I should like to thank Mr. Speaker for timetabling this debate and agreeing to my request that it should last for one and a half hours. The number of hon. Members present indicates the interest in this matter, which, in recent weeks, has been raised a number of times on the Floor of the House in discussion and questions.

Hon. Members will know that I have made a fairly detailed analysis of heroin use in my constituency, but I do not propose to go through the 300-page background document, the 150 case studies or the 39 recommendations. All that is available and I believe that a copy has been sent to all hon. Members. Anyone who wants a copy is more than welcome to have one.

I want to take the opportunity to thank those who contributed to my public inquiry, for which I received a lot of local public support. Many hundreds of people contributed personally and many thousands contributed in writing. However, when dealing with one section of the community and professions—the health service—I sometimes wondered whether I was looking into dental services because obtaining information was like pulling teeth. That is why I called for this debate on treatment services for heroin addicts.

Until the Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Health, my hon. Friend the Member for Tottenham (Mr. Lammy) appeared at 9.25 am, I did not know which Minister would respond to this debate. I chose not to inquire because I did not want to skew my comments according to whether the response was coming from a Home Office Minister or a Health Minister. The provision of drug treatment services is a major issue and is a dilemma here and throughout Europe.

Yesterday I went to GOAN where I discussed CAD and the links between CDPs and DRGs under the auspices of DATS and, in Nottinghamshire, DAATS. GOAM is not responsible for the NTA so I did not discuss CDTs, but I could discuss DDTOs and the role of the LSP and the SRP of EMDA. SORTID and HETTIS may be interested, but Framework and Hope less so. Tomorrow, I shall be at the PCT. There are two PCTs involved and mine does not commission the DAAT. NCC chairs the DAAT but BDC chairs the DRG. GPs are covered by one strategic health authority and DAAT by another. Some GPs fall under a third PCT, but, thankfully, there is only one LEA and one police force, although that has two emergency numbers and two separate control rooms. Most people in those bodies want to discuss funding streams. I am a simple man and to me a stream is running water, although if it were left to the EA and NCB in my constituency, that might not be so. How on earth are we to tackle the problem of drug addiction with that plethora of semi-detached organisations?

In my area there are far more than I have listed. When we knew that my mother was terminally ill with cancer, we received a call and a visit from a Macmillan nurse, who dealt with the other organisations. I put it to the Minister that in drug treatment, someone fulfilling the equivalent of the Macmillan nurse's role would bring about a major breakthrough in handling the plethora of organisations involved. The fact that there is not someone like that in drug treatment has contributed to the frustration and anger that has built up in my community and others.

Let me set the scene. In my constituency most of the pits shut between the late 1980s and 1992. They provided the majority of jobs in many parts of the constituency. In some villages, every male was working, or had worked in the pits, usually from the age of 15 to 65. When the pits shut, there was nothing. There were attempts at regeneration and there still are. Some were successful and some were not. The certainty of life was removed. I accept that that certainty had some downsides in terms of aspiration. 'Pit fodder' is the term that was used in schools, and was still used when I entered the House 18 months ago and it showed how the kids in those villages were perceived by the educational establishment. However, they were certain of a job for life in the community, and it had become an increasingly well-paid job over its last 30 years. That was taken away and, as predicted in the House in 1992, there has been a rise in drug addiction, specifically heroin.

The comparison between the pit villages and the more affluent rural areas is quite stark. Less than 10 per cent. of the cases dealt with by the probation service in Retford, which is a predominately rural area, involve criminals addicted to heroin. In Worksop, that figure is 92 per cent, and accounts for two thirds of all reported crime. When I met the chief constable on Monday he agreed with me that drug addiction probably accounts for virtually all the unreported crime as well.

We do not have treatment services in my constituency; they are at a distance. The philosophy of the drugs treatment service is one of harm reduction. I will come back to that because I challenge the whole ethos of the National Treatment Agency, and the whole drugs treatment business. We know the results. I could give chapter and verse, and describe the individuals who inject into their eyeballs because they have no veins left that they can use. Women have given up their children for adoption because they cannot cope with heroin addiction. Large numbers of grandmothers are caring for children. I could go on and on. I could paint a more evocative picture of the real state of play because those examples are not isolated, but I will not do so because I do not have enough time. The vast majority of criminals in my constituency are addicts. Only a few clubbing drugs are used in my constituency; there is hardly any cocaine, or crack cocaine. The drug being used time and again, and in hundreds of cases, is heroin.

There are several things that I would like to be able to say to a Home Office Minister. I want to see drugs courts because many addicts are drugs criminals. Only one of the 150 people I met was not involved in crime. That one person had a partner who funded his addiction and had done for nine years. I want addicts to be given a choice: prison or treatment. That is what we recommended in our report. It is a false choice at the moment because treatment is not being provided.

Fortuitously, Professor Howard Parker of Manchester university has recently produced a new report—he has produced many over the years. I ask for your forbearance, Madam Deputy Speaker, and that of other hon. Members, while I explore the work of Professor Parker. There is a particularly poignant and important reason for doing so. His paper in Sociology magazine, which was released, I believe, on Sunday and which I accessed yesterday, is entitled "The Normalization of 'Sensible' Recreational Drug Use". According to the references, Professor Parker started writing articles on the normalisation of drug use in 1994 and he refers to Mr. Van Vliet of the Netherlands, who wrote of the concept of the normalisation of drug use in 1990.

In a wonderful throw-away phrase explaining why he did not get all the responses that he had anticipated from the young people he had studied, Professor Parker writes that of his cohort—his evidence base—"up to half" went away to university, which meant that he had some problems in getting them to respond to his survey. So by his own definition, up to half the young people he surveyed in the north-west went to university. That must play a part in the debate.

Professor Parker and others who write on the normalisation of sensible recreational drug use, talk time and time again of clubbing. Well, we do not have clubbing in my constituency. Virtually nobody goes clubbing because the clubs do not exist. It is 30 or 40 miles to the nearest one and the buses that go to the clubs in Doncaster and Nottingham are infrequent and increasingly rare.

Significant numbers of people in the mining villages and other parts of the community start by experimenting with cigarettes, alcohol and cannabis and then move on to experimenting with heroin, often realising too late that they are addicted. The vast majority move on to injecting eight times a day and their whole lifestyle is based around funding that addiction. The cycle cannot be broken without treatment. According to police estimates, if someone has a criminal income of £15,000, that translates to £70,000 or £80,000 worth of stolen goods. That is per person, per year. That means £20 million worth of stolen goods in my constituency alone. Yet treatment is still not being provided.

I want to move on to the reason why I referred to Professor Parker and made what I suppose was an attack on him. The people he studied were not the same as the people who live in my constituency, so perhaps attacking him is unfair in abstract. He studied students. However, his name was cited four times in evidence to my inquiry, so I had to find out who he was and what he stood for. His philosophy of harm reduction goes right to the core of the work of the National Treatment Agency. It is central to what is going on in drugs treatment services in my constituency and it is not acceptable.

It is unacceptable for professionals to say, "I am in favour of harm minimisation." People who are in favour of harm minimisation suggest that we need needle exchanges. Well, we do, but the national health service does not provide a needle exchange in my constituency. That was left to a homeless charity because the NHS did not get its act together. Together with the panel of five people from the church, the business community and the community who comprise my inquiry team—there were six of us in total—I have called for more needle exchanges. We have to cover 360 sq miles. I am not against harm minimisation or harm reduction, but I am against the whole philosophy that what is needed—to put it in the extreme—is to show people how to inject into their eyeball because they have no veins left. That is not a coherent approach or an answer to the drugs epidemic that we face. The fact that people such as Howard Parker have been cited by professionals—four times by four different people—is a very worrying sign.

I have taken the opportunity, and will do so again, to make comparisons with what happens abroad. Last week, I met the head of drugs co-ordination for the European Union to consider the evidence base. I am not a medical expert—I do not know what forms of treatment are most effective—but the research base says that different treatments work for different people. I, and others, have called for a menu of treatment options, but that is not available.

"Changing Habits", the Audit Commission report published in February, highlighted six weaknesses, the first of which was the difficulty of accessing drugs treatment. In my area, there are transport problems for people who want to go to Mansfield or Doncaster but have no money because they are spending it all on heroin. Indeed, the most common excuse used when tapping young people for money is, "Give me money for my bus fare or train fare." That happens all the time in my constituency—it is part of the daily intimidation of drug-free young people.

What is the role of general practitioners? There is a target stating that 30 per cent. of GPs should be trained in drugs treatment. That has not been met in my area of Nottinghamshire, and in Bassetlaw we are below the Nottinghamshire average. We need trained GPs. Some are good; some are brilliant—two of them took part in my inquiry and were happy to do so—but what about those who are bad? What sanctions are we applying to ensure that GPs have the knowledge base within their practice to deal with the problem? I want new clinics on a local base that can feed back into the National Treatment Agency.

Like me, the Audit Commission found that there were lengthy delays in treatment. That has been mentioned by other hon. Members, and I will allow them to present their own facts and figures. If I, a member of my family or any of my constituents have cancer, we should receive immediate diagnosis and treatment. I do not expect to be told to come back in six months or a year. One of the more puzzling, and prevalent, official phrases that I came across was "presenting". The addict must present himself, as if to say, "Here I am, sir: I have come to present myself because I want to come off this drug". If they do "present" themselves they are often told, "Go away sonny. Come back tomorrow and present yourself again, and again and again, to prove that you are genuine."

Let me describe the case study written up in my report as that of Miss A. I do not know whether Miss A was involved in prostitution, but my evidence base suggests that almost every young woman who is a heroin addict—there are more than 200 in my constituency—is so involved. Miss A's father buys her heroin because he does not want his daughter prostituting herself on the streets to get the money. She is in what I would call a relatively stable family situation. The mother and father are married and have been for a long time and they have other children. I listened to the answerphone messages that Miss A received from the treatment services, and frankly they were an absolute disgrace. Appointments were broken. One message said, "Meet us at Boots at 10 o'clock", but the drugs worker was not there at that time. Other messages said, "Meet us next week," "Meet us the week after" and "Oh, I'm going on holiday for three weeks." Because her phone was not on at 1 o'clock, there was a message at two minutes past claiming that she was obviously not serious about drugs treatment, so was not going to get it.

The parents of Mr. Y, who is from a stable family background, came to me just over a year ago. The father buys him drugs to stabilise his intake and to get him away from the criminals. He has spent more than a year trying to reduce his son's intake and has to take him to accident and emergency every time he overdoses, which is about once a month because the family are not professionals so are not managing matters properly. That is a great expense to the NHS. Those petrified parents wanted residential rehabilitation for their son. In the nine months before my inquiry, I could not find a single case of residential rehab in my constituency—not one. Amazingly, in the week after the inquiry, Mr. Y went into residential rehab. That was, of course, going to happen anyway, but I want to know on what basis decisions are being made, and who is making them. Those are real case studies.

The National Audit Office found, as I have, that assessment procedures are chaotic across the country. In some places assessments are made by a team, but in my area just one person seems to be making assessments on who should get what treatment, and there is no right of appeal.

I should like quantified statistics. What is the definition of treatment for the 118,000 people currently being treated in this country—that is the number according to the information that has been given? I should like to know how many in my constituency are being treated because I have not been given those statistics. I asked publicly for the figures, but they were not given, even when I asked again. What quantifies success? How many are going into residential rehabilitation and why? How many are being treated in the community, and how? How are we measuring success? I want to see comparisons of success, because it can be defined in different ways. For some individuals it might be defined as reducing heroin intake and stabilising. They might not ever be drug free, but might be stable for a long period of time, out of the crime cycle and fit enough to get back into work. For others—hopefully a majority—success means being drug free. That quantifying is not there in anything I have been given. Perhaps the Minister can help me on that.

Such comparisons are critical, and are needed across Europe. The Council of Ministers is meeting to discuss this matter on Thursday and Friday this week, and I believe that either the Home Secretary or a Health Minister is going to the meeting. There will there be a paper on the EU action plan on drugs. I should like to see consideration there of one of the six principles of the UN General Assembly's special session on drugs, which is

"To increase substantially the number of successfully treated addicts".

The quantifying of such success is missing in the EU action plan on drugs, although it has plenty on cross-border smuggling. I propose that the Government put the quantifying of success back into the plan. In its action plan the EU has signed up to the six principles of the UN General Assembly special session on drugs, so that quantifying should be part of its policy. There must be a follow-up to analyse what treatments work, and Europe seems a better data bank than Britain alone. Let us learn from best practice. I propose that that measure be built in for consideration at the Council of Ministers meeting on Thursday and Friday. It could then be passed on to the Heads of State, who meet in December, although I suppose the papers will go in front of them only briefly.

I should like to see the database of the Exchange on Drug Demand Reduction Activities quantified. It is rather difficult to access it. That might just be because of my internet prowess, but I have been repeatedly unable to access the EDDRA database on drug demand reduction programmes. Certainly, the EU has been concentrating on supply.

As I have said, I should like to see the equivalent of a Macmillan nurse in drug treatment services—one person who is there to advise the families of addicts. I should like to see the notion of people having to "present" themselves for treatment knocked on the head. Treatment should just be made available.

My next comment is directed at the Home Office. I should like to see drugs courts and drug testing in the custody suites of my local police stations. Those measures have been piloted in Nottingham, and there is nothing wrong with doing things in the cities, but we want the same priority. I want to see those measures in my constituency.

More than 3,000 people have responded to my inquiry, and I have met 150 heroin addicts both on a one-to-one basis and in groups, which is a reasonable evidence base. I have written up the results and given the Department of Health and the Home Office CDs containing the case studies, in which we have masked the names to preserve confidentiality. The case studies follow a pattern, which is repeated and repeated and repeated, of low aspirations and mobility.

Young people who experiment with a range of drugs compare their control of taking cannabis with their initial control of taking heroin. That is what they said, not what I said, and they said it repeatedly. Young people who experiment with smoking heroin find themselves addicted and move on to injecting. Heroin was £5 a hit in September, but it is now £2, and one can get a free lump of crack with it, if one really wants it. Ironically, although it is free, heroin addicts are not taking it. Some addicts inject themselves eight times a day and there have been nine heroin overdoses.

Families are being torn apart, and large extended families in mining communities are being hit by crime carried out by their own family members—there is £20 million worth of drug-related crime. My drugs action team, along with others, has not even discussed the National Audit Office report of February 2002. The National Treatment Agency should come under the Department of Health rather than the Home Office, and I am pleased that a Health Minister is replying to the debate. In my community, we are not prepared to accept no provision of treatment services. We demand treatment services and we demand that their successes be quantified. The issue is not going to go away and I am not going to go away; my panel is permanently in situ, and we will hound Ministers. Hopefully, we will not need to do that because I hope that they are with us. We need to get on top of the problem to allow my community and addicts to get the chance that they deserve, in which case crime will come down accordingly.

I commend the hon. Member for Bassetlaw (John Mann) for securing the debate, for the power and passion of his speech and for his commitment to the vital subject of drug addiction in our country. Although I cannot match his level of commitment in looking into the matter through his inquiry, none the less, I have started my own investigation into what I consider to be one of the most serious menaces to the coherence of our society. I strongly agree with him that one issue affecting efforts to tackle this big social problem is the incoherent approach to providing a response displayed by the Government, local government and health authorities.

I welcome my hon. Friend the Member for Billericay (Mr. Baron), whose first outing on the Front Bench this is. I am delighted that he is here, and having watched him in the Chamber on a number of occasions, I know that this will not be his last such outing. I am sure that I will be sitting behind him for many years to come.

At the beginning of this year, I decided to undertake some research into drugs and youth crime both in Plymouth, which is in my constituency, and in Vauxhall, which is the part of London in which I have my tiny accommodation. I thought that it would be good to balance two different communities in my investigation of drugs, crime and young people. I spent a number of months pottering around both places on my own, talking to local authority officials, the police, voluntary sector agencies—they do a great job trying to tackle the problem—and young people. I met some wonderful people: many of those working in the voluntary and charitable sectors trying to grapple with the problems of some of the most disturbed and troubled youngsters in this country are real heroes and an inspiration to all of us.

The one message that came out loud and clear from the police, local government and voluntary sector agencies was that when a heroin addict makes the brave decision to kick their habit, when they reach that low point in their life that I believe each of them reaches at least once, when they are so steeped in misery that they want to end their terrible addiction, there must be immediate access to help. That simply is not available at present. It is certainly not available in Plymouth, in parts of London or—picking up on what the hon. Member for Bassetlaw said—in many parts of the country.

We know that drug addiction causes acquisitive crime—the police in Plymouth tell me that 80 per cent. of burglaries and thefts are drug-related. We know the human misery that is involved. We know that heroin addiction is a family breaker. All the agencies say that it is a massive social problem, but the response to it is incoherent. Immediate access to appropriate treatment simply is not available. It is very much a matter of catching the moment at which an addict decides to kick the habit, and help must be immediate. Six months later is far too late—six days later is too late. We must catch the moment.

In Plymouth, heroin addiction is now an enormous problem, and the police tell me that crack cocaine use is well on the way—in their words, not mine, "You ain't seen nothing yet." They believe that crack cocaine use in Plymouth will put heroin addiction in the shade. On the horizon is a massive problem for many parts of the country, and I call on the Government to come to grips with it now. They must improve their responses and try to solve the problem before it drags us down.

I began my personal researches a few weeks ago. As I started to talk about the issue through sections of my local media, a gentleman came to see me in my surgery to discuss a problem with one of his family members. We had a long session together and I asked him to go away and write to me with the details. If the Committee will forgive me, I shall read out part of his letter in which sets out his experiences, as it says everything that must be said about what is happening out there and the existing responses and available treatment.

"I am a 59 year old great-grandfather, who on 20th August 2002 discovered that one of my granddaughters was appearing in court charged with theft. To my horror, on arriving at the Court, I was soon to find out that not only was she stealing, but she was doing it to fund her heroin addiction. My natural instinct was to help, but the only help that is wanted by an addict is the money to pay for the next fix and when you witness your own flesh and blood writhing on the floor in agony, the only option your emotions allows is to supply the cash. However, was not prepared to fund her habit and after some discussions we agreed together to find some help to start 'getting clean'."

The family are standing together and embarking on what ought to be a straightforward approach to coming off heroin. The letter continues:

"Our first port of call was Narcotics Anonymous who advised me not to provide her with any money with which to buy drugs. They directed us to the Community Drugs Service (CDS).

