I beg to move, That the Bill be now read the Third time.

I have a great many people to thank for their involvement in the journey of this Bill. I also wish to place on public record the huge interest that it has generated from all quarters: employers, such as British Gas, BT and Listawood; lifelong learning and educational establishments, such as the adult learners' body—the National Institute of Adult Continuing Education—the Open University, the Guidance Council and the National Extension college; equality bodies, such as the Disability Rights Commission in Wales and the Equal Opportunities Commission; hundreds of carers' organisations; union bodies, such as the TUC and the Iron and Steel Trades Confederation; the Local Government Association and the Welsh Local Government Association; and, of course, carers themselves. I want to pay tribute to all those groups, and will do so, but I am also keen for the debate to progress swiftly. I shall try to keep my comments to a minimum, but wish to single out some individuals and organisations for extra thanks.

We would not have got this far had my parliamentary colleagues from all parties not supported the Bill through its Second Reading, in Committee and, of course, today. I single out those in the official Opposition—the hon. Members for Wycombe (Mr. Goodman), for Tiverton and Honiton (Mrs. Browning) and for Banbury (Tony Baldry)—and also the hon. Members for Sutton and Cheam (Mr. Burstow), for Caernarfon (Hywel Williams) and for East Antrim (Mr. Beggs) for their warm support and, above all, their insight into the needs of carers.

I have received a number of very positive comments about their contributions and the contributions of all political parties to the debate. All their comments have been noted by organisations and individuals outside the House. Support has also come from the other place, where Lord Ashley, Baroness Pitkeathley and Lord Rix have all offered invaluable advice and experience.

To say that the passage of the Bill has been of great interest to local carers' organisations would be an understatement. To date, I have received a stunning number of very warm and enthusiastic messages of support from local and national organisations, more than 300 of which have indicated their support. They represent tens of thousands of employees and more than 200,000 carers throughout England and Wales. I have been truly amazed by the real excitement generated by the Bill; it seems to have brought new ideas and partnerships bubbling to the surface.

I pay a special tribute to the Under-Secretary of State for Health, my hon. Friend the Member for South Thanet (Dr. Ladyman), for his involvement. The fact that we have been able to amend the Bill to suit our shared goals for carers and to forge forward with it can be attributed to his knowledge and understanding of carers' issues, and I am sure that carers throughout England and Wales will acknowledge that.

The Government's support has been very welcome. Jane Hutt, the Minister for Health and Social Services in the Welsh Assembly, has been extremely supportive, virtually since day one, and I thank her for that, too. It would also be remiss of me not to mention the excellent work that officials have put into the Bill to make it work, both in Whitehall and Cardiff bay.

Above all, I thank the carers and carers' organisations in my constituency. They have provided the best insight of all—personal experience of caring—to help me on my journey with the Bill. I should also mention the help and advice that I have received from my local authority, Neath Port Talbot county borough council, and the Neath Port Talbot local health board. I could not complete this roll call of thanks without mentioning the constant support of Carers Wales and Carers UK, which have provided invaluable advice, professionalism and encouragement throughout the Bill's journey.

As we discussed previously, the Bill is remarkable in that it draws on the best policy from Scotland and Northern Ireland—the duty to inform carers of their rights—which we now hope to introduce for carers in England and Wales. The Scottish Executive, too, were able to share with us their valuable experience of similar legislation, welcomed by carers in Scotland, and to confirm that it had not increased costs.

The Association of Directors of Social Services has been supportive from very early on, and has stated on many occasions that it sees the Bill as a positive step forward. It has acknowledged that many of the Bill's provisions are already carried out by good authorities with good business and moral sense in many parts of the country.

We all know that it does not make economic sense not to support carers, when they save the state a staggering £57 billion a year. Many have had to give up work, when they might have been able to remain in employment with a little more information, foresight and creativity on the part of support services. The Bill will help with that by placing a duty on local authorities to consider work, education and leisure in the assessment, and to tell carers about their rights. There could be considerable savings for the Exchequer through the reduction of benefit costs, an increase in tax and national insurance receipts and improvements in the health and well-being of all carers.

The Bill's provisions are relatively modest. They will improve information for carers about their rights and will enhance the choices open to them through work, education and leisure. For individuals, the personal impact of the Bill could be huge. It aims to change the culture to acknowledge that carers have a right to information so that they can make choices about their lives, and a right to "have a life", as one carer put it, beyond their caring responsibilities.

The Bill will not mean that carers will no longer care. All the research points towards the fact that carers wish to care and to continue to care, and all the carers to whom I have spoken have agreed with that. The Bill is about encouraging more creative support and finding solutions for carers and will give local authorities the power to draw in the help of housing, education, health and other local bodies in the pursuit of those laudable goals.

The Bill is a sensible step forward in building a better future in England and Wales. Most of us will experience a period of caring at some point in our lives. With the demographic changes that we can expect during the coming decades, it makes sense to have this kind of legislative basis on which we can build support for the future.

The Bill's journey started many years ago, when Mair and I had a young son called Sam with Down's syndrome, who died seven years ago this month. He had an important impact on our lives then and, with this Bill, he continues to do so. I hope that Sam's Bill will be a legacy to many families in the future.

I want to end today with the words of a carer from my constituency, Lynn Coleman. When we started on this journey at the Bill's parliamentary launch, she said:

"Carers and their families are not making great demands. They just want an ordinary life outside of their caring role, something which is often taken for granted by many people. The people we care for, be they children, very young or older adults, they are special to us, but we still want the opportunity to have a life besides caring. With more information, appropriate specific childcare facilities, opportunities to work, lifelong learning and leisure",

carers' lives

"could be dramatically improved. This fulfilment would then mean that a carer can return to their caring role refreshed and ready to continue."

I look forward to the day when we can say that we have achieved that for carers.

I commend the Bill to the House. I hope that it passes quickly to the other place and is subsequently put on the statute book as swiftly as possible.

It is a great pleasure to follow the hon. Member for Aberavon (Dr. Francis), and I want to begin by again expressing the support for the Bill that the official Opposition offered on Second Reading, during the money resolution debate and in Committee. We congratulate the hon. Gentleman on introducing the and we acknowledge his great interest in and personal expertise on the needs of carers. We congratulate his Bill team, and I make a special point of mentioning one member of that team, my hon. Friend the Member for Banbury (Tony Baldry), who, unfortunately, cannot be present today.

We pay tribute to the work done by Carers UK, whose expertise has informed the Bill, and by carers' organisations everywhere. I pay particular tribute, as I did on Second Reading, to the work done in my constituency by the South Bucks Carers Association, which does so much to help local carers. As I have made clear, the official Opposition support the Bill, and I have been travelling with the hon. Member for Aberavon on the journey that he has just described.

If hon. Members present examine the Bill that we considered on Second Reading on 6 February, which they no doubt have with them today, and compare it with the Bill that we are considering today, which they no doubt also have with them, they will see that there have been wide—ranging changes. During the Committee stage, the Minister, as he hinted on Second Reading he would do, persuaded the Committee to demolish many of the foundations of the original Bill.

Clause 3 of the original Bill, "Duty to Inform", has been replaced by clause 1 of the Bill before us today, "Duty to Inform Carers of The Right to Assessment", and is, in my view, the new foundation stone of the Bill. Clause 1 of the original Bill, "Equal Opportunities for Carers", has been replaced by clause 2 of the new Bill, the perhaps less ambitiously titled "Assessment of Carers". Clause 4 of the original Bill, on co-operation between authorities, has been replaced by clause 3 of the Bill before us, also entitled "Co-operation between Authorities". Clause 2 of the original Bill, "Planning for Provision of Information for Carers" has not been replaced. Its main intention was to place a duty on local authorities, in co-operation with national health service bodies, to ensure that in the community strategies that they prepared under section 4 of the Local Government Act 2000, specific provision was made for informing relevant carers of the services that the local authority provided that were likely to promote carers' health and well-being.

All that represents major demolition and reconstruction work on the Bill by the Minister. The House might be tempted to believe that that work was unnecessary, but the Minister made it clear in Committee that he believed that it was necessary because it was important for the Bill to be consistent with, and to relate to, previous legislation that especially affects carers, such as the Carers (Recognition and Services) Act 1995 and the Carers and Disabled Children Act 2000. It is certainly the case that, as a result of that work and those changes, the Bill before us today places less stress on equal opportunities for carers than the Bill that we had before us on Second Reading. None the less, we believe that the Minister has honoured the pledge that he made on Second Reading to improve the Bill with a view to ensuring that it is placed on the statute book. The help that he has given to the Bill should, as the hon. Member for Aberavon said, be recognised by the House.

The Bill's main merit is the duty that it will place on local authorities to inform carers their right to an assessment. That will surely be of real benefit to carers. The main theme that emerged on Second Reading, as hon. Members who were present then will remember, was the complex and diverse needs of carers. Indeed, as many hon. Members said on that occasion, many carers do not recognise themselves as carers, or do not want to be referred to or labelled as carers. They do not see themselves as fulfilling a social function, but as caring for people whom they love, or to whom they have a commitment.

The total number of carers is rising. At one end of the life cycle, lifespans are increasing, and as people live longer, they are increasingly prone to disability. Most of us, if we live long enough, will probably acquire a disability sooner or later. At the other end of the life cycle, more children with disabilities are surviving for longer. Families, for a complex series of reasons, are smaller and more fragile than they once were. It is no wonder, then, that according to Carers UK, 7 million people in the UK look after someone who is frail, sick or has a disability. That is roughly 10 per cent. of the population. More than 300,000 people become carers every year, and three out of five people will become carers during their lifetime.

All this throws an immense burden on carers, the larger number of whom are women—and older women at that. They might give up working in the labour market because they feel that they have no choice but to do so, and later they might lack the skills or the confidence to re-enter it either when they want to or when they feel that they have no choice but to do so. If they do work in the labour market, they might feel that their employer does not understand their needs. They might feel bewildered about where to go for advice and help when a child with a disability is born or when a loved one becomes ill and frail. They might also feel bewildered about how to deal with interlocking and multi-faceted problems, such as the special needs that their children have in schools, and hospital discharges, and everyday problems with transport, which can be particularly onerous. They might feel, in particular, that they need respite help, because even the most dedicated carer, faced with the prospect of caring full-time for another person, is bound to feel in need of a break from time to time. That point has often been made to me by carers in my constituency.

It is no wonder that, according to the report "Missed Opportunities", published by Carers UK, 55 per cent. of carers reported significant health problems, and 43 per cent. reported that they had sought medical treatment for depression, stress or anxiety since becoming a carer. Above all, carers may well not know of their rights under the law. According to "Missed Opportunities", only 32 per cent. of carers have been assessed by social services. Of those, 57 per cent. did not receive any extra support, and nearly 50 per cent. of carers had not been informed that they had the right to an assessment. The main virtue of the Bill is that it will place a duty on local authorities to inform carers of their right to an assessment. It will also ensure, rather more sensitively than measures that are currently in place, that the wishes and needs of carers are carefully considered.

I want to end with a tribute to the hon. Member for Aberavon. I have enjoyed what I think has been a co-operative relationship with him during the progress of the Bill. He has steered it deftly towards the statute book, and I hope that he is about to join a small and select group of Members of this House. It is a group of which I am not a member, and of which very few of those present today are members. It is, of course, the group of those who will be able to leave the House—in whatever circumstances they may do so—having introduced a piece of legislation as a private Member that ends up on the statute book. That is, in principle, no mean achievement, and it is one to which I believe most Members of this House aspire.

No!

I did say "most Members".

I hope that it is not premature to congratulate the hon. Member for Aberavon on joining that small and select group and on ensuring that Sam's Bill will indeed become Sam's Act.

It is a privilege to follow the hon. Member for Wycombe (Mr. Goodman) and to hear that the official Opposition have given their support to the Bill. We are grateful to them, to the Liberal Democrats and the Ulster Unionists, and to all those who have supported it. It has been a privilege for me to be a member of the Standing Committee and to assist my hon. Friend the Member for Aberavon (Dr. Francis) in a small way. I have said to representatives of Carers UK that, if ever I came top of the ballot for private Members' Bills, I would have gone and had a cup of tea with them to see what kind of Bill we might be able to introduce. I once introduced a ten-minute Bill. It is very difficult to convince our constituents that ten-minute Bills are not really Bills and that they often do not last more than 10 minutes. However, that Bill was on giving carers the right to respite care, and it was, fortunately, incorporated into the Carers and Disabled Children Bill, which was introduced by the former Member, Tom Pendry.

A gentleman came to my constituency surgery last Friday to ask me a question about the implications for him and his mother, should she need to go into full-time care. His name is Mr. Malcolm Jones, and he is from Croesyceiliog. He has cared for his mother for 20 years, and she is now over 100. He had previously been self-employed, but he told me that he had recently been employed again. The Bill will not directly affect him, but it will affect people in similar circumstances in the future, in that it will give them more flexibility to return to the labour market, or to remain in it, while they carry out their caring responsibilities. I am sure that we were all very grateful for the Prime Minister's recent announcement about helping carers in employment.

Mr. Malcolm Jones was not aware of this Bill, but I was able to assure him that I would mention him today. I am not too sure that he belongs to a carers' organisation, or that he sees himself in the defined role of a carer. He is simply fulfilling a duty to look after his mother, which he has fulfilled for 20 years. She is still well, but might need to go into full-time care in the future. The Bill is aimed at people such as Mr. Jones, who often do not see themselves as having a defined role as a carer.

The carers in my constituency are probably the most sceptical people I have ever come across. They never quite believe that politicians will deliver improved services for people such as them. I find, however, that that scepticism is now diminishing. As a result of the national carers strategy, the legislation that we introduced a few years ago, and now this Bill, there is a wider recognition that Parliament is passing legislation in the interests of carers. There are 9,000 carers in my constituency, and I understand that several hundred assessments have taken place under the current legislation.

The Bill will help to inform those carers of their right to be assessed, and it will assist them in the roles that they perform outside their direct caring responsibilities. I urge my hon. Friends to ensure that we get as much publicity as possible for the Bill. This has been a great small achievement in the legislative process, and it has been a privilege for me to be associated with it.

It is a pleasure to be associated with the Bill and I congratulate the hon. Member for Aberavon (Dr. Francis) on his initiative in introducing it. It has the support of all my colleagues in the Ulster Unionist party.

It is only right and proper that carers have access to information to help inform their life choices. The Bill will bring to England and Wales some of the rights that carers in Northern Ireland have already achieved through the Carers and Direct Payments Act (Northern Ireland) 2002 and through section 75 of the Northern Ireland Act 1998. One of the most important effects of that legislation is that public bodies have had to talk to carers and to educate themselves about the needs of carers. The level of awareness and sensitivity about carers' issues has therefore increased across a whole range of public bodies, and helped to remove barriers to carers' participation.

Public authorities, when developing policies, must promote equality of opportunity for persons with dependants. At the moment, there are still many carers who cannot access vital information on benefits, services and other opportunities because of the isolation that can come with the caring role. Research consistently shows that information is the No. 1 need for carers. Too many carers still struggle for years before they find out that there are organisations out there that could help them to cope. Too many pensioner full-time carers on low incomes are having to pay from their pension savings for respite care for a spouse or other family dependant in order to restore their own strength to enable them to continue to care. We must never underestimate the need for carers to have and maintain their own health, emotional well-being and independence.

Health, social services and other public authorities have a responsibility to reach out to all the hidden carers in their area. It is unreasonable to ask carers to book two weeks' respite care a year ahead—as a pensioner in Northern Ireland told me recently she had been asked to do—to facilitate the allocation of limited public funding. That funding must be increased to match the needs in this aspect of care in the community. Carers have an equal right to full opportunities in education, training, employment and leisure. Carers of working age who stop caring are potential employees who can participate in lifelong learning and will gain new skills that will maintain the economic viability of our work force. The sacrifice of carers must be recognised and they deserve every support to rebuild their careers after caring.

The last word from me goes to Emma McDowell, a carer from Belfast who wrote to Carers Northern Ireland in support of the Bill. She said:

"'Care in the community' would be impossible without their commitment to the care in the family first and foremost. But carers also need a life beyond their immediate caring responsibilities—their mental and physical wellbeing, their educational opportunities, their rights to full information MUST remain high on the agenda for local authorities to consider."

When enacted, the Bill will help to improve life for both carers and the cared for and I fully support it.

It is a pleasure to follow the hon. Member for East Antrim (Mr. Beggs), who I am sure will not mind if, today, I recall the excellent work of his hon. Friend the Member for Belfast, South (Rev. Martin Smyth) over a long period—a contribution that is much appreciated.

My hon. Friend the Member for Monmouth (Mr. Edwards) was of considerable as assistance to me this morning, because he reminded me of a very grave omission on my part. When I was fortunate enough to be called on Second Reading, I failed to refer to Tom Pendry. I should like to put that straight today, partly by explaining that, in common with others, I have always associated Lord Pendry with his marvellous contribution to tourism. I had momentarily forgotten that he had other strings to his bow. We are building on his Act and I am happy to acknowledge that.

Today belongs to my hon. Friend the Member for Aberavon (Dr. Francis). His choice of Bill was excellent and he has steered it through its various stages with considerable skill, perspicacity and, above all, commitment. It says a great deal for him that he has done so with the absolute support of all parties on both sides of the House.

This is an extremely meaningful Bill and I was pleased that my hon. Friend the Member for Aberavon mentioned the Scottish Executive in his speech. Although the Bill will not apply to Scotland, there is considerable interest in its contents and there is considerable compatibility in what we seek to achieve. We can also learn from each other I do not wish to be offensive to any hon. Member, but have no shame this morning—as a member of the United Kingdom Parliament—in voting at an early hour on this issue and in exercising my duties to comment and, if necessary, to vote on UK issues. If it means that carers in England and Wales find that we are acknowledging, as the Bill does, the difficulties and needs that they experience day after day, every elected Member of this House has the responsibility to play his or her part in that, and I am glad to be playing mine.

The main aspect of the Bill is to bestow a duty to inform carers of their rights. Only this week, my hon. Friend the Minister with responsibilities for disability, the Under-Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, the Member for Liverpool, Garston (Maria Eagle), honoured a commitment that she gave a couple of weeks ago during an Adjournment debase that I initiated on laryngectomy to come up to my constituency and meet the Lanarkshire Laryngectomy Association. She did that yesterday. I welcome that visit and my hon. Friend the Under-Secretary will agree that among the very important points that were made were points that were relevant to this Bill and to carers.

The fact is that many people will find themselves—sadly, as a result of road accidents, strokes or other things that cannot be predicted—becoming carers in their households. It is absolutely right that we as a Parliament should acknowledge our responsibility to them. I am delighted to be here this morning in support of my hon. Friend the Member for Aberavon.

Before I conclude—I am anxious to do so—I want to congratulate the Government. They deserve to be told that they have an extremely good record on disability awareness. That is not simply their important decision to introduce the Disability Rights Commission, a decision that in earlier days was resisted strongly. They ought to be congratulated also on the work they have done since then, including supporting extremely important Bills such as this one. My hon. Friend the Member for Aberavon would not thank me for being controversial, but it was not all that long ago that, on Friday morning after Friday morning, similar Bills were talked out, one after the other, before this Government came to office.

I warmly congratulate my hon. Friend the Minister on his contribution and welcome the disability awareness on the part of the Government and, in particular, the role of carers as the Government see it. We have achieved a great deal; the Bill helps considerably and we have much more to do.

I conclude by returning to my hon. Friend the Member for Aberavon. I did not volunteer for it but I think that I am a member of the club to which the hon. Member for Wycombe (Mr. Goodman) referred; I was fortunate enough, with enormous support, to get an Act through in 1986. In congratulating my hon. Friend the Member for Aberavon, I give him a piece of cautionary advice, if I might be so brash. In due course, if Her Majesty gives the Bill the Royal Assent, the Carers (Equal Opportunities) Bill will be for ever known as the Hywel Francis Bill—something we all welcome. He should be proud of what he has achieved. From then, he will go on to do what I am still doing: to campaign for the full implementation of every part of the Bill. In that spirit, I am delighted to congratulate my hon. Friend.

It is a pleasure to follow the right hon. Member for Coatbridge and Chryston (Mr. Clarke). I commend and appreciate the work that he has done for and on behalf of disabled people, carers and others over a long period. We should reflect on what the right hon. Gentleman said about his experience of Fridays in this House in previous years, and how Bills designed to advance the rights of disabled people did not make their way on to the statute book. I have a particular interest in that as an issue, both because of my involvement with my local authority in campaigning for disabled people and because the Member who served before me was a key Member in ensuring that such Bills did not make it to the statute book.

I congratulate the hon. Member for Aberavon (Dr. Francis), as others have done, on choosing the Bill. When a private Member's Bill comes sufficiently high in the ballot there is a real possibility of it becoming law, so to choose to take this measure through the House was very important. I congratulate the hon. Gentleman also on his navigation of the Bill through its various stages and the discussions that have taken place between him, officials and the Minister, whom I also thank. Those deliberations led to the Bill that has emerged from Committee, which we are considering today.

I am responding as the Front-Bench Liberal Democrat spokesman, but I also have the pleasure of being one of the Bill's sponsors. As mentioned on Second Reading and elsewhere, we want the Bill to become an Act and we want the Act to be implemented in practice on the ground. It is important that the spirit and purpose of the legislation be made real on the ground. The key point is to ensure that people are aware of their right to have an assessment as a carer and, as a consequence of that assessment, to have the opportunity of access to services that will help them fulfil their full potential—not just as carers, but as individuals, citizens of our country who are able to enjoy leisure, participate in work and many other things besides.

During the Bill's passage, we have looked back to the legislation on which it is building. There was the Carers (Recognition and Services) Act 1995 and the Carers and Disabled Children Act 2000. I want to repeat what I said in Committee and ask the Minister to consider it in the future. There must be a point during the passage of a whole series of private Members' Bills that make their way successfully on to the statute book where the Government look at the different pieces of legislation and ask whether there are gaps and whether there is a need to consolidate and codify—in this case, legislation for carers. The Government have taken the opportunity to do so, at least in part, through their amendments to the Bill, but I believe that there is a need for a wider review in the not too distant future.

In debating the initial clause 1, the Minister effectively argued in favour of the need for such an examination. His argument was that private Members' Bills could not bear the weight of enabling us to put on the statute book a full right to equal opportunity. Consequently, that provision was taken out of the Bill, and I understand that it will now be dealt with through directions and guidance at a later stage. It is a pity that the provision could not be built into the Bill. Given that the Government said that a private Member's Bill was not the right vehicle, I hope that we will at some point see more comprehensive carers' legislation that will make the worthy goal a reality.

The Bill is important. It is important for people to exercise their rights as carers and their rights to information. As we have already heard, last year's Carers UK report, "Missed Opportunities" pointed out that half of carers had not been told of their right to an assessment. The Bill must put that right. It must ensure that people are aware of their right to an assessment and have the opportunity to have it. Placing a duty on local authorities, as the Bill will, is such an important step forward.

Carers are the backbone of this country's care system. Without them, the NHS and our social services departments would not be able to cope. We have heard the figures already today, but the 2001 census estimated that there were about 5.9 million carers in this country. The Institute of Actuaries estimated, as the hon. Member for Aberavon said, that carers save our taxpayers £57 billion a year. I was most struck, in examining the figures again, by the work of the Office for National Statistics, which found that many carers do more than 50 hours a week of care and that those carers are twice as likely to become permanently sick and disabled and twice as likely to describe themselves as in poor health.

