My right hon. Friend the Prime Minister established the social exclusion unit because he recognised the clear link between the lack of housing, opportunity and education and the high levels of poverty suffered by some people in our society and the degree of crime and lawlessness. I want to draw attention to those people who are among the most socially excluded in our society—girls and young women from disadvantaged, deprived and depressed environments who become victims under our criminal justice system. I do not condone the crimes that they commit, be they shoplifting, robbery or serious assault, or query why they are being punished, but I question the response of a criminal justice system that takes vulnerable children—as many of them are—and puts them in prison, which cannot possibly meet their needs or help them to build a better life.

We will always need prisons. It is right that society should be able to remove the freedom of those who commit serious crimes, as a punishment and to protect the public from harm. However, wherever possible, prison must also offer offenders the chance to be rehabilitated back into the community. The concept of rehabilitation is all the more important when the offender is only 15 or 16 years of age, having committed a crime perhaps a year earlier. Such young people have their lives ahead of them and, with help and guidance, they may become good and valuable citizens in our community. Without that guidance, however, they may spiral further into the depths of lawlessness.

It is particularly important to consider the needs of young women and girls within the criminal justice system and distinguish them from the needs of male prisoners. Females are less likely to commit crime than men and when they do, their crimes tend to be less violent and they are less likely to be a risk to the general public. For example, many of the assaults committed by women are on people they know and are often a reaction to having suffered prolonged periods of sexual or physical abuse. That is not an excuse for the crime, but we must understand the motives and the difference between those crimes and violent crimes committed by men.

The state has provided a limited number of penal establishments for women because so few women, especially young girls, commit crimes that require custodial sentences. Consequently, women prisoners tend to end up further away from their families and homes than male prisoners. They suffer much greater isolation in custody because access to their families may be more restricted. It is worth noting that more than half of the women in our prisons have children, who are often left behind when their main carer is taken into custody.

Women prisoners tend to display more symptoms of depression and mental health problems. Many suffer from mental illness. Self harm or cutting up is fairly common among women prisoners, but few prisons can cope with it. Such women need help, not incarceration. Their crimes are often the result of their mental instability. In addition to mental health problems, women prisoners show high levels of drink and drug dependency.

Ann Owers, the chief inspector of prisons, suggested in her recent report that a crisis is brewing because of the lack of capacity and poor standards in women's prisons. The Youth Justice Board designated 12 places at Eastwood Park prison to hold girls under 18 years of age. Inspectors describe that prison as an establishment in crisis. In one month, there had been 47 cases of self harm and more than 50 cases of people having been identified as at risk from suicide. Despite the commitment and dedication of the staff, few were qualified to deal with young girls or with the high levels of mental illness and vulnerability that are so common in women 's prisons. The chief inspector commented that the fact that the number of those prisoners was increasing was nothing short of scandalous. Although designated to hold 12 girls, Eastwood Park had 14 girls in its care in March this year. Although the numbers fluctuate, it is frequently overcrowded. Girls are then accommodated with adults, which is a clear breach of the United Nations convention on the rights of the child and, in all likelihood, unlawful in English law following the Flood judgment.

The inspectors met all 12 girls under the age of 18 at Eastwood Park and concluded:

"it was impossible not to be struck by the profound personality disturbance and mental health problems that many presented and by the inappropriateness of prison, or indeed any other custodial placement for them."

Eastwood Park is not the only prison taking more young girls than it can properly accommodate. On Monday, I visited Bullwood Hall in Essex—a women's prison and young offenders institution. The Youth Justice Board funds 28 places at Bullwood Hall for girls aged 15 to 18. However, the governor confirmed this week that, due to increased demand, he had unlocked 50 units and was now accommodating 22 more juveniles. Consequently, some of the young girls will be accommodated on wings with adults over 18 where prison officers may not have the experience or training to deal with vulnerable juveniles.

Holloway prison has no operational capacity for juveniles, but last Friday it was accommodating seven sentenced girls and another six on remand—further evidence that our prison system is ill-prepared for the increasing number of young girls being imprisoned by our courts.

I was impressed by the commitment of the staff and the governor of Bullwood Hall. They try to provide the best possible environment for the juveniles within the limits of their funding and the power that they have. However, it does not matter how committed and genuine the prison staff are if the environment is unsuitable for young girls.

I had the opportunity to talk to some of the girls during my visit, and what struck me most was the common thread that ran through each of their lives. Miss A is 16 years old. She spent the first few days of her sentence in Holloway prison, which she described as disgusting—a view shared by all the girls that I met. Bullwood Hall is keen to take girls who have been sentenced straight from court. Unfortunately, they often spend the first few days in the adult women's prison in Holloway, in which the regime is extremely harsh and where the conditions are especially difficult for those serving their first prison sentence.

Having been moved to Bullwood Hall, Miss A. was understandably missing her family. Her mother is trying to raise the other children, does not drive, and is unable to fund the cost of travel by train to visit her due to low income. The isolation from their families that prisoners experience makes it difficult to maintain close contact. Although many of the girls at Bullwood Hall come from London and the home counties, some come from as far away as Liverpool or Manchester. Some co me from Wales, which has no women's prisons. It is no wonder that their families find it difficult to keep in touch.

For many of the young girls, however, home is the last place that they should or could be. Miss B., for example, is also 16. Her father is in prison and her mother, who suffers from depression and alcohol dependency, is being evicted. Miss B. does not see her family and found it difficult to cope when she first arrived at Bullwood Hall. Officers tried to explain the procedures and rules to her and she was given an information booklet, but with her limited education—she was expelled from school—she admits to not understanding much of it. She told me that being left to cry alone in her cell on those first few nights was horrible.

Miss B. described her daily routine, which included being locked in a cell from 8.15 pm to 8 am and having to ask permission to go to the toilet during the night. When she is finally discharged, the accommodation arranged for her by the probation service will be crucial to her ability to escape the life that she has led so far. Her most striking observations of prison life were about what she had witnessed—girls of her own age on hard drugs such as crack cocaine and heroin, which she had never seen before. She had gained a new knowledge of drugs and other crimes. Girls would relate stories of offences that they had committed and for which they had not been caught, which suggested that it was possible to commit a crime and get away with it. Further exposure to crime was not helping the girl, but expanding her knowledge of crime.

All the girls said that being away from their family and friends was the hardest part to endure. However, questioning revealed that some of them could not return to their families on release. They also knew that if there was to be a chance of their leading a better life, they had to be away from the neighbourhood and environment that had influenced their criminal behaviour in the past.

Many of the girls have received little guidance in their young lives. Their parents have not set boundaries, and they have not been allowed to grow up with the rules that most of us accept as fundamental to the structure of our lives. As one girl said, she found it hard in prison because, "I am not used to people telling me what to do. I am used to doing what I want."

Many of the girls are first offenders. Their crime may be sufficiently serious to warrant detention, but evidence suggests that courts do not always take into account all alternative forms of punishment before considering a custodial sentence, which should always be the court's last resort. If detention is appropriate, people in that age group—15, 16 and 17-year-olds—should be held in local authority secure accommodation, where they can receive appropriate help and support under a regime that provides strict boundaries while recognising that such people are teenagers, not adults.

The Youth Justice Board requires that all girls under the age of 18 be provided with a minimum of 15 hours of education a week. For some of the girls, that is the most intensive education that they will have received for some time. One 16-year-old girl to whom I spoke had not attended school since she was 11. Is it any wonder that she found life difficult?

Although accredited work and education must be provided to under-18s, it is not a requirement for young offenders. Therefore 18 to 21-year-olds can be required to undertake work that will do little to further their education and training opportunities. There is no requirement for the staff who look after them to have any specialist training in dealing with young people. Young offenders are an equally vulnerable group who are at a point in life at which the right support, education and training opportunities could ensure that following their discharge from prison they lead a valuable and law-abiding life.

Many of the girls are serving sentences of less than six months, and some just a few weeks. Such sentences are too short to make a real difference to their education and training opportunities, but are long enough to create an obstacle to their future employment. The very fact that they have been in custody may deter future employers, landlords and others from offering them assistance.

On 14 December 1999, the Minister then responsible for prisons, my right hon. Friend the Member for Brent, South (Mr. Boateng), now Chief Secretary to the Treasury, reiterated a commitment made by a previous Home Secretary that from

"April 2000, 15 and 16 year old girls will be placed in local authority care, not in prison. In the longer term sentenced young women aged 17 will also be placed outside Prison Service custody."

That commitment was reinforced by the Youth Justice Board's plan to make it a priority to place all young women outside adult prisons by mid-2002.

The latest Home Office figures for May this year suggest that that has not yet happened: eight female 15-year-olds, 29 16-year-olds and 81 17-year?olds were being held in prison. Indeed, since 1999, the number of girls aged under 18 in prison has risen, from 86 to 120 this year. The rise in custodial sentences should be contrasted with the fall in recorded crimes committed by 15 to 17-year-old girls. By continuing the practice of holding juveniles with adults in adult prisons, the Government breach the UN convention on the rights of the child. That cannot be right.

The evidence about the unsuitability of prison for girls and young women has been known for some time. In 1997, the Howard League for Penal Reform—for whose support I am grateful and of whose advisory council I am a member—published the results of a year-long inquiry into the use of prison custody for girls. I urge the Minister to read that report, digest the case studies and consider implementing the recommendations. Surely those vulnerable young people should be afforded the protection of the Children Act 1989. Why do we continue to operate a policy in contravention of the United Nations convention?

I started my speech by referring to the social exclusion unit, which is incredibly important. It shows how the Government think that we should tackle the real problems in our society. If we are to reduce crime, we have to consider the factors that create an environment in which people commit crime, and those are the very issues being addressed by the social exclusion unit. Poverty, homelessness, debt, mental illness, unemployment and drug and alcohol misuse are factors that can have an influence. Many of the young girls that I am talking about are vulnerable, misguided children, not evil calculating adults. They need help as well as punishment. I look forward to hearing the Minister's response.

I warmly congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Watford (Claire Ward) on securing this debate on a subject of great importance. I was made aware of the issue by a book by Angela Devlin called "Invisible Women: What's Wrong with Women's Prisons". It revealed the dreadful situation in our women's prisons. That book was published in 1998, and the issue was then raised in Parliament in several ways. I think that we are aware that there have been improvements since then.

The increasing prison population is inexplicable and extremely worrying. Only a few years ago, the prison population was 42,000, and it is now a record 71,000. That means that 132 people per 100,000 of the population are in prison. It puts the United Kingdom in the top two or three of the 43 countries of the Council of Europe. The only country with a worse record is the United States, where the figure is 700 people per 100,000. The average figure among the Council of Europe countries is about 50 per 100,000, but our prison population goes on increasing, expensively and to the detriment of the country, although few of us believe that prison works.

An extremely worrying feature of life in prison, which was referred to by my hon. Friend the Member for Watford, is the number of young women who react to their plight by mutilating themselves. That is a common reaction to abuse. Young women who go to prison are likely to have been abused by society, their partners or their families. The almost universal treatment for those who mutilated themselves used to be neuroleptic drugs, which are overused in residential homes for the elderly, and are meant for the deeply psychotic. Their use was so common in prisons that young women on those drugs were known by the cruel epithet of "muppets", because they walked strangely. I hope that that practice has ended, but it was difficult to break through the closed communities in which everyone supported everyone else. The prison doctor, the governors and so on tended to work together.

In Holland there have been many reforms that we could copy, one of which is that when women are sentenced to prison, they can, if they choose, have a period of about a fortnight before they start their sentence. Nothing could be worse than when a mother kisses goodbye to her children in the morning and does not appear when they come home from school. Many sentences are unexpected, and the chaos and disruption that results from that is completely unnecessary. Very few women prisoners are violent or dangerous in the way that many male prisoners are. That reform could—and, I believe, should—be introduced as an urgent priority.

A report by the chief inspector of prisons has been mentioned. Time and again, the previous chief inspector reported I hat there was no need for most of the women in prison to be there. Reports have given examples of women who had committed the most trivial offences and, because they had a long record of previous convictions, were imprisoned.

Most women are in prison for reasons such as debt, and our society encourages debt. Idiotic advertisements saturate daytime television, telling people that if they have debts, they should not worry because they can ring a certain advice firm, and solve all their problems. Those firms actually multiply debt and increase the period of indebtedness, but they lull people into a false sense of thinking that debts do not matter. Often, the debts are not magicked away, but people who have got into debt—often for loving reasons because they have been looking after their families—find themselves in prison. Our record on that is dreadful.

Communities in prison are often dominated by gangsterism. Prison society used to be run by tobacco barons, but it is now dominated by drugs. Many prisons have a dreadful atmosphere, and there are practices that I would not want to go into today. The punishments that we mete out, especially to women prisoners, are often cruel and barbaric because we separate mothers from their toddlers and babies. We have heard that women react to imprisonment more seriously than most men do and find it more damaging. We hear about women entering prison as shoplifters and leaving as drug addicts. Some women enter prison as cannabis users. People are complaining that we are about to announce today a change in the law that allows people to be sentenced to 14 years in jail for some cannabis crimes—murder carries an equivalent sentence. We have sent women to prison for using soft drugs, and they have come out addicted to hard drugs. We cannot provide a single prison—for women or men—that is free from illegal drug use. There are occasionally drug-free wings, but we put people into prisons in which it is often easier to obtain drugs than on the streets.

This debate is very important. The Minister has talked about the dreadful record on not only mutilation, but suicide attempts by women in prison and the way in which they suffer. We have a very poor record as a Parliament and a country on the increasing female prison population.

The ninth commandment of Back Benchers is that we should neglect the rich, the obsessed and the articulate, and seek out silent voices. Few voices are quieter than those of women in prison. The situation is an awful example of man's inhumanity to women.

I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Watford (Claire Ward) on securing the debate. I am grateful for being able to participate.

Between 1995 and 1997, I was a member of the Select Committee on Home Affairs. During one of the Committee's inquiries, I visited many prisons in both this country and the United States. Owing to my interest in the subject, I have visited other prisons including, notably, Eastwood Park, with my hon. Friend the Member for Cynon Valley (Ann Clwyd). We were both very worried about the conditions of the women who were held there. We made that visit before 1997, and I attest to the truth of what my hon. Friends have said about the conditions of women in prison, the reasons why they are there and the catastrophic effects that prison has on them and their children.

I shall confine my remarks to two narrow subjects, but first I congratulate the Government on setting up the women's policy group in January 1998. The matters that it is considering show that several lessons have been learnt.

An occasion in the Chamber that I shall never forget was when the right hon. Member for Maidstone and The Weald (Miss Widdecombe) attempted to justify the shackling of pregnant women prisoners. It is fair to say that she got a pretty severe roasting from female Labour Members. She found the position hard to defend. I am pleased by the new arrangements for the treatment of pregnant women when they go into labour that have been introduced since we came to power. I understand that now all restraints should be removed when they are in hospital, and replaced only when they leave. I was amused to discover that prison officers can be present in the delivery room, or during an intimate examination, only if that is requested by the prisoner. I cannot imagine that such a request would be made, but at least it is no longer required that a prison officer should be present at all times.

Women who are pregnant and have their babies in prison face considerable difficulties. Throughout the country, there are only 64 places for them in mother and baby units, although I gather that 24 further places are planned—two 12-bed units. As a result, they have to travel great distances.

In Holloway and New Hall, women can keep their babies with them for up to nine months, whereas in Askham Grange and Styal they can keep their children with them until they are 18 months old. After that time, if the women have not completed their sentences, their babies are taken away from them—an 18-month-old child is still a baby. It is only when one talks to inmates in prisons such as Holloway that one realises what that means. Many of the women prisoners have had babies when they were very young. I will never forget talking to one young mother as I went around the unit at Holloway. I asked her how old her baby was. She replied, "Eight months." She looked haunted and traumatised. I asked her if she had other children, and she said that she did. That was when I realised that she would have to decide in four weeks' time whether to give up the baby at nine months so that she could stay in Holloway and be near her other children, or apply to go to either Askham Grange or Styal so that she could stay with the baby until eighteen months but risk losing contact with her other children who lived in the southeast. That is an intolerable position to put anyone in. If that does not constitute cruel and unusual punishment, I do not know what does.

It is impossible for women who are in that position to discharge their responsibilities as parents in a meaningful way. I acknowledge that they are in prison because they have committed crimes but, as several of my hon. Friends have said, the types of crimes for which women are imprisoned are generally quite trivial. I met women in Holloway who had been imprisoned for not paying their bills; they were in prison because, eventually, debt becomes a criminal offence—although there are conventions that say that nobody should be imprisoned for debt.

Reference has also been made to self harm. I wish to recount an unpleasant incident that happened when I was at Eastwood Park, because I want people to understand what self harm can mean to the prisoners who harm themselves, their fellow prisoners and prison staff. Several years ago, there was a young woman who was severely psychotic at Eastwood Park. She had had an abdominal operation some time before. One night, she took off her bra and used its hook to open up the wound and disembowel herself. The other prisoners realised that this was happening, and the prison officer who went into her cell to see what the noise was about, was, as anyone could understand, utterly traumatised by what she saw. That woman should not have been in prison. She was severely mentally ill. She had been convicted of a crime and I can only presume that that had something to do with her illness.

In concluding my remarks, Mr. Cook—

Order. I would be remiss in my responsibilities were I not to remind hon. Members that the House, in its wisdom, took the decision when establishing this parallel Chamber that the four senior members of the Chairmen's Panel be appointed Deputy Speakers of Westminster Hall. While occupying this Chair, they should be referred to in those terms.

I am grateful for that advice, Mr. Deputy Speaker.

In concluding my remarks, I quote from this year's prisons handbook an article headed, "Viewpoint: Women Prisoners". It is by Lisa Edwards, a serving prisoner at Cookham Wood, and says:

"The penal system is geared to men, not women; this needs to be addressed. There are several courses on offer in the male prisons that are not available in the female prisons. This is not good enough. Female lifers have as much right to be rehabilitated as men do."

She continues:

"We need more education, courses on drug and alcohol awareness, anger management, relationships, offending behaviour and victim awareness, as well as life and social skills."

At this point, I declare an interest as one of the trustees of an educational charity called Award Scheme Development Accreditation Network, known by its acronym, ASDAN. It provides education in life skills to thousands of students in schools and colleges all over the country. I have seen the effects of its work and can only say to my hon. Friend the Minister that that kind of education should be more widely available in prisons.

