I am delighted to have the opportunity to raise this subject and to introduce this short debate. I welcome the Minister as I am glad that a Minister of State will respond to the debate.

All hon. Members say how much we value our armed forces, and we all mean it. They do a magnificent job for our country and security, and we should be very proud of what they do. However, we also have a duty to turn those words into action. When we have an opportunity to ensure that our armed forces can lead happy and contented family lives, we should do something about it. The issue before us today provides one such opportunity.

The recent war in Iraq and the continued risks that our servicemen take on our behalf make the debate even more relevant. I am delighted to see my hon. Friend the Member for New Forest, West (Mr. Swayne) in his place, back from Iraq. We have all seen the television pictures of servicemen who died in combat being flown into RAF Brize Norton. Those pictures should reinforce the sense of debt that we owe.

I hope that the debate will range widely. The issue affects many parts of the country, and it is good to see so many hon. Members present. My focus will be relatively narrow. RAF Brize Norton, the country's most important air base, lies in my constituency.

I think that my hon. Friend will acknowledge that RAF Lyneham, which is in my constituency, is the most important RAF base in the UK at the moment, unless the Government choose to move our Hercules planes to Brize Norton, in which case his local base may achieve slightly more importance than it has currently.

In making that reference, I was just checking to see whether my hon. Friend was as alert and alive as I hoped he was. However, to many of us, RAF Brize Norton is the country's most important air base. It is already very big and, as he said, it may be about to get bigger. The possible closure of RAF Lyneham could see the relocation of many hundreds of servicemen and women and their families to Brize Norton by 2012.

The neighbouring town of Carterton, also in my constituency, is very much an RAF town. Its schools are closely linked to the RAF and educate many children from armed forces families. Those schools brought this issue to my attention, and I pay tribute to their work. My message is relatively simple: schools with a high proportion of children from forces families face particular issues and problems. The problems are chiefly associated with the high turnover of pupils and the costs that that entails—what I shall call "turbulence" and I believe the Minister will call "mobility". There are further pressures and costs when the parents of the children are sent overseas or into action.

The problems have, if anything, been getting more severe in recent years, not least because our armed forces have been involved in so many overseas actions. There is, as all hon. Members know, a high degree of overstretch in our armed forces. We are trying to do more with less in our armed forces, which has consequences for those left at home.

To put it simply, we need national recognition of the issues and problems and, more important, action to deal with them. Ensuring that the children of service personnel have a good education is in all our interests. It involves not only the Department for Education and Skills, but the Ministry of Defence. Problems with schools and family unhappiness can be a major cause of talented professionals leaving our armed services. We must ensure that that does not happen.

There are two types of service school. The first type is run by the agency, Service Children's Education—the SCE—in overseas countries specifically for the benefit of families stationed away from home. As I am sure the Minister will say and as hon. Members are aware, schools run by the SCE achieve extremely good results. Indeed, if it were an education authority, it would rank as one of the best in the country.

The second type is made up of the normal schools that are run by local education authorities in England for both service and non-service children. I shall focus today on that type. Before dealing with the position in my constituency, I want to make a point about statistics. The House of Commons Library tells me that there are 208,000 regular service personnel in the UK armed forces. However, it is much more difficult to find accurate statistics covering issues such as the number of forces schools in the UK and the proportion of forces children in those schools.

There even seems to be disagreement about the number of children of people serving in the armed forces. In his Adjournment debate in 1999, the hon. Member for Colchester (Bob Russell), who is present, said that there were 85,000, but the then Under-Secretary of State for Education and Employment, who is now the Minister for Industry and the Regions, said that there were 185,000. It would be useful if this Minister, perhaps not today but later, could give us clear statistics on that point. In addition, neither the SCE nor the Defence Analytical Services Agency was able to provide meaningful figures. I look forward to the Minister putting that right.

The situation at RAF Brize Norton and at Carterton is as follows: there are four well established primary schools with rolls ranging from 180 at St. Joseph's to 300 at the Carterton primary and the Edith Moorhouse primary school. The percentage of pupils from armed forces families ranges from 30 per cent. at St. Joseph's to more than 80 per cent. at the Gateway primary school. There is also a new primary school, St. John's, with just 100 pupils. The secondary school, Carterton community college, has more than 750 pupils with 20 per cent. of them from forces families. The numbers and percentages can vary widely, which is the nature of the problem.

At the nub of the matter is the question of why a high proportion of children with a forces background leads to problems. The main reason is the high turnover of pupils, also referred to as turbulence, which owes something to the RAF connection, as I said earlier. The percentage of pupils arriving and leaving within an existing year ranges in the schools from 20 per cent. to 75 per cent. Last year, in the Gateway school, which I visited recently, there was a 45 per cent. turnover of pupils who had arrived after the school year had begun and left before the end of that year. That is far and away above anything experienced by a standard primary school in a town or village; it means that half the school arrive and leave each year within the year.

Such a vast turnover of nearly half the school makes it impossible to maintain continuity in any section of a school's life, and that makes teaching and planning a much harder prospect than would be the case in a standard primary school. There are different elements to that turbulence. First, the numbers arriving and leaving within a year are rarely the same, and different years and classes are affected. The numbers are unpredicted and wholly unpredictable. Secondly, turbulence can lead to large changes in overall pupil numbers; school rolls can rise and fall dramatically. For example, the Gateway school had an average roll for the years 1999 to 2002 of 312 pupils, then suddenly, in 2003, the roll fell by 50 pupils to 262. That was not because of poor results or parental choice, but because of movement of the armed forces, which is out of the control of the school.

The unpredictable nature of the turbulence can, with little warning, leave schools either over or understaffed, which has a great knock-on effect on budgets. Once an experienced professional has been laid off due to low school numbers, it is no simple task to replace them when the roll increases again. That is particularly true in the south of England where many head teachers tell me that they when they advertise for a new teacher, they get only two or three responses.

Thirdly, there may be a large number of what are called ghost pupils, who arrive and leave within the same year. If they arrive after the vital counting date, which in most cases is 16 January, and then leave before the end of the year, the school gets no additional funding for those pupils. I hope that the Minister will take note of that point.

Is my hon. Friend aware of a secondary problem? For security reasons, some parents are reluctant to allow their children to declare themselves at school to be from service families. For example, in Wiltshire, the reported number of children from service families is lower than the actual number.

That is an extremely good point. It is one reason why the statistics are not as up to the mark as they should be. Perhaps the Minister will have something to say about that, too.

On the subject of ghost pupils, at the Gateway school last year, 10 pupils arrived after 16 January 2003 and left before 16 January 2004. As far as the funding is concerned, they never existed. That represented £15,000 of lost funding, yet all those children had to be integrated into the school, plans had to be written for them, reports compiled, and teaching and marking undertaken, to say nothing of everything else that a school does. Of course, other schools have to cope with ghost pupils, but not on that scale.

Fourthly, there is the issue of children coming from forces schools abroad. Many come from Germany, Cyprus or other bases. Some of them will not have been taught the national curriculum and those that have special needs may have had different provision in schools overseas. In some cases, there will have been much better provision for them; the head teacher at the Carterton primary school gave me an example of someone who had fantastic special needs attention through the SCE, but the school in Carterton did not have the necessary resources to provide it.

Clearly the SCE schools will be subject to exactly the same pressures as my hon. Friend has described, but they seem to do well. Their results are higher than the national average. Does he think that that might have something to do with the funding? Some 13,000 pupils are being educated in SCE schools at a total operating cost last year of £75 million. That works out at slightly under £6,000 per pupil. That might partly explain why they are doing quite well.

My hon. and gallant Friend makes a good point. There are clearly good results in the SCE. Funding probably has something to do with it, but there may be other reasons too. We give the extra funding to the SCE because we recognise the special role that the forces play and the difficulty of being posted overseas. My argument is more about the schools back at home. It is important that they are adequately funded so that we can give pupils the support that they clearly need.

The turbulence in pupil numbers can lead to a number of other problems. It becomes more difficult for teachers to set targets. If there is a high turnover of pupils, is target setting the right thing for teachers to do when they will have to work so hard to integrate the new pupils into each class? In addition to the work required to update targets, more time is needed for report writing. As children come and go, teachers will spend a lot of time showing parents and children around their schools. There is an increase in record keeping and in the myriad of documentation that now surrounds every school.

There is also an issue with benchmarking. That point was raised in a debate here in 1999 with particular reference to the work of Dr. Janet Dobson of University College London. She was quoted as saying:

"Schools with large numbers of children from forces' families expressed a particular concern about benchmarking as it currently operates. Not only did they have to cope with high levels of mobility and other aspects of family disruption associated with service life but their low level of free school meals meant that their performance was compared with schools that they perceived as being more stable and affluent than their own."—[Official Report, 25 October 1999; Vol. 336, c. 785.]

Does the Minister think that the situation has significantly improved since then? If so, perhaps he could update us on the Department's thinking since 1999.

The fact that many parents of the children in these schools are posted abroad and sent into armed conflict creates another set of problems that needs to be addressed. As Mike Curtis, the head teacher of Carterton primary, puts it:

"Situations where the armed services are at war with another country or are involved in armed conflict have been continual since I was appointed as the head teacher five years ago. The support mechanisms that we have in place in our school to support parents and children during these difficult times are extensive. The present war and conflict in Iraq caused a great deal of anxiety amongst the parents left at home and with their children who were worried about their parents' involvement."

That can he a particular issue for state boarding schools. In Burford, we have an excellent example of such a school: 60 per cent. of its boarders are from forces families and many of them had parents involved in the recent conflict. Extra mechanisms need to be set up to support those pupils and those families. There is extra support for children through explaining, talking and listening, there is extra training for the teaching assistants so that they can manage these situations, and there is a parent support service in many of the schools. Sadly, of course, there is the need for bereavement counselling on occasions. All those extra initiatives and the extra work take time and cost money.

When men or women are posted abroad or into armed conflict, the number of single parent families in areas such as Carterton, Colchester, Aldershot or those represented by hon. Members here today effectively increases. Some of the postings can be for four months, nine months or even longer. Many of the families who move to Carterton or to other military establishments around the country have no extended family in the neighbourhood to help them. A single mother in another area might be able to ask her father, mother, an aunt or an uncle to help with picking up the children from school and so on.

Will my hon. Friend comment on a point that has long caused me concern? When a service family is posted to an area, they are sometimes told that all the schools of their choice are full. For example, if there are no vacancies in the four secondary schools on the Gosport peninsula, a service family is told that their child must be educated miles outside that area. Is that fair? Would it not be reasonable for Ministers to issue a directive to encourage local authorities to reserve spaces for service families that are posted to an area?

My hon. Friend makes a good point. We are both in favour of giving parents a choice of schools, and that should apply equally to service families. He is saying that that choice is sometimes not available, and I hope that the Minister will address that point when he responds.

May I assist my hon. Friend with his excellent presentation on behalf of all Members with military families in our constituencies? The problem of admissions is even worse. Talavera infant school in my constituency has been allowed to hold three places from the beginning of the year until August to accommodate children from service families. It has now been told from on high—not by Hampshire county council—that it is no longer allowed to hold those three reserved places. That is a Government action, and the Minister must explain that decision.

My hon. Friend makes the extremely good point that schools are put in a difficult position. They either leave places open to provide choice at the risk of receiving no funding for those places if they are not taken, or they try to fill those places thereby denying service families a choice. The fact is that they are special schools that require special attention. That is the crux of the matter that we are discussing.

The Minister would expect me to mention the "F" word—funding—and I will not disappoint him. It is my understanding that there is no specific national funding stream for schools with a high proportion of children from armed forces families, but local education authorities can allow extra money for that purpose. Oxfordshire county council recognises the strength of that argument, but it has not yet been able to make extra money available. In a letter to my hon. Friend the Member for Henley (Mr. Johnson), Councillor Tony Crabbe, the executive member for schools, stated:

"We have recognised this problem in the Oxfordshire education department and hoped to include some additional financial support for these schools in this year's education budget. We consulted schools on the possibility of including a special factor in the schools delegation formula. The proposal received considerable support. In the event we were unable to include this factor because a no-growth education budget was the best we could achieve without an unacceptably high increase in council tax, and as a result of the poor education settlement."

We have debated that point many times in the House. I hope that the Minister will consider the issue on a national basis, because the forces are a national institution and it is a national problem.

Wiltshire contrasts with Oxfordshire, because £544,000 is allowed to go to schools heavily dominated by children from service families. That means that ordinary schools without a high percentage of children from service families are deprived of that money, which is equally unfair.

There is the option of top-slicing the budget and giving it to forces schools, but that will always create tension with non-forces schools. As the forces are a national institution, we should consider the issue on a national basis. I hope that I am wrong, but there seems to be confusion among Ministers about whether the Government will consider the issue positively. I have found two written answers from the Minister for School Standards to the hon. Member for Colchester. In the first, the Minister said:

"The Department will be considering the overall needs of such schools through a working group being set up this autumn."—[Official Report, 20 October 2003; Vol. 411, c. 428W.]

That sounds positive and I look forward to hearing more about it. However, in an answer to a question about two particular schools, the same Minister said:

"There is no need for specific or additional funding from central Government"

for

"schools with a large proportion of pupils who are the children of Service personnel."—[Official Report, 23 June 2003; Vol. 407, c. 555W.]

That does not sound as positive, and I hope that we can clarify the position this morning.

I have taken up too much time but will make three pleas to the Minister. First, there is a need for recognition of the problem at a national level. As I said at the outset, our armed forces do a great job for us, and we should do a good job for them in return. The head teacher, Mike Curtis, whom I quoted, suggested in the letter that he wrote to me and copied to the Department—all the schools in Carterton agreed with this suggestion—that those schools should be called

"forces schools in the UK."

Identification of those schools would be a function of the proportion of children coming from forces families. Recognition would not just be warm words. Ofsted inspectors, for example, when inspecting those schools, would immediately recognise their specific problems, some of which I have described, and others that have been raised with me by hon. Members in interventions.

Secondly, there is the need for funding, either as standards grant or directly to the schools. The case has been made about all the extra work that needs to be done and the pressure created by the turbulence or mobility. That matter needs to be addressed, and it is hard to see how it can be done without extra money. There seems to be a case for the Minister to address the issue on a national basis, as the services are a national institution.

Thirdly, the Carterton schools have suggested that a working party be set up, consisting of head teachers from a selection of relevant schools and the Minister. I know that there is an organisation called the National Association of State Schools for Service Children, and that the head teacher of Alderman Blaxill School in Colchester is its key contact. I should be grateful if the Minister could give us an update on that point, explain what work the association is currently involved in, and what such a working party would examine.

I look forward to hearing contributions from other hon. Members. The nub of the issue is simple. Forces schools in the UK face special pressures, and require special attention. Given the special job that the armed forces do for us, providing such special attention is the least that we can do for them in return.

I congratulate the hon. Member for Witney (Mr. Cameron) not only on securing the debate, but on the excellent presentation that he made. I endorse every word that he said, and also support the spirit of the interventions.

The Secretary of State visited Colchester garrison schools on Monday 9 June, as reported in the headline in the Colchester Evening Gazette,

"Funding promise by Education Secretary during schools visit. You will get more money."

If that were the case, I suspect that today's debate would not be taking place. Four days later, the Colchester Evening Gazette carried a further, lengthy report on the visit, about which I knew nothing until it was in progress. It reported:

"Garrison schools have explained the cost of war to education minister Charles Clarke.

The schools in Colchester, which have children from the garrison, are suffering budget shortages due to falling roll numbers, after the arrival of a new regiment in town was delayed due to the Iraq War.

And garrison schools took the opportunity to explain the problem to Education Secretary Charles Clarke, when he visited town this week."

The report then quotes Mr. Richard Bourne, the chairman of the governors of Kingsford junior school. Mr. Bourne is a Labour borough councillor and county councillor, who was fully aware of the visit. I suspect that what we witnessed was more a Labour publicity stunt than reality. The visit was reported at length, and that is why I have pursued the case through tabling parliamentary questions, why I am pursuing it again today, and will continue to do so until the Secretary of State's promise is delivered.

I should also point out that Councillor Bourne was so involved with the visit—a visit that the Member of Parliament knew nothing about—that he collected the Secretary of State from Colchester North station, drove him to the school and conducted the day's visit. The Evening Gazette reports that Councillor Bourne said that

"schools knew that they would be getting more pupils when the new regiment arrives but in the meantime had to cope with less money.

He said: 'Garrison schools have had a major problem. They have got a particular problem in funding.'

The chairman of the Colchester-based National Association for State Schools for Service Children, Ian Poulter, said Mr Clarke promised to get a report on the problem.

Mr Poulter, who is head of Alderman Blaxill school, said: 'We asked Mr Clarke to investigate the possibility of some cushion for service schools in times of this kind of matter.'

He said the impact on his school was about £65,000 to £70,000—or £2,000 per child who he would have expected in school with the arrival of the new regiment.

Teachers also discussed the emotional and educational impact the war has had on schoolchildren."

I have mentioned that schools in Colchester—and throughout the country—with a large number of children who have a parent serving in the Army are still waiting for the additional funding that they believe was promised by the Secretary of State when he met head teachers and governors during a visit to the town seven months ago. Hon. Members may wish to know that I raised that matter at last month's Defence questions, after an excellent question from the hon. Member for Witney. I said that the Secretary of State had

"promised the head teachers of schools with a large component of children from military families that more money would be forthcoming. When will that be delivered?"

The Defence Minister replying said that

"there have been more discussions about the matter in relation to the Colchester garrison",—[Official Report, 15 December 2003; Vol. 415, c. 1316.]

But seven months later there has been no progress.

The heads who met the Secretary of State were left with the distinct impression that not only did he accept the special situation faced by schools with a large number of children from military families, but that he had given a personal assurance that these issues would be addressed. However, seven months later nothing of any material substance has happened. I tabled several written questions pursuing the Secretary of State's promise—all to no avail. I have also raised the matter in the House of Commons, and I mention it again today. I hope that the Secretary of State will be embarrassed into keeping the promise that he gave to head teachers of Colchester schools all those months ago.

The importance of children as a factor in the retention of soldiers in the Army, Air Force and Navy cannot be underestimated. If a soldier feels that their children are getting a bad deal from the education system, he or she may take that into account in considering whether to leave the armed forces.

The schools that I have mentioned do not just have fluctuating numbers of children on which the funding is based. Other requirements that are caused by changing schools can affect education—the turbulence factor—and those provide reasons why there should be additional support funding for schools with a large component of children from a military background.

I secured an Adjournment debate on this subject on 25 October 1999—it can be found at column 782. No doubt the Department for Education and Skills, as it is now, has that on file. It would be nice if my contribution and the reply from the then Minister could be revisited. The National Association of State Schools for Service Children was formed in 1999. In the autumn of that year, there was a conference in London called "A Fairer Deal for Forces Families", which I believe the Department attended. Sadly, however, there was no ministerial presence.

In welcoming the formation of the NASSSC, I said:

"I wish to pay tribute to the pioneers—those schools in Colchester with a strong Army involvement who, in 1992, formed the Colchester Association of State Schools for Service Children. The schools involved are Kingsford infant and junior; St. Teresa's primary; St Michael's primary; Alderman Blaxill secondary; the splendidly named Montgomery infant and junior; and, from elsewhere in East Anglia, Wimbish and Debden primary schools.

The numbers of children from service families attending those schools range from almost one in five pupils at St. Teresa's Catholic school to 95 per cent. at St. Michael's."—[Official Report, 25 October 1999; Vol. 685, c. 783.]

I have referred to what I consider to be a high-profile publicity stunt visit by the Secretary of State. However, we must give credit where it is due, because my constant probing and prodding prompted Councillor Bourne to respond on two occasions to justify that visit. In a letter to the Colchester Evening Gazette of 9 July 2003, he said:

"The Garrison schools are still hoping for some form of additional help. and for acceptance of their particular problems."

That is good news. On 8 July, in a letter to the East Anglian Daily Times, he said that

"the heads asked if there was any other way central government could help with the particular problems this year. We await the answer and close examination of the actual parliamentary answers does not rule out such help. We wait in hope!"

He is still waiting; we are all still waiting.

