Will the Leader of the House please give us the business for next week?

It will be a pleasure.

MONDAY 10 MARCH—Conclusion of remaining stages of the Local Government Bill.

TUESDAY 11 MARCH—Estimates [2^nd Allotted Day]. There will be a debate on the second report from the Foreign Affairs Committee on the foreign policy aspects of the war against terrorism.

At 7 pm the House will be asked to agree all outstanding estimates.

WEDNESDAY 12 MARCH—Proceedings on the Consolidated Fund (No. 2) Bill, followed by debate on Welsh Affairs on a motion for the Adjournment of the House.[Interruption.] I am glad that the hon. Member for Leominster (Mr. Wiggin) finds satisfaction with the business.

THURSDAY 13 MARCH—Motion to approve a money resolution on the Fireworks Bill, followed by motions to approve money and ways and means resolutions on the Marine Safety Bill, followed by debate on flood and coastal defence policy on a motion for the Adjournment of the House.

FRIDAY 14 MARcH—Private Members' Bills.

The provisional business for the following week will include:

MONDAY 17 MARCH—Consideration of an allocation of time motion, followed by all stages of the Northern Ireland Assembly Elections Bill 2003.

TUESDAY 18 MARCH—Remaining stages of the Extradition Bill.

WEDNESDAY 19 MARCH—Consideration of Lords Amendments to the Community Care (Delayed Discharges etc) Bill.

The House may also be asked to consider any Lords messages that may be received.

THURSDAY 20 MARCH—Second Reading of the Waste and Emissions Trading Bill[Lords].

The House will also be asked to consider any Lords messages that may be received.

FRIDAY 21 MARCH—Private Members' Bills.

The House will not adjourn until Royal Assent has been received to any Act.

The House may wish to be reminded that the Budget statement will be made on Wednesday 9 April. The House will now sit on Friday 11 April and will, subject to the progress of business, rise for the Easter recess on Monday 14 April and return on Monday 28 April.

I am grateful to the Leader for that information. Will he now do us the courtesy of telling us just why the Budget date has been so delayed? Why was the Budget date announced so late, and why was it sneaked out rather surreptitiously yesterday in a written ministerial statement? What is going wrong? Is the Chancellor ashamed of his Budget? Is he trying to avoid us in some way? Will the Leader come straight about this? Surely we and the country deserve an explanation rather than a series of late, sneaky and shamefaced announcements.

I should like to return to the dodgy dossier. I think that we need either a statement or a debate on its status and its provenance. I say that because on 10 February the Prime Minister, no less, said in a written answer:

"It is a Government document".—[Official Report, 10 February 2003; Vol. 399, c. 583W.]

On 24 February, the Prime Minister said in reply to my hon. Friend the Member for North Essex (Mr. Jenkin):

"This was a Government document cleared in the normal way."—[Official Report, 24 February 2003; Vol. 400, c. 254W.]

On 27 February, my right hon. Friend the Member for Bracknell (Mr. Mackay) asked about the dodgy dossier. The Leader of the House said:

"I understand that the paper was not issued as a Command Paper and, therefore, the process of ministerial accountability for White Papers would not necessarily apply."—[Official Report, 27 February 2003; Vol. 400, c. 412.]

Surely if the dossier is a Government document, as the Prime Minister has said, with all the weight and significance that that implies, especially on a subject as important as Iraq, we must now know—I ask the Leader of the House to tell us now or to allow a debate on it—who saw the document, who authorised it, whether it was done at official level or whether a Minister is responsible for it, its contents and what it says. In the name of open government, please tell us who.

Over the past 50 years, there have been 22 Budgets in April. There is no particular delay in having another Budget in April; indeed, this Budget will be earlier than last year's Budget.

I assure the right hon. Gentleman that there was no delay in the announcement. The Budget date was announced as soon as it was agreed. As Opposition Members appear concerned that there was delay in the announcement, I would have thought that they would welcome the fact that there was no attempt at concealment.

The right hon. Gentleman asks about the Chancellor's written ministerial statement. The normal practice has been to announce the Budget date in response to a planted question. As he knows, written ministerial statements are more transparent, more obvious and more clear. They replace the written parliamentary question. There is nothing different in the way in which this Budget has been announced from any preceding Budget.

I have nothing to add to what has already been said on the dossier. It was cleared in the normal way.

By whom?

I do not know, nor would I expect to know, who saw the document in advance—nor do I think that it is an important matter in relation to the debate on the severe and grave matters that concern us in international affairs. It would do Opposition Members more credit if they focused on the central grave questions that we face in international affairs, rather than picking at the edges in a desperate attempt to distance themselves from a policy that we are told they fully agree with.

May I express my sincere sympathy to the Leader of the House, who has lost out again in his long-standing battle with the Chancellor? After the announcement, for the first time, of a long-term parliamentary plan to enable hon. Members to plan their work in their constituencies, and after the efforts, with the support of the Select Committee on Modernisation of the House of Commons, to have a proper diary for the business of the House, I hope that the Leader will agree that it is disappointing that the Chancellor seems to be responsible for planning the business of the House—or is it President Bush or Saddam Hussein? What will be the future of the programme that the Leader has announced? After all, many of the matters that he has announced today are not all that urgent. Are we to wait on the Chancellor's whim before we know what the business of the House will be? Is it not time to have some mechanism that will allow the House to take back control over its own business? I understand that the Scottish Parliament, which the Leader visited recently, has such a mechanism.

In discussions that I hope that the Leader will hold with Opposition parties—in which I hope he will allow Back Benchers to influence the business of the House—will he consider in particular the mental health Bill, which was referred to during last week's business questions? There should be consultation on that Bill—not only on its scope, but on its pre-legislative scrutiny and timetable. In that regard, will he look in particular at early-day motion 263, on the victims of schizophrenia?

[That this House welcomes the National Institute for Clinical Excellence's Technology Appraisal Guidance No. 43 on the use of newer, atypical antipsychotic drugs for the treatment of schizophrenia, issued in June 2002; believes that the guidance is a real step forward in delivering better care for those with schizophrenia; recognises the importance of ensuring that patients have an informed choice about their treatment options; recalls the NHS' statutory obligation to ensure that all NICE recommendations are implemented within three months of issue; notes the concerns raised at the Rethink severe mental illness conference, Only the Best in December 2002, over the slowness of implementation; and urges NHS trusts, health authorities and primary care trusts to ensure that sufficient funding is made available to implement the NICE guidance quickly and effectively to improve the lives of those with schizophrenia.]

I found value in my visit to the Scottish Parliament. I believe that there are things that the oldest of Parliaments can learn from the newest of Parliaments. I look forward with confidence, in the light of the success of the Scottish Parliament, to the reelection of the governing coalition. I imagine that the hon. Gentleman would attach himself to that wish for the coalition.

I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for his sympathy, but, among the many things for which I may take responsibility, I have never pretended that I can set the date of the Budget.

Ah!

I do not think that I have made an especially contentious statement.

My responsibility is to ensure that the House can fully scrutinise the Government and fully debate the business that the Government put before it. That is why it is important that the House should have a full four days for debate after Budget day, as would normally be the case. I would not have thought that Opposition Members would begrudge one day of the recess to allow the opportunity for full scrutiny of what will be an excellent Budget.[Interruption.] I suggest that hon. Members should not tempt me too far; otherwise, I may suggest that, because of the Government's excellent record in soundly managing the economy, a fifth or sixth day of scrutiny may be well worth while.

I note what the hon. Member for North Cornwall (Mr. Tyler) says about the mental health Bill. In fairness, I think that we have consulted more often than any previous Administration on arrangements for the introduction of Bills. I shall certainly bear in mind what he said about a Bill that has attracted deep and considerable interest not just in the House but among the public outside.

Will my right hon. Friend assure us that there will be a debate in the House before Britain casts its vote at the United Nations for or against a war with Iraq? I have heard reports that arrangements are being made for the House to be recalled on Saturday 15 March, two days after hostilities will have begun in Iraq. The House will then be asked to approve what has already taken place. Can he set my mind at rest and assure me that the House will be able to vote on the propriety of a war with Iraq before British troops are committed to it?

I shall attempt to put my hon. Friend's mind at rest, but I anticipate that that is a serious undertaking that I have not previously managed to achieve.

I repeat from the Dispatch Box what has been said repeatedly by my right hon. Friends the Prime Minister and the Foreign Secretary: it is both our wish and our intention that there should be a vote in the House of Commons on the commitment of any British troops and that we want—the Foreign Secretary carefully explained why this is in the interest of the Government as well as that of the House—that debate and vote to take place before troops are put into action. Plainly, we have got always to reserve as our primary consideration the safety and security of our troops. However, subject to that necessary reservation—with which, I think, all Members would agree—we want that debate and vote to take place before there is any military action.

I am aware that a story about a Saturday debate is currently running in the press, and I have received questions about it. However, I do not recognise the suggestion. I am puzzled about why it would be necessary to have a recall on a Saturday given that the weekend to which my hon. Friend refers is preceded and followed by a sitting week of the House of Commons. I hope that we will be able to debate the matter in good time and at a time that will not inconvenience Members.

Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that many members of the staff, who serve us so well, are obliged to take their holidays during parliamentary recesses? Is he aware that I have been approached, as a member of the Commission, by a number of staff who wonder why the Budget cannot be announced on the Tuesday or, indeed, the Monday of the week beginning 7 April? We could still sit on the Friday and have our four days of Budget debate. The staff, who serve us so well, would not have to cancel—sometimes at great expense—holidays that they have made in accordance with the conditions of service that we impose on them.

I am well aware that the Commission is examining the position of those members of staff who may be in the position to which the hon. Gentleman refers. However, I draw the House's attention to the fact that we have not yet passed any motion on the Easter recess. Indeed, the timetable that I produced last October—I was cautious when I announced it to the House—says that "all dates are provisional". There is a value in having provisional dates, but it is important to bear in mind the fact that they are provisional.

I might as well tear up the dodgy diary.

I am not sure what point the hon. Gentleman seeks to make.[Interruption.]

Order. I cannot see any reason for hon. Members to shout at the Leader of the House.[Laughter.]

I am not sure that you, Mr. Speaker, carried the House with you in that customary consensual intervention.

I put it to Conservative Members that it is perfectly plain that we need to make sure that the Budget is adequately scrutinised. I really would not have thought that they would object to spending one day of their recess considering the Budget debate. [HON. MEMBERS: "Staff."] Nor, indeed, do I believe that the staff who serve this place well would wish to see consideration of the Budget skimped so that it is not properly considered.[Interruption.] If hon. Members let me continue, I will remind the House that, when we announced the parliamentary timetable, I made it plain that the first week of the recess would be a constituency week. I would not expect the right hon. Member for Bromley and Chislehurst (Mr. Forth) to complain at having to be dragged from his constituency to spend a day in this place debating Government business.

Now that the Fire Brigades Union seems to be accepting the idea of modernisation, is it not time for hon. Members to begin to adapt themselves to the modernisation of this place rather than seeking continually to overturn the will of the House in respect of our new hours?

My hon. Friend draws attention to the fact that we are making progress on our discussions with the FBU about modernisation and the pay package. I hope that they are concluded successfully. She is correct to point out that we cannot lecture the rest of Britain on the importance of modernising and changing working practices if we are not willing to do so in a way that makes us more relevant to the world outside and more in touch with the lifestyles that our constituents lead.

