I am pleased to introduce this important debate and I am grateful that my colleagues have taken the trouble to attend.

The issue of the post office network has been in front of Governments for a long time. Since the fag end of the last Conservative Administration, Governments have been struggling with the possibility of migrating benefit payments from giro books to automated credit transfer and with the opportunities that that might offer. That will have a big impact on the future of the post office network.

I intend to make a few opening remarks and I hope that my colleagues will join in the debate as it unfolds. I think that I speak for everyone when I say that there is no objection in principle to the concept of the migration of benefits. As the current generation of benefit recipients passes on, it is sensible for the Government to contemplate the longer-term possibilities. For example, my 23-year-old son has just finished a computer science degree at Glasgow university and the likelihood of his wanting to receive his pension by means of a paper giro book is remote.

In principle, we have no difference with the Government on this issue, but genuine concern is being caused by important practical and administrative implications of the programme and by the way in which the migration is being organised and rolled out. The operation is huge and it is important that we get it right. If we do not, essential weekly payments to many families who have to live on low incomes will be prejudiced. The viability of the post office network and the Government's sensible plans to develop and promote e-government will also be prejudiced. A lot is at stake.

I am sure that hon. Members will ask a series of questions to clarify the state of play. Have the Government got a fallback position? Is there a plan B if the roll-out begins to go wrong? How will the Government react if the migration comes unstitched at the seams, errors are made and other problems arise? We would like to be reassured that contingency planning is taking place, that risk assessments have been carried out and that proper arrangements are being made in case unintended consequences make the migration process more difficult than is imagined.

We need that reassurance in the short term. It is five short months until the project goes live. When I talked to representatives of some of the banks that are important players and partners in the exercise, they said that a commercial administrative project on this scale would be piloted for some 18 months before it was rolled out live. The Government have set a very ambitious timetable. We are all crossing our fingers in the hope that everything goes well, but the chances are that something will go wrong and we need to anticipate that in the best way possible.

The viability of the network in the long term is also a matter of concern. Together with my close colleague and neighbour, my hon. Friend the Member for Tweeddale, Ettrick and Lauderdale (Mr. Moore), I have been in dialogue with a group of postmasters and postmistresses in south-east Scotland. I have to say to the Minister, and I report this to him accurately, that they are losing faith in the project. They are a group of dedicated, committed people, who are trusted by people in their communities. They would be excellent ambassadors and general practitioners, as the PIU report of June 2002 envisaged, and would be excellent people to keep on side. I report to the Minister as honestly as I can, and with as much conviction as I can, that they are reaching the conclusion that the Government are not acting properly or in good faith on the matter. That is an issue of serious concern. It is not me who is saying that, it is those people, and I trust their judgment. They are entrepreneurs who are doing the best that they can, but they can see no long-term future for their businesses. If that is true, it is a matter of real concern for us all.

The PIU report was published in June 2000. It posited the twin platforms of a universal bank, which would be a platform on which sub-postmasters could build an income stream in the future, and the concept of "your guide". The local postmasters saw that those two elements could provide a way forward, and that gave them confidence. The report was well written, the tone was positive and it embraced all the questions that they felt needed to be embraced. They were pleased that the 24 recommendations in the package of measures were as good for them as they could have possibly hoped.

Since June 2000, many of the opportunities presented by those 24 recommendations have been squandered. Many of the recommendations have been watered down. That is certainly the perception of the National Federation of Sub-Postmasters, which is a matter of real concern. The last recommendation in the PIU report was that the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry, who is responsible for the Post Office and all its works, should make progress reports to the Prime Minister from time to time. I am interested to know whether any progress reports have been made. If they have been, could copies of them be placed in the Library so that we can see what progress the Secretary of State feels is being made? There is a suspicion in post offices throughout the United Kingdom that little progress has been made since the report was published in June 2000.

The hon. Gentleman mentioned "your guide". I do not know whether he actually saw it when it was trialled; it was trialled in my constituency, in Leicestershire. It was very popular with sub-postmasters, and they were very distressed when the project was scuppered because it failed to receive the support of the Department for Work and Pensions and other Departments.

That was a timely intervention, and I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman because I was coming on to "your guide". I studied the pilot in his constituency with great interest. I agree that it passed all the tests that were set for it as far as the National Federation of Sub-Postmasters was concerned. It was an information network that had the potential to develop commercial and public sector services, in a way that would have produced an income. It would have involved postmasters and postmistresses in the process so that the concept of a general practitioner could really have been sustained, developed and built on.

The abandonment of "your guide" was a retrograde step. We are still trying to understand the consequences of that decision. The decision was wrong, and it will have a direct financial effect on Post Office Ltd. I would like to know the Government's assessment of the financial effect of the cancellation of "your guide" on Post Office Ltd. I would also like to know what the alternatives are. Commercial schemes are supposed to be available to the Post Office to keep the network viable. What is the alternative to "your guide"? It has now gone, which is a shame, but it is right that the Government are held to account. They must come up with an alternative commercial scheme that will replace the benefits that "your guide" could have provided. That is an important issue, and I hope that the Minister will have a chance to deal with it.

I turn to financial assistance for the rural network. I encourage hon. Members from urban constituencies to discuss the diversification programme for urban post offices. The future for such post offices will also be severely prejudiced if they are left to the free market with no support after 2005.

The hon. Gentleman will be aware that the urban network is suffering from many of the problems that he describes in relation to the rural network. Last week, those of us who represent urban constituencies received a letter from Consignia that listed our local post offices and indicated that about a third of them were set to close. For many of our communities and local parades, the threat is one not simply of damage to the future viability of the business but of immediate closure.

The hon. Gentleman makes his point well. I was told at the weekend that when, as part of the reinvention programme, the Post Office wrote to some 8,000 or 9,000 postmasters and postmistresses to ask how many of them would like to take a retirement package with a payoff enabling them to exit their businesses with dignity, some 3,000 opted in. If the Post Office had repeated that exercise after the abandonment of "your guide", twice as many people would have done so.

I am listening with great interest to the hon. Gentleman's speech. I think that I know the answer to this question, but perhaps he can put it on the record. Does he support in principle the compensation arrangements that are being offered as part of the urban renewal programme following the recommendations in the PIU report?

The answer is yes, but I do not want the package to be capped. If we are to be fair to postmasters, a package that enables them to leave their businesses with dignity should not be artificially constrained by the financial needs of, or diktats from, the Treasury. Nevertheless, I take the Minister's point. The compensation arrangements are a sensible part of the package, and I encourage the Government to continue to develop them.

As for financial assistance to the rural network, I understood that the partners were to be consulted—indeed, recommendation 6 of the PI U report anticipated that—but I am not sure that that has ever taken place. Does the Minister think that it has?

I want to tax the Minister about the social network payment. Various leaks have suggested that sums of up to £450 million over three years will be provided to subsidise the network. That is a significant amount of public money, but the key factors are whether it will be ring-fenced money that is transferred from—presumably—the Department of Trade and Industry to Post Office Ltd. or Consignia and how much of it will be passed on to the counters in the rural post office network.

The hon. Gentleman raises a most important point, but the key aspect is not whether the money will come from the DTI, but whether it will be dragged in from the resources of the Royal Mail or will be fresh money. That is the question that the Minister must answer.

Absolutely—that is crucial. There is a suspicion out there that the money is to come from some £1.8 billion—£1.8 thousand million—that was creamed off from Post Office profits in the past and is now held as Government stocks or deposits. If it is to be new Treasury money from the consolidated fund, that is a different matter, but it would be extremely useful if the Minister could tell us more.

The other essential issue is that of managed choice versus free choice. I should be happy if the Minister said that everyone and anyone who wanted a Post Office card account would be welcome to have one. I suspect that he will not say that. I am tempted to offer him a Bank of Scotland £5 note as an inducement, but that might be out of order. I do not think, however, that I would be in danger of losing my money.

My hon. Friend has hit on a very important point. There is real confusion among the public over this matter. The Prime Minister himself gave apparent promises, which are now undermined by what is happening in practice. Does my hon. Friend agree that not only the sub-post offices are suffering from the long period of indecision and lack of clarity over the viability of their businesses? The former Crown offices, which have been privatised in the past eight years, are in the same position.

I agree with that point, which is well made. We need better and further particulars about how the process will work. I have looked at some of the journeys, as they are called, described in the literature sent out by the Government to war pension claimants and child benefit recipients. The process is complicated, but it seems quite clear that people will have to "pass" a telephone interview before they will be allowed to take a card account at the post office. That is a real worry. It is also worrying that the Department for Work and Pensions seems to be in engaged in a process that will disallow—with a capital D—the promotion of Post Office card accounts by postmasters to their own customers. That seems suspicious, and a retrograde step.

On the point about an unlevel playing field, a sub-postmistress in my constituency was most distressed when representatives from the bank came into her sub-post office to ask for forms to sign people up for having their benefits paid directly into the bank. Of course she did not hand the forms over, but she is not allowed to encourage people to use the post office. I am extremely worried that, in the long run, many people who have always managed their money by cash will be put in a difficult position because they will have to start managing their money through a bank account.

Exactly. That is another good example of where suspicion is being built up in the system, which I do not think the Government can ignore. I suspect that the Minister is being told by his advisers that the process is on track, on time and under control, but that is certainly not the perception held by people pursuing their business behind sub-postmasters' counters up and down the United Kingdom.

That suspicion is undoubtedly fuelled by the information coming directly from the Department for Work and Pensions. For example, the application process for child tax credit gives no opportunity to use the Post Office card account—it is not offered as an option to the recipients of that benefit. That seems a tremendous abdication of responsibility on the part of the Department for Work and Pensions, which seems to be distancing itself from the entire Government programme in this area.

Indeed. All of this points in the same direction: the Government are capping the number of such accounts. They have set up a business case that means that the number of card accounts that they are prepared to live with will be capped at about 3 million, because anything more than that will start costing them real money. If that is the case, the Government should say so explicitly. The official line, of course, is that there is no cap, but that does not seem to be the case in practice. All the examples given by my hon. Friends in important interventions underline the real suspicion out there that the Government are not coming clean.

It is worse than that. In the Government's application to the European Union for state aids, a couple of paragraphs, which I would quote if I had time, posit the idea of inducements to stay out of Post Office card accounts. That is deeply worrying, because it is a bribe to people to enter basic or full-blown bank accounts rather than use post offices. I can see the reason for that, because there are 3 million unbanked claimants at the moment and I do not know how the Government can work round it if people do not offer to open bank accounts. However, if financial inducements of any kind were offered, it would be a clear sign of bad faith on the part of the Government, which would be deeply worrying.

Mutual advice is essential, and I cannot understand why the Government have not produced a simple leaflet explaining the merits of the three direct methods of payment that are being countenanced after next April. If such a leaflet could be agreed by the partners and made widely available, it would deal with some of the apprehension, fear and uncertainty that some retired people feel about what will hit them after April. No such document is available, and that is not sensible.

I noted with apprehension that SchlumbergerSema was awarded the contract for the roll-out of what is Orwellianly called a customer conversion centre. The company delivers medical services, so it comes with a track record that is, at least, questionable in terms of how it delivers services to the public. In turn, it has subcontracted the call centre to a company called not Vortex but Vertex. What assurances do we have that the Department will control those subcontracts and that mutual advice will be given?

The Government must tell the House how many of the approximately 15 million claimants who now use branch post offices they estimate will move to each of the three separate accounts that are being offered as alternatives to girocheque payments next April? We need to know that. We also need to know how much postmasters will receive in transaction payments for those who transfer in April. Those are important questions.

The Minister knows that much depends on putting back into the system the confidence that has been lost since the PIU report was so badly watered down. A subsidy for a social transfer network may be all very well in the long term, but my postmasters want viable commercial businesses. They do not want subsidised businesses or to live for ever off the back of subsidies from central Government. As things stand, they are not confident that in the long term their businesses will remain viable.

Does the hon. Gentleman accept that part of the problem and the reason why consultation is needed is that communities must "use it or lose it"? We must encourage communities, particularly parish councils, to look to the future. Part of the problem is the age profile of some postmasters and postmistresses and the property portfolio. They must be ready for the future and build new market possibilities.

The hon. Gentleman makes a fair point. The matter is not easy. It involves perceptions and vulnerable people who may be set in their ways and have confidence in the cash-based, weekly payment system. The hon. Gentleman is right to say that we must continue to use rural and urban post offices or the network will continue to erode. That would be in no one's interest. I hope that the Minister accepts that this is an important debate and that he will answer as many of our questions as possible. Otherwise, the mood of pessimism will gather and get worse.

I congratulate the hon. Member for Roxburgh and Berwickshire (Mr. Kirkwood) on securing this debate. The subject is important to everyone in the House, which is illustrated by the good attendance here this morning. I am sure that it is one of many debates that we shall have as the subject continues to occupy us.

Like other hon. Members, I have kept in touch with Post Office Counters Ltd. The communications that come to us are full of warm words, but warm words butter no parsnips. I want to flag up for my hon. Friend the Minister the concern felt in my post office community in Plymouth. I acknowledge the work that he and his predecessor, now the Minister for Employment Relations, Industry and the Regions, my hon. Friend the Member for Hull, West and Hessle (Alan Johnson), have done to secure a not insignificant package—¤210 million, I think—which will help the urban network reinvention programme. The hon. Member for Roxburgh and Berwickshire said that he hoped to hear from urban Members, and I have a totally urban constituency.

It is seven months since postmasters heard from Consignia. In April, it wrote to them outlining the package that it was hoping to develop subject to the European Union's approval. The Minister for E-Commerce and Competitiveness introduced the motion to release the money on 15 October, and the programme can now proceed.

We all hope that there will be a match between post offices choosing to go or to stay and our constituents' need for existing and new post office services. I talked to Mr. David Oakland, one of my sub-postmasters in Plymouth, who is treasurer of his local association. The Minister's predecessor met my local association and was impressed by its members' commitment to finding a new way forward for post offices, and by their understanding of the need for change.

My hon. Friend the Minister would be most welcome to meet my post office community to discuss some of their concerns and listen to their ideas for the way forward. The hon. Member for Roxburgh and Berwickshire said that there is a need for people to be able to feel confident that support exists for remaining post offices, not just by giving them money but by encouraging the business that can sustain them and giving returns on investment. We must give people the confidence that we are serious about encouraging the new banking arrangements. I am aware of the good track record on social inclusion and its financial aspects that the Minister brings to his job. Post offices must be confident that we are serious about fully encouraging new banking arrangements, and helping them to secure small business banking.

As the hon. Member for Roxburgh and Berwickshire said, there is apprehension about whether support exists. I want to flag up with the Minister two sources from which that stems. First, I understand that some post offices, which have made an initial appraisal of what is expected of the offices receiving the investment to develop services and take on extra work, are concerned that the expected extra work and the income generated from it may not break even in terms of investment for some time. I think that they are expected to match that investment funding in some way.

The second source of apprehension is the experience with the Inland Revenue. Mr. Oakland wrote to me before I rang him, and drew to my attention the concern that in the middle of negotiations with the National Federation of Sub-Postmasters the Inland Revenue sent out literature before it had finished consultations on advice leaflets available in post offices that did not mention the post office solution. The Revenue unilaterally brought forward the start date. That experience has undermined people's confidence in just how serious the Government are about enabling post offices to take on such business. That view is reflected in relation to the Veterans Agency and the Child Support Agency. Mr. Oakland is going to send me those views, which I will take up with the Minister.

Sub-postmasters are not filled with confidence about their future by that experience. They need to feel that their business is financially viable and they must be given greater confidence that it is worth their while to invest their energy as well as their money in the future of the Post Office.

My hon. Friend the Minister explained why we must be careful to protect the interests of future users of the Post Office card account that he mentioned in the debate on 15 October. However, I would like him carefully to consider how the information about it—the helpline—could act as a barrier. Could the service be evened out in some way? I appreciate the point that he made about it, but I would like him to consider whether those who are ticking a box to go through a bank account might be invited also to tick a box to ask for information about Post Office services and how their bank will work with the Post Office to offer new services.

Such information is important to people in Plymouth such as Mr. Nix from Crown Hill, who wrote to me recently about the continued availability of Post Office services:

"I am the first to accept progress and understand pension books are outdated but I cannot believe the government would endorse 'Postmaster Generals' being pressurised to withhold information on such an important subject."

In the debate on the motion to release money for the programme, my hon. Friend was kind enough to assure me that hon. Members will be properly consulted and that Postwatch will have sufficient resources to help us to ensure that Post Office services meet the needs of present and future generations of our constituents.

Will my hon. Friend encourage Post Office Counters Ltd, to give an extra guarantee about services within half a mile in the poorest 10 per cent. of wards? Is there scope for new post offices, particularly in areas where work must be done on financial inclusion? I am thinking in particular of an area in my constituency, Mount Wise, in which the necessary facilities do not exist. Will he confirm that natural communities cluster around post offices and that in Plymouth, which is a very hilly city, the geographic layout of the city will be taken into account in the criteria that are used?

Members of the Efford community forum and I have been working very hard to get the Torridge way shops back in use again. That is the one part of my constituency that has gone downhill since 1997. The post office and Co-op shop are still there but other shops have closed. The post office business may not be thriving as it should and may not have the track record to justify being chosen for the new programme, but I hope that special consideration will be given to the investment needed to sustain post offices in communities such as Efford.

rose—

Order. It may be helpful if I remind everyone that it is customary to commence winding-up contributions 30 minutes before the end of the debate. Looking at the clock, I see that we have only 27 minutes left. The Chair always seeks to allow everyone to speak, as far as is possible, but it will be very difficult under these circumstances, so I appeal to right hon. and hon. Members to be brief, succinct and to the point.

Mr. Cook, may I begin by—

Order. When the House in its wisdom decided to hold meetings in this Chamber, it selected the four senior members of the Chairmen's Panel to act as Deputy Speakers. While they occupy the Chair, they are to be addressed as Deputy Speaker, please.

Thank you, Mr. Deputy Speaker. I apologise for my lapse.

I congratulate the hon. Member for Roxburgh and Berwickshire (Mr. Kirkwood) on choosing and securing the debate. I have a strong suspicion that today's debate will not be the last on the subject, and that there will be many more of them in the coming months. It is apposite that we are having the debate on the first full day on which the organisation is called the Royal Mail Group, the name to which it changed from Consignia—of course, shareholders approved both names. Whatever I am going to say today, I attach no guilt to the Minister. He is innocent, and the guilty have moved on—in some cases they have been promoted. I share the concerns of the hon. Member for Roxburgh and Berwickshire about why the changes were not brought forward earlier and why they were not piloted.

One year after the Labour party gained power, delays in getting things moving were drawn to its attention. The then Minister, the right hon. Member for Makerfield (Mr. McCartney), said:

"we are rebuilding a Post Office from the wreck left by the previous Government. From day one of this Government we have made the Post Office a priority and will continue to do so."—[Official Report, 14 May 1998; Vol.331, c. 501.]

One year later, when he was reminded that things should be got on with quickly, he said that he had

"to deal with the shambles"

with which I had left him

"and … introduce measures for the future of the Post Office in a sophisticated way".—[Official Report, 13 January 1999; Vol.323, c. 269.]

The tune did not change. One year after that, the Minister at that time, the hon. Member for Hull, West and Hessle (Alan Johnson), said:

"We do not want to upset"

the Conservative Benches

"unduly. If I was being kind, I would call their stewardship maladroit. If I was being unkind, I would say that Postman Pat's black and white cat would have provided better stewardship of the Post Office over the term of the previous Government."—[Official Report, 15 February 2000; Vol. 344, c. 868.]

