Mr. Deputy Speaker, it is a great pleasure to introduce the debate under your magnificent chairmanship—[Hon. Members: "Creep!"] Better to get one's creeping in first, eh? It is also a pleasure to speak about England's greatest county, particularly when so many hon. Members who represent Norfolk are here. Such occasions always seem festive, even when the subject is as serious as the one that we are about to discuss. I note that my right hon. Friend the Member for South-West Norfolk (Mrs. Shephard) has even dressed in Christmas colours, and that some representatives of old Labour are present, too.

The debate is about the financing of the health service in Norfolk, a serious subject. It will be partly about the funding itself, and partly about the uses of the funding and the pressure on it. At present, there is a serious deficit in the Norfolk health economy. According to recent figures supplied to me on 9 December by the Norfolk, Suffolk and Cambridgeshire strategic health authority, national health service bodies in Norfolk have forecast the following year-end positions in their most recent financial returns. Norwich primary care trust forecasts a deficit of just under £1.8 million. Southern Norfolk primary care trust in my constituency forecasts a deficit of £9.2 million—a reflection of the fact that it is by far the largest primary care trust in Norfolk. North Norfolk primary care trust forecasts a deficit of £3.1 million, Broadland primary care trust one of £4.8 million, and West Norfolk primary care trust one of £1.7 million.

Alone among the primary care trusts, Great Yarmouth PCT is running a more or less balanced position, with a small surplus of about £100,000. Perhaps that is a reflection of the extra money that goes into Yarmouth. I shall not say that that is attributable to the hon. Member for Great Yarmouth (Mr. Wright), although I am sure that he would like me to do so. There is no doubt, however, that Great Yarmouth is well funded compared with some of the other primary care trusts. Having projected a much bigger deficit earlier in the year, the Norfolk and Norwich hospital, our new flagship private finance initiative national health service trust, is now projecting a deficit of about £2 million. The Norfolk and Waveney mental health partnership has a break-even position. The King's Lynn and Wisbech NHS trust has a deficit of £7.9 million. The James Paget NHS trust, again in the constituency of the hon. Member for Great Yarmouth, has a break-even position and the East Anglian Ambulance national health service trust has a surplus of £750,000, although that is mainly due to a one-off asset sale of the ambulance station at Newmarket.

The total deficit is about £29.7 million. That includes the repayment of deficits from the previous year of £6.6 million, of which £5.2 million is at King's Lynn hospital. It is worth noting that in each of the three previous financial years—1999–2000 to 2002–03—NHS bodies in Norfolk were in overall balance. The financial problem is relatively new to Norfolk, but not confined to the county—it is common throughout the national health service. However, it might be worse in Norfolk than elsewhere, which is an issue that I want the Minister to examine.

I refer to an estimate based on board papers published by the West Midlands strategic health authority. I commend the Government on the number of board papers now available across the country on the internet. If only central Government took the same attitude to the most interesting information about Departments. I certainly commend the Department for the guidance that it has given health authorities, hospitals and PCTs on what information should be made available to the public. At a meeting on 17 November, a strategic health authority assessment of the national position was that there was a deficit of £499 million in NHS organisations across the country. A board paper notes that 75 primary care trusts and 73 NHS hospital or other trusts forecast deficits.

One must acknowledge that the problems are complex and that there are no simple headline answers, but it is not enough for the NHS to say that it always needs more money, as more money has being going into it. Plainly, in some areas, including Norfolk, there has been a lack of tight management, which has led to extra financial problems. An obvious example of where problems have arisen, which has been widely referred to in the county, is the learning difficulties pooled fund. In that case, it is possible that managers took their eye off the ball—or, more probably, designed and developed a service without having enough regard for what was affordable in the context of all the other priorities.

I understood the hon. Gentleman's point about learning difficulty services, but is it not true that the county council is in charge of the financing of that service? The truth is that there has been overspend in the past two years, and although that was not down to the PCTs, in the end they had to pick up a proportion of the tab—55 per cent., I believe—without having had direct input into the way in which the budget was run.

The hon. Gentleman makes a fair point.

Of course services for people with learning difficulties depend heavily on co-operation and on part-funding in social services, but I remind the Chamber that Norfolk social services department is seriously underfunded because of the way in which the present Government have dealt with the funding of rural shire counties, because of the regulations that the Government have imposed on all aspects of social services and because of the Government's determination to ring-fence funds within social services, which means that there is almost no flexibility. The hon. Member for Great Yarmouth (Mr. Wright) is absolutely right: the problem in local government funding has been transferred to the health services.

I am grateful to my right hon. Friend, and I agree with everything that she said. Of course, the hon. Member for Great Yarmouth is right to say that one should not blame the PCTs for the issue. The problem is complex, with some of the roots lying in Government provision of funding to the shire counties. There is also a more general problem relating to what the hon. Gentleman says: with joint working and joint funding arrangements, one has to make sure that the proper management is in place.

On a slightly separate subject—but one that makes my point—I was in Northern Ireland recently looking into a project for the Public Accounts Committee, and the person before us, the accounting officer, was pleased to say in the first 30 seconds of her evidence that her department was responsible for only 2 per cent. of the budget that we were discussing and the other 98 per cent. was funded by a series of other agencies and Government bodies, yet it was she who had to account for it. The learning difficulties pooled fund run by PCTs and social services was to some degree an innovation; there is nothing quite the same elsewhere. However, when joint or partnership working arrangements are made, one has to be sure that one has adequate management arrangements in place. I do not think that that has always been the case.

When problems are identified it is not enough simply to say that the NHS always needs more money. Although the problems have complex causes, some of them are Government-inspired. Equally, it is not enough for the Government to say, "We've given the NHS some more money; now let it get on with it," as if to suggest that they have no responsibility for the extra pressures at present. The truth is that the Government have imposed a whole series of extra initiatives that have extra costs attached to them. There is a complex interplay between the money provided and what the Government insist that the NHS does with it. The Government are good at willing the ends, but not necessarily the means, and some of their initiatives are making life more difficult and expensive.

Perhaps the most striking such initiative is the so-called "Agenda for Change", which is bringing about a series of new pay arrangements, conditions and terms of employment for NHS staff under one heading. I talked to a finance director in Norfolk who said that

"we simply don't know how much this is going to cost".

Paul Kemp, the finance director for Norfolk, Suffolk and Cambridgeshire SHA, said that

"the main financial risks are that the cost of Agenda for Change will exceed planning assumptions, and that growth in emergency activity will continue to rise above planned levels, putting pressure on the delivery of elective targets".

There is a series of other pressures. The European working time directive has an impact on hospital junior doctors' hours. Everyone understood that it was sensible to do something about the hours that such doctors were forced to work, which in some cases were ridiculous. It is good that junior doctors are working more sensible hours, but has the cost of implementing that reform been properly calculated?

The costs of the new GP contract were supposed to be paid for out of GPs taking somewhat less—on average, I think, £6,000 per GP. That was to lead to the funding of the out-of-hours service, but there are many reports from primary care trusts that the implementation of the new GP contract has been underfunded or, in some cases, unfunded. In addition, out-of-hours cover is patchy, with some very good and some less good. A senior manager in the Norfolk health economy told me that he thought that the main thing that had been achieved in out-of-hours cover was the creation of confusion, so that in some cases people simply did not know where to go because of the profusion of options.

In an e-mail that others might have seen this morning, Waveney primary care trust talks about the 10 top tips for staying healthy in winter. It lists different things that people can do, including calling NHS Direct, looking things up on the internet and Lord knows what else. However, many people think that, although there is always a winter peak, the huge, aggressive increase in emergency admissions throughout the country is directly related to, among other things, the confusion surrounding out-of-hours cover and the fact that many more people turn up at accident and emergency departments than would have done otherwise. That is particularly true when there is a shiny new flagship hospital that offers 24-hour cover—a hospital that always has its lights on, is always open and whose location people know. We have such a new hospital and despite the fact that the Government managed to build it without building an adequate road to get to it, it is still in some cases easier to drive to than the old Norfolk and Norwich hospital in the centre of town, simply because there is less traffic and one does not get blocked in quite the same way.

There is no doubt that emergency admissions have increased, and that is partly because of the out-of-hours arrangements. The Government have been experimenting with putting GPs into accident and emergency departments. Sir Nigel Crisp spoke about that recently and primary care trusts in Norfolk are talking about funding a full GP practice at the hospital. That is an interesting development and I look forward to seeing how it goes. Finally there is recognition of the fact that, rather than tell people what they should do and where they should go, we should follow what people are doing, and enable them to be seen in a way and at a time and a place that suits them, without the attendant costs that would normally arise if they were actually treated by the accident and emergency department. People arrive in the hospital, but are treated by GPs at GP costs.

There are many other financial pressures, such as the increasing cost of specialist mental health treatments. That has been made worse in Norfolk because it has been sending people out of county, in some cases to London, at very high costs. There is also the cost of the new consultant contract. Again, the Government may have underestimated the cost of that and may well have been out-negotiated by the consultants. In the face of rising prescription bills, the SHA has placed an emphasis on prescribing more generic drugs and fewer branded drugs, but that has been done for many years in the NHS. There is now quite a high rate of usage of generic drugs, so I do not think that there are huge cost savings to be gained from that. Let us also consider the costs of the national framework for IT in the health service. The main contracts let are worth £6.2 billion, but recently it was revealed that the additional costs if all the implementation is taken into account will be between three and five times more—in other words, between £18 billion and £30 billion over the next 10 years.

All those costs added together mean that primary care trusts have to run very hard just to stand still and to have any serious opportunity of coping, even with the extra funding that they have had. In Norfolk, we have the added problem of the private finance initiative: it is an open question to what extent that has increased overall costs. I am not dogmatic about the PFI. I have examined a lot of PFI projects in many different areas and there is no doubt that if one wants a hospital, prison or school delivered on budget and on time, the PFI is a good way of getting that. We have seen many examples of that across the country in different sectors. It is also true that criticisms of the PFI sometimes do not take adequate account of the potential costs and the risks that would have attended on a different approach. Conventional procurements are full of horror stories—take the examples of the British Library, the Jubilee line extension and Portcullis House, where the windows alone cost £23 million more than they were supposed to and the wrong kind of bronze was used on the roof, so it does not go bronze coloured. If I dare say so in the presence of the hon. Member for Norwich, North (Dr. Gibson), there is also the example of the Scottish Parliament, which is a locus classicus of how not to carry out a conventional procurement.

Let us be clear that the old way of carrying out a procurement has had its problems. That is not to say that we should not be questioning and critical about the PFI. It does appear—and the hon. Member for North Norfolk (Norman Lamb) has asked many questions about this, as have I—that the way in which the original contract for the hospital was let may have resulted in very large windfall refinancing gains. So far as the contractors are concerned, they will be shared on a 30:70 per cent. basis and will be crystallised immediately, and yet as far as the hospital is concerned they will have to be taken over the life of the contract.

Most people do not think that their local school or hospital ought to be put into an investment fund and traded by City institutions; if there is enough income around to make that possible, many people will question whether it would not be better for the money to go to the school or to the hospital, many of which have charitable activities going on alongside them because they have not got enough money for some of the things that they would like. A leading City investment banker who works in the securitisation area of the PFI recently told me:

"I like PFI. It's a good source of income. It's good for the business."

But he added that, as a taxpayer, it really cheeses him off—except he did not use the word "cheeses". I feel that in your august company, Mr. Deputy Speaker, I should edit his words.

There are legitimate questions to be asked about the PFI. I think that the answer lies in having the greatest possible degree of transparency, so that we can form a fair assessment of the fair costs and the fair returns. After all, no one worries about schools or hospitals buying equipment from the private sector, and in the PFI we are essentially talking about buying services from the private sector instead. We should not have an ideological objection to the PFI, but we must examine it carefully.

The SHA has announced a number of measures that it proposes to take to improve the financial situation. I will not list all of those now, but details are available from the SHA. There are certain questions that I think are legitimate to ask of local health managers, particularly in relation to the learning difficulties pooled fund. Notwithstanding the point made by the hon. Member for Great Yarmouth, I emphasise that if we are to have joint working arrangements, we need joint management arrangements adequate to that task. Given the already considerable progress in prescribing generic drugs in recent years, is it realistic to suppose that that will provide serious savings in future? What can be done to reassure people that the so-called "better care for Norfolk" proposals, which aim to deliver cost-effective care closer to people's homes instead of in much more expensive hospital settings, are about getting closer to patients rather than saving costs? Are the out-of-hours arrangements now in place working well and communicated well so that people understand them when they are working well?

I honestly do not think that there is widespread bad management locally. Huge extra activity is being imposed from the centre without the resources to pay for it. As I said, 75 primary care trusts and 73 NHS trusts across the country forecast deficits, which suggests to me that there is a systemic problem. Norfolk's deficit accounts for about 6 per cent. of the deficit of NHS organisations nationally—that is, in England—yet it has only about 1.6 per cent. of England's population. It may be that the Government are not only imposing costs on the NHS that are way in excess of the resources that they make available, but, in particular, that they have their sums wrong on Norfolk. There seems to be problem of asymmetry: the county had managed a position of financial balance until the rapid stream of reforms. Are we seeing the systemic underfunding of Norfolk?

Finally, I am interested in hearing the Minister's comments on the extra costs that the Department estimates will be imposed on Norfolk as a result of the national programme for IT in the health service. GPs and others have expressed many concerns that they may be forced to withdraw working systems that they have developed incrementally over a long time—systems in which they have faith and through which they have close relationships with IT suppliers—and to replace them with systems whose software in some cases has not yet even been written. Understandably, that is a cause of huge concern among GPs, who, after all, are the people closest to patients. If we are to see that kind of transformation with that kind of uncertainty and at huge cost, it is not surprising that people are concerned. I would be interested in the Minister's comment on that IT issue.

In conclusion, the Norfolk health economy faces serious problems that are not the result of overall bad management by local managers—notwithstanding the management issues that have to be dealt with—but primarily the result of a high level of extra activity and burdens imposed from the centre without the resources to pay for them.

rose—

Before I call the next speaker, may I offer right hon. and hon. Members some help? This is a 90-minute debate and the winding-up speeches will begin at half-past 10. I ask all Members who wish to participate—six Back Benchers want to do so—to look at the digital clock or glance at me and my body language as they speak. They will see when they have spoken for long enough.

We meet again, Mr. Deputy Speaker. I shall pay attention to your body language; as long as you do not use your hands, that will be fine by me.

I find it difficult to be negative about anything in Norfolk following the events that culminated at 5 o'clock last Saturday afternoon in a great victory for the Canaries over those horrible northern people from Bolton, who went home to think again. Things are quite vibrant in Norfolk at the moment. That is true of the health service as well, despite the fact that all of us as constituency Members of Parliament hear about the odd dirty toilet, the example of bad communication, the individual who has to wait a long time, and so on. I am aware of that in part as an MP and in part because I was on the hospital management committee of the Norfolk and Norwich hospital so many years ago that I cannot remember—I think I was in my twenties—and have been involved in it ever since.

This Friday I will be with the neonatal nursing team—one of the top teams in the country—which is going to show me its wares. I will robe up and go with that team to see the newborn babies. Such staff are subjected to pressures at this time of the year and I will see how they are handling that. I will then go to the cardiology unit, where once again following my scare in the west bank, attempts will be made to find my heart. I believe that I have one somewhere. Although some people think that I do not have a heart, I do and it seems to be functioning well, although the unit will have another look at it. I think that medical students will be looking at me, which scares me to death.

Let me quickly put the debate in context. There is a great book out at the moment called "Norwich Since 1550", edited by two professors at the university of East Anglia, Carole Rawcliffe and Richard Wilson. I guess that none of us were around in 1550, but the story of Norfolk, for year after year in every public service, leads us to the conclusion that we can do better. That much needs to be done is almost the motto of Norfolk about every event with which I have been involved. That is true today and no one is going to deny it.

I never expected the NHS to be perfect. So many events happen beyond our ken that problems are likely to arise. For example, will malaria come to Norfolk with climate change? There are new diseases that are transmitted from animals to human beings, such as severe acute respiratory syndrome, and so on, and hepatitis C is suddenly a new problem, so new measures have to be taken. The Government are responding with their new initiatives. New technology has come along, including, for example, shunts in hearts and arteries. New drugs and vaccines are being discovered all the time in a highly scientific and technological age, which is recognised by the Government.

We want new services all the time and we want them to be delivered immediately for people, irrespective of their class, colour or creed. That happens more and more in Norfolk. We hear little about that kind of selection. Of course, there is private medicine, although there is no evidence that it is increasing—and although I would like to see it eliminated, it is still around. We need more resources for all the different things that are happening.

There has been a sudden splurge of activity around methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus, and more money has been put into the problem. The infection unit at the local flagship hospital has recognised the problem and done something about it. Scanners have come in since I first got involved at a hospital: one's brain can be scanned in different ways and infarctions and all sorts of things can be seen. The local flagship hospital is trying to get magnetic resonance imaging scanners in Cromer, so that people do not have to be moved from Cromer to Norwich. There are problems with the kidney dialysis unit at Cromer, but the chief executive tells me—I believe him—that although there is a financial problem, it will be sorted out early in the new year.

Through the Government's activity, the local hospitals and the wonderful dedicated staff who work there—not just the doctors and nurses, but all the other people, including some of the managers and the technicians who deliver the biopsies and treatment—form a tremendous force. We must not break the morale of those people; we must make them determined to respond to the new initiatives that come from Government but must be translated into the reality of the geography of a county such as Norfolk.

Does the hon. Gentleman recall being quoted in the Tuesday 30 November saying:Eastern Daily Press of

"I have been concerned for some time about the lack of money for the health service. The Government must really change its tack on funding for the NHS"?

What did he mean?

There is lots of money going in, but the real question is whether it is going to where it is needed. Who makes the decision? The Minister knows that I have campaigned hard in the cancer field, because, whether or not it is ring-fenced, the bulk of the money that goes to the primary care trusts does not always get into cancer. The East Anglian cancer network should receive that money and prioritise it for cancer services. That should also be the case for cardiology and mental health, which are the highlights of the Government's campaign. There should be a cardiology unit in Norfolk to prevent patients having to move down to Papworth, and people are currently campaigning for that.

Does the hon. Gentleman share my concern that if we ring-fence every Government priority, there may not be any money left for anything else?

Yes, that might happen, but I do not think that it will. The ring-fencing of certain prioritised areas will deliver better health in the county. The flagship arenas in health need that method of resourcing, and I would be happy to see that approach initially in cancer, mental health and cardiology, because those are the problems that afflict the largest number of people.