Is the Leader of the House aware that yesterday the Deputy Prime Minister used a written ministerial statement to withdraw completely the local authority social housing grant? May we have an urgent proper statement or debate on that? Local authorities in constituencies such as mine have done everything that they were meant to do—pay down their debt and transfer houses to housing associations—to provide low-cost accommodation for local people, but that is now impossible because of the Government's gerrymandering. They are taking money away from local authorities in the south and giving it to their own badly run authorities elsewhere.

I shall consider the specific point that the hon. Gentleman raises, but let us not lose sight of the fact that the Government are spending three times more on social housing than the Conservative Government whom he supported. Within recent memory, we have had a statement on the future of housing, in which my right hon. Friend the Deputy Prime Minister announced a further £5 billion for social housing. Let there be no doubt about the Government's commitment to social housing. We are providing much larger sums than the Conservatives provided in the past or could ever provide in the future if they persist in their commitment to cut public spending by 20 per cent.

On the question of business, I regularly ask the staff what is on the agenda for next week. Usually, people in the post office and on the door know in advance what is likely to happen. My right hon. Friend said, although not in totality, that the House will not meet on a Saturday, yet when I came in this morning and asked, "Anything on the agenda?", the staff said, "Yes. There's a distinct possibility that we'll be having a vote about Iraq on a Saturday, so you'd better clear your desk." Is my right hon. Friend ruling that out completely, because, if so, it will be the first time that the staff have been wrong?

Plainly, I must spend more time in the Members' Post Office. Perhaps we can have next week's business statement there or in the Members' Lobby. I can only repeat that at present we have no plans to meet on a Saturday—[Interruption.] I am not seeking to provide the footnotes to the wriggle room; I genuinely have no plans at present to recall the House on a Saturday. Should such an eventuality arise, I anticipate that my hon. Friend would much rather that we were recalled and debated the matter than we did not debate it at all. At the moment, however, I do not anticipate that necessity.

The right hon. Gentleman will know that informal consideration was given to holding the Report stage of the Police (Northern Ireland) Bill the week after next, but that idea appears to have been dropped. Can he assure the House that, when he announces its Report stage, the Government will not use it to introduce anything that they may have agreed in this week's talks? Any further changes to the policing of Northern Ireland deserve to be in a Bill of their own and given proper consideration in both Houses rather than being sneaked into the Report stage of a Bill that has already been considered fully in another place.

As I understand the timetable for discussions in Northern Ireland, the parties to the agreement have gone away to consult their Members and their contacts. They will probably return in April, which is some way in the future. I am not aware of whether that will produce a requirement for fresh legislation or fresh legislative requirements. Should it do so, I anticipate that the House would want to ensure that any step necessary to consolidate an agreement is carried through expeditiously. I cannot anticipate at the moment whether there would be a specific vehicle for that or whether it would affect the Bill. However, as the hon. Gentleman knows, we attach high importance to the Bill. It is part of our agreements with Northern Ireland and we would wish to make reasonable progress on it.

Given the awesome American weaponry lined up surrounding Iraq and the terrifying effects that the strategy—"shock and awe"—will have on the civilian population, it is essential that we have a debate before a week on Saturday, because everybody knows that the countdown to war has begun. We need that debate on a substantive motion so that hon. Members can express their view on whether or not we go to war.

I do not think that there is any difference between my hon. Friend and I on that point. Indeed, the Government—I, the Prime Minister and the Foreign Secretary—have repeatedly said from the Dispatch Box that we would wish to bring before the House a substantive motion in the light of any Security Council resolution that may be agreed, and that we would want that to happen, if it was at all possible, in advance of any military conflict. That position stands. I assure my hon. Friend that the Government regard it as important not only to the House, but to themselves and to British troops, that they should have that decision by the House of Commons in the event of any conflict taking place.

Which of the political parties in Scotland does the Leader of the House believe will benefit most from the Budget statement being made in the middle of the Scottish election campaign?

I am confident that the Labour party will benefit most from the Scottish campaign in any event. I am slightly puzzled by the anxiety of the Scottish National party about the timing of the Budget statement. That anxiety makes sense only if the SNP assumes that a display of the sound economy of Britain, the strength of the economy under the Chancellor of the Exchequer and a positive Budget that is popular and well received in Britain and particularly in Scotland will jeopardise whatever small chances it has of taking control in Scotland. I welcome the hon. Gentleman's confidence in my right hon. Friend the Chancellor and his confidence that it will be a positive Budget and a popular one in Scotland.

Is my right hon. Friend aware that the number of UN personnel administering the oil-for-food programme in the north of Iraq has been reduced from 500 to 200, and that U K-based NGOs such as Christian Aid and Save the Children were advised last week by the Foreign and Commonwealth Office to withdraw their personnel not only from Iraq but from Israel and Palestine? Will he urgently communicate this question to his right hon. Friends and discuss with them the potential humanitarian consequences for the 60 per cent. of people in Iraq who are dependent on that aid?

I am not aware of the figures that my hon. Friend quotes, but I will pass on her concern to my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for International Development. I assure my hon. Friend that the Government attach high importance to the oil-for-food programme in northern Iraq, and I am confident that it would be able to continue even with a reduction in staff, provided that the resources continue to get through. It is striking that, under the UN's direct administration of the oil-for-food programme in northern Iraq, child mortality has gone down, the health of the population has improved and education levels have improved, in stark contrast to the way in which all those measures have gone in the opposite direction in the rest of Iraq, where it is Saddam, not the UN, who administers the programme.

Reverting to the wholly unsatisfactory arrangements for the Budget, does the Leader of the House recall saying on 29 October:

"I have been in the House for almost 30 years without ever being able to plan from one recess to the next when I can count on being away from Westminster. The motion will enable Members to make sensible arrangements more than two months ahead."—[Official Report, 29 October 2002; Vol. 391, c. 697.]

What does he now say to Members and Members' staff who took his advice and made sensible arrangements?

If the right hon. Gentleman is suggesting that we should not have that fourth day of debate on the Budget, I will be only too happy to consider it. I suspect that some of my hon. Friends will welcome that proposal. However, I think it is important that the House should fully scrutinise the Budget, and the job of scrutiny by hon. Members must take priority over the travel arrangements that we or our staff may have made. When I announced that diary in October, I made it plain that we were combining the constituency week with the Easter recess. For an important piece of Government business such as the Budget, it is not unreasonable that hon. Members should be in the House rather than in their constituency for only one day of that week. Even without that day, the Easter recess will be longer than most Easter recesses of the past four decades.

May we have an early statement from Health Ministers on the funding of longterm care for the elderly? My right hon. Friend will be aware that the health service ombudsman recently completed an investigation and found that in four cases—probably out of hundreds, and perhaps thousands—very elderly people had to pay for their own long-term care, when the NHS should properly have paid. The matter concerns all Members. Many of their constituents are affected, and the Secretary of State for Health ought to be able to assure the House that health authorities and trusts are not misinterpreting the guidance sent out by the Department of Health.

It would indeed be a serious matter if local authorities were not properly applying the Department of Health's guidance. I can assure my hon. Friend that my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Health would be happy to pursue the matter if my hon. Friend has specific cases in mind and can provide us with that data. On the broad issue, I assure him that the Government have increased the funding for social services throughout England and Wales by 6 per cent. per annum, compared with a serious restriction on the funds for those local authorities under the previous Government. The increase has enabled local authorities throughout England to carry through an increase in the fees that they pay for long-term residential care, in many cases up to 10 per cent. I regret that in some cases that has left nursing homes charging above the local authority contribution, but we are increasing the funds, the local authority is increasing the fees, and between us we will do all we can to meet the problem.

I can well appreciate that the Chancellor may have wanted to delay the date of the Budget until the end of the tax year to see just how bad the tax revenue situation is, but, given that he will have drawn those conclusions by 5 April, can the Leader of the House explain why we cannot have the Budget on the Monday of the week in question, so that instead of devoting just four days to scrutinising the Chancellor's bad stewardship of the economy we could devote five?

It is worth recalling, and I am sure the Chancellor will recall it when we meet on 9 April, that Britain has one of the lowest unemployment rates of any country in Europe, and the lowest that we have had for a generation; it has one of the lowest inflation rates anywhere in the industrialised world; and it has the fastest growth rate of any of the G7 countries. That is a splendid record, which was praised by the International Monetary Fund report earlier this week as an enviable record, and it is envied by the other industrialised nations. I am sure that when he speaks to the Budget, the Chancellor of the Exchequer will make sure that the House and the rest of the country fully understand the strength of the British economy as a result of his sound management.

Is it not odd that whereas the large majority of our constituents will simply have Good Friday and Easter Monday off, there are complaints when we are to have a recess of two weeks, as my right hon. Friend mentioned? Why do Tory MPs complain time and again that the recess is too long—too short.[Laughter.] Many of us take the view that it would do no harm if the Easter recess were just one week.

I would not wish to put that last proposition to a vote. My hon. Friend raises a serious issue. Before we rise for the Easter recess, there will be a debate on the Easter Adjournment, to which my hon. Friend the Parliamentary Secretary, Privy Council Office will reply, and there will follow three or four hours during which hon. Members will argue that we should not rise for the recess because there is an important and pressing issue to debate. When that event comes round this year, I expect that my hon. Friend the Parliamentary Secretary, Privy Council Office will remind them that they have consistently and repeatedly objected to coming back for only one day to debate the Budget.

You will notice, Mr. Speaker, that the House will be able to don the shamrock on 17 March. Will the Leader of the House make sure that a Foreign Office Minister replies to the debate on terrorism on Tuesday and tells us what steps have been taken to deal with the international weaponry that has been stored in the Republic of Ireland and used in terrorism, and the more recent developments that have told us throughout Ireland that there are international terrorist cells in various parts?

Of course, international terrorism will be considered in the debate on the report by the Foreign Affairs Committee. To the extent that the situation in Northern Ireland is relevant, it obviously can be considered both in the debate and in the response to it but, as I am sure the hon. Gentleman will be the first to agree, internal terrorism in Northern Ireland is not an international matter but is firmly one for the United Kingdom Government to pursue as a domestic issue. Plainly, there are international links, of which the hon. Gentleman is well aware, and I would be surprised if a Unionist Member did not contribute to the debate to highlight them.

Regardless of arrangements that may have been made for a debate on possible military action in Iraq, does my right hon. Friend agree that tomorrow's reports by Dr. Blix to the Security Council will be of crucial significance in determining people's attitudes to military action? In the light of that, is he of the clear opinion that next Wednesday it is more important to debate Welsh affairs than Dr. Blix's report?

The debate on Wales has already been deferred precisely so that we could debate Iraq—it was a casualty of our debate on Iraq the other week. It is important that my Welsh colleagues and Members who represent our voters in Wales should have an opportunity to explore Welsh issues.

I entirely concur with my hon. Friend about the importance of Hans Blix's report tomorrow. It is important that the world should hear from him at first hand what progress, or lack of it, he is making on the mandate that he was given by the Security Council. One of the reasons why we in Britain should take particular interest in what he says is that Britain, more than any other nation, was successful in taking the Iraq crisis on to the UN track, from which we secured the return of the weapons inspectors to Iraq. We shall therefore play close attention to what Hans Blix says tomorrow.

