in the United Kingdom to pay greater attention to animal welfare and seek to breed calves, pigs and chickens under the highest possible standards, it is nonsense for us to allow at the same time fowl, pigmeat and beef produced under far less safe conditions to be imported into the country.

We shall not enhance animal welfare worldwide if we allow that practice to continue, but simply damage domestic trade. I urge the Minister not to seek a prohibition on imports per se, but to drive towards prohibiting the import of goods not produced under the circumstances that we have in this country. If the Minister can address those issues, particularly in the context of the Animal Health Bill, I believe that we shall make considerable progress.

We are all fully aware of the devastation that would be caused to our rural economy should foot and mouth disease enter the country once more. All the suggestions that I was going to make in my speech have already been made during the debate, so I will confine myself to emphasising to the Minister the importance of that issue. A tremendous amount of money was spent stopping the spread of foot and mouth from one part of the country to another, but we must also spend money to try to stop it coming into the country, and do all that we reasonably can to stop infected meat coming in.

The Animal Health Bill imposes various measures on farmers, but the Government must do their bit. I hope that the high-level forum will take place quickly and that there will be action soon. We need a commitment from the Government to act against the importation of infected meat.

I congratulate the hon. Member for Hexham (Mr. Atkinson) on obtaining this debate. It is timely, especially with the foot and mouth disease scare reported in Yorkshire yesterday.

In January this year, Professor Gareth Edwards-Jones of the university of Wales, Bangor warned that we could face another outbreak of foot and mouth disease this year unless there were a clampdown on illegal imports. I recently read the NFU report entitled, "Veterinary, Plant Health and Public Health Controls on Imports", which notes that

"the main threats to the UK are from illegal imports",

and that although

"the existing body of legislation and regulations is—on paper—adequate to control illegal imports, we have serious concerns about the rigour with which existing controls are enforced."

That report makes 17 recommendations. I shall not trouble hon. Members with them all this morning, but note only that it calls for a comprehensive review of the framework and resourcing of the UK's system of import controls, including an evaluation of the funding for UK import controls and clear country of origin labelling. We in Plaid Cymru, and the Scottish National party support that.

Only a few days ago, DEFRA reported the seizure of 315 kg of prohibited food at Heathrow. Apart from that, as has been noted, the deliberate importing and retailing of illegal and suspect meat is carried out by organised gangs. Hon. Members will welcome DEFRA's new striking poster. Its stark slogan is, "Keep out disease" and it notes that there are penalties of up to two years in prison and a fine of £5,000. However, that will act as a deterrent only if culprits are caught. One must note that passengers from outside the EU are still allowed to import 1 kg of meat hermetically sealed, 1 kg of fish, 1 kg of milk powder and so on. Those may be relatively small amounts, but the cumulative effect over a year would be considerable. I welcome the forum being held next month to agree further action. This is a matter of urgency.

Farmers are flexible people who can adapt; they need to be to survive the conditions of the industry at the moment. However, being flexible and adaptable does not mean closing one's eyes to an obvious source of danger. The first line of defence for animal and plant health must be an effective screen against imported disease. We need to have better co-ordination of efforts to control illegal meat imports, and more rigorous enforcement of personal imports and commercial shipments. The NFU report states that

"if personal import controls do not prove to be effective, serious consideration should be given to their complete prohibition across the EU.".

We are looking for clear evidence that the situation is improving quickly, and I look forward to the Minister's assurance that that is the case.

I am grateful to my hon. Friend the Member for Hexham (Mr. Atkinson) for securing the debate, and share the gladness of other hon. Members that the latest potential outbreak of foot and mouth does not seem to be genuine. My constituents work for Sun Valley in Hereford city, which imports animals to a high standard from Brazil and Thailand. It is those who do not meet that standard who concern me, particularly as I am secretary of the all-party group on endangered species.

In this country, we suffer from large numbers of live animals being imported. I have considered the case at Heathrow. There are 5,500 flights a week into Heathrow airport. In 2000, only 14 of those were checked and 5.5 tonnes of illegal bush meat were found; in 2001, only 10 were checked. That is of enormous concern, not only from an animal health but a human health point of view because viruses such as ebola are very "importable". We must connect animal with human health. A criticism that the National Pig Association has drawn to my attention is that too many agencies police the import of meat into this country. We should consider tightening that up. I suggest that one regulatory body would ensure gaps did not appear.

I looked at the potential for a bio X-ray machine. Some 25 such machines at Heathrow airport, and the staff to run them, would cost about £8 million, which is a bargain compared with the £2 billion to £4 billion that our country has spent on foot and mouth. It would cost approximately 10p per passenger coming through the airports.

I urge the Minister to think again about the 1 kg that is allowed to be imported as a personal allowance. If he did so local producers could be supported and the risk to human life reduced. I urge him to set up a commission to assess the risks of countries from which we import food, not only for our health but for a future for our farmers.

I have two quick questions for the Minister. First, in an answer to a parliamentary question, he stated:

"We have taken action to improve publicity to travellers about import rules, to improve the collection and analysis of information about illegal imports and to use that information to better target enforcement activity. We are keeping these measures under constant review".— [Official Report, 11 December 2001; Vol. 376, c. 850.]

Today, I hope that he will let us know about the details of that review, and about the effect of those measures. To date, we have had no information about the effect of any of the Government measures.

My second point relates to the full risk assessment carried out by the Veterinary Laboratories Agency. On 4 January, the Minister said that results would be published as soon as they were available. Can he tell us when that will be? I hope that it is soon, because such information is essential if hon. Members are to make a reasoned judgment on the effectiveness of controls that are being put in place.

May I make three quick points? First, in intervening on the hon. Member for South Derbyshire (Mr. Todd) on the 1 kg personal allowance, I intended to make the important point that that concerns travellers coming in from third countries rather than people who move around the European Union.

Secondly, and this point has been made already, there is as much danger from legal imports as there is from illegal imports. At the moment, the chaotic state of our labelling policies allows people to re-label meat after it has been processed, which enables illegal imports into this country to be traded more easily.

Thirdly, when legal imports into this country are examined for problems, what types of tests are available? Are tests available to check meat for diseases such as foot and mouth and diseases that can affect human beings? How long do those tests take to be analysed? Can we detain meat during the time in which those tests are analysed?

Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Order. I would be failing in my duty if I were not to call the attention of the Chamber to the House's decision that four senior members of the Speaker's Panel should be addressed as "Deputy Speaker" in conducting proceedings in the Chamber.

Thank you, Mr. Deputy Speaker. In appreciation of your calling so many hon. Members, I shall be very brief.

I want to consider two aspects of the Government's approach to the foot and mouth crisis. First, they acted urgently on certain aspects of the crisis when we learnt that there was a possible outbreak. One year ago, regulation was introduced quickly to prevent animal movements, to close footpaths, to put up notices everywhere and even to prosecute people who took their dog for a walk on the beach. Clear, prompt action was taken almost immediately and emergency procedures were put in place very quickly, although there was inevitably criticism that they were not quick enough. Most fair-minded people, however, would say that they were quickly put into action.

Secondly, on imports, we have not seen massive emergency procedures. A total ban on personal imports of meat, which could have relapsed after a period, was not considered. No significant emergency advice along the lines of that mentioned this morning was provided for travellers, and there were no prosecutions. In effect, there have been no emergency procedures for the control of imports into the country.

One year ago, at the beginning of the crisis, there was inevitably confusion about demarcation among the Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food, local authorities, the NFU and, eventually, the Army. In the end, however, clear lines of demarcation were established for those bodies.

Except for co-operation that takes place on a friendly basis, port authorities, Customs and Excise and trading standards report to different places. There is co-operation on the ground, but co-ordination is not laid down. Consideration clearly needs to be given to providing a regulatory system that encompassed those bodies in one co-ordinated section.

I was surprised to learn from a written answer to a parliamentary question about Zimbabwe that imports are

"banned from the whole country except the veterinary regions of'— [Official Report, 4 December 2001; Vol. 376, c. 263WW.]

and it lists a huge number of different places. I have not the foggiest idea how the ban is policed, and many of the people who attempt to police it will have no idea where those provinces are. I have severe reservations about whether it can be policed properly.

Finally, I shall mention regulation and legislation. Many of us have been through the Animal Health Bill and it is clear that the provisions are draconian, particularly for farmers. The hon. Member for Dumfries (Mr. Brown) recognised the Government's responsibility to respond to that. Has any consideration been given to amending the Products of Animal Origin (Import and Export) Regulations 1996? Evidence suggests that they should be reinforced, but there is no sign of that being done. Instead of reciprocal arrangements on imports, the Animal Health Bill was introduced to plug the gaps and clobber farmers again.

Other than those directly involved, the general public want uniformed security staff at ports. We are an island nation and should be able to control imports better than countries with land borders. We need a combined security force that recognises the importance of not allowing the import of drugs and other products, including meat and plants.

We all have our own experience of the USA and I shall explain mine. I was behind a fairly elderly lady who had not filled in her form properly. She was caught with something—I do not know what—and whisked off. The Customs officer next to me said that it was sad because it was unlikely that she would be allowed back into the country to visit relatives, even if she had inadvertently filled in the form wrongly. The provision is severe: she may be refused entry because she made an illegal statement. That is draconian and I do not suggest that we go down that road, but it emphasises that other countries treat the problem more urgently and seriously than we have apparently done in the past year.

Mr. Deputy Speaker, I thank you for guiding us through this debate and for calling 11 hon. Members, which is excellent during a one-and-a-half-hour debate. I only wish that our debate could continue all morning because many hon. Members wanted to speak for longer and some have not been called.

I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Hexham (Mr. Atkinson) on securing a debate on this important issue. In his comprehensive speech, he set the tone for the contributions that followed and pointed out that we have had two damaging incidents of animal disease: classical swine fever and then foot and mouth disease. The foot and mouth epidemic started in his constituency but we are crossing our fingers and hoping that it ended in his constituency some time ago. The news this morning is hopeful; the case in the Ryedale constituency may not be positive.

There are two sets of imports. Illegal imports can introduce disease that threatens animals and humans. I do not want to introduce barriers to trade, but it is ridiculous that in this country we place on our producers responsibilities and high standards that are not always followed in other countries from which we import produce. That important issue should be addressed.

To return to the point made by my hon. Friend the Member for North Thanet (Mr. Gale) and another hon. Member, if we had honesty in labelling we could market United Kingdom-produced food more positively. The two sectors that sin most are the catering sector and the processing sector, which sells it products mainly through the four great supermarkets in this country, which control 80 per cent. of food sales.

Although those points may not be absolutely relevant, they are worth making. However, the illegal import of meat causes the greatest concern. Many hon. Members have referred to the large amount of bush meat that is imported illegally. Two London traders have been prosecuted for selling it. Last May a trader in Dalston, north-east London and his girlfriend were jailed for selling the meat of an endangered African monkey species. He boasted that he could import chimpanzee meat or even a whole lion carcase from Nigeria for £5,000. He was sentenced to four months' imprisonment for selling parts of a tantulus monkey. He told the court that many African shops in Britain sell bush meat.

In September another London trader was given a conditional discharge after being found with the carcases of 11 monkeys and two anteaters. Although it is not the Minister's responsibility, such sentencing is utterly inadequate. I could make many suggestions that would ensure that people who undertook that trade were severely punished and, if necessary, deported.

Border inspections are critical. It has been pointed out that as an island nation we should be better placed to protect our people and animals from the importation of disease. Border inspections are lamentable, both at airports and seaports. My hon. Friend the Member for Hexham referred to Heathrow and I have an interest in Manchester airport as it is close to my constituency. Few hon. Members mentioned seaports, where there is a huge opportunity to smuggle illegal meats and other products in containers. We cannot quantify that problem at this stage. We have a vague idea of what is entering in personal baggage through the main airports, but I believe that a gigantic amount is coming in through seaports. What is being discovered is merely the tip of the iceberg.

The Government must introduce effective measures. We accept that we will not catch everything, but we must try to be effective. We must use scanning equipment where appropriate and low technology in the form of sniffer dogs. I went behind the scenes at Heathrow last week, with permission of course, and saw luggage being unloaded and brought into the passenger halls. There is ample opportunity for scanning equipment to be used at that point before the passengers pick up their luggage.

Scanning machines cost about £180,000. I understand that they can be fixed to test for drugs, meat or other products. [Interruption.] The Minister does not believe that that is so but I believe that it could be done. Rather like speed cameras, especially those in Staffordshire, the county next to mine, they would act as a deterrent. They are mobile. We all naturally obey the speed limit because we do not know when we will be caught. Scanning equipment should be moved. There does not have to be one on every single luggage—

Carousel.

Carousel. I thank the hon. Gentleman. The scanning equipment could be behind the scenes and used before the luggage reaches the carousel. The machines could be moved about. One would not need to invest vast amounts of money to be much more effective. Sniffer dogs are probably more cost effective. They should circulate with their handlers in the passenger halls to act as a deterrent and a reminder.

I am ashamed to tell the Minister, but when I entered the customs hall at the very end to watch customs officers check baggage I did not notice the two posters. I was not a passenger and I was there for a different purpose, but I did not notice them. That is not much of a deterrent. Surely, as in other countries, we should get passengers entering this country to sign a declaration. That concentrates the mind.

When I go to America, I am careful to ensure that I fill in and sign the form properly. That reminds me each time that if I have an apple in my overnight baggage, I should dispose of it or eat it quickly. We need more deterrence to ensure that people are aware of the dangers of importing meat and other products.

When the customs hall at Heathrow emptied, I could see how big it was. It was full of packages from a recent raid, to which other hon. Members have referred. Some packages were seeping blood. It is disgusting that that practice is allowed to continue and that customs officers and others have to handle such material, with all the dangers of contamination and so on.

A major issue is the need to co-ordinate the regulatory authorities and have one body in overall control. The Government must tackle the problem robustly—just posters will not do. However, we have not seen what else the Government have done in the year since the first outbreak of foot and mouth disease in the constituency of my hon. Friend the Member for Hexham. We know that risk can only be limited, but the subject does not have the high profile that it needs.

As I said, the penalties for organised crime must be severe. An import for personal consumption of salami from Italy is not as risky as the same amount of bush meat, which threatens human and animal health. That point was well made.

In the year since the outbreak of the foot and mouth epidemic, very little action has been taken or is perceived, particularly by hard-hit farming and rural communities. I make no apology for repeating that we need a full and independent public inquiry to build trust between the Government and rural communities. The three inquiries that the Government set up, one of which has reported, will not fit the bill. Time is of the essence in one way, but we must get to the truth, and people must be able to have confidence that we have got to the truth. We need to know the cause of the disease and what went wrong in the handling of it.

People are feeling vulnerable again because of the news that we heard yesterday, although today's is relatively good. They need to know what contingency plan is in place to deal with any further outbreak. Will it be more effective than the last one? We were assured that there was a contingency plan, but it did not seem to be a meaningful one to anyone in the farming community.

