Wednesday 30 June 2004

[MR. JOHN MCWILLIAM in the Chair]

Motion made, and Question proposed, That the sitting be now adjourned.— [Jim Fitzpatrick.]

9.30 am

We are talking about the problem of investment in council housing, and specifically about the fourth option, which, instead of forcing tenants and councils to choose from a large-scale voluntary transfer, arm's-length management organisations and a private finance initiative contract, allows for what tenants and councils in the main want to do: stay with the council, and develop and improve council stock under council control. Councils can renovate, renew and build, and I hope that we shall demonstrate today that they can do so more cheaply than any of the alternative options. They could even go on to build more public housing and make the contribution that we need in this country to expand and improve it.

Our housing record as a Government is frankly appalling. We have the lowest public and private bill for housing of any Government since the war. The main consequences of that failure have fallen on council houses. In 2000, there was a backlog of £19 billion of repairs and renovations because of the long Tory years of disinvestment in council housing.

Councils are naturally anxious to do something about the situation. They are proud of their council housing. The Government told them that they could not increase spending enough to finance the huge backlog, so councils had to get money from the private sector to do the job, preferably through a large-scale voluntary transfer, which would bring in housing associations to get finance into the market. However, as that began to flag, the alternative suggestion was to use an arm's-length management organisation by which the councils retain ownership; councils were told that such issues should be put to a tenants' ballot. The results of those ballots have been patchy: there has not been a unanimous clamorous rush to accept the privatisation option that the Government are offering.

I have just been facing a campaign by North East Lincolnshire council, in which it threw in £800,000 of expenditure on propaganda and consultancies to sell the idea of privatisation. It was supposed to put both sides of the argument, but it did not, and rather told tenants that it was crap—I mean appalling—at running council housing and was making a mess of it, so they should vote for privatisation. It issued a prospectus that was pure propaganda—it was as if Laurence Llewelyn-Bowen was going to redesign every house in Grimsby and the surrounding area, and the residents would be living in paradise if they voted for privatisation.

In the event, 43 per cent. of tenants voted for privatisation. They voted for it on the basis of a prospectus with which the Department of Trade and Industry would never have allowed any private company to float on the stock market. They voted for an organisation with no business plan and no managing director, and it had not told people where it would raise the money. It had not even decided whether it would be a charity or a company. No such company could be floated on the stock market, because it would be specifically ruled out.

In North East Lincolnshire, we are giving council housing away in large chunks to organisations cobbled together after the vote. Elsewhere, votes have gone against the Government's proposals for privatisation. There was a classic case in Birmingham, and more recent cases in Camden and Stroud. Results have been patchy: some ballots are successful, while many are not.

The Government believe in choice and are now providing for choice in the health service and education, particularly for the meritocratic middle classes, who are supposed to have the intellectual ability to choose. However, we do not believe in choice for the tenants of council housing. We believe in offering them three alternatives that they do not particularly want, but not the alternative that they do want, which is staying with the council.

The first question, therefore, is why the Government are not providing the real choice that tenants and councils want, which is the fourth option of staying with the council and of council housing being financed by the council. That can be done—I shall come to it in a moment.

Secondly, what happens to the areas that vote against privatisation? When my right hon. Friend the Member for Tyneside, North (Mr. Byers) was Secretary of State for Transport, Local Government and the Regions, he said that it would be a Government responsibility to help tenants who voted to stay with the council to reach the decent homes standard. However, my right hon. Friend the Minister for Housing and Planning said in effect that if tenants voted against privatisation, they had to rot in hell, or whatever the circumstances of their estates were. If they should vote against—as if this was some kind of European referendum in Denmark—the Government would treat them as if they did not exist and ignore their plight when it came to reaching the decent homes standard. I think that he has retreated slightly from that statement, but he has also unilaterally torn up the last manifesto commitment, which was to bring all public housing—not just the housing of those who voted for privatisation, but all council housing—up to the levels of decency. So what happens now? What is the latest opinion in the Office of the Deputy Prime Minister on how tenants who vote against privatisation should be treated and helped to reach the decent homes standard?

The third case against what is going on is simply that it will not work. There are 2.5 million council homes and 6 million people still in council accommodation. We cannot get all of them to ballot for privatisation and to submit a choice between the three alternatives by July 2005 as required. I emphasise that there will almost certainly be a general election early next year, in May or June. The deadline for submitting a choice by local authorities between the three undesirable alternatives is July. Is the ODPM seriously suggesting that in the run-up to and during a general election, we will be bashing the council estates and councils and dividing the Labour party on this issue to force them towards privatisation? It is inconceivable that we should behave in that fashion.

I hope that my fourth point can be answered. The process of privatisation and the three undesirable options, when they are accepted. help the better areas of council housing, not the most deprived areas, because the ballots have been successful in areas with better council housing and better prospects. Only six of the ballots were held in the 100 most deprived areas of council housing. We are channelling the money the wrong way: not to the deprived areas, which most need the renovation and improvement, but to the more prosperous areas. I emphasise again that this privatisation choice that is supposed to give tenants more power does not do so. The tenants are conned into believing that they are going to take an active part in running the properties under privatisation. In fact, the Audit Commission said:

"Many tenants of such housing associations feel that they are on the board to represent a constituency of tenants. Often this misapprehension is a direct result of mis-selling the role at the time of the ballot. At the time of transfer, tenants are often led to believe that they will have an explicit role in representing the interests of their fellow tenants on the board. This is not compatible with the accepted principle that dictates that as a board member they have to work for the interests of the organisation, that is, that the director's responsibility takes supremacy."

The tenants are simply being conned. That has happened on a massive scale in North East Lincolnshire, where the support of the tenants' assembly was invoked by offering them five places on the board—it has to be said—in the belief that they would be running the new operation; but they will not be doing so. The ODPM is effectively conning tenants. Experience proves that tenant representation is developed by councils, but withers under registered social landlords. That is the record of the past.

The RSLs are going to generate huge surpluses once they become cost-positive in about 20 years. There is no requirement that those surpluses be used to improve the housing in the area where the RSLs have been given council housing. They can be used for all sorts of purposes by the fort nation of subordinate companies.

My last point is the most telling of all. I hope that my hon. Friend the Under-Secretary will help us with the mathematics by giving us a considered reply—if not now, later. The whole process is expensive. Just consider the costs of this folly of insisting on privatisation. First, massive sums of debt are being written off. In the past year, £800 million of debt was written off. The total allowance by Government for council house building—although they are not allowed to build any more— improvements and regeneration was £834 million. We can afford £800 million to write off debt, but only £834 million to improve council houses.

Secondly, there is the cost of the gap funding and the dowries that have to be given to the new social landlords, particularly in areas of negative equity, such as my own. Huge sums have been devoted to gap funding to help privatisation. In other words, huge sums have been used to give away the council housing that belongs to all of us There is also the shift of housing benefit from other tenants, which the ODPM has been paying this year, on to social security as a result of privatisation, the cost of which is estimated at £249 million per year.

Thirdly, there is the cost of all the consultancies and surveys and the propaganda that has been pouring out to con tenants, which the Audit Commission estimates at £430 per property. That is used not for housing but to enrich consultancies and pour out propaganda. The cost of renovating council housing is higher in the private sector, because it pays higher interest rates and much higher salaries to its top management. The Audit Commission estimates that over a 10-year period it cost £1,300 a year more to renovate council housing in private ownership than by the councils

Arm's-length management organisations cost about £2 billion in the three years up to 2005–06. The sum given to the Glasgow ALMO was equal to the cost of renovating and reaching a decent housing standard for every council house in Scotland.

Finally, there are the costs of a year off for the council officers and housing departments while they propagate and propagandise the case for privatisation. In North East Lincolnshire, repairs have not been done, more houses have been voided and boarded up, estates have been left to rot for a year, while people from the council have gone round propagandising the case for getting rid of council housing and for getting their jobs transferred to registered social landlords so that they can get more pay. That has compounded the situation, which was already bad enough.

All that money has been spent, and for what? Satisfaction, as measured by the ODPM's own surveys, has increased by 2 or 3 per cent. as a result of privatisation. There has been a substantial decrease—5 per cent.—in satisfaction with the repairs. The tenants are not satisfied by the process. The ODPM argues that it separates management from strategy, but there are no grounds to say that that is an improvement or a benefit—none at all. It has not been able to produce any evidence for that assertion. There are small gains and huge costs.

We are wasting millions of pounds to give away billions of pounds of public assets in council housing, as a result of sheer, simple dogma and ideology—the dogma that private is better than council housing, that private is better than public. It is as if we were changing the ownership of the deck chairs on the Titanic as it went down—the process is as futile, fiddling and useless as that.

I say to the Minister that there has to be a better way—and there is. It is the fourth option: let the councils run their own housing, build and make their contribution to solving the housing crisis. We would not have to devote massive sums of public money to council housing to finance the fourth option, although I would favour that. It would not be a massive cost. We would have to let the councils keep their housing revenue accounts, all of them—let them keep the rents and use them for housing purposes. Since 1990, we have taken £13 billion out of housing revenue accounts to finance the housing benefits of other council tenants—£13 billion is a major part of the £19 billion cost of refurbishment. The daylight robbery process has looted and pillaged housing revenue accounts and we are still taking £1.5 billion a year out of those accounts.

Put that money into housing purposes and the fourth option could finance itself. Allow the money that the ODPM now uses to pay the housing benefit of council tenants to go into housing. Let councils keep the money from right-to-buy sales, which now runs to £500 million a year, and use it for housing purposes. Let the councils borrow, as they have the power to do under the Local Government Act 2003. They can borrow on the major repairs allowance and on an investment allowance.

That idea was floated by the ODPM, which consulted councils on it. The Minister for Housing and Planning then told us that there had been no interest. Now he has written me a letter to say that in fact 20 per cent. of councils showed an interest in the investment allowance idea. However, it was quietly shoved into the back cupboard by the ODPM, despite the fact that one fifth of councils were interested in pursuing it. If we had got that, it could have been used for housing purposes. Let them borrow on the stock and let us have a level playing field with the RSLs, which can use their power to borrow. All that finance could even be supplemented with just a small proportion of the money that is being wasted.

The fourth option will come, because I do not think that even the Minister for Housing and Planning is daft enough to go on banging his head against a brick wall in this fashion. I doubt whether he will be allowed to abrogate the manifesto commitments or to go on with this war against council housing as we approach the election. I am sorry that he is not present to reply today; he probably finds it easier to sit in the office and write letters to the Grimsby Evening Telegraph telling the people of Grimsby that their MP is a liar. That is matter of taste on his part.

My hon. Friend, who is the acceptable face—the very acceptable face—of the Office of the Deputy Prime Minister, is present and will reply. I hope that she will consider the questions that arise. First, I hope that both she and her Department will seriously examine the costs of the fourth option and my assertion that it will be cheaper than the waste of money of going through the present rigmarole of privatisation, the real costs of which are so heavy. I hope that she will tell us definitively and authoritatively what will happen to tenants who reject the three options with which they are provided. Will they be left without the improvement up to the decent housing standard to which the manifesto commits us? Will they be left to rot? What will happen? It is crucial that that question be answered. I hope that she will give us an assurance that under these policies of privatisation the Government are confident that they can reach the decent homes target by 2010. I very much doubt it and I doubt whether tenants will be coerced in that direction.

Finally, I hope that my hon. Friend can give us the declaration of confidence that we need from this Government in council housing and in the ability of the councils to run efficiently and effectively the housing that they have provided and built up over generations for the benefit of the less well-off people in their areas. I cannot understand the prejudice that exists against councils and council housing, and I am sure that, in view of her constituency, she will not share it. I hope that she will tell us that the ODPM is proud of Labour's record on council housing and that it wants to think again about the attempt to coerce, bully and freeze councils and tenants out of council housing and into handing over the stock at a cost of wasting millions of pounds to give away billions of pounds worth of public property.

9.55 am

In our manifesto, we committed ourselves to getting all homes to a decent standard by 2010. We did not commit ourselves to transferring all homes out of council ownership into some other form of ownership. We suggested that the decent homes standard could be attained by one of four options, and that tenants should have the right to choose.

Throughout the debate on council housing, there has been an increasing betrayal by Ministers. They have argued that council housing has been mismanaged and has not been kept up to a proper standard of repair through some fault of the system—in other words, they argue that councils cannot deliver a proper standard of housing for their tenants.

In the recent Select Committee report on decent homes, a number of things were suggested with no evidence to back them up. It was asserted that housing could be properly managed only if responsibility was divided: the strategic role of housing should be carried out by councils, but the management should be carried out separately. However, there was no evidence to back up that assertion. Indeed, the Audit Commission said that it could provide no evidence that that was the case, and that it did not believe it to be true. It was also argued that management of council housing was worse than that of housing association properties, but again, no evidence was given to support that. If the Minister has practical evidence to support those contentions, I should be pleased to hear it.

It was also argued that tenants have more participation and involvement in a different system of management from that used in council housing—but there is no evidence to back that up. Some housing associations are good at involving tenants and some are not; some councils are good and some are not. There is no clear evidence to support the contention that, by effecting a change in the way that houses are managed, tenants will become more involved and participate better in the running of their homes.

The Minister for Housing and Planning said in his evidence that if one looks at where stock has been transferred or an ALMO created—mainly stock transfers, because they have been going on for longer—one will see that the standard of housing has improved, and that that shows what a good idea those are. However, that is a self-fulfilling prophecy. If people are told that lots of money will be available for them to spend on their houses if they vote for a stock transfer, but that that money will not be available if they do not, they will vote for a stock transfer. The money then comes in and is spent, and the houses are brought up to a higher standard. That self-fulfilling prophecy does not prove that stock transfer is right. It merely proves that the Government have set up a mechanism under which money can be spent on the housing stock only if certain methods are used.

We have argued for some time about level playing fields. The Government have got themselves into a real mess on the issue of committing themselves to a decent homes standard and the options to achieve it. They assumed, somewhere in the spending agreements with the Treasury, that tenants would vote nicely in set numbers and set proportions for the various options. They assumed that most tenants would vote for stock transfers, some would vote for ALMOs, and that a very few would vote to stay with the local authority. When the situation changed, and tenants rejected stock transfers—particularly in the case of Birmingham—it suddenly became apparent that the decent homes standard could not be delivered with the allocations of money that the Office of the Deputy Prime Minister and the Treasury had agreed at national level, because tenants were not going to vote in the proportions that had been assumed.

The Government's next strategy has been to say, "Well, if we can't persuade tenants to vote for stock transfer, how about an ALMO?" In Sheffield, tenants who, by and large, would have preferred to remain with the local authority, and who totally resisted the attempt by the Liberal Democrats when they came to power to force wholesale stock transfer on them, are now going down the ALMO road, because at least the houses remain in the ownership of the local authority. They see it as a second-best option to get money in to bring their homes up to a decent standard.

That is nonsense in terms of the Government's overall strategy of trying to encourage stock transfer. As the borrowing is done off balance sheet and does not count against Government borrowing requirements, they have insisted that borrowing by an ALMO counts against borrowing requirements in the same way as local authority borrowing Therefore, the Government are not escaping from the problem that they have created. What is the difference between allowing a local authority and an ALMO to borrow? In terms of Treasury rules, there is none.

The Government helpfully brought in prudential guidelines for most council services, where councils can borrow against future income streams. Many of us have been pressing for that for many years to free up capital constraints under which local authorities work. However, they exempted the issue of council housing, so councils cannot borrow against the future rent streams of their housing to fund housing improvements and investment—it was completely disallowed. That was the one major exemption from the prudential guidelines, but there has never been a proper explanation for it.

The idea of investment allowances was strongly promoted by Unison and in the Local Government Information Unit pamphlet, "Housing: The Right to Choose", which was launched yesterday. It is not a sinister mechanism dreamed up in deep recesses of the Campaign group to pervert the Treasury's financial strategy. The idea was actually floated by the Office of the Deputy Prime Minister in a White Paper in 2002 but then dismissed. What is wrong with investment allowances? From relatively small sums—a few hundred million pounds a year—millions of pounds of housing investment could be generated. That could create a fourth way: another alternative for tenants wanting their homes to be improved under the ownership of the local authority.

We have seen one example alter another of the Government making the wrong decisions in terms of their overall strategy. Tenants would not vote in the numbers required for stock transfer ALMOs are now seen as second best. Will the Government guarantee that they will allow the funding—the Treasury still counts it as Government borrowing—for every ALMO that tenants and local authorities vote for to create the decent homes that tenants want by 2010? if that is not guaranteed, another line of choice is cut off for many tenants.