Can we have an early statement from the Foreign Secretary on whether the language of Security Council resolution 1441 and the draft resolution that was recently tabled in fact provide proper authority for war? In that context, the Leader of the House will have seen the letter today inThe Times from Professor Black, a distinguished jurist, saying that the language of 1441 does not provide a proper warrant for war and, furthermore, that the draft resolution, which we put before the Security Council, does not do so either. Surely we must probe that so that there is no misunderstanding about the legal basis for what the Government have in mind.

It is of course the right and duty of the House to probe the Government, and I do not doubt that in future debates on Iraq the right hon. and learned Gentleman may wish to make those points. However, I repeat to the House what has been said on a number of occasions, including most recently by the Prime Minister yesterday—there is no question of the Government taking any action that they believe to be contrary to international law. Should they take any action, they would only do so in the conviction that it is consistent with international law.

Could we have a debate next week on the report by the Office of Fair Trading about the pharmacy market that was published on 17 January? Is my right hon. Friend aware of the widespread concern in my constituency and elsewhere about the effects of that report? It is competition gone mad, and will mean the closure of many high street pharmacies and the domination of that market by Tesco and Asda. Could we have an urgent debate before the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry, who is sitting on the Front Bench, has to make a decision?

I am happy to tell to my hon. Friend that I am well aware of the House's deep concern about that matter, which has been raised in three successive sets of business questions—a useful barometer of opinion and concern in the House. After last week's exchanges, when it was raised by no fewer than four Members, we communicated to the Department for Trade and Industry the House's interest in the matter.

My hon. Friend will be aware that we are half way through the 90-day period for a Government response. The Government are consulting appropriate representative bodies on their response, and will consult again on any draft proposals that we make in response to the OFT report. I assure my hon. Friend that we are fully aware of the concern that the matter is causing in Members' constituencies, and want to take action consistent with our NHS plan to make sure that there is a successful and diverse range of pharmacies in every community in Britain.

Can the Leader of the House find time for the House as a whole to discuss the European Convention and its emerging proposals before they are cast in Giscardian tablets of stone and foisted on us as a putative constitution? Can the Government take into account the alarming divergent diplomatic postures of leading EU members, namely France and Germany, on the Iraqi crisis; and does that not call into question the principles of ever closer union, as enunciated in the Maastricht treaty, on which the Convention is based?

Of course we are well aware of the considerable interest in the House on the development of the Convention on the Future of Europe. After all, as a House, we are unusual in having two representatives who serve on the Convention independent of our Government representatives. We therefore set up a unique Committee for Back Benchers to which those House representatives can report and where debates can be held. That Committee has met at least twice, and a further debate is coming up in Westminster Hall. However, the issue is important, and cannot be debated too often. I shall certainly bear in mind when it may be appropriate for the House to consider it.

In the meantime, the nature of such bodies and international negotiations means that proposals change as they proceed, so one should not necessarily take what is on the table now as what will be there at the end of the day.

Is the Leader of the House aware that in response to a question by my hon. Friend the Member for Birmingham, Selly Oak (Lynne Jones), on the Government's attempts to obtain a second UN resolution authorising war against Iraq even before the weapons inspectors had completed their second report, the Prime Minister said that

"in relation to the resolution, we are confident of securing the votes for that resolution and we will carry on working to that end."—[Official Report, 5 March 2003; Vol. 400, c. 817.]

Today, however, we read in the newspapers that the Government's confidence is remarkably misplaced and they are attempting to cobble together a compromise resolution. That is the third time this week that the Government's action or policy on Iraq has been reported first in the press—B-52 bombers are to be allowed to use our islands as a terrestrial aircraft carrier, and there is the particular incident to which I have previously referred. Can we have a debate, if not on Iraq itself, then on the Government's failure to inform the House of such changes before they inform the press? The issue is of overwhelming national concern, and the House has consistently been kept in the dark.

I cannot think of a single issue in the past three months on which we have had more statements in the House than Iraq. I am confident that there will be future occasions when Ministers will report to Parliament, and Parliament will be able to debate the matter.

The Government have a clear commitment to seek a Security Council resolution. We are in the lead in trying to secure such a resolution, and shall continue to work for it. When we secure such a resolution, we shall bring it to the House for a debate and approval on a substantive motion. That remains our strategy, and we are committed to it.

With reference to the legislation that the Government intend to introduce Monday week on elections to the Northern Ireland Assembly, can the Leader of the House give a commitment that there will be no further interference with the democratic process and the right of electors in Northern Ireland other than that which has already been announced, postponing elections from 1 May to 29 May? Furthermore, can he ask his colleagues to come to the House and give details of the paper, so far denied to representatives of the people of Northern Ireland who were not invited to the talks, on the deal that is currently under consideration, which consists of 29 pages and five annexes? Surely, the people of Northern Ireland have a right to know what has been discussed regarding the future of the Province. Can the Leader of the House give an assurance that he will publish that document and that it will be placed in the Library of the House so that the people of Northern Ireland can judge the merits or otherwise of the Government proposals?

I can certainly assure the House that when negotiations are concluded one way or another the Government will wish to make sure that the House is fully informed. I anticipate that at that moment there will probably be a statement to the House. At present, negotiations are proceeding among, as the hon. Gentleman knows full well, those who are party to the agreement. It is hardly surprising that those parties that have chosen not to be party to the agreement have been excluded from those talks and the documents, which are necessarily work in progress. When that work is concluded, the hon. Gentleman and all Members of the House will share in the results.

Does my right hon. Friend agree that the debate on the reform of the House of Lords has moved from unthinking muddle to profound confusion? Will he undertake to draft a motion, which the House might consider in an Adjournment debate, that would give us a chance to reflect thoughtfully on what has happened so far, and to see whether we can find a way forward that fulfils our commitment to democratise the second Chamber?

My hon. Friend has an unerring capacity to find the helpful question. May I remind hon. Members that this matter was put to the House last month, and in that debate I sought to give the House an opportunity to find a consensual way forward? I fear that we failed on that occasion to find any clear, commanding, compelling agreement on a particular form of reform.

It is all the Prime Minister's fault.

No, it was the fault of every hon. Member who took part in the debate, in which we failed to find a majority for any single way forward on reform. As I have said since then, there will be no reform of the second Chamber until there is a majority in this Chamber for a particular way of reform. We shall certainly continue to look for that, but until we see the makings of such a majority, I think that it would be premature to bring the matter back to the House.

The Leader of the House will remember saying to me last week that the Prime Minister—unlike his predecessors—had better things to do than to spend time sitting in important House of Commons debates. That statement was followed 24 hours later by the biggest parliamentary rebellion since the 1800s. Does the Leader of the House think that there is a connection between those two events? Will he tell us whether the Prime Minister will join us in the House for the conclusion of the Budget debate in the first week of the recess?

I have not previously been charged with being personally responsible for the biggest rebellion in the past 100 years of parliamentary history, and I will reflect gravely on the charge that the hon. Gentleman makes. I would remind hon. Members that the Prime Minister has not only come to the House to make a full statement and to answer questions on Iraq, and dealt with the matter repeatedly in the course of Prime Minister's questions, but has taken a very close personal interest in how the House debates it. For that reason, he uniquely spent two hours in front of the Liaison Committee answering questions from senior Members of the House. That is something that no previous Prime Minister, whether Labour or Conservative, has ever done. I can tell the hon. Gentleman that the Prime Minister will of course continue to take a very close interest in the Budget and in the debate that follows it.

What impact is the rebellion of 122 MPs over the Iraq issue having on the business of the House? Is the Leader of the House aware that, for many of those MPs, it was the first time that they had voted against the Whips? He must know that, once someone loses their political virginity, it is much easier for political promiscuity to take over. If whipping arrangements in the House were to collapse, what would happen to life as we know it?

I would be well advised to avoid any discussion about promiscuity and whipping. Of course I fully understand the strength of feeling in the House and in the country, and the vote last week revealed the very deep concern and worry in the country about the present situation in relation to Iraq. For me, that is why it is so important that we should stick with our strategy of making sure that this crisis is resolved through the United Nations, and that we secure that second resolution within the United Nations.

May I ask the Leader of the House for an urgent debate on an important matter which affects the health of all our constituents in the face of a possible terrorist threat? Last Monday, in a debate in the House in which I also took part as shadow Minister for national security, the Home Secretary said in an unguarded moment to my right hon. Friend the Member for West Dorset (Mr. Letwin):

"I do not believe that there is a problem with people approaching their general practitioner for the smallpox vaccination."—[Official Report, 3 March 2003; Vol. 400, c. 596.]

My right hon. Friend pointed out to the Home Secretary that that was factually inaccurate. We understand that there was then consternation approaching panic in the Department of Health and, as a result, the following morning the Minister for Policing, Crime Reduction and Community Safety, the right hon. Member for Southampton, Itchen (Mr. Denham), considerably watered down what the Home Secretary had said, when he replied to my hon. Friend the Member for South-East Cambridgeshire (Mr. Paice) in a debate in Westminster Hall. The Minister said that

"people should go to general practitioners if they want advice".—[Official Report, Westminster Hall, 4 March 2003; Vol. 400, c. 204WH.]

It was clear by then that people could not approach their GPs for the vaccine. We believe that vaccines should be available now for any of our citizens who wish to be vaccinated. Will the Leader of the House urgently talk to the Home Office and the Department of Health, and can we have a debate on this crucial matter?

I am very happy to ensure that both those Departments receive the comments that the hon. Gentleman has made. In the meantime, so that the public outside can, to some extent, have their concerns allayed, I am happy to repeat what we have often sought to make clear, which is that we are not aware of any specific threat of the use of smallpox in the case of Britain.

Can we have a statement from the Secretary of State for Defence on preparations to avoid friendly fire—and, indeed, civilian casualties—in any joint military operations with US forces in Iraq? Is the Leader of the House aware that, in an answer to my named day written question for 10 February which was finally answered on 5 March, in which I had asked the Secretary of State for Defence about any representations that he had made on the use of amphetamines by US air force pilots, the Secretary of State said that that was a matter for the US authorities? Should not the British Government be making representations to the US authorities about the issue of amphetamines to US air force pilots, not least because they were cited in the case of the friendly-fire deaths of four Canadian soldiers in Afghanistan last year, and because they are banned in our own armed forces for precisely the reason that we should be making representations to the US?

My hon. Friend tempts me into an area that is very much within the province of my right hon. and hon. colleagues in the Ministry of Defence. I shall certainly draw his remarks to their attention, and they can consider what appropriate representations might be necessary. Of course, every possible effort is made to ensure that the armed forces of the United States and the United Kingdom can operate in a way in which any risk of casualties from friendly fire is diminished as far as is humanly possible.

Has the Leader of the House had the opportunity to read the excellent Bill introduced by my noble Friend Lord Goodhart, which is due to be given a Second Reading tomorrow, entitled the Ministerial and other Salaries (Amendment) Bill, and which seeks to reduce the salary of the Lord Chancellor to that of a common-or-garden Cabinet Minister? When that Bill is passed in the other House, as I expect it to be, probably by acclamation, will the right hon. Gentleman provide an early opportunity for this House to debate it? If not, can we at least have a debate on the role of the Lord Chancellor and the conduct of his Department?

