On a point of order, Mr. Deputy Speaker. I beg to move, That the House sit in private.

Question put forthwith, pursuant to Standing Order No. 163 (Motions to sit in private):—

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

It is with great pleasure that I present the Bill to the House. The use of drugs in this country has reached crisis levels in parts of our society and it affects us all, whether directly, through family members who are caught in the cycle of addiction, or indirectly, through crime that is fuelled by people's need to buy more drugs. All that is going on against the background of a Government who have sent all the wrong signals on drugs. The reclassification of drugs such as cannabis has sent those wrong signals throughout the country and many people now believe that it is safe to use cannabis. The aim of the Bill is to redress those problems, to give more powers to the police and the courts to combat our drug culture, and to look into the effects of cannabis so that the Government can see that the drug that they have gone soft on is actually quite dangerous and harmful.

To summarise for my right hon. and hon. Friends, my Bill has three main strands, which I will consider individually: the use of a mandatory seven-year jail sentence if a dealer is caught selling class A drugs for the third time, the use of a custodial sentence for any adult convicted of selling class A drugs to a minor for profit, and the establishment of an independent commission to look into the effects of cannabis and to make recommendations to the Government on its classification.

Penalties for drug selling are rightly very harsh. Some 85 per cent. of all drug offenders are convicted of unlawful possession, but, although maximum penalties are severe, most offences are dealt with by fines and nearly three quarters of those fines are less than £50. The state of the drug problem in the United Kingdom has shocked me as I have looked into it. In 2002, the Home Affairs Select Committee, in its landmark report on drugs in the United Kingdom, "The Government's Drugs Policy: Is It Working?", found that drugs are easily available. About 4 million people use at least one illegal drug each year and about 1 million people use class A drugs such as heroin, cocaine or ecstasy.

The cost of those illegal drugs has plummeted in recent years, which has made it even easier for people to get their hands on them. The Independent Drug Monitoring Unit reported that the cost of drugs is at its lowest level for a decade. It highlights that, in 1995, heroin cost £80 a gram and that it now costs £35 a gram. That trend also applies to cocaine, which used to cost £56 a gram in 1995, but now costs £45 a gram. A newspaper recently reported that a line of cocaine is now the same price as a cup of coffee bought from Starbucks. That probably says more about the price of cocaine than about the price of coffee at Starbucks.

The trafficking of drugs into the United Kingdom has also continued to increase in recent years because organised criminals and gangs are making huge profits at all the stages of getting drugs into the country. The last figures available show that the number of people arrested for trafficking cocaine has doubled. There has also been a large rise in the number of arrests for cannabis and crack cocaine trafficking, so we have a huge problem in our country and on our streets. Cannabis use has risen by more than a third, ecstasy use has doubled and cocaine use has risen by 250 per cent. over the past eight years.

Evidence clearly shows the amount that drug use has gone up in the past three decades. In 1969, 4 per cent. of people used amphetamines, 2 per cent. used cannabis and less than 0.5 per cent. used other drugs. The British crime survey reported in 2002–03 that a third of 16 to 59-year-olds had tried drugs at least once in their lifetime. It also reports that cannabis is the most frequently used drug in all age groups. About 3 million 16 to 59-year-olds have used cannabis in the past year, with a quarter—about 1.5 million—of 16 to 24-year-olds admitting to using it in the past year.

The European Monitoring Centre for Drugs and Drug Addiction reported in November 2003 that Britain had the highest use of cocaine in Europe, with 7 per cent. of 15 to 24-year-olds admitting to using it recently. Deaths owing to drugs have risen sharply in recent years, too. In 2002, there were 2,685 drug-related deaths in England and Wales—an increase of 19 per cent. compared with the number of such deaths in 1993. That represents 5.1 drug-related deaths per 100,000 of the population in England and Wales.

An obvious side effect for us all in the war against drugs is the effect that the rise in drug use has on drug-related crime. According to my right hon. Friend the Member for Haltemprice and Howden (David Davis) in his speech to the House on 18 January this year, about three quarters of hard drug users commit crime to obtain drugs. In February 2002, the Home Office cited figures from a study by York university showing that the cost of drug-related crime in the United Kingdom could be as much as £19 billion a year.

Does my hon. Friend intend in any part of his analysis to make a comparison with the use of tobacco and alcohol, both as addictive substances and, particularly in the case of alcohol, as contributors to crime? It has always struck me as being rather odd that, in any discussion about drugs, we often tend to ignore the fact that substances legally obtainable in this country can in many ways be just as damaging.

I did not intend to point that out because I know very little about statistics that show that people go out to commit crime to fuel their purchases of alcohol or tobacco products. As regards cannabis, for those who mix it with tobacco to use, it is the tobacco that is addictive, which creates the problem of people becoming addicted to cannabis through the tobacco. The smuggling of huge amounts of tobacco and alcohol into the United Kingdom is a major crime, and I declare my interest as the owner of a retail business in Swansea.

Does the hon. Gentleman accept that the British crime survey shows that two thirds of violent crime is related to alcohol abuse and use?

I concede immediately that there is a serious problem in this country with those who cannot control their alcohol consumption and go on to commit violent crime. That needs to be looked at, particularly in relation to extended licensing hours. We must be ever vigilant against such crime, and I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for introducing that topic into the debate.

My hon. Friend is opening the debate in sterling form, and I congratulate him on presenting his Bill. Does he agree that, despite the problems that are faced in our prisons by prisoners who are dependent on drugs and alcohol, it is a great shame that there are no specific accredited alcohol treatment programmes with ring-fenced funding in any of our prisons in England or Wales?

I am grateful to my hon. Friend for her kind comments. I know that she has taken a particular interest in that aspect. We cannot simply lock up people who are convicted of drug or alcohol-related crimes and throw away the key. We must ensure that programmes are properly funded and that they relate to the crime for which a prisoner has been convicted. In the case of alcohol-related crime, we must make sure there are properly funded programmes to help people off their addiction to that product.

More than a million violent crimes associated with the use of drugs are committed every year. Overall crime is up by 16 per cent. and violent crime is up by 80 per cent. That increase is being fuelled by the drug culture. Drug crime and possession has gone up by 4 per cent. Around three quarters of heroin or cocaine users commit crime in order to obtain those drugs. Persistent drug-misusing offenders commit almost 10 times as many crimes as people arrested who do not use drugs. The new English and Welsh arrestee drug abuse monitoring project known as NEW-ADAM provides detailed analysis of the association between drug use and crime. The results of the first two years of the NEW-ADAM programme were published in 2004. The programme involves interviewing and voluntary drug testing of those arrested by the police in 16 custody suites in England and Wales. Arrestees are questioned about their drug use and their offending behaviour in relation to acquisitive crime.

The results are shocking—57 per cent. of arrestees reported having used a class A drug in the past 12 months; 48 per cent. of arrestees reported using heroin, crack or cocaine in the past 12 months; and 75 per cent. of those who had used crack in the past year reported committing one or more acquisitive crimes in the same period. It is our children about whom we should be concerned. More than 50,000 young people in the United Kingdom are addicted to hard drugs. That is 50,000 too many.

According to official figures, almost one in 10 prosecutions fail because of procedural mistakes by the Crown Prosecution Service, and even if a conviction is secured, sentences are often too lenient and fail to reflect the gravity of the offence. That is clearly the case with drug sentencing, and it is why the current punishments are not doing enough to deter people from a life of crime.

The first part of my Bill sets a mandatory seven-year jail sentence if a dealer is caught selling class A drugs for the third time.

I am intrigued by the numbers that my hon. Friend is suggesting. Why not a mandatory jail sentence for the second time? I can just about understand that if someone is caught selling class A drugs once, it may have been a mistake or they may be prepared to learn their lesson. Why is my hon. Friend allowing someone to do it three times before they are properly sentenced?

I am grateful to my right hon. Friend. He almost sounds as though I am being too lenient.

Yes, far too lenient.

We will start with the most persistent offenders. Transparency is essential. Persistent offenders are the ones who must suffer, but that does not mean that if we believe that that is not sufficiently effective, we cannot return to the matter in the near future.

My hon. Friend has just been telling us about the tragedy of young people taking drugs. Presumably, if someone sells drugs to a young person for the first time, we regard that as being heinous and unforgivable. My hon. Friend is almost suggesting that we allow them a second sale to a young person free, before they are hit properly at the third offence. How can that make any sense?

It does not make any sense. That is why the second element of my Bill focuses specifically on the dealing of drugs to young people. I shall make it clear later in my speech that anyone who is caught selling drugs for profit to a young person will receive a jail sentence on the first conviction.

Ah!

I hope that that reassures my right hon. Friend. Even people convicted on the first offence of dealing class A drugs ought to receive a custodial sentence, in my view, but at the third offence we leave no discretion to the judges. The sentence is a minimum of seven years, and I hope offenders will receive far more if they are caught persistently selling class A drugs.

It may be of interest to right hon. and hon. Members if I set out how the provisions of my Bill differ from the provisions of section 110 of the Powers of Criminal Courts (Sentencing) Act 2000. That can be summarised in three points. The provisions of the 2000 Act relate to all drug trafficking offences, as defined in schedule 2 to the Proceeds of Crime Act 2002. The offences listed include offences under section 4(3) of the Misuse of Drugs Act 1971, but include other offences, such as importation offences. The Bill focuses on the selling of class A drugs.

There is an element of discretion for the court in the sentences in relation to offences under section 110 of the 2000 Act. That is not granted in my Bill. A person caught for the third time will go to jail for seven years minimum. There is a requirement in section 110 of the 2000 Act for the convictions for the previous offences to be consecutive, so that two offences tried at the same time would not be treated as two offences for the purposes of the provisions. That is not the case in my Bill. Every crime will be treated individually.