We heard nothing in 2001, but it all came out on 13 June, when we found that Consignia had lost more than £1 billion and the post office network, which we are discussing today, had lost £163 million. It does not look as though that will change over the next year or so. If we were being maladroit, what is the verdict on the Government? They are losing more than £1 billion, they are going to make 30,000 people redundant and they are closing more than 3,000 post offices. Perhaps the Prime Minister will come to the Dispatch Box and tell us exactly what he thinks of his stewardship of the Post Office. I say that with genuine anger because post offices and sub-post offices are closing, and I wonder what reasons are behind it.

One year ago, I asked why the Government had come forward with a plan to close post office facilities by introducing automated credit transfers without having a parallel plan ready to provide post offices with an alternative income. Why were those plans not implemented in parallel? Why were they implemented to different time scales?

Again, I am going to tread down the path laid out by the hon. Member for Roxburgh and Berwickshire. At present, 15 to 16 million people use our sub-post offices, and it has been calculated that some 3 million people have a Post Office card account. We have to ask how the figure of 3 million has been calculated because I do not know the reasoning behind it. We might be tempted to think that the remaining 12 to 13 million people will use basic bank accounts, but 85 per cent. of the 15 to 16 million people who use sub-post offices already have a high street bank account, in which case why would they want a basic bank account?

If anybody wants a Post Office card account, they are interrogated as to why they want one, not as if it were a matter of customer choice but as if they had to obtain permission. There is a real danger that an individual is going to say, "Oh blow that. I won't bother. I'll simply opt to have the ACTs into my bank account." Why can the customer not choose? Why have they got to be given permission? The major concern is that the important footfall of 15 million people going into sub-post offices every week will diminish.

Is my hon. Friend aware that the Department for Work and Pensions told the chief executive of the Post Office, Mr. David Mills, that sub-postmasters were not to put up posters saying that it was still possible to receive benefits in cash?

I was aware of that. It is just one of the ways in which the sub-post office customer is being forced in a particular direction. My worry is not so much the loss of income from benefits payments but the loss of footfall. The massive sum of £5.45 for each Post Office card account will be a poor means of making up the shortfall. It is small wonder that thousands of sub- postmasters and sub-postmistresses want out. I blame the Government for having created such a despondent mood in our sub-post office movement.

My hon. Friend said that excessive numbers of sub-postmasters wanted to give up. Has he any idea how many?

I have heard that it is some 3,000. We do not know whether they are the same 3,000 who are to be chopped by the Government. Let us hope that they are, in which case it will work out amicably. However, I understand that some postmasters will be forced out of business even if they want to continue, because their offices do not meet the criteria. I shall not go through the report published by Postcomm the month before last, although it raises huge concerns about the direction and success of the sub-post office movement.

The arrangements are being introduced in a rush just a few months before ACTs come into operation. Can the Minister tell us what contingency plans have been made in case something goes wrong? Does he agree that if £150 million per year is earmarked for rural post offices over the next three years, Horizon running costs are £100 million, the reinvention of the sub-post offices—Labour spin for "Let's close 3,000 sub-post offices"—will cost £70 million a year and the banks are having their arms twisted for £36 million, that comes to some £356 million a year? We shall "save" £400 million by the introduction of ACTs, so the whole exercise will produce a so-called saving of £44 million. I worry whether that is a genuine figure, and I am concerned about the loss of footfall. Our sub-postmasters and sub-postmistresses will go through a very hard time.

I urge the Minister to tell every Member of Parliament in every constituency which sub-post offices are to be closed. In my constituency, 13 are scheduled and tagged as urban. Those who run them are worried; they know that they are at risk. The sooner they know their fate, the better they will be able to plan for the future.

In conclusion, the Royal Mail Group, as it now is, faces huge problems from overseas competition and from licensing arrangements that might allow competition from countries in which we cannot compete. The disaster that our post office network is experiencing has occurred because the Government have been far too slow and far too late in bringing forward their plans.

Does my hon. Friend agree that the threatened closure of sub-post offices under this Labour Government is a worry for the elderly? That segment of our population relies on the post office; for many, it is the centre of their social world as well as being important for the services that it provides.

My hon. Friend speaks about the effect that the loss of footfall may have on sub-post offices. As I said, it is not only that no money will be coming from transactions across the counter; they will also lose other sales as a result of the loss of footfall. If they lose that income, the sub-post offices will be at risk; and £150 million a year will not be enough for rural sub-post offices. If post offices are lost, the character of the countryside will be destroyed—never mind what will happen in urban areas. As I said at the start, the Minister is not guilty. He has a huge responsibility for the future.

rose—

Order. I ask right hon. and hon. Members to bear in mind not only my advice with regard to their own contributions but their acceptance of interventions, especially from those who only recently entered the Chamber.

Let me preface my remarks by agreeing with the hon. Member for South-West Hertfordshire (Mr. Page): my hon. Friend the Minister is certainly not guilty. In fact, the hon. Gentleman himself may be one of the guilty men. The Conservative Government were guilty because of their signal failure to ensure that the Post Office management stood up to its responsibilities. In the Post Office, the present Government have inherited one of the most incompetent management structures in British industry. The charge that I put to my hon. Friend is that if the Government are not prepared to get a grip of the Post Office management, we will have replicated the mistakes made under the Conservatives. The hon. Member for Roxburgh and Berwickshire (Mr. Kirkwood) did us a service by introducing this debate. It is vital that the pressure is kept up on the Government by Parliament, and by the Government on the Post Office.

The whole of my constituency falls in that part of the world where every ward is in the most impoverished 10 per cent. of wards as allowed for by the Government and the Post Office. I was told that their criteria meant that no post office should be closed if the next nearest post office was more than half a mile distant. That provides my impoverished constituents with better facilities, but as an elderly constituent told me recently, even half a mile by zimmer frame is a long way. That may sound like a joke but it happens to be true. In impoverished urban areas, people—particularly the elderly and the vulnerable—have far less access to the motor car and the other social structures that support them. I strongly applaud the logic of giving them that extra protection.

I must ask for your advice, Mr. Deputy Speaker. I know that I cannot accuse hon. Members of lying, and I would not want to, but am I allowed to accuse the Post Office of lying? That effectively is what it did in terms of its promise about the closure programme.

In my constituency or near it, five sub-post offices are not operating. Two of them have been non-operational for well over 12 months. The Post Office tells me that they are not closed but are simply not open. That is a difficult concept for my constituents to grasp. The Post Office argues that it is looking for new sub-postmasters and mistresses to operate them, but the charge against the Post Office is that it is deliberately not looking for replacement people. Those sub-post offices have de facto become part of the closure programme. The two post offices in question are in West Gorton and Rusholme, in the constituency of my right hon. Friend the Member for Manchester, Gorton (Mr. Kaufman).

The charge is one of deliberate deception. I have put forward the name of a local business person who is anxious to take on the role of sub-postmaster in one of those sub-post offices. He has an impeccable trading record and no criminal convictions, but the Post Office will not take him on, saying that it does not have to give a reason. Frankly, the Post Office should give its reasons for including a post office in its closure programme—albeit by subterfuge—if there is a business to be run and someone willing to take the commercial risk of investing in it.

More worrying are the cases of the Clayton Bridge and Oldham Road sub-post offices, which recently closed. In Oldham Road's case, the lease ran out—the Post Office presumably did not know that it was going to, even though the position must have been clear from the legal documents for many years. The post office was closed even though the decision was disputed. My local council says that Oldham Road was more than half a mile from the nearest facility, but the Post Office claims that it was only 0.4 miles away. The dispute could be resolved by running a pedometer along the road to find out who is right. The Clayton Bridge post office, in the Newton Heath ward was, by the Post Office's own account, 0.7 miles from the nearest facility. The Post Office told me, however, that both post offices would have closed anyway because of circumstances beyond its control—the expiry of Oldham Road's lease and the lack of co-operation on the part of the sub-postmaster at Clayton Bridge.

The Post Office's decisions are undermining the promise that the Minister made in good faith in Parliament. That is why I must make accusations in this Chamber about deception and lying on the part of the Post Office's most senior management. I look to him to take the Post Office firmly by the throat and to squeeze until those responsible begin to tell the truth and to operate in a manner consistent with his undertakings to the House. The Post Office owes that to him and to my constituents.

I join other hon. Members in congratulating my hon. Friend the Member for Roxburgh and Berwickshire (Mr. Kirkwood) on securing this debate. I also pay tribute to him for his hard work over many years in support and defence of our post office network.

There are 21 post offices in my constituency, and according to correspondence that I recently received from Consignia, 18 are classed as urban. One third of urban post offices are due to close, so by the law of averages, six of mine will go. That prospect has left many constituents deeply worried. Indeed, they are so concerned that 6,000 of them have signed my petition, which makes it clear that local post offices are at the heart of local communities and that something must be done about the closures. That worry has quickly turned to anger, however, because like me, my constituents do not believe that the case for so many closures has been made. Postwatch has said that 3,000 closures are too many and are unnecessary, and my constituents are inclined to agree.

However, it is not simply urban offices that face a problem, and there are still serious questions about the future of rural post offices in my constituency. In a letter that I received some months ago, the Post Office told me of its intention to close the post office in Dalmeny, a small village in my constituency. Betty Hardie, the local postmistress, had worked there for many years but was heading for retirement. Consignia's inability to find a replacement left the post office facing closure. The sub-postmistress has decided to stay on in the meantime while alternatives are considered. We are having to rely on individuals' determination to continue local post office services that are under serious threat because the future of the income that they generate is uncertain.

I mention Dalmeny because the blame for such circumstances falls squarely at the Government's door. The problem is that they have failed to tell Parliament, the post office industry or the public how they intend to make up the massive loss in post office revenue that will arise from ACT. I searched through the Hansard report of 15 October, but found no answer from the Minister. Clearly, no answer will come from the "your guide" scheme, despite the relatively successful pilot. If the Government do not provide answers on this crucial issue, they will leave the remaining urban and rural post offices with an uncertain financial future. No sane person will want to enter an industry that is so full of uncertainty. Cases such as that of Dalmeny village, whose post office faces closure because of the failure to find a replacement sub-postmaster, will become more common. I call on the Minister to take this opportunity to address that crucial point.

The briefing prepared by the regulator Postwatch last June gives an excellent background to the Government's policy to move the payments of benefits and the state pension to automatic credit transfer. On page 4 of that document, under section 5.3, it states that it is important to

"ensure benefit recipients are fully and fairly informed",

and

"that there are no hidden pressures to favour one type of account over another".

It goes on to say that

"the information presented to benefit recipients must be complete and impartial."

Postwatch clearly had concerns that pressure could be applied to those on benefit in favour of one of the options on offer, namely ACT into current or universal bank accounts. As more and more evidence comes out that customers continue to be pressured not to take up the Post Office card accounts, it is clear that those concerns were justified. I ask the Minister to take those matters seriously, as such evidence clearly goes against the recommendations of Postwatch.

It has been said many times, but it deserves to be reiterated time and again, that post offices are vital to the communities that they serve. The closure programme, veiled by the Government under the heading of regeneration, the prospect of losing six or more post offices in my constituency, and the insecurity that will remain, are frightening to me and my constituents. They must not be allowed to happen.

I think that everyone is concerned by the impact that the review has had on communities and on sub-postmasters and mistresses, but we must accept the reality of the situation. Taking no action at all did nothing to keep down the distance between the community and the post office, nor can it guarantee that the cause of concern will be automatically removed. Some 3,500 post offices closed under the last Conservative Government. I am not suggesting that anyone is to blame for that, but those are the facts. Taking no action would mean that post offices would close in any case, so it would do nothing about the distance that the elderly and others have to travel back and forth. Cleary, then, action has to be taken.

The history leading up to today's debate and the way in which some matters have been handled have not been helpful. However, I think that the Minister is not to blame in that regard, and that the Government are doing everything they can to address a complex issue. I, too, have concerns on communication, and hope that increasing efforts will be made to convey the scale of the challenge that lies ahead. We cannot overlook the fact that the post office network is the largest retailing network in the UK, and it must be handled as a serious business if it is to play a part in providing services in our communities. I think that it is better to have a planned rather than a reactive way forward. We must of course get approval for some of the measures that the Government want on remuneration and reinvestment for those post offices that wish to remain in he system.

Clearly no one wants post offices in their constituency to go. As was said earlier, however, without the custom coming through the doors, post offices will inevitably close. It is far better to structure the way ahead rather than simply to react.

I congratulate the hon. Member for Roxburgh and Berwickshire (Mr. Kirkwood) on securing the debate and apologise to him for not having been present at the start.

Without arguing about how we got into the present situation, and understanding that many throughout the country are relying on him to find the way out of it, I urge the Minister to look at the debate in the round. The new powers that Government have given the regulator in respect of post office services must be examined. Can the Minister assure me that he will consider carefully the possibility that the regulator will seek to bring greater controls in exchange for the proposal to increase the price of a first-class stamp? That could have a real bearing on the rest of the post office network and is important to today's debate.

As someone who represents a constituency that is both urban and rural, I am anxious to ensure that the £15 million for the urban network should be readily available. I remind the Minister that there is a letter from me in his in tray on his desk that asks whether some flexibility could be given to the way in which the Government determine which of the most deprived constituencies should benefit from that £15 million. In my constituency, there are many wards that fall within the 15 per cent. of the most deprived areas. The Government should show some flexibility in that respect. Many of those wards have parts that fall within the 10 per cent. most deprived, so we should be entitled to some of the £15 million that is going to help the urban network.

If the Minister could give me that assurance, I am sure that Mr. John Morris, the chairman of my constituency branch of the sub-postmasters' federation, would be most heartened.

I add my congratulations to my hon. Friend the Member for Roxburgh and Berwickshire (Mr. Kirkwood) who, not only today but over the past five years, has kept this issue under discussion, through his Select Committee work and in repeated debates. He has reminded us constantly that there is a clock ticking for this process.

We have had many debates on the subject, so I do not want to go over again how we got where we are and who is to blame for it. I simply want to pose a series of questions to the Minister, because I am unclear in my mind about how the process will work. The central issue, as it has always been, is how the £450 million of income to the Post Office will be replaced. Frankly, I do not think that we are any the wiser about that than we were two years ago when the performance and innovation unit report was introduced.

We had a full debate on the urban regeneration programme on Opposition day a few days ago, but some issues were not resolved. What happens if, as now seems increasingly likely, there are far more urban post offices trying to close than there is compensation for? The hon. Member for Manchester, Central (Mr. Lloyd) hit the nail on the head when he referred to the odd phenomenon of post offices that are neither closed nor open. I suspect that we shall have a lot of post offices in that position. What happens if 5.000 of the 9,000 want to close? I believe that that is the ratio in some of the big cities. Will 3,000 be compensated while the others are left in limbo, or will the compensation money be spread more thinly? How will the rationing process be handled? Again, we must ask why there is a cap.

I would also like to know how the appeals process will work. Again, the hon. Member for Manchester, Central hit the nail on the head when he suggested that half a mile is a long way for someone with a zimmer frame. It is also a long way if there is no bus route or there is a steep hill. My experience of Post Office Counters Ltd. management is that it is often appalling and totally insensitive to the needs of local communities and local entrepreneurs. I cannot understand how the appeals process will be managed.

Postwatch is to handle the process, and so far it has done well, but with only three or four appeals at a time. How will it handle 1,000 or 2,000 appeals? What are the mechanics of that? Can the Minister reassure us that there will be a proper case-by-case investigation when local communities are deeply unhappy with the closure process? Where are the resources that would allow the process to happen speedily and thoroughly?

I have a local example. In my constituency, the Post Office has said that the distance to the nearest post office is four and a half miles and that it is undulating. For a pensioner without a car, the information that the route is undulating will not be helpful.

My hon. Friend is right. Even in urban areas where the distances are smaller, many of the same problems of access apply, so a process must be in place to consider the closures carefully.

On the rural programme, we have had a leak relating to the social transfer, which is a subsidy or payment of some description of £400 million to keep the rural post office network intact over the next few years. That is welcome. However, the hon. Member for South-West Hertfordshire (Mr. Page) has already asked how we can be sure that the money goes where it is supposed to go. If it is a general payment to Post Office Counters Ltd. or Consignia—the Post Office—how do we know that it will meet its purpose? Even if the money is designated for the rural network, what will happen? Will individual sub-postmasters apply for it and receive a payment based on their turnover? Must they submit an individual business plan against which payment may be made? We know that there is poor take-up of the investment programme for rural post offices. How will the large programme be managed? I ask that because there is a massive lack of certainty about, and confidence in, the network, and confidence will not recover unless people understand how the payment flows will work.

Several hon. Members said that we know from anecdotes and people to whom we talk that people are either actively discouraged from using Post Office card accounts or are simply not told about them. The National Federation of Sub-Postmasters produced a leaflet but was told that it was not possible to use it. The initial reason given was that Post Office management would not allow it. I checked that with the Post Office and it was adamant that the Government, rather than it, imposed a ban on advertising. I hope that the Minister will confirm that, although I appreciate that it was not his Department but the Department for Work and Pensions that forcefully said that Post Office business could not be promoted through card accounts. We must be clear about what is happening in the Government.

Can we get a bit closer to the arithmetic? The hon. Member for South-West Hertfordshire said that a Post Office card account costs about £5, although I do not know where that figure has come from.

It costs £5.45.

If we gross up that figure to 15 million customers, it amounts to £80 million, which is the amount that it would cost the Department for Work and Pensions to equip every user of the network with a Post Office card account. In order to save the Department for Work and Pensions £80 million a year, the Department of Trade and Industry is providing subsidies of £400 million to the rural network and compensation of £450 million to the urban network. The whole thing is completely insane. We might be working with the wrong numbers, which the Minister can clarify, but we can see that peculiar economic arithmetic that does not add up is being used. Will he explain, precisely, the savings made by not using Post Office card accounts more widely?

My final point is very simple and returns to one of the main themes of our debate in the House two to three weeks ago. We were then aware of the termination of the "your guide" system, although I do not want to go over the rights and wrongs of that again. The Minister took a positive stance and said that he had not abandoned the principle of post offices continuing to offer a general practitioner service, although that would not happen through the "your guide" mechanism. Will he spell out what the general practitioner service will involve, and tell us whether the Government will support that financially? We have lost a main mechanism, but that might not be the end of the story. What will the Government put in its place?

I congratulate the hon. Member for Roxburgh and Berwickshire (Mr. Kirkwood) on securing the debate. That is not just a normal courtesy of the House; the debate has shown that cross-party concern exists about the future of the post office network. Indeed, there is increasing worry about whether the network has a future.

Since the Government came to power in 1997, they have had no clear policy on the Post Office, which was illustrated well by my hon. Friend the Member for South-West Hertfordshire (Mr. Page). In 1997, the Post Office was making a profit, but Consignia is now losing £1.2 million per trading day. How long is that sustainable? I understand that the company is supported by Government bonds from past Post Office profits, but how long can that go on?

We have heard, and we recognise, that the post office has a special place in the hearts of people in this country. That is a fair comment about which I doubt that there is any dispute. I received a letter yesterday from an 87year-old pensioner who lives in Essex. He told me that he is practically housebound and that, although he can reach his current post office, it is under threat of closure. Whatever the rights and wrongs of the matter, this is his perception. He says:

"What am I, and thousands or millions in similar circumstances, to do?"

Age Concern has written to us all to say that, for the elderly in particular, there is a special place for post offices. I understand that the Post Office has a slogan saying that they are "an essential part of everyday life".

The Conservative party has been running a "save our post offices" campaign and we have collected thousands upon thousands of signatures. [Laughter.] Labour Members are laughing, but last year 547 post offices closed and I think that I am right in saying that only some 200 closed between 1990 and 1997. The situation is rather different now.

