Will the Leader of the House please give the business for next week?

The business for next week will be as follows:

MONDAY 21 OCTOBER—Remaining stages of the Tobacco Advertising and Promotion Bill [Lords].

TUESDAY 22 OCTOBER—Opposition Day [Unallotted Day]. Until 7 o'clock there will be a debate entitled "Crisis in Affordable Housing". Followed by a debate entitled "Crisis in Nuclear Power and Development of a Sustainable Energy Market". Both debates arise on a motion in the name of the Liberal Democrats.

WEDNESDAY 23 OCTOBER—Opposition Day [19th Allotted Day]. Until 7 o'clock there will be a debate entitled "The Government's Mismanagement of the National Lottery".

The Chairman of Ways and Means has named opposed private business for consideration at 7 o'clock.

THURSDAY 24 OCToBER—Continuation of the debate on local government finance formula grant distribution on a motion for the Adjournment of the House. Followed by a debate on control of asbestos in the workplace on a motion for the Adjournment of the House.

FRIDAY 25 OCTOBER—The House will not be sitting.

The provisional business for the following week will be as follows:

MONDAY 28 OCTOBER—Opposition Day [20th Allotted Day] There will be a debate on an Opposition motion. Subject to be announced.

TUESDAY 29 OCToBER—Debate on motions relating to the Modernisation Committee report on reforming the House of Commons and the Procedure Committee report on parliamentary questions.

WEDNESDAY 30 OCTOBER—Consideration of Lords amendments to the Enterprise Bill.

THURSDAY 31 OCTOBER—Debate on defence in the UK on a motion for the Adjournment of the House.

FRIDAY 1 NOVEMBER—The House will not be sitting.

The House will wish to know that, subject to the progress of business the House will prorogue on Thursday 7 November and the new Session will begin on Wednesday 13 November.

The House will also wish to know that on Wednesday 23 October the second meeting of the Committee on the Convention on the Future of Europe will take place to consider the Third and Fourth Report of the United Kingdom representatives to the convention.

As ever, I am grateful to the Leader of the House for giving us the business for the next two weeks. As he is all too aware, as a result of the re-imposition of direct rule in Northern Ireland, a ministerial team of five is now accountable to this House for what they do in Northern Ireland. In the light of that, is the right hon. Gentleman prepared urgently to look at the allocation of time for parliamentary questions, particularly for Northern Ireland, but also for the Office of the Deputy Prime Minister, given that that Minister has an enormous range of responsibilities that are of direct interest to hon. Members and their constituents? I hope that the Leader of the House agrees that this is an urgent matter. I am sure that it could be agreed through the usual channels very rapidly, but I hope that the right hon. Gentleman accepts that it is very important that the House exercise its responsibilities with regard to the ministerial team in Northern Ireland given the regrettable change of circumstances.

While I acknowledge that the Leader of the House has now given further time for the local government finance formula debate—a matter that he, and you, Mr. Speaker, know greatly exercised the House when we saw that debate shrinking—can he give us any guarantees about the length of time now available for that important debate, as there must still be a long list of Members wishing to participate in this important matter? While I do not in any way want to diminish the importance of asbestos as a subject, it might be worth reconsidering whether asbestos really should encroach on the time available to debate the local government finance formula. Is the Leader of the House prepared, even at this stage, to look at the matter again and allow more time for local government even if it is at the expense of an immediate debate on asbestos?

On 29 October, we are to have a debate on the so-called modernisation of the House. Sadly. as the Leader of the House knows, because he chairs the Modernisation Committee, this is not a matter that has been agreed by all parties, as used to be the case in the past. I understand that he is presenting a number of proposals that have not been agreed to. Is it too late, even at this stage, for further discussions? When will we see the wording of proposals arising from very controversial suggestions by the right hon. Gentleman's Committee? Will the right hon. Gentleman at the very least guarantee that when we have a debate there will be not just ample time for it but, equally important, an opportunity for votes to take place on matters that remain controversial?

May I appeal, even now, to the Leader of the House? We are very keen to discuss topical questions here, as their lordships are already able to do in the other place. Indeed, I understand that their opportunities are to be extended even further—opportunities that we have never had.

I should like more agreement to be reached than has been the case hitherto. Is it too late? When will we see the right hon. Gentleman's proposals?

Let me first say what a relief it is to see the architect of the AS-level still in his place. I will not disguise that from him, given the prominent part he played yesterday in the trouncing of his leader—

I did not say a word.

The right hon. Gentleman did not need to say a word. He played a prominent part nevertheless. There was concern on these Benches about his welfare overnight; we are delighted that he did not wake up to find that his appointment was "not worth the paper on which it was written."

The right hon. Gentleman asked about Northern Ireland. I congratulate my two colleagues who have been appointed to the Northern Ireland team: I am sure they will pursue their task with great diligence. We will of course look at ways of ensuring that the House can be kept fully aware of decisions they make, and that they are held accountable.

The right hon. Gentleman raised two questions about the questions rota, suggesting that more time should be allowed for questions on Northern Ireland and to the Deputy Prime Minister. I have to say that the time is finite. I am happy to look at ways of providing more time, but I need to hear proposals for less time to be allowed to someone else. Allowing more time for some matters means allowing less for others, and I assume that the right hon. Gentleman would not like time to be taken from the time allowed for the Leader of the House to answer questions. We are happy to consider the suggestion, but these are difficult issues and I have to strike a balance between the different Departments whose representatives must give answers to the House.

I am pleased that we have found additional time for the debate on the formula for local government. The House will recall that it was raised with me during business questions in July, and that I took the initiative by saying that there must be a debate. I regret the fact that Tuesday's debate shrank, although I do not regret the fact that we heard three very important statements which I think we all agree that we had to hear. We have acted to provide for a further debate on the Floor of the House. We will ensure that the time is protected, and that at least three full hours will be allowed.

Three hours?

Three hours on top of the hour that has already been provided amounts to a substantial wodge of time.

The right hon. Gentleman suggested that we drop the asbestos debate. I would not want him to get into any more trouble than he is in already with his leader, and I should perhaps draw his attention to the fact that the Leader of the Opposition wrote to us requesting a debate on asbestos on the Floor of the House. He may wish to consult with the Leader of the Opposition about the withdrawal of that letter, but I personally advise him to keep quiet about the matter.

It is, of course, never too late for further discussions about modernisation. I immensely enjoy the discussions I currently have during every hour of my working day about the modernisation proposals; but there comes a time when it is necessary to reach a decision. This matter has been before the House for nearly a year, and I think it is time for a decision. I very much hope that the right hon. Gentleman will be able to assure us that when we decide on, in particular, sitting hours, there will be a free vote for the Opposition as well as for us.

May I suggest that a debate on the funding of democracy would offer the right hon. Member for Bromley and Chislehurst (Mr. Forth) another chance to give us the opportunity of hearing his forthright views? There seems to be a curious amount of amnesia on the Conservative Benches in relation to state funding. It appears to have escaped Conservative Members' notice that the Conservative party has received £20 million from the taxpayer since its defeat in 1997.

If we are to preserve and enhance the reputation of politics, Parliament and Government, is it not extremely important for us to face up to the issue of state funding of democracy? Has the Leader of the House had a chance to see the IPPR report, which I understand the chairman of the Labour party, the right hon. Member for Norwich, South (Mr. Clarke), has already endorsed? Is it not urgent that we look at this? We surely cannot wait for the Electoral Commission to complete its work on this, which I understand may take 12 to 18 months. Does the Leader of the House recognise that there is a widespread perception that politics is being grossly influenced by the way in which large donors of various sorts seek to gain influence and access? In particular, will he look at the report in today's Financial Times, the headline of which is

"Tory donor 'urged Duncan Smith to ditch chairman'",

as a clear example of a way in which this can cause great concern and suspicion among the electorate? Can he be sure that no donor will try to ensure the departure of the Conservative spokesman because his performance is always so enjoyable in the House?

On the funding of political parties, I understand the anxieties to make progress, but it would be valuable for us to have the report of the Electoral Commission. After all, the House appointed the Electoral Commission to advise us on such matters. It will have important weight and authority in its contribution to the debate. I saw the report from IPPR and will study it with care. I also heard the director of IPPR being interviewed on the radio, in which he made the telling observation that the first Prime Minister ever elected with help from state funding was Lady Thatcher who benefited from Short money while in opposition, as indeed the Conservative party rightly and properly does today. That money is there to make sure our parliamentary system works better. Since that party already receives state funding I wish that it would adopt a rather more open approach to the debate on other parties.

I saw the article in the Financial Times. I am in no position to verify it since, sadly, I was not invited to attend the meeting between the Tory donor and the leader of the Tory party. I hope I carry with me all members of the shadow Cabinet when I say that if any Tory donor should suggest to the leader that he sack any of them, the appropriate course is to show him the door.

