During the passage of the Licensing Bill in 2003 the Government were relying on a policy that might best be described as a victory for hope over experience: hope that everything will be all right on the night and the next morning, while ignoring the harsh experience that their changes to the law run the risk of everything becoming a nightmare for towns and cities up and down the nation.

Over the past week we have had 10 watch a shameful series of disgraceful, drunken and destructive antics on our television screens, as alcohol-fuelled aggression by English football hooligans has kept the poor Portuguese people off their own streets. Our football hooligans may be a minority, but let us face facts, unpalatable though they be: scenes of this kind are repeated in towns and city centres in England every Friday and Saturday night, making all too many of our town centres no-go zones for the law-abiding majority. Our international disgrace is really a national one.

It is naïve to the point of negligence for the Government to assume that Europeanising British drinking habits will somehow lead to a change in those habits. Where did they get that optimism? It certainly was not from talking to city centre residents, as I shall show later; it certainly was not from talking to police officers, who have not a clue how they will control 24-hour licensing in certain parts of our busy metropolis; and it certainly was not from talking to dedicated local councillors, as the Government learned only a fortnight ago when they lost control of Newcastle upon Tyne after 30 years, because of, to quote the former deputy leader of the Labour council, Don Price,

"crime, the pub culture and the over-emphasis on the city as a cheap party municipality".

Unfortunately, the British attitude to alcohol consumption rightly horrifies most civilised folk. There seems to be almost hero worship of boorishness by some parts of the media, with drunkenness and binge drinking being regarded as the acceptable face of celebrity culture. British teenagers across all social classes congregate for long periods in pubs and bars, in sharp contrast to much of Europe and the United States, where, as the Minister will be aware, most states prohibit alcohol consumption under the age of 21. Even the Prime Minister has at last woken up to the problem: as recently as 20 May he told the alcohol industry that binge drinking was fast becoming the new British disease.

In contradiction to the Labour party spin doctors who were trying to entice younger voters before the last election, I do give a XXXX about closing times and opening hours in our pubs, clubs and bars. The commercial interests of the leading players in our alcohol and entertainment industries should not be allowed to run roughshod over the interests of long-standing, hapless city and town centre residents.

In my time on the Standing Committee considering the Licensing Bill it was clear that the all-powerful alcohol industry and its close cousins, the large-scale entertainment operators, were the driving forces behind much of the legislation. The Government might have taken the trouble to ask smaller, family-run, independent operators, who are much more vital to the local community. how they viewed the prospect of 24-hour licensing. Certainly in Soho and Covent Garden, in my constituency, the long-established, family-run restaurants and bars are being driven out by large operatives, who have no stake in the future success of the community. That lies at the heart of the problem.

The Act is not simply about libertarian values, where my sympathies would instinctively lie with deregulation. It is about ensuring that we encourage civilised behaviour and that our city centres remain pleasant, congenial places in which to live: lively, yes; energetic, yes; vibrant, yes; cosmopolitan, yes; but not a haven for loutish, uncouth, antisocial, drunken and yobbish behaviour around the clock.

In a letter to the Home Office and the Department for Culture, Media and Sport, the chairman of the Police Federation of England and Wales said:

"In our view the proposed change will not bring about the dividends envisaged…indeed it could have the obverse effect, exacerbating existing difficulties in policing the night time economy."

There can be no clearer statement of the fallacy of hope over experience, but the Government insist on pushing on. We have to ask why.

My concern about and interest in the Licensing Act dates back almost two years to when the legislation first came to the other place. I have been inundated with communications from countless local residents groups, amenity societies and constituents with experience of what has happened in their city centres when late-night pub and club culture is allowed to dominate.

Last June, I asked the Under-Secretary of State, Office of the Deputy Prime Minister, the hon. Member for Corby (Phil Hope), a question about antisocial behaviour and the Licensing Bill debate that took place at that time. He replied that

"we are working across Government to implement a range of programmes to tackle antisocial behaviour, so that on our streets we see new neighbourhood wardens and new community support officers who will be working hard in their areas, with local communities, doing a different job from that of the police, to tackle the kind of problem to which he referred."—[Official Report, 18 June 2003; Vol. 407, c. 338.]

The lack of joined-up thinking verges on madness. The Act gives the late-night alcohol industry the green light to dominate chosen local areas without facing rigorous licensing scrutiny, but it also obliges local authorities, which are often the local licensing authorities, to put support officers on the streets to help the police to control any outbreaks of antisocial behaviour.

Who honestly believes that the 24-hour free-for-all will work? At one time, the alcohol industry claimed that problems of uncontrolled and rowdy drunken behaviour were caused by our outdated licensing laws requiring public houses and bars to close at a set time, often before midnight. Unfortunately, the more liberal licensing in Mediterranean countries does not seem to have had a very positive effect on Britons holidaying abroad, where their all-night drunkenness is a reluctantly accepted feature of many continental resorts.

Westminster city council has fought long and hard, alongside local police, to tackle disorder on central London streets. Under its civic renewal strategy, the council has set out its approach of refusing to accept the "lesser" crimes of aggressive begging, fly posting and vandalism in order to cut at the roots of serious crime and the fear of crime, which continue to dominate many of our cities. However, much of that painstaking progress is undermined by the lack of controls on binge drinking and the opening of the floodgates to allow the alcohol and entertainment industries to prompt havoc being wreaked in our town centres.

I sense that the Home Secretary truly believes that the Anti-social Behaviour Act 2003 is the solution to any problems that arise with the Licensing Act. In response to my question of 10 May, he said that

"under the Anti-social Behaviour Act 2003, there is now the ability to close establishments immediately there is a problem."—[Official Report, 10 May 2004; Vol. 421, c. 16.]

Well, no city centre resident, elected councillor or police officer believes that that will work in practice. When criminal antisocial behaviour caused by drunkenness takes place on the streets in an area festooned with pubs and clubs, it is impossible to point the finger at any one offending pub or other establishment. In Soho and Covent Garden, for example, there are more than 800 licensed premises in less than 2 square miles. In my opinion, that is one reason why there has been a further delay to the guidelines accompanying the Act, without which the new law cannot operate.

As an inner-city MP, I want to stand up for our city centres as places of thriving residential communities benefiting from the continuity of several generations of residents. Without such continuity, our inner cities will die. One of the things that I have been most proud of in my time as an MP is the way in which the inner cities have thrived and the fact that the population of places such as Soho, Covent Garden and, indeed, the City of London has, for the first time in decades, begun to rise.

Last summer, I asked 4,000 residents in the Marylebone ward of my constituency for their views on the proposed licensing changes. The ward is not, I hasten to add, a hotbed of drunken rowdyism, but there are a substantial number of late-night restaurants, pubs and bars. As with all my surveys, I had a tremendous response, with more than 200 people replying and, and I am pleased to say, a range of views, both for and against. However, the one thing that nearly everyone referred to was the importance of true local involvement.

The breakdown of the survey is as follows. More than 60 per cent. of respondents found the whole idea of extending licensing laws horrifying. Nearly 30 per cent. were in favour, but had concerns about the effect on local residential amenity. A further 10 per cent. made it clear that they were undecided, and one person suggested that there be a 12-month trial of any new law. No one believed that the new licensing arrangements would or could be properly handled unless there was true local involvement.

Many residents in my constituency were concerned that Marylebone's residential and business community would be worsened by the new legislation. I am sure that you will allow me, Mr. Deputy Speaker, to relate a few typical comments. One person said that it is vital that the local council and residents have their say. Some said that it is right that Marylebone, as a central London area, should be a vibrant place for tourists, but that runs contrary to the notion of a vibrant local community. Another said that he viewed the whole thing with absolute horror; he thought that there would be noise, street violence, rubbish and lager louts. Others stressed the importance of an increase in night-time policing in line with the extended hours. I could go on; it was certainly a useful exercise in public consultation, and one that could be replicated in many other town and city centres across the UK.

I accept that one ward is not representative of the country. However, I cannot remember the first time that I heard the phrase, "London is made up of a series of villages," and although, like most of us brought up outside the capital, I thought that that was a cliché I must confess that in representing my diverse constituency, I have finally realised that the cliché is true. For example, there are no fewer than 30 active residents associations scattered in the 9 square miles that make up my historic seat. I am convinced that one of the great charms of this part of central London is that so many residents care deeply about the neighbourhoods in which they live. The frenetic activity of many residents associations plays an important part in ensuring that, by and large, we enjoy a high quality of life.

I do not want London to dominate my comments. It is evident that in the growth and renewal of city centres in Manchester, Liverpool, Leeds and even Sheffield over the past decade, a vibrant and articulate—perhaps overly articulate for local Members of Parliament—residential population has made a difference in improving the quality of life.

My survey was a valuable example of a village in London and properly represents the views of inner-city residents. I shall how turn to another important residents association in my constituency: the south-east Bayswater residents association. That is another area with a rich mix of residential homes alongside licensed premises such as pubs and clubs as well as notable eateries. In a letter to Members of both Houses who met to discuss the Licensing Act guidelines on 26 May, SEBRA made it clear that the Government's assumption that flexible licensing hours will reduce crime, disorder and public nuisance is a myth. It maintains that the risks to residential amenities are high and the best way for them to be minimised is by having effective guidelines that allow local authorities greater discretion for defining their own policies and tailoring them to suit the individual local environment. That is the complete opposite of the Government's policy.

South-east Bayswater residents made a number of strong points, but I shall mention just three. They suggest that licensing authorities should be able to refuse licence applications if there is no effective late-night public transport to get revellers out of the area and back home. On fees, which is becoming an increasingly important part of the problem, they suggest that payments should be set at a level at which full recovery of all costs from the industry associated with drinking hours is guaranteed. The third key point is that there should be a provision whereby local authorities can keep local residents groups informed of all licence applications in their area, to ensure effective and constant consultation and to ward against over-saturation in an area.

Those views are sensible and informed, and they stem from deep-rooted experience, but nobody in government is listening. How will drinkers get home from central London in the early hours? Imagining the consequences fills local residents with dread, especially as only last week the Secretary of State for Transport confirmed that we can expect another 10 years of misery on the underground before we get the significant improvements necessary to enable all-night running at weekends, which many regard as a pre-requisite for 24-hour drinking in central London.

As for the police, according to a letter from the chairman of the Police Federation to Departments, at present a "respite" exists some time after pubs and clubs close and policing levels can therefore be resourced accordingly. In that simple statement, which is amplified by a series of suggestions and constructive considerations in the letter, we hit the nub of the problem. Implementing any new regime without having a strategy to handle its consequences is fundamental to the Government's action on so many fronts.

The issue should not be about spin or headlines today but about implementation of a long-term policy. I ask the Minister: what sort of inner cities should we aspire to in 20 or 30 years? The short-termism of the Government which causes them such difficulty in their policies on Iraq and the European Union is equally evident in licensing. I genuinely believe that, in its heart, the Home Office knows that the policy is a disaster waiting to happen, yet the DCMS blindly insists on driving through the legislation.

Has anyone considered the effect of all-night drinking on the accident and emergency departments of our overstretched hospitals? On the "Panorama" programme of 6 June, the only dreadful thing about the scenes depicted on the streets of Nottingham is that I was not totally shocked by the aggression and the mayhem that was shown and by the problems that arose in the local hospitals. That is standard stuff in Soho and around Victoria station on many nights of the week. The perpetrators end up in police cells and others in hospitals. That effort is paid for by us—the taxpayers.

It seems to be the Government's hope that extending licensing hours will curb that sort of behaviour. Is it possible that there are people in government who really believe that drunken revellers will sit on railway platforms at 3 am and wait quietly for a train for three hours? None of that makes sense. We should all realise that the over-stretched police will bear the brunt of controlling the new legislation.

I have already touched on the prohibitive cost of the policy. The City of London corporation explained to me that there is no clarity in the Government's mind about the fees. Indeed, there seem to be mixed messages from the Government about the extent of the new fee levels that will cover the administration costs of local authorities. I hope that the Minister will be able to explain that in some detail today, or, if necessary, write to me later.

The new fees are to cover entertainment and late-night refreshment house licences, for which, at present, the City of London corporation calculates its own charges and receives approximately £300,000 per annum. Apparently the DCMS's proposed fees are significantly lower than the corporation's present charges. Even allowing for additional fee income for functions currently exercised by licensing justices, we anticipate an overall reduction in income. I accept that that may be a particular London problem, and perhaps the Minister has some notion, of the relative expense in the capital city compared to many of our regional towns. However, using the average fee allowance on the scale suggested by Ministers, the corporation expects to receive about £210,000 in total in the first year of its operations, with the amount falling to about half that figure in years to come.

As the Minister knows, the reduction in fee income comes at a time when local authority licensing functions are set to increase substantially. It seems that, in time, there will be a deficit of £200,000 to £250,000 a year. Ministers have been giving mixed messages about the extent to which the fee levels will cover local authority administration costs. The Minister assured Members of Parliament on Third Reading that

"fees will be set at a level which permits recovery of the full costs of administration, inspection and enforcement to local authorities".—[Official Report, 2 December 2003; Vol. 415, c. 41W]

That superficially positive message was undermined by his more recent comment in departmental questions. He said:

"We have already given an indication and I do not believe that it will prove to be far from the mark."—[Official Report, 24 May 2004; Vol. 421, c. 1294]

Since the fee levels suggested by the DCMS would result in significant deficits for London boroughs, I believe that the statement from the Minister is far from satisfactory, but no doubt in his winding-up speech he will be able to clarify the matter. There are two local authorities in my constituency. I believe that Westminster city council, which hosts the largest number of social and late-night establishments in the country, has a right to have its voice heard when facing legislation with such an enormous impact.

From the moment of the Bill's inception there was much enthusiasm for the Government's intention to simplify the complex and outmoded mix of licensing laws, but nobody anticipated that the big players in the entertainment industry would get carte blanche, while many of the responsible, smaller local operators and councils would be left to pick up the pieces and deal with the free-for-all consequences.

Audrey Lewis, the cabinet member responsible for licensing in Westminster city council and a long-term Marylebone resident, has the interests of the Covent Garden and Marylebone residential community at heart. At the beginning of the year, she wrote a five-page letter to the Minister, in which she detailed serious concerns about the draft guidance for the Act. In her opening point, Mrs. Lewis says that the draft guidance cannot be properly understood because the regulations have yet to be published. That remains the case. I am happy to let any hon. Members see a copy of the letter; it sums up the Government's mishandling of the whole matter, which is a triumph of misguided hope over experience.

Any exhortation by politicians to promote more freedom and choice should be tempered by the disappointing failure of so many who eschew responsibility for their actions, which harm both the community and natural environment. I believe that it is absurd to equate residential areas in inner cities with districts where pubs and clubs can proliferate such as those that can be found close to suburban high streets or seaside beach venues. A one-size-fits-all approach, which is what the Act has brought into being, with no local licensing discretion and woefully inadequate resources for public order enforcement, promises to be a disaster in the making. The Government should be profoundly ashamed of it.

I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Cities of London and Westminster (Mr. Field) on securing the debate and on opening it in such an admirable fashion. Along with our hon. Friend the Member for North-East Cambridgeshire (Mr. Moss), we are veterans of this topic, having last year served on the Standing Committee that scrutinised the Licensing Bill. Perhaps it will come as no surprise to any of us that, almost a year later, we are having a debate on the implementation of the Licensing Act, the ultimate implementation date of which has already been delayed once, if not twice.

I want to raise the concerns of two particular groups among the many who have expressed concern about the Act. The groups on which I shall focus are the local councils—in my case, Fareham borough council—and publicans. I am grateful to Mandy Hovey, the licensing officer from Fareham borough council, and to Martin O'Grady, the chairman of the southern region of the British Institute of Innkeepers, for their comments on the Licensing Act and its implementation. They share concern about the fees that will be charged for the various licences that are covered by the Act. They are worried that the fees will initially be assessed at a very low level, and both recognise that that level is not sustainable. The publicans believe that that will lead, over time, to the relaxation of the cap on fees, but the borough council is concerned that the cap may not be lifted and that, as a consequence, council tax payers will be forced to pick up the bill. Fareham borough council, in its correspondence with me, said that the fees

"in no way will cover the costs of issuing the licences to the Local Authorities."

In trying to assess the true cost of licensing, Fareham borough council cites the costs of the door supervisors' licences. That cost is set by the Securities Industry Association, and Hampshire is a pilot for that scheme. One question in the SIA's list of frequently asked questions is on how a cost of £190 can be justified for a three-year licence for a door supervisor. The SIA's response to that is:

"the SIA is not here to make a profit",

just as Fareham borough council is not there to make a profit. The response continues that the costs will cover

"CRB checks, administration of the licence process, communications…infrastructure—offices and staff, enforcement and compliance and research and development."

Some of those costs such as research and development, obviously will not apply to Fareham borough council, but the council sees that level of cost as comparable to the costs that it will incur in operating aspects of the licensing regime. It thinks that the £190 reflects those costs, rather than the £30 that has been suggested as the proposed cost of a Personal licence.

The second issue that the council and the publicans have raised is about the procedures. We have seen the guidance and both Houses have approved it, but there is still concern about the detailed regulations underpinning it—the procedures that will give the council and the publicans some indication of how to proceed with their business. Peter Coulson raised that issue in an article in the Morning Advertiser on 3 June 2004, when he said:

"There are a number of procedural matters concerning the way in which new-style licensing authorities will deal with their business and handle applications before them. Given the range of applicants for transition, there are likely to be hearings very early in the process. Councillors need to be trained to handle such applications, but without the published procedures required by the Secretary of State, they are in the dark—and so are potential applicants."

Those sorts of concerns are coming across. Publicans say to me that the current system of licensing by magistrates is cheap, efficient and impartial—it is not subject to the political wrangling that may bedevil the formulation by councils of licensing policy and application. Councils want to see credible and robust procedures that will withstand challenge from publicans and the public. When will the Minister publish the detailed regulations to help local authorities frame their own detailed regulations and rules?

I touched on the timetable for implementation. The Library note on the implementation of the Act highlights the fact that the deadlines for the first and second appointed days have already been moved back. There is now concern that the current proposals will lead to an increase in the volume of business for councils in the run-up to Christmas, and it is suggested that the first appointed day should be delayed until January 2005 to make the transition more manageable.

The Minister said in Committee that the Government would consider moving the date to January 2005 if a case were made. What further representations has he received since then arguing in favour of the delay in implementation? Comments were made in Committee about some of the inconsistencies in the Bill and about what will and will not be covered by the Act. Given that the debate is taking place during Euro 2004, it is apposite that one thing not covered by the entertainment provisions is large-screen TVs in pubs. We debated that at length in Committee, and the answers that we received were not satisfactory.

There did not seem to be a consistent basis for excluding large-screen TVs from the licensing requirements but including other forms of entertainment. In the context of Euro 2004, and considering the large numbers of people who gather in city centre pubs to watch the football, were the Government right to exclude large-screen TVs from the entertainment provisions of the Act? Over the coming weeks, we will need to reconsider that decision and think very carefully about bringing that form of entertainment within its scope.

None of the matters that my hon. Friend the Member for Cities of London and Westminster raised come as a surprise to me, given the nature of the debate in Committee. Despite the Bill's long gestation, when it arrived in Committee it was based on fuzzy logic and there was an unclear basis on which to proceed. That explains the slippage in the implementation date and the growing concern about many issues among publicans and those who will have to enforce the Act. They need clearer direction about what happens next. If the Bill had been thought through more fully before it was presented to us, many of those issues could have been resolved much earlier and some of the uncertainties in the minds of licensees and borough councils could have been removed.