We then visited the CDS, who informed us that they could help if the addict is willing. My granddaughter categorically stated that she wants to be clean and we were then advised that the current waiting list to start a detox course is 6 months. We were further informed that the wait is due to current shortages in manpower and lack of funding. The local Harbour Centre is able to provide an instruction to GPs to prescribe the heroin alternatives, DFs and methadone. However, very few GPs are willing to do so because they don't want the addicts, with associated problems and disruptive behaviour, in their surgery. I was also told that 'Going cold turkey can and does kill addicts and is not to be entered into under any circumstances'. To my absolute amazement we were then given the only remaining option, which is apparently given to all addicts, 'Commit crime and get caught in order to fast track the system, as there is no treatment available in the short term'. Once within the legal system the Probation Officer can apply for a DTTO (Detoxification Testing and Treatment Order)."

The gentleman continues his letter by setting out the journey that they undertook together to get help, but as I stand here this morning, his granddaughter still has not received treatment.

I do not point the finger at the current Government any more than at past Governments. The problem has crept up on us in the past few years and has now become the biggest social problem that we have ever faced. We know that the cost of funding a heroin addiction can be as much as £100 to £200 a day. One remarkable man—Mark Williams, who works for Centrepoint—told me that many of the people he was trying to help were selling their bodies at night in Soho or committing burglary to raise money for their heroin addiction.

The problem is of huge importance and access to immediate treatment is the real solution, so the Government must redirect resources and move them upstream. Let us not debate whether I am calling for taxes to be increased—as it happens, I am not, but I would if it were the only solution to this massive problem. However, there are areas from which resources can be redirected: for example, in a sitting last week of the Select Committee on the Office of the Deputy Prime Minister, we realised that there was an underspend of £350 million. That would do for starters.

There are other avenues of action. First, what about insurance companies? We all know that they are struggling at the moment, and they would make a massive saving if some of these problems were nipped in the bud. Why do we not tap them for some funding? We must move resources upstream to ensure that money is available. Secondly, the Government must call a summit with all the treatment centres, including the rehab and detox centres in the voluntary and private sectors, to ask them how best to expand their capacity to provide sufficient access to treatment.

Thirdly, more coherence in the Government response is vital, in particular by having one funding conduit. I cannot tell hon. Members whether in Plymouth primary funding comes from the local authority, from the health authority or directly from the Home Office—there is real confusion. Likewise, I did not know which Minister would respond to today's debate, but I am delighted that a Minister is here.

We need more coherent funding mechanisms. I understand that one reason why there is such a delay in getting access to treatment in London is because local authorities bounce what we could call customers off each other. For example, if someone with a family home in Croydon is caught up on the streets of Lambeth and wants to access treatment, a debate takes place between Croydon and Lambeth authorities about which of them is to pay for it. That can take months to resolve, which is no good when that young addict has made the brave decision to kick the habit. Perhaps providing a central funding agency in London should be the Government's response.

We place a statutory duty on local authorities to house homeless people, so perhaps we should place a statutory duty on them to ensure that addicts who want to kick the habit have access to treatment. Someone must take responsibility for the problem. Local authorities should not be providing treatment; in my view, they should do almost nothing but act as enabling authorities. However, in the right climate, some wonderful organisations in the voluntary and private sector could expand.

My final point is really for another debate. It is that a great deal more international action could be taken to crack down on drug barons. Most policemen in this country will tell you that arresting a few drug dealers will not solve the problem. They say that access to treatment and education are the key weapons in this war. We see NATO out there looking for a role: perhaps declaring war on drug barons deserves higher priority.

The Government face no more important a task than to put in place a coherent and immediate system to tackle the problem of drug addition. The great advantage for any Government who made progress in that field is that, within a very short time, the crime figures would plummet—and the Government would get the glory.

rose—

Order. The matter that we are debating this morning is of immense importance, and a number of hon. Members want to speak. If they use considerable self-discipline, I might be able to call them all, but that means contributions of four minutes or less. I call the hon. Member for Rhondda (Mr. Bryant).

With that injunction in mind, I shall try to be concise, swift and brief. I commend my hon. Friend the Member for Bassetlaw (John Mann) not only for securing this debate, but for speaking with such eloquence on this and other occasions.

I am intrigued that a Minister from the Department of Health should be here today. I represent a Welsh constituency, and although the Minister will probably not be able to answer many of the issues that arise there because they are devolved matters, I intend to speak briefly about the scale and nature of the problem in Wales.

We have about 7,700 problematic heroin and crack cocaine users in south Wales. At least 270 young people died through the use of drugs in 2000, but we still do not have the figures for 2001. At least 28 young people in my constituency have died from drug abuse since I was elected 17 months ago. The market in heroin and crack cocaine in south Wales is worth about £130 million, so whatever resources the Government are able to throw at the problem, they will scarcely match the sums of money invested by dealers and pushers—especially those in the major markets in Liverpool, Manchester, Birmingham and Bristol, who are trying to invest in the new market that has developed in the south Wales valleys in the past five to seven years.

In November and December 2001, the vast majority of new prisoners in south Wales jails tested positive for either heroin or crack cocaine, and many of them would still have tested positive when they left—indeed, some would have tested positive on leaving prison who did not test positive on entering. Between 1993 and 2000, south Wales witnessed a 50 per cent. increase in drugs deaths, yet during that time the United Kingdom average fell by 8 per cent. However, I have a word of caution about the figures for drug-related deaths, because the coroners service has a considerable way to go before we can rely on what is counted as a drug-related death. Some coroners will count a death as drugs related only if the needle is stuck in the arm when the body is found, but others will be more liberal. As my hon. Friend the Member for Bassetlaw said, greater consistency is necessary, not only in the UK but throughout the European Union, if we are to gain a better understanding of the exact nature of the problem.

In the south Wales valleys—in the former mining constituencies—the problem is slightly different. We have close-knit communities where such deaths are not anonymous—everyone in the village knows the person who died and other members of the family. That is significant, not least because it means that everyone knows where drugs are available. Everyone in the community could say where heroin or crack cocaine can be obtained. That is different from what happens in the cities.

Few GPs in south Wales know enough about drug treatment, particularly for heroin abusers, to be confident of ensuring that their patients get the right treatment. The fact that about 40 per cent. of GPs will retire in the next few years will present us with another terrible problem, because many GPs have not been in close touch with the issue throughout their working lives. Ten years ago, only one of the police cells in the Rhondda would have had a note on the door saying that the occupant had a drug problem; now, every single cell door carries such a notice.

South Wales has specific problems and I hope that Ministers or the Welsh Assembly can solve them. There has been a significant increase in the number of my constituents who go to the local community drug and alcohol team and into treatment—indeed, the number is three times greater than in surrounding constituencies. However, the team was closed to new clients four months ago. The problem is not that there is a long waiting list for people in the Rhondda, but that those responsible for providing services have overspent and have been so successful at getting people into treatment that there is no waiting list. The challenge facing Bro Taf health authority and the Welsh Assembly is how to deal with that issue. There is an enormous lack of trust between public sector and voluntary sector agencies, and one does not need to study my constituency long to notice that.

The Prison Service does a good job of weaning people off their various drug dependency problems, but many still return to the community believing that their level of tolerance is the same as when they went into prison, when in fact it is lower. That results in many of the drugs-related deaths in our constituencies. I therefore hope that the Prison Service will build stronger long-term relations with the local health service so that people can receive ongoing treatment.

Some politicians in south Wales confuse the broader issue of treating heroin abusers—let us face it, they often abuse many other substances—and the specific issues of detoxification and rehabilitation. The main issue in my constituency is how to get people into treatment; when they go into detoxification and rehabilitation is a matter for another day.

At present, the major challenges relate to co-ordination between the Welsh Assembly and Westminster, and between the different agencies. It is shocking that Bro Taf health authority and the Rhondda Cynon Taff local authority still have no full, coherent strategy on bringing all the agencies together to deliver decent services. In the past few weeks, the Welsh Assembly has committed money, which is most welcome, but we must ensure that that money is spent on the ground. Every agency to which I have spoken has made it clear that one of the biggest challenges in the next five years will be to ensure that we have enough trained people to employ in the relevant services. It is a question not only of announcing new money, but of ensuring that it is spent.

Finally, housing is an issue. For £8,000, commercial landlords in my constituency can buy a house in a terrible state of repair. They do not do it up, but they move in families—particularly ones with drug dependency problems—who they know will bring in housing benefit at the rate of £4,500 a year. The state is subsidising outrageous, immoral and unscrupulous behaviour on the part of commercial landlords, and the people who suffer most are the families of heroin abusers.

I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Bassetlaw (John Mann) on keeping this issue alive. It is important that we endlessly discuss the misuse of drugs and, in particular, heroin, which is one of the worst social problems facing Britain today.

The number of heroin users is increasing, prices are down considerably and, tragically, there are more deaths. I subscribe to the view that we need better statistics. Coroners' certificates are completely inadequate, and I understand that the Home Office will change them shortly. The number of deaths recorded for 2000 is 1,162. That figure was given in the Official Report, 29 October 2002. I think that that is a gross underestimate, and the figure is probably at least double that. Yesterday, I discovered that there have been almost 8,000 deaths across the European Union, so this is a tragic matter.

I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Bassetlaw on producing his report, which I have read two or three times. I agree with much of it, but I disagree with a point made on page one, which states:

"We believe that only a policy of zero tolerance of drugs and crime will overcome this blight".

We would all like to realise that ideal, but we are living in the real world, and I do not think that we will adopt zero-tolerance policies in this country. Certain countries, such as Sweden, have adopted zero tolerance, not only towards misuse of heroin and other illicit drugs, but towards alcohol. If one tries to buy decent alcohol in Sweden, one finds that what can be bought in bars and cafés is less than 1 per cent. proof and it is almost impossible to buy the hard stuff. Therefore, I believe that we would have to adopt the same approach towards alcohol and, as my hon. Friend the Member for Bassetlaw suggested, also towards tobacco.

It is difficult to estimate the number of addicts in Britain. According to Home Office statistics, the figure is somewhere between 250,000 and 300,000, but I suspect that the true figure is higher. Before the National Treatment Agency for substance misuse was set up in April 2001, something that I very much welcomed, only between 6 and 7 per cent. of addicts were in treatment. That is a derisory figure, which has since increased and will continue to increase in future.

I could go on at length about the social consequences of drug misuse in my constituency, which, on all the social indicators, is deprived. In the red-light area alone, there have been three deaths in under nine months. Two young women, one of whom was pregnant and, a few days ago, a young man in my constituency, were murdered. The murders were probably all related to drugs in some way—the deaths of the two women certainly were. They were heroin addicts who were supporting their habit through street prostitution.

Because of the situation in Bolton, we have taken a hard attitude towards getting people into treatment. Political leadership is very important. Drug action teams vary throughout the country, but under Sandie Nesbitt, our very committed drug action team coordinator, we have one of the best DATs in the country. However, but for the fact that the chief executive of Bolton metropolitan council chairs the committee that drives the DAT forward in Bolton, it would not be so effective. If DATs are to operate effectively, they must be driven from the top, and chief executives can do that because they have the networks to be able to bring on board the health service, the probation service, the police and the voluntary agencies.

We have an estimated 2,500 drug addicts in Bolton, 84. per cent. of whom are heroin users. Almost half those known drug addicts—some 1,225—are currently in treatment in Bolton. There is an increasing demand for treatment, which I am also pleased about, but the effect is that the waiting list for treatment is getting longer. As my hon. Friend the Member for Bassetlaw said, we need to aim towards a situation in which no one has to wait for treatment. There should be an open door to treatment, so that when addicts feel that they want to give up the habit, they can receive treatment immediately. Furthermore, if they relapse after initial treatment, as many addicts do, they should not have to wait to receive treatment again. In some areas, drug users have to be out of the system for six months before they can get back in. That is crazy. During that intervening gap, some addicts die because of a lack of tolerance. They start taking doses of heroin that they were formerly used to and overdose. That is a tragedy.

Unfortunately, an increasing number of under-19s in Bolton are using drugs. About 40 schoolchildren in Bolton under the age of 16 have come forward for treatment, as well as 104 16 to 19-year-olds. That also includes the figures for alcohol abuse.

One of the gaps across the country is in treatment for young people under the age of 19. Bolton is getting better at that. I want to tell people about Project 360 Degrees. It has that name because it looks all around—in a circle—and takes on board children who are desperately seeking help for substance misuse, and their parents. The project covers alcohol as well as illicit drugs and has been quite successful.

There is controversy about drugs education. It can be good, but much of it is bad. We need to train teachers. People who know what is happening on the ground have to be brought into schools. Reading passages from textbooks is not enough. When people provide drugs education they have to know about drugs, their misuse and the harm that it creates. I do not object to bringing ex-users or even current users into schools to tell people the bad news; to tell them not only about injecting into eyeballs or other parts of the body when veins have run out, but about gangrene and the loss of legs.

Brighton and Hove has the worst drugs problem in Britain. I congratulate Professor Ghodse from St. George's hospital medical school, who controls the national programme on substance abuse deaths and publishes a document every six months. It is about not only drug deaths, but the worst places in Britain for drug misuse. Brighton and Hove has topped the list for several years. I urge the Minister to put more resources into places where drug use is prevalent.

There has to be a choice of treatment. If someone has been an addict for 20 years, he has to be given access to clinically pure heroin, which is diamorphine. People on that can be stabilised. The Government drugs policy debate will take place a week on Thursday on the Floor of the House. I hope that during that debate the Home Secretary will make announcements about heroin prescribing, because we need more of it.

Methadone has a role, but I am critical of how it has been used as a crime reduction drug rather than a harm minimisation drug. Other drugs should be considered. For three years, I fought with the Department of Health to get buprenorphine on board. Subutex is one of its trade names. It rather than methadone is the drug of choice in France and Australia. If it is given to fairly new heroin users, they can be helped out of addiction much better than through use of methadone. For many people, methadone is very addictive, and it has a narrow toxicity window.

A friend in Manchester is prepared to make L-methadone. Methadone has two molecules. One is toxic and the other has the desired effect. My friend wants to test L-methadone in clinics. I have put that to the Department, but it has not yet responded. I have also argued that LAAM—levo-alpha-acetylmethadol—which is used in America, should be available for some addicts in Britain. Another choice is abstinence and 12-step programmes, for when someone wants to come off heroin but not on to methadone and is willing to accept counselling instead. Why do we not have more abstinence programmes? The answer is not methadone, methadone, methadone. The choices suggested by my hon. Friend the Member for Bassetlaw should be available to all addicts.

Things can only get better. They have to, and soon.

I am prepared to call the hon. Member for Newport, West (Paul Flynn), but I must ask him to keep his comments short. He is an expert on the subject, but if he speaks for only two or three minutes we shall not take up any of the time allocated for Front-Bench spokesmen.

Things have got better. I have attended debates on this subject since 1987. As recently as 1998, there was absolute unanimity among all the speakers from the three main parties when the 10-year strategy was introduced. Everyone agreed that that was the answer, and only one voice was raised in the Chamber that suggested that it was not. Today all hon.

Members are talking about the almighty failure of our drugs policies—and I appreciated especially the contribution made by the hon. Member for South-West Devon (Mr. Streeter). Our drugs laws are not working.

I received a letter from the Gwent specialist substance misuse service that said that the average waiting list for that service is 11 months, and that the longest wait is 17 months. It is disgraceful that we have arrived at that position.

I disagree with the solutions proposed by my hon. Friend the Member for Bassetlaw (John Mann), although he has done a marvellous job in bringing the subject to the attention of the House. Those solutions have already been tried—we tried zero tolerance in 1971. We once had a system that worked well, in which there were fewer than 1,000 heroin addicts, whereas the number of people addicted to heroin and cocaine in this country is now 320,000. Deprivation may be one of the factors, and those who live in poor areas are far more likely to die from their addictions, but for those who can get clean needles the figures are similar, regardless of whether they live in a deprived or a privileged area.

I have studied figures on the subject from all over Europe. Those who can get clean needles and heroin of known strength can go on for a long time. There is the famous example of the writer of "National Velvet", who took prodigious quantities of heroin all her life. She died a serene and peaceful death, in her bed, at the age of 91. The problems with heroin use stem from the situation in which people take it. Two years ago, 50 deaths were caused by one batch of contaminated heroin in Ireland and Scotland.

No one should leap to instant conclusions. Zero tolerance was the answer in America, but in this country our harshest prohibition policies mean that for every 100,000 people, we have a prison population of 130. That is one of the highest prison populations in Europe—it is higher than Turkey's. In the United States, the prison population in that ratio is 700, which is partly the result of zero tolerance. The increased use of heroin is driven by the greed for profit; people make a great deal out of it, and many of the dealers are addicts and are dealing to feed their own addiction.

I understand that time is short, and I do not want to take up any of the time that the Minister and the Conservative Front-Bench spokesman need. The subject is one that Back Benchers should have time to discuss, and we all owe a debt of gratitude to the hon. Member for Bassetlaw (John Mann) for securing the debate. An hour and a half is not enough to discuss the matter, and I suspect that the time allocated on the Estimates day next Thursday will not be enough to deal with all the issues.

Rather than express a party position based on a paper that we have published, I want to take time to respond to the passion and content of the speech made by the hon. Member for Bassetlaw. It is a pity that Hansard will not reflect the passion with which he spoke, as it affected many of us here. He referred to the lack of coherence between the various agencies involved. That problem does not occur only in respect of drugs, and it represents another strong argument for not only joint working but bringing together health service commissioning with social services under the auspices of a democratically accountable local authority. That would do something to merge the alphabet soup of agencies to which the hon. Gentleman referred.

The hon. Gentleman rightly mentioned the huge cost of the problem. That will not be settled by requesting extra funding from the taxpayer. I do not think that that is necessary even though, sadly, the hon. Member for South-West Devon (Mr. Streeter) could contemplate it. For every person treated, there would be immense savings to the criminal justice system, the health service and the victims of crime, as reflected in insurance premiums. On any judgment, any investment is self-funding and releases far more resources—and that is quite apart from the increase in human happiness and the reduction in human misery for users, families of users and the victims of crime associated with the problem.

