It is a great privilege, on carers' rights day, to raise the issue of carers in the House. I am delighted that so many colleagues are present and able to take part in this important debate. I am grateful to whatever system it is that operates behind the scenes that ensured that this important subject was chosen.

The purpose of my remarks is first to pay tribute to those many people who demonstrate such sacrificial love and care on those who need their help—often, but not always, members of their own families—and who do it day in, day out. I pay tribute also to the many organisations that, under the banner of carers' rights day, are taking steps in every locality to ensure greater awareness of the needs of carers and of the people for whom they care. It is a great privilege to take part in this debate.

It will be salutary for us to think for a moment of the scale of the issue, and of what is involved for those who, every moment of every day, are ruled by the needs of others. Some of the families to whom I have been speaking since being told that this subject had been selected for debate have humbled me by demonstrating such commitment, such dedication, to the people for whom they care.

The scale of the problem is immense. Nearly 7 million people care full time or part time for loved ones who are frail, disabled or chronically ill and who could not manage without their help. One in eight of our population is a carer, and in Devon, 69,204 people are carers. Week in, week out, many of us talk and listen to carers in our constituency surgeries, and we hear of their struggles, problems and aspirations. Although the expression is overused, the words "unsung heroes" come to mind.

There is no question that society would collapse without those carers. However, at times in the history of mankind, disabled children would have been left out on the hillsides to die. Even in modern times in Europe, such as in Ceaucescu's Romania, children with mental or physical disabilities were abandoned in awful institutions and neglected. Thank heavens that does not happen in our society—thanks largely to the work of 7 million unsung heroes.

In our country, 1.8 million people care for others for more than 20 hours a week, and nearly 1 million spend 50 hours a week or more caring for their loved ones. We know from our surgeries that many spend not 50 hours a week but 24 hours a day looking after a disabled son or daughter or an elderly parent.

This year, 301,000 people will become carers for the first time. A particularly challenging statistic is that 51,000 young carers under 18 years of age not only cope with school and the turbulence of the teenage years—those of us who are parents know all about that—but have to go home at 3.30 or 4 pm to care for parents who are disabled or challenged in some way. They require our special support. One million parents care for their disabled children. If ever a statistic demonstrated the love of parents—in many instances it is mainly that of the mother—it is that 95 per cent. of disabled children are cared for in the home, not in institutions. We have all met people who commit their lives to caring for their disabled children. Carers collectively save the state £57.4 billion per annum. I am sure that the Minister would be horrified if all the carers in the country suddenly said, "We shall not do it any longer; the state must provide the services that we have willingly been giving free for all these years." The Chancellor of the Exchequer would have a difficult day trying to find the money to do that. It could not happen.

It is a salutary fact that most carers are caring for a husband, wife or partner, son, daughter, mother or father. Although we often think that the family is under threat—it is certainly changing shape in many quarters—we must remind ourselves, today of all days, that blood is thicker than water; family does work, it is the important building block of a strong society. The statistics demonstrate the meaning and the immense value of family.

Those of us who are married said in our wedding vows, "For richer, for poorer, for better, for worse, in sickness and in health." We said it and we meant it. For many families, it is an everyday reality. We do not know in advance how our families will develop. We do not know when a child is born, or when our parents reach 50, 60 or 70, how their health will be. Some people say that that is unfair. Yes, it is unfair and there are no guarantees. However, the humbling lesson is that 7 million people have said, "Yes, it is unfair, but we will love through and provide the services anyway." It is important to recognise that.

The state could not take over these responsibilities even if it wanted to—it would not be right for it to try to supplant the natural family responsibility. However, we want the state and society to give the right kind of help. There are three distinctive layers: the family on the front line, the state, in the shape of both national and local authorities, and the wider community—charities, voluntary organisations, churches and all of us as neighbours. Each of us can play a part in helping the nation's carers.

We all have favourite examples of carers in our constituencies who have come to us for help, whether in writing or at our surgeries. I think of a man, now in his late 60s, who has been caring for his blind wife for more than 30 years. Many carers experience unrelenting pressure, day in, day out. I do not notice such things, but my wife tells me that the blind wife always looks terrific: she is well dressed—as she cannot dress herself, her husband dresses her—and they are active as a couple. They attend many events in the village, at the local church and in a larger association. They are always there, always active, always playing their part. That man is a hero. Uncomplainingly, he cares for his wife in a remarkable way.

In recent days, I have been talking to a family whose daughter is blind. She cannot walk, talk or eat and she is partially deaf. She always has tubes in her. The rest of her family have devoted their lives to raising Vicky in her own home. It was a surprise to me to learn that the parents' main concern is not for themselves—"How could this happen to us?"—but that their other two children should live lives that are, in their words, more normal; not bogged down by tubes or blood testing all the time. They want their children to have proper holidays, away from such pressures. All these people deserve our support. I am sure that we have all met elderly people in our constituencies who care for their disabled adult children. Their abiding fears are what will happen to, and who will look after, their sons and daughters when they get too old to help them or die. That is such a difficult subject. Care will pass to another group, and it will not stay within the family in the same way.

Carers care sacrificially, but their care is not cost free. The Princess Royal Trust for Carers carried out a survey recently, and some of its members' responses are interesting. It states:

"Over eight out of 10 carers said that caring had a negative impact on their own health. Almost nine out of 10 reported that they feel stress, anxiety, depression or loss of sleep, due to being a carer. Carers also saw the sheer relentlessness of caring and its effects on their mental and physical well-being as being their biggest problems.

The majority of carers would like to take a break from caring. Those more likely to say they wanted a break were female, those caring for 15 hours a day or more, those caring for a son or daughter and carers aged 44 years or under. Carers need different types of help to take a break. Overall around two thirds of carers would need help with respite care, one third would need help from a sitting service and a third would need financial help, to take a break."

Caring does not come without a price. The mum in the family that I spoke to over the weekend talked about being permanently tired as a result of caring for her child.

That is the scale of the issue, but what can we do about it? I pay tribute to the Government for the additional resources that they have made available in the past few years, and for their focus on the issue. It is much to be welcomed and commended. The debate is not about wagging the finger at anyone to say that they are not doing enough.

The Carers UK website contains the understatement of the century when it states that

"the benefits system is complicated".

That has always been true. It is certainly true in relation to people who try to get help as carers. Some help goes directly to the disabled person, and some goes to the carer. Different rules apply for people under 18 or over retirement age. Some help comes from social services under a completely different system, and there is respite care, the new assessment system, some day-centre services and home visits from the local social services, for example. That last form of help is patchy and differs throughout the country. Sometimes it is excellent, but sometimes it is not so commendable. Much of the help is necessarily means tested. The forms seem to become longer and more complicated.

We are all concerned about the take-up of disability living allowance, invalid care allowance and related benefits, especially among those who have cared for many years. Those who have recently started to care and have had access to better information are more aware, but those who have been caring for a loved one in the home as a matter of course for 10, 15 or 20 years are less likely to be aware of the support available. What more can we do about that?

Does my hon. Friend agree that there are no real take-up figures for invalid care allowance? It might be useful if the Government undertook some high-quality research on the subject. I have noticed that the quarter following carers' rights day last year saw a 12.5 per cent. increase in claims for the allowance. That suggests a large unmet need.

My hon. Friend makes a characteristically important point. I would not want the Government to load more accounting and reporting requirements on the system, but some forensic research would be excellent. One reason for us being here to support carers' rights day is to make more people aware of it. I have appeared in much of the local media this morning, and I hope that more people in Devon and Cornwall are now aware of their entitlements and will come forward for them.

The lack of awareness continues, despite the excellent work that some of the carers' associations are doing. In my constituency, the Ivybridge Carers Association and the Plymouth carers centre provide information, distribute leaflets and help people to access the systems. However, too many people still struggle to get the help that they desperately need. I ask the Minister what plans she might have to introduce greater simplicity and to streamline the system. I know how complicated the issue is, and I understand that there is no magic bullet or wand. What steps could be taken to increase take-up, by improving simplicity and streamlining the system?

The daughter of a family to whom I was speaking over the weekend had been having free respite care. Now that she is 18, however, the family has to start paying for that. The daughter and her needs have not changed, but suddenly the rules have changed. Maybe that is inevitable, but should it be? The family cannot find out what changed respite care will cost in their changed circumstances, and they have stopped having it. That is the last thing that we want to happen. The situation is like an elderly person not turning their fire on during the winter because they are frightened of the cost. Is there a way of ensuring that the system is simpler?

Recently, the Ivybridge Carers Association talked to me about concern over the fairer charging policies that some local authorities are introducing. My hon. Friend the Member for Wycombe (Mr. Goodman) intends to raise the issue, so I do not want to focus too much on it, except to say that people have genuine concerns that fairer charging policies are leading to increased charges for many people. We do not want to see that.

Is there a plan to simplify and streamline? Are there plans for a greater nationwide awareness programme? Is there anything more that the Government can do to make more carers aware of their entitlement? I think that even the term "carers" leads to some confusion, because some of the full-time professionals who work in domiciliary care and similar roles are also described as carers. People may hear the word "carers" and think, "Well, that doesn't apply to me—that's fully paid people." The Government are skilled at the right use of language to get their point across. Is there scope for better language?

It is important that the Government do what they can, but also that there is a wider response to the problem. I feel strongly about a more holistic approach among employers. Best-practice employers are getting better at family friendly policies on such issues as their employees' having to collect children from school, and are showing a greater awareness of school holidays and of the needs that a family have when a child is born and children are at school. However, there is less awareness of the stresses and strains on families caring for a disabled person or an elderly relative in the same way. I was quite taken with the words of the chief executive of Carers UK, Diana Whitworth, on that organisation's website. It reads:

"Four million people in the UK juggle work and care and nearly three million of these carers look after an older relative. Our ageing population means more and more of us will end up caring for an older relative—and many of tomorrow's parents will also have 'elder care' responsibilities.

A sea change in employers' attitudes is needed. Tomorrow's workforce will include a higher proportion of carers and flexible working patterns will have to become the norm rather than the exception."

I am not sure whether this is an unusual thing for a Conservative to say, but I genuinely believe that employers—particularly larger employers—should follow best practice, in terms of flexible working arrangements. It is not all about the bottom line. We should be building a sustainable country, and family friendly policies are an important part of that. I hope that we can make some progress in that area.

My hon. Friend is raising some important points. Perhaps I should speak as an employer. The advantage of a small family business is that one is aware of individual needs, although many employees are frightened to come forward to say what caring needs there are at home because they feel that that might be difficult. We should encourage employees to tell employers what the problems are, and ensure that employers do not discriminate against people who care for others.

I am grateful to my hon. Friend for raising that important point, and debates such as this can make us aware of such issues. Central and local government are massive employers and can lead by example. It is matter of attitude, not simply of new rules and regulations. As my hon. Friend says, it is about encouraging employees to step forward and employers understanding the issues.

My next point is my most important. I hope that help and support can be tailored to particular family situations wherever possible, although I know that that is difficult. I have spoken to several charities that are active on this issue, and I asked them which point it was most important to make in this debate. In different ways, they all said the same thing: we should not make assumptions about the sort of help that carers and families need. Wherever possible, our help should be flexible enough to meet particular needs.

A few days ago, I learned that this issue had been selected for debate and I felt strongly that respite care was the most important issue. Being the sort of person I am, I would want to get away as often as possible from the pressures that we are discussing. Interestingly, however, the Princess Royal Trust for Carers survey, from which I read earlier, found that

"four out of ten carers … would not like to take a break. Given the emphasis on carers' breaks as the major new service for carers this finding deserves some attention from policy makers and perhaps more research on the reasons for this. These carers might benefit from other types of support. Some local authorities have used the Carers Grant to fund different types of support for carers, including mobile phones, IT equipment and other equipment needed at home."

I am all for that. It is important that we listen to individual families and carers so that our support systems are sufficiently flexible to give them the support that they need. Earlier, I mentioned a couple who were caring for their daughter. Their main concern was not for themselves but for their other two children, whom they wanted to have a break from the tubes and blood tests, as they put it.

It is important that central and local government take that principle on board, which is why I was interested in the consultation that took place earlier this year on the respite voucher scheme. Although the scheme comes back to respite care, which is still important for many people, I liked the principle behind it. It would empower people to make their own choices by giving them a voucher that they could take wherever they wanted. I am in favour of applying that principle in other areas, such as education and health, because the money should follow the consumer or the patient. It was the Government who introduced this interesting scheme. I know that the consultation ended in June, but I want to know what has happened to it since. Has it become lost in the mists of Whitehall or is it about to emerge to delight us all over the next few weeks? It could make a real difference by ensuring that help is tailor-made to families' and carers' needs. I hope that it can be introduced.

Local authorities have ring-fenced money for respite care, a move that I welcome, but it is not necessary for them to provide the care themselves because there are some excellent charities that can make the provision. On the Winged Fellowship Trust website, I read about some of the excellent holidays that the trust provides for families with disabled children. They are the sort of holidays that I would like the family in Ivybridge to have access to, and the voucher scheme might facilitate that.

It is important that there is much more awareness of carers' needs, of the daily pressures on them and of the immense love and care that they give. There is a need for greater simplicity in the benefits system, and all Governments have tried to simplify it, but it is extremely difficult to do so. Does the Minister have anything new to tell us about that?

My main point, however, is that we should try to give these unsung heroes the help that they want and need, without assuming that we know what it is. The message should also ring out loud and clear from this debate, from all corners of the House and all parts of the United Kingdom: every carer—particularly on carers' rights day—we salute you.

It is a privilege to follow my hon. Friend the Member for South-West Devon (Mr. Streeter) in this debate. I, too, am pleased to be able to contribute to the debate on carers' rights day.

We rightly salute the 1 million people who work for the national health service and for social services departments. However, as my hon. Friend said, 1 million people care for loved ones and family members for more than 50 hours a week—many of them for 24 hours a day. A further 1.8 million people care for loved ones for more than 20 hours a week. There are 7 million carers in this country.

We need to remember that carers are not a group parcelled away separately in society; they are not in a place that those of us without such responsibilities are lucky enough to have nothing to do with. We are all potential carers, and most of us will be carers at some time. Seven out of 10 women and six out of 10 men will be carers at some time. The subject affects us all, whether for short, intense periods or for long periods. We heard the moving story of the gentleman in my hon. Friend's constituency who has cared for his wife for 30 years or so.

I am deeply alarmed by a projection that I have seen that by 2037 we shall face a shortfall of 2.1 million carers. The people who need care will suffer if they cannot get it from close members of their family. I am also concerned about the extra demand that will be placed on social services departments.

My hon. Friend the Member for South-West Devon mentioned the tremendous importance of strong families. I have raised that theme before, and I shall continue to do so as long as I am a Member of Parliament. Sadly, we are the divorce capital of Europe. More marriages—40 per cent. of them—break down in this country than in any other country in Europe. Obviously, when relationships fall apart, the onus of caring for a partner, husband, wife or other family members can similarly be broken down.

That is one of many aspects of public policy of which the Government should be aware. They should examine the impact of family breakdown on people who need to be cared for. I hope that that argument will be fed back to the groups within the Government who study such issues cross-departmentally.

It is easy to talk about statistics such as the 7 million carers and the 1 million people caring for more than 50 hours a week. However, every carer is in unique circumstances, dealing with their own stresses, including isolation, exclusion from the community and, not least, severe financial demands. I welcome the fact that since October 2002 people of 65 or over who become carers for the first time have been able to claim benefits. I am proud that my party called for that from December 1999. However, to give credit where it is due, the Government introduced the measure.

Invalid care allowance, which, from next April, will be renamed carers allowance, can be claimed only if the cared-for person is in receipt of attendance allowance or disability living allowance. Yet more than half the people entitled to those benefits do not claim them. Take-up is an important issue. I know that take-up throughout the benefit system is a matter of concern to the Minister. As the Minister will know from previous debates on the minimum income guarantee and other benefits, the issue exercises social security Ministers in relation to a wide range of benefits. We certainly need to concentrate on increasing the take-up of attendance allowance and disability living allowance.

This morning I spoke to a representative from Carers UK who told me that many people find benefit application forms the equivalent of wading through a small novel. I make a plea to the Government to make applying for disability living allowance, in particular, simpler, and to advertise the availability of the benefit more widely so that more people know about it. That will enable carers to claim those benefits to which they are entitled, including the newly named carers allowance from next year and the premium on income support.

Since I became a Member of Parliament, several constituents have come to see me about claiming disabled facilities grants to extend or change their homes so that they can care for a sick or disabled family member. That is an excellent scheme, which enables families to provide care at home for members of their family who need it. An extension, a lift, a downstairs bathroom, or wider corridors can transform a family's ability to care for someone in their own home. I know that in my constituency, South Bedfordshire district council has a very limited pot of funds for that purpose so, sadly, it turns down many applications for grants, severely restricting the plans of those who apply for them. Of course, the system is properly controlled. The council acts on the advice of the professionals involved, such as occupational therapists, to ensure that appropriate extensions are put in place and that families do not try to take advantage of the scheme.

I am aware that certain local authorities in the eastern region seem to have money left in their budgets at the moment. The East of England Development Agency seems to have lots of money, which it is looking to spend on various things by the end of the year. I am also aware of the Government's plans for regional assemblies. I put in a plea that the Government should move some of that money to boost the amount that local authorities have available for much-needed disabled facilities grants. Those grants can be lifesavers and they encourage independence and care within families—exactly the things that we should support.

Last week, the Second Reading of the Community Care (Delayed Discharges) Bill took place. That Bill sets out procedures that will apply to people leaving hospital and will impose fines on local authorities that do not provide people discharged from hospital with somewhere to go within three days of their discharge. Carers UK is very concerned about that and believes that the Bill could be bad news for carers. Carers UK has conducted a substantial amount of research on the issue and discovered some alarming information. At present, 45 per cent.—nearly half—of carers are not consulted at all when the person for whom they care is discharged. That is very worrying. In addition, we know that a fifth of carers do not receive a copy of the discharge plan from the hospital. There has also been a big increase in the number of people readmitted to hospital within two months of discharge. Between 1999 and 2001, it rose from 19 per cent. to 45 per cent. Those figures should ring alarm bells for the Government, who should consider carefully the effect of legislation on carers. We need to give statutory backing to the guidance on discharge so that carers have the full force of the law behind them to ensure that what is in the guidance notes comes to pass, and that people are not made to go home before carers are ready to care for them properly.