Drug sellers are the scourge of our society. If we can deter them, we can go some way towards winning the battle. The number of people found guilty or cautioned for drug trafficking offences each year has more than doubled in 12 years. In 1990, 6,680 people were prosecuted or cautioned for trafficking. The figure rose to 14,610 in 2002. In Lancashire in 2002—the most up-to-date figures available—127 people were cautioned for class A offences and 391 were found guilty.

In Lancashire we have a key initiative that has been set up to look into and tackle the problem of the supply of class A drugs—Operation Nimrod, which was set up in April 2002 and is funded through the street crime initiative. Every day Operation Nimrod deploys two undercover policemen to different areas in Lancashire to make test purchases in the semi-open market. They appear as drug addicts and work undercover to get dealers arrested. It can take up to five months to gather enough evidence to prosecute those people, which is clearly a problem. Since April 2002 there have been 541 prosecutions as a result of the operation, and on average dealers are getting three years' imprisonment. Is that enough, particularly in view of the amount of time spent in getting the convictions?

I congratulate that high-profile scheme on what it has achieved and on the recognition that it has received—it recently won a commendation in the Home Office tackling drugs award. The senior investigation officer for Operation Nimrod, Detective Inspector Roger Price, commented that he saw many drug offenders reoffending, and that it would be a "wonderful development" to see drug dealers receive a mandatory sentence of seven years for their third conviction. He also commented on the fact that dealers are now frightened of Operation Nimrod, and said that they cautiously joke with under-cover policemen when they first make contact by saying, "You're not a member of Nimrod, are you?" The fear of prosecution is one of the greatest fears and deterrents. I urge the Home Secretary to look at such schemes and help ensure that they are extended throughout the country. The Bill would provide a deterrent for drug dealers in respect of reoffending. Many do so, and we must prevent that.

I want to deal specifically with drugs and children, which my right hon. Friend the Member for Bromley and Chislehurst (Mr. Forth) mentioned. We have all heard in the news tragic stories about children dying from taking class A drugs. There was the story of Leah Betts dying after taking one ecstasy pill and the harrowing photos of Rachel Whitear after she died taking heroin, lying on her bedroom floor with a needle in her hand, will be with us all for ever. I pay tribute to Rachel Whitear's parents for allowing the photograph to be used in all the newspapers throughout the country, so that people can see that taking heroin is not cool. People should never take it lightly or think that it is fashionable. That young girl lost her life. I congratulate her parents and the parents of Leah Betts on going around the country trying to promote the fact that taking drugs is extremely dangerous.

Celebrities are mentioned from time to time in relation to drugs and the newspapers have recently been full of people such as Pete Doherty. Anybody who thinks that taking drugs is cool needs only to look at the photographs of Pete Doherty to see the appalling effects that they can have on a talented young musician such as him. In yesterday's papers, Naomi Campbell was talking about her drug addiction and the appalling effects that it had on her character. We wish them both well in coming clean of drugs. I have to mention Robbie Williams, whose music I think is brilliant. I was delighted when his song "Angels" was recently made a "Best of the Brits" song at the Brit awards, but some of his recent comments about drugs leave me cold. I hope that he and people like him realise the huge responsibility that they have throughout the country, as a lot of young people see them as role models. It is serious when people such as him make comments like, "I thought drug taking was cool and it was only because I ballooned up and could not control my weight that I gave it up." That is one of the most irresponsible things that he could have said. He clearly does not appreciate the huge responsibility that he has for young people, who, to be frank, would listen to him far more than to me on the issue of drugs. I therefore hope that he will look again at the messages that he and other celebrities, whether they are in the realm of music or of sport, send out and at their effect on young people. They should consider the influence that they can have to the good if they start campaigning and educating youngsters against the use of drugs.

The Department of Health annual survey on drug use, "Drug use, smoking and drinking among young people in England", found that 4 per cent. of all 11 to 15-year-olds reported class A drug use during the previous 12 months. The prevalence of drug use increased sharply with age. Only 8 per cent. of 11-year-olds had used drugs in the past year, compared with 38 per cent. of 15-year-olds. That is why we need tougher sentencing for drug dealers who sell their drugs to minors. We all know that class A drugs are dangerous in the extreme, but their effect on minors is even worse.

Does my hon. Friend agree that that makes it even more serious that it took the Government two years to bring to the House provision to make it an aggravated offence to sell drugs to children around schools? The Government originally announced that they were going to introduce such measures in 2002, and the Drugs Bill has got through its Commons stages only this week. That is two years that have been wasted by the Government.

Absolutely. Such action should have been taken a long time ago. I hope that the police will be given every support in cracking down on anybody who deals drugs to minors, particularly anywhere near schools, where they know young people go. We must be certain that the police will get full support. When parents send their youngsters off to school, the last thing that they would want to think is that their kids will be under any pressure whatever to take drugs. We all know about peer pressure, which is bad enough, but let us ensure that we crack down on dealers who perpetrate crime around schools.

We have talked about ecstasy, whose effects on youngsters can be harrowing. It can cause body temperatures to rise to dangerously high levels, it is linked to liver, kidney and heart problems, and it can activate urinary infection such as cystitis in women. My Bill will tighten the legislation on seven class A drugs: heroin, crack, cocaine, ecstasy, mushrooms, methadone and amphetamines prepared for injection. The aim is to prevent today's young people from becoming tomorrow's problem addict drugs users. The Government's own report, "Drugs Guidance for Schools", states:

"All pupils, including those in primary schools, are likely to be exposed to the effects and influences of drugs in the wider community and be increasingly exposed to opportunities to try both legal and illegal drugs."

We know that that is not dispute, but the Bill will make it clear to dealers that they now have a choice—they can deal and face a far tougher sentence than before, or they can stop dealing to the most vulnerable in our society, whether near a school or anywhere else.

As part of citizenship classes in schools, children are now taught about the harmful effects of drugs. I applaud the Government's guidance on this matter and the hard work of the educators involved. I also pay tribute to the life education initiative. I am a Rotarian in Clitheroe and, through their charity, the Rotarians support life education in schools throughout Lancashire, warning youngsters not only about the effects of drugs, but about other abuses.

I am grateful to my fellow Rotarian for giving way. I have been following his exegesis with great interest, and there is much that is superficially alluring in what he says, particularly about young people. Where in his Bill, however, does he address the problem that most of the drugs dealt in my part of the world are dealt by children under 16 on bicycles who are connected by mobile phone to some anonymous figure who may not even be in the same country, let alone the same city? What will he do in respect of those drug dealers?

Anybody who is dealing for profit to anybody under 18 will be dealt with by the Bill. I appreciate the sensitivity of the issue of young people dealing to young people and, indeed, the abuse of older people using minors to try to get around the law, but that issue will also be dealt with. There will be custodial sentences for anybody dealing for profit.

For 14-year-olds?

Sentencing will be available through the courts. It will be up to judges to use discretion, because the relevant part of the Bill allows for discretion in looking at all the effects. Clearly, we want to get to the big dealers—the people who manipulate youngsters to deal their drugs—and they must be in no doubt whatever that, when we get to them, they are going to be dealt with harshly.

Does my hon. Friend therefore agree that it is a crying shame that, when I sought in the Committee stage of the Drugs Bill to lower the age provisions to take into consideration exactly what the hon. Member for Ealing, North (Mr. Pound) is talking about, and what this House is worried about, the Government resisted the proposal so strongly and left the specified age at 18 instead of looking at lowering it to 16 or the age of criminal responsibility, as the Opposition advocated?

I agree. I can see that the hon. Member for Ealing, North (Mr. Pound), who is sensible in most things, could almost be attracted to sitting on the Opposition Benches. Even if he does not come here now, he will certainly be sitting here after May. It is only a matter of time.

I welcome the approach to drug education of schools in my constituency, such as Clitheroe royal grammar school. Their aim is to enable pupils to make informed choices and to make up their own minds to reject drugs by increasing their knowledge, challenging attitudes and developing and practising skills. That is done by providing accurate information about drugs, increasing understanding about the implications and possible consequences of use and misuse and promoting a greater awareness of personal and social attitudes to substances.

The "Talk to Frank" website, which is sponsored by the Government, is imparting sensible information to youngsters and there is a 24-hour helpline. I think that the address is talktofrank.com, and I hope that not only youngsters who are worried about their own drug use, but those who are worried about their friends using drugs, will access the site. I hope that youngsters will use the helpline to get information on how to tackle the problem of dealing with friends who are taking drugs.

Although the percentage of children who use hard drugs is small, we must enact safeguards to protect them from the temptation that awaits outside the school grounds. We must also look outside schools to protect younger people in our society from the pervasive presence of drugs. Approximately 1 million children play truant, 100,000 children are temporarily excluded from school and 13,000 children are permanently excluded. The antisocial behaviour that leads to truancy and exclusions is part of the slippery slope on to drugs that we must try to curb through legislation.

Surveys show that truants and school excludees engage in high levels of poly-drug use, with cannabis, solvents, poppers and amphetamines featuring strongly. Heroin use, which is negligible among school attendees, affects 2 per cent. of truants and excludees on a lifetime basis. The level of consumption of any class A drug once a month during the past year is significantly higher for excludees than for those who routinely attend school. Other research into drug use by school age young people highlights a similar pattern of experimentation, with cannabis use most prominent, followed by the use of amphetamines, solvents, magic mushrooms and poppers.