Lisa Edwards goes on to say:

"We need help to help ourselves once released. Give us jobs in prison that will actually aid us outside, not mind numbing jobs like packing plastic spoons! Teach us new skills that we can use … Don't place us in prisons hundreds of miles away from family and friends. It is so important to maintain the bond with your children. Just because you are in prison, it doesn't mean you stop being a mother."

Of course, when those women leave prison, they could be sitting on the bus alongside any of us, or serving us at a supermarket checkout. They could be working in all kinds of jobs where we could come face to face with them. Surely it is in our interests, if those women are to be imprisoned, to make that an experience that allows them some opportunity for reform and life-chance, not just one that focuses on retribution.

I have not had an opportunity to prepare for this debate. I am disappointed to come into this Chamber and discover that so few Members are interested in this very important subject. I want to emphasise the point that some hon. Friends have made about the large proportion of women prisoners who are in prison simply because they are poor and cannot afford to pay their debts.

I did a great deal of research on that pre-1997, and introduced a private Member's Bill that would have removed the option of sending fine defaulters to prison simply because they could not pay their debts. So many women are sent to prison not because they are wilfully refusing to pay debts but because they are unable to meet their commitments. That is termed culpable neglect by the courts, but much research has been done that shows that it happens simply because people are poor and unable to face up to their commitments.

My hon. Friend the Member for Newport, West (Paul Flynn) graphically illustrated how people can get into debt when they are desperate and fall prey to loan sharks and other temptations that more robust and less poor individuals might be able to avoid. I am very disappointed that women in particular—but also men—are being sent to prison because they are poor and cannot afford to meet their fines. Of course, such individuals should receive some punishment, but I do not see why that could not take place in the community where they could repay society. It costs hundreds of pounds a week to send people to jail because they are poor. However, if we helped them to manage their finances better, and provided for some kind of punishment in the community so that people could contribute to society through work and other endeavours, we would be a more civilised society. We would also prevent further decline, such as lapses into mental illness and family breakdown, which occurs as a result of so many poor women with mental health difficulties being sent to prison.

Only last week another private Member's Bill was introduced to prevent people from being jailed for debt and fine default. When the Minister responds, I hope that he will dwell to some extent on that issue. I would like a commitment from the Government that they intend to bring in legislation to prevent fine defaulters from be ng sent to prison and introduce alternative community punishments. Even if it is not possible to introduce legislation in the near future, signals from Minister; and guidance to magistrates courts on the issue of culpable neglect would be very welcome. I invite the Minister to respond to that point.

Order. Perhaps it would be useful if I were to advise the House of an opinion registered collectively on the Chairmen's Panel. Let me start by reminding hon. Members that this debate is scheduled to go no longer than 11 o'clock. The common convention in the past has been that the three winding-up speeches start 30 minutes before that, with those 30 minutes split equally between the three concluding speakers. In this event, Members will see that there are 53 minutes remaining, and the Chairman's Panel has been anxious that that equality of apportionment be maintained because it has been known for some speakers to run over quite a bit, thereby creating a situation that is considered unfair. Might I make it clear that Front-Bench speakers, of whom there are three, will be admonished if they exceed a third of that time. They do not have to take all of it, but they are not to overrun, if I might put it in those terms. I am grateful for your attention.

I do not think that I will be taking a third of the time because I do not intend to speak for the sake of it.

First, I congratulate the hon. Member for Watford (Claire Ward). She has raised issues of extreme importance this morning, and the moving stories from the case studies to which she referred contributed greatly to the whole debate. We have had many other contributions that to me, as a new Member, have been stark and frightening, but underline what the debate is really about.

I started considering the issue by looking at the prison population as a whole. The latest figure that I have, which is perhaps not the actual latest figure, is 71,360 people in prison, sadly. I started to think about the different, overlapping subsets within that total. I was wondering how many would be left if one identified all prisoners with sentences less than 12 months, and all those with mental health difficulties. Perhaps the Minister knows better than I do. That highlights the wider issues of appropriate placements and sentences, of which much has been made in the debate.

Before turning to female prisoners, it is important to consider the subset of children. The annual report of the Youth Justice Board was published yesterday. It is an interesting and excellent report in which Lord Warner, the chairman, states:

"Despite these successes it has not so far been possible to reduce the use of custody as much as the Board would like."

He goes on to say that

"the use of longer sentences by the courts … can only make it more difficult to maintain improvements".

I believe that a press article in The Independentyesterday stemmed from the launch. Under the headline "Youth Justice Board protests at rising children locked up",

Lord Warner was quoted as saying:

"'You have the bizarre situation where you could be putting into custody for quite short periods of time school-age kids who are in desperate need of education, who are under-performing educationally, and you have made the whole problem of getting them back into education more difficult.'

The youth crime chief called for courts to consider alternatives to custody."

Ministers and the Lord Chief Justice have dealt with the issue. Clearly, it will be an important matter during the next few weeks with a White Paper coming out, which, I hope, will cover sentencing.

In addition to the Youth Justice Board's report, this weekend a prominent children's charity described the Government's policy on youth crime as an abuse of children's human rights. An example was given of a child with learning disabilities who was remanded in custody for the theft of toffees from a jar of sweets and criminal damage to the lid of the jar. Among the children in custody are those who are in prison. A book about them entitled "Vulnerable Inside" will be published this week by the Children's Society. It includes an example of a 16-year-old telling of a child who committed suicide after bullying and how the others in prison reacted:

"This morning when we came out for breakfast the screws said that he had tried to kill himself and he was in hospital on a life support machine. At dinner they said he was dead. Everyone was quiet."

That is horrendous. Children's charities are voicing serious concerns to the Home Secretary.

I am also concerned by the Home Secretary's April announcement that suspects as young as 12 will be remanded in custody for persistent petty crimes. I fear that younger children are taking up local authority accommodation places, and that that is pushing 15 and 16-year-olds back into prison. I would be grateful if the Minister would tell us how that all comes together, because it would be dreadful if we were actually making the situation worse. I wonder if this is why the £250 million initiative announced in March 2001, a four-year programme to ensure that no teenage girls and fewer 15 and 16-year-old boys are held in prison and that 80 per cent. of offenders are located within 50 miles of their home—all changes that are needed—does not seem to be on target.

As the hon. Member for Watford reminded us, the Government have been promising to remove girls from prison. Unfortunately, for various reasons, they continue to be placed there. I would like to refer to an Adjournment debate held on 29 January this year, which was initiated by the hon. Member for Sheffield, Hallam (Mr. Allan) and focused on a tragic case in his constituency of a girl who had gone from one institution to another and fallen through every gap it is possible to fall through. In reply, the Under-Secretary of State for the Home Department, now the Minister for Citizenship and Immigration, stated:

"At the moment, about 170 girls are in custody. The hon. Gentleman may know that there is a ministerial commitment to remove all 15 and 16-year-old girls from Prison Service custody by the summer."—[Official Report, Westminster Hall, 29 January 2002; Vol. 379, c. 63WH.]

We seem to be slipping behind the targets. Girls are not committing more crimes, so is sentencing the problem? Those issues hugely concern me.

Before I conclude, I should like to move on to a topic with which I have tussled for some time: whether we should be concerned about men as well. I have been convinced by this morning's contributions on that matter. I found a useful reference to the issue by Anne Dunne in "Safer Society" from summer 2001. She says:

"In the majority of cases the best way to promote resettlement and prevent reoffending is not to send women to prison in the first place. This is not preferential treatment for women. It takes account of the principle that treating men and women equally does not mean treating them the same. Imprisonment has a different and more damaging impact on women. We need policies which recognise that women's offending is different and which responds appropriately and proportionately. Way back in 1991 NACRO suggested Community Houses."

More recently, the Prison Reform Trust issued a piece of work called "Justice for Women", which suggests:

"A network of centres should be established to provide effective supervision and rehabilitation to offenders serving community sentences."

It is vital that we introduce such local centres.

We keep focusing on mental health issues, the nature of sentencing and the appropriateness of placements. When the inspectorate visited prisoners at Eastwood Park it commented:

"It was impossible not to be struck by the profound personality disturbance and mental health problems that many presented."

In the Adjournment debate to which I referred earlier, the Minister commented on the shortage of places with adequate psychiatric treatment. I should like to refer to a recent report by the social exclusion unit, which does so much vital work, on reoffending that includes an annexe on juveniles. One of its many points is:

"Too many young people remain in custody when they need in-patient mental health care and the vast majority of those with diagnosable mental health problems but who do not require mental health admission do not receive adequate management and care from custodial or community-based services."

We know what the problems are and need to address them. I recognise that the Government have gone a long way by setting up so many initiatives. It seems as though the problem is increasing and we are not keeping up with it. We have to reflect on whether that is due to crime or sentencing and take appropriate action. We cannot turn our backs on a problem with which we need to get to grips. There are positive outcomes and yesterday's report from the social exclusion unit was also positive. However, the report lists all the enormous issues relating to young offender teams that still have to be tackled. It is a huge task and the Government need to put resources into the area to match their commitment. They need to stand up and be proud to say that they have tackled the issue of the socially excluded and that we have a prison system that works.

I add my congratulations to the hon. Member for Watford (Claire Ward) on obtaining the debate.

This is undoubtedly a serious subject and all the contributions have referred to serious issues. Some of the Government's responses are at odds with the views that have been expressed this morning by Labour Back Benchers. I shall quote what one Government spokesman said in a major report:

"I also reject any call for preferential treatment for women offenders. The current system does impact differently on women and men, because women are usually the primary carers for their children, and because their small numbers in the system can mean prison places further from home. However, there is also evidence that women are in some respects treated more leniently than men by sentencers. Research suggests that women are less likely than men to get sent to prison, even within the same offence groups and when offenders have similar criminal records, and women tend to get shorter sentences on average."

Those were the words of the former Home Secretary, the right hon. Member for Blackburn (Mr. Straw), as he came to the end of his term in that office.

Not everyone in the Government necessarily speaks with a single voice, and many of those who spoke in today's debate, including the hon. Member for Watford, were critical of the current position. I agree with those hon. Members. When the right hon. Member for Newport, West (Paul Flynn) said that the record in this field was dreadful—I carefully wrote down what he said—I agreed with him. The hon. Member for Watford stressed that the Government, through the former Home Office Minister, the right hon. Member for Brent, South (Mr. Boateng), made various promises about changes in prison accommodation for young women that have not been kept.

My hon. Friend the Member for Reigate (Mr. Blunt) stressed in a debate in December 2001 that there were many problems at Downview—a prison in his constituency. Other hon. Members have been critical of what has been happening at Holloway, and there have been further criticisms of other prisons for women, such as Bullwood Hall.

I am the first to accept that the area is difficult. Some women have committed extremely serious offences. Many hon. Members who have spoken this morning said in parenthesis that they accept that some women must be given custodial sentences. I would have been happier however had they said more about the victims of crimes. Too often in this place, concern is shown for the offender and not the victim. I have spent much of my career, both during my 10 years in this House and previously, working with organisations such as Victim Support. In any debate on prisons and custody one should always mention the fact that some of those who have committed offences have had the opportunity to continue their lives, whereas the victims have not been given that chance.

Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

In a moment.

It has been stressed by several speakers, including the hon. Member for Watford, that some people are in prison simply because of debt. The hon. Member for Newport. West rather overstated the case when he said that moss: women in prison are there because of debt. The figures from the House of Commons Library do not support that contention—I am sorry that the hon. Member for Newport, West did not stay in the Chamber to hear the responses from the Front Benches, but I have no doubt that what I say will be reported to him. If one examines the offences that have led to women being in prison, only a minority are there for non-payment of fines or for debt.

I should stress that I said during my speech that I did not condone any of the actions of those who are held in prison, whether they are young offenders, juveniles or women prisoners. There are occasions on which detention is appropriate. However, there has not been a discussion about the victims of crime because this debate is about prisoners. In future, I might apply for a debate on the victims of crime, but we are discussing prisoners, and issues such as whether the conditions in which they are held are appropriate. It is a shame that the hon. Gentleman has made a point about victims on this occasion.

I accept that the hon. Lady mentioned that she does not condone in any way the crimes that have been committed. I was simply making the observation that we have heard a lot of speeches on the main subject of the debate, and until I spoke nobody had mentioned the victims of crime. When we debate prisoners, there should also be some mention of victims.

Another significant matter that should be referred to when we talk about women in custody is the recent huge controversy about the short custodial sentence that was imposed on a lady whose children had persistently failed to attend school. There were howls of protest when that sentence was announced, particularly in the liberal press, but those howls were immediately silenced when, having served a very short custodial sentence—it had been reduced on appeal—the lady said that it was the best thing that could have happened to her because it was the only thing that could have forced her to concentrate her mind on how important it is that children should go to school. I think that it was the hon. Member for Newport, West who said that very few people think that prison works, but this prisoner felt that it had worked for her. Her sentence also sent a valuable signal to other feckless and irresponsible parents who were not ensuring that their children get the benefits of education. I have no doubt that persistent truancy—which is quite often aided and abetted by parents—will fall significantly as a result of that deterrent sentence.

However, the custody of women and girls raises extremely important issues that must be addressed. The Government have promised to tackle the shortcomings in the system, but so far—after more than five years in power—they have failed to do so. I hope that the Minister will tell us today that some of those shortcomings have a greater prospect of being addressed in the immediate future.

There are continuing concerns about the rise in the female prison population. I was surprised that many hon. Members said that it would be better if young women prisoners were in local authority secure accommodation. I have considerable experience of the criminal justice system from my career at the Bar and the 10 years or so that I have spent in this place, and local authority accommodation has a dreadful record. It would not be advantageous if more young women were to be in the care—which is the official description, but it is very often inappropriate—of local authorities. What we need are humane prisons. People who have committed serious offences and have to receive a custodial sentence are sent to prison as a punishment, rather than for punishment; that has always been the mantra of the Prison Service.

We hope that the Minister will be able to reassure us that further progress is being made. I accept several of the points that have been made about the tragic events that happen to some young women and girls who are in custody, and I recognise that more must be done to address them. I look forward to hearing what the Minister has to say.

I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Watford (Claire Ward) on securing this debate. It addresses an important issue. I also congratulate my hon. Friend on the clarity with which she put her argument, and the passion with which she related and reflected upon the experiences of girls and young women in custody. In so doing, she has done the House a great service.

Running as a thread through all the contributions is the extent to which the young people whom we are discussing have suffered a lifetime of lack of care in its broadest sense. That strikes me most forcefully. There is really no other way to describe it. The social exclusion unit report published last week makes the point all too clearly for juveniles—boys as well as girls. Nearly 90 per cent. miss significant periods of education in their lives. My hon. Friend the Member for Watford mentioned meeting one young woman who had hardly been in school since the age of 11. Nearly two-thirds have previously been looked after by local authorities, so have not had the benefit of the love, care and support that families are able to provide. Nearly half have literacy and numeracy levels below those of the average 11-year-old. HM chief inspector of prisons undertook a survey that found that two out of five girls reported having experienced violence at home and one in three said that they had experienced sexual abuse.

I am sure that all hon. Members would acknowledge that the young people we are talking about are damaged human beings who cause damage to others as well as to themselves. We should acknowledge the damage done to others, and I recognise the point made by my hon. Friend about the nature of this debate. However, one reason why we are discussing the consequences of the rise in the number of young people sentenced to custody is the general debate that is taking place and is reflected in my own surgeries, as it is in those of other hon. Members.

People are concerned about the impact of crime on their lives. They feel frustrated, frightened, angry and bewildered about the damage caused by the consequences of crime. As a society, we are trying to work out how to deal with that. The debate about custody and its effective alternatives is at the heart of the debate about how to tackle the problem, not least because of the size of the prison population.

The challenge is how to prevent further damage being done to others by the significant proportion who go on to reoffend, while trying to address the legacy of the social exclusion that many of the young offenders experience in their short lives For that reason one of the first priorities of the Government since being elected in 1997 has been to reform the youth justice system: by establishing the Youth Justice Board for England and Wales, introducing the youth offending teams, and providing courts with the powers to intervene earlier and more effectively when young people get into trouble.

I am pleased to tell the Chamber that that there have been two real successes as a result of the work that the Government have done. The first has been to meet our pledge to halve the time between commission of the offence and young people appearing before the courts for sentence in some shape or form. That is the product of much hard work done by people within the criminal justice system.

Secondly, the first indications of reconviction figures since the implementation of those reforms, show a 14.6 per cent. reduction in reconviction rates compared with juveniles dealt with in 1997, which was the reference period. That has been achieved in one year with the first cohort. We shall have to see whether that progress is maintained, but it is set against the Government's target of a 5 per cent. reduction in four years. That is progress.

The hon. Member for Surrey Heath (Mr. Hawkins) criticised the Government for what he felt they had failed to do—as he would, because it is his job. Being a fair man, I am sure that he would acknowledge those two real examples of progress that have occurred as a result of the reforms introduced by the Government.

I agree with all hon. Members who said that juveniles should be sent to custody only as a last resort. That is precisely why we have provided the courts with a wide range of community-based penalties and introduced a range of new disposals that are specifically targeted at young people who might otherwise face custodial remand or sentence. Those new court orders have been augmented by the intensive supervision and surveillance programme, which targets the most persistent juvenile offenders and provides intensive monitoring for up to 24 hours a day, seven days a week, together with a highly structured programme of education, training and reparation to victims. However, as my hon. Friend the Member for Watford acknowledged, there are some girls—and boys—whose offending is so serious or persistent that a custodial sentence is the only appropriate response. Lord Warner acknowledged that yesterday when talking about the publication of the Youth Justice Board annual report.

It is, of course, for the courts to make those judgments, but my right hon. Friends the Home Secretary and the Lord Chancellor—and, indeed, the Lord Chief Justice—have recently made it clear that they have asked courts to consider carefully the decisions that they take about the sentences they impose, and to reserve custody for violent, sexual or persistent offenders.

