As the House will know, this Thursday is 11 November, Remembrance day. Although the House will not be sitting at 11 o'clock, right hon. and hon. Members, their staff and officials in the House will be attending to their duties at that time. I regard it as appropriate that we should join the nation in observing the two-minute silence at that time, so that we might remember those who gave their lives for their country to help to preserve our democratic freedom. I should be grateful if those responsible for chairing Committees would make appropriate arrangements. Instructions will also be issued to heads of Department so that those members of staff who wish to observe the two-minute silence should be enabled to do so.

With permission, Mr. Speaker, I wish to make a statement on the future of the police service in England and Wales.

I am publishing today the second phase of our police reform agenda. This is an agenda designed to restore community policing for the modern age. Our proposals embody reform for a purpose: to reduce crime and antisocial behaviour; to build safer and more secure communities; to reinforce respect for the law; to protect law-abiding citizens; and to provide a customer-focused service using modern technology to underpin neighbourhood policing.

I wish to place on record the debt of gratitude that we owe to the men and women of the police service—their job is always challenging and sometimes dangerous. Police officers, support staff, volunteers and now the new police community support officers have our full support.

I believe that we are all committed to a more responsive, visible and reassuring presence on our streets, but rapid economic and social change bring their own challenges. The nature of crime has changed. Success in one area highlights new forms of criminality, unacceptable behaviour and the breakdown of respect. The service itself is prepared and willing to embrace change while maintaining the enduring values of the British police service—values that must be sustained, and which include integrity, a commitment to public service and a professionalism free of party political interference. Those who denigrate the achievements of the police in reducing crime downplay the commitment and professionalism of those officers who have helped to achieve the 30 per cent. reduction in overall crime since 1997; the use of enforcement powers that have led to 100,000 cases of antisocial behaviour being tackled in the past year alone; burglary and vehicle crime reduced by two fifths; and robbery down by a quarter in the past two years alone.

Police numbers are at an all-time high, with 140,000 officers, 68,000 police staff and more than 4,000 police community support officers, which is the result of an uplift in the overall police work force of more than 31,000 over the past seven years. For the new neighbourhood teams to work, however, we must free up police time. We need to cut bureaucracy, reinforce civilianisation and use forensic science to underpin the application of additional resources, which is why we have revised the codes under the Police and Criminal Evidence Act 1984, cut performance indicators and reduced the number of forms used by the service by more than 7,000. Video identity parades now make up more than 98 per cent. of all identity parades. We have reformed the criminal justice system, introduced easy-to-use fixed penalty notices and reduced unnecessary time in the station and the courts.

The public rightly demand more police, more support officers, more investment and more visible and available policing in the neighbourhood. From prevention through investigation and detection, the public require both action and results. The approach that I am setting out today seeks to address those challenges in partnership with the police.

The new neighbourhood policing fund will invest in dedicated teams across the country, in addition to the forthcoming uplift in the police grant. Fully trained officers with updated powers and police community support officers, who have core powers to tackle antisocial behaviour, will help to meet our goals. Those neighbourhood teams will clearly require a tailored approach to the particular needs of urban and rural areas.

The investment of £50 million of new money this autumn will deliver 2,000 police community support officers this financial year, as a first step to achieving the 25,000 uplift to which we are committed. The fund will ensure that, unlike in the past, we do not see a reduction in the 140,000 officers—instead, reductions in bureaucracy will free up the equivalent of 12,000 front-line constables. However, first contact with the police—whether on the street or on the phone—is crucial, and the response and follow-up to reported crime and the treatment of victims and witnesses must improve dramatically.

In the next two years, we will guarantee standards of public service by introducing, together with an appropriate assessment of public satisfaction, a new contract. The new contract will include national minimum standards for call handling, a new three-digit non-emergency number and new guarantees on information for victims, which will reinforce the customer contract. That is part of the 10 commitments to improved public service that are set out in the White Paper.

Where inaction over a period of time has led to disillusionment and frustration, we will work with chief officers and others to set in place credible mechanisms for triggering action. Local people, through their local councillor, will have new powers to require information, appropriate consultation and, where appropriate, action. Councillors or community safety officers employed by the community safety partnerships will be encouraged to focus on acting as a liaison or advocate, providing a better link between the police and the community. That will be supplemented by new channels for local people to influence policing priorities in their neighbourhood. There will be a lighter touch and longer breaks between inspections for the best performing services and the co-ordination of visits by different agencies will be improved. Improved performance will lead to greater freedom from monitoring through earned autonomy.

However, the police are not solely responsible for cutting crime, which is why we are reviewing the partnership provisions of the Crime and Disorder Act 1998 and will publish a community safety strategy early in the new year. Investment in tackling drug abuse must be co-ordinated by local partnerships and the improvements we seek in accountability will assist by inculcating collaboration into mainstream practice.

Police authorities, which will now have enhanced local democratic representation, must increase their community links. Clearer responsibilities must lead to greater visibility and greater accountability. These enhanced powers will include: holding chief constables to account; setting clear performance objectives; conducting appraisals; overseeing engagement with the public at neighbourhood and command unit level; for the first time, a duty to promote diversity within the force; and greater consistency of response and performance in its area. Moreover, I am clear that central Government have to clarify their role in relation to what is described as the tripartite decision-making process.

Nationally, it is the duty of Government to set the strategic framework and to be prepared to stand back and let chief officers and police authorities deliver the service. That will be achieved through a slimmed down national policing plan and a rationalisation of centrally accountable agencies. The Government are responsible for providing resources and powers: they must also provide a focus on improved quality of service, consistency and coherence through a better focused inspection system; clarity about powers of intervention where police authorities, as well as forces, are functioning badly; and support where necessary.

The role of the Home Secretary must be more than simply distributing taxpayers' money. Where local communities are failed, action must be forthcoming. This Home Secretary will not duck the duty to act where necessary. Ministers carry responsibility, but with responsibility must come the power to act—responsibility without power is as corrupting of democracy as power without responsibility.

In addition to reform at local, force and national level, we are, as the House knows, establishing the Serious Organised Crime Agency. The rationalisation of organisations working to tackle criminality at this level has been widely welcomed. Similarly, it is now necessary to subsume the functions of the different policing agencies at national level into a new national policing improvement agency, which will embed a culture of self-improvement and customer service.

Work is now being led by Her Majesty's inspectorate of constabulary to determine how best the service can work across boundaries in handling more serious and sophisticated crime. The chief inspector will report in the early new year on how force structures can best be configured to improve effectiveness.

However, it is not structures but the men and women of the police service who will deliver the more visible, accessible and accountable service we seek. They will have our full support, through improved training, enhanced powers and the right technology, in taking on the new role that they play in the rapidly changing world of today. Through the 10 commitments to the service, we are setting out how we can offer a unified work force, recognising the contribution of all.

The constable will remain central to policing. Constable numbers are at a record level. We will develop their lead role in the new neighbourhood teams. Probationer training will be family friendly, and every officer will now obtain a transferable qualification. Promotion will depend less on examinations and more on performance on the job. Career pathways will be more clearly defined and the role of police staff will be enhanced. People with the right skills will be able to enter the service above the rank of constable.

Good leadership and management, together with the spread of best practice, will be complemented by the work of the police standards unit, which has already had a dramatic impact on the performance of forces with which it has been working.

This is a broad and ambitious agenda. We are committed to working with and alongside the police service to build a better service for the future—a service appropriate to the 21st century. I commend the statement to the House.

I thank the Home Secretary for early sight of the statement and the White Paper and join him in commending the men and women of our police forces who work so hard, often against the odds.

We agree with elements of the White Paper. I welcome the introduction of a national IT system for sharing national police intelligence; it is long overdue. I welcome the fact that police authorities will be given power to request an intervention from the inspectorate, and the Home Secretary's acceptance of Conservative party policies on the need for greater accountability of police authorities—although the proposals do not go far enough.

