Thank you, Mr. Deputy Speaker.

On 23 July, the Secretary of State for Transport, Local Government and the Regions made the most significant Government statement on air travel for a generation. Sadly, at the same time he gave us the shortest possible consultation period in which to reply. There is little time for hon. Members to debate or effectively represent our constituents' interests in this vital matter. That is one of the key reasons why I sought this debate almost immediately after the Secretary of State had sat down in July.

Like you, Mr. Deputy Speaker, my constituents have a direct interest in the issue. They were shocked by the sheer scale of the planned development that was announced for Stansted. What is proposed is not simply another terminal or perhaps a few more routes, but the replacement of Stansted as a low-cost, point-to-point airport, with what could be the largest international airport in the world—effectively twice the size of Heathrow today.

In practical terms, for my constituents such enlargement would mean an eight-fold increase in passenger numbers, a five-fold increase in the number of planes, the demolition of more than 300 homes, the loss of two villages, the destruction of 64 grade II listed buildings and the loss of 1,200 hectares of green fields. It would also mean the blighting by noise of more than 28,000 more homes—the equivalent of a town the size of Bishop's Stortford. It would involve up to 300,000 new journeys per day on an already over-stretched road and rail network. In short, the Government's proposals for Stansted would irrevocably change not only our landscape—important though that is—but our community. The development would be wholly unsustainable in that location.

My colleagues here today feel as passionately about the issue as I do, and so we should. It is our duty to stand up and speak on behalf of the communities that we represent. I also feel that we must examine the wider question facing the south-east. Even if the Government can prove that a new hub is needed, how do we ensure that the investment delivers the maximum social, economic and environmental benefits for the region? Regrettably, the Government have failed to establish clearly to those of us who live in the south-east the positive reasons why we need a second hub. In the documents that we have seen to date, there is certainly a lot about the needs of air travellers and airlines, but precious little about the needs of the residents and the benefits to them. In his reply, I hope that the Minister will set out clearly the social, economic and environmental case for a new hub and explain why he and his colleagues strongly support such an option.

I do not intend to engage in the argument about future demand for air travel or whether it is desirable for that to be constrained in some manner. Over the past 30 years, air travel has grown at approximately 6 per cent. per annum. As a result, in the south-east, the traffic in the air today is approximately five times greater than it was in the 1970s. The Government's plans for the next 30 years, which are based on average growth of a little more than 3 per cent. per annum for the south-east, do not seem wholly unrealistic. I am not an expert in the field, so I do not know whether the figures are right; they must be examined by the experts. I am sure that the Minister will allow an independent view of the subject. However, I suspect that those views on the numbers and the likely growth in air traffic for the south-east are about right.

Given the likely growth, and the limits of Heathrow's natural capacity, there is a danger that, in the long term, London and the south-east could fall behind their European competitors. If the need for investment is proven, we must ask how and where it should be made in order to maximise the benefits for the country and for those in the south-east.

Let us consider London and the south-east as an economic community. However we compare the two sides of London and the south-east—whether through jobs, literacy, family stability or crime rates—historically, there has been an imbalance within the region, an east-west divide. In the past century, London's money and decision-makers, and those who could get up and go, have got up and gone west. In the past 20 years, that behaviour has spread, and people have gone to the north and the south. However, there is still a sense that the area due east of London, along the lower east Thames, is being neglected, and that the decision-makers are facing west and have their back to the east. The result is an overheated, congested region that is struggling to cope.

We are all aware that house prices are rising in London and the south-east. The land values in the west and the east that underpin those house prices often differ by £1 million to £1.5 million an acre. In my county of Hertfordshire, for example, we are desperately short of key workers, and one of the critical reasons for that is that they cannot afford to live there. A hub airport, and all its attendant development, would simply exacerbate the problem if it were wrongly located, but in the right place, it could revive an area. It could act as a vital magnet for jobs, and could induce economic development. I hope that, in the consultation process, the Department for Transport, Local Government and the Regions will make a clear assessment of the attendant induced economic development, which I have yet to see mentioned with any clarity in the documents.

I am grateful to my hon. Friend the Member for Hertford and Stortford (Mr. Prisk). I follow his argument, and accept all that he has said. Would he care to reflect on the fact that if another hub airport were built elsewhere and there was no scope for two hub airports, taking hub status away from the existing hub airport could cause serious economic problems for the local community? Might not the overheating to which he refers happen to an area simply because there is a hub airport there, and the difficulty to the east of London be due to the fact that there was no hub there? Would we not perhaps be switching around the problems and the advantages?

I understand the point that my hon. Friend makes. There is a danger. One need only see the congestion and the problems in the Heathrow area. The imbalance in the south-east is sufficient for there to be significant advantage in having a similar facility on the east side of London. I understand that those who live in and around the Heathrow area feel, as do many in my constituency, that the area has reached capacity.

If there is to be a new hub, we have to decide where it will be. Having thought about the subject, I think that there is a strong case for considering the lower east Thames and what is now known as the Thames gateway area. I am aware that the Government have chosen to highlight one site, the Cliffe site. I do not take that narrow approach; I believe that there are other options, although, of course, there could be some advantages to locating an airport at Cliffe.

Given that the Cliffe site would be only about 2000 yd from the boundary of my constituency and would impose massive noise, air and light pollution, as well as environmental damage on my constituency, is it not extraordinary that the Government have not sought to consult my constituents on the matter? Does not that reveal the Government's total contempt for the people of Essex?

I entirely sympathise with my hon. Friend, not least because the consultation period is short and has been woefully prepared. Many of my constituents feel that the documents have been issued somewhat late. When the Government choose to hold an exhibition on the Stansted area on the Friday of the August bank holiday, and fail to inform either of the relevant Members of Parliament about it, it is clear that not only the hon. Gentleman's constituents are suffering; we all are. I hope the Minister will respond to that point later.

If we are to have such a hub airport in the lower east Thames area, we must consider the potential benefits, of which, I believe, there are several. First, it could provide a genuine hub for growth in the poorest part of east London. It could improve transport around London and to and from Europe. It could ensure that, for the first time in this country, we have a genuine 24-hour a day airport, with the significant benefits for freight traffic that that would bring. It could enable significant household development, especially for affordable and key worker housing, which, as I mentioned, is lacking. It would allow us economically to develop many brownfield sites and help to rebalance growth and development in the south-east, not least by reducing pressure on overcongested areas.

Is my hon. Friend aware that the chairman of the Civil Aviation Authority, Sir Roy McNulty, has said unequivocally in public that the development of a new airport at the Cliffe site, and presumably any other site reasonably close to it, would have an unacceptable impact on the whole air traffic control system? That must negate the benefits of any reasonable development in that location.

As I said, I wanted us to have this debate so that we could air information. I have not seen that statement and I would appreciate it if my hon. Friend would bring it to my attention. However, contrary views have been expressed, which is why I believe that the consultation period should not be so short. If we are to make the right decision, we need a long period in which to consider the matter properly. Four months is inadequate.

The assumptions behind the hon. Gentleman's propositions may be seriously flawed. He thinks that an airport at the Cliffe site could create extra regeneration for the Thames gateway. There is strong feeling, however, that the burden on the existing infrastructure and increased congestion in that whole part of north Kent would make it difficult for the gateway to operate effectively as a thoroughfare for prosperity between this country and elsewhere, with the result that his constituents, too, would suffer from the damage to the national economy that an airport at Cliffe would create.

I have heard opinions on both sides, but when one considers such issues as employment and literacy, one sees that there is an imbalance, which I want to address.

Hon. Members have rightly focused on the Cliffe site, although, as I said earlier, that is the Government's option, not mine. A coastal or offshore airport would enable planes to fly over the water and not over our roofs. There are safety issues, although they can, perhaps, be overstated, but we should not ignore the importance of minimising noise pollution. Such an airport would fit in with the Government's regional planning goals, as well as with those of most London local authorities. Indeed, it is an approach already adopted by SASIG—the Strategic Aviation Special Interest Group—which represents 75 local authorities and 23 million people, so that option should not be easily dismissed.

I appreciate that an offshore or coastal airport is a more expensive option, although that is more an issue for the investor than for the Government. However, judging by what has happened overseas, that option seems to be the way ahead. In Taiwan, Japan and South Korea, they are building new airports on the coast or offshore. Indeed, we need look no further than Hong Kong and the new Chep Lap Kok airport, which was designed by a Brit—Sir Norman Foster—and developed with the direct support of the British Government. It is stunning airport to look at, only 23 minutes from downtown Hong Kong, and we helped to build it.

Is my hon. Friend aware that the success of the new airport in Hong Kong is based on the closure of the airport that served as a hub for some time?

My hon. Friend is a good representative of his constituents, because he is ensuring that his argument about Heathrow is reinforced. I commend him for that.

I return to the question of Hong Kong and the argument for offshore airports. I understand the point about proximity made by my hon. Friend the Member for Castle Point (Bob Spink). Given that the Thames estuary occupies 400 square miles, there must be a case for considering the option. I hope that, in line with the Secretary of State's remarks of 23 July, the Minister will confirm that the Government's mind is not closed on the matter and that they are prepared to consider all reasonable options. If the British Government can contribute to the construction of an airport of that nature in Hong Kong, I cannot understand why they cannot do so here.

In conclusion, it is widely recognised that aviation policy over the past 30 years has been one of make do and mend. Indeed, many of the decisions cobbled together over the past 30 years by both Labour and Conservative Governments are constraining us today. The Government need to recognise how we went wrong in the past and that the decision about the type of airport that we build has as much to do with the social, environmental and economic well being of an area as with aviation policy.

We are all aware of the problems in the south-east. If the Government make the right decision on airport policy, they will have in their grasp a powerful tool, which could transform the poorest part of London, create a modern transport network and improve the lives of everyone in the south-east. That represents a wonderful opportunity, and I hope that the Government have the courage to grasp it.

rose—

Order. It is possible that not everyone present with an interest in the matter will have an opportunity to speak, for reasons of time. I appeal to hon. Members to be as brief as they can so that as many different points of view as possible are represented.

As hon. Members will know, Heathrow is in my constituency, so I have a heartfelt interest in the subject. Some people want to portray those opposed to a third runway at Heathrow or Stansted as opposed to the aviation industry, but that is not the case. Many of my constituents work at Heathrow; some of those at risk of losing their homes as a result of the third runway work at Heathrow and have a direct interest in the long-term development and viability of the aviation industry.

Our consistent view, which should also be the consistent view of the Government, is that aviation policy should be in the interests of the whole community and should focus on the long-term, rather than on short-term profit. It should balance the economic benefits with the environmental and social impact of any developments.

I shall speak briefly about the consultation process, which was seriously flawed and has excited some anger among hon. Members and members of the community. It is unacceptable to have a consultation period of only four months on a proposal that could have an impact on a population of 3 million people. The period was to be six months, but the Department for Transport, Local Government and the Regions remembered that there were local government elections in London and curtailed the process. The consultation took place over the summer recess, and individual consultation exercises have not been advertised locally. Hon. Members have had to advertise them themselves. That is how the consultation has been carried out. The questionnaire is also dubious.

I am glad that the hon. Gentleman has been having the same difficulties as I have. Is he aware that the Department concerned said that it had sent letters, placed advertisements in local newspapers, and done all sorts of other things? If he is, has he discovered where it did all that, because I have not?

Like the hon. Gentleman, I know of no such advertising. The only advertising of which I am aware in my constituency is that which local residents, the hon. Member for Uxbridge (Mr. Randall) and I generated. Let us be clear: the roadshows were a farce. Even the experts sent to staff the roadshows had inadequate information and were not sufficiently expert to respond to many of the questions that my constituents put to them. May I suggest to the Minister and to the Secretary of State that, to make the consultation real, Ministers should be out in the constituencies convening public meetings so that they can hear the views of constituency MPs and local residents who will be affected. It is time for Ministers to get out on the stump to hear what people are saying. My constituents are coming to Parliament today to express their frustration at not being allowed to have their say. The debate on the future of airport strategy has been restricted, lacks transparency, and appears to be a charade.

We need a genuine and open debate. Is there a need for greater airport capacity in the south-east? Is there a need for a new airport rather than the incremental internal development of existing airports at the expense of our environment and communities? Arguments exist that challenge the need for expansion. There are questions to be asked about the growth figures. I would welcome the Government commissioning an independent and transparent study of the growth projections in the consultation papers. There needs to be discussion and an independent evaluation of the economic benefits provided by the proposals, as they have been contested for some time. It is also time that we revisited the debate about the subsidy that the taxpayer gives to the aviation industry. Estimates published this month identify a £7.5 billion subsidy in taxation exemptions by the Government to the aviation industry in 2000, which is projected to rise to £16 billion in 2020. That means that on average, my constituents and all those in the south-east are donating £550 a year to the aviation industry. That should be part of any long-term and sound debate from which a rational policy for aviation in the south-east would develop.

If we accept that there is a need to expand, there is a long-term need for a new airport. My greatest anxiety is that the Government will plant on us new runways at Heathrow, Stansted, and eventually Gatwick. They may tinker around with Cliffe, but I believe that Cliffe is a red herring. I will return to that point. They will come back for a new airport in 10 years' time, having imposed those new runways. It will end up being more expensive and have a greater social and environmental impact because of the lack of long-term infrastructure planning. That is the nightmare. It is a nightmare for my constituents and the reason why we need a longer term plan rather than just another runway at Heathrow.

I hope that my colleagues will be able to outline the implications for their constituents. Despite what the consultation paper says, the implications for my constituents of the map in the consultation document are that the five villages surrounding Heathrow will be lost. Some 4,000 homes will go. Those figures are not mine, but are from the original Government consultation—the RUCATSE or Runway Capacity to Serve the South East study—in 1992. Some 10,000 local residents will be forcibly moved from their homes. Three primary schools will be closed and demolished, and two medieval churches will be flattened. The largest surviving medieval barn in western Europe will go. Village greens, community centres, swimming pools and children's playgrounds will be lost, as will green belt land. What is most offensive to my constituents is that the path of the third runway runs over Harmondsworth church and cemetery. My constituents are being asked to exhume the bodies of their relatives who are buried in Harmondsworth church. Some are in war graves and that is unacceptable at any price for the aviation industry.

My constituents believe that they have done enough for the economic benefit of the aviation industry and sacrificed enough for the economy of the country.

I am pleased to know how strongly my hon. Friend feels about this matter. He is obviously representing his constituents very effectively. Does he appreciate that whereas increasing capacity at Heathrow would cause the problems he suggests, building an airport at Cliffe would cause significant environmental damage, albeit not on the same scale? It would certainly have a major impact on the local environment and on the local transport problems that we already face?

I shall address that matter in due course. I certainly understand the concerns of hon. Members and constituents in that area.

I shall finish on the implications of a third runway at Heathrow. It will have an impact not only on my constituents, but on 2 million Londoners because of new flight paths, noise and pollution. It will not only destroy their environment, but will undermine property prices. Evidence is coming forward of links with cancer from air pollution and of teachers' inability to teach in west London schools because of noise.

Reference has been made to air traffic control. The skies above Heathrow are dangerously crowded. We have already heard expressions of concern from the air traffic control services about the potential risk from further development at Heathrow. That is why at successive inquiries my constituents were promised, "No more." I was at the terminal 4 inquiry when we were told not to worry because if terminal 4 was allowed, there would be no terminal 5. At the terminal 5 inquiry we were told that if terminal 5 was allowed, there would be no further development. The inspector made that one of the conditions to be recommended to the Government.

The managing director of the British Airports Authority at Heathrow wrote to my constituents and me 12 months ago saying that there was no need for a third runway, that BA A opposed a third runway and demanded that the inspector at the inquiry should say no to a third runway. What happened six months later? The Government allowed terminal 5, placed a cap on Heathrow and then, within weeks, started consultation for a third runway at Heathrow. I shall raise with the Speaker the need for a correction to the Hansard record because the Secretary of State, when announcing the consultation on a third runway at Heathrow, said that a cap had been placed on Heathrow only for the period of terminal 5. That is not true. The terminal 5 inspector said in the context of the Government's review of future aircraft capacity that it should be assumed that no further major development would take place at Heathrow after terminal 5. The Secretary of State should return to the House and correct his earlier statement, which was inaccurate.

We no longer believe what the British Airports Authority or Governments tell us. It is not a party political matter because successive Governments have regularly betrayed my constituents. We are pleading with the Government for at least a proper and rational debate and open, transparent and independent consultation on the process. There is a rush to decision making, which gives the impression that the debate has been decided, constituencies are being stitched up and the aviation industry has a fast track to No. 10 and to Ministers that overcome any concerns of hon. Members and their constituents.

My view, which is shared by other hon. Members, is that there is a need for a rational process to look at where a new airport would provide maximum benefit. Most of us have come to the conclusion that that would be in east London. That is where my right hon. Friend the Deputy Prime Minister is putting new homes, where the new work force will be and where jobs will be needed. The Government are already putting in new transport links with Crossrail and other developments.

No one believes that Cliffe is a viable option. It is a red herring. It would excite the interest of Greens throughout the planet if we asked them whether they would seek to put an airport on the largest bird sanctuary in western Europe. It is a red herring brought forward as a smokescreen by the Government at the behest of the aviation industry. The realistic option is Marinair. It may be more expensive now, but the Government may not be averse to private sector money being used to build it. I am not in favour of private finance initiatives but the Government certainly are, and the City is already interested in funding such a development.

The development would be in the Thames estuary and its environmental and social impact would be less than that of Stansted, Gatwick, Heathrow or Cliffe. It would generate jobs and, above all else, would increase public safety. Its cost would not be prohibitive because we will have to build it anyway. Let us bite the bullet and put in place a socially and environmentally acceptable new airport in the south-east to look to the long-term future of the aviation industry. The argument that it would threaten Heathrow is fallacious because we need to develop a network of airports, each of which should develop its own speciality, to stand us in good stead for future European competition. A new airport would be part of that network.

I urge the Government to think again and, if it is necessary, extend the consultation period.

Does the hon. Gentleman share my hope that a new airport, which he has described and I endorse, would provide an opportunity to look at competition not only among airlines, but in the ownership and management of airports?

Such competition has already broken out between regional airports and airports in London and the south-east, given their competing demands for development. It will be interesting to see the role that competition plays in the development of new airport networks, which is how we should describe them.

Whatever decision the Government take, let us unanimously endorse a policy to set environmental limits on airports in advance of their development to ensure that we do not have an incremental incursion on the quality of life and environment in the communities that we represent. I welcome my constituents' coming to Parliament today and I am with them. The hon. Members for Ruislip-Northwood (Mr. Wilkinson) and for Uxbridge and I will deliver a letter to No.10 to ask the Prime Minister to take a personal interest because the matter dramatically affects so many people.

Thank you, Mr. Deputy Speaker.

Cliffe or any other Thames estuary airport would have a devastating impact on people not only in Kent, but in south Essex. I will not repeat my earlier comments about the lack of consultation, and say only that the Government showed monumental arrogance in not consulting the people of south Essex.

I held a public meeting in my constituency that was attended by 1,000 people. The DTLR told me that it was going to send a representative to the meeting, but it failed to do so—it did not even a send an apology. The meeting was addressed by my hon. Friend the Member for Southend, West (Mr. Amess), who helped to arrange it, and soon he will hold a similar meeting in Leigh-on-Sea.

Joan Goddard, the Kent campaign leader, attended the meeting. She is a remarkable lady who has done so much to bring the matter to the public's attention where the Government have failed so miserably. Following that meeting, my hon. Friend the Member for Southend, West and I organised a petition, and I shall be presenting it on the Floor of the House tonight. I hope that I will be able to present it because it contains more than 10,000 signatures—signatures are still being collected—and is therefore very large.

I congratulate The Evening Echo, Yellow Advertiser and Island Times on their work in publicising the matter—they have done tremendously well. When the Minister sums up, will he say whether the fifth runway shown on the maps of the proposed Cliffe airport has been withdrawn and confirm that it will not proceed now or at any time in the future? I should like an undertaking on that matter.