I am delighted to say that one of the initiatives that we have taken is to create a Select Committee on the Lord Chancellor's Department. This is the first time in the history of the House of Commons that there has been such a Select Committee, and we therefore now have a new vehicle to ensure adequate debate on and scrutiny of the actions and responsibilities of the Lord Chancellor. On the question of his salary, it is important that we should pay adequate attention to equity and equality, and I appreciate the hon. Gentleman's concern that there should be equality within the Cabinet. Of course, it is also an important principle of new Labour that merit should be adequately rewarded.

Given that the credibility of Government spokesmen is of paramount importance in international affairs, will the Leader of the House explain why those spokesmen denied the existence of a document which recorded that Mr. Kamal Hussein had stated that the Iraqi Government had not, in fact, acted as he had earlier described in relation to the creation of weapons of mass destruction? Why was the existence of that document denied by Government spokesmen, and how did it subsequently come into the possession ofNewsweek?

As I understand it, the document to which the hon. Gentleman refers is a statement by Rolf Ekeus, the former weapons inspector in Iraq, who gave his verdict on interviews with Kamal Hussein. I personally am not familiar with the idea of any Government spokesman having denied the existence of that document, nor would it be within our power to confirm or deny what is in the United Nations weapons inspectors' records. If the hon. Gentleman would like to clarify precisely to what he is referring, I shall certainly make the necessary inquiries.

Further to the question raised by my hon. Friend the Member for Surrey Heath (Mr. Hawkins), the Government gave advice to the public on Monday that they should go to their family doctor to ask for a smallpox vaccination if they wanted one. Is the Leader of the House aware that the British Medical Association and the GPs giving evidence yesterday to the Science and Technology Committee said that they had not been consulted in any way on this matter, that the advice was downright dangerous, that the GPs would not be able to respond to it and that the Government should withdraw it immediately? Will he ensure that the Home Secretary comes to the House, clarifies the matter to the public and apologises?

I can certainly confirm that the Department of Health has repeatedly provided advice on that matter. Of course, the hon. Gentleman makes a very fair point in saying that the smallpox vaccination carries a risk of side effects, so it is important that it be used only in circumstances in which the risk of infection is greater than that of side effects. That is why the plans of the Department of Health and the Government for dealing with any smallpox outbreak involve vaccination of those who would be most at risk, rather than general vaccination. It is very important that we keep the matter in proportion and do not unnecessarily alarm our constituents, so I repeat that we are not aware at present of any specific threat of a smallpox attack on Britain.

Can we have an early debate on the Floor of the House on the iniquitous impact of the Government's so-called fairer charging policy for the receipt of home care services? Does the right hon. Gentleman recognise that such a debate would enable us to show how the Chancellor of the Exchequer has broken a seven and a half year old pledge to end the means test for our elderly people, how the policy reflects the appalling financial mistreatment of the shire counties, and how the cumulative impact of those errors of judgment and that malice on the part of the Government will cause some of my constituents to pay 200, 300 and 400 per cent. more than they currently do for services on which they critically depend?

It has of course been a longstanding practice of many local authorities to provide some form of charging for home care services, and it is often means tested. One of the great dilemmas for a Government—the hon. Gentleman will have to wrestle with it in any unlikely future event of his finding himself on the Treasury Bench—is to what extent we try to achieve harmony in the practice of local authorities. There has been some resentment throughout the country about the extent to which there has been wide variation. The Government's current proposal is intended to achieve a degree of common standards and a common approach among local authorities. While some might lose out—I hear what he says about his constituency—there will be other cases in which residents and constituents will benefit from the scheme and in which the application of a fair and consistent national minimum standard will benefit those most in need of care.

May we have a debate in due course on the compulsory funding of the BBC as a public service broadcaster, given that such a debate would enable us to explore the mentality of the official BBC spokesman? That spokesman said that the BBC's new series on Cambridge spies was

"the first time that they can be seen to be heroic because it's post-Cold War"

and made this statement:

"In 'Cambridge Spies', we see and understand why it was that these young men were so implacably opposed to fascism and how communism was the only legitimate response".

What possible relationship can there be between the concept of compulsory levies, public service broadcasting and such an utter perversion of liberal values and the historical record?

One of the commendable ingenuities of the hon. Gentleman is that he always manages to find a way of making his point without my having to arrange a debate. He has just done so again. I fully concur with him in the sentiment behind his point—there is nothing heroic in being a traitor. I think that the whole House would agree.

In reply to questions asked by my right hon. Friend the shadow Leader of the House, the right hon. Gentleman said that the dodgy dossier did not matter. I can tell him a reason why it does matter. Hundreds of aircrew and ground crew personnel are being deployed from RAF Marham in west Norfolk to the Gulf. Surely they need to trust the Government and believe them when they are making their case for the war. Will he now answer my right hon. Friend's question?

I would be very surprised if a single airman or serviceman who is preparing for what may be military conflict in the Gulf is currently sitting over his cocoa debating which Minister cleared the Government dossier. If the hon. Gentleman would like to find me a single person who has written to him expressing concern about that point, I would be interested to hear about it. Of course, what servicemen want to know is where the Opposition stand on the major question as to whether military conflict would be correct.

I have to notify the House, in accordance with the Royal Assent Act 1967, that Her Majesty has signified her Royal Assent to the following Acts and Measures:

On a point of order, Mr. Speaker. I seek your guidance and assistance concerning the performance of the Home Office. I have with me three files, on two of which a response has been outstanding from the Home Office since 5 November last year. More importantly, I wrote on 21 January 2002 to the Home Office on behalf of a constituent who was concerned about the time that it was taking her to obtain her British passport. I received an acknowledgement card some three days later. I have since written three further letters, on 7 May and 3 September last year and 17 January this year, and I still have not received a substantive answer from the Home Office, which means that I do not know the present status of the case. More importantly, my constituent expects to be able to travel and does not have her British passport.

How can hon. Members in this place fulfil their duties to their constituents if a Department is taking so long to reply to correspondence? I appeal to you in desperation, Mr. Speaker: what can a Member in this place do, and how can we stop people's lives being disrupted by the lack of performance of Home Office Ministers?

Ministers should answer hon. Members timeously.

But they do not.

Order. If the hon. Lady sends the details of the cases to me, I shall investigate the matter. I also point out that there is a Select Committee on Public Administration and that she should also take her complaint there.

I am delighted that international women's day has been selected as the topic for today's debate.

It is 100 years since Emmeline Pankhurst formed the Women's Social and Political Union. Earlier today, I launched the Royal Mint's new 50 pence coin commemorating that anniversary. Emmeline once said:

"We are here not because we are law breakers, we are here in our efforts to become law makers."

Since women won the vote, only 252 women law makers have been elected to this House and only 18 women have served in Cabinet in all those years. I am proud to be one of those women and grateful for this opportunity to pay tribute to Emmeline Pankhurst and all her fellow suffragettes who fought outside this House for political, economic and social justice. I am glad that the whole House will join me in honouring her achievements.

This Saturday, millions of people around the world will take part in events to mark international women's day. I have no doubt that many of them will again take the opportunity to express their deep concerns about the possibility of war in Iraq. All of us hate the idea of war. As we know from every test of public opinion, women are even more likely when faced with the horrors that war inevitably brings to prefer a peaceful route, but I have no doubt that it is only the threat of war that has persuaded Saddam Hussein after 12 years of defying the United Nations to allow the inspectors back in and offer a few inadequate gestures of co-operation. Even now, Saddam can put a stop to the possibility of war by cooperating fully with resolution 1441, which was passed unanimously by the Security Council.

In endorsing what the right hon. Lady says, may I remind her that there is also a long and very honourable tradition of women playing heroic parts in the wars that have had to be fought throughout the 20th century in order to preserve the freedoms that they were fighting to win when they fought for the vote?

The hon. Gentleman is absolutely right. Many of us have female, as well as male relatives who played their part in both world wars in particular.

We know, from every test of public opinion, that women are even more likely to prefer that peaceful route. Even now, Saddam can put a stop to the possibility of war. Of course conciliation would be better than war, but let us not confuse conciliation with appeasement, or muddle our rational fear of war with irrational trust in Saddam after all that 12 years' bitter experience has taught. That experience has been bitter indeed for millions of Iraqi women who have watched their children die in poverty. Their sons and husbands have been tortured and executed. Women themselves have been brutalised by professional rapists. In last week's debate in this House, my hon. Friend the Member for Cynon Valley (Ann Clwyd) gave her own moving account of the sufferings of the families whom she met on her recent visit to northern Iraq.

Our armed forces fought in Kosovo to end the horror of ethnic cleansing and a conflict in which rape was deployed as a deliberate weapon of war. Millions of women and men are now rebuilding their lives and their country. We fought in Afghanistan against al-Qaeda and international terrorism, and, with the removal of the Taliban that followed, girls are now back in school for the first time in more than a decade. I recently had the privilege of meeting Habiba Sorabi, the Minister for Women in the new Afghan Administration, who, with her colleagues, is helping to rebuild that country. If we do fight in Iraq, it will be to uphold international law and to get rid of weapons of mass destruction, but the defeat of Saddam will also be the liberation of the women of Iraq.

Just as we work internationally against genocide, terrorism and weapons of mass destruction, so we work internationally to combat poverty and disease. Today, at a time of immense political uncertainty and of economic slowdown, it is doubly important that we renew our efforts for trade and development. If we are to build a lasting international coalition for disarmament and security, we must build an equally powerful international economic coalition, because we will never deal with terrorism and other threats to world peace if we do not also deal with the hunger, misery and frustration across the developing world and in refugee camps. More than 1 billion men, women and children in our world are without adequate food, water, sanitation, health care or education; 70 per cent. of them are women. Forty-two million people in the world have HIV/AIDS, 60 per cent. of whom are women, and women are the fastest growing group of sufferers. More than 0.5 million women die in pregnancy and childbirth every year, half of them in sub-Saharan Africa. No wonder Kofi Annan said

"Poverty has a woman's face".

I have no doubt at all that if we can create a system of world trade that is fair as well as free, we will empower some of the poorest women in the poorest countries of the world. That is the experience of women in Bangladeshi villages who are supported by the Brahmin bank and by their Government in creating new enterprises. That is the experience of the women whom I met earlier this year in Nong Ta Kai village in northeast Thailand. Years ago, they worked in rice fields, their only hope of escape from poverty to flee to the city, where they were vulnerable to exploitation and to prostitution. Now, they have come together, like so many other women in Thailand, to create their own silk-weaving co-operative. They used to live in old wooden shacks—I saw some that were still there. Today, they are used for storage, because next to them are the modern two-storey houses that those women have paid for with the earnings from their own work and from their ownership of that co-operative.

So the opportunity is there—above all, because in November 2001 we launched the Doha development round. We—the 142 countries in the World Trade Organisation—launched it because we know that if we could just halve protectionism around the world against agricultural and industrial goods and services, we would boost developing country incomes by about $150 billion a year: three times the value of all the aid budgets put together. Substantial trade liberalisation could reduce the number of people living in poverty by more than 300 million by 2015—a big contribution to reaching the millennium development goals. But progress on the Doha negotiations is far too slow. That is why I appeal again to President Bush and the American Administration to join with the developing countries and the European Union in the compromise agreement on access to medicines that we came so close to finalising just before Christmas. And it is why I yesterday met my right hon. Friends the Secretaries of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs and for International Development to ensure that we redouble our efforts to secure reform of the common agricultural policy, to open our markets and to end the agricultural subsidies that lock poor world farmers into poverty, and thus to move forward on the WTO negotiations.