Many hon. Members said that there are difficulties accessing treatment. The hon. Member for Bassetlaw raised several issues. For instance, there is the question of transport. Treatment needs to be local, which is why general practice will always have a role, because that is the local, accessible service. There are issues about the quality of that treatment, particularly in general practice, and about delays, not only in terms of access, reduction programmes or acute detoxification, but in getting on to residential rehabilitation. That has been shown, at least for adult users—the evidence is very good—to stop people from simply returning to the position from which they started, by mixing with their old friends and the dealers they know, and going to the places where they had the lifestyle of injection.

I had the privilege of spending a few hours at the surgery of a GP in my constituency who takes a special interest in the treatment of drug users. It was fascinating to see him at work. I have encouraged him to do an audit of his results. However, although he had an interest, he was never funded to do that work. He had to do it in time that he could have spent doing other work in his practice. It was difficult for him to organise the practice because of the problem of people not wanting to share waiting rooms with drug users, an issue raised by other hon. Members and certainly by patients in the practice.

There is a strong argument for additional remuneration of GPs to encourage the best to do such work, not simply those who are committed. There is an argument about the quality of service provided by some GPs offering methadone. I do not think that sanctions are required. More resources are required for training and support. In addition to a GP, a counsellor and testing arrangements are needed to ensure that the contract that is entered into is kept to.

There is the issue of prostitution by drug users. The current restrictive criminalising laws on prostitution make it difficult to provide the help and access to treatment services needed by those involved in prostitution, particularly young women.

Clearly, there is not enough capacity in treatment services. It is not just a question of funding: there are not huge numbers of trained people waiting to fall off trees.

We should have started to undertake the sort of measures that are needed some years ago. Funding has to be increased and we need proper data on outcomes.

The take-home message from the debate is that drug addiction should be seen as an issue for the Department of Health, not the Home Office. I am surprised that there was any doubt about whether a Health Minister would be answering the debate. The problem is that many people consider the issue in terms of crime. The idea that one has to commit a crime to get treatment is heinous. I am not sure that prison is necessarily the right way forward, and one is required to reach a threshold of criminality to access drug treatment and testing orders. The Government are bringing in drug abstinence orders and drug abstinence requirements, which are a lower tier. It might have been better to have done that earlier, alongside the drug treatment and testing orders. In my constituency, so desperate are magistrates to use drug treatment and testing orders that they are using them at a lower threshold, and they run out of money by at least mid-year.

We have to be careful about selective citing of the evidence base. There is now increasing evidence from overseas about the option of maintenance on heroin. We believe that the validity of clean injecting rooms—often called shooting galleries—should be explored. I hope that the Government will not rule that out completely, as I fear they might, because it is a way in which to reduce harm and ensure adequate access to treatment.

Professor Howard Parker will be able to speak for himself, and might write to the hon. Member for Bassetlaw now that his name has been raised. However, I am not sure that talking about the normalisation of sensible recreational drug use—whatever that is—is the same as showing people how to inject into their eyeballs.

We must not confuse—I do not think that the hon. Member for Bassetlaw did—the decriminalisation of soft drugs with the suggestion that hard drug use is in any way sensible or could be considered recreational. It is a health problem and we need health solutions. Sometimes criminal justice solutions prevent people from accessing the most appropriate treatment.

I, too, congratulate the hon. Member for Bassetlaw (John Mann) on having initiated the debate and on having spoken with such passion. The effects of heroin use are devastating and it is extremely sad to hear about their terrible consequences in his constituency. Having read his inquiry report, I offer him my best wishes in his efforts to address the problem.

All hon. Members who have spoken today agree that the issue is serious and requires urgent attention. However, all discussions about the drug, this one included, are hampered by a dearth of reliable research and data. I acknowledge the hon. Gentleman's point that there are few statistics available for his constituency, but there is a wider issue: there are many gaps in our knowledge of the national problem. Professor Neil McKeganey and Dr. Gordon Hay of the centre for drug misuse research at Glasgow university have said that, nationally, we have no drug survey, no assessment for problem drug use, no reliable record of the numbers in treatment, no school survey, no estimate of drug-related crime and no data on hepatitis C prevalence.

Without reliable information and data, we cannot hope to administer the appropriate solutions. Will the Minister address the points raised by McKeganey and Hay, and tell us whether the Government intend to put right the situation with regard to the specific examples that they have given? If so, what are the expected timetables?

As a society, we must recognise the many harmful social effects of both heroin and drugs in general, of which the hon. Member for Bassetlaw spoke so passionately. They include marital breakdown, neglect and abuse of children, poverty and accidents, particularly road traffic accidents. In addition, the links between drugs and crime are widely accepted. It is estimated that the cost of hard-drug related crime is some £20 billion. The hon. Gentleman told us that some two thirds of crime in his constituency is drug related. The criminal justice system must clamp down on those who deal in drugs.

However, as has been said, simply addressing the issue as a crime problem is wrong. That is the fundamental flaw in our drugs strategy. There is a chronic and serious shortage of treatment services at every level and what services there are tend to be provided through the criminal justice system. As we heard from my hon. Friend the Member for South-West Devon (Mr. Streeter) and others, too many users are not helped until they enter the criminal justice system. Society must realise that drug use should not be simply a law and order issue, but should be addressed as a health issue.

The hon. Member for Bassetlaw agrees in his inquiry that we spend a fortune dealing with the costs of heroin-related crime—policing and imprisonment—yet we have no coherent treatment service. The Government appear to recognise that, albeit tentatively. However, there is inconsistency between localities in the scope, accessibility and effectiveness of treatments. There is also insecurity about levels of funding, as has been highlighted by nearly all who have spoken.

The Audit Commission report, "Changing Habits" points to the uneven availability of treatment services and the long delays that users face—something that many hon. Members have mentioned. The Home Affairs Committee's report on drugs also suggests the inadequacy of current treatment provision. There are simply too many organisations, methods of funding, bidding rounds and acronyms. That serves only to cause confusion, as the hon. Member for Bassetlaw has testified.

It appears that the Government realise that they are failing in the matters I have outlined. That is confirmed by the fact that according to paragraph 13.21 of the 10-year NHS plan the Government originally hoped to reduce the proportion of people under 25 who were using class A drugs by 25 per cent. by 2005 and 50 per cent. by 2008. That target has now been abandoned. What measures will the Government introduce to provide a seamless treatment service to get people off drugs? Such a service clearly does not exist at present.

There are too many organisations adopting too many approaches with too many different avenues of funding. That confusion needs to be dealt with by clearer communication, fewer organisations and a simpler funding stream. What are the Government going to do to put matters right, and what is the expected timetable?

The Conservative party has set out proposals to tackle the problem, and they have been put out for consultation. We have suggested that the number of drug treatment places should be expanded tenfold to be able to offer a treatment and rehabilitation place to every young heroin and cocaine addict. We believe that the current de facto policy of ignoring such users needs to be replaced, and we have suggested that each young heroin or cocaine addict should be given the choice of undergoing treatment or facing criminal proceedings. Some welcome comments have been made about that proposal. The best way of instigating the programme would be through the community and voluntary groups that are active in the relevant context. I pay tribute to the sterling work of those groups, without which things would be so much worse.

However, while a more rounded approach to the problem—one that includes the health and treatment issue—is important, society can also help addicts by ensuring that the law stands firm against drug dealers and pushers. The inquiry into heroin in Bassetlaw heard from heroin users who demanded longer prison sentences to help them break their habit. Many people wrote demanding stronger action by the courts, particularly for dealers.

However, the Government are causing confusion about the law. The Home Secretary announced his decision to declassify cannabis from a class B drug to a class C drug in July. He also announced his decision to increase the maximum sentence for cannabis dealers from 10 to 14 years imprisonment—the same as for class B drugs. That incoherence in policy sends out mixed messages. That needs to be put right, starting in schools, as the hon. Member for Bolton, South-East (Dr. Iddon) explained.

Police officers certainly do not understand the policy and nor do young people. Indeed, the hon. Member for Vauxhall (Kate Hoey) believes that the reclassification of cannabis and the Brixton experiment have effectively handed drug policy and communities over to drug dealers in many areas of her constituency.

I focus on cannabis not only because it shows the incoherence of the Government's message about drugs, but because, according to the inquiry report, the issue was raised time and again by virtually every heroin user interviewed. Each heroin addict had used cannabis at an earlier stage. Heroin just seemed a natural progression. Many addicts informed the inquiry that they felt that they could control heroin use because they could control cannabis use. Those same addicts stressed the fact that the dangers of cannabis needed to be strongly restated.

How and when will the Government end the confusion? When will they send out the message that taking drugs is wrong, that it can destroy lives and that it harms society? The sooner the Government can end the confusion, the sooner lives will no longer be needlessly lost. I hope that the Minister will take the necessary steps today. Such a policy would help to free resources that could be better spent in providing treatment for heroin addicts—indeed, for all drug addicts.

We must significantly reduce heroin addiction in this country. The Government must identify the extent of the problem in order to be able to deal with it. They must provide a clear, coherent and seamless treatment service that is properly funded, end the mixed signals, which are causing confusion, and state loudly and clearly that drugs cause misery, cost lives and harm society. I ask the Minister to address those points.

I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Bassetlaw (John Mann) on raising this important topic and on the dynamic and passionate way in which he has presented the subject.

All our constituencies are touched by the serious problems of hard drug addiction. I am the Member for Tottenham in north London, and in the past few weeks I have been working with the police on the serious problem of heroin trafficking in this country, much of which emanates from my constituency. We all see the serious problems that affect families, young children and others in our constituencies. For me, crack cocaine in London is the problem. I am the youngest Minister in the Government, and my hon. Friends the Members for Bassetlaw and for Rhondda (Mr. Bryant) will understand that hard drug addiction, and particularly the problems of crack cocaine and heroin, profoundly affect my generation. The Government are seeking to deal with that problem, which we take very seriously.

According to recent research by York university, the annual economic and social costs of drug misuse to our society are between £10.9 billion and £11.8 billion. Problematic drug users, whom the study isolates, account for 99 per cent. of those costs, which is why getting the issue right matters so much. Examination of the evidence base shows us that treatment works. It reduces drug use and its associated personal and social harms and it reduces drug-related crime. The findings from the national treatment outcome research study show that every £1 spent on treatment saves £3 of expenditure within the criminal justice system. The hon. Member for Oxford, West and Abingdon (Dr. Harris) was right to raise the associated cost of treatment and its links with the criminal justice system.

Improving treatment for drug misusers was a major element of the 10-year national drug strategy, which was launched in 1998. The strategy was comprehensive and aimed to combat drug misuse in deprived and high-crime areas. At the same time, we set up the National Treatment Agency to drive forward improvements in the quality, availability, accessibility and effectiveness of drug treatment in England.

Much of what has been said this morning relates to greater and faster provision of drug treatment services. The Government accept that, and we are doing as much as we can to deal with the problem. However, we recognise the tremendous challenge ahead of us. Very rapid expansion of drug treatment services, particularly in those areas with the worst substance misuse problems, is required to achieve the targets that we have set. The background of historic underfunding and limited capacity in that area must be borne in mind when we debate the matter.

We must also bear in mind how far we are into the 10-year journey: we are four years into it and one year into a comprehensive system set up by the National Treatment Agency.

We have made significant new funding available to address work force and quality issues in order to deliver successfully on our goals. Four years into the national drugs strategy, we have already made significant progress. Based on current performance, there is no doubt that we are delivering and are on course to reach the treatment target. I stand here today as a Minister in the Department of Health because the subject of the debate is drug treatment, and it is right that a Health Minister should respond. However, we co-ordinate closely with colleagues in the Home Office, and I will ensure that the debate is brought to the attention of the Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for the Home Department, my hon. Friend the Member for Coventry, North-East (Mr. Ainsworth), who is responsible for drugs policy across Government.

Last night in the Library I read the comprehensive report of my hon. Friend the Member for Bassetlaw. It has also been read by the Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Health, my hon. Friend the Member for Salford (Ms Blears), who is the Minister responsible for public health. She has written to my hon. Friend and will be responding in detail shortly. We believe that increasing funding for the treatment of drug users is essential to combat drug use, to reduce crime and to make our communities safer. We have ensured that substantial extra funds have been made available for that through the drug treatment pooled budget. That budget now stands at £195.7 million, which allowed each health authority in England to receive an increase of at least 30 per cent. in April, compared to last year's allocation. However, my hon. Friend may be aware that the drug action team in north Nottinghamshire received a 42 per cent. increase in its budget during 2002–03. That has led to a figure for Nottinghamshire of £1.8 million, enabling the development of treatment services in Bassetlaw and the surrounding areas.

As the Minister knows, Bassetlaw and Rhondda are both former mining constituencies. Will he commit the Department to considering the similarities between former mining constituencies—perhaps alongside his Welsh Assembly and Scottish Parliament colleagues—to see whether there are specific needs that must be met?

In my view, the use and misuse of hard drugs such as heroin is a complex issue. Many hon. Members could make a particular case for the way in which drugs affect their constituencies. My background in Tottenham and Peterborough demonstrates the complexity of the problem. In Tottenham, we are tackling the challenge of drugs in the context of serious inner city deprivation. I visit friends in Peterborough, who talk about the challenges of dealing with heroin addiction in Grantham, and the problems faced in such cities. It is a complex situation, and it is right that we consider the whole picture.

The Minister mentioned the increase in budget. How many drug addicts in my constituency are receiving treatment, and how many have been successfully treated?

In his contribution, my hon. Friend raised the issue of successful treatment, and the different measurements of success. Success means different things to people with different types of heroin addiction. It very much depends on the starting point. Success for someone with a 20-year problem will clearly be different from success for someone who has a short history of heroin use and has been able to come off the drug quickly. The number of people in treatment will depend on the starting and end points of the year, but I shall write to my hon. Friend about the specific problem.

rose—

I shall not be able to make progress if I give way.

My hon. Friend the Member for Bassetlaw referred to the drug action team, how it is made up and the contribution made by various agencies. That ensures a co-ordinated lead for the local drug strategy. It is important that it includes the police, the probation service, the health service through the PCTs and social service teams. He also referred to harm minimisation. It is vital to reduce the incidence of HIV/AIDS and hepatitis C. Harm reduction is not an add-on—

Order. I regret that we have run out of time. We thank the Minister for that part of his reply that he was able to give within the time limit. We now move to the next debate.

It is a great pleasure to introduce this debate on A-levels, a subject that, I suspect, has been nearer to our hearts for longer than most things.

When the Government came to office, they inherited an A-level system that was internationally recognised as the gold standard of school leaving and university entrance examinations. The Government inherited proposals for curriculum 2000 to broaden the A-level without losing quality. By mid-September, five and a half years later, we were in the middle of a full-blown A-level crisis; not, as so often in the past, involving allegations of grade inflation, but arbitrary grade boundary rigging to make the achievement of higher grades more difficult.

In this debate I want to unravel the causes of the crisis, to establish whether Ministers are learning lessons, to examine the activities of two specific ministerial aides in making matters worse, to examine whether Ministers made matters worse, to see whether lessons are more broadly applicable throughout the Department and Government and to discover the best way of re-establishing confidence in the A-level as the gold standard.

Curriculum 2000 was proposed by Lord Dearing in 1996 after widespread consultation. Its purpose was to broaden the A-level without losing quality. It was a means of ensuring that more students entered examinations in subjects that were not at the core of their normal activities. The former Secretary of State for Education and Skills, the right hon. Member for Birmingham, Yardley (Estelle Morris) said:

"The previous Conservative Government might have introduced their proposals in 1997, but we delayed until 1999. We then consulted further. After that further consultation, we postponed the implementation of A and AS-level exams for a further year, to 2000. By that time, four years had passed since the publication of Ron Dearing's report on the wider curriculum for 16 to 18-year-olds."—[Official Report, 15 October 2002; Vol. 390, c. 212.]

The first courses were taught in the year 2000 and the first AS-level examinations were taken in 2001. There were, of course, well-chronicled problems with the effect of AS-levels on schooling and the lower sixth form experience, but that is another story. By this summer, when the first new A-level results were announced, the pass rate had risen from 89.8 per cent. to 94.3 per cent. and the rate of A grades achieved had risen from 18.6 per cent. to 20.7 per cent. The Head Masters' Conference identified five factors that made that likely: the new curriculum's modular structure with several assessment opportunities; the availability of resits; more detailed and specific syllabuses, specifications and assessment objectives; harder work by sixth formers during the course; and the element of self-selection from AS to A2.

In a press release dated 15 August 2002, the Minister congratulated students and their teachers on their achievements in those examinations, but by 1 September there were reports of concern about downgrading; that is, raising the mark required to achieve a particular grade. Some of the concerns were expressed by constituents of my hon. Friend the Member for North-East Hertfordshire (Mr. Heald).

I was in Birmingham with the Select Committee on Education and Skills as the story broke, and I confess that my immediate reaction was that the Select Committee ought to hold an inquiry on the subject. Wiser and—dare I say it—older heads, in the shape of that of the hon. Member for Huddersfield (Mr. Sheerman), the Chairman of the Select Committee, declined to make a mountain out of a molehill. However, as we know, the then Secretary of State did not have one of those older nor, regrettably, wiser heads. Her reaction was to set up not one but two inquiries.

First, she asked Ken Boston, the new chief executive of the Qualifications and Curriculum Authority, to undertake an inquiry. The following day, she asked Mike Tomlinson, Her Majesty's former chief inspector of schools, to do so. I do not wish to badmouth the former Secretary of State, because she is an honourable and decent woman, but I believe that her reaction was one of panic. Mike Tomlinson's interim report published on 27 September said that

"the evidence strongly suggests that the actions taken with regard to the marks to be associated with the key grade boundaries (A/B and E/U) did vary across the three boards. In particular, it seems the balance between judgment based on the standard of marked work and the use of statistical information changed, and for more subjects in one Board (OCR) than in the other two."

The fact is that different boards took different approaches to setting grade boundaries. It appears that, in OCR, those involved pull scripts out at grade boundaries and examine them. They agree the grade boundaries and then apply statistical analysis to determine whether the results match expectations. According to the uncorrected transcript of the evidence to the Select Committee, Dr. McLone, the chief executive of OCR, stated:

"We have a set of procedures laid down…we have looked very closely at what the examiners have said — We then apply statistical evidence, GCSE performance, we look at performance from year to year, of course, to see whether or not we are agreeing. This year, some subjects, they would obviously work something out to get to the right place, and other subjects have not."