There has been much debate this morning about why the figures for young women and girls in custody have been increasing. If we look at the statistics, we can see that it is due to a combination of factors. The first is that more girls and young women are appearing before the courts. Secondly, more of those who appear before courts are sentenced into custody, although they are still a tiny minority—some 96 per cent. of juveniles who appear before the court are not made subject to a custodial sentence. However, it is undoubtedly the case that girls who are sentenced to custody are receiving longer sentences than those given in, say, 1985. I was looking at those figures this morning.

My hon. Friends the Members for Newport, West (Paul Flynn), for Birmingham, Selly Oak (Lynne Jones), and for Bristol, East (Jean Corston), raised the issue of the imprisonment of women and girls for debt offences. At the invitation of my hon. Friend the Member for Halifax (Mrs. Mahon), I looked at the figures on that subject about three weeks ago. It is worth looking at those statistics, and I shall write to my right hon. Friend and my hon. Friends about them. The number of those sentenced to prison for non-payment of council tax or television licences has declined sharply in recent years, and I welcome that greatly.

It is not the case that hundreds of people—and certainly not women—are being sent to prison every week for fine defaulting. In 2000, an average of three women per week were sent to prison for that offence; that is roughly 150 people in that year. The average stay in custody for those women was only five days. I acknowledge the point that my hon. Friend the Member for Birmingham, Selly Oak made about the difference between those who genuinely cannot pay and those who will not pay.

If we were to say that under no circumstances would non-payment of a fine result in a custodial sentence, it would create difficulties as regards those who persistently refuse to pay although they can, and there are such people. I refer to my earlier point about the concern in the wider community about the effectiveness of the penalties available under the criminal justice system. There is concern when people see that those who have been given a fine as an alternative to custody can pay but seek not to do so. That goes to the heart of the credibility of the system.

I should like to return to the subject of numbers. The Minister's explanation was not convincing and did not make sense. We know that the increase in women prisoners is three times the increase in male prisoners. The female prisoner population has doubled since 1996. Also, one in four women prisoners are placed on remand, although when they go to court, 65 per cent. of them do not receive custodial sentences. Those comments have been made by chief inspectors of prisons over the years. The courts seem to have the inclination to put more women than men on remand. Why on earth is that?

I would need to check the figures to find out whether the courts put more women than men on remand, but my hon. Friend is undoubtedly correct to say that the rise of the female prison population and the increasing sentence length are features of what has occurred over the past 15 years. I was making a specific point about fine defaulting and imprisonment of people who do not pay other debts. Numbers of people in those categories have declined sharply, and I have promised to write with those figures.

I acknowledged the Minister's point in my speech. Courts distinguish between wilful refusal and culpable neglect. I am asking him to give a commitment that the Government will introduce legislation so that it is not possible to send people—especially women—to jail because they are poor and cannot manage their debts. Such action cannot be right, however many people are involved. When I last examined the matter, about a third of women who were sent to prison were sent because they had not paid fines.

I cannot give my hon. Friend that undertaking, but if she examines the figures now, she will find that the proportion has reduced significantly. I shall write to her because she raised an extremely important point.

Girls and young women have particular needs that require special attention, and I turn to the placement of young women and girls in custody. We have made it clear that we ideally wish to hold girls in units that are close to their homes, and sufficiently large to provide the high-quality regimes about which hon. Members spoke and to keep them separate from over-18s. Owing to the small number of Prison Service establishments that are able to cater for girls, the Youth Justice Board tries, whenever possible, to place girls aged under 17 in non-Prison Service accommodation: local authority secure children's homes or secure training centres.

The Youth Justice Board embarked last year on a four-year plan to provide several hundred new places by extending existing centres and providing brand new centres in places where there is a lack of provision. As the hon. Member for Mid-Dorset and North Poole (Mrs. Brooke) reminded us, a key part of that plan is to improve provision for girls and vulnerable 15 and 16-year-old boys, with a view to removing all sentenced 15 and 16-year-old girls from Prison Service accommodation.

However, hon. Members will be aware that the juvenile secure estate has been under much pressure recently because of the trends that we have discussed, and the increase of juveniles in custody has affected the board's ability to meet its specific targets. However, achieving the objective to which my predecessors committed themselves remains our clear aim. Indeed, the number of non-Prison Service places available for girls has increased from 36 in April 2000 to 113 today. An additional 32 secure training places will come on stream later this year at the Medway secure training centre. During the past three months, the number of girls held in Prison Service places has started to decline. In April, 128 girls were held, and in May, 118 girls were held. Last month, 109 girls were held. That is an encouraging movement in the right direction.

People in the Prison Service sometimes voice concern about under-18s mixing with adults, which occurs for reasons to which I have referred. For example, there might be too few under-18s to accommodate them in juvenile-only accommodation while keeping them close to home and providing appropriate educational and recreational services. We are trying to balance the three objectives of meeting educational need, providing appropriate placements and keeping young offenders as close to home as possible. The three objectives must be juggled together.

The Youth Justice Board tries to avoid mixing as much as possible, and it supports the development of under-18 wings in larger women-only establishments such as New Hall and Bullwood Hall, which my hon. Friend the Member for Watford visited recently.

My hon. Friend expressed worry about what happens to girls and young women who are in custody, and we are trying to address that in two ways. We have created the new detention and training order, which is a sentence that combines a period of custody with a period spent in the community under supervision. The order's aim is to focus on planned and constructive use of time in custody and on effectively supervision and support after release. We have improved regimes, and the Youth Justice Board is now responsible for commissioning and purchasing all forms of juvenile secure accommodation throughout England and Wales. Prison Service order 4950 sets out regimes for prisoners under 18 years old and applies equally to men and women. Three-year development plans are now in place at two women's prisons, Bullwood Hall and New Hall. The Youth Justice Board intends that they will be the only Prison Service establishments for girls by November this year, providing that the demand for juvenile places stabilises.

It has been acknowledged that this morning's debate about women and girls in prison goes to the heart of the debate that society must have about the balance between custody and effective alternatives. The lesson to be drawn from the speech of my hon. Friend the Member for Watford is that we are dealing with the problem late in the day, when young offenders present themselves to the criminal justice system. If one thing has come across more clearly than any other this morning, it is that we must do even more to support families and to intervene at an earlier stage. Our work with sure start and the provision of extra support for families on low incomes will make a bigger contribution to minimising the damage that the young people have experienced, which leads them to cause damage to others. That, in the long term, is the greatest investment that we can make.

People can only give out to society what they themselves have been given. If they have never been given love, encouragement and support, it is difficult for them to show those qualities to others. If a person's only experience of human relations is being banged on the head, it is not surprising that that person responds to other human beings in a similar way. In our society today, it is difficult to achieve the proper result for all our young people. We must really work harder to ensure that we provide that sort of upbringing, because it is the best crime reduction measure in the long term.

10.46 am

Sitting suspended.

I am pleased to have secured the debate, as this is a particularly relevant time to discuss the future of the Northern Ireland peace process.

Last week, the Prime Minister and the Taoiseach chaired discussions with pro-agreement parties at Hillsborough. On Sunday, the world witnessed once again the dark side of Northern Ireland with the now almost ritual violence at Drumcree, and there have also been heightened tensions and serious sectarian clashes in parts of east and north Belfast.

Virtually everyone in Northern Ireland agrees that, as we approach the crucial Assembly elections in May next year, there is an urgent need to end the current drift and restore some momentum to the process. Otherwise all the hope and optimism that surrounded the signing of the Belfast agreement in April 1998 risk evaporating.

Like most other hon. Members, I warmly welcomed the agreement. After so many years of appalling terrorism and stalled political progress, it finally seemed as though Northern Ireland really was putting the past behind it. At long last, it seemed as though the organisations, both loyalist and republican, that were responsible for inflicting so much misery and suffering were intent on making the transition from violence to what the agreement describes as

"exclusively democratic and peaceful means".

Many aspects of the agreement are working well. The Executive and the Assembly are demonstrating the benefits of having locally elected politicians who are accountable to the Northern Ireland electorate and responsible for the key decisions that affect people's everyday lives. Even those who oppose the agreement do not want devolution to end. Indeed, the two Democratic Unionist party Ministers are regularly cited as two of the most effective members of the Executive.

The north-south bodies are showing that practical, common-sense co-operation between Northern Ireland and the Republic does not, despite the fears of some, necessarily represent a slippery slope towards a united Ireland. We now have an agreed constitutional framework. Articles 2 and 3 of the Irish Republic's constitution have been amended, and Northern Ireland's position in the United Kingdom is guaranteed for as long as that is the wish of the people who live there.

Those developments might reassure the broader community in Northern Ireland were it not for the fact that, unfortunately, that represents only part of the overall picture. One area in which the agreement is clearly not working or living up to expectations is the ending of the cycle of paramilitary violence.

For many people, in particular the Unionist community, it was the prospect of an end to paramilitarism that convinced them to back the agreement. That persuaded them to set aside their revulsion at the sight of prisoners walking free from jail early; to take Sinn Fein on trust and tolerate its inclusion in the Government of Northern Ireland despite the fact that the decommissioning of illegal weapons had not even begun; and, reluctantly, to accept painful changes to the police. Yet the end to violence and paramilitarism has not happened. That fact is the biggest single factor undermining confidence in the agreement, and it threatens to destabilise the peace process.

Under the agreement, decommissioning was supposed to have been completed by May 2000. Instead, we had to wait until last October for the first batch of arms to be put beyond use, and that happened in response to the events of 11 September and pressure exerted by the resignation as First Minister of the right hon. Member for Upper Bann (Mr. Trimble).

In April, there was a second act of decommissioning, and this time it was clearly designed to increase Sinn Fein's prospects in the Irish general election. Without questioning the integrity of General de Chastelain, neither act of decommissioning was carried out in such a way as to maximise public confidence, which was the promise made by the IRA in its statement of 6 May 2000. Any remote hope that those two acts represent a genuine conversion to exclusively democratic politics has been completely devalued by subsequent events that have seriously called into question the credibility of the ceasefire on both sides.

We have had continuing revelations of IRA activity in Columbia, and its involvement with the narco-terrorists FARC—the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Columbia—including, if recent reports are to be believed, the testing of new weapons. It has also been reported recently in Washington that techniques passed by the IRA to FARC may have been responsible for 117 deaths in a bombing that took place as recently as 9 May.

The break-in at Castlereagh police station is widely believed, by the police and others, to be the work of the IRA. Documents discovered during an arrest in connection with Castlereagh showed that the IRA are continuing to target politicians and military bases on the mainland. Only last week we learned that several leading Northern Ireland and Westminster politicians and others have been warned by the police of a serious threat to their lives.

There is continuing street violence in areas such as the Short Strand and Cluan place, which is being orchestrated by paramilitaries, loyalist and republican alike. Many hon. Members no doubt met the Short Strand residents last week, who came over to put their catalogue of despair. So-called punishment beatings, shootings and mutilations continue almost daily. There are other manifestations of paramilitarism, such as the smuggling, racketeering and organised crime that was highlighted by the Select Committee on Northern Ireland Affairs in its report published last week.

So extensive is the criminal network that we now have evidence that it has outgrown the Irish market. The paramilitaries are seeking to set up legitimate businesses on the mainland as fronts for their activities. Of particular concern to me as a west country Member of Parliament is the fact that their tentacles may be spreading to the west country. I have heard reports suggesting that such criminals are targeting the west country and trying to launder their money through legitimate pubs and tourism-related businesses.

I welcome the Government's attempts to address that very worrying development through the formation of the organised crime taskforce for Northern Ireland and the proposal for an assets recovery agency, but I ask the Minister to respond to the concerns of the Northern Ireland Affairs Committee that that agency is substantially under-resourced if it is to tackle the problem seriously. Will the Minister make a commitment to provide it with the resources it needs from day one?

Quite apart from the misery that organised crime is causing many people in Northern Ireland, there is also the cost factor. Dr. Silke has calculated that for every £1 raised by paramilitaries in Northern Ireland in 1993 and spent in the pursuit of terrorism, the average cost to the Governments of the United Kingdom and the Republic of Ireland in countering and repairing terrorist damage was £130. Based on those figures, Dr. Silke estimated that the overall cost of Northern Ireland terrorism to the Government in 1993 was in the region of £2 billion. No doubt the figure is now substantially higher.

Faced with all the evidence of ongoing activity, it is difficult to avoid the conclusion that, when the Government say that in their view the ceasefire remains intact, they are using the paramilitary definition rather than that set out so clearly by the Prime Minister during the 1998 referendum campaign. It seems that, for the Government, the meaning of a ceasefire is a period in which soldiers and police officers are no longer killed, but virtually anything else goes. The Prime Minister casually refers to the transgressions of the ceasefire as imperfections, but he cannot argue that they are consistent with maintaining a complete and unequivocal ceasefire.

The clear and urgent task of the British and Irish Governments now is to take action to restore confidence. The university of Ulster published a report on 9 July based on the annual Life and Times survey. It found that Protestants had less confidence in the peace process than six years ago, and that fewer people thought that relations between Protestants and Catholics were better.

Restoring confidence was supposed to be the purpose of the meeting with the pro-agreement parties at Hillsborough last week. Regrettably, little progress seems to have been made, and little progress will be made until those parties in breach of their obligations under the agreement finally face up to their responsibilities.

Surely the time has come to introduce into the process some sanctions against parties that are failing to fulfil their obligations under the agreement. That is true of all parties, but particularly of Sinn Fein, because it has Ministers serving in the Northern Ireland Executive. As my hon. Friend the Member for Grantham and Stamford (Mr. Davies), the shadow Secretary of State, has made clear in the past, that does not necessarily require the pressing of the nuclear button that could bring the whole Assembly crashing down. Rather, it could be done on an escalating basis, beginning with the ending of Sinn Fein's special status in this House, not proceeding with the proposed amnesty for the so-called "on the runs" and not allowing those with terrorist convictions to sit on district policing partnerships.

If none of those measures works, the Government must seriously reconsider, as the Prime Minister promised in his famous side letter to the right hon. Member for Upper Bann on the morning of the Belfast agreement, the exclusion mechanisms in the agreement and the Northern Ireland Act 1998. They must be prepared to take on the power to exclude, rather than leaving it to a cross-community vote in the Assembly.

One thing is certain: it cannot be right for Ministers belonging to a party that is, in the Government's own words, inextricably linked with an active terrorist organisation to sit on the Executive indefinitely. Last Wednesday in the House, the Prime Minister repeated his assertion that there can be no halfway house between democracy and violence. He now needs to show that that is no longer simply empty rhetoric, and that he is prepared to act on his words.

Like other right hon. and hon. Members, I want this process to succeed. I believe that it retains the potential to bring lasting peace and stability to Northern Ireland, yet we cannot go on giving concession after concession, in what already appears to many people in Northern Ireland to be a one-way street. A peace process or any other process, suggests ongoing progress. I contend that it is currently difficult to see what progress is being made along the lines envisaged in the Belfast agreement.

All those who desire the cessation of violence and long-term peace in Northern Ireland have invested much in the peace process and, necessarily, taken a lot on trust. Unionists have taken a number of risks, not least in being prepared to sit in government with Sinn Fein before the completion of decommissioning. Some might argue that they have been stretched to the limit in order to keep the process alive. However, unless something is done as a matter of urgency to restore credibility to the process, it potentially faces its biggest crisis and most difficult test so far. There is a narrow window of opportunity through which the current underlying lack of confidence can be tackled. I urge the Government not to squander it.

rose

Order. I ask right hon. and hon. Members to remain standing so that I can gauge how many want to speak in the time left. I can inform those who have not participated in debates in this Chamber before that it is customary to commence the three winding-up speeches 30 minutes before the end of the debate. Comments from the Floor must therefore have finished before 12 o'clock. I ask hon. Members to bear that in mind when making contributions and when making or receiving interventions, which should be crisp, clear and to the point.

I listened with interest to the hon. Member for East Devon (Mr. Swire). I should like him to cast his mind back to five years ago today when 20,000 Orangemen assembled at Drumcree. A nationalist from Belfast sent a relief convoy to the Garvaghy road and five Catholic families received bullets marked Ballymoney through the post. Sky TV broadcast scenes of hand-to-hand fighting across the barricades. In the middle of the night of 11 July 1998, three Catholic children—Richard, Mark and Jason Quinn—died in their bedroom. Victims of loyalist firebombs, their young lives were snuffed out.

By the following weekend, Drumcree IV had resulted in 2,561 public order incidents: 144 homes and 165 other buildings attacked; 178 hijackings; 467 vehicles damaged; 615 attacks on security forces; 24 stonings; 45 blast bombs; 284 arrests; 632 petrol bombs and 837 plastic bullets. Last weekend, there were nasty scenes at Drumcree, but one cannot compare that with five years ago and say that no progress has been made—this time there were three plastic bullets. Progress has been made, and it has been made on security.

We all deplore knee-cappings, punishment beatings and what is going on in the Short Strand and north Belfast, but progress has been made. The hon. Member for East Devon repeatedly referred to the role of the IRA. The IRA is doing more to undermine the peace process than to support it. It allows the hard men to say that they are not doing anything in an organised manner, and thus claims that it has honoured its ceasefire. However, every time we make progress it is belittled.

Like everyone else present, I have no desire to see private armies. I want them all to decommission their arms. I believe that there should be only one security force, but it must have and retain the support of the whole community. However, we will betray the people of Northern Ireland if we continually harp on about decommissioning and its associated problems.

We should consider what has been achieved by the parties and the Executive in Northern Ireland. An Assembly elected by fair proportional representation has created its own institutions and procedures, and it has adopted the symbol of the flax flower to reflect inclusive ideals across both communities. The Assembly Members have debated the most contentious issues of the day with passion and feeling. They have drawn up and begun to implement a programme of government for Northern Ireland, and have targeted social need wherever it is identified. New bodies for co-operation between the peoples of Ireland have been created. All-Ireland institutions have already demonstrated their practical value for the people of Ireland. Long overdue reforms in health, education and social services have begun. Progress has been made towards the abolition of the 11-plus and selective education—Northern Ireland is many years behind us in that, but is doing well. A Children's Rights Commission has also been established.

The Northern Ireland Executive have already started to address the chronic under-resourcing of the infrastructure, and are focusing on stable economic progress. Their programme of government is based on a vision of partnership, equality and mutual respect. Northern Ireland is building on its dynamic business community, its resourceful voluntary sector, cooperation in its industry and its vibrant and creative cultural heritage. On policing and criminal justice, a start has been made towards creating a representative and accountable criminal justice system in which all, sides of the divided community can share a sense of ownership. On the values of a divided society, we have created new institutions for the protection and promotion of equality and human rights. Every public body has a positive duty to promote equality and fair treatment.

