I am delighted to have secured this important debate on a subject that is of deep concern to every single constituency Member of Parliament. We confront it all too regularly. It is one of many examples of matters in which the Government have failed to live up to their rhetoric.

In many ways homelessness was an issue that demarcated the differences between the Conservative party and the Labour party in the mid 1990s. It was an area on which then Opposition MPs were constantly attacking the Government's record, and grand promises were made—not least by the current Prime Minister, who promised a society where we would not spend millions of pounds on bed-and-breakfast accommodation for families, but would spend it on housing those people.

In fact, since 1997 the number of households in bed-and-breakfast accommodation has trebled. Every time I walk past a Big Issue seller I remember that Opposition rhetoric against the previous Government and think of the irony in the fact that, six years after Labour came to power, the sellers are still there, selling the same publication on the street corner to raise awareness of the same issue, and I ask myself, what went wrong?

Homelessness is a huge issue but in many cases it is invisible. It is not just a matter of the relatively small, albeit still disturbing, number of rough sleepers on our streets. The real problem is very much like an iceberg—we often see just the tip but beneath the surface there is a huge additional problem. It is the problem of those who lose their home for different reasons—the problem of those who seek help and end up in bed-and-breakfast accommodation, out of sight of most of us, with very little hope and very little chance of an easy way back into good long-term accommodation.

I find that one of the most difficult of our many tasks as constituency Members of Parliament is that of dealing with families—people who are deserving cases—who need housing and need a new option for housing, but for whom I know, especially given the realities of the constituency that I represent, there is very little hope of their achieving that. This is definitely an area where the Government should feel utterly ashamed of their lamentable record.

The scale of the problem is huge. The detailed figures are stark. In 1997, 102,000 households were found to be unintentionally homeless and in priority need. By 2002, that figure had risen to 125,000. There was an even bigger jump in the number of households intentionally homeless and in priority need—from 4,900 to 9,400. That is a huge jump; later I shall mention some of the circumstances that contributed to that.

I apologise to you, Mr. McWilliam, for arriving just after the commencement of speeches. Does the hon. Member for Epsom and Ewell (Chris Grayling) think that the 1.5 million affordable homes sold under the right to buy over the 18 years of Conservative Government were a major contributory factor to the problems that he is highlighting?

Actually, no I do not. I shall discuss the supply of affordable households in a moment, because there is no matter in this whole issue where the Government have more to be ashamed of than the provision of affordable housing, where, since 1997, the provision of new housing has dropped at a startling rate.

There are some particularly problematic issues within those overall figures of which the House should be aware and should have at the back of its mind as we debate the subject. Some groups suffer disproportionately from homelessness. Although, given the balance of the population, most people affected are white, the rise in homelessness among some of our ethnic groups has been particularly startling. In 1997, 6,900 Afro-Caribbean homeless households in priority need were accepted by local authorities. In 2002, the figure had risen to 12,000—a 100 per cent. increase in five years. Other ethnic groups witnessed a 50 per cent. increase in the same period, from 5,000 households to 9,000. If asked, groups that specialise in this issue and represent homeless people will say that today, particularly in London, this problem disproportionately affects our ethnic minorities; we should be mindful of that when we address the issue.

Another stark piece of information that I found when reading the background statistics was that the causes of homelessness, and the suffering from homelessness, tie in very closely with some of the most vulnerable groups in our society. Again I refer to the figures for the past five years. In 1997, local authorities accepted 5,220 homeless households in priority need that contained a household member vulnerable through physical handicap; in 2002, that figure was 6,890. In 1997, authorities accepted 6,910 homeless households in priority need that contained a household member vulnerable through mental illness; in 2002, it was 10,680. In the same period, acceptances of homeless households in priority need that contained a young person increased from 3,100 to 6,900. Therefore the people who are affected, and who are being affected on a greater scale year by year, are vulnerable groups—the mentally ill, the physically handicapped, and young people who have run into family problems. We need to really understand the problem and we need to tackle the problem particularly for those vulnerable groups, because they are the least capable of dealing with the situation.

Those patterns reflect a real social challenge. This is not just an issue about availability of housing; it is actually about social breakdown and real challenges that exist in our society. The homelessness problem will not be addressed simply by building houses; it can only be addressed by far broader policies, especially those that focus on the family.

To pick up on the remarks of the hon. Member for Edmonton (Mr. Love), the provision of housing, the infrastructure of housing and the real shortage of housing lie at the heart of the problem. He mentioned affordable housing. In fact, the construction of affordable housing is one of the present Government's great failings. They have made plenty of announcements but matched them with precious little action. Yesterday I did a search on the website of the Office of the Deputy Prime Minister to see what it said about affordable housing. I discovered that since June 1992, the Government have made 43 different news announcements about affordable housing. The search engine did not allow me to search further back, but if one extrapolates on that basis, Labour Governments have probably made the best part of 150 to 200 announcements over the past five years about their plans on affordable housing. That is impressive stuff; there is lots of interest in the subject.

We constantly see big news stories about the Deputy Prime Minister's vision for solving the housing crisis. In the past 12 months alone there has been a series of announcements and big stories. I did a search for newspaper headlines on the subject in the last 12 months. They included, "Prescott says homes plan will need 'phenomenal' cash amount"; "Prescott makes promise of 200,000 homes, but maintains green belt will be safeguarded"; "Prescott plan for 200,000 homes"; "Taskforce aims to boost supply of low-cost homes", and even the rather endearing, "Four-homes Prescott mocks Middle England".

However, the reality is stark and clear and it is a definitive example of where this Government are all talk and precious little action, because between 1992 and 1997 we built 326,983 affordable homes, reaching a peak of 70,000 a year, but after 1997 the level of new build plummeted. Between 1997 and 2002, that 326,000 figure under the previous Parliament had fallen to a total of 188,760. In 2002—03, only 31,000 new affordable homes were built, compared with almost double that number in the run-up to the last general election.

According to the interim report on the review of housing supply, the right to buy is a contributory factor to the problems that I mentioned. The report also displays a graph, showing that in 1979 local councils were building about 120,000 homes a year, but by 1994 they were building none. Does the hon. Gentleman believe that that is a contributory factor to the shortage of affordable accommodation?

In view of the party that the hon. Gentleman represents, I am surprised that he has the brazen gall to stand up and use such an example, when his Government have presided over a halving of the construction of affordable homes in the affordable home sector in the past five years. The hon. Gentleman is right to use the analogy of local authorities, but what the Conservative Government did was to move responsibility for the provision of affordable housing from local authorities to new bodies such as housing associations. I do not know about the hon. Gentleman, but I certainly believe that the housing associations operating in my constituency are good, specialist organisations that deliver within the limitations placed on them by central Government and the financial constraints that they face. Generally speaking, they do a good job for the people they look after and provide homes for. I have nothing to be ashamed of in the creation of an affordable housing sector comprising specialist housing organisations that do a good job for people. The hon. Gentleman has every reason to be ashamed of the record of his Government, who are associated with such a lamentable performance in the provision of affordable housing.

Does my hon. Friend agree that it is outrageous of Labour Members to blame the current homelessness problems on us when the Government have had nearly eight years to sort out the problem? If the hon. Member for Edmonton (Mr. Love) thought it wrong to build no new houses in the council house sector, his Government have had more than seven years to sort the problem out. Why have they done nothing about it?

It is yet another example of what we saw before and after the 1997 election—all talk and no action.

Is it not a matter of concern that, apart from the Parliamentary Private Secretary, the only Labour Member present is the hon. Member for Edmonton (Mr. Love)? Is it not also a matter of concern that only the Labour Members who are adhering to the Whips' brief are being allowed out today? I believe that inquiries should be made to ascertain whether the other Labour Members have been locked up somewhere to keep them away from the Palace of Westminster.

Order. We are supposed to be debating homelessness.

Thank you for that reminder, Mr. McWilliam. I have great admiration for the hon. Member for Edmonton for having the nerve to come and defend his case here.

I understand that the Housing Bill is in Committee this morning, which will occupy the time of a considerable number of Labour Members who are interested in the subject. May I return to the graph in the review, which shows clearly that in 1997 housing associations were building fewer than 20,000 affordable homes a year? Does the hon. Gentleman believe that the failure to replace council house building with housing association building in those 18 years was a major contributory factor to the failures of today?

I am always reluctant to correct a parliamentary colleague, even one on the other side of the political fence, but I simply draw his attention to the written answers provided by the Office of the Deputy Prime Minister last week. They show that in 1996—97, 53,840 affordable houses were built by registered social landlords, in comparison with 2001—02, when only 30,605 were built. Those are official Government figures, which were provided last week.

What of the immediate future? A pretty stark picture is painted by the housing charity, Shelter, which suggests that all the plans in place for the current financial year allow about £1.4 billion to be spent on the provision of new affordable housing. However, Shelter believes that total output will be about 46,000 affordable homes this year at most—still fewer than the number provided pre-1997. Despite all the Government rhetoric of recent months, they are still not matching levels of construction achieved by the previous Government. It beggars belief that a party that makes so much noise about the need to provide affordable homes in this country has such a terrible record in government.

What are the Government doing? I was enlightened by looking through the Government's strategy for homelessness document, "More than a Roof". For me, it summed up everything that is wrong about the Government's philosophical and practical approach to a whole range of activities, not just this particular problem. Let me cite that document.

"A radical change that will be brought about by the Homelessness Act is the new requirement for every local authority to review its homelessness problem and develop a homelessness strategy for its area. Addressing all forms of homelessness, these strategies should be in place within a year of the Act coming into force and renewed…every five years…

The Homelessness Act will require housing authorities to take local homelessness strategies into account in carrying out their functions. In practice, homelessness strategies need to be closely allied to, or included within, authorities' housing strategies. In addition, it will place a new duty on social services to work with housing authorities in formulating a homelessness strategy"—

presumably another homelessness strategy. It continues:

"There also needs to be closer co-operation between housing associations and local authorities on tackling homelessness. The Housing Corporation, Local Government Association and National Housing Federation have agreed to work together to improve this as outlined in their 'Framework for Partnership'."

It also states:

"'Homelessness strategies: a good practice handbook' produced by Randall and Brown includes advice on conducting reviews and developing strategies. Local authorities should consult with other relevant public bodies, voluntary organisations, homeless people and others, and include action that they expect them to take in their strategy."

In other words, it is gobbledegook. All the Government seem able to do in response to a problem is to require local authorities to have a strategy and to create all sorts of tiers of bureaucracy, meetings, debates and documents. Throughout government, one can find endless debates, discussions and committee meetings; seldom can one find genuine tangible action that makes a difference.

I agree with much that the hon. Gentleman is saying. However, on the homelessness strategy, I attended a meeting in Kingston Guildhall where the draft homes strategy of the borough was discussed. I was delighted to see a range of people taking part, offering all sorts of new ideas as the strategy was formed. I take the hon. Gentleman's point about resources and the dearth of affordable homes being built, but he should not decry the positive role that a homelessness strategy can play.

Before I became a Member of Parliament, I was a local councillor. My experience then and from observing local councils subsequently suggests that far too much effort is put into the creation of strategy documents across a range of policy areas, but they are seldom of any real practical benefit in delivering services on the ground. The Government's plans for more strategy documents must be assessed in comparison with the actual delivery record. On the basis of statistics on the provision of affordable housing, it seems to me that there is a woeful gap. What emerge from the central Government are great initiatives, but little tangible action.

That point is reinforced by the annual residential development in London report, carried out by London Residential Research. It says that determining the key players in London's affordable housing policy is complicated by "rampant initiativitis". I am afraid that that is all too often the problem in preventing delivery. Ultimately, the focus is on various initiatives to set out complicated strategies, but the reality of what is needed on the ground is simple, clear and understandable action.

Can the hon. Gentleman tell us which initiatives he would speak against because he wants them to be discontinued?

My experience in my own constituency—I am coming on to that, if the hon. Gentleman will bear with me—suggests that some Government decisions that affect the housing corporations are in practical terms detached from the realities on the ground. In some cases, they can obstruct those realities. I have had several conversations with the housing associations in my own area. The hon. Gentleman will be aware—he has the next-door seat—that one of the recent big issues for them has been the rapid rise in the price of land.

My hon. Friend has identified the kernel of the problem. Does he agree that the problem is twofold? The first problem is the Government's policy of rent restructuring, which deliberately holds down rent in the public sector, and the second problem is the rapidly rising price of houses, which means that the funding gap for public sector bodies—whether they are registered social landlords or any other housing provider—makes it much more difficult for them to provide social housing units.

Absolutely. I concur with what my hon. Friend says, and no doubt he will wish to amplify those issues during his concluding remarks.

The problem of rising land values drives at the heart of question about initiatives asked by the hon. Member for Kingston and Surbiton (Mr. Davey). As the system requires bidding and the submission of complicated proposals in many parts of the sector, the price of land has gone up by the time that people have gone through the bureaucracy of getting money. Registered social landlords in my constituency found on several occasions that the price that they expected to pay for land jumped massively simply because of the time that it took them to go over the hurdles that central Government placed in their path before they could buy the land. we simply allocated grant to RSLs and gave them discretion to use their own initiative and do the best job for the people of their area, we might well find that that delivered a much better result. All too often the Government "know best" and set hurdles for RSLs, but RSLs in my constituency have not been able to build some of the housing that they could have built simply because of the slow and complicated process through which they must go to secure funding.

The other problem faced by RSLs is the fact that Housing Corporation rules on the formulae applied to land values are sometimes too constrained to recognise the price of land in the south-east, especially on the fringes of London. RSLs in my area have faced enormous problems when trying to buy land on which to build because the rules and the formulae with which they must deal do not take account of their local situation. Such problems should not arise.

Does the hon. Gentleman accept that one of the other problems faced by registered social landlords is the policy of his Front-Bench team of turning the right to acquire into the right to buy and thereby throwing their finances into bedlam?

I fundamentally disagree, and I shall not take up too much time on the hon. Gentleman's intervention because I want to give other hon. Members the chance to speak.

I conclude my remarks by highlighting three issues that the Government should address. First, their asylum policy must recognise this country's housing pressures. Most people involved in homelessness say that the number of people coming into this country exacerbates the problem. That matter does not sit on the Minister's desk, but he should talk about it with his colleagues elsewhere in government. This country's housing stock cannot continue to absorb the number of new people who come here every year.

Secondly, if we were to reinvest money secured from extending the right to buy for the provision of more affordable housing, it would deliver a strong additional dimension to the capital that we could spend on affordable housing. I have no qualms whatever about defending that.

Thirdly, there is clearly a huge social dimension to homelessness. I am talking about not only families who find themselves in bed-and-breakfast accommodation, but people who end up as rough sleepers on the streets. Statistics show clearly that the breakdown of families is a key factor behind that. The Government's policy must address family breakdown. There is only a limited amount that they can do, but they should do what they can to turn the tide in the other direction.

It is the duty of us all to tackle the problem. There are not necessarily easy answers, but solutions must be found. The Government did not accelerate work to tackle the problem after 1997; they decelerated work, and now they are paying the price. They raise huge amounts in tax, but fewer affordable houses are being built on the ground than in 1997. More and more people do not have a permanent roof over their heads. On housing, as on so many things, all that the Government are doing is taxing, spending and failing.

I congratulate the hon. Member for Epsom and Ewell (Chris Grayling) on selecting the topic of the debate because the House should spend more time considering such an important issue. He talked about how we tend to view only the tip of the iceberg, and I shall focus my remarks on older homelessness in this country, which is often overlooked and neglected. I note that the one statistic that the hon. Gentleman did not give during his detailed contribution was the number of people who are accepted as homeless on the grounds of age.

Three words best sum up the older homeless: invisible, hidden and isolated. Those words are encapsulated in the tragic story of Alexander Fallon. Mr. Fallon died in 1987 at Kings Cross on that fateful night when fire engulfed the underground station. He was 72 years old when he died. He was homeless and had probably been begging for the price of a drink or a packet of cigarettes. For 16 years, Mr. Fallon was known simply as body No. 115. Behind that number is a story that finds echoes in the stories of many other homeless older people in this country.

Mr. Fallon's world fell apart in 1974 when his wife died of cancer. He sold his home because of the memories that it generated and moved to London where he eventually ended up on the streets due to a range of circumstances. The journey from people having a roof over their heads to being roofless may take many years—research suggests that it takes up to nine years to complete the passage from having a stable relationship and accommodation to homelessness. There are nine years in which to pick up the warning signs and act, so clearly more could be done upstream to prevent homelessness from occurring.

Sleeping rough may not be a lifestyle choice that many of us would consciously make, but, at some level, it seems that those who are on the streets or unofficially homeless are escaping something in their lives that is, for them, even worse. For some, the root cause of homelessness may be traced back to a broken and disturbed childhood, and for others it comes from the loss of a job, the death of a loved one, as in the case of Mr. Fallon, or the break up of a long-term relationship. Stressful events in adulthood, low income, mental health issues and alcoholism can all be factors that trigger that journey from home to street.

Over the past few years I have taken an interest in, and supported the initiatives of, the UK coalition on older homelessness. A visit to its website gives some of the key facts and figures about the scale of homelessness among older people. Official statistics record that in 2002, 4,390 people were accepted as homeless on the grounds of old age. In the same year, as has already been said, 10,680 were accepted on the grounds of mental health. Unfortunately, we do not know how many of those who were accepted on the grounds of mental health were older people. We do not have a reliable figure for those who were accepted on grounds of age because although guidance is given on the age that should be used to count such people, there is no guarantee that that is the basis that each local authority uses—some use the age of 50, and others use the age of 60. Nevertheless, based on figures from the Department's website for the first three quarters of 2003, the trend remains upward for registrations of homelessness on the grounds of both old age and mental health.

The vast majority of older homeless people are hidden. According to a study by Dr. Maureen Crane of the Sheffield institute for studies on ageing, as many as seven out of 10 of those who sleep rough stay in isolated or hidden spots. Other research shows that 834 people aged 50 years or over, including 43 people aged 70 years or over, slept rough in London at some time between April 1999 and March 2000—the Minister will note that March 2000 is the second part of the period of the study. One of the depressing things that I found when examining the matter is the dearth of data and research—both official and otherwise—to help us to understand the extent of the problem.

Many older people sleep rough for a longer time than others. A survey carried out in 1996 found that 65 per cent. of people sleeping rough who were aged over 50 had been doing so for more than five years, while 25 per cent. of younger people had spent a similar period of time on the streets. It is estimated that up to 21,000 older people are living in short-stay hostels throughout England. Many older people self-refer to bed-and-breakfast accommodation. Again, research by the Sheffield institute found that as many as 26,900 older people live in bed and breakfast. In all, 48,000 older people are living in inappropriate accommodation. They are hidden out of sight and out of mind—one could call them the unofficial homeless.

Official statistics are in short supply. Is it really good enough that the only official statistic on older homelessness is the number of people accepted as homeless on the grounds of age? What plans does the Minister have to audit the number of older people living in hostels and other temporary accommodation, and to improve generally data collection on the issue?

If the studies are right, homelessness will not simply disappear because we build more affordable housing—even the right sort of housing. We have to understand and work on the psycho-social causes of homelessness. According to the report, "Lessons from Lancefield Street", which looked at the experience of an outreach centre run by St. Mungo's in west London, various needs come together, often masking one another. Not surprisingly, rough sleeping can accelerate the normal ageing process, so older homeless people in their 50s have health problems associated with much older people. The study found that the most immediate need of older homeless people was help with their physical health problems, such as bronchitis, mobility difficulties and scabies. Physical health complaints, which were more prevalent in men than women, were closely followed by mental health problems, with women suffering more than men. Heavy drinking also featured highly, particularly among men.

In preparing for the debate, I was grateful to St. Mungo's for sending me details of its outer London older people's outreach service, which started in January 2003. The outreach service has found that many agencies—from housing and mental health to support services—do not consider that it is their responsibility to deal with rough sleepers, partly because those agencies traditionally have little to do with rough sleepers and no experience in how to work with them and partly because of the fact that rough sleepers can be difficult, costly and very time consuming to work with. Virtually all services, particularly in outer London and elsewhere away from central London, are geared towards those who are already in housing. That lack of experience is a particular concern when homeless older people are admitted to hospital.

Will the Minister say what steps are being taken by his Department and the Department of Health to ensure that the right resettlement and care solutions are put in place, as part of the single assessment process before a person's discharge? In particular, will he outline how the supporting people initiatives will link into the arrangements for hospital discharge, to ensure that vulnerable older people with multiple needs get access to the right housing and care? Older homelessness is in great part a health issue but not yet a health priority. Will the Minister say what discussions his Department has had with the Department of Health about access to mental health services for older people, particularly counselling and psychological support?