There are problems surrounding private finance initiative, about which the hon. Member for North Norfolk (Norman Lamb) and I have often talked. I would love to see the documents on the PFI contract. Early in 1997—the health service in Norfolk really has changed since 1997—my right hon. Friend the Member for Norwich, South (Mr. Clarke) and I tried to gain access to the details, but we were not allowed to because of commercial secrecy. I will get hold of that information somehow, because we should see the details of that PFI contract.

Is the hon. Gentleman watching the Deputy Speaker's body language?

I have observed finger movements, so I will wrap up.

Representatives of the flagship hospital assure me—I tend to believe them—that the financial deficit is being handled. A few months ago it was estimated to be £15 million, but it is now down to £2 million. The staff show amazing dedication and initiative, and I believe that the problems will be eliminated so that new diseases can be treated. With the help of Government initiative and new financial plans, the county will handle the problem. The hospital will remain a flagship hospital, and Norfolk will stay at the top of the league in terms of star status or whatever replaces that rating system. At the moment that position is shaky, but I have great confidence that the people in place will help the medical school to attract amazing doctors, nurses and other staff, and that Norfolk will remain top of the league.

I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for South Norfolk (Mr. Bacon) on securing this debate on an extremely important subject for all of us in Norfolk. I am particularly pleased to have the chance to raise my anxieties about health funding. The last time I spoke about health in Westminster Hall, I drew the attention of the Minister of State, Department of Health, the hon. Member for Doncaster, Central (Ms Winterton), to the view of school health advisers in the West and Southern Norfolk PCT teams that their services were both underfunded and overstretched. The West Norfolk PCT was at that time running with 42 per cent. of its appropriate staff quota, and the Southern Norfolk PCT described itself as "seriously depleted".

The Under-Secretary will be aware that on page 7 of "Every Child Matters: Next Steps", the Government state that there is a

"need to intervene earlier through better information sharing, a common assessment framework, lead professionals"

and "multi-disciplinary teams".

However, the reality on the ground in the school health service in both PCTs at that time was described by the Southern Norfolk PCT as follows:

"All we, as a primary care group, are doing is crisis managing such public health issues and not providing any early intervention or preventive input."

I particularly wanted to face the Minister of State, Department of Health at that time with the problem on the ground because of the amount of hype that the Government have attached to the co-ordination of services for children. On that occasion she said:

"it is up to primary care trusts, which are the cornerstone of the NHS and are best placed to ensure that the local health service reflects the needs of the local community".

She continued:

"Between them, the Southern Norfolk and West Norfolk PCTs have been examining how to spend some of the increase of £27 million that they have received this year on improving school health services."—[Official Report, Westminster Hall, 16 June 2004; Vol. 422, c. 266WH.]

Yet, as my hon. Friend the Member for South Norfolk has pointed out, a letter dated 9 December 2004 from the SHA tells us that between them the PCTs and trusts in Norfolk have a deficit of nearly £30 million. The Southern Norfolk PCT is forecast to have a deficit of nearly £9 million and West Norfolk PCT a deficit of £2 million. What has become of the increase of £27 million about which we were told on 16 June? Where has it gone? Was the Minister of State mistaken on that occasion? I do not expect the Minister to have all the answers now, but I would like a letter from her so that I can pass it to the trusts and to the school nursing service, whose representatives took the trouble to attend the debate. She might pay particular attention to the Minister of State's comment to the effect that steps must be taken to ensure that it is possible to enlarge the school nursing services. There is scant chance of that given the deficits that the two PCTs are facing.

I should like to make one other point, about the elderly mentally ill. We are told that the number of high-cost specialist mental health treatments has increased. Will the Minister specify those costs and tell us whether there is any connection between them and the planned closure of 100 beds for the elderly mentally ill, to be replaced with just 20 beds at the Julian hospital in Norwich? The planned closures have caused outrage—and no wonder. The future of the units is being consulted on at the moment, but the relatives affected are naturally immensely anxious about whether care in the community can really work for those clients.

Of course those dedicated people who provide care in the community for every group do their utmost to provide care, but does the Minister know about the reality on the ground? Given limited budgets, growing lists of clients, and above all the distances that have to be travelled and the sheer logistics of caring for people in far-flung communities, the relatives' anxiety is well placed. Without adequate and regular supervision, particularly as regards medication, such clients can rapidly deteriorate, causing a quite different kind of crisis—according to the SHA, the sort of crisis that has contributed to our budgetary problems.

The Minister cannot look to social services for help, not least because of the Government's imposition of unrealistic regulations on the sector, and also partly because of the squeeze on rural local authority funding. The Minister and her colleagues are constantly telling people that more money is being spent on health, and I am sure that is true. Yet the reality is that health services in Norfolk are £30 million in the red. Where has the money from the 66 tax rises in seven years of this Government gone? As my hon. Friend the Member for South Norfolk and the hon. Member for Norwich, North (Dr. Gibson) said, the money is going in but it is not being used to benefit the patients and the clients. Where is it?

These are the questions to which we want answers from the Minister today. We want to know how it can have happened, when extra money has gone in, that there is a £30 million deficit, which will affect every client and patient in Norfolk. According to the Government, people are happy to pay extra taxes. I am sure that those people who should be benefiting from increased health services in Norfolk would like to think that those taxes are going to help them and their families.

I add my congratulations to the hon. Member for South Norfolk (Mr. Bacon) on securing today's timely debate. While we are talking about the financing of the NHS in Norfolk, I shall concentrate on my constituency, where there is a good story to be told. As has already been said, the targets for the funding of the various strands of the NHS in Great Yarmouth have already been met. I congratulate the managers of the NHS services in my constituency.

I am delighted that the Great Yarmouth PCT has managed to improve its rating from one star to two this year, and that the James Paget Healthcare NHS trust has met or exceeded all key targets for performance ratings. I am also delighted by the increase in access to primary care professionals, which, coupled with the high rate of health improvement, has shown that the benefits have increased and have sustained Government investment in local NHS services.

The income received by Great Yarmouth PCT is set to increase by 9.9 per cent. from 2003–04 to 2004–05, and by 11.2 per cent. from 2004–05 to 2005–06, from £96 million to more than £117 million. Funding increases have meant better NHS services delivered by the Great Yarmouth PCT. New national service framework-compliant mental health services, such as crisis intervention, home treatment and assertive outreach, are now in place. Brand new single-sex mental health ward accommodation is due to open in June 2005. Additionally, £250,000 is being invested in tackling substance misuse, including the NHS provision of clinical treatment and a new role for the independent sector, which will be in place from May 2005.

Better services thanks to increased funding have meant better results. There have been significant reductions in maximum waiting times for acute care, which are now down to a maximum of nine months. Further improvements are being implemented to ensure that no patient waits for longer than six months. Primary care waiting time targets of 48 hours to see a GP and 24 hours to see a primary care professional have also consistently been achieved.

In addition, increased financing has allowed the PCT to engage with local strategic partnerships to focus on the real health and social issues affecting Great Yarmouth, including coronary heart disease, cancers, smoking prevalence, mental health, substance misuse and teenage pregnancy rates. I am incredibly proud of the fact that Great Yarmouth officially has the highest quit rate for smoking among NHS services in the east of England—more than twice the regional average. Thanks to increased funding, the PCT is also overachieving on rates of progress towards a 50 per cent. reduction in teenage pregnancy by 2010, and is on target to surpass Government targets on reducing premature death from coronary heart disease, which is predicted to reach 14 per cent. by 2005, as opposed to 2010.

The James Paget Healthcare NHS trust is benefiting from similar funding increases, which have resulted in more services and beds and in reduced waiting times. Thanks to a massive £56.7 million capital investment in the trust for the next five years, exciting new services can continue to be designed, building on recent successes. Only last year, I had the pleasure of joining Princess Anne at the opening of a new intensive care unit at the trust. It took two years to build and cost £1.2 million, about half of which was raised by dedicated local fundraisers and donations to the hospital's intensive care appeal. A new stroke unit has also been opened, in line with Government efforts, and will be developed further in the next few years. Indeed, I cannot remember a time during the past few years when the builders have been away from the hospital. Millions of pounds have been invested, and we are reaping the benefits in my constituency.

Capacity plans developed in Great Yarmouth have shown that there will be sufficient beds to meet future demands, taking account of rigorous Government targets such as reduced waiting times. To complement the excellent work done by staff at the trust, there will be 52 extra staff, including 17 doctors and 30 nurses over the period in question. That is possible only because of the increased investment in the hospital—contrary to what local Conservatives say. They insist on telling the story of the hospital going into a £4 million deficit, with many redundancies among doctors and nurses. Perhaps after today they will retract that lie and congratulate the NHS in Great Yarmouth instead of criticising it. Perhaps they will also congratulate the Government on that massive investment.

Expanding mental health care services throughout Norfolk has been an important element of the overall improvement in health care provision that is visible in my constituency today. The mental health service in Norfolk has too often been treated as a Cinderella service, suffering from many years of Tory underfunding. That used to be true of Great Yarmouth, but last year I spoke at the opening of the community mental health resource centre, built as a result of increased Government funding, which will provide an operational base for community staff, medical staff, psychologists and therapists.

Mental health care services across Norfolk are benefiting from increased funding, with a rapid expansion in acute services to allow more patients to be treated in their own homes, with fewer hospital admissions. Increased funding has allowed the Norfolk and Waveney mental health partnership NHS trust to provide additional services such as around-the-clock access to crisis services, rapid response following referral, and intensive intervention and support in the early stages of a crisis. For the first time, we can begin to praise the level of care being made available for the mentally ill in Norfolk.

I am keenly aware of the fact that the continued increase in funding for the NHS in Norfolk should deliver the best and most efficient services possible. Great Yarmouth is a prime example of the fact that the Government are achieving that aim in Norfolk. According to the most recent financial returns received by the SHA, my local PCT and hospital respectively are in surplus and breaking even, with the Norfolk and Waveney mental health partnership NHS trust also breaking even. [Interruption.] I do not know whether that was a hint through body language, Mr. Deputy Speaker, but I shall in any case wind up my speech.

There is a good-news story to be told in the Great Yarmouth area, which shows that there has been strict funding management. I am sure that with similar management and control, and increased funding from the Government, we will see the turn-around in fortunes in other parts of Norfolk that we have seen in Great Yarmouth.

I congratulate the hon. Member for South Norfolk (Mr. Bacon) on securing the debate. He and I have a similar view on one issue: the private finance initiative. We are not philosophically opposed to the PFI, but have real concerns about how it has operated. The massive deficit that we in Norfolk face should be a cause of concern, particularly given the legal obligation on trusts to break even. The strategic health authority produced a brief, which the hon. Gentleman referred to, that talked about the different causes of the financial pressures. It did not mention one particular cause that I wish to spend a few moments talking about: the cost of the PFI.

A recently published report of research commissioned by the Association of Chartered Certified Accountants concluded that trusts with PFI hospitals are more likely than the average to be in deficit. Its overall conclusion was that

"our analysis suggests that PFI is an expensive way of financing and delivering public services that may, where public expenditure is constrained, lead to cuts in public services and/or tax rises, that is, it represents a cut in the social wage. In contrast, we suggest that the chief beneficiaries are the providers of finance and some of, but not necessarily all the private sector service providers, rather than the public sector."

The problems in Norfolk are exacerbated because we were one of the pioneer PFI contract areas. The extra cost of being a pioneer has been demonstrated by the fact that £100 million was released as a result of refinancing. As the hon. Gentleman mentioned, 70 per cent. of that sum went to the private partners, and only 30 per cent. to the trust. I have referred the issue to the National Audit Office and I await its response. I hope that its conclusion will reflect the belief of many in the Norfolk health economy that we are, in effect, paying a premium for being one of the PFI pioneers and that the Government should therefore provide extra support for Norfolk to take account of that additional cost.

I am anxious about one aspect in particular of the PFI contract. Concerns were voiced earlier this year about negative pressure rooms, which are used for isolating patients with infectious diseases. Loose ducting was found above the ceilings and rooms were not fit for the purpose. The cost of getting the facility right was £80,000, which was paid by the trust, not by the private sector partners. The NAO was asked to investigate and it concluded that it could not exclude the possibility of fraud. It has referred the case to the Counter Fraud and Security Management Service in the Department of Health. We await that body's conclusions, but that must be a serious concern.

Every patient in Norfolk is very worried about the effect of the financial pressures. The strategic health authority talks about efficiency savings, but there is a thin line between efficiency savings and cuts in services. The right hon. Member for South-West Norfolk (Mrs. Shephard) referred to dementia services. The proposed closure of small hospital units is causing immense concern. Dr. Ian Mack, a former chair of a primary care group in Norfolk, believes that the proposed cuts are financially driven. The "better care for Norfolk" strategy—an initiative from the primary care trusts in the county—amounts to a proposal to close beds in cottage hospitals and local hospitals and to replace them with better care for people in their own homes. That is a good initiative in itself, but if the aim really is to improve patient service, the outreach services—the care in people's homes—should be developed first, and how many beds can be cut decided only after that has been done. Cutting the beds first puts the cart before the horse.

The hon. Member for Norwich, North (Dr. Gibson) mentioned a dialysis unit proposed for Cromer hospital, which will be of massive benefit to local people. The chief executive of the Norfolk and Norwich hospital says that it is

"critical to ensure that the health system has sufficient capacity to meet current targets."

Yet we are now being told that the strategic health authority is putting a block on the development. My message to the SHA and the Minister is that they should remove that block and allow local decision making. If local people decide that that much-needed initiative is needed for clinical purposes, let them proceed with it.

There is also a fear in Norfolk that cottage hospitals are at risk because of the state of the health economy in that county. I shall be grateful if the Minister provides reassurance that there will not be closures.

A lot of good work is being done in Norfolk, and I acknowledge that extra money is going in. The Liberal Democrats supported that, unlike the Conservatives—[Hon. Members: "Rubbish!"] The Conservatives did not support the extra money through national insurance. That money is needed, and some good things are happening. The Norfolk and Norwich hospital is doing a lot of very good work to improve efficiency—for example, the chairman of that trust wants to get the operating theatres working for much more of the working week, which is a good thing. However, that good work could be threatened by the financial pressures. I urge the Minister to provide extra support for Norfolk, specifically because of the extra cost of the private finance initiative.

I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for South Norfolk (Mr. Bacon) on raising this important subject and colleagues on raising important points. The tone was lowered by the hon. Member for North Norfolk (Norman Lamb); as usual, the Liberal Democrats want to have it both ways in every way and any way they can.

I shall concentrate briefly on a number of points connected with the Broadland PCT, which covers two thirds of my constituency. Overall, Norfolk health services are £30 million in deficit, but I believe that one of the key factors in that is the Government's failure to recognise the impact of the growth in Norfolk's population and the likely increase in that growth over the next few years.

With a budget of £120 million, Broadland PCT faces a £4.9 million deficit. The chief executive admits that there has been growth in the NHS budget, but says that that has to be measured against the requirements attached to the extra money. Waiting times for operations must be reduced to six months; new contracts for staff must be introduced; emergency admissions, which increased by 10 per cent. last year, must be covered; and the cost burden of running a new hospital must be met. Can the Minister produce a table comparing the extra moneys received by Broadland PCT with itemised expenditure for the four extra requirements, so that I can see whether they entail a surplus, a break–even, or a deficit position?

Broadland PCT has said that the key to cutting its deficits lies in taking certain measures. First, it says that there are savings to be made on GP prescribing budgets. I would like the Minister to say how she thinks that will be achieved and what impact it will have on patients. Secondly, the trust can sell surplus land at, for example, St. Michael's hospital in Aylsham. That, however, is controversial not least in terms of the impact on the local community in my constituency. Finally, the "better care for Norfolk" strategy is cited—but how will the implementation of those measures reduce the Broadland primary care trust's deficit?

My constituents are, to say the least, cynical about some of the Government's promises. The Minister might not be aware that, as part of joined-up government, the Department for Transport has just announced that it is cutting the planned new access roads from the A47 to the Norfolk and Norwich hospital. It might be easy to get to that hospital from Norwich, but at certain times of day it is almost impossible to get there from the rest of Norfolk.

I conclude by asking the Minister a series of specific questions. I realise that, given the time, she might not be able to answer them today, so I shall be grateful if she responds to me in writing. Does she believe that the Norfolk health service deficits are normal? Does she believe that local managers have put measures in place to reduce the deficits? What impact will those measures have on health care for my constituents and those who work in the health service? What measures does the Minister think that the Government need to implement, or to reduce, or to stop, which will enable Norfolk health services to avoid such deficits in future?

I am grateful to my hon. Friend the Member for Mid-Norfolk (Mr. Simpson) for speaking so briefly that I have the time to speak. I also congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for South Norfolk (Mr. Bacon) on introducing the debate.

There are growing expectations among our constituents, because the Government keep telling us that everything is getting better and better and that far more money is being invested. However, what is happening on the ground? I receive increasing numbers of letters from constituents complaining about problems in the NHS. I do not know whether that is to do with growing expectations, or because things are not getting better. However, I wish to flag up four areas on which I hope the Minister will comment.

First, I have had a volley of letters about long waits for MRI scans. I have one letter from someone who is having to wait 40 weeks, as is another person who lives in Snettisham and who is in a great deal of pain. Another waited nine months, then decided to go private. People expect to be able to use modern technology and when those raised expectations cannot be satisfied they are disappointed.

A constituent of mine who had a stroke while in South Africa received daily speech therapy in that country. When he returned to west Norfolk, he was told that he could have only two sessions of speech therapy over the next five weeks, and probably two sessions a month from then onwards.

There are problems in accident and emergency at the Queen Elizabeth hospital in King's Lynn. I have an e-mail from a constituent whose child had to wait 10 hours in A and E. She says:

"There appears to be an issue with the GPs out of hours not working and the availability of Doctors in the hospital to cope with the massive up surge in out of hours work."

We have all had letters about orthopaedic services from people who are waiting for hip operations, knee operations or elbow replacements. I have three recent letters about waiting times for such operations: one from someone in West Walton, one from someone in South Creek, and one from someone who lives in King's Lynn. The average wait for those operations is nine to 10 weeks, which in my judgment is too long.

I accept that the staff are doing their best—there is a great deal of professionalism among management, doctors and ancillary staff—and the vast majority of patients are satisfied with the treatment that they receive. However, the other day my local paper reported that King's Lynn's Queen Elizabeth hospital was in crisis and "under siege", with disease spreading, wards closed, operations cancelled and longer waiting times.

