:I must say at the outset that I take no pleasure in being here this morning to talk about Indonesia and its role in combating international terrorism. The Bali bomb was a shock to the world. It was a barbaric, mindless, Godless and faithless atrocity. It displayed among the perpetrators no concern for humanity and the human condition. For any normal person, it is still difficult to come to terms with the fact that people can perpetrate such atrocities against their fellow human beings.

It was cathartic yesterday to be at the Indonesian embassy, which held an inter-faith memorial service. Leaders of the Anglican community, the Roman Catholic Church and the Muslim, Hindu and Buddhist faiths participated in a service of remembrance.

Rather like last year's September massacre in the United States, the Bali bomb took us totally by surprise. I say that as someone who only a month before—at the end of July and beginning of August—led an inter-faith delegation to Indonesia. We visited Jakarta and the island of Sulawesi, a part of which has experienced inter-faith violence between Muslim and Christian communities for about three years. Our delegation contained four each from the Muslim and Christian traditions. My hon. Friends the Members for Easington (Mr. Cummings), for Birmingham, Perry Barr (Mr. Mahmood), and for Glasgow, Govan (Mr. Sarwar), and the hon. Member for Belfast, South (Rev. Martin Smyth) were there from the Commons, and Lord Bhatia, Baroness Cox, and Baroness Uddin came from the Lords for all or part of the visit.

Although the visit was partly to familiarise ourselves more with Indonesia, its Government and the general problems that it faces, we also specifically focused on the issue of inter-faith violence in central Sulawesi and Maluku, or the Moluccas as we have known them in the past. The Bali bombing put a totally new slant on our visit. It was undoubtedly perpetrated by Muslim extremists, and there have been a plethora of stories in the press about the information that allegedly was available to the security services. Stories in the press before then expressed concern about the possibility of Muslim extremists and al-Qaeda having connections in Indonesia and the potential to foment trouble there. That issue is relevant to the impression that members of the delegation formed on our visit.

Our visit was broadly based. We met a great variety of people, and I pay huge tribute to our staff at the embassy in Jakarta and the south-east Asia division in London for the superb programme that they put together for us. At our request, they even made changes at the eleventh hour and managed to slot them into the programme. We had a meeting alone with President Megawati—she had no officials there to guide her—for approximately three quarters of an hour, which was very interesting. We met the Speakers of both Houses of Parliament and the two Ministers responsible for implementing the Malino I and II peace agreements that cover central Sulawesi and Maluku. We also met members of the committee for security and politics in the People's Legislative Assembly, which is the most prestigious committee in that House. In a joint meeting, we met the leaders of the two largest Muslim organisations in Indonesia—Nahdlatul Ulama and Muhammadiyah. We also met the representative of the Catholic Church and the representative of the Protestant community in Indonesia.

That was at the top of the tree. We also had meetings with 20 Muslim and Christian rajas—village heads—from Maluku, and met representatives of local and international non-governmental organisations operating in Sulawesi and Maluku. In Jakarta, we met young people brought together by the British Council's connecting futures programme, people from the media who had been to Britain on a transition to democracy programme, and representatives of the British Chamber of Commerce. We then went to Sulawesi. We did not go to central Sulawesi, but to neighbouring south Sulawesi where we met the governor, the chief of police, members of the regional parliament, the signatories of the Malino I peace agreement covering central Sulawesi, members of an inter-faith communication forum in south Sulawesi, and staff and students from a Protestant theological college. We met all sorts of people, from the heights of the Government to the grass roots of local communities, who are directly involved in trying to resolve the problems of inter-faith violence between Christians and Muslims.

There have been three years of violence, during which we hesitate to guess how many people died. Although violence has been committed against Muslim communities, much more violence has been perpetrated against Christian communities in Maluku and central Sulawesi. At grass-roots level, local non-governmental organisations, signatories to the Malino agreements and the village heads in Maluku have made tremendous efforts to try to resolve problems and isolate extremists. They were most concerned about the lack of sufficient resources invested by the Indonesian Government in the peace process. Not enough troops were around to deal with incidents that broke out from time to time, which made it difficult to implement the agreement. While we were there, the Christian signatories of the Malino 1 agreement for central Sulawesi withdrew from the agreement committee until they were satisfied that the Government were responding more positively to the needs of the Christian community.

We gained the impression that the Indonesian Government were reluctant to talk in detail about Laskar Jihad, the main extremist militia on the Muslim side. In press reports about the Bali bombing, it is notable that Laskar Jihad barely gets a mention, perhaps because that organisation is principally concerned with an internal struggle through which it can impose its faith on the whole of Indonesia. Jemaah Islamiyah, which has had more publicity, has a wider aim in seeking with other groups to create a south-east Asian Muslim entity incorporating not only Indonesia, but Malaysia, Singapore and the Philippines. It carries out its work through terror and force. The Indonesian Government seemed reluctant to face up to that, but since we returned at the end of September they have created a new national security council. That shows that they are beginning to take these problems seriously.

The information on international terrorism provided to the Indonesian Government—the same point applies to the intelligence services of the British and American Governments—raised general concerns, but did not allow them to identify a specific incidence of violence. We could argue that the Indonesian Government should have responded to such generalised warnings, but that would have meant virtually shutting down the country, or at least the important parts of the country relating to the Indonesian economy and its citizens' way of life. When we look back at it, the surprise of this event stands out. Jemaah Islamiyah has been fingered as the most likely candidate for perpetrating the event, but it is not on the United Nations list of banned terrorist organisations. It is no wonder that the Indonesian Government were reluctant to act. They are in an incredibly difficult position.

I have read all the academic accounts saying how the Indonesian Government should have done A, B and C in moving against the extremists, but the warnings that they received were generalised rather than specific, so it was difficult for them. It may be salutary for us in the west to compare the position of the Indonesian Government with that of Russia or Yugoslavia.

We must remember that democracy in Indonesia is only three years old. It is struggling to maintain over 17,000 islands, half a dozen of which contain most of the Indonesian population. As they are islands, it is easy to talk about separation. Indonesia is struggling to keep the unity of a state, which, apart from its colonial experience, has not had any common statehood in the past. It is trying to keep the principle of a secular state where religious practice is protected and tolerated—"Unity in Diversity" is the Indonesian motto—while emerging from a barbaric dictatorship which kept order until its corruption and barbarities were such that the people eventually revolted.

That strong man Suharto, who had been in power for over 30 years, was removed and yet many of the heads of the army and the political establishment were part of that set-up. They had been involved in the corruption. The present Government is led by a woman in a Muslim state. The Vice-President, Hamzah Haz, at one time said that women should not be involved in politics, although he now happily serves under her. President Megawati does not have a majority for her party and is working in a coalition. There are separatist movements in north Sumatra, Kalimantan and to some extent in Papua. There was a separatist movement in Maluku, but most people on either side of the argument agree that that is totally insignificant now.

The Indonesian Government had an appalling human rights record under Suharto, but are now trying to keep the state together. They are trying to develop a democracy. They are trying to develop a state in which there is due process of law, yet they are told that, because of the potential danger from Muslim extremists, people should be rounded up. The two Ministers responsible for the two areas where there had been violence have to take action while at the same time respecting human rights and the due process. That juggling act is extremely difficult, bearing in mind the fact that human rights organisations within Indonesia and outside have complained bitterly about the fact that human rights have not been respected in Aceh, for example.

Vice-President Hamzah Haz certainly did not want to recognise that there were terrorists in Indonesia. In May of this year he was quoted in The Jakarta Post as saying:

"There are no terrorists here. I guarantee that. If they exist, don't arrest any Muslim clerics, arrest me."

We know that Abu Bakar Bashir has been arrested. On 18 October, Hamzah Haz said:

"The alleged existence of an international terrorist network in Indonesia cannot be detected until legal process shows it … People should not think negatively about the move to summon Bashir."

So the Vice-President of Indonesia is still in denial about the possibility of there being international terrorists operating in the country. Is it any wonder that the Government of Indonesia have been grappling with more balls than a juggler would throw into the air in trying simultaneously to deal with extremism and to maintain the reform process and the efforts to create a democracy, justice and human rights, along the lines that we in the west would wish?

We might consider for a moment what happened in the old Russian empire and in Yugoslavia when the rule of dictators was removed and people were allowed to develop their own Governments. It was total chaos. In Yugoslavia, it was so bad that we and other states had to intervene to protect Muslims from genocide, and we need consider only briefly the current problems with regard to law and order and terrorism in some of the old satellite states of the Soviet Union.

In that context, we might think that the Indonesian Government are not doing so badly. Nevertheless, we should not just wipe the slate clean and tell them that. compared with Yugoslavia, they are not doing a bad job. That would not reflect what I have told the Indonesian Government over the past few years, by word of mouth and in letters, about their failure to deal sufficiently strongly with Muslim extremists.

We may regret the fact that the Indonesian Government did not take stronger action, but there are understandable reasons why they were not in a position to do so. Laskar Jihad is an example of that. Even before the disbandment of that group—on 15 October, fairly soon after the Bali bombing—there had been allegations about connections between the group and the military. The group officially disbanded in a very disciplined way. Without looking into the possible reasons for the disbandment, I can tell hon. Members that there seems to have been a strong element of military direction within it, or from those in the military who were involved with it, to ensure that it was disbanded, at least for the time being. Although I do not believe that Laskar Jihad were implicated in the Bali bombing, the investigation of Muslim extremists might well have drawn the investigators' attention to some elements in the army that were involved with Laskar Jihad. That illustrates the difficulties that the Indonesian Government face in trying to deal with those extremists.

Are there any grounds for hope in fighting international terrorism? I believe that there are. Towards the end of September, the Indonesian Government began to take seriously the need to deal with international terrorism and Muslim extremists in the state by setting up a national security council. In addition, we should not forget that, in June, they handed over Omar al-Faruq—a Kuwaiti involved in international terrorism—to the Americans. He is still, I believe, in Guantanamo bay, and has been questioned. Some of the information received from him appears to have credence, but some does not seem to accord with what the intelligence services have. That, again, is one of the problems in dealing with the international terrorist threat. There are pages and pages of information, but they often contain contradictions. I shall not go into details, but I have seen the names of at least four or five Muslim extremists credited with responsibility for masterminding the Bali bombing. Who was it, or were they all involved? To what extent were Muslims in Indonesia involved? The impression is that the whole escapade was planned and developed by outside forces, although there could have been some help from local extremists in planning and preparing for the attack.

I am listening to the hon. Gentleman with great interest. He has intimated that until the very recent past the Indonesian Government, although perhaps not the present democracy, have been involved in internal terror and used terror against their own citizens. He also said that some of those individuals have carried on in the military and in the current Government. Is the hon. Gentleman satisfied from his talks with the Indonesian Government and other parliamentarians that the present Government have woken up to the reality of that? Surely they need to rid themselves of those elements in their military and Government as well as tackle international terrorism. The two go together, as I think he is moving on to say.

The two do go together. We did not discuss in detail whether the military were implicated or whether senior people in the political establishment were involved in past wrongdoings. However, the Speaker of the People's Legislative Assembly has, I believe, been charged with and found guilty of corrupt practices. In the past week, President Megawati has asked the Attorney General to resign because of his failure to maintain high standards in political life, in that he has kept back information about the sources of his wealth.

The Government are, therefore, aware of these matters and are trying to sort them out, but there are tremendous difficulties because many people in leading positions in the military and the political establishment were enmeshed in what happened in the past.

I am very interested in what my hon. Friend has to say. In his discussions, did he get a handle on any current relationship between the military and the militia, particularly in West Papua and Aceh? Appalling acts of violence are being perpetrated there by the militia, and it is said that many of those militia are close to the army.

I think we can be fairly certain of that in the case of Laskar Jihad, although that is speculative because we do not have the evidence in chapter and verse. However, it is fair to assume that some of the military have connections with some of the extremist groups operating in various parts of the Indonesian state. That is one of the Government's great difficulties.

Nevertheless, the Indonesian Government are trying to tackle the problems, although not with the alacrity that we would like. They have set up the national security council and now recognise that there are problems with al-Qaeda and other international terrorists making links with local Muslim extremists. They dealt with Omar al-Faruq and have arrested a number of other people. Indeed, while we were there, the leader of Laskar Jihad, Jafar Umar Thalib, was on trial, although the trial was proceeding slowly. According to the latest information, there are recordings of him calling on Muslims to kill every Christian in Maluku. A local police commander attests that Thalib made that statement on the radio and that it is his voice on the tape recording, but Thalib denies that it is him speaking on the tape. The Government have rounded up several other groups involved in, for example, attacks on nightclubs. Some of the leaders of the Islamic Defenders Front have been arrested. Action is being undertaken.

The Malino I and II accords are meant to try to solve the problems of local inter-faith violence. The main grass-roots Muslim organisation, Nandlatul Ulama, has come out strongly against such violence. Its leader, Hasyim Muzadi, was in Britain under the auspices of the British Council only a week or two ago, and I and one or two other parliamentarians met him. He made it plain that moderate Muslims must stand up to Muslim extremists. He has created the national moral movement, which includes NU and Muhammadiyah, the other large Muslim organisation. Between the two, they have about 70 million members.

The head of the Catholic Church and representatives of Protestant Churches are included in the national moral movement, as are intellectuals, the non-religious political establishment, Hindus and Buddhists. All those elements have leadership roles in the movement, which is trying to ensure on a national level that clear guidance is given to Muslims in particular. It also deals with some extremists involved in unsavoury gangs in the name of Christianity. As with the IRA in Northern Ireland, perhaps there is a residual Catholic connection, although we know that there is really no connection with religion. However, I do not want to get into that issue.

The movement is trying to set a national example so that most ordinary people will be prepared to stand up against the extremists. We met 20 village heads, Christian and Muslim, who were clear that they had to stand up to Laskar Jihad and other extremists in their communities. Plenty of positive work is taking place, but undoubtedly the Indonesian Government need help and support.

The British Government have provided advice to the army and police in Indonesia on how to work in a publicly accountable way, which they have not had to do in the past. Our Government have also started aid programmes to deal with some longer-term problems of poverty and economic development. The non-governmental organisations there try to work positively. With the support that the Indonesian Government are receiving from outside, there is the prospect that extremism can be dealt with in the incredibly difficult terrain of the Indonesian state. However, in a state of 17,000 islands, we should not underestimate the ability of Muslim extremists to set up camps and perhaps go undetected for a long time.

Does my hon. Friend agree that we should congratulate the ambassador to Indonesia, Richard Gozney, and his staff on their tremendous work? He has already mentioned it, but will he reiterate our congratulations? Does my hon. Friend agree that we should offer more support on the security and protection of small Christian and Muslim groups, to try to bring them back into the mainstream? The charities provide a lot of funding, but would the Minister not agree that the Government should provide funding for the existing security structures? It is a fledgling democracy, and we need to ensure that it has security support so that it can better establish itself.

I have no hesitation in approving what my hon. Friend says; he was with me on the delegation.

Uli Ubhar Abdullah, an NU leader and a great scholar, said:

"The government should use the Bali attacks as a momentum to show the world that it is serious in its acts against extremism".

That reflects what the leadership is saying. This tragedy gives the Indonesian Government the opportunity to re-establish harmonious inter-faith relationships and to tackle the problem of international terrorism in its own country.

One final thing came up in our talks that cannot be avoided, and it is doubtless being considered by our Government and by the United States. The Indonesian Government said that their efforts to tackle the problems of extremism would be made more difficult if Iraq were to be attacked without the support of the United Nations. That is something else that needs to be considered when trying to deal with international terrorism, and in particular with the situation that prevails in Indonesia.

I congratulate the hon. Member for Bridgend (Mr. Griffiths) not only on initiating this important and tragically timely debate, but on his efforts to seek an end to sectarian violence and terrorism in Indonesia, particularly in the eastern part of the country. His efforts are often spoken of in the House, and are much appreciated by all Members.

I worked in Indonesia in the 1980s; I was funded as a consultant by the tripartite organisations—the International Labour Organisation, the World Bank and the United Nations—on technology transfer projects. I worked closely with Pertamina, the Indonesian national oil company, so I know that the Indonesian people can be wonderful and gentle, how beautiful the country is and how much potential it has. However, I also know also how many problems remain to be solved in that part of the world. Again, I congratulate the hon. Gentleman on introducing a debate on the subject.

In two previous debates, and with much help from the Jubilee 200 campaign for debt cancellation, I have raised concerns about continuing sectarian violence and terrorist activity in Indonesia, especially in the Moluccas and Sulawesi. The violence and sectarian terrorism has been fuelled and perpetuated by the extremist Islamic group, Laskar Jihad, aided and abetted by al-Qaeda. I told the House on 17 July that the al-Qaeda terrorist network was joining Laskar Jihad in fighting Christians in Indonesia. I continued:

"The British Government should pressure the Indonesian authorities to ensure that there are enough police and troops in the Moluccas and Sulawesi to enforce the peace"—[Official Report. Westminster Hall, 17 July 2002; Vol. 388, c. 104WH.]

I also said that failure to do so would give succour to Islamic death squads. I take no pleasure in saying that I have been proved right.

When I made that statement, I thought that terrorism would be exported from Indonesia to other nations; I guess that the British Government and Governments throughout the world thought so too. Little did I think that terrorism would be used in Bali—a serene and beautiful haven of peace. While our hearts go out to the victims of that terrible atrocity and to their families, our thoughts must also be with the Indonesian people, who will suffer tremendous trauma and take a long time to recover from this tragedy. We have a duty to help them to recover from it in every way we can, and to rebuild Bali and Indonesia as a strong country in the international community.

Over the past two years, the Jubilee campaign, the British human rights group, has called for Laskar Jihad to be removed from the Moluccas and Sulawesi, and for Jafar Umar Thalib, the organisation's leader, to be brought to justice. I heartily support that call. Laskar Jihad is responsible for killing thousands of Christians in Indonesia during its jihad, or so-called holy war. Moderate Muslims who disagree with Laskar Jihad's harsh, intolerant and improper interpretation of Islam have also been victimised and have suffered terribly. We must fight to eradicate all sectarianism, religious intolerance and violence, whether from the Muslim or the Christian community, whatever its source. In that part of the world, however, the source is the harsh interpretation of Islam perpetrated by Laskar Jihad.

The low-end estimate is that about 5,000 or more Christians have been killed in the Moluccas alone in the sectarian conflict that has raged there. In early 2000, the situation was relatively calm, but the peace was violently broken in May by the arrival of Laskar Jihad, when about 7,000 fighters—or terrorists, as some would call them—invaded the Moluccas. That extremist group is composed of fighters from other provinces of Indonesia outside the Moluccas and of terrorists from other Islamic countries such as Pakistan and Afghanistan.