It is not surprising that many older rough sleepers, who may have tried in the past to get a service from their local authority and failed, believe that they are wasting their time and give up. Indeed, the outreach service told me about a 74-year-old who had been to his local homeless persons unit 41 times to try to secure accommodation and had been fobbed off or ignored, or he simply got fed up with waiting all day and had left.

I hope that, in responding to the debate today, the Minister will say how the Government are tackling homelessness among older people. What assessment has been made of the local authority homelessness strategies that were referred to earlier to find out whether they are adequately addressing the needs of older people? Although I entirely take the point made by the hon. Member for Epsom and Ewell that strategies can be a substitute for action and not deliver results, it is important that we ensure that the strategies that are produced do not miss the point and that, in fact, they galvanise people into action and deliver real improvements to services and housing across the board. Will the Minister therefore consider giving further advice, support and guidance to help local authorities to develop services and practice for that particularly vulnerable group?

I began with the case of Mr. Fallon. For 16 years, Mr. Fallon was a just a number. His family did not know where he had gone. The truth is that there are many thousands of homeless elderly people on the streets and in inappropriate accommodation across the country who do not even register on the radar, even as a number.

Oxfordshire is not all dreaming spires, market towns and leafy lanes. Oxfordshire has real social problems. One such problem is homelessness, which can happen to anyone and at any age.

I understand that the charity, Crisis, believes that the cause of 80 per cent. of people becoming homeless is either that they split from their partners or that they are thrown out of their homes by parents or step-parents. Clearly, that is just as likely to happen in a shire county, such as Oxfordshire, as in inner London or one of the other inner-city areas, yet funds for the homeless are frequently focused on the inner cities. I suspect that that is almost certainly because of visibility: walk down almost any street in London and one might see rough sleepers; walk down the high streets of Bicester or Banbury and one is far less likely to see someone sleeping rough.

Rough sleeping is only part of the homelessness challenge and, as such, all Government initiatives, from the Homelessness Act 2002 to the more recent communities plan, recognise that the two problems must be tackled separately. Yet in spite of that recognition, north Oxfordshire's homelessness strategy is not being matched by central Government moneys. That is manifested in different, often indirect, ways. Consider the Government's 2002 strategy paper entitled, "More than a Roof". It stated that one of the primary reasons for homelessness is

"the overall supply of affordable housing…in some parts of the country demand is pushing prices up beyond the reach of a larger proportion of the population…causing more people to apply for social housing".

Of course it is welcome that Ministers recognise the importance of affordable housing as a means to tackle homelessness, but somehow north Oxfordshire has been left out of the Office of the Deputy Prime Minister's calculations of affordable housing allocations. The Deputy Prime Minister needs to do his maths again.

There cannot he many other counties in the south-east that are experiencing, to paraphrase Ministers, housing demands that are pushing prices up beyond the reach of local people. Every three months, it seems that the Halifax and other property price surveyors point to Oxfordshire for having house prices that are rising disproportionately higher than those in London—30 per cent. faster in some months—leaving the average house price in Oxfordshire at about £180,000. That is far more than many local people's purses can stretch to. It makes many of them dependent on affordable housing, yet the ODPM has forgotten much of north Oxfordshire when allocating such housing.

Banbury, for instance, is not seen as a growth area by the Government and not a single house will be built in the town from the £22 billion allocated last year for affordable housing by the Deputy Prime Minister. Cherwell district council is losing its £2.5 million subsidy for accommodation over the next three years. That brings us to the specific funding concerns for local authorities.

I note that in answer to a parliamentary question in November of last year, the Under-Secretary of State, Office of the Deputy Prime Minister, the hon. Member for Pontefract and Castleford (Yvette Cooper), explained:

"Local authorities also receive funding for their homelessness responsibilities through the local government finance settlement. The funding is paid as general grant and it is for local authorities to decide on their spending priorities taking into account their statutory responsibilities".—[Official Report, 17 November 2003; Vol. 413, c. 534W.]

Local government funding is already stretched, especially in south-east counties, such as Oxfordshire. I am sure that hon. Members will have heard colleagues who represent south-east constituencies outline the atrocious unfairness of local government funding in that part of the country. The plain fact remains that counties such as Oxfordshire get a raw deal from the Government.

Oxfordshire witnessed a 13 per cent. rise in council tax last year, and the rise will probably be half as much again next year—all in an attempt to match funding lost from south-east counties to authorities in the north of England. The Audit Commission recently judged that there is a fundamental flaw in local government grant system and that grant redistribution has left the south with lower grant increases and higher council tax rises, while those in the midlands and the north had higher grant increases and lower council tax rises. The Audit Commission has also asserted that there is a clear association between Government grants and the level of council tax.

Local authorities are simply unable to provide further funding to help the homeless. Cherwell district council is already under intolerable pressure to meet the targets of the Homelessness Act 2002. Furthermore, there is little scope for the district council to address the wider problems of homelessness beyond actually finding accommodation for those in need. The 2002 Act asked all local authorities to devise a strategy to tackle the problem in their areas. Cherwell district council has come up with an excellent strategy which focuses primarily on temporary accommodation for single homeless people. That we are talking about single people in separate properties is worth remembering, given the substantial rise in the cost of buying or renting a house in Oxfordshire. The district council has received about £122,000 to implement that strategy.

Given the request of the 2002 Act that strategies should be submitted, however, something strange is happening with the way in which the local authority is receiving that money. I understand that, in the first instance, Cherwell was asked by the Government to bid for funding, but its bid had to be submitted before its homelessness strategy. That places a question mark over how closely the ODPM's directorate is examining each authority's specific strategies. In 2003, despite the ODPM homelessness strategy, no bids were requested. Instead, local authorities were given the same sums as in the previous year. That funding was of course welcome, but what is happening to the homelessness strategies that the 2002 Act demanded? Cherwell submitted a bid for next year but has been allocated one third less money than it needs. I suspect that more money has been given to inner city authorities—which is doubly frustrating in light of the comparative underfunding of Cherwell through local government grants.

What will happen after 2005 is a mystery. Ministers have made no announcement and, to the best of my knowledge, no funding for local authorities has been earmarked. Many homelessness projects depend on stability. Homeless people need stability, but without stable funding such stability is a chimera.

Two excellent projects in north Oxfordshire benefit from around £80,000 of local authority investment. The 24/7 scheme run by the Banbury Young Homeless Project has six houses for young people and is an impressive initiative run by someone who previously did similar work in south London. When I last met that project's co-ordinator, I did not get the impression that the needs of the young homeless in north Oxfordshire were any less than of those in south London.

Figures on the rising number of homeless people under 25 are particularly dispiriting, so it is imperative that funding increase. As a first step, Ministers should give reassurances as to what will happen from 2005 in respect of the strategies that they have requested. The Foyer project, also funded by Banbury district council in conjunction with Banbury Homes Housing Association, houses the young homeless from age 16 to 25. That project brings together a wide range of public and voluntary organisations and draws on the resources of local businesses in offering basic training in abilities often taken for granted—such as literacy, numeracy and computer skills. Those opportunities are especially important to young people because the district council's remaining money is used to fund preventive measures. I am especially impressed by BYHP's school projects, which provide 16-year-olds with briefings about the reality of homelessness to help to raise awareness.

Preventing homelessness must be balanced by more resources to help persons who, for reasons invariably beyond their control, find themselves without a home, as part of a move to deal more with people rather than just places. Much of the Government's attention seems directed at making sure that local authorities simply provide houses. There is a danger of overlooking wider needs. I recently met two people on the 24/7 project. Both struck me as bright and able. One had a clear idea of what he wanted to do next and was shortly to start an apprenticeship with a local employer. BYHP had helped him considerably to achieve that goal.

The other individual was a young girl whom BYHP is also helping, but she was not so clear about her future. There will come a time when she will have to seek help from other organisations. It would be better if those bodies could be involved from the start. It is difficult for many 17-year-olds to decide what they want to do later in life, but that would be far easier with a support base of all the agencies. Shelter's 2003 survey of local authority homelessness strategies not only reported a lack of resources but emphasised the importance of each agency locally communicating effectively and understanding fully what needs to be done. Likewise, the Audit Commission concluded that links should be made, to make sure that services are co-ordinated—including between learning and skills councils, child and young people partnerships, primary care group and trust plans and health improvement programmes. Those are just some of more than 20 agencies that need to work together effectively and efficiently in preventing homelessness and giving every opportunity to those who are homeless.

The Minister will no doubt allude to the vast-sounding sums that the Government have produced for the communities plan. That money is a start, but attention needs to be paid to process. The Chartered Institute of Housing, Crisis, Shelter, Local Government Association and Audit Commission are on record as saying that Government funding is inadequate to meet the demands of the 2002 Act—which is another example of the Government putting new legislation on the statute book but not following up the rhetoric with funds. The money available is also inadequate to address the needs of rural communities, which are increasingly overlooked by Government grants because of the misconception that all is leafy in Oxfordshire. There should also be a change in process to meet long term needs—especially of the young homeless, whose numbers are increasing throughout the country—and to tackle homelessness comprehensively.

I congratulate the hon. Member for Epsom and Ewell (Chris Grayling) on securing this important debate. The first half of his speech made a valuable contribution to setting out the extent of the problem. I agree with his pessimistic picture. Although the Government have had some success in the past year or so in respect of bed-and-breakfast numbers, since 1997 the statistics show a large increase. I am sure the Minister agrees that the figure is still far too high.

The hon. Gentleman, however, skirted round the statistic of most concern in my constituency and no doubt in his—the number of people in temporary accommodation. That is the real crisis in homelessness and the true measure of the Government's failure. Government measures are beginning to have some impact on bed-and-breakfast figures, but the number of people in temporary accommodation is alarming. The figure from Shelter for today's debate is 93,900—the highest ever. The Minister cannot be proud of that shocking statistic—and that is without addressing overcrowding, the homeless at home and other forms of hidden homelessness, particularly among the elderly, to which my hon. Friend the Member for Sutton and Cheam (Mr. Burstow) referred. I hope that the Minister will not deny that the massive problem of homelessness has not got much better. Some figures suggest that it has got worse. We need to begin an educated debate about how to tackle that issue.

The Government have a mixed record. Some of their initiatives have been really good. One still sees people sleeping rough on the streets of London and occasionally in my constituency, but their numbers have reduced.

Will the hon. Gentleman join me in paying tribute to my right hon. Friend the Member for North-West Hampshire (Sir George Young) who, as a member of the last Conservative Government, was responsible for the rough sleepers initiative?

I did not know that, but I am certainly happy to pay tribute to the right hon. Gentleman, who is one of the more—I choose my words carefully—constructive Conservative Members, even if he does not admit to his mistakes over privatisation. It is true that the rough sleepers initiative has been boosted under the present Government, even beyond the extent thought possible by the right hon. member for North-West Hampshire.

We can congratulate the Government also on having a lot of vision. It would be welcome if part of that vision comes true. There is much needed building in the Thames gateway, and other plans, such as those for Milton Keynes, are welcome. However, the Government are weak on practical issues, and the hon. Member for Epsom and Ewell spent a long time analysing their failure to build affordable new homes. He was right to do so, as that is the core of the Government's failure. They have put a lot of money into renovating homes and introducing the decent homes standard, but in making sure that accommodation is better for people who have homes they have prevented the industry from building homes for homeless people. They made a deliberate political choice, and they should admit its consequences.

Action has been slow in other areas, including the problem of empty homes. The fact that the Chancellor set up the Barker review six and a half years after the Government came to power to ask what we should do about the supply of homes says it all. The Government came to office without a clear idea about how they would tackle the housing shortage and the homelessness problem. They introduced a few eye-catching initiatives, but they did not make a fundamental analysis of what was wrong. I welcome the Barker review—the interim report was a challenging interpretation of the problem, and I very much look forward to the final report, in which recommendations which will doubtless appear alongside a proposed budget. I hope that Kate Barker will be given a free remit, and will not be restrained by Her Majesty's Treasury or the Office of the Deputy Prime Minister from making courageous proposals. A new tax break system has been suggested as a way of encouraging institutional investment in the private rented sector, and many people accept the merit of such a proposal. However, if that is all that the review amounts to, it would be a waste, given the work that Kate Barker has done. Her study is urgently needed, so I hope that she will come up with same radical proposals.

Some of the Government's other initiatives have not been effective. Unlike the hon. Member for Epsom and Ewell, I shall criticise one specific initiative. The starter homes initiative was supposed to help key workers. In the last Parliament my hon. Friend the Member for Sutton and Cheam and I came to Westminster Hall with many of our colleagues to talk to the Government about key workers' housing problems in London and the south-east. We did not, however, expect the Government to introduce a policy that promoted demand. We all accept that the problem is with supply, but there is not a problem with demand. There is a lot of demand for housing, and it does not need to be stimulated. We have to deal with the problem of supply. The failure of the starter homes initiative shows the poor analysis of the problem. There has been a lack of take-up because the initiative makes almost no difference. A few thousand pounds here or there may help a little, but only at the margins, and it does not enable us to grapple with the main problem.

I agree that there is no point in having a confetti of initiatives if the analysis of the problem is wrong. The Barker review is important, because hopefully it will focus effort on getting more houses. If we do not do so, we will—I shall refrain from using a colloquial phrase—not make progress. We all feel passionately about the issue because we deal with the problems in our surgeries. I hold two surgeries a week, and there is not one at which I do not see someone with a housing problem, often a homelessness problem. They come for many reasons—the family may have been split up; parents do not want their grown-up children to live with them any more; they may have rent arrears; or the landlord is selling up. On Monday, I dealt with a case in my surgery in which a lady was facing eviction by a registered social landlord because she has two cats. The tenancy agreement says that she should not have cats without written permission, but other tenants in those blocks of flats in Tolworth have cats and dogs, for which they have written permission. However, she has been unable to get such permission, although I hope to intercede, either to secure it or make sure that any eviction process is suspended. There are therefore a plethora of reasons for people being homeless, and in our surgeries we must tackle those many problems.

I am slightly critical of the analysis of the hon. Member for Epsom and Ewell of the origins of the problem, and am more supportive of the Government's view. The causes of homelessness in the past few years are different from the causes of homelessness a decade or more ago, when the housing market was in freefall. There were repossessions, people lost their homes and were thrown out on the street because they could not meet the mortgage repayments as a result of high interest rates under the Conservative Administration. That is not the root cause of the current problem. The economy has been ticking over quite nicely, so land and house prices are high. In a way, our homelessness problem is a problem not of failure but of success, and can be seen in many other successful economies. California, for example, has a massive homelessness problem—people who are not in work or do not have highly paid jobs cannot afford housing because the price of land and houses in a successful economy is high. The problem is therefore different now, so we may need to think of different solutions.

I shall rattle through the rest of my speech to make sure that I give other hon. Members a chance to contribute to our debate. We need to examine positive options. For example, we need to look far more urgently than the Government are currently doing at the option of using empty homes. They have produced a consultation paper about empty home management orders, but they are not moving quickly enough. They have not, for example, used the Housing Bill that Parliament is currently considering to introduce those orders. I recommend that the Minister read the 2003 annual review produced by the Empty Homes Agency. The section on statistics at the end shows that 82 per cent. of people think that local authorities should be given the power to lease and bring back to life empty properties that are currently inhabitable. There is great support for action to deal with empty homes, which are, and are perceived to be, a scandal.

Using the private rented sector much more is the right approach, as Kate Barker has intimated. There are two groups of people in housing need who could be assisted by the private rented sector. The first group consists mainly of younger people in their 20s and 30s who are starting their working lives and careers. They are not yet sufficiently established to be able to buy a home, but want high-quality housing. Such housing, which I sometimes call it condominium-type accommodation, could be provided by the private rented sector, but private developers tend not to go into that area. The Joseph Rowntree Foundation has done some interesting work near York and shown that properties can be built for that group. The landlord and developer can get a commercial return from affordable rented accommodation for such people, and tenants can use it as a stepping stone as they move forward in their career. Not enough of that property is being built, which is why the Barker review and the tax proposals on institutional investment may offer a way forward.

The second group consists of people who are unlikely ever to be able to afford a home, even under the right-to-buy scheme. There is a lack of Government subsidy for Government or council schemes to build homes for that social sector, and the Government need to take a far more active approach. The planning system could be used to deal with the problem. Planning authorities tend to be reactive, but we want councils to be proactive and designate land as housing zones. If a developer wants to build the housing that is needed, they should give his proposals a fair wind. Local authorities should be encouraged to give a lead, because if they took a more proactive approach—some already do, but there are far too few of them—there would be a major leap forward.

I want to conclude my remarks on the changing analysis of homeless by raising an issue with which I am currently trying to grapple and on which I should be grateful for the benefit of the Minister's thoughts. There is a certain type of homelessness that, on one level, we welcome. Antisocial tenants may have created such mayhem that their landlord, whether a social landlord or a private landlord, eventually feels that he has to evict them. We are debating in other places and at other times the need to crack down on antisocial tenants. My concern is how we do it. I carried out a four-hour filibuster in a Committee considering a private Member's Bill to stop the right hon. Member for Birkenhead (Mr. Field) pushing forward a proposal to withdraw housing benefit from antisocial tenants.

Order. Confession may be good for the soul, but the word "filibuster" does not exist in any "Erskine May" that I have ever read.

Thank you for that instruction, Mr. McWilliam. I shall try to keep this confession short.

The problem with the approach taken by the right hon. Member for Birkenhead is that the sanction would be random and would hurt people who were not behaving in an antisocial way. As the Government were considering implementing it, it would apply to offenders coming out of prison who, as we all know, are much more likely to reoffend if they are homeless and without jobs. The Government's approach to housing benefit sanctions would have made severe social problems even worse. I am glad the proposal has been dropped.

We still have to face the question of how to deal with matters when tenants need to be evicted because of their antisocial behaviour. I am trying to grapple with the issue myself. I believe the Government should put in place, with the Housing Corporation and others, much stronger guidance to make sure that through earlier intervention, antisocial behaviour is prevented from getting out of hand so that it does not reach the eviction stage. When eviction is necessary, as part of the cure and to shake up someone whose behaviour has got out of hand, other options should be available post eviction so that the underlying causes of the antisocial behaviour are dealt with.

It is in no one's interest that the eviction of antisocial tenants should lead to more antisocial behaviour, making the problem worse and making the whole community suffer even more. This aspect of homelessness is not often debated, but we need to get our heads round it and develop policy to deal with it. It is a tough issue, but we should not avoid it.

I am grateful to be able to wind up the debate on behalf of the official Opposition. I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Epsom and Ewell (Chris Grayling) on securing the debate. The sad fact is that this is but one in a series of debates in the five years that I have been Front-Bench spokesman on housing, and while we discuss the problem in the Chamber, the problem is getting worse. I hope that the Government will not just talk about it but get a grip of it and see what can done.

For every homeless person, every homeless family, every homeless child, there is a story of human misery involved, as the hon. Member for Sutton and Cheam (Mr. Burstow) so aptly reminded us, particularly those of us who represent a constituency with a high proportion of elderly people, as I do and as I assume the hon. Gentleman does. Of all the constituencies in the country, Cotswold has the third highest number of over-85-year-olds.

I welcome my hon. Friend the Member for Banbury (Tony Baldry), who has taken an overnight flight to be present. His speech reminded us that even in constituencies that one would assume to be relatively prosperous, such as his and mine, there are pockets of hidden homelessness that are problems of human tragedy.

My hon. Friend the Member for Epsom and Ewell went through the figures in detail. They are undoubtedly getting worse: 36,260 households were accepted for housing by a local authority. That is 8 per cent. higher than a year ago and translates into 145,000 homeless people in this country, which is a tragedy and a scandal for a modern advanced country such as ours. My hon. Friend was right to point to the fact that hidden in those figures is a disproportionately high number of black and ethnic people—some 23 per cent. of that figure—and as my hon. Friend noted, the proportion is rising fast.

Although the Minister will no doubt trumpet the fact that the number of people sleeping rough on our streets has dropped and the number of people in bed and breakfasts has dropped marginally in the past year, there is still an increasing homelessness problem. Whether the homeless sleep rough on our streets, or whether they sleep in bed and breakfasts, hostels or unsuitable accommodation, the problem is getting worse, particularly in the capital. It is estimated that half a million Londoners live in overcrowded conditions and again, the situation is getting worse because London is one of the few areas where the population is growing.

