Before I call the hon. Member for Nottingham, North (Mr. Allen), who initiated the first debate, I hope that all Members had a restful and enjoyable, albeit rather short, Christmas break. I also wish all Members a very happy and successful new year.

Thank you for calling me to speak in this very important debate, Sir Nicholas. If there is one thing that should unite politicians of all parties in this House, it is a desire to ensure that Parliament is more effective and that it becomes more relevant and a more important forum. I hope that those of us gathered here this morning will agree on how we might proceed and that the Minister will take our views seriously.

Politicians of all parties are struggling to reignite people's interest in our democracy. It is sad that many members of the public rightly or wrongly perceive us to be out of touch, out of date and unresponsive to outside opinion. They do not understand or even care about what they believe to be our archaic and irrelevant procedures and practices. The media does little to help and much to hinder. Civil servants and Ministers, through fear of challenge or lack of imagination, may feel little need to relax their grip over a supplicant Parliament. Blaming others, however, gets us nowhere. Parliament must take responsibility for itself, and I hope that the Government, who control our agenda, will assist it. This Government, like all Governments, need constantly to renew their connection with Parliament and the public.

The answer is under our noses in the form of online pre-legislative scrutiny—an ugly mouthful, but one that means taking our democracy to its next level and to its next era, in which Committees properly examine draft Bills or, even better, White Papers, or, better still, the Minister's instructions to counsel—the ideas behind the Bill. That would give Bills the examination that they deserve in advance of their becoming law.

There is a tendency for Parliament to fear technological developments. For many years, the broadcasting of proceedings, first on radio and then on television, was resisted. Some believe that the internet now threatens the principle of representative government, since it offers the possibility of direct decision taking through e-plebiscite—a big, if monosyllabic, conversation that would bypass Westminster altogether. We are right to be worried about being bypassed, but pre-legislative scrutiny turns that worry on its head. It can reinforce representative democracy rather than undermine it. It would mean the public's thoughtful involvement in our law making rather than a crude "yes or no" totting-up of views on a particular issue without proper explanation or involvement. It would give this generation of democrats the chance to develop a fully participative democracy rather than revelling in the irrelevant past, as some of us do in this place. Through this process, Parliament could once again become a respected forum of the nation.

If evidence on proposed Bills was broadcast live on the parliamentary and BBC websites, for example, every voter who could get near a computer would be able to view proceedings and could submit their own views using the e-mail address that would run across the bottom of the screen. Those views would be received and processed, not by anyone here or in party politics, but by an independent mediator—perhaps, as in the brilliant example of the Communications Act 2003, the Hansard Society. a much respected and independent institution.

Will my hon. Friend give way?

I am glad to give way to my hon. Friend, because he was a distinguished member of the Committee that considered the Communications Bill, which successfully pioneered the experiment in online pre-legislative scrutiny last year.

Is my hon. Friend aware that one group was unable to participate in that online scrutiny of the Communications Bill? The whole world could watch it, except the 659 MPs in this place, who were barred from watching it on the parliamentary data and video network.

It is ironic that while a peasant farmer who had access to a satellite dish in China could e-mail responses on the Communications Bill last year, a Member of Parliament who wished to do the same would have had to leave this place—the mother of Parliaments—and go outside, perhaps to their home, to tune in and exercise a similar right. However, my hon. Friend and I have been working closely with the Select Committee on Information to try to put that right. Indeed, I believe it may now even be possible, for the first time, for Members of Parliament to participate in making laws even though they are not sat in Committee, which is great progress.

The role of the independent mediator, a role taken by the Hansard Society for the Communications Bill, would be to look at the e-mail traffic, distil the gems and nuggets on a side of paper and put that in front of the Committee the next day. One of the beauties of the idea for Members who are technophobes—I probably count myself among their number—is that those conducting the evidence taking and those giving the evidence are not in direct interface with the technology. The Committee proceeds exactly as before; the only difference is that it receives a sheet of paper with some bright ideas, from whoever it may, about the evidence given the day before or on the Bill's clauses.

The great thing about the idea is that electors with practical experience in an area can feed the Committee useful advice as it develops its scrutiny of a Bill. Imagine, for example, if serving police officers, housing officers or victims of antisocial behaviour had been able not only to listen to the Home Secretary and the shadow Home Secretary giving evidence on the Anti-social Behaviour Act 2003, but to improve the various concepts and ideas through their practical experience of the nuts and bolts of how things might work best for them. The Government may say that they already have their version of pre-legislative scrutiny and that they consult with people. That is true; but Parliament too should have the right to do that, as it is our responsibility to ensure that legislation is in good shape. For example, on the Anti-social Behaviour Act, although the Government might rightly have taken advice from the Association of Chief Police Officers on antisocial behaviour, a serving police officer in Macclesfield, Nottingham or Milton Keynes would have been able to say. "On-the-spot fines are a super idea, but if only you did it just like this, it would help us on the ground so much more."

The more voices that are allowed to be heard, the more likely we are to get the ideas to make good legislation even better. Many of the legislative disasters that Governments have imposed on Parliament—I speak generically—could probably have been avoided. To refer to my own experience, I led for my party in opposition on the Child Support Act 1991, which has had to be rewritten about five times. I have no doubt that had we had a sensible process of pre-legislative scrutiny—either online or offline—and had we listened to the practitioners and to those whom it affected, we would have been able to make that law far better, far earlier.

We have all, as constituency Members, heard voices, not as timely advice from those with experience, but as screams of anguish and despair from the most obvious victims of Government mistreatment of the parliamentary process. Not one Member of the House has not had experience of child support cases that we know would have been handled better had the law been framed properly in the first instance. We all share the blame for not getting the process right. That is not merely a dry parliamentary point; if we get things wrong—in this instance, the Child Support Agency—people die, people commit suicide, and misery is inflicted on people for many years. To take an extra few weeks to listen to the voices and get it right is a very small price to pay.

We are now in Second Reading season. Who knows how many of the Bills before the House this week and in coming weeks will have to be revisited next year or the year after? I have heard my right hon. Friend the Home Secretary say that people cannot wait to get a Bill on the statute book and that they need the relief and the remedy now. However, by hurrying Bills through without proper legislative consultation we slow, not speed, the process. Time and time again we come back to put things right that we did not get right because we acted in haste and without allowing Parliament to do the job that it is elected to do.

Proper parliamentary planning of evidence on Bills could create a schedule—a sort of parliamentary Radio Times—if we got our act together and listed which Bills were coming forward and when evidence could be given. That would allow a tremendous opportunity for access. Interest groups could plan their viewing—so to speak—and their input into law months ahead, where legislation affected them. For example, to stick with the issue of child support, if we were to produce a new child support Act, battered wives or "children need fathers" groups could know in advance when particular evidence was going to be given on particular parts of the Bill and could make provision to meet at their community centre, around the communal personal computer, with their social worker or community worker. They could view the evidence, have a sensible discussion and then make a contribution.

In the past, we might have said something that sounded like a great idea—for example. that we must put the man back into a relationship, even a financial relationship with the woman. However, battered wives might say that that is absolutely the last thing that they want and that if we want to help them we should operate in one way rather than the other. They might agree with our sentiment, but ask us to work in a practical and helpful way. The intelligence, experience and advice in our communities could help make our good intentions real and practical.

Pre-legislative scrutiny has received endorsement from the Government, most notably in the 2002 Gracious Speech. Thanks to the introduction of carry-over Bills and timetabling with a period of pre-legislative scrutiny built in, that is now theoretically far easier than ever before. If we are to believe newspaper reports in what we are told is a post-spin age, there are plans to abolish the monarch's annual address on the opening of Parliament. If that happened, a desire to avoid pre-empting the Queen's Speech would cease to be a valid excuse—if ever it were one—for not alerting Parliament, Select Committee Chairs and others about future Bills and allowing each departmental Committee to plan its pre-legislative programme further in advance. What is my hon. Friend the Deputy Leader of the House of Commons doing now to plan next October's parliamentary Session? Is he engaging with the Chairs of Select Committees on the long list of potential Bills that is circulating in Whitehall? It is important to plan ahead, so that the procedure can be built in.

The trend is for more draft Bills to be published in each parliamentary Session, and it is important that all of us, whichever party we come from, put on the record our gratitude for the fact that the Government, in co-operation with the Opposition, are putting more Bills through the process. That is a welcome development, and I congratulate not only the Minister but my right hon. Friend the Leader of the House of Commons and his predecessor, my right hon. Friend the Member for Livingston (Mr. Cook), on the progress that has been made. Now we need to take a major step forward. The process needs extra impetus and political leadership if it is to progress. I hope that the Minister will be forthcoming on that issue. Robert Blackburn, the author, has rightly stated:

"Further development depends more on Government than on Parliament."

The Government control our agenda on a minute-to-minute basis, so the ability of the Cabinet and the business managers to decide in advance the legislative programme and of Departments to give drafting instructions, particularly given the limited resources of parliamentary counsel, are vital to the control of Government. It is not good enough for Government to say, "This is a matter for Parliament." Parliament cannot move without Government being supportive and promoting and encouraging further developments.

The process should not live or die according to who is Leader or Deputy Leader of the House. One of the most helpful contributions that the Minister could make this year would be to settle on one form of pre-legislative scrutiny. Early on, we welcomed lots of different forms; that was important at that stage. Perhaps we should not close off options, as an alternative form might be helpful in some circumstances. However, to assist the civil service, Select Committee Chairs and Members of this House, it is important to pull the strands together and to institutionalise the form in which pre-legislative scrutiny online takes place. There are too many excuses around for those who do not want the process to be a success to allow them myriad possible pitfalls.

It is important to identify the most commonly used and most favoured form of pre-legislative scrutiny, and I hope that the Minister will consider putting it in Standing Orders, so that it can be applied as a matter of course to all future Bills—not the odd one that we think might go well through the process—in order for there to be a feeling that that is standard practice. On occasion, it would not be necessary, but the common practice would be to follow the procedure specified in the Standing Orders. We should simplify and institutionalise the process.

If all legislative scrutiny has to be done by Select Committees, might they not become overburdened? There is a case for Joint Committees that can bring a lot of expertise to a particular measure, as they did in the cases of the Communications Bill, the Finance Services and Markets Bill and other legislation. Would there not be a problem if we were restricted to one method of pre-legislative scrutiny? When the Modernisation Committee considered the matter, it commented that it would not be right to be too rigid.

I thank the hon. Gentleman for his interest and support—it is important that this should remain a cross-party and pro-Parliament issue. He makes a good point; something can be lost if we focus on a single, mainstream type of pre-legislative scrutiny. However, we are at the point at which we need to plump for something that might be regarded as the standard process, albeit one that does not preclude us from acting in a slightly different way in particular circumstances. We are trying to change from thinking that anything goes to introducing something that will ensure that the new concept survives and flourishes.

We have seen that the appointment of a new Leader of the House with a different approach can kill that concept. However, if it is institutionalised, so that it is clear how the civil service, hon. Members and Ministers should operate—allowing for some flexibility—we will be able to maintain and grow the concept of pre-legislative scrutiny online. If I were to plump for a favourite, I would go for a process involving a Special Standing Committee that would be created after First Reading, which would be the announcement of just the long title of the Bill. The process would last for eight weeks and would he based on a full ministerial brief on what the Bill is intended to achieve, not on the Bill or Green Paper. The Bill would not be published until Second Reading. Instead of hon. Members being sucked into the detail of the arcane language found in Bills, there would be a more open evidence-giving session about the general ideas and intentions of Ministers and the Government. That is my view, but what is important is not that that view wins, but that the Government, if they are taking this process seriously, start to coalesce policy over the next 12 months or so around a preferred way of scrutinising Bills in this House.

The advantages of such an approach are numerous. It would involve Parliament either in the drafting of legislation or the reality checking of concepts behind it, and it would mean that problems could be corrected before they became part of an entrenched political position after Second Reading on the Floor and the farcical process of Standing Committee, which wastes so much ministerial time, let alone parliamentary time. The end result would be better law.

There would also be political benefits—regardless of party. Recently, there has been a progressive proposal for the introduction of back-loaded university tuition fees, which has been severely criticised on both sides of the House. Why? It is not because of the substance of the policy, which many people adhere to when it is properly explained, but because of the manner in which it has been dropped fully formed on to Parliament out of nowhere—nowhere being No. 10 Downing street in this instance.

If hon. Members will permit me a flight of fantasy, I ask them to imagine that at some point after the last general election, when the Government realised that their manifesto commitment not to introduce top-up fees was becoming untenable, they came to Parliament and said, "We made this manifesto commitment in complete good faith, but now, in equally good faith, we cannot be bound by it when faced with the financial collapse of our world-class university system. We are putting to you—Parliament—a proposal for variable tuition fees, and we would like you to take the time to work through it, find the snags and suggest the improvements."Several parliamentary Committees could have begun scrutinising that idea from different angles. The proceedings and evidence taking, broadcast over the internet, would have allowed students, prospective students, parents, teachers, the National Union of Students and other interested parties to register and submit their comments.

Even with the half-baked process that we have, there have been a lot of improvements in the past few weeks. In a proper process, the package would have been tightened and improved along the way with, for example, larger maintenance grants for poorer students or less subsidisation of tuition fees, so my proposal would be cost free. If the matter had been handled in that way, the different groups participating, including the Government, would have mutually educated themselves about the policy and bought into an agreed package that they had all helped to produce; we certainly would not be engaged in the brinksmanship and last-minute crisis management that we are now involved in.

Full online pre-legislative scrutiny might yet offer a sensible way forward for a new and positive relationship between all Governments and Parliaments, regardless of parties. It would also send a clear signal to Members of Parliament that Prime Ministers of all political colours would be willing to listen to them and take their ideas on board, as well as those ideas from the public that hold water. Above all, we in the House, with our new partners, the public, would he able to make better law—law proposed by another new partner, the Government.

I thank the hon. Gentleman for giving way and hope that I am not trespassing on his good will. Although I am very supportive of the initiative that he proposes, one of my concerns is that the process of online pre-legislative scrutiny could be subject to volume lobbying, such as the sort of postcards that we all receive in vast numbers, which could be sent in their thousands with the same representation being made at the same time and in a co-ordinated way. What is the hon. Gentleman's view of that? Should we treat it as legitimate lobbying, or would it need to be tackled in some way to make the process more effective?

Again, that is a sensible and helpful point. Indeed, we went into that in our debates on the Communications Act 2003. We need to consider the role of the mediator. The Hansard Society said about that Act that it did not receive a single e-mail in response to evidence that had to be "taken down". In other words, it received nothing that was racially abusive or insulting, which shows that such participation was sensible on that occasion.

Equally, were there to be a campaign, the number of identical or similar responses would be noted by the mediator, and that would go before the relevant Committee. I think that it could be left to the Committee or the Secretary of State to decide whether such responses were a good idea or whether someone was trying to lobby. I think that lobbying would be counterproductive. Indeed, as we found with the Communications Act, on which many people were well equipped to organise that sort of mass lobby, they instead decided to make practical and sensible contributions to the debate, and they were respected for it. Were they to have organised a mass e-mail flaming of Committee members, we would have taken a very dim view and disregarded what they had to say. However, that would be for the judgment of the relevant Committee.

To assist the hon. Gentleman on that point, another example of online consultation was that carried out on stem cell research by the House of Lord Select Committee. One would have expected that consultation to be subject to much lobbying, as the pro-life lobbies are very effective at putting their case, but it did not happen. It is my understanding that, unlike the open e-mail system, it is inherent in the online consultation system that such lobbying can be prevented. People have to register and go through various stages in order to access the system to express their views, which discourages everyone except those who have something serious to say. It is quite different from an open e-mail address where there will be a huge number of responses—the equivalent of thousands of postcards.

My honourable colleague makes a sensible point. Indeed, if we take the process seriously, people will come to realise that they can influence the process.

I conducted my own pre-legislative scrutiny online when on the Committee that considered the Criminal Justice Act 2003. A network of people helped me—local police officers, lawyers, housing officials and so on. I e-mailed them clauses of the Bill—I said that the provisions were not negotiable—and asked whether practicalities of the clause worked for them. Because of the responses to those questions, I was sometimes able to table amendments—rather to the annoyance of my Whip. None the less, changes were made on a number of occasions.

One such change was on drug testing; it was inspired by a local inspector of police, supported by his assistant chief constable. We made an impact on the drug testing of young people using class A drugs—heroin, crack or cocaine—at the age of 14. The Minister was keen to seize on that. The Home Secretary originally intended the sentencing guidelines council to be a wholly judicial body. Because I was able to take views from outside, as well as across parties, we gained a broadening of the sentencing guidelines council to include not just the judiciary but a serving prison governor and a serving police officer. That was a practical move, and once we had got over the culture shock, the Minister on the Committee took on board a number of the bright ideas that came, if not from me, through me because of that process. Imagine if we had opened that out to everyone else. Instead of coming back in 18 months with a new Criminal Justice Bill to close some of the loopholes, as we will, we could have got matters right first time.

If the process works, and that is proved to people, they are less likely to be abusive. All parliamentary colleagues have been in situations where someone in the street has started off by being quite aggressive but, once we have sat them down and talked through what has happened in a particular case, they have then understood, even if they have not been convinced, and have perhaps entered into more serious dialogue with us. If we institutionalise online pre-legislative scrutiny, people's mindset, as on the Communications Bill, will be to say, "Thank you for letting me participate in the making of better law that will affect me in my field or interest."

Online scrutiny is a good means of bringing public and Parliament closer together, an admirable objective in itself. It would display our democratic process at its best, rather than leaving people thinking that that is irrelevant and that we are all a bunch of sheep, yah-booing at Prime Minister's Question Time. The perception could change so that people say of us, "These are people who are serious about making the laws that affect me and my family." We would develop the genuine participation of people in our democracy.

This is also a matter of widening access and communication. I mentioned earlier that the media have done little to help Parliament. I think that they enjoy the dance between themselves and the Executive at No. 10 Downing street, the only two serious players in British politics at the moment. We can broaden that, restoring a role to Parliament and to our people and letting everyone else come to the party.

Whingeing is pointless, so I shall focus on the BBC, of which I am an ardent supporter. I hope very much that it will help to facilitate licence payers' access to their democracy by hosting and branding online pre-legislative scrutiny of this place on its popular and respected website. No editorial would be necessary or welcome, and costs would be minimal because the technology is pretty much in place throughout the House already, but maximum exposure could be generated through trailers on the corporation's radio and television channels, inviting people to become involved in their democracy. Instead of complaining in an "Any Questions" format, people could get involved in the reality of changing the law the very next day by participating in the democratic process.

The BBC, which has itself been subject to unfair attacks from various quarters in recent years, could then rebut many of its critics and build on its already excellent public service role. It could re-centre itself as an integral element of our democracy, not some marginalised commentator, and make itself fulfil abundantly the public service obligation in its charter by facilitating the public's working closely with their elected representatives to make better laws for everyone. That would be a prize indeed for the BBC, as well as for us in Parliament and for the public.

A massive leap forward for our democracy is now on offer, which would restore a useful function for our Parliament, provide a 21st-century role for the BBC and open the door to participation for all our people. This is the last great extension of the franchise for a mature democracy, and it lies in the Minister's hands to seize that opportunity. I hope that he has the courage to do so. I know him personally, and I know that that is well within his capabilities. During the next year, we will watch him closely. I wish him well in the difficult times that lie ahead, and hope that he draws strength from the fact that to rebuild and strengthen our Parliament as an effective partner of the Executive is not just the right thing to do. I hope that he realises that he will carry the House with him on this matter, regardless of Members' political stances on various issues. Parliament, and Members of all parties in Parliament, will wish him well in making this serious contribution to the next step in our democracy.

I am the chair of the all-party e-democracy group, having taken over from my hon. Friend the Member for Luton, South (Margaret Moran), who did a good job of establishing the group. She was keen on the kind of online discussion that my hon. Friend the Member for Nottingham, North (Mr. Allen) talked about, and pioneered a consultation in relation to battered women, which led to a large number of subsequent consultations.

I will start, rather perversely, by pointing out that post-legislative scrutiny is not carried out very well. There is a role for an online forum and a need for all aspects of post-legislative scrutiny in the House to be thoroughly updated. Select Committees tend to be influenced by the whims of their members, and they consider what those members feel like considering, rather than focusing on the way in which legislation went through the House and was implemented. There is no real post-legislative scrutiny review.

There would be no need for pre-legislative scrutiny if we had proper legislative scrutiny. We have to invent a way around the inadequacies of the House, as we are not honest about those inadequacies.