I, too, begin by saying how much I enjoyed the opening remarks of my hon. Friend the Member for Cities of London and Westminster (Mr. Field), and, indeed, those of my hon. Friend the Member for Fareham (Mr. Hoban). I will not deal with the issues that they raised. I think that the Minister can guess—from his characteristically good-natured smile I see that he does—the subject that concerns me. Before I raise it, however, I want to ask him one unrelated question: has he received representations from rugby clubs about the implementation of the Act? I draw his attention to early-day motion 1365, and urge him, as a Yorkshire Member, to steer clear of the recommendations of the hon. Member for Liverpool, Walton (Mr. Kilfoyle), which may owe more to the fact that his brother is chief executive of Rotherham rugby union football club than to any serious concern about the issues relating to English rugby. However, that is separate matter. I merely draw it to the Minister's attention.

A number of groups have concerns about the implementation of the Act. My hon. Friends spoke mainly about one of its prime purposes and the implications for alcohol licensing. I am aware that golf clubs are also worried. I do not know much about that, but perhaps the Minister has a response on golf clubs and perhaps my hon. Friend the Member for North-East Cambridgeshire (Mr. Moss) will discuss it further in his remarks.

Last night, I discovered that farmers' markets are also worried about the Act; I had not realised that before. It may prejudice the ability of our cider, perry and English wine manufacturers to sell their wine at farmers' markets. The Minister will have to give that careful consideration because they undoubtedly add to the colour of farmers' markets. Unless the provisions are expanded to enable them to continue to sell there, we shall lose something important from those markets.

The other group that the Minister knows is affected is the Punch and Judy sector. The ability to carry on performing on the seaside may be prejudiced by the Act, and I hope that he will give some answers to the noble Punch and Judy profession. However, it will come as no surprise to him that I mainly want to discuss circuses, which are in an unenviable situation. I am looking to the Minister for some reassurance about the way in which the Act will be implemented, so that circuses can continue to flourish in the United Kingdom.

I am grateful to the Minister for the constructive meeting that we had with him and representatives of the circus industry last month to discuss some of their detailed concerns. They all appreciate the way in which he listened to them. Their concerns are serious and well founded. I am particularly pleased to address him today because, sadly, when we debated touring circuses and the Licensing Act on 27 April, he was, for good reasons—he had to be at Select Committee—unable to be present. His courteous and charming right hon. Friend the Minister for the Arts responded to the debate. So I am glad to put on the record, in front of the Minister, some of the issues that concern circuses about the Act's implementation.

In essence, we have the law of unintended consequences. I genuinely believe that the Government do not want to punish circuses. There is no agenda at all to do that. They recognise that there is a problem with how the Act has been constructed and are now genuinely engaged in a constructive way to resolve those problems. I do not want to score points; the problems were not meant to arise, but they have. The message that I want to convey is that I hope that the Minister can help the Act to fit the facts, and not the facts to fit the Act.

The primary legislation is on the statute book and the guidance has gone through both Houses. I am worried that that may reduce the Minister's freedom to respond to circuses' genuine concerns. There are problems with the starting date, which my hon. Friend the Member for Fareham raised. That may help, because the more time we have here, the more time we have to sort out this little problem. If the Minister cannot find a solution in the short term—it will be difficult, as I shall explain—he might have to tell local authorities that there will need to be temporary and special transitional arrangements. Perhaps he will ask them to approach circuses gently, because of the huge problems they face.

Circuses have changed enormously over the years—for example, many do not now use animals. On balance, I welcome that, although I would not have a problem with domestic animals. On that point—one that has struck me only recently—I worry about local authorities having to license circuses. Some years ago, my good friend, Gary Smart, grandson of Billy Smart, wanted to bring Billy Smart's circus to Pitchcroft, the race course in the centre of Worcester. The race course is a national hunt course: they jump there and, of course, horses often fall during races and are put down. It is a tragedy, but it happens. The local authority at the time—I will not score any party points, as the party that is currently in control was not in power then—would not allow the circus to perform on Pitchcroft because it used horses. That was bizarre. I worry that some local authorities with those rather old-fashioned and inconsistent attitudes may apply the Act unreasonably. That is not an issue that I have raised with the Minister before.

On the fundamental problems, the Government's original intention was to exclude circuses from the Act. The Home Office put that in writing to representatives of the industry. For some reason—possibly a good one—that changed. However, it meant that circuses did not watch the Bill as it developed and did not make representations at the time. We need to correct that and, sadly, bolt the stable door after the horse has bolted. The other problem is that the Act deals with permanent venues in permanent structures, not with tents that move around the country. I still do not understand how we will deal with that. The Minister is trying to find ways, but it may be a fundamental flaw that we cannot overcome.

I must pick up the point made by my hon. Friend the Member for Fareham about the inconsistency in the application of the Act. Until he made his speech, I did not realise that large-screen TVs were also excluded, as are fairgrounds. It seems to me that large-screen TVs—particularly, God help us, if England are defeated on Thursday—and fairgrounds are more likely to be scenes of public disorder than circuses, yet circuses are included under the terms of the Act.

rose—

rose—

I have two hon. Friends to choose from. I give way to my hon. Friend the Member for North-East Cambridgeshire first.

My hon. Friend is obviously well versed on the circus environment and has made efforts to find out the detail of what is going on. Does he have any evidence to suggest that there is crime and disorder or public liability associated with circuses? Why was the Home Office happy that they should be exempt and yet the DCMS seemed to have grounds for including them in the legislation?

I do not know. Perhaps the Minister can tell us whether the DCMS took a deliberate decision to include circuses. I tend to think that it was accidental. My hon. Friend makes a good point about disorder. There was an article by Philip Johnston in The Daily Telegraph last week, which sadly does not praise hon. Members who have been trying to raise the problem for some time, although that is another point. I suspect that his article derives heavily from my speech of 27 April. He writes:

"When did you last see a punch-up at a circus, apart from among the clowns? The Government says the laws are also about 'the protection of children from harm'. How is this to be achieved by penalising a traditional art form that gets children away from their computer games and the television and instils a lifelong enjoyment of live performance?"

That is a powerful point.

My hon. Friend talked about fairgrounds. That topic was discussed in the Standing Committee when I asked the Minister's predecessor whether fairgrounds were included in the Bill because I had a problem with a fair that occupied a field to the south of my constituency. I was advised that there were sufficient existing regulations to govern fairgrounds and so they did not of need to be brought within the Bill's scope. That is another good example of the inconsistencies.

I do not know when the decision to include circuses was taken In some senses, it is reasonable, although I repeat that disorder is more likely to be associated with fairgrounds than with circuses. The same argument about existing regulations would apply to circuses. They are already covered by a wide-ranging umbrella of legislation relating to matters such as the health and safety of the audience, the testing of electrical equipment and their relationship with local authorities on their sites to ensure that there are no highways implications. Circuses are not unprotected. I was disappointed that Lord McIntosh said:

"it would not be right for us to exempt circuses. Imagine what would happen if there were a fire in the circus tent and children were killed."—[Official Report, House of Lords, 8 June 2004; Vol. 662, c. 242.]

But that has nothing to do with alcohol licensing, and circuses are already subject to health and safety checks, in any case.

Circuses are not a against licensing. If the Licensing Bill had been drafted properly, with them in mind, it would have delivered some benefits. The Minister knows the arguments—he heard them from the circus industry last month—and I shall review the three problems. First, we still do not know the cost of the licences. Again, my hon. Friend the Member for Fareham made that point. It would be helpful to know what the cost will be. A cost of £500 will become a huge burden, but £100 may be tolerable. Of course, there is also a problem for local authorities. How much will it cost them to issue the licences? We need some guidance on cost soon to enable us to determine whether our concerns are justified.

Secondly, the extra bureaucracy will be considerable. It would have been good if, in developing a licensing regime for circuses the Government had taken the opportunity to tidy up, bring together and simplify existing legislation. In effect, circuses are de facto licensed already because of the panoply of legislation.

Thirdly, the crucial issue of flexibility must be addressed. How fleet of foot will local authorities be when it comes to implementing the Licensing Act 2003 and issuing licences? Circuses often have to change their preferred venue at short notice because of, for example, the weather, such as the rain that we have this morning. If there is a sharp downpour and, suddenly, the field that the circus was planning to use is unusable because it would get bogged down in it, the circus might want to go to another field down the road or in a neighbouring town. It has skilful, fleet-of-foot marketing arrangements and can change venues at short notice, but it would be prevented from doing that if the local authority could not issue a new licence sufficiently quickly. That is very important. The circus may discover that a competitor was in town a day or two earlier and needs to move on. A local authorities follow guidance and implement licensing, they must offer real flexibility to circuses and be able to issue a licence within 24 hours, not within several weeks.

Some 35 tented circuses tour the UK at present. The top four or five will cope with the new regime. They are big circuses that draw big audiences, and they have big management structures behind them. There is no doubt that they will survive. The question mark is over the other 30. If the Act is implemented with a lack of sensitivity—assuming that it is capable of being implemented with sensitivity as far as circuses are concerned—a good number of that 30 will be threatened. The industry believes that all of them will be affected. That may be a pessimistic view, but many will be threatened because they are tiny; they are micro-circuses, run entirely by only six or seven people. Those people market the circus, select the site, put up the big top and do the acts. They do not have time to keep applying for licences. Also, they do not have the money. Such people operate at the margins of economic viability.

I had not realised myself that such circuses may visit up to 80 different venues in a year—not 10, 20 or 30. They do two-night stands—or two-afternoon stands, more typically—and move on. With 80 venues, at a cost of even £100, the circuses would spend £8,000 on licences. The problem is that such circuses are run literally from the back of a caravan with very limited management resources. In fact, the management resource is typically the circus prprietor's wife, who does everything. She will not have time to apply for licences, so they will become a huge practical problem.

I repeat that circuses are not against licensing as long as it delivers genuine benefits. At the meeting with the Minister, a representative of the industry helpfully asked, "Why have the Government not put an obligation on circuses to have public liability insurance?" At present, many smaller circuses on private ground have no public liability insurance. That is an example of how the Government, if they had engaged in dialogue with the circus industry, could have developed a licensing regime for circuses. Such a regime would have brought the benefits of a licensing Act, which the Government want for all entertainment and alcohol-related activities, to circuses in a specific and targeted way.

This is what I really want to say to the Minister: make the Act fit the facts, not the facts fit the Act. We are engaged in a process of dialogue about how the Act will be implemented and how it will area circuses. He has kindly promised the industry another meeting before the summer to discuss the next steps. That is a constructive offer, which we genuinely and deeply appreciate. However, as I said to him at the earlier meeting, I remain pessimistic about making this Act fit the facts of touring circuses. I said that circuses are touring institutions by their very nature, but the Act deals with fixed venues. Perhaps that philosophical problem is too great to bridge.

That is why I seek a light touch on circuses. They are not looking for exemption but for a regulatory regime that suits them and is devised for their circumstances. If such a regime cannot be devised, I hope that the Minister will not rule out the possibility—I am not asking him to say yes or no today—of introducing limited primary legislation, as an amendment to the Act, to develop a different regime and provide licensing that meets the Government's objectives and circuses' needs. That would be an ideal, hand-out Bill from the Government in the ballot for private Members' Bills in the autumn and could be tightly defined. In the meantime, I urge the Minister to ensure that, in implementing the Act, he does not destroy circuses. He is great fun, a good lad and a cheerful soul, and I know that the last thing he would want to do is to reduce the nation's gaiety by destroying circuses.

I am delighted to serve under you, Mr. Deputy Speaker, and in front of this cheerful soul, the Minister. I am also delighted to follow the hon. Member for Mid-Worcestershire (Mr. Luff). I congratulate him not only on raising the important issue of circuses, to which I shall return later, but on managing to squeeze in a reference to the early-day motion in the name of the hon. Member for Liverpool, Walton (Mr. Kilfoyle). I assure him that I have received assurances that my hon. Friend the Member for St. Ives (Andrew George) has now withdrawn his name from that early-day motion.

I congratulate the hon. Member for Cities of London and Westminster (Mr. Field) on initiating this important debate. He began appropriately by saying that he believed that the Government's attitude was to hope that it would be all right on the night, but that his view, which I share, was that the Government were being extremely over-optimistic.

The hon. Gentleman cited as an example of growing concerns the problems in the Algarve. I am delighted that, in doing so, he pointed out that a minority of the England football fans were involved, but he was right to draw attention to the national disgrace caused by their booze-fuelled fighting and so on. I was slightly surprised, therefore, that he did not mention an example closer to home—some of the appalling antics that we have seen on our television screens recently in "Big Brother". I am deeply concerned that the behaviour on that programme is largely the result of the producers describing it as "Big Brother gets nasty" and making additional quantities of alcohol available to the contestants.

The hon. Gentleman rightly drew attention to the Prime Minister's comments on 20 May, when he told the alcohol industry that binge drinking was fast becoming the new British disease. We must put that in the context of the increase in violent crime in this country: all the evidence suggests that about 50 per cent. of that is alcohol-related.

It was therefore appropriate for the Government to address the issue of binge drinking in conjunction with the development of the Act, but perhaps more important, and sadly coming after it, were their new proposals for a national alcohol harm reduction strategy. Given the concern of the Prime Minister and all of us about these issues, I should be interested to hear the Minister's explanation why, since 1997, no central Department of Health expenditure has been directed towards advertising the dangers of alcohol misuse. Every year we spend about £1.5 million on advertising the dangers of illegal drugs and nearly £18 million on anti-smoking publicity, but to date there has been no centrally funded expenditure on advertising the dangers of alcohol misuse. That issue was picked up in the second Wanless report, which stressed the importance of quality public education campaigns. I was therefore delighted to see in the Government's new strategy on alcohol harm reduction at least a clear set of recommendations centring on the need to provide better information to consumers about the dangers of alcohol misuse. I hope that the Minister will assure us that while he is working on the final details of the Act, he is also in close contact with the Department of Health, because his Department may be able to help it in advertising the dangers of alcohol misuse.

Many issues could be discussed in the debate; we have had opportunities in the past to raise some of them. Since the Act's inception, the police and local authorities have become increasingly worried about alcohol misuse and about the cost of implementing the measure. There are anxieties about the timing of its implementation and worries that, despite everything that the Minister has said on several occasions, it does not give local authorities sufficient powers to apply their local knowledge and their views about how the issue should be tackled. Other hon. Members have given examples relating to concerns about flaws in the Act or in the guidance relating to it.

When, during consideration of the guidance in Committee, we discussed costs, the Minister told us that he is fairly confident that the original fee structure is likely to be the one that the Government will announce. He said in response to a parliamentary question:

"I hope to be able to announce the fees in the not too distant future. We have already given an indication and I do not believe that it will prove to be far from the mark."—[Official Report, 24 May 2004; Vol. 421, c. 1294.]

It is clear that, despite all the anxieties that have subsequently been expressed, local authorities will not be able to charge fees higher than those in the initial indication. Research carried out by the Local Government Association and others shows that the initial fee structure will be woefully inadequate. Under the present licensing regime, in which local authorities are responsible for entertainment licences, cumulatively they are making a loss of about £7 million. If their responsibilities under the new fee structure are as already indicated, it is clear to me and to many others that there will be a huge loss to local authorities, whose council tax payers will be expected to pick up substantial additional costs. I hope that the Minister will make a clear statement today about the fee structure and say how he will stick to the Government's initial commitment that it would be set at a level that covered all the costs to local authorities. That was the assurance that we were given, but to date it appears that it will not be the case. The Act will put local authorities under huge pressure.

The hon. Member for North-East Cambridgeshire (Mr. Moss) and I referred in an earlier debate to the situation in Westminster, where councillors predict that in the first two months following the appointed day they will have to examine one application every six minutes, assuming that councillors are prepared to meet seven hours a day for five days a week. Clearly, that is an unrealistic expectation.

Funds for the police will be tight. All the police organisations from which I have received information recognise that the measure will increase the burdens on them because it will require additional officer support, which clearly has financial implications. I hope that the Minister is discussing the matter with his colleagues in the ODPM to ensure that increased funding will be made available to the police to cover their additional costs. The real worry is that if those costs are not covered, despite tho increased flexibility, which many premises will no doubt take advantage of, there will be more problems but the police will not be on hand to deal with them. Equally, local authorities will look at ways to cut costs in other areas. One of the flexibilities allowed in the Act arises from the lack of a requirement for regular inspections of premises. If local authorities lose out from the fee structure, they will reduce the number of inspections of licensed premises, and problems will flow from that.

More generally, I am concerned that local authorities do not have sufficient powers to take account of local circumstances and their local knowledge and views. For example, the Government are rightly concerned about antisocial behaviour that takes place when people are waiting for a bus or a taxi to go home, but local authorities are not allowed to give due consideration or weight to the lack of availability of public transport when deciding on a licence application.

The Government rightly say that local authorities should be able to take into account concerns arising from saturation—too many licensed premises in a particular area. Yet when we analyse the Act and the guidance, it is clear that local authorities can consider cumulative impact only for new licence applications, not for those for a variation or a provisional licence. It will therefore be possible to stop a new pub opening in an area deemed to be saturated, but it will be extremely difficult to say no to a licensed premises that wants to extend its opening hours. Paragraph 3.26 of the guidance makes it char that local authorities are to be discouraged from determining fixed terminal hours in areas of cumulative impact. Even if an authority's local knowledge suggests that it should have that power, it will not have it.

There is another concern about the powers of local authorities in respect of the appeals procedure. Paragraph 10.8 of the guidance makes it clear that magistrates, who will have the appeal functions, will be allowed to disregard of the local authority's licensing policy. That is a real concern to local authorities. The LGA recently wrote:

"As well as being a recipe for chaos by apparently allowing Magistrates courts to strike down all or part of a local policy when considering an appeal on an individual case, this advice is incorrect as a matter of law."

The issue has been raised before, and the Minister's response has been, 'Our lawyers disagree with your lawyers." The only way to resolve the matter is if a local authority takes the Government to court. That is a bizarre approach for he Government to adopt. If there is real concern, we should have ironed out the problems earlier.

Until the hon. Member for Mid-Worcestershire spoke, I was not going to refer to circuses. However, since I love the following set of quotes, I hope that the hon. Gentleman will not mind me adding to his store of information about the confusion in government. I apologise to the Minister because I have shared this with him in the past, but it bears repeating. On 16 March in another place, Lord Redesdale asked Lord McIntosh of Haringey, the Minister for Media and Heritage,

"would circuses actually need a licence if they did not perform any live music? If they avoided live music, the circus could take place quite happily without regulation. Is that not a bizarre aspect of the Act?"

Lord McIntosh gave an inordinately helpful reply. I shall quote it particularly for the delectation of the hon. Member for Mid-Worcestershire, but also for you, Mr. Deputy Speaker. He said:

"I wish I could answer that simply, but I cannot. Music—incidental, live or whatever—is one of the issues, but there are also questions about whether the activities fall into the category of sports events—for example, those of trapeze artists. It sounds daft to the noble Lord, Lord Redesdale, and it sounds daft to me."—[Official Report, House of Lords, 16 March 2004; Vol. 659, c. 126.]

I hope that the hon. Gentleman will pick that up.

There is a great deal of confusion in the Act that has not been ironed out. One plea that I have made in the past is for the Minister to be prepared to delay its implementation, so that we have a more sensible start date. I have suggested that the date should, at the earliest, be 5 January next year, and the Minister has indicated a willingness to consider that. I hope that during the intervening period there will be an opportunity to iron out some of the difficulties and disagreements about the Act, and that we will have a clear answer from the Minister.

I hope that I do not encourage you to tap your pencil, Mr. Deputy Speaker; I shall be as brief as possible. I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Cities of London and Westminster (Mr. Field) on initiating the debate. It is only a few weeks since we were debating in Committee the guidance relating to the Act, but a measly hour and a half was simply not sufficient to cover all the ground.

Similar and new issues have beer raised today, which serves only to emphasise the fact that the legislation is in chaos. That message must have got home to Government Back Benchers, because they have been totally absent from any contribution to the debate. I saw the hon. Member for Selby (Mr. Grogan) come in and thought that the cavalry had arrived. He served on the Standing Committee that considered the Licensing Bill, but he has stayed in his place. It is as obvious to Government Back Benchers as it is to Opposition Members that the legislation is stuck in a morass. Decisions are not being taken, and the implementation is coloured by delay and obfuscation. Progress is at best limited and in the main non-existent.