The number of households in the capital—this is one of the most dreadful statistics—increased by 184,000 or more than 6 per cent., yet over the same period we built only 58,000 extra houses. The number of households, and especially the number of households with children, is increasing, yet the number of houses that we are building is not keeping up with that growth. This failure was recognised in the recent report by the Labour-dominated Office of the Deputy Prime Minister: Housing, Planning and Local Government Committee, which reached a damning verdict on the Government's affordable housing record. According to the Committee,

"more and more people cannot afford to buy or rent a home."

The Institute for Public Policy Research, the think-tank not notably supportive of the Opposition but supportive of the Government, admitted recently that

"housing poverty is not the most extreme form of social inequality in Britain".

We all received a brief from Shelter for this debate. One of the most damning statistics in the brief is that more than 100,000 children in England become homeless every year. If that is not a tragic statistic, I do now know what is. Half a million households are officially overcrowded, including 300,000 families with children. We must do something about those figures. I have not come just to berate the Government and read out these dreadful figures. I have a few suggestions for the Government. Some are old chestnuts and some are new ideas that I have come up with in the course of the debate.

We can't wait.

Don't be cynical. Even if one of these ideas helps one those poor homeless families, the debate will have achieved something. I hope we will not play politics with such a serious subject.

The administration of housing benefit and council tax benefit has recently been transferred from the Office of the Deputy Prime Minister to the Department for Work and Pensions—about time too, as it was dreadfully administered under ODPM. There was almost one change a week. I am alarmed that the Government are trialling a new method of housing benefit called social housing allowance, which will take an entire area and designate the rent for a particular house in it. I posed a series of questions about that. I believe that it will cause some people to move out of their house because they will not be able to afford the rent. We need to look carefully at how we administer housing benefit and council tax benefit. We should not keep changing it, as that creates difficulties for those who administer it and who are desperately trying to help the poorest and most needy in our country.

Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

Briefly, as I do not have much time left.

Can the hon. Gentleman explain that? I thought the Department for Work and Pensions was administering the benefits and it was just an accounting change that had taken place recently as a result of the recent local government settlement.

The hon. Gentleman is right. The benefits used to form part of the rate support grant administered by the ODPM. It will now form a separate budget line in the Department for Work and Pensions.

The second old chestnut in such debates is the use of brownfield land. There are huge quantities of brownfield land out there. The Government will no doubt proudly recount the fact that they are meeting the 60 per cent. target. The only reason they are meeting the target is that they are not building enough houses. I call on them with urgent vigour to consider acquiring more brownfield land, to examine the grant regime, to consider bringing back the reclamation grant, and to look at where they lost the European gap funding. I know that English Partnerships is doing some useful work in the Thames gateway. Perhaps the Minister will tell us something about that.

Mention has been made of empty homes, of which there are 729,000—down a little on the figure a year ago. More could be done, but not by compulsory leasing, as the Government trumpet. That is not the way to deal with empty homes. People should be encouraged to let them. There are a huge number of flats above shops. If we had some proper regeneration schemes to regenerate town centres, people would want to live in those flats above shops. If we come up with fiscal and other incentives for institutions to let their flats above shops, we might be doing some good.

We need to encourage the private rented sector—half a million people live in the private rented sector in this country. The problem is that every time housing legislation is introduced, it becomes more expensive for private landlords. Much of that legislation may be worthy in itself, but we need to examine the risk and reward.

We need to examine the working of the Housing Corporation. I do not believe that it is providing particularly good value for money—we need to consider the ratio between affordability and the capital cost. Above all, however, we need to look at how effective the Housing Corporation is at levering in private sector finance. We need to be more imaginative with our key worker strategies. We need to come up with better partequity ownership schemes, and perhaps we should consider subsidised mortgage schemes, which would give those key workers portability to other local authority areas.

The starter homes initiative, as has been mentioned, has been a spectacular failure. Surely we can beef that up. There are huge amounts of public land in this country. It is unacceptable that some health authorities have public land near hospitals and yet they cannot attract the nurses and auxiliary workers that they need. Surely we can build key worker housing on some of that land. Many other Departments, such as the Ministry of Defence, have huge public land banks. We need to be more imaginative in how we use that land. Much of that land is brownfield anyway, so if we cannot encourage the public sector to release and get brownfield land into a proper state so that is ready for development, I do not know what we can do in the private sector.

We need to consider urgent research into safe, modern building methods. I have been sceptical about some modern building methods, but if the Government were to do some proper research and assure us about some of those modern building methods, which are used effectively in other parts of the world, we could build a large number of houses more cheaply and quickly.

Of course, we need to look at good design—for too long we have built poorly designed houses. It is not acceptable to build public sector housing for a 30-year life. As for density, the trouble with the Government's proposals is that they are prescriptive. In certain areas, we could build much denser housing—Kensington and Chelsea probably has densities of about 70 or 80 houses per hectare, whereas the Government's density target is only 30 per hectare. In my constituency, however, 30 per hectare is far too dense—perhaps that should be per acre.

We need to address skills shortages in the construction industry. We need much more training in the construction industry, and we may need to consider bringing in limited skills from some of the countries aspiring to join the EU. They will come here anyway, so let us control it and make sure that we get the skills that we want.

The Government have begun to tackle the problem of planning gain. The problem is that they think of the developer as a milch cow that will go on providing ever more resources. We need to use those resources more effectively and more consistently from one council to another. It is possible to commute the section 106 payment for provision of social housing. In most cases, we should require the developer either to build those houses on the development that he is building at present, or to build the social housing elsewhere. After all, the developer can build social housing far more cheaply than anybody else, particularly when he has an incentive to do so.

We need to look at mobility schemes to free up social housing and encourage people to move. The average tenancy in London is 20 years and rising—of course, that is because the rent is subsidised and people cannot easily move. We need mobility schemes, however, to encourage people who want to and can move out of the public sector, or who want to move to a bigger or smaller house as their life circumstances change, to do so.

We should encourage local authorities to be more inventive with their reserves from large-scale voluntary transfer. My suggestion to my local authority the other day that it should build some houses outside the local authority's area was met with a howl that that would not be possible. Why not? If there is a shortage of housing in Cherwell or Cotswold, why not build a few houses in Swindon, and let the key workers live in Swindon and work in Cirencester if there is a shortage of nurses and teachers?

Finally, on the right to buy, we hear an awful lot of nonsense. Those 1.5 million houses that were mentioned in today's political football did not disappear—they were over and above the housing stock that we have now. We will change the rules when we extend the right to buy so that all the proceeds are ploughed back into building more social housing. The Government are going the opposite way. They are stopping the right to buy with their changes, and they are not explaining where the funds will come from for the shortfall in resources to build more social housing. As I said, the average tenancy in London is 20 years, so there is little mobility in social housing anyway. It is much better to get a public capital sum and use it effectively to build more houses. As I have explained previously, by extending the right to buy we can sell off about 30,000 houses and build 15,000 additional social housing units. In relation to the figures that were given, that represents a large percentage of what the Government are building today.

I have had my time in this debate—

Good.

The Minister says, "Good", but he should listen and perhaps adopt one or two suggestions instead of making cheap political points at the expense of those poor people who suffer the misery of homelessness and sleeping on the streets. He sits here making cheap, snide comments—he should be ashamed of himself. I hope that when he speaks he will have more positive ideas than his predecessors about how to solve the problem.

I am grateful to the hon. Member for Epsom and Ewell (Chris Grayling) for introducing this important debate on homelessness. Both the Liberal Democrat and Conservative spokesmen were on the Front Bench in last night's debate on the fire brigade, and I regret that the hon. Member for Cotswold (Mr. Clifton-Brown) is in no better humour than he was when we left the House last night.

We have heard some interesting points in this debate, and I welcome the opportunity to respond for the Government. I regret that the hon. Member for Epsom and Ewell decided to launch his speech with a hectoring and highly critical attack of Government policy. That is a bit rich for a member of the party that, when in office, took this country to its peak of homelessness in 1990 with 145,800 homeless households. That is the truth, and we have been dealing with that legacy ever since.

The facts are that when the Conservatives were in power, half a million homes were repossessed between 1990 and 1997, when mortgage rates averaged 11 per cent. In 1992, 1.2 million houses suffered from negative equity, and the Conservatives left this Labour Government a backlog of repairs to local authority housing amounting to no less than £19 billion. Under the Tories, there was a year-on-year decrease in housing investment, and they spent more than —40 billion on subsidising the right to buy, which prevented local authorities from reinvesting those capital receipts to repair council homes. As we have heard this morning, they want to extend the right to buy to housing associations. How on earth that will help solve the housing shortage—it will cost more than £330 million per year—I simply do not understand.

rose—

I want to move on.

Across the country, more and more people are seeking and receiving assistance from local authorities under our homelessness legislation. It is not just a London problem, although it is often painted as such by the popular press. It seems odd that increases in homelessness have been recorded in all regions in recent years. Some of those increases are the result of us strengthening legislation on the rights of homeless people—more people are being helped now who might not have been given priority need in the past. That does not account for all the growth in the numbers, however.

The question of homelessness among black and ethnic minority groups has been raised. We know that those groups are three times more likely to be homeless than those from other communities, and we are not shying away from that difficult problem. We have published a policy briefing on the issue and have commissioned a new research project to help us to understand why that is happening and to identify best practice. We will report soon on tackling that issue.

I could provide, as other Members have done, a litany of statistics. The hon. Member for Banbury (Tony Baldry) spoke about younger people, and the hon. Member for Sutton and Cheam (Mr. Burstow) focused on older people, in relation to the dilemmas and problems that we face. The important thing, though, is what we are going to do about the problem, and we want to tackle it head on. We have a good track record. We have introduced legislation to strengthen the safety net for homeless people by, for the first time, requiring local authorities to take a strategic approach to tackling and preventing the problem; and every local authority now has a homelessness strategy in place. It was foolish of the hon. Member for Epsom and Ewell to suggest that such strategies are irrelevant, unnecessary or bureaucratic, and that they do not achieve anything. The hon. Member for Banbury gave the lie to that when he said that his council, Cherwell, was feeling the pressure of the homelessness legislation forcing it into dealing with the problems of young, single homeless in his constituency. If the Conservatives—were they ever to get back into power—were to abolish the obligation on local authorities to tackle homelessness, that would be a devastating blow to the needs of many vulnerable people in our communities.

The Government have extended the priority need groups, ensuring that more vulnerable people will get the help that they need from local authorities. We have reduced rough sleeping to well below two thirds of 1998 levels. We are on target to ensure that no family with children has to live in a bed-and-breakfast hotel for longer than six weeks, with numbers reduced by more than 50 per cent. over the past year alone. We have provided significant additional funding for local authorities and voluntary sector agencies to support delivery of these homelessness strategies, doubling previous spending plans. We shall spend £5 billion on more affordable housing, which is double the level of investment that we inherited in 1997.

If the Government have maintained the building of affordable housing at 1997 levels, does that mean that since then we have built more new affordable homes than the total number of homeless families?

The hon. Gentleman raises an important point about affordable housing, to which I shall turn in a few moments. Conservative Members continue to moan about the Government's so-called concreting over of the countryside, yet it is authorities' refusal to meet their obligations under the planning system to revive land and homes for people to live in that causes demand to outstrip supply. The hon. Gentleman should ask some of his colleagues to consider why affordable homes are not being built at the rate that they should be.

We are spending £5 billion more on affordable housing, and we shall spend £22 billion on communities and housing during the next three years—an increase of 40 per cent. on current figures.

The hon. Member for Banbury bemoaned the fact that his local authorities were underfunded. Since 1997, in general terms, Government grant to local authorities has gone up by no less than 30 per cent. in real terms. That contrasts starkly with the 7 per cent. cut in central Government funding for local government in the last four years of the Conservative Administration. More specifically, he alleged that north Oxfordshire has been ignored in terms of housing capital allocation. Of the three authorities in north Oxfordshire, two—Cherwell, which he mentioned, and West Oxfordshire—volunteered to give their allocations to the Housing Corporation. If he does not agree with that decision, perhaps he would like to go back to his district council to discuss it. The third. Oxford, has been allocated increased housing funding for the next financial year. In 2003—04, Oxford received more than £2.5 million, which will rise to £2.9 million in 2004—05. I hope that that deals with the hon. Gentleman's point.

In the course of listing alternative action points that the Conservatives would implement, the hon. Member for Cotswold made several interesting Conservative spending commitments, which we are looking forward to costing. Of course, he did not say that he would match the £22 billion sustainable communities plan that we have published, nor that he would match the £5 billion of affordable housing. We shall have to see how his sums add up in the end.

I am pleased to say that we have had real success in tackling rough sleeping. Some of us remember that a Conservative Secretary of State bemoaned the fact that he had to step over rough sleepers when he came out of the opera in London. Instead of stepping over the problem, we tackled it. Towns, cities and boroughs such as Brighton, Oxford, Bristol, Manchester, Leeds and Camden have all seen the number of people sleeping out on their streets plummet through the work of multi-agency partnerships led by the local authorities. We still want to make sustained reductions in some areas, and we are bearing down on that problem.

We have made much progress towards our bed-and-breakfast target, as the hon. Member for Kingston and Surbiton (Mr. Davey) was good enough to acknowledge. In 2002, we decided, alongside a number of wider measures, to tackle the pernicious feature of homelessness that is families with children in bed-and-breakfast accommodation. We were determined quickly to bring an end to the scandal of children being forced to spend long periods in cramped bed-and-breakfast hotels, having to share washing and cooking facilities with strangers and with no room to play or do homework. I am pleased to say that local authorities across the country are reporting good progress towards our target that, by March 2004, no families with children should be in B and B accommodation for longer than six weeks. As hon. Members will know, we have moved to outlaw its use, except for short periods, from 1 April, empowering homeless households and ensuring that we put an end to that scandal once and for all.

I turn to prevention. As I said, the figures on homelessness are increasing. We have embarked on a programme to ensure that the causes of homelessness are recognised and understood at a local level. The problem is as much about social exclusion as about the availability of affordable housing. We need to understand the personal factors that can lead to homelessness. The hon. Member for Sutton and Cheam referred to older people and to those with mental health problems. Other factors include drug and alcohol abuse, debt, family relationship breakdowns or domestic violence. We need to help people rebuild their relationships with family or friends, to stay in education or to take up training or employment. As the hon. Member for Cotswold said, multiple factors contribute to the problem of homelessness.

Does the Minister agree that there should be adequate working between the health service, especially mental health services, and local authorities in drawing up their homelessness strategies?

The homelessness legislation provides an important safety net for vulnerable people who are homeless, including the elderly. There is no set age—the critical factor is whether they are vulnerable. For the homelessness statistics we collect information on reasons for being accepted as homeless, including old age, but we recognise that people may be vulnerable for more than one reason. Last year, we consulted on ways in which to improve data collection, and some changes will be made to the next quarterly statistics. We need to know the causes of homelessness. Age may come into it, but there are often multiple factors. Under the initiative on homelessness and the mentally ill, several high-care hostels have been built with Government capital funding. The initiative focuses on homeless people who are vulnerable due to mental ill-health, including older people, and revenue costs are met 75 per cent. by central Government and 25 per cent. by local authorities. That may not deal with all the problems, but I hope that it demonstrates that we recognise the concerns mentioned by the hon. Member for Sutton and Cheam about such people being hidden and isolated. We expect local authorities, with the help of central Government, to address their needs.

I congratulate the hon. Member for Banbury on mentioning the difficulties that are faced by young people and the projects in his constituency that are doing good work to try to tackle them.

As the hon. Members for Epsom and Ewell and for Cotswold said, any attempts to prevent and tackle homelessness have to be part of a wider effort to improve the supply of good-quality, affordable housing. Funding for the Housing Corporation's development programme has risen to around £1.5 billion to provide homes for rent and low-cost home ownership—an increase of £0.5 billion on last year—and £300 million of that has been top-sliced for a challenge fund to produce more than 8,000 new homes in London and south-east England. I shall be interested to know whether the Conservatives will ever match that pledge.

In total, we are investing £5 billion in more affordable housing, including £1 billion for key worker housing. I have to say to the hon. Member for Kingston and Surbiton that I regret the Liberal Democrat's decision to abandon that scheme if they were ever to get into power. We believe that it provides important support for young key workers to get into housing for the first time.

We are tackling the issue of empty homes and dealing with the question of building of affordable housing. We have had a lot of success in tackling the worst manifestations of homelessness—rough sleeping and families with children living in bed-and-breakfast—but our prevention agenda is beginning to show results. We are building more affordable housing and setting the right agenda for reducing levels of homelessness in future.

I am pleased to have this opportunity to debate national lottery funding and the future of our national botanic garden of Wales, which is in the constituency of my hon. Friend the Member for East Carmarthen and Dinefwr (Adam Price).

The national botanic garden opened in May 2000 and was the first such garden to be opened in Britain for about 200 years. It is located in the south-west of Wales, in what some people call the garden of Wales, in my hon. Friend's constituency and it is indeed a national institution, which is one of the themes that I want to pick up in the debate. The garden way given the status of a national institution by the former Secretary of State, now the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland, and it was praised by the First Minister of the National Assembly Government for Wales—at least when it suited him.

The garden has many virtues; for example, in terms of its academic work. On Friday, I visited a community garden in the village of Deiniolen in my constituency, which is being established and supported by the horticultural college at Llaneurgain. I was told that the college sees the national botanic garden at Llanarthne as a vital resource and support, ever though Llaneurgain, more commonly known as Northop, is at the other end of the country. The college is almost as far away as one can possibly get from our national botanic garden, yet it sees the garden as a national resource.

The garden has an important role in conservation, doing vital work in protecting and preserving the biodiversity of our planet, which is now under such threat, that some projections estimate that many tens of thousands of species will be lost over the next 20 to 30 years. The garden studies and conserves plants from all over the world, including trees. It also has an important role as a public garden of beauty and interest to be enjoyed not only by people from all over Wales but by people from all over the world. There are visitors from many countries, including England. It is the third-largest paid-for visitor attraction in Wales, drawing in more than 200,000 visitors in 2000–01 and about 142,000 in 2002–03. It is in no way unpopular, but a significant attraction in its own right.

The garden has historical significance, as the garden of a great house that was demolished and rebuilt over the centuries. The present garden is, in some ways, a revival of the 18th-century garden that was left when the house was demolished in that period. It also has significance in respect of the medicinal plants grown there. Many Welsh people know of the famous doctors of Myddfai, which is close to the garden. The Meddygon Myddfai were for generations medical practitioners in the south-west of Wales and used the medicinal plants of the area; those plants are reflected in the collection at the national botanic garden.

Lastly, and not insignificantly, the garden contributes greatly to the local economy in south-west Wales. The Institute of Welsh Affairs estimates that the garden's contribution to the local economy is about £4 million per annum. Other estimates put the figure much higher, for example, at £8 million, but clearly the garden contributes greatly to the local economy by drawing in visitors from all over the world and from Wales and England.

The garden is a national institution in a country which has few such institutions, compared to Scotland, for example, and those that we have, such as the national university of Wales have been hard won. It is relevant to the funding of the garden, and indeed to discussions to be held elsewhere in Parliament today, that the university of Wales was originally funded in part by contributions from the mass of the people of Wales—quarrymen, miners, farm workers and their families—who were prepared to forgo a small part of their income to contribute to the fund to set up university colleges at Bangor and Aberystwyth. That might be seen as an early example of a lottery, or as a proto-income tax. The so-called ordinary people of Wales were prepared to make voluntary contributions that were clearly intended to fund an institution from which they might not derive direct benefit themselves, although their children might have done so. It was a proto-income tax raised and spent for the national good. That is an important principle whose virtue should be self-evident to any socialist Government—perhaps even to the present Government.

The garden is a national institution and was set up at a cost of £42 million, half of which came from lottery funds. It is highly significant that such an amount came from the heritage fund; the garden was a millennium project. The other half was raised from various bodies, including the Welsh Assembly Government and private sources. In that respect, the project was a very good model.

As a national institution, the garden is alongside other institutions such as the national library at Aberystwyth and the national museum, which has various locations, including one in my constituency. Entry to the national museum is free to the public. There is no charge for entry either to the national museum of the slate industry in my constituency or to the national museum of Welsh life at St. Fagans just outside Cardiff. There is clearly a contrast with the national garden, as it charges for entry. Other national institutions are the National Assembly for Wales and the Welsh Assembly Government.