Will the testing be quicker and more accurate? What consideration have the Government given to the use of vaccine in any future outbreak? Slaughter on the scale that we have witnessed will never be tolerated again. Is sufficient vaccine available in the United Kingdom? Has a contingency plan been drawn up for its use if the Government have decided to use it? What action can they take to reassure British consumers of the truth, which is that milk and meat from vaccinated stock are perfectly wholesome and safe to consume?

What action are the Government taking with partner states in the European Union to ensure that, in the event of another outbreak, barriers do not come down against our exports if we use vaccines? The example that stands out is the French ban on our beef because of BSE, which is on going and causing damage. Again, if there were honesty in labelling, some of these issues might be covered.

The debate is taking place because, for the second time since the second world war, we have imported animal disease in the form of foot and mouth. It has caused devastation not only of the farming community but of rural businesses, including bed-and-breakfast establishments, pubs, post offices, shops, equestrian facilities and many others.

It must be stressed that the illegal importation of meat puts at risk not only animal but human health. We have not yet seen one of those incidents and, frankly, I hope that I do not live long enough to see one. If we view foot and mouth as devastating for animals, how much worse would it be if a disease outbreak affected the human population? I beg the Government to act quickly.

I congratulate the hon. Member for Hexham (Mr. Atkinson) on securing the debate. He delivered his points extremely well. It is important to pay careful attention to our border posts, to measures for protecting consumers, and to preserving animal, plant and indeed human health.

We must keep matters in perspective. It is perfectly legitimate for the National Farmers Union to campaign on the issue of illegal imports and I make no criticism of any contributions to today's debate, which have all been perfectly reasonable and legitimate. However, the issue of keeping matters in proportion remains.

The Government believe that the measures in place in the UK are comparable with those of any other country. That is not to say that we should be complacent or that we cannot improve them. I shall soon outline the contributions that we have made over the past year. I was surprised to hear that some hon. Members were unaware of those measures, which may partly be the Government's fault. It is particularly useful to have an imports forum to discuss what measures are in place, what further measures we may be able to take, and what measures are or will prove effective.

A risk assessment is crucial, which is why we commissioned the Veterinary Laboratories Agency to conduct a proper assessment, which will take about six months. It will examine the probability of undetected illegal imports coming into this country and estimate the scale —

Will the Minister give way?

In a moment. It will assess the probability of infections with a class A animal disease.

It is right to confront the issue of illegal imports, but we cannot use it as a diversion from other disease control measures. No hon. Member speaking in the debate has tried to do that, but some in the wider community always look for simplistic answers or a scapegoat—and the favourite scapegoat is illegal imports.

We know where the disease started, but I cannot say too much about a particular farm, which, as the hon. Member for Hexham is aware, is subject to criminal proceedings. I cannot comment specifically, but if regulations had been followed on the farm, we may never have had the outbreak in the first place. That should also be taken into account. We should also reflect on how the disease spread and the measures needed to stop it. As all hon. Members who have spoken acknowledge, when dealing with illegal activities, it is never possible to provide a 100 per cent. guarantee of stopping disease. That is why we need contingency plans on how best to prevent disease spread.

I say in all seriousness to all hon. Members present, including my hon. Friends, that it would be easy to spend an awful lot of extra money and resources on import controls without significantly reducing risk. We must assess the risks carefully and establish where best to apply our resources. We must think that through. I am sure that hon. Members would not disagree.

I must correct the hon. Member for Congleton (Mrs. Winterton) on standards of imports. Legal imports, even from countries with endemic foot and mouth disease, have never been associated with disease spread of any sort because they have to pass through strict controls—deboning of beef, for example—and only certain regions are accepted. We utilised provisions under the OIE regulations to get our exports going again in certain parts of the country that were effectively foot and mouth free, even though some regions were officially under control. We were confident that our exports were safe, secure, properly regulated and measured. That should also be taken into account.

In respect of imports, I do not disagree with the point made by the hon. Member for North Thanet (Mr. Gale) about standards, but there are common EU standards for meat production, slaughterhouses and cutting plants, which apply to everyone and which the EU enforces. It is true that some of our standards of production are higher than those of the EU, which is right. We need to explore issues such as labelling and consumer choice.

Hon. Members acknowledged that we have increased publicity in ports of entry. There are new posters and leaflets, and travellers who apply to British embassies for a visa are given information explaining the regulations. There is an argument that we should make the posters bigger and bolder to increase awareness. A point was made about perception—being seen to do things—which is important. We are planning a pilot scheme with dogs trained to sniff out meat. A handler is undertaking training at present. Given the number of passengers going through Heathrow, we do not know how effective the scheme will be, but it is not unreasonable to try it out. The biggest benefit may be the visual impact, which I do not underestimate.

The law has been changed to strengthen enforcement powers to make it easier for local authorities to take action on meat that may have been illegally imported. Environmental health officers' powers have also been strengthened, which will affect inland catering outlets. We are considering whether we can strengthen the Products of Animal Origin (Import and Export) Regulations 1996 and make them more effective; work is being done on the matter now.

Seizures have increased. In the year to 31 March 2001, 2.7 tonnes of illegal meat were seized. Since April 2001, there have been 1,076 seizures of illegal animal products—an estimated 46 tonnes of illegal meat. More checking is being carried out, and there have been more seizures. We are not complacent about the work that needs to be done.

We are considering the issue of personal imports. Some serious matters were raised, including the point about baby food, which people may need when they travel. Baby food is processed and sealed and it is not a problem.

The regulations state that the 1 kg allowance should be cooked meat, hermetically sealed. That is the EU standard, which minimises the risk. As the risk is largely from other illegal products, it would not necessarily be reduced if we did not have that EU standard. It is a serious matter, which we are discussing with the Commission.

We are talking to airlines about producing in-flight videos that can be shown to people travelling to this country telling them what they can and cannot bring into the UK. Landing and boarding cards have been amended in respect of declarations.

As I said earlier, a scheme that uses sniffer dogs is being considered. We are also considering using X-rays, but although some are quite sophisticated and can detect organic matter, X-rays are designed to show bones, not meat. There is thus a genuine doubt about whether X-ray machines are effective. However, there may be a role for a skilled operator with a more sophisticated machine; we do not rule it out.

We accept that we cannot entirely reduce the risk of illegal activity, but we are strengthening the regulations. As the hon. Member for Congleton said, there have been two prosecutions of people who imported bush meat, one of which resulted in jail sentences. They are the first prosecutions for that offence. I accept the point that was made by the hon. Member for North Thanet about the environmental impact and the undesirability of the trade. I will certainly bear in mind his point about visas and whether we can strengthen enforcement.

Time does not allow me to continue with all the points, but I want to emphasise that we are taking the issue seriously. We have taken a great deal of action, we intend to strengthen the law and we will ensure that what we do is public. We should perhaps do more to make public what we have already done, but it must be borne in mind that border controls are just one aspect of disease control. We must examine disease control in the round to ensure that we minimise risk in our country. I believe that we are doing that.

I rise to speak on flooding in my constituency. I am mindful that there may be hon. Members present who have had experiences in places such as York, Selby and some parts of central Leeds that are similar to, and in some cases much worse than, those in my constituency. The effect of the damage on the people concerned is no different whether it is on a large or, as in my constituency, small scale, and the shared pain unites all such victims. It does not matter whether an individual victim or a community of interests is affected. The same painful and damaging effect must be managed and minimised.

It is the Environment Agency's responsibility to warn of impending floods, but none of us can escape the common knowledge that exists and has arisen out of shared experience of recent years. Flooding is a more common experience now, and the increasing severity of the flooding provides a growing consensus of scientific opinion. I refer to the view increasingly expressed in the scientific community that changes in our shared climate will produce more extreme weather, and that what we now call the extreme may become the new norm. The 1990s were the hottest years in Europe since records began, and rainfall was up by at least 10 per cent. and perhaps much more in certain parts.

The UK Climate Impacts Programme has produced models that speculate—I acknowledge that this is speculation—on a 3 deg increase in the world's average temperature, with a consequence of a roughly 20 per cent. rise in precipitation. Such evidence may still be less than convincing to those who always want further and better detail. I understand that view, although it is perhaps the same view that was encountered by Noah when he explained his anxieties about impending floods.

What is certain is that my constituency is experiencing hard evidence of change, whether that is long or short-term change. In the past few years, the River Wharfe has overflowed its banks more times that I can remember happening in my 64 years of living in close proximity. It has happened three times in the past year or so alone. That has affected people living close by the river—for example, in the market town of Otley—although it is perhaps nothing on the scale of the events that we saw on television that took place in York and further down river. However, I would not want to get into a meaningless competition about who suffers the most.

One young family who bought their house just more than a year ago—an older stone-built house about 100 years old—knew that their position close to the River Wharfe meant that they might experience flooding "once in 100 years", which was the professional advice that they received. So far, they have experienced the "once in 100 years" flooding three times. Their house does not become swamped by vast quantities of water; their experience is different. When flooding occurs, the road outside the home of the Floods—the name of the family—is under 250 mm of water, or about 10 in Passing vehicles push that water across into their curtilage. It then enters the house through the ventilation points underneath the floorboards. People may say that that is no great disaster, but it is, to say the least, a disturbing experience for a young family. It can also be alarming if young children are involved and the parents have to think about the possible consequences of the flooding becoming dramatically worse.

The effect of flooding in Otley town centre is not catastrophic, but with only one road bridge in the centre and adjacent roads under 250 mm of water, even though the bridge is passable, traffic can come to a halt and that tends to choke the town centre. Inevitably, flooding damages the commercial life of the town. Anyone who knows about town-centre traffic is aware that a hold-up of two or three minutes has knock-on effects on the whole system.

Flooding is both debilitating and corrosive to a community and individuals. It is a serious problem. The inhabitants of town and village regard the River Wharfe as beautiful, as are the villages of Pool—an interesting name—and Arlington, and the market town of Otley alongside its banks that fall within my constituency boundaries. The countryside of Lower Wharfedale is very attractive. The river is a major asset to the town and villages. It is one of the cleanest in England. However, when it overflows its banks, the local sewage works downstream from Otley experiences problems. Such flooding is not a threat to public health, but no one would choose to manage the additional problems that it causes when the floods are fairly severe. The local anglers who, in many cases, are the watchdogs of water purity have drawn to my attention the fact that the sewage works have problems on non-flooding occasions. Because of that difficulty, some time ago before the last flood I arranged a meeting in my office this Friday with both Yorkshire Water and the Environment Agency, at which I also intend to pursue matters to which I have referred today.

What is to be done? So far, the answer has been that plans must be made to manage the expected. That is fair enough. It is difficult to plan for the unexpected. However, the problems that we may have expected a few years ago now have led to different expectations in the public mind. We must consider ways in which to plan differently. My constituents ask for the existing plan to be revised, a matter that we are taking up with the appropriate authorities. The plan is inadequate and it means that measures that should be taken quickly to manage the change in speed of flooding, for example, are not happening as they would like.

My constituents know that we cannot reverse overnight, or even in the next century, the abuse of our environment and the damage done by humankind in the past two hundred years or so. However, that is being tackled—somewhat slowly in my opinion—by the world's nations, some of whom are more enthusiastic than others. I am pleased that our Government are taking a leading role in improving the disastrous situation. My constituents do not want a miracle; they want a fresh consideration of what can be done locally. They would also like further and better help from the Government. That is not a new cry. I do not know how many times Ministers have heard that. Unexpected events place additional costs on local services. I hope that the Under-Secretary will give some thought to that.

No one expects our good Under-Secretary to turn back the tide, unless he is in the business of miracles, but I hope that he can help in developing a better, more sensitive and efficient planning process for the now inevitable overflow of the rivers in the Leeds City metropolitan district council area, which has the River Aire at its centre. My hon. Friend the Member for Elmet (Colin Burgon), who cannot be here this morning, has faced similar problems. He has worked hard with his constituents to do what he can. He, too, would like the Under-Secretary to give the problem further consideration.

The Under-Secretary will respond with straightforward honest realism. He has a reputation for that, and I approve of it. It is not only appropriate but necessary to deal with those matters honestly and fairly. My constituents are hoping for an acknowledgement of the changing circumstances in which they live, and they hope for further Government help not in curing, but in ameliorating the problems that arise from—I was going to say "flow from"—the damage done by the growing menace of unexpected flooding.

I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Leeds, North-West (Mr. Best) on securing the debate. I know his constituency well, and if I were not to represent Selby, the constituency I would most like to represent in the world would be Leeds, North-West, not least because of the River Wharfe. His constituency also contains Headingley cricket ground, which is one of the Meccas of Yorkshire. I feel great sympathy for what he has said about the recent effects of flooding on his constituency. Selby and many villages in my constituency have suffered flooding in the past 18 months.

I want to begin on an optimistic note. We have had debates both in the main Chamber and in Westminster Hall about flooding. The most recent one was held just before Christmas. Organisation and funding have improved in Yorkshire. It is little more than a year ago that, to many people's shock, it was announced that Yorkshire's flood defences were the worst in the country as measured by the Environment Agency for England and Wales. A backlog of works had built up. Many people remember the unseemly row that we had on the regional flood defence committee some 12 months ago about flood defence funding.

It is worthy of note that the capital programme in Yorkshire for flood defence funding in the next 10 years has doubled. In April 2000, about £93 million was going to be spent in the next 10 years on Yorkshire's flood defences. In April 2001, after the Selby, York and other floods of last winter, the flood defence committee adopted a budget for the next 10 years of about £208 million. That is a significant increase, funded by central and local government.

The good news is that since April 2001, the budget for the forthcoming year has been passed. The local authorities and the Environment Agency agreed on a budget that provides an increase in the local authority levy of 10 per cent. That means that the 10-year programme can begin to be funded. It will require two or three additional commitments from the local authorities—a sustained increase in funding over several years. The 10 per cent. increase will be needed for the next five years if the capital programme is to be implemented. There is a real need to deliver on that programme in Yorkshire. We must stick to the timetable outlined in it as far as possible and, year-by-year, show local authorities and the regional flood defence committee that we are delivering.

We should congratulate some of the individuals and organisations involved, such as Professor Roy Ward, who chairs Yorkshire's flood defence committee, and Peter Holmes, the Environment Agency officer responsible for flood defences in my area. I congratulate also the Under-Secretary's officials, who have worked hard to deliver the capital programme and ensure that we are back on track. By 2010, flood defences throughout Yorkshire should be up to national standards.

An appendix was added to the regional flood defence committee's papers, listing approximately 200 schemes throughout Yorkshire to be developed over that period. In my own constituency, Selby has £4.5 million for that purpose. The computer modelling will be finished in the next few months and the schemes will be built in the next three years. It is intended that the start dates for Riccall Ings, which will defend approximately 100 properties, and Tadcaster, which will defend another 100 will be in the financial year 2003–04, as will Cawood. Ulleskelf will follow in 2004–05. Incidentally, Otley is also in for a scheme in 2004–05. That progress should be acknowledged.