My hon. Friend makes the very point that I was going to make. The House divides scrutiny into pre-legislative and post-legislative stages, but the process is ongoing. Any post-legislative scrutiny should inform future legislation. A couple of years ago, the Public Administration Committee produced a report on innovations in consultation. One of the key things to come out of that was the fact that people wanted to know how their views influenced the system. They were not particularly interested in whether their views were accepted, but they wanted to see how the system responded to external inputs. The consultations in which that process was transparent were successful, but those in which it was opaque were the ones that people found frustrating. There are therefore serious issues relating to the way in which we conduct our scrutiny.

I have served on two pre-legislative scrutiny Committees—a Select Committee and the Joint Committee considering the Communications Bill. My experience of the Joint Committee was better than my experience of the Select Committee. One of the problems with the Select Committee was that, although we were considering the Freedom of Information Bill, the time and effort that went into pre-legislative scrutiny meant that the rest of the Committee's work did not receive proper consideration. I prefer the scrutiny powers of Joint Committees, and I would not want Select Committees to have the ability to produce draft legislation. It is important to get a balance, and so I disagree with my hon. Friend about having an institutionalised way forward.

When talking about online input, we ought to consider pre-pre-legislative scrutiny—in other words, what the civil service does in discussions with Ministers. The Communications Bill is a good example. The team for that Bill was set up and there was consultation with the industry. Parliamentarians were also involved, through the European information society group, which I chair. The process brought parliamentarians and the industry together. The Bill team went out and made use of the consultation—ironically, the team used online consultation as well—and that ensured that when pre-legislative scrutiny took place there was a much better understanding of the issues. The Bill team was more responsive, and, when it participated in the pre-legislative scrutiny, it was prepared to take part in the debate. However, when the team working on the Freedom of Information Bill took part in pre-legislative scrutiny, it took a step back from the Committee process, which raises some interesting issues.

It is often said that, if only we had pre-legislative scrutiny, we could avoid all disagreements. However, that is not a good idea, as it is important that there should be disagreement. Pre-legislative scrutiny can eliminate certain debates if the Bill is simply wrong. It is reckoned that some 400 amendments to the Communications Bill were avoided as a result of getting the minutiae right, but pre-legislative scrutiny did not resolve disagreement. There were debates about different options, and it was down to the Minister involved to choose the preferred one. The other options were still valid, but the Minister had to make a choice, and everyone knew that.

Similarly, some issues simply involved a choice of A or B, particularly between BSkyB and the public broadcasters. Either A or B would lose out but, whatever the decision, there was a fight in Committee. Pre-legislative scrutiny should not be used to avoid debate and disagreement.

I wonder whether the hon. Gentleman's experience has been similar to mine. The debate on the Immigration and Asylum Act 1999—another legislative issue that regularly returns to the House—was better informed as a result of pre-legislative scrutiny. Such scrutiny does not eliminate debate, but Members who are considering the legislation will have had a much greater exposure to a range of views in a standard format. In such cases, the Special Standing Committee works better than a regular Standing Committee.

I agree. Pre-legislative scrutiny enables us to focus on issues that we would not necessarily have considered initially. That was certainly true for the Communications Bill. The debates were not those one might have expected at the start of the process, but they were just as fierce, particularly in the House of Lords. An online forum for pre-legislative scrutiny would therefore not diminish debate but enhance it.

If we are to have online scrutiny, the quality of the language that is used in explanatory notes, briefings about the Bill and regulatory impact assessments must be improved. Such documents are written for us—they are not written in the language used in the street. If we are to have an online forum, it is important that we either provide a separate version of documents online or, preferably, improve the quality of the documents to ensure that there is better pre-legislative scrutiny.

Once again, I return to the question of helping the civil service and Ministers, who work incredibly hard when a Bill is introduced. If we asked for 15 different ways of presenting Bills, draft Bills, Green Papers, instructions to counsel and so on, we would burden them even more at a critical time. They should carry responsibilities, but requirements should be clear and straightforward so that they all know what they have to do. If we confuse the issue, many Departments will continue to offer resistance. We must therefore convince Departments and Ministers that the proposal would be good for them and that the debates to which my hon. Friend referred are the ones that should be held, rather than ridiculous debates about adding words such as "a", "it" or "and", which waste our time.

My hon. Friend makes my point in a much better way than I could. He raised the issue of online consultations and the registering process, and a key consideration in such a registering process is who we are excluding. It is easy to include the usual suspects, or a new set of usual suspects, but, if we do not get it right, we are in danger of excluding a different set of people from the process. We need to be careful when setting up the process and consider who should mediate it, what they are mediating and what the input should be. During consideration of the Communications Bill, the online scrutiny changed the nature of our questioning, particularly when questioning someone like the chairman of BT. We would not have thought of some of the questions that we put to the BBC had they not emerged through that process, and it is important that we accept such contributions. However, online scrutiny should not prevent other alternatives from being used. There is a danger that it may become the only method because it is brand new. It is not the only method—it is an additional route, rather than one that has shiny bells on it.

If we restrict consultation too much, we could fail to take note of a strongly held view that the public at large wish to express in a forceful way. An example is the recent "Today" poll on which Bills should be introduced. There was huge support for a Bill to deal with an issue arising from the Martin case. It was not introduced in a technical way by expert lawyers but, importantly, it has touched a raw nerve with the public. We would not want not to know what people thought about such issues. Is that the hon. Gentleman's point?

That is exactly the point. In this debate, we are in danger of forgetting that we are politicians, we belong to political parties and we have a representative democracy. We have a duty to make judgments, and the online process is not a substitute for such judgment making. In the Martin case, we need to judge the arguments for and against, rather than simply acknowledge the fact that a large body of people have made a point. It is a matter of interpretation, and we need to consider the underlying issues. The online process is an important tool, but it is not a substitute for doing our job—it helps us to do our job. It is helpful to know that there is a strong body of opinion about the issues raised by certain cases. It may be appropriate for a Select Committee to consider such issues, but that is a judgment we need to make in Parliament. The tool of online scrutiny should assist us in making such judgments, rather than substitute for them.

We do not make good use of all-party groups. The use of all-party groups in online consultation is important, as is support and training for Members—an issue which my hon. Friend the Member for Nottingham, North did not touch on. I should like to see the introduction of online questions for Ministers. The opportunity for Ministers to respond regularly online, as they do in Parliament, would be a useful innovation. They would not necessarily answer questions online as frequently as they do in Parliament, but there is a role for such questioning.

Such scrutiny is not just a tool for the Government. Many local councils are way ahead of us in their use of online consultation and scrutiny. We are considering draft Bills and the introduction of legislation, but we should remember that it is not just the Government who introduce draft legislation. The Public Administration Committee yesterday proposed a draft civil service Bill. Ironically, I was the only Committee member to oppose that Bill, but the fact that the Committee proposed such a Bill is a useful way of moving the debate forward.

There are also lessons to be learned from other countries, and I refer Members to early-day motion 322. Recently, in Canada, a decision was made to open up the way in which parliamentarians interact with the Government, for example in free votes and online forums. In this country, we are starting to deal with those issues, which were pioneered in Canada. I urge my hon. Friend the Minister to consider its experience to see whether anything from its Westminster-type Parliament is relevant to our democracy. I welcome our debate, and several useful things have come out of it. It is important that we consider the online scrutiny as part of an ongoing process rather than as a substitute for the reason why we are here, which is to represent our constituents.

I am extremely pleased that the hon. Member for Nottingham, North (Mr. Allen) has secured this debate early in the new year because, although it is a subject of importance to many Members, it has been underrepresented in Parliament. There was a flurry of excitement a couple of years ago when the Government published a consultation paper on ways in which we could use the tools of the internet for conducting our democratic business, but in official terms it has gone very quiet since then.

Like the hon. Member for Milton Keynes, North-East (Brian White), I am associated with the all-party e-democracy group, and serve as its secretary. Many of us who are interested in e-democracy—a wonderful phrase, but one should be suspicious of anything beginning with an e—are in fact far more interested in democracy than in the "e". I have an interest in the technology but it is democracy that drives us; the technology is a means to a better democratic end.

I will focus on some of the democratic problems and the way in which the online consultation that the hon. Member for Nottingham, North discussed could help to resolve them. The hon. Member for Milton Keynes, North-East helpfully reminded us that there is a legislative cycle and that pre-legislative scrutiny is part of a larger whole. That reminds me of the way in which IT systems are designed according to a life cycle. One designs, builds, tests and implements them, then reviews them before redesigning, rebuilding and retesting them. One never stops, and legislation should be dealt with in the same way. We should consider online consultation at the design phase, but that does not mean that we do not want further interaction when the legislation is implemented.

A lot of work is taking place into the reasons why people are disconnected from politics, some of which is funded by the Government and bodies such as the Economic and Social Research Council. The reality of that disconnection is there for all to see—we often discuss it, and today we are focussing on a tool that may remove it. Stephen Coleman, Professor of e-Democracy at the Oxford Internet Institute, has done some interesting work on the way in which people identify what he calls the disconnected representative, meaning us, and discusses their lack of connection with that representative. He defines that figure with certain adjectives which, when added together, should make us slightly humble—there is the unknown representative, the invisible representative, the distant representative, the alien representative, the partisan representative, the untrustworthy representative, the arrogant representative and the irrelevant representative.

Which one is the hon. Gentleman'?

We can all pick a collection of those adjectives. All were the result of thoughtful research among a large panel of people who defined those characteristics. Some of the features of the alien representative are particularly relevant to our debate, and I shall give some quotations that show how people feel about us:

"They are disconnected from the real world."

"He is too remote and not on the same wavelength as the people generally."

I like this one:

"I don't think they are on the same planet. They have no idea about normal life."

The fact that, for many of those people, we have no idea about normal life means that we are not in the same places as them. The internet is one place that they increasingly visit—it is where they chat and conduct business. If we want to become less alien, it is important that we catch up with and address the modern age. The hon. Member for Nottingham, North referred to television debates. If we had not decided to televise Parliament, how alien we would seem to a culture in which watching television is a prime leisure activity. We should be aware that things are happening on the internet—we cannot ignore it or expect it to go away.

Great developments have taken place without Parliament's permission—that may be why they have been so successful. Only three Members refuse to accept faxes from faxyourmp.com, a website that was set up when people said, "We want to e-mail our MPs and will find a way of doing it. We will not ask permission; we will just get on and do it." It has been hugely successful. Publicwhip.org.uk is another relevant website. It has nothing to do with sadomasochism, but is entirely political and wholesome. Members do not need to type "whip" into a search engine. They should go straight to publicwhip.org.uk, where someone has examined MPs' voting records and compared the way in which we voted on various issues. The site has some wonderful maps and was set up, without our permission, to make MPs publicly accountable. The BBC is also in on the act with the interesting iCan project, which includes a wonderful section giving helpful advice on organising a demonstration. It suggests that AGMs are good places at which to raise political matters, and says that people should get together and use the internet to make their point.

Democracy is happening on the internet—the question is whether we want to engage with it proactively or have it bite us on the backside. The Information Committee produced a report in 2001 that tried to help Parliament engage positively with that agenda. It defined five principles, which are still relevant. We should use the internet to assist with accessibility, effectiveness, participation and accountability, and we should share best practice. The participation principle is particularly relevant. The Committee stated:

"The House is committed to the use of ICT to increase public participation in its work, enabling it to draw on the widest possible pool of experience, including particularly those who have traditionally been excluded from the political and parliamentary process."

It said that it is particularly important to include people

"who have traditionally been excluded".

That leads me to a matter that must be discussed in our debate—the digital divide. Answers to that problem are emerging, including a clearer definition of the divide and whether online consultation will include or exclude people. The extent of exclusion has been vastly overstated. The Oxford internet survey in 2003 helped to define more clearly who is using the internet. It said that 59 per cent. of people are users and 9 per cent. are proxy users who use the internet via someone else. A large group—25 per cent.—do not want to use the internet, and only 7 per cent. are actively excluded because, even though they may want to use the internet, they are unable to do so. Use of the internet is therefore extensive.

Turning to social classes and age groups, the younger age groups are interested in engaging in politics because most of our decisions will affect them more than anyone else. The penetration rate among social classes A, B and C1 is 100 per cent. The fact that 100 per cent. define themselves as internet users may appear to be a Saddam Hussein-type referendum or election result but, although it is an exceptional figure, it is probably true. Among those in social group DE, there is 80 per cent. penetration. That is not brilliant, but compares favourably with the functional access of that group to library and other information services, which is poor.

The fact that many people are using the internet shows that the digital divide in society is largely resolving itself, which gives us interesting opportunities to engage people who traditionally have had no access to politics. Many people who use the internet would not have gone to their local library to reserve a copy of Hansard, which would arrive at a later date. Even if they had a copy, they would not be able to work out what was going on. It is pretty unintelligible to me, never mind anyone else. I still cannot understand Order Papers, which completely confuse me.

Does the hon. Gentleman accept that we need to find a way to break that cycle? It is incumbent on the House to change its culture and allow people e-mail access. If we do so, people will take politics seriously and participate more. Does he also accept the importance of introducing a schedule? If we included evidence taking in such a schedule, and if members of a particular community such as a group of war widows or claimants for disability living allowance knew that that opportunity existed, even if they did not have a PC, they would be aware that information relevant to them could be viewed at a known time. We would therefore reinforce their confidence, and their own confidence in the process would be reinforced because we would demonstrate that we are taking it seriously.

That was very helpful. The hon. Gentleman is entirely correct. If we manage the process correctly, the possibilities are enormous. In Adjournment debates at the end of the day, there are often only two men and a dog in the Chamber—that is, if the Home Secretary is responding. Otherwise, there are only two people in the Chamber talking to each other. We should think about the number of people who access that debate at 11 pm, or at 7.30 pm or 8 pm under the new hours, then consider the possibilities that technology offers us. Adjournment debates are often about subjects that are of significant interest to small communities. We could involve all those people in a debate via the internet, and 50 or 60 people could sit round a computer, watch the debate, discuss it and provide feedback. That demonstrates the potential of the internet and its relevance to the scrutiny of legislation. Adjournment debates are an example of debates that are not well covered by the media at the moment. If legislative scrutiny is included in the timetable, and if people think of the internet as something that they use not only on their own but in groups, the possibilities that it affords become very exciting.

Legislation applies a discipline to the e-mailer. Rather than expressing a general view about what was said in an Adjournment debate and succumbing to the verbal diarrhoea that we all receive in e-mails, legislation limits the e-mailer to a particular line, clause or idea, and they must express their views in a practical way. For example, they might say, "We think that you have a good idea, but doing it like this would help you to achieve what you are trying to achieve in law." That disciplined framework is the difference between examining legislation and holding the sort of general debate that we can all have in chat rooms if we do not have better things to do with our lives.

That is helpful, and brings me back to whether using the internet in such consultations merely becomes a game of mass spamming. The hon. Gentleman is entirely correct about the need for a framework.

The hon. Gentleman made a point about whether we should have a set model for consultation. I should like more experimentation, but he is right that there should be a call-off contract that is easily available and can be pulled off the shelf. People would have no excuses about not proceeding because they do not know what to do as the process is too difficult. That should not, however, prevent people from continuing to experiment. I am a fan of the excellent Joint Committee model. A Joint Committee's call-off contract asking for online consultation is entirely straightforward. The Clerk says, "Let's have it," and the consultation proceeds.

Many different consultations have been held. We have had consultations on the Data Protection (Amendment) Bill, domestic violence, family tax credits, stem cell research, floods, the parliamentary information strategy, long-term care of the elderly, and the draft Communications Bill. The Public Administration Committee held a new democracy consultation. Many different parliamentary bodies have held consultations, and it would be helpful to pull that experience together and produce models that anyone can apply. Mediation is the key, allowing information to be available to Members who do not want to engage in the process. It is important that Committees mediate information for people engaged in the consultation so that they can receive feedback. Two-way communication should take place through an intermediary if members of the Committee do not choose to engage in the process. It would be better if they could engage, and I hope that more of them will want to do so among the next generation of MPs.

Deliberation is also important, and is an important difference between online consultation and online polling, which is insufficient for our needs. Online polling helps us to know what people are talking about, but once we have identified that, we need to start exploring the consequence of any change in the law. The Tony Martin case is a good example. We know that people are interested in it, but what is helpful is deliberation on its implications. We must ask ourselves under what circumstances it is all right to shoot someone who has entered one's house. Is it all right to shoot someone if we simply see them in our back garden? We then start to explore the issues in greater detail, which we do not do in online polling. Deliberation is therefore a key part of a good online consultation. Whenever someone posts a message saying that we should shoot anyone who walks anywhere near our property, someone will respond by asking if it would be all right to shoot someone who accidentally walked through another person's front door because they thought it was their house. People will deliberate in an effective consultation.

Finally, as the hon. Gentleman said, this development is in the same tradition as widening the franchise. The franchise was progressively widened over time, but we have not significantly widened access to policy making. Policy making is still largely confined to interest groups that are sufficiently powerful and geographically close to London to be represented in Parliament. Those who have access to Select Committees and can influence policy making comprise a very small number of people in our democracy in 2003. That position has not changed dramatically over the years. We can now use the key features of the internet, which is non-geographical and has a low cost of entry, to allow access to policy making to millions of people who live in areas geographically remote from London and who traditionally have been excluded from expensive methods of accessing policy making. That will change the nature of our role and impose additional burdens on us, but it is worth adopting those burdens to demonstrate that our democracy has developed.

Politics is essentially a communications business. It is important that we recognise that and respond to public demand. I will close with a quotation from the psychologist, J. C. R. Licklider, who was influential in the formation of the internet, which was established not just by techies but by people with a wider vision. In the 1960s he wrote about the future, and said:

"The political process would essentially be a giant teleconference, and a campaign would be a months-long series of communications among candidates, propagandists, commentators, political action groups and voters. The key is the self-motivating exhilaration that accompanies truly effective interaction with information through a good console and a good network to a good computer."

I would include a good representative in those requirements. If the Government can grasp that, build on their good intentions and put the same weight behind the process that they have put behind the introduction of pre-legislative scrutiny, we could have a much healthier democracy in this country.

It was notable that the hon. Member for Nottingham, North (Mr. Allen), whom I congratulate on introducing this important debate, started by saying that we are struggling as a Parliament to reignite the interest of the public in what we do. He said that we were old-fashioned and out of touch. The hon. Member for Sheffield, Hallam (Mr. Allan), who has just spoken, made the similar point that we appear out of touch to the public. The Modernisation Committee, on which I serve at the moment, is undertaking an inquiry into connecting with the public—something that you, Sir Nicholas, are aware of, as a senior and long-standing member of that Committee. One thing coming out of the evidence is that individual constituents value their Member of Parliament at a local level. They think that their MP is useful, sensible and working in their interests. They value us highly locally. The problem arises with the national perception of what happens in this place.

In looking at the sort of research that the hon. Member for Sheffield, Hallam mentioned, in which experts refer to arrogant, out-of-touch representatives, it is worth bearing in mind that that is not what people think about their own MP. Our challenge is to recreate the opinion that people have of us as individuals for the institution of Parliament as a whole. That was part of the thinking that informed the report of the Hansard Society commission in 1993, which was chaired by Lord Rippon. The commission talked about moving away from party political confrontation, and said that we needed

"a more considered approach whereby Members, from all parts of the House, could be enabled better to inform themselves and to look collectively, in a more systematic way, at the Government's legislative proposals."

Pre-legislative scrutiny was mentioned in particular as a way forward, in the context of Select Committees. During his period as Prime Minister, John Major started the process of publishing draft Bills and, in 1997, the Modernisation Committee moved that process forward by strongly recommending that it become a settled part of our work. It proposed four possible methods of pre-legislative scrutiny: the Select Committee; the permanent new Standing Committee of the sort that the hon. Member for Nottingham, North mentioned; ad hoc Committees of the House of Commons; and Joint Committees of both Houses.

In the experience that the House has had, pre-legislative scrutiny has worked well, but the Joint Committees have been a particular success. Between the two Houses we were able to draw on marvellous expertise for the Financial Services and Markets Act 2000. We had people with experience of banking and the City and people on the Committee here and in the other place with a long history of interest in financial affairs. As a result, the Act was stronger than it would have been if dealt with simply by a Standing Committee that considers a range of Bills, or a Select Committee that includes interested Members with years of expertise in the subject who cannot be used when it sits because they are engaged on other issues.

As Whip on the Financial Services and Markets Bill, I found that one great thing was that much dead wood was cleared away by the expertise and the pre-legislative scrutiny. Owing to the co-operation of the parties, we were able to focus at length in Committee on the real issues. As my hon. Friend the Member for Milton Keynes, North-East (Mr. White) pointed out, it is a tremendous help if we can remove non-contentious and detailed issues and focus on genuine differences. That is what the Committee stage should be about.