We were told that once the guidance had been accepted by both Houses, that would trigger the appointed day. Will the Minister confirm that a day has been determined? I suspect that it has not yet. There is a delay in implementing the six-month trigger. When we debated the issue in Committee, the Minister bemoaned the fact that no one had made representations. I suspect that complaints, misgivings and representations from the LGA and councils have since arrived on his desk. Is he cognisant of those complaints and misgivings? Is he considering a delay until January, which the LGA is asking for, for triggering the appointed day? That will mean that the endorsement, if that is the correct word, of the guidance will be put off until an appropriate time six months ahead of a January start date.

I shall raise three issues. The first is the fees, to which the bulk of the contribution from my hon. Friend the Member for Cities of London and Westminster related. The simplest solution—we spoke about this in Committee—would be to allow local authorities to set fee levels locally. That would ensure that local council tax payers were not burdened with any cross-subsidy of the new regime.

Alternatively, if the Government cannot go down that road, and the signs are that they are resisting it, what about the LGA recommendation that takes the DCMS rateable value system and provides additional risk ratings to premises based on type, capacity and the length of opening? If the DCMS continues down the road on which it has set out, it will effectively create a huge funding gap for local authorities, which will have to be met with tough choices locally not only for those authorities, but for the police.

When we discussed the guidance in Committee, I raised the point that the ODPM and the Home Office will themselves face increasing pressure to assist in financing the consequences of any inadequate fee structure that the Government may set.

The latest information fed back to me from officials in the Minister's Department was that talks are now about consulting on fees. Fees were first promulgated in 2000, and here we are four years later with the Government considering consultation. Where does that leave the local authorities? The expectation was that a decision would be taken soon about where they stood, but if the consultation story is true it will delay things even more. The Minister should come clean about whether consultation on fees was raised at a meeting. I have received accurate reports from officials who say that it was and that it is now being considered.

The second issue is entertainment. The focus on alcohol is one way that the DCMS team has avoided explaining the illogical and anomalous entertainment licensing provisions. For example, the Minister and the Secretary of State say that licensing is necessary to protect children from harm and for public safety. Why then should a children's concert require a licence if it takes place in a school, but not if it takes place in a church? If licensing is to prevent noise, nuisance or possible disorder, why should a piano provided in a bar for a weekly singalong be illegal unless licensed, but a jukebox or a big match broadcast on big screens with powerful amplification be exempt?

Several speakers have mentioned big-screen entertainment, and its position is anomalous. We argued strongly in Committee that the provisions were totally inconsistent, and we predicted situations in which crime and disorder, particularly antisocial behaviour, would get out of hand. Last week, in places as far apart as Boston in Lincolnshire and Croydon in south London, there was mayhem. Yet, premises will continue to offer the same entertainment without requiring a licence. It is quite illogical.

The police initially thought that premises with big-screen entertainment should be licensed, then one policeman changed his mind and wrote to the Government to say that he had had second thoughts and perhaps they did not need licensing, although live music gigs certainly did. The Government ran with that. It required only one policeman for that to be decided, and now we have incredible situations of disorder and antisocial behaviour in Croydon and other places. The cost to the police in manpower and resources was immense, and those situations will continue unless something is done.

Schedule 1, paragraph 4, of the Act says:

"The Secretary of State may by order amend this Schedule for the purpose of modifying-

(a) the descriptions of entertainment specified in paragraph 2, or

(b) the descriptions of entertainment specified in paragraph 3,

and for this purpose "modify" includes adding, varying or removing any description."

The Minister and the Secretary of State could therefore do something about not only live screen entertainment, but circuses. All they have to do is refer to that provision and they can make changes quite quickly. The mechanism is there. I do not know why the Minister and his team do not get on and do something about it.

The third issue that I want to raise is the Government's strategy on alcohol harm reduction. Many of us saw the recent "Panorama", which suggested that the initial report on the reduction strategy had evidence taken out of it. The BBC programme uncovered evidence that a draft version of the strategy included evidence from other countries of the damaging effects of longer opening hours, but those concerns were removed from the final report published in March this year. The Downing Street strategy unit consulted 17 experts when drawing up the interim report that was the basis for the final strategy. It concluded that extending licensing hours would have a severe negative impact. The initial report stated:

"Restriction on availability reduces consumption and general levels of harm. Relaxing availability increases general harm whether through more outlets (Finland), denser outlets (California) or longer hours (Western Australia)."

In the final version of the strategy, there was no reference to opening hours. A source cited by The Times as being close to the strategy stated that civil servants

"drafted what they thought was a pretty decent strategy only to see it get decimated as it got passed around government departments."

So, an initial report on a key Government strategy on alcohol harm reduction winged its way around Departments. The Home Office obviously beefed it up strongly and no doubt the Department of Health had an input. Yet when the report went to the DCMS, it was noted that it ran contrary to the thrust of its Licensing Act, which liberalises opening hours and availability. All the evidence from around the world that would have suggested an alternative strategy was erased from the document.

The hon. Gentleman tempts me to make a contribution. He has already put on record his view that local authorities should be able to charge whatever levels of fee they like, but I am interested in the precise nature of current Conservative party policy. Is it to remove the flexibility that the Act will give licensees? Is it that longer opening hours should not be tried in our towns and city centres? Is it the party's view that that flexibility is not a good thing? I am not quite clear about that. The hon. Gentleman's remarks do not suggest chaos to me; they suggest sniping from the sidelines. Is he suggesting that the principles of the Act should be forgotten and removed?

Conservative Members did not propose a licensing Act; the Government did. The country expects the Licensing Act to be sensible and logical, and to do the job that it is designed to do. If evidence from around the world suggests that liberalisation increases crime, disorder and antisocial behaviour, that should have been taken on board earlier rather than later. That is the point that I am trying to make. I think that I have said enough; I want to give the Minister time to respond.

This has bean an interesting debate—yet again. We keep rehearsing these arguments, and I will try to answer some of the specific points after I have laid out exactly where we are coming from. Given that we are trying to remove red tape and to streamline procedures, I am absolutely amazed that we are encountering such resistance, particularly from the official Opposition. I accept that there art some concerns—I would not say serious concerns—that need to be addressed, and we are doing that. We art bringing together six licensing regimes, and we must consider their operation in relation to the very businesses that have just been discussed.

I congratulate the hon. Member for Cities of London and Westminster (Mr. Field) on securing this debate. I know that he is a groat advocate for the private sector and entrepreneurs. I thought that he might be supportive and acknowledge that we are trying to simplify and streamline things for businesses and local authorities by bringing together six licensing regimes. They currently deal with between 1.6 million and 1.8 million applications. We want to reduce that to around 250,000.

Four statutory licensing objectives are laid down in the Act: the prevention of crime and disorder; public safety; the prevention of public nuisance; and the protection of children from harm. Licensing activities relating to those objectives are the sale and retail of alcohol, the regulation of entertainment, to which the hon. Member for North-East Cambridgeshire (Mr. Moss) referred, and the provision of late-night refreshments.

One reason for delaying implementation was to dovetail the Act into the alcohol reduction strategy. My colleagues in the Home Office and the whole of Whitehall have been involved in that, working in tandem. The media, aided and abetted by some hon. Members, have honed in on 24-hour drinking, claiming that the Act is solely about that. It is not. It does not promote 24-hour opening or 24-hour consumption. It will introduce the positive benefit of flexible licensing hours as a means of reducing crime and disorder.

The Act implements in full a manifesto commitment that we made at the last general election. It was included in the part of our manifesto dealing with crime prevention and reduction. We deliver on our promises. We saw licensing as an issue then and we still see it as an issue now. That is why we are dealing with it in this way. Let me set out the new and extended powers that we will give the police, licensing authorities and the courts to tackle crime and disorder, to protect kids and to prevent public nuisance.

The Act increases fines and introduces the potential suspension of personal licences held by people working at particular licensed premises, following conviction for offences of allowing disorderly conduct there. It expands the existing court powers, on application by the police, to close all licensed premises within a specified geographical area for up to 24 hours where disorder is occurring or anticipated. It will also expand the police powers introduced in December 2001 instantly to close down disorderly and excessively noisy pubs, nightclubs, restaurants and hotels for up to 24 hours.

The Act provides that those powers will in future also apply to all entertainment premiss,night cafes and night takeaways licensable under the Act. For the first time, the powers will extend to events held under the authority of temporary event notices such as one-off raves. The Act provides a new mechanism for reviewing licences and club premises certificates when any problems relating to the four statutory licensing objectives arise.

The review arrangements will be backed by an extended range of measures for the licensing authority. It will be able to add new conditions to a licence or certificate, to exclude a licensable activity or qualifying club activity such as supplying alcohol and to remove the designated premises supervisor. Establishing who owns an establishment has been a problem and we believe that we have resolved that in the Act. The licensing authority can suspend the licence or certificate for up to three months, it can reduce the associated trading hours, and it can revoke the licence or withdraw the certificate.

That will move us away from the ineffective practice that characterises the existing regime, where the only options are revocation and non-renewal, so no action is taken unless the problem is so severe that it needs—as it were—nuclear intervention. The Act creates new and effective options for hitting the profits of irresponsible operators and forcing poor operators into line with the best.

I watched "Panorama" with some interest, because the programme, like the previous Conservative Administration's policy, was predicated on the question of need. In the early 1990s, that issue, and the question of powers, was debated by local authorities. The ex-chief constable of Nottinghamshire said that had the powers been available, local authorities would have been able to take the action required. The present chief constable went to court on the question of need—indeed, I have been in local authorities trying to prove that need—but the Conservative Administration removed the provision from the statute book. So, both Administrations have played their part in trying to liberalise the licensing laws and bring them into the 21st century.

The Act provides greater protection for children and young people by making it an offence to allow any person under 16 to be present in a licensed premises used exclusively or primarily for the sale of alcohol, unless they are accompanied by an adult. At present, any child of 14 or over may be present without an accompanying adult in any part of a licensed premises. The Act increases the penalties for selling alcohol to children and makes it possible to forfeit personal licences at first offence and not only, as now, on second conviction. It will, for the first time, make it an offence to sell alcohol to people under the age of 18 anywhere in England and Wales. That will remove a vast array of exemptions; for example, those on river and coastal "booze cruises".

During the summit with the industry a few weeks ago, many pubs and clubs complained bitterly about the fact that young people pick up alcohol from retail outlets such as supermarkets, saying that such outlets are lax. Underage drinkers buy alcohol in those establishments and then go into pubs. We have much to do in supervising licensed and off-licensed premises and supermarkets. We are saying to those supermarkets that if they do not act responsibly and with due care in supervising who purchases alcohol from their premises, their licences could be removed or suspended.

We will, also for the first time, make it an offence to supply alcohol to children in non-profit-making clubs, of which there are 22,000 in England and Wales. That is almost 17 per cent. of all drinking establishments.

With all due respect to the Minister, and without wishing to be discourteous, we know all that. Those of us who sat through the proceedings in the Standing Committee and on Report know those things. The debate is about the implementation of the Act. Various questions were raised by my hon. Friends; perhaps the Minister will address some of those questions in the short time available.

I will, but I will not allow the debate to go ahead without explaining the framework in which we are operating.

We know it.

The hon. Gentleman may know it, but many people in the Public Gallery or listening to the debate do not know it. It is right for me to put the debate into the context in which we are legislating. For far too long we have been dancing on the head of a pin around one or two issues. I will come to those, and I will answer the questions.

Our starting point is not 24-hour boozing, but an Act that provides tough and uncompromising powers to promote the four statutory licensing objectives. It has been claimed that one policeman came into the Department and we changed the legislation entirely. Let me put it on the record that on 29 April 2004, Rick Naylor, the president of the Police Superintendents Association, said on the "PM" programme on Radio 4:

"The Superintendents' Association have always been in favour of relaxing licensing laws and bringing them into the twenty-first century, and it is slightly disappointing we can't get this piece of legislation enacted sooner, because I think it will have an effect on violence in the streets."

ACPO has made similar statements, but I will not bore hon. Members with those, because they are also on the record. That is a case not of an individual policeman approaching the Department, but a responsible organisation doing so over a period of time.

Another question raised was that of approving the guidance without seeing the regulations. Westminster city council has publicly suggested that the licensing guidance should not have been approved by either House until the associated regulations under the Act had been made by the Secretary of State. That point was also made by several hon. Members during the debate this morning.

My right hon. Friend the Secretary of State met the leader of Westminster city council and representatives of some other London authorities last week. She assured them that we intend to make the drafts of the regulations available for comment by licensing authorities and other stakeholders as soon as possible. I recognise that the regulations are important for planning purposes for licensing authorities and for the industry. The regulations will be in place in good time for the beginning of the transitional period. The Secretary of State also agreed at the meeting to examine the case for starting the transitional period later in 2005, as hon. Members have asked, rather than around the Christmas 2004 and new year 2005 holiday period. We will give sympathetic consideration to that The transitional period will last for nine months, so by autumn 2005 we expect to see changes on the high street and greater protection for the community in connection with all four statutory objectives.

My right hon. Friend also assured the London authorities' representatives that she is examining carefully all the material on fee levels provided by the LGA and the Association of London Government before making any final decisions.

rose—

I will not give way. The hon. Member for North-East Cambridgeshire wanted me to answer the questions, and I will do so.

All stakeholders should be aware that we are not engaged in some kind of bidding exercise. The fees will be set so as to allow the recovery of the full costs of the administration, inspection and enforcement processes associated with the licensing functions and the operation of the new Act. They will go no further than that. Fees have no function as punishment or deterrent. Fines can only be imposed by courts following due process and convictions. Fees are to recover the costs of services provided. I assure hon. Members that the fee arrangements will be robust and fair. They will be fair to local authorities as well as to small businesses and clubs that operate on tight margins. Once the system is in operation, there will be an independent review of the fee levels in the light of experience. We give that commitment and will stand by it.

The Act represents a serious and important opportunity to make our town and city centres more attractive and safer for local people, consumers and tourists. The hon. Member for Cities of London and Westminster raised the point about how we see the modern European city in the 21st century. The Act, together with our alcohol harm reduction strategy, and our policies on gambling and on regeneration of our city centres, will try to address that. Hon. Members were right to say that more people are being attracted back to live in city centres now than has been the case for decades. That is because our cities, in the post-industrial era, are vibrant and developing. We intend to continue to give powers to local authorities, as we have in this Act, so that they can continue to promote the economic and social regeneration of their cities.

Many specific points were raised in the debate about fee levels and particularly about golf clubs. If one refers to the website of the English Golf Union, one will see that it now admits that its previous interpretation was wrong; it has accepted that the treatment of the 19th hole at golf clubs will be no different from that under the previous legislation. However, that has been one of the main arguments advanced by the Opposition over the past weeks. That is unfortunate, but it is indicative of the way in which the Act has been interpreted by some of the press and the Opposition.

I am glad to have the opportunity to raise with the Minister a number of concerns that I share with West Suffolk college, my local college of further education, which is primarily based in the constituency of my hon. Friend the Member for Bury St. Edmunds (Mr. Ruffley). I am worried about the future of its provision for young people and adults in my constituency.

My constituency contains more manual than non-manual workers and has a relatively small proportion of managerial and technical workers. Some 20 per cent. of the work force is classified as skilled or partly skilled manual workers. The prosperity of the constituency will rest to a substantial degree on raining the aspirations and achievements of young people and adults in the area if, for example, we are to heed the recent warning that the CBI made to the Education and Skills Committee that there will be no unskilled jobs in the next five to seven years.

Within that context, West Suffolk college is the largest and most successful FE college in Suffolk, with more than 21,000 FE students, ranging from 300—400 next year—14 to 16-year-olds attending the college from local schools, to the 7,000 adults it learning centres in each of the market towns in west Suffolk, and still more on other courses in village schools and community centres throughout the area.

The college serves a substantial catchment area of more than 1,400 square miles and is one of the eight most rural colleges in England. with the nearest alternative provider 30 miles away. Quality is high: it is rated by Ofsted as being responsive to widening participation and increasing recruitment, and 71 per cent. of the curriculum was graded good or outstanding in the last adult learning inspectorate Ofsted report. Teaching and learning were graded as good or better in 72 per cent. of the 223 lessons observed. The college is the largest learning provider workplace in the county, with more than 800 learners, and is widely regarded as an exemplar of good practice of work among local employers, providing training for more than 800 of the county's employers. Income from companies represents 4 per cent. of the total budget.

The college is important and essential to the well-being of my constituency, and I am anxious to support it. It offers new options to the young teenager, hope to young people who, for one reason or another, did not enjoy school, support to adults and help to many local employers. Organisations such as the British Chambers of Commerce and the Countryside Alliance have written to me to support the essential elements of what I propose to raise in the debate.

The college has expressed to me some fears about threats to its services that it believe s come from several different directions. I should like to highlight three of those, which apply generally to other parts of the country, in particular to predominantly rural areas. The first concern relates to the 10 per cent. gap that Ministers have accepted exists between schools and college funding. In a debate on the subject, the Under-Secretary of State for Education and Skills, the hon. Member for Enfield, Southgate (Mr. Twigg), summed up by saying:

"if we compare like with like—if we compare the funding rate for an A-level in a school with that in an FE or sixth form college—we see that for 2002–03, there was about a 10 per cent. gap—£734 for schools, and £663 for FE colleges."—[Official Report, 18 May 2004; Vol. 421, c. 223WH]

Since then, the Government have claimed that in 2003–04 funding for all colleges has increased by 4.5 per cent. and by 3 per cent. for schools. That comparison excludes the funding to compensate the education sector for the extra costs of teacher pensions imposed by Treasury policy.

A different approach was taken for each sector. School sixth forms were given a 2.8 per cent. addition to their funding and colleges had an additional 2 per cent. It ignored the £57 million held back from colleges in 2003–04 when the teachers pay initiative funds were consolidated into core allocations. The headline comparison quoted by the Minister does not take into account the additional funding that schools receive in earmarked grants or in the form of services provided by LEAs, such as transport. The 2004 budget indicated that funding per pupil in schools will continue to rise up to 2008. If that is reflected in yet more funding for the minority—relatively wealthy 16 to 19-year-olds in schools—the gap with college funding will rise above 10 per cent.

Overall, the effect of these factors is likely to ensure that without a determined effort by Government, at best the funding gap will decrease only marginally and at worst it will widen further in the coming years. Will the Minister comment on the size of the gap and say what it means in terms of quality of provision for the two thirds of young people aged 16 to 19 who are educated in colleges? When will the gap be closed, because without such a date, a promise to end the gap is somewhat meaningless?

The submission by the Association of Colleges to the current spending review estimated that equalising funding for all young people would cost £100 million in 2006–07, rising to £202 million by 2007–08. For West Suffolk college, the effect of such an uplift would be an extra £1 million for that age group, which the college would spend on its buildings—the fabric and associated capital projects—extra teaching and support staff and improving the pay of existing staff. The Government's current schools building budget stands at £5 billion, while that of colleges remains at £400 million, added to which, unlike schools, colleges are expected to borrow some 70 per cent. of their funds on the open market, again incurring extra costs. Will the Minister clarify whether colleges serving 14 to 19-year-olds can access "Building Schools for the Future" funds? What hope can he offer to the majority of young people wanting to go on to college that they will be able to continue their studies in well equipped modern buildings like their school counterparts?

The second threat to West Suffolk services concerns adult provision. The Government announced that they have found £130 million for the coming year 2004–05 to avert what the Association of Colleges had warned could be a far greater number of cuts to adult courses than the 70,000 that it predicted in November 2003. The root of the problem is the fact that colleges throughout the country have been successful in recruiting large numbers of 16 to 19-year-olds, leaving insufficient money in the system to fund the promised level of adult courses. There were threats to basic courses such as literacy and numeracy when these were not included on the Learning and Skills Council's approved list and to many level 3 and level 4 courses, from plumbing to access to higher education.

