I am grateful for the opportunity to raise this subject and I am delighted to see other hon. Members in the Chamber. The timing of the debate was instigated by the Prestige disaster and the problems of oil spills at sea. Today is a poignant anniversary given that, 10 years ago, on 5 January, the Braer ran aground on the Shetland Isles. I am pleased to see that the hon. Member for Orkney and Shetland (Mr. Carmichael) is present, and I hope that he will remind us of what that disaster meant for the local communities.

Unfortunately, there are discharges from vessels all the time as there are from oil and gas rigs. In 2001, 678 polluting discharges were registered by the Advisory Committee on Protection of the Sea. In one way that was encouraging given that there were 743 discharges in the previous year. Of the 678 discharges, 71 per cent. were from offshore oil and gas installations; 11 per cent. from fishing vessels, 5 per cent. from general cargo ships and 4 per cent. from oil and chemical tankers. Such figures put some matters in perspective, but the real problem is that when an oil tanker, in particular, has an accident, runs aground or breaks up, the ecological damage is huge. That sort of disaster comes to everyone's attention.

Ecological disasters and problems have strong safety implications. Each time a ship runs aground, lives are at risk. Marine accidents cost human lives throughout the world. There is an average annual loss of 350 seafarers. Perhaps it is a reflection of today's world that the loss of seafarers' lives does not grab as much attention as pictures of oiled sea birds and devastated fishing communities. While that will be the main thrust of my speech, it is beholden upon us to recognise the safety implications for human life and the fact that some ships should not be at sea. I am talking not only about their effect on our environment, but people's lives are put at risk by what, on land, would be called cowboy operators.

The European Union blacklisted 66 ships that face a port access ban, 26 of which fly the flag of Turkey. Twelve sail under the flag of St. Vincent and the Grenadines, nine fly the flag of Cambodia and three the flag of Algeria. Of those ships, 49 are bulk carriers, eight are chemical tankers and eight oil tankers and there is one passenger vessel. It is a fact of life that the marine environment and the marine industry are international. One reads about such vessels, although relatively few are operating. We would be less than happy if MOTs in our country were issued by a Liberian authority.

I apologise. Owing to the new timetable and the fact that the parliamentary Labour party meets at 10 am, I cannot stay in Westminster Hall. May I record that it is a crying shame that the other place scuppered the hon. Gentleman's Bill on the marine environment? I hope that that measure will be brought back in one form or another during this Session.

I thank the hon. Gentleman for that intervention. I place on the record my gratitude for the work that has been done by the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs and for the assurances that it has given. The Department might not be working towards all of the measures that I had hoped would be included. It might, however, even make an improvement because a private Member's Bill, by its nature, is not able to do all the things that primary legislation does. I am looking forward to that, and I shall be happy to give the Government my support.

Recent incidents have illustrated the seriousness of oil spills and the impact that those can have on a marine environment. We have seen the high-profile disaster involving the oil tanker Prestige off the Galician coast. Of course, we know that the impact of that has not only devastated that coastline—it is now finding its way up to the Atlantic coast of France. That underlines that the issue must be tackled internationally, although I hope that we in the United Kingdom will be able to implement some measures on our own.

Ports of refuge could be prepared and made available throughout the EU to mitigate the problems that we saw when the Prestige first got into difficulties, but I understand the problems in respect of ports of refuge. People might say, "That's a jolly good idea, but we don't want one near us." However, we should consider whether some of the ships in trouble could be taken to a particular place, rather than be left at sea because no one wanted to get near them.

The Prestige case had a high profile, but in the past two months there have been some less high-profile pollution problems. For example, significant numbers of oiled sea birds were washed up on the East Anglian coast in late 2002. Such incidents exemplify a more difficult problem and we need more action at both national and international levels to try to tackle it.

Many hon. Members are hoping to catch your eye, Mr. Cook, so I will not dwell for too long on the impacts on the seabird population—the facts are self-evident. We have all seen television news items of poor, wretched creatures: auks, guillemots, razorbills and some of the sea ducks, including long-tailed ducks and scoters. Birds that dive into the water or that swim on the surface are most vulnerable to oil slicks.

There is a human cost, as we have seen in Galicia, Orkney and Shetland, resulting from oil spills on fisheries. The last restrictions on fishing were lifted only a full seven years after the Braer ran aground on Shetland, so it is apparent that the impact is not only on the simple ecology, but on people's lives. As we know, fishing communities are suffering greatly. Even from the inland security of Uxbridge, I am well aware that fishing communities all around our islands are in crisis. A major oil spill may be the final straw.

Some people have suggested there should be environmental incentives such as those in the Merchant Shipping and Fishing Vessels (Port Waste Reception Facilities) Regulations 2002 that came into force on 28 December 2002, which promote the polluter pays principle. I hope that the regulations will have an impact.

A satellite monitoring tracking system for identifying oil spills was trialled between August 2000 and August 2001 and considered a success by the Maritime and Coastguard Agency. I would be pleased to hear of any new movement by the Government to make more of that trial. If oil spills could be found and tracked more quickly, it might be possible to alleviate problems earlier.

There has been much talk about single-hulled oil tankers and the need for tankers to be double-hulled. It would be great if we could get single-hulled tankers out of European Union waters, but they would only end up going somewhere else and becoming someone else's problem. The international community should seriously examine such vessels, which, from a layman's point of view, perhaps should not be at sea at all.

We must try to ensure that vessels that could cause problems are kept well away from areas of environmental sensitivity. In response to a question about when the second round of consultation on marine environment high-risk areas would take place, the Under-Secretary of State for Transport replied in a written answer that he expected

"the consultation document will be issued during February 2003"—[Official Report, 16 December 2002; Vol. 396, c. 580W.]

I am grateful for that positive development, but disappointed that it has taken so long. Lord Donaldson recommended the establishment of a network of high-risk areas in his 1994 inquiry that followed the running aground of the Braer in 1993. Vessels carrying dangerous cargoes would be routed away from the United Kingdom's most sensitive coastal sites and the most hazardous shipping areas. That brings us to another problem that we have seen recently, when a ship has gone down and other vessels, despite being given clear warning from what I have seen in the press, still manage to hit the wreckage. We should look towards getting such vessels away from our most sensitive coastal sites.

There are also questions surrounding the ratification of various international conventions, but we must ensure that these conventions work. It is one thing for them to be written down; it is another to make sure that they are implemented. Although the Government sometimes think that they can do everything and rather like to say that they can, the problem cannot be solved overnight. It must be considered internationally and from an EU position. The issue is important. The marine environment has been a Cinderella for so long that action must be taken because a major disaster on the UK coast is just a stone's throw away.

I am pleased to take part in the debate at short notice, and I congratulate the hon. Member for Uxbridge (Mr. Randall) on securing it at such a relevant time. We have seen the Prestige disaster unfold before our eyes and, more recently, the Tricolor was stranded in the channel, and is likely to stay there for a few weeks yet.

I have taken an interest in marine safety, and am the promoter of the Marine Safety Bill, a private Member's Bill, which has already been mentioned. I should like to trail that Bill, and hope that the hon. Member for Uxbridge and other hon. Members present will support it. Its Second Reading will be on 28 February, and I hope that thereafter it will be discussed in detail in Committee.

The recent sinking of the Prestige highlighted the importance of the United Kingdom being ready to respond to maritime incidents at very short notice. When a ship gets into difficulties, there is a narrow window of time in which effective action can be taken. Outside that narrow window, action is much more difficult, and terrible disasters can occur, such as those that have happened off the Spanish and French coasts.

My Bill, which I hope to take through all the parliamentary stages, will promote effective emergency action in two main ways. First, it will confer powers on the Secretary of State to give directions to owners and operators of facilities used by ships such as berths, wharfs and jetties to make those facilities available for reducing or preventing pollution and safety hazards to ships. Secondly, it will allow fire-fighting authorities to charge for activities at sea that are outside their usual area of authority.

The Department for Transport told me yesterday that, fortunately, there are now fewer incidents around British coastal waters. We should congratulate those responsible for safety at sea on that fact, which comes despite a significant increase in the volume of shipping entering British ports and harbours. Oil is the main, but not the sole, pollution problem; many ships carry other dangerous cargoes, including dangerous chemicals, and those that are not so dangerous but lead to pollution at sea.

I shall give one example of a ship in difficulty that my Bill would, I hope, have tackled. Not that long ago, a tanker coming into a private wharf had a small engine fire on board. In the opinion of British authorities, the oil cargo of that ship could have been unloaded on the jetty. We should remember that some jetties are quite a way from the coast; they stretch out to sea so that the ship can be attached by snorkel and pipeline to the coastal facility.

The company involved, which I shall not name today—I shall probably name it during our debates on the Marine Safety Bill—insisted that the ship be towed out to sea. It did so for economic reasons, namely that the ship would have tied up the jetty for perhaps several days, if not weeks, if the fire became more serious. As I have said, the fire was in the engine room, so the engine was not completely co-operative. The ship was towed out to sea in worsening weather conditions. It could be argued that that was irresponsible. If it had been towed out in very difficult weather conditions with fire fighting going on, which often involves pumping water on to a ship, the water would not have escaped. That water would have added weight to an already fully laden ship, and there could have been a serious disaster. I am told that fire fighting can often sink a ship due to the amount of water that goes on board.

The Government do not have the authority to commandeer shore operations such as wharves and jetties—or even coastline, if it is needed—to deal with a disaster in British coastal waters. That is unsatisfactory. If my Bill is enacted, it will enable the Government, through the Maritime and Coastguard Agency and the Secretary of State's representative—who is usually known as SOSREP—to commandeer such private onshore facilities when the coastguards alert them to a ship that is in trouble. Not only the British Government but all Governments should have the authority to do that. Sometimes ships are in difficult positions around our coastline, and they are not always in a harbour or close to a jetty. If we come to debate my Bill in Committee, we shall discuss many more instances of ships in trouble. As we are in London, it might be relevant to point out that all the wharves and jetties in the port of London are privately owned. This city is still a major port, and it is clear that it needs the provisions that are set out in the Bill.

The second part of my Bill addresses fire fighting. County and city brigades only have the authority to fight fires within their jurisdiction. Of course, they cross boundaries onshore, but I am told that their jurisdiction ends at the low water level. Beyond that, their authority is not the same as it is onshore. Difficulties arise from that fact and from other technical reasons for fire-fighting operators. They are less likely to fight fires because of them, and because it is hard for them to recover their costs from shipowners through their insurance companies. My Bill will make it much easier to recover costs, so that fire-fighting authorities with a lot of experience in fighting fires both onshore and offshore will continue to train their staff to a high level and be ready to deal with any ships on fire that are in British coastal waters. With the sort of experience they have, they could even be used to fight fires in the English channel, in co-operation with authorities across the channel.

My interest in ship safety arose as a result of the sinking of the MV Derbyshire in the Pacific ocean many years ago. We have now had a full inquiry into the sinking of that ship: some people believe that the first inquiry was a whitewash, but the Government reopened it and the truth about the sinking of the MV Derbyshire is now out.

The all-party group of which I am an executive member has now converted itself into an all-party group that is interested in safety at sea, and that includes pollution. I encourage Members who are not members of the group to join us. We are campaigning for improved ship safety, and I must praise the Government for doing quite a lot to improve that. In recent weeks, there have been announcements through meetings of the International Maritime Organisation and other authorities; things are beginning to move. International co-operation is needed, and those of us who are involved in politics know how difficult it is to collaborate with other countries, some of which do not share the high standards of the British Government.

I will not refer in detail to the things that would improve ship safety. One of them has been mentioned. Ships carrying dangerous cargoes—especially oil tankers and tankers carrying liquid chemicals—should be double-skinned. That is essential. All warships, of course, have double skins. If the first skin is penetrated, the second may not be and it may be possible to preserve the cargo intact.

A "Panorama" programme a few weeks ago dealt with what seems to have sunk the Derbyshire and many other ships: heavy water cascading down on to the ship in storms and smashing the deck facilities, especially the hatch covers. Moves are now afoot to introduce international regulations to strengthen hatch covers; not only the forward hatch covers but all of them, along the length of the ship. The ships in question are extremely long and when the captain is on the bridge in a storm he cannot see what is happening all the way along the ship. The inquiry that considered the Derbyshire disaster recommended that CCTV cameras be fitted. There would still be difficulties in a storm, but fitting cameras down the length of the ship would at least make some observation possible.

Weather forecasting has improved tremendously with the use of satellites. Indeed, swarms of satellites, rather like swarms of bees, can now measure wave heights all around the world and transmit that information to national centres of weather forecasting. Navigational aids have improved, especially on the most modern ships.

Why do we fit black boxes in aircraft but not in ships? When aircraft crash we recover the black boxes and examine the information that they have recorded immediately prior to the disaster. The black box is used in a full inquiry into an air disaster. Unfortunately, that does not yet happen with shipping worldwide. The all-party group is campaigning for the fitting of black boxes, certainly to new ships, and I believe that the Government are interested in the idea. It might be difficult to retrofit black boxes to existing shipping.

I am told by friends in Liverpool who are sailors and have sailed on some of the worst shipping in the world in their time, that after about 15 years some bulk carriers—it is those vessels that we are particularly concerned about—are literally rust buckets. They should not be at sea. They should be scrapped. However, sailors tell me that these rust buckets are still floating around the world. When the decks corrode, it is common practice with some flagged-out authority shipping to put tarpaulin over the deck hull and paint it the same colour as the deck. That is entirely unacceptable. Ships like that—there are more than a few sailing today—should not be given a licence to sail.

Full investigation should take place after every shipping disaster, whether minor or major, and we should learn from disasters. The general public have seen a long list of oil tankers from the Torrey Canyon to the Prestige going down, polluting the coasts of many countries. We do not seem to learn from these disasters. Full shipping inquiries should point all countries towards improving ships' safety.

It is also important for Governments to be given the powers—I am not sure whether the British Government have such powers, but I suspect that they do—to refuse to accept dangerous ships into their waters. If all countries were given, through international agreements, powers not to accept into their ports and harbours or anywhere near their coastlines dangerous shipping of the kind to which I have referred, shipowners would have to scrap it, or at the very least improve its safety.

I have presented a small trailer to my Bill, and I urge all hon. Members to support it, because it is too important to be a missed opportunity.

First, I congratulate the hon. Member for Uxbridge (Mr. Randall) on securing what he described as a timely debate; it is especially timely as viewed from my constituency. I congratulate him also on what he said. He rightly made the link between marine pollution and the standards practised, all too commonly, by the merchant shipping industry. That point was taken up also by the hon. Member for Bolton, South-East (Dr. Iddon), and I shall examine some aspects of that link. I shall be most interested to hear what the Minister has to say in reply to a debate that has been essentially about transport; I am sure that we all await his speech with some interest.

As the hon. Member for Uxbridge said, it is almost 10 years—the anniversary was on Monday—since the Braer ran aground off the south coast of Shetland. The devastation caused was unimaginable, given that it is difficult to gain access to the area where the ship ran aground and that a hurricane had been running for 10 days. As it happened, the hurricane solved many of the problems immediately, because the Gulfaks crude that the Braer was carrying was fairly light oil and easily dispersed in the poor weather.

The great rule that is supposed always to be applied to such cases is that the polluter should pay. Unfortunately, that has a hollow ring for a number of my constituents. A goodly number of people in the south of Shetland had roofs of asbestos tiles, which were damaged and effectively made unserviceable. I have bored this chamber at length on the subject, and I do not intend to dwell on it today, but I wish to place on record again the conduct of the International Oil Pollution Compensation funds in relation to the litigation subsequently entered into by the asbestos roof complainants.

That litigation failed because the IOPC played what I, as a lawyer, would term litigation hard ball; it refused to allow the Braer roof claimants access to the reports that had been compiled on the fund's behalf in the immediate aftermath of the Braer's grounding. Much of the information in those reports had been provided by the roof claimants themselves, but when they needed that information to substantiate their claim, the IOPC refused them access to it, which, in strict legal terms, it was entitled to do. As recently as Monday, Mr. Joe Nicholls of the IOPC was quoted in the Aberdeen Press and Journal as saying that there has been no cover-up. If he is saying to the people of Shetland, "I am from the IOPC: trust me," he will be given a fairly frosty response. Frankly, they do not; they feel that they have been badly done by. If there is no cover-up, I must ask again why the IOPC continues to refuse to put the reports into the public domain.

I should pay tribute to the fact that the Under-Secretary of State for Transport, the hon. Member for Plymouth, Devonport (Mr. Jamieson), visited Shetland last year and met the asbestos roof complainants. Unfortunately, I am not satisfied that he or his officials fully understand the legal position, inasmuch as they keep citing Lord Gill's judgment; he referred to the author of the reports, who was a witness in the case but who could not be a witness to the contents of the reports. That information remains outwith the public domain.

I intend to visit Galicia later this month, to see some of the damage that has been done and to share with the local communities some of the difficulties that my constituents experienced in coping with the aftermath of an oil spill, in particular in dealing with the IOPC. We have a saying in Scotland that one needs a long-handled spoon to sup with the devil. I think that one needs a long-handled spoon to sup with the IOPC. I shall warn the Galicians to make clear to the IOPC the basis on which any information is provided to them.

Other hon. Members have referred to the sinking of the Prestige. If I had to sum up in one word what I feel about it, that word would have to be "depressing". It is truly scandalous that 10 years after the Braer, virtually the same thing could happen again. The hon. Member for Bolton, South-East spoke about 15-year-old rust buckets. The Prestige was 26 years old. It was a single hulled tanker, owned in Greece through Liberia, registered in the Bahamas, classed in the United States of America, chartered by a Swiss-based Russian company that has offices in London and crewed by Greek and Filipino sailors. The Prestige was a floating indictment of the current state of the merchant shipping industry. The people who are feeling the adverse effects are not Greek, Liberian or Bahamian or from Switzerland, the United States, Russia or the United Kingdom. They are the people of Galicia, and my heart goes out to them when I see what they are suffering.