I completely agree, and we strongly support pre-legislative scrutiny. As the hon. Members for Milton Keynes, North-East (Mr. White) and for Nottingham, North mentioned, the Communications Bill featured another Joint Committee. People felt it did an extremely good job; it pulled in people from both Houses with expertise, and the online forum appears to have been very successful.

Nick Toon from ITV reviewed the Communications Bill and its pre-legislative scrutiny, and spoke to members of the Committee, who concluded that

"the innovation of an online forum providing members of the public with direct access and an impact to the process of law making as it unfolded"—

provided—

"a genuine opportunity for a broader public involvement."

Parliament should consider that and say, "Here is an example of something that has worked well. Can we build on it for the future?"

I am slightly concerned about how to frame the online forum. On the one hand, it will be good if the public feel able to express a strong view about a particular provision in a Bill. We know that there can be campaigns to scrap certain provisions or to include new clause x, and there is nothing wrong with that. We should perhaps take such a volume of representations into account. However, one can see that it might interfere with receiving the sort of detailed policy proposals and information about provisions that other hon. Members have described.

Is that any different from the number of postcards that we receive on those same campaigns?

Of course it is not. However, if Parliament does the online survey that informs the work of the Committee, there is the danger that, if tens of thousands use the electronic postcard approach, the process of mediation could become difficult. It might be hard to tease the good points from the bad. I wonder whether we need a sophisticated approach in which some online polling sits alongside more detailed scrutiny of particular issues.

It is important to remember that the House and the Committee would retain total control of the process at all points. Therefore, if they wished to experiment with online polling, they could do so, although I would not be particularly supportive of that. If they wanted to create a chat room where individuals with strong views could interact, that could happen, as I think happened with the Communications Bill. However, the key issue is specificity—looking at particular ideas or even clauses, and having concrete proposals come forward. That to me is the main reason to have an e-mail channel from an elector, which is no different from a letter or a personal conversation with a Member of Parliament.

Order. Before the hon. Member for North-East Hertfordshire (Mr. Heald) replies to that intervention, I remind him that although I do not wish in any way to interrupt the flow and spontaneity of the debate, we want the Minister to have adequate time to reply.

I am sure that I can allow that to happen in just a moment, Sir Nicholas.

I agree with the hon. Member for Nottingham, North: the point that has been made is perfectly fair. In Committee, one often finds it necessary to have a debate about the principle of a clause, perhaps in a debate on an amendment that is the first in a group relating to that clause. When one is undertaking such a debate, the issue is not detailed scrutiny or the wording of the clause, but the principle of the clause. It may be necessary to find some way of teasing out an overall public opinion about the principle of a clause from the more detailed points about it, variations to it, and so on. However that is only a point of detail. We should continue online scrutiny side by side with the other methods of pre-legislative scrutiny, such as taking oral evidence and the like.

The number of draft Bills under the Government has been 32 so far, excluding this Session, in which I believe that there will possibly be 12 and certainly 10. It is good that we have built up the number from about two or three a year to about 10 or 12 a year. I hope that that can continue, though not if the Select Committees are overloaded, but rather on the basis that we can have enough Joint Committees, ad hoc Committees and so on to draw together the expertise of both Houses. However, we should still allow Select Committees to continue their important work of scrutinising the whole breadth of work that a Department does, not just that on one Bill. I warmly welcome this debate and congratulate the hon. Member for Nottingham, North on bringing it forward.

May I start by reciprocating your best wishes for a happy and prosperous new year, Sir Nicholas, to you, your support staff and all hon. Members?

I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Nottingham, North (Mr. Allen) both on securing this Adjournment debate and on his wider campaign to improve the use of new technology in parliamentary scrutiny and, through that, public participation in the parliamentary process. Many hon. Members share the objectives of his campaign, which should not be seen as a techie or technocrat campaign, but something vitally important to help Parliament reconnect. Polling evidence shows that people respect their Members of Parliament. As the hon. Member for North-East Hertfordshire (Mr. Heald) said, members of the public greatly respect such activities as case work, taking a lead on local issues and representing the interests of the constituency. However, according to the evidence—and common sense—they do not seem to respect the yah-boo nature of activities in this place that they see through the media. Online pre-legislative scrutiny is one measure that can help to square that circle, so the debate is important.

Turning to specifics, there is the question of what we mean by online scrutiny. Subject to negotiations, there will be up to 12 draft Bills—nine are currently out for scrutiny, and they are available on the parliamentary website. All Committees have published e-mail addresses, so in one sense they are already open to online pre-legislative scrutiny. However, my hon. Friend the Member for Nottingham, North is referring to more than that. He is referring to the online forums, such as that conducted by the Joint Committee on the draft Communications Bill in 2001–02, which many Members have also referred to.

The Government's policy towards the modernisation of the House of Commons and its procedures has two objectives. The first is to improve the efficiency of procedures for all involved. The second, which is much more important, is, in the words of yesterday's leader column in The Times, which commented on sitting hours,

"to make Parliament more relevant and inviting to those outside its precincts."

Our policy of improving and expanding e-scrutiny of legislation is set within that context.

Perhaps it would be helpful if I briefly set out the background to our policy. The Government are keen to explore how new communications media can enrich the relationship between Parliament, the public and us, and we welcome Parliament's work in that area. A number of Bills have already been subject to pre-legislative scrutiny, although that does not necessarily imply online scrutiny. Nine draft Bills were examined by Committees during the last Session to attempt to identify possible problems if they were introduced as legislation.

The passage of the Communications Bill was assisted by publication in draft, and the process included an online scrutiny exercise. The background is that a Joint Committee was set up in May 2002. The process involved webcasting the evidence sessions and the use of an online discussion forum to gather further information, views and evidence. In this debate, Members have told us the benefits of that process to both the legislation and the members of the Committee. Other examples of parliamentary action include the inquiry by the Information Committee into how Members can use technology to enhance working practices and their communications with their constituents. It produced a report, "Digital Technology: Working for Parliament and the Public", which made several recommendations. The Procedure Committee has produced recommendations on the electronic tabling of questions and how we can improve that process.

Most comprehensively, the Parliamentary Office of Science and Technology has produced a number of reports concerning IT, including reports on Government IT projects in July 2003, a report on broadband internet access in July 2002 and a report on electronic privacy. While keeping both Houses informed on public dialogue activities in science and technology, POST has pioneered the use of online discussions to help Parliament consider a broad spectrum of views on current issues. In January 2002, POST commissioned an online discussion document, floodforum.net, examining the causes, consequences and communication of flooding. The aim of the forum was to bring together people affected by flooding.

The parliamentary all-party domestic violence group conducted an online consultation called Womenspeak. Again, the Hansard Society conducted the consultation, which provided electronic channels for survivors of domestic violence to provide information and personal testimony. That is an example of the way in which groups in the community can take up the opportunity for online consultation, which was a point made by my hon. Friend.

On the Government side, we published a report in July 2002 entitled "In the service of democracy". The report set out our thinking on e-democracy and invited comments, and the consultation ended in October 2002. It includes a section on parliamentary scrutiny, which states that parliamentary and Assembly websites enable the public to follow debates and to find out how their representative voted. The Parliament website also includes explanatory information on the history of Parliament, the legislative process and Bills before Parliament. In January 2003, a technical summary of the consultation exercise and copies of the responses were published online. The Department for Constitutional Affairs and the Office of the Deputy Prime Minister are taking the e-voting agenda forward through a programme of local council pilots. The Government have also set up an interdepartmental group on e-participation to develop and share good practice and to embed the principles of e-participation across Government. I could give many other examples. The Foreign and Commonwealth Office has conducted an online discussion on the new European constitution. The Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs ran an online debate on genetically modified foods. The Department for Work and Pensions held an online consultation on the very important issue of pensions, and there are other examples outside Government Departments.

It is important to note the difference between consultation on draft or actual legislation and consultation on the policies that they represent. My hon. Friend made an interesting point about the debate on tuition fees. As he knows, the proposals were published in White Paper form in January last year, but the debate took off only when legislation was proposed. I suggest that that level of interest would be replicated in online consultation and e-representation. That is the advantage of e-consultation on legislation rather than just on broader consultation documents such as White Papers and Green Papers. That difference has been brought out in this debate, and that has been very helpful.

I should perhaps point out for the benefit of the House that selected Committee meetings have been webcast for some time. From this month, all public Select and Standing Committees will be webcast, although there will be a slight delay in real time in transmission for a trial period. I understand that, initially, some will be broadcast in audio only. The two Houses are paying the costs of the exercise. Each Select Committee webcast will have a link to an information page about each hearing prepared by Committee staff. It will include the Committee's electronic inbox address. There has been progress in this area.

It is very interesting to hear the record so far, but, as one of the people who are to blame for not allowing the Minister enough time to reply fully, may I ask him to turn his attention to the future? What is the Government's aspiration? Is it to give all Bills, or at least more Bills, online pre-legislative scrutiny?

My hon. Friend's intervention is very timely as I turn to that part of my speech.

It is the Government's intention and policy to increase the amount of legislation that is subject to pre-legislative scrutiny. There has been steady progress on that, and I am grateful for the recognition that the hon. Member for North-East Hertfordshire gave it. The Government's policy is to increase the amount of pre-legislative scrutiny done online in the forums or the ways that he suggests, and that means not just what is, perhaps, superficial online consultation but more in-depth consultation. We recognise the benefits of that.

Of course, as hon. Members would expect, there are some caveats. Sir Nicholas, you will follow with great interest the major caveat, which is that the process of scrutiny is the property of the Committees of the House, not the Government. The Government can encourage and are encouraging it, and I heed what was said about my right hon. Friend the Leader of the House and I being in a position to influence it. Hon. Members will be interested to learn that my right hon. Friend recently wrote to the Chairmen of Select Committees through the Liaison Committee about the pre-legislative scrutiny process in this Session. Of course, without my giving the debates away, we are beginning work on the fourth session of Parliament, which will begin next October or November.

For their own part, the Government are using online consultation on legislative and policy proposals. The office of the e-envoy is ready to assist Parliament in the use of new communications media, and much work has already been done. As I said, draft Bills are available on the parliamentary website, and all Committees have published their e-mail addresses. It is not just or even primarily legislative scrutiny that can benefit from e-consultation. The Government are willing to consider how they can facilitate Committees wishing to carry out more pre-legislative scrutiny online.

I am grateful to my hon. Friend the Member for Nottingham, North for raising this important subject and for his energetic and persistent efforts to encourage online consultation. It is for Parliament and its Committees to decide whether and how best to conduct pre-legislative scrutiny online, and the Government will do all they can to help.

I want to raise three broad issues concerning the principle of variable tuition fees for undergraduates at higher education institutions in England. I expect the principle to be contained in the Government's higher education Bill, which is likely to be published later this week, but I understand that under the rules of this Chamber hon. Members may not use Adjournment debates to propose or to seek to influence legislation, so I shall restrict myself to asking the Minister to comment on the nub of the three matters. Those are: how variable fees will affect people from a working-class background; the implications of variable fees for England-domiciled students studying in Scotland or Wales and Scotland or Wales-domiciled students studying in England; and how variable fees will affect the funding arrangements for students of midwifery in England.

As we enter the 21st century, people who are privately educated make up around half the students at many of our universities or, for the purposes of this debate, higher education institutions. The institutions in question tend to be what we now refer to as Russell group institutions and I shall use that term, although from my point of view it also includes a number of institutions that are formally outside the Russell group, such as Bath university, a number of art colleges and one or two other institutions.

The rate of attendance at private schools in any year has been more or less stable for some years at around 7 per cent., so a privately educated child is around 13 times more likely to attend a higher education institution. If we move to the next stage of a graduate's life, we discover that fast-stream entrance to the civil service, the acquiring of places in prestigious chambers by law graduates, training in the dominant accountancy practices and the marking up for consultant status of medical graduates—in short, recruitment to those appointments that will provide the new graduate with the greatest chance of reaching the top of their elite field—are utterly dominated by Russell group graduates.

That trend needs testing to see whether it is contemporary rather than historical, and if some sceptics feel that many non-Russell group graduates are moving towards the top of their professions they should look forward a couple of decades in a graduate's life to the origins of today's new QCs, hospital consultants, partners in large accounting firms, grade 3 civil servants, rising chief executive officers and potential CEOs of private sector companies. They will find only a modest change in social class terms during the past few decades. If they move on another couple of decades, they may find a judge or two who did not attend Oxford or Cambridge, but pluckily fought their way up from modest beginnings at Bristol, Exeter or Durham universities after public school. However, that hardly matters because all those non-Oxbridge alma maters that we see cropping up in the curricula vitae of the odd new circuit judge today indicate that they attended a Russell group university.

The pattern is simple. Someone who attends a private school is massively more likely to attend a Russell group university. Someone who attends a Russell group university is massively more likely than someone who did not to become a leading member of one of our most influential institutions, whether in the public or private sector. Nothing much has changed for years or, indeed, for decades.

The price that we as a nation pay for such a preposterous state of affairs is high. It is a matter of national shame that a modern democracy should have a collective education system or systems that produce an outcome of such staggering unfairness. It is also deeply inefficient, as we are excluding millions of people with the potential to excel in any one of a large number of professions.

Enter the Government's plans to permit higher education institutions to levy an additional charge over the common contribution from students up to a limit of £3,000, depending on the course and the institution. What implications does the variable fee principle have for the injustice and inefficiency so clearly displayed in the present allocation and pattern of higher education places, and therefore in so many national positions of institutional leadership?

Some people may believe it perfectly reasonable to view our entire layered higher education system as so unjust that it could effectively be dismantled through allocating resources away from the Russell group universities, controlling all admissions centrally and perhaps requiring recruiters to apply positive discrimination measures to skew recruiting away from the privately educated or, perhaps, the Russell group educated. Yet that would not only have a significant and negative impact on the ability of a relatively small group of UK institutions to compete in the world research market, but it would remove the power of each university to be fit for a given purpose. Fitness for purpose is at the centre of the higher education debate.

One of the Government's great successes is to have continued the expansion of higher education so that about half our young people will enjoy a higher education of some description. However, although the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development figures show that the rate of return on investment in a university degree remains higher in the UK than in any other country, the fact is that the new era has brought about a need for a highly diversified higher education sector that supplies a range of different needs—some highly vocational and some oriented around local needs with some institutions configured for competing with the best in the US and other countries, such as China. Many of those rising countries are about to overhaul this country, unless appropriately organised institutions in the UK respond to the global challenges presented to them.

In such an environment, it is clear that although all universities must be excellent in terms of their own purpose, some will continue to have the purpose of providing the upper professional echelons and many professions, although not all, with talent. The pragmatic policy, therefore, is to recognise that fact and ensure that access to those university and institutional places is opened up to everyone regardless of social background. Only by doing that we will open up the leadership of our leading national institutions and companies to all, regardless of social class background.

The Government's plans for variable fees, which we must discuss in outline as we will not know the detail until later this week, will provide all higher education institutions in England with much-needed additional revenue. Assuming that a proportion of that revenue is earmarked in one way or another for the provision of bursaries, students from working-class backgrounds will, at the least, almost certainly pay less than at present. For a working-class student at a Russell group university, however, it seems likely that both additional front-end assistance and a reduction in back-end debt may be put in place through a combination of direct Government assistance and assistance from the institution. I have recently spoken to a number of working-class school students in my constituency with grade projections suggesting that their grades will come up to scratch to allow them to attend Russell group universities. I have seen no evidence that they will make less rational choices than their middle-class counterparts.

If there is a trend in my constituency, it is for working-class students to stay at home while they study. That is made more feasible in Scotland than elsewhere, perhaps, by the fact that the great majority of people and institutions are located in the central belt, so most institutions can be reached by most people in under an hour and a half.

The hon. Gentleman touched on the top-up proposals, as well as the outline that we expect later this week, and on the fact that many Scottish students study in Scotland. He will have received a copy of the report of the Enterprise and Culture Committee of the Scottish Parliament, which concluded in December that the top-up proposals, in their current form, would have an adverse impact on higher education in Scotland. Does he intend to vote in favour of the proposals and, hence, against the Scottish interest?

It is pretty self-evident from what I have said that I support the thrust of the Bill. I shall say something about the debate in Scotland and the report, of which we have recently had a copy. It is quite helpful, but it indicates that there are a number of weaknesses in the hon. Lady's argument. I shall come to it in due course.

The trend to which I referred does not extend to working-class students determinedly choosing universities that make offers lower than their grade projections or results. However, Scottish higher education institutions, such as those in Edinburgh and Glasgow, and indeed Glasgow art college, suffer the same working-class deficit as their English counterparts.

The reasons for the working-class deficit at so many of our higher education institutions go beyond issues of debt or, put another way, the best investment any young person can make. A number of interlinking factors, social and educational, need to be understood if we are to improve the situation. The key will lie in a regulatory regime that allows universities freedom to find their own solutions, but which holds them to account for any failure to increase yearly the number of students from working-class backgrounds who pass through their gates.

I am conscious that some vice-chancellors might be tempted to pay lip service to the principle of better access in the early days, but to let things lapse over time. Can my right hon. Friend the Minister assure me that the office for fair access—which will, I am sure, be included in this week's Bill—will consider the interests in some of our Russell group institutions that could lead them over the years to lower the priority of attracting ever-increasing numbers of working-class students?

I shall deal briefly with the issue of Scotland-domiciled students in England, and vice-versa, and how variable fees will impact on the phenomenon. Every year, several thousand students from Scotland attend English institutions and many more travel in the opposite direction. The Enterprise and Culture Committee of the Scottish Parliament recently concluded an inquiry into, among other things, how the higher education White Paper will affect variable fees and how that will affect students in Scotland, as well as how it will affect research on other issues within the Scottish higher education system—if we see it as a discrete system, which is open to question.

As the hon. Member for Perth (Annabelle Ewing) said, the report was circulated to all Members representing Scottish constituencies. That was helpful, in that it informed us about the relative strengths and weaknesses of the arguments surrounding variable fees. The Enterprise and Culture Committee has said that to apply variable fees in England would be to damage Scottish universities and would affect what it calls the cross-border movement by students. It has been implied to colleagues in this House with Scottish constituencies that new variable fees for England are therefore undesirable. However, at the same time, the Committee has recognised the need for universities to be provided with increased funding so as not to disadvantage Scottish universities in competition with English institutions.

It would be odd to argue that Scottish increases should come about simply as a response to a new funding stream available to English institutions, rather than because additional funds will provide for higher-quality outputs. That would suggest that what is important is not quality, but funding equality, whether or not the funding is appropriate. It seems reasonable to assume that Scottish institutions and their supporters want the same funding that will become available to English institutions so as to make continuous improvements to the quality of their output. The issue, therefore, is not whether institutions in England and Scotland need more money, but where it comes from.

As you are well aware, Sir Nicholas, it is not for Members of this House to say how the Scottish Parliament should allocate its resources, but it is reasonable for us to suggest that the two systems can learn a great deal from each other's best practice. For example, the Scottish system provides for a back-loading of debt accrued through tuition fees. I believe that the UK Government have learned some interesting lessons from that. It is a principle that they might adopt in the higher education Bill, with an additional emphasis, I hope, on providing additional help at the front end for students from working-class backgrounds. Conversely, for those who call for central Government or the Executive to provide more extra funding from general taxation, or to raid another departmental budget in order to favour higher education, it is worth pointing out that, in social justice terms, that might be one of the least efficient uses of taxpayers' money.

Last week, in a first-class article in The Guardian, Polly Toynbee flagged up research on the linguistic skills of children that was recently conducted in the United States. A number of astonishing details emerged, all of which point in the same direction in terms of education policy. By the age of three, the children of professional parents have vocabularies over four times larger than those of the children of parents whose only income is state benefits. Indeed, at the same age, the privileged children have larger vocabularies than those less well-off parents. There was an almost total correlation between linguistic ability at three and subsequent success in the education system.

Other recent research has shown that until the age of around 22 months, the latent intellectual abilities of children appear to outweigh the effects of social experience. Thereafter, latent intellectual ability pales almost into insignificance, and by the age of six the least bright children from more privileged backgrounds have easily overhauled all but the very brightest children from less well-off backgrounds.

The lesson is clear. If we wish to deploy new resources to have a direct and specific impact on social equity and justice, including future patterns in the uptake of higher education, they should be spent on young children—on increasing the income of the least well-off families and on early-years and pre-school education. The debate on variable fees should be put in that perspective. It is not good enough simply to demand more money from the Government—as some organisations, such as Universities Scotland, are doing, and as the Scottish Parliament's Enterprise and Culture Committee appears to have done—without a thought for where those resources might come from, nor for where they might produce better and fairer returns for the least well-off.