Cliffe airport would be a disaster for Essex and Kent. It would impose massive noise, air and light pollution, environmental damage and possible, but as yet undefined, flood risks for Canvey island and coastal areas of Kent and Essex. It would be massive overdevelopment in a region that already suffers from too much building imposed by the Government. The possible development of an outer M25 route using the A130 would be a disaster for an area that already suffers massive road congestion.

Without the efforts of local Conservative MPs and the local newspapers, the people of south Essex would not have been aware of the dangers to their environment. The proposal for Cliffe, or another Thames estuary airport, is not a red herring; it is a formal Government proposal and we must fight it as such. If we do not, and other people fight for their communities, we shall he failing our community. How will we be able to hold our heads up high if the Minister then decides to go ahead with his disastrous proposal? I have a final question for the Minister: will he come to Canvey Island personally to face the wrath of local people, or is he afraid to do so?

I congratulate the hon. Member for Hertford and Stortford (Mr. Prisk) on having secured this important debate. I am reminded of the opening paragraph of Paul Theroux' greatest travel novel. It begins:

"It is no accident that in all the 285 major languages of the world there is not one that contains a phrase, aphorism or clause even remotely approaching 'as pretty as an airport'."

That is the basis from which we all extend. Cliffe is in my constituency. It is the most beautiful part of my constituency and I have no intention of entering into a competition of horror. I can take on the hon. Member for Hayes and Harlington (John McDonnell) field for field, SSSI for SSSI and village for village. The village of All Hallows, every bit as ancient as those in west London, would disappear forever together with its church and cemetery. The feelings of the people in that area are indescribable; there has not been so great a proposed destruction of community in the interests of planning since the building of the great reservoirs in the last century. We must understand the full portent of the matter.

I question the premise on which the proposal is advanced, which is that the south-east of England requires greater airport capacity. When one reads the document, one perceives that that premise has no basis in commerce, in common sense or in human nature. It is conceivable that it is grounded in theology, which is a poor start for a planning application, particularly one of this size. The Government's argument is that the future of that great commercial enterprise, Heathrow, the mighty epicentre of work and money, which provides 2 per cent. of our national income and a vast number of jobs, will be threatened if we do not expand further into the south-east. The idea is that if we allow the beastly foreigners in Schipol, Charles de Gaulle, Frankfurt—all the usual suspects—free rein to take over the unassuageable bucket-seat travel market, which is growing daily and exponentially, then Heathrow will be at risk. It will become a rotting hulk at the west edge of London and will become like the London and Liverpool docks if we do not expand in another area. I well remember when that extraordinary—and false—analogy was made in the Chamber. I was sitting next to the hon. Member for Hayes and Harlington and I thought that he would have apoplexy.

Can the Minister tell us what evidence he has of a need to build a new hub airport, or vastly to extend Heathrow with the phenomenal and fantastic level of environmental damage that that would cause? What study can we examine that suggests that failure to do that would adversely affect the existing provision at Heathrow?

The answer is very simple. People are not containers or goods to be shipped around the world; they make their own individual and commercial decisions about where they wish to travel. People will come to the United Kingdom if we succeed in making it a lodestone, and they will continue to come. If they are unable to come to the south-east because it has reached overcapacity, perhaps they will go to Charles de Gaulle and travel to London and the south-east by Eurostar or other methods—good luck to them. However, the massive destruction of our environment and communities in the south-east on a false economic premise is an unacceptable price to pay.

As I said, I do not wish to indulge in any form of nimbyism, but I cannot be part of the debate without drawing to the attention of the Chamber the environmental, economic and communal damage that would be done to the Cliffe marshes, Cliffe and the Hoo peninsula if ever the proposal were given life and air. On that site, we have the finest SSSIs in Europe, which are completely irreplaceable. There is no mitigation for the loss of such environments. We would lose entire communities including 1,100 homes in All Hallows, an ancient village in which people can trace back their membership to the community for generations. All of that would disappear.

On the issue of consultation, we had a consultation exercise, the chosen location for which was a hotel in my constituency. It would have been impossible to find an area or a site more geographically remote from the Hoo peninsula than that hotel. It has been suggested that that was deliberate. I do not suggest that, but it was an error.

I can tell the Chamber that my constituents are a sturdy lot. In history, no constituents have given more for their country than those who have lived in the area of Chatham, its dockyards and industries. They are not shy of making sacrifices in the national interest, but they will not tolerate the destruction of their lives and their much-loved environment on the basis of a false theology.

I echo the comments of the hon. and learned Member for Medway (Mr. Marshall-Andrews). We are all here in an effort to plead our cases, but we should not do so on the basis of not wanting to be the ones to be sacrificed for development. I feel passionate for my constituents and the area of Heathrow. The demonstration there today and the petition will show their strength of feeling, and other areas will have the same strength of feeling.

The Minister must have heard that the period allowed for consultation is a sham. The Government must immediately extend it for the sake of fair play. I shall not reiterate the statements of the hon. Member for Hayes and Harlington (John McDonnell) or my hon. Friend the Member for Ruislip-Northwood (Mr. Wilkinson); on this matter; we are all friends in Hillingdon. The pollution and destruction is, of course, dramatic, but I shall not ask for it to be dumped in someone else's backyard.

It is obvious that nobody wants the development and, in echo of the comments of the hon. and learned Member for Medway, I should like to question whether the Government have made the case for such a dramatic increase. We should be managing demand and considering what must be done. What about making rail infrastructure more efficient to cut down the number of internal flights?

Most people would prefer to go by rail if it were efficient and cheap, rather than fly around the country. That must be looked at.

As many other Members want to speak, I shall cut my speech short. I would simply say to the Minister, and to people outside, that the time has come for us seriously to consider what we want. Do we want to put the environment and quality of life higher on the agenda? If no one wants these developments in their backyard, we must seriously consider drawing a line in the sand and looking at the alternatives, as the hon. and learned Member for Medway said. I am not going to say that the developments should be sited anywhere. I, too, feel passionately about Cliffe. As a bird watcher, I have spent many happy hours there and I shall fight for that as much as for Heathrow.

We do not want to enter a game of each trying to prove why we should not have an airport or expansion in our constituency. We all feel the same. This is an opportunity for the nation to look seriously at what it wants.

I congratulate the hon. Member for Hertford and Stortford (Mr. Prisk) on securing this import ant debate. I shall endeavour to be as brief as other hon. Members have been.

I endorse in particular the remarks of the hon. Member for Uxbridge (Mr. Randall). There is nothing more undignified than saying, "Don't take me, take him." The speech that introduced the debate was balanced. I agree with some parts and disagree with others. I do not have the misfortune to represent a parliamentary constituency containing one of the sites, but mine is remarkably close to one, and villages in my constituency would be adversely affected were the Stansted proposals to go ahead.

I am a little concerned that arguments about Heathrow have been being made for years. They have been put eloquently, and Heathrow has suffered interminably. The arguments for Cliffe do not seem to me to be arguments at all. As my hon. and learned Friend the Member for Medway (Mr. Marshall-Andrews) said so eloquently, if we really wanted to stir up a hornet's nest, or bring down a whirlwind upon us—he put it much better than I—we would propose the most important scientific and environmental site in the country so that all opposition would rage up against us. The danger for Stansted is that the arguments against the other prospective major sites are so strong that people will start to say that Stansted is the least bad option. I shall not, therefore, go down the route of saying that we should have an airport at Cliffe or expand Heathrow, or open up the arguments about Gatwick. That would be dodging the issue.

I must make it clear that there is a strong environmental case against expansion at Stansted. The hon. Member for Hertford and Stortford put the arguments very well. We already face a situation in which local people cannot afford to buy local houses. I do not believe that employment expansion is needed in our part of Essex and Hertfordshire. If we had airport expansion, most of the workers would not be able to afford most of the available properties in our area.

The countryside around Stansted has attractive villages set in wooded countryside amid low rolling hills and valleys. It is not, as some would picture it, flat and interspersed with concrete, but very attractive old English countryside. It has already been threatened by speculative house builders. Each time there is an airport expansion, the developer comes jumping on the back of that, to build houses that are allegedly for the work force but that in reality will be sold to those who commute down the motorway to London to work and return in the evening.

The consequence is not only the destruction of the appearance of the countryside, but a substantial undermining of village life and rural ways. I have been told that if one strolls of an evening in certain woods close to Stansted, one smells not honeysuckle on the air, but petroleum. A vast increase on the scale that is contemplated would have a devastating economic effect on our area.

On Cliffe, I propose to say only that I strongly oppose it as an alternative site. Like the hon. Member for Uxbridge, I have been a lifelong watcher of birds and I know how important Cliffe is to anybody who is interested in nature conservation. That is evident when one hears that avocets and little egrets breed there—they were extinct as breeding birds in this land when I was a boy.

Way beyond that is the question of the effect that the proposals will have on the way in which we live our lives. We must start to challenge the figures that have been put forward, which are projections into the future based on what happened in the past, as though nothing ever changes. We were recently reminded that in the 1960s television shows attracted 28 million viewers; now they attract only half that number. As the world changes, people's tastes change. Is it really worth the price of destroying our environment and parts of our way of life just to have a cheap holiday in a country that is warmer for some parts of the year?

My constituency is getting it on both sides. Down in the south-east corner, just over the border, it is proposed that Stansted should quadruple in size to double the size of Heathrow. Small villages such as Little Hadham will come into the 57 DB footprint. That means that villagers will live in an area where the average noise level is 57 DB, so that they are unable to sit out in their gardens or to live their lives against the background of a relatively unspoilt rural area with a low ambient noise level. Further north, rural areas will live with the constant background of a low hum that does not quite reach the 57 DB footprint. The proposal means that 80,000 new workers will move into our area and that 18,000 new houses will have to be built in an area that is already the most populated county in the country. On the south-east side, there will be a 10-fold, or possibly an eight-fold, increase in traffic. It is disaster for people in that part of Hertfordshire.

On the other side of my constituency, just a few miles from the border, is Luton airport, where a five-fold increase in traffic is proposed, with a realignment of the runway that would push traffic across Letchworth and Hitchin as it turns to land. Again, there will be a low hum all the time, not just intermittently, and 2,600 extra houses and 12,000 extra workers will be needed. One has to ask whether it is sensible to build airport capacity so that arrivals and departures fly over people's homes—surely a better solution can be found. I do not like the look of the Cliffe proposals, but, as the hon. Member for Hayes and Harlington (John McDonnell) said, we should examine options in the Thames estuary—perhaps Marinair.

What is proposed for Stansted is an outrage. Seventeen protest meetings have taken place, and I pay tribute to Norman Mead, who has been to every one. He is leading the campaign and understands the issues very well. As you know, Mr. Deputy Speaker, he lives in an area that is already badly affected by noise and pollution, and does not want it to be spread out over the whole area. I pay tribute to the Herts and Essex Observer for its "Stop Stansted" campaign. It has been reassuring to have the support of the local newspaper.

The Government must think again. The proposals are nothing less than disastrous for my constituents in north-east Hertfordshire and for the neighbouring areas in Essex.

rose—

Order. Before I call the next hon. Member, I would like to remind the Chamber that it is customary for Front-Bench speeches to start at 10.30 am. I hope that everyone will respect that.

The site of the proposed Cliffe airport is not in my constituency, but right next to it in the constituency of my hon. and learned Friend the Member for Medway (Mr. Marshall-Andrews). Gravesend would be directly under the flight path, and the villages of Meopham, Higham and Shorne would be directly affected.

Last night, Gravesham borough council met to consider its view on an airport at Cliffe. It invited the public to the meeting, which was attended by 200 people. As with so many of the meetings that have been held in recent weeks in my constituency, hundreds of people added their opposition to the thousands who have already expressed their concerns. Gravesham borough council last night resolved to oppose an airport at Cliffe. Medway council, Kent county council and every other representative body in the area have now decided to oppose the proposal.

It was perhaps surprising that the representative from the youth forum at last night's meeting stated the objection of young people in the area. One would have thought that the prospect of 50,000 to 80,000 long-term jobs would have been tantalising to young people. In fact, they believe that the environmental impact would be such that they, too, wish to oppose the airport.

Many hon. Members have said that they do not wish to engage in nimbyism or a competition as to who will suffer the greatest damage from the proposed airport. Certainly none of my constituents who have opposed proposals to site an airport at Cliffe have said that it should be put elsewhere. We all understand the devastation that it would create to our communities, and we are all determined to fight for our own communities, but to do so in such a way that we do not damage others.

I am pleased that people in my hon. Friend's community agree with those in my community that this is a proposal too far. I do not wish to get involved in nimbyism either, because that would be wrong. However, it is important that communities work together, therefore, I reiterate that my community feels exactly the same as my hon. Friend's does, and we are working together on this very important issue.

I am grateful to my hon. Friend. We are working very closely with other hon. Members in north Kent to oppose the proposal on behalf of our communities.

I want hon. Members to understand the scale of the proposal for Cliffe. We are talking about a four or five-runway airport, twice the size of Heathrow, which would operate 24 hours a day. It would cost a minimum of £11.5 billion, not counting much of the infrastructure costs. It would be built on marsh land and would have to stand on a 15 m platform to prevent its sinking into the Thames estuary. We are talking about a massive project.

As other hon. Members have made clear—I will not dwell on it because of the time—the site is of international importance because of its scientific value. That is why it is a concern for all of us. Other hon. Members have said that they too will oppose an airport at Cliffe because of the impact on the wildlife, especially bird life. The consultation document makes the point that there is also a very real safety concern. For thousands of years, the flight paths of wild birds have crossed the area, and they would not sit well with the flight paths of jet aircraft.

I shall not dwell on the issue, except to say that the Government are aware that they would be tied for many years in legal wrangling with the European Commission and organisations such as the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds if they were to choose the site. A decision was made under international agreements to go ahead and set that site aside because of its scientific importance and natural value. There has already been considerable damage to the Government's environmental credibility. As far as my constituents are concerned, it will take many years to repair that damage. If we were to wrangle for many years with the European Commission over environmental issues to build the airport at Cliffe, the damage would be irreparable.

I want to dwell briefly on the economic arguments because the environmental arguments have been put very well. Cliffe and that part of north Kent are part of the Thames gateway. The Thames gateway is a thoroughfare of prosperity and employment between this country and continental Europe. Therefore, if we were to drop an airport of this size across the Thames gateway at Cliffe —let's not pretend that that is anything to do with the regeneration of north Kent or the Thames gateway—it would draw on the infrastructure investment that has already been made. If we were to drop the airport there, it would become not a gateway, but a blockade.

On that point, does my hon. Friend agree that the case for regeneration, which has been referred to by many hon. Members in the debate, in the east of London and the Thames gateway area—jobs, affordable housing and so on—has actually been made in a balanced way through public and private work through the area investment framework, which will deliver a far more sustainable development than an airport being dropped on to it?

I am grateful to my hon. Friend and I pay tribute to him for the work he has done in assisting the regeneration of that part of north Kent through the area investment framework. He will know that the matter under debate is not part of that proposal. I do not plan to dwell further on the matter, except to say that there are no economic arguments for it. It would do long-term damage to not only the prosperity of north Kent and the Thames gateway, but the nation as a whole, as well as having an environmental impact. We must consider alternatives to just meeting the projected demand. We must manage the demand and look at alternatives that will not do such damage to our economy and our environment.

I congratulate the hon. Member for Hertford and Stortford (Mr. Prisk) on securing this topical and controversial debate. There have been useful and interesting contributions from many hon. Members who have eloquently set out the reasons why there should be no airport development on their patch. Some have eloquently set out why that development should take place in someone else's patch. The hon. Member for Hayes and Harlington (John McDonnell) expressed great concern about the consultation process. He described it as flawed, and I think that he is correct. The time scales are too short and the consultation was been leading, as I shall illustrate shortly.

Many hon. Members have argued against development of airports or runways in or near their constituencies, but with the possible exception of the hon. Member for Uxbridge (Mr. Randall), no one has suggested how we could address the problem and manage the demand. Rail has a key part to play, and I will come onto that shortly. The starting point for any transport policy is that it should be sustainable. That means that the policy should reduce carbon dioxide emissions, noise pollution and congestion. How do the Government's plans measure up to those challenges? I am afraid that, so far, they do not. The approach is simply one of predict and provide, and that is not sustainable. Local communities do not think that it is sustainable.

The Government are consulting on the proposals. As I said, the consultation has been leading. That is apparent in the phraseology of some of the questions. For instance, question three states:

"Airport development can bring benefits to the local area".

That is probably true, but what sort of response would the Government have got if they had turned that question around, and said something like, "Airport development can bring disadvantages to the local area"? What would the responses have been? Question four asks:

"How important do you feel it is to consider the following environmental impacts?"

If one were to change the bias, that question would ask, "How important do you feel it is to consider the following economic benefits?" The whole consultation points to a presumption in favour of massive airport development, rather than in the other direction, as I think it should.

Where in the consultation document are the tough questions? The Government have admitted that if the aviation industry takes no measures to reduce emissions, the reductions achieved under the Kyoto protocol could be offset by 30 to 50 per cent. by 2012 due to increased aircraft emissions. Where does the document ask whether people want more CO₂ emissions from aviation, as opposed to measures to reduce them? There are no such questions. Nor does anything highlight the fact that fast rail links create three times less CO₂ than their short-haul flight equivalents.

As a fellow London Member, does the hon. Gentleman not agree that the possible development location that militates most against the sensible criteria that he has set out is that of the third east-west runway at Heathrow? It would do west London and the capital as a whole the greatest environmental damage. Will the hon. Gentleman and the Liberal Democrat party say so explicitly?

I am happy to respond. The inspector has made his position clear, and we support the view, which was put in very stark terms, that a third runway at Heathrow is environmentally unsustainable.

I come now to the Government options. The inspector has dismissed the proposals for Heathrow. As the hon. Member for Hayes and Harlington highlighted, 4,000 homes would have to be demolished to construct the third runway. It is a pity that the consultation document does not spell that number out exactly; it simply says that a number of homes would have to be demolished. Let us include the facts and figures so that people know what they are being consulted on.

Then there is Cliffe. I think that it was Richard Everett, the chief executive of the National Air Traffic Services, who said that the £11.5 billion project was a non-starter. I also understand that the Environment Minister said at a SERAS fringe meeting at the Labour conference that Cliffe was the "joker in the pack". I am not sure whether that means that it can overrule all other options or that it can be completely dismissed; the Minister's position was unclear.

Other hon. Members have talked about the implications of the Stansted option. The airport is in an area with low unemployment and a housing shortage. If up to 80,000 jobs were created there, where would the people who were going to do them live and where would they come from? That has not been clarified.

The Heathrow and Stansted options would create yet more congestion in already crowded airspace. To what extent are the safety implications of airport and runway development being taken into account? Is it sensible to have yet more development and yet more aircraft flying over congested airspace? I have a nasty feeling—I suspect that other hon. Members do, too—that everything that the Government are doing points to the Stansted option; they are steering us inexorably towards such a solution.

Rail substitution can play a key role. We do not know whether it could resolve the problem of the massive projected increase in passenger numbers, for the simple reason that the Government have not advanced a policy of using rail substitution to tackle that increase.

I want to ask the Minister a few questions—he asked me whether I had any, and I would hate to disappoint him. First, what is the Government's target for substituting rail for short-haul flights? The Government expect 500 million passengers to be travelling by plane by 2030. By how much could the Government's target reduce that number? What percentage of domestic and international journeys does the Minister expect will be by rail rather than short-haul flight by 2030? To be more specific, what discussions has the Minister had, for example, about the potential for a fast rail link between London and Amsterdam? I met Eurostar representatives last week and they were adamant that they could create the potential for approximately 3 million passenger journeys if the link were established. Therefore, what role would it play in the Government's policy?

What percentage of trips to airports does the Minister expect will be on public transport by 2030? Congestion around airports is clearly also an important factor. If the Government had a sustainable transport policy, the Minister would be able to answer those questions.