The hon. Gentleman's figures are somewhat inaccurate. In 1991–92, well over 400 post offices closed.

However, over the period, the average figure was 200. I notice that the Minister does not deny that 547 post offices closed last year.

I am happy to deny that, because the figure was substantially lower. I think that the hon. Gentleman is referring to an earlier year.

The figures that I am looking at are for 2001, and I think that we are still in 2002—but never mind. Let us not get bogged down.

The figures released are for 2001 and they show that 547 post offices closed. Those figures were released by what is now called the Royal Mail Group. In the years to which my hon. Friend and the Minister referred, there was a planned closure programme in which various sub-post offices were offered the chance of voluntary closure.

I will let the Minister respond to these points in his speech. The figures have come from the Royal Mail Group and the Minister must address why it may have got them wrong—although I doubt that it has.

In my constituency—as, I suspect, in everybody else's—post offices have been closing. That has been happening with alacrity over the past five years. I can think of examples in Swinford, where I used to live, Claybrooke and Enderby St. Johns. Rural areas often have similar needs to those in urban areas. We have heard about a lack of transport in urban areas, but in rural areas there is often something like one bus a week. To use new Labour terms, poverty, exclusion and deprivation exist in rural areas as well.

Postcomm's report last year said:

"The services offered by Post Offices branches are particularly important for certain vulnerable groups in rural and in urban deprived areas, who are more affected by closures than other members of society."

When a post office closes, it leaves a hole in the community, so what are the Government doing? In June 2000, the PIU reported and the Prime Minister famously said:

"I welcome this report which the government fully accepts."

Postwatch's annual report for this year says that the slow progress has been very disappointing. Since the PIU's 2000 report, about 1,000 further post offices have closed.

I would like to consider three aspects of the network, beginning with the urban network. Only last month we discussed urban reinvention. We are told that some 3,000 sub-postmasters definitely wish to give up. That is quite neat, because the Government propose, with the Post Office, that perhaps some 3,000 post offices will be closed. Furthermore, approximately a third of sub-postmasters expressed an interest in giving up. It therefore seems as if half the remaining post offices will remain under threat. I hope that we will hear further details from the Minister.

The Postwatch annual report says that sub-postmasters have become increasingly desperate as rumour has fed rumour. Postwatch wants to know whether it will be given sufficient time for consultation on each proposed closure.

Secondly, I would like to consider urban deprived areas and, specifically, the post office fund for urban deprived areas. Sadly for the Post Office, this comes under the Office of the Deputy Prime Minister. On 15 October, its website said:

"It is expected that the fund will become operational in Summer 2002.

Further details when available will be posted on this page."

After I raised the issue, the website changed. It now says:

"The Office of the Deputy Prime Minister is seeking to launch the scheme in the Autumn of 2002."

I am not quite sure how long the autumn goes on for, but it continues:

"The proposed scheme will seek to contribute to the regeneration … it is expected to support "

It is all very well having a wish list, but sub-postmasters and people living in urban deprived areas want to see some Government action on this. Perhaps the Minister can tell me when the autumn ends and when that will happen.

Thirdly, there is the rural network. We have heard of the large sums of money that are likely to support rural post offices over the next three years. I am sure that that will be welcomed by all rural post offices. At DTI questions last Thursday the Minister said that the announcement would be made shortly. When will that be? What are the details? Most fundamentally, what happens after all the money has been spent over the next three years?

The Government will take away on average a third of a postmaster's income when the universal bank comes into operation in April. What will be the interest rate for the current card account? How many inquiries have there been? How many accounts does the Minister expect? Will it be only 3 million, or will more be allowed? After all, 1 April 2003 is less than five months away. What is the response of the public to the bullying announcement that they will no longer be able to receive cash if the Government have their way?

We have heard before about the 20 steps that it takes to open a Post Office card account, as opposed to the one that it takes to have money paid into a current account at a bank. The card account will also not have a CAT standard. Indeed, in response to a parliamentary question that I tabled recently, the Minister said:

"The Government has no plans to produce a CAT standard for the Post Office card account. The card account is the only account of its type. quite distinct from current accounts and basic bank accounts." [Official Report, 31 October 2002; Vol. 391, c953W.]

The Government will apply that standard to basic bank accounts and yet it cannot apply to the Government-sponsored account. It seems perverse that the account will not measure up to the Government's standards on charges, access and terms. Furthermore, the Secretary of State said that CAT standards would help to combat financial exclusion. A City source was quoted in The Daily Telegraph last week as saying:

"The Universal Bank account will not be eligible for the CAT standard. It does not provide any of the basic facilities. This must be a huge embarrassment to the Government."

I do not want to detain the Chamber too long, although there is much more to be said about this. All I would say is that the Government's behaviour has added to the confusion and uncertainty and the feeling that they have been dithering over the Post Office for five and a half years. There is a lack of support across the Government. The Department for Work and Pensions refuses to support the DTI on "your guide" or indeed on the concept of the universal bank and support for the Post Office in general. There is a lack of joined-up government. The executive summary of the PIU report referred to new lines of business. I will name three of them; e-commerce; one-stop shops for Government information transaction; internet learning and access. None is coming forward.

We understand why sub-postmasters want to give up. They look to the future and see no plans for a sustainable commercial livelihood. The Government are taking away one third or more of their incomes from benefits payments. What will replace that? The National Federation of Sub-postmasters speaks for most, although not all of the small business men who run our sub-post offices. In a briefing it sent last month it said:

"It is now over two years since the publication of the PIU's report… During this period, sub post offices have continued to close at an alarming rate, morale throughout the network is at an all-time low… Of the 24 recommendations made by the Cabinet Office's PIU, very few have been implemented, funding has not been delivered… the timescales for implementation of recommendations have slipped further; the development of new roles for subpostmasters has ground to a halt; and there is widespread stagnation and inactivity across a wide range of the recommendations."

That deserves an answer, as does the following resolution passed at the federation's conference on 15 October:

"That this conference demands Her Majesty's Government to take immediate action to avert the collapse of the nationwide network of post offices."

The Government have not responded to that, as far as I know. At the moment, we see fog in the future, which I fear may conceal impending chaos and further closure.

We have heard today, from hon. Members on both sides of the Chamber, about the mess over which this Government are presiding. The Government are responsible for the situation. What will they do about it?

I congratulate the hon. Member for Roxburgh and Berwickshire (Mr. Kirkwood) on securing this debate. He has long played an important role in social security matters as Chairman of the Select Committee on Work and Pensions and in many other matters as well. The debate will make a useful contribution to the discussion.

The hon. Member for South-West Hertfordshire (Mr. Page) rightly reminded us that Consignia is no more. As of yesterday, we may speak of the Royal Mail Group, which faces very tough challenges. It needs to respond to the changing demands of its customers, to wider changes in society, and to the impact and opportunities arising from new technology.

The post office network provides a vital local service. It serves some 28 million people every week, and is the largest retail network, not just in the United Kingdom, as my hon. Friend the Member for Central Fife (Mr. MacDougall) rightly said, but in Europe. It includes half as many branches again as all the banks and building societies put together.

However, people are not using their local post offices as much as they used to. Some 42 per cent. of benefit recipients now access their benefit payments via bank accounts rather than by order books, compared with 26 per cent. in 1996. Over the past five years, the number of retirement pensions and widow's benefit payments paid by order books and giros has decreased by more than 1 million, from slightly more than 6 million to less than 5 million, even though the total number of pension recipients has risen by more than 1 million. Incapacity benefit payments at the post office have fallen even more dramatically, from more than 2.5 million to less than 1 million. Similarly, over the past five years, Girobank transactions at post offices have fallen by 37 per cent., as has the number of stamps sold.

The post office network must adapt to changing lifestyles, changes in people's preferences and new ways of doing business. Last year, the Post Office's operations overall lost £1.2 million per working day. The ability of sub-postmasters to sell on their businesses—the way in which people have moved on in the past—has taken a very severe knock.

There is a clear need for change in the post office network. That is why the Prime Minister asked the Cabinet Office's performance and innovation unit to develop the strategy for modernising the network about which we have heard. It made 24 recommendations, all of which the Government accepted.

The hon. Member for Roxburgh and Berwickshire asked me particularly about the annual report. My right hon. Friend the Secretary of State keeps the Prime Minister regularly informed of progress on the matter. However, Postcomm will publish an annual report on the state of the post office network, which contains the updates to which he referred.

We have been able to implement all those recommendations only because the Government have made the biggest ever investment in the Post Office—nearly £500 million—on modern online computer systems for every post office in the country.

We are making good progress on preparations to introduce the universal bank from next April. The ambition is to build on the uniquely trusted ground that the Post Office has, and to modernise and extend its commercial banking arrangements so that it becomes the nation's leading provider of access to bank accounts—the universal bank. That is our ambition for the post office network.

All the high street banks have now signed up to deliver their part of the plan. There are two strands to universal banking: first, full access at any post office, anywhere in the country, to the basic bank accounts that will, from next year, be offered by every major bank and building society. Currently, those institutions, between them, account for 99 per cent. of all the current accounts in the country, and they will offer new, basic bank accounts that will be fully accessible at any post office. The second strand is the Post Office card account, which will be solely for benefit recipients. They will be able to use it only at a post office.

My hon. Friend the Member for Plymouth, Sutton (Linda Gilroy) asked about the literature issued by Inland Revenue and the lack of reference in it to the Post Office card account. Sub-postmasters have expressed several concerns about that. My impression is that people are happy with the literature issued by the Department for Work and Pensions, but less so with the Inland Revenue literature. When I examined that literature, however, I noted references to the Post Office card account—exactly on a par with references to basic bank accounts. If hon. Members wish to draw my attention to further concerns about the literature, I shall be happy to examine it further. However, I would encourage them to read the literature closely: if they do, they will find that the Post Office card account is dealt with exactly on a par with the basic bank account, as I said.

The main point on which assurance is required is that the Post Office card accounts will be treated on a level playing field. I assume that my hon. Friend wants that, too.

I can assure my hon. Friend that that is exactly the Government's intention. Both accounts will be introduced from April next year, when the migration to automated credit transfer will begin. Card readers and PIN pads are being rolled out across the whole network. The work is ahead of schedule, with 40 per cent. of post offices, including both post offices in the House of Commons, already equipped. So Members can see them for themselves.

The emphasis of the migration and marketing strategy will be to ensure that each customer has the best account for his or her circumstances. No eligibility requirements will apply and—to answer a couple of hon. Members' questions—no cap will be placed on numbers. Customers will choose the most suitable account for their circumstances. The package also represents a good deal for sub-postmasters, who will be paid for providing banking services to a wide range of customers, not just to benefit recipients. We can look forward to many more customers entering post offices to access bank accounts, which will provide the potential for substantial new business based on developing the post office network as the universal bank.

Conservative Members asked about the number of closures. Last year—in 2001–02—262 post offices closed. The significantly higher figure referred to was for the previous year. It reduced so sharply because of the changes introduced by the Government, particularly the assurance that no avoidable closures of rural offices would be allowed. I am pleased to say that the falling trend in post office closures has been maintained into the first six months of the current :year—127 closures up to September. The trend is falling, though more undoubtedly needs to be done.

We debated the urban network on a Government motion—not an Opposition motion—in the House on 15 October. I welcome what the hon. Member for Roxburgh and Berwickshire said. It remains the case that too little business exists for the number of post offices in urban areas, but we want to ensure that postmasters who want to leave are able to do so with dignity. Of just more than 9,000 urban post offices, more than one in eight has 10 or more other branches within a mile, and 155 offices have 15 or more such branches within a mile. For reasons that I have outlined, the volume of business is insufficient to support so dense a network. We must restore the urban network to commercial viability, restoring also the confidence of the sub-postmasters. That is critical if we are to attract much-needed new investment into the network.

In some parts of the country, Liberal Democrat representatives have started campaigning against the closure of post offices that are not going to close. I listened with interest to what the hon. Member for Edinburgh, West (John Barrett) said about that. No doubt as we speak, his party is, in its finest traditions, writing "Focus" leaflets attempting to claim credit for saving those post offices. That activity is presented as being in support of the post offices concerned, but in reality nothing is more likely to undermine a successful business than telling people that it is threatened with closure, so I hope that we will not see that. I was not aware of the Conservative party's "Save our Post Offices" campaign, but I look forward to hearing more about that, too.

To conclude, much change is needed in the post office network, but the Government are putting in place measures to make that succeed.

I shall begin by declaring an interest, in that I have just returned from a visit to Cyprus as Labour vice-chair of the Friends of Cyprus with a delegation. The Cyprus House of Representatives met our expenses. We also visited the Morphou rally, for which the Barnet Friends of Morphou and the Morphou municipality met our expenses.

I congratulate my hon. Friend the Minister for Europe on his well-deserved promotion. I look forward to working with him on this issue. It is rather strange for me to be making a speech about Cyprus in English; usually I speak about it in Greek, so I hope that hon. Members will forgive me if I lapse into the demotic.

Our debate could not be more timely: a series of factors are coming together to create probably the best and the last window of opportunity for a settlement for a very long time. Failure this time would be extremely serious. At long last, the European Union accession process is acting as a catalyst to try to concentrate people's minds, particularly those of the Turkish Cypriots. The Copenhagen summit takes place on 12 December and, if all goes to plan, the accession treaty will probably be signed in April. There have been elections for a new Government in Turkey, and the United Nations is likely to launch a new plan, probably in a matter of days, through the UN special representative, Mr. Alvaro de Soto. I met him in Cyprus and found him to be a very impressive diplomat.

The Greek Cypriot presidential elections are scheduled for February, so that is also part of the time frame in which we are working. Once we get beyond the Copenhagen summit. the opportunity for manoeuvre will become increasingly restricted, because of those elections and the April accession treaty process. I believe that the Greek Cypriot elections could be postponed if a settlement framework were in place and the Cypriot National Council agreed. This is the last term for Mr. Clerides, and I am sure that he would like to go out having seen a settlement of the Cypriot problem, which has bedevilled his life in politics for so long.

One cannot talk about Cyprus without coming to the situation in Turkey, which I know is of particular interest to you, Mr. Deputy Speaker. The Turkish EU accession process is extremely important, and there were three major developments in the summer, with the changes in Turkish law to allow for minority rights, the end of the death penalty and press liberalisation. We will have to see how those changes work out in practice.

The Turks have in the past used Cyprus as a pawn in their negotiations with the EU. Indeed, there has been great brinkmanship over these issues, including at Helsinki. With the old Government in Ankara, that brinkmanship continued as part of the lead-up to Copenhagen. The Ecevit Government somewhat overplayed their demands, as far as the domestic audience was concerned, in asking for a date for accession talks to begin. Even setting a date for a date will be difficult. That raises the question of how much progress has been made on the Helsinki track.

At the weekend, we saw the success of the Justice and Development party—the AKP—in the Turkish elections. I thought that that significant development was possible after my visit to Turkey three years ago, when the elite of the Turkish political system seemed disconnected from the population at large. One could envisage an Islamic party—not the fundamentalist sort, but one such as the AKP—coming forward. The AKP is not part of the musical chairs that has dominated Turkish politics for so long, so the fact that it has, I think, achieved an outright majority gives a signal for, I hope, some progress. The AKP party has signalled a strong pro-European stance, and it is significant that Mr. Erdogan, the leader of the AKP, has said that his first overseas visit will be to meet the Greek Prime Minister, Mr. Simitis. That is a welcome trend.

I hope that the new Government in Turkey will be reformist on human rights issues, not least over the party's own leader, Mr. Erdogan, who is barred from being a Member of the Turkish Parliament because of a poem he read out several years ago. Inevitably, the AKP will need to keep one eye looking over its shoulder at the army, whose role is always a factor in Turkish politics, as it sees itself as the defender of Kemalism and the secular state.

Does my hon. Friend accept that there are some concerns about the Islamist element within the AKP? There also appears to be something of a vacuum over who the Prime Minister of the AKP Government will be.

My hon. Friend makes an important point. There is clearly a vacuum now, although I hope that the early statements made indicate how the AKP is to develop. We will have to wait to see to what extent the Muslim aspect of the party's background plays a role in policy development, but it has tried to make it clear that it does not see itself as a Muslim party but as the equivalent, perhaps, of the Christian Democrat parties in the European Union.

As I understand it, the AKP has not so far made any public statement of its position on Cyprus. That is probably a good sign, because it suggests that it might not be carrying some of the baggage of the Ecevit Government, which has made development so difficult. There is a clear indication of a desire for settlement across the island. Among the Greek Cypriots, President Clerides' Government have shown great flexibility. They see the prize as demilitarisation of the island, with an end to the unpopular policy of universal conscription, and the peace dividend, which would avoid using so much of the island's resources to pay for armaments. They want an end to the long-term tensions and instability on the island, which have, from time to time, flared up into incidents on the green line.

Above all, the difficulty is the changing demography of north Cyprus. I am sure that the Greek Cypriots are very concerned about that. They do not want Turkey as their neighbour to the north, but the Turkish Cypriots.

As the hon. Gentleman knows I have been a long-standing friend of Cyprus, as has he. Does he agree that one of the most positive things reported in the western coverage of the Turkish elections during the past few days has been that, for the first time, more than 80 Turkish Cypriot organisations are protesting openly about the military occupation of the illegally occupied zone in north Cyprus and about the settlers from Anatolia?

I very much agree with the hon. Gentleman, and I shall return to that shortly.

We now see a real desire for settlement among the Turkish Cypriots, too. They are now, again for reasons of demography as much as anything else, possibly a minority in their own land. When their young people go to study overseas, they stay away because they see no future for themselves in Cyprus. Many Turkish Cypriots are now applying for Republic of Cyprus passports, even though that is illegal under the Denktash regime, with a view to emigration. There are now more Turkish Cypriots in London than in Cyprus. The economy is desperate, with the bank failures of the past couple of years. If anyone has anything to gain from the European Union, it is the Turkish Cypriot community.

That is reflected in the support for the opposition to which the hon. Member for Surrey Heath (Mr. Hawkins) just referred. It is significant that support comes from not only Turkish Cypriots but some Turkish settlers, who see their own futures likely to be blighted by what is going on in occupied Cyprus. That is evidenced by the Opposition parties' very good showing. For once, they were able to co-operate in the local elections, in which they won all the major prizes earlier this year. However, the problem remains that the Opposition in northern Cyprus is fragmented, which is unhelpful in trying to achieve a settlement.

It is fair to say that the Denktash regime is under much pressure. It is embattled, and does not seem to be acting in the interests of its people. As a result, it is increasingly resorting to oppression, including the jailing of journalists such as Shener Levent, whom I had the opportunity of meeting while I was in Cyprus. There is a rumour going round diplomatic circles that he tried to get himself jailed on purpose. He absolutely refutes that allegation, and also says that there are far easier ways of getting jailed than what happened to him. His newspaper, Evropa, was firebombed twice. Increasingly military courts are used for political oppression, with opponents of the regime like Izzet Izcan and Oskar Osgur facing many trials during the next few months.

While we were in Cyprus, 15 Spanish journalists were in the north, visiting the editor of Kibris, the Denktash-supporting newspaper. While they were attending a lecture on press freedom, representatives of the Turkish Cypriot Administration turned up and ordered them to leave the north immediately under pain of arrest. We have to make it absolutely clear to the Denktash regime that that sort of behaviour is not just unhelpful, but downright unacceptable.