We are considering the latest in a long line of initiatives on police reform from the Home Secretary. In March 2001, he established a police reform steering group. In December 2001, we had a police reform White Paper, which was followed the next month by the Police Reform Bill. At the end of last year, there was another Green Paper and now we have a White Paper with green edges. The Home Office has just finished consulting about modernising police powers to meet community needs and Her Majesty's inspectorate of constabulary is reviewing the structure of our police forces. We shall end up with a reform of a reform of a reform.

Our police forces are already buried in Home Office initiatives. So what is proposed? It is another set of initiatives. The Home Secretary undertakes to cut bureaucracy. Like most of the contents of the White Paper, we have heard it all before. Back in 1997, the Labour party manifesto stated:

"We will relieve the police of unnecessary bureaucratic burdens to get more officers back on the beat."

We must ask why, seven years and four or five police reform initiatives later, there are still unnecessary burdens and forms to remove or scrap.

The main reason for the mountain of red tape is the Government's obsession with control. The police are fed up with the Government's constant central control— the targets, initiatives, priorities, inspections, checks, audits and ring-fenced funding. One force reported 37 inspections, audits or checks in 12 months. The Government believe that measurement is a substitute for action. We learn from the head of the police standards unit that one of the bureaucracy-busting initiatives that the Government require is for each force to have a bureaucracy officer. What does he do? He measures bureaucracy. The Home Secretary says that cutting police paperwork will free up 12,000 police officers. Again, I am glad that he agrees with Tory policy—the question is whether he can deliver it.

As usual, the Home Secretary has tried to claim that crime is down, based on a survey that misses out murder, drug crime, shoplifting, crimes against children—millions of crimes. It does not matter how the Government try to spin the figures: overall, crimes have increased by more than 750,000 since 1997; violent crime has spiralled out of control—there are more than 1 million incidents a year; gun crime has doubled, and sex offences and drug crime have increased.

When the Home Secretary launched the original police reform White Paper, he said that detection rates were far too low—yet now they are worse. Overall detection rates have decreased by a fifth since 1997. In 1997, almost eight out of 10 cases of violence against the person were detected. That figure is now down to half—a mere 50 per cent. Even more disgraceful, detection of sexual offences has dropped from 77 per cent. to 39 per cent. The figure has been halved since the Government came to power.

The detection rate is the single most important issue that faces the police today. The White Paper mentions it but offers no new solution. The Home Secretary is keen on targets. His target for detection rates in 2008 is to get them back to 30 per cent. In other words, he is planning for a performance that lets seven out of 10 criminals go free. Even his inspector of constabulary accepts that that is not good enough.

Let us take just one example. The Home Secretary has announced today that, ahead of any proper independent evaluation, he will empower all forces to give community support officers the power of detention. Has the Home Secretary seen the research by Leeds university, which not only called for the Government to slow their rapid expansion of CSOs but warned that their proliferation was

"undermining the traditional bonds between officers and their communities"?

Surely, instead of spending £50 million on recruiting 2,000 CSOs, it would be better to have 1,000 fully trained police officers.

I share the disappointment of the police, including many chief constables, in this White Paper. The police service today is by no means perfect, but when it has its hands tied behind its back—from funding decisions to form filling—it is hardly surprising that reform has been slow. There is nothing new or radical in this paper. All is open to consultation, and the reforms will take years to happen. I fear that the Home Secretary has come to the House today for little more than a taxpayer-funded public relations exercise in the run-up to the general election. If the Government were intent on dealing with crime, they would give the police the numbers, the time and the ability to deter and detect criminal activity. There is precious little in this White Paper to reassure our concerned and committed police forces or to inspire the confidence of the worried citizens of our country.

The first question that the right hon. Gentleman asked was whether we agreed with Tory party policy. The answer is no, we do not, because it was about cutting police numbers and involved a 50 per cent. increase in crime in the 18 years that the Tory Government were in office. It also involved using the British crime survey, but setting it on one side when it did not suit them, as they are now doing once again.

The right hon. Gentleman's second question was whether we agreed that it would be a good idea to reduce bureaucracy and get more police on to the streets. The answer to that is yes, we do agree. That is why we have increased the police force by 13,000 since 1997—by 10,000 over the past two years alone—and why there have been 4,000 extra police community support officers and 31,000-plus staff overall during those years. It is also why we are now reducing bureaucracy.

The right hon. Gentleman then asked why we should have a bureaucracy-busting officer in each force. The answer to that question is, to bust bureaucracy. There should be someone whose focus and objective is to examine the pluralicity of forms that exist at local level, and to determine what can be done about that. At last, that is beginning to work, hence the 7,700 forms that have been set aside nationally and locally over the past two years.

The right hon. Gentleman next asked whether we agreed with ourselves that crime was actually falling. Yes, we do. Burglary and vehicle crime are down by more than 40 per cent. Those are year-on-year comparable figures, comparing like with like. Do we agree with some survey at Leeds university that says that police community support officers are a bad thing? No, we do not. I went to Bexley this morning with the Prime Minister and saw community support officers working alongside the new neighbourhood policing team, led by the award-winning police constable, Michael Wearing. What a tremendous example that was of those officers working alongside the community. There has been a massive decrease in crime and a tremendous uplift in reassurance, and these are just the kind of neighbourhood policing teams that we want to see right across the country over the next three years, putting in place neighbourhood reassurance, detecting and dealing with crime, catching criminals, reducing the fear of crime and ensuring that we can get more resources into the police force.

The right hon. Gentleman also asked about resources. He asked about time and about fixed penalty notices. The 20,000 that have been issued in the first experimental period have reduced the time needed to take people down to the station to go through the arrest procedures and all the various case and custody processes by one and a half hours on average, and by substantially more in many cases. Yes, additional resources will be necessary, both from the new neighbourhood policing fund and from the uplift that we shall give to the police authorities in the forthcoming police grant.

Of course it will also be necessary to ensure that those resources are used wisely. We have had an uplift in funding of 30 per cent. over the past four years. We will ensure that no police force in the country will be required to cut its services over the year ahead, and that, instead, forces will maintain those police numbers and draw down on the national policing fund for additional community support officers so that they can do their job in the community. Above all, they will do that job alongside local people, with that customer focus and fulfilling that contract, so that when people phone or contact the service they are dealt with professionally, politely and properly and know what is taking place after they have reported the crime. Victims will be followed up with information and we will mobilise the community on behalf of the police.

If the White Paper did not include proposals on all those issues, we would have failed. But it does, and when people have read it they will realise that we have unified an agenda for the future with the police force. The first police reform White Paper and Bill involved a past agenda that the Conservative Government had failed to fulfil on the back of the Sheehy report. Ten years later, it was my job to put that in place. Now, however, we are moving forward into a different era in the 21st century, with the chief constables, the superintendents, the Police Federation—I believe—and, above all, the public behind us. It is simply untrue to say that chief constables are not signed up to this White Paper, because they are. They are signed up to it because they want a radical, delivering police force that has the support of the public and is sufficiently reformed to deal with the new challenges. They want that because they are committed to reducing crime and ensuring that we have a safer Britain. We should all be proud of that.

I thank the Home Secretary for giving me advance sight of his statement and also of the White Paper. We welcome many parts of the proposals in that document. He is right to want to find ways of building much closer links between the public and the police, and I am glad that he has rejected the more simplistic approach of having either directly elected sheriffs or directly elected police authorities.

Does the Home Secretary acknowledge, however, that a barrier to more local policing is the amount of time that the police still have to spend on administrative tasks? I acknowledge that he has made some progress in that regard, but is that not just the tip of the iceberg when it comes to tackling paperwork? Does he have any specific plans to tackle the amount of police time wasted in court appearances, when officers are often not called or have to wait ages to give evidence?

