I was truly delighted to be selected to lead on this debate, but I pay tribute to my hon. Friend the Member for Bolton, South-East (Dr. Iddon) who has been asking for a debate on the subject for a long time. It was extremely fortunate that I was selected today. I hope that you, Mr. Deputy Speaker, will accept that my hon. Friend and I have formed a partnership in order to present the work of the all-party group on drugs. That is how we hope to conduct the debate.

The impact of testing for the illegal use of drugs in the workplace and on the roads is important, as the drugs may affect an individual's ability to work or to drive. The important word is "may". The work undertaken by the all-party group was meant to discover the efficacy of drug testing at the roadside and in the workplace.

I am one of the deputy chairs of the all-party group, which conducted an investigation in order to inform Members and others of the efficacy of such drug testing schemes. We produced a report last summer entitled, "Drug Testing on Trial", which I commend to the Minister. Indeed, I am sure that she has already looked at it. It provides clear recommendations on the subject, and I hope that the Government will take note of it when considering the potential need for new legislation or guidance in this area—I stress the word "potential".

Drug testing is a complex issue. It has a potential impact on the civil liberties of some, while protecting the civil liberties of those who may be affected by drug taking in the workplace or on our roads. Like most things, it is a question of balance. We all know that in some areas of life, drug testing is a common and established practice. It is especially to be found in sport—as we see in the media now—and in other professionals such as pilots. Drug testing for alcohol is a well established and successful example of testing for a substance that has an impact on safety. I doubt whether anyone in the House would question it now, although it was deeply controversial when it was introduced.

None of those issues are covered in the all-party group's report; it focuses instead on the illegal use of drugs, the consequent problems and the potential impact of drug testing. It concentrates on drug testing in the workplace and at the roadside, and the effects of those tests. Both subjects are controversial, and it is important that we establish the rights on both sides of the argument.

I shall focus for a moment on the nature of the problem to illustrate why it is important and why the all-party group wanted to ensure that more people knew about its work. The reality of drug use in 2004 presents a very different picture than it did 20 years ago. Work by DrugScope and Alcohol Concern, based on returns from the regional and national drug treatment database system, indicates that 25 per cent. of people seeking help for severe drug problems are in employment. A survey of 1,800 professionals conducted in 1998 by the Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development found that 18 per cent. of respondents had self-reported illegal drug taking. The report contains more data of interest.

The House of Commons Library recently gave us more detail on drug driving and related statistics. It offered supporting evidence of an increasing problem. It cited a study by the Scottish Executive, which found that, of those who completed the survey and who attend nightclubs and go dancing in the evening, 85 per cent. reported driving on at least one occasion in the previous 12 months after taking illegal drugs. Some 45 per cent. had smoked cannabis while driving, 43 per cent. had driven after using ecstasy, and 25 per cent. had driven within hours of using amphetamines. Some 11 per cent. had driven after using cocaine, and 8 per cent. had driven having used LSD. The figures are alarming, and we cannot assume that the picture would be any different for England. We must address that problem.

Despite those findings, only limited research evidence is available in the UK relating to either the extent of current workplace testing or the findings on the effects of such testing on both drug-taking habits and workplace performance. There is a lack of evidence to support the introduction of compulsory drug testing in the workplace, and there is a similar lack of evidence on driving.

Many people involved share the perception that the problem is significant, but most data pertain only to the most extreme cases in which a post mortem has identified illegal drug use as a potential factor. The Transport Research Laboratory and the then Department for Transport, Local Government and the Regions conducted random testing on road accident fatalities between 1985 and 2000 and found that the presence of illegal drugs—not alcohol—had increased from 3 to 18 per cent. over the period. There is little dissent from the view that we are facing a growing problem.

The use of illegal drugs has increased substantially over the past decade, and that must have an impact on both the working population and the driving public. I do not want to reach a conclusion on the rightness of taking those drugs. Instead, I want to discuss their effect in the workplace or on someone's driving. The scale of the growth is harder to assess accurately, as I am sure that you would understand, Mr. Deputy Speaker. The issue is how to identify and, if possible, reduce any potential inherent risks.

The case for drug testing in the workplace and at the roadside, which has been made by several organisations, is set out in the all-party group's report, and I want to highlight some of its key recommendations. We must recognise the increased use of illegal drugs in society, the evidence for which I have already outlined, but we cannot ignore the concerns of groups such as the British Chambers of Commerce, the Institute of Directors and the Transport Research Laboratory. We must identify any risks linked to the growth in illegal drug use. If an increased risk is identified, with an impact on either business or road safety, we must ensure that the legislative framework and departmental guidance are adequate to protect against it.

The all-party group's report stated that drug and alcohol testing should be seen purely as a means of reducing risk to the public, employees and employers, and not as part of any effort to reduce the incidence of illegal drug use. It would not be an adequate tool in addressing illegal drug use.

Does the hon. Lady believe that drug testing in the workplace could be used to protect the £6 billion that industry reckons that it loses from the use of drugs by its employees?

In preparing our report, the all-party group took evidence from members of the British Chambers of Commerce. They were concerned about absenteeism and insecurity in the workplace causing difficulties. If someone who works as a driver is stopped because he has had an accident and illegal drug use is identified, clearly that has an impact on the business involved. There will be a poor opinion of that business, and those giving evidence were very worried about that point.

I have outlined the issues that the all-party group addressed, and we should not ignore them by any means. However, there are arguments against compulsory drug testing in the workplace. I should like to expand, as I am sure other hon. Members will, on the fact that such testing is not a panacea for reducing illegal drug use. It is a useful tool, but it is not the complete answer.

Concerns have been most prominent when companies have already raised the issue and, in some cases, implemented their own policy without help or guidance. However, there is no clarity about the purpose of drug testing. A substantive evidence base for its impact on, say, deterring drug use or reducing absenteeism just does not exist, and that brings the whole issue into question. That is why the all-party group urges caution.

The important moral, ethical and legal issues surrounding drug testing require clarification. To put it simply, when is it permissible to test an individual, particularly in the absence of a performance-related concern? What constitutes such a concern? That is the big issue. If no one produces evidence that someone is not performing in the workplace, what evidence is there to justify a drug-testing programme?

The ability to test appropriately is a further issue. Current tests may detect drugs, particularly cannabis, long after they have left the body or had any physical effect on the person who used them. A positive test for cannabis is possible up to 30 days after the last cigarette was taken or the cannabis was ingested in any way, by which time it is most unlikely that the person is under the influence of the drug.

My local police force, Sussex police, has recently done a lot of work on the issue: it was one of the forces that conducted a pilot on roadside drug testing. The findings were most interesting. The police tested three types of kit, one of which was specific to a particular drug and two just identified a drug in someone's circulation. However, that testing was unreliable in that it identified people on prescription drugs, which was not in the least helpful.

To take evidence from such drug-testing kits to court would be completely inappropriate, so the police reverted to a system of just ensuring that someone is fit to drive. They went back to what is called field impairment testing, which is taken directly from the American sobriety test, whereby a series of tests are undertaken to ensure that someone is in control and is fit to drive. I am sure that we all agree that that is the right way to go about it and that it is important to understand where the risk is. Sussex police now have 40 trained officers in the traffic department who can undertake that work to ensure that people are fit to drive.

The Railways and Transport Safety Act 2003 was introduced last year, yet the legislation has not been implemented. I should like to hear from the Minister whether there are plans to implement it when the ability to test people at the roadside has been broadened. Although the provision enabling people to carry out that work, which was illegal before, is in place, it is not used. It would be most interesting to hear from the Minister whether we intend to move forward with that legislation.

I am interested in what my hon. Friend says about prescription drugs. The report says that there are at least 400 million prescriptions of medicinal drugs each year. If taken according to the instructions, those drugs would render the driver as impaired as alcohol consumed up to the breathalyser level. I am sure that she is not saying this, but the suggestion is that people tested at the roadside who had taken prescription drugs would be found to be as least as serious a hazard as they would be if they had drunk alcohol up to the breathalyser level.

I thank my hon. Friend for his intervention, which clarifies the point that I wish to make. That is why I support tackling real impairment of driving—not just however impaired the level of a drug in a person's body suggests they are. Being able to test that and to ensure that somebody is fit to drive is the thrust of the all-party group's response to roadside drug testing.

We must face many issues, including human rights issues. As my hon. Friend rightly said, it is important that we do not target people who take medicines legitimately, go about their daily lives and are perfectly fit to drive. Such people should not face the interference of roadside testing that is invasive or gives false readings. We need clarity on the matter.

My local drug action team has done a lot of work on the issue, particularly on signposting for workplace drug testing. Other hon. Members may raise good examples from their own areas, but I should like to congratulate West Sussex drug and alcohol action team on its online programme for employers, which the Minister is aware of, having done some work with the group. That project is an exceptional example of how to give good advice to employers and stop them from going completely over the top and implementing compulsory workplace drug testing programmes.

The course is easy to understand—it must be, because we have had a look at it on the website and registered. It takes the employer through a three-minute video, expands on how best to approach the issue and then discusses sensible identification issues. Why would an employer be interested in an employee who could do their job perfectly well and had not displayed any difficulties? It is important that employers intervene when they believe that someone has a problem—after all, that is just what we want employers to do. There is no reason to take a heavy hand with people who can deal with their own moral issues concerning illegal drugs, if that does not impact on the workplace.

The programme explains both how to interview someone who may have difficulties with absenteeism, problems with workmates or whatever, and how to deal with what is called a critical incident in the workplace if something has happened to alert the employer to a problem. The course then shows how to access proper help and support. I am convinced that the benefits of a good workplace support system far outweigh compulsory drug testing, which is incredibly expensive. It is much better to have someone who can deal with such issues and support employees than to take the heavy-handed approach that some employers are tempted to adopt.

I am following carefully what the hon. Lady says, and I commend her on her contribution to the debate so far. What is her attitude to job applicants? Does she think it is necessary or desirable for companies to be able to carry out drug tests on applicants for jobs in the construction industry or other industries, or even in the City?

I was going to thank the hon. Lady for that intervention, but I am not sure that I want to thank her, as it is a sticky issue about which we need to think extremely carefully. The approach of the all-party group is to deal with risk. If someone is likely to create a risk in the workplace, there may be instances when testing would be appropriate. However, I am not convinced; I am very much in favour of support and advice to people in the workplace to ensure that they are able to do their job properly. There are also human rights issues to consider.

Does my hon. Friend agree that one of the most serious jobs is work in the legislature, where one is not just in charge of the workplace but in charge of a war, for example? Would it not be a good thing to show our enthusiasm for the Opposition spokesman's suggestion and lead by example and breathalyse Members before they vote in the Division Lobbies?

Oh, I really used to like my hon. Friend very much.

It is a good point.

Yes, it is a good point, which the House is addressing almost daily. I am told that it is a completely different Parliament from what it was even before 1997 in terms of Members' habits. The change of hours may well have assisted us in that respect. Perhaps we should submit it as a reason to remain as we are.

As the interventions show, this is a difficult matter, which we should take seriously. We should also understand that it needs a sensitive approach. I commend the work that West Sussex has done to assist small and medium-sized businesses to take a sensible approach to drug testing; that is the way forward on the issue.

The Government should be looking carefully at issues relating to the clarity and the legal framework for workplace and roadside drug testing. Improved research is needed to establish the evidence, which truly is not there at present. It would be enormously helpful if more work were done on both issues and on issuing further guidance to employers and employees. The work that the Home Office has been doing in conjunction with drug action teams around the country is developing nicely because it is about being in the workplace, understanding what employers and employees need and responding to it. I commend the way in which the Home Office has conducted that work. I sincerely hope that there will be clarity on the issue, and I look forward to further contributions to the debate.

rose—

Order. I was reluctant to intervene earlier, but I inform hon. Members that the correct nomenclature to use in the debate is Mr. O'Hara.

I shall confine my remarks to roadside fitness testing. It is important to call it fitness testing because if the job of the police is to deem someone unfit to drive and they are not in a position at the time to know what the reason might be, there need to be specified circumstances under which the testing would take place. There is no doubt that there has been an alarming increase in drug use, so we must assume that there has also been an alarming increase in the number of people who drive under the influence of drugs.

It will come as no surprise to the Minister—I have said it on many occasions—that I believe that the Government's policy on drugs, which is based on harm reduction, minimisation, and the provision of huge quantities of information about drugs, is wrong in principle, because it acquiesces in drug taking and will lead to an increase rather than a decrease in drug use. I favour prevention and enforcement. When I was a member of the Home Affairs Committee, an investigation into drugs policy was carried out. I ploughed a lone furrow in i he debate and suggested about 80 amendments to the final report, all of which fell. That was an indication of how strongly I felt that the policy on drugs was moving in the wrong direction.

I draw the Minister's attention to the Home Office's "Talk to Frank" website on drugs, which is aimed at 11 to 21-year-olds. It offers such gems as:

"If only illegal drugs came in packets with instructions on the outside …Give the first drug plenty of time to kick in before taking another one".

In reference to impure cannabis, it states:

"This makes it cheaper, but it's a false economy really as it is often harder to get stoned."

That is shocking; I could not believe my eyes when I read it.

I do not know whether my hon. Friend has seen a document produced by Mary Brett, the head of health education at Dr. Challoner's grammar school in my constituency. On the subject of the "Talk to Frank" campaign, the document states:

"Is there no end to the irresponsibility of this Government when it comes to giving advice to our children about drugs? Nowhere was there a reminder that drugs are actually illegal."

I recommend that document to the Minister and my hon. Friend. I would be willing to provide them with copies, because it is a sound criticism of a campaign that Mary Brett believes is putting our children in more danger rather than helping them.

I am tempted to stray on to the subject of the declassification of cannabis, but I suspect that you would rule that to be out of the confines of the debate, Mr. O'Hara. Suffice it to say that I oppose it—it is not protecting young people.

We must establish the appropriate circumstances for compulsory roadside fitness testing, because the system is currently voluntary. If a police officer notices that someone is driving erratically, stops them and breathalyses them for alcohol, the breathalyser can show green, amber or red. If the result is green, there is no evidence that the person is under the influence of alcohol. However, if the officer still believes the person to be unfit to drive, he can proceed with roadside fitness testing only if the person agrees. If they do not agree, they are free to drive away unless they have committed an arrestable offence. That is a dangerous situation. We must prescribe in law circumstances in which the police can carry out a test to determine more accurately whether someone needs to be taken to a police station if they believe that that person is unfit to continue driving. The police have no such powers unless an arrestable offence has been committed—for example, on vehicle impact.

The hon. Member for Crawley (Laura Moffatt) referred to the tests used in the United States and Canada since the 1970s. They sound amusing but have stood the test of time, and are known colloquially as "walk the line". For anybody who is sober and fit, the tests are relatively easy to comply with, although they are not foolproof—if asked now, we may not be able to do them all accurately. I found out information about the tests from discussions with the Metropolitan police yesterday. If someone were under the influence of drugs, it would not only be difficult for them to walk heel to toe, turn and walk back heel to toe, but it would be difficult for them to understand the instructions to start with.

Another test is the Romberg test in which somebody is asked to put their head back and count to 30. Apparently, some drugs distort the passage of time in the mind. Some make people think that time is going much faster, others that it is going much slower; the test provides an indication that someone is not behaving normally. Other tests include standing on one leg, and, from a position with either one's left or right arm outstretched according to instructions, putting one's finger to one's nose. There is also a pupilometer that gauges the size of the pupils in both eyes. I understand that the norm is between 3 mm and 6.5 mm. Collectively, such things give an indication of whether someone is fit to get back into their car and drive away safely. Failure in the test can lead to arrest.

I was surprised to hear that the 1924 offence of driving while unfit through drink or drugs is still in use, as is the Road Safety Act 1967, which allowed for breath tests. Anyone who is taken to a police station is then tested by a doctor, who is a qualified professional and will test either blood or urine and also determine whether any other medical condition may have led to that person being unfit. Failure may not necessarily be the result of drink or drugs, and it is important that a medical professional can determine the reason. A doctor will say whether the impairment may be due to the presence of drugs. The problem with drug testing is that traces may be found, but they are not measurable. The lack of accurate equipment for testing the level of drugs in the blood or urine is a big problem.

There is a great need for the development of an accurate roadside device. I understand that there is a prototype for testing the sweat from the forehead, and that that has been piloted in custody suites when people have been charged with other offences. A Metropolitan police trial of roadside drug testing took place between January 2001 and 2002. It involved the borough of Redbridge, my borough of Havering and north-east traffic. Some 140 officers were trained, including some magistrates and custody sergeants. The trial had some success. It involved a certificated court, meaning that officers in court could produce a certificate, which adds weight to the evidence. However, the trial was hampered by the fact that testing is still voluntary. That point needs to be looked at; should there be specified circumstances in which testing should be compulsory?

I understand that the London borough of Barking and Dagenham used building safer communities funding of less than £1,000 to train officers in fitness impairment training. That is exceedingly good value. Unfortunately, there are only two trainers in the whole of the district covered by the Metropolitan police. It would be a good investment if funding could be found to increase that number. If all 400 traffic officers in the Metropolitan police could benefit from such training, it would cost only £22,000. That represents a drop in the ocean when it comes to police funding. The force needs to increase its training capacity, and that small amount of expenditure would be justified in accident reduction terms alone.

Whether we like it or not, in 2000, 34 per cent. of our citizens aged between 16 and 59 admitted to taking illicit drugs at some point in their lifetimes. Obviously, such a relatively high level of drug taking has led the general public to make pleas to the Government for the introduction of drug testing in the workplace as well as at the roadside. Our all-party group on drugs misuse launched its inquiry because it seemed that the literature contained little evidence, and, in any case, there seemed to be a lot of controversy about drug testing in the workplace and at the roadside.

I shall deal first with the workplace. Drug testing is becoming commonplace in countries such as America, where 40 to 50 per cent. of companies use it in some form, affecting 15 million American citizens. However, it is relatively uncommon in this country, although the demand to introduce it is increasing. On 28 November 2003, the TUC expressed concerns in an article published in Hazards magazine, saying:

"The law does not give workers sufficient protection against the increasing use of unjustified and degrading drink and drug testing by over zealous employers."

Sick leave due to substance abuse now affects 31 per cent. of British companies, according to a survey conducted jointly by DrugScope and Alcohol Concern. There is no consensus or clarity about what the aims of drug testing in the workplace should be. Is it to protect the public and other employees from the worker who is a user of illicit drugs, or is it to deter people from using drugs, and thereby reduce absenteeism and save money?

There is no doubt that drug testing is expensive for a company to introduce, due to the specialist nature of the work. There is no evidence yet that its introduction saves companies money in the long term, nor that it reduces drug abuse, and it does not differentiate between habitual and occasional use. There are fears, too, of a Big Brother attitude that could significantly affect the morale of workers.

Time delays between an employee taking the drug test and the employer receiving the results could also create problems. Urine and oral fluid samples will provide results in about five days. However, urine is the easiest type of sample for a donor to adulterate. Many products are available on the internet that guarantee that a urine donor will pass the drugs test. Results from blood samples are more reliable, but they take longer—currently three to four weeks. Since our report was published, Altrix Healthcare plc has claimed that the collection and analysis of oral mucosal transudate samples is more reliable and more effective.