I find it ironic that in this day and age we are unable to get a grip on very simple matters such as hygiene in hospitals. Firmer management and more imagination on the part of management are needed. The staff, who long to do their best, need that extra measure of leadership and inspiration. They need more help from the top. Rather than put every possible administrative hurdle in the way of staff, the Government should combine the extra money with ways of bringing out the best in the staff, who want to work hard and solve the problems. As my hon. Friend the Member for Mid-Norfolk said a moment ago, our constituents expect better than what is happening now. I hope that the Minister will provide some answers this morning.

Before I call the Liberal Democrat spokesman to wind up for his party, I thank all hon. Members for their co-operation in this important debate.

I am grateful for the opportunity to take part in this useful debate and I congratulate the hon. Member for South Norfolk (Mr. Bacon) on securing it. It is always useful to air concerns about local budgetary difficulties. Those concerns are probably mirrored up and down the country in PCTs and local health economies grappling with underlying deficits, struggling to make the books balance from one year to the next while gently slicing away at certain services, particularly those that do not enjoy the benefit of being subject to Government targets and priorities.

I was interested in the fact that the hon. Member for North-West Norfolk (Mr. Bellingham) suggested that what was needed to enable local NHS organisations to improve and deal with their financial problems was more help from the centre. We have had too much "help" from the centre for far too long—that is the problem—so I was surprised to hear that suggested as a remedy to the local difficulties in Norfolk. My remedy and that of my colleagues would be to set the NHS free from central Government interference, and allow it a great deal more flexibility to make its own decisions about its priorities and to meet the needs of its local population.

Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

I suspect that my next remarks may relate to the issue that has provoked the right hon. Lady's desire to intervene, so I shall finish the point before giving way.

Hon. Members have all spoken about the financial state of the local health economy in Norfolk. I reflect on the fact that when my hon. Friend the Member for North Norfolk (Norman Lamb) and I went through the Lobby in support of the extra funding that is now going to the NHS, it was not so crowded as to suggest that the massed ranks of the Conservative party were going through it with us. The record clearly shows that the Conservatives have not supported extra investment in this Parliament. Their Front-Bench spokesman must explain how his party would have improved the financial position across the board in Norfolk.

The hon. Gentleman was quite wrong in his forecast of what I was going to say. I was going to say that he obviously had not been listening to the points made by my hon. Friends and me, and other speakers. The fact is that the Government's ring-fencing and the decisions taken centrally have had a great effect on the funding problems in Norfolk and elsewhere. Everyone made that point, so I am surprised that the hon. Gentleman missed it.

The right hon. Lady and I are in accordance on that matter. I was reflecting on other comments made by her hon. Friends. Perhaps she will need to check the record after this debate to see the point that I was picking up on.

The hon. Member for South Norfolk rightly identified the £29.7 million financial deficit in the local health economy and the way in which the organisations in Norfolk are trying to deal with it. One of my concerns—it is a concern not just in Norfolk, but across the country—is that pressure from strategic health authorities to deal with such financial difficulties often leads to one-off savings being identified. Such savings mask the problem from one year to the next but never deal with the underlying financial gap. In that regard, it would be particularly interesting to explore in more detail than today's debate has allowed precisely how Norfolk and Norwich university hospital NHS trust has moved from an original forecast deficit of £20 million to one of just £2 million now, to what extent it is just deferring problems rather than addressing them, and whether the recovery plans that are being put in place are realistic.

In that respect, I draw attention to the briefing produced for this debate in which the strategic health authority notes that there are problems dealing with the forecast deficits because of the inability to make the required levels of efficiency savings. The SHA, in its board papers of 1 October, says:

"The board raised concern about financial management in some organisations and the reliability of figures submitted."

There was also concern about the delivery of financial recovery plans, especially ambitious ones. There are clearly some serious problems there that need to be addressed.

Hon. Members who have spoken before me have described adequately the financial pressures on our health economy, so I do not need to rehearse them. However, such pressures are common to many health economies across the country. It is also worth noting that our mailbags reflect the fact that people tend to write to us when things go wrong in the NHS—a point that the hon. Members for Norwich, North (Dr. Gibson) and for Great Yarmouth (Mr. Wright) made.

I join my hon. Friend the Member for North Norfolk in praising the work of NHS staff in making the very best of the resources available to them to deliver the very best of health care. We should do all we can to support and encourage that. However, I remain concerned about the culture of targets and tick boxes, which the Government have raised to such a pre-eminent position in the NHS that it gets in the way of identifying the needs of local populations and making sure that they are properly met.

The right hon. Member for South-West Norfolk (Mrs. Shephard) quite rightly referred to the changes in the service provided to the elderly mentally ill. I agree with my hon. Friend the Member for North Norfolk that if there is to be a change in the numbers of beds available, the necessary services to support people in the community should be put in place before those changes are made, and even then a clear assessment should be made of longer-term requirements. People in my area, including my colleague Ian Mack, and I are worried that the changes will ultimately result in means-tested nursing care beds. There is real concern that there has been a tightening of the eligibility criteria for NHS continuing care, which means that individuals wind up out of pocket and paying for basic health care. That cannot be a good outcome for people in Norfolk, or anywhere else for that matter.

The PFI has been mentioned as perhaps being at the core of the financial difficulties in Norfolk, and my hon. Friend the Member for North Norfolk has asked an awful lot of questions to try to shed more light on that. The fundamental criticism that my Opposition colleagues and I make of the PFI is about the completely opaque nature of the process. It is difficult to know whether the PFI represents genuine value for taxpayers' money, whether it delivers good services, and whether the risk undertaken by the private sector warrants windfall profits of some £100 million going back into the investors' pockets so soon after the completion of projects. Of course the private sector deserves its reward for taking risks, but that does not seem to be entirely reflected in how the Norwich and Norfolk PFI contract has developed. My hon. Friend is entirely right to raise those concerns.

I hope that the Minister will show that she recognises the fact that, because the Norfolk and Norwich University hospital PFI was in the vanguard of that method of financing capital projects, things were done that would not be done in the same way today. As a consequence, the NHS is bearing costs that it will not have to bear in future. There is a need to reflect in the organisation of funding the additional premium costs that my hon. Friend talked about. It would be helpful if the Minister said something about that.Today's debate has helpfully aired concerns about a particular health economy—concerns that are shared by many across the country.

I add my congratulations to my hon. Friend the Member for South Norfolk (Mr. Bacon) on introducing the debate, which is on a very important subject. We have heard many worthwhile contributions.

The situation is serious: there is no doubt about it. The forecast deficit is about £30 million. Five of the 75 primary care trusts and I think three of the 73 NHS trusts forecasting a year-end deficit are in Norfolk. Our central contention is that the Minister and her colleagues have imposed a number of exceptional costs on the NHS that are far in excess of the financial resources made available to the trusts. That is the major reason why there are such large deficits in Norfolk. Some of those additional costs have already started to bite. They include the unfunded costs of the new GP contract and the new consultants' contract, and the unfunded impact of the European working time directive. Some of the costs, such as those associated with "Agenda for Change", have yet to bite, but in the years to come, front-line services will also be forced to shoulder the burden of the NHS programme for IT.

Conservative Members have tried to warn the Government about those proposed changes and where they fall short. On 21 April, we held a debate in Opposition time that drew attention to the Government's failure to prepare the NHS for changes to doctors' working hours. At the time, the working time directive was still some months away, GPs had only begun to hand over their responsibility for providing out-of-hours services and there was time for the Government to ensure that the NHS could handle the changes and to ensure that NHS organisations would not be forced into debt. However, that opportunity was not seized by the Government.

On 22 June, we held another debate, again in Opposition time, which drew attention to the problems that the NHS was having in implementing "Agenda for Change". Again, the Government failed to heed our warnings. Furthermore, we held a debate on 11 November, which drew attention to the problems of the national programme for IT. Not only is there a dearth of experience in the NHS on that subject—for example, four out of every 10 PCTs do not have an IT director—but the costs of the IT programme are unfunded. The declared costs are something like £6 billion, but some independent sources suggest that the costs will rise to something in excess of £18 billion, which is three times the other amount. The shortfall—the unfunded costs of the programme—will fall on PCTs and will adversely affect front-line services. That is money that health services in Norfolk can ill afford to do without.

Largely because of those additional costs imposed by central Government, as we have heard on numerous occasions Norfolk's trusts will be forced to accept unplanned support, and their star ratings will be adversely affected because of their deficits. That is unfair to the NHS staff who work in the region, because it is not they but the Government who have burdened their organisations with unfair and unfunded financial requirements. For all their hard work and success in caring for patients this year, they will be branded failures by the Government, when the actual failure lies with the Government. Star ratings may be a good instrument for measuring hotels, but they are not a very good one for measuring complex organisations such as hospitals and PCTs.

What is worrying about the future is that according to the financial director of the SHA there are a number of financial risks to the Norfolk health economy. The first is that emergency activity will continue to rise. We would contend that the cause of that is the new GP contract. Since it was introduced from April this year, the number of attendances in accident and emergency has risen aggressively—from something like 3.7 million in the quarter ending April 2004 to almost 4.6 million in the quarter ending September.

The truth is that because many patients are now not able to see a GP out of hours, they present themselves at A and E. The impact of that on the local health economy is immense. Each GP consultation costs about £17. By contrast, each A and E attendance costs £77. According to one Norfolk PCT chief executive, the percentage increase in A and E attendances is still rising.

That represents a substantial additional burden on the NHS that is not being recognised by this Government. That is one of the main reasons why we are seeing ballooning deficits in the Norfolk health economy—particularly when we bear in mind the growing population—and that is before the additional costs of providing a skeleton out-of-hours service are factored in. A poll of PCTs in September found a

"frightening level of underfunding for the new GP contract".

It is patient care that is being affected.

The second financial risk, according to the strategic health authority that is responsible for Norfolk, is due to the Government's unfunded costs of the implementation of "Agenda for Change". That was rolled out on 1 December, so it is early days. However, it is likely that the impact on Norfolk's health economy will be severe. Unfortunately, the Government have no real idea of how "Agenda for Change" will impact on the NHS.

The Minister will be aware of the concerns of radiographers that their hourly rate of pay will fall. Speech and language therapists have expressed similar concerns, but we do not seem to be receiving anything by way of a response from the Government. The fact is that the pilot implementer sites were poorly designed, a point that is becoming accepted generally. The Government do not have enough information about the impact on the NHS of "Agenda for Change" and, if past form is anything to go by, they will not have provided enough funding for its implementation, so individual NHS organisations will plunge deeper into the red.

Since the Government have been in power, there have been 66 tax increases and a massive increase in spending on the NHS. No one can deny the Government's good intentions, and it would be churlish not to accept that there have been some improvements in the NHS. However, bearing in mind the money that has gone in, there have not been as many improvements as there should have been. Increasingly, patients and taxpayers are asking where the money is going. Despite the massive increase in funding, nearly 1 million patients are on the waiting list. According to the latest figures, average waiting times are rising. Those figures come not from Conservative central office but from the Department of Health, whose hospital episode statistics, table 2, 1999 to 2004, suggest that average hospital waiting times have increased by five days since 1999.

Patients are not seeing benefits on the front line. The Government have been successful in getting rid of the longer waiting times, but at the cost of average waiting times rising. They cannot deny that, given that the figures are their own. The massive increase in spending has resulted in only a 5 per cent. increase in hospital treatments—a point reinforced by the Department's own figures. Let us be clear: the Conservative party has committed itself to matching the Government's spending plans on health. We will increase spending by £34 billion by 2009–10. We do not want there to be misunderstandings of the kind that one or two hon. Gentlemen have tried to create. We will match the Government's spending.

What does not divide the parties is how much money is to be spent. What does divide the Government and the Conservatives is how it is spent. How can we best make sure that the money reaches front-line services so that patients benefit? At the moment, that does not happen in many areas. A lot of money is being wasted, perhaps for two key reasons. First, the Government have introduced a massive increase in targets, which has resulted in a growth in managers and bureaucracy. The number of new managers has grown at three times the rate of the number of new nurses and doctors. As a result, clinical priorities are being distorted. We should get rid of targets. The NHS has been a political football for far too long. We must allow the medical professionals to make the key decisions about patient care. Politicians should step back and allow the medical professionals to get on with the job.

What about patients?

Perhaps the hon. Gentleman would like to intervene.

The second reason why so much money is being wasted is that the Government are forcing on NHS trusts several misguided policies that have not been properly funded by the Government. We have heard many examples of such policies during this important debate. That fact is also contributing to the financial crisis in Norfolk. One of the sad consequences of what has happened is that, because of the star rating systems and various other mechanisms imposed by the Government, the NHS staff will be blamed for the financial deficits, when in reality they are working extremely hard and deserve our congratulations. Because of the way in which the system is constructed at present, partly because of star ratings, the impression will be created that what is happening is the staff's fault, whereas in reality, it is the Government's fault.

I am delighted to respond to the debate. I congratulate the hon. Member for South Norfolk (Mr. Bacon) on securing it. I have listened to the concerns expressed by the hon. Gentleman and several other hon. Members about the financing of health services in Norfolk and the financial position across the Norfolk health community. As they know full well, our policy is that primary care trusts have specific local knowledge and expertise; that they are responsible for improving health, securing the provision of all health services and integrating health and social care; and, to reflect that greater responsibility, that they control 80 per cent. of the total NHS budget at a local level.

It would be helpful to remind Members of the investment that we have made in the health service in Norfolk. My hon. Friends have mentioned it, but we have heard very much less from Conservative Members about the investment and the things that it has been buying for patients—a word not often used by Conservative Members—as part of improving health care.

Since we came to power the average real-terms annual increase across the health service has been 6.2 per cent., and the spend is set to rise on average a further 7.1 per cent., in real terms, during each of the next three years. That compares to just 3 per cent. a year under the Conservatives.

Will the Minister give way?

I would like to make progress. The hon. Gentleman can intervene later if he wishes.

That investment means that NHS expenditure will top £92 billion by 2007–08, and we are committed to seeing that funding devolved to local level.

I would like to join other Members—again, particularly my hon. Friends—in congratulating staff on the contributions that they have made. One of the striking things about Conservative Members is the frequency with which they criticise health service staff. Waiting times are falling across Norfolk. There are no patients waiting for more than nine months for in-patient treatment at the Norfolk and Norwich university hospital NHS trust. In 1997, more than 1,000 patients were waiting for more than nine months. [Interruption.] Hon. Members are muttering from a sedentary position. I take it that it is a mutter of congratulation at the thought of the 1,000 or so patients no longer on that waiting list. There has been a 17 per cent. reduction since 1997 in out-patients waiting 13 weeks or more.

The Minister is missing the point. No one denies that the extra money has gone in, but it is not reaching front-line services. The hon. Lady has not addressed my central point, which is that, although longer waiting times may be being eliminated, according to the Department's own figures, average waiting times are rising. Will the Minister address that central point?

I shall not take many interventions if they are likely to be that long. I was making exactly the point about how the investment is reaching the front line. Services to patients at the front line are improving. Patients with suspected cancer are now seen by a specialist within two weeks of urgent GP referral. That was not even measured by the previous Government—still less do Conservative Members acknowledge our success in these matters.

There has been investment in facilities, as my hon. Friends have said. I would like to recall a few—not all—of the highlights: new facilities at the James Paget Healthcare NHS trust include a new day-care centre, an ophthalmology theatre and an upgraded intensive care unit. A new emergency admission and discharge unit will open in February 2005; a new computerised tomography scanner has been installed in upgraded facilities and a second CT scanner and replacement MRI scanner will be installed during 2005.

The hon. Member for North-West Norfolk (Mr. Bellingham) mentioned waiting times for MRI scans. In the West Norfolk PCT, the waiting time is now 22 weeks, owing to a visit by a centrally funded MRI service in September. Two new primary care premises are being built in north Norfolk and an existing surgery is being expanded. "Better care for Norfolk", launched in April 2004, aims to provide enhanced services for patients across the areas of Broadland, Norwich and north and south Norfolk. Those services will allow NHS treatment closer to home and give more help to people with long-term conditions such as asthma and diabetes.

Is it true that average waiting times have increased?

I have been explaining to the hon. Gentleman how we have been improving the health service. He is well aware that the statistics he uses are much disputed.

Will the Minister give way?

No. I need to make progress.

Over the years 2003–04 to 2007–08, the plans across the area mean that there will be an increase on average of 7.2 per cent., over and above inflation. That amounts to Norfolk getting an additional £224 million—an increase of 31.6 per cent. Of course, the effective and efficient use of those significant additional resources will always be challenging.

I was grateful to the hon. Member for South Norfolk for recognising that some of the issues are complex. Equally, some things are simple. One simple fact is that Norfolk and Norwich hospital's A and E performance is in the top five, out of 400 hospitals across the country. Another simple fact is that we are putting in all this additional money. As the hon. Member for Sutton and Cheam (Mr. Burstow) recalled, the Conservative party voted against the rise in the investment in the health service. I do not want to hear pious lectures from the hon. Member for Billericay (Mr. Baron) about what they would do with money in the NHS and what they would maintain. His right hon. and learned Friend the Leader of the Opposition has committed himself to a £35 billion cut. The Conservative party's flagship policy—Conservative Members dare not speak its name because they do not support it sufficiently—is to introduce a patient's passport. That means removing money from the NHS to support a few people in accessing private treatment.

Rubbish.

I shall give way to the hon. Gentleman.

That is not the policy. The Minister is totally misconstruing our policy. The bottom line is that the Minister cannot answer some simple questions. She is making the point about all this extra investment but cannot tell us why average waiting times are rising and why we still have nearly 1 million patients on the waiting list. Those are Department of Health statistics. Will the Minister address that issue?

The hon. Gentleman is well aware that only recently the Opposition had a debate on this subject and failed to make any progress. I will not go over something that was debated in the Chamber for several hours. I return to the point that I was making, because the hon. Gentleman does not want to address it. The patient's passport is the Opposition's policy. That, together with cuts, is their answer to the health service. Conservative Members can sit there for an hour and a half having a debate about the health service without mentioning it, or the word "patient", once.

rose—

Order. The Minister is replying to the debate. She must be shown courtesy.

I have just a few minutes left. I will not give way because I want to address some of the other points that hon. Members have raised. Several hon. Members referred to the PFI.

On a point of order, Mr. Deputy Speaker.

I do not believe that there can be a point of order, but I will hear it because I respect the hon. Gentleman.