We have already heard from my hon. Friend the Member for South-West Devon that some 4 million people in this country juggle work and care; some 3 million of those look after older relatives. They are a group of carers coping with particular demands and stresses as they move daily from the work to the caring environment. I pay tribute to employers such as HSBC, Lloyds TSB, British Telecom, Centrica and the national health service that have worked with Carers UK to develop carer-friendly employment practices. Credit where credit is due—they have made significant steps forward. We should encourage more employers to walk that route. It may be more difficult for very small employers to follow the same route as larger ones, but those who are able to should be encouraged to do so.

Perhaps a carer-friendly employer mark could be developed that larger employers could put on their writing paper to advertise the fact that they have made progress in developing carer-friendly practices. That would not be the heavy hand of legislation, but would encourage best practice.

People who have been caring full time and want to return to the employment market will have gaps in their employment record on their CV. I know people, including members of my family, who feel rather embarrassed about the time that they have been out of the labour market caring for others. That should not be the case. The fact that people have spent a period of time caring for someone who desperately needed it should be seen almost as a gold star on their CV.

My hon. Friend the Member for South-West Devon said that it was not all about the bottom line. However, people who have been through the hard times and shown that they have the duty and sense of obligation, day in day out, to look after someone in great need would make sterling employees and be particularly loyal to their employer; they should come highly commended to employers. Carers should not be embarrassed or try to tuck the fact away, but say with pride, "I cared day in day out for a sick relative, which is why I was out of the labour market. I hope you will respect the strengths that I have gained from that experience."

Many employers are taking steps to introduce good child care facilities. I salute and commend those excellent, much-needed steps, but as my hon. Friend said there is less progress in providing facilities for those who care for older relatives. We know that employees who care for older people are reticent about making their employers aware of their needs. We should encourage them to come forward, and encourage employers to take a responsive and sensitive approach.

I welcome the fact that those who have become carers in the past year seem to be more aware of the benefits, respite care and assessments to which they are entitled. Research conducted by the Princess Royal Trust for Carers and other organisations has shown that people who have been caring for many years are less aware of their rights and entitlements and the extra help that they can receive than those who have recently become carers.

In some parts of the country, GPs register their patients' carers. We need to extend that excellent scheme. I do not want to load GPs with extra administration—they should receive specific funds to help them cope, although the requirement would not be that onerous—but if we could extend the scheme nationally, for the first time we would have a register of the 7 million carers about whom we have been talking this morning.

As far as I am aware, there is no register of carers. If that information were available, it could be passed on to the Department for Work and Pensions, which would then know who was entitled to the new carers allowance and the income support premium. Local authorities would be able to make carers aware of respite care schemes and the assessments to which they were entitled. Such a scheme could make a big difference, and I commend it to the Minister. Perhaps she will be kind enough to give me her initial response in her winding-up speech.

Some information is available to carers. Carers UK does some excellent work, which includes running Carers Line on 0808 808 7777. It is available from 10 am to midday and 2 pm until 4 pm every Monday to Friday. It is worth putting that number on the record because if people read the record of the debate they may be encouraged to ring Carers Line to find out about their entitlement.

I should also like to commend my county council in Bedfordshire, which has been running a countywide short breaks bureau and helpline for two years through the Bedfordshire Rural Communities Charity. People can ring a freephone number to get vouchers to provide short-term respite care to enable them to go to the shops, visit a friend or take a break. The helpline has been running successfully for two years, and I know from constituents who have come to see me in my surgeries that it is greatly appreciated. Indeed, many people have asked me whether it would be possible to extend the scheme.

One of my constituents, Mrs. Maureen Fuller, has given me permission to mention her case. I spoke to her yesterday, and I have seen her on a number of occasions since my election to Parliament. Mrs. Fuller cares for her daughter Julie, who has learning difficulties and has been in a wheelchair for many years. Mrs. Fuller is Julie's sole carer, and she has raised a number of particular issues.

Mrs. Fuller lives in Leighton Buzzard, which was once described to me as being about eight miles from everywhere, and there are no facilities in the town where her daughter can be cared for on a daily basis. Eight miles may not sound very far from the nearest facilities, but Julie Fuller has great difficulty travelling in transport in her wheelchair to the nearest day centre because she gets pressure sores. There are plans, which will possibly be implemented in conjunction with Mencap, to open a small unit to care for people with learning disabilities in Leighton Buzzard. I strongly support those plans.

Respite care has been mentioned this morning. It provides people with an important and welcome break. Sometimes it is not just a break but a necessity. In the next few weeks Mrs. Fuller will go into hospital, so she will need to find somewhere—she hopes that she has done so—for her daughter Julie to stay meanwhile. She told me that when Julie has gone into respite care in the past, those caring for her have not always properly read her notes. That small practical detail is tremendously important. When carers hand over to someone, they should have confidence that the notes will be properly read so that the person's day passes as well as it possibly can.

It is important that agencies who provide carers for people such as Julie have sufficient back-up to cover for their staff when they are sick or go on holiday. For a carer, it is the most alarming and worrying thing in the world if they are expecting someone to come in at 9 o'clock every morning to wash and dress the person for whom they care and nobody turns up. Unless one has been in that situation it is impossible fully to imagine the upset, worry and concern that it causes. I flag that up on behalf of Mrs. Fuller and the many other people who no doubt have to cope with the same situation.

I begin—how else could I?—by congratulating my hon. Friend the Member for South-West Devon (Mr. Streeter) on securing the debate and my hon. Friend the Member for South-West Bedfordshire (Andrew Selous) on making a fine speech. It is a privilege to take part in this debate, although I feel a sense of inadequacy in doing so, for two reasons. First, the most useful contribution of all was made by my hon. Friend the Member for South-West Bedfordshire when he gave the free Carers Line number and rightly said that people who leaf through Hansard to read the debate may care to take note of it. Secondly, I feel a deeper sense of inadequacy—my hon. Friend the Member for South-West Devon mentioned this—in the face of carers who come to my surgery week in, week out and have to deal with challenges and difficulties that I for one would feel unable to cope with or to bear. I am sure that the Minister and all hon. Members who speak in the debate will have had such experiences.

That leads me to praise the work of carers of all backgrounds in my constituency who care for sick, infirm or chronically ill relatives or friends. In my year or so as the Member of Parliament for Wycombe, I have often been struck by the fact that many of these carers would be unable to cope were it not for the network of charities, clubs, churches and faith communities that keep them going. Often, these organisations are staffed by volunteers who are recently, or not so recently, retired and are carers themselves. That should go on the record, too. I want particularly to praise the work of the South Bucks carers centre in High Wycombe, which provides information, advice and support for carers in the area.

As my hon. Friends said, carers who have been caring for the longest are often least aware of the good things that the Government are trying to do for them. I particularly draw attention to the needs of my ethnic minority constituents, whom the South Bucks carers centre makes great efforts to help. As carers in these communities may speak English as a second language, or not at all, they often have the most difficulty in getting access to the services and means of help that are provided by the state or by voluntary groups. There is a high concentration of poverty and challenges to carers among the elderly, and in particular among elderly women, who may not take up benefits to which they are entitled. Reference has been made to the carers allowance, which is due to be introduced soon.

Let us consider the take-up of some benefits: for example, of the minimum income guarantee, which carers often need and which helps them to look after the people for whom they are caring. The number of people who do not take up such benefits may be as high as 1 million. Will the Minister respond to the points raised by my hon. Friends about take-up? What do the Government intend to do for older, ethnic minority carers, who, because of the language barrier and the work that they often have to undertake in the home—looking after children—are not aware of the advice and support that they can receive?

Does my hon. Friend agree that the full range of ethnic minorities have this difficulty? It does not affect only one ethnic minority. Carers UK in London is launching its campaign today in Soho among the Chinese community, where there are particular problems in conveying such information to carers.

There is a small Chinese community in High Wycombe and I would agree with my hon. Friend. He is absolutely right to say that the problem is not restricted to certain ethnic minorities. My hon. Friend the Member for South-West Bedfordshire and I have often made that point in our work for the Select Committee on Work and Pensions.

I could not possibly cover all the challenges faced by carers in this brief debate. However, carers in my constituency have consistently asked me to raise a point about the effect of the Government's so-called fairer charging policy, which I prefer to call the means-testing policy on carers. I was interested to learn that my hon. Friend the Member for South-West Devon has had the same point raised by carers in his constituency. Until recently, charges for home care were essentially at the discretion of local authorities. In Buckinghamshire, clients were asked to contribute an average of between £25 and £35 a week. I do not believe that I have received one complaint from my constituents about the policy that previously applied.

As the Minister will know, Government policy now obliges councils to provide home care to the very poorest people, if they did not do so before. That is obviously admirable in principle but, financial pressures being what they are, it means higher charges for those who may not be the poorest carers, but who are often in challenged circumstances. Such carers feel that they are being penalised for saving, being thrifty and exercising prudence. The extra weight of the charges may make them feel that they cannot afford the consequences of the Government's fairer charging, or, as I prefer to call it, means-testing policy. For example, Mrs Hackshaw in High Wycombe asks me to urge

"the Government to review their thinking on the question of their 'Fair Charging for Home Care' policy."

She writes:

"My husband suffered a severe stroke in January 1998, since when he has had to have constant home care for which I already pay what I consider to be a fair charge.

My husband and I are both aged 74, and worked from the age of 16 to 65 without any unemployment or benefits of any kind. We were careful with our income, bought a house, raised two children, one of which we helped through university, and managed to save a small amount for our retirement. Now we are being penalised for being prudent which is grossly unfair."

I have a letter from Diann and Patrick Douneen of Marlow, who make a point about the complexity and difficulty of the forms. They say of their parents, who cannot understand the forms:

"They are a proud and independent generation, many of whom have fought for this country, but due to life's circumstances are not always able to pay for their needs as they become house bound and frail."

Mrs. Geers of Hughenden Valley, near High Wycombe, plays a part in caring for her 92-year-old mother-in-law. She writes:

"She is often confused, is very unsteady after suffering a stroke and needs help with washing and dressing, but the home care enables her to retain a measure of independence in her own home, which she values. She has always been very careful not to waste her money, but as a result of her thrift she is likely to have to pay around £200 a week from now onwards".

She continues:

"It seems to me scandalous that she will be required to pay possibly 10 times as much for these vital services—no other sector of the community would tolerate such a massive increase at one fell swoop in charges of any sort, but those requiring home care are probably the most vulnerable group in our society, and least able to express their plight."

It is hard for me to overestimate the anger and distress of many of my constituents at the imposition of this fairer charging or, as I prefer to call it, means-testing policy on carers in Buckinghamshire. As the local government settlement is due on Thursday, I would be grateful if the Minister were to indicate what the Government might be able to do to relieve these difficulties. I do not want to make points in a partisan spirit, but these are the concerns of my constituents, and it is fair to voice them.

I was interested when my hon. Friend the Member for South-West Bedfordshire drew attention to the additional burden that is likely to be placed on carers in future years, and their declining numbers. I am sure he would agree that one of the main drivers of that potential loss of carers is the breakdown of family structure in Britain. Rightly, he has consistently urged the Government to find ways of keeping people together. He has asked the Government—as have I—to take up the Prime Minister on something that he said in 1998—that marriage is the most reliable means of keeping two people together. If the Government did a little more, and I believe they could do more, to encourage people to stay together and to encourage marriage, many of the burdens placed on carers might be relieved a little. I know the challenges for the Government are great, but I hope that the Minister will respond to these points.

I add my congratulations to the hon. Member for South-West Devon (Mr. Streeter) on his good fortune in securing a timely debate on an important subject. We have heard some detailed speeches about carers' concerns. I shall briefly pick up on a few issues and illustrate them through experiences in my constituency. We heard the hon. Gentleman set out the statistics that underpin the debate. It is worth stressing that the bulk of care is provided by informal carers and not the state. Often these carers are family members, but there are others, as we have heard.

The hon. Gentleman documented clearly the impact that that role can have on a person's health, wealth and well-being over time. It does take its toll. It is right to stress that in developing services for carers, as well as those for whom they are caring, we should ensure that they are not designed on a single template or based on a one-size-fits-all approach. We must ensure that they meet the needs of the individual.

Today, however, especially because the Minister is responsible for the benefits system, I shall raise some issues relating to the way in which that system sometimes gets in the way of, or certainly does not assist, carers and those for whom they are caring. The hon. Gentleman referred to the Carers UK website describing the system as complex. Sometimes it is not only complex but inaccessible, and access to benefits is an important issue for many carers. Research by Carers UK has revealed the financial hardship endured by carers. Eight out of 10 said that, on becoming a carer, they became financially worse off.

A case from my constituency highlights how the benefits system can let carers down. A daughter returned to her parents' home to care for them. The mother had suffered a stroke and required constant care day and night. The father was about to go into hospital for an operation. Both had clear and demonstrable care needs. The daughter took on the caring role. She applied for invalid care allowance, which is to become the carer's allowance, but she was turned down on the ground that she was fit for work. She had an interview at the local Benefits Agency office, where she explained her circumstances. However, instead of listening and offering help and suggestions, the official pressured her into applying for jobseekers allowance.

On what date was that?

It was in the past month, so I hope that the Minister can pick up on the case when she responds to the debate. As I said, the daughter was asked to apply for the JSA and eventually she gave in and did so. It would be helpful if the Minister would give us extra information. I shall explain why in a moment. The daughter made it clear on the application form that she was available for work between 11 pm and 5 am—while her mother was asleep. The Benefits Agency official saw that that was set out on the form in black and white, and my constituent has been monitored over the past few weeks on that basis.

The case came to my attention when I told the Sutton carers centre in my constituency that this debate was to take place and asked it for an example of how the benefits system sometimes lets carers down. Eddie Parsons, the carers' information and support worker, told me about the case and accompanied my constituent to her next interview at the Benefits Agency to support her and again explain her circumstances to the officials. During the interview, she was accused—the precise wording was not taken down—of evading work, of trying not to take on a work responsibility. Finally, the Benefits Agency worker explained that the daughter's ICA claim had been turned down because her mother did not receive attendance allowance. Why that had not been flagged up at the start of the process beggars belief.

According to a 1998 survey by the Department for Work and Pensions, anything between 40 and 60 per cent. of those entitled to attendance allowance do not claim it. In the case to which I have referred, the parents were unaware of their entitlement, a problem that other hon. Members have mentioned. As a consequence, the benefit was not claimed, the entitlement was not established and the ICA was not available. The parents are now applying for the benefit, but have been told that they may have to wait for two months and go through appeal procedures to get it.

The system let the mother down in the first instance by not ensuring that she was aware of her entitlement to attendance allowance. Secondly, the system let down the carer by not listening when she explained her circumstances and not signposting a way forward that would enable her to gain entitlement to the ICA and to discharge the caring responsibilities that she had chosen to undertake.

This afternoon, I shall attend a question time session with carers in my constituency as part of carers' rights day. I hope that the Minister will go beyond her intervention and explain what I can tell them about how such a circumstance can transpire and what can be done to ensure that it does not happen again. We have also heard that, at present, there are no reliable figures for the take-up of ICA. Research is therefore needed to underpin our understanding of how we can target take-up campaigns more effectively.

We know that one of the most important changes in a person's life that leads to the onset of a caring role is the discharge of a loved one from hospital. In that context, reference was made to research carried out by Carers UK, which found that 70 per cent. of carers who took on a caring role were not consulted about whether they wished to do so. I hope that when the Department of Health issues fresh guidance on discharge planning, we can ensure that information on benefits checks is built into it. Those who are about to be discharged should be given advice about their likely entitlements so that they can make further inquiries, and carers should also be given that advice through their assessments.

We have not yet mentioned blue badges, or disabled parking badges, in this useful debate. A short while ago I met a constituent—the carer of a young child who has attention deficit hyperactivity disorder and whose condition is on the autistic spectrum—who was concerned about the eligibility criteria for disabled badges. I have had several letters in my mailbag recently on the same issue. The constituent applied for a disabled badge and was told that it could not be made available because the scheme was designed according to the recipient's ability to walk. However, the concern in this case was the ability of the recipient to walk safely, because of the child's autistic condition and their challenging behaviour, which made life very difficult for the carer and the parent to carry on with their caring duties. I would have welcomed the opportunity to expand on that issue.

Will the Minister ask the Department of Transport to examine the criteria, so that they can be made more flexible? In that way, the situation would be improved for thousands of carers in the United Kingdom, and probably hundreds in my constituency, who have responsibility for caring for disabled children and who would find a disabled badge a god send.

We have had a useful debate, which has illuminated some of the concerns of carers in the UK. It is not the first debate on the issue this year. That demonstrates that hon. Members on both sides of the House are concerned about the value that we place on carers. They are the backbone of our caring system, and it is our duty to ensure that they receive the support that they deserve.

I shall take up the point made by the hon. Member for Sutton and Cheam (Mr. Burstow) about the blue badge scheme. My experience of that issue is different from his but I, too, am concerned, and I hope that the Minister will comment on it.

The case concerned a child with mental health problems. A badge had been issued to the family, but they found that they received abuse, and had difficulty in using the badge, because members of the public did not understand that the child was entitled to it on the basis of the sort of safety concerns outlined earlier. The public did not appreciate that, because the nature of the badge implies that it is related to physical mobility and walking.

The hon. Member for Sutton and Cheam made another good point about the complexity of the benefits system, which echoed that made by my hon. Friend the Member for South-West Devon (Mr. Streeter). In the example given by the hon. Member for Sutton and Cheam, it was the fact that the mother had not received attendance allowance that had led to the surprising events in relation to invalid care allowance. Does the Minister have any plans to simplify the system, and, if so, will she outline them?

I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for South-West Devon on securing the debate, and for doing so in such a timely way; we are discussing carers on carers' rights day. It is not often that the House of Commons is as efficient as that. I notice, Mr. Deputy Speaker, that you are looking doubtful at that statement, but I believe it to be unusual that we manage to be that effective.

I notice that early-day motion 254 on the Order Paper today also highlights the support of many Members for carers' rights day, and pays tribute to Carers UK and to Lloyds pharmacy for all their support for that day.