Does The Leader of the House share my view that undemocratic quangos are capable of undermining Government policy? For example, although North Derbyshire tertiary college was due to be closed or have its name changed, the jobs were to remain according to a tin-pot undemocratic quango called the Derbyshire learning and skills council. That promise has not been kept. As a result negotiations are already under way about sending people down the road on to the dole queue. It is high time that the Minister responsible for further education dealt with this matter to make sure that promises made by that tin-pot quango are kept.

My hon. Friend makes his comments in his characteristic trenchant way and they will be heard vigorously in Derbyshire as they have been heard here. I am not in a position to respond in detail to the particular points that he raised, but I shall make sure that the Minister at the Department for Education and Skills has them drawn to his attention.

May I ask the Leader of the House—as someone who is trenchant in his defence of the rights of Members of Parliament vis-à-vis the Executive, and someone with a modernising agenda—to encourage Ministers to respond far more promptly to letters of inquiry from Members of the House of Commons? In early July I wrote to Health Ministers about a most important public health matter in Sutton Coldfield and this morning, more than three months later, I had a response. I hope that the Leader of the House will bear in mind that a three-month delay is far too long and that civil servants and Ministers must ratchet up their agenda the importance of responding promptly to Members of Parliament when they raise important issues with them.

Of course, as Leader of the House I can only concur with the general sentiment that Members should have a reply to a parliamentary question or letter as quickly as possible. However, I invite the House to bear in mind the real pressures, particularly on the Department of Health. Questions to the Department of Health, and indeed many other Departments, have increased by about 50 per cent. in recent times. I know that the Department of Health is increasing staff resources to deal with the problem. We shall certainly endeavour to make sure we give as early advice as we can, but as mature members of the political community we must recognise the real pressures involved.

If the matter is not fully cleared up this afternoon by the Defence Secretary, could there be a statement next week on the Congressional Budget Office report, which purports to say that Britain has committed 10,000 troops and £5 billion to a war against Iraq? Specifically, the CBO assumes that

"two-thirds of a British air wing would be part of the Heavy Ground force, as well as British naval contingent of 21 ships, as in Desert Storm."

The CBO's estimates of the costs

"incorporate the assumption that the United States will provide limited logistical support".

There ought at least to be comment on that, most properly from the Foreign Office or the Prime Minister.

I think I can help my hon. Friend to clear up the point now. First, there is no such commitment by the British Government. Secondly, the paper from which he quotes—as he has fairly indicated—is a paper not from the American Government but from the Congressional Budget Office. To be fair to the Congressional Budget Office, it makes it perfectly plain that these are its assumptions and not British Government commitments.

May I return to Northern Ireland? Quite rightly, the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland used the first possible opportunity to make a statement to the House on Tuesday about the suspension of the devolved institutions. It is clear that, this time, we could be in for a long haul, because previously there have not been two additional Ministers appointed. In the circumstances, may we have a guarantee from the Leader of the House that there will be a full debate on the crisis in Northern Ireland before the House rises?

May I respond first to the right hon. Gentleman's last point, because I anticipate that he may be the first of a number today to raise it? Time between now and the date of prorogation that I have announced—7 November—is very tight. It is extremely important that we fulfil the commitments that we have, which we willingly accept, to meet the requirements of the Standing Orders for Opposition days, of which there are a number outstanding. We have four Bills, to which there will be Lords amendments, before we rise. I must say to the right hon. Gentleman, and to anyone else thinking of asking the question, that there is no time for additional debate between now and prorogation.

On the general point that the right hon. Gentleman raises, we are fully seized of the gravity and importance of this development. I have no doubt that, over a period of time, the House will return to the question of Northern Ireland; whether in debate or in statements remains to be seen. Certainly the House will be right to expect to be fully involved. In fairness to my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State, he has done everything possible to keep the House informed.

Will my right hon. Friend consider a debate on the role and activities of IPPR? In the aftermath of its report proposing a cap on donations to political parties, IPPR makes no comment on its own uncapped donations from the corporate sector.

My hon. Friend makes a robust point and I should be surprised if a letter from the IPPR were not winging its way towards him by tomorrow. I can only say to him that there are aspects of the report that do not immediately commend themselves to the Government or, I suspect, to any other party in this Chamber.

The discovery of a Republican spy ring at Stormont—in the wake of the raid on Castlereagh police station and the arrest of suspects in Colombia—in addition to the ongoing violence on the streets of Northern Ireland has produced a huge decrease in support for the Belfast agreement. This was confirmed this morning in a BBC report in which a poll indicated that only 56 per cent. of people now support the Belfast agreement, as opposed to over 70 per cent. in 1998. Further to the request of the right hon. Member for Bracknell (Mr. Mackay), could I appeal to the Leader of the House for an urgent debate in Government time on the circumstances that made untenable the continuance of the Northern Ireland Assembly and Sinn Fein/IRA Ministers within that Assembly?

I fully understand the importance of the developments to which the hon. Gentleman refers. Indeed, in his statement on Tuesday, my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland stressed the fact that events at Castlereagh and in Colombia had contributed to the decline in confidence in the peace process and the structures for Government in Northern Ireland. As my right hon. Friend said in his statement, the time has come when those who are participating in the peace process must decide whether they are committing themselves wholly to that track. If the peace process is to succeed, paramilitaries on both sides must recognise that the case for violence and for trying to resolve these issues through violence is over, and that now is the time for all to commit themselves to the peace process, and solely to the peace process.

Is my right hon. Friend aware that yesterday a cross-party group of Members of Parliament presented a petition at Downing street calling for tougher regulation on fireworks? We understand that the Government have made announcements this week on bringing in new regulations, which we welcome. Would it be possible, however, given the sheer volume of people who signed the petition, for a Minister to come to the House to detail the new measures that the Government wish to introduce to deal with antisocial behaviour connected with fireworks?

My hon. Friend raises a serious issue that is about to become very topical. There can be no Member of the House who has not, at some time or other, seen a constituent who has suffered injury from fireworks. My hon. Friend is correct that the Government have made proposals for controlling fireworks that are most prone to abuse or to cause injury. Those measures will, I believe, take effect from next year, and there will be opportunities for the House to consider them as the Government bring forward measures to implement them. In the mean time, I am sure that all hon. Members will use the press in their constituencies to consider how to provide the publicity to ensure that those handling fireworks recognise that they are potentially very dangerous explosives that must be handled with care, responsibility and judgment.

Will the right hon. Gentleman ensure that the courtesy of the House being informed if a Secretary of State cannot be here to answer questions is observed in the future, as it was not observed today? Will the Leader of the House also please reconsider the Modernisation Committee debate on 29 October? It is not essential that that issue be debated on that day; it is essential that Northern Ireland be debated very soon.

We have to make our own judgments as to what is the best allocation of time, and I think that the House will want to address a number of modernisation issues. As a matter of fact, it is essential that we have a debate on modernisation before proroguing, otherwise the House will be sitting until 10 o'clock on Thursdays in the next Session, because that order is sessional and must be addressed. There are reasons of necessity why we have to have a debate before the House rises.

On the hon. Gentleman's other point, I am advised that those on the Opposition Front Bench were informed that the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs would be absent. In fairness to my right hon. Friend, she is attending the Environment Council in Europe, which has very important business relating to this country. If she were absent from that meeting, I suspect that she would be criticised by the House for coming here rather than going to Brussels.

The Leader of the House is aware that this week the Irish people will be voting in a referendum on the Nice treaty. Although not wishing to interfere in that process, many of us hope that they will vote yes. Bearing in mind the interest of the Leader of the House in the enlargement process in his work as Foreign Secretary and its importance to the rest of Europe, could time be set aside for a debate next week, or at least before the House rises, so that we can debate how to champion the cause even further?

My hon. Friend tosses me what I think is a firework that I must handle with care and responsibility. As he rightly says, the Irish public would quite properly resent any outside interference in their process. On enlargement, however, I have no difficulty in saying to my hon. Friend that the Government wholeheartedly support the enlargement process and have been one of the champions arguing for enlargement and the access of the countries in central and eastern Europe.

I think that we in the European Union are inclined to underrate the extent to which the possibility of membership of the European Union has helped those countries transform their economy and alleviated some of the longstanding ethnic tensions that they have realised they have to put behind them as a condition of membership. These are welcome developments. Given the painful decisions that those countries have taken, it remains incumbent on us to ensure that those decisions are rewarded with membership.