The botanical garden is in some financial trouble, although I do not intend to go into the fine details of those problems this morning, but I understand that it needs a sum of about £3 million to secure its medium-term future to 2009. It is estimated that the garden needs about £500,000 per annum, so given its current financial problems, how does the Minister for the Arts see the role and the responsibilities of the original funders being discharged now and in the future? The garden is a large public investment—£21 million from the millennium fund alone—and there is no little danger that the value of the garden will be lost to Wales and indeed to the world. How does the Minister see the original funders as discharging their responsibilities? Does she see herself as having any responsibility to safeguard that public investment, or is it merely a matter for the Welsh Assembly Government?

How does the Minister view the future funding of the botanic garden, as compared, for example, to funding for the millennium dome? The dome was of course set up at the cost of many hundreds of millions of pounds of public money and now lies almost idle—some would say idle and useless—yet I understand that it is still being funded, to the tune of about £50 million so far. An end may be in sight, but it is quite far away and a large amount of public money is still going into the dome. How does that compare with the botanic garden? Indeed, how does the dome compare to a garden of great public and academic value—a living thing? Apparently, the Welsh Assembly Government do not even rate the garden at £3 million. What does the Minister think?

It is ironic that I as a Welsh Member and, indeed, as a Welsh nationalist, have to seek answers on those issues in this place, but I understand that the Welsh Assembly Government have refused to discuss the matter further in Cardiff. That is, of course, entirely a matter for them. How does the Minister view the responsibility and power of this place—if any—in respect of the national botanic garden of Wales? There seems to me to be a crack in the constitutional floorboards, and responsibility for the national botanic garden—set up in part with UK money—seems to be slipping through.

May I ask the Minister another question that the Welsh Assembly might well have pondered, given the fact that the garden was set up by a UK body? There are similar institutions in the UK; I understand that there is a botanic garden in Scotland and there is, of course, the garden at Kew. I understand that the garden at Kew is funded by the Government in London to the tune of —21 million. May I ask the Minister whether there is a Barnett consequential to that sum? If so, the sum in Wales would be —1.2 million, which would be more than enough to tide the garden over. It would also complement the lottery funding that I have already mentioned, and the funding from private sources and from the Welsh Assembly Government. Is there a Barnett consequential? If not, why not? If there were a Barnett consequential, that —1.2 million would, of course, have been sent on to Cardiff. There are also serious questions for the Welsh Assembly Government about how the moneys involved were disposed of, and my Friends in the National Assembly will be assiduous in pursuing that matter.

I have tried to confine my enthusiasm to asking questions directly relating to the responsibility of this place for financial matters relating to the Barnett formula. I know that my hon. Friend the Member for East Carmarthen and Dinefwr is keen to make a contribution to this debate—with your permission, Mr. McWilliam—as he has a constituency interest in the matter. However, I would like briefly to finish by making one slightly broader point about how we value institutions such as the national botanic garden. Is it a national institution that has value beyond being a visitor attraction? What is now being proposed appears to be to do with it being a visitor attraction and nothing else. Are we prepared to risk the future of such a great institution by relying on the whim of an extra visitor who might be drawn in by an attraction, or do we value the place for what it is: a national garden of academic, historical and local interest, as well as of value to tourism? I would be interested to hear the Minister's philosophical take on this question. Should we allow the markets to rule what happens to the garden, or should either the Westminster or the Welsh Assembly Government intervene? There is not a great deal of funding at stake here; £3 million is not a great deal. I am sure that that money should be found if we value the best things that our country has to offer.

We have seen acts of great philistinism in Wales over the years. I remember, as a young student, seeing the destruction of the Triangle in Merthyr Tydfil—a fine example of 19th century working-class architecture—which was razed to provide extra parking space for a factory. Recently, we have also seen the destruction of the Dunlop factory in Brynmawr. That amazing example of modernist architecture at the top of an industrial valley was razed to the ground to provide space for a shopping centre. Shopping centres are all very well and good, but we need to stand against this tide of philistinism and ensure that the national botanic garden of Wales does not go the same way.

I am grateful to my hon. Friend the Member for Caernarfon (Hywel Williams) for allowing me to make a brief contribution to this debate. As he said, it is not with any great alacrity that we, as Welsh nationalists, stand here urging the Westminster Government to intervene where the Welsh Assembly Government have so far walked away from their responsibilities and washed their hands of the problems of the national botanic garden of Wales. It is ironic that, 100 years ago, when Wales did not have home rule and was a good deal poorer than it is today, it was able to create a national university with five university colleges, a national library and a national museum, yet is now unable to create a national institution despite having democratic devolution.

The national botanic garden was meant to be a great national institution— a Welsh Kew, a botanic garden of world-class quality. Unfortunately, however, the eyes of the world are now being focused on Wales for all the wrong reasons, with the crisis that is still going on at the national botanic garden. However, in this case, some responsibility does lie with the Government here at Westminster. One of the benefits of devolution is that we are allowed to make our own mistakes, and I fully accept that we have to take on the responsibility that comes with that. The Welsh Assembly Government do have some responsibility for this matter, but there are also questions that need to be asked at Westminster.

Much of the funding for the garden has come through routes that involved ministerial responsibility, including £22.6 million from the Millennium Commission to date, and a further £6 million from the European regional development fund, which was at the time the responsibility of the Department of Trade and Industry here in Whitehall. Prior to the creation of the National Assembly, the then Secretary of State for Wales, the right hon. Member for Torfaen (Mr. Murphy), declared Middleton to be a national botanic garden, with all that that entails in terms of its scientific and educational work. The location was chosen by the Secretary of State and the Wales Office, and the Wales Office signed off the business plan, which clearly stated that the garden would need ongoing public funding for its scientific and educational work.

My hon. Friend the Member for Caernarfon has pointed out that the garden is quite successful as a visitor attraction. It is the third most successful paid- visitor attraction in Wales; the figure of 150,000 visitors a year in a location in Carmarthenshire that has not been a traditional tourist destination represents a success.

In the brief time that I have, I would like to concentrate on the areas of responsibility of the Minister for the Arts. Questions need to be asked about the millennium fund award. In July last year, a further supplementary grant of £600,000 was made available to the national botanic garden for the creation of the walled garden. It now appears that the Welsh Assembly Government had already made the decision at that time not to fund the garden after the end of September last year. Will the Minister tell us whether the Millennium Commission was informed by the Welsh Assembly Government of their decision to pull the plug on the national botanic garden of Wales? If it was not informed, was that grant a defensible use of public money? Should not the commission have been clearly told by the Welsh Assembly Government that they were effectively going to force the garden into voluntary liquidation?

Is the Minister also aware that the trustees of the national botanic garden of Wales are claiming that the Welsh Assembly Government are now putting pressure on the garden's creditors to force the trust into voluntary liquidation? What would the implications of that be, in terms of the Millennium Commission's investment in the garden? If the garden were forced into voluntary liquidation by the Welsh Assembly Government, would not the commission have to claw back the money that has been invested, in accordance with the conditions attached to the grant?

Is the Minister aware that the Millennium Commission believes that the Welsh Assembly Government have effectively been operating as shadow directors from January to June last year, when the Welsh Assembly Government provided some additional funding with strings attached? They forced the trust to engage in what was described as "blue skies thinking", and the First Minister of Wales asked the trust to produce a paper on what he called the "wow factor". At a time when the trust wanted to stabilise the garden's financial situation, the Welsh Assembly Government—through their First Minister—were forcing it to invest in further speculative projects. The Millennium Commission is of the view that that constituted operating as a shadow director. If the Welsh Assembly Government force the trust into voluntary liquidation, the commission will act to claw back its £22.6 million investment from the Welsh Assembly Government, who have been acting as shadow directors without being prepared to take responsibility in terms of financial accountability.

In relation to some points made by my hon. Friend the Member for Caernarfon, substantial money is still going into the millennium dome, which is closed, but it seems that we do not have a Barnett consequential for Wales in terms of the money going in at Kew. The money necessary to save the £22.6 million of lottery funding that has gone into the national botanic gardens, and the £3 million involved to 2009, would be a small public investment compared with the public investment that has gone into other projects.

Clearly, there would need to be discussion with other Departments, but I ask the Minister whether it would be possible to save this national institution for Wales and to prevent the Millennium Commission from having to claw back that money from the Welsh Assembly Government, who hitherto have not lived up to their responsibilities.

It is good to see you in the Chair again, Mr. McWilliam. First, I must say that this is the most difficult position that I have ever found myself in during an Adjournment debate in terms of my responsibilities. I want to put it on record that I have no problems with answering on behalf of ministerial colleagues here in Westminster. That is proper—I would never seek to hide behind the fact that another Westminster Department, not mine, is involved—but I have genuine, and I think understandable and acceptable, difficulties: I should not answer for the Assembly in Wales, and I want to explain the Government's relationship with the Millennium Commission. This is not how I normally like to answer Adjournment debates, so I almost apologise in advance for being about to opt out of addressing some questions for reasons that are obvious, but which I will put on the record.

I understand the passion with which the hon. Members for Caernarfon (Hywel Williams) and for East Carmarthen and Dinefwr (Adam Price) have spoken. If such an institution was in my constituency, I would have felt as optimistic and joyful about having it as they did, and I would feel as pessimistic and sad about possibly losing it. We would all take that parochial and national pride and pleasure in housing a project that could have been, and I hope may still be, so important and so good.

One thing that neither hon. Gentleman said is that Wales was the only country in the United Kingdom that did not have a national botanic garden. I would imagine that when the original allocation was made it was seen as a right and proper thing to do. As the hon. Member for Caernarfon said, the gardens are not just for Wales, but are of international significance. They would have been a place of international research, studying sustainability and conservation. Indeed, I understand that they are the third most popular visitor attraction in Wales and the most visited gardens.

All that stands well, and I understand where people are coming from, so let me explain the relationship with the Millennium Commission, because that is my area of responsibility, for which I stand and answer here today. First, this is an arm's-length relationship. It would be wrong if the Government interfered day by day in the distribution of lottery money. That is not tax money, and we do not have a mandate from the electorate as to how to spend it day by day. The arm's-length principle, which was established when lottery funding began—that is where the Millennium Commission gets its money—is right and proper.

It is my responsibility to safeguard the propriety of that relationship, which is set out in the letters of intent and of instruction. My ongoing relationship with the Millennium Commission is not about seeking to force it to do something different from what it is doing; it is about ensuring that it is standing by the way that it was asked to work when it was set up.

Having said that, we are discussing an example of an issue that has emerged from Millennium Commission funding in general. I want to touch on that, because it is where, to some extent, I have to rest my case. We should think back to how things were set up: this project is no different from any other that was funded through the Millennium Commission. That has to be made clear. Of the £43 million estimated to be involved in setting up the gardens, roughly half came from the Millennium Commission.

On the face of it, this was an excellent joint initiative supported by a number of admirable Welsh bodies, as well as United Kingdom bodies—we were setting up the Welsh Assembly at that point. Those bodies included the then Welesh Office, Carmarthenshire county council, the Welsh Development Agency, the Wales Tourist Board and the Arts Council of Wales. Again on the face of it, the initiative should have worked. It should have flourished and flown, and we should be having an Adjournment debate on how well it has done, not about the difficulties it is in.

I should put it on the record that the Millennium Commission was committed to finding about £22 million—about half the money—of which £10 million went in the first phase. That has gone, as it was part of the expenditure involved in setting up the gardens. Also, £13 million was available for phase 2; £10.7 million was paid while £1.6 million is being held back due to the lack of match funding.

The issue here is one of revenue, not capital; this is a revenue problem, not a capital problem. The Millennium Commission is acting properly in saying, "We have £1.6 million, but at this point we are not convinced that the match funding is there to enable us to release it." Both hon. Gentlemen properly asked, "Should not the Government act now to secure the Millennium Commission funding that has already gone in?" In a way, that is justification for holding back the £1.6 million of capital that has not gone in so far, so I support the Millennium Commission in the way that it has acted. However, the non-negotiable, non-breakable rule for the commission is that it has never offered revenue funding. It is not involved in that.

The Millennium Commission will get no more money. It will become part of the merged distributor. It does not have a life beyond the duration of the millennium projects. I want to put this as carefully as I can: I need to put it on the record that the commission funded more than 200 capital projects on 3,000 sites. Only two have closed—the Big Idea in Irvine and the Millennium Faith Experience in Bradford. Wales received a total grant of £130 million across the commission's grant programmes, involving nine capital projects on 55 sites.

Having said that, the truth is that this is not the only Millennium Commission-funded capital project with revenue problems. There are not a lot of those, but there are a few, and some science centres are in exactly the same position. I support the Millennium Commission's decision not to go down the line of saying, "Okay, we'll make an exception with the botanic gardens. We'll come in with revenue." That was never the reason for setting up the commission, and it has not broken that golden rule with any other institution. It is a proper way to safeguard its role in lottery funding and the millennium celebrations to say, "We are not going to down the road of revenue funding."

That deals with my Government accountability and that is my explanation. I am happy with those, but my problem in terms of answering this Adjournment debate arises over the fact that the challenge for the botanic gardens is securing that revenue funding from somewhere so that the Millennium Commission can be confident in releasing the £1.6 million that it has been unable to release so far.

Both hon. Gentlemen were bound to say that the Welsh Assembly could or can, might or will come in with further revenue funding. That is the Assembly's decision. I put it on the record that the Assembly has released £1.6 million in three tranches—£360,000, £1.06 million and £150,000. This is properly a decision for the Welsh Assembly. It is not for me to comment on it or to urge that certain actions be taken. I do not want to tread on the Assembly's toes, and I state for the record that it is not a job of the Westminster Government to second-guess how the Assembly spends its revenue.

The hon. Member for Caernarfon opened the debate very honestly, and there is a problem for Wales in that devolution means inheriting the problems as well as the good things. The botanic gardens project has not yet come to an end, and I hope that in the time left funding is found from somewhere in Wales. I hope also that there is a partnership that can achieve that.

Will the Minister address the issue of claw back?

Yes. The Millennium Commission would become a creditor should the botanic gardens close. Without being an expert on that, I understand that there are creditors such as banks and perhaps others that would be ahead of the Millennium Commission in the queue. The hon. Gentlemen were right to say that, if the project folds, the Millennium Commission would obviously seek to regain such money, but I think that their prediction is right in that there would be no way that it could recoup the money invested on a capital basis. I wish them well in their campaign.

It is a pleasure to see such an array of talent here for this debate. I like to think that the quality of those seeking to catch your eye for the debate, Mr. McWilliam, reflects the importance that Parliament as a whole attributes to this issue. It has often been considered here and in the main Chamber, not least in the very full debate on climate change and sustainable development after the publication of the report of the Select Committee on International Development on 5 December 2002—that debate can be found in volume 395 at column 313WH. Since then, there has been a series of Adjournment debates. As recently as last Wednesday, the hon. Member for Lewes (Norman Baker) was here debating the Foreign and Commonwealth Office's contribution to environmental objectives.

In the few days since it was announced that this debate had been secured, I have received representations from Calor Gas Ltd. about hydrofluorocarbon refrigerants; from the Energy Saving Trust about energy efficiency measures; from the Renewable Power Association about the Department of Trade and Industry's photovoltaic major demonstration programme; and from the Woodland Trust about the contribution that woodlands can make to combating climate change. In addition, WWF provided a comprehensive brief on this subject. I have read the excellent debate pack put together by the House of Commons Library and I recommend it to hon. Members.

I requested the debate after reading Sir David King's article on 9 January in Science, which is described in the media as the in-house magazine for American scientists. In his article, he rehearses what has become the orthodox view of scientists about the recent history of climate change and its causes. He describes the 0.6°C rise in temperature and the 20 cm rise in sea levels in the past century, and reminds us that the 10 hottest years on record have all been since 1991. He goes on to explain that those phenomena cannot be explained simply by natural cycles and disturbances, so he and many other scientists conclude that they are, by and large, caused by human activities such as burning fossil fuels for home heating, industrial processes and various modes of transport.

Sir David and many other scientists predict that, without intervention, temperatures will go on increasing, sea levels will carry on rising, polar ice caps will shrink, there will be greater extremes of weather, and flooding will be more frequent. However, in his article he does not dwell on a particular factor that concerns me: the possible effects on biodiversity. A study published on 8 January, which was widely reported in the media that week, indicates that between 15 and 37 per cent. of land species in the area that was studied could face extinction by 2050. Sir David concludes his article by saying:

"In my view, climate change is the most severe problem that we are facing today. more serious even than the threat of terrorism".

I should add that it is also more serious than higher education funding.

In the same article, Sir David states that the UK is in the vanguard of international efforts to reduce emissions of greenhouse gases. He also complains that the United States of America is not playing its part, and points out that, although it has 4 per cent. of the world's population, it is responsible for more than 20 per cent. of harmful emissions. Sir David therefore calls on the United States to play a leading part.

Will the Minister say what his Department and the Government are doing to reinforce Sir David's message, and what actions are being taken to persuade the US Government to join international efforts to protect the world's environment for future generations? Last week, the hon. Member for Lewes put similar questions to the representative of the Foreign and Commonwealth Office who responded to the debate. It is useful for us to keep bringing pressure to bear on all Departments that can influence the US Administration to do so.

Is the hon. Gentleman aware that we have several times asked Ministers whether they have raised these matters with their opposite numbers in the United States? Almost without exception—I say "almost" in case I have forgotten an occasion—they have admitted that the subject has not come up. Does the hon. Gentleman agree that it should be on the list of every Minister and civil servant to ask the question each time they meet their American opposite numbers, so that the United States becomes aware of just how seriously we view it, not only in the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs but in Departments from which they would not expect it?

The right hon. Gentleman amplifies my message with great power, for which I thank him. In fairness, I should add that in the response to last week's Adjournment debate, which I mentioned, and in the most recent oral questions put to DEFRA, it was confirmed that there were specific points of contact between British Government officials and Ministers and members of the US Administration. The situation may not be quite as woeful as the right hon. Gentleman would portray it, but he and I promote the same message. As well as making the point in this debate, I have written to the Prime Minister to make it at the top of Government.

We in this country are doing our best to contribute at international and local levels. Internationally, the Kyoto protocol has the Deputy Prime Minister's fingerprints all over it. At the talks, our delegation led the negotiations that led to the legally binding agreement to reduce emissions of six greenhouse gases. If Russia ratifies the protocol, targets for reductions will become effective, and an emissions trading scheme can begin. Will my hon. Friend the Minister tell us, as far as he understands it, what the Russian Government's current position is on ratification, which would help us to bring the protocol into effect?

In this country, we have already passed primary legislation for the UK's national emissions trading scheme, and we have approved secondary legislation to give effect to the European Union directive on emissions trading throughout the EU. In addition to these efforts, our climate change levy is helping us to meet our obligations under Kyoto.

What scale of reductions do we need? Under the UN framework convention on climate change, we are seeking international commitment to reduce carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gas emissions worldwide. In the developed economies, we are seeking to cut emissions by up to 60 per cent. from their 1990 levels by 2050. We also need to engage developing countries and persuade them to make efforts to reduce emissions of greenhouse gases. That will be another great challenge—one that was highlighted in a debate on the report published by the International Development Committee and in the brief given to me by WWF.

As a staging post towards that very challenging target for 2050, the EU accepted a legal target under Kyoto of an 8 per cent. reduction in emissions by 2008—12 from a base of 1990 emissions. The UK Government accepted that the UK's share is a national reduction of 12.5 per cent. In addition, Labour in government is aiming for a 20 per cent. reduction by 2010.

At home, we are working to meet these targets. National policy includes reducing energy consumption and increasing the proportion of energy supplied from renewable sources. In his article, Sir David points out that such environmentally friendly policies do not have to interfere with economic well-being, and that our economy grew by 30 per cent. between 1990 and 2000. Employment rose during the same period by 4.8 per cent., yet our greenhouse gas emissions intensity fell by 30 per cent. and our overall emissions fell by 12 per cent. The UK climate impacts programme, funded by DEFRA, helps organisations such as businesses and councils to assess how they might be affected by climate change. Of course the programme's climate change scenarios present us with four possible future climates for the UK based on different levels of greenhouse gas emissions, and the worst-case scenario is quite frightening.

The work by the climate impacts programme is picked up regionally and locally. A regional example from the west midlands is that of Severn Trent Water and the excellent midlands environmental business club. They lead a grouping of businesses that is focusing on how climate change could affect businesses in the west midlands. The aim of their work and that of similar groups around the country is to persuade businesses to adopt environmental management systems for their energy, their transport needs and their waste.