There has been a fundamental change since the then Secretary of State for Transport, Local Government and the Regions, my right hon. Friend the Member for Tyneside, North (Mr. Byers), appeared before the Select Committee two or three years ago and said that the commitment was to decent homes and that every tenant had a right to have their home up to a decent standard whichever way they chose to do it—through private finance initiative, stock transfer, ALMO or staying with a local authority. The current Minister for Housing and Planning changed that approach when, during the inquiry on decent homes, he basically said, if tenants wish to remain with a local authority they choose not to have their home brought up to a decent standard.

The Government's motto for the next manifesto will probably be choice—choice in health, choice in education. What is wrong with choice for council tenants? The tragedy is that through their policy, the Government will do what the Tories ultimately failed to do, which is turn council tenants into second-class citizens with second-class homes. That is fundamentally anathema to many of us who have struggled on behalf of council housing and the rights of council tenants over many years.

Finally, the Select Committee's view on choice, which summarises my case very well, was:

"The Committee fully supports the Government's commitment to tenant choice and involvement in determining how Local Authority housing should be owned and managed. However, the commitment to tenant choice is a charade unless Local Authorities are able to act in accordance with the wishes of their tenants. We recommend that the Government take immediate steps to ensure that where a majority of tenants wish for their homes to remain under Council management, they are not penalised when it comes to access to funding for investment in Decent Homes or any other policy initiatives."

10.4 am

In my constituency, there are small areas of housing association housing and while canvassing for the general election in 1997, I was told by colleagues, "Don't talk about employment to the people in that street." When I asked why not, they replied, "Because they're housing association tenants—they don't want jobs because if they get jobs they'll lose all their benefits." There was a massive benefits trap for some of the poorest people in my constituency. The rents for local authority housing, although high, were still lower. The whole process is clearly about moving in that direction, which will have disastrous social consequences and, as my hon. Friend the Member for Wolverhampton, North-East (Mr. Purchase) said, will merely churn income between the poor and the very poor. When we took control of the council in 1972, we set about building masses of council houses. We brought the council housing waiting list right down. We had the benefit of a Labour Government who were committed to housing. We even bought large numbers of private sector houses and housed thousands of people.

We now have a situation that is twice as bad as that in 1972: there are not only high rents and benefit traps but a desperate shortage of housing. By moving towards the privatisation of council housing and even higher rents and even bigger benefit traps, the Government are doing nothing to solve the problems of the 7,000 people in Luton who need housing. The only solution is to reinvent council housing as it was and for the Government to take over control and even possibly to develop new town strategies again. It must be public sector housing with low rents, subsidised from the historic equity of local housing, as in the past. I have said similar things before. I should like to make many other points, but those will suffice for now.

10.6 am

I hope that the Minister will recognise that many people around the country simply do not accept the three options that have been proffered by the Office of the Deputy Prime Minister to deal with the housing crisis. It is simply not on to tell council tenants that they must choose between stock transfer, private finance initiatives and ALMOs, and that if they reject all three, as they have every right to do if a ballot is properly organised, they will get nothing. Where do the decent homes standards fit in with that? What sort of free and open democracy is it if we offer people no real choice other than a form of privatisation of their existing council stock? That is what it amounts to.

Not so long ago in our 1997 manifesto we said that we would free up all the capital receipts that could be used for housing investment. That has not happened. Some have been freed up but most are tied to some kind of private finance initiative or private investment in an estate. Some £2 billion is still being held that cannot be used for housing improvements. When tenants are asked to vote on a stock transfer or whatever, they are not given a free choice. They step out into the unknown if they say no, but many have said no.

I have just been through the experience of a large-scale stock transfer vote on the Tollington estate in Finsbury Park in my constituency. The tenants voted down the stock transfer emphatically: 60 per cent. of them said no. They did so because they were told that in order to lever in this private finance to improve the estate they would have to sell off what little open space there is to build 300 homes for sale on the open market at between £200,000 and £300,000 each, and 120 street properties owned by the council would have to be sold. In other words, in order to improve the housing conditions, which need improving urgently, we would end up with 300 more places for private ownership and sale and 120 fewer places for affordable rent.

The housing crisis in my constituency is worse than it has ever been. There are fewer new lettings and fewer new properties coming on stream from the council or housing associations. In fact, none come from the council; they come only from housing associations. There is a record high number of people in short-term tenancies and short-term lease properties. That is at a phenomenal cost to the public purse, largely through housing benefit. Frankly, the situation is not sensible.

Will the Minister recognise that there is currently a terrible housing crisis in London? Tenants looking for a transfer and people living in hostel accommodation who are desperate for somewhere to live have told me that they have been given only one offer—to move somewhere else in the country. If they have a genuine wish to move out of London, there is no problem, but most people cannot do that. They have to stay in London for family, work, education or whatever reasons. The only way forward is to invest in new affordable property in London.

Is that best done by investing in schemes in which the rents end up higher or by allowing local authorities the freedom to borrow, develop and provide housing for people in desperate need? I simply cannot understand the Government's position, and I do not understand the politics either. What we have done is to say to tenants throughout the country that they have a choice, when in reality they do not. They can choose only either some form of privatisation or going into substandard property that means that the Government cannot achieve their decent homes standard. I hope that the Minister, having considered the Barker review, the housing crisis in London and the south-east, the huge cost of privatisation and how we are pouring money into the private sector when the work would be done better and cheaper in the public sector, will be able to give us some news on the situation.

A number of estates throughout the country voted against stock transfer and have been left in limbo. Camden as a borough rejected stock transfer and ALMOs, so it has now a problem on its hands. I hope that the Minister agrees that the democratic wishes of the people of Camden should be recognised and that money should be invested for new housing development and improvements by the local authority. The Aylesbury estate in Southwark emphatically voted no, but the tenants have still not seen the improvements to which they have a right, like everyone else in this country who wants to live in decent housing.

Will the Minister please say that she has heard, understood and recognised the arguments for the fourth option and that she agrees that local authorities have provided and can and will provide decent, secure, good quality and cheap accommodation in desperate housing need? The options offered by the Office of the Deputy Prime Minister do not achieve that.

10.12 am

What would we have been saying had the Leader of the Opposition sussed his real opportunity? He could have said that, at the next general election, we will offer the electorate a different choice—Tory, Lib Dem or Green, with no fourth option. if he had done that, the Labour party would rightly have called the Tories a bunch of thieves, making an outrageous proposal and committing an act of charlatans that would steal from the electorate the legitimacy of a fourth option. Yet, here we are telling council tenants that they are not entitled to the legitimacy of a fourth option or an equal choice of different ways to address their housing needs.

Nottingham is about to embark on its ballot on the proposals for an ALMO, and the proposal has torn apart the Labour group that has run the city council's housing department for a long time and had some remarkable achievements in the past 10 years, specifically in the development of safe neighbourhood strategies. Councillors and police officers have asked me why we would want to follow a path that pushes council housing out of council management. Local authorities have been the key driver in our safe neighbourhood strategies, because they own and manage the assets in which the tenants live. The police are using their powers to issue antisocial behaviour orders to tackle neighbourhood-based crime, but what makes the difference is when the local authority pulls in the housing department and the education department, and everyone gangs up to deliver safe neighbourhood strategies and decent standards of behaviour. They can do that because they manage public resources and are at the front line of delivering wider public policies.

I want the Minister to do two things. My hon. Friend the Member for Great Grimsby (Mr. Mitchell) set out the case for the fourth option, but I want her to clarify whether my hon. Friend the Member for Sheffield, Attercliffe (Mr. Betts) was right that the borrowing rules for ALMOs meant that their borrowing counted against local authority borrowing. Many people in my authority have been persuaded that ALMOs, although a lousy choice, are the only choice, and that improvement work can be done without its counting against the authority's borrowing. If it does count against local authority borrowing, however, the implication is straightforward: ultimately, ALMOs can only be a step towards transferring assets into private hands, because that will be the only way of getting the borrowing off the public accounts. If so, people need to make an honest and informed choice.

Secondly, I would like an assurance. When Nottingham tenants decide how to east their votes in the ballot on the ALMO, they would like to know that the choices are equal, that there is a level playing field and that they will not be financially penalised for deciding to remain council tenants. They will want to be offered the choice of equal financial arrangements, which will apply to all the options, and not to be bribed or browbeaten into taking a path that leads to the surrendering of a public asset. They do not want millions of pounds in bribes to be given away, as my hon Friend the Member for Great Grimsby said, to dispose of billions of pounds of public assets, which we will never get back. I hope that the Minister will give my constituents that assurance.

10.17 am

This could be Labour's railway privatisation disaster. Let us consider the situation for a moment. At the beginning of the 20th century, more than 90 per cent. of all housing was in private hands. Almost 5 million houses were under democratic control until the Thatcher years; today, 3 million are. In my borough, we now have massive housing shortages, and tenancies are simply not becoming available. People are unable to transfer between different parts of the city, and new people coming in find it extremely hard t o get a council tenancy, unless they are in the direst circumstances. This is the 21st century, in the fourth richest economy in the world, yet I, like many other hon Members, face a dreadful housing shortage in my borough. That cannot make sense to the ordinary person.

Council housing is very popular in my borough, but the Government take no notice. They believe that they know better than the tenants, who, through their life choices, have expressed the wish to be housed and managed by the local authority. There is an exact analogy with the privatisation of the railway system. The then Government sought to atomise it, split up the ownership and ensure that no one had a coherent view of the whole thing. That was a recipe for disaster, and our Labour Government are now grappling with the consequences. Surely we can learn something from the kind of public policy adopted by the Conservatives throughout the 1980s and apply a bit of common sense to what we are trying to do today.

We have a new privatisation. Council housing was once the symbol of everything that Labour ever achieved. Was it not council housing that completely changed aspects of public health? Did it not make just as big a contribution to the health of the nation as our treasured national health service? It did, and it continues to do so, but we are in danger of atomising it.

We will soon have almost as many landlords as there were at the beginning of the 20th century. Buy to let is everywhere. There will be dozens, hundreds, thousands of individuals who are nicely ensconced in their own home and letting another home to someone else, just like at the beginning of the 20th century.

We did that—that is our achievement. It is not old-fashioned or out of date. It is doing a splendid and amazingly good job, and yet our Labour Government are telling us to get rid of a public asset. I can scarcely believe it. When I hear of Ministers appearing before our Select Committee and saying, "If tenants don't choose one of my three options, they won't have their new kitchens," I think, my goodness! Have we got to the point where a Labour politician actually says, "Trade your democratic heritage for a new kitchen"?

If that is where we have got to, I tell the Minister here today, whom we have heard described as the acceptable face of the ODPM, that this is the time when she can tell us that she will go back to the Department and convince colleagues that this policy is unpopular and unhelpful, divides the Labour groups in our cities and towns, and will not put a single lick of paint on any windowsill in the country.

10.23 am

Dealing with squalor was one of the most successful areas of activity for post-war Labour Governments and councils. It is not that a long-established policy has failed or faltered in those intervening periods. It has been remarkably successful in most parts of the country. In an east midlands mining village, a couple with a young daughter and a toddler son left overcrowded accommodation to enter a council house provided by Ashby-de-la-Zouch rural district council. I was that toddler son. I was one of millions in the two decades after the war who had the opportunity to live in decent, affordable, accountable housing where no such option had previously existed.

I have not researched the background of Labour Members, but I would hazard a guess that a slight majority spent some or all of their childhood in local authority accommodation. We are not speaking from the vantage point of ignorance, but from information and experience.

Some powerful speeches have been made in support of the case for option four and council housing. I suppose that the two are intertwined. We have heard the economic argument. As my hon. Friend the Member for Wolverhampton, North-East (Mr. Purchase) said, who is responsible for the Labour party's dramatic and almost rash change of policy, given that it is facing a general election in the next year or so, when a good 10 per cent. of the electorate will be tenants of local authority housing? Surely, it cannot be the Ministers who are notionally in charge of such matters. Is it someone in the white building over the road—the Treasury—that looks balefully at this place and tries to restrain our powers and impulses in our own interests? Is that the driving force behind the change in policy?

The cost is not the driving force. We have heard that when the Government consulted on options in 2002, they suggested an investment allowance, which would allow councils to make use of new borrowing powers. The amounts were pitifully small, much less per year and nationwide than would he written off in Birmingham, as my hon. Friend the Member for Birmingham, Selly Oak (Lynne Jones) made clear.

An allowance of £150 million this year, increasing to £350 million next year would be enough to finance almost £5 billion of new desperately needed housing investment, not just in the inner city of Islington, or the large south-eastern town of Luton, or in Great Grimsby, but in rural areas, especially in constituencies such as mine. There were almost 7 million council houses nationally at the peak, not 6 million. A slight majority of those disappeared under the right to buy. In rural areas, much more than just half the housing has disappeared; indeed, the vast bulk of housing has gone. Young couples in such areas need access to affordable housing.

There is an economic case for council housing, in that it costs less than all the mooted alternatives. There is a political case because it is important to people in the Labour party to look back on and promote the successes of local authorities and Labour Governments in postwar years. There is a social argument, too, in that development and investment in social housing allow there to be an integrated approach to tackle social problems.

Tenants should not be coerced or blackmailed into an alternative option that is not the one they want. They should be given a rational choice and full information about matters, not simply wiped out of the equation. To my astonishment, earlier this month my good friend, my right hon. Friend the Minister for Housing and Planning, mooted the idea that the 2010 decent homes target would be met if we ignored those tenants who had chosen to stay with their local authority. Apparently, that idea was hastily withdrawn.

Perhaps that was the first swallow of a summer, which will reveal the awful mistake that has been made. There will be apologies. There will be a smokescreen behind which a U-turn will gracefully and gradually take place because we—a Labour Government facing perhaps an historic third term—will depend significantly in some areas and in some marginal seats on the support of people who live in local authority housing. That U-turn will be welcome; it will be even more welcome if my hon. Friend the acceptable face of the Office of the Deputy Prime Minister—although she has not got a lot to beat—can tell us today that the Government are sorry, that they have got it wrong and that they will allow option four. Let us hear that today.

10.29 am

The problem today is that the balance has tilted too far one way. The Government set targets for decent homes, and judging from what I have read from the Housing, Planning Local Government and the Regions Committee, on which the hon. Member for Sheffield, Attercliffe (Mr. Betts) sat, they did a good job. However, the targets for decent homes are being impeded by the process of stock transfers. Evidence was put before the Committee on that. Although the Government have said that they want decent homes, they have delayed that process by demanding that the ballots go ahead.

What is required is that magic word: choice. I congratulate the hon. Member for Great Grimsby (Mr. Mitchell) on securing the debate, and he put the point powerfully that there is a fourth option. which is being denied to local authorities and tenants. That is not real choice. The hon. Member for Islington, North (Jeremy Corbyn) questioned how this situation arose. I can tell him: in the 2000 Green Paper, the ODPM stated:

"We strongly favour the separation of authorities' strategic and landlord responsibilities for housing. This will strengthen both roles."

The Government clearly set out, some time ago, that they would split the two roles.

The Select Committee report is well balanced and says that there are serious questions about what current Government policy is. On the first option, on stock transfer, the Committee considers the transfer to registered social landlords, and says that there are problems. On ALMOs, it says:

"ALMOs receive significant extra investment funding as compared to Local Authorities who retain the full management of their stock. Conversely, ALMOs are unlikely to have access to the levels of funding which many RSLs can achieve, because like Local Authorities, ALMOs cannot borrow freely. In other words, there is no level playing field between different models, and this inequality is tiered over several levels."

That is a good point, which I hope the Minister will pick up on and answer later. There must be a level playing field.

Still on ALMOs, the Committee said:

"We have not heard evidence that creating an ALMO per seenhances the achievement of Decent Homes, or indeed of tenant satisfaction. The option of creating an AL MO should continue to be available to Local Authorities, but there should be no financial incentive for Councils to do so."

That is exactly the point that I would make: there must be a level playing field between the options. If local authorities are not maintaining their stock well—if somebody asks for their door to be repaired and it takes a month for the carpenter to come to fix it, and there is a two-inch gap at the bottom—that is a real instance—tenants have a right to say, "No, we are not happy with you as a local authority running it. We would like another option. We would like somebody to come and manage our housing stock who will do a better job."

If local authorities have good housing departments, which care and manage their properties well, as my authority in Teignbridge did, there is every reason for tenants to vote for maintenance under the local authority. Teignbridge had a ballot recently, and hon. Members will not be surprised to learn that it decided to vote for ALMO. It voted for ALMO because, as has already been said, there was a large financial incentive to do so. That is wrong, however, and it is not my understanding of democratic choice.