The links between drug use and criminal activity are well established and acknowledged. For young people living on the streets, lifetime use of the more harmful drugs, such as heroin, cocaine, crack, tranquilisers, steroids, solvents and hallucinogens, is high—four to 10 times higher than for those minors who have never been homeless. For that section of our youth, who are so often the forgotten minority, to be a habitual drug user is a life sentence. Not only must those young people drag themselves off the streets and face the problems that put them there, but they must stop the cycle of desperation that led them to, and keeps them on, drugs. Indeed, there is evidence that drug use in later life is far more likely among runaways and the homeless than among minors who remain under a roof for that period. My Bill will make all drug pushers think twice about whether they want to risk their futures and continue dealing to our youth.

I hope that we all agree that cannabis is a dangerous drug. It is easy for members of the public to forget that cannabis is still dangerous. The Government reclassified cannabis from class B to class C on 29 January last year throughout the United Kingdom.

I am puzzled, because my hon. Friend seems to be prejudging the deliberations and outcome of his own commission. He wants us to take his commission seriously—I remain to be convinced—but he wants it to pose the exact question that he is already answering. Why should it waste its time if he has already got the answer?

Because nobody listens to me. [Laughter.] We are in opposition—I currently speak from the Opposition Benches, but soon I will sit on the Government Benches—and I was upset when the Government reclassified cannabis without reference to an independent commission. I have talked to a number of charities about the effects of cannabis and have made my mind up. I want to set up an independent commission to convince the Government that what they have done is completely wrong. Indeed, when my party gets back into power, we will reclassify cannabis to class B without any hesitation.

Will my hon. Friend tell me what would happen if the commission, having deliberated, decided that cannabis was not that harmful and that it would not be a bad thing if it were made legal?

My right hon. Friend poses an interesting question, which I have considered. Given the information that I have read about long-term drug takers, I cannot believe that any independent commission that knew the facts would not recommend reclassifying cannabis to class B. I would be staggered if an independent commission decided that cannabis is not that harmful and it would not need to be loaded to recommend reclassification to class B.

The Government sent out all the wrong signals when they reclassified cannabis, because they basically said that it is not as harmful as many other drugs. Cannabis is comprised of more than 400 chemicals and contains more tar and a higher concentration of carcinogens than tobacco. Not only can it cause cancer, but it can disrupt the control of blood pressure, which increases the risk of fainting. Even occasional use is bad for people with heart and circulation disorders and for those predisposed to schizophrenia.

The risks of mental illness are clear. Marjorie Wallace, chief executive of mental health charity SANE, has recently commented on the link between cannabis and mental illness, saying:

"We have growing evidence from our 1,000 callers a week that the current culture of taking cannabis makes treatment difficult and adversely affects the prognosis for those who become psychotic."

In January this year, she said:

"While an inquiry would have been welcomed before the lowering of the classification last year—making it more easily available and giving out messages that it is relatively harmless—we would urge the Government to reverse its decision on classification urgently, backing that with a multi-million pound education and awareness campaign on the dangers of cannabis for young people whose brains are developing."

When the Minister replies, I hope that she will say whether the Government intend to introduce a programme advertising the bad effects of cannabis.

Does the hon. Gentleman agree that the Government message that cannabis is a harmless recreational drug that can be taken freely has backfired? They have had to spend £1 million of taxpayers' money advertising that the drug is still illegal, because of the increase in usage after it was reclassified to class C.

My hon. Friend is right and the £1 million did not get the message across that cannabis is still an illegal drug. The newspaper headlines about reclassification indicated that the police would turn a blind eye to cannabis, which has clearly happened in many cases.

The charity Rethink supports my cause. Its chief executive, Cliff Prior, said:

"Cannabis is not risk free. We have known for years that using cannabis makes the symptoms of schizophrenia far worse in people who already have the illness. There is a rapidly growing body of evidence showing that cannabis can trigger schizophrenia in people already at risk—and probably even in people who should only be low risk."

Both those charities support my private Member's Bill.

Cliff Prior also said:

"Rethink would welcome an independent commission to look into the effects of cannabis and to make recommendations to the Government . . . Cannabis is an illegal, but widely used drug, particularly amongst young people, reclassification has confused the issues still further, while most young people may still understand that the drug is illegal, its reclassification has reinforced the existing 'street view' that cannabis is safe and harmless. It is not."

Marjorie Wallace, chief executive of SANE, commented:

"SANE has been campaigning for over 18 years for the government to take seriously the damaging effects of cannabis for those suffering from or vulnerable to mental illness, especially schizophrenia. We fully support Mr. Evans's call for an independent commission to look into the effects of cannabis and its classification."

According to the Metropolitan police, the number of people in London caught with cannabis has increased by one third since the Government relaxed the law on possession, which is a clear indication that the Government's policy has led to a huge increase in the number of people using this harmful drug.

Last week, The Observer printed the following story under the headline, "Drug surge follows law change". It stated:

"Demand for cannabis has exploded in the wake of the relaxation of drugs laws, according to senior Scotland Yard officers."

Police in the south-east of England have made a number of massive seizures of cannabis, which has alarmed law enforcement officials, who

"believe criminal gangs are trafficking large quantities of cannabis because they believe police 'have taken their eye off the ball'."

We should not be reassured by huge seizures, which are the tip of the iceberg, because they are indicative of the huge amounts of cannabis in this country. This month, police and customs officers raided a pub in Dagenham, Essex, and recovered a record 1.37 tonnes of cannabis resin worth more than £4 million. In a separate operation a few days later, police stopped a lorry on the A20 near Folkestone, and recovered more than 600 kg of cannabis resin.

The price of cannabis has fallen so much that it has become easier and easier to obtain. It has fallen by 33 per cent. since 1994, and it now costs just £10 for an eighth of an ounce, which is what many young people spend on topping up their mobile phones. That demonstrates the problem that we are up against. About 3 million 16 to 59-year-olds have used cannabis in the past year, and a quarter of all 16 to 24-year-olds admit to having used it in the past year.

The recent case of the murder of Jodi Jones by Luke Mitchell highlights the devastating nature of the drug. On sentencing Luke Mitchell, the judge, Lord Nimmo Smith, said:

"Heavy use of cannabis may well have contributed to your being unable to make the distinction between fantasy and reality, which is essential for normal moral judgments."

That case alone is daunting and worrying. The awful murder that Luke Mitchell committed was attributed partly to his use of cannabis.

The Government's website refers to the huge dangers of cannabis, which I described earlier. It says that the drug can cause heart problems, bronchitis and cancer. Frequent use can cut a man's sperm count and suppress ovulation in women. It states:

"Cannabis can cause a range of mental health problems from short lived and more common problems such as anxiety and paranoid feelings, to less common difficulties with actual psychotic states that may require medical treatment."

Rethink has asked the Select Committee on Health to reconsider the problem of cannabis and I understand that the Government have decided to do more research into its effects, with special reference to psychosis.

It therefore shocks me, given that the Government had publicised the effects, that they even considered reclassifying cannabis. It is testament to the need to establish an inquiry at the earliest opportunity to look into the effects of cannabis and report back to the Government. Reclassification should never have happened without such an inquiry, but it did, and my Bill will establish one.

I hope that the Government will give the Bill a fair wind and at least allow it through today's stage so that it can go into Committee and be examined in more detail. I know that we do not have much time if the election is held on 5 May but if the Government are serious about tackling drugs, they will know that they must do much more about sentencing and be more effective in sentencing those who deal to minors, and also set up an independent commission to consider the effects of reclassifying cannabis from class B to class C. I have no doubt that, when that commission reports, the Government will consider its conclusions carefully and reclassify cannabis to class B. There is no shame in admitting to making a mistake and taking action. Action is needed now and my Bill will provide for that.

I am delighted to take part in this important debate. I firmly believe that it is valuable for everyone if we discuss the problems of substance misuse in the House. I am also extremely jealous of the hon. Member for Ribble Valley (Mr. Evans), who came second in the ballot. I do not do the lottery because I never succeed in such matters and I am therefore envious of the hon. Gentleman.

I have been a Member of Parliament for 12 years and I have done well in the private Member's Bill ballot five times. I do the lottery and I cannot work out why I have never won.

If I get the opportunity again to be a Member of Parliament and apply in those ballots, I shall be right behind the hon. Gentleman when he puts his name down.

I take a special interest in the subject of our debate because, before I entered the House of Commons, I was a registered nurse and I often cared for people who had to be admitted to hospital for a range of diseases and conditions that resulted from drug taking. Having spent a lot of time with those who were sadly addicted to substances, I firmly believed that it was a complex matter that could not be tackled with simplistic responses. Soon after being elected, I became and continue to be one of the vice-chairs of the all-party group on drugs. We have done much work on considering the problems of addiction.

The hon. Member for Ribble Valley raised some interesting issues. However, his proposed response is too simplistic and does not get under the skin of the problem of substance misuse. I should like to explain why I believe that.

We all use statistics and statements from groups to support our aims and objectives and leave out the less supportive statistics. I should like to say a little about those whose reaction to the reclassification of cannabis is more favourable. I repeat "reclassification"—I am against any legalisation of drugs. The evidence about not only the physical but the psychological effects of cannabis on people is serious and we should not take it lightly. However, I am in favour of reclassification. The Bill is centred on setting up an organisation effectively to support the hon. Gentleman's view that cannabis should not have been reclassified, but I believe that it is important to decouple cannabis from the most serious, class A drugs that regularly kill people.