The Government are negotiating the international framework and have published their national policies on energy, transport and waste. I ask the Minister to explain today how the Government are to move on from the policy statement to implementation. What is the Minister's strategy for educating and engaging the public so that all of us take actions that help to combat climate change? By what means shall we persuade more people to think global, act local?

In that context, I ask central Government to engage with local government as powerful partners in the work. Local Agenda 21 was a great start. By the end of 2000, 93 per cent. of local authorities in England and Wales had local Agenda 21 strategies in place. While that activity has been, in effect, voluntary, developed in response to the Rio Earth summit call to arms, it is now arguably a statutory duty.

Under the Local Government Act 2000, local authorities are under a duty to prepare community strategies for promoting the economic, social and environmental well-being of their communities and contributing to sustainable development. Clearly, local Agenda 21 work should today be mainstream practice for local authorities, as part of the statutory commitment that they now have.

I want to digress slightly to say that we in Stafford have a really good local Agenda 21 team, which is exceptionally active. It has a website and I have brought a copy of its newsletter, Sundial, with a picture of the lead officer, Karen Davies, outside No. 10 Downing street at a recent reception sponsored, I think, by DEFRA.

Last November I attended the national Green Apple awards in the marquee on the terrace. National awards were given for all sorts of activities to voluntary groups, local authorities and businesses with environmental achievements. I was pleased to see that awards would be coming back to Stafford for its farm-school link education pack, its sustainable tourism tool kit "Sustainable Staffordshire", a county council computer recycling scheme and a local business, Talbotts heating, for its thermal recycling equipment.

I think I can claim that Stafford is playing its part already, but what I have outlined shows that enthusiastic individuals with the right kind of support nationally as well as locally can make a difference. I want to encourage the Minister to exploit the best practice that exists around the country, and to engage every local community in the work that we need to undertake if we are to reduce harmful emissions.

Individuals can make a considerable contribution to tackling the serious threat posed by climate change, whether by reducing energy consumption at home and at work, cutting back on the use of the car and other vehicles—converting from petrol to LPG or biofuels would help, too—composting at home or recycling waste at home. On waste and recycling, I want to mention how annoyed people are in my constituency about the amount of packaging still to be found on the goods they buy or have delivered to their homes. That is a particularly strong message from Stafford residents.

Local authorities are well placed to provide their communities with leadership, information and the tools for carrying out the necessary tasks. An obvious example is recycling: those who want to recycle are assisted by councils making kerbside collections.

Many local authorities appreciate that they can make a significant contribution to reducing the national emissions of greenhouse gases. That is why 72 local authorities have so far signed the Nottingham declaration. Last year, the Minister uttered encouraging words when launching that declaration. The declaration commits local authorities to work with the Government and to contribute locally to the delivery of the United Kingdom's climate change programme. I cannot yet directly praise the local authorities in my constituency, but several neighbouring authorities in Staffordshire are among those 72 signatories. Perhaps the Minister will take the opportunity once more to commend that local government initiative and to give it his backing. Perhaps he will say how much the Government welcome the declaration, and express their willingness to develop the relationship between central and local government for the benefit of our environment.

I know from inquiries that I made of the Office of the Deputy Prime Minister that a sustainable buildings task group has been established to identify what are called specific cost-effective improvements in the quality and environmental performance of buildings. I understand that the task group will consider the scope for delivering higher standards of environmental performance of new and refurbished buildings in respect of the use of water and energy, timber and other construction materials, and in waste reduction.

I strongly believe that homes ought to be capable of meeting everyone's needs, including the needs of those who are disabled and those who may become disabled through injury, illness or infirmity. Those needs include affordable warmth and the least possible use of energy resources, especially of carbon-based ones. I understand that the task group's work will be fed into the next review of building regulations. I strongly urge my hon. Friend the Minister to take a close interest in that work and ensure that the fight against climate change is alive in that respect also. I know that the matter will be uppermost in my hon. Friend's mind on Friday, because the hon. Member for Hazel Grove (Mr. Stunell) will be moving the Second Reading of his Sustainable and Secure Buildings Bill, which makes much the same point.

Precisely what can be done to modernise housing standards can be seen at BedZED—the zero emissions development at Beddington corner in Hackbridge, which is on the line to Epsom. I visited it at the invitation of the architect Bill Dunster and Sue Venner just before Christmas. It gives a glimpse of what modern design and technology already allows us to do in reducing emissions to zero. However, an awful lot of encouragement and facilitation is needed before that sort of practice can be taken up all over the country.

When the hon. Gentleman visited BedZED did he notice that the real issue is getting sufficient volume—it would not be large—to ensure that the environmentally friendly energy-saving elements of that system are competitive with what those of what one might call traditional building systems? The zero use of energy in such systems can be had at the same price as for conventional building, if not more cheaply, if only it has a sufficient headstart to get its factories tooled up to provide those elements. Would it not be beneficial if the Government helped in doing precisely that, so that we got it under way?

Indeed, I picked up two powerful messages from my visit. The first was that that kind of development is outside the comfort zone of today's construction companies. Secondly, many of the component parts of the BedZED development come from other parts of the world because British industry is not tooled up to provide what is needed. Industry will need a greater market to have sufficient incentive to provide that. I agree with the right hon. Gentleman that the Government could help by giving support and enthusiastic backing to such developments. I was about to ask whether my hon. Friend the Minister has been to BedZED for himself to pick up those messages. If not, will he arrange to do so?

By coincidence, it is in my schedule to go to BedZED tomorrow with the Swedish Environment Minister, as part of the joint UK-Swedish conference that we are hosting on environmental technologies. However, as my hon. Friend will know, it might be difficult for me to get away.

My hon. Friend has just spoiled what I was going to say about how effective these debates must be if I raise the subject today and he visits tomorrow.

I apologise for missing some of my hon. Friend's remarks. Does he agree that the other thing that is so important about BedZED is that it links energy efficiency not only with, I hope. a way of dealing with fuel poverty, but with the cycle to waste? BedZED demonstrates that waste must be central to any energy-saving approach—at least that is what I took away from my visit.

The reason BedZED is so exciting is that is plugs into so many other issues. For a start, it is a partly rented, partly outright owner-occupied and partly shared ownership development, which is a good example to us all. As my hon. Friend says, the project not only features energy efficiency measures, which reduce residents' energy bills, but deals with the waste from the site internally, rather than passing it to somebody else. On top of that, some of the parking spaces for residents have charging points next to them, so that people can use electrical vehicles as well as petrol-driven ones. The whole project is very exciting indeed, but no similar developments are currently on the horizon. That is why the assistance that my hon. Friend the Minister and others can give to the architects with such vision at BedZED is so important.

I should like to turn our attention to the people alive today to whom this debate matters the most—children. The decisions that we politicians take or fail to take today will decide what kind of world they inherit from us tomorrow. Although there are many immediate demands on the minds of our young people, most take a keen interest in what their world will look like. I can give two recent examples of that from my constituency.

First, quite a large number of schools in Stafford have achieved the environmental campaigns category of eco-schools. Indeed, Encams says that Staffordshire has the highest proportion of eco-schools of any part of England. Encouraging youngsters to show an interest in sustainable development is commendable. When I visited schools such as Weston Road high school and received presentations from those on the school council on their eco-activities, it was encouraging to hear them speak with authority not only about matters affecting their local environment, such as litter, but about the national picture, the international picture, greenhouse gases and so on.

Secondly, just last Friday I answered questions from 180 year 8 pupils at King Edward VI high school in Stafford, as part of their citizenship curriculum. A large number of the questions asked in the session, which ran for 50 minutes, had an environmental aspect. One pupil asked directly about the ozone layer and two asked separate questions about aspects of flooding policy.

Young people have a keen interest in their environment, unprompted by people such as myself. It is right to involve them in action to tackle climate change, because they have a direct stake in the results. If young people explained why we should get things right for them, that would act as a powerful incentive to adults. I invite the Minister to consider how we can reach out to young people and engage them in the important issue of climate change. The eco-school scheme is an obvious channel. I have asked questions of DEFRA about how we use that channel effectively, but there must be many other ways too.

I realise that my speech has had a broad sweep. I began with international action, then moved on to Government policy nationally, and the actions of businesses, local councils and individuals, and now I have asked the Minister to involve children. That means not that my speech has been unfocused or poorly structured but that it reflects the seriousness of the subject. Like Sir David King, I rather think that saving the world is about as big a picture as it gets.

I congratulate the hon. Member for Stafford (Mr. Kidney) on securing the debate. His speech was very good and he need not apologise for it. If anything, it is me who might have to apologise to the acknowledged experts around the Chamber. I shall make my contribution quick and to the point so that we can hear their wise words. In that respect, I am delighted to see my right hon. Friend the Member for Suffolk, Coastal (Mr. Gummer), from whose presence we will all benefit. The hon. Member for Lewes (Norman Baker) and the Minister also have great expertise on this issue.

Although we hear increasingly about climate change, I am afraid that there is still a degree of scepticism among the general public about whether it exists. In the next few days, as the promised cold snap takes hold, people will say, "What are they talking about? Global warming? What do the experts know?" However, as we all know, it is not an outlandish theory that has been put forward by some academics in an ivory tower. We must all take it seriously.

In The Independent on Sunday, I read a rather worrying article, according to which the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institute in the United States has

"uncovered a change 'of remarkable amplitude' in the circulation of the waters of the North Atlantic."

Put rather simply, the Gulf stream could, in effect, shut down. As a result—I remember this from my days of geography at school—the UK's climate would become more akin to that of Labrador in Canada, and we would have vast tracts of tundra and winter lows of minus 20°C. Thus, some predictions say that our climate will become increasingly warm while others say that we will enter a new ice age. That is perhaps why the public are sometimes a little sceptical about what experts say. None the less, I take the issue very seriously, as do others who are taking part in the debate.

Although global warming directly affects all our lives, I want to talk a little about its impact on biodiversity. Climate change is the greatest single threat to wildlife worldwide and might drive a quarter of all land animals and plants to extinction if people do not take drastic measures to reduce the greenhouse gas emissions that cause global warming. At least one species—the golden toad in Costa Rica—has already become extinct because of climate change.

The intergovernmental panel on climate change estimates that the earth will warm by a further 1.4°C to 5.8°C in the coming century, disrupting human society, wildlife and the environment on which we all depend. That far outstrips the rate of previous temperature changes, which occurred at an evolutionary pace, giving nature time to adapt. In the 21st century, temperature rises that previously took thousands of years will take place in the span of a human lifetime. That raises the concern that, in many cases, wildlife will struggle to adapt and survive.

There is already evidence of the effects of weather changes on the life-cycle of birds and other wildlife. For 30 years, the Centre for Ecology and Hydrology has run a UK volunteer network to record trends in nature's calendar. People record annual events such as the budding and leafing of deciduous trees and the first appearance of bluebells, frogspawn and bumble-bees. The network's long-term data show that spring definitely arrives earlier. For instance, swallows now arrive a week earlier than they did in 1970, and butterflies such as the comma and the holly blue are also appearing much earlier. However, leafing trees, the insects that rely on fresh leaves and the birds that rely on those insects have adapted at different rates. Some have shifted out of phase. I understand that nestlings of blue tits and other species on some of the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds' reserves have starved because the glut of early spring caterpillars that they rely on has finished before the young have hatched.

As global temperatures increase, local weather patterns will change. In the UK, we may have more storms and the winters will become warmer and wetter. Summers will become warmer and drier, especially in the south-east. Birds will not only respond to the weather, but to the effects of weather on their habitats. Let us take the redshank as an example: a once-widespread breeding wader in the United Kingdom, its habitat has already been harmed by the drainage of land for agriculture. The redshank nests on coastal salt marshes, wet meadows and moorlands. All three of those habitats are threatened by climate change. Hotter summers will dry up moorlands and wet meadows, while rising sea levels and the increasing ferocity of winter storms pounding the coast will erode the salt marshes and flood coastal land. The poor old redshanks will lose out in all ways, and they are not the only ones.

We can map present and future areas with suitable climatic conditions for many species. Warming conditions will require birds to move to areas that resemble their usual climate space. For most species, that will mean expanding their range northwards or upwards in the UK. Birds that now breed only just inside Scotland, such as nuthatches and green woodpeckers, may now extend their range far into Scotland. Some birds that are currently limited to continental Europe could begin to gain a foothold in southern England.

Such simple adjustments are not enough. The habitat must be suitable as well as the climate and it must contain all the birds' needs, such as food and nest sites. Although it is self-evident that birds can fly—although some species, like the willow tit, are sedentary and seldom fly far—heathland plants, reptiles and other species, such as the minute flora and fauna of the soil on which much other life depends, cannot fly away. They would find the move north more difficult, a problem that would be greatly aggravated because human beings use so much of the land across which they would wish to move.

Species will move at different rates, depending on how near they are to the edge of their ranges. We may lose some of the highland species in the north of Scotland, such as dotterel, ptarmigan and snow bunting, as they are squeezed higher up the hills. Eventually they will cease to breed in the UK, because there will be no suitable habitat.

Only one bird is found in the UK and nowhere else in the world, and that is the Scottish crossbill. It lives in the old Caledonian pine forests in the Scottish highlands. The precise climatic conditions and habitat that it needs will have disappeared in Scotland by the end of the century. The backbone of nature conservation policy worldwide is site based—in other words, it consists of plots of land that are set aside to conserve particular species. That policy will need to be adapted in a situation in which species are likely to move and ecosystems change. There will have to be corridors or stepping stones to permit species movement.

Unfortunately, implementing such measures may be hard in a fragmented landscape. Land use policies, such as the common agricultural policy, must be developed to extend conservation management for climate change across the wider countryside. I am grateful to have had this opportunity to raise a small aspect of the many perils of not taking the problem seriously.

I am grateful to my hon. Friend the Member for Stafford (Mr. Kidney) for choosing this debate, even if he did not quite realise the auspicious day on which it would take place.

I shall raise two specific points, as they need to be highlighted. I apologise again for missing some of my hon. Friend's introductory remarks. My points are crucial in providing a mechanism for action on climate change in this country. Let us give the Government credit: we are at the forefront of this subject—no other country can pride itself on having introduced a panoply of measures such as ours.

My first point relates to the apparent lack of co-ordination and the impact that that can have. Given what the Government have tried do in the related areas of energy efficiency and fuel poverty, they ought to have a good story to tell. They should not congratulate themselves—they do not need to do that—but they should receive plaudits from people who have benefited from policies such as Warm Front. It is disappointing that that is not happening as readily as one would like. That is partly because those who are benefiting are confused—the rest of the public certainly are—about how the policy is working. That is dangerous because we could find, as we did last year, that the budget is cut. I know that some, particularly Lord Whitty, fought incredibly hard to get the money back, which brought home to some of us how vulnerable the policy was. If we are to make the micro-changes for climate change that we want, we must hold the line on initiatives such as Warm Front that, in the main, affect older people in older properties, and consider big time, for the first time, how we can enable such people to have a quality of life while staying in their properties without burning energy, which is very wasteful.

It will be good to hear from the Minister what measures we can take to ensure that Warm Front gets its proper credit and is not subject to budgetary cuts, and how we can go further. I know that discussions are under way across the parties—we all want to make progress on the issue—but unlike other parts of the budget of the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, Warm Front is not within the statutory framework, which means that it is always subject to the pressures of budget overspend. I am sure that the Minister gets my drift and will give me some positive news. However, we have to keep the initiative in mind or it could be sacrificed.

My second point relates to the robustness of the system. Like me, the Minister spent many hours on the Waste and Emissions Trading Bill. We probably spent about 95 per cent. of the time on the waste bit; the emissions bit went through not without scrutiny, but without controversy. The hon. Member for Lewes (Norman Baker) also spent many hours debating that Bill. It is good to have cross-party agreement, but I have a sneaking suspicion that the matter did not receive much attention because it is complex, and we need to think more about how it works.

Let us consider what happened on the back of the recent collapse of TXU. That had dramatic implications for the energy market, not least the way in which, because of the climate change levy, companies buy and sell to offload the impact of their obligation. For some months, little normal trading has gone on. That has caused some consternation about whether the system can do the things that we want it to do. Will my hon. Friend the Minister consider what has happened as a result of working with the current inadequacies—I know that the Government are addressing them in the Energy Bill that is now in another place—and how we can learn from that and make progress on emissions trading? We must try to ratchet up what we are doing so that we make a real difference in both the macro-economy and the micro-economy.

I congratulate the hon. Member for Stafford (Mr. Kidney) on securing the debate, the hon. Member for Uxbridge (Mr. Randall) on offering useful and salient facts about biodiversity, and the hon. Member for Stroud (Mr. Drew), who, in my humble opinion, is very sound on these issues. The hon. Members who have spoken thus far are guilty of false modesty; their contributions have greatly contributed to the debate.

The hon. Member for Stafford began by obliquely referring to the debate in the main Chamber—I was tempted to call it another place. It is sad that what should be the main debate—climate change—is taking place here when the important, but transient, subject of student fees is being discussed elsewhere in the glare of much publicity and with the great involvement of Members. What we are discussing is perhaps the most important issue for everyone in the House and beyond.

The public, local authorities, Government and international community must be galvanised so that we can find a way to get to grips with this issue and to agree a strategy that will prevent the worst things that are in line to happen from happening. The hon. Members for Uxbridge and for Stafford rightly referred to the report on biodiversity and the horrendous possibility that up to 37 per cent. of species could disappear in the next 45 years. That we are facing that situation is salutary; it is also an indictment of mankind. What could be more serious than that? There are ethical aspects to the loss of species for ever as a consequence of mankind's behaviour. There are also issues to do with our contribution to that and the implications for human life of the disruption to the natural chain of life that will entail.

This is a serious subject. Although matters such as top-up fees are important, they pale into insignificance in comparison. We need to find a way to bring it to people's attention and to galvanise them to act. We should analyse why they do not act and why the media do not focus on the subject. I am sure that I am not the only hon. Member who speaks to journalists about environmental matters. They reply, "It is not newsworthy. It has been done. We have written the story of the world warming up and species disappearing. Where is the new angle?" It is as if once the story has been written, the importance of the subject is lost. If I want to make flippant comments about Cherie Blair's hairstyle—which I do not—I could get myself copious column inches in many of the tabloids, but if I want to make a serious point about the environment, it is an uphill struggle to get anyone interested enough to find space in their paper.

We must galvanise the Government. I do not want to knock them on climate change. There are other things to knock them for, and they have quite a good record on Kyoto and climate change. They have done some worthwhile things. They are ahead of other Governments in many respects. I want to be fair about that. However, there is a problem: they do not shout about that. The Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs has not made a normal statement on the environment since July 2002, except to mention it at her Department's questions. We do not hear about the subject from the Prime Minister or from anyone apart from the worthy Minister for the Environment, for whom I have tremendous respect, and his predecessor. Where are the Government's announcements on climate change and the environment? It is almost as if they want to do the right thing, but are frightened of saying so in case industry, or someone else, is upset. We must fundamentally understand both the importance of the topic and the willingness of industry and the public at large to embrace it.

If we believe a report in The Independent on Sunday—not the one referred to by the hon. Member for Uxbridge, but a different one that the Minister knows about from this morning's debate on the water framework directive—there is a fear that the Prime Minister is trying to cut down the Environment Agency's expenditure on water pollution monitoring to cut bills or appease industry. What a short-term policy that is—if indeed that is the policy.

It is a false economy to think that cutting expenditure on the environment helps the economy. It does not work that way. The evidence shows that the forward-looking economies of the world link the environment and the economy together strongly and give incentives for the development of technology and basic housekeeping matters. A firm that switches off its toilets over the weekend when it is closed is also helping the environment and it sometimes saves substantial sums. We do not make enough of those simple connections. The Government have a role in pushing such things more than they do.

I agree with the hon. Gentleman, but will he consider whether the Government are enthusiastic about getting the message to the public? I think that the public have the appetite for the message. Is the complexity of the subject part of the difficulty? We have heard about the questioning of the science on climate change and the difficulties of understanding emissions trading. Does he think that we have an obligation to make the messages understandable so that the media will carry them?

Yes. It is not simple. There are uncertainties. However, the Government employ a large number of people to make complex messages simple. I will not mention spin doctors, but if they were used for that purpose, I would wholly welcome their activities.

It is worth putting on the record that Sir David King said:

"In my view, climate change is the most severe problem that we are facing today, more serious even than the threat of terrorism".