The hon. Member for Wycombe (Mr. Goodman) spoke about the life cycle of carers from young to old. There are 9,000 children in this country between the age of five and 15 who provide more than 50 hours of care a week. There are 382,000 carers over the age of 65, of whom 44,000 are over 85. The Bill speaks to those people and to their health and well-being. I hope that it will make a difference for them. That is why clause 3 and the proposed directions to primary care trusts are a useful addition. They provide an opportunity for PCTs to reflect on and change the way in which they plan, commission and deliver services, and to keep carers at the heart of their thinking

I was struck by the fact that because this is a private Member's Bill, it is always believed to be important to concentrate the work within one Department. The difficulty of negotiating across Departments perhaps prevents the Bill from encompassing more. We have not, for example, been able to deal with some of the issues for which the Office of the Deputy Prime Minister has responsibility, which I regret. Nevertheless, the Bill will make a profound difference to the lives of carers. As the Bill becomes an Act and begins to be implemented, we might see the work of the health care commission and the social care commission including a specific examination of how the lot of carers is being improved.

On Second Reading, several hon. Members referred to overlapping benefit rules, which stop carers in receipt of state pensions receiving carers allowance. Since that debate, I have received many letters from elderly carers who felt insulted by that rule. It is rather like the hospital downrating rules. The Government—to be perfectly honest, not only the present Government—argued that people cannot have two benefits that are intended for the same purpose—in this case, to improve a person's income. The Government say that that is how it has always been done, but I feel that such arguments are among the weakest over deployed against change. The Government have changed policy on hospital downrating, and benefits are not cut when someone is in hospital. Surely it is time for a similar review of the rules that prevent someone over 65 and in receipt of a basic pension from receiving carers allowance. It should be paid to such people.

As a constituency Member, I am fortunate to have a carers' centre and an active carers' forum in my constituency. They keep me on my toes and keep me informed. I had the opportunity over the last seven years of shadowing carers in my constituency during carers week. That provides a flavour, but unless one has been a carer it is impossible to fully understand what it means.

There are 16,000 carers in my constituency and the borough of Sutton, only 3,000 of whom are identified at the moment. We have a lot more to do if we are to reach out, find and serve the needs of carers. The Bill is another milestone in a long journey, which is all about ensuring that carers are not just treated as carers, but have the fullest opportunities to lead full and rewarding lives.

Over the past seven years, the Government have committed themselves to supporting carers—not just those who undertake the role full time, but those who, as well as caring, wish to work or engage in the activities that other people enjoy. I am delighted to have the opportunity today to add my support—and that of the Government—to the Bill. In introducing it, my hon. Friend the Member for Aberavon (Dr. Francis) has reinforced the importance of recognising caring and has done carers everywhere a great service. His guidance of the Bill through its various stages has been exemplary: he and his constituents can be proud of what he has done in bringing it before the House.

I also want to acknowledge the contribution of others. The hon. Member for Wycombe (Mr. Goodman) has been unflagging in his support for the principles of the Bill. In his contribution, he said that I had been able to persuade the Committee to make the necessary amendments. He knows that with private Members' Bills it is not possible for a Minister—even one with my great powers of persuasion—to persuade a Committee to change unless he is pushing at an open door. The hon. Gentleman and other members of the Committee were very much open to the suggestions that I put to them. Their contributions and their willingness to work with the Government helped to produce the amendments that have made the Bill acceptable to the Government.

The hon. Member for Sutton and Cheam (Mr. Burstow) offered similar support from the Liberal Democrats, and I am grateful for his suggestions.

I am also grateful for the support of the Ulster Unionists, and the words of the hon. Member for East Antrim (Mr. Beggs). I am grateful for the work of the whole Committee, and the approach that it took. My hon. Friend the Member for Monmouth (Mr. Edwards) was unflagging in his support, and my right hon. Friend the Member for Coatbridge and Chryston (Mr. Clarke) has been tireless in his work for carers. I was grateful to him for mentioning Lord Pendry or Stalybridge—Tom Pendry—as we are building on Tom's foundations. I thank Tom for all the work he did for carers when he was in this House. I have to be grateful to him, because he has invited me to his birthday party, which I am very much looking forward to.

Carers UK and other carers' organisations should be congratulated on their work and the support that they have given to my hon. Friend the Member for Aberavon, as well as their support for carers generally and their approach to working with the Government. Those who lobby for carers will criticise when necessary, but always constructively. They are always willing to work with us to find the best and most practical way forward.

There is a group of people that nobody has mentioned so far, but which has been essential to getting the Bill to this stage: the officials at the Department of Health. When my hon. Friend first presented the Bill and it was brought to me in my office, they explained it to me and, following our discussions, asked whether I wanted the Bill. I said yes, and since that moment they have worked tirelessly to ensure that the Bill was properly researched, the law was properly investigated and the amendments be crafted appropriately.

I wonder whether, if a Member of Parliament or an official asked him, my hon. Friend would support a Bill called the Young Carers (Services and Recognition) Bill?

There are elements of this Bill that impact on young carers, I am glad to say, and were anyone to suggest such a Bill, I am sure, although I cannot give a commitment today, that the Government would welcome it and be co-operative, if at all possible. If my hon. Friend one day gets the opportunity to enter the select club referred to by the hon. Member for Wycombe, perhaps that is the Bill that will emerge. I hope that I will still be a Minister then, and in a position to help.

The Government recognise that caring can affect both the health and the financial status of carers and their families. Access to employment opportunities helps maintain both financial security and self-confidence. Training and education enable people to return to work when they want to, or to work flexibly, according to their needs. Access to leisure opportunities gives carers time to themselves, to recharge their batteries. They are as entitled to such benefits as anyone else. Put simply, they have earned them.

We appreciate, however, that though much has been achieved through legislation and our policy initiatives to date, there is more to be done. With that in mind, we worked closely with my hon. Friend the Member for Aberavon to ensure that his Bill is one that we can unequivocally support, not only on the merits of its intentions but as a viable piece of legislation that will make a difference to the lives of the 5.9 million carers in this country.

The House will recall that I was explicit in my concerns on Second Reading about the Bill as then drafted: principally, that it did not fulfil the fundamental requirements of any new legislation, in that it did not fit in the framework of the modernisation of public services; did not complement existing laws in its substance and approach; and was unlikely to deliver real and concrete changes for carers without placing disproportionate burdens on local councils.

My hon. Friend and I agreed to work together to fix those defects, and following consideration in Committee, and with the help of all parties, I am happy to say that the Bill has been amended to remove the aspects that caused the Government concern. The original Bill had wide-ranging scope, and although the goal of changing local authorities' attitudes to carers is compelling, it should be done only through clear legislation that is feasible to implement, and that is what the Bill now offers.

Furthermore, the original Bill would have meant that through community strategies central Government would have been dictating the form and content of local plans. We have ensured instead with the amended Bill that we continue to uphold the concept that local autonomy and decision making are key in enabling public services to respond to individual needs.

Much more importantly, however, I am pleased to say that the Bill was significantly amended in Committee to ensure that it provides real changes for carers. While fulfilling the majority of my hon. Friend's intentions, it now delivers in a manner that makes clear to councils what they are required to do and is not subject to misinterpretation.

Clause 1 now introduces new provisions to the Carers (Recognition and Services) Act 1995 and the Carers and Disabled Children Act 2000 requiring councils to inform carers that they may be entitled to an assessment. This will ensure that carers are getting information about their rights in a more consistent way and at an appropriate time. We know that assessments are the gateway for carers to access support and services. Despite the abundance of guidance and best practice information, some carers remain unaware of their rights. It seems appropriate, therefore, that this Bill should ensure that the minority who do not routinely inform carers of their rights will now have to follow the practice of the majority who do.

Clause 2 creates a specific duty, making it clear that when carrying out assessments under the existing legislation, councils must consider the wishes of a carer to work or undertake education, training or leisure activity. It will ensure that the assessment is undertaken in a manner that understands and explores the possibility that carers should be able to participate in life beyond their caring duties and think beyond what they need to continue to care.

The Bill amends existing legislation to ensure that no authority should have difficulty in understanding what it is they are to do. This should mean that carers' lives outside caring are properly taken into account by councils. We believe that this will encourage councils to consider and support carers in accessing opportunities to engage in work, education, training and leisure alongside those who are not carers.

Clause 3 makes provision for consideration of carers in the planning process as well as providing a specific duty to consider assistance in relation to individual carers. It will promote joint working by requiring bodies, including councils and the NHS, to give due consideration to requests for help from a local authority in relation to planning and the provision of services that might assist individual carers to care and to continue to care. This means that at a strategic level social services will have a lever to influence the priorities of their partners in health and the other council departments.

We have added an additional duty in respect of co-operation. The Government feel that it is important for councils to be able to engage not only at a planning level with their partners in health and social care but also at an individual level. This is not designed to place onerous burdens on other parts of local government or on health bodies, but it gives social services an opportunity to put their case, usually a strong one, about the benefits offered in individual circumstances—something that the House will recognise is not always easy.

With respect to clause 3, serious consideration was given to the suggestion made in Committee by the hon. Member for Tiverton and Honiton (Mrs. Browning)—sadly, she is not here today—that the National Probation Service and the police should be added to the list of authorities. I have carefully consulted my colleagues in the Home Office. Both probation and police services already work closely and co-operatively with local authorities and others in a range of local statutory and non-statutory forums, where the focus is on issues of public protection or prevention of harm to the public.

While both services are happy to continue to co-operate where it would add value, we do not believe that there is a clearly identifiable role for them to play in relation to the specific duties set out in the Bill. These duties instead focus on the main authorities that can be expected to be more closely involved in services for carers. In these circumstances, we see no merit in the addition of the police service or National Probation Service to the list of approved authorities.

There is one other issue that I must bring to the attention of the House, relating to the draft directions that I provided for members of the Committee. The intention was to establish a planning mechanism at primary care trust level to ensure that local bodies recognise that they have a role in supporting carers and delivering information to them. I announced in Committee my intention that the directions should go out to public consultation as soon as possible. However, since then, discussions with the NHS have shown that the directions do not provide the key to the change in practice that we seek I now believe that they were flawed and would not have served the intended purpose, and I apologise to the House for having inadvertently misled Members. Evidence shows that a different approach is needed to pull carers up the agenda. The focus must be on the outcome, not the process. We can better deliver on the promise to ensure that PCTs will have to consult and take into account the health needs of carers through developmental support rather than through directing them through secondary legislation. I assure the House that although we will not proceed with the directions we will pursue alternatives, and I will keep my hon. Friend the Member for Aberavon and the House fully informed.

Does the Minister agree that it might therefore be sensible to find an opportunity for the Commission for Healthcare Audit and Inspection, for example, to do some work in that area to make sure that best practice is clearly identified to assist with that developmental work?

The hon. Gentleman is quite right; we have to pursue a range of options to find the best way to make the Bill work. I was struck by what he said earlier about the need to take a holistic view of all the legislation put in place for carers. The carers grant has been identified for this and next year, so I think that we are reaching the point at which we need to look at a range of options on how we move the carers agenda forward. I certainly take on board his suggestion about the commission.

I can confirm that the Government are content with the Bill, which now achieves the broad objectives envisaged by my hon. Friend the Member for Aberavon. It ensures that carer are made aware of their right to an assessment of their needs. It enshrines in legislation the need to consider, when undertaking an assessment, the wider opportunities available for carers, and it provides councils with the necessary levers to get their partners in local government and the national health service around the table to develop more coherent carers support services.

What that means in reality is that the Bill offers real and tangible benefits for carers, and I am delighted to confirm that it is in a form that the Government can wholeheartedly support as it continues its journey through Parliament. I hope that the House will give the Bill—Sam's Bill, after my hon. Friend's late son—its Third Reading, and that the other place will ensure that it becomes Sam's Act.

With the leave of the House, I shall reply briefly to the debate.

This has been a most productive and constructive morning. I am grateful to all who have spoken and all who are here to support the Bill. As we have heard, we are building on strong foundations, and I acknowledge the important work undertaken by Lord Ashley of Stoke and Lord Pendry of Stalybridge, and by my hon. Friend the Minister for Pensions and my right hon. Friend the Member for Coatbridge and Chryston (Mr. Clarke).

My late father was fond of saying, "y cam cyntaf yw'r cam pwysicaf"—the first step is the most important step. As we have heard, the Bill is not the first step for carers, but it is still an important new step. I am pleased that so many of us have taken that step together for the benefit of so many carers in England and Wales.

I beg to move, That the Bill be read a Second time.

This is the second year in which I have tried to introduce the Bill under the 10-minute rule. Last year, it fell because of lack of time, but the real problem that it seeks to address remains.

The Bill's purpose is to remove restrictions placed on the employment of non-United Kingdom nationals in civil capacities under the Crown. In place of the current system, the Bill would open all civil employment under the Crown to applicants of any nationality, apart from such positions as would be restricted to UK nationals under rules made by the Minister for the Civil Service or by another Minister or Crown official to whom he had delegated the power to make such rules. Before I turn to the detail, I want to make it clear that the Bill does not deal with asylum, immigration or work permits, and it does not affect requirements for non-UK nationals to get leave to remain and to work in the UK before they can take up employment.

The rules restricting the employment of foreign nationals by the Crown have roots of more than 200 years. The Act of Settlement 1700 provides that no person born out of the kingdoms of England, Scotland or Ireland, or the dominions thereto belonging, should be capable of enjoying any office or place of trust, either civil or military. That prohibition has been amended over the years and does not apply to Commonwealth citizens or citizens of Ireland or to British protected persons employed in a civil capacity.

Section 6 of the Aliens Restriction (Amendment) Act 1919 provides that no alien shall be appointed to any office or place in the civil service of the state. "Alien" is defined in section 51(4) of the British Nationality Act 1981 as a person who is not a Commonwealth citizen, a British protected person or a citizen of Ireland. During the second world war, defence regulations permitted the temporary employment of aliens if no suitable British subjects were available. That provision was replaced by the Aliens' Employment Act 1955, under which prohibitions were relaxed so that aliens could be employed if they were appointed in a country outside the UK, the Channel Islands and the Isle of Man in a capacity that appeared to the Minister to be appropriate for aliens, or if they were employed in accordance with a certificate issued by a Minister, with the consent of the Minister for the Civil Service, in which case there must be no suitably qualified UK nationals available to do the work or the alien must possess exceptional qualifications or experience to do the job. Such certificates last five years and must then be renewed. In 2002ߝ03, only 47 people were employed under those certificates, 33 of them in the Ministry of Defence.

The European Communities (Employment in the Civil Service) Order 1991 amended the 1955 Act to allow nationals of member states of the European Communities and their spouses and certain children to take up civil employment under the Crown, apart from public service posts within the meaning of the EC treaty. The rights of nationals of member states of the European Communities were extended to nationals of member states of the European economic area by section 2(1) of the European Economic Area Act 1993.

Against the background of a possible legal challenge at the European Court of Justice, further changes were made in 1996 to put Irish and Commonwealth citizens on the same footing as all other non-UK European Community nationals. An amendment was made to the civil service management code to restrict the employment of Commonwealth and Irish nationals in posts reserved for UK nationals.

The effect of the existing rules is that foreign nationals may be employed abroad in any civil post under the Crown, which includes the diplomatic service, if the Minister considers it appropriate. However, as regards civil employment under the Crown within the UK, Commonwealth citizens, British protected persons and nationals of member states of the European economic area may be employed only in posts that are not public service reserved posts. Nationals of all other countries may be employed in UK non-reserved posts only if a rarely issued exemption certificate is in force.

Although 75 per cent. of civil service posts in the UK are available to Commonwealth, Irish or EEA nationals, the remaining 25 per cent., which require the special allegiance of public service posts, are entirely reserved for UK nationals. More posts are reserved than is operationally necessary, but that is unavoidable because of the present definition, on the basis of the EC treaty.

Attempts to define public service posts must follow EC case law and are subject to judgments by the European Court of Justice. That has given rise to a number of difficulties. As a matter of UK law, EU nationals can be admitted to civil service posts, but they cannot be admitted to posts that the ECJ regards as employment in the public service. The effect is that it is a criminal offence to employ, even by mistake, a non-Irish EEA national in a public service reserved post, or to employ any alien in any civil service post, apart from the tiny number of certificated exceptions.

When the hon. Gentleman first introduced the Bill, he said that, although 75 per cent. of civil service posts in the UK were available to the people he described, the remaining 2 per cent.—according toHansard—requiring the special allegiance of public service posts were entirely reserved for UK nationals. I take it that that was a misprint, and that he meant to say 25 per cent. Can he explain why he wants his Bill to open up 90 per cent. of all posts to selection on merit, rather than the present level of 75 per cent?

I will come to that in a moment when I make the argument; at the moment I am setting out the legal position.Hansard does seem to have made a mistake, because at present 25 per cent. of posts are reserved, whereas my Bill would allow the Government to reserve only the 10 per cent. of posts that need to be reserved for operational and security reasons. I will come to the detailed argument later.

As I was saying, the net effect of the present law is that it is a criminal offence, even if it is by mistake, to employ a non-Irish EEA national in a public service reserved post, or to employ any alien in any civil service post at all, apart from the certificated exceptions. Although it is legal, under the freedom of movement provisions, to employ in a non-reserved post the alien spouse of an EEA national living in the United Kingdom, it remains an offence to employ the alien spouse of a UK national—and with forthcoming enlargement, the anomalies are not likely to get any fewer.

This all sounds vary legalistic and technical, but the anomalies can best he illustrated by example. As I have said, the Bill does not change the rules on asylum and immigration in any way. In my constituency, as in many others, we now have long-standing communities from all over the world—from Iran and Iraq, for example—mostly comprising highly skilled professionals, often senior public servants in their home countries, who fled persecution by those dictatorships many years ago. They—and their children, who may know no other country—are entirely barred.

In Hendon we have large Israeli, Chinese and Japanese communities, and also UK citizens married to people of those nationalities. Assuming that they retained their own citizenship, those people would be barred from, for example, jobs in the Department of Trade and Industry, and therefore could not promote British trade overseas. The anomaly is that if their spouses were French rather than British, they would not be barred from working for the DTI. That is discriminatory against the spouses of UK nationals as opposed to those of other European Union nationals—an appalling anomaly.

If, as the hon. Gentleman says, those communities are of long standing, and if, as he is implying, they have some great loyalty to the United Kingdom and he wishes them to be able to work within our Government, why can they not simply take British nationality?

The first answer is that, unfortunately, it takes some time to acquire British nationality. Equally, some might not wish to do so—

Oh.

Some people may wish, in the long run, to return to their own countries—but if we are serious about nation building in states that we are trying to help, what better way could there be of helping that process than training people in our civil service, how to do the job properly and effectively, so that when they return to their own country they will have that great experience of the British civil service and be able to help to create a civil service, and a democratic state, overseas. That is one example of why people may not want to take British nationality.

A Turkish Cypriot, for example, is eligible for a non-restricted post, but Turk is not. The notorious Abu Hamza, the fundamentalist cleric who most people think should be kicked out of this country, if not put in jail, has UK nationality—at least, until the Home Secretary's efforts to remove his nationality come to fruition—and theoretically could be employed in any post, although I doubt whether he would want to apply or would stand much chance of passing the interview. By contrast, an American national widow of a British victim of 11 September would be entirely excluded from Government employment.

In our country, some 850,000 residents of working age are not UK, Commonwealth or EEA citizens, and are thus excluded entirely. In London, 350,000 people 9 per cent. of the population of working age—are entirely excluded, not just from the higher echelons, but from even applying for the most junior social security clerk's job. No wonder we have difficulty filling civil service jobs in the capital, when so many of my fellow Londoners are entirely out of the equation.

My Bill tackles these bizarre and discriminatory anomalies by sweeping away the existing complex interlocking legislation, and replacing it with a simple amendment to the Act of Settlement, so as not to prohibit the employment of any person in any civil capacity under the Crown, while at the same time empowering Ministers to make rules in respect of nationality requirements for certain categories of post, which I envisage to be those for which it is clearly necessary, and in the national interest, for the job to be reserved for a UK national. Those would account for about 10 per cent., not 2 per cent, of posts. It is expected that the Bill would open up 90 per cent. of posts to selection on merit, regardless of nationality, which would enable us to build a civil service that reflects the diversity of the society that it serves.

Since last year, support for my proposals has grown. In their evidence to the Pubic Administration Committee, the civil service trade unions said:

"For the record we should state that the present Civil Service Nationality Rules are blatantly discriminatory against people from the Irish Republic and the Commonwealth. This is not a situation which reflects well on the Government or the Civil Service and completely flies in the face of efforts to develop a diverse Civil Service which represents the whole community it serves and one which endeavours to provide equality of opportunity to all its staff."

In its first report of this Session, the Public Administration Committee—this was a unanimous decision of the Committee, including its Conservative members—said:

"This would be a much-needed reform and one that has long been called for"

and was

"to be welcomed and such provision should be included in primary legislation to be introduced when Parliamentary time allows."

Is my hon. Friend aware that when the Public Administration Committee was examining the Civil Service Bill, the only part that had unanimous support was the bit that he is talking about?

I am grateful to my hon. Friend for pointing that out, and I hope that it will be reflected in whatever transpires later today.

The Commission for Racial Equality fully backs the Bill, and I shall be very interested to see what position the official Opposition adopt, because my understanding is that they support the position behind the measure, in that they have put forward their own civil service Bill, based on the Select Committee report, and it includes the proposals in my Bill. It would be extremely anomalous if they were to try to defeat my Bill while promoting similar provisions in their own Bill.

The time has come to deal with this long-standing anomaly. The time has come for progress, and for making a civil service that reflects our society, while protecting the national interest. So I hope that my Bill will be able to make progress today.

I congratulate the hon. Member for Hindon (Mr. Dismore) on finally getting his Bill into a position where it would seem to stand a chance of making progress. He has been persistent, and, as we know, he is very skilful both with private Members' Bills and with Friday business. However, his skill is usually deployed in another direction. He is a well known assassin of private Members' Bills, so he and I will both enjoy the irony that today he has finally got his sad little Bill into a position where it stands some chance of making progress.

To dwell for a moment on the provenance of the Bill, the really interesting aspect, which I am sure will not have escaped the hon. Gentleman, is that the only reason why his Bill is in this position today is that on every previous Friday devoted to private Members' Bills this Session, other private Members' Bills have been ruthlessly assassinated by none other than the Government. I have checked the record for all eight such Fridays to date, and on six occasions Bills were talked out by Ministers, on one occasion by the hon. Gentleman's hon. Friend the Member for Greenock and Inverclyde (David Cairns), and—surprise, surprise—on the other occasion by the hon. Gentleman himself.

The hon. Gentleman comes before us with his little Bill, expecting us to give it a fair wind, when he himself has legendary skill in seeing off other private Members' Bills, so I hope that the House will not feel any obligation or necessity to be over-sympathetic to him today. I am certainly not in that position, and I shall explain why—although not at great length; that will not be necessary, because we shall return to the Bill another day, when I shall be able to deal with it in much greater detail.

On this occasion, however, I shall simply explain why I shall not support the Bill, either today or on any other occasion. My main problem with it is not just the principle—to which I am opposed—that aliens should be allowed into the inner workings of our Government, although that does strike me as a rather odd concept, but the fact that that in itself could be seen as challenging those rather narrow old-fashioned concepts of nationhood and national sovereignty. The key to those, I would have thought, is a sense of loyalty to the nation and of identity with it.

In that case, why did the right hon. Gentleman not take the opportunity to remove from our civil service the aliens who had been there from 1919 onwards?