I wonder whether the Minister for School Standards can recall the letter that he wrote to me on 1 August 2003 in response to a letter that I wrote to the Secretary of State. In the third paragraph, he told me:

"As a result of the problems high lighted by NASSSC, my officials are planning to convene a small working group with representatives of the Local Government Association, the Ministry of Defence and authorities with a high proportion of forces children to revisit the funding regulations and guidance to see how they could be adapted to take full account of the needs of schools suffering MoD related turbulence. In addition, my officials have already been in contact with Mr Poulter, the Chair of NASSSC, at Alderman Blaxhill School"—

Blaxill is spelled incorrectly—

"with a view to arranging a mutually convenient date to visit schools at the beginning of the new school term. I do feel this is the best way forward at this stage rather than a further meeting with the Secretary of State."

That letter was signed by the Minister for School Standards, although unfortunately the name typed underneath was spelled incorrectly.

Not hearing anything, and wondering what was going on, Mr. Poulter wrote to the Secretary of State on 5 November and said:

"You will doubtless remember your short visit to Colchester on 9 June this year when members of this organisation"—

that is, the National Association of State Schools for Service Children—

"met with you to discuss funding for service schools (particularly Army) and concerns we have following deployments to Iraq.

Early in September (8th) colleague Headteachers and I were pleased to meet representatives from DfES charged by your office to research the issues we had raised with yourself.

To date we await outcomes from the research within the context of exceptionally tight budgets this year anyway. We are finding that managing effective educational provision for our students with the added pressures we raised with yourself, now seven months into the financial year, of extreme concern to us.

I do hope you are able to respond with some encouraging news for ourselves and our governing bodies, for as you know, we do believe from your response to us in June that you do consider our schools to deserve special financial consideration both in the exceptional circumstances this year and via funding calculations for the future."

The Secretary of State replied on 28 November. He said that he certainly recalled his visit to Colchester, and went on to say:

"I asked my officials to investigate the concerns raised by yourself and your colleagues over the education of service children attending state maintained schools.

A small working group including representatives from my Department, the Service Children's Education Agency and the Ministry of Defence has been established to look into the issues raised by yourself an representatives of similar schools and is currently I understand considering a number of options. The group is scheduled to provide me with an update of progress including a proposed action plan by the end of November. I will of course ask my officials to contact you with a progress report."

I understand from Mr. Poulter that, as of a little more than 24 hours ago, the message has not yet arrived, so he is still awaiting the dispatches.

This is a sorry affair; the visit promised so much and has delivered nothing. Let me quote the parliamentary answer the Secretary of State gave me:

"The commitment that I gave to those head teachers…is that we are addressing the 250 schools altogether in the country that have that problem as garrisons move around, and we are discussing with the Ministry of Defence and others how we can give such schools the kind of stability that they seek."—[Official Report, 17 July 2003; Vol. 409, c. 465.]

The talking has been long; the German Government managed to demolish the Berlin wall in far less time.

rose—

Order. Prior to this debate, no one contacted the Chair, although one Member approached me verbally before our debate commenced. For the benefit of the Chamber, therefore, I must remind hon. Members that it is the convention to commence the first of the three winding-up speeches at least 30 minutes before the debate's conclusion. I ask those who wish to catch my eye to bear that in mind when making contributions and interventions, and when responding to interventions.

May I apologise for not having written to you, Mr. Cook, before the debate? I was not aware that we had to do so. I thought that the whole point of this Chamber was that we could just turn up and speak. However, I apologise, and shall ensure that I write in future.

I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Witney (Mr. Cameron) on a learned and clear exposition of the turbulence factor in funding for military schools. That applies just as much in my constituency and throughout the whole of Wiltshire as it does in his constituency. The fact that the hon. Member for Colchester (Bob Russell) took the opportunity of going through the complicated and internecine discussions that he has had with the Department for Education and Skills over many months and years shows how important the issue is in his constituency, too. I congratulate him on his contribution, and on achieving the headline in the Colchester Evening Gazette that referred to fact that the Secretary of State intends to put up extra money to take account of the turbulence factor that my hon. Friend the Member for Witney so clearly described. I very much hope that the Secretary of State is ready to live up to that headline.

I shall not repeat the complicated and interesting arguments that my hon. Friend made, which apply equally in Wiltshire, but I shall highlight a couple of facts about Wiltshire, which might set his arguments in context. We have 36,000 primary children, of which 9.6 per cent. are from military backgrounds. Some 5 per cent. of the secondary pupils are from similar backgrounds. Of our 260 schools, 24 are acknowledged as having a large military presence. To take account of the turbulence factor that my hon. Friend described so well, Wiltshire county council has done something rather different from Oxfordshire; namely, it has decided to give special funding to those schools that are badly affected by using a complicated formula, which I will not bore the Chamber with. Last year, a total of £544,037 was made available to those 24 schools.

That special funding is laudable, and I have no problem with it, although I know that some military schools argue that it is not enough. There is a downside to it, however. The other 236 schools that are not military are effectively sacrificing that £544,000 and are, in a way, cross-subsidising the military schools. That is a little unfair on the other schools in Wiltshire. There is no reason why they should be doing that. If the DFES acknowledges that extra costs are involved in having a large number of military children in schools, extra funding should be available to Wiltshire county council as a whole to take account of that. That is my first point, which relates to the turbulence factor and the extra administration costs that my hon. Friend described so well.

We should also take into account two other things that my hon. Friend did not mention. First, Wiltshire has identified a high percentage of children with special educational needs in military schools. Of the 3,862 service children in Wiltshire, 199 are either on a statement or a statement is expected for them shortly. In other words, 5.4 per cent. of military children are on statements. That compares with an average of 2 per cent. across England. That is a high percentage—[Interruption.] The Minister tells me from a sedentary position that the average is 3 per cent. The average is 2 per cent. in Wiltshire, but it might be 3 per cent. nationally. Certainly, 5.4 per cent. is a high number of SEN children. I shall not comment on why that is the case, but it nevertheless seems to be statistically accurate.

I pay tribute to the work of one school in my constituency that operates from the Services Cotswold Centre. It is a specialist centre set up for services families who might be split up or who are temporarily homeless. The services centre operates a school at the centre purely for services children so it is a 100 per cent. services school. The centre provides an outstanding service particularly to the Army, and to a lesser extent to the Navy and the Air Force. It is a wonderful school facility for children who are often disturbed or having difficult times in their family lives. I commend the school, and I hope that the Ministry of Defence and the Department for Education and Skills will continue to support it in the way that they currently do. It is an expensive school: there are a very small number of children and a very high turnover factor, but it makes an enormously useful contribution for our service families. The Minister might like to consider that point about SEN.

There is a third specialist point that applies particularly at present in Wiltshire, but which applies elsewhere. Because of the Gurkhas—and, to a lesser extent, other foreign servicemen—who are now making such a useful contribution to the defence of this nation, we have a particularly high and growing incidence of English as a second language in service schools in Wiltshire. In my constituency, we now have a company of Gurkhas in the Royal Logistic Corps at Lavington, and Stanton St. Quintin primary school has employed a teacher who speaks the Gurkhas' language to take account of that difficulty. That is another cost to add to those that have been mentioned.

Turbulence is an extremely important factor and I hope that the Government will consider providing extra funds to deal with it. It is an inherent problem when there is a high percentage of service families in an area. In addition, it would be useful if the DFES took account of the higher percentage of SEN children that might be in these schools and of the pupils with English as a second language, particularly with regard to the Gurkhas in areas such as mine.

I doubt that the Minister will say that he has listened carefully to the arguments and that he is prepared to chuck out extra money to address these difficulties.

You never know.

As my hon. Friend says, "You never know", and we hope that the Minister will do that.

I understand that a working party has been established to consider these matters. I value that; it is useful. Officers in Wiltshire county council would happily play a part in the discussions—and the Department might particularly like to consult Mr. Parker, who has been helpful to me in preparing for this debate.

The difficulties are great: we are the sixth worst-funded county in England. Education funding in Wiltshire has been under considerable pressure until this year. Before the Minister looks in his brief and quotes some statistic at me about how much extra money we got, I will say that he is right that education funding has picked up this year. Wiltshire has received extra money in this settlement, but it is still one of the worst-funded counties in England.

I hope that the working party will take account of my points about turbulence, SEN and English as a second language.

In view of your remarks, Mr. Cook, I will be brief.

I begin by quoting from the quinquennial review of the SCE. It states:

"The children of people in the Armed Forces need to be educated and retention, recruitment and mobility will suffer if this important aspect of the military component is not given sufficient priority."

Given what we are now expecting of our armed forces, and the fact that they are significantly under-strength, we have to take serious account of that point. For the military population, this is an important issue. Housing, health and education are crucial ingredients in keeping servicemen and women in the services, and that is especially the case for those with young families.

The issue of providing the children of service men and women with a sound education is complicated by the increasingly frequent operational need to move their parents at regular intervals. That was ably described by my hon. Friend the Member for Witney (Mr. Cameron), whom I congratulate on securing the debate, and by the other hon. Members who have spoken. Those children have to change schools frequently within the United Kingdom, often transferring from English to Scottish curriculums. Many of them go abroad with their parents, and when they come to schools in the UK, they are often exposed to the English curriculum for the first time. There is therefore a need to compensate for the difficulties that services families inevitably face. Perhaps that turbulence should be countered by maintaining standards at a higher level than would ordinarily be the case for schools in England. Perhaps that would involve higher teacher-pupil ratios.

For those reasons, we have an agency charged specifically with the education of services families when they are overseas. In effect, it operates as a local education authority—admittedly, a rather small one—and accounts for 13,000 pupils educated overseas. As I said in an earlier intervention, its operational costs in 2002–03 were £75.5 million, which works out at about—by my back-of-a-fag-packet estimate—£5,800 per pupil. Those costs are not directly comparable, because there are additional costs such as overseas allowances for staff and so on. However, we have taken account of the special needs of services families in the creation of the agency, which acts, in effect, as a local education authority. That agency has set standards that are higher than those of English schools, and those standards, as the quinquennial review published in May last year shows, are being achieved. We are therefore making the effort to ensure that services families get the special treatment that they require to meet the special circumstances that have been so ably described by my hon. Friends.

The key question is whether we are meeting only part of the equation. The SCE accounts only for those 13,000 pupils who are educated overseas. For the rest of the equation, we rely on local education authorities funded by the Department. Is the Department living up to its part of the bargain? Is it doing what it is required to do? The story given so far in this debate is that it is not, and that there is something left to be desired. I draw the Minister's attention to recommendation 8.6 of the quinquennial review, under the heading "Financial Management". The recommendation is that a

"better formal mechanism for consultation and linkage between MOD, DfES and HM Treasury should be explored".

I hope that the Minister will say something about how that is being explored. Clearly, we cannot go on with a situation in which services families' needs are well addressed by the SCE when they are educated abroad, but not properly addressed, as has been described by hon. Members, when they are educated in this country.

Like my hon. Friend the Member for North Wiltshire (Mr. Gray), I apologise for failing to notify you in advance of my intention to contribute to this debate, Mr. Cook. Like my hon. Friend, I was not aware that the convention is that one should notify the Chair in advance. I have now learned of that convention.

I join others in congratulating my hon. Friend the Member for Witney (Mr. Cameron) on securing the debate and on speaking for all of us in such a comprehensive and effective fashion. I am sure that the importance of the issue to the county of Hampshire has not been lost on those attending today, given that no fewer than four hon. Members from Hampshire are here or have taken part in the debate. They include my hon. Friends the Members for New Forest, West (Mr. Swayne), for Gosport (Mr. Viggers) and for Fareham (Mr. Hoban). I know that my hon. Friend the Member for Fareham will address the concerns of Hampshire county council so, to save time, I will not cover that issue.

I hope that the House will appreciate that my hon. Friend the Member for New Forest, West is so concerned about the issue that he has taken time out of his post-operational tour leave to attend and contribute to the debate. I am sure that we would wish to salute our hon. and gallant Friend for his assiduity in looking after the interests of service families.

First, it is obvious from this debate that all the schools about which we have spoken have a serious problem of forward planning that does not apply to other mainstream schools in this country. I will give the Minister just two examples. Marlborough infant school in Aldershot faces a clawback of £20,000 this autumn because the numbers that are likely to appear in the autumn were not provided for in the original estimate. As a result, it could lose its classroom assistant, or it might have to cut out specialist provision, such as music. The difficulties faced by such schools, which result from turbulence, have real consequences. Talavera infant school, which is also in Aldershot, faces a similar clawback. I have 4,500 to 5,000 troops in Aldershot, and I am sure that the Minister will recognise that turbulence is a big issue in garrison towns such as Aldershot and Colchester. Those are examples of two schools that will face difficulties.

The Minister will probably tell us that, in the good years, the schools will have had provision made for numbers that did not materialise, and therefore will have been overcompensated. It is true that, by deft management, the schools have managed to avoid getting themselves into too much difficulty. Nevertheless, my two examples illustrate the practical consequences of turbulence.

Secondly, I reinforce the intervention that I made on my hon. Friend the Member for Witney about admissions policies. Talavera has maintained three places to be filled later in the year, and it has been allowed to do so by Hampshire county council, which understands the difficulties of turbulence. However, the county council has now been told—I assume by the Minister's Department—that it will no longer be allowed to provide that dispensation. That will have an adverse effect on Talavera school. The school is popular in the constituency, and non-service families are attracted to it. The result is that the school fills up with non-service families. If the school is no longer allowed to hold those three spaces—a modest number out of the maximum 270 places—families returning from operations or posted from elsewhere will have to wait or to go elsewhere, because those places will have been taken by non-service families. Mothers arriving in the garrison find it difficult to exercise their choice when it comes to finding a school for their children, and that has a damaging effect.

As everyone will acknowledge, this year has been particularly difficult. The Iraq war has led to an enormous amount of churn in the military establishment. Units have been moving all round the country. They have been deployed to Iraq and then moved back. It has been a particularly fraught time. I hope that the Minister has taken into account what has been said across the Chamber today about the way in which teachers in such schools manage to cope with difficulties that other schools in the country do not face.

Such schools—particularly infant schools and junior schools—face the problem of dealing with children whose fathers, and in some cases mothers, are out on active service and who see evidence of that, in the case of the Iraq war, on television every day of the week. Talking to families during the conflict, I encountered two groups of wives. The first group was fixated by the television. Those wives turned the television on when they got up in the morning and were glued to it throughout the day. They were looking for their husbands. It is important that the nation understands the effect that the wall-to-wall coverage of war has on families.

The other group of wives was completely different. They switched the television on in the morning, watched for half an hour to see what was happening and then switched it off until after the children had gone to bed, when they switched it on for another half an hour to get an update. It is important that the Minister and the Government recognise that the schools must deal with the difficulties and trauma of children whose fathers and mothers are out on operations and the effect that that has, as well as the unsettling nature of coming to a school from somewhere else.

My hon. Friend the Member for New Forest, West spoke about children coming from overseas and different curriculums. Teachers must accommodate such children. One headmistress told me yesterday that, just as children get settled, they are told that they will be moving and so no longer have an interest in the school. They just start to bond with other pupils when mum and dad say that they are on the move. The child is no longer interested in what is happening in their school, but is looking forward to the next stage at a new school. I pay tribute to the teachers in those schools who do an enormous amount to wrestle with those problems, which are not faced by other schools.

Finally, my hon. Friends said that educational provision is one consideration that people take into account when assessing the value of a job. My hon. Friend the Member for New Forest, West referred to a report on how military recruitment and retention were affected by factors such as mobility and education. I have been told that some mothers are getting exasperated, particularly when they are moved to Aldershot—this could equally apply to Colchester, Catterick, Lyneham, Brize Norton or anywhere else in the country—and find that they cannot get their child into the local school. What happens then? They go home and say to their husband, "What kind of life is this for us? You may be enjoying yourself doing the job you want, you may be enjoying this activity, but for the family it involves constant turbulence, turmoil and disruption. It is doing your children no good." I wonder how many MPs hear that line—no names. The difficulties that their children face at school place huge pressure on soldiers and service personnel.

I hope that the Minister will take that into account and also that he will get a move on with the consultative committee that he spoke about earlier. Perhaps he might involve some of us in that consultation.

I wish to thank the hon. Member for Witney (Mr. Cameron) for focusing on this forgotten area of education. It has certainly been an education for me to listen to hon. Members. I shall not in any way feign omniscience, but I can claim a certain amount of empathy. Like many service children, I changed school an inordinate number of times during my education, which took place centuries ago. I had been to five schools by the time I was 14—without, I rush to add, being expelled from any one of them.

I can testify to the fact that there is a learning curve every time one moves school. One must get used to different staff, different peer groups and, often, a different curriculum. What was bad for me is quite normal for at least 100,000 service children throughout this country. They have to put up not only with changing school but, in some cases, with changing country.

There is some recognition of that in the education system. For example, there is a list of approved maintained and independent hoarding schools for service families. The SCE is supposed to be consulted about local admission arrangements in areas where local authorities are particularly involved with service personnel, though some hon. Members have questioned how effective that consultation process has been and whether it has actually delivered what it is supposed to deliver.

In a previous debate, a Minister—I am not sure which Minister it was—said that some effort is made to try to synchronise movements of children with obvious turning points in the curriculum such as the end of term.

The SCE is a top-performing education authority. Research shows that local authority schools that are not in the SCE and that take a large number of the children of service personnel do commendably well despite the obstacles put in their way. The Dobson study said that such schools perform

"favourably in comparison with other schools where there is a similar high level of mobility".

I am not sure what that means because I am not sure what benchmark is being examined. I cannot think of other schools that have such a high level of mobility as the primary schools in Colchester, unless I include inner-city schools that experience sudden influxes of immigrants.

The schools' predicament is widely recognised as being special. That was acknowledged by the formation of the National Association for State Schools for Service Children. However, there is a general feeling in the Chamber that the special circumstances of such schools are not sufficiently recognised. There is no special grant to deal with their specific curricular and pastoral needs. The hon. Member for Aldershot (Mr. Howarth) dwelt eloquently on the pastoral needs of service children and their families.

Despite the enormous turbulence and dislocation, there is not much evidence that local authorities can capably adjust to sudden roll fluctuations and fund the schools appropriately. Two factors aggravate the general problems of service schools. First—this has not been mentioned hitherto—there is the relentless testing regime. Whenever children move schools, some tests are due. School transitions should be as seamless as possible to give children adequate time to find their feet. The Minister could legitimately argue that one new factor is that, wherever children go, the curriculum is the same, and adjustment is therefore made simpler. Nevertheless, children and their families are keen to do well, but moving to a new school means facing a set of tests, which is an added problem.

The second problem is the increase in Army movements. I recently visited my local regiment, the Queen's Lancashire, where I was alerted to a point that I had not thought about sufficiently. The activity level of the forces in the recent years has already taken its toll on family life and continues to take its toll. The father in service families is often absent for longer than had been expected, and such special circumstances matter. Everyone recognises that our soldiers have done their duty, and we are looking for the education system to do its duty by their children.

Two points must be considered. First, we must treat the matter as a funding issue. Special credence should be given in the standards fund for the individual schools that face the problems that Members have alerted us to. Secondly, the matter should also be treated as an organisational issue. The hon. Member for Witney talked about ghost pupils and other Members have discussed falling rolls. We know that local authorities are, by and large, funded by formulae, which need constant revision through consultation with Ministers. When there is a large number of service families in any one county or local authority, there is certainly a need for the Minister to be especially vigilant to ensure that schools are not disadvantaged by the formulae used by local authorities.

I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Witney (Mr. Cameron) on securing the debate and on the quality of his introduction. He set out the problems clearly, and his points have been echoed in the contributions of other hon. Members.

It is interesting that we do not understand the scale of the problem. The numbers given for the children involved vary between 85,000 and 185,000. It is important that the Government understand how many service children are educated in the state sector. Clearly, any issues concerning funding must be resolved with a thorough understanding of the numbers of children and of which counties are affected.

In his analysis of the problem, my hon. Friend touched on the topic to which the hon. Member for Southport (Dr. Pugh) referred: exams and target-setting. A head teacher of a school in my constituency told me that since she set the SATs targets for year 6, she has had 18 extra children in that class. She has a tight monitoring regime in place. and assesses children's needs closely, so I do not think that she will have a problem ensuring that children continue to make progress. However, within the context of setting targets and schools being measured against those targets, a clear issue arises when there is a great deal of turbulence and when the pupils whose targets are set at the start of the school year are not there at the end of the school year or when the SATs targets are set.