Laskar Jihad's invasion caused unprecedented violence in the Moluccas and resulted in the deaths of thousands of people, simply because they were Christian. Killing in such a way is evil, but killing in the name of God compounds that evil, as people were told by a rabbi from Israel at the national prayer breakfast in Westminster Hall this morning.

Despite widespread destruction and violence caused by Laskar Jihad, the Indonesian Government did nothing to have those people removed from the Moluccas and Sulawesi. Indeed, elements of the Indonesian military supported Laskar Jihad with weapons and training. Throughout the Moluccas and Sulawesi conflicts, it has been commonplace for the Indonesian security forces to take the side of aggressive Islamic fighters against the defensive Christians. Despite the participation of Indonesian soldiers and police in numerous attacks on Christians, which have been well documented and witnessed, the Indonesian Government have not sought to punish such prejudiced members of their security forces.

As a result of the Indonesian Government's complacency, and their helpful attitude towards the violence of militant Islamic groups such as Laskar Jihad, the country has become a haven for Islamic terrorists. In December 2001, the head of Indonesia's national intelligence agency, Lieutenant-General Hendropriyono, publicly confirmed that members of the al-Qaeda terrorist network were joining Laskar Jihad in fighting Christians in Sulawesi. Due to pressure from fundamentalist Indonesian politicians, Lieutenant-General Hendropriyono later retracted that statement. However, as the Jubilee campaign and I have frequently pointed out, he did so only because of political pressure. The facts that he quoted about al-Qaeda were right, as we have now learned to our cost.

So far, the Indonesian Government have done little to crack down on militant Islamic extremists in Indonesia. Unlike neighbouring Governments such as those of Singapore, Malaysia and the Philippines, who have tried to apprehend such extremists, the Indonesian Government have until now practised a policy of accommodation with respect to Muslim militants, even at the expense of the safety and lives of thousands of Christians and non-fundamentalist Muslims in the Moluccas and Sulawesi.

Indonesia's reluctance to rein in Islamic extremists and detain suspected terrorists prompted much concern in Washington and in neighbouring Asian capitals about whether the world's most populous Muslim country could become a base from which to plot new terrorist atrocities. That concern proved well placed.

Omar al-Faruq was arrested by Indonesian police in 2002 and handed over to the United States authorities. Al-Faruq is reported to have confessed to being a senior al-Qaeda operative with responsibility for planning and co-ordinating attacks against targets in south-east Asia. Al-Faruq has also spent time fighting Christians for the Muslims in Ambon in the Moluccas, and he stayed in a Laskar Jihad stronghold, with its support, while he was there. That is strong evidence, if we needed it, of a link between Laskar Jihad and al-Qaeda.

The Indonesian Government's short-sighted policy of accommodating Islamic militants such as Laskar Jihad led to the devastating result of the terrorist bombing in Bali on 12 October, which killed at least 180 people. Until then, the international response, including that of the British Government, to the deaths of thousands of Christians at the hands of Islamic extremists in the Moluccas and Sulawesi was relatively low key. I say that with deep regret.

Western Governments and the world media have been slow to recognise the active role played by Islamic terrorists in perpetuating the sectarian conflict in the Moluccas and Sulawesi. Now, however, the world has finally begun to wake up to the dangers of Islamic terrorism in Indonesia, because, for the first time, Muslim militants have killed many westerners there.

Around the time of the terrorist attack in Bali, Laskar Jihad closed its head office in Yogyakarta and claimed that it was disbanding the organisation. Since Tuesday 15 October, Laskar Jihad fighters have been seen leaving Ambon in the Moluccas and Poso in central Sulawesi. There is widespread speculation that the timing of the closure of Laskar Jihad and its parent organisation, the Communication Forum for Ahlusunnah Waljamaah, is directly connected with the attack in Bali.

There is more than a possibility that the purported disbanding of Laskar Jihad is a strategic move, with a view to going underground to avoid attention in the event of a general crackdown on militant groups following the Bali bombing. It is also possible that Laskar Jihad fighters will simply re-emerge under a new name and carry on their violent activities in a different guise.

Close monitoring of Laskar Jihad and its former members is essential, and only time will tell whether its disbandment truly marks the end of the conflict in the Moluccas and central Sulawesi. That must form a main part of Indonesia's role in combating Islamic terrorism.

Some may question Laskar Jihad's capacity to carry out an attack as devastating as the Bali bombing and suspect that al-Qaeda played a key part in the atrocity, but we cannot claim to know the full capability of Laskar Jihad. Therefore, we cannot simply assume that the Bali attack was beyond its abilities. In any event, without Laskar Jihad, al-Qaeda would find it difficult to operate in Indonesia, so Indonesia must co-operate internationally to rid itself of such terrorists and their safe havens there. Others who have provided support to Laskar Jihad may have had prior knowledge of, or involvement in, the Sari club bombing, and thus planned in advance to dissolve Laskar Jihad in anticipation of a crackdown on Islamic militants following the bombing.

Furthermore, while the apparent withdrawal of Laskar Jihad fighters from the Moluccas and Sulawesi is to be welcomed, many remain in the northern Moluccas and in West Papua, where there are reportedly still more than 1,000 Laskar Jihad fighters. Since June 2001, Laskar Jihad in West Papua has been reported to be positioning itself for a Moluccas-style attack against the mainly Christian local population. I therefore again urge the Government to put strong pressure on the Indonesian Government to ensure that all Laskar Jihad fighters and other terrorists leave the Moluccas, Sulawesi, West Papua, and, indeed, Indonesia.

The Indonesian Government must ensure that the Laskar Jihad leader, Jafar Umar Thalib, who is on trial, is given a lengthy prison sentence if he is found guilty to prevent him from inciting violence, as he did before, or engaging in any further terrorist attacks. The Indonesian authorities should be encouraged to deal firmly with all violent Islamic groups in Indonesia. There also needs to be a tough, independent and transparent investigation of the links between Laskar Jihad and the Indonesian military. Only time will reveal whether Laskar Jihad has truly ended its war against Christians, and whether the Indonesian Government will diligently pursue and punish terrorists in their country.

Much closer and more serious scrutiny by the international community of the militant Islamic groups in Indonesia, such as Laskar Jihad and Jemaah Islamiah, is urgently needed, and continuing pressure must be put on the Indonesian Government to crack down on Islamic extremists. If the Indonesian Government continue to be complacent in their handling of extremist groups, the British Government and their European Union partners—and, I suppose, America and other countries—should seriously consider imposing sanctions, including an arms embargo on Indonesia.

I agree with the hon. Member for Castle Point (Bob Spink) that such groups may reorganise under another name. As we discovered in Northern Ireland, groups disband, or at least say that they are going down the road of peace, but then reorganise using names such as "continuity" or "real", and even continue as "provos".

However, it is important to bear in mind the fact that there are other issues as well. The hon. Gentleman referred to the possibility of Laskar Jihad moving into Papua. It is equally possible that it is regrouping in Aceh, especially given that President Megawati made it abundantly plain while we were there that she would use the military to stem the separatist movement in Aceh, which is trying to separate from Indonesia and set up a sharia state. It is possible that people are moving into that situation to advance that separatist cause.

Some people have persistently argued that the separatist movement in the Moluccas has been the cause of the problems. That is a red herring. The separatist movement in the Moluccas is small and has been around for many years. Some of us remember the incidents in Holland in the early 1970s, when some of its extremists were brought to justice. That movement is not the problem. The problem in the Moluccas has been those elements, such as Laskar Jihad and others, who are seeking to eliminate the Christian witness.

Just two weeks ago, Professor James Haire, the president of the Uniting Church in Australia, spoke on the "Sunday Sequence" programme in Northern Ireland. He pleaded with western powers not to take extreme and harsh measures after Bali, saying that they could be counterproductive. We were colleagues in the Presbyterian ministry, and his family would have been constituents but he went to the Moluccas, Halmahera and Darwin, and he is now based in Brisbane, where he is a professor at Griffiths college.

I think that James Haire has something to say. He returned to the Moluccas after the massacre to see for himself what was happening. He was walking across the ground, when he suddenly realised that it was very brittle. To his horror, he discovered that he was walking on the bones of people he had baptised and of students he had lectured. Those people had been brutalised, and their bodies had been left there without being interred. When a man of James Haire's ilk calls on us to react carefully, we should at least listen.

I pay tribute to the leadership of the hon. Member for Bridgend (Mr. Griffiths), who took our delegation to Indonesia. We were unable to go to the Moluccas, because people were trying to get foreigners to leave and they did not want our visit to act as an excuse. Ifdeed, Laskar Jihad issued a very detrimental and negative press statement about our visit. In fairness to the Indonesian authorities, however, they did expel six or seven people from Saudi Arabia, who were working in the Moluccas at the time. It was apparent that the authorities were trying to do something to tackle the problem.

The situation in Sulawesi was interesting. We regularly discovered that people were not prepared to say too much publicly: whether Muslim or Christian, they were very careful in the expressions that they used. Before we left, some of us had a private conversation with one of the Reformed pastors. We asked whether it was true that more Muslims than Christians had been killed in Poso, and I can still visualise him hanging his head. Earlier, he had not been prepared to say who was responsible, and people obviously did not want to name Laskar Jihad. However, we already had information to the effect that things had been going on for some time before they erupted and that outside forces were responsible. When we pressed the pastor, he told us, with his head held down, that more Muslims than Christians had been killed. When the Christians who lived in the area were attacked, they took to the higher ground. The folk who had come to exterminate them did not know the country and they suffered most as a result. We must put the record straight. We must understand that a community that is attacked has a right to defend itself, which, tragically, is what happened on this occasion.

Since our return, we have discovered another problem, to which hon. Members have alluded—the collusion between the military, elements of the police and the Muslim extremists. A Reformed pastor, who was a leader of the Protestant side in the Malino agreement, has been arrested on a false charge. It has been claimed that he had weapons and that he was the leader of the insurrection, but all the evidence is clearly to the contrary.

In Sulawesi, we gained another insight. Some argue that the United Kingdom should be doing more to help the people by supplying them with the necessary equipment. However, the police officer with whom we spoke told us that he did not need more equipment; he needed more intelligence. In other words, they need help to lead their police service out of its corrupt state because they are unable to do their work properly. Some people do not realise that the police service in Indonesia is working on the old pattern—officers pay to get in, and get very little pay in return. It is a do-it-yourself business. A police officer sets up checkpoints where he can catch people and imposes on-the-spot fines to help him to eek out his wages. That is one of the problems.

I discovered that an English police officer, who was in Indonesia on secondment for at least a year, if not two years, stuck it for only six months. The event that finally sickened him was when a senior officer, with whom he was working trying to raise moral standards and end corrupt practices, knocked at his hotel door and presented him with a bevy of beauties for his entertainment. He left Indonesia and returned to the United Kingdom.

We pay tribute to those in the embassy who have done a great deal and are held in the highest respect. I say that specifically in the light of some criticism of one of the consuls in Bali. We formed an entirely different opinion, and observed the respect in which the ambassador is held because of his fluency in the language, among other things. It was fascinating. We had fine interpreters with us, but on about five occasions, when the ambassador realised that they had not understood the nuance of our questions, he politely interjected in Indonesian, and one could see immediately that the other authorities and interpreters understood what he was saying. I pay tribute to him and to those who have regularly gone out to Indonesia to try to help. However, until we marshal the moderate forces of Islam to work with the Government in Indonesia, there will be more difficulties.

The United Kingdom Parliament must raise these issues publicly and keep pressure on the Indonesian authorities, encouraging them when they are doing well. The hon. Member for Castle Point referred to the situation in the Moluccas. We recognise that the authorities tried to stop the Laskar Jihad. The naval forces stopped and searched the extremists, but as they found no weapons, they had no grounds for keeping them out, so the extremists landed. However, the military had already brought in the weapons, which were at the disposal of Laskar Jihad. Elements of the military co-operated with extreme Islamists in corrupt practices to try to exterminate not only the Christian population but moderate Muslims. The head man in the area around Poso, a Muslim who was involved in the Malino agreement, was himself a victim, so we must be careful not to see just one side of the argument but the deeper issue. There is an attempt to extend an extremist power block across south-east Asia, which has terrified even the Malaysian and Singaporean Governments.

I shall be brief, as there is not much time and the Front-Bench spokesmen wish to reply. I apologise for missing most of the speech that was made by the hon. Member for Castle Point (Bob Spink), but I was attending the annual meeting of the all-party group on human rights.

I should like the Minister to reply to a few points. We are all appalled by the Bali bombing: the loss of life, the callous way in which the bomb was placed and the young people who were destroyed. I hope that the culprits are brought to justice.

Indonesia has serious problems of fundamental instability. Following decolonisation, disputes arose about Indonesia's territorial integrity. East Timor, where an international settlement was finally established, was the most obvious example of that. I was asked to visit as a United Nations observer during the referendum, and I thought that the situation was horrific. The UN did a good job in holding the referendum and the vote was fair, so far as I could tell. The problem was, however, that the Indonesian army and police did not provide adequate security for the UN staff who undertook the referendum. As soon as the result was known, the militia took over. I do not know the death toll for the period after the referendum, but it ran into thousands. That was in addition to the 200,000 people who died during the period of Indonesian terror in East Timor from 1974. One hopes that East Timor will have a peaceful and prosperous future.

East Timor is not the only place in Indonesia where there have been huge problems. I attended a conference in this country last week with West Papuan representatives, some of whom had travelled from West Papua and Indonesia. The level of violence, killing and the consistently high death rates in West Papua are appalling. There is a demand for independence in West Papua, and the people point to the colonial history, which shows that West Papua was not part of the Dutch-administered colony. It was only after the hotly disputed 1969 Act of Free Choice that West Papua was brought into Indonesia.

We would do well to try to understand a bit more about the desperate situation in West Papua. Huge outside interests are involved there. That applies to most conflicts around the world that involve arguments about self-determination. Outside interests include those of the Freeport mine, which is a powerful, prosperous and deeply polluting mine, and BP, which is keen to exploit oil reserves. Will the Minister tell me what contact his Department has with Freeport mine and BP and what representations those companies have made regarding the activities of the militia and the behaviour of the army in West Papua? Many serious allegations of brutality have been made about them.

I will put my last two points quickly to the Minister, because I know that he needs time in which to reply. I recognise that a small amount of training has been offered to the Indonesian military. Indeed, I have had a parliamentary written answer about that matter. The fundamental problem is that the Indonesian military operates virtually independently of the civilian Government. The civilian Government have to negotiate with the military about what they want done, and whether the military does it or not depends on its current interests and mood. The military has its own independent sources of funding.

The hon. Member for Belfast, South (Rev. Martin Smyth) pointed out that that problem runs through the police and other services. Pay levels are very low, and that becomes a laissez-passer to make money out of criminal or semi-criminal activities. Until there is civilian political control of the police and the armed forces, I suspect that there will be serious, long-term problems. It is clear that the militia are close to the military: indeed, in some parts they are exactly the same organisation.

I am concerned that this country has traditionally sold large amounts of arms to Indonesia during the period of oppression in East Timor. I understand that we are considering further arms sales to Indonesia. We have to think very carefully about that. It is no good complaining about human rights abuses by military forces that are out of control around the world, if we have provided the equipment that enables them to behave in that manner in the first place. I hope that, if the Minister cannot give an answer today, there will be further correspondence on British arms sales to Indonesia and support for the military. We need to know how many of those arms end up with the militia.

This has been a sombre and serious debate, in keeping with the serious issues that we are discussing.

I am conscious of the time and of the need for the Minister, in particular, to respond, so I shall keep my remarks brief.

I congratulate the hon. Member for Bridgend (Mr. Griffiths) and his colleagues who recently visited Indonesia on their contributions and on securing the debate. We cannot let the appalling events of 12 October recede from our minds. It is important that we record our sympathy for the enduring pain suffered by those who lost loved ones and those who were seriously injured, from whatever part of the globe they come. We also have anxieties about the recovery of those in Bali and the future of those for whom tourism is their livelihood and a key source of income. The international reaction has been one of horror, condemnation and anger. That is entirely appropriate. Just one short year after 11 September, we are right to be anxious about what the events in Bali may signify.

We have heard discussions on different aspects of the crisis in Indonesia and on the importance of Indonesia tackling its own problems. It is important that outside observers tread carefully and try to understand the situation in the country and the wider region. There has been a series of bombings in the past year. They were believed to be the work primarily of local Islamic militants. Other countries, such as the Philippines, have also endured attacks. Careful scrutiny of the possible links between the country-based or region-based groups and international terrorist groups such as al-Qaeda is under way. Clearly Indonesia and the international community must understand more about the possible links before jumping to conclusions. Any danger of complacency has been stripped away.

Many Members have remarked on the need to be sensitive to the religious and ethnic considerations within Indonesia. There has been heavy media emphasis on the militant Islamic groups, who are only a tiny minority in a large country. While being sensitive to the religious and ethnic composition of the country, we must also have an understanding of its recent history, including the fall of Suharto after 30 years of dictatorship, the south-east Asian economic collapse, and the endemic corruption. None of those things should be used as excuses, but they provide some insight into an element of the current difficulties.

Indonesia has, of course, taken action. Recently, decrees were issued to clamp down on terrorism. That followed a period in which anti-terror legislation had been gathering dust. We must understand that as a result of the Suharto regime there was strong political pressure to resist measures that could be interpreted as anti-Islamic. The country's human rights record, however, has not been good in the past and is now perhaps not as good as it should be.

The role of the military is critical. The military retains a strong position within the state. We need a better understanding of the links with terrorists, whether they are formed out of sympathy or with the aim of causing trouble, which can then be exploited. Tackling elements that want to undermine democracy must be a priority. I echo the comments made by the hon. Member for Islington, North (Jeremy Corbyn), who talked about the need for the Government to reconsider their links with arms sales to Indonesia.

For those in Indonesia, denial of problems can no longer be an option. As the hon. Member for Bridgend commented, Vice-President Hamzah Haz has had to reconsider some of his recent positions. That is welcome, but needs to be more widely understood. There are obvious weaknesses in the country's infrastructure: a lack of a properly funded intelligence gathering force, poor quality policing and a lack of adequate resources for a country where vast geographical issues complicate the delicate ethnic and religious situation.

Clearly, Indonesia must tackle those problems, but the world must help. Fostering democracy, which is still so young and vulnerable in that country, is crucial. The technical assistance on offer from our Government is important, and I would particularly welcome the Government's support. Adequate development systems will also be fundamental. The weaknesses in Indonesia have exposed many problems. There is a duty on its leadership to tackle those issues, and there is a significant duty on us to support their efforts.