Choice is the new buzz word. All of a sudden, parties seem to believe that talking about choice will win them the next election—if we tell the electorate that there is choice, they will vote for us. In fact, the choice is Hobson's choice, and the electorate are being sold a pup. There is no choice on this issue because the three options are not comparable. The Committee said that PFI did not work at all, so one wonders why PFI is even considered as an option when the Committee has lambasted it so strongly. I am surprised that the Government still allow PFI to be part of the process.

Local authorities feel that they are being pressured, and the Liberal Democrat position is that there should be the fourth option and a level playing field. I think that other Members would argue for that. If local authorities want a choice, that is fine, but that is up to them. The choices must, however, be on a level playing field where there is no financial incentive to go down one route rather than another.

10.37 am

However, some points need to be made from the Opposition's perspective. Some of my favourite Labour Members have contributed to this debate: the hon. Members for North-West Leicestershire (David Taylor), for Nottingham, South (Alan Simpson), for Islington, North (Jeremy Corbyn) and, not least, for Great Grimsby (Mr. Mitchell). The latter has done a service to this Chamber and the House by bringing the matter to our attention and securing a debate on it.

It is an important subject, because social housing is important. When we talk about social housing, we should remember that we are not talking about units and buildings to be occupied, but homes and people, especially vulnerable people. My personal commitment in politics is to mitigate disadvantage in favour of people who are vulnerable and to act in the interests of those who are least able to defend their own interests. That is the proper purpose of people in this House, and it no less true for housing than it is for other areas of public policy.

It is certainly true that we have a problem with social housing. The fundamental problem touched on by several contributors is that we are building an insufficient number of social houses. It is as simple as that. I shall say a word about the management of those houses, but before I do, the Minister has to answer the charge that we are building far fewer houses than we did under the last Conservative Administration. I have the figures for 1990–91, when about 36,000 social houses were completed. She will know that in 2002–03 barely 20,000 social houses were completed. There has been a collapse in social house building, which is causing some of the pressures that we have heard about from speakers today. The hon. Member for Great Grimsby is right that that is at the very root of the problem.

The hon. Gentleman is also right about the proper expectation of people to have decent standards, regardless of how their housing is managed. Let us not be under any illusions about the decent homes standard. Raising standards is a noble objective, but the Government have, to a degree, missed a trick with the decent homes standard, because people want decent communities. Many of the things that people crave most, like a stable, secure community, are not included in the decent homes standard. People are happy to do things that they can effect themselves, but the things that they cannot control happen right outside their front door.

I should like to see the decent homes standard turned into a decent communities standard, as is being done in locations where a range of agencies are coming together to try to improve the quality of life of people living in council housing or housing that is run by other registered social landlords. That could be achieved by working on those factors that people cannot control—the things that happen outside their front doors.

I have only three points to make. First, it is appropriate that whoever runs social housing should run it properly in terms of allocation, repair, service to tenants, the warmth and security of the homes, and the management of the neighbourhood. That can be done effectively by a variety of agencies. There are good housing associations, good local councils and good ALMOs. All sorts of people involved in the management, running and provision of social housing do it well. Equally, there are people who do it badly.

The idea that every council housing estate was some halcyon place where people lived in a golden age is naive, and we should not delude ourselves. The hon. Member for Great Grimsby is far too wise to have suggested that, and he did not say that. However, it needs to be said that councils do not run housing perfectly, any more than any other agency does. Whoever runs housing, the standards should be universal. It is true that if people are living in council housing—not in one of the arrangements that have been discussed at length today—they should be entitled to the same levels of service and standards of decency as anybody else. That is my objective, and I speak both as someone who was born and bred on a council estate, as many hon. Members have said that they were, and as the shadow Minister for Housing.

Secondly, I am not against councils building and managing houses. My council—Tory-controlled South Holland district council—is building small numbers of houses and supporting incremental development in our villages, because of the rural housing problems mentioned by the hon. Member for North-West Leicestershire. Those houses will be built to a better standard than the decent homes standard.

Thirdly, we need to recognise that if extra money has to be brought in, and if other people are going to build and run social housing, the standards to which they work, and the rules and regulations to which they must adhere, should be common ones. We cannot have, for example, private sector organisations building and running social housing if they are not asked to conform to the same standards as other RSLs.

The Minister has a lot of questions to answer, given what has been said today. Every Briton should have the chance to live in a warm, secure home that is fit for its purpose and is in keeping with the built environment and the landscape, in both character and style. Every home should be sustainable ecologically and part of a safe, stable and confident community.

We need to inject more money into social housing, and that can be done in a range of ways. There must be consistency in how we run social housing, because people who rent have just as many expectations and just as much entitlement to choices and quality as people who live in market housing. Those ambitions are at the heart of my personal political agenda, and they will be at the heart of the programme of the next Conservative Government.

10.46 am

I recognise the strength of feeling among my hon. Friends on this issue. I admit that I was a little surprised to hear how many of my hon. Friends were so enthusiastic about choice in their contributions, but I recognise the points that they were making, and I want to try to respond to them. I will start with the problems that we faced in 1997—the backlog in council house repairs that we faced, the cuts in investment in new housing that had taken place, and the under-investment in existing housing stock, which left us with 2.1 million homes deemed non-decent. We all agree that it would not be acceptable for any Government to ignore that problem. or the need for heating, to mend windows, and to ensure that people have decent kitchens, bathrooms and so on.

If I have time, I will come back later to the issue of increased investment in the provision of social housing, to which my hon. Friend the Member for Wolverhampton, North-East (Mr. Purchase) and the hon. Member for South Holland and The Deepings (Mr. Hayes) referred. First, I will address the issues of investment in existing housing stock.

We have reviewed the financing regime, which involved a whole series of rigid control mechanisms, and have attempted to improve the funding regimes in place. We have targeted funds where they could achieve the most and encourage investment. For example, there is the major repairs allowance, which is expected to increase to £596 per dwelling by this year. There is also the review of the major repairs allowance. In 2004 we are introducing prudential borrowing, to which my hon. Friend the Member for Sheffield, Attercliffe (Mr. Betts) referred, in order to replace the old capital financing system, promote capital investment and give authorities much more flexibility to borrow, subject to borrowing being affordable.

We have also substantially increased social housing investment since 1997. We expect to support local authority expenditure on council housing to the tune of £2,500 per dwelling, which represents a massive contribution from the taxpayer. Expenditure on council housing has increased by 13 per cent. in real terms since 1997. Also, we have made available £2 million for ALMOs and £1.4 billion through PFI credits. That will take the overall real increase in investment through the public sector between 1997 and March 2006 to 55 per cent.

The hon. Gentleman wants to score political points on this issue, but I do not see where the additional houses would come from if the housing budget were cut by £400 million, which is his party's policy. We could not get the additional investment if the budget were cut in the way that Opposition Members have suggested.

I will try to deal with where the funding could come from, a point raised by a series of hon. Members. As I said, there has been a substantial amount of additional public investment through changes to public sector borrowing and investment from the taxpayer, but there is a limit on how much the taxpayer can fund and how much public sector borrowing can sustain. That is why it is essential to bring in private sector resources through stock transfer as well.

Some suggestions seem to have been made today almost in frustration at the nature of the public borrowing constraints and the PSBR. I understand those points, but, for very good Labour reasons, we have to take public finances seriously. We cannot simply find ways in which to redefine sums of money. As long as borrowing is effectively guaranteed by the Government in the long run, it counts as public borrowing and has an impact on interest rates and on confidence in the public finances.

Like my hon. Friend, I was unable to get here on time. I was speaking to a council leader in Bolsover about this issue. Is she aware of the effect of the constant reduction in opportunities for local authorities such as Bolsover district council? That is what really sticks in our gullet. Bolsover is not a metropolitan authority and has limited areas of operation. If it loses its housing, there will be hardly anything left. When the Tories were in power, many other things were taken away, but if housing goes, what does a small urban district council such as Bolsover function for? It will have the refuse collection and that is about it. That is the danger we face.

I want to impress on my hon. Friend the need to get back to local authorities having functions, because if they do not, the quango world will take over. I do not like the reference to social housing, because to me it is not that at all. This is about quangos and power being taken away from local authorities. That happened mainly under the Tories, but is being repeated under this Government to the extent that local authorities do not have the power to carry out many of those functions. Let us have the fourth option. Yes, I am favour of choice this time.

I want to finish the point about the realities of our financial position. Sensible public finance rules have been critical to sustaining the economic growth that we have had over the past seven years. They have been critical to the jobs growth and the falls in unemployment that we have achieved in that time, which are making a massive difference in constituencies and deprived and disadvantaged areas throughout the country. We should be proud of those achievements, because playing games with the public finances, as the Tories did, was one factor that pushed the country into such terrible recessions, which did huge damage to our areas. For that reason, we must recognise the realities of the way in which the public sector borrowing requirement and the public finance rules work. It is right for us to look for other ways to raise funding. The stock transfer option has levered in £8.5 billion of private finance, of which £5.3 billion has been used to improve tenants' homes and the remainder to provide a receipt for councils.

As hon. Members know, the argument is that there is a strong case for separating out the strategic function from the management function for local councils to pursue. I appreciate that hon. Members may disagree with that, but that is the point of disagreement between us. A technocratic disagreement is preferable to concern about the principle and the intention. The intention is, for all of us, to improve decent homes and get more investment into all our affordable housing and to improve tenants' lives as a result.

11 am

Although Easington primary care trust is the prime provider of primary health care and the principal commissioner of secondary health care for my constituents, I should point out the fact that five of the most deprived local government wards—Wingate, Wheatley Hill, Thornley, Deaf Hill and Hutton Henry—which suffer some of the worst ill health in the Easington PCT area, are in the Sedgefield constituency of my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister. Easington PCT covers 26 local government wards and is responsible for health care for 93,900 people who reside in east Durham.

This is the second Adjournment debate that I have initiated on this issue, and although some progress has been made since the first debate in June 2002, I feel that I must keep up the pressure on Ministers for an equitable settlement for my constituents.

I begin by stating for the record that credit must be given to the Government for a record increase in funding for primary care. A 39 per cent. increase was awarded to Easington PCT over the current three-year funding allocation period of 2003–2006, compared with a national average increase of 29 per cent. Nevertheless, the size of the percentage increase must be put in context against the background of a relatively low baseline. Health inequality, like deprivation, poverty and affluence, is a relative concept. Easington PCT is £26 million a year short of the baseline resources required to deliver adequate health care to the people in east Durham.

A much more substantial increase is needed to address the historic underfunding of health care in the former mining communities in east Durham. Resources are needed to meet local health need and address the inequalities in health, an aim which the Secretary of State described as one of the cornerstones of the Government's social policy, and which was identified as one of his four key priorities in his speech to the NHS Confederation conference in Glasgow on 26 June 2003. At the present rate of catch-up—approximately 2 per cent. per year—it would take 20 years for Easington PCT to reach the target. That is clearly too long. Over the three years from 2003 to 2006, the health economy of east Durham is being deprived of £78 million in funding. That is a huge gap, which must be bridged.

Properly targeted, £78 million of additional resources could significantly improve the health of the local population. Easington PCT is more than 20 per cent. under target in the current financial year. The Secretary of State's reply to my parliamentary question in November 2003 showed that Easington PCT is the worst funded of the 304 PCTs in the country. The league table published in response to that parliamentary question shows clearly that although Easington PCT covers an area that is one of the most deprived by any accepted measure and suffers high levels of chronic ill health, it is funded at only 80 per cent. of target. At the other end of the scale, Kensington and Chelsea PCT and Westminster PCT, which cover relatively affluent areas, are funded well above target—at 130 per cent. in the case of Westminster PCT.

I fully understand that Ministers are required to strike a balance between how much is awarded to PCTs as a whole to maintain continuity and stability in the service and how much extra is awarded to under-resourced PCTs such as Easington to bring them up to target. It is important to recognise that not all PCTs are the same, and the needs of the populations that they serve are different.

I do not intend to develop the argument in this debate, but it would be perfectly reasonable to put forward the case that deprived communities such as Easington, suffering high levels of chronic ill health, should be funded well beyond target, compared with more affluent areas like Westminster, Kensington and Chelsea. I do not, however, seek a reduction in provision or to destabilise the system for anyone. All I seek is an uplift in the funding for Easington PCT to get it within striking distance of the target.

What I am looking for in this debate is some indication, or better still a clear statement from the Minister, that when a PCT is both under target allocation and significantly deprived, as Easington is, special measures should be applied to the allocation formula under a heading such as health needs or health inequalities readjustment. It is unjust that the district of Easington is consistently identified in the indices of multiple deprivation as one of the most deprived communities outside inner London, yet has the worst funded PCT in England.

There are a number of deficiencies in health provision that must be addressed in the short term if we are to make progress in improving the overall health of the population in the Easington PCT area. To begin with, there is an identified need for double the number of practice nurses in Easington. There are no hypertension, asthma, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease or diabetes clinics currently operating in my PCT area. All the GP practices in the Easington PCT area require and have requested additional nursing resources to improve the management of chronic disease.

We need more funding for mental health services, which have traditionally been a Cinderella service both nationally and locally when it comes to resource allocation. People living in east Durham are over 30 per cent. more likely than the national average to suffer from mental illness. GP practices have identified the need for their own community psychiatric nurses, as they would like to offer group therapy sessions and drop-in clinics for their patients. Some areas receive as little as three hours per week from community psychiatric nurses for counselling sessions.

Health services for young people are also sadly neglected in east Durham. A comprehensive counselling, family planning and advice service to prevent teenage pregnancy should be available. Easington's rate of teenage pregnancy is 55.3 conceptions per 1,000 women aged 15 to 17, which is one of the highest in the country.

Easington also has a relatively high incidence of diabetes. Providing a quality service to fit in with the recommendations in the national service framework published by the Department of Health would include providing access to dieticians, physiotherapists, chiropodists and retinopathy screening. Developing the service in this area would have a rapid impact on the quality of life for diabetics in my area. As a diabetic myself, I would like to declare an interest in seeing an improvement in that area of service provision.

Providing resources to support GPs with a special interest who can offer secondary care services in the community would have the added benefits of taking pressure off the acute sector and relieving patients of the need to make long and difficult journeys by public transport to the nearest hospital. Easington, as the Minister may appreciate, does not have its own hospital. The acute hospitals serving my constituency are located in Sunderland, North Tees and Hartlepool, Stockton and Durham City.

We need to develop our primary health care infrastructure in terms both of facilities and of the human resource element. New premises are urgently required in many communities. A recent report commissioned by the PCT indicates that health visitors and district nurses are currently working from inadequate premises. In some cases the premises are in a shocking and dilapidated condition, which is hardly the image that the NHS would wish to portray in the 21st century, particularly if we are to attract more staff, especially dedicated health care professionals, to work in the Easington PCT area.

We desperately need more community nurses. Nurses working in east Durham tend to have large case loads—twice as large as those in the neighbouring areas of Sunderland and Hartlepool. That means that our community nursing staff are working under intense pressure. They do not have time to promote health and give advice to their patients on healthy eating or smoking cessation, or offer general advice on how to maintain good health. The Wanless report highlighted the cost-effectiveness of investing in public health, but first there is a cost to be borne in having sufficient staff to promote good health interventions.

There is an excellent, if rather depressing, report produced by the public health intelligence service and the County Durham and Tees Valley Public Health Network with the apt title of "Miserable Measures". The report makes grim reading for the uninitiated. It analyses the range and severity of deprivation in the County Durham and Tees valley area, and—in case there is any doubt in the minds of hon. Members and the Minister about this—it clearly demonstrates the link between deprivation and ill health.

The report uses the index of multiple deprivation to analyse the various strands—or domains, as they are referred to—of deprivation. They are housing, income, employment, health, education and child poverty. It may he useful at this point to consider the definition of deprivation in health terms. Deprivation has been defined and measured in many ways. It is a word used to convey the idea of an individual or a community being in need, and having unfulfilled needs in absolute or relative terms.

Absolute needs are commonly assessed in relation to some kind of standard or baseline, whereas relative needs are evident when one individual or group is compared with another. Relative deprivation can and does exist in the absence of absolute deprivation. For the record, people living in Easington suffer both absolute and relative deprivation. As long ago as 1980, the Black report demonstrated the link between poverty, deprivation and ill health, and that link was reinforced by work carried out by Professor Townsend in the 1990s.