Later, he stated:

"The key thing is where you select scripts; and I think that this is what we really need to be looking at, in the future … The way you select scripts and where you select them depends very much on how much information you put into the system to start with … I have to say that you could do it, and we could have done it, by looking first of all at statistical evidence".

On that occasion, they first selected the scripts.

AQA and Edexcel, the other examination boards, approached the matter the other way around. They looked first at the statistical evidence and then at the marks and chief examiner's recommendations. The result is that one procedure is more transparent than the other; I do not believe that that has been picked up clearly enough. The OCR procedure is more transparent, and enables examiners to object to the results more easily than they might were the statistics examined before the results were put before examiners. The examiners are told where to look for boundaries whereas, under the OCR system, the examiners select and identify the boundaries and then apply the statistics. Therefore, if an examiner disagrees with the statistics, he is more likely to object, which is probably why OCR was identified as the board for which things might be going wrong.

Tomlinson recommended that students' marked work in some A2 units be regraded and their overall GCE A-level grade adjusted if necessary. He also recommended that the QCA be asked to provide additional guidance on the standards associated with AS and A2 units, both generically and in some subjects.

That brings us to the second grading problem, which was that the relative values of the AS and A2 papers were unclear. To illustrate that point, the then Secretary of State, in response to a question that I asked on 15 October—on whether an AS-level is half an A-level or not—said:

"There are six modules in an A-level: three at AS-level and three at A2. AS-levels count for half an A-level — Due to the linear nature of some subjects, it was deemed that the first year six, usually the AS-levels, would be marginally easier than the old A-level standard. To maintain that standard, therefore, the second year had to be marginally more difficult than the A-level standard. That is where the difficulty lies. What is clear is that the overall standard of AS and A2"—

together, I presume—

"is the same as previous A-level standards."—[Official Report, 15 October 2002; Vol. 390, c. 217.]

That is indeed where the difficulty lies, and the right hon. Lady could have said that again. Dr. Boston told the Select Committee—I am quoting from an uncorrected transcript of evidence—the following:

"The issue is, we are dealing with A levels as they have been for 50 years; the change is, we are arriving at it now from two papers, one of them is a hard paper, one of them is an easy paper, relatively."

The regrading was announced on 14 October. Grade boundaries were revised in 18 units. A total of 9,800 candidates had unit grades changed, and 1,845 individual students received a changed grade. On 15 November 2002, in the debate on the Address, the hon. Member for Harrogate and Knaresborough (Mr. Willis), who is not here, raised various questions that arose from discussions with Mr. Roger Porkess, an official of the OCR board. I shall not go into the details today, but, in short, the hon. Gentleman blamed the Tomlinson inquiry's terms of reference for the problems arising, suggesting that those terms were too narrow. His words were:

"The inquiry's terms of reference had more to do with saving the face of Ministers than with getting to the truth."—[Official Report, 15 November 2002; Vol. 394, c. 300.]

I do not, in all honesty, see any evidence for that view. The terms of reference were much broader than simply to examine areas where the grade boundaries had shifted substantially, and Mr. Tomlinson himself decided which grade boundaries to examine in detail.

Some points arise from the hon. Gentleman's remarks, which Ministers have still to consider. First, why did Mr. Tomlinson take no evidence from the chief examiners? Secondly, was the OCR board right to profess pleasure at the fact that only 18 of its examinations had changed, or was it benefiting from a rather narrower inquiry than Ministers had perhaps expected? Finally, and most importantly, the hon. Member for Harrogate and Knaresborough said very clearly to the Secretary of State that

"the Secretary of State must ensure"—

I believe that the QCA should do so as well—

"that no scripts are destroyed until all the lessons have been learned from this year's debacle."—[Official Report, 15 November 2002; Vol. 394, c. 300.]

Regrettably, it was not only Ministers who showed an element of panic and made things worse. The evidence given by the former chief executive of the QCA, Sir William Stubbs, to the Select Committee, drew attention to what I consider the wholly improper behaviour of a special adviser and a chief press officer—I have occupied one such office—in the Department. He said—again, this is an uncorrected transcript—the following:

"On 19 September I had complained directly to the Secretary of State about the continuing damaging references that were being made by her staff about QCA to the press, and asked her to take action to stop them … during the period from the setting up of the Tomlinson inquiry … officials … were directly briefing the press that QCA was 'dead in the water' and that by the end of that week I would be gone as Chairman."

Later on, he says that he believes that that was said at

"a briefing given to the press by Chris Boffey, the political media adviser"—

I think he was a special adviser—

"and the civil servant who is head of news, D. J. Collins, must surely have taken a lead in this. Those were the ones I asked the Secretary of State the week before when there was malign briefing taking place, particularly during an independent inquiry, would she act to stop it. If she did act, they did not stop."

He goes on to say:

"I knew Collins would give stories to reporters and then imply, 'If you do not report them in a way that is friendly you will get cut off and get no more stories.' I have been told that by reporters."

He continues that

"having had it reported to me direct what was happening, it appeared in the press not once or twice I think but five times, so I do not think there is much doubt there … either these people were acting as free agents, in which case they are loose cannons in the departments and this is a big department of state, or they were acting under instructions. Either way that was a flawed system and it should not happen."

I consider his words to be moderate. If officials are bullying and briefing the press in such a way that they are not free to report and print what they wish to, it is far more than a flawed system; it is a disgrace. The Department was rapid—more rapid than I have known it to be for some time—in responding to the Committee. It denied the allegations in an unpublished memorandum. I find it hard to see why a man of such high repute as Sir William Stubbs should make such allegations if they were unsubstantiated.

Everyone, including the former Secretary of State, accepts that curriculum 2000 was introduced too rapidly. As Mike Tomlinson said, it was an accident waiting to happen. That conclusion is of wider application. Grade boundary setting could be attributed to a lack of guidance from QCA. Regrettably, the 50:50 or 60:40 split that is the relative value of AS-levels and A2-levels appears to be a fudge that has not yet been acknowledged or resolved. If there is any explanation for Dr. McLone's behaviour, it is that he was intellectually too honest to be able to cope with the fudge with which he was landed by the claimed 50:50 split in the relative value of the papers. The destruction of papers immediately after A-levels should be prevented at all costs.

Ministers fuelled the crisis and their officials fuelled it disgracefully. The examination was introduced in a rush, and the way ahead is far from clear. We must re-establish confidence in the A-level as the internationally recognised gold standard in school leaving examinations. If we start to talk again about a new system, as the present Secretary of State did this weekend, the A-level will never regain the confidence that it enjoyed for 50 years.

I am sorry that my hon. Friend the Member for Harrogate and Knaresborough (Mr. Willis) is unable to be here to respond to the comments that were made about his contributions to the debate.

I approach the subject with a certain amount of background knowledge and experience. I taught A-levels for about 25 years, examined A-levels in three different subjects, designed A-level questions and dealt with A-level appeals. I recognise that some of the things that the Government are endeavouring to do are highly commendable, and that their education policy is to raise standards. They also want to maintain the integrity of a qualification that has international recognition, which I support.

The Government are also trying to encourage breadth in post-16 qualifications. A good aspect of AS-levels—a desirable one in the view of many education institutions—is that they prevent pupils at the age of 16 from considering themselves as scientists or non-scientists, as linguists or non-linguists, or as interested in, or not interested in, the arts. The narrowness of the English post-16 curriculum has been a deficiency for many years. Although A-levels have maintained a consistent standard, they have been associated with a certain narrowness.

AS-levels found a place because of the necessity to bridge the gap that emerged after the introduction of GCSEs. It was quite evident to those in schools that pupils who had done well in a subject at GCSE were not always competent to proceed to A-level straight away; they needed some form of interim assessment to gauge how well they might do at A-level. In the case of languages, pupils would often get a very good GCSE grade, only to flounder badly at A-level. The AS-level plugged that gap.

I also applaud any attempt by the Government to encourage a parity of esteem between A-level qualification and some of the higher technical and vocational qualifications. It is manifest that this country has a severe skills gap, and anything done to address that is all well and good.

Most Members in the Chamber would therefore support the Government's intentions, but their effect this year has been somewhat dire, particularly for the many students who have had to recalculate their careers and rethink the university courses that they wish to do. They have been surprised and sometimes depressed by their results. The esteem of the system has taken a knock. I recall the Leader of the Opposition saying in the House of Commons—rather unwisely—that many A-level qualifications are no longer thought to be worth the paper that they are written on. That comment was deeply insulting to the people who received those qualifications, but it reflects—in a kind of saloon bar manner—the damage done to the system. The Government would say that that was an entirely unintended consequence, but one can plead that only when an unintended consequence is not foreseeable. The consequence was entirely foreseeable; it was an accident waiting to happen.

The introduction of AS-levels took place against a background of pupils being over-examined, and of schools being more crudely exam-driven, because of the need to figure prominently in local area league tables to attract increasing numbers of pupils. It also took place against a background of exam boards behaving—I am not being unfair—in a more entrepreneurial manner, whereby exams are hawked to any establishment that will take them. That is not a desirable tendency.

There is also a shortage of good examiners. Some desirable improvements have made the examination system more transparent, but they have also made examiners more reluctant to take up their task. I am referring to the system whereby pupils can retain and examine their papers, and return to the examining board with their views on how they have been marked. That is not a bad thing in itself because it leads to greater transparency, but a necessary consequence is that every examiner needs not only to put a justified mark on a paper, but to explain in considerable detail why the mark is justified. That makes additional work, which is fine if it is for additional pay. However, many quality examiners have found that such work is not compensated for, so they have decided to give up, rather than work against a background of the permanent prospect of litigation.

The Government should have been perfectly aware of that background because education institutions, teachers, parents and pupils were. The Government are therefore doubly responsible if they act rashly against a background that they themselves have ensured is rather tricky. Just like the examinee who walks into an exam without having prepared properly, they can be blamed to some extent for the outcome. Moreover, before introducing AS-levels they did not run an adequate pilot. That is a key factor, and one to which many Members will wish to draw attention. The philosophy and principles were there, but the difficulties involved in bedding down the system within a working school were not at all apparent to the Government.

In the Government's defence, it should be said that modular exams were nothing new. They had been running for many years before AS-levels were introduced, but there are differences between the AS-level in its fully-fledged form and previous modular exams. In subjects such as chemistry, it was perfectly possible to believe that a pupil could perform as well at 17 as at 18. That idea was manifest in most results for, and in most evaluations of modular exams in, such subjects. In many arts subjects—I am talking from my own experience—there is an appreciable improvement in a pupil's maturity, ability and grasp between 17 and 18. That means that considering the type of modular exams used to test science subjects is not a good way to establish how modular exams of the AS-level and A2-level type will run.

In considering specifically what went wrong with AS-levels this year, it is clear that there appears to have been some perverse statistical moderation. I do not want to enter into the details of that. As the Minister will undoubtedly tell us, statistical moderation is nothing new. It has become more sophisticated over the years. At one stage, it might have been a matter merely of setting a crude percentage rate; these days, it is something rather more considerable.

Fundamentally, there is nothing wrong with statistical moderation. One needs to guard oneself against the vagaries of exams. With the best will, and preparation, in the world, exams can still vary from year to year. They can be unduly harsh one year and more lenient the next, but the qualification should be of the same standard. Statistical moderation is also necessary to guard against the vagaries of examiners, who work within very tightly defined schedules, but who can still veer on the side of being stricter than, or more lenient than, their counterparts. There is no reason why pupils whose papers are sent to strict examiners should do worse than pupils whose papers are sent to lenient ones.

Statistical moderation is a well-understood science that is carried out by comparing across examiners, and across exams and years. Interestingly, some of that data would have been missing this year. There were no previous years to consider, so the probability of something going wrong was greater. There was nothing on which to look back, and it appears that panic set in on some boards and among some statisticians. The normal procedure of adjustment led to results that would have looked implausibly good. The examination boards clearly felt that those results could not be presented to the QCA, and that they needed some modification.

The QCA is not considered to be the simple guardian of standards. Within the educational establishment, it is widely regarded as a body with its own agenda. Despite its safeguarding watchdog role, it was initially quite happy with the results. I understand that the whistle was blown by pupils and schools who found the results downright implausible.

The hon. Gentleman has alluded to the QCA's agenda. Will he tell us what that agenda is?

I do not want to go into too much personal and anecdotal detail, but I have spoken to chief examiners and people who have had visits from the boards' statisticians, and I have seen examination prototypes go back and forth to the QCA. I can assure the hon. Gentleman that—apart from the issue of preserving standards—the QCA has fixed views about what it wants, and can be quite prescriptive in terms of modes and types of examination, and so forth. If the hon. Gentleman has time later, I dare say that I can fill out my comments further.

All of us will agree that lessons have been learned. The Tomlinson review has taken place, and schools have drawn their own conclusions to some extent. Some schools are leading a minor stampede towards the baccalaureate because they feel that the situation cannot be redeemed. I would like to believe that the Government have learned a big lesson: that they must learn a little better, listen a little more and anticipate a little better. However, for as long as schools are evaluated by crude league tables, examiners are overworked and underpaid, exam boards behave like ticket touts when selling their examinations to schools, and the QCA behaves like God, my guess is that such episodes will not be isolated. Although we may not have quite the same debate next year or the year after, and although the difficulties may not be quite the same, the problems associated with A-levels and AS-levels will not go away.

As a fellow north-west Member of Parliament, Mr. Deputy Speaker, you will be familiar with the overriding characteristic of Southport, which is that the beach goes on and on before you reach the sea. When the hon. Member for Southport (Dr. Pugh) stood up with 70 minutes of the debate stretching out before him, I was afraid that he might be tempted to be a true physical embodiment of his constituency, so we are grateful to him for being so sparing in his comments. I shall try to follow suit, although the Minister may not be entirely grateful. However, I am sure that he has copious notes.

I pay particular tribute to my hon. Friend the Member for Isle of Wight (Mr. Turner) for raising this important subject. As he made clear, he has been pursuing the matter rigorously and doggedly in the Select Committee, which has been doing a good job in trying to find out the details of exactly what happened in this year's A-level fiasco. My hon. Friend went to some lengths to describe the picture, but his opening comments must stay in the minds of all Members. He said that the A-level inherited by the Government was the internationally renowned gold standard but that, within five years, it had moved to a state of full-blown crisis. We have become used over the years to allegations of grade inflation, but this year the more serious allegations—some of which have been proved—were that grades had been deliberately adjusted and rigged to conceal the process of grade inflation.

The introduction of the AS-level was mishandled. There were, of course, good reasons for looking at ways to expand the breadth of the sixth form curriculum, such as trying to avoid too much specialisation too early. Indeed, Governments of both parties sought to achieve that. However, since the introduction of curriculum 2000 it has become clear not only that it was badly introduced but that, in the round, it has caused more harm than good. That is because it has limited the opportunity for sixth formers to engage in extracurricular activities in the arts, music and drama. That absurd situation was raised by my hon. Friend the Member for Mid-Worcestershire (Mr. Lull) in this Chamber a few months ago when we last debated the AS-level. He told us that his daughter had been forced to withdraw from the school play because the demands of her drama AS-level course were so great. Most sixth forms have experienced that narrowing of their students' overall experience, even if the curriculum has marginally widened.

The hon. Member for Southport alluded to the fact that that absurdity has led to students who are already heavily examined being grossly over-examined. The constant repetition of public examinations at the ages of 16, 17 and 18 does not simply put extra pressure on sixth-form students; some are able to cope well with the pressure, others less so. It also has the negative effect of squeezing teaching time out of the sixth form. In a classic two-year course to A-level, comprising six terms, one term is effectively lost to examinations. Instead of having five terms to teach up to A-level, schools now find effectively that they have only four terms. They lose a term to the AS exams and a term to A2.

The perverse effect is that students come out at the other end of the process having been taught less. Crucially, they also miss out on what has always been held to be one of the most important parts of teaching people to A-level, by which I mean the little time that it takes to make the bridge from GCSEs to A-level, where the skills required are different, more complex and harder to gain.

A huge additional burden has been added to the marking system, which has been overloaded. The difficulties of finding people to mark the exams and of ensuring that the system retains its integrity have been immense. Against that backdrop, the Opposition have called for the AS-level to be withdrawn. That leads to some continuing problems that the Government need to face about the proper allocation of marks between the two papers; where the boundary should be drawn, and whether AS papers should be graded as a smaller percentage of the marks in recognition of the fact that AS is easier than the A2 stage of the A-level process. My hon. Friend the Member for Isle of Wight spoke on that subject. It is clear that the approach taken of pretending that AS is worth 50 per cent. of an A-level has been an instrumental factor in grade inflation. That led to the problems that we have been left to tackle.

The hon. Member for Southport referred to the QCA as having its own agenda, and said that it behaved like God. I do not know whether my hon. Friend the Member for Isle of Wight will have time to take him up on his kind offer of letting him hear more of his views later. If so, I would be interested to know what information has been imparted.

I had rather hoped that the hon. Member for Southport would use the many minutes available to put his views on the record, so that we could examine them in depth later and so that everyone could share hem.

My hon. Friend is right; we all hoped that the hon. Member for Southport would take advantage of that opportunity. During my brief remarks, there will be an opportunity for him to speak if he wants to intervene, and I am sure that the Minister will extend him the same courtesy. We wait with bated breath until such moment may come.

One of the main responses to this year's A-level crisis has been the suggestions—they have come from Her Majesty's Opposition, but have been echoed by bodies throughout education, such as head teachers' organisations and many interested observers—that the only way in which we can tackle the problem and have confidence in the performance of the QCA is if it is clearly and emphatically removed from ministerial control. The QCA needs to be genuinely independent. We have said that its independence should be much like that of the Bank of England, with a remit set by Parliament that it then has to fulfil without even the possibility of ministerial interference or intervention, such as that which cast a shadow over the A-level marking process this year.

Almost everyone agrees that the system would be greatly improved if the QCA were given that independence. Does the Minister and the Department for Education and Skills agree with that? Or is the QCA the only body standing in the way of what most people feel would be a step towards transparency and independence, which would help to restore the integrity of the A-level system and restore confidence in our whole examination system? I think the Minister agrees, so I hope that, when he responds to the debate, he will announce that there was an unfortunate oversight in the Gracious Address, and that the Government had intended to introduce a Bill this Session to give the QCA that much-needed independence. I suspect that such a welcome surprise awaits us. That would be an important step towards addressing concerns about the status of the A-level system and the difficulties that we have had this year regarding the different treatment of grade boundaries.