The LSC chose that pattern of cuts to meet the Government's demand that funding be focused on a few basic skills qualifications and level 2, reasoning that employers would pay for higher level courses, a point to which I shall return. The Minister will recall that I mentioned that West Suffolk college has established learning centres in each of the market towns in the area and that it delivers courses in village schools and community centres. These centres especially meet the needs of local people, who would find it difficult to travel up to 30 miles to the main campus in Bury St. Edmunds. Most of the people who will be affected live in my constituency. The impending need to change provision to the Government's national priorities would have required rationalisation in these centres, impacting on learners such as single parents and carers, and threatening the longer term viability of those facilities. While it is hoped that extra funds will mean a reprieve this year, will the Minister comment on the prospects for such provision, which is especially important for rural communities, given the forthcoming announcement of the comprehensive spending review settlement for 2005–08?

Thirdly, the Government are pinning some of their hopes on the prospect of raising more fee income from individuals and employers. Government policy for the past 10 years has pushed colleges to widen participation and to recruit students to free courses. At least 60 per cent. of students currently in the college sector pay no fee at all, either because they are under 19 or because they get a concession. The scope of concessions has widened in recent years, most recently to cover those taking level 2 qualifications for the first time. Many fee-paying students have low incomes or take short courses. Nationally, fewer than one in six pay more than £100. Therefore, the college sector has a small base on which to build more fee income.

In addition, work-based learning in rural areas almost always involves small businesses and microbusinesses. That was clearly pointed out in submissions from the British Chambers of Commerce and the Countryside Alliance. The additional costs of monitoring and the difficulty that businesses have in supporting apprenticeship schemes are not recognised in funding or organisational terms. What plans does the Minister have specifically to help rural microbusinesses become more engaged in training?

Increasing fee income is a reasonable longer term goal, but it is not a solution to current funding needs. Colleges may be able to charge higher fees for some of their courses, but in return they will face extra demands from employers and adult learners. They need time and investment in order to prepare for that change. Will the Minster explain what research he is relying on to support that policy development? Will he comment on colleges' belief that many fees to individuals and employers will have to double or even treble?

Of course, another way to balance the books is to make efficiency gains—anyone in receipt of taxpayers' money must be mindful of that—but I speak on behalf of all rural colleges about the difficult relationship between rural transport, outreach and efficiency improvements. Colleges in rural areas face challenges that are not faced by their urban counterparts. They recruit students from a wide geographical area and have to work hard to reach remote populations—taking learning to the learner. Many run their own bus services to bring students to the college, filling the gaps left by inadequate local authority transport. The Government provide some money through their learner support funds but it is often not enough. Colleges fill the gap from their own budgets, diverting money that would otherwise be available for teaching and learning. Will the Minister comment on the need to ensure that broadband is made available to even the most remote areas at an affordable price to the consumer—I know that the service has expanded considerably—as in rural areas online learning can be a particularly useful medium for some learners and a complement to formal learning for others?

Getting people to courses is only the first challenge that rural colleges face in managing their budgets. The need to provide transport in the morning and late afternoon limits the amount of time that colleges have available for teaching and learning. Typically, classes run between 9 am and 4 pm. That places great pressure on facilities during the day but leaves them underutilised in the evenings. Rural colleges are inventive at making maximum use of their buildings, but the constraints on where they operate make it difficult for them to match the space utilisation levels expected in national standards. That makes it harder for them to meet the demands of the Learning and Skills Council's capital committee and to get capital grants from the Government. All colleges are under pressure to improve their efficiency—that is only right and proper. However, care is needed to make realistic demands on colleges and to take account of their circumstances.

City colleges can make their money go further by adding an extra student to each class and improving average class sizes. Their costs do not increase, but their efficiency does. Rural colleges find that much more difficult because they cater to dispersed populations. Providing services in small communities is a vital service to society and the economy, but there is little scope for flexibility. Rural colleges cannot simply chop and change their courses to maximise numbers in the way that urban colleges can. The Learning and Skills Council has a funding formula that takes account of most eventualities but not those relating to class sizes. Rural colleges are therefore penalised by default and must make do with less than their urban counterparts.

With the extraordinary growth in access to technology, the learning centres in my constituency have been a wonderful innovation and a true asset to the communities that they serve. They have enabled people who, for one reason or another, have been out of employment or are perhaps in early retirement to gain access to the internet, to master technology and to open up new vistas of self confidence. Having witnessed the growth and value of such learning centres in smaller market towns, I do not want to see the core funding pressures to which I have referred become so strong that they threaten their provision. One thing that we need to do—it is already happening, but we must do more—is close the generational gap in understanding the uses of technology, particularly for those who are middle aged and older.

I hope that the Minister will not respond with the standard ministerial assertion that funding for colleges will have increased by 19 per cent. in real terms in the period 2003–06. As he will be aware, once growth and unavoidable costs are taken into account, the increases have been inflation-only for this year and 2.5 per cent. at best for 2004–05 and 2005–06—hence the national funding crisis on which so many colleges lobbied the House on 18 May.

I hope that, with me, he will acknowledge not only the role that FE colleges play but the particular stresses in rural areas. Having brought to his attention a matter of considerable concern in my constituency, I hope that he will apply his mind to the question of rural provision in the same way as other Departments have done in many areas of Government spending policy.

I congratulate the hon. Member for West Suffolk (Mr. Spring) on securing this debate. In relation to his final comments, I am pleased to have this opportunity to recognise the enormous value of further education colleges.

I have a great deal of ground to cover, so let me record first that I agree entirely with the hon. Gentleman about West Suffolk college, just outside his constituency. He is right to be proud of it: it is a responsive, good, successful college, with a strong relationship to its community and local employers.

On the general point of further education, the FE sector has a strong and positive record of achievement and quality, which I think it is fair to say has not always been recognised by Governments of all persuasions. We must build on that, because the FE sector is key to meeting our twin aims of social inclusion and economic success. A strong, responsive and high-quality learning and skills sector is fundamental to our education strategy, a sector where teaching and learning are enriching and inspiring and which is demand driven rather than supply led.

The 2002 spending review was unprecedented for further education. I shall not give the standard ministerial response that it was a 19 per cent. increase, but will put it this way: it was an increase of more than £1 billion for the FE sector for the three years up to 2005–06. That investment was essential to help to build the capability and capacity to create a sector able to respond to the needs of the 21st century. Although there will be arguments about specific funding issues, the entire sector appreciates that this was the best financial settlement in the history of FE in this country.

The hon. Gentleman spoke about the funding gap between schools and colleges, and the 2002 spending review allowed us to start addressing that. In 2003–04, the Learning and Skills Council increased core funding rates per qualification by 4.5 per cent. for colleges, whereas the schools increase was 3 per cent. on a comparable basis, and our expenditure plans to 2005–06 should see that trend continue. Given the different ways in which schools and colleges are funded and the much broader remit of colleges, comparisons of the funding of schools and colleges of FE are far from straightforward. However, the hon. Gentleman is right that the 4.5 per cent. increase applied to colleges does not include funding compensation for changes to the teachers' pension scheme. Neither does it include funds linked to the consolidation of previously targeted funds for the teachers' pay initiative and staff training. The additional funding provided for the teachers' pension scheme is linked to the increased costs that each part of the education sector will incur from these changes. That reflects the differing make-up of the work forces in schools and colleges.

As for funding for capital investment, I can clarify that colleges cannot access the funding from the "Building Schools for the Future" initiative. However, the Government have already set out plans for huge increases in capital funding allocated to the Learning and Skills Council for investment in the post-16 learning and skills sector. Capital funds allocated to the LSC will increase to more than £400 million in 2005–06, an increase of 60 per cent. in real terms when compared with the year before last. That level of support means that for the first time there is a long-term approach to building and redeveloping the FE infrastructure. When comparing the total capital budgets of schools and FE colleges, it is important to remember that there are more than 21,000 schools compared with about 400 colleges. The sum of money spent on schools is bound to be vastly different.

Turning to adult provision, I am acutely aware that public investment and funding pressures have hit the sector in a variety of ways. We have a problem with colleges and providers succeeding in educating more people and achieving better results than they or we had anticipated. Those are problems of success, and have cost implications. As the hon. Gentleman mentioned, we provided an additional £130 million over the 2003–04 to 2005–06 period, and the LSC is working with colleges to determine the best allocation of those resources. The sector must face the need to make hard choices and decide priorities even with the significant public funds that are available.

The skills strategy that we published a year ago set out a vision for transforming our national investment in skills. The Government will continue to make a major investment in adult learning, but Government should not and must not be the only source of such funding. We have examined the situation in other countries, and the contribution that employers and learners currently make towards the cost of learning in the LSC-funded sector is not as high as in other countries. Therefore, we flagged up in the skills strategy—signed by four different Departments and worked out with the CBI, the TUC and the education sector—that there must be a re-examination of the assumptions built into the LSC funding system.

This summer, the LSC will continue its consultations on how we can implement the proposals. Given the need for the LSC to consult and to consider the outcome of consultations, and the fact that decisions have not yet been taken on spending review 2004 allocations, it would not be appropriate for me to speculate on what might happen to specific provision. However, I can say that within the skills strategy we made it extremely clear that adult and community learning programmes, which are perhaps more important in rural areas than urban areas, should be seen as an integral part of the wider learning opportunities for the area. Employers, particularly small employers, often need support and advice to help them to develop their businesses. The Department is working with the Small Business Service to improve the accessibility and quality of support delivered through the Business Link network. Employer training pilots provide a good example of how colleges can take training to the employer, and reach out to employers who might not otherwise have engaged in training. West Suffolk college needs no lessons in that; indeed, it was, in many ways, ahead of the field. It has dedicated teams working with 702 companies throughout the region to provide tailor-made courses and employee training at the workplace. That very much fits in with the employer training pilots strategy.

Rural areas have their own special characteristics and challenges. During the employer training pilots we have been careful to continue to include areas where we can test the approach in a rural context. The national rates advisory group, which advises the LSC, is working to consider the issues of rurality and sparsity in the sector and the implications for funding. In research commissioned by the NRAG in 2002, comparisons were made for all providers over a range of financial and curriculum measures. There was no evidence that the relative costs of delivering provision were greater in rural or sparsely populated areas. The NRAG therefore recommended that there should be no change to funding for providers in those areas in 2003–04. However, to reflect the difference in transport costs in rural and isolated areas, the LSC has incorporated a sparsity factor into the allocation process of learner support funds in 2003–04. There has been a recognition of those issues for colleges such as West Suffolk, and other rural colleges.

On the important subject of broadband availability, I am pleased to say that all FE colleges now have a broadband connection to the academic network—charmingly called JANET—linking them to one another, higher education institutions and the internet. Work is now in progress to provide adult, community learning providers and specialist colleges with an equivalent infrastructure.

I shall make another point about the learning centres in the hon. Gentleman's constituency: such centres are crucial if we are to tackle the inherent problem of so many adults out in the work force or sometimes unemployed, not even having the literacy that we would expect of an 11-years-old. A large proportion of that funding comes separately through the skills for life programme, and that different funding stream has been very successful in achieving our targets of turning around the situation with adults. Many of them have literacy and numeracy problems, but also need training with the third skill for life, which is computer training. I am sure that the hon. Gentleman can be reassured by that.

Finally, returning to funding, I am pleased that the Chancellor was able to announce in broad terms the spending review settlement for the Department for Education and Skills in his Budget. It is a good settlement, given the overall financial position. We are not yet in a position to say what it means for FE, as we are still working though the detail. However, I have listened to the points raised by the hon. Gentleman. He and other hon. Members are right to be concerned and enthusiastic about support for the FE sector, and I shall reflect on those points as we take key decisions. We hope to be able to publish the outcome of our deliberations in July.

11.29 am

Sitting suspended until Two o'clock.

Before we start our proceedings this afternoon, perhaps it would be helpful to point out that there is business in the parent Chamber today that is likely to incur several Divisions, as we all probably know. I give prior warning that the Chair will suspend for 15 minutes or each occasion, but a strict score of the time will be kept. Of course, penalty time—or injury time, as we call it—is allowed towards the end. We would normally finish at 4.30 pm, but the likelihood is that we will complete our business this afternoon somewhat later than that.

Several colleagues on both sides of the House and I made applications for this debate to enable the House to discuss the findings of the Africa all-party group's report on AIDS, which was published two weeks ago. We are grateful that Mr. Speaker saw fit to call a one-and-a-half hour debate on this important subject so soon after the publication of our report. We also sought this debate so that we could press the Government to implement our recommendations. I say "the Government" and not just "the Minister" advisedly, because we have made recommendations for Secretaries of State in several Departments.

I wish to thank colleagues on both sides of the House for their contributions to the report, particularly to the oral evidence-gathering sessions that we held to collect views on the subject. I also wish to thank the all-party AIDS group, which gave a great deal of support and advice to our relatively younger, more recently formed group. I wish to thank those who submitted evidence to our group, and Penny Jackson, the administrator of our group, who did a tremendous job of analysing the evidence, preparing drafts of the report and dealing with dozens of redrafts from members of the group, many of which were mutually inconsistent and contradictory.

As the chairman of the group, I should declare as interests the money that we received to enable us to produce the report, from the Royal African Society, the Henry J. Kaiser Family Foundation, Merck and Co. Inc., the Catholic Fund for Overseas Development and ActionAid. I would also like to thank officials of the Department for International Development for providing informal briefing to our all-party group and for drafting formal evidence, which was submitted to us, and my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for International Development, who gave a great deal of time at the oral evidence session at which he appeared.

The UK Government have significantly increased the priority given to fighting AIDS in Africa. That is made clear by their "Call for Action" document, which was published on world AIDS day last year. DFID is currently in the process of reviewing its policy on HIV/AIDS. Since 1997, the Government have almost doubled aid to Africa. They have increased funding for HIV/AIDS work from £38 million, which it was in 1997, to £270 million a year, and commit ted more than $280 million over an eight-year period to the global fund to fight AIDS, tuberculosis and malaria, which makes the UK the world's second-biggest donor in this field. Our Government have also led the donor community in supporting the UNAIDS Three Ones proposal: each country affected by the HIV/AIDS pandemic should have one national strategy for combating the disease, one national AIDS commission to oversee that work and one way to monitor and report progress in the fight against the disease. So much has been done by our Government, but the report's key finding is that much more still needs to be done.

The AIDS pandemic in Africa is an exceptional humanitarian crisis. At present, more than 25 million people, perhaps even as many as 28 million, in Africa are infected by the disease; 70 per cent. of those in the world who have HIV infection are in Africa, and there are now 11 million to 13 million orphans—children who have lost one or both parents to the disease—in Africa.

In 2002, there were seven countries with an HIV prevalence rate of more than 30 per cent. for those aged 15 to 49. In nearly every African country the situation is getting worse, and the long-term social and economic effects will get worse still. Richard Feachem, director of the global fund who gave oral evidence to the all-party group, described the HIV/AIDS pandemic as the worst disaster in human history—worse than the black death, which halved the population of this country in the 14th century and affected people across Europe.

It is a disaster that to a significant extent could have been avoided if African and donor Governments had acted sooner, and the disaster is still accelerating. How much worse it will get depends on how soon and how effectively African Governments, donor countries and the private sector respond to the disaster. However, there is still a window of opportunity to mitigate some of the effects and to develop coping strategies to deal with the consequences of a pandemic—the rapidly increasing number of orphans in Africa, for example. But as the months and years go by, the opportunities to cope and to mitigate will reduce. We therefore urgently recommend that the Government provide additional support and take further action in the matter. This is an exceptional crisis, which requires an exceptional response from the donor community.

The report makes several key recommendations: first, that the UK aid budget should be increased. The Government already support the target to devote 0.7 per cent. of our gross national income to official development assistance, and we now ask them to set a timetable for reaching that target.

Secondly, we ask the Government to launch their proposed international finance facility, which is a means to the end of achieving the goal of higher spending on development assistance; thirdly, we ask the Government to increase the financial support that they provide for AIDS programmes; and, lastly, we ask them to raise with the European Commission the possibility of diverting the €10 billion in the European development fund that is currently unspent to an emergency package of relief for those with AIDS.

We recommend also that our Government, other donors and African Governments support the full range of health responses to the pandemic: for example, improved nutrition, because food is the first line of defence against disease; more resources devoted to prevention services and to voluntary counselling and testing; more resources for treating opportunist infections affecting people of HIV-positive status and more funding for drug therapies to prolong the lives of those who are HIV-positive.

We come, however, to the conclusion that prevention is the most effective and cost-effective response to the pandemic. Pound for pound, money spent on prevention saves more lives than money spent in any other area. The top priority must be to ensure that resources earmarked for prevention are not diverted to other interventions. We must provide the full range of treatments, but we will need additional resources to do so.

The costs facing health systems in developing countries threaten to overwhelm them. Where there is insufficient money to do everything that ought to be done, choices must be made about where the priorities lie. Those choices must be open and transparent. They must be made at a national level in Africa and based on the principles of equity—people with equal needs should be treated equally—effectiveness, and cost effectiveness, so that the maximum number of lives are saved. They also need to be open to public debate. They should not be taken by officials or Ministers in private rooms in the capital; the people directly affected must have a say in the priorities.

Few developing countries have experience of setting explicit health priorities or of having public debate about public policy issues in general. They will need technical assistance to do so. I suggest to the Minister that the Department for International Development should commission specialists—medical ethicists and health economists—to prepare a tool kit on health priority setting for developing countries. That proposal was supported by the National Audit Office, which has recently published its own assessment on the Government's work on responding to HIV and AIDS. In paragraph 22 of its report, the NAO says that DFID should

"update…its strategy to provide…supporting guidance and advice for country teams on key operational issues such as treatment".

The all-party group also felt that the Government need to address the high death rates of teachers, nurses and other key workers, such as lawyers, economists and Government administrators. If professionals dying from the disease are not replaced, there is no possibility whatsoever of sub-Saharan Africa achieving the millennium development goals by 2015. The problem with replacing those people as they die is that the colleges training teachers and nurses are also losing members of staff at an alarming rate to the disease.

The United Kingdom is particularly well placed to support and help African countries to respond to the challenge of replacing professionals dying from the disease. The UK has a wealth of experience in post-school distance learning, which has been gained from the Open university. I have had discussions with the professor of education at the Open university, the BBC World Service and programme makers, who have put together distance-learning packages. Those discussions have led me to the conclusion that distance learning is a realistic practical response that can be made to work in partnership with educational institutions in Africa. Indeed, the Open university already works in partnership with the Open university of Tanzania, which it helped to create, and a university in South Africa which provides distance-learning packages for teachers. In addition, the Open university UK provides courses in Ethiopia.

The Department for Education and Skills should seriously consider devoting resources and providing support to the Open university to expand the work done in that area. The reason for highlighting the DFES is that DFID rightly prioritises primary education. It is the DFES that has tile reservoir of knowledge and experience of using the television and radio—infrastructure that generally works well in Africa, especially in urban areas—to help replace the numbers of teachers and other professionals being lost.

The NAO also offers support to this proposal. In appendix 2 of its report, it says that the UK Government should ask:

"Does the country have the capacity to deal with the results of AIDS attrition of key public sector workers (such as health and education sector workers)?"

It is right to draw the matter to our attention, but the same must be done in relation to skills employed in the private sector. The millennium development goals will not be met by aid alone. Our markets must be opened to trade from Africa, and the private sector will provide the economic growth that comes from trade.

In our report, we also stressed the need for social rescue packages in Africa to care for the increasing numbers of AIDS orphans. I know that my hon. Friend the Member for Northampton, North (Ms Keeble) will be speaking about that later in the debate, if she catches your eye, Mr. Deputy Speaker. At present, most AIDS orphans in Africa are cared for by their grandparents, but the current generation of AIDS orphans will also have children. We know that in Botswana, the likelihood of a young man in his late teens getting HIV and dying from AIDS later in life is 90 per cent. So 90 per cent. of the AIDS orphans in Botswana who have children will themselves die from AIDS. The question that we must face is that when they die, by definition—because they are orphans—their children will not have grandparents. So who will care for that second generation of AIDS orphans?