The Home Secretary says that he can free up the equivalent of 12,000 constables by cutting bureaucracy. Is that not an admission that under Labour—with its obsession with targets—the Government have actually tied up those 12,000 police officers in the first place? I welcome his plans to allow people to join the police at higher ranks, without always having to serve in the junior ranks first. Does he envisage this opportunity being available to people who have had business careers, or just to those who have had related careers?

The Home Secretary will also know that many people in rural communities feel that their police are being drawn into the city centres. What guarantee can he give under these proposals about local police levels in communities that feel that they are missing out in this way? In the White Paper, he says that he will seek a financial contribution from the drinks industry towards the cost of the harm caused by excessive drinking. Would he extend that to imposing a levy on late-night venues, to help with the cost of policing our city centres?

There are many good ideas in the White Paper, but will the Home Secretary explain exactly how they are going to be funded, particularly given the recent concern that police authorities have expressed over their settlement? Will these changes result in higher council tax bills, or will they be fully resourced from the Home Office?

I am very grateful for what I take to be the hon. Gentleman's welcome for the White Paper and for his sensible questions. Yes, our work on overturning bureaucracy does represent only the tip of the iceberg, which is why we are investing in technology such as Livescan, and why simple technology such as pagers and mobile phones should be used to avoid officers having to sit in court day after day without being called, when they are needed elsewhere. A lot of this is simple common sense. A new case and custody programme has now been introduced in 11 force areas, and we can now streamline the reporting of crime on the spot using the Airwave system, rather than requiring officers to return to the station. All these things, plus the effort being made nationally and locally to reduce paperwork, will make a difference. I do not accept that the 12,000 officers who will be freed up is a consequence of engaging 12,000 officers in the stations.

An interesting statistic is that we had 37,000 fewer constables 30 years ago than today, but more people saw them and believed them to be visible and available on the street. We must return to that era. In conjunction with police services, we must be able to ensure that people are released from sitting around in the station, which is why, three years ago, we started the process relating to the diary of a police officer.

I said that community policing in rural areas needed to be tailored to particular needs. Experiments are currently taking place using community support officers in rural areas, where there is less crime and fewer dangers, to substitute for police, thereby releasing police officers to engage in community policing in new ways. The local police service itself must tailor that approach to its area, as we cannot do it from the centre. By ensuring that we use the two aspects of policing—constables and support officers—we can do a better job.

On spending and the police grant, police authorities believed that they were to get a 3 per cent. uplift. On that basis, they have been lobbying that that is insufficient for them to meet the future demands of the service and they have been demanding 5.7 per cent. Let me make it clear: there is no way that I can deliver a 5.7 per cent. uplift across the board, and I do not believe that the police authorities truly believe that that is feasible. However, I will make sure, along with my right hon. Friends the Chancellor and the Deputy Prime Minister, that the uplift that we deliver in a few weeks will ensure that the programme that we have set out, and its supplementing in the years ahead, will deliver the neighbourhood beat police officers and the 25,000 support officers to which we have committed. On that basis, we will have the trust of the British people.

rose—

Order. Now that I am calling Back Benchers, I limit them to one supplementary question each.

I welcome today's announcement of the White Paper, and I thank my right hon. Friend for his recent visit to Grimethorpe, not Grimesthorpe, in my constituency, where we met representatives of the local police team and representatives of the local community, and where neighbourhood policing is now making a difference in terms of reducing crime. While we were there, we met a number of community support officers, who felt that their role could be beefed up to include, for example, use of the power of detention and so on. Will he reassure the House that the Government are looking to beef up the role of CSOs under the White Paper?

I thank my hon. Friend for the warm welcome that I received in Grimethorpe. It was an interesting afternoon, with the community being part of the solution—

Grimesthorpe is in "Brassed Off".

Yes, I know. I have wanted to heckle my hon. Friend ever since he started to mumble away when I was making my statement, for which I will get him afterwards.

I was supporting my right hon. Friend.

Well, I refrain from using a more robust term in reply—I will save that for interviews on radio.

I reassure my hon. Friends that chief constables will have the power to designate detention powers to community support officers, but we will leave that to individual chief officers rather than impose it from above. They will of course automatically have powers for levying fixed penalty notices and requiring information such as names and addresses.

How do we empower decent local residents? What information on local policing will be provided to each household, and how will it be distributed?

That will be part of the joint role envisaged for community safety partnerships. If we are to reduce bureaucracy, it is important that we do not duplicate and ask police to issue paperwork to the communities that they serve. Local authorities and community safety partnerships will work together to provide regular updates to local people. They will provide, in writing, information on where the local police service can be located; the numbers on which officers can obtained and, when we have a three-digit reserve number, a record of that number. They will ensure that local people know where local community panels and forums are being held and know how they can contribute to them. Where there is considerable disquiet, we need to inform people how they can take action under the new trigger powers to require consultation. In extremis, where things have gone very badly wrong, we need to tell local people how they might trigger snap inspections. The obligation to provide such information will be overseen by police authorities, which, regrettably, are little known by the public at the moment—on recent polling, about 80 per cent. of people had never heard of their police authority. That must be a thing of the past if decentralisation is to work in the way that I have spelled out in my statement.

Does my right hon. Friend agree that wardens should play a key part in the police family? Will he thank the Minister for Crime Reduction, Policing and Community Safety for visiting Tameside to see our model of neighbourhood policing? Does he agree that we need to speed up the process of accrediting wardens where they are working hand in hand with the police? Should not that be the job of the local division commander rather than the chief constable?

In those circumstances, it can be, and where forces and man and woman power can be combined so that the job can be done better, that is welcome. The local commander, with the chief constable, will therefore be in a position to agree those designations. In some areas, wardens have decided to upgrade to community support officers, which is welcome. Some local authorities, regeneration partnerships and new deal for communities areas have been co-funding the appointment of officers, police community support officers and wardens. That is very welcome, and we will examine in future how local co-funding can play a more important role in expanding the service.

Did the Home Secretary discover this morning, when he and the Prime Minister were in Falconwood in my constituency pulling their little public relations stunt, that one of the reasons the public do not believe his figures is that they see what is happening on the ground? One of the problems in the Metropolitan police area is that those officers notionally allocated to the Bexley division, which he and his chum visited this morning, are consistently taken away for central force duties. Whatever he says at the Dispatch Box today about the figures, my constituents know that it is not happening on the ground, with or without the presence of the Prime Minister and the Home Secretary.

What a terrible denigration of the police officers and community support officers whom I met this morning. What a denigration of the work of the community. Do not take my word for what I and the Prime Minister saw this morning—I ask any journalist or broadcaster listening or viewing this afternoon to go to where we were this morning, and to talk to local people, the head of the community arts college, local police constables and community support officers—then call them a liar, not me.

I congratulate my right hon. Friend on continuing to be tough on crime, but may I also remind him that he needs to be equally tough on the causes of crime? We could have a uniformed officer on every street corner, but unless we tackle effective parenting so that young people have the proper values, it would still have little impact on crime. In his previous job as Secretary of State for Education and Employment, I know that that matter concerned him. Will he also take cognizance of the fact that arresting officers are spending hours in the police station progress-chasing case papers through to charge? If he is able to solve that problem, he could increase the number of hours spent by the average police officer on other duties by 25 per cent? Will he take that seriously?

That is a critical point, and the civilianisation of the force, and better use of technology alongside it, will help. Reconfiguring what takes place in the station, and how custody and management work at that level, is a major issue, and our investment of more than £1 billion in information technology is part of that. As I discovered when I was in Nottingham at the end of last week with the ministerial team, parenting is absolutely crucial, not merely in terms of building discipline but in terms of re-inventing and reinforcing respect within the family and in the community that we serve.