My hon. Friend started by talking about the scale of the issue; the 7 million people in the country who are looking after someone who is sick, frail or disabled. Many of those carers are unaware of the help that is available to them. Carers UK conducted a survey in which it found that half the number of carers said that it took them two years to realise that they were, in fact, carers, and were therefore entitled to receive help. Last year's carers' rights day led to a 12.5 per cent. increase in claims for invalid care allowance in the following quarter, which is worrying.

As I said, there are no accurate take-up figures for ICA, and it would help to know the exact scale of the problem when targeting campaigns. The research undertaken by the Princess Royal Trust for Carers—which shows that the carers who have cared for the longest period of time are those with the least information—could be properly tested. We could examine ways to tackle the problem for the generation that is not receiving the advantages brought by the more recent changes.

It is right to welcome the Government's actions in extending ICA as an underlying benefit and in providing the extra payments after death. Those are caring measures that we should all welcome. It was right of my hon. Friend to mention "Without us…?", the Carers UK report that demonstrated the economic value of carers, replacing whom would cost £57.4 billion. It is also worth remarking that the number of carers has risen by 70 per cent. in eight years. As my hon. Friend the Member for South-West Bedfordshire (Andrew Selous) said, the projections are worrying. Given the estimates for the increase in caring need, as many as 9 million carers could be required by 2037. One of the documents that Carers UK produced highlights the case of a carer from Liverpool—Roger, aged 48—who made the point:

"We save the country a fortune by a life of long hours, hard work, physical and mental pressure."

It is right that we should recognise that and pay tribute to it today, but there is a moral and an economic imperative in giving support to carers. I visited several carers' groups in the past year, and spoke at a "Rethinking Severe Mental Illness" meeting in Oxford. What impressed me was that not everyone had wanted to be a carer—many had found it extremely hard—but by coming together in a carers group they could provide each other with a tremendous measure of support.

A young man and his carer were talking about the drugs that are now available to tackle schizophrenia. The group had a wealth of knowledge about the different medications that are available, which brings me to an important point that has already been mentioned; we do not always know exactly what information carers want. The information that we give should he informed by the views of carers themselves. We should make as much use as possible of carers' groups and the voluntary sector when we consider the issue. The Princess Royal Trust for Carers found that all too many carers want more information about medication and its side effects. Six out of 10 believe that they do not have enough information about medical procedures such as giving injections, using catheters and dialysis. A third of carers said that they found the sources of advice and help difficult to use. Paragraph 8.8 in the summary of conclusions states:

"A significant minority of these carers were shown as lacking access to support, information and contact with health and social care professionals. A picture emerged of 'information-poor' carers."

Do the Government have a strategy for tackling the problem? It would help if they did the requisite research and knew more about it. Producing a plan to deal with this information-poor group would be an extremely good contribution.

Some carers say that they would appreciate information about simple things such as lifting techniques. They can suffer illness because they do not have the requisite knowledge. How should we best tackle that problem?

We have heard a good deal from the Government about respite care. That is welcome, but I want to ask for two points of information. In mental health, 700 more staff are projected for 2004 to enable carers to take more breaks. That is the target. I have asked several parliamentary questions but found no evidence that, two years into the NHS plan, any of the extra staff have been employed anywhere. Can the Minister give an assurance on that? Secondly, what of the voucher scheme? It is a long time since consultation and most of us expected that something would have happened by now. Will the Minister also help us on that?

On the recommendations from the trust, my hon. Friend the Member for South-West Bedfordshire mentioned the register proposed in paragraph 8.11. Do the Government welcome it and what is their response?

On premature discharges from hospital, the Minister will know that Carers UK stated:

"Our research shows that policies to reduce delayed discharge can result in patients being sent home too soon and without proper support. The proportion of patients readmitted to hospital within two months more than doubled—from 19 per cent. in 1999 to 45 per cent. in 2001."

The Minister will know that the more recent figures are even worse.

"The same research found carers struggling to cope when members of their family were sent home. Nearly half of those surveyed said that they had not had enough support."

Given that many of the carers are elderly and not in good health themselves, it is terrible if patients are sent home too early. The reason is probably connected with bed blocking. The Minister knows that 60,000 care home places have been lost in recent years as a result of Government policy. Bed blocking happens in virtually every hospital in the country. Are risks being taken by sending patients home rather than to an institutional placement? If so, what are the Government doing to halt this unfair burden on the carer?

Does the Minister agree that employers could do more through carer-friendly practice? Do the Government have any proposals to encourage that? My hon. Friend the Member for Wycombe (Mr. Goodman) referred to charges. What is the Minister's take on that? The wider range of care is obviously welcome, but could the position be ameliorated?

Carers' rights day provides a great opportunity across the country, with 250 events taking place. It should help people to learn more about help available through the benefits system and community services. Everyone welcomes what is happening today. However, would it not be better if the information were made simpler through a streamlined system that people could more readily understand? It is surely a criticism of the Government's overall policy on benefits that it is impossible for many people to understand the system or involve themselves with it. The complexity of forms is a real problem. Are there any plans to simplify the system, the procedures and the forms? It would greatly assist many people who do not currently take up their benefits.

The debate has been good as well as timely. The hon. Member for South-West Devon (Mr. Streeter) has been assiduous in securing it on the right day. He took his opportunity to set out both the current situation and the concerns of his constituents in detail. I congratulate him on that.

I shall set out briefly what the Government have done to improve the support and help given to carers and will use the rest of the little time available to answer the many questions that have been put. I shall do my best to canter through them, and I hope that hon. Members will forgive me if time constraints mean that I do not reach all of them.

This is one of the first Governments to have focused on the needs of carers in the way in which we have done—to be fair, the hon. Gentleman recognised that and said that he approves of what the Government have been doing—which has resulted in an extra £0.5 billion package to provide fuller support for carers than they have had previously. Until 1976, the benefits system did not recognise the work of carers at all, so this is a major change for a system that has been going since the 1940s. Invalid care allowance is the only real recognition of the work that carers do. As hon. Members have said, there are many interfaces with social services and elsewhere. Some of that is welcome but other aspects of it cause some of the complications that have been mentioned.

The aim of the extra package is to improve the support for carers, particularly older and poorer carers and the many who seek to combine work with their caring responsibilities. As a result, the ICA earnings limit was increased in April 2001. Many carers work, and ICA is a maintenance benefit; it exists to give a measure of financial support to those who have to give up work. To be eligible, one has to do 35 hours of caring per week. That does not leave much time for working, which is why I was surprised and appalled to hear the story told by the hon. Member for Sutton and Cheam (Mr. Burstow). I hope that he will give me the full details in writing, because what his constituent was told was wrong. The mistake should have been spotted earlier. The story sounded so bad that I would like to look into it. His point about attendance allowance is correct. For the carer to be entitled to ICA, the disabled person who is being cared for has to receive a qualifying benefit. On the evidence of the circumstances that the hon. Gentleman outlined, his constituent's mother should have been eligible for attendance allowance. I hope that the problem can be sorted out.

There has been an increase in the earnings limit from some £50 to £75, plus additional expenses, to enable those who care to stay in touch with and remain in the labour market. There has also been an increase of £10 per week in the carer premium for carers at the lower end of the income scale. As many hon. Members have mentioned, carers often pay a financial penalty for the caring that they do. The premium focuses on their needs. An extra £10 per week in income-related benefits via the carer premium has been widely welcomed and benefits more than 233,000 carers.

The name of the benefit will—at last—change to carer's allowance in April 2003. It amazes me, but it is a feature of the social security system that changing the name of a benefit can take longer than making any of the other reforms that we have made. That is because ancient computer software means that we cannot generate letters with the right name on them until it has been updated next April. At that point, we will at last have completed the package of increased support.

There is an eight-week run-on of ICA when a disabled person dies. It is incredibly insensitive for virtually the first letter for someone to receive after they have been bereaved to be from us saying, "Give us your book back. We want the money back." The eight weeks will at least enable carers a little time to adjust to the new circumstances that they face. Often, bereavements following care for many years are even more difficult to adjust to than others.

From October, we have also extended ICA to the over-65s. There have already been 18,000 applicants for ICA who are over 65, 7,500 of whom have underlying entitlement to ICA in income-related benefits, and 4,000 of whom receive payment as well because they are poorer carers. We have focused on those poorer and older carers whom Opposition Members mentioned.

Many hon. Members raised the issue of take-up and whether there were take-up figures for ICA. Entitlement to ICA is increasing and the numbers are increasing annually. The forecast for this year is up to 421,000, whereas the 2000–01 figure was 390,000. As ever in the benefits system, we send out general information to try to encourage people to take up that to which they are entitled. Of course, the basic responsibility is to claim. We cannot seek out everyone for every benefit; we would spend our entire budget on that if we were to try it. We want people to claim their entitlements.

We have reduced the length of forms. The minimum income guarantee form has been cut from 40 pages to 10. We have recently completed an experiment to cut heavily the attendance allowance form for over-75s, and that has been successful. New computers in disability benefit centres mean that we can tailor our forms and identify people's requirements in a much more focused way, instead of having to ask people to fill in a general form about everything. We are also conducting experiments in Glasgow on the disability living allowance. There has been movement due to the introduction of new computer technology. The old technology has restricted us in the past.

Will the Minister give way?

I wish I could give way, but I have hardly any time and will not reach most of the points made.

Many hon. Members mentioned employment. With Carers UK, we are funding a project called "Action for Carers and Employment", which will assist carers to keep in touch with the labour market. The average time on ICA is two and a half years, so it is tremendously important to give carers who care for such periods that sort of information. They will not then be disadvantaged if they want to return to work.

Flexibility in provision was referred to. The Carers and Disabled Children Act 2000 allows for direct payment, which is an excellent way to ensure flexibility. It means that resources go to specific carers to be used as they want, to meet their needs when they want them met. That means that the local authority does not tell them when they will be given provision. The authority in the area represented by the hon. Member for South-West Devon has made direct payments, which I welcome.

The short-break voucher scheme was led by the Department of Health. Guidelines are being drafted and we expect publication early in the new year. That is another way to increase flexibility where direct payments are not taken up or not quite as appropriate, so that some respite care is given.

Hon. Members also referred to the fairer charging policies. They arise out of "Charging with Care", the Audit Commission report that suggested that there was too great a disparity between charging policies. Department of Health guidance has been issued on the subject. Local authorities are not required either to charge or to charge more than they do. I am sorry to hear the point made by the hon. Member for Wycombe (Mr. Goodman) about massive increases. The Government do not require them. Social services budgets have been increased by the Government by more than 6 per cent. this year, so there should be money available to enable local authorities to make good choices. I hope that the local authority in the hon. Gentleman's constituency will bear that in mind.

The energy sector in the United Kingdom faces a period of difficulty and profound uncertainty. As the Minister knows, some energy companies are in crisis. There are severe problems at British Energy, TXU, AES Drax Power and UK Coal, but they are merely symptoms of a deeper, underlying problem. The Government recognised that there was a problem and commissioned the performance and innovation unit energy review, which was published last February. Even in its opening lines, the review clearly acknowledged the underlying problems. In the foreword to the review, the Prime Minister wrote:

"Energy underpins our daily lives … That's why securing cheap, reliable and sustainable sources of energy supply has long been a major concern for governments".

In a sense, three goals are thus set out: cheapness, reliability and sustainability. However, those three goals do not sit easily together—for example, there is real tension between cheapness and sustainability. There are those who argue—I have done so myself—that if we want sustainable sources of energy, we need to consider energy that is more expensive, rather than progressively cheaper. In fairness, the wholesale market price for energy has fallen by 40 per cent. since 1998. However, the knock-on effect for the consumer has been very limited—perhaps just over 1 per cent. off bills. That is a clear demonstration that the market system is not working properly. Furthermore, the problems that energy companies now face show that the progressive policy of squeezing assets has run out of juice.

The PIU report is good on questions but, unfortunately, short on answers. The question of nuclear energy is left for another day. I wonder what we should now make of the statement in the report, which was published some months ago, that:

"Because nuclear is a mature technology within a well established global industry, there is no current case for further government support."

Well, a lot has changed since then. Just last week, for the third time in three months, the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry had to roll on a £650 million loan to British Energy. Most significantly, it was backed by a grant from Government of between £150 million and £200 million over a 10-year period. That is a significant investment in maintaining an energy sector not through the consumer, but directly, through the taxpayer.

For my part I felt that in some ways, the PIU report showed complacency. Do we really want 80 per cent. of United Kingdom energy needs to be met by gas, 70 per cent. of which will be imported by 2020? What do we mean, post-11 September, by security of supply, if such a scenario is included in the PIU report? The real difficulty is that although the Government acknowledge the problem—I know very well that the Minister works extremely hard on such issues—the planning, policy and market cycles are out of sync. Immediate decisions need to be taken in the market, but the White Paper will not be published until early in the new year. Uncertainty in the market is leading to problems for companies such as British Energy and UK Coal.

The past few months have been extremely difficult for the deep-mined coal industry, witnessing the closure of the Prince of Wales colliery and the rundown—which I think will become quicker—of the Selby coalfield. If urgent action is not taken, worse is yet to come, because England's largest coal producer, UK Coal, is currently reviewing every colliery. Daw Mill, for example, is a pit with enormous potential, yet it has huge geological problems; the work force and the management are trying to work through those problems, but things are difficult and Daw Mill is proving to be an enormous drain on the finances of UK Coal.

Daw Mill employs approximately 450 people, a good number of whom come from my constituency. Does my hon. Friend hope that the Government will learn from the serious mistake made in respect of Asfordby in north-east Leicestershire, where more than 800 million tons of coal were left sterilised by a decision not to support the working through of geological problems? Will he therefore urge the Government to reflect on that case and to give Daw Mill and other collieries the support they need at relatively low cost?

The Government need to reflect on the fact that Daw Mill, Harworth and Maltby have long-term strategic reserves of 20 years. We must not lose them, even though there are short-term problems at Daw Mill. A pit that might not have such long-term reserves is Clipstone, in my constituency—it has had a long, good history, but, in fairness, I have to say that it is coming to the end of the reserves. However, its life could be lengthened if closure aid were available for some of the limited reserves, or, in the longer term, if UK Coal were to dispose of it and pass it back to the Coal Authority, and a new owner and manager came in who was prepared to invest in access in the black shale—although that would be a multi-million pound project, I admit.

There are problems at Harworth and Maltby. The men who work in those pits are extremely concerned about the future, so they are in discussions with the management and UK Coal to keep those pits open, and they are prepared to consider new working practices and new methods of investment to do so. At best, the solution will be that UK Coal comes back and cuts costs—in effect, reduces the work force. At worst, it will announce the closure of both collieries, even though they have long-term strategic reserves that we would do well to safeguard. The crunch is that UK Coal is determined to make an announcement about Harworth and Maltby before Christmas.

UK Coal's problem is that it simply does not have the resources to invest in the future. Development of new kit, new faces and new seams is a £1-million project, and UK Coal's short-term funding problems inevitably mean that it is not investing in the future. That will mean progressively more closures in a domino effect. I think that UK Coal is currently funding its operations by closing down one colliery after another, and using the money from the pit that is designated for closure to support the rest of the company. Announcing the closure of a pit is not investing in the future—there is no longer any need to safeguard that pit, and the income from sales keeps the company and the rest of the group going. However, a domino effect has a consequence: at some point, UK Coal will run out of pits to close. I fear that that day may not be far off. Collieries can be used as cash cows, raped and pillaged in the short term, but that cannot go on forever.

Does my hon. Friend agree that the old formula for privatisation of the industry from 1994 was flawed? When it was privatised, the whole industry was beyond the critical mass; that had implications for the financial market, which will not invest in an industry that it sees is beyond the critical mass. Therefore, it weighs heavily on Government to provide an aid scheme to allow the mining of a strategic resource to continue.

That is a strong point. My hon. Friend and I go back 10 years on that argument. The mass of the pits has shrunk far too much. The key problem for UK Coal and other energy companies is that they need to borrow money but they are borrowing against short-term contracts, and the financial markets are not prepared to support that. In that context, decisions need to be taken immediately about whether coal has a place in a balanced, diverse energy policy. I have no doubt that it has, and I think that the Minister believes that coal has a future. Put bluntly, coal is the only source of energy that has the flexibility to meet the peaks and troughs of energy demand.

The question then arises do we want indigenous British coal or imported coal at a cheaper price? If we are interested in long-term solutions, we need to maintain our coal industry for reasons of security of supply. In fairness to UK Coal and to the men who work for that organisation, costs are coming down. Project 105 has been difficult but we are achieving closer parity between the costs of imported coal and home coal. Of course, the market is cyclical, and at the moment, we have a relatively strong pound. Things will change, but if we decide that we need a coal industry, we must support it.

The Minister has worked extremely hard in Europe to develop proposals for an investment aid scheme. That is an important step forward because it will allow investment in the future. There has been consultation on the scale and scope of that proposal. I hope the Minister will listen to the responses to the consultation and deepen and widen the scheme, because the total quantum currently envisaged is insufficient, as is the amount available for each pit.

Is not the gap between the cost of imported coal and UK coal wafer thin—a gap that can be bridged at relatively little cost to the Exchequer? Is it not the case that, during the past two and a half years, the average UK production cost per tonne has been about £33, whereas the average cost of imported coal has been about £30 per tonne? Would it not be astonishingly short-sighted to let an industry collapse for want of such a small sum?

I am sure that the Government are aware of that argument. That is why they have stepped in to support British Energy at a cost of £650 million, with progressive annual payments of £150 million to £200 million. They believe in long-term security, which is what the investment package from Europe is all about.

The Minister needs to do two things. First, he needs to ensure that the package is ready to go at the beginning of 2003—not confirming the arrangements until later in the year simply will not do. He also needs to look further at the point that my hon. Friend the Member for Barnsley, West and Penistone (Mr. Clapham) made about long-term borrowing against short-term contracts. Europe will provide 30 per cent. grant in some cases, but the company will have to raise 70 per cent. from the private sector. I have seen advice, as I guess the Minister has, that suggests that the Government could loan the other 70 per cent., provided that they did so at commercial rates. We might need to examine that proposition, because I do not believe that the market and the banking sector will provide the other 70 per cent.