Next year's budget includes an additional £100,000 for the maintenance of existing flood banks because it is no good having expensive capital programmes if they are allowed to deteriorate. My constituency has existing flood defences that will hopefully receive a share of that maintenance budget in the next year.

Since flooding was last discussed in the House, an important report, "The flood and coastal defence funding review" has been published for consultation. The report has implications for Yorkshire. It is comprehensive and requires careful reading of the proposals. I endorse one such proposal that would help flood defences and planning in Yorkshire. The Environment Agency, or the single operating authority, should take responsibility for flood defences not only on main rivers, but water courses with significant flood risk. As hon. Members will be aware, several bodies have a role in flood defences, such as local authorities and internal drainage boards.

There have been occasions during the past year in my constituency—which has 88 villages—when I have been on a water course with all the agencies involved and asked, "Who is in charge?" Several people have shrugged their shoulders and, with the best will in the world, it is not always entirely clear who should take responsibility. It would obviously be beneficial to have one authority clearly in charge in areas that have significant flood risk, whether that is the Environment Agency, which is currently under its quinquennial review, or a separate authority with the power to co-ordinate activities and subcontract work to local authorities or drainage boards.

Several interesting proposals concern the raising of revenue to pay for flood defences. The question of a flood plain levy has been in the news. The Oxford Research Associates report lists the many disadvantages of such a levy. I shall bring a couple of them to the House's attention, and I share the view that the disadvantages are significant. The report says:

"Such a charge as an exclusive source of funding would not recognise the wider community benefits."

Flood defences in Selby protect not just the people of Selby but the traffic that goes through it and the commerce that uses it as a link to other areas.

The report also says:

"There could be challenges to the definition of flood risk area."

That could certainly happen. It goes on to say:

"Such a charge could be socially divisive as it takes no account of ability to pay."

It is concerned that the

"funds raised will not necessarily be used locally"

and that the charge could be seen to duplicate existing drainage board charges. That is quite a long list of disadvantages. In the words of "Yes, Minister", it would be a particularly brave Minister who took the proposal much further.

There has been some discussion of whether those who develop in flood plains should pay a development charge. That is a more interesting idea. The recently changed planning guidance discusses the fact that local authorities, as part of development gain, could already charge developers in flood risk areas for improvements in flood defences. That is worthy of consideration.

I have a parochial point about Selby and how matters have improved. The impact of mining on flood defences is an important local issue. I commend the Environment Agency, which has, during the past year, taken a robust attitude with UK Coal, which has to fund any additional flood defences to take account of mining. There should be a tension in that relationship. That has brought about flood defences on the B122 south of the village of Naburn, near York, which was flooded and completely cut off at the end of 2001. In the recent heavy rainfall, the village maintained access to Stillingfleet and thereby to York, which was appreciated. That is evidence of the Environment Agency taking strong, positive action in Yorkshire.

In any discussion of flood defences and prevention, it is worth remembering that what happens in the flood risk areas is not the only important thing. What happens in the uplands and dales is also important—such as attempts to improve retention of water in the uplands—as is the use of imaginative schemes such as flood management of washlands. South of Selby, Heck Ings and Gowdall Ings washland system has been developed and used to take water from the River Aire when it has been swollen. The development of washlands will be an important part of flood management in Yorkshire.

I am beginning to have discussions with local farmers. There is a change in emphasis in support for farming in, for example, the recently published White Paper. In the future, there may be a case for considering payments to farmers whose land is being used as a washland on an extensive basis, so that they are basically filling a role of environmental management. That might be in the spirit of the new White Paper.

Flood management not only in Yorkshire but nationally should have a higher profile in Parliament. In the last Westminster Hall debate on the subject, I mentioned the possibility of creating an all-party flood prevention group. A little progress has been made on that. I have had some discussions with colleagues in other areas and written to the Under-Secretary, inviting him to help us to launch that group at an appropriate time. We shall probably make it an associate group. As I understand it, that would mean that bodies such as the Association of Drainage Authorities and insurance companies could be involved and come to meetings. Groups with a wider interest in flood prevention and management, together with interested Members of Parliament could then take the debate forward. As we hit the peak of the comprehensive spending review, there is a real case for those of us who have seen the devastation that flooding causes, not just in Yorkshire but elsewhere, to follow the lead of my hon. Friend the Member for Leeds, North-West and continue to argue the importance of sustained funding for flood defences.

I should begin by declaring an interest. I live beside the River Ouse in York and, in November 2000, we moved all our furniture upstairs, sandbagged and boarded up the front door, blocked the air bricks and had an anxious time as the water lapped the front door step for several days. It did not come inside but was one inch below the floor level. The difference between one inch below and one inch above the floor is all the difference in the world.

I cannot overstate the human cost of flooding. Many people in York have told me what they went through in November 2000. Homes that people had created over a lifetime were destroyed overnight. Many people were out of their homes for six months and some for even longer while they were repaired, which illustrates the extent of the damage that occurs when homes are flooded. The Under-Secretary understands that very well because he visited people in my constituency and elsewhere.

The response to the flood in York in November 2000 was magnificent and involved the City of York council, the emergency services—police, fire and ambulance—the Environment Agency and the Army. The Deputy Prime Minister came to the constituency twice. We ran out of sandbags and, within 20 minutes, he answered my desperate call for more and arranged for the Army to fly 50,000 sandbags in from Salisbury plain. The Under-Secretary also visited the constituency with the Prime Minister. The response involved utilities such as Yorkshire Water, the electricity companies and BBC Radio York, which provided a vital lifeline for people who wanted to know, hour-by-hour, how vulnerable they were. In Selby, the power went down and the only communication for many people in the middle of dark nights when water was lapping at their doors was the information on Radio York. It became a true public service broadcaster.

Perhaps most of all I should pay tribute to the response of the citizens of York who turned schools into dormitories and provided food for people who could no longer cook. Hundreds of people turned out and worked overnight to build a mile-long wall of sandbags to protect the Leeman road area. The response at the time was excellent; it was a model of how to respond. In their assessment of those floods, the Government took on board the response in York, which provided a good information service and a 24-hour helpline for the public and responded early to clean-up problems. The Government are using that response as a model for other authorities.

However, the response since the floods has been slower and not as good. New flood defences are being built in Malton and Norton. Existing flood defences have been repaired, but new defences have not been built in York and are not likely to be built for several years. There is a problem with a lack of transparency of how the flood defence system works. New flood defences in Malton and Norton are being built sooner than in York because they faced devastating floods two years earlier—some people have forgotten that—and it takes some years to design flood defence solutions, to consult with the public and to obtain planning permission and approval from the communities involved. That needs to be explained to people, and I have organised public meetings for the communities that were affected in York.

The Environment Agency has sent representatives to them, and once people understand what is happening and that much work is being done, they are considerably reassured. I particularly pay tribute to Craig McGarvey, the area manager of the Environment Agency's office in York. When he has attended meetings, he has explained how much work he and his staff are doing.

Generally, the Environment Agency's public relations has not been as good as it should have been. Improvements need to be made, and the agency needs to get out and meet communities affected to explain what they are doing and what can be done.

I was pleased to see the "Learning to Live with Rivers" report from the Institute of Civil Engineers. It concluded that:

"There is evidence of the significant impact which climate change is having on rainfall, evaporation, storage and runoff within catchments. The Commission is of a view that best practice in flood estimation must have the effects of climate change designed into it."

I have never before seen a statement about the palpable effects of climate change on flooding in the UK expressed so clearly and unequivocally in an official report. I congratulate its authors.

I am convinced that climate change is part of the problem, but only a part; there are other man-made causes of flooding that must be addressed. Building is one, which the Government responded to in the consultation document. The building of houses, workplaces, shopping centres and roads makes the ground less permeable so that water does not soak in, but runs off more quickly to rivers, which are more quickly filled.

Trees and hedgerows can soak up trillions of gallons of water. If we lose trees or if farmers dig up hedgerows, the land loses some storage capacity and, again, water runs off more quickly. The problem with a flood is not the quantity of water, but the speed at which it comes together. If the run-off from moorlands, hills, fields, shopping centres, and roads were slowed, the period over which the water ran down the river would be spread out, and the height of a flood would be lower. A two-day flood that is 6 ft lower than a 12-hour flood allows many properties to escape damage.

The Department needs to address the practice of ploughing downhill. It is easier to plough up and down a hill because the tractor does not fall over; if it goes around the hill, it can fall down, but ploughing downhill creates a channel down which water runs; ploughing across a hill retains water in the fields.

During the second world war—when it was so important to boost domestic food production—and since then, we have provided considerable flood defences for fields that used to be water meadows, but which are now used by farmers to grow winter crops. In the past, water meadows would retain water during a flood, so flooding downstream was less severe. Given that we face the necessity of putting farmland out of use through set-aside—as part of the common agricultural policy—the Under-Secretary should consider using the CAP and set-aside to convert some water meadows back to their natural state of flood protection. Flood banks could be knocked down and water meadows created once again. Farmers will still be able to get hay from the meadows in the summer, but winter crops would not be planted. If some farmland goes out of use because of set-aside, it would make sense for it to be farmland that can be usefully set to some other purpose.

The Government's consultation document contains a lot of good proposals, and I congratulate the Under-Secretary on the work that he and his team of officials have done. It includes, however, one truly dreadful proposal, which was put forward by consultants employed by the Department. They propose what would be, in effect, a poll tax on flood victims. That proposal deserves to sink as soon as possible. It is clear that we need to spend more money on flood defences, and I shall not duck away from the difficult question of how to raise the money. We have got to raise more money, and the public will have to pay. However, the burden must be shared equitably. The idea of a poll tax on victims is simply unacceptable.

I do not say that because I represent an area that is prone to flooding. A river is a drainage system. By draining water, it reduces the risk of flooding for people who live within the catchment from the source high in the hills right down to the sea. As one moves downstream, the river naturally gathers more water. It is absurd and unjust to suggest that a river will provide free drainage for people who live upstream, but that when it is full of water—as a result of providing drainage—and overflows, the victims of flooding downstream, who are also the victims of good drainage upstream, should pick up the cost. That is just not acceptable. It is a potty proposal, and the consultants have not earned their money.

We cannot and must not play off one community against another. I want the people living around the Ouse upstream of York to have good drainage. I want people downstream from York, in Selby and Barlby, to have good drainage. I do not want them to be flooded because York has good drainage. Drainage is a common good because it is something from which we all benefit. Because we share it, we must share the cost of providing it.

There are some things that one cannot buy as an individual or small community. Protection from environmental risks, such as air pollution or communicable diseases, is one such thing. The free marketeers who talk about Adam Smith should read "The Wealth of Nations". He recognised that things such as sewers in cities needed to be provided collectively by the public sector. Drainage is one such thing. It is not something that should be or can be bought by communities because that would lead to one community protecting itself at the expense of another. That can never work in the public interest or the public good.

There are some good ideas in the document, and I should like to comment on one or two of them. There is a suggestion that specific flood defence costs attributable to individual flood plain developments could be borne by a charge on the developer. That is good economics. It means that a person who creates a potential cost for other people has to share that cost himself. It is also good social justice. I hope that that idea will be explored, although there will need to be consultation on it.

I approve of the consultation document's recognition that social and environmental concerns have been given too little weight in the past. The idea that flood protection bodies—regional customer bodies is the suggested new name—should be able to set a precept on local authorities is a bold move, and I congratulate the Under-Secretary on putting it forward. It is something that I lobbied him to do, and I am glad that he has decided to consult on it.

My hon. Friend the Member for Selby (Mr. Grogan) talked about the absurdity that we faced in Yorkshire after the big flood in November 2000, when the local authorities in the areas that flooded said that they would add an extra element to their council tax to ensure that they received all the possible grant available from the Government in order to maximise the money that was available for strengthening and improving flood defences. However, Yorkshire local authorities in areas that had not been prone to floods blocked the proposal. That cannot be an acceptable way to deal with a problem that causes immense hardship to a small number of people, and costs them immense sums of money. Those costs must be shared. Moving from a levy that has to be agreed to a precept increase creates transparency and accountability, and would make the system fairer.

The document sets out the Government's five key principles in the new system of funding, on which they are consulting: efficiency and effectiveness; simplicity and transparency; accountability; local democratic input; and autonomy. I approve of all those principles. However, two important principles are left out: timeliness and equitable cost sharing.

On timeliness, people expect to hear reasonably soon what flood defence is technically possible if they have experienced huge damage and disruption to their lives or to their livelihoods or if their businesses have been flooded. Once a form of defence has been identified as technically possible, there should be a reasonable time scale for putting the protection into practice. Under the current system, that does not happen. It is 15 months since the flood that hit York and neighbouring communities. In April—18 months after the event—the Environment Agency will publish the result of its audit of what happened along the River Ouse, and its outline proposals for what improvements can be made to flood defences. It will take another considerable amount of time—two or three years—to look for funding and to design schemes to address the flood defence deficiencies that the report will identify. The public do not believe that that time scale is acceptable, and nor do I. A quicker response must be a principle of the report.

I talked about equitable cost sharing in relation to the poll tax proposal. I was pleased to see from the Under-Secretary's demeanour that he was not as convinced of the merits of that as his consultants.

I return to issues brought to my attention by constituents who faced considerable losses; in particular the South Esplanade area of York and the King's Arms pub on the King's Staith, which gets photographed and filmed by television every time there is a flood. The pictures make it look as if the whole of York has been deluged, which is absurd, as the pub is 20 ft below the street on what used to be the Roman wharf. The images go round the world, so tourists do not come and investors do not invest. The pub trades on the fact that beer is sold by bar staff in chest-high waders, but it misrepresents York.

Several businesses in that area, including the King's Arms, restaurants and warehouses, suffered losses that ranged from £90,000 to £400,000 as a result of the November 2000 flood. Around 20 houses in the South Esplanade and Friar's terrace area suffered losses of around £50,000 per house. That was the cost of putting right the damage done. The fire station and magistrates courts, which were flooded, cost £200,000 to put right. I do not know what the police station cost, but it was also flooded out.

The Environment Agency's predecessor, the National Rivers Authority, estimated in the 1990s the potential losses of a flood of the November 2000 proportions. Its estimate was a fraction of the real losses, which is significant because the decision about whether to build flood defences depends on the Environment Agency's estimates of the potential cost of not building them. One reason—there were others—that flood defences were not built for the King's Staith and South Esplanade area is that it was judged not to be cost effective. The cost of building the flood defences would have been disproportionate to the potential losses, and yet the estimate of potential losses was a substantial underestimate. I do not expect my hon. Friend the Under-Secretary to comment on that, but I will give way if he wants to speak about representations that have been made.

It may not be that specific group of houses, but I know that one group in York turned down a scheme on amenity grounds.