We will continue to work internationally on human rights and women's empowerment. My officials are currently attending the 47th session of the United Nations Commission on the Status of Women. I am delighted, too, that the Government are supporting UNIFEM, the United Nations Development Fund for Women, an organisation dedicated to strengthening women's economic security and political participation, and that that organisation, with our financial support, will now be launched in London.

We know that the struggle of women in the developing world is on a wholly different scale from the challenges that we face in our own country. We have come a very long way in the past century, but there is still a long way to go before we can say that we live in a truly just and equal society. When the first international women's day was held in 1911, women in Britain were fewer than three in 10 of the work force; today, we are nearly half. However, only one in four managers is a woman, only one in 10 directors is a woman and there is only one woman chief executive in the FTSE 100. In 1911, the pay gap between British men and women was around 55 per cent.; today it is 19 per cent., but that is still 19 per cent. higher than it should be. In 1911, Oxford and Cambridge would not even grant degrees to women; today, women are more than half our full-time undergraduates. However, 50,000 women with science, engineering and technology degrees—women whose skills are urgently needed in our economy, particularly in manufacturing industry—are not in employment at all.

We know what the problems are and we know what needs to be done. We know, for instance, that we need to make it far easier for women and for men to balance work and family life. Look at the changes that have taken place. Families have been transformed. In place of the family based on the male breadwinner and the woman at home that so many of us grew up with, there are many more two-job families and many more lone parents. The workplace is changing, as well—it is no longer based on nine-to-five, five days a week. New consumer demands and growing competitive pressures require ever more organisations to be far more flexible in how they employ their people.

The best employers know that working time reform is not a burden forced on them by Government, but an opportunity to be far more successful. Last week, I presented the awards for theSunday Times-DTI 100 best companies to work for, including Microsoft, Honda UK, Asda, Tesco, the Scotch whisky company Glenmorangie, Kimberly-Clark, Richer Sounds and many others. Those are companies that consistently outperform the FTSE index and have found that the more choice they give their people about working hours, the more satisfied are their staff and the less problem they have with recruitment and retention, so they are all the more productive, profitable and successful.

Not only women but men want that choice in their working hours. According to a recent survey by the Equal Opportunities Commission, men are responsible for one in three child-care hours. The younger generation of fathers wants the chance to spend more time with the children. Younger fathers want to be more active in their children's lives than perhaps their fathers were in theirs. Given the opportunity, half of all men would work flexitime. The demand and the challenge therefore exist. However, if we left such changes to voluntary action and the pace of cultural change, unsupported by Government, the process would take too long. Parents cannot afford to wait.

In April we will introduce a new package of support—the largest ever—for parents. It includes not only the new child tax credit but rights for people in employment. They are: providing better maternity pay up to £100 a week; increasing the amount of maternity leave that a new mother can take up to a year; giving fathers the right for the first time to two weeks' paid paternity leave, which will benefit more than a third of a million fathers every year; giving adoptive parents, who have been left out in the past, equivalent rights, and granting all parents who work and have a child under six, or a child with disabilities under 18, the right to negotiate flexible working arrangements with their employers.

The new package of rights was agreed with the TUC, the Confederation of British Industry and many small businesses. We have great confidence that it will work. With the help of trade unions, business organisations and women and family groups throughout the country, we can ensure that every parent knows about the support that is available. We do not provide it out of sentimentality or because we are trying to tell parents how to do their job. We know that parents need and deserve far greater support from Government in balancing the two great responsibilities of earning a living and bringing up children.

Of course, there is far more to do to ensure that women can play their full role in the economy. Earlier, I referred to women in science, and I am especially grateful to Baroness Greenfield for her excellent review of women's participation in science, engineering and technology. I am delighted by our success in recruiting women and men, but especially women, to the science and engineering ambassadors programme. It will put more people into schools to inspire girls and young women to follow a scientific and engineering path. As we celebrate the anniversary this year of the discovery of DNA, the Rosalind Franklin award honours the achievements of a woman whose contribution to cracking the DNA code has been overlooked too often.

We need to do more to improve opportunities for women not only at the bottom but at the top of business. The report by Derek Higgs that I published recently shows that more than half of all directors of listed companies are appointed through personal contacts and friendships. That old boys' network is not an adequate way in which to ensure the highest standards of corporate governance and the best available talent. Derek Higgs suggested several methods of making the process more meritocratic through an open, fair and rigorous appointments procedure. I am delighted that Laura Tyson is considering the way in which we can progress on that. I look forward to receiving her recommendations.

In our global economy, the war for talent is real. Our businesses, public services and our country will not succeed unless we use all the talent of all our people—women as well as men from every part and community of our country.

We need to do far more to ensure that women play a full part in public life. We have changed the law to make it much easier for women to stand for election. I look forward to hearing from the hon. Member for Maidenhead (Mrs. May) about the way in which she will overcome the problem of male resistance in the Conservative party. I do not say that in a partisan spirit because, as many of my hon. Friends know, we have been through the same battles in the Labour party.

The right hon. Lady's challenge is fair and I have no doubt that my hon. Friend the Member for Maidenhead (Mrs. May) will respond to it with characteristic vigour and precision. However, the evidence that I have adduced from the Equal Opportunities Commission shows that the phenomenon of prejudice against selecting female candidates is principally a matter not of male opposition but of older people. There is an age factor and older people, both men and women, are prejudiced whether they know it or not. We must all counter that.

The hon. Gentleman makes a fair point, and I believe that he regrets his party's difficulty in recruiting younger members. However, we all face such challenges; we have set ourselves a challenge in government of recruiting 50 per cent. women for all public appointments by 2005.

I listened to my right hon. Friend's response to the hon. Member for Buckingham (Mr. Bercow) with interest. However, there are also structural problems of image, tradition and belief. It is not simply a problem of age or gender. Many young women simply do not believe that any of us take them seriously and they are therefore not prepared to take us seriously.

I agree with my hon. Friend. There is a serious problem of political disengagement and a sense that party politics and parliamentary democracy do not speak for most people. That is precisely why I am so passionately committed to ensuring that we have more women, more younger Members and more Members from our black and Asian British communities. We need to ensure that Parliament looks like our country and can therefore speak for our country.

It is simply not enough for Parliament to look like this country; we must also listen to the country. Yesterday provided a marked example of not only Parliament's but the Government's failure to listen. A mass lobby of school children who deeply opposed war against Iraq took place. They were remarkably well informed and they did not simply treat the event as a day off school. They made a clear political comment. Until we begin to take such matters seriously, it does not matter how much we look like the country. If we do not listen to it, we take no step forward.

My hon. Friend is right that we must listen. We must engage in all seriousness, as we have done in the House, with people who are passionately committed to peace. We need to argue our case, as I did earlier this afternoon. I welcome the fact that my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister has done so much to make the case in person, on television, through meeting young people at No. 10 and so on. He has done that precisely in order to listen, engage with the argument and lead.

The right hon. Lady's passion is visibly overflowing. We hear her mellifluous tones and the content of her speech with interest and respect—but I am desperate that she should move on to the subject of child care. What assessment has she made of the effect of the rigidities of the planning process and the nature of the Ofsted inspection regime on the availability of high-quality and affordable child care?

We have made real improvements over the past five years but not enough. When I met women members of regional development agency boards yesterday, planning was specifically raised. My right hon. Friend the Deputy Prime Minister is already taking steps to reform and speed up the planning regime. As to Ofsted, in my own discussions with child care providers and in the review published recently by my noble Friend Lady Ashton, setting quality standards was not found to be a particular barrier to the development of child care services. There are undoubtedly other barriers. I welcome that direct provision and child care tax credit have begun to make a real difference but I am the first to say that a good deal more needs to be done.

Only this week I learnt that a child care club in my constituency, which has been running for 16 years and has experienced staff, is in severe difficulties because of the requirement that staff who have been doing the job a long time must pass an examination. Such individuals do not want to sit an exam, when they probably know better than most of us in the Chamber how to look after small children. Will the right hon. Lady use her good offices to address that issue?

I shall be happy to look at that point. There is a balance to be struck between offering existing child care workers good opportunities to improve and formalise their skills—and in doing so, providing them with further opportunities to progress in employment—and using common sense to make sure that we do not undermine the excellent work already being done. If the hon. Lady will write to me with the details of the play group concerned, I shall be happy to consider them. When I met women RDA board members yesterday, I was struck by the fact that almost all of them would never have thought of putting themselves forward simply from reading a press advertisement. One after another said that she had applied because somebody had specifically asked her to do so. Over the past year, my hon. Friend the Member for Hornsey and Wood Green (Mrs. Roche) and I have led a programme of visits and meetings around the country, bringing together thousands of women who might be tempted to enter public life. After hearing from women who had made that step, almost all the others said that they would put their names forward. An inspiring black woman speaker at one of the seminars said that her motto was "Lift as you rise". For those of us who have been honoured by election to this House, that is a good motto to remember as we encourage other women to step into public life.

A little more support from the media than is sometimes the case would be welcome. In the 1970s, when I was working on a campaign for a sex discrimination Bill, the BBC and ITN would not employ women newscasters on the ground that women's voices were too high and nobody could possibly take news bulletins seriously if they were read by women. That was changed but even today, as a recent survey showed, there is only one woman newscaster for every three men—so there is still more to be done.

My right hon. Friend has been speaking about women in public life but perhaps she will outline the Government's proposals to tackle the fundamental scourge of domestic violence, which by its nature is usually hidden behind closed doors—and tends to repeat from generation unto generation, particularly among boys who grow up in that unacceptable environment.

I am grateful to my hon. Friend for raising that issue. I welcome the fact that my hon. Friend the Member for Hornsey and Wood Green is working closely with other colleagues in the Government—including my right hon. Friend the Solicitor-General—to ensure that far more is done to end the scourge of domestic violence. As my hon. Friend says, that crime mainly takes place in private but leads to the death of one woman every three days. That is the scale of the problem faced in Britain. By getting the police and prosecution services working more closely and effectively together, supporting a help line and investing in refuges, we are doing a great deal to help women and their children to escape abuse.

We have come a long way since the Women's Social and Political Union was formed but as Emmeline Pankhurst said, "deeds not words" count. Our deeds include the minimum wage, which has helped 1 million or so women on low pay; new rights for mothers and fathers; children's tax credit; and the national child care strategy. But as all right hon. and hon. Members readily recognise, there is a great deal more to do. All of us, whatever our differences over the means that should be employed, share the same vision and a commitment to making Britain and the world a better, safer and fairer place for us all.

I apologise to the House for the absence of my hon. Friend the Member for Meriden (Mrs. Spelman), the shadow Minister for Women, who is on a fact-finding mission in Sudan, Kenya and Malawi. Her absence gives me the opportunity to participate in this valuable debate and I look forward to contributions on many issues concerning the position and role of women in the world today.

What is international women's day and what should it represent—an opportunity to celebrate all that is good and unique about the female sex and its achievements or a chance to highlight the inequalities that hamper women around the world? Superficially, nearly 100 years after the establishment of international women's day, many of the movement's original aims have been achieved, including the vote; equal education; equal pay and conditions—at any rate, in the eyes of the law; and acceptance that a woman is an independent soul who does not have to be the shackled property of her family or husband. Such advances should not be forgotten or belittled.

