When I was thinking before Christmas about applying for a useful debate in Westminster Hall about the fishing industry, I intended to consider its long-term future. I expected major parts of the fishing industry to be in calmer waters after the meeting of the European Council and that we would have the opportunity to take a longer-term perspective. However, events have moved on. The outcome of the Fisheries Council was so grave for the white-fish industry in Scotland that I will concentrate on the implications of what happened at that meeting in December.

If we believe the Minister—and the initial reaction, at least, of his Scottish counterpart—the United Kingdom secured a negotiating triumph. The Minister returned from the meeting covered in glory to tell a grateful fishing population that quotas had increased. It was our first victory after a series of reversals at the Fisheries Council. Unfortunately, the reality is very different. In an exchange with him last Thursday, he repeated that view. He cited two respected leaders of the industry: Alex Smith, president of the Scottish Fishermen's Federation and John Patterson, the chief executive of the Peterhead harbour board in my constituency. He said that someone from my constituency had expressed broad approval for the deal that the United Kingdom won. Unfortunately for him, the press contacted those gentlemen to ask them their views about being cited by the Minister. The Press & Journal (Aberdeen) of last Friday stated:

"Scottish fishing industry leaders reacted furiously last night to a claim by UK Fisheries Minister Ben Bradshaw that they applauded the deal he secured in Brussels."

It reports both Mr. Smith and Mr. Patterson saying that the Minister quoted them out of context. They welcomed the increase in quotas, but their balanced view about the deal was that it was utterly unworkable and disastrous.

The fishing industry is not made up of a huge number of people; it is much like a village society. It is possible for a Minister in Scotland or elsewhere in the United Kingdom to contact the major figures in the industry, but such contacts should not be bandied about across the Dispatch Box, as so and so from the CBI or so and so from the TUC are sometimes cited. It is easy to contact the leaders in the industry, so it is impossible for a Minister not to know the feelings of the industry about the deal that was secured. It is therefore extraordinary that he should cite people in the industry as saying something that they clearly and obviously do not believe. That does not do him any credit. It certainly does our debates no credit. The leaders are not politicians; they should not be used in party political banter. They are trying to do their best for their communities and the industry, and they deserve to be treated with respect and to be taken seriously.

We must first establish today whether the Minister believes that the view of the fishing industry in Scotland is as he said it was on Thursday. If he does so, he is living in some parallel universe—unlike the rest of us—in which, despite grave fears for the future, everyone says what a marvellous job he has done. I am not just talking about the two gentlemen to whom I have referred. I have a collection of 12 quotations of people in the industry in Scotland. It shows the real view of the disastrous outcome of the December negotiations, and one that is held throughout the Scottish industry.

Alex Smith, who according to the Minister was in favour of the proposals, said:

"This is not feasible at all, it is totally unmanageable".

Hamish Morrison, the chief executive of the Scottish Fishermen's Federation, stated:

"This agreement becomes ever more curious the more you look at it. It is fundamentally flawed".

Mike Park, the chairman of the Scottish White Fish Producers Association, said:

"This is a black day for the industry…There is no logic in this."

That view has been repeated by all the industry's representative bodies, across the spectrum. The only congratulation that the Minister deserves is on uniting the industry. It is his misfortune that he has united the industry in Scotland against him. That is the only impact that he has had.

The views of the producer associations, whose members have to implement what Ministers agree in European Councils, are even more interesting than those of the industry's political representatives—the voice to Ministers. Yesterday, I asked all the fisheries producers organisations in Scotland to give me a one-sentence view of what they think of the outcome for the white-fish fleet of the December negotiations. Gary Masson, the chief executive of the Northern PO, said:

"This deal is totally unworkable!"

Mark Dougal, the chief executive of the North East of Scotland FPO said:

"Due to the confusing 'permit' system, we view the 2004 Haddock quota as unmanageable."

Robert Stevenson, the chief executive of the West of Scotland FPO, said:

"'A good deal', 'A successful outcome'?—nothing could be further from the truth".

Alan Coghill, the chief executive of the Orkney FPO, said:

"The December Council outcome was an utter disaster for Scottish Fishermen".

David Herriot, the chief executive of the Anglo Scottish FPO, said:

"The whitefish sector must have additional days".

Finally, Hamish Gordon, the chief executive of the PO in Aberdeen, said:

"Only 15 days a month with, in effect, a reduced Haddock quota in prolific Haddock areas with a restrictive permit system is uneconomic, unviable and unworkable."

Those are the real views of the industry—the very industry that, last Thursday, the Minister tried to tell us was hailing his achievements in Brussels as a negotiating triumph.

My first question for the Minister is whether he accepts that those are the real views of the industry. Does he accept that there are grave misgivings about the deal that he has secured—that the key players in the industry, and particularly the people who have to work with the deal, regard it as an unmanageable disaster?

Such a view is shared not only by the POs and the fishermen. John Hermse of the Scottish Fishing Services Association of onshore businesses—the harbour businesses, which are the lifeblood of our communities—said:

"This is the final straw which could break the back of the white fish industry, onshore and offishore."

Robert Milne of the Scottish Fish Merchants Federation said:

"We welcome the additional quota but we have mounting concerns about the impact of the regulations attached to this deal."

People have now realised the impact of the regulations.

Last. Thursday, while the Minister was lauding the deal, the Scottish First Minister, Jack McConnell, had to apologise to the Scottish Parliament for misrepresenting it. Given the spin that the Minister tried to put on the deal, it is hardly surprising that people initially thought that the increased quota was welcome. Immediately one looks at the regulations, however, one sees how unworkable the outcome is. When we consider that, some weeks after the Council, the First Minister of Scotland does not understand things and has to apologise to the Scottish Parliament for misrepresenting the deal—presumably because he was misinformed by his officials—the extent of the difficulties that the Minister has created for the fishing industry become apparent.

Does my hon. Friend agree that the deal could create huge difficulties for people in the onshore fish-processing industry, many of whom—as in my constituency—rely on Scottish-caught haddock? Although there is an increased quota, there is no way that the fishermen can catch that amount in the days that have been allocated to them.

That is one of the key problems, which I will address. We must try to explain to the Minister—explanation is obviously necessary—what his Scottish counterpart described last Thursday as the "unintended consequences", which require "tidying up" if the deal is to be made effective.

I mentioned Ross Finnie, the Scottish Fishing Minister. I am sure that hon. Members of all parties wish him well for the surgery that he is about to undergo. What happened after a meeting that he attended last Thursday was interesting—and perhaps shows his honesty. I understand that he was told not only by the fishing organisations but by Iain MacSween of the Scottish Fishermen's Organisation, which is one of the biggest producer organisations, that the impact of the deal would be the closure of the haddock fishery, perhaps as early as April or May, in the key haddock fishing grounds. That is when Ross Finnie came face to face with the reality of the deal that he and the Minister agreed last month in Brussels. My second question is therefore whether the Minister accepts the view of his Scottish colleague—his co-negotiator—that there are "unintended consequences" of the deal that require fixing quickly.

The hon. Gentleman should be congratulated on securing this debate, and on his speech so far. Is it not becoming increasingly obvious that the latest deal has nothing to do with conservation—which we are always told is the reason for such things—but everything to do with the politics of the treaty, particularly concerning equal access to a common resource? The deal will almost wipe out the Scottish white-fish industry. It has been devastated, and it will continue to be so.

Interestingly, I understand that at last Thursday's meeting Ross Finnie also acknowledged that he expected that another 40 per cent. of the Scottish white-fish fleet might need to be taken out of the industry. The fleet has already been reduced by 50 per cent. over the past three years. Are those responsible for the "negotiating triumph" anticipating a further reduction of 40 per cent. in the white-fish fleet? If we have any more triumphs such as the one last month, there will be no industry left in Scotland or elsewhere.

The Minister's argument last Thursday—apart from the claim that the deal was a success and his citing of industry leaders—was that the deal that he had negotiated was based on the fishermen's proposals. I want to examine whether that claim was true. I have brought along the maps, because such things must be explained in terms of areas.

The map that I am holding shows the Scottish Fishermen's Federation proposal for the cod area in the North sea. It should be in the north and east. The Minister is squinting, but he must be familiar with this map because it is based on the international groundfish survey—the bottom-trawl survey. It was also agreed at the Bergen summit by scientists, fishermen and the Commission. There is no argument that the north and east is the cod area—where the cod congregate. That area was put forward in the Scottish Fishermen's Federation spatial management proposals as the restricted cod area. The Minister is squinting again and I am not surprised, because his Department could not produce this map yesterday when it was asked to do so by my researchers. We had to rely on the fishermen themselves to produce it.

A second map shows the cod-restricted area that was agreed in December, which is not in the north and east, but sweeps into the main haddock fishing grounds in the central North sea—the Fladden grounds, which are the main areas from which haddock is taken by the Scottish fleet. They are now in a cod-restricted area from which the Scottish fleet is restricted to taking only 10,000 tonnes of haddock.

The third question for the Minister is this: where did that map come from? Given that he said that the proposals were good and that he would take them forward, how on earth did we end up negotiating at half- past 4 or 5 o'clock on a Friday morning—whatever time it was—about putting the major haddock-fishing grounds into the cod-restricted area? Was that the Minister's idea? Was it the Scottish officials' idea? Was it the Commission's idea? Who was responsible for producing a map that makes it impossible for haddock fishery to be pursued orderly and properly?

The Minister told us as he was going to the Fisheries Council that the information from the Sea Fish Industry Authority—based on its survey of the Scottish boats in order to determine the cod by-catch in the major haddock-fishing areas—would be crucial ammunition in taking the arguments to Brussels. I remind him that the provisional results of that survey showed that in the Fladden grounds the cod by-catch for a directed haddock fishery was 2 per cent. or less. If that is so—if that was the argument that the Minister was pursuing—how on earth could he leave the Council and put the haddock-fishing grounds in the cod-restricted area?

That is the third question on which we require answers from the Minister, and it brings us to why this deal is unworkable. Not only have the major haddock grounds been put in the cod area, but the Minister has agreed that 20 per cent. of the haddock quota is to be taken in those major fishing grounds and 80 per cent. is to be placed elsewhere. Incidentally, that applies only to the UK—and therefore the Scottish fleet—and not to any other fleet in Europe.

The Minister has been on the job for six months. Some of us have been representing fishing communities for a great deal longer than that. Some of us remember what happened in 2001, when the fleet was forced into areas that are effectively nursery grounds, such as around Fair Isle up north, and inshore, off Peterhead. The impact of that, as the hon. Member for Orkney and Shetland (Mr. Carmichael) said last Thursday, necessitates the fleet catching small haddock. Everyone agrees that there is a record stock of 450,000 tonnes of mature haddock in the North sea, but there is a worry about the year classes coming in behind that, which are not as ample or abundant. Is it logical to force the fleet in search of an additional quota into grounds where there are immature haddock and to keep it out of the major grounds containing the mature haddock? That may be an "unintended consequence" for Ross Finnie, but for most of us it is illogical, irrational and an environmental and conservation disaster. It makes no sense.

The Minister should reflect on the fact that, despite our having almost 80 per cent. of the haddock quota, the Belgians, Danes, Germans, French, Dutch, Swedes and Norwegians may take 30,000 tonnes of haddock in the major haddock-fishing ground—if the Norwegian deal is done later this week—while our fleet is restricted to 10,000 tonnes. Is that an "unintended consequence", or is it utter discrimination and disaster?

Some people say, "Okay, it seems as though the white-fish fleet is being sacrificed and reduced again, but never mind, the prawn and pelagic fleets have gained from the deal." That brings me to two more "unintended consequences". If Iain MacSween of the Scottish Fishermen's Organisation is correct in saying that the 10,000-tonne quota in the major haddock area means that that fishery will close in May or June, the prawn boats that fish it will be forced to discard their haddock by-catch after mid-year. We have a record stock of mature haddock in the North sea and the prawn boats are catching haddock as a valuable by-product of their own fishery. However, if the total haddock quota in that area is met completely by May or June, the prawn boats will have to fling that prime stock of haddock—which all of us, presumably, want to be caught—dead back into the sea.

I found out yesterday afternoon about a closed cod area off the west coast of Scotland, which I understand that the hon. Member for Western Isles (Mr. MacDonald) has proposed. Of course, such areas could be part of a fishing management plan. However, the Minister and his team forgot to apply for an exemption for pelagic boats in that area, and for those pursing herring and mackerel. The mackerel are just moving into that closed area. According to the European Commission yesterday, in order to protect the cod stock the pelagic boats will not be allowed into an area that has been closed. Even the Minister must realise—even after only six months—that pelagic boats are not going to catch cod when they are fishing for mackerel. The significant mackerel fishery is to be closed to pelagic boats to protect a fish that they have no chance of catching. That is another "unintended consequence"—or perhaps a total botch-up.

Hon. Members might think that for a species under pressure, such as cod, a permit system might be devised under which people needed permission to catch it. However, the deal has devised a permanent system under which a person needs permission to catch haddock—a species that does not need protection but is in super-abundance. After reading that in the regulation, I came to the conclusion that somebody had got things the wrong way round—that there had been a transposition of words and that the document meant to suggest that people should go into the haddock area rather than a permit system that made it more difficult to pursue that fishery.

The Minister must understand that if we are trying to divert focus and effort away from precious stocks, an incentive must be provided to fish stocks that are in abundance. The plan and its "unintended consequences" do exactly the opposite. Not only does it make it difficull—perhaps impossible—to catch the full haddock quota outwith the major haddock fishing grounds, if boats are restricted to 15 days a month, their only choice in order to be viable is to catch the high-value cod species. Instead of diverting effort away from cod, the plan will divert effort into the cod fishery, which is another "unintended consequence" of the position that was agreed in Brussels.

My understanding is that the 15-days position has not been finally agreed, as has been widely claimed. What has been agreed is 10 days. The Minister—and, no doubt, the Scottish Parliament Minister—must go back and argue for the number of days fishing that the white-fish fleet in Scotland should have on the basis of the decommissioning schemes that have taken place. There is a variety of ways to make that calculation.

Over the past year, we have lost a third of our white-fish fleet through decommissioning. No one else has lost a third of their fleet; in fact, some fleets in Europe are still expanding. Last year, our white-fish fleet, which had then not been denuded by decommissioning, had 15 days. This year, the fleet, which has been reduced by a third, is still to have 15 days. What possible benefit can be ascribed to decommissioning when we end up with the same number of days to fish a quota in a fleet that has been so reduced over the past two years? We are talking not just about "unintended consequences" of the deal, but about seven deadly sins that threaten the very survival of the fishing industry.

Today's debate is well attended and I want to allow Members an opportunity to develop their points. It is tradition in fishing debates that people from a range of fishing constituencies have the opportunity to make points, particularly at a time of crisis. However, I shall first repeat some of my key points for the Minister, and ask him how on earth he intends to get us out of the total disaster for which as lead negotiator he must take prime responsibility.

First, does the Minister accept, having heard the quotations and having had the opportunity to speak to the industry, that the white-fish sector and all its representative bodies believe that the deal is unworkable and that it presents them with fundamental problems? Does he accept that the producer organisations—not political or representative organisations, but people who have to administer the deal—believe it to be unworkable? Does he accept that that is the reality for people who work in the industry, make their livelihoods from it and represent people from the industry?

Secondly, does the Minister accept the view of the Scottish Minister that there are "unintended consequences" from the agreed deal and that they must be addressed? Thirdly, does he accept that as a result of negotiations he has placed a major haddock-fishing ground in the cod-restricted area? That will cause huge problems for the fleet, and the impact will be to focus attention in the cod-restricted areas on the cod species. It will be virtually impossible to pursue a haddock fishery in any sensible or reasonable manner.

If the Minister accepts those points, will he give us an indication of the effort that he will make to prevent the situation developing into a total and utter meltdown of the Scottish white-fish fleet? If there were no fish in the sea, what is happening to the fishing industry, and particularly to the white-fish sector in Scotland, would be seen as a major misfortune, a disaster, a human tragedy. People would say that nothing could be done—that there were no fish in the sea, and that we could not sustain an industry without that resource. However, that is not the position. Levels of the prime Scottish stock—haddock—are at a 30-year high. Other stocks are in robust condition. One stock—cod—is under pressure, but numbers are improving from a low level.

How can we contemplate forecasting, and hearing a ministerial forecast of, a further 40 per cent. decline in the Scottish white-fish fleet against a background of an adequate fishery that we should be able to pursue? People are prepared to accept many things, but not a sea teeming with fish but empty of Scottish fishermen. As the lead Minister in the negotiations, the outcome is the Minister's responsibility. I challenge him to talk to industry figures, to become acquainted with their views and familiar with the "unintended consequences" of the deal that he negotiated, and to do something about the issue.

Our intention must be to ensure a long-term sustainable future for both our catching and processing industries. Obviously, we hope that the proposals that come from the No. 10 policy unit next month will make a significant contribution in providing long-term policies to ensure that. Clearly, a major aspect must be to ensure the conservation of the stocks of those fish that are under threat, and in the north of Scotland the main concern is cod stocks.

Cautiously, we could say that, in the run up to the December negotiations, the policies adopted to maintain cod stocks seemed to work to some extent; there seemed to be evidence of a partial recovery. A major part of retaining cod stocks must be reducing by-catch from other fisheries; that is a matter of common agreement, and sometimes I think that it might be a good idea if, rather than playing party political games, we looked at the matters of common agreement. It is commonly agreed by all parties in Parliament that we must reduce the effects of some of our European allies' industrial fisheries on cod stocks, particularly stocks of young fish.

As the hon. Member for Banff and Buchan (Mr. Salmond) said, haddock stocks are so high that there is a real danger that they will predate on their own spawn. Clearly there is a reasonable case for saying that that is counter-productive, and that we should therefore look at increasing the haddock quota if that can be done without damaging cod stocks. Our industry did a good job of arguing that it was possible to fish haddock separately. It managed to give evidence that by-catch could be reduced to 3 per cent. Indeed, on one boat, in a catch of 15 tonnes of fish there was only 25 kg of cod.

It is a success for the Government and the industry that at least we have managed to get recognition of certain principles by the EU.

Given that the European Commission appears to have accepted that there is now a large stock of haddock in the North sea, what is the logic of increasing the quota but not the ability of fishermen to fish it?

The point that I am trying to make is that we should recognise what we have gained. We gain some things in negotiations, and there are other points on which we must keep arguing. It is important that the haddock quota has been raised by 53 per cent. That is significant. Even more important, we have recognition of the possibility of designating areas and of spatial management of stocks. It was also important that we got at least a reversal of the original proposals for further reduction of days at sea.

I recognise that there are unhappinesses in the industry. There are concerns, about which we have heard a great deal, about the geographical areas designated and the remaining days at sea. It is important for the industry to continue in discussions with the Minister; there are further discussions to be had. The intelligent thing to do is to engage in intelligent, rational discussion. One has to recognise that multilateral negotiations are difficult and that you do not get everything that you want, particularly under a system as flawed as the common fisheries policy. All parties here agree that that policy is in urgent need of reform.

Order. There are a lot of "yous". "You" refers to me. It is nearly 50 years since I went baiting line haddock.

I apologise, Mr. McWilliam.

Multilateral negotiations are difficult and it can be tempting to take the populist route and argue that we should go for unilateralism. That is what one might call the "neo-con" solution, often applied by the Bush Administration. I am disappointed, although not surprised, that under its new leader the Conservative party has proposed such a solution. That party is in effect the English national branch of the neo-cons. I am surprised that such a route should be proposed by other parties—what we might call the Scottish nationalist branch of the neo-cons.

The hon. Gentleman's speech has been remarkable, both in terms of what he has said and the smugness with which he has said it. The only way out of this awful mess is through national control. The hon. Gentleman mentioned reform of the common fisheries policy. I suggest that he does not hold his breath, because such reform would require a treaty change. Will he tell the Chamber how that could be achieved?

I have always understood that the hon. Lady's real solution to the problem was to come out of the European Union altogether. Such a solution, I take it, is not followed by the Scottish branch.