The right hon. Gentleman referred to diversity. I wonder how far that principle has been extended throughout all police authorities in dealing with folk with disabilities, both in relation to recruiting people who could do good police duties but who have certain impairments, and retaining and caring for those in the police service who are disabled. For example, I still think of that picture of the Royal Ulster Constabulary collator receiving the George cross who had no nether limbs because they had been blown off. It seems to me that, at times, we lose folk who could do excellent police work because of our standards in relation to disability.

I am pleased to say that I agree. A review is taking place, with the police service, of requirements that should no longer apply owing to improvements in medical technology and people's ability to cope. The new fitness test recognises the crucial role of women police officers. While maintaining reasonable standards, we must be able to welcome people who would otherwise have been excluded.

I am pleased about the review of the partnership provision of the Crime and Disorder Act 1998. I believe that a lack of co-operation is the main reason for the underperformance of crime and disorder partnerships. Will my right hon. Friend consult Members in all parts of the House who have a worm's eye view—[Laughter.] I mean a view from the ground, of course. Will my right hon. Friend ensure that when we conduct the review there is input on this important issue from all sides of the Chamber?

I will take on board what my hon. Friend has said, but I think it would be unparliamentary for me to describe any hon. Member as a worm.

Following the question from the hon. Member for Nottingham, North (Mr. Allen), will the Home Secretary tell us exactly what he proposes to do to reduce the current complexity? Police officers trying to do their job on the ground are faced with an enormous bureaucratic nightmare when they take someone to the station. What precisely will the Home Secretary do to free up police officers?

I withdraw my earlier reassurance that I would not call any hon. Member the name mentioned by my hon. Friend the Member for Vale of Clwyd (Chris Ruane).

First, we are introducing a hotline so that officers themselves can telephone anonymously—or, if they wish, give their names—to get something done about that bureaucracy. Secondly, we introduced someone with responsibility at force level—a move condemned earlier by the right hon. Gentleman's Front-Bench colleague, the right hon. Member for Haltemprice and Howden (David Davis)—precisely to secure action at that level. Thirdly, the whole point of civilianisation is to enable officers to leave the station and return to the community. That is working extremely well: there has been an immediate release of police time and, above all, a new morale in the service. We are beginning to see that everywhere we go.

Notwithstanding the antisocial behaviour displayed by some Conservative Members, may I warmly congratulate the Home Secretary on his statement? I especially welcomed the emphasis that he placed on the roles and responsibilities of individual police officers.

When talking of the extended police family, my right hon. Friend mentioned community support officers and neighbourhood wardens. Will he now comment on the role of the special constabulary? We are experiencing record levels of recruitment in Northamptonshire: more than 300 special constables are doing valuable work in the community. Will my right hon. Friend consider the role that they can play in the neighbourhood teams that he is setting up? Many special constables would welcome the opportunity to act as parish or neighbourhood constables, and to play a full part in those teams.

That is an excellent idea. I congratulate my hon. Friend on being a special constable—the only person among us who can go out on Saturdays and Sundays and do that imaginative job for his constituents. [Interruption.] I should say that he is the only Labour Member present today who is able to do that, although I appreciate that there are people doing other things in other ways.

It is crucial for us to build on the 21 force areas that have increased their numbers of special constables over the past year. In the east midlands last week, I noted that not only Northamptonshire but Derbyshire and Nottinghamshire had dramatically increased their numbers. That is one way in which the creation of a citizenship community—the development of a civil society—can be used to establish greater safety in the community while helping those at work. It demonstrates how those two processes can be combined.

Will the Home Secretary take the opportunity provided by his reforms to simplify the structure between the Home Office and local people, so that there can be one pot of money for each local area and local authorities and police can decide on priorities in consultation with the people, rather than there being numerous different strands and funding streams as there are now?

I welcome the hon. Gentleman back to the policing and crime reduction agenda. I experienced déjà vu for a moment.

Again, I am pleased to say that I agree. The Home Office has now reached 21 local area agreements involving unified funding streams, and is experimenting with the idea of having just one person in the Department to contact and work with. That makes much more sense than the multiplicity of individual sections and divisions with which people have been having to deal.

I welcome the proposal for neighbourhood policing teams. As my right hon. Friend knows, they have been successful in the Barnsley area. He may also know that in South Yorkshire we have a problem with the communication centre, which I understand is based in his constituency. Will he do what he can to improve the situation? Will he ensure that it is not repeated elsewhere when he introduces minimum standards for call handling?

I entirely take the point. Thankfully the centre is in the constituency of my right hon. Friend the Member for Sheffield, Central (Mr. Caborn), but I think we have all suffered as a result of the tremendous hiccup that occurred when the new facility was brought into play. Despite the best intentions, there has been a major problem. We must avoid a repetition of that as new technology is introduced throughout the country.

The point raises a wider issue—the need for expertise to be shared locally and regionally in regard to activity that has not been seen as a core police function in the past, and in which senior officers have no historic expertise. We must do that to ensure that people receive the service that they need, but above all to ensure that the police themselves are not frustrated by what lies between the public and their own role as enforcement agencies. They have been as angry and upset about what that means to them as the public have been about the service they have been receiving.

Is the Home Secretary aware that, as a result of his policies, the Norfolk constabulary is spending roughly half a million pounds on the diversity agenda? Does that make sense? Is it money well spent, especially in a county where ethnic minorities represent 1 per cent. of the population and where there have been no instances of police discrimination?

Yes, it does. Diversity takes many forms, and is intended to reflect the wider community, not just ethnicity. A vital synergy is involved in getting the reflection of the community right in the forces. We need diversity in terms of race, ethnicity, religion and gender; we also need to deliver services better to the local community. Of course that must be tailored to the community's specific needs, but to suggest that spending resources on improving diversity is a waste of money is to demonstrate that, regrettably, Conservative Members live way back in the past—and will remain there if they do not understand the difference between 21st-century Britain and the 18th-century Britain in which the Tory party was born.

I welcome the transformation that has taken place in community policing over the past few years, particularly in my constituency, where the police now use e-mail lists to keep residents informed of what is happening. But given his plan to increase local authorities' powers in regard to community safety, will my right hon. Friend advise those of us who must deal with Liberal-Democrat controlled authorities, Liberal Democrats who do not support the antisocial behaviour legislation and Liberal Democrat councillors who have stated publicly that they have no confidence in the police?

The new trigger powers mean power for local people. As in the case of ombudsman services, it will be necessary to use elected representatives as a filter. If people found that their local councillors were unable to co-operate with them in the improvement of service, they could of course turn to the ballot box to ensure that their future representatives did just that.

Will the Home Secretary tell us what will be the budget of a national policing improvement agency?

The agency will drive best practice. It will bring together the National Centre for Policing Excellence and Centrex, the centre for training excellence. [Interruption.] It will bring together the relevant functions of the Police Information Technology Organisation, and will allow collaboration in slimming down the administration required to perform those functions while also focusing attention on improved service on the ground. Far from mumbling about it, the main Opposition should surely welcome that rationalisation, given that they are always going on about rationalising and cutting bureaucracy. Once we have taken that step, we might actually get some credit for it.

The people of the Rhondda are delighted to have five community safety officers, and they will be even more delighted when they get the additional 33 whom, according to my calculations, the spreading of 25,000 such officers across 659 constituencies will provide. But they are particularly concerned that when they telephone the police, their call often seems to disappear into the wide blue yonder and they never hear from anybody again. Is it not important to allow local people to choose for themselves whether their call is an urgent, 999 call, or one that could be dealt with through a visit the next day or even later in the week? Should we not have another telephone number for the police?

We should have a three-digit back-up number, and, as my hon. Friend the Member for Cambridge (Mrs. Campbell) outlined, in future we should use e-mail to report incidents and to report back on the action to be taken. In Lancashire, once a clear system of reporting back was established and people were then confident that the promise made would be fulfilled, there was a 10 per cent. improvement in confidence in the police. I would like to see that replicated across the country.