The Minister now has the opportunity to confirm that the Government are not going down the slippery slope of predict and provide for airports and runways. Will they go for the joker in the pack option—Cliffe or Stansted—or the ace in the pack that is rail substitution? Communities throughout the country will be listening very carefully to the Minister's response.

First, I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Hertford and Stortford (Mr. Prisk) on securing this timely debate and recognise the many eloquent contributions that have been made.

Let me first declare an interest. For 10 years I was a Member of the European Parliament, first for Essex North East and then for Essex North and South Suffolk and I still have a property in north Essex. Also, my husband works for Delta Air Lines as a sales director and I own personal equity plans in British Airways and the British Airports Authority.

Our guiding principles were set out by the shadow Transport Secretary in Bournemouth last week. We hope to put people first. We would ensure that transport policy would play its part in improving and safeguarding the environment of our communities and our world. Safety is of critical importance and we recognise the central importance of rail in developing any long-term transport strategy. Essentially, in putting people first, the Conservatives realise that a difficult balance must be reached. Airports are businesses, major employers and contributors to the local economy. Passengers increasingly want to fly on business, for holidays and to visit family, but we must never lose sight of those who live near airports. They may not travel often themselves, but they are exposed to environmental disbenefits such as noise, traffic pollution and the general intrusion of airport activity.

I curtail my remarks and put questions to the Minister. Following the strenuous representations made in this debate today and considering the impact that the proposals contain, does he now regret that the consultation period is so short and insufficient? The consultation procedure, as eloquently explained by the hon. Member for Hayes and Harlington (John McDonnell) and others, is seriously flawed in its brevity, lack of openness, transparency and the singular lack of publicity attached to it. The short time in which Ministers could make themselves available included a two-and-a-half-month recess.

How confident is the Minister that Government forecasts are accurate when page 19 of the summary of the consultation document states that:

"The rate of growth is predicted to decline, more so in the South East".

What guarantee can he give us that such forecasts are accurate? What studies and research can the Minister point to regarding the extent to which railways can eventually compete with airlines, especially on domestic routes and for short-fall European traffic using existing Eurostar services to Paris, Lille, Brussels and Cologne and now Avignon and Nice? It is unbelievable that the Government have not undertaken such studies because our partners in the countries in which those services operate will have done so. The information is freely available to the travelling public in those countries.

What estimate have the Government made of the potential of regional air services? Let us take Manchester airport as an example. In 1982 it was a largely domestic charter traffic airport. It is now recognised as a major international airport. The key to that development was access by public transport. Does the Minister agree that it would be better to improve public transport to existing airports such as Teesside airport and Leeds Bradford airport, as happened with Manchester airport, than to develop a wholly new airport, such as that proposed at Finningley in south Yorkshire?

Will the Government take the opportunity offered by the consultation to end a current anomaly by placing car parks closer to airports? That would reduce pollution. It has been put to me that car parks in Stockport serving Manchester airport are more than five miles away from the airport, and passengers are bussed there from the car park. They are listed in airport statistics as passengers "arriving by public transport". Will the Minister end another anomaly, referred to by several hon. Members today, whereby airport-related housing, such as that in the Uttlesford district, is anything but that, as those who work in the airport cannot afford the prices of those houses?

We recognise the need to increase airport capacity, but take a national view. The focus should not be on the south-east only. I would say that, because I represent a constituency in north Yorkshire that could be better served by having a greater choice of flights from existing airports and better public transport access to them. Could we focus on regional airports, and could we have some information from the Government on the studies that they have done into using rail as an alternative?

One conclusion is that we should think about the three Es: environment, environment, environment. That should be one of the driving factors in deciding where airport capacity should go. The Government must be seen to have an independent, transparent consultation period of sufficient length. Conservative hon. Members think that three months is a gross underestimate of how long that period should be; three months is simply too short. The consultation should satisfy the demands of those with competing interests. We must never lose sight of those who, often unwittingly, go to live near airports sites such as Stansted—one of the airport sites only developed in the early 1980s and late 1970s—and whose quality of life will be irreparably threatened by the proposals.

As I was eating my cornflakes at breakfast this morning, I saw the hon. Member for Hertford and Stortford (Mr. Prisk) on the BBC morning news flagging up today's debate. I congratulate local BBC television on mentioning some of the debates that take place in Westminster Hall, which are too little reported. As I listened to the contributions made in that short part of the programme, I thought it was interesting how much they reflected the debate that we have had, in that there were a wide range of views on the matter.

I congratulate the hon. Member for Hertford and Stortford on securing the debate, and on the way in which he introduced his speech by supporting his constituency.

If, as the Minister says, there is a wide range of views, why is the consultation period so short?

I can deal with that now. The consultation will inevitably raise concerns. The proposals will blight certain areas. We have had a considerable amount of correspondence—quite rightly—from hon. Members who say that their constituencies now feel blighted. They say that we should be making decisions fairly rapidly, and should be reducing the time we take to discuss the issues. We must carefully balance getting proper consultation, and allowing the Government to consider views, with the fact that if we consulted for one, two or three years, we would in effect blight people's properties for long periods. Some are telling us that we should take decisions at an early opportunity. We will take those decisions in accordance with proper consideration of the points raised during the consultation.

Despite what the Minister says about the length of consultation, will he accept that there has been no consultation as far as my constituents in Southend, West are concerned? To add to what the hon. Member for Hayes and Harlington (John McDonnell) said, will he ensure that a representative from the Department for Transport, Local Government and the Regions will attend the public meeting arranged for 1 November?

I take note of what the hon. Gentleman said.

To return to comments made at the start of the debate, the hon. Member for Hertford and Stortford said that this was a significant statement on air travel. He said that in the past we had had to "make do and mend". I agree with him entirely, which is why the Government believe that, after almost 100 years of aviation in this country, we now need to present to the country some of the clear choices that we must make.

In this country, we have a desire to travel that would have been entirely unexpected 50 years ago. The situation is such that, last year, 50 per cent. of the population of this country travelled at least once by air. That would have been unimaginable even 20 years ago. One third of the value of the freight of the imports and exports into this country also goes by air. Some 180,000 jobs in the south-east alone depend on air travel and air transport. If we continue to increase people's desire to travel, whether internally within the country or to other parts of the world, for business or leisure, we must weigh against that the environmental concerns that hon. Members from various quarters quite properly have raised in the debate today.

We must also consider the effects of noise and pollution on environments and people, as several hon. Members mentioned today. Wherever we stand in this debate, and whatever our beliefs about where a development should take place or the importance of the environment and of noise on communities, the Government did not have the option of doing nothing. We had to place these matters before the public for proper open debate, and I assure hon. Members that we have done precisely that. I accept some of the criticisms that there may be inadequacies in our documents, but I must say that they were drawn up after long and careful consideration. We proposed what we believed were good options. We reduced them to a level that we believed was sensible so that people could make proper contributions to the debate. We had to have the debate. It is a difficult debate. There are many views, even among the 20 or 30 hon. Members in this Chamber today.

With regard to open debate, will the Minister explain why section 12.2 of the SERAS study quotes a minimum of £15,000 compensation, but the compulsory purchase and compensation document quotes a maximum of £15,000? Was that just an unfortunate mistake?

I will jot the hon. Gentleman a note about that if he wants me to. I cannot give an answer straight away.

With regard to the comments made today, the hon. Member for Hertford and Stortford talked about the length of the consultation. I believe that I have covered that. The problems of blight would have been considerable if we had extended the debate. I must take him to task for using the phrase "planned development" at Stansted. There is no planned development, just options. It is important in our use of language that we appreciate that these are options, not proposals. On the other hand. I fully understand the important concerns of his constituents that he raised. I assure him that the Government are mindful of those considerable concerns.

Comments have been made about the consultation process, and my hon. Friend the Member for Hayes and Harlington (John McDonnell) questioned whether it had been advertised sufficiently. I believe that it was advertised in the Evening Standard and Metro, and from the amount of interest that we received in response from people in local areas as well as wider areas around the country, it seems to have been well publicised.

The interest generated in my constituency was initiated by us. It was not advertised in the local paper. The Evening Standard is not our local paper and Metro often does not reach my constituency. Our local paper is the Gazette, in which the consultation process was not advertised. According to the Government's figures, 35,000 of our constituents will be poisoned by nitrogen dioxide levels that go beyond European limits. There were no experts at the consultation meeting and no medical expert was present to answer questions about the effects on our physical capacity to survive.

I thank my hon. Friend for that intervention. I should be happy to discuss any deficiencies in the consultation process that he brings to my attention. This is the first time that I have heard about some of them, and if he had told me about them earlier, I could have dealt with them.

The Minister has heard today our complaints about the consultation process and he has heard them before. The Secretary of State made the announcement on 23 July, immediately before the House went into recess, so for many weeks, we had no opportunity to debate the issue in Parliament. Surely, it is time for the Government to give us another two months, at least, to make sure that we have got it right. I am not asking for years, but surely six months overall is not too much to ask.

I hear what the hon. Gentleman says, but other hon. Members are asking us to curtail the process and end the blight on their constituencies. We have to balance the two arguments.

Who are they?

The hon. Gentleman asked about the consultation at Stansted, which he suggested was not properly advertised. Apparently, there was huge interest in the exhibition and the Secretary of State will respond to the request for an extra exhibition in the next few days.

My hon. Friend the Member for Hayes and Harlington, as always, argued powerfully the case for Heathrow, but some of his arguments illustrate the difficulties. My hon. Friend has rightly argued strongly in the past for jobs and prosperity in his constituency, but he also talks about the intrusion that would be caused by further development, which I also understand. That is the nub of the problem. We must consider jobs and development while reducing the detrimental effects on local people.

Will the Minister give way?

The hon. Gentleman was not present for the whole debate, so I hope that he will forgive me if I do not give way to him.

The hon. Member for Castle Point (Bob Spink) made several helpful points. He asked about the fifth runway at Cliffe, but it would be inappropriate at this stage for us to add any options to those proposed in the consultation document.

Will the Minister give way?

I will when I have answered his previous point. He said that that runway would only receive arrivals from the south-west and would not affect residents in south Essex.

My hon. and learned Friend the Member for Medway (Mr. Marshall-Andrews) said that he had considered the proposals, field for field and ancient site for ancient site. Of course, that is part of the dilemma because there are conflicting interests in each of the various developments. He questioned whether we need the extra capacity in the south-east, precisely the question that we asked in the consultation document. The hon. Member for Carshalton and Wallington (Tom Brake) was right to stress the importance of environmental considerations, but if we decide that there should be no more airport development, will he tell his constituents that we are restricting their ability to fly? That is the nub of the question. I think he said that he was in favour of a reduction in air travel, but if that is Liberal Democrat policy, he must answer the question whether we should reduce people's ability to fly.

Questions were asked about rail links and substitution, which are an important part of the consultation. Many of those who, like myself, represent a far-flung part of the country, would welcome better rail links, especially into London for international flights.

Order. We must now turn to the debate on corroboration in sex abuse cases.

In 1998, I was holding one of my regular Saturday surgeries when two men came to see me to discuss their deep concerns about a friend. Their friend was a social worker in a local care home that had been established for many years and looked after young men who came from broken families or had misbehaved. For one reason or another, those young men had no one else to care for them except the council. The men's friend had been arrested for sex abuse, but they said that it was impossible that he could have committed the crimes of which he was accused.

Of course, that is a pretty normal response from anyone who learns that a friend has been accused of a horrendous crime. Sex abuse is one of those private things, and we now understand that the most vulnerable and innocent sorts of people can at one time be sex offenders. I told my visitors that they should be content with the outcome of the criminal proceedings and the jury's verdict on their friend, but I promised that I would ask some parliamentary questions about sex abuse crimes.

The answers that I received to my questions were alarming. It transpired that more than 40 police authorities had investigated cases of historical sex abuse, as opposed to one-on-one abuse, during the past two years. Police authorities receive two sorts of complaints about sex abuse—one about abuse initiated by an individual against an individual, and the other about abuse by an individual against many individuals. Those 40 police authorities were considering complex sex abuse cases involving hundreds and thousands of complainants and thousands of potential sex offenders.

Dozens of prisons hold sex offenders in this country. I have been to prisons that are exclusively the domain of sex offenders. Sex offending is a huge problem in the UK, and the associated costs of the inquiries are fantastic. When I asked a parliamentary question about Operation Rose, an inquiry by the police in the north-east, I was informed that the police costs alone for prosecuting those cases were £5 million. I estimate that £5 million must go to the Crown Prosecution Service and another £5 million on court proceedings, so each inquiry must cost about £15 million. I therefore suspect that the amount of public money allocated to the prosecution of cases is some half a billion pounds.

Armed with that sort of information, I received inquiries from other hon. Members whose constituents had come to see them. I decided that we should form an all-party group, but it was with some hesitation that I wrote to my colleagues asking for support. On the surface of it, we appeared to be a group who were generally in support of paedophiles, but that was certainly not the case.

I was very reassured when, after writing my first and only letter seeking support for the group, we received 60 responses from hon. Members on both sides of the House. The group was established one year ago. Our terms of reference were that we should not interest ourselves in individuals' guilt or innocence, but merely seek to identify and examine the processes used by the police, the Crown Prosecution Service and the courts when prosecuting cases. We would focus not on people, but on the process—and that is what we have done ever since.

Last year we dealt with 3,000 letters and made dozens of visits, and I have been into more prisons than I care to recall. I have spoken to complainants, victims and people who have been accused of sex offences and incarcerated for 20 years. I have spoken to judges, the Attorney-General and the Solicitor-General—and, indeed, the Minister who is here today.

The group has had a significant amount of correspondence from many different people, although essentially it has come from two groups. First, there are those who have been accused by another person. Secondly, there are the friends and families of the accused, or "the damned", as I prefer to call them. This group has relatives who have been accused of the most horrendous acts against not just one, but dozens of people.

I also have many letters from social workers and care workers who have been arrested and released, but who are waiting for another knock on the door. I have letters from people whom the police have identified as suspects and who are desperately waiting to discover the outcome of the deliberations, which can sometimes take as long as three or four years. I have letters from people who have been arrested and who are waiting for the police to put together their case. I have letters from those who have been charged and who are waiting for their cases to come to court. Finally, I have letters both from those who have been acquitted and from those who have been convicted.

All those people discuss their grave concerns about the processes that the police use to execute their inquiries. I think that often, the only difference between those who are acquitted and those who are convicted is luck, which consists of little more than the calibre of the team that supports them and the climate in which the case is conducted on the day.

How do people such as care workers with an unblemished service history find themselves accused of sex offences? When do they know that their world, and that of their family and friends, is about to collapse? It happens in one of two ways. Some of them may be at work. Someone who has been working in a care home for 30 years may be summoned to their supervisor's office to be told that allegations have made against them and inquiries are being made. They must go home at once and wait—which is what they do. Some of them wait a long time before finding out the nature of the complaint against them. Other people, however, may have been retired for 20 years. There may be a knock at the door at six o'clock in the morning, and six police officers may be waiting outside to tell them that they are being arrested for sexually abusing 20 people, 30 or 40 years ago.

Those who find themselves in that position have two ways out. They can admit their guilt; contrary to popular myth, many do. Many sex offenders are glad that they have been arrested, because they were locked into appalling behaviours from which they were waiting to be liberated. I have met sex offenders in prison who never want to be released in any circumstances, because they are so afraid of what will happen to them when they get out, and because they know that they are still extremely vulnerable.

Other people with whom I deal profess that they are innocent, as one would expect, and I have come to believe that there is in fact every likelihood that some of them are. They then wait to go to court.

How do the police come by the allegations that place those individuals in such a predicament? Police use a number of processes, one of which is trawling, and they receive complaints from a number of sources. What is trawling, and where do the complaints come from? Some come from solicitors who manage compensation schemes. Their advertisements say, "No win, no fee," and, "Have you been subject to a traffic accident?" or "Have you been abused? If so, you may be entitled to compensation." People who have been abused or who are seeking compensation may come forward legitimately and the solicitor refers them to the police; that is one source. A second is the individuals who go directly to the police.

There are also cases in which the police go "cold calling" and realise complaints directly. What does that mean? In certain operations the police authorities have identified every social worker who has ever worked in a care home as an individual who might have committed a sex crime. They have to start like that; they seem to believe that sex abuse is rampant in care homes. I do not share that view—it is a damning indictment of the vast majority of people who give their lives to help those who are far more vulnerable than they are.

The police may write to all the individuals who have ever lived in a certain care home asking them to help with inquiries and advising them to make contact if they suffered any problem while in that home. That may identify an individual, who will then give a statement along the lines of, "I was sexually abused"—or perhaps physically abused—"But I can't remember when."

The police then have just one statement. If they present one statement in court against a man who might have had 40 years' unblemished service, they will not win. That has something to do with the majority of complainants in such cases; they are largely convicted criminals. I have visited such people in prison, and many have themselves been convicted of murder, grievous bodily harm or other horrendous crimes, including sex abuse.

Thus the police have a statement from somebody and there is every probability that that person is a convicted criminal. They know that they cannot take the case to court—they would never secure a conviction—so they need corroboration of the evidence that they have from that one person. Therefore, they seek others. They do so by telling the first individual that it is necessary to identify others who might be able to help, and asking whether that person can think of anyone else who was present at the time. The individual might offer a list of people whom the police can then interview—usually in prison, because most of those whom they seek to interview are in prison, on remand or on parole.

The police go to prisons, frequently unannounced—I know that because I have spoken to people who have been interviewed by the police in prison—and sit down with a complainant. They say, "We've come to see you today because we hope that you can help us with our inquiries in connection with an individual who has been accused of, and arrested for, sex offences." They normally offer a photograph at this point, and say, "This is the man. He has done the most horrendous things to other people. Is there anything you can say to help us, because the statement that we have is not enough to convict him? We need something else. Is there anything else that you can give us?"

In a real case that came to court this year, the police had been to see an individual in prison. At the first interview, he said, "I've got nothing to tell you at all. This man has done nothing." But the police say that such people are hardened criminals, that they find it difficult to make disclosures so they have to be encouraged. So they went back to see that individual again and again and again. They went back to see him 15 times in 10 different prisons—then they got a statement. He was not the only person whom the police were seeing, because although they now had two allegations, two were still not enough, as the two people who had made them were convicted criminals, serving sentences for the most horrendous crimes. That is not enough; the police have to find others, and they do.

During the conversation the police can say, "There's compensation available; it's only right that you should receive that." Or they can say, "You know, you're coming up for parole," which may be in 20 years' time, 10 years' time, five years' time or next week. "How good will it look for your parole that you have identified the fact that you were abused as a child?" I have interviewed people, and for many of them money is not the issue. They have more to gain from helping the police than just money. They receive many visits from the police and see much activity. They become the centre of attention; they are not the baddy any more, but the goody. Some are very much persuaded by the opportunity to get a good report when it comes to parole time.

At the end of the day, the police may have 20 complainants. They need 20 to get to court because invariably, days before the case is to be heard, that 20 is whittled down, perhaps to 10. They know that statistically, they need at least eight to get a conviction. I can tell hon. Members that if anyone comes to their surgery and says that he has been accused of sex abuse, there is only one question that has to be asked, if he is a social worker: "How many complaints are there against you?" If it is eight, tell him to forget the judicial process and not to bother going to court, because he can go and see the judge and tell him that he can save the public purse a lot of money because he knows he is going down. He will go down. There is no way that eight people can be dispensed with, because the idea is that one can fool some of the people some of the time, but not all of the people all of the time. If someone is facing eight individuals accusing them of the same crime over decades—there may be 60, 80 or 100 different sex indictments—people will think that there is no smoke without fire. Someone in there must be telling the truth; they cannot all be telling lies. Therefore the person goes to court.

I attended court this summer, and on that day the newspaper that I am holding now carried the following headlines, with pictures: on page 1, "Dani, 15, killed by the uncle who lusted for her", and on page 2, "Dani's blood on stockings". Page 5 read, "Huntley's not mad, he's not depressed. He will be tried", and page 6, with a picture of bereaved parents, "We still have each other". Then people found the accused before them and discovered a sex offender present in their midst. They had one of these people. They could not get the ones here in the paper, but they had another one in front of them. The list of indictments for him included: buggery, sometime in April 1983; indecent assault, 1984; indecent assault, 1983; buggery, 1984. There is page after page of dates: 1973, 1978, 1969. That is the kind of accusation that such people face.