What other concerns are there about drug testing work forces? Not all drugs that give positive results are illegal. A number of painkillers contain opiates such as codeine, a chemical relative of morphine, which is also a principal constituent of cough mixtures. Amphetamines, too, are constituents of a number of legally prescribed medicines. One of my constituents was dismissed from the Army because he tested positive for amphetamines. He claimed that he had been taking a proprietary medicine before he was tested. That raises the question: should companies keep detailed records of the medications taken by their employees if they conduct random drug screening? Surely, that would impinge on the confidentiality of medical records? Drug tests can tell employers, for example, whether an employee is being treated for a heart condition, depression, epilepsy or diabetes or is pregnant. Is it right to do that?

Drug testing in the workplace raises concerns about individual freedoms. Liberty believes that drug testing at work invades personal privacy, which is protected under article 8 of the Human Rights Act 1998.

Would the hon. Gentleman say that it is preferable to test only people who are demonstrably unfit, rather than to test randomly?

The rest of my speech will answer that question. The data protection commissioner told the all-party group that inappropriate drug testing could also contravene the Data Protection Act 1998.

A workplace is not expected to tolerate an individual who is clearly too intoxicated to work, and most companies have mechanisms in place to deal with such situations. But should random drug testing in the workplace impinge on an individual's social life when it is clearly not affecting his ability to do the job effectively? All companies, large or small, must have policies in place on substance misuse, whether that substance is alcohol or any other. When policies are worked out and enshrined in the conditions of service to which employees sign up, trade unions should be involved in drawing up such policies. Strict guidelines should be in place to make it clear which drugs should be covered by random drug testing. Paracetamol, for example, is regularly misused, but it would not spring to mind when drug-testing policies were being constructed.

Unless employees are signed up to a properly constructed workplace substance misuse policy, asking them to provide a blood sample may be construed as an assault on their person. Where should such a sample be taken, and under what supervision? It is particularly difficult for small and medium-sized companies to answer such questions. What drug levels are acceptable, and what action should be taken if positive results are obtained, bearing in mind that false positives are not uncommon in the drug-testing business?

Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

I would rather continue, because two other colleagues want to speak. I am sure that the hon. Lady will be able to respond later.

Does the Minister agree that we are not doing enough to advise companies on how to handle substance misuse in the workplace and that a new national support service is required to advise them and their employees on safety-critical areas of business? The work force are every company's most valuable asset. An employee might be drug tested and found positive but, because they are so valuable to the company, the worst thing might be to sack them on the spot. Most good companies would recommend counselling rather than dismissal in such circumstances.

Obviously, there is a close connection between drug misuse in the workplace and driving. Many workers drive while conducting their daily business. Drivers today are much more aware of the stigma that is attached to driving under the influence of alcohol, but there is a lot of ignorance about the effect of other substances—including many legally prescribed and over-the-counter medicines—on the ability to drive. Indeed, many hay fever preparations are well known to cause drowsiness.

On 18 December last year, the Freight Transport Association published guidance on the misuse of alcohol and drugs among drivers. It claimed that one in 45 car drivers tested positive for alcohol after an accident, whereas only one in 250 drivers of large good vehicles did. This week, the charity Brake has published evidence showing that one in 20 people who admit to drink driving also take drugs before getting behind the wheel. The position as regards car drivers is therefore worse than the Freight Transport Association believed.

The most commonly used illegal drug is undoubtedly cannabis, but, as hon. Members have said, testing for it would cause the most problems at the roadside. The problem is that little research has been carried out into the effects of licit or illicit drugs on a person's ability to drive. The Transport Research Laboratory has carried out limited research, but much more will be required before we legislate. The laboratory's research shows that the presence of illicit drugs in those involved in road accidents increased from 3 to 18 per cent. between 1985 and 2000.

In principle, we can all sign up to the roadside testing of drivers for the misuse of substances other than alcohol, especially when there has been a serious accident. Coroners' reports show that drugs are present in 24 per cent. of road traffic accident fatalities, but the plain fact is that there are no really reliable methods of providing instant results in the way that the breathalyser does. As hon. Members have said, the police have therefore resorted to other methods.

Under our current laws, someone who is suspected of driving under the influence of drugs is not legally required to provide a specimen—usually, it would be blood or urine. If roadside drug testing is to be introduced, more legislation may therefore be necessary. Incidentally, there have been calls to legislate on the growing number of organisations that carry out drug testing, because some give far more false positives than others.

To summarise, we must protect people from someone, whether an employee or a driver, who is clearly a danger. However, we must also consider whether compulsory drug testing infringes human rights. I hope that the Minister will agree that this has been a useful debate, and that the issues are not as straightforward as the media often portray. I look forward to her response.

rose

Order. I remind hon. Members that Front Benchers' contributions must start no later than 10.30 am.

I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Crawley (Laura Moffatt) on her foresight in securing the debate.

I want to make three points. I have made my first point before, and it is pertinent to this debate. We talk about drugs, but I hope that the Home Office, in particular, will begin to specify which drugs we are talking about. I have not had my drug of choice this morning, and I am unsure whether I could walk the line, but after the debate I hope to adjourn to one of the coffee houses of the Palace to partake of it.

Different drugs act differently. That is particularly true of the effect on manual dexterity when driving. Significant anecdotal evidence was gathered from American fighter pilots during the Gulf war, as large numbers of them allegedly used amphetamines while conducting missions. Using amphetamines in that context would be a sensible choice of drug. Using amphetamines in activities that require a high level of precision, at times of the day when one would usually be asleep, makes one more capable of participating in them. For wholly different reasons, that was the case in the first world war, when cocaine was used widely. Generals distributed it to embolden the people going over the top.

Prostitution is the only profession in this country where such evidence has been gathered. There is a high propensity of crack cocaine use among street prostitutes—and a much lower one among non-street prostitutes—for the obvious reason that people need to be emboldened to do such awful work. Crack cocaine emboldens people. That is not an excuse or a suggestion; I do not take the liberal view in the argument about drugs in any way. I am, however, attempting to illustrate how crucial it is, in this debate and in others, to talk not simply about drugs, but about specific drugs.

A wealth of evidence from the United States, and especially from Australia and New Zealand, shows the dangers of using amphetamines. Amphetamines are widely used in Australia by truck drivers, who use them to be able to drive further. Evidence is beginning to suggest that amphetamine use among long-distance lorry drivers will increase in Europe, especially with the enlargement of the European Union, because using amphetamines makes people "capable" of driving for longer periods without falling asleep. It has been clearly shown in Australia that amphetamine use carries all sorts of health and public safety risks. People perceive themselves to be capable of driving further, when they are not. I strongly urge the Minister to commission research into this problem, as it will increasingly affect us on our roads. The use of amphetamines is, however, very different from the use of other drugs—a point that we can understate if we stick all drugs together.

My second point is about a different drug, alcohol, which is the greatest problem drug on the roads and in the workplace. Last August, New South Wales hosted a summit on alcohol. An interesting fact emerged about the prevalence and culture of alcohol use on building sites. I am not sure, because the evidence does not seem to have been accumulated in this country, how big that problem is in Britain. I suspect that it could be a problem.

Historically, in the agricultural industry, beer was provided routinely in large quantities to assist people to work. In my village, 100 years ago, there were 40 houses—all of them farms—and three pubs. I shall not sing the words, but the Minister might recall the word of that well known labour movement song:

"I am the man, the very fat man,

That waters the workers' beer."

It shows how, in a health and a social context, the history of the provision of a drug to "assist" working was poor judgment. It was bad for society and bad for the individual.

The Government's policy on drugs must be to ratchet up our onslaught on alcohol, and I see signs that that is beginning to happen. We certainly have an alcohol culture in this place. Random drug testing of Members of the House would be in order to discover, at any one time, what the state of play is. In other professions and workplaces, that would be no bad thing.

Finally, I secured a debate on the progress2work programme in this Chamber last week. I highlighted the problem of people who were classified as drug addicts going back to work. The critical issue is that employers will not take them. The point that I made then, which I make again, is that we require an independent person to validate that people are no longer on drugs. In the context of workplace drug testing, large employers will not willingly take on people with a history of substance abuse, without external validation. Validation can normally be done by a person's GP or, perhaps in some situations, by a workplace GP using traditional confidentiality protocols.

The point raised by my hon. Friend the Member for Bolton, South-East (Dr. Iddon) about the need for collective agreements and workplace policies was well made. Only 14 per cent. of workplaces have a drugs policy, and although many of them are watered down and weak, such policies are absolutely essential. There should be consent within the workplace to allow such testing. However, if such policies are externally validated by a GP, people will be prepared to come forward and do something about any existing problems. There is clearly a problem in workplaces; it is not new, as it has existed for a more than a century. Because of the increasing complications in the workplace, the dexterity skills required and interrelationships between workers, drugs policy is increasingly important to public safety. I urge the Minister to continue her work and that of her Department on the issue.

I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Crawley (Laura Moffatt), who has been a distinguished vice-chairman of the all-party group on drugs misuse for many years and served it extremely well. The growing consensus in this debate is welcome. If we are going to impose on the country new rules about drug testing at work, we should start in this building and lead by example. There will be a programme tomorrow night on television showing a case in which a former Minister, in a celebrated occasion that is recorded in his diaries, was not drunk but was over-tired as a newt while addressing the House from the Treasury Bench. That was the late Alan Clark, who describes how he drank before addressing the House.

We must introduce some reality, as my hon. Friend suggested, on the real threat of drugs, and how drivers are impaired on the road. The major cause of drivers' impairment is exhaustion. Next is impairment from medicinal drugs; then alcohol; then illegal drugs. I gained a number of impressions from attending every sitting of the all-party group on drugs misuse and chairing one or two of those sittings. One of those impressions was that the drive towards more workplace testing comes not from those who seek improvements in safety but from commerce—from those who stand to make a great deal of money out of selling the testing kits. In other countries, testing has become a hugely profitable business, because the kits are very expensive. Let us not be deceived. We all share the objective of reducing the number of accidents caused by drug use, but the figures that we considered and the evidence that emerged when we cross-examined witnesses produced a strange situation.

Amphetamines were mentioned. For a long time, amphetamines were used to train jet pilots, because they have the beneficial effect of increasing the concentration of those who are piloting planes or driving cars. However, they also have a bad effect: while increasing concentration on the task in hand, they increase concentration on everything else—all the peripheral matters and distractions—so they are detrimental to safety.

As we know, alcohol has an effect of impairment similar to that of cannabis. However, studies carried out in Germany and Canada on whether there is a link between the use of those drugs and the likelihood of being involved in an accident show that there is not. The figures with which the all-party group was presented showed that there would be an increase from 3 to 18 per cent. in the number of people involved in road traffic accidents who had been taking drugs. However, in every case, that precisely mirrored the increase in the use of those drugs in society. There should have been a greater increase in accidents among drug takers than is shown in the figures, and there was not.

Everyone would agree that people should be discouraged from driving while impaired by the influence of illegal drugs. However, the odd fact is that cannabis makes people more fearful. They become defensive and tend to drive in a way that is less aggressive. Two of the reports showed that, as a result, those who were taking cannabis were less likely to be involved in an accident. We will not extrapolate from that that people should use cannabis or any other drug under those circumstances.

The only way to test for drugs—the point has been made clearly this morning—is on the basis of impairment. However, that can give rise to other problems—I have personal experience of that. I remember being accused by a policeman of staggering when I got out of a car. I was examined, and had to explain that that is the way in which I normally walk. Many others would find it difficult, even in the best of circumstances, to perform the impairment tests.

I am reminded of a story told by my father, who fought in the first world war. He told me that on the Somme they could not get strawberry jam, but could get alcohol and cigarettes in unlimited quantities. My father died of lung cancer at the age of 43, and another member of his family, who also served on the Somme, was an alcoholic for life. Governments have often used drugs in that way—drugs were used deliberately on both sides in the great war. The great war would probably have stopped at Christmas on the first anniversary if huge quantities of alcohol had not been used.

We must consider realistically the position that we are in. We work in this workplace, in which prodigious quantities of drugs that impair our judgments and our reactions can be used. We must examine the science, consider the matter realistically and, if any changes in the law are likely to occur, we must start by imposing any required restrictions in this building.

I congratulate the hon. Member for Crawley (Laura Moffatt) on securing the debate and on her presentation. I also congratulate the hon. Members for Upminster (Angela Watkinson), for Bolton, South-East (Dr. Iddon), for Bassetlaw (John Mann) and for Newport, West (Paul Flynn) on their contributions to the debate. All those contributions have been a credit to the House in that they addressed a difficult issue in a sober and sensible way. I also congratulate the all-party group on drugs misuse on the work that it has done. I commend it not only for producing statistics and evidence, but for freely admitting that there are more questions than answers in this area. I suspect that that will be the conclusion of this debate.

Let me deal, first, with perhaps the simpler side of the equation, which is traffic. There is no disagreement that those whose driving is impaired by intoxicants should face an appropriate penalty and should be discouraged. At the moment, we use the provisions of the Road Traffic Act 1988 relating to driving under the influence of alcohol or drugs, and there is clearly an argument for making the same or equivalent rules for any intoxicant that causes impairment. The difficulty is that we have a relatively simple machinery and test for alcohol in the breathalyser, but we do not yet have an equivalent test for drugs.

I find it difficult to conceive of a time when we will have an equally simple test because it is not possible to have easily assessed quantitative limits for every drug in the British formulary. As the hon. Member for Newport, West explained, the level of impairment caused by different drugs varies hugely. He did not even refer to hallucinogens. I hope that he will agree that they are not a good idea when driving. One of the statistics that alarmed me was that there was evidence of people driving after taking LSD. It beggars belief that anyone should do that.

There is a lot of debate about the degree to which stimulants impair driving. We have to go back a step. As I think the hon. Member for Upminster was arguing, the basis for a prosecution must start with the suspicion that someone is driving while under the influence of an intoxicant followed by the evidence of impairment. First, a proper test for impairment is needed. A test to identify the intoxicant is the second stage: it is merely the corroborative test. If a person is driving erratically, which suggests the impairment of his faculties, that can be proved when he tests positive for a particular drug in the consequent testing.

An important point has been made about legal drugs and the possibly larger contribution that they make to the impairment of driving. This is a matter of education. It alarms me that we do so little to inform people that when it says in the fine print on a packet of pills, "Do not drive and do not operate machinery", it is not an optional instruction that does not apply to them. That advice applies to them; people who take Night Nurse are not fit to drive.

I take the same view about those who drive without the proper correction for their eyesight. We go to a great deal of trouble to stop people driving when they may be seeing double through intoxication, but do not take the same trouble to stop them driving when they cannot see at all because they are not wearing the appropriate correction for their eyesight.[Interruption.] The hon. Member for Chesham and Amersham (Mrs. Gillan) puts on her glasses as I speak, but that is not necessarily required for listening to what I have to say. There is a good argument for looking again at the law in this issue and devising an appropriate test. Most of all, people should be told that—whether they take illegal or legal drugs—if that impairs their driving ability, they should not do so because they are putting not only themselves but others at risk.

I should like now to move on to the more difficult issue of the workplace, which relates to several groups of people for whom social attitudes would be different. We have already heard about the pilot, the train driver or the heavy goods vehicle driver. Most people want to be clear that people who have the safety of others in their hands are not intoxicated at the time that they ply their trade. We then come to other groups such as law enforcement officers. We discussed that in the debates on the Criminal Justice Act 2003. Should it be absolutely prohibited for law enforcement officers to have illegal substances in their bodies? There is an argument for that: if they enforce the law, they should abide by the law in their private lives. Similarly, it has been suggested that Members of Parliament who make the law should adopt that approach.

However, there are grey areas. Do the public have a legitimate expectation that people working in the public sector should not have intoxicants in their bodies? If so, why should not a private employer have that legitimate expectation? How does one test that? One must return to the question of impairment: is the person's performance at work impaired? If it is, that is a legitimate concern.

Random testing is not necessarily the way of dealing with that concern. There are real question marks over the process of testing and about what constitutes a significant finding. We have already touched on that issue. The retained metabolites of several drugs may remain in a person's body for a long period—long after they could have any conceivable pharmacological effect. Is that of any concern to their employer, or to anybody else, in terms of that person's behaviour? Do we have quick and effective testing? The hon. Member for Bolton, South-East talked about testing oral mucosa. That is a relatively new test, which seems to be quick and effective. It is a useful addition to the armoury, but I share his concerns about the laboratories that are processing a lot of the material. We need to look into them.

The human rights issues need to be properly addressed. Is an employee's recreational use of illegal drugs over a weekend any concern of an employer on a Monday morning? If a person reports for work in an intoxicated state, it may be their employer's concern, but what if they report for work when they are not intoxicated but are still suffering from the after-effects of intoxication? Everyone knows people who come in on a Monday morning with a weekend hangover. Sometimes, disciplinary action will be taken, but what contractual relationship is required? What is a fair contract? Is it right to have a contract that requires random testing, or testing when there is a suspicion of impairment? If that is the case, is there a proper relationship between those who negotiate that contract at the point of engagement? Should testing be on the basis of a diagnostic or disciplinary response? I share the view expressed by the hon. Member for Crawley that the best employers will not immediately phone the local police station if they find that an employee has taken drugs, but will seek to help that person come out of the problem of drugs.

I am not giving answers to many of these questions. The Minister will probably agree that there will need to be a lot more consideration of, and work on, this issue before we reach a satisfactory conclusion. We need to derive sensible guidelines and protocols to give advice on what is an appropriate contractual relationship. The Government need to be directly involved so that we end up with something that is satisfactory to employees, employers and society at large and that protects them.

I echo the opening words of the hon. Member for Somerton and Frome (Mr. Heath) and congratulate the hon. Member for Crawley (Laura Moffatt) on securing today's debate. It is obvious from all the contributions that this is unfinished business that needs to be considered carefully by the Government. I hope that the Minister will at least give us the satisfaction of laying out clear policies and views on workplace drug testing.

Such clarity has never been more apposite than at the moment. The issue of drug testing in the workplace has been thrust on to the front pages again, with recent stories about Rio Ferdinand and Greg Rusedski. The subject is very much in the public mind. Furthermore, at least three areas that have been highlighted in the press recently will focus the minds of people throughout the country on drugs, drug use and drug testing.

The first of those matters is the reclassification of cannabis from class B to class C, which will, I think, happen on 29 January. The accompanying publicity so far shows that the cannabis laws are in a shambles. That is the view. Certainly they are leading to massive confusion. Lawyers, drugs charities and teachers have been warning the Government about the great misunderstanding. I hope that the Minister will take today's opportunity to explain what she will do about the problems that the policy is already raising and that have been identified in the papers.

The second aspect of the issue that has been focusing people's minds was a report, which I saw in many papers but which was also mentioned on Sky television at 9.15 this morning, about the plunging price of drugs on the street. Alarmingly enough, I was standing with a colleague in the Corridor while the item was shown on television, and he said, "That is one of the real problems; unless we solve that, we are in real trouble." The Sky reporter said that her team had had no difficulty in obtaining class A drugs at a very low price. It is obvious from the reports that are now coming in that prices across the board—whether of marijuana, ecstasy, cocaine or any other drugs—have fallen under the present Government.