It is not a crisis that can be solved by the public sector alone. The private sector must provide prevention services and care to their employees in Africa and their families. Some companies have already taken a lead on that, and have created models of good practice. We call on the Department of Trade and Industry in the UK to work with those British companies that have created examples of good practice to spread that practice through the UK-baled business sector that is working in Africa.

We should like to see coherent and co-ordinated policies throughout all Departments in the UK Government. We think that DFID should be the lead Department, but others Departments, such as the Foreign Office, the Ministry of Defence, the DTI, the Department of Health, the DFES, the Home Office and even the Department for Constitutional Affairs and DEFRA need policies on HIV/AIDS too. Can the Minister let us know what mechanisms are in place to ensure appropriate cross-government co-ordination of policy?

When the all-party Africa group was formed, its members hoped that we would not simply be a study group, but that we would create a team of parliamentary activists who would talk up the Prime Minister's and the Government's commitment to Africa, and also help to drive Africa's needs up the political agenda in both Houses of Parliament at Westminster, and in other institutions, such as those of the European Union. Following the publication of this report, we have already met the International Monetary Fund. We met Peter Heller, the deputy director of its fiscal affairs department, yesterday to discuss the concern that was expressed to us by Dr. Peter Piot from UNAIDS, that Uganda was unable to make use of all the money that was offered to it by donor organisations to address the AIDS crisis, because it would have taken the spending in its Department of Health above the expenditure ceiling set by the IMF. There is a real problem here, although I am happy to say that the IMF is seeking to resolve it.

On Monday next week, the IMF will meet the main agencies—the World Health Organisation, the global health fund, UNAIDS, USAID and DFID—in Washington DC to work out how to resolve the contradiction between the need to increase resources for health spending as an emergency measure to combat AIDS and the untoward macro-economic pressures that might result from a large increase in public spending. The answer must be to find a way of reducing these pressures, and not to cut health spending to do so.

Interestingly, a key way to reduce the inflationary pressures that a large increase in public expenditure would create in those countries would be to train more nurses, barefoot doctors—if I may describe them so—and public servants. There would then be less inflationary pressure on wages. A n Open university-inspired distance-learning package may be a way to address the macro-economic pressures that the IMF identifies.

On Tuesday next week, I will meet IMF representatives in Washington DC when I am in the chair of the NATO Parliamentary Assembly's economics committee. I have invited Mr. Heller to meet the committee to give us feedback from the meeting with the aid agencies on Monday. We will also meet the managing director of the IMF, Rodrigo Rato, to discuss the problem with him.

In passing, I should say that the NATO Parliamentary Assembly committee delegation to the United States includes Members of Parliament from 10 EU states, including an ex-Prime Minister of Italy, Lamberto Dini, and the ex-Deputy Prime Minister of Finland, Suvi-Anne Siimes.

The Africa all-party group will seek meetings with the Secretaries of State of four key Government Departments: DFID, the DFES, the DTI and the Department of Health. When the post-election settling-in period has passed, we will seek meetings with Members of the new European Parliament and the new European Commissioner for Development and Humanitarian Aid.

Finally, I congratulate the Minister on what his Department has achieved so far, which has been a step change in our Government's response to the AIDS crisis in Africa. However, a further step change is needed. Far more help is needed if we are to find a decent, human response to the worst humanitarian crisis in human history.

rose—

Order. I remind the Chamber that it is customary to commence the first of the three Front-Bench winding-up speeches 30 minutes before the sitting's conclusion. Assuming that there are no Divisions between now and then, that will be at 3 pm, which allows 37 minutes.

Five Members are seeking my eye, and I am anxious to get as many in as possible—all of them, if I can. I ask Members to bear the circumstances in mind not only when making their own contributions, but when accepting or responding to interventions.

I take your comments on board, Mr. Deputy Speaker. I congratulate the hon. Member for City of York (Hugh Bayley) on his introduction to this debate on behalf of the group.

Tucked in the corner of page 27 of today's edition of The Independent, in a section entitled "World in Brief", is a report that southern Africa is in the world's worst crisis. It says:

"Southern Africa faces the worst humanitarian crisis in the world, with Aids, hunger and weakened capacity to govern, James Morris, UN special envoy for humanitarian needs, said. Some 30 million of the 40 million people worldwide infected with HIV live in sub-Saharan Africa. The average life expectancy has dropped to just 46 years and there are already 11 million orphans."

The point is that that is tucked away in the corner of page 27 of that broadsheet newspaper. That demonstrates how Parliament and others have a responsibility to bring to the attention of a much wider audience the catastrophe that is facing Africa.

The AIDS epidemic is a threat to the stability of society and states, as well as to African peoples. Therefore, sporadic projects are not in themselves enough. We need to increase our funding ratios overall. The lack of political will and the social stigma of HIV/AIDS are major obstacles to international action and have already contributed vastly to the pandemic. The United Kingdom's forthcoming chairmanship of the G8 and the EU presidency will provide us with an ideal opportunity to seek to secure increased budgets and better disbursement of money and to provide a lead on the major issues that have affected our ability to tackle and address the AIDS pandemic.

AIDS is at different stages of intensity in different regions. Individual states face different social, economic and political factors, which affect their vulnerability. We need to develop an overall strategy that is co-ordinated and coherent, with carefully targeted individual programmes. DFID must improve on both those fronts. In referring briefly to the funding aims, I reinforce the comments that have been made. We must aim to establish a timetable for the target of 0.7 per cent. of our gross national income within the next Parliament. We must aim to persuade the European Union urgently to divert unspent funds—some £6.53 billion lies unused—towards tackling AIDS. We must aim to establish the international finance facility and to increase UK funding to the global fund to fight AIDS, TB and malaria to an appropriate level. We should contribute 6 per cent. of the total that has been allocated because we have 6 per cent. of the total donor GNP. Proportionality will be absolutely right.

As the report produced by the all-party group points out, there are three waves to the AIDS epidemic. First, there are the current infection rates. Secondly, there are HIV/AIDS deaths. Thirdly, there is the impact and what happens next. Our report focuses on the effect HIV/AIDS has on communities, their economies and their key workers. I should like to highlight two themes in the report. The first is impact mitigation. There is a need to address the wave effects by extending the healthy lifespan, especially of key workers and primarily through the care and treatment programmes.

Secondly, there is capacity building. We need to harness the capacity of the non-governmental organisations, businesses and community organisations through increased funding. That is not enough on its own if there are no structures or personnel to implement the programmes. The capacity to implement programmes is itself under threat from the impact of AIDS. Those are serious long-term issues. Finally, there is a need to understand and support the grass-root level organisations that have so far been underused. In many cases, they have sufficient knowledge and commitment to address the issue of AIDS in the community.

I recently visited the Soweto hospice as part of a Foreign Affairs Committee inquiry. There is nothing quite so salutary as seeing what volunteers are doing to provide succour and comfort to those who are dying of AIDS. There is also an enlightening and encouraging aspect in the work of the volunteers. Several hundred local people have been trained to work in their communities, providing basic health care to those who are dying from AIDS. We should not underestimate what the local organisations and communities can do with the minimum of help from people with the necessary medical expertise. It happens throughout the communities, even in Soweto, which we often consider as somewhere that is unable to cope with these basic issues.

The National Audit Office found that only 1 per cent. of the funding we provide is spent on impact mitigation. Only 6 per cent. is spent on capacity building and 34 per cent. is unclassified. We can rightly ask the Minister where that funding is going.

I want to draw attention briefly to the aspect of our report that recommends a balanced approach to addressing HIV/AIDS. That must be done through prevention, care and support, treatment, and impact mitigation. In practice, impact mitigation receives by far the least attention, mainly because anti-retroviral therapy is the most effective, although also the most costly, form of treatment.

I shall not repeat what the hon. Member for City of York said, as other hon. Members wish to contribute. I shall move straight on to our need to understand the impact on the communities and economies of the countries suffering the AIDS pandemic. I was at a meeting in Johannesburg fairly recently with senior executives from across the business community in what would otherwise be a burgeoning economy. My colleagues from this Parliament and I were told that the key businesses in the African economy had to plan for losing their total work force every three to four years, because of the impact of HIV/AIDS. One can imagine what that means for planning, for investment, for recruitment and training and for trying to keep a business going. The situation is even worse in the mineral extractive industries.

I have been informed by the usual channels that a further Division will follow immediately, but until we see evidence of that on the screens, we will proceed.

The United Kingdom is the world's second largest donor for HIV/AIDS. The key problem is not how much money is spent, but what it is spent on. The NAO's report shows that DFID does not know what impact its programmes are having and that it cannot therefore measure their effectiveness.

Ministers have been rebuked for failing to keep account of how much money is being spent on fighting HIV/AIDS, and DFID apparently does not give enough priority to AIDS when working to tackle the HIV/AIDS problem. It omits the disease from more than half of its strategy papers. The failure to tackle HIV/AIDS has jeopardised the achievement of the millennium development goal of halving the number of people living in extreme poverty by 2015.

The Minister must know the NAO's report backwards, so rather than my recounting its criticisms, perhaps he would reply to the points that were made in it.

rose—

Order. Four hon. Members to go and 27 minutes left.

I would love to follow that speech, but I am not going to. I hope that the Minister fully rejects it, because the National Audit Office report was humbug. I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for City of York (Hugh Bayley) on securing the debate and on the report. It is what we should all do as Back Benchers.

I want to concentrate on the way that we treat AIDS and the relationship between HIV/AIDS and reproductive health. There is no doubt that because HIV/AIDS first came to prominence through gay sex and intravenous drug use, we neglected the fact that the infection would eventually overwhelmingly affect women. If we had seen that in the first place, we would have seen that it was a reproductive health issue.

Recently, I have been very privileged to be involved in consultations in New York and Switzerland where major organisations have realised that in our reaction to the issue a wrong turn was taken. They see that reproductive health and AIDS must be linked much more closely. I was in New York at a meeting jointly called by the United Nations Population Fund—UNFPA—and UNAIDS that included the World Bank, DFID and the European Union. They all said that the linkages between reproductive health and AIDS had to be dealt with much more thoroughly and that we had missed a very considerable trick.

The silos of funding are an absurdity: there is a large silo for HIV/AIDS and a smaller silo for reproductive health. There are boundaries between sections of the same department.

I am told that we should be reasonably clear until 4.30 pm.

As I was saying out of New York will come a statement to the big AIDS conference in Bangkok from the World Health Organisation, UNAIDS, the United Nations Population Fund, the World Bank, the European Union and DFID that there should be much better treatment of the links between HIV/AIDS and reproductive health

I was delighted to read in a letter from the Secretary of State that, following the launch of the Government's AIDS strategy next month,

"there will be a strong message to DFID country offices to ensure that implementations of HIV and Reproductive Health programs are integrated wherever possible and practical."

That is a major step forward.

The other event that I went to was in Montreux. It was organised by the WHO and dealt specifically with mother-to-child transmission. From an HIV viewpoint, the difficulty with mother-to-child transmission is that one simply takes the fact that the mother is about to have a child and is HIV-infected and deals with the problem at that point. However, we will never reach UN targets if we start there; we must start with the mother not being infected in the first place and continue with the care of the HIV-positive mother in relation to future children. There must be integration between HIV services and reproductive health services.

We have achieved a major step forward. My hon. Friend the Member for City of York said that prevention was still the most import ant issue—I would say easily the most important—not just for Africa but for the rest of the world, the highly populated world that may follow. I congratulate him on his report and I thank him for the opportunity to contribute to the debate.

rose—

Order. Three hon. Members to go and 24 minutes remaining.

I add my congratulations to the all-party parliamentary group and the hon. Member for City of York (Hugh Bayley) on his contribution to the group and his success in obtaining this debate.

I want to make a brief contribution on children. Orphans and vulnerable children are often referred to as the forgotten children of the AIDS crisis, but it cannot be said that children are forgotten in this report. I want to use my time to highlight some of the issues relating to them.

More than 13.4 million children under the age of 15 have lost their mother or father, or both parents, to AIDS, and the number is rising fast. Nearly 80 per cent. of those orphans live in sub-Saharan Africa, and the number of orphans in Africa alone is predicted to increase by 180 per cent. from 1990 and reach a staggering 8.8 million by 2010. With HIV and infection rates rising rapidly, the number of orphans will increase sharply in the years to come and the impact will continue for at least the next two or three decades. In addition to the children orphaned, millions more are highly vulnerable because their parents suffer from AIDS or because their families are heavily affected, but there are also children who live with HIV/AIDS.

HIV/AIDS has a significant impact on the protection of children's basic rights. Under the United Nations convention on the rights of the child, a child has the right to survival, development, protection from abuse, neglect and economic exploitation, the right to participate in decision making in matters concerning them, the right to have their best interests treated as the primary consideration and the right to be free from discrimination. An appropriate response to the massive problems thus demands that children's voices are heard in the planning and implementation of HIV/AIDS programmes as part of the greater involvement of civil society. Youth representation in national HIV/AIDS plans and poverty reduction initiatives is also a necessity.

Children orphaned or made vulnerable by HIV/AIDS experience a wide array of problems. In addition to the severe psychosocial distress of losing one or both parents, they may lack food, shelter, clothing or health care. They may be forced to drop out of school or be required to care for chronically ill adults or younger siblings. They face discrimination, abuse, exploitation or exclusion from their community as a result of stigma. Without parental guidance and protection, they may themselves become vulnerable to HIV infection.

In many communities, traditional ways of caring for orphans and vulnerable children, such as the extended family system, are being severely strained by the many aspects of the impact of HIV/AIDS. The challenge is to find ways to help communities to care for the unprecedented number of children and families rendered so vulnerable.

There is a growing number of child-headed households. As livelihoods are increasingly threatened, children are forced to take on a premature adult role. They are forced to drop out of school and take up work, which is often in hazardous conditions. Young people may find it difficult to gain access to the all-important preventive messages to which hon. Members have referred. Sexual health services may become out of reach after the children have been forced to leave school. Clearly, there must be support mechanisms to plug those gaps.

The impact of HIV/AIDS on children's health goes beyond the growing number of them who are infected by it. Families that are living with HIV/AIDS will, if they are able to, spend a higher proportion of their income on treatments, which reduces the income available for other health care needs. A parent's level of illness may make it difficult for them to care for their children and that has further knock-on effects. There are issues about the transmission of the infection from mother to child and massive preventive work is needed on that. In most cases, girls are the most heavily affected. They are more likely to drop out of school to care for family members, are at greater risk of abuse and are much more vulnerable to infection. Prevention and care programmes have typically failed to address their vulnerability to HIV/AIDS. Those gaps must be addressed through strategic interventions at all levels.

We have spoken about the loss of skilled workers, particularly teachers. The loss of them has now reached a crisis proportion in parts of Africa. There is not enough capacity in the education systems to give protection to children, who need to be equipped with knowledge and skills that will reduce their chances of contracting sexually transmitted infections.

In addition to all those effects, there are the long-term economic implications of continuing to neglect the needs of orphans and vulnerable children. A recent World Bank study indicated that countries such as South Africa could face economic collapse within several generations unless the AIDS epidemic is combated. We are in the middle of a vicious circle. If we do not break it sooner, rather than later, we know what the future might hold for many people.

What can be done about the specifics, relating to children, on top of the general measures that were proposed in the report? I support World Vision's call on the Department for International Development to advocate and provide support for the completion of national orphans and vulnerable children's strategies with time-bound action plans in all countries with generalised epidemics. We had commitments in 2001 under the United Nations Assembly special sessions on HIV/AIDS, and we were supposed to have reached those commitments by the end of 2003. All of them need to be revisited, and we need some commitment to progress.

I would also just like to mention the goal of free universal primary education. It was among the millennium development goals and it is important in the overall picture if we are to make life better for children. The cost barriers to education must be removed and assistance must be given to keep children productively in school. There must be a strategy and an action plan that also includes all secondary school subsidies. Similarly, the removal of all health care user charges for children is an important goal. I hope that DFID will be proactive in all those areas.

We must remember the forgotten children and take action now on behalf of the orphans and vulnerable children.

Order. Two hon. Members want to speak and we have 16 minutes remaining.

I, too, commend the work that my hon. Friend the Member for City of York (Hugh Bayley) did in leading the inquiry, which was one of the most stimulating that I have been involved in since I became a Member of the House. It was extraordinarily well managed and the report was extremely well written. I would like to pay tribute to everybody who helped with it and that includes the advisers.

I welcome the fact that DFID is producing a strategy and is giving greater priority to HIV/AIDS. I also welcome the commitment to funding anti-retrovirals. I shall briefly focus first on orphans and vulnerable children and, secondly, on anti-retrovirals. Those were the two pressing and important issues, both during the inquiry and when travelling around Africa before and after it.

My hon. Friend the Under-Secretary of State for International Development will see that the all-party group report says that orphans could suffer the most catastrophic single impact of the AIDS epidemic. The report sets out all the facts to support that view and I am sure that he has taken them on board, or will do so. Therefore, I do not intend to repeat them all. There are already about 11 million orphans in sub-Saharan Africa, and the number is projected to increase to 42 million.

The personal stories behind the facts are horrendous. After the inquiry, I went to Kenya and met one of the people who had given evidence. I saw her work and met one of the orphans for whom she was caring, a little girl called Anna, who was five years old and was orphaned at four after being a primary carer for her mother. Although she did not get HIV/AIDS from her mother, she had contracted tuberculosis from her, because TB and AIDS often go together. It is estimated that, in sub-Saharan Africa, 90 per cent. of TB cases are AIDS-related. A huge amount of medical care is needed in addition to the work that the woman I met was doing to support other AIDS orphans.

It is essential that proper measures are established to deal with the problems of HIV orphans—they cannot be averted, because the parents are already dead or infected. This crisis cannot be put aside; it must be dealt with. However, the most recent Department for International Development strategy document that I have seen, which followed the original "Call for Action" document, hardly mentions orphans and vulnerable children. There are no clear recommendations. It is not enough to assume that if everything else is in place and there is economic growth, benefits will trickle down to health systems and so on. The all-party group makes it clear, as does the UNICEF document, "A framework for the protection, care and support of orphans and vulnerable children living in a world with HIV and AIDS", that orphans and vulnerable children need a social rescue package of distinct and specific interventions, including access to school, pre-primary schooling, health and social care, legal safeguards of their inheritance and parentage, and counselling. We sometimes overlook counselling, but it is needed to help children to manage their grief.

The World Vision report—I think that it is the same one that the hon. Member for Mid-Dorset and North Poole (Mrs. Brooke) referred to—says that 40 per cent. of Governments in countries with generalised epidemics have no national policy to provide support to orphans and vulnerable children. One reason for focusing on that is that in our country, where we have benign conditions compared with those in Africa, we have real difficulties with children's policies, and for the same reason. They are cross-cutting and are often secondary functions in complex large Departments, and children are voiceless and voteless.

We have a Minister for Children for the first time, and even now not all the functions relating to children are under her control. Imagine what it would be like if my right hon. Friend the Minister for Children had to deal with about 4 million orphans. That is roughly the scale of the problem confronting the worst-affected African countries. I should like to draw to the attention of my hon. Friend the Under-Secretary to the all-party group's recommendation on the need to support African Governments to ensure that they have policy coherence across Departments with a clear ministerial lead, not just on HIV/AIDS, but on orphans and vulnerable children.

Many colleagues have spoken previously about anti-retrovirals. There is a need to ensure that there is proper treatment for women in pregnancy and childbirth, but I was particularly struck on my most recent visit to Africa by the need to underline the all-party group's call for the provision of anti-retrovirals as part of a strategy. The failure to provide the drugs properly is having a catastrophic result, because they are being misused. I have seen that in country after country. People are pulled back from the brink of death, but they have no long-term prospects.