In a case earlier this summer, an individual who went to court faced 10 complainants; he was summonsed with another chap on 58 counts not dissimilar to those that I have mentioned. Two of the people who were brought to court to give evidence against him were from Broadmoor and had serious psychiatric problems, so they were refused. The third person who came before the court had made a mistake in that he had applied for compensation before the court case—I wish that they had all made that mistake. He was subjected to a significant amount of cross-questioning, which eventually culminated in the defence lawyer saying, "You're doing this for the compensation, aren't you?" to which he replied, "Yes, I am." Then he said, "And everything that I've said is a complete pack of lies." Next morning he was dispensed with and was subsequently brought before the judge for perjury, for which he is awaiting trial.

On the following morning, the next person who was due to give evidence did not turn up. The judge called for them to come, and they sent a letter to the court—

Order. I draw the hon. Lady's attention to the law regarding sub judice matters. It may not be being breached, but I issue the warning at this stage.

Thank you, Mr. Hurst.

The letter said something like, "I'm not coming to court today because all the statements I've given have been an absolute pack of lies." That situation is very commonplace. I do not want hon. Members to think that it is an exceptional case, because it is not—I could be talking about any one of the hundreds that are going on.

The judge discharged and exonerated the two men before him, saying that there was no case to answer. One man had lost everything, including family and friends. Of course, the police are law-abiding citizens who would never do anything remotely corrupt. They never have, have they? How does such a person recover his reputation? In fact, he has not been able to.

Social services have a right to instigate their own inquiries, and having been exonerated by the court, the men now find that they are the subject of an internal social services inquiry, which will last three weeks. At the end of it, they will be told either that they will be sacked from their jobs because people believe that they have committed a crime, or that they will not. They will never recover from the allegations, nor will their families and friends.

I am deeply concerned about the processes that the police are using. I do not think that they are actively engaged in some form of corruption, but like the rest of us, they feel a collective guilt for having done nothing for so many years. So many people who were locked into the care system reported sex abuse crimes and were never listened to. Now the police feel that they can do something, and that is what drives them on to continue to pursue people even after they have been told, "No, there are no allegations; I wish to say nothing."

It cannot be right that the only evidence used to convict a man is that obtained by the police from a witness in privacy, with no independent witnesses to the interview. I have been told that complainants can talk among themselves, but that would be difficult or impossible, because most of them are in prisons in different parts of the country. It is not necessary for complainants to talk among themselves, given that the same group of police officers are going from prison to prison writing statements on their behalf. That is what creates the consistency that allows such cases to come to court—they have been corroborated by volume.

It is a very stark claim to say that the only distinction between those who are convicted and those who are not convicted is luck. I want to be clear about what the hon. Lady is saying. Is she claiming that some or many people who are innocent are convicted, or is she making the lesser claim that some people who are innocent are nevertheless investigated and suffer as a result of the allegations? Those are two different positions, and I should like the hon. Lady to clarify which she is taking.

I have had letters from people who maintain their innocence of the crime of which they have been accused. I do not know whether they are innocent. All I can say is that the processes employed by the police in the execution of their duty, which have been compounded by the Crown Prosecution Service, lead me to believe that opportunities exist for the judiciary and the criminal justice system to abuse those processes to deliver a result. Some people who are brought to court, as many people have been this summer, are subsequently acquitted of the crimes of which they were accused, but only through the largesse of the complainants on the witness stand, whereas others being prosecuted face complainants who are absolutely adamant.

I was told by one complainant that the compensation was the quickest £50,000 he had made in his life, and some of the people whom I have interviewed in prison have said something like, "I'll have nothing when I get out of here, but at least that person will still have his family"—if he ever gets out, that is. I am currently trying to get the Criminal Cases Review Commission to take 30 cases, all of which are similar to the ones that I have outlined today. Two of those cases will now be taken posthumously, because of the age of the people involved.

I have a set view on what must be done. All conversations that take place between the police and the victims must be video recorded. The cases are far too important for the evidence not to be video recorded. I have seen the Minister several times about that, and he keeps saying no—but I say absolutely yes. I have spoken to judges about it, and they say yes. They say that video recording makes matters much easier. I want to see all those interviews, and be able to tell my constituents that there was no way that the police could have persuaded, encouraged or induced individuals to make allegations, but that they spoke of their own free will. I cannot do that at the moment.

People accused have very little recourse to appeal, because they need new evidence, for example about the incompetence of their team. There will be no new evidence for cases in which people believe there was no evidence to convict them in the first place. Such people are in the most horrendous position. I cannot give precise figures, but I suspect that about 100 people are locked up in prison for crimes of the most horrendous nature, which they did not commit. One man was given a severe beating just a couple of weeks ago; he now has a fractured cheek, a fractured nose and fractured eye sockets. He will stay in prison, because such people are not sent down for short periods. Eighteen years, when a person is 70, is a life sentence. I want interviews video recorded and, for the reasons that I have identified, the processes must be made utterly transparent. I will then feel more confident about the outcome.

The police have done something to try to minimise the abuse of processes. They introduced guidelines earlier this year, on the day that the Association of Chief Police Officers was due to give evidence in the Select Committee inquiries into the cases—but that is five years too late for the vast majority of people. The guidelines include a list of dos and don'ts, including the fact that there must be no talk of compensation. That advice is all too late for most people, and is not enforceable.

I have asked questions about who considers the processes that the police use. The answer is nobody. I asked judges whether, when cases come to court, the processes that the police use are ever discussed. They say that that is not under their jurisdiction. I asked the Home Office who reviews the processes and checks to ensure that they are not open to abuse. Is it, perhaps, Her Majesty's inspectorate of constabulary? It is not. That provides some evidence to child protection teams, but it does not look at the processes, or question whether people are vulnerable and being abused when they are interviewed. Is it an abuse to interview someone 15 times to obtain a statement? I think it is. That must be reviewed.

We might see changes and have cases video recorded. Although such people may be considered the most disgusting people on the face of the earth, we might still think that it would be worth video recording conversations with them. That would be fine for those who are yet to be subjected to the process, but I am worried about the men who have already been through it—men such as those who went to court this summer. They could easily have gone down. The complainants could have said, "No, I'm not seeking compensation. I don't want anything out of it. I'm not getting anything out of it." I know dozens of cases of people who have gone down. It is a matter of luck, and I must try to find some way for them to get justice.

I have already referred to the man who was seeking compensation and admitted so in court, so was taken before a judge and charged with perjury. The police force which put that man in that position got off scot-free. When people complain to the police about the processes, they are told they cannot do that. While we cannot do that, again and again the police use processes that are open and subject to abuse—for a good cause, but with the wrong outcome.

The criminal justice system is being prejudiced by those practices. Thousands of people feel vulnerable and open to the possibility of being accused with no hope of proving their innocence, because the evidence against them was gained in dubious circumstances with no independent witnesses. That must change. I must be able to face my constituents and say that in this country we operate to the very best standards—but at the moment, I do not believe that we do.

I congratulate the hon. Member for Crosby (Mrs. Curtis-Thomas) on her initiative in raising the subject under discussion today and on achieving this Adjournment debate. My congratulations are reinforced by my recognition of her bravery in pursuing a subject that can do her no political good whatever, and may even puzzle some of her constituents. If anyone under investigation by the police has first call on public sympathy, it is unlikely to be those who sexually abuse others, particularly children and young persons in their care in children's homes, schools, young offender institutions and other places where there is expected to be a relationship of care, not abuse, between the adults in charge and the young persons living there.

The hon. Lady is concerned about something with which every hon. Member should be concerned: justice. There should be justice, certainly for the victims of abuse, but also, more controversially, for those who are accused by the police and victims of sexual abuse—foul crimes that naturally excite feelings of utter revulsion in right-thinking people. Justice is a concept that is widely spoken of, but from time to time we are all guilty of wanting to define it partially or tendentiously.

One of the hon. Lady's practical suggestions, which has been subject to much discussion among those who practise criminal law and sit as judges, and, I am sure, in the Home Office, is the video recording of the taking of statements in police stations. Many interviews are already voice recorded. I know about the resource implications for the Home Office, but I hope that following the Police and Criminal Evidence Act 1984, when tape recording of statements was introduced, the Home Office, with the assistance of the Treasury, will do all that it can to introduce widespread video statement-taking in police stations, because that will lead to greater justice in all sorts of cases, not just those involving sex abuse.

During the past two years, Leicestershire constabulary has investigated a number of allegations of sexual and other abuse of young people in the care of Leicestershire county council's social services department. The investigation—not Operation Rose, but Operation Magnolia—has been made more difficult than it might have been under different circumstances because the allegations relate to events that are supposed to have taken place well over 10 years ago, and sometimes as long as 20 years ago.

In addition, following the reorganisation of local government in Leicestershire in the mid-1990s, the city of Leicester became a unitary authority with a social services department separate from that of the county council. Some employees stayed with the old county council department, while the new city council department took others on. Personnel and other records relating to individual employees of the two social services departments, and to the children and young people who had been in their care, have therefore been difficult to locate.

The allegations of criminal activity against members of staff appear to have been made by people who, although now adults in a chronological sense, are in some cases mentally unstable, possibly as a result of things done to them in their childhood. Allegations have been made by people who are abusers of their own children, by people who are in prison and by individuals who are not the most reliable witnesses of truth by virtue of their psychiatric or social problems, or because they have or may have an improper motive for making allegations against their former carers. Some of them may hope for early release from prison for helping the police with their inquiries. Some may hope for financial compensation for their mental or physical injuries, actual or imagined. Some may want revenge for the way in which they were rejected or neglected by their families or schools, or by society.

The picture is complicated, and I cannot attempt to unravel fact from fiction, not least because I am not privy to the nature or substance of the vast number of allegations that have been made and are being investigated. It is, of course, possible that some allegations made against the employees of the two social services departments are true and will lead to convictions in the Crown court. If they are true, I accept that it would be unjust for the perpetrators to go unpunished. It would not only be unjust but it would also destroy public confidence in the care home system and in the institutions that look after the mentally ill, the socially disturbed, the discarded, the abandoned and the young criminal. So far as I know—I may be wrong—no one has been charged with any offence arising out of Operation Magnolia, although two of my constituents were arrested in the summer of 2000, put in police cells, questioned and given the firm impression by the police that they were guilty of heinous crimes.

In one of those cases the crimes ranged from non-penetrative sexual misconduct with young boys to buggery. In the other case, that of a woman, the crimes ranged from criminal violence to unkind and unacceptable behaviour. Those allegations were not made clear to my constituents at the outset, but have been put to them serially and over time. They were not told who their alleged victims were and were not given sufficient detail to enable them to refute the allegations coherently. Furthermore, they were both summarily suspended by their employers, and it was only earlier this year that they were both, almost casually, informed by the police that they were not to be charged or prosecuted, and that they no longer needed to answer to police bail. There was, they were told, insufficient evidence for their cases to proceed.

Of course, by then the damage had been done. Those people had become pariahs. For more than 18 months they were unable to go to work, to explain to their friends and families why they were not going to work, to socialise and to go about their daily lives as they had in the past. They were prisoners in their own homes, terrified that the day would soon come when they would again be summoned by the police to be interviewed, and on that occasion charged and imprisoned on remand while the investigations against them were slowly pursued. One of them became so traumatised by the experience that he became suicidal and is still under the care of a psychiatrist. The other had to receive professional counselling for the stress she has endured. Both of them have had their faith in British justice and in the police undermined if not totally destroyed. Both are incapable of offering their employers, the social services department, and their line managers the respect that they once had for the institution and for the people managing it.

My constituents feel that they have been trashed on the uncorroborated say-so of some damaged and ill-motivated people whose stories were accepted as gospel by their employers and by the police, and that their professional lives, which they had dedicated to the care of the young and the vulnerable, have been ruined. One of my constituents is in his mid-40s and sees before him a blank future without the work, the professional satisfaction and the esteem that he had expected would take him through to retirement at 60 or 65. My other constituent, a lady in her 50s, is now back at work but cannot work in the way and with the people with whom she had worked until 2000. My two constituents are like priests who have lost their faith. They are ruined people contemplating ruined lives and a future without hope. Not surprisingly, both are considering legal action against their employers for the way in which they were treated.

Those constituents provide me with stark and immediate examples of the problem highlighted by the hon. Member for Crosby. As she said, the massive growth in police trawling operations has become a danger in itself: it is different from the danger of child abuse but every bit as corrosive to our justice system as child abuse is to the public care system. Even on the limited information that I have concerning my two constituents, it is clear to me that the presumption of innocence that should have been made in their favour—both publicly as a matter of course until conviction and privately within the police and the social services department employing them—at least until evidence of probative value became available to warrant precise charges that would stand the scrutiny of the Crown Prosecution Service and independent prosecuting counsel, never existed. It was not just under threat; it never surfaced at all.

The police in the two cases appear to have been desperate to find any information with which to sustain the theory that they had convinced themselves was the right one. They set about trawling through the memories, real or reconstructed, of former residents of children's homes in Leicestershire and believed without question or corroboration the tales that they were told.

I have been very critical today of the conduct of Operation Magnolia, at least in so far as it has touched the lives of my two constituents. I have deliberately not named them. Enough people know their names and what they have been through without making their lives worse through further identification. Equally, I have not identified the officers on Operation Magnolia, although there may be some who hear or will come to hear what I say who will be able to identify them. I want to make it clear that my purpose in taking part in this debate is not to vilify the officers on Operation Magnolia—none of them are actuated by malice—although I appreciate that they may see things somewhat differently. My purpose is to try to ensure that things are done better in future. I fully appreciate that the very small team that has been operating Magnolia is under-resourced and in desperate need of co-operation from other care agencies and police authorities, and that they are working within tremendous limitations.

We need to understand why the police investigation in Leicestershire has gone as it has and why the police officers concerned in it were—properly so—desperate to get to the heart of the crimes that they believed had been revealed to them. The key to the puzzle is one word: Beck. Frank Beck was a senior employee of Leicestershire social services. He worked for the department from 1973 to 1986 as the officer in charge of several children's homes, some in my constituency and some elsewhere in the city of Leicester and the county of Leicestershire. He later worked for the London borough of Brent, and Hertfordshire county council. He was arrested in 1990 on numerous charges of gross sexual and other abuse of children in his care while working in Leicestershire. He was tried and convicted, and received five life sentences from Mr Justice Jowitt in 1991. He died in prison in May 1994.

There is no better account of the terrible case of Frank Beck than that written by Mark D'Arcy and Paul Gosling in their book, "Abuse of Trust: Frank Beck and the Leicestershire Children's Homes Scandal", published in 1998. Anyone who is interested in the subject of this debate and the issues underlying it should read it.

The Beck case was not simply another case of a sexual predator operating undetected within an otherwise healthy competent institution. Leicestershire's child care services were subverted to such an extent that Beck and his followers were able sexually to abuse young children at will. This was possible partly because of Beck's remarkable personal qualities but also because of the weakness of the managers—and, to a lesser extent, the politicians—who were supposed to be in charge of him and his co-abusers.

Beck was a dominating and manipulative man, but had he been working within a stronger, better managed organisation or in an environment where children's complaints were taken more seriously, he would have been stopped much earlier. As it is, he is now known as arguably the worst child abuser in British criminal history, with a suspected toll of 200 children abused by him. He employed a potent combination of affection, shame, humiliation and domination, which mentally paralysed many of the children in his care and even some of the young men who worked at the homes.

Beck's is a story that has scarred the collective memory of the county and city social services departments, the Leicestershire constabulary and the local political establishment. There has been a criminal trial, and an inquiry chaired by Mr Andrew Kirkwood QC, which revealed massive shortcomings in the management of the county's social services department and the conduct of several key managers. I am happy to say that all that is in the past.

According to Mr Allan Levy QC, the leading child law silk who chaired the pin-down case inquiry in Staffordshire, the Beck case brought together all the main elements of other child abuse cases: sex abuse, excessive physical restraint, a punishment regime that contained elements of torture, denial of civil liberties for children in care and epic managerial incompetence. All that is true, and will have been in the minds of the social services department managers and of the police dealing with Operation Magnolia.

Never again, they must have thought, will this county and this city be caught out by a child abuse scandal. I suggest that, for the best of reasons—the desire to protect children in care, and to demonstrate that Leicester had learned from the Beck case—normally reasonable men and women lost sight of an essential in their pursuit of a dragon, and cast aside the proper professional caution and need for scrutiny that ought to have governed the conduct of Operation Magnolia, certainly in the case of my two constituents, if not in every case.

I will say no more about the case, or its handling by the authorities in Leicester, save to say that two people have probably been damaged irreparably by their experiences since their arrest in 2000. Had there been a calmer, more considered assessment of the allegations against them made at the time that they were received, their lives would not have been so cruelly changed. I do not say that in cases of child abuse there can never be a prosecution or an investigation in the absence of corroboration, for that could lead to huge difficulties and evil people getting away scot-free, but in this case, common sense and justice lost sight of each other in the rush to stop a Beck mark 2. Two of my constituents were presumed to be guilty when they had a right to due process and the right to expect that the allegations against them would be speedily, although thoroughly, examined.

There are lessons to be learned from Beck, but as a result of what I now know about the cases of my two constituents, I am left to wonder if we have so far learned the right ones.

I, too, express my thanks to the hon. Member for Crosby (Mrs. Curtis-Thomas) for initiating the debate with considerable passion, and for all the research that she has done during her leadership of the all-party group on abuse investigations, of which I am an officer.

I am anxious that others who wish to contribute may do so. Therefore, I do not wish to rehearse the powerful case made by the hon. Lady, to which my hon. and learned Friend the Member for Harborough (Mr. Garnier) has added. I would say simply that, as far as I am concerned, there is no underlying agenda. I wish to reinforce, or recover, my general respect for the criminal justice system, and the conduct of the police in undertaking inquiries.

My own interest springs simply from the experience of two constituents, both of whom were accused of practices alleged to have taken place when they had care of children in south Wales in the 1970s. In the case of one constituent, the charges were dropped. That person was not convicted, but the agreement was that one charge should be allowed to stay on the file. In the second case, the constituent was convicted and is in prison. The hon. Member for Crosby has rightly said that it is not the purpose of the all-party group, or of today's debate, to go into individual cases, and I pass no judgment, having not studied the evidence fully in any case. The individuals concerned and their families, in the examples of the released and the convicted constituents, declare their continuing innocence.

No less significantly, a local solicitor who is well known to me and highly respected, and interestingly, who does not normally practise in the defence of sex offender cases, has come to a case involving somebody whose family matters he has perhaps been dealing with. Suddenly, he became mixed-up in inquiries that they both regarded as ridiculous and inappropriate. That solicitor communicated to the hon. Member for Crosby considerable doubts as to the conduct of the case, in which the gentleman was convicted.

I emphasise again to the House that I hope that no one present holds a brief for paedophilia, or would not wish persons to be convicted of sex offences that they have committed. However, the process gives rise to concern. I am worried about the prevailing climate of a witch hunt, because it is the nature of witch hunts, from Salem onwards, to depress people's critical judgment. Such hunts allow conclusions to be reached that are prejudicial and that have, in many cases, been compounded by the great age of some allegations. I have referred to two cases known to me in the 1970s. It is the nature of those cases that there might be no forensic evidence, so they rely on individual testimony.

The hon. Member for Crosby and my hon. and learned Friend the Member for Harborough have mentioned their concern about the conditions under which that testimony may have been obtained and the inducements, whether in cash or in kind, that may be available to those who make those claims. Of course, that does not mean that evidence should not be taken seriously and dealt with by a court, but it must be handled very carefully and the circumstances in which it has been obtained are relevant to that.