My hon. Friend also highlighted the recognition in many LEAs of the problem of mobility or turbulence that applies to the high proportion of service children in schools. In Oxfordshire, as he identified, the county council recognised the problem, but felt that there were no further resources available to tackle it. Each LEA should make its own decision about the allocation of resources to particular schools to tackle the problem. I shall return to that issue shortly.

The hon. Member for Colchester (Bob Russell) has talked about the issue before: I heard his question in Defence questions a couple of weeks ago. I feel that I know the Colchester Evening Gazette inside out, and almost as well as I know his correspondence with the Minister on this topic. It appears that we have had a list of, if not necessarily broken promises, certainly unfulfilled promises from the Government.

My hon. Friend the Member for North Wiltshire (Mr. Gray) raised the important issue of children with special educational needs in Wiltshire schools. We know that such children need a great deal more support than others, and we should ensure that there are adequate resources to meet their needs.

My hon. Friend the Member for New Forest, West (Mr. Swayne) was right to pay tribute to the work of the SCE, which is important in educating service children who live abroad. I am sure that the Minister will tackle some of the issues arising from the quinquennial review.

My hon. Friend the Member for Aldershot (Mr. Howarth), who also represents a Hampshire constituency, tackled some of the problems affecting schools there. Hampshire has a high number of military bases and garrisons, such as those in Aldershot and Andover. There is a naval dockyard in Portsmouth, naval facilities in Gosport, and air bases in the north of the county, as well as the port of Marchwood, which serves the armed forces. Hampshire has particular exposure to these problems, and he was right to highlight the problems faced by schools in his constituency arising from the clawback of resources when pupil numbers change. Money is then taken away, often unpredictably, from those schools, and they cannot manage properly or effectively.

The converse is also true. As I have already said, a teacher from a school in my constituency commented that she has had an extra 18 pupils since September, and until the school's roll numbers are re-assessed, resources are not going to that school to educate those extra 18 pupils. There are two issues: the unexpected clawback of funds, and the increased burden on resources when there is an unpredicted influx of children into a service school.

My hon. Friend the Member for Aldershot raised the issue—as did my neighbour and hon. Friend the Member for Gosport (Mr. Viggers)—of admissions to local schools from service families and what provision can be made. The particular incident that I should like to highlight from the experience of schools in my constituency is the one in which primary schools have perhaps one or two classes that are full whereas in classes of other years there is incapacity. We have seen situations in which families—say, with three children—have been turned away or the families have chosen not to go to that school because the class for one of the children is full and cannot take that child, even though the mother wants, rightly, to send all her children to the same school.

There are many ways in which LEAs can look at the funding issues. I think that all LEAs with children from services families recognise that there are unresolved issues. In Hampshire they look at the number of children who leave or join the school—other than in July and September—as a means of assessing mobility, turbulence and determining how that should be recognised financially.

Other LEAs count the number of services children in their schools and allocate funding on that basis. However, through lack of resources, some LEAs, such as Oxfordshire, are not able to recognise that cost or have decided, as in one case I am aware of, that the problem is so pervasive across all its schools— Oxfordshire is a relatively small LEA—that no additional funding is needed because all schools are effected almost equally by the problem.

It is right, as hon. Members have indicated already, that there is no additional funding from the Government to cover this need. In one of the many answers that the hon. Member for Colchester received from the Government, the Minister referred to a review of mobility to be carried out in the context of the annual school census. I would be grateful if the Minister would take the opportunity today to explain how far that work has gone to and what is the timetable for completion. I understand from the answer to the hon. Member for Colchester that it is unlikely that any additional resources will be received before the end of the three-year formula freeze in 2006–07.

In 2005–06.

The Minister corrects me, but his answer in July was 2006–07.

It will be some time before LEAs receive additional resources to tackle this problem. The variety of responses that LEAs have had in allocating money to represent mobility shows that there is no easy solution. Could the Minister tell us of the work that Professor Barber or Andrew Adonis have done in looking at the distribution of direct funding to schools from central Government and whether they have considered the issue of mobility of services children?

Education issues arise because services families move from school to school. That topic has been raised by several hon. Members in the debate. One of the big issues for any child moving between schools, particularly within the key stages, is the level of knowledge that they acquired by the time they move to a new school. Clearly a number of schools have developed their own resources and methods of gauging this, through rapid assessment when children arrive at the school, through close monitoring of progress and ensuring that children are not left behind. The national curriculum and the literacy and numeracy strategies enable schools to have a better idea of where children are in that process, perhaps tackling some of the issues that the hon. Member for Southport raised in his remarks.

Social issues also need to be resolved within schools. One of the biggest issues facing children when they arrive at a new school is to establish themselves in the school's social networks. In my constituency, Ranville's junior school identifies buddies to work with children who have just joined a school, so as to create friendship networks to enable them to become part of the school quite quickly. However, the strategies needed to tackle the social and educational issues divert resources from other people in the school. Teachers' and sports assistants' time is taken up, enabling children to become acclimatised and assimilated within the school to which they have moved. It is the view of several teachers to whom I have spoken that it takes about half a term before these children settle down in their new school. Clearly, if they are then told that for operational reasons their families will have to move to another part of the country, they will, as my hon. Friend the Member for Aldershot said, quickly start to lose interest in that school and look to move on.

We talked earlier about the working party that the Department set up in conjunction with the Ministry of Defence and the SCE, which is looking at some of the issues involving the education of children from service families. To date, we have talked particularly about that in the context of funding. What work will that team do to look at strategies for easing the transition of pupils from school to school and for establishing best practice? It is important that best practice is shared when possible. I understand that some visits to schools have already taken place, but I am not yet clear about what the outputs of that working party will be, and when it will report.

It is easy to talk about the negative aspects of the issues that children from services families create for our schools and for school funding and, to an extent, all of us have done that today. However, there are some positive aspects to having service children in maintained schools. Children from service families tend to be more gregarious and outgoing. They have a more varied and wider range of experiences than many of the children in school, and the head teachers to whom I have spoken talked positively of the benefits that the children—and their families—can bring to the school in terms of their experiences and their support for the work of the school.

The Royal Navy in south-east Hampshire encourages its officers and men to become school governors and part of parent-teacher associations. Indeed, in Hampshire, a naval officer works with a group of local schools advising on security—an important issue for any school, but particularly for those in which there is a high proportion of children from service families.

There is a sense that some of the services, although willing to help, wait to be asked. If we are to tackle some of the recruitment and retention issues that we know affect all three services, the services should consider some of the ways in which private organisations tackle the relocation of their staff in order to ease the transition of children into new schools—my hon. Friend the Member for Aldershot raised that issue. When the National Air Traffic Services moved its operations to my constituency, parents already living there were asked to act as a reference point. They checked that there were places available in local schools. Those issues are important.

There is much more that we could say about the education of children from services families. It is an important issue across many parts of the country. I sense that people recognise the problems that exist. I hope that we will hear from the Minister about the Government's role in resolving some of those problems.

I am delighted to respond to this excellent debate. The strains and stresses on our armed forces are closer to the front of our minds in this and in recent years than they were 10, 15, or even five years ago. The hon. Member for Witney (Mr. Cameron) did an excellent job of outlining some of the issues. I congratulate him and all hon. Members on their contribution to the debate.

I single out two contributions: that of the hon. Member for New Forest, West (Mr. Swayne)—I am sure that we are all delighted that he is back safe and sound—and that of the hon. Member for Fareham (Mr. Hoban), who is making his debut on the Front Bench. His political career began in South Shields, as all great political careers do, as he tramped the streets of Ocean road. Although the electorate did not necessarily show their devotion to him when he stood there, I am sure that they are pleased that he has gone on to other things.

I first want to make some general remarks about the funding situation, and then I shall move on to the points raised in debate. Three points about schools funding are important in considering the issues facing armed forces families and their children. First, in our constitutional settlement, the funding of schools is a shared responsibility for central and local government—a shared responsibility for raising money for schools, and for distributing that money.

Some may believe that we should move to a national formula in which the Department for Education and Skills decides on the funding of every school in the country. That is not the Government's position. We believe that it is right that local government is in a position to make decisions about the distribution of funds locally. We believe that local government has an important role to play and that we need a strong partnership with local government in order to deliver for teachers and pupils. In that context, one needs to think about whether a national pot of money should be set aside, and how that might fit into a constitutional arrangement with an important role for local government.

Secondly, this has been a difficult year for school funding—there is no point in pretending otherwise. There has been a big increase in investment, but also a big increase in costs. Substantial extra funds have gone in, but particular strains exist in different parts of the country, and I do not want to hide that fact. Over the past three or four months, the Government have been able to show a clear determination to deliver predictability and stability for 2004–05 and 2005–06, along with significant extra funds.

My third general point relates to mobility, which has been mentioned in several contributions. There are 50,000 fewer primary school students in our primary schools this year than there were last year. There will be 55,000 fewer again next year, and 60,000 fewer again the year after. For the first time since the introduction of local management of schools in 1990, we are seeing significant reductions in pupil numbers, and that is contributing to turbulence.

There are also movements in and out of schools, and it is in that direction that much of the debate has flowed. I shall correct one misconception that has dominated the debate: the Department distributes money to LEAs on the basis of pupil numbers not for the current but for the previous academic year. For example, the LEA budgets for 2003–04 were set on the basis of primary school numbers in January 2002, and secondary school numbers in September 2002. That is a lagging indicator so that if a school loses some pupils in January, it does not lose the money in April. LEAs are free to take a similar approach to the distribution of funds to schools. It is important to realise that such lag and flexibility are built in.

I did not understand the reference to in-year clawback made by the hon. Member for Fareham. Perhaps he could drop me a line about it, and I shall respond.

I want to move on to specific issues raised about the education of services children. Hon. Members are right that we do not have an exact number for how many children from services families attend state schools in this country; obviously, it fluctuates. The Ministry of Defence estimates that it is between 80,000 and 100,000, and I shall stick to that estimate. The largest proportion of moves is in connection with Army families. It is significant that we have talked in the debate as if all the armed forces are the same, but there are particular issues relating to Army personnel, who are the most numerous and mobile. They move either in entire units or as individuals. More than two thirds of moves of Army personnel consist of moves by individuals. Moves can take place at any time of the year and are subject to operational needs. However, I am pleased that, over recent years, the Army has made an effort to concentrate moves in the school holidays, and especially in summer holidays as that obviously makes transitions easier.

Services families want their children to complete whole years of schooling, and the Army is doing its best to meet that aspiration. The hon. Member for Aldershot (Mr. Howarth) spoke powerfully about the importance of ensuring that families of serving soldiers are secure and content with their provision—they must be if they are to perform to the highest standards, and if recruitment and retention are to be maintained. I certainly concur with that.

There were several references to the working group that the Secretary of State has set up. It includes departmental officials, and representatives from the agency, Service Children's Education, and the Ministry of Defence. The main function of the group is to listen to the concerns of schools and explore the most appropriate ways of addressing the issues that they raise. Members of the group have visited a wide range of schools, including Carterton primary school in the constituency of the hon. Member for Witney to try to gauge all the issues.

I shall offer some early reflections on the group's findings. First, schools with services children are affected in different ways, with some schools experiencing a constant trickle of pupils in and out of the school, and others being affected by unit movements in which large numbers of children move in and out of schools at a particular time. Secondly, schools with highly mobile populations have considerable demands placed on them, both in terms of administration and the induction of new pupils. Efficient communication of information and records between schools has been identified as an especially important aspect of the process. Third, pressures on schools also occur when children with special educational needs arrive. My briefing today did not include the suggestion that there is a higher proportion of children with special needs in services families, but we will contact Wiltshire county council about the figure of 5.4 per cent.

There can be delays in assessment, which cause difficulties, and problems in the retention of staff because of budget changes, and it has been brought to the group's attention that there are concerns about the supply of teachers of English as a second language. The subject of soldiers from Fiji was raised in respect of Wiltshire schools, and I am glad that boarding schools were mentioned, as I am speaking at the State Boarding Schools Association on 19 January.

In response to concerns that were raised, the SCE and the Department are working together to develop the National Association for State Schools for Service Children's Education into an organisation that operates more formally than at present. We hope that it will be an effective organisation representing schools with service children nationally and commenting on policy matters. The schools contacted so far have expressed support for the proposal. We have identified about 500 schools that need to be involved, and the SCE, with the Department's assistance, is in the process of writing to all the schools and arranging regional meetings to promote the development of regional organisations that will feed into the national organisation. A national conference is anticipated later this year.

We are working to see whether data from the SCE schools overseas can be involved in the pupil level annual schools census. Software is being exchanged and we hope that it will improve the flow of information and the sharing of data. It is significant that we are advising schools that the SCE and the Ministry of Defence are introducing a tri-service schools liaison policy to assist service families in meeting their aspirations.

Mobility is not a factor that affects only service personnel, but the Department has a duty to think about how it should be addressed. Recently, we supported a pupil mobility project in which 51 schools from 26 LEAs were involved in projects developing, trialling and evaluating strategies to narrow the achievement gap between mobile and static populations and Ofsted are reporting on it.

Hon. Members were concerned not just about the academic standards but about financial support. The issue of pupil mobility was examined in great depth by the education funding standards group, set up in preparation for the review of local government finance in 2003–04, including studies from Janet Dobson and others. I shall place the relevant papers in the Library. The group could not reach a consensus about the efficacy or need for a mobility factor in the funding formula for distribution to LEAs but it was clear that LEAs should have the power to introduce a mobility factor that reflects the needs of their area. We are considering whether it would be practicable to apply the mobility factor to LEA formula funding. However, we are clear that it could not interfere with the freeze on the formula that we have said should exist until 2005–06; 2006–07 would be the first year of any change.

Some school budgets have suffered as a result of troop movements to Iraq as pupils have left schools. However, LEAs can give additional funding to schools whose numbers have fallen by at least 20 per cent. because of armed forces movements. That is the case in Oxfordshire, but Essex has decided not to adopt that approach. LEAs can include factors that give extra funding for high turbulence levels or compensation for significant falls in numbers on the roll. If schools in other areas believe that insufficient account has been taken of those factors, they can seek changes through the schools forum.

The issue of admissions was raised by the hon. Member for Gosport (Mr. Viggers), who is no longer present, and by the hon. Member for Aldershot, and I will clarify the matter. Steps were taken to address the concerns of service children when the new admission framework in the Schools Standards and Framework Act 1998 was drawn up, including consultation on the draft code of practice. The code of practice gives specific advice—I underline the word "specific"—that admission authorities should ensure that the needs of the children of service families are taken into account. It states that although those authorities are not allowed to reserve places for blocks of children—that would not be sensible given the uncertainty of movement—they may accept applications from parents returning to the area some months in advance and may allocate a school place to them. That is how we have tried to give the flexibility that hon. Members seek. In recent years, we have also addressed the issue of access to higher education for students from service families who have spent time overseas. We hope to continue to support children from service families where appropriate.

We are considering the points raised by hon. Members with the seriousness that they deserve. There are no easy answers to the variety of issues raised, but I can assure hon. Members that we are committed to addressing these matters in a serious and sustained way.

In a 30-minute Adjournment debate, it is normal to allow roughly 15 minutes for the Member introducing the debate to speak and 15 minutes for the Minister to respond, but today has witnessed a healthy development, with five Back Benchers seeking to catch my eye. Therefore, I appeal for contributions to be brief and pertinent so that everyone who wants to can speak. I hope that we will not waste time with interventions that require a response.

I am grateful to you, Mr. Cook, for allowing other Members to contribute. I became aware of this issue when four sub-post offices on the Isle of Wight were threatened' with closure. One of the causes of that threat was the Government's policy of transferring payment from order books to a direct method. Closure of two of those sub-post offices has been confirmed, but Pan and Gurnard post offices are still open. Pan post office serves an estate containing many pensioners, young families and other benefit recipients. It is in the top 10 per cent. most deprived wards in the country, but the people there are likely to lose their post office and therefore any means of collecting their benefits locally.

The Post Office card account was introduced as a halfway house between the traditional order book and a bank account, following conclusion 15 of the performance and innovation unit's June 2000 report on modernising the post office network. The report described a post office-based solution as

"a cost-effective means of ensuring that benefit recipients can continue to access their entitlements in cash at post offices"—

in other words, a universal bank. However, far fewer people than expected are transferring to the POCA.

According to Postwatch—the voice of the post office user—in November 2003, about 1.6 million people had asked to open a POCA and 600,000 had received their account number, but only 200,000 had activated their account. Those who supported payment modernisation reckoned against the determination of the Minister's agencies to ensure that people transfer from order books to bank accounts rather than POCAs. We have the extraordinary phenomenon of a Labour Government— a Labour Government!—discriminating against a product that enables people to draw benefits where they want, and in favour of big banks.

Does the hon. Gentleman acknowledge that, prior to direct payment, 15 million claimants used the post office, and current estimates suggest that as many as 5 million will use card accounts? That is a little out of kilter with the early figures that he quoted. Does he hope that the Minister will attempt to justify that figure?

I hope to explain why that is the case, and I will ask the Minister to put the situation right.

The discrimination arises in part from the fact that the POCA process is, according to Postwatch, "overlong and overly complex"; in part because many beneficiaries do not realise that they do not have to transfer from traditional order books at all, let alone to a bank account; and in part because agencies such as Jobcentre Plus are under such pressure to effect transfers that they are none too careful about misleading customers.

My purpose in calling this debate is threefold. First, will the Minister make it clear that every pensioner and benefit recipient is entitled either to continue to be paid by the traditional method, or to open a Post Office card account? Secondly, will he simplify the method of opening a POCA, which is currently an obstacle course? Thirdly, and vitally, will he withdraw Jobcentre Plus's advice that

"all benefits will be paid by direct payment in the future"?

That advice is factually wrong.

I hope that the Minister will also respond to Postwatch's concern that

"the payment modernisation process is continuing without any independent testing of the Government's processes".

The process to obtain a POCA is complex. We can argue about how many stages there are, but there are more than are involved in opening a bank account. In brief, the applicant receives a pack asking him to ring the Department for Work and Pensions, which takes his details and sends him a document to take to the post office, where he fills in an application form and sends it to Electronic Data Services, which sends him an account number, which he then puts on another form, which he sends to the Department for Work and Pensions. I hope that I have got that right. As Postwatch says:

"The…process requires customers to retain and assimilate documents that they have received at different stages in the process. The duration between receiving these different documents may sometimes be quite long…For applicants who have little or no experience of using bank accounts, this may be confusing and potentially off-putting."

What evidence do I have that the most vulnerable are having difficulty? Martin Lewis, the Brighstone sub-postmaster in my constituency, tells me of a pensioner whose name was misspelt at one of the many stages, but whose application was rejected because she had corrected it. Other applications were rejected because an applicant's signature went outside the box provided. The sub-postmistress at Wroxall, Rosemary Clayton, outlines the following cases:

"Mrs H has been granted Attendance Allowance—was bamboozled into giving her National Savings number by staff from DWP erroneously telling her money could be paid into it by them—it cannot. They paid £686 into somebody's account with the same number. After telephone calls from Mr & Mrs H money was sent to her by cheque and she got the benefit book she wanted all along.

Two separate cases of pensioner couples with elderly parents living with or near them. Mrs Pensioner has for some considerable time, collected her own money plus her husbands and parents both. Being told she cannot be an agent for both a husband and a parent, as nobody could be of pension age themselves and still have a living parent. Both had to be very firm before they were believed.

Lady who had three Christian names and uses them all, can only have one name and one initial on the card account. When she rang the helpline and said she could have as many names as she likes at a bank she was told to go to the bank.

War pensioner was told his money had to go into a bank or building society, which he agreed with. Only when he got his letter about his Old Age Pension was it clear a card account was an option. DWP appeared to have steamrollered war pensioner into the bank."

Rosemary Clayton concludes:

"These are just a snapshot of the numerous problems our customers have had."

I should like the Minister to concentrate on the word "steamrollered". Sandown sub-postmaster Rodney Archer told me that in 2002

"the largest of the residential homes that uses this Post Office…has been visited and persuaded by representatives of DWP to arrange for ALL residents allowances to be paid through bank accounts and accessed via direct debits. The basis of the argument…was that collection of the allowances by an agent was no longer acceptable and if residents still wished to cash them they had to attend the Post Office in person."