The Government have, of course, given the coal industry aid over the past three years, including £150 million under the existing coal operating aid scheme. UK Coal's problem is that it has had its perceived "share" of the money. Its funding is capped at £75 million, but it has made bids to the Government for £137 million. I simply do not believe that the new investment package will make a difference on its own. I know that the Minister has listened to discussions about rolling the coal operating aid scheme out further. It will probably have to finish at the end of the month, and I suspect that it could operate until the end of the year. I hope that the Minister will look at that. If the Government seriously want to keep the coal industry going, they must lift the cap from £75 million to £137 million. That would cost £60 million, for which we would get a commitment from UK Coal—it has already made this commitment to several hon. Members present—to keep collieries open for four more years.

I am following my hon. Friend's speech carefully. The figures that he is using should be compared with the £650 million loan to British Energy. We should also consider the budget for renewables, which will cost £870 million by 2010. We must put those figures side by side. The coal industry is asking for less than £200 million, but the significant funding proposed for British Energy and renewables is far in excess of that.

It is true that renewables have a market advantage—that is why the renewables obligation was set up as it was. The market is already rigged in favour of renewables.

As hon. Members have said, the £650 million for British Energy is simply astonishing. I accept that it is a loan, but we are talking about the possibility of a Government grant of £1 50 million to £200 million over 10 years. That takes some explaining in coalfield communities in Nottinghamshire and Yorkshire. I ask the Minister for a commitment simply to look again at whether the current coal operating aid scheme can be rolled forward, and at whether the cap on UK Coal can be lifted to allow an extra £60 million into the coal industry. I believe that UK Coal will honour its commitment to keep all UK collieries open for a further four years. I say that in the secure knowledge that it has honoured such commitments in the past at Clipstone and Ellington.

I have not spoken about the environmental pressures on the coal industry, but in the long term, they will be the force that sounds its death knell. I ask the Minister to work closely with ministerial colleagues in the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs and with the Environment Agency in respect of European legislation such as the large plant directive, which is now on stream. I simply point out that advances in reducing emission levels have been made on the backs of the coal industry and the people who live and work in coalfield communities. If further limits on emissions are needed, other sectors should be considered—for example, the transport sector, which has contributed nothing—rather than the coal industry.

The men who work in British collieries are the most efficient miners in Europe. They can face tough decisions—after all, they lived with the consequences of tough decisions for many years. However, what they, the coal industry and the wider energy sector, find most difficult is uncertainty, which can be dysfunctional and can lead to the postponement of decisions. Financial decisions necessary for the longer term will simply not be made in the short term on the back of short-term contracts. The essential test of the forthcoming energy White Paper will be whether it injects a sense of direction into our energy policy.

Does my hon. Friend agree that if the industry is to be tied to short-term contracts, it could result in a change in the method of working coal? That would add to the cost, as bringing the revenue stream on more quickly would entail moving from retreat mining to advance mining. That, in turn, would result in collieries being closed sooner.

That is exactly right. One of the things that UK Coal is exploring is how to reduce costs. Retreat mining needs long-term investment for greater long-term profit. Advance mining means that short-term decisions are made because of the need for profit. My point is that because of uncertainty in the market, long-term decisions are being postponed. An energy policy is needed now. It should be published very soon to ensure that coal has a real stake, a real place, in an energy policy that is diverse, balanced and secure for all communities.

rose—

Order. I remind hon. Members that this is a 90-minute debate. The convention is that the Chair is required to commence the winding-up speeches of the three Front Bench spokesmen 30 minutes before the conclusion of the debate. That leaves those seeking to make a contribution about 38 minutes. Protocol advises Members to forewarn the Deputy Speaker that they intend to try to catch his eye. I have received five requests this morning, so we do not have much time. I ask those who are called to be pertinent and brief and to try to resist taking interventions, which, so far, have been far too frequent. I call the hon. Member for Selby.

It gives me great pleasure to take part in this debate, and I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Sherwood (Paddy Tipping) on securing it. He referred to last week's historic announcement on British Energy. He knows that the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry held a briefing for Back Benchers after that statement. I shall not breath a word of what was said at that briefing, but I shall paint a picture. It was held in Room almost as big as this Chamber, but there were only three parliamentary private secretaries, one distinguished Government Whip, my hon. Friend and myself present. There were no Members representing nuclear constituencies in sight. That is because all their problems have been solved—Christmas has come early for them, and there is nothing much to do for the next 10 years. That is not true about the coal industry. We are appealing for a degree of balance and even-handedness and a sense that justice has been done.

I want to reinforce the case for lifting the cap on UK Coal. As my hon. Friend the Member for Barnsley, West and Penistone (Mr. Clapham) said, we have 28 days to save the critical mass of the industry—that is 28 days before the scheme runs out of operating aid. We have 28 days to lift the cap on UK Coal, which would give it another £60 million to support the pits.

Ministers and officials have raised three objections, questioning whether that can be done. One objection centres on whether Europe would allow it. Hon. Members might remember that the same sorts of objections were raised when we instituted the scheme in the first place. Many civil servants argued that Europe would not allow the scheme, that we were starting too late and we should have started in 1993 if we wanted to start at all, but those objections were overcome. I rang the European Commission yesterday. I was told that, except for Christmas day and Boxing day, someone would be standing by the telephone, and the Commission would be prepared to entertain an application to lift the cap, although, obviously, it would not give a decision on that to me, and I was told that arguments would have to be made about changed circumstances.

I remind hon. Members that the cap of £75 million on UK Coal was instituted when the cap on the overall scheme was £120 million. Since then, the cap on the overall scheme has been lifted to £170 million, while no adjustment has been made to the cap of £75 million on UK Coal. The scheme has been extended for a further six months, so one could argue that the figure of £75 million was time specific to the cap of £120 million. There are therefore good arguments for raising it.

The second argument relates to what UK Coal will do in response to the lifting of the cap. The Government should ask UK Coal about that. As the hon. Member for Sherwood said, we have received assurances from the senior managers of UK Coal that in return for lifting the cap, the future of the three collieries under threat would be secure for four years, and Selby would be seen through until spring 2004. That is extremely important if we are to make effective the work of the Selby taskforce in retraining people and finding them new jobs.

The third question raised is about money. Sixty million pounds is a significant sum, but if the investment aid scheme is to mean anything, one must have something in which to invest—for example, places such as Daw Mill. It is essential that in the next few weeks we do everything possible to lift that cap. I do not think that Europe would be a barrier to that.

Moving on swiftly to the situation in Selby, even if the cap is lifted, £60 million will not save the Selby coalfield. However, it will ensure that its life is prolonged until spring 2004. We in Selby have had some good news in the past week. AES Drax, which owns Drax power station to which most of Selby's., coal is delivered, has reached a six-month standstill agreement with its banks and will continue to take Selby coal at the price agreed for those six months. That is encouraging news for the Selby coalfield, and I pay tribute to the management of UK Coal and AES Drax for continuing to talk to each other during the past weeks. A worse situation could easily have developed, leading to Selby coalfield closing very precipitately.

Three things are on the minds of men in Selby coalfield, which they tell me about most forcibly. One is a real hunger for training and retraining. Some have already started: 50 men have started further education courses, and many others have had interviews and are making plans. It is essential that the Government respond to the request of the Selby taskforce for various pots of money as quickly as possible. That would, for example, allow for the day release of miners.

The second factor high on the agenda of Selby miners, particularly the younger ones—the average age of the men in the Selby coalfield is 45—is the chance of working elsewhere. The new National Union of Mineworkers leadership should be congratulated on beginning to talk about flexible working at Kellington and Rossington. I know that it is a controversial subject and that agreement has not been reached, but I am told that there is potential for extra weekly payments of £200 a man if agreement can be reached. Many Selby miners hope that there is a future for them at Kellington.

The third thing on the minds of Selby miners is that ordinary miners are not entitled to a full pension at 50 if they are made redundant, whereas pit deputies are. That is a source of continuing injustice, which I have discussed with the Minister before.

In summary, we must make every effort in the next few days throughout the coalfields of Great Britain to persuade the Government to apply to Europe to lift the cap. That would give a breathing space to the industry and enable us to maintain a viable industry so that there is something on which to build when investment aid begins next year. December will be the decision month for the future of the British coal industry.

I congratulate the hon. Member for Sherwood (Paddy Tipping) on making the case for coal. Perhaps there should have been a question mark at the end of the title of the debate—if only the Table Office would allow it. We have been here many times before. The Government have dramatically changed their position from that of a year ago, when they said that they were not minded to continue with any form of state aid. I am glad that we won that argument as a result of pressure from coalfield Members of Parliament, the industry and the Coalfield Communities Campaign. We should be talking about details, but yet again, as the hon. Member for Selby (Mr. Grogan) said, we are talking about the whole future of the industry.

May I correct the hon. Gentleman? He said that a year ago we had no intention of doing anything to support the industry. I assure him that since I came into this job I have never said that.

I am, as always, grateful for the Minister's support. We hope to hear more in that vein when he winds up the debate.

Yet again, we are not talking about 28 days to lift the cap, but 28 days to save the British coal industry. Why is that industry important? As we have heard, the European Commission's Green Paper on energy said that EU coal is vital to security of supply. As for economic arguments, the coal industry supports employment in some of the most disadvantaged communities across the length and breadth of the UK, including 2,000 people directly employed in Wales. As it stands, the package is inadequate—indeed, some industry insiders say that it is an insult to the industry. In the words of the Coalfield Communities Campaign,

"The UK coal industry faces the threat of wholesale closures. Without action from the Government, most of the remaining pits will close within the next 12 months or so—abandoning access to at least 20 years of reserves."

The declining amount of aid year on year is unacceptable. The upper limit of £20 million and lower limit of £1 million offers too little for large companies and, in effect, excludes small mines that are vitally important in terms of anthracite coalfields. The Government's aid proposals focus exclusively on investment aid, but EU rules allow investment aid, operating aid and closure aid. The Welsh Office's 1998 document, "The Future for Welsh Coal", argued that a key principle was to secure a level playing field for the British coal industry. If we are to achieve that, we need the flexibility to ensure that operating aid, closure aid and investment aid are available for our mines.

Apart from the wider debate, there is specific concern about Betws colliery in my constituency, which, like other anthracite producers—including Aberpergwm in the constituency of the new Secretary of State for Wales—will be excluded under the Government's proposals because it produces anthracite for the domestic fuel market. Why is it excluded? What is more sustainable than producing local clean coal for the local domestic fuel consumption market? That anomaly must be addressed. There is no sense in importing Chinese anthracite into west Wales when we have productive mines in which productivity has risen enormously over the past 10 years against the backdrop of difficult times for the British coal industry.

The Government must clarify their energy policy. The new Secretary of State for Wales, the former Minister for Energy and Competitiveness, recently said in Wales that the future of the Welsh coal industry was secure. I should like to know on what basis he made that statement. Apparently he has the ear of the Prime Minister, so perhaps he knows things that no one in this Chamber knows. He says that he is against nuclear energy and wants a future for coal and renewables, and I wholeheartedly support him in that, but we need clarity from the Government. We need them to give a commitment that coal has a role to play in future energy strategy. We need an improved aid package that focuses on opportunity, not restriction. Above all, we need a far more flexible approach if the Government are to do what they said all along that they wanted to do—to support the future of the British coal industry.

I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Sherwood (Paddy Tipping) on securing the debate. I thank the Minister for agreeing at short notice to meet a couple of weeks ago a delegation from every union with members at Harworth colliery. He will be pleased to know that since then, output at Harworth has hit record levels. Indeed, according to the latest figures I have, it was the best within UK Coal—Yet UK Coal says that Harworth is not productive. My hon. Friend the Member for Sherwood mentioned project 105 and the unit price at UK Coal. The figure last week for Harworth was 83. That figure is matched by some of the surrounding collieries—in fact, some of them scored less than that. There is no question but that there has been efficient and improved production across British coalfields in recent times.

The issue of nuclear industries and waste has been raised. I strongly disagree with my hon. Friend the Member for Selby (Mr. Grogan), who said that it was like Christmas for the nuclear industry constituencies. We have touched only the tip of the iceberg of the problems of nuclear waste and nuclear reprocessing. The long-term costs to the taxpayer, the Exchequer and the country are only just beginning to be revealed. I have not been anything other than supportive of the nuclear industry—as in solar energy and other sectors, I would like to see the industry developed—but I have always argued for a balance and a security of supply across all sectors.

The sort of subsidy that has been handed out to the nuclear industry will be greatly increased in forthcoming years—I am talking about the real costs and real subsidies, over not only the next two or three years, but the next 30, 40 or 50 years. We can compare the sums involved with the minute amount of money—most estimates put the figure at about £100 million or £150 million—required to maintain the UK coal industry at its current levels. That sum would be a drop in the ocean compared with the cost of the nuclear industry. Is this the end of subsidy of the nuclear industry, or is there more round the corner? How can we possibly not compare the modest amount that the coal industry requires with the enormous amount that the nuclear industry requires?

In my constituency this week, Cottam power station unveiled its new advanced technology, similar to that found at West Burton, which is also in my constituency. I visit both power stations regularly and I invite the Minister to join me. Those power stations are investing for the future. As energy suppliers, they see the future, but where will they get their energy supplies from?

Just after I met with the Minister, a delegation travelled to Brussels to meet Christian Cleutinx, the head of the coal unit within the European Union. We questioned him about operating aid, investment aid and the future of the industry. Some of his answers were convincing: there is no question but that there is sufficient flexibility within the existing rules to allow the UK coal industry as it exists at the moment to be maintained. He left us in no doubt whatever about that, but I challenge the European Union on another issue. As a key objective, the European Union wants to have a stake in the future of every other sector of industry—that is almost its ethos. In the coal sector, there is a degree of madness and convenient short-termism. We in this country have the opportunity to absolve ourselves from that.

Is it not the case that, as Mr. Cleutinx outlined, the European Union can provide the sort of subsidies that we require, should we apply for them? How much coal will be produced in the UK in 2020? The issue is far bigger than UK Coal plc. Frankly, I do not give a damn who runs the coal industry, so long as they run it well. I want this country to have the security of supply that it will need in 20, 30 or 40 years.

In 2020 or 2030, will we be reliant on Chinese coal and Russian gas for British energy needs? If so, what are the security implications for this country? That is the nub of the question. Of course, jobs are an issue—I have as many working miners in my constituency as any other hon. Member—but the overall issue is far bigger than that: it is about British national security. Are we going to leave ourselves open to the political intrigues of whatever regimes or Governments are running China, Kazakhstan and Russia in 20 years' time? Will they be determining what energy we have in this country? That is not in our economic interests, nor is it in the interests of national security.

Short-term, modest assistance to the coal industry would allow us to expand the seams at Harworth to make 30 years-worth of coal available—with a similar amount in other collieries. That would mean that we would still have British coal going into our power stations in 20 years' time.

I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Sherwood (Paddy Tipping) on securing this timely debate.

Each colliery in UK Coal's portfolio has vast reserves of coal, which is the reason why the collieries have survived. They were the crème de la créme of the former British Coal, and billions of pounds of public money were invested in them prior to privatisation to make them world-class operations. However, UK Coal has stated openly and honestly that it cannot run the industry at its current size. It has announced the closure of Selby, and three other major collieries—Harworth, Maltby and Daw Mill—are under review. As I understand the position, such is the fragile state of the company that each individual unit is under review.

I am not attacking UK Coal. It is in a difficult situation. It is a plc and under pressure from shareholders to return profits; to that end it must make commercial decisions. However, its decisions are having a detrimental effect on the United Kingdom's energy reserves, and that cannot be right. Each and every remaining colliery is at risk. A major geological or technical problem can mean immediate closure, with the company unable in the short term to sustain such a financial loss.

The coal industry needs a period of stability. My hon. Friend the Minister has faced—and is, I hope, overcoming—a major crisis in the nuclear industry. Many argue that the crisis has been created by the wholesale price under NETA—the new electricity trading arrangement—falling by some 36 per cent., which makes it difficult for companies to compete in an open market. The Government have, rightly, intervened with a massive injection of public money, and British Energy has appointed a new chairman. The company remains a plc, but the Government's package will cut its costs, deal with its liabilities and raise cash. One industry analyst said:

"The key point is the Government now owns 65 per cent. of British Energy's cash flow. That is 65 per cent. of the economic value of the company and when you look at the appointment of Adrian Montague as chairman it is clear the Government is calling all the shots."

What works for British Energy should work for the British mining industry. Such a deal would keep Selby mining coal for many years to come, and it would permanently protect redundancy payments and pension rights. It cannot be right to force men into making decisions on their future or to sterilise millions of tonnes of coal by introducing an arbitrary cut-off date to qualify for payments.

The people who mine Britain's coal deserve the very best that the nation can afford. Investing in a new company would allow the Coal Authority some influence on the way in which coal is mined and on preventing the sterilisation of the nation's vast reserves. By extending operating aid and introducing a more generous investment regime, we could assist the mining industry, but that would be like applying sticking plasters when major surgery is required.

I know that my hon. Friend the Minister genuinely wants to help the mining industry. He understands its strategic value, and the important role that the pit plays in mining communities. I therefore urge him to use the example of British Energy to restructure the British mining industry completely. For a fraction of the cost, we can retain the mining industry at its present size for many years to come.

First, I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Sherwood (Paddy Tipping) on securing the debate and running through a detailed analysis of where the industry stands today.

I also pay tribute to the Minister. He has done an awful lot of work and produced an awful lot of cash to help save what is left of the British deep-mined coal industry. That should not be overlooked. He has done a lot of hard work to ensure that we are where we are today, but there is still a long way to go.

Last week on the Floor of the House, we saw the Government rescue a botched privatisation by the Tories by stepping in to rescue British Energy, which supplies nuclear energy. We already knew that they had advanced a £650 million loan, but a further £150 million to £200 million a year for up to 10 years is a substantial amount of public funding. Media pundits added up the whole deal, which comes to about £3 billion over 10 years—I do not know how they reached that figure, but you know what the media are like, Mr. Deputy Speaker. Even if the true figure is only half that amount, it is still a huge sum.