Initial reviews have taken place and have taken us a little way forward, but there remains considerable concern and uncertainty about the marking of A-levels this year. It has been suggested that another 20,000 scripts may need to be remarked or regraded. There is evidence that some examination boards—even those that have not seen fit to regrade this year's examination papers—are responding by changing their grade boundaries for next year, which implies that they accept that there is a problem. For example, the OCR is adjusting the grade boundaries for psychology for next year's exams, although this year's psychology papers were not adjusted. Many schools remain concerned about unexpectedly low grades, especially for coursework. One school was shocked to find that 14 out of 20 entrants were given a U grade for their coursework; those 14 candidates had been expected to perform well and the school could see no reason why the results were so poor.

Following the inquiry and the agreement that papers might be returned to schools, one would have thought that there would be a degree of openness and that all those concerns could be swept away. In fact, the process is causing more worry in some instances. I shall refer briefly from a letter sent from one school to Dr. McLone at the OCR. I shall not mention the school's name because I do not have its permission to raise the matter publicly. The letter stated that the second batch of A-level psychology scripts were returned to the school without the cover sheets, so it had no details of the marks awarded. Furthermore, the school was informed that the scripts bore no annotations; neither was there an accompanying report, unlike the returned scripts for other OCR subjects. All of that made it very difficult to understand why the school's candidates did so badly on the coursework element. In fact, the school was hardly any the wiser now than it was on results day.

Many schools and examination candidates remain concerned that they may not have been treated fairly. The fact that detailed information is not being provided and that papers and marks are being withheld is a cause for serious concern.

What is certain is that tens, even hundreds, of thousands of A-level students were left in torment during the summer, not knowing what their grades were worth. University admissions officers were thrown into disarray, not knowing how many students they might have to accept this or next year. It is certain that parents, employers and pupils are worried about the validity of the whole A-level exam, and that many will go on to take their exams next year not confident that the mess has been sorted out. Against that background, Ministers are saying that a form of baccalaureate might be the answer might be the answer and that we should perhaps scrap the A-level and give it up as a bad job.

There is a pressing need for action now to restore confidence in our A-level system. Ministers may be contemplating moving to a different examination system, but that will take some years. The many students who enter their A-level years before such a change takes place deserve to know that their exams will be fair and to be assured of the integrity of the examination and marking systems. I strongly endorse the suggestion by my hon. Friend the Member for Isle of Wight that speculation about the introduction of a different system is damaging the reputation of the A-level at a time when we must do everything in our power to restore confidence in it and to restore the system's integrity.

In the short time remaining, I shall endeavour to respond to the points raised in the debate. I join the hon. Member for Altrincham and Sale, West (Mr. Brady) in congratulating the hon. Member for Isle of Wight (Mr. Turner) on giving us the opportunity to discuss this issue, which is important for our education system, before next week's publication of the second Tomlinson report. I thank everyone who has participated in the debate and I shall do my best to respond to their points.

The main priority throughout the recent difficult events was the students who studied for and sat exams in the summer, and those who will study for and sit exams next summer and in future years. In no way do I underestimate how difficult that time was, and thousands of students up and down the country faced uncertainty. That is why it was so important that the former Secretary of State, my right hon. Friend the Member for Birmingham, Yardley (Estelle Morris), responded quickly when allegations first appeared. She responded to the concerns of head teacher associations by inviting Mike Tomlinson to conduct his two inquiries. His first report was published some time ago, and the second is due to be published next week.

Let me make it clear that one wrong result for a student is one wrong result too many, and there must be no complacency about that. It is important that we not only acknowledge and discuss this year's difficulties but that we keep a sense of perspective. I do not concur with the hon. Member for Altrincham and Sale, West when he says that the introduction of the new system has done more harm than good. The number of students whose grades were changed was relatively small. That is not to underestimate the impact on them or to say that such things are acceptable. However, I cannot accept the use of terms such as "crisis" to describe the situation that we faced earlier this year. Nevertheless, we need to learn from what happened, and, in that respect, we have had a good debate. The three Opposition Members who have spoken have contributed to the important process of considering how we can learn from what went wrong this year.

It is statistically certain that the number of appeals this year has been relatively small, but that is not the issue. We are concerned not about the number of appeals, but about their nature and the grounds for them.

Absolutely, and I am coming to that. That is a fair point.

At the instigation of the hon. Member for Mid-Worcestershire (Mr. Luff), we debated similar issues in Westminster Hall before the summer recess and before the A-level results had come out. We focused in part on the nature of the curriculum 2000 reforms and on how they would progress, and we heard demands to abolish the AS-level. Those demands have been repeated today, but they are a panic reaction to what happened over the summer. Like all hon. Members, I visit schools and colleges week in, week out to see how things are going, and I do not believe that they would welcome such a reaction. Indeed, I understand that head teacher associations, in their recent evidence to the Select Committee, strongly argued against us reacting in that way.

Does the Minister believe that it is right and helpful for pupils to be examined three times in major public examinations, at 16, 17 and 18?

Examination and testing form an important part of our secondary and primary education service. However, I accept that there is a case for considering the pattern of examinations, the balance between internal and external examination and testing, the mix between assessment and testing and the timing of testing.

Does the Minister think that there is a case for abolition?

I would not argue that any examination necessarily needed to be abolished. We need to consider the mix of testing, examination and assessment available in each examination conducted throughout secondary education, from key stage 3 through GCSEs to A-levels.

I agree with the hon. Member for Isle of Wight and others that we should reaffirm the principle that the A-level is a gold standard. After this summer's difficulties, our first response must be to reaffirm that point. With a new system in place, we need a period of stability. The broader debate about the 14 to 19 curriculum and the qualifications available in that age range involves a wide range of organisations, including many young people. We shall publish our proposals in the new year, as we develop the Green Paper.

The hon. Member for Southport referred to the longstanding debate about how to achieve a greater parity of esteem between academic qualifications and subjects and those of a more technical or vocational character. It is clear that the matter needs to be addressed urgently, in terms not only of economics but of providing real opportunities for all young people. That is reflected in the positive response given to our Green Paper for the 14 to 19 age range.

We need to get the balance right. As the hon. Member for Isle of Wight said, we need a period of stability. We have a new system, and we do not want the gold standard of the A-level to be undermined. However, we must also recognise the reasons for introducing the AS-level in the first place. It has undoubtedly broadened the curriculum at 16 and 17, which has been widely welcomed. When I visit sixth forms in secondary schools or further education colleges, I make a point of asking people what they think about the AS-level. Sometimes they complain about the constraints on extra-curricular activity; it would be daft for me to deny that that was an issue. More frequently, however, the young people who sit the examinations welcome the fact that they are studying four rather than three subjects in the lower sixth. I have spoken to several A2 students, in the upper sixth, who say that they have ended up doing three different subjects at that stage from those they would have chosen when they were 16 because of the extra year of experience.

It would be foolish of me to deny that there are downsides and pressures, but the new system overall has some great strengths and has done more good than harm. We must learn from the difficulties of the summer, but I support the changes introduced as a result of curriculum 2000. During Mike Tomlinson's initial inquiry, he found widespread support for those principles. After only the first year of the new A2 examinations, it is far too early to consider abolishing them. We must make a success of them by learning the lessons of this summer.

Mike Tomlinson's initial inquiry made several recommendations, providing a clear way forward for reestablishing confidence in the A-level system. Everyone who has spoken today has said that that was what they wanted to achieve. The Government immediately accepted all Mr. Tomlinson's recommendations, and we suggested that the QCA take them up as a matter of urgency. The authority is doing that under the leadership of Ken Boston and Tony Greener.

The Minister said that the Government had accepted all of Mike Tomlinson's recommendations. I refer to the remarks of the former Secretary of State, who said,

"Mike Tomlinson said that the structure had been introduced too quickly, and I have said all along that I accept every one of his recommendations."—[Official Report, 15 October 2002; Vol. 390, c. 212.]

Does that mean that she accepted—and that the Department, Ministers and Government accept—that the structure had been introduced too quickly?

We accept all of the recommendations that were made by Tomlinson. That does not necessarily mean that we sign up to every phrase in the report concerning evaluation and analysis. Hindsight is a wonderful thing; some said at the time that we were moving faster than we might, but many believed that the pace was sensible. We piloted the AS level in a number of institutions and did not move immediately to implementation after the 1997 election. A month ago, Dr. Nicholas Tate, the headmaster of Winchester college, said in a letter to the permanent secretary of our Department that in his view it was perfectly possible to introduce the new A-levels without major problems in the agreed time scale and that although extra time might have helped, the time scale should not be blamed for the problems this summer. That is his view and Mike Tomlinson expressed a different one. We have accepted the recommendations for the way forward that were set out in Mike Tomlinson's report.

Why was the OCR board producing specifications of examinations for the QCA to sign off before the QCA had delivered to it the targets for those examinations?

I would love to be able to answer the hon. Gentleman's question, but I cannot do so now. I shall write to him.

Following Mike Tomlinson's initial inquiry, the QCA has worked with the examination boards, the regulatory authorities and head teacher associations to prepare a clear description of the relationship between the AS and A2 parts of the A-level courses arid the standards of the resulting qualifications. Distinct versions will be prepared for practitioners in schools, colleges and higher education as well as for a wider audience including parents, students and employers.

Grade boundaries were, as has been said, central to the problems this year. The QCA has been working with subject specialists across the examination boards to prepare reference collections of exemplar material representative of the A-B and E-U grade boundaries, which are set on the basis of examiner judgment for both AS and A2 qualifications. QCA is also producing performance descriptions reflecting the characteristics of candidates' work at the two grade boundaries. Next year, for the first time, examination boards will have the benefit of archive scripts for A2 units, which will be of assistance. Tomlinson recommended revisions to the code of practice governing the key elements of assessment and award for AS and A2 exams. The QCA is now working on the revisions, paying particular attention to the section that governs the setting of grade boundaries, including the contributions of awarding panels, subject specialists and the accountable officer of the particular examination board.

We understand that the exam boards have assured the QCA that they have arrangements in place to train their examiners in the use of the revised code of practice and exemplar materials in time for the next set of examinations in January 2003. Early next year, in preparation for the summer exams, there will be extensive training, for both teachers and examiners. We are confident that those actions will prevent the repetition in 2003 of this summer's problems. Next week, Mike Tomlinson will report on the second stage of his inquiry, in which he has reviewed the operational pressures on the A-level system. We shall carefully consider his recommendations and act upon them to ensure that A-levels provide accurate, robust and respected recognition of the attainments of all the young people who take them. Among the issues that Tomlinson is examining is the respective weighting of AS and A2 grades, an issue that has been raised during this debate.

At the beginning of his speech, the hon. Member for Isle of Wight mentioned transparency and the operation of the QCA code of practice. The second Tomlinson report, which will come out next week, will look at the procedures that the hon. Gentleman described and make recommendations on how the current system can be improved further to guarantee standards and consistency.

Why did this year's problems happen? Mike Tomlinson concluded that they were created by the perceived pressure on exam boards from the QCA, the lack of guidance on the level of attainment expected for a particular grade in an individual paper and the lack of common understanding about the standard required to ensure that the overall A-level standard was maintained. Although responsibility for standards rests firmly with the QCA—we are pleased to see its new leadership taking forward Mike Tomlinson's recommendations on clarifying A-level standards—the Government are clearly responsible for addressing the broader policy issues, many of which have come up in today's debate.

I shall address a number of the specific issues that have been raised in the debate.

I should be interested in the Minister's views on the little sideshow debate on the QCA. My view is that the QCA has pursued its own agenda. The hon. Member for Altrincham and Sale, West (Mr. Brady) wants it to be independent, which implies that it was pursuing a ministerial agenda. What is the Minister's view of the QCA?

The hon. Gentleman will have to wait for a moment because I intend to address that point and a related point made by the Opposition spokesman, the hon. Member for Altrincham and Sale, West.

The hon. Member for Altrincham and Sale, West has also raised specific concerns about psychology. The regrading exercise highlighted specific issues concerning syllabus design and assessment and marking schemes that the OCR was using for psychology. We have asked the QCA to look into that issue to make sure that the OCR takes effective action quickly to address it before next year's exams in January and July.

Does the Minister agree that in the interests of transparency it is essential that the cover page and the annotated scripts should be available to schools when examination papers are returned to them?

That sounds reasonable, but I shall have to take further advice and write to the hon. Gentleman to ensure that I give a fully accurate and considered response.

The hon. Members for Southport and for Altrincham and Sale, West raised the question of young people in education today being over-tested, and the hon. Member for Southport connected that to the publication of performance tables. I am acutely aware of that concern. Over this term, the Department has been conducting a series of conferences around the country with secondary head teachers in which we have been discussing a number of issues including leadership in schools and how we can best ensure collaboration and the sharing of good practice between schools.

The concerns set out by the hon. Member for Southport came up frequently at those conferences. My Department faces the challenge of looking at how we can balance the proper desire of parents and students to know about schools' performance with the immeasurable outcomes, which can make a real difference for young people, that schools deliver. That point is serious. When I meet employers and employers' organisations—I am sure that other hon. Members will have experienced this—one of their most frequent concerns about young people leaving school and applying for work is weakness in the field of "soft skills"; that is a terrible phrase but we all know what it means. Interpersonal and communication skills are important in achieving success today. They are not necessarily measured by performance tables, and I should like us to debate how we can more effectively encapsulate how successful a school is in making a difference to immeasurable, so-called soft skills, which matter to young people.

The abolition of performance tables is neither viable nor desirable, but the provision of a wider context in which to place information—for example, via value-added measures—and an ability to describe some of the other things that schools do that make a difference to the abilities and outcomes of young people is worth considering. I hope that we can take that forward, and I look forward to hearing the contributions to that debate.

I value the Minister's encouraging noises. What he is saying is totally appropriate. However, when considering what is measurable, there may be a tendency with league tables for students to be entered for examinations that may reflect well on the school and provide a good profile for it. Students may be discouraged from entering exams that are worthwhile but in which it is difficult to attain the highest grades. They may be entered for exams that are of less value in career terms, but in which they are likely to achieve good grades. There is concern that schools may hunt grades per se, instead of putting the needs of pupils first.

I am aware of that concern, but not of how widespread the practice is. I accept that it has been alleged in some cases, but we should tread with care on such allegations. It is vital that young people are entered for the examinations they want to take and are capable of studying for. We must send that message firmly to schools and colleges throughout the country.

The hon. Member for Isle of Wight referred in his opening speech to the destruction of examination papers. That is a matter directly for the examination boards and the QCA, but I can reaffirm what the Secretary of State said during the debate on the Queen's Speech; that, in the light of the Tomlinson inquiry, the planned destruction of A-level scripts has not gone ahead and there will be no such destruction before January 2003. I hope that that provides some reassurance for the hon. Gentleman.

The hon. Member for Southport referred to the burden on examiners, which is serious and heavy. There has been a significant increase in the number of external examinations for which people are studying and we need to consider the matter. I addressed part of the issue in a direct exchange with the hon. Member for Altrincham and Sale, West about the balance between internal and external assessment. Teachers have always undertaken assessments, and we all remember regular testing from our school days. The modular assessment that typifies A-levels now is that it enables students to obtain an early understanding of how effective their learning has been and to identify areas for improvement enabling them to make firm decisions about their studies. As we take the discussion forward in the light of experience this year and publication of the second Tomlinson report next week, that is one aspect that must be considered.

The hon. Member for Altrincham and Sale, West raised the question of the QCA's independence. I am not entirely clear whether that would have made a difference. Ken Boston said that he believes that the QCA does act independently and that neither he nor Mike Tomlinson—nor anyone else—has seen any evidence of political interference or pressure on the QCA, so I do not believe that it would have made a difference to recent events. Nevertheless, we are open to that debate and we have asked Mike Tomlinson to consider the matter carefully in the next stage of his review. The key principle for the Government is that the exam system matches public expectations of integrity, fairness, objectivity and consistency.

Does the Minister accept that Dr. Boston also said, again in his uncorrected evidence, that there should be greater distance between the Government and the awarding bodies? He was critical and referred to the "quite close contact" between DFES officers and individual officers in awarding bodies at a variety of levels and purposes. He was sure that all of that was benign but felt nevertheless that, in a situation where there was a regulator, the relationship was not a desirable one.

I am aware of Dr. Boston's comments and I have said that we are open to the debate. The hon. Gentleman is tempting me to go further, as did the hon. Member for Southport earlier, but I would go beyond my remit if I did. However, I reiterate for the record that we are open to debate and consider that matter to be an important part of the way forward so that we can guarantee the continued integrity of the A-level and learn the lessons from this year's experience.

I again thank the three hon. Members from Opposition parties who contributed to this debate. It has provided an important opportunity to review the events of the past few months and for the House to learn lessons about those events. I look forward, as I am sure do hon. Members on both sides of the House, to the publication of the second Tomlinson report next week. It will provide an important foundation for taking the debate forward.

12.10 pm

Sitting suspended.

12.30 pm

On resuming—

I want to use this short debate to add my voice to those supporting a British bid to host the Olympic games in 2012.

The bid would be based in, but not exclusive to London. The sports enthusiast in me would relish the chance to see the world's greatest athletes competing against one another in our great capital city. Which sports fan would not want the chance to see great Olympic performances in their own country, following in the footsteps of Linford Christie, Tanni Gray or more recently the remarkable Steve Redgrave? Enthusiasm for sport alone is not a good enough reason to bid for the Olympic games. We should bid because of the galvanising impact of the Olympics on its host city and nation.

I pay tribute to my right hon. Friend the Minister for Sport and his colleague the Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport. The Government have been entirely right in the way that they have approached the issue thus far by working alongside the British Olympic Association, the London development agency and the Mayor of London to commission a full analysis of the cost and benefit implications of bidding for and hosting an Olympic games and a Paralympic games. Given that joint working is one essential prerequisite for a successful bid and event, the joint work thus far has been very encouraging.

I welcome, too, Ministers' determination to assess the legacy of past Olympic games, with visits to Sydney and Barcelona, and to look at the legacy that future games will bring by a visit to Beijing. That is an appropriate way in which to take an open-minded approach to the issue. The early clarity that the Secretary of State gave in a debate on the Gracious Address was welcome, too. She set out criteria that the Government would use in judging whether to back a bid: affordability, deliverability and legacy. She also gave a welcome commitment for a longer debate in Government time to allow the House to consider the merits of an Olympic bid.