Will the Leader of the House arrange for an urgent debate on the National Institute for Clinical Excellence and, in particular, the delays in providing guidance? Is he aware that there is a problem with the rationing of photodynamic therapy for patients suffering from wet age-related macular degeneration, or AMD? My constituent, Jack Tolley, of Bladon, is going progressively blind. His general practitioner has recommended him for treatment, but the Oxford eye hospital says that it cannot carry it out because the funding from his own primary care trust is not there. Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that that is particularly iniquitous because patients in Reading are funded for that treatment at the Oxford eye hospital. He may like to know that the North East Oxfordshire NHS PCT has said that because

"resources per capita … are the lowest or next to lowest in the country. For this reason we need to make invidious decisions about treatment priorities which are due to inadequate resources."

Could we have an urgent debate and early guidance from NICE so that people who are going progressively blind do not have to wait for their treatment?

I am aware of the controversy to which the hon. Gentleman referred. Plainly, the sooner it is resolved the better, from everyone's point of view. I have two general observations. First, we set up NICE precisely because it is surely right that it should be the scientific and the medical experts, with some independent assessment, who come to a judgment. These are not matters that we are qualified to judge and they are not suitable to be resolved on the Floor of the House. Secondly, I hear the hon. Gentleman's complaints about poor funding. Of course, it is the Government's understanding that we have to make further progress in raising funding within the national health service. We have carried through a massive increase in funding since we inherited the record of the previous Conservative Government. At the Conservative party conference, the Conservative leadership said that it was not committed to matching our increases in health spending. I do not think that the hon. Gentleman can support his leadership in refusing to match our spending and at the same time complain that we are not spending enough.

Will the Leader of the House consider timetabling at the earliest opportunity a debate on the future of United Kingdom manufacturing? He may feel a sense of déjà-vu, but there have been profound changes within our industrial base, and Parliament is in danger of failing to respond to those changes. In the past year, there have been forced large-scale redundancies in Leigh and 1,000 manufacturing jobs have been lost, the latest due to the closure of the Bentwood textiles factory, which has led to the loss of more than 300 skilled jobs. That raises real issues about the future of the UK textile industry and whether the European Union tax regime is working in our national interests. There is real concern out there about both the ease with which companies can seemingly relocate away from the UK and the quality of the redundancy packages offered to people when such relocations occur. I urge my right hon. Friend to give hon. Members the opportunity to air those concerns on the Floor of the House at the earliest opportunity.

I am distressed to hear of the experience that my hon. Friend describes in his constituency and I fully understand that the matters that he has raised must be of grave concern to his constituents. I am aware of the interest on both sides of the House in a discussion of manufacturing. It is a matter that has been aired before. I draw attention to the fact that we are rapidly approaching six full days' debate on the Queen's Speech, which traditionally provides an opportunity to discuss industry and the economy. My hon. Friend and other hon. Members may wish to consider whether these are matters that could be pursued in that context.

Would the Leader of the House make a statement prior to the modernisation debate on the possible impact of the modernisation on the working hours and income of the staff of the House and the police? He may be aware that it is feared that those staff may well end up worse off after that modernisation process.

If there are concerns on income, that is a matter that can be pursued through the usual negotiating channels, which are well developed within the House of Commons. I am sure that the House of Commons Commission will be willing to consider any bona fide and genuine concerns that there might be—I say that as a member of the Commission. However, I am not immediately aware that there would be a significant impact on the hours of the staff. If he is referring to the Modernisation Committee's report, it is true that we make a vigorous case for thinking that the House would be wise to start earlier in the day than at present and that that would have a consequence for when we conclude our business at the end of the day. We do not go so far as the Opposition, who suggested that we should sit from 9 am and stop at 5 pm, but we are suggesting 11.30 am until 7 pm.

We also recommended that, because a number of hon. Members will wish to continue working on the premises, catering and other facilities such as the Library should remain open. so I would not apprehend any immediate and sharp reduction in hours.

I return to the issue raised by the Father of the House during business questions. My point relates to the article by Oonagh Blackman in today's edition of The Mirror. We might want to take issue with the basis on which the US Congressional Budget Office speculated on the costs of a war against Iraq. The following statement from its report ought to cause this House real concern:

"Only the British have thus far indicated their intention to contribute troops."

We have had a succession of statements, from the Prime Minister and other Ministers, saying that the UK has not made any such commitment. Either the US Congress is being misled, or information is being withheld from this House. May we ask the Prime Minister to make it clear to this House whether there is any grounds at all for the certainty with which this commitment of UK troops is referred to in the report to the US Congress?

There is no commitment made, and can be no commitment made, because no decision has yet been reached. As the Prime Minister has repeatedly said to the House—I fully support him in this policy objective—it is the objective of British foreign policy to make sure that it is progressed through the United Nations. At the moment, there are discussions within the United Nations on what resolution might be approved, and I think it may well be possible that those discussions will result in a resolution. At the moment, no decision is required of us, and no commitment has been made by us. Military action is not imminent; nor is it inevitable. I very much hope that, at the end of the day, we will succeed through the United Nations process of satisfactorily disarming Saddam Hussein and removing his ambition for weapons of mass destruction. However, we also need him to heed the UN obligations that he has previously had put upon him, and any fresh UN resolution that is adopted.

Will the Leader of the House keep an open mind as to the allocation of time for debating local government funding, given the concerns expressed by Members, the interests of their constituents, the scale of the proposed changes to funding, the effect on local services, and the interests of those such as the chairman of the Hertfordshire police authority, who wrote to Ministers and MPs saying that, in due course, changes in funding will result in the loss of 300 police officers in Hertfordshire? These are very big changes. Can we find sufficient time, so that all these anxieties can be heard?

Yes, although I am aware that my right hon. Friend has repeatedly stressed to the House that no local authority will be worse off. Of course, there is room for debate as to who is best off in terms of the increased amounts. Having said that, I admit to the House that I see no realistic possibility that I can provide satisfactory time on the Floor for every Member who wishes to make a contribution, through a speech, to this issue. It is simply not possible to reconcile that with the finite character of time. I have twice tried to provide generous time for this debate. On Tuesday, that opportunity was waylaid by the need for statements; it will not be so waylaid next Thursday, when a second opportunity will arise. I believe that, in all fairness, we have tried hard to provide adequate opportunity for the House to ventilate this subject.

Will my right hon. Friend confirm that—despite the impression given by the shadow Leader of the House—the Modernisation Committee has done everything possible in the past year to try to reach a consensus? Is it not true that some of his friends on the Labour Benches wanted to go much further in respect of matters such as the modest overspill proposal? People such as me believe that we should have a five-year Parliament, with all legislation being introduced in a sensible, phased way over that period. That would ensure a better programme, better scrutiny and better legislation.

My hon. Friend has played a distinguished part in the Select Committee. He is absolutely right—we have sought whenever we can to achieve consensus. All members of the Committee will accept that I have made real efforts to get as many members on board as possible. There are one or two areas on which we disagree—that is not surprising—but we have achieved substantial consensus on the way forward.

On the issue of carry-over to which my hon. Friend refers, I stress that I do not see it as related in any way to increasing the volume of legislation before the House; I see it as necessary to make sure that the House can do a proper job of scrutiny. The real problem in scrutinising Government legislation is finding enough time in which to do it. If we want more time to do it, we must have a longer time-horizon. That is the value of carry-over to the House, and it is for the House's sake that we should adopt it when we meet on 29 October.

The Leader of the House will know that about six of his ministerial colleague, including the Prime Minister and the Deputy Prime Minister, attended the world summit on sustainable development in Johannesburg at the end of August. He will further know that that international conference debated and discussed some of the most vital issues affecting the future of our globe. Surely the House should have an opportunity to discuss these important matters. Bearing in mind the fair point that he made about the pressure on business between now and Prorogation, will he assure us that the matter will be debated on the Floor of the House, if not before then immediately after the beginning of the new Session?

The hon. Gentleman is realistic in understanding that we cannot debate the matter before prorogation, but I assure him that the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs is keen for the House to have an opportunity to question her and discuss the matter, and that the issue of a statement was contemplated. The House will always be faced with the problem of catching up after three months in which it has not been sitting. Indeed, we saw that on Monday when we had three statements—[HON. MEMBERS: "Tuesday."] Sorry, Tuesday. Those statements could not be moved and necessarily took precedence over any other statement. I would argue that that is a very strong case for the House coming back in September instead of the system whereby we do not meet for three months. Had we come back in September, I am absolutely sure that there would have been a statement on Johannesburg.

Would the Leader of the House, in his mission for modernisation, consider investigating the modernisation of the television facilities available in the House to allow hon. Members to receive digital television channels, especially those such as BBC2 Wales or BBC Scotland, which will allow us to monitor the media in our nations and regions? Would that not have the additional merit of allowing people—such as those hon. Members who were lucky enough to be in the Wales Office last night—to watch some top-quality international football?

One of the advantages that I have as United Kingdom Leader of the House is the ability to support whichever team is doing best, and I congratulate the Welsh team on its success. I shall convey to the House authorities my hon. Friend's comments in relation to television services.