The third matter is the new research. Research moves on apace on a daily basis, but an article by Melanie Phillips in the Daily Mail has come to many people's attention. It shows that there has been research to link schizophrenia, depression and suicide to cannabis. Those three things coming together—the Minister is crossing her arms and looking very cross with me—highlight the issue in the mind of the public. Therefore, it is even more important that she should treat the debate in the spirit in which it has been conducted: not as a confrontational debate. but as one in which we are really seeking answers and views from the Government.

The work that the all-party group has done is a great starter for 10 but, as all the hon. Members who contributed have said, it leaves questions unanswered that the Minister must address. The report is concise, short and sweet. However, the main thrust is against the proliferation of testing for drugs. Obviously, there are places where it is necessary to ensure that a person is working at maximum awareness. However, even then the efficacy of testing for drugs rather than testing the ability of the person can be questioned.

Essentially, the group appears to have concluded that the emphasis on testing for the presence of drugs is almost misplaced. If there is a reason for testing people, it is usually to establish that they will perform their assigned task competently Rather than testing for drugs or other substances, it might be better to test competence directly and test for substances only if competence is compromised.

I should be interested to know the Minister's view on supporting performance testing in the workplace—or random performance testing, indeed. That does not invade people's privacy and there are tests, such as those used by NASA and for testing pilots' hand-eye co-ordination and response time, that might receive her favour. The group concluded that the simple detection of a substance is no indication that a person is incompetent at the task they are performing.

Testing for drugs follows the pattern of police officers testing for alcohol in drivers. The presence of alcohol in the blood and therefore in the breath of drivers provides a reasonable correlation with driving competency, but the report suggests that the correlation is not necessarily present with many of the drugs that might be tested for. Cannabis, as other contributors to the debate have pointed out, remains detectable for up to 30 days, while driving competency is often compromised for much shorter periods of time.

The group was not convinced that expensive drug-testing programmes provided good value for money. Health and safety legislation means that employers have requirements to ensure the safety of employees and others within the workplace, but they thought it was questionable whether simply detecting the presence of substances forwarded the agenda.

The questions raised by the report about drug testing give the Minister an admirable platform from which to reply. I do not know whether she has read the report or has a copy of it. The Government perspective at point 4 is cursory, and I hope that she will expand on the Government's reaction to the report. [Interruption.] I am grateful to the hon. Member for Bolton, South-East (Dr. Iddon) for providing the Minister with a copy of the report; I was slightly worried that she did not have one.

If I have any criticism it is that I am sorry that the group was not able to take its inquiries wider. It would have been interesting, for example, to hear more examples of what the Americans do, particularly because the Americans have very sophisticated agreements with unions and others. In many states, labour management agreements inform drug and alcohol abuse programmes It would have been good to hear from someone such as Professor Robert Kendall, Scotland's former chief medical officer, who believes that the widespread introduction of drug testing in the workplace could be a major weapon against rising levels of substance abuse throughout our society. We might even have heard from Keith Halliwell before he left his post as drugs tsar. He said that all Government workers, including Cabinet Ministers, should agree to be tested. There he strikes a chord with the hon. Member for Newport, West (Paul Flynn), who would like all of us here to be tested.

Drug and alcohol abuse cost British industry approximately £6 billion a year. Members have turned out some alarming statistics. I have a few questions for the Minister. What have the Government achieved on a drugs-in-the-workplace strategy? How does she think that it has helped British industry? What does she think will be the impact of declassification of cannabis on workplace drugs policies and should employers take a more permissive attitude to cannabis use by employees? What investigations has the Minister carried out into the reliability of drugs tests currently available? Other Members have raised that issue. What analysis has the Minister carried out and what conclusions has she drawn from the drug treatment and testing orders? Does she have anything that could contribute to our views on drug testing in the workplace?

In more than half the states in America, state laws provide guidelines for when either job applicants or employees can be tested and the procedures that must be followed. Has the Minister considered doing the same, or is she making any progress in discussions with unions or employers on that subject?

There is no doubt that drug testing has become more of a hot issue as drug abuse has become more widespread. More businesses now realise that drug-abusing employees cost them money; they want to reduce those costs and they certainly want to minimise risks. Testing for drugs use comes from many angles: it is used as a screening device; as a defensive tool; and perhaps even as a legal requirement. I hope that the Minister will respond positively to the debate on the need to keep our workplaces safe and efficient and to protect us all from the dangers of drugs, both at home and in the workplace.

In the short time available, I will address myself particularly to the Member who secured this debate, my hon. Friend the Member for Crawley (Laura Moffatt), and the work that she has carried out with other colleagues on the all-party group on drugs misuse. It is a vitally important topic. I was pleased, not long after I became Minister, to be invited to a discussion on drugs organised by the Iron and Steel Trades Confederation that was also attended by my hon. Friend the Member for Bassetlaw (John Mann). My hon. Friend the Member for Bolton, South- East (Dr. Iddon) touched on the fact that the issue involves not just talking to employers but talking to the trade unions—the employees' representatives. As for our national initiative, the steering group includes representatives from the CBI and the TUC.

I am pleased that, in the form of my hon. Friend the Member for Crawley, the all-party group has finally managed to secure a debate on this important subject. It is a complex issue, and many Members highlighted the fact that it covers various types of drugs—both illegal and prescription drugs—and alcohol. We also heard about the need to find a form of testing in the workplace or at the roadside that will give us security and safety. We need to know what are we testing for and we need to be sure of the results. That is a huge issue, and evidence from around the world, particularly from America, shows that not all testing is conclusive.

As my hon. Friends pointed out, there is a definite need for stricter drug testing guidelines in the workplace and at the roadside. If we are to have such testing, we must be confident about its use and about how it will be acted upon. We shall need guidelines on exactly which drugs should be covered, and on what level of drugs found in the body is acceptable. As has been said, in some contexts—sport has been mentioned; prison is another—testing is reasonably well regulated. However, I have to add a cautionary note. There is little evidence, and little professional consensus, to assist employers in deciding whether, how and in what circumstances they should test for drugs. Until now, legislation on drug testing has been piecemeal, and not properly analysed. However, as I shall explain later, we hope that will change as a result of the findings of an independent inquiry led by DrugScope.

Most important, no analysis has been made of the wider social implications of what happens to employees who fail drug tests. As several hon. Members said, what is the point of a drug test if someone has a problem? Irrespective of whether that person is using an illegal drug or alcohol, what should the employer do in such circumstances? Certainly, the Government want to give such people the opportunity to seek advice and to get treatment. They are otherwise law-abiding people and, as has been pointed out, many of them will do their jobs well. Even if a drug test shows positive for certain types of drug, that drug may not affect the person's work.

In some circumstances, when drug testing happens on a company's premises, the appropriate mechanisms are not always in place—for instance, there may not be a credible human resource package for helping employees with drug or alcohol problems. I believe that companies should test when there is genuine need—a safety or critical need—or when lives or security are the issue, such as on the underground, on planes or on building sites. Given the complexities of drug testing, however, unless the job involves a safety-critical role, drug testing on its own is not the answer to drug and alcohol abuse.

We believe strongly that employers should consider whether drug testing is justified, auditable, proportionate, accountable and necessary. That makes up the simple acronym "JAPAN", which we urge companies to use when considering whether to start drug testing.

In addition to the findings of the all-party parliamentary report, an independent inquiry into drugs at work facilitated by DrugScope will be published in April 2004. That will help everyone to focus on the problem and to think more deeply about the ways forward. We hope that the report will give a fuller picture of the prevalence of drug testing in the workplace, and that it will include recommendations to the Government, employers and other relevant bodies on ways forward in the drug-testing arena.

Drug testing aside, drugs misuse is a growing problem in society and, by default, it affects companies directly and indirectly. The use of drugs in the workplace can be the direct cause of low performance and low productivity, and it can affect safety. However, it can have indirect effects as a result of employees living with someone or having a friend who has a substance misuse problem. As I said in discussions with the Iron and Steel Trades Confederation, an employee may be supporting someone who is going through treatment, which could increase the workplace pressures on that employee. It is therefore important that a policy supports employees, whether they have the problem or have to deal with a problem in the family.

We should remember that 17 million days are lost to alcohol misuse every year. The Government's alcohol strategy is to be published and launched shortly, and it will inform not only my work as a drugs Minister but work across the Government on tackling the issue. People do not necessarily use just one drug, but a number of drugs, one of which may be alcohol. Companies must therefore provide for employees to be informed about how to seek treatment for drug and alcohol misuse.

The Government's commitment is outlined in our national workplace initiative, which is to be implemented in partnership with the business sector, trade unions, drug action teams and others to raise awareness of the dangers of drug misuse and to reduce its harmful effects on employees and work performance. The steering group includes representatives from business, the CBI, chambers of commerce, the Federation of Small Businesses, the Health and Safety Executive and the TUC. The initiative was set up in 2001, and, to date, 188 DAT-nominated trainers from 113 drug action teams throughout the country have been trained to help employers write effective, robust drugs policies and to raise awareness of drug misuse.

I was asked whether the Government were doing enough on the issue. We need to do more, but I am pleased to say that, over the next year, we plan to market the national workplace initiative to more businesses and, in particular, to safety-critical industries.

I should stress that a workplace drugs policy has many benefits and can help employers meet their legal duty to safeguard their employees' health and safety, and welfare. I hope that that policy, when combined with the unprecedented sums that are going to support treatment, will help many people who have a problem.

My hon. Friend the Member for Crawley mentioned the West Sussex drug and alcohol action team's pioneering online training package, which will be launched shortly, and I am happy to have provided the foreword. We have been working closely with the team to roll the tool out, and it is a good example of how a DAAT can have a real impact on what we do nationally. There are almost 3.8 million small businesses in the UK, and such an e-learning tool is a good way of getting information to them in a form that they can use.

Let me outline where we are with drug driving. Driving while impaired by drugs is already an offence under the Road Traffic Act 1988. When it comes into force, the Railways and Transport Safety Act 2003 will enable the police to carry out preliminary roadside screening tests for impairment and the presence of drugs. The main difference between the two Acts is that it will become compulsory for someone to take such a test if required to do so by a police officer.

In the light of existing techniques, we expect impairment tests that do not involve the use of equipment to be introduced later this year. We will need a code of practice to set out how such tests should be administered, what tasks might be described and what deductions might be drawn from the observations made. Such a code is currently being developed.

Tests for the presence of drugs depend on the availability of type-approved equipment, and we have talked about the complications in that regard. We are preparing the necessary specification, which will take into account the research that the Home Office's Police Scientific Development Branch has been doing for some time on drug detection. That specification will cover issues such as which drugs a device should be able to detect, at what levels, to what degree of reliability and using which scientific techniques and operational practice. Devices prepared by manufacturers to meet that specification will undergo comprehensive field and laboratory testing. I hope that that work will be completed and that type-approved equipment will be available in about two years.

A person who refuses to take a test will commit an offence and is likely to be arrested. The test will cover the full range of drugs, including illegal drugs, such as cannabis, cocaine, ecstasy anti heroine, but it might also pick up some prescription drugs. We must ensure that we deal with the issue. There are also issues about people using prescription drugs and alcohol. We are doing a lot, and I shall write to hon. Members about the other issues that they raised.

We are trying to have an in formed debate. The "Talk to Frank" literature states that drugs are illegal, but it tries to talk to people in an informed way that will help them. People are taking drugs, and we must tackle the issue by providing proper information and advice. The fact is that drug use has not gone up in the past few years. We are dealing with a 30-year legacy of drug use, and we are attempting to do so in the right and proper way.

I am pleased to have secured this short debate in the ballot, although it gives me no pleasure to initiate it. However, my constituents and the people of Cumbria deserve such a debate, because they need to know what is going on with Cumbria county council. It is time that the controlling alliance of Conservatives and Liberal Democrats was held to account—it is time that Councillors Toft and Ash stopped hiding and came clean.

I was a member of the council from its inception in 1974 until 1988, a year after I was elected to Parliament. During that time, I had the privilege of serving as chairman for two years, which is a period in my career that I look back on with pleasure. Looking back at the leaders in that period, I remember one gentleman, the late Martin Brannan, who was on the opposite side of the fence from me and intensely disliked by Labour members of the council. However, there is no doubt that he was an effective leader who knew where he was going and was held in respect, even by people who disliked his policies. A good friend of mine, Hugh Little, served as Labour leader of the council and had a different style and different policies. He, too, had leadership qualities and left the council in a better state than he found it. Finally, I served under the late Bill Minto, another Labour leader of the council whose style was different again. He believed in local government and the people of Cumbria, and his leadership was well respected by members on all sides of the council chamber.

Since the Conservatives and the Liberal Democrats formed an alliance two years ago, however, all that respect for the county council has been wiped away. The unholy alliance of the Conservatives and Liberal Democrats has reduced Cumbria county council to one of the worst councils in Britain. That is not my view, but the view of the Audit Commission. Despite a massive increase of 20 per cent. in council tax over the past two years, there has been no improvement in services. In fact, they have deteriorated so much that last month the Audit Commission removed the county council's fair rating, which was not good to start with, and replaced it with a weak one. Cumbria county council was one of only nine councils in the UK that were downgraded, and the only one in the north-west region. Worse than that, however, the council received a zero rating for social services, which is very worrying.

We now have a council that is rudderless. The chief executive has taken early retirement and the deputy chief executive is on long-term sick leave, yet Messrs Toft and Ash blame the previous administration, the Government, the press and, most disgustingly, their own staff. They are trying to shift the blame, but the people of Cumbria are becoming disillusioned with their leadership. Toft and Ash were elected on a policy to invest, save and improve services—basically, a policy of privatisation. As a politician, I disagree with that policy, but I accept that they had the right to pursue it. However, they have failed. They have failed to sell off Cumbria Contracting Services, which is the most profitable part of the county council, and have tried to sell off Cumbria Care, which looks after the elderly. That has not been a success, but they have run up major bills and failed to invest in residential homes. Last year we had a major problem when they wanted to sell off Talkin Tarn, a county park. I have visited the park many times, even though it is not in my constituency but in Penrith and The Border. They were going to sell it off to the highest bidder. There was a massive uproar, so they decided that perhaps they should not sell it. They then considered giving it to their friends who run Carlisle city council, but as yet we do not know for certain whether that will happen. We have been left in limbo. They also talked about selling Eskdale Mill in the west and the successful port of Workington. If he catches your eye, Mr. O'Hara, my hon. Friend the Member for Workington (Tony Cunningham) will have something to say about that.

Toft and Ash planned to sell off a great deal, but they have got little back. They have been unsuccessful, despite employing consultants—PricewaterhouseCoopers—who estimated that the income from the policy would be £24 million. There have been no capital receipts or overall improvement in performance, but there has been a massive 20 per cent. increase in council tax. With consultants, there is always a bill. The council has paid £3 million in consultancy fees for zilch, as it has got nothing but poorer services. It cut highways maintenance by 20 per cent. last year and is talking about doing so again. Toft and Ash are talking about selling off Cumbria Waste Management, a wholly owned subsidiary of the county council, which will result in a major bill for council tax payers in future.

That was the mess that the council was in last year, so what conclusion did the two councillors reach? Did they consider resigning or sacking senior managers on the county council? When they considered the problem they came up with a solution—pay the chief executive extra money. They concluded that he needed a 23 per cent. increase in his salary, and the following month, he was given another 7.5 per cent. increase. We now have a chief executive of a two-tier council system—Cumbria has district councils as well—who earns more than £134,000 a year for his responsibilities for a population of under 500,000. In comparison, the Prime Minister is responsible for 60 million people and receives a salary of £175,000.

It was not only the chief executive who received a large increase. The chief officers under him got a big increase, which upset councillors and residents a great deal. When the writing was on the wall following the Audit Commission report. the leading councillors in the alliance decided on 11 November to suspend Louis Victory, the chief executive. On 12 November, however, they denied ever suspending him. I suspect that Mr. Victory's lawyers had made a phone call to the county council. Then, on 12 December, Mr. Victory—a gentleman who less than a year before had received a major salary increase—announced his early retirement. That was not a bolt from the blue, as we all knew from 11 November that it would happen. However, we did not know how much, if anything, Mr. Victory received as a golden handshake.

The county council leader, Councillor Toft, says that the matter has nothing to do with people in the county council area, and that stakeholders and the electorate should not know about it. All sorts of rumours are being bandied about. Some people say that the handshake is worth more than £100,000. I have heard that the figure is £600,000, with an enhanced pension for the chief executive. However, we are not to be told. The situation is farcical. The chief executive is at home, taking what the civil service calls gardening leave. He does not have an office in the county council, and is working from home until February. Even though he earns more than —10,000 a month, he does not have an office at the council.

We also have a problem with social services, and I wrote to the Minister for Children requesting that the Government take over responsibility for them. The inspectorate gave our social services a zero rating. It commented that children's services pursued unsafe practices and, over the past couple of years, my case load has included many complaints from constituents about their behaviour. At one point, a senior social worker came to the door of my office, but told me that she could not step inside because she would be disciplined. One young person, she believed, had been placed wrongly, but disciplinary action could be taken against her if she told me anything. I have received complaints from staff throughout the county about bullying in children's residential homes.

The situation is worrying. The former director of social services was made deputy chief executive, but is now on long-term sick leave. The council quickly appointed someone else, but he was found to be unsuitable because of something in his past, and never took up his post. Another troubleshooter is being imposed, but I have no confidence that the situation will improve, given the record of the leaders of the council. I remind Members that on 11 November, the chief executive was suspended and reinstated. On 3 December, the leaders of the council, including the chief executive, were summoned to Whitehall to explain how they were going to put things right. They talked to the inspectorate, but did not reveal that the chief executive was going to leave. According to the plan that they submitted to the inspectorate, he was to spearhead the revival of social services. On 12 December, however, he announced his early retirement. That is a disgrace. I believe that Councillors Toft, Ash and Mallinson misled the Government and should resign.

On 23 January in a council meeting, the Labour group leader, Councillor Stewart Young, a gentleman for whom I have a great deal of respect, tabled a motion of no confidence in the administration. I hope that the vote on that motion is successful. However, I hope that the leading councillors will not wait for that vote, but will resign before then, because they have no integrity or ability. We should have a new administration. I know that it is not the job of either the Office of the Deputy Prime Minister or the Government to take over the running of social services, but services, especially children's services, are not safe. I believe in local government, and I do not want Government to take over the running of Cumbria county council, on which I served for a long time. Many good people still serve on it. However, the Government must talk to it to see how the problem can be sorted out. If we do not do something now, it is only a matter of time before my hon. Friend the Member for Workington (Tony Cunningham) and my right hon. Friend the Member for Copeland (Dr. Cunningham), who sends his apologies for being unable to attend our debate, will call for Government action. This is a sad situation. It gives me no pleasure to make this speech today, but we have serious problems with local government in Cumbria.

My hon. Friend the Member for Carlisle (Mr. Martlew) paints an alarming picture of Cumbria county council but I recognise it and so do many people who write to me: the council tax payers who have suffered an increase of 20 per cent. in council tax charges; the people who must pay a £10 an hour care charge, although previously they did not; and the trade unions—I have figures showing that the county council wants to cut £1.8 million from the school meals service, which would result in more than 600 job losses.