How do incidents such as the Braer, the Erica, the Prestige and the Torrey Canyon keep happening? They happen because they can. We tolerate on the high seas things that we would never dream of tolerating on dry land. The bottom line is that self-regulation of the maritime industry does not work. An agreed, enforceable system of international standards is needed. Owners and operators cannot be allowed to hide behind reclassifications and reflagging, as they currently do. I commend, in particular, the most recent edition of the NUMAST Telegraph, which includes a 22 or 23-point recipe for radical reform of the shipping industry.

I shall draw attention to a few of those points. The first is that there should be mandatory third-party liability insurance for merchant shipping. Some hon. Members might think it remarkable that that is not already the case. One has to have third-party liability insurance in order to take on to the street a car that might do a few hundred thousand pounds worth of damage at most, but one can take a tanker full of crude oil out on to the high seas without any such insurance.

The hon. Member for Bolton, South-East suggested measures that would improve shipping safety. I shall be more than happy to support his private Member's Bill, and I shall encourage all my Liberal Democrat colleagues to do so, although that might not be as helpful as he might wish.

One further issue is the standard and training of crews in the merchant fleet. Some agreements already exist, including International Labour Organisation convention 147. Last year, I submitted a written parliamentary question to the Department for Transport. On 10 June, I received a fairly brief reply, which I will share with hon. Members. I asked the Secretary of State for Transport

"what assessment he has made of the UK's compliance with its obligations under the International Labour Organisation Convention 147."

When it arrived, the answer was not without information—such answers never are—but no one could accuse the Department of actually answering the question that I asked. I was told:

"The UK ratified ILO Convention Number 147 in 1980."

Well, anyone with access to the convention would know that. I was then told:

"The UK Government ratifies international conventions only when it is satisfied that measures are in place to ensure compliance."

Well, that is good news as well. Finally, I was told:

"The Government has also ratified the Protocol of 1996 to that Convention, which extends the list of other conventions with which signatory states must comply."—[Official Report, 10 June 2002; Vol. 386, c. 775W.]

There was absolutely no assessment of the UK's compliance with its obligations, which is what I had asked for. Sadly, that is often the way in which the Department for Transport answers such questions. I do not, in all sincerity, expect the Minister to answer such a specific point, which is more properly the domain of the Department for Transport. However, I would be grateful if he could ensure that my remarks are conveyed to the appropriate quarters within the Government.

We must also have proper regard to the role of flag states, such as Greece and Liberia. To draw again on the NUMAST recipe, the International Maritime Organisation and the International Labour Organisation should be given greater resources and authority to enforce and implement the standards on which their collective memberships agree. At the moment, lip service is paid to agreements, but there is no proper enforcement. That must change.

The hon. Gentleman has referred to the NUMAST Telegraph a couple of times. This year's first edition contained a table of 66 ships that have been blacklisted by the European Union and that face port-access bans. It is significant that Turkey has flagged out 26 of them, and there is a moral in that. If Turkey is to be allowed into the EU, the UK Government and other EU Governments will be able to put an armlock on it as regards the present unsatisfactory situation.

That is indeed a possibility, and one hopes that the EU would do that. The hon. Gentleman raises the spectre of EU enlargement, and I got into some trouble in that respect over the Christmas recess, so I shall resist the temptation to go down that alley again.

The hon. Gentleman's point about Turkey is well made, but the problem extends even beyond the EU. My concern is that even if we fix the problem in the EU, it will emerge elsewhere. EU measures are welcome, and I was particularly pleased by those taken after the sinking of the Prestige. However, they will not be enough on their own, any more than the actions of a single nation state will be.

Flag states that fail to discharge their responsibilities under the United Nations convention on the law of the sea, and that fail to ensure effective jurisdiction and control over ships that fly their flag, should surely be identified and penalised. Ultimately— this would be a meaningful sanction—it should be open to the international community to say that it will no longer recognise the certification of ships that are flagged under nation states that do not pay proper regard to their international obligations. Another great difficulty is the attitude taken by flag states that consistently fail to investigate, or to publish the results of investigations into, accidents involving ships that use their registers. The current system of regulation lacks transparency.

The approach taken should not be very different from that taken to everything else in life; quality should be rewarded and poor standards punished. The hon. Member for Uxbridge referred to the difficulties caused by pollution to the fishing industry in Shetland. As he said, it was seven years before the restrictions on inshore fisheries in Shetland were lifted following the damage caused by the Braer. The damage that was caused continues today, because before the grounding of the Braer, Shetland salmon was highly regarded as a clean and environmentally friendly product. Sadly, however, the sinking of the Braer put an end to its reputation and the former position has never been recovered. Coastal communities generally are reliant on the promotion of a clean and healthy environment, to which shipping and marine pollution is a real threat. For that reason, I hope that the Minister will take note of what has been said today and, working with the Dept for Transport, ensure that the necessary changes are put in place.

First, I congratulate the hon. Member for Uxbridge (Mr. Randall) on securing the debate. His commitment to the marine environment is now well established, and that is especially laudable considering that his constituency is land-locked. He made several sensible points in his contribution, to which I hope that the Minister will respond positively. I also welcome the comments made by the hon. Member for Bolton, South-East (Dr. Iddon). Certainly, I find myself in sympathy with the legislation that he proposes. I was unaware of the incident to which he referred, in which it seems that economics determined whether a potential oil incident would be treated seriously. If a business can decide that its bottom line is more important than the environment, and if the environment can be penalised to save money, that is completely wrong and anathema to most of the Government. I hope that the Minister will respond to that point.

The hon. Gentleman also raised the issue of fire fighting in the channel and elsewhere. As my constituency borders the English channel, I am familiar with that issue. The problem is that fire fighting in the channel is a particularly expensive business and requires specially trained fire fighters. Fire at sea is extremely difficult to deal with because heat rises, so fire fighters tend to have to go in at the seat of the fire. Therefore, fire authorities must invest properly in that service to deal with the problem effectively. I suspect that our capability to deal with fires in the channel and elsewhere around our coast is not as good as it might be because fire authorities are often short of cash. The Government should he addressing that issue in their settlements with fire authorities, perhaps by ring-fencing that capability in any settlement.

The hon. Member for Uxbridge referred in his opening comments to the Prestige tanker disaster. That is one of the sad reasons why we are here and, I imagine, one of the reasons why he felt that it was necessary to initiate the debate. It is disappointing—indeed, scandalous, to use the adjective that my hon. Friend the Member for Orkney and Shetland (Mr. Carmichael) used—that the position has not changed. There has been a depressing series of spillages into the marine environment in UK waters and elsewhere over many years. The situation appears to be improving only slowly. We need to accelerate that.

One thinks of the Exxon Valdez, which released almost 11 million gallons in. Alaska, the grounding of the Sea Empress off Wales, with 18 million gallons in 1996, the Greek tanker the Aegean Sea, with 21.5 million gallons off north-west Spain, the Braer, with 26 million gallons, and the oil tanker Erika, which sank off Brittany with 3 million gallons. Such events are monotonously regular in their occurrence. The international community should get its act together to prevent them.

Oil tankers are not the only problem. During the Gulf war, Iraq deliberately released an estimated 460 million gallons of crude oil into the Persian Gulf, showing scant regard for the environment or anybody else in the area. I hope that, when considering the position in Iraq, the Ministry of Defence will give some consideration to the environmental consequences of action by either side, though doubtless that is not top of its list.

The impact of the Prestige is well known. The incident has devastated the Iberian coast—those in Spain and Portugal are suffering, not the owners of the ship, its crew, the people who flagged it, or people sitting in offices in Geneva or anywhere else. For example, a fishing area of more than 180 square miles around the wreck has been declared off limits, and up to 90,000 livelihoods have been affected. People who went about their normal business and led normal lives have had their livelihoods disrupted in a most callous and significant way because of the failure of the international community to regulate shipping properly. We owe it to people throughout the country and around the world to prevent such preventable accidents in future.

The number of incidents in British waters is decreasing. It is worth mentioning that since 1978—I think—there have been 12,746 incidents of oil spillages in British waters, which is a huge number. The hon. Member for Uxbridge was right to say that last year the figure was 678, and it is decreasing. The Government should be given some credit for reducing the number of incidents. However, I also tell the Minister that since 1995, from those many thousands of incidents, there have been only 10 successful prosecutions for discharges, with an average fine of £20,000. It seems that polluting the marine environment is a pretty risk-free business. It is time that we got a grip on that, and ensured that those responsible are properly prosecuted for their actions. The environment should not be a freebie that one can discharge into freely.

What are the solutions? The hon. Member for Bolton, South-East and my hon. Friend the Member for Orkney and Shetland suggested a number of solutions, all of which I am in considerable sympathy with. It is absolutely right that we deal with single-hulled tankers. There was an interesting piece in The Guardian, in which David Osler, industrial editor of the shipping newspaper Lloyd's List, pointed out that

"the Prestige was one of a large number of oil tankers built in Japan during the boom years of the 1970s".

He said:

"These tankers were churned out, mass produced using steel turned out to the lowest possible standard. Out of a global fleet of 1,800 oil tankers, around 300 are pre-1980, Japanese and single-hulled."

There is a time problem that dates back to the 1970s. If those ships were of a low standard then, they are of a low standard now. However, they are still carrying potentially dangerous cargoes in international waters, and are still unregulated, as far as anyone can tell. They need to be pulled out of service—scrapped, to use the word of the hon. Member for Bolton, South-East.

It is true that all oil tankers built since 1986 must have a double hull, and that is welcome; but there is a residue of single-hulled vessels built before then, and they are not going away very quickly. That issue needs to be grappled with. If we cannot get the International Maritime Organisation to take proper action, we will need to take action at UK-level, or better still at EU-level. We will need to restrict access to our ports and use persuasive methods to encourage countries operating under flags of convenience and other shipping agents to improve their performance and get rid of single-hulled ships. I hope that the EU will show more mettle than it has done so far, but that is not to underestimate its work. However, we need to accelerate the speed of improvement.

We must also consider compartmentalising ships, so that if a ship is hit, its leakage can be limited. That is standard practice in some but not in all cases, and particularly not with older ships. We also need to consider the maximum size of oil tankers allowed in EU waters. That is a matter of dispute with the Government. We cannot go on building ever larger ships. When I asked the Under-Secretary of State for Transport whether he would press for a maximum size for oil tankers, he said:

"There is no evidence that reducing the size of oil tankers would lead to an overall improvement in safety. The implication of using smaller tankers is that more voyages would be needed to carry the same volume of oil and related cargoes."—[Official Report, 3 December 2002; Vol. 395, c. 670W.]

My hon. Friend makes a good point. One reason why single-hulled tankers of the vintage to which he refers continue to be used is that a great deal of oil is coming out of Russia. The waters—I have forgotten the name of the stretch, but it is the narrow part between Denmark and the rest of Scandinavia—are such that smaller classes of tankers must be used, or there would be too much traffic to get through safely.

I am grateful for that information, which demonstrates that my gut feeling is right: it is a sensible proposal to set a maximum limit on the size of oil tankers, not only because that is required in certain passages of water but because, obviously, when a huge oil tanker sinks, the damage is greater than it would have been if it were caused by a smaller tanker. It is all very well to say that there would be more ships around, but less damage would he caused by one ship sinking if that ship were smaller. The Government should consider that. It is right to say that self-regulation does not work, as my hon. Friend the Member for Orkney and Shetland said, and there should be mandatory third party insurance. We should consider refusing to allow dangerous shipping into EU and UK waters.

We have talked a lot about oil. It is worth mentioning that other dangerous cargoes are carried regularly around the world, often, but not always, in substandard ships. A huge number of chemicals have been lost in UK waters over the years. The last time that I raised the matter in a parliamentary question—I do not have the reference, and do not remember exactly when it was—I was told that there was no proper register of what had been lost in UK waters. I hope that the Minister will either respond to that point, or write to me about it. We now log all instances of chemicals and other potentially dangerous materials that are lost at sea in UK waters. Not so long ago a cargo of some 28 barrels of lindane, a dangerous pesticide, was lost in the English channel. That may leak out and damage the marine environment. We need to know what is going on with such incidents, and where such losses occur. I should be grateful if the Minister would address that point.

Let us not forget that a huge amount of radioactive material is being carried around in UK waters as a consequence of activities at Sellafield and elsewhere. The Government should have a policy of minimising the transportation of radioactive material for environmental and security reasons, given the international climate. Instead, the Government's answer is that what is done with that material is a matter for British Nuclear Fuels Ltd., which has contracts with Japan and sends ships half way round the world. The Government say that that is not a problem, and that it is a commercial matter for BNFL. It is not; it is a matter for the Government to regulate in order to protect the environment and to ensure that there are as few terrorist targets as possible. I know that it is an old-fashioned suggestion to make to a Labour Government, but I hope that they will consider intervening to control matters, not simply leave matters to the market.

I echo the words of other hon. Members and congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Uxbridge (Mr. Randall) on securing such a timely debate. It is indicative of the deep and abiding interest in the maritime environment that he has shown since he was elected in 1997, and no one can gainsay the considerable work that he has done for the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds throughout the past five years.

I shall start with a plea to the Minister—a plea that my hon. Friend would echo. The south Dorset coast is a world heritage site, but such a designation does not confer protection. The area is absolutely glorious; it deserves and requires protection. One way in which to protect it is to deny international shipping access to such a delicate maritime area, and the way to do that is to designate it a particularly sensitive sea area. I must declare a particular interest in the area, in that I sail round it fairly frequently, but if the right hon. Gentleman does that the Government will have the support of the Conservative party.

Ships can constitute a hazard to the marine environment in three ways: through deliberation action, through accidental pollution and through physical damage. Although more than 80 per cent. of marine oil spills occur within a port or harbour area, more damaging than that are the actions of those who clean out the tanks and release waste oil and chemical products at sea, most of whom get away with it.

Of the 14 successful prosecutions for discharges during 2001, 10 were related to oil pollution. However, 1,616 incident reports were received and processed. Of the total discharges in 2001, 95 per cent. were from mineral oils and 72 per cent. were in the open sea. The other cause of marine pollution is accidental, owing either to ship malfunction—thankfully, a rare occurrence—or human error. The fact that the wreck of the car carrier, the Tricolor, in the English channel has been the cause of two collisions and a near miss since it sank on 14 December calls into question the competence of some ship masters.

There are a variety of navigational aids to help work out the answers to the three key questions that we need to know at sea: where we are, what direction we are going in and what is in front of us. In addition, radar, satellite, the global positioning system and visual fixes, dead reckoning and electronic route following can be used. A new hazard in the English channel brings into play an additional set of warnings to mariners. For example, the area around the Tricolor had wreck and raycon buoys, and a guard ship was in position. Both the British and French authorities were broadcasting hourly verbal maritime hazard warnings, the text of which was carried on Navtext as well as being issued as a "Notice to Mariners".

With all those warning signs, it was absolutely incredible that the Turkish master of the Vicky, the second ship to hit the Tricolor in two weeks, was able to tell The Times:

"I had no idea it was there. I saw some light buoys but I didn't understand what it meant or why they were there because my normal charts don't show any light buoys".

Will he be prosecuted? Will he lose his ticket? Will he go to jail? We certainly need punitive sanctions to deter those who are incompetent or who flout international safety standards. Does the Minister support the European Commission's proposal for severe sanctions for parties who have caused maritime pollution by grossly negligent behaviour?

We have heard from others that the Prestige was a 26-year-old, single-hulled tanker from which it is estimated that oil will leak for the next three years. The Erika was a single-hulled tanker that sank off the coast of Brittany in late 1999 and it lost 30,000 tonnes of oil; the Braer was a single-hulled tanker that caused an 85,000 tonne oil spill off Shetland in 1993; the Aegean Sea, which grounded in almost the same Spanish waters as the Prestige a decade ago, released 74,000 tonnes of crude. Ships of a similar age and with similar problems are still trading in the world today. Last year, nearly two-thirds of the ships that were lost were more than 20 years old. Despite international agreement under the International Maritime Organisation to phase out all single-hulled tankers by 2015 at the latest, those still make up the majority—about 60 per cent.—of the total tanker fleet. It is clear that international agreement is the only way to control a force that recognises no sovereign jurisdiction and to regulate a business that is obviously international.

We have heard tell that the Prestige was owned in Greece, registered in the Bahamas, classed in the United States and chartered by a Swiss-based Russian company with offices in London. It was crewed by Greeks and Filipinos and it was sailing from Latvia to Singapore. At the beginning of last December the Commission issued a blacklist of 66 ships that should be banned from European waters and ports and it called for a ban on the transport of heavy fuel in single-hulled vessels. The Commission also instructed states to bring forward the implementation of rules that were drawn up after the Erika disaster in 1999 and were intended to tighten the controls on vessels carrying dangerous cargoes. The Government have confirmed that at a recent Transport Council meeting they agreed

"to invite a proposal from the Commission to accelerate the timetable for phasing out single hull tankers even further, and to consider how the carriage of heavy oil in single hull tankers might be restricted, with a view to reducing the risk of a spill from a single hull tanker even more."—[Official Report, 11 December 2002; Vol. 396, c. 356W.]

May I ask the Minister what is happening? Will the deadline for the phasing out of single-hulled tankers be accelerated? How far have the Government made good their pledge made in the other place

"to ensure that all existing maritime pollution compensation and liability conventions come into force as soon as possible"?—[Official Report, House of Lords, 27 November 2002; Vol. 641, c. 749.]

Another important contribution to maritime safety and, therefore, to reducing marine pollution, would be a reduction in the secrecy surrounding flags of convenience. It is often impossible definitively to establish who controls a ship. That so-called "corporate veil" means that it took several weeks before the owner of the Erika was known. There are similar problems in identifying the Greek ship-owning dynasty that controlled the Prestige and it is reported that al-Qaeda is using legal means to hide its nefarious shipping interests. Where ownership cannot be established, the law cannot be enforced effectively. What discussions has the Minister conducted with the IMO to increase transparency? What steps have the Government taken to implement the recommendations of the National Audit Office's report of June 2002 "Dealing with pollution from ships"? Will the Minister expand the provision of year-round emergency tugging vessels that are currently located at only four points around the UK coast. How far have the discussions progressed with the Irish Government on the joint provision of a fifth tug to cover the Irish sea?