Those are great marks of progress, but there are still obstacles to overcome. Let us consider what is happening while those obstacles are being overcome. The vast majority of former political prisoners are helping to rebuild their communities. The Parades Commission is regulating provocative marches, surveillance towers and army checkpoints are being dismantled and the decommissioning of terrorist weapons has begun. Decommissioning has been slow, and there has not been enough of it. We all want decommissioning, because there is no place for private armies. Those who have visited Northern Ireland in the past year will have noticed that one has to look hard to find a policeman or Land Rover on the streets of Derry and Belfast. [Interruption.]The reason for that is that people have confidence. The streets are crowded with shoppers in the villages, towns and cities, and it is a great sight.

Will the hon. Gentleman comment on the low number of police officers available for duty in Northern Ireland? He will be familiar with the recommendation in the Patten report that the number of regular police officers should drop to 7,500 over 10 years. In the two and a half years since the Patten report, the number of police officers has dropped to 6,900. Will he comment on that?

Yes, and the comment that I would make is that some members of the old Royal Ulster Constabulary did not like the new set-up and took advantage of the generous redundancy terms. I should like more people from both communities in the police force, as recommended by the Patten committee. Everyone wants a full police force in their society. There are still problems with implementing the reforms in the Patten report and taking proper control over special branch. Indeed, the oversight commissioner has indicated to the Government that extra progress must be made quickly.

Enormous problems exist on the streets, and nobody should deny that. The fear and insecurity felt by parts of both communities in Belfast has to be recognised. Some leadership is being given, but leadership is not provided when people constantly threaten to resign. Leadership is not given when people say that concessions are only being made to the IRA and the SDLP. The original Police (Northern Ireland) Bill and the Patten report were gutted. We were unable to debate on the Floor of the House the changes to the Criminal Justice and Police Bill, which was also gutted. Concessions have gone both ways.

Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

I shall finish my sentence and then I shall be delighted to give way. I want security measures that both communities support. The SDLP, with tremendous courage, joined the Police Authority. It had the right to expect that the reforms that were promised in the Patten report and elsewhere would be carried through to the letter, and there is disappointment that that has not yet been achieved.

I apologise for interrupting the hon. Gentleman halfway through his sentence, and I appreciate his giving way to me a second time. Will he clarify what he means when he says that the Patten report was gutted? He will recall that last autumn the American, Irish and British Governments and the Catholic Church with one voice said that the implementation plan and the Police (Northern Ireland) Act 2000 represented the spirit and letter of Patten. How can he say that it has been gutted?

I understand what the hon. Lady is saying. The Weston Park agreement—

It was not an agreement.

The Weston Park meeting—as hon. Gentlemen said, it was not an agreement. At a conference at Weston Park, undertakings were given that what had been left out of the Police (Northern Ireland) Bill would be inserted and that the necessary legislation would be introduced. I want the Government to tell us when that will happen.

It is wrong to keep picking up the agreement as though it were a flower in a garden and looking at its roots to see how it is developing. It has developed strongly and well due to the courage of people in this Room who have represented opposing traditions for years but who met together for the good of Northern Ireland. The agreement is the possession of the parties in Northern Ireland but, more particularly, of the people of Ireland, north and south. We must make it our duty to ensure that, whatever the shortcomings, we work towards constructive, purposeful elections to the Assembly next year and that we defend the peace process and not just the position of individuals, no matter how eminent they may be.

I congratulate the hon. Member for East Devon (Mr. Swire) on securing a debate on this important topic. I never thought that the hon. Member for Hull, North (Mr. McNamara) would portray himself as a latter-day Dr. Pangloss, but that is what he has done in the past few moments.

There has been considerable political progress in Northern Ireland, and Members of the Assembly and I are happy to take credit for it. However, the difficulty that we are in at the moment is entirely because the paramilitary organisations—I use the term collectively—have not made the progress that we wished. In the past few months there have been very serious problems at street level, mainly in Belfast, which have largely been caused by paramilitary organisations. Loyalist paramilitaries have been partly responsible, but the greater share of the responsibility lies with the republican movement, in particular the IRA.

The hon. Member for Hull, North may not take my word for that. I refer him to the words of the Assistant Chief Constable responsible for Belfast, Mr. McQuillan, who said in an interview after a particularly vicious outbreak of rioting in east Belfast:

"And certainly, in terms of street disorder, on the republican side, we have seen large numbers of republicans, large numbers of members of the IRA, many of them from outside the area, and we believe that they're involved in organising the violence."

Mr. McQuillan was then asked about the shooting of five Protestants during the rioting. He was not prepared to rule definitively on who was responsible, but went on to say that

"people who know the Short Strand well will know that the IRA have huge influence in that area, they are the main republican paramilitary group in that area, and we see very clear evidence of orchestration of the riots in that area."

Hon. Members might like to reflect on what would have happened if any of the five persons who were shot by republicans on that occasion had died and where the peace process would have been in that situation. The process was that close to collapsing. For that reason, we must reflect again on these matters.

The hon. Member for East Devon referred to the definition of a ceasefire that the Prime Minister gave in May 1998. I shall not read it out, because hon. Members should be familiar with it. It is very different from the definition given recently by Martin McGuinness, who said that a ceasefire is when they are not shooting soldiers or policemen and everything else to be permissible. Unfortunately, it seems that the Northern Ireland Office operates largely by reference to Mr. McGuinness's definition rather than that of the Prime Minister. The matter should be carefully reconsidered.

One good thing that came from the Prime Minister's visit last week was that he made it clear in his press conference that the transition that should be occurring needs to continue. He said:

"Transition means transition, full transition from violence to democracy. Now, we've got to look therefore at the ways that we make that clear, that we lay down the clear principles that we have to abide by, and what happens if people don't abide by them."

He also said that he would make proposals and declare the position that he set out before Parliament rises. We are expecting that, between now and the rise of Parliament, the Prime Minister will return to the matter and spell out more precisely what a ceasefire means, how that transition should progress and what happens if the paramilitaries breach those lines. It may take the form of a redefinition of "ceasefire", and I hope that it will be closer, if not identical, to the definition given by the Prime Minister in May 1998.

However, we need more than just that. We need a procedure by which the definition has credibility and there is popular confidence in it. Regrettably, there would be no confidence in the definition if the determination of whether the ceasefire had been broken was left to a Secretary of State for Northern Ireland. I do not think that there would be credibility in Northern Ireland, because of what has happened in the past.

My right hon. Friend will remember a policy submission that the Ulster Unionist party made to No. 10 to try to help the Prime Minister to define decommissioning. It suggested setting up a Privy Council Committee with representation from the Government, the Opposition, the General Officer Commanding Northern Ireland and the Chief Constable to define whether the Provisional IRA was adhering to the Mitchell principles. Would he consider resubmitting that to the Prime Minister?

My hon. Friend is close to my next point. I said that there would not be popular confidence in a judgment by a Secretary of State—I am speaking generally—because there has been lack of confidence in the successive occupants of that post. We need some objectivity. My hon. Friend referred to proposals for a rather elaborate procedure, and I note with regret that although we thought at that time that the Chief Constable and GOC should be part if it, I am not sure that in the present circumstances a procedure resting partly or wholly on the Chief Constable would command confidence or be effective. It is clear that the Irish Government have no confidence in the comments made by the Chief Constable of Northern Ireland and they showed that clearly concerning the Castlereagh raid. The former Chief Constable and the current acting Chief Constable have both said clearly and repeatedly that the police believe that the Castlereagh raid was the work of republicans, but the Irish Government still have their head in the sand and, like some hon. Members, refuse to accept that judgment. We must look further than that.

The precise objective mechanism is a matter for further consideration, but there is clearly a need for something that will give credibility to the ceasefire and the judgments that are made on it. There is also a clear need for a sanction, and that was foreshadowed in what the Prime Minister said about what happens if people do not abide by the ceasefire. The sanction must be credible. If there is no credible sanction, the present instability, which was caused by the paramilitaries, will continue.

I am concerned about the approach to some matters, particularly by the Prime Minister. During the press conference he commended the republican leadership and expressed confidence in its commitment to making the peace process work. I want the Prime Minister to reflect on that. I do not think that the republican leadership intends to return to a full-scale terrorist campaign at present, but it is clearly committed to a strategy of tension, not to exclusively peaceful means. That strategy is demonstrated in the orchestration of riots. The primary target for those riots is the SDLP, the party led by the hon. Member for Foyle (Mr. Hume). The republican leadership is trying to discredit policing and, through that, to discredit the SDLP's valuable support for policing arrangements in Northern Ireland.

Republicans are following the strategy of tension so that others carry the strains of the process, not themselves. They are moving as slowly and as grudgingly as they can, and are leaving it to the SDLP and my party to carry the strain. The Prime Minister must reflect on that, too. Indeed, the problem is highlighted in the comments made at that press conference by the man who was returned to serve as the Member of Parliament for Mid-Ulster, but failed to do so. He said:

"You see the big difference is this, Tony Blair has got to know us, David Trimble has yet to make that journey".

I would rephrase such sentiments. I have got to know Sinn Fein very well indeed. I hope that the Prime Minister gets to know Sinn Fein just as well and appreciates that things are not as simple as they seem. We shall wait for his judgments to be announced before Parliament rises, but I underline the need for the Government to get a grip of the situation and to recreate confidence in the community. I say firmly to the Government that, if they do not now tackle the continuing instability and create the necessary confidence, the prospects for next year are not good at all.

We need to be honest about what is happening in Northern Ireland. That involves recognising the arguments of my hon. Friend the Member for Hull, North (Mr. McNamara), who talked about the progress that has been made through the Assembly and the Executive and what it is like to shop on the streets now compared with what it was like previously. Such matters need to be at the forefront of our minds.

We must also realise that many serious problems have emerged in Northern Ireland as the process has developed. Many people are detaching themselves from the commitment to the Belfast agreement. There are reasons for that, some of which were explained by the hon. Member for East Devon (Mr. Swire). We must be aware of them, because they lead to disillusionment within the Protestant camp. We must also bear in mind the behaviour of the paramilitaries, but to some extent they had an excuse for their actions. Their argument was that the means justified the end. They were either for a united Ireland or opposed to it.

The paramilitaries have degenerated from that unacceptable position into mafia-type organisations that operate for their own benefit. To some extent, the Real IRA has picked up the old mantle of the Provisional IRA and is raking money off for its own use. We must be aware of the lessons that we can learn from such problems.

My hon. Friend the Member for Hull, North drew conclusions that were based on the arguments that he put forward. He does not want us to listen too much to other considerations, because he wants us to give great weight to the advances that have been made. Can we not recognise those advances while also recognising the difficulties? The problem with stressing the difficulties is that it encourages those who are trying to uncouple the whole agreement. We must try to exert pressure on paramilitary organisations in order to overcome the difficulties that exist in communities.

The report by the Select Committee on Northern Ireland Affairs, of which I am a member, on the funding of paramilitary organisations shows part of the way forward. It points out that if it were possible to cut off the funding of paramilitary organisations, they would be destroyed because they would not be able to carry out their political agenda or their mafia activity. The report suggests developing the work of the organised crime taskforce and the asset recovery agency, and ensuring that those organisations have the back up and funding available to equivalent bodies in the Republic of Ireland. Such matters need great consideration.

The final report of the Northern Ireland Affairs Committee in the last Parliament was about paramilitary intimidation and the fact that many people are placed in exile. Some are exiled in the Republic of Ireland and some are in internal exile in Northern Ireland, but great wodges of people are exiled in Britain. That is unacceptable, and we must be concerned about such issues if we are to have a proper picture of what is occurring.

I suggest an action that the Government can take, which I hope is practical. They should have an all-embracing attitude to the situation in Northern Ireland. It is unfortunate that matters are too often left to the Northern Ireland Office and the Northern Ireland Executive, with occasional interventions by the Prime Minister to nudge things along. Other Departments sometimes act as if Northern Ireland does not exist and should not be taken into account. The Treasury, in particular, has problems getting its head around the fact that Northern Ireland is a considerable section of the United Kingdom with massive problems.

The Northern Ireland Affairs Committee produced a report on the relatively minor issue of aggregate tax. It was obvious that the Treasury had not taken account of the impact of Northern Ireland's border on the introduction of aggregate tax. There have been many good arguments for the aggregate tax, but quarrying activities operate in the Republic and trade starts to transfer to Northern Ireland.

Current investigations by the Committee, which are based on a previous report, relate to the smuggling of petrol. Consideration should be given to the duty increases that affect Northern Ireland and the disparity that that causes with the Republic of Ireland. That is seen as a minor factor because only 3 per cent. of the population of the United Kingdom live in Northern Ireland, and money is thrown at Customs and Excise to tackle the problem. We should grasp the wider issues.

It is important to pay attention to Northern Ireland, to be honest about what is happening, to listen to both sides of the argument, and not to use what is happening as a defence for the preconceived set of values that we happen to have.

rose

Order. We have little time left before the witching hour of 12 o'clock. Three hon. Members are seeking to catch my eye, not all of whom heard the admonition that I gave earlier, which was that we need to hand over to the Front Bench spokespersons at midday. Moreover, not all of them have given prior indication to the Chair that they want to intervene. I shall try to give everyone a chance to speak, and I urge hon. Members to be brief, and to try to resist the temptation to make interventions.

I shall be brief. The hon. Member for Hull, North (Mr. McNamara) made a point about the levels of violence, but his definition of that was very narrow as he referred to the situation around Drumcree. The statistics from the police service make the overall picture clear: the levels of violence in Northern Ireland were higher in 2001–02 than they were in 1998, which was the year that the agreement was signed. That is an indisputable fact, and if we gloss over such facts, we will not address the problems. We should acknowledge the extent of the problems.

The hon. Gentleman also referred to the streets being free from police officers. In my constituency, crime is markedly up: pensioners are being brutalised in their homes, police stations are under threat of closure, and patrols are being withdrawn from rural areas. Those are problems, as I am sure the hon. Gentleman knows, as he must deal with policing matters in his own constituency. If the suggestion is that policing and crime issues have gone away, that is not the reality.

I have read the report from the Northern Ireland Affairs Committee on organised crime. All the paramilitary organisations raise huge sums. I have a concern about that, which the Minister might wish to address. I understand that only 10 officers in the police service are assigned to investigate organised crime by paramilitaries—that is, to deal with the matter in general, rather than with specific cases. That figure highlights a huge inequity when it is contrasted with the fact that 103 staff are employed by the police ombudsman's office to investigate the police. Ten times more people are employed to investigate the police than to investigate organised crime by paramilitaries, even though that is acknowledged to be an enormous problem. I hope that the Minister will address that point. We have the organised crime taskforce, but we need to do even more to tackle this problem, because the hon. Member for North-East Derbyshire (Mr. Barnes) is right when he says that it will do the paramilitaries enormous damage if we hit their funding.

At the heart of the peace process are the Mitchell principles of democracy and non-violence, which were signed up to by all the participants in the negotiations that culminated in the Belfast agreement. The reality is that all the paramilitary organisations are in breach of those principles—by their actions and, in some cases, by their words. There is talk that we might need a new set of principles, or that we should beef up the Mitchell principles. I do not believe that we need to do that. I am entirely satisfied that the Mitchell principles are wholly adequate to deal with the issue of people moving from violence to peace and democracy. The difficulty is that the Government are failing to act on the breaches of those principles. That is at the heart of what the hon. Member for East Devon (Mr. Swire) said in his opening remarks. It is time for the Government to take action on those breaches.

After the general election in the Republic of Ireland, the Irish Prime Minister said that he could not have Sinn Fein as a partner in his Government until the IRA disbanded. However, we in Northern Ireland are expected to accept a different standard: Sinn Fein can be in our Government while the IRA continue violence on the streets, engage in international terrorism in Colombia, and run guns from Florida and through Cuba. As the Assistant Chief Constable, Mr. McQuillan, said, it can orchestrate violence on the streets of Belfast, and yet the Government say that the ceasefire is intact, and that they need take no action. That is just plain wrong; the Government do need to act. If they are to restore confidence in the peace process, they have to sanction those parties and paramilitary organisations that are in default.

I recently heard the remarks of Richard Hass, President Bush's envoy, who suggested that we draw a line after events such as Colombia and Castlereagh, and create some new rules which we expect people to adhere to. I do not think that that is acceptable. We cannot draw a line after Colombia and other recent events, because that goes to the heart of the republican movement's intentions and its commitment to exclusively peaceful means. It also concerns the actions of loyalist paramilitaries on the streets and their commitment.

On 22 April 1998, before the referendum on the agreement, the Prime Minister told the House of Commons:

"Meanwhile, it would obviously be a travesty of democracy if parties associated with paramilitary organisations"—[Official Report, 22 April 1998; Vol. 310, c. 812.]

continued in the Government of Northern Ireland while they were threatening or using violence. I agree with him, but I think that he has forgotten his words. The situation is a travesty of democracy, and it is time that that was addressed.

I am grateful for the opportunity to make a few comments. I congratulate the hon. Member for East Devon (Mr. Swire) on securing the debate, and welcome his interest in the subject. It is important to endorse the trailer for the business of the Select Committee on Northern Ireland Affairs that was given by my colleague from the Committee, the hon. Member for North-East Derbyshire (Mr. Barnes), and its report on the funding of terrorism in particular. That report shows clearly that those organisations are active not just in getting funds but in the use of those funds for terrorist purposes.

The Belfast agreement is fatally flawed, and not simply on the basis of those features for which support is a matter of political judgment, such as the destruction of the Royal Ulster Constabulary—brought about by the agreement—the release of terrorist prisoners who had not served their sentences, the setting up of unaccountable executive all-Ireland bodies, and the representatives of the terror machine of the Provisional IRA's entry into government.

I am talking about the central principle of the agreement, which is that there should be cross-community support. That does not exist, and I would argue that it never has, but no one can say so definitively, because no one knows precisely what each section of the community did in the course of the referendum. All we know is that it was remarkably close in terms of whether the Unionist community voted for or against the agreement.