The Arup report is very clear. We cannot afford to wait for the chance to host an Olympic games in 2016. We either hid now for 2012, or the next realistic possibility that we will ever have of winning the chance to host the games will be for 2024. Even if a non-European city were chosen for 2012, the bidding experience gained would be invaluable for a 2016 bid. The Arup report estimates that the cost of bidding for the games would be £13 million, of which £6 million could come from the private sector. Given the likely benefits for tourism and other business activity, that is pretty good value. Even if we do not win, an Olympic bid will help to forge new and deeper partnerships to help tackle the regeneration of the Thames gateway area, for example.

The real concerns about affordability centre first on the figure of £2 billion, which is confusingly quoted by some as the net cost of hosting the games, and secondly on whether such a figure is too low given the theoretically inevitable cost overruns. It is worth placing on record that the £2 billion figure is not the predicted net cost as it does not take into account the income from the sale of sporting rights, from ticket sales and so on. There has been much misinformation about the cost of previous Olympic games, which has lead some people to speculate that costs for every Olympic games are likely to overrun. The Sydney games actually made a small profit on running costs, and both Sydney and Atlanta hit their financial targets broadly speaking. The one financial element in Atlanta that did not match the original budget was the cost of security, following the bomb that went off. There were significant differences between the overall costs of the Barcelona games to the public purse and the original estimate of those costs. It is important to remember that a new high-speed rail link and a motorway link are additional benefits that the Olympics helped to deliver once decisions to be more ambitious about the legacy of the games had been taken. Certainly, the Athens games are likely to be substantially more expensive than originally envisaged. Just about every new infrastructure project that the games have required Athens to build has been held up by archaeological issues. That is not a concern that we are likely to have to confront with a London games based in the lower Lea valley and Stratford area.

We can have confidence in Arup's financial modelling, not least because it allows for significant cost overruns in the years closest to the games when the amount of building work will be at its height. Arup estimates that at 2002 prices the games would cost about £1.8 billion, with a likely income of some £1.3 billion—a net cost of almost £500 million. As the excellent British Olympic Association points out, that does not include any income from the European Union. It is worth noting that Athens has managed to secure some £1.4 billion for Olympic-related projects. Given that some of the local authorities where the games would be held have objective 2 status, there remains a real possibility that, like Athens, we could secure additional financial support from the EU.

Another element to factor into any consideration of the financial costs and benefits of hosting an Olympic games is the likely increase in tourism, the value of which Arup conservatively estimates to be up to £610 million. An independent study recently suggested that more than £2 billion in inbound tourism spending in Australia was directly attributable to the staging of the Olympics in Sydney. In summary, Arup estimates that there is a gap of almost £500 million, which could completely, or to a large extent alone, be compensated for by the additional tourism benefits generated—apart from the wider legacy, which I shall discuss now.

The financial appraisal does not include any element of the additional income coming into the UK or any assessment of the extra jobs created. For Barcelona alone, it is estimated that the net economic impact equated to about £11 billion. Arup estimates that some 3,000 full-time jobs would be created just within the east London economy, not including any extra employment generated elsewhere. Nor did the financial analysis cover the regeneration of the Thames gateway area. There would be some 4,000 new housing units, all built on brownfield land, together with large-scale reclamation of contaminated, derelict and under-utilised land. That would have massive regeneration benefits.

Another key aspect of the legacy of the games is the additional facilities that are required for visiting Olympic athletes to train, which can also provide increased opportunities for grassroots sport in the United Kingdom. New swimming pools have been identified as being fundamental. The capital has just one 50 m pool, which could be used for competition, although it is in need of refurbishment. In addition, many sports need all-purpose halls for training, which would necessitate significant investment in the capital's leisure facilities, many of which are in varying degrees of repair.

As the British Olympic Association points out, in the run-up to the games visiting teams would need training camps dotted around the UK. The Americans might want to be based in Manchester, or the Russians in Birmingham, which would inject significant sums of money into those regional economies. Many of the events that will be held during the games do not have to take place in London. Football could be played at a variety of venues around the country—perhaps at Sheffield, which would give my right hon. Friend the Minister's constituents an opportunity to see high-quality football again.

To secure a lasting legacy from the Commonwealth games in Manchester, Sport England developed new training and activity strategies based on the new facilities bequeathed by the games. A new national squash centre was required as part of its funding agreement to produce a clearly thought through development strategy, which, it is predicted, will lead to 8,000 children from the north-west visiting it to play squash. A fundamental part of the games could and should be to develop participation, coaching and club management structures, as well as to improve the sporting infrastructure.

The games in Sydney and Manchester relied on an extensive volunteer pool. The experience of Sydney has shown that that culture of volunteerism has continued, with people becoming auxiliary officers, community workers, teaching assistants and so on. Some 10,000 volunteers were recruited and trained for the Manchester Commonwealth games—the youngest were 16 and the oldest 87. About 15 per cent. of them were recruited from ethnic minorities and 5,000 from disadvantaged areas of the north-west. More than 1,800 achieved a specially devised, nationally accredited qualification. Manchester has re-proven the case that a major sporting event can be a catalyst for economic and social regeneration. In addition, as UK Sport has highlighted, elite sport will also benefit from a home competition, which provides more role models and inspiration to generations of young people.

London and the UK already enjoy a high international profile, but it is likely that the global marketing opportunity offered by the Olympics would generate additional inward investment into the UK. Sydney and Atlanta have highlighted that as a significant benefit from the games hosted in their cities. The last element of the legacy of such games, aside from transport, is the impact on national prestige that hosting the largest sports event in the world brings the host city and nation.

The last criterion that the Government will use to judge whether to bid, which my right hon. Friend announced in her speech, is deliverability. To paraphrase some of the sceptics in the media, after the problems in securing Wembley, the decision to cancel Picketts Lock and the experience of the dome's finances, have we really the capability to deliver such a large sporting event, and will we have sorted out London's transport needs by then? It is worth reminding those sceptics that Britain annually stages Wimbledon, the Open golf championship and the London marathon to global acclaim. The Manchester games were delivered to the very highest standards, and no less a figure than Jacques Rogge, President of the International Olympic Committee, has confirmed his belief that Britain could stage a highly creditable bid. We are bidding with confidence to host the 2007 rugby World cup—which I know all hon. Members will expect Wales to win—and we successfully hosted the 1996 European football championships. We have a good track record in delivering sporting events successfully.

Sceptics also point to London's transport difficulties, but new airport capacity at Heathrow, such as the new terminal 5, or at Stansted will ensure that there is sufficient capacity for overseas arrivals by aeroplane. The channel tunnel rail link through to Stratford will be up and running by then. Although Crossrail is not essential in securing effective transport for the Olympic games, the completion of the central London element will undoubtedly help. Arup remains confident, after discussions with London's transport experts, that the projected number of journeys by transport to and from the Olympic zones can be handled without delays or unacceptable disruption to normal travel patterns in London. Undoubtedly, the deadline of an Olympic games will help further to concentrate minds among London's transport planners, which can only be beneficial to those of us who live in London and experience the daily frustration of commuting at the moment.

Another element of the deliverability calculation could be described as the Ken factor. Can all the myriad forms of government—the local authorities, the London development agency, the Mayor, the Greater London Authority, Sport England, UK Sport, the British Olympic Association and the various Government Departments that would be involved—really be expected to work together effectively? They worked together effectively to make the Manchester games a success and they work together effectively in the various other international sporting events that we continue to host. That does not only happen for other sporting events here; it is worth putting on the record the experience of Barcelona, where many of the same problems were faced and people overcame them successfully, with considerable positive benefit for their city. In Barcelona, the state, provincial, city, port, tourism and redevelopment authorities and agencies all successfully worked together through a single regeneration plan, using the Olympics as a catalyst for what most people recognise as a highly successful example of urban transformation. If they could do it, we can certainly do it in London. Just bidding for the games would help to create additional pressures to promote agency co-operation.

In short, I believe that London could host the Olympic games at a much lower cost than is perhaps widely accepted at the moment. In the process, it could effectively secure a legacy of benefits, including the regeneration of the east London-Thames gateway area, additional certainty about transport quality and significant new social housing units, not to mention the extra investment in sporting facilities for community use and the mass new programmes to increase participation in sport at all levels.

I congratulate the hon. Gentleman on securing the debate and I am sorry that a prolonged telephone call meant that I missed the first minute or two of his speech. He has made an extremely cogent case and it will be considered by many people who are anxious to see the matter progress.

On deliverability, I am sure that the hon. Gentleman will accept that, notwithstanding the Conservative party's current difficulties, it is possible that between now and 2012 there will be a Conservative Mayor of London and/or a Conservative Government. Although we, like the Government, are not in any position to write blank cheques, I want to reassure the hon. Gentleman, the Minister and those who are watching our deliberations, that we are very supportive of the Government's efforts to progress the bid.

I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for his statement of Conservative support for an Olympics bid. His analysis of the chances of having a Conservative Mayor of London and a Conservative Government is perhaps best suited to dreams, rather than reality.

Hosting the Olympics would be a considerable boost to the tourism industry in both London and the United Kingdom as a whole and would result in a whole range of other benefits for British business. The Olympic games are the greatest sporting event in the world and having them in our country would undoubtedly be a powerful inspiration to get involved in sport. That in turn would help our efforts to tackle obesity, reduce crime and generally raise the aspirations and ambitions of all our communities. I hope that there will be a bid to host the games.

I thank the Minister and my hon. Friend the Member for Harrow, West (Mr. Thomas) for giving me this opportunity to support what has been said so far. Like my hon. Friend, I come at the issue from the point of view of a sports fan. However, we have to have a realistic head on when we approach something as major as the Olympic games. I would love to see the Olympic games in London. I have no doubts about that.

I have not had an opportunity to visit the Olympic games elsewhere in the world. Like many people, I have had to watch them on television. The games inspire a generation of people to watch sport at its best and to see the best competition in the world. There are other world athletics championships and other forums in which people are able to compete, but nothing compares to the magic of the Olympic games and the desire for that gold medal. Money and professionalism have not totally spoiled the Olympic games. Once every four years, there is still that idealistic desire to be the best in the world.

As a non-London Member, I would like to ensure that this is not just a London-focused Olympics bid. I am grateful that my hon. Friend the Member for Harrow, West has reassured me on that point. He made several comments about the ability of other parts of the country to benefit from the Olympic games. For example, he mentioned Birmingham and Manchester as being suitable sites for the Americans or the Russians. I am sure that Loughborough would probably be considered first, given the excellent facilities at the university and the support that could be provided. I am sure that my constituency would be on the list of places that would benefit from providing such a base for a major nation.

My hon. Friend also rightly pointed out that many of the major sports would not necessarily be based in London. It is possible for many of those sports to be located in the rest of the United Kingdom and still not be that far away. Obviously, the Australian model provides a clear example. Some of the sports were not held at the headquarters, but were spread around. The lack of time differences and the travel distances in the United Kingdom mean that it would be possible for teams to be based centrally and to participate in sports in Birmingham, Manchester and other parts of the country without too many difficulties.

My major concern still comes down to the general or net cost of the Olympics. I fully accept my hon. Friend's arguments that it would not be the £2 billion figure that is bandied around. However, we must identify from where even a net cost of £500 million would come. Based on my experience and that of others who are here today, there would be some cost overrun as well. For example, the Commonwealth games, which were a fantastic success, needed interim and other funding just to ensure that they happened. My fear is that the £500 million might creep up. If it does, we must be clear at an early stage exactly where the shortfall will come from, because there is a real danger that we could fall into the same trap that we have fallen into previously.

I believe that we have the ability to deliver. Anyone who visited the Commonwealth games in Manchester will have seen the enthusiasm of the crowds. I caught a bus with a group of schoolchildren who were going from the railway station to the Commonwealth games. There was a fantastic atmosphere before they arrived, and they spent the rest of the afternoon screaming about absolutely everything that happened. I hope that the legacy of that enthusiasm will be not just an enjoyable afternoon but that those children will be able and willing to carry their enthusiasm into their homes, schools and clubs. I want to hear stories in 10 or 15 years about people collecting gold medals who were inspired to join an athletics club by the Commonwealth games in 2002.

As a general supporter, I believe that there is an enormous amount of work still to be done, but I want to ensure that we get it absolutely right. I was sceptical about our ability to do it and the reasons for doing it until I visited the site in Australia. Recently, I met the mayor of New York, who is enthusiastic about the bid that that city wants to put together. If New York thinks that it can do it with the transport problems that it has, I see no reason why London should not also do so.

It would be a brave decision. I hope that the Government listen very carefully and are not put off by the failure, or whatever one wants to call it, of our 2006 World cup bid. The unique circumstances of that bid meant that from the beginning it was very difficult, to put it politely, to succeed. We have a fair wind on our side for the 2012 bid. Therefore, we stand a good chance from the beginning, whereas unfortunately our 2006 World cup bid was scuppered right from the start.

Our bid must be such that it is seen worldwide as a great advertisement not only for London but for sport itself. We must ensure that our sporting heroes are involved, because they inspire young people. Key to making it work are club structures and national governing bodies that are ready and willing to pick up individuals who are inspired by the Olympics. There is a small window in which the inspiration of the Olympics can be translated into people joining clubs and in which it can result in a lasting legacy. Wimbledon is an example of that. No one can get a municipal tennis court for the two weeks of Wimbledon, but activity drops off again for the rest of the year. We must ensure that the club structure brings in enthusiastic people.

Finally, I also want to ensure that if money is found for this it is not money that would otherwise be used for the day-to-day grassroots support for sport in this country. We must consider carefully the danger that we may fund a one-off that lasts just a few weeks and offers no lasting legacy of regeneration or benefit for UK sport as a whole.

In conclusion, I am an enthusiast but I am also a realist. I am 90 per cent. convinced. I hope that as the debate continues during the coming weeks and months many of the scepticisms and genuine concerns of people such as me will be eroded and that by the time the Government makes a decision some time in the new year we will be clear about which way we are going and how much it will cost. In that event, the Government and others would have my total and full support.

I also congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Harrow, West (Mr. Thomas) on securing the debate. He might know a lot about the Olympic games, but he obviously does not know much about football. I invite him to Bramall lane, the mecca of football, to enjoy the delights of watching Sheffield United play any team he wishes.

This is the first debate on the potential bid for 2012. My right hon. Friend the Secretary of State, the Department and I want an ongoing debate in which people can express their points of view, which can then be factored into the final decision. We need an informed debate in the next few months before a final decision is made. The timetable means that we have to indicate to the British Olympic Association early in the new year whether we are supporting a bid. If we are, our intention to bid must be presented to the International Olympic Committee by July next year; the bid itself for the 2012 games can be made up until 2005. That is the broad timetable to which we are working.

I should like to say something about the local and, in particular, the national press. The Daily Telegraph has been doing a first-class job in bringing forward the debate objectively. Clearly several issues have to be explored, such as regeneration and the sporting spectacular that is the Olympic games. The Guardian and the Daily Mail, too, have been ensuring that the case is being made and that a proper and informed debate is taking place.

As my hon. Friend said, the summer Olympics are in a league of their own. They are the biggest sporting event in the world with more than 10,000 athletes, and 300 events and 28 sports being represented. No other sporting event covers such a wide spectrum of sport in such depth and with such competition. The games attract millions of spectators to the host city and billions of television viewers worldwide, and they have an impact well outside the sporting world. I have just come back from Sydney and have seen the impact that they have had on inward investment, tourism and the like. For a month or six weeks—perhaps a little longer—the host city is a massive window for the world, so it is important to get it right. The systematic way in which we are evaluating the bid and the UK's potential is correct.

In making its bid, Britain should be seen to be competent. In response to what my hon. Friend said about the Commonwealth games, one could argue that prior to those games our reputation had been slightly tarnished by what had happened in 2006 and the subsequent decision on Picketts Lock and the International Amateur Athletics Federation world athletics. However, since then the Commonwealth games have been described by the President of the International Olympic Committee, Jacques Rogge, as probably one of the most competent Commonwealth games that have been held for many years.

The Commonwealth games were hugely successful in every respect, even financially—there were reserves at the end, as the contingency fund did not have to be fully used. After 11 September, such an achievement is a credit to all those who managed the games in Manchester and their financing. However, to put that into perspective, the total cost of the games was about £330 million, of which some £30 million came from the private sector and £300 million from the public sector. Arup's estimate for the Olympics in 2012 is about £2 billion, which is a factor of about six greater than the cost of the Commonwealth games.

After the great euphoria of Manchester, people were asking Sports Ministers and the Secretary of State, "Why not Manchester?". That question might be justified, but one must consider that the British Olympic Association has concluded that the Olympics should be staged in London because a key requirement is that the staging city should be able to provide sufficient accommodation. First, the Olympic family is huge, numbering up to 40,000. Beyond that, the number of spectators will be vast—perhaps millions over the relevant period. A fairly large city or a conglomerate is needed to accommodate such numbers efficiently. That is why the Arup report was commissioned.

I am grateful for the opportunity to focus on the Hong Kong Government's proposals to implement article 23 of the Basic Law; those are important and controversial constitutional issues in Hong Kong. I have requested this Adjournment debate to raise the issues and concerns of many in Hong Kong. Also, I have the privilege of being joint chairman of the all-party House of Commons Hong Kong committee, which recently visited Hong Kong and engaged in extensive discussions with most of the key civil servants and politicians, and has since met Martin Lee.

The debate centres on whether the proposals are essentially a modernisation of archaic laws—which is, broadly, the Hong Kong Government's argument—or whether they are a beginning of the application of mainland concepts of national security, under something of a disguise.

The background to article 23 is the Sino-British joint declaration, signed by the British and Chinese Governments in 1984, which is registered as an international treaty with the United Nations. That lays down that Hong Kong's way of life and capitalist system should remain unchanged for 50 years post 1997, while the Hong Kong Government should remain fully autonomous except in the areas of foreign policy and national defence. The principles of the joint declaration form those of the Basic Law. The joint declaration, however, provided that

"the laws currently in force in Hong Kong"

should

"remain basically unchanged"

and that

"rights and freedoms, including those of the person, of speech, of the press, of assembly, of association, of travel, of movement, of correspondence, of strike, of choice of occupation, of academic research and of religious belief will be insured by the law in the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region."