I congratulate the hon. Member for Bridgend (Mr. Griffiths) on introducing the debate, which reflects his profound knowledge, understanding and sympathy for the situation in Indonesia. The contributions by my hon. Friend the Member for Castle Point (Bob Spink) and the hon. Members for Belfast, South (Rev. Martin Smyth) and for Islington, North (Jeremy Corbyn) all showed a considerable knowledge and understanding of the situation in Indonesia.

I have been to Bali twice: I have been to Kuta beach and travelled around Java. It is worth remembering that if one goes back five years, Indonesia was regarded as one of the Asian tigers—an immense success story before its economic collapse. Huge investment went into the country. Since then, the meltdown in Asia has led to a very different economic situation from the potential that was there before. It has a huge level of unemployment, which stands at about 40 million out of 220 million people. Many experts acknowledge that the most important factor in the economic recovery that is crucial for Indonesia is for the country to put its own house in order on terrorism. Without that, vital external investors will stay away. It is becoming something of an unvirtuous circle.

Jusuf Wanandi of the Centre for Strategic and International Studies has said that the economy of Indonesia will "go down the drain" if President Megawati does not act against terrorism. The terrorist outrage in Bali is a dramatic example of how violence and human tragedy can lead to further economic disaster.

We have heard about the pattern of terrorist violence in Indonesia over many years. In the past few years, political and social instability has increased in Indonesia and old sores and divisions have opened up. However, one of the most prominent Islamic groups, Laskar Jihad, announced last week that it was disbanding. Hopefully, that is the case. It has particularly undesirable characteristics. On its website, it says that it will "deal" with Christian problems "by force". It is a most unattractive organisation. The United States Government believe that the announcement by Laskar Jihad that it will disband needs more study. The group should be judged on its actions rather than its words. It is also said that al-Qaeda has been heavily implicated in he tragic and murderous attack on the innocent people of Bali, and I hope that the Minister will comment on whether some link has been established.

The important thing is that Indonesia needs our support in curbing extremism and attacking terrorism. It needs all our skills to help the country to come through this difficult stage. That is why it is important that the President has taken steps to increase her powers to tackle terrorism. The two presidential anti-terrorism decrees on 19 October, combined with increased powers of arrest, are to be welcomed. I look forward to the further package of anti-terrorist Bills that are in the pipeline.

With hindsight, it would have been beneficial for the international community to place more pressure on Indonesia to follow the lead of Singapore and Malaysia in taking a robust stance against organised terrorism in the months preceding 12 October. However, any debate on Indonesia must also acknowledge the precarious political situation faced by President Megawati. She is walking on a political tightrope. Fringe extremist elements in Indonesia have strong appeal, and much of it is anti-American. However, she must guard against any action that might restore the army and its paramilitary allies to power in Indonesia, which is such a new democracy.

If anything good has come out of the truly terrible bombing in Bali, it is that the recent steps taken by the Indonesian Government show a willingness to act against terrorism that did not exist previously. That means separating the violent Islamic tributaries from the more secular mainstream that accepts democratic rules, and using the full force of law against those tributaries. Alongside the tough action already taken by the authorities in Singapore and Malaysia and the international community's collective will to tackle terrorism, there is now hope for a more comprehensive, robust and considered approach. I hope that that will reduce the chance of organised terrorists claiming yet more innocent lives in south-east Asia.

This has been a good debate, and I am especially grateful to the Opposition spokesman, the hon. Member for West Suffolk (Mr. Spring), for cutting his speech in order to allow me to reply to the points that hon. Members have made.

I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Bridgend (Mr. Griffiths) on securing the debate and on his work in leading the delegation to Indonesia, which is part of this year's wide-ranging engagement with that country by British parliamentarians and Ministers. I congratulate other hon. Members on their contributions. I hope that the debate will be studied and read, because unfortunately our media—especially our broadcast media—find immense space for the antics of Swedish weather forecasters, but little space for such grave international problems.

The atrocity in Bali shocked us all. I also know Kuta beach; I went there when I worked in the region during the 1980s, and I was often in the company of American friends. I think of that haven of peace—the Hindu island of Bali, which is inhabited by the most welcoming people on earth—being scarred and destroyed, and I hope that the perpetrators of the atrocity are caught.

It is a little early to rush to judgment. The Indonesian and Australian authorities are working closely, and Britain has sent forensic experts. Although I do not doubt that a link with international terrorism will be established, let us not rush to too early a judgment today. The perpetrators of the atrocity should be brought to justice and Bali should be restored to its rightful role as one of the most wonderful places on the planet to visit. We mourn with Australia and we mourn the victims from many other countries, including the British people who were killed. One of my constituents from Rotherham was injured. We also mourn the workers in the club, the Indonesian citizens and the people of Bali who have suffered so horribly.

The debate is about international terrorism and Indonesia in general. Many points made by hon. Members do not need a reply because there is not much disagreement. We all acknowledge that Indonesia has found its way to democracy only during the past three or four years. Indonesia was ruled on an authoritarian basis from the time it left Dutch rule after the second world war until the first parliamentary elections several years ago. It has developed dramatically since the fall of Suharto less than five years ago. Indonesia is now a democracy. Its political prisoners have been released, its press is among the freest in the region and its Parliament has a strong voice. Surely it is our duty to try to strengthen the authority of the democratic state, not to weaken democracy by turning back the clock to an authoritarian state. If that means that loud, aggressive, sectarian and separatist voices make their views known, so be it, because the silence of an authoritarian state does not remove the causes of the anger of those voices.

Some of this debate—arguably a little too much of it—has focused on inter-religious strife. I do not seek to diminish the appalling religious and sectarian violence that has occurred in Indonesia. We have to face the fact that the notion of the secular state, and of secularism as the guiding force under which international relations are conducted and the rule of law is sustained within individual countries, is coming under challenge. Within the next 25 years, there will be 2.6 billion Christians and Christianity will be the largest religion on earth. More Catholics are being baptised in the Philippines than in all the traditional Catholic states of Europe. Alas, the rough edge that is created where one expanding faith meets up with another can give rise to considerable sectarian problems.

We must assert that Indonesia is essentially a secular state: its character has of course been influenced by Islam, but that has been one of many influences, and its history is marked by a moderate and inclusive form of Islam. The vast majority of Indonesians reject violence. The moderate Indonesian NGOs, Nandlatul Ulama or NU and Muhammadiyah—which were referred to by my hon. Friend the Member for Bridgend—claim memberships of at least 30 million, so the two memberships together add up to 70 million. Those groups are central to the way of life in Indonesia; they are important, peaceful NGOs. This House must again affirm that Indonesia is not a radical Islamic state, and I believe that it will not become one so long as its people can choose their own leaders.

Millions of Indonesians were reduced to poverty by the economic collapse of the mid-1990s, and that has inevitably led to an increase in social tension. The economic recovery has been slow. The Indonesian Government face a host of complex challenges. They must tackle the culture of corruption of the old regime, which has been referred to by hon. Members. They must reform the military and install a framework of democratic accountability for it. They have to deal with inter-communal violence and separatist threats. They also need to rebuild an economy that has been ravaged by the east-Asian financial crisis, and to loosen the old forces of control while building new frameworks for political expression.

I am unsure whether I can completely go along with my hon. Friend the Member for Islington, North (Jeremy Corbyn), who asked about the role of BP. I would welcome more foreign investment in Indonesia. In answer to another point that he made, I stress that we support Indonesian territorial integrity. The UN and the international community never recognised East Timor as part of Indonesia: it had been a Portuguese colony, whereas Papua was part of the Dutch East Indies, almost all of which the Indonesian Government inherited when they took power shortly after the second world war.

In addition to condemning sectarianism, we must look carefully at those who raise separatist flags, regardless of whether they are Christian separatists in the Moluccas or Papuan separatists. They can create a response from a democratic Government that want to hold their state together. We will work with the Indonesian authorities: we will urge them to take the measures in the campaign against terrorism that many hon. Members have called for, but we welcome Indonesia's commitment to the democratic path. While our hearts go out to its victims, the Bali bombing is a call to reinforce our international campaign to tackle global terrorism. We must tackle its causes and deal with the perpetrators to bring to justice those responsible for the Bali atrocity.

I invite those hon. Members not wishing to take part in the following debate to leave quickly and quietly.

I am pleased to bring to this debate the concerns of my constituents in Cheadle about travel on the west coast main line. I believe that those concerns are shared by the wider public, by business interests and by those involved in tourism, not only in the north-west but throughout a large part of the country.

The line is multi-purpose, carrying slower local trains, inter-city trains and freight. It should form part of the high-speed European network linking continental cities with major cities in Britain. Although I recognise that balancing the needs of each of those sectors is not easy, promises to upgrade the line have been made over the years—by this Government as much as any—and delivery is still not forthcoming.

I regularly use the line between London and Stockport, and my constituents have written to me with increasing distress in recent weeks. The trains—if they turn up at all—are so unreliable that travel in the Stockport area and from my village, Bramhall, to Stockport and Manchester has become a joke. There have been improvements to some stations in the Manchester area and work on the tracks has been going on in preparation for new signalling systems in the Cheadle Hulme area for some time. However, the news announced over the summer that work on the lines would continue for another four years has been greeted with dismay.

The west coast main line is a vital part of the rail infrastructure serving the midlands, the north-west and Scotland. including vital tourist areas such as the lake district, the Fylde coast and Scotland. It is the busiest line in the country, and, with the exception of the Heathrow Express, its fares are also the most expensive. Successive Governments have failed to invest in the line, and when they should have taken command of deteriorating situations, they failed to do so. Indeed, the escalating costs and bungled decision making associated with bringing the line up to the standard expected of a high-speed line is nothing short of a national scandal.

In 1998 Railtrack expected to cut journey times, double capacity and improve safety—all for £2.1 billion. By the summer of 2001, the cost had risen to £10 billion. When the Strategic Rail Authority consultation document was released this month, the estimate was £13 billion. Untried and untested technology, essential to the success of the project, was not delivered. When the Conservative Government broke up and sold off the rail system, the Liberal Democrats called the action "poll tax on wheels", so politically damaging did we expect it to be.

When Virgin won the contract, the negotiations to upgrade the line took place with all the hype associated with the Government when they need an exciting project to take people's minds off a situation. The Railtrack negotiating team was outclassed by the team from Virgin when it came to negotiating the upgrade. According to the Strategic Rail Authority consultation document, concern was expressed that Railtrack would have difficulty in delivering and Virgin ensured that it had built-in financial protection; nobody can blame Virgin for that.

From 1999, it was clear that commitments made by Railtrack under PUG 2—passenger upgrade 2—which followed the earlier, undelivered, PUG 1 contract of 1996, were not achievable, but no solution was identified. Amazingly, the plethora of watchdogs associated with the industry seemed to stand by and watch matters go from bad to worse. Where was the Deputy Prime Minister? Where was the Transport Minister?

I have read the Strategic Rail Authority strategy document, which was published on 10 October, it now looks as if someone is trying to get a grip at last. However, the Government have got a long way to go before the travelling public—or, for that matter, the rail or any other industry—are convinced. The travelling public have heard it all before, and all that they know is that they have been disappointed time after time.

Such is the uncertainty associated with setting out on a local or national journey from the Stockport area that people are being forced to choose unsustainable forms of transport—cars and planes—which no Government should seek to encourage in preference to trains. The bus service is usually not a viable alternative. If we add to that the often lower costs and fares of such unsustainable forms of transport, it is easy to see the vicious downward spiral that is being generated. Industrial disputes, as we shall see, make bad matters worse.

I have a letter from a constituent, who writes:

"I am writing to add my name to what I suspect is a growing list of frustrated rail commuters in your Constituency who have already contacted you. I am at screaming point with both North Western Trains and ASLEF. In eleven and a half years of commuting daily into Manchester from Bramhall, I have never until now been reduced to driving in by car on a daily basis to the City Centre but there is now realistically no other option. The ASLEF ban on rest day working has so badly affected the service from Bramhall that in the morning those who do attempt to travel by train are extremely lucky if as many as two of the five early morning trains turn up at all. They think they've died and gone to heaven if they turn up anywhere near the time they are supposed to! I cannot cope with this uncertainty about when or even if I am going to get to work. The bus is not a viable alternative as it takes nearly an hour and a half to travel from Bramhall to Manchester"—

a distance of less than eight miles—

"in the early morning peak period.

I have been reduced to the misery of getting up at the crack of dawn to get into the city whilst the roads are still passable and there is space in the cheaper all day car parks, and coming home later than I would normally in order to avoid the same jams coming home."

Another letter that I received says:

"This dispute seems to be attracting very little publicity, and very little seems to be happening to solve it. Meanwhile the rail passengers suffer, who will be our champion? Why is the government not bringing the two sides together to try to settle this dispute? I thought it was government policy to improve public transport, to make it more attractive, so that more people will want to use it, but this dispute will have the opposite effect."

A traveller to London writes:

"The cost of a standard class return ticket for a poor service, Stockport to London, is now £172.00. There are no cheaper tickets available to anyone who needs to arrive in London before 2.00pm or leave London before 6.30pm. Pre-Virgin there were less restrictions and loopholes that enabled frequent travellers to reduce the overall cost of travel—Virgin has systematically tightened restrictions resulting in fourfold fare increases for many journeys over the past few years.

For business travel and commuting these incredibly high fares are unjust, giving any North West based business an immediate disadvantage over companies that happen to have fairly priced trains. We also have an office in Warwick, approximately half way to London. The fare from Warwick is £50.00 (or £21.00 after 8am)—half the price per mile (or much less) for a more punctual, comfortable service.

It is now far cheaper to fly the 200 miles than use the train—I got a ticket for next week on BA for £58 including taxes arriving in London in time for a loam meeting. I know friends in the Bramhall area who are instructed by their company to travel to London either by plane or company car—environmentally, this is madness.

I have written to Virgin trains and John Prescott but received no satisfactory reply, only a suggestion that I travel off-peak—this is rather missing the point."

I also have a letter that was sent to my hon. Friend the Member for Hazel Grove (Mr. Stunell), because my constituency covers part of Hazel Grove. The letter says:

"On the 16th September, I had booked a seat from Stockport to Paddock Wood in Kent on the 9.37 am. Arriving at Stockport in good time, luckily, it was announced the 9.37 train was cancelled and all passengers going to London would have to travel on the 9.31 via Stafford. So the booked seat was useless!

Getting on the 9.31 meant that we had to stand all the way to Macclesfield. This is fine if you are young, but being older and in a lot of pain with arthritis it was no fun. The reason for standing was that the first and last coaches were business class for each section of the train, so there was no through access. Even the trolley girls were annoyed as they had to take the drinks trolley off the train and then wheel it along the platform to gain access to the next coach!…My grandfather, Father and all my Uncles worked on the Railway all their working life, and from being a small child, I have always used the Railways. I do not like travelling by motor but the episode I have experienced has not given me any hope for the future of the Railways. I was looking forward to easy, fast, clean and efficient travel that is kept being promised to us. It does not seem as though it will be in my lifetime or anyone else's come to that …please do not give me glib answers like the Railway is under various managements. What about when it was under different regions you could still go from one Region to another without all this hassle and everyone took a pride in their Region."

As a frequent user of the line, I have my own stories to tell about doors and windows that are stuck open when it is cold so the carriage is freezing, and air conditioning that does not work in the summer so everyone cooks. I recently travelled on a fully booked but almost empty train; I do not understand how that happens. Virgin has obviously given its staff good training, as it is clear that they are very experienced in conflict management and their good humour is always a joy to see.

The warning that I want to give the Government is that the public in the north-west know that the rail system is in a mess. They are not stupid. Promise after promise has not been delivered. That is not all the Government's fault; they inherited a largely unworkable system in which Railtrack simply did not have the management structures in place to achieve the necessary changes. This is a question not only of money, but of receiving value for money and achieving the Government's economic and environmental objectives.

After five years of this Government, the Strategic Rail Authority's strategy must deliver or the Government will pay the price at the ballot box. The north-west depends on that vital rail link. So far, failure to deliver has cost the economy more than BSE and foot and mouth disease together. The project has overrun by more than the channel tunnel.

In many ways, the issue is a microcosm of the Government's major problem: they promise, spin, and minimise the difficulties, but it is the difficulties that people see. No one believes the Government any more. My advice to the Government, if I may offer some, is to come clean and tell the whole truth about the mess that we are in. When they have done that, they should tell us honestly what can and cannot be done, within proper timescales, and stop operators giving misleading information to the public.

Does the west coast strategy report not tell us what has gone wrong and how to put it right, so should the Government not be congratulated on commissioning it?

That point is addressed in the rest of my speech.

As I said, the issue is a microcosm of the Government's major problem: they promise, spin, and minimise difficulties. They should prevent operators from giving misleading information to the public, and insist that Network Rail publish proper timely plans in advance so that the world of business, the rail operators and the travelling public can plan. What worries me is the mismatch between the impression that the Strategic Rail Authority and the Department are giving about what they intend to deliver and what the consultation document actually says.

In a letter to MPs on 10 October, the Secretary of State said:

"The SRA have this week published their strategy for delivering the West Coast Main Line … it sets out a clear and coherent package of renewals and enhancements, and a programme for delivering them, which will provide significant benefits to users from 2004 onwards."

I shall demonstrate, however, that things are not as clear as that. The Strategic Rail Authority chairman, Richard Bowker, acknowledges:

"The West Coast project is a mess, and it is time for bold action."

As he states in his foreword:

"This Strategy will bring large benefits to passengers and freight customers from 2004 onwards …What is clear is that the vast bulk of the expenditure required to return WCML to acceptable modern standards needs to be spent on renewals."

The document describes the strategy as "envisaging" something—an interesting word, suggesting a lack of commitment. How much more definite to start with something like, "The strategy will deliver". It is "envisaged" that the line will become a 125 mph tilt railway route with a London to Manchester journey time of two hours. I hear that the Labour party conference special managed the journey from Blackpool to London in three hours—without, I assume, putting anyone at risk. Why can Virgin do it for the Labour party, but not for the rest of us?

Alterations to existing freight services are mentioned, including capacity for two-thirds more freight volume. Does that mean more evening traffic up to 10 pm, passing within a few feet of people's homes? The document also refers to key commuter services being provided with sufficient capacity,

"even though the service patterns in some cases will differ from those to which some stakeholders aspire."

Does that mean that there will be trains, but not necessarily when people want them?

In paragraph 3.27, the document states:

"The impact of the increased frequency of West Coast and Cross Country trains on the availability of capacity for regional, local and PTE services is being assessed in detail."

That sounds more than a little worrying and I hope that the Minister will not tell us that the price of a better service to London is the continuation of a diabolical service at local level.