It was clear that the majority of those elected to the Northern Ireland Assembly from the Unionist community were elected on a manifesto that was opposed to the Belfast agreement, and that is what they told their electorate. I see the right hon. Member for Upper Bann (Mr. Trimble) shaking his head. That is because some of the colleagues who stood for his party made it clear to the electorate that they were opposed to the principles that he stands for, and his support for the Belfast agreement.

The reality is that many of us who have been involved in politics in Northern Ireland for a long time will have seen various structures set up, and will have seen them fall. The Unionist community was happy with the old Stormont Parliament; the nationalist community was not, and no matter how much it may have been liked by the Unionist community, it did not have sufficient cross- community support for it to have life and be stable. It fell—a sad fact of life for Unionists. When the power-sharing Executive and the Council of Ireland were set up, the nationalist community received them happily, although the Unionist community did not. Again, for nationalists, the sad fact of life was that that process did not have the necessary cross-community support, and it fell.

I would have thought that that lesson would have been learned by the time that we entered into the current process. Indeed, the Deputy First Minister, Mr. Mark Durkan, and I travelled to South Africa with others to consider the experiences of that country, in particular the principle of sufficient consensus, which was built into its process. We tried to bring that back to Northern Ireland to ensure that whatever structures were set up would have sufficiently robust support from both sections of the community to be stable and lasting. That has not happened and, whatever the position might have been at the time of the referendum, the position now in relation to the Belfast agreement is overwhelmingly that the Unionist community does not give its support and has no confidence in the agreement.

The reality is all around us. The Unionist community does not support the agreement for a range of reasons, not simply because of the principles that I mentioned earlier which undermined that support, but in terms of the practice—how things have worked out on the ground. People can see that the Provisional IRA is not wedded to the peace process. Far from it: since its so-called ceasefire began, it has murdered 14 people, shot 160 people, carried out paramilitary beatings on 250 people, run guns in from Florida, carried out exercises in training narco-terrorists in Columbia, and raided the Castlereagh special branch offices to gather information so that it can better target people. It has even targeted members of the Conservative party.

In my own constituency, five Protestants have been shot by the Provisional IRA. We have seen the interface violence in which IRA members have been engaged as well as the ongoing rackets and other work at that level within the community. One would expect none of the activities that I listed from an organisation wedded to a peace process. We have a Minister of Education who is responsible for looking after young children in Northern Ireland. In his other capacity, he sits down as a member of the army council of the Provisional IRA and takes the decisions to do the things in my catalogue of activities. That can never inspire confidence within the community, and it is not acceptable.

Decommissioning has not happened. More guns have been coming into the IRA stockpile than have been going out at the other end. Clearly, there is no basis on which the Unionist community could have confidence in the process. We will never have a stable political structure in Northern Ireland until we renegotiate the basis of the agreement and have one that is balanced and capable of enjoying the support of Unionists as well as of nationalists.

I was not involved in the negotiation of the Belfast agreement—there is no reason why I should have been because I was not an elected Member of any House or an adviser—apart from a telephone call that I had from Mo on Good Friday. She told me, "We've written a letter from Tony to David," because my party was having problems signing the agreement. She said, "Use whatever influence you have to send a message through to Castle buildings."

I do not think that my message went through, but when I read the content of Tony's letter to David, I thought, "That helps the ambiguities that are inherent within this agreement". The promises have not been delivered. I went along with the Blair promises and ambiguities. As a Unionist in Northern Ireland, I voted for the agreement along with almost the majority of the traditional Protestant community as well as the Catholics who vote unionist with a small "u", who should not be forgotten.

I humbly suggest to the hon. Member for East Devon (Mr. Swire) that a better description for this debate would have been Northern Ireland political rather than peace process, because it is the political process that is failing. All the elected representatives in Northern Ireland—all who take our seats in the House—want the peace process and to get away from the past 30 years of tension, sectarian violence and terrorism from all directions. What emerges from the Select Committee report is the increase in criminality that happens through the front of the terrorist organisations in Northern Ireland. Hon. Members should read the report if they have not done so. It has not been widely reported in the press, and should be reported much more widely.

We need a new political process. Decommissioning is now a farce. Under the Mitchell principles for the destruction of the paramilitary terrorist organisations, delivery should have been completed after two years. The Government have now disgracefully made the deadline 2008, which will have no effect because there is no sanction. Decommissioning is a farce, which is now more to the advantage of Sinn Fein-IRA than to the democrats in the political and peace process. The deadline has no sanction.

My neighbour, my hon. Friend the Member for Lagan Valley (Mr. Donaldson), referred to the Mitchell principles. We need nothing better; they are admirable. They need to be implemented, and they need sanction. They are not being delivered on. For Sinn Fein in government, please read the report. I wanted to believe that terrorists could move from terrorism and holding an Armalite in one hand and the ballot box in the other to holding just the ballot box, but that is not working. The system at Stormont is not as accountable as was promised.

The Secretary of State throws across in his Parkhead style to us on the Unionist Benches the message that there is no alternative, but there is. The alternative is involving Ulster Unionists, Democratic Unionists and the SDLP and excluding Sinn Fein from the process because it is not fit to be part of the democratic process or in government. Martin McGuinness has no remorse or regret for his involvement in terrorism and is still involved in it. He should not be put in that position. The process is not working. We need a fundamental renegotiation of the Belfast agreement.

I thank the hon. Member for East Devon (Mr. Swire) for having made the discussion possible. I am pleased that his party has abandoned its short-lived withdrawal from the cross-party consensus on Northern Ireland. That always struck me as an unsustainable position, and it is to the Conservative party's credit that it is inside, rather than outside, that process.

Liberal Democrats have always been firm supporters of the Good Friday agreement, because it is necessary to use such an agreement to provide legitimate institutions of government in a deeply divided society. The agreement reflects many aspects of policies that Liberal Democrats have long felt to be important, including devolution, power-sharing institutions, accountable north-south structures, the principle of consent and civil liberties. By itself, however, the agreement amounts only to conflict management. Strategies must be developed to move from conflict management to conflict transformation, and ultimately conflict resolution, if the new dispensation is to prove durable.

Those deep divisions in Northern Ireland society have yet to be tackled. The difficulty is that in many ways the phrasing of the Good Friday agreement has institutionalised the assumption of two communities, an issue that I have often raised. It is all very well to say that the two communities are equal but separate, living in peaceful but separated co-existence. The state beyond that—true normality—is when we regard Northern Ireland as one community that is nevertheless diverse and when everyone in Northern Ireland respects the variations and different beliefs and creeds that it contains. Until we reach that point, we have a hostage to fortune that inevitably wells up as visible stress in the streets of the Province when divisions are manifested in face-to-face conflicts.

Nevertheless, huge progress has been made. I take a different view from that of the hon. Member for East Devon on Drumcree. It is closer to the position of the hon. Member for Hull, North (Mr. McNamara). We should praise the Orange Order for having taken a strategic, measured and sensible approach by de-escalating the issues.

Let us make no mistake. The troubles on Sunday were caused largely by maverick, anti-agreement loyalists mainly from east and south Antrim, not the Orange Order. It is important to emphasise that, because the Orange Order's actions show its willingness not only to move forward from the past but to take a sensible and measured approach towards grievances that it has the right to raise, but that it is now raising within a political framework. It is incumbent on nationalists and republicans in the Drumcree area to reciprocate, and I am optimistic that, if they do so, they will receive a positive response.

In that sense, I am more optimistic than the hon. Member for East Devon, but it is clear that there are flaws in the implementation of the agreement. Those flaws are manifested in the continuing strains and the intensity of conflict that we still see in certain places. Few, if any, of the outstanding issues are now matters of principle, and they are certainly not intractable.

There are matters ranging from how we interpret the Good Friday agreement right through to the degree to which various parties have been able to implement their side of the bargain. Those issues remain tense. However, we should remember that all the pro-agreement parties have—nominally, at least—supported the goals of decommissioning, stabilising the institutions, police reform and security normalisation. There have been problems of interpretation and sequencing, debating who is responsible for implementing the actions and—to a degree—the absence of trust, which causes various parties to feel that if they do move, they will be regarded as losing to the victorious other side. The spirit of compromise and accommodation that made the Good Friday agreement possible is perhaps absent to some extent now.

Related to that is the inability of the paramilitaries to provide sufficient confidence in the durability of their ceasefires through the decommissioning of weapons and the ending of violence. The consequences of that are manifest for all to see. In effect, republican and loyalist paramilitaries need to demonstrate in a much more factual and practical way willingness to trust their political representatives in the political process. Until they do that, there is just cause for grievance on both sides as things fail to move forward. Although I have always felt that the decommissioning of weapons is primarily a symbolic action, I would say that it is very important. The paramilitaries need only consider the benefit that they received by doing that in a rational and organised way, to see that they would help their own side by continuing on that basis.

We have already heard during today's debate that there are pressures on parties, including the Ulster Unionists and—I suppose—Sinn Fein, with regard to how far they can push their hardline members without causing fractures in their organisations. There is no point pretending that that is not happening, but one of the challenges for the Government is to make it as easy as possible for the pro-agreement elements on all sides to negotiate in their own organisations and argue the case, as I attempted to just now, that an inclusive philosophy requires a degree of vulnerability resulting from the giving up of some of the traditional norms in the relevant organisations.

That means that the Government's proposal to handle "on the runs" in a particular way has to be considered in the context of what can be sold to the various parties in Northern Ireland. I am very concerned that what looks like a de facto amnesty for "on the runs" is not symmetrical. It does not take account of the pressures in the loyalist and unionist communities to see parity of treatment. The institutionalism of ethnic divisions is a danger because many people do not regard themselves as members of the Protestant or Catholic communities.

The hon. Member for Belfast, East (Mr. Robinson) and others have felt that a fundamental renegotiation of the Good Friday agreement is required. I do not share that view. I feel that the agreement itself is not bad, as long as sufficient flexibility and trust is generated on both sides to give a little bit of space for those negotiating on behalf of the different sides to implement it in a gentle but progressive fashion. In effect, the agreement requires a shared, non-sectarian Northern Ireland with a more united community than that of separate but equal groups. I would be interested to hear the Minister's views on how the Government can smooth our way from a time of stabilising separate groups to an integrated society where those groups live together. Integrated education is important in that context, and so is mixed housing. Those policies need a drive by the Government to become reality. I do not underestimate the tensions involved in doing that, but perhaps that is the single biggest lever that the British Government, working with the Irish Government, can offer.

Human rights are important. Individuals should feel that their rights as individuals, not just as members of collective groups, are upheld. It is necessary to develop a coherent and devolved strategy for Northern Ireland—indeed, for the whole of the British Isles—that would make it easy for individuals to express their identity without having to be forced back into one section of their communities. The Minister might want to say something on that.

Finally, I accept that reforms need to be made to the agreement, but those reforms should take account of such things as the very entrenched voting system in Stormont that caused the Alliance party to have to redesignate in order to play the game of achieving certain shared results in Northern Ireland.

I have raised questions to which I hope the Minister can respond, but let us remember that the whole debate is in the context of the forthcoming 2003 elections. The clock is ticking, and the more that the Government can do now to remove the divisions, the more optimistic I will be that we will have pro-agreement manifestos in abundance during next year's elections in Northern Ireland.

First, I should like to congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for East Devon (Mr. Swire) on securing this debate and on his excellent speech introducing it. I would want to expropriate nearly all of it for the Front Bench, shortly before he is expropriated in person for the Front Bench, given the quality of his presentation today.

It is inappropriate that this debate is happening in this second-division Chamber at this time. Although I commend right hon. and hon. Members who represent Northern Ireland constituencies for attending in a first-division manner, the fact is that this debate should be taking place on the Floor of the main Chamber of the House of Commons, with contributions from the Prime Minister and the principal spokesmen for the other parties.

As the Prime Minister has given a commitment to make an announcement to the House by 24 July, no doubt by means of a statement, will the hon. Gentleman ask the Government to give the House the opportunity for a full debate on the subject?

I would certainly prefer a full debate, but I shall ask the Government this morning for a commitment to a statement to the House by the Prime Minister before we rise on 24 July. I understand that the Prime Minister has given such an undertaking, but I should like the Minister explicitly to repeat that this morning.

My hon. Friend the Member for East Devon has made it clear that relations between the communities on the ground, particularly at interface points, have got worse. The evidence of that is the building of walls—the spread of walls and the increase in their height. They are a shame on a modern European city, a city that aspires to be the European city of culture in 2008, but that is what is happening to the physical geography of Belfast.

The hon. Member for Hull, North (Mr. McNamara) demolished his own case when he said that the IRA has honoured its ceasefire as it sees it. I am afraid that that is not the test. The right hon. Member for Upper Bann (Mr. Trimble) made a point about the need for sanctions. It is for the Government to come forward with those details, but I shall have some suggestions on that towards the end of my remarks. I commend the hon. Member for North-East Derbyshire (Mr. Barnes) on his balanced and honest approach—an approach that we have come to expect from him—to all the problems in Northern Ireland.

The hon. Member for Lagan Valley (Mr. Donaldson) drew our attention to the important work done by the Select Committee on Northern Ireland Affairs and the need for the Government to increase the resources to be given to the recovery of assets from criminals. As the Committee said, it is unacceptable for 40 officers of the Gardai to be devoted to that, but only 10 in Northern Ireland. I assume that those are the figures to which the hon. Member was referring. That is, of course, not the totality of people devoted to the attack on organised crime, but that unit is extremely important and needs urgently to be reinforced.

The hon. Member for Belfast, East (Mr. Robinson), in his customary way, gave us a full catalogue of the activities of an organisation not wedded to peace. It is very difficult to gainsay the evidence that he adduced. The hon. Member for South Antrim (David Burnside) referred to the ambiguities in the agreement. I must tell the hon. Member for Montgomeryshire (Lembit Öpik) that the Conservative party has been wedded to the aim of finding a solution to the problems in Northern Ireland and, during its terms in office, produced the Sunningdale agreement under Sir Edward Heath and the Anglo-Irish agreement under my right hon. and noble Friend Baroness Thatcher, and played an active part in the current peace process, which I would argue began under my right hon. and noble Friend, Lord Brooke, when he was Secretary of State. My right hon. Friends the Members for Richmond, Yorks (Mr. Hague), the then Leader of the Opposition, and for Bracknell (Mr. MacKay), the then shadow Secretary of State for Northern Ireland, campaigned alongside the Prime Minister and the then Secretary of State for Northern Ireland for a yes vote in 1998.

I respect the hon. Gentleman for his comments about his party's commitment to the continuation of the peace process. In that connection, I sincerely regret a facetious comment that I made when leaving a meeting yesterday, which referred to the hon. Gentleman. I withdraw it entirely and without reservation.

I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for that handsome withdrawal of an appalling remark. He and I are now roughly in balance. Once or twice my sense of humour has got the better of my sense of judgment, so I accept his full apology.

I praise what the Conservatives have done in the past, particularly John Major, who was instrumental in the current process. However, I was concerned earlier this year when I understood that the Conservatives were pulling out of the cross-party agreement. They sound as if they are now on board, for which I have unequivocal praise.

We have always been on board, and it is the hon. Gentleman's understanding that has been at a loss.

The Belfast agreement, on which the whole peace process is built, was based on a commitment by the parties to end violence. The assumption was that Sinn Fein would deliver the IRA, and that was not an unreasonable assumption to make since the people who represent Sinn Fein, as the hon. Member for Belfast, East made clear, are by and large the same people who sit on the army council of the Provisional IRA. The agreement was sold to the people of Northern Ireland by the Prime Minister, and the Minister will remember his speech at the Balmoral show ground, which bears repeating. The Prime Minister said:

"The problem is this: I believe that most people would be ready to accept even the hardest parts of the Agreement if they had genuine confidence that the paramilitaries were really ready to give up violence for good. I welcome Sinn Fein's endorsement of the Agreement and all that it implies. This is a historic shift. But after the experiences of the last 30 years, and some recent statements about no decommissioning, it is hardly surprising that for many, that confidence is simply not there."

I refer right hon. and hon. Members to the comments that followed:

"These factors will provide evidence upon which to base an overall judgment—a judgment which will necessarily become more rigorous over time."

That was the basis on which people in Northern Ireland voted for the agreement. I do not know why that speech has disappeared from the No. 10 website, or why it is no longer referred to. I sincerely hope that, given its importance, it will be listed again by No. 10 as one of the Prime Minister's seminal speeches.

What has happened over the past four years? We have had the procurement of weapons in Florida, and weapons testing has been carried out in Columbia in conjunction with narco-terrorists, with appalling consequences for the Columbian people. Updated targeting information has been uncovered, and shooting and beatings have risen since 1998. Most regrettably of all, we have witnessed the attitude of Sinn Fein's leadership to the Police Service of Northern Ireland, which is a key and symbolic test. When the chairman of Sinn Fein was not prepared to condemn the attempted murder of a Catholic recruit to the PSNI, what message did he send to the whole community of Northern Ireland about Sinn Fein's commitment to peace? I said to him yesterday that it remains absolutely necessary for him to make it clear that Sinn Fein abhors violence and is fully committed to peace. If he will not do that, what conclusion are people expected to draw when they hear Gerry Adams say that the PSNI will be treated the same as the RUC?

Everyone knows what conclusions they should draw. The judgments that have to be applied to Sinn Fein and the republicans are different from those that have to be applied to loyalists. The Progressive Unionist party and the Ulster Democratic party, which no longer exists, are not in government. I have heard the leadership of the PUP be more explicit in its condemnation of loyalist violence from its community than Sinn Fein ever has of violence coming from the republican community.

The Government face three options. The ideal option is for Sinn Fein to show leadership and condemn violence in the republican community, and to make it unequivocally clear that it is fully committed to the peaceful, democratic process. That is what we are looking for, and it can show leadership by further acts of decommissioning, joining the Policing Board and taking a constructive attitude towards the police in Northern Ireland. It can even show leadership in the language that it uses to the republican and nationalist community in Northern Ireland. The SDLP has already bravely given such leadership.

If that does not happen the Government will have to show leadership and deliver on the Prime Minister's Balmoral speech, which is the second option. If the Government do not deliver, we will look to the SDLP and the Ulster Unionist party, which have been fully committed to the democratic process, to exercise their responsibilities, which is the third option. However, it should not be left to them.

