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

This short Bill seeks to amend the Highways Act 1980 by applying section 314 of the Act to the offences of wilfully obstructing a highway—section 317 of the original Act—and failing to comply with a court order requiring removal of the obstruction, under section 137ZA of the Act. The Bill, if enacted, will enable proceedings to be enforced against officers of a body corporate who are responsible for obstructing rights of way. It prevents the unscrupulous from setting up and hiding behind a "paper company".

I welcome the support that the Bill has received from both sides of the House. I thank those Members who served on an extremely helpful and co-operative Committee. By coincidence most of them were from, or had connections with, East Sussex—testimony, no doubt, to the beautiful countryside in that part of the United Kingdom, which we all want to share. The officials at the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs who helped to draft the Bill have proven that a piece of legislation need be neither long nor complicated to have an effective impact and to protect the rights of UK citizens.

It should be recognised that the Bill might never have existed had it not been for the courage and determination of Kate Ashbrook. Her campaign to free a 140-year-old right of way in East Sussex from obstruction brought to light the loophole in the existing legislation. She fought a personal campaign against a company which hid behind the veil of incorporation. If the Bill is passed, such a situation will not be allowed to occur again, and it will be testimony to her fortitude.

I also thank the Ramblers Association for their encouragement and help in preparing the Bill, my researcher, Berni Smith, for her research on the detail, and the Minister for Rural Affairs and Local Environmental Quality and hon. Members on both sides of the House for their support. In particular, I express my thanks to my hon. Friend the Member for Hendon (Mr. Dismore), whose expertise in parliamentary procedure has been invaluable.

I hope the Bill will gain the same sort of support in another place, and that ramblers in Britain can walk freely before we are recessed for the summer. I shall be content if my epitaph describes me in consequence as the "Rambling MP" although my brevity today may be pleaded in mitigation.

We on the Conservative Benches warmly welcome the intentions of the Bill and congratulate the hon. Member for Hastings and Rye (Mr. Foster) on his efforts in bringing this important issue to the House.

As someone who is a Member for a rural constituency and has a keen interest in rural affairs, I understand the importance of access to the countryside wherever possible and appropriate. Historical rights of way should be preserved to ensure the continued enjoyment of the countryside by our constituents. Rogue landowners must not be allowed to obstruct footpaths and highways while hiding behind incorporated shell companies to avoid paying fines and removing the obstructions. It is right that a loophole in the law that allows the circumvention of existing provisions is closed.

The current loophole is exploited by putting land into the ownership of a shell company, by which process it is feasible to negate and nullify the law. The decisions of local magistrates and the determination of local authorities to reopen obstructed rights of way are, therefore, hindered at present. We all believe that the current situation is unacceptable.

There are, however, a few clarifications that I should like the Minister to make. First, should the Bill become law, what steps will DEFRA take to ensure that local authorities maintain rights of way and enforce the new powers in the legislation? Secondly, my hon. Friend the Member for Wealden (Charles Hendry) raised in Committee an important question about whether company directors residing abroad would be prosecuted under the new provisions. I understand that the Minister promised to write to members of the Committee on that point and it would be helpful if he could explain to the House the contents of that response.

Thirdly, it would also be informative if we understood how the legislation would apply to companies based offshore—in the Channel Islands, the British Virgin Islands and the Cayman Islands. That is obviously a possible loophole, or trick, that landlords could use.

Fourthly, will the Minister provide details about how DEFRA would publicise the changes under the Bill to ensure that local authorities, landowners and other relevant interest groups had a full and comprehensive understanding of their implications?

I welcome the Minister's commitment to my hon. Friend the Member for North Wiltshire (Mr. Gray) in Committee that if the Bill's provisions reach the statute book they will not be retrospective. Such a move would set an unwelcome precedent for future legislation. A further confirmation from the Minister on the Floor of the House would be most welcome.

Finally, I understand that the Bill does not entail any additional public expenditure or changes to public service manpower. Conservative Members welcome that, and I should be grateful for a further assurance from the Minister that this is the case.

Conservative Members strongly support the Bill. We believe that the laws of the land should be fair, reasonable and effective. It is also important that they are seen to be so by the public. Deliberate obstructions are not only detrimental to rights of way, but are often eyesores and are damaging to the countryside. Law-abiding, decent landowners will welcome the Bill, as it will improve relationships between countryside users and landowners. The countryside is for us all, and we condemn people who deliberately prevent normal members of the public from gaining legitimate access to it. We support the Bill and hope that it will prevent unscrupulous landowners from obstructing historic rights of way.

I wish to place on the record Liberal Democrat Members' support for the Bill. I congratulate the hon. Member for Hastings and Rye (Mr. Foster) on introducing it.

I have had experience of dealing with rights of way legislation, both in local authorities and national parks, and know some of the difficulties involved with historic interpretations of different aspects of rights of way. Any legislation that is introduced to clarify the issues or to close a loophole is very welcome to Liberal Democrats.

I also congratulate ramblers and I congratulate Kate Ashbrook on the work that she has carried out. The sooner the Bill is brought into force, the better it will be for walkers and those who wish to use the countryside as well as for landowners. It will clarify the position. The deliberate obstruction of rights of way does nothing to enhance the reputation of landowners or to promote access to, and enjoyment of, the countryside. We welcome the Bill wholeheartedly.

I am pleased that we have reached the conclusion to our careful consideration of this short, uncontentious but important Bill. I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Hastings and Rye (Mr. Foster) on succeeding in getting it to this stage. Many people have their names attached to a private Member's Bill, but it takes more than an accident to bring about sufficient agreement across the Chamber to give that Bill every chance of success. I congratulate him on his efforts.

I am also grateful to the hon. Members for Boston and Skegness (Mr. Simmonds) and for Brecon and Radnorshire (Mr. Williams) for their comments. They raised a couple of issues that I shall deal with briefly, but both have acknowledged that the issue of rights of access is not an easy one. Since I took up this brief, it has become clear to me that the range of complexities that can arise with rights of way and, in particular, with rights of way in relation to common land and those involved if one strays into Powys are enormous. It is not always easy to deal with what might appear to be a simple problem. However, I believe that this Bill closes a loophole and does so comprehensively.

The Bill's very simple but important aim is to close a loophole that allows the obstruction of a public right of way if a wealthy landowner sets up a shell company deliberately to evade legislation. I stress that we are dealing with deliberate evasion, not accidental oversight.

The Government's policy is to promote an accessible network of public rights of way for the greater use and enjoyment by all. As the foot and mouth outbreak in 2001 proved, this is vital for the rural economy as a whole. The Bill strengthens the provisions that the Government introduced in the Countryside and Rights of Way Act 2000 to deal with obstructions. The aim is to make provision for safe, accessible recreational facilities away from traffic, and the rights of way network must also facilitate initiatives towards walking for health and encouraging people to exercise more. The issue is as important as that.

The Bill seeks to close a loophole whereby an individual may act under the cover of a body corporate in the knowledge that, if the company has no assets, no fines will be payable. In Committee, Members from all three main parties referred to the appalling case in East Sussex associated with Nicholas van Hoogstraten. Local highways authorities are under a duty to assert and protect the rights of the public to use and enjoy those public rights of way for which they are responsible. However, authorities must have the necessary means to ensure that they can be proactive in keeping rights of way free from obstructions. It is wrong that there should be administrative, legal or cost obstructions in the pathway of a highways authority that seeks to carry out its obligations, and I agree with the hon. Member for Boston and Skegness on the importance of that. By removing the obstacle, we take a positive step in that direction.

In the vast majority of cases in which obstructions occur, the obstruction is removed through negotiation. The threat of legal action is usually successful when negotiation fails. However, the case in East Sussex has demonstrated that when that threat needs to be followed through, there is a loophole. Because of the notoriety of the individual associated with this case, the press coverage advertised widely the fact that recalcitrant landowners can defeat the system by misuse of the corporate veil.

Although we believe that the need to prosecute an officer of a company may occur very rarely in practice, we can only speculate on the number of occasions when authorities may have been deterred from prosecuting a body corporate, in the knowledge that enforcement action might prove difficult and, indeed, very expensive. It is therefore important to ensure that when the Bill becomes an Act the provisions are properly communicated to enforcement authorities; the hon. Member for Boston and Skegness made that point strongly. I give him the assurance that I intend to take responsibility for promoting the provisions to local authorities, landowners, users, and others with an interest in rights of way when the Bill becomes an Act, as I sincerely hope that it will before long. I intend to write directly to local authorities, and we shall update current departmental guidance on rights of way legislation to ensure that these important provisions are clearly understood by those who have to use them.

I underline that the Bill will ensure that when a body corporate commits the offence of wilfully obstructing a highway, or failing to comply with an order to remove an obstruction—and it is proved that the offence was committed with the consent, connivance or neglect of an officer of the body corporate—that officer may also be found guilty of that offence. The provisions of the Bill will apply to offences committed under section 137, which deals with wilful obstruction of a highway, of the Highways Act 1980 and section 137ZA, which deals with the failure to comply with an order to remove an obstruction, after the commencement of the Bill, regardless of whether the order to remove the obstruction made under section 137ZA was made before or after commencement. I should also clarify that local highways authorities are responsible for bringing prosecutions under sections 137 and 137ZA of the 1980 Act.

As the hon. Member for Boston and Skegness pointed out, concerns were expressed in Committee about whether directors of a body corporate resident abroad would be covered by the application of section 314 of the 1980 Act to offences under sections 137 and 137ZA of that Act. I can confirm that that will be the case. When a body corporate commits either of the offences in question and it is proved that the offence was committed with or through the consent, connivance or neglect of a director, that director will be guilty of the offence regardless of where he chooses to reside. Living overseas will not prevent the application of the offence.

The hon. Gentleman clearly anticipated that those with a creative turn of mind would consider our deliberations, and he asked whether placing ownership in an offshore company would be another route to escape. That is not the case. The issue is where the offence is committed, so a magistrates court can deal with any offence—whether it is committed by a British or foreign national—committed within the area of the Bill's jurisdiction, which is England and Wales. That applies to both companies and individuals.

Does my right hon. Friend agree that if there were difficulty in prosecuting an overseas company, it would be possible to prosecute the directors who were in this country even if there were no prosecution against the company itself?

That would be the case. I do not think that there is a loophole for the inventive. The case only arose because of the misapplication of company law. That law had a virtuous intention, and I believe that the Bill closes the loophole entirely. It will enable highways authorities to carry out their responsibilities, as has always been the intention of the House and this and previous Governments, and will achieve consistency.

The Bill is modest, with an important purpose. The useful debate in Committee highlighted a number of issues, all of which have been dealt with. I hope that it will be successful in receiving Third Reading and will quickly become law.

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

Back in February, I had the honour and privilege to move the Bill's Second Reading. I stood in the Chamber, in the shadow of the Morecambe bay tragedy, and asked right hon. and hon. Members on both sides of the House to support the Bill for one reason above all others—to end the exploitation of workers: the kind of exploitation that left men and women to die alone, helpless and terrified, on the sands of Morecambe bay in the name of easy money and quick profit; the kind of exploitation that has resurrected the slavery that we all thought was banished to the history books; the kind of exploitation that feeds off tax evasion, drug smuggling and human trafficking; the kind of exploitation that preys on the weak and the vulnerable; the kind of exploitation that diminishes the humanity of each and every one of us, inside and outside the House.

On Second Reading, I said that I believed it was time for legislation, not exploitation. The unanimous support that the House gave to my Bill was a clear demonstration that members of every party, from the Back Benches to the Front Benches, also believed that to be the case. That cross-party support was highlighted yet again only yesterday with the publication of the Select Committee on Environment, Food and Rural Affairs follow-up report into the role of gangmasters. The Committee stated that it now agrees that there is a need for a system of licensing and registration of gangmasters. It supports my Bill, which I deeply appreciate, and wants the Government to ensure that there is sufficient parliamentary time to get it on the statute book, with the political will and, more importantly, the resources to make it work.

My intention has always been to ensure that any law on gangmaster licensing is effective, robust and, equally important, workable. To coin a well-known advertising slogan, "I want a law that does exactly what it says on the tin." As amended, I believe that the Bill will deliver just such a law.

Before outlining how the Bill has been strengthened since Second Reading, I want to say some brief but important "thank yous". I thank the Government, both Ministers and officials, for their support and hard work in helping me to redraft the Bill. I also thank the coalition groups, from the National Farmers Union to the Transport and General Workers Union, which informed the ideas and the thinking that underpin it. The coalition is a coalition for progress. It spans workers, employers, industry, trade unions, communities and churches. Its breadth and depth are a powerful reflection of the seriousness of the problem and the Bill's merits. Last, but by no means least, I thank my parliamentary colleagues, Members from every party in the House, who have been unswerving in their support and wise in their advice.

I shall give a brief background to the Bill, as amended. The House will know that gangmasters are labour providers who operate throughout the UK economy.

The Bill is not, however, intended to bring in regulations in each and every industry. Instead, as amended, it will regulate gangmasters in the sectors in which they are most common and where the abuses of the rogue operators are at their most extreme—agriculture and horticulture, the shellfish industry and the food processing and packaging industry. That amounts to about 3,000 gangmasters employing, supplying and supervising at least 60,000 workers. Although there are gangmasters who run good, honest, decent firms, many operate at the margins of the law at best and beyond the law at worst.

Voluntary codes and self-regulation have unfortunately failed. They have failed to protect workers, legitimate gangmasters, producers, packers and retailers. They have also failed to protect the taxpayer. The absence of a law to regulate gangmasters has given the good no chance and the bad every chance. The Bill attempts to right that wrong and, as amended, I believe that that is exactly what it will do.

I shall walk the House through the key changes that have strengthened and enhanced the Bill since Second Reading. It is important that there be no rat runs through which rogue gangmasters can escape, so its scope has been widened. Not only will it apply to the whole of the UK, it will also extend to gangmasters based offshore. The work to which the Bill applies has been defined in broad terms to ensure that rogue gangmasters cannot evade the law by redefining the nature of the work that they do. The Bill now covers all forms of sub-contracting. In addition, employment agencies and employment businesses will come within its ambit if they are engaged in activities for which a gangmaster licence is required.

I come now to the definition of a "worker". Although they are often the most vulnerable to exploitation, migrant workers do not make up the majority of those employed, recruited and supplied by gangmasters. In fact, it is estimated that some 70 per cent. of those involved with gangmasters are indigenous workers. But British or foreign, migrant or indigenous, legal or illegal, a worker is a worker is a worker, and no worker should ever be abandoned by the law and left to be a victim of exploitation. Through an amendment that defines a worker as

"an individual who does work to which this Act applies"

the Bill now offers the full protection of the law to every worker.

I thank my hon. Friend for giving way. He is to be congratulated on this important Bill having reached this stage. He said that a worker is a worker is a worker. Is he aware of a situation in my constituency, where a third party employs migrant workers at a mushroom farm to work excessively long hours, sometimes 60 or 70 a week, thereby pushing out the local work force who cannot compete with those people? That means that workers are being exploited, no matter where they are based or where they come from, which has to be absolutely wrong.

My hon. Friend makes a perfectly valid point. I know that she has worked extremely hard to tackle problems that she has identified in mushroom factories in her constituency. That is a classic case—and tangible evidence, if it were needed—of workers, in this case migrants, being exploited, having been offered terrible wages and conditions, in many cases without any accommodation. The net result, as my hon. Friend made clear, is that indigenous workers lose out on jobs because they cannot compete with people who are being paid poverty wages. A fundamental reason for introducing the Bill is to stop that exploitation of migrant workers and protect our indigenous workers, such as those in East Lothian, and that is exactly what the Bill will do. My hon. Friend is to be congratulated on the work that she has done behind the scenes, letting the authorities know what is going on.

I want to deal with the regulations and the powers of the Secretary of State. To ensure that the net is cast just wide enough to capture only those that it is intended to capture, the Bill gives the Secretary of State the power to make regulations concerning the exclusion from, or inclusion in, its provisions of certain types of work. Members will see that, as amended, the Bill also sets out the requirements for regulations that may be made by the Secretary of State through statutory instruments on matters such as the status and constitution of the licensing authority, the circumstances in which a licence may not be required, the licence appeals system and the "reasonable steps" defence for users of unlicensed gangmasters. When he rises to speak, I am sure that my right hon. Friend the Minister will confirm that all the regulations will be made in accordance with current Government practice on the use of delegated powers, including a full and proper consultation process at every stage, which is vital.

The Bill will establish a gangmasters licensing authority, which will be a non-departmental public body sponsored by the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs. It will consist of key industry stakeholders and representatives from the Government, the police and enforcement agencies. It will set out the licence conditions after the fullest consultation with stakeholders. It will process licence applications, set and collect licence fees and establish a public register of licensed gangmasters. It will also have the power to modify, suspend and, where necessary, revoke licences, and it will run a licence appeals system, which is crucial. It will proactively enforce licence conditions. The authority will also be able to investigate and enforce the arrestable offences created by the Bill. I shall deal with those important offences in a moment.

The authority will play a pivotal role in bringing about the culture change needed to drive out the rogues, support the law-abiding and protect the vulnerable. Its fundamental strength lies in the four pillars on which it is built. The first is the skills, experience and expertise of the industry stakeholders who will make up its board and, through their experience, guide the board through its work. The second pillar is the enforcement link that the authority will provide between key Departments, local government, the police and existing enforcement agencies, such as the Health and Safety Executive and the Inland Revenue. The third pillar is the political commitment and financial support from the sponsoring Department, DEFRA, for which we are deeply appreciative. The fourth pillar is the authority's democratic accountability to Parliament, through DEFRA and the Secretary of State, who will be required to make an annual report to Parliament on its operation and, indeed, its effectiveness.

I return to the offences created by the Bill. It is right and proper that those who break the law should be brought to justice. The Bill, in its amended form, will make sure that that happens. However, prevention is always better than cure, so to provide an effective deterrent to rogue operators, the Bill will establish the criminal offences of operating as a gangmaster without a licence, obtaining or possessing a false licence, using an unlicensed gangmaster and obstructing an enforcement officer. Members will know that the illegal activities of some rogue gangmasters have been so serious that they have come under investigation by the National Criminal Intelligence Service.

The Bill now reflects the need seriously to tackle the crime with serious sanctions. It therefore amends the Police and Criminal Evidence Act 1984 to make operating without a licence and possession of a false licence arrestable offences. It also amends the Proceeds of Crime Act 2002 to ensure that the assets of convicted gangmasters can and will be confiscated. The Bill now has added deterrent value for the arrestable offences of operating without a licence and using a false licence, as it includes sentences for repeat offenders: up to two years' imprisonment for a second offence and up to 10 years' imprisonment for a third offence.

I shall now move on to what some Members rightly regard as the most important part of the Bill—the part that deals with enforcement. From the moment I introduced the Bill, I have argued that the key to the success of the licensing and registration scheme lies in the effectiveness of the enforcement that backs it up. To be effective, enforcement must be based on three crucial principles. First, it must be co-ordinated: rogue operators and their abuses cannot be allowed to disappear into gaps between Departments and enforcement agencies. Secondly, it must be properly resourced: the price of doing nothing always outweighs the cost of enforcing the law. Thirdly, it must be proactive: it cannot rely on whistleblowing by workers who are often too terrified to blow the whistle in the first place.

In my view, the amended Bill enshrines those key principles; for example, the licensing authority will act like a buckle on a belt, pulling together the enforcement efforts and expertise of key players such as DEFRA, the Department for Work and Pensions, the Home Office, the police, the Health and Safety Executive and the Inland Revenue. The authority will also be capable of carrying out proactive investigations. Income from the licence fees, in addition to the financial underpinning provided by DEFRA, should ensure that it has the right resources to do the job.

The hon. Gentleman mentions licence fees. He knows that I support the principle of the Bill, but I am concerned about the costs that could be imposed on legitimate gangmasters. What does he think the fee will be, and does he think that setting it too high will encourage unlicensed activity to continue?

I thank the hon. Gentleman for that intervention. It is crucial that farmers, in particular, know the cost of the licence, but I remind him that the industry itself will set the licence fee, and it is hard to imagine it overburdening itself by setting the cost too high. Secondly, estimates of the cost suggest that it should not have a detrimental impact on labour providers. It is estimated—I stress that these are only estimates—that the fee for a three-year licence will be between £1,750 and £2,250, or between Σ585 and £750 a year. I do not think that such costs would put farmers out of business, and farmers themselves have said that the licence will produce a level playing field for them and their businesses.

The Bill opens gateways between Departments, the licensing authority and other enforcement agencies to facilitate the exchange of enforcement information and best practice. It also gives the Secretary of State the power to appoint enforcement officers, and gives those officers powers to enter premises, to search premises, to take possession of any item from those premises, to require the production of all relevant records, to inspect and take away the records, if necessary, and to order the attendance of persons. The Bill also provides enforcement officers and police officers with the power to make arrests in this respect.

Rogue gangmasters in agriculture, the shellfish industry and food processing and packaging are exploiting workers, undercutting good labour providers and engaging in serious criminal activity. The purpose behind the Bill has always been to construct the architecture necessary to end exploitation and to establish the legal paper trail that will bring rogue operators to justice and, I hope, drive them out of business. Farmers, packers, producers, supermarkets, Churches, workers, trade unions, employers, community groups, legitimate gangmasters, the Government, the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs Committee and right hon. and hon. Members on both sides of the House all say with one voice that it is time to legislate, time to establish a statutory licence and a register, and time to end the exploitation. That broad coalition of support has played its part in informing, shaping and amending the Bill into the form in which it once again comes before the House today.

I have always wanted a Bill that was robust, effective and workable. I genuinely believe that, as amended, the Bill is precisely that. It now sets up a licensing authority that combines industry expertise with Government support and democratic accountability. The Bill also now has the scope and flexibility to close any loopholes through which rogue gangmasters might seek to escape, it reaches out to each and every worker throughout the UK, and it provides the framework for an enforcement structure that has both the strength and the flexibility to deter, to detect and to protect.

The House can never lay claim to the making of perfect law, but we can make good law—law that works, law that serves and protects, law that changes our communities, our country and our lives for the better. With the utmost sincerity and conviction, I say that, as amended, the Bill is an opportunity to make just such a law.

I congratulate the hon. Member for West Renfrewshire (Jim Sheridan) both on introducing the Bill and on the manner in which he has just moved Third Reading. The agriculture industries of the UK owe him a great debt.