First, will the Leader of the House confirm that there will be a Government statement on the Government's response to the Anderson inquiry on 5 November, as leaked today to Plaid Cymru? Secondly, he is no doubt aware of a little local difficulty concerning the proposed change of membership of the Committee of Selection. He is aware that this is due to the increasing frustration felt in the minority parties about lack of access to Committees and institutions of the House. Must we continue to oppose that as private business, or will we be given an early opportunity to debate our grievances about the treatment of minority parties at the hands of the House?

I am very much aware of the grievance of the minority parties on the question of appointments to Committees. The hon. Gentleman and I have corresponded on the matter on several occasions, and I will continue to look for a solution to it. There will be plenty of procedural opportunities for him to make his point.

On the Anderson report, the Government will, of course, respond to it, and that response will be shared with the House. It is unusual, however, for the Government to respond as soon as the leak is out and before the report has been published.

May I return to the story in the The Mirror about the war bill? Although I welcome the Leader of the House's positive comments on the United Nations route, I must point out the importance of this issue to the House. If the document concerned says that President Bush has been guaranteed that Britain will send troops to fight a United States-led war and makes other explicit statements to which my hon. Friend the Member for Nottingham, South (Alan Simpson) referred—in addition, the Congressional Budget Office report estimates that the cost to this country might be £5 billion—it is imperative that the House has the opportunity to question a Minister or the Prime Minister on the matter. We have been told time and again that no decisions have been taken, but the Americans appear to think that they have been. Five billion pounds is a lot of money, and we have outstanding public sector pay claims, such as those from the firefighters and the nurses, and I am sure that that money would cover much of their claims.

My hon. Friend raises an issue that has been of deep concern to a number of my hon. Friends. I can only repeat that the Congressional Budget Office is, of course, entitled to come to what assumptions it wishes, but those are its assumptions. They do not reflect any commitment that has been given by Her Majesty's Government, nor could we make any commitment until we take a decision, and no decision has been taken on action. I very much hope that it will be possible for us to succeed in getting the UN to pressurise Iraq successfully to accept its obligations to the UN. Every sane Member would accept that that is the best way forward, but it depends on co-operation from Iraq.

As to opportunities to debate the issue further, I draw the House's attention to the fact that there will be a debate on defence today and that there will be another in two weeks' time. There are plenty of opportunities for Members who wish to do so to press the Ministers responsible for defence for clarity on this matter. However, I think that those Ministers will confirm what I have said to the House.

Will the Leader of the House arrange for an early debate on the private finance initiative so that the House can have the benefit of the lively debate that we saw at the Labour party conference? Perhaps the Government could explain the motion that was so enthusiastically adopted by that conference. If he finds time for that debate, will he arrange for the Chief Secretary to the Treasury to open it, so that we can hear the Government's argument at its best and hear a repeat of the bravura performance at Blackpool?

The hon. Gentleman's point was rather laboured. I am always happy to listen to my right hon. Friend the Chief Secretary to the Treasury or, indeed, to any member of the Treasury team. They will also be interested to hear from the hon. Gentleman or any of his colleagues if they wish to nominate which hospital or school projects in their constituencies they would like to have halted because they do not approve of the PFI process.

I welcome the modernisation proposals that my right hon. Friend published over the summer, but will he tell the House what progress has been made with respect to the use of Westminster Hall for debates on issues that cut across Government Departments and that a range of Ministers could attend? Would not a good start be a debate on youth policy to which many Ministers could be brought together to answer questions on that important topic?

I aware of my hon. Friend's interest in the subject. Indeed, he wrote to me some time ago, and I am pleased that we have been able to respond to the demand from Members—and from Ministers responsible for this issue—by proposing that there should be an opportunity for cross-cutting questions on youth policy, embracing the Home Office, the Department of Health and the Department for Education and Skills. As more work is done in Whitehall on a cross-departmental basis, it is right that the House should adapt its procedures so that we can also maintain cross-cutting scrutiny. I believe that our proposal for change in Westminster Hall will be helpful. We will work with the Chairman of Ways and Means to try to find an early opportunity in the new Session when we can put into effect that proposal for questions on youth policy in Westminster Hall.

Is it not unsatisfactory that neither the Chancellor of the Exchequer nor the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry have yet been to the House to explain or justify their decision to put more than £600 million of public funds at risk in the form of emergency loans and guarantees to the virtually bankrupt private nuclear energy company, British Energy? Will the Leader of the House ensure that we have such a statement as soon as possible?

As I understand it, we will have a full opportunity to explore these issues next week. Once again I say that, if we had regular September sittings, such questions would not arise, because I am sure that we would have had a statement at the time. The issue that the hon. Gentleman raises will be debated next week, but it surely could not be responsible of any Government to allow a major nuclear energy installation to face the possibility of insolvency, with all the consequences that would have for the safety and security of our constituents. In those circumstances, it surely was right for the Government to act to make sure that nuclear safety is maintained.

Will my right hon. Friend find time for a debate on compensation for the victims—the soldiers and now the families—of the atomic tests in the Pacific in 1950? I am sure that he is aware that the Prime Minister supported a private Member's Bill in 1990 demanding compensation for the victims of those tests. As we are now in government, I am sure that the Government will be eager to ensure that justice is done for those victims.

The Government are always eager to make sure that justice is done, and my hon. Friend may want to put those points to my colleagues from the Ministry of Defence who will be taking part in the subsequent debate.

On a point of order, Mr. Speaker.

Order. I will take points of order after the statement.

With permission, Mr. Speaker, I would like to make a statement on the reform of housing benefit.

I am today publishing a prospectus, "Building Choice and Responsibility: a radical agenda for Housing Benefit", which sets out our proposals. The system that we have inherited is complicated, costly to administer, vulnerable to fraud and difficult for tenants to understand. For too many people, it means endless form filling and delays in payment. It is often a factor that prevents people from making the move from welfare into work.

Currently, we expect local authorities to reassess 4 million individual claims every year, whether they have changed or not. Nearly 2 million pensioners whose circumstances rarely change are expected to fill in a 40-page form every year just to renew their housing benefit. Local councils are compelled to deal with a bewildering array of overlapping rules for tenants in the private rented sector. That cannot be right. We need a system that puts real choice and responsibility in tenants' hands—one that supports work and cuts the risk of fraud. The Work and Pensions Committee and the Audit Commission have highlighted the need for change, as have many outside observers. It is time to get on with this reform.

It is clear that we need to break fundamentally with the past and bring in a fairer, simpler system, so we propose to introduce standard local housing allowances for private rentals, initially in 10 pathfinder areas. The allowance will be flat rate and based on area and family size. The amount paid will, as now, be income related. It will be paid directly to the tenant, except where vulnerable tenants are unable to manage their own affairs or where substantial arrears have built up. No one will be worse off when those pathfinder schemes start next year. In fact, tenants who find a suitable home with a rent less than the standard allowance will be able to keep the difference. That puts the decision and responsibility in their hands.

The reforms will build on the steps that we have already taken to improve administration and to begin the process of restructuring rents in the social rented sector. It is our intention to roll out reforms nationally and to develop ways of bringing in the social housing sector. That will be carefully informed by our assessment of the initial pathfinder areas, where we will work closely with local authorities, landlords, tenants associations and advice agencies.

Consultation will be led by the Under-Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, my hon. Friend the Member for Croydon, North (Malcolm Wicks), for whose work on these proposals I am very grateful. The reformed system will offer greater simplicity and certainty for tenants and landlords, extend tenant choice and responsibility, dramatically cut delays and support our wider aims of improving public services, tackling poverty and extending opportunity.

As they are simpler, standard local allowances will speed up the claims process, which will reduce the uncertainties that people face as their circumstances change and will make trying a job a more attractive option. Furthermore, later this month, throughout the country we will start to introduce a rapid reclaim facility for when a job does not work out. We will also remove the need to make a new claim when someone gets a job. Housing benefit will simply run on until the in-work rate is calculated.

We are taking other steps to improve the service for everyone. Jobcentre Plus clients will be able to make claims over the telephone, and from next autumn pensioners will no longer have to fill out a new housing benefit form every year.

We are committed to working in partnership with councils to improve performance through clearer standards and increased accountability. We are already seeing progress. In March, we set out clear standards for housing benefit performance. We will build on that by providing £200 million for training and modernisation over the next three years to help councils that are committed to improvement. We shall also challenge poor performance and stand ready to intervene where local authorities fail to deliver an acceptable service.

It is also crucial that we crack down on fraud. This package of reforms will do just that. First, it will simplify the housing benefit system in order to free resources for the fight against fraud. Secondly, the perverse incentive for corrupt landlords to collude with tenants to set high rents will be removed. Thirdly, we are providing £60 million to support the tighter checking of claims, stopping fraud getting into the system in the first place.