The hon. Gentleman should not accuse people of things that they have no intention of doing. That was a slur, and the hon. Gentleman should withdraw the remark immediately.

I am happy to withdraw the remark. If the hon. Lady is telling us that she is happy to be in the European Union, I am glad to hear that. I take great joy when any sinner repenteth.

The hon. Gentleman started his speech by saying that he did not want to engage in political banter. I had to forgo all I wanted to say about the common fisheries policy so that I could address the immediate consequences of the deal. I did so because unless we settle the short term, there will be no long term to argue about—there will be no fleet. If the hon. Gentleman wants to avoid party political banter, he can do us the courtesy of trying to say what he thinks about the deal and what he thinks should be done about it.

I have already said that we should be engaging in intelligent discussion with the industry and the Government. However, the hon. Gentleman's party seems to have taken a position of neo-con unilateralism recently. I find that strange because such thinking is a significant contribution to the problem. It is because the Bush Administration refused to engage themselves at Kyoto that we have an increasing problem of global warming. Such thinking is by common agreement part of the cause of the problem, and it could undermine all the conservation efforts.

The English neo-cons said in the debate on 9 December that they had a simpler solution.

I am sorry, but no Opposition Member has a clue about what the hon. Gentleman is talking about. He will have to tell us what neo-con unilateralism is—if he can do so briefly.

I apologise: I was not aware that members of the Liberal party were so ill informed about current international politics. I was using "neo-cons" to refer to the unilateralist policies being adopted by the Bush Administration. I take it that the hon. Gentleman has heard of Kyoto.

In the debate on 9 December, the Conservative spokesman proposed that we should go for something much simpler than multilateral negotiations and said that it would be much simpler to have multiple bilateral negotiations. I used to be a maths teacher, and my understanding is that, if there are 10 European maritime nations, 45 different negotiations would be involved. His concept of "simpler", and of maths, is somewhat different from that of most of us.

The Scottish National party always criticises concessions made in international negotiations, as we have seen today. It does so from a position of immense experience. The hon. Member for Banff and Buchan stressed his experience, but one should remember precisely how much experience the SNP has of being in government, or being involved in intergovernmental negotiations. I believe that the hon. Gentleman cares about the fishing industry, but when he stirs up some of his stories there are times when I wonder whether he is concerned about conserving the position of the SNP, because it is now threatened by a number of fishing candidates. Those candidates were initially stirred up by false expectations of what could be achieved, which the party tends to raise.

Internationalism is better than unilateralism or so-called bilateralism. Apart from anything else, fish do not respect international and national boundaries. However, internationalism should be coupled with proper subsidiarity, which is why it is great that we are stressing that regional advisory committees should gain increasing influence. In our international effort, it is vital that we continue to strengthen monitoring and enforcement, and it is right that the Government are increasing satellite tracking. Satellite tracking should be seen as the fisherman's friend. There has been much talk about black fishing. Whatever the rights and wrongs of the various stories that have been raised, the situation must be dangerous. If there is a suspicion that people are cheating, it encourages cheating among others. It is vital that we ensure that the measures finally agreed are stuck to rigidly.

The UK's major contribution to international conservation has been made by decommissioning, and I want to conclude by commenting on that. It is perfectly correct of the industry to say that, since the British fishing industry and the British taxpayer have borne that burden, it is proper that the British quota of fish should be retained for the remaining British fleet. I make one particular plea in relation to decommissioning the fleet and rationalising and restructuring the processing industry. We should learn the lesson from the Icelandic cod war compensation, when this Government compensated people for the mistake of previous Governments, as in so many instances. We should ensure not only that there is proper compensation for skippers, owners and employers, but that we look after employees and their needs properly.

I am not just talking about compensation. Let us consider the Aberdeen processing industry. Although some of the people working in that industry are short-term migrant workers, a disproportionately high number of local employees come from socially deprived and socially excluded groups. It is important that we ensure that there is not just compensation, but a proper focus on redeployment for those leaving the industry and proper training for those remaining in it. For example, in the north of Scotland there is a need for further training in areas such as filleting.

We should seek to retain those things that are of the highest standard, as far as processing and the fleet are concerned. In particular, safety should be a key priority. Last year eight people lost their lives; that is still far too high and far too tragic a toll. The best memorial that we can possibly make to those who have lost their lives in the fishing industry is to seek to do more to ensure that that tragic toll is reduced.

rose—

Order. I have no power to impose time limits, but will Members please be aware that the point of an Adjournment debate is to provide the Minister with sufficient time to answer the Member who initiated the debate?

I shall certainly bear your strictures in mind, Mr. McWilliam.

There was much in the speech of the hon. Member for Aberdeen, North (Mr. Savidge) that would make for interesting debates on different days, but it did not relate to the deal that was struck at last month's Council. I will leave the part of his speech that I could understand for another day. We can discuss it then.

I congratulate the hon. Member for Banff and Buchan (Mr. Salmond) on securing the debate. It is exceptionally timely. At the start of his speech, he said that he wanted to establish what happened at December's Fisheries Council. I am not as ambitious as the hon. Gentleman. In the time available to me, I merely hope to examine a few issues that are most pertinent to the fishing communities in my constituency and to explore with the Minister where we can go from here.

I associate myself with the remarks of the hon. Member for Banff and Buchan concerning my colleague Ross Finney in the Scottish Parliament. I was exceptionally worried and upset to hear last week that he was going to require heart bypass surgery. I am sure that everyone, both here and in the Scottish Parliament, sends Ross and Phyl Finney their best wishes for a speedy and full recovery.

Whatever the reaction elsewhere in the country, there has been little doubt that the fishermen's organisations in my constituency view the deal as a very bad one. Everywhere I go, the word I hear is "unworkable". Hansen Black, the chief executive of the Shetland Fishermen's Association, said that it was

"a complete and utter disaster for us…We would rather have had the status quo from last year."

Given the reaction of his organisation to last year's deal, that is a remarkable statement. Alan Coghill of the Orkney Fisheries Association described it to me as having been written by regulators who have

"no knowledge of the conditions at sea."

There is an important point to make about who said what, when and about what. The initial reaction to the deal was, perhaps, not too hostile, because the detail was not apparent. That in itself betrays the fundamental weakness of the way in which we conduct such negotiations. Fishing industry leaders should have been aware of the detail before Fisheries Ministers signed up to it. That is partly a comment on the Minister himself and partly a comment on a system that has a mad dash at the end of every year to agree what is going to be the capacity of the industry for the succeeding 12 months. I cannot think of another industry, in this country or any other, that would allow itself to be regulated in that way.

The two principal concerns that I wish to bring to the Minister's attention are, first, the question of the number of days at sea and, secondly, what we might call. for short, the map issues—those that relate to the operation of the permit system and some of our spatial management. The regulation grants 10 days a month at sea to UK white fish fleets. Thereafter, extra days at sea must be applied for. They can ask for as many days as they want as long as the total at the end of the month is no more than 15. I do not understand the logic of that because it takes no account of the decommissioning that has taken place during the past two years. The calculations carried out by the Scottish Fishermen's Federation and the Shetland Fishermen's Association mean that we ought to be entitled to about 22 days a month.

If the Minister does not agree with that, perhaps he will tell me why, either today or in correspondence. It would do a great deal for the credibility of his Department and this deal if he published the workings—when I was at school, one used to get credit for showing one's workings—by which he arrived at the number of days specified. It seems to me, and many in the Scottish fishing industry, that the figure of 15 days has been simply plucked from the air.

There is also the issue of force majeur. There is no flexibility in the number of days at sea to take account of those who are taken into port because of bad weather—dodging into port, as it is called—or situations where a boat goes to the assistance of another boat that has experienced a major breakdown. Those are the sort of details that can be resolved between now and the completion of the regulation. I would welcome some reassurance from the Minister that he intends to attend to those issues.

I have severe reservations about the map issues. I do not understand the logic of a system that creates a bilateral approach of cod-sensitive and permit-based fishing areas. Only 20 per cent. of our haddock quota can be taken from the cod-sensitive area, and a restriction of 15 days a month under permit will apply to the remainder of the North sea. My principal concern is that that will push boats in the north of Scotland away from the traditional grounds, where they have always caught large mature haddock, into the nursery areas around Fair Isle and the area known as the jungle to the east of Orkney.

The Minister has said that the fishing industry must take more responsibility for its future, but the fishermen's organisations in my constituency have been saying for years that such areas should be protected. Young stocks in the nursery areas should be afforded protection. but the deal that the Minister has brought back from Brussels will push boats further inshore where they will catch younger, more immature fish which will have long-term consequences for the spawning stock biomass. That will also be of questionable value because it is not valuable to land such fish. There is no real market for small haddock; the market is for the big fish that can be caught in the middle of the cod-sensitive area.

If we look at the totality of the deal—it seems that considering things in their totality is very much the vogue—our fishermen will either have to target cod and end up dumping haddock because of the rigidity of the 5 per cent. by-catch, or they will target haddock under permit and end up dumping cod. Anything that encourages fishermen to dump has got to be bad for fish stocks and the fishing industry. I do not see the upside of that situation. It is the rigidity of the 5 per cent. by-catch rule that appals me most. There may be some scope for making it work a little more flexibly, perhaps by applying the 5 per cent. for a year or a quarter rather than for any individual trip. As things stand, there is not even that much flexibility.

I have taken as much time as I should. I just impress on the Minister that the fishermen's organisations in my constituency are not traditionally the most militant. Their position is well reasoned, and they have a reputation in the industry and in Europe for being exceptionally constructive. If they say that the deal is unworkable, they must be heard.

I congratulate the hon. Member for Banff and Buchan (Mr. Salmond) on his powerful speech, which set out a case of which the Minister must take note. The hon. Gentleman made the point that the Minister is relatively new to his post. Those of us who have been at this game for quite a long time—I entered Parliament in 1987 with the hon. Member for Banff and Buchan—cannot remember a single fisheries negotiation or agreement in the Council that was not rubbished or said to paint a doomsday scenario. The Minister should also take note that the hon. Gentleman was normally leading the charge, on which I congratulate him.

I have a few straightforward points to make. As I said, the hon. Gentleman made a powerful case. Like everyone else, I was pleased when I heard the news reports late in December about the increase in haddock and nephrops quotas; I thought then and still think that we have a good deal. However, more questions have been raised as the details have filtered out, and it is important that they are answered. I hope that the Minister will answer all our questions, although it may not be possible in this debate.

I have concerns about days at sea. We all believed that the significant cut in the fishing fleet would bring a corresponding increase in the number of days at sea, but that has not been achieved. It is important that we understand that people whose livelihoods are at stake are asking real questions.

I am also concerned that the press have made much of the fact that foreign vessels are not subject to the same restrictions as ours are. I understand that to fish in some areas one needs a quota anyway, so that may not apply to foreign vessels. However, that question must be answered firmly.

I tried to make the point in our December debate that we face a serious problem with the industry just now: there is a serious lack of trust. In all the years that I have taken part in these debates and been involved with the fishing industry, there has never been a love for the Fisheries Council or the process. There has always been tension, but I believe that we are facing a new situation—one in which, for example, colleagues such as my hon. Friend the Member for Great Grimsby (Mr. Mitchell) feel comfortable promoting a Bill to remove us from the common fisheries policy, which I do not believe he would have done 10 years ago. Perhaps he would have—I do not know.

I did!

The process, the Commission and the whole engagement are now treated with huge suspicion, if not hostility, not only by the fringes of the fishing industry but by respectable and reasonable people in it. I do not welcome that, but it is something that we must recognise and tackle. Without trust in the process, everything is at risk.

The Herald today has the headline, "Fishing fleet sails into war with EU by defying curbs". Threats have been issued that the process, the fishing grounds, the map and the days at sea will be ignored completely and that fishermen will make their own regulations. The other side of the argument is that enforcement is one reason why we have had such difficulty in the EU negotiations. I read the story only this morning on my way in and it may be that a fringe element is involved, although some reputable people in the industry are making comments in support of the action. We must take note of that.

I have worked for many years with the Scottish Fishermen's Federation, a body that I respect. It is generally reasonable and sometimes goes against the wishes of its members. Although, as a membership organisation, it is often put under enormous pressure by its members, it holds the reasonable ground. However, it is now making statements that are hostile to the process and is threatening legal action in Europe. That must be addressed.

It is also important to look to the future beyond this year's negotiations. The negotiations are important and the industry waits every year for the results, but, as the hon. Member for Orkney and Shetland (Mr. Carmichael) said, no other industry operates in such a way. At the end of December, tense negotiations are carried out to determine what will come into effect and what the business arrangements will be from 1 January. That is ludicrous and we must move away from it.

The fishing industry faces enormous threats. My main interest, as anyone who has taken part in such debates knows, is in the processing industry, because the Aberdeen fleet disappeared many years ago, although we still have the legacy of the Government's cod war trawlermen's compensation scheme. Having direct contact with former trawlermen has helped me to learn a lot more about the fishing industry in Aberdeen. The industry is important and we want to preserve it, but it faces significant threats.

The lack of fish is one of those threats. Fish is being supplied from other areas£we may not be getting it from the North sea, but imports into this country are increasing dramatically. We face the problem of cheaper fish from places such as Iceland and Norway. I speak to my processors regularly and am told that they are becoming seriously concerned about the amount of fish coming in from China, which makes up a significant proportion of the fish coming on to the United Kingdom market. I was told about a Canadian company that has opened up a processing factory in China that buys haddock and cod from Norwegian and Russian boats fishing in the Baltic. It transports that fish to China, has it processed—it is high-quality processing—and sells it on the Scottish market more cheaply than the raw fish can be bought at the fish market. That is a part of the future that harms processors and catchers. We must debate such serious issues.

In the context of the Council's deliberations in December, we cannot ignore the problem of black fish. I raised the matter in the House a couple of years ago and was vilified in the local press for even mentioning black fish. I raised it in the context of new opportunities for longer-term solutions to the problems in the North sea and said that it was important to start with a clean sheet. The fact is that black fish continues to be a major problem. No one talks about it and it is not advertised, but it is clear to me from my contact with fishermen and fish processors that in the past year many of them have depended on black fish for survival.

I could make a phone call today and find out how much black fish costs on the market. It is not difficult to obtain, and that must end. The Minister talked about tighter enforcement, but the problem is not only at the catching end. When I asked him a parliamentary question last week, he highlighted satellite tracking. What seems to be happening in the north-east of Scotland is that the boats land the fish and the fish is immediately transported to Humberside because it is easier to get black fish on to the market there than in Peterhead and Aberdeen. We need vigilance onshore as well as offshore.

The industry faces serious problems. Serious questions have been raised about the result of the Council's December deliberations, and unless the breaching of EU rules takes precedence, the next event in the fisheries calendar will be the publication of the strategy unit's report. I think that it will contain good and bad news for the industry because it will put its economics in context, in turn raising a new debate. Although our debate should deal with problems as they arise, as the hon. Member for Banff and Buchan has said, it is important that we consider the industry as a whole. We must deal with many more problems than simply those raised by the decisions of the annual Council.

rose—

Order. This is one of those debates for which an hour and a half is not sufficient. I must start the winding-up speeches now in order to give the Minister time to respond.

I congratulate the hon. Member for Banff and Buchan (Mr. Salmond) not only on securing a very important debate but. in his naturally articulate and robust style, on raising genuine issues about the conclusions of this year's Fisheries Council. There is further work to be done not only in what remains of this debate, but afterwards in order to ensure that many of the hon. Gentleman's questions are properly pursued. There are clearly serious issues that must be resolved.

Like the hon. Member for Banff and Buchan and my hon. Friend the Member for Orkney and Shetland (Mr. Carmichael), I wish my Liberal Democrat colleague and Scottish Fisheries Minister, Ross Finnie, well in his forthcoming surgery at the end of the month and a speedy recovery to robust health.

I know that the Minister will be well aware, having been involved in the discussions, of the difficult background against which the negotiations were undertaken. As far as the UK and Scottish negotiating position was concerned, it would have been impossible to secure any increase in the total allowable catch of haddock without more stringent control and enforcement arrangements. Apparently, as the hon. Member for Aberdeen, Central (Mr. Doran) pointed out, that reflected the fact that the control and enforcement arrangements were proposed against the background of the infraction proceedings concerning the perception that high levels of black fish were being caught. Such a background did not provide the UK with a very satisfactory platform from which to engage in the discussions. Every point raised by the hon. Member for Banff and Buchan deserves careful scrutiny and consideration by the Minister and by those in Scotland.

We should leave aside the arguments about who said what to whom and who believes what outcome of the negotiations should be applauded or not. There has been a certain amount of synthetic argument over what was applauded. The hon. Member for Banff and Buchan, with a sincere regard for the industry, rightly pointed out several unintended consequences of the negotiations. Part of the background to that, as my hon. Friend the Member for Orkney and Shetland pointed out, is the nature of the annual discussions. They are a hasty, secretive compromise undertaken at the 11 th hour. It is no way to organise the future of any serious industry.

I am glad that the hon. Gentleman agrees that there are unintended consequences. Will he impress on Ross Finnie, who we hope recovers to full health as soon as possible, that he and the Minister should go back to Brussels to renegotiate elements of the deal to end those damaging, unintended consequences?

I am grateful for that intervention. It is a question of projecting what might happen, and there may or may not be unintended consequences. However, the points made by the hon. Member for Banff and Buchan were right; we must at least have the benefit of foresight. I shall return in a moment to how I believe that we should go forward, but I have serious concerns about the background to the negotiations.

One outcome of this year's negotiations is the fact that the Minister and his Scottish colleague should be working with their European counterparts to establish far better and more effective long-term management of the industry. There would then be no short-term, last-minute, 11th-hour compromise, as there was this year, which has a significant impact on the industry. When decisions are taken in haste, we must consider in debates such as this to what extent we need to repent at leisure.

As the excellent editorial in Fishing News on 2 January rightly said:

"fishermen's futures were decided at the December Council by a secretive process of horse trading and wheeling and dealing in the bowels of Brussels in a three day test of political acumen and stamina."

I am sure that the Minister associates himself with some of those considerations. The editorial went on:

"The UK is always at a disadvantage in these negotiations, because it has such complex fisheries and so many different areas with different priorities to fight for. Most member states have only one or two priority issues and can focus on these, giving way on less important matters. The fundamental problem is the centralisation of the CFP and the overwhelming power of the commission."

Although we debate possible solutions to the problem of the over-centralisation of the CFP, I am sure that we all agree that it is far more centralised than is helpful.

My hon. Friend is right: the system is too centralised. I can give one example of an issue that has been overlooked. In previous years, the prawn quota in the west of Scotland was cut by 10 per cent., allegedly because of the risk of cod by-catch. It has since been established that the cod by-catch is insignificant, yet the 10 per cent. of the quota has not been restored. It was simply overlooked in the negotiations. Regional advisory committees with real powers are the way forward.

I am grateful to my hon. Friend. He makes a strong and robust point and argues strongly for the fishermen in his constituency. However, in view of the time, we must look at the totality—I believe that that is the word of the moment—of the outcome of the negotiations. Some may disagree, but I believe that to a significant extent Ministers should be congratulated on achieving a better quota outcome than many had predicted. The basis of the debate concerns the restrictions that were attached. There could be unintended consequences, and we need to learn lessons, perhaps from experiences elsewhere in the UK.

The problem is that the restrictions provide a straitjacket instead of—to extend the metaphor—a woolly cardigan. We will have an opportunity during the year to review the restrictions and the extent to which they can be renegotiated. The Minister knows that last year there was an opportunity, in conjunction with a scientists' review of the industry, to reconsider the appropriateness of the monkfish quota in area 7. The Minister and his colleagues in other European Union member states should look carefully at that, and consider the opportunity to review many of those restrictions and the extent to which they apply. If at all possible, they should be looking for flexibility during the year. Any reassurance that the Minister could give on that subject would go a long way to addressing many of the points that the hon. Member for Banff and Buchan and others appropriately raised.