Although a member of the Standing Committee, I graced it with my presence for only a few minutes. It is matter of some regret to me that it sat on a Wednesday afternoon; I had expected it to sit on a Wednesday morning, a series of which I kept free in order to play a full and active part in its deliberations. However, there seems to have been some discussion with the Minister for Rural Affairs and Local Environmental Quality about when the Bill would be ready for Committee, which indicated an afternoon sitting. That prevented several of my right hon. and hon. Friends and me from participating, even though we had wanted to contribute to work on the Bill. None the less, a clearly satisfactory Bill has emerged from the Committee, whose members I congratulate on their deliberations. Incidentally, I hope that no precedent has been set for the timing of Standing Committees on private Members' Bills—to have them sit on Wednesday mornings enables us to plan our very crowded diaries.

The hon. Gentleman mentioned whistleblowers, and I pay tribute to Zad Padda, my constituent as a company, Fusion Personnel, if not as a resident—he lives in Birmingham. He has played a leading role in bringing the issue to public attention and has put his personal security at some risk by taking such a high profile—[Interruption.]

Order. We cannot have hon. Members making their speeches to music.

I am sorry about that, Mr. Deputy Speaker. At least it makes a change from the more mundane ringtone that we hear in cinemas when we are warned about the same peril. It will not happen again"although it is a good tune.

Zad Padda has put his life in some jeopardy by taking such a high profile, and I have had to ask my local police force to keep a close eye on his security. The world that we are discussing today is pretty murky, and some of those whose lives the Bill will make a great deal more difficult will not welcome what he has done. Zad Padda came to my constituency surgery two or three years ago, and he is the only person so far to have brought a PowerPoint presentation to one of my surgeries. I was so impressed by what he showed and told me about the work of gangmasters and how they could be better regulated and controlled that I asked Lord Whitty to meet him. You and I know, Mr. Deputy Speaker, that the convention is that a Minister gives about half an hour to such a meeting. In fact, Lord Whitty spent an hour and a half or even two hours with Zad Padda, which I think is a measure of the noble Lord's interest in the issue. It is therefore fair to pay tribute to Lord Whitty, too. I know that the Minister for Rural Affairs and Local Environmental Quality has done the bulk of the work in the House of Commons, but the noble Lord has been concerned about gangmasters for some time. I might say—this is perhaps a more partisan note—that perhaps his concern seems rather higher than that of some other Departments, and it would be good to see the same commitment from them.

My concern about the Bill, which I support and will not vote against, is simply that the Government should not say, "We've got the Bill on the statute book. We can tick the box—job done." I regard the Bill simply as another brick in the wall of providing proper and better protection for workers and all the other benefits that will flow from a more effective system of control. The Bill is not the answer in itself.

I suspect that another hon. Member may want to comment on this is more detail later, but it is not at all clear to me that the Morecambe bay tragedy would have been prevented simply by the Bill. A much more comprehensive approach to the problem than just the Bill is required. The Bill is a useful contribution, but not the sole answer.

It is certainly not clear to me that the incident that provided me with my own personal wake-up call last July would have been prevented. You, Mr. Deputy Speaker, may recall that one Monday I was travelling on a train towards Evesham, on the way to London and the House of Commons, when it was involved in a tragic collision with a white minibus on a level crossing at Charlton. As a result of that awful accident, three agricultural workers were killed. Soran Karim, a 23-year-old Iraqi, Satish Kumar from India and Islam Uddin Ahmed from Bangladesh were all victims of the accident. They were being driven by an Iraqi asylum seeker, Adnan Kadir Karim, who earlier this week received a five-year prison sentence for their manslaughter. Our hearts go out to all the families left behind as a result of that tragic incident. I warned the Government then, both publicly and privately, that that was an example of what happens when unlicensed workers, improperly trained and improperly warned of the dangers involved in an activity, are allowed to continue working unchecked on the fields of Worcestershire. Their deaths should have been the wake-up call that prompted rather earlier action.

We learned a lot from the court case. I have not yet seen the full proceedings—I am relying on press reports of the proceedings — but I am concerned that the Bill would not have prevented that tragedy. As far as I can tell, Karim was operating as a freelance gangmaster, going around cafés and restaurants in Birmingham, picking up people who wanted casual labour and driving them to the fields of Evesham to offer them and himself as employees: whether he was a gangmaster and whether it would have been apparent to a farmer that he was a gangmaster are interesting questions. I suspect that the Minister may tell me that, technically, under the terms of the Bill, Karim would have been deemed to be acting as a gangmaster. However, if a gang of four friends, colleagues, turn up casually on a farmer's fields and say, "Employ the four of us. We'll take what you give us", will they be caught by the Bill?

I may be able to assist the hon. Gentleman. We do not want to leave any doubt in these matters. As my hon. Friend the Member for West Renfrewshire (Jim Sheridan) indicated, the Bill has been drafted and amended in Committee to make its provisions wide and ensure that all people who act as gangmasters—whether in a small way as subcontractors, or any other way—are caught by it. The Bill's powers of exclusion have been drafted to be clear that people in the business that the hon. Gentleman describes are caught and cannot avoid the provisions.

I am grateful to the Minister for that assurance, and he may well be right in that particular case. Another company in my constituency employs a lot of immigrant casual labour, without using gangmasters. It is said that the people just turn up and ask for jobs. It is a reputable company. I have visited it many times. I have seen the conditions in which people work. I know the rates of pay. It is a good company, but it strikes me that other companies that operate in the packing business might well claim that they operate in that way, while having informal arrangements with gangmasters. Even if they do not and the word goes around that a firm is a good company to work for or someone is a good farmer to pick for, people may be exploited by the farmer or the company without a gangmaster being involved.

I am sure that the Bill will not end the exploitation of agricultural workers. It should deal with the gangmaster issue, but it will not end all the problems involved in those industries. It is very important that the Government do not use the Bill as an excuse to play down the other enforcement activities in which they need to be involved. That is the key message of the EFRA Committee report on gangmasters. We are grateful to the Committee for producing its very important report. The Committee"s original report showed that it was not convinced by the need for the Bill and thought that better enforcement was all that was required. That is a fair paraphrase of its original report.

The EFRA Committee's new report, published yesterday morning, makes it clear that it is now persuaded that the Bill is necessary and that it supports its principles, but that it is just not enough on its own. That very clear message comes through from reading the report. It refers to the hon. Member for Morecambe and Lunesdale (Geraldine Smith) and talks about her concern that

"enforcement continues to be held back to an extent by a lack of resources and an absence of co-ordination."

That will still need to be addressed, whether or not the Bill reaches the statute book, as I am sure it will.

The EFRA Committee report says:

"A plethora of cross-departmental and inter-agency committees, forums, steering groups, working groups and co-ordination groups have been set up, each of which addresses aspects of the problem, or which have wider responsibilities for illegal working… The Illegal Working Steering Group… chaired by a Minister of State in the Home Office… The Informal Economy Steering Group… chaired by the Inland Revenue… The Informal Economy Working Group… chaired by Customs and Excise… The Gangmaster Co-ordination Group…chaired by a Defra official… Regional gangmaster for a… The Department for Work and Pensions are responsible for the fora… The Department for Work and Pensions Fraud Steering Group, chaired by a Minister from the Department… enforcement activity is co-ordinated through Reflex… chaired by the National Crime Squad."

There is still a very complex enforcement framework, and the Government need to do much more to bring it together.

It is rather sad that one cannot verbalise the picture—that would be rather jolly—but it is entitled "Architecture of Government activity against illegal working". That is figure 1 of the report, which may reassure some people, but its sheer complexity rather alarms me.[Interruption.] I think that the Minister is indicating that he is a little concerned about its complexity as well, but it is a very pretty picture.

The EFRA Committee now accepts that registration is necessary, but it raises several concerns, which I share. We have already discussed the cost. I am grateful to the hon. Member for West Renfrewshire for what he said on the cost. At that level, it should not be a problem. Clearly, it is affordable—it is not a big issue—but if the cost becomes significantly higher than that, it may have an adverse affect. So the House will have to consider that issue very carefully, as the authority reports its work to the House, under its requirement in the Bill. However, there are two other concerns.

This is the kind of Bill that I instinctively do not like because all the detail is provided in secondary legislation. This is a running theme of mine in considering legislation. The Bill's detail will almost all come from statutory instruments. It contains enabling powers. Obviously, we have the Government's assurances—they count for a lot—but I would love to see more stated in the Bill about exactly what the gangmaster licensing authority will be expected to consider when issuing licences. For example, the issue in the accident in which I was involved last July was not only whether those people would be exploited because they would be underpaid, but that they were driving illegally. As far as I can tell, the minibus was not insured and the driver did not have an English driving licence. He could not even read English road signs, which is probably why the accident occurred: as he crossed the unmanned crossing, he did not know what to do. A licence condition ought to be that gangmasters can demonstrate that those who drive their minibuses all have driving licences and are fully insured.

I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for giving way, because it is important to put on record the way in which the Bill's architecture has been designed. It is virtually impossible for hon. Members to anticipate everything that could go wrong. Indeed, some of the hon. Gentleman's remarks illustrate precisely that point. As my hon. Friend the Member for West Renfrewshire (Jim Sheridan) said in his introduction, the two elements that enable the Bill correctly to target the real problem are, first, the engagement of the industry, given that those who know the business know what is happening on the ground, and, secondly, the fact that the provisions will be dealt with by statutory instrument, allowing them to be fine tuned if new ways to evade the law or the intentions of the Bill are found. So the hon. Gentleman is right to raises those issues, but the Bill's architecture is designed precisely to deal with them. I gave undertakings in Committee to the effect that we intend to indicate in advance of the Bill's enactment how the secondary legislation should be used.

That is helpful. Obviously, there is always a trade-off between clarity in primary legislation and flexibility in the operation of the legislation, particularly in fast-moving environments. I accept that, but perhaps it would have been possible to be rather more forthcoming in the Bill without prejudicing that flexibility. The Minister's assurance is appreciated, and I hope that the authority will be encouraged to examine the issue of driving licences and insurance.

The hon. Member for West Renfrewshire spoke about the responsibility of the supermarkets, which is important. Making sure that the industries operate ethically is not just the job of Government—a job that, as the report shows, has not been done adequately by successive Governments. It is also the job of the private sector. Price competition among our major supermarkets is leading them to turn a blind eye to what is happening as their food is prepared for them. One could say literally, in the wake of Morecambe bay and the Charlton crash, that there is blood on much supermarket food.

To their great credit, some supermarkets are trying to do something about the situation. Wychavon district council, which produced a report on issues relating to food processing in the Vale of Evesham, sought the advice of supermarkets. One supermarket, Asda, was happy to offer a great deal of advice. On the face of it, it seems that Asda is trying to do something about the problem, but I am worried that the other supermarkets are not. The British consumer needs to understand that she or he is often paying a heavy price for the very low prices of agricultural products. As part of an ethical trading initiative, the supermarkets must act to reassure themselves that they are genuinely using ethical labour at every stage of the production chain. The Bill, welcome though it is, will not solve that problem either, unless the private sector—the supermarkets—get a better grip of the situation.

I shall draw my remarks to a conclusion—I have already gone on longer than I intended. There is a parallel in legislation that might have been a better model for the Bill—the Private Security Industry Act 2001—which meets some of the objections that I raised with the Minister in respect of flexibility and clarity. But we are where we are, and the Bill is the only measure we have. It will improve the situation considerably and will be welcomed by all reputable gangmasters. Sadly, it seems that they are a dwindling band.

We can be fairly confident that the Bill will make a significant contribution to preventing the exploitation of labour. That is the key point for me. When I was commenting on some of these issues at the time of the accident, some people mischievously interpreted my remarks as racism—a criticism of the person driving the minibus. Not at all—my criticism was of the fact that the people involved were being exploited. They were the victims of what happened, and I was extremely sorry about what happened to them. The problems suffered by such victims are often more concealed than that—for example, the poor housing conditions in which many of them live, the appallingly low wages they are paid and the risk at which they are put.

Those are issues that the Bill should address. It should secure a vital service for agriculture. The word "gangmaster" has unpleasant connotations. It does not sound very nice. We need to put it on record that the casual foreign labour working in British fields and British packhouses is crucial to the success of those industries. We should thank those foreign labourers for the contribution they make to the success of our agricultural and horticultural industries. We should be grateful to them and look after them properly. We should ensure the safety of the general public, we should guarantee tax revenues, we should prevent abuses of immigrants and we should ensure that the law of the land is better upheld than it has been. The Bill is not a panacea, but it is a useful step in the right direction and I welcome it.

I welcome the Bill and am delighted to be in the Chamber to see it go to Report and Third Reading. I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for West Renfrewshire (Jim Sheridan) on all his hard work and his foresight in bringing the Bill before the Commons even before the Morecambe bay tragedy. I also congratulate the Bishop of Lancaster, who has pushed hard for a gangmasters Bill. He behaved magnificently after the Morecambe bay tragedy and conducted a multi-faith service in the cathedral.

I thank the Government for acting so swiftly to assist the passage of the through Parliament and agreeing to give it parliamentary time if necessary. I thank all hon. Members for the support they gave me after the Morecambe bay tragedy and for the support they have given the Bill. It has been a fine example of Parliament working well and Members of all parties working hard together.

It is true that the Bill is a small step in the right direction, but it is not a panacea. It probably would not have prevented the Morecambe bay tragedy. To be honest, I do not know what would have done. How could one have stopped people going out in the darkness in the middle of Morecambe bay, even if there had been double the number of enforcement officers and ample regulation? There were people operating outside the law, and I hope that the police investigation will bring some people to justice if it is proved that serious exploitation was taking place.

The Morecambe bay tragedy brought the issue of gangmasters to the fore. Last Thursday I attended a service down on the beach. It was 100 days since the tragedy occurred and the Chinese tradition is to hold a service. I met up again with many local people who had been involved in the tragedy. What an impact it had had on their lives—for example, on the local lifeboat crews. One of the young men who had recovered some of the bodies is still having nightmares, seeing Chinese people in his dreams. The local chief superintendent, Wendy Walker, is a credit to the local police force. She behaved so well following the tragedy, but it still plays on her mind because she went into the morgue and saw 20 young people with not a mark on their bodies—20 people who should not have been dead and who were probably dead as a result of exploitation.

There was not just a human cost. We are faced with a police bill of £1 million to date, and the investigation continues. I put it on record in Parliament that I should like to see the Government pick up the cost of that. They have been helpful and given a grant of £200,000, but Morecambe bay was a national tragedy and it should not be the people of Morecambe who suffer in their policing and have to foot that bill. I appeal for more help in paying the bill.

The issue of exploitation was brought to my attention after the Morecambe bay tragedy because I met so many people who had so many horrendous tales to tell me about how people were being exploited right across agriculture—often illegal immigrants, but not always. Quite often British people were suffering terrible exploitation. We heard one example today of a mushroom factory where exploitation was taking place. I have heard of a similar factory in my area where local people are being put out of work because the owners are trying to get cheaper foreign labour. It seems that there is probably exploitation taking place there.

It is clear that we need measures to address the problems. The Bill will be helpful. It will produce a public register so we will know how many gangmasters are operating in this country. We must be careful. A gangmaster is just a supplier of labour and there are some good, reputable gangmasters operating. Those gangmasters have suffered as a result of unscrupulous people undercutting them by employing, slave labour. The Bill should help to deal with that.

As has been said, there is a need for joined-up government. Let us be honest—that is easier said than done. It is difficult for any Government. Government works in Departments and it is hard for those Departments to liaise and work closely together at times. The tragedy in Morecambe bay and other events that hon. Members have highlighted show the need for Departments to work together.

We still have issues to deal with in Morecambe bay. Agencies have worked much better together since the tragedy. The Department for Work and Pensions, the Inland Revenue and various other Departments have got together and reviewed multi-agency operations. They are looking closely at the situation. The immigration service has acted well since the tragedy, carrying out a number of raids in my constituency and taking what I consider at this stage to be satisfactory action. But problems remain. I have heard that last week up to 80 Chinese people were working on the northern side of the bay at 11.30 at night in dangerous conditions, so clearly more remains to be done.

Enforcement is important. This is a good Bill if it has teeth, and that will be the key to its success. We are talking not just about foreign workers, but about young British people. I have seen young British lads, 16 and 17-year-olds, out in Morecambe bay working for gangmasters, who are often not aware of some of the dangers of the bay, and I am sure that the same applies throughout the agriculture sector.

The events at Morecambe bay shocked and shamed the nation. At least 21 young lives were lost. A body was found only two weeks ago, and we hear that two bodies are probably still out there in the bay. People were shocked and saddened that such practices could occur in the 21st century, with people living in overcrowded conditions, 20 to a small flat, exploited, transported in rundown vehicles that were not even taxed and just left in the middle of a bay to die in freezing cold, icy waters in the darkness.

We want to ensure that those lives that were lost were not wasted. I thank my hon. Friend the Member for West Renfrewshire for making sure that those lives were not wasted. His Bill will be a tribute to them and will help to prevent other vulnerable workers from being exploited in the same way.

As I have said, the Bill is not a panacea, but it is a step in the right direction and I welcome it.

It is a privilege to follow hon. Members who have done such exemplary work in furthering such a good and potentially promising piece of legislation. Its target is largely the illegal gangmasters, or gangsters—shadowy criminals, exploitative people who engage in trafficking and abuse every piece of employment and housing legislation going. But I hope that within the Bill's ambit comes another group of people who call themselves agencies rather than gangmasters. Their names often appear in telephone directories and they advertise in newspapers, and they too house, deliver, tout for and organise a work force. Some could be described as borderline legal. Some have been prosecuted, some are rather easily satisfied with false identities, and some turn a blind eye to almost every health and safety regulation known. In addition, they often house the people who work for them in circumstances that violate all the regulations for houses in multiple occupation. That creates a problem throughout the country.

Those agencies fundamentally provide a legal get-out for legitimate employers in all sorts of areas, including agriculture, building, catering, packing and industry. They are their alibi against whatever legislation the Government may wish to introduce in order to enforce decent labour relations.

I very much favour the Bill, but like previous speakers I wonder what the eventual statutory instruments will look like and how the measures will be enforced. It is important that they be effective, not only against the gangsters, at whom the law can throw sufficient ammunition anyway, but to some extent at those people who regard themselves as working properly but who breach a good number of regulations in the process. If legislation—

If the hon. Gentleman is talking about organisations or individuals that operate within the legislation for registering employment agencies, I should make it clear that where they act as a gangmaster they are covered by the Bill. Obviously, people using a particular name can seek to avoid the law, but they would not be able to put themselves outside the legislation by the simple use of a term, or by using other legislation in order to try to avoid the Bill's application.

I am grateful for that assurance and all the other assurances that the Minister has given so far. The principle of the Bill is entirely sound, but the ultimate test will be its enforcement and the statutory instruments that follow, which we look forward to receiving.

I welcome the Bill, which is long overdue. I sincerely congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for West Renfrewshire (Jim Sheridan) on introducing it and on all his work in preparing it and in the discussions that have taken place since Second Reading. It deals with what has been a growing problem, at the heart of which has been the exploitation of vulnerable workers receiving extremely low pay, working in poor conditions, facing excessive charges for their travel arrangements—which, as the hon. Member for Mid-Worcestershire (Mr. Luff) pointed out, have frequently been dangerous—without proper insurance cover, often being charged ferocious rates for protective clothing and so on, and often living in very poor accommodation supplied by the gangmaster at vast expense, so that while their notional pay may have been low, their take-home pay dwindled into virtual non-existence because of the deductions for travel, accommodation and clothing.

It is also worth emphasising that not only was the vulnerable work force being exploited, but the taxpayer was being swindled left, right and centre. The Inland Revenue was not receiving the money that it should have been. Contributions were not being made towards pensions and other requirements of the Department for Work and Pensions, and you can bet your boots that VAT was not being paid. There have also been rising costs to the national health service. Because of the poor health and safety conditions, people were falling sick and being injured in a way that they would not have been if they had been properly employed by decent people.

The Bill is the product of legitimate concern that has been building up over a long period; it has not just occurred now. I recall time and again listening to Dick Body on the Tory Benches and Joan Maynard on the Labour Benches, a joint attack by two people who probably did not agree on anything else on earth other than their dislike of the gangmaster system. Dick will probably be pleased by it, because he is still in the land of the living, and Joan Maynard would have been very pleased had she still been around to see it.

That was all years ago, then my hon. Friend introduced this Bill and then there were the awful events in Morecambe bay. I pay tribute to my hon. Friend the Member for Morecambe and Lunesdale (Geraldine Smith), who, I confess, is a friend of mine. She had been exercising foresight and forewarning of the problems in Morecambe bay for a long time, but proper notice was not taken of what she was saying, and she found herself in the awful circumstances of being able to say "I told you so" after a tragedy, which was not something that she had looked forward to. She is still working hard and still drawing attention to shortcomings that might make it possible for such an event to occur again, in Morecambe bay or elsewhere.

One of the problems in the past, highlighted by the recent Select Committee report to which the hon. Member for Mid-Worcestershire referred, concerns the co-ordination of the raids—if that is the right way to describe them—involving the police, the Inland Revenue, and sometimes the immigration service, the Departments for Work and Pensions and for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, the Health and Safety Executive, and so on. As I understand it, one of the Bill's benefits will be that there will not be the necessity to co-ordinate raids in quite the same way. If there is a raid and someone is lifted, they can be arrested on the spot and taken to a police station. At that point, it should not be beyond the wit of anybody to get in touch with the proper people at the Inland Revenue, the Department for Work and Pensions, the immigration service, the police, the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs or the Health and Safety Executive so that the full weight of every possible law comes down upon the offender.

Co-ordination will be made much easier by the Bill, which will be welcomed by all decent, law-abiding people. It is certainly welcomed by the law-abiding and decent suppliers of labour in the rather peculiar markets involved, and it is welcomed by the National Farmers Union, the Transport and General Workers Union and the major retailers.

Generally speaking, I agree with the hon. Member for Mid-Worcestershire in wanting the detail of the legislation to be included in the primary legislation. In these circumstances, however, there are good grounds for saying that much of that detail needs to be set out in regulations. If it were included in an Act of Parliament, it would probably take a great deal of time and effort to get any Government to make an appropriate amendment to that Act. We are dealing with some vile, villainous and ingenious people, so the fact that the detailed control of true regulation can be amended relatively quickly and easily in response to their latest ingenious villainy makes a good case for using the regulatory system.