Meanwhile child benefit recipients were told by Jim Harra, director of the Child Benefit Office, that

"Payment straight into an account at a bank, building society or the Post Office will replace order books and girocheques."

They were presented with a fait accompli. They were not told that if they did not provide an account number they would still be able to draw their benefit and that a new system was planned for those who could not use accounts.

A Jobcentre Plus document dated 7 October 2003 told field directors of their "payment modernization project" as follows:

"Previous material issued has contained many soft messages…We need to pay most of these customers into bank accounts which cost 1p rather than into POCAs which costs at least 30 times more".

That is an understandable objective, but look at how it is done: by emphasizing that POCA is probably not the best option for customers. The document goes on to say,

"You should be aiming to get 9 out of 10 new customers paid into bank accounts—

I think that means new customers' money—

"with a small proportion of these paid through POCAs…You must encourage customers to be paid by direct payment at every opportunity…You must not issue a PID"—

a personal invitation document, that is, to open a POCA—

"unless all the options have first been discussed."

In other words, they should not offer this supposedly universal service on which both sub-postmasters and benefit recipients are relying if they can possibly help it. To make things worse, if a customer refuses to open an account, the document suggests:

"advise them that the customer conversion centre will contact them at a later date as all benefits will be paid by direct payment in future."

Those last words are not true, and they run totally contrary to ministerial assurances. The Minister himself told the hon. Member for Gordon (Malcolm Bruce) that

"85 per cent of customers will have their benefits paid by direct payment"—[Official Report, 17 November 2003; Vol. 413, c. 486W.]

so presumably he accepts that not all benefits will be paid this way. When asked by the hon. Member for Portsmouth, South (Mr. Hancock) about

"the practice of his Department's managers and agencies seeking to dissuade claimants from using the Post Office to access their benefits in preference to banks and building societies",

he replied: "No such practice exists." —[Official Report, 8 December 2003; Vol. 415, c. 321W.]

Is the hon. Gentleman aware that the customer conversion centre goes through all the banking options when people who want to open a Post Office card account ring, but the reverse is not true? Applicants for other banking options are not made aware of the Post Office card option. Does he not think that that is a little unbalanced?

I think it is one-sided. What is worse, postmasters are not allowed to advertise the Post Office card account because the Post Office Ltd. says that it is a Department for Work and Pensions product, not a Post Office Ltd. product, and it is not allowed to advertise the product itself, but has to use words that have been agreed with the DWP.

On 8 December 2003, the Minister told me that there would be an "exceptions" service for those whose payments could not be paid "directly into an account."—[Official Report,8 December 2003; Vol. 415, c. 321W.] If the policies he outlined remain his policies, he must instruct Jobcentre Plus to withdraw the misleading document that it has issued. I urge him to simplify the system, to withdraw the misleading documentation and to make it clear that people do not have to transfer at the rate at which his Department would like them to.

The Prime Minister wrote in the foreword to the PIU report that the Government "fully accepts" its conclusions. One conclusion involved a universal bank. The Post Office card account, which is the Minister's product, could provide such a bank if he and his system allowed that. I urge him to do so.

I congratulate the hon. Member for Isle of Wight (Mr. Turner) on securing this debate on a subject that is important to many of our constituents.

A number of my pensioner constituents have indicated to me that they do not want to change over to the new card account system. The new system provides a more efficient and secure service, but for disabled pensioners who are visually impaired or have another relevant disability, the requirement to key in a four-digit code may make the system difficult or impossible to use. Will the Minister consider retaining the paybook system for that group of pensioners? That would offer choice to a disadvantaged group.

I, too, congratulate the hon. Member for Isle of Wight (Mr. Turner) on securing this important debate and on being generous with his time to other hon. Members. I have two points. First, according to DWP figures, millions of people have not responded to the invitation letters, yet the Minister says that order books will be phased out next year. Will he please tell us what will happen to those millions of pensioners next year? Will they be moved to the cheque-based exceptions system?

Secondly, if the current rate of movement to the banks is maintained, the Post Office will lose more than a quarter of its income over two years. No business can survive such a loss of income, so what will the Government do to ensure that small rural post offices survive?

I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Isle of Wight (Mr. Turner) for his great generosity in letting other hon. Members speak. I also congratulate him on landing the debate.

In August, I drove 150 miles around my constituency visiting all but four of the post offices there. The message I received was extraordinarily consistent. First, in an area such as mine, the post office is often directly linked to the village shop. One of the most effective postmasters, whom I brought down to meet the Minister for Energy, E-Commerce and Postal Services, said that if the post office goes, the shop goes, and if the shop goes, the village goes. The two are inextricably linked. The proportion of the turnover that comes from post office business is enormous. In some cases, it is as high as 70 per cent. and it is frequently more than 50 per cent.

Another message that emerged clearly is that, as my hon. Friend the Member for Isle of Wight said said, getting a card account is an extraordinarily complicated business. According to the National Federation of Sub-Postmasters, there are 22 steps—

It is not true.

The Under-Secretary shakes his head and grins, but there are 22 steps. He can come to Knockin and meet Mr. Colin Doyle, who will tell him that those who have got past those obstacles have done so only thanks to his help. He helps local pensioners to struggle through the network. I explained this to the Minister of State and, like my hon. Friend the Member for Isle of Wight, asked that the system be made much simpler. If the Under-Secretary does not believe me, he should listen to some of the quotes from postmasters. One says:

"The Benefits Agency is bullying people to change. The Government has not been fair."

Another says:

"The Benefits Agency has been very difficult. The forms are designed not to help."

Another says:

"The initial letters give a clear idea that customers must go direct. They are misleading. The bank section is deliberately put before the card section."

The Under-Secretary will not like this one, which says:

"The Government have no idea of what they are doing. They are totally clueless. They are destroying the infrastructure of country life. The procedure for applying for cards is deliberately hugely complex."

They are really angry about the process. People are only getting cards with the direct help of postmasters. I echo my hon. Friend's request: will Ministers please consider redesigning the system?

The Minister of State told me when I visited him that a sum of money has been put aside for rural post offices —£450 million over the next three years. Will the Under-Secretary explain in detail how sub-postmasters can apply for that money during the transition phase?

I add my congratulations to the hon. Member for Isle of Wight (Mr. Turner) on securing the debate on direct payment and the future of the Post Office.

The move to direct payment and the introduction of universal banking services has resulted in a number of benefits, including an increase in customer choice, help in addressing financial exclusion and improvement in access to financial services. That last point is particularly important, and although it has not been mentioned by any of the hon. Members who have spoken during this short debate, it was certainly stressed to me when I spoke to a number of groups representing our customers—including Age Concern, Help the Aged, Mind and Citizens Advice—at a series of meetings before Christmas. All those organisations and others welcomed the process of moving more people into the financial mainstream.

Citizens Advice recently published a booklet on financial inclusion: "Beyond Bank Accounts: full financial inclusion", in which it said:

"The government, the banking industry and the Post Office should be commended for the progress they have made in establishing Universal Banking Services. The ambition to enable all people to own the most basic of financial services—a bank account—is one we share."

The booklet continues:

"Getting people onto the ladder of financial inclusion is vital and Universal Banking Services should be heralded in this regard."

The Minister says rightly that basic bank accounts have been designed to promote financial inclusion, but at least 80 per cent. of the basic bank accounts available from the various clearing banks are not operable at a post office. That does not promote inclusion, does it?

I shall come back to that point in a moment.

I came into politics to combat the poverty and social exclusion—of which financial exclusion is a most important part—that the Conservative party did so much to make worse when it was in government. I am frustrated and disappointed to hear so many hon. Members criticising the attempts to combat that financial exclusion that we are making in partnership with the Post Office, banks and voluntary organisations. The nostalgia for the days of order books and giros that we have heard during the debate is far removed from the drab reality that left 3.5 million of our citizens financially excluded.

Will the Minister give way?

If the hon. Gentleman will forgive me I shall make a little more progress first.

The new arrangements ensure a more modern, efficient and reliable service, which increases customer choice, provides better value for the taxpayer, cuts fraud, and boosts financial inclusion. Many hon. Members in this Chamber may not wish to accept the fact that more customers of the Department for Work and Pensions now have their benefits and pensions paid into an account than by order book or giro, but does anyone seriously suggest that we should take away the choice from those customers to have their payments into bank accounts, Post Office card accounts or other accounts, simply in order to shore up the Post Office? Even if they believe that that should happen, do they seriously believe that it would secure the future of the Post Office?

The Government believe in choice, and in giving our customers the dignity of the financial inclusion that the rest of us enjoy. I would be astonished if any hon. Member present does not enjoy the full range of financial services that some people wish to deny to the customers of the Department for Work and Pensions. The future of the Post Office does not depend on our continuing to deny people that choice. It depends on providing attractive services that people wish to use and a full range of banking and financial services through the Post Office. We share that vision with the Post Office and we are working with the Post Office to help to build it. I remind Opposition Members that 3,500 post offices were closed during the Conservatives' term of office without a single step being taken to deal with the financial exclusion that so many people faced at that time.

The Minister has taken five minutes to deal with this issue, but nobody is suggesting that people should have to go back to order books. We are concerned that people cannot open Post Office card accounts when they want to.

I shall address that point in a moment. However, it is important to remember that not only the Post Office card account, but many current and basic bank accounts can be used at post offices. Some 20 million people can access their current account electronically at post office branches. My hon. Friend the Member for North-West Leicestershire (David Taylor) makes the point that not all basic and current accounts are available at post offices—

Most are not.

A wide range is available for customers, and the Post Office is working hard with the banks to make more accounts accessible. There have been 13.5 million banking transactions at post offices since April.

In respect of partnership with banks to offer real choice, what action has the Minister taken on the three main Scottish banks' refusal to enter such a partnership with post offices?

My hon. Friend makes an important point. The Post Office is working hard to ensure that people in Scotland have the same access to banking services as people elsewhere. We are doing what we can to support that process in discussions with the banks and the Post Office, but my hon. Friend will recognise that that decision is for the financial institutions to take. We will do everything we can to support the process, but we cannot insist that the banks participate in the project.

The hon. Member for Isle of Wight said that I had spent too much time talking about the wider issues and not enough time talking about the Post Office card account. Much of the wider debate so far—and much of this debate—has tended to give pensioners in particular the impression that they have to open a card account to access their pensions or benefits at a post office. That erroneous presentation of the actual situation will damage the future of the Post Office.

Why should we change the existing arrangements? The hon. Gentleman says that he is not defending order books, and I am pleased to hear that—order books came in with ration books, and I think we all agree that they have had their day. Certain Conservative Members are shaking their heads—they want to keep the order books. In April 2000, in this Chamber, a former Secretary of State for Trade and Industry said that

"the process of distributing benefits by order books was one of the most costly, inefficient and fraud-prone ways of delivering money."—[Official Report, Westminster Hall, 12 April 2000; Vol. 348, c. 62WH.]

Those were the words of the right hon. Member for Hitchin and Harpenden (Mr. Lilley).

No Conservative Member mentioned order books. We hope that the Government's hopes for the banking system come off. Perhaps the Minister will address the main thrust of the debate, which is that an incredibly difficult system is geared to drive pensioners into not applying for card accounts. Will he answer the questions that we have asked? Will he come up with a simpler system, so that people can apply for card accounts?

Given an opportunity to do so, I shall deal with that point. I am pleased to see that the hon. Gentleman is also confirming that he is not in favour of order books. We know that order books would have disappeared long ago had the Conservative Government's plans been pursued.

Are we discouraging people from taking up a Post Office card account? If that were Government policy, we would be making a rather poor fist of it. Almost 2 million people have already said that they wish to open a Post Office card account. Eventually, the number of Post Office card accounts will exceed our operating assumption of 3 million. In the last month alone the number of pensioners requesting Post Office card accounts has increased by almost a third. Hon. Members have suggested that we are discouraging people from applying for Post Office card accounts by making the process very difficult, but if so, how have 2 million people managed to get through that very difficult maze to open a Post Office card account well in advance of the 2005 deadline? These figures disprove the suggestion that we are trying to discourage people.

However, the Post Office card account will not be the best option for some people. It will not accept direct payment of wages, so it will not make people ready to take on a job. The guidance given by Jobcentre Plus has been mentioned, but it is the responsibility of Jobcentre Plus to make it clear to people that if they have only a Post Office card account, they are not job-ready. The Post Office card account will also not allow people to access discounts on their fuel bills by paying by direct debit. It is an electronic order book. I suspect that every hon. Member present pays their fuel bills by direct debit in order to get a discount, yet they wish to deny that option to many of our customers.

We have emphasised all along that we want people to continue to collect their benefit or pension from the post office if they wish to do so. They will be able to do that by accessing their bank, building society or Post Office card account at the post office, rather than by using the order book, which is what they currently do. We have made it clear that although we have reprieved order books from the demise planned for them by the previous Government, they will be phased out in 2005. That is the fact of the matter. The hon. Member for Isle of Wight was upset that people had been told that.

Will the Minister give way?

In a moment. The hon. Gentleman suggested that sub-postmasters and mistresses could not advise people about the Post Office card account. I made it clear to him that the Post Office produces leaflets and posters that state:

"Collect benefits and state pensions in cash here."

We are doing everything we can to allow the Post Office to promote its position as a purveyor of financial services. That is where its future lies.

We are committed to the future of the post office network. As the hon. Member for North Shropshire (Mr. Paterson) suggested, the local post office—and, frequently, the shop that is linked to it—is often the heart of a community. I, like other constituency Members, have witnessed the heartache that can be caused by the suggestion that a local post office should close. We are committed to maintaining that network as far as we can: we have put in £2 billion over five years, there has been investment in post office technology and, as the hon. Gentleman mentioned, there has been £450 million for rural post offices. I will have to write to him to answer his specific question about how that might help his own post office. We are determined to support the post office network, but we do not believe that we can secure its future by continuing with order books and giros.

Will my hon. Friend address the point that I raised regarding the visually impaired and the disabled, who may not be able to use a complicated four-digit code?

I was about to address that point. My hon. Friend is a vigorous campaigner on behalf of such groups. I have been holding meetings with representatives of organisations such as the Royal National Institute of the Blind and other groups representing visually impaired people about both the process of direct payment, of which they are in favour, and how we can devise an exceptions service to make sure that those who are unable to access a bank account have the opportunity to receive their money through an alternative—probably cheque-based—method. We also discussed the changes that the Post Office is trying to make to ensure that people with those disabilities can access a Post Office card account through the post office through the improvements in the personal identification number pad.

We have been trying to ensure that we can secure both the future of the post office network and financial inclusion for our customers, and I hope that the hon. Members who have contributed to this important debate will join us.

It is a pleasure to instigate a full debate on progress2work, and I am delighted that there will be time for other colleagues to discuss their experience. I should like to begin by painting the backdrop, using my constituency as an illustration, because it demonstrates the current position possibly more vividly than any other part of the country.

Since I was elected, the constituency has had the largest fall in unemployment of any constituency in Britain. Indeed, month by month, over the past six months, it has consistently been in the top four in respect of rolled forward annual reductions in unemployment. To all intents and purposes, putting aside the small number of people always between jobs and those with a class A drug addiction, we have full employment. If one talks to employers in the area, there are skill shortages, some of which are long standing, some of which are newer and more unusual, such as the shortage of forklift truck drivers, and are being addressed. There is nothing unusual about an occasional skill shortage. There are no particular worries, other than in relation to traditional building skills, and that is true of the rest of the country.

There is, however, a general labour shortage. A number of major companies have problems finding employees able and willing to take the jobs on offer. Four weeks ago, one of my constituents challenged me—unwisely, if I may say so—about the availability of jobs. I kept a diary of all jobs advertised in all my local newspapers. He now has a permanent job. He did not have a drug addiction, but had some significant disability issues. He was very angry four weeks ago, but wished me a happy new year as I returned to Parliament.

The backdrop is important. We do not have mass unemployment—although we did when the pits closed. We do not have lots of unemployed people who cannot find work. We have a precise and specific problem. That problem will worsen due to further good news. B and Q has announced the creation of 1,200 new jobs. Other companies such as Terberg Matec and Hazelwood have recently announced permanent, full-time job increases owing to the success of the economy. That has not happened before. In the past, we had to shift people around the country, as the Nottinghamshire pits opened later than the rest. Even in those days, there was unemployment. The concept of full employment is new.

I campaigned for Finningley airport not only for the right to fly where we choose—we are not nimbys in my area—but for its job-creation possibilities. We shall struggle to find people to fill the jobs in, for example, the three new hotels being built, and in the construction and servicing of the new terminal. We shall continue to have general labour shortages. That is a good position to be in because wages will be pushed up. Standards of living are going up commensurately more than ever before. That is a very rosy picture.

The one problem is benefit recipients who could work: those people who have a class A drug addiction. In my area, virtually every one is a heroin addict. Most of them have not worked. They have a chequered history in terms of housing, the criminal justice system and employment.

The general picture is that those people find work when they feel capable of working. I make no slight on their motivation, because most of them are keen to get hold of money for obvious reasons—to feed their addiction—and would prefer to earn money rather than steal. A minority are criminals who become drug addicts.

Progress2work was set up to deal with precisely that group of people. Indeed, it differentiates between them. It is set up to deal with the easy entrants, the non-chaotic drug users. The Government programmes in my area have been outstanding successes. Some of those currently dealing with drug addiction are outstanding successes. The action team for jobs and the custody to work initiative have been and are tremendous successes. However, one programme stands out as being only a partial success. I would not describe it as a failure, but it needs to be a full success, because we are talking about the key group—indeed, the only group—who are unemployed in my constituency, both now and for the foreseeable future.

Let us start with a definition of chaotic versus non-chaotic, because that is fundamental. I am not sure who is competent to differentiate between a chaotic and a non-chaotic drug user. Where a difference can be shown—with progress2work across the country, it has been—is between a drug user and a drug addict. Often, the drug of choice is part of the differentiation. Drug users may be in and out of the criminal justice system and in and out of work. They use drugs on occasion. They may use them regularly, but they are not addicted to them. They tend to be less chaotic and more available for work. In fact, they tend to work for periods.

Those people may take a cocktail of drugs at times. They tend to take cocaine. In my area, they occasionally take crack cocaine. They take cannabis. They take amphetamines. They take drugs on a non-injecting basis. They do not wake up on a morning requiring drugs to get through the day—they choose to take drugs. If they take stimulants such as amphetamines or crack cocaine and commit crimes, they may well end up, in a circuitous way, on progress2work, because they are quite happy to get back into work.

Of the addicts in my area who are injecting, about 30 inject amphetamines and the rest inject heroin. They wake up on a morning requiring drugs. In my analysis, the heroin addicts and the other drug addicts are not going through progress2work. Let me explain why and the fundamental weakness in progress2work.

I have the statistics for Bassetlaw. Over the existence of progress2work, 10 people have gone into jobs through that programme. The number is 25 according to my hon. Friend the Minister's figures, which I wholly accept, for north Nottinghamshire, which covers four constituencies, over the two years. Those are very small numbers when we consider that the number of known addicts, not users, in the catchment area is about 3,000. The numbers are tiny, but the definitions in respect of progress2work include users as well as addicts.

I follow the structure of my hon. Friend's argument. If I understand it properly, the challenge that he poses for progress2work is to do more with greater numbers in a comparatively short term. In north Nottinghamshire, of the 114 starts in progress2work in the comparatively short period since the programme has been running, 25 people have moved into work and seven have been sustained in work for more than 13 weeks. My hon. Friend knows the challenges that that customer group faces. Does he not think that, given the number of people involved in the programme, those measures of success are quite impressive?

I thank the Minister for his intervention, but I draw the opposite conclusion. It is not my desire to diss progress2work, which was an appropriate Government expenditure. However, the results were very poor.

My hon. Friend is courteous in giving way in this important debate. My point is that, in terms of entries into work, the programme in his area enjoys a success rate of 22 per cent. As I hope to show later, that is among the best there is, even set against the best international comparisons for people who have taken on the challenge of that group of people in labour market programmes. Does he know of programmes that can produce better success rates in terms of job entries than 22 per cent?

I will answer the Minister directly. I certainly do know of such programmes in Australia, New Zealand, Sweden and the Netherlands, which I have visited. I am visiting France to look at programmes in two weeks' time. I can give precise details of the systems in operation in those countries and show why they are more successful.