My hon. Friend touched on the shambles that is Cumbria county council. When the chief executive, Louis Victory, received a 23 per cent. salary increase and he was asked why he thought he should receive such an increase, he said quite boldly, "Because I deserve it." Shortly afterwards, he was suspended. However, the council could not even do that properly. He was suspended one evening and the council met the following morning to decide whether it had suspended him or not. I think that the discussions were along the lines of whether the council should reinstate him or pretend that it had never suspended him in the first place. That is the shambles that is Cumbria county council.

As my hon. Friend said, those responsible tend to blame the previous administration. Mention has been made of a close friend of mine, Councillor Billy Minto, who died recently, and who was a superb leader of Cumbria county council. He would be devastated if he could see its present situation. Attempts are also made to blame officers. However, almost all the senior officers have left. It is not a matter of rats leaving a sinking ship—they are people of principle leaving a sinking ship. Some of them have left without a job to go to. They have simply said, "I have had enough. I cannot work in this administration any longer."

As for what people in Cumbria think, first, the chief executive is given a 23 per cent. pay increase, then he is suspended, then he is not suspended or is on gardening leave, then the people who have had to put up with 20 per cent. increases in council tax hear rumours that he could be given a golden handshake of anything between £250,000 and £600,000. They are extremely angry.

In my constituency of Workington, my father worked at the dock for nearly 30 years, so I know the place. I have been there many times. It is a superb dock. It is competent, efficient and profitable, yet the county council plans to sell it. That has led to instability and low morale.

Perhaps the best example that I can give is the recent decision on the southern link—a road project that is desperately needed in Workington. Consultants were brought in to establish which scheme to put forward, so that Government funding could be obtained to build a much-needed bypass. Only one could be presented. The consultants said: "We have looked at schemes throughout the county. The only one that is sustainable and that can be built is the Workington southern link."

The Conservative-Liberal Democrat county council said that it would put forward the Kendal bypass. The consultants had already said that it was not feasible and that the Workington scheme was the only one that would be successful. The council went ahead, because of its political leanings, with the Kendal scheme. Then the deputy leader of the council said that there was not a problem, because it would never be built.

A scheme has been chosen that will never be built. The one that should have been built will not be built. People in Workington are angry that a political decision of that magnitude has been made on a whim. The suspicion—and my view—is that the reason for the decision was that west Cumbria is seen as a Labour area, whereas the area around Kendal is seen as a Conservative-Liberal Democrat area. It is an absolute shambles, and I concur with my hon. Friend the Member for Carlisle: if the administration had any decency, those two councillors would go, and quickly.

I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Carlisle (Mr. Martlew) on securing a debate on an issue of great importance to him. He is a keen champion of his local area, with great involvement in Cumbria—he has been active as a campaigner, as an elected council member and now as a parliamentarian—and I know that he wants to see his council providing the best possible services for his constituents. His concerns have been strongly echoed by my hon. Friend the Member for Workington (Tony Cunningham). Some of the issues that have been raised are slightly outside my responsibilities within the Office of the Deputy Prime Minister, but I shall make sure that my colleagues in other Departments get to know about them, and endeavour to deal with the points that I can answer.

Before I respond to specific points about Cumbria, I shall set out how we go about encouraging better performance by local authorities. We introduced the best value and comprehensive performance assessment systems to achieve that. In December 2001, we published our White Paper, entitled "Strong Local Leadership—Quality Public Services", setting out our vision for local government. That vision was for high-quality, customer-focused public services delivered to local people by councils that not only listened to their communities, but took on board their views when setting local priorities.

We recognised that such a vision could not be delivered overnight and that local government could not do it on its own. That is why we introduced a performance assessment framework that covered performance across all a council's services, enabling the council to build on its strengths and to tackle its weaknesses.

We were not starting from scratch. We began on the road to improvement by introducing best value as a replacement for compulsory competitive tendering. The advent of best value provided a framework for local authorities to secure continuous improvement in all their functions through economy, efficiency and effectiveness. Best value reduced the constraints on councils that prevented them from working in new and strategic ways with partners. It put the needs of people and communities first. Instead of asking how they could pay the least for services, councils began to ask how they could provide the best.

The introduction of best value performance indicators meant that the same services could be measured in the same way across every council in the country, and CPA took that ability to compare the performance of councils one step further. CPA was introduced in 2002 and, only a year after the White Paper was published, the Audit Commission announced performance ratings for all 150 single tier and county councils in England.

The public reporting of council performance was a key aspect of CPA. For the first time, local people could gain a clear understanding of how well they were served by the council across a number of services. A public that are better informed about their council are more likely to engage in local democracy—to get out there and vote—something that we all agree is important. On the whole, the results in 2002 were promising. Over 50 per cent. of councils were rated good or excellent, but for others the CPA rating was a wake-up call. It brought home to them the message that central Government were not prepared to tolerate poor performance.

The most recent CPA scores showed that most councils have taken the message on board. There has been an overall improvement since the first year, with 26 councils moving up a category. However, just as importantly, as my hon. Friends have pointed out, CPA can highlight councils whose performance has deteriorated and where action is needed to reverse the trend. My hon. Friend the Member for Carlisle was right to point out that nine councils moved down a category, including Cumbria county council, which moved from fair to weak.

However, the CPA is not about naming and shaming. The result of a performance assessment is only the beginning of an improvement planning process that can secure higher-quality services run by an efficient and effective council. Following their CPA result, all councils, including Cumbria, begin that planning process by identifying and clarifying their priorities for improvement. Such planning also provides the basis for a proportionate and focused response from Government. For those councils classified as poor, we have engaged directly to tackle poor performance, and will continue to do so. That is not Cumbria's position because it is classified as weak. I remind my hon. Friend the Member for Carlisle that local councils are political, democratically elected bodies. In every council, regardless of its CPA result, responsibility for delivering improvement to the community lies with the council.

I now turn specifically to points about Cumbria. As with any other authority, the Government are concerned about deteriorating performance, and the recent drop in Cumbria's CPA score from fair to weak is worrying. We expect the council to take the necessary action to ensure rapid yet sustainable improvement. However, the Government are committed to tackling poor performance and we shall take direct action, where improvement is not seen to be progressing sufficiently.

Officials from my Department have been in close contact with members and officers of Cumbria county council. We are beginning to share views on problems in Cumbria. The Government will be willing to help serious efforts by Cumbria to deal with its problems. Part of the challenge, picking up some of the points made by my hon. Friend, will be to strengthen the corporate management of the council, enhancing its ability to tackle problems in social services and other key functions.

Our capacity-building programme, which we run jointly with the Local Government Association, provides a mechanism for delivering that support. The programme includes a specific element of support for poor and weak councils. We want to encourage the poorest performers to develop ambitious plans to transform their entire organisations. We expect considerable effort and commitment from such councils. In return, we shall offer significant financial support.

Officials from my Department are already in discussion with Cumbria county council about its improvement plans, and the degree to which we might be able to support those plans through the capacity-building programme. We encourage the county council to access those funds, so that we can assist it to develop effective support proposals to enable sustainable improvement.

As my hon. Friend the Member for Carlisle pointed out, a drop in social services performance for children was a major factor in the downgrading. The social services department in Cumbria has been given a zero star rating. We do not take that lightly. The social services inspectorate is already engaging with the council. Cumbria has been given three months to secure corporate and social services capacity and capability to take forward service improvements, and to enhance monitoring arrangements currently being established with the council. It is being required to produce an action plan and the social services inspectorate, with which meetings have already taken place, will require that progress is made against set targets. The council is being required to take immediate steps to secure the safety of children. The inspectorate will check that such arrangements are in place and will report to Ministers.

I understand that an interim director of social services has been appointed and will take up his post on 1 February 2004. He is a former director of social services and an experienced interim director. It is also worth mentioning that the resources announced by the Chancellor in the pre-Budget report ensured that Cumbria received an additional £2.5 million or so of extra resources in order to take on some of those extra challenges.

My hon. Friend the Member for Carlisle mentioned at length the financial package for the chief executive and I am sure that his points will be noted here and elsewhere. Of course, such packages are a matter for the council, but I understand his concerns. Although I am not in a position to comment on any individuals or appointments, he will know that my right hon. Friend the Deputy Prime Minister has made his concerns known more widely about pay settlements for chief executives in local government.

In conclusion, I understand the concerns of my hon. Friend and those of my hon. Friend the Member for Workington about the council's performance. I can assure them that central Government will do all they can to help the council to tackle its problems and to plan its recovery. We want to see all councils, including Cumbria, delivering high-quality public services and hope that the system of comprehensive performance assessment, and the support that I have described, will help to realise that vision.

I am delighted to have secured this important debate on a vital subject, having applied for it for many consecutive weeks. I am also delighted to have the support of several of my right hon. and hon. Friends, who have experienced the same type of problems with the Standards Board in their constituencies as I and my councillors have.

Some other right hon. and hon. Friends indicated that they wished to participate in the debate, but they have been prevented from doing so by other duties in the House. They include my hon. Friends the Members for Poole (Mr. Syms) and for \Vantage (Mr. Jackson), both of whom have passed on details of problems suffered by councillors in their constituencies, and my right hon. Friend the Member for Suffolk, Coastal (Mr. Gummer), who had a long-standing commitment that he was unable to alter, but who may be able to contribute later. Several other hon. Friends have written to me to express their concerns about the way in which the Standards Board's procedures are not operating properly.

The Standards Board system has clearly gone badly wrong. That has been commented on fairly extensively in the national media, and I will refer to some such comments later. I also have detailed evidence that has been provided by senior local government officers in Surrey Heath district council—specifically, the chief executive, Mr. Barry Catchpole, and the borough secretary and solicitor, Mr. Richard Ivory, both of whom I thank.

I stress that I have evidence from officers because, although I need to mention some of what has been happening to councillors, one of my contentions in my extensive correspondence with Sir Anthony Holland, the chairman of the Standards Board, was that people working for the board ought to take advice from experienced local government officers who understand the system and how it is supposed to work, and should be able to influence the way in which the Standards Board investigators—the so-called ethical standards officers—carry out their work.

On the basis of the appalling way in which many councillors in my district council and elsewhere have been treated, I and the officers and councillors to whom I have spoken regard the most significant flaws to be as follows. First, in many cases, the so-called ethical standards officers do not seem properly to understand how local councils work and what their procedures are.

Secondly, councillors under investigation do not seem to have even the minimum protection that would be given to a criminal defendant under the Police and Criminal Evidence Act 1984. That must be wrong, because we are not talking about criminal investigations. In some cases, there will be only quite minor allegations, and for councillors to feel that they are facing a kind of star chamber inquisition without proper support is clearly completely unacceptable. That has happened to several councillors from my district council.

Thirdly, and equally importantly, there is no proper filter to get rid of complaints that should be seen from the outset as factually erroneous, trivial, vexatious or purely politically motivated.

My hon. Friend makes an important point about cases that involve minor irregularities but are left hanging over councillors, often for long periods. Is he aware that a local councillor in my area was subject to an allegation that amounted to little more than the suggestion that he was from the same political party as someone seeking to buy some council assets? It took 11 months for him to be cleared by the Standards Board, so the allegation was hanging over him throughout last year's local elections. Despite the essentially trivial and vexatious nature of the allegations, the Standards Board refused to accelerate the process. That was very damaging to the reputation of the councillor concerned, and to local authorities and local government generally.

I am grateful to my right hon. Friend for making that point. What he has described is almost identical to what has happened to some long-serving and distinguished councillors in my constituency. Precisely the same kind of unwarranted allegations were made, and they were hanging over the councillors concerned throughout a local government election period. In a couple of cases, they clearly affected the results of the elections. In one case, the allegations were seen to be politically motivated. One of the people who made the allegations, which were subsequently dismissed, was elected as the challenging candidate, not for any political party, but as an independent. That is how the whole system is being skewed.

My right hon. Friend rightly refers to immense and inordinate delays, which are contrary to what the Government said would happen when the legislation was introduced. I am sure that he would agree that the problem that he has described, which councillors in my constituency have experienced, will deter a lot of people from standing for election for any party to any local authority at any level, right down to parish level. We have seen evidence from throughout the country that that is already happening. All political parties are finding it difficult to find people of the appropriate calibre who are prepared to give up their spare time to work in public services as councillors do. Such inordinate delays and allegations that turn out to be completely spurious will be significant deterrent factors.

The hon. Gentleman may or may not be aware that I have also had a lot of experience in local government. I share his concerns about deterrents that could stop people from running for local office. He referred to political motivation and vexatious complaints, but does he accept that his argument can be turned on its head? Is his case not damaged by the fact that the people whom he is citing, praying in aid and supporting are all members of the Conservative party? Would it not be better if he were to come forward with a cross- party approach to what may or may not be a real problem?

I do not think that the hon. Gentleman's strictures are entirely fair. I have tried to talk not only about issues relating to my party, but about council candidates from all parties being deterred, particularly in my reply to my right hon. Friend the Member for Wells (Mr. Heathcoat-Amory). I am grateful to the hon. Member for Reading, West (Mr. Salter) for his support on that point, at least. The Government have to take the problems on board, and I hope that he agrees. I shall turn in a moment to comments made in the national media, but if there are problems that affect councillors of all parties and of none, something is clearly wrong with the system. The issues that I have raised are by no means restricted to people in my own party.

The hon. Member for Reading, West (Mr. Salter) said that this was a political issue. Some 5,000 complaints have been made to the Standards Board since it was set up in 2001, and they have resulted in only 28 members being disqualified for one year, and in one member being disqualified for 20 days and one for five days. There should be a much better filtering system for complaints at the first stage, and people should be exonerated more quickly in respect of frivolous and vexatious complaints.

I agree with my hon. Friend that that is part of the burden of my case this afternoon. However, the bureaucratic monster that is the Standards Board was created by this Government in the Local Government Act 2000. In preparing for this debate, I looked back to see what was said when those provisions were debated. I was delighted to find that the precise problems that have now occurred were predicted by two of my hon. Friends—one from the Front Bench and one as a Whip—who served on the Committee considering that Bill. My hon. Friends the Members for East Worthing and Shoreham (Tim Loughton) and for Hexham (Mr. Atkinson) correctly predicted that those things would go wrong, and I shall quote briefly some of the things that they said on 8 June 2000.

My hon. Friend the Member for East Worthing and Shoreham said that

"we shall soon see in relation to clause 56 and the ethical standards officers, about whom we have severe reservations, the board will have the power to make councillors' lives a misery by loosing those ethical standards officers on to them to look into their affairs."—[Official Report, Standing Committee A, 8 June 2000; c. 459.]

He spoke in support of amendments suggesting that it was vital for members of the Standards Board to have experience. The proposal was that all of them should have sat on, or worked for, a local authority continuously for at least four years. If those Conservative amendments had been accepted, I am sure that we could have avoided at least some of the subsequent problems that have been experienced in my constituency and elsewhere, which were caused by a failure to understand how local authorities really work.

In the same debate, my hon. Friend the Member for Hexham intervened to say:

"the three appointed members could find themselves dealing with a huge backlog of cases produced by the ethical standards officers. Will officials conduct most investigations, with the three appointed members simply rubber-stamping dozens of decisions as the officials produce them? Will there be opportunities for proper hearings during investigations? Does the Minister know where the board will be based and how many staff it will have? Will she tell us how much it will cost to run? Will the ethical standards officers be based centrally or will they be scattered regionally?"—[Official Report, Standing Committee A, 8 June 2000; c. 460.]

Those are all very good questions. My hon. Friend the Member for East Worthing and Shoreham said:

"There is a world of difference between legislators in this place who have skills of whatever origin to determine legislation by which local councils operate and people who will be in the field monitoring the performance and standards of councillors today, next week, next month and next ear. That was why we suggested having people who knew intimately councils' workings…It obviously makes sense to use people who have had such practical experience…They would add credibility and weight to the committee".—[Official Report, standing Committee A, 8 June 2000; c. 463.]

I am sure that we would have had a much better system if those Conservative suggestions had been accepted. We predicted several of the problems relating to the structure and those relating specifically to functions of ethical standards officers.

My hon. Friend the Member for East Worthing and Shoreham went on to say:

"One of the most significant aspects of this part of the Bill involves the powers that will be given to ethical standards officers—they are, as it were, a type of ethics police. They will have powers of access to documents and records, and if they are not afforded such access, instant fines will be applicable. They will have the power summarily to suspend councillors on suspicion, and they will have the power to take an investigation to the Standards Board to decide whether a full-blown case should be heard. Many penalties can be imposed on the person being investigated. ESOs are potentially very powerful people…Various professional bodies have raised concerns in this regard. In its memo to the Joint Committee, the Council on Tribunals expressed strong concerns about the powers that will be given to ESOs, especially the power of interim suspension. It believes that that is a draconian power, and that there should be safeguards. The power to suspend when there is good reason to believe that an allegation is true involves an element of prejudgment by the ESO. I flagged up a matter that pervades this part of the Bill—that there is a suspicion of guilt about a councillor who is investigated; the onus will be on him or her to prove that he or she is innocent."—[Official Report, Standing Committee A, 8 June 2000; c. 477.]

Councillors in Surrey Heath borough council and elsewhere have faced precisely that problem.

Finally, my hon. Friend the Member for East Worthing and Shoreham gave this warning:

"I am slightly concerned about the extent to which the constraints on the workings of ESOs have been considered. Where will they be drawn from, what training requirements will be placed on them, who will regulate the extent of their powers and what qualifications will they need? That is why, as with other aspects of the Bill, the provisions should be reviewed fully every three years.

In time, many parts of the Bill will need to be reviewed and changed, and all Committee members will agree that there will be many teething problems. However, we should be particularly worried about ethical standards officers who fail to do their job properly and go off the rails, or decide to exercise their powers rather more forcefully than they might. Such problems are potentially damaging to councillors whom officers investigate, as well as the councils."—[Official Report, Standing Committee A, 8 June 2000; c. 477.]

Before the Bill became an Act. a prediction was given of exactly what would go wrong—and it has done so. My hon. Friend expressed the view that the matter should have been reviewed in 2003, or three years after the Bill's enactment. If that view had been taken on board, we would have had that full review by now. The Government said that the matter would of course be reviewed after five years. The situation is far more urgent, however, which is why I am delighted to have secured the debate today. This may be the first debate on the issue, but it certainly will not be the last, as the problems will increase.

Before I conclude my remarks to enable some of my hon. Friends and other hon. Members to contribute, I want to describe what the chief executive of the main borough council in my area, Surrey Heath, and the borough secretary and solicitor say has gone wrong. I wish to refer to a letter from the borough secretary and solicitor:

"My main concern in my capacity as Monitoring Officer is with regard to the procedures, performance and efficacy of the Standards Board and its staff. This relates to both the four complaints that have been investigated and upon which the Ethical Standards Officer has issued final reports, and, indeed, the ongoing investigations against both current members and former members."

Turning to the four complaints that have already been concluded, his concerns were focused on the time that it took to investigate them. That relates to the point made by my right hon. Friend the Member for Wells about his councillors.