Sadly, I was not around in 1919. I have the Aliens Restriction (Amendment) Act 1919 in my hand. The hon. Member for Milton Keynes, North-East (Brian White) will not be surprised to hear that we shall dwell on it—not at length, but at a canter. I would have supported the 1919 Act had I been a Member at that time, because it is excellent. I shall argue that we should not disturb its excellent provisions, as they are as valid today as they were then. That will be part of my deliberations and meanderings today. However, let me not be diverted from the opening groundwork for my remarks.

I have no hesitation in making a point about nationhood, national identity and all that goes with it because there is an insidious process at work. The hon. Member for Hendon was typically open about it when he said that, in this modern world, we must embrace people of all sorts of nationalities—aliens and all—take them to our collective bosoms and invite them into the inner workings of our Government. Even if one believes in multiculturalism—incidentally, I do not—that is several steps too far. It is one thing to welcome people to this country, another to allow them to settle here and absorb our culture and habits, and, indeed, to give them, in due time, indefinite leave to remain—leading on, if they wish, to an application for British nationality. Those matters are well established and perfectly proper. Indeed, they allow us and them the opportunity properly to explore their commitment to this country and to demonstrate that their loyalties lie with this country rather than that from which they chose to come.

If, as the hon. Gentleman said, such people choose freely to retain their other nationality while living here, thus denying themselves the right, for example, to vote, it is odd to argue that, in spite of their signalling the fact that their loyalties remain elsewhere, we should nevertheless allow them into our governmental process. At this, of all times, the argument appears bizarre. Tragically, in the early 21st century, we face terrorism, infiltration into our society and others, subversion of our society, and threats to our society by people who, admittedly and sadly, are sometimes our own citizens, but are all too often citizens of other lands. To try to change such a long-standing provision at this of all times strikes me, to put it mildly, as counter-intuitive.

History and current circumstances suggest that we should consider strengthening the provisions if necessary, rather than the other way around. Fortunately, through the wonderful foresight and political determination of our forebears, we have the Aliens Restriction (Amendment) Act 1919 to protect us. There was no political correctness back then. They were the glorious days when people could speak their minds without fear of someone feeling their collar, and do what they believed to be right without looking over their shoulders and worrying about who would accuse them of racism, xenophobia, fascism or any other trendy accusation of the day.

In 1919, in the aftermath of the first war, our forebears had the eminent good sense to pass the Aliens Restriction (Amendment) Act, of which section 6 states:

"After the passing of this Act no alien shall be appointed to any office or place in the Civil Service of the state."

What wonderfully elegant and clear language. I wish that we had the same today instead of the convoluted nonsense that we often have to put up with. If we have time, we shall deal with an example in one of the succeeding Bills—I believe that it is the next measure that we shall consider. It is so convoluted, pretentious and politically correct as to be positively untrue. I hope that I shall catch your eye then, Mr. Deputy Speaker—although your successor will probably be in the Chair—to express those views about that ill-begotten Bill.

The clarion words of 1919 make a simple, elegant statement, for which we should be grateful. We should not revisit the provision, albeit so many years later, when if anything things are worse than they were in 1919. Nowadays, there is much more free movement of peoples, thanks to the wonders of modern transport. There is much more of an idea of globality and multiculturalism, and we as a nation have seen fit to welcome into our society generations of people who originated elsewhere—but who are not yet welcome, thanks to the 1919 Act, into our Government.

I should have thought that anyone who supports the Bill would want to pause and reflect a moment. I am more than a little surprised that our security services have not approached me and others, begging us to oppose the Bill on the basis that, even on the most superficial consideration, it must make their job that much more difficult. At least at the moment we should be able to sleep in our beds at night in the secure knowledge that all sorts of suspicious aliens have not inveigled their way into our governmental system and into the civil service. I sincerely hope that the Bill will not be enacted and I shall strive, as ever, to that end. I have had modest success to date. Today may not be my day, but there will be another.

Will the right hon. Gentleman undertake equally to oppose the civil service measure?

Yes, with gusto, because it contains the same ridiculous provision. The hon. Gentleman knows me well enough to realise that, simply because Conservative Front Benchers have been sufficiently naive to incorporate the provision into their Bill, the serried ranks of the Opposition that are present today will all march in the same direction. He knows me well enough to realise that simply because my hon. Friends, in their misguided innocence, have decided to incorporate the ridiculous provision into their Bill, it will get my support or escape my eagle eye. I assure him that I shall be here at the appropriate moment and if Labour Front Benchers do not oppose the measure, I shall.

The track record to date for this year shows that the assassins of private Members' Bills are overwhelmingly Ministers. I shall not go into detail, although I should be more than happy to do that if anyone tempted me. If the hon. Member for Milton Keynes, North-East is still here at 2.30 pm, I shall give him my list and my analysis of who has killed what. In spite of my reputation, so far, I have not talked out any Bills this Session. The hon. Member for Hendon will he happy to hear that I shall not do so today. I shall keep my powder dry for another day, as he will not be so happy to hear. We shall meet again to consider the Bill after due deliberation.

However, I digress—something that you deprecate, Mr. Deputy Speaker We must ask ourselves why, this year, things are so materially better than they were in 1919 that we see fit to repeal section 6 of the 1919 Act. I would argue that surely it is the other way around: in many ways, sadly, things are materially worse now. The threats to this nation are greater than they were even in 1919 and any proposition that we should make it more difficult to prevent people who may wish to do us harm from entering our civil service is somewhat ridiculous. The Bill is the wrong measure at the wrong time, however well motivated it may be.

Of course, those who will shortly speak in favour of the Bill will talk of multiculturalism, the evils of discrimination and suggest that we should open our doors and even, as the hon. Member for Hendon said, act as some sort of training ground for other people's civil services. The latter may or may not be a good thing, but the extent to which it may leave us open to increased risks means that we should hesitate for some time before moving forward. I am happy to say that, mainly thanks to my efforts, we have hesitated so far. We will hesitate yet further if I have anything to do with it. The rush by so many of my colleagues from all parties to sign up to such a Bill worries me.

The record of consensual legislation is not good. Let us consider, for example, the Child Support Act 1991 and the Dangerous Dogs Act 1991—the list is long. Whenever a measure achieves consensus, I become even more suspicious of it than normal, be it introduced by Government or in a private Men bees Bill. The Bill, sadly, falls into that category, simply because—here, I can share a little secret with the hon. Member for Hendon, because he and I are old sparring partners—I am pretty sure that when my hon. Friend the Member for Wycombe (Mr. Goodman) rises to speak, he will give it the support of the official Opposition, for reasons that are a mystery to me but that he, in his usual eloquent way, will adumbrate at. I hope, some length. However, the fact that Members on my Front Bench support the Bill in no way alters my position. I was dealing with the Bill long before they had even got round to reading it, so my position is clear and consistent and, I hope, will continue to be so. I was not moved even by the rhetoric of the hon. Member for Hendon. The 1919 Act was and remains excellent, and I wish that we were not attempting to repeal it.

I now turn to the Aliens' Employment Act 1955, which is also mentioned in this little Bill. It makes provision for the civil employment of aliens and the issue of certificates, as the hon. Member for Hendon outlined. It takes a rather sensible approach, which seems to have stood the test of time. As I understood it, the measure reverses the presumption, so that instead of opening our doors to anyone regardless of their nationality, it states that we would not wish automatically to allow people who have not chosen to express their loyalty or identity to this country by taking British nationality to work within our Government, but that we are prepared to consider in a very British way—on a case-by-case basis—those who may wish to be so employed and that, if they can satisfy us that their skills are relevant and that we need and would appreciate their services, we have a mechanism to allow them to do that work. The hon. Gentleman said that there was only a small number of such people. Perhaps the number should be larger. That is not for me to judge, but it is perfectly possible, in which case the mechanism should be cranked up a bit and more of those people should be allowed in—but only after they have been given a proper going over.

In these days of terrorism, subversion and threats to our society, it would seem a dereliction of our duty to our fellow citizens suddenly to tell them that we had decided that all sorts of people, from some very odd backgrounds, countries and nationalities, would be welcomed into our civil service without a high degree of security checking. Surely, our citizens would be far more reassured if we were to say to them, "Worry not, you have the protection of the excellent 1919 Act, with a mechanism that has stood the test of time since 1955 that allows us, in a discretionary way, to permit people to enter and work in our civil service."

If someone were to ask whether that was bureaucratic, I should reply, "Yes, it is." It would be one of the very few occasions when a bit of bureaucracy might not be a bad thing—although I hope I shall not be heard to say that often in this place—because, it would provide us with a degree of security. Instead of pen-pushers of the kind that we have increasingly in our health and education services, people would be tasked to strike the necessary balance between the need to provide our citizens with security and reassurance and the flexibility to allow—

I am following the right hon. Gentleman's argument closely. Is the logic of it that he would support legislation to extend the scope of the existing provisions to include those who work in local government?

I should be tempted to do so. If the hon. Gentleman were to bring forward a Bill of that kind, he might be able to persuade me to put my name to it. Who knows? I shall have to think on my feet, which is always dangerous; it is difficult enough when I think sitting down, so thinking on my feet is always a bit of a test, but I shall have a go. I should have thought that, self-evidently, there was probably less risk to national security in local government than in central Government, but, given the nature of the risk from terrorism, sadly, elements of the responsibilities of local government could touch on the security of our communities. In fact, the more I think about the hon. Gentleman's suggestion, the more I like it. Perhaps he and I should work together on some future occasion.

rose—

Ah, the author of the notorious Civil Service Bill is now with us—the Bill that I have pledged to oppose because it contains the nonsense that is in the Bill we are discussing. However, I welcome my hon. Friend and of course I give way to him.

My right hon. Friend and I disagree about the central purpose of the Civil Service Bill and about the need for it, but I have a question about the point that he was making about local authorities and security. Is he aware that the Civil Contingencies Bill, which is going through this place, imposes the primary duty for responding in an emergency, including major terrorist incidents, on local authorities?

That seals it: I am now with the hon. Member for Sutton and Cheam (Mr. Burstow). When he brings forward his Bill to extend the excellent provisions of the 1919 Act, it looks as though I shall be right with him. It sounds as though my hon. Friend will be, too.

I should like to make it clear to my hon. Friend that I do not disagree at all with part 1 of his Bill, but his judgment suddenly deserted him when he decided to insert those ludicrous nationality provisions in part 2, and that is why I shall have to oppose it.

I am grateful to my right hon. Friend for allowing me to intervene again. I apologise for not being in the Chamber for the beginning of his remarks—I had thought that we would reach the Bill somewhat later. If people from Commonwealth countries or from the now extended European Union can work for our civil service, what would be the particular objection to, say, an American?

That is a good question. My own dear wife is an American by birth who has taken British nationality and is very, very proud to have done so. I do not think that I am giving away a great family secret by telling the House that she regards herself as arguably more British than American, although by retaining her American nationality she gets me through the US immigration channel when we go to the United States, for which I am always grateful and tell her so, as we enter that great land of the free with a smile on our faces.

The answer to my hon. Friend is that in our increasingly misbegotten membership of the EU and the rather ill-judged enlargement of the EU, we have put ourselves in a position where, for the moment, we have no option but to allow nationals from all those countries, of which we know little, the entry to our civil service that he has just mentioned. It gives me no great joy, but I accept it as a fact for the time being.

The Commonwealth is a different case altogether. I think that we can rely on the fact that most of our brothers and friends from all the Commonwealth countries are people we feel we know well and are comfortable with; we have accepted them for a long time. However, there are many other countries throughout the world, mainly in the middle east—let us not mince our words—that we should feel very uncomfortable about opening our doors to in the way that the Bill suggests without knowing very much about their people.

There is a distinction. Indeed, it would be naive to suggest—I hope that my hon. Friend is not doing so—that somehow in this modern, politically correct, bending-over-backwards multicultural world we should see everybody in exactly the same light. I hope that is not how he expects us to conduct ourselves either in government or in our international relations. I am not well versed in the ways of the world, or of the global and international sphere, but even I would have thought that it was easy these days to make a distinction between the countries and people who are relatively well disposed to us and those who are not.

That is the essence of the Bill. It is about whether we want to be politically correct or to have common sense and see the world as it is. That, as much as anything else, is what I am resisting.

Before I was somewhat sidetracked—something I resist if I possibly can, Mr. Deputy Speaker—I was talking about the Aliens' Employment Act 1955, yet another excellent piece of legislation with which the Bill seeks to interfere. As the long title states, it is:

"An Act to provide for the employment of aliens and British protected persons in civil service under the Crown".

There we are. The provision already exists. It is properly bureaucratic and makes the sort of provision that we continue to welcome in these increasingly difficult times. Section 2(2) of the 1955 Act, however, made me smile because it says:

"Any question arising under this section what Minister is the responsible Minister in relation to any service shall be referred to and determined by the Treasury."

If there is doubt about responsibility today, we all know who has the last word, and the same thing applied in 1955. The people who framed the Act were sufficiently perspicacious to allow for that eventuality.

My hon. Friend's intervention suggests another line of thought, for which I am grateful. I always like a bit of refuelling, as we say in the business. On this occasion, however, my speech will be brief. As the hon. Member for Hendon—an expert on these matters—knows, seeing this business through to 2.30 pm is not a realistic option in this case, so I shall have to deploy other means on another day to try to prevent his Bill from reaching the statute book. Friday debates allow us to be more expansive than usual, so when my hon. Friend the Member for North-East Hertfordshire (Mr. Heald) suggested another line of thought, I was more than happy to pick it up. He did not use the word "reciprocity", but it is a useful term. In the welter of good will, the opening of our doors and arms and the allowing of aliens into the deepest recesses of our Government, we may wish to consider—I may get the Library to research this for subsequent debates—how many of the countries of which we now say we are fond and which we wish to clasp to our bosom welcome UK nationals in their Government workings.

I shall return to that when I have further and better information. I have but a slim sheaf of papers today, but the hon. Member for Hendon is usually armed with volumes of paper, through which he expertly picks. I shall follow his example on subsequent occasions. I should be grateful if my hon. Friend the Member for Wycombe dealt with my point about reciprocity when he extols the virtues of this sad little Bill. He has probably already considered the matter, given his assiduity, so perhaps he or, indeed, the Solicitor-General can say how many other countries welcome UK nationals to work in their civil services or their equivalents. That would be an interesting measure of whether we are in or out of step with current thinking. I may be proved wrong, but my instinct tells me that precious few other countries allow UK nationals to work in their civil service. Why should we be the fall guys or the mugs? Sadly, we often appear to be an easy touch and that is a large part of the problem that the Government are experiencing with the broader issue of asylum and immigration. Like it or not, we are seen as a soft touch, allowing people easy access and entry.

I hope that I am not trespassing on the good will of my right hon. Friend, but the Civil Service Bill, which is the fifth Bill on the Order Paper and, sadly, will probably not be reached, consists of three parts. Part 1 proposes a statutory code for civil servants and establishes a proper framework to define the role of political appointees, civil servants and Ministers. Part 2 deals with whether people such as Americans, the Swiss and others could be part of our civil service. The First Division Association has said that, if people come into our civil service from private industry or, in this case, from abroad, it is helpful to have the structure and rules firmly embedded. Individuals outside may not know the culture of our civil service as well as people who have worked for it and know our country's customs and traditions. Will my right hon. Friend look at the interplay between those two parts of my Bill?

Order. Before the right hon. Member for Bromley and Chislehurst (Mr. Forth) responds, I should point out to the House, if it is not already obvious, that, unlike the procedure of grouping of amendments, there is no procedure in the House for two different Bills to be grouped for discussion. I recognise that the Bills share a measure of commonalty, but I urge hon. Members to try to maintain a sense of distinction and deal only with the substance of the Crown Employment (Nationality) Bill.

I am grateful, Mr. Deputy Speaker. You know me well enough to know that I take no little pride in always staying in order. I generally manage to do so and, even though my hon. Friend the Member for North-East Hertfordshire has tempted me, thanks to your guidance, I shall not respond to his invitation, save to say that I rarely pay any attention to what trade unions say. It does not impress me that some ghastly vested interest or trade union has expressed a view and that will not influence my thinking one jot. My hon. Friend has also suggested a subject for amendments that may be tabled on Report. He mentioned Americans and the Swiss, and that may be fruitful territory—but more of that anon.

I turn to the statutory instrument of 1991 referred to in what, as the hon. Member for Hendon will appreciate more than most, has turned out to be a useful list of repeals. I do not want to dwell on the European Communities (Employment in the Civil Service) Order 1991, but it is a quirky measure and, lest the packed House thinks that I am being too serious, I will share it with hon. Members to lighten the mood. Amusingly, it says:

"At the Court of Saint James, the 21st day of May 1991, Present, the Counsellors of State in Council."

The measure was therefore introduced as an Order in Council. It goes on to say:

"His Royal Highness The Prince Andrew, The Duke of York, and His Royal Highness The Prince Edward, being authorised thereto by the said Letters Patent, and in pursuance of the powers conferred on Her Majesty … do on Her Majesty's behalf order, and it is hereby ordered, as follows".

That is a charming little niche of our legislative process, with which the hon. Member for Milton Keynes, North-East and I are more familiar than perhaps we would wish. The provision is a revelation, because it suggests that law is being made by none other than their royal highnesses the Duke of York and Prince Edward. That does not make it any less valid, but I just thought that I would share it with the House. Individual Members must decide whether or not they are reassured about the provenance of that statutory instrument.

In that measure, we were forced to change our provisions to include nationals of member states of the European Union. Reciprocity is relevant and I would like to know—I may have to ask the Library—how many Brits are working in the French civil service. That is a random example, and there is no reason why I should pick on the French—in fact, there are many reasons why, but I shall not go into them now. How many Brits are working in the Greek civil service or in the civil services of any of the 25 members of the European Union? I shall let the question of reciprocity rest for the moment, but it will provide fruitful ground in later consideration of the Bill.

I was going to deal with the Race Relations Act 1976, which is also mentioned in the Bill, but I believe that hon. Members have got the gist of my argument. I have been unusually brief and I can see the hon. Member for Hendon thinking that mine has been a wimpish performance, but he knows and I know that I would be wasting a lot of my time and effort and, frankly, some of my ammunition if I dwelt on the Bill for too long on this occasion. It could be tested by means of a Division, or—as I think more likely—we could return to it on Report for a thorough examination of its content, and of the possibilities of expanding, strengthening or tweaking it. We look forward very much to that day.

Let me return, in a closing thought, to the point at which I started. One of the fascinating aspects of this year's cycle of private Members' Bills is that so successful have the Government been in killing off so many Bills—most, as it happens, tabled by Labour Members: it is just one of those little ironies—that there are now very few in the pipeline. As I pointed out to the hon. Gentleman at the outset, having been unsuccessful in the ballot he, typically cleverly, slipped his Bill in as a ten-minute Bill; but because his Government have killed off so many of his colleagues' private Members' Bills, he has suddenly found himself in his current favourable position. I confess that that makes this more challenging for me, but as I have not faced many challenges during this private Member's Bill year, I am quite looking forward to it.

I tabled a written question asking the Government what they were going to do about Crown nationality. The answer they gave was, "Support the hon. Member for Hendon's Bill." That may explain why all the other Bills have been blocked, thus giving the hon. Gentleman's Bill a free passage.

This is, in any case, almost certainly a Government Bill in only the thinnest of disguises. While I have the greatest respect for the hon. Gentleman's legal expertise and powers of analysis, much of what he said in his brief introductory speech sounded very much like a Government brief. That is for him and the Government to know—it is not for us to speculate on it excessively—but smuggling in Government Bills in the guise of private Members' Bills is, of course, a long-established practice. It simply makes it all the more sad and regrettable that my hon. Friends are choosing to sign up to it, but such are the politics of today. No wonder people cannot tell the difference between one party and the other.

At the heart of the Bill is a simple question: who should be eligible for employment in a civil capacity by the Crown? I want to begin by considering that question.

It can be argued that only British citizens should be eligible for employment in that capacity—on the ground, I suppose, that the Crown should be served in a civil capacity only by those who have identified themselves with it by holding British citizenship.

Quite.

That was, indeed, the argument presented by my right hon. Friend.

I suspect that even most of those who want to see the closest possible identification between the Crown's civil employment capacity and British citizenship would find such an arrangement excessively restrictive, because it would limit the pool of talent and ability from which the Crown could draw in a way that would allow no exceptions from that rule, however deserving they might be on an individual basis. But that is, of course, not the principle that governs the Crown's civil employment capacity. Employment by the Crown, in a civil capacity, of British citizens only, is not the status quo.

As the hon. Member for Hendon (Mr. Dismore) pointed out, when the Bill was first debated on 20 January and again today, British protected persons, Irish citizens, Commonwealth citizens, all European Union nationals and European economic area nationals are currently eligible to serve the Crown in a civil employment capacity, with the exception of the so-called reserved posts. Furthermore, as the hon. Gentleman also pointed out on 20 January, freedom of movement provisions render the alien spouse—I use the legal terminology here—of an EEA national eligible to be employed in a non-reserved post, while the alien spouse of a UK national remains ineligible.

It is also worth noting that foreign nationals are currently eligible to serve the Crown in a civil employment capacity abroad, and that foreign nationals are eligible to serve the Crown in a civil employment capacity domestically in certain narrow circumstances, which the hon. Gentleman described. It is here that the status quo is to be found.

The next question that confronts us is this: is it reasonable to allow the anomalies that exist under the status quo to continue? For anomalies there are in plenty. I shall not follow the hon. Gentleman along the legislative trail that he described—from the Act of Settlement 1700 to the Aliens Restriction (Amendment) Act 1919 to the European Communities (Employment in the Civil Service) Order 1991 to the Aliens Employment Act 1955 to the European Economic Area Act 1993—but I want to linger for a few moments on some of the anomalies that he mentioned on 20 January and today, and to add a few variants of my own.

In my constituency there is a small Chinese community. I believe that as matters stand—perhaps the hon. Gentleman will correct me if I am wrong—a Chinese citizen married to a British citizen of Chinese origin would not be entitled to employment in a non-restricted post, but a Chinese citizen married to a French citizen would. For "French", of course, I could—as has already been pointed out—substitute the nationality of any citizen of the EEA or the newly enlarged EU. I could have said "Latvian" or "Lithuanian", for instance. Similarly, a Chinese citizen of British origin married to a British citizen of "white ethnic origin"—the terminology used in the official census—would not be entitled to employment in a non-restricted post, but a Chinese citizen married to a French citizen would.

Am I right in thinking that if—heaven forfend!—my right hon. Friend the Member for Bromley and Chislehurst (Mr. Forth) were French, his wife would be able to work in our civil service, but because he is British that is not the case?

I think my right hon. Friend said that his wife had taken British citizenship.

That is the point.

I believe that had she retained her American citizenship only—I understand that she has dual citizenship—she would fit into precisely the category described by my hon. Friend.

Let us consider once again the extremist, fundamentalist and—I have to add—at present British, by citizenship, cleric Abu Hamza, whom the hon. Member for Hendon mentioned on 20 January and today. He is on record as saying, with reference to 11 September:

"Many people will be happy, jumping up and down. America is a crazy superpower and what was done was done in self-defence."

As matters stand, Abu Hamza is eligible for employment by the Crown in a civil capacity, as the hon. Gentleman pointed out, while an American widow whose spouse was murdered in the 11 September atrocity would not be.