Article 23 was included in the Basic Law as something new and additional on the insistence of the mainland Government. There is an argument of principle that it is in breach of the provisions of the joint declaration, as it calls for the application to Hong Kong of legal concepts that are incompatible with the freedoms guaranteed by article 3(5) of the joint declaration. Article 23 states:

"The Hong Kong Special Administrative Region (SAR) shall enact laws on its own to prohibit any act of treason, secession, sedition, subversion against the Central People's Government or theft of State secrets, to prohibit foreign political organisations or bodies from conducting political activities in the Region and to prohibit political organisations or bodies of the Region from establishing ties with foreign or political organisations or bodies".

It is argued that the Hong Kong laws that would prohibit subversion against the mainland Central People's Government could be contrary to the articles of the international covenant on civil and political rights relating to freedom of expression.

In June, matters came to a head when the Chinese Vice-Premier Qian Qichen was reported as saying that the Government of Hong Kong should get a move on with enacting article 23, but that the people of Hong Kong should not worry about it and that it was not intended to restrict democratic rights in Hong Kong. He claimed, however, that it would be illegal for Falun Gong members to retain links with Falun Gong practitioners outside Hong Kong—that is, on the mainland.

The Hong Kong Secretary for Justice, Elsie Leung, has responded to comments made by the British Government by promising that there would be full public consultation—which is now taking place—before draft legislation was introduced; that any legislation would comply with the international covenant on economic, social and cultural rights and the international covenant on civil and political rights; that freedom of speech, association and religion would be upheld; and that legislation would not be aimed at imposing sanctions on any group such as Falun Gong. She also pointed out that the current criminal code could be amended to cover some of the elements outlined in article 23.

Hong Kong already has domestic legislation on treason, sedition, official secrets and activities, and ties with foreign political organisations. However, some of those provisions are clearly outdated and are also potentially very wide. There are no offences of secession or subversion in Hong Kong law. Before 1997, Governor Chris Patten attempted to introduce legislation in those areas, but those efforts foundered in the face of opposition. Although the Legislative Council passed a Bill before handover, it was not enacted by the incoming Administration.

The Hong Kong Government now intend to put draft legislation to the Legislative Council in the new year, with a view to its being enacted next summer. There has been a debate as to whether it should be a White Paper or a Blue Paper. It has ended up as a Blue Paper, though it seemed to us that more of a White Paper approach was being followed, in terms of consultation. A main concern is that the legislative proposals could potentially allow the Government to ban any organisation of which the Beijing Government disapprove, where provisions in the area are not even specifically required by article 23 of the Basic Law.

Few states have express laws against secession and many do not have laws against subversion. The mainland concept of national security is very different from what we are all used to in democratic countries. The deal agreed under the joint declaration was that the PRC concept of national security would not be applied to Hong Kong. Under the treason section, it appears that any business person who trades with Taiwan could risk prosecution if their products end up being used by Taiwan's armed forces or otherwise to assist in Taiwan's defence. There is also a proposal to contain and modernise the archaic offence of misprision of treason, that is, the failure to inform the authorities of treason being committed by someone else. The new treason offence would also apply to all persons who are voluntarily in the Hong Kong SAR, where it is questionable for treason laws to be applied to persons who are not citizens and owe Hong Kong no loyalty.

The proposed new offence of secession includes extraterritorial jurisdiction powers, and could widen considerably the number of people who would not be admitted to Hong Kong or who might not be regarded as safe to enter Hong Kong. The proposed offence of sedition is broadly similar to the existing common law offence, but is arguably unnecessary, as the last prosecution was 50 years ago. The mainland Government have traditionally used the offence of subversion to persecute and suppress legitimate opposition. The Hong Kong Government's proposals link the offence of subversion to overthrow by violence or serious unlawful means.

The Hong Kong Government are not proposing any extension to the law on relations with foreign political organisations. However, they propose a new mechanism for banning organisations affiliated with a mainland organisation that the central authorities have proscribed in accordance with national law, on the grounds that it would endanger national security. In that context, affiliated means connected. The key concern is that if such an organisation is proscribed on the mainland, Hong Kong is notified. There will inevitably be such evidence of past or present connections between such organisations that the Hong Kong Government are effectively obliged to ban them.

The general impression that the all-party committee formed from its visits was that there was certainly no malign intention by the Hong Kong Government, and that a great deal of what was being proposed was updating out-of-date law, but that it might have been better to use a White Bill. However, there are major constitutional issues to bottom that I certainly think have not been fully bottomed. In a sense, the constitutional challenge to the Hong Kong Government is to set out fully convincing arguments as to why the legislation would comply with the international covenant on economic, social and cultural rights, and the international covenant on civil and political rights, as they claim is the case. Also, they must demonstrate that we need not worry if the legislation did comply, as they would not be forced to ban organisations that were banned in the mainland. The system for appeals might be better left to the courts than dealt with under the new proposals.

Others want to speak, so I shall finish in a moment. I trust that the United Kingdom Government are well alive to the issues. The consultation in Hong Kong is open and public, but the constitutional issues raised have not yet been fully answered or bottomed.

I congratulate the hon. Member for Arundel and South Downs (Mr. Flight) on securing the debate, and thank him for giving me time to contribute. I speak as another co-chairman of the Hong Kong committee. Coincidentally, I am also the chairman of the all-party group on China. My hon. Friend the Member for Strathkelvin and Bearsden (Mr. Lyons), the hon. Member for Arundel and South Downs and I were privileged to be part of the delegation that recently visited Hong Kong, and I declare an interest in that regard.

Article 23 is important, but discussion of it must be taken in the context of the situation in Hong Kong and our relations with it as a whole. I hope that we might secure a longer debate on our relations with Hong Kong and, with others, I will try to set that in hand. The House has continuing responsibilities in relation to Hong Kong under the terms of the joint declaration, because of its intrinsic importance and our major investment and commercial, cultural and educational interests there. Also, we have an interest in the 3.4 million British passport holders in Hong Kong, especially the British nationals overseas.

Like everything else in Hong Kong, article 23 needs to be seen in relation to the "one nation, two systems" concept, and against the background of the maintenance of confidence—internal and external—which drives the Special Administrative Region. I fear that Qian Qichen's comments do not seem entirely helpful when put in that context, or in the context of democratisation. The concept of Hong Kong's being allowed to run its own affairs, save in relation to foreign policy and defence, has been nigh on meticulously maintained. The handover and subsequent events have gone at least as well as we might reasonably have hoped.

Hong Kong administrators often tell of the old days when, at the end of the United Kingdom working day, they received floods of telegrams of instruction from London on everything under the sun. Now they receive none from anywhere, and certainly not from Beijing.

I do not underestimate the difficulties that article 23 could involve and the importance of the issues that it covers. The hon. Member for Arundel and South Downs eruditely set those out. It is right that there are concerns. However, I found—I think that the rest of the delegation that recently visited Hong Kong agrees—that while in hindsight the Government of Hong Kong might reasonably have been best advised to publish a White Bill, they are still engaging in full consultation.

Enacting article 23 of the Basic Law is an imperative. It is not discretionary, although its timing is. I welcome the consultation. I am largely persuaded that the Government of the SAR are fully conscious of the need to maintain a separate regime and to be perceived as so doing. I am assured that the content of article 23 when enacted will be in accordance with international covenants on human rights, and will maintain the differences inherent in the concept of "one nation, two systems". It is, after all, a matter of self-interest for them to do so.

However, other pressing issues face Hong Kong. It is in the economic doldrums, with a budgetary deficit. Its propensity to reinvent itself is challenged. We were told that, even on best forecasts, it would take until 2006–07 to balance the budget; that takes account of soccer betting and border crossing taxes—and people are discussing such issues as a profit tax, a sales tax and even a maids tax, but all of those factors need to be set against the background of the issue of confidence, both internal and external.

Following the transfer of its manufacturing base to booming Guangdong, Hong Kong has transmogrified itself into the ultimate professional service for China — a service that provides a gateway but which is also a massive quarry of unrivalled expertise, possibly the best in the world. Hong Kong, together with its expatriates, has skills in financial services, the law—particularly commercial arbitration—banking, accountancy, information technology and so on. The difficulty is that more of those services and skills, with the possible exception of the law, are being provided in China. It has a talented people and is developing those services at a rapid rate.

The development of Shanghai may be considered complementary as well as competitive, but it could further restrict Hong Kong's ability to transmogrify itself. It must be said that, when compared with that of China, Hong Kong's economic performance currently looks weak. Property values have weakened massively and could be off their peak by 50 per cent. and more. Hong Kong, the icon of adaptation to free market forces may need to become—dare it be said?—more dirigiste. It may need to plan its future differently. In that context, it was interesting to see that the cyber port, developed at the Government's initiative and with the Government's backing, is heading in that direction by creating a new way forward for Hong Kong.

Perhaps the most important issue facing the SAR is that of democratisation. In my view, the present ministerial system is not sustainable in the long term, nor can it be regarded as other than a stage in the development of democracy in Hong Kong. Progress towards universal suffrage is inadequate. I accept that the Basic Law does not require that until 2007, but it is important that the debate starts now and that progress is made. Many voices in Hong Kong are calling for it—in and outside LegCo. Progress is, again, not least a matter of self-interest and the retention of confidence. It is for me vital not only for the general well-being of the people of Hong Kong, but for its economy. I hope that the Hong Kong Government can be persuaded to move forward as soon as possible.

rose—

Order. For the Minister to be given an adequate chance to respond, I must call him no later than 13.20.

I thank the hon. Member for Arundel and South Downs (Mr. Flight). I wrote to him and he kindly offered me two minutes of his time.

I make a declaration of interest. I was recently a guest of the Special Administrative Region in Hong Kong.

I wish to make three brief points. First, I was impressed with the vigour of debate on article 23. Freedom of speech is very much alive in Hong Kong, which is good. Secondly, on the substance of the proposal, I was impressed with the professional job done in the consultation document. Indeed, as an aside, I would say that I am impressed with the civil servants I met there. The hon. Member for Arundel and South Downs and my hon. Friend the Member for Wirral, South (Mr. Chapman) both said that the debate has not been helped by the official comments, and concern has been expressed about whether there should he a draft Bill. As a lawyer, however, I am not especially shocked at the substance of the proposals—they include provisions on entering premises without a warrant and official secrets—as we have similar provisions in the UK.

That leads me to the third point. It seems to me that the concern is more about how the provisions will be used. At present, the Special Administrative Region is an open society with the rule of law. I was impressed by the quality of the Bar and the judiciary, which augurs well for the future of the rule of law. It is therefore important that Britain and other countries such as the United States should retain an interest in Hong Kong. Some people expressed concern that that interest was waning, and an assurance from the Minister that Her Majesty's Government will retain their special interest in the SAR would be welcome.

I am grateful to the hon. Member for Arundel and South Downs (Mr. Flight), whom I congratulate on having called this debate. I am also genuinely pleased by the all-party group's interest in Hong Kong, which gives people there a clear indication of the continuing Government and Parliamentary interest in their well-being.

As the new Minister with responsibility for Hong Kong, I am delighted that our relationship with the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region is so strong. There continue to be many high-level exchanges and three Cabinet Ministers have visited Hong Kong in the past five months alone. Hong Kong's Chief Secretary was here in July and we were pleased to welcome Mr. Anthony Leung, Hong Kong's distinguished Financial Secretary, here this week. I met him yesterday morning and I am pleased that he will meet my right hon. Friend the Chancellor of the Exchequer this afternoon. This debate has testified to the fact that Members of the House regularly visit Hong Kong, and Members of the Legislative Council also make the reverse journey to this country. I hope to visit Hong Kong early in the new year as part of a wider tour of China.

I want to take the opportunity afforded by this important Adjournment debate to get across the message that Hong Kong is a success story despite the current economic difficulties. It is important that that success is maintained as a result of the debate on article 23 and we must be conscious of the factors that have made Hong Kong successful, including the rule of law, guaranteed rights and fundamental freedoms, a level playing field for business, free flows of information and the efficient and effective market regulatory system. Those mechanisms have played a vital role in ensuring that Hong Kong maintains its position and develops as an international business hub. It is crucial that they are preserved when article 23 of the Basic Law is enacted.

That brings me to the key element in Britain's relationship with Hong Kong—our responsibilities under the Sino-British joint declaration on Hong Kong. The declaration provides that Hong Kong should have a high degree of autonomy from mainland China, except in foreign affairs and defence matters. It states that basic rights and freedoms shall be ensured by law in the Hong Kong SAR, and we have followed affairs closely since the handover. My right hon. Friend the Foreign Secretary reports twice yearly on the implementation of the joint declaration. Where we have had concerns that its principles might conceivably be undermined, we have raised them with the SAR. Government or with Beijing.

Overall, as my right hon. Friend's bi-annual reports have made clear, our assessment of the "one country., two systems" principle remains broadly positive. Hong Kong has generally remained free to exercise its autonomy in all relevant regards, as promised under the joint declaration. However, as debate on the issue has developed, we have noted strong concerns among many sectors of Hong Kong society about the SAR Government's proposals for legislation to meet its obligations under article 23 of the Basic Law. As some hon. Members have clarified — I am grateful to them for doing so—such legislation has been foreshadowed for some time, and the Basic Law says that the SAR shall enact legislation. Nevertheless, it is undoubtedly the most sensitive legislation that the SAR has had to enact since the handover.

We have closely followed the matter from the outset, and my right hon. Friend the Foreign Secretary raised article 23 as a general issue with the Chinese Vice-Premier and the Hong Kong Chief Executive during a visit to Hong Kong in July, before the SAR issued its consultation document. Subsequently, my right hon. Friend the Lord Chancellor discussed the proposals in some detail during a visit to Hong Kong in October, and yesterday I had the opportunity to raise some of those issues with the Hong Kong Financial Secretary.

As a result, on 18 November I issued a public statement welcoming the wide consultation process undertaken by the SAR Government. I made it clear that as a cosignatory to the joint declaration, we had a responsibility to ensure that the rights and freedoms enshrined in the joint declaration were maintained. I went on to say that any new legislation must be compatible with those rights and freedoms and with maintaining Hong Kong's autonomy.

A key concern that has been raised through the process is the proposal to ban organisations in Hong Kong affiliated with mainland organisations proscribed on the mainland on national security grounds. The hon. Member for Arundel and South Downs referred to that matter. We note that the consultation document says that the Hong Kong Secretary for Security would have discretion not to follow suit. However, there remains a concern that the integrity and independence of Hong Kong's legal system, which are key factors in the region's continuing success, might be compromised by the proposal. We hope and have made it clear that the SAR Government will consider the issue carefully as they draft the legislation in detail.

The hon. Member for Arundel and South Downs mentioned Falun Gong and I know that other hon. Members are also concerned about the impact of that provision on that organisation. The Hong Kong Secretary of Justice has said that the proposals are not aimed at particular groups, but we hope that the draft of the Bill will give us the fundamental reassurance that we need.

Concerns have also been expressed about the impact of the proposals for the media. All hon. Members will agree that a free press is one of Hong Kong's distinctive strengths. Freedom of expression is certainly provided for in the joint declaration and any action that diminishes press freedom would not be in the interests of the people of Hong Kong.

We have highlighted other concerns and we hope that the SAR Government will consider them carefully. They have indicated that they are willing, in principle, to be flexible on at least some of those areas. We warmly welcome that fact.

We are listening to some of the strongest critics of the SAR Government proposals. Last week, the Foreign Secretary and I met Martin Lee, the chairman of the Hong Kong Democratic party. We listened to his concerns, told him that we were following the case carefully and assured him of the importance that we attach to the issue.

This has been an important debate. The proposals show the complexities that arise from Hong Kong's special status under the "one country, two systems" principle. We welcome the SAR Government's assurances that the legislation will be compatible with the international covenant on civil and political rights and that on economic, social and cultural rights, to which Hong Kong is party. That is a vital point, but the test will come with the precise wording of the proposed legislation, without which it is impossible to determine whether there is any conflict with the two United Nations human rights covenants.

Calls have been made for a "white Bill" to set out the detailed legislative proposals before the draft legislation is introduced into the legislative council. Given the intense interest in the proposals, we hope that the SAR Government will provide for full and genuine public consultation on the detailed legislation, whether through a "white Bill" or through some other mechanism. I made that point to the Financial Secretary yesterday.

We have also encouraged the SAR Government to start consultations on other outstanding elements of the basic law. I agree that the ultimate aim is to bring forward democracy, but until that happens it is crucial that the SAR Government should go the extra mile and ensure that no rights and freedoms are eroded in Hong Kong.

In conclusion, people hold contradictory views. Sometimes, we are told that the Government speak out too much on such issues and, on other occasions, we are told that we speak out too little. We will continue to put forward our views on areas of concern in the interests of and as a friend of Hong Kong. Article 23 must be enacted by the SAR Government, but it must be done in such a way as to preserve the tremendous success story of Hong Kong as an international city. We hope that its enactment will contribute to that success.

Crossrail 1 is an imaginative project for an east-west railway line through central London. It could increase the capacity of London's underground and national rail services by 15 to 20 per cent. In the west, it will run from a terminus beyond the M25—yet to be decided—but it will certainly serve Heathrow airport. It was announced last week that it would include stations at Paddington, Bond Street, Tottenham Court Road, Farringdon, Liverpool Street and Whitechapel. To the east of Whitechapel, one option is a route north of the Thames, through Ilford and Romford, to Shenfield in Essex. The second option is a route through the Isle of Dogs and along the south bank of the Thames, through the London boroughs of Greenwich, Bexley and Dartford, to a terminus at Ebbsfleet in Kent, the international station on the channel tunnel rail link.

I intend to concentrate on the route from central London to Ebbsfleet. The company responsible for developing and promoting those routes is a 50:50 joint venture of Transport for London and the Strategic Rail Authority, which has been allocated a budget of £154 million by the Government to carry out preparatory work and acquire powers for the lines. It is intended that a decision on the preferred routes will be taken before the end of the year, with the possibility of a hybrid Bill being brought before Parliament in the 2003–04 Session.

The choice of route through east London cannot be made in isolation from the major Government-sponsored project for the development of the Thames gateway. That will regenerate east London on both banks of the Thames and Thameside areas of Kent and Essex through the provision of many thousands of new homes and jobs, mostly on brownfield sites.