Paragraph 5.5 states that the Strategic Rail Authority and the Office of the Rail Regulator will review whether the proposed renewal specification is the most efficient way of sustaining the network to deliver the outputs, and also the efficiency of the proposed method of delivery of the renewal specification. In other words, there will be a review. Will the Minister tell us whether the document is truly a "strategy document" or a staging post towards a strategy? Is the Minister simply buying time? I note that the final strategy will not be published until early 2003, so things could conceivably take six-months. What is the Minister's deadline for the publication of the final strategy?

In paragraph 5.10, we read that the busiest sections of the route

"may, depending on the maintenance regime, need renewal every six to ten years, simply because of the intensity of usage".

Will the Minister clarify what that means for the travelling public? Is it the equivalent of putting up a red flag to announce that passengers' misery over the past few years will go on and on?

It is sensible to implement longer possession periods. Weekend and night-time working have undoubtedly led to a loss of efficiency and difficulty in monitoring progress. It appears that monitoring has been a failure, so I hope that the Minister will ensure that sufficient resources are devoted to it—and, indeed, to a proper communications strategy—in future.

I note that paragraphs 7.4 and 7.5 acknowledge that prior knowledge of engineering works is helpful. Several local authorities offered help with publicity, but Network Rail had to be pressed hard to give advance notice of anything to Stockport council, which does not bode well for the future.

Appendix 4 states that freight and commuter services will have to have their power to weight ratio altered to deliver train service outputs, necessitating increased power supply requirements and new rolling stock. No doubt the service providers will have something to say about that.

Given the concerns about new technology and the wish not to test it on this line, can the Minister give an assurance about the reliability of the new GSM-R— Global System for Mobile Communications for Railway—train radio system that is to be used as an additional communication link to support axle counters, which determine whether a train is clear, before allowing another train to use a section of the track? How reliable are axle counters? Are there circumstances in which both systems could fail?

The irony of a Government who talk the environmental talk but fail to deliver the sustainable walk is not lost on the rail industry. It is in disarray, as my postbag shows, but the future prosperity of the north-west depends on a modern and reliable heavy rail system. Manchester airport, which is covered by the Secretary of State's consultation on the expansion of air travel, needs improved heavy rail east-west trans-Pennine links to reduce unsustainable car travel to the area of the airport. That is another matter that directly affects my constituents in Cheadle.

Where is the industry going? Where is the strategy to produce the railway industry that the north-west, the industry, the public and business want? Do the Government have a plan? Will they act to reduce the uncertainty crippling business? The north-west needs the upgrade, as do the midlands, Cumbria and Scotland, for local, national and, ultimately, international traffic. The country needs to hear from the Minister that the Government have at last got a grip on this out-of-control project.

I congratulate the hon. Member for Cheadle (Mrs. Calton) on securing the debate, because the future of the west coast main line is extremely important, and it is abundantly clear that Railtrack failed that line and all the communities along it. There is now a new structure: Railtrack has gone and we have Network Rail, together with a strengthened and much more focused Strategic Rail Authority. Therefore we have important new opportunities, which must be grasped.

My comments this morning will centre on Liverpool. I make a plea that, as we consider the SRA's consultative document and those new opportunities, Liverpool not be left out in the cold. It is an extremely important city of the north-west, which is fast regenerating itself and increasingly successful. It is the north-west's candidate for European capital of culture in 2008. However, if Liverpool's regeneration is to continue effectively, it needs effective and reliable communications for passengers and freight. I have considered the consultative document submitted by the SRA and I have several observations about both the proposals in the document and those that are absent.

First, the document contains a number of statements about improving freight capacity, but I am increasingly concerned by the SRA's silence about the future of the central railway route proposal—the dedicated line for freight. I am concerned about the lack of reference to the importance of west-east communications—links from west to east through the Humber ports to Europe—to develop trade, which must work in collaboration with a west coast main line in which we have reinvested.

I shall concentrate on key issues directly relating to proposals for the west coast main line. I am sorry that it now appears that the promised 140 mph fast route on that line has been abandoned. I hope that it has not been abandoned for ever, because we must not abandon our position as an important part of Europe. According to the proposals in the document, the Manchester-London line is destined to reach 125 mph by 2004, and there is a promise of regular two-hourly trains between Manchester and London. I see with regret that there is no such commitment for Liverpool; indeed, there is no commitment at all. Through further questioning I have ascertained that the line from Liverpool to London will not reach similar standards until at least 2006, because works north of Crewe and works that do not involve Manchester are to be put back until then.

It appears from the correspondence that I have received from the Under-Secretary of State for Transport that Liverpool will get some new trains and some tilting trains, but we are to have the tilt without the speed. That simply is not good enough. I also note with concern the proposals in the consultative document about dealing with the inevitable disruption that will take place when the essential upgrading and modernisation go ahead. The document says how important the upgrading and modernisation is. Indeed, it cannot come too soon. We must all accept that such major works will cause some disruption.

The document states:

"In summary, it must be stressed that with the exception of only a few short periods the WCML will remain for business"—

That is good. It continues:

"There will always be direct trains from London to Birmingham, Manchester and Glasgow."

What about Liverpool? What is good enough for Manchester is good enough for Liverpool. I call on the SRA to give Liverpool equal treatment and priority. If it is important that Manchester continue to have a fast direct line service to the capital while the works take place, then why not Liverpool? Are we not as important? It is important for the people of Liverpool and the whole of the north-west.

Then there are the stations. Lime Street station now has a good new roof, which is a considerable improvement. It no longer leaks, so we do not have to put up our umbrellas as we wait in the station. However, the improvements seem to have finished with that new roof. Lime Street, a major station in a major city, is a dismal station. Piccadilly station in Manchester is a fine example of what can be achieved. Why can we not have a station in Liverpool comparable with the best? Surely we deserve no less. If First Northwestern, the current owners cannot deliver, Network Rail should turn its attention to Lime Street station, as it is an important gateway to the major city of Liverpool.

In short, I welcome proposals to go ahead with modernisation of the west coast main line, which has been far too long delayed. It is essential that we move ahead. and that we do so quickly. Liverpool matters. It is not good enough to sideline Liverpool and give us a lower priority than our sister city, Manchester. We are a fast growing, increasingly successful city. We need a modern station and we require fast reliable trains. I call on my right hon. Friend the Minister to give his commitment to improvements in Liverpool, and his assurance that as part of the consultation, he will make representations to the SRA to give Liverpool, as part of the north-west, a fair deal.

I too congratulate the hon. Member for Cheadle (Mrs. Calton), my constituency neighbour, on securing this important debate. The four hours that I spent stuck on the west coast main line on Monday gave me plenty of time to reflect on the issues that I might raise in the debate. As I had my extremely vocal 16-month-old son with me, all the other passengers in the carriage had a lot of opportunity to reflect on the problems of that line. The west coast main line is a crucial link for my constituents, as it is for those of the hon. Member for Cheadle, and its Manchester branch runs through my constituency.

Looking around the Chamber today, it is interesting to observe the number of hon. Members whose constituencies are affected by that train line. My hon. Friend the Member for Westmorland and Lonsdale (Mr. Collins), who will speak for the Opposition, is directly affected, as are my hon. Friend the Member for Galloway and Upper Nithsdale (Mr. Duncan) and other Scottish Members, a Welsh Member who has left the Chamber, and the hon. Members for Carlisle (Mr. Martlew), and for Liverpool, Riverside (Mrs. Ellman). The line is a crucial link along the backbone of Britain.

In my own constituency, communities such as Wilmslow and Alderley Edge exist because of the train line. They are commuter towns that grew up in the nineteenth century. Every day since the lines were opened, people from those towns have been able to travel to work in Manchester. That is one of the reasons why people live in my constituency—it is in the Manchester commuter belt. Next year, however, all that will stop for four months. The train line through my constituency, used by thousands of people every day, will be closed for 17 weeks, because the line between Colwich in Staffordshire and central Manchester will be closed.

I take a reasonable view of that, because I can see that there is quite a strong argument, given the problems with the west coast main line, for closing the line rather than letting the delays increase. However, it is because of the soaring costs and delays that we are having to close the principal rail line in the United Kingdom. We might ask ourselves whether France, Japan or Germany would find themselves having to cut the main train line between their major cities.

As Richard Bowker. the chairman of the Strategic Rail Authority, who I believe is a good thing, and an improvement, said:

"The west coast upgrade was a project that was clearly drifting, without a real end point or a clear direction. It is time that the industry got to grips with challenges facing it."

I agree with that absolutely. The costs have rocketed, as the hon. Member for Cheadle pointed out, making it the most expensive construction project in the country, and perhaps in the whole of Europe.

I ask the Minister for specific assurances on behalf of my constituents. Will the closures next year, and the closures planned for the following year between Crewe and Cheadle, mean that the west coast main line will be delivered in accordance with the new timetable? I would like a guarantee from the Minister, so that we can hold him to account in a couple of years' time. I want it confirmed that, by September 2004—[Interruption.] Yes, I want a promise of resignation, such as the Home Secretary once made, if those targets are not met—not that that promise did any good. I would like confirmation that, by September 2004, the London to Manchester journey time will be cut by 35 minutes, and the upgrade will be finished by May 2006.

No chance.

It would be good to hear the Minister repeat that in his speech. Will he also assure us that the provision of faster trains will not be at the expense of a worse service for my constituents? At present, all trains to Manchester stop at Macclesfield and Stockport, and I want an assurance that even if a direct non-stop London to Manchester service is introduced, faster trains will not mean a worse service for my constituents. Extra trains must be provided, and the number of trains that stop at Wilmslow, in my constituency, should remain the same. My constituents, who are currently bearing the brunt of the problems with the upgrade, should at least have the assurance that the resulting service will not be worse for them.

Will the Minister also assure us that everything will be done to help my constituents while the commuter towns in my constituency are cut off? The letter that I received from his colleague the Under-Secretary said:

"the aim is to minimise disruption".

He also referred to the high-quality, dedicated coach service that would be laid on. We will wait to see what those high-quality coaches are like. Coaches, however, will add to the travelling time for people in my constituency, and to the congestion on local roads.

I will therefore ask a specific question. I accept that the Minister may not have the answer today, but he could write to me. Would it be possible to open an old branch line—I think that it is in occasional use—that runs from Wilmslow in my constituency through Styal near Manchester airport and straight into the centre of Manchester? First North Western Trains has proposed the idea, and says that in principle it is prepared to run trains along it. That would hugely ease the problems for my constituents, as it would minimise the disruption. Frankly, the idea strikes me as common sense. It would remove the need for all the coaches on our local roads. If that is not possible, why not?

The Government's decision to close the west coast main line was taken without local consultation. We heard of it when the Secretary of State went on Radio 4 and started to tell us about it. There does not appear to have been any consideration of the effects on local people. The closure has been brought about by incompetence and delay for many years. The least the Government could do is make an effort to minimise disruption for the people whom I represent.

I too congratulate the hon. Member for Cheadle (Mrs. Calton). Although she made a fairly partisan, party political speech, the issues will probably echo across all parties. I hope that the Opposition spokesman will profoundly apologise to the people along the west coast for the disaster that the Conservative Government—

Very cross-party.

Yes, the issue is cross-party, and there would be enormous sympathy for the hon. Gentleman if he were honest enough to mention that the problems that we now suffer are due to the massive under-investment under the Thatcher-Major Governments. Those who are fortunate enough to have access to the east coast main line, such as you, Mr. Deputy Speaker, would not believe how bad the west coast main line is in comparison unless they had travelled on it in recent years—unlike unfortunates such as myself who live on that line of misery and incompetence.

I am talking not only about speed—although the speeds on the west coast main line are ridiculous, given what is now technologically achievable—but about the quality of service. Hon. Members have referred to delays. The rolling stock is massively outdated and not well maintained.

I do not know whether my hon. Friend is aware of it, but people drive from my constituency in west Cumbria to Penrith, and then to Scotch Corner, to go to Darlington so that they can travel on the east coast main line. They drive an additional 50 or 60 miles past the west coast main line railway station for a better service on the east coast.

My hon. Friend makes a good point, which is true at various points of east-west convergence. I have often wondered whether it was worth driving from Manchester to Doncaster. Journey times are so much better from Doncaster to London that it would nearly justify the extra cost. Environmentally, it is plain stupidity to ask people to use cars on part of a journey that they ought to be able to travel comfortably by rail.

All the way from Scotland, down to those who access the west coast main line in the west of England, it is enormously irritating to people that the promises made in the past will not be kept. There is a question as to whether the Strategic Rail Authority thinks strategically. Given the estimates of the money needed to upgrade the west coast main line, I ask the Minister whether there are better ways to do it. We are now talking about at least £10 billion and possibly £13 billion.

The upgrade to trains that run at 125 mph is not good enough. Five years ago, we were promised that the 125 mph service would be in operation and that we would be looking forward to 140 mph trains. I believe that my hon. Friend the Member for Liverpool, Riverside (Mrs. Ellman) made the point that we still want those faster trains. That is not a mere aspiration; to treat that aim as achievable in a reasonable time should be part and parcel of the strategy that we are considering.

If we are to spend the amount of money in question, but to receive only a modest upgrade, the question arises whether elsewhere there are better forms of investment that might bring about an improved rail service. The planned journey times of two hours and 10 minutes, if the 125 mph service is brought in, will not be a massive improvement on what already exists for Manchester. Things improve a little further north, and I appreciate the relative value of those gains; they are proportionately more important. However, I wonder whether the total strategic package stands up.

Among the conesquences of the upgrade of the west coast main line will be a knock-on effect—and I say this as someone who of course wants the line to be improved, because I, and many of my constituents, use it. The hon. Member for Tatton (Mr. Osborne) referred to commuter services to Manchester. One of the capacity constraints is the route into Manchester. An improvement to and greater frequency of main line services from London to Manchester must be coupled with investment to deal with that capacity limitation in the run in to the city. Without that, there will be marginal improvement in the long distance service to London and a deterioration in the commuter services into the city and in cross-country services.

Cross-country services are important; my hon. Friend the Member for Liverpool, Riverside mentioned the need to upgrade the east-west route. That is important for the economic development of the whole of the north. What is now seen as the M62 corridor should be thought of as the Liverpool-Hull rail corridor, where freight on rail would be important. That will suffer from the same capacity constraints if piecemeal strategies are adopted instead of a strategy that deals with the overall issues.

I want to press my right hon. Friend the Minister on one issue: last week in the House, when I asked about through trains from cities such as Manchester, Liverpool and Glasgow using the channel tunnel, he said that the priority was upgrading the west coast main line. I understand that priorities and spending constraints are necessary. However, unequivocal promises that we would all have access to the channel tunnel were given by the then Mrs. Thatcher, when she was Prime Minister, and by her various Transport Secretaries. That was part of the bargain through which the Bill permitting the development of the channel tunnel passed through the House. We are still waiting, and I do not think it unreasonable to keep that demand on the table. The Government's official stance should be to agree that that is part of our ambition for our rail system.

Is the hon. Gentleman aware that in continental Europe, destinations for channel tunnel trains are being expanded to include, for example, Amsterdam, while in Britain we still have only one destination—Waterloo?

The hon. Gentleman is right. That is great for those who can easily gain access to the channel tunnel from London, but not so great for the rest of us who have a different geographical perspective—and it is not acceptable. It is ironic that in the run in to Piccadilly station are sheds on which it says, "Ici habite le Eurostar". The Eurostar has never lived in them, so far as I am aware, and is not likely to for a long time—or if it did, it would have to travel a long way before it got to the channel tunnel.

I hope that the Minister can tell us that there will come a time, in the not too distant future, when the Eurostar will actually habite in the sheds outside Piccadilly station. I am not sure whether we are allowed to use such language, but I assure you, Mr. Deputy Speaker, that it must be English, because it is written on a shed in Manchester—

Order. May I help the hon. Gentleman? The rule is that the occupant of the Chair must be able to understand what is said—and I speak pretty good French.

I have the utmost admiration for your ability to comprehend what is said by hon. Members in many languages, often including that of your native Scotland, Mr. Deputy Speaker. You are in that sense the best person to make the judgment.

Does my hon. Friend agree that the whole issue of a regional Eurostar is part of regional economic development? Should not the Strategic Rail Authority consult the regional development agencies and regional assemblies in drawing up proposals?

My hon. Friend is right. I was about to refer to that point. The Government have undoubtedly made enormous progress in getting rid of the totally discredited Railtrack and building a structure to tackle some of the system's long-standing problems. However, it is difficult to see in that an overall strategy that recognises the railway system as the lifeblood not only of passenger travel but of the link between regional economies, and with economies on the European land mass. The west coast main line should be upgraded along with other regional services, but extended access should also be given to European destinations as part of the overall strategy. I appeal to the Minister to give us some idea of the bigger picture for the future.

I want to raise one particular point, although it may not seem especially important in the grand scheme of things. I was surprised to learn that, in the agreement between Virgin and the new rail structure, Virgin has been offered compensation of more than £100 million. Virgin has delivered an extremely poor service to the people of the north-west since it took over, and the company should acknowledge to those people that it has ripped them off. For example, the company put fares up massively—the hon. Member for Cheadle referred to the very high fares. It is bizarre that Virgin is being compensated so handsomely, because it means that the taxpayer has agreed to underwrite the company's failure to run a business competently. We are underwriting the risk that the company, as the commercial operator, ought to have taken.

There should be an upgrade to the west coast main line because we want a high-quality service, especially to Manchester and Liverpool. I agree with my hon. Friend the Member for Liverpool, Riverside that it is vital that the twin major city in the north-west should be provided with excellent rail links. However, it is also important that there should be a strategy that allows the people of the north-west, in the west of Scotland and further south to see that the rail system between our towns and cities is excellent. The service should not be devoted to getting us to London alone, but should link us into the wider rail pattern on the continent of Europe.

I too congratulate the hon. Member for Cheadle (Mrs. Calton) on securing this timely debate.

It has to be said that the whole sorry saga of the west coast main line puts the saga of the millennium dome to shame. There have been costs spiralling beyond control, delays beyond belief, bad decisions and a revolving door management that would shame many Premiership football clubs. Under plans announced this month, we find that there is to be a delay to the modernisation programme for the part of the west coast main line that lies within Scotland, which means that the purgatory and misery will go on for those poor souls in Scotland who continue to use that line in the next few years.

There is a north-south divide in railway policy in the United Kingdom, and Government policy clearly puts Scotland at the end of some branch route to absolutely nowhere. The delay in modernisation plans for the west coast main line is the latest and possibly the best example of this new transport divide. Many people in Scotland have long suspected that this Government have no interest in railways north of Preston, and the decision to single out for delay the modernisation programme for the line in Scotland will only confirm that view. England will benefit from the modernisation, and the new 125 mph pendolino trains will run from English stations within two years—from London to Birmingham, London to Manchester and London to Preston. They will not run from London to a station in Scotland until 2006.