In 2003–04, Easington PCT received £104.6 million, whereas the target was £131.2 million. That is a £26.5 million shortfall, or 20.23 per cent. below target. In 2005–06, Easington PCT will receive £131.3 million compared with a target of £156.7 million. That is a £25.4 million shortfall, or 16.2 per cent. below target. To put it another way, as I said earlier, Easington PCT will forgo about £78 million of funding over the three-year allocation period, comparing baseline with actual allocations. In effect, the health care professionals, GPs, community nurses, health visitors and so forth who are expected to improve the health of the population in my constituency are being asked to deliver five years of health care with four years of funding.

The Secretary of State and the Under-Secretary of State for Health, my hon. Friend the Member for Welwyn Hatfield (Miss Johnson)—the member of his ministerial team who is here today—have both visited Easington PCT. I am sure that they will agree that there is the capacity and ability to improve health outcomes, and I would like to take this opportunity to thank them for visiting, as they promised to, to see some of the problems at first hand.

From lengthy correspondence with a succession of Ministers in the Department of Health, I gather that the Secretary of State understands and sympathises with the problems that we face in Easington. I respectfully point out to the Minister that the Secretary of State's warm words to the NHS Confederation and his reference to a commitment to address health inequalities in funding are not a test of political faith; they are more a test of political will. A promise is only a promise when it is delivered, and I am looking to the Minister for a commitment to address the funding anomaly that leaves health services for my constituents underfunded to the tune of £78 million over three years. In the short term, I am also seeking special measures to bring additional health resources to Easington to bring my PCT at least within striking distance of its target. That will allow the dedicated team of professionals that we have in place to get on with the job of improving health outcomes in one of the most deprived communities in the country.

I await the Minister's response with great interest and, as a loyal member of the Labour party, some expectation. I remind her that with loyalty come obligations. The nation owes a debt of honour to mining communities such as Easington that have suffered ill health over many generations to produce the coal that the nation required The mines have closed but the legacy of ill health remains, and must be addressed if the Government's commitment to their heartlands and to social justice are to have any credence.

On 28 April 2004 the Secretary of State made a speech to a conference on 28 April 2004 entitled "Choosing Health: Closing the Gap on Inequalities." In his opening remarks to the conference my right hon. Friend restated his commitment to the principles that established the NHS—a health system based on the principle of equal access to health care that is free at the point of need. The Government have signed up to reducing inequality with a public service agreement target to reduce health inequalities by at least 10 per cent. in terms of outcomes, measured by infant mortality and life expectancy at birth.

Those are admirable targets, which my colleagues and I fully support. To achieve the targets and fulfil the Government's pledge, the issue of resource allocation and inequalities in funding for PCTs such as Easington must be addressed as a matter of urgency. Thank you, Mr. Deputy Speaker, for giving me the opportunity to raise the subject today, and I await the Minister's response with anticipation.

11.17 am

I have listened carefully to the points that my hon. Friend has raised, but before responding directly to them, I would like to say a few words about the progress and investment being made in the Easington area, and in particular to praise the hard work and dedication of the NHS staff there.

There are a number of drivers for change across government, the NHS and the Department of Health. Ministers, including the Prime Minister, have put a real focus on making reducing health inequalities a top priority for the Government. Following the cross-cutting review, the Office of the Deputy Prime Minister: Housing, Planning and Local Government Committee has responsibility for overseeing the implementation of the inequalities strategy. That will be crucial in ensuring that tackling health inequalities remains a key priority across government. Indeed, the NHS improvement plan explicitly sets out how the NHS will develop into a health service rather than one that focuses primarily on sickness, and will in partnership make further inroads into levels of smoking, obesity and the other major causes of disease. There will be a sustained drive to reduce inequalities in health.

Strategic health authorities have a key role to play in performance managing health inequalities, not just on the key targets, but on other public health and health inequalities performance indicators and on progress with local delivery plans, which for the first time include tackling health inequalities as a priority. The recent launch of the consultation paper "Choosing Health?" was aimed at helping us put inequalities at the core of the nation's health. We want to use the consultation to promote a wide debate on the roles and responsibilities of individuals, the NHS and all the other players in civil society, as well as the Government, in the debate on choosing health.

Governments on their own cannot reduce inequalities. They depend on the hard work of disadvantaged people working to overcome the conditions that have in the past disadvantaged them. We help, but they must do it themselves. The publication in July 2003 of "Tackling health inequalities: a programme for action" is an indication of our commitment to addressing this issue. The programme provides the basis of meeting the 2010 national health inequalities target on life expectancy, by geographical area, and on infant mortality, by social class, by building on current work, and addressing the wider causes of inequalities in years beyond.

Key issues that are addressed in that programme are, first, health inequalities, which affect a large part of the population, not just the most deprived. Action to meet the targets will need to address the needs of the poorest 30 to 40 per cent. of the population. In the context of overall health improvement, the aim is to improve the health of the poorest fastest. Secondly, health inequalities must be integrated into mainstream service delivery, focusing on disadvantaged areas and groups, and recognising that a one-size-fits-all approach to health care will not reduce the health gap. Thirdly, co-ordinated effective activity is required across traditional boundaries at all levels, working in partnership with communities and service users.

As for the local picture in Easington, I am pleased to note that Easington PCT achieved all its key targets in 2003 performance ratings, and was awarded two stars. In particular, according to the latest available figures, from April 2004, 100 per cent. of patients were able to see a GP within two days or a primary care worker within one day.

I recognise that there are challenges facing the local health community. My hon. Friend is right to say that Easington is indeed one of the most deprived areas of the country, with significant levels of deprivation in its wards. However, it should be noted that the PCT has an admirable track record of meeting its population's needs. When I visited the area earlier this year, I was most impressed with the commitment of the staff delivering the health agenda. The PCT is taking part in a number of initiatives designed to address health inequalities. It reduced the incidence of heart disease by 25 per cent. over a two-year period, and I commend the PCT and its partners for the progress that has been achieved in that area.

Easington was one of three sites that helped the Modernisation Agency to win first prize in the health and social care awards in 2003 for its work focused on reducing falls in the community. Easington achieved a 63 per cent. reduction in falls over that periods, and I again congratulate the PCT and its partners for their contribution to that fine achievement.

The PCT has also established a local education and training programme to develop the expertise and skills of local health professionals, to ensure that it can attract and maintain motivated and experienced staff. In 2003–04, £750,000 was invested in expanding the nursing workforce. It is expected that by April 2005, multidisciplinary teams will be working in defined communities with delegated budgetary responsibility. We are taking the decision making and provision closer to the local communities.

With regard to specific action on health inequalities, the PCT is active in a number of areas, including the smoking cessation service, a range of activities based on the healthy living centre, participation in the health communities collaborative, and the expert patient programme. In addition, the Department and the strategic health authority have been working with the PCT to explore other possible initiatives to support the PCT's priorities, where those can be linked to existing central Department of Health or Modernisation Agency schemes.

To tackle health inequalities effectively, the big programmes—where the big money is—must change, and that means working through the mainstream and getting health inequalities thinking into existing and future programmes. Real change will be delivered only by changing the way in which mainstream services work, to ensure that we do not leave the worst off behind. We have learned that deep-rooted problems such as health inequalities cannot be tackled by short-term initiatives that dry up when the money runs out.

My hon. Friend referred to finance in his speech, and I should say straight away that the NHS must deliver overall financial balance and the NHS plan targets if we are to maintain credibility and meet our obligations to Parliament and the public. It is important to remember how much funding has been made available. In the 2002 Budget, the Chancellor announced the largest sustained increase in funding of any five-year period in the history of the NHS. Over the years 2003–04 to 2007–08, those plans mean that expenditure on the NHS in England will increase, on average, by 7.4 per cent. a year above inflation.

All NHS organisations must be clear that they have a responsibility to manage their resources effectively. Although we expect overall financial balance across the NHS, that is not to say that there are no health bodies facing financial pressures. There are always pressures to be managed in year, and substantial moneys, including the NHS bank support for the most hard pressed health economies, have been allocated to the NHS to meet the increasing demands placed on it.

My hon. Friend addressed the issue of the allocation of resources to primary care trusts in considerable detail, and I emphasise that Easington PCT will receive an increase of £36 million over the three years from 2003–04 to 2005–06. That represents a cash increase of 41 per cent. I am, of course, aware that that will mean that the Easington PCT continues to receive less than its target share. However, the pace of change policy that we have adopted for 2003–06 will reduce the PCT's distance from its target over the three-year period. For 2003–04, Easington PCT was 22 per cent. under its target share, but by 2005–06 it will be 16 per cent. under that target share. The allocations have been made direct to PCTs as part of the process of shifting the balance of power, by putting resources and responsibilities in the hands of front-line services. PCTs now control more than 75 per cent. of the NHS budget.

In response to some of what my hon. Friend said, I can see that it is not unreasonable to ask why some PCTs continually receive less than their target share. Our pace of change policy involves a balance between how much we give to all PCTs to maintain continuity and stability and make progress nationally in priority areas, and how much extra we give to under-target PCTs to bring them nearer to their weighted capitation targets. Allocations to all PCTs include resources to finance the cost of pay reform, new drugs and treatments, and additional capacity. However, we have also given extra resources to under-target PCTs.

It is important to remember how much extra funding we are making available. There has been an increase of £3.8 billion in the allocations to PCTs, bringing the total for 2003–04 to £45 billion. By 2005ߝ06 that total will be £53.9 billion—an increase of £12.7 billion over three years. We are committed to bringing all PCTs, including the Easington PCT, to their target allocations as soon as is practical. However, that must be consistent with all PCTs receiving sufficient extra funding to enable them to deliver national end local priorities. I hope that my hon. Friend will appreciate that there is a balancing act to be done.

We will consider a new pace of change policy before the next round of allocations are announced in the autumn. That will be decided in the light of the circumstances at the time. I am sure that my hon. Friend will understand that I cannot pre-empt any decision regarding the pace of change policy. However, I assure him and his constituents that his representations have been noted carefully and will be taken into account.

The pace of change policy decided by Ministers for each allocation round varies from round to round to take account of a number of factors. I believe that we have struck the right balance for this allocation round. I think that there will be an announcement about the new pace of change policy in the autumn, which, as I said, will be devised in the light of the circumstances prevailing at the time.

As a result of the Secretary of State's commitment to supporting the PCT, the Department of Health policy and Modernisation Agency officials continue, where appropriate, to define the support that can be given to Easington PCT in line with the relevant Department and Modernisation Agency work programmes, and will work through the strategic health authority to give meaning to that support. The Department of Health policy and Modernisation Agency officials will continue to monitor the progress of the support that is secured. My hon. Friend has made a strong case on behalf of his PCT on several occasions, and I assure him that Ministers are listening carefully to what he says.

11.30 am

Sitting suspended until Two o'clock.

2 pm

We see many media articles about the problem, and the House of Commons Library has produced a good debate pack—well up to its usual high standards—which outlines many of the problems caused by increasing air pollution, such as climate change. Recently, my elder son saw the film "The Day After Tomorrow." Although it shows a worst-case scenario, when I showed him some information that I had received about climate change he was rather shocked to see that the fantasy was not so far removed from the reality revealed by the figures. We would all do ourselves a lot of good to realise that the situation is serious and cannot be lightly put aside.

However important it is. I want to concentrate today not on climate change in relation to air quality, but on the problems of air quality affecting those of us who live in west London, especially my Uxbridge constituency. Not so many years ago, relatively speaking, Uxbridge, West Drayton, Hayes and Harlington were almost in the country; they would have been regarded as semi-rural only 60 or 70 years ago. People came to our area from central London because they wanted fresh air. That was one of the area's big selling points and why people started using the Metropolitan line to go to Uxbridge—incidentally, the line celebrates 100 years of going to Uxbridge this weekend. Metroland was an oasis for people escaping the smoke of central London.

Over the years, however, the area has changed. Perhaps I am getting older or becoming more cynical—in the seven years since I have been an MP, the latter has become more and more true—but I believe that I can now tell the difference in the air quality around my home and those of my constituents and neighbours. Like many people, I suffer minor symptoms of such pollution—I find myself increasingly bothered by nasal congestion, for example. In the local area, the incidence of respiratory disease and asthma seems to have increased. Some evidence may be anecdotal, and some—perhaps in the case of asthma—might have emerged because more is known these days; inhalers and so forth were not around a while ago. However, when I go around schools, I see that more and more of our young people are suffering from such conditions, and I think that air quality has a large part to play in that. When I escape to a rural area—perhaps not one in this country—I can taste fresh air mush more than I did before. It concerns me that a lot of people in and around our cities have to put up with air that, if they knew what was in it, they would be unhappy about.

One problem is that whenever I look into the issue and collect briefing notes and details from the various Departments, which are incredibly helpful, much of the information I receive is mumbo-jumbo to a man such as me who does not have scientific training. Some of my constituents do not understand the figures because they are not stated in a way that is accessible by the lay person. I do not necessarily blame anyone, but we must think hard about how we educate people, and not just about the problems. The Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs and the Minister answering my debate today have an important role in ensuring that our constituents believe what they are told.

In my part of west London, there are two principal threats, and a person does not have to be very intelligent, which is lucky in my case, to work out what they are. One is road traffic, which is a huge problem for us. There is increasing road traffic going in and out of London on the main arterial roads and all the other roads. Although I do not want to reminisce too much, I could hark back and say that the idea of a rush hour in Uxbridge 10 or 20 years ago would have been fantastical. Now, traffic congestion is a serious problem in the area. If there were an easy solution, I appreciate that by now somebody might have come up with it. Unfortunately, severe problems are being caused while we search for one.

The biggest and most immediate problem is Heathrow. I say that the problem is immediate because there is the very real threat of a third runway being built at Heathrow if the air quality is deemed sufficiently high to allow that. From the Government's response to the White Paper, it seems that if the air quality considerations, which are huge, can be satisfied, the third runway will go ahead.

A large section of opinion believes that problems relating to air traffic around airports are not properly understood. My neighbour, the hon. Member for Hayes and Harlington (John McDonnell), might want to enlarge on that point, because his constituency is not so much in the firing line, but the firing range itself. Suffice it to say that my constituents, the hon. Gentleman's and others are unhappy about how air quality is monitored. The issue is one of confidence. DEFRA is monitoring air quality, but locally we have our worries about whether the monitoring is rigorous enough and done properly. I am not accusing the Department of doing anything underhand, but the process is of such importance to our constituents that we must have confidence in it.

I recently wrote to the Under-Secretary of State for Health, the hon. Member for Welwyn Hatfield (Miss Johnson), because I found it strange that the Department of Health did not have any input to the monitoring of air pollution—after all, it has to pick up the bill in the end. Although I understand that officials from the Department's health protection, toxicology and radiation branch are in regular contact with the air and environment quality division of DEFRA, I would prefer the Department of Health to have a larger role.

At the moment, there seems to be one monitoring site at Harlington. The hon. Member for Hayes and Harlington might have something to say about that, but I am beginning to wonder whether the site is big enough for the job. I also want to be reassured that the monitoring work does not have any link to the aviation industry. Again, it is a question of confidence. It is not that I necessarily distrust the monitoring, but I need to be convinced as a local resident that the air quality figures for Heathrow are not being produced to help a particular case. We all know how statistics can be used. That is all I have to say on the matter.

The hon. Gentleman and I recently attended a launch of a paper by the Sustainable Development Commission. It contained some alarming facts and some interesting solutions. There, he mentioned something that I did not know. We are always told that we cannot tax flights, but internal flights in the United States are taxed, so there may be some merit in the proposal. That strays into the transport aspect of the debate, and although it is important I will not go down that line, particularly bearing in mind the number of hon. Members who want to speak.

Another proposed development impinges on my constituency and that of the hon. Member for Hayes and Harlington. At present I take a neutral view, not having all the facts. As the Minister, or at least his Department, will be aware, there is a plan for an incinerator at Colnbrook. It is all part of the Government's plan on incineration—or rather it is part of the EU's plan, but if I say that I will be labelled a Tory Eurosceptic who blames Europe for everything. There is an existing waste disposal incinerator and a new one is planned, which is causing much local concern. It has not quite reached the headlines in my constituency, but it has in Slough and some villages in the Hayes and Harlington constituency.

I am sure that the operator, Grundon, will do all that it has to do. There is no question but that the new facility will be built to European specifications, but various materials, including X-rays and clinical waste, which all have to be got rid of, will be disposed of there. I get the strong impression that local people are not convinced by the reassurances that are being given about it, and I would be grateful if DEFRA could somehow—perhaps through a public exhibition—convince the public that the proposal is okay.