I do not want to enter into an argument about the figures, as it is the methodology that needs to be changed, but the figures for Bassetlaw show that only three people out of the 600 identifiable heroin addicts are in sustained work. That simply is not good enough. I know most of the addicts—more than 120 of them were at the public inquiry into heroin—and have assisted people to get back to work. My record is comparable with that of progress2work; indeed, in terms of sustainability, it is better.

Let me explain why there is a problem with progress2work. My view is shared, in confidence, by many of the agencies involved in the programme—I have spoken consistently to them in the past 18 months about what they are doing, why they are doing it and how they are doing it, to try to find out what does and does not work and to identify specific problems. There is one core theme. The progress2work system is straightforward. The order in which things are dealt with is, in essence, housing, employment, health and that is the fundamental weakness that causes the problems.

The logic is that people will not get work if they are not in proper housing—if, for example, they leave prison and cannot find housing they will not get a job. Therefore, sorting out housing becomes item number one. Some good progress2work agents have extremely good systems for sorting out housing. Some argue that that should not be their job, that housing should be sorted out first and that people should then go to the agencies. Finding employment is more difficult, but the health issues are not addressed.

The order in which it should work—indeed, it is how it works in Sweden, the Netherlands, Australia and New Zealand—is health, housing, employment. The time difference between the three may be significant. The concept that someone who was a drug addict would go back into work and not have their health issues initially dealt with is not one that those countries would understand. In the Swedish example, which is the best model and is the best resourced, health comes first and foremost.

Over the past seven months, GPs' ongoing and successful treatment of heroin addicts has risen from none to approximately 100. That is just within my constituency. We have 100 people who are no longer using heroin and are in treatment via a GP. The system should work, so that the people who have received health treatment are moved to stable housing. From stable housing, they should then get into employment.

The second major structural problem with progress2work is that there is no employer involvement. In my area, no employer is directly involved. I used to be involved in this kind of thing with engineering workers; I dealt with job losses and retraining. It is easy to put on a skills course—I was employed through my union to put on courses—but to get people back into sustained work is a different ball game.

I shall talk about the employers in my area and explain why the scheme does not work, and why their engagement is fundamental. The biggest employer is Hazelwood. Why does not Hazelwood take on people who have or who have had a drug problem? It will not do so because it is a food company. It does not want the word to get out that a food company is employing druggies—it has been clear about that in private, although a bit more reticent publicly.

It is difficult to engage the company in the idea of employing drug users, although I know that it has had a number of class A drug users among its employees. It is fundamental that it accepts that it will need to take on such people because that is the pool of labour available.

Another major employer, Wilkinson, does not take on people who have a criminal record for theft. That excludes class A drug users with a heroin addiction, who will have a criminal record for theft. The third biggest employer is Rampton hospital, which again does not take on people who have a criminal record for theft. The fourth employer is Bassetlaw hospital, which, although it will not say so, has not yet managed to take on someone who has had a class A drug addiction because it is a health institution. There is no logic in that. The engagement of employers is fundamental.

I shall refer to other moneys that have been thrown at the issue. We have criminal justice intervention money for the whole of Nottinghamshire. We also have continuous treatment money from the Home Office. On 23 December, the drug alcohol action team allocated £540,000 to the re-employment of people.

That is a lot of money, but it is money well spent. That should be intertwined with progress2work. Through the DAAT, progress2work is setting up an employer advisory committee, engaging employers in precisely how to take people on and explaining that there will be support. The key support for the employer, above all else, is the GP. A person might be undergoing treatment from the GP. A heroin addict might receive either subutex or methadone as a substitute—in the Swedish, Australian, New Zealand and Dutch models, people use that for three, four, five or more years. The GP is the verifier for them to remain on treatment.

When I speak to employers, they say that they will be happy to consider changing their policy of not employing those people if the person who gives them validation for their success in being drugs-free is the GP. One of the structural problems with progress2work is that there is no such validation, just an assertion that the person is drugs-free.

DAATs were not even involved in the tendering process. We need a merging of what the DAATs and progress2work do if the latter is to succeed. There is variability across the country. It is a bit of a Cinderella operation. There is a range of voluntary groups, some of which are dabbling in every single aspect of drugs, whatever that means. Some dabble in residential rehabilitation.

Let me describe some of the problems with the statistics when it comes to residential rehabilitation and say what that means for progress2work, because in essence the same methodology is being used. What I say will not be of any comfort to the main Opposition party, because—unlike the Government, thankfully—their entire drugs policy is to have more residential rehabilitation. With residential rehabilitation, there is an immediate drop-off of about 40 per cent. Under progress2work, the drop-out rate on the 13 programmes is 37.5 per cent. Others have put the immediate drop-out rate at around 40 per cent.

With residential rehabilitation, people go through a programme and remain drug-free throughout it. When they leave—it is a bit like when they leave progress2work—they slip back into taking drugs. The success rate worldwide of residential rehabilitation programmes is 2 per cent. That is similar to the success rate for progress2work if it deals with class A drug users, unless there is an ongoing linkage with the health service, which in the community can only be made through the GP.

There is a problem that is not the responsibility or fault of the Department for Work and Pensions. It was inherited when the programme was set up. It is the reason why, uniquely among the DWP's successful programmes, this one has been far less successful, and that is the model for drugs treatment. That model has, until the last six months, been one of detox and sending people back into the community. The message is, "You're clean of drugs. Off you go, my friend. Go sort yourself out and, by the way, here are programmes to help you sort yourself out."

That is well meaning and, if taken in the right context, potentially very effective but all the evidence from across the world demonstrates that success with heroin addiction using a detox model is practically nil. No country has any evidence of the detox model working. The only two countries that have persevered with it have been the United States and the United Kingdom but, thankfully, there have been changes—I have been pressing for such changes since I came to the House—to the National Treatment Agency for Substance Misuse in the past six months.

We are shifting away from that model, and Nottinghamshire is shifting away from it faster than anywhere else. That is why there are 100 people in drugs treatment who are no longer committing crime. They are the people who should be using progress2work, and there are questions to be asked about the linkages and why those people are not being fed in.

The heart of progress2work is the fact that it is a voluntary programme. People are not fed into the programme at all. The people from my hon. Friend's constituency and area who come into progress2work do so as volunteers. It is important that that issue is understood in relation to the size of the challenge that drug users present in his constituency and area. The programme is not intended to be the whole solution to the drugs problem of that area. It is part of a network of solutions.

Again, the Minister, I fear, misses the point. With only three people in sustained employment, progress2work is only a very small part when there are 600 heroin addicts on the unemployment register in the constituency. Of the 89 referrals for progress2work, only 10 have been self-referrals. Of course, we cannot compel people—well, we can, but that is not the current approach. However, some of the health treatment has been voluntary. The 100 people with GPs volunteered to go for treatment. I would like the matter to become more straightforward. If a drug addict commits a crime, they should have treatment or go to prison. I would like to see more sanctions built in, and that is precisely the Government's approach with the criminal justice intervention programme—heavy sanctions are built in.

In Bassetlaw, there were no specific police officers allocated to arrest and referral duties, but an agreement has been reached with my local police force and we now have five such officers. There will now be a lot of arrest and referral there. As we have CJIP money across Nottinghamshire, there is compulsory drug testing in the custody suites of all police stations in the county. That offers progress2work a unique opportunity that is not available anywhere else in the country: to get people into treatment, knowing what drugs they have been on, and to get the system the right way round so that people are in treatment with their GP in the community, rather than with a drugs worker—a newly qualified psychology graduate, 20, 30 or 50 miles away. Thankfully, that system has been adopted in Britain at last, after 30 years.

The key issue for progress2work and the employment service is how to get the employers on board. The evidence from the Netherlands is not optimistic. It has been found that small employers there are significantly more likely to take on people who have had a drug addiction or who have ongoing drug problems than large employers. We do not have small employers in my area; in many coalfield areas, small employers are few in number. We have large employers. So we cannot simply rely on small employers. We need to track the large employer situation.

I have some suggestions. We need not to get rid of the progress2work programme but to make it permanent, despite its shortcomings and its weak levels of success. We need to tighten up the tendering process significantly. Not any Tom, Dick and Harry can claim to do voluntary drugs work, but in Britain that scenario has not been far off. Some people in the voluntary sector have a good track record. Some have a weak one. The progress2work programme is beginning to expose some of those with a weak track record. For some, such voluntary work can be like money for old rope if they are not held accountable, as the DAATs are.

I have just mentioned the £540,000 extra that has gone into the Nottinghamshire DAAT, which is held properly accountable with performance management indicators from Government and the National Treatment Agency for Substance Misuse. Sustained employment has to be a critical part of that accountability. The Minister will say that Jobcentre Plus is keen to have targets per worker, but that will not work until the progress2work initiative has caught up with the time changes by the Department of Health and the Home Office. That means that we should not deal with class A drug users as we have done.

A fundamental weakness has been to say housing, then employment, then health. Evidence from progress2work shows that that order of priorities has never succeeded other than for tiny numbers. We should do it the other way round, with health first. We should keep people in treatment, then ensure that their housing is sorted and then sort out their employment.

I suggest to the Minister that Nottinghamshire and and north Nottinghamshire would be ideal places to evaluate independently the different routes into work of those who have gone through progress2work and those who have gone into treatment through the primary care trust—through one of the GPs—so that we get the best from both models in terms of getting people into work.

Finally, employer involvement at local level is crucial. Employers must not only be engaged but challenged, and those who are not prepared to take on people must be exposed if that is necessary. If success is to be achieved, they will require a validation from the health service that people are no longer taking drugs, rather than simply an assertion from someone who is being paid to put those people into work that they are no longer doing so. That is a small alteration, but it will fundamentally change the results of progress2work.

I offer Nottinghamshire as the ideal place for the Minister to try some new methodology—to set up an employer forum and to throw progress2work and the DAAT initiatives on employment together, so that they work as one. If that is done, we will have the best of all worlds and this welcome initiative will have the same amazingly successful results as other Government initiatives on employment have had in my constituency over the past six years.

rose—

Order. To be helpful, I remind hon. Members that it is customary in a 90-minute Adjournment debate in this Chamber for the first of the three winding-up speakers to commence 30 minutes before the conclusion, which means that we have 29 minutes left. I ask the Members who are seeking to catch my eye to bear that in mind when they make their contributions, which should be pertinent and as brief as possible, and if they are tempted to take interventions and respond to them.

I am delighted both that my hon. Friend the Member for Bassetlaw (John Mann) secured this debate and that I am present—as delighted as I was on Monday 24 November last year when I was asked to launch progress2work in Aberdeen. That is partly why I am present today.

What my hon. Friend has said is interesting. The criticisms that he makes of progress2work in his area are precisely the strengths of the one that is operating in Aberdeen, so perhaps his arguments have been listened to. I suggest that many of failings in the implementation of progress2work schemes that he has mentioned have been addressed, and I hope that what I have to say will show that that is the case.

It was Jobcentre Plus in Aberdeen that decided that it wanted to introduce progress2work. I must give it credit for realising that providing the specialist help that is needed to get drug addicts and recovering drug addicts into work was not its forte, and for turning therefore to an organisation called Aberdeen Foyer, which is experienced in dealing with getting into work not only hard-to-place young people but drug addicts.

Aberdeen Foyer started as a housing association. It provided housing for people—predominantly the young—who could not sustain tenancy in any other way. Part of its role is to move young people through the process of getting into permanent housing. It runs several housing projects. It is an innovative organisation. It has been quick to tap into various Government moneys and projects that have helped young people, particularly those with chaotic lifestyles such as drug addicts and those who have just come out of the criminal justice system, back into work and mainstream society. It has a proven track record. As a result, I am hopeful that progress2work in my area will be successful.

Despite the fact that progress2work was set up only a little more than a month ago, it already has 14 active cases and two people in full-time employment. It is far too early to tell whether these jobs will be sustained, because they have not been going for 13 weeks. Yesterday, however, when I spoke to the people involved in progress2work in Aberdeen, they were very positive, partly because they have involved employers, which answers one of the criticisms from my hon. Friend. In fact, much of the work has been done not only with drug addicts themselves, but with employers. Persuading employers to break down stigma against drug addicts has been a part of the work of the people involved in progress2work in Aberdeen, as well as persuading them that there will be ongoing support.

One of the big problems for any hard-to-place group is that, often, in most of the other new deals, help ends after the 13 weeks, if it lasts that long. Once someone has been in employment for 13 weeks, it is regarded as a success. For most long-term unemployed people, that is fine because the statistics suggest that, once a person has been in work for 13 weeks, they will probably continue working for six months or a year, and that if that person loses their job, they will get back to work relatively quickly because they have a track record of work.

The problem with drug addicts or recovering drug addicts is that that support needs to be much longer. That is what progress2work recognises. Help is targeted not just targeted at the person who needs it but at the employers. Ongoing support will be there. It will not disappear. In fact, help will be sustained beyond the 13 weeks, a recognition that 13 weeks is a relatively short time in which to get someone back into work from what was a chaotic lifestyle.

Aberdeen Foyer has been successful because it has been working with that client group for some time. It has had a number of them on the so-called life shaper programme. That has helped them to get ready to work. In answer to the point raised by my hon. Friend, we have an extensive methadone programme in the Grampian health region and the route from addiction to good health is through methadone. Large numbers of people are on methadone. Many young people, once they are established on the methadone programme, have come to Aberdeen Foyer, have been through the life shaper programme, which has not managed to get them into work. They have now graduated, if you like, to progress2work. It is progress2work that will finally identify suitable employment, get them into jobs and support them in doing so.

Aberdeen Foyer also works with the Prince's Trust. It is hopeful that, if it cannot find a job for a person at a particular time, it will be able to get them into one of the voluntary programmes run by the Prince's Trust. That would make them more likely to be able to get long-term employment, because they will have a track record of being in work and it will look much better on their CV if they have been involved in voluntary work.

It is worth pointing out that, until progress2work came along, there were no central Government-funded programmes specifically to help recovering and recovered drug addicts into work. There were local initiatives that were often starved of funds, that struggled against the prejudice that said "We might as well write these people off. There is no point in attempting to get them into work because who is going to employ them anyway?" I am very proud that this Government have changed that whole atmosphere, that we are not writing off anyone, whether they have a severe disability, are lone parents, have been out of work for years, or have been a drug addict or a criminal. As a Government, we now say that anyone, provided that they want to—that is crucial—should be given the support and help to get them into jobs.

That is a worth while and something that was brought home to me on 24 November, when I launched the progress2work in Aberdeen. I met the young people involved. One chap who had been in and out of prison most of his life, for the first time thought that he might be able to make a go of it. A young woman said that, 12 months before, she was in a black hole and that she could not see how she could ever get out of that black hole. The opportunity that she was given was the beginning of the rest of her life. Suddenly, there was a way out of the black hole. I became emotionally involved when I heard her stories. I felt uplifted that, for the first time, those young people had the prospect and hope that they would make a go of it, get a job, return to the life that the rest of us take for granted and be part of society.

I welcome the progress2work programme. It is still early days, but I hope that my hon. Friend will take it from me that lessons have been learned regarding many of the criticisms that he raised. I hope—I keep my fingers firmly crossed—that the Aberdeen progress2work programme will be successful, and that many more people than the 14 already involved will find work.

I also congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Bassetlaw (John Mann) on securing this debate. As he knows, I spent a period of my life working in Bassetlaw. It is a nice part of the world and I am pleased to hear about the general success in employment. Sheffield is not doing as well, although the situation has improved over the past several years. It still relies on objective 1 money from Europe because it is an area of deprivation. I am concerned about the range of people who have been unable to benefit from the new jobs in the area. Those people might not have had the necessary skills for the job, they might have been long-term unemployed, or they might have had problems such as substance misuse. Therefore, the programme is extremely welcome.

In Sheffield, the programme is jointly run by Sheffield Futures, which is a careers guidance service, and Phoenix House, which is a long-established organisation for helping people with substance misuse problems and drug addiction. There is a high level of expertise in the labour market and in supporting people who are struggling to give up drugs and live a drug-free life. Phoenix House employs people to work directly with former drug users to help them back into work.

The scheme in Sheffield has been running since April 2002. The co-ordinator, David Lythall, told me that there was a slow initial take-up of the programme, which is expected with such schemes. However, establishing the fundamental basis of the programme was important for making connections with the number of agencies involved, for example the criminal justice agencies and the treatment services. A good fundamental working network emerged between the programme and those groups already working in the area. I worked in the social care sector for many years and was concerned that people with problems would need to carry a filofax, or the electronic equivalent, to store the details of all the people and agencies with which they were in contact. Establishing co-ordination of support among those groups can be difficult. The progress2work organisation in Sheffield deals with and receives referrals from 22 agencies. The complexity of the sector is clear.

There has been a large drop-out rate in Sheffield. It is important to examine whether that is to be expected. Having decided to come off drugs and establish a life in the community, many drug users hope that something will happen quickly. However, the reality is that arranging everything that needs to be in place to enable them to get into work—not just any work but a job that meets their desires and needs and that they can sustain over a period—does not necessarily happen very quickly. As with many programmes for drug users to get over and work through drug addiction, there must be a recognition that people sometimes need to do it several times before they get to the stage where they can be reintegrated into society fully, go to work and maintain relationships in the same way as the rest of the population.

What works really well in the service in Sheffield is the one-to-one relationship with the workers, who provide support and who really are able to build up a rapport with individual users. It is a tremendous credit to the service, which has only two workers, that it has already had 150 starts this year, with another three months still to go of the programme. It continues to support 100 of the 150 people who started the programme.

The service's approach is to work through the barriers that stop people on the programme from getting into work. As my hon. Friend the Member for Aberdeen, South (Miss Begg) said, there are clear differences between programmes. My hon. Friend the Member for Bassetlaw said that it is necessary to deal with health first, then housing and then work. That is exactly the approach that is taken in Sheffield. The issues around health, stabilisation and treatment programmes are dealt with before accommodation and, finally, work, but at the same time consideration is given to whether people are getting the right benefits and support to enable them to live in the community.

There is a recognition that it may take as many as six months from the time a person first enters the programme until they get into work. Someone who comes out of prison and is drug free at that time may find that that can happen much more quickly, but there are success stories about those who have gone through a longer process. In addition to getting people into work, we must also take into account that some people need to build skills and that perhaps going into further education, whether part time or full time, and gaining skills and qualifications would be the right way.

Most people find that it takes some time to get through and that they might not make it the first time. Some people are much more motivated, but there are other barriers, which could be addressed in other ways. An issue that was raised by my project in Sheffield was the difficulty with some of the eligibility criteria for various programmes. For example, one can access the new deal only if one is on jobseeker's allowance. If one has been a drug user and has been on incapacity benefit, perhaps for a long time, the idea of losing that safety net to move to the jobseeker's allowance before going into a programme may be very scary and difficult. Therefore, I ask the Minister whether the Department could give consideration to these schemes and to whether there could be some flexibility on the eligibility for work programmes, rather than always having strict criteria that mean that one has to be on jobseeker's allowance to access them.

In terms of moving into employment, it has been interesting to hear my hon. Friends the Members for Bassetlaw and for Aberdeen, South discuss whether there has been access to employers. The view in Sheffield is that giving people a progress2work label might not be helpful because of what it means and because of fears about drug users and former drug users, as well as people with a criminal record. At the moment, nothing, has been done to build links with employers.

The other key lesson that I want pull out of both this debate and my discussions is that the different approaches across the country may cause some of the problems. Although there is always a benefit to allowing different schemes to develop in different areas in different ways, the important step is allowing people to learn from good practice in other areas. I understand that regional co-ordinators have meetings at the national level to share information, and that that must be done formally, so that issues can be picked up.

I want to discuss the co-ordinator role, which is performed by a member of staff at Jobcentre Plus in Sheffield. It is important that it is within Jobcentre Plus and that someone on the drug alcohol action team performs it—my hon. Friend the Member for Bassetlaw raised that issue. That strong link means that all the work done within the area by the drug alcohol action team is linked to the progress2work scheme. I welcome the implementation of the programme, but lessons can be learned from across the country and there is scope to examine how it works and to improve it.

I should like to see schemes expanded to meet the full need in an area. In my area, it is clear that the scheme will overshoot expectations. Two workers deliver the programme at a cost of about £750 per service user, which is good. A lot of work has been done, and it could be built on further to improve the programme.