The borough secretary and solicitor says that the first two complaints against a councillor and a now former councillor

"were being investigated with reasonable diligence",

but that paperwork sent by the borough secretary and solicitor to the Standards Board was then mislaid. The investigator then gave an assurance that, despite those papers being lost, his final report would be provided by 20 September 2002. However, contrary to that assurance, the draft final report was not sent to the borough secretary and solicitor until 20 November 2002—two months late.

The purpose of the draft is for the parties involved and the borough secretary and solicitor to be advised of the draft findings and to pass any comments back to the ethical standards officer within a week or so. Everyone at the Surrey Heath borough council naturally assumed that, unless any fundamental observations were made, the final report would be issued in early December 2002. However, as the borough secretary and solicitor says:

"For reasons best known to the ESO"—

which were never disclosed—

"no final report was produced and in fact a further draft final report was not sent to the other parties"—

and to the borough secretary and solicitor—

"until 24 October 2003, some 11 months later."

The final report, which dismissed the complaints, was sent on 10 November 2003, so there was a total delay of 12 months. That occurred despite the fact that, as the borough secretary and solicitor says:

"The totality of the report"—

"totality" seems to be a fashionable word in current political circumstances—

"extends to four pages, one of which is a simple summary of the allegations and executive summary together with extracts from the Council's Code of Conduct. The ESO's actual findings of fact, and reasons of findings only extend to three pages."

He continues:

"My concern is that these matters were legally very simple and whilst a short report does not necessarily indicate that a short period of time should have been spent investigating and compiling it, I cannot see how a sixteen month period of investigation can be justified.

Additionally, the main point of complaint raised, i.e. that the members"—

the councillors concerned—

"should have declared an interest because a political acquaintance was deemed to have an interest in the application, is not an interest that required declaration by a member."

That seems similar to the case raised by my right hon. Friend the Member for Wells.

The Standards Board has published its first case review booklet, which gives helpful guidance on the interpretation of its code. It states that

"mutual membership of an organisation (such as a local charity, service association, lobbying group, political party or even a political group on the authority) is unlikely to be sufficient on its own to establish the existence of a friendship between two people."

If that was the board's own guidance, it should have been simpler and quicker to dismiss the complaints. The borough secretary and solicitor said that

"All of the foregoing Complaints"—

in the cases that had been resolved so far—

"were simple, if not bordering on the trivial, and I simply do not understand how the Standards Board can defend the time periods spent in investigating these matters. Certainly such delays are well outside their own published target times for investigating and producing reports of twenty weeks of the date of complaint and, to my mind, does nothing to engender 'confidence in local democracy' as per the Standards Board's strapline."

The borough secretary and solicitor encapsulates in the following statement all the concerns raised:

"To my mind, very serious concerns remain with regard to three particular areas, namely, the factual inaccuracy of the information passed to the ESO and upon which the ESO has acted and based his judgement that there are matters that need further investigation."

In practice, however, the borough secretary and the chief executive believe that many of those cases should have been dismissed straight away as frivolous and vexatious or that a brief conversation between the ethical standards officer and senior local government officers in the authority concerned could have explained that there was simply a misunderstanding of how local government worked.

I am grateful to my hon. Friend for being generous and giving way again; I know that he is trying to conclude his speech. Would it not be a better way of proceeding under the rules of a fair hearing, if new procedure rules are adopted by the Standards Board, to ensure that when a complaint has been made about anybody, that person is immediately asked to make a statement, accompanied with evidence, so that a quick investigation of the facts can be carried out and the case dismissed if it is vexatious or frivolous?

I entirely agree with my hon. Friend and I hope that we shall eventually succeed in persuading the Government that the system should be changed in that direction.

The borough secretary and solicitor raises an important point that may help to deal with the issue that the hon. Member for Reading, West raised in his intervention. If an allegation is made relating to decisions taken by a planning committee as a whole, and when that committee includes members from all three main political parties, the ESO would be quite wrong to proceed with complaints against members of only one political party. In respect of allegations such as those made in my constituency, where no abstentions or votes against the applications were recorded, and where every member of the committee was equally involved in the decision, an investigation might seem politically biased if the ethical standards officer were investigating members of only one political party.

The borough secretary and solicitor feels that

"the ESO believes that the views reached by the Committee and evidenced in the Committee minutes can constitute a breach of the Code of Conduct. If this is to be the case the sheer principle alone will have severe ramifications not only for Surrey Heath but also for all local planning authorities. There does appear to be a manifest lack of understanding of the way that local authority decision making takes place and that when officers' recommendations are overturned and adequate reasons for doing so are given, they are minuted and are perfectly acceptable and defensible at law should the matter be challenged subsequently at a planning enquiry or a planning appeal. Further, the ESO has named members as having not declared appropriate interests when in fact they did declare interests, left the Council Chamber and took no part in the debate or the decision. It therefore appears…that fundamental facts and information have not been verified"

or checked with the officers.

I thank the hon. Gentleman for giving way. Can he clear up two points for me? He said that some of the complaints may be vexatious. Making such a complaint would be a serious thing to do, and it is a serious charge to make. Does he feel that any of the complaints levied against councillors in Surrey Heath were not vexatious? Secondly, do any of the complaints that have been investigated refer to decisions made by the controlling group that were not unanimous?

I do not have details of every complaint, and I am afraid that I am simply unable to answer the hon. Gentleman's point. I hope that he is not going to allow this debate, which is about serious matters that can affect councillors of all parties, to degenerate into a point-scoring exercise. That is not what the debate is about; it is a genuine attempt to try to improve procedures that are clearly not working. Although I cannot answer his question, I can say that the cases that have been decided so far have been dismissed.

With regard to not declaring all interests, is the hon. Gentleman aware that in some cases, members have not declared their role in respect of bodies to which they have been appointed on behalf of the council and have been named by ethical standards officers for not declaring something that was clearly in the public domain?

I do not know what the hon. Gentleman is referring to. Perhaps he will elaborate when he makes his speech, but I cannot deal with that point now.

The chief executive of Surrey Heath borough council, Barry Catchpole, told the Standards Board that he had written to Sir Tony Holland about the time that initial complaints were taking to conclude. In response, Sir Tony advised that he could not be involved in a current investigation. He has subsequently agreed to attend a meeting only when further outstanding cases are concluded, even though those cases have no bearing on the details of the cases that have been concluded. Barry Catchpole believes that Sir Tony Holland is being poorly advised.

When I wrote to Sir Tony Holland—I have had extensive correspondence with him—I, too, was disappointed that he found himself unable to respond to my concerns. The danger is that if another complaint is made as soon as a case is dismissed, we will never get to the end of the process. If the Standards Board is saying that it must wait until every complaint is completed before it looks into the system, that is simply not good enough.

The chief executive of Surrey Heath borough council is also concerned about the fact that people from the Standards Board are prepared to give information to the press without proper safeguards. Members of the local press say that they can obtain information from the board over the telephone. Indeed, a local journalist told the chief executive that they were amazed at how much information was given to them in that way. Given the factual inaccuracies in some cases, the chief executive believes that that practice reflects poorly on the board's professionalism, and I agree. That has also been shown by some of the media coverage of things that have gone wrong with the board in the past.

I was particularly concerned when the issue of someone attending ethical standards officer hearings with councillors was drawn to my attention. A councillor approached me to see whether I would act as what is called a Mackenzie friend—a person who is not involved in the allegations but is there to help and advise the councillor. However, the Standards Board told me that the ESO believed in his wisdom that it was not appropriate for me, as a Member of Parliament, to attend as a Mackenzie friend, simply because I had expressed concerns about unrelated complaints to the board. That is a very odd view. It would be wrong, in my judgment, for MPs to be prevented from acting as Mackenzie friends, particularly when the system does not provide enough protection for people, in the way that I described earlier.

I wanted to touch on some of the issues that have cropped up in other areas, but I am running out of time and I want to ensure that my hon. Friends can contribute, so I shall finish by saying that I hope that the Minister will accept that there are huge concerns about the Standards Board. The whole system needs looking at again. The concerns that my hon. Friends expressed when the Local Government Bill was in Committee have been amply borne out by the problems throughout the country, which have been heavily commented on in the national press and the specialist local government press. I hope that we shall see a vast improvement in the system in future.

I shall aim to be brief because I know that other hon. Members want to speak. I should be in a Select Committee at this moment, so I suppose one could say I am double hatting.

I declare an interest: I am a continuing member of a town council, so I am one of those individuals whose name could be referred to a body such as the Standards Board. To my knowledge, my name has not yet been referred to the standards committee, but the names of colleagues on the local authority in Stroud have recently been referred. I am pleased to say that, in the cases of Hilary Fowles and Mattie Ross, it was felt that there was no case to answer, but the experience was certainly not a terribly pleasant time in their lives. They are both long-term servants of local government and felt that it was wrong for their names to be referred, for reasons that I shall comment on in a moment. I hope that we can learn from that experience.

It is right and proper that a body such as the Standards Board exists. Anyone with a history in local government will know that the great majority of people who serve as councillors and of those who serve councillors—obviously other people's names can be referred—are the most outstanding individuals in our communities. Anyone in politics who started out in local government, as I did, knows that they have to be a bit touched because the time they put in grows exponentially, even if they can contain it at the beginning. These are not the sanest individuals—I include myself—but I have the utmost respect for their commitment to their communities and for the way in which they exercise their duties.

I have served on several authorities and have come across very few cases of malpractice, but such cases are serious and need investigating. The ombudsman route is often taken by those from outside the organization—it might be taken by a constituent who lives in the area, for example—but the trouble is that investigation by the ombudsman relies on the accumulation of a great deal of evidence, and it tends not to deal with matters as I would wish.

I congratulate the hon. Member for Surrey Heath (Mr. Hawkins) on securing the debate and I concur with what he said: this is a cross-party issue and we have to deal with it as dispassionately and impartially as we can. The ombudsman route had its failings and the Government were right to set up the Standards Board, but the arrangement would work better if an initial inquiry had already been undertaken. Part of the problem is that the Standards Board takes the investigation away from where the incident took place, where it could have been properly examined. Investigation by an anonymous body takes longer and can result in people feeling that they are under undue pressure.

I wish to refer to the case of the two councillors whom I mentioned earlier; indeed, I have already commented on it privately and in public. It comes after Stroud's recent large-scale voluntary transfer ballot, which is the most divisive local issue I have ever been involved with. We get used to adversarial politics in this place, but at a local level, members of all parties want to serve their area to the best of their ability, and in doing so they usually forget party differences. Of course, there is robust debate in council chambers and people take up positions as they do in the House, but when there are genuine local issues, people try to reach a compromise for the betterment of their community.

Stroud's ballot was a divisive process, largely because it was set up to produce a clear-cut decision. As the Standards Board required, Stroud had to adopt a code of conduct, which caused problems and led to allegations being made about my two councillor colleagues. Under the code of practice by which the large-scale voluntary transfer would be progressed, every piece of literature about the ballot had to have the imprimatur of both sides of the argument before it was sent out. That is laudable in theory, but party politically, I am not sure whether I would want my election material to be checked and ruled out of order by the Conservative party, and I am sure that my Conservative opponent in the next election would have some doubts about my checking his material.

One has to live with such arrangements, but the problem in my council was obvious when it became apparent how strongly held the different opinions on the issue were. People said things that, in the light of day, they regret, and we had a ludicrous situation in which pieces of paper were submitted under a code of practice. One would have thought that the ruling group would be more careful than its opponents given that, although they were represented by Labour and Green councillors, the opponents were mainly tenants. However, unfortunate language was used and events escalated into an unpleasant situation that resulted in the two councillors being reprimanded in the council, which is one way of dealing with the situation, and then referred to the Standards Board.

That was not appropriate, as there should have been a robust discussion about the problem, instead of an approach under which councillors who disagreed and campaigned accordingly were referred to the Standards Board for not holding to the collegiate view of their council. This was the first time I had seen a system in which, even if councillors did not vote for the process into which the council entered, they were still bound by the collegiality of the decision. I understand that that is how the planning process has always operated, but there are differences between the granting of planning applications and other council debates.

The hon. Gentleman is making a helpful and non-partisan speech, and I appreciate his earlier kind words.

The hon. Gentleman supports the councillors whom he knows well and with whom he has worked for many years, just as I support many long-serving Conservative councillors in Surrey Heath whom I know well and in whose integrity I have enormous faith. Does he agree that one difficulty is that it is much easier to throw mud and watch it stick than to defend oneself? Whichever party a councillor represents, it is difficult for them to rebut allegations made against them in the local press when the Standards Board effectively muzzles them. I do not know whether that has been a problem for the councillors on his patch, but it has been for my Conservative friends and colleagues in Surrey Heath.

I concur absolutely: such difficulties are indeed part of the problem. As the right hon. Member for Wells (Mr. Heathcoat-Amory) said, the time that the investigations can take adds to feelings of hurt and wrong, because anyone being investigated will be under a pall during the examination. Even though they may know in their heart that they are innocent and are likely to be found as such, the fact that the investigation is taking place makes things difficult for them. The process is inevitably conducted through newspaper columns because it is news, albeit of the worst sort. The situation can be particularly hard in cases such as the one mentioned by the hon. Member for Surrey Heath, where someone is standing for election. Understandably, people will ask whether they should be standing for election as they are under investigation.

I will not argue against the Standards Board, as it serves a purpose. However, I want far more investigation of the legitimacy of a referral before it is sent to the board. I hope that the Minister will say a little about that. If there is clear evidence that a case is vexatious, I want it dealt with quickly, and if the referral is vexatious, a statement should be made that the people who made it should feel some guilt for wasting everyone's time and blackening someone's name. The system should work in the same way as a court of law, where if the accused is clearly innocent, the accuser is made to feel some guilt. That is how I would like the system to be changed.

None the less, the system is in its infancy, and we must give it some time. I am grateful to the House of Commons Library for looking at the figures for referrals, although I am a little surprised by them. In my experience of local government, the great majority of people are upstanding and work very hard to deliver local services. The figure of 5,000 referrals in no way reflects my experience of the extent of wrongdoing.

We need to tighten things up and perhaps to bring the investigation forward, although it is quite an expensive operation—it has cost £6 million-plus, and the figure is going up. That makes me somewhat fearful of what will happen if the lawyers get involved, although we shall leave aside the previous incarnation of the hon. Member for Surrey Heath. They will have only to start saying that someone's name has been unfairly blackened and that legal action will be taken if that person is proved innocent for someone to take such action against the board. Those issues must be thought through. The board is an important representative body, but it needs to work much better.

Order. I remind hon. Members that the Front-Bench wind-ups must start no later than 3 o'clock.

As Members of Parliament, we will all recently have received from the Parliamentary Commissioner for Standards a doorstep tome on standards in the House of Commons. Among other things, it sets out the remit of the Parliamentary Commissioner and of the Committee on Standards and Privileges. It says that the Parliamentary Commissioner's remit does not include such matters as

"what Members do in their purely private and personal lives."

The standard code of conduct for local authorities says:

"a member must not in his official capacity or any other circumstance conduct himself in a manner which can be reasonably regarded as bringing his office or authority into disrepute."

When that code was incorporated into statute, we inadvertently introduced double standards. In many instances, local councillors may be in danger of being investigated, while Members of Parliament are not, and I shall give the Minister three examples.

First, a Member of Parliament may be convicted of a road traffic offence, such as driving without due care and attention, but that is where the matter will end, because it does not lie within the Parliamentary Commissioner's remit, and nothing in the code would allow it to be referred to him.

Secondly, many marriages end in divorce. Members of Parliament may be involved in divorce, or there may be allegations of sexual malpractice—that is not unknown in the history of Parliament—but those are not matters for the Parliamentary Commissioner. However, members of the public may say that a county councillor who has been convicted of a speeding offence has brought his office into disrepute, or that a district councillor who has had an affair with another district councillor has brought their office into disrepute.

Finally, the Register of Members' Interests shows that I am the director of several companies. That is that, and if one of those companies gets into financial or other difficulties, that will not be a matter for the Parliamentary Commissioner or for the Committee on Standards and Privileges. However, if a local councillor's business gets into difficulties, and people complain that he has brought his office into disrepute, the matter will go to the Standards Board.

The Minister may think that those are unreal examples, but let me tell him of the instance that brought me to the Chamber. Mr. McCall is a parish councillor in my constituency. He was involved in an altercation in the local pub, and not a particularly elegant altercation but simply an argument with another constituent of mine. It is common ground that they threw beer at each other. There is a dispute as to whether Mr. McCall struck the other constituent, but that is putting it at its highest. There is not a scintilla of a suggestion that the matter had anything to do with Mr. McCall's work as a parish councillor; the dispute was not about how he conducted himself as a parish councillor or how he voted in parish council meetings.

A month later a different constituent, who had not been present in the public house and who therefore knew about the incident only by way of hearsay, wrote to the Standards Board complaining that by his conduct Mr. McCall had brought South Newington parish council into disrepute. If as a Member of Parliament, I had gone to the local pub and had a row with someone that degenerated into throwing beer, I should certainly expect to be excoriated in the press and to be up before the Chief Whip. However, there is no way that a constituent could refer me to the Parliamentary Commissioner for Standards for it. That would be a matter for the electors at the next general election.

There is a good Latin tag: de minimis non curat lex—the law should not involve itself in trifles. If we reach a point at which the Standards Board is investigating rows in public houses between two people, one of whom happens to be a parish councillor, the law is really beginning to interfere in trifles. What is the Standards Board investigating in the case in question? It wrote to Mr. McCall on 10 November telling him that it was to investigate. But what will it investigate? Let us for a moment accept that it found the allegation to be correct: there was a row in a pub, the constituent threw beer at someone who threw beer at him, or however it happened. On what is there a sanction?

We are told that complaints will be investigated quickly. The letter was written in November. Here we are in January. Frankly, if it takes that long for matters to be resolved in such a straightforward case, which I should put at the de minimis level that should be screened out straight away, I can only be concerned that proper investigation of more serious cases is being impeded by the inability of the Standards Board to screen cases.

The Government introduced the Act in good faith, and like the hon. Member for Stroud (Mr. Drew) I have no quarrel with the Standards Board. I just hope that the Minister will say that after a reasonable period the Government will review its workings. I fully understand that the Secretary of State and Ministers find it difficult to intervene because a code has been set up by Act of Parliament, but if the code is not brought into proportionality, there will be judicial review.

I was tempted to go for judicial review on behalf of Mr. McCall. The investigation seemed so monstrously oppressive in relation to what he was alleged to have done. I hope, although I appreciate that the Minister cannot comment on that case, that the Standards Board will in due course say that the matter is not for it to investigate, and that it is a tiff in a pub and does not require the full panoply of the board.

I have one more matter of concern to mention. The Standards Board writes to councillors and tells them that a complaint has been made against them and they are not allowed to discuss it with anyone, whereas the complainant is free to go to the local newspapers and tell their side of the story without restraint. As my hon. Friend the Member for Surrey Heath (Mr. Hawkins) has said, the Standards Board seems perfectly willing to brief newspapers on what is happening. That seems totally unjust. It is not in accord with natural justice.

If a person against whom a complaint is made is restricted from talking to the press, so, too, should be the complainant and the Standards Board. As I have said, I think that the Act was passed in good faith, but for reasons of cock-up rather than conspiracy it is not working entirely as it was intended to. I hope that the Minister and the Government will have the courage to review it in due course and amend it as appropriate.