I did not expect the Minister to be able to answer all the questions my colleagues or I put to her. I simply want to ask her whether she will reply to some of the—

Order. That is not a point of order. The Minister gives way when she wishes to do so.

That was another waste of a minute.

As a result of a refinancing deal on PFI, the Norfolk and Norwich trust will receive £1 million a year for the next 30 years, which is the life of the PFI contract. Refinancing benefits both the private and public sector, as partnerships should. All the PFI schemes—this one is no exception—have already demonstrated value for money when compared with a public sector comparator at the time of signing. The many gains to the trust are a bonus. The gain is being used to reduce the hospital's annual charge, making money available for other purposes.

I am aware that the hon. Member for North Norfolk (Norman Lamb) has addressed the question of the NAO investigation and the PFI scheme. The NAO will shortly be responding to him. I welcome that move as he will now have a final, authoritative, independent and objective report on the subject. If the hon. Gentleman wishes, I am more than willing to ensure that the Department supplies its views on its conclusions.

I shall conclude because I do not think I have any more time to answer questions—[Interruption.] That is because the digital clock is flashing. I should point out that it is not unusual for the NHS to be reporting deficits at this time of the financial year—

Order. Time is up. We thank the Minister for her reply. Will hon. Members leaving the Chamber please do so quietly?

I am grateful for the opportunity to raise the issue of road safety, which is an important subject in every hon. Member's constituency. It is particularly important in my constituency, partly because of the huge number of visitors to the Peak district every year—an average of 20 million—which brings associated road problems. I want to raise several issues today; I have given the Minister notice of some of them. I will end by suggesting something for him to take away and consider.

It is worth mentioning some of the different factors relating to the problems in the Derbyshire dales and West Derbyshire, which is the only area in Derbyshire where the number of accidents is highest on Sundays, when it is double the midweek figure. That is unusual. Similarly, the Derbyshire dales is the only area to have fewer accidents in the darkest months of the year, such as December, which is also unusual.

Overall in this country we have a good record on road safety. I was, for a time, responsible for road safety in the Department of Transport. I remember launching, with the then Secretary of State, Cecil Parkinson, the "Kill Your Speed. Not a Child" campaign, which is still running 14 years on. There is no doubt that speed can be a big contributory factor in a lot of road accidents, which we need to get across.

I am worried about a developing trend of fatalities on rural roads classes B and C. I have expressed my concern to the chief constable of Derbyshire that siting speed cameras on the A6 will cause motorists to leave the main roads for some of the back roads. I wonder whether that is reflected in what is happening. It is difficult to say that just because road accidents increase in one year, something is going drastically wrong; I am not here to make that point. Each accident that occurs is devastating to the family involved, but individual circumstances could have led to that accident.

In 2001, there were 585 accidents on rural roads classes B and C, and in 2002, the latest year for which I have the figures, there were 632. That is a sizeable increase in the space of a year. I do not have the figures to show whether that increase is continuing, but I am concerned about the trend from those two figures alone. I hope that the Minister will reassure me, or, if he cannot, that he will say that we should be considering the reasons why there is an increase in accidents on rural roads. Is it because people are using rural roads to avoid speed cameras? I do not know, but I am concerned. The Minister does not think that that was the reason and I accept his point, but I want to raise that concern.

I want to raise specific areas of concern in my constituency. I start with the A5012, the Via Gellia road between Cromford and Newhaven. In three months this year, between 11 September and 24 November, there were four fatalities on that road. I have taken up the issue with the Derbyshire constabulary, and a letter that I received yesterday informed me that the investigations on some of the fatalities are not yet completed but that it is clear that the collisions occurred at different locations and at different times of the day. Inspector Constantine went on to say that, in view of the number of fatalities in such a short time, an urgent meeting took place between the police and representatives of Derbyshire county council on Friday 26 November 2004.

"At the meeting a review took place of all four fatal collisions, their locations and the collision history of the route. Derbyshire County Council staff had, prior to the meeting, carried out site visits and arranged for tests to be carried out on the road surface to see if there had been any changes which would explain the sudden increase in collisions on the road. Neither Police nor DCC staff was able to explain why, after a period of three years without a fatal, there has suddenly been four in the last two months. Prior to Year 2000 the last fatal collision had been in 1992."

I accept that that shows there was not a long history of fatalities on the road, but four fatalities in the space of three months should concern us all, especially those of us who are interested in good road safety in our country. I know that that includes both the Minister and me.

A local cyclist, Mr. Orford, wrote to me in April to say that he was very concerned about the road, well before the accidents that cost the lives of four young people. I have a reply from Derbyshire county council dated 5 August—again, before the terrible tragedies took place—in which it said that

"resurfacing of this section of road has been identified as part of a continuing programme of works. Unfortunately, it did not attract the necessary funding. However, the scheme will be considered for 2005–6".

The work has now been brought forward, which I am pleased about, but it is a tragedy that that has been as a result of four fatalities. Arnold Crosby, the chairman of Cromford parish council, rightly expressed the views of the local community:

"We are shocked at this tragic series of fatalities . . . I would be very concerned if nothing was done at all."

I accept that something is being done; I regret that it has taken four fatalities for that to happen.

I have raised the position of other roads in this Chamber before. The A623 Calver road basically splits Calver in two, and residents have long been campaigning for a 30 mph limit on the section. The hon. Member for Crewe and Nantwich (Mrs. Dunwoody), Chairman of the Select Committee on Transport, chaired a public meeting in Calver and lent her support to the campaign. It was an effective public meeting, and a lot of work was done. However, it was frustrating for the local community that, despite all that work, the county council refused to accept the arguments for a 30 mph limit.

One problem about speed limits is that they seem to be assessed in different ways in different places. Why is there a 30 mph limit just as one leaves the A38, on the A6 going up to Belper? It is a wide road with good footpaths alongside it. In other areas—such as the A623 through Calver, where the road runs between the village and school with only a narrow-cut path at certain points—we cannot get a 30 mph limit. If a local community makes a good case for a restriction in speed limits, that should be carefully considered and, if possible, accepted. That is what the local community wants, rather than the county council saying that, for whatever reasons, it knows better and the answer is no.

Similarly, I mentioned a crossing on the A50, which is a new road that links Derby and Stoke. It has become known as the M1-M6 link road, yet the crossing at Aston is a disgrace. It is a gap between the two carriageways where people are expected to dodge the traffic. It is appalling and action should be taken. Action should have been taken during construction of the road, but for some reason it was not.

Because my constituency is so large—more than 350 sq miles—I have to express concerns about several different roads. Since the building of the A50, another problem that has occurred is the increase in traffic on the A515, which goes from Sudbury up to Buxton. There has been an inordinate number of extra accidents on the stretch of road between Sudbury and Ashbourne, usually involving heavy goods vehicles. That has also been the case on the stretch of road above that, coming down through Fenny Bentley. There was a very serious incident there a few months ago in which two people lost their lives. The county council now suggests raising the bridge at Fenny Bentley, but there is grave concern among local residents that that will lead to an increase in heavy traffic going through Fenny Bentley and the surrounding areas.

I believe that one way around the problem would be to address the Ashbourne bypass. Part of Ashbourne was bypassed some years ago. Unfortunately, at that stage the county council would not put the remaining section forward as a programme that needed to be completed. I think that completion of the Ashbourne bypass would make Ashbourne safer, and we should at the same time address some of the other problems that the road suffers.

The A517 is the road from Belper to Ashbourne. It goes through Hulland Ward in particular. Again, there has been a plea from the local community and the parish council because they desperately want a 30 mph limit on the part of the road that goes through the village. I do not see why that should not be agreed to, considering the 30 mph limits on roads in various other parts of the county.

Whenever a road accident takes place, it inflicts random devastation on a family. There are no easy answers to such devastation; it is particular to the family involved. Because there are so many road accidents, we do not tend to hear about every one. Let us say that there is a rail crash in which 10 or 20 people are killed. I think that Kevin Delaney of the RAC Foundation said that the trouble is that although there are as many as 10 road deaths a day, they do not happen in the same place at the same time and they happen for a variety of reasons, which more often than not relate to human error, so they do not receive the publicity that one accident on public transport may receive. That is a problem. As I explained, there have been four accidents on the Via Gellia in a very short space of time. We need to address that section of road and do what needs to be done.

A few years ago, just south of the village of Duffield on the A6, there was a spot of road on which there were a number of fatalities. No one could understand why fatalities were taking place on that spot of road. They ranged from a young person to a man of 45 driving a Volvo estate who lived in Duffield. The Highways Agency reviewed the whole road and came up with the idea of re-marking parts of it. I admit to being fairly sceptical at the time about whether just re-marking the road would have an impact, but it did. Since re-marking has taken place, which did not cost a huge amount of money, there has not been a fatality at that spot.

I have given a lot of thought to the matter of road and car accidents, and something is lacking. We have the air accidents investigation branch and the marine accident investigation branch, and we now have the rail accident investigation branch—the RAIB. It is time for the Government to think about establishing a CAIB—a car accident investigation branch. That could have an effect where there are a number of fatalities, perhaps in a short period, such as on the Via Gellia—the A5012. When that sort of signal comes through to the Department for Transport, it would be possible for the CAIB to bring together national experts in road safety to look at a particular section of road, so that decisions can be taken quickly and maintenance can be carried out on that section of road, at the discretion of the Department. There are certain blackspots around the country where bringing a national context of what has worked in one part of the country to bear in another part of the country could play a useful role in road safety.

We all want greater road safety. Given the number of cars that we now drive in this country, it is incredible that, overall, road accidents have been falling. I realise that there has been a slight increase in road accidents; the Government want to address that trend, and everyone wants them to succeed in that. It is partly about getting the message of road safety across.

We have special problems in West Derbyshire because of the amount of rural roads, which are sometimes not given the same priority as main roads in urban areas. In constituencies such as West Derbyshire and areas such as the Derbyshire dales that get a lot of visitors, this is one of the most serious issues, and I hope that the Minister can give some reassurance on how the Government will address it.

I congratulate the hon. Member for West Derbyshire (Mr. McLoughlin) on securing the debate, and on the consensual way in which he raised the key issues on behalf of his constituents and people in the wider area of the Peak district. I am also grateful to him for giving notice of some of the issues he wanted to raise. I will try to cover all of them in the time that I have available, and if there are any that I do not have time to cover, I will jot him a line on them.

With regard to the hon. Gentleman's final comments, I hope that we can get some political consensus on road safety. A couple of weeks ago we published the Road Safety Bill, and I hope that we will join together in common interest on many of the issues that it addresses. Over the past 30 years, under Governments of different political persuasions, there has been a gradual decline in the number of people killed and seriously injured on our roads. This country has a good record; we have one of the best road safety records in the world, and I am very proud of that. We are equal with countries such as Sweden and Holland and very much better than many other European countries.

However, 3,500 people were killed on our roads last year, and 34,000 people were seriously injured. We set ourselves a target of reducing those figures by 40 per cent. between 2000 and 2010, and I am pleased to say that there has been a 22 per cent. reduction in just three and a half years. We are making good progress, but we have much more to do. One of the concerns is the number of deaths that there still are on the roads. That figure has plateaued out in the past few years; it is a trend that has also been spotted in a number of other European countries.

The hon. Gentleman raised the issue of rural roads. They are a particular problem. Our motorways are our safest roads, and rural roads have the most problems. There are particular reasons for that. In his area, and in some other areas such as Wales, Devon and North Yorkshire, there are problems to do with motor cyclists on the roads. Many of the deaths are single-vehicle crashes where someone comes off the road and kills themselves. In some cases they kill other people as well.

I am grateful to the Minister, because I had intended to raise that in my speech. I think I am right in saying that of the fatalities in Derbyshire, a third are motor cyclists. That is high, and is partly because of the visitors that we get to the dales.

Yes indeed. Particularly in areas such as the Peak district and others to which people are attracted for recreational purposes, motor cycle accidents are disturbingly high. They are not always youngsters; they are men of a certain age, who return to cycling and sometimes do not do so safely.

Apart from the A50 trunk road, which is the responsibility of the Highways Agency and my Department, all the roads that the hon. Gentleman mentioned are the responsibility of Derbyshire county council. Derbyshire county council is one of the best performing local transport authorities and has a good record on road safety. The number of people killed or seriously injured on Derbyshire's roads fell from 608 in 2002 to 579 in 2003, which is a welcome 14 per cent. reduction. However, as I said earlier, it is not enough, and all of us must do more. The hon. Gentleman will be aware of the campaigns that Derbyshire county council has had: the "Speed kills", "Think bike" and "To die for" road safety campaigns.

In 2003 the county council invested £1.8 million of capital funding in safety schemes through the local transport plans, supported by my Department, and it has added another £1.25 million of revenue spending on those schemes. More widely, the integrated transport funding awarded to Derbyshire over the five-year life of its current local transport plan amounts to more than £33 million. The authority has seen an increase of over 300 per cent. in real terms in its local transport plan settlement since 2000–01. As a consequence of that investment, the council has been able to bring down some of the casualty figures although, as the hon. Gentleman said in his opening remarks, there are some ongoing problems.

I turn now to some of the specific issues that have been raised, not necessarily in the order in which they were raised. The A50 Sudbury pedestrian subway is on a 70 mph road approaching an island, and looks extremely dangerous. The number of casualties there has lowered, partly because people are probably too scared to cross. As the hon. Gentleman may know, the Highways Agency is working on a plan to start construction in 2007–08 of a subway under the road, which will be a great benefit to people in that area. I hope then that they will not be too frightened to cross the road.

Turning to the question of road safety on the A5012, the Via Gellia, the accident record did not suggest a deterioration in safety before the recent spate of fatal accidents. Indeed, the monitoring of previous schemes implemented by Derbyshire county council on the road indicated a reduction in casualties. However, there have been four fatal accidents over the last two months, three of them involving relatively young people. As the hon. Gentleman said, each one of those is a tragedy for their families and the wider communities in which they live. A programme of measures is proposed, including consistent signing of significant bends, advisory speed limits, rumble strips, chevron signing and measures at both ends of the Via Gellia to advise drivers of road characteristics.

As the hon. Gentleman knows and raised earlier in the debate, a number of similar measures were taken on the A6, showing considerable benefits. He mentioned the double fatal accident on the A515, the Fenny Bentley road, and Derbyshire county council intends to address the problem of the low bridge by reconstructing the structure to provide sufficient clearance. He raised the argument that that might attract more heavy goods vehicles; all I can say is that he cannot have it both ways. The authority can, if it wants, create a restriction on vehicles going down that road, but that would have to be taken up by the county council.

The A515—the Sudbury-Buxton road—is the main north-south route through West Derbyshire, and mobile safety cameras were introduced on a section of it last year. Derbyshire county council is also investigating a number of potential junction improvements and has reviewed the signing and lining along a large proportion of the route. More significantly, it is examining the case for an A515 bypass of Ashbourne. However, it is up to the council to decide whether to make a bid for funding through the local transport plan process. If a bid is submitted, we would consider its merits in the light of competing priorities and the availability of funds.

The A623—the Calver road—has been identified by the Derbyshire safety camera partnership as a route that would benefit from mobile safety camera enforcement, which I understand is now actively taking place. A number of other measures have also been implemented to reduce the number of casualties. In Calver village, surface dressing of the carriageway seems to have been effective. There have been no reported injury accidents since works were undertaken in 2003, compared with three reported injury accidents during the three-year period before that.

I understand that Calver parish council is pressing for the current 40 mph speed limit through the village to be reduced to 30 mph, but the county council does not believe that to be appropriate. The hon. Gentleman said that the county council was too remote to make such a decision, but a decision from Westminster or Whitehall would be even more remote. Such decisions are most properly made at the local democratic level. It is up to the parish council to continue to make its case and get public support behind it. If he has not done so already, the hon. Gentleman may want to look at our consultation about draft revised guidance on the setting of speed limits, which may be relevant and inform further discussion and debate.

The sections of the road through Stoney Middleton and Middleton dale were resurfaced last year, and surface dressing has been carried out west of Tideswell at White Rake bends. At Sparrowpit bend, signing and lining improvements together with high skid-resistant surfacing have proved effective in reducing the number of casualties.

I now turn briefly to issues relating to the Peak District national park. I am told that the Peak district is the second most visited national park in the world—one in Japan has more visitors—and attracts some 22 million visitors each year. It is not surprising that a large proportion of those visitors arrive by car; I have done so on a number of occasions and it is a part of the world that I find particularly attractive. Therefore, motor traffic and associated road safety problems are particular concerns to all of us. It is no coincidence that most road casualties occur during the summer and on weekends, which is the reverse of the general pattern on the roads.

Derbyshire county council, through the South Pennines integrated transport strategy, is trying to reduce the impact of car travel on the Peak park by developing and promoting more sustainable modes of travel. Other measures being explored as part of the strategy include the introduction of traffic restraint on through and minor roads.

I realise that the Minister is up against the time constraint, but the idea that I mentioned about the CAIB is an interesting one. He does not have much time left in the debate, but will he take that idea away and consider it?

We have considered a CAIB carefully and implement a similar policy for air, marine and rail transport. Casualties and accidents on the road are examined closely by the police, and the Highways Agency studies particular incidents on its roads. We learn a lot from that, and some of the good schemes on our roads are a result of learning from past casualties.

This has been a short but useful debate. If the hon. Gentleman would let me know if I have not been able to cover any issues in the available time, I should be pleased to correspond with him.

There are many distractions in the House today. The thoughts of some hon. Members are turning already to the festive season. In the main Chamber, matters of life and death are being debated. Outside the House it is a cold December day, and my constituents tell me that in the northern regions of England—and probably in Scotland too—a chill wind is blowing. I hope that hon. Members believe that today's debate, and the story that I have to tell, is a true winter's tale, worthy of the presence of the Minister for the Arts. It is a story about the prospect of another chill wind blowing through one of our finest traditions of broadcasting—regional programming—in the new year. It involves differences of opinion in the Cabinet and differences of opinion in the regulator, Ofcom. It is a winter's tale of intrigue—a tale that involves a former adviser to the Prime Minister, as well as a triple-jumping gold medallist hero.

I shall begin at the beginning. In the 1950s, ITV was born. For the first time we truly had competition in our public service broadcasting. That was evidenced by the fact that on ITV's opening night the BBC tried a spoiler, and had a special story line in "The Archers" involving a fire and a main character—would they live or would they die? Viewers have benefited from competition between the BBC and ITV and, latterly, other public service broadcasters. As a result, our broadcasting has been much the stronger.