I do not have a big problem with the Government's rescue of the nuclear industry, because they have a duty to maintain the security and diversity of supply in this country. However, I object to the hoops that the coal industry has to jump through to qualify for relatively small amounts of money compared to the sums available for the nuclear industry. The Government must ensure the security of supply, and to do so they must keep their eye on diversity. British deep-mined coal has a big role to play in providing security of supply, and it should not be cast aside.

Some people think that the British deep-mined coal industry should be left to wither and that it is safe to import coal from wherever we can get it. They think that the world markets will stay low for ever and that there will never be political problems in the countries from which coal now comes—my hon. Friend the Member for Bassetlaw (John Mann) alluded to that. They also believe that our gas supplies will be safe in the near future, given the countries from which we will be importing it in 15 to 20 years' time. I do not share that view and think it dangerous to go down that road.

The Government are right to underpin the nuclear industry. They also underpin, with an obligation, renewables, which is right because we need to be aware of the environmental consequences of burning coal in an unclean way. That is a problem that we need to face up to, and my view is that the Government should start pouring money into burning British deep-mined coal via an obligation to the renewables obligation.

It is certainly true that over the next 10 years £2 billion or more is to be put into trolleys and pushed towards the nuclear industry. Is my hon. Friend disappointed that the Department of Trade and Industry is suggesting a cap of £5,000 per job on aid to the coal industry, which at a typical pit would amount to perhaps £2.5 million? That is nowhere near enough.

I agree. That is why I am arguing that it is high time the Government recognised the role of British deep-mine coal in security of supply and the provision of diversity. It is time that the Government underpinned the coal industry with resources on the same scale as those they will invest in renewables and British Energy over the next 10 years. The Government must ensure that when people flick the switch, the lights go on. They can do so only by underpinning a percentage of our energy supply. The way to achieve it is to underpin nuclear, underpin British deep-mine coal and underpin the renewables obligation.

Coal provides an energy source that we know is available and we know how to exploit. We also know that it is reliable and that it will last for many years to come. Yes, we need to start burning coal cleanly, but it is time that the Government gave proper consideration to underpinning the industry to provide the security and diversity that we need.

I shall refer to the possible investment in a scheme for the coal industry mentioned in a recent consultative document issued by the Department of Trade and Industry. I submitted a response to the Minister and I invite him to reflect further on it.

We are all arguing in favour of supporting the mining industry. That requires a secure market for coal, and that is a possibility because some power stations are fitted with flue gas disposal systems. If power stations such as Drax and others fitted with that equipment burned to capacity, it would help the industry substantially. Power stations without the equipment could be encouraged to fit it, burn coal smokelessly and reduce the amount of sulphur emitted into the atmosphere. A scheme to do so is already there; it is simply a question of encouraging the power stations to introduce flue gas desulphurisation. Failure to encourage further such installations will make it difficult for the coal industry to obtain venture capital.

We are closing down mines that are capable of becoming viable in the not-too-distant future. People are not investing in new reserves because of the uncertainty in the market. We should recall the scheme offered to the nuclear industry in the first instance—when we had the non-fossil fuel obligation—which was not a charge on the Treasury because it was passed on to consumers. We could work out a similar scheme that would benefit the coal mining and electricity generation industries. The Royal Academy of Engineering and the Lattice Group plc are forecasting higher gas prices, so becoming more dependent on gas generation would have an impact on our local industries and domestic consumers.

The Minister should know that schemes could be introduced—I would be happy to discuss them in more detail—to provide a secure market for coal, to help the electricity generation industry to burn coal and to meet the standards imposed by European directives. That could be done with no real call on the Treasury to contribute. It is a matter of introducing a formula, working out a strategy with the coal and electricity producers, and ensuring that we obtain the proposals for which all hon. Members who have spoken in favour of the coal industry are pressing. That would enable the industry to prosper, and we would not depend on imports of gas, oil or coal.

I plead with my hon. Friend the Minister to give us, in the short time that is available, an opportunity to present those schemes on behalf of the mining and electricity generation industries, so that we can go forward with a substantial programme. We must accept that the energy industry is in a mess. We are therefore obliged to try to get the industry out of that mess, and coal could play a major part in solving the problem.

I have listened to many hon. Members who obviously know much more than me about the coal industry. The hon. Member for Normanton (Mr. O'Brien) spoke about the need for a strategy, which is a key point. We need a clear strategy for our energy policy, be it on coal or other forms of energy.

It is difficult to be as positive and optimistic about the coal industry as one would like. As with any other industry, we would like to be able to give help, as has been given in the past. However, it is rather unfortunate that the Government have given so much help to nuclear power and British Energy. As has been said, considerable amounts are being given, but it is likely that those amounts will be increasingly a drain on our resources. As the hon. Member for Normanton said, we need a strategy to ensure that we are not just investing money in one direction and neglecting other forms of energy.

We must help the coal industry in any way that we can, as with any other industry. There is no question but that help should be provided for research and development with regard to cleaner forms of coal and productivity measures. That is discussed a lot in the paper, and the coal industry has taken tremendous steps forward in that direction. However, as those of us who have worked in the industry as opposed to the services know—I can say this modestly as I have worked in it all my life—the pressure to improve productivity is there all the time, year on year. The Government need to help in any way possible, whether by pulling together both sides of the industry, if that is appropriate, or through research and development and other ways of helping with the productivity of the industry.

I have to draw the unfortunate conclusion that such measures should be supported, but we cannot continue to support operating costs in any significant way. In the past, there have been many initiatives in that direction, but we must now develop a strategy that makes the industry sustainable and creates a future for energy provision in this country.

It is regrettable that there are to be, and have been, closures. We certainly support all that can be done to help communities affected by closures.

Will the hon. Gentleman clarify whether the Liberal Democrat policy is to accelerate the closure of the British coal industry?

No, certainly not. As I said, we need a proper strategy on energy policy. In their economic policy, the Government—not necessarily the Minister here—must address certain issues related to the exchange rate. Their policy has not helped in obtaining the exchange rate needed for businesses in the United Kingdom to export and to cope with imports. I could speak at length, although I will not, on the subject of the euro and exchange rates.

If we cast our minds back to November 1997, we felt strongly that a greater commitment to the idea of the euro would have helped to keep the exchange rate down. Hon. Members may disagree with that—we are all entitled to our views—but the exchange rate is an important issue.

We are not saying that closures should be accelerated or that the coal industry should be wound down. We are supportive of that industry, and of policies on productivity measures, cleaner coal and the exchange rate.

Are you saying to workers at Harworth colliery—

Order. I am not saying anything at all.

Sorry. Is the hon. Gentleman saying to workers at Harworth colliery, who have been threatened with the closure of the colliery by the employer, that they will have to wait for Britain to join the euro, or does he support operating aid going to that colliery in the next few months to keep it open?

No. The hon. Gentleman is looking for a solution to be produced today, and he is right to do that. I must also address why we are in our current position. I am not proposing an instant solution for tomorrow, but I seek a strategy from the Government—I have sought such a strategy for a long time—that would put us in a better position. That is all I am saying to the hon. Gentleman.

If the European Community can be prevailed on to provide assistance—that has been discussed and seems possible—that should be the route forward. We will back any significant help to the industry that we can get. However, we cannot go down the route taken by British Energy of pumping in more and more money. I look to the Government to produce a strategy that takes into account the whole of the industry, including investment in renewables and investment for environmental reasons. More should have been done in those areas in the past.

I bow to hon. Members here who know much more about coal mining than I do. I have been down a coal mine once, and that is all. I bow to them in that respect, but wonder whether more could not have been done in the past to help produce cleaner coal to ensure that we did not face our current problems.

I hope that the Minister will reply on the coal industry specifically and, more generally, on a clear strategy for energy in the UK. Such a strategy should give stability and a future for people in the industry, and should enable them to see the direction in which the Government are going. At present, that direction is not clear. The Government have distorted the market, particularly by helping British Energy.

rose—

rose—

Order. I appreciate that the hon. Member for Bolsover (Mr. Skinner) represents a mining constituency, but he did not enter the Chamber until the debate had been running for an hour. I call Mr. Bellingham.

rose—

On a point of order, Mr. Gale. Is it a new rule of Parliament that if someone is not in the Chamber when a debate begins, they cannot be called? Every day in the House of Commons, people wander in and out of debates and take part in them. I have been busy in Parliament on other business and, to be frank, the rule that has just been announced is wrong in principle. It is not in "Erskine May" and, if applied generally, many people—especially Privy Councillors—could not speak.

I appreciate the hon. Gentleman's difficulty in trying to be in two places at once, but hon. Members are now making their winding-up speeches.

What about the ruling?

Order.

Further to that point of order, Mr. Gale. I asked you whether you would apply that ruling generally? I will ask the Speaker what he thinks.

The hon. Gentleman knows perfectly well that other hon. Members are unlikely to be called when the debate has entered the winding-up period. If he catches the eye of the Minister or a Front-Bench spokesman, he will be able to intervene if he so wishes. However, as a matter of courtesy, custom and practice, Members who wish to take part in debates usually notify the Chairman first, and then do other Members the courtesy of listening to the debate before they seek to intervene.

Further to that point of order, Mr. Gale. You are taking a new tack. You are now saying that I was not here before. In fact, I stood up before the Liberal spokesman got to his feet, as the Clerk knows, but I was not called. I am not complaining, but it is not true to say that I was not here before then. The Liberal spokesman had not stood up at that point. As for the subsidies about which the Liberals are complaining, why do the Liberal Democrats take subsidies in the form of Short money? Why cannot the coal industry receive some?

Order. The hon. Gentleman is merely detaining the Chamber and delaying the debate.

I shall try to be brief, as the more time the Minister has, the more time there will be for interventions from various hon. Members, including the hon. Member for Bolsover (Mr. Skinner). I also wish to pass on the apologies of the hon. Member for Reigate (Mr. Blunt), who is the Conservative spokesman on energy. He is currently visiting oil rigs off the coast of Aberdeen.

I congratulate the hon. Member for Sherwood (Paddy Tipping) on securing the debate. I have great admiration for his efforts in fighting for his constituency and his community, as I do for the efforts made by the hon. Members for Selby (Mr. Grogan), for East Carmarthen and Dinefwr (Adam Price), for Bassetlaw (John Mann), for Wansbeck (Mr. Murphy) and for Doncaster, North (Mr. Hughes) in fighting for theirs. They are right that our miners are not only the hardest working miners in Europe, but are, without doubt, the most productive. They want some clarity and certainty about the future, for which the forthcoming White Paper will be pivotal.

The year 2001 was cathartic for the United Kingdom coal industry; it was the first year in our industrial history in which we imported more than 50 per cent. of our total coal requirements. In 2001, imports exceeded domestic production. I hope that, in the White Paper, the Minister will discuss the 33 per cent. of electricity that is generated by coal and its future. I also hope that he discusses the 51 per cent. coal imports and what will happen to that. The White Paper needs to make very clear statements about the future as the Government see it, and what the Government want to happen.

Hon. Members have asked what formal risk assessment had been made of the potential for disruption to the coal supply to the UK. Before 11 September 2001, the accepted wisdom in the European Union was that the risks of disruption to the supply were minimal, such was the geopolitical diversity of coal supplies. Will the Minister still say whether this is the case, or will it be addressed in the forthcoming White Paper?

Several Members rightly touched on the coal aid operating scheme extension, which expires in 28 days, and almost every hon. Member who has spoken in the debate asked about the new investment aid scheme. In July this year, the Minister announced the start of a full consultation on the new scheme to help the UK coal industry to compete in the global energy market. The consultation will examine several key areas, not least whether the coal industry needs investment aid, whether the safeguarding or creation of jobs should form the basis of a scheme, which mining projects would qualify for aid and how to judge the quality of different mines. Will the Minister comment on how that consultation is going?

The hon. Gentleman referred to the consultative document issued by the Department of Trade and Industry. Will he explain what the Conservative party has contributed to it?

I shall discuss that with my hon. Friend the Member for Reigate, and I shall write to the hon. Gentleman to let him know.

Do I take it that the Opposition spokesman has come to the debate without any information on the document on future investment in the coal industry? Has he come unprepared to make any contribution about it?

The hon. Gentleman is being a bit unfair, as I have the document with me. I am not dealing with it; my hon. Friend the Member for Reigate is, and I will let the hon. Gentleman know exactly what he has done.

Several hon. Members have made clear their views that the sums involved in extension of the scheme are minor compared with the money that has gone into British Energy. I hope that the Minister will think about that. It is vital that there be no hiatus after 1 January. We should now know how much money will be forthcoming.

The hon. Member for Selby spoke movingly about the impact of the local pit's closure on his constituency. He mentioned what is being done with the multi-agency taskforce headed by Lord Haskins. We welcome the £1.5 million funding for it. Obviously the terms of reference are ambitious, but we especially welcome the requirement to galvanise existing resources and identify new opportunities for support from Government and European sources. The taskforce was to make its recommendations by 20 October 2002. What news is there of those recommendations?

The hon. Member for Normanton (Mr. O'Brien) made a vital point about the environment. The debate on cleaner fossil-fuel technology is crucial to the future of coal-fired power stations. Huge progress has been made on sulphur dioxide and NOx emissions. He mentioned that the flue gas desulphurisation scheme—FGD—is making progress. It removes a staggering 90 per cent. of SO2 emissions but only two power stations have FGD in place, including AES Drax Power.

The scheme costs about £30 million a year to operate, and it strikes me that most UK power stations are avoiding that cost. Following the standstill agreement that AES Drax Power secured with its banks and bond holders, it is generating at well below capacity. We are in a ridiculous situation whereby less coal is burned at Drax, which has that extremely environmentally-friendly system in place, but more imported coal is burned elsewhere, which harms the environment.

Will the Minister comment on the work on CO2 emissions? A great deal of research and development is being focused on cleaner coal technologies. Much of that work is on the reduction of CO2 for improved boiler efficiency. He recently announced that the case for supporting a cleaner coal technologies demonstration plant would be made. What progress has been made on the subject?

A great deal of uncertainty faces the industry, some of which is beyond the Minister's control. However, a lot of it is not. We need clarity and a new sense of purpose from the Department of Trade and Industry, because we are at a critical moment. We need to know exactly what will happen after 1 January, and we need a clear idea of what will go into the White Paper. I look forward to his response.

I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Sherwood (Paddy Tipping) on securing the debate. I will try to answer as many points as possible and I will write to those hon. Members whose points I do not answer.

For reasons that have been touched on, the debate is very timely. On the other hand, it is slightly premature because many of the wider issues that we have discussed will form the substance of the White Paper. None the less, I recognise the urgency with which these matters are viewed in some quarters.

It is clear from a lot of what has been said that, even after five years of Labour government, much of our time is still taken up with dealing with the follies of the 1990s. That is particularly true of the ideological privatisations that took place, and I would categorise the privatisation of the nuclear and the coal industries as ideological.

I should say something about the analogies that have been made with the nuclear industry. I do not think that it is good for the debate to go down that road. I am sometimes characterised as being pro-nuclear or pro-renewables and I hope that I am sometimes characterised as being pro-coal. However, I would say that I am pro a balanced energy mix. It is a mistake to say that someone who is for one form of energy is against another; that is a divisive argument.

On British Energy, there are two reasons why we have taken the steps announced in recent months—security of supply and the need to guarantee the safe operation of nuclear power stations. I do not think that anyone in the Chamber would oppose either of those objectives, and I want to add three subsidiary motivations. One is the need to maintain an indigenous energy source, and, again, I do not think that anyone present would disagree with that. Secondly, whatever else nuclear energy might be, it is non-carbon, which is crucial to our environmental obligations. Thirdly, it would cost more to shut nuclear power stations than it does to keep them open. There is an interesting historic argument about whether we should have nuclear power, but we must address the objective circumstances. In that context, it is misleading, mischievous and, n o doubt, tempting to draw a comparison between coal and nuclear power. From what I have said, however, people will understand that we have done the right thing and that not one penny would have been released for coal or anything else if we had done something different. Indeed, we would have to spend more on mopping up the nuclear industry than we would on sustaining it. It does not, therefore, make for a good analogy, however superficially attractive it might be.

The thrust of many of the speeches this morning, and perhaps the reason for the debate's timing, is that there are 28 days to go, UK Coal is in trouble and three pits are threatened. It seems that all we have to do is pick up the phone to Brussels, get the nod and write a cheque to UK Coal for another £60 million. I know that those of my hon. Friends who are making that case are being disingenuous and I know that they know they are being disingenuous.

Let me say to my hon. Friend in all comradeliness that the issue is much wider than the future of UK Coal—it is about the future of the British mining industry. The two are distinct.

I have no intention of avoiding the wider question, but I have said—quite accurately, I think—that the nub of the debate is the short-term issues and the prospects for three pits, which my hon. Friends have said are under threat. The point that I made at the outset is valid, and some of the issues are very much tied up with the White Paper. No one has suggested that the next 28 days will determine the wider issues, but there are clearly more pressing short-term concerns, which I am as anxious as anyone to address. That is why I took slight exception when the hon. Member for East Carmarthen and Dinefwr (Adam Price) said that someone had suggested a year ago, or at some point since I came to this job, that there would be no more support for the coal industry. I certainly never said that. In fact, virtually every working day during the past 15 months or so, I have been involved in one way or another in trying to ensure that support for the coal industry continues wherever it is helpful, first under the operating scheme and, now, under an investment aid scheme. Since 1997, the Government have put a lot of money into the coal industry. They have put more than £160 million into the operating aid scheme and have moved on, against considerable odds, to gain approval in Europe for an investment aid scheme.

No one doubts the Minister's personal commitment to the coal industry, but I recall its being said that there were "no current plans" to continue the operating aid scheme, which is vital to my constituency.

Perhaps it is a translation problem; things can be said much more subtly in Gaelic, as I am sure they can in Welsh. "No current plans" is parliamentary terminology for "It's on its way, but it's not there yet." Of course, at that time, we probably had not received approval from Brussels for an investment aid scheme, whereas we now have. There has been a continuum of our putting ourselves in a position to support the coal industry.

Insufficient attention is paid to the coal industry in the wider energy debate. Given that coal accounts for more than a third of our electricity generation—more than any other energy source—it is remarkable that its contribution to our energy mix is not discussed more often and in more positive terms. That is why I believe that we need a coal industry and why I believe that, within the bounds of what is possible, we should continue to ensure that we have a healthy deep-mined coal industry in the United Kingdom. It is disingenuous to suggest that there are any easy options, especially in the next few weeks, such as extending the operating aid scheme instead of adopting the investment aid scheme. Hitherto, everyone has agreed that we should pursue the latter route rather than sustaining non-viable operations any longer.