There is reason for us to pause here and reflect. Abu Hamza, as we know, is at present a British citizen. The hon. Gentleman could have added that Asif Hanif and Omar Khan Sharif, the suicide bombers responsible for the murder of three people and the injury of 55 in a beach-front pub in Israel called Mike's Place, were British citizens. Richard Reid, who attempted to blow up a transatlantic flight, was a British citizen. Most British Muslims—and Muslims in High Wycombe with whom I have discussed these matters—condemn such acts of terror unreservedly.

It is worth pondering the fact that a British citizen who, despite his or her citizenship, hates this country and everything it stands for is none the less currently eligible for employment by the Crown in a civil capacity—while an American, Israeli or Turkish citizen, for example, who respects, admires and even loves this country, but does not wish to abandon his or her own citizenship, is not eligible for employment in such a capacity. Is it reasonable to allow such anomalies to continue?

I acknowledge that there is an argument for answering that question with a "yes". I may be mistaken, but I doubt that large numbers of foreign nationals have written either to the hon. Member for Hendon or to the Solicitor-General, clamouring for a change in the law and for employment under the Crown in a civil capacity. However, as we have seen, the anomalies give rise to so many inconsistencies and injustices that the most sensible course is to create a more rational framework for eligibility for such employment. Since the Bill, which has the support of Members from all the main parties in the House, offers a more rational framework, we see merit in it, as my right hon. and learned Friend the Member for Rushcliffe (Mr. Clarke) made clear when speaking from the Front Bench on 21 January, the day after the Bill's First Reading.

The context in which my right. hon. and learned Friend was speaking is important. He was calling on the Government to introduce a civil service Bill in this parliamentary Session; indeed, such a Bill was introduced by my hon. Friend the Member for North-East Hertfordshire (Mr. Heald), with the support of my right hon. and learned Friend the Leader of the Opposition and others. A civil service Bill was originally proposed by the Public Administration Committee, which, like most Select Committees, is dominated by members of the Government party. The Bill is, I understand, supported by the Liberal Democrats and the other minor parties.

Part 2 of that Bill is effectively identical to the Bill before us. The hon. Member for Hendon acknowledged that in his First Reading speech, when he said:

"Last week, the Conservative Opposition proposed a Civil Service Bill, based on the PAC draft, so they, too, appear to agree with my proposals, as provisions in the Bill that I presented last year were incorporated in the Select Committee's report and appear to have been added to the Opposition's Bill."

In that respect the hon. Gentleman was correct. He continued:

"I believe that they will advocate their Bill … tomorrow."—[Official Report, 20 January 2004; Vol. 416, c. 1227.]

Indeed we did, and the hon. Gentleman, having made it clear to the House on 20 January that his Bill is effectively the same as ours, voted the next day against our Bill, which is effectively the same as the one for which he had voted the day before. What is worse is that he persuaded, by my count, 75 of his colleagues to do exactly the same.

I ought to clarify the position. I very much support the proposals in the Opposition's Bill that reflect mine, but of course their Bill contains many other proposals about which I am less happy. Perhaps I can remind the hon. Gentleman of the position of the hon. Member for Bridgwater (Mr. Liddell-Grainger), who voted for the Select Committee report, against my Bill and for the Opposition's Bill, so he has changed sides twice.

If I remember rightly, the hon. Gentleman made the same point about my hon. Friend the Member for Bridgwater on 21 January; I cannot speak for my hon. Friend. However, I hope that the hon. Member for Hendon tells the Israeli, Japanese and Chinese citizens in Hendon, to whom he referred today and on First Reading, that he was offered a chance, on 21 January, to vote in principle for exactly the measures that he proposed in his Bill, but he voted against them. We will have to see what they make of that. I am glad that the hon. Gentleman has offered that explanation, and that the cause was not an momentary lapse of concentration.

As my right hon. and learned Friend the Member for Rushcliffe said on 21 January, part 2 of our civil service Bill is, in his words,

"the least important part of our Bill"—[Official Report, 21 January 2004; Vol. 416, c. 1330.],

but it is, as I said, a part. It is worth dwelling on that for a moment. I want to make it clear that although we believe that there is merit in this Bill—we could scarcely do otherwise given that it reflects the measures in part 2 of our Bill—it does not, of course, follow that the arguments advanced for this Bill, on the one hand, by the hon. Member for Hendon and, on the other, by us, are exactly the same.

As I said, our support for this Bill is based on the principle that it is right to tidy up the anomalies, and that it offers the prospect of a reasonable framework for doing so. At present, there are 7.8 million economically inactive people in Britain; 2.7 million people are drawing incapacity benefit; and about 1.6 million of those 2.7 million say that they want to work. Most of these people are currently eligible to be employed in a civil capacity by the Crown, so we are not entirely convinced by the arguments about labour shortages put forward by the hon. Gentleman on First Reading. In addition, Britain is becoming more diverse, not less, at least partly because of the rise in the number of minority ethnic British citizens, so we are not convinced by the hon. Gentleman's argument, put forward on First Reading and again today, that we need the Bill to reflect the increasing diversity in our society.

We do not support the Bill on those grounds; we support it because it offers a way of tidying up anomalies to achieve better order. We will naturally want to consider very carefully any amendments to the Bill that are tabled in Committee. As I said, we see merit in the Bill because it offers the prospect of a more rational framework, replicating, as it does, the proposals in the more comprehensive Civil Service Bill promoted by my right hon. and hon. Friends.

My hon. Friend has encapsulated the arguments. On his final point about the more comprehensive Civil Service Bill that I presented to the House, does he agree that as the Government have long promised such a Bill, and indeed they promised a draft Bill in this Session, should not this small Bill be part of that process? Is it not a bad sign of the Government's good faith that they strongly support this Bill, which is a small part of the overall measures that we are calling for, because it looks as though they may be kicking the Civil Service Bill that we need into the long grass?

My hon. Friend has put his case extremely well. Perhaps the Solicitor-General could deal directly with that point when she begins her reply.

I shall reflect on some of the points made in the debate and during the earlier stages of the Bill and its predecessor. It has been suggested that the measure is being rushed, but it seems to me that it has already been the subject of detailed scrutiny by the Public Administration Committee. In addition, if the Government publish a draft Bill in due course, that will be the subject of pre-legislative scrutiny.

I start by beginning where the hon. Member for Wycombe (Mr. Goodman) finished. We have the Opposition's Civil Service Bill; we have the PAC's draft Bill; and we have the promise, from the Dispatch Box, of a draft Bill from the Government. This is a bit like London's buses: suddenly, three turn up in one go, although we are still waiting for the third, which is, in some ways, the most important as it is the one that, in the end, we will all be asked to get on. It will be the vehicle that delivers legislative change, so it would be useful if the Solicitor-General told us what is in the Government's mind and what the timetable will be for publication and deliberation.

The Bill that I presented is the Public Administration Committee's Bill, but would it not have been better had the Government simply said, "Well, let's have pre-legislative scrutiny of that Bill."? If they had further ideas, those could have been presented as part of that pre-legislative scrutiny.

The hon. Gentleman makes a good point. Given that that work from the Public Administration Committee is already well under way and given that it has garnered a good deal of cross-party support, it would have provided a good platform for embarking on pre-legislative scrutiny. Obviously, the Government would have had the opportunity to feed in any additional changes that needed to be made.

It seems to me that such legislation, more than any other in terms of the civil service, needs that foundation of cross-party support to be built in from the outset to ensure that what eventually makes its way on to the statute book is legislation that provides a long period of stability and certainty. However, I want to return to discussing the Bill before us.

This is a modest measure that attempts to tackle genuine, practical anomalies that arise, at least in part, from this country's membership of the European Union. The hon. Member for Hendon (Mr. Dismore), in various contributions in relation to the measure, has outlined the scenarios flowing from that, as did the hon. Member for Wycombe (Mr. Goodman), who spoke for the Conservatives. Like him, I am struck by the example given by the hon. Member for Hendon of the wife of a British citizen—who might be Chinese, Russian, Japanese or, for that matter, American—being forbidden from joining the civil service. However, if the Chinese, Russian or Japanese wife of a citizen of another EU member state were to apply for the civil service, the current legislative position would not debar them.

Some advance an argument that appears to suggest that anyone who is an alien is, by definition, an enemy of the state who therefore should not be eligible to work for the state, but I find that hard to accept. The better test, first and foremost, is whether the person has the merit and ability to do the job and whether, depending on the sensitivity of that job, they pass the necessary security checks.

I asked the right hon. Member for Bromley and Chislehurst (Mr. Forth) whether, on the basis of his logic, he sees the Aliens Restriction (Amendment) Act 1919 extending to local government. He was tempted, and indeed invited me to become a co-conspirator in such a development. I have to say that I have no wish to do so.

Oh!

I am sorry to disappoint the right hon. Gentleman by telling him that, but it is important to put the record straight. If he were to introduce such a measure, that could mean, for example, debarring Bob Kiley, London's transport commissioner, from providing a service.

So?

The right hon. Gentleman may be delighted by that, but it is interesting that that could be one consequence of extending his view of the legislation.

The right hon. Gentleman suggested that this is a matter of political correctness, multiculturalism and so on, but I do not see it in those terms. The Bill is fundamentally about tackling basic anomalies that arise from the piecemeal nature of legislation passed by this place, and it ought to progress. We have heard clearly that he has identified ample scope for further debate on various aspects of it, so I look forward to consideration on Report with some trepidation, as, I am sure, does the hon. Member for Hendon. The Bill ought to secure a Second Reading today, and it certainly has the support of the Liberal Democrats.

The Minister who normally would be responsible for responding to the debate on the Bill is not in the House today, for the best possible reason: his wife Jacqueline has just given birth to their baby daughter. We in the House tend to focus more on deaths, but perhaps we can pause for a moment and offer our congratulations to my hon. Friend the Minister for the Cabinet Office and his wife.

Rather in the way that schools have supply teachers, I am a supply legislator this morning. I start by congratulating my hon. Friend the Member for Hendon (Mr. Dismore), who has made the case very clearly for the Bill, which the Government support. As other Members have said, this is not the first time he has made that case. Important points were covered by the hon. Member for Wycombe (Mr. Goodman), who spoke for the official Opposition. The Government support, by and large, nearly everything he said, so I will not repeat those points. Points were also made by the hon. Member for Sutton and Cheam (Mr. Burstow). The Government support those as well so I will be as brief as possible.

The Government want a good civil service. I hope everyone agrees with that. We want the very best for this country. One way to achieve that is to have the widest possible pool available to those who are recruiting to the civil service. We do not want them to be tied up with unnecessary red tape, but to get down to the business of recruiting who they need.

Is it as bad a sign as I think it is for the promised draft civil service Bill that the Government are so strongly pushing this Bill? There is a background noise, which makes me wonder whether the draft Bill is finally about to land on the Table, but apparently not. Can the Solicitor-General give us an update on the draft Bill?

I will do that in a moment.

We all agree that the necessary protection must be in place, especially for employment in the civil service, which requires sensitivity and diplomacy and which has security implications. Nothing in the Bill threatens that. Surely we all also agree that these who are in this country lawfully and are entitled to work should not face unnecessary restrictions. I would hope that the Bill commends itself to the right hon. Member for Bromley and Chislehurst (Mr. Forth) on the basis that it is a deregulating measure, because is cuts unnecessary bureaucracy and red tape. The Bill is also in the interests of the civil service, not just in the interests of those who might want to work in the civil service.

Hon. Members dwelt on the anomalies in the system. The Bill replaces that system with a rational system. All hon. Members recognise that the current system is complex; the proposed system is straightforward, clearer and more transparent. It replaces the bureaucracy involved with dealing with an alien certificate with straightforward procedures.

The right hon. Gentleman said that the Bill has a chance of making progress, and I hope that it does. I also hope that all hon. Members will leave aside the many grudges that the bear from previous Bills. They should focus on this Bill and the important task it performs, instead of settling old scores.

On an entirely grudge-free point, the hon. Member for Hendon (Mr. Dismore) made it clear that if his Bill becomes law, he envisages that only 10 per cent. of civil service posts will be reserved for British nationals, as opposed to the 25 per cent. currently reserved for them. Do the Government agree with that view?

Yes, we do. The point, however, is not the fixed percentage, which is, of course, an estimate, but the purpose of the protections, which will cover as many or as few people as necessary.

The right hon. Member for Bromley and Chislehurst said disparagingly that it sounded as though my hon. Friend the Member for Hendon was reading out a Government brief. That was unfair. My hon. Friend made the case in terms of his constituency as well as more generally. The right hon. Gentleman said that my hon. Friend does not deserve much sympathy, but we should consider my hon. Friend's case, which I think is a good one. The right hon. Gentleman has said that he opposes the measure because of its baggage, but we are not being asked to address the baggage or, indeed, the symbolism; instead, we are being asked to address the practical measures. The right hon. Gentleman says that he opposes the principle being changed, but that is not happening because the principle does not apply at present in the way he describes.

I find it rather curious that the right hon. Gentleman feels that the Bill will somehow undermine nationhood and national identity. Let us remember what we are dealing with here. There are 530,000 people employed in the civil service, who include, for example, driving examiners and filing clerks in the Child Support Agency. I do not see that our nationhood or national identity depend on a presumption of excluding people from those jobs. That does not make sense. The right hon. Gentleman says that he is suspicious of the consensus. Sometimes it is right to be suspicious of consensus in this House, especially if it is backed by a great tabloid furore outside. However, there is no tabloid or populist furore over this Bill—there is a total absence of that—and the consensus that we have here is pragmatic and sensible.

The people who operate the system do not think that it currently makes sense or affords necessary protection, and they support the Bill. It is right to listen to the people who operate the system.

The right hon. Member for Bromley and Chislehurst also mentioned reciprocity and said that we should consider what other countries do. With respect, that is beside the point. We should not be saying that we are doing other countries a favour and they should therefore do us one in return—that is not the point. What we are doing here is in the interests of our own country and civil service, so whether or not other countries are doing the same is not a matter for us. We are doing this because it is right, not because we are doing anyone a favour.

I shall conclude my comments by placing some formal matters on record. The Bill is compatible with the European convention on human rights. I also need to signal that the Bill has been the subject of consultation with Her Majesty the Queen. Accordingly, I can confirm that I have it in command from Her Majesty the Queen to acquaint the House that Her Majesty, having been informed of the purport of the Crown Employment (Nationality) Bill, has consented to place her prerogative and interests, so far as they are affected by the Bill, at the disposal of Parliament for the purposes of debating the Bill.

The right hon. and learned Lady will recall that I asked her about the overarching civil service Bill that we have been promised since 1997. The Deputy Prime Minister promised us that Bill in 2002 and the Cabinet Office Minister promised it in January. Where is it, and can the right hon. and learned Lady give us an idea of whether it will come this Session, as promised?

As I promised earlier, I shall deal with that now that I have finished my formal points. The Government have given a commitment to publish a draft civil service Bill for consultation in this parliamentary Session. In taking work forward on that, the Government are taking account of the draft Bill published by the Public Administration Committee in January this year, to which the hon. Gentleman referred.

Is my right hon. and learned Friend aware that one of the matters presented in evidence to the Public Administration Committee was the fact that there is no definition of what a civil servant is? Have the Government looked at that issue?

The Government are looking at all the issues, and have considered, and continue to consider, that point.

The hon. Member for North-East Hertfordshire (Mr. Heald) raised the question of the process for the Government's Bill. We recognise that there is widespread interest in both Houses in the relevant issues, and there will be full consultation on the Government's draft Bill, although the precise form and scope of that consultation are still to be determined.

I conclude by warmly congratulating my hon. Friend the Member for Hendon on the way in which he has taken his Bill through. It makes a lot of sense and will do some good. At the end of the day, we all want to support that.

With the leave of the House, I should like to thank both Opposition Front-Bench spokesmen for their support for the Bill. I am very grateful to the hon. Member for Wycombe (Mr. Goodman) for expressing the view that the present situation is riddled with anomalies, which is the bull point that I put forward in support of the Bill.

The hon. Member for Sutton and Cheam (Mr. Burstow) is no longer in his place—

Temporarily.

The hon. Member for Sutton and Cheam, who is temporarily not in his place, was absolutely correct to say that we should aim to appoint to the civil service on merit and ability rather than reserving such posts only for UK nationals.

The only opposition to the Bill has, predictably, come from the right hon. Member for Bromley and Chislehurst (Mr. Forth), and I fully accept his point that he has been consistent on this issue, whether on my Bill or an Opposition Bill. He does not believe in a multicultural society. That is a rather old-fashioned view, and one that is out of step with modern society. He is opposed to the concept of being politically correct, and regards political correctness as not being common sense. Well, sometimes it is not, but often it is. In this case, it is not merely politically correct but common sense to deal in this way with the weird and wonderful anomalies that everyone accepts exist.

The right hon. Gentleman talked about opening up the inner workings of government, but we are not talking about the inner workings of government in the context that he would have us believe. We are not talking about permanent secretaries; we are talking about people much further down the civil service food chain, where it is appropriate for people to contribute to our society.

How does the hon. Gentleman know that we are not talking about permanent secretaries? There is a trend now, which may or may not be a good thing, to bring very high level people into the civil service from outside, either to reinvigoraie it or to bring a real-world view into government. That is a judgment for another day, but his bland assertion that we are not talking about permanent secretaries might turn out to be entirely untrue. It is quite possible that we might have permanent secretaries of rather interesting origin and provenance in the future.

The right hon. Gentleman has made his point, and I am sure that he will develop it further in the later stages of the Bill. I would simply say to him that we are talking about reserving an estimated 10 per cent. of posts, and I think that those will be senior posts.

The right hon. Gentleman also asked why foreign nationals could not become naturalised UK citizens, and that is a fair question. The problem is that our present rules on naturalisation require a significant period of residence before a person can apply, and the procedure takes an awfully long time to go through. In those circumstances, we have to recognise that there are people who have a lot to offer our society who should not have to wait that long before being able to take up a civil service post. In my office I employ an EU national who wishes to become a British national, but it is taking him an awfully long time to achieve that position. In discussing the Civil Service Bill, I gave the example of a Mrs. Martin, a Turkish national whose husband has written to me about this matter. She has a 2.1 degree in public administration and wants to work for the Maritime and Coastguard Agency, but is unable to do so.

The right hon. Gentleman mentioned the certification process and said that it had stood the test of time, but it is in fact a very restrictive and complicated process. I do not agree that it has stood the test of time; I believe that it has been shown to be very outdated. He also made a big song and dance about terrorism and subversion. I am sure that he is aware that I take a particular interest in that issue. Indeed, I have dealings with some of those in the anti-terrorism world, and none of them has raised any objections to the Bill. The hon. Member for Wycombe illustrated the strong point that nationality is not synonymous with involvement in terrorism by saying that several British nationals have been involved in such activities. The suicide bombers of Mike's Place were two examples.

Let us not forget that we train members of other countries' armed forces in our own armed forces. The Government are talking about bringing Libyans over to train at Sandhurst. The right hon. Member for Bromley and Chislehurst rolls his eyes, but I think that that makes my point. It is only the civil service that we are talking about here, not the armed forces. I think that that defeats his point. He thought that I might find his speech a little wimpish. It was a cameo performance, if I may put it that way. I know that he would regard it as wimpish if he were to serve on the Committee, although I would obviously like to invite him to do so.

The hon. Member for Sutton and Cheam said that I would view the Report stage of the Bill with trepidation, but as the right hon. Member for Bromley and Chislehurst knows, I never regard a Report stage with trepidation. I regard it as a great challenge and I look forward to the resumption of our trial of strength on that occasion, should we reach that stage.

I beg to move, That the Bill be now read a Second time.

I am somewhat surprised and delighted to find that we are having a Second Reading debate on this very important Bill. I am sure that the right hon. Member for Bromley and Chislehurst (Mr. Forth) will join me in the debate, and I will be delighted to joust with him. This is an important Bill, which the right hon. Gentleman has described as riddled with political correctness. I am delighted to receive that accolade.

I follow in the distinguished footsteps of several hon. Members, including the hon. Member for North Dorset (Mr. Walter), who was one of the first to try to take such a Bill through the House. He had a number of difficulties with his membership of the Carlton club, and threatened to resign if it did not grant his wife equal treatment on occasions when they could both attend events. True to his word, he resigned from the club six months later. My hon. Friend the Member for Gloucester (Mr. Dhanda) attempted to introduce such a Bill, but it did not receive a Second Reading. I am indebted also to Lord Falconer, who has tried to move the issue forward in the other place.

This is a simple and short Bill, whose objective is to remove sex discrimination in clubs and other private associations. The main culprits are often golf clubs, working men's clubs and social clubs that do not allow women members to use their facilities on an equal basis. They purport to offer equal membership in many cases, but fail to deliver. Along the journey of the private Member's Bill, I have heard some terrible stories about the practices employed by a number of clubs. Many golf clubs, for example, offer only restricted membership for women and restrict the times at which they can play, sometimes not allowing them to play at weekends. They also restrict the areas in which women can socialise in clubs. That is totally unacceptable in this day and age.

I wrote to the Royal and Ancient golf club of St. Andrews as part of this process, it being the guiding light in terms of golf and its rules. It has responded to me, saying that the principles behind the Bill are important but that it did not support its provisions. I was somewhat disappointed by that, although it suggested that if the Bill made no further progress, it would have a look at codes of guidance for golf clubs. I will take it up on that offer—although we will not need that, as I am sure that the Bill will pass all its parliamentary stages and reach the statute book. I am sure that the right hon. Member for Bromley and Chislehurst will agree with me on that.

I have talked to a number of people involved in social clubs throughout the midlands and the north of England, where such clubs are very popular. There are some 3,000 that operate discriminatory practices in relation to women. I have seen some terrible examples: women being excluded from particular parts of the club during parts of the evening; women being asked to leave the club so that men could have a meeting; women being asked to stand silently at the bar on certain evenings so

that they could not participate fully in the functions and activities of the club. That is not acceptable practice by clubs that purport to offer equal membership for men and women.

The Bill aims to add to the Sex Discrimination Act 1975—one of the greatest pieces of legislation passed by the Wilson Government—and it is worth looking at how that Act has operated. Section 29 applies to all clubs that are open to

"members of the public or a section of the public",

where a person or a particular group of people can pay their money and enter a club to use its facilities and services. A nightclub or a sports club would be a good example of where people enter the establishment on an equal basis. Such clubs fall within the remit of the 1975 Act, so they cannot discriminate on grounds of sex. Any members of those clubs who have been discriminated against on such grounds can take action under the auspices of the current sex discrimination legislation.

Private members' clubs have been found by the courts not to fall within the scope of section 29, because they provide facilities and services to their own members, not to the public. The Bill is designed to change that by bringing private members' clubs within the scope of sex discrimination legislation. Several clubs have been asked to move in that direction for a very long time. I pay credit to the many clubs that have voluntarily changed their approach and practices by offering equal membership to women. Excluding women from equal treatment as full members of mixed-sex clubs is wholly unfair in this day and age. As I said, it can also involve demeaning and humiliating treatment. The Bill will draw those clubs into the bounds of sex discrimination legislation.

The Bill will not apply to clubs that are exclusively for men or women. Those clubs can continue to operate; there is no suggestion that they would be taken out of existence. I have to say that I doubt whether I would want to be a member of a club that was exclusively for men. I believe that such practices are archaic, but that is a matter of choice.

If I catch your eye, Mr. Deputy Speaker, I may want to explore the issue of the obsession with women. Personally, I am rather fond of obsessions with women, but not in the legislative context. The hon. Gentleman has just said that he would not want to belong to an all-male club, but surely he respects the right of women to have all-women clubs. One underlying theme that does not seem to be reflected in the Bill is that we must respect the rights of women to predominate or even to discriminate where they believe that it is appropriate. Is that not preferable to the rather one-sided approach reflected in his Bill?