I take a close interest in my drug and alcohol team in West Sussex. It happens to be one of the best in the country because it is always considering how to get information to young people and ensuring that they understand what it is all about. After reclassification, we were all a little nervous about whether it would promote use among young people because they did not understand that cannabis remained an illegal drug. Of course, that did not happen. The Government's work after their £1 million campaign, in which the drug and alcohol teams participated, showed that 93 per cent. of young people completely understood that cannabis remained an illegal drug. They might have continued to take it, but they understood its classification.

We must consider, therefore, why young people continue to use the drug. After all the years of trying to get under the skin of those who use illegal drugs, we continue to struggle to find solutions, including penalising methods and encouraging people away from use. I took on board the hon. Gentleman's statement about Robbie Williams. We all find it shocking that he was worried simply about getting fat and ugly. I think that he is a bit of all right, so I can understand why getting fat and ugly was a problem for him. However, we are finding that, strangely, young people respond more to messages about body image than to those that say, "You're going to die if you take this." The same applies to smoking. If we tell young women that they will have horrible wrinkles and a saggy bottom by the time they are 40, they start to think about their cigarette smoking. Perhaps the hon. Gentleman's anecdote about Robbie Williams was not as damaging as he suggested, but I understand his concern.

The hon. Gentleman clearly set out two aspects of the Bill. The first element is a "three strikes and you're out" campaign on dealing. We all despise those who make money from the awful trade, out of which it is sadly all too easy to make money. However, I have found that dealing is a complex matter. The dealers with whom I have had most contact in my community—not to buy, of course—are also users. That makes the issue more complex. I hope that I do not appear to be some woolly libertarian who does not take such matters seriously. I am genuinely trying to explain that simply taking punitive measures against dealers does not work. That is why I support doing everything that we can—and everything that the Government are doing—to provide treatment, help and support to users, especially of class A drugs. That is how we encourage people to give up drug taking, so that they no longer have to make money to support their drug use. This is a difficult issue and a simple style of sentencing will not easily make it any better, which is why I am suspicious of that approach. This is not the first time that such an approach has been proposed. Before the 1997 general election, a Bill that was not enacted put forward a similar proposal.

The provision on the statute book recommends a sentence of seven years. Sadly, however, since 2002, it has been used only half a dozen times, so the vast majority of people are getting away with these offences. I support what the hon. Lady says, however. If drug dealers who are also drug users are convicted, it is pointless to keep them in prison without the proper rehabilitation, care and treatment that they desperately need, because they will go straight back to taking drugs when they come out.

That is a sensible and coherent response to the problem. However, the difficulty is that, once prison has become part of a drug user's life, it is difficult to break the cycle. Prison is often one of the most difficult places in which to keep people away from drugs, and there is often a reluctance to use punitive measures as a response to dealing and drug taking. I remain convinced that such measures are not the only proper solution for those who deal in and take drugs.

I am not sure that we need a commission on cannabis, because I am convinced that it has long-term psychological effects on people who use it in vast quantities. There is even some evidence that weekly use can cause difficulties. The hon. Gentleman's Bill refers to those who are affected by other people's use of cannabis. That can be especially relevant in regard to driving and to people in the workplace. However, I am wholeheartedly against a strict measure for testing for drugs in the workplace. I firmly believe that a much better approach exists. My local drug and alcohol team have developed a fantastic toolkit to encourage employers not to go straight in with mandatory drug testing but to find ways of supporting their staff and of giving them access to treatment for their drug use. Using the workplace as a forum in that way makes it more of a place of safety for everyone, and helps people to understand that it is dangerous to take drugs in the workplace as it might endanger their colleagues. It also gets across the message that it is important to get them off the drugs, rather than driving them into taking more serious drugs. We have found that that can happen in prison, because cannabis can be detected in a urine sample for up to 30 days, while many class A drugs—particularly opiates—have gone after 48 hours. This is a difficult and complex matter.

I serve on the Joint Committee on the draft Mental Health Bill, and we have paid many visits to places that treat people with mental health problems, as well as looking in detail at why people get into those situations and at the effect of drug taking on mental illness. It is a difficult issue. Does the mental illness come first, followed by self-medication with cannabis to make the person feel calmer and less anxious? Or can there be a dual diagnosis, in which a person takes cannabis and then becomes psychotic? The jury is still out on that one. It is an interesting issue to study. I am not entirely sure that a commission could get to the bottom of it, because there should be a medical response to such cases and it should be medics who look at those issues. There is plenty of evidence to show that there are problems around cannabis use, but it is difficult to determine whether the psychosis has been prompted by its use, or whether it is being used for self-medication by someone who is feeling unwell. But it is the job of the medical profession to make that determination.

I agree with a lot of what the hon. Lady is saying on this important matter. Does she agree that it is sad that, during the passage of the Drugs Bill earlier this year, the Government resisted amendments tabled by her colleagues on the Labour Benches to involve GPs more intricately in the assessment process for addicts and other drug users? I believe, as I am sure she does, that the involvement of the medical profession is paramount in assessing how people might benefit from a course of treatment or a programme to get them off drugs.

I thank the hon. Lady for that interesting intervention. The opposition to those proposals was on the ground of logistics. I hope that it is obvious from what I am saying that I believe that experts in drug abuse and substance misuse should play an integral part in such processes. Indeed, I firmly believe that they have. We have only to look at the amount of money that has gone into community action against drugs. A GP in my constituency takes a great interest in assisting drug users through the Addaction project, which is funded in part by the Home Office and which allows people proper access to care and treatment. Medics should be at the heart of any discussions and decision making on both treatment and sentencing.

This is an important debate. I had my first opportunity to call out the results of a Division earlier, and nobody at all had come through the Aye Lobby. I was upset about that. I know that there are only 14 of us here, but it is important to get these issues on record. Although I take issue with the components of the Bill, it is important that we discuss these matters in detail.

I am constantly puzzled by the way in which the debate about drugs unfolds. I do not think that I am any clearer on the subject than I was when I arrived in this place nearly 22 years ago. I am puzzled because everyone says what an important subject this is—reference has been made to an all-party group—yet when my hon. Friend the Member for Ribble Valley (Mr. Evans) offers the House an opportunity to debate this vital matter in his well-considered Bill, we find a pathetically and tragically small number of people here. We know the numbers because we counted them earlier; looking round the Chamber, that is sadly reflected. I want to hear no more from my colleagues about how much they care about this subject, because when they are offered an opportunity not only to debate it but to legislate on it, they do not turn up. They do not come to the House of Commons when they have an opportunity to decide whether my hon. Friend's Bill would present a good way in which to deal with the problem that they all say is so important.

Will my hon. Friend support me in saying how appalling it was that, when we were legislating on this subject earlier this week, the Government allowed a pathetic three hours for Report and Third Reading of the Drugs Bill, which was entirely unsatisfactory. That showed that the Government did not want a reasoned debate on the subject.

My hon. Friend makes an interesting point. She is right that on a previous occasion, on which we need not dwell, the Government truncated debate, but the very people who were frustrated on that occasion could have turned up today and had a substantial amount of time for debate. These blessed Fridays are the one occasion on which the Government do not control the timetable, and colleagues had an opportunity today to discuss the matter covered by the Bill to which she referred. It is an irony that Members undoubtedly felt frustrated by the Government's attitude, but on the very occasion when they could have been allowed lots of time to debate the matter—today—they apparently found it more important to be elsewhere.

My puzzlement increases when I think about the extent to which our policy on drugs, broadly defined, has probably been one of the most consistent and massive failures of public policy for several generations. My hon. Friend the Member for Ribble Valley alluded to that and reinforced the point in his speech. We are talking about substances that are illegal and deemed extremely harmful to those who take them. Even on my hon. Friend's figures, however, they are more readily available than they have ever been, cheaper than they have ever been, the only beneficiaries are the criminal classes, we raise no tax revenue from them whatever, and they contribute considerably to the level of crime. On every conceivable basis and measure, the drug problem has got worse. We have failed completely, Government after Government and decade after decade, to deal adequately with this problem. That must be one of the most comprehensive failures of policy conceivable in the civilised world. I therefore conclude that our policy direction must be almost completely wrong.

We apparently cannot prevent these substances from coming in through our borders. When people sell them, we do not deal with them adequately through the justice and criminal system. We fail to raise any taxes from them, and we also apparently fail to persuade people, be they young people or adults, of the evils of these substances and the fact that they should not take them. There are no positives at all. It is a resounding, consistent, sad negative.

It is suggested that we should try to tighten our border controls, but that does not seem to work. It is also suggested that perhaps we should increase the penalties on people who use, or more particularly sell, drugs. That does not seem to work either, because the penalties are not sufficient or, more probably—I think that this was what my hon. Friend the Member for Ribble Valley was hinting—because the judicial system, for some reason that none of us can understand, fails to use the penalties that are available to it. Perhaps it does so because our prisons are already too overcrowded—I do not know. We therefore have no success in that regard.

Historically, back in the 1920s, our friends in the United States, confronted with what they saw as a similar problem with alcohol, introduced prohibition. In a sense, what we have today is a modern form of prohibition. We are saying, as the Americans said back in the 1920s, that we believe that these substances are wicked and people should not be able to take them, so we will ban them and make them illegal. What happened with prohibition in the United States? Alcohol appeared glamorous as a result, speakeasies sprang up, the criminal classes benefited because they met the demand, and in the end the Americans had to accept the reality that prohibition simply did not work. Surely that is some sort of lesson for us.