The Prime Minister has rightly been active in dealing with the threat of terrorism, but I am not clear what he has done to deal with this greater threat identified by his chief scientist on climate change. I do not make that point flippantly. For example, have we used our international platforms—whether in the UN, the Commonwealth, or NATO—to push the United States in particular to give a lead? What chance is there of persuading countries such as China or India to behave as we would wish them to if the greatest polluter of them all—the United States—says "We are going to take care of ourselves. We are not really bothered about the world outside. We have this fortress mentality"?

It is worth bearing in mind that this Government and the previous Government, under the right hon. Member for Suffolk, Coastal (Mr. Gummer) and others, took steps to reduce carbon dioxide emissions. We have done that in this country and, by and large, we are doing it across the European Union. However, while that is happening, the idea that the US will cut emissions by 6 per cent. has been knocked on the head. Indeed, from 1990 to 2002 emissions from the US increased by 16 per cent. The US is already responsible for 36 per cent. of carbon emissions across the world. More than one third of those emissions come from the US and they are still increasing like billy-oh. It is difficult. I do not know what the answer is. There must, however, be concerted pressure from friends of the United States—we count ourselves as one of those—to try to get that country to adopt a more responsible attitude.

The US is not playing its part. I come back to Sir David King, who says:

"As the world's only remaining superpower, the United States is accustomed to leading internationally co-ordinated action. But at present the US Government is failing to take up the challenge of global warming."

Those are serious words from somebody who is not a politician or a member of a pressure group. Sir David is the Government's chief man in a white coat. He is there to make calm, sensible pronouncements based on fact, and that is what he says. The Government must give us a strategy to address this problem internationally with our partners. We must do more.

The Australians are also refusing to sign up to Kyoto. Then there are the Russians, who are happy because they are in a comfortable situation. Everybody wants them to sign up. No doubt they are trying to extract a price from anyone they can for them to agree to sign up to Kyoto. Kyoto is so important that if we have to pay a price to get them on board, I hope that we do. As flawed as it may be, Kyoto is the only show in town and we need it to work. As the Russians come on board, there is a chance that the Americans—dare I say it, with a different US President—might end up at some point signing up to Kyoto as well. My great fear is not the abstract notion of the treaty, but that unless we tackle this major challenge to the environment internationally, we will face all the problems that our scientists have warned us about, such as the biodiversity problems to which the hon. Member for Uxbridge referred.

We will also face something worse: unless we break our dependency on fossil fuels and have a more sensible energy policy across the world, then we will end up with resource wars, many of them involving water. In 20, 30 or 40 years' time, we could end up deploying military forces to ensure that the basic necessities of life are supplied to us and other countries that have the military might to demand them. That is not a picture of the world I want to see. We must strive hard to avoid it, and I do not see the urgency from the Government which is required.

I am not criticising the Government for not taking action, because they are, but the subject is so urgent that I want the Prime Minister to make a point of raising it. All of us in Parliament should use the opportunities we have to push the issue. When was the last time, Mr McWilliam, that you heard a question on climate change at Prime Minister's questions? I cannot remember one being asked, which is an indictment of us all. We have had very few questions on matters of significant environmental importance in that rather curious auditorium of Prime Minister's questions. We need to do rather better.

On the Government's activities, I shall be brief so that the other two hon. Members have a chance to have their say. I mentioned the targets set at Kyoto and we will, without doubt, meet our EU basket target. The question is whether we meet the Government's brave target of 20 per cent. by 2010. There was some doubt about that. Members may remember a story in the papers in December suggesting that the Trade Secretary was attempting to knock the 20 per cent. target down to 15 per cent., and the Environment Secretary was doing her best to resist it. I do not know the truth of that, but last week I noticed a statement saying that the Government were still committed to the 20 per cent. target. If there was a battle, I take it the Environment Secretary won. In any case, the target still exists, and it is important that we hold to it.

We also have to recognise that in some ways the easy work has been done. Coal, which caused so many carbon emissions, is by and large not used in power plants now. There have been easy gains from the switch to gas, which I hope is only a bridge fuel to something more sustainable in the longer term. It is not clear how easy it will be to reduce carbon emissions further without much work.

Industry is clearly doing its bit. Figures from the House of Commons Library show that industry emissions of carbon are diminishing quite rapidly. The domestic sector's emissions are reducing as well, albeit more slowly. However, there has been a doubling in carbon emissions from road transport in the past 30 years. There is no evidence that that increase is going to be curtailed. Indeed, the evidence is that transport generally, including aviation, is going to provide the real challenge for the Government if they want not only to meet their target but to prevent a reverse in the current happy trend of a reduction in carbon dioxide emissions.

What is the Government's strategy for reducing carbon emissions from transport generally? All the indications are that they have failed in that. The energy White Paper will deliver quite a lot on renewables and energy efficiency, provided that the Government stick to their commitments and put some money into both those things. I see no strategy, however, for dealing with carbon emissions from transport—no strategy that they could deliver, at any rate.

The Government's transport strategy involved road traffic reduction. There was a big campaign on that. Hon. Members will remember that back in 1997–98, the Secretary of State for the Environment, Transport and the Regions said that he would reduce the number of journeys. He asked us to hold him to that pledge. Unfortunately, when we try to hold him to it, he seems to have forgotten that he made it. In any case, traffic volume is up 8 per cent. and I am afraid that, by stealth and in bits and pieces, the Government, for short-term political expediency, are resorting to the sort of road-building programme that I thought we had seen the back of, and which was wholly discredited in the 1990s. We are now seeing a return to such programmes, which of course will increase carbon emissions further by disadvantaging parallel public transport alternatives, in particular the railways. There is no strategy in place.

The White Paper on aviation predicted an increase in the number of airports, in runway capacity and in flights. It was close to being simply a supply-and-demand paper, in which the Government predict what will happen and provide for that. Aviation will increase and account for 30 per cent. of carbon emissions by 2030, although I might have that figure wrong. Nevertheless, a huge increase in emissions will come from aviation, an activity that is technically outside Kyoto. I hope that this Government or a future one will not say, "We have met our Kyoto targets," while ignoring the contribution that the airlines sector makes to carbon emissions. It would be unfortunate if they did that. We need to find a way to deal with the issue, which is one of the main domestic challenges facing Ministers.

Finally, it is worth remembering the key Departments that are involved. DEFRA has a role, and I have a lot of respect for it; it is the ally of those of us who want climate change to be controlled. We must ensure that the Treasury is on board. We need to establish the link between environmental protection and economic well-being, and for there to be much greater use of economic instruments. I read a recent parliamentary answer in Hansard that suggests that in our country a lower percentage of tax comes from environmental taxation than in virtually any other European country. We must get the Department for Transport on board for the reasons that I gave, and we must ensure that the Department of Trade and Industry sticks to its White Paper. This is a cross-departmental challenge that requires leadership from the Prime Minister.

I point hon. Members to my declaration of interests. It is hardly possible to have any interests that are not affected by climate change, and that is a lesson for us.

I hope that what I say will encourage and support the Minister. There is a tradition, which I benefited from in my time and which I hope he benefits from now, of bipartisanship on many of these issues. If there is such a word as "tri-partisan", I am prepared to extend—unusually—an accolade to the Liberals. I know that the Minister often feels himself to be a lonely man, because there is no doubt that the enthusiasms that he manifestly has and the bravery that he has shown in defending them are not always shared by every body else in government. That has always been true.

I congratulate the hon. Member for Stafford (Mr. Kidney) on securing this debate. Many of us are amazed that he is still in a position to secure a debate rather than looking after a Ministry. That is one of those mysteries that will one day be explained to me, and I would not be rude enough to list the Ministers who might find a better role elsewhere.

We are bound to be lonely in the battle because we say to the rest of the world, the rest of our parties and the rest of the Government that these issues are crucial. They would prefer the issues to be less crucial because they make demands of a kind that are not easy to satisfy. That is why I, like the hon. Member for Stafford, was particularly pleased that Sir David King wrote his article and made his declaration with such force. It is true that the world can deploy huge resources to deal with something such as terrorism, about the danger of which it is convinced. Indeed, it can provide huge resources to do wholly wrong things such as invade Iraq: it can spend vast sums of money on some things—in my view, entirely wrongly—while to a great extent it ignores the areas where expenditure might make a significant difference and do much to benefit the next generation. The world is willing to get on with a job when it is clear how important it is, yet what we are talking about links into every part of government and life, as I said in my declaration of interest.

I hope the Minister will accept that although I am putting forward a series of things that I think he ought to do, it is not because I think he does not want to do them. However, I recognise how hard such things are to do, and that he needs our support. Had the Minister been in the House yesterday, during a debate that was to some long and boring, owing to the nature of the subject—the details and the technicalities of fire service reform—he would have seen a problem rear its head. For the Government were being elegantly, but none the less powerfully, belaboured for changing their fire reduction target: in 10 months' time, they were supposed to have a target to reduce fires by, I think, 30 per cent. They are clearly not going to do that, so now they have a new target to reduce fires by 10 per cent. in 10 years' time.

That was obviously a matter for questioning, and the Minister concerned, who is another caring and good Minister, said that the real problem was people setting light to abandoned cars: this had led to many more incidents, which had been hard to deal with. I had to ask why those abandoned cars were there. They are there because the Government do not use joined-up thinking and have not properly thought through end-of-life vehicle arrangements. That problem is going to get worse because the Government gave way to the car industry. Instead of saying that the car industry had an immediate responsibility for end-of-life, clapped-out motor cars, they said that for the next seven years the last owners of the vehicles would have that responsibility. Who are the last owners? I will tell the Minister: they are people in his and my constituencies who have to have a motor car to get to work. In my constituency, such people are often on lower than average incomes. That is often the case in rural constituencies. They get landed with a car that no one wants and they have no resources to deal with it. I am afraid that some of them deal with it in the only way they know—they abandon it, and abandoned vehicles cost much more to collect than would have been the case had DEFRA's voice on the right way to deal with ELVs been heard properly.

Doing the right thing environmentally often saves money in the end. The Government are unable to recognise that if money is saved here, it may have to be spent there. They seem unable to do the sums so that the Department that has to spend gets the benefit from the saving. I do not blame this Government for the generality of that; it is true of all Governments. However, I do blame them for their promise to put sustainability at the heart of government when what they have done is push sustainability off to a side of government, to DEFRA. I blame them when they link the environment with woolly animals and the countryside instead of keeping it at the centre of things, as it was under the former Department of the Environment, Transport and the Regions. It was right to put transport in with the environment—I honour what the Prime Minister did then. However, he went back on the excellence of that decision and gave the Minister fewer levers than one had when one also looked after local authorities and planning, and one could use various mechanisms to carry through what was necessary to deal with climate change.

End-of-life vehicles are a simple example of what we have to do across the board. In that case, the poor old fire service ended up with those vehicles on its bill. The Treasury will not link that with the fact that it made it impossible to do the right thing—to make industry progressively responsible for ELVs over seven years or to put in some Government money to ensure that we met the ELV requirements more sensibly.

I suggest to the Minister that the remarks made by the hon. Members for Stafford and for Lewes (Norman Baker) need to be taken seriously into account. The Government must be serious about such matters—on more occasions, more generally and more universally. I shall cite an example from today's newspapers. We are told on very good authority that the Prime Minister will try to scale back the amount of environmental work that is done in connection with water. As the chairman of a water company, I declare a specific interest. I can tell the Government that it is not the water companies that do not want to take such action. We shall get it in the neck whatever we do. If we put up the price to try to take such action, we shall get into trouble. If we do not do it, we shall also get into trouble. I admit that there is no winning line.

I am not talking about pressure from the water industry. We know that such action must be taken. The pressure comes from the unholy alliance of usually poor industrial examples pressing on the worst of Departments, the DTI, which gives way on every occasion to any sort of pressure. The DTI has announced that it refuses to support sensible proposals, even those it could easily support, such as the private Member's Bill that will be introduced on Friday. It will ask for compulsory reporting on environmental and social matters by each of the 350 biggest companies. The DTI's refusal is absolute nonsense. What is it doing? We only want information. It is only natural and reasonable to want to make sure where we are.

Whatever the Minister says and however elegantly he tries to prevent me from driving a wedge between his Department and the DTI, I know, as a matter of fact, that he wants such reporting. His predecessor wanted it. I pay tribute to his predecessor, who did a great deal of work in such matters; he had passion and flare. It was the usual suspects—the Treasury and the DTI—pretending that industry was not ready for it, which refused to take such necessary action. If we do not have proper reporting, we will not be doing what we need to do about climate change because we will not be able to point out to companies that are not reporting properly that they are not taking the right action. I look to the Government to change their mind. I hope that, even at the last moment, the DTI will be sensible about this week's debate.

What about the Government's estate? I have some interest in the matter, but it is an outrage that the Home Office, contrary to what it promised, has hydrofluorocarbons in the air conditioning installed in its new building. Can the Government be listened to if that is how they allow their procurement to operate? One of the reasons I have an interest in such matters is that I keep my ears open: I know what is happening. It is not acceptable for the Government to be in such a position. With each new or refurbished building, the Government should take the necessary steps to combat global warming.

We should ban HFCs and give industry an opportunity. With modern technology, it is perfectly possible for refrigeration and air conditioning to operate without the use of HFCs. If we ban them, we could make a major impact on global warming gases. Between now and 2012, 4 per cent. of our global warming gases will come from HFCs. At present, none comes from them because they are not used widely enough and they are not that leaky. The Minister must reduce our global warming gases by 16.5 per cent., not 12.5 per cent., because he must make up for the 4 per cent. extra gases that will come from HFCs.

The Minister could take the lead in Europe. The Austrians are ready to go. as are others in the Europe Union. The Minister could say that we want a date when HFCs will be banned. The motor industry has said that it would like a ban in 2012 on HFCs used for air conditioning in cars. Well, if it can suggest a ban in 2012. we know that it can do it a darn sight earlier than that. Toyota and other motor manufacturers already have the appropriate machinery in place. The Department must ask the Government to impose a ban and not to listen to the little group of people for whom everything is too much, for whom nothing can be done and for whom everything is always a matter of "competitiveness"—a wonderful word. Britain's competitiveness depends on our being ahead, not behind, on environmental issues. That is what the Minister and the Secretary of State herself believe, so I am not fighting them. I am simply trying to help them fight the real enemies—the people who constantly prevent them from making the necessary choices.

The Government must put their money where their mouth is. Indeed, they do not even need to put any money there; they need only say here and now, in 2004, that no new equipment will be allowed to use HFCs from, let us say, 2008 and that no top-up will be allowed from 2012. The UK could do that on its own, so long as everyone is covered; we need not wait for the European Union. We could then be the clean man of Europe and start leading the rest of Europe. It is a simple matter.

There are other issues. I do not like the war in Iraq, and I voted against it. It is wrong, and I do not understand how we got into that situation. Looking around the Chamber, I know that I am not on my own in that. However, nothing that I hear from Basra suggests that what we are doing to reconstruct Iraq meets the highest environmental standards. When I look at the south and at the American areas, I do not see us taking a distinct course, although we could.

I see the same problem in the Government's dealings with the United States of America. It is true that the United States is changing our climate, and that is a matter of real sovereignty. How can we allow 25 per cent. of the world's pollution—I am afraid that Sir David King underestimated the proportion—to come from 4 per cent. of its population? How can we allow that 4 per cent. to go on changing our climate and that of our children? The European Union is right in that respect, and we should be far more concerned about supporting united EU demands so that the Americans listen to us on this issue.

There are many such steps that we could take and, in my remaining three minutes, I want to tell the Minister what I would like them to be. He can insist that every local authority and Department use their procurement system to advance such general and particular issues. Under European Union rules, he can insist that, when contracts go out to tender, every oil company is asked for details of what it is doing about climate change. We need a situation in which Exxon gets no contracts at all because it has had to show that it is undermining the battle against climate change throughout the world. The only thing it cares about is what goes into its pockets, so let us say, "If you want to trade in Britain, you've got to meet the corporate social responsibility standards that we demand." After the Helsinki bus decision in the European Union, we know that such proper demands can be made in the course of procurement.

We also need to reconsider the climate change levy, whose operation was ill thought out and whose effect has been disappointing. The only reason we have not attacked it is that it is difficult to attack something called the climate change levy if one happens to be in favour of doing something about climate change. However, now is the time to reconsider it.

It is also crucial that we understand the cost of not taking the necessary steps. The Minister was kind enough to allow me to see him on Thursday to talk about coastal erosion. I have just looked at maps of my constituency and seen the speed with which erosion has increased as a result of climate change. Five separate parts of my constituency are under threat from the sea, but the Government have rewritten the rules on measuring the need for coastal support and have diverted money from it. The Minister promised last summer that a whole series of things could be done, but, under the new rules, the word "urgency" has been removed from the measurement. One can no longer seek extra help for urgency, which means that all my areas are excluded from help. The Minister must put the urgency component back in. I put it to him that unless the public understand the cost of not doing something about climate change—whether ELVs or coastal erosion—they will never pay the price. The Minister must stand fast and insist that we do pay the cost of not doing something about climate change. That is the only way he will get support for doing something about it.

I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Stafford (Mr. Kidney) on securing the debate and on his excellent and detailed speech. It was so detailed and so well delivered that there is little to add, except on the technical side. I shall use the time to respond to the points raised by hon. Members.

I welcome the debate. I also welcome its tone, as contributions have been excellent. It is not often that we find such agreement on an issue, although some may question how far or how fast we should go and what measures should be applied. We heard some of those questions today, and I shall try to respond.

I warmly agree with my hon. Friend about the remarks of Professor King. The professor has done a great service for us all—indeed, internationally—not only by focusing on the science of climate change but by making a strong and powerful statement that attracted media attention. It is not easy to get such complex issues over to the media.

My hon. Friend asks what we are doing to reinforce Professor King's message to the United States. It is a fair question. We have already heard that the US is the biggest single polluter and that it has a responsibility to combat climate change, but is not doing so. There are no two ways about it: it is not pulling its weight. That is not to say that it is not doing anything—I shall touch upon that in a moment—but we are engaging with the US.

We must recognise that the US is a science-based society. It has good scientists, who recognise a good scientific case. We are engaged at all levels of science, putting our case, for which we have overwhelming evidence from such places as the Hadley centre and the Tyndall centre on long-term measurements and the evaluation of global warming. I also see the odd article—not usually from this country, although there was one in the Daily Mail. Indeed, I can see that the right hon. Member for Suffolk, Coastal (Mr. Gummer) has a copy. In that article, Melanie Phillips denies that such things are happening. She denies the fact that sea levels are rising. The evidence, however, is overwhelming. We have moved away from having to prove the case; we now need to deal with the most appalling consequences. In that, Professor King is absolutely right.

We seek areas of co-operation with countries such as the United States. The Prime Minister raises the matter directly with President Bush at his frequent meetings and face-to-face contacts. Right hon. and hon. Members may recall that he included the need to address climate change in his speech to the US Congress when receiving the Congressional medal. However, it was the only point in that speech that did not receive a standing ovation. Nevertheless, he rightly made it clear that it is one of his priorities.

It is Government policy to raise the matter during all bilateral talks. I was surprised to hear that Ministers are not always in a position to say that they have discussed the matter with the United States. It is certainly true that the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs is always raising the subject with the US. We have bilateral talks—most recently, a few months ago, at the COP9 meeting on the climate change programme—and we have also spoken to the Americans about a follow on from the Evian action plan for environmental technology. That is one area where the Americans are keen and enthusiastic.

We think that environmental, low-carbon technologies are part of the solution. The mistake would be to think that they are the only solution. Hon. Members are right to think that one must do other things—for example, reduce present outputs—but environmental technologies could have a role. The Americans are prepared to put very large sums of money into them, which is something we should welcome. We have agreed with the Americans that they should take over the next chair of the G8. They want to take forward the Evian action plan on low-carbon technologies. We follow the USA in chairing the G8, and we shall continue in that way. The idea is to keep a continuous theme through the G8, so that we can try to take things forward. That is highly desirable.

Many American states are doing quite good work on combating climate change. Some of the eastern coast states, for example, are involved in cap-and-trade schemes and we are active in a range of meetings with the USA on climate change forecasting and science. However, a political lead from the federal Government is needed. There are sometimes differences between the federal and state governments on those issues. Still, we seek to co-operate with the Americans where we can, to push them forward in tackling the dangers of climate change, and where they are doing good and useful things, particularly in environmental technologies, we are prepared to work with them.

My hon. Friend the Member for Stafford asked about the move from policy to strategy and how to raise awareness. That is an important issue. We need to forge partnerships with councils and non-governmental organisations. With the Department of Trade and Industry, we financed the "Are You Doing Your Bit?" campaign, which was very useful. We need to use exhibitions and conferences, and all the various tools available to us as a Government for our communications programmes.

