I welcome the opportunity to initiate this debate about the future of gas in an integrated energy policy.

As I looked back over the past 40 years, I was struck by a series of images, in all of which energy was a factor. They included Ted Heath and the three-day week; the winter of discontent, when oil prices boomed, reaching four times their previous level; and, more recently, the fuel protestors of 2000. In the few moments that I have this morning, I want to ask a few questions and, I hope, get a few answers.

The key issue is how important gas is for the United Kingdom's energy needs. Are the tabloid headlines correct when they say that lights will go out all over Britain? Is that fantasy or foresight? How secure are our sources of imported gas? How much gas is left in the UK continental shelf?

Is European market liberalisation the answer, or should we be building our indigenous energy market? Perhaps both objectives are right, and we should be aiming to achieving both. What will be the impact of the change in the UK's status from being a net exporter to a net importer of gas, perhaps even this year? How important are our gas interconnectors to Europe?

What about storage? What about LNG—liquefied natural gas—which will be a much more attractive prospect over the next decade?

What is the view of industry, particularly that of the United Kingdom Offshore Operators Association? What is the view of the Office of Gas and Electricity Markets, which was set up to regulate the industry?

The UK's natural gas reserves come mostly from indigenous supplies in the North sea and the Irish sea. There is a debate about when we shall become a net importer of gas, although the fluctuating balance between imports and exports already means that we are a net importer of some months. In answer to a parliamentary question, my hon. Friend the Minister for Energy and E-Commerce told me that the UK would become a net importer in about 2005.

Another factor comes into play, however, because previously uneconomic reserves in the UK continental shelf may now be recoverable as the price of gas increases. Much the same argument applies to oil, as hon. Members who heard my Adjournment debate on oil last year will appreciate. A recent Library brief tells me that between 70 and 90 per cent. of UK gas will be imported from 2020; that is obviously a very high level of importation, and it will grow as UK reserves dwindle and—there are, of course, two sides to the equation—demand increases.

There is a variety of risks to domestic and imported gas supplies. At the most general level, there is political instability in exporting regions and the possibility of terrorist attacks on pipelines; there is a lack of peak-demand storage in emergencies; there are economic pressures during price spikes and levels of peak demand in cold weather. Let me be clear, however: I am not for a second suggesting that all those factors will come about, and I would certainly be very surprised if they all came about at once.

What we need is a rational, cool and calculated debate about this country's future energy needs. We must assess future demand and supply trends so that we can plan now. Although my emphasis is on gas, right hon. and hon. Members may wish to throw into the equation the other important energy sources, such as nuclear, oil and renewables.

The Government have made security of supply a key plank of their energy White Paper and energy policy. They propose a variety of means, such as the diversification of energy resources, particularly renewables. They also envisage demand reduction and energy efficiency, which we must never forget: it is not enough to produce more; we must also consider how efficiently we use these scarce resources.

Action on fuel poverty is a subject dear to my heart. I represent a highland seat, and, of course, the temperatures there can be very severe, as I experienced at first hand yesterday. Our fuel consumption is therefore higher and, arguably, we are not that strong on conservation issues such as house insulation.

It is important to consider how well our market is regulated, particularly through Ofgem, and that is an issue that the Government have pushed. However, what about gas, specifically? The key point, as I mentioned earlier, is that we have to consider this debate through the lens of becoming a net importer. A series of factors not so relevant to exporters comes into play for importers. For example, the reason why we do not have such a well developed LNG industry is that we had so much gas offshore that it was not economically useful to start tankering it round the world. There is a different argument about balance now that we are importing gas.

A mixture of inputs is needed in relation to gas. First, we must examine the important issue of adequate storage. What is adequate now—we have 4 per cent. storage—will not be adequate for an importer, but we can perhaps come back to that later. We have to consider demand modulation at peak times and a variety of secure sources of gas for importation. At present, with natural gas, there are two natural not barriers but choke points, and those are our interconnectors, which are crucial to the future development of natural gas.

Importation is complicated because it is about negotiation—part commercial, part political. A mix of issues to do with location and technical matters has to be considered. When I was undertaking research for the debate, I was surprised to find that there is an issue about quality of gas. From an outside perspective, we might think that gas is gas is gas, but that is not quite right; we have to consider the quality of what we are importing.

Of course, we cannot have only two interconnectors. A number more are planned, and of course I support that, but let us throw one statistic into this argument: the input capacity through our interconnectors is 8.5 billion cu m per year. That sounds all well and good, but we must consider the other side of the equation: what are our gas needs? Current gas demand in the UK is 100 billion cu m per year. I am sure that hon. Members' mathematics is better than mine, and that they can work out that there is a choke point, in terms of reliability of importation. New interconnectors are coming on-stream, but they will not be available tomorrow. There is a lead-in time, and that is crucial.

Sometimes there is too much tabloid chat about instability in imports. Norway and the Netherlands are our main sources at present, and I would not argue that either of those countries was particularly politically unstable. We have fairly secure agreements with them, and I do not have particular worries about that. It is perhaps countries further afield that we need to consider.

A key point is our 2003 energy pact, signed with the Norwegian Government, and the agreement to develop the Brit pipe. That is an excellent development that I warmly support. The capacity of the Brit pipe, when it is on-stream, will be 25 billion cu m a year, which is a quarter of current UK gas demand. That will be an effective new interconnector when it comes on stream in 2007.

Further interconnectors are planned, and there will be upgrading of our current interconnectors, which will give us greater capacity. That is useful for increasing security of supply. There are future proposals, which include a Russian pipeline, although the press had questions about how viable that would be in the short term. Increasing the number of pipeline entry points for imports is important. It would make the UK less vulnerable at a critical time when we are changing the import-export balance.

As we all know, Russia is the world's largest gas exporter, but reserves are often in remote, isolated locations, and that makes them more vulnerable to disruption. There are arguments about terrorist attacks in Russia that I would not want to overstate, but that worry certainly makes Russia a higher risk than Norway and the Netherlands. Further afield, African countries with exportable gas include Algeria, Egypt, Libya and Nigeria. In the middle east, the biggest player is certainly Iran, followed by Saudi Arabia, Qatar and Abu Dhabi.

What about storage, an issue that I touched on earlier? On one level—arguably a naive level—storage is relatively low in the UK. We have about 4 per cent. of storage of annual consumption. That compares with 20 per cent. in some European countries, but we have to consider the context. Four per cent. is fine. We have large reserves in the United Kingdom continental shelf and are exporting. We could argue strongly that part of our storage is the UK continental shelf itself, particularly the Rough field in the southern North sea. It could be argued that storage is effectively in pipelines going to the St. Fergus or Bacton terminals.

The Government have kept security of supply under review. Through the Department of Trade and Industry, the Ofgem Joint Energy Security of Supply working group—the JESS group—warned in 2002 that peak demand could exceed peak gas supply by 2004–05 if investment in gas storage or infrastructure is delayed.

What about LNG? That is a vital prospect for the future. LNG—this is where my chemistry and physics are sorely tested—is, as the name suggests, natural gas refrigerated as a liquid, reducing it to one 600th of the volume of gas vapour. Here my chemistry really struggles, but this suggests that an LNG tanker contains 600 times more energy than a tanker of the same size filled with natural gas. I would appreciate it if there were no questions on this, Mr. Taylor—I would be sorely tested.

The first LNG tanker came to the UK way back in 1964, to Canvey Island, from Algeria, the leading LNG supplier. Algeria has spare capacity to supply the UK, which is encouraging, looking at the global resources available to us, and creates a great advantage for LNG—that is, ease of supply via tankers. As I understand, it is not economically productive to tanker natural gas, because the sums do not add up. It is worth while tankering LNG.

I predict a major growth in this sector, through tanker links with global reserves, which are easier than the costly and more vulnerable pipelines. I am not arguing for a second that these things are mutually exclusive. We need to see a development of importation of natural gas and of LNG. I just wish to make a point about the security risks.

New markets in LNG may well be stimulated by pioneering new gas-to-liquid technology. Again, I do not feel comfortable about advancing such an argument, but I understand that the new process is the Fischer-Tropsch process, which develops LNG for the future.

New LNG importation facilities are planned and I warmly welcome them. There are at least three different proposals to develop terminals—for example at Milford Haven and the Isle of Grain. They will not come on stream immediately, but will make a huge difference to our LNG market in future.

What is the European perspective on this? That is important. The first gas directive was in 1998, and the Lisbon council of 2000 urged rapid liberalisation of gas as part of a drive to complete the single market and improve EU competitiveness.

As we become a net importer, access to a liberalised and competitive market is important. The Commission gave evidence to the House of Lords Select Committee on the European Union—House of Lords paper No. 105—which said that 80 per cent. of the world gas reserves were in economic reach of the European market. That is good news. The key is diversification and security of supply. What that Committee recommended, as I understand it, is that more strategic stocks should be held from when we stop becoming a net exporter. Perhaps my hon. Friend the Minister might comment on the change in status, as we become a net importer. Will there be any change and will the Government have to increase the immediate strategic gas reserves held in the event of an emergency?

Demand is also changing. There is going to be a growth of about 3 to 4 per cent. per year, boosted by the new gas-fired electricity-generating power stations. To make a quick constituency point, I can suggest to the gas industry how it can increase demand in the highlands and islands, particularly on the mainland. That is by providing for more remote and rural communities to have access to mains gas. Giving remote communities access to the mains transmissions lines is a real problem, although I would give honourable mention to Transco, which has been helpful in my campaigns in efforts to link communities such as Ardersier in my constituency.

The issue in future is not so much the availability of gas so much as the ability to move it from place to place, from where it is produced to markets. As I suggested earlier, by 2010 the statisticians suggest that we will be importing 50 per cent. and that by 2020 we will be importing between 70 and 90 per cent., which is a tremendously high statistic. There is then a higher risk regime of power cuts, vulnerability and so on. As I said earlier, I would not over-stress those risks, but we must have a cool and rational discussion about what the security threats are.

So, in the jargon, what happens is a low-probability, high-impact event. We understand that the Government have an emergency committee and incident response plans which are geared-up to consider these matters. Yet, as Dr. Robert Skinner, Director of the Oxford Institute for Energy Studies, said in The Parliamentary Monitor, page 8, in December 2004:

"Absolute security of supply is an illusion, its pursuit unacceptably expensive. Energy security is a concept based on meeting likely risks at acceptable cost."

The United Kingdom Offshore Operators Association, UKOOA, also recently produced a helpful paper entitled "Security of gas supplies", arguing that although UK gas production has reached maturity, there are still considerable reserves. It argues that there are four issues that we should consider: first, maximisation of the exportation of our current gas reserves; secondly, diverse and secure gas supplies; thirdly, availability of transmission infrastructure; fourthly, tools to meet short-term demand peaks. The first issue I welcome warmly. As a member of the all-party group on gas safety, I have looked very closely at this and am a particular fan of the "fallow fields" initiative, where we can exploit fields which might not be worth developing by some larger companies, but which have worked well for some of the smaller companies. I know PILOT has particularly pushed that. I am keen to see our reserves on the UK continental shelf fully exploited. Clearly that goes for oil as well.

I have already touched on secure and diverse gas supplies in LNG, looking at Russia via long-distance pipelines and developing more interconnectors. Thirdly, in looking at the availability of transmission infrastructure, the main argument is to bring in a stream of new interconnectors. The final issue is about tools to meet short-term demand, and issues about supply swing, looking at cutting supply to key industrial customers when there is peak demand, and looking at storage. With LNG, that will be above-ground storage.

The key point for UKOOA

"is the ability of producers to exploit their gas reserves fully and deliver that gas at minimum cost to the market, rather than the availability of those gas supplies per se."

Ofgem has also examined this issue and commented on the assessment by the National Grid Transco that security of supply in gas can be maintained this winter under average and severe winter conditions. In case of very severe winter conditions, NGT says that security of supply can be maintained by large users reducing gas demand. I thought it lovely that they are called "interruptible customers". It is a new part of our argument that those large industrial users have a deal where they will cut off at peak times.

Ofgem says that UK gas supplies are declining faster than expected. Though there is no immediate threat, more expensive options might have to be used in the long term. Clearly gas is a key player in the UK's energy mix. We know that demand will double by 2030, because gas will be the fuel of choice for electrical power generation. Global reserves, particularly in Russia and the middle east, are more than large enough to meet the likely increase in demand. There is an argument that gas is a different market from oil, where with OPEC there is more of a cartel operating than in gas production. Of course, until construction of our new interconnectors, and upgrading of one of our two existing interconnectors, the House of Lords Select Committee on Gas may have a point that there will be a tightness of supply in the short term—perhaps over the next two or three years.

LNG, although first seen in the UK in the 1960s, offers greater portability than conventional gas. The three UK developments planned provide a greater security of supply of gas. The maximisation of gas on the UK continental shelf, through the "fallow fields" initiative and others, is vital. It is key that we have security of supply, which means that we have a wide and diverse range of suppliers.

What are the key issues for Government? I am sure that my hon. Friend the Minister will comment. It is a complex mix. We must say that is it not only about Government or industry, it is also about Government, industry and the consumer. We must maximise security of supply of natural gas through, as I said, a wide and diverse range of suppliers, through as many interconnectors as are practical and affordable. We obviously cannot build entirely as many as we need, because there are such huge costs involved. We need to build up and develop the liquefied natural gas business—because we have less vulnerability in terms of tankering—while emphasising energy conservation and supporting poor or vulnerable consumers, as well as keeping a watch on price, product and emissions levels. That is a heady mix indeed, not an easy series of points to sort out. Gas will continue to play a vital role, however, in meeting Britain's energy needs in partnership, of course, with oil, coal, nuclear and renewables. The dash for gas may well be past, but natural gas, in my view, will be the fuel of the future.

I thank you, Mr. Taylor, for the opportunity to participate in a very important debate this morning. I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Inverness, East, Nairn and Lochaber (Mr. Stewart) on securing the debate. I know that he has been deeply involved in the energy markets, especially gas and oil. That is recognised by the business community in his constituency, by the trade unions and, in particular, by his constituents.

For my part, I would obviously like to associate myself with an integrated energy policy. We should have a debate on that and examine it in depth. Security of supply is a major issue, which we have to continue looking at to ensure that the lights in this country do not go out. We can talk about the impact of their doing so.

I should first declare an interest as chairman of the all-party nuclear energy group. I feel strongly that any integrated energy policy should include a nuclear component. My concern is that the Government are promoting not an integrated energy policy, but a policy where most of the energy of this country will be dependent on imported gas. It would be a monumental blunder to continue along that line. It may be that we are in the run-up to a general election, and maybe we shall look at the policy in depth after that. We have had the Energy Bill, with much discussion in the House of Lords and the House of Commons. Those discussions have led us to believe that it is necessary to look seriously at the energy mix.

My hon. Friend made a point regarding the three-day week. I am old enough to have experienced the three-day week, when I worked at a small engineering company. I went to work from 7am to 7pm, and we were only allowed Monday, Friday and Saturday. I know the impact that that had on the business. Without the workers in that company working long hours—for bare time, by the way, not overtime—the company might have gone out of business. My view at that time was that it was necessary to accommodate businesses. However, we have now moved into a new age. We live in a highly technical age. We have computers, laptops, control of traffic lights and aircraft. If the lights went out in this country, the effect on its infrastructure would be devastating—we had such a situation last year when London had a short blackout. The impact on traffic, air and transport would be enormous. It is important that we look at just what the effects would be if we got the energy mix wrong.

People take it for granted that when they walk into their home, they can switch on the light and leave it on. With fridges, freezers and televisions, they have come to expect that that will happen. Energy efficiency is one of the issues that has been pressed very hard, to safeguard future energy supplies. Unless the population of this country realise the major problems that exist—realise that unless we get the energy mix right we could have energy problems—I do not think they will move towards energy efficiency. No matter how much we preach energy efficiency, they will ignore it to a degree. It is only when they find themselves with a major problem that they will move towards it. This country could be facing a frightening prospect unless we get the energy mix right. I am not against renewable energy and I want to make that clear.

The UK has targets. By 2010 we want 10 per cent. of our energy to come from renewable energy. I understand that at present some 3 per cent. does. I am sure that the Minister will correct me if that figure is wrong. The feeling is that we shall not make the 10 per cent. by 2010. There is also an ambitious target for 20 per cent. of our energy to come from renewables by 2020. That is fine; it is part of an energy mix and I would be delighted if it were to happen in the UK. Scotland is even more ambitious. At present, 12 per cent. of its electricity comes from renewable energy; its target is 18 per cent. by 2010 and it is believed that that is achievable. It also has an aspirational target of 40 per cent. of its energy from renewables by 2020. I do not know whether it will make that or not.

The renewable obligation has made it very attractive for energy companies to pursue wind farms. I understand that there are some 270 applications in Scotland this year for them. There has been some opposition, not only in Scotland but throughout the UK, to wind farms on that scale. An enormous amount of turbines, all over Scotland, would be involved in 270 wind farms. We must consider the matter carefully.

Within the Scottish Parliament, the Environment and Rural Development Committee has examined the growth of wind farms. I understand that it came to the conclusion that without looking at wave, tidal, solar and alternative sources, not to be dependent on wind farms would be the best way forward. The Committee is encouraging the Scottish Executive to move in that direction.

The rush for renewables by the power companies is generated by the fact that that there are substantial financial incentives for British Energy and Scottish Power to seek planning permission for wind farms. It is possible that we will achieve the targets that we have set ourselves. Even in an integrated energy policy and even if 40 per cent. of our energy was coming from renewable energy, we would still have to examine the mix and where the other 60 per cent. would come from.

There seems to be a determination to move to gas. I understand that 35 per cent. of energy in this country comes from gas. As my hon. Friend the Member for Inverness, East, Nairn and Lochaber said, the intention is that that would move to some 70 or 75 per cent. being imported.

Last week, the Financial Times had an article about energy. Its headline was, "Fear that gas supply gives Russia too much power over Europe". Leaders are concerned that over-reliance on Moscow could be an economic and political hazard. The article stated:

"'Schroeder never speaks out on Putin's human rights abuses in Chechnya or his interference in Ukraine's affairs,' . . . Mr. Putin's increased authoritarian style at home and with neighbours has raised concern and prompted a re-examination of Europe's links with Russia. The French and British Governments are particularly worried"

about

"Moscow's rising prominence as an energy supplier."

I am sure that the Minister will correct me if that is wrong.

We shall be in the same situation. We shall be depending on imports from Russia and the middle east for our gas supply. We shall be at the end of the pipeline. China, India, the United States and Germany will all be competing with us for the same gas from the same supplier. Does the Minister believe that that is the best option as regards stability of prices? Is he convinced that security of supply can be done on that basis?

Recently, there has been the announcement that the AP 1000 has received certification. I would promote that nuclear module in an integrated energy policy. At present, 23 per cent. of our energy comes from nuclear plants. If we are to close the nuclear power stations—I understand that there will be one left by 2025—the alternative at present is to move to gas, but gas is not the cleanest source of energy that we know of.

I attended a conference with Professor James Lovelock, who said that his green credentials were impeccable; he has planted 20,000 trees in his time. He said that the Earth was in a profoundly dangerous state and that the Government listened more to the green lobby than to scientific evidence. He said that the green lobbies had intervened, that they understood better than the Government how people worked and that they had convinced the Government that green energy through renewables was the way forward. Consequently, he said, such lobbies were recommending inappropriate remedies and the outcome was nearly as bad as if a mediaeval plague had returned in a deadly form and we had been advised to stop it with alternative medicine instead of scientific medicine. He said that the Earth was sick and could not be cured by green solutions alone; it needed a dose of nuclear energy. When someone with Professor Lovelock's credentials feels as strongly as that, Governments have to take notice.