We in Carlisle have the same problem as people in Scotland, although we are south of the border. Does the hon. Gentleman not accept that improvements on the southern part of the line will mean that trains get from London to Glasgow more quickly? If they get from London to Crewe more quickly, they will get to Glasgow sooner than they do at present.

I follow the hon. Gentleman's logic, and I understand his predicament—

Order. For the benefit of Hansard, I ask the hon. Gentleman to speak up. His words are not being reported by the lady who is here in the Chamber, but by someone who will hear them through the microphone somewhere else.

Thank you, Mr. Deputy Speaker. I shall attempt to speak up.

I understand the hon. Gentleman's predicament, and I mentioned that Preston was the stopping point for the Government's interest in the railways. I follow his logic, and it is true that the modernisation programme south of the border will benefit people in Scotland. However, I am trying to determine why there has been a delay in the modernisation programme for services north of Preston to Glasgow. Such problems will mean that people in the west of Scotland still have to endure delays.

The proposal in the modernisation programme is to link Glasgow to the west coast main line by 2006. In the meantime, Scots will be deprived of a modern service and they are likely to use their cars, or the low-cost airlines that now fly between Scottish airports and London, in preference to unreliable rail services. Imagine the outcry if it were decided to delay a much required national modernisation programme south of Birmingham, rather than the programme for the west coast main line in Scotland. The squeals would be heard all the way from Solihull to Streatham. The Government and the SRA are prepared to treat Scotland as a distant stop on their modernisation journey. I do not know why the SRA continues to believe that Scotland can be conveniently discarded. The rail-using public there are growing increasingly disillusioned with the Government's contempt for them.

I had the opportunity to travel on one of the new pendolino trains last week, although it was not in Scotland, because we do not have any. I was visiting my Plaid Cymru colleagues in Cardiff, and the journey was quite pleasant. The service was comfortable, if predictably delayed, and I enjoyed it. However, the earliest we will see a pendolino train in Scotland will be he middle of 2004.

Is the hon. Gentleman sure that he was travelling on a pendolino, rather than a Virgin Crosscountry voyager, on the route that he described?

The train may have been a voyager, but I looked at it and at the map, and unless the trains are going in disguise—

I am sure that the hon. Gentleman is talking about the super voyager, because the pendolino does not run in Wales—or, indeed, anywhere else at present. The super voyager, however, passes my house on the way to Scotland.

I am grateful for the hon. Gentleman's correction. The train may indeed have been a super voyager, but it was very comfortable; it was certainly not like the decrepit rolling stock on the railways in Scotland at the beginning of the 21st century. Given the state of the rolling stock, it will take five hours and 20 minutes to travel from Glasgow to London, and that is a very optimistic estimate. That is how things will remain until the middle of next year, when much required modernisation work in northern England will mean that the journey will take an indeterminate time. Is it not ironic that we are having this debate at the end of 2002—almost 16 years to the month after the British Rail super service managed the journey in three hours and 52 minutes? That is still the record; it was set 16 years ago and it is likely to remain unbroken for the foreseeable future, given the chaos that we are about to experience on the west coast main line.

The new transport divide is developing not only on the west coast main line. The Strategic Rail Authority announced plans earlier this year, and of the 17 projects listed as geographically specific, 15 were south of the border, and 11 of those were for London and the south-east. There was no mention of priority projects for Scotland, such as the electrification of the east coast line north of Edinburgh. The last time I was in this Chamber with the Minister—for an Adjournment debate in the name of the hon Member for Dundee, East (Mr. Luke)—he gave a categorical no to the further electrification of the east coast line north of Edinburgh. The SRA plan also makes no mention of opening the Waverley loop, which would serve the region from the borders to Edinburgh. This week we have heard that Scotland is to get no TGVs, for the bizarre reason that we are too far away from central Europe and would not benefit from the service. That is the most ridiculous argument that I have heard.

There are still doubts about the development of the Waverley station in Edinburgh, which is absolutely necessary if we are to start to deal with congestion in Scotland. The SRA plan that we saw earlier this year was so obviously a plan to deal with issues south of the border that even the chair of the forum for UK passengers was forced to concede that it was, indeed, a plan for London and the south-east.

What will be the economic impact of the delay on the west coast main line? According to Labour-controlled Glasgow city council it will be a disaster. The council went as far as submitting an emergency motion, stating that the delay in the improvements to the main line will be damaging to the economy of the west of Scotland. The motion called on the UK Transport Minister to ensure that Scotland would not be hit unfairly by those delays, and demanded an urgent meeting with the Scottish Minister with responsibility for transport, Lain Gray. The new Labour convener said:

"We should tell the Transport Secretary this is so important to the west of Scotland economy that it's a fight we are determined to win."

Good on him, and good luck to him. I hope that I can join him in that fight.

I have no doubt that the Government are trying to put things right after the disaster formerly known as Railtrack. After a disaster of such proportions, things could only get better, as they always like to tell us. With characteristic new Labour incompetence, however, they have conspired to make things worse. If I received a pound for every time a Labour Transport Minister said to us, "We're putting this right after decades of under-investment," I would be a rich man indeed.

Does the hon. Gentleman accept that it took a Labour Government to see the demise of the failure that was Railtrack? The Opposition wished to keep it in being, and even minor opposition parties were reluctant to support the brave action of the then Secretary of State for Transport, Local Government and the Regions.

I have no doubt that the major problem with the railways is historic under-investment and the disaster formerly known as Railtrack. After five years, however, there is still massive chaos on the railways. The Government have had five years to put that right, yet only now are they starting to get to grips with the problem. I am a long way from congratulating the Government on any success in putting the railways right.

I concede, though, that money is going into the railways—quite significant sums of money at that. I want to ensure equality of distribution of that extra investment across the nations and regions of the United Kingdom. That is what today's debate is about for me. It simply is not good enough to leave Scotland with a second-class service. The Scottish National party is trying to be helpful to the Minister. We have a neat and convenient solution: give the powers of the railway transport system to the Scottish Parliament. Surely even Labour Scottish Executive Ministers would have been able to run the Scottish railways better than the body that previously had responsibility for it, the Department for Transport, Local Government and the Regions. Even the fat controller in "Thomas the Tank Engine" could have run the Scottish railways better than the previous incumbent.

We need a distinct Scottish approach and a Scottish solution to the significant problems we have in the Scottish railways. Transport is already a devolved matter. We run the roads in Scotland, but somehow we cannot be trusted to run the railways, even though 90 per cent. of all journeys that start in Scotland end in Scotland. Scotrail and Scottish Financial Enterprise now agree with that view. They see the compelling argument that Scotland is a small country with an uncomplicated rail system and few operators, and would dramatically benefit by being run from Holyrood.

Now, however, the responsibility for the main rail line out of Scotland rests in London. Scotland may be at the end of the line both geographically and in the Government's thinking when it comes to real investment—but passengers who pay high fares certainly do not deserve to be shunted aside as they have been in the past few years.

I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Cheadle (Mrs. Calton) on securing the debate and on highlighting the environmental consequences of the failure to invest in railways, a point that other Members made.

I wish the hon.Member for Tatton (Mr. Osborne) success in securing his guarantee from the Minister. I remind him of the Deputy Prime Minister's pledge, made five years ago, to be held to account if he did not reduce road traffic within the following five years. He did not reduce road traffic and we have held him to account, but that has not made the slightest difference, because he is still with us.

The hon. Member for Manchester, Central (Mr. Lloyd) castigated the previous Conservative Government for their failure to invest in the railways. That is a legitimate point, but it surely cannot have escaped his notice that a Labour Government have been in power for the past five years.

As hon. Members have said, the west coast main line is the busiest in the country and one of the busiest in Europe. The upgrade has been one of the most expensive and mismanaged projects in recent memory. We know that the line has not been properly modernised since the 1960s, but we must question, as the Financial Times did in a recent article, how the upgrade of 400 miles of railway can run up a bill greater than the income of some developing countries and how the French can build entire TGV lines from scratch for less.

It is worth remembering that, at the outset, Railtrack said that the upgrade would cost £2.1 billion. It promised to slash journey times, double capacity, increase passenger numbers and dramatically improve safety. Regrettably, it adopted untested technology, an unrealistic time scale and an onerous contract, which meant that the project was doomed from the start, at least while Railtrack was in charge.

What will UK plc and passengers get from the upgrade? We have heard that Virgin will run tilting trains at 125 mph rather than at 140 mph and that some of the works will be completed in two years. What of the cost of the project? The Strategic Rail Authority estimates that it will be £12 billion, and we know that a substantial proportion of that will be spent on a renewal process rather than on enhancing the line, but it is highly questionable whether even the figure of £10 billion is correct, especially in the light of the European directives on fast-speed trains and the lack of an asset register.

I hope that the Minister says what he thinks the impact of the European directive will be. During a debate earlier this week, I asked him whether it will cover Eurostar trains. I now want to ask him whether it will apply to trains that travel at 125 mph, because I understand that the cut-off speed for it to apply is 200 kph.

We know that Richard Bowker, the SRA chairman, recently called for bonds to be considered as a means to raise private finance under the golden arrow project. A poisoned arrow from the Chancellor and his resounding "non"—I am sure that Mr. Deputy Speaker understands that French word—swiftly killed that idea. Will the Minister explain why the Chancellor has come down so hard against bonds, given that Richard Bowker, who presumably knows his stuff, proposed the idea? If bonds are not to be the means of raising private finance, what is? How much of the west coast main line's cost does the Minister expect to be covered by private finance, a point on which we still have not received clarification?

One of the key things that the project tells us is that the Government were right to put Railtrack into administration—a decision on which we supported them. The project has been appallingly mismanaged. Perhaps the costs were worked out by accountants, rather than by engineers, who did not really understand the full consequences of the works being planned. There is no full asset register that would have enabled them properly to calculate the costs, so can we be certain that the figure of £10 billion that is being quoted is correct? How do we know that the same mistakes will not be made in the new cost estimate and that the same contractor cost overruns will not be experienced again?

The Government must not use Railtrack's appalling mismanagement of the project as an excuse to scale down their plans for a railways renaissance. We need them to succeed, because the alternative is a Britain permanently gridlocked as a result of a modal switch in the wrong direction. As some hon. Members have noted, people are switching from trains to cars, because cars are a more reliable means of transport.

As well as questions of funding and finance, we need to consider the impact on freight, particularly north of Rugby. Under the original proposals, freight would have been pushed out in favour of passenger services, particularly Virgin's inter-city trains, which are familiar to Mr. Bowker, but there are still serious misgivings about the impact on freight. I hope that the Minister says whether guarantees can be given on freight access and whether the European directives will have an impact on freight on that line.

Is the hon. Gentleman campaigning for an increase in freight on that line?

The Liberal Democrats are certainly campaigning for an increase in freight on lines where it is appropriate.

I think that means no.

If a means can be found to run freight and passenger services together—I believe that there is a question mark over that—it may be appropriate to increase the amount of freight. However, it is important that the Minister responds to the hon. Member for Liverpool, Riverside (Mrs. Ellman) about the impact on central railways, because trying to run freight and passenger services on the same lines can be a problem. As a result, we suffer significant costs that are not experienced in countries with segregated lines.

The hon. Member for North Tayside (Pete Wishart) highlighted the impact of delays in Scotland, which, equally, have an impact in Wales. Services there are being scaled back, so it is important that the Minister provides another guarantee—that speeds of 125 mph will be guaranteed on all parts of the west coast main line and that such speeds will be achieved everywhere on the line.

On parts of the west coast main line, it is physically impossible for trains to achieve that speed, as the tunnels, which were built 150 years ago, prevent it. Is the hon. Gentleman saying that we should rebuild the tunnels so that trains can go at 125 mph everywhere?

It is incumbent on the Minister to set out exactly where 125 mph is applicable. The achievements of the 125 mph trains should be trumpeted, but that speed can be reached only on limited stretches of track. The Government should set that out clearly, so that people understand what they are getting. The lesson to be learned is that Railtrack needed to be put out of its misery, and I am pleased that that was done. When it was in control, there was no single contractor to take charge of projects. Unfortunately, the Government kept pumping money into it, despite the huge losses caused by the fact that proper contracts were not in place, because costs were not controlled and because there were poorly specified outputs.

The emergence of the SRA as a specifier and a project sponsor, as well as that of Network Rail as the delivery agent, marks a vital shift. Railtrack was both client and deliverer, so that shift is important. I agree that the SRA and Network Rail should work in partnership with the rest of the rail industry, and with the co-operation of the passenger and freight operating companies. If so, things can only get better. I sincerely hope that that is true for the west coast main line—for the sake of passengers and of UK plc.

I, too, begin by congratulating the hon. Member for Cheadle (Mrs. Calton) on securing the debate and on how she introduced it. She knows that it is not a personal comment when I say that she follows in distinguished footsteps: her predecessor, Stephen Day, was a friend to Members on all sides of the House and a dedicated, effective and persuasive advocate for the west coast main line throughout his time here. The hon. Member for Carlisle (Mr. Martlew) recognises, as I know many others do, that Stephen played a big role in the all-party group that campaigned on the issue for many years.

I should also point out that, in common with many others here, my constituency is directly affected by the west coast main line, as it is home to Oxenholme, the Lake district station. Fortunately for me, it is less than 10 minutes from my home in Kendal. Therefore, in common with many other hon. Members, I have spent a lot of time on that line. I might exempt the hon. Member for Carshalton and Wallington (Tom Brake), given some of his comments, but generally speaking it is clear that in all political parties, throughout England and Scotland and for a range of business and employment reasons, the west coast main line has immense national strategic significance. It is enormously important to us all.

On that note, I take up the challenge issued by the hon. Member for Manchester, Central (Mr. Lloyd), who said that we should approach the matter in a nonpartisan way, but then slightly spoiled it by saying that all the fault lies with the Thatcher and Major Governments. He will forgive me if I prefer the slightly more gracious and accurate, but none the less telling, comments made by the Secretary of State earlier this month when he announced the change:

"This is a line that has needed investment for some 30 or 40 years now."

I accept that entirely. Indeed, he said on "Channel 4 News" on 9 October:

"I suspect blame attaches to just about every government since 1970."

I accept that entirely as well.

To pick up on a comment from the hon. Member for Liverpool, Riverside (Mrs. Ellman), who said that everything is Railtrack's fault, in that Channel 4 interview the Secretary of State said, and I agree, that it would be a mistake to blame

"the failure to grasp the true cost of doing up this line on the fact that there was the presence of a private sector company. I don't accept that. I think Railtrack itself was clearly culpable but before that I don't think British Rail ever had a clear grasp as to exactly how much money needed to be spent on the West Coast Mainline."

Once again, he put it extremely well.

It is worth observing that there have been a few comments suggesting that all we are talking about is upgrading the line and that it should not require a terribly complicated effort, querying why everything has not been done in five minutes flat. In September,The Guardian put it rather well:

"To call the project an 'upgrade' is something of a misnomer. It involves entirely replacing the vast bulk of the track, sleepers. signalling and power cables."

Much of the equipment

"is reaching the end of its life and needs replacing anyway, whether with ultra-modern high-speed gadgets or simply with fresh basic kit."

It is a huge project. Some 75 per cent. or more of the cost is estimated by the Strategic Rail Authority to cover simply the cost of upgrading the track. Only the remaining quarter of the money will make the difference between trains being able to run at current speeds or at 125 mph along much of the line's length.

My hon. Friend the Member for Tatton (Mr. Osborne) rightly addressed services being suspended next summer, and the summer beyond, to enable faster progress with the upgrade. I share his balanced assessment of that. We all recognise that we would not like to be at such a stage, but it is probably better, as the Rail Passengers Council has put it, to take the pain all at once in a relatively short and concentrated period, rather than endlessly stretching it out year after year.

However, my hon. Friend also rightly said that the SRA proposals are not a model of advance consultation. Concerns were expressed by a huge number of businesses, and he referred to commuters in his constituency. Many others commute along the line, between the midlands and London, and between the north-west, Scotland and London.

Of course, I have to be conscious, as the hon. Members for Carlisle and for Workington (Tony Cunningham) are, of the potential impact on tourism in Cumbria, which was hugely affected by foot and mouth and which relies on the ability to deliver fast, reliable and consistent transport facilities to the county. None the less, on balance, most of us would conclude that the SRA made an appropriate judgment. I have not sought to make political capital by attacking that decision, but there are important assurances to be given that the quality of the alternative service will be properly maintained.

I have a series of quick questions for the Minister. Will he address the question that has been raised by all parties on the quality of that alternative transport? Clearly there are issues relating to who will be responsible for providing it and what the standard will be.

The BBC website quotes a Railtrack spokesman—this was a few days before Network Rail took over, so I imagine that that person now works for the new company—who said that

"the difference in journey times for intercity commuters would be just two minutes and no Virgin passengers would have to use buses."

That is extremely reassuring, but it is also slightly implausible. It would be helpful to know whether the Government will take a role in achieving that.

Several Members have made the point that there is widespread disappointment that the 140 mph full speed of the pendolinos is unlikely to be achieved in the near future. Will the Minister comment on the remarks made by the SRA in its original announcement? Point one of the SRA note to editors, at the end of its press release, states:

"140-mile hour tilt running on WCML is the subject of further analysis and examination."

That is an interesting phrase, which may or may not mean something. The general expectation is that we will not have 140 mph capacity for at least a decade. Will the Minister comment on whether such capacity is a possibility, perhaps in the next decade, or should we accept that it will not exist for a very long time, if ever?

There are also financial implications. The Minister has had conversations with people in and around Network Rail and thus will be even more familiar than I am with some of the financial issues that are arising. I am told that Network Rail's expenditure on basic maintenance work across the whole national rail network runs about 37 per cent. ahead of budget and that its overall expenditure runs about 50 per cent. ahead. It will be interesting to hear whether he can confirm that.

I am also told that there are serious concerns in the company. Although Network Rail believes that is has improved the management compared with Railtrack, there is, none the less, concern that a large proportion of the funds allocated by the Government in the 10-year transport plan may end up being used on basic maintenance work, before upgrades are even considered. The SRA has predicted that, although the cost of the west coast main line upgrade will be less than the worst-case scenario of £13 billion, it will still be more than the Government originally budgeted for. Will the Minister clarify whether additional Government funding will be available if that proves to be the case?

On the website of the European Commission—bless it—the west coast main line is referred to as an "EU priority transport project". The website claims that that is

"being funded by loans from the European Investment Bank."