In far too many parts of the world, those rights are still denied to women. International women's day still has an important campaigning role, but if it is to remain relevant in a new century with new challenges, perhaps a less narrowly focused raison d'etre is required. Women today think more about the security of their streets; the quality of education; the robustness of their pension; the effectiveness of medical care; and local transport. Such issues are uppermost in the minds of women and cannot be confronted or resolved by statistical targets and equality legislation alone.

The Minister set great store by the changes that the Government have introduced, but the approach is all too often based on targets and regulation. My hon. Friend the Member for Buckingham (Mr. Bercow) was right to raise the issue of child care. As my hon. Friend the Member for Bromsgrove (Miss Kirkbride) pointed out, the Government's regulatory approach often reduces rather than encourages opportunities for child care provision. Some 59 per cent. of women do not feel that there is adequate child care provision in England. Improving access to child care would help many women to return to work much more quickly, and fewer might be passed over for senior posts that should have been theirs by right.

What is needed is a coherent strategy to make it easier for women to obtain employment, to secure good, affordable child care, and to resume work if they have chosen to take time off to look after children. That would enable women's participation at higher levels of society to continue rather than stagnating, as it sadly shows every sign of doing. Before 1997, just over 25 per cent. of self-employed workers were women—an 88 per cent. increase since 1981—but the rate of increase has now slowed to a crawl. Between 1991 and 1995 the proportion of public appointments held by women rose from 23 per cent. to 30 per cent., but it has not risen since. During the years of the Conservative Government the pay gap narrowed to 20 per cent.—the best result among the major European economies—but over the last five years it has narrowed by only a further 2 per cent.

The Minister made a number of references to the role of women in the House of Commons. I agree that we need more diversity in the House, and that we all have a role in encouraging women—and indeed others—to come here. As the Minister said, women in particular often seek encouragement to stand for Parliament, and to adopt other senior roles, rather than assuming—as do all too many young men—that such roles are theirs by right.

The Government say that they want to improve women's status. The cause of women, however, is helped not by targets and rhetoric but by a stable economy, growing employment, business deregulation and the availability of choice and quality in our public services. One does not need to be a rocket scientist, even a female one, to work that out.

The things I have mentioned sound basic and they are basic, but let us not forget the difference that such basic things can mean. When 70 per cent. of those in the world who live on less than $1 a day are women, and when as many as one in 13 die in childbirth in some countries, what count are what we consider to be basic rights.

The Minister mentioned Afghanistan. We all know of the appalling treatment of women under the Taliban, and of the improvements now being made. It is crucial that the Government can send the girls to school, equalise access to health care and encourage female participation in the political process, but we know that beyond Kabul the burqa must still be worn, and that education and health care are still strictly limited. These are not western cultures and we must be wary of applying western attitudes, but international women's day and the many agencies that support it can make a difference. What is needed as much as a legislative shift is a cultural, or perhaps more accurately an emotional, shift in attitudes. That is needed from women as well as men, by which I mean that we must encourage women to believe in their own equality. Only such a shift in attitudes can ensure lasting and widespread change.

The hon. Lady speaks with passion about attitude change, and I think that what has been said so far is absolutely right. The current view in the criminal justice system is that street crime is the most grievous crime that it must handle. There are 160,000 street crimes a year, but there are 290,000 crimes of domestic violence a year. We must tell those in the criminal justice system that they are wrong. It is high time there were more women, or at least more balanced people, acknowledging that problematic attitudes often arise within the system that constantly churns out such decisions.

I agree that attitudes within a system often produce barriers preventing the progress that we want to make. Domestic violence is an important issue, and if the hon. Lady will bear with me I will deal with it specifically later.

Education is the key to the necessary change in attitudes. It teaches women about good health care, which in turn reduces the rate of infant mortality. Literate mothers are 50 per cent. more likely to immunise their children, and the risk of premature child death is reduced by 8 per cent. for each year that a mother has spent in primary school. Britain is committed to the United Nations millennium goal of equal access to education for the sexes by 2005, but we are a long way short of that. In early April the Global Campaign for Education's week of action will highlight the problem, and try to energise Governments into making fresh efforts to reach that important target.

It is not just at primary level, however, that education can make a difference. Training and education at all levels can transform the futures of women in developing countries. The Minister gave a number of examples of the way in which working with women could improve their conditions and employability in various countries. Last year I visited a charity called Feed the Children, based in my constituency, which has had a significant success with its micro-finance strategy, teaching women's groups and helping them to found small businesses and reinvest the profits in the community. It gives small loans to the co-operatives, enabling them to expand their businesses. The loans are repaid at very low interest rates, and an extra amount is put into a savings account to which access is allowed at the end of the loan period. If a loan has been repaid, the group can apply for a larger loan, and the virtuous cycle continues.

That model has been running for more than 10 years, and operates on three continents. The key to its success lies in the training given to women to enable them to succeed. Rather than giving them money and expecting them to go away and make it work, Feed the Children offers support at every step along the road, training, teaching and encouraging. It believes in the women. As a result, repayment rates are outstanding. For example, in Sierra Leone, where Feed the Children has worked with a fishing business, the rate stands at 98 per cent. after three loan cycles. That is a country that was believed to be beyond such assistance. It is women who make the system work, because they understand the importance of reinvesting the savings in their children and the community.

The model has worked from Uganda to Guatemala, and has transcended cultural and economic differences of every hue. I am sad to report, however, that attempts to encourage a similar scheme in Afghanistan have come to nothing, because the eyes of the world no longer look on that country. The promises of aid given so fulsomely by world Governments have not yet borne fruit. We must not let the opportunity given to us by the bold action of the coalition against terror slip away in bureaucratic wrangling. We have a responsibility to the women of Afghanistan not to let that happen. The nations that promised aid should deliver it quickly, or a final chance to rescue Afghanistan will have been lost. Charities such as Feed the Children show that with the right training and with adequate, well-targeted funds, women can lead the way in rebuilding shattered communities and societies.

It is through education that the barriers to female inequality can be challenged throughout the world. The lack of education to prevent the spread of sexual disease, for example, is possibly the most pressing problem in sub-Saharan Africa—the Minister mentioned this—where teenage girls are five times more likely than boys to be infected. Last year 1.3 million women died of HIV/AIDS, and some older women are looking after as many as 40 orphaned grandchildren. Education is also vital to the prevention of violence against women—not just abroad, as I shall explain shortly. Genital mutilation, human trafficking and prostitution are just some of the horrors facing girls and women in developing countries. They cannot be dealt with only through aid, although aid is needed; they cannot be dealt with by legislation, although legislation can help. It is through a programme of education—education of both sexes—that women's freedom will be attained.

For too long we have concentrated on pure statistics as a barometer of progress, perhaps at the expense of the wider role that women fulfil as workers, carers, mothers and volunteers. Is that incredible diversity to be denigrated because it does not improve official statistics on equality? Might that narrow focus be preventing us from tackling more important issues, such as the crisis in pension provision or the shocking statistics on domestic violence, to which the hon. Members for Stockton, South (Ms Taylor) and for Wolverhampton, South-West (Rob Marris) referred? One in four women suffers from domestic violence. On average, a woman suffers 35 attacks before she goes to the police; 50,000 women and children seek sanctuary from domestic abuse every week. Most worrying of all, two women and two children die every week at the hands of a partner or former partner.

We welcome the forthcoming Green Paper on domestic violence and look forward to working constructively with the Government on the issue. However, although we welcome legislation, it must be recognised that domestic violence will be truly defeated only when attitudes are changed. Sadly, 20 per cent. of young men, and even 10 per cent. of young women, still think that abuse or violence against a partner is acceptable. The campaign to end drink driving shows that legislation alone does not produce results. Only when a younger generation of drivers came through, who believed that drink driving was unacceptable, did the problem begin to be rolled back.

Indeed, the drink driving campaign inspired my party's domestic violence posters last Christmas, which were supported by the Police Federation and Women's Aid and endorsed by the National Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children. We wholeheartedly welcomed the recent BBC "Hitting Home" project, which really brought home to people the nature of the problem of domestic violence and its prevalence, sadly, for all too many women. Many women in this country live in dangerous and vulnerable situations and we must help them.

It is also true that what might be described as the "machinery of government"—the system—is still not always as responsive as it should be to the needs of women. The benefits system remains too complicated; women are often unsure about what they are entitled to and for what they can claim. Pensions, too, are complicated and make no allowance for the many women who are carers. Women live longer than men; the majority of pensioners are female, yet too many women do not have enough on which to live comfortably.

The efforts of the past 100 years to improve female equality have achieved notable success—indeed, I should not be standing here if they had not. To continue our progress, however, we need to find a new language and a new mindset or understanding of what constitutes equality" in the 21st century. We need a modernisation of our intellectual response to old arguments about equality and progress.

I pose this question for everybody. Let us say that we all woke up tomorrow and found that women had equal representation in all walks of life and that all pay differentials had genuinely disappeared: would that remove the need for an international women's day? I suggest that it would not.

Equality under the law, equality in business and politics, and equality of opportunity are all important and vital; but it is in equality of the mind that the changes really matter. We need equalities of attitude and the acceptance that everyone's choice is equal and that statistics alone do not produce an equal society. That is the challenge facing the future of international women's day; it is a challenge that faces us all.

I welcome this debate and the opening contribution to it by my right hon. Friend the Minister for Women. On this day and in this year, I want to pay tribute to the courage, professionalism and sheer hard work of women Members of Parliament in Tanzania, whom I had the privilege of meeting last month. In particular, I thank the hon. Member for Muleba, North, Ruth Msafiri, who took me to her constituency and showed me the work that she had been doing. Last week, evenThe Guardian referred to me as a hard-working constituency MP, so that must be right. I would have agreed until I experienced the work of the honourable Ruthie, as she is known in her constituency, and realised that I actually have time to sleep. I cannot believe that the honourable Ruthie can get through as much as she does and find enough time to sleep.

Since 1999, the British Council in east and central Africa has run a programme to support and encourage women in politics. I pay tribute to the council for its incredibly good work in increasing the number of women in effective leadership. The project, which is entitled "Just Big Cars and Leaky Roofs?", involves a work-shadowing exchange in which 14 women from seven east and central African countries and 14 women from throughout the United Kingdom took part. The aim is to ensure that more women are involved in politics, and that they begin to appreciate the nature of the role of a Member of Parliament and how they can encourage more women to enter politics in order to improve the lifestyle of women in those countries.

The programme's title arose from research in east and central Africa which concluded that most electors thought of their MPs only in terms of big cars and that MPs visiting their constituencies felt that the only demand made of them was to improve leaky roofs. The title thus encapsulates the results of the British Council survey.

It was a salutary experience for me to sit in the Gallery of the Parliament in Dodoma. Looking down, I was enthralled to see a wonderful red semicircle. People addressed the Speaker, who sat high above them—even higher than you, Madam Deputy Speaker—well above contradiction. Three clerks sat below the Speaker. The mace may not have been as lavish as ours, but it was carried in with as much dignity. I was delighted to find that there was no second Chamber. Of the 282 Members of Parliament, 61—or 21 per cent.—are women. However, unlike our system, only 12 of those women Members, including the honourable Ruthie, are elected. The others hold special seats and two are presidential appointees. The British Council is anxious, as I am, that more women should be elected, but before we criticise that system we should understand the situation in which it developed.