ITV's regional structure is said to have originally been an accident. The civil servant who drew up the plan in the 1950s, so the story goes, was an expert in the structure of the then regional electricity boards, and drew up the plans for regional ITV companies on similar lines. Whether or not it was an accident, ITV's regionality was at its core from the beginning. At the time, it revealed itself in three ways that are still relevant and evident today. For the first time, a considerable amount of network production came from regional studios, which increased in number in the 1960s and 1970s. I went to school in Kirkstall, in Leeds, and I remember seeing the Yorkshire Television studios grow during that period. The right hon. Member for Richmond, Yorks (Mr. Hague) famously remarked that we did not need regional government in Yorkshire because we already had an attitude and a cricket team. In the 1970s we still had an attitude—although not much of a cricket team, beyond Geoff Boycott. However, we had Yorkshire Television, and that helped to define the cultural identity of the region.

The second aspect of regionality was that, for the first time, it was possible to make programmes in the region for consumption by viewers in the region. Many a star, such as Richard Whiteley, in our region, or Gloria Hunniford, started off in those programmes and moved on to national level—a particular aspect of regionality, on which I shall concentrate most of my remarks. Thirdly, programmes such as "Coronation Street" presented a regional perspective of life to the nation.

Now let us fast-forward from the 1950s, through the 1990s—when Mrs. Thatcher auctioned the franchises to the highest bidder—to 2002, and the debates in which some hon. Members who are here today were involved, such as those on the Communications Act 2003 and the creation of Ofcom. It is relevant to remind hon. Members of what some of the key players in the debate were saying two years ago.

In 2002, ITV produced the ITV charter for broadcasting in the nation and the regions. It was agreed with the then regulator, the Independent Television Commission, that the new charter

"will secure a sustainable future for regional programming."

Point 2 of the charter covered

"Producing programmes in the regions for the regions".

Point 6 concentrated on access to peak times and stated:

"Regional programmes will remain a key part of the ITV schedule. The level of access to peak and near peak slots for dedicated regional programmes will be improved in the late evening and in addition there will be on average an additional half hour per week of peaktime regional news"

in the programme schedule.

At the time, Charles Allen of Granada said:

"I am very passionate about programming from the regions . . . We want to build the regional element of our output".

In September 2003—just over a year ago—he said:

"In all the main ITV regions, regional programme hours account for more of the schedule than Coronation Street, Emmerdale and The Bill combined. A single ITV will be absolutely focused on getting the most out of every minute of its schedule—and that very much includes regional programming."

Even in June 2004—only a few short months ago—he said:

"ITV's commitment to regional broadcasting is a unique part of its heritage."

In 2002–03, Government Ministers were looking to Ofcom, the new regulator, to take action on regional programming. In June 2002, my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State said:

"Regional character matters. We will look to Ofcom to defend it with vigour."

In 2002, there was an agreement between the regulator and the ITV companies to reduce the number of regional programme hours, and regional spend declined by about 18 per cent. from 1998. What the regional franchisees promised in 2002 was that although they would have fewer hours of regional programming, they would spend more on the programmes that remained.

In 2002, the Minister responsible for broadcasting said that the regional charter

"seeks to enhance investment in regional programme production, introduce a more effective regional schedule and strengthen regional accountability."—[Official Report, 25 June 2002; Vol. 387, c. 742W.]

What has happened in the intervening years? In 2003 there were 15,000 hours of original programming, both news and non-news, across the whole of the broadcasting networks—down from 17,000 hours in 1999. ITV still had 7,000 hours, which was more than the BBC, which had 6,000 hours, although by that stage the BBC was spending more per programme.

At the beginning of this year we had the public service broadcasting review of the regulator, Ofcom. Basically, there were three proposals in the second stage of the review—and we are waiting anxiously for the third stage and the final outcome. It was proposed that non-news regional programming be reduced by half from three hours per week to one and a half hours per week. It was also proposed that even that one and a half hours might not be sustainable once digital switchover started in 2007. The review said that regional news shows such as "Calendar" in Yorkshire should continue for the time being, but that after digital switchover they should continue only if they are financially sustainable.

That brings me to the differences of opinion that we have seen in the Cabinet. My right hon. Friend the Leader of the House said during questions just a couple of weeks ago that those proposals were unacceptable. My right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport took a rather different view at questions only a week or so ago: she quoted Ofcom figures suggesting that those regional programmes were appreciated by only 7 per cent. of the audience. I will return to Ofcom's figures.

I want to examine two basic arguments that Ofcom has put forward. One is that ITV can no longer afford regional programmes because there is so much more competition in the market than a decade ago, and it is threatened by digital switchover. The second argument is—to paraphrase—that no one values or watches regional programmes, so they can be cut without too much pain.

With regard to the first argument, a key question is whether ITV is really at the end of the road or under tremendous financial pressure. I refer to the recent half year financial results of ITV plc, published in June 2004 and headed "Delivering revenue growth and significantly higher profits". Operating profits are up 32 per cent. to £123 million. Pre-tax profits are up to £132 million, so ITV has done quite well in recent months. Some Members may have been watching "The X Factor" on Saturday nights, or they may have been fans of "Strictly Come Dancing" on the other channel—I would not like to presume. However, Saturday night television is alive and well on both the major networks.

Even BBC News Online characterised the ITV autumn schedules and performance as representing a brighter outlook for ITV. The media section of The Guardian has referred to ITV "trouncing" the BBC in the autumn ratings battle, and in The Sunday Times, a Merrill Lynch media analyst said that the market expected the licence fees to fall by about 40 per cent. and ITV to do better in future.

I must explain what licence fees I am talking about: I mean the money that ITV pays for the privilege of holding the licences. That costs about £220 million each year—that is the best figure that I have obtained. The regulator proposes to reduce the commitment to regional programming; at the same time, it is negotiating with ITV to reduce the payments that the network makes to the Government. The total cost of the regional programmes is estimated at about £50 million, and there seems to be the potential basis of a deal. The Ofcom spokesman is quoted in The Sunday Times of 27 June as saying:

"We are trying to take a holistic view of all three issues—renegotiation of licences, the public-service review and the digital switchover."

It does not seem to me that it is taking that holistic view. It seems to be selling the pass on much valued regional programming.

Is regional programming really valued? That is the other question. Ofcom says—and the Secretary of State agrees—that it is not. However, the opinion research for Ofcom has produced some startling figures. On a slot-by-slot basis, more people watch the regional opt-outs than the general alternative ITV output, which suggests that regional programmes are valued. Some 65 per cent. of the people who responded to the survey attached importance to programmes that reflected the needs of the different regions, and 60 per cent. agreed that more TV programmes should be made specifically for and about each region in the UK.

What figures are quoted by Ofcom and the Secretary of State? The opinion researchers presented choices to viewers. They asked whether viewers would prefer regional programming to news. Obviously, people said, "No—if it came to that, we would prefer news." Regional programming scored less well when people were asked whether they preferred, for example, drama or entertainment to regional programming. However, such programming is not an abstract in itself. Similarly, someone could ask, "What food do you prefer? Should we eat chicken, beef, vegetables or fish tonight—or do you prefer regional food?" In most cases, we would opt for chicken or fish rather than ill-defined "regional" food, and that was the sort of choice that Ofcom offered people.

Let us look at some of the programmes. Meridian, for example, makes a programme about religion in Southampton called "Faith and the City", and a late night sports programme about local motor sport called "Hell for Leather", plus entertainment programmes and so on. There is a full range of programming; there is no such dry, dull and boring thing as a "regional" programme per se. The ITV regional review for 2004 shows that despite cuts in budgets, 11 of the 13 regions have improved their year-on-year regional programming performance.

More people are watching regional programmes than did last year. I shall choose one particular day: Thursday 18 November. Some of the regional programming, such as "The Dales Diary" in Yorkshire, was up against "EastEnders". On that night, 10.7 million people watched the BBC—not surprisingly, as it was showing its strongly performing soap. However, 5 million people watched the regional ITV opt-outs—more than watched the regional news on ITV, which had had 4.4 million viewers just an hour or so before. Such programmes are watched, even late at night.

Let us think back to the regional referendum—although I do not want to dwell on it, and shall move swiftly on. That night, Gerry Foley, the much respected presenter of Tyne Tees political coverage, was on Tyne Tees television until the result came out at about half-past 2. The channel had a 65 per cent. share that night. Even when the programme finished, 70,000 people were still up and watching. That was regional broadcasting at its very best.

Some crime programmes late at night focus on the regional fight against crime. In Granadaland, such programmes get ratings of about 40 per cent., and those on Border television get about the same. In Tyne Tees, "Crimefighters" gets about 33 per cent. Recently, Geoff Drewett, the political presenter on Yorkshire Television, did a late night programme following the life of a Yorkshire vicar, and the following week there were programmes about Muslim life in Bradford.

It is worth reminding the House that under section 287 of the Communications Act, Ofcom has a duty to defend the quality of regional programming on ITV. It sent a letter to many hon. Members, saying that it does not have any such duties

"beyond the highly imprecise requirement that, overall, regional programmes should be of 'quality'."

We pay some people in Ofcom, including the former adviser to the Prime Minister, Ed Richards, more than £250,000 a year. For a quarter of a million pounds a year, I would have thought that someone could make a good fist of finding out whether ITV regions are producing quality programmes, and Ofcom has that duty.

That brings me to the Olympic gold medallist. Who will speak up for the viewers? When some hon. Members who are here today were working on the Communications Bill, as it then was, we looked forward with interest to the creation of the Ofcom content board, which I thought was going to be something like the Monetary Policy Committee of the Bank of England. Under the Act, it was charged with

"understanding, analysing and championing the voices and interests of the viewer, the listener and the citizen."

Its power, and influence, is to examine issues where citizens' interests extend beyond consumers' interests, with a focus on aspects of the public interest that competition and market forces do not reach.

I thank my hon. Friend for giving way to me; it will give him a chance to replenish his glass of water. He has come to a point that illustrates the idea that there can be a tension between the overwhelming chase for audience numbers and quality, or minority interests. Where does he think that the balance should be struck? Is it not a fact that the drive for audience share simply drives us further toward transatlantic pap, rather than quality programmes, some of which are designed to be watched by minorities?

My hon. Friend makes a very good point. He draws attention to transatlantic influences, and the fear must be that if we are not careful, in a few years' time we shall have hundreds of digital channels but nothing distinctive to watch, and little distinctive regional character.

As I was saying, we should look to the Ofcom content board, which has 15 members, including Jonathan Edwards, a triple-jumping gold medallist, who has specific responsibility for the English regions. For Back Benchers, the one good thing about this debate is that everyone leaks: the Ofcom content board members leak, and so do the ITV regional companies. Everyone below Charles Allen has a view of the issue different from that of the man himself; even some of the managing directors brief against him. I call on the Ofcom content board, and Jonathan Edwards in particular, to assert themselves. If the Bank of England's Monetary Policy Committee minutes can identify doves and hawks, why cannot the content board's minutes?

The only Ofcom minutes to which I have had access are those for October, which simply say:

"The Content Board discussed possible options regarding the timing for implementing the proposals in Phase 2 of the Review on non-news programming in the Nations and the Regions."

Even the minutes of the parliamentary Labour party allow one to glean more about what is going on than the content board's minutes. I appeal directly to Jonathan Edwards and the rest of the content board to stand up to some of the professionals. One content board member said that some of the Ofcom professionals are very clever people, and some of them used to work for the Prime Minister—but even if they are very clever people, and even if they used to work for the Prime Minister, their views still need to be challenged.

I know that there are a couple more hon. Members who want to speak, so I shall move swiftly on. I want to focus on the importance of independent production in the regions. As well as the ITV companies themselves being of value to the regions, they acted as a sort of catalyst, and were the centre of a cluster of lots of individual independent production companies, which fed off commissions from Yorkshire Television and others and gradually grew. That is what is now under threat.

I draw the Chamber's attention to the words of Malcolm Brinkworth, who is the chair of nations and regions for Pact, the organisation that brings together independent producers. He said to a recent Westminster media forum that

"the regional slots of ITV provide the essential financial glue for many companies outside of London. They support staff and overheads in-between network commissions . . . The free market alone will not provide this public good, since the market has already been skewed by the historic dominance of London production—all of which has been helped along by years of heavy public investment.

"Many ITV companies have said that with their sport commitments, with their current affairs strands being produced in-house, and with their long running countryways style brands, there are now almost no regional slots to be produced for next year. There is no phasing in, no time for businesses to plan. At a time when there is serious effort being made to create scale in the regional production sector and with many partnerships in place in the public and private sector, this immediate cut will undermine such initiatives."

Mr. Brinkworth makes a very good suggestion, which I will leave with Ofcom. In fact, it might be attractive for the Chancellor too, because as well as a cultural element to the debate, there are both trade and industry and economic aspects in building up the regional television industry. Mr. Brinkworth suggests:

"So why not give ITV a financial incentive to maintain high quality programmes for the local audience?"

That would reduce licence payments to the Treasury, but maintain high-quality regional programmes. He suggests that if for every million pounds ITV genuinely spends on regional programming it got a rebate, it might suddenly find convincing arguments for continuing to provide regional programming.

On the subject of independent production, it is worth drawing hon. Members' attention to another debate during the passage of the Communications Act 2003. It was about whether small regional ITV companies such as Tyne Tees and Border should be able to bid for the 25 per cent. of BBC, Channel 4 and ITV output that must be produced by the independent sector. At the moment, small ITV companies cannot bid even for the BBC section of independent output, even though some of the independent companies are far bigger than they are.

During the passage of the 2003 Act, ITV suggested that an independent production might be defined as any programme commissioned by a broadcaster from which the producer is independent in ownership terms. We might prefer to include just the smaller ITV companies in that definition, rather than the big ones such as Granada, and I am sure that a scale factor could be included. I urge Ofcom to revisit that debate. I applaud the growth of independents, but all the 10 biggest companies, which produce 60 per cent. of all the independent production for the main terrestrial channels, are based in London. There are growing independent production companies elsewhere, such as Red in Manchester and Maverick in Birmingham, but they are currently not in the top 10.

It would be wrong not to make some reference to the important announcement by the BBC last week about moving a lot of its production to Manchester. There is obviously another aspect to the debate about regional production, which involves production outside London for the networks. For the BBC, that will be a growing share in the coming years. It is worth remembering that that will not happen for five years, when all BBC sport and children's programming will go to Manchester, but it will be worth £225 million of production spend and £275 million of commissioning spend.

That will give the BBC a much more regional character than it has ever had before. The BBC has never made programmes in the regions for the regions on quite the same scale as ITV, although in the nations—Scotland and Wales—it has a longer tradition of producing non-news programming. I think of "River City", the Scottish soap, as an example. However, I do not think that we can rely on the BBC to take up the slack immediately from ITV if the proposed cuts are made.

The regulator's proposals are too hasty, and the relationship between the Government, ITV and the regulator looks a little too cosy. There should be much more tension between those bodies than there has been in recent weeks. It is okay to look forward to digital television in the future, and the possibility of local television when we have complete digital switchover, although there are currently only 18 restricted licences for local television. I am not saying that things will not change in the future; I hope that by 2010 everyone will have switched over to digital television. I am not saying that we can preserve in aspic everything that we have had since the 1950s—but nor should we hastily throw it all away before alternatives can be built up.

There is a real danger that if the proposals go through unchallenged, in a few months' time only a few regional programmes will remain, some of them at the margins of the schedule, and by 2007 they will have completely disappeared. We cannot even guarantee that ITV will continue its proud tradition of regional news coverage beyond 2007. Hon. Members have been right to challenge Ofcom, and I hope that phase 3 of its broadcasting review will be very different from the proposals in phase 2.

I commend the hon. Member for Selby (Mr. Grogan) for securing this debate and making a convincing case in defence of regional broadcasting. I have a lot of sympathy with English colleagues who wish to sustain a strong level of coverage throughout the English regions. The hon. Gentleman and other hon. Members from south of the border will understand that there is a particular concern in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland, which I shall come to.

I should start with a declaration of interest. I am a vice-chairman of the all-party group on the National Union of Journalists, which is very active on this subject. I also worked as a broadcaster for seven years before being elected.

I shall describe the nature of "regional" broadcasting in the area that I represent. My constituency is the exact centre point of the broadcasting area for Grampian Television, which covers an area in which viewers speak three languages: English, Scots and Gaelic. The area runs from Stornoway to Aberdeen and from Argyll to Dundee—it is bigger than Belgium. That is the geographical and cultural reality of the area that my local "regional" broadcaster covers, and it underscores the significance of the task that it has in adequately broadcasting local programmes of interest.

In ITV's 2002 charter for the nations and regions, Sir Robin Biggam, the chairman of the Independent Television Commission, said:

"National and regional programming is fundamentally important to the economy and cultural life of a devolved United Kingdom."

I agree with that statement entirely. We are in a slightly difficult situation because we are unaware of the full Ofcom proposals for Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland. However, we do know that its position is that

"many of the same considerations apply".

We have heard concerns about what is likely to happen south of the border. If many of the same considerations apply in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland, heaven help us, for reasons that I shall outline shortly.

My concerns are shared by many others. The former head of programmes at Scottish Television and chairman of STV until 2003, Alistair Moffatt, said recently that the plans were tantamount to a "timetable of cultural loss." My background in broadcasting is in news and current affairs rather than in cultural programming, so I will leave it to others to make the case for cultural programmes and concentrate on areas that relate to governance and democracy. This is not only about news and current affairs; it is about programming that reflects issues of importance throughout our society.

Right hon. and hon. Members will be aware that pre-devolution we had a well developed political life in Scotland regardless of the lack of governance. We had and still have a different education system. Our sporting realities are very different, if not more successful. I shall be gracious for a moment to my English colleagues and admit that we seem to be profoundly underachieving in football and rugby, although as of last week we are apparently the world champions in elephant polo. That is not much of a claim to fame.

The religious realities in Scotland before devolution were different, as they still are. Since 1999 we have the fundamental difference in governance and democracy; the majority of issues of public concern are decided not in this place, but in Scotland's Parliament. Health, education, justice, policing and the environment are not areas simply of interest for news and current affairs; we need general programming reflecting all those subjects. They are part of social, economic, cultural and political life. Yet, and this is where it is perhaps a little more difficult for non-Scottish colleagues who do not watch day-to-day broadcasting north of the border to understand, network coverage is—I am being generous here—predominantly English or English and Welsh.

Southern English.

I do not disagree with that interjection.