The Government are committed to taking action against rogue landlords who abuse the system. As soon as parliamentary time allows, my right hon. Friend the Deputy Prime Minister intends to legislate to tackle the minority of rogue landlords and boost our drive against poor conditions. It is also important that tenants understand their obligations to behave in a neighbourly way.

As we made clear following the introduction of the private Member's Bill promoted by my right hon. Friend the Member for Birkenhead (Mr. Field), the Government are considering housing benefit sanctions as part of our wider strategy to tackle nuisance neighbours through stricter tenancy agreements and improved antisocial behaviour orders. By making tenants responsible for payment of their rent, the reforms that I am announcing today reinforce the link between rights and responsibilities.

In conclusion, reform of housing benefit is essential. The proposals combine simplicity and streamlined procedures with greater individual choice. They offer a better deal for tenants, landlords and local authorities. We must now work together to make them a success.

Housing benefit does indeed need to be reformed. Successive Governments have promised to do it but none has really succeeded. The dilemma is whether to pay benefit for actual rent or make a standard payment of a rent allowance. Sixty years ago, Beveridge devoted an entire chapter of his great report to precisely that dilemma and revealingly entitled it "The problem of rent". He concluded that it would be better to make a standard payment, provided that rents in different areas had already moved close together. I think that he was right, and that is clearly the basis on which the Secretary of State is proceeding.

Let me ask the Secretary of State about the scale of his proposals. This Government have all too often proposed welfare reform, only to fail to deliver. About 4 million people are claiming housing benefit. How many claimants does he expect to receive housing benefit in the new way, after he has implemented the pathfinders? Is he committing himself now to proceeding straightforwardly to a complete national scheme after the pathfinders have been implemented, or is there to be a small number of pilots, after which the evidence will be scrutinised before a decision is made on what to do next? We need to know whether the gap between hype and reality that has so frequently dogged the Government's commitment to welfare reform is going to be in evidence yet again on housing benefit.

I should like also to ask the Secretary of State about the detail of the pathfinders. Will he assure the House that they will cover different parts of England? As he well knows, what might work in low-rent areas of the north may not necessarily work in parts of the southeast, where rents are much higher. Is there a danger of going back to the old days of two different housing benefit regimes—one for social housing tenants and another for private tenancies? His proposals currently appear to cover only private tenancies. Will he try to drive down rents in the private sector while those in the social housing sector continue to increase? How will he fix rents for existing tenants, especially if he says that none of them is to lose?

Perhaps most important of all, what about the serious problem of people trapped in dependency because of the incredibly high rates of combined withdrawal of housing benefit and income support that they now face? Will the right hon. Gentleman look at those very high tapers—sometimes over 90 per cent.—which trap thousands of people in benefits, or will the tapers be off-limits?

The Secretary of State went on to speak about the linking of housing benefit to behaviour. Hon. Members on both sides of the House must salute the imagination of the right hon. Member for Birkenhead (Mr. Field), the author of that idea. We approached it in a constructive spirit when his private Member's Bill went into Committee—perhaps the Liberal Democrats did not, but my hon. Friends certainly did—and we will approach it in a constructive spirit again. But that was the proposal from the right hon. Member for Birkenhead. What has happened to the original proposal that was made by the Prime Minister, which linked child benefit to behaviour? Is that still on the agenda, or has it been dropped? Has the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions come to the House in order to drop an idea proposed by the Prime Minister, and instead to support an idea proposed by the former Minister for Welfare Reform, who was removed from his post? Has the Secretary of State decided that the right hon. Member for Birkenhead is right and the Prime Minister is wrong? We would like him to make that clear.

While we debate these ideas for the future, there is an immediate crisis in our housing benefit system in many parts of the country, especially in London, where it is close to collapse. Does the Secretary of State accept that there are people who are homeless on the streets, having been evicted from their houses by councils whose own failure to pay housing benefit is the source of the problem? We welcome practical proposals, including those made by him today, to tackle that problem, but the Secretary of State did not refer to one of the reasons why housing benefit administration is close to collapse. Ministers have produced more than 400 housing benefit circulars since the Government took office in 1997 and local authorities simply cannot keep up with them.

May I take this opportunity to urge the Secretary of State to consider our straightforward and practical proposal simply to change the regulations once or twice a year, so that local authorities do not face a stream of changes? We have also suggested that the Benefits Agency should, in the last resort, take over responsibility for housing benefit from local authorities that are clearly not up to the job. I hope that the Secretary of State will also consider those practical proposals to tackle an immediate crisis.

The hon. Gentleman implied that we were the first Government to try to get to grips with the problem since Beveridge. He might have given us some credit for grasping the nettle. I listened in vain throughout his remarks for a basic comment about whether the Conservative party thinks that our proposals are the right direction for reform or the wrong direction. I should have thought that the Opposition would welcome the move towards greater personal responsibility and choice for tenants; the tenants who will benefit from our reforms will certainly do so.

The hon. Gentleman asked a number of questions. As I said in my statement, we propose initially to roll out the proposals in 10 pathfinder areas. We wish to extend the approach nationally, but clearly we must learn from the experience of the pathfinders in so doing.

As regards the number and the proportion of recipients of housing benefits who are affected, there are 4 million claims and about 20 per cent. of those—800,000—are in the private sector. We hope to roll the scheme out to between 5 and 10 per cent. of that case load through the pathfinders, so the hon. Gentleman can see that the number of people affected will be substantial. He asked whether those are pathfinders or pilots. We want to get on with rolling out the scheme.

In selecting the areas to be the pathfinders, yes, we want to ensure that not only the various regions of England, but areas in Scotland and Wales have the opportunity to try the new approach. The criteria that we will apply in selecting pathfinders is that they include a mix of high-cost, low-cost and medium-cost areas; we want to include substantial rural areas as well as urban areas; we want them to be in different parts of the country, and they need to be areas with a substantial case load of private rentals. We shall approach a number of authorities as soon as we can to see whether they are able to take part.

With regard to the Government's performance on housing benefit, I cannot help but refer to the utter shambles that we inherited and the Opposition's failure to take responsibility for the awful mess that they bequeathed us. We have invested in tougher action against fraud in the form of the benefit fraud inspectorate, we have sent help teams around the country and we have intervened in a number of local authorities—for example, we have substantially addressed the backlog in Hackney. Moreover, the ombudsman's recent report noted that complaints to him about housing benefit administration were down by a quarter.

I do not deny that a great deal more needs to be done to improve the efficiency of administration and to crack down on fraud, but our proposals will help us to achieve that end. We are putting resources and investment behind our commitment to efficiency and modernisation. Not only have we allocated £200 million from next year to modernise IT and to train staff, but £60 million has been explicitly dedicated to measures to combat fraud.

The key point is that these proposals will help. They make the system clearer and more straightforward and they remove the perverse incentive for corrupt landlords to collude with tenants in setting high rents. This is a big step forward towards tenants in the private sector who are dependent on housing benefit having some of the same rights and responsibilities that the rest of us take for granted.

I thank the Secretary of State and the Under-Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, my hon. Friend the Member for Croydon, North (Malcolm Wicks), for the work they have put in behind today's statement, and I congratulate my right hon. Friend on the courage and determination that he is now showing in reforming housing benefit. Had some of that been shown five years ago, he might have been announcing the completion of the reform rather than its commencement.

Does my right hon. Friend accept that when his statement is reviewed it will be seen as the abolition of the last vestiges of serfdom in our welfare system, and that instead of directing how claimants spend their money it will give them the freedom to spend it themselves?

Will my right hon. Friend give us some assurance about how the reform will be rolled out in the pilot areas? Will all claimants in the private sector be brought into the scheme, or will they become part of the scheme only if they wish to move or have to move?

I thank my right hon. Friend for his welcome for the measures. With regard to the timing of their implementation, earlier steps were taken on modernisation and tackling fraud and rent restructuring measures are now under way for the social rented sector, but we are now getting on with these measures as quickly as we can.

With regard to how the reform will be rolled out in each of the pathfinder areas, our intention is that all private rentals where tenants receive housing benefit will be part of the pathfinder, except, as I said, where people are vulnerable and unable to manage their affairs or where there are substantial rent arrears. Another protection that the House will be interested in is that it makes sense for the initial payment to be made directly to the landlord, but thereafter it will be the responsibility of the tenant.

I am not sure whether I would describe the measures in exactly the same terms as my right hon. Friend did, as the abolition of serfdom—I would be proud to have played a leading role in such a cause—but they certainly extend rights, responsibilities and opportunities to tenants in the private rented sector that they have been denied in the past and that the rest of us take for granted.

I thank the Secretary of State for his statement and for grasping a nettle that his two immediate predecessors signally failed to grasp. It is all the more welcome that he has brought forward the proposals today. The aims that he set out are entirely laudable and many of the proposals, such as pensioners not having to reclaim within five years, are entirely sensible, and we shall welcome and support them. However, I have two fundamental concerns.