That is not what the Bill suggests, which is that private clubs for men and for women can continue to operate. I would not want all-male or, indeed, all-female clubs to be removed from existence. The Bill is designed to affect club evenings and events to which both sexes are invited. If an all-male club were to stage an event for men and women on a particular day or evening, the unequal treatment of women would not be allowed. I believe that that is a positive step forward. On occasions where men and women are invited to an event, they will receive equal treatment on the club's premises.

The Bill's objective is clear. It applies to mixed-sex clubs that purport to offer membership of equal status to women, but fail to deliver it. Golf clubs, as I said, are some of the worst culprits. The playing hours for golf clubs were designed during an era when it was predominantly the men in families who went to work and the women stayed at home. I do not believe that that has ever really been the case, even then. Such rules were out of date then and they are certainly out of date today when, in most family environments, men and women share the load—whether it be working, looking after the house or taking care of the household more generally. Restricting the hours during which women can play golf solely to weekdays is absolutely ridiculous. It fails to take account of the fact that the lifestyles of men and women have changed significantly.

In opening the Second Reading debate—I hope that we can make further progress—I reiterate a point that I have made two or three times already. The Bill relates to clubs that offer or purport to offer equal membership to men and women but fail to deliver. It does not relate to the removal of single-sex clubs, but draws them into line for events that they hold for both men and women. I hope that we can make progress, and I look forward to hearing what the Government, Opposition Back Benchers and indeed Opposition Front Benchers have to say.

I am always very unhappy when such legislation comes along. It worries me when people, no doubt with the best motives, constantly reach for the law to intervene in people's relationships and social activities. That is even more worrying in the case of clubs and other private bodies and organisations. I have no problem with the desire to ensure that people are properly and fairly treated in public places, including public clubs and associations—as the hon. Member for Telford (David Wright) said, that a long-standing approach, and it has largely been successful—but I worry at the constant pushing of the role of legislation further and further into this area.

An interesting side effect of the Bill could be that more and more clubs that want to extend their facilities to people of both—perhaps I should say, in a modern way, all—genders go back to being single-sex. Personally, I would not blame them, because legislation such as this seeks to intrude on their workings. They might not want to be subjected to it, and get round it by reverting to single-sex status.

Right at the outset, in the long title, we read that the aim is to prevent

"sex discrimination in relation to the membership, benefits, facilities and services offered by clubs and other private associations".

The avowed intention is for the law to intrude on the activities of what are literally and avowedly private associations, and that worries me, because we should draw a proper distinction between organisations in the public and private domains. If someone of either sex joins such a club or association, they know from the start its rules and practices, so it seems perverse for them to complain about them. Alternatively, they may, as feisty, self-confident people, join precisely in order to change the rules. If they are that appalled and disgusted by the way in which the club conducts itself—despite their having joined it—one would imagine that they would be perfectly free to argue against it from within.

The point is that women, in particular, are often excluded from the management structure of such clubs. How can they argue their case for reform when they are excluded from the very parts of the club that can bring about any change?

People join clubs, presumably, in that knowledge. I find it difficult to understand why people who join something, presumably having found out its ethos and rules, then complain bitterly that it is somehow not appropriate for them. That problem is ignored when it comes to legislation of this sort.

I apologise for entering slightly late into this debate. Is my right hon. Friend saying that it would be preferable for change to take place as a result of argument at particular times in individual clubs, rather than through setting a standard below which people may not fall?

Yes, certainly. I am very unhappy about arbitrary standards or mores being applied to private associations. I have said that I reluctantly accept that the law seems these days to need to intrude more and more into the public arena, but it bothers me that the Bill seeks to intrude by law more and more into private associations. When people join Private associations, what they do in them should be allowed to be private. People should be allowed to make their own judgments about what such associations do, how those associations may or may not change and whether or not they are able to influence the associations. In some cases, I imagine, they would be able to exert influence, and in others, they would not.

Clause 1(3) says:

"It is unlawful for an association to which this section applies, in the case of a woman who is not a member of that association, to discriminate against her".

I must pause to note the presumption that all discrimination is always against women. I should be happier if the Bill were framed in more neutral or inclusive terms. It surely cannot be impossible to find a way in which there is some discrimination sometimes, somewhere against men. The obsession with discrimination against women, which gives us Ministers for Women and so many things for women these days, strikes me as somewhat unfair and one-sided. I should give the Bill more support if even an attempt had been made to make it more even-handed and to say that it is intended to deal with discrimination against whomsoever it may apply, rather than just the "woman" thing.

Clause 1(3) applies to a woman who is not a member being discriminated against by an association

"in the terms on which it is prepared to admit her to membership".

Again, one can say that, presumably, at the point at which one applies for membership, one has knowledge of or pretty quickly learns what the terms are. The clause also refers to

"refusing or deliberately omitting to accept her application for membership."

The question arising, which is not clearly answered by the Bill, is whether that would preclude the association from refusing her application on any grounds at all, or simply on the basis of gender.

I worry that the Bill's wording might make it impossible for an association to refuse membership to a woman on any grounds. Presumably, it may refuse membership to a man on a wide variety of grounds, depending on what the association is and its objectives and purposes. If it were a golf club, for example, I should have thought that it could say that only people with a handicap of less than 12 could join—or something of that kind. Whether that would be discriminatory in legislative terms is an interesting thought. There is a danger that the Bill would not allow an association to refuse membership for any reason at all, and that would be regrettable.

New section 29B on page 2 says:

"It is unlawful for an association … to discriminate against a woman on an occasion when she is a guest",

and that takes us into difficult territory. The new section goes on to talk about

"the way in which it affords her access to any of the benefits, facilities or services to which other guests are afforded access … by refusing or deliberately omitting to afford her access … or … by subjecting her to any other detriment."

I can imagine a problem arising with facilities—toilets, changing rooms or whatever. There is a risk that some associations may be forced to make expensive alterations to their premises to meet the requirements.

To link what my right hon. Friend has just said with his earlier mention of golf clubs, may I share with him a message that I had recently from Worthing golf club about discrimination that might adversely affect women? Under the Licensing Act 2003, golfers who play at a club but are not members of it cannot be served alcohol on the club premises. Legislation originating from Government could therefore have an even greater impact than the wrong that the promoter of this Bill is trying to undo. My right hon. Friend could suggest that the Department for Culture, Media and Sport should get together with golf clubs and others to investigate the discrimination that could be even worse, indirectly, than that addressed by the Bill. Perhaps they could solve the problem of the unintended consequences of previous legislation, as well as considering whether the Bill before us would be a good addition to the statute book.

My hon. Friend illustrates the risks that arise when one starts—no doubt with the best of intentions and motivation—to intrude into the way in which associations work. As he was speaking, I was wondering whether we might be able to use the Bill to right the wrong that he mentioned, but I fear both the short and the long title would probably preclude that possibility. I am not an expert on procedure or tabling, although I hope to become one very quickly, because over the next few weeks I shall be tabling a lot of amendments to a number of Bills—not least, I suspect, this one. I shall take a crash course.

I take my hon. Friend's point that we may have to consider that sort of discrimination in some other way. This Bill may not provide that opportunity, because it is all about sex, not booze. I am grateful to him for raising that idea, because it strengthens the point that I was trying to make—that as soon as one starts to intrude by law into people's habits and behaviour in a private context, one is likely to get into great difficulty.

What worries me is the provision for guests, and even worse, suggested new section 29C, entitled "Guests: discrimination by single-sex clubs". I wonder whether the world of clubs and private associations realises that were this measure to reach the statute book, they might well have to make costly alterations to their facilities.

I believe that the Minister and officials will pay attention to the points raised in this debate, so may I emphasise another example, following from what my right hon. Friend is saying? A golf club may want young people under the age of 16 to come and learn the game, but if the serving of alcoholic refreshment is an incidental part of its functions—important financially, but secondary to the golf—the young people could be denied access, and the club might have to have separate provision for the under-16s, even though they will not be served a drink because they are under 16. One needs to be careful—although I am not saying that about this Bill—about launching too enthusiastically into legislating for private organisations that have good purposes, such as sport and recreation, in case one then discovers that young people are barred from joining in, just as some clubs now bar women.

Again, my hon. Friend illustrates all too well the dangers of starting out with a substantial, complex and detailed Bill that seeks, always with the best of motivation, to right a perceived wrong. It can blunder into all kinds of unforeseen side effects.

I am always disappointed that, on occasions such as this, Members of Parliament do not receive more representations about such measures. I do not know whether the club world is asleep or whether it supports the Bill. Even the hon. Member for Telford (David Wright) hinted that the support for it out there may not be widespread, but I bet that the Government support it, because it is right up their street. It is interventionist, regulatory, judgmental and just the sort of measure that we expect from the Government. I would not be surprised if that view were expressed, albeit in a very charming way, by the Minister.

I should like to believe that the measure was not up our street because we are supposed to be the party of deregulation and respect for private and individual rights and, I hope, the rights of private associations. I hope that the measure will not be portrayed as all-party; it cannot be portrayed as enjoying agreement in the House today. Even if it receives a Second Reading, it will require, thanks to the thoughtful interventions of my hon. Friend the Member for Worthing, West (Peter Bottomley), a fair amount of scrutiny and perhaps amendment at subsequent stages.

To get away from golf clubs, I make it plain that I perceive such a Bill not as regulation but as providing opportunities for women to enjoy facilities that men enjoy.

That is typical of my hon. Friend, who is a generous, progressive, fair-minded and modern sort of man. None of those adjectives applies to me but that simply shows the great tent that is the modern Conservative party. It embraces my hon. Friend and me and we have such a jovial relationship. In one sense, we are together in that we both perceive dangers in the sort of measure that we a considering. He may well support its thrust and intent—I do not—but we are united when we begin to examine the fine print and the possible effects of its implementation. That is when the worries start to arise.

I am often disappointed, especially on wonderful private Member's Bill Fridays. On that subject, when the Solicitor-General replied to the previous debate, she made a slightly scathing remark about the hon. Member for Hendon (Mr. Dismore) and me. She suggested that we were pursuing a private vendetta through private Members' Bills. I was tempted to intervene and say that, if she were here every Friday, I would allow her to make such a remark. Frankly, I do not take kindly to fair-weather Friday Members who turn up once for the Bill that they support, criticising those of us who are here every Friday, attempting to discharge our duties and scrutinise legislation properly. I will take any amount of abuse from the hon. Member for Hendon because he is here every Friday—we do not abuse ourselves or each other regularly but we do so occasionally—but I am not prepared to take it from someone who pops up once in a blue Friday and subsequently disappears. I thought that I would put that on the record; I may send a copy to the Solicitor-General.

The measure is, by any reckoning, a fairly substantial private Member's Bill. Some of the measures that we have considered on previous Fridays, and even those that we have already discussed today, are shorter. The Bill has, per force, to be fairly lengthy and rather tediously detailed to achieve its purpose. Therein lies the danger of such a measure and that is why I believe that we must examine it in some detail. I hope that we shall get proper and responsible representations, as individual Members and political parties, from the world of clubs and associations that may be affected.

I would regret it if inch a measure slipped through the parliamentary process only for several associations to pop up and say, "Oh dear! We didn't realise this was happening. We're afraid of its effects because it will involve expenditure and interfere unnecessarily in the way we have worked for a long time." I would rather they alerted themselves to the measure now. I hope that, if nothing else, the Second Reading debate will give interested parties an opportunity to approach the promoter and to try to make an input in Committee and on Report so that if the Bill survives and gets on to the statute book, the unintended side effects will have been eliminated or ameliorated. That is the proper purpose of the legislative process. We should be allowed to do our job properly and ensure that, if such legislation succeeds, its effects are only beneficia1 and not adverse.

As I started, so I shall finish. My instinct is not to support legislation of this kind. We have too much of it already and the Bill is pushing too far. When one starts to involve the law in the inner workings of private associations, that is unacceptably too far for legislation. For that reason, I shall, in my modest way, oppose the Bill on Second Reading and hope to look at it closely in its subsequent parliamentary stages.

I congratulate the hon. Member for Telford (David Wright) on introducing the Bill, which gives us an opportunity to debate sex discrimination in private members' clubs. I congratulate him on an excellent speech in favour of the Bill and pay tribute to his work as chairman of the all-party group on world heritage sites. As the Member for East Devon, which contains much of the Triassic and Jurassic coastline that was awarded world heritage site status, I welcome such a group, which is wholly non-discriminatory, blind to race, gender or even political persuasion. All are welcome on equal terms.

At the risk of being considered a club bore, I must confess that I am a member of three clubs in London. Each is excellent in its own way, but with differing traditions and attitudes towards the admission of women although, in fact, none is open to female membership. I do not really know why I retain my membership of those clubs—my wife and my bank manager both find it unfathomable. To paraphrase Groucho Marx, I should not want to join a club that would have me as a member.

I thank the hon. Gentleman for his remarks. May I extend the hand of friendship and ask him to join me at the Wrockwardine Wood and Trench Labour club for a pint in the Harold Wilson lounge, where he will see a different world?

I notice that the hon. Gentleman, too, is something of a club bore. Not only is he a member of the Wrockwardine Wood and Trench Labour club, where I shall willingly join him, he is also a leading light of the Dawley social club, so he might take me there, too.

In that spirit of confession, I should also declare my presidency of the Western Area Conservative Clubs' Council, which covers more than 100 Conservative clubs in the west country, including three excellent clubs in my constituency—in Exmouth, Sidmouth and Axminster. That presidency, along with my vice-presidency of the Colaton Raleigh and district ploughing association, are probably my two most distinguished political, or non-political, achievements to date.

As we have heard, the purpose of the Bill is to bring private clubs within the coverage of the Sex Discrimination Act 1975 by making unlawful the unequal treatment of male and female members, associates and guests of mixed-sex private clubs with 25 or more members. It is important, as there has been some confusion about it, to point out that the Bill would not affect single-sex clubs other than by making unlawful the unequal treatment of male and female guests at an occasion to which guests of both sexes were invited. Making those changes would mirror similar provisions on race. Following a number of cases interpreting the Race Relations Acts 1968 and 1976, there is special provision to prohibit race discrimination in private clubs with 25 or more members. It covers the terms on which members are admitted and any refusal to accept membership that is based on race.

The objectives of the Bill are certainly to be commended and I make it clear that my Conservative colleagues and I abhor discrimination of any kind, whether on the basis of physical disability, race, religion, gender or any other grounds.

Fairness and equality are two of the most fundamental human rights, yet it is beyond doubt that in many areas there is still some way to go in delivering those rights. I wish to share with the House the horror of something that happened to me in the early 1980s in the United States, that bastion of equality and opportunity. I was being given dinner by a charming couple in Kansas City, and halfway through—I remember this as if it were yesterday—I said how nice their country club was, and asked if it was the best one in Kansas City. They said that it was not and named another club nearby that was considered even more prestigious. I then asked why they were not members of that club and they said, in a matter-of-fact way, that they could not join because they were Jewish. I was, and remain, utterly appalled and I do not believe that I have ever encountered that level of prejudice and outright discrimination in this country, whether in a club or elsewhere.

The prejudiced membership conditions of the country clubs of Long Island and Palm Beach are not our concern. Over the years, many measures and Acts of Parliament have been designed to break down barriers that prevent women from taking part in activities that they wish to pursue, including the 1918 Acts allowing women to vote and be elected to the House of Commons; the Equal Pay Act 1970; the Sex Discrimination Act 1975 and, more recently, the establishment of the Equal Opportunities Commission. The continuation of gender discrimination when over half the United Kingdom population is female should therefore trouble all of us. Attitudes are changing and inequality is becoming increasingly unacceptable, but there is clearly still a long way to go.

As part of efforts to tackle discrimination, the Government announced on Wednesday a proposal to establish a new commission on equality and human rights. As I have made clear, everyone should have the right to fulfil their potential, regardless of their gender, race or sexual orientation, so I welcome the streamlining of the existing gender and race equality organisations in a single entity. However, I caution against that new super-quango becoming another bureaucratic black hole that is only about political correctness and unnecessary interference. We need an organisation that will provide guidance and implement the rule of law for those who are subjected to discrimination. It is the duty of every member of a civilised society to respect our fellow citizens, regardless of their personal circumstances.

I have some concerns about the Bill and am not convinced that, as with all the biggest problems facing society, there is a simple solution to the problem of private clubs. It would be wrong to suggest that such problems can be overcome solely with legislation, and the Bill is not necessarily the appropriate response. I do not disagree with its aims, but the law can be a blunt instrument when used in such a way. I am sceptical about inflicting on people legislation tackling the way in which they choose to behave in private. That said, I recognise the need for cultural change in some private institutions, which is essentially a question of confronting closed minds. We need to complete the cultural changes initiated at the beginning of the previous century. Our country's mindset must move on from the preconception that women should be viewed differently from men in modern society.

I yield to no one in my belief that women and men should have equal opportunities. Indeed, it would be foolhardy for me to think, let alone proclaim, otherwise, as I live in a house with three women, and wish to continue doing so. As the father of two small daughters of whom I have the highest expectations and for whom I have the highest ambitions, I want women to go on reaching the top through merit.

I know that my right hon. Friend the Member for Bromley and Chislehurst (Mr. Forth) will agree when I say that all of us Conservatives are proud to be members of a political party that produced our country's first woman Prime Minister, and arguably one of the best Prime Ministers the country has ever had. As we celebrate the 25th anniversary of her coming to power in 1979, it is interesting to reflect that as a woman—as an outsider—she joined, or rather penetrated, the cosy club of socialist men that dominated European politics at the time. We should also remember that not many courtesies were extended to her. It is worth recalling what an achievement it was for her, as a woman, not just to become the leader of the oldest political party in the western world but to become Prime Minister. She rose to the top through merit.

We live in a country in which our security services have been headed by women, and in some instances still are. The chairmen of some of our leading FTSE 100 companies are women. Numerous charities, arts bodies and myriad other organisations are run by women. Women—amid some controversy, I concede—are admitted to holy orders, to our armed forces and, of course, to politics.

My party has been criticised in some quarters for not going down the road of all-women shortlists. I happen to believe that we are right not to do so and I am enormously encouraged by the fact that the candidates selected for the vast majority of our target seats are women selected on merit rather than on the basis of gender or anything else.

Highlighting this issue is a good idea, because it may enable us to go some way towards persuading people to rethink their attitudes. But we must tread carefully, as there is surely a limit to how much we should interfere with the rights of individuals acting in a purely private capacity.

I congratulate the hon. Member for Telford (David Wright) on his success, and on the clearness and lucidity with which he presented his Bill—not least in the light of the anxieties expressed by the right hon. Member for Bromley and Chislehurst (Mr. Forth) about its impenetrability.

The Liberal Democrats support the Bill, which has already been introduced in other forms by Members of both Houses. We have supported those attempts to reform the law, and our support will continue. It should be stressed again that the Bill does not in any way compel single-sex organisations to change the way in which they operate. It is not intended to convert them to mixed-sex organisations. It simply provides that organisations purporting to be mixed-sex clubs should operate in a way that ensures equal treatment of all who become members. I agree with the right hon. Member for Bromley and Chislehurst on one thing, at least: I think it unfortunate that the Bill's wording suggests that discrimination operates in only one direction—that it is experienced only by women—although in practice it is nearly always the case. It might be useful to deal with that in Committee or on Report, and to make the Bill gender-neutral.

It has been argued, understandably, that—especially when legislating through private Members' Bills—we should be careful not to stray too far into, and interfere too much with, the realm of privacy. That point was made by both the hon. Member for East Devon (Mr. Swire) and the right hon. Member for Bromley and Chislehurst, and we should bear it in mind whenever we consider legislation that extends and redefines that boundary. It is clearly a point that would have been weighed when Parliament first considered issues of equal pay and came to the view that it was appropriate to legislate, extending the boundary so as better to regulate—although not yet successfully in some ways—issues of fair pay for women in the workplace.

It is worth noting that the Bill is born not out of one Member's initiative, but out of a long process of consideration and deliberation, and indeed out of considerable force of complaint by many who feel affronted by the fact that the law does not address the issue. It is therefore north considering the work done by the Equal Opportunities Commission back in 1998, when it consulted on the matter and published its deliberations, including a recommendation for this measure. It made the point, also made by the hon. Member for Telford, about the unfairness that features in typical complaints, such as those about the restriction of playing times for women in golf clubs, based on the assumption that women are not in paid employment and can therefore cope with restricted playing times.

Should we not be even more suspicious if a Bill such as this arises in any way from the activities of quangos such as the one that the hon. Gentleman just mentioned? The measure is, after all, in their interests; they are bureaucrats paid to pursue such an objective. Does he not agree, therefore, that it is somewhat odd to quote such a quango in favour of the Bill, and that we should discount a large part of what it says because it is paid to promote such measures?

I certainly think it important that none of us suspends our critical faculties when we are considering legislation and the evidence put to us by a whole range of organisations, including the Equal Opportunities Commission. Nevertheless, the complaints that the commission receives, which it reports faithfully, ought to be brought to the attention of the House. The complaints about hours of access to golf courses are certainly relevant.

In its 1998 report following consultation, the commission goes on to say:

"The amendment as described below would not, therefore, place any obligation on 'gentlemen's clubs', the Women's Institute, or charities, which confine benefits to one sex, to change their current practices."

It is worth restating that: it is not the Bill's intention to extend equal opportunities legislation to organisations such as those, and that is why we support it.

I said that this is not the first time that the House has considered the matter. The hon. Member for North Dorset (Mr. Walter) introduced a Bill in 1999, but unfortunately managed only to utter a couple of sentences on Second Reading. Today, the hon. Member for Telford was able to utter quite a few sentences to make his cogent case. The hon. Member for North Dorset introduced a ten-minute Bill in 2001 and wrote a useful article inThe House Magazine, in which he made the point that his measure, which is not dissimilar to the one before us, was about allowing women access to governance of the clubs of which they were members,

"enabling them to take a full part in their chosen club."

There can be no justification for treating people who are members of mixed-sex, private clubs as second-class citizens, solely on the grounds of their. gender. That is not acceptable in the 21st century. Things have moved on, and it is appropriate to consider where we should draw those lines today.

The Bill is modest; it applies only to mixed-sex clubs of 25 or more members. The hon. Member for East Devon has reservations about it. and clearly those matters will need to be considered in Committee. He talked about the need for cultural change, and I certainly sign up to that. Simply passing legislation of a declarative or any other nature does not change hearts and minds, but it can play a part in accelerating or kick-starting change. It is for those reasons that, on balance, the Liberal Democrats support the right of the individual to be treated equally, regardless of gender, and we believe that that should apply to mixed-sex clubs.

I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Telford (David Wright) on introducing the Bill, which the Government support. We hope it makes progress. As he rightly outlined, he follows a proud tradition of Members who have also tried to make progress in this area: the hon. Member for North Dorset (Mr. Walter), my hon. Friend the Member for Gloucester (Mr. Dhanda) and, of course, my noble Friend Lord Faulkner of Worcester in another place. I therefore very much welcome the Bill.

My hon. Friend the Member for Telford and several other Members have made a strong case for bringing private clubs within the Sex Discrimination Act 1975. We have heard some concerns, understandably, from the right hon. Member for Bromley and Chislehurst (Mr. Forth), but I hope I can reassure him on the nature of the Sex Discrimination Act.