I should like the Minister to consider seriously the energy mix that we shall have in the future. Coal-fired power stations will close unless there is investment in clean coal technology. I know that the Babcocks plant in Renfrew has the capability and the methods to convert coal-fired power stations to clean coal burning. I have spoken to people there; they are looking for investment from the Department of Trade and Industry. That would be costly, but we have to consider it. Using coal is the most flexible method that we have of generating electricity. I attended Longannet last year and watched people bringing up the boilers to heat during the peak load.

The flexibility of coal power should be involved in the energy mix. European emissions targets mean that coal-fired power stations in this country will close. Clean coal technology is one solution to move us towards an integrated energy policy. Nuclear power is essential; it is the cleanest power of them all and does not produce CO 2 emissions. The Committee on Radioactive Waste Management has started its consultation, and I hope that it reports back sooner rather than later. With the solutions that it finds for dealing with nuclear waste, we could change public perception and reaction against nuclear power.

I ask the Minister to consider seriously an integrated energy policy, which would include gas, clean coal technology, nuclear power and renewable energies. It is important that there is the proper mix in the energy portfolio. If we have that, there will be security of supply. Without it, we would depend on gas for 70 per cent. of our energy needs into the future, and that would be a mistake on a monumental level. I ask the Minister to consider seriously my contribution today.

I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Inverness, East, Nairn and Lochaber (Mr. Stewart) on securing this debate. I am grateful to him for two reasons. First, he spoke with great thoroughness and insight; he made light of his knowledge of engineering and physics, but I certainly learned a great deal. Secondly, I drew Question 9 in Prime Minister's Question Time last week and was going to ask about gas prices. The problem was that the Prime Minister got only to Question 8. This debate will allow me to go on longer than I would have in the main Chamber.

In his concluding remarks, my hon. Friend said that there were at least three main interests in the gas industry: the Government, the industry itself and the consumer. During my brief remarks, I shall turn my attention to the industrial and domestic consumers of gas.

According to the best estimates that I have seen, the consumer is facing considerable increases in the price of gas: Energywatch suggests an 18 per cent. increase over the winter period. British Gas had a significant price hike in September and lost many customers and EDF, which owns a lot of companies in the south of England, raised its gas prices in January. The best estimates over the past 18 months are that industrial consumers have suffered a 40 per cent. price increase, which the CBI is beginning to emphasise and which is being reflected in hon. Members' postbags. The price of gas for manufacturing industry is probably the major issue raised with Members of Parliament, and that is reflected in two early-day motions that are before the House.

I shall quote briefly from two letters that I have received from local companies—one from Mr. Slater, managing director of Plasmor, a concrete products company with factories in Knottingley and Great Heck in my constituency. He says that his production director has calculated that

"given the 'future' gas prices"

that are predicted,

"our gas prices are set to rise by £50,000 per month."

He alleges that the market is somehow being manipulated by speculators making prices unnecessarily high.

Dr. McLenaghan, the site director of Saint Gorbain Glass UK, a French glass factory that has invested at Eggborough in my constituency, says that the price increases are putting it at a competitive disadvantage. He points out that UK prices are now

"some 25 per cent. higher than our competitors in other parts of the EU . . . these energy price increases jeopardise not only future investment, but employment as well."

The price increases are a concern for industry. Looking back at gas prices over the past two or three years, we see that in October 2003 there was a particularly large hike of 40 per cent. in just a couple of days. My hon. Friend the Member for Inverness, East Nairn and Lochaber mentioned the regulator, Ofgem, which has produced a report on the price hike and another on the large price rises during the past two or three years. Ofgem identified four different reason for the price rises: 30 per cent. was due to the connection of gas and oil prices in Europe, 19 per cent. was due to the fall-off in yields from North sea fields, which was more rapid than expected—although as my hon. Friend said, it is worth noting that we still produce 105 per cent. of what we consume at this stage—5 per cent. was due to increased storage costs, and the remaining 46 per cent. was down to market sentiment and risk.

It is worth putting on the record that at the time of the main price spike in October 2003 there was no shortage of gas, no spike in demand and no problems with any of the pipelines. The main pipeline—the Bacton to Zeebrugge interconnector—was opened in 1998 and will almost have doubled capacity by 2006. If people looked at what happened in that period, they would imagine that if wholesale prices were rising rapidly in Britain and were higher than on the continent, gas would flow from the continent into Britain through the interconnector.

I have half a degree in economics, although I hasten to add that I did not fail the other half, rather it was in history. I have a basic knowledge of economics and find the situation a little strange. It also seems strange to Energywatch, which has championed the consumer and is good at that. It is a model consumer body; it has a certain edginess, it champions the consumer unashamedly, puts a bit of creative tension into the industry and is, perhaps, a little less supine than bodies like Postwatch. It is to be commended for that.

What could be done? Energywatch makes various recommendations. First, it points out that, basically, Ofgem has no purchase at the moment.

I was unavoidably detained and missed the start of the interesting debate secured by the hon. Member for Inverness, East, Nairn and Lochaber (Mr. Stewart).

The hon. Member for Selby (Mr. Grogan) has laid out the problem of the direction in which gas was flowing through the interconnector, but he did not use his half-degree in economics to tell us what he thought the reasons were. Will he do so?

I thank the hon. Gentleman for his intervention. I was going to deal with that. The wholesale gas market is now a European market, not just a British one, although it is not as liberalised in the rest of Europe as it is in Britain. Energywatch and other experts wonder whether the market is being manipulated in other parts of Europe. They also question whether the regulator has the powers to obtain the necessary information to ascertain how the market is being manipulated. It seems strange that Ofgem does not oversee the offshore industry. As I understand it, that is the responsibility of the DTI. I would have thought that the entire industry should be regulated under one regulator, Ofgem, so that it would have a better picture.

Unfortunately, Ofgem normally has no problems with what happens offshore, but it ignores price differentials offshore. Hence, pipelines go offshore for 600 miles, which would normally be an uneconomic thing to do, and avoid the regulation of Ofgem to go to land at points such as Bacton.

I thank the hon. Gentleman for developing that argument for me. Are there any plans to change the situation and to give Ofgem greater powers?

As I understand it with my basic economics, information is crucial to a market and how it operates. In the electricity market, anyone can look at the National Grid Transco database, see the likely state of the market in the days ahead and modify their purchase behaviour accordingly. In the gas market, purchasers know of price increases only when prices increase. That fuels panic buying, as buyers do not know whether the price is the best that they are likely to get in the near future or whether prices might fall. The inclination, especially with the price rise curve over the past 18 months, is to buy immediately, whatever the price. For a market to function properly, it needs information and informed market participants. It is worth noting that producers have to provide information on exactly how much gas is being produced and will be produced to both Transco and the DTI. That information is already known, and should be publicised to market participants.

On behalf of British manufacturing industry, the Government should be much more aggressive in Europe. They should make it one of the priorities of our presidency to try to persuade the competition authorities in Europe to mount an investigation into wholesale gas prices across the continent. That is the only way that we will get to the bottom of what exactly is happening.

Energywatch is well led by Allan Asher, and he and his staff, Ed Wilson and Richard Bates, who have been to the House and have briefed Members, recently held a seminar for 60 people from across the gas industry: producers, regulators, and industrial and domestic consumer representatives. When the basic question was asked of how many people thought that the wholesale gas market was working properly—the room was rather more full than the Chamber—only two hands went up. One belonged to a representative of the offshore industry, and the other to the chief executive of Ofgem. Everyone else disagreed, which tells us something.

That is a political issue, which is ticking away in the background. However, it is the No. 1 issue for manufacturing industry. I hope that the Government do not listen only to the operators who have produced a report. Allan Asher said that the UKOOA report is

"little more than gas producers voting themselves a £5 billion windfall each year, at the expense of consumers . . . Consumers are paying the price for the lack of transparency in the market. If industry can't provide the information that the market needs to work properly, then it must be imposed."

I agree.

I am delighted to be able to contribute to this well informed debate. I thank the hon. Member for Inverness, East, Nairn and Lochaber (Mr. Stewart), who probably has the second longest constituency name in the House, for his obviously thorough and well researched overview of the gas industry and its prospects nationally and internationally. I shall not comment on that in detail, but he left two questions hanging in the air to which I very much hope the Minister will respond. One related to the provision for storing gas in the coming years. The hon. Gentleman rightly pointed out that the UK has less storage capacity than other European Union nations, and given that we are importing rather than exporting, perhaps the Minister should turn his attention to that matter.The hon. Gentleman's second question, which is of some importance, is whether there will be a time lag in connecting up the necessary interconnectors. If there is such a time lag, the supplies will not be accessible to us in this country even though they are on the other side of the sea.

The hon. Member for Hamilton, South (Mr. Tynan) made a passionate pro-nuclear case, which I have heard before. He knows that I do not agree with him, but I hope that the Minister will respond to his plea for investment in clean coal technology. There is no doubt that there will be a continuing demand for coal not only in this country but overseas, and bearing in mind coal's very high carbon emission potential, investment in clean coal technology is not simply an economic benefit to the coal industry in this country, but potentially a major export industry.

The hon. Member for Selby (Mr. Grogan) drew attention to the paradox of gas from a high-price market being exported to a lower-price market, which may be accelerating the price spike in the UK that is hitting domestic consumers and the manufacturing industry hard. So there are already quite a few questions for the Minister to answer before I make any contribution to the debate. I hope that the Minister will have effective answers.

One issue that I wanted to discuss but which has not yet been raised in this debate is the fact that the UK's consumption of energy is not as strongly connected to its economic growth as commentators suggest. Figures for UK energy consumption show that between 1993 and 2003, which is the last year for which complete figures have been published, there was a rise of only 3 per cent.—that is, 3 per cent. in 10 years. Over the same period, the UK's gross domestic product rose by 33 per cent. So we have to some extent managed to decouple economic growth and prosperity from energy growth. That is important to remember when we consider some of the doom-and-gloom scenarios described by the most alarmist commentators.

Interestingly, the German economy has grown by an almost equal amount and has reduced the gross consumption of energy in the same 10-year period, so we should not completely dismiss the possibility in future decades of continuing growth, wealth and prosperity and a reduction in energy consumption leading to a significant reduction in carbon dioxide emissions.

In 2003, gas was 38 per cent. of total energy consumption—a very large slice and the largest contributor to our energy mix. What happens next is clearly of great importance, and the hon. Member for Inverness, East, Nairn and Lochaber was right to bring it to our attention today. We need to know the future cost of gas and its future availability and environmental impact on the UK.

The hon. Gentleman gave a very good overview of the wide range of sources of gas. His analysis was at least as good as any that I could provide, but I have a striking anecdote to relay. Members of the energy industry select committee of the Nigerian Parliament visited Westminster and the UK last summer, and I discussed with them the state of their industry in Nigeria. They confirmed what I already understood to be true, which is that they cannot find a market for the country's gas and are burning off huge volumes each year.

Subsequently, I saw a night-time, satellite photograph of the globe provided by the National Geographic Magazine of America and one of the brightest spots was the sea off the west African coast where the gas is being burned off. Some of the hysteria that we hear about gas running out and so on needs to be tempered by a realisation that, throughout the world, many sellers are eager—indeed, desperate—to get rid of their product as there are many buyers who are equally eager to purchase it. Future investment needs to go in the direction of making sure that the connection is made between the two. The hon. Gentleman referred to liquid natural gas as being a means of transporting that.

We must maintain the objective of future growth in wealth and prosperity, a direction in which I am sure that a future Government would go. Moreover, we must ensure a lower energy intensity and we must ensure that conservation, efficiency and substitution of fossil fuels by other fuels receive high priority. We must remember that it should be not only transport fuel use that is a common target, but that buildings and the built environment use 50 per cent. of the energy that we consume and I hope that my Sustainable and Secure Buildings Act 2004, which received Royal Assent last September, will play a part in moving us towards that end.

Given that background, it is absolutely essential that we focus a great deal of Government attention on reducing the energy intensity with which we will have a future growth in wealth and prosperity. That means that conservation and efficiency must play a much bigger part in the strategy of any future Government. Furthermore, we must maintain investment in renewables. The hon. Member for Hamilton, South was a little dismissive of what might be happening with renewables, but rightly drew attention to the uneven focus that there has been on the development of wind energy as the sole renewable source. I say to the Minister and to him that we do not need a huge surge in the investment in renewables to achieve the Government's targets by 2050. A 1 per cent. per year growth in renewables during the next 50 years would provide us with 50 per cent. of our energy coming from renewable sources and not all from wind—we must fully accept that that would be impractical.

The hon. Member for Hamilton, South mentioned several other technologies and no doubt there will be further technologies in 50 years' time of which we are not aware at the moment. If we reached a position in 2050 when about half of our energy was coming from renewable sources of one sort or another and were successful in turning the current energy growth of 0.3 per cent. per year into a reduction in energy of 0.7 per cent. per year—a 1 per cent. per year change in our energy use in a downward direction—that would reduce our overall energy demand by 2050 to 70 per cent. of what it is now. It would leave 20 per cent. of our current energy demand to be filled by a fossil fuel or, if the hon. Gentleman had his way, by nuclear.

Even if gas provided all the 20 per cent. of energy demand, it would mean that our demand for gas in 2050 would only be half of what it is now and that we had comfortably met the Government's current targets and those of the Royal Commission on Environmental Pollution of a 60 per cent. reduction in fossil fuel. I ask the Government to listen to the points that have been made and to focus on a longer game, tackling conservation and efficiency to a much greater extent than at present.

There may even be a misconception in the original title of the debate. "The future for gas in an integrated energy policy" assumes that there is an integrated energy policy now. As the Minister knows, I have been a critic over the years of what I see as the disjointed and fluctuating range of policies that the Government have talked about. I have been critical of the slow implementation even of those on which they have passed legislation. It is extremely disappointing that whenever a target, such as carbon emission reductions or the achievement of any energy policy, is missed it is simply dropped. It seems to the Opposition that they are often blown about more by lobbyists and market forces than by any real vision or determination to get to the end of the job.

It is always a pleasure to be in a debate with the current Minister, but he knows that he is the sixth holder of his portfolio in seven years. Although he is a good and well briefed Minister, and a hard worker, that underlines the fact that we are still some way from an integrated energy policy. I hope that the Minister will tell the Secretary of State that we must try harder in future.

I congratulate the hon. Member for Inverness, East, Nairn and Lochaber (Mr. Stewart) on securing this important debate and on having the foresight to do so at a time when energy is being widely discussed. There are unfortunate reasons for its being talked about—the power cuts in London and the midlands a while ago. Those cuts were not caused by a shortage of supply, but they focused people's minds on what might happen, and prompted a television programme that caused a little concern.

Although the cuts were to do with infrastructure rather than supply, we should take note of them. The hon. Member for Inverness, East, Nairn and Lochaber and, more particularly, the hon. Member for Hamilton, South (Mr. Tynan), talked about the dangers and difficulties of bringing gas from as far away as Russia. That is of course a problem of infrastructure, and if infrastructure went wrong in our own country, it has the potential to go wrong again if we bring gas from across the world. The hon. Member for Hamilton, South made a good and wide-ranging speech, which covered many of the issues that I intended to raise, so I shall keep my comments fairly brief, to allow the Minister time for his reply.

The hon. Member for Selby (Mr. Grogan) made some good points about gas prices. He will know as well as anyone about the decline of the coal industry. Three mines in Selby have, I think, closed recently. He will have first-hand experience relevant to what the hon. Member for Hamilton, South was saying on the subject. I regret the industry's decline; my father was a miner and I have natural sympathy for the mining industry. However, we must recognise that there are environmental pressures on the coal industry. It may be possible to deal with those to some extent through clean coal technology, although that will require a great deal of financial input at a time when there is not as much investment in the energy sector as we might want—something that we should be concerned about.

As coal and nuclear power decline and as renewables come along—but slowly; they are at slightly less than 3 per cent. now—we must consider where our energy supplies will come from. At present, nuclear energy provides about 22 or 23 per cent. of our electricity needs. In 20 years, that will be down to only 2 per cent. unless there is further investment in the nuclear industry. We cannot predict exactly what the production from coal will be, other than that it was 66 per cent. in 1990 and it is now about 33 per cent. We do not know what it will be in 20 years, but even if it reduces considerably, and even if renewables come along as we hope that they will, somewhere between two thirds and three quarters of our energy needs will come from gas. I have made a few assumptions, but they are not outrageous assumptions; what I have described could well come to pass.

Over the past 30 years—perhaps not quite that long in terms of gas—we have had a lot of reserves from the North sea. They are starting to decline, although there are still a lot of gas and oil reserves there. We are having to look further afield for our gas supplies. I do not think that that is necessarily a terrible problem. I read in the Financial Times this morning that the Minister is going to Norway next month to finalise the treaty for the pipeline from that country, which is welcome. However, it will supply only about 20 per cent. of our gas needs at most. There is also the interconnector with Holland, which will come on line in 2006–07. I do not know exactly how much gas will come from that.

As we increase our dependency on gas, we will have to go further afield to get it. Russia is the obvious place to go. There is the theory that it needs the money, and therefore it will not cut off gas supplies, but tell that to Belarus, which had an interruption in its supply because of a political dispute. I do not claim to be an expert in what is happening in Yukos, the giant oil company in Russia, but I cannot persuade myself that there is not some political manoeuvring going on. I will not put it any stronger than that, but I think there is enough concern about that to give me some concern about becoming over-dependent on supplies from Russia, or any other country that does not have a stable political history.

There is also concern about the infrastructure that brings the gas to our country from so far away. The Government are right to focus on the threat of terrorism in its many forms. We cannot exclude the possibility of some terrorist-inspired interruption to our gas supply if it comes all the way from Russia. How could we get the gas here? We could bring it in a liquefied form, but we might be looking to bring it here by pipeline, in which case we would be at the end of a very long pipeline.

Just over a year ago, I visited Finland to see its new nuclear reactor plans and the way that it deals with nuclear waste. The public were persuaded to go for a fifth reactor by the Finnish Government saying, "It is up to you, Mr. And Mrs. Elector; you have a choice. We either build a fifth nuclear reactor or we depend on gas from the Russians." Unsurprisingly, they chose to have a fifth nuclear reactor.

It is interesting that 23 countries are building or planning to build new nuclear reactors. That will increase the civil nuclear capacity of the world by 33 per cent. We need to ask whether those countries are all wrong and that we are right to allow our nuclear industry to decline to just 2 per cent. and to virtually nothing in 20 years. With regard to security of supply, we must have a balanced energy policy. That has been described in previous contributions as an integrated policy; I do not think there is much difference between those phrases.

The hon. Member for Hamilton, South is not the only Member present who is old enough to remember the three-day week. Sadly, I also remember it. I think that the slogan at the time was, "Vote for Ted and stay in bed." As I am a Conservative, I should not have said that, but I remember all the slogans that were going around at the time. In our industrialised country, we had a three-day week. The television was compulsorily turned off at 10 pm. We sat in the dark for many nights—although, as I was a teenager with a girlfriend at the time, I do not think that I was too perturbed by that. However, from an industrial point of view, it was a disaster That was only 30 years ago, within our living and working memory. My point is that we were in that situation because of an over-dependence on one source of energy. We should not put ourselves in that position again in relation to coal or gas or any other single form of energy.

While we all want to hear more about the darkness and his girlfriend, is the hon. Gentleman working his way round to saying that he and the Conservative party are as enthusiastic about a new nuclear building programme as the hon. Member for Hamilton, South (Mr. Tynan)?