On the matter of cross-border students, it has been proposed by Universities Scotland that England-domiciled students should pay fees if they attend Scottish universities, while Scotland-domiciled students and those from other European countries should not. That is a recipe for a simple binary divide in Scotland, with universities such as Edinburgh and St. Andrews positively touting for more English students, thereby leaving Scottish—domiciled students at a disadvantage. Indeed, the proposal is so weak that one wonders whether Universities Scotland may have some other agenda altogether, not yet fully exposed.

On the basis of what I have said—I do not have time to cover several points that I wished to raise—will the Minister confirm that he intends to maintain regular contact with the Scottish Parliament and its Ministers, the Welsh Assembly and its Ministers and, in due course, the Northern Ireland Assembly and its Ministers to ensure that we learn the lessons of best practice from each other?

Finally, I want to speak about students of midwifery in England. The position of student midwives with regard to tuition fees was set out in a parliamentary answer to my hon. Friend the Member for Leyton and Wanstead (Harry Cohen) by my right hon. Friend the Minister:

"All NHS-funded students also have their liability for a tuition fee contribution (worth up to £1,100 for the academic year 2002—03) met on their behalf, without means testing."—[Official Report, 23 October 2003; Vol. 411, c. 733W.]

The Royal College of Midwives certainly wants the situation to continue, particularly in view of the continuing shortage of midwives in the NHS. To say the least, the college welcomes the fact that the head count of midwives is increasing under this Government. However, the Under-Secretary of State for Health, my hon. Friend the Member for South Thanet (Dr. Ladyman), has accepted the specific difficulties of recruitment and retention among midwives. That has led to the college being concerned that if the higher education institutions at which midwives train choose significantly to raise the price of their courses, it may discourage potential midwives from entering training.

On reflection, it seems to me that a sound pricing mechanism should prevent that, as it would satisfy demand. Faced with a guaranteed sum from the NHS to cover the fees of each student, some education institutions might be tempted to increase fees beyond a true or reasonable market rate. However, I am sure that my right hon. Friend the Minister will have given the matter thought. I hope that he clarifies the position vis-à-vis student midwives.

I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Falkirk, West (Mr. Joyce) on securing the debate when this issue is mildly topical. He raised four points. The first was the social class gap—a crucial issue that is central to the Government's thinking on the subject. The second was liaison with the devolved Administrations. The third was the regulator—the proposed office for fair access—and the fourth the position among midwives and nurses in the NHS. I shall try to cover all four in the short time available.

My hon. Friend was right to talk of the social class gap. You and I, Sir Nicholas, are far too young to remember this, but just over 40 years ago the Robbins report of 1963 considered this question, when university education was the preserve of a small elite-between 5 and 6 per cent. of 18 to 30-year-olds. The report said that if we introduced free higher education with generous maintenance grants we would close that social class gap, but the evidence of the past 40 years is that the social class gap did not narrow—in fact, it widened. Many other benefits were achieved from the Robbins report, but that central issue—I do not think it hyperbole to describe it as an obscene social class gap—continues stubbornly to live on in this country.

This is not simply a matter of entry to higher education, and the social class gap exists for a number of reasons. As we set out last June in our report on widening participation, it begins with the under-fives. All the analysis and research indicate that at around the age of 22 months some social class divisions begin to show. There is a problem with attainment in literacy and numeracy in particular among primary school pupils. That is true in England more so than in Scotland and Wales with the drop-out rate at 16, and there is also a problem of aspiration. All those issues must be considered together and we describe them as the four As—attainment, aspiration, application and admissions.

We think that admissions, which in this respect means universities discriminating deliberately against youngsters from working-class backgrounds, is the least part of that problem. This may not have been true 15, 20 or even 30 years ago, but we are convinced that all universities, which includes the Russell group, modern universities and the 1994 group, are serious about widening access. Although a separate piece of work is being produced on admissions, I want to concentrate on the other issues—aspiration, application and attainment. Our policy has to be seen as starting with the under-fives—the Sure Start programme makes an important contribution to that debate—and with literacy and numeracy among primary school students, the figures for which are still a problem, but far better than they were six years ago in terms of attainment at age 11 in literacy and numeracy.

Serious work has been carried out on the drop-out rate at 16 and on how to encourage youngsters from a poorer background to stay on at school past 16. In a situation where jobs are available and the unemployment rate is at its lowest for many years, what they will earn in the job market is obviously a factor. The education maintenance allowance, which was introduced and piloted in my constituency and others, has had a marked success, which is why later this year we will roll it out nationwide and there will be £1,500, or £30 per week, for every student from poorer backgrounds to stay on in education.

I turn to aspiration, about which my hon. Friend raised an important point. If we can get youngsters to the right attainment level—two decent A-levels—nine out of 10 will go on to higher education. There is still a problem, because the 10 per cent. who do not do so generally come from non-traditional backgrounds—to use the jargon he mentioned. We should see the nine out of 10 who continue as an important statistic. Once they reach the required attainment level, however, they do not always apply to the universities that would best match their abilities. In other words, we see a large gap between the number of students from working-class and from other backgrounds who even just apply to some Russell group universities, all of which are trying to solve the problem and to attract more applications. That is why the issue of applications is important.

Some people—such as Peter Lampl, who runs the Sutton Trust—suggest that we should have post-qualification applications. Why should youngsters apply before they know their results? Youngsters from non-traditional backgrounds would feel more confident in applying to Russell group universities if they knew their results beforehand. That is an important point that the Schwartz group on admissions has raised.

In the context of the Government proposals on variable fees, my hon. Friend was right to raise the fact that there is a new element. We say that we have to introduce the funding from somewhere, to expand higher education and invest more in it. I will not go into detail, but we believe that our proposals are the right way to bring that money in. On the social class gap, our proposals get rid of upfront fees. Although poorer students did not pay those, many had lodged in their minds the fact that they would have to pay or get their parents to pay for them to go to university—so that problem goes. We will reintroduce a maintenance grant for poorer students. We will carry into the new arrangements fee remission up to £1,125, which exists at the moment. We will increase the repayment threshold, which currently applies to loans but in future will apply to a loan plus fee, from £10,000 to £15,000.

We are also to introduce the regulator, and I assure my hon. Friend that it will have teeth. Incidentally, all universities are free to charge between nothing and £3,000, so charging at the higher end is not just the preserve of Russell group universities. That will be a difference between courses rather than universities. The office for fair access will say that to charge more than the current fee of £1,125, universities must reach an agreement with it. Without an agreement, the universities will not be able to increase their fees—that is a real financial imperative. Such agreements will last for six years. If the regulator, which will receive an annual report, believes that a university is failing on any of its commitments in the agreement, it can fine it through the Higher Education Funding Council for England funding, which makes up 90 per cent. of university funding. So, this is a regulator with teeth.

Liaison with devolved Administrations is crucial, particularly as the Bill will be needed to devolve student finance completely to Wales. Student finance is devolved completely to Scotland, but only partially to Wales. This is not true confessions time, but I would not say that we had the best liaison when we published the White Paper a year ago. However, we have learned from those errors and we are in close contact with the devolved Administrations on such matters. On the issue of the Scottish Parliament report, which was raised by my hon. Friend, I support devolution on the basis of what it means—it might mean that arrangements differ from one country to the other. However, we are learning from the Scottish experience, in particular from the fact that graduates repay after they have graduated and once they are earning decent money.

For my final point, which I wish to make about the national health service, I shall refer to a text because it is a matter for another Department. However, I think that I will be able to give my hon. Friend the assurances he is looking for. He is right that the NHS contracts directly for pre-registration student places in nursing and midwifery. Those places are funded by the NHS and not, as all other student places are, through a combination of fees and HEFCE grant money. He is right to say that such students do not pay student fees. The NHS contracts at a local level; the contracts specify the price charged for training and the fact that the students do not pay.

The Department of Health will continue to monitor demand for places and a national model contract, which is being developed, will continue to preclude higher education institutions from charging increased tuition fees for NHS-funded courses. The simple answer for the Royal College of Nursing, which is concerned about the matter, is that at the moment the courses are free and that in the future, whatever the fees under the variable-fee system, the midwifery courses will continue to be free.

I welcome all Members present—a large number of whom are from north of Hadrian's wall—back to the House of Commons. I hope that they have all had a restful and enjoyable, if rather short, Christmas break.

The first debate this afternoon will be initiated by the hon. Member for North Wiltshire (Mr. Gray) and is about the voting rights of hon. Members who represent Scottish seats.

First, Sir Nicholas, on behalf of those of us from England, including we Jocks who represent English seats, and those from north of Hadrian's wall, I thank you for your very kind good wishes. I hope that the next time we meet in this august Chamber, I am able to call you by your proper title; Mr. Deputy Speaker. I understand that the motion enabling you to be called that has not yet been passed in the House. I hope that that will be done quickly so that we can again call you by your proper title.

I welcome the debate on this hugely important issue, which has been around for some 30 years in one format or another—

The hon. Gentleman mentions 30 years. What about Mrs. Thatcher's reign, during which she imposed the poll tax on Scotland against the will of the majority of Members in Scotland? How does he account for that on the basis of what he is about to say?

Order. I am not sure that the hon. Member for North Wiltshire (Mr. Gray) should answer that question. How could the hon. Member for Cunninghame, South (Mr. Donohoe) know what the hon. Gentleman is about to say?

I will come back to the hon. Gentleman's point in a moment, because he makes a very good point; one of the driving forces behind the devolution argument in the 1980s and early 1990s was that, somehow or other, a Conservative Government in London were imposing their will on a Labour majority in Scotland. That is precisely the point that I shall shortly seek to make in reverse. How could a Labour majority in Scotland impose its will on a Conservative majority here? That has been an important issue for the past 30 years, ever since the hon. Member for Linlithgow (Mr. Dalyell) first raised it.

Today's debate should not be about devolution; we have had that. The Scottish Parliament is in place, and we are not here to debate it. I secured this debate to safeguard the interests of the voters of North Wiltshire and of the English people of this great nation of ours, whose rights are being removed by Scottish Members of Parliament having equal status to vote in Westminster.

First, I make it absolutely plain that this is an English debate, and I am delighted that a Minister from an English Department has come to answer the debate. The West Lothian question, which was so well put forward so long ago, has been highlighted in recent weeks by two or three particular episodes, the first of which was the poorly thought through question of foundation hospitals. The Prime Minister would not have been able to get that policy in place were it not for the support of Members of Parliament from north of the border. Blithely ignoring the fact that the Scottish Labour party is against foundation hospitals, they thought it perfectly reasonable to come south of the border and—by a majority of only 17—impose foundation hospitals on us in England. That is outrageous.

The same seems to be about to occur with top-up fees; it appears that the Prime Minister will be humiliated in this place unless he can persuade the tartan mafia from north of the border to come down to England and enforce top-up fees in English universities, despite the fact that those fees will not affect Scottish universities.

On a point of order, Sir Nicholas. Is it unparliamentary to call Members who represent Scottish constituencies a mafia? A mafia is clearly defined as a secret society; we are a public, elected body.

I think that that point will have been noted by the hon. Member for North Wiltshire (Mr. Gray). I can only hope that the language used in this debate is sensible, rational and responsible.

Sensible, rational and responsible are precisely the right words, Sir Nicholas. It is an enormously serious debate These are important matters for the people of England and they should not be taken light-heartedly, as suggested in one or two interventions. If this place is to be taken seriously, and if the Union is to be preserved, it is terribly important that parliamentarians from both north and south of the border should treat the matter extraordinarily seriously. I do not intend to allow it to be reduced.

The hon. Gentleman referred to foundation hospitals and tuition fees, neither of which applies in Scotland. Neither do they apply in Northern Ireland, yet the hon. Gentleman and his colleagues do not refer to Northern Ireland Members participating in votes. Why does the hon. Gentleman pick on Scottish Members?

The right hon. Gentleman makes an extremely good point. For the sake of good order, I should make it plain that although I am using the word "English", I sometimes include the Welsh or Northern Irish.

Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

If the hon. Gentleman will forgive me, I shall make progress.

The right hon. Member for Carrick, Cumnock and Doon Valley (Mr. Foulkes) is right that if we solve the Scottish and English question, that solution, under certain circumstances, may be applicable to Northern Ireland and Wales. I shall speak later about my proposal that Mr. Speaker be asked to certify whether particular Bills cover England only, England and Wales, England, Wales and Northern Ireland, or the entire United Kingdom. However, I am grateful to the right hon. Gentleman for his question. It may sometimes be more appropriate to refer to Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland or a variation thereof, but for the sake of good order I shall simply use the word "Scotland".

It is bizarre that a Labour Government with a gigantic majority in Westminster should need to call on Scottish votes in order to impose in England matters that the Scots have already turned down. How odd it would be if the reverse were the case; if, by some parliamentary procedure that does not yet exist, we were able to go to Edinburgh and enforce on the Scottish people some matter that the Scots had turned down. That would be entirely unsustainable.

That is what happened with foxhunting. The hon. Member for Dumfries (Mr. Brown) sought many times to intervene on me when we debated foxhunting in England; a most important issue in my constituency. Scotland came to the conclusion that foxhunting could continue there in a particular, but not very satisfactory, form; the hon. Gentleman then came down to England with his Scottish friends to vote for an outright ban on foxhunting in England. That is entirely unsustainable, but there is an easy way to solve the problem.

I pay tribute to my hon. Friend the Member for Galloway and Upper Nithsdale (Mr. Duncan), to the hon. Member for Linlithgow and to members of the Scottish National party, who tend not to vote on purely English matters. That is an honourable self-denying ordinance. However, I understand that there has been some slippage and that Scottish Nationalists recently voted on foundations hospitals.

Does the hon. Gentleman agree that Members of the House are and should continue to be equal? Another solution would be for all the regions of England to have devolved assemblies such as those in. Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland. Everyone would then be in the same situation.

The hon. Gentleman makes two points. To the first, the answer is no. By no stretch of the imagination are all Members of the House equal. I am responsible to the people of North Wiltshire for health, education, transport and a variety of other matters, but the hon. Gentleman does not have to answer to his constituents on those matters. I have a greater job to play in this place than he does; that is an inevitable consequence of the devolution settlement. That is one of the tough facts of life. The hon. Gentleman has no say whatever on health, education, transport and a variety of other matters in his constituency. I do. I represent the people of North Wiltshire on everything involving the Government. He cannot do so. We already have two tiers of Members of Parliament in the House.

Secondly, answering the West Lothian question by saying that some kind of regional structure should be set up in England ignores the fact that people in England do not want it. It is a desperate attempt by the Labour party to answer the West Lothian question. The solution to which I shall turn in a moment answers the question much more elegantly, at much less cost and in a much more acceptable way to the people of England, about whom we are talking. We should encourage Scottish Members of Parliament not to vote on English matters. However, that would not be enough, which brings me on to a similar subject that I find equally obnoxious.

How can it be that Members of Parliament who represent Scottish seats can come down here and be Secretaries of State in purely English Departments? How can the Secretary of State for Health, the right hon. Member for Hamilton, North and Bellshill (Dr. Reid), speak on health in England? If I, the Member of Parliament for North Wiltshire, went to Edinburgh and said that I had come to look after the health service in Scotland, there would be a national outcry. But the Secretary of State is a Member of Parliament in Scotland who comes down here to pontificate on the health service in England.

If what the hon. Gentleman is saying were taken to its logical conclusion, no London Member could be Secretary of State for Transport or vote on transport issues, which, at the end of the day, now lie within the remit of the Mayor and the Greater London assembly.

I certainly am not saying that, for the simple reason that neither the London assembly nor the Welsh Assembly has legislative powers. Only the Scottish Parliament has legislative powers; over health, education and transport, which are entirely devolved to Holyrood. None the less, the Secretary of State for Health comes down here from Hamilton, North and Bellshill and pontificates on the health service in North Wiltshire. How can that be? That is unsustainable and the people of England will not continue to take it. How can it be that the part-time Secretary of State for Scotland comes down to England and pontificates on transport here?

Does the hon. Gentleman accept that there is a further anomaly? My right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Health has at least been elected, whereas large numbers of people in another place pontificate on legislation with no elected right to do so. There is no second Chamber in the Scottish Parliament to review Scottish health issues. Does that mean that the House of Lords should not review any health issues, in order to achieve the parity about which the hon. Gentleman is talking?

I most interested to hear the hon. Lady apparently propose that Labour Ministers in the House of Lords should lose their posts. I would not necessarily subscribe to that position; perhaps she should take that matter up with her own party.

The second self-denying ordinance that we should introduce is not to allow Members of Parliament from Scottish seats to be Ministers in English Departments. That is straightforward, and I call on the Prime Minister to introduce it at the first available reshuffle. We must get rid of Scottish Members of Parliament running English Departments.

Those two self-denying ordinances are not enough. We still have the curious anomaly of vast over-representation in Scotland. How can it be that there are 121—[HON. MEMBERS: "129."] How can it be that there are 129 MSPs? I am grateful to hon. Members from north of the border. I take no great interest in such matters and it is important that I should leave them to the Scots. I am concerned only with North Wiltshire and am not at all familiar with the way the Scottish Parliament works, nor do I seek to become so. I am most grateful to hon. Members for putting me right. Currently, 71 MSPs—[HoN. MEMBERS: "72."] I thank hon. Members for correcting me—[Laughter.] Hon. Members seem to think the issue is funny, but I am making an important point. I take no interest in such matters; I am interested in North Wiltshire. I know how many MPs there are in Wiltshire, but I am not aware of how many MPs there are in Scotland.

A total of 201 parliamentarians look after the 5 million people in Scotland. Roughly speaking, for every 25,000 people in Scotland there is one parliamentarian, whether an MSP or an MP. That contrasts with England, where each of us looks after a total of 100,000 people. I alone look after every possible issue in North Wiltshire—health, education and transport—that affects those 100,000 people. Why, then, do I receive the same pay and conditions as a Member of Parliament who comes down here and does a great deal less work? There are two tiers of Members of Parliament in this place. Some, such as me, are fully employed and look after every aspect of their constituencies, whereas others, including many hon. Members in the Room today, do not.

Debates such as this would have no purpose were it not for hon. Members making proposals to put things right. I have a proposal, which I shall call the North Wiltshire answer to the West Lothian question. First, we must have only English votes for English matters. That seems perfectly straightforward.

The hon. Gentleman repeatedly refers to English matters. Has he had a look at the Bills coming up for Second Reading and at the Bills that were before the last Parliament? I was one of the Ministers responsible for the Proceeds of Crime Act 2002, some parts of which applied to England, some to England and Wales, some to Scotland and some to Scotland, England, Wales and Northern Ireland. Should we have jumped in and out of the debate, voting yes on one matter, but not on another? How can one define a purely English matter? Almost no, or very few, Bills before the House apply specifically, in all their aspects, only to England.

The right hon. Gentleman makes an extremely important point. For example, I believe that a clause or two in the Bill dealing with foundation hospitals referred to Scotland. If one were that way inclined, it would be perfectly possible to insert a clause into almost any Bill that applied to Scotland and thereby somehow justified Scottish Members of Parliament voting on it. I am suggesting that legislation should be simplified so that that does not happen. It would become easy for the Speaker to certify whether a Bill was purely English. After all, we need only look at the devolution settlement to see those issues that have been devolved to Scotland. That is no secret, and it is straightforward. Surely it would be possible to say that Bills on those matters will now be dealt with in Scotland, while Bills on such matters in England will be dealt with at Westminster.

Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

If the right hon. Gentleman will forgive me, he must allow me to answer the point first. He made a good point that not all Bills are easily certifiable and we might ask the Government's business managers to make Bills easier to certify.

What would the hon. Gentleman say about English-only devolved legislation that had a negative financial impact and consequence on Scotland? By that I mean issues such as tuition fees and foundation hospitals. Surely it is right and proper that those of us whose duty and responsibility is to defend and protect the Scottish interest have a say in such matters.

I suspected that that argument would come up. Almost no Bill passed with regard to England does not have some effect on Scotland. The same applies the other way around, of course. When the Scottish Parliament voted against top-up fees, against foundation hospitals and to allow foxhunting to continue, despite the fact that such matters have an effect here—

On a point of order, Sir Nicholas. The hon. Gentleman repeats that there has been a vote in the Scottish Parliament on foundation hospitals and on top-up fees. There has not been, on either matter.

As much as I would like to agree with the hon. Lady, because she is a lady, that is not a point of order for the Chair. I am not responsible for what the hon. Member for North Wiltshire says in his speech on what is clearly an emotive subject.

I hope that the hon. Lady will forgive me when I try to bring the debate back to where it should be. These are extremely complex and important matters that are not capable of withstanding a barney across the floor. One of the advantages of this Chamber is that it ought to be possible for us to have an intelligent debate about complex matters such as this. To seek to reduce the debate, as the hon. Lady just did, is unfair.

Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

No. The hon. Member for Aberdeen, South (Miss Begg) will correct me, I am sure, but am I right that the Scottish Labour party is opposed to top-up fees and to foundation hospitals, but that Scottish Labour MPs came down here and voted in favour of them—or will shortly be doing so on the second issue—here in Westminster? I think that the hon. Lady wants to correct me.

The hon. Gentleman said that there had been a vote in the Scottish Parliament on both those issues, but there has not. Nor do I remember a vote at any Scottish Labour party conference on either issue.

Order. I presume that the hon. Lady is intervening to ask the hon. Gentleman a question. I will allow her to continue if she does so.

Thank you, Sir Nicholas. Scottish Labour party policy is not the same as Labour party policy. There has been no vote in the Scottish Parliament on either issue, although the hon. Gentleman suggested that there has. Will he correct the record?

I am most grateful to the hon. Lady for her correction. This is most interesting and I am sure that the Scottish papers will take a keen interest. She now seems to be saying that the Scottish Labour party is in favour of top-up fees for St. Andrews university and for my alma mater, Glasgow university, and in favour of foundation hospitals. I have read the Scottish Labour party manifesto, and I believe that my original presumption was correct; the Scottish Labour party is opposed to those things and has come out against them. I hope that I am right. My point to the hon. Lady is that the Scottish Labour party opposes those proposals but thinks it perfectly reasonable for Scottish Labour Members to come down to Westminster and impose them on England. That is a constitutional outrage that cannot be sustained.

On a point of order, Sir Nicholas.

Is it a point of order or an intervention?

It is a genuine point of order. Is it in order for the hon. Gentleman consistently to mislead the House by suggesting that Scottish Labour MPs came down to Westminster en masse and voted in favour of foundation hospitals? I, for one, voted against them. It should be made clear that some Labour Members voted in favour of foundation hospitals, and that others voted against them.

I have great regard for the hon. Gentleman and for his stand on many issues. I am not responsible for what a Member says. I can only hope that Members will seek to be as accurate as possible in anything that they say. I am sure that the House has taken note, as has the hon. Member for North Wiltshire (Mr. Gray), of what the hon. Gentleman just said.

My point was not that Scottish Labour Members voted in favour of foundation hospitals, but that they should not have the opportunity here in England to vote in favour of them or against them. These are English matters for English MPs, and it is a constitutional outrage that Scottish MPs come to Westminster to pontificate on English matters when I have no opportunity to go north of the border and pontificate on the health service—

Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

I am sorry, but I will not. I hope that the hon. Gentleman will forgive me. These are delicate, important and complex constitutional matters, and I raised them in this forum so that we may debate them sensibly. The fact that Scottish MPs have made so many fatuous points of order and silly interventions suggests that I may have hit a raw nerve by suggesting that those Members do not come here and vote on English matters. It appears to be a sensitive matter for MPs who foresee a reduction in their status in Westminster in what I am about to propose.

To take the hon. Gentleman's argument, which he has so far taken some 23 minutes to make—

Thanks to a few interventions.

To take the hon. Gentleman's argument to its natural conclusion, is he suggesting that no Scotsman should represent an English constituency? If so, he would not be on his feet.

That is yet another lightweight point in what should be a serious debate. However, the hon. Gentleman is right that no one is more Scottish than me. My father was Moderator of the General Assembly of the Church of Scotland. I was at Hillhead primary school, Glasgow high school and Glasgow university. I never left the borders of Scotland until I was 21. In my teens, I took a particular interest in my ancestry, and I discovered that not one ancestor came from anywhere other than Scotland. I can say, "You don't get more Scottish than me." I am 100 per cent. Scot, racially. I was 21 when I got out of Scotland. I am now 49 and have spent 28 years down here, which is why I feel no shame in speaking on these matters. This matter has nothing to do with race or where we were born, but with whether people representing the Scots in Scotland should have the right to vote on English matters in Westminster.

Will my hon. Friend give way?

I hope that my hon. Friend will forgive me if I do not, because I am trying to conclude my remarks. Someone referred to the fact that I had been on my feet for some 20 minutes. That is largely because I have been fairly generous in taking interventions, as I believe the Chamber would agree. Perhaps Members will forgive me if I try to make progress to allow others the opportunity to take part in the debate.

First, we must have a self-denying ordinance; English votes for English matters, with the Scots not taking part in such debates. If that cannot be done, certain English matters could be reserved to English Members, perhaps by certification by Mr. Speaker. Secondly, it is important that Scottish Ministers should not take part in English Departments in Westminster. Only English Ministers should take part in them.

My third proposal is rather more radical; none the less, it may have a certain amount to recommend it. As I started to say a moment ago, there are far too many parliamentarians of one sort or another in Scotland. There is a parliamentarian to look after every 25,000 people in Scotland. In England, there is one for every 100,000 people. There would be some merit in a proposal that has been put forward previously; namely, that Members of Parliament in Scotland should go to the Scottish Parliament in Holyrood to discuss Scottish matters on, for example, Mondays and Tuesdays, then come here on Wednesdays and Thursdays to discuss UK matters; perhaps some other suitable arrangement could be made. Simultaneously,English Members of Parliament would sit here or somewhere else in England where it is convenient to discuss English matters on Mondays and Tuesdays and then come here to discuss UK matters on Wednesdays and Thursdays.

That seems a neat and elegant solution to the West Lothian question. It would raise the status of MPs from Scotland and the status of the Scottish Parliament, which then would be equal to the English Parliament south of the border. Scottish MPs at Westminster may not like that proposal, because it would mean that 200 MSPs in Scotland would be competing for the 50 or so seats here. It might well be unattractive to certain members of the Labour party; none the less, it has some elegance.

Superficially neat and elegant it might be, but is there not a problem? Take yesterday, for example. The first we knew about the statement was at 12.20. I have had a lot and a half to say about Lockerbie and Libya, but there would have been no possibility of my coming to London from Edinburgh. The hon. Gentleman may say that Government Departments could arrange statements that might affect Scots for a Wednesday or Thursday, but I have the doubtless unworthy suspicion that the Foreign Secretary would not have delayed his statement on Libya for 48 hours so that Tam Dalyell could come and ask him difficult questions. That really would be asking too much of ministerial and human nature. There is a real difficulty, which can be multiplied many times. All my hon. Friends have particular interests, and they would want to be present for crucial statements. I do not know quite how that would work.

Statements on Libya and similar matters would not be the same were it not for the interventions of the Father of the House. I am sure that the business managers would be able to reorganise matters in a way that would take account of that.

The point of my proposal was that no UK business would be heard on Mondays and Tuesdays anyway. Purely English business would be heard, either here in Westminster or possibly in Birmingham or somewhere else. English business would be discussed on Mondays and Tuesdays and UK business would be dealt with on Wednesdays and Thursdays, when Scottish MPs, like English, Welsh and Northern Irish MPs, would be here.

It is a radical proposal. For example, it would require a radical reorganisation of the Scottish parliamentary boundaries—there are all kinds of other implications and difficulties associated with it—but it would be an answer to our present problem; namely, the increasing resentment among English constituents at the fact that their lives are affected by votes from north of the border.

Will the hon. Gentleman clarify something for me, as I am slightly puzzled by an aspect of his argument? He seems to be saying that he will probably abstain the next time a Bill comes up that applies only to Scotland; for example, an amendment to the Scotland Act 1998. If that is the case, could he explain why he voted on the Health (Wales) Act 2003 last year?

Scottish matters are never debated in this Parliament. They are debated only in Edinburgh. The only Scottish issues that are debated here are constitutional matters affecting the relationship between this Parliament and Scotland. If that is incorrect, I shall admit that I am wrong. The hon. Gentleman makes an extremely good point. I give him my absolute assurance that if I am presented at some stage in the future with a matter that affects only Scotland and has no effect whatever on my North Wiltshire constituents, I will not vote on it. [Interruption.] Of course I will not. That is exactly what I am asking hon. Members to do, but the other way around. I will not vote on matters affecting purely Scotland.

The Scotland Act?

The Scotland Act is, of course, different because it affects the relationship between this UK Parliament and Scotland. That is a matter for the UK Parliament and a matter for me to vote on as a UK parliamentarian. If some matter came up—I cannot imagine what, because it would be quite out of order—during my parliamentary career that had absolutely no effect of any kind on England, Wales or Northern Ireland and would affect Scotland only, the hon. Member for Falkirk, West (Mr. Joyce) has my absolute assurance that I would neither speak nor vote on it. I seek in return his absolute assurance that he will neither speak nor vote on any matters affecting purely England. Will he give me that assurance?

I agree with my hon. Friend the Member for Glasgow, Shettleston (Mr. Marshall), who said that all Members in this House are equal. I will vote on every piece of legislation that comes before this House.

That position is, at least, clear; but I simply cannot imagine how the hon. Gentleman can answer the question of why I may not vote on similar matters in Scotland. Every Member of this House is not equal. Some Members of this House have responsibility for dealing with health, education and other such matters here in England; others do not. I can look after everything that affects my constituents, but the hon. Gentleman cannot. He apparently thinks that it is fine for him to come down here and vote on matters that affect my constituents, but I cannot vote on some matters that affect his. That seems unfair; it is a constitutional conundrum and an outrage, which, as the people of England are now dimly beginning to realise, could ultimately have serious consequences for the Union itself.

Finally, I shall point to possible outcomes of the forthcoming general election. One is that there may be a Conservative majority for the United Kingdom but not for Scotland; another is a Labour majority for the United Kingdom but a Conservative majority here in England. That is when this question becomes particularly bitter. My constituents would have voted for a Conservative Government and would have a Conservative majority here in England but, thanks to tartan muscle from north of the border, the Labour party would continue to interfere in health, education and other matters in my constituency. That is when the West Lothian question becomes unanswerable and when the Union itself comes into question. We in this place should now try to find some sensible answer, a suitable way round the problem and some self-denying ordinance that would correct that anomaly and outrage, so that, in that event, the people of England do not turn.

Before I call the next speaker, I should say that we have only 27 minutes before the winding-up speeches begin at 3 o'clock. Obviously, I encourage short, pertinent and relevant interventions, which might well be the way in which people who are unlikely to catch my eye can at least get a view across in the course of this important debate.

It is an honour and a pleasure to follow a fellow Scot, the hon. Member for North Wiltshire (Mr. Gray). I congratulate him on securing the debate on an issue that has, I suspect, been gnawing away at him for some considerable time and may well have given him sleepless nights in recent months. I recall our exchanges, which were short and curt, in the Committee considering of the Hunting Bill. However, I wonder whether we would be having this debate today if we had a Conservative Government and a large number of Conservative Members in Scotland. I suspect not.

I want to make it clear that I see myself as a citizen of the UK who is proud to be Scottish and proud to be a Member of a UK Parliament. I will strive at all times to function as a Member of that UK Parliament. Each and every one of us was elected on an equal status, and that should always be remembered.

Does the hon. Gentleman not accept that it is difficult to see equality between Members who have responsibility for all their constituents' interests—those who represent constituencies such as mine—and Members who have responsibility for only a limited range of interests because other Members of another Assembly have other responsibilities?

As I make my way through my contribution—I will keep it short, Sir Nicholas, and make only relevant points—I hope to bring some sort of clarity to my statement about equal status.

The hon. Member for Linlithgow (Mr. Dalyell) mentioned the word superficial; the proposals of the hon. Member for North Wiltshire are superficially attractive, but logically flawed. Neither Scotland nor any other part of the UK has independence; thankfully so, many of us would say. What has been embarked upon is devolution and we should stick closely to its theology. In its wisdom, Westminster has seen fit to do nothing more than devolve certain powers to Cardiff, Edinburgh and Belfast. This Parliament is a UK Parliament, not an English Parliament. There has been no legislation passed to create an English Parliament, for which some obviously wish. Such a position would be totally different from the constitutional arrangement that we have.

Westminster has always passed legislation that does not affect all of the UK, and to a certain extent the devolved arrangements have changed nothing. The status or basis of Westminster has not changed, nor has the role of any of its Members. We cannot approach the matter on an ad hoc basis, or we would challenge the whole basis of devolution. I respect what the hon. Member for North Wiltshire said at the start of the debate; the debate is not about devolution. However, we cannot discuss the West Lothian question or the voting rights of Scottish Members without talking about devolution.

The hon. Member for North Wiltshire proposes different classes of MPs, and not just two different classes. In my intervention I referred to the logical conclusion of his points, and to transport in London. I appreciate his point that that is not something on which the Greater London authority legislates, but he is embarking on a road that could lead to even greater difficulties than some say we have at the moment. He seems to have returned to the old in-and-out theory. In other words, he wishes to prevent Members from devolved areas from participating in the domestic business of non-devolved areas that has become a devolved matter in their own constituency. He has made that abundantly clear. Strictly speaking, such an approach could be applied to all forms of parliamentary business—not just debates and votes—such as questions and motions. My neighbour, the hon. Member for Galloway and Upper Nithsdale (Mr. Duncan) has tabled questions on issues that have been devolved, as we can see from the public record.

If the hon. Member for North Wiltshire has not already done so, I would urge him to read the excellent contribution from the right hon. Member for Skipton and Ripon (Mr. Curry) in his opposition to the House of Commons (Reserved Matters) Bill on 28 June 2000. He lays out clearly and concisely the very issues that the hon. Member for North Wiltshire and his friends are failing to grasp in their blind fury and their wish to weaken the position of others. Let me give hon. Members a flavour of the contribution from the right hon. Member for Skipton and Ripon.

"Let us imagine a situation"—

the hon. Member for North Wiltshire has already alluded to this—

"where the withdrawal of Scottish MPs left a majority on English matters in the House different from that of the UK Government. One would then, necessarily, end up with a Government elected on a manifesto significant parts of which they could not deliver, and a competing Administration, unable to deliver their manifesto because they would not command the business of the House, and would therefore depend on the opportunistic hijacking of Government proposals." — [Official Report, 28 June 2000; Vol. 352, c. 924.]

That is the complete and utter shambles that we could end up with.

I know that the matter of foundation hospitals has brought the matter back into the limelight, resurrecting the argument for some about the voting position of UK Members. We are all aware that, later this month, the matter of tuition fees will again bring the bitterness to the fore. I believe that the geographic location of my constituency puts me in a unique position. I shall give a topical example in relation to health service provision. If constituents in the east of my constituency in lower Annandale and in Eskdale require health service provision in the form of hospital treatment. they do not look to Dumfries and Galloway Royal infirmary, but to the Cumberland infirmary in Carlisle. I say to the hon. Gentleman and his colleagues that that service provision within Cumbria is as important to me as the provision in my constituency. The border is nothing more than a line on the map; it is not a barrier, or the reconstruction of Hadrian's wall.

The hon. Gentleman accepts that the border is simply a line but that it works in both directions. There are parents in Carlisle who send their children to college in Dumfries and Galloway. Their representatives have lost the ability to legislate on, for example, tuition fees if their children were to attend Dumfries and Galloway college.

Of course. The hon. Gentleman is exactly right, but the point is that it is a border, nothing more than a line on the map. The hon. Gentleman asked the Secretary of State what percentage of elective surgery operations performed in the Cumberland infirmary related to residents of Scotland and Dumfries and Galloway in the previous 12 months. Almost 2 per cent. came from the Scottish side of the border.

To sum up, the hon. Member for North Wiltshire has done nothing more than raise the issue once again. It is a burning issue. I must make it clear to Members that my father was English. He was very proud of that and I was very proud that he was an Englishman. The right hon. Member for Skipton and Ripon said:

"We English are not a minority in these islands; we do not have an identity to prove or a history to rescue. When a federation exists in which there is a massive disequilibrium between the size and weight of one of its components and the others, there is a particular responsibility on the dominant partner to behave with restraint.

I do not believe that the Union is at risk from Scottish nationalism if that nationalism is left to sustain its own momentum and renew its own energy, if it can; but give it the adrenalin of an assertive English nationalism against which to identify itself, and I do fear that we shall he providing the weapon for an assault on the integrity of the Union." — [Official Report, 28 June 2000; Vol. 353, c. 924.]

I urge the hon. Member for North Wiltshire to read the words of his right hon. Friend.

I hope that if they restrict their remarks, three additional Members might catch my eye after the Member whom I intend to call next. I hope that Members accept that that is a constructive view to express at this stage.

It is a pleasure to follow the hon. Member for Dumfries (Mr. Brown), who made a constructive and measured response to the powerful case made by my hon. Friend the Member for North Wiltshire (Mr. Gray), whom I compliment on his choice of subject.

As we heard, last month, one vote on foundation hospitals was carried by the votes of Scottish Members. Yesterday, when I spoke on the Traffic Management Bill, which covers only England and Wales, I raised the question of whether it was right for Scottish colleagues to vote on that matter. Later this month the decision on top-up fees might be carried by the votes of Scottish Members, so it is right that my hon. Friend should raise the matter.

Will the right hon. Gentleman give way?

I plan to observe the injunction from Sir Nicholas.

It is very appropriate that the debate should take place with you in the Chair, Sir Nicholas. In the last Parliament, the Procedure Committee, which you chair, produced a report on the procedural consequences of devolution, to which I will refer in a moment.

The present constitutional settlement is unfair and unstable. We tend to see it through our own eyes as Members of Parliament; I prefer to see it through the eyes of my constituents. The position is quite simple. Until 1998, my constituents, through their Member of Parliament, could influence policy in Scotland on health and education, and the converse was of course true. After devolution, they lost that ability to influence policy in Scotland.

Will the right hon. Gentleman give way?

I do not propose to give way because I hope that more Members will get in.

My advice to my constituents is to accept that devolution is a fact and that we should make it work. They are prepared to do so, but there is a consequent inequity. While they can no longer influence whether their Scottish friends have top-up fees or foundation hospitals, their Scottish friends can influence whether such policies happen in England. It is impossible to defend or explain that to my constituents. The problem is compounded by the so-called West Lothian question, whereby Scottish Members can impose top-up fees or foundation hospitals on my constituents but cannot impose those policies on their own constituents. The position is indefensible and inequitable.

What do the Government say in response? In the last Parliament, the Lord Chancellor said that the best thing to do about the West Lothian question was to stop asking it. That was not a proper response for a parliamentarian, let alone a spokesman on constitutional affairs. The Government's next line of defence is regional assemblies, but that is not an adequate response; regional assemblies do not have the same powers as the Scottish Parliament.

The Government then fall back on the indivisibility of the Member of Parliament and the impossibility of any solution that gives some MPs rights that others do not have. We are not all equal; some hon. Members in the Chamber have a right to attend Committees that I, as an English Member, cannot attend. That is where the Procedure Committee's report on the consequences of devolution comes in. It contains a section on legislation, and students of the subject will find support from the Procedure Committee for the argument that, in the light of devolution, different procedures may be necessary for England.

Your Committee, Sir Nicholas, anticipated conflict and wisely suggested procedures for minimising it. It suggested that we change our rules by convention; in other words, not by primary legislation but by convention. If there is support for the proposition that matters that affect England only should be voted on by English MPs only, it should be done by convention rather than by legislation.

Paragraphs 25 and 26 of the report are key, and it is worth reading the relevant section in full:

"The main point of principle to be considered is whether it is appropriate to retain special procedures for bills relating exclusively to one of the constituent countries of the United Kingdom, as currently apply to Bills relating exclusively to Scotland or Wales. On balance, we believe it is. There may soon be governments of different parties in different parts of the United Kingdom; party balances already differ in England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland."

That is an important section because it concedes the principle, post-devolution, of new procedures for legislation affecting England. Once that point has been conceded, English votes for English Bills is the logical conclusion.

Paragraph 28 argues that representation on Bills dealing with English legislation should be in accordance with party balance in England, not party balance in the House. The hon. Member for Tweeddale, Ettrick and Lauderdale (Mr. Moore) commented that

"As a Scottish MP, frankly I am not terribly interested in having a say over the English health budget, the way in which health policy is going or education, and all the matters over which responsibility has been devolved to Scotland, I think it right and proper that English MPs should be left to consider the equivalent legislation in England for themselves."

There speaks a Scottish Member of Parliament.

The Procedure Committee, which approved that principle unanimously, included nine Government Members; it also included the hon. Member for North Cornwall (Mr. Tyler), who hopes to catch your eye later, Sir Nicholas. The principle that I am annunciating is not mine; a Committee of the House adopted it. The Committee also dealt with the argument that identifying such Bills would be an impossible burden on the Speaker by dismissing the point in paragraph 27 of the report.

How did the Government respond to the recommendation? They simply asserted in their response that

"If …it were possible to identify some Bills as relating exclusively to England, it is not clear what benefit that would have for the House."

The debate is about the West Lothian question. The argument of my hon. Friend the Member for North Wiltshire simply disappeared over the Government's head. They did not disagree with the solution; they did not think that there was a problem, which is indefensible. There is support in England for the sort of solution that my hon. Friend has outlined. I recall seeing an opinion poll indicating that there was a majority in Scotland for the proposition that Scottish Members of Parliament should not vote on English domestic legislation.