I understand why the patients and their carers go down that road, because that is often best. If parents stay alive for six months, or a year of two longer, it gives their children a better chance in life. Any parent will try to ease the pain, prolong the life of their child and get those drugs in the hope that something turns up in the meantime, but it means that those powerful drugs are being misused with serious consequences. I had not realised how powerful they were, until I saw someone who had been pulled back right from the brink of death by the drugs—for six months, but then what happens? The reactions can be much worse from intermittent use of the drugs.

People will get and use the drugs. The issue for the international community is not whether we can hold back on the supplies—we cannot, and it is the height of control freakery to think that we can prevent people from using them—but to ensure that the supply lines that already exist, through a whole network of voluntary groups, private health organisations and other outlets, are properly supplied, and that the right support is provided, so that the drugs can be properly administered and used.

I urge my hon. Friend, when he looks through this detailed report, which will take a lot of time to digest, to pay attention to two particular points. First, he should focus on the question of the anti-retrovirals—we must enable them to be used properly or they will continue to be used improperly. Secondly, he should focus on orphans and vulnerable children. As DFID develops its strategy and applies pressure for country strategies on HIV/AIDS, it should aim to ensure that those country strategies contain and give priority to orphans and vulnerable children. That is not averting a catastrophe, but dealing with one that is already in place.

Nine minutes remaining.

I add my congratulations to the all-party group on Africa on producing the report "Averting Catastrophe—Aids in 21st Century Africa". The report makes grim reading, but also makes many positive proposals. I declare an interest, in that I am chairman of the all-party group on Botswana, and will therefore confine my remarks mainly to the AIDS problem in that country, which is mentioned several times in the report.

Botswana is a massive country in area—it is bigger than France and Belgium put together—but has a tiny population of 1.7 million. Unlike many African countries, it is a success story. The people have succeeded through a combination of good luck—they discovered diamonds shortly after independence in the 1960s—and good government. They did not have a war over control of the diamond mines, but used the wealth instead for schools, clinics and infrastructure. In raw figures, the average income of the people of Botswana is 10 times that of most other countries in sub-Saharan Africa and, through decent health care, the average life expectancy rose almost to European levels.

I first visited Botswana in 1999 on a Commonwealth Parliamentary Association delegation, led by the hon. Member for Glasgow, Pollok (Mr. Davidson). It was on that visit that I began to understand the enormity of the HIV/AIDS problem. We visited Jwaneng, one of the diamond mines run by Debswana, the company that is 50 per cent. owned by the Government and 50 per cent. by De Beers, and around which a town had been built. We were briefed on the work of the mine, its immense capital investment, and security measures to ensure that no material was stolen. However, the manager who gave the briefing seemed a little distant, and I asked him whether there was anything else that he wanted to tell us: there was. That morning he had received the results of the first voluntary anonymous saliva tests on his work force. The tests had revealed an HIV infection rate of 30 per cent. across the pay grades. We discussed the implications of that, including how one feeds that sort of information into a business plan. It meant that investment in recruitment and training would have to increase, and that new people would need to be drafted into the work force when victims started to show signs of terminal illness.

Last year—four years later—I led a delegation of MPs and Members of the other place to Botswana. We visited another diamond mine at Orapa. We received another briefing, including a section on what the company had done to counteract the impact of HIV/ AIDS. In the four years since the result of that first test, Debswana had decided that it was cheaper to screen its entire work force and, if they were infected, to give them the currently available medicines to keep them alive. If staff members were not infected, they were counselled regularly on how to remain disease-free. Throughout the country, in taxis and on posters everywhere, there is the ABC sign encouraging people to abstain, be faithful and condomise.

As a result of that policy there is some light at the end of the tunnel. Indications at Debswana show that by using anti-retroviral treatments it may be possible to keep people alive and active for an additional 10 years, thereby recovering some of the investment in training. The encouraging news is that the rate of new infection among younger members of the work force has dropped. The message seems to be getting through.

Unfortunately, the picture is not the same throughout Botswana. Debswana's work force is a tiny fraction of the country's working population. On the flight home last year I sat next to the respected BBC journalist Michael Buerk, who had been filming for world AIDS day. He had been to a copper mine in Selibe-Phikwe, where the work force had just received the results of their first saliva tests, four years after the test result in Jwaneng. The results showed an infection rate of not 30 per cent. but 70 per cent. Over the country as a whole the latest estimate is that 39 per cent. of adults are believed to be infected with HIV.

I mentioned that life expectancy in Botswana had risen because the country could afford decent health care. Without AIDS, by 2010 the average life expectancy in Botswana was expected to reach 74 years, which is pretty respectable. Now, with AIDS, that average life expectancy is predicted to be only 26—a generation and more of progress will have been wiped out. The situation in Botswana is so bad that the President, Festus Mogae, is on record as saying, "Our country faces extinction".

If it is bad in Botswana, a relatively rich country in African terms, just imagine what it is like in poorer countries that cannot afford the drugs, clinics, doctors and nurses needed to counter the problem. I visited Uganda with the Commonwealth Parliamentary Association a few years ago. The visit was led by the hon. Member for Clydebank and Milngavie (Tony Worthington). We met the enthusiastic head of the main hospital in Kampala. He told us that he would try any new drug to fight AIDS and that if he gave one dose of one of the latest anti-retroviral drugs to an HIV-positive pregnant woman just before she gave birth, there was an 80 per cent. chance that the baby would not be infected by HIV. I told him that that was marvellous. "Yes", he said, "but we don't use it." I asked him why not, and he explained that it costs £2 for the treatment, which was more than the annual budget for health care for an individual in Uganda.

"Anyway", he added, "the mother is going to die, so who will look after the baby?" I had a problem in understanding that. He was telling me that a baby would die because the country could not afford the equivalent of the price of half a pint of beer.

I am often asked what Botswana has to do with us in Britain. The answer is that the variant of the HIV virus in Botswana, the C-type virus, is exactly the same as that which is increasingly being found in Britain, Europe and North America. In other words, the epidemic's escalation in Africa is connected to Britain's increasing HIV levels.

There are a few encouraging signs. Work is continuing to try to develop vaccines to prevent people from contracting HIV in the first place. The Botswana Harvard partnership started clinical trials late last year. It will be some years before trials are completed and HIV is not an easy virus to produce a vaccine against because it mutates when attacked.

It is in Britain's interest to be involved in the research to find a vaccine. It is also in the interests of the USA. When I heard that I he US Government had committed $87 billion to the reconstruction of a single country, Iraq, I could not help but feel that a fraction of that money would be better spent in finding a vaccine to save not only future people in Botswana but in preventing the spread of AIDS in Britain, Europe and elsewhere. I welcome the debate for the chance to show that many Members of this House care deeply about this awful problem.

I start by adding my congratulations to the hon. Member for City of York (Hugh Bayley), not only on securing the debate but on presenting the background to the issue and the case for action so well. We have worked together on the International Development Committee for several years, and it is clear from the evidence that we have taken in our inquiries that there are few bigger issues and few greater challenges facing the world than halting and reversing the global spread of HIV.

As the hon. Gentleman pointed out, the challenge is nowhere greater than in Africa, where, during a number of visits, I have seen at first hand the devastating impact of the illness. At the same time, I have seen positive signs of good, effective educational, preventive and treatment programmes. We know that well funded assistance that is targeted in the right way can make an enormous difference, and the debate has rightly focused on how aid from this country can be increased and improved.

The all-party Africa group, which the hon. Gentleman did so well to set up, summed things up in the title of its report, "Averting Catastrophe". That is the reality of where we are. In many communities and countries, we are literally facing a catastrophe. The statistics that have been quoted by many Members throughout this debate are nothing short of frightening. There are 40 million people living with AIDS, 70 per cent. of whom live in sub-Saharan Africa. About 2 million people in the region are dying annually. The country prevalence rate is as high as 33 per cent. in Botswana. HIV infection has risen from 4 per cent. to 39 per cent. in Swaziland in just 10 years.

However, the prevalence rates among young people are perhaps the most alarming feature. As the all-party group points out, infection is as high as 45 per cent. in the 15 to 24-year-old age group in Botswana, and as high as 51 per cent. in Lesotho. Without proper and sustained action, we run the real risk of witnessing the complete wiping-out of a whole generation in those countries. They are nations that, even without the HIV crisis, exist as very fragile members of the international community.

It is wrong to think of this as a poor man's disease, as it is often presented in the media. That is only part of the story. The other side of the story is that HIV and AIDS are hitting many educated professionals, as well. That presents even greater dangers, with teachers, doctors and nurses dying daily from the virus. It is clear that HIV/AIDS threatens the very education and health care programmes that we seek to expand in these countries. With so many farmers dying, the knowledge and experience that is crucial to farming the land is simply not being passed on from one generation to the next.

The challenge is clear. The real question, which has been posed throughout the debate, is how we respond to it. Despite the National Audit Office report last week and the negative headlines that were generated for the Minister's Department as a result, I acknowledge and commend the immense work done by DFID. Members from both sides of the Chamber recognise the enormous contribution that the Department makes to the global fight against AIDS. However, just because something is being done well does not mean it cannot be done better. The all-party report and the NAO paper lay down a case for the Government to respond to. DFID has been consulting on its HIV/AIDS strategy, and those reports and this debate should play an important part in that consultation process.

It is clear to me that the issue of HIV is so great that 90 minutes in Westminster Hall, while welcome, is simply not enough. What we really need is a full debate on the Floor of the House on the Government's strategy for tackling the disease at home and abroad. However, in the short time available today, what do I think should be done?

The Minister will know from my correspondence with his Department, which started pretty much after I was elected, that I believe strongly that the Government should raise UK aid levels to 0.7 per cent. of GDP. At the very least, DFID and the Treasury should set a timetable for meeting the UN target, and I was pleased to see that the all-party group made that its first recommendation.

I have never understood how the Department for Transport can produce a 10-year transport plan—the recent White Paper on air transport focused on the next 30 years—but when I and others raise the 0.7 per cent. issue with the Government we are told that moving beyond current targets is a matter for future Parliaments. If the Government are to sustain their position as a leading player in international development, they cannot shy away much longer from setting a timetable.

I have no doubt from the correspondence that I have received from my constituents that there is a general feeling of good will outside this place towards the 0.7 per cent. target. Unfortunately, reports such as that published by the NAO last Thursday, although important, can damage that good will. With any Government spending, what is important is not only the amount that is spent, but ensuring that it is spent effectively and efficiently. I fear that, without assurances that such money will be spent as effectively as possible, the public will question the Government spending more money on overseas aid.

To be fair, I should point out that the NAO reports what DFID is doing right in terms of giving people on the ground the flexibility and autonomy that they need to be effective. The problem is that the Department is failing with its impact analysis. As parliamentarians, we have an absolute duty to our constituents to ensure that taxpayers' money is spent well. Not knowing what impact their money is having makes the job of justifying such spending much more difficult. That is not only about the efficient use of the public purse; there is a practical side to it. Proper impact analysis is crucial to learning what works. With any programme or set of programmes, we need to know what went right, what went wrong, what had no effect and what can be done better. The Government's overall HIV/AIDS strategy must make that a priority.

This is not only about effective Government spending. There is also a case for the EU to reform the way in which it gives out development aid and to take a much more pro-poor attitude. It could do so by following the example set by DFID. My party and I have been fairly critical of the lack of transparency with which EU aid is distributed and of the lack of a proper poverty focus. That is not helped by the confusing administration whereby a number of agencies are responsible for distributing aid, such as the external relations directorate-general, the European Commission's humanitarian aid office and EuropeAid. Considering that the EU has such a considerable budget for aid, and considering the amount that we give the EU for that purpose, it is vital that the money is spent just as efficiently as any other money that the Government spend.

These are not new arguments; they have been presented to the Government and to multilateral institutions for many years. At the same time, though, the arguments must be presented to the Governments of African nations. There is a clear consensus that the people of Africa should determine and mould their own futures. Without proper action to tackle HIV/AIDS, it is clear that many people in Africa will not have a future. That is why it is so important for African Governments, civil society and others to play a leading role in formulating, with international support, their own action plans. We hope that the New Partnership for Africa's Development has a key role in that.

I could say much more, but it is important that the Minister has enough time in which to respond. No doubt we will have similar debates in future. We face an enormous challenge in tackling this disease, and history will judge how we faced that challenge not only by what we say, but by the decisions that we make and the action that we take in the months and years ahead.

Like others, I congratulate the hon. Member for City of York (Hugh Bayley) on securing the debate and, more importantly, on his chairmanship of the all-party group and the report that it has prepared on this devastating situation.

AIDS is a silent enemy, often hiding behind the wall of stigma and discrimination in this country. However, its intangible nature makes it no less real, as all today's speeches have illustrated. Although drug treatments and public education have curbed its spread in most parts of the developed world, sadly that is certainly not the case in most of Africa, particularly sub-Saharan Africa. On top of that, I saw on the BBC website just this morning that it is believed that, even today, the majority of people in sub-Saharan Africa who have contracted HIV are unaware of that fact if AIDS has not yet developed.

AIDS has now been acknowledged as the biggest threat to Africa's development and the No. 1 overall cause of death in Africa. About 25 million Africans are living with HIV and AIDS, and there are 13 million AIDS orphans, a fact on which a number of earlier speakers dwelt. Sub-Saharan Africa is by far the most-affected region of the world, according to the United Nations and the World Heath Organisation. Only 50,000 out of 4 million sufferers are receiving the required treatment in the region. In Swaziland, for example, the UN says that school enrolment has dropped by more than a third, largely because girls are taken out of the classrooms to be used as carers.

AIDS hits hardest where there is widespread poverty and inadequate health care, where many people go hungry and malnourished, where men leave their rural homes to travel to cities to find work and where girls and women are ignored when they refuse to have unprotected sex. That was discussed at greater length in our previous debate on the subject. Those conditions apply extensively in sub-Saharan Africa.

AIDS is not just a health issue; it is something that affects individuals, a disease that shatters families, communities and whole countries. Beyond the huge personal cost of losing a loved one to AIDS, there is the economic loss to the country and its ability to sustain the next generation. In some countries, AIDS is wiping out whole sections of the work force in key roles: teachers, farmers, health workers, civil servants and young professionals. HIV/AIDS has caused more long-term damage to national economies than we realised until recently. As it kills so many young adults, it weakens the mechanism through which human capital is accumulated and transmitted across generations.

In Botswana, which the hon. Member for Cheltenham (Mr. Jones) spoke about, in Malawi, Mozambique, Swaziland and other countries, people die on average in their 30s. Previous speakers have rightly dwelt on the plight of the children left behind; shocking statistics hammer home the point that generations who are needed to fuel the economic development of those countries—in plainer language, to care for the children—are being lost to the epidemic.

We had a good debate on the issue six months ago and, looking back on it—I do not say it sourly—I found the Government's response disappointing in one respect: almost all the targets quoted were monetary. The hon. Member for City of York made a cogent case for more money and the all-party group had the ingenious idea of diverting the huge pot of unused money in the EU—an unaccountable institution about which a number of us have concerns relating to transparency. However, targets in the long run must not be how much is spent on programmes, but what difference they make on the ground.

I make no apology for returning to the five proposals at the heart of tackling AIDS: first, a more integrated approach, combining the scientific expertise of pharmaceutical companies with the practical experience of non-governmental organisations that work on the ground, and working with the host Governments and their various agencies. It is crucial for the global health fund to adopt a co-ordinated strategy when disbursing funds, rather than finding ad hoc projects.

Without the slightest shadow of a doubt, the finest example in Africa of a co-ordinated assault on HIV/AIDS is that of Uganda, where the Government took the lead and undertook a blunt HIV prevention campaign. They deserve huge credit for recognising the magnitude and impact of the disease as early as 1987, when half the world did not even know what the word meant, and for adopting the ABC approach.

I was intrigued by the comments of the hon. Member for Cheltenham about the diamond mine that he visited, where the management picked the Ugandan programme off the shelf as a model, as their Government are doing rather less. As he said, the ABC approach is, first, to teach abstinence to young people; secondly, to teach people to be faithful to their spouses and partners and, only thirdly, to use condoms. That highly organised national planning exercise mobilised Government Ministries and NGOs; the Churches played a big role and the business sector, the media, and, crucially, schools, all worked together. The impressive outcome of such efforts was a reduction of more than 50 per cent. in HIV sero-prevalence over just four years. As far as I know—I stand to be corrected—Uganda is the only country in Africa that has achieved a huge reduction in the rate of new HIV infections.

Secondly, Conservatives believe that it is vital to build up the infrastructure that is necessary to administer medical care, focusing in particular on drugs. Apart from Uganda, most countries in Africa still do not have that wider infrastructure. If people are to have the benefit of treatment for HIV/AIDS, they must have access to as full a range as possible of medical care. I particularly like the idea in the report of the hon. Member for City of York and his group of using distance learning through the Open university and others for filling the desperate gaps that are now appearing in the human infrastructure of the health services in those countries.

Thirdly, following on from that, we would ensure that a significant proportion of the UN global health fund is spent on purchasing the anti-retroviral drugs that are needed to treat people with AIDS. Pharmaceutical companies are already selling their drugs far cheaper in Africa than they are in Europe. For example, all six of GlaxoSmithKline's HIV/AIDS medicines are available in the poorest countries at prices up to 90 per cent. lower than those charged in the developed world. That impressive example of corporate social responsibility should be encouraged. There are examples of corporate social responsibility in other sectors as well; the hon. Member for Cheltenham gave an example of an enlightened employer.

Fourthly, Conservatives believe that the global health fund should purchase anti-retroviral drugs to be administered to pregnant women. I want to leave the Minister as much time as possible to reply, so I shall not repeat the extremely cogent point of the hon. Member for Cheltenham. As an example of a lifesaver, that is surely the one area where the smallest sums of money can produce the largest returns.

Our fifth and final proposal is that the global health fund should work harder to encourage research and development by pharmaceutical companies into diseases in the third world. Those companies, which are in business to make a profit, invest hundreds of millions of pounds in drugs, the majority of which do not make a return on the investment. Sadly, the drugs least likely to make a return on the investment are those for developing countries. If we were to give companies guarantees on their intellectual property rights—there are other routes as well—we would encourage them to ensure that desperately needed investment in more powerful drugs with fewer side effects is actually made. I apologise for this analogy, but that is the critical club in the golf bag that is needed to tackle this absolutely hideous problem.

To conclude, it is far too easy for us in the developed world to think of HIV/AIDS a somebody else's problem, affecting those who are nameless, faceless and a very long way away. It is up to us not to pass the buck but to confront the issue and do our utmost to assist, educate and nurture the sufferers—especially in Africa, which, proportionately, has the worst problem—their orphans and those who are not yet infected but whose ignorance about the illness is one cause of its continuation.

Thank you, Mr. Cook. I, too, join others in congratulating—

Order. I would be remiss in my duties were I not to remind hon. Members that when the House took the decision to conduct proceedings in this Chamber, it determined that the occupant of the Chair be addressed as Mr. Deputy Speaker.

My apologies, Mr. Deputy Speaker.

I am grateful to my hon. Friend the Member for City of York (Hugh Bayley) for securing this debate. I congratulate him not only on that bat on his continuing advocacy for HIV/AIDS sufferers in Africa. I also congratulate him on the timing of the publication of the report and of this debate, as we in the Department for International Development are working on publishing a strategy shortly. It will deal with many of the concerns that hon. Members have raised today and will demonstrate that the Government are significantly scaling up their response to this appalling crisis.

I know that the Secretary of State enjoyed giving evidence to the all-party group, and I certainly enjoyed my opportunity to discuss the conclusions of its report. I agree with the point that all hon. Members made that this is an exceptional crisis deserving of an exceptional response; the UK Government must do dramatically more than they have so far, and more funding in particular will be needed as part oft he scaling-up of our response.