In the next couple of weeks, chief constables and police authorities will have to deal with settlements that some would call challenging but most would call inadequate. The Home Secretary has a reputation for driving through national initiatives that do not carry with them sufficient central funding, which leads to an increased burden on council tax payers. Will he confirm today that his proposals will be fully funded, and that the poorest in society will not carry the biggest burden for police services?

I do not think that the poorest in society do carry the burden for funding police services. I obviously cannot announce what the lift will be, but it certainly will not be at the level predicted by the police authorities themselves. What is absolutely clear is that the resources that we are making available will enable the continuing development of the service. Yes, we will fully fund those areas in which we are responsible directly, just as we are providing 100 per cent. funding over the next 12 months for 2,000 additional community support officers, and for the additional CSOs who will be part of the new national policing fund, which I will announce later.

Does my right hon. Friend agree that it is vital for community support officers and street patrols to have the power to require information from—and, where necessary, to detain—members of the public while the police are called? For example, how can Clapham Junction's street patrol—sadly, Wandsworth council is going to disband it in March, when Government funding runs out—deal with offences such as those committed by graffiti artists and fly-tippers if it does not have the power to require information?

Those who are designated police community support officers will obviously have fixed penalty notice powers available to them as of now, and as I have said, the power to detain will be a matter for chief police officers to decide. But I deplore the fact that Wandsworth council is pulling the plug on the resources that are available to continue a scheme that I know, having been in the locality, remains a great success. I appeal to local authorities to work in partnership with the police to maintain those resources, and to continue the excellent work of pursuing community safety as a common goal for everyone at local level.

The Secretary of State did not even attempt to address the question raised by my hon. Friend the Member for West Derbyshire (Mr. McLoughlin), so may I try a different tack? How many officers will it take to run the national policing improvement agency?

Substantially fewer than currently operate the National Centre for Policing Excellence, Centrex and the Police Information Technology Organisation; indeed, that is the purpose of putting the agencies together. The reason we do not have a figure is that we are reconfiguring the service—[Interruption.] The boys in short trousers, as of recent months, always want to predict that amalgamation, collaboration and rationalisation will somehow be a disaster, but most people in business and in the community know that putting these organisations together will slim down overheads and remove unnecessary administration, thereby enabling the spending of additional resources on front-line policing.

I welcome my right hon. Friend's statement and I can assure him that the four chief constables who recently gave evidence to the Welsh Affairs Select Committee offered full support for the Government's strategic approach to policing; I can also assure him that South Wales police expressed considerable support for the 24 community support officers whom we met. In a rural area such as mine, CSOs have to serve an enormous patch covering some 18 or 20 miles, and the additional CSOs will be greatly welcomed, especially in areas such Abergavenny and Monmouth, in which there has been a particular problem with alcohol-induced antisocial behaviour.

Yes, they will make a substantial contribution, as will the other antisocial behaviour measures that have been widely welcomed, including the combining of powers in the Anti-social Behaviour Act 2003 and in fireworks regulations. This has once and for all given the lie to the idea that such measures are a gimmick that will never work. In the past month, communities throughout England and Wales have benefited from them, and any Member of this House who tries to demonstrate otherwise is not in touch with their local neighbourhood.

On a point of order, Mr. Speaker. Will you confirm that there is a long-standing courtesy and convention in the House whereby a Member of Parliament who intends to visit the constituency of another MP lets them know of their intention? May I draw to your attention the fact that both the Prime Minister and the Home Secretary were in my constituency this morning, but they did not exercise a courtesy that I understood applied to the most exalted Members of this Chamber, as well as to we lowly Back Benchers?

We are all equal in this matter, and regardless of whether it is the Prime Minister, the Home Secretary or any other Cabinet Minister, the usual conventions must apply when they visit a constituency. I expect that convention to be abided by.

On a point of order, Mr. Speaker. I have given notice of a point of order concerning the relationship between this House and the press lobby. I would like to clarify whether it is possible to withdraw a press pass from a member of that lobby, particularly if they have shown contempt for all Members of this House. In this Sunday's edition of The Sunday Times, a journalist said:

"Britain is being overrun by politicians. It has more of the vermin per acre than just about any major democracy."

Does someone who treats Members of this House in that way and who thinks of us in that manner have any right to a pass to attend our proceedings?

I think that the standards of the journalist concerned certainly did leave a lot to be desired. As the hon. Gentleman said, he gave me notice of this point of order and I have made inquiries. That individual, fortunately, is not a Press Gallery passholder. He should follow the good example of such passholders, who work night and day to enhance our good reputation and always write about hon. Members—including me—in the kindest possible terms.

Further to that point of order, Mr. Speaker. Can you tell us what newspapers you read?

I will not be drawn into that one.

I beg to move,

That leave be given to bring in a Bill to create an offence in respect of corporate nuisance telephone calls.

Mr. Speaker, you, in common with many hon. Members and their constituents—and, indeed, you, Mr. Deputy Speaker—may occasionally have answered the telephone only to be confronted with a silent call. If it has happened to you, Mr. Deputy Speaker, or to other hon. Members in their places today, that would hardly be surprising, because evidence suggests that businesses in the UK are generating hundreds of thousands, probably millions, of direct marketing calls every year that result in the consumer receiving a silent call. That may seem a rather bold assertion and the House may want to know what evidence there is to confirm it.

A consultancy company called CM Insight Ltd recently produced a report that concluded that BT receives more than 100,000 queries every month from individuals who are concerned about silent calls. Companies will not generate all those calls, but evidence suggests that a large majority of the silent calls received by consumers do indeed originate from commercial interests. My Bill would create a specific offence if a telemarketing telephone call resulted in a consumer receiving a silent phone call or, as I call them in the title of my Bill, a corporate nuisance call.

Why do those calls happen? The problem arises mainly out of the use of something called predictive or power-dialling equipment, which is designed to maximise the efficiency of call centre operations; in other words, attempting to maximise the use of call centre operations when companies are trying to sell their products and services over the telephone. That equipment routinely and deliberately generates more calls than there are live operators available, on the assumption that many of the calls will be unanswered. However, when more people answer the calls than predicted by the predictive dialling equipment, there are not enough live operators at the other end of the line to handle the calls, so many people receive a silent telephone call. The problem is compounded in many cases when consumers try to find out who is calling them at the other end of the line by dialling 1471 and are met with the message, "The caller withheld their number".

It is not too difficult to imagine the impact that such calls can have on individuals, particularly on the vulnerable and the elderly, who may imagine that there is some malicious intent involved. Indeed, when I first raised the issue in the House in an Adjournment debate on 26 April 2002, I had been contacted by several of my constituents who had been pestered by silent corporate nuisance calls. In their case, they had gone to the trouble of going through the BT nuisance call bureau to discover where those calls had been generated and they found out that they had come from irresponsible companies rather than, as they feared, from psychopathic stalkers.

I referred to vulnerable people a few moments ago, but the people who originally contacted me about the problem were far from vulnerable. They were people who could well look after themselves, but they were also deeply disturbed by the problem. It remains a problem. Yesterday I spoke to a journalist who said that she had previously been the victim of genuinely abusive stalking-type phone calls and then more recently received many corporate nuisance calls. It was a frightening experience for her as it was a reminder of her previous difficulties.

My hon. Friend the Member for South Dorset (Jim Knight), who is sponsoring the Bill with me here today and who has campaigned on the issue in South Dorset, told me that when Radio Solent ran a feature on the problem, it received a bigger response from the public than for any other news item broadcast over the past 15 years. That shows that it is definitely an issue of genuine concern to our constituents.