I would have liked an outcome on cetacean by-catch, particularly in the bass pair-trawl industry. Last week, many dolphins washed up on the coast in my constituency; the season is starting again. We are talking about unintended consequences, and that is one about which we knew well. This should be the last season that that happens. We need to ban that fishery and talk much more robustly about how we control industrial fishing in the area. Pods and pingers may well have some effect in restricting cetacean by-catch in the bass industry, but I would argue strongly for much more robust measures. I will look closely at the Minister's efforts to achieve such restrictions.

I heartily congratulate the hon. Member for Banff and Buchan (Mr. Salmond) on landing the debate. He raised issues of national importance, but he also put across the real anguish of his constituents, who have suffered from compulsory brutal decommissioning over the past couple of years.

I visited Pittenween in Scotland with my right hon. and learned Friend the Leader of the Opposition in early December, and enjoyed meeting senior members of the fishing industry. Like the hon. Member for Banff and Buchan, I have rung some of them up over the past couple of days. There is a marked contrast between what they told me and what the Minister told us in oral questions last week. I will mention what some of them have said in no particular order.

Garry Masson, chairman of the United Fishing Industry Alliance, said yesterday:

"The deal is totally unworkable. It is the worst deal to come out of Brussels in the history of fishing negotiations. 15 days at sea is not enough to earn a living. The permit system is ludicrous."

Mike Park of the Scottish White Fish Producers Association, who we have heard of already, said that as 170 vessels had recently been decommissioned, those left should at least be given 24 days, as is the case in all other countries. That view was endorsed by Alex Smith, who said that he was

"happy with the haddock quota increase until I discovered the details of the restrictions which only apply to British boats."

Fishing News said last week:

"It is Fischler's obsession with 'saving cod' that has driven EU fisheries policy in recent years".

That obsession has led to Scottish boats being excluded from the North sea. They will be allowed to take only 20 per cent. of their haddock quota from their most valuable traditional haddock fishing grounds, making nonsense of the trumpeted 55 per cent. overall increase in that quota. However, we are given to understand that boats from other nations are to be allowed to take their full quota in that area, leading to the anomalous situation in which Scottish boats appear to be excluded on the grounds of nationality. In fact, they have been excluded for technical reasons, as they have reported cod by-catches of about 5 per cent. On the basis of those higher by-catch volumes, they, and they alone—so the Commission maintains—threaten the cod recovery problem.

Mike Park said:

"We have a sea of haddock and yet they will destroy our industry. There are 2 regulations coming from the Commission, one for us and one for the rest."

How can the Minister have agreed effectively to ban the Scottish white-fish fleet from its traditional fishing grounds while allowing continued fishing in the same grounds to Danish, French and German vessels that, between them, have more than 20 per cent. of the UK quota for what can be taken out of the cod area?

Hamish Morrison, chief executive of the Scottish Fisherman's Federation, said last week:

"I cannot imagine how officials could have signed up for something so blatantly discriminatory and against the interests of our industry."

He went on:

"They simply cannot make a rule like this that applies only to the UK and no-one else."

The Minister must ask why only British vessels should be made to apply for permits. Is that in breach of article 12 of the EU treaty? On practical grounds, what will the Commission do in the North sea if, as is widely predicted, all the 20 per cent. haddock quota is caught by the end of March?

Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

I would be grateful if the hon. Gentleman would let me carry on. I have only nine minutes, and hon. Members would like to hear the Minister's reply to the questions asked.

Taking the Commission's argument at face value, there are good reasons for disagreeing with its preferred course of action. The Commission's fisheries-directorate website points out that a number of other options are available to fisheries managers in order to conserve fish stocks. As well as closing fishing areas, the Commission tells us that it can also require minimum net mesh sizes, the use of selective fishing gear, and a minimum landing size for fish and shellfish. The point at issue is that other options are available. In the context of this fishery and the exclusion of Scottish boats, the single issue is the use of selective fishing gear.

The layperson is used to the concept of fishermen throwing their nets blindly into the seas and bringing up from the deeps all that finds its way into their nets. However, that concept describes what is far from the case. The science of fishing has developed to such an extent that it is possible within reasonable limits to confine catches to particular species. In the case of a mixed fishery comprising cod and haddock, it is possible to rely on the different escape strategies of the two species: when cod are confronted with a net, they dive for the bottom, while haddock tend to rise sharply. If fishermen are required to use nets that leave a gap between the nets and the sea bed, the bulk of their catch will therefore be haddock, and any cod by-catch will be well below the figure of 5 per cent., thus negating the Commission's concerns.

The brutal, blundering unimaginative inflexibility of the Commission's proposals is shown up elsewhere in British fisheries. A long-line vessel in Grimsby, which catches only dogfish and skate and never catches cod, will still be bound to 15 days at sea, making it unviable. Yesterday, Jim Portus, chairman of the south-west FPO, said to me that he was bitterly critical of the Commission's refusal to take account of technical changes, diversification and restructuring. He said:

"The Commission only gives credit when a fleet is destroyed by a taxpayer funded decommissioning scheme."

Leaving that point aside, in the North sea fishery, unlike in some others, cod and haddock compete for the same food sources. In particular, haddock are opportunist and voracious feeders on sand eels—the staple diet of cod in that fishery. If one wants to ensure that cod stocks have the best possible opportunity for recovery, one important measure that should be taken is to fish the haddock stock hard.

Also, as cod in the North sea rely on sand eels, it makes sense to safeguard their food supply, if one wants cod stocks to recover. Here we have an apparent contradiction. Last year, the North sea sand eel quota stood at 918,000 tonnes, yet the industrial fleet managed to land only 400,000 tonnes. In all other circumstances, when the Commission finds that a fleet cannot fulfil its quotas, it almost invariably reduces the following year's quota to a figure below that of the preceding year's catch. However, that logic does not seem to apply to sand eels. The Commission has reduced the overall quota by a mere 10 per cent. to 816,200 tonnes—more than twice the historical catch.

Looking at the issues combined, one must first conclude that, if the sole purpose is to protect cod stocks, there are no technical reasons for excluding the Scottish fleet. A requirement to use selective fishing gear could achieve our aim. Secondly, if one is to give cod stocks the best possible opportunity of recovering, it would be positively advantageous to maximise the effort on haddock, perhaps even increasing the quota even higher than the Commission has allowed for. Thirdly, the optimum result can be achieved only if measures are taken to safeguard the food supply, which means reducing the fishing effort for sand eels, which the Commission has not done.

On the Commission's partial exclusion policy, one can only conclude that it has opted for a measure that is not only guaranteed to cause maximum economic hardship to Scottish fishermen, but one that is technically unnecessary and, in some respects, counter-productive. One must question what the Commission is doing. A clue is given on the Commission's website. Of selective fishing, it says that, depending on the nature of the specific fishery, there are differences in effectiveness of such measures, which

"make it difficult for the decision-maker to draft measures that can be adapted to each case, without leading to a multitude of regulations, so complex as to be unworkable".

In other, smaller fisheries, from the Baltic to the Maine fisheries in the United States, selective fishing techniques have had considerable success. If the Commission is refusing to go down the road of permitting selective gear essentially because of the complexity of regulation, the case that it is making is that the common fisheries policy is too cumbersome and unwieldy to deal with the kaleidoscopic variety of fishing grounds administered. From its own mouth, the Commission is admitting that the CFP is unworkable. On that basis alone, the case for returning the policy to national control is unassailable.

On the other hand, some would have it that there is a darker, more sinister motive for the Commission's adopting such an unnecessarily damaging strategy for saving Mr. Fischler's cod stocks. Could it be that the real objective is to clear the Scottish fleet out of its own waters in order to support the treaty requirements of equal access to fleets of other member states? Again, the national control argument is unassailable.

Whatever the motivation, the one thing for sure is that the partial exclusion of the Scottish fleet from the North sea cannot be justified on technical or conservation grounds. It is therefore a matter of the gravest concern that the Minister agreed to such a maladroit policy. What was he thinking of? How can he justify a policy that ignores the three scientific issues that I have identified in preference to a policy that combines little scientific merit with maximum economic damage to Scottish fishermen? I look forward to hearing the Minister's answers, and I have one last question: of the three days and nights that he spent negotiating, how many minutes were devoted to discussing real scientific solutions that could have prevented the disaster being inflicted on Britain's fishermen?

You will know, Mr. McWilliam, that, as a Minister, I am always generous in taking interventions, but it might be courteous to you and hon. Members if I alert you to the fact that I do not intend to take them in the few, limited minutes that I have to respond to this debate. I am, however, happy to write to hon. Members if they feel that I have, due to time constraints, omitted to respond to specific points that they have raised.

I congratulate the hon. Member for Banff and Buchan (Mr. Salmond) on securing this debate. He started by saying that he was rather sad that it was not going to be a debate about the long-term future of the fishing industry. Let me reassure him that there will be ample opportunity for us to discuss that subject when we have the Prime Minister's strategy unit report on the long-term future of the industry that my hon. Member for Aberdeen, Central (Mr. Doran) mentioned and that we expect some time next month.

The hon. Gentleman spent his first nine minutes accusing me of selectively quoting representatives of the industry, but he did the same thing. I do not intend to enter into a tit-for-tat debate with him about that. The industry can speak for itself. However, he also challenged me to speak to industry figures, which I do regularly. It is nice to see the chairman of the Scottish Fishermen's Federation in Westminster Hall this morning listening to our debate.

Order. It is not in order to refer to strangers.

I beg your pardon, Mr. McWilliam. I look forward to continuing my discussions with fishing representatives immediately after this debate.

The hon. Member for St. Ives (Andrew George) helpfully reminded hon. Members about the background to this Fisheries Council, which was not an easy one. Hon. Members who know about such things will know that the scientific advice, which was the same this year as it was in the previous year, was for a total closure of the cod fishery. On going into the Council, Britain's strategic objectives were to agree a long-term recovery plan for cod, which we did, and a multi-annual approach to cod recovery, which we also achieved, in return for maximising opportunities to catch more plentiful stocks, such as haddock and prawns. Those priorities were shared by the industry in the discussions that my Scottish colleague, Ross Finnie, and I had in the run-up to the Council. The industry made that plain to us on many occasions.

The hon. Member for Banff and Buchan is not enamoured of the new arrangements to create the greater opportunity that we achieved, because there are restrictions in the areas where the fish may be caught. Some of his detailed points are best considered by the Scottish Executive, which is responsible for fisheries in Scotland, but I am happy to explain. and defend, the rationale of the scheme. The starting point was the wish of the interested sections of the UK industry, which are, of course, predominantly Scottish, to be free to take advantage of the currently abundant haddock stocks. The independent scientific advice allows for some increase in the haddock quota, but only provided that steps are taken to protect cod. The UK set out at the Council to unlock extra haddock quota by suggesting conditions that would limit the extent to which the increased quota could be taken in cod-rich areas.

The arrangements that we negotiated involved two novel conditions. First, no more than 20 per cent. of the UK's haddock quota may be taken from the designated cod-protection areas. That is substantially less than the proportion of the haddock catch that was being taken previously in those areas. That is the whole point. The purpose is to encourage fishermen away from the designated cod-sensitive areas.

The hon. Member for Banff and Buchan brandished a map. I was squinting at it because I wanted to make sure that it was the same map that officials have given me—indeed, it was. If he and other hon. Members had seen the map that the Commission originally proposed for the cod-protected areas, they would congratulate my Scottish colleague and I on what we achieved. Inevitably, such decisions are always based on some sort of compromise between what the industry wanted, what the Commission was proposing and what we achieved. However, it may be helpful if I say that the Commission's map originally included all the inshore waters around Orkney and Shetland and most of the north-east coasts of Scotland and England. The map that we finally arrived at is a great improvement on the Commission's original proposal.

The second novel condition is a special permit arrangement. Under it, fishermen who want access to the extra haddock quota will have their fishing licences amended to exclude them from fishing in the cod sensitive areas. The combined purpose of these measures is to bring about a change in fishing patterns and to improve enforcement—which I was grateful that my hon. Friend the Member for Aberdeen, Central concentrated on—and control. Without achieving both those things, there would have been no prospect of getting the massive 66 per cent. increase in quota that we secured.

The main objection that has been raised to the quota is that it is discriminatory. The argument is that it is unfair that the extra conditions apply to UK fishermen alone, whereas vessels from other member states may take their quota without restriction or special permit requirements anywhere in the management area. The reason why we accepted it is simple: if we had not done so, there would have been no increased quota. Other member states have very small shares of allowable catch compared with the UK, and none of them was willing to apply extra controls for the sake of gaining what would have been, for them, a very small increase. Therefore, Ross Finnie and I had to choose between no increase in the haddock quota and a significant increase in parallel with new management arrangements. It is not difficult to see which of those alternatives is better from a UK point of view, and nor is it difficult to imagine what would have been the reaction of right hon. and hon. Members if we had come back and reported that we had chosen the alternative.

There is no question but that the UK, with 78 per cent. of the European Union's North sea haddock quota, is seen as the main beneficiary of these arrangements. The other member states with a North sea haddock quota are France, which has 8 per cent., Denmark with 7 per cent., Germany with 5 per cent., and Belgium, the Netherlands and Sweden, which each have 1 per cent. or less. Most of them do not take their existing share. Therefore, imposing the same conditions on them would bring minimal benefit to cod and would have created a sticking point that would simply have ensured that we did not secure the higher quota from which we are by far the most significant beneficiary.

Will the Minister give way?

No, I will not.

On a point of order, Mr. McWilliam.

There is no point of order. If the Minister will not give way, there is nothing that I can do about that.

rose—

On a point of order, Mr. McWilliam. Is it not a convention in Adjournment debates that the Minister gives way to the Member who has secured the debate? The fact that the Minister might not be able to answer the question that he would be asked is not an excuse for breaking that convention.

On the hon. Gentleman's point about that convention, I merely say that if he had shortened his speech, there might have been more time for the Minister to reply.

Thank you, Mr. McWilliam, for pointing that out. The hon. Member for Banff and Buchan spoke for 20 minutes and I was left with 10 minutes in which to reply to his points and those of many other hon. Members.

This is a novel arrangement, as I have said, and it is important with any new arrangement to clarify the practical implications and to seek to ensure that there are no unintended consequences. As far as Scotland is concerned, it is for the Scottish Minister and the Scottish Executive to consider what this may mean, and I can report that they are in discussions with fishermen. We can certainly look at what comes out of those discussions, although we cannot go back on the principle of spatial management associated with more stringent control and enforcement.

I wish to say something about the 15-days issue on which there is some confusion. The basic days-at-sea regime for all the areas that are in the cod recovery areas is 10 days. The UK is unique. It could be argued that we have been discriminated in favour of, because we have 10 plus five days. We are the only member state that has 15 days. The only other member state that has more than 10 days is Denmark, which managed to achieve 12 days. Therefore, it is wrong to suggest that the UK has been discriminated against in terms of days at sea—we have not been. The industry's priority before the Council was to defend our existing 15 days at sea, and we succeeded in doing that.

Hon. Members raised the concern that our fishermen will not be able to catch the huge extra haddock quota with the days at sea that they have. I am sceptical about that. Over the past 12 months and more, there have been many complaints about the phenomenon of discard. It cannot be the case that we are catching too much haddock and cod that we are happy to discard it, and that we are now not going to have enough time to catch the haddock and cod that is present. The scientists calculate that the increased haddock abundance should mean that this year's 80,000 tonne quota would be taken by the same amount of effort that took last year's 50,000 tonne quota. However, as always, I am happy to discuss those concerns with representatives of the fishing industry.

The hon. Member for Banff and Buchan suggested that Mr. Finnie—

Order. Time is up. It is unsatisfactory that we have only an hour and a half for a debate like this. I point out to the hon. Member for Banff and Buchan (Mr. Salmond) that the convention that he mentioned applies only to half-hour Adjournment debates. However, I intend to raise the matter of hour-and-a-half debates in which there is a lot of interest at the next meeting of the Chairmen's Panel.

It is a great pleasure to speak in this debate under your chairmanship, Mr. McWilliam. I much enjoyed your benign chairmanship of the Committee that considered the Proceeds of Crime Bill, in whose salt mines I served for about six months. A very agreeable period it was, under your benign rule. I am grateful to your office for selecting this important subject for debate, and I am very grateful to the Minister, with whom I used to share many a lively discussion on the back of the 277 bus. I had no idea that I was to be favoured by the presence of this particular Minister today, and it is a great honour to see her sitting opposite.

Let me plunge straight away into the controversy of housing in South Oxfordshire. I begin with the biggest controversy that has hit the town of Henley. We have had a hospital for some years, much loved and valued by the residents, but we are being braced for its possible closure. Why is it to close? It cannot be due to a lack of cash because we are told that the Government have pumped umpteen millions and billions into the NHS. Those who are bracing us for the possibility of the hospital's closure tell us that the principal threat is that there is too little accommodation for nurses in the area.

If you have not had the benefit of visiting Henley, Mr. McWilliam, perhaps it would be as well to give you a quick word-picture of that town—a sort of caricature of what it is like: the pubs, the ancient site of the brewery, the ripple from the water, the trailing dresses of the girls in the summer, the geraniums in their baskets in June and July, the boats for hire and so on. In the rhapsodical language of developers it might be described as the pearl of the Thames riviera. The houses of Henley are old, beautiful, pleasingly higgledy-piggledy and among the most expensive in the whole of the south-east.

Between 1997 and 2002, house prices rose in South Oxfordshire by 123 per cent. The average price of a new house in Henley is £400,000, according to the Henley Standard, for which I should declare I write an unpaid column. In South Oxfordshire as a whole, the income multiplier needed for a mortgage is 8.6, as opposed to 5.63 in England and Wales, and 6.91 in the south-east. That means that a nurse living in Henley on a country-wide salary of £22,855 needs to find 10 times her salary to be able to afford to live in the area. That is one of the key problems facing the town's hospital, and it is one that I and others are determined to solve.

That is not just a problem faced by nurses and others who the Government in their wisdom designate as key workers. It is also faced by many good people on whom the economy of the community depends. Let us be in no doubt: the sheer affluence of much of the south-east—the ambient prosperity—makes life harder for those on lower incomes. Week in, week out, I meet people in my advice surgery—young people with families who have grown up in Henley—who weep with frustration because they cannot afford to live there. They cannot afford to buy a house and are being forced to live cheek by jowl with relatives in very cramped accommodation because the council cannot find anywhere for them to go. Before Christmas I met a man who told me he was moving from barn to barn. He was living in a barn— quite possibly in a manger, for all I know—over Christmas because South Oxfordshire district council could not find him an address. I note without comment that homelessness in rural areas has risen by 13 per cent. since Labour came to power. Some 2,019 applicants are waiting to be nominated by the council to a South Oxfordshire housing association property and a further 337 who need a transfer to bigger accommodation. The council manages to find roughly 300 solutions a year. That is why we must help Oxfordshire to find more affordable housing. At a time when the housing market continues to be so buoyant, it is disastrous that Oxfordshire has lost the local authority housing support grant, as the Minister knows. It was a hugely valuable system by which debt-free and prudent authorities such as South Oxfordshire were allowed to spend money on social housing. It was effectively awarded funds to the same value to spend on non-housing capital projects.

Under the old system, which the Government have just scrapped, South Oxfordshire could spend about £6 million a year on social housing. As a consequence, it was able to build more than 100 houses a year, which exceeded the number being lost to the social housing stock under the right-to-buy process. It kept ahead of that process and replenished and increased the social housing stock. Unfortunately, because of the changes that the Government have introduced, that is no longer an option for the good and wise officials at South Oxfordshire district council. Suddenly, that authority has lost the wherewithal to build and acquire the social housing that we all need.

I invite you to consider a paradox, Mr. McWilliam. At a time when the Government say that we should decentralise and provide local authorities with more powers, and at a time when everyone has mouthed the mantra of decentralisation, South Oxfordshire can no longer provide a key function of local authority—the duty to provide social housing for local people— because it has been hamstrung by the Government. I will waste no time in polemic on the motives of the Labour Government in doing that, except to say that some people suspect that it is part of their general drive to skew money away from areas such as South Oxfordshire to what they currently conceive of as the Labour-held north. I will not elaborate on that point, and perhaps the Minister will take my frustration as read.