The harassment and prevention of bi-communal contact on the island by the Denktash regime is extremely serious. It is bizarre that business people can only meet off the island to discuss common interests. Only last week, representatives of seven Cypriot trade unions were prevented from attending the fourth trade union forum on the island at the Ledra palace. Mr. Denktash has indicated his hostility towards the European Union, refusing to meet the EU ambassador, Mr. Van der Meer, who is extremely frustrated by his position. It is no wonder that when I talk to Turkish Cypriots, they tell me that they are under occupation every bit as much as the Greek Cypriot people. The regime works against the interest of its people.

The United Nations process has moved on. It is a difficult one, but two technical committees have been half established. One is considering the continuity of legislation after settlement, the other is considering the question of international treaties. The Greek Cypriots have already started work. They are ready, and their work is advanced. The Turkish Cypriots have yet to nominate their representatives to those committees. We were told that that would happen when Mr. Ergin Olgun, Mr. Denktash's chief of staff, returned from New York where he has been with Mr. Denktash, who is recovering from a recent operation. However, that still has not taken place.

I take comfort from the assurances given by Mr. Hakki Muftazade, that in the absence of Mr. Denktash someone else will have to conduct the negotiations if the worst comes to the worst. I am concerned that the suggestion of a third committee was not accepted by the Turkish Cypriots. It would probably have been the most important, as it would deal with the effects on individuals, bearing in mind the need for the approval of any solution by both communities in a referendum. The UN plan and discussions have been conducted under a news blackout. It is important that that continues, although it inevitably leads to press speculation, leaks and great difficulties in preparing the respective communities for the outcome of the negotiations. It is important that the UN process produces a package as a whole, with good and bad for both sides. It must not be presented as a take-it-or-leave-it plan to the two communities. They must have the opportunity to discuss their concerns. Far too often, we have seen take-it-or-leave-it plans introduced, particularly by the Turkish Cypriots, which have simply led to discussions running into the ground.

The plan must not be technocratic. It cannot work on the basis of splitting the difference between the two communities. We have to recognise that the Denktash regime is a rejectionist regime, whereas the Government of President Clerides has indicated great flexibility and a willingness to make concessions. We must recognise that both sides have to accept the settlement in a referendum, and each community will have to vote.

I think that it is fair to say that Turkish Cypriots would accept virtually any UN plan to alleviate their position if they were given a chance to do so. However, there is a risk, if the plan is not acceptable to the Greek Cypriots, of a rejectionist faction of Turkish Cypriots exploiting that for its own ends. We were questioned quite firmly by some who suggested that if the Turkish Cypriots voted yes, and the Greek Cypriots voted no, it would effectively mean that the EU should not let them in, thus creating through the back door the linkage that has been rejected on so many occasions in the past.

We must recognise that Greek Cypriots would see further compromise as painful. Many believe, particularly in the diaspora in the UK, that too much has been conceded already. The plan has to recognise the sensibilities of the dispossessed, the vigorous democracy that is Greek Cypriot political life, and the sacrifices that they believe they have already made. The UN plan must be fair and just. It must recognise human rights and abide by UN resolutions: the bi-communal, bi-zonal federation plan and the framework set out in the high-level agreements of 1977 and 1979. It must provide security for both communities, as well as demilitarisation. That will inevitably involve the presence of small detachments of the Greek and Turkish armies. One of the outstanding questions—I hope that my hon. Friend the Minister can answer it—is whether those detachments will form part of the international security force under international command or act under their respective national commands. If possible, the former would be far preferable.

Turkish Cypriots have expressed concerns about the nature of the state and have become hung up on the question of two states. We should remember that the state of Cyprus was created in 1960 after decolonisation. The republic of Cyprus joined the UN and the Commonwealth and started the European Union accession process. That state must not be succeeded in international law, but continue as it is in relation to the outside world. It would be absurd to suggest otherwise, so that Cyprus had to reapply to join the UN, the Commonwealth, the EU and all the international treaties and obligations to which it is party. However, any settlement will inevitably involve changes to internal state arrangements to reflect the bi-zonality that must be its essence, in that it will be necessary to decide which functions of the state are federal and which are devolved to the two communities. In that connection, we must consider the electoral system and whether cross-voting will be possible. Without cross-voting, there is a risk that rejectionists on both sides could create problems, as we have seen in Northern Ireland.

The UN third committee, which was not established having been vetoed by the Denktash regime, was probably the most crucial in relation to issues that touch people's lives. It was intended to consider property rights and the boundaries between the two zones. Any settlement must be based on individual property rights. It must recognise the rights of refugees, not retrospectively permit what is now euphemistically called ethnic cleansing. It must provide freedom of movement around the island.

In relation to property rights, we must consider where the new boundary between the zones will he. Clearly, it must be north of Morphou and Famagusta. The right to return must make provision for refugees from Kyrenia. At least in the short term, freedom of movement is a way of making progress in that regard. There must be compensation for losses—that is a live international legal issue, as we have seen in the Loizidou case—but equally there must be recognition of the investment that has taken place over the past 28 years. If someone has spent considerable sums of money building on a bare plot of land, the settlement must recognise that additional property right. The way forward is to offer a variety of options to try to provide for as many eventualities and choices as possible. Ultimately, the rightful owner of a piece of land or home should be able to decide what they want to happen.

The issue of Turkish settlers is problematic. They, too, have human rights that must be recognised. It would be wrong if they were to be forcefully dispossessed from homes where they have lived for some time, with nowhere else to go. It might be possible to provide them with ample funds to return to Turkey and resettle there or to give them limited residence rights in the Turkish Cypriot zone. Some pointers might be provided by what happened in the Baltic states in relation to the Russians who settled there. There may be a case for limited citizenship—for example, for those who married Turkish Cypriots or speak Greek or English as other languages.

Many serious practicalities will be involved in achieving a settlement. People will have to be moved before a territorial adjustment can take place. Millions of mines will have to be removed, which will take many years. Some of the abandoned buildings, especially in Varosha, are in a terrible condition. It will be necessary to rebuild the infrastructure; the Americans have signalled that they are willing to help with that. Another difficulty is the healing process. A Cypriot-style truth and reconciliation commission might be a way forward. There is undoubtedly a case for letting relatives know about the fate of missing persons. Without progress on that, the situation will be very difficult.

Does my hon. Friend agree that a good start in confidence-building would be a readjustment of the green line to take into account Varosha and some of the other areas that were strongly within the Greek Cypriot community prior to 1974?

My hon. Friend makes an important practical point. That could happen quickly, because no one would be displaced as a result. However, a lot of money would need to be invested in Varosha given the condition of the buildings, which have been neglected for 28 years. Many of them suffered severe damage during the Turkish invasion and were never repaired.

It is important to stress that Greek Cypriots and Turkish Cypriots can live together. We know that from London: there is no green line down the middle of Green lane. At the German Cypriot forum, the Bishop of Morphou indicated a willingness to go back to Morphou, even under the Turkish Cypriots, to worship at Agios Mammas and to meet with "his brother the Imam".

I found one thing particularly touching. After the Morphou rally, 1 went to the United Nations open day at the Ledra Palace hotel, and while I was there I met two people from Morphou whom I had seen at the rally. They were friends. At the bi-communal event they met two Turkish Cypriots who were living in their houses in Morphou. The process was obviously painful, but they were able to discuss the matter in a sensible way and to recognise the realities of both sides. One of the Turkish Cypriots was herself a refugee from Limassol. She would like to return to her home, should a settlement permit that.

The fact that people are coming to terms with extremely difficult situations and can talk in a civilised way to the very people who they may perceive as having deprived them of their homes, provides great hope for the future. People are speaking as a result of bicommunal contact, however hard it is and however difficult Mr. Denktash may make it. The politicians on the island, and Mr. Denktash in particular, must allow these contacts to flourish. They must allow all the people of Cyprus—Greek Cypriots, Turkish Cypriots and all the minorities—to live together in peace, security, justice and democracy, with respect for the human rights of all who live on the island.

I also declare an interest. Together with the hon. Member for Hendon (Mr. Dismore), I travelled to Morphou recently. That was facilitated by the House of Representatives in Cyprus and by the municipality of Morphou. I congratulate the hon. Gentleman on securing a debate on an important subject at a key time.

Nobody present needs a lesson in Cypriot history. Many hon. Members know the island even better than I do, but just occasionally these debates reach a wider audience and so there are certain things that I would like to say—to remind myself, if not others.

About 15 years ago I travelled to Berlin with the excellent former Member of the European Parliament, Christopher Jackson. It was my first visit there. On a very warm summer's night at about midnight, I went to the viewing platform at the Berlin wall with my MEP. On the free side of the wall there were rabbits playing on the grass and crosses to mark where people had died. We climbed to the top of the wall. It is impossible to forget the sight. It looked like two miles before there were any lights at all. Gun tyres and bleak concrete were all that could be seen in both directions.

I hoped then that the Berlin wall would come down within my lifetime and, of course, it has. If I were to say to most people in America, in this country and in the European Union that effectively there is a Berlin wall in a free western state, they would look at me in blank amazement. However, one can go to Astromeritis and lay wreaths in memory of those who died during the invasion of that little church, and then go down the dusty track for a mile or so until reaching the barbed wire. One can meet the UN soldiers on duty, and I pay tribute to the tremendous job that they do. If one stares into the distance and sees the church of Morphou and the houses that some of the people own and would like to return to, one begins to realise what division really means.

It is a shame on this country, the European Union and the western world that the island of Cyprus has been divided since 1974. It is a shame and a disgrace that there are Turkish Cypriots—the hon. Gentleman said that there are more Turkish Cypriots living in London than are living in their own land—and Greek Cypriots, many of whom live in London, who are unable to live in their own homes or visit their own churches or the graves where their ancestors are buried. We have tolerated that for 27 years.

I ask the Minister to clarify a position and give a reassurance this morning. In the main Chamber of the House of Commons the other day, the Prime Minister made a statement following the European summit. The right hon. Member for Manchester, Gorton (Mr. Kaufman) and I questioned him about Turkey's desire to enter the European Union, its desire to secure what has become known as a rendezvous date—a date for talks about talks—and the need to reach a settlement in Cyprus.

I confidently expected the Prime Minister to say that there could be no further progress on Turkish entry to the European Union until there had been a settlement in Cyprus. It was made plain at Helsinki that there was a pathway. We wanted it and fought for it. Many of us would like to see a free, democratic, human rights respecting and economically sound Turkey in the EU, but that cannot happen unless the prerequisite—a settlement in Cyprus—is achieved. That was made abundantly plain in Helsinki but now, without further progress, the begging bowl is out for more.

The Prime Minister clearly indicated that he did not regard a settlement in Cyprus and Turkey's progress towards inclusion in the EU as directly connected. He may not have meant to, but he gave that impression. When he summarises the debate, I would be grateful if the Minister would clarify precisely the position, because many of us and many of our friends in the Turkish Cypriot and Greek Cypriot communities strongly believe that the wrong signals are being sent out.

The hon. Member for Hendon—my hon. Friend, in this context—has made it clear that time is running out. Concern has been expressed that Cyprus is about to be sacrificed on the altar of expediency: the human rights of Turkish and Greek Cypriots to live in their homes and to travel where they wish without having to go through barriers and barbed wire, and the rights of the united communities to live in peace on their island and to trade where they wish on their island and beyond it, are about to be sold down the river because the United States and the United Kingdom require the use of an air base in Turkey for other fairly obvious purposes. I hope that the Minister will be able to give a clear assurance this morning that that is not the case.

We have a few short weeks, as journalists say—I am never quite sure what a short week is, as opposed to a long week. Nevertheless, there is very little time between now and Copenhagen in December in which to reach a settlement. It can be done. As mentioned earlier, two committees have been set up. However, a third must be set up, because the issues that affect real people's real lives—particularly their homes and property—must be resolved.

If a framework agreement is to be reached between now and December that allows a united island of Cyprus to join the European Union on 1 January 2004, which is what we all want, it will have to be sold to the Turkish Cypriot and Greek Cypriot communities in referendums. Unless those communities are confident that their fears, concerns and aspirations are being addressed, they will not vote in favour and the deal will fall. I fear that if that window of opportunity is not taken, we shall not see an agreement in Cyprus, possibly for many years.

On the positive side, we know from our visit—we visited both sides of the green line—that there are very many people of good will. We met Turkish Cypriots of good will; some brave people who are prepared to stand up to say and print what they believe. The Greek Cypriots of good will want a settlement; they are being denied it because once again politicians are getting in the way—I cannot think where we have heard that before.

As always, my hon. Friend is making a powerful contribution with which I entirely agree. Does he agree that one of the greatest concerns is the continuing role of the Turkish military? The worry that many of us have, as friends of Cyprus, is that whatever the men of good will on the Turkish side of the green line may want, the Turkish military finds Cyprus too useful as a military training ground for it ever to be happy to allow it to come back under democratic control.

I shall come, briefly and in closing, to the circumstances surrounding the Turkish military and its participation in events.

I should like to say to the Minister, who I am sure has maintained his paid-up membership to the National Union of Journalists, as I have, that some of the brave people need help. Shener Levent, the editor of Afrika in the northern occupied part of the island, wryly said that he was likely to spend Christmas in prison. I said that I hoped he had sent his Christmas cards and written his articles before being jailed yet again for saying what is true. He has dared to say that the regime is getting in the way of what real people want—they are crying out for a settlement. Those human rights issues must be settled before Turkey can make any real progress towards the European Union. Economic issues must also be settled.

My hon. Friend the Member for Surrey Heath (Mr. Hawkins) referred to the Turkish military, and thus to what is known in diplomatic parlance as the deep state: the state behind the state, which runs the country no matter what the electoral process delivers. However, we have an opportunity because in the past two days, the Turkish people overwhelmingly elected a new Government. That creates a chance for the Minister and his colleagues, the emissaries of the United Nations and the United Kingdom along with Turkish Cypriots and Greek Cypriots to move rapidly forwards, between now and Copenhagen in December, to reach the settlement that so many people so badly want. If that is not done, I do not believe that history will forgive those of us in the Chamber this morning.

1 congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Hendon (Mr. Dismore) on securing the debate.

I declare a similar interest, having also been on the Friends of Cyprus visit to the island a couple of weeks ago. I have previously been to Cyprus, but this was my first visit as a parliamentarian. I have been interested in these matters for some years, and Birmingham has a substantial Cypriot community. As it was my first visit as a parliamentarian, I was acutely aware of the danger of returning and drawing too many conclusions from what is inevitably a snapshot picture obtained from being there for only a couple of days. With that health warning, I want to make a few observations.

The first concerns the impact of EU accession. It is absolutely right—my hon. Friend referred to this—that there should be no preconditions in the way of Cyprus's accession. However, the prospect of that accession has successfully concentrated minds on the negotiations. This is a time of great opportunity, but there is also a danger that that opportunity could be wasted. Both my hon. Friend and the hon. Member for North Thanet (Mr. Gale) have said that we must not let that opportunity go by and that any settlement proposals must have the confidence of the people of Cyprus and their support at the ballot box. That presents a dilemma, to which my hon. Friend and both hon. Gentlemen referred. If the negotiations are to go ahead and UN proposals are to come forward, there must be space for that to happen. That means discussions taking place in a climate that is conducive to reaching a settlement away from public view. At the end of that process, the proposals and ideas must win support. If the people of Cyprus have not felt involved in the process, it could be risky when it comes to a referendum at the end of the day.

I shall address my observations to that issue and three matters that are important to recognise if we are to ensure that people in Cyprus are confident about the future. They are practicality, identity and vision.

It was absolutely right to refer to the third committee. There are huge issues in Cyprus and the principle of property rights is vital to any settlement if it is to stick, but those matters must also have a practical application for people and make sense to them. People must understand that. Some of the discussions that we had during our visit suggest that the ways in which to achieve that may not be as difficult as they appear to be at first sight. That will be realised only if the work is done now to ensure that the details of the way in which people may be affected by the settlement are sorted out so that when the package is available it makes sense to them, they can see how they relate to it and they can see a future for themselves and their families. That applies to people on both sides of the green line. It must make sense and that means detailed discussion on issues of practicality now, not in future.

The second matter concerns identity. As in so many conflicts, symbols are important. My recent visit to Cyprus was my first as a parliamentarian. I was simply on holiday the previous time, but one of my abiding memories was driving along the road from Larnaka to Nicosia and seeing the huge Turkish flag in the hills. Everyone on the other side of the green line saw that symbol of occupation and dispossession every day. If a settlement is to work, it is important that there is a process of coming to terms with that past and recognising that identity.

My hon. Friend referred to a Cypriot version of the truth and reconciliation commission, and it is important to understand and recognise in the settlement the reality of the occupation and dispossession. The hon. Member for North Thanet described graphically the reality of not being able to go to one's home; of knowing that it is there but not being able to reach it. I chair the all-party group on Palestine, and know the huge importance that people feel and attach to being denied the right to go to the place in which they or their parents were brought up. I am sure that that feeling is no less real in Cyprus. I am aware of the reality of checkpoints and the impact that the prevention of freedom of movement can have, and that will be no less real in Cyprus.

It is important that Turkish Cypriots and the regime come to terms with the reality of what has happened over the past 28 years. It is positive that an increasing number of Turkish Cypriots are speaking out. That is why it is unacceptable that action was taken against the likes of Izzet Izcan and Oskar Osgur and, as the hon. Member for North Thanet said, why it is particularly unacceptable that action continues to be taken against Shener Levent and Afrika for doing no more than speaking the truth.

Symbols are also important the other way round. Turkish Cypriots need to know that when we talk of a bi-zonal federation we, and everybody else, mean that in practice as well as in theory. They have to be confident that their rights will be respected. I attended an interesting meeting of people in the north who do not support the Denktash regime and want to see a settlement. However, somebody attending that meeting had his own agenda and was not interested in a settlement. He easily deflected the views and positive hopes of others, and was able to sow seeds of doubt on what the Cyprus of the future would be like. We can take two lessons from that. One is that people who have that sort of agenda need to be confronted. The other is that we need to understand that it is easy to deflect discussions and conversations, and that in order for that not to happen we need to ensure that people feel that their concerns are being addressed.

The other difficult question that needs to be taken on board is that of Turkish Cypriot identity. There are people born in Cyprus whose parents came over from Turkey, who are now adults, and who have known no life other than that on the island of Cyprus.

In order to move forward, we need not only to come to terms with the past and identity, but to have a vision of what the future can hold, which is why bi-communal activities are vital. That is why the work of the bi-communal choir, which visited Istanbul earlier this year, is so positive. It is entirely unacceptable that veiled threats, and sometimes not-so-veiled threats, from the Turkish Cypriot regime should be put in the way of people involved in bi-communal activities. As is often the case, non-governmental organisations are showing the way forward, and some 86 Turkish Cypriot NGOs are engaged in that work. Friends of Cyprus organised the visit that we made a few weeks ago, and its work in international affairs is important.

We also need to be cautious about the way in which we use language and terminology. I want particularly to refer to the difficult word "new". My hon. Friend the Member for Hendon is right that there should be no question of trying to go back by assuming or implying that the Republic of Cyprus is anything other than recognised and internationally legitimate. When some people refer to the prospect of a new Cyprus they mean casting doubt on that recognition, legitimising the occupation or ignoring what has happened over the past 28 years, but their version of newness has no place in Cyprus's future. But there still can be a new future for Cyprus that can be greater than its past. As part of the European Union, a great deal can be built out of the common heritage of Greek and Turkish Cypriot: Cypriots.

We must be clear what we mean by "new", but we should not be scared of the word. I say that having met the former mayor of Famagusta, who has spent his entire adult life engaged in the politics and development of Cyprus. He knew those in the British Labour party such as Ernie Bevin and has been involved, or has known somebody who is, in virtually everything that has happened in Cyprus since the 1940s. However, when we met him, we looked out over the town that he cannot visit. It is still virtually a ghost town, a symbol of occupation.