If we consider the paradox of the status of alcohol and tobacco in our society, the issue becomes even more problematic. Tobacco, in its own way, is just as addictive and harmful to the people who use it as many, if not most, drugs. Alcohol alters behaviour as well as damaging health and having effects on people's behaviour and relationships in just as bad a way as most drugs. Perhaps for historic reasons, however, alcohol and tobacco are legal substances, freely available and sold legally through shops, including the shop of my hon. Friend the Member for Ribble Valley. They raise tax revenues that go a long way to paying for our national health service, not to say our nuclear weapons and missiles. We also put warnings on alcohol bottles and cigarette packets about the harmful effects of such substances.

In those cases, we say that it is right to tell our citizenry that such substances, although they are legal and we derive huge tax revenues from them, might be, and almost certainly are, harmful to them. We leave it to their judgment as citizens to decide whether to consume them, while at the same time attempting as best we can to protect young people from using or abusing tobacco and alcohol until they are of an age at which they can make a decision. The paradox must be self-evident.

We are therefore struggling with a debate today about cannabis and other drugs and substances against a background in which two categories of substance that are in many ways just as harmful are already freely available in our society. The hon. Member for Crawley (Laura Moffatt) referred earlier to the possible effect of cannabis use on driving. We acknowledge that in our laws, because although alcohol is a legal substance, we say that if one takes it and drives, one is committing an offence. Therefore, a parallel exists between alcohol and cannabis. The debate is all over the place, and it is not taking us anywhere productive.

I pulled my hon. Friend's leg earlier about his proposed commission, and I did so for a number of reasons. I am suspicious about commissions anyway, and even more suspicious of experts, as in most cases the advice that they give us seems to be either wrong or contradictory, usually both, and in the end is usually altered on further investigation. I therefore have an innate suspicion of commissions. When my hon. Friend is prepared, in his usual honest and open way, to prejudge the deliberations of his proposed commission, I get even more suspicious. If we are to have a commission of this kind, I would prefer its remit to be broadened to examine the whole subject of drugs, substances, abuse, consumption and the general effects.

The piece missing from the equation is an adult debate about drugs in modern society. I would go as far as to say—this is usually unspeakable, but I can say it in the Chamber today because I know, with confidence, that it will never be repeated—that surely there is a place for the legalisation of some or all drugs. In many ways, the logic of what I have said would take us in that direction. There should be a debate and argument about whether, were we to legalise such substances and treat them like tobacco and alcohol—to raise revenue from them, put health warnings on them, make them more freely available, decriminalise them and take away the benefits to the criminals—it is at least possible that we might deal with the problem in a much more effective way than we do now, when we are completely failing to deal with it.

I am listening carefully to the right hon. Gentleman, particularly in relation to having a sensible debate about legalising drugs. He might be interested to know that the all-party group regularly has sensible debates about the legalisation of drugs. Given the billions of pounds spent in the NHS on people who abuse alcohol and cigarettes, however, does he have any concerns that the same might occur should drugs become legal? I understand what he says about our debate being completely fractured, but does he have such concerns?

No, because I think that we would get a positive cash flow. The intriguing thing—the hon. Lady will know this better than I do—is that it is beyond dispute or debate that the revenues raised from the sale of cigarettes and alcohol far exceed the cost to the national health service of treating the ailments that arise from abuse of such substances. Sad to say, I would probably argue that in the unlikely event that we legalised these substances and taxed them—indeed, it is unlikely that we would even consider debating my suggestion—the same point would apply. The tax revenues raised from them would far exceed the cost of treating through the NHS those who used them. That is a reasonable assumption to make, based on the historical evidence of tobacco and alcohol use.

I welcome these opportunities to have such a debate. I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Ribble Valley for this one, and from that point of view I welcome his Bill, but I do wish that we took such opportunities to broaden the debate and turn it into a serious one. The sad truth is that we politicians are afraid of articulating this debate in the way that I am suggesting because we assume that there would be a backlash from the electorate. As a result, with a few honourable exceptions—sadly, one particularly honourable exception, who consistently speaks out bravely on this issue is not here today, albeit for a doubtless very good reason—an opportunity for Members to debate this issue is again being missed. I regret that greatly.

I congratulate my hon. Friend on his Bill and I will support it today, if only because it would provide a proper vehicle for further such debates. If it goes into Committee, as I hope it will, I will try to amend it to broaden the remit of his proposed commission, so that we can go somewhat in my suggested direction. For that reason alone the Bill is well worth supporting, but sadly, today is an opportunity that has been missed.

I congratulate the hon. Member for Ribble Valley (Mr. Evans) on his luck and success in coming second in the ballot and, as has been mentioned, on providing another opportunity to talk about this very important subject. I also want to congratulate the hon. Member for Crawley (Laura Moffatt) on showing great insight and thoughtfulness in her speech, based on her previous profession and her involvement with the all-party group on drugs misuse. She has demonstrated her feelings on the subject and made an important contribution today.

As ever, the right hon. Member for Bromley and Chislehurst (Mr. Forth) brings a breath of fresh air to the House. For probably the first time in my eight years as a Member, I am in agreement with him in that I, too, think that we should broaden this debate. It is rather strange that the media and the public seem to get very excited about cannabis, given the facts about the short-term effects of its use. Although I accept that its long-term use can cause some harm, in the greater scheme of things we should be actively debating the effects of alcohol and tobacco. Alcohol kills some 120,000 people every single year and tobacco kills some 40,000 a year. The number of cannabis overdoses can be counted on one hand, and it is clear that the number of deaths attributed to it is none, or virtually none. Of course, every single drug user death or instance of suffering must be taken very seriously. Nevertheless, we need to inject a breath of fresh air into the debate, take a step back and have a proper discussion on the entire spectrum of drugs.

I agree that we should have a proper debate about drugs; indeed, we are endeavouring to do so. Will the hon. Gentleman clarify the outcome of the debate in his party? Do the Liberal Democrats still advocate the ultimate legalisation of cannabis?

Yes, that is our policy, but we would need to gain international consensus and agreement; indeed, the United Nations convention on narcotics use requires other countries to agree to such a change. It is our policy to work towards that ultimate aim, but we will have to wait and see exactly what is in our general election manifesto, which may be pending, on the policies of any future Liberal Democrat Government. The media get excited and distracted by the mere mention of the word "drug", but in effect I take drugs, as most Members probably do, if we count tobacco and alcohol. So let us have a sensible debate, because sometimes discussion about cannabis use is akin to talking about the colour of the napkins on the dining room table of the Titanic. Instead, let us focus on something a little more important.

On the Bill's specifics, we Liberal Democrats do not agree with mandatory sentencing. We understand the sentiment behind such a proposal and the frustration and amazement that people feel when they read in the newspapers that one judge has passed one sentence and another has passed a completely different one. However, I am not an expert on the law and I believe that such decisions should be left to the experts—the judges.

Does the hon. Gentleman understand the huge frustration felt by the police and, indeed, by the victims of the crime associated with drugs? A huge amount of time and effort is put into catching drug dealers, but when they come before the courts and are rightfully convicted, the sentences meted out are pitifully low. Seeing dealers get away with it, in effect, must destroy people's confidence in the judicial system.

I accept that that may be true in certain cases, but overall our judiciary does an excellent job. I listened to the recent debate about the Home Secretary's proposal that politicians take decisions on matters such as house arrest. I have to say that I am very nervous about the prospect of politicians getting involved in such decisions because that is the thin end of the wedge. I accept what the hon. Gentleman says, however, and we may well need to review the system, but the principle of allowing the judiciary the independence to decide on individual cases on the basis of the evidence before them should be retained.

I do, however, wholeheartedly endorse the hon. Gentleman's comments about a commission; indeed, it is Liberal Democrat policy to establish a commission to examine all drugs. I echo what the right hon. Member for Bromley and Chislehurst said about the need to widen the remit of such a commission to include all forms of drugs. It should not simply review cannabis as a one-off but conduct an ongoing review of all the evidence.

Presumably, the proposed Liberal Democrat commission—I understand that it would be a royal commission—would not examine cannabis because, as the hon. Gentleman has just established, their policy of legalising it as soon as possible is already set in stone.

On the contrary. I understand where the hon. Lady is trying to lead me, but she is wrong. Although it is our intention to legalise cannabis use, that could not come about because the United Nations convention on narcotics use would have to be amended. We would have to abide by international law, so we would not legislate to legalise cannabis because we could not.

We are also very mindful of the fact that, as I said, such a commission should conduct an ongoing review of the evidence. The long-term effects on mental health in particular—I have a long-standing interest in mental health issues—are not known. More research needs to be done and we need more information and data. If such evidence demonstrated further adverse effects on mental health, such a commission would have to take that information into account in making its recommendations.

I agree with the hon. Member for Ribble Valley that the current drugs laws simply do not work. The UK has one of the highest rates of illegal drug use in Europe. Some 4 million Britons reportedly used illegal drugs in the last year alone, and it seems that those who want drugs have no difficulty in obtaining them. Crime associated with illegal drugs costs the UK £16 billion a year. Such crimes range from burglaries and robberies by addicts trying to feed their habit, to the very serious violent crime, gun crime and associated culture that seems to be increasing, particularly in our cities.

The prison population is at a record level and the increases are largely due to the imprisonment of drug offenders. We want a policy that is effective: we want to see addicts break the cycle of drug taking and crime. We must shift resources from the targeting of users and crack down on dealers. We must find the dealers and ensure that they are punished. The hon. Member for Ribble Valley spoke of making them suffer, although I am not sure that we should go too far in that regard.

If I heard the hon. Gentleman correctly, he said that most people in prison had been imprisoned for drug offences.

No, I did not.

Perhaps the hon. Gentleman did not, but that was the impression I gained. According to statistics published in September 2004, the largest group of people in prison had been imprisoned for violence against the person. Over 10,000 people were in prison for drug offences—they constituted the second largest group—but some 14,000 were in prison for violence against the person.