To date, the incidence of cases reported is uneven across the country. The hon. Member for Crosby comes to the subject having considered a complete cluster in Merseyside. It seems extremely implausible that such activity, if it is on anything like the scale suggested by those inquiries, is not replicated across the country. Inquiries by other police forces may even the score, but the number of cases seems disturbingly different. Frankly, cases are also likely to cost some local authorities, whose employees are involved in such allegations, a fortune in compensation payments, as they have a general duty.

I am not a lawyer, as will, I think, become apparent, but I am concerned by the creeping extension of similar fact evidence. During the last century, we went a lot further than the famous brides in the bath case, which involved three strikingly similar successive examples of brides dying in the bath. From what I have seen, that extension is beginning to become prejudicial, for reasons that the hon. Member for Crosby mentioned.

I shall make a related point that does not bear on the strength of the convictions of those concerned. There are cases, which have been brought to the attention of our group, involving people convicted of sex offences who continue to deny their guilt. Many such convicted prisoners are not able to access large parts of the sex offender programme because of that, so they are likely to lose their opportunity of parole. Indeed, their sentences are increased as a result. There should be ways to handle that so as not to make it impossible for them at least to participate in activities that could be beneficial to them, and to be released at the appropriate time, given their general conduct.

From what I have seen of sex offender courses—I visited Rye Hill prison in my constituency only last week—there is a great deal of merit in them, but national moves are needed to ensure that such training programmes are available to all convicted prisoners on an equitable basis and that their outcomes are improved. There is work for the Home Office and the Prison Service to do on that subject.

May I draw on my experience of receiving such submissions when I was a Minister, although I was not at the Home Office? If I were confronted by anything like the concern uncovered by the hon. Member for Crosby and the all-party group, which has been expressed this morning, I would want to reflect on the submissions seriously, especially the safety of convictions.

We know that the case that we have been discussing is difficult, because of the widespread and perhaps proper national anger about the abuse of children. However, even if it is impossible to re-open cases or to establish separate machinery for so doing, I hope that Ministers are prepared to improve the central database that handles what has been going on and what the research of the hon. Member for Crosby has been instrumental in drawing out. The Home Office's approach to managing and monitoring the process has, frankly, got out of hand.

The matter is serious. Justice works both ways—for the victims of criminal activity and those accused of carrying it out. In this case, changes and a fairer process are urgently needed in the interests of justice.

I begin by paying tribute to the hon. Member for Crosby (Mrs. Curtis-Thomas) for securing the debate and for leading on a subject that is difficult for any politician to deal with and which will secure her no cheap votes anywhere. I do not say that the hon. Lady is totally averse to seeking cheap votes on occasion, but the contrary is true in this case.

I became aware of the problem when an individual who was under investigation came to my surgery and whose primary concern was the slowness of determination. He was convinced that he was innocent and that the process of deciding that would take a long time. I was a little uneasy. I did not know the circumstances and, to some extent, I went through the formalities, making inquiries in the appropriate places. I was somewhat discountenanced to find that more and still more people subsequently came to me with similar complaints and claims of innocence. They had been caught in some trawl. I began to take the issue more seriously in terms of its general principles.

Child abuse is a terrible, terrible crime—it destroys childhoods—but because it is such a terrible crime, to be wrongly accused of it is a terrible event for an individual. It ruins lives, just as the lives of the abused children are ruined.

In our society, there is immense concern, even panic, on the issue. The hon. Member for Daventry (Mr. Boswell) mentioned Salem, witchcraft and the emotions that run high when there is a moral panic throughout society. Of course, there is an important difference: witchcraft did no real harm, but child abuse does considerable harm and must be taken absolutely seriously by everyone in society. However, there is a parallel danger: the double abuse of innocent people wrongly accused and innocent people abused. That will happen whenever common sense, fairness and the ordinary rules of evidence are ignored in circumstances in which investigators have too much pressure put on them to get an immediate conviction or when they become blind to counter considerations. A recent case in Newcastle, which is not identical to the one we have been discussing, shows what can go wrong. The lives of young professionals were pole-axed by the witch-finder mentality of a particular doctor and the slackness of a social services department.

I have no sympathy whatever, in any circumstances, with paedophiles such as those who do not seek help and prefer to normalise their perversion, desensitising themselves from the vulnerability of children. Precisely because I have no sympathy with paedophilia and find it horrendous, I do not want people to be accused without good evidence, which is the point on which the debate hinges.

Good evidence is not usually obtained when there is the prospect of compensation or any encouragement of malice or revenge. It is not obtained when we ignore circumstance, plausibility or contrary indicators. I may part company with some hon. Members in the Room on this point, but I am convinced that all those issues will come out in court during the judicial process.

I may be a little innocent or a little naïve, but if that were not the case, I have sufficient faith in British justice to think that if lawyers are up to their task and if judges are what they pretend to be, that will ensure that considerations such as the one to which the hon. Member for Crosby drew our attention will be properly aired in court. However, that is different from saying that such considerations are foremost in people's minds during investigation. There is evidence that that is not always the case. In certain areas, the ratio of suspects to prosecutions, for example, is a cause for concern. Leicestershire was cited as an example. We must ask ourselves whether the process is ideal when there is a large number of suspects, but a very small number of successful prosecutions.

A serious investigation that does not lead to a conclusion involves certain deeply distressing elements. As the hon. Member for Crosby pointed out, it can involve a police raid, often early in the morning, on the home of the person suspected. It will almost certainly result in suspension from work, gossip, stigma and shame for the individual, but may not result in a conviction and may not mean guilt. I accept that the two are different.

The hon. Member for Crosby alluded to the possibility that people who are not convicted may be guilty, but acting without proper evidence or without proper conduct and examination of that evidence, and not using the rules that would apply in ordinary investigations, causes problems. There is intense suffering for the innocent person, which has been drawn out in many cases, especially in Merseyside. People who are acquitted have been cleared, but none the less they have remained under suspicion for long periods. A likely corollary of that problem is that if we conduct investigations in such a way and do not reflect on how we conduct them, we shall create a general social anxiety about all relationships with children. Society is not noticeably improved if adults fear to talk to children, or if every contact is seen as some sort of sexual advance.

Order. May I remind the hon. Gentleman that he must conclude shortly?

I am coming to my conclusion now.

I cannot spot the child molester, and I have been surprised and shocked by people who turned out to be one. However, I do not think that we shall get back to a more wholesome world by encouraging false accusations, suspicions or malicious claims if the rules and procedures for investigating child abuse are different from those used in other serious crime investigations conducted by the police.

The hon. Member for Crosby (Mrs. Curtis-Thomas) has taken a valuable and courageous step in bringing the matter before the House. No one who listened to her arguments, or who heard the emotion in her voice, which is important in such matters, can fail to be moved by her concern that the conviction of a certain category of offender in sex abuse cases is turning into a lottery. The matter should be of grave concern to the House, because if that is happening, the quality of justice that we tend to take for granted in this country is being undermined. She raises a serious issue.

Justice is human and therefore fallible. This country has a system of justice that we hope operates well, perhaps better than those in other countries, but that does not mean that there cannot be miscarriages of justice. That is one reason why, historically, we have tended to weight the scales of justice in favour of the accused. We require the conviction of the accused only if a jury is satisfied and sure. Through our common law system, we have introduced a series of extra safeguards, designed by judicial interference, to protect the accused. However, we must face up to the painful but inevitable fact that the more safeguards there are in place, the more likely it is that, in addition to acquitting the innocent, on occasion the guilty may be acquitted.

That is one of the difficult balances to be struck, and I dare say that a reason for it is the fact that there were usually only two options available in the criminal justice system in England and Wales in the early 19th century: the accused was either acquitted or, for a serious offence, hanged. The fact that we have moved away from such a system should not make us forget that the lives of those who fall victim to the criminal justice system, and who are innocent but convicted, as well as the lives of their immediate families, are ruined. As the hon. Member for Crosby, my hon. and learned Friend the Member for Harborough (Mr. Garnier) and my hon. Friend the Member for Daventry (Mr. Boswell) so eloquently described, that ruin is something from which they may never recover.

Over the past 20 years, the trend has been all one way. It is significant that the title of this debate refers to sex abuse cases and corroboration. Prompted by legislation from a Conservative Government—this is why I say that the matter is not party political—and in response to public concern, the House got rid of certain safeguards. For example, in 1988, we got rid of the safeguard that no one should be convicted on the uncorroborated statement of a child. In 1994, we got rid of the requirement for corroboration in sex cases, as well as in respect of accomplices. That meant not that someone could not be convicted, but that a judge had specifically to warn a jury in such cases. It is worth asking why that was done. I think the reason was societal pressure arguing that guilty people were being acquitted as a result of the safeguards used by lawyers in the criminal justice system—it was all a bit of a game and that it would be better if evidence were put before juries so that they could make up their minds. That raises important issues.

We cannot get away from the fact that although sex abuse cases constitute only 1 to 2 per cent. of convictions on indictment—it has rightly been said that an atmosphere of Salem witchcraft can so easily prevail in such cases—they constitute about 30 per cent. of referrals to the Criminal Cases Review Commission, as a result of which there is growing disquiet about whether justice is being done.

We are shortly to embark on a criminal justice review—a massive piece of legislation—during which, once again, we shall be subject to exactly the same pressures, but in a widening field. For example, there will be pressure to allow previous convictions to be disclosed to juries and to allow much more hearsay evidence to be admitted in court. Such evidence is not from the person directly concerned with the case, but what they heard from someone else. Such provisions are all designed for the same laudable aim of trying to ensure that the guilty are convicted.

As the Home Secretary has said, we want the truth, but one problem that we face is that the truth is often elusive. Our justice system has, historically, tended to shy away from it and to say, "Let's concern ourselves not with the truth, but with whether we can be sure that somebody is guilty of an offence." The hon. Member for Crosby has rightly highlighted the fact that, in our concern to ensure the conviction of the guilty and their punishment for serious and horrible offences that right-thinking people believe should be investigated and punished, we are in danger of doing our society a grave disservice. We are making it much easier for the innocent to be convicted, both by the processes that we have set up and by the background pressure from the public to see something happening to prevent things that they regard as particularly horrible. That is an enormous challenge not only for the Government, but for the House.

We have to be the protectors of the innocent and we must always have regard to the consequences of legislative change. The hon. Member for Crosby has been very specific, so I hope that she will forgive me if I widen the scope of the discussion, because unless we examine the background, we shall not see the way forward. She said that it would be desirable for the taking of witness statements to be video recorded, but that poses problems. It would be desirable, but logistically, in view of the sort of areas in which it would take place, it would place great burdens on the police.

The process of taking witness statements, as I know from personal experience, can be extremely complicated and rather difficult. In the time we have, it would not be right to go into the detail. Suffice it to say that I realised as I gave a statement to the police about a burglary at my home that they were, for the perfectly legitimate reason of trying to protect my identity, distorting what I was saying while recording my statement. As I am a lawyer and I was not too concerned about my identity being disclosed, I did not want to have anything to do with that.

I mention the incident because it illustrates the sort of problem that can easily give rise to the desperately worrying situation that the hon. Member for Crosby highlighted. She has raised legitimate issues that are not popular at the moment; members of the public are not excited about them. However, they are excited by newspaper headlines over many pages that encourage them to believe that terrible situations exist that must be remedied, and the Government do their best to respond.

Consider the long-term trend in the House in terms of criminal justice legislation. We are subtly and consistently moving the goalposts and we are likely to do so again over the next 12 months, for reasons that I fully understand. However, in our desire to secure those convictions that satisfy the public, are we losing the quality of justice? That is the important issue that the hon. Member for Crosby has raised, and I am grateful to her for her courage in doing so. I hope that the Minister responds to her specific statements and that, in the coming year when we consider the many other criminal justice issues that so closely relate to these matters, he carefully bears in mind what she has said.

I shall be brief. We all want to hear the Minister, so I shall concentrate on just two or three points. I add my congratulations to the hon. Member for Crosby (Mrs. Curtis-Thomas). We have had a moving experience this morning, and many of us will think about it for a long time.

Child protection is so important, and I came to the debate thinking of three things: a report out this week says that many improvements are needed, that agencies should work together and that there should be better guidelines for the police. Then there is the issue of the innocent who are wrongly convicted. I have a statement from a professional in the field, which fills me with horror, as

"it may be that innocent people are being convicted but we ought to be more worried about the guilty who might get away".

When we hear such statements, we must be concerned about the actions of people working in the field.

As my hon. Friend the Member for Southport (Dr. Pugh) said, reputations can be irreparably damaged. The hon. and learned Member for Harborough (Mr. Garnier) said that the picture is complicated. As we progress, I think that we shall find that that is a great understatement, because the issue is so complex. The Home Affairs Committee is carrying out a full investigation, and I urge the Minister to act on its recommendations. A vast amount of evidence was submitted to it, which will clearly be important.

We are talking about the present, and we need to take a holistic approach to getting child protection right and to how matters are investigated. There must be a well-publicised framework that everyone in the field accepts. In addition to carers, we should briefly mention teachers, many of whom have had their careers irreparably damaged, although very few convictions have been made. Some responsibility must rest with those who make accusations. They must be made aware of the seriousness of their claims, and we should perhaps make clear what happens when false accusations are made. It is not always easy to proceed with a private court case to clear one's name.

We have had an important debate, but we need to hear from the Minister, so I close on that point.

I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Crosby (Mrs. Curtis-Thomas) on obtaining the debate. I also congratulate the other members of the all-party group who have contributed to this serious discussion. As the hon. Member for Mid-Dorset and North Poole (Mrs. Brooke) said, the Home Affairs Committee has been considering the issue, and the Government will want to examine its conclusions carefully. I must say, however, that the widespread use of expressions such as "witch hunt" does this complex and important issue no justice. I would not like to give credence to the idea that it is being dealt with in the atmosphere of a witch hunt.

Should we attempt to investigate allegations of sex abuse that took place some time ago? It is easy to suggest that events of 10 or 20 years ago are in the distant past, but we should remember that someone who was in his early 20s when he abused children 20 years ago is in his early 40s today. I doubt whether most members of the public and, indeed, most Members of the House would say, "That's too long ago. Let's forget about it."

We are discussing allegations of appalling crimes, which have a traumatic impact on victims. That trauma can be made worse for those who finally talk about it if they have the fact of their abuse denied. I doubt whether the House would accept that events should not be investigated because they took place some time ago. It is important that we ensure that complaints of serious crimes are followed up and that victims who show bravery in coming forward are treated justly and with compassion. The police must be able fully to follow up complaints and to pursue all lines of inquiry, whether they point to or away from the suspect.

We have had two different debates, and I want to distinguish between them. My hon. Friend the Member for Crosby used a line of argument that invites us to believe that there has been a widespread and massive miscarriage of justice, involving not only police inquiries, but the Crown Prosecution Service and the courts. The hon. Member for Southport (Dr. Pugh) and the hon. and learned Member for Harborough (Mr. Garnier) distinguished that position from a narrower concern about the possible consequences of a police investigation for the lives of people who are innocent, and the hon. Member for Daventry (Mr. Boswell) was probably taking a similar position. That is an important distinction, and I want to deal with both sides of it.

I am grateful to the hon. Member for Daventry for advising me on the basis of his considerable experience as a Minister. I can assure him that I take the issues raised by the all-party group, and by my hon. Friend the Member for Crosby in particular, very seriously. I have returned to them on several occasions, and some changes have been made as a result. Let me make it clear, however, that, as a Minister, I can act and can advise the rest of the Government to act only on the basis of facts that can be properly examined.

Many months ago, representatives of the all-party group referred to cases in which individuals were induced to give evidence by the offer of compensation. I did what I thought was the right thing for a Minister to do and asked for instances, names and cases that could be followed up. Many months later, despite a reminder, I have not been provided with an instance of a single case.

I am in a difficult position. Allegations have been made in the debate that that practice is widespread and that certain individuals have said X, but I have not been able to find an individual case as yet. We have heard allegations about the conduct of interviews.

Will the Minister give way?

May I finish my point? Terence Grange, the chief constable who speaks for the Association of Chief Police Officers on the matter, has sought details of cases in which abuse of investigations could he followed up. They have not been forthcoming. It is difficult to introduce a change of Government or police policy when there are no cases to investigate. I give way to my hon. Friend, but I want to make further points on the subject.

I thank my right hon. Friend for letting me intervene. I know that he receives thousands of letters from families of people accused of the crimes that we are discussing, and from the people themselves. He is aware that many of those cases are on their way to the Court of Appeal, and he will have been advised by Her Majesty's inspectorate of constabulary and other parts of the criminal justice system that they have received a considerable correspondence on specific cases that are being conducted throughout the country.

It is the case, however, that the all-party group has not been able to identify cases for me or, despite the offers, for the chief constable who speaks on the subject for ACPO. We must look to other sources of evidence, therefore.

On the allegation involving compensation and whether people have been induced to give evidence, we may turn to the Criminal Injuries Compensation Authority, which reports that there has been no significant increase in applications for compensation for historical abuse, so there is another problem.

We can study the cases brought before the Court of Appeal, as a widespread miscarriage of justice on the scale alleged could reasonably be expected to show up in significant cases. I am not suggesting that a large number of cases would be involved, but some would have been thrown out due to the quality of evidence or because the investigative process was shown to be flawed. At the moment at least, evidence of such a miscarriage is not, in my judgment, forthcoming from the Court of Appeal.

The hon. Member for Beaconsfield (Mr. Grieve) referred to the Criminal Cases Review Commission. The commission's chairman has said that although the number of cases reviewed involving sexual offences is relatively high, the number involving historical abuse is negligible. The hon. Gentleman was making a point about the conduct of sexual abuse cases, but significant numbers of historical abuse cases do not appear to be reaching the CCRC.

I am not at all complacent about these matters, and no Minister in my position could lightly dismiss allegations of a widespread miscarriage of justice. However, I have spent some time in the past year studying the indicators and signs that might make one believe that such an extensive miscarriage of justice has taken place. At this point, I remain unconvinced that such a miscarriage has occurred. Of course, we must continue to consider cases that are raised and any evidence that is brought to light.

I turn to a different point, which was raised by the hon. and learned Member for Harborough and the hon. Members for Daventry and for Southport—one on which we have made progress this year. Innocent people may be caught up in such investigations, just as they may be caught up in any other sort of investigation. The damage done to an individual faced with such allegations may be marked, and the hon. and learned Gentleman made that case extremely well. Of course, justice is not served by the distraction of fraudulent or malicious claims. Indeed, the conviction of an innocent person will not help survivors of sexual abuse. We must remain vigilant for clear evidence of possible problems.

Over the past year, the Government have recognised that investigations need to take account of the damage that can be caused to the accused, who may be innocent. We made sure that that point was explicitly made in the guidance that was produced following a recommendation in the Waterhouse inquiry report and issued by the Government to all agencies involved in investigating complex child abuse cases. It builds on the guidance in "Working Together to Safeguard Children".

The issue was not explicitly addressed in previous guidance to those handling such cases, but now it has been. In parallel with that guidance, ACPO has developed and published an operational handbook for senior investigating officers based on the experiences of practitioners who have been involved in that type of police investigation. Again, the handbook directly addresses the need to take into account the position of those accused of that type of crime, who may be innocent.

Both sets of guidance have been developed from evaluated good practice. The awfully entitled but quite important inter-agency strategic management group, which consists of senior staff from the police, social services, health and local authorities, has set the policy and the terms of reference, and has created the protocols for that type of inter-agency working. One change from the position of a year or so ago is that we have two sets of guidance that are intended to provide a strategic policy framework and good practice guidelines within which the police, together with other agencies, should operate to deal fully, thoroughly and fairly with an initial complaint and the alleged perpetrators.

I hope that hon. Members who have raised concerns today about the position of the innocent accused feel that we have responded to some of them. It is also worth pointing out that, despite the lack of substantiated cases of abuse of the compensation mechanism, the guidance also puts beyond doubt how compensation issues should or should not be addressed in the interview process.