The Minister will be reassured to learn that there is no reference to anybody else putting in money, although I suspect that the Government are putting in rather more than the European investment bank. Does the Minister know whether the EU might be prepared to provide more funding?

I want to leave time for the Minister to reply, so I will keep my remaining points brief. Will he address the implications of the fire dispute for the west coast main line and the national rail network as a whole? Yesterday in the House, the Deputy Prime Minister pointed out, entirely appropriately, that safety considerations should be taken into account by the Health and Safety Executive and that the HSE is an independent body that will reach its own conclusions. He also said that if the HSE rules that a service is safe to be provided, that service should go ahead. The Minister knows that those involved in providing our rail service are anxious about the implications of the fire brigades strike.

The Minister also knows that train operators are concerned about legal liability. We live in a much more litigious society than we did 20 or 30 years ago. If the HSE, as an independent part, yet still a part, of the Government, rules that it is safe for train operating companies to provide a service on a day when the Fire Brigades Union is on strike, will the Government work with insurance companies and others to ensure that the HSE's determination provides, in effect, a legal indemnity for train operating companies, in the event of action being taken against them as the result of an accident? We all hope that there will not be accidents, but the train operating companies need to know that they are acting with proper legal and insurance cover if they are to provide a service that is close to normal, which I hope they do, even on days when the fire brigade is on strike.

The west coast main line is an asset of immense national importance, and I hope that all of us, on a cross-party basis, pay tribute to, and urge success for, those who are working extremely hard to deliver a much better service on it. If they were to achieve that, it would benefit the constituents of many hon. Members who are present, and the entire nation. I hope that the Minister takes this message from the debate: anything and everything that he can do to deliver an improved west coast main line will earn a hearty three cheers from many people throughout the country.

I congratulate the hon. Member for Cheadle (Mrs. Calton) on securing the debate, although much of her contribution was like a "Focus" leaflet. She even referred to the Liberal Democrats being all in favour of freight, although concerned that freight trains might run at night—which is, of course, when freight normally runs on the rail network. She also raised questions about work on the line, many of which are addressed in the consultation document. At least that is now in the public domain. That is the opposite of the normal way of doing things, which is to find out when the pavements are going to be repaired and demand that it happens in the near future.

I also wish to stress that this is a consultation document. The Strategic Rail Authority is asking for early comments by November, if that is possible, and for final comments by 16 December. I urge those colleagues—and the local organisations on whose behalf they are speaking—who wish to make comments and suggestions to input them to the SRA. Indeed, some of them have already been taken on board. For example, the hon. Member for Tatton (Mr. Osborne) made a point about the Wilmslow-Styal-Manchester line, and I understand that the local service can be confirmed. Since the publication of the draft strategy, Network Rail has confirmed that trains will still be able to get to Wilmslow. I will follow up that matter with a letter to the hon. Gentleman.

I now wish to rattle quickly through the overall picture with regard to the west coast main line. There are a lot of questions to deal with, and I hope to answer as many of them as possible during my contribution, and to write to several hon. Members on other matters.

The importance of the west coast main line has been clearly stated by hon. Members. It is the key artery from London to the midlands, and on to north-western Scotland, for both passengers and freight. There was substantial investment in the line when it was electrified in the 1960s and the early-1970s. Since then, as the hon. Member for Westmorland and Lonsdale (Mr. Collins) said—in an unusually consensual manner—Governments of both main parties have neglected their responsibilities on maintenance and renewal.

I am optimistic that the upgrade of the west coast main line will be completed. Indeed, comments have been made today that the vast majority of it is renewable. However, I seek an assurance that once the upgrade is completed, sufficient money will be put into the line to keep it in a reasonable state, so that our successors will not have to debate this issue again in 20 or 30 years' time.

My hon. Friend is right. One of the lessons that has been painfully learned from the condition of the rail network is that maintaining the system is as important as, and frequently more important than, considering extensions, although several of those will be significant. However, we must not return to the position in which we are saving money in the short term, but that results in considerable costs to the service, including a financial cost.

There was growing demand, and major renewals were becoming increasingly urgent and necessary. Therefore, there was a need and an opportunity to upgrade the line to increase capacity and improve performance. That was the logic behind the contract that Railtrack entered into in 1997–98. I am sure that I do not need to remind the House of the mess that Railtrack made of that crucial investment. "We will do it for £2.3 billion" it said, and it mentioned new signalling technology and speeds of 140 mph. However, it could not deliver those things, and it could not deliver them at that price. Costs spiralled, without any hint of their being controlled. It was not only that Railtrack could not control its costs; it did not understand them, either. There were indications that the estimated cost could have risen to some £13 billion. Certainly, with modernisation, the figure could have gone even beyond that amount.

Railtrack could not deliver the outputs. What worked on a blank piece of paper did not work in practice. There are some 16 train operators on the west coast main line running passenger and freight services, fast and slow services and transporting long-distance and local commuters. It eventually dawned on Railtrack that it would not be sensible to rely on signalling systems that were yet to be developed in order to cope with that complex mix of traffic. That led to more redesigning and cost increases. Even then, Railtrack did not know what assets needed to be renewed on the line, and it still had not begun to attempt to produce a workable timetable that would provide slots to allow the different services to operate.

It became clear, particularly last year after the company had gone into administration, that Railtrack had made commitments without knowing the extent of the necessary works and how it could deliver the ambitious outputs that were promised. With the necessary signalling technology still years away, there was no way of providing a 140 mph operation without eating massively into the capacity for other services. The resulting problems led to the severe cost overruns and slippage that I mentioned.

We all know that Railtrack struggled, and failed, to find a workable and affordable solution. Under its management the project was undeliverable. Thankfully, Railtrack is history. Network Rail has taken over. That is a significant advance. Prior to that, however, the new Railtrack management under John Armitt—a much more engineering-orientated organisation—was already making a difference.

Faced with the mess that was left by Railtrack, we acted decisively with the SRA. On 9 October, the SRA published a consultation document on the strategy for the west coast main line route modernisation project, which has already been mentioned. The SRA has worked with Network Rail and in partnership with the rest of the railway industry and thoroughly reviewed the upgrade project. It has worked up coherent measures that, for the first time, have been matched against a clear and deliverable set of outputs. That massive undertaking will deliver more than 780 miles of upgraded railway, the renewal of 585 miles of overhead wires and equipment and more than 1,000 switches and crossings.

I will make a quick point on the replacement of track. I have always been concerned about the security of supply. My constituency contains the only plant in the entire United Kingdom that makes railway lines, and it has been under threat. Will the Minister continue to support that plant?

My hon. Friend is aware that I am concerned about the viability of the manufacturing and supply side of the railway industry. That is precisely to ensure that the rail system in this country continues to receive the appropriate service in manufacturing and replacement. As he knows, we have had regular discussions with him, the trade union that represents the work force, the rail companies and the company that he mentioned.

The new strategy will include a provision for tilting trains operating at 125 mph along the full route. That will result in significant improvements to journey times. For example, the journey time from London to Manchester will be cut by half an hour. I can tell my hon. Friend the Member for Liverpool, Riverside (Mrs. Ellman) that Liverpool will benefit substantially. The 125 mph service will run most of the way to Liverpool in 2004. That will be some 34 minutes quicker than the present service and will be of considerable advantage. As I understand it, Liverpool will face only a short period of closure.

I can also tell Manchester Members that we are considering, in individual cases, whether to divert trains along one or another arm towards Manchester. That also applies to the Scottish route. The idea that the route to Scotland is cut off is incorrect. I put it to the hon. Member for North Tayside (Pete Wishart) that if the trains go faster between London and the north-west, they will get to Glasgow earlier. I think that they are already getting to Glasgow about half an hour earlier, which is of considerable advantage.

There will be more frequent inter-city trains—an increase of 80 per cent. in the number of services—and four trains an hour from London to Birmingham. Hon. Members who were perhaps understandably critical of Virgin should consider the Virgin voyager system that was mentioned by the hon. Member for North Tayside. That is significantly enhancing this country's cross-country services.

We are looking for better performance and increased reliability. The SRA's target is for 90 per cent. of trains to arrive within 10 minutes by 2008 and an increase of freight capacity by 60 to 70 per cent., which is obviously significant—

Order. It is time for us to move on to our next topic for consideration, which is about the protection of the green belt in Morley and Rothwell.

Thank you, Mr. Deputy Speaker. May I thank Mr. Speaker for allowing me the opportunity to raise this important local subject? The debate comes at a timely moment.

According to the latest issue of the House of Commons research paper "Social Indicators", there are now about 120,000 homeless people in England, despite the fact that there are 750,000 empty dwellings. That telling comparison confirms the old estate agents' adage, "It's all about location, location, location." That is because many such empty dwellings are in places in which people do not want to live.

I am sure that a similar pattern exists in the district covered by Leeds city council. There are many people who want to move elsewhere and there are unpopular estates. Such a shift of population, together with different lifestyles and, most importantly, the economic success of Leeds, has placed almost intolerable burdens on the green belt. That has led to parts of my constituency becoming overburdened with new housing.

I have been given figures that suggest that over one quarter of the population growth in the Leeds district over the next five years will occur in Morley and Rothwell. I suggest that much of that population will be accommodated on greenfield sites. Indeed, my rough estimate is that, because half the projected population growth in Leeds is destined for the Leeds, Central constituency and my constituency, and because Leeds, Central contains little, if any, green belt, my area seems destined to take a disproportionate hit on the green belt.

Such growth is unsustainable. The problem is not only that large, new housing estates are being built without extra infrastructure, which forces more people to drive to shops or to make other small journeys by car, but that several communities face the prospect of being joined up. I fear that, if we are not careful, small communities on the edge of the city will lose their identity entirely. There are several examples of that happening in my constituency, and further erosion of green belt must be resisted. One only needs to look at a map of Leeds to see the danger to the south of the city.

People often mix up green belt with greenfield, which is understandable. I draw the Minister's attention to a case about which we have corresponded: a planning application to build on greenfield on Haigh Moor road, West Ardsley. Plans were submitted to build houses on a field that had never been developed. However, it was adjacent to a former slaughterhouse and, decades ago, livestock were kept in the field prior to slaughter. After a few misfires, the council eventually approved a planning application for housing on that site on the ground that the land was brownfield because it had been associated with the slaughterhouse and there was a consequent, but highly unlikely, possibility that it could be used for that purpose again.

Local people have been left scratching their heads about how a green field, which had always been a green field, could be described as brownfield. It seemed to them—it certainly seemed to me—that the definition of brownfield had been stretched beyond reason. What if a farmer had a vegetable freezing plant of some description next to a field in which he grew peas? We all know how we like our fresh, frozen produce. Would that make such a field brownfield?

A further 30-odd houses are to spring up. I wrote to the Office of the Deputy Prime Minister about the decision, which had been upheld on appeal. I asked whether the decision could be called in, in the light of decisions taken elsewhere throughout the country. I was told that the regional government office had considered the matter carefully. In what context, I wonder? Perhaps by meeting the recommendations of the regional policy guidance on housing under which Leeds city council has agreed to take a large share. I am not happy that we have a system that can produce glaring inconsistencies, and I could quote other examples from my constituency.

When inconsistency arises, it is clear that local people cannot see the transparency in planning decisions and they are the ones that must live with the consequences. It is possible that, in the wake of PPG 3, every council will want windfall sites to fall into their laps to relieve the pressures arising from brownfield capacity reviews.

Leeds city council has done an excellent job in encouraging a housing renaissance in the centre of Leeds—the population in the constituency of Leeds, Central is growing again. That is healthy and should be encouraged. It relieves pressure on the green belt, puts a brake on traffic congestion and has the potential to protect inner-city schools, for example.

The urban renaissance would be even more vibrant, however, if the Government ended the incentive of charging value added tax on brownfield but not on greenfield developments. Surely, PPG 3 demands the reversal of such a perverse incentive, but, in Treasury-speak, the matter remains "under review". The Treasury does have some useful measures, such as targeted tax credits for cleaning up contaminated land and enhanced capital allowances for the creation of flats over shops. Indeed, there are reduced VAT rates for renovating old buildings. However, somebody wanting to build new houses on sites that do not qualify is at a great disadvantage compared with somebody building on virgin land. I hope that my hon. Friend the Minister agrees with my assessment and will press the Chancellor to change the VAT rate. That would do much to assist the successful impact of PPG 3.

The Leeds unitary development plan, which was confirmed only last August after 10 years in the making, is up for review. Because of the impact of PPG 3, we will hopefully see a lot of former greenbelt land returned to that status. That is land currently classified as PAS—protected area of search. Those are often sites to which I have already alluded, which lie between villages or provide essential green lungs in developed areas. After PPG 3 and its brownfield capacity study, the council accepts that PAS sites should be returned to greenbelt status.

Local people should be able to air their views about such matters and see change happen as a result, but there has been such a top-down approach to planning in the past that we will have to wait and see. I have a high regard for the professional expertise of planners, but I sometimes wonder whether they genuinely want to open up their decision making to the non-qualified general public. For example, I have a paper that outlines the planner's approach in Leeds. With regard to the unitary development plan it states:

"It is important that there is widespread awareness of the review and its purpose. The limited scope of the exercise needs to be understood. It would be the council that sets the agenda, but it can be anticipated that others will wish to re-open the debate on other issues. Maintaining tight control of the agenda will be important to ensure that: the plan is made more relevant to today's agenda as soon as possible, the scope for debate at and hence the timetable for the public inquiry is limited, and the impact of the proposed changes in the development plan system is anticipated and minimized."

To help to limit the period for consultation, it will start just six shopping days before Christmas and is due to end on some unstated day in February. The period allowed for public engagement, excluding holidays, could last barely more than one month, in a process that goes on for 18 months. That is not good enough. Nobody wants to tear down the carefully crafted edifice of the urban development programme, but the strength of feeling about the seemingly unchecked growth of new housing developments must be addressed or the impact of PPG 3 will be blunted and Government guidance will be seen as toothless and meaningless.

I want new housing, but it must be sensitive to the needs of the people who live in and around it. I want the old buildings in my constituency to be brought back into use, and estates to be refurbished and brought back to life. On that last point, council tenants were consulted at length about the creation of ALMOs—arm's length management organisations—and whether they should have more democratic control over their areas. I urged council tenants to agree to that new approach, as I believe in local democracy. I now want there to be a similar approach to planning. We no longer live in the discredited era of predict and provide, but we must make better use of what we have. The Government's approach is right, and I expect PPG 3 to bring tangible benefits to my constituents by being fully incorporated into the UDP after proper local consultation.

I very much welcome the opportunity to respond to my hon. Friend the Member for Morley and Rothwell (Mr. Challen) on this important matter, and I congratulate him on securing the debate. I share his view that, in the main, Leeds city council is at the forefront of urban renaissance, and much of what it has done to secure the future and sustainability of Leeds city centre is to be praised.

Leeds, Central will, I am sure, be considerably different and better off in the future. I spent a rainy weekend there just before a particular by-election that was responsible for the Under-Secretary of State for the Home Department, my hon. Friend the Member for Leeds, Central (Hilary Benn), taking his place in the House.

I shall first set out the planning framework for the protection of the green belt. The framework is well established and it applies as much to the green belt in Morley and Rothwell as it does to the rest of the country. National policy and guidance on the green belt is set out in planning policy guidance note 2, which was published in January 1995. Its fundamental aim, which underpins much of what my hon. Friend the Member for Morley and Rothwell said, is to prevent urban sprawl by keeping land permanently open. The green belt's most important attribute is its openness, but it can also assist in moving towards more sustainable patterns of development.

There are five key reasons for including land in the green belt: to stop the unrestricted sprawl of large built-up areas; to prevent neighbouring towns from merging with one another, which my hon. Friend mentioned; to assist in safeguarding the countryside from encroachment; to preserve the setting and special character of historic towns; and to assist urban regeneration by encouraging the recycling of derelict and other urban land.

Those aims are paramount and they take precedence over the six key objectives of the green belt, which are: to provide the urban population with opportunities for access to the open countryside; to provide opportunities for outdoor sport and outdoor recreation near urban areas; to retain attractive landscapes and to enhance landscapes near to where people live; to improve damaged and derelict land in and around towns; to secure nature conservation interests; and to retain land for agriculture, forestry and related uses. I agree with my hon. Friend that there is not much of that in Leeds, Central.

The green belt is designated in development plans in accordance with PPG 2 and regional planning guidance. The detailed boundary should be altered exceptionally only once it has been defined in an adopted local plan or UDP. To help to achieve that, local authorities must consider the need to safeguard land between the urban area and the green belt that may be required to meet longer-term development needs.

Does my hon. Friend agree that windfall sites could become significant after the introduction of PPG 3, if it puts pressure on councils actively to encourage them? Has he had many representations on that?

To be perfectly honest, I have not, although I take the point. That is part of what we seek to address with the reform of the planning system, which also aims to tackle the time it takes some authorities to develop, deposit and get approval for their plan. If that process has taken a decade or more, as in the case of Leeds, any windfall is very sudden once the plan is adopted in the context of PPG. There will be a much sharper focus on rapidity and flexibility in developing plans and continually updating them more responsively.

I stress the importance that the Government attach to green belt policy. There are no plans to change it, and my hon. Friend will be pleased to know that, since 1997, the green belt in England has increased by some 30,000 hectares. Guidance on control of development in the green belt is clearly set out in PPG 2. The presumption is against inappropriate development—inappropriate is defined as outside the curtilage of the criteria and objectives that I have already mentioned. Most development in the green belt is inappropriate and should not be approved except in special circumstances Those circumstances are not defined in PPG 2, but are up to the applicant to prove. They vary from case to case.

The Council for the Protection of Rural England sent me a paper before today's debate to say that those exceptional circumstances are becoming more like the norm. Is there any way to monitor whether that is true?

As far as I know, we monitor exceptional circumstances. I happily undertake to inform my hon. Friend of whether we do and, if so, of some exceptional circumstances from particular cases. I disagree with the CPRE view and say that, in quantity if not quality, no more exceptional circumstances are granted now than at any other stage. I shall happily write to my hon. Friend on that.

My hon. Friend will also appreciate that it would not be appropriate for me to comment on the details of current cases. We have exchanged correspondence on Haigh Moor road in West Ardsley. That issue is back with the authority, if not determined, and it would be inappropriate for me to refer to that or any of the numerous other sites in the Morley and Rothwell area about which my hon. Friend is concerned.