Eight minutes remaining.

Mr. Cook,

"But at my back I always hear

Time's winged chariot hurrying near".

I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Bassetlaw (John Mann) on securing the debate. This is about the sixth Adjournment debate that he has secured, and I have taken part in all of them. His constituency and mine face similar issues. As former mining constituencies they have many of the same socioeconomic and labour market problems. We are both engaged politically today and our constituencies face many of the same challenges.

My constituency currently has an unemployment claimant level of only 5.4 per cent.—most people would be shocked to hear that the unemployment level in the Rhondda is only 5.4 per cent. Unemployment in the Rhondda has halved since 1997. Only 1,103 people in the Rhondda are actively seeking work, which is a 44 per cent. fall since 1997. In case the hon. Member for Tatton (Mr. Osborne) is working out the mathematics—it does not sound as though the figures add up—many of us in the Rhondda are getting older, and fewer people are of working age.

We still have a dramatic problem with the number of people who live lives of benefit. The number of people claiming disability living allowance in my constituency has risen by 25 per cent. since 1997. The number of people on incapacity benefit has fallen by 25 per cent. The overall figure is coming down, but that still means that roughly 30 per cent. of working age people in my constituency are on incapacity benefit, which is a significant problem. If the first challenge for the socialist Labour Government was to tackle the scourge of unemployment, the second challenge must be to give people a better opportunity than a permanent life on benefit. That is why the issues that we are discussing today—the tough end of trying to enable people to get into work—are an essential part of a Labour Government's job.

Part of the problem in the Rhondda is new. In the past 10 years, we have seen a dramatic increase in the number of people with drug dependency problems and, in particular, heroin problems. So far, we have been lucky and crack cocaine has not made a significant inroad into the Rhondda, but heroin is a major and depressing part of life for many families across the Rhondda Fach and the Rhondda Fawr. For more than a century, alcohol has played a similarly destructive part in the lives of many families. I am glad that the Welsh Assembly and my local authority have been trying to work as closely together as possible to tackle the scourge of drug and alcohol dependency.

Employers' perceptions are also a problem. Those perceptions relate not just to those with drug and alcohol problems but to those who have been in prison. It may be that only 14 per cent. of employers in the UK say that, whatever the offence that somebody has committed, they would not employ that person, but the problem is worse locally, where many employers are nervous about employing people with a criminal record in a community that is tightly knit, where everybody knows everybody and where people cannot get away with pretending not to know someone's past.

The challenge is significant. First, we should help those who know that a life on benefits is not the fullest possible life, and, secondly, we should help the most difficult people to help—those are the people that progress2work is aimed at. I am talking about people with drug and alcohol problems, the homeless and those who have a criminal record. Helping those people involves joined-up thinking—I hate to use new Labour jargon. That is important if we are to achieve any outcome for any of the individuals or families that we are talking about.

Historically, it has been difficult to get the joined-up thinking that we need in Wales. Devolution has made it somewhat more difficult because we have to get the Welsh Assembly's health priorities to match the UK-wide health priorities, and the probation service to work with the local authority. Different cycles and sources of funding have made things significantly more difficult.

There is also the problem that 35 to 40 per cent. of GPs in the Rhondda are likely to retire in the next five to six years. That is a dramatic issue. Should we be training more GPs now to ensure that they have the skills to deal with drug and alcohol dependency, or should we be trying to ensure that we get new GPs coming to work in the valleys who already have the skills to deal with the challenges of the future?

Essential to any likely success in the programme—ours has been running for more than 18 months—is the idea of treating people as individuals rather than as numbers and statistics. I visited the Jobcentre Plus in Tonypandy—or Ikealand as it is known by many of my constituents—just before Christmas. Not only the change in lay-out of the building, but the change in mentality that has been brought about by taking down the screens and creating a secure environment in a different way has radically transformed people's experience of the service. It does not feel like going into a fortress anymore. When people go into the Jobcentre Plus, it feels like someone might be interested in them, their skills and abilities, and how to get them the opportunity of work. Binding together the Employment Service and the Benefits Agency has been an absolutely positive experience.

In that context, the work of TEDS—TEDS has the local contract; it used to be known as Taff Ely drug services, but it cleverly changed its name to treatment and education drug services, so that it could cover more than Taff Ely, which is just part of the area—must fit integrally into the broader job of trying to give more people work opportunities. Contrary to the experience of my hon. Friend the Member for Bassetlaw, we have had 120 people use the service so far, and 76 of them have had positive outcomes of some kind.

indicated dissent.

I am sorry, but I am going from the statistics that I have. Some 76 people have had positive outcomes of some kind. My hon. Friend may think that the only kind of positive outcome is sustainable work. There are five people who have gone into sustainable work. However, as he said, we shall often be dealing with people who have very chaotic lifestyles who need to go in and out—[Interruption.] I note what you are signifying to me, Mr. Cook.

I make the simple point that one of the biggest difficulties we shall always face is not that of providing more drug treatment services but that of housing. Many of those with drug dependency problems are going into wholly inappropriate housing either because the local community is unable to cope with them or because the houses are uninhabitable due to the fact that an unscrupulous landlord has not made them habitable. Until we solve that problem, we will be unable to make the radical changes we still need to make in this area.

I add my congratulations to the hon. Member for Bassetlaw (John Mann) on securing the debate. There are two general background issues that should be considered before we consider progress2work. One is how we perceive the drug problem as a whole. Unlike alcohol or nicotine, for a long time, drug addiction has been seen as a crime rather than an illness, especially from the 1970s onwards, when GPs were prevented from prescribing heroin to addicts. There has been some improvement in that attitude, and all credit to the current Government for taking some steps in that direction. I shall return to that point later.

There is also the question of the new deal framework, within which progress2work is one of many different schemes. One of the many criticisms of the new deal is that it has primarily dealt with the easy to place. Many reports—from the Public Accounts Committee, the National Audit Office and internal research at the Department for Work and Pensions have—indicated that many of those who have got jobs under the new deal would have got those jobs anyway during a 10-year period of constant economic growth. New deal resources have also been dissipated in the blanket interviews that were introduced for invalidity benefit claimants and single parents.

The new deal has been criticised for ignoring the hard to place, such as disabled people, although the Shaw Trust is doing work for the Department with difficultto-place disabled people. Now, we have progress2work, which is a step in the right direction—

I do not want to prevent the hon. Gentleman from rehearsing some of the reasons why his party does not support the new deal, despite its enormous success throughout the country, but progress2work is not a new deal programme.

I thank the Minister for the specific correction. Most people would see progress2work as working in the framework of the new deal. It is interlinked with Jobcentre Plus and the programmes it offers. If it is not a new deal programme, may I suggest that the Government make it a flagship of a new new deal, if they move on from the blanket new deal approach, which most reports indicate is of little practical use.

Progress2work is a step in the right direction. The hon. Member for Bassetlaw said that but, as he noted, it is a limited step in the right direction. It concentrates on those whose drug problem is, to a large extent, solved. The problems of people at the end of the cycle of drug addiction. offences, imprisonment, rehabilitation and detoxification are not so severe. The hon. Member for Bassetlaw described eloquently the difference between chaotic and non-chaotic lifestyles among former drug addicts.

My constituency of Chesterfield has a great deal in common with Bassetlaw. The town was largely built upon mining, associated engineering and a small amount of associated steel and chemical industry, almost all of which have been completely wiped out during the last two decades. As in Bassetlaw, unemployment is no longer the massive problem that it was in the early 1990s, when the pits were closed overnight, or during the 1980s, but it is still higher than the national average.

The problems of drug use in a community such as Chesterfield are found in every community in every part of the town. Similarly, they are found in public schools such as Eton, and in inner-city schools. Drug problems are not confined to one part of the community, but they are at their most intense in areas of traditional social and economic deprivation. During the 1980s and 1990s, those areas were devastated by mass unemployment. The medical focus on drug addiction emphasises the illness and the detox approach mentioned by the hon. Member for Bassetlaw, who referred favourably to the approach in other countries

A social model of drug addiction would consider matters rather differently. For example, a survey said that 70 per cent. of US servicemen took heroin while they were in Vietnam, but on returning to America and a more stable lifestyle, only 3 per cent. continued taking it. One social condition led to massive drug use in one set of circumstances. Under another social condition, there was almost no drug use later. Similarly, around 1979 to 1983, the number of known registered drug addicts in the UK trebled. That happened when unemployment doubled from 1.5 million to 3 million. The social model of drug addiction based on those statistics would regard the problem as much more than just a medical illness and addiction.

The hon. Member for Bassetlaw spent a lot of time talking about how a certain frame of mind and attitude among communities in Bassetlaw or parts of Chesterfield must be broken. Those communities may no longer have the mass unemployment that triggered the problem in the 1980s and 1990s, but there is still a frame of mind in which there is peer pressure on people, and a loop of drug addiction.

Progress2work in Derbyshire is run by Phoenix Enterprises, which has a number of offices. I had the pleasure of opening its first Derbyshire office in Chesterfield before progress2work was introduced. At that time, Phoenix Enterprises told me that one of the problems of the new deal programmes it was administering was that it could not deal with the most difficult people, such as those with a drug problem. Phoenix argued that because it was a not-for-profit company, it had money of its own that it could recycle, which was not going into profit and, as far back as 2001, it was using its own funds to top up new deal money to send people to private drug rehabilitation programmes before even trying to get them into employment. Such people would normally not have been dealt with.

Andy Ellis is the operations manager for Phoenix Enterprises in Derbyshire. He is a great enthusiast for the progress2work scheme. He says that, from June 2003, when Phoenix Enterprises started in Derbyshire, to December, 116 people started the programme. The success rates have been high compared with some of the examples we have heard from other hon. Members. For example, there is a success rate of about 89 per cent. Some 42 of those 116 people have gone into permanent full-time employment, 32 have gone into full-time further or higher education courses, and 22 are on mainstream Jobcentre Plus training programmes.

Andy Ellis's Derbyshire scheme is the fourth most successful of the 44 second phase progress2work schemes, and the 11th most successful of the 75 first and second phase schemes. That is a good example for the Minister to consider. He visited the Phoenix offices in Derby at the start of the scheme. I invite him to visit the Chesterfield offices now that the scheme is under way and well proven after six or seven months.

Another success story that Andy quotes is an anonymous one from Derby. An ex-offender who had been in jail due to his drug use and associated crimes went on to do a NVQ level 3 in cookery. The course ran in the evening and he still had an electronic tag, so he could not attend. At that point, he would normally have gone back into the community and ended up reoffending. However, the progress2work scheme found him a placement in a restaurant, which turned into a full-time job, and got him a day off for college in the daytime. The scheme was able to tap into the discretionary fund and bought him a chef's uniform and a set of knives to enable him to start his full-time job.

There are other success stories. For example, the scheme has provided people with deposits for a flat, so that they can move away from the peer group pressure of their former friends and neighbours the people they grew up with who are trying to get them back into drugs after they have come off them. Then those people can start a new lifestyle and move back into work.

Andy Ellis is a great advocate of progress2work. He has, however, pointed out some problems. Many people have multiple issues, including debt, homelessness, health and all sorts of problems, about which we have heard from hon. Members. Andy believes that those problems should be dealt with in a one-stop programme, rather than having to refer people to other programmes for certain difficulties that they face. It would be cheaper; it would be less bureaucratic and it would be less of an obstacle for the individual client.

Some drug agencies in Derbyshire will categorically not refer people to the progress2work scheme. Primarily, that is due to funding. If the targets are funding led and a successful outcome means that the funding goes to, say, progress2work Phoenix Enterprises, the drug agency that had the initial referral will lose the funding. Andy Ellis suggests that drug advisory teams, for example, need to introduce referral targets and instructions to work in partnership as part of the allocation of money and contracts.

I come now to funding. Andy Ellis has five outreach workers in Derbyshire and says that, at present, he could easily use 10 outreach workers to their full capacity. Again, that may be a step in the right direction. However, as the Minister said earlier, perhaps the argument is that we do not need more of the same. The praise for, and the problems of, the schemes were reflected throughout the country by those who run them. For example, Working Links, which operates several schemes in the south of England, echoed in particular the first point made by Andy Ellis about the multiple issues faced by clients and the problems of having to refer people to different agencies and groups. He said that a one-stop shop approach, such as that in employment zones, would be a much better way in which to deal with such issues.

Another difficulty is that Jobcentre Plus managers in different parts of the country interpret the rules or flexibility of the schemes differently. In Derbyshire, the managers work extremely well with progress2work. For example, when someone with a drug problem and a chaotic lifestyle has had to drop out of a training course for a while, Jobcentre Plus in Derbyshire has waived the imposition of sanctions. I have been told that Jobcentre Plus managers in other parts of the country are not always so liberal in their interpretation of the rules concerning the imposition of sanctions.

My conclusions are that progress2work is a welcome initiative. As the Minister said, perhaps the call is for more, but not more of the same. When interpreting the way in which regulations are applied, more flexibility is needed from Jobcentre Plus managers throughout the country. A one-stop advisory approach needs to be introduced as opposed to multiple advisors or agencies. To return to the case put by the hon. Member for Bassetlaw, more intervention is needed with chronic cases, not just the cases of those who have already reached the end of the process and are mainly rehabilitated already.

Ultimately, the scheme needs more money. Where would that come from? The Treasury has a case to look at. For example, to keep the 25,000 extra people in our overcrowded prisons costs £3.5 million a year, which is £3.5,000 per inmate. Many inmates have been sent to prison for burglary, petty theft and car crime associated with obtaining the money to feed their drug habit. If they do not have work and a settled lifestyle, they will reoffend and be sent back to prison. Andy Ellis receives only £375 per client compared with the £35,000 that it costs to lock up a person. The redistribution of that money would be an obvious way in which to tackle such a major social problem.

This has been an interesting debate. I know that we are always supposed to say that. In fact, since I became a Member of the House, every hon. Member who I have heard wind up a discussion has begun by saying the debate has been interesting. However, I mean that particularly in respect of the hon. Member for Bassetlaw (John Mann). When I have heard him speak in the main Chamber, he has spoken with extraordinary passion and knowledge about the problems of drug addiction in his constituency. He has done so again today. In many ways, he is a model of how, if a person has enormous knowledge about a specific subject, that person can speak with great authority in Parliament. Having heard him speak before, I have certainly taken such a lesson from him and, having listened to him today, I have taken it again. I cannot add to his criticisms of the progress2work scheme and suggestions for its improvement because I do not have the same in-depth knowledge.

On behalf of the Conservative party, the official Opposition, I say that, despite the occasional sniping from some who have spoken today, we genuinely want the progress2work scheme to work. Naturally, we believe that there is great purpose in trying to put people with a history of drug addiction back into employment. Not only is that good for the country, because we all know the horrendous cost of drug addition to our society, but it is good for the individuals concerned. Every available piece of evidence—the statistical and personal evidence that we have from our constituencies and personal lives—is that the best way to help drug addicts out of addiction after they have received rehabilitation treatment is to try to get them into permanent housing and employment, and bring them back to the mainstream of society. We all want to achieve that.

As Members of Parliament who are here to hold the Executive to account, we should question whether the money being spent on progress2work is money well spent. Could it be better spent on different kinds of schemes and could the scheme be improved? We are talking about considerable sums of money. The Government invested £40 million in the first three years of progress2work and have committed themselves to an annual ongoing cost of around £20 million for the scheme. We are talking about large sums of money that have the capacity to do real good.

In my remaining five minutes, I should like to ask the Minister some specific questions and to pick up on some of the points made by hon. Members. First, what record does progress2work have in placing people into sustained employment? The hon. Member for Bassetlaw called it a poor record. The hon. Member for Aberdeen, South (Miss Begg) conceded that the scheme had been up and running for only a month in her constituency. The hon. Member for Sheffield, Heeley (Ms Munn) conceded that there was a slow take-up and the hon. Member for Rhondda (Chris Bryant) said that only five of his constituents had found sustained employment. What is the national record? The written answer that the Minister gave to the hon. Member for Bassetlaw in November 2003 said that, up to the end of 2002, only 31 people had been placed in sustained jobs. What are the latest figures?

Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

As the hon. Gentleman used the word "socialism" in his speech I must give way to him. It was such a first that I want to hear what he has to say now.

It was not a first and will not be a last. Although only five people went into sustained employment, 21 have gone into other jobs. Moreover, 23 people in the Rhondda have gone into other training and educational opportunities.

I accept that there may be other outcomes from the progress2work scheme, but its principal purpose is to put people into sustained employment. I merely ask the Minister to tell us the current record of progress2work.

My second question is: what is that as a proportion of the total number of people who have been in a progress2work scheme? Can the Minister confirm that there are targets? Mike Stuart of the Centre for Economic and Social Inclusion, which was involved in setting up progress2work and monitoring it, said that there was an initial target of 33 per cent. of people progressing into these jobs. That is not being achieved at the moment. I should be interested to know whether there are targets, even if they are not being achieved.

Thirdly, why does the Minister think that there is such a variation between the different districts? Hon. Members talked about the areas that they represent but it is striking that, in Plymouth, the scheme managed to get 70 people into jobs, in Glasgow, north, it managed to get 55 people into jobs and in other areas such as north Birmingham, Newcastle and Tayside, the numbers are five or fewer. Nothing is obviously different about those places, so why is there a variation? What is the Minister doing to monitor the difference in success rate, so that he can identify what works and what does not?

Fourthly, does the Minister think that there needs to be earlier involvement in the rehabilitation process by progress2work? John Hollis-Davis, chief executive of the Social Partnership in Liverpool, clearly believes that progress2work did not get involved early enough. He calls it an

"Elastoplast to cover an enormous sore".

He argues that it is simply an add-on at the end rather than being fully embedded in the system. What is the Minister doing to tackle a problem that all hon. Members have raised: the involvement of employers and persuading larger employers to engage with the scheme?

My fifth question concerns "joined-upness"—that is probably not a word. How is progress2work working with other schemes? The hon. Member for Bassetlaw gave the example of the DAAT in his having £540,000 to put people into jobs. How is that working with progress2work? There seems to be no joined-up thinking.

My final question concerns prisons, in which I have a personal interest. In my constituency, I have what is about to be the biggest women's prison in the country. At least 80 per cent. of the women are heroin addicts. The prison is about to be substantially enlarged. What is being done to help them when they come out of prison? I know that there is the fresh start initiative, but how does that interact with progress2work and what is being done with prisoners?

I find it difficult to add to the very powerful speech made by the hon. Member for Bassetlaw. We all want recovering drug addicts to be helped into full-time employment, but is progress2work working as well as the Minister hopes, and what can be done to improve it?

I add my congratulations to those of other hon. Members to my hon. Friend the Member for Bassetlaw (John Mann) on securing a debate on this important subject. I have listened carefully to the points made by him and other hon. Members. I shall try to come to them individually, and in the inadequate time left to address them as best I can. A frustration of this welcome additional debating Chamber is that issues often generate questions that the Minister is left with insufficient time to answer. I shall, however, do my best.

My hon. Friend the Member for Bassetlaw is to be congratulated not only on securing the debate but on his commitment to the issue of drug abuse in his constituency and on the work that he has done consistently since he has been a Member of this House. He may have been involved in such work before he was elected. That includes the helpful work that resulted in the Bassetlaw heroin inquiry report. One of the recommendations of that report to my Department was to roll out progress2work in other parts of his constituency. He says that his experience is relevant to his constituency but, as my hon. Friend the Member for Rhondda (Chris Bryant) said, it is reflected in constituencies across the country where there are, unfortunately, significant numbers of people suffering from class A addiction problems. That is why my Department has developed a special programme for former class A drug abusers. In my Department, we refer to those facing the greatest barriers to work as the hardest to help.

It is undoubtedly true that those who are addicted to class A drugs are among the hardest of the hardest to help. I make that point because, when Parliament makes not only the Government but those whom we charge with the responsibility of delivering programmes accountable for expenditure of public money, and when we assess whether their programmes are a success, we must realise what challenges the customers—drug abusers—present. I welcome the fact that the programmes appear to be welcomed across the House. Those customers have to overcome multi-faceted barriers because, quite often, drug addiction is only one part of a very chaotic and difficult lifestyle. It must be dealt with in many different ways.