I think that the record will show that I said that the number of people in prison for drug offences was on the increase. I was talking about the recent explosion in the prison population. I am happy to stand by the statistics quoted by the hon. Lady, which demonstrate that a huge number of people are being sent to prison for drug-related offences.

The focus should be on dealers and traffickers, not just on users. As has been said before, if we say—rightly—that we want a tougher approach to drugs, logically we should suggest banning and criminalising alcohol and tobacco, which surely have more harmful effects on society than any other drug group. I would not advocate that, but it is a logical progression. In focusing narrowly on one drug whose effects are minimal, although I accept that they may be harmful—more research is needed—we are wasting an opportunity, and also wasting resources that could allow the police to concentrate on class A drugs. Two or three years ago, the Lambeth project established that, over six months, about three police officers could use resources to focus on hard drugs after they stopped focusing on cannabis. If that were extended throughout the country, it could have a significant effect on the fight against the real hard drugs that do the damage.

Every pound spent on treatment saves £3 in costs to the criminal justice system. If the illegal drug structure is dismantled, there will be less street dealing, fewer robberies and less gun crime. The Liberal Democrats supported the reclassification of cannabis from class B to class C. Although we acknowledge that cannabis may have certain effects, it is clear that the police should target what is really important. We want a tough approach. For instance, we want to create a new offence of dealing and thereby target the pushers. We want a new offence of dealing near schools to protect children, and an offence of pushing drugs near mental health institutions containing some of the most vulnerable people in society. Prevention is always better than cure. We want a greater emphasis on how resources are used, and we want more help for those who are addicted. They should not simply be punished—we want them to stop reoffending, get on with their lives and improve the quality of their lives.

I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Ribble Valley (Mr. Evans)—known in his home country, Wales, as "Lucky Evans"—on his good fortune in drawing such a high position in the ballot, and on his excellent choice of Bill. Although, like the hon. Member for Crawley (Laura Moffatt), I have never been fortunate enough to do so well in the ballot, we all know of the enormous pressure exerted on Members as soon as their names come up in the lottery. My hon. Friend could have chosen any number of Bills, but by deciding on this topic he has given us the opportunity to discuss drugs that has been sought by my right hon. Friend the Member for Bromley and Chislehurst (Mr. Forth). Like my right hon. Friend, I am disappointed that the hon. Member for Crawley is not accompanied by more members of the all-party parliamentary drugs group—and, although I am sure that the Minister will do justice to the topic, I am sorry to see that the Under-Secretary of State for Health, the hon. Member for Welwyn Hatfield (Miss Johnson), is not present, as she is responsible for drug policy.

As I told the hon. Lady, my hon. Friend the Under-Secretary is in Europe representing us on an EU committee dealing with justice and human rights.

I know. I had a discussion with the hon. Lady before she left. Nevertheless, her absence reflects priorities. Given the importance of this subject, it would have been helpful if she had been here today, especially as our debate on the Drugs Bill earlier this week was cut off in its prime.

Sadly, I suspect that the Minister who is present has no intention of supporting the Bill, and I doubt that the Government will give it any time. Let me issue a challenge to the Minister. I am sure that people both inside and outside the House are aware that at this point in the parliamentary cycle the Bill could easily reach the statute book well before the general election on 5 May—after which, of course, we shall have a chance to introduce and implement our own policies. Indeed, we saw an example of that this week. The Prevention of Terrorism Bill is highly controversial, but that did not stop the Government from rushing it through all its stages in double-quick time. If the Government were serious about drugs, my hon. Friend's reasonable and clarifying proposals could easily be dealt with in the same way. Will the Minister do that? I hope she will think about it carefully, because these are modest proposals.

The Bill does three things. It imposes a mandatory sentence of seven years on those caught dealing class A drugs for a third time. I tend to agree with my right hon. Friend the Member for Bromley and Chislehurst that that is not tough enough, but it sends a clear message. The Bill imposes a custodial sentence on those caught dealing class A drugs to a minor. I—indeed, all Conservative Members—feel strongly about that. The Bill also establishes an independent—that is the key word—commission to examine the effects of cannabis.

I do not have one friend who is a parent who is not concerned about their child's potential exposure to drugs. I do not know how many parents are in the Chamber today, but I am sure that they feel exactly the same. This is a modern problem born of a complex society, but it visibly destroys families and neighbourhoods irrespective of wealth, creed, colour or religion. It cuts across all boundaries.

We politicians see only the tip of the iceberg—in our surgeries, in individual cases that come to our attention and, sadly, through friends and their children. We may be able to help in a few cases through direct intervention, but we can make a real difference as politicians by constructing a legislative framework that allows the law to protect the vulnerable and punish those who prey on them.

This Bill attempts to do just that by clarifying and reinforcing the laws surrounding the abuse of dangerous drugs. The first provision will ensure that there is no doubt that, if anyone is caught dealing for the third time, there can be no extenuating circumstances. There will be a guaranteed sentence of at least seven years—and it will mean seven years when a Conservative Government come to office. I was alarmed to read that only six hard drug dealers have been given a mandatory minimum sentence since 2000. That is hardly a message of deterrence from a Government who boasted that they would be tough on crime and tough on the causes of crime.

The second provision imposes a custodial sentence on someone caught dealing class A drugs to a minor. Earlier this week, the Government made an admirable attempt in the Drugs Bill to protect children in their school environment from drugs dealers. I commended the Under-Secretary of State for the Home Department, the hon. Member for Don Valley (Caroline Flint), on clause 1 of that Bill, which is now going to another place. During the Committee that considered the Bill, she accepted Opposition amendments to strengthen it but did not go far enough in clause 1. Instead of offering full protection to children in and around school premises, she sought to leave in the Bill exclusions about the vicinity of a school and timing exclusions. That means that if a child goes to school premises—a place where that child is comfortable—at 10 o'clock at night or a couple of hours after the school has shut to meet a dealer, the Bill will not protect that child or provide for the aggravated offence. It was a missed opportunity.

I know that my hon. Friend the Member for Ribble Valley has studied the Drugs Bill closely and he agrees that the message to parents, children and, more important, to drugs dealers must not be diluted. The Government Bill has diluted that message. At least this Bill reinforces the message that should come from Government, irrespective of any political position.

I have looked at the provisions for the commission in my hon. Friend's Bill. Again, I throw a challenge to the Minister. I want her to accept the proposal. Unfortunately, earlier this year the Government rejected the reasonable proposal to reclassify cannabis as a class B drug. If the Government have set their face against that, let them have the courage of their conviction that that drug is harmless and let them bring in the commission to establish what they believe they are saying about the use of the drug.

I disagree with the Government's position. I think that they will disagree with even so much as formulating the commission because they have set their face against any message going out that says that drugs are bad for people. They have bought the harm reduction message rather than the abstinence message. They have been moving in the wrong direction. A Conservative Government would move us back in the right direction.

We should look at the Brixton experiment—the trial project in 2001–02 to caution rather than arrest those who were caught with cannabis. Metropolitan police figures show that between 2001 and 2002, there was a significant increase in the area in drug-related offences. It was alarming. Incidents of drug trafficking increased from 18 to 36, a 100 per cent. increase. Incidents of possession rose from 76 to 242, a 218 per cent. increase. Other drugs offences increased by 300 per cent. Total drugs offences increased by 197 per cent., which is alarming. Many people spoke out against that. Sir John Stevens said: "Children are massively vulnerable." He did not think that anything that exposed children to more contact with drugs should be tolerated. The project did expose more children to contact with drugs. The deputy assistant commissioner of the Metropolitan police noted:

"Our school officers report that children feel that the police are sending mixed messages to young people by on the one hand trying to deter young people from abusing and experimenting with drugs, and yet appearing hypocritical by not strictly enforcing the drug laws."

That is the environment that has been created by the Government. It is against that background that my hon. Friend is proposing the commission. It is something that should bear consideration.

The hon. Member for Crawley made some valuable points relating to the medical profession. I agreed with a lot of her speech. Her position on the all-party parliamentary drugs group is well known. However, I hope that, like me, she was alarmed to read the results of a major study by researchers from the Netherlands, which surveyed 2,500 young people between the ages of 14 and 24. That study, which is I believe was published in an online version of the British Medical Journal, followed 2,500 young people living in Munich, Germany. It showed that regular cannabis smoking increased the risk of developing psychosis by 6 per cent. over four years. There was a substantially greater impact on young people who had already been identified by psychiatrists—here I agree with the hon. Lady—as having the potential to become psychotic. The minute they took to regular cannabis smoking, they raised the risk of developing psychotic mental illness by 25 per cent.

That needs to be looked at more carefully. More and more information coming in from the medical profession is pointing to the harmful effects of a marijuana or cannabis habit. It is essential that the Government do not sit back in a relaxed fashion and say, "It is all right if you have it for personal use and have a little bit. The police are not really going to pursue it", because real evidence is starting to come in from the medical profession that those drugs are particularly harmful.

New medical information is becoming available. Another report says that regular users of cannabis could be putting themselves at risk of a stroke. It was published in the Journal of Neurology, Neurosurgery and Psychiatry literally a couple of days ago. A 36-year-old patient was a sporadic user of cannabis. The first incident occurred after he took some cannabis—he only drank occasionally and was not a regular user of any other drugs or alcohol. He lost his ability to speak and a few hours later suffered convulsions. A brain scan revealed a patch of bleeding and a blood clot. A year later, again after a bout of cannabis smoking, he lost the ability to talk and experienced hemiparesis on one side of his body. Another brain scan revealed a further blood clot. He stopped using cannabis for 18 months but, unfortunately, fell back on his abstinence. He was unable to recognise sounds and there was more bleeding and damage in the area where the previous bleeding occurred.