The Minister should be in no doubt that housing is central to the problems of a great many of my constituents. Bus routes are closed because bus companies cannot find a bus driver. As the bus driver cannot afford to live in the area, people on lower incomes who cannot afford a car and depend on buses are seriously disadvantaged. I met a young policeman who had come to live and work in Henley. He said that he would have to move back to Wales because he had compared the accommodation—a tiny, one-bedroom flat—that he could afford in Henley with the very substantial premises that he could have in Wales, and there was simply no option for him and his family.

In Westminster Hall debates it is very important to be as constructive as possible, to try to reach conclusions and to bring new ideas to the Minister's attention. So, humbly, I offer her an idea. I received it from a local government official, and, if I mangle it in the telling, I can assure her that a very good man will be happy to explain it to her in more detail. We should provide incentives to companies and employers to invest in housing for their employees, who could be people who may or may not qualify under the Government's very narrow definition of a key worker. We could do that by telling the employer that he would receive a stake in the equity of the house—30 per cent., perhaps—and by saying to the registered social landlord that he, too, could have a stake. We could split it up in some way or another. The key advantage of that is that it would help first-time buyers to overcome the astronomical barriers to entry to the housing market, particularly in areas such as Henley. Of course, it could also reduce the amount of Government subsidy for housing because it would introduce cash investment by the employers themselves. When the time came to sell the house, there would be many possibilities: for example, the employer could sell his part to the social landlord, or the employee could sell his part and pocket all or some of the appreciation. I hope that the Minister will recognise that the area is fertile in possibilities, and that the idea of mixed ownership or shared ownership of social housing is one that would be worth exploring.

Before we introduce such a solution, we must address one huge and final problem: the ancient vice, endemic to our country, of nimbyism. The issue of housing brings out many political questions, as do speed humps. It brings out the essential Jekyll and Hyde nature of our characters, because the very people who demonstrate, who write passionate letters to me, who fill the town halls of our market towns demanding that local hospitals be kept alive and who want more nurses, policemen and bus drivers in the area, are, alas, all too often the very people who oppose the construction of houses in which such people could live.

Before I excite the wrath of any of my fellow nimbies—we are all nimbies when it comes to our own property—there is nimbyism and nimbyism. There is good nimbyism. For example, I disapprove of the proposal to build 1,000 new houses and to plonk them in the Sandford area, against the vehement opposition of the people who live in that area. That is completely misconceived and I think that South Oxfordshire district council is quite right to resist the naked territorial land-grab of the urban vicinities of Reading and Oxford. South Oxfordshire is right to want to keep the green belt. The Deputy Prime Minister's brilliant assertion that the green belt is a Labour achievement and that he means to build on it has been repeated often but always bears repetition. I oppose that proposal and South Oxfordshire is right to oppose it as well.

While there is good nimbyism, there is also bad nimbyism, which opposes any social housing, and any development in villages, no matter how sensitive and in accordance with local needs it is and even if it is to be done in accordance with the local vernacular architecture. We need new houses and social housing in our area, not just in the places that the Government have designated for huge construction, such as Milton Keynes and the Thames gateway—the megalopolises that the Government propose to create.

The paradox is that the Government want to prioritise construction in areas where housing is already affordable. They need to think harder about areas such as South Oxfordshire where it is not affordable and think imaginatively about what can be done to restore to the area the scope that the council had before the local authority social housing grant was removed. We need to give local authorities the discretion to decide who is a key worker and to abandon the rigid designations of the Government. Would you not say, Mr. McWilliam, that a bus driver is a key worker if his presence or absence in the community makes the difference between the existence or non-existence of a bus route? Even if his company were privatised, is he or is he not a key worker? A barman might be a key worker if his presence or absence in the community makes all the difference to the extinction of the local village pub. We must all realise that the warm glow of pleasure that we feel when we walk past estate agents' windows and see the notional price of our properties spooling ever upwards is accompanied by growing hardship for other people, and it is that hardship with which we must deal.

I congratulate the hon. Member for Henley (Mr. Johnson) on securing the debate and raising an issue of such importance to his constituents. He was right to say that we have shared discussions, and not simply on the No. 277 bus, but by the shelves of the Tesco Metro in Canary wharf in years past, so it is a pleasure to discuss things with him today.

The hon. Gentleman made a series of important points about housing need and affordable housing in his constituency as well as in the wider Oxfordshire area. I was not entirely clear about what he was arguing for when he referred to nimbyism, but I shall attempt to address his points. Clearly, there are worries about the level of affordable housing in areas of high demand. People often mean London when they refer to high-demand areas, but such issues affect areas throughout the south-east, the city of Oxford and other areas in Oxfordshire as well as rural areas in the region. The Government take the issue seriously and such a process is behind the sustainable communities plan that is being implemented throughout the country.

On the specific issues raised about the way in which affordable housing is funded, in February last year we announced that funding for affordable housing would be distributed through regional housing boards. The board for the south-east made recommendations to Ministers on the distribution of funding in July 2003. Ministers approved those allocations in October. Each local authority in the south-east was allocated a share of the former housing investment funding and South Oxfordshire received notification of its allocation in December last year, which was £840,000 for the next financial year and £873,000 for 2005–06.

In addition, the Housing Corporation is currently assessing bids for affordable housing schemes and recommendations for investment will be submitted to the regional housing board in February. Each area will receive its allocation, but there are considerable advantages in asking the regional housing board, which comprises people from the region, to recommend what the allocations should be in the region. We want its members to ask the local authorities and stakeholders throughout the region to take a region-wide look at where the priorities should be in respect of housing investment. As part of such an exercise, we are increasing the investment in affordable housing and will be expanding that investment throughout the south-east region considerably over the next few years, as we have done over the past few years. It would be an advantage to the system to ask for regional priorities to be set within the region.

Does the Minister believe, therefore, that it should be up to the regional housing board or the regional government to decide whether the houses should be built in Sandford? It is proposed that at least 1,000 houses should be built there. Should that be a decision for the regional body or should it be left to local people in South Oxfordshire to decide whether they want them? The hon. Lady said that she did not quite grasp my distinction between good nimbyism and bad nimbyism. Good nimbyism is when we are tempted to repel or reject a decision that was made a long way from us in, say, Guildford or London, to impose houses on our area. Bad nimbyism is when people oppose the construction of houses that those living in the area generally agree are necessary for the community. That was the distinction that I was trying to make. I hope that the Minister appreciates it now, and I am sorry if I was not clear enough earlier. Does she think that the decision should be one for the regional authority or should it be left to South Oxfordshire to decide for itself?

The decisions will be taken at different levels, depending on the kind of decision. The exact location of particular houses is clearly a decision to be taken locally, but the overall distribution of a regional pot of funding needs to involve all the players in the region. We are not talking about a decision being taken a long way from South Oxfordshire or Oxfordshire as a whole; we are talking about South Oxfordshire and Oxfordshire playing their part in discussions across the region about what the priorities should be. Deciding where local houses should be built, and whether they should be built, is also an important part of the planning system and the planning debate that needs to take place. That is why Oxfordshire county council has set out its review of the structure plan. As part of that, there is a debate on housing need in the county. Again, I am not entirely clear whether the hon. Gentleman is arguing for more houses in his area, because he believes that there is a need for more affordable housing, or whether he is arguing for resisting additional houses in his area, because that is what local people want.

The discussion needs to take place as part of the review of the Oxfordshire structure plan. The draft plan has been published and the first stage of a considerable process of consultation and discussion with local people is under way. The plan will be subject to an examination in public in September, which will be in front of an independent panel. That panel will examine and test all the proposals at a strategic level before providing independent recommendations to the council. In drawing up the plan, Oxfordshire county council consulted widely to find out how it should plan new housing in Oxfordshire. The further stages of public consultation need to be gone through. I understand that the proposals include one to provide additional housing in some green-belt areas. The Government have made their policy on the green belt clear: there should be no overall reduction in the level of green belt. The Government office will make that representation to the independent panel when it takes evidence in September.

Local authorities need to consider the issues surrounding housing need and to recognise the points that the hon. Gentleman made about key workers, who find it difficult to get affordable housing, and those who are waiting on council housing lists, who also need affordable housing. There is also the broader issue of people who want to be owner-occupiers and could, in principle, afford to do that, but who want to live in the town or village where they grew up, where they have family, connections and employment, and simply cannot afford to do so at the moment. The issues are extremely pressing and complex, and local planning authorities need to take them into account. They also need to balance the issues surrounding the green belt and take local people's views clearly into account. That is not an easy balancing act to pursue, but the structure plan process, and the debate and public consultation that will take place, are the right forums. The process will take place within the Oxfordshire framework, which is the right place for the debate.

The county council will consider the independent report before deciding what modifications to make to the plan. The modifications are subject to further consultation before the plan is finally adopted. There is, therefore, a considerable process of public consultation before any decision is finalised. As I have said, the key objective of the Oxfordshire structure plan is to provide sufficient new dwellings for Oxfordshire residents, including affordable housing.

I set out that the Government have no plans to relax planning controls in the open countryside and the green belt. We expect green-belt loss to be compensated for by additions to the green-belt in nearby areas to ensure that there is no overall loss of green belt in the region. We recognise that there are particular difficulties in rural areas and villages. Providing affordable housing on rural sites can be a problem. Such sites are often remote, with landscape, ecological and other constraints on development. Furthermore, land values are often high, design standards add to cost, brownfield sites are scarce and many rural sites are small, which also means that they fall below the thresholds for negotiating planning obligations, which can provide an additional difficulty.

We want adequate housing provision in rural areas to meet local people's needs. There have been increases in recorded rural homelessness in the south-east, and we take that seriously. We advise rural planning authorities to plan to meet the housing needs of their communities. We promote a brownfield-first policy, but such authorities need to consider greenfield sites as well. In the communities plan, we announced an increase in the Housing Corporation's rural target to approve 3,500 affordable homes in settlements of fewer than 3,000 people during 2004–05 and 2005–06. That builds on the rural White Paper commitment.

The hon. Gentleman raised the issue of key workers when he mentioned problems facing his local hospital. I was interested in his proposal to go broader than key workers and in the proposal—made by one of his local housing officers, I think—about the role that employers could play. If he writes to me about that proposal, I will be happy to look at its details.

Initially, the Government set out a £250 million starter-home initiative to help key workers into home ownership. South Oxfordshire has participated: 13 police officers, six health workers and 27 teachers are being assisted by the starter-home initiative. However, we are working to broaden the programme. The Deputy Prime Minister has launched a new key-worker programme, which will start on 1 April 2004. It responds to the views of different housing stakeholders about the kind of programme needed to support key workers. The programme builds on the starter-home initiatives, but takes a broader approach as well. It focuses significantly on London because of the nature of the difficulties faced there, but rural local authorities will also benefit.

Does the Minister think that the definition of key workers should be widened in the way that I suggested? Will she give us a glimpse of her views of the idea that employers could become stakeholders in the creation of new social housing?

The private sector is already a stakeholder in the creation of new social housing, particularly when planning gain issues are debated. We have set out proposals in the Housing Bill, debated yesterday in the House, to broaden the kinds of organisations to which the Housing Corporation can provide money in order to expand affordable housing. We are interested in involving a wide range of stakeholders in expanding the provision of affordable housing. I had not considered whether employers could play a role, and that is why I was interested to hear further details of the hon. Gentleman's proposals.

The issue of how to define key workers is difficult. We have taken decisions on the kinds of priority public-sector workers needed, particularly in health, education and the police. It is right that we should prioritise those key public-service workers. They are essential for sustaining any community and ensuring effective fully staffed public services that support the whole community and sustain it into the future. That was the right priority and that is where our investment should be concentrated in the future. I recognise the housing issues that the hon. Gentleman's constituency faces. I urge him to play a part in Oxfordshire county council's structure plan review during the next few months. I also urge his constituents to take advantage of the key-worker programme, which begins in April this year.

I thank hon. Members for attending the debate. I am sure we all agree that hospital-acquired infection is a serious subject— one that we are pleased is being discussed and recorded for posterity in Hansard—and that we should move things forward. There may be differences in how we approach it, but we are all determined to ensure that we make progress. There cannot be many worse things in life than going into hospital for treatment, being there for some time, acquiring an infection and being incapacitated for even longer. That does happen and, irrespective of whether we will ever prevent it absolutely, we should do something to try to achieve that aim.

The infections can he caused by viruses or bacteria. There is plenty of evidence that infections have been occurring and that the bacteria and viruses have been identified. Such infections are bad for individuals and for a hospital's reputation. The issue is often picked up by the media. The infections are also bad for hospital workers who take good care of us and yet have to bear the brunt because of those infections, for which they cannot be held totally responsible.

I am pleased that the chief medical officer for England, Sir Liam Donaldson, has reacted to the situation and produced the document "Winning Ways: Working together to reduce Healthcare Associated Infection in England". In it, he states that such infection is

"one of the areas identified as needing intensified control measures"

and that

"control of infectious diseases was an area of National Health Service (NHS) practice which had had a relatively low profile compared with many other areas of health service development."

In addition to the growing canon on the subject of hospital-acquired infection, the problem needs investment and strong positive activity in many departments, not least in hospitals. Sir Liam Donaldson admits that the guidance that has emerged over the past few years—of which there has been copious amounts—has not excited and enthused in terms of what it has produced. Our job as MPs is to make that difference, and I think we can.

Nine per cent. of patients acquire hospital infections and that is one of the highest rates in Europe. The rate of methicillin-resistant staphylococcus aureus, or MRSA, infection has continued to increase in this country. The figures issued in 2003 show that England is one of the front runners for this kind of infection rate in hospitals. Associated with that phenomenon is the increasing problem of antibiotic resistance, as we continuously use antibiotics to treat the problems that arise. It is almost as if the thinking is, "Oh, give them an antibiotic and they will be all right." Of course, when that is done, resistance to drugs develops.

Just so that I understand the hon. Gentleman accurately, when he says "front runner" in that context, does he mean that this country is both—this is slightly perverse in some respects—relatively high in terms of the rate of incidence of hospital-acquired infections and regarded as having some of the better procedures, at least in theory, for trying to deal with it?

That is true, and I thank the hon. Gentleman for raising that. It is not concomitant that, because we have the best technology and techniques, that produces the results. At the same time, we continue to use antibiotics, which increase the resistance of many different organisms. MRSA is only one organism that shows antibiotic resistance. It is a feature of all biological life, such as cancer cells that become resistant to chemotherapy and malaria when the organisms become resistant to the drug that is being used. AIDS is another such organism.

At the Royal Society today, I heard about another recorded case of severe acute respiratory syndrome in China and the measures that are being revisited there to handle the problem. Infection, and resistance associated with infection, is a worldwide problem. It is not just caused by bacteria that float around in the air and on surface tops. It often happens during surgery, where there are site infections. Data from 60,000 operations show that 12 per cent. of hospitals have reduced the rate of surgical-site infection, be that during operations on hips, knee or large bowels. However, I am afraid that 2.5 per cent. have increased infection rates. That comes from a low base and we have to worry when the figure begins to rise.

No one would say that there should not be more hip or knee replacements or bowel treatments, but the increase of infection, coinciding with the increase in activity, which we welcome, must be handled. It is interesting that that is happening across the world and we are now, as in the United States and other countries, beginning to tackle it. Perhaps I will have time to say something about the particular successes of the Netherlands and some of the procedures that it uses to bring about lower levels of infection.

The best estimates we have suggest that about 100,000 people in England get a secondary infection each year and that about 5,000 die because of it. There is certainly evidence in this country that some trusts and hospitals have a worse record than others. No doubt a league table on that will emerge before we can blink and get out of the Chamber. I hope to hear whether the Minister has that intention.

No single factor can explain the number of patients who acquire infections during the course of their treatment and care in the NHS or other health systems around the world. The factors that have driven and continue to drive the worrying increase in infections associated with health care are multiple and there may be multifactorial situations, in which more than one agent is involved.

The problem is partly to do with patients. The increase in the number of people with more serious illnesses such as cancer, which heightens their vulnerability and susceptibility to drugs and organisms when they are at a very low immune state—their resistance and immunity are lower than they would be if they were healthier—means that more patients are susceptible to such an attack while they are in hospital.

Some factors relate to therapeutic devices, such as those that pass into the urinary tract, which can attract a reservoir of organisms that build up over a period of time and cause serious infections. Studies in this country and elsewhere show that there are organisational problems, too: high bed occupancy; increased movement of patients; poor staff-to-patient ratios; and the tendency of hospitals to admit patients with a wide range of serious illnesses from a larger geographical area, so that there are different pools of patients in the care environment with different types of illness.

Behavioural factors are always an issue. That means poor compliance by health care staff with hand washing and other hygienic practices. I do not want to condemn health staff. Having looked at the male toilets in Portcullis House and around the Palace of Westminster, I think that it does not befit any of us to say that the hygienic habits of individuals in hospitals are any different from those of people in august environments such as our own.

I am attracted to the idea of a device, often seen on the continent, whereby a toilet is flushed out from top to bottom before the door opens. I would also be happy with the device that stops people from leaving the toilet without flushing it—a little voice says that there is a mess on the floor and asks for it to be swept up. That happens at Schiphol airport, so the Dutch are ahead of us in that kind of technology. I long for the day when those things happen, especially in male toilets. Everyone knows exactly what I am talking about. Those are sites of infection that need some fix, perhaps technological, because people cannot always be trusted to wash their hands when they are in a desperate hurry to do their important business.

There are, of course, some structural problems. In the Netherlands, where they put someone who is being monitored and has an infection in a single room, they have a structural set-up that enables them to prevent an individual mixing in a ward. Hand basins are important. There are several types. The best is the one that people hit with their elbow so that they do not put their hands on the tap, which can transfer organisms to the next person who uses it.

There are also environmental problems, such as dirty instruments, floors, walls, and clinical areas. The Government have seriously addressed cleanliness in hospitals. They have tried to improve hospital food and standards of cleanliness, and they have tried to modernise the environment. The dear old modern matron has returned and stamps her way around the wards putting the boot into people who practise dirty habits. That is welcome and was one of the major reasons for bringing matrons back. Hattie Jacques lives on, and I am sure that that will improve the cleanliness and infection controls at one level. The annual inspection of hospitals takes into account the cleanliness of wards, and serious consideration is being given to whether the organisation to do that should be the Commission for Healthcare Audit and Inspection or the Commission for Health Improvement. Cleanliness is being given serious consideration.

The cost of hospital-acquired infections is high. The National Audit Office estimates that it is about £1 billion a year. The United States has lived with the problem for a long time and has found ways to assess the savings. It says that the cost of maintaining one hospital bed for a year would support a full hospital infection control programme in a 250-bed hospital. As one in 10 national health service patients suffer some kind of infection, either serious or less serious, we have a problem. Some people may take the infection home with them because there is always a push to get beds empty and people outside may be affected.

The real issue, however, is not always MRSA. The problems of SARS and terrorism have helped to focus the public's mind on getting control of infection, and having systems not just in hospitals, but across the nation. The public will be demanding much stricter regimes in hospitals because of the pressure of potential infection from those different sources.

The commonest sites of health care associated infection are the urinary tract, the lungs, wounds and the blood. Medical devices that are employed are associated with urinary tract infection. Catheters can be inserted which have a record of reducing the amount of infection, but things are still at an elementary stage. Technology needs to be pushed and examined to ensure that catheters, which can be in place for some time, do not lead to large reservoirs of infection. The situation is similar for blood infections. Such infections can occur when intravenous feeding lines are used. Patients who are being ventilated can get pneumonia through various ventilation systems, and patients can also endure infection when they have complex surgery.

Those are the kind of things that happen. Every newspaper loves the single story that enables it to ridicule the hard work that people put in. However, contamination still takes place in operating theatres and we must recognise that. A reservoir of bacteria and viruses can cause the infection. They are transmitted from one person to another via table tops or other sources.