What was encouraging about him was not only that he was acutely aware of the heritage of injustice, which he wanted to put right, but that he had a positive vision for the future. He was not hidebound by the past, nor scared of a new future for the island. If, as an international community, we are to promote a settlement based on justice, it is important for us to recognise what has happened in the past. However, we should not allow the ghost of the past to get in the way of our building a common future for Greek and Turkish Cypriots, based on existing resolutions. They should then be able to find a way forward that is new for both communities and better than anything that has happened before.

rose—

Order. It is customary to commence the first of the three winding-up speeches 30 minutes before the conclusion of the debate, which will be at noon. I am anxious that all right hon. and hon. Members should have an opportunity to express their views. I ask Members to keep their contributions concise and to be cautious about accepting interventions.

I shall register an interest, Mr. Deputy Speaker. I have visited Cyprus with the parliamentary Friends of Cyprus, and I am sure that I will do so again. I congratulate the hon. Member for Hendon (Mr. Dismore) on having secured the debate. It is extremely timely and he showed great foresight in applying for it. We have been treated to three exceptional speeches this morning. My hon. Friend the Member for North Thanet (Mr. Gale) spoke passionately and insightfully about a subject on which he is recognised to be a great expert, and the hon. Member for Birmingham, Northfield (Richard Burden) spoke with deep understanding in a very thoughtful speech that raised some interesting points.

This is a good time for the debate, thanks to the perplexing Turkish election result. It could be helpful, but that remains to be seen. The new AKP Administration have given some promising early signals, which I welcome. It looks as though they want to face west and will not embrace the fundamentalist-flavour Muslim tendencies that have occasionally been unhelpful to the international community. I hope that those are good signs and that they are accurate indicators for the future. It would be helpful for the new Turkish regime if the European Union were to give positive signals back, particularly with regard to Turkey's possible accession. That would represent an offer of hope, a light at the end of the tunnel.

Turkey must feel that it has a real choice and that a future path in the EU will be hugely more beneficial than any other route that it might take to its destiny. I hope that Europe is listening carefully to the current signals and that it will respond appropriately. I am sure that the Minister and the other Front-Bench spokesmen will be discussing that.

It would be good not only for Turkey if it faced west. Not only would it help Turkey to tackle its human rights issues and get to grips with developing a true and genuine parliamentary democracy, which would give the people more prosperity. It would be extremely good also for the international community and for geopolitical stability if Turkey were to come into the bosom of Europe, which is where it should be. That is much more important than the economic factors, although they are important. Nevertheless, the total demise of the common agricultural policy may be another helpful move in allowing Turkey to make progress in that direction. However, if I progress down that track, Mr. Deputy Speaker, you will call me to order.

There is a desire for settlement throughout the beautiful island of Cyprus. Of course, that settlement must be a bi-communal and bi-zonal federation with a plan for single sovereignty, and it must include ingredients such as flexibility and good will. Give and take on both sides will be needed to achieve a settlement. The Greek Cypriots could be forgiven for being rather cynical because, over previous years, we have seen Mr. Denktash and the Turkish Cypriots operating ratchet diplomacy. Rather than give and take it has been take, take and take; the Greek Cypriots are rightly cynical about that. However, although one can understand their sense of injustice, they must be prepared to approach this new window of opportunity with a fresh heart and with good will.

Mr. Denktash is about to return to Turkey after undergoing heart surgery. We must send our good wishes to him for his future health. However, if he is not well enough to move the talks forward, particularly the work of the technical committee on property and territory and so on, those talks should not be frustrated: other people must take over. For instance, funds must be made available for new building, so that settlers can be accommodated in the Turkish-occupied part of the island when, if appropriate, property is returned to its owners. We must not forget—I know that most Greek Cypriots will not forget—that the Turkish settlers, too, have human rights.

The last few weeks in the run-up to Copenhagen will see many of these issues developing quickly, so I shall not trail through them now. No doubt the Front-Bench spokesmen will clarify the position on them and on progress with the accession process. Like other hon. Members, I have friends in the business community and personal friends in Cyprus, and they give me the strong impression that the majority of Cypriots, whether Turkish or Greek, simply want a solution. They have the good will and warmth of heart to find a solution. I hope that the politicians and pressure groups will allow it to emerge, because it sometimes seems that they are standing in the way of the people. There will of course be a tremendous temptation for the rejectionists on both sides to try to score points, but I hope that that will be dismissed.

Cyprus is at the most challenging point in its recent history. The accession of Cyprus must proceed, and I believe that it will act as a catalyst to solve the problems. I do not have real faith that a solution will be found before accession, although I hope and pray that that will be the case. If it would help to make progress with the settlement, and if the settlement seemed to be on the stocks, perhaps it would be possible to delay Mr. Clerides's elections in Cyprus, so that he can make a positive contribution to the settlement, as he has always sought to do.

Finally, I call on Mr. Denktash to be open and honest on the missing persons issue. Progress on that matter would cost little to either side, and any concept of humanity and human rights demands that it should be made.

First, I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Hendon (Mr. Dismore) on securing the debate. It is timely. I also congratulate the Minister on his promotion. He is known as a good friend to Europe and a strong supporter of enlargement.

I should declare an interest as a regular visitor to Cyprus, who takes a great interest in the island and in seeking a solution to the division.

Britain has a special relationship with Cyprus, which goes back to 1878. We have been directly involved with Cyprus ever since. Many Cypriots who live in this country came here in the 1940s, 1950s and 1960s, and especially in 1974, but people should not be deluded into thinking that they are not passionate about what happens on the island. A letter that I received last week will give hon. Members a flavour. It says:

"This is not fair! I mean the Berlin Wall was taken down, why not our Green Line? We are only a small island and an even smaller nation within it. Everyone wants the island because of its strategic position."

That was written to me by a Maria Manford, who is aged 11. The issue is important to many people in this country.

I shall discuss three issues. First, in line with my hon. Friend the Member for Birmingham, Northfield (Richard Burden), I refer to bi-communal contacts. The island has been divided for 28 years, and during that time the level of contact between the two communities has declined, as everyone would recognise. People have grown older and forgotten and a new generation has grown up within the communities, which have both changed tremendously. The Turkish Cypriot community has been isolated in that period and there has been mass immigration of Turkish people from Anatolia, which has changed the situation in the north of the island. The living standards in the republic have grown enormously, perhaps more distinctly than other changes that have occurred on the island. Therefore, inter-communal contacts are crucial.

I shall not describe all the ways in which those contacts are struggling to happen. My hon. Friend's predecessor as Minister for Europe went to the Ledra palace and spoke to both communities, so I hope that he will find an opportunity to visit the island during his tenure. Inter-communal contacts are necessary because they foster respect and, perhaps even more importantly, understanding between the two communities, and create a positive climate for the talks. The Government have a role through international communities to sponsor those contacts.

I refer briefly to the European Union negotiations. It is in the interests of both the Greek and the Turkish Cypriot communities that Cyprus enters the EU. When my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister spoke about the Brussels summit, he confirmed that Cyprus is on course, will complete the accession process in December, will sign up in the early part of the new year and will join in 2004. The Helsinki declaration was reaffirmed at the talks. It reads:

"If no settlement has been reached by the completion of accession negotiations, the Council's decision on accession will be taken without the above being a precondition."

That is very important. It goes on to say that

"the Council will take account of all relevant factors."

Will the Minister say something about those?

Turkey has just held elections, and we will be feeling our way for a while as regards its attitude to the European Community. We clearly want it to take a positive attitude, and my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister confirmed in his speech that it would. We want it to make progress, but—to respond to concerns expressed by other hon. Members—it must meet the same conditions as every other candidate country if it is to join the EU. Will the Minister say a little about what those conditions are likely to be?

Many people, including many in the Cypriot community, see EU enlargement and the accession of Cyprus as a catalyst for the UN-sponsored negotiations—and, my goodness, we need one. For 28 years, we have had failed negotiation after failed negotiation. Earlier this year, the parties decided to meet face to face, and everyone took heart from the fact that they were beginning talks. However, the UN had to admit in July that progress was "glacial" and that neither party—but particularly the Turkish Cypriot representative—was moving forwards as fast as it could.

There are three steps that the Government must take to address the issue. First, it is critical that we redouble our efforts, in all the organisations in which we are involved, to bring the two communities together for talks. Secondly, we must recognise that accession can be a catalyst and that it will assist in resolving the division of the island. Thirdly, it is critical that any solution is in line with UN resolutions in the acquis communautaire, and I hope that the Minister will refer to that. That is the framework that the UN should use, and concern has been expressed in that regard. Britain should talk about that framework. It has been the framework for the past 28 years, and if we live up to its goals, we can find a solution. Cyprus will then be united, and there will be a revolution in how things are done. That will be good for both communities and for the international situation in the eastern Mediterranean.

I, too, congratulate the hon. Member for Hendon (Mr. Dismore) on securing the debate. I also congratulate those who have contributed so far to our well-informed and thoughtful discussion. There seems to be a remarkable degree of unanimity on the issue.

The Liberal Democrats fully support United Nations and international efforts to resolve the differences between the Cypriot communities. We support the UN view that a settlement must be based on a state of Cyprus that has single sovereignty, a single international personality and single citizenship. That will eventually require the formation of a bi-communal and bi-zonal federation, but such a settlement should not be reached through partition or succession.

The future of Cyprus and the shape of the final settlement can ultimately be resolved only by the Turkish Cypriot and Greek Cypriot communities in free and open negotiations. Any solution should be based on reconciliation and respect for the fundamental human rights of both communities. We urge both parties to participate fully and in good faith in the UN's efforts to broker a peaceful agreement.

An increase in military strength on the part of either community will be counterproductive. A controlled reduction in the amount of military equipment will be an important step in the peace process. In that regard, the UN peacekeeping mission must be free to undertake its mandate. That requires an end to the restriction that the Turkish Cypriot authorities and the Turkish military imposed on its operations. Both communities should cease provocative infringements in the UN buffer zone.

As many hon. Members have stressed, the future of Cyprus lies in the European Union. We urge the Turkish Cypriot authorities to engage with the Republic of Cyprus to prepare for accession to the EU. We hope that accession will act as a spur to reconciliation and a peaceful resolution.

Of course, however, the future of Cyprus does not lie entirely in the hands of the Cypriots. By definition, past and present relations between Greece and Turkey lie at the heart of the current division of the island. I believe that Greece's imminent presidency of the EU and Turkey's aspirations to EU membership can provide a vital catalyst to the resolution of internal and external disputes over the future of Cyprus, which could come much quicker than we might otherwise have hoped.

The Liberal Democrats welcome the recent statements by the Greek Government, supporting Turkey's accession to the European Union. At the very least, these statements remove the threat that Greece could veto an application by Turkey, which would in turn threaten to destabilise the progress that Turkey is making towards meeting the Copenhagen criteria. We hope that Turkey in turn recognises that strongly supporting the UN Secretary-General's efforts to bring about a successful and comprehensive settlement of the Cyprus problem should be among the very first political priorities in its accession partnership.

If Turkey's EU candidacy is to proceed, many reforms are vital. In fact, great progress has been made over the past few months through legal and constitutional changes. Above all, however, progress on Cyprus is essential. The previous Turkish Government argued that the Republic of Cyprus is legally barred from acceding to the EU. The British Government have not accepted that argument and neither have the Liberal Democrats. We can understand why, from their perspective, many Turks feel that the EU is acting unjustly and with some bias in allowing the Government of the Republic of Cyprus to apply for EU membership. The population of the Republic of Cyprus is of course almost entirely Greek Cypriot. The application excludes the participation of about 200,000 Turkish Cypriots in the north of the island.

Whether still divided or not, the Republic of Cyprus will almost inevitably be accepted as a member of the EU at the Copenhagen European Council at the end of the year. If no settlement has been reached over Cyprus by then, it would seem that some provision will be made for the Turkish Cypriot community in the north to come under the flag of Cyprus at some future date. The newly elected Turkish Government must come to terms with that fact.

Commentators in Turkey with whom I have spoken recognise that, should Cyprus join the EU as a divided island without at least an imminent settlement, it will be a serious setback to Turkey's EU candidacy. Cyprus's entry to the EU as a divided island would be a serious setback to reform and the development of a European outlook in Turkey. There would also be a danger that, should southern Cyprus—the Republic of Cyprus—join the EU before negotiations on Turkey's accession had been opened, it would use its newly acquired veto to block Turkey's application for the foreseeable future.

There is, however, a strong feeling that a settlement may at least be reached between the Greek and Turkish communities in the near future. Both communities need to recognise the urgency of reaching a settlement in the few weeks remaining this year, which would be in the best interests of all concerned. Seen from a wider perspective, it appears that the remaining obstacles to a settlement need not be insurmountable.

There is now a strong case for Turkey's allies to engage in robust confidence-building with the Turkish establishment and the Turkish armed forces in particular, emphasising the benefits of a settlement over Cyprus. We urge the Government to work closely with the United States, in the context of Turkey's pivotal role in NATO and in the war against terrorism. We urge the Government to work closely with Germany, which has the strongest links with Turkey among the EU states. Recognising our unique and enduring links with the island, the Government must work closely with the Republic of Cyprus. There must now be a concerted and combined effort to persuade Turkish doubters of the benefits that a settlement in Cyprus would bring to Turkey, in terms of advancing its EU accession and in enhancing regional stability. If Turkey can be persuaded to trust the European Union on Cyprus, and to assist in achieving a settlement, its own prospects for EU membership can only be advanced.

With the Copenhagen summit fast approaching, the urgency of achieving a settlement in Cyprus cannot be denied. There are elections in Cyprus early next year, as other Members mentioned. Accession treaties will be signed in April 2003. There will be serious consequences for the European Union's relations with Turkey if a divided Cyprus accedes to the EU.

Turkey has a new Government with a clear mandate, which provides an opportunity that should be seized now. The Select Committee on Foreign Affairs believes that it is in the best interests of Turkey, Greece and the EU to have a settlement, and we echo that. We urge the United Kingdom, as one of the original guarantor powers for Cyprus, along with Greece and Turkey, to co-operate with Germany—Turkey's largest and most significant EU neighbour—to lead EU efforts to achieve a solution.

Failure to use that diplomatic window constructively will lead to disappointment in Turkey and problems for all member states' attempts to foster good relations with Turkey, which is of great strategic importance to the EU, NATO and the international community in general. Turkey is also, of course, a significant future member of the EU.

Failure to use the diplomatic window constructively would also severely hamper efforts to contain Saddam Hussein's ambitions in Iraq and undermine the prosecution of the war against terrorism. There is no doubt that vigorous diplomatic efforts to build reassurance and confidence in Turkey about reaching a settlement on Cyprus would bring these wider benefits.

Positive moves to reach a settlement would assist negotiations to finalise the terms under which the EU can use NATO military assets for Europe-wide operations. Those negotiations are under way, and a fresh mandate was issued to Javier Solana at the Brussels summit only last week. Delays in finalising the EU-NATO agreement are primarily due to the dispute between Greece and Turkey, and Cyprus lies at the heart of that dispute.

There can be no question that a settlement in Cyprus has a far-reaching influence on our security, defence capability and, most importantly, our European and foreign policy objectives. The Government have a prime responsibility to recognise the importance of a settlement for Cyprus to the UK's wider interests and to recognise the opportunity to take the initiative now.

First, I warmly congratulate the hon. Member for Hendon (Mr. Dismore) on securing the debate and on his speech. I congratulate other hon. Members on their high-quality speeches. I also congratulate the Minister for Europe on his promotion, and I wish him well in his new role.

Cyprus is increasingly important as its application for membership of the European Union progresses. The United Kingdom has close links with that country, is not least because of our common Commonwealth membership. I congratulate Cyprus on its progress with its application to join the EU. It has led the pack of accession countries in closing the chapters, which is a tribute to the quality, hard work and determination of its Government. We warmly welcome Cyprus's prospective membership, and we look forward to working with it inside the EU. Cyprus, with its location in the eastern Mediterranean, will undoubtedly be an increasingly valuable and important link between Europe and the middle east.

We have had a special relationship with Cyprus for a long time. The UK has been greatly involved in the life of Cyprus, and the involvement and links remain. The UK has a thriving and successful Cypriot community—both Greek and Turkish—that enriches our national life with its customs, culture and enterprise. Cyprus is very close to our hearts.

The UK retains two sovereign military bases in Cyprus, and it is one of the state's three guarantors. We support the British Government and the international community in attempting to find a solution to the island's current division, which happened in 1974 with the partition of the island after the seizure of northern Cyprus by Turkish troops and the creation of Turkish administered northern Cyprus. The green line running across the island that is policed by United Nations troops is an ever-present reminder of the island's divisions.

United Nations ideas for a bi-zonal and bi-communal federal government, which were submitted in 1992, remain central to discussion of the island's future. I agree with the hon. Member for Birmingham, Northfield (Richard Burden) that that should be stated explicitly. The announcement of the Denktash-Clerides talks in January 2002 was encouraging, and it is a great disappointment that further progress has not been made. Although I appreciate that the talks are currently at a delicate stage, can the Minister spread further light on any progress and on the shared aspiration to reach a successful agreement before the Copenhagen meeting?

In the final analysis, only the two communities in Cyprus can come to an agreement with which they are both happy and with which they can both move forward. The United Kingdom's role should be to offer advice, to facilitate talks without getting in the way and to support the United Nation's efforts as we have been doing.

Alongside the talks on the political disputes on the island there is the issue of missing persons. Since 1974, a number of people have been missing on both sides of the green line. That continues to cause considerable and understandable distress to families. I welcome the UN Secretary-General's appeal to both parties to address that issue seriously. I also welcome the recognition by the two leaders that, although the issue should be dealt with separately from the main settlement talks, it must be dealt with in parallel with those talks. I am pleased to read on the Foreign and Commonwealth Office website that our high commission in Nicosia is taking a close interest. Should the current negotiations prove successful, as we hope that they will, what effect do the Government think that that would have on the status of the British sovereign bases on the island?

I want to pick up on the comments of the hon. Member for Edmonton (Mr. Love). We do not believe that the present division of Cyprus should hinder the application of Cyprus for membership of the European Union. Negotiations between Cyprus and the EU began in 1998 and have progressed rapidly and successfully. Cyprus is on course for membership, as planned, in 2004. Although we hope that a political solution to the island's division can be found, we do not believe that any such solution should be a prerequisite to Cyprus becoming a member of the EU. We have always recognised the Republic of Cyprus and its accession to the EU would not contravene, in any way, the provisions of the treaty of guarantee. However, to echo the sentiments of my hon. Friend the Member for North Thanet (Mr. Gale), who made an especially powerful speech, we also welcome Turkey's intention to become a member of the EU.

We call upon Turkey to use its influence to assist in the construction of a solution to the Cyprus question. Notwithstanding the uncertainty over the future attitude of the new Turkish Government—about which my hon. Friend the Member for Castle Point (Bob Spink) spoke tellingly—we believe that Turkey has a valuable role to play. Does the Minister agree that it should be made clear to Turkey that its accession to the EU would be severely set back should it consider the annexation of northern Cyprus?

The resolution of the island's division would greatly benefit the island's communities. The Turkish Cypriot community has not thrived since the island's division quite the reverse. Both communities will remain cut off from parts of their heritage while the green line remains. Given our historical connections with the island, it is right that we should play a part in the peace process and give it our fullest encouragement.