Finally, I welcome the August 2000 contract between Air Atlantique, the Maritime and Coastguard Agency and the Department of Trade and Industry, which offers a considerable opportunity. This particular contract allows aircraft typically to survey 32,000 square miles in a five-hour period of surveillance, as opposed to 14,000 square miles previously. Can we anticipate further sharing of counter-pollution equipment and more commercial contracts? Will the satellite oil spills sensing trials by the MCA be further developed?

The Government have committed themselves to an ecosystem-based approach and integrated stewardship of our marine environment. As a token of their devotion yet another consultation paper has been launched. It is grandly called "The Seas of Change". According to my records, this is the 83rd consultation undertaken by the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs since June 2001. It has consultationitis. Consultation is useful but policy is what is necessary. What is needed is stewardship of our own and foreign vessels entering our waters and ports. Although accidents are often the product of human fallibility and error, measures can be taken to limit the likelihood of their occurrence and to mitigate the environmental consequences, and incompetence and neglect should always be dealt with swiftly and severely. Global thinking, allied to effective national and local implementation, is the recipe for safer seas and the protection of our marine environment. I urge the Government to echo that point in policy.

I congratulate the hon. Member for Uxbridge (Mr. Randall) on securing this important debate and the manner in which he introduced the topic. I should also like to congratulate the other Members who took part in what has been a wide-ranging and constructive debate.

With regard to my hon. Friend the Member for Bolton, South-East (Dr. Iddon), I look forward to seeing his private Member's Bill making progress through the House. It is eminently sensible. I hope that it will receive support from the Opposition as well as the Government, and that it will reach the statute book very quickly. I congratulate him on the work his group has produced on the findings of the Derbyshire inquiry, which are most important. I understand that the work on bulk carrier safety has now, as a consequence, been taken forward by the IMO.

The points made by the hon. Members for Orkney and Shetland (Mr. Carmichael), for Lewes (Norman Baker) and for Mid-Bedfordshire (Mr. Sayeed) were constructive contributions to a very important, although not easy, issue.

The hon. Member for Uxbridge has a personal commitment to marine conservation. I share his disappointment and that of other Members, referred to, in particular, by my hon. Friend the Member for Linlithgow (Mr. Dalyell), that his Marine Wildlife Conservation Bill did not find support in another place.

I was puzzled as to what the hon. Member for Orkney and Shetland wanted from this debate. He made the point, quite tellingly, that there are many issues that are matters for the Minister with responsibility for shipping. If the debate had been flagged in a different way, he would be responding to the debate and would have been able to go into more detail on some specific issues. I am very interested in some of the issues on maritime safety that the hon. Gentleman raised at the beginning of his intervention, representing, as I do, Cardiff, a port with maritime traditions. I share his interest in those issues, but they are matters for the Department for Transport.

It is unfortunate that the Under-Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, the hon. Member for Scunthorpe (Mr. Morley), who deals with marine issues, is unavailable today, as is the Minister for the Environment, the right hon. Member for Oldham, West and Royton (Mr. Meacher), who deals with pollution issues. I shall do my best to respond to and follow up any detailed and technical issues in writing, as some Members have asked.

The title of the report goes rather wider than the debate itself. Pollution that finds its way into our seas comes from a number of different sources. Globally, about 80 per cent. is the result of land-based activities, such as industry and farming, and 12 or 13 per cent. comes from maritime transport, including deliberate and accidental oil spills; the remainder is the result of illegal discharges or dumping from land.

In recent years, much has been achieved in tackling marine pollution. During the past 15 years, we have cut the amount of mercury going into the North sea by 70 per cent. We have also stopped dumping radioactive waste, sewage sludge and munitions at sea, and we have improved standards for sewage treatment.

In opening the debate, the hon. Member for Uxbridge focused on oil pollution, and he is right to say that our oceans are still under threat from that. As the hon. Member for Mid-Bedfordshire made clear, international solutions are required if we are to tackle these issues effectively. The sinking of the Prestige last November reminded us of the environmental, social and economic consequences of marine pollution. More needs to be done to better manage and protect our seas and the unique forms of life that they support.

As has been said, the oil from the Prestige is having a considerable effect; it is coming ashore on the western coast of France between La Rochelle and Hendaye. The French authorities were prepared, but they were hampered by bad weather when they tried to deal with the immediate problem. This matter is raising controversy in Spain, and it is worth placing on the record that we offered help of a scientific and environmental nature—including the loan of tugs—either directly or through the European Union.

The positive use of places of refuge when vessels are in difficulty is a major international issue. It is the subject of live debate in the EU, and the UK is fully engaged in that. The UK's experience is that judicious provision of shelter in a place of refuge or sheltered waters can significantly help in averting marine pollution incidents. We believe that it is unwise pre-emptively to rule in or out a particular location as a place of refuge. The need for a place of refuge and its location will be driven by events and specific data: the prevailing weather, the forecasted weather, the whereabouts of the incident, the consequences of not rendering assistance, and the type of threat that is posed by the ship seeking refuge and its cargo will all be key factors in the decision-making process—which will need to be geared up to be speedy.

As part of their contingency planning for pollutions incidents, the Government are asking harbour authorities to give consideration to granting refuge, having regard to the particular conditions pertaining at their ports, such as access to safe moorings, berths and jetties, availability of tugs, counter-pollution equipment and offloading and repair facilities, and environmental considerations including local tides, currents and fishing activities. I think that everybody would accept that there is not an instant solution to these issues, but I can assure the hon. Member for Uxbridge—who raised them in a positive and constructive way—that we are seeking to tackle them urgently.

The hon. Gentleman also raised the issue of substandard shipping flying flags of convenience. The main problem with substandard shipping and pollution from ships is not the result of inadequate international standards but of the failure of some owners in flag states to fulfil their responsibilities under agreed conventions. In 1997, the UK played a leading role in launching the quality shipping campaign at the IMO and in the EU. That engages all those involved in shipping ventures—owners, flag states, brokers, charterers and insurers—with a view to rewarding the responsible in the industry and increasingly marginalizing substandard ships, their owners and flags, and that initiative certainly needs to be continued.

It is worth noting that the United Kingdom is a party to the Paris memorandum of understanding on port state control. The UK's port state control regime is one of the most vigorous in the Paris MOU area, and we continue to exceed the target given in the port state control directive for inspecting foreign flagged vessels calling at UK ports. It is clear that all those hon. Members present strongly support continuing with enthusiasm down that road. The hon. Gentleman spoke also about satellite monitoring. The situation is still as he indicated; it is proceeding on a trial basis, but it is obviously something in which we are interested.

My hon. Friend the Member for Bolton, South-East raised the subject of black boxes. The Government support the installation of voyage data recorders in new vessels. That is stipulated in the revised chapter 5 of the international convention for the safety of life at sea. We are interested in work that is proceeding in the IMO with regard to retrofitting black boxes in existing vessels, but I am sure that all hon. Members accept that it is a more contentious and difficult issue to tackle. Nevertheless, my hon. Friend was right to raise it.

A number of hon. Members referred to the Braer incident in 1993, not least the hon. Member for Orkney and Shetland. In many ways, that incident marked a defining moment in our efforts to address pollution and its consequences. The Braer still ranks as the world's 12th largest oil spill. A pollution incident of such magnitude will inevitably have caused major hardships for many, and I recognise the impact that the hon. Gentleman outlined. It is a tribute to the resilience of the Shetlanders that they coped so well with the traumatic consequences, which were devastating for such a small community.

Many lessons had to be learned, and some lessons could not be learned nor could the solutions be implemented in a short time, but as a result of the Braer and the Sea Empress disasters, as well as other major spills, a number of steps have been taken. The UK has played a leading role in developing the many measures that have substantially improved the situation internationally, regionally and nationally, and I shall return to some of those in a moment.

The establishing of marine environment high risk areas was touched on. That is a particularly important development, to which the Government are strongly committed, although I accept that it has taken some time to get where we are now and I agree that we need to move as quickly as possible. That was one of the recommendations of the Donaldson report, and officials have worked very hard on the idea in recent years. However, I am sure that hon. Members would accept that it is important not only to implement the proposal but to get it right. We hope to announce the identified areas shortly; there will be some 30 areas, covering 10 per cent. of our coastline.

The hon. Member for Mid-Bedfordshire asked, in relation to the Dorset coast, whether the UK would seek to designate all or some of its waters as PSSAs once that concept has been put in place. We take the view that all of our coastline merits protection from marine pollution, and once we have established the marine environment high risk areas we will monitor their effectiveness and assess whether further protective measures are required, such as the PSSA designation to which the hon. Gentleman referred.

The hon. Gentleman referred also to the Comptroller and Auditor General's report entitled "Dealing with Pollution from Ships". It was a soundly based, balanced and well-rounded report that recognised the substantial achievements of the Department for Transport and the Maritime and Coastguard Agency in minimising the risk of pollution of the marine environment from ships and, where pollution occurs, in minimising the impact of that pollution on UK waters, coastlines and economic interests. The report has much to say that is positive, while highlighting areas in which it was perceived that more work has to be done. The Department for Transport and the MCA are working to take forward those recommendations. The hon. Gentleman almost seemed to ridicule the amount of consultation that DEFRA has undertaken. That consultation reflects its extremely wide-ranging and complex areas of responsibility, and the partnership approach that it takes to working with interest groups, often groups that have to be reconciled, rather than single interest groups with a clear aim. That is combined with the commitment of Ministers to action and to solving the extensive list of problems covered by our portfolio.

The Government's first marine stewardship report "Safeguarding our Seas" shows the way forward. Published last May, it sets out our strategy for the conservation and sustainable development of our marine environment, and outlines our ecosystem approach to achieving our vision of clean, healthy, safe, productive and biologically diverse oceans and seas. Tackling marine pollution is a key element of that strategy.

The Minister mentioned that the debate is cross-departmental. I understand that he does not have specific knowledge of all the areas under discussion. On that basis, and because some important points have been made, will he confirm that he will bring to the attention of other interested Ministers the points that have not been adequately covered, so that they can write to hon. Members?

I mentioned that at the beginning, because the hon. Member for Uxbridge had the choice of targeting the Department for Transport or DEFRA. Some of the issues are very important, and are lead issues for DEFRA, but many of the matters that have been raised are primarily for the Department for Transport. I said at the start that, for that reason, I would either reply on behalf of the two Departments or seek a response from my hon. Friend the Minister with responsibility for shipping on matters on which I was unable to respond in detail. I am happy to reinforce that point.

Tackling marine pollution is a key element of our strategy. We are working closely with EU member states, the OSPAR convention for the protection of the marine environment of the north-east Atlantic and other international forums to turn our vision into reality.

A range of OSPAR decisions and recommendations, together with EU directives, not least the integrated pollution preventative control directive and the water framework directive, have sharply reduced discharges of hazardous chemicals into the north-east Atlantic. I am sure that hon. Members from all parties would accept that a lot of those boring-sounding and technical titles reflect an enormous amount of work that is done internationally, making a positive contribution to the future of the environment. That concerns all of us.

Action is also being taken through the EU and OSPAR to tackle eutrophication, which can be a problem in some coastal waters. We reduced direct inputs of nitrogen into marine waters by 30 per cent. during the 1990s and further reductions will be achieved through action plans under the nitrates directive and the urban waste water directive. I refer to those issues because they are complementary to the issues of maritime pollution and oil pollution, which have been mentioned. We need to look at the whole environment as it affects the maritime situation, including the contributions that are made from land within the UK.

Will the Minister comment on the fact that the MCA has managed to prosecute only 10 ships, with an average fine of £20,000 since 1995? For all the Government's good work, there are no prosecutions and no teeth.

That falls within the areas on which I do not have direct knowledge and on which I have said that I will respond to colleagues after discussing them with the Minister with responsibility for shipping. I return to the point that the debate was focused on DEFRA responsibilities. However, most of the debate has been on the responsibilities of the Department for Transport. We work closely across Departments, but it would be unwise for me to go outside my specific knowledge in debate. A debate should be focused differently if technical responses from the Department for Transport are required. Perhaps the hon. Gentleman will approach the matter again from a second angle.

The debate has certainly shown the need for cross-Department co-operation. There is a high level of such co-operation; I am very pleased with the way in which officials in my Department, and those at the Department for Transport, co-operate.

Order. I ask hon. Members not participating in the debate on air quality in market towns to leave quietly and calmly.

I am grateful for the opportunity for this debate on a matter of great concern to many people in my constituency. Transport Ministers have now pretty well admitted that the Deputy Prime Minister's 10-year transport plan will fail to meet its targets by 2010. That is a great pity, because, of the 120 air quality management areas in England, two happen to lie in small towns in my rural constituency. Had the plan been on course, I might not have felt it necessary to ask for the debate, and we could all have been outside making snowmen in the ever-increasing snow falling around the House.

Last year we remembered the London smog of 1952. Overall since then things have, mercifully, improved. However, two things have happened at the same time, relating to the consideration of air quality in smaller centres. Our insight into the likely health effects of levels of atmospheric pollution that are, by historic standards, low, has improved dramatically. Also, the contribution to air pollution by industry has of course been eclipsed by that made by road traffic.

Unfortunately, the improvement evident in cities has not necessarily been matched elsewhere. Indeed, when air quality assessments were carried out by local authorities from the mid-1990s onwards, people in the field were, it is probably true to say, caught rather on the back foot by the extent of the problem in unexpected locations. In Wiltshire there are six air quality management areas—one in Bradford-on-Avon, one in Westbury and four in Salisbury. None are in Swindon, which is by far the biggest conurbation in Wiltshire.

We expect pollution in our big industrial cities and alongside motorways, and by and large we find it there. However, we do not necessarily associate it with pretty market towns and pocket cathedral cities such as Salisbury; but it appears that we are finding it in those places too. Consequently, a national air quality strategy that anticipated having to deal exclusively with cities must now attend to the special needs of smaller centres.

Market towns are pathetically ill-equipped to deal with 21st century traffic. Traffic is forced to wind through ancient trackways, competing all the time with the needs of pedestrians. Workable solutions are devilishly difficult and planners have little room for manoeuvre. Not only do they struggle to marry the competing needs of residents, businesses, motorists and pedestrians, but they must deal with historic buildings that are blackened by traffic effluent. Air pollution does not respect anyone, including politicians. An acidic sandstone leprosy has eaten away at the rather handsome face of my constituency office. That building is not unique in west Wiltshire and the small towns that I represent have a wealth of historic buildings that are gradually being spoiled by traffic effluent.

Alarming though such effects are for the townscape, my chief concern is for the well-being of people who live along major through routes in Bradford-on-Avon and Westbury. One of the defining characteristics of market towns is that residents' front doors often give directly on to major thoroughfares. In gentler times, when all that passed by one's front door was a coach and horses, that perhaps was not a problem. However, when the road has evolved into the A350 through Westbury, a road that Ministers are seriously considering as a south coast to Bristol and Bath super-highway, it is a different matter entirely. We know that pollutants fall away the further one gets from traffic, but when the exhaust-to-sofa distance is measured in inches, there is a problem. That applies in larger centres also; however, in many cities the traffic is not juxtaposed with vehicles in quite the same way as it is in many historic market towns. People would not plan to live so close to traffic these days as those who live in small towns that were built hundreds of years ago.

Most authorities that need to put in place air-quality improvement plans will rightly try to avoid the difficult option of building themselves out of difficulty. However, for the Westbury bypass, as a local scheme that is independent of the south coast to Bristol and Bath study, a road is the only realistic solution. There is no other way that decent air quality can be delivered to my constituents who live in the middle of the town. I commend the bypass to the Minister, although I realise that his powers are limited in that respect. I hope that, in the next few months, his Government will think again about the stop that they put on the Westbury bypass at the tail-end of 2001.

Although air pollution in smaller towns is predominantly the result of traffic, industry also surprisingly features. Indeed, the Westbury cement works presents an additional challenge for the town. Blue Circle has taken to burning tyres with the Environment Agency's support. The Environment Agency has more than simply the welfare of my constituents in mind as it works towards the EU-driven landfill directive.

To meet the terms of the directive, the Government appear to be going for the easy option of energy recovery, which is hardly carbon-neutral, over retreading and recycling, which are. That may be good news for the cement industry, but many of my constituents who live in the lee of the Blue Circle chimney are yet to be convinced that what comes out of the stack does them any good. It is sad that our Government do little to support tyre-recycling, apart from sponsoring a bit of research. They might like to consider the United States, where the recycling of tyres is more actively promoted. In the States there is a statutory minimum recycled content for road surfacings that must be derived from old tyres. I hope that the Minister will comment on that and also reconsider my request for a meeting to discuss air pollution in Westbury.

Anyone who doubts the challenges facing market towns should visit hilly, mediaeval Bradford-on-Avon, which is a quintessentially beautiful small town. If it were snowing there—my wife tells me that it is not snowing in Wiltshire at the moment—the town would be particularly attractive. I recommend that the Minister pay a visit at any time, but particularly to look at the problem that I describe today. Were he to take his life into his hands, he could walk up Mason's lane in Bradford-on-Avon. There, fumes from traffic that climbs a steep incline are retained by high structures on either side that produce a canyon effect. That road, which is in the middle of one of the most delightful towns in England, has one of the poorest air qualities in the country.

To get an idea of local opinion in Bradford on remedial measures, I personally delivered more than 400 letters to residents and businesses in the middle of the town during the festive period. The response has been impressive.

One of my chief concerns is that a planned development at a redundant industrial site called Kingston mill should be disallowed in its current form. The site is plumb in the middle of Bradford, and the developer is no doubt relishing ministerial diktat on housing density that is promoting the shoehorning into the site of 127 de-luxe dwellings, no affordable housing and a quantity of commercial premises. The effect that that will have on traffic and air quality in Bradford in the 3 to 4-year construction phase and in the long term is blindingly obvious.

Any proposals that Wiltshire county council might come up with to re-route, to slow down and, in a myriad clever ways, to alter traffic behaviour would almost certainly be eclipsed by such an application. My constituents have lost no time in pointing that out. They are rightly calling for a holistic approach to air quality management in the town. I hope that Ministers will allow latitude in planning guidance to ensure that the special nature of settlements such as Bradford-on-Avon is recognised.