We need to start talking about what we can do to improve infection rates, and, as the Secretary of State for Health recently said, to wage a war on the infection process. The public are concerned, and unless we take up the cudgels now, infection will become an increasing problem. The chief medical officer has identified some areas of concern, and we should consider whether we can do something about that, but we need to push the argument much faster. For example, it is clear that every hospital trust needs a director of infection control, as is now the case, but where are those directors in the hierarchy? Do they have that Alex Ferguson managerial determination to put the boot in where it is needed, to show that the savings resulting from a hard-line policy are worth taking? It is not always seen to be like that. The directors do their bit—they tell people to wash their hands, they issue leaflets and so on—but the matter is much more serious than that, and we must give managers with that responsibility some clout.

We should also take a leaf out of the United States' book. At great expense, having cleared it through the US Department of Health and Human Services, Tommy Thompson has given me permission to have a document. Such documents are hard to get hold of in the United States these days because of the vetting procedure. A friend of mine did the work. I am not breaking any confidences; it is a published work. Hospital-acquired infections in the United States affect 2 million people a year. The US Department of Health argues that surveillance systems for such infections are essential, and I believe that the chief medical officer's paper recognises that. The document says that:

"surveillance is the ongoing systematic collection, analysis, and interpretation of health data essential to the planning, implementation, and evaluation of public health practice, closely integrated with the timely dissemination of these data to those who need to know"—

the patient, the public and so on. The data are published on websites, for instance, so that people know what the infection rates are at their local hospital. That approach by the Americans in the 1980s brought about an improvement in their hospital infection rates. In other words, they are saying, "There is no secrecy. We recognise that it is a problem. We will do our best to get it down to zero. We will never quite get there, but at least we are taking stringent measures to try to make it happen." The Centre for Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta, Georgia produced that work, and we should attempt to mirror it.

That is one important matter. I have mentioned the technologies, which we must consider. I have also mentioned hand washing and disinfection. When hospitals bid for star status, infection control will become as important as other criteria. Until it does, it will not have the clout of some of the other parameters that give a hospital its grading, unless we intend to do away with the current grading system and produce a new one. If we do not intend to do that, we must take the matter seriously and show that we are doing so. We must encourage every hospital to publish its figures on a website and to boast about improvements. There is no doubt that hospitals would be pushing at an open door. We cannot simply teach individuals and leave it to them. We must give them back-up, such as hand-washing facilities and catheters.

Who can take control of the problem? I understand that the National Patient Safety Agency is collaborating with the NHS Purchasing and Supply Agency on hand-hygiene projects, but such work is piecemeal. We need an organisation to take control of all the things that cause hospital-acquired infection. Either the NPSA or the new Health Protection Agency, which is now finding its feet and becoming dynamic, should take on that task, because their remit is to look at new research and technology, and the results could be fed into solving the problem. It is always better to have one person running the show than two, each of whom has to be asked, "Do you ever to talk to one another or do you just send each other a Christmas card?" I look forward to the Minister telling us about that.

It is time to declare war on this process, which we are doing. Now that the Government have a policy, this is a great opportunity for them to be resolute and determined, and to ensure that the policy benefits all those who go into NHS hospitals and that every trust makes hospital-acquired infections a priority.

rose—

Order. Before I call the right hon. Member for Hitchin and Harpenden (Mr. Lilley), may I say that the point of these debates is that the Minister has time to respond adequately to the hon. Member who was fortunate enough to secure the debate? I impress the need for briefness—then everyone will get in.

I will do my best to observe your very wise recommendation, Mr. McWilliam. I pay tribute to the hon. Member for Norwich, North (Dr. Gibson) for securing a debate on this very important subject, and I make no apology for returning to it, having spoken on the matter last Wednesday on the Floor of the House. Indeed, I have raised the issue on several occasions in recent weeks and months because it is immensely important.

Sadly, despite the undoubted dedication of the men and women who work for the national health service, we suffer from a poor record of hospital infections in this country. Nearly one in 10 people who go into hospital acquire an infection that they did not have when they entered. In most cases, those infections are not due to the superbug but, according to the National Audit Office, between 5,000 and 20,000 people die wholly or partly because of infections acquired in hospital. Not only is that level of infection worse than in most of the European Union, but it is getting worse faster. The last report of the European Antimicrobial Resistance Surveillance System stated:

"We found strong indications for a rapid increase in the prevalence of methicillin/oxacillin resistance in the United Kingdom (about 6 per cent. increase per year)".

It went on to single out the UK again:

"Especially in the United Kingdom, MRSA is a serious resistance problem, as its prevalence has risen by up to 45 per cent. by 2001."

We have a very serious problem. If anything, it is remarkable how little attention is paid to it. Consider the number of column inches devoted to the tragedy of the Hatfield crash, which occurred near my constituency. It involved the death of six people: for every one and every family a terrible tragedy, but not remotely on the same scale as the number of people who have lost their lives through infections acquired from hospital. When I think of the number of people who have come to my surgery over the years who have lost relatives, lost limbs or been permanently maimed as a result of such infection, I am astonished at how little attention is paid to it.

There was a burst of publicity when the Government announced what we were initially told were new policies—although we later learned they were not. Shortly afterwards, I was speaking to a French friend, who asked what issues I was taking up in Parliament. Before I could answer, he said, "What you should be doing is pursuing this superbug issue. It is a scandal that you calmly take the fact that around 5,000 a year may die from it." Although there is such a problem in French hospitals, it is treated very seriously and, in his view, much better controlled. There was a recent scandal in northern France, where 14 people had acquired infections in hospital. The President of the Republic had been brought in, and the story was on the front page of all the newspapers. We should be taking the matter seriously, and I am glad that we are doing so today.

The main reason to be worried about the problem is the impact that it has on the mortality of those in hospital, but there are also cost implications. As the hon. Member for Norwich, North said, estimates of the costs incurred of more than £1 billion are credible and, if anything, likely to be understatements. The solutions, by contrast, do not appear likely to be costly. If anything, they will save very substantial sums of money. It is extraordinary that at a time when resources are being pumped into the NHS with remarkably little effect, we have an opportunity to save lives, reduce the harm done to people and save large sums of money, and we are not taking it.

What do we need to do? As a result of expressing an interest in the matter, I have done a lot of interviews in the newspapers, on radio and in other media. I have often shared time on discussion programmes with medical people far more knowledgeable than myself, and subsequently received e-mails from them. They say that there are medical things that need consideration, which we should examine because they might help us tackle the problem.

I did a series of radio interviews with a representative of the Academy for Infection Management, a worldwide body of experts in the sphere. It says that there must be a change in the use of antibiotics in tackling infections in hospital. We must do the reverse of what we have done until now. When a case has been discovered and samples are being sent for tests and identification, which can take several days, we begin treating with the mildest of antibiotics and slowly build up through the range of increasingly intensive treatments. As a result of its work, the academy believes that it would be better to zap the infection initially with something strong, rather than waste several days on checks—allowing the hugs to take root and transmit in a hospital—before finally applying broad-spectrum antibiotics. That approach would save lives and money and release beds in intensive care, so it would be fully justified. I am not a medical expert; all I can do is put forward the suggestion and hope that the Government give it the consideration that proposals from such a source deserve.

I received another e-mail from a doctor who said:

"Hospitals used routinely to test doctors for `commensal carriage' of MRSA:" —

that means carrying it but not suffering any adverse effects, which is quite common—

"if the test proved positive, the doctor was immediately sent on compulsory leave while receiving treatment to eradicate the organism.

The practice has been quietly dropped by NHS trusts, with no explanation."

He suggests that it is down to the

"over-riding passion of hospital managers for saving money".

In my view it undoubtedly has the long-term consequence of costing money, and it would be ill advised. We should consider whether that practice needs changing to the original one.

I received correspondence from others about the potential in the long term for the use of bacteriophages—bacteria-eating viruses that have been developed in other countries. There is some literature in this country about their potential. They can be highly specific and geared to particular resistant microbes, and once they have eaten them they themselves die and have far fewer side-effects compared with microbiotics. It is another area in which we should consider whether research is appropriate. As a politician, I make it quite clear that I am not saying, "This is right; this is the medical procedure that we should adopt." I am merely saying that we should consider it and take it very seriously.

Another doctor wrote to me and criticised the impact of targets, which were impinging on his success in largely eliminating infections from the unit of which he was controller. Due to a target to move people from one unit to another at a certain speed within a certain time, people were being moved before they had been properly cleared of infection. It was then likely to spread in the hospital.

The over-rigid application of targets is an issue that came up time and again as one factor that contributes to the prevalence of bugs and various infections in our hospitals. I will not repeat the other case histories that I cited on the Floor of the House last Wednesday.

Above all, we must restore a consistent, rigorous and meticulous regime of personal cleanliness among staff. We must restore the Florence Nightingale culture that is the ultimate barrier to the transmission of infections within hospitals. That will be achieved only if we restore authority to clinical staff and medical personnel and take it away from management, bureaucracy and rigidly imposed targets. Unless and until we make the patient supreme, and medical staff have the authority in hospitals, we will not secure any change or improvement. I will not be satisfied until we have, not the worst record of any major country in Europe for the treatment and prevention of hospital-acquired infections, but the best.

I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Norwich, North (Dr. Gibson) on securing this timely and necessary debate. I should like to echo a great deal of what he and the right hon. Member for Hitchin and Harpenden (Mr. Lilley) have said.

The right hon. Member for Hitchin and Harpenden and I share a health trust. As he will know, that trust— which has a specialist renal unit and can therefore expect to have higher than average rates of infection—is rated sixth highest in the country. He and I are dedicated to reducing such infections, as is the trust, which has implemented a number of recommendations from the chief medical officer's welcome report. I was shocked to see England's position in the league tables. As the right hon. Gentleman said, we are the worst, with an infection rate of 9 per cent. France may be worse, but its figures do not appear to be able to tell whether it has an infection rate of 6 or 10 per cent. We can assume that we are the worst, with France somewhere alongside us. That is bad news, because the infection rate is going up.

I will focus on what is happening in the East and North Herts NHS Trust and on what I have concluded from my discussions with the chief executive at the Lister and the Queen Elizabeth II hospital. An infection control officer has been appointed—Alex Ferguson. I do not know whether he has any of Sir Alex Ferguson's qualities; I hope that he has. The hospitals are taking the issue seriously and screening at-risk patients. They are training staff as hard as they can in infection control, in the appropriate use of antibiotics and, most important, in hand washing, in which I have a personal interest. As a renal patient recently in the hospital, I noticed that people—patients, visiting relatives and medical personnel—did not take hand washing sufficiently seriously. During the past 20 years, we got used to not having to wash our hands so much because we believed that antibiotics would deal with things. Now we have gone back to 1860, when Florence Nightingale first wrote her notes on nursing, which are just as relevant now as they were then in the Crimea.

Due to the use of catheters, there are particularly high rates of infection in renal units. What measures will the Government take on the provision of better or disposable catheters? They are a fact of life for many people and we must ensure that they are not also major sources of infection.

Areas of risk have been identified in each clinical area in the East and North Herts NHS Trust, and staff are being made aware of them. A decontamination centre has been established and the new cleaning contract contains new specifications. Some £500,000 more a year will be spent on ensuring that the hospital is cleaned. During a stay there about a year ago, I got up and cleaned the windows and the window ledge with baby wipes. I had a drip in my arm, but I could not sit there looking at those windows. I also got up and hooked the curtains back on the rails. My children say that I am obsessive-compulsive and I plead guilty to that. However, we need a bit of obsessive-compulsive behaviour in hospitals. I should be interested to hear how the Minister will introduce that. A care about detail and about dust on window-sills is necessary.

I am glad that there are ward housekeepers in the East and North Herts NHS Trust, and that there are modern matrons, although I fear that they need a bit of Hattie Jacques's weight and ability to inspire fear. I regret her passing, but I am sure that no matron was ever as terrifying as she was in the "Carry On" films.

We will clone her.

Yes, we will clone her.

East and North Herts NHS Trust has also increased the number of infection control teams in two hospitals from four to five. The director would welcome a recommendation or a guideline from the Government on the optimal number and size of such teams, because those details are somewhat haphazard at the moment, and are left to chance.

Finally, my trust put in a big plea for specialist "surgicentres". My trust is one of those that will get such a centre, but more are needed and we desperately need to consider some of the outdated buildings in which we are asking our constituents to work and be treated.

I am pleased that the hon. Member for Norwich, North (Dr. Gibson) has secured this important debate, as many MPs are coming across such issues increasingly often. Those issues need to be tackled for the sake of the health of our constituents and the reputation of the health service. I am glad that the hon. Member for Stevenage (Barbara Follett) is so obsessive; I only wish that she was in charge of our hospital—but perhaps I should not comment on that. I am sure that the Minister will respond most adequately when the time comes.

The issue of MRSA is particularly relevant to my constituency, which, unfortunately, last year achieved the worst record in the country for prevalence; that is why I am speaking on the issue today. As a result of that disclosure, I contacted the local hospital and wrote to the health authorities generally and the Minister. I also achieved some press prominence.

Following that publicity, I had a number of disturbing contacts from my constituents. It is only fair to say that the local hospital replied to my letter, saying that it has in place an extensive range of measures related to improvements in hand hygiene. It goes on to list the various measures. So often when such issues arise, authorities have great lists of things that are being, or should be, done. They seemingly give some answers, and send us away saying, "Everything's okay; don't worry about it."

It is early days for this issue, and people are contacting me about it increasingly often. There are many elderly people in Weston-super-Mare, and we have a number of residential homes. Local health authorities have claimed that much of the problem relates to those residential homes and to people from those homes bringing the infection into the hospital. That needs to be looked into further. I have before me a quotation from one of the very reputable residential home owners in Weston. He says:

"For several years the nursing homes"

in the town

"have been constantly complaining"

and worrying about clients going to the hospital. He adds:

"We dread sending our residents into hospital for ongoing surgery. Knowing that in all probability they will return colonised."

He continues:

"There has been no record of a nursing home ever being the source"

and says that he always clears matters with his admissions to his residential home to ensure that there are not infections. So who do we believe?

Another constituent told me that the furniture in the intensive care unit at the local hospital was torn. Surely that does not make it easy to ensure that cleaning is carried out. It could be a source of infection. When I visit hospitals overseas, I often notice how clinical they look. As the hon. Member for Norwich, North said, it is easier to clean smooth surfaces.

I recently received a further report from a constituent saying that, while visiting a friend at a local hospital during the Christmas period, she was

"unhappy at the level of cleanliness".

On the table beside her friend's bed was a soiled dressing. She noted that, during the visit, the only cleaning that was done was by a cleaner who

"went through the motions of pushing a damp mop around the floor".

She said that her friend also lost her set of dentures during her stay in hospital, yet they were not found until five days later when they were seen underneath an armchair beside her bed, covered in dirt. She said that, contrary to claims by Weston hospital, there was a lack of alcohol gel dispensers at the end of each bed and that, although gel was available at the entrance to the ward, there were no instructions beside it telling visitors how to use it.

Naturally, I am basing my argument on reports that have been relayed to me. I have not seen such conditions for myself, but the reports are disturbing. I am calling into question not whether procedures to control infection are in place, but whether they are being followed. I very much accept that our nursing staff are of high quality, but we all know that they are under considerable pressure. Many issues come to mind but, owing to the short time available, I shall not rehearse them. However, a nurse has expressed concern about nurses going to and from work wearing their uniforms. She spoke about the laundering of the uniforms. In the old days, they were laundered in hot conditions, but nowadays they are often laundered at home.

I said earlier that I had contacted my hospital. In the response that I received, the deputy chief executive admits:

"The increase in the number of affected patients and the general pressure of emergency admissions on the hospital makes it very difficult to screen and tackle the problem."

Since there is clearly a need for hospitals to take action, will the Minister say whether there is a stream of funding available so that special measures can be taken when they are considered necessary? The mixed messages of reassurance that have been bandied around are doing nothing to allay people's fears. Perhaps the Minister will offer my constituents the reassurance that they deserve today.

My short contribution to the debate dovetails well with the contribution that we have just heard from the hon. Member for Weston-super-Mare (Brian Cotter). Much of what he had to say was anecdotal, but that does not mean that it was not true. The more true anecdotes we hear, the more we realise that something is wrong with the system. I do not have the expertise of the hon. Member for Norwich, North (Dr. Gibson), but we are all in his debt for pursuing not only the subject under discussion, but many other causes on behalf of NHS patients since he has become an hon. Member.

I know that my right hon. Friend the Member for Hitchin and Harpenden (Mr. Lilley) has made such a vital cause one of his own. However, it was the contribution of the hon. Member for Stevenage (Barbara Follett) that reached the nub of the problem. She referred to the system that is operating in wards now compared with the system that used to operate when there was a sort of quasi-military discipline in the administration of the management of patients.

Both my right hon. Friend and the hon. Lady referred to Florence Nightingale. It is surely astonishing that, so many years after her basic lessons of hygiene were put into effect with such dramatic results, we are having to learn them all over again. The problem lies in the fact that people who might have accepted her philosophy had the ability to put it into effect, which meant having a serious hierarchy of power on a ward, a serious chain of responsibility and serious consequences for people in that power structure if they did not deliver the goods—clean wards are part of the package—but that ethos is no longer available to people who manage wards today.

I was struck by an article published in the The Daily Telegraph on 29 November 2003, which was based on a Centre for Policy Studies pamphlet by Harriet Sargeant. I shall enter a number of quotations from her article into the record of this debate.

"It is a revelation to anyone spending time in a hospital to discover how little of hospital activity is actually managed. The closer you get to the patient, the less management there is. No single person appears to have the authority to oversee all the elements of a patient's care, pull them together and take responsibility for that person's wellbeing.

Whether you enjoy attentive nurses, a proper diet and clean wards is simply pot luck."

She goes on to examine in some detail how, since nursing has largely become a graduate profession, there has been a movement away from the fundamental duties on which patients rely if they are to be kept in a clean and safe environment. Here is another anecdote, which is true. She records:

"At a London A&E department, a staff nurse who had recently qualified complained to me that her training had not prepared her at all. In 18 months of study, she had spent only one and a half hours learning how to take blood pressure and a patient's temperature. On the other hand, a whole afternoon had been devoted to poverty in Russia."

[Interruption.] The hon. Member for Norwich, North laughs—I am sure that it is bleak laughter. I know how he feels.

"For assignments, her tutors had set her work on social issues and ethics—including patient rights."

Someone who had been through the courses stated:

"'I learnt more in the first three months on the job than in three years at college."'

The article is shot through with anecdotes. However, as a constituency Member of Parliament, I have my own to report on the Southampton General hospital, which is a mighty establishment that does much good work. My experience with that hospital is similar to the experience of the hon. Member for Weston-super-Mare in correspondence with the chief executive of his main hospital.

I shall give three examples, which refer to three cases about which people sent me letters in a 24-hour period. That is not typical, but it is extremely worrying. In my letter to the chief executive in February 2003 I raised the case of a person I shall call patient C, whose wife wrote to me listing in detail

"the dirty state of the ward in September 2002 and the administering of injections to successive patients on repeated occasions by nurses who did not wash their hands before moving from one patient to another."

While patient D was in Southampton General hospital,

"his wife observed dirty swabs left on the floor for two or three days at a time, as well as excrement left on the floor after sheets were changed. Once again, nurses were observed not washing their hands or changing gloves"

before administering injections.

In the case of patient A, while in the D level wards his family observed blood and pus on the table alongside his bed and on the window-sill, as well as blood spots on a ceiling tile. On some occasions, he was attended by staff members who were not wearing the relevant gloves and aprons, and on others such gloves and aprons were left for long periods in an overflowing bin in his room after they had been discarded. Soiled bedding was also left in the room for several days.

To balance the picture, I am happy to acknowledge that the son of patient A told me that the attention given to him in F1 ward after he had to have part of his leg amputated was first class, and that the standards of hygiene and cleanliness were very good. The attention given by consultants was also warmly praised. However, what is the point of having high standards in one part of the hospital when the patient has already been made seriously ill by low standards in another part? I do not know whether the difference is the result of changes in cleaning practices, the disappearance of matrons, the politically correct reduction in standards of discipline and training or a lack of practical experience by trainee nurses, but I do know that things cannot be allowed to go on as they are.