In our bid in the spending review 2004, we are looking at further funding for major awareness-raising campaigns in the coming years, because we recognise that this is important. I agree with my hon. Friend that combating climate change means a range of policies, including those on waste recycling and packaging. Those are serious issues and, because of what local authorities are doing, we are making progress with the impact of the packaging directive and the targets. I am encouraged by what I see, although I am not complacent.

I welcome the Nottingham declaration, and did so at the time, as my hon. Friend acknowledges. We welcome the thinking behind it and its thrust. It is important as part of awareness raising for local authorities to take it seriously. I also agree about building standards. My right hon. Friend the Secretary of State joined the Deputy Prime Minister and the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry to launch, jointly, the better building campaign and task force, to work on raising standards. I hope that I get the chance to see BedZED tomorrow, but if I do not I shall certainly make arrangements to go to see it later.

I agree too that it is important to engage young people. My hon. Friend may be interested to know that in my role of chairman of the Green Ministers group I have a bilateral arrangement with the Secretary of State for Education and Skills, who has declared himself the Green Minister for his Department. He takes that very seriously. We want to talk about how we can use our education programmes to raise awareness among young people, which I welcome.

I welcome the speech of the hon. Member for Uxbridge (Mr. Randall). I know of his interest in and experience of ornithology. I confess that when he used the words "Britain's endemic", I thought he was going to talk about the red grouse, which is recognised as an endemic subspecies of willow grouse. However, he is right to say that the Scottish crossbill, which is a subspecies of the parrot crossbill, is recognised as a British bird and is under threat, like a number of species in this country and globally. There are species that, as he said, this country will lose, and although they may continue to breed in other countries—some of the arctic species, for example—they are under threat in those places too.

Everything—plants, mammals, birds and insects—is under threat from global warming, as the article in Nature stated.The extent of the effect goes from the greatest—such as the polar bear, which is under serious threat of extinction, because of its life cycle and the changing pattern of ice movements—to the smallest, such as insects. Perhaps species that we do not even know about in this country are affected. The threat is real and present and not to be taken lightly, as I know the hon. Members who have taken the trouble to attend the debate understand.

The hon. Member for Lewes (Norman Baker) began by acknowledging that it is difficult to get coverage in the mass media of complicated scientific issues such as climate change, but then criticised the Government for not getting that media coverage. The reasons we do not get coverage are the same. We must keep banging away and it is important to make such points. However, my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State got a lot of publicity when she attended the conference of parties to the climate change convention and successfully drove home the Government's message. There was quite a lot of coverage of that in the national press, but we cannot be complacent and I accept that we need to persist with the issue.

We must also engage business more. I was pleased with the point that my hon. Friend the Member for Stafford made, because it is something that, as Environment Minister, I wish to develop further. I have talked about the environment at a number of environmental business clubs and business breakfasts around the country. I have made the important point, which the right hon. Member for Suffolk, Coastal made, that although environmental management is often associated with bureaucracy, red tape and burdens on industry, it can promote efficiency and savings and be good for business. We have groups such as Envirowise, the Energy Saving Trust, the waste and resources action programme and the task force on sustainability that are engaged with business.

We also recognise the need for international action, which was mentioned. Countries such as China and Japan are doing good things, but we need Russia to ratify the convention. I think that Russia will do so in the end, but we should make the case and demonstrate that it is in her economic interests to do so. We are actively engaged in that.

There are of course transport issues, but we are making progress, including tax cuts on LPG and biofuels, support for hydrogen fuel cell public transport, which involves quite expensive experiments, and changes to reduce taxation for cars with smaller engines. Most new cars bought are company cars, so the tax bands have been changed to encourage the purchase of low-emission cars. We have seen some quite big changes with those financial drivers. Companies such as Jaguar have made a big thing about their low emissions and fuel economy. Those things were never associated with Jaguar before, but new Jaguars are now made with light metals, are fuel efficient and have low emissions. That is being driven by some of the financial instruments that we have introduced.

Will the Minister predict whether emissions from the road transport sector will increase or fall in the next five years?

I think that in the short term emissions are likely to increase and I would not want to pretend otherwise. We must address that and I believe that we are doing so, through huge investments in rail, for example. We have seen a record number of passengers using the railways, but we have a big job to do and will attempt to attract more people to rail. The need to include aviation in financial instruments was recognised in the aviation White Paper. We shall have to take that forward.

Why did the Government not announce in their aviation policy that they would introduce severe restrictions on internal flights and use the money from that to improve internal rail traffic? Doing so would make a huge difference.

I do not rule out that approach, but it is always difficult to take a unilateral approach in a global and European market. It may not be impossible to reach an agreement on aviation or bring it within the carbon-trading scheme at the EU level.

I appreciate the right hon. Gentleman's support. He is known for the quality of his contribution to debates on the environment. What he says is important and needs to be listened to. He made a number of points worth pursuing about using procurement policy, which the Government are following, looking at the climate change levy—carbon trading will probably supersede that—and emphasising the costs of climate change. I shall speak in more detail on coastal policy later; suffice it to say that some people claim that the new system benefits coastal defence rather than fluvial defence. We shall go into that in more detail, but the right hon. Gentleman's important point is that the costs of not tackling climate change are huge. People who baulk at some of the restrictions and costs, of which there are many, need to take that into account.

In a way, it is appropriate to finish a debate on climate change and global warming and begin another on airports, which contribute to climate change and global warming. I was anxious to secure a debate on airports to raise my constituents' concerns, and I am very grateful to the Speaker for granting one so quickly.

Coventry airport has been owned and operated by Air Atlantique since 1998. Before that, it belonged to Coventry city council, but it comes under Warwick district council for planning purposes. The Department for Transport's recently published White Paper describes it well:

"Coventry Airport currently serves a specialist role within the region, catering for business aviation, air mail and some freight".

The airport does not have a large-scale passenger operation and has no history of providing one. On the day that the White Paper was published, the airport announced that it had concluded a deal with Thomsonfly, which is part of the TUI group, to launch a budget airline operating from Coventry airport. The airline will use Boeing 737-500s and will fly to 11 European destinations, which will add 8,000 aircraft movements a year to the airport. It will also introduce night flights. The published schedule on Thomsonfly's website shows flights at 2 am, 4 am and 5 am, and no fewer than four flights between 6 am and 7 am.

Is my hon. Friend aware that, according to press reports, there are serious concerns at Birmingham airport about the flight path at Coventry and Birmingham?

I will come to that.

Coventry can offer night flights because it has a 24-hour operating licence, which some other regional airports do not have. Introducing the service will fundamentally change the nature of the airport, which is why I raise the matter, and it is creating understandable alarm and concern among many of my constituents who live extremely close to the airport. The service is due to start in about eight weeks' time and will be at full throttle by May this year.

The airport began its life as a second world war aerodrome. Today, it is a single-runway airport, which is home to several small flight training and freight operations. I should not forget to mention the airport's quaint collection of disused railway carriages and rusting locomotives, which are partly surrounded by a dilapidated chain-link fence that, even today, would hardly deter a handful of passing curious sheep. Yet we are being asked to believe that in a very short space of time, this airport will begin handling 2 million passengers a year and will deal with all that that involves. It is therefore unsurprising that the airport has lodged a planning application for a brand new terminal and associated car parking, but it is very surprising that the service is about to start without them. Indeed, Warwick district council's planning department will not even consider the application until about four weeks before the first jet is due to scream over my constituents in Bubbenhall, a village just the other side of the aforementioned fence. All that activity is due to start out of temporary buildings.

I understand the allure of cheap flights to the Mediterranean, and I am sure that many of my constituents make good use of them. I have nothing against Thomsonfly trying to get into the business; I totally understand why it would want to do so. However, it should not do that out of Coventry airport. What was the point of the Government's consultation exercise? What is the point of the White Paper, "The Future of Air Transport", which was supposed to set out a strategy? It clearly says that expansion to meet anticipated increases in demand for that sort of travel in the west midlands should be met at Birmingham and East Midlands airports. The budget airlines already operate from those places, so I am far from persuaded that Thomsonfly needs to start the service out of Coventry airport. I understand that it is also talking to about 20 other regional airports in the UK, none of which is a former second world war aerodrome and all of which are established and have the necessary infrastructure to start a budget airline operation. The only possible reason for starting at Coventry is because it is cheap: it has nothing to do with the Government's air transport strategy and everything to do with quick profit for one company.

I want the Minister to address some specific issues, the first of which is the capacity of Coventry airport. Planning documents show that it currently has a runway of 1,610 m, which is close to the operational minimum required for Boeing 737-500 aeroplanes. Birmingham's proposed short runway is to be 2,000 m. Work is already under way to extend the runway, but there is a serious issue as to whether that is within the airport's permitted development rights. It is trying to add runway-end safety areas. I am told that the airport will submit a report to the aerodrome standards department, which will indicate runway extensions of 90 m, but the recommended length for runway-end safety areas is 240 m. For it to reach that length, major alterations to the runway would be required, for which the airport would need planning permission. That planning permission is not being sought.

The next main issue that I wish to raise with the Minister is that of airspace conflict, which my hon. Friend the Member for Coventry, South (Mr. Cunningham) mentioned. Birmingham's runway is aligned at magnetic bearing 150° 33, whereas Coventry's runway is aligned at 51° 231, which means that they are at right angles to each other. There is crossing air traffic from the two airports and the runways are just 13 miles apart.

In the run-up to publishing the White Paper, the Government consulted on the Rugby option. If that option had been allowed, Birmingham airport would have had to close because of the conflict of air space, yet the Rugby site is 17 miles away, while Coventry airport is just 13 miles away. I accept that the Coventry development is not of the scale that we would have seen had the Rugby option gone ahead, but the fact that airport closures were envisaged in that area during the consultation serves to underline how tight the airspace is and, therefore, how serious the potential for airspace conflict.

Coventry airport is beneath the lateral limits of Birmingham's control area, and Birmingham National Air Traffic Services controls the traffic movements in and out of Coventry. There are certain operational freedoms for flights in and out of Coventry up to about 2,000 ft and for a radius of 2 nautical miles. That area goes over about 1,000 homes in my constituency. The fact that the two airports are so close together already leads to delays arising from the airspace conflict. We should remember, in the context of what might be about to happen in Coventry, that Birmingham airport has been cleared to get a second runway. Its passenger volumes are growing at a rate of 10 per cent. a year. If there is air conflict between the airports now, what will it be like if the projected rate of expansion takes place at Birmingham and this budget operation starts to operate out of Coventry?

In relation to those flight paths, I am sure my hon. Friend is aware that some years ago an aircraft came down on a housing estate in Willenhall in my constituency. Several of the crew were killed. As a result, people are apprehensive about any developments there. In particular, they are concerned about that flight path and whether traffic flow will increase. The flight path is very low.

My hon. Friend is right. Many of my constituents recall that accident and it underlines their concerns.

I want to draw other issues to the Minister's attention. Are the instrumentation standards at Coventry airport and the instrument landing system up to par for the introduction of such a service? There are also security issues to do with the airport. What work is the Civil Aviation Authority doing in respect of the proposals, and what is it aware of? Does it have any concerns about the commencement of such an operation from Coventry? Our fears are that once the Thomsonfly operation starts it could expand even further. This is, after all, an airport in search of revenue and it has a 24-hour operational licence.

Will my hon. Friend give way?

I will give way to my hon. Friend, in whose constituency the airport is located.

I am grateful to my hon. Friend for securing the debate, which is important for all constituencies that surround the airport. At least four, and perhaps as many as seven, hon. Members represent constituencies within a mile and a half of the airport site. All our colleagues are extremely alarmed about the way in which Coventry airport has acted. It seems to be behaving without responding to calls for consultation and without involving the communities or Members of Parliament affected. I am concerned about the night flights and the fact that Coventry airport believes that it is under no constraints, so undermining the proper development of Birmingham and East Midlands airports as set out in the White Paper. We need the Minister to take appropriate action.

My hon. Friend is right. He, I and all other hon. Members whose constituencies border on the airport are besieged by our constituents on the matter. That is why we are so anxious to raise the issue in the presence of the Minister and to seek reassurances.

I think that I speak for all of us when I say that we heaved a collective sigh of relief when the Rugby option was turned down after consultation. However, for my constituents in Bubbenhall, Weston under Wetherley, Cubbington, Radford, Whitnash, Leek Wootton, Hill Wootton, Hunningham, Offchurch, Leamington and Warwick, there is a nearer and far more imminent threat than we ever considered possible when we objected to an international airport at Rugby. What makes it even more galling is that it was not part of the consultation; it was never part of the White Paper strategy. Indeed, it is important to put it on the record that the White Paper says that we should

"not envisage any significant further development"

at Coventry. However, the development, which is imminent, could not be more significant for my constituents and those hon. Members present. As far as I can tell, the TUI group is forging ahead, seemingly regardless of the strategy in the Government White Paper, of local planning decisions and of the quality of life of our constituents.

We cannot leave the matter purely for the planning department of Warwick district council to determine. The issues are far bigger, far wider and extremely important in the context of the Government's overall strategy. It is for that reason that I urge the Minister to intervene fully in the matter and not ask us to leave it merely to the decision of the local planning authority. I ask him to do so on behalf of my constituents, but also because I think that it is important that he defends the strategy outlined in "The Future of Air Transport" and defends my constituents' sanity.

I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Warwick and Leamington (Mr. Plaskitt) on having raised some important issues and on having expressed so eloquently the concerns of many of his constituents about the proposed expansion of operations at Coventry airport. I recognise also the contributions and concerns of my hon. Friend the Member for Coventry, South (Mr. Cunningham), as I do those of my hon. Friend the Member for Rugby and Kenilworth (Andy King), in whose constituency the airport lies.

In December, my Department published "The Future of Air Transport", the first aviation White Paper since 1985. It is probably the first ever comprehensive, detailed and substantive White Paper—the rest were all just catch-up documents—so it is long overdue. Its purpose is to establish a strategic national policy framework for the development of airports in the United Kingdom over the next 30 years. It will provide the context for future planning decisions and allow the air transport industry to plan and invest with confidence.

I know, as my hon. Friend the Member for Warwick and Leamington has said, that all hon. Members in the area, particularly my hon. Friend the Member for Rugby and Kenilworth, were mightily relieved that we did not pursue the idea of a new airport between Rugby and Coventry—that was made rather well known to us on the day of publication of the White Paper and subsequently—but it is important to emphasise that the White Paper neither authorises nor precludes any particular development. Planning applications for airport development need to be taken through the town and country planning system in the normal way. The policies set out in the White Paper constitute an important material consideration that will inform the determination of specific planning applications. Paragraph 9.31, to which my hon. Friend alluded, does precisely that in relation to Coventry.

The White Paper concluded that there is a clear need for additional runway capacity to serve the midlands region, and that that need would best be met by an additional runway at Birmingham airport—the airport operator's proposal. That is a refinement of the wide-spaced runway option on which we consulted, and reduces the severity of a number of important impacts for very little cost in capacity. The White Paper also supported the full utilisation of runway capacity at East Midlands airport, but said that any commercial development at other smaller airports in the region should be subject to local consideration and determination.

The White Paper recognises the specialist roles that Coventry airport performs in the west midlands—serving the business aviation, mail and freight sectors in particular. I know that its capability to handle small, just-in-time freight consignments is particularly valuable to the motor industry in the region, and that it has an important role as the international hub for Parcelforce operations. Coventry can continue to perform that role, subject to its existing constraints.

As a long-established commercial airport, Coventry does not require specific planning approval for the operation of a programme of scheduled flights such as that proposed by Thomsonfly. However, the planning position is less clear in respect of the terminal facilities that are required to serve those flights. I understand that services will initially use temporary facilities for the processing of passengers and their baggage, and that the airport operator considers that planning consent is not required for those arrangements, as it has permitted development rights under paragraph 18 of the general permitted development order. It is, in the first instance, for the local planning authority, Warwick district council, to consider whether it agrees with that view.

I notice that nothing has been said about the potential for major traffic problems, particularly round about Tollbar island. My hon. Friend the Member for Rugby and Kenilworth and I lobbied the Minister's predecessor because of the traffic problems on the island—safety and so forth. As a result, traffic lights were installed. There could be a major traffic problem for the island and the surrounding villages.

If my hon. Friend will indulge me, I shall return to the broad issue of capacity. Importantly, however, security officials from the Department for Transport will wish to be satisfied that the temporary facilities are fit for their intended purpose before operations can commence. They are currently discussing with the airport matters such as the effective segregation of passengers, the screening of passengers and baggage, and, as my hon. Friend the Member for Warwick and Leamington has suggested, perimeter security. Department officials will wish to meet again with both the airport and Thomsonfly, and to carry out further inspections to ensure effective compliance with legal requirements before services can commence—legal requirements above and beyond any unfolding planning processes.

Clearly, if the Thomsonfly operation is to grow to the proposed 2 million passengers per year, more substantial permanent terminal facilities will be required. The midlands consultation document, which the Department published in July 2002, looked at the potential of Coventry as an overspill airport to help accommodate demand should Birmingham remain a single-runway airport. The analysis indicated that if there were no constraints to capacity, Coventry could be capable of attracting between 6 million and 10 million passengers per year. However, that would generate large-scale impacts of land take, noise exposure and surface access difficulties, especially congestion on the A45 and the A46—matters of concern, as my hon. Friend suggested.

The consultation process highlighted the potential issue of airspace interaction between Coventry and Birmingham airports, and responses received showed little support for significant expansion of Coventry and significant opposition from both key stakeholders and local respondees. The White Paper therefore made it clear that, having regard to the potential constraints to the growth of Coventry—surface access, noise and airspace capacity—and the decision to support the expansion of Birmingham airport, the Government do not consider that the significant development of Coventry airport beyond the 2 million passengers per year capacity of the current application would be appropriate.

As my hon. Friend said. however, the current planning application was with Warwick district council while the Government were coming to their decisions on airport capacity. The White Paper is rightly silent on the current scheme, just as I can say nothing today on the merits of the application. That does not imply that the Government have a view either way on the application. It means that we believe it to be a matter for determination by Warwick district council as the local planning authority in the first instance.

My hon. Friend may be coming to this, but what concerns residents and Members is the way in which night flights have been introduced. I understand that other airports, such as Birmingham, do not have international night flights for passengers because of their consideration for the local population. Will my hon. Friend say what can be done to constrain night flights?

If this is not what prevails, I shall let my hon. Friends know, but I understand that Birmingham is designated by the Department for Transport and that a range of controls therefore come into play—unlike at Coventry and East Midlands airports. I am not anti-Nottingham when I persist in calling it East Midlands airport; it is a name known by everyone and we are still coming to terms with the new name.

As I said to my hon. Friend the Member for Warwick and Leamington, in the first instance, and rather like East Midlands airport, such matters as noise mitigation, night flights and the other elements that are of concern are to be determined locally. If we are not satisfied with what prevails locally as such airports expand, we reserve the right to designate controls as we see fit. Coventry is not yet in that position, and given the plans for some degree of expanded capacity, East Midlands may or may not be. However, a relatively successful local agreement is in place—it is not shared by all—for limited night flights, not least for freight which is clearly important. In the first instance, it is for Warwick district council to determine the application. I cannot comment on that, but should it require advice on technical issues such as possible airspace interactions, it will be for the council to seek advice from National Air Traffic Services Ltd. and the CAA's directorate of airspace policy.

Another technical issue raised by my hon. Friend is whether Coventry's instrument landing system is adequate for the Thomsonfly services. I understand from the Civil Aviation Authority that the airport is replacing its ILS, although the new equipment will still be classified as category 1. That is perfectly acceptable for normal airport operations and is the standard equipment at most of the country's regional airports. Indeed, I am told that fewer than a dozen airports in the UK have equipment of a higher category. The CAA's air traffic services standards section has responsibility for approving and checking ILS equipment used at UK airports.

I am aware that Coventry airport is also seeking to reduce the height of trees in the vicinity of the airport in order to comply with the CAA's obstacle clearance requirements. Concerns have been expressed about the ancient woodland at Willenhall wood. Should the airport operator be unable to reach agreement with the landowners concerned, they would need to apply to the Secretary of State for the grant of powers under section 46 of the Civil Aviation Act 1982 to control the height of the trees.