There will always be a problem convincing the public because although we have certain limits, the EU is constantly raising them. What is okay by today's standards will be unacceptable in 2010. The more we find out about these things, the higher standards become. My constituency already suffers from a great deal of pollution as a result of road traffic, Heathrow and the prevailing westerly winds. If we get more pollution from the new incinerator, quite frankly many people will seriously wonder why on earth they should stay put. But life is not that simple—people cannot simply up sticks and go. I notice that 25 local GPs have signed a petition and have asked many questions about the incinerator. I would bow to their knowledge on these matters, even though I want to be as neutral as possible.

Fortunately, we in the London area have just had some elections, but we never know whether a general election is just around the corner. Some issues that I have mentioned become local party political issues, and I am anxious to ensure that that does not happen. If people do not like airports nearby, they have to think about alternatives. If they do not like incinerators, they have to consider alternatives—for example, more recycling and perhaps less packaging.

Some people know that in my previous existence I was a retailer. I am always amazed by the amount of packaging that is used even to wrap things like furniture, when tying it up in the back of a van with an old blanket can provide adequate protection. Now it has to be bubble-wrapped and all sorts of other things, but there is just as much damage, if not more, because people assume that the security of all that packaging means that they can treat items more roughly. There is an incredible amount of waste in packaging, and we as a nation have to take that seriously. It is no good our saying that we do not want an incinerator or a third runway unless we are prepared to consider the options.

I come today not in anger, but to voice my concern for my constituents and others, and for my health and that of my children. I feel that I am rather in the dark. There is plenty of paperwork on this subject, but there is a great danger of people being deluged with scientific facts and figures. I am happy to admit that I am not a scientist and cannot quite understand some facts and figures. I can just about make out carbon dioxide and a few other chemical signs, but that is about it, and they get more and more complicated over time. We in Uxbridge and the surrounding area are a decent lot, but we are not all experts.

We have to persuade people using the real facts about air quality, and we have to do something to improve it. After all—I was about to add, "without being too dramatic", but it does sound dramatic—if we are not careful, air pollution will be a silent killer.

2.21 pm

It would be unfair to say that all airports will have poorer air quality to the extent of breaching legal limits. We are saying that, in terms of tonnes per year of NOx and particulate matter of all sizes—the two pollutants that have the greatest health impact—and where there are tough legal limits, the volumes emitted will increase. Ground level ozone will also be a problem, although pollutants such as carbon monoxide will probably decrease, as will sulphur dioxide because of better combustion from vehicles and clean fuels.

Modelling exercises estimate the quantities of pollutants from all sources. At airports, those sources are: aircraft during take off, landing, taxiing, holding and so on; airport operations; airside vehicles; staff transportation; airport-related traffic—passenger vehicles, public transport and so on—and internal operations, such as combined heat and power plants and standby generators. I realise that the Minister here today is not heavily involved in those matters, but I am sure that he will write to me after consulting his ministerial colleagues. One of the difficulties with environmental issues is that they are, by their very nature, cross-cutting, and therefore difficult to handle.

At most airports the hot spots for air quality problems—focused, as I said, on NOx and particulate matter—occur in the immediate vicinity of runway ends and the terminal road access interface. That is particularly true of what I must now, reluctantly, call Nottingham East Midlands airport in the northern part of my constituency. The area around the airport is straddled by the M1, the M42, which links Birmingham to Nottingham, and the Derby southern bypass; it is very much the transport nexus of the east midlands, focused in a small area, and a quantifiable human health impact is occurring. Domestic properties and the people who live in them are being affected.

I ask the Minister either to respond to the following point or to write to me about it. When pollutants breach limits, residents and their houses are affected. Schools are also affected and there are schools fairly close to airports in all parts of the country. There are other at-risk groups—elderly people in care homes, for example. Where the mix of residents and the land-use patterns are as I have described, surely a local authority has a duty of care to invoke an air quality management zone. Will the Minister say where responsibility for that lies? Only by the use of air quality management zones can we begin to address the methods of controlling and reducing pollution, whatever the source.

The air transport White Paper and the associated background paper state that some airports could have significant air quality problems in future. The hon. Member for Uxbridge and my hon. Friend the Member for Hayes and Harlington (John McDonnell) know more about it than me, but I believe that there is an air quality management zone in force at Heathrow. Fairly horrific air quality is possible if and when end-of-runway alternations happen, and it would be even worse if there was a third runway.

Manchester airport has a small problem, which arises from the fact that there is development right up to the boundary, a closely spaced two-runway layout with very tightly packed terminal buildings and a significant road network. It does not have an air quality management zone, but many believe that it ought to. There might be political problems with that, given that Manchester airport is owned by local authorities in the Greater Manchester area.

Birmingham airport is close to where I live. I believe that its management will proceed with great care when considering the possible second runway. The air transport White Paper indicates that there could be air quality problems owing to factors not dissimilar to those affecting Manchester. The site is confined and closely spaced and a second runway has been proposed. There is poor dispersal, with dwellings in fairly close proximity. If the second runway went ahead, an air quality management zone would be needed without doubt.

Finally, I turn to my own airport, if I may refer to it in that proprietorial fashion. I have described the geographical setting of Nottingham East Midlands airport. Its likely growth, as envisaged by the air transport White Paper, will—or could; I have to be fair—have a serious effect on the surrounding settlements and villages, such as Kegworth, Castle Donington and the smaller villages around. If so, North West Leicestershire district council, the local authority with responsibility, will have to rack up the air quality monitoring and management. It does that work now, but much more is necessary.

I conclude with a couple of broad themes to put things into perspective. I think that we all agree that generally dumping more known pollutants on to people is not a sparkling idea, but that will be one of the outcomes of airport expansion on the scale envisaged in the White Paper. I am not sure that the research on the impact on air quality that was carried out in parallel with the production of the White Paper was adequate. Recent background papers have made me feel uneasy. The trouble is that although the campaigning organisations—local community groups, the Campaign to Protect Rural England, Greenpeace, Friends of the Earth and others—have some resources, they do not have enough to undertake the scale of research necessary to analyse, predict and tackle some air quality problems.

There is an absence of technological solutions to reduce air pollution from fossil fuel sources that causes problems around airports. If that continues, the only way to control the huge increases in NOx and particulate matter is to remove or reduce the road traffic contribution to the problem, stop or restrain the increase in flights, or introduce a contribution from both measures. It is important that the Government and airport operators commit to major public transport access to the facilities that airports and aviation provide.

The hon. Member for Uxbridge did not want to be labelled a swivel-eyed right winger blaming everything on the EU; nor do I. I am sceptical about things European from time to time, but not about the positive impact of the EU in terms of driving up environmental standards in western Europe. I welcome that, and I predict that today's EU air quality standards are likely to become much tougher over the next 30 years, which is the period covered by the air transport White Paper.

In the light of that, I hope that all Ministers who have an influence on how aviation is developed in the United Kingdom will take the fabled precautionary approach. We are talking about a period of three decades and the likelihood of minimum standards of air quality rising significantly. Let us not take decisions or sanction development now that will make it impossible to hit those targets in the years to come.

2.33 pm

I come to the debate in desperation, because I am not sure where else to go. A few weeks ago we had a debate on aviation during which I raised a number of points about air pollution and urged a ministerial response. Today, I am asking again. I plead at an early stage in my speech for a meeting with the Minister, his advisers and perhaps some of his colleagues in other Departments to examine the specific problems with air pollution that are occurring in my constituency, because they exemplify the potential problems throughout the country.

We in my constituency suffer from the worst air pollution in the country, comparable only with inner-city London itself. My constituents endure the prospect of that situation worsening and being poisoned by the air that they breathe—a continuous process from now until the prospects of runway development are clear, and for ever afterward. I am here in desperation. I want someone to talk to me about the potential Government solutions, because I do not know where else to go.

My constituents live in an area with a lethal cocktail of air polluters. There are three sources: industry, the airport and the aviation industry, and motor vehicles that go along our local roads, in particular, the combination of the M4, M25 and M40 and the minor roads associated with them. They combine to pollute the atmosphere in such a way that certain parts of my constituency will soon be rendered unliveable in—not just by definitions of quality of life, but on health grounds as set by the standards of the European Union and the present Government. I come here asking questions, because I am now desperate for solutions to my constituents' problems.

A number of industries in my constituency provide valuable employment. It is no coincidence that they are situated in the constituency next to the airport, because for many industries our area is the logistical centre for Europe, if not the world. I give the example of Nestlé, which has a pollutant problem: it provides employment, but something about the coffee-burning process is affecting the ability of my constituents living in the area to breathe. We have met the company every three months for a number of years and have tried to identify solutions. Some problems have been resolved, but many have not.

There are a number of individual factories such as that in my constituency, and current legislation dealing with enforcement when an air pollution incident occurs is not sufficient to enable my constituents to be confident that they will be able to breathe properly again within days. Incident after incident occurs, and they feel that, even working with the local authority and the Environment Agency, they have no power to control the situation. I believe that we must reconsider the immediate enforcement powers that local authorities have in relation to industrial processes.

The second major threat, apart from individual industries, is incinerators. The hon. Member for Uxbridge mentioned the processes through which we have passed in relation to the development of Colnbrook, next to Heathrow airport. That is a good example for the rest of the country of incineration gone wrong. There was an incinerator at Colnbrook and the company wanted to enhance its facilities. It went through the planning processes with one local authority—the one in whose area the proposed incinerator was situated. However, the prevailing wind means that the major pollutants come across the boundaries of the next planning authority, which did not adequately deal with the planning application. This is not a party political issue, as all the parties in the area agree on that. Incineration capacity will enlarge dramatically and my constituents are worried about what effect that will have on air pollution.

Let me explain why my constitutents are worried. I have been asking a number of questions about birth defects in my area. I have been working with Dr. van Steenis, who has worked with a number of Members of Parliament, on the development of incineration and the coincidence of incinerator locations and increases in birth defects.

The research on the link between incineration and pollution and birth defects to which Dr. van Steenis has pointed a number of hon. Members prompted me to ask a number of questions about my constituency. The latest figures available from the Government—from the Office for National Statistics—confirm that the number of birth defects in the London borough of Hillingdon, which encompasses the constituencies of Ruislip-Northwood, Uxbridge and Hayes and Harlington, has risen from 194.8 per 10,000 births to 266.9 per 10,000 births in 2001. Thal is a 37 per cent. increase in five years. The peak came in 2000, when there were 348.6 birth defects per 10,000 births, so at one period there was a 79 per cent. increase in birth defects in the borough.

I tried to relate those statistics to development in the area—the development of additional motorways or the increasing impact of the airport—but the factor to which they seem to relate is the development of incineration at Colnbrook. The Government are enabling the incineration process to develop so that a range of waste is being incinerated that can emit particulates into the atmosphere. I approached the Environment Agency, which told me that there was no conclusive research linking pollution from incinerators and birth defects. Elsewhere in Europe, such research is going on apace, and there are examples of Belgian courts having halted incineration as a result of the health impacts of incineration in local areas.

The statistics are extremely worrying. We need an explanation of the high incidence or birth defects. I am requesting a meeting with Health Ministers to argue the case for more general research in that area and, specifically, for the monitoring of birth defects and more precise identification of the time scales over which their incidence increased. From a lay person's examination of the statistics, that escalation appears to relate to the 1992 legislation passed to allow alternative fuels to be used in power stations and industrial processors, including incinerators and cement kilns. There is also a cement factory in my area.

Industry is the first source of pollution in my constituency. The second, obviously, is Heathrow airport. Based on the Government's own statistics and assuming the most aggressive use of abatement measures that the Government can identify, and without any further development at Heathrow—terminal 5 is already under construction, and the cap of 480,000 air traffic movements remains—it is predicted that in the next 11 years, 5,000 of my constituents will be poisoned by nitrogen dioxide at levels above the EU's legal limits. If we said that we were going to poison 5,000 people elsewhere in the world, particularly in the developing world, it would sound like Halabja to me. People lost their homes to flooding in the Ilisu dam project; if thousands of people were going to die, we would be campaigning and up in arms against a barbaric Government risking the lives of their electorate and civilians. We would be on the streets demanding action, yet in 11 years' time, 5,000 of my constituents will be poisoned and we are part of the conspiracy to implement that policy.

If the third runway goes ahead, it is predicted that 35,000 of my constituents will suffer poisoning from nitrogen dioxide. If the runway does not go ahead and the Government consult about alternation of existing runways at Heathrow over the next couple of years, according to even the best air pollution estimates, 14,000 people will be poisoned by nitrogen dioxide. Those figures are unacceptable in a civilised society. The figures impact on aviation policy, but also on dependence on health services, GP facilities and even, tragically, hospice facilities for people dying as a result of air pollution. The problem is not only lung disease, but associated cancers, as discovered in the American studies on the development of airports.

Another way in which the lethal cocktail of air pollution affects my constituency is through motor vehicles, often linked to either the airport or motorways going through my constituency. Having campaigned for nearly 30 years against the development of further motorways and roads because they would increase traffic, I am astounded that the recent response has been to widen the M4 and the M25 and to return to a retrograde policy of further road development. I thought that we won the argument 10 years ago on control of motor vehicles and investment in public transport.

We had a meeting yesterday about the introduction of a stopping service at Hayes and Harlington station that could run to the airport. That would probably double the number of people able to get to Heathrow airport using public transport rather than cars or motor vehicles. However, we cannot even afford the development of the station for that purpose because we are £1.2 million short. We are grubbing around to find that money from the Strategic Rail Authority, which may not exist in six weeks' time, from Transport for London, or from the London borough of Hillingdon—I will not go into the incompetence of long-term capital investment by the local authority. The failure to invest in public transport, even in my area where there is recognised need, means that the polluters combine to poison my constituents.

Let me illustrate what that means. At school, large numbers of the children in my constituency are given a box with their name on it to put their puffer in because of the high rates of asthma and respiratory problems. Our local education authority provides a good service, but the hon. Member for Uxbridge will know that it has to give teachers special training on how to deal with children who have an asthma attack at school, because that is so common. That is the point we have reached.

I just ask the Government for help. Will someone please give us a solution? An air quality management area was declared three years ago. It has been so effective that air quality has worsened over that period. We have applied Government policy at a local level and it has failed. I ask for a ministerial meeting; I want a discussion about the way forward. In addition, I want some assistance for my area and the constituencies of Uxbridge and Ruislip-Northwood.

First, I want adequate investment in full, independent monitoring around the airport. We should work with local community organisations, the primary care trust and the local authority so that we get an accurate picture of what is going on. Secondly, I plead again—for the sixth time, I think—for funding for local research on the health implications of air pollution in my area. That research would monitor what is happening and its effects in detail. At the moment, our local primary care trust bears a financial burden from Heathrow airport. We are not compensated for that, nor do we get any additional money for air pollution monitoring.

I would also like a thorough discussion on preventive techniques and some long-term planning to deal with the specific problem that the area faces. If there were an asbestos factory in my constituency, we would all be piling in with policy after policy. There would be enforcement and action on health, benefits and support. However, because we are talking about the slow erosion of air quality over time, limited action has taken place. In addition, I ask for treatment for my constituents who are suffering from health problems.

I have a crisis on my hands, and the crisis in my constituency could well be repeated in constituency after constituency if current policies—particularly aviation policies—go ahead. The Government need to tackle the crisis, with some assistance at local level that is reflected in national policy.

2.54 pm

I am only sorry that the Minister, for whom I have a lot of time, is in some ways the wrong Minister to answer the debate: we need a Transport Minister, because many issues that have been raised are Department for Transport matters. That shows the folly of splitting up the Department of the Environment, Transport and the Regions. The Government were right to bring the environment and transport together after the 1997 election, but we now have separate Departments, which is not helpful when dealing with an issue such as air quality.

We have heard a lot about airports and Heathrow in particular, and rightly so. There are issues of air capacity and the effect on air quality of the Government's policy on expansion of the aviation industry. I am concerned that the predict-and-provide policy in aviation will lead to a dramatic increase in the number of flights and in emissions of carbon dioxide—those were not really touched on, although the aviation industry will double its CO2 emissions between 1990 and 2010—and air pollutants. That will directly affect those living near Heathrow and other airports, as we graphically heard from the hon. Member for Hayes and Harlington.

The Government must recognise that there is a level of air pollution beyond which it is not sensible to go. If extra flights generate that pollution, they should be stopped. In some places around the world, local authorities are able to stop traffic coming in if the air pollution in a town goes beyond a certain level. It seems to me that there ought to be similar monitoring capacity at our airports: if the pollution reaches a certain level, flights should be stopped until the air pollution is cleared. Obviously, one cannot stop flights landing, but one could prevent them from taking off.