Order. There are 10 minutes left and two hon. Members want to speak. They might want to bear that in mind.

Thank you, Mr. O'Hara. I shall try to fit into five minutes a quick look at the work and functioning of the Standards Board for England.

A former local government colleague, who was probably a member of a development control sub-committee or a similar body, was giving advice to a constituent who offered her money for the advice, although not to influence her decision. She was quick to call her husband into the room as a witness to clear the position. I wish that everyone took such a clear approach, thereby avoiding circumstances in which they might be referred. There is no doubt about the popular perception of corruption in local government among both members and officers. It was therefore entirely appropriate to address that through legislation.

My interest in the issue started when the Standards Board was established and I was invited to give induction training to Tony Holland and his colleagues on the board. They were keen to pursue their duties as pragmatically as possible and wanted to listen to actively involved local councillors and learn from their experience. That was before those members who are still active councillors joined them on the board, so it is wrong to suggest that the Standards Board has not responded to concerns about vexatious or trivial complaints. A review of the code of practice is under way. In response to comments from the Opposition, I note that 62 per cent. of the 5,188 complaints in the last two and a half years were terminated before the investigation started. That shows that a pragmatic approach was rightly adopted in the first place.

The Standards Board for England clearly had problems processing many of the complaints that it received, owing to the legal challenge to delegation powers that it faced. That was fixed in last year's new local government legislation, which should help the speed of processing. However, I am not sure that many hon. Members realised at the time that that legislation contained provisions to deal with the problem. That said, we should not be alarmed by the rise in the number of cases, from 35 in the first month to an average of 300 a month. As with most complaints procedures, we should welcome the fact that people are increasingly aware that the systems are available. It is interesting to note that 43 per cent. of complaints have come from other councillors, 40 per cent. from the public and the remainder from monitoring officers and other council officers.

I am sure that we will see a fall in the number of complaints, as awareness of the decisions that the Standards Board has already made rises, its procedures become more common currency and people understand the precedents set. Members are right to raise their concerns about the time taken, so I welcome the Standards Board's decision to set a target of completing 90 per cent. of investigations within six months. However, a small number will always be outside the board's control, as a result of police investigations or similar activities.

The most difficult issue will always be the local register of members' interests. I am pleased that the Standards Board has taken the matter so seriously, with most of the 335 investigated cases resulting in disqualification. There is no doubt that planning and purchasing are the areas of greatest public concern. The rule of thumb must be that councillors and officers of local authorities must not only be clean, but be seen to be clean. When I was a member of Suffolk county council and the legislative framework was originally drawn up, such comments were made on a cross-party basis. However, I agree with the hon. Member for Teignbridge (Richard Younger-Ross) that it would be welcome to have some further advice from the Standards Board about the declaration of interests when a councillor has been appointed to an outside body by the local authority itself. It seems to me that there is a lack of clarity among local authority law officers about the blindingly obvious; it should easily be resolved with advice.

The Standards Board has made significant progress in the face of a deluge of complaints, although I accept that many of them were from individuals who should have known better. However, some serious issues were raised—including the bullying of staff and undeclared interests in planning applications. Although they involve only a small number of individuals elected to councils, they give the whole of local government a bad name. As my hon. Friend the Member for Stroud (Mr. Drew) said, the vast majority of hard-working councillors do not want to be tarred by the activities of the few. We should applaud the work of the Standards Board for England for undertaking to protect the good name of local government.

I, too, Mr. O'Hara, will attempt to be brief. The village of Norton Fitzwarren, which is close to the town of Taunton, has seven parish councillors. Two of them have been reported to the Standards Board—Mr. Chris Trebble, the chairman, and Mr. Ken Hayward. They received a letter from Mr. Tim Bailey, the head of referrals at the Standards Board, alleging that they had taken part in meetings to discuss various aspects of the local plan, including the development of the greenfield site at Ford farm. The allegation was that those parish councillors should have declared a prejudicial interest in that they live opposite the site where a new estate might be built.

The parish council is not a planning authority, and the matter has gone before a public inquiry. For a long time, the village has waged a loud campaign against excessive building on greenfield sites, although there is the potential for a large planning application on a brownfield site. I was involved in that campaign when selected to fight, and win, my seat.

A former borough councillor, who is also a parish councillor, a Mr. Paul Partington, thinks that councillors Hayward and Trebble have erred. I am led to believe that he was behind their being reported to the Standards Board. The allegation is that, because Councillors Hayward and Trebble live opposite the site, their arguing against the development would have increased the value of their houses. That is ludicrous, because Councillor Hayward lives on a main road; if the site were to be developed, the road would be rerouted, and most people would expect the value of his house to go up. What makes it even more ridiculous is that the two councillors sought the advice of a highly regarded individual—another constituent of mine, who knows a lot about standards, the chairman of the Somerset Association of Local Councillors, Mr. Peter Lacey.

For some reason, Mr. Partington has not seen fit to report the other three people who live in the village and who have discussed the plans at various meetings. Presumably, by the same logic that caused councillors Hayward and Trebble to be reported, they too should have been thought to have had a prejudicial interest. It seems that in my part of the world, a particular political party is keen to use such allegations and report them to the Standards Board. The leader of the Conservatives on the county council has repeatedly been threatened with being reported to the Standards Board by the leader of Somerset county council and other leading county councillors.

It will not surprise the House to hear me say that this is a vexatious complaint. I do not ask the Minister to reply to the particular point, but I would like to know how such vexatious complaints square with what the Minister for the Environment said in June 2003: he said that the code of conduct would reinforce the Nolan Committee's principles of honesty, integrity, openness, selflessness, objectivity, accountability and leadership in public life.

On all these matters, Mr. Partington has erred from the straight and narrow. He is the person about whom the Standards Board should be making inquiries, along similar lines to those suggested by the hon. Member for Stroud (Mr. Drew). I hope that the Standards Board will quickly drop its ridiculous investigation, clear both councillors and allow Norton Fitzwarren's parish council to get on with running the affairs of its local village.

We have had an interesting debate and heard from hon. Members from all parties about possible problems with the Standards Board. I hope that the Minister will accept that the board must be reconsidered. The problems that have been detailed serve as adequate evidence that something is remiss.

I congratulate the hon. Member for Surrey Heath (Mr. Hawkins) on securing the debate; it is particularly timely this week. I am glad that the hon. Member for Ipswich (Mr. Mole) was able to understand my intervention. It is obvious to everyone on a council if a councillor is sitting on an outside body. Therefore, to be criticised by the Standards Board for not declaring that interest seems trivial and petty. That was the point I was making; my intervention was intended to help the hon. Gentleman.

I am grateful for the hon. Gentleman's clarification. Councillors from all political parties across the country have suffered from that problem. That is why I said that, from the experience of councillors and council offices in my constituency, ethical standards officers have not received sufficient training. The hon. Member for Ipswich (Mr. Mole) may have given members of the board training, but ethical standards officers have not received the training necessary to understand how local government works.

That is exactly right. I understand that two of the ethical officers are special branch officers and one is an ex-member of the FBI. People interviewed have felt that the officers have been conducting a police inquiry or dealing with terrorists rather than understanding how local government works, and that must be addressed.

The hon. Gentleman repeatedly made the point about the length of the waiting period. I contacted several councils and councillors to ask for their views on the Standards Board. Councillor Adrian Vinson from Southampton replied:

"A case taken to the Standards Board by the entire Liberal Democrat cabinet in Southampton last June, regarding a defamatory"

comment made by another councillor—I will not name names or parties, because we want to avoid that—

"has still not commenced investigation."

To wait about six months before starting an investigation is out of order. A councillor from Preston wrote in an e-mail:

"They need to speed up the initial procedure, i.e. if a case is to be dismissed, or if it is thought trivial, or if there is a breach but they propose no action. These ought to be notified to the persons and the councils far more rapidly."

A councillor from Shepway wrote:

"In a further example from Shepway, councillors have been named in the press as having been referred to the Standards Board"—

another point raised by hon. Members earlier—

"before they have been informed by the Standards Board. In one case, someone was named in the press as having been referred to the Standards Board when, in fact, they hadn't been referred at all".

The hon. Member for Stroud (Mr. Drew) made a point about the effect that the delay will have on people, particularly if they are fighting an election at the time. Many councillors are full-time politicians and sit on a number of councils. They rely on the job for much of their income; it is their living. It is wrong for something trivial and petty to be hanging over them during an election period. The Standards Board could deal with many issues far more quickly. It could reject petty, trivial matters and say that there is no case to answer.

The board could deal appropriately with people trying to score petty party points, rather than leaving people under a cloud. Many councillors believe that the board can be used as a political tool to whip opponents. All parties would decry that, but no party can control all its councillors. The Standards Board must be more robust in fighting against that.

Another comment made by a councillor was about costs, which we have not yet addressed. A councillor from Salisbury wrote to tell me that he incurred £2,250 in legal costs to clear his name. He won the case but, unlike in the normal legal process, he cannot claim against anyone for the costs. He has cleared his name but is out of pocket. That cannot be right. I hope that the Minister will address that in his summation.

The hon. Member for Banbury (Tony Baldry) spoke about double standards. That is entirely right. The conditions imposed upon councillors, particularly parish councillors, are far stricter than those on Members of Parliament. Let us take a fictional example. I come from a large rural constituency. Teignbridge is a beautiful area with lots of small parish councils. Let us take a fictional character, like David Archer from "The Archers". I do not get time to listen to it these days, but I understand that he is a parish councillor. If he had broken the rules—this it perhaps something for the scriptwriters to think about—his uncle, George Barford, would be obliged to report him. That is nonsense. If George did not report David, the Standards Board would investigate George and say that had acted dishonourably. We are asking members of a family to report on each other. I am not too sure that that is what was intended when the legislation was first introduced.

Let us stick with our fictional example of a small village where everyone knows everyone else. There will be a Christmas party and they will all buy Christmas presents for each other. Parish councillors will potentially have to declare all the Christmas presents that they receive from friends within the parish. When they declare that they have been given a bottle of malt whisky from one person and another from someone else, their other friends will be able to see those gifts listed and who gave what to whom. That is clearly nonsensical in small communities. It is far too onerous on the councillors.

The case that the hon. Gentleman describes sounds so trivial. It ought to have been properly and simply resolved by the parish council deciding to have a de minimis threshold for the registration of gifts and hospitality. That approach should be taken to avoid such situations.

The hon. Gentleman may be right, but this is a fictional case. The hon. Gentleman may be right, but many councils take the safe view. Their legal advice is over the top in many circumstances. I can quote examples from before the Standards Board was set up. Councillors were advised not to participate in a planning decision because the person who was making the application happened to be the chairman of a political association. They all left the room. That is nonsense. They had no real interest in it. They happened to know the person.

In small communities people know each other and live in a community with others. Some of the standards being imposed on councillors deny the realities of the world that we live in. That needs to be addressed. A number of councillors believe that the workings and the investigations of the ethical officers are almost Kafkaesque and can be particularly unpleasant. They take a long time. They affect people's lives. They will deter good people from standing for councils. They will deter good people from remaining as councillors.

These investigations may even lead to a perfectly good and innocent councillor losing his council seat after being falsely accused. That is wrong. I hope that the Standards Board will be revisited and that some of the problems can be addressed. We all want to see high standards in local government, and the Standards Board is a good thing in principle. It must sort out its working, start to understand local government and act more like an investigator than an inquisitor.

I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Surrey Heath (Mr. Hawkins) on bringing this important matter before the House. I start where he started, on a point that the hon. Member for Stroud (Mr. Drew) and the hon. Member for Teignbridge (Richard Younger-Ross) also mentioned. If the Standards Board is seen to be too bureaucratic, too onerous and unfair, good people will be deterred from volunteering to stand for parish, town, district and county councils. There needs to be a perception of fairness.

The Standards Board for England was set up in March 2001 by part 3 of the Local Government Act 2000. It is responsible, above all, for promoting high ethical standards, and for investigating allegations that members' behaviour might have fallen short of those standards. We all say amen to that—provided that the Board does its work expeditiously and fairly. Of course, there are similar organisations for Wales.

Let me explain the reason for my intervention on my hon. Friend the Member for Surrey Heath about the number of complaints and how long they take to be investigated. I quote the Library's figures:

"Although the Standards Board has only been in existence since 2001, it has experienced a great increase in its workload. The Standards Board for England received 2,948 allegations in the 2002–03 period and 1,976 in the 2003–04 period to the end of October."

The 2003–04 figures show

"that 44 per cent. of the cases were referred for investigation. Following investigation, only 109",

of almost 5,000 cases,

"were referred to the Adjudication Panel for England. By the end of March 2003, 28 members had been disqualified for one year, one for 20 days and one for 5 days."

That seems to prove that the board is not operating a proper monitoring and filtering-out procedure at an early stage.

As I said in my second intervention on my hon. Friend, the person about whom a complaint is made to the Standards Board should have an early opportunity to make a statement, accompanied by whatever supporting evidence he wishes to submit to the board. There could be a tight timetable for that to happen, and the case could then be either dismissed or investigated further. Written parliamentary answer 96849 from the Minister for Local Government, Regional Governance and Fire tells us that

"The average length of an investigation completed by the Standards Board during 2002 to the present date, from referral of an allegation from the board to ESO final finding, is four months."—[Official Report, 12 March 2003; Vol. 401, c. 328W.]

Judging by the types of case that have been cited in excellent speeches by my hon. Friends the Members for Taunton (Mr. Flook) and for Surrey Heath and the hon. Member for Teignbridge, and given that many of the complaints are about fairly simple matters such as not having declared financial interest, it is clear that four months for an average investigation is too long.

I should like the Minister to tell us today that the Standards Board will speed up its work. One of its aims, as the hon. Member for Ipswich (Mr. Mole) has said, is to complete 90 per cent. of its investigations within six months—40 per cent. within four months and the other 50 per cent. in between four and six months. When people stand accused, their characters besmirched, perhaps in the middle of an election period, as the hon. Member for Teignbridge said, four months is too long for an investigation.

My hon. Friend is making a powerful speech. His point about investigations being completed quickly when an election is in the offing is particularly germane; it is enormously damaging to long-serving councillors to be unable to answer back because an investigation is ongoing. I have described the very long times taken in the cases of some of my local councillors. One of the very best, regarded by all parties as a fantastically successful councillor, who set up a children's charity and ran it with great success, was former councillor Gordon Parris MBE. The way in which the complaint against him was dealt with illustrates how things can go wrong: he was eventually acquitted, but not until after an election in which he was defeated by the complainant. A good, long-standing councillor, who has been mayor of his borough, can lose his seat partly as a result of a far-too-lengthy investigation.

I agree entirely with my hon. Friend, who reminds me of two aspects of the problem—anonymity and publication—to which I shall return when I have finished speaking about speed of investigation.

The Standards Board produced a corporate plan for 2002–03 that contains no fewer than 10 key performance indicators, but not one of them deals with the speed of adjudicating complaints. It has a corporate paragraph on "responsiveness", which gives the percentage of correspondents receiving an initial response within five working days, of invoices paid within terms, and of helpline inquiries answered within two working days. It then has a bit on referrals and the average time taken to determine whether to investigate a complaint, and the percentage of complaints acknowledged within two working days. However, to my mind, there is no real drive to increase the responsiveness and speed of investigating complaints.

Does the hon. Gentleman agree that the introduction of a new case management system by the Standards Board for England would be one such tool to increase that speed?

That is certainly worthy of investigation. Perhaps the Minister will respond to that suggestion.

The Standards Board's statistics show that an enormously high percentage—some 51 per cent. of total complaints—were about parish and town councillors. Considering that many of those councils have precepts below £5,000, there is a case for exempting small parish councils, and perhaps having some form of simplified procedure for planning, where it seems the biggest amount of fraud occurs.

On the anonymity of the complainant, in every case the complainant's name should be published, and if the complainant makes a vexatious or frivolous complaint, I would expect the Standards Board to make a strong adjudication against them and make sure that their name was published. There is also the issue of publication by the complainant; the person who is complained against does not have the same right to have their side of the story published, and that can lead to a skewed report in the local press at an early stage. A person can stand accused for a long time before the complaint is properly adjudicated upon.

My hon. Friend the Member for Surrey Heath quoted many comments from a letter from R.J. Ivory, the borough solicitor of Surrey Heath. Mr. Ivory has made many strong comments, but perhaps the most pertinent is in relation to the planning committee, where a case was made against Conservative councillors. I do not in any way want to make this a partial or partisan debate; the subject could apply equally to Liberal or Labour councillors. On that case, Mr. Ivory says:

"Notwithstanding that the ISO believed, and presumably still believes, that the reasons given by the Committee"—

the planning committee—

"for reaching a different conclusion on the application than the officer's recommendation are inadequate. The reasons are clearly detailed on the minutes of the meeting."

That is particularly pertinent, I think. He goes on:

"As you will appreciate, I have serious concerns that the ESO believes that the views reached by the Committee and evidenced in the Committee minutes can constitute a breach of the Code of Conduct. If this is to be the case the sheer principle alone will have severe ramifications not only for Surrey Heath but for all local planning authorities."

That must be the case. If the principle of a decision of a committee can be investigated, and the people who voted and made a speech in that committee in good faith can be questioned, that is a serious matter that goes a long way further than the code of conduct deserves.

Finally, I should like to touch on the matter raised by my hon. Friend the Member for Banbury—the fact that the model code is more obtrusive for councillors than for Members of this House. The Parliamentary Commissioner for Standards recently looked into the problem of vexatious and frivolous complaints. The eighth report of the Standards and Privileges Committee said:

"Many of our witnesses were united in their concern about the damage that could be caused by frivolous or vexatious complaints or 'tit-for-tatting'. These were seen as bringing the system into disrepute as well as tying up resources unnecessarily."

The Parliamentary Commissioner then issued a procedural guidance note. That said:

"Complaints against a Member of Parliament should therefore never be entered into frivolously or vexatiously, whether through motives of political point-scoring, revenge or for any other reason."

The same sort of procedure should apply to the Standards Board. Some of the vexatious and frivolous complaints should be completely and unceremoniously thrown out.

The Standards Board has been in operation for a comparatively short time It acknowledges the issues—I quote its press office statement that

"We do believe there is a case for reviewing the Code of Conduct and, indeed, how we carry out our work. All good organisations continuously question what they do and how they do it".

We all say amen to that. I again congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Surrey Heath on obtaining this debate. I hope that the Minister will take into account the comments made during the debate and transmit them to the board. Let us hope that through this parliamentary process we can improve the board's work.

I am grateful to the hon. Member for Surrey Heath (Mr. Hawkins) for the opportunity to discuss the work of the Standards Board for England and the valuable work that it is doing to maintain the highest standards of public conduct of local authority members. I want to spell out from the start that the Government are clear about the need for the Standards Board, the value of its work and the success it has achieved in the first two years of its life, and I warmly welcome the opportunity to say so.

I had a similar experience to that described by my hon. Friend the Member for Ipswich (Mr. Mole), not only as a Minister but as a former borough and county councillor as well. After I had carried out a piece of work, a crate of red wine appeared on my doorstep, which went straight back. I immediately warned the chief executive of what had happened and made sure that my lines were cleared.