I represent Chalk Farm and various other such places—Holborn and St. Pancras is not a very agricultural or even horticultural area—and while the Bill covers agricultural and horticultural work, shellfish gathering and the processing or packing of any products derived from those industries and sectors, I wish to point out that there are other areas where gangmasters operate. Some of them are equally villainous in cleaning, the building trades and further stages of food preparation, which I do not think that the Bill necessarily covers. We can pat ourselves on the back about the Bill, but we cannot say that we have dealt with everything. It is right that the Bill deals only with the limited area that we have been discussing, but there are other issues, and we cannot think that we have dealt with the whole problem of gangmasters because we have tried to deal with a particular aspect.

None the less, this is a good day, and it is the product of a lot hard work by Members of Parliament and officials. I congratulate my right hon. Friend the Minister on organising the process as he has done. His officials have had a number of meetings with the various interest groups, and he and they have also had meetings with the all-party membership of the Committee outside the Committee's proceedings, in which we managed to identify practical problems and come up with answers that dealt with them as far as we could see. There has been an interchange of ideas to meet a common and decent objective. It has been a good and productive process, and I congratulate him on his approach, which has been immensely helpful, as I think everyone who has been involved in the process would agree.

After the law is passed, it needs to be implemented. As I said, I think that it will make it easier to co-ordinate the activity of the various supervisory bodies, but a great deal of hard work and effort will be needed and the various Departments will have to give the matter higher priority than they have been doing in practice until now if the Bill is to achieve what we want. We will also have to ensure that resources are available to back up the practicalities in the field. For all the good that the various working parties and such like are doing—and it may be very good work—what really counts is what happens on the ground, as I said in one of the meetings; it was a fairly chilly one at six o'clock in the morning in a pea field in Lincolnshire. We have got to get that sorted, and I think that the Bill goes a long way towards doing that. There will be further consultation about the regulations, involving the Transport and General Workers Union, which has done a great deal of work on the matter, as well as other organisations, including the National Farmers Union, which has been extremely co-operative.

As my hon. Friend the Member for Morecambe and Lunesdale said, the problem does not apply only to foreign workers. In fact, the majority of the people who have been awfully exploited are our own fellow citizens. An end to the exploitation of people who are in this country for a brief period, but who might want to stay longer, and of our fellow citizens is a good thing and a step forward.

The cost to a farmer and the ultimate cost to retailers and the rest of us of paying decent wages and ensuring that people work in decent conditions is an increase in the cost of the final product. We must recognise that, if we are going to ensure that people are decently treated when they are working to provide food for us, it may cost us a few more pence on our grocery bill, but that paying those few more pence is absolutely right if we are to bring about improved working conditions and get rid of the scandalous working conditions that some gangmasters—not the decent ones—have visited upon some of the most vulnerable people in our country. We may have to pay a little bit more to live in a better society, but I think that most people would agree that it will be well worth it.

My hon. Friends and I very much welcome the Bill. I pay tribute to the hon. Member for West Renfrewshire (Jim Sheridan) for the work that he has done. The skill and determination that are needed to take a private Member's Bill through the House must never be underestimated. It has never fallen to me to do so, but I am told that it dominates a great deal of one's time, including parliamentary time.

I first became aware of the gangmaster system when I was doing some missionary work in East Anglia in the 1960s and 1970s. We were picked up after the children left for school and brought back home just before they arrived back. I am probably looking at what happened through rose-tinted spectacles 30 or 40 years on, but it seemed like a family-friendly system. I guess the same abuses were happening then, but that they were not so readily identifiable and that attention was not drawn to them.

The system and the market supply chain have changed incredibly. There is now a huge demand to deliver fresh products on to the table in a matter of hours rather than days. In the light of the domination of the limited number of supermarkets that have such a huge influence on the supply chain and prices, and their basic determination to compete on price, it is clear that the gangmasters in question and the abuses that have been identified are a symptom of that system. As a number of hon. Members have said, if we are going to address the issue, supermarkets must take some responsibility for the ethical considerations in deciding how a code should be produced. It is all very well for them to make great play of welfare conditions in respect of a chicken product produced in a foreign country, but it also behoves them to look after the welfare of the workers who have been involved in supplying that food. In warm weather, demand for salad increases, and farmers are asked at short notice to increase production and get more product to the supermarket shelves. The gangmaster system often breaks down during such stressful periods, which ill serves the people whom it employs.

Assuming that the Bill is enacted and becomes part of the legislative framework, how will 3,000 gangmasters apply for and obtain licences? We want to encourage gangmasters into the system, and we do not want people making excuses by claiming that the system could not cope with their applications. Will a system of temporary licences be set up while the inspections and investigations take place to ensure that gangmasters meet the requirements of the licensing system?

The Environment, Food and Rural Affairs Committee report criticised the Government for not being able to establish the number of gangmasters and employees affected by the Bill. The hon. Member for West Renfrewshire (Jim Sheridan) mentioned 3,000 gangmasters, and I am sure he has the evidence to substantiate that figure, but a huge amount of work remains. We must set up an inclusive system, because the last thing that we want is gangmasters to exist outside the system—we want them inside it. The Select Committee report also pointed out that some gangmasters have co-operated voluntarily with the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs. Because those gangmasters have volunteered to take part in the scheme, they presumably feel that they comply with the legislation.

I recently visited St. Merryn Meat, which lies just outside my constituency in Merthyr. It employs 1,000 people, and produces 70 per cent. of the meat for Tesco. On a daily basis, it also employs 100 Portuguese workers, who are supplied by an employment agency. When I attended the briefing held by the hon. Member for West Renfrewshire (Jim Sheridan), I asked whether those people and the agency that supplies them would be covered by the gangmaster legislation, and was assured that that agency must register. Perhaps the Minister will update us on whether the Bill covers such work.

Many tributes have been paid to the hon. Member for Morecambe and Lunesdale (Geraldine Smith). None of us wants a tragedy to occur in our constituency. The hon. Lady has dealt with the matter with dignity and determination, and brought the issues to the Government's attention. Hopefully, her work will make it less likely that such disasters will happen in the future.

Police criminal intelligence tells me that people traffickers also traffic drugs and evade excise on alcohol and tobacco. Those people form a criminal fraternity, and the more we can do to break its back, the better. If the Bill does just a small amount to achieve that objective, not only will it have improved the working conditions of up to 60,000 people in this country, but it will produce a big stick with which to attack the criminal fraternity which brings this country's reputation down.

We support the Bill for all those reasons. A wide range of people have co-operated with the hon. Member for West Renfrewshire. The National Farmers Union, the Transport and General Workers Union and others attended your briefing, which shows the hard work that you have put in.

Order. May I gently remind the hon. Gentleman to use the correct parliamentary language?

I am sorry, Mr. Deputy Speaker. The attendance at the briefing just goes to show the great work carried out by the hon. Member for West Renfrewshire, and we wish him all the best in the future.

I, too, congratulate the hon. Member for West Renfrewshire (Jim Sheridan) on getting the Bill to Third Reading. He has put a great deal of time and effort into behind-the-scenes work to hold together the disparate and diverse group that supports the Bill, which is no mean feat. The group of supporters is a coalition of the willing, including the NFU, the trade union movement, suppliers, retailers and, most importantly, legitimate labour providers in the agricultural and horticultural sectors. The hon. Gentleman has also secured cross-party support in this House. That is not always easy, but he has done it with great aplomb. I also congratulate him on his explanation and analysis of the Bill in his opening remarks, which was expertly done.

My hon. Friend may plan to blow his own trumpet later, but meanwhile it is fair to put on the record the fact that he was first person to bring a Bill like this before the House, under the ten-minute rule.

I thank my hon. Friend for making that point, which I was going to mention a little later in my remarks. As an MP who represents a rural part of Lincolnshire, I support the Bill, as the House knows. Many hon. Members will recall that last September I introduced a similar Bill to tackle the problems associated with rogue gangmasters.

I was delighted that the right hon. Member for Holborn and St. Pancras (Mr. Dobson) mentioned my predecessor, Sir Richard Body, and his unstinting and tireless work to get Governments of both political parties to address the problems and issues, which have existed for many years, surrounding the exploitation of both the indigenous population and migrant workers in the agricultural and horticultural sectors. Although Conservative Members support the Bill, we must recognise that hon. Members on both sides of the House are concerned about the regulations and the cost structure that the Bill imposes on legitimate businesses. I hope that we can seek clarifications and assurances about the legislation's scope and execution during this debate.

Before I discuss the Bill in greater detail, it is important to understand the context within which it is set. Over the past five years, the number of illegal workers entering the country has dramatically increased, partly as a result of this Government's failed immigration policies, but also because of the failure to enforce existing legislation. That has left illegal workers particularly open to exploitation by rogue gangmasters, as those who are here illegally have no recourse through the trade union movement, or any other method to deal with maltreatment.

The Government clearly have no idea of the number of gangmasters and migrant workers—illegal and legal—involved in the problem. They do not know how long migrant workers have been in the UK, where they are working or whether they are being exploited, and they cannot accurately assess the revenue lost to Customs and Excise in VAT or to the Inland Revenue in tax—the regulatory impact assessment that accompanies the Bill openly admits that point.

In 1998, Operation Gangmaster was established to look into the problems of illegal ganging. However, it has been widely acknowledged, not least by the EFRA Committee, which was extremely critical of the Government, that the Government's efforts to tackle the problem have failed. The first report by the EFRA Committee stated:

"Five years on, Operation Gangmaster has no overall budget, reports to no Minister, has no identified aims or goals and no time frame by which anything must be achieved."

That relatively significant lack of co-ordination between Government Departments is one of the major reasons why Operation Gangmaster has not succeeded.

I accept that the terrible tragedy in Morecambe bay, which was highlighted in a moving speech by the hon. Member for Morecambe and Lunesdale (Geraldine Smith), has created a sharper focus for the Government, particularly for the Minister for Rural Affairs and Local Environmental Quality. I echo the comments of the right hon. Member for Holborn and St. Pancras about how well the Minister has conducted the passage of the Bill, particularly in holding private informal meetings with all the interest groups.

None the less, in its conclusions and recommendations, on page 23 of its latest report, the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs Committee says:

"The reality, then, is that the Government is no nearer obtaining a comprehensive picture of the scale and nature of the problem of illegal gangmaster activity than it was when we published our original report eight months ago. Other than issuing a tender for one piece of limited research, the Government has made no progress."

I find that sad.

I did not open my speech in that way for party political purposes; I simply want to ensure that the Minister, other DEFRA Ministers and Ministers in other Departments who are responsible for specific pieces of relevant legislation, and their civil servants, understand categorically that the enactment of this Bill will be not the end but the beginning. It is the efficient enforcement of the Act that will determine its success or otherwise.

We must remember that we already have in place 20 pieces of legislation that should curb illegal practices—but the lack of co-ordination between Government Departments and agencies has resulted in confusion, a certain amount of chaos, and, there is no doubt, a significant growth in illegal activity.

Members on both sides of the House, especially my hon. Friend the Member for Mid-Worcestershire (Mr. Luff), the hon. Member for Morecambe and Lunesdale and I, urged the Government to tackle the problem and ensure that existing legislation was enforced. However, the Government's record of inaction looked set to continue—until the terrible tragic events in Morecambe bay in February. I join other hon. Members in making my personal tribute to the hon. Member for Morecambe and Lunesdale, who has handled herself with dignity and determination in resolving the issues that emanated from that tragedy.

Only after the tragedy, and the subsequent public outcry for action, did the Government feel it necessary to act, and to support the Bill introduced by the hon. Member for West Renfrewshire. To the hon. Gentleman's eternal credit, he had decided to bring the Bill in before, rather than after, the tragedy in Morecambe bay.

I am generally hesitant about introducing licensing schemes and regulations per se, not least when legislation is already in place, but I sincerely believe that a licensing scheme for gangmasters will make the existing legislation easier to enforce. If a gangmaster fails to obtain a licence, the conditions of which will include satisfying the requirements of the existing legislation, he could be subject to prosecution and, ultimately, a custodial sentence.

As several hon. Members have pointed out, the Bill is not a panacaea, and the expectation that it will solve all the associated problems is unrealistic. I am particularly concerned that unless there is extremely robust enforcement, rogue gangmasters may continue to operate outside the licensing system, while legitimate operators face the increased costs of meeting the conditions in pursuance of obtaining a licence.

Like the hon. Member for West Renfrewshire, I was delighted to read that the Select Committee had changed its mind about supporting the Bill, and I shall put on the record two quotations that demonstrate how it has changed its position. Its previous report, published in September, said that it was

"not convinced a statutory registration scheme offers a stand-alone solution to the problems of illegal gangmasters…without concerted action to remedy shortcomings in enforcement…a statutory registration scheme, introduced as a single policy response will serve nothing".

I understood and shared its concerns about enforcement, but I have always felt that a licensing scheme will aid enforcement, provided that there is a co-ordinated effort by enforcement officers ensuring that the conditions of licences are met.

I am sure that all hon. Members are delighted that in its recent report the Committee said:

"We are persuaded that licensing and registration are required to deal with the problem of illegal gangmasters. Therefore we support the Bill and call on the Government to ensure that time is made available—in Government time if necessary—for its successful passage".

I echo that last point, although I hope that that will not be necessary. I was intrigued to hear the hon. Member for Morecambe and Lunesdale seem to suggest that the Government had already committed themselves to ensuring that the provisions of the Bill could pass through Parliament in Government time, if, sadly, the private Member's Bill should fall for some reason.

I now turn to some of the specifics in the Bill, although I have no wish to repeat the debates that took place either on Second Reading or in Committee. I shall talk about the regulatory impact assessment, the proposed structure of the licensing authority and the proposed draft regulations.

The regulatory impact assessment provides an estimate of the likely cost of a licence—a point rightly raised by my hon. Friend the Member for Mid-Worcestershire. The estimate was that a three-year licence would cost between £1,750 and £2,250. I am still concerned that that may be excessive, and I fear that it may prove to be a burden for small-scale labour providers, and could discourage some gangmasters from registering for a licence altogether.

I have been informed by some rogue gangmasters that this charge is minimal, particularly in the context of the large sums that are often to be made in what is—let there be no doubt—a multi-million pound business. I hope that the Minister and his officials will consider a sliding scale of charges, determined by the turnover of the business, to ensure that the small-scale labour provider is not deterred from participating in the marketplace.

We have designed the arrangements so that there can be engagement with the industry on such issues, such as whether there should be a flat rate or a sliding scale. Would a sliding scale mean more bureaucracy, or would it be fairer? That is precisely why the engagement with the board of the body to be established, as well as in consultation work, is crucial. What matters is not just my view, or that of other DEFRA Ministers and officials, but what will work best in helping the legitimate industry, as the hon. Gentleman suggests.

I am grateful for that helpful intervention.

For the licence to be effectively self-financing, running costs and bureaucracy must, as the Minister suggested, be kept to an absolute minimum, so that licence fees are as low as possible. However, that should not be done at the expense of enforcement.

According to the regulatory impact assessment, accommodation costs for the new authority are likely to be in excess of £200,000 per annum. I believe that to be extravagant, and suggest that the authority could—and should—be based close to the agricultural areas that it serves, rather than in Whitehall. That would also reduce the accommodation costs and other overheads. Personally, I would be delighted to see it based in Boston in Lincolnshire—[Interruption]—just to mention somewhere at random.

Paragraph 5.2 of the regulatory impact assessment emphasises the point made by the hon. Member for Brecon and Radnorshire (Mr. Williams) when it suggests that labour providers may pass increased costs up the food chain. I wonder how likely it is that retailers will be prepared to absorb the costs themselves rather than pass them on to suppliers and consumers. In order for the Bill to work, retailers must be prepared to engage and co-operate with suppliers. In these days of ethical consumerism, it would be in their interests, so I hope that they will play their part.

In Committee I expressed my concern about some of the ambiguity in the Bill, especially the provisions in clause 13, which refer to "all reasonable steps" to be taken by labour employers such as farmers to ensure that a gangmaster holds a valid licence. I understand that the definition of reasonable steps will be elaborated on in secondary legislation, and I understand why that is necessary. However, it would be helpful to have an assurance from the Minister today that that will be subject to the fullest consultation with the industry. It is essential that those reasonable steps be practical. Farmers will often require labour at short notice, sometimes in the middle of the night while in the middle of a field. It is essential that a gangmasters' register is available 24 hours a day, seven days a week, and is up to date, to ensure that a gangmaster's licence is valid. The only way that can happen is if the register is an online, compute-accessed facility, so that a farmer can access it via a laptop in the middle of a field in the middle of the night.

It is still unclear what steps a farmer or packhouse owner will have to take to ensure that he is not liable for employing an unlicensed gangmaster. It is also unclear from the Bill how far the liability would extend. For instance, would a large retailer which sold produce knowingly harvested or produced by an unlicensed gangmaster be liable to prosecution? Paragraph 44 of the EFRA most recent report, paragraph 44 recommended that the Government consider extending liability to retailers. Has the Minister considered that suggestion and, if so, has he reached any conclusions?

I have previously expressed concerns about the lack of detail available regarding secondary legislation. That point was also raised by my hon. Friend the Member for Mid-Worcestershire and the right hon. Member for Holborn and St. Pancras. I understand why flexibility must be maintained, but the make-up of the authority is clearly hugely important. I am pleased that DEFRA has provided details of the structure and operations of the gangmaster licensing authority, and that that will be subject to affirmative procedure in the House.

In the context of the gangmaster licensing authority, the DEFRA document, in annexe 1, section 17 on "Liaison Groups and Committees", says that the authority shall establish enforcement, labour provider and labour user liaison groups. Will that be stipulated by Ministers in the regulations, or will the authority set up such groups at its discretion? Annexe 2, which refers to exclusions, is helpful in clarifying which types of work require a licence for supplying labour and which do not. I particularly welcome the exclusion of gathering shellfish using boats. Many small-scale family shellfish gatherers would otherwise be classed as gangmasters and would require licences to employ family members.

Annexe 3 suggests that the providers of workers to farmers under the seasonal agricultural workers scheme would not require a licence. That may initially seem sensible, as the organisations that operate within SAWS are perfectly legitimate However, I am concerned by the number of SAWS workers who may have overstayed and breached their permits. In October last year, the Home Office said that it had no reliable estimate of the number of SAWS workers that had officially disappeared and failed to return to their country of origin. Surely it would be sensible to address this aperture in the immigration system before excluding the scheme from the gangmaster license. SAWS suppliers should ensure that their workers do not violate the terms of their immigration status, and that could be something that the gangmaster licensing scheme could enforce and control.

In conclusion, I broadly welcome the provisions to license gangmasters, which are long overdue. The Bill should make enforcing existing legislation easier, provide a level playing field for legitimate labour providers, and put an end to the exploitation of British and migrant workers by rogue gangmasters. However, the Bill by itself is not a complete solution, and there are still issues that need to be resolved. The Bill must ensure that the licence fee does not become too burdensome and a deterrent to legitimate labour providers, and there must be adequate enforcement and prosecution of those who continue to operate outside the law.

I specifically welcome clause 23, which states that the Secretary of State will report to Parliament once a year, analysing the performance of the scheme. I would like the Minister to clarify what form that report will take, and that if required it will involve a debate in the House. We would not want the report just to be stuck in a dusty corner of the Library. As the criminal element becomes more sophisticated and imaginative in its determination to flout the law and exploit vulnerable workers, so we must be equally determined to ensure that legislation is continually monitored and updated to enforce this Bill robustly, to the benefit of those who are exploited and to the benefit of the whole food chain.

I am pleased to be able to respond positively to a debate that has been remarkably well informed and a detailed examination of the issues before the House. On occasions one feels that the House has skated over the surface of important issues, but that could not be said of today's debate. From the start, it has gone to the heart of the Bill.

I thank my hon. Friend the Member for West Renfrewshire (Jim Sheridan) for giving me the opportunity to engage with the Bill. As many hon. Members have said, it has been a very positive process. The Bill is very different from the one considered by the House on Second Reading, but its target is the same. The Bill is now clear and specific in its design and intentions. It provides a licensing system for gangmasters, which has been debated on many occasions, but it goes further. It will create a kind of antisocial behaviour order for gangmasters, if used in the way that hon. Members who have taken an interest in it intend.

Much work has been done in a short time to get the detail of the Bill right. It has been an excellent example of co-operation and teamwork. I am pleased that hon. Members on both sides of the House have referred to DEFRA officials, because policy officials, lawyers and parliamentary counsel have demonstrated an extraordinary willingness to work hard and quickly to achieve the Bill that we now have before us. They have brought credit on themselves and the civil service in general. They have demonstrated that things can be done both quickly and carefully when the will is there.

I also support my hon. Friend's comments about the work undertaken by officials of the Transport and General Workers Union, the National Farmers Union and others. Indeed, it is fair to say that when we met informally again this week, at a meeting called by my hon. Friend, significant commitment was evident from a variety of organisations. However, the personal engagement of Jack Dromey, the deputy general secretary of the TGWU, and Tim Bennett, the president of the NFU, provided encouragement and support to their teams which was essential in evoking the co-operation necessary to achieve the result we have before us. People not only talked about the problems, they went away and tried to tease out the answers. My right hon. Friend the Member for Holborn and St. Pancras (Mr. Dobson) posed some difficult questions at the beginning of the process. Having three former Cabinet Ministers—including two former Agriculture Ministers—as part of the team was very good for concentrating the mind. They each made a positive contribution.

I also wish to thank the members of the Committee, of all parties, who worked constructively with us to ensure that the Bill would be effective in delivering its objectives. By the time we reached Committee stage and Report, unseen work had been done that made a difference to the quality of the legislation. We reached the point at which the Committee's members were able to support unanimously the amendments tabled. We now have a much stronger Bill that will, I hope, continue to command the cross-party support that was evident in Committee. We have a Bill that provides for the registration and licensing of gangmasters. It will make the whole labour supply process more open and ensure that gangmasters are accountable for their actions.

Members have raised significant issues during the debate, while making it clear that they want the Bill to progress. I think that my hon. Friend the Member for West Renfrewshire, myself and the groups to which I have referred have discussed and anticipated all those points, but it is only fair to mention some of them. I was pleased that the hon. Member for Mid-Worcestershire (Mr. Luff) referred to the way in which my noble Friend Lord Whitty has engaged with this, issue. He referred to the work of Zad Padda, a young man who has shown leadership and intelligence in recognising the importance for labour providers of setting up an effective system of licensing.