First, the right hon. Gentleman is concerned about how the original Act, I suspect, and the Bill were drafted. Of course, the Sex Discrimination Act was drafted as a particular exception to the usual use in legislation of the term "man" to cover both sexes. That acknowledged the fact that women were normally the victims of sex discrimination, although as is made clear in section 2—I am sure he is an assiduous reader of the legislation and knowledgeable on this point—references to the discrimination against women apply equally to discrimination against men.

Clearly, the Sex Discrimination Act is about pursuing equality of opportunity between men and women. However, it is also about identifying where that discrimination happens and taking action. I welcome many of the points made by the hon. Member for East Devon (Mr. Swire), who referred to his family and how they prompted his concern to ensure that there is equality. I can tell him that I consider myself fortunate to live in a house with three men, including two small men whom I want to grow up in a society where people are judged on the basis of their talent, not one in which people are discriminated against because of their gender, whether they are men or women. I am sure he agrees, and I think we share that objective.

The other important point made by the hon. Gentleman was his reference to how the treatment of private clubs in respect of the Sex Discrimination Act is in many ways out of step with the position under the Race Relations Act 1976. Discrimination on the basis of race goes against that Act, and of course the draft disability Bill will also tackle discrimination on the basis of disability. It seems timely and appropriate that today we are considering the extension of tackling this particular discrimination to the Sex Discrimination Act.

May I take the opportunity to thank the hon. Gentleman for what was just about a welcome for the Government's announcement on a single commission for equality and human rights? I very much agree that it needs to be far more than simply a bureaucratic quango. As we have made very clear, its ability to promote good practice with respect to diversity and to work in partnership with employers in the public and private sectors, as well as service providers, will be very important to how it operates, notwithstanding the fact that, when it needs to take enforcement action to achieve its objective of ensuring that we have a society that is fair for all and based on equality of opportunity, it can and should take such action.

The Bill gives us a valuable opportunity to examine and debate once again the issue of continuing sex discrimination in private clubs. This is an issue of some resonance for many of us; arguably, it affects us all. Clubs form an important part of the social, political and recreational landscape of many British communities.

The right hon. Member for Bromley and Chislehurst is concerned that the proposals would mean an invasion of private space, in which there is no public interest or for which the public have no responsibility. Although described as "private clubs", many of them regulate the means by which the public gain access to leisure facilities, resources and sporting opportunities. It is only right that those opportunities are open to women and men, rather than restricting access as a result of the outmoded and discriminatory traditions of certain clubs. The Bill does not simply deal with the private sphere. In many cases, it tackles discrimination in the access to many facilities that most of us think should be open to all.

The right hon. Gentleman also argued that those who are discriminated against by the clubs should argue for change from within, but as my hon. Friend the Member for Telford rightly said, the precise nature of the discrimination in some clubs means that that is not possible. Some organisations in which a strong majority of members support changing an outmoded discriminatory practice have had that pressure for change blocked by a minority because of the requirement for a high threshold in any vote to change, for example, an organisation's constitution.

At the recent annual general meeting of the Working Men's Club and Institute Union—the umbrella body to which most working men's clubs belong—61.7 per cent. of delegates favoured equal access to associate membership for men and women, but a two thirds majority was required to change the organisation's rules. So despite a clear majority wanting to make progress, it was not possible. Given that the right hon. Gentleman called for organisations to represent their views to those of us who are considering the Bill, he will pleased to know that the national executive of the CIU supports it.

There is also an argument that somehow or other the Bill would impinge on an individual's right to freedom of association. No one mentioned human rights, an argument that is often used in such cases. We do not think that the Bill has any major human rights implications. Introducing this non-discrimination rule is justifiable on the grounds of public interest. However, we need to be sure that its implementation satisfies the principle of proportionality—for example, by ensuring that we give clubs adequate time to make the changes necessary for them to comply with the law. The regulatory impact assessment is available in the Library. I do not subscribe to the right hon. Gentleman's use of the traditional "There aren't enough toilets" argument as a reason why it would be difficult for most clubs to make progress on equality. However, we will look in detail at the transitional arrangements needed if the Bill makes progress.

There are more than 160,000 private clubs in the UK, offering a rich variety of function, interest and organisation, some of which we heard about today. What they all share is that they were formed for a common purpose, as defined by their members. That can be anything from enjoying golf to exploring the history of a local town. Whatever the interests of the club, I do not accept that discrimination on the grounds of sex can be justified in any club that admits both men and women members. As Deputy Minister for Women and Equality, I regularly receive letters from women complaining about sex discrimination in the clubs to which they belong. They speak of the injustice and humiliation of being treated as second-class citizens in their own clubs.

Although I think that the hon. Member for Worthing, West (Peter Bottomley) said that he supported the Bill, there was a suggestion in his intervention on the right hon. Member for Bromley and Chislehurst that we should be thinking about continuing to pursue a voluntary approach. That has brought some progress in tackling this sort of discrimination in private clubs but, quite clearly, it has not brought it about quickly enough to overcome some of the considerable discrimination that exists.

For example, 47 per cent. of the 2,700 working men's clubs that belong to the Working Men's Club and Institute Union still deny their female members full rights. Those clubs often restrict women in the use of certain facilities, give them restricted voting rights and deny them access to the annual general meeting. The rules of the union stipulate that associate and pass cards may not be issued to lady members, but those are the cards that allow a member of one CIU club to visit another and to enjoy its facilities as a guest. Many golf clubs, as has been touched on today, still restrict playing times for women members, making if difficult for working women to play during peak hours at weekends. The assumption on which that policy is based, as the hon. Member for Sutton and Cheam (Mr. Burstow) said—that women do not work—perpetuates the archaic notions about women's lives that we know are out of step with reality.

I agree, as hon. Members have already identified, that clubs should be afforded the autonomy to decide for themselves whom they permit to join as a member, and on what terms. Several hon. Members have made it clear that the Bill does not seek to make all-male clubs open their doors to women on force women's clubs to be open to men. The hon. Member for East Devon may remain in his male-only clubs and those people who benefit from, and want to be in, women-only clubs may remain in those. However, I do not agree that a club's autonomy should stretch so far as to override the rights and dignity of those whom it has accepted into membership or those whom, in the case of guests, it invites in to use its facilities—then, in some cases, discriminating between them solely on the basis of their sex.

Will the Minister answer the question that I raised on new subsection (3)(b) in clause 1? My reading of that is that there is a danger that it could become unlawful for an association to refuse to accept an application for membership from a woman at all—in other words, that an association would be simply unable under that provision to refuse membership. It is not clear to me from the words of that provision that it would apply simply on the basis of a woman's gender, and my fear is that it would mean that a private association would be unable to refuse membership for any reason. I hope that the Minister can reassure me that that is wrong, because the point is important.

I can give the right hon. Gentleman that reassurance. As I have suggested, there is nothing in the Bill that restricts an organisations autonomy to set criteria for its membership, but if an organisation accepts members of both genders, it cannot then discriminate against people, in terms of membership, on the basis of their gender. I hope that that reassures him.

The Bill really is not the undermining of our private lives or our civil society that the right hon. Member for Bromley and Chislehurst attempted to set it out as. It is a sensible, pragmatic and reasonable response to the discrimination that people still face in private clubs that accept members of both sexes. I hope that hon. Members agree that such practices and beliefs belong to a different time. They have no place in Britain today, and we should take this opportunity to allow the Bill to be considered in Committee and, I hope, make further progress.

With the leave of the House, Mr. Deputy Speaker, I should like to thank the Minister for her powerful speech, and to thank the Government for supporting the Bill.

I believe that this was the first appearance at the Dispatch Box for the hon. Member for East Devon (Mr. Swire) and, on today's evidence, there will be many more over the coming years. He did a fine job and, although I did not agree with everything that he said, I enjoyed his contribution. I would also like to thank the hon. Member for Sutton and Cheam (Mr. Burstow) for the support of the Liberal Democrats. They have a history of supporting the Bill through its several mutations in the House, and I appreciate their support today.

I enjoyed the contribution of the right hon. Member for Bromley and Chislehurst (Mr. Forth). He made a number of important points, and I hope that we can return to them in Committee. He was quite constructive in the way he approached the debate today, and I appreciate that. I will enjoy having further discussions with him about the mechanics and detail of the Bill; there might be some issues relating to gender neutrality that need to be looked at in relation to its drafting. We would have to return to those matters and I give the right hon. Gentleman a commitment that I shall listen carefully to his points throughout the progress of the Bill.

I mentioned in my earlier speech some correspondence that I had received from the Royal and Ancient golf club, and I am willing to deposit it in the Library for other Members to see as we go through the process. That correspondence is particularly important, because the R and A is a significant body in the governorship of golf.

Has the hon. Gentleman had indications from any other umbrella organizations—or, indeed, individual associations—about their reaction to the Bill? What measure has he of the acceptability of his proposals to the people out there on the ground who are running these private organisations?

The right hon. Gentleman's remarks about inviting comment via this Second Reading debate were important. The CIU is broadly supportive of the proposal, as the Minister has said, and the Equal Opportunities Commission has supported the measure historically and continues to do so. I am more than happy to take contributions from other clubs, and I am sure that the right hon. Gentleman will be keen to bring examples to the Standing Committee, should he choose to serve on it.

I commend the Bill to the House.

Question put and agreed to.

Bill accordingly read a Second time, and committed to a Standing Committee, pursuant to Standing Order No. 63 (Committal of Bills).

On a point of order, Mr. Deputy Speaker. Can you confirm whether the Government have today tabled amendments to the Pensions Bill that would provide for a compensation fund retrospectively to compensate those workers who have lost their pensions in occupational pension schemes through no fault of their own? If that is the case, is this not an example of why it is so important for people to join trade unions and to have a Labour Government?

Further to that point of order, Mr. Deputy Speaker. I have seen an amendment that has been tabled by the Government today that would create a financial assistance scheme for people who have lost their pensions. You will know, Mr. Deputy Speaker, that 60,000 people have been the victims of pension scheme wind-ups. As someone who has campaigned with the hon. Member for Cardiff, West (Kevin Brennan), attended the marches and led a debate on this subject in January 2003, I would like to pay tribute to the all-party campaign that has finally made the Government see sense. However, should not a Minister come to the House and make a full oral statement about such a significant change of policy?

Further to that point of order, Mr. Deputy Speaker. We were led to understand yesterday by the Leader of the House, no less, that the Government were going to table 100 amendments to the Pensions Bill. If those 100 amendments have now, rather belatedly, been tabled by Friday afternoon, and if the House is going to consider the Bill in detail next Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday, those with a legitimate interest in the matter have been left with a pathetically short time in which to consider those amendments before we start to deliberate on them in the House. Is it too late for an appeal to be made to the Government to postpone consideration of the Bill next week, so that those people with a legitimate interest in the 100 amendments can look at them properly and let Members of Parliament know what they think?

I am not aware of the matters to which hon. Members have referred, or at least I am not as up to date as they appear to be. A certain amount of information that has resulted from the original point of order may be helpful to all hon. Members present. Hon. Members who visit the Table Office or Public Bill Office will see the current state of play.

I beg to move, That the Bill be now read a Second time.

Notwithstanding some of the comments that have been made, I am sure that everyone in the House will strongly welcome the tabling of those amendments today and the fact that we now have a listening Government who have responded to concerns. I strongly welcome that and, because of the all-party campaign that has teen running for some time, I hope that all sections of the House will welcome today's news.

It is not clear from the amendments whether the scheme will apply to all those who lost their pensions—

Order. I think perhaps that we should now move on to the Health and Safety at Work (Offences) Bill.

Not having seen the terms of those amendments, it would have been difficult for me to comment in any detail.

This has been a remarkably productive Friday, with three Bills going through. I do not want to say that I hope to be as lucky as the first three, as that lies in the hands of the House and not my own. I shall endeavour to be brief, recognising the time.

The Bill seeks to make provision for the prosecution and punishment of offences that are or are treated as being offences under the Health and Safety at Work, etc. Act 1974 or the Employers Liability (Compulsory Insurance) Act 1969. As I have said, the reason for proposing these changes is the prevailing concern, shared widely by industry and the legal profession, that health and safety offences are treated less seriously than they ought to be. A case in point was the recent Morecambe bay tragedy in which 20 people died. That reminded us in the most shocking terms of the need to protect workers when subjected to the harshest and most dangerous working conditions in which workers can be exploited by a system thriving on the taint of illegality.

In the UK, we have a long history of trying to confront and address health and safety problems caused by work activities. My researcher discovered that, about 200 years ago, Parliament introduced its first attempt to regulate aspects of occupational risk, the Health and Morals of Apprentices Act 1802. The main provision in relation to these matters was in 1974, when the Health and Safety Commission and the Health and Safety Executive were set up. The legislation brought together many of the regulatory bodies dealing with occupational risk and provided a framework of duties on employers and employees.

Huge strides have been made in improving health and safety standards in the quarter of a century since the Act, with the rate of fatal accidents in the UK down to less than a quarter of what it was in the 1970s. However, the Institute of Directors told me that, over the last five years, industries in the private sector have had fatal and major accident rates exceeding 250 per 100,000 employees. These include industries such as construction, mining, quarrying and transport, as well as other varied manufacturing industries.

This year marks the 30th anniversary of the original Act. The Act was a great achievement at the time, but we now need to re-engage with companies that evade their health and safety duties and which subject some of the most vulnerable workers to the hidden dangers at their work. These workers are often employed in a twilight world where the worst types of working conditions exist. Such worker exploitation can only occur when companies are allowed to put workers' lives at risk and where the small number of bad employers are able to undercut the good.

In 2002, the Institute of Directors said that public confidence in parts of the business community had been severely damaged as a result of a number of tragic and heavily publicised accidents. Occupational health and safety is an integral part of workplace well-being and many business voices accept the need to tighten the law covering health and safety.

I consulted the business and industry community widely in respect of the Bill. Following the introduction of the Bill in February, the CBI wrote to me to say that its members had

"no serious objection to the Bill proceeding to committee stage",

and that there

"must clearly be severe sanctions for persons and organisations that have caused death by their deliberate and negligent acts or inaction."

The Federation of Small Businesses, which I also consulted, commented:

"The FSB accepts that all employers have a general duty of care towards their employees and a duty to the inspectorate process. We also understand that there should be penalties attached to any infringement of the Act."

Much more recently, the Institute of Directors told me, when I spoke to its health and safety officer, that novel approaches to health and safety breaches could be considered, such as the ability for courts to order a safety audit at the organisation's expense, or company probations involving implementing a safety system that was recommended following such an audit.

It must be pointed out, however, that those three organisations also have concerns about the Bill, particularly about its proposals for extending custodial sentences. Although they believe that the custodial sentences option should continue to be available to the courts for a limited range of offences, they believe that it should be used only if the circumstances of the case are sufficiently extreme to warrant it. I shall return to their comments later in my speech.

This may be a premature question, but can the hon. Gentleman tell us whether any of those organisations or others commented on clause 2, which deals with employers' insurance offences? One of my reservations is that, given the well known difficulty that many small firms have in securing insurance cover, the penalties in the Bill are very harsh indeed. Has the hon. Gentleman encountered any opinions on that aspect of the Bill?

As I said, I did receive comments on that issue, but I should like to return to them after I have explained the Bill more fully. Perhaps the right hon. Gentleman will pursue his point again at that time.

The Bill recognises that we live in a world of much greater uncertainty and risk than in 1974 and it is designed to meet public concern by updating the 1974 Act. It does so by removing the cap, currently standing at £5,000 for a range of less serious offences, on the level of fines for breaches of health and safety law. It will extend the possible punishment of prison custodial sentences to all breaches of health and safety laws. Currently, that applies to breaches of only a few sections of the 1974 Act, but under the Bill it could apply to all sections. Finally, to deal with the point raised by the right hon. Member for Bromley and Chislehurst, the Bill significantly increases the fine for not having a valid employer liability insurance certificate.

In case a different impression is created by another right hon. Member, it is important to say that many of us regard that provision as a crucial part of the Bill. I have had experience in my constituency of an owner of a private mine not having valid insurance when an accident took place in that mine. That meant that compensation from an insurance company was not forthcoming.

I thank the right hon. Gentleman for that. Employers, and especially small businesses, have had some difficulties in gaining employer liability insurance, which is undeniably a contributory factor to some of the difficulties that companies have faced. However, there is also a considerable amount of evasion in respect of employer liability insurance. The right hon. Gentleman mentioned a particular case, which I believe would be covered by the Bill.

The limited debate so far has reflected the fact that Parliament recognises the need for corporate accountability and social responsibility, and that that must involve safeguarding the health and safety of employees. The Bill is an attempt to respond to those needs by reflecting the realities of today's workplace, where tragedies do unfortunately occur. For example, the TUC drew my attention to a case in which Bournemouth magistrates imposed a fine on a company on two charges, after a man was paralysed when 2 tonnes of glass tipped off a trolley that the company had been warned was unsuitable for the purpose.

Sadly, current British employment law allows rogue companies—I accept that it is a very limited number—to continue to ply their trade. Surely, it must be unacceptable that unscrupulous, illegal operators can treat workers in this way without any real fear of intervention. The change must start at the sharp end. We must put in place an effective deterrent so that employers can no longer factor in potential fines when making contractual bids, knowing that they can still make a profit even if they are fined under the 1974 Act. These scams must be stopped, and the Bill is an attempt to do that.

We must bring the law up to the standard of the 21st century. Employees have a right to expect not to be injured or maimed when they go to work, or at worst, to find that the workplace leads to an early grave. It is the duty of Parliament to tighten up our health and safety laws and to prevent tragedies such as we have seen in recent years. I hope that it will reflect that concern.

The consequences of our inadequate health and safety legislation are harrowing and grave, and rogue employers must not be allowed to cheat workers out of a safe working environment.

There is widespread agreement on that, but some concerns remain among employers' organisations. The CBI's head of environmental affairs said that

"financial penalties for health and safety offences should be in line with the penalties for other offences and set at a level to deter offenders. However raising the limit from £5000 to £20000 could have a disproportionate effect on small and medium sized enterprises."

Similarly, the Federation of Small Businesses, in its submission on employers' liability insurance, said that it is

"one of the biggest issues facing small businesses today … Penalising small businesses in this case will not deter the cowboys, who consciously choose to operate illegally, but will impact heavily on small employers who want to behave responsibly, but cannot do so."

In the hon. Gentleman's discussions with industry, has he reached conclusions on whether those employers who have insufficient or no liability insurance are in that position through error, because they are financially hard-pressed and cannot keep up the payments, or simply because they are unscrupulous and have no intention of getting adequate cover? What is the breakdown and the balance between the three?

I cannot claim to have carried out a comprehensive consultation exercise, so I cannot answer in detail. Undoubtedly, the representative organisations feel that small businesses find it difficult to get the insurance, but there is a body of evidence from cases that come to the courts suggesting that negligence and evasion are also factors. I hope that the Bill will be able to differentiate the two, to be sympathetic to the responsible employer, small business or not, but to crack down hard on those who are simply evading their responsibilities to their employees.

The Institute of Directors tried to pilot some rather innovative ways of responding to some of these issues. In a recent speech, its health and safety representative said:

"The Centre for Corporate Accountability has also suggested a system of proportionate fines for convicted companies … Instead of a significant fine, an executive … could be sent on an approved course. Putting a firm out of business surely cannot always be the best remedy … The emphasis surely ought to be about helping improvement come about."

That sums up the reaction to my Bill. I was slightly surprised that so many caveats were expressed by a number of the organisations that I contacted, but the positive thing was that there was no outright opposition to the thrust of my Bill. I have quoted sentences from responses that show willingness to support health and safety legislation and to ensure that breaches receive appropriate sentences.

We should be able to explore the issues in Committee, including the appropriate fines for different types of breach. We should be able to explore the role of custodial sentences, too. There is some concern, especially among small businesses, that taking an owner/manager away from a business might well prejudice whatever business and employment it generates. For that reason, we must recognise the sensitivity of such roles.

As the right hon. Member for Bromley and Chislehurst (Mr. Forth) said, there are issues concerning employers' liability insurance and we need to recognise sensitive points for small employers while also cracking down on those who simply evade their responsibilities. We shall have only limited time in Committee, but I think that the Bill can do that. We can bring back to the House a better Bill than the one before us so that we can make progress.

There can be two reasons for objecting to my Bill. I do not know which of them the right hon. Member for Bromley and Chislehurst will choose. He may make a principled objection to private Members' Bills, and there is nothing I can say to that, except that it seems strange to take part in a process while disagreeing fundamentally with it.

On the other hand, there are concerns, expressed across the House, about regulation. As secretary of the all-party small business group, I understand that regulation is continually raised by businesses, particularly small ones. The Bill does not seek to extend regulation, which already exists under the Health and Safety at Work, etc. Act 1974. The Bill seeks to make that existing regulation more effective, and the House, given the changes of the past 30 years and the serious problems that have brought business into disrepute in recent years, should be alert to the need to update legislation.

The Bill will make a significant contribution to improving standards and getting rid of some of the cowboy practices that a small number of businesses employ. It is a small number, but those businesses can taint the rest of the business community simply by wilfully disregarding their duties to protect their workers from the dangers and risks in the workplace. I commend the Bill to the House.

I warmly congratulate the hon. Member for Edmonton (Mr. Love) on having the opportunity to present the Bill to the House. I gather that his experience working on the construction of the M1 extension in the 1970s led him to take an understandable and keen interest in the health and safety at work agenda, and he has pursued a noble crusade throughout his political life.

The Opposition recognise the vital importance of effective health and safety practices to ensure the well-being of all workers, regardless of their place of work. It is 30 years since the Health and Safety at Work etc. Act 1974 was passed, and it is entirely reasonable, from time to time, to seek to revise and update legislation to make sure that it remains relevant and pertinent.

Our guiding principles in considering the Bill are that its provisions should be clear, unbureaucratic and, perhaps most importantly, just and proportionate. It has two principal purposes, the first of which is to raise the maximum penalties available to the courts in respect of certain health and safety offences. It amends the penalty framework in section 33 of the Health and Safety at Work etc. Act in the following way: it raises the maximum fine that may be imposed in the lower courts to £20,000 for most health and safety offences; it makes certain offences currently triable only in the lower courts triable in either the lower or the higher courts; and it makes imprisonment an option for more health and safety offences in both lower and higher courts.

Does my hon. Friend share my nervousness when he sees a specific amount for a fine or a penalty in such a Bill? Does he share my view that, paradoxically, that builds in inflexibility, which may be undesirable in the long run, and that it is better, if possible, to express penalties in terms of levels, which can be adjusted by statutory instrument? Does he not think that that may be a weakness in the Bill?

That is a well made point, and it is no surprise that it comes from my right hon. Friend. One of our principal concerns is the rigidity implicit in the Bill. That is why we believe that it requires stringent scrutiny, not least because of the impact that it could have on small businesses, which might not be able to withstand such fines. The net effect might be not to improve best practice or standards for workers in such a firm, but to drive the firm out of business, leaving family wage earners without a job. As for the maximum fine, the power to impose a fine of up to £20,000 is already available for some offences under the 1974 Act. The Bill extends that power to other offences that could be considered comparable. In Committee, we shall want to make sure that those offences are indeed comparable.

We are concerned about the provisions that are likely to lead to increased custodial sentences. That is a fairly big departure. The Government are presiding over a prison system at breaking point, and we shall want to examine the detail of that part of the Bill very closely in Committee to ensure that our test of proportionality is met.