The proposal that only English and Welsh MPs should vote on Bills covering England and Wales could work within the conventions and traditions of Parliament. It is based on precedents and would be accepted as fair in Scotland as well as in England. It represents common sense. It would deal with the English question and make the Union stronger. The Government are making a serious mistake in their response and it will fall to a different Administration to put right this constitutional error.

I congratulate the hon. Member for North Wiltshire (Mr. Gray) on securing this timely and appropriate debate so early in the new year.

It comes as no surprise that the issue of the voting rights of Scottish Members is coming to a head; it is a boil that needs to be lanced. The question has been kicking around for some three decades, since the Father of the House elegantly asked why the Member for West Lothian may vote on issues to do with West Bromwich, while the Member for West Bromwich must be silent on issues concerning West Lothian. That is the West Lothian question, or WLQ, as those of us who have wrestled with it throughout the years prefer to call it.

The WLQ is back with a vengeance. Now, not only can the Member for West Lothian vote on issues of a West Bromwich nature, but the Member for West Lothian might be responsible for an outcome that has been rejected in West Bromwich and by the majority of English Members. The Government can get unpopular English legislation through only on the back of Scottish MPs. That is unfair and increasingly untenable, and the public are increasingly unhappy and perplexed about it. I reassure English Members that the Scottish public feel the same. A recent opinion poll by System 3 in The Herald showed that the Scottish public feel that it is wrong that Scottish Members should enable unpopular English legislation to get through.

Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

I am sorry, but I have not got much time.

Even the majority of Labour supporters feel that Scottish Members should have nothing whatever to do with unpopular English legislation. That issue is linked with the emerging consensus in England that Scottish Members should have nothing whatever to do with England-only legislation; legislation with no impact on Scotland. The Scottish Parliament has changed absolutely everything and it now time for us to consider our practices and change them where appropriate.

Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

I am sorry, but I have not got much time. I hope that the hon. Gentleman will get an opportunity to intervene.

When we raise the WLQ, Labour Members say that there should not be two different classes of Members in this House. It is time for a reality check. There are two different classes of Members in this House; there may even be more than two. There are English MPs, who have responsibility in relation to every aspect of political control in their constituency, and there are those of us for whom the Scottish Parliament is a reality in our constituencies. I am in a different class of Member from an English MP because I have no say on schools, hospitals and most of the public services in my constituency. I do, however—this is almost preposterous—have a say on schools, hospitals and public services in the constituency of the hon. Member for North Wiltshire. That is patently unfair and increasingly untenable. I am quite relaxed about being in a different class from other Members. Labour Members should get used to it. They should just accept the fact about different classes of Members and its consequences.

There is a problem with the West Lothian question. It was touched on earlier and relates to situations in which English legislation has a financially negative impact on Scotland

Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

I am sorry, but I want to move on.

Some issues are perfectly clear and straightforward and have nothing whatever to do with Scotland. I am thinking of matters such as that discussed as recently as yesterday. The Traffic Management Bill has nothing to do with Scotland and nothing to do with Scottish Members. Controversial legislation, such as foxhunting legislation, has nothing to do with Scotland or Scottish Members. Just before prorogation, in November, the issue of trial by jury in English courts ping-ponged between the two Houses. That was nothing whatever to do with Scotland and therefore should have had nothing whatever to do with Scottish Members.[Interruption.]

Order. I want only the person who is supposed to be speaking to address the Chair. I do not wish other conversations to be taking place at the same time.

I am grateful, Sir Nicholas.

It is difficult to say that legislation that covers England will not affect anyone we represent. I have just had to deal with a case in which one of my constituents—a canon from a local church—was fined under the traffic management system. It was a false claim because it was so inaccurate. We must deal with legislation that is passed by this House if it has consequences for our constituents. Must our constituents stay in Scotland and never come to England for any services?

The logical conclusion of the hon. Gentleman's suggestion is to do away with all nations and all legislatures entirely.

I read on the front page of the Traffic Management Bill that it applies to England and Wales only. It is time for Members to accept that some English legislation has a negative consequence on Scotland, the most notable being the two significant issues of top-up fees and foundation hospitals. Judgment must be used and the impact on Scotland must be assessed. The matter is straightforward for us in the Scottish National party. It is our duty to oppose any issue or legislation that has a negative impact on or consequence for Scotland. We were elected to defend and protect the Scottish interest and I make no apology for doing so when such measures come before Scotland.

On tuition fees, it is abundantly clear that university professors, academics, economists and the Scottish Parliament agree that if tuition fees are implemented in England, it will be a disaster for Scottish universities. That does not need much explanation. If the pot is increased with the introduction of tuition fees and we remain a pocket-money Parliament with an insufficient settlement, our status will be diminished. If England wants top-up fees, that is a matter for England and it is right and proper that it can go ahead and have them. But England cannot ignore the consequences for Scotland.

Thankfully, there are solutions, the first and most elegant being to give Scotland financial responsibility for its own actions and to determine its own agenda and priorities. With one sweep of the brush, we would get away from debates about the Barnett formula. It is truly remarkable that a number of Scottish Members are prepared to vote for top-up fees and foundation hospitals in the full knowledge that they will be disastrous for Scottish universities and the Scottish health service.

It is also remarkable that the one and only Scottish Conservative Member from Scotland is prepared to sit on his hands while foundation hospitals are introduced and tuition fees are discussed on Second Reading. To call himself the shadow Secretary of State and not defend the Scottish interest is remarkable; it would be laughable were it not so dangerous for Scotland.

Given that the Government are unlikely to give us financial responsibility for Scotland, let me suggest another solution, which follows on from the suggestion of the hon. Member for North Wiltshire. The Speaker could be allowed to determine whether Bills have no impact or consequence for Scotland. That could be easily achieved by extending Standing Order No. 97, which allows the Speaker to determine whether Bills affect Scotland only and are referred to the Scottish Grand Committee for Scottish consideration. It would be relatively simple to extend Standing Order No. 97 to refer Bills to the Regional Affairs Committee, which is composed solely of English Members. Let them deal with legislation that affects only England if the Speaker's Panel decides that the matter is for English Members only.

The most elegant solution of all is for Scotland to be independent and for England to be independent. People suggest to me that England could not survive as an independent nation and would not have the confidence to go forward, but I refute that; the future for an independent England would be reasonably rosy. What England does not need is further voting by Scottish Members to determine its future.

I shall be brief, Sir Nicholas, to allow other colleagues to speak; unlike the hon. Member for North Tayside (Pete Wishart), who was reluctant to give others a chance to intervene.

There has been a serious oversight. Some people presume that their taking no decision on foundation hospitals because they are Scottish will not affect Scotland, but they agree with the Conservatives' proposal for the health service, which would affect services to the health service and British taxpayers. I do not live in that world; of course it will affect Scottish people. The cost of the alternative will impact on the taxation system, with a serious effect on the Scottish economy.

In 2000–01, out of 29.3 million taxpayers, 24.2 million lived in England and 2.49 million lived in Scotland. Any decision affecting the efficiency and delivery of a major service such as the health service has an impact on the rest of Britain. I have no right to decide for Scotland any more than the Scottish Parliament has a right to decide for here. I was not elected as a Member of the Scottish Parliament, but as a Member of the British Parliament, and I do not see myself as a Scottish MP—they are up in Holyrood—but as a British MP. So long as this House has a structure that entitles me to vote on issues that are significant not just for England but for the whole of the UK, that fact cannot be discounted.

My right hon. Friend the Member for Carrick, Cumnock and Doon Valley (Mr. Foulkes) referred to the in-and-out situation, and talked about trying to structure a system that would accommodate a vast number of changes. In addition, the Father of the House, my hon. Friend the Member for Linlithgow (Mr. Dalyell), made the point that it would be impossible to try to impose a structure on defence matters. On the surface, the proposals might look neat, tidy and effective, but we would run up against many problems. That would make a farce of the House of Commons and of Westminster; it would not be seen as an improvement.

My final point is that, while I note that five Members of this House believe that Scotland should be independent, we should remind ourselves why the Scottish Parliament came into existence; 18 years of decisions taken down here that affected Scotland. Now, Conservatives in Scotland with a seat in its Parliament are discredited because of decisions taken at that time. Nobody was rushing about then to set up a Scottish Parliament or to help out the Scots.

A range of issues needs to be addressed. If these are its proposals, the Conservative and Unionist party should think about dropping the word "Unionist". We should also consider that a way to bring balance to the situation is to give English MPs the opportunity to decide whether they want the same decision-making rights in this House that every other Member has. If colleagues want to set up an English Grand Committee, just as there is a Scottish Grand Committee, to review such matters, that should be considered. I do not see the suggestions that have been made today as a solution to the problem; I see them as a bit of mischief. They would cause many more problems than they would resolve.

I am delighted to follow the hon. Member for Central Fife (Mr. MacDougall) because he has got to the heart of the matter. I was elected as a Member of the United Kingdom Parliament. I am extremely proud as a Cornishman—a fellow Celt—to represent North Cornwall. As it stands—if we want to change things, we have to change the whole constitution—we are all Members of the United Kingdom Parliament. I do not say that on my own behalf alone; I say it with good historical reference.

"Parliament is not a congress of ambassadors from different and hostile interests; which interests each must maintain as an agent and advocate, against other agents and advocates; but Parliament is a deliberative assembly of one nation, with one interest, that of the whole; where, not local purposes, not local prejudices ought to guide, but the general good, resulting from the general of the whole. You choose a member indeed; but when you have chosen him, he is not member of Bristol, but he is a Member of Parliament."

So here we have Conservatives tearing up the political philosophy on which their party is based; the quote I just gave was from Edmund Burke in his address to the electors of Bristol in November 1774.

Sir Nicholas, you are a respected maintainer of the traditions of this House. I congratulate the hon. Member for North Wiltshire (Mr. Gray) on having introduced the debate; it is important for the matter to be brought into the open. However, the solutions that have been suggested are totally inappropriate.

Does my hon. Friend share my frustration that, on the one hand, Labour Members such as the hon. Member for Dumfries (Mr. Brown) argue against the logic of devolution by seeking to interfere on domestic matters on the other side of a line on a map while, on the other hand, Conservative Members introduce arguments that would undermine the integrity of the United Kingdom Parliament? Would not the logical conclusion be to offer to the people of England, Wales and Northern Ireland the same benefits of devolution that we enjoy in Scotland? That would ultimately lead to a federal system.

Not surprisingly, I entirely agree with my hon. Friend and I am sorry that he has not had the opportunity to contribute to the debate. In a moment I shall develop the precise argument to which he alludes. The arguments that the hon. Member for North Wiltshire advanced would apply to a different degree, I accept, to Welsh Members of this Parliament; or, to put it differently, Members elected by Welsh electors to the United Kingdom Parliament. What about London Members of Parliament or Northern Ireland Members? The arguments will apply to them, as has already been said.

I am particularly interested in Northern Ireland. My memory goes back some way, and I seem to recall that, in 1979, the then Leader of the Conservative party used the votes of Ulster Members of Parliament to bring down the then Labour Government, although there was a measure of devolution to Stormont in those days. [HoN. MEMBERS: "And the Scottish nationalists."] And the nationalists. In those days, my party and I were proud to be part of the United Kingdom Parliament, but are the Conservatives now saying that there are different gradations and that some people are half Members of Parliament and some are one-third Members of Parliament? Perhaps the Ulster Unionists in 1979 were two-thirds Members of Parliament. Were their votes to be counted in only that way? What fun for the accountants. How ridiculous.

Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

No, I am trying to make rapid progress because it is important for other Members to get in before we conclude.

The same has been true throughout Conservative Governments. The Conservatives have not faced such issues honestly because it served them well to use all the votes that they could lay their hands on to maintain themselves in government. When they had a small majority they were very keen to do that.

Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

The right hon. Gentleman must contain himself. I need to make progress.

It is surely only because Scotland is now, to all intents and purposes, and with the odd honourable exception, a Tory-free zone that the Conservatives have suddenly discovered this problem. I am delighted that they have accepted devolution, but they have not accepted the principle that devolution to some parts of the United Kingdom—as my hon. Friend the Member for Orkney and Shetland (Mr. Carmichael) rightly said—must lead us on to a proper federal constitution for this country. Conservatives say that they do not want a written constitution, but we have half a written constitution already. There have been 27 Acts of Parliament since 1997—I have them listed here, but I shall not read them out—that change the constitution of the United Kingdom. What we do not have is any comprehensive framework into which they fit.

The right hon. Member for North-West Hampshire (Sir George Young) was right to say that we are in a process and we should recognise that. We should not fiddle around with the arrangements in the House of Commons to deal with it, but ensure that the momentum continues so that we end up with not only a written constitution, but one that is fit for the 21st century.

In that context, clearly we have to have certain principles. One is the need to ensure that there is subsidiarity. It is a very ugly word, which John Major invented, but the concept is a good one; that decisions should be taken as closely as possible to the people whom they affect. That has now been put in statute by the Scotland Act 1998, the Government of Wales Act 1998 and the Greater London Authority Act 1999, but it is not there for other parts of the United Kingdom.

We in Cornwall are waiting our turn. We are patient, modest people and we will get that one day. But a complete written constitution and a federal basis will take some time, and it would he absurd to play around with the procedures of the House of Commons before we reach that point. As it stands at the moment, as the hon. Member for Central Fife rightly said, all of us here—every single one of us—were elected at the 2001 election as Members of the British Parliament, not Members of the English Parliament or half-time Members of the British Parliament. We were not elected Members of the Scottish Parliament—a good point that was made earlier—so we were not elected to second-guess what happens in the Scottish Parliament.

Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

No, I am coming to my conclusion because I want to be within my time.

The proposal is a short-sighted, self-interested attempt to turn the Burkean principle on its head. It is due not to the fact that the Conservatives have undertaken a careful analysis of the constitutional inadequacies that have changed things over those 200 years in Britain, but to the fact that they do not have the votes north of the border. That is the simple fact; let us be honest and come out with it. They never had the problem until they lost all their seats in Scotland; indeed, they never even saw the problem.

I am grateful for the opportunity to advance the case for an effective delineation of responsibilities within our constitution, a federal constitution. We are half way there already. The F-word is there already in Britain and we should recognise the fact. We should go further and ensure that we have a comprehensive analysis of how best to incorporate subsidiarity at all levels of the British constitution, to the benefit of all our constituents.

I was interested in the thoughtful speech by the right hon. Member for North-West Hampshire and hope that he will have some effect on his Front Bench. The public both need and deserve a proper blueprint of accountability. That is what a constitution should do and that is what we need. When we have it, we can deal with the problem and many others besides.

I am delighted to respond to this debate; such a huge turnout of Scottish Members so soon after Hogmanay is truly remarkable. I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for North Wiltshire (Mr. Gray) on bringing forward this debate. Whichever side of the debate one happens to be on, it is a debate that must be had. There is a constitutional issue that we must discuss, and this strikes me as a positive and helpful way of doing so. We have heard some helpful contributions, particularly from my right hon. Friend the Member for North-West Hampshire (Sir George Young).

The locus of the debate, as has rightly been said, is neither Scottish MPs and Scotland, nor England and English MPs; rather, it is the future of our United Kingdom. In response to the hon. Member for Dumfries (Mr. Brown), I say that I am very much a unionist. I believe in the success of the United Kingdom. I want it to continue, I want it to be stable and I want it to work. That is why I want us to address the problem today, as well as the West Lothian question, which was raised so long ago.

The fundamental issue is that many hon. Members, particularly Labour Back Benchers, want to have their cake and eat it. They argued for devolution in the late 1990s, when, as I accept, we were against it. However, the Scottish people want devolution and that is their settled will. We must now go forward and complete the process of devolution, of which this debate is a part.

We are addressing some parts of completing devolution; I am delighted that the number of Members of the Scottish Parliament is to be reduced from 72 to 59. My hon. Friend the Member for North Wiltshire rightly said that there were too many politicians in Scotland, and I have been using that line for many months now. There are too many MPs in Scotland and we are overrepresented. We needed 72 Members of Parliament because of the different legal system in Scotland, so, proportionately, we needed more to get that legislative programme through. The number was right then, but it is wrong now. It is time for the Government to make a clear statement that they intend to implement the boundary commission's proposals before the next general election, and to do so without any further delay.

Why has the issue been brought into focus today? The reason is recent rebellions by Labour Back Benchers, which have tightened the electoral balance. On issues such as foundation hospitals, the West Lothian question has actually made a difference for the first time in many a long year. The Labour party in Scotland is fundamentally opposed to foundation hospitals and yet, as my hon. Friend the Member for North Wiltshire pointed out, many Members saw fit to troop through the Lobby as Tony's lapdogs; lobby fodder, as many papers characterised them. It is not acceptable for English legislation to be forced on the English electorate by Scottish Members of Parliament who do not have to answer for that legislation. I remind hon. Members that in that vote Scottish Members were proportionally more loyal to the Government than English Members were. I wonder why that might be. Could it be that they do not have to answer to their electorates for the policy?

The next crisis will be top-up fees; the higher education Bill will be the next potential constitutional outrage, as my hon. Friend the Member for South Suffolk (Mr. Yeo) pointed out in a recent debate. The Government face the prospect of being saved from electoral disaster by Members of Parliament from Scotland.

It has already been suggested that the Bill will have a cross-border effect. The hon. Member for North Tayside (Pete Wishart) is on record as saying that it will have a substantial cross-border effect in higher education. I accept that wholeheartedly, but English Members of Parliament were not able to vote on the question of tuition fees when it came before the Scottish Parliament. That is the fundamental issue. If the Bill has no legislative, non-devolved effect, I shall vote. However, even though that seems unlikely, I shall not "sit on my hands", as the hon. Gentleman put it. Instead, I shall actively campaign for all Labour Members of Parliament in Scotland not to vote, so that we do not inflict that disastrous legislation on English students.

The hon. Gentleman clearly stated in a press release that he would not be voting on that Bill. However, in the same press release he said that when the vote on top-up fees came around, Scottish MPs would have to decide whether to vote in the interests of their constituents. Will he not be neglecting the interests of his constituents, keeping in mind the fact that he fully supports the Crichton campus in Dumfries and Galloway? There will be a knock-on effect, yet he says that he will sit on his hands and not vote.

I am happy to confirm that. The hon. Gentleman knows of my support for the Crichton campus. However, he must accept that devolution has changed the United Kingdom. If I were a parent in Scotland sending my child to an English university, I would not be able to influence top-up tuition fee policy in England; but England does not have the legislative ability to effect the same policy in Scotland. That is the crisis. Labour Members are refuseniks; they refuse to accept that a problem exists, because it is in their electoral interests to do so.

Will the hon. Gentleman explain his position on the views of his hon. Friend the Member for North Wiltshire (Mr. Gray), who has indicated a nationalist position on the structure of Parliament, and whether being a Westminster MP is the same as being an English nationalist MP?

The hon. Gentleman is mistaken. I made it clear that I am a Unionist Member of Parliament. I represent my constituents. I will continue to participate in all legislation that is not devolved to the Scottish Parliament. I accept that devolution has changed the United Kingdom, but the hon. Gentleman and other Labour Members refuse to do so.

I was interested also in the reference to my ability to scrutinise the Government. I fully participate in early-day motions, and I make contributions in the Chamber. However, I disagree with my hon. Friend the Member for North Wiltshire. If I feel the need to contribute to the debate on top-up fees, illustrating my point with a Scottish example, I would feel free to convey that point of view. But I believe that it is fundamentally wrong to participate in debates on legislation that is devolved to the Scottish Parliament.

The right hon. Member for Carrick, Cumnock and Doon Valley (Mr. Foulkes), who has left the Chamber, pointed out the difficulty that some Bills are only partially devolved. That is why my hon. Friends pointed out that it is possible to introduce a certification process to identify which Bills are effective in Scotland and which are not. For myself, if a Bill contains any provision that is not devolved, I shall participate on Second and Third Reading but I will not participate in debates on amendments about matters that are not devolved. That position is understood by the Scottish electorate, as was made clear in a poll run by The Herald, in which a majority said that they would be supportive of Scottish Members of Parliament not taking part in such debates.

The solution is absolutely clear. Devolution needs stability to succeed. We in the Scottish Conservative and Unionist party have accepted that devolution is the will of the Scottish people, and that it needs to work. The only alternative is the destructive nationalist solution.

If every Bill were certified by the Speaker, we could ensure that Scottish MPs' participation was transparent. It is possible to establish by convention that Scottish MPs will not participate, and the next Conservative Government will act accordingly if they are unable to establish a consensus. The Scottish nationalist position is untenable. They have effectively established a procedure whereby they will only vote in English matters that will cost the English taxpayer more because they will provide more money to the Scottish Executive. That is unethical, unjustified and unstable.