In conclusion, there are a number of important issues associated with the proposed expansion of operations at Coventry airport, and they will clearly be of great concern to the constituents of my hon. Friends who have participated in the debate. The timing of the proposals and the pressing planning application meant that we were unable to address those issues in the air transport White Paper. I have dealt with some of those issues today, but the responsibility for considering the planning aspects of the airport's growth currently lies with Warwick district council.

I understand what my hon. Friend says about the issue being for Warwick district council to consider. In a narrow sense that is correct, because there are planning issues that fall within the ambit of the council's authority. However, our concerns run wider than that. I do not think that Warwick district council is the right body to consider, say, air travel and the interaction among Coventry airport, Birmingham airport and East Midlands airport, which are in close proximity to one another. The council will consider only the narrow issues that arise over Coventry. We should ask what the right aviation strategy is, as opposed to whether the application meets the planning requirements. We need a different perspective, which I hope could come from my hon. Friend's Department.

In the first instance, due process must prevail with the planning application. That must take account not only of paragraph 9.31 of the White Paper, but of the wider strategic context of the White Paper, as my hon. Friend said.

I should like to make a rapid correction. I thought that I was on shaky ground earlier but went ahead anyway, as is my wont. Birmingham is not designated, although localised controls restrict night flights. I apologise if I inadvertently misled the Chamber.

In conclusion, and to relate as closely as possible to what my hon. Friend has just said, once Warwick district council has dispatched the planning application and I am free to talk more widely, I will happily discuss matters further with my hon. Friends the Members for Warwick and Leamington, for Coventry, South and for Rugby and Kenilworth—not least those matters that lie outside the immediate concerns of the application, but which I am not at liberty to discuss in more detail now. With that assurance and, I hope, due dispatch and alacrity from Warwick district council, we can discuss all the issues in the round way beyond the planning application.

The NHS audiology service is in crisis. Although the Government have decided that digital hearing aids should be available to all by April 2005, freely at the point of need, they are manifestly failing to deliver the means necessary to achieve that objective.

I make no apologies for illustrating the depth of the crisis by referring to the situation in Christchurch, east Dorset and Bournemouth. More than 7,000 people are waiting for a hearing aid assessment at the East Dorset audiology centre, which is run by the Bournemouth primary care trust. In the last period for which figures are available, between April 2003 and November 2003, the East Dorset audiology service carried out 177 hearing aid assessments a month and 150 hearing aid fittings a month. Unless something dramatic happens, those who join the waiting list for a hearing aid assessment now will have to wait well over three years before it is conducted. Even the waiting lists for those in greatest need—those aged over 90, those who have no hearing whatever and those who are war pensioners—is one year just for a hearing assessment. There is then a further period of around six months before hearing aids are fitted.

It will not surprise you, Mr. McWilliam, that the primary care trust does not publicise the fact that its current waiting time is between three and four years. It cites instead the length of time that a patient being assessed this week has had to wait. That is currently about 18 months, which is bad enough, but if a person joins the waiting list today their wait will be more than 39 months, unless something dramatic happens as a result of this debate.

I hope that the Minister will confirm that she believes, as does the primary care trust in Bournemouth, that waiting times are unreasonable and excessive. If she does not agree, can she explain the finding of the health service ombudsman in the complaint against Southampton University Hospitals NHS Trust that

"it is unacceptable for patients to wait two years for a hearing assessment."

She will be familiar with that case, which is cited in the latest summary of the ombudsman's cases. If it is unacceptable for a patient to wait two years for a hearing assessment, how much more unacceptable is it that they should have to wait more than three years? If she does agree that the current waiting times are unacceptable, I challenge her to tell us what the Government intend to do to address the crisis.

One of my frustrated constituents wrote to the Prime Minister about the situation on 22 May 2003. He received a response three months later from the Department of Health. expressing horror at his hearing problems and appreciating his concern at the length of time that he had had to wait for an audiology appointment. The Department of Health official said:

"Let me assure you that the Government shares your concerns about waiting times. Their vision is to provide patients with fast and convenient access to health care wherever they use the system…Thanks to the continued hard work of staff across the NHS, steady progress has already been made. Maximum waiting times have already been reduced to twenty one weeks for a first outpatient appointment".

That was totally misleading. The waiting time for audiology services locally is increasing, rather than decreasing, and is now seven or eight times the maximum referred to by that Department of Health official in the name of the Government.

Good hearing is fundamental to the quality of life. Elderly people in particular should not have to wait years to gain access to a service that is immediately available in most high streets, albeit at a price that for many is unaffordable. In audiology, as in so many other policy areas, there is a growing chasm between what the Government have promised and what is actually being delivered. One straightforward way of improving matters would be for the Government to pay for any NHS patient who has not received an out-patient hearing assessment within six months to have the service provided at NHS expense with a registered private practitioner.

In a written parliamentary question, I asked the Minister's colleague, the Under-Secretary of State for Health, the hon. Member for South Thanet (Dr. Ladyman), about the possibility of that happening, but he did not give me the courtesy of a straight answer. I hope that the Minister will remedy that situation today and will not fall back on the notion that a private sector partnership initiative, conducted by the Bournemouth primary care trust, is sufficient to deal with the backlog. In the past five months alone the backlog for Bournemouth has increased from about 5,000 to 7,000 cases, despite 300 patients benefiting from a private sector partnership. There are plans to provide a further 700 patients with treatment under a private sector arrangement next year, which I welcome, but that will make only a small dent in the backlog.

One of my constituents sent me a copy of the Royal National Institute for Deaf People leaflet for deaf and hard-of-hearing people entitled "A Good Audiology Service: What You Can Expect". Page 5 of that leaflet says that waiting times should not exceed the following:

"From date you are referred to your GP to date of first visit or assessment not more than four weeks. From assessment visit to first hearing and fitting appointment not more than four weeks."

I wrote to the chief executive of the RNID, Dr. John Low, about this. In his charming reply, he said:

"'A Good Audiology Service' outlines what audiology services should work towards, and what patients should be able to expect but does point out that not all services are able to deliver to this level at the current time."

On present trends, the East Dorset audiology service will never be able to meet the RNID aspiration—that is unless the RNID changes its aspiration from four weeks to four years.

I have attempted to ascertain whether the situation in my locality is unique or whether members of the public seeking access to NHS audiology services elsewhere in the country are experiencing similar delays. It appears, however, that the Government refuse to collect any statistics on the subject, despite having been advised most strongly so to do by the Audit Commission in its report "Fully Equipped" of March 2000.

On 5 January, the Minister's colleague, the Under-Secretary of State for Health, the hon. Member for South Thanet, assured me that

"all audiology departments in England will be fitting digital hearing aids routinely by April 2005."—[Official Report, 12 January 2004; Vol. 416, c. 593W.]

I then asked him if he would list those audiology departments that do not fit digital hearing aids routinely at present. On 26 January, he replied that the Department of Health does not hold centrally a list of audiology departments in England.

That is bizarre. The Minister's colleague purports to speak for all audiology departments, but when he is pressed he is unable even to list them. Will the Minister undertake to start collecting information about NHS audiology services so that she is able to back up policy assertions with facts?

I share the belief of the RNID that waiting times for audiology services suffer from not being part of the national standards for waiting times. Pressure is put on local health trusts to satisfy national standards for services other than audiology to the inevitable detriment of that service. It is well established that centrally imposed targets distort clinical priorities. Therefore, the target system should either be abandoned or it should embrace audiology. Does the Minister regard NHS audiology services as an issue of national, or only of local, importance?

On 20 January, in a written answer to a question of mine about audiology departments, the Minister's colleague said:

"It is for primary care trusts to plan these services in response to the needs of their local communities."2014;[Official Report, 20 January 2004; Vol. 416, c. 1105W.]

Is that the full extent of ministerial involvement?

It is estimated that 8.7 million people in the UK are deaf or hard of hearing. Currently, about 2.7 million of them have a hearing aid. The Medical Research Council has estimated that a further 3 million people would benefit from wearing one. If a national health service means anything, surely it should embrace a national plan for responding to the hearing needs of the people?

On 18 December, I asked the Minister's colleague to list, in respect of each primary care trust, the number of people waiting for a hearing assessment and the number waiting for more than six months. He responded:

"there are no targets for waiting times for audiology services".— [Official Report, 5 January 2004; Vol. 416, c. 175.]

However, he also felt confident enough to say that the Government are taking action to tackle the causes of longer waits. It is well known that if something cannot be measured, it cannot be controlled. The reality is that the waits are becoming significantly longer rather than shorter.

As with so many other taxpayer-funded services, the Government are quick to brag about the financial inputs but seem far less concerned about the outputs. What is unreasonable about my suggestion that all those waiting for more than six months should be able to elect the private sector option to be paid for by the NHS? What about my suggestion that the NHS should pay for those who obtain digital hearing aids on the continent? The RNID members' magazine includes glowing reports on how UK customers can have their digital hearing aids fitted to a very high standard in Denmark at a cost far lower than in a UK high street and at a time when they need them rather than three or four years later. There is much anecdotal evidence that people are organising trips to Denmark so that they can access audiology services, which should be available to them in this country and provided by the NHS.

On 6 February 2003, the then Secretary of State for Health, the right hon. Member for Darlington (Mr. Milburn), issued a press release entitled "Digital Hearing Aids available to all by April 2005". We may come to regard that headline as one of the most misleading ever issued. His words must have been calculated to fill a million hearts with hope. He raised expectations by saying:

"These digital hearing aids cost the NHS up to £75 per aid and will be free to all NHS patients. Similar products currently cost people purchasing privately around £2.000."

The RNID described the announcement as brilliant news and emphasised that digital hearing aids offer patients a 40 per cent. improvement in hearing and an improved quality of life.

Unless the Minister intervenes, digital hearing aids will only be available to my constituents by April 2005 if they applied in 2002. Does she think that that was what the then Secretary of State had in mind when he issued that press release on 6 February 2003? We must ensure that the reality is changed to match the rhetoric, otherwise the headline "Digital Hearing Aids available to all by April 2005" will remain a cruel deception and an indictment of this Government's integrity.

I congratulate the hon. Member for Christchurch (Mr. Chope) on securing today's debate. I know that he has shown a great deal of interest in this important topic, and the Government share that interest. We are investing £94 million in audiology services in this financial year and the financial year 2004–05, in addition to more than –30 million that has already been invested and that will help us to ensure that by March 2005—as he remarked—every audiology department in England will routinely fit digital hearing aids as part of a modernised audiology service.

The hon. Gentleman raised some important issues, and I hope to put them into the context of the situation in England. The progress on modernisation of hearing aid services is good news for everyone with hearing loss. That is something that will affect most of us as we grow older—if it has not already done so. I am pleased to be able to say that to date more than 140 NHS audiology services have been, or are in the process of being, modernised. Fewer than one third of the services in England still need to be modernised and we are on target to deliver fully modernised audiology services in the whole of England by March 2005. Therefore, I hope the hon. Gentleman will accept that we have a national interest in the matter. He questioned that earlier.

How is it that the Minister's Department does not have a list of all the audiology departments in the NHS?

I do not have the details of the answer to that question, but I can tell the hon. Gentleman that the arrangements on this matter are being rolled out through a contract with the RNID, as he knows. We are working with it closely.

Modernisation of hearing aid services is an NHS success story—both for services and for patients, who are getting a better service. Let us not forget that providing an aid is not a simple process. The hon. Gentleman did not talk much about that process, but I think it is worth while bearing it in mind. A first visit in that process involves the following: a hearing test; talking to the person about hearing in everyday situations to help to decide on the appropriate aid; taking a mould of the ear; and discussing attitudes to using an aid. Later, there is a visit for fitting the aid and a further one to check that all is well and to provide training, if necessary, in the use of the aid.

In some respects modernisation makes services a victim of their own success. In areas where digital aids are already available, an increase in demand has often been noted. That, together with the increased time that it takes to assess for arid to train in the use of digital aids, puts pressure on the waiting times. As I have outlined, this is not just about giving a patient a digital hearing aid and hoping for the best. The audiologist needs to spend more time with the patient to ensure that the aid is fitted and programmed properly to meet that particular patient's needs. Therefore, we have been considering ways to increase the capacity in audiology services. I should like to talk about two of those.

The first is the "Hearing Direct" pilot, a partnership with the high street suppliers, Ultravox and Ormerod. "Hearing Direct" is a way to reduce waiting times in and pressure on audiology departments. It is being piloted at four sites throughout the country—in Chester, Exeter, Leicester and Cambridge. Under that scheme, people can use a telephone information line that gives details of local services. Patients receive a telephone call eight to 12 weeks after the fitting to assess their progress and decide whether they need another visit to the audiologist.

The national framework agreement awarded to David Ormerod hearing centres and Ultravox Holdings plc in October 2003 enables them to provide a service as an extension of the modernised NHS service. I emphasise the fact that the NHS remains responsible for the patient's care. So far that agreement involves sites in Shrewsbury, Leeds, Bradford, Bath, east Cheshire and Bournemouth. That partnership is being rolled out nationally and all modernised sites have been invited to apply for funding to implement it.

In terms of capacity, it is important that we recognise that not everyone in England is yet able to access a modernised service and there are, in certain places, pressures on services. Those pressures can best be reduced by capacity-building initiatives, such as those that I have already mentioned. In the longer term, we are addressing the recognised shortage of audiologists by establishing new degree courses.

Perhaps I should now deal with the hon. Gentleman's constituency. Waiting times for hearing aids in East Dorset have historically been longer than anyone would wish, but steps are in place to reduce them. East Dorset was the recipient of one of the second wave modernising hearing aid services in 2002–03. It has been involved in the extended learning pilot of the partnership agreement to provide NHS hearing aid services through a high street hearing aid company with an outlet in Bournemouth. Some 300 patients in East Dorset are currently being seen as part of the extended pilot. We expect a further 700 patients to be seen by March this year.

I anticipate that if a service supplying analogue aids to a small number of patients via a GP's surgery wishes to be able to prescribe digital aids, that would be a matter for the surgery and the local primary care trust. There are principles that I would expect the primary care trust to apply when considering whether to support such a development, including whether the service meets the same standards as the mainstream NHS audiology services, whether it unfairly advantages some patients over others, and whether it provides value for money.

The situation in Bournemouth is causing concern, particularly for the hon. Gentleman. I was interested in his remarks on measuring and controlling things. On the one hand he seemed to say that targets are a good idea, but on the other he suggested that we should not have them, and that we are always being told that we have too many targets. However, I think I heard him suggest another target.

I drew to the Minister's attention a specific recommendation from the Audit Commission in 2000 that her Department should collect data to inform itself about the state of audiology services. It is obvious from her weak response to the debate that she has manifestly failed to do that.

The hon. Gentleman's remarks lead me nicely into my second point on targets. The hon. Gentleman will, on other occasions, say that there is too much bureaucracy and too many demands on people to fill in forms. The only way in which information can be collated is if it is collected locally and sent to the centre. The hon. Gentleman and his party spend much time grossly exaggerating the number of administrators in the NHS, while taking us to task for so-called bureaucracy and administration costs. However, he is again proposing another area in which we have more administration.

The Bournemouth teaching primary care trust is concerned about the unacceptably long waiting times for audiology and is preparing an action plan to reduce those, which will include the following measures: it will ensure that guidelines are serving the modern hearing aid services appropriately and making good sense in their application; it will consider ways to minimise the patient journey time for experienced users in discussion with staff and users; it will continue with its existing programme of overtime working; and it will consider pursuing further the use of public-private partnership initiative action to address the shortfalls in the area.

As I said, there is a history of problems. If we consider the overall success nationally, I remind the hon. Gentleman that more than 140 sites and more than two thirds of NHS audiology departments in England have already been modernised or are in the process of being modernised. That is in distinct contrast to four years ago, when the NHS used 1970s technology to fit analogue hearing aids, many of which remained unused. The Department of Health had to intervene to help trusts bring audiology services up to date, which is another clear indication that we accept our national responsibilities while making it very clear through the shifting of the balance of power programme that the responsibilities for delivery at local level lie with local commissioners and local deliverers—namely, the PCTs and those who actually deliver the services.

Is the Minister saying she does not believe that she can do anything to reduce the waiting times? I have already told her that patients will have to wait for between three and four years if they apply today for an assessment.

It is clear that the Department monitors the performance of commissioners and providers in the NHS through the strategic health authorities. At SHA level and at the level of commissioners, as I have outlined, action is already being taken to address the shortfalls in the hon. Gentleman's constituency and related areas. The action plan to reduce waiting times, which I outlined a moment ago, is being drawn up on that basis.

We have put measures in place to modernise hearing aid services. By March 2005, every audiology department in England will provide the modernised services. To make that possible, the Government have provided central funding for new equipment and to train staff to use it. As I said, training patients to use the new aids incurs additional time costs. We hope that PCTs throughout the country will continue to commission and provide the excellent service that we know is possible.

It is worth briefly mentioning the price of hearing aids. The hon. Gentleman referred to the then Secretary of State's press notice when the digital hearing service was announced. We have driven a hard bargain to reduce significantly the price of digital hearing aids, so that they are now available to the NHS at highly competitive prices. I am sure that the hon. Gentleman will accept that in the light of the comparison that he mentioned. Those prices helped us to make it possible to spread the benefits of the hearing aids much more widely and quickly. They will also make it easier for PCTs to fund them after March 2005. After that time, I would not expect anyone to receive an analogue hearing aid, except for clinical reasons. It might be worth mentioning that some people hear better with analogue aids than with digital ones. As the hon. Gentleman remarked, it is true that the aids are provided free of charge to patients.

I mentioned the collaboration with the RNID to modernise the services. Through that collaboration, the Department of Health learned many valuable lessons about working with the voluntary sector. It also showed the Department of Health and other Departments a way of finding solutions to other difficult problems. When we set out to modernise audiology, the RNID might have called itself one of our fiercest critics, yet the project has shown that even our critics can help us to improve the things that we do and to move towards providing services that are much more responsive to the needs of consumers.

I am grateful to the Minister, who has been very generous in giving way. I kept my remarks short partly so that we could have this exchange.

Would the Minister be willing to receive a deputation from the East Dorset audiology centre in my constituency? This is almost a dialogue of the deaf. I keep asking what we are going to do about people who are waiting for between three and four years, and the Minister keeps coming out with a whole load of statistics that have no bearing on the plight of my constituents who are eager to get access to these services. We are talking not only about people who need a hearing aid, but about people who suffer from tinnitus, for example, which is a very disabling condition, as the Minister will know. Would she be willing to experience through a deputation exactly what it is like in east Dorset, and to discuss with local people how the Government and East Dorset might work together to try to achieve a solution that is in the interests of everybody living in the area? Would she also accept that the criticisms that I have voiced are not mine alone? They are shared by the RNID, which is as frustrated as I am on behalf of my constituents. We all want progress.

It is not for me to suggest to the hon. Gentleman how he might work with his local services. However, if it were my constituency, I would first address the issues with the primary care trust, looking in detail at its action plan and meeting members of senior management to talk about the issues with them and with users. He might want to pursue that locally. The Under-Secretary of State for Health, my hon. Friend the. Member for South Thanet (Dr. Ladyman), has the most direct responsibility for the service. Local issues can only be addressed locally. Given that the majority of funding is now with the PCTs and that extra money is being rolled out through the modernisation programme to support the development of digital hearing aid services, it is not for us to dictate the detail or to direct how the expenditure is deployed.

In that case, will the hon. Lady give some advice in her position as a Minister, albeit not the Minister with responsibility for audiology? Will she publicly advise all the PCTs that have waiting lists in excess of 18 months that that is totally unacceptable, and tell them that something must be done to reduce them to a reasonable level?

We can consider the matter of PCTs with longer waiting lists, but there might be reasons for their being in that position—they might have started from a low base, as was the situation in Dorset, with long waits the norm. There is also the time it will take and the training that personnel will inevitably require in order to implement new services. If the hon. Gentleman has explored all the options locally and believes that there is a role for the Department, I am sure that my colleague will consider carefully any request that he might make for a meeting on such a topic. It is important to recognise that we are not in a position to direct individual PCTs with devolved funding and devolved responsibilities on how best to run their services. Investigating problems locally is the most fruitful way forward—PCTs have both the money and the expertise to decide what to do.

In conclusion, audiology services in the NHS are a success story. We have improved services beyond recognition since the first pilots of digital hearing aids in 20 locations in September 2001. We have initiated degree courses to train new audiologists, we have brought down dramatically the prices of digital hearing aids and we have engaged with the voluntary sector, manufacturers and high street providers. The modernised services that are in place in most of England, and that will cover all of it by March 2005, are good news for everybody with hearing problems. As we get older, it will be good news for all of us.