My hon. Friend the Member for Crosby, the hon. and learned Member for Harborough and the hon. Member for Beaconsfield all raised the question of recording interviews and statements. The Police and Criminal Evidence Act 1984 allows for the video recording of interviews in police stations. Video recording is being piloted in five police force areas, and over the summer we made additional funds, which will enable an extension of those experiments, available for forces to bid for, but it will be some time before all police stations are covered. That, however, is different from recording interviews that take place outside police stations, which would cover millions of conversations that occur between the police and the public in the investigation of many different types of crime.

We have had to consider the issue, on which we are not yet persuaded, of whether an exception should be made on recording interviews, no matter where they take place, in historical sex abuse cases while not applying the same criteria to all other types of police investigation. Aside from the question of resources, I am not convinced that the case has been made for distinguishing between historical sex abuse investigations and other investigations that the police have to undertake.

The debate is enormously important. We have all remarked that the Home Affairs Committee will reach its own conclusions, which the Government are bound properly to consider at the appropriate time. I am grateful for the opportunity to respond to the debate, and to give our commitment to ensuring that we can protect children and my commitment to ensuring that the justice system works properly.

On a point of order, Mr. Beard. I should appreciate your guidance on whether it is in accordance with the customs and practices of the House of Commons for the hon. Member for North Thanet (Mr. Gale) to raise a debate on the testing and demolition of ordnance at Shoeburyness and on Foulness island, both of which are entirely in my constituency, without having notified me in any way. I wrote to him on 14 October to express my concern about that.

In a similar situation on 27 March 1995, Madam Speaker gave clear and specific guidance—first, that she deprecated any such practice and, secondly, that it was contrary to the customs and practice of the House of Commons. In view of the importance of the ranges to my constituency and to the nation's security, Mr. Beard, I would appreciate your views.

I thank the hon. Gentleman for giving me notice of his point of order. Madam Speaker's ruling on 27 March 1995 applies to such circumstances. It states:

"The hon. Gentleman is quite correct. When an hon. Member wishes to raise, especially in an Adjournment debate, the question of some development or project that concerns another Member's constituency, not only is it a matter of courtesy to let the other hon. Member know but it is a matter of good custom and practice. I deprecate the fact that the right hon. Member…has not been informed that that Adjournment debate is to take place".—[Official Report, 27 March 1995; Vol. 257, c. 696.]

I endorse those sentiments, but they refer to good custom and practice and do not invalidate the debate.

I am grateful for this opportunity to raise a matter of considerable concern to my constituents and those of other hon. Members. I had not intended to comment on the background to the debate, Mr. Beard, but in the light of your comments I should make it absolutely plain for the record. I and several other Members of Parliament, properly representing their constituents, have expressed concerns over these issues for a long time, and a number of us have sought to secure an hour and half's debate in this Chamber. At the end of the last Session, frustrated at having failed to secure a longer debate, I applied for a half-hour debate, and learned only last Friday that I had been successful. I understand—although I have not had the opportunity to check—that my office notified not only the hon. Member for Rochford and Southend, East (Sir T. Taylor), but all the other Members concerned.

Absolute rubbish. Totally untrue.

My understanding is that my office notified not only the hon. Gentleman but all the other Members, in writing, that the debate was to take place. I told the hon. Gentleman—and he accepted it before he raised his point of order with you, Mr. Beard—that I would check that. Only this morning, I received his letter dated 14 October. I replied immediately, and that reply is on the board. In my letter, I said that I understood that he had been notified and that if he had not been I offered my apology. Because he requested time to intervene in the debate, I pointed out to him that several colleagues who knew that it was taking place, having been clearly notified, had expressed a wish to intervene. I have said that I am perfectly happy for any hon. Member with a constituency interest in the subject to intervene in so far as time permits. Moreover, I spoke to the Minister when he entered the Chamber this morning—the first opportunity that I had had—to verify with him that as far as I was concerned, and as long as it was in order with you, Mr. Beard, it would be in order for the hon. Gentleman to speak briefly when I had concluded my remarks. I cannot be fairer than that, and I am sorry that we have wasted three minutes on the matter.

I am pleased to have this opportunity to raise an issue that is of considerable concern to many of my constituents living along the north-east Kent coast between Herne Bay and North Foreland—that is, the testing of ordnance and demolition of time-expired munitions on behalf of the Ministry of Defence at Shoeburyness and Foulness island and on Maplin sands in the Thames estuary—which is the source of most of the problem, and which I believe is not technically in any Member of Parliament's constituency.

I am aware that this is a subject of interest for my hon. Friends the Members for North Essex (Mr. Jenkin), for Maldon and East Chelmsford (Mr. Whittingdale) and for Canterbury (Mr. Brazier), and that they have made representations on behalf of their constituents. Constituents represented by the hon. Member for Sittingbourne and Sheppey (Mr. Wyatt) have also expressed concerns, as have several local authorities, including Tendring, Colchester, Maldon, Thanet and Canterbury district and city councils. Tendring and Canterbury have passed formal resolutions to

"seek relief for coastal residents and their properties from the noise and vibrations caused by the MoD use of their establishment at Shoeburyness".

They call for

"the immediate cessation of destructive explosions at this establishment and the examination by the MoD, as a matter of urgency, of an alternative site in a remote area of the country where the test and evaluation functions of the MoD can be undertaken without the severe disturbance currently imposed upon the population bordering the Thames Estuary".

Those are their words, not mine. The parish councils of Herne in Kent and St. Osyth in Essex have expressed similar sentiments.

Shoeburyness is in the constituency of the hon. Member for Rochford and Southend, East, and it is only right for me to say immediately that he has not endorsed the views that I shall express. I wrote those words before this morning's intervention, and I stand by them. I mean him no discourtesy in saying that it is the constituencies that bear the force of the shock waves emanating from Shoeburyness, rather than the site from which they are generated, that give rise to this brief debate. It is a peculiar fact that it is the areas to either side of the Thames estuary, along which the sound waves and shock waves rebound and reverberate, that suffer now, and have for many years.

The Ministry of Defence owns the site at Shoeburyness and QinetiQ—formerly the Defence Evaluation and Research Establishment—now operates part of it under licence. As the Minister said in a response to my constituent Mr. Woollett of Beltinge, Herne Bay, in a letter of 21 August, Shoeburyness has been operating for about 150 years. The Minister will forgive me, however, if I say that his assertion in the same letter, referring to a lack of

"conclusive evidence that Qinetiq's activities are the cause of damage to people's properties"

was less accurate. I could take up the whole of my remaining time with a litany of reported cases of cracked walls, fallen ceilings, rattling windows, shattered conservatories, broken ornaments and eventual compensation paid to claimants against the MOD—presumably not for no good reason.

It is really since the late 1980s that the size of ordnance tested and volume of munitions disposed of on the mud flats of Foulness island have escalated to the point at which they have become intolerable for residents along the Thames estuary.

In endorsing the time scale that my hon. Friend has just mentioned, I suggest that it is surely no accident that that was precisely the time at which the disposal of old explosives was moved to the site. While many of us recognise the vital testing work done at the site, we nevertheless ask why the destruction of old explosives cannot be carried out somewhere else.

I am grateful to my hon. Friend. I shall come to that point in due course.

I have before me a letter written by my noble Friend the Earl of Arran, dated 19 March 1990, in response to letters sent by my hon. Friend the Member for Rochford and Southend, East on 15 January 1989, 9 January 1990 and 16 January 1990. Those letters referred to

"concern expressed by constituents at the level of noise emanating from the Yantlet (on the Isle of Grain) and Shoeburyness ranges".

Lord Arran wrote:

"It seems likely that Shoeburyness was the originator in this case".

He added:

"The MOD and Service personnel using the ranges are well aware of the sensitivity of their situation and I am satisfied that they are doing all that they reasonably can to minimize the effect of their activities".

My representations on behalf of my constituents living in Herne Bay, Birchington, Westgate on Sea and Margate have led me to visit Shoeburyness on several occasions, once as a Parliamentary Private Secretary in the MOD in the company of the Minister's predecessor, the noble Lord, Viscount Cranborne, and on other occasions with parties of constituents. I have been out on the mud flats to watch controlled explosions, I have been given assurances of new incinerators that would smoke out and burn explosives, obviating the need for detonation and I have seen trials using water beds to deaden the sound of shock waves—all to no practical avail.

In 1995, my parliamentary colleague Roger Freeman, now Lord Freeman, then the Minister for Defence Procurement, wrote to me stating that

"since the particular difficulties of the first few months of 1994 the establishment has taken a number of steps to reduce the effects of its activities … for example large quantities of sand are used to tamp detonations. This has proved particularly useful in reducing noise and vibration associated with the disposal of unsafe or unwanted munitions".

However, with his customary honesty he then let the cat out of the bag, saying:

"There is no doubt that there has been an increase in activity at Shoeburyness which has been caused by an increase in the demilitarisation work as we can no longer dump ammunition at sea and as a result of transferring trials work to Shoeburyness which was formerly carried out at the Inchterf Range near Glasgow."

In all my dealings with Shoeburyness, Sir John Chisholm, chief executive of DERA and subsequently of QinetiQ, his staff at Shoeburyness—in particular, Peter Honey and John Denyer—and most Ministers, including the present one, have been the soul of courtesy.

However, the problem has become worse and worse. In January 2000, the Herne Bay Times reported:

"Windows cracked and animals ran in terror when Herne Bay was rocked by a massive explosion at the military testing site at Shoeburyness. The blast on Thursday afternoon was so severe that shockwaves cracked windows at Beltinge Post Office and the nearby village barber shop."

A local chartered civil engineer commented:

"The vibrations coming from Shoeburyness are a problem. Last Thursday's explosion was louder than usual and our office certainly shook. Already people have problems with plaster coming off their walls and if this continues it could get much worse. Older buildings aren't designed to take vibrations like that."

On that occasion, the DERA spokesman said:

"Due to the nature of defence trials it is difficult to guarantee that there will never be large explosions. However, it is important to note that Thursday's was uncharacteristic."

So uncharacteristic that on 1 March 2001 the Herne Bay Gazette reported:

"A terminally ill woman suffered distress and anxiety this week after being woken by early morning blasts from the Shoeburyness testing ranges."

Understandably, Ralph Mitchell vented his anger on behalf of his late wife, describing the complaints phone line as

"as much use as a chocolate fireguard".

Throughout that period, my hon. Friends and I pressed the case with the then Minister of State, Baroness Symons. We were again told that part of the problem stemmed from the MOD's Yantlett establishment on the Isle of Grain. The MOD personnel at Yantlett vehemently denied that suggestion. The MOD commissioned a firm, Vibrock, to carry out a monitoring exercise. Unsurprisingly, after months of delay and, no doubt, much expense, the consultants concluded that the vibrations and shock waves experienced by so many of our constituents did not exist.

An attempt to offer early warning of explosions through local media led to headlines such as "Get your earplugs out for tomorrow", "Gunfire Warning", "More Gun and Blast Testing" and "Explosive Weekend", and prompted Baroness Symons to write to me saying:

"I do not believe that this media coverage is helpful to the efforts we are all making to investigate the noise and vibration caused by the DERA site and I have therefore agreed that DERA can revert to the previous arrangements whereby the media are notified only in the case of unusual events."

Notwithstanding the unwelcome publicity, the then Minister, in another letter, said:

"There remains no demonstrated correlation between the activities at Shoeburyness that might be expected to result in more complaints and actual number of complaints received."

I am not entirely certain how many complaints she felt were necessary to demonstrate a link between cause and effect, but correspondence and signatures on a petition now run into hundreds on my own files alone. In that context, I should thank my constituent Tony Wilkinson and his friends for the many hours that they have spent helping me to ensure that those living in Whitstable, Tankerton, Chestfield, Herne Bay, Minnis Bay, Birchington, Westgate on Sea, Westbrook, Margate and Cliftonville have been kept informed of ministerial observations.

Like my hon. Friend, literally hundreds of constituents have approached me about the disturbance caused to them by the activities at Shoeburyness. According to figures that I obtained from the Minister, the number of official complaints received is running at just below 1,000 each year. Does my hon. Friend agree that that is only a small fraction of the actual number of complaints? I have often had reports of people who have been unable to get through on the complaints telephone number—and it is not very widely publicised. Furthermore, 10 times that number will not be aware that there is an official line on which they can register a complaint.

My hon. Friend is absolutely right. We know from general parliamentary experience that most people do not complain. However, walk down the high street in any of the towns along the north Kent coast that I have mentioned—I am sure that the same is true in Essex—and people will ask, "Did you hear the bang?" My own home is nine miles inland from the coast. On a good day—or a bad day, depending on how one cares to think about it—we can hear the explosions, and they shake our house.

So what can be done? My hon. Friend the Member for North Essex is the shadow Secretary of State for Defence; my hon. Friend the Member for Maldon and East Chelmsford is on the board of visitors of the military corrective training centre at Colchester; my hon. Friend the Member for Canterbury has had a distinguished career with the Territorial Army and I am a postgraduate of the Parliament and armed forces scheme. I have also served as parliamentary private secretary to two Ministers of State for the Armed Forces. I hope that we may claim that, collectively, we are reasonably well informed.

We recognise that at all times and never more than at present our armed forces need the best support and facilities available, that ordnance must be tested and that munitions must sometimes be disposed of. However, we are not satisfied that the densely populated Thames estuary is the best or most suitable site for the location of what is clearly a necessary facility. Having discussed the matter some months ago with the Minister, who received me most courteously, I am not even sure that he believes that Shoeburyness is any longer the right location.

It is claimed that Shoeburyness is in some way unique. Sir John Chisholm in a letter to me dated 5 December 2001 stated:

"The facilities at Shoeburyness are regarded by the Ministry of Defence as being unique, partly because of the size of the danger area and partly because of the facility that the shallow water offers for what we call 'over water recovery'. This involves firing munitions when the tide is in and then recovering them, in an undamaged state, when the tide goes out".

That is nonsense. It is a myth that must be laid to rest. Are we seriously saying that teams of military beachcombers armed with metal detectors paddle around in the mud of the Thames estuary picking up shells that are probably already deep in silt? I shall not embarrass the Minister by asking him to tell us how many shells have been recovered during each of the past five years because both he and I know that the answer could probably be provided without greatly taxing the fingers of both hands.

Next, let us touch upon security. This is a sensitive subject, but it is no great secret that, given the much-vaunted shallow water referred to by Sir John Chisholm, explosives for disposal arrive not by sea but by rail. Those trains, inevitably, must travel through densely populated areas of east London. I do not want unduly to alarm the good souls living along that line, but we live in uncertain times. Should a terrorist get his hands on the right wagons, I have a feeling that the earth might move more than a little in one or two of those towns. Surely, we should seek a remote coastal site where the necessary explosives can arrive by sea and be guarded immediately in secure berths.

Then there is the question of cost, which I have always believed is the sticking point. Until now, the thought has been that we have a location at Shoeburyness which, although by no means ideally suited to the military needs of the 21st century, is at least there. The acquisition of an alternative, assuming that the MOD does not already own one, and the equipping of it with the necessary storage bunkers, firing ranges and incinerators, and perhaps with dedicated port facilities, might cost millions of pounds that the Chancellor is not persuaded should be spent. He might think differently if an Essex town were flattened by an exploding train, but, that aside, a parliamentary answer from the Minister stated:

"Since the DERA PPP was announced in … 1998 as part of the Strategic Defence Review, the Ministry of Defence has spent some £7.2 million on advice from consultants and other fees."—[Official Report, 8 March 2002: Vol. 381, c. 577W.]

I hope that the Minister will not consider me frivolous or unduly mischievous if I suggest that if the Chancellor can find that sort of money to pay consultants, finding a few million more to secure a state-of-the-art munitions testing and demolition facility for our armed forces might not prove too difficult.

We have a real and unacceptable problem and I believe that the Minister accepts that. We have a military need that must certainly be provided for and we all accept that. We have an opportunity. The Government have embarked on a review of all their defence estates to determine value for money and to establish whether there are ranges and sites that could be better used militarily or returned to public use for development or recreation.

On behalf of my colleagues and our constituents, I ask the Minister simply to give an undertaking. Will he take the window of opportunity afforded by the review to consider an alternative location that will allow QinetiQ, owned by the Government, the Carlyle group or whichever preferred bidder finally takes on the job, to provide for the vital needs of our armed forces while at the same time removing from both banks of the Thames estuary an unacceptable environmental intrusion that has persisted for far too long?

The hon. Member for North Thanet (Mr. Gale) has left 11 minutes for the Minister and Back Benchers to express their opinions on the subject.

Does the hon. Gentleman have permission to intervene?

I said in my opening remarks that I was perfectly happy for the hon. Member for Rochford and Southend, East (Sir Teddy Taylor) to intervene, and the Minister has conceded that as well.

hope that the Minister will appeal to my hon. Friend to disengage from what I regard as an irresponsible, irrational and damaging campaign. Of course we know that there is noise from Shoeburyness—I live a mile from there myself. Of course I know that my house shakes. I know that we undertake dangerous work there, but let us get across some of the facts.

First, how valid are all the complaints that we hear from the hon. Gentleman? The Government have spent a lot of money on two surveys, as he well knows, and there is a third survey about to come because of all the complaints. What did the surveys, which were by independent people, actually find? They found that some 80 per cent. of the complaints received about noise and vibration, were not related to Shoeburyness in any way. Only one in five of them was related to Shoeburyness. It seems that some were associated with explosions at the Ministry of Defence range at north Yantlet in north Kent, and others were from sources that could not be identified.

Secondly, what about the number of complaints? Are people marching in the street? There are about 2.5 million people in the area. A tiny number, about 10 people, have sent in 256 complaints. The total is less than 1,000. As regards the volume of noise, we should bear in mind that the monitored levels give readings for Shoebury of about 1.5 mm per second or less, and a maximum of 1.7 mm. By comparison, a quarry is allowed 12 mm. Although I appreciate the real complaint, of which I am well aware, the idea that it is something extraordinary is ridiculous. The plain fact is that most of the complaints have nothing to do with Shoeburyness at all.

Shoeburyness is a desperately important facility. It is one of the world's leading test stations that serves the MOD and other allied defence organisations in vital testing and security. It is also used for the decommissioning of dangerous explosives, which otherwise could kill or maim civilians. It is the custodian of 8,000 acres of beautiful land, and manages its site of scientific interest standards at the highest level. It also contributes to the local economy, with 380 people working there. The unique facility has shallow water that allows us to fire munitions into the water when the tide is in, and to recover them when the tide is out. We cannot run away from that, and I hope that the Minister will confirm it. It allows us to test the strength of the design of the munitions and ensures that they will be safe and effective for our armed forces.

The environmental test centre is also based there, in which live munitions are environmentally tested and safely disposed of. All munitions have to undergo environmental testing before they can be accepted into service. Because of the huge area, the range offers the opportunity for the Army to carry out explosive ordnance demolition training, and that helps to prepare the forces for dealing with unexploded bombs. If the hon. Gentleman thinks that it is irrelevant, we should remember that one vital task carried out in Shoebury related to work on the Rolls-Royce Olympus engines following the tragic Paris airport crash of Concorde. Shoebury was involved in the testing of those engines, and the aircraft are now flying again.

I am well aware that we often get complaints from constituents about many things. I am aware of the complaints about the noise from Shoebury, because I live about a mile away, and I know what the position is. The situation honestly reminds me of those who call me on my mobile and say, "Will you do something about these telecom masts, Mr. Taylor? It's an outrage." We have to face up to our responsibilities. Shoebury provides unique facilities, and many tests have taken place.

I am sure that the Minister will announce today that there will be another test, but does he accept the fact that the tests already carried out by independent people showed that most of the complaints were a load of codswallop and had nothing to do with Shoeburyness at all? It is very disappointing that we should have such irresponsible action on a matter of importance and national security. The hon. Gentleman is well aware of the complaints I made to him about comments in the local press about what happened in Foulness. It was appalling—

Order. May I remind the hon. Gentleman of the need to leave time for the Minister to respond?

I shall, therefore, sit down and allow the Minister to respond. I hope that he will say what I have said: the complaints are ones that we should not take as seriously as presented.