The CBI, the Federation of Small Businesses and the Institute of Directors have all welcomed the Bill to varying degrees, but they all have concerns about those provisions. We understand and appreciate those concerns, and the knock-on impact that the provisions could have on jobs, enterprise and wealth creation. In Committee, we shall look closely at those elements and seek assurances.

The second purpose of the Bill is to amend the penalty for the main offence under the Employers' Liability (Compulsory Insurance) Act 1969—an employers' failure to insure in respect of liability to employees for injury or disease sustained in the workplace. It also extends the time limit for bringing related prosecutions. That is a difficult area. Hon. Members will be aware of the rise in the cost of employers' liability insurance under the present Government. Indeed, some businesses, especially small businesses, find it impossible to obtain the right sort of liability insurance at all. For example, I am informed that in Northern Ireland, construction and scaffolding companies in particular find it impossible to obtain standard commercial insurance on anything like commercial terms. There may be a time bomb waiting to go off.

My hon. Friend is just getting into his stride, but may I remind him of something? He may not recall, because I cannot remember whether he was in the House at the time, that when such a measure was attempted on a previous occasion, the Conservatives opposed it for the same reasons as he is now giving. Given the extreme difficulty that many companies, especially small companies, were experiencing in obtaining employers' liability insurance, increasing the penalties on them at the same time seemed very poor timing, to say the least. Does my hon. Friend expect, as I do, an indication from the Minister about whether the Government judge that it is now sufficiently easy to get the coverage to make the increased penalties appropriate? If the Minister is unable to do that, will my hon. Friend share my disappointment and extreme reservations about the Bill?

I hope that the Minister has heard that and will tackle those remarks in her speech. I also hope that she can inform hon. Members about the rigorous market testing and research that the Government will undertake before supporting the Bill. That is important.

I intervened on the opening remarks of the hon. Member for Edmonton to ask whether he believed that the liability lapse occurs through error or maladministration in small businesses, through simple inability to get or afford insurance or because there is a gap between the lapse of one policy and the commencement of another. A policy could lapse when small businesses are out in the market trying to find one and hoping to secure something. Does he believe that the liability lapse is simply down to unscrupulous practice?

Clearly, we have no truck with unscrupulous employers who have no intention of getting liability insurance and are trying to cut corners or make a quick buck the wrong way. However, we are worried about the small, struggling employer who is trying to do the right thing but is unable to get the liability insurance that he seeks in the commercial world.

Surely the hon. Gentleman would not condone even a hard-pressed small business man's sending an employee into potentially dangerous working conditions, for example on a roof or with chemicals, when the insurance was not in place.

Of course I would not condone it. However, I am sure that the right hon. Gentleman agrees that that is more understandable and less reprehensible than a criminal case in which someone has no intention of ever getting a policy. It is up to the courts to interpret that, examine each instance and determine an appropriate final penalty for a thoroughly disreputable employer and for one who perhaps falls on the wrong side of the law but in more mitigating circumstances. Again, I refer to the position in Northern Ireland, where the insurance is simply unavailable. It is difficult to generalise when specific circumstances apply to each case. However, let us be clear that we are in no way, shape or form condoning the illegal actions of unscrupulous employers. That is not the concern that we are raising.

There is an additional point that increasing the penalties on firms will make the liability insurance more expensive. It will increase firms' liability and their premiums will rise. That could have a knock-on effect of putting insurance further beyond the reach of the smallest firms. We need to ensure that we have considered all those matters before putting the measure on the statute book. That requires close scrutiny in Committee.

The Bill amends the Employers' Liability (Compulsory Insurance) Act 1969 by replacing the maximum fine of £2,500 for each day prosecuted with a maximum fine of £20,000 for the period for which the charge is brought. It gives the Secretary of State the power to increase the fine through subordinate legislation. It extends the time limit for bringing prosecutions under section 5 of the 1969 Act. The current time limit is six months from when the offence was committed. The new time limit will be six months from the date on which the prosecutor considers that he has sufficient evidence to justify the proceedings. The Bill also provides that no prosecution can be brought more than five years after the commission of the offence. We shall want to study those changes in detail in Committee.

To sum up, Her Majesty's Opposition will not oppose the Bill but will let it proceed to Committee. We shall use that time to give it the scrutiny that it needs and deserves. We shall have no truck with bad practice or illegal practice.

I thank the hon. Gentleman for his comments about allowing the Bill to proceed. Does he accept that if we do not take steps to crack down on rogue employers, they will taint other employers? There is a strong rationale for the Bill.

We agree with the rationale that the hon. Gentleman has just articulated, but we are concerned about the detail of the Bill, the knock-on effects and the unintended consequences. We must guard against those effects and in Committee we shall want to ensure that there are no unintended consequences for small businesses, and that if the Bill reaches the statute book, it does what the hon. Gentleman intends, with no adverse effects on the business sector.

Any employer who does not follow basic health and safety regulations should certainly be held to account. We can all agree on that, but it is extremely important to ensure that the changes that would be enacted by the Bill are clear, unbureaucratic and proportionate. Those three tests will determine whether we give the Bill our support in Committee.

On behalf of the Liberal Democrats, I am glad to welcome the Bill and the opportunity it will give us in Committee to review the penalties for health and safety and employers' liability offences.

There cannot be many Members with my experience of dealing with constituents who have been the victim of industrial accidents or who, in the example to which I referred earlier, were working in a mine that had no valid insurance. As hon. Members have said, there are significant differences of circumstance. In some cases, people who are desperate for work take a job from a rogue employer who has no intention of complying and breaks every rule in the book, or such an employer may have taken over a previously responsibly run organization—as in the example that I gave—such as a National Coal Board mine, and be running it irresponsibly.

Other employers are careless and do not pay much attention to health and safety matters. Others, especially small businesses, are under cost pressures, not least from insurance. Without realising the dangers, they cut corners—whether on insurance or in the instructions they give their employees. One can understand how such things happen and have some sympathy, but from the victim's point of view it makes no difference whether the failure that contributed to the accident through which he was seriously injured was due to a rogue employer or a good employer. If there is no insurance, especially if the business goes bankrupt, he has no access to the compensation that would make his life bearable. I have come across many cases in which the victim of an injury or accident suffers for the rest of his life and is unable to work again.

We cannot condone any failure to observe regulations, but we must recognise the problems for small businesses, in particular, and work out how to help them. Insurance is a problem for many small businesses, which struggle with rising premiums, and both the Government and the insurance industry must consider that, especially in relation to the small craft businesses whose continuation we desperately need.

I should declare an interest as the chairman of a trust that sometimes contracts such businesses. I chair the Historic Chapels Trust, which uses highly skilled people to repair church steeples and high roofs and to decorate high ceilings. People doing such work are exposed to risk, so procedures must be correctly followed to ensure that they have safety provisions—whether harnesses, scaffolding or whatever. They also need insurance and the premiums are escalating all the time, not least due to high awards in court cases and the insurance industry's general fear of the growing litigation culture. Cases may be lost because the claims are unwarranted, but they still cost money to defend. Small businesses are therefore understandably frightened about other threats such as penalties, especially if they have to pay them because of an inadvertent action rather than a deliberate fault.

Has the right hon. Gentleman come across any cases in which the skills needed to undertake renovation are in danger of disappearing either because businesses or individuals can no longer get insurance cover or because they are scared off by the increased penalties in the Bill? Has he encountered such cases, or does he fear that they will occur?

I do not fear the latter, but the former is certainly a serious problem. The insurance premium has to be paid, while the penalty applies to an offence that an employer does not think he will commit. I have met small business people in both conservation and in small building and decorating work who do not think that they can carry on unless they work for themselves, because they cannot afford the insurance premiums for their employees. That is a genuine problem and we will lose craft businesses and small local businesses in many areas if we do not address it.

The Bill did not create that problem, although it may add to the pressure on employers. The problem forms part of the background to the Bill, but it does not diminish the requirement that people should be properly protected and insured. The Health and Safety Executive, however, does not always undertake proper risk assessments or correctly compare one risk with another, especially when dealing with public risk.

Like other hon. Members, I have encountered examples of the HSE's absurd insistence. For example, in the railway industry, it has devoted a great deal of effort to stopping the opening of new stations because some trains are slightly longer than the platform. It is just possible that the guard will open all the doors, not just those opening on to the platform, and someone will be foolish enough to fall 6 ft on to the ground, break their ankle and sue the industry. That is an unsatisfactory risk assessment, if we consider the risk of many more people travelling by road. The problem can be dealt with, as can many health and safety problems.

High roof risks can be tackled by the use of harnesses, abseiling techniques and so on. Other problems can be tackled by the use of scaffolding. There is usually a safe way of doing a job, although it is sometimes more expensive. It may require more education and training and more work force supervision. Many industrial accidents happen because workers cut corners. They want to get the job finished, and younger people in particular feel that they can take risks to do so. Their motives are genuine, but they can become victims of an accident.

We support the Bill, but we do not want to support the unrealistic or uninformed risk assessments sometimes undertaken by the HSE. We want proper assessments, the provision of sensible requirements, and serious penalties for people who break them. At the end of the day, it will be for the courts to decide whether there are mitigating circumstances in individual cases, including lack of intention to commit an offence and lack of awareness. The Bill must give a clear signal that businesses both large and small must protect their employees and must have insurance, which may protect them if something goes wrong—a situation that everyone should seek to avoid. If the penalties are not sufficient for current circumstances, we ought to review them, and the Bill provides an opportunity to do so.

The Government clearly support the Bill, as they have issued explanatory notes on it, and are sympathetic to the aims of the hon. Member for Edmonton (Mr. Love). However, they must accept that their responsibilities do not end there—they must consider the problems facing small businesses and enable people in small, skilled businesses to meet their insurance costs and stay in business. The taxpayer may have to make a contribution if the insurance industry cannot and a way out, but discussions should certainly take place between the Ministers responsible and the industry about the way in which we deal with the problem.

I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Edmonton (Mr. Love) on introducing a Bill that is well overdue. I must declare an interest as a personal injury lawyer who has dealt with many people who have been injured, and families who have been killed, at work. I remain a consultant to my law firm, although obviously I take no cases while doing what is more than a full-time job as a Member of Parliament.

I feel that, if anything, the Bill does not go far enough. The Work and Pensions Committee, of which I have the privilege to be a member, is engaged in a major inquiry into health and safety. We have had some remarkable evidence. On Tuesday, we took evidence in Scotland, with particular reference to the construction industry. Some of what we were told was frightening. The Health and Safety Executive carried out a blitz on construction sites in Scotland and the north-east. It informed employers of the week, the day and the hour when it would arrive. It inspected some 440 sites and discovered about 250 infringements of health and safety law leading to the issue of improvement or prohibition notices. It intends to prosecute in 10 cases. Although the HSE had given employers so much notice of its arrival, it found those appalling infringements in what is, after all, a dangerous industry. I understand that the biggest problems were with small employers rather than big contractors.

We were told that the average fine following a prosecution after a death at work was about £9,000. That is a travesty of justice. The average penalty incurred by construction companies for a day's delay in delivery is £20,000 under contract. The incentives are all one-way: to cut the corners and get on with the job. That is why my hon. Friend's Bill is so important.

We should perhaps consider more imaginative penalties than fines. Some of the evidence we were given, including evidence from employer organisations, raised the question of whether we should allow courts to disqualify directors of companies that wilfully, and woefully, break health and safety law. Such penalties are already available for infringements of company law or laws relating to company accounts. It is bizarre that they are not available when a company kills or seriously maims someone.

It is interesting that the hon. Gentleman should introduce the subject of directors so early in his analysis. I have always found it odd that directors should be held responsible in this context, especially in industries such as construction. Surely the prime responsibility should lie with supervisors, who are there on the job and have a realistic opportunity to ensure that health and safety provisions are adhered to. Is it not strange that the role of directors should be constantly emphasised, when those directly responsible for management on the site are much more likely to bear the real responsibility?

On the contrary, in the past it has always been the fall guy at the bottom who has carried the can. Following the Zeebrugge disaster, Mr. Justice Sheen's inquiry made it clear that the company was riddled with failure from top to bottom. The real health and safety issue is not necessarily the failure of the supervisor on the ground floor but, much more important, the company's overall attitude. Companies should establish proper health and safety systems, and mechanisms to ensure that they are implemented. It is a question of designing in health and safety at the outset in industries such as construction.

The Committee visited the new site of the Royal Bank of Scotland, where such practices are being introduced. We were very impressed. On a building site employing some 3,000 workers, there had been only one reportable accident in the time—nearly three years—during which the site had been operating. That shows what can be achieved if management are committed to installing the right systems throughout. It is an example that could well be followed elsewhere. We ought to give judges the power, in these cases, to order the rectification of the health and safety feature that caused the problem. There is a lacuna in the law in that the Health and Safety Executive can issue an improvement or prohibition notice, but if it prosecutes, the judge does not have a similar power to put things right.

In determining the level of fines for breaches of health and safety law, we ought to take into account the size of the company's turnover. When we fine people for ordinary criminal offences, their means are taken into account. That might also deal with the issue of small businesses.

I very much agree with my hon. Friend's proposals on compulsory employer's liability insurance. I would also like there to be a register of employer's liability policies. That is particularly important in disease cases, such as those related to asbestos. As a personal injury lawyer, I sometimes had to try to track down insurers from 20 or 30 years earlier, a task that often proved impossible. There were no centrally kept records and many of the companies had gone into liquidation or out of business. A central record of insurers would enable people who, many years later, wanted to claim compensation for appalling diseases to do so more effectively.

Much has been said about the high cost of insurance premiums. The difficulty arises not from the cost of the risk that we face today but from the fact that insurers woefully underestimated the risk of claims 20 or 30 years ago. We now see cases of what are called "long-tail diseases" causing insurers to pay out, which is why insurers are now trying to recover losses on policies from 20 or 30 years ago.

Notwithstanding the hon. Gentleman's profession, does he think that the increasingly litigious blame culture in which we now find ourselves—one of the few imports from the United States that I regret—is a major contributory factor, and that, one of these days, the Government are going to have to try to tackle the problem, as the United States is trying to do in different ways, even if it would put him out of work?

As I said, in that respect I am not in work at the moment. The idea of a compensation culture, certainly as it applies to the workplace, is simply an urban and tabloid myth. If one looks at the accurate statistics that have become available over the past few years, one sees that the number of claims on employer's liability policies has not only flat-lined but slightly declined, and the total amount paid out has flat-lined. The evidence available through the insurance industry tells the same story as that from the compensation recovery unit, which probably has the most accurate statistics on this question.

My hon. Friend the Member for Edmonton and others referred to the problem of accidents, but the Bill is not simply about trying to penalise employers after an accident has taken place; it is an attempt to create a safety culture and to prevent accidents. It is instrumental that only one in five serious accidents are investigated by the HSE. I hope that the Bill will result in increased powers for safety representatives, who may be able to plug the gap left by the HSE's inability to investigate all the accidents that it would like to investigate. I hope that it will also include the necessary preventive measures. It is bizarre that trade unions cannot directly enforce the regulations on health and safety representatives.

I recall that the document produced in 2000 by the HSE and the Government, "Revitalising Health and Safety", recommended the removal of the requirement for the consent of the Director of Public Prosecutions to bring a prosecution under the Health and Safety at Work etc. Act 1974 or the regulations on safety representatives. If the Government could find the time to do that it would be welcome because it would enable private prosecutions to plug the gap left by the HSE.

In considering penalties, it is important also to consider how we will enforce them—a question that has arisen in one or two other debates today. When I studied criminal law, I learned that the question is not only one of having the right penalties in place; another side of the triangle is making sure that those who commit an offence are more likely to be found out, because certainty of detection is as much of a deterrent as the level of the penalty that follows.

My concern is that the HSE is woefully under-resourced for the job that it has to do, and it may surprise you to know, Mr. Deputy Speaker, that this country has more Members of the House than health and safety inspectors. That may say something about the respective merits of our trades, but I think that most people would be very surprised to learn that. There is an argument for significantly increasing the number of health and safety inspectors so that we can more effectively enforce health and safety law.

The trade union Prospect suggests that there should be a significant increase sufficient to allow each place of employment to be inspected at least once every five years, and once in the first year in a new undertaking. That is a not unreasonable goal for us to try to work towards.

There is widespread support for the proposals introduced by my hon. Friend the Member for Edmonton. The evidence given to the Work and Pensions Committee shows that there is support from the Government, which I hope my right hon. Friend the Minister for Work will confirm in a few moments, although Prospect, the union that organises health and safety inspectors, has commented on the derisory nature of the fines, which have not increased since 1992.

The Institution of Occupational Safety and Health recommended that the HSE examine the case for remedial sentencing, which is the point that I have just made. It feels that employers simply do not meet their obligations because they have not invested sufficiently in competent advice and training or paid enough attention to that.

To what extent are the courts using the powers available to them in fines and sentencing? My impression is that they go nowhere near the maximum on most occasions. The problem may be the culture in the courts, although there may be good reason for awarding such fines, but would increasing the maximum make any difference?

The hon. Gentleman makes an important point. We have a vicious circle here in that the HSE perhaps does not prosecute as much as it otherwise would simply because the fines are derisory. The fine for killing someone is only a few thousand pounds—the HSE tends to prosecute such cases—but even less for ordinary regulatory breaches, which involve only a few hundred pounds, if that. Rarely do we see million-pound fines. That has happened only once or twice, for the major railway disasters.

The HSE says, "Why do we bother tying up so much inspector time and effort in carrying out those prosecutions when the courts impose so little penalty? Are we not better using that time for enforcement inspections?" Alternatively, it could be used for the new thrust of the Health and Safety Commission policy paper, which was published a couple of months ago. It aims to rebalance the emphasis towards more educational work, to put things in general terms.

I have a lot of sympathy with the HSC in that respect, which has relatively limited resources that I would like to be increased. My hon. Friend the Member for Edmonton has a point, but how are we to change that culture? Increasing the penalties would at least send a message to those involved in sentencing that they have been too lenient. It would also create a wider range of options, along the lines that I have suggested. I recall raising some of those issues with the CBI—my hon. Friend has prayed it in aid—and asking Dr. Asherson of the CBI about that point. She accepted that sentencing had to be looked at carefully and that some elements were out of step.

My hon. Friend has done us a great service in introducing the Bill. This is not the first attempt to put such a Bill before the House, but I hope that it will be the last and that this Bill makes progress.

I note that the hon. Gentleman has been speaking for longer than the Bill's promoter and Front Benchers representing Her Majesty's Opposition. I wonder whether he is up to his old Friday tricks again. While he professes support for such a Bill, is he filibustering to talk one out again?

I never filibuster a Bill. If I had been filibustering, I would have been brought to book by the Chair on every occasion it is alleged that I have done so, as the right hon. Member for Bromley and Chislehurst (Mr. Forth) knows.

I was about to bring my remarks to a close, but I have spoken for a little longer than might have been expected because I have taken a number o interventions from around the Chamber. This is an issue that I feel passionately about, having spent my whole working life in this area. I welcome the Bill introduced by my hon. Friend the Member for Edmonton and wish it every success.

This is my first opportunity as Minister with responsibility for health and safety to mark the fact that today the ninth victim of the explosion at Grovepark Mills in Glasgow was recovered from the ruins, leaving 42 people injured, 16 of them seriously. I want to place on the record my deep sadness and dismay at the incident and confirm that the Health and Safety Executive will investigate the causes of the disaster with its usual vigour. No doubt all hon. Members look forward with interest to receiving its report.

I compliment the hon. Member for Bexhill and Battle (Gregory Barker) on his first outing at the Dispatch Box. I am pleased with his constructive approach, as, no doubt, are other hon. Members. We join him in supporting the Bill, although I grant that there are some issues that he will want to raise, not least with me and my hon. Friend the Member for Edmonton (Mr. Love), in Committee, should we get to that stage, which I sincerely hope we will. All hon. Members, including the right hon. Members for Bromley and Chislehurst (Mr. Forth) and for Berwick-upon-Tweed (Mr. Beith), approached the issue with a constructive attitude, and I hope to deal with one or two of their concerns.

For the avoidance of any doubt, let me stress that the Government very much welcome the Bill. The proposals are entirely consistent with our overall health and safety strategy, and are additional and complementary to our other work. The courts are prevented from imposing adequate penalties in some of the most serious health and safety cases. It is important to remember that someone injured by a breach of the Health and Safety at Work, etc. Act 1974 is no less a victim than someone who is assaulted. It is vital that the courts reflect the growing condemnation that society reserves for businesses and individuals who gain at the expense of people's health and safety, or who fail to insure against the possibility of harm being done to those whom it is their duty to protect. It is wrong that a relatively small number of businesses can gain a commercial advantage from putting at risk the lives of their workers and members of the public, or from failing to insure their liabilities to their employees.

The Bill would not change the requirements on business, as my hon. Friend the Member for Edmonton said, but it would help to ensure that sentences for health and safety offences can more easily be set at a level that deters those tempted to flout the law. It is for the courts to decide the appropriate penalty for the health and safety offences brought before them. By extending the £20,000 maximum fine available to the lower courts and making imprisonment an option for most offences, the Bill would give the courts the full scope to exercise their discretion and judgment. It would also significantly improve the main penalty provision of the Employers' Liability (Compulsory Insurance) Act 1969.

Penalties currently imposed by the courts on employers who fail to insure are low, yet the offence can have very serious consequences. Employees who fall victim to an employer's failure of health and safety management would much prefer not to have been disabled or made ill. It is a great injustice if they cannot be compensated because their employer broke the law by not insuring his liabilities. Not only does non-compliance reduce the protection for employees, but it transfers the liabilities to the taxpayer when the employer is negligent and gives the unscrupulous an unlawful competitive advantage.

The House knows that we recently conducted a major review of employers' liability compulsory insurance, and we are working to deliver the resulting recommendations. Hon. Members expressed concerns about the level of premiums that businesses will face. I reassure them that we recognise that too many businesses have faced steep price increases, late renewals and premiums that fail to reflect their health and safety record. The market has not failed, but it has not worked well enough. We are taking forward the recommendations of the industry review, the detail of which I shall reserve for our discussions in Committee, when hon. Members will have an opportunity to probe further the Government's approach to the problem.

We have shown that we have recognised the problems in the market. We are committed to helping companies to find the appropriate cover, but as well as helping responsible businesses, we need to provide an effective deterrent to this type of offending. The Bill seeks to provide one. We welcome it, and I hope that it receives a fair wind.

What a marvellous day in the House of Commons, with lots of Bills under consideration and lots of progress being made. I am sure that that is a very good thing.

I start by answering the question that the hon. Member for Edmonton (Mr. Love) asked, because it gives me the opportunity to put on record yet again one of my very favourite quotations. He asked me whether I opposed all private Members' Bills, and my answer is to give a quotation from none other than Winston Churchill himself. In 1931, before the Select Committee on Procedure, he said:

"I am not very anxious to help private Member's Bills. I have seen a great many of them brought forward, and in most cases it was a very good thing that they did not pass. I think there ought to be a very effective procedure for making it difficult for all sorts of happy thoughts to be carried on to the Statute Book."

Sir Winston Churchill, none other. I have always subscribed very much to that view, and that is my answer to the hon. Gentleman.

Those here present who are here every Friday, of whom I can see only one, namely the hon. Member for Hendon (Mr. Dismore)—[Interruption.] And of course yourself, Mr. Deputy Speaker, I do apologise. Those Members will concede that I have on occasion been happy to allow progress to be made by—[Interruption.] And, I am reminded, that also here present is the Government Whip, the hon. Member for West Carmarthen and South Pembrokeshire (Mr. Ainger), lurking silently and sinisterly just to make sure that everything is as it should be. I apologise to him for not giving him that credit.