One commonly cited solution is to register with the telephone preference service, which enables consumers to have their number removed from the lists of telemarketing companies, including those registered with the Direct Marketing Association, the industry body. It is a mark of the scale of the problem referred to in my Bill that 5.25 million numbers have already been registered with the telephone preference service since its inception in 1999. That amounts to 24 per cent. of British households; 37 per cent. of those households say that they registered with the TPS in order to escape silent nuisance calls. About 12,000 people register with the TPS every year, yet many complain that they still receive unwanted calls.

Although a £5,000 fine is already in place for companies breaching the TPS, to date not one fine has been levied against any of them and not one licence has been revoked during the legislation's six-year history. Let us compare that with the position in the US, where a similar scheme exists. The scheme now has more than 30 million numbers registered with it and it continues to grow at the rate of 4 million per month. It is interesting to note that in November 2001, the company AT&T was fined $780,000 for transgressing the "do not call this" scheme, the equivalent of our TPS. Clearly, our legislation needs to be toughened up.

In addition, some consumers may not necessarily wish to block all telemarketing calls, whatever the faults in the system. Some may be willing to receive such calls, particularly when they are an existing customer of a company, but no one wants to receive a silent call.

The industry has taken some steps since I raised the matter in the House in 2002. There is a Direct Marketing Association code of practice, which contains sensible provisions such as the basic requirement that caller ID is always available where a call fails, so that the customer can know the identity of the thoughtless company that believes it is appropriate to treat customers with such contempt as to give them a silent corporate nuisance call.

However, the same code of conduct contains the pathetically weak provision that predictive dialling equipment should be adjusted so that no more than 5 per cent. of live calls are silent calls in any 24-hour period. Even if someone is lucky enough to get a call from a company that is signed up to the DMA's code of conduct—not all are—it is deemed perfectly acceptable that one in 20 of the calls answered should generate a silent corporate nuisance call.

Let me just examine what that means in practice. Earlier this year, Ofcom took welcome action under the Communications Act 2003 against MKD Holdings in connection with the promotion of Kitchens Direct products. It is to the credit of the Direct Marketing Association that it originated the complaint. Ofcom's investigation showed that MKD made 24 million calls from its call centres between November 2003 and February 2004. Of those, 11 million were answered and 1.5 million resulted in silent calls. That was rightly deemed by Ofcom to be a misuse of the telecommunications system. But what if Kitchens Direct had been operating at the 5 per cent. level acceptable under the DMA code of conduct? Out of the 11 million calls, the company could have made 549,999 without falling foul of the industry's code of conduct, and that is just one company! We should welcome the fact that Ofcom has taken such action, but clearly it is not enough.

I am not a Luddite—telemarketing is legitimate if responsibly regulated—but if it takes 1.5 million silent calls in three months to trigger action, the current system is too weak. The UK has gone for the consumer "opt-out" model whereas Germany and Italy have an "opt-in" model. Unless action is taken, pressure will grow for the UK to follow that route.

My Bill would take the side of the consumer and put financial pressure on the industry to clean up its act. It would help those who currently follow best practice and penalise those who show little concern for the misery caused by their silent calls. It would end the scourge of the corporate nuisance call and help millions of people who currently suffer, literally, in silence.

I commend my Bill to the House.

Question put and agreed to.

Bill ordered to be brought in by Kevin Brennan, Jim Knight, Mrs. Anne Campbell, Mr. Tom Harris, Mr. Martin Salter, Mr. Khalid Mahmood, John Robertson, Mr. John Bercow, Ann Clwyd, Mr. Peter Kilfoyle, Lady Hermon and Sir Sydney Chapman.

Corporate Nuisance Telephone Calls

Kevin Brennan accordingly presented a Bill to create an offence in respect of corporate nuisance telephone calls: And the same was read the First time; and ordered to be read a Second time on Friday 19 November, and to be printed [Bill 176].

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

With this it will be convenient to discuss the following:

New clause 2—Termination of civil partnerships other than same sex couples—

'(1) An application for a dissolution order may be made to the court by either civil partner.

(2) On an application for a dissolution order, if the court is satisfied that—

(a) the application is made in the correct form, and

(b) the other civil partner has been served with notice of the application,

it shall make a dissolution order.

(3) Provision may be made by order specifying the requirements as to form and service of the application for a dissolution order.

(4) No order may be made under subsection (3) unless a draft of the statutory instrument containing the order has been laid before, and approved by a resolution of, each House of Parliament.'.

New clause 3—Categories of civil partners other than same sex couples (No.2)—

'(1) Two persons both of whom are aged over eighteen years shall be eligible to register as civil partners provided that they are in a relationship which meets the condition set out in subsection (2).

(2) The condition is that the relationship is one which is specified for the purposes of this section by Schedule [Meaning of specified relationship for the purposes of section [Categories of civil partners other than same sex couples (No. 2)]].

(3) The Secretary of State may by order amend Schedule [Meaning of specified relationship for the purposes of section [Categories of civil partners other than same sex couples (No. 2)]] by—

(a) adding a relationship,

(b) amending the description of a relationship, or

(c) omitting a relationship.

(4) No order may be made under this section without the consent of the Scottish Ministers and the Department of Finance and Personnel.

(5) The power to make an order under this section is exercisable by statutory instrument.

(6) An order which contains any provision (whether alone or with other provisions) amending Schedule [Meaning of specified relationship for the purposes of section [Categories of civil partners other than same sex couples (No. 2)]] by—

(a) amending the description of a relationship, or

(b) omitting a relationship,

may not be made unless a draft of the statutory instrument containing the order is laid before, and approved by a resolution of, each House of Parliament.

(7) A statutory instrument containing any other order under this section is subject to annulment in pursuance of a resolution of either House of Parliament.

(8) Chapter 2 of Part 2, Chapter 5 of Part 3 and Chapter 2 of Part 4 shall not apply to civil partnerships formed by virtue of this section.

(9) Section [Termination of civil partnerships other than same sex couples] shall apply to civil partnerships formed by virtue of this section.'.

Amendment No. 1, in clause 1, page 1, line 4, after 'relationship', insert

'between two siblings who fall within the scope of section [Categories of civil partners other than same sex couples] or'.

Amendment No. 12, in page 1, line 4, after 'relationship', insert

'between two people who fall within the scope of section [Categories of civil partners other than same sex couples (No. 2)] or'.

Amendment No. 13, in page 1, line 4, leave out 'of the same sex'.

Amendment No. 17, in page 1, line 18, after 'death,', insert 'marriage,'.

Amendment No. 2, in clause 3, page 2, line 33, at beginning insert 'Subject to subsection (1A),'.

Amendment No. 14, in page 2, line 34, leave out paragraph (a).

Amendment No. 15, in page 2, line 35, at end insert 'or'.

Amendment No. 16, in page 2, line 36, leave out from '16' to end of line 37.

Amendment No. 3, in page 2, line 37, at end insert—

'(1A) Subsection 1(a) and (d) shall not apply in the case of two people who wish to register as civil partners under section [Categories of civil partners other than same sex couples].'.

Amendment No. 4, in clause 36, page 16, line 20, at end insert—

'( ) with respect to determining whether two people have lived together for the period of twelve years specified in section [Categories of civil partners other than same sex couples];'.

Amendment No. 5, in clause 86, page 39, line 33, at beginning insert 'Subject to subsection (1A)'.

Amendment No. 6, in page 39, line 41, at end insert—

'(1A) Subsection 1(a) and (b) shall not apply in the case of two people who wish to register as civil partners under section [Categories of civil partners other than same sex couples];'.

Amendment No. 7, in clause 126, page 65, line 10, at end insert—

'( ) Regulations may in particular make provision with respect to determining whether two people have lived together for the period of twelve years specified in section [Categories of civil partners other than same sex couples]'.

Amendment No. 8, in clause 138, page 69, line 25, at beginning insert 'Subject to subsection (1A),'.

Amendment No. 9, in page 69, line 31, at end insert—

'(1A) Subsection 1(a) and (d) shall not apply in the case of two people who wish to register as civil partners under section [Categories of civil partners other than same sex couples]'.