I am no uncritical admirer of the market that has been created in electricity, and I sometimes wonder what weighed on my predecessors' minds in introducing certain measures, but whenever I ask that question, I am told that their primary consideration was to create a level playing field for coal. How we got to a situation in which the level playing field for coal further exacerbated the problems of the UK coal industry is a mystery that I have not got to the bottom of yet. I recognise that the current problems in the market are creating further problems for all generators other than renewables and, therefore, for all suppliers to those generators.

Does the Minister, like me, think that the subsidy is okay? The farmers get it, the Liberal party gets it, nuclear power gets it and God knows who else gets it. What worries me is that if the pits remain in private hands, the people who own them will eventually shut them on the basis of profit and loss. This Government must deal with the real question; whether, at this late stage, when there are only a handful of pits left, we save them permanently by taking them back into public ownership, so that we do not have to deal with the restraints of the common market, subsidies and the rest. We can do it because we believe in it as a matter of principle. At some point, the Government will have to wrestle with the problem of taking them back. Instead of handing out the money, we can buy them for a song.

Even I do not agree with all of that. It is not productive to keep pits, or any business, going under public ownership irrespective of the cost. However, it is true that if a pit's current operator wishes to close it, the pit reverts to the Coal Authority, and it is possible in some circumstances for somebody else to take over its running. That is what happened to the Hatfield colliery in the constituency of my hon. Friend the Member for Doncaster, North (Mr. Hughes).

In answer to the Opposition spokesman, the future of the industry is tied up with clean coal technology. Coalfield MPs should not make too much of the damage that has been done by legacy issues arising from other energy sectors. Of course, nuclear power gives rise to huge legacy issues. However, I sometimes sit in halls full of miners who have paid the cost of the coal industry with their health. None of us should rest easy with that legacy. The Government are fulfilling their obligations—in so far as they are capable of being fulfilled—to people who have lost their health and the families of those who have lost their lives in the service of the coal industry.

If the industry has a future, it has to be built on clean coal technology. We are supporting a £17 million programme of research and development and technology transfer for cleaner coal technologies as well as developing a project to support retrofitting a supercritical boiler in an existing power station. I hope that we shall do more to exploit clean technologies and the considerable potential for carbon storage that exists in the North sea.

Reverting for a moment to Hatfield, I was also encouraged to hear that Coalpower Limited has secured 75 per cent. of the financial backing for the construction of a 400 MW integrated gasification combined cycle plan projected to be capable of taking 1 million tonnes of coal a year from Hatfield. It will be of interest to the hon. Member for East Carmarthen and Dinefwr that Progressive Energy Limited is about to seek consent for a 450 MW plant in south Wales, which would use local anthracite. The news is not all gloomy; good things happen where there is new technology and clean coal technology.

UK Coal has not announced an intention to shut any of the pits that have been named today. When I was in the constituency of my hon. Friend the Member for Bassetlaw (John Mann), I met the unions from Harworth. I shall be pleased, after the debate, to meet those who are here from Maltby. We are not in a position to take a decision. UK Coal knows well the work that is going into creating an investment scheme and I should be very disappointed if, at this juncture, the closure of any pit were to be proposed. I said at Harworth that the option existed to get round a table and discuss proposals for a viable future. I know that that has been taken forward. I hope that there is the basis for that kind of discussion at Maltby. I stress again that there has been no announcement of a proposal to close Maltby colliery.

I have valued this debate. I acknowledge and share the strength of feeling on the matter. I want to see a continuing role for the UK deep-mined coal industry. Many problems exist, but, because of the history, it is not within the gift of the Government to sort all of them out. I hope that if we work together and proceed with the investment aid scheme and other measures taken to assist the coal industry, when a White Paper is published, there will be a role for coal and for a UK domestic coal industry.

I welcome the Minister, as I want him to hear me saying something nice before I start the tale of woe about the dreadful situation in Oxfordshire social services. Those of us who were elected in the last Parliament were pleased to see talent rewarded with his appointment to ministerial rank, and we continue to wish him luck. However, I think that the way in which the Government approach the difficult situation facing the most vulnerable people in some of our communities will be a test.

We face serious problems in Oxfordshire, and have done so for many years. When cuts are being made, I think that hon. Members of all political parties see it as a problem. Social care services in Oxfordshire are facing significant cuts this year, and will do so next year. That has been the case ever since I have been a Member of Parliament, as it was before 1997, when the Conservatives were in power, the Minister's party was in opposition and Labour politicians joined me and other Liberal Democrats in condemning the cuts.

The cuts are not the only problem. The other, related problem is the steep rise in council tax that has occurred in Oxfordshire. The county council, led by parties of all political persuasions, has increased council tax way beyond inflation. Council tax is a regressive tax—it hits people who are on fixed incomes, as the elderly often are. No one is happy about the need to raise council tax to reduce the level of cuts. It is one thing to raise council tax to develop new and improved services, but it is even harder to take when it is done merely to reduce cuts.

Given that there are cuts, and that council tax has risen to nearly double figures on average, there are clearly inadequate resources in Oxfordshire social services. My first question to the Minister is whether, in his opinion, that is indeed the case. I want to give him the opportunity to write that question down, because I do not want him to forget it.

I think that the Minister will find my next question easy to answer. Is he happy that Oxfordshire county council is cutting services to the most vulnerable in society? Does he see that as "one of those things" or as a matter of regret, about which something needs to be done? If he sees it as a matter of regret, what does he suggest that the county council do? Does he believe that the county council should, where possible, increase charges to users of social services, under the Government's policy of fair charging? Does he believe that council tax should be increased yet further, into double figures, to avoid some of the cuts? Does he perhaps think that the central Government grant should be increased to deal with core services?

If the Minister claims that the Government are increasing funding to Oxfordshire sufficiently, why does he think that cuts are being made? If he thinks that that is the case, does he know something that the Audit Commission does not know? That is, is he aware of profligacy and waste, or a pile of money lying unspent in Oxfordshire? Does he believe that Oxfordshire county council is now spending too much on social services, and that it would be appropriate for it to reduce the spend? I remind him that the spend in Oxfordshire is £22 million over Standard Spending Assessment—that is the budgeted spend, before considering overspend. That is on a budget of £105 million. The SSA—the amount that the Government think Oxfordshire should spend—is £85 million, and it is spending 20 per cent. over that.

Is the Minister satisfied that the amount—the SSA—that the Government think Oxfordshire should be spending on vulnerable service users is adequate? If so, does not that mean that he thinks Oxfordshire is overspending, and therefore should cut services? Does he believe that the council tax is the fairest way of raising extra resources, or that, if there is a choice about how one raises resources from taxation, it would be better to use a more progressive tax, with a more easily identifiable link to the ability to pay?

I shall speak for about another 10 minutes, and I hope that the hon. Member for Witney (Mr. Cameron) will have a minute or so afterwards to put his point of view. I made the point earlier that there is little division between local politicians of all parties about the regrettable nature of the cuts.

Order. The hon. Gentleman has mentioned that he wants to invite another hon. Member to participate. He should be aware that in a half-hour debate, that needs the consent of the Minister as well as the initiator of the debate.

I was aware of that, as was the hon. Member for Witney. I think that, certainly, if the Minister was not aware, he will perhaps now show his willingness to allow the contribution. I mentioned it to show that I did not object. As I have said, I think that there is cross-party agreement on this matter—and local members of the Labour party are included in that, as they recognise that the situation is intolerable.

The budget for 2002–03 reveals a 4 per cent. increase in SSA—the amount of money that the Government think should be spent. However, there is a 5.8 per cent. increase in the social services budget. That is significantly above SSA, so I do not think that the county council can be accused of not spending all the SSA increase on social services. Despite that, there were £9 million or more of cuts in the budget, to repay a £6.4 million overspend in the previous year, plus another £4 million of cuts. It looks as if £7.5 million of cuts have been made, at the price of extreme pain and hardship to social services users, but there is still a likely overspend of £3 million.

I want to make it clear that cuts mean a lack of service for people who need it—not savings, getting rid of waste, cost improvements or other euphemisms. In Oxfordshire we are now talking about taking services from people who need them. Everyone in receipt of domiciliary services—older people and physically disabled people—has had to be reassessed and many have had their provision cut. Those were not easy cuts to make. People's independence is threatened when they receive less care—when, for example, they are given no care or help in the matter of sorting out their house or their home help.

The cuts that we are dealing with included £2 million of budgeted cuts this year in home support for older people; £900,000 of cuts for people with physical disabilities; £1.3 million of cuts relating to learning disabilities; £100,000 of cuts in children's home support; £100,000 of cuts in physical disability equipment; and £800,000 of cuts for children's homes. Learning disability resource centres for children, which have received a great deal of publicity, were subject to £500,000 of cuts. I think that we know how painful those cuts have been, and will be, to implement. There were £600,000 of cuts in residential accommodation for old people and £100,000 of cuts in day centres.

Of course, it has not been possible to deliver all those savings, and legal action has been taken to challenge some of them, as the county council is bound by statutory duties. The Government need to explain which of those cuts they are happy with and where more cuts could be made.

The cost pressures in the coming year also look drastic. Before the Minister says that everything will be fine and that there will be a 6 per cent. increase in real terms in Government funding for SSA, I ask him to say whether he is aware of the unavoidable pressures, over and above inflation, that exist in social services. For example, to deal with the problem of delayed discharge for older people, a 5 per cent. increase in fees—more than was budgeted for and more than inflation—is the minimum needed to maintain capacity, let alone build on it, in the care home sector, which suffers cost pressures of £740,000. Physical disability service purchasing faces cost pressures of £140,000, as a result of a 5 per cent. increase in fees when in fact providers need between 10 per cent. and 15 per cent. to keep the services afloat. For learning disabilities, cost pressures of £300,000 are predicated on a 5 per cent. rise in fees.

As far as demography is concerned, one cannot blame Oxfordshire for increased longevity or for people surviving with disability beyond childhood; indeed, the Government might argue that they should take credit for it. However, a 1.69 per cent. increase in the number of older people is forecast for the coming year, which predicates an additional spending pressure of £240,000 just to keep the same services. For physical disabilities, there is an anticipated increase of 0.8 per cent., but on previous experience, that will amount to 15 extra clients costing another £200,000. In learning disability, another £50,000 will be needed.

There is more. Because the planned savings by learning disability resource centres are not achievable, there will be the pressure of another £400,000 over budget. In mental health and acquired brain injury placements, £225,000 more will be needed because of increased demand for an expensive service. That stems from mental health review tribunals and an increased incidence of injury—and it assumes a 50:50 share or thereabouts with the health service.

The Government's changes to charging—called fair charging, which I do not necessarily disagree with—have cost implications for those counties that were charging above that rate. The loss of income, which will now have to be corrected to be within Government guidelines, is £1.1 million. That, effectively, is an extra duty imposed by the Government. Foster care allowances are up by £167,000 because Oxfordshire now pays less than the recommended rates.

There is more. Information technology needs £110,000 to administer Government grants to service providers because that responsibility was transferred without funding. Home support for children with disabilities will be £195,000. The cost of administering the payroll will be another £65,000. It is estimated that the social care of asylum seekers will cost £200,000, following the Law Lords' ruling that if local authorities have responsibility for the community care health needs of asylum seekers, they must also provide accommodation and cover subsistence costs.

The list goes on. Significantly, independent foster agency placements will need £234,000; and intentionally homeless families will want £200,000 since courts are now directing councils to support some homeless families. It is an extensive list, but I have not yet dealt with the increase in employers' national insurance contributions that the county council will have to pay. Is the 6 per cent. real terms increase in SSA or in Government funding in addition to extra money needed to pay for those national insurance contribution increases, or is it part of the 6 per cent.?

Will the Minister answer the following important questions about grants? Oxfordshire currently receives a building care capacity grant of £1.5 million and a promoting independence partnership grant of £1.6 million. It is still not clear whether those grants will continue or whether they will have to be absorbed into the 6 per cent. increase. It is bad enough that people cannot plan because they are not sure whether the grants will continue, but it will be even worse if the grants do not continue and they are threatened with having to find that money from the 6 per cent. increase. The increase clearly will not be enough.

Do the Government accept that a tragedy is overtaking vulnerable people in Oxfordshire? The elderly, the mentally ill, the physically and learning disabled and young people at risk are bearing the brunt of underfunded extra duties placed on social services. The county council has been unable to raise council tax any further within reason, even if it had not been capped during previous years. Those cuts in services to the most vulnerable in society are the sort of cuts that the Labour party in opposition used to condemn.

The Labour party claimed it came to power to do something about such treatment of vulnerable people, and to reverse the cuts. Will the Government take responsibility today for the level of cuts affecting services to those vulnerable groups? If not, that will be seen as a disgraceful and immoral abrogation of their responsibility to the people of Oxfordshire, who know that the Government, not any local political party, are to blame, and they will not forgive them.

I congratulate the hon. Member for Oxford, West and Abingdon (Dr. Harris) on securing the debate, and thank him for allowing me to take part. He spoke extremely clearly. We have a most serious situation in Oxfordshire. We are spending £20 million more than the standard spending assessment, but it is still necessary to make severe cuts. The social services inspectorate gave Oxfordshire social services a fairly clean bill of health, so the problem is one of funding. I join him in begging the Government to help us.

I would like to make three quick pleas. First, there are three care homes in my constituency whose future is in question. Rural areas need more funding for sparsity so that great homes such as Langston house in Milton-under-Wychwood can survive. Secondly, during the summer Adjournment debate, I raised the question of adult placements. That would not require more money from the Government, but it would require them to think about regulation. I have had no reply to the points made during that debate, to my letter sent to the Department of Health, or to my written question. Adult placements are like fostering services: they do not need to be subject to the National Care Standards Commission. I would grateful if the Minister would consider that point.

My third plea to the Minister is that he should come and visit Oxfordshire. The hon. Member for Oxford, West and Abingdon and I would gladly show him around. I would take him to Chipping Norton and show him those older people who have had their care assessments changed, and introduce him to the parents of children who have had their care packages changed.

We have to get it right. Carers in Oxfordshire are under huge pressure, and if they pack up, the cost to the state and the county council will be even greater. We have to grab the issue—it is the most important one in Oxfordshire at the moment. I look forward to the Minister's response.

I congratulate the hon. Member for Oxford, West and Abingdon (Dr. Harris) on securing this debate on social services in Oxfordshire. Clearly, social services staff play a vital role in the support of some of the most vulnerable people in society. I agree that the matters he raised are extremely important to his constituents and people throughout the country. I acknowledge that health and social services in Oxfordshire are operating under tremendous pressure. I was pleased that he paid tribute to staff in social services and the national health service, who manage to do a first-class job for may of their patients and clients, sometimes under very trying circumstances.

The hon. Gentleman mentioned resources. Between 1996–97 and 2002, resources have increased by more than 20 per cent. in real terms, an average of more than 3 per cent. a year. That compares with an average, annual, real terms growth of only 0.1 per cent. between 1992–93 and 1996–97. He must acknowledge that. He went on to make some very strong political points, suggesting that the Government do not care about social services in Oxfordshire, but that is not the case.

That is why we are putting in extra funding across the board. Such decisions are the responsibility of the local authority. I am advised—the hon. Gentleman may want to correct me—that the nine-strong executive of the local authority is drawn from the Conservative and Liberal Democrat parties, and that its own corporate self-assessment of council tax was that in 2002 it spent £689 per head of the Oxfordshire population, compared with an average of £749 in other county councils; only three county councils spent less than Oxfordshire. That was the assessment of the Liberal Democrats and Conservatives who run that part of the country. I therefore ask the hon. Gentleman to be less strong in making political points about this important subject.

I am grateful to have the opportunity to explain what those figures are about. They were intended to answer the charge that Oxfordshire is an overspending county council and that the cuts are a consequence of that. The figures show— the same point has been made by Labour-Lib Dem and by Labour-Conservative administrations—that Oxfordshire gets a bad deal, relatively speaking, and is not a wildly overspending council that needs to reduce its overspend.

Let me go on to deal with resources more specifically. Decisions are about to be made across Government, and I do not intend to pre-empt the various formulae that are about to be produced. I should say, however, that the local authority run by the Lib Dems and the Conservatives went on to say that this year's consultation showed that many people would still be prepared to support a larger council tax increase, especially if it was cleat which services would benefit. I am not responsible for executive statements made by the Liberal Democrats and Conservatives who run Oxfordshire; I am responsible for the Government. As I said, we are making a 20 per cent. increase across the board, while specifically ensuring that money goes to Oxfordshire.

Looking to the future, the hon. Gentleman will be aware that the Chancellor's Budget statement in April indicated that resources will increase again by an average of 6 per cent. a year in real terms over the next two to three years. That includes an extra £100 million over the next three years for each full year of operation of the new scheme to tackle delayed discharges that the Health Secretary announced a week or so ago. The local government finance settlement for next year will be announced by my right hon. Friend the Deputy Prime Minister on 5 December, and I am unable to say anything today about the exact allocation of resources to individual local authorities, including Oxfordshire, for next year. Those details and the new general grant allocation formulas will be published on Thursday. Like all hon. Members, the hon. Gentleman awaits those decisions, which all our local authorities will examine carefully.

The means of distributing funds for future years has been the subject of an extensive review. There has been a full consultation exercise on the proposed changes for channelling money through to local authorities. Until now, the grant has mainly been distributed using standard spending assessments by the Minister for Local Government and the Regions. It is right that we look afresh at the formulae. One of the aims of the review of allocation formulae is to make the new system more transparent so that people affected have a chance of understanding it.

There is a trade-off, however, in that the price of oversimplification is a system that fails to take account of the appropriate indicators, and we need to avoid that. When coming up with a formula that applies nationally, it is extremely difficult to guarantee that every local authority will benefit. Local government has called for an increase in predictability and stability in any new system, which is obviously important for county councils such as Oxfordshire.