I shall do my best to reply to the points raised in the relatively limited time left to me. I recognise that this is an important issue for hon. Members' constituents, however difficult it may be objectively to fit them into what takes place at Shoeburyness. I recognise that were I to set out to build a new test and evaluation range, I probably would not build it at the mouth of the Thames. However, we have been using that range for 150 years, and there are several reasons why QinetiQ and the MOD feel that they have no option but to carry on using it.

Shoeburyness is one of the world's leading test sites and delivers services that make a vital contribution to national security. We are all agreed that our armed forces must have safe, effective and reliable weapons and equipment to do their job. The comprehensive testing regime to which all munitions entering, or already in, UK service are subjected is designed to ensure that they are as safe as possible. Some of that testing, particularly on the larger calibre weapons, can be done only at Shoeburyness because it is the only site in the UK that is big enough to conduct those activities.

The primary role of Shoeburyness is the testing and demolition of ordnance and explosives. Testing comprises accident simulation and environmental attacks on weapons to assess their safety and suitability for services, and proof firing of munitions to prove by sampling that they meet the specification that we require. Trials work is undertaken to determine weapon effects on structures and equipment and equipment vulnerability to various weapons. The weapons tested may be manufactured for UK or other NATO services. Shoeburyness also undertakes work to ensure that protection of national assets remains viable against attack by an aggressor using ever more sophisticated weapons. Occasionally, testing is conducted on the types of weapons that potential aggressors or terrorist organisations might use.

Disposal by detonation is undertaken on obsolete items if it is unsafe or otherwise inappropriate to break them down for disposal in any other way. I have no doubt that hon. Members have seen the kilns that we use for that. We try to conduct that part of our work with little noise pollution.

I shall now address the cost of the activity in Shoeburyness in environmental terms, in particular noise and vibration. QinetiQ is not exempt from noise legislation as some local residents believe, nor is it flouting the law with the scale or the number of detonations. Health and safety legislation sets a maximum acceptable level of noise pollution at 130 decibels, weighted for the audible range of the human ear. The decibel scale is logarithmic, which, as hon. Members know, means that roughly every increase of 3 decibels is a doubling in power. QinetiQ has a self-imposed noise limit of 125 decibels at the range boundary, which is well within the law.

The noise level limit is managed through the use of meteorologically based computer prediction equipment and through six monitors that provide real-time measurements from selected sites in north Kent and Essex. There is also a single monitor on site. If predictions show that activity is likely to exceed the limit, it is prevented from going ahead. However, a few safety tests are undertaken during the year that are lengthy and once started cannot safely be stopped. If unpredicted changes occur to the weather conditions, thus affecting noise propagation through the atmosphere, the resulting impact on local communities may marginally exceed the limit. Similarly, there have been a very few occasions on which, for national security reasons, a trial has been undertaken regardless of the QinetiQ imposed noise limit.

During the past year, some 35,000 individual explosive and gunfire events have taken place at Shoeburyness. The total number of complaints of noise nuisance and alleged damage to property during the most recently measured 12-month period was 919. Of those, 326 were from Essex, 103 were from the immediate vicinity of the site and 484 were from north Kent. Of the 919 complaints, 253 came from 10 individuals. It being reasonable that a single significant event is liable to generate several complaints, it is a fact that well over 97 per cent. of Shoeburyness demolition and explosive test activities generate no complaints at all. Furthermore, during one study period, there were regular recordings of complaints that related to sound and vibration levels at times when the site was either shut down for the weekend or closed for the evening. That may be difficult for hon. Members to accept, but it is true.

The MOD recognises that there can be implications from trials activities and the facilities management contract, placed upon QinetiQ as the site operator, expects it to manage activities in a manner that reduces the impact of generated noise. QinetiQ conducts its detonation activities within the statutory and site imposed limits and there has been no significant increase in either scale or frequency of such detonations during the past few months. The site manager has arranged for residents to visit, which has proved popular and useful. Many visitors have consequently declared a better understanding of what is going on.

Independent reports are being conducted to determine whether there is any correlation between the site's activities and the ground shock being experienced by residents in Essex and Kent. There is no clearly demonstrable link, but a more comprehensive study will be carried out to try to prove conclusively what effects our activities have.

In conclusion, I recognise people's concerns. I say in mitigation that Shoeburyness performs a valuable function, and, where we can, we try to move the noisiest activities to areas where they will cause residents fewer problems.

On 15 May 2001, my constituent, Kevan Sloan, was in Tenerife, visiting his mother who works and lives there. He was arrested and charged with involvement in five robberies. Subsequently, he was acquitted of three of the charges and the prosecution dropped a fourth altogether.

Several of the allegations made against Kevan were, frankly, ridiculous. Indeed, well before the trial, he was able to demonstrate conclusively that he was not even on the island on some of the relevant dates. I shall comment on the evidence shortly, but first I want to make some general observations.

Kevan is a 26-year-old man from Kirkby in my constituency. He has no previous criminal record and has been in continuous employment at a local builders' merchant since leaving school. Indeed, his employers have been very supportive of him throughout and were able to provide firm evidence that he was at work in the United Kingdom on the dates of some of the alleged incidents. All of that indicates that he was a man of good character and standing.

It is astonishing that a young man of previous good character should suddenly turn into a one-man crime wave. People who rob supermarkets are generally hard-nosed criminals. It is highly improbable that, having never been in any trouble with the police, Kevan should arrive in Tenerife as a fully formed criminal. However, the impression given by the authorities at his trial was precisely that. I have pondered why that might be. The Fair Trials Abroad Trust, a British-based human rights charity that helps EU citizens who face miscarriages of justice abroad, has taken a close interest in Kevan's case. It has described the trial judge's conduct during the hearing as "questionable" and "xenophobic".

If that was the case, we must ask whether it resulted from a lapse of objectivity or a character flaw on the part of the trial judge, or whether there is some other explanation. It is a difficult call to make, especially as I was not present at the trial to witness the judge's behaviour at first hand. However, a parliamentary answer to me on 2 July 2001 from the former Under-Secretary, my hon. Friend the Member for Exeter (Mr. Bradshaw), threw some light on the issue. It explained that, in Tenerife, there are some 4,000 cases a year in which people seek consular assistance. That figure is far higher than the figures for some other popular foreign holiday destinations, such as Ibiza, where there are 2,000 such cases, Corfu, where there are 450 cases, and Benidorm, Majorca and Malaga, which, between them, produce some 550 cases a year.

That might provide a clue to why Kevan was dealt with so severely when the evidence for his conviction was, as I shall demonstrate, so unreliable. Even allowing for the fact that not all requests for consular assistance in Tenerife come from UK tourists in trouble with the police, many do. Given the obvious problems of lawlessness from UK tourists in Tenerife, it seems likely that Kevan was made a scapegoat for crimes committed by others. As judges in this country often put it, he was made an example of for others who might transgress in the future. Had he been guilty, that would not have been so unreasonable. However, to make an example of an innocent man is an unforgivable corruption of the basic principles of justice. I am not usually considered to be a bleeding heart liberal in relation to law and order issues; indeed, I suspect that many of my colleagues see me as even more hard line than my right hon. Friend the Home Secretary. However, I am convinced that there has been a miscarriage of justice in the case of Kevan. I base that conclusion on the evidence as well as on the unacceptable conduct of the trial judge and of the appeal judges who heard the two subsequent hearings.

Kevan was convicted of robbing the La Familia supermarket opposite his mother's flat, which he used occasionally as a customer, on 15 May 2001. The only witness to the robbery was the woman serving in the shop at the time. Initially, she stated that she was not sure whether she would be able to recognise the perpetrator again. Three days later, she made a positive identification of the alleged robber from CCTV pictures. The pictures related to other incidents that did not go to trial and do not resemble Kevan at all. However, the witness then changed her mind again and, having previously been shown photographs of Kevan, picked him out in an identity parade. None of the others in the parade bore any resemblance to Kevan. That is hardly the behaviour of a reliable witness, nor is it the proper use of identity parades. It bears all the hallmarks of somebody manipulated into choosing one person, irrespective of guilt or innocence. Given that Kevan was staying across the road from the supermarket and was an occasional customer, it is highly likely that the person serving in the shop might recognise him, albeit in a different context to the robbery.

The witness gave evidence that the robber spoke in colloquial Spanish. Kevan does not speak Spanish at all, and even if he had some knowledge of the language, it is most unlikely that he would speak it with a colloquial accent. I have spoken to some colleagues with a knowledge of linguistics and of the languages concerned and they tell me that it would be inconceivable for somebody with a rudimentary knowledge of Spanish to speak it with a colloquial accent. It is obvious; consider the English of people who visit this country and speak with a foreign accent—it is not at all colloquial. Despite the fact that six reliable witnesses had stated at the pretrial hearing that Kevan could not speak Spanish, and that the judge at the original trial acknowledged that no evidence had been produced that he could speak it, the judges at the appeal in 2002 concluded that he could have conducted the robbery in that language. Fair Trials Abroad believes that the judges at the appeal might have misread one of the defence witness statements referring to her own limited proficiency in Spanish as meaning that Kevan could speak it.

At the appeal, Kevan's defence produced five witnesses who provided the substantial alibi that, at the time of the robbery, he was with them in a bar some 270 m from the supermarket. Moreover, they gave evidence that the bar had only one door, so Kevan could not have left or returned without their having seen him do so. Finally, the robbery of which he was convicted, according to Fair Trials Abroad, bore a remarkable resemblance to the other four robberies with which Kevan was originally charged. As it put it:

"The judges made no comment on the fact that there was a clear series of robberies with the same pattern in all five cases."

Since Kevan was not even on the island when most of them occurred, it seems highly likely that all five were committed by the same person but that it was not Kevan.

Following the initial trial and an appeal, both of which were questionable and which produced unsafe verdicts, Kevan has served slightly more than 17 months of a three-and-a-half-year sentence for a crime that he did not commit. The appeal to the constitutional court in Madrid is pending.

In the past few weeks, Kevan has been moved to a part of the prison that holds prisoners on long sentences and he must share a cell with a non-English-speaking inmate. He has lost the support that he previously had from the network of English-speaking inmates. He is determined not to learn Spanish, because he believes that he does not belong in a Spanish jail and that doing so could compromise his defence, pending a further appeal to the court in Madrid. I appeal to the Spanish authorities to reconsider the decision to move Kevan from the prison's remand module to his present location, which is unsuitable and in which he feels entirely isolated.

Together with Kevan's family, Fair Trials Abroad and the Liverpool Echo, I have been part of a campaign to free Kevan. Earlier this year, my right hon. Friend the Foreign Secretary kindly met me, together with Kevan's father, Tommy Sloan, and his mother, Eileen Forrester, who is in the Gallery today. My right hon. Friend recently raised Kevan's case with his Spanish opposite number, and I place on record my thanks and gratitude for his efforts.

Through his lawyer in Tenerife, Kevan has applied for a deportation order, which, if successful, could secure his release. He has gone to great lengths, however, to make it clear that, in so doing, he in no way accepts any guilt. My plea, and that of his family, is that Kevan's application for that order and his further appeal to the constitutional court in Madrid should be dealt with speedily and that he should be allowed to come home, where he belongs. In the meantime, I again urge the Spanish authorities to put him in a more friendly part of the prison with other English speakers.

Kevan has suffered far beyond anything that could be considered remotely reasonable for a crime that he did not commit. I hope that the Spanish authorities will take due note and act accordingly. I also hope that my right hon. Friend the Minister for Europe will ensure that those very real concerns and the details of this debate are passed to the Spanish authorities and that they take proper note of them.

I am grateful to my hon. Friend the Member for Knowsley, North and Sefton, East (Mr. Howarth) for bringing Kevan Sloan's worrying case to the attention of the House. He is a former Home Office Minister and a highly respected, senior Member of the House, and I hope that his passionate advocacy on Kevan Sloan's behalf will be heard loud and clear in Madrid. I shall certainly ensure that the full record of this debate is passed to the appropriate authorities in Spain.

Before responding in detail to my hon. Friend's speech on the case, however, I should refer briefly to the weekend's terrorist outrage in Bali. Our consular staff in London and Bali have been working round the clock to do all that they can to help the relatives of British citizens who were killed or injured, and they will continue to do so. The Minister responsible for consular matters, Baroness Amos, will travel to Bali this evening. I express my condolences to all those affected, both in this country and in Australia.

I welcome the opportunity to highlight the assistance that the Foreign and Commonwealth Office has provided to Kevan Sloan and his family and to explain what consular assistance we can and cannot provide to him and other British nationals abroad. I reassure my hon. Friend that we are committed to supporting Mr. Sloan and, indeed, all British nationals who are detained overseas.

Since Mr. Sloan's detention, his family and supporters have campaigned vigorously for his acquittal and release. They believe that he is innocent, as does his Member of Parliament. They all believe that he has been the victim of an unfair trial, and Fair Trials Abroad has also been involved in the case. My hon. Friend's powerful speech today and detailed criticism of the prosecution's case will, I hope, give the Spanish authorities cause for further thought. I especially noted the points that he made about the paucity of identification evidence, Mr. Sloan's inability to speak Spanish, the robber's accent being quite different from his own, the alibi that he provided, and so on.

The House will confirm that MPs do not lightly speak with such power and conviction about such cases unless they are strongly persuaded of the issues involved. However, the British Government cannot make judgments on the innocence or guilt of British nationals detained abroad. Our consular staff provide the same service to those detained abroad irrespective of innocence or guilt. The role of our consular staff is, in essence, humanitarian. Consular staff are responsible for looking after the welfare of British nationals overseas, including those who are detained or imprisoned. They can ensure that British nationals have access to a lawyer, know their legal position, have information about the legal and prison systems, receive the same treatment as other prisoners and are not discriminated against because they are British or foreign, and that any medical problems are dealt with quickly. We take any complaints of ill treatment very seriously, and raise them immediately with the relevant authorities.

We are fully aware of the pressures and frustrations that having a relative detained abroad can place on a family. Consular staff can help to keep families in regular contact with those detained in a foreign country, and can assist in updating them on the progress of any court hearings. Staff can also pass on messages from family members to detainees, and forward money for prison comforts. Clearly, circumstances and conditions vary, but consular staff aim regularly to visit British nationals detained abroad. Those held on remand can usually expect three or four such visits a year.

Since Mr. Sloan's arrest in May 2001, our consular staff in Tenerife and London have been in regular contact with Mr. Sloan and his family. Our vice-consul visited Mr. Sloan within 72 hours of his detention, and consular staff have visited him a further 10 times since that date. Our staff have also facilitated visits by family members outside the usual visiting hours and at weekends by liaising with the prison authorities on behalf of the families. When Mr. Sloan expressed concern about his transfer to another part of the prison in September this year, our vice-consul contacted the prison authorities straight away to determine the reason for the transfer. She then contacted Mr. Sloan's lawyer to inform him of these developments and to ensure that family visits were not cancelled due to the transfer.

We have also maintained regular contact with Mr. Sloan's lawyer during significant periods such as his trial and more generally throughout his detention. We have therefore ensured that the family in the United Kingdom has been kept informed of any developments. Our consular staff are not legally trained; they cannot offer legal advice, and under international law neither they nor we can interfere in the judicial process of another sovereign country. We would not tolerate any interference in our own legal proceedings, although I know that my hon. Friend is not asking for that.

However, we have sought information regarding Mr. Sloan's trial through our consular staff in Tenerife. His lawyer has stated that although he is very unhappy with the outcome, he is entirely satisfied with the way in which the court handled proceedings. Mr. Sloan must follow the guidance of his lawyer and, of course, he was convicted under Spanish law. His family and supporters have pointed out what they believe are several deficiencies in the prosecution's case; my hon. Friend spoke eloquently about those this morning. However, those are entirely legal issues and as such must be addressed by Mr. Sloan's lawyer, who is best placed to offer professional legal guidance and to take up any concerns with the appropriate local and judicial authorities. All avenues are currently being considered, including the possible referral of this case to the Foreign and Commonwealth Office pro bono lawyer panel for review. I understand that this is a difficult and frustrating time for Mr. Sloan and his family. They are convinced that he was the victim of a miscarriage of justice and, with my hon. Friend's active support, are campaigning vigorously for his release. We have been asked many times to intervene on Mr. Sloan's behalf and have been pleased to do so.

My right hon. Friend the Foreign Secretary was able to meet Mr. Sloan's parents on 30 May. He made it clear that, as I have said, we could not interfere in the legal process of another country, but agreed to make formal representations to his Spanish counterpart. He subsequently met the Spanish Foreign Minister, Josep Piqué, in June and his successor, Ana de Palacio, in September. On both occasions, my right hon. Friend raised Mr. Sloan's case and put the arguments that my hon. Friend has put today. Mrs. de Palacio agreed to look into Kevan Sloan's case and I am sure that, as a lawyer herself, she will have a particular understanding of the arguments that my hon. Friend has made today.

Meanwhile, we shall ensure that Mr. Sloan's family are kept fully informed of any developments. We shall continue to provide Mr. Sloan with all possible consular assistance. Our consular staff in Tenerife will continue to visit him and maintain frequent contact with his lawyer. I shall happily take any questions from my hon. Friend if he has further points to make, but I understand that Mr. Sloan's mother has travelled here to be present at this debate. She has my sympathy in her quest for justice. We—our consular staff, my right hon. Friend the Foreign Secretary and I—will stand ready to help in whatever way we can, given the constraints that are obvious to all when the independent judicial system of another country is involved.

When the present Government came to power in 1997, I asked the Minister then responsible whether the disability living allowance forms could be examined urgently to make them more user-friendly. More than five years later, nothing has happened, despite the assurances then given.

The forms are long and complex but do not provide adequate space for applicants to add to tick-box and one-word answers to illustrate their cases further. Often, that is why they are turned down. For example, if an applicant can walk 100 m unaided, the mobility claim will almost certainly fail. What of sufferers of myalgic encephalopathy—ME—and multiple sclerosis, who sometimes have reasonable days but more frequently have bad days when it is not possible to walk 100 m? I have come to realise that many constituents who appeal have to do so because, in all honesty, they did not present their case very well on the form, and failed to qualify statements or add to the basic questions. They therefore failed to reach the golden threshold of the number of points required.

A recent survey by the Motor Neurone Disease Association, published in June 2001, showed that 52 per cent. of those questioned received help to complete the claim form. Respondents described the form as "very confusing" and "a nightmare" and said:

"the forms are too long and the questions asked are the same over and over again."

There is, to my mind, a glaring conflict of interest in the way in which medical assessments are carried out. General practitioners are paid more than £100 for the visit and for completing the form. I could name one or two doctors in Gwynedd who fail everyone initially, regardless of their condition. It does not take rocket science to see that a GP could feel under pressure to turn down applicants and preserve the status quo, in order to preserve that rather lucrative sideline, rather than supporting the applicant. I raised that matter on the Floor of the House recently, and interestingly, not a single medical practitioner contacted me to suggest that I had got it wrong. GPs' services are secured through a third-party agency, but I repeat my contention that that obvious conflict of interest compromises them.

The MNDA supports what I have said. I shall quote from some responses that it received. One said that the appointments with doctors were made at very short notice, and another that the doctor

"was very rude and unhelpful. It felt like I was a scrounger."

Another said:

"He could not understand me very well because of my speech and had no idea of the severity of MND or its progression."

Another said:

"The assessment was totally degrading. My husband was totally humiliated. If we had known what the assessment was like we would not have gone through with it."

Furthermore, 58 per cent. of those questioned said that they had to wait for a month for such an assessment. The report says that only 46 per cent. of claimants received notification within one month that their claim had been successful, and 11 per cent. of respondents reported having to wait more than three months for notification.

Over the past six to seven years, an increasing number of constituents have come to my advice surgeries seeking assistance to proceed with an appeal. They invariably begin by feeling overawed at the prospect of conducting a quasi-judicial appeal without assistance. Frequently they must rebut evidence from a medically qualified person. Many decide that they are not up to it and want to forget the whole thing, which is the last response that anyone would want. Others decide to battle on. As a respondent to the report recently said,

"The appeal was hard work for a person feeling unwell."