It is now down to the Prime Minister again to show the leadership that he used in negotiating the Belfast agreement four years ago. He should make it clear that in word and in spirit the Belfast agreement and the peace process will continue.

The hon. Member for East Devon (Mr. Swire) deserves our gratitude for offering us an opportunity to debate a subject that rightly generates passion and interest across the House. He further deserves our compliments for the thoughtful and eloquent way in which he opened the debate. In his speech he displayed a depth of understanding of the issues that set the scene for this debate at—I would be the first to concede this—such a difficult time.

The hon. Gentleman made a point to which I should like to refer before I deal with the wider issues. He and other hon. Members referred to the Select Committee report, which is very interesting and I commend it to those who have not read it. The Select Committee says that it has

"been encouraged by the evidence … that the Government is tackling"

organised crime and links to paramilitarism and are

"developing powerful and effective strategies to counter them".

It also says:

"Those who are actively engaged in the difficult and dangerous work of tackling paramilitaries and serious criminals have a right to expect not only a formal commitment to their work but properly resourced support by Government for the long term."

The report is weighty and comes from a serious Select Committee that has done some serious work. I should like members of the Committee who are present to accept that the Government take the recommendations in that enormously interesting report seriously.

It is not possible to draw a straight numerical comparison between what the Government are doing in Northern Ireland to tackle organised crime and policing in the Republic of Ireland. I shall say this about the way in which the PSNI tackle organised crime. Two reserve police officers on duty in Newry in the middle of the night spotted a suspicious vehicle that was dripping oil. They were unable to stop the vehicle, but they followed the trail of oil and discovered a fuel laundering plant that was laundering 1 million litres of fuel each month, which was creating a £500,000 loss to the Exchequer. One cannot say that the number of officers that the Chief Constable of Northern Ireland allocates to tackling organised crime is insufficient, because the whole of the PSNI turns its hand to tackling organised crime and deserves to be commended.

I shall now deal with the main subject, which is the general future of the peace process in Northern Ireland. The debate comes when we are confronted with significant challenges for the implementation of the agreement, which must be met before we can move ahead and make further progress. As we promised, we are considering how we overcome the challenges. We must overcome them, because the process can only go forward on the basis of commitment to entirely peaceful methods by those who are engaged in it. The Belfast agreement has brought us a long way, but it has the potential to take us much further, and we must hold to that fact.

As we become more distant from the awful days before the ceasefires, it is easy to forget what a transformation there has been in many aspects of life in Northern Ireland. My hon. Friend the Member for Hull, North (Mr. McNamara) was right to refer to the achievements that the agreement has made possible.

The most obvious development is that there is less violence. There is still too much street violence, and too many murders and scenes such as the utterly indefensible displays at Drumcree on Sunday. That is unacceptable. I should like to make it clear that the Government do not believe that there is any acceptable level of violence. Nevertheless, the contrast between what we have now and the days of the all-out terrorist campaigns is striking. There is too much violence—we could discuss the average number of deaths and so on—but it is important to hold to the fact that there have been many fewer deaths. In that context, what happened on Sunday in Drumcree must be kept in perspective and, for that reason, the comments of the hon. Member for Montgomeryshire (Lembit Öpik) are very telling.

The two acts of IRA decommissioning were of enormous symbolic significance and should not be dismissed lightly. The second was acknowledged by the Independent International Commission on Decommissioning to involve a "varied and substantial" quantity of weapons.

rose—

If the hon. Lady will forgive me, I shall resist interventions, because I have very little time left to deal with these very serious issues.

There has also been a massive rapprochement between political points of view, which for so many years have been in diametric opposition. A great deal of economic improvement has taken place. It has been under way for some years, but the prospect of peace has done a great deal to accelerate and embed it. Belfast has a vibrancy and character like never before. On a Saturday night in the city centre, hundreds of young people from all backgrounds visit clubs, pubs and restaurants and talk and laugh on the streets, as one would expect in any prosperous, up-and-coming city centre anywhere in the United Kingdom. The Government have done all that they can to sustain the process of economic development.

The Government and others have made enormous efforts to implement the agreement. However, the unfolding of the implementation process has given rise to legitimate concerns, which have grown in recent months. We must acknowledge that the benefits that I just mentioned have not been fully enjoyed by all in Northern Ireland. As has been too frequently and chillingly depicted on our television screens, there are areas in which reconciliation and partnership appear to be a remote prospect.

I acknowledge that hope has become tarnished as anxiety has grown that there may be a less full-hearted commitment—I put it no stronger than that—to peace and partnership among players on both sides of the community than we had hoped for at one stage. Such concerns have been at the centre of discussions between the political parties and Governments, including the proceedings at Hillsborough last week, which were led by the Prime Minister and the Taoiseach.

In the minute that I have left, I shall not go into the detail of the Government's thinking on the issues, nor shall I give the commitments that have been sought today. The Government must be permitted to take all the issues seriously and to respond carefully, as we promised we would in the commitment that we made last Thursday. I am grateful to the hon. Member for East Devon for giving us the opportunity to debate the issues.

I make no apologies for returning to a subject on which I secured an Adjournment debate, to which the Minister responded, just before the last general election. I do not apologise partly because the subject is a matter of considerable concern in my constituency—[Interruption.]

Order. It would be courteous to the hon. Member for South Derbyshire (Mr. Todd) if post mortems on the previous debate were held outside this Chamber.

Thank you, Mr. Deputy Speaker.

Local people in South Derbyshire continue to be worried about the issue. In winter 2000, there were incursions into the communities of Hatton, Willington, Shardlow and Barrow upon Trent, and several smaller incursions into other communities, that caused damage to private property and made local people anxious about their future. They were worried about their possessions, livelihoods and whether they would be able to continue to live in their chosen area. Since then, the community of Hatton, in particular, has benefited substantially from investment in repairing existing flood defences, raising flood defences to more appropriate levels, and in ongoing provision of new flood defences, which should be completed next month. Severn Trent, the area's sewerage company, has engaged in a positive programme to improve the sewerage network to prevent a flow back of sewage into people's houses, which had distressing and damaging effects in 2000.

Progress has been made and I commend the work that has been done. Incidentally, I also commend the strategic review that has just started on the Trent catchment area. The scoping document has come to me and the review should lead to a clearer strategy for the area—perhaps next year. That will be very welcome. My constituency is crossed by the Dove, Trent and Derwent rivers and by several minor brooks, which are also prone to flooding. Flood defences are a key priority of the people of South Derbyshire, but I want to paint a wider picture.

It is important to recognise that floods are a national problem of considerable scale. Hundreds of people in South Derbyshire faced the loss of their homes during part of the winter of 2000, and 10,000 homes throughout the country were affected in that way. Many communities outside South Derbyshire are anxious about the prospect of winter.

The insurance industry has signalled its willingness to continue to renew policies in areas that are considered to be flood risks until the end of the year. However, it is ringing alarm bells about the prospect of continuing to offer that service for citizens of such areas beyond that date unless the Government take various steps. I shall address those steps later.

In a question to the Prime Minister, I referred to the insurance company esure's announcement that it will not offer insurance products to people in areas at risk of floods. Several insurance companies have already taken action. I have corresponded with Norwich Union, for example, about difficulties that my constituents have experienced when trying to renew insurance products. Alarm bells are ringing and if they are not addressed, people's ability to sustain a reasonable standard of living in these communities will be affected. It is essential that householders can purchase at reasonable cost insurance products that can secure their property and its contents against flood risk. If that is not available, these communities will become less sustainable.

The overall picture of funding of flood defences is addressed in one of the key arguments that the insurance sector has advanced. If we refer to the evidence on expenditure on flood and coastal defences that was given to the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs Committee—of which I am a member—in 2001, in the current year £414 million is expected to be spent on flood defences by a variety of agencies. It is important to stress that that is not only Government expenditure, but also expenditure that is authorised through local authorities. However, research sponsored by the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs states that longer-term funding of £565 million per year is required simply to maintain current standards of defences, to improve them to acceptable levels and to mitigate predictable climate change impacts. Therefore, there is a spending gap that desperately needs to be addressed.

We now know that the Chancellor will announce the spending round next week and I am well aware that the Department has made representations on this subject in the spending review. I do not expect my hon. Friend the Minister to be able to give me an answer as to precisely what the contents of that review will be—he is shaking his head, as I expected. However, I hope that he can at least give some favourable indication as to how the concerns that the Department has expressed have been received by the Treasury.

It is fair to say—I always try to be fair—that expenditure on flood defences has increased in the past couple of years. Nevertheless, according to the data that the Department itself provided, this gap exists and we should try to deal with it.

The next issue will also be familiar to my hon. Friend—the organisational complexity of how that money is used and how we get results from it. I have always found it bizarre that there are about 600 organisations in this country that have some say in how flood defences are managed. I also find it strange that many of them have no clear statutory duty to carry out any particular tasks that are critical to the delivery of flood defences. Therefore, we had the astonishing example—which my hon. Friend will recall, because he had to answer a series of written parliamentary questions from me about it—of the failure of local authorities to co-operate with the Environment Agency in the inspection of ditches and watercourses, even though it is their responsibility to inspect them and to ensure that they are properly maintained. I was staggered by the evidence that a large number of local authorities had responded by saying either that they did not have the resources to do the job or that they did not have the expertise to do it and that it would therefore have to be postponed until a more appropriate time or until they could find such expertise. That is unacceptable.

Providing information on flood risk in local communities is a crucial task. Sadly, it is not the case that all of the local authorities that responded in that way had had no experience of flood risk. There is a list of the local authorities that responded in that way; I will riot run through it, but it is on the record, and a glance at it will show several communities where flood risk was a fairly recent experience and yet their local authorities were unable to do those jobs.

I attended a meeting that my hon. Friend the Minister addressed in which he said that the system is extremely complicated but it works—I suppose that it depends on what one means by works. The English way of administration is normally described as muddling through. We provide an extremely complicated way of doing something and, because we are all well-intentioned people who are innovative in our ways, we get across problems and barriers and produce an outcome that most people are prepared to accept.

No one would suggest that the organisation of flood defences is optimal. In Scotland, for example, local authorities are obliged to carry out various tasks relating to the inspection and maintenance of areas of flood risk for which they are responsible, but there is no matching responsibility in England. We may wish local authorities to take on that responsibility, but it is up to their electors to decide whether it is a priority for expenditure. There is not even an obligation to spend money set aside in revenue support to a local authority on the task for which it was intended. The Government's statistics contain information on the amount of money that local authorities are supposed to spend on floods, flood defences and flood protection, but we have no way of knowing whether that money has been spent or whether it matches the amount of money that is needed. We might have tolerated that sort of spatchcock muddle at a time when the risk of flooding was lower, but it is no longer acceptable.

It is clearly necessary to change the way in which we tackle the matter. We need to provide clearer executive leadership to the management of flood defences in this country, and in my view such leadership should be vested in the Environment Agency. Those who are supposed to be co-operating with the agency in its task should be under a clear statutory obligation to do the things that they are supposed to do to ensure that such activity is not optional or voluntary. There needs to be a more resilient framework for dealing with those problems.

Although it is clear that the risk that lies ahead is not readily quantifiable, it is substantial. The research commissioned from the Centre for Ecology and Hydrology and the Met Office by DEFRA indicates that in the past 50 years there has been a significant increase in the incidence of heavy rainfall and peak river flow. Although those organisations cannot directly link that increase to climate change because we do not have enough data, they say that the changes are consistent with predicted climate change. We have been warned and must take clear action.

My final point returns to the local perspective. We all have a role in flood defence, and that includes landowners and developers who want to use ground that lies in flood risk areas. We desperately need better quality maps to show where those areas are. The Environment Agency readily concedes that its current maps are incomplete and not necessarily very accurate. The insurance industry often uses postcodes to indicate flood risk, which is extremely inaccurate. We need a more authoritative base on which to decide those things. We also need clearly to define the policy that applies to those areas.

In Scotland, virtually no development is taking place in flood risk areas, which is partly because there are additional call-in powers if a development is proposed. In England, there is still significant new development on flood plains. Another issue is how one deals with the replacement of existing development. We all have responsibility: landowners, the Government, private individuals living in the affected areas and insurance providers as well. In that context, more money and a clearer organisational framework are required.

I am grateful to the Minister and the hon. Member for South Derbyshire (Mr. Todd) for allowing me a short intervention during this Adjournment debate. I have three quick questions for the Minister. First, we know that so far this year we have had historically high rainfall. The acquifers are full and the ground is saturated and, in October, there will be an astronomical high tide. What reassurance can the Minister give that there will not be massive flooding during October?

Secondly, does the Minister believe that more should be done—and if so, what—to encourage the use of natural or "soft" flood defences? Thirdly, one of the problems is that flood water is not egressing into the sea because rivers are inadequately dredged. Would the Minister detail what improvements there have been in the dredging of the mouths of tidal rivers?

I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for South Derbyshire (Mr. Todd) on securing the debate. He has been very active on the issue of flood defence, including the institutional arrangements and funding. I know that it is a particular interest in his constituency, as he has outlined during the debate. He has also been a very active participant in the Select Committee on Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, which produced a good report on flood and coastal defence. That report influenced the Government's examination of the institutional arrangements. He will be aware of our funding review, to which he made a very constructive response. We are looking at the institutional arrangements, as well as the way that we raise funding, so that we have a more transparent system.

I stand by what I said to the all-party flood defence group. I was pleased that that group was set up. It was a very useful opportunity to discuss the issues. Given the risks in this country—an island surrounded by sea with high rainfall—our record in flood and coastal defence stands up in comparison with any other country, and is better than many. I know that that is no consolation to those who have been affected by flooding, and I make that absolutely clear.

In response to one of the questions from the hon. Member for Mid-Bedfordshire (Mr. Sayeed), I do believe that there is more that we can do. We intend to do more and natural defences are certainly an option that we are embracing in the range of options that we are considering for flood and coastal defence. There has been high rainfall recently, although there was quite a dry spell in the spring, and I have had no reports that there is a serious cause for concern in relation to acquifer levels. All the factors, including tidal surges, are monitored regularly by the Environment Agency and local authorities. We have a contingency plan for dealing with them. On dredging, the Environment Agency does carry that out, and it can be a useful measure in relation to water courses, but it is not that useful in tidal estuaries. Whatever is taken out of a tidal estuary is simply filled up by the volume of the sea and has a limited effect, so it depends on where the dredging takes place. I am often asked about dredging, but it is much more limited than some people think.

In response to my hon. Friend the Member for South Derbyshire, we are going ahead with the review. We will be publishing our proposals in the autumn detailing what people have said to us and our response. Many responses have been very helpful and constructive. People feel that many of the recommendations in the funding review are desirable. Some examples include the connection charge, regional customer bodies, an operating authority to be the sole service provider, and expert advisers for regional customer bodies with the possibility of subcontracting works to local authorities and the internal drainage boards. The review also suggested how we could streamline arrangements in the short term, including transferring to the Environment Agency responsibility for managing critical ordinary watercourses, blocking grant payments for some or all of the present funding delivered to the agency by the Government and removal of one of the tiers of flood defence committees. The flood plain levy, about which my hon. Friend was concerned, was not an option favoured in the funding review from the very beginning and it is no surprise to me that it is not favoured in the responses. We consulted on the proposals and will respond in due course.

I want to speak briefly about esure, which my hon. Friend mentioned. We spoke in some detail and had a constructive engagement with the Association of British Insurers. I have said on many occasions that we have the same agenda, which is to reduce the risk for people in this country. No one can guarantee that flooding will not happen, but we can do and are doing a great deal about flood risks. To be blunt, it was a bit of a cheek for esure to state publicly that it would not provide insurance in flood risk areas. We are not aware that it has ever provided significant insurance in flood risk areas. The company is entitled to cherry-pick customers and go for low-risk business in a competitive market, but its attempt at what many in the industry felt was a publicity stunt has seriously backfired. The company has come in for considerable criticism from consumers and industry bodies. It did not pull out of the market—it was not actually in it—but used the situation as an excuse to draw attention to its market decision.

I was surprised by a recent statement from esure that it would provide insurance in some flood-risk areas in Scotland but not in England. That did not come as a total surprise, as it is a Glasgow-based Scottish company, but what was a surprise was the seeming lack of understanding about the differences between Scottish and English approaches to flood and coastal defence and the comparative risks.

The approaches are not dissimilar in terms of planning, but investment commitments are very different. For example, the total spend on flood and coastal defence in Scotland is about £10 million a year on capital and £2 million a year on revenue. In England, we spend a combined total of more than £400 million. In the 40 years since 1961, 60 schemes have been approved in Scotland. More than twice that number are approved each year in England. Since the floods of 2000, my Department has approved a total of 274 new flood and coastal schemes, at an approved cost of £386,417,694. That is the difference in scale.

Those figures are not meant to criticise Scotland but to put in perspective the differences between the two countries. I cannot say that I am very impressed with esure's arguments, and I am not at all sympathetic to the fact that it has come out of the episode with some damage to its reputation.

While my hon. Friend is on the subject of comparisons with Scotland, will he discuss the primary legislation that exists in Scotland but not in England that obliges local authorities to perform various duties in respect of flood defence?

I am grateful that my hon. Friend raised that matter, because such legislation does not exist in Scotland. There is no duty to undertake capital works in Scotland, in the same way that there is no duty to do so in England. There is a duty to carry out maintenance of watercourses if they represent a risk of flooding in urban areas and there is, in effect, a duty to maintain the existing defences in our country through the regional flood defence committees, but there is no real difference between the two countries. I am not aware that Scotland has agreed to the higher defence standards that have been proposed by the ABI.

It is not the case that there are different statutory obligations in Scotland and England. There are some differences in the way that the organisation is put in place for flood planning. I do not believe, however, that the way in which we provide, for example, flood risk mapping, which is taken into account by local authorities in their structure plans, causes a difference in outcome. However, we have an open mind on such matters. We are talking to the ABI and proposing further future investment. In this country, we are always seeking to improve our organisation and the way that we do things, with the objective of reducing the risk to our population.