It is precisely that one, but that was not the only reason why the scheme failed. Several different schemes were proposed. Some were favoured more by local residents than others, and the favoured ones tended to be more expensive. Had the estimate of the potential damage been more accurate, the cost of the more expensive but environmentally more acceptable defence schemes might have been judged to be cost effective. I will certainly send the Under-Secretary the papers that local residents put together on the issue, and I am sure that he and his technical advisers will examine them.

I am not trying to return to a decision that was made 10 years ago. That is history, and the decision was made, as the Under-Secretary rightly points out, with the agreement of a majority of local residents that a flood protection scheme should not go ahead. However, I believe that we should examine the mechanism by which costs are calculated. Cost-effectiveness is important, because however much money we have for flood defences, it will never be enough. Whatever sum we have must be used in a way that protects the maximum number of people.

To illustrate that point, preliminary costings for improving flood defences in York have been produced by the city council. One example concerns 118 houses in Rawcliffe that were flooded. The cost of providing temporary protection, which would protect up to the level of the November 2000 flood, has been provided, but it is metal sheeting covered with a temporary bank of earth.

I just wanted to make a point about temporary defences, because we have had a problem in Selby. Metal sheeting is not a temporary defence. The Environment Agency refers to it as temporary because it is not fully landscaped and complete, but the defence itself is very robust.

I accept that the defence is robust, and that is why I say that it will provide protection. I am glad that the Under-Secretary reassured people who live in the Rawcliffe area that that is the case.

The cost of providing the current protection scheme—I now hesitate to describe it as temporary—is about £150,000. Full landscaping would bring the cost up to something like £500,000 to protect 118 houses. That would be a really good buy, given the losses experience by the people in those houses. More than 40 houses in Clementhorpe, including River street—which featured in photographs and national newspaper and television coverage—were flooded, and the cost of protecting those houses would be about £500,000 according to City of York council estimates. That is approximately £10,000 per house; much less expensive than doing the repairs. The 28 houses in South Esplanade and Tower street could be protected—on the basis of another back of the envelope costing by the council—for between £1 million and £2 million. In the outskirts of York, however, are two isolated houses that could be protected, but at a cost of £750,000. One has to ask whether it is worth protecting a house worth considerably less than the cost of protection; the answer is no.

The consultation document discusses whether all houses in a particular community should have the same level of protection, but doing so would mean abandoning the cost-effectiveness principle, which would not be wise. We would end up protecting fewer protectable people—not a sensible policy.

I have detained the Chamber for longer than I should. I am grateful to the Chairman for not calling me to order. With that, I shall finish and sit down.

Order. I would be remiss in my duty if I failed to remind the Chamber that the House took the decision—in its wisdom or otherwise—that the four senior members of the Speaker's Panel should be addressed as Mr. Deputy Speaker.

I begin by congratulating the hon. Member for Leeds, North-West (Mr. Best) on securing the debate. I am not from Yorkshire, but I have visited it on many occasions. The hon. Member for City of York (Hugh Bayley) provided graphic descriptions of the floods suffered in the city and other parts of Yorkshire. We must learn lessons from what happened. The Under-Secretary will want to comment on the fact that 18 months have elapsed—as the hon. Member for City of York pointed out—before action was taken in response to those lessons.

Debate so far has focused on putting adequate defences in place in the areas most prone to flooding. I want to emphasise the wider context, as did the hon. Member for City of York towards his conclusion. We can no longer continue playing King Canute with water. Archival and cartographic evidence indicates that Yorkshire's East Riding has suffered from continual loss of land to the sea, and will continue to do so.

I was honoured to serve on the Select Committee on Agriculture—as it was then called—some three years ago when we examined flood defences. The Ministry viewed its recommendations positively and some resulted in the consultation paper on funding, which we are also debating today. A truism that we identified and which simply cannot be ignored is that, over the next 50 years, climate change is likely to contribute to continuing rises in eastern sea levels of about 6 mm a year. That does not sound much on a yearly basis, but it means many centimetres—or inches, as I prefer to say—over the next 50 years. Yorkshire is estimated to face a 0.5 cm increase every year. We cannot go on denying that it is happening, turning our backs on it or pretending that we can continually put up defences to stop that happening. The situation needs to be reviewed. That is only an estimate of sea level rises; it is exacerbated by the natural downward tilt of some land. As a Cornishman, I am always proud to point out that, perhaps symbolically, as England sinks, Cornwall rises. Either way, we are talking about a serious problem that cannot be ignored or avoided.

In evidence to the Select Committee, the Met Office identified the fact that, by 2050, winter days will be typically four or five times more common, in the sense that very heavy rainfall will be more regular during winter. In recent years, we have experienced more excessive rainfall in short periods, and the Met Office says that the flooding problems that we suffer as a result of that intense rainfall are likely to increase. Indeed, the problems that we have experienced in the last few years are likely to increase significantly in years to come.

We cannot simply put our heads in the sand and think that that will not happen, nor can we play King Canute and respond by building ever-higher defences. We must have a more strategic view of how to address the problems. As hon. Members have identified, the additional rainfall is affecting an increasingly urban environment, in which there is much faster run-off and rain collects in water basins more rapidly. That is exacerbating the problems.

To be fair to the Government, the UK strategy is the legacy of 70 or 80 years of believing that we can play King Canute and take on the sea and the natural elements. Development on flood plains—more than 2 million properties have been built in the last 10 years—has reduced their natural ability to contain and hold back floodwater as it rushes off hard surfaces faster than ever.

As the hon. Member for City of York said, an additional problem is the intensification of agriculture. Extensive drainage means that water runs off farmland faster than before. That intensification has led to overgrazing, soil compaction and the formation of surface crusts or soil capping, which reduce the land's natural ability to soak up water. Reports that flooding is occurring because catchments are saturated are not always accurate. Without soil compaction, supposedly saturated areas would be able to absorb more rainfall.

In addition, we are filling in flood plain wetlands. In the last 25 years, we have drained and filled 60 per cent. of our flood plain water meadows. These once acted as a natural safety valve, holding back floodwater and so reducing the flooding risk downstream.

All those problems show the fundamental contradiction between our long-term high principles about what we should be doing in response to global warming, rising sea levels and the climatic changes that we have described, and the commercial reality of the day-to-day financial pressures on us all.

Two examples show that contradiction. One is the planning system, which of course was artificially created by man. The planning system says that one cannot develop unless one completes a planning application form and gets permission. As we all know well—particularly those of us who have served on local authorities—planning committees, in effect, hand out rather large cheques to people who undertake very little work to secure their planning permission for a new development, every time they give planning permission.

The inexorable commercial pressure to seek housing and other types of development, whether on flood plains or anywhere else, is ever-present. The pressure for development will always be there. We have created a system that encourages us to develop in lower land and on flood plains where communities are based. We are creating commercial pressures that drive the desire to secure planning permission for developments in some of the most inappropriate areas from the point of view of flood defence. We need to recognise that.

Secondly, we have created artificial systems to encourage agricultural intensification, which has resulted in a desire to produce more and more to maximise the benefits of production supports. That has reduced our ability to allow for the saturation of land appropriately to avoid flooding. The difficulties that we experience are largely created by human systems of intervention. We need to recognise that and adapt some of the processes in response.

I congratulate the Government on introducing the consultation paper on funding. It goes in the right direction, but it raises a load of other questions. The structures of delivery of funding and strategy within areas where there are special problems need to be looked at closely. I should be interested to know what the Under-Secretary considers to be the appropriate response to the plethora of agencies and bodies that either have a responsibility to deliver flood defence or cause flooding through excessive development or agricultural intensification. Should not the Environment Agency play a greater strategic and pivotal role in overseeing that? No other agency is in a more appropriate position to do that but, in many areas, it is unable to intervene.

What assessment has the Under-Secretary and the Department made of proposals for managed retreat in coastal areas? That has been on the agenda for some time. We had natural retreat in East Yorkshire many centuries ago. It happens naturally. Certainly the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds, the Select Committee, wildlife trusts and others have indicated that, in certain areas, managed retreat is the most sensible option. It provides a far better barrier for the areas behind those in which we are retreating than putting that barrier up in the first place.

Should we move from a system of production support, of which Liberal Democrats are in favour, towards other direct payments to farmers as suggested by the Curry commission? For example, should we pay farmers to create rural flood plain wetlands, which are the countryside management payments that we can, within green box subsidies, encourage or allow farmers to receive?

Do we need to establish a more appropriate format for the strategic delivery of flood defence planning? Much flood defence is piecemeal planning. It ignores the downstream impacts of building concrete flood defence structures on urban areas. A catchment-based approach may be more appropriate. I know that the Government are considering that, and I should be interested to hear the Under-Secretary's comments about it.

An important aspect, and one that we are all looking towards, is the methods to restrict development in flood plain areas. Have the Government considered that objections from the Environment Agency to development in flood plain areas should be adopted as a mandatory instruction to planning authorities in certain circumstances? Should certain zones become areas of mandatory objection where planning cannot be permitted?

If that it not acceptable, would it be appropriate to oblige owners of property in areas prone to flooding—or developments that have gone ahead to which the Environment Agency has outlined strong objections—to disclose, at the point of sale, those objections? That may assist the process of discouraging development in flood plain areas. The debate has concentrated appropriately on efforts to reduce the impact of flooding, particularly in certain communities and urban areas. I want to encourage the Under-Secretary to examine a wider strategy.

There cannot be many constituencies further apart than St. Ives and Leeds, North-West. Bedfordshire is in the middle; nevertheless, all three have suffered from the effects of flooding. I congratulate the hon. Member for Leeds, North-West (Mr. Best) on securing the debate.

He made some pertinent points. The hon. Member for Selby (Mr. Grogan) asked the important question: "Who is in charge?" In his good, if somewhat lengthy, speech, the hon. Member for City of York (Hugh Bayley) spoke movingly about the effects of flooding, particularly in human terms. That is something that we all understand yet never seem to take into account in our calculations. He also made a legitimate point about the need for new flood defences—not just shoring up the old—and suggested some simple, practical solutions that he would like the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs to encourage. The hon. Gentleman is to be commended for his suggestions.

I cannot help but feel sorry for the Government's Environment Ministers. In recent weeks, they have rightly faced a barrage of criticism directed both at DEFRA's continuing failure to implement an effective waste management strategy—something about which the Under-Secretary and I have spoken in the past—and its handling of the European Union fridge disposal legislation. The World Economic Forum has criticised Britain's environmental policies as being among the most dismal in the developed world. It highlighted a lack of recycling initiatives, as well as the levels of air pollution.

To make matters worse, in a somewhat cruel twist of fate, a vast fridge mountain has sprung up in the constituency of the right hon. Member for Oldham, West and Royton (Mr. Meacher), the Minister for the Environment.

Order. I am fascinated by the hon. Gentleman's introduction. However, I am not sure whether fridge mountains have anything to do with flood defences.

If I might explain, Mr. Deputy Speaker. They do because they have an effect on climate change. That acre of rusting, CFC-emitting white bears humiliating testament to the Government's incompetence and indolence.

For the sake of DEFRA Ministers, as well as that of home owners and businesses across the UK, let us be thankful that the floods of autumn 2000 have not been repeated on a similar scale. The figures associated with those floods are all too familiar. Inundation of land throughout England and Wales during that period resulted in insurance claims totalling more than £750 million and the evacuation of some 11,000 people. A complete financial impact assessment is impossible, as some of the properties affected were uninsured. The total cost of the damage, including loss of earnings, is estimated to be £1.5 billion to £2 billion.

The problem will not simply go away. Indeed, Environment Agency figures indicate that the dual spectres of coastal and inland flooding will loom increasingly large in the future. They project a tenfold increase in flood risk in the next century. So how can we in the political sphere set about managing that risk? I intend to touch briefly on three subjects that I hope will put some of what has been said today in a broader political context: first, the provision of funding for coping with the flood threat; secondly, the structuring of the institutional framework to deal with flooding; and finally, the redefining of planning guidelines so that developers are discouraged from embarking on projects that are likely to increase the risk of flooding.

Funding for flood protection has certainly increased since 1998, and looks set to increase further in coming years, and we should all acknowledge that. The Environment Agency, local authorities and the internal drainage boards spent a combined total of more than £330 million on flood defence last year, compared with £302.5 million during 1998–99 and the £316.4 million in 1999–2000.

The Government's spending review conducted in 2000 provided for a £10 million increase in DEFRA flood grants for 2002–03, and for a further £20 million for 2003–04. In total, Government spending on prevention and early warning looks set to reach £377 million this year, £394 million in 2002–03 and about £414 in 2003–04. We should all acknowledge that.

I am aware that it is easy to criticise Governments for not spending enough money. However, the inescapable fact remains that the Government's financial commitment to flood defence has failed to match the commitment to investment in preventative solutions that they announced in last year's Labour manifesto. In July 2001, a DEFRA report entitled "National Appraisal of Assets at Risk from Flooding and Coastal Erosion in England and Wales" explicitly recommended that capital expenditure in flood defence infrastructure should increase by a minimum of 100 per cent., with a parallel increase in expenditure on operation and maintenance.

The Association of British Insurers has called for a similar financial commitment on new flood defences, particularly targeted at the inland, fluvial flood threat. In its report to DEFRA last year, it concluded that budgeted spending remained

"significantly below the levels necessary to meet DEFRA's own standards".

It then called for an increase of at least £145 million in annual capital spending on improving flood defences in England and Wales.

The inescapable fact is that unless the Government can convince insurers that they are committed to capital outlay on improving and increasing actual flood defences—not administration—those insurers will either increase domestic and commercial premiums in high-risk areas to unaffordable levels or will simply refuse to insure at all against flood damage.

We all recognise the particular problems with an institutional framework that can deal effectively and consistently with the challenges of flood defence. Throughout the last century, Governments failed to ensure that the administrative framework could be reformed to keep pace with a growing flood threat. Apart from the devolving of Executive responsibility to national bodies in England, Scotland and Northern Ireland, little has changed since a royal commission in the 1920s recognised the need for a national response to flood risk.

In England, DEFRA sets criteria for investment priorities. It pays capital grants to operating authorities, funds research programmes and ensures dissemination of best practice guidelines. Policy is then implemented by the operating authorities. In England and Wales, the Environment Agency is responsible for managing the flood risk from designated main rivers and the sea. Internal drainage boards deal with rivers not designated as "main", but which run through specified districts with special drainage needs. Local authorities are involved because they manage the risk from non-main rivers outside internal drainage board areas. If they happen to be maritime district councils, local authorities also deal with coastal erosion.