With that sort of information coming forward, the Minister has to admit that we need further and better particulars and that the message that has been sent by the Government on that drug does not contain enough warnings to our children and to the people who deal in drugs. As I said earlier this week in the Chamber, there is evidence that there is now far more cannabis being imported into this country and far more cannabis available on the streets the length and breadth of this country. As my hon. Friend said, the price of those drugs is coming down alarmingly. Drug dealers are treating them as loss-leaders to introduce young people—their market for the future—into the drugs culture.

I do not want to delay the House any longer as I want to hear what the Minister has to say. However, I believe that the Government have done a disservice to our society in this area. They have been heading in the wrong direction and many people feel disillusioned and let down by their drugs policy. We want to give peace of mind to parents and security to teenagers so that they grow up free from drug dealing. We want to give families the security that comes from having a coherent, consistent and committed anti-drugs programme. That is what the next Conservative Government will give to this country.

We will maximise on that area because the rewards are enormous. We can bring a generation of addicts back into society so that they can contribute to their communities. We can make sure that our children grow up in a safer and more secure society than the one we have inherited. That is what a Conservative Government will deliver after the next election, but in the meantime—in the absence of that Government, and without knowing quite when the election will come—I have great pleasure in supporting the Bill.

I join other hon. Members in congratulating the hon. Member for Ribble Valley (Mr. Evans) on raising this important subject in the Chamber. The Government are determined to deal effectively with the menace that drugs cause in our community.

The right hon. Member for Bromley and Chislehurst (Mr. Forth) asked why people were, or were not, here this morning. It seems to me that the Bill's provisions are largely dealt with by existing legislation or can be dealt with in other ways, so hon. Members might be absent because, like me, they do not think that the Bill would necessarily move us forward. However, the discussion and unanimity of concern among Members about the harm caused by drugs and our determination to tackle that harm might help us to make progress.

Let me explain why the proposals in the Bill are unnecessary and would not be effective. At first sight, the mandatory sentencing provisions might seem superficially attractive, but I am afraid that consideration shows them to be flawed and redundant. Section 110 of Powers of the Criminal Courts (Sentencing) Act 2000 already requires a court to impose a custodial sentence of at least seven years where a person is convicted of a class A drug trafficking offence—including the offence of supply of a class A drug—that was committed after 30 September 1997. The date is important because of the principle of not imposing a retroactive penalty. If we believe that sentencing provisions have a deterrent effect, it is important that we do not create retroactive penalties.

If, at the time the offence was committed, under the existing Act, the offender was aged 18 or over and had been convicted in the United Kingdom of two other class A drug trafficking offences, one of which was committed after he had been convicted of the other, the court may impose another sentence—that is, one of less than seven years—if it is of the opinion that there are particular circumstances that relate to any of the offences or to the offender that would make it unjust to apply a custodial sentence of at least seven years in all circumstances.

The provisions in clauses 1 and 2 are inappropriate because they remove the discretion of the courts to impose less than the mandatory minimum sentence for a third section 4(3) offence. We believe that the courts must be given discretion to allow for particular mitigating circumstances in those cases where a seven-year sentence might not be appropriate. Examples include cases where there has been coercion or intimidation, where addicts are dealing very small amounts to fund their habit, or where schoolchildren are passing on drugs to their friends. In such circumstances, it is important that while Parliament sets a clear framework, we allow, where mitigating circumstances absolutely exist in a particular case, the judiciary to take those into account.

Is not the Under-Secretary staggered by the low level of such cases where the minimum sentence is given? What does she put that down to? There have been a mere half a dozen since 2000.

The figures have not been collected for very long and because of the date timing, there is an impact on the number. I do not know the answer; I have asked officials to try to find out the background to the cases but it looks like we do not have that information. In fact, we are trying to remove from the courts and the police the burden of providing vast amounts of information to the Home Office. That said, I do not think that there is evidence to suggest that the courts have used in a cavalier manner the discretion—indeed, it is quite a narrow one—available to them under the Act.

The hon. Gentleman is right to say that not many mandatory minimum sentences seem to have been passed by the courts, but I am confident that the courts would not cavalierly reject the mandatory minimum sentence; actually, they do not have that power and must take into account specific circumstances. That may suggest that what he fears is not happening. I hope that that is the case, but we must drill down further.

In most respects, I have great confidence in the judiciary, although there will be moments of disagreement, inevitably. But I do not think that where Parliament clearly sets out a minimum sentence framework and allows the courts some element of discretion, they would be inclined to discard the framework established by Parliament. Were the courts to do so, my right hon. and learned Friend the Solicitor-General and my noble Friend the Attorney-General have the power to take the accused to court to overturn an unnecessarily lenient sentence. The hon. Gentleman will have seen my right hon. and learned Friend on the Bench beside me and we were discussing that particular point. She said clearly that she and the Attorney-General were very eager to use that power, were there to be inappropriately lenient sentences for drug dealers.

A mandatory prison sentence for a person aged 17 or under for dealing for a profit is unnecessary and unworkable. It removes discretion from the courts and cuts across the role of the Sentencing Guidelines Council. Courts already have the discretion to take into account, as an aggravating factor when considering the seriousness of an offence, the deliberate targeting of vulnerable victims. Let us be clear; "vulnerable victims" includes those under 17. A victim is the child to whom drugs are sold. There is no doubt that children are covered by that offence, as is made clear by the guidelines issued by the Sentencing Guidelines Council in December 2004 regarding the overarching principles to be followed when deciding the seriousness of offences.

Every court must have regard to the guidelines that the Sentencing Guidelines Council issue on the principles of sentencing, including aggravating and mitigating circumstances. That is in its work programme for 2005. Parliament will have the opportunity to comment on that draft guidance before it is published, so there will be a further opportunity to toughen up the impact of sentencing guidance for crimes in which children are victims.

A child who purchases from a dealer is a victim of a criminal offence, as well as being involved in an offence. I am confident that the courts will accept that and that the sentencing guidelines will provide an opportunity effectively to achieve the hon. Gentleman's ambition, which I share, that when a child is the victim of a dealer that should be taken into account when sentencing the dealer. Removing the courts' discretion when sentencing in the sort of cases envisaged in the Bill could mean that a dealer who deals only on a small scale to fund his habit and not for profit, and who may not be much younger than the victim, could automatically end up in prison when a non-custodial sentence involving treatment for drug misuse and reparation activity might be more appropriate. For example, the community order in the Criminal Justice Act 2003 provides the courts with a tough and flexible non-custodial sentence, which may be appropriate in some cases. It will enable the courts to construct a bespoke community penalty tailored to the offender and the offence.

The range of options that will become available from April this year includes participation in a specified activity—for example, to make reparation—and programmes aimed at changing the offending behaviour. The hon. Gentleman referred to the importance of such programmes in prisons, but they can also be used as part of a non-custodial sentence within the new sentencing framework. They can be a mandatory part of the framework and include curfews, exclusion from certain areas—that is often relevant with such offences—residence requirements, drug rehabilitation, including treatment and testing, and supervision. In some cases, such a sentence may be more effective. The hon. Gentleman and the Government share the ambition to find sentences that are effective in reducing drug dealing and misuse, and such a sentence may be more effective than that proposed by the hon. Gentleman.

In the Drugs Bill, the Government are introducing measures to protect young people and further close the loopholes open to dealers. It will make dealing by someone over the age of 18 on or in the vicinity of school premises, when they are in use by young people, an aggravating factor that the court will have to take into account when considering the seriousness of the offence of supply. The hon. Member for Chesham and Amersham (Mrs. Gillan) argued for an amendment referring to the hours when the offence should be applicable. She knows that the purpose of the aggravating offence is to protect young people. To make dealing in the vicinity of a school at 2 am in the morning an aggravating offence would not achieve the ambition that the offence is designed to achieve. That is why we limited the hours during which the offence is available.

The hon. Lady is poorly briefed because the Drugs Bill provides that the offence occurs only within one hour of the school being used as a place of education for young people. If the school shuts down at 7 o'clock in the evening, the aggravated offence would not apply as early as five past 8. Surely she can see that it would have been much simpler to make the offence an aggravated offence if it occurred in or around a school at any time, without the rider referring to the timing of the usage of the school, which will be a gift to defence lawyers.

The purpose is to protect young people and children. I am not of the view that dealing down the road from Herschel grammar school in my constituency at five past 8 in the evening creates a bigger threat to young people than dealing a mile and a half away where there is no school. It does when the young people are leaving school and when they are near the school, and the ambition of the provision is to address that. The hon. Lady is wrong if she thinks that geography is the issue. The issue is the presence of children and young people. The issue is dealers using the school as bait to catch vulnerable young people. It is not buildings that are not actually being used or have not been used by young people for the past hour.

The Minister has just said that it is irrelevant that the buildings exist as a school. In that case, there is no point to clause 1 of the Drugs Bill. The very premise of the clause is that the school buildings are the attraction for dealers and that is where children need to be protected. Her argument is flawed and I do not think that she fully understands it.

I absolutely understand it, and I thank the hon. Lady for patronising me. The point of clause 1 of the Drugs Bill is to protect children, not to protect school buildings. In order to achieve that, we have ensured that the provision connects the aggravation of the offence for sentencing purposes to the times that children are likely to be at or near the school. We have not limited the times to when teaching is actually taking place: we have provided a window either side of such times when children may be around. I have not been made aware of any evidence that children hang around near schools when teaching has finished for the day. If such compelling evidence existed, it would have been discussed in the debate on clause 1, but it was not.