The Tanzanian Government are committed to getting more women into Parliament and, because they realise that there is hostility to women who put themselves forward, they have ensured that there are appointed places for women. Those women are now looking for elected seats so that they will be fully accountable, as they see it, to their electorates.

The work undertaken by those women is impressive. Although I was not able to follow in Swahili the debates and question time that I was privileged to watch, their body language—their great dignity and confidence—was evident. A woman Minister answered questions and a woman deputy Minister and other women contributed to the debate.

An all-party women's group invited me to a question and answer session. They wanted to know how we planned to meet the 30 per cent. Beijing target for women on elected bodies, especially Parliament, by 2005. They know how they will do so. They will have as many elected women as possible, topped up with appointed Members, so that at the 2005 election they will have reached the 30 per cent. target.

Is that Labour party policy?

It is an increasingly interesting prospect. I could give the all-party group no clear answer on how we would reach 30 per cent. I explained the Labour party's approach, which is that there will be all-women shortlists as seats become available. They were impressed, but the question came back: "Will that get you to 30 per cent?"

No.

I had to admit that it probably would not do so.

Those appointed women are doing some remarkable things. We have already talked about HIV/AIDS, and one of them chairs a huge committee on the subject that is in touch with our all-party group on AIDS and has other international links. Another Tanzanian woman MP was in the UK last week, taking part in the Red Crescent and Red Cross meeting at the Queen Elizabeth II conference centre. These women are impressive and their work is distinguished. They have no offices and the Assembly is bereft of equipment, although the British Council has provided a suite of computers and the training to go with it, and is servicing those women—giving them the confidence and support to continue in a very professional manner.

That was just the beginning; I then made the five-hour drive back to Dar es Salaam, and I had to take two flights and a Land-Rover trip to get to Muleba, North—and a boat trip to get to some of the 19 islands in Lake Victoria that the honourable Ruthie represents. Meeting the community groups was absolutely fascinating. When the honourable Ruthie turns up, people suddenly emerge from everywhere; they want to know about the next stage of the project that they are undertaking. Local community groups, often with strong women leaders, come forward and tell her, "We have done this. Here is part of the primary school. Here is a whole load of rocks—it is the beginning of our dispensary. What is going to happen next?" All the community leaders, including schoolteachers, come forward to present their reports. They read them out very respectfully, and ceremoniously put them into envelopes and hand them over. All the people and the crowds are very—respectful I have not seen a political meeting like it. Even in the evening in the pitch dark, 600 or 700 people gradually came round to listen respectfully.

The most moving thing was the pile of stones for the dispensary, and the leader of community coming forward to say, "A boy died in this village yesterday, but we decided that we should not postpone this meeting with our MP coming and our distinguished white visitor because our community has never had such a visit from a white visitor, and it is some time since the honourable Ruthie came. We decided that this would be a blessing, a turning point, and we look forward with you to establishing this dispensary." We left after a long meeting with music, dance and festivity and visited the home of the boy who had died. That was one of the most moving parts of an incredible visit.

We packed into three or four days more constituency work than many Members would get through in a month or even three months. People came to listen and to share, and they were not always given the answer that Members might expect to be given. We went to a road and were told, "Yes, thank you very much. We bought the materials, but they have all been stolen." Whereupon, with complete calm and dignity, the honourable Ruthie faced a crowd of 200 to 300 people and said, "Then you will not get another Tanzanian shilling until those people have been brought to court and the materials are returned." I wonder how many of us, on the spur of the moment and given such a difficult situation, would have had the courage to stand up in front of all those older people and, with complete aplomb, give that verdict—but she did.

One of the issues that arose from the British Council's survey was that women Members of Parliament are recognised in east and central Africa as no more or less efficient than men, but they are less likely to be corrupt and are more concerned for their local communities. Again, I pay tribute to the British Council for all the work that it is doing.

Hon. Members will realise that I could go on speaking for the rest of the debate, but I hesitate to do so because I know how many more want to contribute. Let me just say that I recognised something from that hands-on experience that I would never have found out without going on that return visit: Ruth Msafiri had been sitting in the Gallery last year.

We talk about the need for infrastructure, and of course those people need roads. Just as my right hon. Friend the Minister for Women said earlier, those women's groups need markets for their craftwork and ways to get their work to them, but what I found to be essential to civil society—perhaps we do not highlight it as much—is training for magistrates. Yes, they will get the police officer to arrest the people who stole the materials, but they have not got enough magistrates to sit in local communities.

There are not enough people to teach book-keeping. In fact, some of the projects go wrong because of lack of basic book-keeping skills. Hon. Members may find this hard to believe, but librarians are also needed. I went to a small teacher-training college that runs two-year courses entirely to underpin the millennium project of providing universal primary school education in Tanzania. Those at the college have not got computers. I was not expecting that; I was hoping that I might make the link between Africa and computers.

What did I find? I was told, "We had a brilliant librarian. He was wonderful, but he died in 1977, and we haven't had another one since." I went into the library. The reading room was empty and the books on the shelves were not classified. The only people who take out books are the lecturers. Having looked along the shelves, I would not want many of the books to be taken out because they date back to the 1970s. A librarian is what that college actually needs. A VSO librarian, as opposed to a teacher or a lecturer, would send that college forward by leaps and bounds.

Legislation is being introduced thick and fast in the Tanzanian Parliament, but it needs people to draft it—I do not know whether we have any to spare. I returned determined that Bristol, West would make its contribution. I am sure that the education department at Bristol university will be able to offer some help. I do not believe that the people of Tanzania will spurn Bristol university; it will be only too welcome.

I shall also ensure that the women of the Bristol Labour party and any others willing to join us will set up, with the help of the honourable Ruthie, a credit union for the women in their many different local groups, just as the hon. Member for Maidenhead (Mrs. May) has suggested. The honourable Ruthie is determined to set up an umbrella group—we will help her to do so—so that women's groups are empowered through their community. I am sure that those links will be maintained with my right honourable friend, Ruth Msafiri.

I want to end with a word to another Tanzanian woman, whom I met for the first time earlier. Her name is Elly Macha. She is now Dr. Elly Macha; she has just received a PhD at Leeds university. What is unique? Well, at the age of three, disease made her blind and her immediate family rejected her. She has come through a Lutheran school in Tanzania, and now through Leeds university. It is so appropriate that she heard my right hon. Friend the Minister for Women open this debate, as her thesis was on gender, disability and access to education in Tanzania.

I, too, welcome the fact that the Government have devoted parliamentary time to this subject, and I associate myself with the remarks about Emmeline Pankhurst. The moot point is whether she would have been a Conservative today and joined the modern Conservative party, but perhaps I shall leave that for the summing up. We should use today's debate to discuss the range of subjects that are important to women.

The Minister for Women will forgive me if I say again that the regular 10- minute Question Time on women's issues offers too narrow a focus. I am sure that the right hon. Lady would agree that women's lives are about much more than public life, the pay gap, domestic violence and child care, important as those subjects are. Although I intend to start by talking about those subjects, I shall move on to the international picture because it is only right and proper that most of the debate should be about that.

Without further ado, I shall begin by examining the role of the Minister for Women. Sadly, it is a part-time role. I hope to make the case today that it should be full-time, and we need only to look at the record to see that that is necessary. Let us consider women in public life. I am sure that the Minister for Women is as disappointed as the rest of us that, sadly, the number of women in public life has increased by only 2 per cent. since 1997.

Some 1,328 women attended the seminars aimed at getting more women into public life—quite a lot—and I had hoped that that might have some impact by now, but I had not realised that January 2003 figures were based on the situation in March 2002, so the seminars have not had time to have an effect.

That prompts a number of questions. First, in this technological age I am not sure why it should take 10 months to compile a report. Secondly, it would be interesting if the Minister informed the House about any follow-up. Of those who attended the courses, 91 per cent. claimed that they would be more likely to apply for a public post. That would be brilliant if it were followed through. The Minister said that women need to be encouraged to do specific things. Since the seminars, has there been any follow-up with the women who attended to ensure that they are still keen and to direct them to bodies in which they could usefully have an input?

I have noticed that women do not want to be part of an organisation just for the sake of it—for a title and a CV. They want to feel that they are making a real input. Sometimes, they need a little persuading that their contribution is worthwhile.

I am following the hon. Lady's argument closely, in particular her words about positive action. What is the Liberal Democrat party's policy on positive action in its selection of women candidates?

I knew that that question would come up, although I did not think that the Minister would ask it. My party debated the issue two years ago at conference, when it decided—conference decided, which is unusual in political parties these days, but our conference makes decisions that the party follows through—that it was important not to go down the route of positive discrimination. I disagreed and argued the opposite at the time. It would be foolish if I did not admit that. However, we decided to invest a lot of time in supporting, encouraging and mentoring women. That is a long-term strategy. I do not think that it will deliver many more women Liberal Democrat Members of Parliament at the next election, as I have said on record, but the rewards will be reaped in the election after that. I will not go into detail about the strategy, but many women are being encouraged and will be poised to get those target seats in that subsequent election. As we are gaining all the time, I am sure that the hon. Lady will agree that we will perhaps get more women MPs in that way.

I have put my efforts behind that strategy. Unless we are seen to follow it wholeheartedly, we will not know whether it works. However, there is another issue. Unfortunately, we find that we are trying to train women to perform like men, which is the wrong way to go about it. As one Labour Member said—I cannot remember which one—when we ask people to picture an MP, the image they perceive is male, middle-aged and middle-class. We have to break that mould. I welcome the Labour party's efforts in that regard, but they have not been enough to change hearts and minds. It is not that people are innately prejudiced, but they have to get over that hurdle. We need to make people more aware that more than one type of person can become a Member of Parliament.

On the report "Public Bodies 2002", in a recent parliamentary answer the Minister for Women stated

"We are determined to deliver on our aim that women should hold 45–50 per cent. of public appointments… by the end of 2005".

—[Official Report, 31 October 2002; Vol. 391, c. 946W.] In a more recent answer, she said that she had no effective control over the matter and stated categorically that the responsibility for making those appointments lay with individual Ministers supported by their Departments, and that each Department set its own targets. Perhaps that explains the complete inconsistency between Departments and why some have targets that are less than aspirational.

The Department for International Development target for 2004 was

"to ensure that the percentage of appointments held by women currently 23.8% does not fall below 23% in subsequent years".

I think that the Minister will agree that that is a little disappointing, but it is even worse when one realises that in 2000 it had placed 27 per cent. of women in public appointments. Clearly, the Department is happy to go backwards.

On current trends only two Departments, the Scotland Office and the Cabinet Office, should reach the target of 50 per cent. of public appointments being women in time for a general election in 2005. Fewer women are now serving on a number of bodies than was the case in 2001. I could list them, but I will not.

Will the Minister look into that matter and encourage ministerial colleagues to set targets that are realistic but that have some element of ambition, and to have some sort of plan as to how they will achieve their goal, rather than merely laudable ambition? On the subject of ministerial colleagues, I must mention mainstreaming. There is little evidence that it is happening in any shape or form, which suggests that a radical overhaul of the women and equality unit is needed.

In the past year, I have asked a number of questions of Government Departments on the implementation of the Government's "better practice" agenda to mainstream gender equality throughout Departments. I hate using such terms—they are such a management-speak mouthful but they are what we are lumbered with. Simply put, the responses highlight incompetence and shortcomings in a significant number of Departments, ranging from total failure to embrace gender mainstreaming to inadequate acceptance of its importance.