My hon. Friend mentioned local authority participation in flood defence inspections, a fair point to raise. Those inspections are part of the series of high-level targets that we have set to ensure that defences and watercourses are properly inspected by the bodies and agencies that have operational responsibility for them. I hope to be able to publish shortly a report from the Environment Agency on the results of those inspections and the part that local authorities have played in them. Of course, any local authorities that have not played that part will be identified, although many that had not sent in reports have subsequently done so. There has been some catching-up on the targets set.

In the longer term, one option being considered under the funding review, as my hon. Friend knows, is for critical ordinary watercourses to become the responsibility of the Environment Agency. I want to consider that option very carefully, in the light of information received through the high-level targets. I know that my hon. Friend and other organisations and bodies have raised responsibility for non-main critical watercourses. There will have to be some adjustments—there might be some main watercourses that are not critical, which could be de-mained. There are also financial implications for the Environment Agency, which we will have to take into account. That option may well improve the way in which those watercourses are dealt with. Although they are often small, they can account for quite serious flooding. We are aware of that and that option would be part of the overall approach that we are taking to reduce such risk.

As my hon. Friend rightly concluded, I am not yet in a position to comment on our spending review 2002 bid, although I expect to be able to do so in the not-too-distant future. Spending on the commitments that we have made to flood and coastal defence in this country has risen. For example, between 1996–97 and 2003–04—the end of our current spending review period—total Government expenditure is expected to increase from £309.7 million to £414.2 million in cash terms, an increase of nearly 34 per cent. That reflects the considerable extra money put into flood and coastal defence as a result of the floods in 2000 and the exceptional rainfall experienced then.

My hon. Friend is right to say that, while we cannot yet say that there is a long-term trend towards higher rainfall and climate change, we must plan for that. We must look at the worst-case scenarios and ensure that they are factored into our future planning and financial commitments. We have research and development budgets that are committed to climate forecasting and trying to gain a better understanding of potential climate change and what that might mean for this country in the long term. The Government and my Department are funding and supporting a number of projects. We are also investing heavily in flood warning, Investment that has increased significantly with the £100 million committed over the next 10 years through the Environment Agency.

While my hon. Friend is touching on that subject, will he refer to my comment on the need for better mapping to show exactly where flood risks occur?

I accept that need. The flood risk mapping that the Environment Agency has put in place and made publicly available is a great advantage, but it is not 100 per cent. accurate and the Environment Agency has never claimed that that is the case. I am very impressed with the work that Norwich Union is doing on digital mapping, which is much more accurate. We are keen to co-operate with such involvement to improve information so that people can ascertain risk and we can work, through our investment, which is at record levels, to continue to reduce that risk in this country.

It is perhaps appropriate that this debate is being held today, when the European Commission is due to publish proposals on changes to the common agricultural policy. This debate focuses on one aspect where commonality has clearly failed, due to certain Governments' actions to protect their own country's farming interests.

In this debate, I intend to cover two main points: the position of Scottish beef exports to Europe and the dangers posed to Scottish lamb exports to France. I imagine that the Minister does not need me to go into any great detail on the ban of beef exports to the European Union in the wake of the BSE crisis. Suffice it to say that Germany had lifted its ban by March 2000, leaving only France banning beef imports, a position that it still maintains. All other European Union countries now allow the import of beef, although, obviously, the amount being exported is well down compared with pre-BSE exports.

I note that Jim Walker of the Scottish National Farmers Union was reported in the Daily Recordon 18 March 2000 as commenting on Germany's lifting of the ban:

"Ministers must now work to increase the amount of beef we can export".

Since then, we have been visited by the disaster of foot and mouth, although Scotland, with the exception of Dumfries and Galloway and a small part of the border area, did not suffer as much as other parts of the United Kingdom. Since then, however, I understand that there have been hardly any beef exports from the UK at all.

My first question to the Minister is to ask what action his Department has taken, in conjunction with the Scottish Executive, to restart and increase the amount of Scottish beef being exported to Europe. What plans does he have to take that forward during the next 12 months?

The Minister should be aware that there is rising disbelief in Scotland that France is continuing to get away with banning Scottish beef imports, when the incidence of BSE in Scotland was never high—in fact, it is rising in France while it is falling in Scotland. In the UK in 1999, there were 2,133 reported cases of BSE but only 35 of those, compared with 93 the previous year, were in Scotland. One reason for that is that most Scottish cattle are reared specifically for beef and are not simply a by-product of the dairy industry. The majority of BSE cases have been in dairy cattle in England. Lest it be thought that I am being narrowly nationalistic, I acknowledge that the English industry has taken stringent safety steps. UK beef as a whole is probably now the safest in Europe, although Scottish beef always was.

Before the BSE crisis, Scottish beef exports to the European Union were worth about £120 million per annum. Now they are worth almost zero. Only one abattoir in Scotland, located in Bridge of Allan, Stirlingshire, can process beef under the present date-based export scheme, and it has already said that it will not re-enter the European market until Europe reviews the costly and complicated structure of the scheme.

Can the Minister tell us whether there is to be any review of the date-based scheme? Given that the incidence of BSE has always been, and continues to be, low in Scotland, what representations have the Government made to the European Union for Scotland to be granted low-incidence status, which would hopefully mean fewer regulations on the export of beef to Europe?

Before the ban, exports of quality Scottish beef were worth about £125 million per year. That trade disappeared overnight and is now, even with the lifting of the ban, worth only a fraction of that amount. Before the ban, about 110,000 tonnes of UK beef—10 per cent. of total consumption—went to France. That market has now gone.

The French ban remains in place despite the fact that, this April, the European Union Food and Veterinary Office visited French laboratories, rendering plants, feed mills and other institutions. It reported that potentially infected material from animal carcases was getting into animal feed, and the rules on handling specified risk materials banned from the human food chain were not fully implemented. That is from a country that bans the import of beef from this country—double standards par excellence.

Earlier this year, it was suggested that the French Government were maintaining the ban for political reasons in the run-up to the French elections, but there was still no evidence of movement once the elections were out of the way. The French Government are flouting European Union law in an act of blatant protectionism. Either European law applies to everyone, or it is of no use to anyone. The illegal ban has now lasted for more than three years and action is long overdue. Will the Minister tell us what action the Government are taking to deal with the apparent outright double standards of the French, who maintain the ban on Scottish beef for purely political reasons?

On 26 June, it was reported that France had been given a 15-day ultimatum by the European Commission to lift its ban on United Kingdom beef or face large daily fines. By my imperfect arithmetic, that period expires today. Has any action been taken by the French Government to lift the ban? Has there been any communication to the UK Government or the European Commission indicating their intention to lift the ban? If that has not happened, will the UK Government ensure that the EU takes action this time?

Secondly, I am concerned about the proposed French action against Scottish lamb. I know that this is also of extreme concern to my friends in Wales who, as the Minister may be aware, have an important lamb industry.

I thank my hon. Friend for giving way. Does he accept that the sheep meat sector is vital for both our countries, particularly my constituency, which largely consists of hill farms? The French ban is having a serious effect on that industry, especially given the pressure on farm incomes, which are substantially lower than they are in England.

Indeed, I agree entirely with my hon. Friend. As he will know, many parts of Scotland have what was a thriving sheep industry. Parts of Angus, Perthshire and the highlands have a great many sheep, and many are on hill farms that cannot diversify to overcome the problems imposed by bans, such as the one proposed by the French. It has been reported that France plans to introduce draconian new processing rules that would decimate lamb exports from Scotland and Wales. It is said that the French will demand the removal of spinal cord from the carcases of all lambs aged over six months, despite the fact that European scientific advisers say that there is no justification for that. Despite extensive research and a lot of money being ploughed into it, there is no evidence that BSE, is present in sheep at all.

The Minister must be well aware that a French ban would be a disaster for an industry that my hon. Friend has already said is reeling under the impact of foot and mouth. I know that it affected Wales far more than it did Scotland. That is yet another example of the French Government attempting to act unilaterally, which simply cannot be tolerated. Europe either works for all, or it works for none. Such actions undermine those of us who believe in the European Union, and wish to see movement in Europe. However, unilateral action by one Government against our farming industry is simply unacceptable.

The Minister will also be aware that prior to 1999, total UK sheep meat exports to the rest of the EU were, according to figures from his Department, over 100,000 tonnes per annum, and worth some £200 million to the rural economy. Last year, that figure fell to some 30,000 tonnes and the value to £77 million. Prior to that, France was a major buyer of Scottish lamb. However, it is not only the fact that France buys the lamb from Scotland and Wales, but that almost all lamb sold in other European countries moves through French ports. If the French Government implement the new rules, they will seriously jeopardise exports to France and to all other countries in the EU. The unilateral action of the French Government would affect exports not only to one country but to the whole EU. Again, that stands in the way of a free market in the EU.

I emphasise again that there is absolutely no evidence, despite a massive amount of research, that BSE is present in sheep. Scrapie is in sheep flocks in the UK, but it has been there for centuries without any ill effects. In Scotland, the Executive's forward strategy for agriculture seeks to eliminate the disease throughout the country. Steps are being taken to eliminate scrapie although there is no evidence that it can turn into BSE.

The proposals from the French Government are nothing more than another attempt to protect their sheep industry. A ban would be a disaster for the rural economies of Scotland and Wales. In Scotland, almost half of all lamb produced is exported and in normal times 80 per cent. of it goes to France. After the foot and mouth crisis, Scottish sheep farmers cannot survive another crisis. Although Scotland was not affected to the same extent as England and Wales by foot and mouth, the indirect effects on Scottish agriculture have been just as great because of the overall image of meat in the United Kingdom.

What action has the Department taken to tackle the Issue with the French Government? What action has the Minister taken with the European Union? Can he assure us that if the French impose a ban, immediate action will be taken to ensure that it does not turn into another never-ending fiasco like the beef ban?

Those matters are crucial to the rural economies of Scotland and Wales. The Minister will be aware that in Scotland the average income of a farmer is £6,000 per annum, and I would guess that the average income is not much better than that in Wales. Sheep farmers are often hill farmers. They are not rich; they are very hardworking and they have suffered setback after setback in recent years. There is little prospect of diversification on hill farms because the ground is often suitable only for sheep and they cannot diversify, as is possible on some lowland farms. If a ban is imposed, many hill farmers will go out of business and the rural economy and the environment of Scotland and Wales will be the real losers.

Much as I respect the Minister, I must say that the Government are running out of credit with Scottish farmers, especially after the comments made by the Foreign Secretary on the common agricultural policy on Monday and the frankly offensive comments made in Scottish questions yesterday by the Secretary of State for Scotland, who went out of her way to agree that Scotland's farmers suffer from welfare dependency. Nothing could be further from the truth.

We have our own Parliament in Scotland, but unfortunately it does not have direct representation in Europe on those matters, despite their greater importance to the Scottish economy than to the UK economy. Scotland needs the normal powers of a normal independent nation to push those matters in the European Union. Until we reach that happy day, we are forced to rely on the UK Government to deal with such matters on our behalf. Will the Minister make sure that senior members of the Scottish Executive are allowed to represent Scotland in Europe on the issue, which is vital to Scotland and Wales? A lamb ban from France would see the end of those industries and yet more damage to the fragile rural economies of Scotland and Wales.

I congratulate the hon. Member for Angus (Mr. Weir) on securing the debate and making a strong case for both livestock farmers in his constituency and the situation in general. He will forgive me if do not agree with his last comment about the constitutional arrangements between Scotland and the United Kingdom, which, as he knows, are endorsed by the vast majority in Scotland.

I acknowledge that beef and lamb exports are important to the Scottish rural economy, as they are in Wales and England too. Members of the devolved Administrations have been closely involved at all levels of decision making in agreeing a joint UK approach to promote our interests and deal with some of the problems. I shall come to that in a moment, but first I shall deal directly with some of the hon. Gentleman's arguments, before I forget them.

The hon. Gentleman asked about low-incidence status for BSE in Scotland and whether it could be applied for exports. We have considered it and discussed it with the Scottish Executive. The problem is that if Scotland had low-incidence status, cattle movements across the border into the rest of Great Britain would have to be restricted. That would cause problems for many Scottish farmers. There are some practical difficulties in such an approach, assuming that agreement could he obtained.

I understand the Minister's point, but do not understand why the situation would be different, for example, if France had low-incidence status but Spain did not. The same problems would also arise between the Republic of Ireland and Northern Ireland, where there is a lot of cross-border traffic in cattle. Why would the circumstances be different for Scotland and England?

There would be problems because there is much more movement of cattle across the border between England and Scotland. English cattle are moved to Scottish slaughterhouses and Scottish cattle are moved to English slaughterhouses. Scottish cattle are moved south for all sorts of reasons. The Department's view is that there is much more movement in the patterns of the livestock trade, which would cause difficulties for Scottish farmers.

The hon. Gentleman is right, however, that BSE incidence is falling in this country very much in line with the projections of our scientists. The measures that we have had in place for some time and at some expense are working—there are no two ways about it. In some European countries, the incidence is rising. Therefore, we are making good progress and are on track to eliminate BSE.

It is fair to say that the overall number of cases has been higher in the UK than in other countries. Nevertheless, it is clear that our measures are working. As the number of incidents continues to decline, we will review the over-30-months scheme and the date-based export scheme. That is inevitable, and we will do it when the opportunity arises.

The hon. Gentleman asked what contact we have had with the French authorities about the reasoned opinion that the Commission has sent to the French Government on their non-compliance with the European Court ruling. As he stated, the opinion gives the French Government 14 days to respond as to why they have not complied with the ruling, but the court penalty is not automatically triggered after that period. Their response will be taken into account and, if the court feels that the response is inadequate, it has powers to take further action, which may include imposing daily fines on the French Government.

With our colleagues in the Scottish Executive and the devolved Administrations, we have been pressing very hard on the matter. We have lobbied actively and the subject has been raised at the highest level between the Prime Minister and Jacques Chirac as recently as 19 June. We have used all diplomatic channels open to us. The French equivalent of our Food Standards Agency contacted the FSA to ask about the measures that we have in place and their effectiveness. We know that the FSA is content with the measures and endorses what we have been doing about BSE. I hope that careful note is taken of that by the FSA's French equivalent, which has been asked to review the case by the new French Government. That is a helpful move and I very much hope that the French Government will be persuaded that there is no justification for the ban in terms of consumer safety, let alone ignoring the law.

I am very interested in the Minister's comments. The French seem to be experts at obfuscation on the matter, which has been going on for years. The European Court gave them a 14 or 15-day period. Does the Minister know whether they have replied to the European Court or will things drag on even longer?

We certainly hope not. The dispute is between the European Commission and France. France is ignoring Community rules and it is the Commission's responsibility to ensure that those rules are applied. The court action has been brought and is being pursued by the Commission. We are actively reminding the Commission of its responsibilities and we expect an early resolution to the situation.

Court cases never move as fast as one would like. That applies not only to the European Court, but to courts in our country. Nevertheless, they get there in the end. I am confident that that will happen in this case. I hope that the French Government will think again before they are forced to go to court to lift their illegal ban. They have said to us that they are required by their national law to seek the views of their food standards agency—we know that they are doing that because their agency has been in touch with ours.

To lift the ban alone will not ensure that beef exports flourish. I understand the hon. Gentleman's argument that changes need to be made to the date-based export scheme. We are considering those and how they might apply. Our efforts are having some effect. We hope that amendments to the scheme will be adopted in Brussels shortly because they would encourage renewed participation and permit British beef to begin to regain its rightful place in world markets. Beef from all regions has a strong identity and Scottish beef has a very good record in exports. We and the Scottish Executive are giving thought to providing practical assistance with charges to new entrants on the date-based export scheme.

As the hon. Gentleman rightly stated, the French authorities proposed a six-month age limit on spinal removal. We never felt that that was justified and I am glad to say that they have recently agreed to postpone that proposal, which would have been illegal—yet again—under Community law. I recognise that the trade is worth £15 million per month to UK industry, and that it is important to many people in the UK, from those in the Pennines to the Welsh and Scottish hill farmers. We have worked closely with our colleagues in the devolved Administrations, with the EU and with other member states in pressing France to reconsider their proposals.

Had the French gone ahead with their proposals, the banning of specified risk material in the spinal cord of all sheep over six months old could have undermined the harmonised EU rules that apply to sheep from 12 months old. In practice, that would have required UK exporters to split lamb carcases to remove their spinal cords, certifying that lambs less than six months old pose considerable problems. Any live sheep export would have had to be certified beyond the EU standard. We are pleased with the thriving carcase exports to France and the rest of the continent and we hope that farmers concentrate on the carcase, rather than the live, element of exports.

In the opinion of the EU Scientific Steering Committee and the Food Standards Agency, the French proposals provided no significant consumer benefits. That is worth stressing. All countries have concerns about their consumers and want to ensure consumer protection; we are no different, which is reflected in our range of measures and how seriously we take them However, it does not make sense to impose measures that are totally disproportionate and offer so few benefits for consumer protection. We have made that point strongly, and said that the French proposals, and the way in which that country is acting unilaterally, are illegal under EU law. We are glad that France is thinking again about the matter and has postponed its measures. We will continue to press the fact that their approach is both illegal and unnecessary.

On consumer protection, the Food Standards Agency has been considering such matters as whether banning sheep intestines would be an appropriate consumer protection measure. It has asked the Commission to consider adding intestines to the EU specified risk material list, arguing for that measure in Europe and testing the science, rather than imposing it unilaterally. We think that that is a much more sensible way forward on such matters.

The hon. Gentleman is right about the importance of our export markets for beef and, in particular, lamb at the present time. We on the UK side are working very hard, in conjunction with the devolved Administrations, to tackle those issues. It will take time to get our markets back. Once one comes out of a market, it takes time to re-establish oneself in it. It appears however, that the market for lamb has come back much faster than many people feared following the foot and mouth restrictions.

The beef market has been completely destroyed because of BSE. Does the Minister accept that a ban on lamb by the French, whether justified or not, has the potential to create the same devastation in the sheep meat industry? It is essential that the Government act, with the European Union, to stop the ban being imposed in the first place. Once a ban is there, the word will get around and the industry will take years to recover, if it can ever do so.