One of the largest areas available for business development in London lies in riverside Greenwich and Bexley in my constituency and that of my hon. Friend the Member for Erith and Thamesmead (John Austin). That land lies in wards that are among the 10 per cent. worst deprived nationally. Improved transport from east to west and across the river is the key to realising business opportunities and job opportunities for local residents. A new river crossing is already proposed. The crossrail link from central London to Ebbsfleet is exactly what is needed to prime the regeneration of the area, as has been shown in study after study.

One reason why I fear that that opportunity might be overlooked in deciding the route for crossrail is because of the ritual practices of transport planners. Many of their methods of analysis and models are based on identifying latent and unsatisfied demand among existing residents and businesses. They then explore the road and rail links that will satisfy that demand most economically. In many cases, that is the right approach, but it is not the right approach where transport links are intended to promote the development of new communities or to attract new businesses, as in the Thames gateway. In those circumstances, the approach that is appropriate to serving pent-up demand in existing communities leads people to say, "Why put a railway through north Greenwich and Bexley when there are insufficient people and jobs in the area to justify it?" That is the point; regeneration means attracting the development of housing and jobs because they are not there. Exactly that argument raged 25 years ago, about extending the Jubilee line through docklands, which was not done for the reasons that I mentioned. Acres and acres of land remained derelict for two decades until the Jubilee line was extended. We should consider the effect that that has had on the Isle of Dogs and the Greenwich peninsula.

My first plea is for crossrail 1 to be built from Whitechapel to Ebbsfleet. Businesses will then be attracted to Greenwich and Bexley Thameside because the reduced journey times will enable them to pull in skilled employees from the whole of London. For example, the journey from Paddington will be reduced from more than an hour to half an hour. Those businesses would also have easy access to the European Union via Ebbsfleet or internationally via Heathrow as a result of crossrail. The quality of employment available in the area could change dramatically. The same arguments apply in reverse to the residents of the area. Their job opportunities would lie in the whole of London rather than locally or in central London.

There has been talk of taking the crossrail route only as far as Charlton, Woolwich or Abbey Wood and then relying on an interchange with Connex services on the north Kent line. It is well known that such interchanges deter passengers from using the service. What is the point of the line going through the Isle of Dogs—which is doing very nicely—and the developed areas of Charlton and Woolwich, but stopping short of the major areas of regeneration opportunity in Belvedere, Erith and Crayford? At least, the first stage should extend to Slade Green, so that a substantial part of the potential regeneration area would be covered. Such talk is worrying because it makes it look as though the project is being directed with a narrow focus on cash and engineering, without any attention to the wider regeneration issues. It is especially strange for the crossrail service to stop short at that point, as the company responsible for crossrail has told me that the extension to Slade Green would add little cost because the land is already available.

I make the strongest possible plea for the line to be built to Ebbsfleet in continuing stages, with firm dates for the beginning and end of each stage and a firm commitment of money to make those dates credible. Britain, particularly London, has a history of "manana" public projects. No one can be sure when they will be carried out so the private sector is, understandably, unwilling to commit complementary investment until public works are finished. For crossrail to achieve a regeneration objective, it is vital to have a firm and credible construction programme so that companies can plan and invest concurrently.

The consultation document contains two variants on the route from the Isle of Dogs to Ebbsfleet. One goes from the Isle of Dogs past the dome on the Greenwich peninsula to Charlton and the other continues on the north bank of the Thames, through the major development area in the royal docks and crosses the river by a tunnel to Woolwich Arsenal. Thereafter, the routes are the same to Ebbsfleet.

The route through Charlton is estimated to be some £400 million cheaper than that through the royal docks. However, the Charlton route is already densely developed, so the potential for new residential or business development is limited. In addition, constructing the Charlton route would prevent Connex services on the north Kent line from going directly to London Bridge as they now do.

In contrast, the royal docks area offers a major regeneration opportunity; crossrail could make it into an extension of the developments on Canary wharf. Access to London City airport and to the Excel exhibition centre would be greatly improved and people from Greenwich and Bexley would have a major new source of job opportunities.

On behalf of the London borough of Newham, might I underline the enormous significance of the royal docks option? It will be worth a great deal in terms of the thousands of extra jobs and homes for the area. It is right to stress the impact of transport on regeneration. The benefit is already clear in the east end, so I hope that the Minister will pay careful attention to my hon. Friend. Other Members of Parliament from the east end strongly endorse his comments.

If it were thought that crossrail should stop at Charlton and not continue to Ebbsfleet until years later, the extension would be unlikely ever to be made. Substantial demolition of houses between Charlton and Woolwich would be involved, whereas the royal docks route involves no such inhibition. The question about the royal docks route is whether the economic gains would make the extra £400 million cost worthwhile. In my judgment, that route has much greater regeneration potential than that through Charlton, as my hon. Friend has just said. If that does not carry enough weight with the Minister, it is also the judgment of my hon. Friends the Members for Erith and Thamesmead (John Austin) and for Dagenham (Jon Cruddas), the London boroughs of Newham and Bexley, the London development association, the London Transport Users Committee and the Mayor of London.

In summary, it is essential that crossrail 1 through east London be considered as a major contribution to the regeneration of the Thames gateway to London, the greatest foreseeable opportunity for urban regeneration in Britain. To achieve maximum effect in prioritising the development of housing and jobs, crossrail should go from central London to Ebbsfleet via the royal docks as one dedicated railway line. Planning must include a commitment to the necessary finance, so that there is sufficient confidence for private investment to be concurrent with public investment. On that basis, crossrail 1 and the Thames gateway project can be trailblazers for urban regeneration in Britain in the 21st century.

I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Bexleyheath and Crayford (Mr. Beard) for allowing me to speak in the debate. He and I represent an area of London that is one of the worst served for public transport and includes some of the 10 most deprived wards in the country. My constituency includes Thamesmead—in effect, a new town designed in the 1960s as a contribution to solving London's housing crisis, but built without any thought of providing an adequate public transport infrastructure. Inadequate bus services developed in an unplanned and uncoordinated way as the population grew, with the result that transport in and out of Thamesmead is poor and within it even poorer. Thamesmead's nearest railway station is Abbey Wood, on the periphery.

Part of my constituency lies in the London borough of Greenwich, and colleagues at Westminster often assume that because of that, I have access to the new Jubilee line station, which serves the Greenwich peninsula. However, where I live, on the boundary of Thamesmead and Belvedere, in the heart of my constituency, there is no direct bus or any other link to the Jubilee line. Even from parts of my constituency that have a direct bus link, the journey time can be an hour or more. Yet Thamesmead and Belvedere, as my hon. Friend said, represent one of the largest employment areas and potential employment areas in London. The Belvedere employment area is the second largest industrial area in London, with potential for more development. Realising the potential of the Thamesmead and Woolwich industrial estates, the Belvedere employment area and, further east, the industrial and development sites in Erith and along the Thames road to north Kent, as well as retaining existing businesses, depends on good transport infrastructure.

The Minister saw for himself on his recent visit the problems caused by the Thames road bottleneck. When he saw the view from the top of the Pirelli vulcanising tower, he could see the development potential. Regrettably, a few days after the Minister left the site, Pirelli served 90-day redundancy notices on the bulk of its staff and the company is in danger of closure. I hope that he and his right hon. Friend the Secretary of State will intervene to ensure that the Government do what they can to protect the submarine cable industry in this country.

On the point about the potential success of businesses in your constituency, are you not concerned that if the stupid proposal to end the line at Abbey Wood happens, congestion in your constituency will be much greater? Would you agree —

Order. My constituency is some way from east London.

There are problems inherent in that. I would support an Abbey Wood destination and interchange as an interim measure, as long as we had the future plans to Ebbsfleet to which my hon. Friend the Member for Bexleyheath and Crayford referred.

Before constituency boundaries were changed, I was the Member for Woolwich. The seat included Woolwich Arsenal, which in its heyday employed more than 80,000 people on one site. It was the largest factory in Europe and it was bigger than the whole of Ford Europe is today. Woolwich Arsenal gradually declined after the war and was eventually closed in the 1970s. Boundary changes have resulted in it being just outside my constituency, but it borders Thamesmead.

I have been campaigning for almost 20 years for a rail tunnel under the Thames at Woolwich. My hon. Friend the Member for Bexleyheath and Crayford and I would have preferred a heavy rail link, which would have provided the best opportunities for regeneration by linking with the north Kent line to fill in the missing link in the orbital rail network.

The decision to extend the docklands light railway, which will help to boost the local economy in Woolwich and to assist the Woolwich Arsenal development, has been taken. It will not, however, have the major regenerational effect that crossrail would have had. As my hon. Friend said, the choice of crossrail route cannot be made in isolation from the development of the Thames gateway, where there is a large area of development land on both sides of the Thames, which could provide the homes and jobs that London needs.

Crossrail offers an opportunity to redress the east-west imbalance in London, and a route to the royal docks in Newham would support regeneration in what the Mayor's draft London plan identified as the third largest opportunity area in London. East London and the Thames gateway can provide one third of London's total new housing requirement and 40 per cent. of all new jobs. The royals is the largest area of development land in the Thames gateway and opting in favour of a station in Charlton would be short sighted and would jeopardise the regeneration benefits for the royals, which are in the constituency of my hon. Friend the Member for West Ham (Mr. Banks).

The royals route could also serve London City airport, which would link to the Government's recent report on airport capacity in the United Kingdom. That report proposes a planning policy actively to encourage airports to maximise their potential capacity by utilising their existing runways. At present, City airport serves 1.6 million people a year and the Government's consultation paper suggests that that figure could reach 5 million by 2030. That figure could be achieved sooner with crossrail, which has a possible throughput of 7 million passengers per annum by 2030. The extension of the docklands light railway to the airport by 2005 will certainly provide better access, but it will be insufficient to support either the airport's growth in capacity or the full development of the royals.

I live under City airport's flight path. The airport is a few miles away, but whether I travel by public or private transport I can get to Gatwick more quickly than I can get to it. Crossrail will massively cut journey times in east London. The journey time from the royals to Paddington would be down from 58 minutes to just 18, and that from Tottenham Court road to the royals would be down from 49 minutes to 14. The royals option is important for London, but the scale of the potential development, the key visitor attractions and the university make it nationally significant.

I know Charlton because I lived there for 15 years and represented it on Greenwich council for nearly 20 years. I lived a few hundred yards from Charlton station and the sacred turf of the Valley. There is a highly developed residential area to the south of the Woolwich road. The area to the north of the Woolwich road is largely industrial and again it has little scope for residential, commercial or office development, or the generation of the jobs, which the royals would provide. Greenwich council argues that crossrail might not terminate at Charlton and could be extended to Woolwich, but there is no scope, or plans, for additional track eastwards from Charlton. Crossrail could go from Canary wharf to Charlton and Woolwich only if it were to take over the track that currently serves the Connex services from Woolwich into London Bridge and Cannon Street. In that case, there would he no direct trains from Erith, Belvedere, Abbey Wood or Plumstead into London Bridge, and a shuttle bus would replace them. Only the royals route guarantees a service to Woolwich that would not interfere with the existing north Kent line services.

Originally, there was talk of a terminus and interchange at Woolwich, but current opinion seems to favour a major interchange with the north Kent line at either Plumstead or Abbey Wood. My hon. Friend the Member for Bexleyheath and Crayford suggests an interchange further east at Slade Green and I have no argument with that. My constituents want access to the new crossrail and continued access to the north Kent line. Only the royals guarantee a link to Woolwich.

Crossrail services could begin in 2012 and obviously the major benefits will accrue close to opening. However, as my hon. Friend said, an early announcement and an early commitment by the Government would provide significant pre-opening benefits in anticipation. For Woolwich and Abbey Wood, a decision to choose the royals would boost confidence, assist in retaining employment and enable developers to bring forward proposals sooner or to revise their master plans to reflect crossrail. Only the royals route offers the best prospect of maximising the full potential of the royals themselves, as well as enhancing the prospects for regeneration and development in Havering, Barking and Dagenham north of the Thames, and in Woolwich, Plumstead, Thamesmead, Belvedere, Erith and on to north Kent in the south. The Government must make a clear decision on the route of crossrail and it must be via the royals through to Woolwich and beyond.

I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Bexleyheath and Crayford (Mr. Beard) on securing the debate and giving the Chamber an opportunity to discuss proposals for a cross-London rail link from east to west. We heard useful contributions from my hon. Friends the Members for Erith and Thamesmead (John Austin), for West Ham (Mr. Banks) and for Gillingham (Paul Clark). I am pleased also to see my hon. Friend the Member for Leyton and Wanstead (Harry Cohen). That demonstrates the widespread interest in the subject among Members of Parliament.

My hon. Friends are aware of the work that is being undertaken by the Strategic Rail Authority and Transport for London through Cross London Rail Links Limited, a joint company set up by the SRA and TFL with the remit of examining alternative route options and developing the business case for the project. I shall shortly return to the route options under consideration, especially in relation to the east of London, but first I want to make three points.

First, the Government support viable proposals for a new east-west crossrail link. The transport 10-year plan indicates that such a project could contribute up to a 15 per cent. increase in seating capacity on rail and underground into central London during the morning peak. Hon. Members will agree that such a contribution is much needed. However, we must be sure that the project has a robust business case and will provide value for money. The work that CLRL is doing is vital in ensuring viability.

Secondly, I should make it clear that work is taking a little longer than CLRL originally envisaged. It had hoped to be in a position to finalise the business case and to recommend a preferred route by the end of the year. It now looks as though it will not be in a position to make recommendations until the first part of next year. I fully understand the concerns felt by hon. Members and their constituents who are potentially affected by the project about the continued uncertainty over the outcome of the work on the business case and the assessment of the route options. However, it would be generally agreed that such decisions cannot and should not be rushed. Crossrail would be a very expensive project—of the order of £10 billion, depending on the preferred option with commensurate benefits. It is therefore vital to get the scheme right. Evaluating the business case for such a major project, with all its economic, financial, social and environmental impacts—several of which were highlighted during the debate — is a complex and difficult process. The choice between route options will not be easy, given the strength of the arguments that were made today and have been articulated by other hon. Members and boroughs. Forecast costs and benefits must be thoroughly bottomed out.

Moreover, as my hon. Friend the Member for Erith and Thamesmead said, the interface with the existing infrastructure and services must be thoroughly understood. Looking further ahead, we must put the mechanisms in place to ensure that any project is delivered to time and to budget. Time that is spent now on getting crossrail properly scoped and defined is time well spent and need not delay the overall implementation programme.

Thirdly, my hon. Friend the Member for Bexleyheath and Crayford will be disappointed, but not surprised, that I cannot anticipate what recommendations CLRL will make, nor how the Government will respond to them. Nevertheless, I certainly heard the points that he and other hon. Members made and I am sure that he and others involved will put their case to CLRL with equal conviction during the stakeholder consultation and any future public consultation. On next steps, I understand that before the end of the year, the board of CLRL intends to make a statement of progress to date on the work to develop crossrail.

Before we consider what a crossrail route might be, we must decide the objectives that crossrail is meant to achieve. In May, before setting out to consult key stakeholders and local authorities, CLRL agreed several objectives for crossrail with the Government, the Mayor of London and the chairman of the Strategic Rail Authority.

We said that a proposal for crossrail should aim to support the wider transport, social and environmental objectives of the Government's 10-year plan, the Mayor's strategy for London, the SRA's strategic plan and regional planning guidance. It should also relieve congestion and overcrowding on existing national rail and underground networks and support the development of strategic interchanges. It should facilitate the continued development of London's primary finance and business service activities located in both the City and docklands. It should facilitate the improvements of London's international links including, looking to the west, Heathrow. It should facilitate the regeneration of priority areas such as the Thames gateway and the Lea valley, and it should provide improved east-west access into and across London from the east and south-east regions. To meet those objectives, proposals for crossrail must be feasible from an operational and an engineering perspective, must be environmentally acceptable and must represent value for money and be affordable.

I turn to the route and service options that CLRL is considering. Given the objectives that the joint company has been set and the work done in the 1990s on earlier proposals for a new east-west link across London, it quickly became clear that there was a core route for the project based broadly on the previously safeguarded route, which would link Heathrow with Stratford and docklands. Around that core, CLRL examined a wide range of possible route options before selecting for further study a shortlist of corridors along which route and service patterns could be analysed in depth. In the west, those included Aylesbury, Watford Junction and Reading. To the east, they included Shenfield out to Ebbsfleet via north Kent. Within these five corridors there are of course multiple possible variants. For example, north Kent could be accessed either through the royal docks on the Isle of Dogs, or a more southerly approach via Charlton.

My hon. Friend mentioned alternatives in north Kent and CLRL is looking at a range of service patterns and frequencies for the royal docks and Charlton options. If the route were to be via the royal docks, new tunnels would be required from Custom House to Stepney Green and to link Silvertown and Woolwich. Depending on how far along the corridor the route extended, the north Kent line would be used from Abbey Wood. New stations would be constructed at Woolwich and the Isle of Dogs, as well as an interchange at Ebbsfleet.

If the chosen route were to be via Charlton, the north Kent line would be used as far as Charlton. Charlton station would be rebuilt, and a new line and tunnel built from there to the Isle of Dogs via the north Greenwich peninsula. There would be connecting services to London Bridge.

Those are the route options that CLRL consulted stakeholders about from spring to summer this year. CLRL is digesting the results of that consultation and undertaking the analysis. We await the outcome of that work.

As my hon. Friends will be aware, I have received many representations on crossrail from Members and local authorities, business interests and private individuals. Advocates have pointed to the need to provide a large increase in rail capacity to docklands, particularly—as my hon. Friend the Member for West Ham has pointed out—to support the growing business and finance sectors. They have argued for crossrail to facilitate regeneration in the Thames gateway to serve key development sites, including those in the royal docks, but also on Kent Thameside. It would also have the desirable effect of freeing capacity at Liverpool Street station. Proponents argue that crossrail can become the regional transport spine along Kent Thameside, providing significant journey savings from north Kent and can form an integrated transport network with much increased opportunity for modal interchange.

I understand the strength with which advocates of crossrail and its several potential routes put their cases. We will not be able to satisfy every competing interest. We are awaiting the work. The CLRL board will, I hope, be in a position to make an announcement before the end of the year on progress. I ask for some patience about that, but I understand that the debate is still to be advanced.

Question put and agreed to.

Adjourned accordingly at one minute to Two o'clock.