Many of my Bradford correspondents are calling for a bypass to lift their misery. Realistically, that is a distant prospect, but it would be nice to have reliable data on which to base relief measures. Unfortunately, according to their own advisers, the Government are using wrongly computed data to project future pollution from car usage. Last month, the advisory committee on business and the environment said that the Government had substantially underestimated the reduction in road transport emissions that would be achieved by the end of the decade. It is important to sort that out quickly, because it would be unfortunate if structure plans were drafted and road schemes hatched on the basis of shoddy data. I hope that the Minister can offer the appropriate assurances in that regard.

Last year, DEFRA published revised draft guidance with its proposals for rolling air quality reviews and annual reports. The guidance makes it clear that Ministers want to get a tighter central grip on local air quality management. That is fine, and the proposal is no doubt driven by the Government's need to meet EU directives. However, local air quality management suddenly looks like no more than local air quality monitoring, with most of the management being done centrally.

The evidence base for the health effects of historically low levels of pollution is not firm. Guidance based on levels will encourage a deterministic approach, when a stochastic one might be more appropriate. Clearly, further research is needed into the effects of pollutants and particularly into the toxicology of particulates, given the emerging evidence on lung cancer and circulatory disease. I hope that the Minister will see such research as a potentially fruitful area for Government funding.

Ministers must take the lead in promoting cleaner, more sustainable fuels through suitable abatements in vehicle excise duty and by adjusting duty on alternative fuels to reflect the EU minimum rate. I welcome what the cleaner vehicles task force and Powershift have done so far, but alternatively powered vehicles are still marginal. The Government must further increase the fuel duty differential in favour of alternatives such as liquefied petroleum gas, compressed natural gas, biodiesel, and electricity and hydrogen cells. We must also support research and development.

I welcome the enforcement of MOT and roadside emission checks, and I am intrigued by the possibility that the low-emission zones enforced in European towns might also be applied in towns here. However, such strategies are financially regressive, and much of my constituency lies in a low-wage economy. The less well-off tend to own older, less efficient vehicles, and I would be interested to know what assessment the Minister has made of the possible impact of the initiatives on such people.

I am sure that the Minister is aware that a car is no luxury for people in the countryside, where public transport is often not an option. I hope that Ministers will be true to their word in rural-proofing any policies that they come up with for improving air quality, so that my rural constituents are not disproportionately disadvantaged.

In their worthy market towns initiative, the Government have at least been good enough to nod in the direction of such towns, and that is welcome. No one expects the scheme to turn the fortunes of small towns around—much less that it will greatly improve the road traffic situation. However, I hope that it Indicates a willingness on the part of Ministers to recognise that market towns have distinct problems, as well as difficulties, such as poor air quality, that are traditionally associated with large conurbations.

I am grateful to the hon. Member for Westbury (Dr. Murrison) for raising a wide range of important issues and for the constructive and well-informed way in which he debated them.

It is worth saying at the beginning that there have been real improvements in air quality over the past decade and, indeed, the past 50 years. In that respect, we should recall that we marked the 50th anniversary of the great smog of London only a few weeks ago. That improvement in air quality applies in market towns just as much as it does in larger cities. That is a tribute to the improvements that have been made in vehicles and fuels, as well as to the reduction in industrial and domestic emissions.

However, the hon. Gentleman is right to say that the issue is important and that the problems have not gone away. There are still areas with unacceptably high levels of pollution, and we must address that problem, not least because of the health impact of exposure to air pollution. Indeed, the hon. Gentleman referred to the need for further research into those health effects, and I agree with his point. I am therefore pleased that the Department of Health recently announced £1 million worth of new research projects.

The committee on the medical effects of air pollutants has been asked to advise the Government as soon as possible on new evidence that is emerging from research. With his medical background, the hon. Gentleman will be familiar with many of the impacts of air pollution, for example its links with asthma, cancer and reduced life expectancy. That underlines the importance of the issue that he raised this morning.

I certainly agree that, in smaller towns, increasing volumes of traffic cause particular problems, some of which the hon. Gentleman described eloquently, although I suspect that some pollution problems were caused by the coaches and horses that used to pass through Wiltshire towns in earlier days. We are all familiar with the problems of narrow streets, which were never designed to cope with the volume of traffic that goes through those towns today. I agree that those problems need to be tackled, but it is also important to get the balance right.

Towards the end of his remarks, the hon. Gentleman made one important point. We need to improve air quality but we also need to improve transport links—a key issue not only for market towns but for the rural hinterland. It is important to improve transport for people in rural areas, as well as for the rural economy, in which communications play a crucial role. That is especially true as the economy becomes more diversified and we try to maintain the standard of life in rural communities. That is an important part of my work and that of DEFRA, which is focusing, for the first time ever, on rural issues in that way.

The problem is that there is no one-size-fits-all policy to deal with all the issues. That is why the Government have introduced the system of local air quality management, the purpose of which is to allow local authorities to identify pollution hotspots and to put in place local measures to deal with them. We also have a system of local transport plans, under which local authorities are able to bid for new capital funding for local transport measures. Many authorities have successfully bid for schemes to alleviate local pollution problems. It is something of a quiet revolution that that is becoming such an accepted part of a progressive approach towards improving the environment.

In Wiltshire, funding for integrated transport measures is being increased from just over £350,000 in 1998–99 to nearly £4 million in 2002–03. I am not surprised that the hon. Gentleman mentioned the possibility of a bypass. Indeed, I believe that he referred to that possibility in connection with two locations. I am sure that he is aware of the importance of the Bristol/Bath to south coast study, which is examining how best to manage traffic flows in the area. The consultants are creating a strategic traffic model, which will allow options to be tested. We might reasonably expect the study to address the issues associated with the possibility of a bypass for Westbury, which would improve air quality there. It would not be right to speculate on the outcome of the study before it is published because the issues are complex and need to be addressed in the round. I can tell the hon. Gentleman, however, that the consultants have been asked to complete the study by the summer in time to allow Wiltshire county council to apply for funding as a supplementary local transport bid, if the study's findings support that approach.

The hon. Gentleman said, rightly, that levels of pollution at the roadside can be high, and some properties are built far closer to the road than would now be acceptable as a construction standard. That poses a problem in several market towns. Local authorities have a variety of powers at their disposal to tackle that, and the problem must be addressed locally, sometimes by taking the strategic approach that a bypass implies and sometimes with other more local approaches.

In trying to deal with local air pollution problems in the way that I have described, several local authorities have identified considerable air pollution problems in smaller market towns. Levels of pollution at the roadside in those market towns can sometimes be high enough to cause real concern, and clearly must be dealt with. In trying to improve air quality, the hon. Gentleman is right to point out that the air is no respecter of artificial boundaries. For that reason, national and local measurements have a role to play. Local measures are the most direct effective way of dealing with local air pollution problems. Local authorities are best placed to decide what will work in their areas, whether it be new traffic management systems, parking restrictions, or partnerships with bus and freight operators.

Where levels of air pollution are high, we have also given local authorities new powers and new funding to carry out roadside emission testing, which can be an effective way of encouraging motorists to behave responsibly—by getting their vehicles tuned, for example. Several powers are now available to local authorities because of the increased importance that we place on the issue. What works in one town, however, might not in another, and local authorities are best placed to decide what will and will not work well in their areas.

The hon. Gentleman mentioned the recycling of tyres and it is important that we deal with the problem of used tyres in the United Kingdom. I cannot comment about the local issue that he raised in detail, but a cement works would be regulated by the Environment Agency, which considers all emissions when it sets the pollution permit conditions. If he has not already done so, the hon. Gentleman should examine the particular circumstances and the Environment Agency's approach in his area. I would be happy to help if that would be of any use to him.

We take the issue of air quality very seriously. There are air pollution problems in some market towns just as there are localised problems in our bigger towns and cities. Local measures have a key role to play in dealing with those problems. The Government will continue to support local authorities financially and through the provision of policy and technical guidance.

The hon. Gentleman mentioned the link between air pollution and land use planning, which I agree is of the utmost importance. Planning authorities must be alive to the impact of new developments on air quality, but each case should be examined on its merits. As with so many things, the specific issue must be seen in the context of the wider economic, social and environmental effects. The point of sustainable development is to ensure that each of those three elements is properly balanced when reaching individual decisions. The guiding principals must be those of sustainable development.

I do not wish to comment on particular planning applications—it is not appropriate for Ministers to do so—but it is worth touching on a few broad principles. First, air quality can be what planners term a material consideration in any application. Whether it actually is, and the weight to be attached to it relative to other material considerations, are matters for the local planning authority in each case. For example, a planning authority may decide that it is worth accepting a slight deterioration in overall air quality if the economic or social gains of a particular development outweigh it. In other cases, the authority may decide that the impact on air quality is likely to be so significant that the development should not go ahead. What is important is that the issue is dealt with appropriately in the planning process.

Secondly, we cannot totally rule out developments in areas where the local authority has identified an air pollution problem, but in such areas, air quality is more likely to be a material consideration in the planning process. Local planning authorities may also consider whether to request developers to put in place mitigation measures, through planning conditions or other agreements with the developer.

Finally, we have encouraged local planning authorities to bear in mind air quality in their development plans for an area. When they set out the long-term blueprint for future developments, they must ensure that they do not create new pollution hot spots or worsen old ones. Such a balanced approach should be pursued. I hope that the hon. Gentleman is reassured about the way in which the Government are taking such issues seriously that he raised in the debate.

I am delighted to have secured this Adjournment debate—it seems to be somewhat amplified—on consumer rights in the European Union. I sought a debate because European institutions and member states are currently discussing several major consumer rights issues. Their decisions will have significant implications for consumers throughout the EU, including in the United Kingdom, and it is vital that the right decisions are taken.

On a point of order, Mr. Cook. Something strange is happening with the microphones. There is quite a lot of feedback, and I would suggest that it is too loud for anyone.

It may make things easier if the control room turned off the two additional live microphones—the Opposition spokesman's and mine.

Thank you, Mr. Cook. I am not sure whether that has improved matters. Do you wish me to continue?

Please continue.

It is vital that the right decisions are taken as a result of the ongoing discussions in the EU and member states. I shall highlight the most important aspects of those discussions, and suggest some of the measures that need to be implemented in the EU. I hope that our Government will support such measures in the European institutions, and that the Under-Secretary of State for Trade and Industry, the hon. Member for Welwyn Hatfield (Miss Johnson), can give some indication of the line that the Government are taking and of how matters stand in the European debate.

In drafting my comments, I have drawn on the ideas of several consumer organisations, arid I thank those that have provided me and other hon. Members with useful briefing material. In particular, I thank Citizens Advice and the Consumers Association.

This debate is important because the EU is developing significant consumer protection proposals. It is worth remembering that it has been the major shaper of much of our recent consumer protection legislation. Until the Enterprise Act 2002 was enacted a few weeks ago, most of our homegrown consumer rights legislation derived from the 1970s. Otherwise, most of the initiatives that have resulted in new rights for UK consumers have come from the EU. Those include protection against unfair terms in consumer contracts, and rights for those who purchase package holidays, timeshares and items at home, over the telephone and on the internet. It might even be said that those new rights are some of the most obvious and direct benefits that individuals in this country enjoy as a result of our EU membership. Most recently, the stop now regulations, which had previously been brought into play, were incorporated into the Enterprise Act. They originated in EU legislation, and I pay tribute to the Government and to the Minister for setting such great store by those stop now regulations, which will be an important weapon for the consumer in the fight against unfair trading practices.

One of the important debates taking place in the European Union is whether the various measures to protect consumers' interests should be complemented by placing businesses under a general duty to trade fairly with consumers. I am sure that hon. Members are aware that the European Union is consulting on such proposals. The introduction of such a general duty is supported by a wide range of consumer organisations, and I urge the Government to support such a general duty through European regulations.

Citizens Advice, in arguing for such a duty, has told me that its bureaux regularly report inquiries about shoddy and overpriced goods, delivery of substandard services, the use of misleading information, oppressive behaviour and high-pressure selling methods. Many of those complaints clearly involve unfair trading practices, but they cannot readily be addressed under present consumer protection legislation.

I was particularly struck by one example publicised by Citizens Advice in its recent report on doorstep selling. It gave the example of a single parent who was receiving working families tax credit and who was persuaded to sign a £6,000 contract to purchase solar panels. The salesperson had been in her home for five hours, the woman had not eaten and her child was desperate to go to bed, and she signed a contract for solar panels. She had responded to a sales leaflet that had come through her door, and because of that she was held to have solicited the visit from the salesperson. As a result, she had no cancellation rights under the regulations governing doorstep selling. When she tried to cancel the contract the company threatened her with breach of contract.

Such problems occur because under the implementation in the United Kingdom of European regulations on doorstep selling a consumer who signs a contract agreed to during a solicited visit to their home has no right to cancel that contract. A general duty against unfair trading would provide that such a practice could be challenged and that contracts entered into as a result of such unfair practice could be set aside. It has also been suggested that a fair trading duty could be a very powerful weapon in dealing with the many scandals of fuel mis-selling that have been the subject of many debates in the House.

The argument for such a general duty to trade fairly is that it would fill a gap in consumer law between specific rights and business practices that are unfair and are to the detriment of consumers but which may not easily be defined as unlawful practices. This gap exists, as legislation can fail to capture new trends and developments in a market. Unscrupulous traders have always tried to find ways around legislation, and a general duty to trade fairly would enable enforcement agencies to act much more quickly to deal with unfair trading practices. It is important to protect the interests of honest traders while preventing dishonest traders from engaging in unfair trading practices.

The idea of such a duty is not new. Twelve years ago, the Office of Fair Trading published proposals for a flexible tool for tackling unfair, deceptive or misleading practices under proposals for an overhauled Fair Trading Act. Four years ago, the Government, in their White Paper on modernising consumer protection, declared that the current legislation did not deal effectively with traders who demonstrated their lack of regard for legislation that was aimed at protecting consumers. The Government recognised the need to tackle unfair trading practices that harmed consumers yet were legal.

I hope that the Government will support the proposals that are going through the European Union to introduce such a general duty to trade fairly. Were that to be done, it would be a major boost for consumer interest throughout the European Union, including consumers in this country.

Consumer credit has been the subject of considerable debate in the House. It is an area in which the European Union will play an increasingly significant role, both because of its duties to promote the consumer interest and because of the increasing trans-border nature of much of the financial services industry. None of the hon. Members present will need persuading that there has been major, unprecedented growth in consumer credit in this country in the past few years, and that has been paralleled in the rest of the European Union.

The Government have decided to review the law on consumer credit. The Minister is to be congratulated on announcing recently what is to be the biggest shake-up in our consumer credit laws, under the banner of 'Tackling loan sharks and more!'. That Government initiative is welcome. It is also to be welcomed that the European institutions are looking at their consumer credit rules.

People of my age and from my era may remember that loan sharking was a big issue, especially in parts of the west of Scotland in the more traditional shipbuilding industry. Although it has been stamped out in many areas, it is still prevalent where there is low employment. I ask the Government to take whatever steps possible to encourage employers to make loan sharking in the workplace a dismissible and disciplinary offence.

My hon. Friend raises an important point. One problem is that the illegal loan shark will not be covered by consumer credit laws. However, employers still have an important role to play. As well as the measures that my hon. Friend suggests, support for workplace-based credit unions may be a positive way in which employers could deal with the problem that he outlines.

The European Commission has now published its draft consumer credit directive, and it is to be welcomed that the European Union is reviewing the Commission's proposals. However, several consumer groups in this country have expressed anxieties that the current European Union proposals for a new directive may—unintentionally—undermine much of the good work that the Government are doing to protect the interest of the consumer against the unscrupulous provider of credit.

It must be said that there is much to be welcomed, at least theoretically, in the European Union's draft directive. Consumer organisations have expressed concerns that, from a UK consumer's perspective, the directive may offer much less of the positive regulation that is enjoyed by UK consumers at present, and will be enjoyed by UK consumers if the Government's proposals on consumer credit are put into effect.

I wish to draw attention to some of the concerns expressed by consumer organisations, and I hope that the Minister will respond to some of those points at the end of the debate.

My first concern relates to licensing and regulation. As I understand it, the European Union proposals would replace the current positive licensing system for traders with a system of registration for lenders and credit intermediaries, but they do not appear to require debt collectors and debt counsellors to be registered, although they are currently required to be licensed in the UK. Those who operate credit reference agencies and hold personal data on individuals would not need to be licensed under the EU proposals, as they currently are in the UK. Clearly, if such measures were omitted from the European rules, loopholes could open up in our system of protection for borrowers.

A second concern relates to home improvement loans. As I understand it, the draft directive would exclude lending for the transformation of private heritable property or home improvement loans. Consumers who take out loans for that purpose should be protected from unfair trading practices and unfair debt recovery practices. CABs report that that area of the market is often associated with unfair trading practices, extortionate credit and high-pressure sales tactics, so it needs to be covered by the consumer credit directive, when it finally emerges.

There are concerns about extortionate credit, which the EU proposals do not seem to challenge. UK legislation contains at least some limited provisions to challenge extortionate credit rates, and I know that the Government have given some consideration to strengthening legislation in that respect. The fear is that the draft European directive could make it impossible to enforce such restrictions on extortionate credit in the UK.

There are concerns about early settlement charges. It is suggested that, under the EU proposals, there would be no prospect of member states being able to abolish extortionate charges for the early settlement of debt. CABs have often reported outrageous practices by lenders who charge extremely high rates of interest for early termination of loan contracts.