First, a political party recently said that it was proposing to complete the Thatcherite agenda. I had assumed that that was the Conservative party, but I hear that the right hon. Gentleman proposes to use housing benefit sanctions for antisocial tenants, which sounds good, macho and as though the Government are on the side of the decent against the antisocial, but in practice the consequence will be to move the problem around rather than to deal with it. Would not the money that these measures will cost be better spent on the many schemes around Britain that are working now to tackle the causes of antisocial behaviour? These measures will simply move the problem around when it has already occurred.

I have some serious concerns about rent restructuring. I get the impression that the Secretary of State lives in a world in which tenants are faced with a wide array of choice properties at decent prices, and that they pick and choose, then haggle to set a decent rent with the landlord. Well, it ain't like that, and I think that, deep down, the right hon. Gentleman knows that. Many tenants are price takers, and have little choice. They have to take what they are offered or they have to lump it. The Department's own research shows that shopping-around incentives have been a complete failure; they simply do not work. Tenants are not free choosers among a range of choice properties. Does the Secretary of State not agree that tenants will be forced to live in the cheap rent, ghetto part of town because they will not be able to afford to live in the decent part?

If the right hon. Gentleman's proposal is for the standard allowance to be set at the reference rent—effectively, the maximum rent—how will the pilot schemes tell us anything? Half the people will be paying less and have some free money—and will say thank you very much—while the other half will get what they are getting now. So what will the pilots actually teach us? With rents as they are, there is a real danger attached to the flat-rate payments. Rents still vary far too much, and people will be forced to move because their housing benefit does not cover their rent. That will mean children leaving their schools, and people moving away from members of their family who can provide child care. It will also disrupt employment. If the measures do not have the effect of causing people to choose different properties, what is the point of them? If they do, will they not "ghettoise" and distort people's lives?

It is clear that the Liberal Democrats are no part of the reformed agenda. That was an hysterically negative response to our radical proposals. I would caution the hon. Gentleman against lecturing me on the world I live in. My home in my constituency is on an estate where people are sick and tired of neighbours from hell making their lives a misery, day in and day out. This Government can take pride in linking rights with responsibilities, and if housing benefit has a part to play in the wider measures to tackle antisocial behaviour, so much the better.

On the hon. Gentleman's speculation about people being worse off, I said in my statement that no one will be worse off as a consequence of these proposals. Indeed, those whose rent is below the reference rent level will be better off. In resisting these proposals, the hon. Gentleman would condemn those people to the unfairness of having less money for their housing costs, just because they live in a cheap area. There is nothing liberal or democratic in his remarks if he would prefer to leave poor people ensnared in an incomprehensible state bureaucracy, rather than putting some power in their hands. I believe in empowering poor people, and that is what these proposals will do.

Will the Secretary of State explain a little more about how his proposals will deal with private landlords who exploit the current system by not maintaining their properties, which, in effect, encourages antisocial behaviour and, as a result, accelerates neighbourhood decline?

I share my hon. Friend's commitment to tackling not only rogue landlords but the wider syndrome of degeneration, especially in some of our urban neighbourhoods. As I said, I believe that these proposals make a contribution to tackling those problems because they put more power in the hands of tenants and less in the hands of the bad landlords. They will make the situation clearer for tenants and landlords than it is at present. At the moment, when a tenant is deciding which property to live in, they are effectively shopping in the dark without knowing how much money they have in their purse. Under these proposals, they will know how much money they will be taking to get the best deal. It is right that we should extend to them the opportunity to express a choice in these situations. Of course, there is a much wider agenda here, and, as I said in my statement, the Office of the Deputy Prime Minister is consulting on wider measures to tackle antisocial landlords. We look forward to those measures being introduced as soon as parliamentary time allows.

I welcome the broad thrust of the Secretary of State's proposals and I look forward to reading the detail of the consultation paper. I especially welcome his desire to crack down on both rogue landlords and neighbours from hell. He will understand the healthy scepticism on Conservative Benches about the claim that the Government will introduce fewer bureaucratic measures than their predecessors. If they can achieve that, we would warmly welcome it and wish them well.

In my experience, many software systems that local authorities use to oversee the housing benefit system often break down and fail to deliver. Will the Secretary of State give guidance and advice to local authorities on the computer systems that they should use to ensure that they deliver the right result and that tenants can interact with them quickly and carefully?

I thank the hon. Gentleman for his welcome for our proposals. He made an important point: IT software often leaves a great deal to be desired. A working group is examining the matter in partnership with local authorities. The roll-out of the pathfinders and their experience will provide important lessons about the way in which we can ensure that the system works properly and delivers the standards of service that we all expect.

The system is simpler because it makes poking around every nook and cranny of the assessment of every rent unnecessary. It should therefore be simpler for IT.

My right hon. Friend referred to overcoming the complexity of claiming housing benefit under the current arrangements. Perhaps he could expand on the way in which the new measures would achieve that. Does not Jobcentre Plus operate as a method of assisting claimants by drawing people together who are seeking both benefits and employment? Will it assist matters to close jobcentres such as that in Eckington in my constituency? My right hon. Friend saved it in the past and may consider the position again. How will people in those circumstances find it easier to gain access to the provisions that we are considering?

As I said, the simpler system will be more user friendly and make it easier for people to claim their entitlements. The wider proposals to which I referred involve replacing approximately four forms that people must currently complete with one form. We will enable and encourage making claims by telephone. Jobcentre Plus will be able to handle those claims. As the scheme is rolled out across the country, it will become a genuine one-stop service for those who are seeking work as well as benefits.

My hon. Friend referred to a specific jobcentre. My ministerial team and I will be pleased to talk to him further about its future.

The development is welcome from the point of view of the Social Security Committee, as it was. The hurdle of housing benefit prevented people from getting off benefit and into work, and it was one of the biggest items of unfinished business since the Government were elected in 1997. This morning's announcement constitutes a significant step forward, which I welcome.

I hope that the Secretary of State will acknowledge that hon. Members would be wise to consider the detail carefully because it will make all the difference to whether the proposals are successful and fulfil the aspirations that he set out.

I want to make two brief points. First, I am slightly disappointed that the public sector has not been used for any of the pilots. I understand that the Labour party made a manifesto commitment to deal with private before public, but I hope that that does not mean that public is off the agenda for the rest of the Parliament. I would have been happier if the pathfinders had included some public sector research.

Secondly, when the Government introduced pension credit, they sensibly made it clear that the interface between housing benefit and pension credit would prejudice no one. Will the Secretary of State comment on the second phase of the tax credit reform that will be introduced next spring and how it will interface with the proposals that he announced this morning?

I am grateful for the hon. Gentleman's welcome and for the work that his Select Committee does in this important area.

In response to the hon. Gentleman's first question, I too am keen to be able to include the social sector. Clearly we must have progress on rent restructuring. Given that that is predicated on an element of tenant choice, that too needs to be reflected in the social housing sector if the benefits are to be realised. As we roll out the pathfinders, we shall actively be looking for opportunities to involve the public sector. Far from that sector being off the agenda, it is very much on it in terms of the national roll-out of such reform.

The hon. Gentleman's second question was about tax credits coming in next April. We shall be examining carefully the interaction between the two factors that he identified, and we are mindful of the work that local authorities have to accomplish next year on housing benefit systems. It is especially important that there is careful consultation with the authorities that we are minded to approach as pathfinders to ensure that they are enthusiastic about taking on the job.

Beveridge decided not to proceed with fundamental housing benefit reform because of cost differentials in different parts of the country, which of course have increased dramatically over recent years. Will my right hon. Friend ensure that the scheme works effectively in high-cost areas such as London? The number of properties in the private rented sector that are available to people on housing benefit has halved in five years. One of my constituents was told that to look for a property while on housing benefit, it would be necessary to go to Dartford, Billericay or Brentwood, 40 miles from central London. The choice agenda is critical.

Will my right hon. Friend ensure also that poverty is addressed? The shortfalls between the housing benefit that is payable and actual rents in the Greater London area are a major cause of poverty, and in turn drive households into homelessness and into public sector housing. In the application of the policy, will my right hon. Friend advise me how it will increase choice by increasing supply in the private rented sector, how it will reduce poverty and how it will reduce the flow of households, especially families from the private rented sector, into homelessness?

I am certainly mindful of the particular problems that affect high-cost areas; indeed, according to outside-London terms, my constituency is a high-cost area. I am sensitive to the particular challenge facing people and authorities in London. That is one of the reasons why we want to ensure that pathfinder areas include a London authority.

As for poverty, through these proposals no one will be worse off, and a significant proportion of tenants will be better off. There is a wider challenge facing us on housing supply, and that is one of the reasons why the Government have already substantially increased investment in social housing. As a consequence of the spending review, we are accelerating that investment still further.