As my hon. Friend said, not all greenfield land is green belt. The protection of greenfield sites is provided for in several Government policies, in particular those relating to new housing development and PPG 3, which was published in March 2000. The Government's commitment to promoting more sustainable patterns of development will be achieved by concentrating most new housing developments in urban areas, making more efficient use of land by maximising the re-use of previously developed land, assessing the capacity of urban areas to accommodate more housing, adopting a sequential approach to the allocation of land for housing development, managing the release of housing land and reviewing existing allocations of housing land in plans and planning permissions when they come up for renewal.

The key is that the words "brownfield" and "greenfield" are essentially shorthand. Brownfield sites are previously developed land. The history of uses of a site, rather than whether it is brown and mucky, determines whether it is previously developed and therefore brownfield. That might explain the position to which my hon. Friend alluded.

The Government's national target for the additional housing to be provided by re-use of previously developed land is 60 per cent. by 2008. Success in attaining that will clearly vary from region to region. In Greater London, that figure is already some 91 per cent, and I am sure that it will be significantly over the 60 per cent. mark in parts of the urban core of Leeds. Regional planning guidance for Yorkshire and the Humber— RPG 12—sets the same target for the region for 1998–2016, and the target for Leeds at the slightly higher figure of 66 per cent., considering the preponderance of urban areas.

PPG 3 defines the previously developed land and, with associated better practice guidance, sets out how urban capacity can be assessed and how land release should be managed. PPG 3 and RPG provide guidance on the location of new housing developments. The search sequence should start with the re-use of previously developed land and buildings in urban areas. The presumption will be that previously developed sites should be developed before greenfield, except where previously developed sites performed so poorly in relation to the criteria in paragraph 31 of PPG 3 as to preclude their use for housing.

Of course, many plans that are not up to date are likely to include greenfield allocations. To ensure that PPG 3 policies were put into practice, we introduced a direction in October 2000, which required referral of large housing proposals on greenfield allocations to the Secretary of State if the local planning authority were minded to grant planning permission. That is a halfway house or a transition between a fully developed and deposited plan and the notion of windfall to which my hon. Friend referred. The Government are keen to ensure that where, as in Leeds, development plans do not fully accord with PPG 3, they are reviewed as quickly as possible.

I shall now consider the local planning policy for the protection of green belt and greenfield sites as set out in the Leeds UDP. After a lengthy preparation of more than 10 years. to which my hon. Friend alluded, it was adopted on 1 August 2001. The plan designates extensive areas of green belt around the built up area of the city and sets up policies for the protection of this land, including Morley and Rothwell. It also designates land as

"protected areas of search for long-term development",

some of which is former green belt. Those protected areas of search form a buffer between the urban area and the green belt. As my hon. Friend said, such sites exist in the Morley and Rothwell area.

Preparation of the current UDP and the public inquiry into objections pre-dated PPG 3 and, before its adoption, the Secretary of State made representations that the housing policies did not reflect PPG 3. In particular, the Secretary of State was concerned that insufficient priority had been given to re-using previously developed land in urban areas, which is my hon. Friend's anxiety, and that the plan would not provide a policy framework to bring forward the development of previously developed sites before that of greenfield sites—the sequential test in PPG 3.

In response to the Secretary of State's representations, the council modified the plan to reflect a broader commitment to follow PPG 3 principles. It was also committed to the plan's early review. It is also worth noting that if the council wanted to approve a large housing development on a greenfield allocation, the application would have to be referred to the Secretary of State under the greenfield housing direction while the UDP is being reviewed. On that basis, and in view of how long it took to prepare the plan, the Secretary of State did not intervene further in the plan's adoption.

I am not sure exactly what counts as a large-scale development—perhaps 100 or 150 houses—but large developments can occur sequentially. Another 30 houses will encroach on previously green land and, a few years later, another 30 are built. Eventually, perhaps over a decade, the developer's objective is met when 100 houses are in place on a site, but, because it has developed sequentially, nobody can refer to a particular right.

I take my hon. Friend's point and I shall write to him about the number of houses that count as a large development. After 11 years on a planning committee, all this is not exactly new to me. I know that, under the current framework and policy, councils can view the piecemeal development of a larger site as a material planning consideration in any determination of whether to develop that site further.

That may not apply in every instance, or in a silly and ridiculous way, but if 30 houses on part of a site are clearly a bridgehead for subsequent development, provision is made in the framework to deal with it. When I was on the other side of the table—I am not sure whether I was or am now the poacher or the gamekeeper—we could use available policies in the context of an urban fringe such as that described by my hon. Friend.

I am pleased to hear about the speedy review of the Leeds UDP—that is good news. I am also aware that work on an urban capacity study has started, which must also be welcomed. I hope that the results of that inform the review and perhaps overcome the non-PPG 3-specific aspects of the current UDP.

I am mindful of what my hon. Friend said about the review process, and I certainly exhort Leeds, within the framework that it needs to work in, to suggest a process that engages local communities as much as possible and that works for all of Leeds. I am aware of the strength of feeling that he suggests is abundant in the city. That needs to be addressed, however narrow and limited the planning process, not only by the people of Leeds but, crucially, by their public representatives—MPs and councilors—to ensure that the review process is exploited as fully as possible, given that it has taken so long for the review to come.

I understand that it is proposed that the review will be selective and focus on issues where change is necessary—exactly those that my hon. Friend mentioned. One is housing strategy. Guidance in PPG 3, including the sequential approach to site selection, should be taken into account. The council proposes that the review will also consider the role of land designated as protected areas of search, to which I have referred. There is a possibility of returning some of that land to the green belt, but it is not for me to pre-empt the review.

I understand that, as part of the review, the council proposes to undertake an extensive, far-reaching and inclusive pre-deposit consultation programme. It says that that is planned to start this winter; it does not say that it is to start six shopping days before Christmas, but I take the point. I welcome what has been said, so long as the pre-deposit phase is followed by a wider deposit phase, and the early phase is merely the start of proper consultation and engagement. I take on board my hon. Friend's point that it is no longer sufficient for planning as a wider process and the development plan specifically to be all top-down and imposed on communities that have to live with the consequences.

Concerns were raised about VAT. I am sure that my hon. Friend appreciates that taxation decisions are a matter for my right hon. Friend the Chancellor of the Exchequer, although the Government have reduced VAT to encourage conversions of existing property to residential dwellings and the re-use of long-term empty homes. That is part of a package that will help to make better use of existing housing stock and encourage reuse of previously developed land, but, as my hon. Friend said, the Treasury has other fiscal instruments under review. He might like to consult this month's Inside Housing for a wider view from me.

I thank my hon. Friend for giving way; he has been generous with his time. I read today that my right hon. Friend the Chancellor is considering a range of green taxes—not least, perhaps, on landfill—before the pre-Budget statement. Will the Office of the Deputy Prime Minister make representations on VAT?

The Office of the Deputy Prime Minister has been in extensive discussions with the Chancellor on a range of fiscal instruments that impact on it and its responsibilities.

In December 2001, we issued a Green Paper, "Planning: Delivering a Fundamental Change". We seek the earliest possible opportunity to legislate where needed. The paper recognises the need to enable local communities to be involved much more positively, including in the development plan process.

We look forward to the review of the Leeds UDP with great interest, not least in the context of how it will fully take on board all that is in PPG 3 and the sequential release and use of land, which is the crux of everything my hon. Friend said. The sequence involving brownfield and greenfield land and the green belt is crucial to the long-term future and sustainability of urban centres such as Leeds, and central to all that we are doing on future urban renaissance and the advance of such areas.

I again congratulate my hon. Friend on raising these important issues. I am mindful that I have said on at least two or three occasions that I shall write to him about particular matters, and I shall ensure that I do so in the coming weeks. I exhort him to stay in touch with me about the pre-deposit consultation and the consultation on the review, so that, in the end, the people of Leeds get the UDP that they deserve to move forward.

In the years that I have been privileged to be a Member of Parliament, I have travelled to agricultural, rural and fruit-producing areas in many parts of the world, including Africa, Asia, the Indian sub-continent and Latin America. I am invariably asked what constituency I represent. Hon. Members would be forgiven for thinking that "Tonbridge" and "Mailing" are not words that command instantaneous international recognition, but they would be wrong. When I say that I represent Tonbridge and Malling, the response all over the world is, "Oh yes, that is where the fruit research is carried out."

HRI East Malling, formerly the East Malling research station, is a research establishment of genuinely worldwide renown. Against that background, it has come as a source of acute dismay, even disbelief, that the Government could be contemplating the closure of that remarkable research establishment, which is of proven international capacity. Indeed, the announcement has been greeted with shock not only in East Malling, but in the British horticultural industry as a whole. I am deeply concerned about and, I believe, justifiably critical of, the content of the announcement and its handling.

Most regrettably, the Department's press release did not even accurately reflect the key recommendation in relation to East Mailing contained in the "Quinquennial Review of Horticulture Research International". Paragraph 1.6.3 of that review states:

"we recommend that East Mailing is either closed or, preferably, transferred with some of the existing staff to the East Mailing Trust for Horticultural Research."

Most regrettably, the key word—"preferably"—was omitted from the Department's press release, implying that the Government are entirely neutral as between the options of closure or transfer to the East Mailing trust.

Inescapably, in those circumstances, closure blight now threatens HRI East Mailing. The key elements in any research establishment are, of course, the people. If there is closure blight people contemplate leaving and might actually do so. Research contracts that are coming to an end might not be renewed, and new contracts will not be entered into. I must tell the Minister candidly, that the suspicion—wholly unfounded, I hope—is that the Government want to close HRI East Mailing in all circumstances. I earnestly hope that he can give me a categorical assurance that that is not the case.

I am also very critical of the timetable for consultation, particularly in the context of HRI East Mailing, which is potentially far and away the research establishment most seriously affected by the announcement. The announcement of possible closure was given in the press release of 23 September. The consultation closing date was announced as 18 November, which is barely eight weeks flat. That is a totally unrealistic timetable in which to put together the non-closure option—in other words, the transfer option to the East Mailing trust.

That transfer will involve the creation of a completely separate charity, or company limited by guarantee, to contain the assets and the business of what is now HRI East Mailing; the production of a detailed business plan and the negotiation and working out of contractual arrangements between the new independent HRI East Mailing and the existing East Mailing trust; and the establishment of the continuing terms, conditions and pension rights of existing HRI staff who are transferred to the new independent East Mailing. It will involve getting clear commitments from the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs as to its future financial policy and placing of research contracts with the new organisation. Those commitments must be sufficient to enable the trust's trustees to take decisions. A substantial amount of work will need to be done by lawyers, consultants and others. It is ludicrous to suggest that all that can be done in eight weeks. I urge the Minister to tell us that the Government will show a sensible degree of flexibility about the timetable for consultation.

To assist the Minister in giving detailed replies, I gave him in advance my eight specific questions, which are as follows. First, DEFRA has stated that, as an alternative to closure, HRI East Mailing should become an independent research station under the auspices of the East Mailing Trust for Horticultural Research. Will DEFRA fund the legal and consultancy fees necessary to bring that structure into being? Unless DEFRA is willing to fund those inescapable fees, a merger or transfer to the trust will not be able to take place, as it would be impossible for the trust, which is a charitable organisation, to engage in large expenditure on professional fees that might conceivably bring no results.

My second question relates to paragraph 1.6.3 of the quinquennial review, which states that

"interim financial arrangements may be needed"

to create an independent East Mailing under the auspices of the East Mailing Trust for Horticultural Research. Does the Minister accept that interim financial arrangements will be needed, and are the Government, through DEFRA, prepared to provide the necessary interim finance to enable HRI East Mailing to make the transition to independent status under the auspices of the trust?

Thirdly, well over half of HRI East Mailing's income comes from DEFRA contracts obtained competitively. Will the Minister give a clear assurance that DEFRA will continue to place contracts, when competitive, with the new independent East Mailing, which has to exist outside HRI? Without such an assurance, the consultation on a transfer or merger with a trust is a charade, given the extreme dependence of the research establishment on DEFRA contracts—again, I stress the fact that those contracts have been won competitively by East Mailing.

Fourthly, the review rightly says that research institutions need at least 40 per cent. of their budget to be secured over a four to five-year period, and that they cannot survive efficiently with too much of their budget dependent on competitive funding. What assurance will the Minister give that DEFRA will place with East Mailing contracts of sufficient length to make an independent East Mailing viable?

As a Minister, I was involved in the research establishment business in that I had responsibility for the Building Research Establishment. Anyone with that type of experience knows that one cannot run a research establishment in the public sector on a hand-to-mouth basis, with only short-term contracts lasting a year or so. Such establishments need the security of having a significant proportion of their income underpinned by longer contracts, running for four or five years.

Fifthly, the review makes it clear that almost all the Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council's funds are spent at Wellesbourne. Will the Minister give an assurance that an independent East Mailing will have access to BBSRC funding on the same basis as Wellesbourne currently enjoys? That key area of ministerial policy is judged to be very important to East Mailing's ability to make its way independently under the auspices of the trust.

Sixthly, will the Minister explain how it happened that his Department made the welcome decision to finance the new £2.8 million conference centre at East Mailing, which was officially opened on 20 September, only for his Department to announce the possible closure of East Mailing three days later, on 23 September?

Seventhly, will the Minister clarify whether the staff of HRI East Mailing who move to an independent East Mailing will have their present terms and conditions of service protected, together with their pension rights? Will the Department meet the costs of any redundancies?

My eighth and final question is, will the Minister acknowledge that, contrary to the impression given in the review, East Mailing's research focus is not on soft and top fruit alone but extends to ornamental shrubs, woodlands, hops, amenity horticulture and tropical forestry, all of which have considerable commercial potential? It would give some reassurance to those who work at East Mailing to know that the Minister and his Department acknowledge that East Mailing has a much wider operational base than is suggested in the report.

I come finally to the grounds on which the review body based their regrettable decision that East Mailing may be closed. The basis for the review body's conclusion in the report is far from clear, and one suspects that it is financially oriented. If that is the case, I should give the Minister some key facts. The British horticultural industry has a turnover of £3 billion, one third of which links into research carried out at East Mailing. It is clear from the accounts of HRI East Mailing that, given a reasonable level of DEFRA contract placing on a competitive basis, East Mailing can wash its face financially. Surely it cannot make financial sense to contemplate the closure of a nationally valuable research establishment, which is financially viable and which supports a huge industry that is, by definition, import-saving and that has good export prospects and actual exports.

I trust that the Minister will give me a clear assurance that the Government accept that not closure but merger with the trust is the preferred option. In my view, it should be the only option now on the table. He and his Department should make every effort to bring that merger with the trust to a successful conclusion—it is in the national interest that that should be the outcome.

I congratulate the right hon. Member for Tonbridge and Mailing (Sir John Stanley) on instigating the debate and finding international status for his constituency.

The Government provide substantial funding for horticultural research and development, and we spent more than £18 million on it in Great Britain in 2001–02. At nearly £10 million, DEFRA's horticultural budget accounts for 7 per cent. of our total research and development budget this year. In cash terms, the horticultural programme is the third-largest after environmental protection and BSE.

I am not sure that the right hon. Gentleman did his constituents any favours by being so critical of DEFRA, which is grasping a nettle that has needed to be grasped for some time. Speedy decisions are needed to ensure a secure future for HRI, and he rather contradicted himself by suggesting that further delay would be good for the establishment's future. He is wrong to cast doubt on DEFRA's commitment to finding a sustainable future. HRI is our country's leading provider of horticultural research and development services. It is rightly regarded as a centre of excellence, and DEFRA continues to be its principal customer, providing almost 50 per cent. of its income.

The report of the review contains challenging findings. Paragraph 5 of the executive summary states:

"HRI has been over-dependent upon DEFRA and should cease to be classified as a Non-Departmental Public Body sponsored by DEFRA. It should continue to operate in the public sector, as a company limited by guarantee with charitable status. As such, HRI should take full responsibility for its financial well being."

That is a challenging but positive conclusion. The review team members also stated in their findings:

"Above all, we urge Ministers to take decisive, active and positive decisions about the future of HRI. Furthermore, we recommend that Ministers engage in a constructive consultation programme on this report."

They recommended

"that East Mailing is either closed or, preferably, transferred with some of the existing staff to the East Mailing Trust for Horticultural Research."

That is a clear set of proposals.

The three-month consultation on the quinquennial review team's report runs to 18 November. HRI will continue until Ministers have considered the options and decided the way forward. When that has been done, we will proceed by discussion with all stakeholders, including the East Mailing trustees. There is no question of having to solve the issues of staff and pensions by 18 November, but we are happy to talk to the trust about those important issues.

HRI is at an important stage of its history following the publication of the quinquennial review report. I am sure that the right hon. Gentleman understands that we are not in a position to respond to either all the detail of the review today, or to all his questions. The report was prepared by a distinguished and independent team of experts. It makes a thorough and challenging assessment of the institution's circumstances, as well as some radical and 'well argued recommendations about the future direction of HRI.

It is important to get this right, so the Department has invited stakeholders to comment on the report before Ministers take decisions. We have also commissioned consultants to provide further financial analysis of the review team's main recommendations. We need to ensure that the proposals are robust and tested and that they will stand the test of time.

Staff and other HRI stakeholders are anxious to know their future and that of the institution. I completely understand that desire—having lived through a period of reorganisation in my own professional career, I know how unsettling it is, not only for the individuals involved, but for their families and the wider community. I know understand how it can disrupt normal working and the effectiveness of professional activity, but that is one reason why we need to proceed quickly to conclusions. We shall try to reach and implement decisions expeditiously, but that must not be at the expense of proper analysis of the issues.

We must make sure that our decisions are based on a sound assessment of the various options, and that they create robust and durable solutions. A key consideration in reaching decisions will be ensuring that HRI has a stable platform from which to develop its future business, taking account of actual and potential funding possibilities and business opportunities available to it.

However, it is not for the Government alone to provide for the future of Horticulture Research International. The horticulture industry is a key partner. The Government's primary consideration when they first set up the institution was the industry's wish for an institution that would provide a critical mass of horticultural research capacity. Those involved in HRI's management must ensure that it operates in the most cost effective and efficient manner.

The operation at East Malling is the oldest of the organisations that were merged in 1990 to create Horticulture Research International. It was originally set up in 1913 at the initiative of the local horticulture businesses, supported by grants from the then Board of Agriculture and Kent county council. Like the Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food before it, DEFRA continues to be a major customer of HRI. This year, we have commissioned research projects worth nearly £3 million. DEFRA has a number of research programmes at East Mailing, including breeding work on top, stone and soft fruit; improving propagation rates; the genetics of hardy nursery stock and fruit quality; pest and disease control in fruit crops; organic apple production; biodiversity of ground flora and tree improvement in farm woodlands. I recognise the scope of the activities that are undertaken at East Malling.