I absolutely accept that point, although it is an issue not only for us, but for other countries that sell to France and for French sheep traders themselves. The French sheep sector was very opposed to the French proposals for precisely the reason that the hon. Gentleman gave and for the reasons that I have emphasised. Such a ban would be difficult to enforce—ageing lambs less than six months old—it would not really improve consumer protection and it is disproportionate and illegal in Community law. We are glad that the French have withdrawn the proposals and we will press very strongly, through the EU and directly with the French, for them to be dropped completely. They should not simply be postponed; the French should recognise that they are not in their interests.

The hon. Gentleman referred to the image of meat. We have made considerable strides in this country towards restoring consumer confidence. It was a shock to many European countries, which had said that there was no possibility that their national herds would have BSE, to find out that they did have it. In some cases, they did not have the same measures for consumer protection, monitoring and enforcement that we now have in place, although such measures are now being stepped up on an EU-wide basis, to deal with that problem.

Consumers here and in potential markets can have confidence in the measures that we have put in place in this country. They are based on the precautionary principle, sound science and good and effective enforcement. There has been a considerable cost to this country in putting those measures in place, but that investment is well worth it, given the increased consumer confidence and safety.

The hon. Gentleman mentioned scrapie in sheep. He will be aware that we have launched the national scrapie plan, which is designed to eradicate scrapie completely from our national flock. That is beneficial to the quality of the flock and in trade terms. It will also remove any lingering doubts that scrapie is masking BSE in sheep. The hon. Gentleman is right that we have no evidence that there is BSE in our national flock. It is not as if we were waiting for something nasty to hit us; we are actively monitoring the flock and seeking the signs of BSE, and have not found any evidence of it at all. That is also important for consumer protection.

I again congratulate the hon. Gentleman on the case that he has made. I hope that I have convinced him that we are working in partnership with the devolved authorities to tackle the issues that he raised. I believe that we are making effective progress on that and winning the argument through the sound, scientific and reasoned way in which we have put our case.

I thank the participants in the previous debate for giving me one extra minute to speak.

My reasons for initiating the debate are: first, to welcome the Government's recognition that children and young people have a legitimate right to be consulted on policy and public services; secondly, to highlight the position of children and young people in relation to citizenship; and thirdly, to ensure that the Government systematically review their methods of consulting children and young people so that all Departments improve and refine their consultation methods.

I strongly welcome the commitment from the Government, which has been led by the children and young persons unit, to involve young people in the design, provision and evaluation of policies and services that affect them. Young people are clearly users of public services and should be consulted as service users just as adults are. It has become accepted good practice in local government and central Government that public services should not be designed top down by service providers, but should try to respond to the actual needs, as opposed to the perceived needs, of the users. Consulting users is not just a public relations exercise; it actively contributes to the improvement of services, allows the expertise of service users to be incorporated into the design of services, and helps to identify which services should be prioritised.

An interesting example of that happening arose from an experience in my constituency. Milton Keynes council recently ran for children of primary and secondary school age a consultation day about the provision of local services. I was extremely surprised by the issue that those children, who were aged 7 and upwards, identified as their highest priority for extra spending. They wanted more police and more money spent on the police. They perceived that major problems were the bullying of younger children by older children, not just in schools where it can be dealt with but on the streets out of school hours, and harassment by adults—I do not think that they were referring to serious forms of abuse, but to adults who might speak to them in a way that they did not think was entirely appropriate. They also mentioned the problem of theft from children and focused, not exclusively, on mobile phones. They felt that they would feel safer if more police were about to whom they could appeal to protect them from those problems.

Children are clearly service users, but in a democracy children and young people are not just service users or consumers, they are citizens. I am pleased that from September, citizenship will be compulsory in British schools. Perhaps I should declare an interest: my husband has devised and has been running a course at the university of Leicester for training teachers of citizenship. I am pleased to say that all his students have found jobs in state schools starting in September. Some people are therefore trained and ready to teach citizenship.

The citizenship curriculum encourages young people to develop the knowledge and skills to enable them to be active participants in a democratic society. It also encourages schools to be more democratic environments; it is important that young people are not just taught democracy as if it were a theoretical skill, but that they feel part of democratic institutions. Despite the apparent lack of interest from young people in conventional political activity, which we politicians are constantly bemoaning, a huge amount of data shows that young people are interested and often passionate about politics in its widest sense, and particularly in environmental issues. They are just not terribly interested in politics as it is put before them by politicians in the political process.

From their interest in environmental issues, young people are often clear about the fact that personal behaviour can link into policy commitment and that personal decisions about consuming less or recycling more are a demonstration of commitment to more environmentally friendly policies that speak more loudly than writing letters or nobbling politicians. Young people understand that political change can be influenced by personal action, and that it does not just start or end with voting.

That brings me to young people and voting, as voting is a key right in a democracy. Many argue that the fact that the 18-to-20-year-old age group has the vote but does not use it at the same rate as older adults is a strong argument for not reducing the voting age to 16. I think that that is wrong and reject the argument absolutely. The absence of voting rights for 16-year-olds contributes to lower participation rates among young people who have the vote.

As the under-18s cannot vote, none of the political parties have programmes that address the needs of young people. I hope that hon. Members agree. I went around knocking on doors before the last general election and when I spoke to young people I was struck that there was not much that I could say about our programme—or what they should be opposing in the programmes of other parties—that was relevant to them. We were all addressing older people in our political programmes.

It is not surprising that not many young people voted because for young people there was not much difference between the parties. We had nothing to say that was very relevant to them. If 16-year-olds had the vote, we politicians would have to develop policies that addressed their needs. That would give younger people a stronger reason to vote.

I have become interested in affordable travel for young people. Transport is an example of how young people's needs are undervalued because they are essentially disfranchised. Affordable travel is a key issue for pensioners and young people. There are great similarities between those two groups. A large proportion of both groups are heavy users of public transport. Many in both groups have relatively little access to the private car, and they both have low incomes. Everyone knows that free bus passes for pensioners is a huge political issue, because pensioners have the vote and a high participation rate, so we try to court them and respond to their needs. At the other end of the scale, affordable transport for young people is not on the political agenda because young people do not have the vote, so the political parties do not address the issue. I am pleased that reducing the voting age is now on the agenda and I shall be supporting it.

Let us consider how the Government consult with children and young people. The Government's core principles were published in November 2001, but I tabled a series of written questions in April this year asking Departments when and with whom they had consulted in trying to gauge young people's interests. The answers showed a variable performance between Departments. Most said that they were drawing up an action plan to describe how they would consult with young people, but had not actually consulted with them. Whose responsibility is it to check that all Departments, have finalised their action plans and are delivering them?

There were some examples of good practice. I shall cite the Department of Health, but there was good practice elsewhere, too. The Department of Health's "Quality Protects" programme, which relates to social services, has a young person's reference group that meets three times a year and can comment on and feed into the programme. The organisation A National Voice gives young people who are, or were, in care a voice in policy development in relation to children in care. Interestingly, the paediatric cardiac review involved child cardiac patients as well as medical, personnel or the parents and carers of patients. They are good examples of good practice. Are the Government ensuring that all Departments follow those examples of actively consulting young people, so that good practice can be spread throughout the Government?

I draw attention to other models of consultation outside the Government. The science museum recently hosted a student review of the science curriculum, which was funded by Science Year. It started with nine regional conferences to identify issues in the science curriculum. A national group developed that into a web questionnaire. More than 350 students aged between 16 and 19 helped in the design of the questionnaire and, more than 2,000 students responded to it. Those responses were so useful and mature that the Select Committee on Science and Technology decided to take evidence from students who organised and took part in the review to inform its report on science education. Are the Government encouraging Departments to contract out consultations when appropriate to outside organisations?

The second example to which I want to draw attention is less successful. Earlier this year, the Department of the Environment, Transport and the Regions, as it then was, launched a consultation document on the driving licence and driving test., entitled "A More Structured Approach to Learning to Drive". Because that was clearly a subject of interest to young people, I sent copies of the document to each secondary school in my constituency and to the Milton Keynes college and encouraged students to respond directly to the consultation.

Milton Keynes college thought that the document was so opaque that its students would not be able to respond to it. It redesigned it and wrote a shorter, snappier version. That was handed out to students, who then discussed it and responded directly to the consultation. When Departments write public consultation documents, will they do so in a format that is more user-friendly, particularly when the subjects are ones in which young people may be expected to have an interest?

Finally, I refer to consultation by bodies other than those in central Government, but on which the Government could give guidance. I thank the Howard League for Penal Reform, which drew my attention to its worries about the lack of consultation with children by local authorities during the formulation of local crime prevention plans. It said that too often children are seen as the problem that crime prevention plans should deal with, rather than the needs of the children themselves being considered. That is especially true of young teenagers, who are often seen as a threat by others in the community. By involving young people in crime prevention plans, the Howard League considers that more cost-effective solutions may often be found. As an example, it said that it may be more sensible to provide a free skateboard area or free swimming for children and young people as a more effective way of reducing the perceived problem of youths wandering about aimlessly than installing expensive closed circuit television, which simply watches them hanging about.

As many people know, Milton Keynes is a young city. The key complaint that I receive from older constituents concerns threatening young persons hanging about. One useful solution that we have found is the provision of youth shelters on local recreation grounds and parks. They give young people a place in which they can sit and chat to each other under cover, but not next door to shops or people's houses where they cause annoyance.

I draw attention to the Howard League citizenship and crime programme of which I am sure the Minister is aware. It has worked with more than 10,000 children in more than 100 schools to consider young people and crime prevention. I hope that the findings are being fed into the Government's thinking. Will the Minister ensure that Government guidance on drawing up crime prevention programmes and other types of community and partnership plans include the need to involve children and young people?

I commend the Government for the work that they have begun in involving young people. That is only the beginning, however, and I urge them to review the consultation continuously, so that we can all learn how to do it better.

As the Minister responsible for children and young people, I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Milton Keynes, South-West (Dr. Starkey) on securing this debate. I share her view on the importance of involving young people and I am personally pleased to see that the issue is increasingly being raised in the House. I acknowledge the work of the two all-party groups—on children and on youth affairs—whose members are doing a lot to raise the profile of the issue, finding ways of listening to and involving children and young people and pushing the issue forward.

I am sympathetic to those of our colleagues who would like more regular opportunities to debate youth issues and for the relevant Ministers to take part in them. That has been the subject of much discussion, but I welcome today's debate as one opportunity to discuss youth affairs.

I think that all hon. Members share the vision of children and young people having more opportunities to be involved in the design and development of policies and services that affect them, and to be able to evaluate them and show where they have been successful. We want that partly because young people should genuinely feel that they can influence the services that they receive and, as part of the broader citizenship work that we are doing, because we want young people to feel that they can contribute to and benefit from the life of their local communities.

I share with my hon. Friend the belief that the result of the effective participation of children and young people in the development of policies and services is the improvement of those policies and services. She rightly asked me to set out some of the procedures and structures that the Government are putting in place to encourage greater participation. A hearts-and-minds issue is involved—we must convince those in local as well as central Government that the services that they deliver will improve and the taxpayers money that they spend will be better spent if young people have been involved in helping to shape those services.

To convince those involved would help the Government to achieve our ambitions for children and young people. It would help us to prevent and tackle the social exclusion of a significant minority of children and young people. It would enable young people themselves to build the stronger and more cohesive communities that we know we need to build in the years to come.

I am also clear about our commitment under the United Nations convention on the rights of the child to seek the views of children and young people. This year has been historic—during the UN special session on children, young people were able to address the General Assembly of the UN for the first time. I was pleased to have been a co-leader of the United Kingdom delegation, which included two young delegates, one from Scotland and one from Northern Ireland, who were able to participate in bilateral meetings that I had with Ministers from other countries. I was pleased to be the only Minister who had a youth delegate in those meetings, despite some countries claiming tremendous records in the field. That was a small first for UK representation at the UN.

There is a similar commitment throughout Europe. The UK has been at the forefront of the development with our recent White Paper on youth policy. The participation of young people is a key theme of that work. In the coming year, I hope that we can work with our European partners to share best practice and learn from the successes and problems that we all face in securing the participation of young people.

On the Government's record, as my hon. Friend said, we announced in November that we had agreed to follow and implement an ambitious set of core principles that will guide the approach that individual Departments should take in engaging children and young people. Nine Departments have been in the lead in that work, developing action plans for how they can build capacity within their Departments to involve young people, identify priority areas for working with children and young people and find ways of building the principle of involvement into the way that they communicate the work and the policies of those Departments. We worked with several children's organisations to develop the principles and guidance, and they—and the young people that they involved in that work—have warmly welcomed the initiative.

We must be honest. Different Departments approached this work from very different starting points. Some of them had a lengthy history, at least in part of their activity, of involving young people; others had little history of that. Therefore, this represents a cultural challenge to some civil servants in Whitehall, and to some of my colleagues in Government.

We are determined to push this through and my hon. Friend asked how far we had got with it. The action plans from the nine Departments were published in May 2002, shortly after her series of parliamentary questions. That is not completed work; it sets out work in progress, but it shows that each of those Departments have begun, with support from the children and young people's unit, to tackle how they are going to take this forward.

The unit will report progress annually, which will give an opportunity to scrutinise our work. As I am the Minister with responsibility for children and young people, I will oversee the work of the unit. We also expect that young people will be involved in scrutinising our progress. However, I do not want to give the impression that I am in some way taking—or wishing to take—personal responsibility for ensuring that the whole of Government involve young people. This initiative has to become a part of the daily activity of individual Government Departments and Ministers. It would be a mistake to try to centralise all of this—to have, for example, a single unit that tries to carry out consultations on all of the work of each of the Government Departments.

Having recognised that Government Departments have uneven histories with regard to consulting young people, I now wish to point to some significant achievements that they have made in this area. My hon. Friend rightly referred to the work that is being done at the Department of Health. Also, in autumn 2001 we launched a consultation on an overarching children's strategy, which we hope will come to fruition later this year. It is intended to bring together all of the different policies that affect children and young people, so that it can give a single overall picture of what the policies of the Government, the voluntary sector and local authorities are trying to achieve.

Innovative types of consultation material were included in the project: some went out through primary schools, and some were distributed at cinemas, leisure centres and so forth. Therefore, we have gained good experience of which sorts of consultation material work—to refer to another of my hon. Friend's points. She will be interested to learn that one of the matters that came high on the agenda in that consultation was the importance of having safe routes to and from schools. It sounds as if that echoes one of the conclusions of the smaller survey that she conducted in Milton Keynes.

The Department for Education and Skills held consultation meetings with young people when it was working on the "Schools—achieving success" White Paper that was published in the autumn. It also designed a document, specifically for young people, on the new proposals for education plans for 14 to 19 year-olds, and it has had more responses from young people in that age group than from all other respondents put together. For those of us who believe in this, that is an encouraging step forward.

The Home Office has been actively involving young people in consultations. For example, they took part in the consultations that were held after the disturbances in the north of England last summer, which addressed the issues involved in developing cohesive communities. Work that has been done with young people from Oldham and other towns is now being turned into educational material, videos and so forth, and they will be used in further meetings, consultations and discussion events in several towns and cities throughout the country in the summer and into the autumn. That is another encouraging sign: a real social challenge is being tackled in a way that acknowledges that the role of young people is crucial by going out and positively involving them in the work.

I mentioned the role of the children and young people's unit in supporting me and my work. As a result, I have been able to benefit from the expertise of the unit's advisory forum—26 young people aged between 11 and 18 who are from all backgrounds and walks of life and who hold forthright views on where they want to see change. That forum helped us to build the consultation on the Government strategy document that I mentioned earlier.

We also have a particular relationship with the United Kingdom Youth Parliament, which the Government have agreed to support with further funds. It meets next week. I shall attend, as will hon. Members from several different political parties. I look forward to reading the manifesto that the Youth Parliament will produce as a result of its meeting.

My hon. Friend asked several specific questions. I hope that I have set out what we have done with regard to the action plans and how we are ensuring that Departments follow examples of consulting young people. She asked whether Departments are encouraged to contract out consultations to outside organisations, if that is appropriate. That is among the range of possibilities that we suggested that Departments build into their consultation. Obviously, consultation has often been carried out through children and young people's organisations and organisations that work with children and young people. We need to allow for flexibility because there will be times when contracting out is the right approach and times when more direct consultation is important. However, I appreciate the value of the process.

My hon. Friend asked whether Departments could be encouraged to write public consultation documents in a more user-friendly format. Most of us would probably say that that applies to all consultation documents, not only to those aimed at young people. The answer is yes. Through the work of the Department for Education and Skills, work on the children's strategy and work that I shall mention on young people and voting, we have started to develop expertise on which I hope we can build.

The hon. Member for Milton Keynes. South-West (Dr. Starkey) asked about votes at 16, and the Minister mentioned taxpayers' money. Sixteen and 17-year-olds may be taxpayers, so will he square the circle of no taxation without representation?

Let me tell the hon. Gentleman our position. One of the projects in which I have been personally involved is the "Y vote, Y not?" campaign, which was based on consultations with about 70 young people. It reached the end of its first phase of work at a conference last week and examined reasons why young people have not engaged with politics, and changes to processes that might encourage greater future involvement. A clear message that is not always understood is that we are not considering an apathetic or disinterested generation of young people, which is the picture that some people have painted. The generation has strong views on all issues about which hon. Members spend their time talking.

Young people do not think that we are talking about the issues with which they are concerned. That might well be because we spend a lot of our time talking about, or at, but rarely with, young people. That is a key issue on which politicians, political parties and those in the media should work together. We should not blame one group for getting things wrong, but our discussion of issues should be projected in ways that are more relevant to young people. We should give young people the opportunity to join with the process and to see others involved in it.

The campaign raised the question of voting age. Sam Younger, the chairman of the Electoral Commission, announced last week that the commission would examine voting age and produce a report for Ministers to consider. That is a result of young people raising the issue through the "Y vote, Y not?" campaign and in other forums. We do not promise always to do what young people say any more than we always do what pensioners, trade unions or businesses say. However, young people have a right to have their views taken seriously and addressed and to receive a proper response to any issues that they raise.

My hon. Friend mentioned young people's involvement in drawing up crime prevention programmes, which is important. I am pleased to tell her that I saw an excellent guide to the involvement of young people in such programmes earlier this year, which had been drawn up by several crime prevention partners in the west midlands. I arranged for the document to be reprinted as national guidance and it has been issued to crime reduction partnerships throughout the country. That is a practical example of putting a principle into action, which I hope is followed throughout the country.