Another important concern, expressed not only by consumer organisations but by some lenders, is the proposed change to the liability of credit card issuers in the event that goods or services purchased with a credit card are substandard. The draft directive seems to offer less protection to consumers in those circumstances than the UK's Consumer Credit Act 1974. Under that Act, both the credit card issuer and the supplier of goods and services are liable, subject to certain qualifications, if those goods or services are substandard. Under the terms of the directive, however, the liability of the supplier and card issuer would apply only if the supplier of goods and services had also acted as the supplier of credit. As I am sure hon. Members appreciate, consumers who purchase goods and services with a credit card from a supplier often do not also use the supplier as an intermediary to provide the credit. The ability to claim against the credit card provider, as well as against the supplier, for substandard goods and services has been an important fall-back right enjoyed by consumers in this country. If the directive were to remove or restrict consumers' rights to make a claim against a credit card provider, for example when the supplier had not met a claim or had gone out of business, that would be a major loss for the consumer interest. It is not only consumers organisations that have expressed concern about the matter; I received an e-mail last night from the Nationwide building society, a credit card issuer, which expressed concern about the effect of the directive on consumers' rights.

The draft directive raises many questions about the Government's intention to tighten the UK consumer credit regulations. It is important that the European Union rules should not eventually worsen the position of consumers in this country, instead of providing them with additional rights. I hope that the Government will work to ensure that the important EU proposals on consumer credit will result in the improvements for UK consumers that I have suggested.

My hon. Friend spoke of regulation that can be applied to people in the system. The largest difficulty in my county is the black economy, where cash changes hands. Travellers come across every summer and take millions of pounds from the local economy for shoddy jobs. There is no comeback because they disappear into the ether. Has my hon. Friend given any thought to the idea of educating consumers, rather than regulating the people providing services, who can never be caught?

My hon. Friend raises an important point, because a difficulty with tightening regulations is that some people choose not to comply with any regulations, and ignore them all. The measures that the Government are introducing strongly emphasise not only the giving of rights to consumers but the provision of mechanisms to educate them about those rights. Some providers will always flout the law, so it is important that people know when that happens and when to report it to an enforcement agency.

The Government have done much to provide consumers with new rights. The opportunities for consumers that recent measures have brought about may not yet have been as widely recognised as they might be. It is essential, therefore, that the European Union framework should add to, support and strengthen the measures taken by the Government, and should not allow them to be undermined, even inadvertently. I hope that the Minister will be able to commit herself to continuing the fight within Europe to maintain a high level of consumer protection, so that consumers in this country will benefit, as well as those in other countries of the European Union.

Order. It will be of interest to hon. Members to know that the volume level on the sound system in this Chamber has been increased in response to complaints made by colleagues before Christmas that it was too low. However, account has been taken of our experiences this afternoon, and measures are in train to moderate the levels to somewhere between what we have now and what we had then. No expense is spared to ensure the comfort and ease of hon. Members.

I hope that my contribution will be well modulated, Mr. Cook.

I have a puzzle. It began in the 1970s when I first took an interest in this matter. At that stage, this country was a leader in consumer policy and law. The Trade Descriptions Act 1968 was a model, as was the Fair Trading Act 1973, which was introduced by the Conservatives, although a great deal of the work had been done by my right hon. Friend the Member for Swansea, West (Mr. Williams) when the Labour party was in power. People in other parts of the world looked to the Unfair Contract Terms Act 1977. At that time, the National Consumer Council was established and high street consumer advice centres sprung up around the country.

Then we had the great freeze of the 1980s. I remember being part of a small National Consumer Council delegation to the now shadow Leader of the House, who was then at the Department of Trade and Industry. We proposed a manufacturers' guarantee bill, but although that was strongly supported by members of the Conservative party, such as Baroness Oppenheim-Barnes, it got very short shrift. As my hon. Friend the Member for Edinburgh, North and Leith (Mr. Lazarowicz) said, it was a time when the European Community consumer protection measures came into their own. I had some difficulty with the competence of the European Community. The justification that the measures were somehow fundamental to the completion of the internal market and that they were necessary to empower consumers to shop across borders did not wash with me. However, the substance of the measures was excellent. We received directives on, for example, package holidays and time-shares and, most importantly, we had the unfair terms in consumer contract directive, leading to regulations in 1994 which have been replaced by the 1999 regulations.

That is where my puzzle comes in. Since the great freeze, the consumer measures that have been taken have been largely driven by Europe. My concern is that sometimes we are the odd one out in opposing valuable developments at a European level. In 1999, the Government published a White Paper "Modern Markets: Confident Consumers" which provides a valuable framework for policy. I commend the Government for such measures as section 11 of the Enterprise Act 2002, which introduced the system of super-complainants. There are also provisions in part 8 of the Act in relation to stop now orders, although they were largely prompted by the European Community directive on the matter and by the need, which was identified in 1976, to reform part III of the Fair Trading Act 1986.

However, we should not have needed the 1999 sale of consumer goods and associated guarantees directive to make us change our law to make manufacturers' guarantees enforceable and to ensure that consumers were legally entitled to repairs to faulty products. We should have taken the initiative many years ago. A number of problems have been identified by my hon. Friend, such as over-indebtedness. In preparing for the debate, I asked Dudley's citizens advice bureau and trading standards department to provide me with examples of that. They cited companies that lend money door to door and encourage people to take out high-interest loans, which they cannot afford to repay, and rogue traders. In my area the phantom tarmackers have been replaced by the block pavers. I am sure that all hon. Members have received complaints about the sale of gas and electricity by various companies.

The most scandalous recent example of high pressure sales in Dudley is that of the 83-year-old widow who received an unsolicited phone call asking about her physical condition, at the end of which she was told that she had won a massage. An arrangement was made for her to receive a visit the next day. She was then pressurised to buy a £4,400 orthopaedic bed, eventually reduced to £2,700. She paid a deposit of £300. After the bed arrived she discovered that she could have bought it for £800 to £900 elsewhere, and that it was not especially helpful to her. The problem of rogue selling is being dealt with as a result of the super complaint brought by NACAB, which is now known as Citizens Advice. In response, the Office of Fair Trading agreed that there was a serious problem. The taskforce set up by the Department of Trade and Industry to tackle over-indebtedness has acknowledged that there is a problem with irresponsible lending. It sets out several practices, and draws the conclusion that

"each affects a relatively small proportion of high-risk households. But such practices do tend, quite disproportionately, to attract customers who are at a high risk of over-commitment."

In her speech to the money advice liaison group in November, my hon. Friend the Minister acknowledged that there were problems and identified the steps that the Government have taken on financial education and support for financial advice services and the steps of the regulatory agencies in relation to the sale of gas and electricity. However, we should not need a proposed directive from the European Community to tell us that we need a legal instrument to deal with responsible lending, which is what draft article 9 sets out to do.

My hon. Friend the Member for Edinburgh, North and Leith raised some important points about this new consumer credit directive, which I shall not repeat. The directive would create certain difficulties, such as the section 75 difficulty identified by my hon. Friend, whereby the liability of creditors for the acts of retailers might be reduced, which would certainly be a retrograde step for policy in this country.

My hon. Friend the Member for West Renfrewshire (Jim Sheridan) raised an interesting point about marrying employment and consumer credit law. My point is that we have problems in this country that are clearly identifiable. We should be taking action and do not need the European Community to tell us how to do things.

My hon. Friend the Member for Edinburgh, North and Leith raised the issue of a general duty to trade fairly. He rightly pointed out that an OFT paper was published on the subject in February 1987. In the summer, I read a paper to the Society of European Contract Law in which I traced the issue back even further. The United States and commonwealth countries such as Australia have provisions that could easily form a basis of a general duty to trade fairly. I therefore found it disappointing that, during the passage of the Enterprise Bill, my hon. Friend the Minister made clear the Government's opposition to that duty. That opposition was confirmed by the Government's response in October 2002 to the European Commission's consultation on the follow-up communication to the Green Paper on EU consumer protection.

In the debates on the Enterprise Bill, the Minister referred to the lack of clarity of a duty to trade fairly. It appears that the experience of other countries does not support that proposition. The duty to trade fairly, or its equivalent, operates successfully in other countries. It operates in the United States under the uniform commercial code and in Australia under the Trade Practices Act to pick up problems with which specific legislative provisions do not deal. We need the general duty as a backstop to specific regulations.

The Minister also voiced the objection that the general duty would be too great a burden on business. It does not operate as a burden on business, but merely crystallises once a business acts unfairly. It has no bearing on a business until that business steps out of line.

In the paper that I presented over the summer to the Society of European Contract Law, I argued that the duty should be coupled with a provision for redress. Again, that operates successfully in other countries, so I am puzzled as to why we are not in favour of the duty and why we are not leading by example. I know that other hon. Members have contributions to make, so I shall end where I began—with a puzzle. Why is it that we were once a leader in consumer policy and law, but we are now a laggard?

I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Edinburgh, North and Leith (Mr. Lazarowicz) on securing this debate on an extremely important issue. I shall concentrate on timeshare selling and its impact on many vulnerable people. Going on holiday abroad, they are subjected to attempts to sell them timeshare facilities, which cause them much pain and discomfort. Many of those people are easily identifiable by their white legs when they arrive at these sunny resorts.

Timeshare has presented a problem for consumer protection policy for a number of years. The Department of Trade and Industry has estimated that there are at least 440,000 timeshare owners in the United Kingdom, more than three quarters of whom have timeshares abroad. There are an estimated 1.14 million owners throughout the European Union, a third of whom are based in the UK. The DTI also estimates that, in the UK alone, the timeshare market is worth more than £108 million per annum.

Attracted by the certainty of holiday accommodation for years to come, consumers often find that, at best, the deal is poor, as service charges rise uncontrollably and contracts contain restrictive covenants on resale. Worse, contracts often seem to be entered into after high-pressure and misleading sales practices. Often, contracts do not have cooling-off or cancellation rights, and obtaining redress or refunds is extremely difficult, if not impossible.

Many products on the market are designed to fall outside the specific EU consumer protection relating to timeshare, either because they are timeshare-like, such as holiday clubs that do not specify a particular property under the contract, or because the contracts are of less than 36 months' duration. Providers seem to use both those devices to avoid coming within the scope of the EU timeshare directive, which provides the right to cancel contracts.

For many years, consumer bodies have highlighted a range of significant shortcomings in the consumer protection law in this regard, so it comes as no surprise that the Office of Fair Trading reports with alarming regularity that consumer complaints about timeshare continue to increase. In 2000, the complaints totalled 4,860; now, the figure has risen to 6,218. Outside the UK, the European consumer centres report that this is the single largest subject of inquiries from consumers, who often seek help because they want to get out of a very shady deal.

It seemed that the UK Government were on top of the problem and keen to solve it. Just three years ago, the then Consumer Affairs Minister announced a crackdown on unscrupulous holiday timeshare sales techniques. Consultation was promised on a number of key changes, such as widening the scope of timeshare legislation to include holiday and vacation club schemes, floating vessels and timeshares of less than three years' duration, timeshare resales, and protection relating to money paid post sale for items such as maintenance.

At present it seems that all that is likely to materialise in the UK in the face of ongoing consumer detriment is a small change to UK consumers' rights to information about their present cooling-off and cancellation rights. Pulling back from the proposals made three years ago, the DTI only proposes to change the legislation so that instead of customers receiving a separate cancellation notice and form, the notice will be integral to the contract and have a detachable cancellation coupon. While those consumers with cancellation rights may be more likely to be aware of them, it will do nothing to allow those who purchase timeshares that do not fall within the strict limits of the present legislation to cancel after they have experienced the high-pressure sales tactics.

Across the EU, instead of moving to improve this legislation, it seems likely that nothing will happen until it becomes clear whether timeshare problems can be adequately addressed through a proposed framework directive, which will prohibit unfair trading practices but, unfortunately, could take a number of years to appear. In the interim, a self-regulatory code of practice promulgated by the Organisation for Timeshare in Europe has been issued. In fact, it is a collection of so-called codes of ethics relating to different products. Unfortunately, consumer organisations doubt whether the OTE code will ever deliver any tangible benefits.

Indeed, the ECC has provided a joint response, pointing out that the code fails consumers. It says that the code is not consumer friendly. One simple, clear code is needed. The code will only be as affective as its market coverage and enforcement mechanisms. The ECC's experience is that the most problematic firms are not currently and certainly have no intention of becoming members of the OTE. Procedures and commitments on complaint handling and compensation are absent and arrangements for supervision, monitoring and enforcement of the code are either absent or insufficiently transparent to attract confidence. For example, the codes are overseen by an ethics council, but there is no information about how that council will be constituted or whether it will have any independent representation or how cases can be brought to it.

In conclusion, the ECC is extremely unhappy about promoting the proposed code, even if the content is improved considerably, as that could be seen as minimising the extent of problems that consumers face in the market and suggests that the codes are an adequate response. It supports the view that this is a case where a code cannot substitute for effective legislation. An EU directive on timeshares is long overdue.

I congratulate the hon. Member for Edinburgh, North and Leith (Mr. Lazarowicz) on the professional way in which he introduced his subject. It establishes a good precedent. We often deal with European legislation at its later stages, but he has taken up a subject where the issues are still being discussed. The Green Paper thinking is still open. There is no Government commitment. There is no directive, certainly on the duty to trade fairly. It is good that we have discussions in this House at this early stage. I do not know whether that was his intention, but it has certainly been the effect and it is welcome.

I share the hon. Gentleman's enthusiasm for putting consumer issues on the agenda. Like the hon. and learned Member for Dudley, North (Ross Cranston), I feel that the issue has stagnated in recent years. It is fair to give some credit to the Minister. The stop now provisions were a big step forward. I know that she has taken a lot of personal interest in promoting the function of the trading standards officer, which is a low-status backwater in local government that has now been given some valuable impetus and support.

The issue on which I want to focus is specifically the European element. There are good and bad reasons for wanting to introduce consumer provisions at a European level. The good reason is to make the single market work, but the bad reason is that there are people in Brussels who are underemployed and want to create a European framework even though one is not strictly called for. I met some of the people in the division in Brussels about a year ago when the policy strategy was still being drafted, and I had great doubts about whether it was necessary. This is an area of European legislation about which we should be critical and ask whether the principles of subsidiarity are being applied.

On the positive side, there is a case for having a degree of European consumer legislation to make the single market work. There are two basic reasons for that. The first is in the interests of the consumers, so that people have the confidence to buy across national frontiers. Some useful survey work, quoted in the European Commission document, suggests that only 30 per cent. of European citizens have confidence that they will be protected if they buy across frontiers, whereas in the national domain the figure is 60 per cent. There is clearly a consumer reticence issue with which European provisions could help. Secondly, for the single market to work producers need to be confident that they can sell standard products and do not have to produce 15 different variants. That is why it is important to have a set of European safety standards for cars, so that we do not have 15 different versions of the same car, which would undermine the purpose of the single market. Therefore, some degree of European consumer protection is necessary.

The question is then whether the rules should be applied on what insiders would call the mutual recognition principle. In other words, should we accept that the standards of the country of origin should apply or do we need standardisation and harmonisation? In general, the mutual recognition approach is right. It gives producers the confidence that they can sell throughout the whole of Europe and is valuable in preserving some degree of local identity. Consumer protection rules in Germany means that two-for-the-price-of-one discount sales are illegal, whereas we would regard that as a normal and acceptable market practice. People like to hunt around for bargains, and there is no reason why we should have the same approach as the Germans. Some degree of mutual recognition of different standards is desirable, and we should work and fight for it.

However, there are matters on which it is necessary to go beyond that to maintain consumer confidence. Some have already been listed, and timeshare and package holidays are important examples, for the simple reason that many people take their holidays abroad. They are consuming products in a foreign country and will have no consumer protection unless the rules are standardised throughout Europe. In the holiday trade, it would make sense to have not only mutual recognition but some harmonisation of rules. Furthermore, in order to kick start e-commerce, which currently represents only 2 per cent. of business, there needs to be some degree of confidence that if people buy via the internet from another European country, they will have some consumer protection. Otherwise, such trade will not take off.

A market in financial services has been an EU aspiration for which the British have pushed particularly hard. If people choose to buy shares in the German stock market through a German broker or a pension through a French bank based in Paris, they should be able to enjoy the protection, albeit limited, that we enjoy through the financial ombudsman. There should be some standardisation, but there is a delicate balance to be struck between harmonisation, which is necessary in some trades such as travel, and a process that reflects different national standards in other industries. We cannot be dogmatic about this subject.

I want to link those points to the specific issue of the duty to trade fairly. The Minister will remember that when the Enterprise Act 2002 was debated in Parliament, hon. Members of all parties argued that it was a cause that the Government should take up. The hon. and learned Member for Dudley, North has already explained the reasoning behind it—the existence of many dodgy practices just on the border of legality. I wrote to the Minister recently about a lady with Alzheimer's who received one of the posted-in-Belgium letters offering her, if she sent £10, entry into a prize draw to win a Porsche. She had no idea what she was signing: she sent the cheque because she believed that she had to pay a bill. Within weeks, she was receiving 20 follow-up letters a week from people demanding money in the prize draw business. That is an example of the sort of practices being operated on the fringe of the law. It is not being policed, yet there are dozens of such operations.

It was argued in Committee at the time that, rather than try to pick off each of the individual practices through separate pieces of legislation, it would be better to legislate for an overall duty to trade fairly, but the Government rejected that.

Will the Minister explain the Government's position? Having rejected the opportunity to produce British legislation to meet our particular needs, we now run the risk of being subject to Europe-wide legislation, which is not drafted to deal with our specific problems, but incorporates the requisite principle. Will the Government accept that? How will the European move to create a duty to trade fairly sit with the strong pressures exerted in Committee to incorporate the duty into British law? I would be grateful to hear the Minister's response.

Another question about the proposed European directive is how the Government will apply what is known in the trade as the Lamfalussy doctrine? The Europeans are working towards a system in which a general duty is created at European level and subsequently left to codes of practice at a national level. The problem with national codes of practice, as the Minister will know from mortgage regulation, is that they are often applied ineffectively, requiring detailed prescriptive legislation. How will the balance be struck between a European framework and British regulation? Will the degree of delegation of subsidiarity in this sector be sufficient?

Thirdly, how far have the Government gone towards assessing the costs of regulation? We endlessly debate red tape and regulation here. It is now widely accepted that regulation has to be justified with reference to some sort of cost-benefit analysis. Feedback from retail interests with respect to the duty to trade fairly suggests that the legislation is potentially onerous, coming on top of other provisions such as the temporary workers directive. Questions are being asked about whether the EU is carrying out proper evaluation of the costs and benefits. Are the Government carrying out evaluation and how will the tests be applied?