A number of hon. Members touched on the scale of the challenge facing us. Last year, AIDS killed 2.3 million Africans, some 3.2 million Africans became infected, and overall 26 million Africans were living with HIV/AIDS. It is also worth mentioning India, because we must not only address the impact of HIV/AIDS in Africa when considering our response. Some 4.5 million people in India are living with HIV/AIDS, and if its rate of growth of infection continues, by 2010 there will be more people living with HIV/AIDS in Asia than in Africa. We need to make sure that our response is coherent not only in terms of what is needed in Africa but for other continents.

On 1 December last year, we published a "Call for Action" setting out what we believe are the fundamentals of what is necessary to scale-up the international community's response to HIV/AIDS. They are: stronger political direction, higher levels of funding, much better donor co-ordination, and better HIV/AIDS programmes.

On stronger political direction, we are working to push the response to the crisis up the agenda in all the international forums in which we have a role. HIV/AIDS in Africa will be one of the key priorities of our presidencies of the G8 and the European Union. We are busy working on a new UK HIV/AIDS strategy; that will be a key step in a UK cross-government response intended to accelerate our contribution to combating the epidemic.

As my hon. Friend the Member for City of York said, we are the second largest funder of work on HIV/AIDS and sexual and reproductive health. We spent £270 million in 2002–03, which is a sevenfold increase on the £38 million that was being spent when we came to power. We have committed $280 million to the global health fund, and in line with that commitment we provided £30 million to the fund in May.

One of the tragedies of the response to HIV/AIDS is that many of the other international multilateral organisations that have a role get nothing like the publicity that the global fund has rightly been able to secure. We need to think about our funding of and work with other bodies, such as the World Health Organisation and UNICEF, which is the UN's children's organisation, and with UNAIDS as the key co-ordinating mechanism. In response to that, we have recently doubled our funding to UNAIDS.

My hon. Friend suggested that a toolkit was necessary for the setting of our priorities for developing countries, and I agree with him. That is a function for UNAIDS rather than the UK. Similarly, the World Health Organisation must lead in giving developing countries the technical advice that they need on treatment and care, and our funding helps to support it in doing that.

I strongly support too the all-party group's recommendation on the need to support the proposal for the international finance facility. That has the potential to deliver huge additional funds to help us tackle HIV/AIDS and to address the other necessary millennium and development goals.

My hon. Friend expressed a series of concerns about the possibility of developing countries or the International Monetary Fund seeking to put a cap on the total resources available for the fight against HIV/AIDS, because of economic and inflationary concerns. I understand the importance of that debate, and I welcome the fact that the all-party group has sought to push it up the agenda. The benefits of substantial resources for HIV/AIDS may outweigh those genuine economic concerns, if donors can commit to delivering resources predictably and over the long term. However, the debate that the all-party group has started is important, and I welcome the fact that it is to have further dialogue with the IMF on those issues.

Co-ordination is absolutely critical. In Uganda last year, there were some 30 different donor missions on HIV/AIDS. In Angola—in response to the issue raised by my hon. Friend the Member for Northampton, North (Ms Keeble) about access to anti-retroviral drugs—there were 15 alone just to consider the issue of treatment. One of the UK Government's key tasks is to try to stimulate better donor co-ordination and harmonisation with the priorities of other Governments' plans. It is particularly significant that, at the international conference in April to promote UNAIDS's Three Ones agenda, which the Secretary of State helped to chair with UNAIDS and the US, we were able to secure the support of all leading donors.

My hon. Friend the Member for Northampton, North and the hon. Member for Mid-Dorset and North Poole (Mrs. Brooke) raised the particular issue of orphans and vulnerable children. I agree absolutely that we must do much more in that regard. When I was asked to appear before the International Development Committee on that issue, I highlighted the fact that only six countries in Africa have strategies specifically addressing the needs of orphans and vulnerable children, and that only four have legislation to back up those strategies.

We are working with UNICEF to try to change that. We need costed plans and strategies, and we are supporting UNICEF's work in that area. My hon. Friend and the hon. Lady rightly highlighted that getting children back into school, getting parents treated, and getting money to households to help them to deal with orphans are three of the fundamentals of an effective response in-country to HIV/AIDS. Our strategy will demonstrate the UK Government's commitment to giving further priority to the issue.

My hon. Friend the Member for Clydebank and Milngavie (Tony Worthington) highlighted the importance of the integration of policies on sexual and reproductive health with those on HIV/AIDS, which is fundamental. I saw for myself when I visited the Sonagachi slum in Calcutta how work by a health clinic to train sex workers in understanding the risks of sexual and reproductive health and HIV/AIDS was helping to make a significant impact on levels of HIV/AIDS infection in Calcutta, compared with other cities in India. Clearly, interventions such as that will continue to be necessary.

The hon. Member for Canterbury (Mr. Brazier) raised the ABC strategy of the Ugandan Government. I agree with him that they deserve considerable praise for their political leadership, for their success in reducing HIV/AIDS, and for the significant sums of money that they have committed to the problem. There is a role to play in encouraging a delay in the onset of sexual activity, but when we consider the issue, we must recognise that large numbers of women in Africa living with HIV/AIDS have been infected by their husbands, so the third prong of the ABC approach—the issue of condoms and of her advice about sexual and reproductive health—is absolutely fundamental. We must do more in working with, for example, the United Nations Population Fund to extend access to condoms and information about sexual and reproductive health. The strategy that we hope to publish shortly on our work on sexual and reproductive health will, I hope, give further comfort.

I do not think that the hon. Member for Eastleigh (Mr. Chidgey) mentioned that the National Audit Office report praised DFID's approach, comparing it well with those of other like-minded donors, saying that our approach is flexible and responsive, and acknowledging that we have significantly increased our spending on HIV/AIDS-related work. We shall compile a full report on that work, and I am sure that the concerns raised by the NAO will be properly dealt with in our forthcoming HIV/AIDS strategy.

It is a great pleasure for me as the first chartered librarian to be elected to this House and as chair of the all-party group on libraries and information management to secure this debate. Libraries are the source of both knowledge and inspiration. Books—the heart of libraries—inspire and engage people of all ages and from all walks of life. They provide the information to fuel the knowledge creation of the future, and with recent investment in technology they are enhancing the UK's position as a leading knowledge society.

I was interested to read an article a bout using a library in the "How to…"column in The Guardian on 18 October 2003. It begins:

"Libraries are brothels for the mind. Which means that librarians are the madams, greeting punters, understanding their strange tastes and needs, and pimping their books."

However, not to carry this analogy too far, my right hon. Friend the Member for Islington, South and Finsbury (Mr. Smith), our first Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport, described libraries as "street corner universities". He was one of the early enthusiastic supporters of the all-party group, which was established in 1998 at the instigation of the Library Association, then led by the inspirational Ross Shimon.

Two years ago the Library Association metamorphosed into the Chartered Institute for Library and Information Professionals. It is the leading professional body for librarians, information specialists and knowledge managers. As chairman of the all-party group, I pay tribute to the way in which CILIP, under its excellent chief executive, Bob McKee, has helped the all-party group to raise awareness of the value of libraries to Members of both Houses and beyond.

The group also greatly appreciates the active interest of the present Secretary of State and all Ministers for the Arts since its formation. Indeed, when my right hon. Friend the Minister for the Arts was Secretary of State for Education and Skills, she kindly supported the event that the group organised in December 2001 when hon. Members presented children's books of their choice to their local children's librarians.

Hon. Members are undoubtedly aware of how much their local public libraries are valued by their constituents. I was fortunate enough to chair the leisure committee of the London borough of Redbridge in the year prior to my election to this place. I know how highly regarded are the services provided by chief librarian, Martin Timms, and his staff. Redbridge libraries have an excellent reputation, winning the charter mark award in October 2002. Between April 2002 and March 2003, 2,017,003 people visited a Redbridge library. That is the seventh highest figure in England. More than 90 per cent. of users rate the overall service highly and 92 per cent. commend the staff's knowledge and expertise.

There are thousands of libraries in this country. There are more than 4,000 public library sites in the UK, supported by more than 600 mobile libraries, not forgetting the colossal 17,000 libraries in other institutions. Libraries are found in schools, colleges, universities, workplaces, hospitals and prisons. We have six national libraries including our world-renowned British Library, so ably led by Lynne Brindley. Its collections include 150 million items in most known languages, with 3 million new items added every year. It boasts the world's largest document delivery service issuing 4 millions items a year to customers all over the world.

Books remain at the core of library service. An astonishing 116 million books are held in public libraries and 377 million loans were made last year. That is more than six loans for every person in the country. Book issues in higher education institutions total nearly 85 million.

Libraries have been quick to adapt to changing demands. As well as books, they offer compact discs, videos, learning packs, local information and access to the internet. They also offer other services, such as providing meeting areas and display spaces. Good practice exists throughout the country on how libraries are being transformed. Innovative libraries in London, such as the one opened in my borough in memory of our late council leader Keith Axon, which is designed to convert into a community centre, the Idea Store in Bow and the new Peckham library, have shown what tomorrow's libraries could and should look like.

I was delighted to be asked to attend the opening of the new Peckham library in May 2000, when we also celebrated 150 years of public libraries, especially because in the late 1960s I worked for the London borough of Southwark public libraries before university and then in vacations. The branch replaced by the new Peckham library was housed in what I remember as a corrugated-iron hut.

To give one example of innovative library projects, the annual summer reading challenge runs throughout public libraries during the school summer holidays. Almost nine out of 10 authorities take part in the annual promotion, which reaches more than 500,000 children—600,000 took part last year. Half of those children completed the challenge of reading at least six books during the summer holidays. In Redbridge last summer, 1,242 children took part, 644 of whom won medals for reaching the target, and 376 reached the local target of 24 books read. They are the library users of the future.

Our libraries are enjoyed by millions across the UK. Six out of 10 of us are members of a public library, and the service is overwhelmingly popular, as I hope my reference to services provided by my local borough of Redbridge has illustrated. Libraries have a huge potential to reach out to everyone. They are more accessible than ever: disabled access is improving, more libraries are staying open for longer hours, and 650 mobile libraries take services to even the most hard-to-reach groups. Redbridge's new mobile library, with its lift for disabled access and online link, won the "State of the Art" award in June 2002.

Libraries are the hubs of our communities. They provide a safe and friendly environment, which means that people feel at ease to try out new skills and experiences. Some 27 per cent. of regular public library users are from social classes D and E, compared with 22 per cent. of the whole population. Libraries provide spaces for young parents and toddlers, for homework clubs, and for older users to get online and learn new skills in a known and trusted environment. Digital communications are making libraries even more accessible, with the provision of online services allowing easier access to information. More than half of UK online centres are in public libraries, and the service is perhaps doing more than any other to help to ensure that we meet our targets for e-Government.

The lottery-funded People's Network, which at £120 million is the largest single information and communications technology investment in the history of the public library service, has dramatically expanded internet access. The project, managed by the Museums, Libraries and Archives Council, has successfully bridged a digital divide, opening up universal public access to the internet. Not only are there 32,000 computer terminals, but every public library staff member has been reskilled and trained in ICT. Over the past year, 23,000 people have started a formal education course online in their local library, and 62,000 report gaining a new skill. Some 8,000 people have found new jobs thanks to the People's Network, 20,000 have been able to keep in touch with their families, and 52,000 have used the People's Network for activities to support their local community. It is worth emphasising that that huge project, which is a sea change in the public library services, has been delivered on time and within budget. Importantly, more than a quarter of the people who used the People's Network last year joined their library and enjoyed the more traditional services.

I am pleased that Chris Batt, who so energetically directed the team that delivered the People's Network, has transferred his skills and experience to leading the Museums, Libraries and Archives Council. I hope that the Minister will agree that the success of the People's Network must be sustained to ensure that it remains free at the point of use, now that lottery funding from the new opportunities fund is running out.

I am confident that our libraries are performing a valuable and expanding service, but there is no room for complacency. We must invest in the future. Although there is much to be proud of, there is a lot to do. Libraries are not realising their full potential. It is all very well to call for improved stocks of material and for longer opening hours, which means paying for more staff time, but I know from bitter experience that when it comes to prioritising spending in local council budgets, those who support more resources for education, social services, roads and a host of other services are usually heeded before demands for the improvement of the library service. The reduced weighting of libraries as an indicator for comprehensive performance assessments must not enfeeble their status and high-quality service. The huge regard in which the public service is held by the British people must be recognised and rewarded.

"Framework for the Future", which was published last year, set out the Government's vision for public libraries over the next 10 years. The MLA has been charged with leading on the implementation of that vision with three central priorities: to promote reading and learning for everyone, regardless of income and background; to encourage positive access to digital skills and services; and to take a leading role in tackling social exclusion in communities. The framework also recognises the need to build on the skills and capacity of staff in the library service, particularly those who are working on the front line, so they can play their vital part in the dynamic period of change on which our public service has embarked.

There were many trail-blazing, exciting projects under way in libraries countrywide long before the announcement of the Government's new strategy, but "Framework for the Future" is now providing a framework to meld those together and turn the best national initiatives into local offers that are open to everyone. "Framework for the Future" will ensure the dynamic future development of our public libraries while safeguarding their traditional role at the heart of our local communities, which continues to be highly valued by all citizens.

Libraries cannot implement these programmes by themselves; they need support from key partnership agencies and the private sector, and sustained investment from central Government. The MLA's new investing in knowledge campaign highlights the wealth of knowledge that is contained not only in libraries, but in museums and archives, and it underpins learning, community cohesion, economic development and creativity, all of which the Government care passionately about.

At the heart of this vision is the concept of a knowledge web, which is a new approach to online access to cultural services that will give everyone, whatever their age, background and level of interest and understanding, seamless and tailored access to the collections and expertise of our knowledge institutions. The MLA is leading a consortium to agree the standards and protocols that will make that concept a reality.

The important thing is that forward-looking programmes, such as investing in knowledge, "Framework for the Future" and the People's Network, are mapping out an exciting future for public libraries. I particularly welcome the recent announcement that visits to public libraries have increased dramatically since the introduction of new services, such as the People's Network. Since 2002–03, which was the first year of the new services, there have been an astonishing 5 million additional visits across the UK. That is an excellent return on the investment, and I urge continuing commitment and support from central and local government, so that libraries can retain their position as one of our most treasured public services.

I was pleased that the importance of libraries was recognised only two days ago by the Department for Culture, Media and Sport when it sponsored a seminar at the Department, chaired by Heritage Minister Lord McIntosh and attended by councillors, library professionals and other interested parties, including myself as chair of the all-party group. In her speech, the Secretary of State challenged public libraries to offer and deliver the services that people want and to involve, engage and inspire their customers. I was delighted that Lord McIntosh took the opportunity to announce the award of £2 million to fund improvements to build on the success of the public library service.

My last job before I entered this place was in a further education college library. A student came up to me at the reference desk and asked for the "FBI Handbook". Using my professional skills, I quickly ascertained that he meant the "BFI Handbook"—the British Film Institute handbook—but, as any fan of the "X Files" knows, the truth is out there, and libraries are central to finding it.

I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Ilford, North (Linda Perham) on securing this debate. It is particularly appropriate in a week that has seen the important seminar at the Department for Culture, Media and Sport, which takes forward the next stage of library celebration and reform. She has every reason to be proud of the fact that she is the first chartered librarian to sit in the House of Commons. She will understand it when I say that I hope that she is not alone in that group for long. I have always believed that one of the best ways to serve the public in the Houses of Parliament is to bring in skills and experience from the outside world. I hope that she will soon be joined by like brains and others from that sector.

Regardless of my affection for The Guardian, I much prefer to see my hon. Friend described as somebody from a street corner university than a brothel, and I am sure that all hon. Members in the Chamber would agree. I thought that the two forms of language used by The Guardian and the former Secretary of State, my right hon. Friend the Member for Islington, South and Finsbury (Mr. Smith), illustrated how people from all walks of life can find a way with all forms of language to describe libraries and their importance in our society.

I also want to put on record my thanks to the sector in its widest form—to the MLA for its work as strategic adviser to the Government and its hard work over the past few years since it was set up in taking forward the reform agenda. I also thank the thousands of librarians whose work is sometimes not praised as much as it should be, but is taken for granted because of the success of libraries. They are such an important part of their communities.

It is a good time to discuss libraries, because, although they have been around for 150 years, this is a pivotal time for them. While not forgetting any of their successes and the contribution that they have made over the 150 years, they are looking forward to the future, to modernising and to making sure that they can fulfil their remit to our country and our communities, while adapting to new technology and the challenges faced by our communities and all parts of of our public sector.

I like to think that libraries are one of the earliest examples of public service. They are much older than many other services that now have a higher profile and they have perhaps contributed more than any other. Their aim has always been to be non discriminatory and to give everyone, regardless of their background or income, the opportunity to refer to and read books of all kinds—great works of literature, reference material, newspapers, magazines and local information—perhaps before it became fashionable to talk about opportunity and being non-discriminatory. Therefore, libraries have been centre stage in the great movements in education and self-improvement for a century and a half, and there is no doubt that that tradition continues today.

Libraries are important in their own right and we should take nothing away from that However, they also make a huge contribution to the wider aims of central and local government. Libraries play an immense part in other areas of policy and activity. They help to raise standards in our schools, and have done so for many a year, and provide activities mentioned by my hon. Friend, such as the "Books for Babies" scheme, reader development schemes and homework clubs. Libraries contribute to older people's quality of life and give, as she said, a safe community space for people to meet.

They promote the health of communities by providing health-related advice and promotions. Libraries are key to promoting the economic vitality of communities, in a way that is not often recognised, through their support for learning in communities, including providing adult basic skills and giving safe places to learn for many types of people let down by formal learning establishments. Libraries also provide skills and information for small and medium-sized companies. They are a huge resource for the people of this country, and they help the Government to address their key priorities.

However, as the 2002 Audit Commission report "Building Better Libraries" reflected, physical visits to libraries and the borrowing of books have been in decline in the past couple of decades. That is not to say that all our library services were poor as we reached the new millennium; we recognised that there were many examples of good practice. However, we know that such examples were not copied by everybody and were not shared throughout the sector. Much of the challenge now is not to reinvent things, or create things that are not already there, but to make sure that all libraries practise at the level of the best.

As my hon. Friend said, it is pleasing that in 2002–03, the number of visits to public libraries rose by nearly 5 million across the UK, turning the trend of the previous decades. Although it is too early to say, I am confident that that is the beginning of a set of statistics that will show increasing visits to libraries in the years to come.

I should like to follow my right hon. Friend's point by referring to the number of book issues declining. Although there have been 5 million extra library visits, perhaps connected with the online provision, she will agree that people do not go to libraries just to borrow books. Many other services are available. They may go in just to look at things, so the increased visits are not much of an indicator about the value of libraries, or how much they are used.

My hon. Friend is right; that is one statistic among many that we need to consider when we look at the usage of libraries and how well received they are by the community. One thing sometimes leads to another; libraries have faced up to a responsibility to contribute to wider agendas, and getting people into them is one way to get people used to reading books. As she says, both things need to be done to get more books into libraries. We do not want to replace books with computers; we do not ever want a situation in which people can go to libraries only to access a wider range of services than the core services.

There is a challenge, about which nobody is complacent. In February last year, our response to that challenge was to publish "Framework for the Future", the first ever national strategy for public libraries. It sets out the long-term strategic vision for public libraries. The Department commissioned the MLA to prepare a three-year plan that would begin to turn this vision into a reality. The plan was published in September 2003, funded with £3 million over three years. Through that action plan, we hope to work further with libraries and local authorities on revitalising libraries and making sure that they are able to meet the challenges.

The action plan focuses on a number of major activities, many of which are helping libraries to build capacity. As my hon. Friend said, it was good news that, at Monday's seminar, we were able to announce a further £2 million over this year and the next one to help with that capacity building.

I want to mention five initiatives that will be taken forward as part of the work that the MLA is doing with the sector. The first point is that it is important to ensure that people know about the contribution that public libraries can make and, equally, to ensure that libraries know what local communities want. I do not like the phrase "marketing of the libraries" and I would much rather say "communication between the libraries and the people that they serve." One of the priorities will be to ensure that people know about the libraries and that they are aware of what the community wants.