I have made it clear that we do not regard a settlement as a prerequisite for Cyprus's membership of the EU, but no one disputes that a settlement would be highly desirable. We hope that a settlement will come about, and we look forward in the near future to sitting alongside Cyprus in the EU as trusted, valued and longstanding friends and allies.

I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Hendon (Mr. Dismore) on securing this debate; and I welcome the vigour and power of the speeches and, in particular, the moderate and reasoned way in which arguments have been advanced. The authorities on both sides of the green line in Cyprus, as well as the authorities in Ankara, would be well advised to study the speeches of the two Opposition spokesmen—the hon. Member for Eastleigh (Mr. Chidgey) and the hon. Member for West Suffolk (Mr. Spring). There was little in either of them with which the Government would disagree.

My hon. Friend the Member for Hendon is a powerful advocate of the interests of the Hellenic community in Europe. He threatened to make his speech in Greek. I have heard him speak that language with considerable elegance, so it was no empty threat, believe me. The hon. Member for North Thanet (Mr. Gale), too, is well known as a committed friend of Cyprus. He placed the whole problem in a much wider historic setting, as did my hon. Friend the Member for Edmonton (Mr. Love). I have visited the beautiful island of Cyprus on many occasions, although not recently, and nothing would give me greater pleasure if my appointment as Minister for Europe, the vista of which opens before me, could begin with a settlement of the Cyprus problem. I thank hon. Members for their congratulations on my appointment.

The Cyprus problem is of deep concern to the Government and to diplomats. I thank those who have drawn attention to the excellent work of our High Commissioner in Nicosia, but others in the Foreign and Commonwealth Office have worked very hard to bring about such a settlement. I am a little nervous of making unqualified statements in this job, as a distinguished predecessor in the 1950s—a Mr. Hopkinson—once said at the Dispatch Box that Cyprus would never become independent. However, Cyprus became independent under the great leadership of Archbishop Makarios, and Mr. Hopkinson ceased to be a Minister. Those who invite me to make unconditional statements may find me a little diffident.

Let us not forget that it is the 25th anniversary of the death of Archbishop Makarios, whose wise leadership is remembered by all. Let us also not forget that it was not the Turks who overthrew him, arrested him and sought to chase him from the island, but Greek Cypriots in the last expression—the last flurry—of European fascism and of interference of the military in the affairs of a European state. I draw special attention to the speeches made by my hon. Friend the Member for Birmingham, Northfield (Richard Burden) and the hon. Member for Castle Point (Bob Spink), both of whom in their different ways insisted on the importance of opposing what they referred to as "rejectionist" politics. I remember visiting the refugee camps in Cyprus in the 1970s. Over two or three years, they became smaller and smaller due to the great energy of the Cypriot people. who did not want endlessly to maintain a life in a refugee camp. They found outlets for their economic entrepreneurship, much of which has enriched our own communities in the United Kingdom.

Reference was made to the strength of the people of the Greek Cypriot diaspora and to the extent to which the people of the Turkish Cypriot diaspora may be able to talk more easily in Green lanes than they can across the green line in Cyprus. That is an important point, because throughout Europe there are great communities of people who have been ejected from their lands. There is current controversy in central Europe over people of German or Austrian background who lived in the Sudetenland of Bohemia. That is a very sensitive issue. Millions of Poles were expelled from their native homelands in 1945. However, I believe that a line must be drawn under history at some stage. It is right to draw the Chamber's attention to the opportunity that lies before us in the next few weeks to leave the rejectionists' line of the respective diasporas to one side. Every encouragement should be given to all the interested parties of both communities to seize that opportunity. That is the combined and unified message from the House and from the debate, the timing of which is excellent. It will have served more than the usual purpose of airing a great cause, which matters deeply to the people of this country.

Settlement is the goal in front of us—Cyprus coming into the European Union and Ankara under its new Government looking west, as hon. Members have put it so eloquently, to a European destiny. If we are to reach that goal, it goes without saying that a settlement is needed. I therefore urge the two leaders of the respective communities in Cyprus to redouble their efforts in the short time left to reach agreement before the Copenhagen Council.

I thank and congratulate the United Nations Secretary-General Kofi Annan and his special adviser Alvaro de Soto, who have worked tirelessly and patiently to bridge the gaps between the two sides. One can feel the quickening pace of history in the eastern Mediterranean up through the Dardanelles to Constantinople, as I prefer to call it, and on into Ankara. I am sure that hon. Members join me in supporting the UN at this time; if it can help to accelerate the pace of history, so much the better to help both sides to reach a settlement. That is attainable but if it is to work it has to be lasting and comprehensive and both sides must feel it to be just. That means that a settlement that works will cause some pain to both sides, but surely the prize is worth the pain. We say no to rejectionism.

The UN Secretary-General has asked all those close to the talks to preserve a blackout on their content, so right hon. and hon. Members will understand why I do not go into detail. However, there is a settlement that meets the key interests of both sides and the national interest of the two motherlands, Greece and Turkey, and that settlement is attainable. Such a settlement will banish the Greek Cypriot nightmare of Turkish Cypriot secession and recognition and it will banish the Turkish Cypriot nightmare, which is a real one, of domination by the Greek Cypriots. It will mean a Cyprus with a single international personality speaking with one voice in the European Union and in other international forums. It will mean a Cyprus with two politically equal entities with responsibility for their own affairs; Greek and Turkish Cypriots will be masters in their own houses.

Much has been made in the debate about the interrelation between Cypriot accession to the European Union, which will be decided at Copenhagen, and the issue of Turkey looking to Europe. We strongly support Turkey's application for European Union membership and look forward to the day when it is seated at the Council table. As my right hon. Friend the Foreign Secretary said yesterday in response to the election results from Turkey:

"Britain and Turkey have much to do together, particularly in the run-up to the Copenhagen European Council. I very much hope this will include progress on Cyprus. We must all redouble our support for the UN Secretary-General's efforts to achieve a just and lasting settlement in Cyprus."

At Copenhagen we will be looking at the next stage of Turkey's candidature, which we want to move forward, within the framework of the Helsinki European Council conclusions.

We will need to consider many difficult technical points, but if we make each technical demand a sine qua non and put it on the table we will not be able to get to Copenhagen with the possibility—thanks to the very great work by the Secretary-General of the United Nations and his team and by British diplomats—of the prize, at the beginning of the 21st century, of a settlement, a solution to the problem of Cyprus.

The British Government will do their best; I am happy to write to hon. Members if they feel that I have not mentioned or replied to particular points in my remarks. My message again and again—I speak as a friend of Cyprus, I hope—that will allow this problem to be solved is that it is up to the Greek Cypriots, the Turkish Cypriots to make the gestures to arrive at a settlement, not to demand that all their conditions are met. Do that, and the eastern Mediterranean moves to peace and the European Union moves forward more strongly in the 21st century.

We now move on to the next debate in Westminster Hall this morning, initiated by the hon. Member for Blaby (Mr. Robathan). It has come to my attention that one or two Back-Bench Members—in other words, not the initiator of the debate or the Minister—wish to speak. It is the custom of the House that if any hon. Member wishes to intervene in an Adjournment debate they must seek permission of not only the initiator of the debate and the Minister, but the Chair. One or two colleagues on the Opposition Benches have already spoken to me. If there are others, perhaps they will acquaint me after I have called the hon. Member for Blaby to speak.

On a point of order, Mr. Deputy Speaker.

That is not necessary. I call the hon. Member for Blaby.

I am sure, Mr. Deputy Speaker, that one or two Labour Members may wish to make short interventions. I have spoken to the Minister about that, as they may have done. This is not a partisan political issue; it unites the people who live in the area potentially served by the airport. I am grateful for the opportunity to raise the issue. It is the first occasion since the announcement on 23 July that the proposal to build a new airport between Rugby and Coventry has been properly aired in the House.

The proposal has galvanised opinion in the area, not least in my constituency. Driving through places such as Ullesthorpe and the Claybrookes one sees hundreds of signs saying "Stop Rugby Airport". I have received hundreds of letters—too many, in fact—from people opposed to the airport. There are already many thousands of signatures on a petition that I started. Other hon. Members in Warwickshire and Northamptonshire, particularly, I suspect, the hon. Member for Rugby and Kenilworth (Andy King), may have received even more letters. Feelings are even stronger in those areas than in Leicestershire. A protest march through the villages of Church Lawford and Kings Newham attracted 7,000 people despite the pouring rain.

The proposal arrived out of the blue on 23 July, although many people in the Department of Transport had been working on it for many years. I shall not forget the shock on the face of the hon. Member for Rugby and Kenilworth when he questioned the Secretary of State about the issue. Half his constituency was about to be covered by a runway. It is an extraordinary proposal—it harks back to the days of central planning in the Soviet Union. Central planning like that has not been practised since the 1950s or 1960s in the United Kingdom. Indeed, the Deputy Prime Minister said:

"The old predict and provide approach … is dead."—[Official Report, 7 March 2000; Vol. 345, c. 865.]

He was referring specifically to housing, but I think that his words apply here too.

The proposal to build an entirely new airport seems to run contrary to the whole tenor of public policy and contradicts various policy documents. First, the flood plain of the Avon would be covered in concrete and tarmac, contrary to all the pronouncements following recent heavy flooding. We all know that flooding is likely to get more frequent and worse as a result of climate change. Government policy, as laid out in planning policy guidance 25 on development and flood risk, rules out such large developments on flood plains. The accompanying press release dated 17 July 2001 states:

"Comprehensive new planning guidance directs development away from flood risk areas."

It quoted the then Planning Minister—now the Under-Secretary of State for International Development, the hon. Member for Northampton, North (Ms Keeble)—as saying:

"Firm guidance against development in areas that regularly function as flood plains is overdue."

She added that high-risk areas should be avoided unless they were absolutely essential for development. The policy guidance itself states:

"Where, exceptionally, development is permitted, it should … not impede flood flows or result in a net loss of flood-plain storage."

That is fairly plain.

A second contradiction is that all Government policy is against major construction on such greenfield sites. PPG 3 precludes such developments in general. A former Minister for Housing and Planning said in March 2001 that draft regional planning guidance for the east midlands recommended that

"no new greenfield sites should be promoted"

for industrial development

"until a comprehensive analysis has been carried out of the quantity and quality of the existing supply of employment land."

We shall see not only the destruction of the countryside, including historic villages, but real damage to the local environment on a scale that is hard to imagine.

An airport of that size with three runways—bigger than Heathrow—would require an enormous infrastructure with warehousing, homes for employees, car parking and so forth. Those familiar with Heathrow will know what that would look like and will also be aware of the volume of traffic. The M6, M1 and M69 in that area are already grossly congested. The proposal refers to an extra motorway lane and points out that the volume-to-capacity ratio would be 200 per cent. on the M1 down to London—twice the traffic that the road was built to accommodate. An extra lane is a charming idea. If people tried driving, as I and other hon. Members do, up and down the M1 on a Friday evening, they would realise that the congestion between London and junction 17 with the M45 is simply horrific.

The development would create a concrete urban sprawl all the way from Rugby to Wolverhampton with the Arden forest as a narrow corridor. Why would we create such an environmental disaster? To some extent it is the function of civil servants to predict and plan, though few get it right. To quote the Deputy Prime Minister, "predict and provide" is dead.

It is predicted that air transport will keep on growing at the current rate, trebling by 2030, and we should ask whether that is desirable. We hear every month or so reports of near misses in air traffic control over our skies. That is hardly surprising because our air space, like our land mass, is limited and crowded. What will be the impact on air traffic control and safety of trebling the number of flights? It is also predicted that business travel as well as leisure travel will keep growing, but new technology, particularly video conferencing, is likely to reduce that growth in the long term. A meeting in an office via video conferencing might take only an hour and stop the need to fly to the United States and spend a couple of nights in a hotel, so that is sensible. The impact of 11 September has already had a major effect on business travel. That, coupled with technological advance, will mean that it will not continue to grow.

On leisure travel, one wonders how many foreign holidays we can all have. It is a matter of choice, but I suspect that an infinite number of people could fly an infinite number of times on holiday—but perhaps not. The front of yesterday's Daily Telegraph featured an advertisement to fly to Gerona—apparently near Barcelona—for £9.99 each way. My taxi ride in London last night cost rather more.

As for cargo, while it is convenient to have vegetables grown in Africa in our supermarkets all the year round, the environmental movement is deeply disturbed by the problem of embedded carbon, and so am I. I try never to buy green beans from Zambia, Zimbabwe or Kenya, or apples from the Antipodes, because it is ridiculous to pollute the atmosphere transporting such goods for our convenience. Again, it is a matter of choice, but we must all confront that issue.

Air travel has a disproportionate effect on climate change because carbon emissions are delivered high up in the atmosphere, damaging the ozone layer. Let me quote Friends of the Earth, of which I have been a member for many years:

"Air travel is the world's fastest growing source of greenhouse gases … aviation generates as much CO2 annually as that from all human activities in Africa …Nitrogen oxides ….and water vapour have a more significant effect on the climate when emitted at altitude than at ground level… An increase in supersonic aircraft flying could further damage the ozone layer as aircraft emissions of NOx deplete ozone concentrations at high altitudes, where these aircraft would typically fly."

After Rio, Kyoto and Johannesburg, it is not fanciful to think that international action may soon result in duties being imposed on air fuel to deter the growth in air travel, as predicted in the plan.

An airport of that size is presumably only justified by the hope of displacing traffic congestion in the south-east. Would my hon. Friend accept my judgment as a former Minister for aviation that that is based upon erroneous conceptions? First, people in the south-east will not travel to Rugby to fly out. Secondly, because of hubbing and interchange in the south-east, an airport in Rugby is a totally unrealistic proposition.

I accept what my hon. Friend says. It is unrealistic to suggest that such an airport could supplant an airport in the south-east. Of course, the overwhelming reason why a greenfield site should be chosen is that fewer people will suffer from noise. People who buy houses next to a noisy airport know that they are doing so, but airports are getting quieter, and international agreements ensure that in future aircraft engines will be quieter still. The European Commission says:

"An aircraft entering the fleet today is typically 20 dB quieter than a comparable aircraft of 30 years ago. In practice this corresponds to a reduction in noise annoyance of around 75 per cent".

In January, an international agreement was reached in Montreal by the International Civil Aviation Organisation's committee on aviation environmental protection, which sets a new noise standard 10 decibels lower on a cumulative basis than the current standards. We all welcome that, as it undermines the case for not using existing capacity at airports.

One reason why a new airport might he preferred is that 27 per cent. of its passengers may travel by rail. I am keen that people should travel by rail—I do so myself as much as possible. However, it takes one hour 22 minutes to get from London to Birmingham international airport by rail at the moment, which makes me greatly worried about the grandiose proposal. Everything has been set out in expensive documents costing more than £500,000, according to a written answer to a parliamentary question of mine. We are told that everyone will have the opportunity to respond. Well, not quite everyone, because my constituents—I received a message from one this morning—are finding it difficult to obtain the consultation document and questionnaire. Yesterday, one constituent received 1,000 copies, which he had asked for in August on behalf of many people. Some people who asked for documents in August or September have yet to receive them.

The situation is worse, however. Government policy is to be determined on the basis of the questionnaire. NOP has been employed—I am sure that that is costing a great deal of money, although my parliamentary question received a rather fudged answer. Whoever devised the questionnaire should be sacked, and I suggest that the Government get rid of NOP.

Does the hon. Gentleman accept that, if there has to be any extra capacity at all, he is making a case for looking seriously at Birmingham's proposal for a short, wide-spaced second runway, which would not pose the environmental problems to which he referred?

I have read Birmingham airport's document, but I do not wish to shift the problem to Birmingham. I shall merely say that its airport is not fully utilised at the moment.

In the interest of saving time, will my hon. Friend accept my complete association, on behalf of all my constituents, with his powerful argument? I would simply add that the behemoth wished upon us would create huge stress on the infrastructure between the midlands and the southeast, and on scarce resources of building and development land.

My hon. Friend will not be surprised to know that I entirely agree.

For good measure, may I too support my hon. Friend? We in Bosworth are appalled at the threat to the green belt.

I thank my hon. Friend. It takes one hour 22 minutes to get from Birmingham international airport to London and just over an hour to get from Rugby station to London. I make that journey most weeks. It takes well in excess of half an hour to get from Heathrow, Luton, Gatwick or Stansted to central London.

It is therefore not surprising that there are no scheduled flights from the midlands to the south-east, contrary to the questionnaire's expectations and assumptions. Question 5b says:

"Would you like a greater number of flights from the midlands to London, or is the current number adequate?"

The current number is zero. Question 6a says:

"From which of the region's airports listed below would you like to see a greater number of flights to London?"

Question 7 includes the phrase:

"If access to the south east of England by air from local midlands airports could no longer be provided",

but there are no such air services. Can the Minister tell us how much this ludicrous questionnaire is costing the taxpayer? Frankly, he has been ditched in it by NOP.

The cost is said to be almost £7 billion—£6.9 billion, I think—before the figures are revised, and as far as I am aware, figures are always revised upwards. For all the reasons I have given, my constituents and I oppose the proposed option almost unanimously. I will present a petition before the end of the month with many thousands of signatures. I hope that the Minister can confirm that the many letters of opposition that he receives will be considered equally, as will responses to the utterly flawed consultation questionnaire. Will he also explain how it came to be so pathetically and badly flawed? I trust that the Government will see the strength of the opposition and of our arguments, and not pursue this damaging proposal any further.

Order. I am prepared to call one or two Members before the Minister if they wish to speak, but I hope that they will speak for no more than one minute each.

I sympathise entirely with my hon. Friend the Member for Blaby (Mr. Robathan). The proposal for an airport in the Rugby area is quite crazy.

Another quite crazy proposal is that Birmingham airport should be closed. I should like to make it clear to hon. Members and to the Minister that my constituents in Solihull would say of Birmingham airport, "Make the most of what you've got." We do not want a second runway at Birmingham airport; that would be a great blight on my constituents, and it is my trenchant duty to speak for them in opposition to a second runway at Birmingham.

I congratulate the hon. Member for Blaby (Mr. Robathan) on securing the debate. Discussing the important topic of the future of air services in our country now seems to be a weekly occurrence. That subject is vital to our economy, and, as we have seen here today, generates strong views. It is right to air those views in this Chamber and elsewhere.

The hon. Member for Blaby asked whether the views expressed here and by his constituents will be taken into consideration. They most certainly will. We are listening to all those making representations to us as we progress towards the White Paper. We will be canvassing views on the wide range of issues and options published in the seven consultation documents that cover the whole United Kingdom.

It is worth reminding ourselves of the questions that underpin the consultation. The first, to which the hon. Member for Blaby alluded, is how much, if any, additional airport capacity is needed. The second is where any new capacity should or could be located. The final question is what measures will be needed to control and mitigate the environmental impact of any airport growth. The answers to those questions will help us to decide how to respond to the projected growth in air travel and how to provide a framework for sustainable development during the next 30 years.

The debate on future airport capacity should be set firmly in context, and I shall briefly give some background to the plan. In 1970, some 32 million passengers passed through United Kingdom airports. Today, that number of people passes through Gatwick alone. The national figure is now 180 million passengers per annum. People increasingly want to travel by air for leisure and holidays—we have a shrinking world and an international economy—and our forecasts show that demand for air travel will continue to grow with the UK's national prosperity, and that of other countries. Air travel for business and leisure is a fact of life. Last year, half our population flew at least once. For our parents, 40 or 50 years ago, that would have been unimaginable. Set against that, our major airports are already full or filling up rapidly. Birmingham international airport is experiencing severe pressures at certain peak periods, and our analysis suggests, under all the policy scenarios that we have examined, that it would run out of runway capacity before 2030 unless air travel throughout the United Kingdom were to be severely constrained. I shall return to that in a moment.