Arrangements then become more complicated. There are problems with not only the backing up of sewers, but the remit of the water companies, private owners, riparian owners, city councils, district councils, county councils, parish councils and landowners with a direct interest. Such measures have all the makings of a managerial quagmire. However, such extraordinarily heterogeneous arrangements have advantages. They offer considerable scope for solutions that are sensitive to local circumstances, but the fundamental problem is too obvious. The framework suffers from exceptional bureaucratic complexity and makes the provision of a consistent national flood defence service well nigh impossible. Gaining approval for new flood prevention schemes is the bureaucratic nightmare. Even when there is money, plans tend to disappear.

The Under-Secretary may consider that there could be a better way in which to deal with the problem. For example, he may have in mind a financially non-interested body with emergency powers of coercion and arbitration, such as Ofwat, which can push other parties to do what is necessary. It could tell them first to sort out the problem and the question of who is responsible for it could be dealt with at a later stage.

I am short of time and must complete my remarks quickly because I want to hear what the Under-Secretary has to say. I will finish by saying that it is obvious that the current arrangements are not acceptable. We have problems that will continue to get worse, and we need a lead by Government to sort them out.

I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Leeds, North-West (Mr. Best) on the way in which he opened the debate and on raising important issues on behalf of his constituents, especially the concerns of victims in flood-hit areas.

I am glad that, as hon. Members have mentioned, the recent floods have been nothing like those in 2000. That was partly because of the weather, although in some parts of the country it was almost as severe as in 2000. It was also because there has been considerable investment in and uprating of flood defences and, in particular, flood warning systems. About 320,000 extra people have been added to the Environment Agency's flood warning arrangements since last year, in one year alone.

I was pleased to hear my hon. Friend the Member for City of York (Hugh Bayley) comment that where there has been an incidence of flooding, the reaction from local authorities, the agency and the police has been excellent. It has been quick and efficient. I recently spoke to the severe weather sub-committee of the Local Government Association, which was very complimentary about the way things have improved, particularly since the Northampton floods of 1998. We have made huge progress on floods.

I shall touch upon some of the points made by my hon. Friends and by the hon. Member for Mid-Bedfordshire (Mr. Sayeed) in a moment, but I think that my hon. Friend the Member for Leeds, North-West will want me to comment in particular on the schemes that he mentioned. I can give him an update on where we are with them. As he will appreciate, schemes take time because of planning, planning permission, engineering and design. My hon. Friend the Member for City of York mentioned speediness. Unfortunately, big engineering schemes are not always speedy because there can be challenging technical issues to overcome. The agency and engineers from my Department do a good job at looking at the options on that.

A scheme to protect properties in Castley lane, Pool, Wharfedale is scheduled to commence in 2002–03, this financial year, subject to obtaining the necessary planning and other approvals. I understand that, just as in York, a scheme in that area has already been rejected on planning grounds because people did not like the look of it. That is not unusual. In my travels round the country, I have found several areas that have rejected flood defence schemes that have been offered on the grounds of amenity.

How schemes look and their environmental impact is a consideration that must be taken into account. Sometimes, people want to go far beyond the engineering of a scheme designed to deliver flood defence, and then we come to the whole issue of cost-effectiveness. There can be ways of overcoming such problems, sometimes involving a combination of funding, in which a local authority or regional development agency puts money into environmental enhancement. My hon. Friend the Member for Leeds, North-West mentioned Ilkley.

Otley.

Otley, was it? I shall come to that in a minute. My hon. Friend might like to hear about Ilkley first. The scheme there was rejected on the grounds to which I referred; one example of several so rejected.

The scheme in Otley has been identified as part of the Environment Agency's long-term plan and is due to commence in 2004, again depending on the necessary approval and planning conditions. I shall make a point of talking to the agency about progress on that scheme because I know that my hon. Friend the Member for Leeds, North-West is anxious for such improvements in his constituency. He made a powerful case in his speech today, which I accept.

There are other issues, such as consequential costs and the cost to local authorities. We are currently reviewing the Bellwin formula, although that is not always triggered, as it depends on the size of the flooding. We are talking to the LGA about it, and in my discussions with its severe weather sub-committee yesterday, all parties in the LGA were pleased with progress.

I turn to other comments that were made, particularly by my hon. Friends the Members for Selby (Mr. Grogan) and for City of York, who made similar points. Both represent areas that have been severely affected by floods and I am pleased that during the recent severe weather, York's defences, which have been repaired and reinstated since the floods of 2000—as my hon. Friend the Member for City of York said—were not severely challenged during the recent high water. I agree that it is probably not helpful to focus on York as having suffered a dreadful flood when very few properties were affected and the defences operated well within their capability. As the Ouse fell after the peak the agency did not even issue flood warnings in Selby and Gowdall because the new defences were not severely challenged and were in good shape. The people of York can be confident that, by and large, they enjoy good defences, as do the people of Selby now.

I understand the point about funding made by the hon. Member for Mid-Bedfordshire. We are not ducking that issue. Although I say so myself, we are open and transparent about flood defence. My Department commissioned an independent report on what future commitments should be. The report asked for a 100 per cent. increase in capital funding; during 2002–03, the projected increase in council funding in the Department's allocation for flooding and coastal defence is 70 per cent. That is not insignificant.

There is an on-going and legitimate debate on what is appropriate, but we must bear in mind how the money is spent and not just pluck figures out of the air. Large engineering projects must be programmed and only so many can be carried out during a year. People may argue for extra money, but they may be unable to spend it within a financial year. We are almost at that stage now with the amount of additional money that we have made available. It is challenging to many regional flood defence committees to include it in their immediate programmes.

Flood and coastal defences are a long-term gain and I am pleased that the Yorkshire regional flood defence committee and local councils have been more realistic about the levies that have been raised. With those levies, they can access additional capital funding that the Government have made available to them. In Yorkshire, a plethora of schemes is being planned and constructed. I was pleased to visit Malton and Norton and see progress with the work there. A lot of work is taking place and Yorkshire received a big chunk of the additional £16 million for repairs and reinstatement. The Foss barrier needed an extensive overhaul after its sterling service during the 2000 floods. It has had that overhaul and the money has been made available. We are delivering and improving and I genuinely believe that matters are getting better and that risks are being reduced.

There is an on-going debate. The consultants' report examined funding mechanisms, institutional arrangements and matters to which the hon. Member for St. Ives (Andrew George) referred, such as flood plains and reinstatement. We have introduced an environmental impact assessment on grassland, which covers ploughing on slopes, and I accept that soil management is an issue. That is covered in DEFRA's soil codes, which are available free to landowners and farmers and cover run-off, soil erosion and the impact of flooding. We have addressed the matter.

I am enthusiastic about the approach to flood plain reinstatement and managed retreat because they are sustainable flood defences that provide environmental benefits. The recent review of funding suggests several radical ideas and I accept that some are more attractive than others. I heard what my hon. Friends said about the flood plain levy, but that is one idea about which I am less enthusiastic. It is right that we have an open debate about the best way in which to raise funds, and the consultant's report is a useful contribution to that. I welcome contributions from the public, local authorities and interested parties.

We have no fixed position on those proposals. We are waiting for the responses, we will listen to them carefully and we will respond in due course. I assure my hon. Friends that I have listened carefully to what they have said today.

Before I call the hon. Member for Witney (Mr. Cameron), I should advise the House that the hon. Members for Banbury (Tony Baldry) and for Henley (Mr. Johnson) have obtained the permission of the Minister, the owner of the debate, the hon. Member for Witney, and myself to make brief contributions.

I am delighted to have an opportunity to speak about the problems in the national health service and social services in Oxfordshire. I am pleased to be joined by my hon. Friends the Members for Banbury (Tony Baldry) and for Henley (Mr. Johnson).

I have put in for the same Adjournment debate every week for one simple reason: the state of our health and social services is the subject that dominates both my postbag and my surgeries. We are poorly served in Oxfordshire, and it seems to be getting worse. However, the debate is not about point scoring; it is about asking the Minister what can be done to make things better. Having said that, I praise the magnificent staff in our hospitals and all those who work for social services. I spent a lot of time with them in the John Radcliffe hospital and the Witney community hospital last week. They struggle, often against the odds, to deliver their services. What I am about to run through may sound like a shopping list of problems, but I make no apologies for that because the shelves are bare in Oxfordshire.

I shall start with the most urgent problem, which is the buildings of Burford community hospital. The Government closed it in November 1999, but from the ashes of that dreadful decision came a group called the Phoenix trust. It had the excellent idea of saving the buildings to provide health services for the people of Burford. It put together a great plan involving voluntary bodies, charities and educational organisations, all of which are concerned with health and healthy living. It won the support of local people and the local council, and it won public funding as part of the leader plus bid.

The Phoenix trust won priority purchaser status from the South West Oxfordshire primary care trust, the body which owns the buildings, and it was offered a chance to acquire them for £500,000. Its plans fitted in with the Government's strategy of backing such healthy living centres. It raised the money, and after some negotiation it was ready to go. Last week, however, it heard that the district valuer had upped the value of the building to £700,000, and the health authority has said that its hands are tied.

Without any consultation, the primary care trust put out a press release stating that the buildings would go on the open market, in which they are likely to be snapped up by a property developer. I beg the Minister to intervene, even at this late hour, to put a stop to that nonsense. The goalposts have been moved at the last minute wholly unfairly against the Phoenix trust. People in Burford rightly feel that those are their buildings: the remains of their hospital that they backed and for which they raised money for decades. They should not be treated in that way. The original decision to close the hospital was wholly wrong because we should be trying to deliver health care, and particularly respite care, closer to people.

The next problem on my shopping list is blocked hospital beds, which is directly related to such delivery of health care. Managers at the John Radcliffe hospital told me last week that typically between 100 and 150 beds are blocked across the county at any one time, and I had that figure confirmed this morning. The social services department at Oxfordshire county council explained at a recent meeting in Woodstock that half its care homes are going to shut before 2007, when the new standards will come in. Without rapid and positive action that problem will get much worse.

I recently wrote to every general practitioner in my constituency, and their answers came back thick and fast. Sandy Scott from the Wychwood surgery stated:

"Residential homes are closing at a rate of knots; funding for beds via social services provides no profit to the operators. The problem will only get worse unless addressed immediately."

I could quote from many similar letters. What actions will the Government take to ease that problem and ensure adequate care home places in Oxfordshire?

As well as a queue to get out of hospital, there is a queue to get in. Three related problems are the breakdown in the accident and emergency department of the John Radcliffe, the long waits for operations and out-patient appointments and the high number of cancelled operations. I have written to Ministers about individual cases. The overwhelming cause of those problems seems to be staff shortages. Before dealing with that, I shall explain what those symptoms mean for my constituents in west Oxfordshire. In A&E, the John Radcliffe has failed to meet the target for cutting 12-hour waits for admission to hospital; it has trolley waits. Such cases arise in my surgery and postbag weekly, and, as a doctor from the Woodstock surgery wrote in December:

"The JR has on several occasions been closed to admissions… Patients have been diverted as far as Northampton and Stoke Mandeville."

As for waits for out-patient appointments, a doctor from Charlbury wrote to explain that the waiting times for some clinics are more than a year.

For cancelled operations, the official figures are that same-day cancellations were 5.7 per cent. of last year's total. That is a bald statistic, but it means one out of every 20 planned operations is cancelled on the day it was supposed to happen. I know that the Minister will agree that that is a dreadful way in which to treat people. The record has improved considerably since then, but the long term problem remains, and 80 beds across the trust are still closed. There is a clear connection between A&E problems, cancelled operations and long waiting times.

Mr. Bowman of Shipton-under-Wychwood received a letter from a consultant urologist from the John Radcliffe, who explained:

"We are working presently at 100 per cent. capacity on the wards and our operating lists. This has two effects. Firstly, if we have emergency patients on the wards or we are unable to discharge patients following surgery…the inevitable consequence is that patients awaiting operations will have to be cancelled. Once the cancellation has been made, there then comes the second problem namely that all our operating slots are booked up for at least 2-3 months in advance."

The individual has the great disappointment of a cancelled operation, then is told that nothing can be done for two to three months, or sometimes longer.

That difficulty is caused by capacity constraints more than anything else, the most obvious of which is staff shortages. During a recent visit to the John Radcliffe, I was told that there were more than 300 nursing vacancies. All told, some 14 per cent. of positions are unfilled. The problem is caused by national pay rates combined with the high cost of living and housing in Oxfordshire. We cannot recruit enough staff, and we cannot retain those we have. I heard from doctors that some 80 nurses are coming from the Philippines. They will be warmly welcomed in Oxfordshire, but they are not the long-term answer. Our nurses should be paid at least the same as those in London, where London weighting provides more than £3,000 extra. In the longer term, we want to see an end to national pay rates.

Next on the shopping list is the star system for judging hospitals. Unsurprisingly, the John Radcliffe got no stars under the Government scheme. However, is that the right way to manage? The problem in the John Radcliffe is capacity: it is constrained, and cannot hire enough staff. So what have the Government done? They have hung a sign that says "failure" on the hospital's door. We were told at the meeting that a total of 21 indicators have to be met, but they are being reviewed, so the hospital's management is not sure of the targets it is trying to hit this year. Will the Minister provide some clarity on those indicators?

I shall address social services. To put the problem in a sound bite—I must because time is running short, and my hon. Friends must have their bites too—we have a funding crisis in social services with cuts being made, charges going up and services being cut back. Again, we have the critical problem of hiring staff. The director of social services at Oxfordshire county council described the situation as

"a social care economy on the point of collapse".

The long-term situation is worrying. People who care for loved ones at home are heroes and heroines, and they deserve our support. There are 67,000 of them in Oxfordshire. The institutional system will collapse if they cease to work their current wonders, and urgent action is needed to prevent that from happening. Oxfordshire spends over 15 per cent. more than its standard spending assessment. Its SSA is profoundly unfair, and is the sixth lowest in the country per head of population. Cuts are now reducing the overspend. Eligibility criteria determine who will and will not be assisted. I shall give the Minister a copy of the document that states that no assistance will be given for

"severe illness or disability and likelihood of deterioration".

Nor will assistance be given if there is a

"possible risk that an individual or carer is unable to maintain a safe environment".

This is a brutal document, and I sent a copy of it to the Secretary of State. I have not received a response.

The new charging policy is a direct consequence of the dire financial situation. Mrs. Roberts of North Leigh copied me the letter that she sent to social services. Her husband, who has Parkinson's disease, receives help from two care workers. He was being charged £409 a month, and that will increase to £952 a month—a 140 per cent. increase. The two care assistants do a great job, but they help for only eight and three quarter hours a week. If the Minister does the mathematics, she will realise that that is an expensive charge. The staffing problem underpins that. Mrs. Tussie Myerson is a brave mother who struggles to cope looking after Emmy, her severely disabled daughter. When I took up her case, the reply from the social services could have been written by the NHS. They told me that they were having

"extreme difficulty recruiting care staff for children".

The problem is the same.