Hon. Members will be glad to hear that I am moving off the previous topic. However, I am very sympathetic to that idea. The Government are in a difficult position with regard to the nuclear industry. Any Government will be, because the most likely builder of a new nuclear plant is British Energy, and it is in severe financial difficulties. It is also constrained by the European Union judgment on its aid package—the Minister will interrupt me if I am wrong—in that it cannot run a new nuclear plant for, I think, six years. That is a further difficulty. Therefore, I am sympathetic to the idea of a new generation of nuclear plant, not because I have a greater regard for that industry than I have for any other, but because I cannot see how, without a nuclear industry, we are to secure supply or cut emissions.

If, in 20 years, we replace our entire nuclear production with renewables—that is a very big "if"—we will have got nowhere with cutting carbon emissions. We will have only replaced one carbon-free industry with another. We will not have affected emissions. If we are reducing emissions, we have to have three things: renewables, the generation of nuclear power and a reduction in electricity use—it is not a case of "either/or". If the hon. Member for Banff and Buchan (Mr. Salmond) is asking me whether, as Energy Minister on 6 May, I would sign a cheque for the nuclear industry, the answer is that no, I would not. It is a matter of getting the industry together, and asking, "What is the position? How do you see the future?", and, "Are there things that Government can do apart from signing a cheque that might encourage you to address the imbalance of supply that will happen in the near future—in our lifetime?" I hope that that is a reasonably clear answer to the very sensible question that the hon. Gentleman asked. We have to move towards a balanced energy policy if we are not to be over-dependent on one source of energy.

Nothing that I have said should be taken as an attack on the gas industry. Gas has provided a great deal of security of supply over many years. It has provided a great deal of money to the Exchequer and I congratulate those who operate the industry. They have a bright future, and they will continue to play a significant role in the supply of energy to this country. However, I would not want us to be dependent to the extent of, say, three quarters of our energy coming from gas if much of that gas were to come from countries that do not have proven records of political stability.

The difficulty is, how can a Government control that? I am not an interventionist politician. I came into Parliament to try to persuade Governments of all colours to withdraw from many areas of life—the Government are involved in too many of those. So how does one get the country to move towards the balance of energy supply that we need without being interventionist? I sympathise with the Minister, and that is not an easy thing to do. Our energy market is not a free market. It has many environmental constraints and a regulator, and a demand on it to persuade its customers not to use as much of its product as they do. I do not know whether that is a unique situation, but it is very unusual. We do not have a completely free market; we have a situation in which the Government have to keep their hand on the tiller, while at the same time not interfering to the point that makes matters worse.

As we look to the future, the Government need to give an idea to the energy industries—particularly to the coal industry—about how they think that things will go. That is not to interfere beyond where it is right for Governments to interfere, but so that we have some confidence about the medium-term future.

I do not think that we are facing electricity cuts this winter or next, unless an absolutely terrible winter coincides with a number of breakdowns in power generation across the country, events which are beyond anything that we can ordinarily control. We do not have a short-term problem. However, the hon. Members for Inverness, East, Nairn and Lochaber and for Hamilton, South have said that the medium term does not look quite so secure. I do not want to be alarmist, and no one here today has been, but we are right to raise the issues and say, "Let's not wait until the last minute and then panic."

Let us think five or 10 years ahead. Where do we see electricity supplies coming from? Is it right that we should be burning gas to produce electricity when gas itself can be used, and when there are other ways of producing electricity, including renewables and nuclear? As well as the Government indicating what sort of future they see for nuclear and coal—and therefore, by implication, for gas—we need more of a steer on the subject of renewables. The hon. Member for Hazel Grove (Mr. Stunell) said that to get half of our electricity from renewables, we need only to increase renewable usage by one percentage point each year. That is sound mathematics, and achieving it does not sound very difficult, but 1 per cent. of our electricity production is quite a lot. In round figures, it is about half what a nuclear power station would produce. It is quite a challenge to bring on renewable production to that extent.

Our party's policy is to retain the renewables obligation and the targets within it. It is also our policy to examine the internal workings of that obligation to ascertain whether it is actually producing what we want, and I know that the Government have already set about doing that. At present, the obligation is not producing what we want. There is an over-emphasis on wind power. Anyone who thinks that we can solve this country's energy problems simply with wind is living in cloud cuckoo land. I am well aware of the opposition to wind power, certainly in some areas of Scotland. We need a mixed policy, and we need to know where we are going with renewables, nuclear power and coal, which would enable us to know where we are going with gas. Once again, I congratulate the hon. Member for Inverness, East Nairn and Lochaber on initiating this important debate.

I begin by congratulating my hon. Friend the Member for Inverness, East, Nairn and Lochaber (Mr. Stewart) on securing this important debate, which has been useful for the House. I apologise for arriving somewhat late due to traffic jams in south-east London, but I did receive full notes from my hon. Friend the Minister for Small Business and Enterprise and heard most of the contribution of my hon. Friend the Member for Inverness, East Nairn and Lochaber.

I thought that the contribution of the hon. Member for Tewkesbury (Mr. Robertson) was thoughtful, and I sympathised with much of what he said. He also reminded us of the importance of energy supplies by referring to the three-day week, his activities in the dark and the slogan "Vote for Ted and stay in bed." Now we know why he joined the Conservative party.

The White Paper set out our plans to ensure sustainable, secure and affordable energy delivered through competitive markets. By 2020, we envisage a more diverse energy system. It is important to stress that wind provides about a third of our renewables today, and we want that extended, but we want to see investment in a range of other renewables that is not focused on wind alone. For the next decade, however, wind will be an enormously important source of energy. Scotland, in particular, will play a substantial part in providing much of that electricity. I will return to renewables in due course.

Gas is set to remain the most significant part of the energy mix. Our estimates are that during 2004 the UK was, overall, a net importer of gas on an annual basis for the first time since, I think, 1996. Although there are variations from month to month, the long-term trend, by which we shall become a net importer of energy as a whole, is obvious. It is clearly important to reflect on the challenges for security of supply that will result from becoming a net importer again, as well as some other challenges—notably the need to update our energy infrastructure.

In today's global markets, secure and diverse sources of energy are essential for producers and customers. Ultimate responsibility for security of supply rests with my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State, and we firmly believe that that responsibility is being discharged by leaving key functions with those who have the expertise to carry them out, such as Ofgem, the national grid, and other market participants.

I just wonder whether Ofgem's expertise is something that the Minister should rely on. Does he accept that some of the problems in the gas market identified by the hon. Member for Selby (Mr. Grogan) are a direct result of Ofgem's decisions on locational pricing in the early to mid-90s, which have been revised, sensibly, in the past couple of years? Does that not suggest that a close examination would be wise before rushing headlong to the introduction into the electricity market, by the same people, of a similar system or philosophy, which would create a heavy disincentive to the sort of expansion of electricity production from renewable sources in the north of Scotland that the Minister just welcomed and anticipated?

As the hon. Gentleman knows, whatever phrase can be used about the consideration that Ofgem is currently giving to the issues, "rushing headlong" is not an appropriate one. Arguably, there has recently been something of a delay in re-examining some of the suggestions. Perhaps the hon. Gentleman should revise his phraseology, whatever his views about Ofgem. It is important that the Government should have a regulator that can obtain the best information and make judgments based on the need for the market to operate effectively and efficiently. In due course, we shall receive the results of Ofgem's current consideration of the issues.

rose—

I see that the hon. Gentleman rising, and will give way to him once more, because he has been present for much of the debate, and I know that he is interested in the issue.

I am meeting the Minister later today, of course.

What the Minister says would be right if Ofgem recognised the Government's renewable energy targets, but, as he knows, I and colleagues asked its representatives three times, during a meeting with them, whether they acknowledged and were abiding by the Government's targets on renewable energy; each time they refused to answer, saying that they were bound by different criteria.

Ofgem is set up under statute and is bound by the statute that set it up. The Government have renewable energy supplies targets to be reached by 2010 and 2020, and we are pursuing them. No doubt Ofgem conducts its regulatory activities with awareness of those targets, because its objectives are clearly set out in its statute, and no doubt its representatives were merely communicating the fact that Ofgem is governed by Parliament, which has legislated to decide the basis on which it operates.

The hon. Gentleman should not read too much into his brief discussions at Ofgem. I meet its representatives regularly and am satisfied that they will consider all the issues seriously and try to ensure that the market operates effectively. We need a policy framework for energy that provides appropriate incentives, and that is one of the issues that Ofgem will continue to examine. The White Paper recognises that competitive markets can provide suppliers with incentives for reliability and the diversifying of sources. That, we believe, is the strength of our regulatory system; and, since liberalisation in 1990, the market has begun to deliver more secure energy supplies. We have made some changes to the way in which it operates, and we seek to ensure that it continues to deliver secure supplies. The national grid is forecasting that Britain's plant margin will rise over the next few years, reaching more than 30 per cent. in 2007–08, and remaining at that level to the end of the decade. In the longer term, market signals will show when new build is both needed and economically viable.

After a difficult period, there are signs of growing optimism in the power generation sector. New capacity has come on line at Immingham and Spalding, and earlier this year Centrica bought an option to build another power station at Langage in Devon.

E-ON UK, formerly Powergen, recently announced that it was to convert its Isle of Grain power station into one of the world's largest gas-fired plants at a cost of £80 million. The station is currently oil-fired, and runs only part time. Running full time on gas, the power station should produce enough electricity to power as many as 2 million homes. RWE Npower recently confirmed that it had made an application for consent to build a 2,000 MW gas-fired power station on its former oil-fired power station at Pembroke in south Wales. Those two projects alone represent more than £1 billion of investment in the future of UK energy supplies, which shows that the market is capable of anticipating and responding to future needs. We will continue to watch such issues with a great deal of care. We cannot be complacent, and we need to ensure that we have broad, diverse energy sources.

For markets to work, firms need to be confident that the Government will allow them to operate. That is why we made the commitment in the White Paper that the Government would not intervene unnecessarily, but only in difficult circumstances such as a potentially serious risk to safety. That does not mean that we are less than active. The Government have an important role in monitoring developments and creating an informed and competitive market both at home and abroad. If barriers arise, such as difficulties with planning permission or inadequate price signals, we aim to address them in partnership with business. The Government will ensure that the legal duties of the market regulators are clear and appropriate in relation to security of supply.

What particular challenges does a greater dependence on gas imports imply? First, being a gas importer is not at all unusual—either internationally or, historically, for the UK. All G7 countries except Canada are energy importers. Moreover, the UK imported more than 25 per cent. of its gas in the 1980s—we spoke earlier about the 1970s, but the 1980s is certainly within most people's recollection.

Some commentators have raised the spectre of UK gas imports being held to ransom for reasons related to political factors in other countries. Indeed, reference was made to Russia as a source of energy. We do not buy gas from Russia now, although a number of EU member states do so. They have found over the past 20 years that it is a reliable source of gas; and, despite various issues at different stages, gas supplies have not been interrupted. Indeed, as far as I am aware, the Russians have not sought to use gas supplies as a negotiating card in political discussions. They obviously want to secure a commercial advantage from the sale of their gas, and no one can blame them for that. After discussion with EU member states, we understand that that has not extended beyond the commercial operation into politics; they would be very concerned should that happen.

I understand the concerns expressed by my hon. Friend the Member for Inverness, East, Nairn and Lochaber, but so far we have had no indication that the Russians are playing that sort of political game. In any event, we are not at the moment buying from Russia; we may do so in future, but we have no plans for a direct connection between Russia and the UK.

We deal with other countries that have political and stability issues. We must buy energy from a range of sources, so that if a problem arises with one of them we can switch to the other sources and ensure that our security of supply is maintained. Several hon. Members have referred to that diversity; it is the source of our security. Diversity equals security.

It is always possible that there will be stability issues in some countries, but a move to a more globalised market does not necessarily increase the likelihood of that. On the contrary, it becomes less likely as more countries move away from state-controlled monopoly towards systems in which they deal with other countries. That means that their wealth depends on them being able to deal on a commercial basis with other countries, rather than a political basis. The broader global market in energy can be a source of increased stability, rather than instability.

Given the inevitable decline of indigenous gas supplies in the UK, new infrastructure developments are required to ensure that we continue to meet high winter energy demand. A number of projects are currently under review or under active construction, as the market responds to that opportunity. One example of that is additional import connections to Norway. I hope to visit there shortly, and to discuss with my opposite number the conclusion of treaty negotiations with the Norwegians to ensure that we have strong supplies of gas from the country. The details of those negotiations are being completed. We have almost agreed the treaty; all that we are looking at now are some issues around translation and some administrative issues. We have almost got there; I hope that we can get the treaty signed in the not too distant future. That will provide us with a good source of supply from a country with which we have an extremely friendly relationship, and which is very stable.

LNG terminals are also necessary to import gas from other worldwide sources, and they are being built. We need more interconnection with the European Union. We need pipeline upgrades to increase interconnector import capacity, and we need both onshore and offshore gas storage facilities, as well as access to EU supplies.

Before all of these projects are completed, gas supplies might be tight if demand rises to high levels in the coming winter or the one after that. In such circumstances, we would look to the market to provide the appropriate response through demand management. The ability of the market to deliver large-scale demand response has to be tested, but we have already seen some small-scale examples of large customers choosing to curtail their demand in response to high gas prices. National Grid Transco has calculated that large amounts of demand-side reduction could be delivered by the electricity generating sector itself, without threatening any security of electricity supply.

The electricity generating capacity position is another crucial issue. There has been some wild talk in the newspapers about lights going out and so forth. Some things are possible but unlikely, and the prospect of that happening is extremely unlikely. However, I cannot give a 100 per cent. guarantee that that will never happen; we have just seen how storms have produced problems in the north of England and in Scotland, where thousands of people have been cut off, so such situations arise from time to time.

Last year's experience provides an interesting example of how the market responded. The March 2003 update to the seven-year national grid statement showed the projected plant margin for the winter as being only 16.2 per cent. That seemed low compared with the actual margin in previous years, which had been about 20 per cent. We signalled our concern, and by October the margin had risen to 19.3 per cent. Therefore, the forward price signals, coupled with the summer of power cuts which has been referred to, appear to have worked.

Order. I confirm that in the light of the conditions in the Chamber it is acceptable for hon. Members to remove their jackets.

This is my 17th and probably last Adjournment debate on Lockerbie. On the sixth occasion, 10 long years ago on 1 February 1995, Douglas Hurd, who I am told was the first Foreign Secretary to answer a Back-Bench Adjournment debate since 1945, said:

"All significant information relevant to Lockerbie obtained by the intelligence agencies—or anyone else, to my knowledge—is invariably and as a matter of course provided to those who are responsible for the investigation."—[Official Report, 1 February 1995; Vol. 253, c. 1058–9.]

I am sure that Douglas Hurd spoke in good faith, but I just ask to wonder.

In 1998, Lady Symons told a group of Lockerbie relatives that Her Majesty's Government had a duty to find out why British nationals were killed at Lockerbie. Who was responsible, and how could it have happened? I wonder, as do Pamela Dix and Dr. Jim Swire of the Lockerbie families group, who are here today, whether Her Majesty's Government are fulfilling that duty.

In the Prime Minister's letter of 19 July 2004 to Lockerbie relatives, he writes:

"I entirely share your concern that we learn from Lockerbie and do all we can to prevent such a tragedy happening again."

How can we do that if we do not know the whole truth?

The aim of my next question is to try to establish some part of this very complex truth. Did British intelligence know, or was it informed, that a fifth improvised explosive device, allegedly not recovered but once in the possession of a terrorist cell of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine general command in Germany in late October 1988, was larger than the Toshiba Bombeat single-speaker radio cassette recorder adapted to become an improvised explosive device and found in the possession of the same PFLP-GC terrorist cell, and that the twin-speaker device, which was used in the Lockerbie murders, was larger than the Toshiba Bombeat single-speaker version?

If the UK intelligence services did know or were informed that the so-called fifth device was larger than the Toshiba Bombeat single-speaker radio cassette recorder, adapted to become an improvised explosive device, and that the twin-speaker Toshiba radio cassette recorder was larger than the single-speaker version, was that information given to any police force in the UK? If so, to whom was it given and when?

What were the total costs, incurred directly or indirectly, in connection with the visits made by the prosecution witness, Anthony Gauci, and members of his family, to the UK and Holland between 1 September 1989—a decade before the Scottish Parliament was set up—and 1 September 2002, including travel, accommodation, allowances, subsistence, police time and transport? Who authorised such costs? Do Her Majesty's Government know of any direct or indirect payments or payments in kind offered or made to Anthony Gauci, or to any members of his family, by any organ of the UK Government? Do HMG know of a payment of about $4 million to Gauci from American sources? What was the approximate value of any such payments or payments in kind to Gauci? When were they made or provided, by whom and out of what vote? Does the United Kingdom know, through any British agency, of any offer or arrangement to meet the costs or provide funds, directly or indirectly, for the actual or prospective resettlement of Anthony Gauci—a Maltese citizen and prosecution witness in the Lockerbie trial—or any member of his family, in Australia or any country south of Malta? If so, what were the details of any such offers or arrangements and when, and by whom, were they offered or made?

The Crown Office issued a press release on 10 May 1995 about the late Alan Francovitch's film "The Maltese Double Cross", acknowledging that the US Drug Enforcement Administration was running controlled drug deliveries through Frankfurt and London to the USA in 1988 and 1989, in collusion with the German Government. Do HMG still believe that that was so? I have given 48 hours' notice of these questions, and I hope that I have left time for a serious Foreign Office reply.

I am sorry for asking the Father of the House to give way just as he is ending his speech. However, is he aware of my constituents, Martin and Rita Cadman, who are the parents of one of the victims on the aircraft? Above all else, they want closure. They want the truth; for them that is very important. They want to get on with their lives. Is the hon. Gentleman also aware that most of the relatives feel that the Libyan leader was forced into making his offer to them, for purely political reasons? They are not impressed by it; they want the truth more than anything else.

I simply respond that Martin Cadman is an extremely serious and well informed member of the Lockerbie group of relatives. He and his wife had a most terrible loss, as did the other relatives.

I say to hard-working Ministers and Foreign Office officials that, at one level, I am sorry to bother them about events that began 16 long years ago and that perhaps could only have been fully explained by the late Abu Nidal—who was murdered in Baghdad, probably by associates of Saddam Hussein—or by people, either dead or long since retired, in Washington. However, on another level, I do not apologise. Those relatives passionately believe that they are entitled to the truth. In Barlinnie prison there is a man—Abdelbaset al-Megrahi—who I believe was a sanctions buster for Libyan Arab Airlines and the Libyan oil industry, and not a mass murderer.

I take the opportunity to congratulate the Father of the House, my hon. Friend the Member for Linlithgow (Mr. Dalyell), on securing this debate to discuss matters relating to Lockerbie and talk about the recent developments in the UK-Libyan relationship, which are also relevant. I pay tribute to his persistence and sustained interest in his inquiries as to what happened with regard to Lockerbie. He referred to the fact that that horrific and tragic event took place 16 years ago and said that this was his 17th Adjournment debate on the subject. He has persistently pursued the matter in a way that is remarkable and to his credit.

I also pay tribute to the Lockerbie families. Their courage and determination throughout the years and in the face of such a tragedy are impressive and humbling. Nothing can ever bring back their family members, but Libya's formal acceptance of responsibility for Lockerbie, and the payment of compensation to the victims' families, are important and have been recognised as such by the families.