The hon. Member for Linlithgow (Mr. Dalyell) originally set out his argument in his book, "Devolution: The End of Britain?" I disagree with his thesis. I believe that devolution can work and need not be the end of the United Kingdom, but we need to address the difficult issues that are part of devolution, not just the easy ones.

Before the Minister responds, I thank Members for their co-operation. So far, this has been a lively, interesting and entertaining debate.

I hope that it continues to be a lively and interesting debate, Sir Nicholas.

I congratulate the hon. Member for North Wiltshire (Mr. Gray) on raising this issue, and take this opportunity to congratulate him on his recent prize from the Royal College of Defence Studies for his thesis on "Crown vs Parliament: Who Decides on Going to War". His interest in constitutional issues is longstanding. I see from his website that he wants "a fair deal on the Constitution" and "a stronger, more authoritative Parliament".

That is the end of the compliments; I now move on to the hon. Gentleman's argument. He is attempting, either intentionally or unintentionally, to send out a message to the country that the Labour party does not have a majority of seats in England. In fact, it has an overwhelming majority of the seats in England; we control 323 out of 529. The conclusion that Labour Members in Scotland are imposing anything on the English people should not be drawn from this debate. The English people voted Labour, as did the Scottish people.

That being the case, I presume that he is quite content for there to be English votes on English matters.

I am surprised that a Conservative Member who has always, I understand, adhered to the idea that a Member of the United Kingdom Parliament should put country first, constituency second and party third, should attempt to turn that on its head. The consequence of his argument would be a breakdown of the power of this Parliament's sovereignty. It is interesting that he should do that at this juncture.

The hon. Gentleman's argument misunderstands the role of the Member of Parliament. We are not here just as representatives of our constituencies on some sort of delegative or representative basis, but to make judgments and take decisions on behalf of the whole of the UK. To accept the logic of his argument is to say that I, as a Member based in Greater Manchester, should have no say on, for example, the future of airports in south-east England; yet the future of Heathrow airport has a direct and important bearing on my constituency. The idea that we should have two levels of Members of Parliament with different status and powers would fundamentally undermine the power of this sovereign Parliament.

Does my hon. Friend agree that the most worrying aspect of this matter is the rise of English nationalism, with the support of Scottish and Welsh nationalism, and that we now have only one unionist party in the House, the Labour party?

I certainly agree with my hon. Friend that the Labour party is upholding parliamentary sovereignty and democracy. I do not believe that it is the intention of the hon. Member for North Wiltshire to engage in English nationalism.

In a very thoughtful speech, the right hon. Member for North-West Hampshire (Sir George Young) quoted the Procedure Committee. I should bring to the attention of the House the conclusion of its report in May 1999, which said that it was undesirable to have Members with different roles, different responsibilities and different rights in this Parliament. The Government agree, and to go down that road would lead to disaster in the long term.

It is said that real power can only be taken, not given. The lesson of devolution diminishes the truth of that remark. This sovereign Parliament, representative of the people of the whole of the United Kingdom, gave the decision about whether the Scottish people would choose devolution. In September 1997, they chose devolution, not just after 18 years of imposition from a Conservative majority representing England, not just after 30 years of the West Lothian question, a phrase that I think was first coined by Enoch Powell in that debate, but after 300 years of a United Kingdom settlement.

The Act of Union of 1707 gave Scotland 45 seats in the new 558-seat Parliament of what was then Great Britain. The idea of Scotland being put upon by England is not a recent phenomenon; it has been around since 1707.

In the referendum decision, in which all Members of Parliament took part, whether or not their point of view prevailed, the settlement of the United Kingdom shifted. Today, Conservative Members—not accepting the consequences of devolution—are trying to rewrite the arithmetic of the sovereign Parliament of the United Kingdom. The arguments are new and opportunistic, and they were not heard when the Conservatives were in government.

Power was given and the Government recognise that that has presented a debate and anomalies. There are anomalies within the United Kingdom; we are a kingdom of nations. There will always be anomalies where there is the United Kingdom. The conservative thinker, Ferdinand Mount, criticised the Conservatives with two valid points. He said:

"MPs are constantly voting on Bills which do not apply to them or their constituents. Membership of any political community entails acceptance of its anomalies."

Some anomalies could be corrected, but he also said that

"other anomalies follow from the uneven asymmetrical nature of all existing society and so must be endured; the maturity of our political culture is to be measured very largely by the extent to which this is understood."

John Major described the proposal as one that would lead to constitutional chaos because of the nature of the United Kingdom, where we have a nation within a nation, Scotland. It is no good the hon. Member for North Tayside (Pete Wishart) saying that the Scottish people have not had a say in the matter. The Scottish people took a decision for devolution in the knowledge that it would lead to what the hon. Member for North Wiltshire sees as an anomaly. That is the nature of our United Kingdom.

The Government will not listen to what we consider to be a bogus argument from the hon. Member for North Wiltshire. The bottom line is; are hon. Members equal? Yes, they are. Does the party able to command a majority in Parliament form the Executive? Yes, it does. The logical consequence of his position is that we would have a legislature where there was a majority of one party in England different from the majority in Scotland, as was the case between 1974 and 1976. That would lead to Executive power being held in England by one party and Executive power being held in Scotland by another. That is why we have strange bedfellows, with the independence party in Scotland coming together with what is supposedly the Conservative and Unionist party. I reject the proposition of the hon. Member for North Wiltshire and I would ask the House to reject it totally.

I am pleased to have the opportunity to introduce a debate today on this important subject. The acronym ISOLUS stands for interim storage of laid-up submarines. The purpose of the project is to reach a conclusion on how to dispose of our old, decommissioned nuclear submarines.

In days gone by, the Navy took a much simpler approach. Decommissioning old equipment or ammunition was often simply a case of sailing out to sea and tossing the ammunition over the side of the ship. The principle out of sight, out of mind, clearly applied. Fortunately, these days we are much more concerned about the environment.

The Ministry of Defence has 27 nuclear-powered submarines, 16 of which are in service and 11 of which have already been taken out of service. The spent nuclear fuel is removed from the reactors when the submarines are taken out of service. However, that still leaves the reactor compartment, which contains radioactive materials and other toxic substances. The 11 submarines that have been taken out of service are stored afloat. Seven are stored at Rosyth and four at Devonport. Afloat storage uses the structure of the submarine and its reactor compartment as a means of containing the radioactive waste, so shielding the outside world from the radiation.

Obviously, the crew lived in the submarine when it was in service, so there is no doubt that the reactor compartment safely contains the radiation. The submarines are therefore clearly safe afloat. By 2012, however, a sizeable number of other submarines will have come out of service and there will no longer be space at the existing berths to store them afloat. Berthing space is available at No. 4 basin in Devonport as a possible option if the afloat storage policy must continue after 2012. That basin has the capacity to store another 11 vessels, which would provide afloat storage space until 2037.

When the submarines were conceived, the Government of the day, back in the 1950s, planned to dispose of them according to the traditional out of sight, out of mind principle. That meant taking the submarines out to the Atlantic and scuttling them. By 1993, however, the possibility of dumping them at sea was finally ruled out by the London dumping convention, which prohibits the dumping at sea of radioactive material.

Before the first nuclear submarines were decommissioned, the MOD had adopted a policy of temporary afloat storage at Rosyth and Devonport. It anticipated final disposal in an underground deep-waster repository. In 1997, however, the Nirex proposal for an underground laboratory in Cumbria to prepare for a national repository was rejected. That decision, and the prospect of running out of berths for the decommissioned submarines, led to the ISOLUS project. The MOD commissioned Lancaster university to carry out a consultation exercise.

The first stage in any disposal process involves removing the reactor compartment from the submarine. The rest of the submarine is safe and can be broken up for scrap. There are then two options, one of which is to store the reactor compartment intact until most of the radioactivity has decayed, which is estimated to take about 60 years. The French and United States Governments have chosen that option. It is important to note that the reactor compartment is very large. It is about the size of two double-decker buses, so transporting it to a storage site would clearly be cumbersome and would also require a large burial chamber. That is the disadvantage of that option, but it has the advantage that it avoids any risks involved in opening up the reactor compartment, so that there is no danger of the radiation getting out into the atmosphere.

The second option is to go further after removing the reactor compartment from the submarine: to break it open and to separate it into free release material, low-level radioactive waste and intermediate-level radioactive waste. The intermediate-level waste causes the main problem. It has to be securely packaged and then stored in a secure facility.

Four companies have submitted proposals that are being investigated by Lancaster university as part of the consultation project. I believe that the consultation is too restrictive, because it is based simply on the proposals put forward by the private sector. In addition to considering the proposals put forward by the private sector, the Government should themselves be researching the safest and most environmentally friendly solution. A fifth company had also submitted a proposal. Its intention had been to break up the submarines at Ardyne Point, in my constituency, but it quickly pulled out after a public outcry.

It should also be noted that one of the other options originally proposed breaking up the submarines at Nigg, in Easter Ross. However, the owners of that yard also quickly pulled out after a public outcry. It is clear that the private sector is wary of getting involved in the nuclear decommissioning business.

It is also obvious that the private sector is driven by its commercial interests. The operators of two of the dockyards where submarines are laid up—Babcock at Rosyth and Devonport Management Ltd. at Devonport—have both put forward proposals. However, it is clear that their main commercial interest is getting the submarines moved away from their existing sites at Devonport and Rosyth.

I want briefly to consider DML's proposal. In its submission, DML notes that it has the skilled work force to carry out the work, but it also notes that the dockyard is close to residential areas. DML therefore proposes to cut out the reactor components and to transport them to another site for storage. It wants to remove them to a site that is

"remote from residential and commercial areas".

The chosen site is a long way from Devonport, at Dounreay on the north coast of Scotland. Again, the old out of sight, out of mind principle seems to be coming to the fore. It is important to bear it in mind that such a proposal involves carrying the large, cumbersome reactor compartments with the radioactive waste inside. They would have to be carried on the long journey from the south coast of England to the north coast of Scotland.

One of the other submissions is from Babcock, which operates the dockyard at Rosyth. Babcock makes it clear that it wants rid of the submarines from Rosyth as quickly as possible. It has also refused to allow the radioactive waste to be stored on site at Rosyth, either within the intact reactor components or as packaged radioactive waste. Babcock gave local public concern as one reason for that. However, Babcock does not seem to be bothered that there might also be public concern in the part of the country where the waste ends up.

Clearly both DML and Babcock are acting in their commercial interests. They have been happy to accept work from the MOD that has involved dealing with nuclear material, but as soon as they see no more commercial benefit they want rid of the submarines and the waste, and they want to send them as far away as they can.

Babcock has suggested Sellafield or Coulport as possible locations for storing the packaged intermediate-level radioactive waste. Coulport is on the east side of Loch Long. It is not in my constituency, but the west side of the loch is and the villagers on the west side—in Ardentinny, Strone and Blairmore—are extremely concerned at the suggestion of using Coulport to store that radioactive waste. The waste would be stored in large sheds, built on the hillside, and my constituents are naturally concerned at the prospect of large sheds of radioactive waste being sited just across the loch from their homes.

I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for indicating in advance that he would accept an intervention. I understand the concerns that his constituents have, but is it not incumbent on us as Members of Parliament to remind everyone that we have had nuclear facilities on the Clyde for many years, in a generating capacity and in a defence capability? Thanks to strict safety and security protocols, as well as the excellence of the workers, many of whom are our constituents, we have not had any incidents. While we recognise that there are concerns, we must also say that we have a long history of dealing with nuclear materials very safely in this country.

The hon. Gentleman makes an important point. I want to stress that I am not arguing against the presence of the existing nuclear base at Faslane or the royal naval armaments depot at Coulport. I was planning, as I developed my argument, to point out that Coulport does not act as a store for radioactive waste.

The 2002 inventory of radioactive waste published by Nirex lists only 1 cu m of radioactive waste having been produced at Coulport, whereas the proposal from Babcock would involve thousands of cubic metres of radioactive waste being stored in large sheds. Although nuclear submarines visit Coulport, and rearmament takes place there, there are not large stores of radioactive waste. This is a different proposal altogether. The building of such large sheds on the hillside and the storage of radioactive waste for long periods are cause for concern.

I do not see the argument for taking radioactive waste to a site that is not used as a store for radioactive waste. Managing radioactive waste and storing it safely involve problems. If the waste is to be moved, I would suggest that it should be moved to a site that has experience of managing large quantities of radioactive waste. It should not be taken to a new site. Coulport is on the edge of the new Loch Lomond and the Trossachs national park, where tourism is being encouraged. I do not think that constructing large sheds to store radioactive waste will encourage tourism in the area.

There was a very rowdy public meeting in the village of Strone as part of the consultation exercise. Babcock's representative was asked why the radioactive waste could not be stored safely at Rosyth, where the submarines would be broken up. One of the principles of the civil nuclear power programme is that the waste from civil nuclear power stations is stored on site. Storing at Rosyth would avoid the hazards of transporting the waste to Coulport. Babcock's answer was that the radioactive waste could not be stored at Rosyth. However, after further questioning, it appeared that "would not" was more accurate than "could not".

It certainly was my impression, and that of those at the meeting, that Babcock's view that the waste could not be stored at Rosyth was not based on any belief that storage there would be unsafe, or on a lack of storage capacity, but on the ground that the Government had already agreed with Babcock that the submarines and all the waste would be moved from Rosyth. I ask the Minister to let the House know whether an agreement between the Government and Babcock exists to the effect that the submarines and all the waste will be removed from Rosyth.

There are several possible solutions. One, in the intermediate term, is to continue with afloat storage. The No. 4 basin at Devonport would provide enough storage space until 2037. That would give more time to research a solution. Another option is to break up the submarines and store the reactor components intact at the sites where they are currently berthed. Another possibility is to break up the reactor components and either store the packaged waste at the sites where the submarines are berthed or transport the packaged waste to another site where radioactive waste is stored and managed. There could be other options. One that should be firmly ruled out is using sites where radioactive waste is not currently stored. That simply adds to the job of managing and guarding the radioactive waste.

By restricting the consultations to private sector schemes, the MOD will not necessarily find the best solution. The private sector is either wary of getting involved, as the experiences of the owners of the yards at Nigg and Ardyne Point demonstrated, or has its own agenda, such as in respect of Babcock and DML, which simply want the submarines and the waste away from their own yards. The Government should investigate and identify the safest and most environmentally friendly solution. The private sector could then be asked to implement the selected scheme.

Another important point is that the MOD should not act in isolation from the rest of the Government. The radioactive waste generated by the MOD is only a tiny fraction of the radioactive waste in the country, most of which comes from civil nuclear power stations. The ISOLUS exercise should not stand for isolation. The project should not be isolated from the civil decommissioning programme, but integrated in it. The recently published Energy Bill provides for the establishment of a national decommissioning authority. That authority will be the correct body to oversee the decommissioning of all nuclear waste in the country.

In conclusion, the way forward is for Project ISOLUS to be taken over by the new NDA. MOD waste should be disposed of as part of a national strategy, not dealt with by the MOD in isolation.

I congratulate the hon. Member for Argyll and Bute (Mr. Reid) on securing this debate on Project ISOLUS. I hope that you have not had a surfeit of Scottish accents in this debate and the preceding debate, Sir Nicholas. The earlier debate was illuminating, and it shows the strength of the UK Parliament when Scottish Members debate matters that are important for the UK.

Project ISOLUS embraces a commitment to consult widely and to follow best practice. As the hon. Gentleman said, an independent institution, Lancaster university, was appointed to formulate and run the consultation process. As a result, we have asked the public to review the outline ideas put forward by Lancaster university. The process is up-front and transparent, and I hope that the hon. Gentleman recognises and welcomes that.

Of course, the hon. Gentleman raises understandable and legitimate concerns, which I shall address later. However, I would first like to set out the background to the project. Britain's nuclear submarines have patrolled the world for more than 40 years, and they are a potent and effective force that is central to our country's defence. As well as the ability to strike against ships and submarines and to support land operations, the Vanguard class ensures that our policy of nuclear deterrence is met. However, as those submarines come to the end of their life, we owe it to future generations to ensure that we can safely store them until a national radioactive waste management policy is finalised.

As the hon. Gentleman said, 11 redundant nuclear submarines are stored afloat—seven at Rosyth and four at Devonport. For some 20 years, that has been proved to be safe and it continues to be so. All those submarines have been de-fuelled, with all the highly radioactive material removed to secure storage by British Nuclear Fuels Ltd. at Sellafield in Cumbria.

I stress this important point: Project ISOLUS is not concerned with reactor fuel or high-level radioactive waste. There has been too much misreporting and misunderstanding on that point, and I hope that this debate helps to set the record straight. The submarines, minus their fuel, are regularly inspected and maintained. The residual irradiated steel in the submarine's reactor plant compartment is classified as intermediate level waste and must be managed accordingly. It is contained within the hull, and the robust shielding ensures that radioactivity on the outside of the submarine is so small that it is not measurable against normal background radiation levels. Indeed, standing outside the hull of one of those de-fuelled submarines continuously for 20 days has a similar effect to flying to California once. Leaving the irradiated steel within submarines stored afloat is therefore very safe. It presents no direct hazard to the work force, general public or surrounding environment.

Under current plans, however, a further 16 nuclear submarines will be withdrawn from service and de-fuelled over the coming years and the availability of suitable space is heavily constrained. We are committed to not adding to the seven submarines stored at Rosyth, and the basin space at Devonport will be used up by 2012. The hon. Gentleman referred to the additional basin at Devonport as though his solution were to impose the matter somewhere else in the country away from his area. However, the additional basin is tidal and is therefore not suitable.

With sea dumping not being an option, alternative long-term interim storage must be found. That is why we have instituted Project ISOLUS. I emphasise that we are seeking a suitable interim arrangement, which does not prejudge the options for a national radioactive waste management policy being considered by the Department for the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs and the devolved Administrations. That will no doubt be debated in the course of the progress through the House of the Energy Bill.

It will be some years before that policy is set. Because we face physical storage pressures, we have to act in advance of it. What we are doing is necessary, sensible and transparent. There is no hidden agenda, as some would have us believe. In 1998, the Government approved phase 1 of ISOLUS to look at alternatives to storage afloat. We concluded that intermediate level waste—either within a complete reactor plant compartment or reduced to packaged waste—provided the best overall interim solution. Storing whole submarines on land is not viable; they are far too big and difficult to move any distance when out of the water.

Following expressions of interest from industry during 2000, five outline commercial and technical proposals were received in May of last year, one of which was subsequently withdrawn. The proposals are not exhaustive and other options could arise. In addition, the industry continues to develop and refine ideas. Storing the reactor compartments complete, with the irradiated steel contained within them, has its merits, but the compartments are large, as the hon. Gentleman said.

Cutting up the reactor compartments and packaging the irradiated steel within them makes transportation easier and reduces the storage space required, but requires additional measures to ensure that the work is undertaken safely. Either route must, of course, be underwritten by appropriate safety cases and secure the approval of the Health and Safety Executive's nuclear installations inspectorate. The agreement of the Environment Agency or the Scottish Environment Protection Agency must also be obtained if radioactive discharges are involved.

We retain an open mind on a way forward. No decision has been taken, nor will one be taken for some three years, during which there will be another period of public consultation. We have made it clear throughout that public consultation is an important aspect of the ISOLUS project and I will describe how we are going about it. The first of the three planned consultation rounds took place in 2001. The front-end consultation, as it was known, was conducted by Lancaster university, and 65 recommendations were put forward to the Ministry of Defence, covering a variety of issues that the public believed should be considered further.

One of the recommendations supported the decision to discontinue afloat storage; we have embraced that and all the others except one. We have clearly set out why we are unable to accept that particular recommendation. Key among the recommendations accepted were the continuation of a policy of openness and trust with the public and that nuclear and environmental safety is paramount.

I agree strongly with my right hon. Friend that the safety of our constituents must be paramount. He will know that Labour Members have taken a keen interest in the issue since the beginning of the consultation and, were it not for the fact that my hon. Friend the Member for Dunfermline, West (Rachel Squire) is on a Select Committee visit, she would also be here today. We are shortly to have a meeting with our colleague in the other place about it. Would he also agree that it is important that the agencies not only protect our constituents' safety, but that they are seen to do so, and would he give his commitment to making sure that in the final stages of the consultation that commitment is clear and open, as we would all like it to be?

I think that I can give those guarantees. I know that my hon. Friend has been closely engaged in the matter. She has followed it not only because of her constituents' interest but because she is interested in the subject as well. I understand that, with my hon. Friend the Member for Dunfermline, West (Rachel Squire), she will be meeting my noble Friend Lord Bach, who has direct responsibility for the matter, and I am sure that the issues that she has just raised will be discussed. The need to guarantee public safety remains a high priority, and the agencies that are involved also become important players in both the process of consultation and the final determination. Their views will have a significant impact on any decision. I completely take on board my hon. Friend's point.