I agree with my hon. Friend that we need to keep these matters closely under review and to examine what are the future options to ensure that the problems that she has identified, arising from a diminishing range of properties available to those in housing need in London, are effectively addressed.

rose—

Order. I have time limited main business to protect this afternoon, in which many hon. Members wish to take part. I do not think that I will be able to call every Member who is trying to catch my eye on the statement. Brief questions and brief answers would help.

I was struck by the explanation that the Minister gave to the Liberal Democrats, which was that an individual cannot be an intelligent purchaser unless he or she knows how much they have to spend. When the right hon. Gentleman is selecting the pathfinders, will he make particular efforts to cover an area where rents are variable geographically or seasonally? Will he take account of the need to cover effectively those whose incomes vary substantially during the year, such as seasonal workers or those who do not receive all the money that they should through the Child Support Agency?

I thank the hon. Gentleman for welcoming my comment. It is not the first time that we have made common cause against the Liberal Democrats.

We will address the variable geography and incomes to which the hon. Gentleman refers. Rent reference areas try to take account of that and we will work on the basis of existing areas. I agree that there are big issues to consider for the future and that we will have to learn from the pathfinders. I will try to address his concern when we select the pathfinders.

The problem with housing benefit in my constituency, which is an area of high and rising rents and a diminishing number of properties, is not the speed in processing claims—my borough of Camden has two charter marks for excellence in that—but the gap between the level of rent set by the local rent officer and the rent set by the private landlord. What formula will be used to define a standard rent allowance? Many of my constituents who suffer most grievously are single people. How will they be helped?

I echo my hon. Friend's comments about the performance of her local authority. As well as castigating those that do poorly, it is important to praise those that make a difficult system work effectively.

The reference rent will be set on the basis of the present system, disregarding outliers and taking an intermediate level between the highest and lowest rents in the area. By putting the money in the hands of the tenants and, as I said, by removing the perverse incentive for corrupt landlords to collude with tenants in raising rents, it is likely that the reform will exercise some downward pressure on rents. That will help, although I do not want to overemphasise the effect.

The statement says that the allowance will be flat rate, based on area and family size. However, we need to address the particular housing costs experienced by people with disabilities, given that those are unrelated to area and family size. That was the subject of an Adjournment debate secured by my hon. Friend the Member for Ceredigion (Mr. Thomas), which was given a sympathetic hearing by the Minister.

It is very important that the needs of disabled people are properly addressed. The reform will not alter the premiums and the support that they get from the disability living allowance. I shall keep an eye on the operation of pathfinders to ensure that disabled people's needs are properly reflected. There is no need whatever why disabled people should be denied the same choice and opportunity that is available to others. Indeed, they should enjoy it to the full.

Can the Secretary of State assure my constituents, who live in a high-housing cost, high-demand area, that they will continue to get a reasonable supply of private rented accommodation under the system? Many of us are concerned about that. In addition, will he intervene on local authorities that have proved themselves completely incompetent to deliver housing benefit? Islington council, which is run by the Liberal Democrats, has bizarrely signed a continuation contract with a company called ITNET, which over the past five years has proven itself incapable of delivering housing benefit safely and securely to anyone in my borough, so causing immense hardship.

Many landlords are also put off by the complexities and delays in the present system. The reform should help those who want to make their properties available.

We stand ready, however, to intervene. The directions that we have issued have had an effect and are in addition to the measures that we are taking on the help teams and in addition to the extra investment. In the final analysis, if the people who run an authority are incompetent, we can take it off them and get someone else to run it.

Will the Secretary of State assure the House that his Department will examine the practice of some local housing authorities that stop the payment of housing benefit while they investigate tenants? That presumes guilt before the investigation is concluded and greatly worries many tenants.

I thank the right hon. Gentleman for his support for the Bill promoted by the right hon. Member for Birkenhead (Mr. Field) and remind the House that every Conservative and Labour Member supported its proposals in Committee.

I thank the hon. Gentleman for his remarks and for welcoming the reforms. I shall certainly look into the instances that he describes. We take the advice of the benefit fraud inspectorate on these matters and I shall make it my business to get a report from the inspectorate on the issue.

I welcome the Secretary of State's announcement in so far as it reforms bureaucracy, but I should like to ask him about the underlying principle. Over the past 20 years, less and less subsidy has gone into building low-cost housing and more and more has gone into the housing benefit system, resulting in bureaucracy and the poverty trap. A large amount of it has gone to unscrupulous landlords. Is it not about time that we put money back into low-cost house building as that would do a great deal to reduce the chronic hardship being suffered by so many people in this country who cannot get decent accommodation?

It is not an either/or as I am sure my hon. Friend would agree. We need to increase supply and establish a fair and efficient system for supporting those who cannot afford their rent. The proposals are dedicated specifically to my hon. Friend's second point, and as I said, I think that they will encourage more landlords.

My right hon. Friend the Deputy Prime Minister has announced substantial increases in social housing investment to address the first point that my hon. Friend raised.

Will the proposals reflect differentials in seaside resorts where tenancies are often for six months and where accommodation is at a premium during the summer months, but plentiful during the winter months? How will choice be increased? Will the proposals do anything to help landlords to find tenants who abscond owing rent that they are never able to recover and housing benefit, which those landlords then have to repay to local authorities?

On the second point, when arrears build up—eight weeks of arrears is normally the yardstick—we would reinstate direct payments, so there is that measure of safeguard for landlords. Variability of rents in seaside or other areas should be reflected in the way in which the reference rent is calculated. At the moment the proposals do not alter that, but in pathfinder areas those whose present rent is below the reference rent level and in that sense are penalised for living in a cheaper area will get the allowance up to the full reference level and will be better off as a consequence.

May I echo the comments of my hon. Friend the. Member for Regent's Park and Kensington, North (Ms Buck) and ask my right hon. Friend to say something about how he sees the new measures helping in particular young people under 25 in a high-housing cost area such as mine in Brighton and Hove? Under the current system, many young people are being priced out of the town in which they were born and brought up.

It is important that we address the wider questions of housing supply. The Government have already amended the single room assessment basis for housing benefit, which has made some measure of improvement to the situation and we will continue to keep these matters under review.

If we are to move to a system of flat rates, based in some way on current local reference rents, how will we overcome the problem that has already been referred to in high-cost areas such as London of the big and growing gaps which exist between the reference rents and the real level of rents that people are being charged? On the question of choice, as that is what the statement is about, how many landlords, once they know exactly what the standard rate is, are likely to charge less than that figure? Will it not mean that low rents will go up unless we deal with landlords who let properties in poor condition, by refusing to let them into the system?

It is very important that decent housing standards are enforced more generally through the legislative protection of those standards and the work of environmental health departments. The reference rents system works by taking a middle point between high and low rents in an area and that should address the relevant problems over time, but as I said in an earlier reply, I acknowledge that there is a particular problem in high-cost areas and we will pay close attention to it in future.

I apologise to the Secretary of State for missing the first 60 seconds of his statement. I also apologise in advance lest by saying that I broadly welcome the proposals I undermine support for them.

The proposals seem to be the logical and foreseen development of the rent reference system that I introduced. Action could not be taken immediately because the possible divergence of rents meant that the cost might be high. What cost does the Secretary of State envisage in extra benefit? Will he also assure us that local authorities will retain the discretion to pay above the standard allowance if that is necessary, for instance to enable an elderly mother to live near her family in what may be high-rent accommodation, but thereby avoiding the need to enter residential accommodation?

Obviously the cost will depend partly on the impact of the reforms on rent levels over time, but the extra amount that we anticipate for the pathfinders is around £20 million.

I can confirm that we do not intend to limit the discretion of local authorities that currently have that discretion, although we expect the basis of payment to come from the tenant except when there is good reason for that not to happen.

Is there any scope for giving benefit to some who currently do not receive it, particularly in high-cost areas such as the one I represent? In my area an ex-council house can cost £850 a month, and a two-bedroomed flat in Apsley can cost £1,000 a month. As a result, the disposable incomes of some people such as starter teachers are extremely low. Giving such people housing benefit would increase incentives to work.

It is no part of these proposals to extend eligibility for housing benefit. As I said in my statement, benefit will be income-related as it is now. We will of course keep such matters as tapers under review, but the short answer to my hon. Friend's question is no, we do not anticipate including more people as a consequence of the report.

I congratulate my right hon. Friend on tackling a complex but crucial area. Does he agree that tackling bad landlords requires work to license them, which I know is being done in another Department? Does he also agree that ensuring that direct payments are made to tenants is crucial to enforcing the rights and responsibilities agenda and empowering tenants? Should that not apply to social housing as well as private tenants?