We have to deal with issues here and it is right that we do so. I cannot address all the problems that have been raised. Some cases would be inappropriate for me to comment on and I cannot address others for lack of time, but I want to nail one or two myths that have been aired. A large body of men and women devote their time and energy to the service of their communities. I want to place on the record from the beginning that the majority of people elected to serve as local authority members already observe the highest standards of conduct, as do the officials who support them. That point was made by my hon. Friend the Member for Stroud (Mr. Drew). I want to reinforce and echo strongly his sentiments.

Of course I echo what the Minister says, particularly as I know one of the members of the Standards Board from many years ago. I understand what he is saying about the board members. He will understand that my hon. Friends and I have severely criticised the ethical standards officers and the processes under which they work, with which I hope he will deal. His remarks so far will be treated as rather complacent, given that we have news cuttings, provided by the Library, of problems and over-trivial complaints from around the country.

I shall endeavour in the time available to me to address the hon. Gentleman's points. Those people who serve our communities in that way need to feel secure when they speak up robustly for their communities in debate and take tough decisions on priorities and budgets—the essence of local politics. We should not take that commitment for granted. We are lucky in this country to have high standards of probity, accountability and objectivity, but we cannot disguise the fact that some failings occur from time to time. There have been cases—thankfully rare—of elected members falling short of the conduct expected from them. The impact of such misconduct can go far beyond the damage done to the local authority in which it takes place. Not only does It harm the community that members are elected to serve, but it damages the wider reputation of local government and undermines the public's trust and confidence in its quality.

I hope that all of us share a desire to promote high standards of behaviour. As hon. Members said, over the past couple of years we have introduced a new framework under the Local Government Act 2000 to promote high standards of ethical behaviour and it is still bedding in. However, the signs are good. After an inevitable period of confusion and suspicion at the beginning, I think people now accept that codes of conduct and the board are a routine part of public life and that there is clarity about what constitutes acceptable standards of conduct, a robust, efficient and fair means of investigating allegations of misconduct—I will deal with specific points in a moment—and a proportionate regime for dealing with any councillors who are found to have fallen short.

I am very aware that this is a sensitive matter, as hon. Members noted. People who give up their time to serve their communities will naturally and rightly be outraged if they think there is an initial presumption that they are doing so for dishonourable motives. However, we needed a new framework, which we have, to help dispel public criticism of those in public life. Its two elements are the introduction of the new statutory codes of conduct and the creation of the Standards Board.

Before we issued the codes of conduct, we set out the 10 general principles that should underpin the conduct of members of local authorities: selflessness, honesty and integrity, objectivity, accountability, openness, personal judgment, respect for others, the duty to uphold the law, stewardship, and leadership. I have no doubt that every hon. Member, especially those present, would agree that we can all support those principles and lend our names to them. They summarise what we might expect from local councillors and provide a yardstick against which conduct can be measured. Hon. Members have given me examples of things that are not right. We are open to the views of all stakeholders on the operation of the codes in the light of continuing experience.

The codes of conduct have been operating for only about 18 months. We continually review them and their operation, and will do so when they are fully bedded in. While we do that, we welcome comments and examples, and the opportunity continuously to improve the process. The Conservative party has decided to attack bureaucracy and red tape in local and central Government, but I am pleased to hear hon. Members recognising the Standards Board and asking if it can be made better, rather than simply attacking it for being unnecessarily bureaucratic. I welcome that consensus.

We all share the view that action must be taken to maintain public confidence in the system where the conduct of elected members does not meet the highest standards. In practice, action can be triggered only if someone makes an allegation. We thought that all elected members should have a positive duty to be intolerant of the unethical behaviour of others, so we have placed on them an obligation to make allegations if they believe that there has been misconduct. We also recognised the need for more robust and effective mechanisms to allow cases of misconduct to be investigated and dealt with. Putting in place the Standards Board and the other elements of the new ethical framework ensures that complaints can be investigated independently and thoroughly. In the most serious cases of misconduct, the adjudication panel can disqualify members from holding office for five years.

The ethical standards officers have a wide range of experience. Some have as many as 20 years' experience of local government. Another myth is that they can suspend councillors. They cannot. They must apply to an independent tribunal. To date, they have not sought any interim suspensions while cases are current. The hon. Member for Teignbridge (Richard Younger-Ross) said that two special branch officers and an FBI officer are running the ethical standards office. That is not true. None of them is an ex-police officer. Such a myth can arise in a debate like this, and I want to nail it at the outset.

That is not what I said.

The hon. Gentleman can read his comment in Hansard. I heard it, as did every hon. Member. I simply want to ensure that we get the facts right.

Half the board members have long periods of local government experience under their belts. One is a Conservative leader, another is a Labour leader, and there are two ex-chief executives of major councils. Others also bring valuable experience from other walks of life.

Other points have been made about the way in which some members of the board have operated. I know that my hon. Friend the Member for Stroud, along with the hon. Member for Surrey Heath, was concerned about how to rebut false allegations in the press. Before the boards were created, there was no system whereby members could clear their names if allegations were made. Allegations were left hanging. Now the board provides members with an independent body that can disprove false allegations.

I have pages of other points and comments to which I wanted to respond. I will write to the hon. Member for Surrey Heath about some of the key points, because I know that he is interested in them. Unlike the survey conducted by the hon. Member for Teignbridge of one or two of his colleagues in local government, the Standards Board conducted MORI surveys and surveys of councillors and of local authorities, which show that there is overwhelming support for it. Parliament must ensure that we give the boards and the councillors the backing and support that they need.

Thank you, Mr. O'Hara, for letting me introduce this topic in the House. With your permission, I would like my hon. Friend the Member for Kingston and Surbiton (Mr. Davey) to contribute to the debate. I hope that the Minister will also give his permission.

indicated assent.

According to Crossrail's own PR leaflet, "Crossrail Vision",

"Crossrail is a proposed new rail project that will make it easier to get into and across London."

The leaflet adds that Crossrail

"will connect above ground to stations across London and the South East"

and "improve international connections". There is no question but that it has done so. It provides a cross-London route that connects the city to Heathrow. In south-west London, or corridor 6, to use the lingo, it has provided extra trains from Kingston, through Richmond, to Paddington in central London. Indeed, there are now 12 trains an hour. At first glance, Crossrail is a thoroughly good thing for my constituents and should be supported. Many doubts have been expressed, however, and the limited consultation has thrown up a host of problems.

My constituency is split between the London boroughs of Richmond upon Thames and Kingston, and as usual opinions differ on each side of the park. Richmond's concerns are not shared by many residents of the north Kingston part of my constituency, which is why I am most grateful, Mr. O'Hara, that you have allowed my hon. Friend the Member for Kingston and Surbiton to contribute to the debate. There is no question but that Kingston residents will derive huge benefits from a fast link to central London. However, despite providing 12 trains an hour to central London, Crossrail will also result in the loss of the District line service between Turnham Green and Richmond. That is a hugely popular route, which many of my constituents use to travel directly into central London without changing trains. It also provides an easy link to tourist attractions such as the Houses of Parliament here at Westminster, the world heritage site at Kew gardens and the national archives at Kew, which hold the Domesday Book. The line is therefore popular with tourists and residents.

Sadly, in a reversal of the argument that has been advanced, it transpires that Crossrail will involve the compulsory purchase of land and, in one case, an entire property in my constituency. That land is to be used to provide a dive-under line at the Manor Road junction. When that was discovered, property values in the area were immediately blighted—an issue to which I shall return shortly. First, however, I should mention the consultation. On 14 July last year, the Secretary of State for Transport asked Cross London Rail Links Ltd. to undertake a public consultation exercise in the autumn to explain its proposals in more detail and canvas opinion on its route proposals. Stakeholders were given until 19 January—next Monday—to submit their reports. The consultation started at the beginning of September and was scheduled to end on 3 December. On about 13 November, two months after the official start of the consultation, about 40 households in my constituency received letters telling them of the need compulsorily to purchase their land or properties. Some received the letter as late as 4 December, the day after the official consultation ended. Richmond council was not informed in any detail about the properties that would be affected. I do not know how much it knew, but I was told officially that it had not been informed. Naturally, there was great consternation among residents that their questions could be answered neither by their MP—I met Crossrail in November but was not told of the proposals—nor by any of their local councillors.

A public meeting was called, and a group called XRail—another crossrail, but we refer to it thus for ease—with about 100 members. A public exhibition in Richmond organised on 29 November and 1 December by Crossrail was held on a landing at the top of a staircase outside the reference library. That was, Richmond council claimed, the only space that it could make available that weekend. Hundreds of people turned up. It was mayhem. They turned up to catch glimpses, if they were lucky—and most were not—of some glossy PR material, but there was no proper map showing land take, and there were no alternative proposals.

The chosen option axed the District line in my constituency and required land take from local residents. No alternatives were presented at the exhibition or at subsequent meetings, and little detail has been given to us about environmental studies, passenger flows, both present and predicted, or the business plan. Crossrail of course claims that that issue is confidential.It has also been revealed that the proposal will involve closing a large Currys branch and Homebase in Richmond. The management and staff of those two popular stores had no idea that that was going to happen or that it would result in the loss of their jobs. The consultation period has been far too short and insufficient information has been provided to allow local authorities, let alone residents, to assess the scheme.

All that damage has been done, even though funding for Crossrail has apparently not been identified or approved. Indeed, many people are now being told privately by assorted individuals that the line between Richmond and Kingston—corridor 6, in other words—will not be approved anyway, so what is all the fuss about? There is a lot of confusion.My constituents have been elated, puzzled, not properly consulted, depressed, irritated, frightened and impoverished for something that may not happen at all. Many of them now own blighted properties. Many are elderly and were planning to use the equity in their properties to supplement pensions reduced by recent scandals. It is possible that at the end of this month the route for Crossrail between Richmond and Kingston will not be approved as part of the main project but, in case of a decision perhaps 20 years hence, the relevant areas will be safeguarded. There is tremendous fear about that.

If what I have outlined were to happen, statutory blight would commence. If any of my constituents in the area wanted to sell their house and obtain compensation they would have to prove that the sale was necessary because of a change of employment and the need to move to another area. No one could obtain compensation if they wanted to realise the equity in their house for pension purposes. I understand that some committee or other was supposed to be examining the statutory blight problem after the channel tunnel experience. However, nothing seems to have transpired. I hope that the Minister can assure us that the problem is being considered and can be solved.

It is also vital to obtain an assurance from the Minister that, should it be decided that the Kingston to Richmond section of Crossrail cannot go ahead, the safeguarding of properties will be lifted immediately. The newly Labour—that is the only way I can describe him—Mayor of London has assured us of his support, so I assume that the Government will agree with him. Will the Minister confirm that?

Finally, Crossrail's proposal for 12 fast trains to central London will sadly result in the loss of our stretch of the District line. The XRail residents group, a local amenity society and others have questioned whether that is the only option. How many options have been considered? The local engineering group attached to XRail has produced a well argued paper suggesting alternatives to the dive-under at Manor road junction, and I understand that it has been sent to the Department for Transport. Perhaps the Minister will confirm that. How many alternatives that would both retain the vital link that the District line provides and protect properties have been considered? The London boroughs of Richmond and Hounslow have informed me of their proposed variant to the Crossrail scheme, which offers great advantages to south-west London boroughs, including Kingston. The proposal involves retaining the District line and providing services to the Hounslow loop line. I hope that the Minister can assure us that that option will be considered.

We are told that the primary objection to running the District line together with Crossrail is operational: one cannot mix non-timetabled trains with timetabled trains. However, I find that difficult to understand. Surely, overcoming the problem is not rocket science or beyond the scope of modern signalling. As well as commenting on those major issues, will the Minister say what transfer facilities will be provided at Turnham Green if the District line terminates there and how accessible they will be? Will he also assure us that the long-standing request that has been made for years that the Piccadilly line stop at Turnham Green will be granted?

The consultation on Crossrail in south-west London on issues affecting my constituents has ended before it has even begun. How does the Minister intend to assess the limited responses that he has received and the proposed alternative schemes that have been submitted? Most importantly, how does he intend to deal with the safeguarding issues, which I am sure affect far more people than my constituents alone? The idea of Crossrail is truly excellent and could bring huge benefits to London as a whole, but so far it has been a sad tale. I look forward to the Minister's reply.

I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Richmond Park (Dr. Tonge) on securing this debate on a project that we both wholeheartedly support and that is important for our constituencies. She is right to set out, on behalf of her constituents, some of the problems that will need to be overcome to ensure that there is even more agreement. She has already explained to the Chamber and to the Minister and to others outside that there are solutions to the problems and that the communities involved can support the overall scheme.

We have serious transport problems in south-west London, including Kingston, such as congestion. Such problems are increasingly imposing constraints on the economy and the society that I represent. We need more investment in public transport infrastructure, so, even though Crossrail might be some time off, it is vital that we signal huge support for it in principle.

We do not want to make the same mistake in Kingston as our forefathers. There was originally a plan to bring the main line to the south-west of England through the borough, but the good burghers of Kingston were worried about the pubs and carriages in Kingston marketplace, so they declined the offer of the line, which went through Surbiton. I use that line almost daily and, for the good burghers of modern Surbiton, it is a good thing. For Kingston, however, we do not want to repeat that historic mistake. We need the line because it will bring huge advantages.

The Montague review is considering the financing of the different options. I would like to tell Adrian Montague and all those speaking to him that we want Crossail in Kingston. The number of people who would use it to travel to and from Kingston would help to ensure the scheme's financial viability and the funding needs of the City. Kingston is the second most visited retail centre in London and the south-east after the west end and Oxford street. That is the scale of the number of people coming to and going from Kingston. It is a vibrant community, and the traffic that Crossrail would generate would help finances. I hope that Mr. Montague and his colleagues are factoring that and the huge growth currently seen in Kingston into their calculations.

I have another point that the Crossrail project team, Mr. Montague and the Government should take on board. The Richmond and Kingston branch is due to stop at Kingston, which is no surprise considering its name. However, an earlier consideration included the idea of continuing it to Norbiton, which is the next station along from Kingston. That is a superb idea, not least because Norbiton is the most deprived ward in my constituency. Times have changed since the 1991 Jarman index, and unemployment in my constituency is not as high, but just over a decade ago, Norbiton was the most deprived ward in outer London boroughs, and some of that deprivation still exists. Moreover, if the branch stopped at Norbiton, it would take the line close to Kingston hospital, one of London's best hospitals.

The argument for bringing the line to Norbiton is strong in terms of economic regeneration and social inclusion, and the Crossrail team, the Government and Mr. Montague should consider it. I am told that the practicalities are covered for turning round the trains and using the place as a stop. Considering the wider economic benefits that could be generated, such an extension should be considered by all involved in the project, not least the Minister.

I congratulate the hon. Members for Richmond Park (Dr. Tonge) and for Kingston and Surbiton (Mr. Davey) on their contributions. I know that many of the concerns raised are real but, like some of the criticisms, they are a tad premature.

As a London Member, I am fully aware of the issues at stake in planning for London's future transport needs. We broadly agree with the forecast in the London plan that the city's population will grow by 700,000 to more than 8 million by 2016. Those extra people will need to travel around for both work and leisure, and there will be growth in the wider south-east. Many more people will want to come into London, and the demand for public transport is forecast to grow by 24 per cent. between 2001 and 2016, an average increase of 1.5 per cent. a year.

I tell the hon. Member for Kingston and Surbiton that I am keenly aware from my not-too-distant past of the difficulty both of getting to Kingston and travelling around it once there. I was a part-time lecturer at the polytechnic, later the university, of North London and the polytechnic of Central London while holding down a 0.5 post as a politics lecturer at Kingston university. I had to juggle three timetables on any given day or week for the best part of a year, and in doing so I started to understand intimately the difficulties with access throughout central and north London and Kingston. Having to juggle those timetables is second only to the Atkins diet in keeping someone trim and in shape, not least because of the access concerns that have been alluded to.

As hon. Members will know, the Government have long supported the principle of the Crossrail scheme and recognised that it could provide a significant increase in the capacity of the present rail networks into and across London, thereby relieving congestion and overcrowding. That is why we asked Cross-London Rail Links, the joint venture between Transport for London and the Strategic Rail Authority, to devise a project to meet the challenges. CLRL submitted its business case in July 2003, and it has produced a serious proposal that deserves serious consideration.

As the hon. Member for Richmond Park said, the proposal is based around a central tunnel across London that closely follows the currently protected alignment from west of Paddington to east of Liverpool Street station. That is a central feature whatever the exact details of the end scheme. The current proposal suggests that, from Liverpool Street, the line would be extended through Whitechapel, beyond which it would divide into two branches: one going to Stratford and joining the existing Great Eastern lines to Shenfield, the other going through the Isle of Dogs and the royal docks before crossing the Thames to join the north Kent lines at Abbey Wood, with some services continuing to Ebbsfleet.

To the west of Paddington, which is of more direct concern today, the proposal would divide the line into two further branches. One would join the North London line providing services to Richmond and Kingston. The other would be via Ealing and Hayes to Heathrow, along the existing branch served by the Heathrow express. That would clearly be subject to the promoters securing a satisfactory agreement with BAA, which owns the Heathrow access rights to that branch.

The hon. Member for Kingston and Surbiton, in what I think was a slip of the tongue, referred to the review considering funding. In fact, the remit of the review, which is important for this debate, goes far beyond simply funding, important though that is. In response to receiving the final business plan, we set up the review and the expert team, led by Adrian Montague, chairman of British Energy and deputy chairman of Network Rail, to review the proposals. The terms of reference are to examine the business case and to assess whether the proposals are likely to be delivered according to time, scope and budget; whether they offer value for money; the extent of Government funding that can be justified; and the proportion of funding required from non-Government sources.

Deep within that are all the concerns about the line, the duration of the build, financing and other considerations, not the least of which is the timetable. One must consider—if I can use this word—the totality of the statement by my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Transport in July and the terms of reference for the Montague review, to appreciate fully that it is not just about funding packages. It goes far deeper than that.

In that context, I ask the Chamber to have patience for a little longer. The review team has been working since September and is due to submit its report to the Secretary of State around the turn of the month or soon thereafter. Therefore, although today's debate is valuable, it is inevitably a little premature. It is taking place so close to the outcome of the review that, with the best will in the world, I will not go into detail about the pros and cons or other aspects of the south-west London spur.

I accept that the Minister cannot say too much before the Secretary of State receives the Montague review report, but how long does he think that the Department will need to consider the report? When does he think that Parliament will hear the Secretary of State's conclusions on the report?

At the risk of sounding facetious, that depends on whether we have a two-page dismissal or a far lengthier process. I cannot determine what is in the report, how much it agrees with, or otherwise, the business plan, or how much it tears up the business plan and says, "Here is another, equally viable project, with another tunnel somewhere else in central London." I suspect that that will not happen but I simply do not know. We do not know the details of the report or the extent of it within each of the terms of reference, but I hope that the answer to the hon. Gentleman's question is, "As quickly as possible", so that we can move things on. That is what everyone needs to do.

Will the Minister give way?

I will briefly.

I understand the Minister's difficulties, given that the report has not been published yet, but surely he can say something generally about the problem of safeguarding.