Amendment No. 10, in clause 159, page 77, line 19, at end insert—

'( ) Regulations may in particular make provision with respect to determining whether two people have lived together for the period of twelve years specified in section [Categories of civil partners other than same sex couples]'.

Amendment No. 19, in clause 212, page 103, line 1, leave out sub-paragraph (i).

Amendment No. 20, in page 104, line 6, leave out Clause 216.

New schedule 1.—Meaning of specified relationship for the purpose of section [Categories of civil partners other than same sex couples (No. 2)]

Amendment No. 18, in schedule 27, page 373, line 29, leave out paragraphs 40 and 41.

Broadly speaking, this Bill would give homosexual couples the same rights as those enjoyed by married couples. That is the principle of the Bill; although some of us oppose it, that is not what we are debating today. Whatever happens today, that principle will remain in place. Therefore, the new clause and associated amendments have not been tabled to wreck the Bill.

The new clause, if accepted, would leave the substance of the Bill intact. I, and those hon. Members who support me, am trying to ensure that the Bill does not create more injustices. We accept that many people believe that homosexual couples who live together for years often suffer great hardship, and we heard many stories to that effect on Second Reading. People in that situation cannot leave their houses or tenancies to each other, and they encounter all sorts of other problems.

An amendment tabled in the other place would have extended the same rights to others, such as siblings and other family members. Various objections were made to that proposal by the Minister and others. The Minister and her officials expended a huge amount of time convincing the House that the amendments were technically deficient. I believe, as do those hon. Members who share my views, that she could have made workable the amendments from the House of Lords if she had put the same amount of effort into doing so, but the Government's main objection to those amendments was that these amendments could be used to avoid inheritance tax, as they would allow people to pass property down through the generations.

Therefore, we have decided to adopt a moderate and sensible approach today. New clause 1 is very narrowly drawn, and the aim of this group of amendments is very simple. It would merely give to siblings the same rights granted by the Bill to homosexual couples. By "siblings" I mean a brother and sister, or two brothers or two sisters.

We have made the amendments very narrow indeed. It is not my job to foretell what will happen in another place, but I suspect that the issues raised today will be central to subsequent debates on this Bill.

On Second Reading, a principal objection to the relevant amendment that came to us from another place was that it would have required siblings to form a civil partnership. If one of the siblings later wanted to marry in what I still call the normal way—I am sure that that expression is politically incorrect these days—that partnership would have to be dissolved. It was therefore suggested that the Lords amendment was a nonsense for that reason. Will my hon. Friend assure me that the new clause and the associated amendments will not fall into the same trap?

We took that argument on board after Second Reading. If my right hon. Friend looks at new clause 2, she will see that it does not adopt the same approach as the Bill. The Government may not admit it, but homosexual couples undertake what amounts to a marriage. The Bill is very long because it replicates a great deal of ordinary marriage law.

The objection raised to the Lords amendment was that it would be absurd for family members to have to go through some sort of divorce. New clause 2 would create a far simpler procedure for dissolving civil partnerships between siblings. That would not be a divorce; it would be equivalent to the procedure adopted in the French civil solidarity pact, or PACS, system. The process would be a simple, paper-based way to dissolve a civil partnership.

The basis of my hon. Friend's argument is the essential unfairness of inheritance tax. I agree with him about that. Does he not think that we should all concentrate our efforts on abolishing inheritance tax, rather than on trying to create these artificial partnerships?

Yes, I do. This debate provides an opportunity for that. The Government have said already that the Bill will require various consequential amendments to the Finance Bill. If the Minister were to intervene and say that she had spoken to the Chancellor of the Exchequer and that he had told her that the forthcoming Finance Bill contained measures recognising that siblings who had lived together for a number of years suffered a gross injustice, we could all go home now.

Unfortunately, that has not happened. The Government have made no such commitment. I give credit to my right hon. and learned Friend the Leader of the Opposition, who has made it clear in a letter to constituents that the first Finance Bill under a new Conservative Government would take action on this matter.

If this injustice is as important and significant as the hon. Gentleman claims, am I right in presuming that he has had many letters from constituents on this subject?

indicated dissent.

From the look on his face, it seems that the hon. Gentleman has not received any letters on this subject. However, if the issue is so enormously important, why has the Conservative party never proposed an amendment similar to the one under discussion today in any Finance Bill Standing Committee over the years?

We must deal with the situation as we find it now. In our law, it has always been accepted that marriage is unique. Certain privileges are conferred by marriage, and that is recognised in all societies in all parts of the world. The very good reason for that is that marriage is the building block of society. That is what we believe, and the Government apparently believe it too.

With this Bill, the Government are saying something that has never been said before. They are creating a particular class of people—same-sex couples who live together—who will enjoy the same unique advantages conferred by marriage in respect of tenancy, inheritance tax and so on. We are therefore in a new situation.

The hon. Member for Rhondda (Chris Bryant) asked about letters. I have one here. The original was sent by a lady whose name and address I shall not reveal to the House, as she is an elderly spinster who wants to remain anonymous. The letter states:

"I live with my single brother and have done so since my mother died in . . . 1983. He had lived with her all his life. I retired from (work) to look after her as she was 85 and had cancer. She died within . . . months of my leaving. Stephen—"

that is her brother, although Stephen is not his real name—

"really needed me to run the home . . . when my mother died I felt I should continue to live with him. I am now 79 and (Stephen) is 75."

That is a real case involving real people suffering real injustice.

Such people always have suffered an injustice.

The hon. Gentleman says that such people have always suffered an injustice, so we should give credit to the Government. We have heard many stories about men who may have lived together for 20, 30 or 40 years. Why cannot we give the same justice to the elderly spinster—this real person—whose letter I have just read out?

It is interesting that the hon. Gentleman has narrowed the new clause, and I suppose we have to be grateful for that, but has he worked out how much it would cost the Exchequer to give siblings the pension provisions in the Bill? He has just made a spending commitment for the Tory Front-Bench team by saying that they will abolish inheritance tax, and I assume that there would also be pretty large pension costs in spreading to siblings the Bill's provisions for civil partners.

Unfortunately, I am only a Back Bencher. I would love to give a commitment on behalf of the Conservative party to abolish all inheritance tax, but sadly I am not able to do that, and my right hon. and hon. Friends have not done so. The point of my amendments is to avoid the charge that we are trying to let people avoid paying inheritance tax. "Stephen" and the elderly spinster will not be able to pass their advantage down the generations, so inheritance tax will be paid pretty soon for that 75-year-old man and 79-year-old woman. I freely admit that I have not got the exact figures on what my proposals would cost the Treasury, but the Bill itself puts a cost on the Treasury and we have not had many figures from the Minister on that. It is an affordable cost because it is a matter of justice.

The hon. Lady seemed to imply that we are obsessed with inheritance tax, but we are not necessarily talking about inheritance tax. What will happen, for instance, if two sisters live together in a tenancy? They do not own the property, and if one of them dies the remaining sister, as well as suffering bereavement, will have what is called an assured tenancy. Under an assured tenancy, it is possible that her rent could rise or, in certain circumstances, that she could be evicted. She would not have a statutory tenancy, which is a far more secure thing. Under the Bill, a same-sex couple will have a statutory tenancy, and that is an obvious, glaring injustice to impose on siblings.

Will the hon. Gentleman tell me why he seems always to assume that only two siblings will be cohabiting? If it is so important to protect the rights of siblings who cohabit, why do his amendments not afford the same protection in situations where three, four or any number of siblings do so?