Some of the work is due to end in March 2003, but we hope to commission new projects on apple, pear, cherry, plum and raspberry breeding, subject to the receipt of satisfactory research proposals and the securing of the necessary funding. New projects on tree improvement in farm woodlands and local provenance of trees and shrubs are intended for next year, in partnership with the Forestry Commission. Projects on propagation and the improvement of hardy nursery stock are also planned, with some work in that area being put to open competition or to the joint Government-industry LINK programme.

We are also strong supporters of the new organic research and conference centre that was opened at East Malling in September. That was made possible by a grant of more than £2 million won competitively from the Treasury's capital modernisation fund, with financial support provided by the East Mailing Trust for Horticultural Research. HRI also deserves credit for attracting the enterprise hub with the support of the South East England Development Agency.

I recognise that the review team's recommendations about the future of the site—including its view that it might have to be closed—cannot make comfortable reading for HRI's staff and customers. However, I note that the review team considered that the site has the potential for a successful future as a regional centre for applied research and knowledge transfer, provided that it receives the necessary support from DEFRA and the horticulture industry. With that in mind, the Department's officials have been in contact with the East Mailing trust to discuss what role it might play in the site's future. That dialogue will continue. I do not think that it would be right, as the right hon. Gentleman suggests, to put all our eggs in one basket, but the time being spent in discussion with the trust shows that we have responded positively to the report in that respect.

The right hon. Gentleman asked some specific questions, and he might be reassured to know that I think that they are the right questions. However, we need to reflect on stakeholders' responses to the current consultations, and we have not yet reached the end of that process. There is also a need for discussion with the board and management of Horticulture Research International and with the East Mailing trust, before all the questions can be answered.

The right hon. Gentleman will understand what I mean when I say that he has both asked for immediate answers to certain questions, and suggested the need for time to work through some of the issues. We need to move quickly if we are to achieve a secure future for the organisation, but it would be inappropriate to answer some of the questions in advance of the discussions, or to rush to judgment.

Paragraph 1.6.3 of the quinquennial review, to which the right hon. Gentleman referred, suggests that

"interim financial arrangements may be needed."

That was the finding of an independent team of experts, whose recommendations will be considered in the light of responses to the public consultation exercise and the results of further financial analysis. It would be inappropriate to give a yes or no answer until that has been done. I am not answering no to the question today, and I understand that it is important to the right hon. Gentleman and to people in East Malling that those questions should be considered and fully answered.

The right hon. Gentleman asked for an assurance about the placing of contracts. As I have already said, there is no reason why East Malling should not continue to receive research income from DEFRA, provided its work continues to meet our objectives and satisfies the criteria for selecting proposals. He also sought assurances in relation to the statement in the review that research institutions need to have at least 40 per cent. of their budget secure over a four to five-year period. We need to discuss that detailed matter with the East Malling trust—assuming that, as a result of the discussions that are taking place, it wishes to take over the site. We are sympathetic to the argument that DEFRA work placed at the site should have an element of stability, but the future of East Malling will depend largely on the site's ability to attract a range of work from customers in the public and private sectors, not only from DEFRA. It is important to achieve the right mix so that the new organisation is competitive. That is the secret of its secure future.

Will the Minister answer a key question and tell us whether DEFRA is willing, at least in principle, to pay the cost of the considerable professional fees that will be incurred, without which it will not be possible to begin the work of creating a separate entity for HRI East Mailing, of negotiating a memorandum of understanding between East Malling and the trust, and of developing a business plan?

I am not ruling that in or out, but as I have said, it is one of the issues that we will consider, not least in discussion with HR I's management and the East Malling trust.

The right hon. Gentleman also asked about the opening of the conference centre on 20 September 2002, three days before the review's findings were announced. There is no link between the two events. With the Department's support, in 2000 the Treasury awarded a grant of £2.2 million from its capital modernisation fund to enable HRI to build its new organic centre; the East Mailing trust subsequently provided additional investment of £500,000. As I have explained, the quinquennial review report was prepared by an independent team of experts, which started work in December 2001.

The right hon. Gentleman asked about employment arrangements. We cannot deal with that matter in advance of decisions about the future shape of the organisation. We shall certainly try to reach early decisions so as to minimise uncertainty for staff, whose representatives will be consulted in the normal way. I understand the difficulty presented by uncertainty, but the best way to achieve long-term certainty for staff is to ensure that the outcome of the discussions provides a robust platform for the long-term security and future success of the organisation, which, as the right hon. Gentleman said, has an international reputation.

We must now turn our attention to the final topic for debate today.

I am most grateful for the opportunity to raise an important issue that is affecting people in my locality, although its ramifications extend well beyond Braintree and its sister town of Bocking.

The issue has been highlighted by the imminent closure of St. Francis's nursing home in Bocking. appreciate that the Under-Secretary of State for Health, my hon. Friend the Member for Tottenham (Mr. Lammy), and his Department are not responsible for the closure. The home is a charitable institution run by the Missionary Franciscan Sisters of the Immaculate Conception. Although its closure is entirely a matter for them, the same is not true of its effect on the patients, their relatives and friends, and others who live in Braintree and Bocking.

As I said, the home is run by the Franciscan order. It is adjacent to St. Francis's convent, which was founded towards the end of the 19th century. The property was, in part, acquired from the Courtauld family, who played a large part in the development of Braintree. The home does not adjoin the convent, but is on the other side of the appropriately named Convent lane. It has had a number of uses over the years—as an orphanage and then a school—before becoming a nursing home. It currently has permission to provide 40 residential nursing places.

It is not only the Franciscan order that has contributed to running the home; a substantial and successful appeals committee has operated for many years. Only last week, I spoke to Susan Harper, a former Braintree councillor who has served on the committee for many years. She told me that it had raised about £1 million, predominantly from the small communities of Braintree and Bocking. That substantial sum has not been spent on matters ancillary to nursing care; it has been expended in large part on the building's fabric and on providing the material wherewithal to run the home. The effects of that spending will disappear if the home is closed.

For several weeks in the summer, there was rumoured to be a notice of closure. Closure was announced in mid-summer and it is now scheduled for 10 January 2003. Like the local people, I understand that there may be reasons why the Franciscan sisters do not want or cannot continue to run the nursing home. They might be unable to find a sufficient number of sisters who are young enough or able enough to carry out that function. I make no criticism whatever of the local Franciscan sisters, who are held in high regard in Braintree and who for many years have done a wonderful job for those in their care. I am fairly certainly, however, that the decision was not taken in Braintree. I suspect that it was taken on the advice of the accountants, solicitors and land valuers who advise the head of the order, who is, I believe, in Rome.

The purpose of the local campaign is to secure the future of St. Francis' as a nursing home, and there is a great desire to find another proprietor. Although the names of potential buyers have been put forward, people remain concerned. I have no connection with BUPA, but I made a cold call to ask whether it would be interested in running the home. It expressed an interest, and, quite naturally, I passed the information on to the Franciscan order. The local care trust, which was set up only last month—I cut the welcome cake at its inauguration—has also expressed great interest in being involved in the operation of the nursing home, and I understand that other prospective purchasers have shown an interest

I have spoken to Dr. Paul Zollinger-Reid, the new chief executive of the care trust, who is most anxious to ensure that the facility is maintained and extended in the Braintree district. I have written to the Bishop of Brentwood, as have others, and only yesterday we attended upon the office of the Archbishop of Westminster, Cardinal Murphy-O'Connor, to present a petition of more than 2,000 names urging him to use his good offices to seek to persuade those who take such decisions to keep the home open, albeit with another proprietor. So far, unfortunately, there is no news. In many spheres of life, it is said that no news is good news, but as the days slip by I fear that, in case of St. Francis', no news is bad news.

I do not know whether it was the delivery of the petition or the imminence of this debate, but I am told that yesterday, several months after the first approach was made, a representative from BUPA was being shown around the home. It is often said that one swallow does not make a summer, and there is no more than one swallow, but it is certainly the first spark of hope.

One of the banes of nursing home provision and many other types of social provision is the high price of land. Braintree is a housing boom town. Houses are going up in every vacant space, both in the town and in the surrounding areas. That impedes progress, because the higher the price of land, the more difficult it is to use it for anything other than the building of houses. In the past, when land was cheap, mid and north Essex had the advantage of public institutions with large gardens and surrounding green areas. Those green areas remain, but they provide a terrible temptation for housebuilders and developers to acquire public or charitable institutions and develop them for other purposes than were originally intended St Francis's home is no exception. We need to consider the importance of the value of land in our social policies. I wonder whether it is time to reread Henry George's "Poverty and Progress" in order to realise the link between the price of land and the speed with which we can make progress.

If St. Francis's nursing home closes, 40 places will be lost. I accept that it currently has only 16 residents, but that is because the order has decided to reduce the number of places to none by January—which is understandable if the home is to close. The constituency of Braintree has a total of 89 places for more than 100,000 people—not a good ratio, which will worsen if the closure of St. Francis's goes through—and not all those places are available to the public: more than half are available only to private patients. The reason for that is probably divinable: the prices paid by private patients can be higher than those paid for by state organisations.

Essex county council, which is currently controlled by our political opponents, is conducting a review of care home facilities in the county, but I do not hold out much hope, as it has proceeded with due diligence to close one home after another. It will not be long, therefore, before we have to rely entirely on private provision.

The difficulty lies in striking a balance between public and private provision. I fully accept that not all nursing or care homes can be run by public authorities. Many will be well run by private operators, and many others will be well run by charitable trusts. It is a question of balance. I give due credit to my hon. Friend the Minister and his colleagues in the Department for the additional moneys that have come to the county. I think that £7.4 million has been directed towards nursing home care. That money alone has allowed the health trusts to offer higher fees to nursing homes, and therefore a greater proportion of the nursing home places in the county can be secured.

Nevertheless, there is still a difference in fees between nursing care and residential care. Assessments of all residents are now taking place to ascertain what categories they should properly be put into. Unseemly disputes have arisen in the past about such questions as whether Mrs. Jones should go into the home as a nursing patient; a squabble might then ensue about how quickly to take her out of that category, because then the fees would fall and the payer of the fees would change from the health trust to the local authority. We need to avoid such unseemly conduct, and I believe that progress is being made. The extra financial provision for fees is welcome and will assist.

The effect of home closures is severe on patients and their relatives and friends. Every one of us is attached to the place in which we live. It is said that moving house is near the top of the list of traumatic events in life—even for people who are hale, hearty and in good fettle. What must it be like for a frail, infirm person, who has had to become acclimatised after leaving their own home for a nursing home, to find that they must leave that nursing home and all the bonds that they have formed with staff and other people, and go to a strange situation? I do not want to speculate on the possible consequences, but I am sure that hon. Members have all seen examples in their constituencies.

Another problem is the location of nursing and care homes. Essex, people are surprised to learn, has the longest seaboard in England. That is because it has so many creeks and inlets around its coast. A large proportion of the care homes in the county are situated along the sea coast, even though much of the population does not live along the coast, that is because it is relatively easy to take over hotels and convert them. The result is that there is an imbalance of provision in relation to need, and inland areas of the large county of Essex are disadvantaged.

Many of the relatives of elderly patients are bound to be elderly too. It is terrible when a man's wife goes into a nursing home at the other end of the county. How is he to get to see her as often as he would like if she is not within easy travelling distance? Halsted is only 10 miles from the man to whom I was speaking about that issue, and that is a long way for him, so to have to travel 30 or 40 miles must seem like the end of the world.

My general point is that we can go too far in deciding that private providers can provide everything. Many years ago I served in opposition on a borough council in Essex. The then leader of the county council, Norman Clarke, was a Conservative. As always in the 1980s there was a big debate going on about privatisation of council services, including privatisation of the direct labour force. In the end, he said to me that he had decided against privatisation that if he could avoid it, because he would then have no control over council operations if the private provider failed.

If we have no fallback position, we need to be careful that our private providers do not fail us. I can go further than Councillor Norman Clarke by recalling the words of Frederick the Great, King of Prussia, who once said:

"Allies are fine, but one's own troops are better."

It sounds like an argument for the mixed economy and it can be taken that way. We need a balance between our allies in the private and charitable sectors and our own troops in public provision.

The relatives, friends and people of Braintree and Bocking are literally praying that St. Francis' can be saved. They are looking for help and support from whatever quarter aid might come.

I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Braintree (Mr. Hurst) on securing the debate, making a powerful case for the care home sector in his area, and—as usual—illustrating his argument with a literary allusion. His constituency is at the forefront of establishment social care thinking. It established this country's first care trust to specialise in caring for older people, which was launched by my hon. Friend very recently.

I appreciate that there is local concern that St. Francis's nursing home has been forced to announce its closure. I put on record my deep respect for the work that the sisters have carried out there over the years. I understand that the sisters are now ageing, with many of them reaching their 70s, and that there have been no new recruits to the order in the past 15 years. Those factors, coupled with a facility that is currently not financially viable and is unlikely to meet the national care standards that we have set, mean that, sadly, the order has to close the home. My hon. Friend is right to emphasise that there has been no enforcement activity by the National Care Standards Commission that has precipitated the closure; none the less, the closure has come as no surprise.

We must never forget the human face of such issues, and it is right that my hon. Friend brings the matter to the House today. Such closures mean the moving of individuals from places that they consider to be their homes and probably thought would be their last homes. However, the decision has been taken outside the control of central Government and for what seem to be understandable reasons. It is important that we ensure that the best is done for those residents.

Good notice has been given of the closure, and there has been time to prepare properly and to consult and involve the individual residents. I understand that every effort is being made to encourage the Franciscan Sisters of the Immaculate Conception to sell the home as a going concern. I hope that those efforts are fruitful. I am assured that the care trust will continue to offer support and look for any possible solution that will maintain the facility. However, if the home closes, it is important that the trust identifies alternative arrangements.

I shall outline briefly some of the steps that have been taken to manage any closure. In July, social services and the primary care group met with two trustees and their financial adviser to offer support to explore the options for keeping the nursing home operational. Benefits checks were run on identified residents to ensure that they were in receipt of their maximum allowances. Essex county council and the care trust offered to act as a broker between the order and any parties interested in purchasing St. Francis's as a going concern. There has been ongoing support and discussions with the manager to find employment elsewhere in the sector for the experienced staff who would be displaced in the event of closure.

A closure date of 10 January next year has been formally given to Essex county council, so it has a duty to ensure that a process is in place for funding new placements for the remaining 16 residents. All residents and relatives were invited to a meeting in September, and two social workers have been allocated to work closely with each resident to secure an alternative placement. In short, there is a lot of work going on to help the 16 residents who will be left to find suitable alternative accommodation should the home close.

My hon. Friend is understandably concerned about capacity in the area. We are all encouraged that he has taken such an active part in trying to keep the home open as a going concern. I hope that the flame that he talks about will be a bright one in the future.

As my hon. Friend will know, there is more to the care of older people than simply care home provision. The Government's objectives, as set out in the national service framework for older people, are to provide the right care in the right setting and to promote the social inclusion of older people. Much is said in the House about social exclusion. We should never forget that the elderly are the most vulnerable and often the most socially excluded people of all. It is right that we enhance their independence. That means allowing people with care needs to remain in their own homes as long as possible, which is what older people and their families tell the Government they want, and the figures suggest that we are helping more and more people to achieve that. In September 1998, 60,700 households were receiving intensive home care packages; by the end of 2001 that number had risen to 76,400 households. That is quite an achievement for the Government.

On 23 July, my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State made an important announcement in which he said that there would be an overall £1 billion package of investment for social care services for older people by 2006. The purpose of the new investment is to improve access to social care services and expand their capacity, increase the choice of services available to older people, stabilise the care home market, and ensure that delayed discharge is reduced to a minimum. I hope that my hon. Friend is encouraged by our right hon. Friend's announcement. The investment will help to alleviate the difficulties and increase care home capacity in his area. Within the overall £1 billion package, resources have been allocated to allow councils to pay higher fees if that is what is needed to stabilise the local care home market. I hope that my hon. Friend will be encouraged by that and that providers in his area benefit.

There will, of course, be a need for care home provision for the foreseeable future. I accept that there has been a reduction in the number of care homes in recent years, but there is spare capacity within the sector nationally. That spare capacity varies from region to region, which is why we are providing further resources to councils to assist them to further stabilise care home provision in their areas. There will be demographic changes and features particular to a certain area, for example, some parts of the country have larger elderly populations than others.

The allocation of the building capacity grant for Essex in 2002–03 is £5.5 million. That grant has been used to fund increases in assessment capacity, additional community equipment, a 24-hour care scheme attached to an accident and emergency service, increased payment rates for residential, nursing and domiciliary care, and incentive schemes in the most difficult of localities to increase that capacity.

Thanks to the additional resources that Essex social services department received from central Government, it has been able to increase the fees it pays to nursing homes from £386 a week to £453 a week, and to increase the fees it pays to residential homes from £310 to £364. Of course, there is more to improving services than providing resources: relations between councils in their role as commissioners and independent sector providers have often been fraught—indeed, adversarial in several cases—which has damaged both the prospects of good strategic planning that would add stability to the care system, and the interests of service users and their carers, leaving them anxious about the future.

By establishing the strategic commissioning group—chaired by my colleague, the Minister of State, Department of Health, my hon. Friend the Member for Redditch (Jacqui Smith)—we have established a new, more positive partnership between the statutory and independent social, health care, and housing sectors at national level. That must be replicated at local level—for example, by setting up care trusts, such as the one in Braintree.

The "Building Capacity and Partnership in Care" agreement was published last October. It sets out clear good practice guidelines about the nature of the relationships that need to be developed to secure stability in the system and to deliver benefits to the people using services and their carers. The document encourages a whole-system approach: we cannot view the care home sector in isolation from the entire health, housing and care economy or from the reforms that are happening elsewhere.

My hon. Friend the Member for Braintree drew careful attention to the context in which his local care homes operate and the relationship between the private and the public; that was very instructive. We should never forget how we got into this position: throughout the 1980s, there was a huge expansion in the number of care homes, when uncapped Department of Health and Social Security budgets were available for publicly-funded people entering residential care, and money flowed from the public purse into the private purse. Profits were high, but I think that all of us accept that standards were far too low—the result of many of the policies of the 1980s. We have tried to control that and to bring provision closer to what older people say they would prefer.

Essex council is taking steps to try to keep the home open. However, if it is unsuccessful, it must ensure that any displaced residents are placed in suitable alternative accommodation, and that should, of course, be done in discussion with residents and their relatives.

Witham, Braintree and Halstead care trust was the fifth in the country to be set up and the first to specialise in older people. It will enable health and social care partners to integrate their services in a single organisation and I wait with interest to see how the trust will be able to improve local services for older people and, in particular, to show how these arrangements can help to deliver the type of services that older people and their carers want now and in future.