Before I turn to the foreign policy aspects of Lockerbie, I wish to underscore this Government's satisfaction with Libya's reintegration with the international community in the past 12 months. As the Prime Minister rightly said when he visited Libya in March 2004, we are aware of Libya's past record but we should acknowledge and support change where we judge that it is real; otherwise, we never make progress in international relations. It is right that we should seek to consolidate and build on that improvement in relations.

Libya's dismantling of its weapons of mass destruction programmes and the formal acceptance by its Government of responsibility for the Lockerbie bombing are particularly welcome and important developments. It is worth noting that there have been other signs of progress, including rapprochement between Libya and the EU, payment of compensation to the families of the Lockerbie victims and settlements in the French and German claims for compensation.

I am grateful to the Minister for giving way and for what he has said so far. Would he not agree that the families have said that the compensation is a step forward, but is pretty meaningless in the absence of getting the truth out? The total amount of compensation that Gaddafi is offering is minute compared with Libya's oil revenues. The families really want some progress on the truth.

On one level I accept the thrust of what the hon. Gentleman is saying. We left the negotiation on the compensation to the lawyers, because that was the correct course to take to get the best deal and justice for the families of the Lockerbie victims. I will deal later with the issue of wanting truth and closure.

It is clear that a policy of engagement with Libya has the potential to bring this country and its people further benefits—political, strategic and commercial—in the future. A Libya that has renounced terrorism and abandoned its weapons of mass destruction programmes is a safer neighbour for the EU and the UK. I should like to say a final word on this subject: the case of Libya demonstrates that international relationships can be transformed. Difficult problems, such as the proliferation of WMD, can be resolved through discussion and engagement if political will and commitment is present on both sides. What has happened with Libya is a model that I hope North Korea will follow, recognising that it is possible to make progress on such issues by genuinely engaging with the international community.

I have set out the Government's approach to UK-Libya relations. Let me turn now to the points that my hon. Friend raised in his speech. I am grateful for the fact that he gave advance notice to my office of his line of questioning, but he has asked many detailed questions and if there are gaps between what I am able to say and the fullness of my answers, I shall write to him. Some of my hon. Friend's points are the responsibility of the devolved Administration in Scotland, and I will ensure that those issues are passed on to the authorities there, but I shall certainly try to deal with his main points.

As to the responsibilities of the Scottish Parliament, that is a very grey area, because many of my questions referred to the knowledge of the Government in London before the Scottish Parliament was set up in 1999.

Certainly, I will do my best on the points that relate to the responsibilities of the UK Government, either today or subsequently in writing. However, there are elements that relate to devolved responsibilities and functions that have been transferred to the Scottish Parliament and Executive. It is appropriate for me to ensure that they are aware of the issues that my hon. Friend has raised, and I will do my level best to ensure that they respond to him.

Let me now deal with what, in many senses, is the central thrust of the argument of my hon. Friend and the hon. Member for North-West Norfolk (Mr. Bellingham): the case for an independent inquiry into Lockerbie. I know that my hon. Friend has long taken the view that there should be an independent inquiry into Lockerbie. Some 270 people died, and in such circumstances, as Ministers have said before, there is both a moral and a practical imperative for Government to seek answers to the key and fundamental questions.

The search for answers about Lockerbie involved unprecedented police, diplomatic and legal efforts. The unique format of a Scottish court sitting at Camp Zeist in the Netherlands led to the trial and conviction of Abdelbaset al-Megrahi. His conviction, as my hon. Friend will know, has since been upheld on appeal. The trial and Mr. al-Megrahi's conviction answer many of the key questions about what happened at Lockerbie. The court heard evidence about how the bomb was loaded on to Pan Am 103. It established that the attack was carried out

"in furtherance of the purposes of the Libyan intelligence services"

and that Mr. al-Megrahi, an agent of the Libyan intelligence services, had been involved in the conspiracy to bomb the plane.

I appreciate that there are other questions that some feel were not addressed in full by the trial. I fully understand that this is undoubtedly a particularly sensitive issue for the victims' families, many of whom have pressed for an independent inquiry into the tragic events at Lockerbie. Let me assure hon. Members that we take the families' concerns extremely seriously. Ministers and officials have had regular contact with the families over the years and have listened very carefully to them. The Prime Minister met representatives of the families in spring 2004 when he returned from Tripoli. The Foreign Secretary has also met the families, rightly, on a number of occasions.

The Government have given proposals for a further inquiry into Lockerbie careful consideration on a number of occasions; I know that to be the case. In regard to the case that my hon. Friend made for an independent inquiry, I have to say that such an inquiry would be a further inquiry because, of course, a number of inquiries have already taken place. Those include the Camp Zeist trial and the fatal accident inquiry, a published report following the expert investigation by the Air Accidents Investigation Branch, and Mr. al-Megrahi's appeal against his conviction. Much information came to light, perhaps inevitably, in the course of those inquiries and trials.

I do respect the view that the issue should be reconsidered in light of improvements in the bilateral relationship established between the UK and Libya. The improvement is welcome and we remain determined to continue the process of bringing Libya back into the international community, but that does not alter the fundamentals that led us, after long and careful consideration, to reject the idea of a further inquiry.

As my right hon. Friend the Foreign Secretary has told the families and Parliament, given the absence of any significant new information, the fact that the key issues have already been extensively explored, and action taken, including substantial changes to airport procedures, it is most unlikely that any further form of inquiry would unearth further lessons to be learned—some16 years after the event, as my hon. Friend said—that had not been identified during earlier investigations.

There undoubtedly remain a host of theories and issues on this subject that have developed over time. It is not the place of the Government to assess those theories. That was, and must remain, a matter for the prosecuting authorities. It is clear that such theories can be based only on an incomplete knowledge and understanding of the mass of evidence that was available to the prosecuting authorities, through which these matters were investigated in extraordinary detail.

It also remains a matter for the Scottish prosecution authorities to decide whether further inquiries into the criminal case are appropriate. As the independent head of the prosecution authorities, the Lord Advocate addressed the Scottish Parliament following Mr al-Megrahi's conviction for murder in 2001. On that occasion, he made it clear that the criminal investigation remains open as regards the involvement of others with al-Megrahi in the bombing, but that there was insufficient evidence to justify bringing criminal proceedings against any individual. That remains the case, as I understand it.

As anyone who has followed the case knows—certainly my hon. Friend the Father of House does—the possibility that an extremist group might have been responsible was thoroughly investigated on a number of occasions. No credible evidence has been found to substantiate any theory other than that which led to charges being brought against the two Libyan individuals—that was certainly the assessment of the prosecuting authorities.

The case was put together after the largest investigations to take place in respect of any crime that has been committed in the UK. The crime committed was unique in the history of crime in this country, and our concern, as always, was rightly that justice should be done. The dedication of the Dumfries and Galloway constabulary, and the efforts of the families in their pursuit of justice, was rightly admired by all. [Interruption.] As we certainly know, the Scottish judges in the Netherlands returned their verdict on 31 January 2001, and one of the two accused, al-Megrahi, was found guilty of the murder of 270 people on Pan Am flight 103 over Lockerbie. The second, Mr. al-Fhimah, was acquitted. Mr al-Megrahi's appeal was not upheld.

In view of the time that has elapsed during the investigation, and the fact that some of the detailed matters raised by my hon. Friend are properly for the devolved Scottish Administration, the information relating to some of his questions lies outside the grasp of the Foreign Office. I will nevertheless deal with the specific points raised, with the knowledge that has been made available to me.

What is not outside the UK's purview is whether moneys were paid to Mr. Gauci, and if so from what sources. If the Minister cannot answer that today, I do not make any complaints—but he has had 48 hours' notice and I really would like a detailed letter on this.

I will happily address that point, but let me refer in turn to the points that my hon. Friend has raised.

My hon. Friend has raised the possible use, by the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine general command, of a Toshiba radio cassette as an improvised explosive device. On the face of it, it is indeed striking that the radio cassette player was of the same make as that used in the attack on Pan Am 103. As my hon. Friend points out, it was, however, a different model. More importantly, the timers were found to be of a different kind. The court looked in detail at the apparent connections between this case and Pan Am 103—they had the full information before them—and concluded that there was no connection.

My hon. Friend has also raised a number of detailed questions about the prosecution witness Mr. Gauci—with notice but, with the time it takes to pull information together, at short notice. On his request for the detail of the costs of Mr. Gauci's visits to Scotland, I have not been able to pull together the costs within the time available, but I will write to my hon. Friend. However, for the record, let me make it absolutely clear that any visits to the United Kingdom were appropriate and necessary, and were related to the proper investigation and prosecution of the case. There is no question of any inducements having been offered by the UK authorities to any individuals during the Scottish authorities' inquiries.

My hon. Friend asked about Mr. Gauci's possible relocation to Australia. I am not aware of any such arrangement. However, I will write to my hon. Friend once I have had the opportunity to look at that claim in detail. He should not assume anything from that. I am not aware of any information about that, but I will check it out further. I will do the same as regards the $4 million payment.

My hon. Friend also raised the issue of the press notice issued by the Crown Office in 1995. I am not sure he quite does justice to what was said in that statement, which quoted from a statement made in the House on 1 February 1995 by the then Foreign Secretary, who was himself quoting a United States official. The press statement said:

"As the Foreign Secretary told the House of Commons on 1 February, the acting Administrator of the United States Drug Enforcement Administration stated publicly to United States Congressional investigators in 1990 that while they did conduct controlled drug deliveries through Frankfurt in 1989 with the co-operation and supervision of the German authorities no controlled deliveries were conducted anywhere in Europe during or immediately before December 1988."

I think that that addresses my hon. Friend's concern.

There may be parts of the detail that I have not picked up from my hon. Friend but I hope that I have managed to deal with the fundamentals of the Government's approach to the case. I shall certainly look carefully at the record of my hon. Friend's remarks to see whether I can usefully write to him on any other matters. If this does prove to be my hon. Friend's last Adjournment debate on the subject, I want to take the opportunity to recognise the diligence with which he has pursued these issues and the spirit in which he has raised them. He has done an enormous service to the families of Lockerbie, and it is right that that is recognised.

In conclusion, my thoughts and concerns remain with the families whose lives were fundamentally devastated by the Lockerbie bombing. It is one of the most appalling terrorist attacks ever to beset this country. The investigations and compensation are progress, but nothing will ultimately ever reverse the appalling events that took place back in 1988. Nevertheless, I congratulate my hon. Friend on securing the debate and giving it a further air.

I should like to take the opportunity to thank the Minister and his officials. There are terrible problems for things that happened, not in the time of his father, grandfather, great-grandfather or great-great grandfather in Foreign Office terms, but long ago. I can imagine that it is difficult to go through archives. However, there is also a general problem with the responsibilities of the House of Commons and of the Scottish Parliament. You would have ruled out of order some of the questions that one would have liked to ask, Mr. Taylor, because they concern the Crown Office. The Crown Office has a moral obligation to be forthcoming in all that it knows—

Order. Mr. Rammell.

Briefly, in response to that point, there is a proper division of responsibilities between the UK central Government and the Scottish Parliament. Nevertheless, I will ensure that the points that my hon. Friend has raised will go to the Scottish Parliament, Executive and relevant authorities, and I will ensure that he gets an answer.

Thank you.

I welcome the Under-Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs, the hon. Member for Harlow (Mr. Rammell), and I am delighted to have secured the debate on this day, as it is my birthday. My interests are declared in the Register of Members' Interests, and I remind Members that I am parliamentary adviser to the human rights charity, Christian Solidarity Worldwide.

Some people, notably political isolationists and extreme nationalists, might think that the United Nations is a threat to national sovereignty, but I do not. I shall put my cards on the table. I speak as an internationalist, I do not accept the law of the jungle, I have no desire to turn a blind eye to the conflict and injustice in the world and I think that the multilateral machinery for addressing inter-state and intra-state conflict and for tackling the abuse of human rights is far from perfect, but that it is better than nothing.

The UN stands at the apex of that multilateral machinery. Set up in 1945 as the chief agent of collective security, it was described only four years ago in the UN millennium declaration as

"the indispensable common house of the entire human family".

However, today it is mired in controversy: corruption in the oil for food programme, administrative incompetence, rampant cronyism, and sexual harassment of staff are among the welter of accusations it faces.

Freedom lovers might accept a plea in mitigation for all the other sins of the organisation if it at least acted to protect the oppressed; sadly, it does not. The grim record speaks for itself. In the 1990s, the UN was a craven bystander in Angola, Rwanda, Afghanistan, Bosnia and Herzegovina, and Kosovo. More recently, its troops in the Democratic Republic of the Congo have been slated as poorly equipped, badly trained and lacking in commitment. UN soldiers are accused of abusing vulnerable refugees, and 1,000 people are still dying every day. To cap it all, with regard to Darfur in western Sudan, the UN has imposed no sanctions on the Government of Sudan and sent no troops, even though the former UN humanitarian affairs co-ordinator for the region has described the situation there as

"the worst humanitarian and human-rights catastrophe in the world."

Equally disgracefully, the UN Security Council has never made an agenda item of Burma, whose brutal military junta savagely violates human rights every day.

In 2003, in the aftermath of the Iraq war, Kofi Annan, conscious of the crisis of confidence in the UN, appointed a high-level panel to consider the UN's future in the face of threats, challenges and change. Its report covers a vast terrain. I intend to focus narrowly on three issues: the UN Commission on Human Rights; the criteria for humanitarian intervention; and the scope for a peace-building commission.

The UN Commission on Human Rights was set up by the UN Economic and Social Council in February 1946. It first met in 1947. It meets annually for six weeks in March and April in Geneva. It can make statements, adopt resolutions and appoint special rapporteurs, but it cannot directly refer abuses to the Security Council. Instead, its resolutions can go to ECOSOC, which is a main organ of the UN. If it adopts them, they can go to the General Assembly. If the General Assembly adopts the resolutions, they can go forward to the Security Council for consideration. The words cumbersome and circuitous spring to mind as descriptions of that protracted process. At its best, the commission can shine a light on abuses; at its worst, it is an organised hypocrisy for tyrannies to shield themselves from scrutiny.

The essential problem lies in the three Cs; composition, chairmanship and credibility. Seats are allocated according to regional grouping; there are 15 for Africa, 12 for Asia, 11 for Latin America and the Caribbean, 10 for western Europe and others, and five for eastern Europe. At present, there are 53 members, including China, the Congo, Cuba, Eritrea, Nepal, Nigeria, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, Sudan and Zimbabwe, to name but 10 states that are not renowned for their commitment to pluralism or respect for human rights. Yet, on 10 December 1948 when the United Nations universal declaration on human rights was issued, reference was made to the pursuit of a

"common standard of achievement for all peoples"

in terms of respect for, and observance of, human rights.

I have attended many sessions of the United Nations Commission on Human Rights. Does the hon. Gentleman accept that one of the deepening flaws in the process is the reduction in status of non-governmental organisations? This is their one voice in many cases; they arrive at a UN forum and voice serious detailed criticisms, often of their Governments or other Governments. Those criticisms have been systematically curtailed at the behest of a strange coalition of world powers.

Yes, I agree. The commission would not shut out those organisations if it were committed to pluralism; a big "if", as the hon. Gentleman will concur. If its members have nothing to hide, they should not be resistant to independent voices offering their view of the behaviour of a range of Governments, including those of their own countries.

I remind the Chamber that article 4 of the charter describes the proper behaviour to be expected of peace-loving peoples. Article 6 says that, if a state persistently violates the terms of the charter, it can, in certain circumstances, be expelled from the General Assembly. Not only has none of those 10 countries been removed from the General Assembly, all are members of the Commission on Human Rights. By convention, the chairmanship of the commission has rotated by region. That has produced some shocking results. In 2000, Nepal held the chairmanship despite well-documented abuses of human rights highlighted regularly by Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch, including extra-judicial killings. In 2003, Libya was in the chair even though it has been regularly exposed for its denial of human rights. This year, it is the turn of Indonesia.

That is a bizarre irony, given that several UN special rapporteurs have had their requests to visit Indonesia denied by its Government. Those include the special representative of the Secretary-General on human rights defenders; the special rapporteur on the promotion and protection of the right to freedom of opinion and expression; the special rapporteur on freedom of religious belief; and the special rapporteur on torture. The country has neither the humility nor the confidence to allow UN inspection of its own record on human rights, but the self-same country chairs the UN's body on the subject, thereby pontificating on the behaviour of others. In terms of stomach-churning hypocrisy, that is a gold-medal-winning performance.

What is the high-level panel's assessment of such a chronic state of affairs? It states:

"The Commission on Human Rights suffers from a legitimacy deficit that casts doubts on the overall reputation of the United Nations".

Referring to the commission's responsibility to uphold and promote human rights, the panel states that its capacity to do so

"has been undermined by eroding credibility and professionalism".

Worse, it adds:

"standard setting to reinforce human rights cannot be performed by states that lack a demonstrated commitment to their promotion and protection. We are concerned that in recent years, states have sought membership of the Commission not to strengthen human rights but to protect themselves against criticism or to criticise others. The Commission cannot be credible if it is seen to be maintaining double standards in addressing human rights concerns".

What a sound verdict that is.

Yet, from that conclusion and alongside some reasonable recommendations about the need to use prominent human rights figures in its work, the benefit to be gained from an advisory council, the merits of an annual report on human rights worldwide and the imperative of regular reports to the Security Council by the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, the panel report drops its bombshell:

"We recommend that the membership of the Commission on Human Rights be expanded to universal membership".

Extending it in that way would admit a further 138 countries, including such noted champions of human rights as Uzbekistan, North Korea, Burma, Iran and Uganda. It is hard to see what more cowardly counsel the panel could offer. It does no service in abandoning any attempt at value judgment, plumping instead for the soft option of universal access.

Is the hon. Gentleman suggesting that there should be a pure human rights organisation that excludes large numbers of states? The whole basis of the United Nations is that every single state in the world can be represented in international forums. The logic of the hon. Gentleman's position is that the international organisation that we have established over the past 60 years should be destroyed. I am not sure that that would be helpful.

My response to the hon. Gentleman's intervention is as follows; I am not arguing for purity, nor do I have any expectation of it. However, states that palpably fail to respect human rights, do not acknowledge the fact of their transgressions and show no interest in or commitment to improving their record cannot credibly sit on the UN Commission on Human Rights if that body, which is bigger than any individual state and the sum of its members, is to retain credibility.

The notion of allowing universal membership is so transparently absurd as to deserve no further discussion. Yet the status quo is plainly unsatisfactory. The root cause of that unsatisfactory situation is the geographical basis for membership and the Buggins's turn criterion for chairmanship. If the UN is serious about wanting the commission to regain respectability—let alone legitimacy—I suggest that it should stipulate that membership of the commission should depend on states' respecting the human rights of their citizens. What is the Government's view?

I now turn to humanitarian intervention, the case for which needs to be made on two grounds; legal and moral. A tension exists between those who seek to uphold the principles of non-intervention and sovereignty and those who claim that the international community has a responsibility to protect fellow human beings from extreme abuse wherever that occurs. That second group has emerged as the forerunner in the debate. The Canadian Government established the International Commission on Intervention and State Sovereignty, which reported in 2001. It built on the "just war" tradition developed by academics such as Michael Walzer, who stated that the use of force was legitimate

"when the violation of human rights within a set of boundaries is so terrible that it makes talk of community or self-determination or 'arduous struggle' seem cynical and irrelevant, that is, in cases of enslavement or massacre".

When a state is visiting horrors on its people, as is the case in Darfur, such notions of self-determination are meaningless. Interventions to prevent such violations of human rights do not violate the rules of sovereignty, as their purpose is to

"uphold the values of individual life and communal liberty of which sovereignty itself is merely an expression".