That might seem a drastic solution, but the alternative is simply to accept that the number of flights will increase exponentially, and the technological improvements that the aviation industry is no doubt working on to make planes cleaner will not be sufficient to offset the massive increase projected over the next 20 or 30 years. Air pollution, with all the accompanying problems that Members from constituencies around Heathrow have described, will sadly get worse. That is an unacceptable message to give to the constituents of the hon. Members for Hayes and Harlington and for Uxbridge, and those elsewhere. We cannot continue to gamble with people's health in the way we are just because the aviation industry wants to demonstrate that it has an economic benefit for the country. It undoubtedly does, but that cannot outweigh the health impact it has on those who are directly affected.

The Government's answer is to promote an emissions trading scheme for airlines to reduce emissions. I am not quite clear whether that will relate simply to CO2 or to other pollutants as well; perhaps the Minister will respond to that point. I notice that in the Transport Council the other day, which was referred to in Hansard, there was no mention of the emissions trading scheme or any other steps to reduce air pollution, although plenty of other issues relating to airlines were discussed. I am concerned that the Government are adopting the emissions trading policy as a "one golf club" option when they should consider other options to reduce pollution and control emissions of carbon dioxide.

The Minister may be aware of the figures that I have showing that pollutants at Heathrow in particular are reaching unacceptably high levels. In 2000, 8,949 tonnes of nitrogen dioxide, 414 tonnes of sulphur dioxide, 1,000,400 tonnes of carbon dioxide; and 102 tonnes of particulates were emitted around Heathrow, and those figures will have since become worse. Studies in the United States have shown that particulates are particularly damaging to health They are micro-particles that can get into your body and do great damage. The figures for particulates are much too high—roughly double, if not slightly more, the levels experienced at Gatwick, which is of more concern to me with my constituency hat on, as I represent Lewes. I have great sympathy for those who live in the conurbation near Heathrow. We need to do everything possible to limit such pollutants and if technology cannot provide the solution, there should be a cap on the expansion of air flights from Heathrow until that solution is achieved. Predict and provide is simply not an option for Heathrow.

We must also do more to increase access by public transport to Heathrow, Gatwick and Stansted, because, as the hon. Member for Hayes and Harlington said, many of the pollutants come from road transport, not simply from aviation. I sympathise with him when he talks about the difficulties of getting £1 million or so for an obviously much needed rail improvement. The difference that it would make is obvious to me, even though I am not the Member for that area. We cannot deliver the simplest rail improvements that everyone agrees are necessary and desirable, yet we know that there will be another Government announcement for more roads and road widening, and the RAC and the AA will no doubt say that it is not enough. Why is money spent on roads considered investment, but money spent on railways considered subsidy? Have we in the 21st century really not got around that mindset?

I received a parliamentary answer a week ago from the Department for Transport showing that over the past 30 years the cost of motoring has decreased in real terms by 5 per cent—so much for all the fuel protesters. It also showed that the cost of travelling by bus has gone up 68 per cent. in real terms and by train 86 per cent. It is hardly surprising that we have a problem with road traffic pollution when all the economic indicators have encouraged people to switch from public transport to the roads. The trend for rail and bus costs to go up and for motoring costs to go down has continued under the present Government.

I am concerned about the inadequate monitoring of air pollution. In a parliamentary answer on 26 December 2002 to my question about how much the Government were spending on monitoring, the Minister said that £4.79 million was spent on monitoring ambient air quality and £2.4 million on regulated industrial processors. That might sound a lot, but it is not; there is an inadequate network of sites for monitoring air pollution. I gently point out to the Minister that those sums combined amount to less than the Government spend on cars for Ministers and others to rove around London quite unnecessarily. That is not a statistic of which I would be proud were I a Minister.

Local authorities provide inadequate monitoring as well. Research that I have undertaken with colleagues shows that of the 408 local authorities in England and Wales, 237 failed in 2002 to meet the minimum inspection level of two inspections a year of industrial processors that was set by DEFRA, and more than 50 authorities failed to check each processor even once. There is a big problem with local authority monitoring. I do not know whether the Minister will argue that local authorities are not taking their responsibilities seriously and that there is no reason why they should not, or whether he will accept that they receive insufficient funding. As far as this debate is concerned, the answer does not really matter; the point is that local authorities are not monitoring the processors that they should. We must improve that.

The Minister also knows that although there have been many welcome improvements in air quality in this country during the past 10, 20 or 30 years, we sometimes see statistics that demonstrate a worrying reversal. For example, he will be aware that nitrogen dioxide in London has increased by an average 15 per cent. during the past two years. Only one of the 19 monitoring sites recorded a decrease and there have been some horrific increases. The monitoring station in Marylebone road, which is not that far from here, recorded a 32.1 per cent. increase in such emissions during that time. Things are going wrong in London, in our other cities and in the countryside. He will also be aware of a number of occasions when the ozone-monitoring site in my constituency—at Lullington heath in Sussex—recorded levels that exceeded the maximum advisory limit. Therefore, there is an additional problem with low-level ozone in rural areas.

The Government have more to do. I know that the Minister takes those matters seriously and that he is concerned about them, but I do not see the results. The Government as a whole do not give dealing with air pollution the weight that they should. Sometimes these important matters get swept aside when people make economic cases for further transport infrastructure development.

Lastly, I will say something about trees and forests and the effects that they suffer as a result of air pollution. This is not simply a matter involving people, although they are the most important thing. A parliamentary answer demonstrated that in the UK there are 22 million dead trees and more than 900 million that are suffering from moderate to severe defoliation. That puts us 26th out of 33 in the 2002 European table. There is clearly a big problem with the effect of air pollution on the natural environment. I hope that the Minister can answer the questions that other hon. Members and I have put today. This is a serious issue.

3.7 pm

I have several transport interests and it is important to place them on the record: they include British Airways, BAA plc, First Group, the RAC and Eurotunnel. My interest in air quality dates from last year's figures, which we put on the parliamentary record in early-day motion 1279. I congratulate all hon. Members who have contributed to this debate and I urge them to sign the early-day motion. I hope that they will support it. I recognise the work that the Government have done and I pay tribute to it, but they are falling far short of having a coherent strategy to tackle the problem of air quality. It is a genuine problem, which the Minister must deal with. The Government have signed up to mandatory EU levels, yet in their national policy they have set only indicative targets and objectives, leaving the matter largely for local authorities to monitor and control.

Moving and powerful examples of the health problems that result from poor air quality were given by my hon. Friend the Member for Uxbridge and by the hon. Members for Hayes and Harlington (John McDonnell) and for North-West Leicestershire (David Taylor). It appears from press reports, in addition to the excellent debate pack that was prepared for today's debate by the House of Commons Library, that exhaust fumes from vehicles may be to blame for up to one sixth of cot deaths. That information came from a recent study. Similar studio show that the UK has the worst asthma record in the European Union, with the proportion of the population affected by it—just under 14 per cent.—almost double the EU average.

The contributions that we have heard this afternoon have shown that air pollution is caused not only by activities in and around aviation, but by car transport. It is particularly alarming that two reports made in the past week—one from the Institute of Economic Affairs and the other from, I think, the university of Central Lancashire—speak despairingly of the contribution of rail transport to environmental pollution. As all the main parties are committed to transferring freight from road to rail wherever possible, that is deeply alarming. I hope that DEFRA and the Department for Transport will look into that in a genuine cross-cutting exercise. I would be very disturbed if we were causing pollution by moving freight on to rail.

There have been positive contributions. The UK Petroleum Industry Association—UKPIA—has produced the "Future Road Fuels" report as part of the debate on alternative fuels. I also welcome the fact that my party has done, and continues to do, a great deal on alternative fuels.

It is interesting that the Minister who will respond to the debate has responsibility for rural affairs. As we heard from my hon. Friend the Member for Uxbridge, although Uxbridge used to be well known for being a rural part of London, that is no longer generally perceived to be the case.

The debate is timely because figures for air quality tend to be seasonal, they are very high in periods of extreme temperatures, such as those we experienced in August last year. The poor air quality headline indicator figures show that pollution in urban areas was moderate or higher on 50 days on average per site last year, which compares unfavourably with 20 days in 2002. The situation was even worse in rural areas, where air pollution was moderate or higher on 63 days on average per site, compared with 30 in 2003. I urge the Government to develop a coherent strategy to improve those figures. I acknowledge that the weather and pollution are no respecters of frontiers; pollution from other parts of Europe is a factor, as we have seen with acid rain. However. the Government must recognise that while such other factors play a part in creating poor air quality, the main causes of pollution are the combustion of coal, transport emissions and industrial pollution.

The economies of the constituencies of many Government Members owed a great deal to coal and its extraction; that has had consequences for energy policy. I welcome the investment in clean coal technology, and I hope that that technology can continue to be explored as a part of the reduction of sulphur dioxide emissions.

The combustion of coal, transport emissions and industrial pollution contribute to pollution, and so too might incineration. In about 1996, there was a plan to build an incinerator to dispose of animal carcasses on the border of Aiskew and Bedale in my constituency, and I had contact with local GPs at that time. It is interesting to note what happens in other parts of the European Union. Half of my family comes from Denmark, so I follow what happens there closely. Denmark disposes of 56 per cent. of its household waste through incineration. The Minister might wish to comment on that. The hon. Member for Hayes and Harlington pointed out the problems with a local incinerator. However, waste offers possibilities for getting clean and smokeless energy recovery and distribution. In Denmark, that has been used to bring what Danes call distance heating to local homes. I urge the Government to look into that, particularly before this year's hot summer pushes up pollution levels even further.

I commend the work of the National Society for Clean Air and Environmental Protection. It has raised concerns about the DEFRA's forthcoming review of the air quality strategy. There is worry that there has not been sufficient consultation and great concern about what choice of baseline year and scenario years will be taken, as that will be crucial to evaluating the effectiveness of air quality control measures.

We have had an excellent debate this afternoon. The Government have identified a way forward, but they will have to reconcile their obligations under the European Union provisions to which they have signed up with the fact that they have set only indicative, not statutory, targets and objectives and that it is left to local authorities to monitor and control matters. Those who have spoken this afternoon identified deficiencies in the monitoring and control procedures. We must recognise the work of the Mayor of London in improving air quality, but many causes of pollution fall outside the power of local authorities. I commend clean air and good air quality to the Minister and I hope that he will come forward with a stricter air quality strategy based on greater consultation and a wise choice of baseline year.

3.16 pm

I congratulate the hon. Member for Uxbridge (Mr. Randall) on securing the debate, which is rapidly becoming an annual fixture. As was mentioned, he has assiduously raised air quality issues in relation to his constituency. The contributions to the debate demonstrate how generally well informed hon. Members are and how seriously they take such issues. The hon. Gentleman began his remarks by referring to the smogs of 50 years ago. I remember what it was like as a visitor to London from the fresh, clean air of north Wales—having to grope my way through the murk to the underground in conditions that are almost impossible to imagine in the modern day. Smog was headline news in those times, whereas good air quality is not news. "Man breathes clean air" is not as potent a headline for the average journalist as "Man chokes in smog".

The environmental changes that have occurred during the past 50 years have not all been in a negative direction. River water, air quality and the state of our buildings have seen major improvements, but the hon. Gentleman is right to say that much remains to be done. We have to meet new challenges all the time. I am sympathetic to his references to the technical language, the detail and figures that scientists and technicians offer us. What has struck me since becoming a Minister at DEFRA is the gap in the language between the simple statement, "We want clean air," and the language of emissions and particulates, percentage improvements and deterioration, which must be measured year-on-year to make sure that the quality of our environment is protected and improved. Those targets and thresholds, boring though they seem, are essential to achieving improvement. In addition, it takes time to influence aspects of air quality. Decisions that were taken 10, 15 or 20 years ago about emissions from vehicles are only now having an impact on the quality of our environment.

The complexity of the issue is illustrated by the points raised by hon. Members. One or two speakers, including my hon. Friend the Member for North-West Leicestershire (David Taylor), invited me to write to them with the specifics. That is the only way to deal with some complex issues that have been raised. We have covered a great deal of ground, and if I am not able to cover all the points adequately today, I shall try to address them in writing for each Member who has contributed.

My hon. Friend the Member for Hayes and Harlington (John McDonnell) sought a ministerial meeting. I am sure that we can arrange one, either with me or with my noble Friend Lord Whitty, who takes the lead on some of these issues. We simply need to identify the specific issues on which he would like to concentrate.

The hon. Member for Lewes (Norman Baker) was entirely in order—occasionally, even complimentary—in some of his remarks. However, he made several sweeping generalisations to which I would respond vigorously if there were time. It is important to consider each issue and deal with it properly. On many matters, concerns are raised by a particular study, but when the study and its implications are examined in context and set against monitoring and other evidence, it produces slightly different results.

The hon. Member for Vale of York was kind enough to acknowledge some work that the Government have done. She referred to my responsibility for rural affairs but, of course, local environmental quality is the other half of my brief. One strength of DEFRA, which makes life as a Minister there interesting, is the way in which we cover a range of issues from the international aspects of pollution and global warming down to the local environment issues of air quality, chewing gum and so on. It is therefore appropriate in a debate such as this to deal with issues that impinge on one another.

It is important to note that air quality has improved considerably over the past decade. However, as the hon. Lady said, in 2003 there was a significant increase in the number of days of poor air quality compared with 2002.

The increase was mainly due to exceptional hot, sunny weather, which resulted in high levels of ozone. In addition, as the hon. Lady acknowledged, a significant amount of poor air quality was caused by pollution blown into the UK from abroad. It has always been recognised that the headline indicator can show significant yearly fluctuations because of variations in weather conditions, so we need to concentrate on long-term trends. Despite last year's overall increase, the average number of poor air quality days in urban areas in 2003 was about 15 per cent. lower than in 1993.

Several Members referred to asthma, which is clearly a growing problem. We must consider the other contributory factors, such as air conditioning and other environmental conditions that have both advantages and downsides for us. We accept that asthma can be aggravated by air pollution, but that is not, in general, a cause. It should be underlined that we are reducing air pollution levels, and that will continue.

A number of hon. Members referred to the overlap between different governmental responsibilities. We work very closely indeed with colleagues at the Department of Health and the Department for Transport. We are in almost daily contact with them about air quality and health issues.

The issue of monitoring and its adequacy was raised, and my hon. Friend the Member for Hayes and Harlington made some specific points in that respect. The monitoring of the Harlington site, which was mentioned, is done by the contractors who do DEFRA's own monitoring. Much of the monitoring around Heathrow is undertaken on behalf of DEFRA. There is a specific Harlington site where monitoring is done for BAA plc, but evidence from that site is incorporated in the DEFRA monitoring network and the data are published on the web. The new work to be done at Heathrow following the aviation White Paper will involve scrutinising the monitoring at that site and others in the area.

Is the monitoring adequate? We believe that it is. Moreover, it will be supplemented by modelling. All that work will be scrutinised by a steering group of academics and by local authorities to ensure independence. Monitoring around Heathrow is also done by local authorities and DEFRA. It is worth underlining that monitoring is undertaken by and for DEFRA, but in addition to the finances that we commit, about £5 million a year is made available to local authorities for monitoring and for their other air quality obligations. The Government provide funding to local authorities for their air quality duties through the annual revenue support grant and supplementary credit approvals, and partly via the local transport plan. Hillingdon and Hounslow have applied for supplementary credit approval for the financial year 2004–05: Hillingdon has been awarded £178,500 and Hounslow £132,500.

The Government are fully aware of the concerns about air quality around Heathrow airport. That was a significant part of our debate and a significant issue affecting the decisions announced in the air transport White Paper. The Government have said that another runway at Heathrow could not be supported unless there was confidence that levels of all relevant pollutants could be consistently contained within EU limits. It is important to underline that. As promised in the White Paper, the Government have commenced the package of work on how to make the most of Heathrow's existing runways and on adding a new runway there after the Stansted runway while complying with air quality and other environmental conditions.

The Government are committed to reporting progress on White Paper commitments generally in 2006. Work is under way to improve technical understanding of air quality issues and modelling capabilities so that further assessments of air quality impact at Heathrow can be made within that time scale.