I hope that those hon. Members will recognise that I have on occasion been happy to support private Members' Bills and to allow them to make progress. Where I think that a private Member's Bill is modest in scope, is uncontroversial and involves no cost to the taxpayer, I believe that it should in most cases make progress. That has always been my view and it remains my view. However, if such a Bill is, by contrast, controversial, complex or significant in its scope, then I think that it should properly be a Government Bill.

This Bill almost certainly comes into that category. It is all very well for—[Interruption.] The Minister is sighing. I welcome her to her new responsibilities. She will not know this, but I myself was the Minister responsible for health and safety, way back in the good old days between 1990 and 1992 in the old Department of Employment, so I know a little of what I speak and of what I am about to say. I visited construction sites with my hard hat of as the Minister with responsibility for the Health and Safety Executive, and I was responsible for the HSE's budget. Today, my remarks will not be made out of complete ignorance or prejudice, which I know that some Members believe is often the case. On this occasion, they might actually be slightly informed.

On the question of being informed, the right hon. Gentleman said that he was the Minister with responsibility for the Health and Safety Executive between 1990 and 1992. Will he clarify whether he supports the work of the HSE and wants to help it to improve its enforcement activities?

The hon. Gentleman would have to ask the HSE what its view was at the time. I hope that I discharged my responsibilities in a proper manner and gave it full support as the sponsoring Minister.

In a spirit of generosity to the Minister, I just want to remark that she looks so disappointed that the Bill is not going to float through the House today and into Committee, where she is so anxious to be able to let us know the Government's attitude. I am sorry, but her hon. Friends have already taken up quite a lot of time today—longer than I will have been on my feet by the time it gets to 2.30 pm, I should remind her. The House has been extraordinarily generous in its attitude to Bills today, but that generosity has just run out. The Minister will have to find another way forward. She will either have to persuade her hon. Friend the Member for Edmonton to find a different way to get the measure to make progress or—here is a really radical thought—perhaps the Government should make this a Government Bill.

This is a Government Bill anyway, we all know that. We all know that an alarming proportion of the Bills that pass through this House are Government Bills in very thin disguise, except for the many, many Bills that, as I reminded the House earlier, are killed by Ministers. The Minister should be aware of the fact that on every private Members' Friday this year, her ministerial colleagues have talked out six Bills from the Front Bench—I can provide her with the list of them that I have compiled, if she wants to see it. The other two were talked out by the hon. Members for Hendon and for Greenock and Inverclyde (David Cairns). The Minister must therefore not be too disappointed if this Bill does not make progress today, because her colleagues—Ministers in this Government—have been responsible for the demise of several Bills already this year. But I do not want to get too bogged down in that matter, Mr. Deputy Speaker. You want me to get on to the Bill, and I shall be only too happy to do so.

We have already seen, from the analysis that has been offered to us by the promoter of the Bill, and by the hon. Member for Hendon and the right hon. Member for Berwick-upon-Tweed (Mr. Beith), that there is a real tension between what we want to achieve and the downside risks involved in trying to achieve it. This is something that often surfaces in public and governmental life: a desire to see an objective obtained, either by legislating—as we have just seen in the case of the Sex Discrimination (Clubs and Other Private Associations) Bill—or by imposing penalties. We often have to measure this kind of thing against the likely results that could arise.

In this case, it has already emerged that one of the real risks of the Bill is that businesses—mainly small businesses—could be so adversely affected by it that we might suffer a significant loss of employment. I well recognise the dilemma involved. The right hon. Member for Berwick-upon-Tweed gave us an example in his excellent speech of a small business involved in a hazardous pursuit—in this case, mining—being faced with the dilemma of whether to continue with insurance cover, which can be very difficult and expensive to maintain, or to go out of business because it could not obtain or afford such cover, in which case the unfortunate man whom the right hon. Gentleman mentioned would be unemployed instead of risking being seriously injured down the mine.

That is a dreadful dilemma, to which there is no obvious answer. There will certainly be no obvious answer to the people most directly involved. It is all very well for us to theorise about these matters, with a Bill in front of us and the best of intentions—as ever we have in this place—but we must always have regard to the realities of the people out there who are struggling to make a living, striving to build a business and undertaking the difficult responsibilities involved in employing other people. So when we come to consider this kind of measure, we should look at all these things in the round.

In that regard, the hon. Member for Edmonton was typically honest and straightforward in saying that, among the representations that had been made to him were a number from the CBI, the Institute of Directors and the Federation of Small Businesses, all of whom predictably said, "Of course we agree with the objectives of the Bill, but—". That "bull" is very important. They seemed to be arguing, on the one hand, that the custodial sentences built in to the Bill may well be too harsh, and on the other, that small businesses could be so adversely affected by the Bill that many of them could be driven out of business altogether.

It is also worth noting—this is just a footnote at this stage—that at the very time when complaints are being made about bulging prisons, the excessive prison population, and people being in prisons who should not be there, we are introducing yet another measure that at least has the potential to put more people into prison. It is for us to judge whether custodial sentences are desirable, and we shall make that judgment if the Bill makes any further progress, but let us at least take a sideways glance at the fact that at the same time as we and our colleagues are complaining bitterly about people being put in prison, we are being urged to support a Bill that would exacerbate the problem.

Employer's insurance forms a major part of the Bill. As I said in an earlier intervention, we should look at the advisability of incorporating into the Bill a specific amount in regard to fines and penalties. I have often come across this issue over the years—

It being half-past Two o'clock, MR. DEPUTY SPEAKERadjourned the debate without Question put, pursuant to Standing Order.

Debate to be resumed on 16 July.

I begin by thanking the Minister for his courtesy in seeing me earlier this week. For each of us it was a useful dress rehearsal for the debate.

There are two root causes of the health service crisis in West Worcestershire and, in particular, of the problems facing my constituency. The first is the extraordinary overspend by the Worcestershire Acute Hospitals NHS Trust, especially by the new Worcestershire Royal hospital. The second is the retrospective decision last year by the Government to cap the funding of eight out of 13 South Worcestershire primary care trust GP-based capital projects.

Since the national health service is a centrally directed public service funded almost exclusively by the taxpayer, the Government must ultimately take responsibility for a situation that in Worcestershire threatens to cut the present quality of health services. That is despite the fact that the Government have raised taxes, ostensibly in order to provide for better health services. Worcestershire is a good example of the coincidence of taxes going up steeply and the quality of services threatening to decline.

Two particular matters are currently in the forefront of the minds of many of my constituents. The first is the question of the threat to the provision in my constituency of new GP medical centres in Malvern, Upton-upon-Severn and Pershore. These centres were part of a list of 13 projects submitted for approval by the Government, of which only five were actually approved. The Government argue that at no time did they indicate that all 13 would be approved. I am told that that does not accurately reflect the practice that was in place before the Government changed the rules, in this instance after some of the preparatory contracts had been placed.

The position before the rules were changed was that the non-cash-limited programme received almost automatic approval once it had been cleared by the local health authority. This may not have been good practice, but it was the system under which health authorities made their plans and let out their contracts. I do not necessarily quarrel with the Government's judgment in tightening these rules. I do question the way in which they did it. What has thrown the system in Worcestershire into disarray has been the fact that the new rules were introduced without warning and with a retrospective effect on local plans and contracts. I understand that that may even have made the South Worcestershire primary care trust liable to be sued for damages.

One particular GP practice scheme has been put at risk, and if it does not go ahead it will have a severe knock-on effect that could threaten the building of the new community hospital at Pershore. Capital has been allocated for the building of the Pershore hospital by the Wychavon district council on the basis of the return in rents from the hospital itself and the medical centre that is to be housed in the overall premises. Without the rent from the medical centre, which is now under threat, the building of the hospital is unlikely to go ahead, at least for the time being. That will cause grave anguish and if it happens it will be a tragedy for the people of Pershore, who deeply value their existing community hospital and who have been led to believe that a start to building a new one will be made later this year.

The Government now say that it is up to the strategic health authority and the primary care trusts in Worcestershire, Warwickshire, Coventry and Herefordshire to prioritise their investment projects within the overall budget. As a matter of fact, they are trying to do just that in a meeting that is going on as we speak. The task would have been made immensely easier if the policy had been introduced in a less erratic fashion and with proper warning. False hopes would not have been raised and contracts would not have been entered into. Those involved would have been able to plan on a more realistic basis. As it is, an immense amount of work has gone into preparing the projects, some of which will, presumably, be delayed well into the future at best. Frankly, that is not good enough. The Government should be prepared to reconsider their position—certainly with respect to the four medical centres that it had been thought would be built in my constituency over the next few months. Under the old rules, they certainly would have been.

The second big issue facing the health service in Worcestershire is the uncertainty that now surrounds the future of the general practitioner contracts, which were signed nationally months ago. The Government and their local agencies are legally committed to them. In the case of Worcestershire, there is grave doubt on the part of health officials—and, indeed, among the doctors themselves—about how the contracts are to be fully implemented.

Three aspects of the contracts are causing particular concern. First, there is the so-called quality formula, by which doctors are paid for achieving standards in respect of a range of some 1,050 quality points. Some might argue that that is a pretty bizarre way of paying doctors, but it is what the agreed contracts say. The particular problem for the South Worcestershire PCT is that funding the quality aspect of the contracts is based on the notion that doctors will achieve, on average, 750 quality points. In Worcestershire, where the quality performance has been high, doctors are averaging around 900 points. That alone is putting pressure on the PCT budget.

Then there is the vexed question of out-of-hours service. There does not seem to be even a basis for an agreement here. It is not yet clear how many GP practices want to take part in the service—or, critically, at what hourly rate. Some people are talking about £80 an hour to cover the cost of doctors being called out at night, but the PCT does not have the funds from central Government to pay those rates without cutting other services. The same is true of the more discretionary elements in the contract, such as preventive counselling services, GP operative services, drug abuse prevention and so forth. Each of those and similar discretionary services are at risk—at least in their present form.

I am told that all this adds up nationally to underfunding the agreed GP contract arrangements to the tune of about £1 billion. If so, this is another example of central Government laying down detailed targets and directions without providing the necessary funding to meet them.

The Worcestershire health service has a particular problem, in that it must try to meet the requirements in the context of closing an acute hospital deficit of more than £200 million for a two-year period. It is no good the Government passing all the blame to its local agents—for that, in a nationalised health system, is exactly what they are: local offices of a central Administration. Under a centralised command system—which is what the NHS is, however it is dressed up—the responsibility lies at the centre and with the Minister. This is especially true of a Government prone to setting detailed targets and giving strict instructions on objectives. Such a Government are especially ill suited to claiming that it is someone else's fault down the line when things go wrong, as they certainly are in Worcestershire.

It is true that more money has been allocated, but the problem is that the imposed costs have grown faster than the revenue. For this reason, there are now the makings of a financial crisis in the health services in Worcestershire, and it is the Government's job to find a way out.

Matters may not be quite so dire where the finances are to an extent ring-fenced. An example is the proposed building of a new community hospital in Malvern. In this case, a business plan can be created whereby the proceeds of the sale of the existing hospital are applied to make the project viable. The Minister need merely give the plan his blessing and encourage all concerned to implement it as soon as possible—preferably within the next few months.

As for the rest, the Government must either lower their sights and shut down the rhetoric and hyperbole, or up the ante, which will mean even higher taxes. This is a dilemma of their own making: it was they who claimed that the nation's health problems would be cured simply by throwing more money at them. Live by spin and die by spin. The problem for the Government is that the reality has taken over from the spin. In Worcestershire at least, the money has not matched the rhetoric and there is now a crisis in the health service. I look forward to the Minister's response.

First, I congratulate the hon. Member for West Worcestershire (Sir Michael Spicer) on securing this debate and on the interest that he has shown in the matter. As he said, we have already met this week, we have exchanged comments at oral questions on a number of recent occasions, and we have corresponded. The same goes for some of his Worcestershire colleagues. I know that he takes a great interest in this.

Before I answer the hon. Gentleman's specific points, let me put the health situation in his constituency in context, because, with the greatest respect, his final comments took it well out of context. First, I must emphasise that South Worcestershire primary care trust is responsible for commissioning health care in west Worcestershire. We have shifted the balance of power to the front line of the health service, quite deliberately, so, contrary to his opening comments. Ministers no longer make local decisions—they are made by local people with local knowledge. The idea of a central command and control system is something that this Government abandoned. I do not know whether he is suggesting that, were his party to return to power, it would reinstate it, but I know that it would be a disaster.

That process of local decision making and substantial extra resources have meant that the dedicated and hard-working NHS staff in Worcestershire have been able to deliver some remarkable achievements. It is a shame that the hon. Gentleman does not mention them a little more often.

For example, in 1997 it was common for patients to wait 18 months or longer for in-patient treatment, but in the South Worcestershire primary care trust area since March 2003, no patient has had to wait more than 12 months for in-patient treatment, and by the end of March this year, no patient was waiting more than nine months. Waits for appointments with GPs are coming down, too. In December 2003, all patients in south Worcestershire could be offered an appointment with their GP within two days. Out-patient waits are also coming down. At the end of March, nobody was waiting for more than 17 weeks for a first out-patient appointment. At Worcestershire Acute Hospitals NHS Trust, 98 per cent. of patients suspected of having cancer are seen by a specialist within two weeks of an urgent referral. Since the PCT was established in 2002, the number of GPs has risen from 172 to 201. At the acute trust, the number of consultants has risen from 144 at its formation in September 2000 to 175. There are also more nurses, therapists, midwives and health care assistants. I could go on and on.

Let me also put the record straight on funding. In 1996–97, the former Worcestershire health authority spent £623 per head on health services for its population. By 2002–03, South Worcestershire PCT spent £894 per head. The final accounts for 2003–04 are not yet available, but South Worcestershire PCT received an 8.9 per cent. increase for 2003–04 and a further increase of 9.7 per cent. for 2004–05, and it will receive another increase of 9.2 per cent. for 2005–06. That will, by then, equate to an allocation of £1,061 per head. In other words, there has been something in the region of a 70 per cent. increase in spending per capita on health services for the residents of south Worcestershire. Whatever tough decisions and problems have to be faced, they are the problems that come with managing growth, not the problems of past years when decision makers had to manage decline and decide which services to cut. That is the context in which we must discuss the specific issues raised by the hon. Gentleman.

I shall start with the GP contract. I am aware of local media speculation that there is a risk of doctors being laid off. Frankly, it is untrue and misleading to say that South Worcestershire PCT will have insufficient funds to honour the new general medical services contracts. There has even been a suggestion that there is a £1 billion shortfall nationally. That is completely unfounded. The new contract is accompanied by an unprecedented increase in the funding available for primary care. Over the three years of the deal, investment in primary care will rise by a third, and that investment is protected by the gross investment guarantee. The new GMS contract represents an excellent opportunity for GPs. Over the current three-year period, funding in primary care across the UK will increase by 33 per cent. from £6.1 billion in 2002–03 to £8 billion in 2005–06.

I should also point out that the contract was negotiated and agreed by the British Medical Association and the NHS Confederation, and all the GP practices in south Worcestershire have signed up to it. Revenue streams are in place to pay for primary care services. We have given practices permanent protection through a minimum practice income guarantee so that no practice loses out under the new formula. South Worcestershire PCT has been allocated £21.8 million to provide primary care services for 2004–05, some £5.4 million of which is for the minimum practice income guarantee. Under the new system, resources will be allocated more fairly on the basis of patient need, practice work load and costs. That surely represents progress and reflects the Government's determination to modernise the NHS.

Part of what the Minister is saying is, "It's not me, guv. All this is not my responsibility." If that were the case, one would be tempted to ask what the point of his job is and why he does not do something else. Of course, it is not the case. The fact is that the Minister gives out the money, and he who calls the piper plays the tune.

The Minister will surely accept that the GP practice arrangements were largely negotiated by the Government. He is being disingenuous in saying that he has no power or responsibility and that it has all been devolved. The local people are agents of his, in effect.

My job, and the job of my colleagues in the Department of Health, is to set the national framework within which local decisions must be made. In the old days, I agree, Ministers at the centre set the national framework and made decisions about how it was to be implemented locally. Now, though, we have a quite clear distinction between my responsibility as a Minister to agree national priorities and set the framework and the responsibility of local managers to deliver and to make the choices that matter to local people. I am sorry that there appears to be someone in his local PCT, presumably someone in a position of seniority, who ought to know what their responsibilities for managing the local situation now are, but does not seem to have grasped that yet, and still thinks that they can harp back to the old days, when we took all the decisions, the responsibility and the blame. That is now very much the job of people in the local PCT.

The hon. Gentleman is right to say that we negotiated the GP contract, but we did that with the NHS Confederation, which represents all the people on the front line, and with the representatives of the doctors themselves. Having done that, we then provided the money needed to implement it. I believe that the local PCT has the resources that it needs, and the power to implement the contract in a way that will benefit the local population.

The other part of the issue that the hon. Gentleman raised was the quality and outcomes framework, which is part of the general medical services contract. GP practices are being rewarded for their performance against a number of quality indicators by scoring points. A point is worth £75 in 2004–05 and £120 in 2005–06 for the average practice. Practices could score a maximum of 1,050 points.

Practices receive three types of payment: quality preparation payments to help practices get ready for the new scheme, quality aspiration payments, which are paid up front to help fund practices' quality achievement, and quality achievement payments—a reward for the final level of quality service achieved. Practices will agree with their PCT what level of points they aspire to achieve for the year ahead, and I am informed by West Midlands South strategic health authority that the average score for GP practices in south Worcestershire is 940 points, which reflects the perceived high standard of primary care provision in the area covered by the trust.

It remains to be seen how well practices perform against their aspirations. We have no way of knowing at this stage of the year whether practices will achieve their aspirations. As one would expect, some will perform better and some will perform below expectations.

The NHS Confederation and the general practitioner council agreed that a budget of more than £500 million for quality arrangements across primary care would be realistic. That sum forms part of the gross investment guarantee. From this, primary care trusts have already or will soon receive full funding for the quality preparation and quality aspiration payments that they need to make.

Funding for quality achievement payments is currently held by the NHS bank. This is in line with the principles of "Shifting the Balance of Power", and is sensible as accurate allocations for achievement cannot yet be made, and the differences between aspiration and achievement will need to be managed.

The word "managed" is a euphemism for saying that if the notional amount were 750 quality points and the budget were based on that, if others, because of good quality in the past, have a much higher total of quality points, there will be a shortfall in the money. The result of that could be a deterioration in quality, because presumably people will try to get lower points, if they can, which is surely a step backwards.

That is not the situation. The money for achievement is being held by the NHS bank, and it will be distributed according to where it is necessary to meet the quality points targets in any particular area. There is no reason to believe, and I certainly do not believe, that the hon. Gentleman's PCT will be underfunded when the achievement money is ultimately distributed.

I believe that high-quality primary care is worth paying for, and I am advised that the South Worcestershire primary care trust has identified the quality payments as a priority for investment, so I do not share the hon. Gentleman's concern that the scheme will impose unacceptable pressure on the trust's finances.

As for health centre developments, under the new contract there have been some changes to the method of funding GP premises development schemes. However, it is important to understand that the new contract was launched on 1 April 2004 and that decisions on the allocation of funding for new premises had to be taken well in advance of that date. It was for that reason that the mid-financial year date of 30 September 2003 was chosen as the point by which contracts had to be signed if health centre developments were to be funded under the old system. It was also important to use the date of 30 September so that the business cases for those developments could be properly evaluated. That decision was taken retrospectively to ensure that there was no "dash for the cash", with trusts submitting bids that were not robust.

Given the interest that the hon. Gentleman has taken in the issue, perhaps he should know that none of the eight bids submitted by South Worcestershire primary care trust in March this year to West Midlands South strategic health authority was robust enough. For example, I am informed by West Midlands South strategic health authority that the local authority rates were not included in the costings. In other words, even if we had not introduced a cut-off point, the bids would have been inadequate at the end of the year. It is frankly baffling that anyone could form the view that the PCT was in a position to enter into contracts. I should also like to stress that there has never been an open-ended commitment to fund all GP aspirations for premises developments.

However, based on information provided by the NHS, we have allocated significant funds to PCTs to support them in meeting existing commitments. The new arrangements include additional funding for new developments that will be prioritised and agreed locally. In 2004–05, nationally, a total of £534 million has been made available for primary care premises, due to rise to £655 million in 2005–06.

Under the new arrangements, decisions about prioritisation of growth funding for premises development in West Midlands South strategic health authority rest with a planning group comprising the eight PCT chief executives or nominated deputies. They have already met to agree the criteria for deciding the funding for individual projects and they are due to meet before the end of May to assess all the bids. Before that meeting, the chief executives have been asked to prioritise the schemes in their PCT.

South Worcestershire PCT will use the draft criteria that were decided in the group to assess its schemes. Of the eight south Worcestershire developments that have gone forward to the new working group, I understand that there are five health centres in the hon. Gentleman's constituency. The hon. Gentleman said that there were four but I am happy to discuss that with him later.

Two health centres are in the constituency of the hon. Member for Mid-Worcestershire (Mr. Luff) and one is in the constituency of my hon. Friend the Member for Worcester (Mr. Foster). Each hon. Member is doing his very best to lobby for his constituency interest. That is right and proper but it also demonstrates why it is right and proper that the decisions on prioritisation are taken locally.

Finally, I would like to say a few words about Worcestershire Acute Hospitals NHS trust, and especially about its financial position. I know that the hon. Member for West Worcestershire believes that that has generated what he perceives to be a crisis in the local area. I take a different view. Hon. Members will know that the trust was recently criticised by the National Audit Office for its financial management. The NAO report related to the 2002–03 financial year. Since then, the Worcestershire Acute Hospitals NHS trust has appointed a new chief executive and director of finance. A financial recovery plan has also been agreed with the West Midlands South strategic health authority and the trust is expected to break even at the end of the current financial year. The strategic health authority has told me that it has confidence in the new team to deliver the balance.

The hon. Gentleman is bound to be concerned about the financial contribution that South Worcestershire PCT will have to make towards the trust's recovery plan. Following my meeting with the hon. Gentleman earlier this week, I asked West Midlands South strategic health authority to confirm the amount that South Worcestershire PCT will be contributing towards tackling the financial difficulties at the Worcestershire Acute Hospitals NHS trust. I am now informed that each of the Worcestershire PCTs will be contributing 2 per cent. of their total allocation. In the case of the South Worcestershire PCT, that equates to £4.4 million, and the PCT has agreed to that. However, the South Worcestershire PCT's funding allocation will have grown by an unprecedented £60.6 million over the current three-year period, which places the amount they must contribute in context.

I should also like to reiterate that the health community in Worcestershire, along with the strategic health authority, must resolve the issues themselves as otherwise the burden would fall on the users of health services further afield.

I hope I have shown that we are putting decision making where it needs to be—in the hands of the local NHS—and that although the challenges raised by the hon. Gentleman must be faced they are not insurmountable. The money is there and I believe his fears are baseless. I have no doubt that we shall discuss the matter further in the weeks to come and I am happy to meet him again once he has had an opportunity to reflect on my comments and to see how things develop locally.

I can assure him that the local PCT is genuinely in a position for decision making. It has the power to make decisions and the resources with which to make them.

The figure that the Minister gave as the contribution towards the hospital is more than would be required to build the health centres.

The motion having been made after half-past Two o'clock, and the debate having continued for half an hour, MR DEPUTY SPEAKERadjourned the House without Question put, pursuant to the Standing Order.

Adjourned at Three o'clock.