This argument that human rights are at least the equal of the principle of sovereignty is central to the case supporting humanitarian intervention.

The commission's principal findings were that sovereignty implies responsibility and that the principle of non-intervention yields to the international responsibility to protect, establishing the just-cause threshold. Force would be justified in certain cases; first, large-scale loss of life, actual or apprehended, with genocidal intent or not, which was the product either of deliberate state action, or state neglect, or inability to act, or a failed state situation. The second case would be large-scale ethnic cleansing, actual or apprehended, whether carried out by killing, forced expulsion, acts of terror or rape.

The findings stressed the precautionary principles of right intention, last resort, proportional means and the reasonable prospects of success. The report stated that the Security Council was the appropriate body to give authority to such missions, but warned that where it failed to discharge its responsibility to protect in conscience-shocking situations crying out for action, concerned states may not rule out other means to meet the gravity and urgency of that situation.

The high-level panel report drew on the work of the Canadian commission, establishing five criteria to judge the merits of humanitarian intervention: seriousness of threat; proper purpose; last resort; proportional means; and balance of consequences. Moreover, it ruled unequivocally that the rights of individuals—this is of the essence in the debate—take precedence over the rights of states. The international community not only has the right to override state sovereignty in cases of major breaches of humanitarian law, such as genocide in Rwanda or ethnic cleansing in Kosovo, but has the responsibility to protect the human rights of the victims.

That said, in practice, the panel believes that genocide should be tolerated unless the Security Council authorises the use of force to stop it—[Interruption.] Does the hon. Member for Tweeddale, Ettrick and Lauderdale (Mr. Moore) wish to intervene?

indicated dissent.

He merely raised his finger innocently.

I may have described a misguided modus operandi, yet if it is to be the working assumption of the UN, it follows that the working of the Security Council must be improved. The panel's failure in its report to make any concrete recommendations to that end is surely a damning indictment of its work.

Let me propose to the Government one such positive recommendation, which was made by the Canadian commission. Permanent members of the Security Council should pledge not to use their veto to prevent action against genocide, massacres or other crimes against humanity unless their vital national interests are at stake. What is the Government's view?

Finally, I turn to the important topic of the prospect of a peacebuilding commission. The high-level panel recommended the establishment of such a commission. Its task would be to identify countries under stress and at risk of sliding towards state collapse, to organise proactive assistance to prevent the process developing further, to assist in planning for post-conflict transition and to marshal the efforts of the international community in post-conflict peacebuilding for the necessary period. It would be a small body assisted by a support office and an inter-agency advisory board.

That is sensible. The problem of failed states and state collapse will vex the international community for the foreseeable future. The commission would be vital in providing the information and analysis to enable the UN to act to prevent state collapse and the inevitable suffering that follows. It would also play a crucial role in the delicate post-conflict transition stage. It is a travesty that states tend to fall off the radar of the international community when the peacekeepers leave. That is precisely when they need the most assistance.

Peacebuilding missions must be developed so as to ensure that countries do not slide back into failure and conflict. Essential work that the commission could co-ordinate and oversee includes the demobilisation of combatants, the funding of the reintegration and rehabilitation of former combatants, the building of effective public institutions and the support of civil society to establish a framework for governing within the rule of law. While I favour such a commission, far more needs to be done to improve the practice of peacekeeping. That is a crucial prerequisite of the rebuilding of states and societies.

A powerful argument against peacekeeping operations is that they simply do not work. A quick survey of recent media reports on the activities of UN peacekeepers in the Congo would seem to support that. In addition to the disturbing accusations that UN troops sexually exploited the vulnerable refugees whom they were supposed to protect, the cold truth is that they have failed to keep the peace. Conflict and skirmishes between factions continue to kill and displace civilians and prevent the difficult transition to peace.

The faults of the peacekeeping structure were highlighted by Madeleine Albright, who wrote, in 2003,

"that traditional UN peacekeepers lack the mandate, command structure, unity of purpose, and military might to succeed in the more urgent and nasty cases . . . Such weaknesses, sadly, are inherent in the voluntary and collective nature of the United Nations. When the going gets tough, the tough tend to go wherever they want, notwithstanding the wishes of UN commanders."

The panel noted that

"peace agreements by governments or rebels that engage in or encourage mass human rights abuses have no value and cannot be implemented. These contexts are not appropriate for consent based peacekeeping; rather, they must be met with concerted action."

The operational principles and rules of engagement of peacekeeping need to be developed. Troops must be made aware of the need to respect human rights and minimise the destructive impact of their actions upon civilians. Resources are fundamental. The UN needs troops, intelligence and logistical support. It needs a dependable capacity and standby arrangements so that it can deploy well-trained troops to conflict zones.

It is unfortunate that the countries that contribute significant forces—including Pakistan, Bangladesh, Uruguay and Nigeria—are often lured by the cash and military hardware they receive just for turning up. The major powers need to agree to deploy their troops. Unless they do so, the UN will be a hapless horseman riding for another fall. This is evident in Darfur, where the Security Council is relying upon the inexperienced, under-resourced African Union to enforce a fragile peace. The omens are not encouraging. One possibility might be to establish peace-enforcement missions where the Security Council would depute an appropriate major power to organise a coalition and enforce the world's collective will. This worked well in Haiti in 1994, East Timor in 1999 and Sierra Leone in 2000. What is the Government's view?

The UN has a noble mission—to provide collective security, uphold human rights and execute humanitarian missions—yet it cannot rest on its laurels, thinking that its successes in the past, or the principles of its charter, are an effective riposte to those who criticise its failures in the present. On the Commission for Human Rights, the basis of humanitarian intervention to underpin civilised values and the tools of effective peacekeeping, there is a need for reform. That reform should be bold and principled; that reform should be now.

I welcome this debate and congratulate the hon. Member for Buckingham (Mr. Bercow) on securing it. It is timely indeed; the UN needs examining and we need to think seriously about that. However, we should also remember why the United Nations was founded in 1945, the guiding principles behind it and how important it is that we show serious respect for, recognition of, and support for, it. That is crucial.

I shall concentrate my short contribution on two aspects; the Human Rights Commission and the non-proliferation treaty review conference that will be held in May. I know that other colleagues want to speak. As I indicated in my intervention, my experience of the UN Human Rights Commission goes back a few years. I have represented a British-based group called Liberation, in my role as chair, at the UN Human Rights Commission and at the sub-commission meetings, and short they are not. The commission lasts for six weeks, but the sub-commission—with a show of respect for people's needs and the pressures on their lives—lasts a mere three weeks. I do not pretend that I have been to all of any of the sessions—I could not possibly stay that long anywhere—but they are interesting and informative.

I concur to some extent with what the hon. Member for Buckingham said about structure. The establishment of the UN Commission on Human Rights was recognition that, since 1945, there has been a role for the world body in examining in detail allegations of human rights abuses around the world.

The UN is permanently, irrevocably and indefinitely bedevilled with the problem of being inevitably representative of national Governments around the world. Those Governments may or may not be representative of their peoples, be in control of what is happening in their own societies or be repressive of people in their own societies. The UN charter recognises all that, and includes a very special and important provision allowing non-governmental organisations to be represented. The UN Human Rights Commission is an example of that.

The pressures placed on the staff and directors of the UN Human Rights Commission are enormous. I had a great deal of time, support and respect for Mary Robinson when she was the director of the commission. She was bluntly and unceremoniously dumped because she asked too many questions, raised too many difficult issues and fell out of favour with too many Governments. We should be careful to remember the good contribution that she tried to make to the commission.

I have been to the commission as a representative of NGOs. Governments used to get 10 or 15 minutes to introduce their topic or resolution, and a plethora of NGOs could then apply to take part in the debate on the topic at the appropriate time. However, I have noticed that, gradually, the opportunities and the time allowed to NGOs, and the seriousness with which they are taken, has reduced further and further, so that we are now down to two and three-minute contributions. To say that one can adequately describe human rights abuses in Colombia in three minutes is frankly ludicrous.

We should remember that NGOs are not at the commission on a freebie; they are there, often at enormous cost to themselves, because they care passionately about human rights abuses in one part of the world or another. Unless they are given a voice, space and opportunities, Governments will simply club together and shut them up; that is exactly what is happening now at the commission.

When the Under-Secretary replies to this very important debate, I hope that he will assure me on a couple of issues. First, I mean no disrespect to those who have attended the commission over the years. As officials, they have been diligent and helpful, and I have no individual complaint against any of them—indeed, some have been extremely helpful, providing bits and pieces of advice when I or others have sought it—but the reality is that we should have a much higher level delegation there. It should certainly include Ministers, at least for the opening and closing sessions. Obviously, they would not be expected to stay for the whole six weeks, unless they wanted six weeks in Geneva every year; a very pleasant place it is, too, but six weeks is a bit long. However, they should at least be there at times.

Also, we should not continually hide behind a common EU position. Doing so often means that when issues come up, not all Governments have a position on them. Therefore, the EU delegation does not take a position, and nothing is said. We need a re-examination of that.

Also, more pressure has to be applied to give far more time, space and opportunity to NGO representatives from around the world who want to take part in the commission. I go back to the example of Colombia. There is much debate about human rights abuses there, but everyone here would agree that there are such abuses. Whether we believe that Uribe and the Government of Colombia are adequately or effectively dealing with those abuses would be an item for debate, but we would all recognise that it is legitimate for Colombian people to be represented at the commission and to put their case adequately. Remember, many of the people who attend are putting themselves at great personal risk in order to make their voice heard. The UN in its very basic charter recognised all that, and therefore gave them that voice. I think that we should recognise that too, and do our best to support them. That is very important.

Secondly, in May this year, the non-proliferation treaty review conference will take place in New York. Ironically, this comes on the 60th anniversary of the first ever use of nuclear weapons at Hiroshima and Nagasaki. I quote briefly from the founding charter of the United Nations:

"We the peoples of the United Nations determined . . . to save succeeding generations from the scourge of war, which twice in our lifetime has brought untold sorrow to mankind, and . . . to reaffirm faith in fundamental human rights, in the dignity and worth of the human person, in the equal rights of men and women and of nations large and small, and . . . to establish conditions under which justice and respect for the obligations arising from treaties and other sources of international law can be maintained, and . . . to promote social progress and better standards of life in larger freedom."

This year's conference takes place five years after the non-proliferation treaty review conference in 2000. The UK and the other declared nuclear states took part in the conference and were asked to take a number of steps forward. These included to sign and ratify the comprehensive nuclear test ban treaty without delay, to honour a moratorium on nuclear weapons testing pending entry into the force of the comprehensive treaty, immediately to commence negotiations on a fissile material cut-off treaty, immediately establish in the Conference on Disarmament a body with a mandate to deal with nuclear disarmament, to honour the principle of irreversibility in relation to nuclear disarmament, to

"accomplish the total elimination of their nuclear arsenals leading to nuclear disarmament in which all states are committed",—

and facilitate—

"the entry into force and full implementation of START II and the conclusion of START III as soon as possible",—

ensuring the completion and implementation of the tri-lateral initiative between the US, Russia and the International Atomic Energy Inspectorate.

The reason I quote that is because this year's conference takes place at a time when we are in danger of not going forward to a process of long-term nuclear disarmament, but quite the opposite; we are starting a process of nuclear armament around the world. At present, there are five declared nuclear weapon states, which, happily for them and utterly logically, are the five permanent members of the Security Council; Russia, France, Britain, China and the United States.

The undeclared nuclear weapons states—Israel, India, Pakistan and North Korea—are there, and of two others, Iran is in negotiations for the removal of possibility of constructing nuclear weapons. The only other state that has ever had nuclear weapons and unilaterally got rid of them is South Africa, and I think we should pay enormous credit to Nelson Mandela and the government of the ANC who did that to bring about a nuclear-free continent of Africa.

I hope this treaty review takes place and, optimistically, I hope that India, Pakistan, North Korea and Israel will all attend, own up to having nuclear weapons, say they are going to get rid of them, and fully sign up to a disarmament process. I also hope that the five declared states will do the same; it would be wonderful. My concern is that the opposite will happen. Israel will simply refuse to take part or to say anything other than that it has got its nuclear weapons. I have just returned from Palestine where I spent many hours in the company Mordechai Vanunu who spent 18 years in Israeli prisons for telling the world about Israel's nuclear weapons.

India and Pakistan are both countries with enormous social problems and needs. They cannot afford nuclear weapons and should not have them. The idea that a nuclear weapon could be some kind of defence for either Delhi or Islamabad is ludicrous. It would not take long for a rocket to get from Delhi to Islamabad. If either side bombed the other, the effect would be on their own countries. I recognise that things have moved on from the threats of a year ago and that negotiations are taking place, and I hope that that will lead to a common disarmament position.

However, those who heard President Musharraf of Pakistan when he spoke in Committee Room 14 were not very encouraged that that would be the case. In fact, we left with the opposite impression; he seemed rather proud of the fact that Pakistan had nuclear weapons, and he saw the development of the nuclear capability and its delivery systems as something of which to be proud.

I hope that the Government's contribution to the NPT review conference will be to set out in advance a statement on how to bring about worldwide nuclear disarmament; secondly, that we will not be developing a new range of nuclear weapons, nor will we be buying a new generation of nuclear weapons from someone else. As Trident reaches the end of its what some would call its useful life—others would be less complimentary—we should become a non-nuclear power.

Surely to God, nothing that has happened in the world, including the increasing gap between the richest and the poorest and the needs of the poorest, is aided by nuclear weapons. For all the nuclear weapons and all the power that the United States has, it was not much good to them on 11 September 2001. The only way to bring about peace and justice throughout the world is to examine the causes of injustice, and the poverty that goes with it. I look to the United Nations as the body to achieve that.

All hon. Members experienced the build-up to the war in Iraq. We saw how the UN was used and abused in the build-up to that war. As well as what I would call the misuse of the UN charter by those who were keen to go to war—I believe that the continuation of the inspection programme might have brought about a different result—we saw the development of the legal pre-emptive strike by President Bush and later by the Prime Minister, and subsequently by President Putin. That is a dangerous departure. We possess the power to go to war, and the ability to destroy an awful lot of the planet, but we would be better off if we concentrated on strengthening the only world organisation that can provide a forum for peace and the opportunity to bring about justice.

I have before me an interesting book, written by Linda Melvern and called "The Ultimate Crime: Who Betrayed the UN and Why". It is interesting, thought-provoking and, in some places, upsetting for those who believe passionately and strongly in the United Nations. We have to consider why the UN has often been so undermined and why it has been so weak when it should have been strong, and we must put our efforts into strengthening and supporting it. That would be a good way forward.

This year the UN has a great opportunity, but not as a remote body. All the Governments that make up the UN, including ours, should show, through the non-proliferation treaty review, that the UN can mean something, and that it can bring about disarmament around the world. We should put those precious resources to peaceful use, rather to the creation of weapons of mass destruction; we are all supposed to be dedicated to their removal.

rose—

Order. Four hon. Gentlemen seek to catch my eye. I propose to call the first of the three Front-Bench speakers at 3 o'clock. I mention that in case hon. Members wish to accommodate each other.

The contribution of the hon. Member for Islington, North (Jeremy Corbyn) may have seemed a trifle long for the amount of time available, Mr. Gale, but I am sure that, compared with those speeches that he was telling us about that he had heard in various United Nations bodies, it was short. I shall endeavour to do even better.

In response to the hon. Gentleman's observation that the nuclear deterrent was not much good to the United States on 11 September, I would point out that the nuclear deterrent was certainly a lot of good to the US and the rest of the free world during the 50 years of the cold war. It is a question of horses for courses. During the cold war, the hon. Gentleman argued with complete consistency that we should unilaterally abandon nuclear weapons. I would not expect him to change that position now that the cold war has ended.

I do not share the hon. Gentleman's views, but this is not meant to be a debate about the efficacy or otherwise of nuclear deterrence. It is meant to be a debate about the need to reform the United Nations. In that respect, surprisingly enough, I share a lot of common ground with the hon. Gentleman.

The UN was certainly set up with the mistakes of its predecessor, the League of Nations, firmly in mind; it was set up with a limited and pragmatic mandate. During the years of the cold war confrontation, I remember people saying, "You know what's wrong with the UN? The big powers have a veto on the Security Council." That is not what was wrong with the UN, but what was right with it. It was designed to reflect the reality that big-power capabilities could keep the peace or destroy it, and recognised that it had to come to terms with the realities of the world if it was to make a contribution to peace and tranquillity. In short, the UN is a handmaid to, not a substitute for, action by the Governments of sovereign states; it is a reflection of, and a facilitator for, the states that make it up, enabling them to act where they have got the will to do so. We must not over-invest it with a sanctity that it does not possess.

As has been said, the UN is not a democracy; it is not made up, depending on one's definition of the term, of a majority of democracies. Therefore, it is not, and it should not be regarded as, a world Government or the fount of international wisdom and morality. One thing that concerned me in the run-up to the war in Iraq was the degree to which responsibilities were shuffled from Governments to the UN. Governments were trying to say, "We will do this, but only if we get a vote in the Security Council." The reality is that the UN is comprehensive; as the hon. Member for Ilford, South (Mike Gapes) rightly said, it includes everybody. As such, it cannot be expected to represent the best practices of nations around the world, although it does enable them to work together when they have a mind to do so, without having to set up ad hoc machinery.

It is hardly surprising, therefore, that many of the pungent criticisms voiced by my hon. Friend the Member for Buckingham (Mr. Bercow) carry such weight. It is true that we can have a totally inappropriate country chairing a human rights body at the UN. I do not share the view that that should be ruled out, because it gives us an opportunity to use that country's record to embarrass it in the eyes of the world. I do not know that it did Libyan legitimacy a lot of good to be stuck in the chair, where it was subject to greater scrutiny than it would have been had it been excluded.

I am gratified to see the hon. Member for Ilford, South nodding in assent, but there is another side to the coin. If we recognise that the UN is a universal structure, designed to incorporate the mad, the bad, the dishonest and the murderous, just as much as the peaceful, saintly and democratic ideal, we must also recognise the limitations on the legitimacy of its pronouncements. That is why the case that my hon. Friend the Member for Buckingham is making is worth pushing forward, despite all the organisation's in-built limitations. By its existence, the UN enables those who wish to work together to do so, but it also allows those who wish to get away with misbehaviour or atrocious and inhumane behaviour in the dark to be dragged into the spotlight and forced to justify that behaviour.

Let us not kid ourselves that the United Nations will ever be a substitute for the responsibility of Governments. There are two forms of club. There is the form of club that is made up of members who think and act alike and believe in the same codes of conduct. That is not what the United Nations is about. There is also the form of club that everyone belongs to, but which cannot then expect a spotless reputation. That is what the United Nations consists of. However, my hon. Friend the Member for Buckingham is absolutely right to bring the matter forward and to shine the piercing intellect for which he is renowned on the abuses by member states of the United Nations.

Although my hon. Friend has not over-exaggerated the role or the legitimacy of the body concerned and his admiration for it, he has been able to use the lip service that everyone at the United Nations tries to give to certain principles to show up the hypocrisy of nations that fall short of adherence to those principles. I know from the cold war years that there were many times when the stench of hypocrisy, particularly over arms control, rose to high heaven from the United Nations, its sub-committees and subordinate organisations. I also know that the work done there to link up baskets of human rights, for example, with disarmament initiatives for the east-west confrontation was extremely valuable. All of us would agree that, had the organisation not existed, when the time came for change in the totalitarian societies of the USSR and eastern Europe it would have been much harder to bring that about and formalise it.