My hon. Friend the Member for Hayes and Harlington also made reference to industrial activities in the area of Heathrow. Industrial activities with significant potential to pollute more than one environmental medium have been regulated by the Environment Agency under the integrated pollution control system since the early 1990s. Considerable improvements in environmental performance have resulted, and the results for recent years can be seen in the Environment Agency's pollution inventory on its website. IPC is gradually being replaced by integrated pollution prevention and control, which will carry on and enhance environmental performance. Both IPC and IPPC are based on the application of best available techniques for dealing with pollution. That concept incorporates considerations of the cost and benefits of the techniques. In addition, the air emissions of about 17,000 installations are regulated by local authorities. A recent performance review of the local authority pollution control regime praised the achievement of securing air pollution improvements at the vast majority of those installations.

I am not complacent about any of the issues raised in this debate. Hon. Members from all parties have rightly pointed to the implications of air quality for local communities and people. They have also spoken about people's fears, whether or not those are always justified. Air quality is therefore an important issue to tackle. We at DEFRA wish to engage with colleagues in the House on the issues that affect their constituencies directly. We also seek to lead on the air quality issues debated across Government.

3.30 pm

I do not think that this is the place—or even that it is necessary—to go back over old arguments that have been debated many times before, given that last year the Government accepted the case for allowing the veterans from that conflict to be awarded the general service medal with a canal zone clasp; people who already had the general service medal were given the addition of a canal zone clasp.

I want to take the opportunity to pay tribute to all the veterans who served in the conflict on behalf of the United Kingdom, particularly those who campaigned so persistently for an award to mark the service of all members of the armed forces in the canal zone between 1951 and 1954. At times it must have seemed something of a hopeless and thankless campaign, as it continued for some 50 years after the conflict in Egypt had finished. We finally reached a positive conclusion last year, and the veterans are to be congratulated on their persistence.

I put on record our thanks to all the Members, from different political parties, who have campaigned for the award over the years, including, but not exclusively, my hon. Friends the Members for Sutton and Cheam (Mr. Burstow), for Mid-Dorset and North Poole (Mrs. Brooke) and for North Cornwall (Mr. Tyler), the hon. Members for Denton and Reddish (Andrew Bennett) and for Waveney (Mr. Blizzard). and the Economic Secretary to the Treasury. There are undoubtedly many others whom I have neglected to mention.

I also pay tribute to the sub-committee of the Committee on the Grant of Honours, Decorations and Medals under Lord Guthrie, which was established in 2002 to report on the matter and whose conclusions paved the way for a change in the Government's position in 2003. Finally, I give credit to the Government for paying heed to the recommendations after a long time, and not merely sheltering behind the tempting argument that changing policy could set dangerous precedents and create future problems. If would have been easy for the Government to continue to shelter behind that argument, particularly considering the time that had elapsed, and they deserve credit for not having done so.

After the Prime Minister's announcement on 11 June 2003 that veterans of the service in the canal zone would receive the general service medal and clasp, many of us felt that the long-running campaign had come to a successful conclusion, and we could assume that the matter would be dealt with. I suspect that I was only one of many Members who, after the Prime Minister's statement, passed on representations to the Ministry of Defence giving details of those who had served in the canal zone, assuming that the medals would be issued shortly.

Although I became aware of some delays, it was not until this May that I realised how serious those delays were. I was canvassing for the European elections when I met a constituent called Mr. Ford in Chard. He said how pleased he was that the Government had finally given way on the issue, but that many veterans expected that it would be many years before the medals were issued. That is entirely unacceptable, given that the veterans have already waited for 50 years. Mr. Ford told me that he believed that only a couple of hundred medals were being processed each week and that it would therefore take years to clear the backlog. I had not been aware of that.

Mr. Ford wrote to the Army Medal Office earlier this year:

"I am now in my seventy-sixth year and my brother who is also a veteran is seventy-eight and so in our case and that of many others I am sure time is important if we are to receive our awards before the Great Recruiting Sergeant in the sky calls us on parade."

That is an issue. Many individuals are now well into their 70s or 80s, and they have waited 50 years already. Not only is that a very long time to have waited for this award in recognition of their service, but there is a real danger that some veterans will die before all the awards are issued, which must concern us all.

I am pleased to say that Mr. Ford has now received the clasp to his general service medal, because it means that I can demonstrate to the Minister that I am not citing only the gloomy cases in my constituency. However, over the past couple of days I have spoken to a number of veterans who are still waiting for their medals, despite my having written to the Secretary of State on their behalf on a number of occasions. They include Mr. Copley, who lives in Tintinhull just outside Yeovil, and served in the 41st Field Regiment Royal Artillery from 1953 to 1954 in the canal zone.

Written answers from the Minister over the past couple of weeks have indicated the scale of the problem relating to the issuance of the medal. In response to my written question of 21 June 2004, he said that as of 18 June, 39,666 applications had been received, in respect of which only 9,709 medals or clasps had been issued. There is therefore a backlog of some 30,000 medals, even assuming that no more applications come in, and there may well still be quite a few to come.

It appears from the Minister's answers that the longest delay is at the Army Medal Office, which apparently has nine staff processing claims and three people dealing with correspondence and dispatch. The office is still dealing with claims from 10 October 2003—almost nine months ago—which is worrying when we consider that it was only on 23 October last year that the detailed criteria relating to entitlement to the award were set out in Command Paper 5999.

The Royal Marines Medal Office seems to be performing rather better. There are no delays at that office, where there seem to be a much smaller number of applications. However, delays at the Royal Air Force Medal Office and the Royal Naval Medal Office date back to mid and late November 2003, which is a long time for people to be waiting. Many veterans hoped to receive their awards by Remembrance day this year, if not last year, so that they could wear the medals with pride and finally have some recognition of their service in the canal zone between 1951 and 1954. However, it now seems that many individuals may still wait as long as another two or even three years.

We need to remember that this delay is only one of the delays in the processing and awarding of the medals over the years. The first delay was the 50-year delay before approval of a medal in the first place. Then there were delays between Lord Guthrie's report being submitted and a conclusion being reached. He wrote to me at the time stating that he could not understand why the matter was taking so long to sort out. Then there were delays before the Prime Minister's statement. There were also delays, although they were short, before the criteria were set out in Command Paper 5999, and now there are further delays in processing claims.

We have always had an indication from the Minister that there would be some delays. Indeed, in a written answer of 3 July 2003, he said that

"it is estimated that it could take a further two years to distribute the majority of medals to eligible applicants."—[Official Report, 3 July 2003; Vol. 408, c. 453W.]

That is a year ago almost to the day, but the Government's estimate still seems to be that we are two years away from the distribution of the medals, so we seem to have lost a year despite the fact that the two-year delay was already at the boundaries of acceptability. The fact that only a couple of hundred medals and applications have been processed each week is extremely worrying.

Over the past couple of days since this debate was selected for Westminster Hall, I have received in my office many e-mails, letters and calls from veterans who are still awaiting their medals. A number have asked me to raise particular questions today. Mr. Duncan, an ex-paratrooper, e-mailed to say:

"Can the Armed Services Minister be asked what is stopping the MoD from assigning more staff and resources to the four Medal Offices? So far, this has not been made clear. The question should be hard to duck."

Mr. Duncan points out that although he has received the medal, he knows many other veterans who have yet to do so.

Mr. Rogers, an ex-corporal from the Royal Marines, also contacted us on behalf of the Suez veterans forum to point out that there is a two-month backlog in the Army Medal Office stamping department. Even when the searches have been completed and the issue instructions delivered there is still a further two-month wait to have the names stamped on the medals.

Other veterans have expressed concerns about the issuing of the medals, including Mr. Ford, the constituent whom I mentioned earlier, who was dissatisfied with the quality of the clasp. He compared it rather unfavourably with the medals and clasps struck when the general service medal was first issued. I hope that the Minister will acknowledge that the UK armed forces have had a proud record in striking good-quality medals. It would be a pity if, for financial reasons, the quality of those awards were diminished in any way.

The solution seems pretty clear. More resources need to be put into the issuance of the medal. Other medals are being dealt with by the medals office at present, and I assume that everyone wants to get their awards quickly. But I am sure that the Minister would recognise that this is a particularly sensitive case: veterans have waited for such a long time already, and there is a real chance that some will die between the Prime Minister's announcement that the medal would be issued and the processing of the applications. I am sure that the Minister would feel as strongly as I would that that would be wholly unacceptable.

I hope that the Minister can therefore tell us today how he will speed up the processing of the medals in a fairly dramatic way within his Department. I hope that he can set a target for processing all of the existing outstanding claims—for example, by Remembrance day this year. That is an incredibly ambitious target given that the Ministry of Defence estimates that it will take another two years to clear the backlog. But the armed forces have dealt with worse crises than this. If they cannot organise themselves and put in some extra resources to get these medals to the veterans who deserve them pretty quickly, they are not rising to the standards that they have so consistently set over hundreds of years of service to this nation.

I hope that the Minister can tell us what measures he is taking to deal with the situation. In some of his comments in recent weeks on the Floor of the House and in other parliamentary answers he has acknowledged that the length of the delays is unacceptable. I hope that he can therefore set out minds at rest today. Before I conclude, perhaps I may cite one further comment from a veteran who has contacted me within the last 48 hours to set out his concerns:

"The veterans have waited 53 years already, many will be dead before they get their medal Surely he"—

the Minister—

"must realise that these are grandparents with many offspring who will be disenchanted with a Government who couldn't organize issuing issue Grandfather with his medal before he died."

This is an emotive issue. For many years, successive Governments resisted the award of this medal, and the Government deserve credit for making the award and not hiding behind precedence. It would be a great pity if they now undermined the progress that they have made by failing to act rapidly enough to make sure that the veterans get the medals within a limited time scale.

3.45 pm

As the hon. Gentleman made clear, there has been much interest in the Suez medal, and the issuing of medals generally, of late. I take this opportunity to reaffirm my commitment to improving timeliness in issuing medals, but I note that medals can be issued only when policy, and the associated eligibility, have been established.

I want to put the whole question of the Suez medal into context. Campaigning for the medal and demands for recognition began in the mid-1970s and increased significantly during the 1990s. However, our predecessor Governments declined to consider the issue again, because the Committee on the Grant of Honours, Decorations and Medals—the HD Committee—has a policy of not considering the institution of medals for service given more than five years earlier, because those who took decisions not to make an award at the time were in possession of contemporary evidence, and it would not be appropriate for the committee, at a much later date and probably with less evidence available to it, to second-guess why such decisions had been taken. That policy was strongly supported, particularly by the last Conservative Government, of whom the Leader of the Opposition was a very senior member. The claim for a medal was therefore resisted.

After further campaigning, and after our Government, who were aware of the circumstances, came to power in 1997, my right hon. Friends the Prime Minister and the Secretary of State for Defence requested a review of that policy in relation to the Suez medal. A small group was set up under the chairmanship of General Lord Guthrie, which took evidence from canal zone veterans and the relevant Government Departments. As the hon. Gentleman pointed out, it reported to the HD Committee at the end of 2002.

As far as possible, the sub-committee tried to make a judgment on the case for a medal not against current standards but against those of the late 1950s. It concluded that a medal was justified, endorsed the HD Committee's non-retrospection rule but agreed that there were unique exceptional circumstances in this particular case. It had been established that the Commander-in-Chief at the time had requested the award of a medal, but there was no conclusive evidence that the case had ever been fully considered or a formal decision reached.

As I have said before in the House, I am pleased that the decision has been reached. There is no doubt that an injustice had been done to those men, the vast majority

of whom were on national service, and that injustice has now been corrected. The HD Committee accepted the sub-committee's findings, and the Prime Minister made the announcement in June 2003. Applications for the medal and clasp started to come in immediately, but could not be dealt with, as the criteria for the award had yet to be agreed. I made that announcement on 23 October, at column 45WS of Hansard and in Command Paper 5999.

Where are we today? As of last Friday, 39,805 applications had been received by the four single-service medal offices, and 10,054 medals and clasps had been issued. I recognise that there is a backlog in assessing eligibility and in issuing the canal zone and some other medals. The reasons behind the current failure to match output to demand are complex, but in part it is due to increased demand arising from the recent operational tempo, in parallel with a surge in requests for the Suez medal. However, an additional factor is that there are four separate medal offices at different locations, with their own procedures. That is why I have decided that this cannot be allowed to continue. The introduction of joint personnel administration will improve the situation.

Joint personnel administration is a key defence modernisation project that will transform the delivery of personnel administration to the armed forces. The platform of old information technology systems will be replaced with new responsive and flexible systems. Disparate single-service processes will be harmonised and simplified. The formation of a joint personnel administration centre is central to the delivery of joint personnel administration and will provide a single organisation from which entitlement to, and delivery of, future campaign medals will be administered and supported by the centralised database of information held on the joint personnel computer system.

The medal process is part of the modernisation process. One strand of the major overall improvements is the formation of the new Ministry of Defence medal office, which will bring together the current four single-service medal offices at a single site at RAF Innsworth. That will allow us to spread best practice, make the best use of staff by flexing people into the areas where demand is highest, and remove the separation between some of the assessment teams and the engraving and dispatch organisation. It will also provide access to the joint personnel administration centre inquiry service, which will provide a new and effective means of handling inquiries. As I made it clear at Defence questions in the House last week, I am convinced that this provision will bring about substantial business improvements that will be to the ultimate benefit of veterans—and, of course, to today's serving personnel.

Although the new MOD medal office will be fully operational at Innsworth from early spring 2005, I have decided that all the medal offices will be under a single management structure in the near future. Of course, detailed discussions are taking place with our staff at the offices that will close. We had planned in the initial assessment for nine members of staff to transfer from Droitwich. In fact, 17 of the Droitwich staff have indicated that they wish to transfer to Innsworth. In addition, seven staff have yet to make a decision, and a further seven have recorded their desire to reserve the right to change their minds at some stage in the future.

Nine members of staff from the RAF Medal Office have indicated their wish to transfer, along with two staff members from the Royal Marines Medal Office. The Armed Forces Personnel Agency will recruit any additional staff who are required as soon as possible, which will allow them to be trained alongside the experienced medal office staff, so the risk of any adverse impact of the move on the existing medals backlog can be minimised. However, steps are also being taken to reduce the backlog by increasing medal engraving capacity though the establishment of a second production line at Innsworth, utilising laser engraving technology.

I am committed to improving the service provided to serving and former members of our armed forces, and to ensuring their more rapid receipt of the medals to which they are entitled. Clearly, that will not be achieved through the medal system as it is currently organised.

I shall now answer the direct questions asked by the hon. Member for Yeovil. He asked whether there were more staff. Yes, there are. There are already nine more staff at Droitwich, and they are effective. He also asked whether there was a backlog in the engraving department. Yes, there is, as I have just said, particularly in the Army Medal Office, which distributes all the medals. Even when assessments are done elsewhere in the RAF or the Navy, the Army Medal Office at Droitwich is responsible for engraving and dispatch. I was sorry to hear about the quality of the medal. Of the 10,000 or so medals that we have issued so far I have only heard one or two people talk about that. I am sure that the hon. Gentleman will accept that that is a low percentage. Finally, the Army Medal Office has about two thirds of the total applications for all the medals requested for Suez.

I can update the House on the latest dates on which assessment is taking place. For the Navy, it is 3 December, for the Royal Air Force 18 November and for the Army 17 October. Nobody is happy with the figures, and that is why I outlined in detail how we intend to progress from this point.

I am convinced that developing the new MOD medal office is the only sensible and practical way forward in both the short and the long term. I see it as the solution rather than the problem. I appreciate that forming a Ministry of Defence medal office will not allow us to accommodate the wishes of every individual in the dedicated work force, which I pay tribute to. They have been tremendous. Every effort will be made to handle the impact on our staff as sensitively and flexibly as possible, as befits a good employer such as the Ministry of Defence.

I conclude this short debate by paying tribute to all those who served in the Suez canal zone in the 1950s. I am sure that everyone in the House would echo those words. Those who served were national servicemen who campaigned for more than 30 years to have an injustice put right. It has been put right by this Government. I am grateful for the remarks of the hon. Member for Yeovil and the veterans that he has met that recognise that point. We need to match it with the determination to see through real reform of the medal offices so that delivery of all medals, not just those relating to Suez, can be speedy and efficient. I know that the House expects nothing less, and that is what the new MOD medal office will deliver.

3.58 pm

Sitting suspended.

4 pm

If I have an obsession, it was probably nurtured during my time as a councillor in Westminster. I am obsessed with probity in the making of public policy, in governance, and in the justice administered by the courts. I am not the only one with that obsession. When the Westminster objectors, of whom I was one—those who registered objections with the district auditor and set the whole "homes for votes" inquiry in train—sought to raise funds so that we could be legally represented at the public hearings, we collected £240,000 from people all over the UK. They were people with all kinds of political backgrounds or with none at all, but believers in democracy, who felt that the establishment should not always be allowed to get away with it. That was a humbling and inspiring experience.