I had a good response from the chief executive of the Southampton University Hospitals NHS Trust. He faced up to the criticisms in a straightforward way. He said that my comments would be raised at the next trust cleanliness group meeting, and that

"areas identified as not reaching the required standard in your letter will be the subject of further audit to ensure that the correct standard of cleanliness is achieved."

I am sure that when Members of Parliament bring such concerns to the attention of chief executives of hospitals, those chief executives do everything in their power to rectify them. It should not be the case, however, that things can go wrong in this way so that people have to complain to get remedial action on a piecemeal basis. The systems in place should include the sort of rigorous discipline that existed in my days as a youngster, which meant that when I had to be admitted to a hospital for a scrape or a minor operation, cleanliness shone out at patient and visitors alike. That is what we have lost, and what we look to the Government to help us recover.

We have had a useful debate, and I congratulate the hon. Member for Norwich, North (Dr. Gibson) on securing it and allowing us to turn the spotlight on this important issue. Some hon. Gentlemen who have spoken today took the opportunity last week to raise a similar subject: performance measurement. This is a good opportunity to explore some of the issues that were mentioned then.

The hon. Members for Stevenage (Barbara Follett) and for New Forest, East (Dr. Lewis) and the right hon. Member for Hitchin and Harpenden (Mr. Lilley) referred to the teachings of Florence Nightingale. It is right to say that some of the hard-learned lessons that she taught have been forgotten and need to be relearned, and I cannot go without quoting one reference from her notes on health care:

"It may seem a strange principle to enunciate as the very first requirement in a Hospital is it should do the sick no harm."

What are we talking about today but health care-acquired infections? These are infections that people pick up in hospital at least in part because of actions or omissions by health care professionals. The hon. Member for Norwich, North and the chief medical officer are right to say that the problem is multi-factored; there is not one thing that we can put our finger on but a range of issues that contribute to the continued growth in the rates of MRSA infection and other forms of infection in our hospitals.

The hon. Gentleman made several points that I want to pick up on. He referred to the availability of antibiotics that are able to treat MRSA infections. That picks up on a point made by the right hon. Member for Hitchin and Harpenden. Will the Minister tell us what assessment the Department has made of the pipeline of antibiotics research and development work? How many projects are coming through that will continue to offer the NHS, and others, forms of antibiotic that are able to deal with the resistant strains of bacteria that are increasingly encountered in health care settings?

The hon. Member for Norwich, North referred to catheter care, which was also touched on by the hon. Member for Stevenage. It would be helpful if the Minister would describe the Government's position on the work that has been done to develop catheters that are much less likely to be agents for the spread of infection.

The most important point, among many, that the hon. Member for Norwich, North made was about who should take the lead responsibility for driving forward best practice and ensuring that it really is the norm across the national health service. He referred to collaboration on hand washing between the National Patient Safety Agency and the purchasing authority. Where do responsibility and leadership lie? Is it with the chief medical officer, the Health Protection Agency or the Minister? We must be clear where responsibility for action lies, particularly in respect of "Winning Ways", which was published by the CMO before Christmas.

The right hon. Member for Hitchin and Harpenden made several points. I shall pick up on some of them. He said that testing of doctors, who are, potentially, carriers of MRSA, was not now the norm. That was mentioned in the 2000 report of the National Audit Office. However, such tests do not only apply to doctors. Nursing staff are no longer subject to such surveillance. It would help if the Minister were to say why it was appropriate to cease to operate such a regime and whether it is being actively considered for the future. We will never eradicate infections in health care settings, but we can certainly do much more to minimise the chances of people picking them up.

I wish to discus several points from the CMO's report, which provides a helpful platform for moving things forward. Hon. Members have already referred to some figures, but I shall refer to a few more. In the last 10 years of the non-mandatory reporting system, there was a fiftyfold increase in reports of MRSA infections in hospitals. Once the mandatory system clicked in, it was unsurprising, perhaps, to learn just how much MRSA infection in the NHS had not been reported because people did not have to do so under the voluntary arrangements that had pertained.

The NAO reported that each year 100,000 people pick up infections in hospital. According to the former Public Health Laboratory Service, patients with health care-acquired infections stay in hospital on average 2.9 times longer—about 14 days extra—than those who do not pick up infections. That would imply that 1.4 million bed days are lost every year as a direct consequence of infections picked up in the NHS. I should be interested to know whether the Minister or his officials think that that is an accurate assessment. Just think of the cancelled operations, the many other lost opportunities to provide health care to our citizens and the delays and waits that patients suffer as a result. Of those who have health care-acquired infections, 10 to 13 per cent. die, compared with just 2 per cent. of those who do not. This is a serious life-or-death issue.

A couple of years ago, after the NAO report, I undertook a survey of the teams that are responsible for dealing with infection control in our hospitals to find out just what was happening on the ground. I found that 61 per cent. of respondents felt that they did not have adequate resources to do the job. Indeed, two thirds of them said that one real problem that was stopping them doing their job was that they did not have sufficient staff. Many highlighted the fact that they had little or no administrative support to underpin their work. The hon. Member for Stevenage mentioned the need for clear guidance from the Department on staffing ratios for infection control. It is worth bearing in mind that the NAO, when it did its work a few years ago, found one infection control nurse for every 535 beds and concluded that that was inadequate. My survey found similarly low rates.

More recently, the Infection Control Nurses Association said that it continued to be concerned about there being no guidance on staffing ratios. As a consequence, hospitals make things up for themselves. For example, the United Bristol Healthcare NHS Trust has 13,000 beds, but it has only three infection control nurses. Neighbouring Weston Area Health NHS Trust has 300 beds and—apparently—1.6 infection control nurses. There appears to be no rhyme or reason—no logic—behind how this is done. It appears to be determined by the priority that is assigned locally, rather than by guidance from the Department. It would be useful to know what plans the Government have in that regard.

I also tried to find out about whether the infection control teams were being properly integrated into the management of hospitals—that issue has been referred to by hon. Members. One in four teams said that they were not consulted about the letting of cleaning or catering contracts. They are key contracts, which can have a bearing not only on the general health and well-being of patients but on the spread of infections. Indeed, 30 per cent. of the infection control teams that responded to my survey said that they were not being involved in the crucial induction training of cleaning and catering staff.

I turn briefly to the patient environment action team initiative—the so-called clean hospitals programme. Ministers regularly cite it as part of their fight against infection in the national health service, but it is nothing of the sort. It should be prosecuted under trade descriptions legislation because the reality is that only one of the 19 categories that PEAT inspects is to do with cleanliness, and there is nothing that specifically addresses questions of infection and its management and control. We should examine the MRSA league table—which, apparently, might eventually be published. On the most recent MRSA figures, of the 21 acute trusts—excluding the specialist trusts—that have the highest incidence of MRSA, 17 are ranked green under the PEAT ratings, of which five were given a three-star rating under the star rating system, two are given a green or amber rating and two are amber. How can the PEAT rating be relied upon to give any indication of how effective a hospital is at dealing with infection? It is not a guide to whether the fight against infection is being prosecuted well within the NHS, and Ministers should stop giving the impression that it is—I can offer evidence of answers to parliamentary questions in which Ministers have done that. Perhaps we need such a measure, but it certainly is not the PEAT initiative.

I will conclude by asking a few questions. The issue of guidance and whether it is mandatory is exercising the Infection Control Nurses Association. In his report on infection control, published in December, the CMO stated:

"The Department of Health will publish further guidance on the roles and responsibilities of infection control teams."

When will that guidance be published, and will it be mandatory? Can the Minister tell us today what its status will be? Will there be further guidance as to the management role in respect of hospital-acquired infections? That is relevant to the point that the hon. Member for New Forest, East made.

Will further guidance be issued to primary care trusts to deal with issues of staffing and fighting infection within the community at the primary care level, not least given the fact that post-discharge surveys of the acute sector to find out how many people get infections after they have left hospital are very rare? There is inadequate data on that. There could be a significant problem that results in emergency readmissions to the NHS.

Finally, to pick up on a point made by the hon. Member for Stevenage, education and training are key factors in dealing with this issue. A few posters dotted around the hospital saying, "Now wash your hands" will never be enough. Is it being considered whether we should make training around infection control mandatory, as health and safety regulations and fire regulations are? Will the Minister consider including training on infection control in pre-registration programmes for all health care staff, not just doctors and nurses? That message must be drummed home time and again if we are to change behaviour, reinforce hygiene habits that protect the public by reducing MRSA rates, and save NHS resources and people's lives.

It is kind of you, Mr. McWilliam, to give me the opportunity to contribute to this debate. I shall endeavour to give the Minister proper time in which to reply. It has been an excellent debate and I pay tribute to the hon. Member for Norwich, North (Dr. Gibson) for instigating it and for the way in which he introduced it. I also pay tribute to my right hon. Friend the Member for Hitchin and Harpenden (Mr. Lilley) and my hon. Friend the Member for New Forest, East (Dr. Lewis), who illustrated some of the best ways in which Members of Parliament can become involved.

My right hon. Friend has pursued the matter doggedly. He referred to the involvement of the President of the Republic of France in this regard in an incident in France which, if it occurred at the right time, might have been his motive for raising it with the Prime Minister on one occasion, although I am not aware that the Prime Minister has acted in the same way as the President of the French Republic.

My hon. Friend the Member for New Forest, East reflected the experience of right hon. and hon. Members throughout the House: namely that, notwithstanding the excellent care that our constituents receive in hospitals locally, which is certainly true of Addenbrooke's and Papworth hospitals in my constituency, it is unfortunately too often the case that we receive evidence from members of the public with professional experience—often people who were, for example, formerly nursing or medical staff in hospitals—who see some of the staff practices when they or their relatives are patients and who regret the failure to adopt some of the basic requirements.

I pay tribute to the many staff who do very well. Addenbrooke's is a good example and it is an intensely busy hospital. It is sometimes suggested that the problem arises because of very high bed occupancy in the NHS, but I do not detect that the busiest hospitals with bed occupancies of 95 per cent. or more necessarily have high levels of cross-infection. Clearly, the risk exists, the requirement on them to react is high and it would be better if bed occupancy were lower, but pressure in the system does not necessarily lead to failing performance.

As I implied to the hon. Member for Norwich, North, we know increasingly what needs to happen in theory, but we must now ensure that it happens in practice. Someone reading this debate might conclude that we have only just discovered the problem in the NHS, but we have been living with it for some time. In March 1995, the hospital infection working group produced guidance, the Nosocomial infection national surveillance scheme was established in 1996, work began on evidence-based guidelines in 1998 for production in 2000, and the fact that hygiene and infection control is a core management responsibility was emphasised and reiterated in 1998, which answers the point about where responsibility lies. Indeed, it is clear that it is a management responsibility in NHS trusts and has been for a very long time. Also, the National Audit Office reported in 2000, the House of Lords did excellent work in 2002–03-—its Select Committee on Science and Technology has been referred to—and the chief medical officer's was published in the middle of last year. The action that flowed from that was, apparently, not new policy but implementation of the report in December.

What we have seen recently, which in part instigated this debate, is by no means a new response, but reiteration of and emphasis on what has been known for a long time. None the less, although we have known about the problem in theory, it is not decreasing in practice and that is most disturbing. We know from answers that the Department gave to my questions only yesterday that, even with all the action, the incidence is rising. The latest figures under the mandatory scheme show a 1.8 per cent. increase in MRSA reports in 2002–03 compared with the previous year and a 2.8 per cent. increase overall in reports of Staphylococcus aureus infection.

Some of the figures are worrying. The hon. Member for Norwich, North and I share a strategic health authority, which witnessed an increase of about 6.5 per cent. in the year in question over the previous year. Some SHAs had 20 per cent. increases. The infections are increasingly of MRSA. Ten years ago, the rate of MRSA in Staphylococcus aureus infections was 3 per cent. It is now nearly 40 per cent.

Action must be effective. As my right hon. Friend the Member for Hitchin and Harpenden made perfectly clear, it is not merely that we want to make hospital treatment safe for patients, although that is at the heart of our objectives. For the health service, there could be a win-win situation—not only would treatment be safer for patients, but pressure on the health service would be relieved and the service would have additional capacity.

Based on the figures that have been mentioned, such as a 9 per cent. incidence in this country, it is not inconceivable that we could halve the rate of hospital-acquired infections. The accurate current figure may even be higher. International comparisons suggest that half that is the best that is available in other health care systems. The Public Health Laboratory Service study conducted in 2000 on the socio-economic burden of such infections suggests that halving the incidence of hospital-acquired infections could release the equivalent of 5,000 bed years. The hon. Member for Sutton and Cheam (Mr. Burstow) mentioned that almost 3 million bed days are in total attributable to hospital-acquired infection. Halving that would mean that 250,000 finished consultant episodes were available for alternative health treatment. To put it another way, it could reduce the overall average bed occupancy from 90 to 86 or 87 per cent. That would relieve the pressure on the NHS dramatically. There is a big gain there for the NHS if we can achieve it.

I am not going to repeat the points made in an excellent debate that has detailed many of the things that could be considered. The hon. Member for Norwich, North talked about the importance of hand washing and all that goes with it, and listed the options in that respect, including reference to the Netherlands, which is interesting because it has about three times our number of infection-control nurses.

It seems that there is a symptomatic element to the way in which, over recent years, the Government have responded to the problem in relation to its response to the NHS as a whole. We have had guidelines, and we have had reorganizations—we are having the reorganisation of the PHLS and the establishment of the Health Protection Agency—and there are now directors of infection control. At the same time, one wonders why, although the balanced scorecard reflects MRSA incidents, the planning and performance management system criteria for the NHS do not include infection control anywhere. Unfortunately, managers are not free to respond in the way that they feel is best for patients and right for their trust. They have to respond to what the NHS centrally tells them they should concentrate on.

However, we need managers to be able to respond. The NHS and its professionals must have the freedom and the responsibility to respond. It was common ground in many of the speeches today that front-line freedom and responsibility need to be given, along with the authority that goes with them to control what happens on the ward, perhaps through the modern matron, although the modern matron is often not, in practice, the ward manager. There needs to be a person who is responsible for all that happens on the ward and for delivering reduced infection control, whatever name is attached to that person.

As the hon. Member for Norwich, North said, it is vital that surveillance leads to action. It is vital that there is research, although I wonder how complete the research instigated in 1998 was and why many of the treatments and ideas in relation to equipment and best practice that are offered by professionals in the NHS to all of us when we talk about the subject are not already reflected in the research and guidance available. Research needs to lead to action.

The final question was made perfectly clear by the hon. Member for Sutton and Cheam: who is responsible? It would be tempting to say that it is all the Minister's responsibility, but I do not believe that the NHS can be run that way. The responsibility rests with front-line staff, but we cannot give them that responsibility, and expect them to deliver on it, unless we also give them the necessary freedom and authority. It would certainly be the intention of the next Conservative Government to enable that to happen.

It is not my habit to say, "What a good debate it has been," because, frankly, my contribution usually follows an hour and a half of turgid rubbish and I do not like to mislead the House. On this occasion, however, it has been a good debate, and I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Norwich, North (Dr. Gibson) on selecting an important subject and winning the opportunity to get these matters on the record.

I will not congratulate the Opposition, however. I wrote several paragraphs accusing them of scoring party political points and taking a negative approach to the subject, and they have gone and let me down by doing neither of those things. Large tracts of my speech have had to be thrown out. I congratulate all hon. Members on taking a positive view of all issues.

The subject is serious. Hospital-acquired infections are significant economically and, more importantly, significant to the welfare of patients. It is right and proper that we take the matter seriously. The infections are caused by a wide range of organisms. They are a problem not only for the national health service and this country, but for services everywhere. That point was forcibly made by my hon. Friend. Such infections are difficult and expensive to treat. They affect patients by causing illness, pain, anxiety, longer stays in hospital and sometimes death. We must face the challenges that they present.

Several right hon. and hon. Members presented anecdotal evidence and evidence from their own experience. I will not comment on the specific examples that they have given, except to encourage the hon. Members for Weston-super-Mare (Brian Cotter) and for New Forest, East (Dr. Lewis) and the right hon. Member for Hitchin and Harpenden (Mr. Lilley) to ensure that the chief executive of the trusts concerned know about their specific examples. If the chief executive does not take it seriously, they should write to Ministers, who will ensure that someone does.

I will not engage in the debate on nurse training that was raised by the hon. Member for New Forest, East because it is a subject for another day. It is important to recognise that we have a different health care system now; it is far more advanced compared with the old days. It is appropriate that a largely graduate work force provide nursing. It is not easy to make direct comparisons between the training that nurses currently receive and the training they received 20 or 30 years ago, or to say that one is worse than the other.

The infections that have been discussed are a worldwide problem. In the United States, Australasia and most European countries, including this country, the percentage of patients who experience a hospital-acquired infection ranges from between 4 and 10 per cent., and there is a remarkable degree of consistency between nations. Although the UK is at the high end of that range, at about 9 per cent., the figures offer no comfort to anyone who wants to use them to suggest that the national health service or the UK is doing a broadly worse job than elsewhere.

One hospital-acquired infection is methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus. It is only one, but it is very important—the right hon. Member for Hitchin and Harpenden referred to it as a superbug. It shows a different geographical distribution to the other hospital-acquired infections. The particular aspect of the bacteria that causes us so many problems is its antibiotic resistance. The hon. Member for Sutton and Cheam (Mr. Burstow) asked whether any new classes of antibiotics are in the pipeline. I am not aware of any, but the problem is of great concern to the Government and to the pharmaceutical industry. As someone who used to work in the pharmaceutical industry and whose pension is in part in its hands, I can assure him that I, more than anyone, would like to see new classes emerging. However, as far as I am aware, they do not exist and that is an issue for us to address.

The European antimicrobial resistance surveillance system shows that some countries, such as the Netherlands, Finland, Sweden and Denmark, have maintained low levels of MRSA bloodstream infections. we have a much higher level of infections and that is why the distribution of MRSA is different from that of some other infections. Having said that, we are not alone in experiencing increasing levels of MRSA. The same problem has been occurring in Austria, Belgium, Germany and Ireland since 1999. Demographics, long-term investment and the infrastructure of health services vary widely across Europe, as do historical approaches to infections such as MRSA. That is probably why there are differences in different countries.

Since the 1980s, the Netherlands has maintained a more rigorous search-and-destroy policy with regard to MRSA than we have. It involves screening patients and isolating those found to be positive. The Dutch have been better able to do that by setting aside sufficient numbers of single rooms in modern hospitals, which have high health care worker to patient ratios. Although we have not had the capacity in the past to adopt a similar approach, that will not—thanks to this Government—be the situation in future. Our major programme of change, set out in the national health service plan, is creating the extra capacity needed to ensure better care for patients, and by 2007–08 public expenditure on the NHS is set to rise to £90 billion. Part of that will be used to improve the infrastructure of hospitals in the way identified by my hon. Friend the Member for Stevenage (Barbara Follett) in her important contribution. Part of getting the issue right is getting the built environment right.

Since 1997, our guidance for major hospital redevelopment has aimed for a minimum of 50 per cent. of bedrooms to be single. We have implemented major recruitment drives for qualified health care personnel and increased the number of training places for doctors and nurses. As our plans progress, we will increasingly be better placed to achieve the same low infection levels as the best examples abroad.

Unfortunately, not all hospital-acquired infections are preventable and many factors contribute to the problem. For example, more susceptible patients—such as those with severe or chronic diseases—are being treated than ever before. At the same time, advances in treatment that improve patient survival can leave them more vulnerable to infections. The hon. Member for Sutton and Cheam compared survival rates of people who have hospital infections and the time spent in hospital of people who get such infections with what, I believe, was the average time spent in hospital. In order to be accurate, we must compare people with hospital-acquired infections with people of a similar level of weakness, because they are the ones who are most likely to have got the hospital-acquired infections in the first place.