Let us go forward with hope in the utility of the United Nations. Let us not exaggerate it for its ability to do the impossible and let us always remember that the United Nations is as good, but no better, than the members who make it up.

For some, especially the so-called neo-conservatives in the United States, the United Nations is a moribund talking shop. It is said that it is wasteful, corrupt or unwilling or unable to take action. It is said that it is a friend of dictators, an unwelcome restraint on the United States. To be honest, some of the criticism that such people make is unfair or overstated. Other criticisms are not. It is significant that in the aftermath of the war in Iraq, the United States of America has recognised that it needs the United Nations. After the tsunami of 26 December, there is widespread recognition throughout the world that the United Nations, in some form or other, is desperately needed.

If the United Nations is not the sort of organisation that it should be, the question inevitably is: how should we change for the better? That is the view of the high-level panel mentioned by the hon. Member for Buckingham (Mr. Bercow). The panel is extremely distinguished; the United Kingdom is represented on it by Sir David Hannay, former United Kingdom representative to the UN. Just before Christmas, it came forward with a report, which is modest, it is true. However, because of that it is realistic and realisable.

The report has 101 recommendations in its close to 100 pages. Briefly, I want to focus on one or two of them. First, it identifies new ground rules for members of the United Nations to resort to force. Significantly, the Security Council is urged to consider early authorisation of action against certain types of urgent but non-imminent threats. The threat of terrorism across the globe is one that springs to mind. Terrorism is identified as a new threat, and is accurately defined as "any politically motivated violence against innocent individuals". That, the panel would argue, has tremendous significance for the future of the UN if the report is adopted.

Moreover, the report talks about the principle of humanitarian action and urges that that principle be adopted. Again, that is of tremendous significance. Without going into the debates we had in this House in the run-up to the war in Iraq, many Members, myself included, said that there was a moral justification for the intervention in Iraq for humanitarian reasons. It is significant that the report echoes what my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister argued as long as five years ago in Chicago.

Fourthly, a reform of the Security Council is proposed, an issue that has tended to hit the headlines. Two options are put forward. Both involve increasing the size of the Security Council to 24. I understand that the favoured option talks about six new permanent members of the Council. The so-called aspiring four are Germany, Japan, Brazil and India, but also two African states—one from the north of the continent, one from the south. However, the implications of a possible extension of the veto are not considered. I would be interested to hear what the Minister has to say about that delicate but important issue.

When I was in the United States, in New York, just before Christmas, I happened to be there when the high-level panel report was leaked and then published. Generally speaking, it had a reasonable response. Certainly it was welcomed by our Government and most other Governments across the world. However, at that time, the United States of America had very little to say about it. We all must acknowledge that the response of the United States is crucial to how the UN develops and whether this report is welcomed and received positively. I very much hope that the United States will step back from ritually assaulting the United Nations, and Kofi Annan in particular, and recognise that the world, including the United States of America, needs the UN.

The report is of tremendous significance—the most important report that has been published since the United Nations was formed. I hope that Members will not say that the report does not go far enough and that we would ideally like to see this, that or the other happening. The report offers a road map to the future that is, as I said at the start, realistic and realisable. We would also do well to recognise the words of one former US representative to the United Nations, who said some years ago that this organisation, the UN, was created to prevent us from going to hell, not to take anyone to heaven. If we think about that, we will be realistic and take the United Nations forward to help create a better world.

I congratulate the hon. Member for Buckingham (Mr. Bercow) on a constructive and—whether one agreed with all his points or not—thought-provoking presentation.

I start with a paraphrase of the same quote. I think that it was Henry Cabot Lodge who said that the United Nations was not a vehicle to transport us to paradise, but a means of saving us from hell. It is important to stress that when some of the criticisms made by the hon. Gentleman are valid. Some of the faults though are those of the member states. We need to reform and not to condemn.

Some of us were disturbed to see at the Republican convention, in response to a renegade Democrat senator and to Vice-President Cheney, people almost baying in hatred of the United Nations. I do not think that that is too strong a term. That there is an element of that hatred within the Bush Administration is worrying. That is why, as my hon. Friend the Member for Caerphilly (Mr. David) suggested, a reversal of that attitude was welcome, when it was recognised that the UN should take the lead over the tsunami.

The UN is the only hope for the major issues that the high-level panel was dealing with—war, internal conflict, poverty, nuclear and other weapons of mass destruction, terrorism and trans-national crime. Those are interrelated issues. Indeed, the underlying issue is development and the need to tackle poverty, which has such a root effect on all the other problems. The British Government are right to say that we want to use our presidency of the G8 and the European Union to press that issue.

Preventing wars and trying to deal with civil wars are controversial subjects. I must rush through my remarks, so let me just say that what happened in Sierra Leone was an admirable example of that being done at its best, with regional and UN support.

Terrorism and criminality is an important subject, and it has been regarded as even more important with the concern about weapons of mass destruction. We should never forget that the greatest fear of all is the combination of war and nuclear weapons. As my hon. Friend the Member for Islington, North (Jeremy Corbyn) said, the nuclear non-proliferation treaty will be vital. We wish the Minister well in the negotiations on that. The UK played a positive role last time, but we must prove that the states with nuclear weapons are prepared to fulfil their own parts of the agreed positions. Peacekeeping and a peace-building commission are also important matters.

On human rights, we need to work out a balance because realpolitik is involved in that. If we are to talk about countries respecting not only their own citizens but those of other countries, people could refer to Guantanamo Bay. We have difficulties with a number of large countries about their human rights records.

We need to strengthen the post of UN Secretary-General. We need also to rebalance the Security Council. It cannot simply reflect what happened at the end of the second world war forever; it is right to think about expanding it. There needs to be a new balance in it, because the General Assembly does not reflect population. That rebalance could involve some form of weighted voting. However, I want to stress that the UN is our only hope, and therefore we must improve and reform it.

The United Nations was never established as a world Government or a democracy, and if it did not exist we would have to establish something like it. Some of the criticisms made of it are justified, but it is important to recognise that when there are allegations of troops committing rape, theft or looting, those involved are not UN troops; they are national troops of member states of the UN that happen to be operating under a UN mandate.

The UN does not have a standing army. Perhaps we should return to the recommendations of the Boutros Boutros-Ghali document, "An Agenda for Peace" of 1992, and consider how we might have an effective international intervention force of a sort that can move quickly, so that we do not have to wait for weeks and months. The UN has problems with the deployment of forces to a number of areas around the world. It is not the only organisation that has difficulties in that regard; NATO has similar problems in getting adequate forces into Afghanistan, where it currently has responsibility.

There are issues about the structure and organisation of the UN that need to be addressed. The Security Council must contain India, but it needs also to include a large and preferably democratic Muslim state. In the world in which we live, it is vital that Islam and Islamic countries do not feel that others are ganging up against them. I hope that that matter will be taken seriously, and be addressed.

I turn to the big problem. During the cold war, the UN could not be effective in places such as Angola because that could have led to a third world war. However, since the end of the Soviet Union, the United States has become what the French call a hyperpower, and if we now want intervention on a global level, the US must be involved. I hope that Condoleezza Rice's remarks of yesterday show that the US will move towards a more multilateral approach than in the past. Four years ago, when Dr. Rice was in Russia just before her appointment as National Security Adviser, she is reported to have said that there are three positions in American politics: the left, which was internationalist; the right, which was isolationist; and the realistic position to be followed by the Bush Administration, which was unilateralist. Things have moved on since then; in many respects, the US Administration has not been unilateralist. I hope that there will be a fourth position to be put forward by Condoleezza Rice as Secretary of State, on realistic engagement and co-operation with allies through the UN system and with partners in Europe.

It is a great pleasure to follow the hon. Member for Ilford, South (Mike Gapes), with whom I am happy to serve on the board of governors of the Westminster Foundation for Democracy. His was the last in a range of thoughtful and challenging contributions.

I join other hon. Members in paying tribute to the hon. Member for Buckingham (Mr. Bercow), who secured the debate. He has been on something of a political odyssey in recent years. Who knows where it might take him next? It is our great good fortune that it has brought him at this time to focus on the United Nations as a key issue. In doing so he has done us a great service.

The debate is very timely. It is not long, as other hon. Members have said, since the report of the UN Secretary-General's high-level panel on threats, challenges and change. That comes in the same week in which the UN millennium project's report, "Investing in Development", has been published, under the direction of Professor Jeffrey Sachs. It is not long since our last debate on the UN. We focused then on the White Paper. I appeal to the Minister that today's debate should not be the House's last word in debating the UN. Perhaps now that these serious reports are available, we shall have time seriously to consider them on the Floor of the House.

I take issue slightly with the hon. Member for Buckingham. I know that he would have said more had he had more time, but I felt that on balance some of his criticisms of the high-level panel report would have left the impression that he was highly critical of it. For all its limitations, it is a serious piece of work, which has rightly focused our attention on the shortcomings of the institution and the need to reform it properly. In this year of the UK's presidency of both the G8 and the European Union, the Government have a special responsibility to ensure that the reports are recognised in the international agenda, and taken forward.

The preamble to the UN charter sets out the lofty ambition

"to save succeeding generations from the scourge of war".

It asserts the need

"to reaffirm faith in fundamental human rights,"

and, among many other things,

"to promote social progress and better standards of life".

Those bold ideas gave rise to the UN. Whatever difficulties it may now face, they remain as relevant today as they ever did.

The world is of course very different from 1945, and the panel has set that out carefully in its report. Threats are based not only on states attacking one another. They arise from diverse sources such as poverty, the spread and possible use of weapons of mass destruction by non-state actors as well as countries, trans-national organised crime and international terrorism. It is not only states that are the problem and it is not only state security that is now at issue. Along with the panel, we must recognise that in the modern world the threats do not recognise national boundaries. No state, however powerful, can protect itself on its own. Nor can we assume that every state will be able or willing to meet its responsibilities towards its own people, or not to harm its neighbours.

Achieving consensus may be relatively straightforward in the Chamber, but the panel is right to highlight the difficulty of reaching an international consensus. For some, HIV-AIDS is a horrible disease but not a security threat; for others, poverty is a development issue but hardly one to make us concerned about security. For me, it is pretty simple: poverty creates instability, which leads to conflict, which deepens poverty.

Such recognition is not always present, and one of our most serious tasks—it has been implicit and sometimes explicit in the comments of other hon. Members—is to ensure that the UN, although it needs to reflect the realities of modern power, is not simply a rich man's club or a rich man's Christian club. Without that new consensus and mutual recognition of threats, there is little prospect of any new security consensus, and therefore little prospect of reforming the UN to enable it to tackle the threats that we face. Only with consensus can we adapt the tools of collective security that we surely need now more than ever.

The panel rightly focused on prevention. The adage that prevention is better than cure is as true at an international level as it is in the home. The panel properly identifies that as a key requirement of our new collective security, so that threats that are distant do not become imminent, and those that are imminent do not become destructive. Action, as the panel says, is key. It needs to be taken early, decisively and collectively.

The panel is also right to focus on the importance of development, which is essential to any framework that is to be taken seriously. In a year in which we will focus on the achievement, or lack of achievement, of the millennium development goals, the panel's report may, like others, be an impetus for further efforts.

Too often, efforts to prevent conflict fail. When we should allow force is the big question that dogs current international relations and may be the most fundamental question of all. There are critical situations in which we are likely to see conflict. The high-level panel has said that it believes that article 51 and chapter VII are sufficient for the modern threats and challenges that we face. Perhaps we will have more time to debate that in future. I certainly agree that the Security Council should be the principal source of international authority. We must surely take cognisance of the panel's criteria, which the Member for Buckingham set out carefully, for judging whether or not force is allowable.

There are so many aspects to the UN that we need to tackle, and many hon. Members have focused properly on the need for institutional reform. As the hon. Member for New Forest, East (Dr. Lewis) made clear, however, none of the institutional reforms will be of any relevance if the member states have no political will to implement proper reform or to put leadership at the forefront of their activities in the UN.

Like the hon. Member for Buckingham, I consider myself an internationalist. I am aware of the difficulties facing the UN and its shortcomings, but 60 years after its foundation, surely we can get the political impetus to get it right and to get it ready for the 21st century.

I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Buckingham (Mr. Bercow) on what has been a very worthwhile debate, and on his birthday. He spoke with his customary clarity and eloquence, perhaps even more so on this special occasion. Perhaps we can look forward to this becoming an annual occasion on which to revisit these important events.

I have not been a political oddity, but I am happy to agree with much that the Liberal Democrat spokesman, the hon. Member for Tweeddale, Ettrick and Lauderdale (Mr. Moore), said. I especially agree about the importance of us having a full debate on the Floor of the House on this very important and very large issue. We have the high-level panel report to consider and we are moving towards taking decisions at the special summit in September, so it is right that the House of Commons should have a proper opportunity to consider it.

Time is short, and the Minister has a great deal of ground to cover, so I shall endeavour to be as helpful as I can in allowing him the time and the opportunity to do so. My hon. Friend the Member for Buckingham rightly stressed particular aspects of the reform of the UN, as well as the importance of the UN as an institution and the importance of getting it right and improving it to make it an effective international body. He also dwelt appropriately on some of the problems and difficulties that the UN has had. As he said, it seems sometimes to be mired in controversy; he referred to problems of fraud, corruption, and perhaps worst of all, inactivity in the face of massive humanitarian crises, such as Darfur, as well as the failure even to discuss the fate of Burma and the abuses involving peacekeeping troops in the Congo.

My hon. Friend also focused on the UN Commission on Human Rights and its cumbersome processes, and considered some of the other important aspects of the criteria under which humanitarian interventions can be appropriate. One strength of the high-level panel report is that it attempts to address the appropriate circumstances in which intervention should take place, especially on humanitarian grounds. The report considered what it calls an emerging norm, namely, that there is a collective international responsibility to offer protection, which is exercisable by the Security Council, and to authorise military intervention as a last resort. The report goes on to discuss genocide and so forth.

Given the shortage of time, this debate has inevitably only skated over some of the big issues raised in the high-level panel report on threats, challenges and change. The report shows an understanding of some of the ways in which the UN has failed to live up to some of the challenges of the past, but also attempts to apply the principles of the UN, which we share in all parts of the House, to a changing world. Much of the report is aspirational and much in it would be difficult for us to disagree with. The report sets a real challenge for the UN and the countries that form it, particularly those on the Security Council, to try to establish effective principles so that we can co-operate as nation states.

The report sets out five criteria for the appropriate use of force. They have been examined in some detail so I will not repeat them. Importantly, the report attempts to clarify the appropriate roles of prevention and pre-emption. I hope that the Minister will deal with that, as much as he is able, in the short time that we have. The report recognises some of the weaknesses in the structure and the practice of the Security Council and suggests greater clarity about the circumstances in which prevention and pre-emption may take place.

There has been relatively little mention of the oil-for-food scandal. My hon. Friend the Member for Faversham and Mid-Kent (Hugh Robertson), who has been able to join us belatedly, has taken a close interest in the scandal and the vast sums that Saddam's regime skimmed off. That episode emphasises the importance of improvements in both the secretariat of the UN and in control and audit, and of proper financial control.

I return briefly to some of the questions that have been asked. I hope that the Minister will answer the three questions that my hon. Friend the Member for Buckingham asked, about the appropriate membership of the UN Commission on Human Rights, the possibility of a presumption against a Security Council veto on humanitarian intervention and the proposal that the Security Council might depute a major power to organise a coalition to take action where appropriate. The hon. Member for Caerphilly (Mr. David) asked a further important question regarding the Government's attitude to the expansion of the Security Council and the danger of paralysis.

I promised to be brief. The UN is one of the most important issues facing the Foreign Office, Ministers and, indeed, the country. Now is a critical time for us to deal properly with the recommendations and discussions that have emerged from the high-level panel. I look forward to the Minister's response.

We have had an exceedingly good and well-informed debate. I start by congratulating the hon. Member for Buckingham (Mr. Bercow) on his birthday. He is at an age when birthdays are still a celebration and I wish him many happy returns. He demonstrated conviction and a commitment to multilateralism and to the UN. In that respect, I share his agenda.

Reform of the United Nations is fundamental for anyone who believes genuinely in the organisation. When the Secretary-General launched the reform debate, particularly the setting of the high-level panel in 2003, he summed up the necessity for reform more succinctly than anyone else has done. He said:

"It is not enough to denounce unilateralism unless we also face up squarely to the concerns that make some states feel uniquely vulnerable. We must show that those concerns can and will be addressed effectively through collective action."

That is the fundamental key to the whole reform debate.

The British Government, from the Prime Minister down, have very much welcomed the high-level panel report. Of course, it contains various elements that people might want more or less of, but it sets out a challenging and constructive agenda for change. The principal reason why it is an essential force for good is that it faces squarely the three key challenges that we face as an international community: proliferation of weapons of mass destruction, terrorism and global poverty. To paraphrase what Kofi Annan said, unless we can demonstrate that collectively we have the capacity to face those challenges, then, to put it bluntly, the UN and all of us will not endure such circumstances.

As well as the high-level panel report, it is important to remember that 2005 will see another significant milestone in UN reform: the millennium review summit. It will not only discuss the high-level panel report, but measure what progress we have made against the millennium development goals. It is no secret to suggest that, when the review takes place, we will be facing a situation in which we are acknowledging that sufficient progress has not been made, if we are to meet the targets that have been set for 2015 with the millennium development goals. It is a fundamentally important year.

The panel report and the summit are part of the same process. The high-level panel is based on the important core premise that security and development are interlinked and go hand in hand. Neither is possible without the other. That is the high-level panel's view and I strongly endorse it. I had the opportunity at the UN conference to meet the Secretary-General last week and we discussed UN reform in some detail. Between the Secretary-General and the Government is a shared agenda about the importance of the year ahead.

Kofi Annan will be publishing his own report on the implementation of the high-level panel report in March. We are intending to work with him and seize the opportunity that exists for the international community. The United Kingdom is uniquely placed, especially this year, to be able to do that, given our dual presidencies of the European Union and the G8.

I turn now to the oil-for-food crisis and scandal to which several hon. Members have referred. In recent months, there has been a great deal of criticism of the UN over the programme and, most recently, about the allegations of widespread sexual exploitation in the Democratic Republic of the Congo by members of the United Nations Mission in the Democratic Republic of the Congo—the MONUC peacekeeping mission. The Secretary-General has acted through the appointment of an independent inquiry into oil for food, a series of investigations into the MONUC allegations and the appointment of Prince Zeid of Jordan as a special adviser on sexual exploitation, with the task of making recommendations throughout the peacekeeping system to tackle such appalling behaviour. We certainly support him.

We want to see UN action on such issues and we should not shy away from the lessons that should be learned. Nevertheless, the Government continue to support fully the Secretary-General, which is an important point to make. His leadership has been important and we must continue to register that fact. We will fully support him, along with those with whom we work closely and who share our vision for the future of the UN. Undoubtedly, while problems deserve our attention, 2005 has also seen the best of the UN. Following the tragedy in the Indian ocean with the tsunami, the UN is playing a leading role in co-ordinating the huge and essential relief effort. A challenge for the UN will be sustaining that work beyond the initial relief to help a long-term recovery, and we are certainly willing to work with the UN on that.

I am pleased that the high-level panel has dealt with the United Kingdom Government's major priorities. It sets out an ambitious agenda for a UN that is much more proactive; deals comprehensively with threats to peace and security by recognising the importance of conflict prevention and peace building after a conflict; responds to the threats of terrorism and proliferation of weapons of mass destruction; explores the circumstances in which the UN should authorise military action to prevent a threat from materialising or to deal with a humanitarian catastrophe; acknowledges the need to address the link between poverty and conflict; and recognises that environmental degradation, particularly climate change, is a threat to be tackled like any other. That is an enormously substantive agenda, and one that we positively welcome. The other recommendation that is particularly welcome is that for a peacebuilding commission. I shall come on to that.