The second point is about ensuring that the good practice that exists in libraries is spread throughout the sector. I am particularly pleased that the difference in the quality of library services across the country will be tacked by what we might term "peer review". We must ensure that library staff can learn from the best and that is why we are setting up teams, which are based around the Improvement and Development Agency peer review system. They will bring together library leaders and staff to work with individual authorities alongside local staff. Through the framework action plan, we are able to make funding available to those library services so that they can implement their local improvement plans. I hope that the ideas of using mentors and secondees, and pairing up with other authorities—what is essentially good practice in professional development in many other sectors of our lives—becomes embedded and accepted as good practice in libraries.

Thirdly, it is crucial that libraries make the best use of the funding that is available to them. That is why we are commissioning a review of library funding and how books are bought; we want to establish good practice. I hope that that might include different local authorities working together more effectively, perhaps on a regional or sub-regional basis. Lessons could be learned from the book or retail trades. We ought not to think that they are separate and that they have not got things to learn from each other. That is a challenging agenda and it calls for a major change in the way that libraries operate. However, it is one that is important if we are to transform public libraries so that they are credible and sustainable.

Fourthly, libraries can continue to play a key role in education. "Frame work for the Future" has identified five major ways in which libraries already make a contribution to learning: early years services, out-of-school-hours learning, work with disengaged young people, services for adult learners and high-quality reading activities for adults, which promote the enjoyment of books. I want to pay tribute to the work that the Book Trust has done, in particular in managing the work that has been done with Sure Start and other organisations that work with young children, their parents and their community.

Fifthly, I want to discuss leadership and work force development. None of the wider agenda, and our aspirations for the sector, will work unless we begin to give people who work in it the skills that they need. That is why I am particularly delighted that the MLA is developing a national leadership training programme, which should improve the potential of 450 senior or younger library staff. They will be able to help us to manage that change.

There is no doubt that libraries have not lost their popular appeal. There have been stages in the course of a century and a half when they have been more used or less used. However, nobody has ever stopped seeing them as central to their communities. As elected representatives, we all know the passion that exists when anyone's library is closed. Even people who do not use them want to know that they are there at the centre of their community for when they are needed. The decisions that we take in response to the framework, the work that the MLA and the sector are doing to take on the challenges of 21st century society, and the way that people still want to have affection for libraries but want them to modernise to help people cope with their lives and challenges will set in train the role that libraries can play in our country for the next century and a half. I wish them well, and I think that we have made a good start.

I thank my hon. Friend, not only for securing the debate, but for the work that she does with the all-party group to ensure that libraries stay at the forefront of Parliament's agenda.

I believe that we may be interrupted by a Division, so we must get on as best we can.

First, I want to thank my hon. Friend the Member for Taunton (Mr. Flook) and my right hon. Friend the Member for Wells (Mr. Heathcoat-Amory). They have given me an enormous amount of background information and their own thoughts on the debate. I am delighted to have secured it, because Somerset's biggest industry is tourism.

I am told that the people of Devon call tourists "grockles". I believe that, in Cornwall, tourists are known as "emmets". Neither of those expressions sounds polite to me, so I am proud to be introducing a debate on behalf of the good people of Somerset, who regard all tourists as extremely welcome, whoever they are and wherever they come from. Tourism is not just a simple seasonal trade in my part of the world; tourism is the major employer. We are very good at it and we cannot do without it. Tourism is vital. It fires the local economy and it marries with our other big industry—farming. In fact, the two industries together provide the bulk of the jobs in the rural areas. Tourism in Somerset does not just mean buckets and spades and cream teas. It is about pay packets and prosperity throughout the community.

Let me say a few nice things about Somerset. I could easily burst into song and go on all night. Mine is the most glorious county in all England. There are views to die for, landscapes to marvel at, hills—

I shall start where I left off: moors, castles and history; masses to do, see and enjoy. Above all, we have the kindest and most hospitable people in the world.

Other places put up big metal signs saying, "Welcome to wherever". In Somerset, we do not need sign language. It is written all over our faces. We are always pleased to see visitors. We know how to treat them well and they come back time and again My county is home from home and tourism makes it tick—well, it does when everything works, but in Somerset we simply cannot rely on the year-round tourist attractions that some places can. We do not have a Blackpool tower or a Golden mile. We have no huge hotels; we cannot host big conferences and our industry is not on the scale of that of many counties.

We are into family tourism: Butlins in Minehead; B&Bs on Exmoor, as my hon. Friend the Member for Taunton knows too well: little places with big hearts. Competing with fatter fish in other parts of Britain and beyond is the challenge and where a helping hand would not come amiss. I will not dwell on past disasters, but the foot and mouth crisis came close to killing our tourist trade. Last summer, visitors started to return, the trade was healthy and the "No vacancies" signs were once again going up. Good weather smiled on a good season. However, the word "good" is relative. Tourism still needs all the help it can get, which leads me to the critical part of my speech.

Before my hon. Friend gets to the salient point of his speech, I am sure that he will agree with me that good transport links are vital to attracting tourists to any rural county. He will know that the M5 was eventually opened in the mid-1970s, which helped a great deal in opening up Somerset to tourists from the north. I am sure that he will also agree that it will be vital to dual the A358 to improve links from the south coast. I am sure that the Minister will also take note that, if that were to happen in time for the Olympic games, of which I know he is a keen supporter, those people visiting Weymouth for the Olympic sailing will also be able to visit Somerset.

I thank my hon. Friend for that intervention. Our views on the main roads across the county of Somerset are well known. The MPs for Somerset have fought a tenacious battle to try to obtain the right road with the right permission. My hon. Friend is right.

The Government have a role in promoting the tourist industry. I have to pose the question whether that role is being properly fulfilled. Thanks to the direct intervention of the Minister's Department, there is now a unified tourist authority—an amalgamation of some of the former regional tourist boards. I have no doubt that the Minister will extol the virtues of that fresh-faced body and seek to allow time for it to show its worth.

I am all for patience, but this afternoon I am representing the concerns of many of my constituents, who rely on tourism and who are not yet convinced that the British Tourist Authority is the bee's knees when it comes to selling Somerset. Perhaps I have a slightly suspicious mind. Perhaps I do not care for the patronisingly simple way in which the Government try to solve the problem. They have an annoying habit of trying to convince us that the appointment of a single individual will suddenly cure everything, which has led to a rash of tsars: for instance, with drugs—"Let's hire a drugs tsar"; cancer—a cancer tsar; a transport tsar; and now a tourism tsar. There are enough tsars to start a new round of the Russian revolution. Rasputin would be rubbing his grubby little mitts with glee.

Let us have a look at the man the Government have picked to oversee the trade: tsar Sir Michael Lickiss, a man with a slightly sardonic slogan coined by some of his less fervent fans. I am afraid that it goes like this: "There's nothing as slick as a Sir Michael Lickiss". Unfortunately, he slides seamlessly from quango to quango, pumping up his salary in every port of call. As the Minister knows, he was a big cheese in the South West of England Regional Development Agency when it started—more of a lump of mousetrap than a ripe Camembert. What did he contribute to the RDA? No one can remember. In fact, no one seems to remember the man at all.

It seems that Sir Michael's greatest disadvantage is that he is unmemorable. But someone in the Government loves him: for two days' work a week, the tourism tsar earns £44,000 a year. I have been racking my brains for some logical explanation. It will come as no surprise that Sir Michael Lickiss is an accountant. No doubt he can crunch numbers till the cows come home, but the ability to balance the books at Grant Thornton would not appear to qualify him as the vibrant new public face of British tourism.

John Cleese had some cruel things to say about accountants; he was trained to be one in Weston-super-Mare. He thinks that accountants are the dullest people in the world, and I would hesitate to disagree with the proprietor of Fawlty Towers. On the other hand, I do not wish to be unfair to Sir Michael; for all I know, he might be an absolutely hilarious after-dinner speaker, and play the violin like Yehudi Menuhin. The trouble is that he is now as invisible in his new job as he was in his previous one. I believe that he is leaving to move on, and I wait with bated breath to see which quango he pops up in next.

However, there are important structural problems too, particularly with the regional development agency. I do not particularly like RDAs, one of which Sir Michael used to chair. I think that they contribute too little and have turned into costly talking shops. However, where they exist, we have to live with them. A good RDA should be able to recognise the needs of the tourist industry and, as a lead organisation, do something positive. I have scoured the archives to discover anything positive that SWERDA—the south-west's regional development agency—has done, or has promised to do for tourists. It has not been a fruitful search.

In February, the agency hosted a conference in Bristol on skills and training in the hospitality industry, which was presumably designed to help Manuel to improve his English. Perhaps it was a worthwhile event, but I do not know a single individual in the hotel trade in my constituency who went to it, or who had the time and money to enrol—and it was expensive. Surely the whole point of setting up the RDAs was to get to grips with major industries. As the Minister is well aware, the major industry in Somerset in tourism. Is it not time that we saw the RDAs putting their expertise up front?

I said that there was a structural problem, and I meant it. The RDAs cover a huge geographical area, but are not good at dealing with small problems on the ground. If I were running a Somerset guesthouse and asked for the RDA's help, I suspect that it would not know where to start. The RDAs are not geared up for the small fry, but small fry is what the tourism industry in Somerset is all about.

There is also the issue of promoting tourism. Somerset has a big battle: we have not got the muscle to get Sir Michael Lickiss's British Tourist Authority seriously interested, because we are too small. However, one of Sir Michael's senior lickspittles sent me a letter this morning. He had just heard about this debate, because he had just returned from a four-week holiday. My, what a lovely life they have in the British Tourist Authority! Dare I say it, this gentleman wanted to let me know that they are doing a fine job in Somerset. They are producing a special printed module about the county. Whoopee! The module refers to such Somerset rarities as—believe it or not—cider-making. Who would have guessed it? The Lickiss lad will also be happy to tell us that Somerset contains churches, cathedrals, market towns and gardens. Where on earth would we be without these people?

Bridgwater must blow its own trumpet, and I do talk about my constituency. The West Somerset railway does brilliantly, as do the National Trust and Exmoor national park. Exmoor holds its own food festival, but the councils do not have the cash to lavish on advertising, and the little tourism business can certainly not afford to do so. We cannot compete with the likes of Cornwall and its costly splurges in the Sunday supplements. We certainly do not have the equivalent of an English riviera. We are living by word of mouth, local leafleting, imaginative websites and old-fashioned hard graft.

I say to the Minister that that is not working well enough. Andrew Dixon, the chef and proprietor of Andrews on the Weir, an excellent establishment on Porlock weir in west Somerset, rightly feels that Somerset is the "poor relation" in south-west tourism. Andrew's plight is typical; he points to the lack of big business, which means that the burden of promoting tourism falls on those least able to afford it. I am not asking the Minister for special help—I just want Somerset to be treated fairly. I am stating the facts as I see them, and reminding the Minister yet again of how vital tourism is.

Tourism in west Somerset and Bridgwater is tucked away. To get to our pretty little coves and beaches, people have to head off the main artery of the M5. It is a slow journey because, unfortunately, our roads are narrow, winding and, above all, crowded. The main roads—the A39 and the A359—are falling to pieces. They desperately need Department for Transport investment, because the state of the roads directly affects tourism.

If the Government want to cut us off from the outside world, they are going about it the right way. Mr. Dixon, who has written to me at length, says that some of the big tour operators have removed Minehead from their list of holiday destinations simply because the journey is so difficult. I am afraid that we cannot afford to lose any visitors, as the Minister knows.

We will survive this summer, if the weather holds up—I am looking outside! We will hang on in there. We will say hello to old friends who love what we have to offer, and with a bit of luck we will make some new friends, too. We are worth the journey—we are worth travelling to for a holiday—and we are certainly worth the attentions of the South West of England Development Agency and the new British Tourist Authority. We will even roll out the carpet to welcome Sir Michael Lickiss home.

I hope that the message of this short debate is clear: "Give us a break, and give us a plug, and, for heaven's sake, treat us fairly.'

I congratulate the hon. Member for Bridgwater (Mr. Liddell-Grainger) on securing the debate. It has been somewhat disjointed because of all the Divisions. I agree with quite a lot of the first part of his speech but, unfortunately, I cannot agree with the second part of it, which was a personal attack on Sir Michael Lickiss, who has been an extremely good chair of the South West of England Regional Development Agency and a very helpful chair of VisitBritain.

It is true that when foot and mouth disease hit the country, the tourism industry took a great knock, particularly in the west, which is the hon. Gentleman's part of the world. I am sure he would acknowledge that; indeed, he mentioned it. Sir Michael Lickiss was the chair of the South West of England Regional Development Agency at that time. He and the chairs of the other RDAs were among the first people to come to the Government about the problem. They quickly organised support for the tourism industry and, indeed, for the farming industry. Everybody commended them on the speed with which they dispensed that duty. In very difficult circumstances they were very helpful to tourism, small businesses and the farming fraternity.

Sir Michael Lickiss has also addressed some of the clear structural weaknesses in the tourism industry. It is worth £76 billion to the country, accounts for about 4.5 per cent. of gross domestic product and is the fourth largest employer, yet it is running the biggest trade deficit of any sector of industry at sortie £16 billion. That was broadly neutral 10 to 12 years ago, which highlights how much it has declined. That is due in part to people being able to travel more cost effectively, and there is nothing wrong with that. The budget airlines have also had a major effect.

We need to consider how we start addressing the problems. In the Department for Culture, Media and Sport, the previous Tourism Minister—now the Minister of State, Department for Transport—and I discussed how we could address the structural weaknesses of tourism in England. What came out of that was the need to acknowledge that tourism is a major economic driver. That is why the Department decided to give responsibility for it to the RDAs. That happened only about 12 months ago. In doing so, we acknowledged through the RDAs, which have the sole objective in the English regions of driving up wealth creation as measured by GDP per capita, that tourism should go along with that responsibility. I have taken over from my hon. Friend as the Tourism Minister and I am still keeping to that policy.

The structural weaknesses that we are addressing include promotion abroad. Sir Michael has played an extremely good role in VisitBritain. We need to develop the electronic age. Englandnet is coming on stream. We have invested public moneys—£7 million—into that. We also need to consider the skills base, to which the hon. Gentleman referred. We launched a sector skills council a few weeks ago. One of the things for which the industry has been asking is up-to-date data, and we are working on that. So we are addressing the structural weaknesses.

Tourism Alliance brings the parts of the tourism industry together for the first time to speak with one voice. I place on record my thanks to Digby Jones of the CBI for bringing the industry together and working with the Government. We can now work in a much stronger partnership on the structural weaknesses that we have identified collectively. We also have institutions—the RDAs—that can drive the change forward. That is very important if we are to deal with the deficit.

I was at a Commonwealth tourism conference a few weeks ago. The developing Commonwealth is trying to use tourism as a tool for economic regeneration and wealth creation. It became clear that the growth in this industry is about 4.1 per cent. per annum globally. For us to stand still, we will have to grow it by 2010 to in excess of £100 billion of business. It is one of our growth industries.

Refocusing much more strategically on the assets of a particular region allows regions to be exploited much more effectively than if they were considered piecemeal. The south-west tourist board, linking with the RDA as the economic driver, is very important, and obviously Somerset is a major part of that. The south-west accounts for one sixth of the entire tourism spend in England, and tourism is one of the most important sectors in the south-west. It attracts just over £7 billion of visitor spend per annum. There are about 225,000 tourism-dependent jobs, and 10 per cent. of total employment in the south-west is attributed to tourism. The hon. Gentleman is right to say that the industry is very important. It contributes nearly £2.5 billion to the regional output—10 per cent. of the total—and sustains many more jobs in the retail, catering and transport sectors.

I am a great lover of the south-west. This year, my family and I will go down to Cornwall in the summer for what I think is the 23rd or 24th year on the trot. We very much like the south-west and Cornwall in particular, like many other people in the UK.

Through VisitEngland and its "enjoyEngland" campaign, we have been able to exploit more effectively the markets that are available. Let us consider, for example, Cornwall. We should remember that Cornwall is one of the poorest counties, if not the poorest county, in the UK, with a GDP per capita, relative to the average of the European regions, of under 74 per cent. That is why it has objective 1 status, which relates to European regional selective assistance. However, it has been able to take advantage of tourism via the Eden project and to develop its cuisine via people such as Rick Stein in Padstow, which has some of the best restaurants—I frequent them from time to time. There are also the areas around the River Teign. As I said, tourism is an economic driver, and it encompasses Somerset and the rest of the south-west.

On structural weaknesses, transport in the south-west is undoubtedly a problem. However, the RDAs are being given more and more powers to enable them to start addressing structural weaknesses in their local economies while also developing tourism. They must consider the wider picture and see how they can exploit much more effectively important drivers such as tourism—a driver that exists in the south-west. Transport is undoubtedly a very important issue in Cornwall, and I hope that the RDA will take that on board. I know that it has not done so before, but it has a special responsibility for tourism, so it will probably look at the issue in a slightly different light.

As I said, I also believe that skills are important. The South West of England Regional Development Agency recognised how important tourism was for the economy even before it was given responsibility for it. A training college was set up in a hotel in Bournemouth under the lead of Sir Michael Lickiss in order to address the need to upskill that industry from a regional perspective so that it could meet demand. Again, Sir Michael has been extremely proactive in the industry. Again, I acknowledge the role that he has played at regional and national levels in the south-west in bringing tourism to the centre of the agenda.

Somerset and the south-west have various assets and attractions: VisitBritain's "enjoyEngland" campaign, to which I referred; Bath abbey; the Roman baths and thermal spas; Exmoor, which, as the hon. Gentleman knows, is designated as a national park and celebrates its fiftieth anniversary this year; Somerset art week, which is also being promoted very heavily and is a huge success; Cheddar gorge; the south-west coastal path; Bridgwater's Guy Fawkes carnival; and the Taunton festival. All those attractions have been organised individually, but make tourism in Somerset and beyond more attractive.

The hon. Member for Taunton (Mr. Flook) mentioned the bid for the 2012 Olympic games. It is true that Weymouth will form the major part of the sailing complex, and we will have to consider transport in that context. I refer again to the role of Sir Michael Lickiss. If it had not been for him, there would have been no inward investment to that part of the south-west in the form of the luxury market of boating and the development that has taken place there.

The RDA showed great farsightedness in acquiring part of that site from the military and in forcefully supporting the development of that sailing centre. I am not a sailor, but I understand that it is one of the best waters in northern Europe for sailing. Hopefully, it will host the 2012 Olympic games. It was the farsightedness of the RDA, led by Sir Michael Lickiss, which brought about that sailing facility and the wider development, and it has created employment for marine engineers. That has now spilt over. Had it not been for Sir Michael, the frigate, or some other naval vessel, would not have been sunk at Plymouth to create the reef for diving. An attempt is also being made to create an artificial reef at the development in the Bournemouth area, which again builds on the tourism perspective. Work is being done at Fistral beach and beyond to try to develop 24-hour surfing with floodlighting. That, too, will bring economic advantages to that part of Cornwall.

It would be wrong not to put on record the work that the South West of England Regional Development Agency has done in partnership with the tourism industry, led by a very competent man, Sir Michael Lickiss. The work that he has done and the contribution that he has made to the economy of the south-west, particularly to tourism, will stand examination by anyone.

It is unfortunate that the hon. Member for Bridgwater was critical of Sir Michael. As I said, I can defend his record with some force. I hope that the hon. Gentleman and the development agency have a better working relationship in the months and years to come and aid the development of tourism in the south-west. That is in the interests of everybody and I am sure that tourism will go from strength to strength.

One swallow does not make a summer. However, the last quarter's tourism figures show that we are back to where we were in 2000, before foot and mouth disease, 11 September and severe acute respiratory syndrome. In that sense, we are moving in the right direction. The south-west is getting its just rewards. That is thanks to the hard work that the tourism industry in the south-west has put in, in conjunction and partnership with the development agency.