I asked each Department four questions, which were designed to test whether gender equality was being mainstreamed throughout government. I asked what new data series, broken down by gender, race, disability and age, had been commissioned by each Department since August 1997. I asked Departments to list the women's organisations that had been consulted over proposed legislation in various years and whether the responses had been published. I also asked if Departments had established a baseline for policy appraisal against which to measure progress on equal treatment and what progress had been achieved. Finally, I asked them to list the subject of each gender impact assessment drawn up since June 1997, indicating in each case whether the outcome had been put out to consultation or published.

I was surprised and disappointed by the results. Nine out of 15 Departments had failed to implement a gender-aware policy agenda to date. The Ministry of Defence, Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, Scotland Office and the Northern Ireland Office had neglected to conduct any gender impact assessments. The Wales Office and the Department for Culture, Media and Sport had not seen the need to conduct any analyses of gender mainstreaming. Five Departments would not answer one or more of the questions. A number of them had not defined any baselines for policy appraisal so far.

The Minister will be pleased to hear that it is not all doom and gloom. The Department for Education and Skills and the Department of Trade and Industry are the top-ranking Departments in demonstrating concrete evidence of mainstreaming equality. If gender awareness is not seen as a significant priority by the women and equality unit, it is difficult to imagine who will take up the initiative. Despite vast increases in resource allocation, the unit is clearly not doing its job properly and has let fall by the wayside the very object of its existence.

Finally, on the Minister's specific area of responsibility, more than two weeks ago I tabled a parliamentary question asking what percentage of her time was devoted to her role as Minister for Women. Unfortunately, to date I have not received an answer. It would be useful and nice to receive one today, but I hope that she realises that I asked the question out of frustration rather than pure mischief.

Earlier, I mentioned the large number of female Members of Parliament elected at the 1997 election. Yes, they were Labour MPs and some of them have come in for some flak, much of which is undeserved. I am convinced that having a large body of women in this place has resulted in many of the Government's policies being more women friendly and taking into account aspects of family life that were not previously so much to the fore. For example, I am convinced that the paper on domestic violence that is due to be published soon—it is the first paper on the subject to be published in the history of Parliament—would not have been produced had there not been so many women MPs willing and able to do their bit. I want a full-time Minister for Women to do more of that sort of thing and to ensure that other Departments come up with more policies that take the lives of women into account.

I place on record my congratulations to the Home Secretary. Last summer, I was invited to visit Cambodia to look into the problem of sex tourism, which involves many under-age girls. I was really shocked and horrified by what I saw. It was bad enough seeing young girls in brothel areas, but the extent of the problem was really brought home to me when I visited a shelter that tried to rehabilitate girls who had been rescued from brothels. One of those girls was eight years old, which is shocking by anybody's standards. At that stage, I decided that I would like to do something about it.

I mention the problem because, at the moment, people on the sex offenders register can travel abroad for less than eight days without registering with anybody. Police forces in those foreign countries are therefore completely unaware of the presence of such people. To me, that seemed completely wrong. I was pleasantly surprised by the Home Secretary's response: he said that he had been unaware of the problem, but that such people should not be allowed to go abroad at all. The statement published yesterday showed that he has taken the matter very seriously, and I want to put my thanks for that on the record.

It struck me when I was in Cambodia that the problems of women in other parts of the world are on a completely different scale to those that we perceive as problems in this country. Among the examples quoted by the hon. Member for Maidenhead (Mrs. May) were micro-finance initiatives. I visited a World Vision initiative, and the people running it were clear that they much preferred giving money to women because women saw the necessity of re-investing in families. One particular woman to whom I talked wanted to buy a motorbike and a plank of wood, so that she could take chickens to market. That might not sound much, but it would make a big difference to her particular community. I welcome all those initiatives, and we should launch more of them.

I am a little disappointed, although I understand the need for it, that there is a move towards money being given to Governments on the basis of good governance. If that money is given to non-governmental organisations, however, it is often spent on the heart of the problem; if it is given to Governments, they may divert it for other purposes. Again, so many things are taken for granted in the UK. Among the other truly horrific things that I saw were families foraging for food on a rubbish dump. We understand that we should not eat food covered with flies, but such a basic understanding is lost on generations of children who do not have education or role models. Another project is designed to educate those children. Such initiatives are small but very worthy, and I hope that we will support them.

I was going to talk about public health but I have digressed on Cambodia. In a similar way to the Tanzania story, when one sees such things one is very affected by them. Although MPs sometimes come in for criticism for visiting countries abroad, it is sometimes one of the best things that we can do to realise what a long way we have come, how lucky we are, and what we need to do to improve things in other countries, too.

I want to finish by talking about the important role that women play in post-conflict reconstruction in war-torn countries, and about war generally. The impact of war on women, and women's role in peacekeeping, are subjects that, sadly, have fairly recently come to notice on the international agenda, having traditionally been a non-subject. In October 2000, the UN Security Council passed resolution 1325 on women, peace and security. It underlines the vital role of women in conflict solution, and mandated a review of both the impact of conflict on women and their role in peace building. The resolution emphasises the importance of taking a gender perspective throughout, especially because of the adverse impact of conflict on women and girls.

The UN Secretary-General noted in his report on women, peace and security:

"Women and children are disproportionately targeted in contemporary armed conflicts and constitute the majority of all victims."

He noted that they

"also constitute the majority of the world's refugees and internally displaced persons."

On a global scale, the figures are huge, as women and children constitute some 80 per cent. of the world's estimated 34 million refugees and other displaced persons. Although generalisations should be made only tentatively, it is widely documented that women's experiences of conflict are striking similar around the world, despite the huge differences in cultures and the character of conflicts. Women are more vulnerable, less mobile and the first to feel the effects.

One of the most unpleasant aspects of that is sexual violence. Reports from armed conflicts around the globe document how soldiers and paramilitaries terrorise women with rape, sexual and other physical violence and harassment. Combatants and sympathisers have used rape as a weapon of war, pulling communities apart and forcing women and girls to flee their homes.

I want to digress slightly and pay tribute to the V-day campaign, which has done much to highlight this and many other aspects of violence against women. Anyone who has ever heard a performance of "My vagina was my village" cannot fail to have been forced to recognise the brutality of war and its effect on women. It is a worldwide problem, which has affected women from different areas such as the Democratic Republic of Congo, Sierra Leone, Rwanda, Kosovo, Bosnia and Herzegovina—the list goes on. Women in those countries have reported mutilation and all sorts of other horrors. In many cases, perpetrators first raped, and then killed their victims. In other cases, those who survive suffer psychological trauma, permanent physical injury, and frequently are left with a long- term health reminder in the form of a sexually transmitted disease such as HIV/AIDS.

Until recently, however, many viewed violence against women as an inevitable, if regrettable, consequence of war. That attitude effectively guaranteed immunity for perpetrators and silenced women who suffered gruesome sexual and physical abuses. Indeed, it surprised me to learn that the recognition of rape as a war crime resulted from the war in Bosnia and was not officially internationally recognised until as recently as 1998. Since 1998, some success has been achieved, with a number of trials that have convicted certain individuals of rape, used as an instrument of genocide.

It is also pertinent to examine the post-conflict situations that face many women. Sadly, the end of war rarely signals the end of violations against women. In the post-conflict period, many women confront discrimination in reconstruction programmes. They also experience sexual and domestic violence in refugee camps, and violence when they attempt to return to their homes. It has recently been documented that, one year after the Taliban's fall, women and girls in Afghanistan still face severe restrictions and violations of their human rights. In many areas, Taliban officials have been replaced by warlords, police officers and local officials with similarly oppressive attitudes toward women. The Taliban's collapse at the end of 2001 gave hope that Afghan women and girls would soon enjoy greater rights and freedoms. Indeed, in November 2001, US Secretary of State Colin Powell stated:

"The recovery of Afghanistan must entail a restoration of the rights of Afghan women… The rights of women in Afghanistan will not be negotiable".

A year later, however, many in Afghanistan, particularly outside Kabul, believe life has not dramatically improved. I quote one woman from the Herat province:

"The leadership here is very bad for us. It is not much different than under the Taliban."

Women of all ethnicities in Afghanistan are still being restricted in their participation in public life. They continue to face serious threats to their physical safety, denying them the opportunity to exercise basic human rights and to participate fully and effectively in rebuilding their country. I quote from a recent Human Rights Watch report:

"Women and girls enjoy little freedom of movement in? Herat… They may not walk or ride in a car alone with a man who is not a close relative, even a taxi driver. A police task force now patrols Herat city, arresting men and women who are seen together and suspected of being unrelated or unmarried. Men are taken to jail; women and girls are taken to a hospital to undergo forced medical examinations to determine whether they have recently had sexual intercourse."

According to the same report:

"In Kabul, a reconfigured Vice and Virtue Squad (renamed 'Islamic Teaching') is now operating."

One of the problems is that, sometimes, things are done in the name of religion that are not necessarily in line with religious edicts. The report continues:

"A team of some ninety women under the Ministry of Religious Affairs harasses women in Kabul's streets for 'un-islamic' behaviour, such as wearing makeup, and, in some instances, follows them home to castigate their parents or spouses."

I find it bizarre that in a country that needs to rebuild its infrastructure people worry about whether women wear make-up or not. The report also says:

"There have been reports of Schools for girls being attacked with rockets or set on fire in at least five provinces."

These examples of violent, oppressive and restrictive behaviour severely undermine the most fundamental rights of women and girls in many areas of Agfhanistan.

Women's participation in the reconstruction of their country is severely constrained, leaving little hope for their broader political participation in the future. The humanitarian aid and development programmes depend on women to determine what aid is needed and ensure that the aid reaches women and children and is not diverted. If women are involved in administering programmes, aid will reach the people for whom it is intended.

As of December 2002, the US and coalition military forces in Afghanistan are continuing to pursue a strategy of entrusting general security and policing to local forces. We need to have some input into that if we are to improve things. The international community has still to offer adequate resources to expand peacekeeping or even to provide decent police training throughout the country, even though most Afghans and diplomatic officials admit that those steps are a necessary precursor to reconstruction efforts. The recent decision by the British and US Governments to deploy additional troops outside Kabul to work on security and disarmament issues is welcome, but much more needs to be done to ensure that the stranglehold on power enjoyed by the warlords who rule most parts of Afghanistan is weakened.

In Iraq, the Gulf war a decade ago resulted in the destruction of a large number of public facilities such as electricity generation stations and water purification plant and sewage treatment works. The damage has led to a rapid decrease in the health of the nation. That has affected women particularly because they are the main domestic workers and they are responsible for collecting water. In a water shortage, their workload doubles and if they collect poor water, the incidence of diseases such as typhoid fever increases. That has a severe effect on life in the country.

In 10 years, child mortality in Iraq has gone from one of the lowest in the world to the highest. The rate for under-fives is now two and a half times what it was in 1989. Maternal mortality has doubled because women are not receiving obstetric care for complications during pregnancy and childbirth.

I have cited Iraq and Afghanistan as examples of the impact that conflict has on women. I do not know what situation we will find ourselves in in the next few weeks, but I urge the Minister to do all that she can to ensure that women in post-conflict situations are empowered because they provide a vital linchpin in the rehabilitation of a war-torn country.