For the latest round of consultation, we again engaged Lancaster university to advise on and run the process, and my noble Friend Lord Bach wrote to all those hon. Members whose constituencies would be involved, offering informal meetings in advance of the formal consultations. I understand that several, including the hon. Member for Argyll and Bute, took him up on his offer. Lancaster university organised public events in consultation with local authorities in all the areas that could be affected by the industry's proposals. The hon. Gentleman referred to the stormy meeting in Strone. It is always stormy in Strone. However, as I want it to do well with tourism, I had better say that it is very sunny on occasion as well.

Clearly, the meetings generated a great deal of public debate. Part of the underlying drive of Project ISOLUS was to initiate such debate. That we asked the public to review outline ideas did lead to some misunderstanding, which allowed ill-informed views to gain currency. For example, there were suggestions that a decision had already been taken on how and where the defuelled submarines would be processed and where the waste from the reactor compartment would be stored. I assure the House that that is not the case. No decisions have been made. We are still consulting on and considering the options.

If the ongoing consideration of the options is because of the problem with lack of space at Rosyth, I have what I hope is a helpful suggestion for the Minister. Instead of assembling the aircraft carriers, which would take a huge amount of space, in Rosyth, would it not be better to assemble them at the infinitely superior dry dock at Greenock, thereby freeing up space at Rosyth to restore submarines in the future?

My hon. Friend, who also takes a very close interest in the matter, should just keep arguing away. He may get a Christmas present. Who knows? That will depend on the quality of the argument, not on the relationship that he has drawn. If we build warships, we must build them through quality, not because of displacing effort elsewhere. As he well knows, we have not come to a final conclusion as to where all the construction for our warship programme will take place. That is why I advise him to keep the pressure on. He is very good at that.

We have learned lessons from the consultation exercise and have received useful proposals on how the process can be improved. They will be taken forward in the next consultation, and we expect them to be incorporated in the proposals of whatever organisation is selected to advise on, and run, the process for us.

Where does the project go from here? Lancaster university is analysing the outcome of the latest consultations with the intention of issuing a report and recommendations to which the Ministry of Defence will formally respond. As with the front-end consultation, both the Lancaster university report and our response to it will be made public. That should happen in the early part of next year. As I made clear earlier, there may be refinement of, and revision to, the existing bids, or a new option may emerge. If it has merit, we will undertake further public consultation.

We have been criticised for appearing to let industry drive the debate. Again, that is not the case. The expertise and skills required in dismantling submarines and storing the radioactive waste lie in the private sector, and its involvement is essential if that is to be successful. The form that the relationship will take is still being decided, but it is clear that a close partnership will be needed between the MOD and the contractor. The procurement strategies under consideration for the final stage are private finance initiative, partnering and prime contracting. Of course, the input of industrial expertise is essential.

Informed by the public consultation, we will complete our evaluation of the outline proposals and determine which ones warrant further development. The selected companies will then be invited to begin more detailed negotiations, which are expected to last some three years, during which the Ministry and the companies will work together to develop the proposed solutions in greater detail. At the end of that process and following a further round of public consultation, a preferred bidder, storage solution and site will be announced.

We must deal with this complex issue. We are doing so in a constructive, open and careful way. I hope that the hon. Member for Argyll and Bute is prepared to recognise that such matters of national importance cannot be driven by the narrow perspective of "not in my backyard".

I have been seeking to introduce this debate since visiting the technology centre, located in Peterborough, of a Reading company, MicroGen Energy. I am therefore pleased to have secured today's discussion on this important topic.

Peterborough, as is well known, is one of only four environment cities in the country, so it is very appropriate that the facility for this technology is based in the city and in its environs, in the constituency represented by the right hon. Member for North-West Cambridgeshire (Sir Brian Mawhinney). Does my hon. Friend think that Government assistance for this technology could help the United Kingdom to become a world leader and develop a UK lead in the manufacture of this boiler? I am very grateful to MicroGen for allowing my hon. Friend and me to visit the centre.

I thank my hon. Friend for her intervention and for helping to arrange the visit to the site close to Peterborough. I believe that the UK could become a world leader in the manufacture of this technology, and I shall return to that.

The Government have accepted that human beings and their activities have an impact on our environment. An increasing number of Government policies have been introduced with the aim of reducing our impact on our climate and achieving our Kyoto targets for reductions in CO₂ emissions. I must say, with some disappointment, that what the Government have done has not always been in harmony with those targets. I refer to the subject of previous debates and the purchase of air conditioning systems. Numerous Departments, including the Treasury, have installed air conditioning units during recent building projects that are contrary to the Government's own climate change policy. I make no apology for taking the opportunity to raise that matter when a Treasury Minister was able to respond to me in person.

To give credit to the Treasury, however, a number of measures have been introduced to help to influence people's behaviour towards activities that do not encourage climate change, and away from those that cause it. Those include the climate change levy, the emissions trading scheme and the use of taxes on road transport, which is where the emission of climate change gasses is growing most quickly. However, I must say, by the by, that I am disappointed that the fuel duty escalator was abandoned some considerable time ago, and I would like to ask the Minister whether that, or something similar, could be reintroduced in the next Budget or in the near future. Perhaps I digress.

The urgency with which we must deal with this problem is shown by just two pieces of evidence of the impact that we are having on the environment: four of the five warmest years recorded in England since records began in 1772 were after 1990, and a UK record temperature of 38.1° Celsius was recorded in Kent on 10 August last year. In 2002, numerous local and regional records were set for windstorms, rain intensities, floods, droughts and temperatures.

My debate today is on tax and other financial incentives for home combined heat and power. I have shown that there is an accepted problem of climate change, that the Government have agreed to international treaties to take action against it, that they have policies and programmes to tackle the problem, and that the Treasury has accepted the use of fiscal measures to encourage the development and use of measures and technologies that do not effect climate change. Figures from the House of Commons Library show that 27 per cent. of carbon dioxide emissions are from domestic sources. To achieve the energy White Paper targets of a 20 per cent. reduction in CO₂ emissions by 2020 and a 60 per cent. reduction by 2050, the domestic sector must play its part.

I have pointed out that this debate arose following a visit to see the technology of a Reading-based firm last September, but I want to make it clear that, although I secured the debate following contact with a firm in my constituency, I am talking about not only that company, but support for the technology.

In preparing for the debate, I contacted other firms involved in developing home CHP. Of course, support for home CHP technology will assist the firm in my constituency but, as I said, I am lobbying in favour of the technology. The energy White Paper states that the cheapest, cleanest and safest way of addressing our energy policy objectives is to use less energy. Some 27 per cent. of carbon dioxide emissions come from households, so households have an important part to play. Half of all domestic CO₂ comes from boilers, despite the growth in the more efficient condensing boilers.

Micro-CHP is a home heating and power system—one boiler that can generate heat and light. It can contribute to four policy goals of the energy White Paper. First, it reduces CO₂ by at least 1.5 tonnes per household per annum. Secondly, when aimed at the mass market, it provides a highly diversified generating source, reducing winter peak demand on the grid and enhancing security of supply, which is obviously welcome when there is concern about the future electricity supply. Thirdly, it provides adequate and affordable home heating, even in homes that are hard to heat, and reduces energy bills by some £150 a year, which makes it the heating system with the lowest lifetime cost. Fourthly, it helps to improve our competitiveness, as the UK is at the forefront of the technology.

If only a quarter of heating systems installed between now and 2020 were micro-CHP, they would provide half the energy White Paper's carbon-saving targets for domestic energy efficiency. At the same time, that would provide the equivalent of 40 per cent. of today's nuclear capacity, and would provide significant, secure and diverse generating capacity.

Micro-CHP has all that going for it, so why do I seek tax and other fiscal incentives for home—or micro—CHP? Micro-CHP boilers offer average savings of £150 a year and are cheaper than other boilers over the full lifetime, but they are more expensive to buy, as most new technology tends to be. They also suffer from anomalies in the tax system. There is 5 per cent. VAT on the use of energy, but 17.5 per cent. VAT on the purchase of micro-CHP. Market research carried out for MicroGen, the micro-CHP manufacturer in my constituency, shows that customers are excited by the technology and are attracted to the energy savings as well as the idea of independence and control over power and fuel supply, but they do not value the environmental benefit highly.

In addition, installers like to install known technology and are risk averse. Most importantly, perhaps, customers are disproportionately influenced by upfront costs. We should remember that most people do not plan to buy a new boiler. More often than not, buying a new boiler is a distress purchase and people are unhappy about it.

The cost has a great impact on the purchase of a boiler, and the tax system encourages the use of energy rather than investment in technology that reduces energy use. Would it make a difference if the VAT on a new boiler was reduced to 5 per cent? Evidence from two different sources suggests that it would. Condensing boilers were introduced to the Dutch market in 1980. There were environmental benefits to installing the boilers and they were cheaper to run. They were also more expensive to buy. Throughout the 1980s, sales of condensing boilers in Holland accounted for about 10 per cent. of annual gas boiler sales. In 1989, however, a major subsidy scheme was launched and, within six years, condensing boilers accounted for nearly 50 per cent. of all gas boiler sales. Then, building regulations were introduced requiring the introduction of condensing boilers. That saw sales in Holland reach more than 90 per cent. last year.

Contrast that with the UK. In 1990, sales in the UK were also running at about 10 per cent. Following awareness campaigns, voluntary agreements and low-level subsidies throughout the 1990s, they still accounted for 10 per cent. of Centrica's gas boiler sales. New boilers are bought only every 15 years or more. Imagine all those less-efficient boilers installed through the 1980s and 1990s that are still with us. Think of the people trying to heat homes who are spending more money than they should. Think of the carbon dioxide we have emitted that need not have been emitted.

The second set of evidence relates to the UK experience. As I said, in 2001 condensing boilers accounted for 10 per cent. of Centrica's central heating sales. This year, after two years of the price-matching scheme, which offered condensing boilers for the same price as conventional, sales of condensing boilers have more than tripled and account for an average of 35 per cent. of all sales. This is clear: fiscal incentives to encourage people to invest in boilers that save families money, help the environment and help to secure safe generating capacity work.

There is another fiscal incentive that could play a large part in developing a market. Registered social landlords purchase and install boilers in large numbers. The change that would most help to develop a market in this area relates to enhanced capital allowances, because registered social landlords typically do not purchase new boilers, but lease them. Enhanced capital allowances would help to make the boilers more competitive for registered social landlords and would help residents of social housing to benefit from reduced heating costs, as well as to play their part in reducing our carbon dioxide emissions.

What would be the cost to the Treasury of such measures? Estimates—again for MicroGen—show that if nothing is done, around 150,000 CHP boilers will be sold by 2010. With a 5 per cent. VAT rate, however, the volume would be almost 400,000 by 2010. That would make a massive difference to the environment, to low-income families, to the security of generational supply and to UK manufacturing. The annual cost of that reduction in VAT for 400,000 CHP boilers by 2010 is estimated at £25 million. Using the Government's own recommended figures for the social cost of carbon, independent empirical research-based analysis predicts that reducing the VAT on micro-CHP would result in a benefit, not a cost.

Why push for action now? Why does it matter that something is done soon to introduce fiscal incentives for home CHP'? As we saw with the development of condensing boilers, and from the market research, the bigger upfront cost for the new boilers means that the market is not likely to develop as quickly as it would if incentives were introduced. If we were talking about petrol that might not be a problem; a wait for a year or two while the Treasury carried out a consultation or negotiations would not matter so much. However, this area is different. People buy a new boiler only every 15 years. The greater the delay, the more people will buy boilers that do not benefit the environment and do not save them money, the longer it will be before we gain security of supply, and the fewer the opportunities we will offer to British manufacturing to get a head start in a new and developing technology.

What is even worse is that once an inefficient boiler is installed, it cannot be changed without enormous inconvenience and extra cost. Every time someone chooses to install a traditional boiler rather than a micro-CHP boiler, the opportunity to save more than 20 million tonnes of carbon dioxide over the next 15 years is lost, and another will not arise for another 15 years.

Perhaps most importantly of all, there is the Government's commitment in the energy White Paper to produce a domestic energy efficiency implementation plan by 24 February. It has already been stated that that plan will include fiscal measures. If the Government wait for the Budget before announcing measures to correct the market failures and barriers, the implementation plan will not be able to include those measures or it will have to be delayed until after the Budget. Either way, we all lose out.

On Thursday 18 December last year, those matters were raised in Treasury questions. In response, the Economic Secretary said that changes to capital allowances would have to wait for the completion of a review of corporation tax and that the matter of 5 per cent. VAT relied on negotiations in the European Union. The Economic Secretary accepted that there was frustration in the industry about the time it is taking to resolve the matter, although no indication was given of when it might be resolved. Will the review of corporation tax be completed before the publication of the energy efficiency implementation plan or the Budget? Accepting that the outcome of negotiation with others is difficult to predict, does the Minister expect that negotiations within the EU will be completed before the publication of the energy efficiency plan or the Budget?

I hope that I have shown that the development of a market for micro-CHP has benefits for families, because it reduces fuel bills; for climate change, because it reduces CO₂ emissions; for security of energy supply, because extra generating capacity will be developed; and for the economy, because British manufacturing capacity in a world-leading technology will be expanded.

At the same time, I hope that I have shown that the longer we delay in introducing measures to correct problems in the market that act against the introduction of micro-CHP, the more opportunities we will miss to obtain those benefits. I beseech the Minister on behalf of hard-working families, the environment, our generating capacity and British manufacturing to put his shoulder to the wheel and do what he can to get those changes introduced as quickly as possible.

I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Reading, East (Jane Griffiths) on securing the debate and giving us a valuable opportunity to update the exchanges at last month's Treasury questions.

My hon. Friend has a long-standing interest in environmental and sustainable energy issues and has long shown an active involvement in that subject in Parliament. As the Treasury Minister responsible for environmental policy—the green Minister in the Treasury—I get invited to many all-party parliamentary group meetings on topics such as sustainable waste management, energy studies, wildlife and conservation, the environment and renewable and sustainable energy. When I turn up to those meetings, I often find that she is present as an office holder in the group.

My hon. Friends the Members for Reading, East and for Peterborough (Mrs. Clark) clearly take a close interest in the companies that are at the forefront of some of the technological developments in the field. My hon. Friend the Member for Reading, East mentioned MicroGen Energy, which is based in her constituency and has operations in the constituency of my hon. Friend the Member for Peterborough. I can confirm that MicroGen Energy has had discussions with Treasury officials and that it has submitted a useful briefing on technical aspects of European VAT law. Customs officials plan to visit one of the technology plants next week to find out more.

BG Group is the parent company of MicroGen Energy, and it has contacted me directly about those issues. As you might imagine from my short description, Sir Nicholas, that company is an active advocate in this policy area. Just before Christmas, a senior Customs official found herself at a charity drinks reception where she ran into a senior executive from MicroGen Energy. When the senior executive found out who she was, he spent half an hour expounding the benefits and virtues of reduced VAT rates to support micro-CHP. I assure my hon. Friends that the case is being made strongly across the board.

My hon. Friend the Member for Reading, East has made the case forcefully—and briefly—this afternoon. She was supported by my hon. Friend the Member for Peterborough, who also takes an active interest in such issues in Parliament—as I know, partly to my cost, from my regular appearances before the Environmental Audit Committee, of which she is a member.

My hon. Friend the Member for Reading, East set out the wider context to the consideration of such policy issues. She recognised that the energy White Paper, which was published early last year, acknowledges the challenges that we all face in tackling climate change and the importance of energy policy in helping to meet those objectives. In recognition of that interrelationship, the Government announced that one of the goals of energy policy would be to put the UK on a path to cut carbon dioxide emissions, which are the main contributor to global warming, by some 60 per cent. by 2050, as recommended by the Royal Commission on Environmental Pollution.

The White Paper also recognised the role that increased energy efficiency in the home would be required to play in achieving progress on the targets for 2020 and 2050. Since 1997, Labour in government has consistently sought to provide economic and fiscal incentives to improve domestic energy efficiency. One way in which we have done that has been to make the best use of the reduced VAT rate, although our ability to introduce new VAT reliefs is constrained by European VAT law. Without changes at European level, we cannot introduce a reduced rate for energy-saving materials that are installed by DIY, nor can we tax competing goods at different rates of VAT.

Even with those limitations, over the last five years, we have built up an extensive range of reduced rates for installations of energy-saving materials and products. We introduced the first ever VAT reduced rate for installations of energy-saving materials in 1998 and we have extended it twice, in 2000 and 2002, so that it now covers the installation of a wide range of energy-saving products with particular emphasis on helping the most vulnerable households, something that was stressed by my hon. Friend.

First, we introduced a reduced rate of 5 per cent. VAT for the supply and installation of certain energy-saving materials, such as insulation products, in the homes of elderly or less well-off people, provided that the work was grant-funded under a relevant scheme. The reduced rate was introduced to make sure that the grant funding could go further, allowing more vulnerable households to benefit.

Two years later, we were able to extend the relief to the supply and installation of certain energy-saving materials in all residential accommodation, even if the work was not grant funded. At the same time, the list of energy-saving materials was extended to include installations of solar panels and wind and water turbines to ensure that the relief covered all products whose primary purpose was to save energy. In addition, we extended the reduced rate to include relief for contractor installations of central heating systems and heating appliances in the homes of less well-off elderly people, reflecting our expansion of the home energy efficiency scheme to include those products.

More recently, in the 2002 Budget, to ensure that extra help goes to the most vulnerable households and to reflect the extension of the home energy efficiency scheme as part of our fuel poverty strategy, we extended the reduced rate of VAT again to include grant-funded installations of factory-insulated hot water tanks, domestic combined heat and power units, and heating systems that use renewable energy. That means that grant-funded installations of micro-CHP boilers are already covered by the reduced rate.

I would argue, and I hope that my hon. Friend would accept, that the Government have demonstrated that we are ready to use—to the full—the freedoms that we have to introduce reduced rates to help with energy efficiency in the home, and that we have pressed hard for the extension of the scope to introduce further derogations in discussions with our partners in the European Union.

My hon. Friend rightly set her comments in a wide context. On the wider front, the Government have continued to seek opportunities—beyond the question of reduced VAT rates—to encourage energy efficiency in the home. Last month, in the pre-Budget report, we reported on the completion of the latest consultation for using economic instruments, including tax, to help improve energy efficiency in households. The responses to the consultation, which were published alongside the pre-Budget report, were strongly supportive of the use of fiscal instruments to encourage such household energy efficiency. My hon. Friend might be interested to know that 120 out of the 126 respondents supported the greater use of reduced VAT rates and that 67 of the 126 supported the use of capital allowances and enhanced capital allowances to help companies to write off investments in energy savings equipment for households and social landlords.

In response to that consultation, the Government confirmed in the pre-Budget report that they see a case for using economic instruments as part of a wider package to promote greater domestic energy efficiency, but, until the outcomes of the European VAT review and of the Government's review of corporation tax are clearer, it is too early to make detailed announcements. However, I assure my hon. Friend that I aim to ensure that a further announcement can be made at around the time of the Budget this year.

It is disappointing that the future of those European-level negotiations on reduced rates for VAT remains uncertain. In the short term, those negotiations are unlikely to deliver an opportunity for VAT rates to be used to encourage domestic energy efficiency beyond the existing provisions, but we remain committed to securing new reduced rates for DIY materials that help to save energy. Whatever the outcome of the VAT negotiations, the Government will examine what further options under existing VAT legislation are open to us.

On corporation tax, the consultation period on the review ended on 3 November. There was substantial interest and a substantial number of responses. We are closely analysing and considering the implications of the responses that we received.

Micro-CHP, as my hon. Friend said, offers simultaneous generation of heat and power in a unit that is about the same size as a domestic heating boiler. Although these are early days for the technology, we hope that it will offer significant reductions in both household energy bills and carbon emissions. I confirm that we shall consider a role for capital allowances to play a part in encouraging installation of micro-CHP in the context of both the energy saving strategy and of the corporation tax review. I also assure my hon. Friend that we shall fully consider the case for micro-CHP and reduced VAT rates as part of the process of considering responses to the energy consultation document.

My hon. Friend has used this debate effectively to advance the proposition that micro-CHP is a technology that could make a valuable contribution to greater domestic energy efficiency. We recognise that, and that the gains may be even greater in future as the industry develops the technology further. We have made provision for reduced rates of VAT on grant-funded installations of micro-CHP. We shall consider both the case and the scope for doing so for domestic installation and we are also considering the case and the scope for going further.