I accept that the Government must become better at joining up those resources and the programmes for class A drug abusers, so that they work together to best effect. I cannot always promise that Department for Work and Pensions programmes can provide, for people who want to address their drug addiction problems or their longterm ambitions, a one-stop opportunity in every part of the United Kingdom, such as a work-focused one-stop centre bringing together all the support that they need. However, as the progress2work programme develops—it is in its earliest days as the first areas went live in October 2002—it will do so through the co-ordinators that we have put in place in Jobcentre Plus offices. It will also develops— through growing and building relationships with organisations such as DAATs and other organisations in the private and public sectors that work with this client group. That will increase cohesion. enable the programme to become better known and provide such opportunities to people in a better and more focused way.

Underlying some of the constructive criticism from my hon. Friend the Member for Bassetlaw and from the hon. Members for Tatton (Mr. Osborne) and for Chesterfield (Paul Holmes) was a sense that this labour market programme was under-performing. As the Minister with responsibility for the programme, I say to them that that is far from the conclusion that I have drawn. I shall seek to address the performance issues in the way in which the hon. Member for Tatton asked me to do, by giving the House the figures that he asked for. I believe those figures to be impressive, and I shall explain why.

I believe that I shared the figures with my hon. Friend the Member for Bassetlaw in a letter that I sent to him, following a recent conversation that we had. The national figures for progress2work show that, to date, 6,736 people have started the programme. Of those. 1,215 people have moved into jobs, 333 of which are described as sustained jobs. The Department defines a "sustained" job as one that a person has sustained for 13 weeks or more.

Those figures must be considered against the background that progress2work is being phased in. At present, we are in the third stage of progress2work, the first stage having gone live in October 2002, the second in July 2003 and the third in October 2003. I shall not do the mathematics for the hon. Member for Tatton by telling him what percentage 1,215 is of 6,736 he can do that for himself. Equally, I do not have to do the arithmetic for him on how long someone needs to have been in work from October 2003 for them to be considered as having a sustained job.

We need to apply a degree of common sense to the matter. We are dealing with people who are among the hardest to help, and so getting them into a programme and maintaining them in that programme is an achievement. That is why the programme is called progress2work. Although the focus in our Department is consistently on the outcomes of jobs—rightly so, because that is our business—we recognise that, with that particular client group, progress to work, as well as the outcome of jobs, is a measure of success.

It is for Parliament to decide whether that level of progress to work is consistent with the expectations of the programme when it was designed. However, the progress achieved to date is still among the best of the international comparators. My hon. Friend the Member for Bassetlaw undertook to write to me about where there were programmes that were giving better results than this one, and I am grateful for that. I will look specifically at the countries to which he referred in his speech.

Before coming to the House today, I commissioned some research on other countries that have attempted to deal with that particular client group. I discovered that, around the world, most programmes are small and some are time limited, unlike progress2work. Very few of the programmes have good quality follow-ups and the client groups' problems are of varying severity. However, I shall share with hon. Members some of the measures of success. For example, in Bielefeld, Germany, five out of 74 people obtained paid work through a programme that was specifically designed for class A drug users. In the Integra scheme in Ireland, the figure was 20 out of 71. In New Zealand, in a programme working with Maori youth, who were much harder to help than those just facing class A drug addiction problems because of additional problems related to ethnic issues, one person out of the 235 referred to the programme obtained work after three months. On a programme in the USA that worked with women, 41 per cent. of the 366 who enrolled obtained at least part-time work.

I am running out of time, but I undertake to review the debate—

Order. We must move on to the next debate.

At the outset of my remarks, I would like to place on the record, somewhat breathlessly, that I have the utmost admiration for our servicemen and women, who have shown great fortitude in difficult circumstances in pursuance of their duties in Iraq.

The occupation of another country is always difficult and dangerous, but it is also dangerous to be occupied. I wish to focus this afternoon on the civilian casualties since the end of the war. The sad fact is that Iraqi civilians—non-combatants—more than any other group have died in the battle between insurgents and coalition forces in the past seven or eight months. According to the Washington-based Project on Defence Alternatives, in the first six months of the occupation 200 civilians have been killed by insurgents and 200 have been killed by coalition forces. Let us remember that these unarmed civilians have been not simply caught in the crossfire, but killed by coalition forces in the street, in demonstrations, in their own homes and in custody.

Following the killings early on in Fallujah, we have, rightly or wrongly, come to expect such incidents from nervous and inexperienced American troops. However, it has only recently begun to emerge in press reports and through some carefully crafted parliamentary questions that the problem of civilian casualties caused by coalition forces is as much an issue in the British zone as in the rest of Iraq. That calls into question the perception that human rights violations by the coalition forces are the preserve of the Americans.

It is certainly true that the Ministry of Defence has had plenty of recent relevant experience in peacekeeping, facing similar problems in Bosnia, Kosovo and East Timor. However, the key lesson of those conflicts—s namely, the need to deploy international law enforcement and judicial personnel as quickly as possible after the end of hostilities—appears to have been forgotten in the case of southern Iraq. In May, the Government promised 1,500 international civilian police officers to protect the city and train local police. Yet Stephen White, our appointed Director of Law and Order in Iraq, complained that by October there were only 15.

Whatever responsibility individuals may have for any of the alleged deaths, I contend that the deaths are also a direct result of the Government's failure to localise and internationalise law enforcement sufficiently quickly. In that vacuum, soldiers and civilians have lost their lives unnecessarily, and lives will continue to be lost unless we show a greater sensitivity to civilian deaths allegedly caused by coalition forces. To date there has been little evidence of that sensitivity from the MOD. No soldier has been charged, either by the Americans or by us. We refuse even to keep a count of the civilians our forces have allegedly killed.

Apart from the morality of the situation, we are making a huge strategic error. Nothing is more certain to antagonise an indigenous population now and for generations to come than killing innocent civilians with impunity. Think of Bloody Sunday and the disastrous effect that it and the subsequent cover-up had in intensifying and prolonging the troubles over a quarter of a century. Think, ironically, of the composition of the coalition involved in the Boston massacre in 1770, when five civilians were killed by British forces in an incident that became the starting point of the American war of independence. A conflict is only intensified when soldiers kill unarmed civilians and their actions are excused.

It is in everybody's interest, from every perspective—pragmatic and principled—to minimise civilian casualties and, when they happen, to treat them with the gravity and the sensitivity they deserve. That does not seem to be happening at the moment. I shall concentrate on three areas: the refusal to publish the number of civilian casualties; the lack of transparency in the process of investigating those deaths; and our failure to fulfil our obligations under international humanitarian law.

First, on the number of civilian deaths, although the coalition, rightly, keeps meticulous records of coalition deaths, it has consistently refused to give statistics on the number of civilian casualties, either during the war or in the period since 1 May. Every civilian death is a tragedy, but the failure even to count them is a travesty of justice. Trying to get accurate information from the Ministry of Defence has been like getting spilt blood out of a stone. The Secretary of State for Defence said in a written answer:

"We have no reliable means of ascertaining the numbers of civilians killed by United Kingdom forces since the conflict ended."—[Official Report, 14 October 2003; Vol. 411, c. 8W.]

The Minister of State explained that that was because in some incidents Iraqis, injured or dead, may be buried or hospitalised by the time British forces return. With due respect, the fact that a body has been removed does not prevent its exhumation for the purposes of post-mortem examination, the taking of witness statements, or the examination of the report detailing the number of rounds fired and the casualties inflicted, which has to be filed by the commanding officer.

In a reply yesterday, the Minister of State said that all casualties witnessed by UK forces are reported, so I ask him today how many civilian casualties have been reported by British forces in southern Iraq. I also ask him to comment on the report in the Sunday Mirror on 7 December that the Secretary of State has ordered an inquiry into the number of civilians killed and told field commanders to submit more precise and detailed reports, including the numbers of civilian casualties, in any future incidents.

On the issue of accountability, coalition provision authority regulation No. 17 states that coalition personnel are

"immune from local criminal, civil and administrative jurisdiction and from any form of arrest or detention other than by persons acting on behalf of their parent states".

What is interesting about that is that it contravenes the sixth amendment of the American constitution, which was one of the key issues in the complaints against George III in the declaration of independence. Following the Boston massacre, British soldiers were given legal immunity from prosecution in the United States for the deaths they caused in the local population. That created the impression that the military were, in effect, above the law. That is surely the perception that people in Iraq have of "George II" and the forces in Iraq. No member of the coalition forces has been charged in relation to any of the 200 alleged deaths caused by coalition forces since the end of the war.

Many people will have read with horror and disgust Robert Fisk's account in The Independent on Sunday at the weekend of the death in September in British custody of Baha Musa, who was hooded and tied with a rope around his neck—a pretty horrible way to die. Can the Minister confirm that there have been five other deaths in British custody in Iraq? Can he give us the names of the deceased and tell us whether anyone has been charged in relation to those deaths?

The British Government have apparently offered £4,500 to the Musa family. Can the Minister tell us how that figure was arrived at, especially considering the excruciating nature of Baha Musa's injuries, and the fact that he was such a young man, whose death left two children orphaned. Does the Minister agree with the statement made by a senior coalition official that the value of a life in Iraq is probably a lot less than it would be in the United States or the United Kingdom? Compensation arrangements are governed by section 6 of coalition provisional authority regulation No. 17, which provides that any claim shall be submitted to and dealt with by the parent state of the person whose activity is alleged to have caused the loss; and the claims will be dealt with in a manner consistent with the national laws of the parent state. The principal law in England and Wales that relates to claims for compensation for a fatal accident caused by another person's negligence is the Fatal Accidents Act 1976. Will the Minister confirm whether Iraqi families have been informed of their right, under the CPA order notice, to bring a civil action in this country under the terms of that Act?

The MOD has rejected seven claims for compensation for fatalities. Possibly, though by no means certainly, those relate to a large number of alleged civilian deaths in Majar al-Kabir, which were attested to by the assistant director of the local hospital, the local Iraqi police and several news agencies, but denied by the MOD. Will the Minister give us the details of the claims that were rejected and the reasons for their rejection? In this context, it is particularly relevant to note that the MOD denied reports of beatings of 11 innocent Iraqis in Majar al-Kabir, including a woman who, according to reports, begged the soldiers not to hurt her children and was struck over the head with a rifle butt. However, the MOD was forced to apologise following press reports in this country. There is a question mark as to whether it is right for the military to be judge, jury and investigating officer in these cases.

That brings us to the legal framework. Under articles 65 to 77 of the fourth Geneva convention, occupying powers are obliged to observe international standards of due process. However, the MOD has failed to comply with those on a number of occasions. In May 2002, the European Court of Human Rights ruled that the UK had violated the right to life of Dermot McShane—who was crushed by an Army vehicle in Northern Ireland in 1996—by failing to ensure an effective, independent investigation into his death. That was confirmed in the recent High Court decision in the case of Kathleen Thompson.

The case law in respect of the European convention is clear that there must be an effective investigation, and the criteria for such an investigation are laid down. The persons responsible for the investigation must be independent of those implicated in the events. The investigation must be effective in the sense that it is capable of leading to a determination as to whether the force was justified. There is a requirement for promptness and reasonable expedition, and there must be a sufficient element of public scrutiny of the investigation. In particular, the victim's next of kin must be involved to the extent necessary to safeguard their legitimate interests. None of those criteria has been met by the investigations conducted by the special investigation branch so far in Iraq.

In the case of Manning, the courts in this country held that, given the importance of article 2—the right to life—of the European convention, there had to be compelling grounds for not giving reasons as to why a prosecution would not follow a death in custody. What are the compelling reasons why no one has so far been charged in connection with the six deaths in custody, some of which date back as far as May last year? I should confirm in passing that the European convention applies in Iraq. A case has already been admitted against Turkey for operations in northern Iraq. Was the Minister aware of the applicability of the European convention and, again, have we advised the families of the deceased that the option of bringing a case against British forces under the European convention is available to them?

I put three principal recommendations to the Minister in the light of the above. We should begin to keep accurate records of civilian casualties in the areas under our control. We should facilitate a complaints procedure through adequate legal representation for the Iraqi population, and agree to pay compensation to victims of unlawful use of force. We should ensure that proper mechanisms are in place to ensure prompt, impartial and independent investigations into all noncombatant deaths. The last point necessitates a civilian, rather than a military, internal investigation system, possibly through the appointment of an independent ombudsman in the coalition authority, who could oversee all complaints.

I ask the Minister to cast his mind back to his time in Northern Ireland and his dual role as the Minister with responsibility for both security and victims. We were told that he was to be the listening ear to thousands of people who had suffered. I ask him sincerely to take up that dual role now in Iraq, and to be the Minister for both the armed forces and the innocent victims of the occupation—not just the victims of the Ba'athist rump, but our victims: the victims of our mistakes and misdeeds. That is what real accountability means in a mature democracy. It means taking responsibility for one's actions.

By inspiring the confidence of the victims of abuse, we will inspire confidence in a future based on the respect for human rights, the rule of law and a democratic culture. Justice must be done, and must be seen to be done, for the long-suffering people of Iraq. That is the grave responsibility of the Minister.

I congratulate the hon. Member for East Carmarthen and Dinefwr (Adam Price) on securing this Adjournment debate. He has touched on a number of important issues, and I welcome the opportunity to set the record straight. The hon. Gentleman has been a consistent critic of our policy in Iraq, and his contribution today should be considered against that background. I would argue that it is neither objective nor accurate in many of its salient points. I shall deal with those points, but first I shall set his criticisms in the context of what the coalition of some 30 nations has achieved to date against the barbarism and brutality of Saddam Hussein's regime.

For 12 years that regime flouted the will of the international community and United Nations Security Council resolutions. It launched unprovoked and senseless wars on its neighbours and tortured, terrorised and destroyed the lives of Saddam Hussein's citizens, including through the use of chemical weapons. The hon. Gentleman did not mention any of those matters.

I now come to the charges made by the hon. Gentleman. He called for the establishment of an ombudsman and some independence in the process in Iraq. In essence, he was saying that our troops have acted indiscriminately, without due regard for the rule and import of international law; and that their investigations are not independent, and because of that we do not know the circumstances of incidents, or even the names of the victims. Nothing could be further from the truth.

Our forces are working in partnership with the Iraqi people to establish a safe and secure environment. and are doing so under the rule of law. That principle governs the training that our forces receive and all that they are doing in Iraq under the most difficult conditions, at times under fire, and often showing remarkable restraint. None the less, as the hon. Gentleman said, there have been some civilian deaths.

Without prejudging those cases, it might be helpful to clarify what we mean by "civilian death". For our purposes, the term "civilian" applies to all Iraqis. Besides peaceful law-abiding men, women and children, it includes those former regime loyalists who have since April continued to bomb, kill and maim their fellow Iraqi countrymen and women and coalition troops. It also includes those who are frustrating the work of the vast majority of the Iraqi people to build a safe, secure and prosperous Iraq.

It has been suggested that we are refusing to keep records of such casualties. That is not true. All incidents of alleged or possible fatalities of which our people are aware are recorded by the unit involved. Although we record all such incidents, it would be wrong to claim that we have an exhaustive record, because we cannot always be certain of the number of fatalities that result. In some incidents, such as ambushes on our forces and firefights, those who have been attacking UK forces and who have been injured or killed are removed from the scene.

I was interested in what the hon. Gentleman said about exhuming bodies. I wonder what impact it would have on the local communities if coalition forces dug up graves because we thought that someone who had been killed by a member of the coalition forces had been buried there. He Should reflect on his suggestion.

There have also been incidents in which UK forces have been forced to withdraw from an engagement with no reliable means of ascertaining the number of fatalities. Given the criminal nature of some attacks, it is unsurprising that the former collaborators of the dead are reluctant to report fatalities. Finally, gun battles have taken place in which our forces were not involved, but there have been claims that they were responsible for casualties none the less.

Against that background, I hope that the hon. Gentleman understands why it is impossible to claim to have complete and accurate records. Any organisation that claims so is doing a disservice to the truth. However, let me make it clear that we take our obligations and responsibilities seriously. If a confirmed civilian fatality was allegedly caused by UK forces, and we are aware of that, we endeavour to inform relatives through the International Committee of the Red Cross. The local commander reviews the circumstances to determine whether the UK forces involved acted within their rules of engagement. If he judges that they did—for example, they were returning fire against the deceased, having first been fired at themselves—no further action is taken other than a report of the incident being prepared and retained.

If there is any doubt for whatever reason about the circumstances, the commanding officer must initiate an investigation by the Royal Military Police. Seventeen cases have been referred to the RMP in that way. It was found in three cases that forces acted within their rules of engagement; four were traffic accident cases, and the deaths were the result of tragic accidents. In the case of Radi Nu'ma, it was found that he had died of natural causes in our custody and there was no case to answer. Investigations into the remaining cases continue.

I am also aware of the case of Baha Musa, about which there has been much public comment. A complex and thorough investigation involving interviews in Britain and Iraq is now at an advanced stage. Given that, it would be inappropriate to comment further at this time. Unlike the hon. Gentleman, I do not have it in my gift to set myself up as judge and jury in the way that he has done in predetermining where guilt should lie.

It has been suggested that the RMP cannot conduct impartial or independent investigations. That is not the case, and is a calumny on the integrity of those who carry out that function on our behalf, often in dangerous circumstances. In exercising its constabulary powers, the RMP is independent of the Army's chain of command.

The Army Prosecuting Authority is statutorily independent of the chain of command. The chain of command is not allowed to seek to influence it. That independence was confirmed only last December by the European Court of Human Rights in the Cooper case. As members of professional bodies—the Bar Council or the Law Society—Army prosecutors have an overriding duty to the court to act with independence in the interests of justice. As an additional protection from interference, the APA is answerable to the Attorney-General.

In addition to possible disciplinary action and in accordance with the coalition provisional authority order, British Forces deal with third-party claims for personal injury or death allegedly caused by British troops that have not arisen through military combat operations in a manner consistent with English domestic law. Such settlements are made without prejudice to other claims. Where a claim made against British forces arises from an activity that would not normally give rise to a liability under English Law, we may nevertheless make a small ex gratia payment, in accordance with local custom or to meet an urgent humanitarian need.

It has also been claimed that UK forces are not given adequate guidance on the use of force. In fact, they receive training on the use of force both prior to and during their deployment. That includes a lecture on the legal issues relating to the use of force and the rules of engagement, an operational brief to put the rules of engagement into context, and scenario-based training under RMP instruction on the use of force. Once in theatre, they are given a lecture on the rules of engagement by the legal advisor. Further training is available if required.

Will my right hon. Friend give way?

I am trying to deal with specific issues. I understand my hon. Friend's views and his desire to enter the debate, and if I can give him time later, I will.

Individual service personnel are aware that in all situations they may use no more force than is absolutely necessary. The principles for the use of lethal force in non-combat situations are based on UK domestic law. As well as receiving training on the relevant principles, UK forces are issued a summary in the form of what is known as a "soldier's card", which they carry with them. Those principles are no different from those in force in other theatres of operations, such as Afghanistan and the Balkans. In Iraq, where British Forces have faced a higher and more sustained threat, the same principles apply.

In November and December, British forces were subject to two dozen attacks per month involving mortars, rocket-propelled grenades, small arms and improvised explosives. I commend the restraint of our people in dealing with those situations: the hon. Member for East Carmarthen and Dinefwr did not even mention that. The measured response of soldiers from the Royal Regiment of Wales—constituents of the hon. Gentleman might be serving in Iraq—in diffusing a riot in Basra, which was widely reported in today's press, is further testament to the quality of our people and their training, and it highlights the benefits of the plastic baton round in dealing with such incidents.

The hon. Gentleman listed many extracts of law, and referred to the corpus of law in some areas. As I have said, we seek to build the rule of law in Iraq, in partnership with the Iraqi people. The practices that we adopt, and which I have set out, are in accordance with two key United Nations documents—the code of conduct for law enforcement officials, and the basic principles on the use of force and firearms by law enforcement officials. The code of conduct sets out the basic minimum standards for all civilian and military law enforcement officials. It covers matters such as upholding human rights and the use of force only when strictly necessary and to the minimum extent. The basic principles document covers both officials and the Governments that employ them. The document is aimed at ordinary policing duties rather than occupying forces policing a recent war zone, but our rules, practices and procedures comply with it.