I am legally qualified and have conducted countless appeals, and I can see clearly that the appeal procedure is very difficult for appellants in person. Despite the fact that tribunals are invariably staffed by three caring individuals who are patently independent and go out of their way to put appellants at ease, the procedure is daunting, not least because at the back of every appellant's mind is the awful financial prospect of failing in their appeal.

Since 1992 I have conducted appeals five or six times a year, and only one of those 60 or so appeals failed. I should like to think that that success rate was due to the quality of my advice and advocacy, but I suspect that the real reason was that the appellants should not have been refused in the first place.

A layman such as I can often see that a person's condition is deteriorating and will deteriorate further. A tribunal recently took a few seconds to decide a case in favour of a constituent of mine, and made the benefit "for life", as it was before the benefit integrity project. Back in November 1998, the Minister then responsible told me,

"We shall continue to improve the process so as to ensure that the right benefit is paid to the right people. As the hon. Gentleman knows, we recently announced that, in due course, we wish to replace the benefit integrity project with a fair and sensitive system for ensuring that DLA cases are correct."—[Official Report, 16 November 1998; Vol. 319, c. 587.]

To that I would say, "Hear, hear." However, the targets for savings achieved by the benefit integrity project were based on a belief that almost £499 million per year was involved, and that more than 12 per cent. of claimants were fraudulent. Both those ideas were found to be totally unjustified. In fact, the savings achieved by the BIP—£8 million for 1997–98—have been totally wiped out by the administrative costs of £8.27 million for the same period. The cost of the new system of periodic review has yet to be estimated.

Little has happened to aid the sick and disabled, and they continue to be subjected to degrading treatment every three years or so. The project was supposed to be replaced by something that was fairer, but I fear that the periodic review is no fairer and is just the benefit integrity project under another name.

I shall give some brief examples of cases that I have conducted. A Mr. Roberts in my constituency had his left leg amputated after a road accident in 1995. He received high rate mobility from September 1995–96, which was cut down to middle rate from September 1996–98. He asked for a review in March 1997, received nothing until August and wrote back with the paperwork in November, only to be turned down on the grounds that he was out of time. I complained on his behalf, and the disability benefits director said that it was clear that Mr. Roberts had not received the standard of service to which he was entitled. The appeal went forward in August 1999, and his claim was allowed fully on appeal, nearly three years after it was refused.

A young woman from near Bala in my constituency was awarded the highest rate mobility component because she was suffering from chronic fatigue syndrome. She received the high rate from April 1994–98, reapplied in January 1998 and was refused. She asked for a review in February and was refused again. She sent in some other details, and eventually won an appeal—again, more than two years later. A lady in my constituency from Corris made her first application in March 2000 and was refused. She was suffering from severe arthritis. We appealed on her behalf, and the appeal came through in February 2002, nearly two years later.

A man called Patrick Breen in my constituency had his disability living allowance discontinued in October 1998, having suffered an unsuccessful knee operation in 1997 and further surgery in 1998. He partially lost his sight in 1994. He has recently had confirmation from doctors that he also had osteoarthritis. His doctor expressed surprise that the personal care element was disallowed, and said:

"at this current time I feel that a high level of personal care is of the utmost necessity".

I wrote on Mr. Breen's behalf on 27 October 1998 and did not receive a reply until 10 January 1999. The case went to appeal—in April 2002, believe it or not—and it succeeded on all points. That is another example of a few years wasted, anxiety created and so on.

A young man from Trefriw in my constituency, who suffers severely from myalgic encephalomyelitis, was turned down. He, too, had to appeal. While he was appealing, he was unable to heat his home properly or look after himself because of lack of finances. That is a disgraceful catalogue. Time does not permit me to deal with other cases that I could mention.

The Government have made some movement. The Social Security (Disability Living Allowance) (Amendment) Regulations 2002 will affect between 40,000 and 50,000 claimants. The new rules relate to lower rate mobility component, which is paid to people who can walk, but cannot walk outdoors in unfamiliar places unless they have someone with them—because of a visual impairment, for example. The alterations relate to claims based on fear and anxiety. A new provision, regulation 12(7), was inserted into the DLA regulations, stating that people who cannot take advantage of the faculty of walking outdoors without guidance or supervision from another person because of fear or anxiety will not be eligible for lower rate mobility component.

A second paragraph, paragraph (8), will state that regulation 12(7) is to be ignored if the fear or anxiety is

"(a) a symptom of a mental disability; and

(b) so severe as to prevent the person from taking advantage of the faculty in such circumstances."

The intention is that people who claim on the basis of fear or anxiety—because of agoraphobia, for example—will still be able to do so, but people who cannot demonstrate that their fear or anxiety is a symptom of a severe mental health problem will not be eligible for lower rate mobility component.

The Government claim that they are simply clarifying the law, rather than making changes. However, the new rule means that the often severe psychological effects of physical impairment must in future be ignored for the purposes of lower rate mobility component. That is an entirely new rule.

A growing number of voluntary bodies are becoming greatly concerned at the operation of the DLA—not surprisingly, perhaps, given what I have already said. The Headway Association recently wrote to me. In essence, its concern is about the DLA assessment process. It believes that the DLA is too fixated on finding physical or mental health problems and does not allow the recognition of cognitive difficulties, often the result of a head injury, which can cause problems as severe or worse than physical or mental health impairments.

As for the unfairness of the DLA assessment process, the Headway Association says that the DLA assessments place heavy reliance on independent fixed format medical assessments. They will often require the brain-injured person to explain convincingly in the interview how their condition impacts on their care and mobility needs. However, due to their cognitive impairment they might be unable to explain that to the medical examiner.

The Headway Association's experience of clinicians, particularly general practitioners, is that their professional knowledge of brain injury and its impact on the individual is sparse. Additionally, Headway Association members have experienced a range of attitudes from examining medical practitioners. Some are very mechanical in following the medical assessment script, while others are more discretionary, and we must query what assessment training is given.

Individuals with a brain injury may be deemed mentally competent yet suffer impairment of their cognitive abilities that directly impacts on their care and mobility needs. Even medical examiners who are enlightened on the subject of brain injury point out that they are required only to assess mental competence, not cognitive ability. As it is the province of clinical neuro-psychologists, it is unrealistic to expect cognitive ability to be reliably assessed by a non-expert medical examiner, typically a general practitioner, during a routine medical interview and examination, which, as I have said, often takes place swiftly and at short notice.

Does my hon. Friend agree that the gap in the training of doctors who assess the DLA leads to wide variations, even in small geographical areas? That is widely seen as being entirely unfair.

I agree entirely. The DLA is, unfortunately, like postcode prescription. Cognitive ability is often the crux of the matter but it is not addressed, which is a haphazard way of doing things.

I wholeheartedly endorse the recommendations made by Headway:

"A separate section on cognitive ability should be included within the DLA questionnaire and medical interview.

For the EMP following the DSS assessment script, and where brain injury is claimed or diagnosed, a supplementary sheet of specialist questions could be devised to assess the cognitive and executive reasoning difficulties. There could be a number of them to target a particular neurological condition. In cases of alleged mental problems for those applying for incapacity benefit there is the opportunity to complete additional questions on how their condition affects their ability to work. Medical examiners are obliged to consider this when the problem becomes apparent during the interview. Where there is doubt, and to guard against the possibility of fraud, EMPs, Adjudication Officers and tribunals should be authorised to refer applicants who claim brain injury to a suitably approved clinical neuro-psychologist. They could produce independent reports on the cognitive difficulties of the applicant and how they have impacted on the care and mobility needs of the applicant.

The medical assessment procedure should be more flexible to allow the input of the carer. To give a complete picture of a person with a brain injury during an assessment it is often necessary to have their main carer present. This will help where a person's self image is at odds with their actual abilities."

I reiterate my call to the Government to review the application forms and make them more user-friendly. The periodical review procedure should be ended for cases in which a recipient of DLA has already succeeded once on appeal. I have been a Member of Parliament for more than 10 years and I am going through the third appeal with some applicants. Their condition worsens with every appeal, for which we have to wait through months of anxiety to present. I do not mind doing it—I am proud to do it—because it is part of my function. However, I say to the Minister that it is a waste of the tribunal's time and is grossly unfair and hurtful to people who feel "done" by the system.

It is also time to speed up the system. The examples that I have given are typical of the length of time an appeal takes. The system is currently failing the most vulnerable in our society, which will not do.

I congratulate the hon. Member for Meirionnydd Nant Conwy (Mr. Llwyd) on choosing the subject for today's debate. The matter is of great interest to all hon. Members. He has raised a number of issues on which I shall do my best to comment.

First, I want to say a little about the DLA because there are some misconceptions—I am not saying that the hon. Gentleman has misconceptions—about what the benefit does and does not do. I shall set out the aim of the DLA before answering some of the hon. Gentleman's specific questions. It is a non-contributory, tax-free benefit that is not income related. It is there to contribute to the extra costs incurred by severely disabled people because of their additional mobility and care needs. It is not an extra payment for people with a particular condition. That is one of the things that most confuses people about the benefit; some think that because they have a certain condition, they should receive it. That might explain the point about variations that was made in an earlier intervention. It is possible for two people to have the same condition, but for their care and mobility needs to be very different. The system is designed to try to assess what those needs are on an individual basis.

Is the Minister claiming that decisions are entirely consistent from one assessment officer to another? I have encountered examples of people with very similar conditions seen by different doctors; Dr. Nice has allowed it but Dr. Nasty has not.

The hon. Gentleman has identified one of the problems of trying to administer the benefit: it has a large subjective element. That is partly because it is trying to deal with the effects on a particular person in a particular situation of a particular condition or disability. There is bound to be a certain amount of subjectivity, whether of the decision maker or the doctor.

Our job in administering the benefit is to try to be as consistent as possible, but it is not to achieve equality in benefit between two people with a particular condition. Because of the way in which it is designed, the benefit has to deal with the effect on the individual of the health condition or disability. There are difficulties in terms of consistency, and in terms of the many issues raised by the hon. Member for Meirionnydd Nant Conwy and his colleague, the hon. Member for Caernarfon (Mr. Williams).

For the record, I accept that there are sometimes difficulties in accessing the benefit. Every Member of this House has had constituency cases in which things have gone wrong. We try to minimise errors and to put things right when they go wrong, but there is an inherent difficulty in administering this benefit. In the last five years, expenditure on DLA has increased by 23 per cent. in real terms, to some £6.5 billion, and 2.35 million disabled people are in receipt of it. That is an increase of some 15 per cent. over the last five years. There is no evidence that the difficulties of claiming are preventing people from accessing the benefit. The trend is upwards; we are getting the benefit to people who are eligible for it as best we can.

The hon. Member for Meirionnydd Nant Conwy will accept that the need for care and help with mobility is a personal matter and varies between individuals. The affects of a particular disability can vary from person to person, according to circumstances. It is therefore difficult to be objective. The diversity of cases for which the benefit has to cater makes it inherently difficult to administer. We have embarked on a programme of improvements, but the hon. Gentleman says that he has not seen much evidence of that. I shall go through some of the things that we have done, and some of the things that we are hoping to do, now that we are introducing a proper IT system into the disability benefit unit, which we have not had until now. The hon. Gentleman will know that one of our difficulties in respect of the benefit is that it has been clerically administered. That has its own difficulties, because there are inefficiencies in clerical administration, especially when files are sent to Blackpool and have to be sent back.

The hon. Gentleman referred to a predecessor of mine who said that the Government's aim was to get people's benefits right at the outset and keep them right. That is indeed our aim. We are trying to develop processes that will make the system simpler, more straightforward and more responsive to the needs of disabled people who claim disability benefits. We are trying to remove the need for a single "catch all" claim pack, the difficulties of which were referred to by the hon. Gentleman. The claim pack must enable people to set out the effect of their condition or disability on their care and mobility needs, so we need more than a form that asks people what condition they have. The claim pack is bound to be long and more complex than we would like, but we are currently developing a new claiming process both for attendance allowance, which is being trialed, and for disability living allowance. In tests, we have managed to reduce the claim pack for attendance allowance from 44 to 16 pages. We are hoping to be able to replicate that for disability living allowance, although DLA is slightly more complex because of the mobility component. The trials on the AA claim pack for very elderly people have been fairly successful and we hope to apply the lessons that we have learned from that to DLA.

Features of the first stage of the process include a shortened interactive claim form completed through discussion with the customer on the telephone. I accept that people with impairments of various sorts can find it very difficult to complete forms, but the benefit inquiry line should be able to help them. Customers can talk to someone on the telephone, text phone is available, and there are other ways in which customers can access the service. We hope to be able to tailor questions to the customer's needs rather than them having to answer all the questions that might be useful. We hope that medical evidence relating to previous claims, already held by the Department, will be used to speed up the decision process. That might answer some of the hon. Gentleman's points about repeat claims. At the moment, all the information is held in files in Blackpool and is not immediately accessible. Once the IT system is up and running, we should be able to access such information instantly.

I appreciate the fact that the Minister is responding to the subject in a thoughtful and helpful way, something that does not often happen in such debates. I follow her arguments, but there is a problem with the helpline, because many people have difficulty speaking about their private affairs and some have speech difficulties. Does the Minister agree that it seems ridiculous that a person who has a degenerative disease and who has succeeded on appeal the first time around, should be put through the hoops two or three times subsequently? Surely that is wrong.

I shall come to the latter point in due course because there are particular issues relating to chronic and deteriorating conditions.

In respect of the helpline, if customers find it impossible to get the help that they need, we do our best to arrange home visits. We try to make arrangements that will suit the customer. It is not in our interests for inadequate claim forms to be returned because that just extends the process. I hope that the hon. Gentleman will accept that we want to administer the benefit, which has inherent difficulties, as well as we possibly can, with the aim of getting to eligible people the money that they need as soon as possible without the hassle that they might have previously experienced. We are all on the same side in that we all want to get this right.

On IT, we are beginning to acquire the capability to access information relating to previous claims more quickly. We are not there yet, but we are introducing IT in disability benefit units where initial claims are handled. We hope that, in due course, we shall see significant improvements as a result.

At every stage, development proposals on claim forms are presented to a forum of disability organisations, the modern service working group, to ensure that the changes meet the needs of and are in the best interests of disabled people and are not just administrative expedients. Those organisations can tell us whether we are on the right track. I hope that hon. Members will accept that we are doing our best to improve the administration, although I accept that there are still problems with it.

The hon. Gentleman more or less said that there is a continuation of the benefit integrity project and that periodic inquiry is no fairer than the benefit integrity project. Periodic inquiry was designed to do something very different from the benefit integrity project. Whereas the benefit integrity project appears to have been designed by the previous Administration to meet targets, periodic inquiry is a random check. Cases are chosen randomly from the case load and a visiting officer is sent out to complete the form. The idea is to try to ensure that people receive the right benefit. In fact, it is far more frequently the case that the benefits of someone who has gone through a periodic inquiry are increased rather than decreased, which gives the lie to the idea that periodic inquiry is the same as the benefit integrity project.

Does the Minister have any statistics to back up her assertion that periodic reviews result in great news for people who are receiving benefit?

I do indeed. In fact, the hon. Lady has anticipated my next remark.

Results from the first two years of periodic inquiry have identified that in 75 per cent. of the cases where care or mobility needs changed, the inquiry led to higher entitlement. That gives the lie to the idea that periodic inquiry is the benefit integrity project with a different name. In fact, customer reaction to it has generally been very positive. When I visit those of my officials in disability benefit units who do periodic inquiries, I always ask them what reaction they get when they knock on people's doors. Generally, I am told that they and the process are welcomed. One might understand why that might be the case, as 75 per cent. of the cases result in increased benefit. I do not recognise the description of periodic inquiry as some form of rehashed benefit integrity project. Its aim is to ensure that people get the right benefits for their needs.

The hon. Gentleman complained that sometimes people have to reapply for their benefits. Sometimes people on indefinite awards do not have to reapply. It might become clear that their needs have increased when we visit them on a periodic inquiry. Our aim is to try to get people on the right level of benefit so that they get the support to which they are entitled, not to cut the costs on a targeted basis, which I understand was the purpose of the benefit integrity project.

I am sorry if the hon. Gentleman has come across examples where periodic inquiry has seemed to operate like the benefit integrity project. If he would provide me with individual examples—obviously, not today—I would be more than happy to review them. It is certainly not our general impression from what comes back to us or from our statistics.

The hon. Gentleman rushed through some points about GPs at the beginning of his remarks, and it was not clear to me whether he was referring to the GP reports for which a decision maker might ask if they need more evidence because they are not sure about a form that has been returned, or whether he was referring to the examining medical practitioner or some combination of both.

It is the EMP.

The EMP is someone to whom our decision maker can resort if they do not feel that they have enough information to make a determination of the claim. It is certainly true that some of them are GPs. It is also true that our contractor SchlumbergerSema has been strengthening its management of the contracting doctors, at our behest. They receive significantly more training than they used to on appropriate behaviour.

I know that there are complaints about individual EMPs. I encourage hon. Members and their constituents to complain if they have come across any EMP whom they believe is behaving in an offhand way, making assumptions or not treating them with due respect and dignity. Arrangements are in place with SchlumbergerSema to deal with complaints in a way that can result in an EMP, a GP, or whoever is doing the report, being thrown off our lists, as people are. If there are sufficient numbers of complaints, we will investigate them. Some doctors are retrained.

The Minister has been generous in the debate. I see that my hon. Friend the Member for Caernarfon is here. He and I have a complaint in common. I will not name the person here despite privilege, but he has been reported to the General Medical Council and remains on the books of the third party—the contractor.

I should be happy to have further details from the hon. Gentleman if he would like to forward them to me. Under the new contract with SchlumbergerSema, strengthened procedures are in place to ensure that doctors who do not do their job appropriately do not do it at all. It is not our intention to subject disabled people and people with health conditions to degrading treatment or to make them jump through hoops to receive benefit. That is not what we are about. The hon. Gentleman must surely agree that we sometimes need more evidence than that provided on the form, and that sometimes there is no alternative to an examining medical practitioner. However, there is no reason why people should experience what he has described as happening to his constituents. We want to stamp that out. If he would like to send me details of the individual in question, I will look further into what he has said. I am aware that there are EMPs who have been removed from the lists and who no longer receive instructions to deal with this sort of case. It is not the case that removal never happens; it does, but we need to have the complaints to ensure that we pursue the bad eggs.

The hon. Gentleman made some important points about what Headway had to say to him about cognitive impairments and brain injury. We want to ensure that our procedures get to the nub of the issue and that those people who are eligible for the benefit receive it.

We are always open to representations about such issues, and I encourage Headway and other organisations to contact us. We have training and guidance for our decision makers about how such issues should be dealt with, but I do not pretend that it is perfect. We can always improve it, but we do set out to ensure that it is as good as it can be. I have some problems with the hon. Gentleman's suggestion about referring to clinical neuro-psychologists. We are not in the business of trying to medicalise the benefit beyond the degree to which it has already been medicalised—there are doctors' reports. Disabled people would not like that. They do not want the benefit to be turned into an assessment of how bad their condition is. The benefit is about dealing with care and mobility needs, and the person best placed to tell us what those needs are is the person concerned or their family and friends. That is the basis of the benefit, so we must be careful not to go too far away from that. I therefore have some concerns about the idea of bringing in clinical neuro-psychologists if it can be avoided. It would also be bound to lead to more delays. However, I am happy to take up issues and points that some of my officials raised about particular problems. The issues that Headway raised with the hon. Gentleman are also important.

The hon. Gentleman also talked about the changes to the lower rate mobility benefit. There have been debates in the other place about that issue, but I reiterate that the aim of that change was to keep the benefit true to its original intentions. It is not the case that people who have fear and anxiety and a physical impairment cannot receive the lower rate mobility benefit. We hope that the change will affect only a very small number of people, and I hope, given what I have been able to say to him today, that the hon. Gentleman will accept that that is by no means all that we have been doing to try to improve the administration of DLA and to ensure that those who are eligible for the benefit receive it, receive it quickly, and at the level to which they are entitled.