We have high house prices and a high cost of living in our area, but we must stick to national rates. I e-mailed the Minister about some of those issues, as I want her to engage with the problems. The bald statistics back up the anecdotal evidence. In the Oxfordshire health authority, fewer operations were carried out in the last financial year than in the financial year before. The number of in-patients treated has gone down by 3,000. Oxfordshire health authority is soon to be no more, so that is the final element on my shopping list. Will the Minister guarantee that consistent figures will be published, so that we can keep taking the temperature of the health and social services in Oxfordshire on behalf of our constituents, and see what progress is being made? My constituents and I look forward to her reassurance about the difficult problems that we face in Oxfordshire.

I make a plea to the two hon. Gentlemen whom I intend to call to be succinct, to allow the Minister time to reply.

I promise to be succinct, as my hon. Friend the Member for Witney (Mr. Cameron) made all the points clearly.

I have had the Minister's responsibility, and I know that one can get frustrated at what may seem like an inordinate amount of special pleading from different parts of the country. We are not making any special pleading about social services, and I ask the Minister to visit Oxfordshire on behalf of hon. Members who have Oxfordshire constituencies. We are all concerned about the John Radcliffe hospital and its persistent nurse shortages. It would be helpful if the Minister could talk to the managers and staff, as there is a growing problem.

In its recent annual review of the performance of Oxfordshire social services, the social services inspectorate found that Oxfordshire has maintained a creditable level and quality of service provision despite significant budget difficulties. My hon. Friend talked about eligibility criteria. In Oxfordshire, many elderly and frail people no longer receive support from the county council and social services. Many people living at home on their own have no contact or social support. I spent time before Christmas visiting elderly people in their homes, at the suggestion of Age Concern. I was genuinely disturbed at how little support many of those people receive. They are often unnoticed, but they are in considerable need. As my hon. Friend said, we do not want to score political points; there is a problem and we would welcome the Minister spending some time with us. It would help to reinforce her argument that social services provision needs more money when she and her hon. Friends see the Chief Secretary to the Treasury, and others who hold the purse strings.

I, too, will be brief, as many of my points have already been made.

I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Witney (Mr. Cameron) for securing the debate. I echo everything that he said, especially about the shortfall in social services spending in Oxfordshire, which is having an adverse effect on some of the most vulnerable people in society. Week in and week out, hon. Members meet people in their surgeries who are at the end of their tether. They deal with severely disabled and elderly people who are being kicked out of nursing homes that are on the point of closure.

My hon. Friend elucidated the problems facing those nursing homes, such as the minimum wage and the additional standards imposed on them, and the problems faced by hospitals in the area, especially the John Radcliffe hospital, in recruiting and retaining nurses. I shall be interested to hear the Minister's response to the point about national pay scales for nurses. Is there any prospect of that rigid system being made more flexible? It is at the heart of the problem.

Bed blocking is a huge problem in my constituency. My hon. Friend quoted some statistics, and there are others. Last year, on any given day, there were 22 cases of bed blocking in Oxfordshire. People have to be over 75 even to be mentioned in the statistics. Sometimes, people are driven to try to rectify matters themselves, as they did in the case of the Watlington hospital, which was closed by the Labour Government. Local people decided to rebuild it by public petition and public subscription, and I hope that the Minister will congratulate them on their success.

The Secretary of State for Transport, Local Government and the Regions has not made many notable decisions in his tenure of office, but he did one good thing: he did not call in the Watlington hospital for approval and did not object to it. I congratulate him at least on that decision, and I hope that the Minister will, too.

Local people should not be expected to rebuild their own hospitals to rectify the problems that the Government are causing social services in Oxfordshire. I hope that the Minister will give some comfort and succour to many of my constituents who are suffering grievously.

I congratulate the hon. Member for Witney (Mr. Cameron) on securing the debate; his persistence finally paid off. I agree with him that the matters he raised are extremely important to his constituents and to people throughout the country. I acknowledge that health and social services in Oxfordshire are operating under tremendous pressure. I was pleased that the hon. Gentleman paid tribute to staff in social services and the NHS who manage to do a first-class job for many of their patients and clients, sometimes in very trying circumstances.

I am grateful for the contribution of the hon. Member for Banbury (Tony Baldry) and a little less grateful for the partisan way in which the hon. Member for Henley (Mr. Johnson) put his case. However, I am delighted to join him in congratulating the people in Watlington on the work they have done. I hope that there will be a successful outcome to the proposals for Burford, which I shall mention in due course. It is an important matter for the hon. Member for Witney.

First, I shall deal with issues relating to social services. The standard spending assessment for social services in Oxford and the eligibility and charging criteria are matters of great concern. The Government take the work of social services very seriously. We are beginning to see much closer working between the NHS and social care in local communities. Our constituents are not bothered whether the NHS or social services provide their care: they want a seamless transition to meet their needs.

Nationally, resources for social services have increased in real terms by 3.1 per cent. a year over the past few years. That contrasts markedly with the 0.1 per cent. per annum increase between 1992 and 1997. I do not want to make partisan remarks, but recent increases have been considerably higher than in the past. That does not mean for a moment that all the pressures have been met and that services are not under any strain. I fully recognise that.

Oxfordshire has benefited from increased investment. It received a 9.3 per cent. increase this year, including a 6.5 per cent. increase in the personal social services SSA. That will increase by a further 5.6 per cent. next year. It will also receive significant increases in grants paid directly by the Department. The children's grant will increase by 11 per cent., the carers' grant by 22 per cent. and the building care capacity and deferred payments grants will double. Significant additional investment is therefore going into social services in the area.

I recognise that Oxfordshire faces local budget problems. It has an overspend from last year carried forward to this year. The new chief executive has appointed a specific person to examine the budgeting processes within the county to ensure that its expenditure leads to best value and effectiveness. I commend that robust approach to financial management at local level.

I acknowledge that funding for the national health service is significantly more generous than funding increases for social services. Under the joined-up system, the extra money invested in the NHS may sometimes have a more marked effect on social services in that the more people treated in hospitals, the more people need care on discharge and in the community. We have to try to match the two parts of the jigsaw for future funding.

I understand hon. Members' concern about eligibility criteria and charges, particularly when, as a result of changes, people previously eligible for free care suddenly find that they have to pay. I would like to highlight one forthcoming change that will improve the position of many constituents. Under the council's current charging regime, residents start to pay if they possess £12,000 of resources, excluding the value of their home. From October this year, that will be changed in line with national policy and the threshold will be increased from £12,000 to £19,000 before charges are payable. Many more people in Oxfordshire will then be able to access services without charge.

Supporting carers in the home is also important. Sometimes the whole debate about caring for elderly people is focused on residential care and nursing home places. I understand the reasons for that, but we must also understand that many people want to be cared for in their own homes for as long as possible. That often depends on the good will, energy and stamina of people who are often elderly themselves and care for their elderly partners. We sometimes forget that many carers are not young, fit and full of energy, but are people in their 60s, 70s or even older who have to provide care 24 hours a day, seven days a week, with all the commensurate strains that that puts on them and their families.

The Government view that problem as a priority. That is why we increased carers' grants for Oxfordshire by 40 per cent. last year. In 2002–03 the grant will be worth £85 million nationally, and Oxfordshire should receive £680,000. I am delighted that Oxfordshire is using its grant in several innovative ways, including extending the relief to carers to all client groups.

Carers often feel that they do not have the prospect of a break or a glimmer of light at the end of the tunnel. They may want just a couple of hours off to do their shopping or to be by themselves. Carers hugely appreciate that, so making sure that respite and relief care are available is very important. Most carers desperately want to give the best care possible to the people who depend on them. The relatively small investment that we make in giving carers a short break is repaid tenfold in the extra energy that they bring back to the task that faces them.

There will be more respite care. More short-term breaks will be offered to carers of people with physical or learning disabilities, who are important clients and a demanding group of people to care for. There will also be breaks for carers of people with mental health problems. We tend to think of carers as people who help people physically to dress, wash and look after themselves, yet caring for someone with a mental health problem is probably one of the most intense jobs that anyone can do.

Three new care managers will carry out assessments throughout Oxfordshire. The Government introduced the right to assessment by carers themselves, rather than just the people being cared for. Carers are considered in their own right as individuals with needs.

This year, the promoting independence grant has replaced the previous set of grants. The new money has been spent on promoting independence through new patterns of service, which try to provide care close to home and help to prevent re-admission to hospital or residential care. Many authorities now provide outreach teams, and many places have fall clinics. One of the main reasons for the admission of elderly people to hospital in the first place is that they have had a fall because they are unsteady on their feet. They are also more likely to suffer a severe fracture that takes longer to heal. They go into hospital, lose their independence and have to stay in residential care. Elderly people do not want to enter that vicious circle of decline. The simple action of analysing the reasons why elderly people have falls in the first place can prevent tragedies, so we need to put more resources into the front end of the system. The medication taken by elderly people often makes them more likely to lose their balance and have a fall, so that is also important.

Pay issues have been raised. Pay rates are a matter for local negotiation, but since April Oxfordshire has had a cost-of-living supplement of £600 for qualified nurses of grade C and above. A great deal of work has been done on child care facilities, returning to work, family-friendly policies and flexible working. I am acutely conscious of the recruitment and retention problems in the south-east. The cost of housing is high, and people find it difficult to survive on the wages that are paid in this area. That problem affects not only the health service, but teachers, police officers and the whole public sector. There are innovative schemes to provide people with access to housing. I believe that Oxfordshire is at the forefront of providing low-cost housing. The John Radcliffe is leading a scheme that will result in some 130 housing units becoming available.

Will the Minister give way?

I shall press on, because there are only two minutes left and I want to deal with the Burford issue. I know that a group of local people has raised a great deal of money, which is welcome, and wants to provide a healthy living centre. There is an issue concerning how much information they have provided about what services would be on offer in the centre. It is important that that information be fully available so that the primary care trust can decide whether it wants to support the development and whether it would be of value to the community. I urge the group to be as open as possible. I will certainly urge the region to continue negotiating and to be fully engaged in the process.

I understand that the rise in the valuation that occurred quite recently resulted from a proposal by the Phoenix trust for part of the site to be used for residential development. Clearly, in an area with high land prices, such as Oxfordshire, the introduction of the residential element has been the trigger for an increase in the valuation. If the centre is to provide a service that is of great value to the NHS, there is a basis for further discussion about how local people can share the benefit. I ask all parties involved, including the officials in the region, to get together and ensure that we make progress as fast as possible. They are bound by public probity issues and must ensure that they act in accordance with proper rules for public funds.

I should be grateful if the Minister would ensure that the officials do not put the building on the market until they have had the conversations to which she referred.

I told my officials this morning that this is an important project and that they should have discussions and get information so that they can make a proper assessment of what will be put on the site. That is very important.

Finally on the health service, I recognise that local people will be concerned about the fact that their local trust has a zero star rating. However, it is beginning to improve and do a good job, and I will be visiting because I want to talk to the staff and everyone involved.

I am delighted to be able to raise this particular issue. I know that, like the hon. Members who spoke in the previous debate, we all feel deeply about it. Many Members say how different the problems are and how important their constituency is, and I shall do the same.

Crawley is a new town and was formed just after the war. People from south London came within five years of each other to settle together with their young families. There was good employment and the town prospered. Few people would deny that Crawley is one of the most successful new towns. Yesterday, I entertained a GP from my constituency, Dr. Roy, who has just completed 40 years working in the health service. He said that he now sees the children of the children of the first generation, so Crawley is a town that has thrived and prospered.

The difference for Crawley, and other new towns, is that everyone came to the town at the same age. They have grown older together and are growing old together. We know that there will be a 51 per cent. increase in the number of over-85s in Crawley by 2011. This debate was designed to examine how we can address that challenge and ensure that we have a decent society. It is a national problem of course, not just one for the south-east and Crawley. People are living longer, and we should applaud that. In 1950, men were not expected to live beyond 67 years old and women not beyond 72 years. In 2002, men are expected to reach the age of 72 and women the age of 81. An average of five years longer in that short time is fantastic, and I hope we improve on that.

There are many reasons for those increased expectations. Ageism is being eliminated from the national health service. I remember when I was a nurse and people over 75 came into hospital requiring complex treatments or expensive drugs. Age was a real issue, but now if people can have a good outcome and are expected to do well from treatments, they are given them. People are treated as individuals, not just as someone who is growing older.

However, that brings huge challenges. A recent article in the Health Statistics Quarterly, produced by the Office for National Statistics, predicted that over the next 30 years 65 per cent. more nursing homes places and a 148 per cent. real-term rise in expenditure on longterm care will be needed. That is scary stuff, and we must face the challenge.

I have spoken a little about the problem in the southeast, but I want to expand on that. Land can be sold in my area and throughout West Sussex for between £500,000 and £1 million an acre—those figures come from West Sussex county council. The value of a terrace property in Crawley is more than £100,000, so hon. Members can imagine how pleased we were when the key workers scheme was introduced to enable people who worked in the care sector, teaching and police to move into our area. We want that scheme to be expanded because it has been enormously successful. However, high land prices have led to nursing home owners being able to make more money from the sale of the land to a developer than they could ever make running the property as a going concern, and that problem must be dealt with.

West Sussex county council has a particular and interesting problem. Other boroughs can outbid it for nursing home placements. London boroughs can pay up to £100 a week more, and Kent and Surrey can pay up to £50 a week more. Cash for change made a huge and welcome difference to West Sussex—we received the fifth highest allocation. There was no question that it was needed, and the money was well used. However, we used the money differently from other boroughs by ensuring that everybody placed in a nursing or residential care home had an uprate in the amount being paid. Authorities such as Kent, Surrey and the London boroughs kept the existing price for those in nursing home places and bumped up the new places money, so they can now outbid West Sussex.

Authorities should work together to avoid running into such ludicrous problems. As a result of the outbidding, places are taken by people from London—4.5 per cent. of places in Crawley, for example. That may be good news because people are moving closer to their families, or it may be that there is a shortage of places where they come from. A further 9.7 per cent. of places are taken by people from Kent, Surrey and East Sussex, resulting in a 15 per cent. shortage of what is already a scarce resource. People from London and Kent are coming to Crawley, and Crawley residents are offered nursing home places on the coast. We must do something about that. We have only seven nursing homes in the whole town, in stark contrast to the coastal towns that often have many more.

We must use scarce resources more effectively. It is vital to deal with problems such as delayed discharge. I cannot bear people talking about bed blocking—it is insulting. If I had a loved one in hospital who had a delayed transfer of care and was accused of being a bed blocker, I would be very angry. It used to make me very angry when I was a nurse. We must remember that such language can be insulting to patients.

The problem will be with us for some time, but there is much that we can do to help. Yesterday, in my local hospitals in Crawley and Horsham, 44 patients had a delayed transfer of care. That may sound bad, but it is an enormous improvement on the 70-plus that we suffered for weeks. The cash for change money made a huge difference to the problem, with people working together in better networks and ensuring that people are moved on. Although it seems dire, the situation has greatly improved and I congratulate everyone who worked hard to make that happen.