Turning to the specific resources available to Oxfordshire county council, we all await the announcement with interest. For this year, its personal social services SSA has increased by 5.6 per cent., compared with the national average increase of 4.9 per cent. Similarly, for the past year its SSA increased by 6.5 per cent., compared with the national average increase of 4.7 per cent. In addition to its SSA, Oxfordshire receives substantial specific grant allocations from the Department of Health. This year, for example, it has received a preserved rights grant of more than £6 million, a children's services grant in excess of £3 million and, in order to tackle delayed discharges, a building care capacity grant of £1.5 million.

The authority's grant allocations have also shown marked increases in recent years. This year, for example, the carers grant has increased by 22 per cent. and the children's services grant by 11 per cent.

As I said at the outset, I recognise that there are pressures on social care in Oxfordshire. In particular, the authority is concerned, as the hon. Member for Witney (Mr. Cameron) said, about the shortage of affordable residential and nursing home places. The substantial increases in personal social services resources that the Government are making available over the next three years will help. We should continue to ensure that investment is maintained, but it is only one part of the equation and not the only criterion by which we should judge the success or otherwise of the reforms, because it is fundamental that other things happen as well.

I should like to commend Oxfordshire social services and its primary care trust health partners on the creation of a pooled budget under section 31 of the Health Act 1999 for the purchase of residential and nursing home care. That is one way in which to maximise the purchasing influence of health and social care.

During this year, Oxfordshire county council has also had the benefit of support from the Department of Health funded change agents team, which has worked with the health and social care economy to identify further improvements to both the system and the use of capacity in Oxfordshire. All the partners have signed up to an action plan, and it is of the greatest importance that they follow through and implement the agreed action to secure improvements for service users and patients.

The hon. Member for Oxford, West and Abingdon criticised the resources available to Oxfordshire, and asked for the Government's response. Most resources available to local government are not earmarked for any particular purpose. It is for individual local authorities to decide how much to spend on their social services in the light of local priorities, and how to make the necessary resources available, which includes deciding how much should be raised by council tax. We have heard the assessment, which was made locally by the Oxfordshire executive—by Liberal Democrats and Conservatives—on council tax, which is a matter for them and not for the Government. The SSA is not an indication of how much the Government consider Oxfordshire should spend on its social services, which is a matter for Oxfordshire to decide in light of its priorities.

This year's council tax rise is 9.9 per cent., which is three or four times the level of inflation, because Oxfordshire people would rather have rises in an unfair tax than suffer even more cuts. Can the Minister explain whether he thinks that that is insufficient? If all the money is going into Oxfordshire, can he explain why Oxfordshire is still spending above its SSA, despite what he described as "a generous SSA settlement"? Is it his opinion that it is spending too much?

The hon. Gentleman will be aware that I acknowledged that there are pressures in Oxfordshire. At the same time, the Government have to look across the board. I explained that we have increased the amount available to Oxfordshire by much more than the national average. If Oxfordshire is overspending its personal social services budget, it needs to improve its budget forecasting. Oxfordshire has been clear that there are issues relating to deficits and financial management that it wants to get to grips with in order to move forward. There will therefore be local determinants for which the Government, quite rightly, are not responsible, and—

Order. Time is up.

I am pleased to have the opportunity to highlight an issue that is important to the newspaper industry in Scotland and has wider implications for newspapers elsewhere in the UK.

My choice of debate has been prompted by the recent speculation about the likely future ownership of The Herald, the Sunday Herald and the Evening Times, following the announcement by the Scottish Media Group that it was disposing of those interests, and in particular about whether those papers will be purchased by the current owners of the Scotsman group. A great deal of debate has taken place in Scotland, the Scottish media and the Scottish Parliament about the possible sale of the Herald newspapers to The Scotsman. It is right that Westminster should also focus on the issue, given that policy on competition, including competition in the media industry, is the responsibility of the UK Parliament.

I am aware that press reports at the weekend suggested that the owners of the Scotsman group—more precisely, Ellerman Investments, which was the vehicle for the bid—had been excluded from the final shortlist of two possible purchasers for the Herald newspapers. However, that does not render today's debate unnecessary—in fact, it is even more appropriate.

First, from the way in which corporate mergers often unveil, a takeover involving The Scotsman and The Herald may come back on the scene again. Secondly, and more importantly, the possible sale prompts much wider questions about the way in which media ownership is regulated in Scotland. Given that later today the House is beginning its detailed consideration of the Communications Bill, it is appropriate to highlight my concerns, which are shared by other hon. Members.

I am not making any particular criticism of The Scotsman's owners for seeking to buy the Herald newspapers; nor am I motivated by any particular dislike of The Scotsman's editorial line, or any individuals associated with the papers. I do not always agree with the editorial line of The Scotsman or the other papers in its stable, but I am as likely to choke over my breakfast at something I read in the Daily Record or The Herald as at something in The Scotsman.

I recognise also that The Scotsman has recently adopted a role as something of an outsider from what it sees as a dominant Scottish political and media consensus. I am not sure that all my colleagues would agree, but I believe that by doing that The Scotsman plays a valuable role. In a small country such as Scotland, a danger is that differing views and challenges to a political consensus become excluded from public debate.

In so far as The Scotsman has chosen to challenge received wisdom, I welcome it. It highlights the very reason why I believe that the Scotsman group of newspapers should continue to be distinct and separate from the Herald group.

In Scotland, the Scotsman and Herald groups are two distinct and competing newspaper groups, both opening their pages to a wide range of views and contributors, and both very much competitors in the market. That competition is even more apparent in their respective Sunday publications, which have both established themselves as papers with a Scotlandwide readership and appeal. My fear, and that of many others, is that if the ownership of the two groups were to become identical, such diversity and competitiveness would diminish and run the risk of disappearing.

Senior figures from the Scotsman group have said that if there was a takeover, The Scotsman and The Herald, and presumably the Evening News and the Evening Times, would remain separate titles. Despite the sincerity of those who made the pronouncements, there must be a risk of a diminution in diversity and competition because of the normal pressures from shareholders and the market. What has been said about The Scotsman and The Herald, has not been said, as far as I am aware from the reports, about the future independence of the Sunday Herald and Scotland on Sunday.

No matter what good intentions there may be, there is a risk of the papers' separate existence being eroded because the media world is competitive. New channels and methods of communication are being developed all the time. Shareholders need a return on their capital. If the two groups of papers were to merge, there would be an inevitable tendency for an owner of the combined group to consider ways of cost saving sooner or later. It would be amazing if they did not, and it would probably be an abdication of their responsibility to their shareholders.

One can easily foresee the pressures that there would be to merge various aspects of operations of the two newspaper groups. Why would there need to be a multiplicity of foreign teams? Why would there need to be two parliamentary teams, either at Westminster or at Holyrood? Why not just have one team in both Parliaments? Obviously, that one team would report events in the same way for both papers. Why have two sets of offices in cities and towns throughout the length and breadth of Scotland? What is true of news operations, which are perhaps more visible to politicians, would undoubtedly be true of the many less visible aspects of the businesses. The merger would affect everything from the advertising sales department to farming reports and distribution networks. That would be a clear threat to jobs in Edinburgh and Glasgow, in particular.

What is even more significant to the political process is that at a time when it is especially vital that there are a range of voices in the Scottish media to ensure that there is a vibrant political debate and a hard-hitting scrutiny of the Scottish political scene, there is a risk of two very different and powerful voices being replaced by one voice alone. That would be bad for Scottish democracy— a democracy that is still finding its feet in a new world following the establishment of a devolved Parliament and Administration.

Those in the metropolitan media world may not fully appreciate the significance of such a merger in relation to public debate, news coverage and media policy in Scotland. They should ask themselves what the reaction would be if there was a prospect of The Guardian and The Times merging, without any other broadsheet papers in the market as major contenders. If that were to happen in London, there would be an immediate outcry and a chorus of voices from all parts of the media and political spectrum demanding that the regulators intervene. That is what a merger of the Scotsman and Herald groups would mean for Scotland, and that is why the issue is so important.

I call on the Government to refer any such merger to the Competition Commission. Even though the takeover of the Herald newspapers by the Scotsman newspapers may no longer be an immediately likely prospect, the issues it raises have a much wider significance. The issue emphasises that although a newspaper or media outlet may be relatively small in terms of the United Kingdom, its significance for a region or nation of the UK may be much greater. There is a need for such special interests to be taken into account when newspaper mergers and takeovers are on the agenda. The Communications Bill emphasises the need to ensure plurality of views in the newspaper industry. It is important that the role that a newspaper plays in a regional or national arena—particularly one with its own political arena, such as Scotland—is taken into account.

I well understand that the Minister has to be careful in what he says about the competition authorities. He may be especially reluctant to comment on a potential takeover rather than a specific proposal, especially when the takeover might not even proceed. I should not be surprised if he were uncharacteristically restrained in his statement today, but I would be delighted if he could expand on any of the issues.

My hon. Friend should, however, give assurances to the House that, whenever a takeover of the Herald titles takes place—as eventually it will—if it occurs under the present rules for regulating competition in the newspaper market, he will, in deciding whether to refer to the Competition Commission, take into account the role of both the Herald and the Scotsman group in the Scottish market. They should both be treated as national newspaper groups, not merely as regional groups within the UK. Will he, together with his ministerial colleagues, ensure that the new competition regime for newspapers that will be established under the Communications Bill takes account of the need for plurality and diversity in the newspaper market at the local and regional, as well as the UK level? The needs of Scotland, in particular, should be acknowledged.

I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Edinburgh, North and Leith (Mr. Lazarowicz) on introducing a debate on an important issue that is highly topical in Scotland and has major implications not just for the future of the Scottish media but for democracy itself. I warmly welcome his decision to apply for this debate and I am delighted that he was successful in securing it.

I look forward to the Minister's reply. If I smiled a few moments ago when my hon. Friend was speaking, it was because he referred to the Minister's reluctance to become involved in controversy. I had never viewed the Minister in those terms before, particularly in his journalistic role. If anyone understands the Scottish media, it is he, and we have many reasons in Scotland— not least his contribution to the West Highland Free Press—to grateful to him.

I want to underline the crucial importance of having a variety of opinions on, and interpretations of, the work of this place as well as the Scottish Parliament. I would greatly regret the takeover of The Herald and other newspapers by another news group, which would then have a virtual monopoly on reporting and the expression of opinion. The chattering classes in Scotland—I have never seen the like elsewhere—vare renowned for expressing strong and diverse opinions. Ownership is power—used and often abused—so we must take the correct decisions on these matters.

My hon. Friend spoke about the reporting of this place and the new Scottish Parliament. It is important to reflect on how opinions are presented to mould the perceptions of the readership of Scottish newspapers. The Scottish Parliament is at an early stage of its development. Frankly, it has not been helped by the way in which the chattering classes have reported it. We have also suffered here, because many of the important issues that are dealt with day after day at Westminster are simply disregarded by a media in Scotland that should show greater maturity and responsibility. The events that occurred over the weekend give us a little more encouragement, as my hon. Friend said, but I would very much regret it if the two major newspapers—The Scotsman and The Herald— and their sisters newspapers found that they had the same owners and therefore the same political influences.

I do not want to dwell on what I regard as my own unsatisfactory experience with the Scottish media for three or four years in the 1990s. I must say, I hope objectively, that they behaved disgracefully towards me, although that is a matter for memoirs or another debate. If our democracy is to flourish in this place and in Scotland, we must have the pluralism that we want and to which the people of Scotland are entitled. It would be very grave if the owners of The Herald and its sister newspapers also owned The Scotsman and its sister newspapers. Variety, democracy and pluralism are important, and my hon. Friend has done us a great service by introducing this debate. I am sure that the Minister will respond appropriately.

I, too, congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Edinburgh, North and Leith (Mr. Lazarowicz) on securing this debate on the important questions of competition and plurality in the Scottish newspaper industry. I say that not only from the perspective of a Member representing a Scottish constituency, although in the light of the comments made by my right hon. Friend the Member for Coatbridge and Chryston (Mr. Clarke) and my own modest history of press proprietorship I should, perhaps, enter a disclaimer. I am not, however, thinking of entering a late bid.

It is widely recognised that a vibrant and diversified press is essential for healthy, democratic debate, especially in a nation such as Scotland that shares many interests with the rest of the United Kingdom but also has its own rich traditions, culture and concerns. Today's debate is so important that it is surprising that only one political party is represented in the Chamber.

The Government have noted the considerable interest in the proposed sale of the Scottish Media Group's publishing division. We saw that in the House, the Scottish Parliament, the press arid among the public of Scotland. In particular, there has been lengthy and lively debate about the effect that the sale might have on the plurality of views available from the press. As has been recognised, that chimes with the measures that we proposed to protect the public interest in newspaper mergers in the Communications Bill, which receives its Second Reading in the House this afternoon. I hope that my hon. Friend, and others who recognise the importance of protecting the plurality of the press in the United Kingdom and its nations, regions and localities, will support our proposals in the Bill.

As my hon. Friend properly recognised and other hon. Members will understand, I cannot comment today on the details of an individual case that the Secretary of State may have to consider under the merger provisions of the Fair Trading Acts. However, it would be useful briefly to set out the processes by which a sale of SMG's publishing business may fall to be considered under merger control provisions.

If the acquirer of SMG's newspapers is an existing UK newspaper provider, and if a circulation threshold is met, the transfers would fall to be considered under a special newspaper merger regime. The threshold is that the total paid-for circulation of the newspapers involved averages 500,000 or more each day of publication. Qualifying newspaper transfers are unlawful and void without the Secretary of State's prior written consent, and except in certain circumstances, the Secretary of State cannot give such consent without a Competition Commission inquiry.

My hon. Friend referred to the 500,000 threshold for sold copies of a publication. Given that a number of newspaper chains make great play of their total circulation, including copies that are given away, would it not be more appropriate if the figure included the circulation figures as they are claimed, rather than simply the paid-for circulation figures?

My hon. Friend has alighted on an interesting point, which I shall be pleased to clarify in writing. Whether the 500,000 a day is in sales or distribution should be clarified.

The Competition Commission would be directed to report on whether the transfer might be expected to operate against the public interest, taking into account all matters that appeared to be relevant, particularly the need for accurate presentation of news and free expression of opinion. The Secretary of State would have regard to the report in deciding whether to consent to the proposed transfers, and could make consent subject to conditions.

If the acquirer is not an existing United Kingdom newspaper proprietor, or the circulation threshold is not met, the merger could fall to be considered not under the special newspaper regime but under the general merger regime of the Fair Trading Acts. In the first instance, it would be for the director general of fair trading to assess the merger's likely impact before advising Ministers on whether he believed that it should be referred to the Competition Commission.

The Competition Commission would be directed to report on whether the merger would be expected to operate against the public interest. Again, the final decision would be for the Secretary of State, although under this regime, in deciding on a reference, she would generally expect to follow the director general's advice, and in the event of a reference, she could take no action if the commission found that the merger would not, or would not be likely to, operate against the public interest.

Under the Enterprise Act 2002, which reforms merger control and which we plan to commence next spring, the vast majority of mergers will be assessed only on the test of whether they would result in a substantial lessening of competition. However, we still believe that the plurality of views in the press is a vital public interest and we remain committed to its protection. To that end, the 2002 Act has preserved the special newspaper merger regime of the Fair Trading Acts until such time as the Communications Bill reforms those measures. The principle is important: the special newspaper regime should remain. Those reforms will continue to provide a system for protecting the particular public interest that newspaper transfers can involve. Decision making in cases that raise plurality concerns will rest with the Secretary of State, rather than the specialist competition authorities.

The newspaper public interest considerations in the Communications Bill are substantively directed at the same types of public interest issue that have arisen in the past in relation to newspaper transfers. We have drawn very much from the existing body of precedent. They will cover the concepts of free expression of opinion and accurate presentation of news that are already identified as matters to which the Competition Commission is to have particular regard in the public interest test under the special newspaper merger regime.

There will be a third limb of plurality of views. That is designed to pick up some of the issues that the Competition Commission has previously considered, or might want to consider, in relation to plurality, but that might not fall strictly within the concepts of accurate presentation of news and free expression of opinion. In particular, that is aimed at ensuring that, so far as is reasonable and practical, a range of different views is available in newspaper markets.

The Bill will remove the rather anomalous distinction in the Fair Trading Acts under which different regimes apply, depending on whether the acquirer is a newspaper proprietor and on whether the circulation threshold is met. In future, there will be a single newspaper plurality regime.

I assure my hon. Friend that we take this issue extremely seriously. Our concern is not limited to what might be called the national press in a UK sense, or the London press, as some might describe it. Newspapers in all parts of the UK play powerful roles as opinion formers for the communities that they serve. For those affected, local, regional and national issues in Scotland, Wales, Northern Ireland, and indeed England, as well as the wider UK issues of the day, can be of great significance.

The Communications Bill will rightly allow us to continue to consider issues of editorial freedom and the plurality of views in mergers affecting the local and regional, as much as the national press. In addition, when considering newspaper plurality, the Competition Commission will be specifically directed to test local opinion effectively, for example by means of citizens' juries.

The newspaper industry plays an essential role in political debate and the democratic process. My hon. Friend will appreciate that I cannot comment on individual merger cases, but I hope that he will rest assured that the Government are committed not only to their current approach but to continuing the protection and maintenance of freedom and variety of expression in the press, and the wide range of views that the UK press offers. We need greater rather than lesser diversity, which is why future legislation will maintain the existing principles.

I recognise that this subject is of widespread interest in Scotland, for all the reasons that have been discussed, and that whatever happens on this specific issue will continue to be of interest in Scotland and throughout the UK. My hon. Friend has done the issue a service by giving it an airing in the debate today, and if I have not dealt with any points that he raised, I will be pleased to respond to him in writing.

Scotland has a tradition of a geographically, culturally and politically diverse press, as has the UK as a whole. It is clear from the approach that we are taking through the Communications Bill, the Enterprise Act 2002, and the perpetuation of the special newspaper regime, that that is the sort of media that we wish to maintain in Scotland and in the UK.

I am grateful to the newspaper industry in Scotland for allowing us an extra three minutes in which to discuss this important topic. I am also grateful for the support of my hon. Friend the Member for Salisbury (Mr. Key) in the debate this morning. My hon. Friend the Member for Westbury (Dr. Murrison) and my right hon. Friend the Member for Devizes (Mr. Ancram) have also lent their support, but sadly are not able to be here today.