Finally, what of enforcement? As I acknowledged at the outset, the Minister has generally played a positive role in ensuring that the trading standards profession in local government is properly supported. When the legislation is passed, whether at European or British level, it will depend ultimately on the handful of individuals in every local authority who have the responsibility for enforcing the law. What appreciation has been done of the additional burdens of enforcement? Can the trading standards system cope with it and do the Government have any further plans to strengthen the service?

I, too, congratulate the hon. Member for Edinburgh, North and Leith (Mr. Lazarowicz), who takes a particular interest in these matters, on securing the debate on consumer rights in the EU. I was unusually interested to hear the comments of the hon. Member for Twickenham (Dr. Cable) and I agreed with almost all of them, although not his views on the duty to trade fairly. I was not a member of the Committee that considered the Enterprise Bill, but I was interested in what he had to say. I shall try not to repeat what has been said already.

EU consumer policy and rights have now moved to a central position in EU policy as a whole, largely as a result of the single market. As hon. Members will know, the single market has 370 million consumers, and the United Kingdom has £132 billion-worth of trade with the EU. The Single European Act, which came into force on 1 July 1987, introduced the notion of the consumer into the treaty, and consumer policy became part of the more general policy of completing the single market. In recent years, measures have been taken in a number of areas, some of which we heard about earlier, including toy safety, general product safety, cross-border payment, unfair contract terms, distance selling and timeshares.

Article 153 of the 1997 Amsterdam treaty stated that the

"consumer protection requirements shall be taken into account in defining and implementing other Community policies and activities."

That meant that consumer protection became a key EU objective that had to be taken into account whenever new EU laws were developed. I have mentioned the impact of that in general terms. More specifically, in relation to product safety, European rules guarantee minimum quality standards for food and other goods: a guarantee that must be welcomed by everyone. Furthermore, European rules guarantee greater and fairer competition, and the European Commission acts as a watchdog against collusive agreements between companies and abuse of monopoly position.

Car prices were briefly mentioned earlier in the debate. Hon. Members will remember that, in July last year, the Commission gave permission for car dealers to solicit or open for business anywhere in the EU. That has had a major impact on the pricing of cars in the UK, and presumably elsewhere.

On 7 May last year, the European Commission adopted a new consumer policy strategy. The objectives of that strategy were a high common level of consumer protection, effective enforcement of consumer protection rules, and the involvement of consumer organisations in EU policy.

I shall briefly mention some of the directives that have already been implemented. I was not aware, until I was briefed on this issue, that under the directive on price indications on foodstuffs and non-food products, it is an EU requirement that every food product should carry a best date marking. EU directives also cover misleading advertising and distance selling, unfair terms and consumer contracts, and specific measures protecting purchasers of package tours and timeshares. We heard about that last issue from the hon. Member for—

West Renfrewshire.

The hon. Member for West Renfrewshire (Jim Sheridan).

It is in Scotland.

I am well aware that it is in Scotland. I am not at all sure that I did not live there for a short period, but I was only two or three-years-old at the time, so I cannot remember.

The Timeshare Regulations 1997 implemented the EU's timeshare directive. Those regulations have been useful, although, as we have heard, there have been some problems.

The Conservative party welcomes most of those directives, because we welcome anything that is concerned with good trading practice and with ensuring that consumers are appropriately protected. However, we have concerns about the EU's methods and about consumer protection as a whole. The hon. Member for Twickenham made some good points about civil servants in Brussels looking for things to do because they did not have sufficient work.

My first concern is unequal enforcement in member states. I am not sure how, with subsidiarity, enforcement can be improved. However, the aim must be equal enforcement, not just because that is why there are international agreements, but for cross-border trading. We know that, in the single market, the financial services and insurance market has not been as free as it should have been.

Interestingly, if we look at the single market scorecard, the UK has been a good implementer of directives. The first scoreboard was published in November 1997, shortly after the Government came to power, when the UK was ranked second in transposition. By the general election of 2001, we had dropped to 12th in the European Union, but by May last year we had gone up to fifth place. The UK has a reasonable record of implementing directives under Conservative and Labour Governments. There is nothing to be ashamed of: indeed, we should be proud of it, but we should beware of gold-plating legislation.

Secondly, as the hon. Member for Edinburgh, North and Leith said in respect of credit card users, UK regulation is often better than EU regulation. As the hon. and learned Member for Dudley, North (Ross Cranston) said, the UK has had a good record in that respect in the past 30 years.

My final concern is that we should be wary of over-regulation because there is a balance between proper consumer protection and an unnecessary, onerous regulatory burden on business. Will the Minister explain the Government's position on the guarantees directive, which is probably still in her pending tray?

I think that all hon. Members oppose gold-plating or unnecessary regulations emanating from Europe or elsewhere. Given the positive list of measures from which consumers in this country have benefited because of European initiatives, to which the hon. Gentleman referred at the start of his contribution, can he identify any gold-plating of regulations in consumer affairs by the European Union?

That is a good question. I shall go back to my office and look for several such examples, but I cannot give any at the moment.

Small businesses are groaning under regulatory burdens, as the Minister knows from listening to representations from business organisations. It behoves us not to pile regulation on business, however good the intention may be, and to ensure that there is a proper balance between preventing sharks and cowboys taking advantage of vulnerable people and recognising the importance of business initiatives and improving economic prosperity.

I am not a lawyer, unlike the hon. and learned Member for Dudley, North, but we should all remember the old adage of caveat emptor, and exercise caution. My elderly father, who sadly died a couple of years ago, was persuaded by a cowboy to tarmac his drive, at huge cost. The tarmac broke up the week after it was laid. I tried to get the police to take an interest in the matter, but without success. My father may have been old, but his mind was not feeble and he had entered into a contract.

We welcome EU and international action to stand by consumer protection regulations that benefit business and the consumer. We would be wary of any EU directives that are unnecessary, or that reduce good consumer protection practice current in the UK. We recognise that sharks, cowboys and crooks will always try to make a quick buck, perhaps using modern technology and the internet. We should be vigilant when facing changing circumstances.

I join hon. Members in congratulating my hon. Friend the Member for Edinburgh, North and Leith (Mr. Lazarowicz) on securing the debate on this important subject. As the hon. Member for Twickenham (Dr. Cable) remarked, it gives us an opportunity to have an early debate on matters being considered by the European Union.

My hon. Friend is right to focus on European consumer issues, and I welcome the opportunity to say why my Department and I are working hard to raise the profile of consumers in Europe. One of the United Kingdom's key objectives is to put confident and protected consumers at the heart of our competition regime. Several hon. Members mentioned the role of the Enterprise Act 2002 in that respect. We have done much to create a world-class competition regime, and our aim is to complement it by creating a world-class consumer protection regime. I reassure my hon. and learned Friend the Member for Dudley, North (Ross Cranston) that that is our domestic objective. Of course, the two work together. Confident consumers drive innovation and promote a dynamic and productive economy.

Getting the balance right means empowering consumers as we push ahead with broader economic objectives. Whenever possible, protection needs to be EU-wide or international, because consumers increasingly purchase from overseas or from within EU boundaries, for example on the internet. That enhances competition and gives consumers access to a wider choice of suppliers, and the market will be even larger following enlargement. However, if consumers are to have the confidence to make effective use of those opportunities—the hon. Member for Twickenham commented on this—they need to know that they have appropriate rights in the event that things go wrong. That links in to practices such as alternative dispute resolution, which I shall touch on briefly in a moment.

I want to say something about our overall objectives for the new EU. The EU has made a huge contribution to consumer protection. Consumer policy has developed alongside the progressive establishment of the internal market. Indeed, it is clear from work currently being undertaken by the Commission that it is the internal market in services that is lagging behind, and there are many difficult issues with that. Consumer rights to information, education and representation are enshrined in article 153 of the treaty, and EU consumer protection directives have fleshed out some of the detail of those rights.

The development of EU consumer policy in the UK has bolstered our existing consumer protection systems, but in many countries EU-inspired legislation provides more or less the only protection that consumers have. Our stop now orders have been a big step forward in advancing consumer protection throughout Europe, and for UK consumers in particular. Since last June, the UK trading standards agencies have used stop now orders in more than 50 cases, but that underestimates the actual role of stop now orders, many of which have been used as negotiating tools to ensure that unfair or illegal practices are ended.

The EU is about to change fundamentally. New countries are joining and they will bring new markets with differing structures into the Union. We must continue to ensure high standards of consumer protection throughout the EU as the single market begins this dramatic change, which will result in it having more consumers than the US and Japan put together.

We have a clear set of objectives for consumer protection in the new Europe. We want existing regulations to be simplified and clarified. We want the consumer voice to be heard in EC policy-making, and to ensure that any changes to EC policy are based on a firm foundation of evidence. We also want those policies to be backed up by effective enforcement mechanisms. Considerable activity is taking place in Europe at the moment, and we are pleased to see that much of it is in line with UK objectives.

I want briefly to respond to the point made by my hon. and learned Friend the Member for Dudley, North. He asked why we were waiting for things to be done in Europe. Obviously, for reasons that I have sketched out, many things need to be done on a Europe-wide basis, so if measures are to be effective, it is only practical to look to the EU as a vehicle for introducing some key aspects of consumer protection. That is especially relevant to timeshare.

The European Commission's consumer policy strategy for the next four years is to be welcomed. The strategy aims to integrate consumer policy into EU policy areas, such as transport, competition and the internal market. We have been advocating such joined-up working for a long time, and it reflects thinking in the UK.

The general duty to trade fairly was the first issue that my hon. Friend the Member for Edinburgh, North and Leith raised and about which others have commented. The Commission's strategy is to achieve a higher common level of consumer protection. A key element of it is the Green Paper on consumer protection, in which the Commission suggested a new approach to EU consumer protection in the form of a wide-ranging, so-called framework directive with a general duty to trade fairly—or a general duty not to trade unfairly.

We welcome the Green Paper's objective of making existing legislation and the internal market work better for consumers and business. However, we must ensure that such a directive is justified by well-quantified evidence, that we limit the potential for adding regulation and increasing internal market barriers and, crucially, that any new rules will be properly enforceable.

The hon. Member for Twickenham and others mentioned the work that was done and the examples that were produced during consideration of the Enterprise Bill. We have carefully reviewed the dossier of case studies that the National Consumer Council and others have produced, and our impression still is that many of the cases cited are covered by existing legislation. I believe that I gave the Committee that information at the time.

We must also consider whether the problem is one of enforcement rather than a need for new legislation. There may well have been a problem in the case of the father of the hon. Member for Blaby (Mr. Robathan), even if he had not signed the contract or something inappropriate or improper had been done that was, in fact, covered by legislation. My hon. and learned Friend the Member for Dudley, North cited the case of an 83-year-old. The issue for elderly people is one of enforcement as much as failures in legislation.

The UK is one of two member states that do not have a general duty to trade fairly. However, it is easier for each member state to arrive at a definition of "fairly" than it is to agree across the EU on such a definition. That problem must be addressed.

There are also different legal and redress systems among the member states, and we must focus as much effort as we possibly can on preventing problems arising in the first place. I share the concerns of all hon. Members about the treatment of vulnerable consumers and the redress that is available to them. Such people would rather avoid the problem than have to deal with some redress mechanism when they experience unfairness or difficulty.

We have maintained our reserve on the principle of the general duty to trade fairly on the grounds that we want to produce a provision that is workable, enforceable and practical, and that provides a clear definition for businesses and genuine protection to consumers who trade or buy across borders. The definition of "fairly" must be applied on a common basis in all member states.

I accept my hon. Friend's point that enforcement is crucial to consumer protection. Without enforcement, the laws on the statute books are absolutely worthless, although they might produce an educative effect.

The consumer contracts directive covers unfair terms. It includes a wide duty to act fairly and in good faith, and not to the detriment of consumers. That has been adopted in all member states, as it had to be. There was not the same difficulty in implementing that, although on the Minister's argument it was a vague provision, so why should there be difficulty with the duty to trade fairly?

To answer my hon. Friend's point, it is necessary to consider the issue historically. We are now in a slightly different time, with much more cross-border trading than there was a few years ago when the unfair contract terms directive came into force. There is now, too, much more buying of goods and services over the internet, which raises further issues. The duty in that directive was a very specific one, focused on contract terms. We are discussing a very general duty, and we are concerned, in this as in other fields, because it is often still quite difficult—the timeshare directive is a case in point—for provisions that are genuinely meaningful to consumers to be enforced across different member states.

For all those reasons, we want to see real, practical issues addressed in the discussions. That is the UK's position. The hon. Member for Twickenham was a little unkind in saying that the Government are opposed to the general duty. The Government's line has always been—this was my expressed view when we considered the Enterprise Bill—that we must consider what we are trying to tackle, and how it can best be tackled effectively. We are handling the negotiations on the general duty to trade fairly on that basis. Of course, we have to ensure that businesses are aware of the definitions so that they can be sure that they comply with the law, especially as many business transactions take place across various different member states, as several hon. Members have mentioned.

Turning to the consumer credit directive, I welcome the concerns that consumer organisations have raised. Our officials are in regular contact with the organisations and with representatives of the lending industry to ensure that our negotiations address the points raised. I have considerable sympathy with the points made by my hon. Friend the Member for Edinburgh, North and Leith and by my hon. and learned Friend the Member for Dudley, North on such matters as the promotion of responsible lending and borrowing. We want to see all loans secured on property excluded from the scope of the directive, a point that my hon. Friend the Member for Edinburgh, North and Leith made.

We also want credit unions to be exempted from the scope of the directive, and we are fighting hard to ensure that we maintain the joint and several liability protections that currently govern credit card use in the UK. This is an example of where European legislation could be in danger of watering down current protections in the UK. We want to see a levelling up, not a levelling down, which is the basis of all the work behind our discussions.

We are certainly not prepared to see this important and valuable piece of consumer protection removed. Our aim is to get the best possible outcome, and I was delighted recently to chair a seminar for several MEPs and other interested parties in Brussels, which was attended by representatives of the credit industry and people with a particular knowledge of and concern in the matter. Some effective presentations were made about concerns such as those that hon. Members have rightly raised in this debate.

On redress, as Members have said, effective enforcement by public authorities is vital. We also encourage codes of practice and self-regulation. As part of that approach, we believe that alternative dispute resolution schemes, such as ombudsmen and arbitration, can be efficient and low-cost ways of settling contractual disputes between consumers and business. The United Kingdom is a firm supporter and leading contributor to the European Extra-Judicial Network, which covers all member states, plus Iceland and Norway. It will help consumers to access ADR schemes if they have disputes with traders in other member states. It is not yet fully operational, but the UK national clearing house, which is run by Citizens Advice, is already handling cases and has dealt with about 200 to date. Throughout Europe, some 1,100 consumer cases have been dealt with by EEJ-Net.

My hon. Friend the Member for West Renfrewshire (Jim Sheridan) raised issues on the timeshare directive. The directive is a good example of a popular cross-border product, and changing UK law alone would not help consumer detriment. The importance of effective cross-border legislation remains high. The Commission proposes to review the directive, and we are working closely with it to ensure that consumer protection is balanced with industry competitiveness. Meanwhile, existing legislation needs to be more effectively enforced because, as my hon. Friend said, it seems that consumers still find enforcement of their rights difficult in this area.

The stop now orders give new powers to EU enforcement authorities to tackle cross-border disputes. The Office of Fair Trading has already begun to work closely with its European counterparts to crack down on rogue timeshare traders who target UK holidaymakers. That is particularly true in Spain, and is an example of effective working with another member state's enforcement authorities to secure the protection that our consumers have every right to expect and should receive under the law.

There are limits to the extent that legislation can tackle the problems because it can quickly become outdated, which goes back to the point made by the hon. Member for Twickenham about the Lamfalussy principles, and about self-regulation and secondary legislation rather than primary legislation. The difficulty with primary legislation is that it can rapidly become outdated in today's modern world where matters move quickly and legislation does not always move as quickly. Rogue traders, as my hon. Friend the Member for West Renfrewshire said, are inventive in finding ways to circumvent the law.

The timeshare industry could do a lot more with better self-regulation. That would be to its advantage and it is important to provide more information for consumers, but I am pleased that the industry has taken note and begun to introduce further codes of practice. We are examining that further. The best means of tackling rogue traders and bad practice is to have well-informed consumers, so an information campaign conducted in partnership with the Office of Fair Trading is being undertaken to get our message across to consumers and to give them as much security as can be achieved.

It is important to recognise that there are limits to the protection that legislation can provide people, because, sadly, rogues quickly invent ways of getting round those provisions. That may be a point that hon. Members want to reinforce, and I would not disagree with them about the attraction of a general duty not to trade unfairly.

I am pleased to note that regulations under the sale of consumer goods and associated guarantees directive were presented to Parliament on 11 December 2002 and will come into force on 31 March 2003. The regulations make manufacturers' guarantees legally binding, although we were not aware that that was a problem in the UK. None the less, that sets the record straight.

Effective enforcement is an absolute priority for the UK, and I am pleased that it is being increasingly taken up by the Commission. We warmly welcome its focus on the mechanisms of protection, which mirrors our priorities. Those mechanisms will be relied upon more heavily to deliver protection as the EU enlarges and shopping across borders becomes ever more prevalent and popular.

The Green Paper on consumer protection set out the Commission's thinking on a possible framework for improving co-operation between EU consumer enforcement authorities. We expect that to be worked up into a separate draft regulation early this year. We look forward to that development, because there is much more o be done in improving communication and co-operation between European enforcement agencies. The UK has a strong tradition of consumer protection through public bodies, so we are in a good position actively to support the proposal, which we shall continue to do.

On the general duty to trade fairly, the Government are pressing the European Commission for an extended impact assessment on additional burdens and so-called red tape. We will also prepare our own impact assessment, which will include more on enforcement. My officials are in close touch with trading standards, which is now represented by the Local Authorities Coordinators of Regulatory Services. It has not expressed concern about additional burdens. We should demand that the EU and in particular the Commission carry out comprehensive impact assessments when they introduce legislation. Impact assessments, evidence-based policy making and effective enforcement are all key issues.