In 2001, together with colleagues, I conducted a media monitoring exercise to try to put some facts behind our assertion about the coverage which is also most people's perceived reality. We monitored the BBC, ITN, Scottish Television, Grampian and Border during February two years after devolution to determine the broadcasting mix of the "regional" broadcasters and the network. The findings were overwhelming. Both the BBC and ITN gave a much higher priority to UK politicians and Ministers, but not just those Ministers who had responsibility for the whole of the UK—they gave more coverage to Ministers who had next to no responsibility for anything north of the border.

For example, the then UK Secretary of State for Health—essentially the English Health Minister—was on television in Scotland four times more than Scotland's First Minister. The Secretary of State for Education and Skills—essentially the English Education Secretary—was on television 14 times as much as the deputy First Minister. Scottish politicians and parties were all but excluded entirely from network coverage. I am not making special pleading here as a representative of the principal Opposition party in Scotland, but my party secured only 0.83 per cent. of broadcast seconds of interviews with the BBC and only 1.04 per cent. on ITN through a whole month.

Mentions of political parties also showed a complete lack of Scottish coverage. On the issue of specificity—being only of English or English and Welsh concern or of interest to a whole UK audience—in 63 per cent. of stories that were of relevance only to England and Wales the BBC failed to mention that fact. I used to report for the BBC from Austria and the idea that one would not mention in one's report where one was reporting from was unheard of. ITV failed in 87 per cent. of cases to mention whether the stories were of any relevance to anyone beyond England and Wales.

I do not want to create the impression among colleagues that I am not interested in what goes on in England or England and Wales—I am—but the overwhelming majority of television coverage of news and current affairs is about something that has no direct relevance to those north of the border. Today is a classic example. An issue of profound importance to people in England is being debated but it has no impact north of the border. I am certain that it will dominate the airwaves today. Important as it is, it is not relevant to viewers north of the border to the same extent.

I shall use one final example from the study to illustrate the point that I am trying to make. During the whole month of February both ITV and the BBC, in their network news and current affairs coverage, failed to report on a single story of any devolved interest whatever. The idea that network provides any decent or balanced coverage of the important issues that I have outlined is a mirage. That is why the issue of "regional" broadcasting in Scotland—that means STV, Grampian and Border Television—is of such profound importance.

No doubt the Minister will say that we do not yet know the full range of the Ofcom proposals. However, I put a marker down today, because we will debate the matter at the beginning of next year. Rather than talking about less broadcasting being produced by the independent sector and the independent companies in Scotland, we should be talking about more.

The argument that the hon. Gentleman puts forward applies also to the other devolved nations—particularly to Wales. Even if Ofcom protects the amount of time that is devoted to regional programmes, unless finance is available for making decent programmes and putting them on in a decent slot, regional broadcasting will deteriorate and will not play the important part that it should in the life of the nation.

The hon. Gentleman makes an important point. I wanted to move on briefly to discuss issues covering Wales, because they also are important. Unfortunately, my colleagues from Plaid Cymru cannot be present at this debate because of other commitments, but they impressed on me the importance of a number of subjects that they wanted to be highlighted. No doubt the hon. Gentleman will agree with them that much of what I have said about Scotland has a similar impact on Wales. However, over recent years there have been other worrying developments in broadcasting in Wales that need to be taken into account. For example, hundreds of jobs have been lost in broadcasting in Wales since 1987, including, most recently, those of staff employed in support of Welsh programming—subtitling, website and community outreach. Moreover, national programming for Wales on ITV1 has already felt the pressure from the network centre, so there has been a 12.5 per cent. cut in the number of hours of national programmes produced by ITV for Wales, to just 10 hours per week.

There are a number of other issues that are of concern in Wales but, in particular, there is great concern about the downsizing of HTV. In 1989, there were 873 permanent staff employed in Cardiff; today, there are only 183. HTV has seen its level of network production—programmes produced for the whole ITV network—reduced to almost nothing. In Scotland, there is an almost exact parallel. SMG, the company that owns STV and Grampian, produces only 2 per cent. of ITV network programmes. Undoubtedly, therefore, there is an issue of metropolitan-centric—London-centric—commissioning.

I hope that the hon. Gentleman accepts that this issue does not concern Scotland and Wales alone. It is also an issue for the regions of the UK, particularly the northern regions. Yorkshire, the Tyne Tees region and Lancashire all have different regional ways of life, different issues and different problems, all of which need to be reflected on the screen. The original purpose of ITV was to put the life of the regions on to the regions' screens. Unless we have regional programming that is devoted to that, we are all—the companies and the regions—the poorer.

The hon. Gentleman makes an important point, with which I do not disagree. Thank goodness England's regions have such doughty campaigners as those who have spoken in the debate so far. If I lived south of the border, particularly outside the south-east of England, no doubt I would be jumping up as much in support of regional output in England. However, I am sure that the hon. Gentleman appreciates the particular nature of Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland, which should in no way be seen to be conflicting with the concerns of people in the English regions.

Broadcasting is so important that it should be devolved anyway. I have raised that matter with the Minister, so she will not be surprised to hear me say it. A UK Labour Government are prepared to devolve powers over railways, although spokespeople from the Labour party previously said that it was unthinkable and one could not do such a thing. North of the border we have a Minister for Tourism, Culture and Sport who is not even responsible for broadcasting. This issue is so important that it should be devolved.

I hope that the case has been made effectively today that we need more programming, not less, because the status quo already fails viewers in Scotland and, I suspect, in Wales and Northern Ireland. I am certain that there are also many concerns in the English regions. I hope that the Minister listens to those concerns and that when we return to them in the new year we will be able to secure the appropriate level of broadcasting for viewers throughout the country.

I want to raise the issue of the role of Ofcom, because it seems to be the key body in this debate, but the role that it should be playing is not being brought to the table. When Ofcom was established under the Communications Act 2003, it brought together the regulatory role of the Radio Authority and the Independent Television Commission. At that point the Government made the mistake of asking it to play a light-touch role in terms of regulation. Nevertheless, the description of Ofcom in the 2003 Act made it clear that its central role was not just about promoting competition; it was also to protect public service broadcasting. As has been demonstrated in the debate today, our main concern is that Ofcom is not playing that role. We are seeing a decimation of the regional services in public service broadcasting, and there is the prospect of the situation becoming dramatically worse.

We have already heard that Ofcom is to allow ITV to cut regional non-news programmes in half in the English regions, which means that regional news will virtually cease to exist in a number of years. Although the protections provided under the existing contracts and licences are supposed to last until 2014, we were told in a recent statement that although there were protections under the Ofcom proposals, there will be no requirement beyond 2007 for ITV companies to produce regional and local news. There might be some disparity about the dates, but the overall direction of policy is fairly clear. Regional news no longer has the priority that it should be given in public service broadcasting, and eventually we will see the loss of production on a massive scale.

One option that has been put forward is that instead of requiring ITV to maintain regional output, Ofcom should propose setting up a public service publisher—a single, monolithic, UK-wide organisation with a budget of about £300 million. That is enough for about three hours of public service broadcasting a day. The body would supposedly make public service broadcast programmes for distribution, and could be owned and run by any of the existing companies—except the BBC—or even by a new company. Many of us who have had discussions with those working in the field at the moment feel that that is an inadequate response to the cuts in public service broadcasting proposed by ITV.

My hon. Friend is right. It is extraordinary that the commitments that the companies gave to get the contracts in the first place, which were to last until 2014, and were a condition of getting the contracts, should just be written off, with the consequent effect on the companies and their staff. The cuts will be damaging to the companies. I am an antediluvian from the days when John Logie Baird sets were normal in the home, and I mainly appeared in black and white throughout most of my television career. In those days regional programmes were a means of training staff, plugging into local issues and taking up problems that developed into national documentaries—

Order. I love to listen to the hon. Gentleman, but an intervention should be brief, rather than a speech in disguise.

I accept that, Mr. Deputy Speaker, because I know that on the west of the Pennines, you did not have the advantage of seeing me on television. I was seeking to make the point that if the regional roots are cut as has been described, those companies will wither into out-of-London production centres for other people's programmes.

My hon. Friend demonstrates the expertise that he has developed over years—I think that my grandmother used to listen to him on a cat's whisker radio in the 1920s. His point is clear: Ofcom is presiding over a gradual withdrawal of any form of regulation, and companies that bid for licences under false pretences are, as far as we can see, allowed to refuse to adhere in any way to the conditions attached to those licences. This is not only about the time scale for the withdrawal of services, but about the scale of the withdrawal. The alternative idea of a public service publisher will hardly provide us with appropriate regional news or programming in future—I think that it is simply a sop to some of the debate that has gone on in recent years.

There are real concerns about Ofcom's consultation. Although it is not due to be completed until early next year, ITV companies seem to have taken it into account already and seen it as a green light to make cuts now. Let me run through some details of the massacre that is going on in regional broadcasting. We have heard about what has happened in Scotland and Wales, but news from the front about Northern Ireland tells us that the ITN proposal is not to have any of its own correspondents or reporters in the Province. There will be no producer either, so the coverage will now consist of one cameraperson. That shows a complete disregard for everything that we have said about maintaining regional news, particularly in that area.

Let me run through what has been going on elsewhere. At Meridian, 175 jobs have already gone and the studios at New Hythe are being closed. Sub-regional news will be produced from outside the region by non-resident reporters, which will obviously affect the quality of the local response. Regional programme slots have been altered. The 5.30 pm Sunday slot—the one for which Meridian had the strongest audience base—has been removed, and there was no public consultation whatever about the proposal. Programme budgets have been cut by as much as 75 per cent. in the region; an estimated £4 million to £7 million has been lost from regional production. Scheduling has become erratic, with regional programmes taken off air to make room for network programmes frequently and almost on a whim, again without consultation. Meridian used to produce more regional programming than its licence required it to; now it makes the bare minimum.

Events at Granada demonstrate how it has interpreted the Ofcom review. Granada's managing director sent a memo to staff on 1 October saying:

"You will all have seen the announcement from OFCOM today which allows ITV companies to reduce their regional non-news commitment from 3 hours to 1.5 hours a week from January 2005."

"PS—you're fired."

"P45s in the post," was probably the next sentence. The consultation report is not even due until February, yet a managing director has immediately reduced services. What does that mean? It does not matter to the bosses themselves. Twenty job losses have been announced this week. In addition, Granada has already made it clear to non-news regional programme makers that their run will not be extended through next year, and they must halve their output.

Wales has already been mentioned, but some of the developments there are staggering. We are talking about substantial job losses and a 12.5 per cent. cut in the number of hours of national programming produced by ITV for Wales, to just 10 hours a week. In addition, prime-time slots have been lost. There is now only one regular weekday peak-time slot for English-language broadcasting from and for Wales—7.30 pm on Thursdays. The list goes on and on and on. If the same approach is taken in Wales as elsewhere, there will be further job losses. It is estimated that the proposal would mean 200 job losses in Wales alone, the loss of a £10 million programme spend in Wales, plus the loss of skills, and damage to the overall economy.

This is a good one: Yorkshire Television's staff were called together in October and told of Ofcom's decision to allow a reduction from three to one and a half hours. Again, despite the fact that the consultation was continuing, the company jumped on the bandwagon, and this week 38 job losses have been announced. There have been cuts in the news department, and seven editorial jobs are going. As in all other areas, regional programmes have been moved out of core peak-time slots. A tariff system for programme-making budgets is being introduced, meaning that regional programmes have been pushed to the margins of peak times and will face lower budgets. In Central, 400 jobs have been axed, and studios have been closed. In Anglia, it has been announced that 25 jobs will go.

Broadcast magazine estimates that a further 200 jobs will be lost as a result of Ofcom's proposals. It states:

"the plans are likely to mean most non-news regional ITV departments will be wound up . . . some regional non-news departments claimed they have already stopped production".

The Act that created Ofcom made a specific requirement for it to "maintain and strengthen" public service broadcasting, but Ofcom has presided over not just the undermining but almost the eradication of public service broadcasting in the regions.

I support Ofcom as a regulator; I believe that we need a regulatory body whose role it is to be independent of the broadcasters—and, yes, independent of Government too. It should tell us honestly what is happening in the industry and fulfil its role in protecting public service broadcasting, but it should have teeth, sharpen them and bite. To repeat what has been said, if we cannot get Ofcom to shift, we will soon lose something essential to our culture and our economy, both in our regions and nationally. We are at the edge of losing something that we have all taken for granted for so long, throughout the decades of its existence. If we cannot get Ofcom to shift as a result of this debate, I urge the Government to intervene to make sure that it plays its role.

At the start of debates in Westminster Hall there is something of a ritual of congratulating the Member who secured the debate, but on this occasion I really do warmly congratulate the hon. Member for Selby (Mr. Grogan) on bringing forward this important debate in such formidable style. He gave us a tour de force; he went comprehensively through the history of public service broadcasting in the regions and gave a strong analysis of where we are now.

We are here because of the Ofcom review. Ofcom seems to have started from the basis that there is an unsustainable balance between the benefits that ITV gets from being a public service broadcaster and the requirements and standards that it must follow. Ofcom believes that that cannot be maintained after digital switchover. However, as hon. Members have said, if we go down that line, the BBC will emerge as the monopoly supplier in the regional TV market. That would be in stark contrast to the situation in the national TV market, where it has plentiful competition from both terrestrial broadcasters and multi-channel operators. For the historical reasons that we heard, it would be a most unhealthy development if the BBC were allowed to enjoy such a monopoly.

I have a strong feeling that there is bad faith here. When ITV petitioned for permission to form one large company, I was among those who, albeit with considerable reservations, thought that if its market position was that dire, it should be allowed to do so, but only if its commitment to regional programming remained as strong as ever.

Later, during the passage of the Communications Act, the question of allowing ITV to be owned by non-European owners came up. ITV petitioned hard for that to be allowed. Many of us raised concerns about whether a new foreign owner would understand what ITV was, what regional franchises were and what its public sector broadcasting commitments were, but we were reassured, not least by Ministers, that the doom-laden scenarios some of us foresaw could not happen, because the licences would still be regional licences and the obligations would still be in place.

Apparently, any new owner would have to understand from the outset that they were buying not a national licence but a series of regional ones. The guardian of all of that would be Ofcom, which would ensure that none of the scenarios that we feared would happen. As far as I know, that is still the current position. Yet to my horror, before we get to digital switchover, and before any foreign owner has come in, Ofcom seems to be giving that all away—before we even start.

The hon. Member for Hayes and Harlington (John McDonnell) bemoaned light-touch regulation. This is not so much a question of light or heavy touch, but of throwing away, from the word go, all the ground rules through which Ofcom was to be able to regulate. That is a reckless thing to do.

Regional programming is vital for three reasons. The first is forging regional identity. The second is strengthening local economies. In oral questions about that a few weeks ago, the hon. Member for South Dorset (Jim Knight) spoke strongly about the importance of creative industries within regional economies, not least in my region, the south-west. He pointed to the close work with higher educational establishments in places such as Plymouth, Bristol and Bournemouth, and the relationship that they have with regional programme making. The third reason why regional programme making is important is for encouraging mutual understanding between the regions. I look with horror at the proposition that the regional programme-making obligations should be in any way weakened.

We have received reassurances from the Secretary of State, in answer to my hon. Friend the Member for Bath (Mr. Foster), and on another occasion by the Minister who is present this afternoon, when I asked a question in the House. Both made the point that regional news was safe, and that there was no suggestion of any change in that position. Strictly speaking that is true, and nobody has actively, as yet, suggested a reduction in regional news programming. However, paragraph 2.36 of Ofcom's report shows that it wants to sustain

"high production value . . . programming, news, current affairs and, if financially sustainable, a core regional news service."

Ofcom is giving the game away before the start. It is already beginning the softening-up exercise that some years down the line could be used as the reason for beginning to undermine regional news programming as well.

From the way in which Ofcom carries on, anyone would think that we were discussing a weak part of the broadcasting mix. However, the hon. Member for Selby told us about one particular evening in November—18 November, I think he said. He pointed out that even up against the BBC's "EastEnders", the regional ITV non-news programmes got an audience of 5 million, compared with the BBC's 10 million. That figure is high, and it put those programmes way ahead of BBC 2, Channel 4 or Channel 5 on that occasion. The suggestion that we are talking about some sort of weak fag-end service should be challenged, and I commend hon. Members who have done that during the debate.

Ofcom seems to have ascribed a very low value to regional programming, but for all the reasons that hon. Members have mentioned, I do not believe that that is right at all. We should continue the obligations and ITV should have, in perpetuity, an obligation to make such programmes. Ofcom is simply mistaken, and it has completely failed to appreciate the value of that programme making.

When we talk about regional programming and regional programme making, we need to be fairly clear about the definitions. Three different definitions can sometimes be confused. First, programmes may happen to be made in a region, but do not necessarily reflect anything to do with that region; it could be a matter of administrative convenience for the network that they happen to be made there. Secondly, programmes are made in a region to reflect that region back to the nation. Programmes such as "Coronation Street" or "Emmerdale" are examples. They are produced from the outset with a network audience in mind. The third and most important type of programmes are those made in a region for the audience within the region. Some of the debate both during the passage of the Communications Bill and since it became an Act has tended to blur the different forms of programme making.

In particular, a requirement to make programmes outside London can be slightly meaningless if they are all made in one big house that happens to be outside London. I am not as optimistic as the hon. Member for Selby about the impact of the BBC making its network sports programmes in Manchester. I have no objection to that; I can see no downside to such an approach—but the idea that that in itself will necessarily bring about a benign impact is not one that I share.

ITV's history has been that of a regional programme maker, and it should remain—and have to remain—one in the future. The underlying concern of ITV, and one that Ofcom has recognised, is about the value of its licence in the digital world, in the sense that it no longer brings with it access to limited spectrum, because in the digital age there will not be any scarcity—or not so much. We too must recognise that concern. We must bear in mind that the licence in itself is no longer the great advantage that it once was. If we put a value on regional programming, we will have to find a mixture of sticks and carrots instead, with which the Government and Ofcom can ensure that it continues into the future. What that might be does not require a great leap of the imagination.

Even in the multi-channel digital age, a system of licence granting could be so manipulated that certain advantages came with it. At the more drastic end, public money, or money raised through the licence, could be available for public service broadcasting to operations other than the BBC. In any case, if a budget of £300 million a year is to be made available to the new public service publisher, it is entirely right that we should have a debate about whether that is necessarily the best and most effective way in which to spend the money. It is bizarre to be throwing out, or allowing to fade away, a model that has proved itself so strongly over decades, and to favour instead a complete step into the unknown. I am not knocking new ideas. I am simply saying that it is a strange set of priorities to allow something that we know works well to go, and instead to put money that is always in short supply into something else.