The hon. Member for Weston-super-Mare pointed out that representatives of nursing homes occasionally suggest that the problem does not affect them. I also often hear stories from nursing home proprietors that they worry when their residents go into hospital. In fact, we have a lot of evidence to suggest that nursing homes can be reservoirs of infection. The previous Government recognised that by publishing guidance for infection control in nursing homes. It is too simplistic to suggest that acute hospitals are causing the problem and that nursing homes have to deal with it.

There is no one simple solution to the complex and multifaceted problem, as others have described it. It is generally accepted that up to 30 per cent. of cases could be avoided with the better application of existing knowledge and good practice. In other words, it should be possible to reduce the estimate of UK hospital-acquired infections from 9 to 6 per cent. However, we cannot eradicate all infections by changes in working practice and hygiene, as some erroneously suggest.

Unfortunately, use of antibiotics exerts an inevitable Darwinian selection pressure on bacteria to develop resistance. Bacteria are genetically promiscuous, and, once selected, resistant bacteria can spread or transfer their resistance genes to other bacteria, which makes infections more difficult to treat. The increasing prevalence of antimicrobial-resistant micro-organisms, especially those with multiple resistances, is a global concern and improved infection control must be an important part of our strategy to control the problem.

In recent years, we have actively provided the NHS with advice on combating the infections and with additional support and resources. As health care associated infections are caused by a variety of micro-organisms, reporting systems, in general, do not identify cases acquired in hospitals. That is why we are developing a new national mandatory surveillance system that will track the national situation and help trusts to monitor their performance and to act to improve patient care. The system started with MRSA blood stream infections in 2001 and is being developed to include other organisms.

Cleanliness was raised by many hon. Members. Although common sense suggests that there is an association between cleanliness and infections such as MRSA, we do not have evidence to show that. However, we are working to improve both infection control and cleanliness. The Government have invested an additional £68 million in a nationwide clean-up campaign and have initiated a programme of unannounced visits by independent teams. Every hospital in England now provides a patient environment that is good or acceptable. Nevertheless, there is still room for improvement.

I agree, however, with the hon. Member for Sutton and Cheam, who said that we should not draw too close a parallel between the efforts that we are making to ensure cleanliness in hospitals, and infections. He was right to suggest that. The right hon. Member for Hitchin and Harpenden suggested that staff screening might be an issue. We do not carry out such screening because MRSA is a transitory organism and staff screening would not tell us anything of much use. Hygiene and the use of protective clothing at appropriate junctures is a better way forward.

Hand hygiene is likely to be particularly important and is receiving more attention. The amount of alcohol hand-rub purchased through the NHS Logistics Authority has increased by 35 per cent. in the last year. The National Patient Safety Agency toolkit to improve compliance with hand hygiene is being piloted in six NHS trusts. In June, we announced that £12 million would be allocated over the next three years for hospital clinical pharmacists to monitor and control more carefully the use of antibiotics. Projects to help the NHS improve infection control are under way, a professional group is reviewing guidelines for the control of MRSA in hospitals, and implementation workshops for NHS staff on the national guidelines are being held. Revised national standards of cleanliness for the NHS were issued in August and a cleaning manual for the NHS is to be published shortly.

In recognition of the need to do better on this subject, the chief medical officer set out a comprehensive range of actions in the report "Winning Ways", to which hon. Members referred. Many measures reinforce good clinical practice, but there are a number of new measures. Before I talk about those, I shall deal with catheters, which several hon. Members mentioned. "Winning Ways" and the guidelines that we are issuing include the use of catheters. My hon. Friend the Member for Stevenage asked about single-use catheters, which are now routinely used for intravascular and urinary cases. We are also trying to build up an evidence-base for other medical devices that it might be more appropriate to introduce. Where evidence suggests that there will be benefits from introducing different types of single-use medical devices, they will be introduced. I assure hon. Members that we are aware of the issues relating to catheters and are doing our best to address them.

As part of "Winning Ways", there will be an investigation of new systematic approaches to identification, evaluation and control of safety hazards. There will also be further work to improve auditing, and a research programme. We announced that £3 million would be available over three years. That is in addition to the Department's antimicrobial-resistance research programme of more than £2 million, and any work that the Medical Research Council might want to initiate in areas such as bacteriophage, if proposals are put to it.

I should explain that at 4 o'clock there is a likely to be at least one Division. In that case, the sitting will be suspended for 15 minutes. If there are two Divisions, I will suspend for a further 15 minutes.

First, I should declare an interest. I do not know whether it is a pecuniary one, but it is a passionate interest. I not only play for Birstall rugby club; I am its president. I have been much honoured to be so for the past two or three years.

The purpose of today's debate is twofold. First, it is just over a year since the Government produced their strategy report "Game Plan", setting out their sport and physical activity objectives for the next 20 years. Secondly, since the rugby world cup and following the success of the England team, there has been enormous enthusiasm across the nation for sport as a whole and particularly for rugby—perhaps not so much in Scotland and Wales. The hope was that the interest generated would ensure that people joined their local rugby club.

As a life member of Blaydon rugby club, may I tell the hon. Gentleman that he did not need to declare his interest?

I do not think that I have played Blaydon, but as I still participate most weekends, I look forward to doing so. I shall come to my personal experience at grass-roots level. Birstall rugby club is about as grass roots as one can get, as I shall explain.

I want to explore where we were in 2002 when "Game Plan" was written, where we are going, where we are hoping to go by 2020 and whether we are making the right moves in that direction. We could easily have another half-hour debate about elite sport, school sport and the holding of mega events, but I want to talk specifically about the grass-roots element of "Game Plan" because it is crucial to the other elements in the strategy. My right hon. Friend the Minister knows of the fantastic work with elite sport that goes on at Loughborough university. I hope that we can return to this Chamber to discuss the excellent work going on there and how we will deliver at Loughborough on the country's major sports.

Grass-roots participation is about two key things: mass participation for its own sake—I shall talk about that in relation to health, education and crime—and ensuring that we identify talent, so that those recognised as elite athletes late in their careers can surge through. My regular appearances for Birstall first team this season demonstrate that that can happen, although the fact that we have run only one team for large parts of the season may have something to do with it. I believe that, even at a late stage, there is a role for each of us. The possibility of an England call-up and a career with Leicester Tigers are long past, but we still all harbour the hope that some day we may be called up to do something.

"There are millions of people in this country who are passionate about sport—I am one of them, both as a player and as a fan. But the value of sport goes beyond personal enjoyment and fulfilment. Sport is a powerful and often under-used tool that can help Government to achieve a number of ambitious goals. We have to ensure that we are well equipped to do that."

Those are not my words. They are the words of the Prime Minister in the foreword to "Game Plan", and they encapsulate the feelings of many of us who are passionate about sport, both as players and as fans. We recognise not only that sport is good in itself, but that it can achieve a great deal more, which the Government want to achieve.

My personal experience is as a rugby player for Birstall rugby club over the past 20 years. It is an old school side, and a number of colleagues of my own age group are just about hanging in there. The next season will probably see one or two of us heading towards retirement. My wife probably wishes that I had retired 15 years ago, but come the first week in September, there is nothing more magical than the sound of the whistle and the first kick-off as we start another season. It is difficult to explain to people who do not enjoy sport how much fun and enjoyment can be found at that basic level. We play on a school playing field, we use the school changing rooms, and a local pub is our club house. We do not have any club facilities, but it is genuine grass-roots sport. That is what it is all about.

Several players were disappointed on Saturday when I scored the first try of the game. I was elated that we had scored the try, but they realised that I had secured this Adjournment debate and that I could talk the Minister through it. It was only a 15 or 20 m run-in, but by the time that I got here today, I was sure that I went past all 15 players on a jinking run from underneath our own posts. That is the glory of sport at the grass roots. We managed a fantastic 52-0 win against Oakham.

In my maiden speech, I mentioned the game that we had had against Melton the week before the 1997 general election. I was fortunate enough to play fly-half that week, and managed to score four tries. We won 97–10. It was at that point that I knew that we were on for a landslide the following Thursday. Participation at that level is not the only important factor. Unfortunately, one problem with my job is that I will not be able to attend training this evening, which is just as important as the social activity on a Saturday.

Even in this place, however, it is possible to participate in grass-roots sport. I have been lucky during the past few years; the number of sports teams in this place almost makes the experience like that at college. I have managed to play rugby; I scored a try at Twickenham. I have played in Australia a couple of times, as well as in France, Ireland and Japan. The football team has raised an enormous amount of money for charity.

I never really played cricket at school, but the team in the House let me run out a few times throughout the season; I turn out now and then for the tennis team; if anyone is interested, we have a hockey game next week against the BBC; and I will be captain of the swimming team for a charity swim against the House of Lords in march. I do not how the swimming captain was chosen—unless it was by default. Unfortunately, I am one of the worst swimmers in the House, so I count myself as a non-swimming captain, cheering from the back. I have to admit that one gets a rather nice gold medal for doing so; my four-and-half-year-old son was most impressed by it. I would hate to tell him that all six of us, whether we came first or sixth, received a gold medal, although it does look impressive.

I have also spent a large part of the past three or four years chairing East Midlands Sport, as we have moved towards the establishment of a regional sports board. I pay tribute to the Minister for his work in ensuring that that has progressed. As the rest of the Government programme moves towards regionalism, it is vital that sport matches that progress. I enjoyed those years, and I hope to serve sport in that way again.

Sport is still a passion to me, which others throughout the House share. Last week, for instance, the gym was absolutely packed. The post-Christmas bulge ensured that it was one of the busiest periods that the gym had seen, and our regular MPs' five-a-side game had double the usual number of participants—between 15 and 20 players last week. Unfortunately, only nine played this week, and we were down to three-a-side at one stage. The level of commitment demonstrated by some of our colleagues needs to be wound up somewhat. They need to follow through on the commitment that they show straight after Christmas.

The current situation in sport is not all bleak. Britain is fair to middling in the European leagues of participation rates. Some 36 per cent. of people undertake 30 minutes' activity five times a week, but that is nowhere near the best in the world. In Finland, for example, they attain levels of between 75 and 80 per cent. In Australia, the figure is 57 per cent. We clearly have a long way to go to achieve such figures. Other European countries such as Ireland, Spain and Italy fall below our participation rates, but that should give us no comfort.

If we are to increase participation rates, we must do a wide range of things. All one has to do is consider what they did in Finland and Australia. They made a concerted effort over a long period, and decided that they felt strongly and passionately about the issue. I am pleased that "Game Plan" does that too. It recognises that there is no short-term fix, but it also recognises that we as a Government and as a nation need to do something about the issue, for the sake not just of sport but of other aspects such as health and fitness, education, crime and social inclusion.

The strategy report and the Health Committee have considered the major health issue of obesity. If we do not tackle the problem, the country will be sitting on a time bomb. We estimate that obesity causes 57,000 premature deaths and costs the Treasury about £2.5 billion each year. Most people would be horrified at the obesity levels and the graph that shows their increase. I am not sure what my wife was trying to tell me, but she bought me a set of scales as my main Christmas present. The scales measure not only my weight but my body-fat index.

That was had timing.

It was bad timing, but at least I knew that just after Christmas I was not far off clinical obesity, which directed my efforts. I have managed to lose a little weight and body fat since. That demonstrates how we can be blasé about obesity. Our lifestyles in this place and across the country make it difficult for us to understand, as parents or as individuals, how to balance work, life, play and diet.

Even if we did not want to play sport for its own sake, health and obesity would be major reasons to increase participation. The two go hand in hand. It is impossible to drive up participation in sport if people do not enjoy it. A key factor behind the drop-off rates from sport—people participate at school, then there is a decline as the years pass—is that people feel that they need to want to do sport and not that they should do sport. The Finnish targeted their approach on groups in which participation in sport was declining most rapidly. They therefore managed to increase participation among older people. We should target resources at those groups least likely to participate and most likely to benefit, such as the lower socio-economic groups, women, people with disabilities, ethnic minorities and those who are older. Each group needs to be targeted differently.

Two or three years ago, the Nike report revealed the incidence of women dropping out of sport post-school. The school-club link was not apparent. There is still no link with lifelong sport—into the veteran age group—for women leaving school. I was horrified to find that I officially played for the veterans at the age of 35. I had always thought that veteran age was a long way off. We need to target each of the groups that I mentioned. The Finnish looked at why there were barriers to participation and targeted messages at such groups. In addition, they produced an annual report on participation. Will the Government consider that?

The Finns also did a lot of long-term research. Many sports bodies are starting to do research, as anecdotal evidence has been a problem. All of us who are excited by or interested in sport think that participating in it is good for education and health, but we do not have the hard facts and research to back up our beliefs. It is good that organisations such as sports coach UK are working on research programmes, and that Sport England is conducting research as part of a more strategic approach. The Finns have also tried to make use of their natural assets. Unlike Finland, we would clearly struggle to engender a lot of cross-country skiing, but we have many natural assets that we can use.

Sport does not have to be played in teams. People believe a lot of myths and make many excuses why they do not participate in physical activity and sport. They always find reasons not to practise. One such reason comes from a misunderstanding of what is required. Doing 30 minutes' physical activity five times a week does not have to involve playing rugby or going to the gym. There are other ways. Vigorous walking and cycling can make a difference to people's lifestyle and health. The Finns devoted many of their resources to the lowest level—to councils and clubs. They reduced bureaucracy as much as possible and let people get on with the job. Sports clubs up and down the country are good at attracting people and holding on to them, because they want people.

I do not want to try to match my hon. Friend's sporting finesse, but does he agree that there is room for semi-professional clubs? We know the many ways in which professional clubs work in the community. Furthermore, the Government have done an awful lot for what we used to call amateur clubs—although I do not think that we use that term any more. Semi-professional clubs are forgotten when it comes to tax concessions, as they do not always fit the agenda as closely as they might. However, such local clubs can do an awful lot to advance grass-roots sports. I wonder whether the Minister agrees that that is an important layer on which we should concentrate?

I agree that several football clubs and youth teams make an enormous contribution—that happens throughout my constituency. We see the first team football results in the local newspaper on Saturday and tend to forget the number of youngsters who are participating because of the support that they receive. I have some concerns about amounts of money paid to players at different levels of the game. I know that when rugby went professional, money started being paid to players at my level—unfortunately, not at my club, where we still pay our £5 a week subscription to get our shirts washed and to buy food for the opposition. It seemed a little silly that money coming into the game was being wasted on paying players who had been happy to turn up for their club week in, week out. We need to get the balance right; I agree that clubs make a valuable contribution to the local community.

I want to talk about coaching and the role of sports clubs. The way to drive up participation generally is to do so first at school. We need to get that right. All the work that has been done by my right hon. Friend the Minister and my hon. Friend the Member for Vauxhall (Kate Hoey) in setting up school sports co-ordinators and specialist sports colleges has made an enormous difference, but we still need to do more.

As we build up the number of participants in schools, we need to ensure that the school link is so strong that people move almost seamlessly from one club to another without a drop-off rate. To achieve that, we must get two elements right: the human capital and the physical structures. There needs to be much greater use of school facilities. In my area, we use our college's facilities, which are fine. Our rugby pitch is a piece of grass, the changing rooms are of a reasonable standard and we are able to make do. However, coaching and the individuals involved are the most important aspects to get right. I must praise the Minister for the work that he has done on the coaching taskforce and for his ability to get money out of the Treasury to achieve much of it.

If we get one thing right it should be the link between coach and individual. We must ensure that the coach is fit for purpose. We do not need a Clive Woodward at Birstall rugby club. Clive is perfect for what he does, but at our level we need somebody who can teach us, even in our later years. I have learned to drop-kick in the past two or three years, as I have been forced to play at fly-half a few times. I do not quite have the Jonny Wilkinson ability to do so under pressure; it takes me about five minutes to line the blooming thing up. However, it is possible even in one's late 30s to learn such skills, although I wish that I had done so earlier. The coach must be fit for purpose across the spectrum. Having the right coach at the right place at the right time is crucial.

I have to admit that the past decade has been the best for sports funding. Amounts have come from the lottery, the Government and the New Opportunities Fund—and from the Exchequer through the doubling of funding. I congratulate the Government in particular because we have won battles and they have climbed down on the issue of community and amateur sports clubs. It seems a long time ago since I introduced my ten-minute Bill on that subject. We hit a brick wall at the time, but eventually we won our battle with the Treasury—although not necessarily with the Department for Culture, Media and Sport. Once the civil servants came round, the wall quickly tumbled down and there was a great deal of enthusiasm. There is now much enthusiasm in the Treasury, which recognises the enormous benefit of those clubs. At the grass roots, a few thousand pounds or a few hundred pounds make a big difference.

I would particularly like to say a big thank you for the conclusion of the big rate relief battle, which has gone on ever since I became involved in sports and politics. Even though we thought at one stage that victory was unlikely, we won the battle this year when the Government finally conceded. I know that they like doing that at the last hour; it adds to the sense of purpose and build-up. Rates can be enormous, so relief will make a great difference to many clubs' finances, allowing them to spend money on coaching and attracting more people, rather than on the fabric of buildings. The Government have done an enormous amount on that, and they need praising.

We have much to do to get participation rates up from 36 to 80 per cent. I would like to hear how the Minister thinks that we will do so, what progress we have made in the first year, and whether he believes that the structure is in place to allow that to build year on year.

The other important thing about local clubs is volunteering. The whole structure would collapse tomorrow if the 1.5 million volunteers in the 150,000 sports clubs disappeared overnight. However, volunteers and volunteering in sport never seem to match what we know as the voluntary sector—and I have been guilty of that attitude as much as others. There have been similar difficulties with, for example, the Home Office volunteers programme; sport does not seem to have been recognised. Somehow, those volunteers are thought to be different from others in the voluntary sector. I used to work as a project officer, but I must admit that, even though I was a volunteer in a sports club, it never crossed my mind that it was part of the same sector. The spheres need to work much more closely to ensure that sports clubs benefit from elsewhere.

There is a great deal to do: we have to get the suppliers' side right and increase the demand for participation. That will benefit health, education, crime and social inclusion. We must target the groups that are least likely to participate. We really have a chance to turn things around. I hope that we have been able to use the success of the rugby world cup as a genesis for that, because we will not have such an opportunity again.

Order. The object of an Adjournment debate is to get a reply from the Minister, not to lecture him.

I sincerely congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Loughborough (Mr. Reed) on the work that he has done and continues to do in his constituency, and on the role that he played in the East Midlands Sports Council. His name for participation in sport went before him, and he should be commended.

My officials have been working on all the press releases that my hon. Friend sends out, of which there are many—in fact, I had an army of civil servants going through them. One was titled: "Rate Relief for Sports Clubs Secured Thanks to Reed". It read:

"Local MP Andy Reed's 4 year battle to get effective rate relief for local sports clubs finally came to an end yesterday, as the Government passed the Local Government Bill".

That was solely down to him apparently, and I congratulate him on that. However, to be serious, it was a battle to get that rate relief, and as he said, that battle had been raging for 30 years. It came to a conclusion because of this Government and he acknowledged our investment in grass—roots sport. To a large extent, we convinced the Treasury through the development of the CASC—the Community Amateur Sports Club. The CASC gave us a vehicle that was watertight in taxation terms as far as the Treasury was concerned, so it was prepared to introduce mandatory rate relief, which was a good exercise.

One aspect, however, has been disappointing. I ask hon. Members from both sides to come on board to ensure that we get the scheme out to sports clubs. One of the weaknesses of the governing bodies has been their inability to communicate with their clubs. By 31 December last year, only 558 clubs had registered with the Inland Revenue. That includes those registering for mandatory rate relief and the CASC—the whole lot. Through our nine regional officers, we put out about 100,000 leaflets. We used the one-stop shops, and had a dedicated telephone line linked to the Charity Commission and various organisations to make it as simple as possible for any sports club to receive that sort of financial support. There is a lot more educational work to be done, and I hope that hon. Members of all parties will participate in that.