I shall address some of the points that have been made during the debate. I started with the hon. Member for Buckingham, who made a powerful and coherent speech. However, he voiced some significant criticisms of the UN as well. I believe that he said that there are too many occasions on which the UN does not act to protect the oppressed. One can undoubtedly adduce evidence in support of that statement, but I would not take it as a criticism of the UN as an institution—the UN is no more than the sum of its parts. A criticism of the UN is a criticism of the whole international community, and what happened with regard to Rwanda is probably the best example that we can think of. It was a lamentable failure on the part of the UN that not enough was done in Rwanda in 1994, but more importantly it was a failure on the part of the international community. We must criticise ourselves, not just the institution. People do that too often, without recognising our responsibilities.

The hon. Member for Buckingham also spoke of the horrifying events in Darfur, and argued for sanctions. In such a complex situation, any sanctions must be designed to have the desired, coercive effect, with the minimum risk of negative side-effects. For example, we must not undermine the recently signed peace deal in southern Sudan. However, one of the difficulties, and it will always persist, is to get Security Council agreement on the right framework for sanctions. It is no secret that some major powers, members of the permanent five, have significant reservations about the use of sanctions. I am not referring to the United States of America. That needs to be taken into account. Our stance is that if the commission of inquiry that has been established concludes that genocide has occurred in Darfur, and urges reference to the International Criminal Court, we will strongly support that and would urge other states to do likewise.

The Minister is addressing the issues comprehensively and I much appreciate his kind remarks. He is right; I would have favoured sanctions. However, I put it to him that the debate has moved on. A great many people have been slaughtered, and it is probably too late to talk about sanctions. Unless a sizeable international peacekeeping force is sent soon, it will be too late.

The hon. Gentleman underestimates the importance of the African Union taking a lead in that regard. The recent signing of the peace deal for the whole of Sudan offers the best hope for everyone within Sudan, particularly those in Darfur. I do not rule out that at some stage an international force might be necessary, but that is not what we are advocating at the moment, and it is not the best way forward in the present circumstances.

The hon. Gentleman also talked about the United Nations Commission on Human Rights. That is, without doubt, a troubling and problematic body, which is the sum of its parts. He referred to the regional blocs, which form the current mechanism for election. If we respect the integrity of the process, and allow regional blocs to put forward their candidates, countries will sometimes emerge that—to say the least—have questionable records. We could address the issue—I think that the hon. Gentleman touched on this—by agreeing a set of criteria to which a state that wanted to join the commission would have to adhere. The problem with that is that all the members of the commission would have to agree to it and, to use the parlance, turkeys tend not to vote for Christmas.

The hon. Gentleman also referred to the case for humanitarian intervention, which we strongly support. My right hon. Friend the Prime Minister first articulated that notion in Chicago in 1999; he put forward the powerful case, as we have done consistently, that the world has moved on since the 1940s, when state sovereignty was supreme, and that the notion that a state can do whatever it likes to its people as long as it happens within the confines of its boundaries—and that the international community has no right or responsibility to intervene—is no longer acceptable. The high-level panel has put forward some useful criteria that we need to debate.

The hon. Gentleman also asked whether the use of the veto should be reformed, restricted or abolished, particularly in cases of genocide. The failures of the League of Nations demonstrate the dangers of an organisation that does not give due weight to the major powers; the hon. Member for New Forest, East (Dr. Lewis) referred to that. We continue to believe that the existence of the veto is a factor in ensuring that major powers work through the UN in dealing with threats to international peace and security. However, although we would not support formal restrictions on the use of the veto, we believe that it should be used with restraint and in accordance with the principle of the charter. We are practising what we preach: we have not used our veto since 1989.

The hon. Gentleman also talked about the importance of the peacebuilding commission and of using that mechanism to ensure that when states have failed, been recaptured and recovered, they do not fall back into chaos and conflict. That is one of the key challenges.

My hon. Friend the Member for Islington, North (Jeremy Corbyn) made a powerful contribution, as he usually does on issues such as these. He said that non-governmental organisations should have more time and space at the UN Commission on Human Rights. My hon. Friend knows that we have supported that argument; the UK Government have always been at the forefront of making that case. He also said that the UK delegation should be widened to include greater representation from human rights and non-governmental organisations. I will consider that case; if my hon. Friend wishes to put further detailed arguments to me, I shall consider them as we construct our delegation, which will go to Geneva this March.

The hon. Member for New Forest, East made a succinct and profound point in saying that the veto was needed, or very powerful states would walk away from the UN. We need to learn the lessons from the disintegration of the League of Nations; that is sometimes forgotten in this debate. The hon. Gentleman got it absolutely right when he said—I paraphrase—that we should move away from some of the dewy-eyed views of the UN and recognise that, at its core, it is an organisation that enables states to act when they have a will to do so. It is no more and no less than that.

My hon. Friend the Member for Caerphilly (Mr. David) made some important points. He said that the United States has recognised that it needs the UN, but that similarly—this is a key part of this debate—all of us need to recognise that the UN needs the United States if it is to be a credible organisation. That should be a key thrust of our arguments. My hon. Friend referred also to the case for the reform of the Security Council. We are on record as positively supporting the expansion of the permanent and non-permanent membership. However, although the case for enlargement is important, it is not the only key issue that the United Nations is considering at the moment. There is a real danger that the whole of this debate will get subsumed into the jockeying positions of various countries that want to get on to the Security Council, and that those other important points will be missed and lost.

The hon. Member for Tweeddale, Ettrick and Lauderdale (Mr. Moore) said that the hon. Member for Buckingham was on a political voyage. Many criticisms can be made of the hon. Member for Buckingham; being a Liberal Democrat is not one of them.

This has been an important debate. The responsibility to protect criteria for humanitarian intervention is a debate whose time has come. We need further progress on the millennium development goals and we need a peacebuilding commission. Finally, this is such an important issue and debate that we will hold a seminar at the Foreign Office in the coming weeks on this very issue. The Secretary-General has agreed to come; that is an important indication of his leadership and the importance we attach to this debate.

I am pleased to have gained a further opportunity for a short debate on Army matters. On this occasion, it is on the future operational command structure. Since the announcement last July, the Army has been a focus of debate from both a military and a political point of view. I suspect that that state of affairs will continue for some time to come, bearing in mind the many contentious issues that must be addressed.

During that time, Ministers have poked fun unfairly and without justification at hon. Members who have expressed opposition to the culling of infantry regiments, alleging that they wanted to return to the days of biplanes. That happened in the main Chamber. Yet the Cheshires are to be relegated from being a regiment to becoming merely the first battalion of a new regiment named after Mercia, an Anglo-Saxon kingdom that was in existence more than 1,000 years ago. If that is not looking backwards, I do not know what is. I am pleased that Soldier magazine described the Cheshires as one of the magnificent seven—those regiments which to date have never been amalgamated. Only time will tell whether the promises of Ministers and the Army hierarchy to keep regimental identities will materialise.

I was intrigued to read the other day that the Scottish regiments are to keep their cap badges while the English regiments are to lose theirs. The reason given was that the colonels of the English regiments did not request that cap badges be retained. Quite frankly, I find that difficult to believe and I would be grateful for confirmation of that. In addition, will the Minister confirm that no further discrimination is taking place?

I confess to having a foot on both sides of the border, as members of my late mother's family served in the Black Watch. Second Lieutenant Tom Gillespie, who was my mother's uncle, was killed by Turks in the first world war and my own uncle Bill ran away from home to serve in the Black Watch in India for six years. I believe that there should be parity of treatment between English and Scottish regiments, as both are part of the British Army.

I have found the confusion about how many trained Army personnel we have extraordinary; a figure of 103,780 is given. How many are to be made redundant? Is the future establishment figure of 102,000 the rough, or the exact, target? As the whole purpose of the shake-up is to move personnel around, why is the future establishment of the various corps not known? It is nonsense to say that all 36 future battalions will be operational, because training free of call-up always has to continue.

It was said a year last November that there would be no infantry battalion cuts. However, the chief of staff stated on 16 December that two years had been spent looking extremely hard at what capabilities and structures will be needed in the future. The result is that three battalions are to go and that one battalion of the Parachute Regiment is sensibly to be moved sideways. It is somewhat confusing. A tangled web has been woven, no doubt as a result of continually changing financial constraints, which have also continually been denied. That has done nothing for the morale of our soldiers, especially those away on operations in hot spots such as Iraq. They have no idea what they will be coming home to.

We have heard much about the future Army structure. The chief of staff has made it clear that it could take up to 12 years to achieve, with much emphasis being placed on the medium sector. One of the main areas of concern is the future operational command structure, which I believe may turn into something very different from what it is at present. It could come under tremendous strain. That is apparently unforeseen by the generals and defence staff.

The worst-case scenario is one in which the United Kingdom loses operational control of its armed services and UK defence industries are also adversely affected. The present restructuring of the infantry could pale into relevant insignificance compared with what may come in the future. A week ago, the Foreign Secretary stated that he expected the European Union's arms embargo on China to be lifted, claiming that that would have little practical effect. Nothing could be further from the truth, however, because that will leave the Government siding with the EU against the interests of the United States. While the Foreign Secretary is totally unconcerned and thinks that everything can be smoothed out with the US, the indications are that the US Congress will find the situation unacceptable. If the ban is lifted, the already strained special relationship with the US will go up in flames, putting a stop to technology transfer and the flow to us of information from the US. Any possibility of the UK obtaining a waiver from the international traffic in arms regulations has now disappeared, pushing us further from American arms and towards EU arms.

That brings me neatly to the Galileo satellite navigation system, in which, it must be noted, China has a 20 per cent. stake. On 18 December last year, French Defence Minister Michèle Alliot-Marie, speaking at the launch of the French Helios 2A military reconnaissance satellite, confirmed that the EU's Galileo system would be available for French military use. That was just one week after EU Transport Ministers, at the Transport, Telecommunications and Energy Council in Brussels on 9–10 December, had reiterated in their written conclusions that Galileo was a civil programme under civil control, as the Ministry has claimed here in the UK.

On 22 December, Andrew Brookes, an aerospace analyst at the London-based International Institute for Strategic Studies, stated:

"One of the justifications for Galileo is that it will allow any new Euro defence force to have access to the same space assistance as is provided to U.S. forces by their Global Positioning System."

He went on to say that it could be used for pinpointing the location of weapons and troops on the ground. The USA has already said that if Galileo were used against American interests and it could not jam the system, it would take it out. Even the recently issued EU Commission publication, "Looking beyond tomorrow: Scientific research in the European Union" says that Galileo will play a role in security operations such as humanitarian aid, the evacuation of refugees, peacekeeping and crisis resolution, which implies military use without actually admitting it.

That brings us to the future rapid effects system—FRES—which is key to the medium sector of the infantry, on which so much emphasis is placed. Following the interview with the Chief of the Defence Staff in the winter edition of Defence International magazine, one wonders whether the top brass understands what FRES actually is. General Sir Michael Walker gave the impression that it was about vehicles. Vehicles are an important aspect, but FRES is a system that is put in them. It is supposed to be a totally integrated battle information system, equivalent to the American future combat system. It allows realtime intelligence from multiple inputs to be processed, electronically integrated and then disseminated to all individual units in a fighting formation at vehicle and sub-unit level, all with amazing speed. Furthermore, input is permitted from the sub-unit level, and it can be integrated into the overall battle plot and shared immediately with all other units. We could end up with a bodged, halfway position in which we get a medium-weight transportable armoured vehicle with some highly sophisticated battlefield surveillance platforms, but multi-feed processing and system integration and the widespread distribution of information may be absent.

There are two issues. The first is money. As we know, the Chancellor has thrown prudence out with the bath-water and the UK is heading for a financial black hole. Other than the first stage of FRES, the assessment phase, costing £113 million over two years, the overall cost of the project will be £6 billion. Neither those costs, nor the onward anticipated running costs, have been budgeted for. That might seem like a lot of money, and it is, but in defence terms it is not nearly enough; it is only one eighth of what the Americans are spending on an identical system. When the money dries up and the Army is well and truly on its way to reorganising around the medium sector, the salvation proposed will be to take on a partnership arrangement—but you can bet your bottom dollar that the Americans will not become our partners, as I will explain in due course.

Secondly, the FRES technology will depend on accurate navigation—the Galileo system—because future partners in this project will demand it and compatibility with the US system will be virtually impossible and too expensive. FRES, or what we understand FRES to be, will be ideal for conventional warfare, but today that is low on the list of probabilities. FRES will not stop terrorist activities or add to the social side of peacekeeping and reconstruction. Each unit will be expensive and, as I have said before in my previous debate, can easily be taken out by someone dressed as a civilian at little expense to them, so it is a very vulnerable system.

If FRES gets up and running, it will change the concept of how the Army operates. At the moment the commander has the facts and makes decisions based on the information available, giving orders to the troops who do not have access to the information on which those orders are based. Under FRES, unless the information is coded to keep it from the troops—which would defeat its objective of speed—they will know as much as, if not more than the commander, and that will put the whole command structure under horrendous strain.

If FRES is a botched job, which is the most likely option, commanders will still have to analyse and interpret data from diverse sources. On a modern battlefield, with so much input, the problems are data management and information overload. The more information is put into the system, the more difficult it gets to rank its importance and analyse it. The volume increase simply adds to stress and confounds good decision making.

Procurement is another vital issue for both the armed services and the UK's defence industry. In keeping with the general ethos of the Monnet method, the European Commission has elected to secure greater defence—and thence political integration—through economic means, pursuing the route of integrating EU member state defence industries. Extending the remit of the procurement rules to defence is one of the ways chosen to achieve that.

The Green Paper published last September is alarming. It talks about the Commission's intention to contribute to the gradual creation of a European defence equipment market,

"supporting the development of the Union's military capabilities under the European security and defence policy"

and proposes establishing

"an appropriate regulatory framework for the procurement of defence equipment."

At the centre of the Commission's initiative is the newly formed European Defence Agency, which will work with the Commission to promote common, EU-wide procurement and standardisation through the armed forces of member states.

If the Commission gets its way, the standardisation programme will become compulsory, managed through CEN—the European Committee for Standardisation—rather than NATO. Given that the United Kingdom is already co-operating with Galileo, and will possibly do so in future with FRES, the point will come when we are so absorbed into the EU system and equipment programmes that we will no longer have the technical capacity to act independently and we will be so far removed from the US systems that we will be incapable of operating alongside US forces.

All this appears to be happening in slow motion, without anyone really understanding what is going on or any conscious political decision to cast our lot one way or the other. We think that we can steer a middle course, which will most likely end in disaster as we are locked into further European co-operation whether we want it or not. Let us not forget that the headline goal, and one of the several milestones identified within the 2010 horizon, is the improvement of performance of all levels of EU operations through appropriate compatibility and network linkage of all communications equipment and assets, terrestrial and space-based, by 2010. That, not surprisingly, happens to be the same date stipulated for FRES.

Finally, we come to the UK's involvement with the EU deployment. An EU battle group would have a force commander and an operation commander who would be directly responsible to the Political and Security Committee, acting by unanimity. The force commander would be determined on a case by case basis. For a battle group operating under the Berlin plus arrangements, the operation commander would be the Deputy Supreme Allied Commander Europe. Outside the Berlin plus arrangements, the operation commander would be determined on a case by case basis, possibly drawn from the nation providing the major troop contribution. As in all EU involvement, there would be a transitional stage. Some future crisis will no doubt prove the present system cumbersome, far from the situation that our chief of staff correctly envisages—that is, meeting an operational need for a more agile, deployable and flexible force. This would result in calls for streamlining, and no doubt a future EU treaty would turn the Defence Council into a defence commissioner, and unanimity would change to qualified majority voting, as we have so often seen before.

While the future Army structure is laying the foundations for the next decade and beyond, it will be future financial difficulties, coupled with inept political decisions about where our loyalties and responsibilities lie between the USA and the EU, while we slip and slide deeper into integration towards an EU army and defence force, that will result in the disappearance of parliamentary accountability.

I do not want to see the traditional role of our armed services subverted away from the defence and security of the United Kingdom. I do not want to see British troops under the command of anyone other than a commander answerable to the Secretary of State for Defence, who is himself answerable to the British people through Parliament, which remains sovereign.

I congratulate the hon. Member for Congleton (Ann Winterton) on obtaining time for this debate. I am grateful to her for giving me the opportunity to explain an important element of the armed forces structure, and at the same time hopefully deal with what I believe to be a number of misconceptions surrounding this issue.

The hon. Lady addressed a wide range of issues in her speech. I shall try to deal with the many elements that she raised. However, I open my contribution on the subject of this debate, which is the operational command structure of the Army. The best way to illustrate that is to look at the main operational deployments in which British forces are currently engaged, and to set out the different command structures that apply and why. The main deployments are, of course, Iraq, Afghanistan, the Balkans and Northern Ireland.

I will deal with Iraq first, where we have just over 8,000 troops. They form part of the coalition force, which is operating under UNSCR 1546. The vast majority of our troops are in the south of Iraq and come under the direct command of the General Officer Commanding Multinational Division (South East), who in turn comes under the US General Commanding Multinational Forces (Iraq) who is headquartered in Baghdad. However, at all times British forces remain under the operational command of the Chief of Joint Operations at the Permanent Joint Headquarters in Northwood. Indeed, the CJO, or another British officer retaining operational command of British Forces, is a feature of all the command structures that I want to mention today. All British forces are also operating under rules of engagement agreed by British Ministers and within a British legal framework—regardless of the coalition or international security organisation they are operating within. There was much discussion in the House recently, and of course in the media and among the wider public, about the command arrangements for the Black Watch battle group that deployed last year to North Babil. The arrangements that I have just set out were essentially the same. Although the commanding officer of the 1st Battalion the Black Watch reported to a US officer, he ultimately remained under the operational command of the Chief of Joint Operations and the UK rules of engagement.

In Afghanistan, the UK forces are deployed under two complementary command structures. Those form a part of the international security assistance force around Kabul, and those in the provincial reconstruction team are part of a NATO operation under the command of a French general. Those forming part of the US-led coalition focusing on counter-insurgency operations are under the command of the US commanding general. However, as in Iraq, all British personnel remain under the operational command of the CJO and, again, operate within a British legal framework. In the Balkans we find two different structures, but the same overriding principles apply. British personnel in Kosovo form part of KFOR, which is a NATO operation, again under the command of a French general. Those in Bosnia now form part of an EU operation, EUFOR, under the command of a British general.

I hope that the hon. Lady will accept that British forces in operations overseas remain under British command, and in all these cases, under the overall command of the CJO. We do not envisage any change to the way in which we work with our international allies and partners in coalition operations. Indeed, improving interoperability is at the heart of what we have in mind.

The hon. Lady raised the subject of the development of EU battle groups. She accurately set out some of the issues associated with that. The precise command arrangements for any EU battle group mission would be determined, as she said, on a case-by-case basis, and would be subject to unanimous agreement by the 25 member states. However, as with EUFOR and other current operations, it is likely that operational command of deployed forces would be retained by the CJO.

I have said that there are no plans to change the way that we operate. We are still in the process of putting the concept together. What I find intriguing about the hon. Lady's position is that it is as if she is denying the need for international effort. If she is not denying that, she is unable to articulate how partners work together. They cannot operate in separate stovepipes. They must come under one single command in theatre. There then has to be a national reference point for all of that, and, as I pointed out, we work clearly through our chain of command to British Ministers—ultimately to the Prime Minister—and also within the British legal framework. There are no plans to change that, and I feel that setting this hare running is based on nothing but prejudice.