I congratulate the hon. Member for Selby on introducing the debate. People throughout the country have a real appreciation of regional non-news programmes. In my region of the south-west, popular programmes are made to show various traditions—legends, almost—of the region, and usually receive a decent audience. Elsewhere in the United Kingdom there are other issues, too. The hon. Member for Moray (Angus Robertson), who spoke from a Scottish perspective, made some extremely good points. A great deal more needs to be done to reflect the changed realities in Scotland in its broadcasting mix. Each of the many other regions in England has a strong local identity that needs to be reflected in broadcasting. I do not believe that the BBC will do that, or that straight commercial television will do much of it.

I know from conversations with some people at ITV that they take the view that if they are not released from some of those burdens, they will simply shake them all off and become a straightforward commercial broadcaster. If that is what they want to do, we should let them do it, and make the advantages that I have referred to available to someone else, through a system of sticks and carrots. I do not believe that ITV's best interests would be served by going down that route, but if it wants to play tough we should be willing to call its bluff.

I welcome the debate. Parliament is right to have taken a shot across Ofcom's bows. It has teeth that it is not using: as the hon. Member for Selby said, the content board could flex its muscles a great deal more. If it is going to listen to every bit of special pleading from ITV or any other broadcaster, and start rolling over before the event and throwing away all the sticks with which it could beat and regulate them, the future for regional broadcasting is very gloomy.

The future looks gloomy enough as it is. As the hon. Member for Hayes and Harlington said, ITV seems to be proceeding on the basis that all this will happen anyway, and is making cuts willy-nilly. The future will be bleak if the situation is not grasped now, and I urge the Government, in discussion with Ofcom, to intervene and sort this out before a considerable asset is gone and there is nothing that any of us can do about it.

I join other hon. Members in congratulating the hon. Member for Selby (Mr. Grogan) on securing the debate. He and I do not always agree on broadcasting matters, and I do not think that we will agree entirely this afternoon, but he has raised an important issue, and Ofcom should hear the views of the House. I have to say that I am slightly surprised to find myself, in my first contribution on broadcasting matters since the passage of the Communications Act 2003, about to defend Ofcom—but Ofcom has raised some important points.

As a believer in free markets, I am always reluctant to impose obligations on commercial companies. The justification in this case was that ITV has a privilege in having access to spectrum, which until now has been very scarce, and in those circumstances the market cannot operate properly, so the Government are entitled to place requirements and levy a charge on the company that is given that opportunity. The hon. Gentleman gave us a brief history of ITV. That is relevant. Since 1955, it has been subject to a number of public service obligations and has been required to pay a licence fee. Last year that fee amounted to about £240 million, and Ofcom calculated that the cost of the public service broadcasting obligation was about £210 million.

Originally, when television was in its infancy and people could receive only two channels, that access to spectrum was immensely valuable. However, we went from two to three to four to five channels, and we are now in a multi-channel age with well over 55 per cent. of the population having access to a large number of channels. In those circumstances the market can begin to operate better, so the justification for imposing requirements and a charge diminishes. However, more importantly, as Ofcom points out, that also means that the value of that spectrum to ITV is diminished. At present, the value of that scarce spectrum on the analogue frequency outweighs the cost to ITV of the licence charge and the public service broadcasting obligation, but it is undeniable that as more and more households become multi-channel there will become a point where the costs to ITV exceed the benefit.

The biggest cost to ITV is regional programming; no one in the debate has sought to challenge that fact yet. Two thirds of the £210 million cost of the public service broadcasting obligation comes from regional programming. That is unsurprising. If a programme goes out only to a small part of the country, the advertising revenue from it is much less, so it will inevitably be far more expensive for the company to make. It has been estimated that it costs ITV something like three times as much to make regional programmes as it does to make network programming. That issue has to be addressed.

Ofcom has rightly distinguished between news and current affairs programming, and non-news and current affairs programming. I have always believed that news and current affairs—local news in particular—is of enormous importance, and at the heart of public service broadcasting. However, this debate is primarily about non-news and current affairs programming.

The Ofcom analysis said that only 7 per cent. of the population rated non-news and current affairs in their top five priorities. I share the view of the hon. Member for Selby that that does not tell the whole story. The figure is probably too low, and if we look more deeply, we can see that regional output has often outperformed network output on ITV. The fact that non-news and current affairs programming goes out either very late at night or against "EastEnders" means that it is not surprising that it does not fare as well.

Some of the non-news and current affairs programming does not have an obviously regional dimension. In my area, the programming identified included, from 11 to 11.30 pm, something called "Pilau Talk", which was described by Anglia as

"a new late-night part debate, part quiz show"

that

"will be hosted in a custom built faux 'curry house' to which the region's most enigmatic and engaging commentators will repair to continue the heated topical discussion begun a little earlier in the pub."

I am not saying that it is a bad programme—actually, it is quite entertaining—but it is not obviously specific to the Anglia region. Indeed, some of the regional programming that has evolved throughout the country does not necessarily display the best qualities of its region.

Whether we believe that such programming is popular or not, or is a priority or not, the economics are inescapable. Ofcom has identified a problem, and it is not one that will go away, however much we say that we care about regional programming. For that reason, I accept that there has to be some change. I support the increase in regional production to 50 per cent. within ITV. It is striking that ITV already exceeds 50 per cent. of hours produced outside London—it produces 51 per cent.—when it has to meet a quota of only 33 per cent. It is also remarkable that the BBC exceeds its much lower quota by a significantly smaller margin than ITV does.

The proposed reduction of the non-news and current affairs content from three hours to one and a half hours by 2005 may be too quick. As the hon. Member for Selby pointed out, ITV is not doing too badly now. However, the problem will grow, and there will come a time when it is a serious imposition on ITV. I was therefore pleased to receive a submission on behalf of the ITV regional production teams—the people who actually make the programmes—who recognise the problem and accept that there will have to be some change to deal with it. They propose that there should be a longer phase-in period, and that ITV's regional non-news programme obligation should be reduced to one and a half hours in 2006–07, and one hour in 2008. That seems a much more sensible and constructive approach, because it takes account of the reality, rather than saying just that we cannot go down that road at all. I agree that the problem must be addressed, but I ask Ofcom to listen to the concerns and perhaps implement the changes over a longer period.

The second component is the BBC. It is extraordinary that the public service broadcaster wholly financed by the taxpayer, with £2.8 billion a year from the licence fee, produces fewer regional programmes than ITV. In 2003, the figures were about 1,200 hours on BBC compared with 2,100 hours on ITV. I recognise, obviously, that there are important considerations outside England, but if we look further at the figures that Ofcom has identified for non-news and current affairs regional programming in England, we see that the BBC spent £0.5 million on 29 hours. That compares with ITV's spending of £47 million on 1,382 hours, so the BBC is hardly producing any regional programming at all. If regional programming is an essential component of public service broadcasting—and I think that it is—it is up to the BBC to do a lot more of it if ITV is not going to be able to do as much. I hope that that will be considered as we approach charter renewal.

If we want ITV to continue to produce public service programming in the form of regional non-news and current affairs, even though it is not economic to do so, then perhaps we should consider the alternative. Rather than imposing the cost upon ITV, perhaps we should considering financing it to do what we want. The hon. Member for Selby will remember that when the Communications Bill was going through the House, I proposed a fund financed out of the licence fee that would be available to other broadcasters for public service broadcasting. Regional programming could be a good example of that, so we should consider saying to ITV that we believe it important that there should continue to be more than one provider of public service broadcasting in the form of regional non-news and current affairs, so it will be eligible to apply to such a fund to continue to perform that role.

Finally, my other criticism is that many people feel that the regions bear very little relation to the place where they live. I am in the Anglia region, which is the most extraordinary region. It covers an expanse of the country that has no common identity whatever. The hon. Member for Selby referred to the north-east referendum, and that demonstrated clearly what people think of the idea of regional government. I do not think that there is a great loyalty to regional television areas, either. They came about as a result of the way in which the transmitters were positioned.

However, people do value local television, local news, local current affairs and local programming. Not as much attention has been paid to that aspect in the debate as should have been. It is important that we move ahead swiftly with the development of local television, which is only now beginning to become possible, both as a result of digital take-up and the growth of online services. Real local television could develop, which will be valued far more highly than the existing regional non-news and current affairs programming produced by ITV.

Before I call the Minister, may I remind hon. Members that a vote is due in the House at 3.30? I hope that it does not happen before then, because if it comes at the right time we can, usefully and tidily, conclude this debate first.

Thank you, Mr. Deputy Speaker. I cannot control the time of the vote, but I shall try to speak quickly and control my comments so that they do not go beyond the time when we wish to finish.

I join everyone else in saying what an excellent debate this has been. Without wishing to sound patronising, I must say that it has been one of the most interesting Adjournment debates to which I have ever listened. Part of the way through, I wished that I would not be responding to it, because first I should like to reflect on some of what has been said. There is a reason for that: this is an important issue, which is as much about democracy as anything else. That is why people get so heated about it in the House of Commons, and why it is one of those subjects on which we tend to have good debates that transcend party political boundaries.

I have often thought that MPs, more than any other group, are in a particularly good position to comment on regional television, especially regional news production. We live in the regions or the nations, wherever our constituencies are, and we work in London, and we can see regional broadcasting as a bridge between the two. There might be different views here as to how effective a bridge it is, but it is a bridge between the two, and I feel strongly about it in terms of the health of the nation's democracy. It is absolutely imperative that regional broadcasting must be strong to enable us as MPs, and as Ministers, to do our jobs.

There are other arguments about regional culture, and I accept everything that has been said. In particular, I accept the particular strength of regional culture in the nations. I remember one occasion when I thought that London seemed a very long way away, and that was when I was watching the national news in the Shetland Islands. It was the same news programme that I watch every day in either Birmingham or London, but just because I was in the Shetland Islands, that programme seemed a long, long way away from the environment where I was. I accept the arguments of the hon. Member for Moray (Angus Robertson) about the particular importance of this subject for the regions.

I agree that Ofcom should be a body with teeth. That is why debates such as this are essential. The Government find themselves in a strange position. As my hon. Friend the Member for Hayes and Harlington (John McDonnell) said, it is right to have a regulator that is independent from Government. That makes responding to this debate as a Minister different from responding to debates on other areas of Government policy. I join everybody in saying that Ofcom should have teeth, and should not roll over when the BBC, ITN or other organisations put pressure on it.

The Communications Act 2003 obliges Ofcom to protect the nature of regional broadcasting. I support that. If the debate does nothing other than reaffirm that that is why Parliament set up Ofcom and that is what Parliament expects it to do, it has served us well. Although I have not seen it myself, I have no reason to disbelieve my hon. Friend the Member for Hayes and Harlington: if people are acting as though the consultation has already taken place and the decision has already been reached, I abhor that. It should not happen. It is ridiculous, when Members are discussing regional television, for people to assume that the decision has already been taken. If people have been acting precipitately I will join my hon. Friend in sending a clear message to them that that is not on, and it is not what we expect.

I agree with the hon. Member for Maldon and East Chelmsford (Mr. Whittingdale) that these are peculiar times. In some ways my hon. Friend the Member for Selby (Mr. Grogan) put his finger on it when he described the ITV of the 1950s. I grew up with that. I remember the potter's wheel, and the rest of it. Some people here are old enough to have heard about that from their parents, if not to have seen it themselves. But this is a different era. The pace of change is even greater. One of the challenges that faces us now—this is why I said that I agreed with the Opposition spokesperson—is that the speed of digital change will be so rapid between now and 2012 that if we do not do something to take it on board, it will roll us over, and we will find ourselves out of control.

Any notion of preserving regional broadcasting, or thinking of an alternative way for it to have its important say, will go. That is why I agree that Ofcom should undertake its review now. The next five-year review would take us within one year of the expected switchover to digital, and that would be too late. As my hon. Friend the Member for Hayes and Harlington pointed out, fears begin to grow. He talked about moving licences to 2007. There has been talk around the Chamber today about news production being threatened too.

I took the point about the phrase that the hon. Member for North Devon (Nick Harvey) read out. Phase 2 of the Ofcom review of regional broadcasting is about the change to non-news regional programming outside peak time. Some of the programmes that have been mentioned as having good viewing figures and being popular in the regions are part of peak-time regional programming, which is not under threat at present.

Whether we like it or not, there has to be an incentive to keep ITV in public service broadcasting and on the spectrum. One could call its bluff and say, "Go away and let somebody else do it", but I am not sure that I want to do that. I believe in competition. I do not want the BBC to be the only provider of regional television. It would be short-sighted not to face up to that and ensure that ITV has an incentive to stay. Whatever people's views on the statistical methods or the questions that were asked about the consultation, I can live with a reduction in the amount of regional non-news production outside peak time. That does not mean the end of regional production. It is not the end of life as we know it, and it does not threaten democracy, regional culture or creative industries.

If, as many hon. Members have said, this were the beginning of a demise and decimation of regional programming, I would be more concerned. The Government would not have supported the Communications Act and built in an obligation to protect regional television if they were not concerned about the protection of regional news, network programming being made in the region for economic growth, and some sort of regional non-news programming that describes the local culture.

Our concern is that we are seeing the denigration and erosion of regional television on a daily basis. I shall give one more example—I feel like someone bringing news from the front. ITV Wales has just announced 14 redundancies. One of the things that it will axe is the community service announcements, which are the free adverts for local community organisations and charities. It is that sort of erosion and ebbing away of local services that concerns us.

I can see that. That is why this debate, which I hope Ofcom will take heed of, is important. In terms of phase 2 of the review, I am not going to say that there is no reason why that erosion should happen, but I think that the results of the consultation may be about the more important aspects of news and peak-time regional viewing. However, that shot across the bows is well made.

My hon. Friend also raised a point about the difficult issue of technology. I do not have time to go into detail now, but some job losses are inevitable, as has been the case in every industry—none more so than this one—because of the effect of the march of technology on how people do their jobs.

I thank and applaud Ofcom for being generous in meeting regional groups of MPs and approaching MPs to take part in the consultation. I hope that every region's group of MPs—from whatever party, because this is a good subject for cross-party co-operation—responds to that, and ensures that their views form part of the consultation.

The hon. Member for Moray was right to say that Ofcom has noted similarities between the nations and regions in off-peak regional programming. However, he will know that that issue will come under phase 3, because Ofcom has also noted the differences. I hope that it will reflect those differences, and the strength of regional broadcasting in the nations, in its response.

We must face up to this debate. If Ofcom's proposals are not the solution, something else must be, because we cannot stand still. I would much rather consider these matters before 2012 and the possible digital switchover than have them thrust upon us at that time. Whatever happens, it must take place against the background that we have not, will not and should not become a nation that does not want to preserve regional broadcasting, news and non-news, and national production within regions. We can do that in the digital age, but we must make some key decisions. This debate is an important part of contributing to the consultation that will lead us in that direction.

The Chamber thanks the Minister for that reply. We cannot start the next debate, because although the hon. Member who initiated it is here, the Minister is not, and I anticipate a Division in the House in a few seconds.

rose—

The hon. Member for North Swindon (Mr. Wills) will not lose his debate, if that is what he is worried about, but we are expecting a Division in the House.

I know that the Minister is outside the door on his mobile phone, Mr. Deputy Speaker, and I would be happy to get him in if he wished to commence the debate. I say that because there is quite a kerfuffle going on in the Chamber at the moment, and I am not sure what implication that may have for the timing, so we may wish to commence this debate.

This Government have been the first—

Order. I must interrupt. It looks as though there is to be another Division after all. I apologise to the Chamber.

Order. To help hon. Members, I should say that one minute has so far been expended on this debate. I regret having started it; I felt that there was not going to be a second Division. In this instance both the Clerk and I were wrong. There was a Division, and I hope that there will not be a third.

Thank you, Mr. Deputy Speaker.

This Government have been the first to recognise in a sustained way the importance of small businesses to the British economy and to support them. For example, the pre-Budget report last month further lightened the burden of regulation, and followed on from previous measures such as the reform of audit regulations, which allowed small businesses to spend their own money as they wished, rather than having the state dictate to them. The creation of the Small Business Service has helped to improve the quality of the business advice and support available to small businesses and the Minister has been an indomitable and—if I may use the word—indefatigable champion of small business.

One of the most important measures taken by the Government on this issue was the Late Payment of Commercial Debts (Interest) Act 1998. Cash flow is the lifeblood of all businesses, and that is particularly true of small businesses. The Federation of Small Businesses estimates that one in three business failures are the direct result of interruptions to cash flow. The Act was intended to be the building block for a change in business culture. As such, it has been widely welcomed by small businesses all over the country.

It has always been recognised that the ability to charge interest on late payment would not work on its own, and that that was to be the start of a change in culture. Welcome as the legislation has been, we need now to look at it with a cold eye to ascertain what more can be done to effect that change in culture. Earlier this year, I consulted small businesses in my constituency about their problems. The chairman of the local Federation of Small Businesses, Mr. Poole of the Minuteman Press, told me that his company has relatively good statistics on payment: some 10 per cent. of large companies pay within 30 days, 45 per cent. pay within 30 to 60 days and another 40 per cent. take 60 to 90 days to pay. Those statistics are relatively good, but only so good, Mr. Poole told me, because he spends 40 per cent. of his working time chasing payment—40 per cent. of the time that he could spend growing his business. That is not good enough.

Of course, some payers are exemplary. Mr. Poole said that Honda Logistics and the Swindon primary care trust stood out because of their awareness of the need to be timely with their payments to small businesses. I hope that the Minister will join me in congratulating them on setting such high standards of corporate responsibility. Unfortunately, not all large firms appear to be following their example. Thames Water, for example, has been described locally as having an appalling record of late payment, and I have constituents who have suffered greatly from late payment by Taylor Woodrow. I hope that the Minister will join me in urging all large businesses to match up to the standards set by Honda and the PCT in Swindon.

There is clearly more to do. Work by the credit management research centre at Leeds university suggests that the percentage of invoices paid late in the UK rose from 52 per cent. in 1996 to 56 per cent. in 2002, and that large firms and overseas customers were most likely to pay late. Late payment by central Government worsened by 10 per cent. between 1998 and 2002, although I understand that much of that is down not to Whitehall Departments—they have, by and large, raised their game—but to central Government agencies.