To those hon. Members who have referred to how much activity is going on, I would say that the work of Operation Gangmaster is only in the headlines when a major prosecution takes place, which is often considerably after the events that have led to arrests. A number of successes have been reflected in the press and other media recently, perhaps not with as great a splash as we would wish. It is a pity that that was not reflected in the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs Committee report. It was right to comment that the support of that Committee for the Bill, which was not given earlier, is important and welcome.

My hon. Friend the Member for Morecambe and Lunesdale (Geraldine Smith) was right to underline, as other Members have, the fact that this Bill is not a panacea. Indeed, legislation is never a panacea and never a substitute for action. Previous Governments have made the mistake sometimes of engaging in frenetic activity in adding to legislation, without making a difference on the ground. We must recognise that we are dealing with illegal activity, which does not operate on the basis of convenient structures in which we can intervene without a great deal of work. We are dealing with a market in which there is flexibility, in which people change their methods of working rapidly, and in which a lot of people are not prepared to obey the law. Flexibility is what the market needs. Growers, to whom the hon. Member for Mid-Worcestershire referred, need help fast at particular stages in the year, but that flexibility is what makes it difficult to regulate the industry properly. I take on board the point made about the impact on lifeboat crews and the police, and the much wider ramifications of the events in Morecambe bay.

My hon. Friend the Member for Morecambe and Lunesdale rightly mentioned the damage done to legitimate labour providers. I am pleased that Members on both sides of the House have refereed to the legitimate contribution made by those who are trying to operate within the law and do things properly. The liaison between Departments and agencies, which was mentioned by my hon. Friend the Member for West Renfrewshire and touched on by various other Members, is a serious issue. The problem is that although liaison is often good at ministerial level and the will is there to co-operate, the situation at ground level is different. The trick is to ensure that that will is reflected on the ground.

In relation to the Bill, enforcement has two elements. Of course, there is the desire to prevent tax evasion and to ensure that the minimum wage is paid, but the two elements are enforcement by licensed gangmasters of the requirements of the agency in relation to the code of practice and so on, and making sure that we burn off those who work outside the licensing system so that they cannot undercut legitimate labour providers. Those two elements need to be looked at separately, because they are different. Enforcement in relation to those who are within the virtuous circle of licensing needs to be kept to the minimum necessary to ensure that they comply with the requirements, whereas firm and swift action is needed to ensure that those who are not licensed, and not within that virtuous circle, are unable to continue their activities.

The hon. Member for Southport (Dr. Pugh) referred to agencies and those who operate in the shadows. If somebody is operating as a gangmaster, whatever title they use or however they advertise, they are within the ambit of the legislation. One of the questions that we discussed with some care was that of employment agencies. We did not want a duplication of legislation, but we wanted to ensure that somebody could not register as an employment agency and effectively act as a gangmaster but not he caught by the provisions of the Bill. I believe that we have got the design right.

This is a technical point, and I am happy if the right hon. Gentleman wants to write to me rather than answer it now. There is one quite sophisticated packing operation in my constituency, which requires a large supply of office labour to deliver its services. If it used a recruitment agency to recruit staff for the office rather than the packing side of its operation, would that recruitment agency also be required to register as a gangmaster?

As often seems to be the case, I am happy to engage in correspondence with the hon. Gentleman on arcane detail. I think the answer is that if staff were recruited to undertake activities that fall within the ambit of the Bill, that would be caught by its provisions. Were those activities outside its ambit, they would not be caught. On the other hand, if the activities are ancillary, that is the kind of area that needs to be clarified. I believe that we have ensured that the Bill casts the net as widely as possible, so that we can provide by exclusion, which is allowed for in the Bill, that those not intended to be covered are not caught. That provides flexibility in the architecture of the Bill, which I hope will be effective.

My right hon. Friend the Member for Holborn and St. Pancras helped at an early stage, applying his experience as a Cabinet Minister and his acute sense of the practical, by asking the most challenging questions about how the Bill would operate in the mists of the morning in some of the flatter areas of England. As a result of responding to those questions, we have improved the Bill considerably. He was absolutely right to underline the legitimate concern about swindlers who do not pay tax, national insurance or the minimum wage, and to remind us of the long history of parliamentary concern about exploitation, which goes back much further than a generation. I agree entirely that action not just in terms of co-ordinating raids but in terms of following up intervention should be made much easier, which goes to the heart of the Bill and of what I meant when I described it as providing an antisocial behaviour order for gangmasters.

A number of questions were asked about who would be caught. I was asked whether the Bill would cover workers in a meat processing plant. The Bill covers all processing and packaging of produce derived from agricultural work, which includes meat. We will consider the coverage of downstream processing activities in more detail when the regulations are made, to ensure that we do not inadvertently catch those for whom the legislation is not intended. All such work is included unless it is excluded by regulation.

The hon. Member for Brecon and Radnorshire (Mr. Williams) asked how quickly licences would be introduced, and whether we could ensure that there was not a long period before licences could be obtained. The Bill allows for transitional provisions, which would allow temporary registration or provisional licences, to ensure that labour providers can be brought into the licensing scheme quickly and allow us to concentrate on operating the scheme and ensuring that it restricts those who seek to break the law. The hon. Gentleman referred to his experience in East Anglia in the missionary field. I reflected that my experience was of stone picking after ploughing during bob-a-job week in north Wales—he will appreciate that there are some areas of the uplands in which stones are quite a significant crop. That activity may well come within the ambit of the Bill. I make it clear for the record that that was before my experience of the Transport and General Workers Union, when I was employed on the buses.

As the hon. Gentleman said, it is important to encourage gangmasters into the system straight away. It would be a tragedy if they hung back and waited to see what happened. We need to get them into the system and to make it clear that being outside it will not be tolerated and will lead to swift action. On the other hand, we do not want a bureaucratic system that produces just statistics. In terms of the Select Committee's comment yesterday, putting effort into bean counting is not the way to approach the matter; we want to ensure that it is unrewarding to evade the law.

Much preparation work has been done with the Ethical Trading Initiative. Two or three hon. Members have referred to the fact that the Ethical Trading Initiative has discovered some flaws in the audit system. I do not think that that is terribly surprising. Those who have been involved in the Ethical Trading Initiative have effectively had to accept an additional burden as legitimate providers of labour, while those who do not bother to get involved do not have that burden, and those who operate completely outside the law obviously avoid all sorts of overheads. The Ethical Trading Initiative and the systematic approach that some providers have sought to develop will be greatly strengthened by the legislation.

The hon. Member for Boston and Skegness (Mr. Simmonds) made a series of important points. I congratulate him on his positive approach to the Bill. He has genuinely supported it and sought to help to improve it. I hope that that does not reach the ears of the Leader of the Opposition and damage the hon. Gentleman's political career. He showed himself to be courageous, even adventurous, by referring to immigration policy. I gently remind him that the Leader of the Opposition had personal responsibility for immigration policy as well as wider areas of the law for a number of years. I am not sure that the hon. Gentleman was wise to draw that to the attention of the House because it was not exactly the most productive period, in respect of either immigration policy or enforcement of the law.

The hon. Gentleman asked about the scope and execution of subsidiary legislation. We are trying to give the shape of the subsidiary legislation, such as on the membership of the board of the non-departmental public body that will run the scheme, so that, as has already happened, points can be made about whether there is a gap, or whether the balance of the membership is right to ensure that the expertise is there. The final version of the statutory instrument that provides for the membership of the board will follow soon after the legislation has reached the statute book, but we have outlined a proposed membership, which was not dreamt up within the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs but arises from the discussions that I referred to earlier with all the participants to try to ensure that we get it right. That is the way we are approaching the subsidiary legislation generally: we aim to develop policy and the drafting at the same time as the Bill goes through the House, and to give as much clarity as possible to those who will look at the Bill in another place as to how the provisions will be used. That has not always been the case. My first experience of legislation in the House was with the Immigration Act 1988. The Minister who led for the then Government was Tim Renton, who later became their Chief Whip. I spent a lot of time trying to tease out of him the slightest indication of what the subsidiary legislation might look like. We even offered the old regulations as a gift-wrapped package at Christmas in the hope that he would relent and give some insight into what would happen after the Bill became law.

The position this time is very much the reverse. We are seeking to work with all the organisations and to be open with hon. Members about the way in which the subsidiary legislation will be used, because the experience of all the organisations and the application of the knowledge of hon. Members can help to get it right. We will continue in that spirit. I undertake to my hon. Friend the Member for West Renfrewshire, the hon. Member for Boston and Skegness and others who served on the Committee to keep them informed as we develop those ideas.

The hon. Member for Boston and Skegness made some points about delivery. We could give the impression that nothing much is going on. The message needs to go out that a lot is going on in order to catch those who are defrauding the Exchequer as well as undertaking exploitation. Operation Gangmaster has delivered benefits to the Exchequer of some £10.6 million in 2002–03. That includes recovery of income tax worth some £4 million and a reduction in benefit fraud through the prevention of claiming benefits while working. Government enforcement action has led to a number of high-profile arrests and prosecutions of gangmasters in recent weeks.

The Department for Work and Pensions has identified 235 over-payments and 1,023 adjustments to benefits worth £405,000, securing 138 sanctions and prosecutions. The Inland Revenue specialist team is settling 46 inquiries and reviews, and identifying unpaid tax and national insurance Contributions worth £4.3 million. In addition, there have been criminal prosecutions of 14 gangmasters for VAT offences involving £5.9 million and resulting in prison sentences totalling 31 years.

Some of those recoveries have been done without the sort of prosecutions that bring the matter into the public eye and lead to headlines, but people should be in no doubt that enforcement measures and co-operation between Departments are having a positive effect.

Would the right hon. Gentleman take this opportunity to remind police forces that another area where enforcement is very important is traffic offences? It would be helpful if police forces showed more enthusiasm to tackle the obvious white mini-buses that run around illegally.

The hon. Gentleman makes his point effectively. It is always difficult for the police to balance the different requirements and, indeed, the different calls on their time from hon. Members, but I am sure that, as a result of recent events, the police are well aware that there is an issue here that is not just about casual labour—it is about a number of much more serious things. Indeed, the Home Secretary and members of his team have made it clear how important they regard those issues.

The hon. Member for Boston and Skegness referred to the regulatory impact assessment and was concerned about the cost to small-scale providers. That issue needs to be addressed. On the one hand, we want a licensing system under which the charge and the means for assessing it are as simple as possible, while on the other we must ensure that we do not set up a perverse incentive for smaller-scale providers. That is one of the issues that we want the partners to discuss both before the establishment of the agency, and within the agency, as soon as the shadow board is in place.

The hon. Member for Boston and Skegness referred to accommodation costs and, if I understood him correctly, made us an offer that we cannot refuse—free accommodation in his constituency. We do not envisage that the accommodation will have to be in Whitehall, so we are open to offers, even from Boston and Skegness. I can assure him that we shall certainly not be gold-plating the accommodation costs. Currently, all the costs are of an indicative nature. The very fact that the board will include representatives of those who will have to pay the licensing fees will, I hope, help to ensure proper scrutiny of the proposals so that costs are kept to a minimum. That will obviously have a knock-on effect on licence fees.

The concept that the licensing system should pay for itself seems reasonable, but this point has just occurred to me: is there any possibility that some of the money obtained from prosecuting the villains could also be used to finance the enforcement system, on the polluter pays principle? The villains are the polluters.

My right hon. Friend has vast experience of hypothecation and of attempts to persuade the Exchequer that any income it derives should be directed back to the activity whence that money came, so he can anticipate my answer. However, we have acknowledged that as well as operating the licence system and ensuring that those who are licensed obey the licensing terms, there is also a need for enforcement in respect of people who are not licensed or who have had their licence withdrawn. The Government should take responsibility for that, to ensure that inappropriate burdens are not put on the licence fee and on legitimate gangmasters.

Until the right hon. Member for Holborn and St. Pancras (Mr. Dobson) put his question, I had not thought about that point either. In fact, there is a precedent in government. We are told that speed cameras pay for themselves and surpluses go to the Exchequer, so perhaps the fines under this system could pay for the authority and the surplus could go to the Exchequer.

It is clear that the hon. Gentleman has not thought that idea through. He would not have made that proposal when his party was in government. I was involved in the discussions about the return of money from speed camera fines and can tell him that it takes an awful lot of evidence to persuade the Treasury that it should go along with such proposals. I do not think we need to take that route.

There are advantages to the Exchequer in the prosecution of people who do not pay tax and so on, which create an incentive for the application of the law in different ways. As I said, we have looked into DEFRA's enforcement role, as well as into co-operation between different enforcement agencies. In fact, groups will be set up under the Bill to ensure that the agency liaises with labour providers and other enforcement agencies. The agency will set up those liaison groups to ensure that the process is joined up and that the groups are practical and effective and do not merely fulfil a theoretical requirement. I hope the hon. Gentleman will accept that the important thing is that the process should be rooted in what happens in practice and that the different interests of enforcers and labour providers, as well as the overall policy on the operation of the licence system, are considered in the liaison groups. The board will bring all the significant players together and we have designed the Bill so that we can achieve a balance between specific and overall interests.

The hon. Member for Boston and Skegness asked about retailers absorbing costs. It is important that we have an indication from the supermarkets, the British Retail Consortium and others of their commitment to the licence process and the need to follow it through in practice. We shall be discussing that with them.

In response to another point made by the hon. Gentleman, I can promise that we shall hold the fullest consultation with the industry and ensure that everyone has a chance to comment on the process as it is developed. We want fast access to information on the ground, because unless the police and others who operate the licence system are able to get information quickly, we shall be unable to draw a firm line between legitimate, licensed gangmasters and those who operate outside the law, which is obviously the focus that we need.

That process will be helped by the work that Home Office Ministers are undertaking to simplify and clarify the authorising of overseas workers in this country, so that they can show that they are in the UK legitimately. The system has been over-complex in the past, but the need to demonstrate legitimacy is fully understood and that is important for labour providers and other employers.

I think that I have referred to the liaison groups and covered most of the points raised in the debate.

Will the Minister deal with the final point that I made about the implications of the seasonal agricultural workers scheme, which is referred to in annexe 3 of the regulatory impact assessment? I understand why it has been excluded, at least initially, from the provisions in the Bill, but I hope that he will deal with several of the issues that I highlighted in my remarks.

I am happy to consider the hon. Gentleman's points in detail. We believe that the seasonal agricultural workers scheme is carefully designed, so the possibility of it being used as cover for illegitimate activity would not arise. However, I am happy to reconsider that and to write to him with the details.

I referred to the Bill as creating an antisocial behaviour order for gangmasters. The licensing scheme will provide a further tool for us to use in the fight against the exploitative activities of illegitimate gangmasters—those who are not concerned with obeying the law. It provides robust enforcement powers to support that objective.

The Bill also ensures a high degree of stakeholder involvement in the detailed design and operation of the new licensing arrangements. I reinforce the point made at the beginning of the debate by my hon. Friend the Member for West Renfrewshire when he outlined the Bill's impact and how it would work. It creates a new non-departmental public body to operate the licensing scheme. We want to make sure that it is not an unnecessary piece of bureaucracy and that the Bill will bring together key stakeholders and the Government to steer and operate the new licensing arrangements so that those who provide labour do so in a way that is within the law and is not exploitative. Therefore, the names of the providers of labour who act properly and within the law will not be tarnished by the activities of the lawbreakers, the thugs and those who have no respect for the law.

It is important that there should be commitment to the licensing scheme from all sectors of the industry, from producer to supermarket. The representation on the board secures that engagement. The involvement of stakeholders will also ensure that the conditions attached to a licence balance our wish to see an end to the exploitation of vulnerable workers with the need to ensure that the licensing arrangements do not place unnecessary burdens on labour providers and others in the fresh produce supply chain. That is why the licence fees will be set by the licensing authority in discussion with the Government.

Reference has already been made to the fact that the indicative costings suggest that the fee could be between £1,750 and £2,250 for a three-year licence, but those figures will be need to be reviewed once we have a clearer idea of the conditions that the licensing authority thinks should be attached to a licence. Again, that involves the engagement of all sides of the industry. Although the licensing authority will have day-to-day responsibility for the operation of the licensing scheme, the Government will also have an important role to play. In particular, we will establish and fund an independent appeals mechanism for the licensing process. That will ensure that labour providers can appeal against decisions taken by the authority involving the issue and withdrawal of licences.

At the beginning of the debate, my hon. Friend the Member for West Renfrewshire stressed the importance of enforcement, as others have. Co-ordinated action and being proactive are important We will also put in place robust enforcement arrangements to deal with the criminal offences created by the Bill. It gives the Secretary of State responsibility for the appointment of enforcement officers. That ensures that officers from existing enforcement agencies can utilise the new criminal offences to tackle gangmasters when this helps to deliver departmental enforcement objectives—in a sense, the antisocial behaviour order aspect of the Bill. We are also considering making additional resources available to increase the number of enforcement officers operating in this area, and we will be looking to secure police co-operation when appropriate.

Enforcement activities need to be intelligence-led. The powers of entry and arrest provided for under the Bill will be used when necessary but I reassure the House that all enforcement officers will be trained appropriately before they are given the authority to exercise these powers. There may be considerable merit in including housing enforcement. officers within the Bill's ambit, effectively to facilitate a one-stop shop approach to licensing and enforcement, but we have made it clear where the different responsibilities lie. That will also ensure that enforcement officers have ready access to information on gangmaster activities flowing from the licensing scheme.

Information sharing will be a key element in the successful introduction of the licensing scheme, so the Bill creates a two-way flow of information between the Government and the licensing authority. Again, that will ensure that the authority can take fully informed decisions on whether a licence should be issued or withdrawn. It will also provide valuable intelligence for Government enforcement bodies.

The Bill also provides for robust maximum penalties. I said that the intention is that if an offence is committed, prosecution can follow rapidly, but should there be repeat offences, we would hope that the courts use the higher penalties quickly to burn off any idea that offenders can get away with it, because that would do great damage to the licensing scheme and, again, provide succour to those who do not respect the law.

It has been underlined that much of the licensing scheme remains to be clarified in regulations. I have stressed that despite our wish to see licensing introduced as quickly as possible, there will be full consultation at every stage of the regulation-making process. We intend to set out our ideas as early as possible so that that discursive opportunity is used and that we get it right. That will enable us to move quickly once the legislation is on the statute book. The key regulations on the operation of the licensing authority will be presented to the House for detailed consideration. That is appropriate and reflects our wish to ensure that everyone has a chance to consider the detail of the new arrangements.

We have come a long way since Second Reading, and we still have some way to go before a fully operational licensing scheme can be introduced. However, I hope that the House agrees that the Bill provides a firm foundation. We understand the industry's need for a flexible labour supply, but that flexibility cannot be provided at the expense of workers. Licensing will oblige gangmasters to operate their businesses ethically. It will create a clear distinction between legal and illegal operators and strengthen the ability to enforce the law in a variety of ways. It provides the ability to ensure that those gangmasters who operate without a licence are prevented from doing so and that legitimate labour providers know that those who are willing to use any means to undercut them will be put out of business in short order. That will strengthen the legitimate part of the business. There can be no place for unlicensed gangmasters in future.

As many hon. Members said, the Bill is characterised by the tremendous spirit of co-operation displayed by all those involved with it. That has helped to ensure its speedy development and passage to this point. I hope that that spirit of co-operation continues and that the Bill successfully completes its passage through Parliament. Indeed, I hope that the spirit of co-operation will also help to guarantee the success of the new licensing arrangements. I commend the Bill to the House as a positive response to the problems caused by gangmasters who are willing to exploit those who cannot look after themselves.

With the leave of the House, I want to thank right hon. and hon. Members for their support, especially those who made such powerful and eloquent contributions to the debate, not only in the Chamber today but throughout the parliamentary process. In particular, I thank those people who gave me the benefit of their advice and experience, which was extremely helpful.

Again, I express my gratitude to the Minister and his officials, not only for their hard work, but for the receptive way in which they accepted the changes that we proposed and for the expeditious manner in which they responded to those suggestions. I must say, however, that I was somewhat surprised when the Minister referred to "Bob-a-job". I had not thought that he was of an age to be able to feel nostalgic about that worthwhile experience. Finally, I also want to thank the broad coalition that has supported the Bill every step of the way.

We are all too aware that, today, politicians have a less than glowing reputation. Election turnouts are at an all-time low, voters are disengaged and opinion polls rank us somewhere between estate agents and loan sharks in the popularity stakes. That is little wonder in an age when the public perception is that politicians would rather trade insults at the Dispatch Box than work together to solve problems and that politics is more about delivering memorable soundbites than about developing workable policies. It is therefore very easy to be cynical about what we, as MPs, can achieve during our time on these Benches, but today we can achieve something—we can effect real, lasting and positive change. Today, we have a rare chance to do what we were elected to do: to make a difference.

The Bill represents a different kind of politics. It is not the product of political point scoring; instead, it has been born out of partnership, consensus and reasoned debate between workers and employers, between Government and industry and between Members from every party in the House. At this point I want to pay tribute to the hon. Member for Boston and Skegness (Mr. Simmonds), who has worked tirelessly alongside the rest of us on the Bill and should be congratulated on that. Perhaps most importantly of all, the Bill is not driven by slogans and spin; instead, it is inspired by ideas and motivated by principles.

It has been said on a number of occasions that the Bill is not a panacea, and I have never said that it will cure every ill or right every wrong, but it will make a difference. It will serve and protect those who, by electing us to this House, give us not only their votes but their trust. So, yes, the Bill may be only one small step towards ending worker exploitation, but it is a step in the right direction, and it is a step on a journey that social justice and workplace dignity demand we take. Good law can do great things, and this Bill makes for good law. I therefore thank the House for its indulgence and ask for its support.

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

The measures in the Bill are of significance to many people in my constituency and other constituencies up and down the country. At the outset I should like to put on record my appreciation for the overwhelming cross-party support that I have received and the enormous encouragement from outside the House. Since the Bill's First Reading, my postbag has been filled with letters from the four corners of the country expressing support.

In particular, I would like to thank the pressure groups Planning Sanity and Mast Sanity, which have been a constant source of encouragement and assistance. I would also like to thank Mr. Mike Bell, chairman of the Radiation Research Trust, and his team, whose support has been invaluable. Finally, Mrs. Sarah Webster of Bridgetown in Devon deserves, in particular, to be thanked in this debate. She is a dedicated and passionate campaigner on the issue of transmission masts who has helped me to understand in the clearest possible terms the impact it has had on the lives of so many people. She has put me in contact with people across the United Kingdom who are suffering from serious ill health that they attribute to transmission masts and base stations.