I agree on both counts. As I said, my right hon. Friend the Deputy Prime Minister is to present proposals for tackling bad landlords. I am acutely aware of the awful situation facing many low-demand areas, and of the possible scope for effective licensing.

As for the philosophy underpinning the reform, I entirely agree with my hon. Friend. It is very important for us to put power in the hands of poorer people. That is what the reform will do: such people will have more choice and, as my hon. Friend says, will be able to take more responsibility. As I have said, for the same reasons we should extend that approach to the social housing sector as soon as we can, and I am sure that the benefits will be just as great.

rose—

Order. We must now move on.

On a point of order, Mr. Deputy Speaker. Earlier today, during an exchange on the so-called modernisation proposals, the Leader of the House made a slight error in describing the policy of the official Opposition on sitting hours. May I take this opportunity to put the record straight? We propose that the House sit at 9.30 am on Tuesdays, Wednesdays and Thursdays, suspending sittings for lunch at 1 pm or earlier and commencing the main business at 2 pm. The House would then continue to sit until 7 pm. The distinction is rather important, and I did not want to leave the inadvertent mischaracterisation by the Leader of the House uncorrected.

I am sure that the House is obliged to the right hon. Gentleman. I understand that these matters will be further discussed on 29 October.

On a point of order, Mr. Deputy Speaker. Can you help us with the delays that we are still experiencing in the receipt of written parliamentary answers to questions? Yesterday I received an answer from the Ministry of Defence to a question that I originally asked to have answered on 25 February. I received a holding reply on 25 February and a substantive reply last night. I am being generous to the Ministry in describing it as a substantive reply because it did not really answer the question. Is it not unacceptable that it should take almost eight months for any Ministry, however hard-pressed, to respond to a question from an hon. Member?

On many previous occasions Mr. Speaker has said that he expects hon. Members to get prompt attention from Ministers. I am sure that by allowing that point of order to be expressed it gives further emphasis to the matter. Obviously, it is important that Members should be able to get their queries dealt with as quickly and efficiently as possible. If the hon. Member continues to experience extraordinary delays, he may wish to take up the matter with the Public Administration Committee.

Further to that point of order, Mr. Deputy Speaker. Could those responsible perhaps make some effort to ensure that information which is said to be placed in the Library of the House is in fact in the Library of the House? I have received many telephone calls since the answering of a question on 19 September from the press asking for information which subsequent inquiry has discovered has not yet been sent to the Library.

Again, it is an irritant to hon. Members if that occurs. I can only hope that by expressing this view from the Chair, Departments will take special care to ensure that what their Ministers say is being done is backed up by the action.

This is the fourth of five themed defence debates planned to take place in the House in the current parliamentary Session. The title today is "Defence in the World". The House will have an opportunity at the end of the month to debate "Defence in the United Kingdom".

Any debate about defence today must begin with the appalling events of 11 September last year, echoed again by yet more innocent deaths, this time in Bali. The unprovoked and devastating attacks in New York and Washington, and the fourth, failed hijack, have dominated policy and thinking across the world and across this Government. They were clearly the most significant drivers in the work of the Ministry of Defence in the last year.

We are still dealing with the consequences of those events. They have included the deployment of British combat forces to Afghanistan and a review of our security and defence plans. I should like to take this opportunity to reaffirm to the House our appreciation of the way both our armed forces and the civil servants within the Ministry of Defence responded to those considerable challenges.

We were faced with two immediate tasks in the wake of those attacks: first, we needed urgently to respond to the direct threat facing the United Kingdom and its interests; and, secondly, we needed to re-examine our policies and planning to deal with al-Qaeda and other international terrorist organisations.

The Government's defence policy was set out in the strategic defence review of 1998. It was rightly acclaimed at the time, and the past four years have demonstrated its resilience to events. The 11 September attacks, however, required us to undertake an urgent reexamination of our stance. They showed us that what might previously have been seen as potentially dangerous but distant developments now posed a direct and immediate threat. It also involved finding new ways of dealing with those threats.

My right hon. Friend the Foreign Secretary set out the Government's wider counter-terrorist strategy in the House on 16 October last year. It embraced both immediate campaign aims and longer-term objectives. In the immediate aftermath of 11 September, we sought to prevent al-Qaeda from posing a continuing terrorist threat, and to deny it a base in Afghanistan. We also made it clear that we were determined, as part of our wider strategic goals, to bring the leaders of that evil organisation to account. More widely, we sought to do everything possible to work for the elimination of international terrorism as a force for change in the world.

Last month, we published a progress report on the campaign against international terrorism, setting out the United Kingdom's contribution to the campaign. But we all know that international terrorism demands an international response. No one nation can defeat the many, disparate and well-hidden threats, of which al-Qaeda is only the principal. Moreover, no one nation is threatened in isolation. As last weekend's awful bombing in Bali demonstrated, we are in this together and we need to act together.

It is in that context that we are dealing with Saddam Hussein. At the end of last month, this House had the opportunity to debate the Government's response to the threat of Iraq and from its weapons of mass destruction. That Saddam Hussein is a brutal and cruel dictator is not in doubt. What has been at issue is the nature of the threat that he poses to us and to the middle east region, and what we need to do about it.

Saddam Hussein has spent years trying to build up his stores of weapons of mass destruction; he certainly strives to add nuclear capabilities to that arsenal. If we cannot ensure his disarmament, he will eventually succeed. If we were to underestimate the threat and fall for more of his duplicitous trickery, or simply do nothing, we would be guilty of a profound abdication of responsibility. Saddam Hussein must disarm.

Will the Secretary of State explain to the House in what circumstances he would consider the use of nuclear weapons?

I have set out to the House on a considerable number of occasions that it has not been the policy of this or any Government to set out the precise circumstances in which a nuclear weapon would be used, not least because the purpose of retaining nuclear weapons is to deter. To set out precisely the circumstances in which we would use such a weapon would eliminate the effect of the deterrence. I am sure that my hon. Friend was aware of the answer that I was likely to give to him, as he has asked me that question before. However, for the avoidance of doubt, I am grateful for the opportunity of repeating it.

On a slightly different matter, my right hon. Friend underlines that action should take place, if possible, in an international context—if, indeed, action is to take place in Iraq. Will he allow the House to be privy to the legal advice that the Attorney-General has given to the Government, some of which appeared in The Guardian last week? It would be helpful for colleagues in the House to understand the legal context and the legitimacy of any action that may or may not take place.

My hon. Friend is a very experienced Member of the House and I am surprised that, after so long here, he still believes what he reads in The Guardian. I can assure him that there was not advice from Her Majesty's Law Officers. Moreover, he well knows that it is a long-standing convention that Ministers do not disclose the legal advice, or other advice, that they receive.

Perhaps my right hon. Friend might clarify for me the Government's view at this moment, in this context, of an international community. He referred to the need for the international community to act together to tackle international terrorism. On the issue of a strike against Saddam Hussein, it would seem that the international community has reduced to two sovereign states, namely the United Kingdom and the United States. Is he saying that this now constitutes the international community and that we will engage against Iraq if the rest of what I understood to be the international community stays where it is, firmly saying no to a pre-emptive strike?

I am sorry that my hon. Friend takes that view of the international community. Even a superficial reading of today's newspapers—[Interruption. I did say "superficial." A superficial reading of the newspapers would demonstrate that the international community is engaged in a discussion in the United Nations and, probably as I am speaking, efforts are being made to produce a new Security Council resolution. That is involving the Security Council and other members in trying to establish the clear view of the international community. With the greatest respect, I disagree with my hon. Friend.

I do not often make common cause with the hon. Member for Nottingham, North (Mr. Allen), but on this question I do. The Opposition have previously called for a proper explanation of the legal basis on which pre-emptive action against Iraq might be taken. It is not usual for the Government to publish their legal advice, but there are precedents, and I submit that in these circumstances the precedent is a valid one. The new Bush doctrine on preemptive strikes is an important development in security law. The question of pre-emption is touched upon in the Government's defence policy document on the new chapter to the strategic defence review, and it is incumbent on them to establish that what they are proposing or contemplating has a clear basis in international law.

I am surprised to hear the hon. Gentleman suggest that this is a new development. If he checks carefully the use of the word "pre-emption", he will find it first referred to in the 19th century. I realise that that may be new for some Conservatives. However, the hon. Gentleman will find that there is a well-established 19th century doctrine of pre-emption based on the concept of self-defence, which allows a sovereign state to take action to protect itself in the event of an imminent threat. The document that he refers to, published by the United States Administration, is based firmly on that tradition.

I am delighted to hear the Government agreeing with the Bush national security strategy. However, the question is not whether pre-emption is a new concept but whether we are adjusting what we regard as an imminent threat in the new security climate. It is very difficult to establish what is an imminent threat. We want to be sure that what we judge to be an imminent threat is securely founded in international law.