Our officials work closely with the European Commission in discussions on a proposal for a general duty. In particular, an expert group has been set up to consider national law and how the EU regime will interact with domestic law. The European Commission has also begun a study of national systems with prominent academics, including an academic from the UK.

Before I conclude, I shall address the point about scam prize draw mail shots. Last summer, I launched a campaign warning against scam prize draws. It obtained quite a lot of media coverage, including a number of television interviews. We have now distributed tens of thousands of warning leaflets and posters via citizens advice bureaux and others. It is possible to take action by taking complaints to the Advertising Standards Authority. The ASA has also worked with the Royal Mail to curtail the activities of various companies, as has the Office of Fair Trading. It has been possible to close down quite a lot of scams, but the inventiveness of rogues will always drive things forward to the detriment of the consumer. Consumer understanding and education are as important as consumer protection.

We are working hard in Europe to push those objectives forward and to influence the agenda. As we have seen, there is much activity around consumer rights and protection, and we are keen to see that go forward. Where we are cautious, we will ensure that our reservations are well articulated and taken into account by other member states in the Commission, and that protections that the UK has enjoyed are maintained. The UK is a leader in Europe in evidence-based policy making, workable policy and the enforcement of policy. British consumers are well served by recent legislation and by the Europe-wide activities that we undertake on their behalf.

Having concluded today's exchanges on consumer rights in the EU, we must turn our attentions to the next topic. Will those Members who are not staying to participate in the next debate leave the Chamber quietly and expeditiously?

Thank you, Mr. Cook. I thank the House for granting me this important and timely debate.

In November last year, Dewhirsts, which is a major clothing manufacturer, announced the closure of a factory in Ashington, Northumberland, with the loss of 425 highly skilled jobs. In the next few weeks, manufacturing will cease and the machinery will be stripped out and sent to a new factory in north Africa. Since the announcement of the closure, several agencies have come together to try to save at least some of the jobs. The GMB union initially suggested that it might be possible for the company to secure public procurement contracts. Sadly, when I had a meeting with the company's board, they were pessimistic about whether public procurement could offer any realistic hope of keeping the factory open. The first workers will leave this week, and production will cease in a few weeks' time, causing much hardship to many families and dealing a further blow to a fragile local economy.

I realise that my hon. Friend the Minister may not be able to deal with all the issues that I intend to raise today, but I am sure that he will understand why I am seeking urgent Government assistance for my constituency.

Would the hon. Gentleman confirm that the closure that he describes will also have a drastic effect in neighbouring areas, such as Lynemouth in my constituency, and that any measures that Ministers are prepared to consider to help to alleviate that, in Ashington or nearby, would be beneficial to the whole area, where there is considerable unemployment and poverty?

I certainly agree with the right hon. Gentleman. Indeed, when I met representatives of the work force, a number came from his constituency. It will have a drastic effect on those areas.

According to the latest published figures, Wansbeck has the second lowest number of new business start-ups in the United Kingdom, and there has been little new business investment in the district for several years. That partly reflects a general downturn in inward investment projects, but it is also because an enterprise zone is only five or six miles away. It should have been extended into the Wansbeck area. Although unemployment has declined in recent years, the rate of decline has been much lower than the regional and national averages. Wansbeck's unemployment rate is still two-and-a-half times the national average. The Wansbeck action team for jobs has been a welcome addition to the employment services since its introduction in 2000. During the year to October 2002, the action team helped 321 residents back into employment. Key to the success of that team have been the efforts to place people in employment in growth areas outside the district, such as Cramlington and north Tyneside. Although people moving into new jobs is always welcome, we must provide jobs in communities where people live. That will reduce dependence on the motor car and help to promote investment in town centres or edge-of-town business locations.

A recent report by Sheffield Hallam university examined the real level of unemployment, taking into account incapacity benefit recipients and those who had retired early. It estimated that unemployment in Wansbeck was 16.2 per cent. as at April 2002. On that measure, Wansbeck is one of the 30 weakest labour markets in England and Wales.

Apart from the welcome commitment from priority sites to build speculative business accommodation on the Wansbeck business park, private sector commercial and industrial investment has been extremely limited over several years. The district has been unable to bring on stream a new supply of serviced sites and premises to compete effectively for new business investment, simply because property market returns are generally unattractive to the private sector.

Deprivation levels in Wansbeck are acute. The district is ranked as 17th most deprived in the United Kingdom according to the index of multiple deprivation that was produced in 2000.

I am sure that my hon. Friend the Minister will want to look more closely at some of the problems that I have outlined, and I shall be happy to provide him with the relevant information after the debate.

I want to draw the Minister's attention to some of the issues that could play a major role in the economic recovery plan for Wansbeck. We need a commitment from the Government to maintain the Wansbeck action team for jobs beyond its current March 2004 lifespan. The team has been very successful in meeting its clients into work targets over the past two years, in difficult labour market conditions. We need reassurance that that valued local service, which makes a valuable contribution to the district's neighbourhood renewal and economic strategies, will be maintained beyond 2004. Despite the good work of the team, the district's continuing levels of unemployment show that a much longer-term commitment is required.

Much of the success of the action team has relied on finding jobs for residents outside the district in areas such as Cramlington and north Tyneside where property markets, business investment and new job opportunities have been more readily available. Plans to service and promote new investment in North Seaton business park in Ashington need to be vigorously pursued. Although the Government seem to be moving away from the idea of enterprise zones, we need a successor to that scheme.

If the Government concede that special help is still needed in areas of acute deprivation, North Seaton business park and the rest of Wansbeck's commercial and industrial sites should be considered a priority for any new scheme—or even the current scheme—being extended into Wansbeck. In the pre-Budget report in November 2002, the Government announced their intention to provide additional support for businesses in the UK's 2000 most deprived communities, which would be termed enterprise areas.

Of Wansbeck's 16 wards, 14 are in the list of 2000 most deprived wards in the UK. Given the almost universal coverage in Wansbeck, I would like to see the whole district declared an enterprise area. A specialist enterprise team should be established and resourced, to work closely with the action team for jobs and the local strategic partnerships. Flexible budgets and local discretion have worked well under the action for jobs approach.

As a further strengthening of the enterprise area package, I would like the district council to be able to offer a much wider basis for discretionary rate relief, funded by the Government, to help safeguard local businesses and to stimulate investment in the enterprise areas. Recent announcements indicate that the Government intend to introduce several pilot initiatives to support further people who are out of work. I welcome those initiatives.

New programmes should be designed to offer intensive support in neighbourhoods with high concentrations of unemployment, and they should allow access to the new deal after only three months of unemployment. I welcome moves to streamline the various regeneration programmes. The national neighbourhood renewal strategy recognised that achieving sustained and significant progress in such areas required a 10 to 20-year perspective.

In small areas such as Wansbeck with uniformly high levels of deprivation, and where ward boundaries mean very little in delivering programmes, we need a wider commitment to neighbourhood renewal. It is essential that the Government commit to continuing funding well beyond the March 2006 limit and channel additional resources to ensure employment targets are met.

In recognition of low business formation rates and the lack of an enterprise culture, and—I am pleased to say—in line with Government policy to introduce enterprise to the high school curriculum, I request support for the planned bid to establish enterprise college status by St. Benet Biscop high school in Bedlington. Additionally, I request that the Ashington education achievement zone be considered to introduce pilot initiatives to promote enterprise in Ashington schools.

The towns of Ashington and Bedlington have undergone massive change, with huge private sector housing developments being built during the last 20 years. The district needs to continue to develop. Plans have been prepared during the past two years to achieve significant investment in Ashington town centre, in Bedlington and in Newbiggin-by-the-Sea.

Complementary plans to develop strategic new housing and recreational facilities in a village-style design have been prepared by the private sector. I request Government grant support for the district council to co-ordinate a multi-agency development team to assist key infrastructure costs for all the schemes.

The coal industry still plays an important role in the local economy. More than 400 miners still work at Ellington colliery. Were it not for the introduction nationally of the operating aid scheme, Ellington would now be closed. UK Coal now considers it to be one of its best collieries. We need to secure a long-term future for that mine. A more generous investment aid scheme would assist Ellington in accessing coal reserves that could keep the colliery open for a further 20 years. The coal industry faces a crisis nationally, with many collieries facing early closure. I realise that my hon. Friend the Minister will not be able to address those problems here today. I simply stress how important Ellington is to the local economy.

The Government have invested much time and effort and many resources in addressing some of my constituency's problems. All that I ask today is that the current schemes should be strengthened and extended, and that extra resources, where necessary, should be invested in the area. It is fairly obvious that until the new business parks and industrial sites come on stream, people will have to travel further afield to work. The Employment Service has a team of dedicated people working in the Dewhirst factory assisting people with retraining, the preparation of new CVs and identifying available jobs.

As people will have to travel further to work, it is essential to strengthen our public transport links. There has never been a better opportunity to reopen the Ashington, Blyth and Tyne railway line to passenger services. It was one of the priorities of the south-east Northumberland-north Tyneside regeneration initiative, SENNTRI. That has identified three important transport corridors, alongside which economic development could take place: the A19, the A189—both important dual carriageways—and the reopened Ashington, Blyth and Tyne line. All three need to be supported.

The recent closure of Blyth power station was another blow to the area. It is currently being demolished, and could provide the most important development in our region for decades. It has access via a deep-water port, a dual carriageway and a railway link. If it were developed correctly, the site could eventually provide thousands of jobs in a beautiful, landscaped environment.

The quality of life for the great majority in Wansbeck is very high. We have a wide range of quality housing and live in an area of outstanding natural beauty, only 20 minutes from what will be the next European city of culture. The extra Government assistance that I am seeking is to ensure that all the local population can share that quality of life. We need to demonstrate to those working at Dewhirst that the Government want to help them to go straight into new jobs.

To that end, my final request today is for the Government to assist in the economic recovery of the area by relocating some Government offices. I understand that inquiries have been made about office accommodation in Northumberland and I urge my hon. Friend to use his good offices to press for an early positive decision. Success in that would send out all the right messages, and I am sure that, along with the measures that I have suggested, it would encourage much more private sector investment.

When I visited the Dewhirst factory in Ashington a few weeks ago, I met many highly skilled and dedicated people, all of whom want to continue working and supporting their families. I ask on their behalf that the Government do everything in their power to ensure that those people are placed in jobs as soon as possible.

Let me begin by congratulating my hon. Friend the Member for Wansbeck (Mr. Murphy) on securing the debate, and paying tribute to him for the hard work that he has done over a long period on the future of the Dewhirst factory in Ashington, and particularly his work with the GMB. He came to see me with the union regional secretary in November. I know that he has put a great deal of work into looking for a viable future for the Ashington factory. It is through no want of trying on his part or on the part of the GMB that it now looks certain that redundancies will be made next month.

The right hon. Member for Berwick-upon-Tweed (Mr. Beith) intervened earlier, and I note the presence of my hon. Friends the Members for Blyth Valley (Mr. Campbell), for Easington (Mr. Cummings) and for Tynemouth (Mr. Campbell). That reflects the wide impact of the proposed closure at Ashington on the regional economy, and I want to put on record my sympathy for all the employees and their families who face the prospect of redundancy in the next few weeks.

My hon. Friend the Member for Wansbeck graphically described the problems faced in his area. He said how much he welcomed the comments of my right hon. Friend the Chancellor in the pre-Budget report last autumn, when he spoke about addressing precisely the issues that we are discussing in parts of the country that still have high unemployment, despite the reduction in unemployment nationally. On several occasions, my right hon. Friend has set out his commitment to creating a culture of enterprise in every part of the country so that people will be confident about setting up businesses, even in areas where it was assumed that one would never get a job. There will certainly be more business start-ups, as my hon. Friend suggested. I agree that the measures set out by the Chancellor hold much promise for constituencies such as his, with the characteristics that he described.

My hon. Friend also drew attention to the importance of ensuring that good transport links are in place, and I agree. It is often the case that jobs are available not far from the areas with the most severe problems. If we can match those jobs with proper transport connections—good work is now being done on that—that will offer us an attractive way forward, too.

My hon. Friend mentioned the regeneration initiative and the responsibility for specialist schools. I agree with him about the importance of enterprise status for local schools, but, as he indicated, those are matters for other Ministers. However, I shall ensure that his remarks are drawn to the attention of my right hon. and hon. Friends who have responsibility for those issues, so that they can take account of the telling points that he has made.

I am responding to the debate because of my responsibility at the Department of Trade and Industry for the textile industry, and I want to make several points about the Government's response to the closure that we are discussing. The Government are not in a position to intervene in the commercial decisions of individual companies, but there is much that we can and will do to help those who face redundancy as a result of the closure in Ashington. As my hon. Friend knows, Jobcentre Plus has designated the Dewhirst's factory in Ashington as significant to the labour market, which means that employees who are made redundant will be eligible for early access to a range of Government programmes and services. They will have access to the programme centres, where those who need immediate help can get advice on CV preparation, job applications and interview techniques. Those who are eligible will also have early access to the new deal for young people, which gives those in that age group the opportunity to access the full new deal programme of support. It offers a range of employment, education and training opportunities.

My hon. Friend talks about getting people back into work, and that is all well and good. We had the same situation in Blyth Valley a few years ago, when we lost a lot of jobs, but in my area, we are losing the jobs and not getting them back because all the money goes to the enterprise zones. South-east Northumberland and the rest of Northumberland are not part of an enterprise zone and we do not get the money that enterprise zones get. All the jobs are there, but workers in our area do not have jobs. My hon. Friend the Member for Wansbeck and I are saying that we need jobs in our areas.

I agree with my hon. Friend about the need both for jobs in the immediate area and for people in the area to have access to jobs in other areas, if they are available. There have been no new enterprise zone designations since 1996. The Chancellor has set out thinking about how we can promote business start-ups and new enterprise in areas such as those that my hon. Friend the Member for Wansbeck and I represent. That approach is much more promising than those applied by the previous Government. We need to create many more new jobs in the immediate area. In opening the debate, my hon. Friend set out a number of proposals, with which I have a lot of sympathy, and which reflect the work that the Government are doing to achieve exactly such results.

We will ensure that those made redundant at Ashington will have early access to the programmes I have described, including workplace learning for adults, which will provide short, job-focused training and longer occupational training. A local Jobcentre Plus liaison officer has been appointed to support those made redundant, and to act as point of contact. Dewhirst has, I am pleased to say, agreed to provide office accommodation at the factory, and it is intended that Jobcentre Plus staff will be on site from tomorrow in order to start their work. They will make presentations to groups of employees about benefit entitlement, training and work opportunities, and will give information on other organisations that may be able to help.

There will be information from the Inland Revenue on new tax credits, so that people will understand their position if they move on to other employment. For those who request it, there will be a counselling service that will include skills analysis to help people ascertain future job goals. There will be access to specialist support, such as disability employment advice, lone parent advisors, and the Wansbeck action team staff, in cases in which it can help. There will also be direct internet access at the site to the Jobcentre Plus vacancy database, which will provide detailed job vacancy information and a job-matching service, through Jobseeker Direct. A wide range of support will be provided on the site from tomorrow to those facing redundancy in the next few weeks.

The textiles industry continues to be important for the UK. It contributes 0.8 per cent. of GDP, accounts for £15 billion in sales, employs some 250,000 people, and exports goods to the tune of more than £7 billion. That is why the Department of Trade and Industry is committed to helping the sector to improve its productivity, and to remain competitive in the tough global marketplace in textiles that now prevails, which is the background to the closure that we are debating. The Department will continue to support close work with the textile and clothing strategy group, which includes representatives of employers, trade unions, the retailers and the universities, to work together on the issues that the industry faces. This is a tough period of change. There have been substantial and severe job losses, such as those at Ashington, as manufacturers adjust to meet the challenges that they face.

In the context of Ashington, my hon. Friend the Member for Wansbeck has raised the issue of public procurement for UK-based manufacturers. We cannot pursue a buy British policy. Public purchases must observe European Union rules and the Treasury's value-for-money guidelines, and it is in the public's interest that they should do so. However, it is important to recognise that value for money is not the same as the cheapest unit price, and that there is scope for UK textile and clothing companies to compete more effectively in tendering for public sector contracts within the European and Treasury framework. If something costs 50 per cent. more than the alternative, but lasts 100 per cent. longer, there is a clear value-for-money choice to be made.

We must ensure that public sector procurers are able to make such choices, and are working with the industry through the textile and clothing strategy group to find ways in which to help UK suppliers to be more successful when they tender for public sector contracts. We have had meetings with senior figures in the industry to discuss the impact of current public procurement policy. Those have highlighted the opportunities for UK suppliers that are prepared to raise their game to meet the purchasing needs of public purchasers. We also supported the conference on public procurement organised by the GMB in November 2001, which was addressed by my noble Friend Lord Sainsbury and representatives of the Ministry of Defence and the Prison Service, both of which procure garments on a big scale. The conference highlighted the opportunities available to textile and clothing companies tendering for public contracts to identify the issues that have caused some UK suppliers to struggle to win contracts, and the actions needed to reverse the trend.

We have produced a good practice guide on value for money to remind public purchasers of the key element in the Treasury guidelines, because we recognise that the industry needs to make changes. Equally, procurers and those responsible for procurement in the public sector need to be able to make qualitative assessments about value for money when they are looking to award contracts for textiles or clothing. That has been widely distributed. Similarly, the Small Business Service and the Office of Government Commerce have produced detailed guidance for firms wanting advice on how to tender for public contracts.

We want to see dynamic, competitive markets operating throughout the economy. That encourages firms to bear down on costs and improve their efficiency and enhances their competitiveness in the home and overseas markets. However, in markets in which the Government are a major procurer of goods and services, our actions can have a big influence on the market and might impact on competition and on the long-term value for money that that can secure for procurement, ensuring value for money and encouraging strong competition go hand in hand. We welcome the Competition Commission's recent recommendations to improve competition in procurement and have asked the Office of Government Commerce to consider what further steps can be taken to increase competition and to encourage better long-term capacity planning in markets in which the Government have significant purchasing power. For example, advance information for all the potential suppliers about opportunities that are about to come up could be improved. We have also asked the Office of Government Commerce to build on its recent work to enable small and medium enterprises to compete for Government contracts to deliver value for money. The office of development and commerce will take those issues forward in consultation with a group that involves the Treasury, the DTI and the Small Business Service and will report to the Government in the summer. I shall ensure that the interests of the UK textile and clothing industry are represented.