I have the fullest support of the two local councils in my constituency, Forest Heath district council and St. Edmundsbury borough council. I have consulted and have the fullest support of the Local Government Association, which is backing the Bill having canvassed the views of the local authorities it represents. I make no party political point when I say that many people in this country feel that the power to influence their lives and their local communities has slipped away from them over the years. It is extraordinary that the construction of masts that are so visible and so intrusive is a matter over which, in practice, local people have no control.

Far too many Members of Parliament have sent e-mails and letters of support to name each individually; none the less, I should mention my hon. Friend the Member for Broxbourne (Mrs. Roe), who has campaigned for greater regulation in this area for several years—indeed, she preceded many in her calls for the effects of transmission masts on health to be researched much more rigorously. Many other Members have discussed the subject and their constituency concerns with me, not least my right hon. Friends the Members for North-East Hampshire (Mr. Arbuthnot) and for North-West Hampshire (Sir George Young), and my hon. Friends the Members for Tiverton and Honiton (Mrs. Browning), for South-West Devon (Mr. Streeter), for Mid-Sussex (Mr. Soames), for Gainsborough (Mr. Leigh), for South-West Bedfordshire (Andrew Selous), for Southend, West (Mr. Amess) and for East Surrey (Mr. Ainsworth), as well as many others across the political divide, most notably, my fellow Suffolk Members of Parliament.

In the past few years, there have been several Adjournment debates on the impact of transmission masts on health and on the environment, including one that I introduced last March. I should be surprised if any Member of Parliament has not at some point received correspondence on the issue from a constituent. Action to defuse a national groundswell of public anxiety is long overdue, and I want action to be taken on three fronts in particular.

First, the Government should accept the need for more research to investigate the genuine cases of ill health and the health concerns felt by sensible, rational people. Secondly, the precautionary principle advocated by Sir William Stewart when he was a Government senior advisor should mean that, in most cases, masts should not be placed too close to people's homes, schools and hospitals. The Government might wish to draw up new guidelines to put that into practice. Thirdly, a change should be made to paragraph 40 of policy planning guidance note 8 to enable the councillors who have to make planning decisions to take the views of those whom they represent into account in a balanced and objective way.

I note that, earlier this year, the National Radiological Protection Board published research that broadly confirms what Sir William Stewart stated four years previously:

"There is now scientific evidence, however, which suggests that there may be biological effects occurring at exposures below these guidelines… We conclude…that it is not possible at present to say that exposure to RF radiation,"—

radiofrequency radiation—

"even at levels below national guidelines, is totally without potential adverse health effects, and that the gaps in knowledge are sufficient to justify a precautionary approach".

With such uncertainty continuing to hang over transmission masts, there is a clear need for more specific research.

My Bill addresses the other two calls for action. If it is enacted, every application for planning permission for a mast must be accompanied by a certificate that sets out the area and maximum range of the beam of greatest intensity. If that falls on part of any premises or land occupied by an education or medical facility, or a residential property, planning permission will not be granted. Furthermore, every application must also be accompanied by a precautionary principle statement. If the statement indicates that there is a threat of serious damage to heath or to the environment, the fact that there is no full scientific certainty about the health impact of mast radiation shall not constitute a reason to ignore the precautionary statement and grant planning permission. Those measures are significant and will place the power to accept or reject applications clearly in the hands of local authorities. I shall return to those points later in my speech, for I now want to concentrate on why I feel that those measures are necessary.

My interest in this matter was provoked by constituents of mine who wrote to me on numerous occasions to relay their fears that mobile phone masts have a detrimental effect on their health. Nausea, dizziness and headaches are just some of the symptoms that a number of my constituents tell me have affected them since a transmission mast was erected near their homes. One notable, specific case is that of Mark Wheal, who first brought this to my attention on behalf of himself and his anxious neighbours. Elsewhere, schoolchildren have suffered from nosebleeds, insomnia and, indeed, behavioural changes allegedly because a mast has been erected near their school.

When a cluster of transmission masts was placed on a water tower at Haverhill in my constituency, there were some curious consequences. Almost immediately, the squirrels and birds disappeared. Doris Barnes, who lived with her nephew, John Insole, began to have a series of what appeared to be strokes. Dementia began quickly to set in, and she needed 24-hour care. Her bedroom had been in the path of the beam of greatest intensity of the transmitter. As the Insoles inevitably found it difficult to cope, and on their GP's advice, she was put in a care home in a village nearby. Almost immediately, her health substantially recovered, and there was no apparent explanation. Those constituents of mine are rational individuals. I find it difficult to reject out of hand their belief that radiation from masts is responsible for their ill health. I also find it difficult to believe that there has been some sort of outbreak of mass hysteria in many parts of the country in relation to concerns about such masts.

I have led grass-roots campaigns in Newmarket and Haverhill—two towns in my constituency—against mobile phone masts that were near schools, residential property and centres of population. In one instance, the behaviour of the mobile telecommunications company involved was literally underhand and unscrupulous. A TETRA mast was erected on a block of flats in Newmarket. After a strong campaign, agreement was reached that the mast should be moved. I thought that I had brokered an agreement for its removal to a location on a hill just outside the town. Then, one morning, we all woke up to find that it had been erected in another part of the town—technically, not in Suffolk, but in neighbouring Cambridgeshire. Townspeople were understandably outraged. Indeed, the Suffolk constabulary were deeply embarrassed as well. The local district council sought to have the mast removed, but lost on appeal. The company was simply not interested in discussing alternative sites for a compromise, despite assurances having been given to me.

I am deeply grateful to the hon. Gentleman for giving way. We have discussed this matter several times. Will he confirm that the contractor for the O₂ system in his constituency was, in fact, O₂ Airwave?

Yes, I can certainly confirm that. I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for being present because I shall now address specifically something that is of particular interest to him.

That behaviour is totally and disgracefully at odds with the code of best practice on mobile phone network development. That telecommunications company followed none of the guidance issued by the Office of the Deputy Prime Minister. Indeed, let me read to the House an extract from the foreword of the code of best practice:

"Strategic planning, combined with proper discussion of and consultation on proposals for developing the telecommunications network, is central to this process. This requires operators, local authorities and local people working together in partnership to produce optimum solutions.

In August 2001, we introduced improved planning arrangements for telecommunications development. These included greater requirements for consulting local people."

The document goes on to say that the one of the main aims of the code is to

"encourage better communication and consultation at all stages of network development between operators, local authorities and local people."

Those words will come as a cruel joke to the people of Newmarket, whose deep concern and anxiety have been ignored.

Operators have devised what they call "the traffic light model" to enable them to rate a site according to likely sensitivities. It is intended as a guide to the degree of consultation necessary. One of the factors that is supposed to be considered before a mast is given green, amber or red status is the involvement of the local Member of Parliament. My concerns have been routinely ignored.

Furthermore, PPG8 already makes it clear that where there are plans to install, alter or replace an installation close to a school or college, the institution should be consulted before an application is submitted to the local authority. The mast in my constituency in Newmarket, which was moved to the neighbouring constituency in Cambridgeshire, is close to three schools, none of which was ever consulted. Schools never are.

Since I indicated my intention to present the Bill, I have discovered that the pattern is repeated right across the country. Such is the frustration of local residents that groups of concerned protesters have torn down masts and forcibly tried to block new installations. I shall quote from some of the letters I have received from worried people across the country.

The hon. Gentleman will not be surprised to hear tales from my part of the country too, where, when masts are upgraded to secure greater 3G benefits, that is happening without any consultation whatever.

I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for making that point. When an industry acts in that way, it divorces itself from people's anxieties. That is at the heart of the problem. There is no effective control of the process to which the hon. Gentleman refers.

I shall describe some of the worries expressed to me in letters, so that the House will be under no illusion about the severity of the problem. Mrs. Lin Ansell of Liss in Hampshire tells me of the impact of a mast outside her home. She writes:

"We experienced a phenomenon here in Liss regarding the Tetra mast sited between 120 and 300 metres from our houses. On Wednesday 29th October, 17 of the residents including 4 children experienced ill health, disturbance and disorientation. We were having a residents meeting at the time when we expressed our concern about how ill we and members of our family were feeling. We got better on the following Friday, and we found later (AFTER we had experienced these various symptoms) that the Tetra mast had been turned on during Wednesday and turned off on the Friday…

Since the mast was switched on for good, I have a permanent headache, metallic taste in my mouth and feel sick. We have moved into a back bedroom, and my friends who have come to stay complain of headaches and sleeplessness. I have been unable to offer the house to lodgers because of the illness felt by guests. This has deprived me of my health and my income. Are you able to offer any help in our hour of need?"

More disturbingly and tragically, I have received information that describes serious illnesses such as cancer, which sufferers ascribe to masts near their home. In Ballygawley, Northern Ireland, five homes amid rural farmland make up the hamlet of Cranlome Hill. Those houses are within 100 m of a transmission mast. In those five homes there are six cases of serious life-threatening cancer. The people who live in the houses lead healthy lives, with plenty of exercise and a good diet. Many would find it an unsustainable argument that the ill health may not be connected in some way to the unwelcome mast. Mr. Walter Graham, chairman of the campaign group, Northern Ireland Opposing Masts, explained to me in a letter the symptoms of local people living close to the mast:

"Our most recent member is a small rural area between Ballygawley and Dunganon known as the Cranlome Hill mast. Local citizens concerned for their health cut down the mast after their group of five homes at the bottom of the hill from the mast had six people with cancer. Four are now dead. The mast had thirty-five pieces of microwave equipment with another four due to go up. They even had cancer appear in a six-month-old cow kept in the field with the mast."

Mr. Graham goes on to speak about another mast in Saintfield. He says:

"I spoke at a public meeting in Saintfield, which has had two masts for a number of years. During question time a woman stated that she had had a daughter with leukaemia within a half mile of the masts and that she had contacted the health board asking about other children with the disease. They found eleven children under eleven with leukaemia and seven adults with cancer, all within a half mile of the masts. It has since been reported that a farmer two miles out of Saintfield, who has a mast in his field near the house, has had his child come down with leukaemia."

Any Member of the House present during the debate introduced by my hon. Friend the Member for Sutton Coldfield (Mr. Mitchell) on 28 January could not have been left but deeply concerned after hearing of the cancer cluster in the hamlet of Wishaw. The chairman of the local action group, Sutton Coldfield residents against masts, Eileen O'Connor, an exceptionally brave lady herself who has battled against cancer, catalogues the ill-health in the tiny hamlet. She says:

• "Five ladies developed breast cancer
• One case of prostate cancer
• One bladder cancer
• One lung cancer
• Three cases of pre-cancer cervical cells

One motor neurone disease age 51, who also had massive tumour removed from the top of his spine

• People have developed benign lumps
• Electro sensitivity
• Three cases of severe skin rashes

Many villagers suffering with sleep problems, headaches, dizziness and low immune system problems.

Out of the eighteen houses surrounding the mast at up to a range of 500 metres, 77 per cent. of the tiny hamlet has health-related illness believed to be as a result of radiation from the mast. The outbreak of illness occurred in 2001 after seven years of exposure to the radiation emitted by the T-Mobile mast. We are now in connection with many people who are suffering from this form of radiation.

One other important fact is that since the Wishaw Mast was vandalised on 6th November 2003, many of the residents are reporting a feeling of well-being. The residents are reporting improvements in their sleep patterns and increased energy levels. The headaches and dizzy symptoms have disappeared".

The time is at hand to react to those tragic cases of ill health with a precautionary approach to the siting of masts. It is all that we can do in the absence of long-term definitive knowledge about the impact of radiation. The present law is woefully inadequate, with numerous loopholes that mobile phone companies are able to exploit at will. The hon. Member for Southport (Dr. Pugh) has just indicated one. Masts below 15 m do not even require planning permission. This means that masts can be erected without a full check on the suitability of the site by local councillors. If that state of affairs was not bad enough, masts erected on land owned by Network Rail require no planning permission whatever. It is wrong that these structures can be erected with such ease when there are still so many question marks over their impact on health. If enacted, my Bill would require that the transmission masts go through the full planning permission procedure, regardless of their height or whether they are on land owned by Network Rail.

The case is different elsewhere in the world where the large questions over the health impact of masts is recognised. UK Government policy concerning human exposure to the electromagnetic fields emitted by mobile telecommunication base stations is based on compliance with the safety levels published by the International Commission on Non-Ionizing Radiation Protection. These levels are much higher than in Italy and Switzerland, and even than in China and Russia. In Italy, the national public limit for people exposed for more than four hours a day is 90 times lower than the ICNIRP value. A mast in Haverhill in my constituency complies with UK emission levels but would not have been allowed in other countries. Such disparities may be based on conflicting scientific information, so it is incumbent on us to access the best worldwide scientific research to try to plug the gaps in our knowledge.

I turn now to how my Bill may help to prevent many of the disturbing cases that I have described to the House. I have already touched on how it would amend existing legislation, bringing within the full planning process all applications to erect a mast. Furthermore, I have spoken about how the Bill would embrace the precautionary principle by requiring the publication of a statement that shows how the mast adheres to that principle. Considering that an application should already be accompanied by an explanation of an operator's needs in a particular area, details of the location and type of telecommunications apparatus or structure to be constructed, details of any other mobile phone systems on the site, the area of search and details of possible alternative options where appropriate—these may include other methods of providing the required coverage—design options for particular sites, a traffic light model rating and the proposed consultation strategy, I do not think that a precautionary principle statement would be too much of a burden. It seems sensible that such a statement should be made available to the public and that an appeal to the Secretary of State must take into account its contents. The fact that there is no full scientific certainty about the health impact of mast radiation should not constitute a reason to ignore the precautionary statement and grant planning permission.

Let me turn to the other measures in the Bill. I want to reduce from six months to three months the time for which telecommunications companies are allowed to install cumbersome, temporary, movable apparatus to replace unserviceable apparatus. New apparatus has to be of the same type and capacity as the unserviceable apparatus that it is to replace. That measure is important, as it will place the emphasis on telecommunications companies to repair their equipment quickly and with as little inconvenience to local residents as possible.

My Bill would also allow schools and hospitals to cancel contracts that they have entered into with telecommunications companies agreeing to the erection of installations on their land or premises. Once an application to cancel a contract has been served by a school or hospital, the mast must stop being used within 28 days. Many schools and hospitals might have entered into such agreements before the possible health effects of masts were known as they are now. It is only fair that they should have the opportunity to cancel those agreements in the light of new research. I know of parents and head teachers in my constituency who would strongly welcome the measure.

I do not pretend to be a scientist and I cannot possibly make scientific judgments. My interest in this subject has arisen from real-life experiences and some, admittedly minority opinion, research. Finally, I would like to read a copy of a letter that I received from Mrs. Jane Lee of Budleigh Salterton in Devon, a lady who lost a legal battle with Orange earlier in the year, as I want to show the House in the clearest possible terms how the law is stacked in favour of the telecommunications companies, and to what lengths ordinary people have gone in order to prevent masts from being placed outside their homes. She writes:

"I am severely disabled and now in an extremely serious financial situation. The reasons for this are:

1. I have just lost an expensive legal battle to stop Orange putting up a mast that would focus the beam of greatest intensity directly onto my home.

2. Now that this mast has been allowed, my local estate agent tells me that I will probably lose a third of the value of my home.

3. In order to protect my own and my family's health, I feel I am being forced to move. It will be hard to find another bungalow in this area that I can afford and adapt to my special needs. Worse, in order to find another home that I can afford I may have to move away from my family and friends who are my support.

I have seen other people who have been made ill by low level radiation from masts beaming into their homes. I refuse to have this imposed on myself, my family or on my neighbours. I have therefore fought 4 battles over 2½ years. The stress of this has meant that I have hardly slept in the last 12 months and been driven to near despair. As my house is worth over £100,000 I cannot get legal aid. In losing my high court battle, I have to pay costs, which I cannot afford. As few people will risk living so close to a mast I am about to lose a third of the only capital I will ever have (due to my disability I am unable to earn money to replace this). I have lived here for over 7 years and am heartbroken at the prospect of losing the home I love."

Since being drawn in the private Members' ballot I have been sent more than 500 letters from individuals and organisations offering me alternative Bills, but this issue needs urgent legislation and attention. My Bill is sound and comprehensive, and I hope that my arguments in the House today and the impressive cross- party support that I have received show that we can reach a sensible consensus should the Bill reach its Committee stage. Without a shadow of doubt, legislation is required.

The Bill gives the power to local authorities to decide where transmission masts should be erected. I understand that mobile phones will not work without the supporting infrastructure—the masts—and want people to benefit from greater choice and network coverage, but that can be achieved while minimising the possible health risks to members of the public. I urge the House to support the Bill today, to carry it through Committee and to turn it into law.

I congratulate the hon. Member for West Suffolk (Mr. Spring) on introducing the Bill, which I support. The Bill is built around the precautionary principle and reflects concerns about the risks posed by mobile phone mast stations and people's fears of them.

Although the risks posed by using a mobile phone are well known to hon. Members, many of whom walk around with mobile phones glued to the sides of their faces, the scientific community has not yet agreed the risks posed by mobile phone stations—the risk is not an established fact. Indeed, the hon. Member for West Suffolk has included this fair and honest statement on his website:

"Recent studies have discovered no link between poor health and exposure to radiation that is emitted from the masts."

However, we all know three perfectly plain things. First, as yet, no study can gauge the long-term effects of consistent exposure to masts and their radiation, and it will take decades correctly to establish that point. Cigarettes were not originally known to be carcinogenic, and the initial use of a cigarette does not produce a change in cells, but over time sustained exposure has that effect. Formula milk, as opposed to breast milk, has only recently been discovered to have long-term risks, which were previously unidentified.

Secondly, we know that some people are affected more than others by base stations because they are more in the line of fire, which causes an effect. The debate is not about whether there is an effect, but whether the effect is harmful, and, if so, exactly how harmful it is. Even the Stewart report acknowledges that children are potentially more at risk.

Thirdly—this is the key factor that impresses anyone involved in a mast campaign—those affected or those who believe that they are affected are not at liberty to move out of the way of the mast. They live in the area, they are residents, their children play in the area and they are inevitably affected, and not by their choice.

Additionally, it is fairly obvious that a new generation of masts may well magnify some of the purported effects of the current masts. I pay tribute to activists in my constituency, and particularly to Geoff Williams and "Mast Sanity", which has done a lot to alert me to the increase in phone masts, which is almost unknown to the general public.

The Bill does two positive things. It forces the developers of masts formally to state that their masts generate no harm and that they are, in a sense, safe, which is good. It also urges people to identify the groups who are in the line of fire—the beam of maximum intensity. I am sure that the phone companies will not welcome either of those provisions. A declaration of safety, however and whenever given, is to some extent a legal hostage to fortune and can be produced later if any evidence should arrive. That will innately make the mast manufacturers and the mobile phone companies a little more cautious. Moreover, it will define, or force a definition of, the people who are most at risk, who might later wish to make a claim.

The one good thing that that will do is concentrate the minds of both developers and councillors, by making them think specifically about who may be affected and about the long-term effects. It will not guarantee that everything goes perfectly for the mast protesters, or that every proposal that they object to is turned down. In particular, it will do nothing to affect mast developers' rights of appeal. They will still be able to appeal, and win their appeal.

Mast developers will, I guess, feel reasonably legally safe if they act according to the best knowledge at the time, regardless of what subsequent developments and scientific knowledge may show up. Ultimately, however, they will not be that protected, because they will be working in a transparent regime. They will feel that bit less comfortable if the Bill reaches the statute book.

Legally, the Bill will not make a seismic change or radically reduce mast developers' rights as some of us may wish. Culturally, however, the change could be significant.

In the context of cultural change, does the hon. Gentleman share my view that although this is one of the most sensitive and delicate issues for communities throughout the country, the uniform experience of Members of Parliament is that the mobile operators act with haughty and contemptuous disdain, when they ought to be engaging most closely with the communities that are alarmed by their proposals?

The hon. Gentleman is right. Mast operators talk a better game than they play. They see Members of Parliament from time to time and tell them about their commitments, but as the hon. Member for West Suffolk said, when applications are made, particularly when they are sensitive, we are not always consulted.

We want cultural change and a swing in favour of local authority power. We want the siting of masts to be more collaborative and consensual, with a greater role for the local authority to say where they should go—for example, places whore there would be less public opposition. I would like local authorities to play a more directive role, but the Bill does not do much to lead them in that direction. The hon. Member for West Suffolk talked about local authorities being only too willing, but he must be blessed in that respect. Local authorities in many parts of the country want a directive role, but there are some that are not so aggressive. For example, my own local authority seems to accept that the siting of masts in residential areas can be responded to with a shrug, whereas it prohibits masts on the end of a pier. Consequently, in my constituency the fish are better protected than the population.

The Bill is a first step forward, not a massive breakthrough. As the hon. Gentleman said, if he had drafted a more aggressive Bill, it would have been shot down in flames right at the start. It does, however, have real potential. It is a positive way forward, which could produce some kind of cultural change, and it should certainly have a Second Reading.

I support the Bill that my hon. Friend the Member for West Suffolk (Mr. Spring) has brought before the House with his customary elegance and attention to detail. It is greatly to his credit that he has provided the House with an opportunity to debate this important subject, and I congratulate him accordingly.

I doubt whether there is a Member in the Chamber today who has not at some time or another had a letter, e-mail or phone call from a constituent concerned about the impact of mobile telephone masts on health or quality of life. Many will have experienced pressure groups in their constituencies campaigning on the issue. Members will undoubtedly recognise the complaints listed by my hon. Friend—nausea, dizziness, cancers, and, of course, critically, the fear of those complaints. The growth in those complaints has seemingly occurred in line with the increase in mobile telephone use, and the perception in the public's mind is that the two are linked.

The Bill would introduce several valuable measures that would protect individuals from the potential dangers of telecommunications masts. Relevant to all this—and in many ways the starting point for it—are the findings of the independent expert group on mobile telephones, chaired by Sir William Stewart, and published in May 2000. As the Stewart group found, there is no conclusive evidence of harm from emissions from mobile phones and telecommunications masts. However, the report did recommend a precautionary approach, which would indicate that the findings were far from certain. Indeed, how could they be? It is therefore important that we take the necessary precautions to protect people from potential harm.