Late payment to small firms is wrong. It represents an abuse of power, exploiting the vulnerability of small firms. It is also inefficient. Large firms are late payers for two reasons: either because their finance departments are in chaos or because they deliberately exploit their suppliers. Sometimes, regrettably, both reasons apply. Good firms, which will thrive and prosper in the long term, make their money by producing as efficiently as possible goods and services that people want to buy at prices that they want to pay, not by exploiting their most vulnerable suppliers.

Late payment gives small firms a difficult choice between accepting possibly terminal damage to their cash flow and spending the sort of time spent by my constituent on chasing payment. This does not help small firms to realise their potential or to make the sort of contribution that they could make to improving still further the economic performance of this country.

Nearly everyone agrees on the importance of the 1998 Act in setting new standards. However, six years on, the time has come to revisit it. I hope that the Minister will respond positively to the following four suggestions on how the situation for small businesses might be improved. Justice Louis Brandeis once said:

"Sunlight is the best disinfectant",

and transparency is the key to this issue. The Minister will be aware that the Companies Act 1985 requires a statement by large companies in their directors' report on the company's policy and practice on payment of its suppliers. That requirement could be effective in exposing late payers if all companies complied with it, and as such it would help to transform the culture of payment. The problem is that although many large companies do comply, others do not or comply only with the requirement to state their policy and do not state their practice.

I understand that Companies House cannot find the resources to monitor compliance comprehensively. Recognising the inevitable constraints, will the Minister discuss with Companies House the possibility of regularly and systematically monitoring a sample of plc reports and publishing the findings, together with the names of late payers? That would be a significantly lesser burden on Companies House than comprehensive monitoring, but the threat of getting caught in such a sample and of subsequent exposure as an exploiter of small firms might act as an incentive to some plcs to comply with the spirit and the letter of the law. That is my first suggestion.

Secondly, will the Minister consider introducing at an appropriate time in the legislative cycle a requirement on holding companies to produce a statement about the policy and practice on payment of suppliers of all the companies within the holding group, so that a device that is currently available to holding companies and that is used by some large companies to avoid such statements is no longer available to them?

Thirdly, will the Minister consider ways to force auditors to take greater responsibility for ensuring compliance with the provision? If the accountancy profession will not agree to work with him to that end, will he consider legislation to bring in penalties for the failure to secure such compliance?

Finally, will the Minister consider writing to all Government agencies and Whitehall Departments to ask them to ensure that they are prompt payers, highlighting those who are not compliant, and will he consider continuing that correspondence on an annual basis? Action in all those respects would continue the excellent work already put in place and could help to bring relief to hard-pressed small businesses in Swindon. I hope that the Minister will consider them.

I am grateful to my hon. Friend the Member for North Swindon (Mr. Wills) for securing the debate. It allows me to outline the steps that the Government have taken to cut the length of time that it takes UK businesses to pay suppliers, and to urge further improvements on companies that have failed to adopt best payment practices. I wonder whether Hansard could sort out the sound system; I am hearing an echo.

I am sure that the Minister's comments have been noted by those who control the system.

I am still hearing an echo.

It is all right.

In 1997, the average time taken by businesses to settle their accounts was 49 days. That was simply and wholly unacceptable. I pay tribute to my hon. Friend the Member for Hornsey and Wood Green (Mrs. Roche), who championed that cause and who, as the Minister responsible for small businesses, crafted the legislation to tackle the late payment of commercial debts. I also applaud the significant contribution made by my hon. Friend the Member for North Swindon to ensuring that small businesses have prospered, and his championing of that legislation.

I know from first-hand experience the tremendous work done by small businesses in Swindon. The vice-president of a large business in Swindon—Honda—told me that his factory depended on more than 100 small businesses as suppliers. I am delighted to acknowledge the support that my hon. Friend gives local small businesses. Business Link Swindon, which the Government fund through the Small Business Service, has been working closely with start-up and growing businesses. The number of small businesses in Swindon soared by 23 per cent. in less than a decade—double the national average. Manufacturing employment, which you and I feel passionately about, Mr. Deputy Speaker, continues to be above the national average, and the service sector is strong too. Swindon has the highest employment rate in the south-west, with almost 84 per cent. of the eligible population in work, and small businesses are one reason why the economy around Swindon has been among the fastest growing economies in the UK.

As my hon. Friend rightly points out, this Government were the first to recognise the damage that late payment causes to firms. They were the first to listen to the pleas of small businesses and the first to act. Prior to 1998, there was no specific protection for companies that suffered at the hands of other organisations that delayed settling their accounts.

First, we enacted the Late Payment of Commercial Debts (Interest) Act 1998, which gives suppliers the statutory right to claim interest for late payment.

Secondly, the Act sets a credit period of 30 days, if no other period has been agreed.

Thirdly, we established the better payment practice group to help us highlight the good and the bad payers, and to offer advice on the action it wanted us to take. I am grateful to all the members of the better payment practice group for their efforts, especially the Federation of Small Businesses, the CBI's SME council, the Forum of Private Business, the Institute of Directors and our own Small Business Service. Among other things, the better payment practice group produces league tables to identify the good and the bad players. It is a measure of its success in securing effective legislation that one fifth of the 856 businesses that it surveyed have successfully claimed interest and compensation for late payment.

Fourthly, in 2002, in consultation with the representative organisations of small business, we strengthened the legislation to give every business the right to claim a fixed sum of compensation for pursuing bad payers.

Fifthly, in recognition of some suppliers' fears of retaliation from larger companies, as the Minister I am always willing to write to the chief executive of such companies on their behalf.

There have been a number of completely independent studies of the average time it takes to settle accounts. According to the Grant Thornton European business survey for 1997, the average payment time is 49 days. Its latest international comparisons show the true impact of our groundbreaking legislation; the time taken to settle has fallen by 12.8 per cent. and it is now a full week less than the average time in Europe. The REL Consultancy Group surveyed businesses on the average days payable outstanding—or DPO—measure. It lists the payment performance in other countries as follows: 67.9 days for Italy, 63.7 days for France, 42.4 days for Europe as a whole and 33.6 days for the United Kingdom—a full 20 per cent. less in terms of average days payable outstanding.

My hon. Friend gave some figures from Mr. Poole. Since his poll, I have received the latest figures of the Federation of Small Businesses measuring how plcs are performing; they show that it is no longer 10 per cent. but 34 per cent. that are paying bills within 30 days—and that has now increased to 37 per cent. In a survey carried out for the Small Business Service, 65 per cent. of businesses stated that they now have no problems with late payment. In a survey carried out by Stevens and Bolton Solicitors, 84 per cent. of businesses that received a claim for interest continued the business relationship. In 1992, 56 per cent. of companies surveyed by Lloyds TSB reported cash-flow problems; a majority of companies in that survey had cash-flow problems, many of them chronic. The current figure is 17 per cent.—the lowest in the history of its survey. The recently established pay-on-time website has advised 44,000 visitors on this matter.

My hon. Friend mentioned Companies House. I take very seriously complaints that Companies House is failing to ensure that all public companies disclose their practice on average payment times. Indeed, I took that up with the chief executive, and she subsequently investigated 56 companies. That has cleared 20 of them, and it is investigating the remaining 36. She also undertook three specific actions: a publicity campaign to remind companies of their legal obligations to disclose their policy and practice; a targeted mailshot to all public companies reminding the directors of their obligations; and individual letters to the Institute of Directors, the accountancy institutes—as my hon. Friend asked for—and other Government bodies, the CBI and the financial reporting review panel. I will certainly ensure that the chief executive gives serious consideration to the other measures suggested by my hon. Friend.

My hon. Friend raised the issue of the payment practices of Departments. He will know that at the end of the Conservative Government's third Administration only 82 per cent. of Government bills, and those of their agencies, were paid on time. That figure is now 96.68 per cent. Again, there is strong evidence of action being taken.

Finally, my hon. Friend asked me to communicate with other Departments to ensure that those figures remain positive. On 13 June I wrote, as he requested, to my colleague in the Treasury who circulated my letter to all the other Departments and I have their replies. I would not want the Chamber to think that I am complacent about that issue or about the concerns that my hon. Friend has raised on behalf of Mr. Poole and other constituents. I hope that I have shown that we are continuing, as my hon. Friend started to, to take this issue seriously and we continue to consider taking action—if not year on year, when the need arises. We shall continue to review the matter and take whatever action is necessary to ensure a fair deal for our small businesses.

The Chamber thanks the Minister for his reply. We are catching up.

When the Minister and I have spoken there will be an exchange of letters, given the pressures on the House at the moment.

I secured this debate to try to point out some of the problems that diversification has caused and could cause in future. We have found it difficult in west Somerset and Bridgwater and the problem is that we have diversified for 10 years. We have done everything that successive Governments have wanted us to do to try to diversify out of the core business, which is straightforward farming. We have gone almost as far as we can go. We have created bed and breakfasts, little companies doing all sorts of things and opportunities across the region. That applies not just in Somerset, but throughout the south-west. Our problem is that we are hitting the stage where we can go no further.

For example, in the levels, which is the largest non-flooded area in the south-west and perhaps in Britain, we are dependent on the ability to diversify. People cannot make a living any more out of what is there; they cannot get the value for the beef or lamb, or whatever. However, they cannot plough the levels, either, because it is not that sort of soil. The people in that area have pushed out as far as they can. If only hon. Members could see what they have achieved in such areas; it is quite remarkable and the Minister knows that. However, those people are subject to the whim of nature every year. At the moment we have very little rain, but that may not be so in future.

Another example, which the House knows well, is Yeo Valley organic yoghurt. We eat those yoghurts, which are sold in the Palace. That company started because a farmer had too much milk and it is now the biggest producer of organic yoghurt in the United Kingdom. It has done brilliantly well and continues to expand.

Those are two extremes, but the truth is somewhere in between. Now, with the headage and area payments system, we could have a situation where farmers themselves cannot farm or diversify because they are not seen as farmers, but people who play-farm. That is the crudest way that I can describe it, but in other words they are not seen as people who are farming for a living. The Minister is aware that we are having a clawback over a period until those two systems become one.

Europe is definite about what people can and cannot do. I like to think that the Minister would, for the future of the Government, look favourably on how we can diversify and continue to do so. However, we need Government help. If we do not get the help, it will be harder to push forward. For example, on the junctions at Bridgwater—we have two—Mr. Derek Mead wants to build a cattle market. There is nothing wrong with that; it would be an agricultural centre. Mr. Mead is and has been a successful farmer.

At the moment we cannot build that market because the regional development agency is tinkering with other sites, which is fair enough, because it has to get the best value. However, farmers are depending on that, because they have lost the markets in Taunton and Bridgwater and although the markets in Burnham-on-Sea and Highbridge are still going, people there want to retire. We could end up without a market. Surely that is the sort of thing that we should do, and I hope that the Minister agrees.

To give some idea of the diversification of the market, it hopes to do a deal with Bridgwater college to bring further education into a market. Bridgwater college has just taken over the agricultural college outside Bridgwater. That is diversification at almost its highest level, where everyone is working together.

The issue affects not just the Somerset area but places further afield. The Western Morning News published a letter by a Jim Hosking, who runs—I will have to try to pronounce it—Fentongollan farm, near Truro. The Minister, as a Welshman, has a better chance of pronouncing that correctly than I, a Scotsman. On decoupling and cross-compliance, Jim Hosking says that one matter that has really come to haunt us is the potential ability of the Secretary of State to order farmers and farm people whether to go on and harvest or not. That brings up all sorts of problems for diversification. On the levels and hills—and, obviously, outside Truro—people require the flexibility to farm. The Minister is fully aware of that.

I have never met Mr. Jim Hosking; I merely thought that his published letter was very good. When we get such people asking why one cannot go within 20 m of the gate and so on, we know that we are potentially preventing people from doing their job. What I have mentioned may not be diversification exactly, but it is part of what we are trying to do, which is to diversify and push the envelope.

There are various recommendations that I will write to the Minister about, if I may, because of time constraints; this is a short debate. In conclusion, the Minister knows the arguments. The last one that I shall put to him is the argument on the dreaded H-word. The Minister knows that we need help on Exmoor and so on. He has been very kind, and has held an enormous number of discussions with my hon. Friend the Member for Taunton (Mr. Flook), the hon. Member for North Devon (Nick Harvey) and me on how we can look forward. That is an area in which we know that there has been diversification, and there will be changes over the next year.

Order. May I help the hon. Gentleman? He said that this was a short debate; it is a half-hour debate, and we do not need to conclude it until quarter to 5, so if he wishes to raise other matters that he was thinking of cutting out, I am sure that the Minister will not mind.

I thank you for that guidance, Mr. Deputy Speaker; as usual, you have cut me to the quick. I think that the Minister and I are trying to move on to certain subjects. That is the way that I would like to play it, if I may.

The Minister is fully aware of the situation on Exmoor. I am not sure that he can give a full answer at the moment, but would he consider that he knows the fundamental changes that will be made? We need to look forward. Diversification is an evolution, not a requirement, but we have to evolve; we have no choice in the matter. If we do not, there will be no farmland and countryside where we currently see it—in the levels, Exmoor, Dartmoor, Bodmin, Truro, or wherever—because the farmers will not be farming. There will be more and more people coming from London, selling houses and play-farming. I hope that that will not be the case. Could the Minister give reassurance to places such as the south-west that diversification has the backing and help of Government? That will give an enormous feeling of goodness.

I thank the hon. Member for Bridgwater (Mr. Liddell-Grainger), who instigated the debate, for introducing it with clarity and brevity. In doing so he signalled a number of serious issues that I know he wishes to pursue. I should say, Mr. Deputy Speaker, that I think that the hon. Gentleman is being very kind in constraining himself, knowing the pressures on other ministerial engagements today. I thank him for that and give the assurance that I will perhaps respond to him at greater length, and will, if necessary, meet him to discuss one or two of the issues that arose from his speech.

I respect the hon. Gentleman's advocacy of his constituency and the way that diversification is being pursued there. I am happy to tell him that I started the day with the consumption of a Yeo Valley product, but in fairness I have to say that there are other impressive products in the same field, such as those from the Rachel's Organic dairies in west Wales.

I also think that the hon. Gentleman was right on some of the points that he made about diversification. Promoting the links between further education, higher education and the local economy, particularly the engagement of what were described in the past as the agricultural colleges, is extremely important. Linked to that is the work of Lantra, an organisation that promotes learning and skills in the land-based industries. The hon. Gentleman is right to say that a great deal has been done. Help is needed to allow diversification to continue further and for a sustainable economy to be promoted in areas such as his.

The Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs is putting an extra £2 million into Business Link next year, specifically to help to improve assistance to business, especially in lagging rural areas. We will also increase our engagement though the regional development agencies. I am pleased with the way that the RDAs have responded to our discussions in recent months. DEFRA's contribution to their single pot will increase from £45 million to £72 million next year. Rural development agencies will take a greater lead on socio-economic schemes within the England rural development programme. The total budget for the various schemes is £212 million over seven years. Since 2000 approximately £47 million has been committed from the rural enterprise scheme budget for farm diversification projects. That programme will continue.

I accept the hon. Gentleman's point about the impact of the reform of the common agricultural policy. That will vary in different areas. I understand his point about decoupling for the lowland beef sector in particular. Concerns have been expressed by farmers about shifting to other forms of production. I can assure him that we will monitor the impact of the new decoupled single payment scheme. If particular problems arise we will look at the options available to resolve them.

In seeking reform of the CAP, we intend to increase the flexibility available to farmers and the possibility of their engaging more with the market; the hon. Gentleman quoted the good example of adding value and therefore adding to the return to the primary producer. We also want to ensure that protection of the environment and promotion of biodiversity is achieved and that farmers are compensated for the contribution that they make to improving the rural environment and the quality of the countryside. That is in everyone's interest and involves a wide range of issues, from combating global warming to the contribution that the countryside makes both economically and in social and leisure terms.

Under the ERDP we want to look at the opportunities for increasing the return to farmers by the marketing of quality products. In terms of food in the south-west, there are some really good exemplars for the rest of the country. DEFRA and the stakeholders have been actively involved in examining the use of the agri-environment schemes to help cattle grazing. That is one of the important issues for the levels, especially because of its contribution to biodiversity and other environmental objectives. Decisions made by farmers following decoupling will be in response to market demands, not in response to the bureaucracy of individual CAP schemes. In general that means that farmers, consumers and the environment will all benefit. But, as the hon. Gentleman suggests, there are particular impacts.

The Somerset levels are a unique and internationally important area. DEFRA and English Nature have therefore been investing significant effort and resources in the environmentally sensitive area scheme and English Nature's wildlife enhancement scheme. There are 34 sites of special scientific interest in the Somerset Levels and Moors environmentally sensitive area. More than 20,000 birds may over-winter within the ESA and the ESA agreements are worth over £3.3 million a year to farmers.

There are issues in relation to the periods that land is under water in some parts of the area. I am confident that the problems that are perceived there can generally be overcome but there may be specific differences. I would be happy to expand further on such issues to the hon. Gentleman.

I would urge farmers, if they have particular concerns, to talk them through with the Rural Payments Agency, for which I have ministerial responsibility. Some of the problems might be perceived rather than real. For instance, there are perceptions that the requirement for the land to be at the farmer's disposal for at least 10 months of the year means that that requires it to be actively farmed for the whole of that period; I am advised that that is not necessarily the case.

That is the sort of area about which the hon. Gentleman will want further explanation. It is timely that he has raised these issues and I hope that I may be able to say a little more following meetings that are taking place this week; officials from DEFRA are meeting the National Trust and English Nature to discuss some of the issues, including marshland management and the relationship with the single payment scheme. I have asked for the issue that we are discussing to be drawn to their attention, so that it can be covered in those meetings. After they have taken place, I will write to him and I will be happy to meet and to discuss any specific issues that remain outstanding.

Finally, the hon. Gentleman mentioned the H-word, in passing, towards the end of his contribution and I understand fully that there is a particular economic and cultural impact in his part of the west country. That is why I may have spent more time listening to, and discussing with, those affected there than those in any other part of the country. That does not necessarily result in a meeting of minds and, clearly, legislation is now on the statute book, which I hope very much will be observed by those who are frequently described as generally law-abiding people. That will give us an opportunity for the sort of intelligent conversation that the hon. Gentleman was requesting to examine the impact on individuals. The impact in terms of the general economy may be small, but of course I appreciate that there will be an impact on individuals. I will be happy to listen to particular representations that he might want to make in respect of his area. He knows that we have supported economic assessment precisely in order to examine the very localised impacts that there might be. I will be happy to discuss those issues further with him.

Question put and agreed to.

Adjourned accordingly at twenty-eight minutes to Five o'clock.