Let me just also comment on the command structure for forces operating in Northern Ireland, because there is a slight variation there. The 11,000 personnel in the Province are under the command of the General Officer Commanding Northern Ireland, and he reports to the Commander-in-Chief Land Command. However, on a day-to-day basis, the GOC works to support the Chief Constable of the Police Service of Northern Ireland, who retains primacy on security issues.

I have covered a number of disparate operations, but it is important to understand that in all circumstances British forces deploy in a coherent command structure, and with the right guidance and ROE. With current operations, the retention of operational command safeguards that. Future operations may see it achieved through different command and control arrangements, but the outcome will be the same. I have in mind here the possibility of a large-scale NATO operation. Nothing of that nature is envisaged, but if such an eventuality had to take place, we would have to work with our NATO partners—I assume that the hon. Lady is a strong supporter of NATO—to work out the best structures to achieve our objectives, so the issues are real.

We choose to operate with trusted allies and partners precisely because this type of co-operation provides operational benefits over and above those available were we to operate alone, for which last option I think the hon. Lady was arguing. For example, through operational burden sharing, UK forces are able to call upon the deployed assets of other nations, thus making support available when it otherwise might not be. Ultimately, operating with allies and partners can enhance the safety and effectiveness of our troops.

Let me deal with the future Army structure, which the hon. Lady touched on in her opening comments. The future Army structure is underpinned by two complementary changes. The first is a move towards a more balanced force, organised around two armoured brigades, three mechanised brigades, a light and an air assault brigade, and a Royal Marines commando brigade.

It is important to emphasise that we cannot use front-line forces that we are unable to deploy, and we cannot sustain operations if we lack sufficient supporting forces. That is why we are moving ahead with the second element of the reorganisation, which is making the Army more robust, resilient and able to sustain the enduring expeditionary operations that have become standard in recent years. The requirement is for us to make significant enhancements to key specialist capabilities—including those involving communications, engineers, logisticians and intelligence experts—that underpin what we need for an expeditionary Army in a new, strategic context. We also want to make fighting units, including the infantry, more robust by ensuring that they have adequate numbers.

The hon. Lady asked about the size of the British Army today. Of course, it is significantly bigger now than it was in 1997. The current figure will remain broadly the same, depending on normalisation in Northern Ireland. When normalisation in Northern Ireland comes along, it will create a new set of conditions that have to be dealt with. Six battalions are tied up in dealing with the issues in the Province. I hope that that will not be required in future. If those six battalions are no longer required there, that will create a set of new conditions that will allow us to do different things.

Of course, we are talking about more than just infantry and boots on the ground. We also have to create a deeper and broader strength in the British Army. That is why enhancements on which we have already decided include the creation of a new commando engineer regiment, a new port and maritime unit, an additional strategic communications unit and a new logistics support regiment for each deployable brigade. We are also creating a number of new sub-units for surveillance and target acquisition, bomb disposal and vehicle maintenance capabilities.

Those are new capabilities, not cuts. The hon. Lady said that some people in this Chamber were treating the issue with some humour. These are very serious issues, but the issues that I point out—the way in which we are adding new capabilities—and the extent of the debate have been missed by many commentators. Of course, what I say also applies to equipment.

Sadly, I will not even be able to touch on Galileo or China, as I have only two minutes left, but I shall try to. In future, we can deliver effective armed forces through network-enabled capability, something that other nations, primarily the United States, are looking at. That is why we have to move down the road of major procurement strains and of introducing Bowman and Falcon, enhanced intelligence collection assets such as Watchkeeper—the unmanned aerial vehicle—Soothsayer electronic warfare capability, and modern vehicles such as the Panther armoured reconnaissance vehicle. The hon. Lady touched on the undoubtedly ambitious FRES armoured fighting vehicle programme, which will modernise the armoured vehicle fleet and be the basis of medium-weight capability.

Will the right hon. Gentleman give way?

I have one minute left. On Galileo, let me just say that it will be a civil system, under civil control. That has been confirmed by successive EU Transport Councils. The UK has emphasised that that should remain the case. In December, as the hon. Lady correctly pointed out, the Transport Council stated that any decision to alter the civil status of Galileo would have to be agreed unanimously by member states under pillar 2 of the EU treaty. That is the constitutional structure under which Galileo exists. It is quite clear that what we have laid down with our NATO partners will protect the integrity of that system. The global positioning system, not Galileo, is currently the basis of NATO operations, and will remain so into the future. Galileo will be a civil system. That has been expressed time and again in the Chamber and elsewhere.

It is a great privilege to gain this Adjournment debate to raise the concerns of a large industry and, particularly, of some of my constituents. I am pleased to see the Minister responding, and I know he will engage with a lot of my points. Is he pleased to be here, out of the rough and tumble of the main debate, which has come quite by coincidence?

I have lived in Kidderminster for over 30 years, downwind of a sugar beet factory. Every October we noticed the aroma, which went on without fail until January. To begin with, I thought it was appalling and could not stand it. Towards the end, I began to think it was like roast beef and did not mind it. The factory closed relatively recently, and I talked to some farmers to find out the impact that had had on them. To my surprise, they were not at all fed up that the factory had moved. There were very few job losses, and instead of the labour of loading up their own 14 tonne trailers and taking masses of loads, they were able to use hauliers with 30 tonne lorries, which was much easier. However, as the Minister will know, their worry was the proposals from the European Commission for sugar sector reform.

All parties I have talked to accept that some reforms are necessary. It is the scope, speed and severity of the proposals that alarms people. I will talk first about the local significance, secondly about concerns with the proposals and thirdly about the consequences if the proposals go through as they stand. I shall finish by asking the Minister specific questions.

On the question of local significance, I realise that the west midlands is a relatively small part of the beet-growing picture across the country. I also realise that, in the global picture of agriculture, beet accounts for only about 2 per cent. of the output and about 4 per cent. of the cropped area. Beet growing is therefore not a huge industry or a huge part of the agricultural economy, but in my area alone, the relatively small growers have been the ones who have coped with the sugar beet. Some 20 farms are dependent on sugar beet and average production of only about 1,000 tonnes a year. One of the largest farms grows about 4,900 tonnes a year, and the farmer hopes to yield about 60 tonnes per hectare. He contracts out his machinery to the smaller firms, making the point that the smaller farms are on a very tight rotation and that a third of their land may be used for growing sugar beet.

On the concerns to which I referred, all the people to whom one speaks, whether it is the National Farmers Union, British Sugar, the British Beet Research Organisation or my local farmers, agree that some changes are necessary, but that the proposed changes are not necessary and should not be implemented so rapidly, because one must be fair to the efficient producers in this country and to the growers in other places such as Africa, the Caribbean and the Pacific. Concerns about biodiversity have also been expressed, particularly by English Nature and by the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds.

I shall talk briefly about the concerns of farmers, which are very well known. The first concern relates, of course, to the price cut, which is 25 per cent. for the first two years and 37 per cent. thereafter. The farmer of the largest farm in my area tells me that his growing costs are about £18 per tonne, which is extraordinarily good as the average is between £20 and £25. A 37 per cent. cut would wipe out all profit and immediately make it uneconomic to grow beet, so the price cut is desperate.

On cuts in quota, all point out that the UK grows only about 50 per cent. of our needs. The rest comes from the Caribbean countries and elsewhere. We have a balanced market and are helping the other countries. In contrast, some of the countries in mainland Europe are overproducers, and it seems only fair that the quotas of overproducers should be cut more and sooner than those of our producers.

On compensation, I believe that it is proposed that compensation of 60 per cent. be paid to all farmers, including the non-beet growers, which strikes me as incomprehensible. Compensation of 100 per cent. must be paid, but only to beet growers who are forced out of the market. There is also the problem of the time scale. I understand that radical reforms are not required until July 2006, but the aim is to introduce them by July this year.

I shall move on to the consequences. Many farmers, particularly small ones, will face difficulties. British Sugar will face the difficulty of too many factories, so some factories—including, presumably, the one in the Shropshire in the west midlands—will have to close. That will make it even more difficult for growers to go on growing beet in my part of the country, even if they want to, so choice is removed.

The loss of employment may not be as great as it might be because the factories are relatively low employers as a result of automation, as we discovered when our factory moved from Kidderminster. I believe that in 2002 about 7,200 individuals had contracts with British Sugar to grow beet. Obviously, hauliers and the extra workers needed in the factories during the campaign will be affected.

I turn now to something that I know a little more about. For information on the farming industry, I rely on friends at home and on many of the briefings that I receive. I turn to the natural side of things and to the loss of habitat, particularly the loss of food for the birds. Sugar beet is the ideal break crop. It provides broad-leaf, fairly open cover, particularly in the breeding season. It seems amazing that farmers should say that they welcome good weed growth, but those broad-leaf weeds provide food, seed and cover and the cover goes on late into the year, as does the food supply.

In Worcestershire, unfortunately, we do not see much of the stone curlew—it was last seen in that county in 1996—and we do not get many pink-footed geese, but we still get a few. Those, of course, are the prime species dependent on sugar beet in East Anglia. To me, Worcestershire is the skylark and the lapwing. As a lad, I remember walking in the country, and wherever I walked it seemed that the skylarks took off and soared singing into the sky. Skylarks are now listed by BirdLife International as a species of conservation concern in Europe. Their population has suffered a massive decline, down in Britain by 54 per cent., with a loss of 1.5 million breeding pairs. They are insectivores in the breeding season and vegetarian in winter and they are territorial. I did not know that a pair apparently needs between 2 and 8 hectares. They dislike the winter-sown cereals, but beet is ideal.

Lapwings, too, are in decline. Again, in the days when there were lots of lapwings around, if one was lucky enough to be below them while on a country walk, when they were wheeling and circling above, one could hear the scrunch of their wings. That is what gives them their Latin name of Vanellus, or little fan.

The consequences abroad are even worse. Prices will go down in the Caribbean, and the only place likely to profit is Brazil, which has cheap labour and virgin land. One forecast is that the Brazilian sugar industry has expansion plans to take over 90 million hectares of virgin savannah. I have also read that, by using only 14 per cent. of that land, Brazil could meet the world's entire need for sugar. If sugar production is thrown open without sustainability safeguards, we will be risking the destruction of an amazing habitat, one which I am told is home to 837 species of bird and 14,425 species of three orders of insects alone, including butterflies and moths. The consequences if the proposals go through unchanged are possibly very serious.

I move on to my specific questions. First, I am sure that the Government are taking this challenge seriously. I should like the Minister to confirm that and to tell us about the plans that the Government have to oppose these changes, in so far as they are drastic, severe and rapid, and to modify them into something acceptable to all who agree that some changes are necessary.

Are there alternative crops, including non-food crops, as opposed to winter wheat and winter barley? What crops with the same sort of financial rewards and with equal benefits to biodiversity could replace beet?

I am aware of the questions that the Secretary of State answered last week and looked at the impact study she mentioned from Cambridge university and the Royal Agricultural College. I cannot say that I read every word, because it was a huge tome. It does give alternatives; what can happen with a 25 per cent. cut in quota, with a 25 per cent. cut in price and with a 40 per cent. cut in price. All of those alternatives have pretty awful consequences, particularly for small-scale sugar beet growers.

To conclude, I cannot avoid going back to the skylark, because it is such a treasured feature of the English countryside. The skylark was celebrated by Spenser, George Meredith, A.E. Housman and Shakespeare himself. One of my favourite quotes is from a sonnet written by Shakespeare when he is extremely down in the dumps and thinks of his love:

"Like to the lark at break of day arising

From sullen earth, sings hymns at heaven's gate."

What a picture.

I am appealing not only on behalf of the lark, but on behalf of biodiversity as a whole and on behalf of the African, Caribbean and Pacific countries—which must not be disadvantaged—and our growers at home, particularly mine in Worcestershire, who may have as much of a third of their land under sugar beet.

I begin by congratulating the hon. Member for Wyre Forest (Dr. Taylor) on obtaining the debate and on the well-informed case he made on behalf of his constituents. I have listened carefully.

I hope that I can touch upon some of the points the hon. Gentleman raised in the detail of my reply. I regret that a lot of the detail is still under negotiation, so I cannot give him definitive answers on all of them. He raised issues on biodiversity and I shall touch on those, but there is one point that I want to respond to right away—the issue of Brazil is not in my notes and I do not want to forget.

There has been some misunderstanding about the issue of Brazil. There is no doubt that Brazil is a major and efficient producer of sugar. What people need to understand is that even with the Commission proposals, sugar prices in the EU will still be double the world rate. There will still be tariffs in place, and the only countries that will be exempt will be those African, Caribbean and Pacific countries that have access to the EU. That does not include Brazil. When people talk about Brazil gearing up, that is more speculation than fact, although I do not dispute that it is an extremely efficient grower.

I quite understand the point that the hon. Gentleman made about the importance to his constituents who are sugar beet growers. I have a few growers in my own constituency, in north Lincolnshire, where sugar beet is a major crop. I also share his fondness for sugar factories. There was one in Brigg, which was very important for seasonal employment to many of the rural communities that I represent. The beginning of the campaign was part of the seasons to me. I was very sorry when Brigg closed and production shifted to Newark—a similar case, with similar effects, to the hon. Gentleman's experience.

This is not the first time in recent months that the House has debated sugar sector reform, and I understand the reasons—particularly because the issues are being discussed in the absence of detailed legislative proposals from the European Union. We do not expect to see the detail of those proposals until May or June. That makes it difficult for the Government to give a detailed response at this stage. The honest truth is that we do not know; we have not seen all the details and we have not formulated a detailed response. We shall have to do that in due course.

I also understand the point that the hon. Gentleman made about the time scale, but we believe that the issue needs to be resolved as soon as possible. Farmers and processors need to know exact details, and the implications for their businesses, as soon as possible, so that they can make decisions accordingly.

Sugar beet reform has implications well beyond beet-growing in this country, because it is a complex negotiation, which also takes into account the effect on ACP countries and cane production. I accept that there are also more general economic and environmental implications, as the hon. Gentleman said. Reform also has an impact on trade and development policies and our international obligations, in the World Trade Organisation in particular. We have a difficult balance to reach in relation to the Commission proposals.

I must be honest and say that the current regime is 36 years old; it is seriously out of line with other reformed sectors and remains the most distorting and protectionist element of the entire EU common agricultural policy. I know that people accept that there is a need for reform, because of those factors. EU sugar prices are three times the world level. That is not sustainable and it affects other sectors—particularly food manufacturing and confectionery, which are big exporters. There are many jobs in that sector as well. That is not to say that we underestimate the importance of the reforms and the effect on the growers, but we must recognise that other players are involved. They do not always speak with the same voice; there is not a lot new about that where different sectors are involved.

The pattern of the CAP has been changed by the June 2003 reforms, which we very much welcome. Overall, the CAP reforms benefit the environment. I was very impressed by the hon. Gentleman's knowledge of skylarks; the Latin was particularly interesting. I assure the hon. Gentleman that we recognise the biodiversity issue, but we are attending to that through the CAP reform, cross-compliance measures and expansion of our agri-environment measures. Many of those are geared towards trying to reverse the decline in numbers of farmland birds in particular.

Farmland bird species are one of the Government's indicators of sustainability—we take that seriously—and of quality of life, for the reasons that the hon. Gentleman articulately outlined. I am pleased to tell him that from our latest figures it appears that the downward trend in farmland bird numbers, which has continued for a long time, has stopped. The trend has bottomed out. There appear to be welcome signs of an upward trend, although it is too soon to say. We need to be a bit cautious, but the easing of the downward trend is very welcome, and I am sure that the hon. Gentleman welcomes it too.

The reform of the sugar sector should be consistent with the principles that we have already agreed on CAP reform. The hon. Gentleman will know that the European Commission published a communication on sugar in July 2004, which set out the reform principles. The point was made that the existing regime is unsustainable and that early and radical decisions are needed. That, incidentally, was also the view of the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs Committee, which recently went into the issue of sugar reform and produced a helpful report. It was certainly very thorough and has been of great interest to the Government.

There is consensus that doing nothing is not an option. There must be change and reform. I regret that negotiations have been moving slowly in the EU. That is partly because the EU is awaiting the outcome of an appeal against the findings of a WTO panel on sugar. Incidentally, as those findings stand they reinforce the need for action. However, that is an added complication for the Commission when bringing forward its detailed proposals.

When the proposals are published, the Government will publish our own regulatory impact assessment of their effect on various sectors of the sugar industry, including the effect on sugar beet growers in the west midlands and elsewhere in England, so that we can have some kind of evaluation of that. We will also launch a second full public consultation once the proposals have been published, so that we can get some reaction from the people who are affected. It is important that we recognise the significant implications for UK beet growers.

It is possible that the industry will not continue at its current level, as the hon. Gentleman said. Farmers who receive the single farm payment decoupled from production may choose not to continue to grow sugar beet at all, if other crops appear more profitable. That would be a rational response to market signals, allowing resources to be used to the best effect.

The hon. Gentleman asked about alternative crops. There is a range of alternative crops, and the Government are putting a great deal of funding into research and development: for example, into energy crops and industrial crops. I visited the Central Science Laboratory, where I saw a range of products that had been produced with materials such as flax and hemp. I saw what looked like a denim jacket, which had actually been made from nettle stems. I saw car dashboards and door panels made from hemp. Farmers have some quite interesting potential alternative crops, with new markets and developments. As a Government, we are funding the work, the development and the research into that, which is quite well advanced.

There may well be options, but in the end it is surely better to have a system where farmers are free to make judgments in relation to what they grow, where their markets are and who their customers are, according to the demands of their own priorities, skills and land. That must be the right way forward, and that is the position that we want to be in.

The hon. Gentleman also mentioned the independent research commissioned from Cambridge university, which looked at the implications for the UK of EU sugar reform. I think that that is helpful, as it gives us an idea of the implications and their extent. We have made that publicly available.

As I have said, we need to take account of all the players in the equation, including the cane refiners, industrial sugar users, consumers, taxpayers and of course the EU's actual and potential suppliers from developing countries, especially the African, Caribbean and Pacific countries, who have been sending cane sugar to the UK for refining for a long time. That is the historical reason why, as the hon. Gentleman rightly states, some EU countries have a much larger quota for sugar beet. Since before we joined the EU, as a country we have always made a large proportion of our market available to Commonwealth countries such as New Zealand and the ACP countries. When we joined the EU, that was recognised and protected so that our traditional links and markets were reflected in our membership. That explains the quota situation.

Our aim remains to achieve liberalising reform in line with what has been agreed in other sectors—a simplified, decoupled, market-based approach that is consistent with our sustainability policies. I am confident that that is in the long-term interest of all concerned, including sugar beet farmers and processors. The hon. Gentleman will be aware that the Commission is thinking of elements of compensation to reflect the general changes in agriculture, and in sugar beet in particular. We will have to take into account the detail of that when we see the Commission's proposals.

The hon. Gentleman has articulated concerns that are widespread in the sugar beet sector, which I also hear as a constituency MP. I have letters written to try to give my farmers an update on where we are. I regret that I am unable to go into a lot more detail, as I would prefer to do and as the hon. Gentleman deserves, because there is still a range of unknowns in the negotiations and the detail from the Commission. I can assure the hon. Gentleman that, as I said, the sugar beet sector will have the opportunity to comment on the Commission's proposals and the Government's reaction to them, and we will of course listen carefully to its submissions.

Question put and agreed to.

Adjourned accordingly at nineteen minutes to Five o'clock.