Let nobody be in any doubt about the scale of the issue with which we are dealing. There has been a massive boom in the use of mobile phones in recent years. Figures from the Mobile Operators Association show that in 1997–98 there were 9.1 million UK mobile phone subscribers. By June 2001, that number had rocketed to 44.7 million. As at June 2003, the association noted that the number of UK mobile phone subscribers had topped 50 million people for the first time. I have also read that 6 per cent of all households already do not use landlines and rely solely upon mobile phones.

Naturally, the boom in mobile phones has led to an expansion in the number of masts across the country. According to the Mobile Operators Association, there are currently some 40,000 radio base stations in the UK. With the increasing number of mobile phone users—and the additional masts that will be needed to support the new third generation or 3G services—it is possible that this number could rise to 48,000 by 2007. That is a reasonable estimate, but it would mean many new installations across the whole country, at a time when Britain is perceived to be increasingly congested. It undoubtedly deserves some scrutiny.

The boom in mobile phone use has far surpassed the levels that were anticipated when the current planning rules relating to masts were introduced. It was as long ago as 1995 when the Town and Country Planning (General Permitted Development) Order, specifically part 24 of schedule 2, was brought into law, providing certain permitted development rights for licensed telecommunications operators. Obviously certain conditions apply to those rights—the mast cannot exceed 15 metres in height, it must not be erected in a national park, conservation area or area of outstanding natural beauty, and it must not have been denied permission by the local authority within the period allowed by the order.

I am no friend of red tape, but there is a definite and pressing need to examine closely the planning laws and issues surrounding the erection of new telecommunications masts. The Bill may not prove to be the perfect tool to overhaul the planning laws on this important issue. However, given proper consideration and amendment in Committee, it would provide a useful channel for a discussion of the planning laws and could end up as a strong addition to the statute book.

I once again congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for West Suffolk on all the work that he has done to bring this issue forward. The principle he proposes has my strongest support as a Front Bencher and as an individual Member of Parliament. I urge the Government to give the Bill a Second Reading and to allow the parliamentary time necessary for due consideration.

I congratulate the hon. Member for West Suffolk (Mr. Spring) on his placing in the ballot for private Members' Bills, and on using this opportunity to secure a debate on an important topic that is of widespread interest to Members of the House and the general public and high on the Government's agenda. I listened carefully to his contribution, as I did to those of the hon. Member for Southport (Dr. Pugh) and the hon. Member for Faversham and Mid-Kent (Hugh Robertson), who I suspect may have been speaking from the Dispatch Box for the first time, in which case I congratulate him.

Before I deal with the substantive concerns of the Bill, I want to set this discussion in the wider context. It has been the Government's objective to create the most dynamic, competitive communications industry in the world, ensuring universal access to a choice of diverse services of the highest quality, and ensuring that citizens and consumers are safeguarded. There are 50 million mobile phone users in the Untied Kingdom—around 75 per cent. of the population. Take-up of this technology, which did not exist 15 years ago, has been at a remarkable rate. The UK is at the forefront of service provision of mobile communications technology and it has been estimated that the UK mobile sector contributes £18 billion to the UK economy, or about 2 per cent. of GDP.

This has been achieved by a careful balancing of the planning regulations and guidelines, which have facilitated the growth not only of existing but of new telecommunications systems, while seeking to keep the environmental impact to a minimum and addressing public health concerns. The Government believe that we have struck the right balance.

Let me assure hon. Members that very careful consideration was given to the current planning arrangements before they were introduced. The Stewart report on mobile phones and health, published in 2000, recommended that telecommunication development should be subject to the normal planning process, in order to improve local consultation. The Government considered this recommendation in detail and accepted the importance of ensuring that effective public consultation took place. As a result, in August 2001, we significantly strengthened the planning arrangements for telecommunications development. We increased the time for authorities to deal with prior approval applications from 28 and 42 days to a uniform 56 days, and strengthened public consultation requirements on prior approval procedures so that they are exactly the same as those for applications for planning permission. We also increased fees from £35 to £190 to enable authorities to carry out full public consultation.

Our revised arrangements for prior approval applications have the same consultation requirements as those for applications for planning permission. Therefore, we have met the concerns that led the Stewart group to make the recommendation for full planning permission.

I am sure the right hon. Gentleman will come to this point, but can he tell the House of any instance in which an application to erect a transmission mast has been rejected on appeal? He may have set out a theoretical framework for what happens in the planning process, but in practice nothing of the kind happens. I hope that he is not suggesting that it is happening, because it is not.

I defer to the hon. Gentleman, and I will check on that point. If I may, I will write to him to indicate the Government's observations on the process. Nevertheless, I reiterate that the fact remains that the full procedures are in place, and the options for appeal are there under the proper provisions of the law.

The Bill aims to bring all telecommunications development under full planning control. That is simply not realistic. The prior approval procedures give authorities time to consider proposals, but consent is deemed to be granted if no decision has been made after 56 days, so that development is not delayed. This discipline is needed because many authorities are failing to meet their best value targets for determining planning applications. Furthermore, network operators estimate that only around 15 per cent. of installations are under their permitted development rights. Those installations are by definition the smallest and most discrete of developments. We do not want to restrict those rights, because local planning authorities need to focus attention on the developments that will have the greatest impact.

The current arrangements also have the effect of encouraging network operators to install smaller apparatus on existing buildings and structures wherever possible. That minimises the environmental impact of such developments. However, the fact that those small developments do not need planning permission does not mean that there is no public consultation. The code of best practice that was produced jointly by central and local government and the mobile phone industry is clear that every potential site is rated using the traffic light model. That model determines the level of public consultation that will be required if the site is selected for the installation.

The Government believe that limiting the rights of network operators to install telecommunications equipment would be detrimental to the ability of network operators to meet public demand for mobile services and would not materially increase or improve consultation with local communities.

My right hon. Friend says that every site is rated according to the traffic light model. I do not think that that is the issue. The issue is what the mobile operators do in response to that rating. When they get a clear red indication on the model, they do absolutely nothing. How are the public reassured by that?

I hope to take up those issues, which I know are of considerable concern to my hon. Friend, in the course of our proceedings today. We can deal with those concerns in greater detail at that point.

The Bill would also remove the permitted development rights afforded to railway undertakings that allow them to build masts and install antennae for their communications systems. The recent concern about those permitted development rights results from the development of masts required as part of Network Rail's new safety system, known as the global system for mobile communications for railways—GSM-R.

Network Rail is upgrading its analogue radio systems network to a digital network. GSM-R will for the first time provide a national system of secure, immediate and direct driver-to-signaller communication across the entire network. The upgrade is primarily safety driven. It will implement a key conclusion of the Cullen investigation into and report on the Ladbroke Grove rail accident and facilitate compliance with European legislation.

On 10 September, the Office of the Deputy Prime Minister published a research study on permitted development rights from Nathaniel Lichfield and Partners Ltd. That is the first phase of a wide-ranging review of the General Permitted Development Order 1995. It includes a review of the operation of the permitted development rights available to railway undertakings, and consideration of whether a height limit of 15 m should be set for their masts in "sensitive" landscape areas, and whether prior approval should be required on their siting and appearance.

We are considering the report's recommendations carefully. Once we decide whether any of the suggested reforms should be taken forward, we will undertake a public consultation. I will, of course, encourage all interested Members to participate in that process.

If the Government decided that the permitted development rights granted either to mobile network operators or to Network Rail in respect of the erection of masts needed to be restricted, primary legislation would not be the appropriate way of achieving that. Their permitted development rights are granted by the General Permitted Development Order, and any restriction should be by way of amendment to the order.

Let me address the provisions in the Bill that would require a planning application for a telecommunications installation to be accompanied by a statement that it conforms to the precautionary principle and a certificate setting out the range of the beam of greatest intensity. There is a clear distinction between the precautionary principle and precautionary approaches. Implementation of the precautionary principle was described in some detail in a Commission paper of February 2000. I want to say more about the detail of that shortly, but it is apparent that the requirements of the precautionary principle would fit poorly with any measures undertaken in respect of mobile communications equipment.

The precautionary approach taken by the Government in respect of mobile telecommunications is of practical measures that are achievable and, in many cases, implemented voluntarily. The precautionary measures adopted on the recommendation of the Stewart group included the decision to adopt the exposure guidelines for non-ionising radiation recommended by the International Commission on Non-Ionising Radiation Protection—ICNIRP—to which the hon. Member for West Suffolk referred in his speech. That important measure was adopted for public protection.

It is important to acknowledge that ICNIRP is an international body that puts considerable effort into developing comprehensive reviews of the available scientific information to provide a basis for recommendations on exposure guidelines for non-ionising radiation, including electromagnetic fields. The members of the commission are experts is in their field and are supported by a number of standing committees, on epidemiology, biology, physics and optics.

The advice that ICNIRP gives on exposure guidelines comes from extensive consultation based on the totality of the available scientific evidence on possible health effects. For that reason, the guidelines are widely accepted around the world and are the basis for exposure standards in many countries, within Europe and further afield. Those international guidelines have been developed to protect everyone in the population—mobile phone users and those who work or live near base stations, as well as people who do not use mobile phones.

The term "the beam of greatest intensity" arises from a recommendation in the Stewart report,

"in relation to macrocell base stations sited within school grounds, that the beam of greatest intensity should not fall on any part of the school grounds or buildings without agreement from the school and parents. Similar considerations should apply to macrocell base stations sited near to school grounds."

The group made the recommendation as it had been suggested that children might be especially vulnerable to any adverse effects of radiofrequency radiation and would have a longer time to accumulate exposure over the course of their life. The group acknowledged that some countries had prohibited the placing of macrocell base stations on sensitive sites, such as schools.

Although such a policy is easy to administer, Stewart did not believe that it always produced the desired effect, because of the way that emissions are beamed. A macrocell base station located near a school may cause higher exposure to pupils than if it were placed on the roof of the school building. The group thought that there was a better approach, which was reflected in its recommendation.

The Government considered that it would be difficult to adopt the recommendation, despite the arguments in the Stewart report. The concerns about the practicalities of adopting the recommendation including technological ones, such as the fact that it is problematical to define exactly where the beam of greatest intensity falls in all cases. It was also feared that adopting the recommendation would generate greater unnecessary anxiety about the siting of mobile phone base stations. People would inevitably ask why, if it was not acceptable for beams from base stations to be directed near schools, it should be acceptable near hospitals, homes or workplaces.

A base station rarely operates at the maximum licensed power and even if it did it would still have to comply with the international guidelines that were set, as I said, to protect everyone in the population. The Government believe that adopting the recommendation would have no practical benefit in decreasing the risk created by exposure to base station electromagnetic fields.

Furthermore, the ongoing audit of base station emissions near sensitive sites justified that decision. Ofcom—formerly the Radiocommunications Agency—has measured exposures around nearly 300 base stations, including those located on or near schools. In all cases, exposures were below—mostly thousands of times below—the guidelines. That should also serve to allay public concerns. For all those reasons, the Government do not support the intentions behind the provisions in the Bill that require that a planning application for a telecommunications installation be accompanied by a statement that it conforms to the precautionary principle and by a certificate setting out the range of the beam of greatest intensity.

The hon. Gentleman, in his detailed and well researched speech, raised a number of issues relating to PPG8, general health considerations and the precautionary approach, and I will say a few more words in response to the points he raised. The guidance in PPG8 says that health considerations and public concerns can, in principle, be material considerations in determining applications for planning permission and prior approval. In the first instance it is for the decision maker—usually the local planning authority—to determine what issues are material in any particular case and what weight to attach to them. Nevertheless, PPG8 states clearly that, in the Government's view, if a proposed mobile phone base station meets the international guidelines for public exposure—the ICNIRP guidelines—it should not be necessary for a local planning authority, in processing an application, to give further consideration to the health aspects and any concerns about them.

Let me say a few words about health and the precautionary approach. The Government, of course, take seriously public concern about the possibility of health effects being associated with telecommunications base stations. That is why we set up the independent expert group, chaired by Sir William Stewart, to consider the health effects of mobile phone base stations and transmitters. In respect of base stations, the report concluded that the

"balance of evidence indicates that there is no general risk to the health of people living near to base stations on the basis that exposures are expected to be small fractions of guidelines."

The Government have adopted the precautionary approach recommended by Stewart so, since the publication of his report, we have introduced standards to ensure that all base stations meet the international guidelines on public exposure set by ICNIRP. These guidelines are five times tougher in respect of public exposure than the National Radiological Protection Board guidelines previously used.

The Government's acceptance of a precautionary approach is limited to the specific recommendations in the group's report and the Government's response to them. It does not mean that individual local authorities should introduce their own precautionary policies for determining applications for mobile phone base stations; that would certainly be a recipe for confusion and uncertainty. However, we remain alert to public concerns and to the need for continuing research in these matters. That is why we have also launched a £7 million joint Government and industry research programme to investigate the health issues relating to mobile telecommunications and have made a commitment to keep the whole subject of mobile phone technologies under review in the light of further research.

I shall also say a few words about other forms of research. Reference has been made to Tetra—terrestrial trunked radio. The National Radiological Protection Board's independent advisory group on non-ionising radiation—AGNIR—published a report on possible health effects from Tetra in 2002. The report noted that the signals from Tetra-based stations, like their mobile phone counterparts, are not pulsed. There is, therefore, no reason to believe that signals from Tetra-based stations should be treated differently from those from other base stations. The report also found that exposures of the public to signals from Tetra-based stations are small fractions of international guidelines. Airwave mmO₂, which is rolling out the Tetra network for the police, is not a signatory to the 10 commitments, but it has its own version of the commitments and works to the guidelines in the code of best practice.

I am sure that hon. Members will also be aware of the recent Dutch TON study. The study from the Netherlands has examined the effects of radiofrequency signals from mobile phone base stations on feelings of well-being and cognitive functions. The results reported are important and need to be considered carefully. They also need to be confirmed by a different laboratory, as the authors themselves have emphasised.

On 14 May 2004, AGNIR published its report on "Health Effects from Radiofrequency Electromagnetic Fields". It fulfils a recommendation of the Stewart report to review the issue within three years.

With regard to exposures in the vicinity of mobile phone base stations, AGNIR examined data from a number of surveys and concluded that exposure levels are extremely low, and the evidence indicates that they are unlikely to pose a health risk. Nevertheless, AGNIR points out the limitations of published research and concludes that continued research is needed. The Government accept that the public have health concerns about mobile technologies and recognise that those need further study, which we are supporting.

The Bill's remaining provisions relate to base stations on property used by schools and medical facilities. They attempt to prevent operators from compulsorily acquiring rights to site installations on grounds used by schools, colleges and medical facilities. They would require county councils to revoke agreements to site telecommunications installations on sensitive locations, such as schools and medical facilities, and would allow for land previously compulsorily purchased for telecommunications use to be returned to its original owner without compensating the operator.

I remind hon. Members that the Stewart group report did not recommend that the erection of masts on or near schools be prohibited, or that existing masts be removed. As I stated, the report recommended that the beam of greatest intensity should not fall on any part of a school's grounds or buildings without agreement from the school and parents. I reiterate that Stewart did not recommend a moratorium on the siting of base stations on schools. As a result of the way in which omissions are beamed, a macrocell base station located near a school may cause a higher exposure to pupils than if it were placed on the roof of the school building.

The Government do not accept the arguments for directing the beam away from sensitive sites, but even if we did, it is impossible to understand the logic for the provisions. The Stewart group's report does not provide any basis for precautionary actions beyond those already proposed and accepted. It is our view that we should not implement additional precautionary policies. Of course, the development of modern communications systems inevitably leads to an increase in the infrastructure needed to support them, but the planning system already contains the necessary controls to ensure that such developments are carried out sensitively and with respect for the environment.

I put it to the Minister, in a wholly non-partisan and dispassionate way, that if he thinks that planning protection is actually working on the ground he is entirely mistaken. I also put it to him, again in a wholly non-partisan way, that the Government have a responsibility to react to the incidences of ill health ascribed to the transmission masts. That is what the precautionary principle is all about. The voluntary code is being abused wholesale by the telecommunications companies. It is a mess. I understand his position and acknowledge that he has been open and professional, but the Government have a responsibility to the people of this country to tidy up that mess. I hope that as a result of this debate he goes away and reflects on how to do that.

I understand and appreciate the spirit in which the hon. Gentleman raises those concerns. I also appreciate his acknowledgment that the Government are taking the issues seriously. We recognise the public's concerns about the health implications of masts. We have worked very hard to get the best scientific evidence on which to make a judgment about the health impacts of those masts. What is more, we are responding to research from abroad and in this country. Indeed, we are funding research in this country to continue studies into the public health implications of masts Let me reassure the hon. Gentleman that we are also carefully monitoring developments in the localities where masts have been installed.

As the hon. Gentleman told the House, he has been the recipient of a huge volume of correspondence since he announced his intention to propose this measure. As the Minister for Housing and Planning, I, too, am in receipt of a considerable amount of correspondence, from members of the public and from Members of the House who are properly responding to the concerns of their constituents. Of course, that volume of correspondence encourages any reasonable Planning Minister, which I hope I can claim to be, constantly to ensure that official and other relevant parties test the performance of the operators in these matters. In addition, Ministers regularly meet the operators and make strenuous demands for the evidence on which they maintain their activities.

The Government are aware that this is an issue of great public sensitivity, and we are constantly on the alert with regard to it. The fact that we recognise those public concerns is exactly the reason that this country is a world leader not only in research and development in mobile phone technologies but in research on health concerns. I say again to the hon. Gentleman and to the House that we are keeping the whole area under the closest review in light of that further research.

With the permission and consent and, indeed, at the request of my hon. Friend the Member for Rossendale and Darwen (Janet Anderson), I beg to move, That the Bill be now read a Second time.

My hon. Friend is deeply sorry and sends her apologies to you, Madam Deputy Speaker, and the House for the fact that she is not here today to move the motion. All hon. Members experience, from time to time, an unfortunate dilemma and a conflict between our duties in the House and those in our constituencies, and she is currently in her constituency on a very pressing personal engagement. Rather than lose the opportunity today at least to air the principles underlying the Bill, she has asked me to step into the breach. I apologise to the House and to you, Madam Deputy Speaker, for the fact that you are getting the dustcart instead of the lord mayor's show today.

I know that my hon. Friend the Member for Rossendale and Darwen has a particular concern about the matters covered by the Bill in relation to her constituency, with its large concentrations of urban dwellings and industry flanked by beautiful countryside. Open green spaces are increasingly important resources for constituents who seek respite through countryside recreation and the associated benefits of fresh air, peace and tranquillity. Even though my own constituency is urban and part of inner-London and we do not have similar issues pressing there, it is a pressing matter for my constituents. They, like the constituents of hon. Members throughout the House, use the countryside more and more for recreation, especially if they live in urban areas for the working week.

The tranquillity of our greener areas is threatened by the invasion of scrambler bikes, bikes incorrectly but almost universally known as quad bikes, and four-wheel drive vehicles known as off-roaders. Irrecoverable damage is being done to sensitive land and it is becoming increasingly commonplace to see such damage owing to the inappropriate and inconsiderate use of those vehicles. Other rights of way users feel intimidated by convoys of vehicles, and reckless motorised use continues even through the winter months, turning many fragile countryside routes into deeply rutted and impassable mud baths.

Early-day motion 380 in the name of my hon. Friend the Member for Bassetlaw (John Mann) has been well supported by some 110 Members from all parts of the House. Although I know that some hon. Members would go as far as a complete ban on vehicles on rights of way, the Bill does not attempt to achieve that. It does not seek to prevent vehicles using the 4,500 km of recorded vehicular rights of way in England and Wales.

Use by vehicles of rights of way is not always in itself undesirable or damaging. There are already legislative provisions such as traffic regulation orders to regulate use where rights for mechanically propelled vehicles already exist.

The hon. Gentleman no doubt has an intimate knowledge of the explanatory notes—in fact, I would not be surprised if he helped to draft them. I was rather puzzled by the sentence in paragraph 4:

"A public right of way for all vehicles may also arise where mechanically propelled vehicles have used a route for the 20 year period, even where that use is illegal."

Can the hon. Gentleman explain to me how illegal use has been allowed to continue for that length of time?

There is a passage in my notes that deals with that in part, and I shall come to it later. The right hon. Gentleman is aware that part of the reason for introducing the Bill is precisely the lack of clear regulation in this area. I shall come to some of the antecedents of that and some of the conflicts that it is creating. I share his view that the matter is subject to considerable confusion and needs clarification. The Bill presents us with an opportunity to adopt a partial, though not a complete, solution to the problem.

It is evident that existing motor vehicular use of the rights of way network will increase to unsustainable levels over the next 20 years. The figure of 20 years is used because there is a deadline of 2026—which is actually 22 years away—under the terms of the Countryside and Rights of Way Act 2000 for claiming historic rights to use highways and byways.

Many claims are already being submitted to local highways authorities to upgrade existing footpaths and bridleways to motor vehicular ways. Most alarmingly, the claims are generally based on the production of evidence of use by horse-drawn vehicles many years, if not centuries, ago.

Will the Bill's provisions be retrospective? I am interested that the hon. Gentleman says that there is a process whereby claims are now being submitted. He will know, because he understands these matters better than most, that there is always an issue with legislation such as this that seeks to put right something that is claimed to be wrong. Were the Bill to become an Act, would it have any retrospective effect in nullifying the claims already submitted and established?

As far as I know, there is no retrospection in the Bill. It is only a clarifying measure. However, having said that, I note that the Minister, who is far more intimately aware of its detail than I am, seeks to intervene.

People are sometimes confused about the date at which provisions take effect. The Countryside and Rights of Way Act 2000 put a limit on the date by which a claim could have been made in terms of a right of way existing because of use in the past, which was 2026. That means that a long way into the future there would be a degree of uncertainty. As I understand it, the Bill allows a period of 12 months from its coming into law. So, far from having any retrospective effect, it allows a window of opportunity for evidence to be put forward under the existing arrangements, but for a year rather than for some 25 years.

I am grateful to the Minister. Those are exactly the words that I would have used myself, but he has saved me the effort.

We are talking about establishing rights based on horse-drawn vehicles using tracks many years ago, which bears no resemblance to modern day use by powerful vehicles, sometimes weighing as much as 2 tonnes. This seems to be a perverse way to determine the accessibility of the rights of way network by motor vehicles.

The Government have recently consulted publicly on this issue in the consultation paper on the use of mechanically propelled vehicles on rights of way. Clearly, it is an emotive issue, which often creates conflict and ill-feeling between those who use mechanically propelled vehicles on rights of way and those who do not. However, I commend the Minister on a comprehensive consultation paper that directly confronts the issues of concern.