We sought today's debate because we believed that there might be a threat to the rural policing fund—the ring-fenced funding directly targeted at rural police forces. We were concerned that, if that money were subsumed into the general police funding, even if there was a proportionate increase in the general funding to take account of it, there would be no guarantee of its continuation in subsequent years. In other words, the extra cash that the Home Office, quite correctly, allocates against the additional costs of policing in rural areas would have had to fight for its survival among the more general funding.

In Wiltshire, the annual rural grant is spent on a range of activities and initiatives, many of which allow the high visibility that is so important in a rural area, as well as contributing to the more obvious extra costs of rural policing. For example, it pays for air support at night time. I pay particular tribute to the voluntarily funded Wiltshire air ambulance service, which shares helicopters with the police.

I am delighted to have the support of the hon. Member for South Swindon (Ms Drown), who has now joined the debate. We apologise to her for having started ahead of time, owing to the previous debate having finished early.

The annual rural grant allows more call handling staff, contributes to the prisoner handling team, pays for five support staff who keep the rural stations open, supplies and fits out vehicles that act as mobile police stations, and employs three staff to work on the employment and retention of specials. All those vital services would have been at risk had the rural policing fund been abolished, so we were greatly relieved by the Home Secretary's announcement at the Association of Police Authorities conference that the fund is to be preserved outside the formula. That will safeguard it for subsequent years.

I am delighted to have been joined by my hon. Friend the Member for Westbury, to whom I apologise for having started a moment or two early. I am grateful for his support.

A less modest Member of Parliament might attribute the preservation of the rural policing fund outside the general formula—that seems extremely important for future years—to the imminence of this debate, or at least to our lobbying of the Home Office in the past week or two. The Wiltshire police authority and other rural police authorities, especially those from the south-west of England, have also lobbied the Home Office heavily on the subject. We are glad that the Home Secretary listened carefully and agreed to preserve a ring-fenced fund outside general funding. We merely ask the Minister to assure us that that ring-fencing will continue in subsequent years, as that is terribly important.

That is where the good news, and perhaps the cross-party consensus, begins to peter out a shade. We and our colleagues in the Wiltshire police authority remain extremely concerned about the imminent announcement on Thursday of the local government settlement, and of the proposed changes to the police funding formula. We all hope that the good sense that the Home Secretary applied in saving the rural grant will be brought to bear on his colleagues in the Office of the Deputy Prime Minister when they consider the settlement.

The press reports—they may be wrong, and one must not believe everything one reads in the papers, so we must wait until Thursday—suggest that funds will be shifted from rural shire areas towards metropolitan areas. That certainly would be the outcome of most of the changes proposed in any of the different versions of the formula that were put out for consultation. No matter which of the five or six options in the consultation process is adopted, some such leaching of funds seems likely.

It is true that Wiltshire has a low crime rate compared with some more urban areas, although the crime rate in Swindon and Salisbury bears comparison with that in most of the larger metropolitan areas elsewhere in England. Yesterday, the Wiltshire chairman of the National Farmers Union, Denise Plummer, reminded me forcefully that even in rural areas there is a worryingly high instance of burglary, especially against farms. In an area such as mine, there is also a worryingly high quantity of drug-related crime.

People often think of drugs as a problem for the inner cities, but rural areas have as big a drugs problem as elsewhere. I discovered only this week that drugs are even a significant problem in one of the smallest rural primary schools in a small local village. Two or three weeks ago, in a superb operation, Wiltshire police arrested 30 drug dealers. People sometimes think of places such as Wiltshire as leafy, suburban, rural and prosperous, but that is not the case. We have significant crime.

The fact that our overall crime levels are in the lowest three in the country is not necessarily because the area is intrinsically better, but perhaps because it is better policed. Crime detection levels in Wiltshire are in the top six in Britain. Our concern is that if funds were leached away from rural to metropolitan areas, that would undermine the fine policing that produces a comparatively low crime rate in places such as Wiltshire. The A303 in the south of Wiltshire, in the constituency of my hon. Friend the Member for Salisbury, and the M4, which goes through my constituency, mean that it is easy to transfer crime from, for example, Bristol, Swindon, London or Reading to areas such as mine. It is wrong to think of such areas as intrinsically less affected by crime.

If funding were cut, Wiltshire police authority, which has taken the lead on several policing initiatives, would no longer be at the cutting edge. We have taken the lead on e-policing, for example, although I was amused to hear that the Home Secretary specifically and personally insisted that the White Paper on policing be circulated to all personnel in paper form, even though every civilian and uniformed member of Wiltshire police authority has an e-mail address.

rose—

The Minister is about to repudiate that dreadful allegation. Let me say, however, that the chief constable specifically requested that the White Paper be circulated by e-mail. I would be happy to be corrected, but I am told that the Home Office refused to allow that. The Minister wants to put me right.

I congratulate Wiltshire police authority on enabling all its staff to be receive documents by e-mail. The reason the White Paper was made available in paper form was that, sadly, not all police forces allow their officers to access material distributed by e-mail. We are working on that, and I congratulate Wiltshire on being ahead of the game.

Apparently, not everyone is on the cutting edge like Wiltshire. There is another problem in that regard, which the chief constable raised with me. People do not read documents that are sent out in paper form, and great piles of paper sit unread in the corner of the police station for quite some time, whereas there is a slightly higher chance of persuading everyone to read their e-mail.

Wiltshire has been extremely imaginative in another sense. It is the first county in which the emergency services have set up a joint command and control centre. The police, the fire brigade and the ambulance service are all in one place, and the new building in Devizes will be opened shortly. Admittedly, there is a problem with the fire brigade, which has insisted that a partition be built in the joint control room, and the Fire Brigades Union is contesting the matter nationally, but we hope that the last remaining barrier will be broken down in the not-too-distant future so that all three services can operate from one control room. It is worth having such arrangements in Wiltshire, which leads the nation in that regard. If, in an unhappy change to the funding formula, our funding were cut on Thursday, such innovations would unquestionably be undermined.

The Minister must think very carefully about such issues, and I hope that he will make strong representations to his colleagues in ODPM. Perhaps he will tell us not to worry and that he will put a floor in place so that our grant will not fall below a certain level no matter what changes are made to the funding formula. I would counter, however, that a floor merely extends the length of time over which a cut becomes effective. We are told that funding will not be allowed to fall below a certain level, but that it will not go up either. A floor does not guarantee that funding will remain as it is but merely spreads the pain—possibly over many years. Any such shift in funding is unacceptable in principle, irrespective of how it is managed.

The only other way to counter any untoward change in the funding formula would be to increase the precept. Before the Minister contemplates going down that track, however, he should consider this. It is not unreasonable to assume that there will be a 2 per cent. increase in central Government funding on Thursday. Let us also assume that Wiltshire's precept will increase by 10 per cent., which is as much as can be contemplated without inflicting great hardship. In that regard, it was interesting that the Countryside Agency produced a report this morning about poverty and deprivation in the countryside. An increase of more than 10 per cent. in the precept would have very worrying effects on many constituents, while a 2 per cent. increase in general funding plus a 10 per cent. increase in the precept would result in a £1.2 million cut in police funding in Wiltshire. In crude terms, that is equivalent to 50 police officers.

The statistics demonstrate that, even without any further untoward changes in the funding formula, a 2 per cent. general increase in central funding on Thursday and a 10 per cent. increase in the local precept could still lead to the loss of about 50 police officers in Wiltshire. For the sake of the peace of mind of my constituents and those of my hon. Friends, it is only reasonable to say that it is unlikely that 50 redundancy notices will be going out on Friday morning. Of course that will not happen; that is not how it works, and it would be wrong to give that impression. Eventually, in a year or two, because of reduction or delay in recruitment, 50 fewer officers than at present would be available in Wiltshire.

In my area and, I am sure, other parts of Wiltshire, there are real visibility problems. Visibility is extremely important in rural areas. The problem is occurring in places such as Malmesbury, Wootton Bassett, Chippenham and Corsham, the four main towns in my area. My surgery is full of people complaining about it. How much worse things would be if the Government were to try to filch further funds from us in favour of Labour-controlled inner-city areas. That would he unsustainable and politically unforgivable.

I hope that the Minister will take advantage of this short debate and, just as the Home Secretary has done with respect to the rural policing fund, allay our concerns about what may await us in the settlement to be announced on Thursday, and the new formula. Rural police forces await the announcement with some nervousness. The Wiltshire police do an outstanding job and I hope that the Minister will lay out plans that will allow them to continue to be as good as they are.

I congratulate the hon. Member for North Wiltshire (Mr. Gray) on securing this debate. I am pleased to see in the Chamber my hon. Friend the Member for South Swindon (Ms Drown) and the hon. Members for Westbury (Dr. Murrison) and for Salisbury (Mr. Key). I am grateful for their interest.

It is of course a bit unfortunate that the debate takes place before the announcement of the provisional police funding settlement for next year, which is due later this week—on Thursday, on the current timetable. However, today we have a useful opportunity to discuss some of the local concerns that were well set out by the hon. Gentleman, as well as what the Government and the police are doing, with local authorities, to reduce crime and make Wiltshire a safer place to live in.

The announcement is imminent and I cannot provide further specifics until it has been made. It is worth bearing in mind that Thursday's announcements will be provisional. As with the rest of the local government settlement, there will be an opportunity to make representations during the consultation period, which will run, on current plans, until 14 January 2003.

I acknowledge the record of the police service in Wiltshire. It has a good record as an innovative force. The hon. Gentleman has talked about the joint working that has led to the combined control centre. Those concerned with the provisions in the Police Reform Act 2002 for extending the use of police staff in custody suites learned from innovative work done in Wiltshire. Also, some of the changes that we made in that Act to allow wider use of nurses and paramedics were made in response to direct representations from Elizabeth Neville, the chief constable. I am happy to acknowledge—with regard not just to e-policing and the current initiatives, but to several other matters—that Wiltshire police have worked hard to innovate and to lead the reforms that we want to happen more widely.

For the current year, Wiltshire police were allocated Government grant of £56.5 million, which was an increase of 2.3 per cent. over 2001–02. Last year floors and ceilings on the change in police grant were introduced for the first time. Floors protect police authorities that would otherwise receive a lower settlement, by ensuring that no authority receives an increase in grant of less than 2.3 per cent. The use of floors and ceilings ensured that every police authority received a grant at least in line with general inflation.

The way in which grant is distributed according to the system is intended broadly to reflect the relative needs of forces. The formula is weighted according to population so that forces covering larger populations receive more money. It also takes into account sociodemographic factors, and that, in part, is understood by all concerned as one of the surrogates for the pressure on policing—the likely demand and the likely levels of activity.

The hon. Gentleman said that it would be wrong to get the impression that Wiltshire was suburban, rural and prosperous. Large parts of it—I know the southern area best—are indeed rural and prosperous. Not all of it is, and my hon. Friend the Member for South Swindon comes from a part that has its fair share of problems. However, it would be wrong to characterise Wiltshire in the way in which the hon. Gentleman attempted to do.

Can my right hon. Friend explain why, in the consultation, deprivation has been considered as a factor that might be introduced into the formula? Policing is not like education, where deprivation is used as a proxy for educational challenges or attainment. When crime statistics are used in a formula, as they have been here, surely it is not necessary to include deprivation as well. I hope that he will move on to the matter of cost. The high costs that our police force faces are an important issue for all of us in Wiltshire.

We held consultations on a number of possible amendments to the formula because it was, as always, difficult to achieve the correct balance of the factors involved. We are sometimes urged to put a lot of weight directly on recorded crime statistics. That brings with it the danger of rewarding the police services that are not performing well, as opposed to those that are fighting crime effectively. The search is always on to balance the factors in a way that fairly represents the different pressures on the police service.

We held consultations on a proposal to bring the rural policing fund into the main police grant formula. There were reasons for that. It would have been possible to have a rural formula that reflected sparsity, and for that to be reflected in the main formula. However, the balance of responses to the consultation was that, although that would have resulted in winners and losers, even in rural areas, there was a sense that the rural areas and those that benefited from the rural policing fund preferred to have a separate, ring-fenced fund, rather than for it to be part of the main formula. The case could be argued either way, but we listened to the consultation and we were pleased to hear the announcement that my right hon. Friend the Home Secretary made a few weeks ago.

The rural policing fund is a good example of the way in which some police forces benefit from the allocation of significant sums outside the normal grant formula—in Wiltshire's case, £1.1 million. There are other funds through which forces gain significant sums outside the grant distribution. This year, Wiltshire received £1.7 million from the crime fighting fund, which is tied directly to the recruitment of additional police officers. Thanks to the Government's introduction of that fund, we now have record numbers of police officers in England and Wales.

The hon. Member for North Wiltshire made many of my points about the use of the rural policing fund for me. Wiltshire was one of the forces that was able to demonstrate effective use of its expenditure. He referred to the air support providing night-time coverage and faster response times, the investment in call handling staff to improve the service across the county and the establishment of the prisoner handling team. I referred in my opening remarks to some of Wiltshire's innovations: support for rural station clerks, the development of mobile police stations and the investment—which I thoroughly commend—in support staff to work on the employment and retention of special constables.

There are many concerns about and recognised limitations to the police funding formula. As a whole, it has strengths, and it has the general confidence of the policing community. We have been keen to ensure that any new arrangements fully support the reform and modernisation process on which we have embarked for the police, while retaining public confidence. The 2003–04 consultation paper contained six options for change: using new activity analysis data; integrating the rural policing fund into the main formula, which we have discussed; reducing the establishment component to zero; increasing the personal crime component; increasing the public order component; and the possibility of a 2 per cent. deprivation component.

I believe that the majority of the policing community has been in favour of updating the activity analysis data and generally in favour of ending the establishment component. There has been a strong preference for retaining the rural policing fund. The balance of support for the other options is more mixed, as one would expect, depending on its impact on different services. The decisions on those options will have to wait until Thursday.

I have already mentioned the effective role played by the crime fighting fund. The Government recognise that police numbers are an important part of a comprehensive package of measures to ensure a modern and efficient police service. The public feel reassured by the sight of police officers on our streets, and that certainly helps to reduce the fear of crime. It is, of course, for the chief constable and the police authority to determine the precise make-up of the force and the distribution of officers throughout the force area. On 31 March 2002, Wiltshire had 1,157 police officers, 37 more than in March 2001. I understand that the force plans to recruit a further 89 officers by March 2003, thereby meeting its recruitment target for the current year.

Since 1997, the number of civilian staff employed by Wiltshire police increased by 174 to 649 in March 2001. Many of the extra civilian support staff have been used to free police officers from paperwork and jobs that can be undertaken as effectively by civilians, allowing police officers to spend more time on operational work. I have already acknowledged the lead of the chief constable of Wiltshire in developing the full role of police staff.

The Minister said that there were 1,157 police officers in March 2002. He then went on to talk about the increase in civilian employees since 1997. Perhaps he could tell us how many police officers there were in Wiltshire in 1997 and how that compares with the current figure.

I do not have the exact figure, but I know that there were fewer then than there are in Wiltshire now. I shall write to the hon. Gentleman on that point.

In addition, we are committed to increasing the size of the special constabulary, whose numbers have gradually fallen. That is partly because of the numbers of special constables who have been allowed to join the police service, but none the less, we are currently working with Peter Fahy, the chief constable of Surrey, on a project to consider ways of improving the recruitment, deployment and effective use of specials, which we hope will produce valuable guidance for the service next year. I know that Wiltshire police want the number of special constables to be increased.

The hon. Gentleman referred, fairly, to recorded crime in Wiltshire. Recorded crime levels have decreased since 1996–97. The figures for all categories of offence are lower in Wiltshire than the average in the south-west region or in England and Wales as a whole. Detection rates in Wiltshire for each of the categories are better than in the south-west region or England and Wales as a whole. The annual detection rate of 30 per cent. is higher than that for the south-west region as a whole, which is 23 per cent.

Of course, the support that we provide for the police service is not the only way in which we seek to reduce and tackle crime in Wiltshire. Crime reduction partnerships have also been developed in the county. In 2002–03, the police service was able to work, through those partnerships, with local authorities and others, using just under £750,000 of funding from the partnership development fund, the safer communities initiative and the communities against drugs project. More directly, the force has recently applied for, and will receive, funding to employ 15 community support officers by the end of the financial year.

CSOs are an innovation introduced in the Police Reform Act 2002. The Metropolitan police service has pioneered the idea. All hon. Members will have seen the CSOs patrolling who have taken over some of the anti-terrorism reassurance duties in Westminster, allowing police officers to return to their normal duties. I am interested to hear that a predominantly rural police service such as Wiltshire's has also taken advantage of that funding. It will be interesting to see what use will be made of CSOs and how effectively they can be deployed in different circumstances from those of the Metropolitan police.

The hon. Gentleman quite reasonably asked me to speculate on what figures there might be on Thursday. I am afraid that I cannot do that, but I shall make an important point. We have made it clear that this year we shall continue the policy of having floors and ceilings in the grant settlement. He said that the only thing that floors do is spread out cuts. I do not accept that. It is worth bearing in mind that for a number of years the overall funding of the police service has been increasing in real terms, which will continue. The cake is getting bigger. While any changes to any funding formula mean that the relative sizes of the slices of the cake change, that does not mean that police services face cuts in real terms in their allocation.

Can the Minister assure us that he has given due consideration to the special responsibilities of the Wiltshire constabulary—including special protection—with regard to the Ministry of Defence police, the military police and the other service authorities, which impose a significant burden?

When the burdens of such costs are significant enough to be picked up either through direct funding arrangements or in the funding formula, that is done. It is not always possible to pick up every cost, because every police force is able to point to something that is peculiar to the challenges in its area. I could not tell the hon. Gentleman the precise balance of funding, if any, that is available to Wiltshire, though I would be happy to write to him about what provision is made.

The debate about the funding formula has been limited to the six potential changes that I outlined, rather than taking in issues that are specific to any particular force. Any other arrangements would be dealt with outside the formula.

I hope that I have been able to respond to at least some of the points raised. Had the timing of the debate been slightly different—had it taken place after Thursday—we could no doubt have discussed the real figures, but we will have to wait until another day for that.

Question put and agreed to.

Adjourned accordingly at three minutes to Two o'clock.