The textile and clothing strategy group's recent report, "Making it Happen", which I launched in July, outlines the progress that has been made since the launch of the national strategy. It also charts the great challenges that the industry faces, underpinning the closure that we have debated. It describes an industry that is still going through profound structural change to enable it to compete in the global economy, and Ashington provides stark evidence of the scale of the change. That is deeply concerning for those who are affected. There is some reassurance to be gained from the industry view that it is not in terminal decline—it is undergoing a process of change as it faces global challenges. The industry has reaffirmed its belief, through the "Making it Happen" report, that the strategy blueprint remains the right direction for it to follow, so that it has a sustainable and competitive future. We will continue to work with the group to ensure that that happens. A great deal has still to be done, but with the industry and the Government working together we are confident that we can achieve it.

I am grateful to my hon. Friend the Member for Wansbeck for giving the House the opportunity to consider the particular problems facing his area that arise from the closure. I hope that the measures that I have set out, and the ideas that he proposed to which other Ministers can respond, will enable my hon. Friend's constituents to face the future with much greater confidence than would otherwise be the case.

Order. We now come to a debate on national health service provision in Sutton. I ask right hon. and hon. Members who do not wish to participate in that debate to leave the Chamber quietly and expeditiously.

I welcome the opportunity for such a timely debate. Much is happening in the national health service economy locally, and I know that my hon. Friend the Member for Sutton and Cheam (Mr. Burstow) will seek to catch your eye, Mr. Cook—provided that I do not speak for too long.

First, I would like to raise the subject of the review of Epsom and St. Helier trust hospital services in Sutton and Epsom. I support much of what is proposed; the modernisation of hospitals and a new approach to delivering health care within the community is welcome, provided that it is properly funded and does not lead to the loss of essential services. The trust would like to make changes; it does not want hospitals that are too full, that often treat patients who would be better cared for outside the hospital or closer to home; nor does it want long waiting times, operations being cancelled and so on—things that I and my hon. Friend, too, would like changed.

A key element in the proposal is for there to be significant investment in primary care—that is care provided in the community by GPs, health visitors, district nurses and so on. That, too, I wholeheartedly support. It would lead to many more services that are traditionally hospital-based being delivered locally through other services such as care centres, community hospitals, or whatever one chooses to call them.

I assume that that proposal is in line with Government policy. The Under-Secretary of State for Health, the hon. Member for Salford (Ms Blears) nods her head. If that is so, I would be interested to know how capital will be raised for the project and what guarantees the Government will give the project as it develops over the next seven to 10 years. I hope that authorisation will be quickly forthcoming at each decision-making point. I would also like the Minister to explain a little of the process that will be used to rank that proposal against the myriad of other proposals that will be seeking access to private funds—or Government funds, should any be available.

Finally, I wonder whether the proposals will be put at risk or jeopardised by the current financial position of the trust, as it has an overspend of f 1.6 million. Will that affect the proposals?

The most visible impact of the proposals, should they come to fruition, will be the reorganisation of hospitals, the provision of cottage hospitals or community hospitals and—this is highly likely—the provision of a single acute centre. My family and I live in my constituency. Both my children were born at St. Helier hospital. We have made regular use of its children's accident and emergency department; and we were very happy with the level care provided on every occasion. My personal preference would clearly be for the acute hospital to be built on the site of St. Helier's. Although the building has served its purpose, it is not ideal in this day and age. However, it is important that arguments about where the acute hospital will be rebuilt do not detract from the priority that must be given to providing the best-quality patient care. Clearly, that will include several factors, not just accessibility but also the experience of medical and other staff, the availability of consultants, doctors, nurses and so on.

So far, there has been reasonable consultation involving different organisations and I am satisfied that the process is moving forward in an organised and acceptable fashion. That contrasts with some concerns that I will raise shortly about at least one other local health care organisation that needs to be more open in the way it operates. Whether we are considering these plans or primary care trusts, it is important that the local authority is in a position to perform the scrutiny role. I understand that to recruit one health policy officer would cost in the region of £35,000, something that my local authority and others who will want to do the job of scrutiny properly will find it difficult to fund. Will the Minister use this opportunity to confirm that any funds that will be available as a result of disbanding community health councils will be passed to local authorities so that they can perform that role effectively?

I highlighted the longer-term plans for the Epsom and St. Helier trust, but there is a shorter-term matter that causes concern: the possibility of cuts within the trust. The budget of the Sutton and Merton primary care trust, the local PCT, will rise by 30 per cent. between now and 2006. Although the headline figure is good, compared to other PCTs the picture is less rosy, especially as the Epsom and St. Helier trust is recovering from a poor report from the Commission for Health Improvement and poor star ratings, which have improved in the most recent league table but need to carry on moving in the right direction. I want the Minister to explain what safeguards, if any, are in place to ensure that if the pendulum swings very far in the other direction in terms of the shift to primary care, the acute services do not suffer as a result.

There is one local difficulty in relation to the Epsom and St. Helier trust—the fact that one of the Surrey primary care trusts is not pulling its weight in terms of the financial contribution that it is expected to make; there is a shortfall of a couple of million pounds. Can the Minister say who should play an arbitration role in such disputes, if one PCT says that it will not provide funding but the others will? Someone needs to be able to step in and sort out the mess.

I come now to the openness of the decision-making process in respect of the Sutton and Merton primary care trust. The community health council has been talking with the PCT for several years about the need to be more open, particularly after the Nelson and West Merton PCT was set up. However, there has been a backward step in terms of accountability and openness, as the executive board of the PCT meets in private without any lay people or representatives of the CHC being present. Locality committees, which operate at a lower level, are responsible for drawing up a local development plan, but I understand that the CHC is not involved and apparently NHS solicitors have been asked to consider the matter. Will the Minister comment on the apparent lack of openness and accountability and say whether she supports action to ensure that the PCT is opened up to greater scrutiny?

Dental health care locally and the number of five-year-olds with decayed, missing and filled teeth are an issue. The figures are going in the wrong direction: the number of children suffering from dental decay has increased at a time when the targets for access to dentistry have apparently been met. I hope that the Minister will comment on how that can be the case.

The transfer of the renal transplant unit is also an issue. There are proposals to move some services from St. Helier to St. George's, but I understand that it has recently been shown that the cost of the upgrade that is needed at St. George's to accommodate the transferred service has increased significantly. I wonder whether that means that the plans have been put on hold or whether it is more likely that the service at St. Helier will be retained and the services at St. George's possibly moved there.

Bed-blocking is another issue. My hon. Friend the Member for Sutton and Cheam may have time to raise the local authority's concerns about the impact that the charges will have on the relationship between the PCT, the Epsom and St. Helier trust, and other health organisations. It is good, but could be affected by the charges.

I hope that the Minister can provide clarification on those points, either now, or shortly in writing.

I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Carshalton and Wallington (Tom Brake) on securing the debate and selecting this topic. It is a timely debate on the important issue of health care provision in our constituencies and, indeed, in those of a number of other hon. Members present.

I declare a personal interest in that my family has used and benefited from the accident and emergency department for children and the maternity facilities at St. Helier. I therefore have direct experience of them and pay a warm tribute to the hard work that the staff do on behalf of the public, not only in the acute trust, but across the whole health economy in Sutton.

I welcome the increased funding that has been made available for the next three years. It provides a basis for stability of planning. There will always be questions as to whether the funding is adequate, and inevitably I make the point that it is one of the lower increases, but there is extra investment, which is one of the measures that I voted for in the Budget last year.

That said, we must place in a financial context the proposed clinical strategy that the acute trust has been working out with others, not least because at month six the Epsom and St. Helier trust reported that its financial position was an overspend forecast at £1.639 million. I have spoken to the trust more recently to get a fix on the current estimates for the overspend by the end of the financial year, and the figure is about £2 million. That is a serious, ongoing problem for the trust.

As my hon. Friend said, an additional problem is caused by the East Elmbridge and Mid-Surrey primary care trust not picking up all its responsibilities and obligations in terms of the money that it should be paying to the acute trust. That gives an additional financial problem of £2.15 million to the director of finance at that trust in balancing the books and making everything add up.

Those very real pressures make delivery of the trust's clinical services strategy more difficult, particularly the transition that is inevitably involved in the document, in that there is a move from what is in a way a centralised system, under which most care is provided within the acute trust's main buildings, to a more decentralised approach and the use of care centres. That will involve questions such as whether there is dual running of services while we move to the new system and build confidence in it. Where will the money for that come from, given that the trust has to recover its financial position and deal with the £2 million overspend plus the funding difficulties relating to the PCT? It will prove difficult for me, as a Member who last year voted for the tax increases to fund the investment to the NHS, to have to explain to my constituents why later this year my acute trust may have to make cuts in its services to bring its budget back into line. That will be a rather difficult story to tell, but I hope that the Minister will be able to help by providing some answers that I can give to my constituents.

My hon. Friend the Member for Carshalton and Wallington raised the question of accountability and the transparency of governance of the Sutton and Merton PCT, and I strongly endorse his comments. However, I want to raise briefly the development of systems for new patient and public involvement in the NHS, in particular the Commission for Patient and Public Involvement in Health, which has been told by the Department of Health that it will have only one office in each strategic health authority. How on earth will that one office support all the patients forums in an area? Will the Minister tell us how that will work? Furthermore, why are community health council staff not being transferred to the new structure under TUPE, and why has no budget been announced for the work of that important local body? Why does it appear that local CHC members are being left out in the cold in the development of the new structures? Surely their experience, expertise and knowledge should not be lost to the new structures. It should be garnered and used to ensure that they work.

Sutton needs its own commission office to ensure access for patients and the public. I hope that the Minister will be able to respond to my points and those made by my hon. Friend the Member for Carshalton and Wallington.

I am delighted to respond to the debate and I congratulate the hon. Member for Carshalton and Wallington (Tom Brake) on his openness in welcoming the process that has been undertaken in drawing up the clinical services strategy. I can reassure him that the process has been designed to build on the views of patients, the public and the people who use the services in his community.

I have explored the matter with some of the officials responsible and am heartened that the process has been worked from the bottom up—by asking people what the service should look like in the future and then trying to design the service around their views. That contrasts with the previous process, which took place a couple of years ago and started from the bricks and mortar. It examined the hospitals and institutions that were already in place and the physical location and then tried to design a service from the top down. This process has been different, and there has been a genuine attempt to involve all local stakeholders, including primary care trusts, patients and local authorities, in designing the service. It is at the beginning and is about setting a vision. As both hon. Members have said, it is designed to be developed during the next seven to 10 years, so there is a long way to go in the practical implementation.

The process has been something of a revolution, as the service contemplates many more local care centres rather than the dominance of a large acute sector in the health economy. Much of the health service will move to a situation in which local centres cater for between 50,000 and 100,000 local people and provide a much wider range of services than have previously been available in primary care. We anticipate that GPs and other primary care workers will be doing much of the work that has traditionally taken place inside acute inpatient hospitals, and different ways of working, new skills, more investment and equipment, and much more flexibility in the staff who are employed in the local care centres and their skills will be required to bring about the change. The area in question will be a trailblazer, frontrunner and pioneer of a new way of approaching the design of health care services and their implementation. I would like to place on record my congratulations both to the clinical staff and to the health organisation staff on the imagination and creativity that they brought to bear in the process.

It is important that we try to change the way in which services are delivered for two reasons: first, to relieve the undoubted pressure on acute care and secondly, and equally important, to provide patients with the kind of services that they want in the 21st century. That means trying to give them the right care, in the right place, at the right time. That has not always happened. In future, patients will be more demanding. They will want services provided more quickly. They will want higher standards and they will want to choose which services are provided in their areas. That is exactly what the changes are designed to achieve.

The services in this area are the responsibility of Sutton and Merton PCT. The hon. Member for Sutton and Cheam (Mr. Burstow) was gracious enough to welcome the massive increase in investment that is going into the PCT. It is something like 30 per cent. over the next three years—a significant increase amounting to approximately £87.5 million. Although there are still pressures on the service, it will give real space for innovative thinking and new ways of delivering services for the PCT to put into place.

The PCT predicts that it will achieve financial balance in the next year, which is a significant improvement over where it was just a few months ago. As the increases in expenditure begin to feed through, it will be in a much more advantageous position. It is also meeting many of its targets. In some cases it is ahead of its targets. It is doing extremely well. The local hospital, which has gone from zero stars to two stars in the last 12 months, again under a new leadership team, is real evidence that progress can be made. In this Chamber today we are debating optimism, rather than some of the pessimism that may be being debated elsewhere in the House. We can see evidence of progress.

Both hon. Gentlemen raised other important issues. I will do my best to attend to them. I should like to deal first with the two issues raised by the hon. Member for Carshalton and Wallington. He expressed concern about renal services. At present they are not under threat. The new approach that is envisaged is that out-patient and rehabilitation care will continue to be provided locally, as close to patients as possible, because that is where it is most appropriate. People do not want to have to travel miles for their out-patient care. They want rehabilitation if possible at home or in local centres.

Certainly the renal transplantation service will continue to be at St. George's. That is because it is a regional service. This service is not just for the hon. Gentleman's constituents, but for the whole of the south-east. It is therefore important that those transplantation services are looked at in the context of regional services as a whole, rather than this strategy, which looks at services for the people of Sutton and Cheam. That is why the renal transplantation service is not part of the clinical services strategy review.

The hon. Gentleman's second specific concern was the openness of the PCT in his area. That is an important matter. The Government are committed to trying to engage and involve as many local people as we can in decisions about the shaping and development of services and their priorities. Openness is a key factor. I understand that the PCT holds its board meetings in public and the community health council has been fully involved in all the discussions that have led to the drawing up of the clinical services strategy. They are supportive of the strategy and they have had a real opportunity to be involved.

The hon. Gentleman is asking for the professional executive committee meetings and the local management board committee meetings to be in public too. Clearly there is a debate about whether those are decision-making meetings that should transacted with the public, or whether they are management meetings and therefore less appropriate for that kind of public debate. We need to examine that matter to ensure that we get the right balance.

Clearly in any organisation, certain meetings where decisions are discussed will be internal management meetings. However, decisions should never be reached behind closed doors without dialogue with the public so that they can know what the criteria were, how the decisions were reached and what other options were on the table. I will certainly look at the issue that the hon. Gentleman has raised, but it is never as simple as saying that every meeting should be in public or every meeting should be closed. It is a matter of what business is being transacted and the appropriateness of those meetings.

On a similar matter, the hon. Member for Sutton and Cheam raised the important matter of public involvement. He said that the Commission for Patient and Public Involvement in Health would have one office for the whole strategic health authority, and he asked for a specific office for his local area. However, the idea behind the commission is that it is not simply about bricks and mortar—offices or shop fronts where people go to make their views known.

The ethos behind the commission and the system for public and patient involvement is that it will go out to where people are. Again, that is a huge change for the national health service. In the past, we expected people to come and make their representations, which meant that we did not hear the voices of those who would not come to an organisation. Therefore, the commission staff have a specific brief as outreach workers to go out and interact with the local community, to work with the Citizens Advice Bureaux and all the local organisations to get their views. They will not be office based or static, but will be out working in the community. They will also be involved in all the different regeneration initiatives under which similar community development work is being carried out, and will feed views back into the NHS.

It cannot be good enough for the NHS public involvement work to be in a separate, parallel stream to all the other good public involvement work, in which the local authority will be greatly involved. Joining up all those views will be a key part of the commission's work. I ask hon. Gentlemen to be more creative and imaginative about the ways in which community development can work. It is certainly not the case that bricks and mortar offices and shop fronts are needed for people to come to.

The spending decisions with regard to the budget for the public involvement system have not yet been announced, but I can tell the hon. Member for Sutton and Cheam that from 1 January this year, the NHS has a statutory duty to involve the public not only when there is a significant variation in service—in other words, when the decision has been made—but from the very beginning in shaping and developing ideas. A good example of that is happening in the constituencies of the hon. Members for Carshalton and Wallington and for Sutton and Cheam. As they both agreed, the clinical services strategy was drawn up on that basis from the beginning, rather than coming up with a preferred option.

Have patients and the public been consulted to ascertain their preferred way of getting access to the commission as part of the process of devising the outreach strategy to which the Minister referred?

Presumably, the hon. Gentleman is in contact with all the organisations in his area that carry out community development work, whether they are the local authority, the CAB or the council for voluntary services. All those groups engage with a wide range of members of the public. There is overwhelming evidence that where public involvement is to be successful, organisations must be flexible and go to where people are, engaging with them in a way that makes them feel comfortable and that it is worth-while to give their time and energy to get decisions taken.

Anyone who has been involved in any community development work will realise that having a static organisation that simply expects people to come to it is not the sort of organisation that is the most successful or that gets the greatest number of people involved in their communities.

The strategy is likely to take seven to 10 years. The hon. Member for Carshalton and Wallington, who initiated the debate, asked whether finance would be available throughout the process to make the proposals a reality. I am delighted that he believes that this Government will be in a position to make that clear in seven to 10 years' time when those proposals may well be realised.

The shift in the balance of power programme is to ensure that the primary care trusts, which will be spending 75 per cent. of the budget, will be taking those financial decisions in consultation with their local communities, and will decide such matters as whether to spend their money on local care centres and what the contents of those centres should be. That process will be on-going to ensure that the priorities of the community are reflected in the budgets. While the Government are in power, we have been able to invest a tremendous amount of extra finance into those budgets to try to ensure that the vision set out in the clinical strategy has a realistic chance of becoming a reality and providing much better services to people in this area.

The programme is extremely ambitious. I am delighted that it has the support of hon. Members as the representatives of their communities, and I hope that we will begin to see some flesh on the bones in the years to come to ensure that the services are health care in the right place at the right time for people in their local communities. I have no doubt that those services will be of extremely high quality and valued by local people.