My hon. Friend seeks, through the Bill, to build on the proposals in that consultation paper. The Bill has a very simple purpose, which is to clarify those vehicular rights that can be recorded on local authorities' maps of rights of way, known as definitive maps, in England and Wales. At present we can only speculate on the extent of the historic evidence yet to be uncovered that would support claims in favour of their use by motor vehicles.

The Bill seeks to curtail claims for rights of way for mechanically propelled vehicles, known as byways open to all traffic, or, for those who like acronyms, BOATs. The impact is clear. When the Bill becomes an Act and its provisions are commenced, it will no longer be possible to add further byways open to all traffic to the rights of way network.

It may be helpful if I clarify how the Bill seeks to achieve that. The Bill limits the creation of any new public rights of way for mechanically propelled vehicles by ensuring that evidence of use by non-mechanically propelled vehicles in the future would not be sufficient to establish a public right of way for mechanically propelled vehicles.

The Bill also seeks to extinguish any unrecorded rights of way for mechanically propelled vehicles. This means that it will not be possible to rely upon any evidence of horse and cart use or an express dedication for such use to establish a right of way enabling motor vehicular use. But this historic evidence should not count for nothing. The Bill also provides for the recording of these rights as restricted byway rights—that is to say, rights on foot, on horseback or for non-mechanically propelled vehicles.

I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for his generosity and the relaxed way in which he offers the Bill to the House on behalf of his hon. Friend the Member for Rossendale and Darwen (Janet Anderson). Can he reassure me that the claims that will be allowed for another 12 months, following the Minister's helpful intervention, will be considered on exactly the same basis as hitherto, and that the Bill will in no way seek to change the criteria that have been used to consider these claims?

I believe that I can give that reassurance. As I mentioned, the Bill does not seek to change the balance; it seeks to establish a system of regulating the competing claims. As I also pointed out, it does not seek to extinguish existing rights that have been established; instead, it seeks to resolve conflicts between what could be perceived as the conflicting rights of users of footpaths and byways.

We are not discounting historic evidence. The Bill provides for the recording of restricted byway rights—rights for those who are on foot or horseback or are using non-mechanically propelled vehicles. That separates such byways from those that are open to all traffic rights. In most cases, recording rights under that category will ensure that rights of way are used in a way that reflects their historic past.

There are property owners or occupiers who rely on unrecorded public vehicular rights of way to gain access to their premises. They need to be protected from being landlocked. The Bill ensures that landowners and occupiers who are adversely affected by extinguishment of unrecorded rights in respect of mechanically propelled vehicles will retain those unrecorded rights to the extent that they need to exercise them in order to access their land. Of course, the provision would also extend to people who are legitimately visiting such owners or occupiers.

The Bill provides an opportunity for Members of the House to highlight their concerns about the use of motor vehicles on rights of way, and I am confident that the evidence will demonstrate that action is needed now if we are serious about having a sustainable rights of way network. The Bill is a major step forward in addressing the problems associated with motor vehicles in the countryside. It seeks not to ban vehicles, but merely to ensure that their future use is not dictated by past use that bears no comparison with the circumstances of today.

On behalf of my hon. Friend the Member for Rossendale and Darwen, I thank all the hon. Members who have helped her in preparing in the Bill and who have expressed their support, as well as those outside the House who have sent letters and e-mails expressing their support. I again thank the Minister and his staff for their considerable efforts and assistance in drafting the Bill, and I thank him for his decisive approach.

If the House, in its infinite wisdom, gives the Bill a Second Reading today, my hon. Friend the Member for Rossendale and Darwen will do all that she can to ensure that it achieves the further stages of its parliamentary progress—and she would do it in person, I am certain.

A Bill that can unite in my area all farmers without exception, all horse riders without exception and dog walkers—I cannot confirm that it unites all dog walkers, because I have not spoken to all of them, but all whom I have consulted in many of the 80 villages around my constituency would warmly welcome a Bill such as this—is to be welcomed. Should a Committee consider the Bill, I shall earnestly offer my services to assist in its further progress.

I have one question, which I hope the Minister will answer, about what will happen if changes of the sort that are proposed should be introduced, whether through this Bill or other means. I want to ask about retrospective action, as it appears to me that in areas such as mine or the neighbouring constituency of Newark, where applications are currently under way, there needs to be clear guidance on the potential use of traffic regulation. When people wish to ride quad bikes and other such motorised vehicles, including motor bikes of all different kinds, licensed and unlicensed, legal and illegal, on the footpaths and bridleways of my area and that of the hon. Member for Newark (Patrick Mercer), such guidance is needed to ensure that we have the opportunity properly to put a case on our constituents' behalf in order to restrict such rights and allow people to get on with their lives in peace, rather than alongside the horrors of organised sport invading the countryside in an inappropriate way.

I hope that the Minister can consider providing some guidance, irrespective of the progress of the Bill, on how traffic regulation orders could be used by decent, law-abiding people in order to protect their rights.

The use of a loophole to convert more public paths into byways open to all traffic is a cause for concern. Conservative Members therefore welcome the Government's consultation on mechanically propelled vehicles, which closed in March, and we also welcome the Bill.

It is important to understand the scale of the problem. In England, there are about 188,000 km of public rights of way, of which more than 146,000 km are footpaths, just over 32,000 km are bridleways and 3,700 km are byways open to all traffic. An additional 6,000 km of roads are used as public paths or RUPPs—roads used as public paths—and they are currently being reclassified under the Wildlife and Countryside Act 1981.

I make a plea to my hon. Friend to talk in good old miles rather than these ghastly kilometres to which he seems so wedded. I know that he is a young man with his future ahead of him, but we old folk prefer miles because we do not understand kilometres. How much of that mileage is either in public ownership or is public land has not come out in the debate, and perhaps we can explore that point later with the Minister or in some other way. That distinction must be important, but when I examined the Bill quickly, I did not see it. Does my hon. Friend have any thoughts?

On my right hon. Friend's first point, I was as shocked as him to see a Conservative research department scriptwriter use kilometres. If my mathematics were quick enough, I would multiply the distance in kilometres by five eighths to get the proper figure in miles. However, my maths is not quick enough, and I must make some progress.

I have not examined or considered my right hon. Friend's second point about the proportion of mileage in private ownership as against public ownership, but it is worth delving into.

I cannot help the hon. Gentleman on the proportions, but rights of way legislation deals with rights of way, and not with the ownership of land. On considerable amounts of private land, however, evidence of a right of way would, under the current arrangements, lead to a right of access not only for walkers and horses, but for motorised vehicles, so the Bill would benefit private landowners.

I am grateful to the Minister, and I hope that that helps my right hon. Friend.

Not much.

I could not answer my right hon. Friend's question, but I hope that the Minister's response is of some use.

The legal rights of access to RUPPs cause a great deal of confusion in the countryside. Many people believe that they have vehicular access to a route, when no such formal right exists. We believe that the Bill is not an attack on legally acquired vehicular access rights, but rather a renewed attempt to establish much needed clarity. The number of off-road vehicles has grown spectacularly over the past 10 years, and some estimate the increase to be more than 400 per cent. In that context, the need for clarification is all the more pressing.

It cannot be right that the use of a route centuries ago by horse-drawn carts can be used as evidence to grant access to mechanically propelled vehicles, which have a dramatic impact, particularly on unsurfaced roads. We believe that the loophole should be closed, and that the usage of a road over 20 years should not automatically give rise to vehicular access rights.

In our enthralling packed Friday debates in this place, we hear a lot about this or that group lobbying our colleagues. Has my hon. Friend been approached by any interest groups—walkers, horse riders, quad bike users, sport utility vehicle owners, people with horses and carts or perhaps even Prince Philip, as he drives his four, six or eight horses along with great skill—to argue one way or the other about the Bill, or is he completely in the dark?

Sadly, I have not been approached by the Duke of Edinburgh—but I have been approached in one of my many constituency advice centres by a man from Woolpit. I confess that I cannot recall his name, but he was extremely exercised by the prospect of the Bill biting and preventing him from using his quad bike on the highways and byways of mid and west Suffolk. I fear that what I am about to say, in what my right hon. Friend rightly described as this packed debate, will not be much to that man's liking—but perhaps he is not watching or listening, so I might get away with it.

In fact, I am supporting an official Opposition position, and I can say that we, as the official Opposition, have received many representations. Later in my speech, I shall take some time—

Oh yes, please do.

I am sure that my right hon. Friend will look forward to that part of my speech, when I shall outline some of the representations that have been made to us on both sides of the argument.

The use of routes by mechanically propelled vehicles does not inevitably cause damage, but there are many examples of damage being caused by trail riders and 4x4 vehicles. That has undoubtedly led to the enjoyment and amenity of the countryside being spoilt for many people. In my part of the fair county of Suffolk, there are many walkers of all ages who fear 4x4s and quad bikes tearing down quiet, bucolic country lanes or paths at great speed. That concern has been expressed not only to me but to many of my right hon. and hon. Friends.

The Ramblers Association has reported how green lanes have been scarred by trail bikes and four-wheel drives, at a cost both to those who use them and to those who try to maintain them. The problem is worst when conditions are wet, and large ruts can be gouged in paths.

Now that my hon. Friend has started to talk about wets and ruts, this is getting a bit more interesting, but has he any details or statistics on the number of people who have been injured by that phenomenon? As he develops his argument—I am sure that he is still only on his preliminary remarks—it strikes me that there is a distinct possibility that people using quad bikes, SUVs or other such vehicles, including even horse-drawn vehicles driven at speed, may be causing risk to innocents who are simply walking. Do we have any figures? Are they part of the argument?

It certainly would be an important part of the argument if I had those statistics to hand; my right hon. Friend makes a powerful point. I am always indebted, as are all of us on the Opposition Front Bench, to my right hon. Friend, because he has a brilliant capacity to ask the most telling and trenchant questions—and his latest intervention is true to form. It is a very important point. We should not just support or pass legislation willy-nilly: we have to drill down into the detail. Should the Bill obtain a Second Reading and go into Committee, I would expect that we would have more statistics to hand.

It is difficult to provide statistics on that point, because statistics depend on the way in which information is collected. During the consultation, many people wrote to us about danger and injuries. The hon. Gentleman makes an interesting point about the wider issue of conflicts between different types of users, but the Bill would have only one narrow effect. It would mean that 12 months after it came into effect a claim could no longer be made that would allow use by motor vehicles on the basis of evidence of use by horses or horse-drawn vehicles many years in the past. The Bill would not introduce a complete ban, nor does it seek to try to prevent a wide range of different types of use. It would simply prevent the creation of a new right of way for motorised vehicles on the basis of historic use by horse-drawn vehicles.

I am grateful to the Minister, but it is worth pursuing my right hon. Friend's point. The Bill may address a narrow loophole but it is still a proposed piece of legislation, and we do not want to pass legislation for the sake of it. We must be convinced that it cuts out an abuse, rights a wrong or clarifies the law. My right hon. Friend makes an excellent point by asking what evidence is available of loss of life or injury to walkers and others who may be incommoded by vehicles using certain country routes. How serious is the problem?

I am sure that the hon. Gentleman will have read of the case earlier this year of the four-year-old boy in south Wales who was killed on one of these roads used as public paths—or RUPPs—by a motorbike travelling at great speed. Doubtless the hon. Gentleman will also be interested to hear of the concerns of hundreds of my constituents whom I met last weekend, in villages such as Clarborough. They fear injury, but also the disruption of their peace and quiet as they attempt to live their lives.

I was not questioning whether people were concerned about this issue. Many walkers and ramblers clearly support the Bill, not least for the reasons that the hon. Gentleman gives. I was making a slightly different point, which is that if we are to have good law based on a proper rationale, we need to test all the propositions. My right hon. Friend made a good point by asking whether we could quantify the occurrence of danger, injury or fatality. The hon. Gentleman gave a powerful example, about which I recall reading, but we need more empirical data before we make any final decisions on the Bill.

I congratulate my right hon. Friend on his typically forensic analysis. We do not want to pass laws only on the basis of good intentions: they must be founded on evidence.

rose—

If my right hon. Friend will allow me, I will make some progress.

As I said, the problem is at its worst when conditions are wet. It leads to degradation of paths and routes, makes them difficult to use by walkers, many of whom are often deterred from returning to some areas, as they expect these motorised vehicles to return and disturb their peace as they go about their business walking along. The Ramblers Association states that the 85 miles of the Berkshire-Oxfordshire Ridgeway has suffered particularly badly from off-road vehicles, and the damage has cost Berkshire county council many thousands of pounds to repair.

Earlier, I promised my right hon. Friend the Member for Bromley and Chislehurst (Mr. Forth) that I would refer to some of the representations that we have received. He might be interested to learn that there are arguments on both sides. There has been criticism of the Bill and its implications from the Trail Riders Fellowship—I do not know whether he is familiar with that organisation. In the consultation response to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, it said:

"We are aware that the Minister continues to be lobbied by groups and individuals who wish him to totally eliminate the use of mechanically propelled vehicles from rights of way. We believe that the claims made in support of prohibition are very selective, misinformed and exaggerated"—

It would be a great disservice to the House and the public were two things to be confused.

One is the question of the suitability of rights of way for particular use—the hon. Gentleman referred, for instance, to the Ridgeway, in which I have taken a considerable personal interest. There is a right of way along the Ridgeway. The damage to the areas that he mentioned needs to be tackled via traffic regulation orders, which local authorities of a variety of political colours and MPs across three parties currently support. That is a coherent way of dealing with damage to a right of way. The Bill does not address those issues, and nor did the consultation, a response to which he was quoting. The Bill simply considers whether, if there has been use of a particular way by horses in the past, that should automatically lead to future use, after the 12-month post-implementation period, so that not only is there no backdating but there is a window of opportunity for using the current legislation. That is the only issue with which the Bill deals. It is important not to confuse the issues because organisations such as the Trail Riders Fellowship have been confused in making representations that have nothing to do with this Bill. The consultation to which he refers is much wider, and is not relevant to the specific proposals that we are considering.

I am grateful to the Minister. I hope that I am not missing anything, but it seems to me that the precedent that certain motorised vehicle users can now pray in aid—that a track had been used by a cart and horse for 400 years—which the Bill seeks to close off, is relevant. If that loophole is kept open, as the trail riders and others wish, they would be able to damage certain pathways and routes. Therefore, the suggestion by the trail riders that they should have a right to go down those routes and do what they like to the surface seems pertinent to the Bill. If the loophole is not closed, they will be allowed to go about their business and to cause damage. The ramblers to whom I will refer shortly object to that. Therefore, I am not quite sure why the Minister suggests that damage to some of those routes is not pertinent to the debate. If the loophole is not closed, more damage will be done. Is that not the point?

The hon. Gentleman quoted responses in relation to general protection of rights of way and damage to rights of way that exist now. I made the point that traffic restriction orders are the means of dealing with that issue. The question in the Bill is simply whether it should be possible in future for people to claim a right of way for a motorised vehicle where the only evidence of previous use is that by walkers or horses, sometimes in the distant past.

I am grateful to the Minister. I do not think that we are disagreeing, because that is our understanding of the Bill. If that loophole is not closed, which the Bill seeks to do, it seems that there is potential for people who use motorised vehicles to pray in aid a precedent created by horses, for example, which would enable them to use their mechanically propelled vehicles and to cause damage. Therefore, if that loophole is not closed, there could be more damage to the countryside. That is the ramblers' argument.

May I continue quoting from the response of the trail riders to the consultation? I will be happy for the Minister to intervene if he thinks that this is not pertinent to the Bill—I think that it is. One of the key arguments of those who oppose the Bill is that all vehicles that use rights of way do not necessarily use them in a careless and destructive manner. The trail riders and others think, fairly or unfairly, that they have been tarred with the brush of being destroyers of rights of way and of certain routes. They say:

"Legislative changes driven by such claims would be disproportionate to the problem and would bear down unreasonably on the law abiding and responsible. It would also be a replication of previous attempts to manage recreational use of countryside by tampering with legislation that have largely failed."

How would the hon. Gentleman respond to the case that has been put in my constituency? It has nothing to do with the Ramblers Association or the Trail Riders Fellowship. If those rights of way were authorised and lawful, those wishing to go lamping and to case isolated farms such as that of my constituent, Mr. Geoffrey Wheatcroft—the story appeared inThe Sunday Telegraph—would be able to do so. Concern has been expressed by 80 members of the National Farmers Union in my constituency and by the hon. Member for Newark (Patrick Mercer), the hon. Gentleman's Front-Bench colleague. They are worried not about organised trail riders but about the individuals who would have those rights and therefore would legitimately be in such areas on motorised vehicles, to the detriment of the security, safety and rights of the individuals living and working there.

The hon. Gentleman makes a powerful point. I repeat that the official Opposition are in favour of the Bill. I am merely trying to ventilate some of the different views. I was referring to the fact that some trail riders and British motorcyclists think that they have been hard done by. It is only fair to air their grievances. This is not a Bill that has universal support and there are arguments on both sides.

The British Motorcyclists Federation said:

"The consultation paper proposes measures that will curtail "cowboy" usage. However to be effective in doing this it is likely that any legislation will shape the activities of sensible and authorised users."

Does the hon. Gentleman accept that he is again talking about a consultation that ranged over a wide variety of issues, which go way beyond the limited elements covered by the Bill? By drawing in so many issues that are extraneous to the consideration of the Bill, he gives rise to the suspicion that the official Opposition have decided to talk out the Bill. It would be helpful and interesting to hear whether he has anything to say about the actual provisions of the Bill.

I am grateful to the Minister for that intervention. I do not agree that my references to the consultation are irrelevant to consideration of the Bill. As I said earlier, if the Bill is successful, it will close off a loophole and will, on balance, reduce the amount of motorised vehicles driven along some of the highways and byways of this country. If, on the other hand, the Bill does not go through, those wishing to use vehicular transport will be able to go down country routes by praying in aid the precedent of usage by horses, carts and so on over many generations. It thus seems to me that the general remarks of motorcyclists on the one hand and ramblers on the other about their view of their activities in the countryside, and their responses to the consultation, are extremely relevant, because the heart of the Bill is whether there should he more or less use of country routes by motorised vehicles.

Notwithstanding the bluster of the Minister, who obviously needs a refresher course in charm and persuasion, is my hon. Friend tempted by the thought that a better way to resolve a Bill such as this would be to test the will of the House in a Division, as the Government did on the last Bill? Does he recall that on six previous occasions this year, on Fridays such as this, it was Ministers who talked out Bills? If someone is still on their feet debating a Bill at 2.30 pm on a Friday such as this, it is more often than not a Minister.

As always, my right hon. Friend puts his finger on the point. I make no comment as to whether the official Opposition seek to talk out the Bill. As I am sure my right hon. Friend agrees, I am merely ventilating some of the issues, so that we can give a balanced reflection of who is for and who is against the Bill. The Minister has intervened twice to imply that my remarks were not pertinent to the Bill, but I believe that they are. Depending on whether the Bill goes through, there may be more or less use of motorised vehicles on country routes and that is what I am looking at.

I shall turn to what the Bill is trying to achieve and the more positive set of remarks about it, which have been amplified by the Ramblers Association. It referred to the Ridgeway and, although the Minister might intervene to say that this case should not be quoted in the context of the Bill, the views expressed reflect the opinion of ramblers generally on the principle of recreational motor vehicle use and how that might affect the use of the countryside by ramblers and others who wish to enjoy the highways and byways. It said:

"We are not campaigning for a ban on recreational motor vehicles, we are campaigning for a ban on their use on rights of way which came into existence before the motor car was invented, and have never been designed to support such use. There are many sites dedicated to off-reading where this activity can be enjoyed."

The Ramblers Association has expressed a fair and balanced view in support of the Bill.

The Friends of the Ridgeway and the Yorkshire Dales Green Lanes Alliance have also made supportive comments. The Friends of the Ridgeway said recently:

"The 'rights' arise from historical legal anomaly. Until the Countryside and Rights of Way Act 2000, UK law did not distinguish between motorised and non-motorised vehicles when it came to a consideration of rights of way. Once upon a time it was possible to drive through the centres of many of our towns and cities that are now pedestrian precincts. Sometime in the future we will look back on the banning of motor vehicles on The Ridgeway and see it as just another step in protecting the 'rights' of the majority".

The Green Lanes Environmental Action Movement—GLEAM—is yet another organization that is in favour of the Bill. About 150 MPs and Members of the European Parliament of different parties are apparently honorary supporters of GLEAM.

Not today.

As my right hon. Friend points out, they are not here today. There do not seem to be many people who support the Bill in the Chamber today. None the less, its supporters appear to number more than 100.

In absentia.

Yes, in absentia, and demonstrably so.

They are on their way.

Using a byway.

There is a lot of sedentary intervention, but I will ignore that and try to press on.

I appreciate my hon. Friend's helpful analysis, because we need to hear the different views. However, before he concludes, will he give us his reaction to the Bill's explanatory notes? He has a distinguished record in the House as a custodian of the public purse and he may be alarmed, as I was, by paragraph 14 of the explanatory notes, which states:

"Local authorities may experience a surge of applications to record byways open to all traffic on their definitive maps before the legislation is commenced but their longer-term workload will be reduced."

Does my hon. Friend interpret that to mean, as I do, that there may be a considerable additional burden on the local council tax payer—yet again? The council tax payer will take little comfort from the fact that it may be reduced in the longer term, which never really arrives.

My right hon. Friend makes an important point. I hope that it will be picked up should the Bill ever be debated in Standing Committee. I know that he pays much attention to the resource implications of all legislation. We need full advertence as regards the cost implications of this Bill, as we do with all pieces of legislation.

It is important to ensure that there is a balance between the various users of the countryside, including those who walk in it and those who drive their vehicles down highways and byways. The Conservatives have a proud tradition of conserving that which is best. The beauty of the British countryside, not least in Suffolk, which is clearly the most beautiful county, should not be spoilt, but protected. We lean in favour of a regime that protects the environment from spoliation by vehicles. We are not against all vehicular use of byways, but on certain routes vehicles should not have untrammelled access as of right.

The loophole arising from the precedent set by the historical use of routes by vehicles such as horse-drawn carts exploited by those whose mechanised vehicles might despoil some of the lanes and routes needs to be considered. For that reason, we find merits in the Bill. On balance, it is an appropriate and proportionate response to a muddied—no pun intended—legal situation. We hope that the unjustified conversion of paths for vehicular usage can be stopped. In so doing, we hope that everyone can enjoy our cherished countryside free from disturbance and free from damage. We shall support the Bill should it be put to a vote.