That is why, some 18 years after the events of which we complained began, 15 years after we registered our objection with the auditor, 10 years after he produced his provisional findings of "disgraceful, improper and unlawful" gerrymandering in Westminster, eight years after he published his formal findings of "wilful misconduct", seven years after the High Court endorsed those findings, three years after the Law Lords pronounced on what they judged to be

"a deliberate, blatant and dishonest misuse of public power"

amounting to "political corruption", and a year after the European Court of Human Rights rejected Shirley Porter's final legal campaign as "manifestly ill-founded" and "inadmissible", we still seek justice and the vindication of our systems of scrutiny and redress in Government—in local government in particular. After all this time, we still despair of achieving either of those in full.

It is worth reminding ourselves that the "homes for votes" scandal was not just about gerrymandering electoral results; it was systematic political corruption to the point where the pursuit of power overwhelmed any sense of responsibility in the exercise of it. Chilling instructions were issued by political leaders to officers of the council to be "mean and nasty" to vulnerable people in the community—and they certainly were. Housing and planning policies in particular were bent to a political stratagem, which decimated long-established traditional working class communities and dispersed them to the four winds. Hostels intended for the homeless were sold off and gentrified. Homeless families were forced into asbestos-ridden tower blocks, in the name of building a stable Conservative majority in Westminster.

All that was obvious to Labour councillors, to community activists and to many journalists while it was happening. However, the administration was protected by secrecy, concealment and obstruction—as the district auditor found when he tried to investigate those affairs. The judges in the Court said that Shirley Porter and her acolytes had

"lied to us as they lied to the auditor."

The stratagem was reliant on the acquiescence, if not the active connivance, of the Government of the day. Now, when it seems that at least some of the £42 million surcharge for which Shirley Porter is liable will be recovered, we are confronted with the same lack of accountability, the same concealment and secrecy—and it is just as unacceptable now.

Over the past few years, Shirley Porter has defied public opinion, the findings of the auditor and the judgment of the courts, while she cruises between luxury apartments in Israel and Florida. On 24 April this year, in a statement released to the press just as the Sunday papers were going to bed, she said:

"I have decided that it is time to bring this case to an end, despite my belief that I did nothing wrong."

What breathtaking arrogance! She has now decided that she is prepared to pay £12.3 million of a £42 million surcharge. She is establishing a new legal principle that felons should set the tariff for their own misdemeanours. If we accept that precedent, we can negotiate our own sentences when we do wrong, and rip up our parking tickets if we object to them.

Westminster city council's chief executive said that hard bargaining had taken place on both sides, as if such bargaining were acceptable. It should be remembered that the bargaining into which Shirley Porter and her advisers entered was with her protégés on Westminster city council, because some of the leading figures in Conservative Westminster now were her lieutenants during her reign of terror in the mid '80s.

There is another important principle. Surcharge is not a sentence or a tariff, but a calculation of loss and deficiency caused by the unlawful policies that Shirley Porter pursued. If £12.3 million is accepted as a full and final settlement of a surcharge of £42 million, there will be a £30 million loss to the public purse.

I have had a lengthy, revealing and profoundly disappointing correspondence with the chief executive of the Audit Commission, Steve Bundred. He has confirmed that the Audit Commission was party to the negotiations between Shirley Porter and Westminster city council—not so much in the public interest, as in order to recover its own costs, which amount to about £1 million. Mr. Bundred told me in writing:

"I am fully satisfied that the settlement was equitable and a good outcome."

The question is: for whom is it a good outcome—for Westminster city council and its council tax payers, for the Audit Commission, or for Shirley Porter? Is it credible that £12.3 million is all that Shirley Porter has access to? I use the word credible advisedly; should we believe a word that she says? Her record is not impressive.

On 28 December 2001, the courts awarded a freezing order that obliged Shirley Porter to disclose her assets, and restrained her from

"in any way dealing with or diminishing the value of her assets worldwide whether in her own name or owned beneficially by her and whether solely or jointly owned up to the value of £33 million."

It warned her that if she failed to comply with the freezing order, she would be

"in contempt of court and liable to imprisonment, fined or her assets seized."

On 9 January 2002, Shirley Porter disclosed in a sworn affidavit that she had no more than £300,000-worth of assets worldwide. Then, according to the Daily Mirror, she went on a £90,000 cruise in the Pacific. The Metropolitan police are now investigating whether she committed perjury and are seeking the view of the Crown Prosecution Service on whether there is sufficient evidence to pursue a prosecution. Belatedly, in February 2003, a disclosure order was awarded that she should reveal her control of or interest in worldwide trusts. She failed to comply with that order. By July 2003, Westminster city council had paid lawyers some £400,000 to track her assets—and recovered £3,000 and a gold-plated toilet seat.

On 30 June 2003—exactly a year ago today—the "Today" programme broadcast evidence of sales of Tesco shares to the value of £1.2 million, in which Shirley Porter had an interest, which took place on 14 May 2002, just a few months after she had disclosed assets of no more than £300,000. The programme had come across e-mails that revealed offshore companies in the British Virgin Islands and what was assessed as £34 million in Guernsey bank accounts. Those e-mails also revealed that she had made loans to her son of £1.5 million and that he was asking for another $2 million to get him out of trouble. The "Today" programme had discovered more in two weeks than Westminster city council and its expensive lawyers had discovered in two years.

After that broadcast, and the reports that appeared in national newspapers, it was estimated that Shirley Porter's wealth was anything between £60 million and £400 million. Now we are told by Westminster city council and the Audit Commission that the proposition before the council is the best achievable deal. We have not been told that by Shirley Porter, and that is not surprising because she has done everything she can to evade justice and proclaim her innocence in defiance of the facts. Suddenly, she decides to hand over £12.3 million that she said she did not have, and we are expected to accept that the deal is in the public interest.

The problem is that we are in no position to judge, because Shirley Porter and Westminster city council have signed a confidentiality clause that obscures the details of the contract. The Audit Commission, with a remit to ensure probity, transparency and accountability in public finances, is a party to that clause. That means we can only speculate about the basis of the deal. I speculate that Shirley Porter recognises that the only way to unfreeze her assets is to pay off Westminster city council with a fraction of her worldwide wealth in order to release the rest for her to access. No doubt the trustees who sheltered her funds in the Virgin Islands and elsewhere have demanded the anonymity of the confidentiality clause to conceal their role in the affair.

I may be wrong, but by the time we know—if we ever do—it will be too late. The deal becomes unconditional on 1 July: tomorrow. When it does, it is a "full and final settlement"—a quotation from Audit Commission correspondence. If it transpires that Shirley Porter has again lied about her assets, it will be too late. If she inherits a substantial fortune, which is not impossible, it will be too late. None of that newly found or newly discovered wealth will be attachable to the deposit of £12 million on a £42 million liability. By then the clause will have served its purpose, and she will be laughing all the way to an un-numbered Swiss bank account.

I find it shocking that the Audit Commission should be party to that arrangement, entirely on the basis of the chief executive's sanction. As he has confirmed in correspondence with me, the commissioners, although advised of its progress, have not seen the terms of the agreement.

Section 15(1)(a) of the Audit Commission Act 1998 confers a right on individuals to

"inspect the accounts to be audited and all books, deeds, contracts, bills, vouchers and receipts relating to them".

On 19 July, Westminster city council's books will be open, and I and others will have the right to inspect them. Even if that statutory right sets aside the confidentiality clause, however, it will be useless because whatever we discover we will discover too late. Shirley Porter will have bought her freedom from any further liability. All parties to the deal, including the Audit Commission, know that.

I now turn to the role of the Conservative party in these affairs. I gave the right hon. Member for Suffolk, Coastal (Mr. Gummer) an opportunity, as I have done many times before. to attend and contribute to the debate, and I accept that he has a long-standing engagement that prevents him from being here. For that reason I will curtail my comments involving him.

My hon. Friend is right to say that one of the most extraordinary features of this long-running pitiful saga is the fact that in all the years since, and particularly in the 10 years since the district auditor published his provisional findings, not once has a senior figure in the Tory party condemned what Shirley Porter and her administration did in the name of their party—not John Major, not the right hon. Member for Richmond, Yorks (Mr. Hague), not the right hon. Member for Chingford and Woodford Green (Mr. Duncan Smith), and not the current Leader of the Opposition.

It is a fact that the Conservatives in Westminster city council, that flagship Thatcherite council, could not have done what they did without the connivance of the Government of the day. Ministers at the highest level knew exactly what they were up to. Let me quote from a letter that Shirley Porter wrote on 19 December 1986 to Margaret Thatcher, the Prime Minister of the day:

"We in Westminster are trying to gentrify the City. We must protect our electoral position which is being seriously eroded … I am afraid that unless something can be done, it will be very difficult to keep Westminster Conservative!"

I do not consider that an appropriate letter for the leader of the council to write—on council notepaper, I assume—to a Prime Minister.

In March 1990, lobbyists employed by Shirley Porter reported to her that:

"John Gummer is the most alert of Ministers to political nuances … Gummer is said to be angry that the D of E officials had failed to understand the real and political consequences of the redistributive effects of the community charge".

Shortly after that, the anticipated community charge that Westminster was to levy was reduced from £429 to £195—much to the chagrin of other Conservative authorities throughout the country.

By the time the district auditor published his report, the right hon. Member for Suffolk, Coastal was Secretary of State for the Environment. He cannot have

forgotten—nor, indeed, has my hon. Friend the Member for Walsall, North (David Winnick)—what he, and the then Prime Minister, said in the House of Commons. Let me quote three of the seven assurances that the right hon. Member for Suffolk, Coastal gave the House. In 1994, he said:

"In the end, if any of the allegations are found to be true, I will, as I have said unreservedly and without distinction between political parties, condemn them"—[Official Report, 13 January 1994; Vol. 235, c. 349–50.]

In 1996, he said:

"I have made it clear that I would condemn utterly any failure to meet the highest standards of propriety,whenever it is found and whoever is found guilty."—[Official Report, 9 May 1996; Vol. 277, c. 367.]

Again in 1996, in case we had misunderstood him earlier, he said:

"when wrong is done and proven beyond reverse, it should be condemned, and I would be the first to condemn it."—[Official Report, 14 May 1996; Vol. 277, c. 863.]

He may not have been the first to condemn, but today I tried yet again to give him the opportunity at least not to be the last. I accept that he cannot be here now, but I do not accept that he has had no opportunity to redeem his pledge, either in the past or during our lengthy correspondence over 18 months. If he did redeem it, as my hon. Friend and I have made clear, he would be unique in his party.

Finally, I want to put some direct questions to the Minister. Is she satisfied that less than one third of the surcharge imposed on Shirley Porter is to be collected? Is she content that, even if Shirley Porter is found to have more assets, or inherits more assets, they will not be recoverable? Does the Minister believe that this is the best deal that can be struck with Shirley Porter and, if so, on what basis does she think so? What does she know about the details of the deal?

What is the Minister's view of the Audit Commission's agreement to be party to the confidentiality clause, and on the way in which the commission has made its decisions? What has she to say about the rights of individuals to object to, and seek remedy for, the accounts of Westminster city council if the deal is done? Will she ensure that even at the eleventh hour the proposed deal is suspended so that she can be satisfied about this matter, and the current police investigation can be completed?

It is interesting that the title that has been chosen for this Adjournment debate is "Dame Shirley Porter". That is not the title that I gave it, but the House has decided otherwise. Is it not obscene that Shirley Porter continues to boast the award of the title of Dame of the British Empire on the basis of her services to local government? Is that not an insult to those who have earned their distinctions? When will that wrong be righted? Shirley Porter was responsible for the worst, most cynical and callous, and most costly, conspiracy of political corruption in this country in the modern age. Is she really going to be allowed to have the last laugh?

4.21 pm

The case of Dame Shirley Porter and her colleagues in the "homes for votes" scandal has been a blot on the reputation of local government. My hon. Friend has also set out clearly the failure of many senior Conservatives, at the time and since, to condemn the events that took place, and the deep unfairness and injustice of what happened to those who lived in the Westminster area at that time.

My hon. Friend and his colleagues have played an important role in the saga from the very beginning. They first raised an objection to the accounts of Westminster city council in July 1989, and have followed all the twists and turns of the case, through the auditor's consideration and judgment and the numerous legal cases, to the final decision of the European Court of Human Rights in April last year. That settled the last legal issues once and for all, and finally confirmed the auditor's judgment of wilful misconduct and the surcharge that he placed on those concerned. The amount of the surcharge reflects the scale of the misconduct.

All of the surcharge, including interest, is a debt due to Westminster city council, which has a duty to act in the interests of its taxpayers in pursuing the debts. I understand that it has reached an agreement with Dame Shirley Porter for a final settlement of £12.3 million, which is due to be paid tomorrow. An agreement with David Weeks, who was deputy leader of Westminster city council at the time, is still being pursued. I understand my hon. Friend's concern that the settlement does not reflect the full amount of the surcharge against Dame Shirley Porter. She originally faced a judgment debt of some £27 million, plus interest and costs. My hon. Friend has described some of the things that happened, and the fact that the council has needed to trace and freeze assets, many of which have been moved overseas, as part of the process.

My hon. Friend raised a series of questions in his speech. As he will know, my right hon. Friend the Minister for Local and Regional Government and the Under-Secretary of State, Office of the Deputy Prime Minister, my hon. Friend the Member for Corby (Phil Hope) deal with many of these issues in the Department. They are on the Front Bench for the debate taking place in the main Chamber as we speak, but I will do my best to answer the points made by my hon. Friend the Member for The Wrekin, and if I miss any issues, I will ensure that I raise them with my colleagues so that they can respond to him further if need be.

My hon. Friend asked about the nature of the settlement that has taken place. The Department has no powers to intervene in the settlement or the judgment. It is a matter for Westminster city council to make a judgment about the settlement and to decide its appropriate level. We have no powers to intervene, to influence the council's judgment or to compel the parties to provide us with information. It would not be appropriate, therefore, for the Government to take a view on the fairness or otherwise of the settlement.

Westminster city council must account for its decision. Its judgment will be subject to audit scrutiny in the usual way. That will fall to the current appointed auditor, Derek Elliot, who will follow the procedures for ensuring that his responsibilities are carried out. Should he determine that any matter should be reported in the public interest, he will need to take action. My hon. Friend expressed his worry about the chance for individuals to protest. I understand that it will be possible for individuals to express worries to the auditor at the appropriate time, as part of the audit scrutiny process, and I shall be happy to provide him with more information about that process.

My hon. Friend also referred to the Audit Commission's involvement in the settlement. I know that he has also raised the matter with the Audit Commission directly. As he will know, the appointed auditor at the time—John Magill—was the person responsible for investigating the objection to Westminster city council's accounts raised by my hon. Friend and his colleagues in 1989. Following a detailed investigation and a public hearing, he determined in May 1996 that Dame Shirley and her colleagues were guilty of wilful misconduct and subjected them to a surcharge of some £31 million.

The legal challenges to the appointed auditor's original judgment on the objection to the council's accounts in 1989 incurred significant costs; the Audit Commission is liable for those, and is supporting the appointed auditor in defending his judgment. The costs were added to the debts of Dame Shirley Porter and her colleagues in the court's final judgments. The Audit Commission has therefore been responsible for pursuing the debts and has done so completely separately from its responsibilities for appointing auditors to the council.

Rather than pursue its debts separately, the Audit Commission combined efforts with the council, and that has resulted in the Audit Commission being party to the settlement that will be reached tomorrow with Dame Shirley Porter. Of the £12.3 million of the settlement, about £1 million will go to the Audit Commission. As a consequence, the Audit Commission is also party to the other terms of the settlement, including the confidentiality clause.

Again, it is not appropriate for the Department to take a view on the matter, as it is something about which the Audit Commission must make its own decision. I understand that it is content with the outcome of the settlement, but of course, its view will also be subject to the usual scrutiny of its own auditor, which is the National Audit Office, so that will need to be scrutinised, too. My hon. Friend has raised a series of extremely significant issues during the debate, and some important questions need to be answered by Westminster city council as part of the process. He is right to say that the saga of Dame Shirley Porter and the "homes for votes" scandal has been long running. It has taken much time to pursue justice, and it is important that people consider that justice should be done. It is therefore important that my hon. Friend's questions should be answered. He will understand that the Government do not have a role, or powers to intervene, in this matter; nevertheless, I appreciate the importance of his having raised it this afternoon.

Question put and agreed to.

Adjourned accordingly at twenty-nine minutes past Four o'clock.