Although I said to the hon. Lady, perhaps in my impatience, that I would take an intervention and move on, I may well touch on safeguarding in the remainder of my remarks—we will have to see. Actually, I may not know what is in the review, but I know what is in this speech.

My right hon. Friend the Secretary of State intends to make a statement and plans to publish the review team's report in due course. Everyone I have met who has had anything to do with Mr. Montague and his team during the process, in whatever capacity, understands fully, and have told me that they understand, that it is a detailed and rigorous review of every aspect of the case. It is not an exercise to dismiss the case or whatever else. It is a very serious review of all aspects of the case.

Following the setting up of the review, the Crossrail team, CLRL and others are still rolling forward a range of work schedules and works, not least the consultation. The business plan was published in July. Initially, the Government responded to it. but nothing else happened until the review team was set up, and nothing else will happen until it has reported. Plenty of work streams still have to continue under that plan without any assessments or assumptions being made about the outcome of the review. I do not want to pre-empt the outcome of the report, or the decisions that might follow, but other work continues.

CLRL's planning timetable contains a public consultation that will last from October 2003 to June 2004. I will return to the specific points raised by the hon. Lady in a moment. Right hon. and hon. Members whose constituencies could be affected by the process will know that the first phase has finished. I need to make it clear that CLRL's recent public consultation to explain its proposed scheme in more detail and to canvass views on the route proposals was part of the overall package of ongoing work above and beyond the reviews.

It is misleading to characterise the first phase—informing people that they might be affected by the lines or routes in the business case—as being people's only chance of consultation in the whole process. I appreciate that the hon. Lady did not entirely do that, but she did in some ways. Whatever emerges from the Montague review about a definitive line—south, west, north and, I suppose, the east—there is much more to be done in terms of detail and there will be a far more substantive and detailed consultation, so it is not fair to say that the initial consultation period was the be-all and end-all of the process. It was just a device to explain the scheme.

I will touch briefly on what the hon. Lady asked about safeguarding. CLRL is continuing its work on that, and has asked us to update the safeguarding for the central section of its proposed route. It makes sense to continue to safeguard the central tunnel section, as that could be expected to be at the heart of any Crossrail scheme that my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State might approve. I talk facetiously about a potential tunnel somewhere in central London, but there is not going to be one. Everyone broadly agrees that, if the scheme is to proceed, the central core from Paddington to Liverpool Street station will be the central core whatever prevails, and will be at the heart of any Crossrail scheme.

The section is protected by safeguarding directions from 1990 and 1991, but they are somewhat out of date. In order accurately to reflect CLRL's scheme for the central area, the Secretary of State intends to issue safeguarding directions to update the 1990 and 1991 safeguards. However, he will not issue safeguarding directions that make anything more than technical changes to existing safeguards of the central core until the Government are in a position to make wider decisions on the future of the scheme.

CLRL has not requested safeguarding in the western or eastern sections of the benchmark scheme, so it is premature to request a delay to a new safeguarding direction for any route in Richmond upon Thames. There will not be any substance-safeguarding for anything other than the central core until we know where we are with the project and how it will proceed.

In CLRL's proposal, works would largely take place either underground or on existing railway, but it is inevitable that some people would be affected by them. The team continues to work in parallel with the review of its proposals. It took the view that, if we were to decide to take the proposals forward, it would be better to notify those people who could be affected, purely as a matter of course.

CLRL has notified all property owners and occupiers whose land could be required for works on the benchmark scheme, but I stress that that does not mean either that any commitment has been given to acquire land, or that there is any consent to its purchase. The fact that letters have been sent does not imply that the CLRL proposals have been agreed and therefore must go forward. To be fair to CLRL, I do not think that that was its intention in such a notification—it was simply to forewarn people that, pending the review, that area might be affected. To say that that is the only chance of protestation is not entirely accurate.

I assure the hon. Lady that, while I fully take on board all that she has said, and the seriousness of those concerns, there is still much to be done and a long way to go before we are in a position to know what is in the review.

It is a great pleasure to be in your company this afternoon, Mr. O'Hara. I appreciate this opportunity to raise the issue of health funding in Telford and Wrekin. I shall focus my remarks largely on the funding of primary care services, but it is useful to look first at the whole health economy in the area to place the debate in context.

Since 1997 health funding in Shropshire, which includes Telford and Wrekin, has doubled to nearly £330 million and it is still rising. That is a record of which the Government can be rightly proud. The two main hospitals serving the Telford and Wrekin residents—the Princess Royal hospital in Telford and the Royal Shrewsbury hospital—have received £20 million of new capital investment in the past three years on new facilities and service development.

The Princess Royal hospital has acquired a new endoscopy unit, a new maternity unit, new trauma and orthopaedic facilities, new X-ray facilities, a new fracture clinic, a refurbished gymnasium and a fully refurbished accident and emergency department. In future years I hope that we can deliver a new satellite renal unit, new day surgery theatres, haematology and chemotherapy treatment facilities and a dermatology unit to serve people right across Shropshire, split between the two hospitals.

That is a record of investment in acute services of which we can be rightly proud. It is a superb performance by our Government since 1997. More patients are being treated in our hospitals in a better environment than ever before. Between 1997–98 and 2002–03, the total number of cases being dealt with by the two hospitals rose by about 12 per cent. to 433,000. Even with that increase, in-patient and out-patient waiting lists fell dramatically.

The chief executive of the hospital trust, Neil Taylor, said:

"Year on year activity is increasing, with the number of referrals from GPs and emergency cases going up, but our lists have been going down. The length of time that people are waiting for an operation has been significantly reduced".

Those are the views not of a politician but of the man in charge of our hospital services. So, we have a good record on hospital services. I will return to their broader funding position later in the debate.

Having set the scene in relation to acute services, I shall now move on to the main focus of my comments this afternoon: the activities of the primary care trust. Telford and Wrekin PCT was established in April 2002. It is a medium to large PCT and its boundaries are coterminus with those of the local authority, which is useful because services can be planned extremely effectively across partner agencies. It has 625 employees and 22 GP practices in its area. As we know, it has health care commissioning and provider roles and runs a wide range of services in partnership with other agencies, notably the local authority. and it works hard with the council's social services department.

The PCT already has a good performance record. We have seen genuine improvements in waiting times to see a GP. Indeed, 94 per cent. of people in Telford and Wrekin see their GP within two days, patient choice has improved and we have seen major investment in the fabric of primary health facilities in Telford. Two new large GP surgeries have opened in Dawley and Oakengates in the past 18 months, replacing outdated facilities, and a fully refurbished large practice has also been provided, again in Oakengates. I ought to declare my interest at this point: it is the medical practice that I use, and extremely good it is too.

The challenges that the PCT and its partners face in Telford and Wrekin are significant. Our health indicators are often worse than the national average. For example, our performance is well below the national average in relation to premature mortality from circulatory disease, premature mortality related to cancer, levels of emergency admission for general medicine and surgery, levels of childhood dental decay and levels of teenage pregnancy.

Telford has a deprived community. It is a new town community, built on the principle of new town estates. Many people came across from the west midlands, and we have the profile of an urban area although we are in Shropshire. We have an economy based on manufacture. In many parts of the area, there is a low wage economy. Health indicators reflect some of the problems that, as hon. Members know, are to be found in urban areas.

We are confronting the issues with a partnership approach across agencies. The vision statement of the Telford and Wrekin partnership highlights the importance of health, and its ongoing priority in terms of funding. The vision states that the partnership needs to build

"a successful, prosperous and healthy community which offers a good quality of life for all the people of Telford and Wrekin".

The partnership is doing that, and some extremely good schemes on the ground assist in delivering better health care. Sure Start, for example, is an excellent scheme that dovetails well with the role generally played by the primary care trust and the local authority. My constituency has a superb Sure Start scheme, and two other areas will roll out Sure Start schemes in the next six to eight months. That will have a significant impact on the health of children in the area, and on that of parents. We are also developing a comprehensive estate renewal strategy while targeting areas with housing problems. We are using health indicators as a key mechanism through which to target resources.

I shall deal now in some detail with the issue of resources and the funding position of the PCT. The overall increase in revenue to the NHS over the next three years will be significant in Telford and Wrekin and the wider Shropshire area. The revenue allocation to Telford and Wrekin PCT between 2003–04 and 2005–06 will increase from £124 million to nearly £153 million. That is excellent news. The allocation increases are also impressive in percentage terms. The period 2003–04 saw an increase of 9.3 per cent., 2004–05 will see an increase of 10 per cent. and 2005–06 an 11.7 per cent. increase. That is a good record of investing additional cash in health services through the PCT in Telford, something that we would not have got had the Conservatives been in power for longer. Thank goodness that the Labour Government were elected in 1997 to invest locally in health services.

However, the area of Telford and Wrekin started a long way behind. In 2005–06, it will still be one of the PCTs furthest from getting its fair share of target resources. Meanwhile, the trust still has to meet its targets alongside other PCTs across the country. The Department of Health calculates a target allocation for each PCT known as the weighted capitation target. That calculates the fair share of nationally available NHS revenue that each PCT should receive. That calculation is based on four factors: the size and age distribution of the resident population, additional health needs—linked with deprivation—and unavoidable geographical variations in the cost of providing services.

It is possible to calculate the distance from target by comparing the PCT's weighted capitation target against its allocation. If the allocation is less than the weighted capitation target, a PCT is said to be under target. Conversely, if the allocation exceeds the weighted capitation target, the PCT is deemed to be over target. The Telford and Wrekin PCT allocation is 9 per cent. below what is required in financial terms to meet the needs of the resident population in 2003–04. That needs to be placed in context.

An enormous amount of new resources has gone into primary care services in Telford, representing a massive injection of new cash. No one should suggest that the Government have not invested heavily. However, we need to catch up with our fair share a little more quickly. The increase in resources—£16 million in 2005–06—improves the position, but the PCT will still be 6 per cent., or £10.5 million, below its nationally deemed fair share target in 2005–06. That is partly a legacy of years of Conservative underfunding of health services. If the Tories had continued in power, we should have been even further behind. Indeed, it is brave of the Government to come up with formulae to show how we can meet the needs of populations in constituencies such as mine.

Based on this pattern of revenue allocation, at the end of 2005–06 Telford and Wrekin PCT will be the ninth furthest from its fair share target of the 304 PCTs in England. The Under-Secretary of State for Health, my hon. Friend the Member for South Thanet (Dr. Ladyman), is also in a difficult situation. I believe that his PCT is also below target, and I am sure he will want to assist both his area and mine to receive their fair shares. In terms of capital allocation, the average national percentage uplift is 10 per cent. per annum, with a minimum of 7 per cent. and a maximum of 14 per cent. The allocation for Telford and Wrekin PCT is good: we have been allocated increases of 14 per cent. in 2003–04, 13.9 per cent. in 2004–05 and 7 per cent. in 2005–06. That is a pretty good picture.

So what are the implications? We need to see the debate in context. The Government have massively increased spending on health in Telford and Wrekin, and performance and facilities are improving dramatically in both the acute sector and the primary care sector. We will take no lectures from the Conservatives on health funding. Indeed, if they were to return to power and to implement the 20 per cent. cut in public spending that they have been suggesting, Telford and Wrekin would see its health services decimated.

Even though we have done a lot, I should like us to do even more. I should like our PCT to move more quickly to its resource fair share position, which would enable us to do many more things. We could refurbish even more doctors' surgeries, and undertake more community-based schemes, linking the council's regeneration strategy with health improvement. We would be able to provide more resources for our local hospitals, through GPs, to meet their needs.

We need to move quickly and we need to build on success. My appeal to the Minister is that we need to get our fair share allocation right. Any new resources for the health service allocated through the comprehensive spending review process need to be passed to PCTs. That approach will deliver significant improvements in the health of people in constituencies such as mine.

I said that I would return to the acute hospital sector. I have not dwelt too much on the financial position. The merger of the two hospitals, which I and my hon. Friend the Member for The Wrekin (Peter Bradley) opposed, has resulted in some budget pressures. It would be helpful if the Minister would consider a package of specific support to help the hospital trust through this post-merger period.

To sum up, we want to build on the success in Telford and Wrekin. Our local health service workers and their partners have proved themselves to be high achievers. They have done much with the major new injection of resources from the Government; one can only imagine what they could do with the resources that the formula suggests they should have.

I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Telford (David Wright) on securing this important debate on a subject of great interest to his constituents. I congratulate him also on his continued interest in health-related issues in his constituency. He shares an assiduous interest with my hon. Friend the Member for The Wrekin (Peter Bradley), who was unavoidably prevented from being with us.

I have listened carefully to the points that my hon. Friend the Member for Telford has made and I must begin by saying how pleased I am that he recognises the huge advances being made in the national health service in Telford and the Wrekin, in terms of investment and input and, more importantly, of improved services and outcomes. I am pleased that he firmly positions the local challenges in that positive context.

I would like to add a few words about the progress and the investment being made in the area, and praise the hard work and dedication of the national health service staff who work there. Shrewsbury and Telford Hospital NHS Trust was officially established on 1 October 2003. I am aware that there were misgivings, including from my hon. Friend the Member for Telford, about the merger of the preceding trusts, namely, the Princess Royal Hospital NHS Trust and the Royal Shrewsbury Hospitals NHS Trust. There was an Adjournment debate on the subject in April 2003. However, the consultation showed significant local support for the merger, and the then Under-Secretary of State for Health, now the Under-Secretary of State for Constitutional Affairs, my hon. Friend the Member for Tottenham (Mr. Lammy), approved it.

There are significant financial benefits from merging the two Shropshire trusts. Over the past two years, there have already been management cost savings owing to the sharing of the executive team and the rationalisation of support services. The merger will enable a further £0.5 million worth of savings to be made in management costs.

A number of conditions were attached to approval of the merger. One of them was about the continued provision of accident and emergency services in Telford. I am aware that my hon. Friend and his parliamentary neighbour my hon. Friend the Member for The Wrekin met the Minister of State, Department of Health, my hon. Friend the Member for Doncaster, Central (Ms Winterton), on 4 November to emphasise their views. I am also aware that hon. Members met the new trust chief executive, Neil Taylor, and the chair, Phil Homer, along with the chief executive and chairman of Shropshire and Staffordshire strategic health authority on 1 December. They discussed the new trust's performance development plan, which was another condition of the merger. The trust is discussing the plan with key stakeholders and will publish it at the end of January.

My hon. Friend the Member for Telford has had concerns about the effect of the deficit of the preceding trusts on the local health economy and the merging of the trusts. In the 2002 Budget, the Chancellor announced the largest sustained increase of funding of any five-year period in the history of the national health service. From 2003–04 to 2007–08, the plans will lead to an average annual increase of 7.3 per cent. above inflation in expenditure on the NHS in England. We must consider the challenges in that context.

All NHS organisations must realise that they have a responsibility to manage their resources effectively, without relying on further help from the centre or other parts of the NHS. It is the strategic health authorities' responsibility to deliver the overall financial balance for their communities, to ensure that every body achieves financial balance, and to deliver key targets. We expect financial balance across the NHS, but that is not to say that no health bodies face financial pressures. There are always pressures to be managed in the year and substantial moneys, including NHS bank support for the most hard-pressed health economies, have been allocated to the NHS to meet increasing demands.

The NHS must operate within available funding. NHS organisations that overspend should and must repay those organisations that have had to forgo the resources used to fund overspends. We cannot simply wipe the slate clean, and my hon. Friend would not expect us to do so. Such an approach would be seen to penalise good performance and give all the wrong messages about responsible management. In circumstances in which full repayment cannot be made in the year following an overspend, strategic health authorities can agree to a recovery plan, which phases recovery of deficits over several years. That would require other NHS organisations in the local health economy to underspend over the same period.

I recognise that there are challenges facing the local health community in my hon. Friend's constituency. Telford is one of the most rapidly growing towns in the west midlands and its population has multiple deprivation characteristics that are comparable to those of many inner-city areas. Despite those challenges, I am delighted to note that Telford and Wrekin primary care trust achieved all its key targets in the 2003 performance ratings and was awarded two stars—a considerable achievement.

According to the latest available figures, from October 2003, 98.2 per cent. of patients across the PCT are able to make an appointment with their GP within two days. There is a strong history and culture of partnership working in Telford and Wrekin covering areas such as social inclusion, child care, community safety and others. In addition, there is a number of multi-agency neighbourhood action schemes and the PCT is involved in projects such as Sure Start, children's fund programmes and an education action zone. The public service agreement partnership is also commendable for its work on health targets and I understand that Telford and Wrekin PCT is making commendable efforts alongside its partners to establish a sports action zone in Telford.

The PCT is investing in the area. Examples of the investment include £260,000 to establish a 24-hour nursed bed unit for adult mental health services in Telford; £125,000 on "Help 2 Quit" and other smoking cessation programmes; £40,000 for staffing to improve access to paediatric therapy services; and £85,000 for medical staffing in community mental health teams. That is certainly a story of progress, but it will continue—my hon. Friend is right to raise the matter—only if we maintain the flow of resources in Telford and Wrekin that the area needs.

I am pleased to emphasise that Telford and Wrekin PCT will receive an increase of £39 million over the three years from 2003—04 to 2005—06, which represents a cash increase of 34.4 per cent. for the period. That said, I am prepared to acknowledge that that will mean that the PCT continues to receive less than its target share. The pace of change policy that we have adopted for 2003 to 2006 will reduce Telford and Wrekin PCT's distance from target over the three-year period. For 2003–04, Telford and Wrekin PCT was 8.92 per cent. under target. By 2005–06, it will be 6 per cent. under target, although I have no doubt that it will still be too far away from the target for my hon. Friend's satisfaction.

Those allocations have been made direct to PCTs as part of the process of shifting the balance of power, and to put resources and responsibilities in the hands of front-line services. PCTs now control more than three quarters of the NHS budget. It is not unreasonable for my hon. Friend to ask why some PCTs are seen continually to receive less than their target share. However, pace of change policy involves a balance between how much we give to all PCTs in order to maintain continuity and stability and make progress nationally in priority areas, and how much extra we give to under-target PCTs to bring them nearer to their weighted capitation targets.

Allocations to all PCTs include resources to finance the cost of pay reform, new drugs and treatments and additional capacity, but we have also given extra resources to under-target PCTs. It is important to remember how much extra funding we are making available across the board. The total of PCT allocations for 2003–04 was £45 billion, an increase of £3.8 billion. By 2005–06, it will be £53.9 billion, which represents an increase of £12.7 billion over the three years.

We are committed to bringing PCTs, including my hon. Friend's, to their target allocations as soon as is practicable. However, that must be consistent with all PCTs receiving sufficient extra funding to enable them to deliver on national and local priorities. Ministers decide pace of change policy for each allocation round. The policy varies from round to round to take account of a number of factors, including the overall level of resources available and the priorities for the use of those resources. My hon. Friend will be delighted to hear that we will consider the pace of change policy for the next round of allocations, which will cover the period up to 2007–08, in the light of all the circumstances at that time. We will make a judgment then about the pace of change.

I hope that my hon. Friend will take it as a helpful concluding comment if I assure him that his comments have been heard, and that they will be considered when judgment is made on the next round.