We must find a no-blame solution. We should get round the table with all those involved in the care of the elderly who deal with delayed discharges and ensure that people have the correct support in their own homes. Before Christmas, I called a seminar at the House of Commons for all those involved—patients, their friends and family, representatives of borough and district councils, social services and the voluntary sector, and general practioners from the primary care trust. We had a useful and productive afternoon looking into better ways of working.

Without doubt, we all call for more money—that may be the long-term answer because we need to plan. However, it will not produce a single extra space in a couple of weeks, unlike some of the solutions offered by our conference on long-term care. We were delighted that the Minister of State for Health, my hon. Friend the Member for Redditch (Jacqui Smith) was able to visit and give the Government's view on the issue. It was helpful to our deliberations.

I shall describe some of the solutions that we came up with, because we felt that there was much that we could do. There is a lot going on, but we could work much more cohesively to ensure that people have better care. The main recommendation was for improved joint health and social service working. At the conference, a lot of work was explained to us, and it was good that we were all there to share the information. However, there was so much more that could have been done.

As the conference developed, people thought of new ways to work with each other, and they put a face to each other's names. They had usually spoken on telephones but had never seen each other face to face. It was heartening to hear people finding ways of working more cohesively. Of course the issue of increased capacity in the sector came up, but we did not state merely that there should be more nursing home and residential care places. Members of the borough council said that perhaps they had a role to play and could propose parcels of land that could be used for extra care homes.

In one care home in town, which has been superbly successful, elderly people can lock their doors but still have the extra care that keeps them in care places much longer and makes them much happier. We could expand plans for such homes, which prevent people from having to take up nursing home places too soon when they can be maintained in a different setting. That is one of the ways that we would like to pursue our aims locally, and we are actively considering it.

The issue of supporting people in their homes is vital. The fact that people want to stay in their homes tends to get lost in the debate. They want to be with their loved ones, if they have them, and their friends and families. That is why it is unacceptable to take people to the south coast to be put in nursing homes. They need to be in their communities. Crawley borough council should be applauded for its work to develop elderly care homes in the neighbourhood and to encourage people out of their three and four-bedroom houses to allow families to move in. That work is ongoing but could be expanded.

We want more intermediate care packages and greater clarity about the care that people can expect in their homes from local authorities. There was huge support for that, particularly from Age Concern.

I congratulate the hon. Lady on bringing up the subject, which is important to hon. Members representing West Sussex. We do not want her problem to be transferred to my part of West Sussex on the coast. We should keep more people in their homes and provide packages for domiciliary care. Does she agree that West Sussex social services and social services departments in the rest of the country have to tighten their criteria because of the shortage of funds, so fewer and fewer people are qualifying for the care at home that they so desperately need and that she and I favour?

I thank the hon. Gentleman for his intervention. I understand his point, but I do not agree with the route he takes. West Sussex social services has had a sizeable increase in funds; it is the increase in the numbers of the elderly that is making the problem more acute. The social services department, which was well represented at the meeting, accepts that it has to target its funds much more, and it can think of ways of using them more effectively to keep people in their homes. There is a huge budget for that, which is very important. Of course, funding was an issue, so I take the hon. Gentleman's point.

Recognition of the problems of living and working in the south-east was to the fore. There were further recommendations to improve discharge planning—simple work that needs to be done—and communication with other organisations that assist with the care of the elderly. Improved care and medication for the elderly was also raised. I can well remember elderly people coming into hospital when there was nothing wrong with them other than the fact that they had been on the same medication for too long and had fallen over, or gone off their feet as it is known in the acute sector, and had to be rehabilitated. All that could be avoided.

More respite provision was much welcomed by the caring organisations and the voluntary sector. They said that if more respite care was provided they could care for the elderly at home and would not have to take up the nursing home or residential care option. West Sussex county council is working on that. It is ensuring that information to relatives and friends about supporting the elderly is improved. We are now developing better rehabilitation provisions at Crawley hospital for people who have suffered strokes to enable them to get back to the community as quickly as can be expected. Such good and reasonable options can make a difference. All the money in the world would not improve matters for us over the next few weeks, but changing the way in which we work could make a real difference to the people whom we care about so much.

I am not just shouting for more money. Of course, there is a need for extra resources, but I am talking about working together. The seminar brought people together to work out solutions. No one blamed the Government and said how dreadful they had been. No one said that social services were awful. Members of the seminar genuinely wanted to make a difference. Not only did such discussions improve the relationships of those within the organisations, they made people examine the provision of care in a different way. I hope that the report will make a difference.

I warmly congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Crawley (Laura Moffatt) on securing the debate and raising such important issues, and on the way that she has dealt with such significant challenges that face our society as we look to improving the health and social care services that are available to elderly people in her constituency and throughout the country.

My hon. Friend was right to draw attention to the significant demographic changes in West Sussex and other parts of England. Meeting the needs of our elderly citizens is one of the biggest health and social care challenges that our country will face in the years ahead. I particularly welcome what she said about the long-term care conference, which she had a leading role in organising in the House before Christmas. If further evidence were needed, the conference confirmed the strong and positive relationships that exist between health and social care organisations in her constituency. She should be congratulated on the work that she has undertaken. I wish to place on record my appreciation of the tremendous efforts of staff in the NHS and West Sussex social services, and those in the voluntary and independent sectors. They are working together to deal with the challenges that she rightly identified.

My hon. Friend was right to say that we should tackle the problem at two different levels. There is a need for the joined-up local working that she described, and we must search for innovation, new solutions and greater efficiency in the use of the available resources. I want to focus the main drift of my remarks on the need for the Government to support the local and better working partnership that she described. There are four particular areas in which we must continue to develop policy and to make further improvements.

My hon. Friend was right to say that resources are important, because they will determine the shape and size of the local services that are available. That point was touched on by the hon. Member for East Worthing and Shoreham (Tim Loughton). That is why the Government are investing significantly more money in social services. Funding for social services increased nationally by more than 20 per cent. in real terms between 1996–97 and 2002–03. That equates to an average real terms increase of more than 3 per cent. per annum, and compares favourably with real terms growth of only 0.1 per cent. in social services spending between 1992 and 1997.

West Sussex has benefited from the extra investment. Central Government support for social services spending in West Sussex is ahead of the national average growth in social services spending. This is the third year in a row that the West Sussex personal social services standard spending assessment has increased by more than the national average. In 1998, West Sussex county council received £106 million from central Government towards the cost of providing social services in the county. By next year, that figure will have risen to £123 million. Those figures do not include the extra special grants that local authorities receive from central Government.

We have been able to do that because we have recognised the real and genuine cost pressures in the south of England, such as land, property, wages and others to which my hon. Friend referred, which differ from those in other parts of the country, such as my area. Those higher costs put extra pressures on social services, and it is right to reflect that in funding arrangements when possible.

We are committed to further improving methods of funding local councils with social services responsibilities, in particular to ensure that the allocation system is fair and transparent. My hon. Friend will be aware, as will you, Mr. Deputy Speaker, with your interest in such matters, that we have announced a review of all existing SSA formulas and aim to have an improved system in place for the financial year 2003–04.

I agree with my hon. Friend that we should continue to ensure that investment is maintained, but she acknowledged that that is only one part of the equation. It is not in itself the sufficient and ultimate criterion by which we should judge the success or otherwise of the reforms. It is fundamental, but other things must happen as well.

It was therefore very important that my hon. Friend dwelt on the need to build up capacity in the care system as a whole, in both health and social care services. The Government have an important role to play in supporting local change and development. Central to our plans to reform the care system is the development of new intermediate care services. Those services, which my hon. Friend described, are designed to prevent avoidable admissions to hospital and to allow patients, especially older people, the necessary time and care for rehabilitation. That should enable people to live independently in their own homes for longer when they need care and support from social care services.

I am aware of the need for further development of those services in my hon. Friend's constituency, as she has explained. The NHS plan announced that an additional investment of £900 million would be available annually by 2003–04 for new intermediate care and related services. We have already seen signs of progress in that area. An extra 2,000 intermediate care beds are now available, and 127,000 patients are being helped in their recovery after treatment by specialist intermediate care-related packages.

In Crawley, health and social services are working on a joint intermediate care strategy comprising extra community rehabilitation, supported early discharge schemes, a reablement scheme using beds at Horsham hospital, the use of low dependency nursing home beds and the development of a specialist home care dementia service. Those will be important additions to the services on offer locally. I understand that those and further plans for expansion in intermediate care services in my hon. Friend's constituency are currently under active consideration.

The development of those care packages should not be seen in isolation. The Government have introduced several measures specifically aimed at promoting greater independence, to which my hon. Friend referred and I strongly agree with her views. I think that we would all, were our opinions canvassed, want to remain in our own homes for as long as possible. That is the right place—close to friends and family in an environment with which we are familiar and that we have played an important part in shaping. Of course, there will always be those for whom residential care is the appropriate answer, but our overall aim is to enable more people to be helped to live at home supported by home care services, such as the packages to which my hon. Friend referred.

We are providing West Sussex county council with additional resources to make further improvements in services. Schemes are available to prevent unnecessary hospital admissions, provide rehabilitation after hospital treatment and offer non-intensive services to help people to maintain or regain an independent life in the community, such as help with maintaining or entering employment, training or education through the development of seamless services between the NHS, social services and housing. That is the right way forward.

My hon. Friend dealt reasonably and accurately with the problems of delayed transfers of care. The issue of delayed discharges must be addressed, and we must continue to devote additional resources and effort to resolving the problem. It is in everyone's interests to ensure that people do not remain in hospital unnecessarily when they are ready to be discharged.

My hon. Friend was right to draw attention to the slow but steady reduction in delayed discharges from hospital during the past five years. We have made a commitment to reduce delayed transfers of care by a minimum of 20 per cent. by the end of March this year, which equates to freeing 1,000 acute beds by the end of the financial year. To that end, we are giving local councils an additional £300 million over this year and next year to help them tackle those problems. The money has been distributed to every social services department in England, but was targeted specifically on 55 councils that most needed additional resources. West Sussex was one of those and received £2.3 million in the current financial year, with a further £4.8 million in the next financial year. That money has been used to buy an additional 113 residential placements, and for increased expenditure on disability-related equipment and more spot purchasing of care home places by locality planning groups. My hon. Friend was right to say that it has also been used to increase fee rates where supply is particularly short.

The money is already having an effect and the number of blocked beds in West Sussex has fallen steadily from 142 delayed transfers in early September to 71, which is an improvement of 50 per cent. The figure is still too high and there is room for more progress, but we have in place the resources and some of the mechanisms to make a real difference.

We must also make a continuing contribution in our investment in service capacity and staff. We must continue to invest significantly in the training and education of the health and social care work force. A high-quality work force is crucial to ensuring that the country's most vulnerable people receive the best standard of care. Social care workers are a key part of delivering the Government's modernisation agenda as they are at the sharp end of many vital public services. We have been investing significantly in the training of social care workers for several years through the training support programme grant. That grant stands at more than £57 million this year, and West Sussex has been allocated almost £540,000 of the grant so far and is entitled to bid for further funds from one of the sub-programmes within the grant.

As my hon. Friend is probably aware, last week my hon. Friend the Minister of State announced further investment in the training and development of the social care work force. That money will help to provide training and development opportunities for a further 26,500 social care staff. It will be used to fund a range of initiatives, including the induction training programme for 6,000 staff and the strengthening of the framework of NVQ qualifications. Investment in capacity and in the work force is being made, and we must find ways of ensuring improvements.

It is important that local authorities such as West Sussex, providers of care and those receiving care packages tackle the problems together and work in the spirit of partnership that my hon. Friend the Member for Crawley described. I believe that what matters most in a modern care system is the quality of care provided, not who owns or operates the individual services. In social care, there has always been a mix of private, voluntary and public sector provision, and that is absolutely right.

We must improve partnerships across the various sectors to ensure that sufficient capacity is available to meet local requirements. The Government are committed to working in partnership with the independent sector and to using capacity and resources to achieve the best possible outcome for users and their carers. My hon. Friend the Minister of State has recently established a new strategic commissioning group to work at national level to give greater direction to the commissioning of care services for adults. We must consider how we can pool resources, staff, land and premises to stabilise and build up capacity. There is a need to consider the role of care trusts and closer partnership working. We have made a good start, but a great deal more needs to be done.

I hope that I have been able to reassure my hon. Friend that the Government are doing everything possible to provide the NHS and social services in her constituency and elsewhere with the necessary resources and opportunities to allow them to do their jobs effectively. The Government will continue to invest more in both the NHS and social services in every part of the country. I hope very much that she will continue to give her support to all those efforts, and that together we can look forward to further improvements in the care provided to her constituents.

We now move on to the final debate, which has been initiated by the hon. Member for Carshalton and Wallington (Tom Brake). I advise the Chamber that one hon. Member has sought my permission, and that of both the Minister and the owner of debate, to take part, and I will be happy to call him.

As you indicated, Mr. Deputy Speaker, my hon. Friend the Member for Sutton and Cheam (Mr. Burstow) would like to contribute.

The first question is whether graffiti is really an issue. Some people outside London consider it to be a minor distraction. However, again and again in local anecdotal evidence, from a large number of street surveys that we did recently, it came up as an issue about which people are worried. There is no doubt that it is a quality of life issue which people want to see addressed.

I did not want simply to rely on anecdotal evidence. I therefore asked my staff to do a ring-around to find out the scale of the problem across different boroughs. We received responses from 22 of the 33 London boroughs. The amount spent on the problem varies from one borough to the next. Wandsworth council, which runs a free service, spends £650,000 a year on removing graffiti. Croydon spends £250,000 a year, and a number of boroughs spend more than £100,000 a year on trying to address the issue. Graffiti is clearly a problem for the boroughs.

I also made contact with transport providers. Railtrack has a budget of £0.5 million to deal with the issue, but it went over that by £160,000, which means that the total cost to its southern region was £660,000. Graffiti is a significant problem, and although Railtrack has teams working around the clock, that has little, if any, impact on the issue. Hon. Members who travel by train know that they just have to glance out of the window to see evidence that graffiti on railway infrastructure is a problem that is not under control. Railtrack tries to remove any racist or obscene graffiti within a 24-hour period.

London Underground also has a significant problem, and it is spending £2.5 million a year on removal, prevention and security costs. Presumably, not all that is to do with tackling graffiti, because some of the security expenditure must be for other purposes, but the Underground is clearly spending a significant sum. I know from conversations with my local train operating company, GoVia, that graffiti is a significant issue. I am sure that it is a problem on other suburban commuter services in London such as Connex South Eastern.

We did not have time to go further afield in our survey. I am sure that if we had asked local NHS trusts, businesses and private individuals, they would also have revealed significant costs. Roughly speaking, the cost to the boroughs is £3.5 million a year. A quick calculation suggests that with that £3.5 million the boroughs could recruit between 100 and 150 teachers.