Airport development is a matter of national interest with wide-ranging implications for people and the environment, and it is right that a Government should look ahead and plan strategically. That is contrary to what the hon. Member for Blaby implied. Previous Governments ducked the issue. In more than 100 years of aviation in this country, we have never looked intelligently and dispassionately at the problems, consulted people on them, and tried to find a solution.

It is important that regional airports should act as the core of the economic development of our regions, so a regional airport needs to be in the right place and to serve its region well. Birmingham airport does that for the midlands, and we are all united behind using Birmingham and East Midlands airports wisely. Some of the assessments that were undertaken in advising the Minister were fundamentally flawed. The projections for the Rugby option are out by millions of passengers, so that is no go.

My hon. Friend makes some powerful points. That is exactly why we are holding the consultation. We need to hear such views expressed—not only to raise local matters, but so that the figures can be challenged. That is what a good consultation is about. If we thought that we had everything right and that all the information were correct, there would be no point in having consultation. I underline the fact that we have not taken any decisions on these matters. Our airports consultation document put forward various options and invited views so that we could have an informed public debate on the important issues involved.

With all due respect to the hon. Member for Solihull (Mr. Taylor), who rightly represents his constituents' interests, the key point is that we should be addressing, in the long term, wider regional economic and environmental issues that go way beyond the interests of 40 or 50 residents in a particular area.

I remind hon. Members that this is a short debate, and the Minister probably has a lot to say. Unless interventions are absolutely vital, I suggest that he be allowed to finish his speech.

Thank you Mr. Deputy Speaker. I will, of course, consider as many matters as I can in the seven minutes that I have left.

My hon. Friend the Member for Birmingham, Hall Green (Mr. McCabe) is right to say that there are wide economic issues, but there are also very important environmental and human issues such as damage to the environment and people being affected by noise and other side effects of aircraft. We are having the consultation to try carefully to balance the increased need to fly with the needs of the environment and of people on the ground.

I am grateful to the Minister; I shall be brief. It is about balancing the economic, environmental and social needs of everybody, and the proposed airport represents an imbalance.

The options include additional runways at Birmingham and East Midlands airports. However, each proposal has its drawbacks. For example, the hon. Member for Solihull (Mr. Taylor) could tell the hon. Gentleman of the increased aircraft noise and road congestion that would be created if Birmingham were the chosen option. East Midlands airport, on the other hand, is not thought to be in the best location to meet demand.

May I make it perfectly clear that the hon. Member for Birmingham, Hall Green (Mr. McCabe) is completely out of order in saying that just 40 or 50 people would be affected by a second runway at Birmingham airport? A whole borough would be affected, and many people are registering their views. I emphatically state that it would not be 40 or 50 people.

We can see the passions now being aroused, and quite right too; we are in this Chamber to discuss an issue that has aroused passion around the country. I fully appreciate the points of the hon. Member for Blaby. I know that he wants to represent his constituents robustly, as do the hon. Member for Solihull and my hon. Friends, including my hon. Friend the Member for Birmingham, Northfield (Richard Burden) who has not spoken but who takes an interest in these matters.

I sat on the Opposition Benches for a while—

The hon. Gentleman will be there again.

Perhaps, but not in the lifetime of this Parliament.

In addition to making points on behalf of one's constituents, one needs a certain intellectual integrity in one's arguments. The first question that we must ask is whether we should constrain the opportunities to fly. The hon. Member for Blaby asked how many foreign holidays people have, and whether it was desirable or possible to increase opportunities to fly. In the hon. Gentleman's questionnaire to his constituents he should ask whether they want, in future, the opportunity to fly on holiday or on business.

If opportunities to fly are to increase, the question is, from where should flights fly? The hon. Member for Solihull says, "Not in Solihull, if you don't mind." The hon. Member for Blaby says, on behalf of the people of Sapcote, Sharnford, Broughton Astley, Lutterworth and the other villages in Blaby, "Not in my area." Is the solution to increase the capacity in the south-east? We have listened in this Chamber to hon. Members representing constituencies near Stansted, Gatwick and Heathrow, who make precisely the same arguments as those of the hon. Member for Blaby. There is no intellectual integrity in an argument that states that on the one hand we want to allow people the opportunity to fly, and to increase that opportunity, but on the other we will not make the necessary provision.

If the Government did nothing, and had not held this consultation, the situation would grow as it has over the past 100 years. It would grow in an unsustainable manner that would affect the environment and people. We would see a constant pressure on Heathrow for new runways and stands, and pressure would grow on Birmingham, perhaps on Solihull. This debate to see how we can meet people's wishes without creating environmental damage would not have taken place. Does the hon. Member for Blaby think that the people of Blaby should be constrained in the future in their opportunities to fly?

The question is one of balance between everybody's needs and wishes, and the economy. Building a brand new airport would create an imbalance.

I did not get an answer to my question, which has to be answered yes or no. If we want to increase the opportunities for people to fly, we have to find somewhere to do it. I accept that a balance must he struck, but the Government have been bold in putting these questions forward. Should we increase people's opportunities to fly on business? In the interest of economic prosperity, should we increase the quantities of freight going in and out of the country? The argument that we need to increase opportunities to fly while providing fewer airports and passing air traffic into other people's areas has no intellectual integrity.

I thank the Minister for his reply. We now move on to the next debate.

Thank you, Mr. Deputy Speaker.

The sexual abuse of children is a problem that many, including hon. Members, are unwilling or embarrassed to address. It is estimated that between 35,000 and 72,000 children are abused in England and Wales each year, and another survey suggests that one in 10 children experience some form of sexual abuse during their childhoods. Sexual abuse can destroy lives and debase people's humanity, and we must do everything we can to prevent it.

I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Crosby (Mrs. Curtis-Thomas) on her Adjournment debate in Westminster Hall on 16 October in which certain aspects of sexual abuse were discussed. Today, I want to take a slightly different look at the subject by making a case for early intervention to deter potential abusers at an early age—even when they are children. There is much debate and public outrage after offences are detected, but far less debate and action on how to prevent offences from taking place in the first place.

The Government have an excellent record on tackling sexual abuse, but they have almost no record on prevention. Children are best protected by finding potential abusers as early as possible and preventing them from offending. In 1987—my first year in Parliament—I was approached by a family who wanted to get back two of their children who had been taken into care. For me, that marked the beginning of an infamous sexual abuse case, the Broxtowe case, with which people in Nottinghamshire will be familiar. It hurt many of my constituents and has scarred the police officers who had to deal with it. The horrors of those cases made me ask why a parent or relative would abuse a child. We should devise an effective intervention to prevent abuse and save such children, along with countless others.

We should intervene early and actively in families and households where there are factors that could develop into abusing behaviour. A tragic feature of all abusive relationships, especially those involving children, is that abuse becomes a familiar pattern of existence, and we need to intervene before that pattern becomes established and before the victim cannot imagine life without it. Otherwise, the abused can in turn become the abuser, which is an all too familiar, although not inevitable, pattern.

Without intervention, some of those children become the adolescents who commit one third of recorded sex attacks on children. Many of those young people respond well to treatment, the provision of which needs to be more equitable and better funded. Around 50 per cent. of children who sexually abuse others were or are being abused themselves. That is not making excuses; it is a sad fact. Schemes established through the guidelines issued by the Department for Education and Skills, the Department of Health and the Home Office have produced inter-agency co-operation. Those schemes have worked in my constituency where the relevant agencies have received a positive inspection report. The creation of whistleblowing policies and training to deal with abusers has also had a positive impact.

In the long term, an impact needs to be made on the problem by serious and systematic parenting skills classes in school to allow children to discover standards and models of care, respect and love that sadly they have not experienced at home. Will my hon. Friend the Minister undertake to discuss parenting skills in our education system with my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Education and Skills?

It is vital that abused children become aware that better relationships are possible. The biggest influences on children are television and films, and I have no wish to censor those media or suggest that they retreat into some sort of cosy model family that existed in the 1950s. None the less, will my hon. Friend the Minister encourage the Department for Culture, Media and Sport to open a debate with people who make programmes and films, especially for children, on the need to hold up good models of behaviour and relationships? Children who have been damaged in real life do not need to see that damage repeated in their entertainment. Adults should not have their abusive behaviour reinforced.

Sadly, far more sexual abuse is committed by family members, household members or someone well known to the victim than by strangers. "Stranger danger" accounts for only about 20 per cent. of sexual abuse cases. A recent National Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children survey on child maltreatment found that 1 per cent. of all our young people have been sexually abused by a parent and 3 per cent. have been sexually abused by another relative.

We all know that there are abusers of all ages, from all walks of life and areas, but we should be looking out for families where abuse is likely to occur. One key factor in many, if not most, child sex abuse cases is that sexual attraction is not the prime motive. The abuser wants to wield and display power. Sexual abuse is often part of a wider pattern of violence and emotional abuse. Indeed, it completes that pattern. The sexual abuse of children is often accompanied by many other more familiar symptoms of physical and emotional distress. Those symptoms may well be attributed to a more conventional cause, particularly since children are so often unable or reluctant to talk about abuse of any kind.

It is important to have data-sharing between midwives, health visitors, police officers, teachers, social workers and probation officers. They need to talk to one another and pick up the early signals. Together, they may identify a risk that may be missed by individual agencies. The multi-agency panels that gather after abuse is revealed are needed earlier to intervene and prevent abuse. Data-sharing can give vital clues to the need for early intervention. Apart from delivering children from intolerable suffering, such intervention might head off a lifelong problem that would require vast resources to contain and manage.

Some of the things that I have talked about may sound draconian or seem to infringe civil liberties, but what rights does an abused child have? We must be prepared to take action against the potential abuser. The removal of a violent or abusive partner could be the best solution for all concerned. In Nottingham, North, the social services department encourages the removal of the perpetrator and provides support to the non-abusive parent. The solution may not always be that simple. The supposedly non-abusive parent may have colluded in the abuse and forfeited the child's trust. For some abused children, there may be no alternative but to be taken into care.

Many agencies also still find it quite difficult to work together and that results in unco-ordinated policy and an inability to share good ideas and best practices nationwide. The Government must sponsor a multi-agency response to deal with the varied cases that come before local authorities.

In Nottingham, North, there is an early intervention and assessment panel that offers help to the abuser. It has been an incredible success and I commend it to the Minister. It was set up as a result of a local initiative in the social services department. The panel works with young sexual abusers and those showing signs of worrying sexual behaviour to assess their needs and to find the right response at the earliest possible moment. In many cases, that involves not just the criminal justice system, but training and education. The panel has made another breakthrough in working with both the abuser and their parents. It has helped families to stay together in incredibly difficult circumstances. I pay an unreserved tribute to the hard-pressed local council officers who have worked so hard on making the initiative a success.

The NSPCC is developing the work of its young abusers teams, which are excellent. Teams are sent out to help those who have not yet abused others, but who show signs of doing so in the future. They are also crucial in developing centres for young people convicted of sexual abuse crimes. Those centres give abusers the help and support that they need so that they do not reoffend. At one such centre, treatment was given to a group of 59 offenders. The usual rate of reoffending is 20 per cent. After treatment at the centre only three people reoffended.

The provision of care centres is patchy. Some offenders do not have access to the help that they need. In his reply to the debate, will my hon. Friend undertake to develop nationwide records of community nursing showing where those services are? Non-statutory bodies, such as the NSPCC and Barnardos, have taken the lead in care treatment and support with programmes such as G-MAP and the Lucy Faithful Foundation.

The lack of provision means that almost anyone can set up a centre to treat young people. The mixture of social services, non-statutory bodies and private care means that it is difficult to establish and guarantee a uniform level of care. The provision for those with sexually harmful behaviour is even more scant in young offenders' institutions. Only two out of 10 have provision for treating those young people. The programmes are often based on adult schemes, which are unsuitable and inappropriate for young people. A prison system that does nothing to stop offenders developing is not acceptable.

The NSPCC informs me that lack of national funding for specialist treatment means that the meagre funds allocated by social services departments are often wasted, resulting in a refusal by some councils to send people out of the area for treatment if there is no local specialist provision because of the cost. The Government must also now begin to consider the funding of those treatment centres. Leaving it to the private sector is not good enough. Money spent now will prevent investigations, prosecutions and prison sentences later.

Government spending on research does not match the size of the problem. I would be grateful if the Minister would write to me and let me know current research spending throughout Departments on the sexual abuse of children. When he has discovered that figure, I will leave it to his good judgment to decide whether we should establish a national institute for research into the sexual abuse of children. I raised the matter within a year or two of coming to the House in 1989 and I assure my hon. Friend that I shall continue to do so. Whether he is the Minister responsible is not a matter for me, but I wish him well in answering the queries that I shall raise.

The problems need to be addressed coherently. When preparing for this debate, I was shuttled between the social exclusion unit, the Home Office, the Department of Health and the Department for Education and Skills—I exonerate the Home Office and my hon. Friend the Minister's private office—before I could obtain answers to some obvious questions about the sexual abuse of children. We must develop a clear and overarching strategy in those Departments and someone must be clearly designated by the Prime Minister to take the lead and responsibility in this difficult matter.

What must the Government do to help to prevent sexual abuse of children? First, they must give as much emphasis to prevention as they rightly do to punishment. Secondly, the Government must build on the excellent work at local level in developing multi-agency teams and defining responsibility for spotting families where sexual abuse of children is likely to take place. We must be brave in our actions to remove children before irrevocable damage is done to them. Thirdly, the Government must take action to help potential young offenders not to offend and to treat and re-educate those who have offended. Fourthly, the Government can no longer pass all the responsibility to local level. They must have a national strategy to help to develop and fund the treatment that is already working so well in some parts of the country. They must also fund a coherent, serious programme of research into the causes and prevention of sexual abuse.

Finally, the Prime Minister, who heads our Government and could deal with such issues in an afternoon were he focused on them, should give a named Minister direct responsibility for a prevention programme that would join up the thinking between Departments, including the Department for Education and Skills, the Department for Culture, Media and Sport, the Department of Health and the Home Office. Without the actions I have outlined today and more, we will not have done all we can to fulfil our responsibilities towards children who have already suffered sexual abuse and the countless thousands who could do so unless we act promptly, clearly and soon. I thank my hon. Friend the Minister for his presence today and look forward to hearing his response.

I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Nottingham, North (Mr. Allen). With characteristic acuity and perspicacity, he has identified an important issue. We should be grateful to him for the trouble that he has taken over many years on behalf of the most vulnerable and needy members of society.

Sexual abuse is a serious, profoundly damaging crime, for all the reasons that my hon. Friend has set out, particularly when it is committed against children and within families. By their nature, such crimes are not visible. They usually occur in private and without witnesses. Victims, therefore, experience—almost by definition—an appalling breach of trust and a terrible transgression of self, in a way that often leaves them damaged psychologically and, almost worse, unable to discuss the abuse with anybody. Sexual abuse thrives in an atmosphere of secrecy. That is why it is important to stress—as my hon. Friend has done—our shared responsibility to protect children from such crime. It is not easy, as he recognises. It requires concerted action at local and national levels, across government and across a range of agencies, both governmental and third sector. As a society, we should engage with the problem in a considered and strategic way in order to prevent it. I pay tribute to my hon. Friend for having taken exactly that approach.

Department of Health figures indicate that some 160,000 children are referred to the child protection process each year. That is a horrifying figure. Every year, 40,000 children become the subject of child protection inquiries under section 47 of the Children Act 1989 and 27,000 names were added to the child protection register in 2000–01. An increasing proportion—more than three quarters—of initial child protection conferences result in registration. However, 96 per cent. of those 160,000 children remain at home and the majority of those who are separated from their families are swiftly reunited. The number on the child protection register has recently reduced to 26,800.

Fewer children now remain on the child protection register for long periods of time. That is because, in many cases, their problems are addressed by way of more intensive early intervention to meet their overall developmental needs and by the provision of support to families.

Providing such support is a top priority for the Government, and the Prime Minister is focusing on it. I am sorry that my hon. Friend has been shuffled from Department to Department, and I hope that he will recognise that because the issue is complex, it is inevitable that a number of Departments will have an interest in it. He paid tribute to multi-agency working at local level, and we must work in the same way. The Home Office has an interest, in that criminal offences might be being perpetrated. The Department for Education and Skills—with its responsibility for the development of young people—has an interest, as, clearly, does the Department of Health. So, too, does the social exclusion unit. Problems are often most acute when they are visited on the most vulnerable members of society, because they are compounded by other issues that arise from social exclusion.

Can I first make it clear that I do not mean anything untoward by pointing out the slight dislocation in Government policy? I certainly do not want to berate officials or Ministers, because everyone is trying extremely hard at national and local levels. I simply want to suggest that joined-up thinking at national level would produce many benefits, and my hon. Friend could play a co-ordinating role by drawing all the strands together. We did something similar with the street crime initiative, and people were going in and out of No. 10 Downing street. If the Prime Minister were to bring the same amount of energy and co-ordination to bear on tackling this awful, secret aspect of crime, I am confident that we would see even better results.

I thank my hon. Friend. I recognise, as I am sure officials do, that he has approached the issue graciously. It is a matter not of blame, but of delivering better services, and I assure him that we are at one on that.

The Prime Minister has already taken action on the issue and, as my hon. Friend will be aware, he announced new Government structures in July 2000 to co-ordinate better policies and services for young people. A new Cabinet committee on children and young people's services was created, and, for the first time, we have a Minister for children and young people—my right hon. Friend the Member for Southampton, Itchen (Mr. Denham) at the Home Office. The children and young people's unit at the Department for Education and Skills is also part of the new Government structures. We are trying to achieve joined-up policy-making across Departments, as my hon. Friend rightly wants. That will remove barriers and enable better and more effective co-ordination. My hon. Friend is right to highlight the issue's importance.

I hope that I can reassure my hon. Friend on the development of parenting skills. The family support grant scheme is intended to develop more positive parenting skills, which will go some way towards addressing people's concerns.

Clearly, however, we need to do more. In recent years, we have revised the core inter-agency child protection guidance, which is called "Working Together to Safeguard Children". It sets out the roles and responsibilities of different agencies and practitioners and how they should work together to promote children's welfare and protect them from abuse and neglect. We have also introduced the framework for assessing children in need and their families. The implementation of such guidance will ensure that vulnerable children are safer, their needs are properly assessed and their welfare is promoted.

If the Prime Minister were to make a public announcement on the issue, the Government's actions would carry his weight and could incorporate his suggestions for policy development. He would, however, make another important contribution by helping to break the taboo on discussing sexual abuse. It is difficult to raise the issue even in a sensible environment such as this, particularly when there are many competing pressures. The Prime Minister could do an immense amount for local practitioners and for those who work for the NSPCC by helping to break that taboo so that we can all talk about ways forward on this important issue.

I am sure that the Prime Minister will carefully note my hon. Friend's views, but I should reassure him that there is no doubt that everyone in the Government, including my right hon. Friend, is determined to tackle the issue effectively. My hon. Friend has done everyone a valuable service by highlighting sexual abuse and he is right that people often shy away from discussing it because it is so sensitive and raises many difficult issues. That is precisely why we must approach it in the way that we have—by co-ordinating action across government and across different agencies and by bringing in organisations such as the NSPCC and other third-sector bodies, with their skills and experience, to tackle the problems. There are no magic-bullet solutions, and everything that my hon. Friend has said recognises that.