I am grateful to the hon. Member for Bury St. Edmunds (Mr. Ruffley) for trying to tease out some of the things that would be affected by the Bill. When my hon. Friend the Member for Rossendale and Darwen (Janet Anderson) announced her intention to introduce such a Bill, I was unable to be in the Chamber to hear her remarks, although I know that she referred to the fact that I had explained the reasons for my absence. When I read what she had to say, I offered all the help that I could in pursuing her objective.

The hon. Member for Bury St. Edmunds raised a number of issues, some of which go wider than the Bill's scope. That is fair; a piece of legislation fits within a wider context. The consultation received many responses and raised many issues. In particular, I was pleased at the large number of Labour and Opposition Members who said that they thought the problem needed tackling in a comprehensive, proper and thoughtful way. They also said that they supported this specific measure.

The Bill is carefully measured. It effectively attempts to cap the extent to which the public right of way network is open to use by motor vehicles. Essentially, we are dealing with past vehicular use by horse-drawn vehicles long before the invention of the internal combustion engine. In many cases, roads and motorways started off by being used by horse and cart, but they have been subject to continuous use and the development of appropriate surfaces. We are concerned here with routes that have not been used by any sort of vehicle over many years and have never previously been used by mechanically propelled vehicles. Such use does not form part of the evidence for routes to be considered under the Bill.

I therefore emphasise the support for the limited nature of the Bill to underline the fact that, as was indicated in earlier interventions, it is not retrospective; it does not seek to curtail existing rights of way. It provides a window of opportunity for applications to be made under the current arrangements and for a year after the Bill reaches the statute book, rather than during a period that lasts until 2026, which is the provision in the Countryside and Rights of Way Act 2000. It merely means that, after that window of opportunity has closed, any rights of way that are asserted on the basis purely of walking and horse-drawn vehicles will give rise to the right to use that route on foot or in a horse-drawn vehicle rather than in a motorised vehicle—it will go no further than that.

I hope that, with those assurances on points of concern and in the knowledge that it will be widely welcomed as a small step in the direction towards a coherent means of properly protecting and using our rights of way, the Bill will receive the support of the House.

I suppose I should start by declaring somewhat of an interest, in that I am the happy owner of an SUV. Mine is a pretty little Jeep Wrangler of which I am inordinately proud. It is, of course, derived from the original second world war jeep and it is a true four-wheel drive vehicle. I have to confess, however, on behalf of my Wrangler, that it has never been off-road—it is a London-based SUV—so it has not yet been able to disrupt anyone's quiet or peace and sadly may never do so. I should put that on the record, though, because I have a potential interest in the contents of the Bill, rather than a present one.

I say for the sake of the record that the Minister has had the gall to stand up and say how many MPs support the measure—something that we often hear in the House on Fridays. You and I know, Madam Deputy Speaker, that at the last Division in the House, about an hour ago, only 12 MPs out of 659 voted, and looking around the Chamber now, there are 10 Members present. If we were to divide the House to establish the true level of support for the Bill, I would hazard that we might get 10 or 12 Members voting out of 659.

There are 11 Members here.

I had been intending to mention the hon. Gentleman, but I am happy to bring forward my praise for him. He points out that there may be 11 Members present, and I happily concede that.

As you know, Madam Deputy Speaker, I am something of an anorak. I still believe in what the House does and in the legislative process. I am here every private Members' Bill Friday, but sadly not many of my colleagues are. I am not impressed by those who say that this or that Bill has the support of many Members of all parties—100 here, 150 there. The true test of support for a Bill, in the legislative sense, is bums on seats or, to put it more accurately, bodies in Division Lobbies. To me, therefore, the proper measure of that support is when we divide the House and see how many people are here. Very sensibly, our forefathers set the quorum for the House at 40 Members. I do not think that it is asking too much to say that 40 Members should be present to make law. Let us clear all that nonsense out of the way before we even get started.

I had been about to sing the praises of my near neighbour, the hon. Member for Lewisham, West (Jim Dowd), who so persuasively introduced the Bill on behalf of the hon. Member for Rossendale and Darwen (Janet Anderson). He said that, were the Bill to make progress, the hon. Lady would be present on some future occasion to promote its interests. That is very encouraging, if I may say so. I am really rather pleased that a Member would be prepared to turn up to support his or her Bill at some stage. The hon. Gentleman did a magnificent job of promoting his colleague's Bill, and, who knows, we may yet find that he has persuaded the House—that remains to be seen.

Just to clear the decks before I get anywhere near my introductory remarks, never mind the substance of my speech—I am keen to follow others in making my little contribution to the debate—it emerged from the Minister's remarks that our aim today is to repair a cock-up by the Government. Apparently, the Countryside and Rights of Way Act—

First, I should like to put on the record how pleased I am to have obtained this Adjournment debate. The matters it deals with might seem somewhat dated, but I think that they are as relevant now as they were when I first became aware of them some eight years ago. The debate arises from a previous Adjournment debate that I had the privilege to introduce on 7 March 2001.

At that time, I expressed my concerns about the release from prison of two career criminals, John Haase and Paul Bennett, 10 months after they had been sent down for 18 years for conspiring to supply class A drugs. To date, no one in the Government or their agencies has been able to explain satisfactorily to me how that happened. I hope that today's debate will enlighten us as to part of the process involved—the use of the royal prerogative.

Since that debate, I have met representatives of Customs and Excise and the Home Office—two of the principal agencies involved—but they have added nothing to my understanding of the breakdown in justice. I have to assume either that those concerned are ignorant of the wider context of the Haase-Bennett case, or that they inadvertently stonewalled me in respect of relevant information that I believe should rightly be placed in the public domain.

I am assured that, since the previous debate, Customs and Excise has changed its rules on the handling of informants—something for which I asked at the time and went into great detail about. However, a Customs and Excise officer, Mr. Kevin O'Sullivan, of the law enforcement drugs policy section, wrote to Sir Andrew Turnbull alleging that there is still a culture of malpractice and, indeed, criminal behaviour within Customs and Excise. I hope that that matter will be pursued and resolved.

When I initiated that debate three years ago, however, the Paymaster General told me that I had

"placed much information on the record."

I was told that she would ensure that the issue that I raised would be "properly scrutinised" and that I would be

"kept fully appraised of action that is taken and information that is available."

Finally, I was also told that I was

"making available additional information that requires a response, and I will assure that he gets one."—[Official Report, 7 March 2001; Vol. 364, c. 395–8.]

But, of course, I never did. Time moved on and so did Ministers. The forces of law and order remained mute on the travesty of justice that was the release of Haase and Bennett.

I had put on the record how Haase and Bennett set up stashes of guns from within prison to enhance their credibility as informants. I am talking about not just shotguns and small handguns, but assault weapons—AK47s, Ml6s, Kalashnikovs and Uzis. A large number

of guns were set up in those stashes. Subsequently, the two men informed the authorities of where those guns were, thus enhancing their credibility as informants.

At the time, I pointed out that no convictions were involved in the retrieval of those guns. They were found in cars or empty houses. All the information came courtesy of Haase and Bennett from within prison while on remand. It beggars belief that those people could somehow be aware of those stashes in cars, which could be towed away and moved around, but they were always spot on, in the right place at the right time with the right weapons. Of course, the reason was that the stashes had been organised by them, through their confederates outside. That is common knowledge among the underworld fraternity in Liverpool, and I believe that it is commonly understood by the police.

In fact, I also pointed out three years ago that Scotland Yard's directorate of intelligence alerted the agencies to that scam. I believe that it was not new at that time. That information had come from a man known, oddly enough, as the Vulcan— a Turkish baba, or godfather, who was the Turkish connection in drug-dealing activities. I understand that he did the same thing when he was incarcerated in Italy, where he got himself out of prison by doing deals with the authorities in return for information on that kind of set-up gun stash.

No one questioned what was going on at the time because everyone was obviously a winner. The informants gained credibility. That was the purpose of the exercise. The officers involved could show the seized guns as successes. The media trumpeted position outcomes in the war against organised crime. However, I repeat that no one was ever convicted for involvement with all those guns. To anyone with any sense of what life is like on the street, the idea that those guns could somehow remain in the stashes for months and months, while those people were in prison, waiting for the informants to come along and say where they were just beggars belief.

When Paul Cooke, the men's Customs handler petitioned the judge in their case, David Lynch, it even caused consternation and outrage among some of Cooke's colleagues in the Customs and Excise squads—two squads were involved as it was such a big case—as it affected the arrests in a major crackdown on drug importation. I have spoken to members of those squads. They still do not understand why the recommendation was made to allow those two people out of prison. But of course, under normal procedure, Paul Cooke, the officer in charge, together with the defence counsel, approached the trial judge, David Lynch, to set out the reasons why they believed that those two people should be pardoned. In turn—again, under normal procedure—that information would be passed on to the Home Office for its consideration. Of course, the key in all this was the gun seizures—that was the supporting evidence.

Following that procedure, the net result was that the two prisoners were released under the royal prerogative. It was a very strange release, because there were only five pardons in 1996 in total—Haase and Bennett received two of them. I should have thought that, with such a small number of cases getting to that stage, there would be intensive scrutiny of the backgrounds to those cases, the people involved, the way in which their credibility had been established and how the guns had been seized by the police.

It is unusual to intervene in such a debate, but the tale my hon. Friend is outlining is scandalous, to put it mildly. Can he remind the House of who was the Home Secretary when those releases were authorised?

That happened in 1996 when the right hon. and learned Member for Folkestone and Hythe (Mr. Howard) was the Home Secretary.

What made the case so special as to merit the release of Haase and Bennett? My hon. Friend the Minister will rightly quote the judge. I know that he, in turn, quotes the arguments of what I would consider a rather undependable alliance of the defence counsel and Paul Cooke, the Customs and Excise officer in charge of what happened.

The repeated allegation on the streets of Liverpool—it is not a new allegation—is that in some way large sums of money were involved in arranging matters. After all, Haase and Bennett had it. The authorities had seized only half the stock of "brown"—heroin—from that importation. I put it on the record that the street value at the time was £18 million. They had a lot of money at their disposal, if that was the case, to buy weapons and to buy influence.

I should also put it on the record that one name that is always mentioned in this context is that of a local criminal, Simon Bakerman, a man who has done time for drug offences. He is the son of Warner Bakerman, who was also arrested on drug-related charges. I cannot argue the veracity of the claims that are made by people who I have already said are practised liars, well able to do deals, and always seeking to do deals to minimise the effects of the sentences handed down to them. Nevertheless, the allegation is repeated time and again, ad nauseam. It merits somebody, somewhere, looking into what, after all, would be conspiracy to pervert the course of justice. The people involved are not only well known to the underworld. They are well known to the police in the area, and I believe they are well known to senior members of national agencies.

That gives rise to the question that I am often asked: have those repeated allegations been investigated, and if so, what was the outcome? Back in 2001 when I first raised the issue, I asked a series of questions seeking information to fill in the blanks in this unsavoury tale. As the House has heard, the Minister responding for the Government at the time promised me answers, but sadly, for reasons that I am prepared to accept were in good faith, because the election came along and ministerial roles changed, I never got those answers. I repeat for my hon. Friend the Minister, to see whether he can be of assistance, some of the pertinent questions that go to the heart of the so-called information provided by Haase and Bennett in order to give credibility to their application for the royal pardon.

Was Paul Ferris interviewed about the gun purchases of Haase and Bennett? What information is available on John Lally, Dominic Donnelly and Roger Jordan in relation to the smuggling of a gun into Strangeways jail? Was a report compiled on the gun in Strangeways jail? Has it been or will it be published anywhere, and if not, why not? Was there a failure by Customs and Excise to liaise with Merseyside police about the arms stashes pointed out by Haase and Bennett while they were on remand? Finally, who in the Home Office, if anyone, made the recommendation that Haase and Bennett should be released back on to the streets to carry on their perfidious work?

Three years ago I asked for two inquiries. One was into the procedures of Customs and Excise for dealing with informers. As I have already said, I am assured that that has been done and the necessary changes effected. My second request was for an inquiry into those cases touched upon by Haase and Bennett and their information, relating in particular to their release, the basis for it and any questions arising from it, and also into cases where their evidence was allegedly used and was crucial in securing convictions.

There have always been problems with so-called supergrasses, and, as I have said before, criminals always argue that they are innocent of the crimes of which they have been convicted. Nevertheless, there remains a deep concern on Merseyside that no one in authority seems to care about the uncertainty surrounding the information allegedly provided by Haase and Bennett with regard to others convicted of serious crimes.

We live in an age of increasing violence and frequent resort to firearms on the street. That is a commonplace fact of life today in my home city, as it is in other cities in the United Kingdom, and it is a tragedy. Here is a case where hundreds of weapons were bought on behalf of Haase and Bennett and turned in to the authorities, yet no one appears to have asked the appropriate questions about the stashes and the arrangements surrounding them.

I cannot believe that everyone touching on this case missed the obvious. To a simple-minded lay person such as myself, there can be only two possible conclusions. The first is that Customs and Excise, the Prison Service, the police, the judiciary and the Home Office were all duped by Haase and Bennett. The alternative is that there was, at some stage, some truth in the allegations that bribery played a part in securing Haase and Bennett's release. I do not want to believe that. All of my instincts say that that is not possible. Yet I also find it difficult to believe that no one within the system smelled a rat in the way in which the gun stashes were set up. I just hope that today the Minister can throw some real light on this sordid saga, so that I can explain to my constituents why it is that these people were allowed out.

I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Liverpool, Walton (Mr. Kilfoyle) on obtaining this debate and providing the House with an opportunity to discuss an issue that reaches back into our history.

By constitutional convention, the Home Secretary is, in England and Wales, responsible for recommending to the Sovereign the exercise of the royal prerogative of mercy. Indeed, the Home Secretary is personally involved in all decisions relating to any application for the use of the royal prerogative of mercy.

The Home Secretary's discretion in providing advice on the exercise of the royal prerogative has to be exercised having regard not only to the legal restrictions on the prerogative power, but to those imposed by constitutional convention and the allocation of ministerial responsibilities.

It might be helpful if I set out my right hon. Friend the Home Secretary's policy and powers, as well as the conventions relating to the royal prerogative, and the particular factors that have a bearing on the granting of the three different forms of pardon that exist.

A decision by my right hon. Friend to recommend the use of the royal prerogative of mercy to grant a free pardon is restricted to cases that meet the following conditions. The first is where it is impractical for the case to be referred to an appellate court, and the second is where new evidence has arisen that has not been before the courts, which demonstrates beyond any doubt that no offence was committed or that the defendant did not commit the crime.

The effect of a free pardon is that the conviction is disregarded to the extent that, as far as possible, the person is relieved of all penalties and other consequences of the conviction. Of course, only the courts have the power to quash a conviction, and length of sentence is entirely a matter for the trial judge. The sentencing process must be as transparent as possible. Only in the most exceptional circumstances would it be appropriate to recommend an exercise of the royal prerogative of mercy, subsequent to conviction, on the strength of mitigating factors that were in fact known to the sentencing judge. That is an important point to which I shall return later.

The criteria currently used by my right hon. Friend in considering whether to make a recommendation to Her Majesty appear to have been applied by his predecessors for the past 100 years. Those criteria reflect a proper regard for the constitutional position, namely, that the courts decide whether a person is guilty of an offence, not the Government.

Thus, the Home Secretary would not generally consider recommending the grant of a free pardon until an appeal had been dismissed or leave to appeal had been refused, and it would be impractical for the case to be otherwise referred back to an appellate court.

Three forms of the royal prerogative of mercy are used to grant pardons to convicted criminals. The first is what is commonly known as a free pardon, which in this context means that the pardon is free from any conditions. The last free pardon was granted in 1996 and involved summary driving offences. Hon. Members will recall that, at that time, there was no other form of redress for a miscarriage of justice in summary cases.

The second form is a conditional pardon, whereby the penalty is removed on condition that a lesser penalty is served. Back in the 18th century, this form of pardon was used to substitute transportation for life in place of the death penalty. With the withdrawal of capital punishment, such pardons are no longer required. Indeed, the last conditional pardon to be granted was given posthumously in 1993 in respect of the death sentence passed on Derek Bentley, although this did not, of course, pardon his conviction for murder.

The third form of the royal prerogative of mercy is what is known as a remission pardon. This provides for the mitigation of punishment by releasing a prisoner from having to serve some or all of the remainder of their sentence or releasing someone who has been subject to a monetary penalty from the obligation to pay all or part of it. Remission pardons are usually considered in cases where the applicant has provided assistance to the authorities or in recognition of meritorious conduct, such as saving the life of a fellow prisoner or a member of the prison staff. It is this form of pardon that I know is of particular interest to my hon. Friend, given his concerns about the cases that he has mentioned. It might be helpful, therefore, if I say a little more about how the procedures work in such cases.

In the case of an individual providing information or assistance to the authorities prior to sentence, it would be normal for those authorities to inform the trial judge of the nature and extent of the assurances given. The trial judge would then reflect these representations in any sentence handed down. In some cases, such as where doing that might draw attention to the fact that the offender had been very helpful to the authorities and in turn might place that particular individual at great personal risk, and especially where that risk might be life threatening, the judge may decide not to impose a reduced sentence but write instead to the Home Secretary asking him to consider the use of the royal prerogative of mercy.

When that happens, the Home Secretary should not simply take the information at face value, but seek a detailed report from all the authorities involved in order to satisfy himself as to the value of the assistance given, and indeed as to what use that information has been put, before going back to the trial judge for his opinion as to what level of reduction in sentence would be justified in the circumstances. In cases where information has been provided after sentence, the same processes should take place, in that the Home Secretary should seek a detailed report with regard to the validity and use of the information as well as any outcome that may have occurred.

With regard to recommendations for the use of the prerogative in respect of meritorious conduct, this would normally relate to behaviour in prison, such as preventing the suicide of a fellow inmate, rescuing prison officers during a riot, preventing a fire, or some similar highly creditable behaviour. In such cases, it would be for the prison authorities to confirm the action taken by the prisoner and to recommend a suitable period of reduction in sentence. In most cases, this is a matter of a few days.

My hon. Friend has reiterated his close interest in the cases of John Haase and Paul Bennett, both of whom were granted remission pardons in 1996. He has raised his concerns on a number of occasions in the years since; indeed, this is not the first Adjournment debate he has initiated on this particular topic. I appreciate my hon. Friend's deep disquiet that in this case both men— despite the sensitivities involved and the possible danger to themselves—decided to make public the fact that they had received a reduction in sentence. It will be of great concern to my hon. Friend and his constituents that those men continued, after their release, to engage in further serious criminal activity. I note, too, my hon. Friend's allegation that those two men had deceived the authorities in their efforts to obtain a reduction in sentence.

I know that the then Paymaster General wrote to my hon. Friend following the earlier debate, to assure him that Customs had re-examined its handling of the case and concluded that it had been dealt with appropriately. I also understand that earlier this year my hon. Friend met my hon. Friend the Economic Secretary to the Treasury to discuss his continuing concerns.

My hon. Friend asked a number of specific questions, but I am sure that he understands that I am unable to go into detail on the facts of those cases. In particular, I emphasise the well-established policy and practice that no one—whether they be the police, Customs, Home Office officials or indeed Ministers—should comment publicly on whether an individual has or has not given information in confidence to the authorities. However, the House should be in no doubt that the impetus for the reduction in sentence in those cases came entirely and properly from the trial judge, and in supplying material to the judge, Customs and the police were properly fulfilling their obligations to the court.

Indeed, the Court of Appeal in the case of Sinfield laid great emphasis on the public interest in ensuring remissions of sentences in such instances, making it clear that even if the defendant is a major criminal—as he was in that particular case—a reduction in sentence still remains appropriate. Given the concerns that my hon. Friend raised, he will want to know whether we are considering any changes to the procedures in relation to the use of the royal prerogative of mercy.

I know that my hon. Friend is aware that at the time of his Adjournment debate in March 2001, an internal Home Office review was in progress. The review was completed soon after the debate and, although the conclusions were never made public, I can inform the House that they confirmed an earlier decision of the then Home Secretary that the royal prerogative of mercy should not normally be used to shorten sentences in recognition of information supplied to the authorities and known to the trial judge at the time of sentence.

The review did not, however, conclude that the prerogative should never be used in such circumstances, given that there may be very rare cases in which it is important for the Home Secretary to retain this discretion. Take, for example, a case in which co-defendants were all sentenced together in open court for the same offences, and where all might expect to receive the same or at least very similar sentences. It might simply be too obvious, not to say dangerous, to be seen to be lenient with just one. There can be particular difficulties when co-defendants plead guilty, but not all have given assistance, since a marked disparity of sentence may be impossible to explain, and any attempt to explain it would put the informer and their families at risk and so discourage informers from giving assistance.

I am led to understand that there have been recent improvements in the way customs officers handle their informants. The Butterfield review of criminal investigations and prosecutions, conducted by Customs and published in July 2003, revised arrangements for handling human intelligence sources. These new arrangements were put into place in September 2003 and extensive new law enforcement training commenced in April this year.

There have, of course, also been legislative changes that have affected the use of the royal prerogative of mercy and provided alternative means of redress. Prior to the implementation of the Criminal Appeal Act 1995, the only way that those who were wrongfully convicted had to remove the stain against their character was to seek a free pardon. Now, such people are able to appeal against summary conviction to the Crown Court and in the case of indictable offences to the Appeal Court. If they are unsuccessful, they can also seek the assistance of the Criminal Cases Review Commission. The commission, having investigated an allegation of injustice, may, if it determines that it is appropriate, refer the case back to the Court of Appeal.

That has clearly reduced the need to resort to the royal prerogative of mercy, and as a consequence no free pardons have been issued since 1997, when the Criminal Cases Review Commission came into being. Remission pardons have continued to be granted, but as my hon. Friend is aware from replies to recent questions that he has tabled, they are extremely rare, and only five have been granted since 1997, excluding grants for meritorious conduct in prisons.

The royal prerogative of mercy is, therefore, used only sparingly, and only in cases that are truly exceptional in character, in which no other route of redress is available.

It should not surprise any of us when public controversy accompanies a remission pardon. The cases are rare, and the people involved are convicted offenders who have sometimes committed very serious crimes. I appreciate, therefore, not least in relation to his constituency responsibilities, why my hon. Friend continues to press his concerns, and I remain happy to respond should he have further questions in future.