The hon. Gentleman mentioned Assistant Chief Constable Stephen White and his comments of last year about the level of UK civilian police support in Iraq. I visited Iraq shortly before Christmas. I know ACC Stephen White well: the hon. Gentleman referred to my time in Northern Ireland, and I knew Stephen White then when he was a officer in the then Royal Ulster Constabulary. I had a high regard for all that he did there, and I was pleased when he took on his current appointment in our area of involvement in Iraq. I sought him out to find out about his comments, and I was glad to hear him say that he is pleased with the level of support that he is now getting. While his comments might have had some relevance at an earlier time, that is not the case any more. We should deal no longer with history, but with current facts.

Can the Minister say how close we are to the target figure set in May of 1,500 international civilian police officers in southern Iraq?

ACC White is the best person to judge that. He is the person who made the comments. When I asked him about them, I said that if he had expressed a similar type of concern to me, I would have pursued that appropriately. I am less concerned now than I was then.

We regard any loss of life as deeply regrettable and we take our obligations to avoid or minimise casualties extremely seriously. Steps to avoid such casualties are integrated into every aspect of military operations. When there is any indication that those measures may have failed, we investigate fully in order to learn the lessons that will make incidents of civilian death and injury fewer still. I believe that, thanks to the courage and professionalism with which the armed forces have conducted themselves in Iraq over the past 10 months, the need for such investigations has been limited.

The hon. Gentleman referred to my time in Northern Ireland. During some of that period, I held a dual ministerial role: I had responsibility for both victims and security personnel. I therefore take the issues under discussion very seriously. The moral high ground does not rest solely with critics in respect of Iraq. This matter goes right to the heart of Government, and all Government Ministers who have a responsibility take these issues very seriously.

I suspect that there is about to be a Division in the House so, with the consent of hon. Members, I propose to suspend the Sitting for 15 minutes.

I welcome the opportunity to have this debate, as we await the publication of the final details of the Government's proposals, and I welcome the Minister.

It may be worth touching on the background to the Government's position. On 23 July 1997, announcing the introduction of university tuition fees, the then Secretary of State for Education and Employment, the right hon. Member for Sheffield, Brightside (Mr. Blunkett), said that

"the entire objective in taking our difficult decisions has been to put higher education on a firm footing for the next two decades."—[Official Report, 23 July 1997; Vol. 298, c. 958.]

What happened? Asked that question by the Public Accounts Committee on 28 January 2002, the chief executive of the Higher Education Funding Council for England replied:

"The grant to institutions was reduced by exactly the amount that was coming through in tuition fees".

So the level of public funding per student in Labour's first term was cut by 7 per cent., and the gap in funding was plugged by the introduction of tuition fees. That did not mean more money for universities, just a different form of funding, which has resulted not in the financing of higher education being on a firm footing for two decades, but, after five years, in the universities being in an even worse position. Tuition fees have not put a single penny of extra money into higher education, despite that being their original justification. They are used simply to cut the Department for Education and Skills' annual spend, yet we are presented with the same arguments for top-up fees.

On 8 February 2001, the same Secretary of State said:

"We introduced the new funding arrangements for students … precisely to avoid the universities levying additional charges … I have made my position clear during the past two years: I am against the levying of top-up fees."—[Official Report, 8 February 2001; Vol. 362, c. 1061.]

That is a position that has changed just a couple of years or so later. It is not surprising that the right hon. Gentleman made that error, because the Labour manifesto that was published only a little later that year—the manifesto on which current Labour Members, including the Minister, were elected—stated clearly that

"we will not introduce top-up fees and have legislated to prevent them."

I might be under some misapprehension—if I am, the Minister can correct me and we can draw the debate to an early finish, as I am sure you would like, Mr. Cook—but it seems that the Government are now proposing to introduce top-up fees and have presumably not legislated to prevent them. Both promises were broken.

If we fast-forward to the White Paper on higher education in January 2003, we again find the Government talking of a need to ensure stable and sustainable funding in the long term—a case of déjà vu. To achieve that aim the Government are proposing variable top-up fees levied on students of up to £3,000 from September 2006. Is not putting in place stable and sustainable funding for the long term exactly what the Government said that they were doing in 1997? Why on earth should we believe the Government when they say it now, when they so clearly did not mean it then?

I have raised the debate to focus on the impact on Cornish students, particularly in relation to debts and disincentives. The Government set the goal of widening participation in higher education. As a Liberal Democrat, and unlike the Conservatives, I welcome that commitment, even though I am not sure that an arbitrary 50 per cent. target meets the point. All students who are able and keen to benefit from the opportunities of higher education should have the chance to do so.

How do the Government reconcile that goal with a top-up fees policy that will increase student debt and deter school leavers from university? The figures are plain: independent studies estimate that average student debt is about £12,000, although the Government acknowledge only a figure of about £8,600—either way, it is a substantial sum. The Government acknowledge that debt will almost double to—on their figures—about £15,000 if top-up fees are introduced. By my calculation, over three years a student pays three times £3,000 in top-up fees—setting aside any issues of inflation. Assuming three full student loans of £4,000 each, which is not unlikely except for those in the tiny minority from such wealthy backgrounds that their parents can cover the full costs, a student will be left with a debt of at least £21,000. That does not even take into account those who must borrow more to meet their living costs, which is a typical student experience.

A more independent study, by Barclays bank, concluded that by 2010, the year in which the first full cohort of top-up fees students will graduate, average student debt could top £30,000. Those figures are important because top-up fees make the problem of student debt even worse, debt deters children from going to university, and young people from low-income families are deterred most of all. In other words, top-up fees will deter the very people whom we are trying to encourage into higher education. For example, according to research commissioned by Universities UK and the HEFCE:

"one of the most significant findings … is that debt aversion deters entry into higher education … Debt aversion had the greatest impact on the participation of the very groups the government most wants to attract into higher education."

However, the Department for Education and Skills student income and expenditure survey 2002—03 states:

"Top-up fees of £3,000 will put even more poor students off university".

Other research on the DFES website demonstrates that the students most dependent on paid work while at university are those from the poorest families. We can see the impact of student tuition fees: in 1998–99, 47 per cent. of students took paid work in term time, at a cost to their studies; by 2002–03, that figure had increased to 58 per cent. Therefore, a disadvantage is built into the system for the very families about whom the Government care. Such students are not only from a poorer background and building up debt, but have to work and take time away from their studies, which students from wealthier backgrounds do not need to do.

The Government argue that, on their current plans, 30 to 35 per cent. of the poorest students will be exempt from fees. That assumes that such students will use their grants to pay off fees, but they will still have to cover their maintenance costs, and so on. They will be robbing Peter to pay Paul; they will still have to empty the piggy bank and build up debt. Under Liberal Democrat plans, however. there would be no top-up or tuition fees and an introduction of grants for poorer students to meet their living and study costs.

If we put that in the context of Cornwall and remember the three basic principles, we realise the problem. First, as the Department's research shows, the prospect of debt deters students from going to university; secondly, the prospect of debt acts as the strongest deterrent for children from low-income families, as the Department's research also shows; and, thirdly, as even the Government acknowledge, debt will increase significantly to an average of at least £15,000 once top-up fees are introduced. That raises very serious concerns for students in Cornwall, which is a relatively low-income county that, as a result of tuition fees, has not shared in the national expansion of student participation rates in higher education experienced in other parts of the country. Tuition fees have already had a relative detrimental effect, and top-up fees will make that even worse.

For the Minister's information, in 1997, 21.79 per cent. of school leavers in Cornwall entered higher education; in 2001, the figure was lower, at 21.77 per cent. That follows from the basic principle that debt deters children from relatively low-income families from going to university, and the fact that Cornwall is a county with below-average income levels. By contrast, in higher-income earning areas, there has been a consistent expansion in HE participation, especially in the wealthiest area, London and the south-east.

Relatively low wages in Cornwall mean that the impact of those increased debts that the Government are introducing on those looking to work in Cornwall will on average be three years more hard labour. There is evidence that graduates in Cornwall are hit harder by lower wages than comparable individuals entering work in other parts of the country. If we assume that lower income in Cornwall spreads across the spectrum fairly equally, we can conclude that it will take graduates returning to work in the county approximately three more years to pay off their student debt. It will take a female Cornish graduate returning to work in the county approximately 20 years on average Cornish wages to pay off the debts incurred as a student, and 17 years for a male graduate to do so. The Government entirely ignore that in their figures on the so-called graduate premium—the extra money a graduate is expected to earn. Women do not get that premium as men do.

Although we have low wages, our county has among the highest property prices in the country because of people moving to the county later in life or for retirement. A graduate couple starting their life together in the county and looking to buy a first home will, already be saddled with £30,000 of debt, according to the Government's figures, and with debt of £60,000 or more according to the Barclays bank figures. We might rationally assume a figure in between, but either way, that is the size of a small mortgage—indeed, quite a large mortgage for most adults—and that is before the couple have even started their first job, let alone bought their first home or had their first child.

The latest speculation is that former students will not have to repay until they are earning more than £15,000, but that is still lower than the average wage in Cornwall, let alone the average graduate wage. On the Government's figures, top-up fees of £3,000 will increase student debts on graduation from an average of £8,600 to at least £15,000—and more likely from £12,000 to in excess of £20,000. We already know that a smaller proportion of Cornish 18-year-olds are enrolling in higher education now than in 1997, when tuition fees were introduced. Before then, numbers had been rising, as they had in other parts of the country.

Almost half—46 per cent.—of the 18-year-olds whom I surveyed in the county and who responded said that tuition fees, let alone top-up fees, made them less likely to go to university. That finding has been consistent in all surveys of 18-year-olds in my constituency over the past seven or eight years. Of the 18-year-olds surveyed, 58 per cent. believed that because of low wages and poor job prospects—and even without the threat of top-up fees—they would have to leave Cornwall within five years to seek better employment. Not only is there a disincentive for Cornish students to go to university in the first place, there is a built-in disincentive for them to return to the county. That is made worse by large debts. We already know that when people have a large debt it is difficult for them to take on the prospect of lower wages than they might get elsewhere. The draw of London and the south-east for graduates will therefore increase, while the disincentive to go to parts of the country that need skills most, such as Cornwall, will increase.

The so-called premium of £400,000 that the Government claim a graduate can expect to earn over a lifetime is nonsense. I do not believe that the Minister can defend that claim in any way today. It is based on an unweighted 2001 sample—it is not statistically accurate—and most of those in it graduated when only 15 per cent. of the population went to university. At that time, a substantial earnings premium was expected over a lifetime, but given that the Government now want half the population to go to university, it cannot by definition be true that the same premium will apply. In any case, as I said, the premium does not apply to women, and it certainly does not apply to people in Cornwall.

One hundred and fifty-nine Labour MPs share the Liberal Democrats' concern and have signed an early-day motion opposing variable top-up fees, although, regrettably, none of the Labour MPs representing Cornwall or Devon has had the courage to do so. Only Liberal Democrats have proposals to abolish all student top-up and tuition fees without cutting higher education. Recent Conservative proposals to abolish tuition fees would cost more than 200,000 university places, let alone any planned expansion. So, the Conservative option is that there will be no fees for those lucky enough to go to university, but that many, many more students will not have the chance to go in the first place. Those students from Cornwall who find it difficult to get a place at the moment will find it even more difficult in future.

Indeed, the implication is no combined universities in Cornwall. The university education project that the Labour Government have implemented, which we welcome and for which I have campaigned from the day that I was elected—as have many others across the parties—is ruled out by Conservative plans. Inevitably, places such as Exeter and Plymouth, where student numbers are contracting, will not be willing to provide the extra investment or the extra places that are needed for the combined universities in Cornwall project.

While the Conservatives might be voting in the same way as many Labour Back Benchers, they are doing so on a different, narrow-minded and restrictive basis. By contrast, Liberal Democrats have consistently opposed all tuition and top-up fees since 1997, which the Conservatives have not, and are calling on the combined universities in Cornwall to rule out any use of top-up fees if Labour introduces them, in order to guarantee an affordable higher education opportunity for Cornish students. Of course, the combined universities say that they cannot afford to do that because the per-student funding that the Government say is necessary to see students through is based on the assumption that the charges will be levied. Were they to do so, the combined universities in Cornwall would have to offer a second-class education because they would not be able to afford to do things properly. Understandably, and regrettably, they are not able to rule out the levying of fees in the county.

Unlike that of the Government, our policy is crystal clear. Unlike that of the Conservatives, it is based on principle—the principle that all who can benefit from higher education should have the opportunity to do so without saddling themselves with unsustainable debt. As the Prime Minister keeps quoting entirely inaccurate evidence, I shall finish by explaining our point. The richest 1 per cent. of the population—those earning over £100,000—would pay 50 per cent. tax on their earnings above £100,000, compared with the normal higher rate of 40 per cent. is comparable with top rates across Europe and in parts of America, such as New York. That would raise £4.5 billion, according to the Government's figures. Of that, £2 billion would be used to abolish all university fees, including tuition fees, as well as top-up fees. We would also free up £350 million to cover the reintroduction of student grants—not to pay the top-up fees, which the Government plan, but to help students with the basic costs of getting to university and studying, so that the poorest students could, once again, afford to do so. Would we expect students to make any contribution to their higher education? Of course. They would—except for those very poor students who could not afford it—be responsible for maintaining themselves, funded by student loans. However, they would not have to pay for the basic costs of the education itself.

The Government have already stepped the wrong side of that principle with the introduction of tuition fees, but with top-up fees they are going many thousands of pounds further in the wrong direction. It is clear that, although under the Government's plans some Cornish students would not have to pay the top-up fees because their families had such low incomes that they did not need to, many—including those on relatively low incomes—would have to pay. We know the impact that tuition fees have had, and the impact of top-up fees is staring us in the face. The principle is wrong. Students' only chance of getting out of them will be if some universities—and it does not look as though that will include the combined universities in Cornwall—offer not to charge them, but those universities will then provide a second-class education.

I welcome the fact that so many Labour Back Benchers have decided to stand by their manifesto pledges of 2001 and the promises made during the 1997 to 2001 Parliament, and I regret that the Government seem determined to press ahead. We shall see what they say when the Bill is finally published, but I hope that enough Labour MPs will stand together to defeat the measure and that, at long last, that might include some from my part of the world.

I congratulate the hon. Member for Truro and St. Austell (Matthew Taylor) on having initiated this debate at a time when the subject is topical. I was hoping that we would avoid the party political Punch and Judy show in which we shall, I am sure, have plenty of opportunities to engage in the coming weeks, and that the debate would provide me with a further opportunity to set out the Government's thinking.

However, I should start on a point of agreement—probably the only one that we have—which is that the policy of Her Majesty's official Opposition would have a detrimental effect on university education and, in particular, on the combined universities in Cornwall. I know about that issue because I was dealing with it as the Minister responsible for regional development agencies when the proposal was first mooted, and consider it vital to the future of Cornwall and the south-west.

Having outlined that point of agreement, I will calmly set out the rationale behind the Government's proposals. The need for reform, investment and expansion is compelling. The hon. Gentleman mentioned the figure of 50 per cent. If a target of 50 per cent. causes a hang up, forget it. We need expansion and we think that setting a 50 per cent. target is the way to move towards that expansion. However—this is a point for Her Majesty's official Opposition, who are not present—even people who disagree with all the arguments for expansion must still agree with the need for increased investment, not least because if we want to keep the participation rate at the current level of 43.5 per cent., we will need to provide places for about another 124,000 students, because of the demographic blip that will affect the system. So, even to maintain the current figure, more university places are needed.

The need for reform is compelling and we have an opportunity to create a well-funded university sector that is able to maintain its position in the world. In the short time available, I will not go into the points made about 1997, 2001 and now. The only point I will make is that, in the countries responsible for 40 per cent. of the world's population, there has been a dramatic change even since June 2001. When we were all marching around the doorsteps during the election campaign, there were 5 million higher education students in China. Two years later, there were 15 million, which is an incredible expansion. That is mirrored—although not to the same degree—by a huge expansion in India. In Canada, Australia and America, the whole thrust is towards increasing the number of graduates so that they can take advantage of opportunities that are available in the knowledge-driven economy. That is why the position of Her Majesty's official Opposition is so questionable. Even in 2001, that momentum and competition were not around.

The number of people in higher education is continuing to rise year by year, and, according to my statistics, it is continuing to rise in Cornwall. The hon. Gentleman mentioned 18-year-olds. I have figures for 18 to 20-year-olds entering higher education, which is fair because that takes into account gap years and other things. They are the figures that are generally used and they show that in 1997, 33.7 per cent. of 18 to 20-year-olds in Cornwall went into higher education, as opposed to 32.4 per cent. in England as a whole. So, the numbers in Cornwall were higher than the English average. In 2001, the figure for Cornwall had risen to 35.4 per cent. and was still above the English national average of 35.2 per cent.—we are talking only about England, and Cornwall, in this debate. [Interruption.] I realise that there are those who argue that Cornwall is not part of England. There are those who argue that Hull is not part of England. My figures suggest that numbers are expanding in Cornwall, and in England, and it is important that they continue to do so for reasons that we agree on and that relate to the number of jobs there will be by the end of the decade that will require graduate qualifications.

Our White Paper makes it clear that institutions need greater levels of funding to be able to compete. There is a big area of difference—an area about which Liberal Democrat Members would disagree even with the 159 signatories to the early-day motion. The real difference is that for Labour Members the debate is not about whether graduates should make a contribution, but about how that contribution should be made. That is where the Liberal Democrat policy is wrong. I agree with them completely on the need for expansion and investment, and on many of the other issues of widening participation, but I disagree fundamentally with their opposition in principle to graduates making a contribution.

That has to be the nub of the debate because until we cross that rubicon we cannot have a genuine debate about where we go. I say that not in a party political sense but because every proper analysis of the problem, from the Dearing national committee of inquiry to the Cubie commission and the Rees commission post-devolution—all set up to consider the question of student funding—rejected the argument that graduates should not make any contribution whatever. Cubie rejected it in far starker and sterner terms than Dearing. All those commissions argued that graduates should make a contribution, as has the Select Committee on Education and Skills in four reports—although I know that that Committee has the famous "Lib-Dem one" who stands against it.

The Conservatives on that Select Committee should be applauded because going against party policy, and having considered all the evidence, they have decided that graduates should make a contribution. I will say one thing for the Liberal Democrats: their policy has been consistent since 1997, whereas Her Majesty's official Opposition, having set up the Dearing commission and walked through the Lobby to support it, now claim that they oppose the whole principle of graduate contribution.

The important point for students in Cornwall, East Yorkshire, Worcester, the north-west and throughout the country is how they should make that contribution. Our proposals are to abandon the up-front fee, which may well have an effect on poorer students in Cornwall. However, there were those who said that introducing a fee would put students off higher education, but the figures show no evidence of that. There were those who said that moving from grants to loans would put students off higher education. It has not; student numbers have expanded. It is fair to say that even among students from poor backgrounds who would not have to pay a penny of that up-front fee, something in their minds suggested that they would have to ask their parents to pay for it; it was an entry fee to higher education.

We shall abolish the up-front fee, and introduce the ability for universities to set a fee between zero and £3,000. I could argue that that is not a top-up fee as we understand it. I will not, but I am tempted to because there is a Scottish graduate endowment scheme that leads many people to think that students in Scotland do not pay a penny towards their university education. Of course they do, but I will not engage in any sophistry on the matter.

On the level of fees, at the moment no university can charge more, or less, than £1,125. We are saying that it is for the universities to decide where to set that fee, between zero and £3,000. The graduates make their contribution rolled up with their loan repayments after they have graduated. We have increased the earnings threshold for when they commence their contribution from £10,000 to £15,000 a year, and graduates will pay their contribution on an income-contingent basis when they are earning more than £15,000 a year. That is very important because it means graduates will make a lower contribution than they are at the moment. A total of 83 per cent. of students take out loans. As far as I am aware, Liberal Democrat policy is not to return to grants instead of loans—I might be wrong about that. [Interruption.] That is their policy. At the moment, the contribution for someone earning £18,000 a year—the average starting pay of a graduate—is £13.85 a week. That would drop to £5.19 under our proposals.

For those and many other reasons—the reintroduction of the maintenance grant, the introduction of the regulator and the other facilities that we have put in place—we sincerely believe that the policy is not good just for widening participation in higher education, but for our economy and for the whole of the HE sector, which is why Universities UK agrees with our policy.