My hon. Friend rightly drew our attention to the fact that, as we are all aware, too many offenders and potential offenders do not come to the attention of the authorities. That is why we launched the inter-agency "Stop it Now" campaign in September. It will use public health education to prevent child abuse and increase the general public's awareness of sexual abuse in a way that encourages responsible action. I think that that is precisely the sort of approach that my hon. Friend wants, and we need to build on it. The campaign aims to prevent abuse by encouraging abusers and potential abusers to seek help and by giving all adults the information that they need effectively to protect children. We cannot be overly prescriptive about it, but we have to lay the ground in that way.

It is not possible to predict whether a child who has been abused will go on to abuse others. Many of those who sexually offend against children do not have a history of sexual abuse. Similarly, because only a minority of those who are sexually abused go on to offend, a history of sexual victimisation is not, in itself, sufficient to create a sexual offender. That is important. Nevertheless, histories of childhood sexual abuse in sex offenders are often associated with other childhood risk factors, including neglect, family instability and problematic parenting, and we need to offer them support.

As I said, the family support grant scheme is one way to support such children. Many children who have been abused will receive therapeutic help from child and adolescent mental health services and other children's agencies—and, again, I pay tribute to the NSPCC. Those services are invaluable, and we need to build on them and to provide them with the support that they need.

My hon. Friend knows that we recently announced the publication of a Green Paper to identify radical options for improving services for children and young people. I hope that it will act as a platform to take forward some of the factors mentioned by my hon. Friend. The Green Paper will focus on identifying the referral and tracking of children at risk, and the provision of mainstream and specialist services. It will deal with overhauling existing arrangements, and consider the services that work with young people and children, including social services and youth justice, as well as the more conventional roles of schools, families and local communities.

The Green Paper will build on work that we have already done. From next year, we shall ask the chief executives of all the top-tier authorities in England to take a lead in co-ordinating the development of a strategy for preventive services for children and young people at risk. The aim of the strategy, which should be agreed by all the local agencies in the sort of partnership way that my hon. Friend envisages and would support, will be to increase the focus on preventive services—precisely what my hon. Friend has advocated—such as family support, early years development, behavioural support, including preventive child and adolescent mental health services, and youth services.

We know that we have to do better. We have to improve the life chances of children, and to give strong support to families. For far too long, it has been a hidden subject, and we must do better.

May I press my hon. Friend—I do not expect him to reply immediately, but perhaps to write to me—on the funding for such services? Will it be ring-fenced? For various reasons, the money in many social service budgets is often spent under other heads. That is a serious and long-term issue, and I hope that my hon. Friend will consider it.

Before he brings his remarks to a conclusion, will he say something about the need for having a research capacity, so that we can examine why sexual abusers offend and what we can do to prevent them offending in the first place?

I shall conclude by picking up on what my hon. Friend said. I reassure him that I understand absolutely why he is so concerned about those matters, and he is right to draw attention to them. If I may, I shall write to him about some of them.

I understand the importance of ring fencing. It sends an important signal. My hon. Friend will be aware of the important issues of principle and practice of ring-fencing such money, but such things are not necessarily as simple as they should be. My hon. Friend's interest is well known, and I understand why he is so concerned. We recognise that ring fencing is a complex matter. It crosses many Departments and agencies, and raises difficult issues.

We know that more needs to be done. We need to encourage every member of society to recognise the importance, the nature and the scale of the problem. We must ensure that agencies such as the police and social services, when responding to public concerns, are equipped to act swiftly and decisively. Funding, of course, is important in that respect. Equally, my hon. Friend will realise that there are no easy answers. We must accept that great difficulties face those who have to police and investigate allegations of that nature. It can be traumatising for those people, too, as my hon. Friend suggested from his experience in his constituency.

Having said all that, we must not use any of it as a reason for inactivity or complacency, or as an excuse not to set ourselves the highest targets to prevent such crime through the earliest possible identification of potential offenders and children who may be at risk. We must think creatively about how we use and share information, and how we spread understanding and awareness of the realities of the crime.

We are determined to make progress, and I hope to write to my hon. Friend to respond in detail to his questions.

On a point of order, Mr. Deputy Speaker.

I fear that there can be no point of order, as it is 1.30 pm and we must move on.

Would it be in order to bring to your attention, Mr. Deputy Speaker, the fact that I intend to seek another Adjournment debate this time next year to see how well the Government have done on the subject?

The hon. Gentleman has made his point very effectively, with or without my permission.

The debate is a tremendous opportunity to speak on behalf of the public on this important subject, and I am grateful to the Minister of State, Department of Health, the right hon. Member for Barrow and Furness (Mr. Hutton), for coming to respond to the debate.

The national health service belongs to the people. For far too long, decisions have been made by professionals, managers and politicians without much public involvement. I want to make three points. First, I shall dwell briefly on history. The Government do not like it when I do so, but I want to show the lessons that we have learned on how not to consult. Secondly, I shall discuss the weakness of the current arrangements for public involvement, and welcome the Government's additions to them. Thirdly, I want to mention some of the major decisions that will face the NHS in the near future, in which public involvement will be crucial.

In my county, we have learned bitterly how not to consult. The first lesson is to treat citizens as intelligent people, and to not talk down to them. I do not blame the Government for that; I blame the Government's servants in the area. When there is a problem, it must be faced openly and discussed with the people. Worcestershire has certainly had problems. They could have been faced much more openly, but the health authority made decisions before consultation, and consultation was then carried out to force measures through.

The authority had a closed mind to any alternative. It used spin and half-truths to force measures through. It said that a comprehensive hospital would remain in Kidderminster, but normal people would not consider a hospital to which they could not go for any in-patient emergency treatment comprehensive. Statistics were used in the most amazing way to justify measures. The 3.5 million contacts between Worcestershire patients and the NHS each year—contacts with general practitioners, outpatients and community nurses— were compared to the 12,000 patients who had to travel further for their hospital services. The authority was saying, "What are you worrying about? Less than 1 per cent. of people will have to travel further for their treatment." But that 1 per cent. was 100 per cent. of patients from my area who had to travel for in-patient treatment, and a few other patients from elsewhere.

The other tool is to misquote or selectively quote documents. Recently I have had consultations with the president of the Royal College of Physicians, which is my own college. The royal colleges are angry about how often they are blamed for reconfigurations when, in fact, they only issue guidelines, which can be misquoted. The health authority spokesman said that a particular college document had identified that hospitals

"serving populations of under 150,000 could not expect to be sustained in the future."

What the document actually said was that such hospitals

"should not continue as independent clinical units."

That is a completely different statement, because with partnerships the hospitals could be sustained.

The worst example of all was the previous chairman of the NHS Executive, who wrote to campaigners, trying to defuse the situation. He said:

"I also do not accept that Kidderminster hospital is 'downgraded'…Neither the Regional Office nor the Health Authority see what is proposed for Kidderminster as somehow being second class."

That is exactly how to rub salt into a wound. It shows a devastating lack of understanding. It is almost as bad as Marie Antoinette telling the people to eat cake during the French revolution.

The faults are there—the use of spin, half-truths, the misuse of statistics and the failure to grasp other people's points of view. The final lesson is too obvious: it relates to the inability to take into account the response to public consultation. Those responses should not just be swept under the carpet when they go against the wishes of the authorities. A stock answer given by health authority officials at heated public meetings was, "I cannot help it if you don't like my answer. It is the only one I can give." That response shows that officials had closed minds before the consultation.

I move on to the weaknesses of the current arrangements, and my hopes that the Government's plans will improve things. Community health councils have been variable and patchy in their distribution, although some have been superb. Whole counties and big cities have only one community health council. In Worcestershire, there are three community health councils for three different conurbations. I welcome the alternative, and I hope that the Minister will tell us that he has a better name for them than primary care trust patients forums. They will be consistent nationwide and will link with overview and scrutiny committees of local councils, so they have tremendous potential for allowing the citizen a voice. I hope that the Minister will tell us about the process of appointments to patients forums. I am a little alarmed about the cost because, whereas community health councils were relatively few in number, there will be many primary care trust patients forums.

I have had a helpful communication from the National Consumer Council about patients forums. I quote:

"It is essential that locally Patient Forums are equipped with the skills to gather quality information to enable them to work with decision-makers as partners…The CCPIH—

the Commission for Patient and Public Involvement in Health—

"is to empower consumers to have a real say in decisions about service provision …so taking account of consumers' views becomes the norm."

Now that PCTs have so much power, after the crucial devolution, the post of non-executive director has become even more important than before. I hope that the new appointments system and the NHS appointments commission will remove the fear that so many directors have political allegiances. Hopefully, we will get strong, knowledgeable local people who can challenge the executives and represent local people in a way in which they have never been allowed to in the past, and who will not be tied by consensus management, pressurised from above, or even, in some cases, intimidated.

I shall briefly mention some of the issues that will arise in the future where meaningful public involvement is vital. The issue that is closest to my heart is obviously hospital reconfigurations. I welcome with tremendous enthusiasm last week's Health Service Journal, as it refers to a draft Department of Health framework on hospital reconfigurations that it somehow got hold of. The document, which has not yet been published, states that hospital reconfigurations must be based on "socially sustainable decision-making" and on services designed

"with local populations, not for them."

That accords well with a local lady who, referring to politicians in general, said "I do not elect a politician to tell me what I want." That is a very important comment. The framework document, we are told, continues:

"The priorities of communities will not always coincide with those of NHS managers and clinicians. Their views about the relative importance of risks, costs and benefits may differ."

That approach is vital, because as far as hospital reconfigurations are concerned, the terrible challenge of the European working time directive will threaten large and small hospitals alike. The report from the Royal College of Physicians on isolated acute medical services states that 46 hospitals in England alone probably cannot sustain acute medical services.

Health care rationing demands open debate with the public. The National Institute for Clinical Excellence is the first brave attempt at that, and I am more than interested to hear about the progress of its attempts to involve patients and citizens. I would love to believe that citizens could be involved in the debate about the nurses' pay review. I do not know if that is living in cloud-cuckoo land, but the cost of agency nurses is ridiculous. I would love citizens to be involved in discussions on foundation hospitals. This morning, I received a communication from the Terrence Higgins Trust, stating:

"Mechanisms should be put in place to ensure that the views of stigmatised and socially excluded groups can be heard."

Those are just some of the points, but there are many others to which involvement of the citizen is crucial.

To conclude, ordinary people are intelligent and have been disregarded for far too long. Problems in the NHS should be admitted. The Government must take people with them by being fully open, frank and honest, and by being able to respond to people's views even if they force the Government to change their mind. At this very moment, the British Medical Association is holding a consultative seminar with representatives of patient groups and professionals working in accident and emergency departments to identify and address areas of concern about access to emergency care. The Government are very good with words, and I hope that the Minister will tell us that actions are being moulded to the words.

I hope that it will not come as too much of a surprise to the hon. Member for Wyre Forest (Dr. Taylor) that I agree with much of what he said—I hope that that does not disappoint him. I probably start from probably the same position as him. He criticised existing arrangements and said that public involvement in the national heath service is not as good as it should be. The Government and I agree, which is why we proposed and implemented changes. The hon. Gentleman asked some specific questions, and I hope that I can answer them.

There is no better place to start than the hon. Gentleman's first remark—the national health service, of course, belongs to the public. They pay for it through general taxation and have the right to be fully involved with, and consulted on, the planning and delivery of local NHS services, as well as decisions on the best ways in which to improve them. I do not want to go into the long and painful history of developments in the hon. Gentleman's constituency, but there is room for improvement in the way in which we ensure that change is effective in future.

A further problem is that when the NHS was set up—if one consults the history books—ownership was taken away from local communities. That was the basis on which many hospitals were put together. Ownership was instead invested in the state, which brought huge benefits, but there was a cost because a gulf grew between local communities and the way in which NHS services were run. Our challenge is to find a way to bridge that gap. Professor Kennedy, in his report on events at Bristol Royal infirmary, argued that patients should be inside the NHS rather than on the outside, as they often appear to be. Our proposals in the NHS plan and our response to the Kennedy report are designed to achieve that.

The hon. Gentleman spoke about community health councils. CHCs have been the principal mechanism for reflecting the public's interest in the NHS for nearly 30 years, and have done that job very well in many cases. However, CHCs have never empowered the public to speak for themselves or provided opportunities to that effect that is not a criticism because it was never part of their remit. Modernisation of the NHS, centred on the needs and views of patients, which both the hon. Gentleman and I would like, requires mechanisms that enable systematic public involvement. Such a system should be proactive and not merely reactive, as present arrangements largely are. The system must work in partnership with the NHS, and should not always be pitched against the NHS. Patients forums, the Commission for Patient and Public Involvement in Health, and overview and scrutiny committees will replace community health councils. I hope that those new arrangements will ensure that the system to involve the public in the NHS will be more inclusive, proactive and democratic.

As the hon. Gentleman will know, Mrs. Sharon Grant has been appointed as chair designate of the new commission. I am very confident that she will make a hugely important contribution to its work, given her record of achievement and commitment. Mrs. Grant and her interim team are considering such issues as the core values under which the commission will operate, the different ways in which it could be structured, and staffing. The commission will start its formal work in January. The hon. Gentleman asked about the title of patients forums. I understand that Mrs. Grant wants to examine that—I am sure that she will have something to say about it.

One of the commission's first jobs will be to begin setting up patients forums throughout the country, and ensuring that patient and public involvement is consistent throughout the country. Patients forums will be made up of local volunteers who will monitor and review health services from a lay perspective. They will submit reports and recommendations to NHS managers, and a member of each forum will sit on the local trust board. The commission will organise the recruitment of volunteer members to forums and the recruitment of staff to forums to support their activities. I hope that the recruitment campaign for volunteers will target all corners of local communities. Some staff recruited to support forums will promote community involvement. Everywhere in the country there will be people with the capacity, inclination and skills to be effective members of patients forums. Many others will have something to say about the future of their local NHS, but will not know the best way to go about saying it. Some may not have the confidence or the opportunity to attend meetings.

It will be the job of community involvement staff to use existing community networks and visit different parts of the community to seek the views of the wider community. Where possible, they will take meetings to the people, and will work in innovative ways to ensure that as many people as possible can influence decisions. We will have to leave behind traditional ways of doing things as they have not always worked. In particular, we must look critically at the meetings culture. However, getting involved in decision-making processes is meaningless if the mechanisms for implementing decisions do not have teeth. It is one thing for a patients forum to make a series of recommendations to NHS manager, but that is futile if the NHS ignores what is said. In other words, the NHS must be more than just a good listener.

Not everyone will agree on the right way forward—I think that the hon. Gentleman cited a document on that issue, to which I shall refer in a moment. Trusts will not always be able to react positively to recommendations, but the flip side is that forums have the right to expect a proper response and explanation from trusts. Fundamentally, the NHS will need to treat the new forums as equal partners. Both sets of partners will have to work hard to ensure that they are viewed in that way—as a resource, not an obstacle.

We are not only empowering people directly, but providing new powers so that democratically elected members of local authorities can have real influence over the NHS. The Health and Social Care Act 2001 gave new powers to the overview and scrutiny committees of local authorities to review and scrutinise the planning, operation and development of local health services. I hope that that will tackle directly the lack of local accountability by ensuring that democratically elected representatives with responsibility, as a matter of law, for the well-being of local people have influence over the NHS.

To facilitate health scrutiny by local councillors, the Act places three key obligations on the NHS: to provide information to overview and scrutiny committees; to consult on the substantial variation and development of services; and for senior NHS officials to attend meetings to explain decisions. On top of the new scrutiny powers there is a specific right of referral to my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Health where an overview and scrutiny committee contests either the adequacy of public involvement and consultation or the merits of proposals for change.

Public interest is highest when proposals are made to reconfigure local services. The hon. Gentleman drew on his own experiences in making that point. The NHS plan committed the Government to establishing an independent reconfiguration panel to consider contested proposals. Where a referral is made, the Secretary of State may seek the advice of the panel, which will be made up of key stakeholders, a third of whom will be patient representatives. We expect to confirm the panel's membership shortly, but its work must be seen in the context of our undertaking to develop a framework to address service reconfigurations—the hon. Gentleman also spoke on that subject.

The forces that historically have underlined the need for reconfiguration of NHS services are well known, not least to the hon. Gentleman, who has had a distinguished career in the NHS. Patient safety, technological change and affordability have tended to act as centralising forces in the past, and we must carefully reconsider all those issues from the patient's perspective and experience, remembering people's strong wish to retain the best possible local access to the highest quality services as close to home as possible. The best solutions have a number of common factors, to which the hon. Gentleman referred. We should design services with local people, not for them. In west Cornwall, for example, the NHS, the local authority and local people have united around an idea for developing services to meet local people's needs and maintain access to locally based services. They are working in partnership to put the new model of care in place, and we are providing them with financial support to do so.

We should take a whole-system view. Hospitals are more effective and stronger if they work in partnership than in isolation—I agree with the hon. Gentleman about that. Merged clinical teams permit far more flexibility in the way in which services are provided. There should be an emphasis on redesign, not relocation. The experience with service and work force redesign shows that alternative models of care can be developed to deliver safe, effective care for patients, and we should explore all those avenues. Patient safety must, however, come first. Innovations such as the local medical emergency unit in Cornwall, of which the hon. Gentleman is aware, need thorough testing before they can be implemented more widely. Smaller-scale innovations such as extended roles and clinical networks are already working well in many places.

The aim of our work on those issues is to help the NHS to get it right first time. The framework to which the hon. Gentleman rightly drew attention will assist, or seek to assist, the process of decision making at local level by offering signposts for the future and by helping local communities to develop innovative and sustainable service models that are supported by local populations. We expect to publish that framework in the very near future, and I am sure that the hon. Gentleman will be the first to write to me about it.

Section 11 of the Health and Social Care Act places a new duty on the NHS to make arrangements to involve and consult the public on decisions to be taken about changes to local services. It will come into effect in the new year and underpins new arrangements for patient and public involvement across the country. It will enable members of trusts to whom involvement is second nature to capitalise on their good experience, and will bring up to speed those trusts for which it has not been such a high priority. It will give more people the chance to get involved.

Promoting a "Trust me, I'm a patient" culture is a real challenge. For many in the NHS, involving patients and the public in decision-making processes will mean changing the way in which they work. I believe that that is the right thing to do. To ignore the views and experiences of patients and the public would be to ignore the biggest pool of expertise available to the NHS. I accept that involving patients and the public in the decision-making processes of the NHS is a challenge, but it is also an opportunity that we should seize with both hands.

The hon. Gentleman referred to the big challenge posed by compliance with the European working time directive. It is an opportunity rather than a threat—we should look at it in that context. We have worked closely with the royal medical colleges, the British Medical Association and others to find the right combination of measures to ensure that we do not, as the hon. Gentleman suggested, face an unacceptable range of solutions that would take people further away from local services. I do not believe that anyone would want that, as there are solutions at hand.

We will have to examine critically arrangements for cross cover and new arrangements for staffing on-call rotas. Skill mix in the NHS—the classic question of who does what, and why it must be done in a particular way—is a significant challenge. There are opportunities for us to re-examine the way in which we provide services. Compliance with the European working time directive will not provide a fig leaf, as it were, or an excuse for wholesale service reclassification. Neither I nor my constituents want that. If there is one baseline test that we as right hon. and hon. Members should always set ourselves when examining NHS issues, it is whether a policy will work for our constituencies, and whether it is the right thing to do for the people whom we represent. That is my approach to such issues.

I believe—I hope that you, Mr. Deputy Speaker, and the hon. Gentleman agree—that the NHS is a public service. It does not belong to me, or to any of us in the House, but to the public, who support it strongly and pay for it through their wallets. The public have an absolute entitlement to expect that the service delivered to them meets their local needs. That is our objective.

A very constructive and interesting debate.

Question put and agreed to.

Adjourned accordingly at two minutes to Two o'clock.