As my hon. Friend said, it is one year on from "Game Plan", which is a 20-year plan. We are laying the foundations and going through a modernisation of the sporting infrastructure. He epitomised what sport was all about when he talked about scoring a try on Saturday for his local rugby union club. I do a bit of running, as he probably knows, and I must admit to running the half-marathon in under two hours last year. I did the great north run, in which 47,000 people participated. To do that with them was a fantastic feeling in itself, and I did the run in 1 hour 58 minutes and 25 seconds. All I wanted to do was to get under two hours—and I did. It is a great feeling when such personal ambitions are achieved.

It is right that we are now paying attention to participation. The record of investment in sport has been unfortunate. We have spent just over £1.5 billion during the period of the lottery and have increased participation by just per cent. One has to start looking at where things have gone wrong. As my hon. Friend said, we have now started to work in schools, and we are now rolling out 400 sports colleges—one for every 400,000 people—that are linked to an average of seven secondary schools and 15 primary schools. Their sole objective is to provide two hours of quality physical activity per week for every child from the ages of five to 16. That bedrock has to be laid. The initiative is linked to 3,000 school sports co-ordinators, who are releasing teachers from other tasks, thus allowing them to teach. The co-ordinators are developing sport in and between schools and in their communities.

Club-to-school links are important. Some 70 per cent. of our young people do not continue in active sport when they leave school. In France, that figure is 20 per cent. and throughout most of the developed world it is less than 70 per cent. We have been trying to consider the issue systematically and are asking, "Where are the structural weaknesses that we have to address?" That is why we are investing £60 million through the governing bodies to examine the club structure, club-to-school links and the development of clubs in the community.

There are 40,000 soccer clubs throughout the country, but the number of rugby union clubs has fallen from just over 1,500 to about 1,480. I know that the Rugby Football Union is addressing that issue and making a welcome impact by investing £100 million over the next four years. The number of clubs has tended to decline across the major sports. We are trying, in partnership with the governing bodies, to address the issue of strengthening the club structure and club-to-school links. If we can get young people to participate in sport in their communities at a young age—whichever sport that might be—they are more likely to stay in sport when they leave school.

In the recent past, it has been pleasing to see how the governing bodies of sports are talking together and considering how to develop multi-sports clubs. We were talking about how the issue is not just about real estate, which is important, but about how the synergy of sport is brought together to operate in the community. The national coaching certificate will evolve this year thanks to the governing bodies coming together. We are investing just under £30 million over the next two to three years to bring in a coaching certificate. I should like to see around 3,000 community coaches on the ground in the next three to four years working through county partnerships, and making links with what we do in the schools and what the governing bodies are doing through their sports clubs development schemes.

This is one of the small issues, but there is a much bigger picture. On grass-roots development and participation, we are currently investing in the real estate and human capital through co-ordinators and the new community coaches. There is also the development, for the first time, of the profession of sports coach. Sports coach UK is developing that strategy.

The lack of worth given to coaching in this country was brought to my attention when I was in the north-east. One of our young national gymnastics coaches, who was previously an engineer and had retrained as a coach, told me that he had just got married. He said that he tried to get a mortgage, but was told, "I'm sorry, but that is not secure employment. Go back to being engineer, put 'engineer' on your application form and we will give you the money." That spoke volumes. As a nation, the most important part of our infrastructure is coaching. We have had to import a coach from abroad for nearly every national sport, including our national game, football, as well as swimming, rugby league and so on. I mean no disrespect to those people, but that is an indictment of the lack of investment in coaching for many years.

The investment in infrastructure, what is happening in schools through the governing bodies and the modernisation proposals will start to have an impact on the development of grass-roots sport throughout the coming years. If we link that to what is happening to talent development in further education and at universities, we shall be able to say in a few years that young people in the schools or clubs structure who have talent can seamlessly develop it to a level that will reward them, reward sport and reward the nation, as we begin to pick up more gold, silver and bronze medals and win the cup in Australia.

Order. Time is up.

I am grateful for the opportunity to talk about post office closures in West Derbyshire. I do so reluctantly because I fully accept that, inevitably, closures take place. However, I cannot believe the scale on which they have been happening over the past six years in West Derbyshire. Ten years ago I had ministerial responsibility for the Post Office, so I am familiar with some issues that surround post office closures and the constraints that are placed on the Post Office. My constituency is one of the largest in the east midlands. Its boundaries stretch from Derby to Sheffield and across to the Staffordshire border. It extends over 350 square miles.

In 1997 there were 61 post offices in my constituency. By the end of March 2004 there will be only 45. Branches have closed in the rural areas of Fenny Bentley, Biggin, Brassington, Clifton, Cubley, Darley Bridge, Flagg, Haddon, Kniveton, Kirk Langley, Lea Bridge, Longstone, Quardnon and Taddington. I was absolutely shocked to receive a letter before Christmas from the branch closure division of the Post Office, which said that it was earmarking the closure of four post offices in Belper and one in Matlock Green. It was closing four post offices of the five in Belper, which meant the removal of 80 per cent. of the capacity of post offices in the area as a result of a supposed "reinvention" proposal. If ever there was a wrong word for a set of proposals, it is the Post Office's "reinvention" programme, given that so many post offices have closed.

From 1997, there has been a reduction of 27 per cent. in the post offices in West Derbyshire. That has caused considerable problems for the elderly. I have received a number of letters over the years from constituents about the closures and the proposed closures that I shall discuss today.

Belper has a population in excess of 20,000. These proposals would give us one post office to cover the entire area. The consultation exercise was extremely strange: 23 December was the closing date for representations, and I received a letter on 2 January outlining why those offices must close. It does not seem that during the period 23 December to 2 January much would have gone on in many offices. I would not have expected them to be working on 24, 25 or 26 December and I think there was a weekend in the midst of the period. During the same period of 23 December to 8 January, decisions were also being taken on 56 additional post office closures across the United Kingdom, from Bournemouth to Huddersfield to Worthing. I do not believe for a second that in the space of three to six working days, all the comments, letters and petitions were fully considered. I believe that the decisions were already taken and that they were taken when the letters were sent out about the original proposals to close.

I join a number of parliamentary colleagues who have said that the closure consultation process is nothing more than a farce. It does not exist in reality; the decisions are already being taken before the consultation programme is undergone. I am grateful for the work that Postwatch has carried out. As it happens, I had a scheduled meeting with Postwatch before the closures were announced. I met Irene Shiels, the representative for Derbyshire, and John Verspeak. I pay tribute to their hard work. I am glad that they put in their objections to the closure of the Windmill Lane post office. Of the four post offices proposed for closure in Belper, one has gone up to what I believe to be escalation scale one. It is disappointing that the closures seem to have been decided before we went for the consultation process.

Very little is being done to shore up the remainder of the post office network. I know that the Minister will tell us that £ million is available for improvements. Perhaps she will also tell us how much of that £30 million has been spent so far. My understanding is that not much has been spent at all; in fact, so far only £1 million has been allocated, although the closure programme is halfway through. If it is going to be a reinvention programme, why not consider re-siting another post office elsewhere in Belper so that the people of Belper have at least two post offices available rather than having to come in to the centre of town all the time to use the one remaining post office, associated with the Co-op.

I am amazed by part of the letter I received on the closures from Paul Maisey, head of the area Post Office Ltd. Having told me that the closures are going to take place, he says:

"I am pleased to confirm in partnership with the remaining subpostmasters, coupled with financial support from the investment grant programme, we are planning to invest some £1,500 within the remaining Post Office branch network in the West Derbyshire area".

That is £1,500 for some 40 post offices. The letter continues:

"Specific improvement proposals are detailed within the attached appendices, but typically, they include a selection of the following:

Internal Decoration

External Decoration

Ramp

Hearing Loop

2 extra counter positions".

I am not sure how much £1,500 will buy, but it will not buy much from that list if it is to be spread across all the post office networks. It works out at a mere —33 per post office, which is not very much for investment. Perhaps the Minister will tell me that the figure was actually a misprint or that there is something wrong in the letter that was sent to me.

I am not the only person who is disappointed by the way in which the Post Office has conducted the consultation programme. The Southern Derbyshire Pensioners Association has written to me on behalf of the senior citizens of southern Derbyshire to convey their thanks for my support for keeping post offices open. In letters that I receive from my constituents and in meetings with them, one issue that is constantly raised is the service that they are receiving.

The Government have continued to undermine the remaining Post Office business. There is a direct correlation between their policies and a rise in closures. Direct payment of pensions and benefits into building societies has reduced the flow of business to post offices. Indeed, the Minister for Energy, E-Commerce and Postal Services admitted in November 2003 that the

"traditional business of post offices has been declining. For example, 43 per cent. of benefits recipients now have their money paid into a bank account".2014;[Official Report, 6 November 2003; Vol. 412, c. 923.]

The Government's policy has cost the Post Office 40 per cent. of its income, which helps to explain why the Royal Mail Group is losing £1.1 million a day.

There was a little bit of annoyance at the way in which the Women's Institute treated the Prime Minister when he talked about post offices in that famous address that he made when he was handclapped. The writing was on the wall that post offices would not get the kind of support about which we had heard thitherto. The Prime Minister has said constantly at the Dispatch Box that pensioners would be able to claim their benefits from the post office if they so wished. That is fine, but going around closing post offices does not leave people with much opportunity to use them.

I am not the only person to raise this matter. Just before Christmas, there was a debate in the House on a Trade and Industry Committee report. Members from both sides of the House all made the same protests about the closure programme.

Indeed, there have been many complaints about the card account as a viable alternative. The Department for Work and Pensions showed a severe bias in its leaflets, which highlighted the positive points of bank accounts but underplayed the card account's strong points. The Government allocated £25 million to publicise a move to direct payments, but the vast majority of the information, including the UK-wide advertisements, does not even mention the Post Office card account. This Government are not trying to support post offices but undermining them so that they can come up with closures. Post offices are not even allowed to advertise the card account.

The Government have not been straight when telling us of their plans for the post office network. Those of us who represent rural areas have seen a huge number of closures in the rural networks in the past few years. There is now an even larger closure programme in the urban network. There has been tremendous pressure from both sides of the House, but basically the Government have ignored it. The longest early-day motion in the last parliamentary Session was signed by 391 Members of Parliament, including 180 Labour Members.

A staggering fact is that when for a while I was the Post Office Minister, I answered hardly a debate in the House on post offices. That was because they were not closing. Since 1997, there have been 66 debates on Post Office services; there were only 15 from 1992 to 1997. That shows the level of concern.

I said earlier that I accepted that there would always be post office closures and that there would always be times when people wanted to sell the business and move away, and people could not be recruited to take on a particular post office. The scale of closure that we are currently witnessing is unprecedented in recent years.

Every debate and every EDM shows that the Government's policies are to blame for the decline, and they must be held to account. They have recently made a great play of having a big conversation; there was a fairly big conversation in the House of Commons before Christmas when we debated the Trade and Industry Committee report. Every Member—on not only the Opposition Benches, but the Labour Benches—asked the Government to rethink what they were doing. The way in which the closures are taking place is unacceptable.

There is grave concern about the Government's post office policies. I hope that the Minister can provide some answers. It is no coincidence that while we are debating post offices in Westminster Hall the House is debating the same issue. The Government should address that issue. If they are to stand by the commitment, given so often by the Prime Minister, to allow people to collect their pensions and benefits from the post office, there must be a post office counter network.

I sadly believe that we will see a complete decline in the network so that it does not become a viable option. One way or another, the Government will be able to say that people do not use the post offices because they are becoming more and more difficult to use. I hope that the Minister will address those points.

I congratulate the hon. Member for West Derbyshire (Mr. McLoughlin) on securing the debate on post office services in his constituency…and slightly further afield, to which I will also venture in my response.

I want to reassure the hon. Gentleman that the Government are committed to maintaining a viable nationwide network of post offices. We fully recognise their importance as a focal point for communities, and to those customers who are elderly and less mobile. I should also like to reassure him, given his comments about benefit recipients, that we are committed to ensuring that they can continue to collect their entitlement in cash from the post office.

Some local Conservative representatives—I do not include the hon. Gentleman—would be better advised to encourage people to use their local post offices to take up the opportunities that exist through the card accounts, which are not advertised because they are for benefit recipients; the basic bank accounts from which benefits can be accessed at all post offices; and the current accounts of several large banks, which provide more flexible benefit access than previously.

It is important to view Post Office action and Government support in context. The recommendations in the performance and innovation unit's 2000 report, which formed the basis of Government policy for the post office network, provide the context. It was an in-depth study of the issues facing the Post Office and it made 24 recommendations for the future of the network. We accepted all its recommendations, including the proposal that, if the Post Office decided that fewer offices were needed in urban areas, the Government should consider providing funding so that sub-postmasters affected could be adequately compensated for the loss of their business.

Following parliamentary approval of the funding in November 2002, Post Office Ltd. began its urban network reinvention programme. I understand the concern of Members about post office provision in their areas, but it is important for all Members to realise the difficult conditions that the Post Office management face. We must work constructively with the company to ensure that we achieve the aim of maintaining a sustainable network for the future.

In the past financial year, Post Office Ltd. made losses of £194 million before exceptional items. In the previous year, losses were £163 million. The Post Office has again reported very significant losses of £91 million in its half-year results. The previous Government let the situation drift. I was not going to say that, but I was tempted by the hon. Gentleman's contention that he never faced controversy during his period in government when 3,500 post offices closed. He argued, when highlighting post office closures, that what we now need is decisive and urgent action to ensure that it is possible to maintain a viable, managed network.

The Minister referred to 3,500 post office closures during the 18 years of the previous Conservative Government. When the figures are available, I shall be proud and pleased to compare the number of closures between 1996 and the end of 2004—some eight years—with the number of closures during the 18 years to which she refers. I believe that they will substantially match.

During those 18 years there was a considerable lack of interest by the Government in a sustainable future for post offices. That is part of the reason for the pressure that the Post Office finds itself under now, along with past underinvestment, lack of commitment to developing a sustainable network and other factors, such as changing customer choices.

I challenge the hon. Gentleman, who is criticising the Government for providing choice for benefit recipients, to say whether he expects everyone who receives benefits such as child benefit to be forced to receive them through the Post Office. Is he arguing that the Government should take choice away from benefit recipients? I hope that he is not. We must recognise the changes in context and ensure that we support both the urban and rural post office network, and particularly sub-postmasters, who have been finding it increasingly difficult to earn a reasonable income from their business and, consequently, have been shutting up shop and leaving of their own accord.

It is vital to have rationalisation in parts of the network to improve its sustainability. Without that, there will be unmanaged decline as sub-postmasters continue to shut down and leave. We faced a supply situation in which, before the urban reinvention programme began, more than 1,000 urban sub-post offices had at least 10 other post offices within a mile. Allowing that unmanaged decline to happen would bring the real prospect of serious gaps in provision and would be much more damaging for our constituents and the viability of the network as a whole than the current managed process.

The hon. Gentleman rightly referred to the situation in his constituency, where the Post Office has come forward with a programme of planned closures. Initially, closure proposals under the Post Office urban reinvention programme were focused on single post offices known to be at most risk of closure because of poor viability. In response to input from stakeholders and to reduce uncertainty about the future shape of the network, the company moved, in September 2003, to producing its proposals on an area-by-area basis, using each parliamentary constituency or geographical groupings of them as the basis.

Producing an area-wide plan brings the benefit of giving a clear view of the level of service provision at the end of the urban reinvention programme and provides the Post Office with the opportunity to understand the views of Members of Parliament and local authorities about the wider plans. I understand that during the consultation period the company responded to the hon. Gentleman's written correspondence and met representatives from Derbyshire county council. As the hon. Gentleman said, he was able to voice his concerns via Postwatch, whose funding has been increased precisely so that it can provide that important watchdog service on the proposals.

It is worth outlining that those proposals relate to urban post offices in the hon. Gentleman's constituency—I want to talk about rural post offices in a moment. Under the proposals, Post Office Ltd. reviewed all its urban offices in the West Derbyshire constituency after producing an area plan, which included the proposal to close five branches under the terms of the urban reinvention programme. I understand that although the four post office branches in Belper facing closure obviously attract some loyalty from local people, their transaction levels would not match even average levels of business at a single-counter-position branch. The main Strutt street Co-op branch is expected to receive the additional business created by the closure of those branches. There will be various improvements including two additional counter positions, a ramp, a hearing loop and internal and external redecoration.

I do not believe it is the hon. Gentleman's fault, but there appears to have been some confusion about the nature of the £1,500, which is part of £30 million for modernisation and adaptation, but specifically identified for the Strutt street Co-op branch. I shall go on to talk about support in the rest of the constituency in a moment.

It is worth pausing to consider the issue of the £30 million. It is worth noting that during the period when there was an unmanaged decline in post office numbers, there was neither the investment in improvement of remaining capacity nor the maintenance of the rural network that has been undertaken by this Government. In fact, the £30 million represents the first ever programme of Government investment in urban sub-post offices, and it is an additional measure to those recommended by the performance and innovation unit report that started the whole process, as I outlined.

But can the Minister confirm whether I was right about the fact that so far only £1 million of that £30 million has been allocated, despite the fact that we are halfway through the closure programme for the urban offices?

Well, actually, I can confirm to the hon. Gentleman that spending on this aspect of the programme has now reached £6.5 million. Post Office Ltd. is confident that take-up of that funding will increase as sub-postmasters become more confident about their future. The funding is matched by investment from sub-postmasters. I must say that in the previous environment I would not have been very confident about investing in my business if I were not sure that I would be part of a viable, sustainable network. Sub-postmasters can now be sure of that, and I would expect the take-up from that £30 million to increase.

I shall now discuss rural post offices in the hon. Gentleman's constituency. In urban areas restructuring has taken place under the urban reinvention programme but, as recommended by the performance and innovation unit, we have already asked Post Office Ltd. to maintain the rural network and prevent avoidable closures in the first instance until 2006. That has involved considerable investment. Post Office Ltd. has underpinned its commitment to achieving that aim by appointing a network of rural transfer advisers who often become closely involved with community efforts to reopen or save rural post offices. They have had considerable success in finding alternative sub-postmasters to replace those who have left, in locating suitable replacement premises where necessary, and in giving encouragement to community efforts to provide post office services.

The rural network benefits from £450 million of investment, available from 2003–06, which will help it continue to provide access to services in rural areas that could not otherwise be sustained on a commercial basis. That follows on from the £2 million that we provided for the rural sub-post office capital start-up scheme. Under that scheme, more than £25,000 has been paid out for successful grants benefiting three rural post offices in West Derbyshire, at Kirk Ireton, Hulland Ward and Turnditch. In addition, funding from the Countryside Agency and Derbyshire rural community council enabled a post office to reopen in Ashford in the Water, and Hartington post office in the hon. Gentleman's constituency won the best rural post office award for 2003.

In 2002–03, rural post office closures were at their lowest since 1994–95, which demonstrates the commitment that Post Office Ltd. is showing to the Government's requirement to prevent avoidable closures, and the use of the additional investment being put in by the Government. We have put in place a strong management team at the Post Office and we have tasked that team with turning the business round. Post Office Ltd. continues to develop and introduce new services and business activities. It is not the case that provision of services by the Post Office is being run down. Most recently, the Post Office announced its intention to offer a range of financial products in a joint venture with the Bank of Ireland. That is in addition to arrangements already in place that allow customers of Alliance and Leicester, Barclays, Lloyds TSB, the Co-op and the internet banks Smile and Cahoot to cash cheques and make cheque deposits at post offices free of charge. The Post Office now provides electronic access to all current account holders at the Alliance and Leicester, Barclays and Lloyds TSB—some 20 million customers.

Other initiatives, including acceptance of debit card payments and a major advertising campaign for travel insurance and bureau de change services, are helping to make the post office a place that customers want to visit. The hon. Gentleman chided us for a lack of advertising. I hope that he has seen the advertisements with the ants making use of post office services. [Interruption.] He grimaces, but it is a good advertisement.

There are many challenges facing the Post Office management as they take the necessary measures to ensure that the network remains viable and relevant to the changing needs of its customers. However, the combination of rationalisation and Government investment is the only realistic way to maintain the viable post office network that all our constituents want and need, and which the Government are committed to maintaining into the future.