The boroughs, working with the Government, need to work hard on the issue of truancy and education. The Minister may be aware that there was a successful anti-truancy project involving the police and local council in York. It succeeded in cutting by one third the number of recorded crimes committed by school-age children, who are the people principally involved in graffiti, and it had a significant impact on graffiti in that area.

We must establish that this is a real problem, and the figures demonstrate that it is. We need to ensure that the people responsible for it understand that it is not a joke or art, it is not cool or clever, and it costs Londoners dear. We must then establish that every organisation with responsibility for the matter takes action. Most local authorities are aware of it, and are taking action to address it. However, the extent to which they prosecute seems to vary significantly. There have been some 117 arrests in Bexley, but none in other boroughs. Action is being taken, but the scale varies from one place to another.

Other organisations are unwilling to tackle the issue. The cable company in my constituency allowed the local authority—very generously—to paint over its graffitied boxes, which it had placed willy-nilly around the borough, and then complained that the council was not using the right coloured paint. It does not seem to want to tackle the problem; nor does it believe that getting on top of it is its responsibility. Others, too, contribute negatively. The last time I looked, Graffitism advertised products that graffiti vandals use and promoted them with pictures of Connex trains that had been ruined by graffiti—there was a small disclaimer at the bottom stating that the magazine did not condone the activity. Arriva buses have drawn it to my attention that there is a shop in Croydon, which sells, alongside all the necessaries for carrying out graffiti vandalism, balaclavas. That does not seem positive or community-spirited.

We must establish that the problem is everyone's, and that it should be tackled through partnership. Local authorities that responded to our survey said that the availability of graffiti products, and access to them, needed to be examined. There must also be education through, for example, programmes that are not necessarily about sending those responsible to prison, but about actively involving them in cleaning up the mess for which they are responsible and, if necessary, making them pay the cost. Having more police officers, neighbourhood wardens and officers of the Royal Parks Constabulary would clearly assist, but, however many officers patrol, we will not get on top of the problem until the availability of products is examined.

Is my hon. Friend aware that graffiti vandalism remains a major problem in my borough? Kingston's Conservative-run council was dragged kicking and screaming into drawing up an action plan on graffiti, but it has failed to tackle the environmental hazard. Does he agree that councils can do more? He is right to say that the Government need to provide more powers, including those to which he referred and those that would make it legally easier for councils to clean up graffiti on private property.

I agree entirely with my hon. Friend. I confirm that when we spoke to people in Kingston, they believed that the problem was significant in their borough. My hon. Friend makes a good point about allowing local authorities to act. We would prefer partnership, but if private owners are not willing to address the issue, perhaps other action should be open to local authorities.

I finish by asking the Minister to consider how glue sniffing, and the availability of solvent products, has been addressed. Could similar action be taken on the availability of products used for graffiti? Are the Government willing to support initiatives, to which my hon. Friend the Member for Sutton and Cheam may refer, relating to voluntary codes of practice for retailers?

In a response to a parliamentary question on 16 January, the Government said:

"There are no plans at present to restrict the sale of spray paints to juveniles; this would penalise young people who have a legitimate reason for their purchase."—[Official Report, 16 January 2001; Vol. 361, c. 206W.]

The same could apply to solvent abuse. People could purchase solvents for the best reasons; nevertheless, the Government decided to take action. Can the Minister explain why the Government are not willing to investigate measures, perhaps targeted at the youngest age group, that would help to address the problem?

Graffiti is not a joke, and it is not clever. It is not a badge of honour, and should not be considered as such by those responsible. It harms communities and, if left unchecked, creates a climate of despair and depression. We need a partnership approach, and the Government must play their part. I will listen with interest to the Minister to hear how he thinks the Government could help.

I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Carshalton and Wallington (Tom Brake) on his initiative in securing an important debate on a serious subject. I am also grateful to the Minister for the opportunity to take part in the debate.

As my hon. Friend said, graffiti is neither cool nor clever. It is purely and simply a crime, which stokes up the fear of more generalised crime in our communities. Steps that serve to eradicate it do much to reduce the general fear of crime that imprisons many people in their homes.

I shall talk about initiatives in the London borough of Sutton, which is in my constituency, and that of my hon. Friend. Things being done there provide a useful template, which others should follow. I hope that the Minister endorses them, and finds ways in which they can be further supported. In Sutton, the police, the council and other players in the community take the issue of graffiti and tagging seriously. They treat them as a crime, and as part of the wider agenda of tackling environmental crime. It is important that we recognise tagging and graffiti as crimes and treat them as such. The cost of the damage is immense and, as my Hon. Friend outlined, substantial costs arise for the public and private sectors, and for private householders who find their properties vandalised.

I hope that the Minister agrees that the problem is not something to be laid at the door of local authorities, as if the appearance of graffiti is its fault. Often, the impression is given, at least in my community, that graffiti is the responsibility and fault of the local authority, when it should involve a wider community interest and sense of responsibility. It is particularly important that more is done to address the responsibility of parents. I shall flag up a couple of initiatives in Sutton that could be further developed.

The police, in conjunction with the Royal Parks Constabulary, have been running operations to gather evidence on graffiti—identifying tags and the like—to enable them to mount successful operations to arrest and prosecute graffiti vandals in the borough of Sutton. That has proved successful, and has created a profile of an area that will not tolerate such crimes.

If we are serious about tackling the crime, it is important to consider how to reduce the sources that supply materials. My hon. Friend is absolutely right to highlight that concern. Will the Minister explain what the Home Office is doing to examine ways in which more encouragement can be given to those in the private sector who are involved in the supply of such materials to enter into voluntary codes in their localities to stop such sales to young people?

I am delighted that my local authority is about to expand its popular and effective neighbourhood warden service to add more eyes and ears on the streets to deal with the problem. However, a worry of the police, the council and those concerned with the partnership scheme in the London borough of Sutton is that, when such matters are taken to the courts, they are not prosecuted with full vigour. They do not result in damages that are commensurate with the cost to the individual.

I hope that the Minister is about to tell us that further steps will be taken to ensure that the courts understand the damage and blight of graffiti and graffiti vandals. Perhaps he will talk to his colleagues in the Lord Chancellor's Department to secure their co-operation in a real drive to ensure that law enforcement measures and the courts are driving down and getting rid of graffiti in our communities.

I congratulate the hon. Member for Carshalton and Wallington (Tom Brake) on securing the debate. I shall respond to the points that were made by him and the hon. Member for Sutton and Cheam (Mr. Burstow). Graffiti is a widespread problem. Worry about it is growing and the costs of removing it are high. It is important to stress that it is not only the financial costs of cleaning and repairing damage caused by graffiti that are important. It can spoil the enjoyment of public places and add to the sense of fear and insecurity in local communities. It can feed a fear of crime, even though there may be nothing statistically to back that fear.

Graffiti is an important issue and, in addition to stressing that it is a crime, we should recognise that tackling graffiti has a part to play in dealing with the fear of crime in our communities. If it is left untouched for lengthy periods, it can send out a message that no one cares about the area and that, in itself, can bring its own decline to the detriment of rundown neighbourhoods.

The same is true of the impact that graffiti can have on the confidence of those who wish to travel by public transport. We must tackle head-on the idea that criminal damage in a public place can represent a legitimate art form which people can celebrate. The spread of tagging is a great public nuisance. It is a crime. The use of graffiti for offensive words and racist abuse is completely unacceptable.

Action against graffiti should form part of the local strategies for public reassurance and for tackling antisocial behaviour that we expect crime and disorder reduction partnerships to lead at local level. As the hon. Member for Carshalton and Wallington will know, the objective was that from December last year every local authority should appoint an antisocial behaviour co-ordinator. Hon. Members may wish to check with their own boroughs that that has been done. Part of the remit of the co-ordinator should be to develop effective strategies for dealing with graffiti.

The hon. Member for Sutton and Cheam said that graffiti is not the responsibility of local authorities. I accept that, but local authorities are not responsible for people who drive their cars too fast in residential areas or for people who play their music loudly. However, we look to them to lead in traffic calming and environmental health matters. The leadership that local authorities must play in tackling graffiti in local communities is coherent.

The Government must ensure that we have in place measures that can support people at local level in tackling the problem. That means having in place appropriate sanctions and legal mechanisms to deal with those who write graffiti. It means encouraging best practice by design and the use of graffiti-resistant materials. It means supporting people in education and diversionary activities. Implementation of those measures will largely lie at local level.

Let us consider sanctions. First, graffiti is criminal damage for which there are appropriate penalties. Under the Criminal Damage Act 1971, damage in excess of £5,000 carries a maximum 10-year sentence for those aged 18 or over. Those aged 12 to 17 can receive a training order of up to 24 months. Lower levels of damage—less than £5,000—can result in a maximum of three months' imprisonment or a fine of up to £2,500 for a person aged 18 or over. For 12 to 17-year-olds, there is no custodial provision, but a range of measures is available, such as reparation orders, final warnings, local child curfews and antisocial behaviour orders. I accept that reparation orders can be an appropriate way of requiring offenders to put right the damage that they have caused.

It is important that appropriate use is made of antisocial behaviour orders, which we will amend during the passage of the Police Reform Bill and make simpler and more flexible and immediate in their application. They have already been used effectively in different parts of the country to tackle those using graffiti and causing criminal damage. Together with acceptable behaviour contracts, they should be part of local strategies to tackle graffiti.

It is also important to make full use of closed circuit television and, in some places, the initiative whereby databanks are kept of the tags that people put on property, so that their tags can be tracked back to them. Those elements of strategies are up and running and are under development.

The London borough of Sutton uses CCTV to gather evidence that is presented to courts, but the courts do not use the penalties to give effect to the community's anger at the damage that has been done. Could not more be done about that?

As the hon. Gentleman recognises, sentencing policy lies in the realm of the Lord Chancellor's Department.

On antisocial behaviour, constructive discussions at local level between crime reduction partnerships and area criminal justice committees or the magistracy, which generally deals with those cases, can be effective in building up an understanding of the scale of the problem and the impact on lives in local communities. That type of discussion at local level has proved to be effective and useful, and the hon. Gentleman may wish to pursue that. I shall raise the issue with the Lord Chancellor's Department and get back to him.

I can confirm to the Minister and to my hon. Friend the Member for Sutton and Cheam that magistrates are prepared to use the powers that the Government have given them when they are engaged in the process. The bench at Kingston upon Thames magistrates court has been using the powers, although the Government now wish to close that court. Some local police who are trying to focus on graffiti are frustrated because, even when they suspect that a vandal has spray-paint cans in his bag and has sprayed graffiti in a nearby street, they are not able to search that bag for the spray-paint can. Will the Minister comment?

Perhaps I can come to that point in a moment. Powers are normally available to police under the Police and Criminal Evidence Act 1984 code of conduct, which governs their powers to search when they think that a crime has been committed. That is slightly different from searching people randomly in case they have an aerosol can in their pocket. The operational distinction may seem fine, but the legal one is very important. If police saw someone coming away from an area of freshly painted graffiti, I do not think that they would be constrained in their ability to identify whether someone was carrying the tools of the trade. If I am wrong about that, I shall get back to the hon. Gentleman.

Much reference was made to the initiatives taken by the Government to support the spread of neighbourhood and street wardens. The extended police family that we described in the police White Paper is very important. The presence of more visible authority figures in the street, whether working for the police service as community support officers or working for local authorities and other agencies as street wardens, is particularly important. I am grateful for the support for the Government's initiatives that hon. Members have given. We hope that the measures that we are taking through the Police Reform Bill and the implementation of the police reform White Paper will enable us to extend that local presence of additional people who can assist in tackling antisocial behaviour, disorder and graffiti.

The supply of aerosol paints and indelible marker pens has been mentioned. Historically, Governments of all shades have been resistant to measures to tackle that trade. There is an obvious balance to be struck between denying access to spray paints and marker pens to those who want to cause damage and granting it to those who have a legitimate use for them. We could all sensibly recognise that glues that have killed large numbers of people over the years are of a different order of magnitude. The balance is easier to strike there.

It is worth noting, and it is particularly relevant to the debate's London focus, that the London Local Authorities Bill, which had its Second Reading in the House of Lords yesterday, includes measures that would make it an offence to supply aerosol paints or indelible marker pens to any person apparently under the age of 18. That would apply to the areas covered by the London borough councils. If the Bill reaches the statute book the measures in it could provide a useful pilot in determining the effectiveness of the approach and whether we should seek to extend it.

rose—

Perhaps the hon. Gentleman will allow me to make a little more progress and then we can return to that point.

I want to stress the importance of effective clean-up as part of the response, which the hon. Gentleman also mentioned. Clean-up is a deterrent to taggers, particularly if there is a sense that no one will be around to see their handiwork. Adding to the list of best practice that we have had, I hope that no one will mind my mentioning my local authority in Southampton. Its best value review of the city's parks and cleansing services highlighted public dissatisfaction with the problem of graffiti. The council set aside resources to tackle the problem. It identified environmentally friendly products that are effective and easy to use and a full-time graffiti removal team backs up its commitment to remove obscene or racist graffiti within 24 hours.

In an interesting initiative launched in the last few weeks, which I shall watch carefully, the council has begun to supply graffiti removal kits free of charge to local community organisations. They comprise about £50-worth of different non-toxic water-soluble materials. Having been out one Sunday recently, cleaning graffiti off some shop fronts, I know that the stuff is remarkably easy to use. It will be an interesting experiment to see whether volunteers from local communities can be used to take control of their areas, although not as an alternative to the council providing its own service.

I just want to return briefly to the London Local Authorities Bill. Does the Minister support that measure and will he give it Government support to enable it to proceed?

The Government are considering a range of measures in the Bill, so I cannot give a specific position on that or other measures at this stage. The hon. Gentleman will understand from what I have said that I am following its passage with some interest. Were it to be passed, it would be useful to see how it worked.

I support the comments made about education, which is important. We need to look at ways of persuading young people that graffiti is criminal damage and that there is a serious cost to the wider community. The Youth Justice Board has been funding a number of pilot initiatives, particularly one operated by the National Association for the Care and Resettlement of Offenders in Brighton and Hove, Crawley and Worthing. It is intended to see what can be done by engaging young offenders in activities that tackle graffiti issues. We need to see what are the most successful and cost-effective forms of education of young people. Other schemes supported by the YJB focus on reparation, which has been mentioned, and using young people to clean off graffiti.

Railtrack has an initiative called "Track off", which was launched in April 2000 and is aimed at schools. It covers graffiti, but it is also aimed at stressing the dangers to young people of trespassing, particularly on what I still regard as the southern region three rail system, and of going on to electrified lines—which also applies to the underground. Similarly, through a number of Home Office and Department for Education and Skills initiatives we are investing in diversionary activities for young people in general, some of which are aimed specifically at graffiti, while others aim at tackling a wider range of vandalism and criminal damage problems.

Having laid—