Usually, there are only two. Secondly, the Bill is about partnerships, and if we had tried to extend it further, we would be accused of trying to go way beyond what it is intended to do. Thirdly, if there are more than two siblings, the financial consequences when one dies are far less than they are when there are two siblings. It is more affordable and a less devastating circumstance. If there are a brother and a sister and one dies, the remaining brother or sister is faced with buying out half the property, and that may often not be affordable. I shall refer in a few moments to an opinion poll that shows that a very large percentage of the population—8 per cent., which is 3.7 million people—know someone who has lost their home as a result of paying inheritance tax.

If two people are sharing a house and one dies, the other would like to keep the house. If they have to register a civil partnership, though, they will pool all their assets, perhaps to the disadvantage of a third sibling, who effectively would be disinherited. My hon. Friend's measure would introduce into the traditional family some misery and stress, which would be rather undesirable in my view.

We had this argument on Second Reading. If my hon. Friend will forgive me for saying so, he should allow people to make that decision for themselves. There will be circumstances in which it is not advantageous for siblings to enter into a civil partnership. There may be circumstances in which it is not advantageous—perhaps for tax reasons; I do not know—for a same-sex couple to enter into a civil partnership. None of those arguments has been used against the substance of the Bill; they are used only against our amendments. If my hon. Friend will forgive me for saying so, such nit-picking objections are constantly raised against what is an attempt to correct a fundamental injustice. Given that the Bill will become law and that homosexual couples will have these rights, I cannot for the life of me understand why people are so violently and strongly opposed to extending the same rights to siblings.

Perhaps it is simply this; what we face here is a well-organised, vocal minority in society who are constantly pushing for more and more recognition of the kind that the Bill is supposed to give them. Siblings are not such a minority and are not so vocal. In a parliamentary context, we feel under constant pressure from a vocal minority but, perhaps sadly, under little or no pressure from the very group that my hon. Friend is trying to represent.

Perhaps 80,000 same-sex couples will benefit from this Bill, but there are many other ways of living together—not necessarily in a sexual relationship—and those people do not have a voice. They do not come to lobby the House. We have a right, surely, to think of those other minorities, because they, too, have a right to justice. That is all that we are trying to give them. We are not trying to wreck the Bill or take anything away from homosexual couples. We are simply trying to extend a sense of justice to other people.

The hon. Gentleman seems to think that there is a very clever Venn diagram in the world that excludes all homosexuals from being siblings. They are not two separate communities; there may be many siblings who are homosexual and who may, indeed, want to enter into civil partnerships with the partner whom they love. The hon. Gentleman said that many of us wholeheartedly oppose the idea of doing anything for siblings where they suffer injustice. He may want to withdraw that remark, because many hon. Members have members of their families who are siblings who have lived together and who may have suffered injustices. We want to put those injustices right, but to do so in proper order, and this is not proper order. The hon. Gentleman said it is normal for there to be only two siblings, but the two cases in my own family involved three siblings living together—

Order. The hon. Gentleman may wish to save his remarks in case he wants to catch my eye later.

The hon. Gentleman makes an obvious point. People can make their own arrangements, and there may well be all sorts of arrangements we do not know about. Homosexual siblings may live together with other people, but that does not affect what I am saying. We did not ask for the Bill; in fact, we oppose the principle of the Bill. [Hon. Members: "Oh!"] So what? We have never made any secret of that, and we will vote against the Bill. We have a perfect right to do that in a free House of Commons. All we are saying is that although we did not ask for the Bill, the completely novel idea has been introduced that a particular group of people should be helped outside of marriage. If we are establishing the principle that one group of people should be helped outside marriage, we say that others should be helped as well.

There is a fundamental dishonesty about this debate. The Bill introduces homosexual marriage by any other name. The Government are determined, for political reasons, not to call it a homosexual marriage Bill because they do not want to alienate public opinion, but they are creating a homosexual marriage Bill.

That peg allows me to move on to the proposals of my hon. Friend the Member for Christchurch (Mr. Chope). He, too, has seen a logical flaw in the Bill. He wants to extend civil partnerships to heterosexual couples. He asks why a couple who are heterosexual should not have the same rights. I do not accept or support my hon. Friend's amendments because I believe that marriage is unique and holy and should be left alone. None the less, there is at least some logic in what he is saying. He is at least being completely open with the House. No doubt the Minister will ensure that his amendments are thrown out, but I cannot see the logic in that. However, it is possible that the Government will introduce at some later stage, if they remain in power, some variation of the French PACS system for all sorts of couples. At least there is some logic in my hon. Friend's amendment. There is no logic in the Bill at the moment.

This is a serious argument, but I suggest that my hon. Friend is wrong to say that the creation of civil partnerships is designed simply to provide financial relief for two homosexuals. The fundamental purpose is to assist two homosexuals who want some form of legal, continuing expression of their relationship. My hon. Friend may not agree with that, but it is a perfectly respectable objective.

Why are we not being honest about that? Why do we not say to the British people that the Bill will create homosexual marriage? The Government do not dare do so, because it would be too politically controversial. Instead, they are creating this ridiculous beast and, when we try to extend it to address injustice to other groups, we are told that it is special and nothing can be added to it. Why not? If one group of people are to enjoy those advantages outside of marriage, why cannot another group, such as those supported by my hon. Friend the Member for Christchurch?

I shall tell my hon. Friend why many of us resist his amendments. The Bill in its original form is not about tax relief: it is about the recognition of relationships—

Homosexual marriage.

My right hon. Friend chunters from a sedentary position to no obvious benefit or purpose. If the injustice is as fundamental as my hon. Friend claims, why did he not argue for remedying it a long time ago? Alternatively, why does he not argue that it be remedied in a Finance Bill? Instead, he dresses up his arguments in what many of us regard as a contortionist's logic.

It is not contortionist. We did not ask for this debate. We had a simple system in this country, as in most other countries historically, in which society believed that marriage is such a useful bedrock that it should have unique rights. The argument is not only about inheritance tax: it is about many other things. We fully accept that. The Government, heavily influenced by the homosexual lobby, want to introduce the same rights for homosexual couples. That is fair enough, but why not be honest about it? They are not being honest, so they have created something that gives us an opportunity to talk about other people in similar situations.

What does public opinion say? Communicate Research has asked some questions on the matter. It asked:

"The Government wants to extend the financial benefits of marriage to gay and lesbian couples in its Civil Partnership Bill. Some argue that it would be unfair and unjust not at the same time to make these benefits available to others who have lived together for a long period and become financially interdependent. Would you agree or disagree that were these benefits to be made available to gay and lesbian couples, they should be made available to two sisters who share a house for 12 years?"

Some 84 per cent. responded yes to that question. Interestingly, 79 per cent. of Conservative voters were in favour of my amendment, as were 86 per cent. of Labour voters and 91 per cent. of Liberal Democrat voters. The public are overwhelmingly in favour of what I am trying to do.

Other questions were asked, one of which will please my right hon. Friend the Member for Maidstone and The Weald (Miss Widdecombe). People were asked about the case of a daughter who lives with her elderly mother for 12 years, and 91 per cent. agreed that she should have the rights that I suggest—90 per cent. of Conservative voters, 91 per cent. of Labour voters and 95 per cent. of Lib Dem voters. If we had stuck with the original House of Lords amendments, we would be even more popular. But of course we could not do that, because they had no hope of getting through this House. That is why we have had to draw these amendments very tightly.

There is no debate in the country. Some 90 per cent. of people agree with what I am trying to do. Why is it that the House of Commons alone believes that it has the moral right to stand against rectifying a fundamental injustice?

My hon. Friend places great store on opinion polls and public opinion. Did he also see the poll in The Times that showed that 75 per cent. of people backed the principle of gay couples having exactly the same rights as married couples? Should not that influence his judgment on how to vote today?

If my hon. Friend accepts my amendment, I shall think about accepting the Bill. I accept, for the sake of argument, that the majority of people accept the substance of the Bill. But an even larger majority— 91 per cent.—accept my amendments. Is my hon. Friend going to vote against them? He shrugs his shoulders.