The Drugs Bill will make using a child or a young person as a courier in a drugs transaction an aggravating factor that courts must take into account. The Bill will also close loopholes exploited by dealers by imposing an evidential presumption on them. That change will have a powerful effect, because dealers will be charged with a supply offence if found in possession of a quantity of drugs over a certain threshold. It will allow courts to draw such inferences as are appropriate from an unreasonable refusal to consent to an intimate search, X-ray or ultrasound scan designed to detect concealed drugs. In that way, we will substantially increase the power of courts to deal effectively with the actions of dealers that so damage young people.

The second part of the hon. Gentleman's Bill proposes a commission of inquiry, but I suggest that the proposal is unnecessary. At present, the Government take their advice on such matters from the Advisory Council on the Misuse of Drugs, which is an independent non-departmental public body. The establishment of the proposed commission would in many ways replicate the existing procedures and undermine the authority of the ACMD. We believe that such matters should be dealt with objectively and considered by the best experts in the field.

In March 2002, the ACMD produced its report, "The classification of cannabis under the Misuse of Drugs Act 1971", which detailed the physical and mental health risks of taking cannabis. On the basis of the recommendations contained in that report, the Government reclassified cannabis from class B to class C.

Frankly, the report was damning about cannabis and I am still mystified about why it made the recommendations that it did on the evidence that was adduced. A number of subsequent reports have pointed to links between schizophrenia and other psychotic disorders and the use of cannabis. Would it not be useful to establish a commission to examine that new evidence and assess what has happened in the 12 months since reclassification?

The hon. Gentleman is right—I was just coming on to the point—that we need to keep this problem under regular review. There is no doubt that new scientific evidence on the impact of cannabis, particularly the link between mental health and the drug, has changed our understanding of these matters over the year. It is important that such information is properly reviewed.

The hon. Gentleman initially asked why, given that the report confirmed that cannabis was a profoundly harmful drug, it was recommended for declassification from B to C. Some people might think from reading our debate that the C classification means that the drug is not illegal, but that is not the case. Cannabis is an illegal drug and a harmful substance, but it seemed more appropriate in respect of the nature of the harm that cannabis does for it to be classified together with other class C drugs. The comparison with A class drugs such as heroin was clear. That explains the recommendations of the Advisory Council on the Misuse of Drugs. Other drugs in class C, including GHB, liquid ecstasy and rohypnol, the date rape drug, are harmful, which is why they are controlled under the Misuse of Drugs Act 1971.

The ACMD meets regularly every six months and cannabis is a standing item on its agenda. It does review new evidence and it is charged with providing advice to the Government on these matters. It has produced some influential reports, such as "Hidden Harm" That was an important report that changed our policies. The ACMD has produced thorough examinations of the harmful effects of drugs such as cannabis, ketamine, methylamphetamine and so forth. It produces professional and thorough reports and draws its members from a range of disciplines.

When considering the classification of any drug, the job of the ACMD is to consider the relative harms of the drug. That is not to deny that any of the drugs controlled under the Misuse of Drugs Act is harmful. That is a given. The ACMD is not trying to find ways to reduce controls on drugs. Rather, it is considering as objectively as possible the relative harms of individual drugs and making recommendations about classification. When it believes that a drug should be subject to increasing controls, it will make a recommendation to the Government to that effect. For example, at a meeting in November 2004, the ACMD recommended that the drug ketamine should become a controlled drug. I highly recommend that ACMD's ketamine report, which is now available on the Home Office website. The Government have accepted the recommendations in principle and we shall consult on that matter later this month. With respect to ketamine, the ACMD is recommending increasing controls.

The structure and procedures of the ACMD are contained in primary legislation, particularly in schedule 1 of the 1971 Act, which provides that its membership should include persons with professional experience such as practitioners of medicine, pharmacy and the pharmaceutical industry. It seems to me that this body, which receives nominations from a wide range of sources, including relevant professional bodies, is the right body to keep continuously under review the impact of cannabis. We need to ensure that it does its job.

The hon. Member for Ribble Valley referred to recent studies, such as the one produced by Professor Jim van Os of Maastricht university, which was based on surveys of 2,500 people from Munich between 1995 and 1999. The professor concluded that cannabis use moderately increases the risk of psychotic symptoms in young people, but has a much stronger effect on those for whom there is evidence of a predisposition to psychosis. We should use the evidence of such reports to ensure that we have effective ways of dealing with cannabis.

The ACMD takes the view that the evidence produced since its report on cannabis does not affect the overall weight of evidence in its conclusions about health risks. Regular and heavy use of cannabis could be a contributory factor to individuals developing mental health problems such as schizophrenia, especially when people already have a predisposition to such problems. The ACMD also certainly accepts that cannabis can worsen mental illness that already exists. The question remains how we should best deal with the problem.

Only yesterday, I spoke to Marjorie Wallace, a doughty campaigner on mental illness. She supports the Bill before us, but also recognises that, in dealing with the harm that cannabis produces, particularly among young men, the most important requirement is to educate them about the risks.

I thank the hon. Member for Ribble Valley for his support for the "Frank" campaign. Speaking to young people in ways that they can understand is important. I have with me here some of the leaflets that are available and I have to say that they are not generally directed to middle-aged women such as myself. I am not sure whether citing some of the language used could be unparliamentary, but the major theme is clear: smoking cannabis could "screw you up". It manages to use messages that connect both to the beauty theme mentioned by my hon. Friend the Member for Crawley (Laura Moffatt), the mental health risks and the danger of getting a criminal record. The leaflets inform young people in a range of ways that cannabis is not just okay because it is a class C drug. It is absolutely not okay.

It is interesting to note that, while some people of my generation think that the reclassification of cannabis to a class C drug amounts to something like legalisation, young people do not. The reclassification provided a context in which we could mount a powerful education campaign—the sort of campaign that might prevent more young people from starting to smoke cannabis and getting into the habit of taking it. It is different from emphasising punishment and conviction.

When I was young, I simply thought that bad things would never happen to me. I thought that if I did naughty things, I would never get caught. I thought that I would live for ever. [Interruption.] I did not really think that I would live for ever. There is a sense that young people believe that they will not get caught and that it does not matter. Sometimes the ways in which we communicate the consequences of their actions need to be tailored specifically to young people themselves.

We know that our debate is not going to reach young people, but we took the opportunity offered at the time of cannabis reclassification to target credible messages on young people, based on the kind of harm that cannabis does. By that means, we managed to make our message have a more powerful effect. The distinction between cannabis and class A drugs is clearly giving the Government's strategy the right balance and focus. Reclassification has also allowed the police to focus greater resources on priority areas, such as class A drugs. Resources have been channelled into operations such as closing down crack houses.

The hon. Member for Ribble Valley referred to Operation Nimrod in his area. That is an excellent model. It is by no means unique, but it is a powerful example of how what we have done has helped to free police resources to tackle drugs operations in an effective and targeted way. Estimates from the police show that, since January 2004, there have been one third fewer arrests for possession of cannabis, resulting in a projected saving of 199,000 police hours. Classifying cannabis as class B again would, in effect, divert resources from the policing of class A drugs in order to criminalise thousands of young people for the possession of small amounts of cannabis. Operations such as Nimrod or the joint ACPO-Home Office initiative, Operation Crackdown, which is currently under way and ensuring that the Nimrod approach is widely adopted, would be damaged. There is a scheme to recognise the best drugs operations, awarding commendations and bringing police forces together at a conference to consider good operations and spread best practice. In that way, we can effectively target drug crime.

All that has had a result on acquisitive crime connected to drug misuse, to which hon. Members have referred. According to the British crime survey, there was a 42 per cent. reduction in burglary between 1997 and March 2004. In thefts, there was a 34 per cent. reduction, from 5.6 million to 3.7 million. We have made a difference on the acquisitive crime associated with drug misuse.

Opposition Members may say that if the British crime survey says that, what does recorded crime tell us. I know that they have concerns about that, but the pattern is exactly the same. Burglaries in 1997 were more than 1 million, and in 2003–04 the figure was 818,000. Thefts, excluding vehicles, were at 1,054,000 in 1997; the figure has gone up slightly, but not a lot. We have reached the stage where acquisitive crime is coming under control.

Does the Minister have the equivalent figures for gun crime related to drug use and pushers?

They are not in front of me, but I will write to the hon. Gentleman, who is right to indicate that there is a significant problem with gun culture, which is often associated with drug use and misuse. There is a cycle involving those in which the causative factor is not clear, which is one reason why we have made such rigorous efforts to deal with the gun menace and to work not just using the criminal justice system but with civil society, including such groups as Mothers Against Guns, to reduce the gun culture often associated with drug culture. I do not, however, share the hon. Gentleman's view—I do not know whether this is his view, but one might read it as being his view—that legalising cannabis would make any contribution to the reduction of that gun culture.

The general principles set out in the ACPO cannabis enforcement guidance are clear. In general, there is a presumption against arrest, but the police can arrest in specific circumstances, including where an adult is smoking cannabis in a public place. As with all policing, it is for the individual officer to judge the most appropriate response to a specific set of circumstances within the overall framework of the guidance. Clearly, where someone is openly flouting the law, they are liable to be arrested, but our main energy is directed to ensuring that our drugs laws reflect the relative harm of drugs, so that the Government can send an effective and credible message to young people about the dangers of the misuse of drugs.

The Minister is making a logical argument, but following reclassification there was a headline in The Observer reading "Drug Surge Follows Law Change". The newspaper specifically related the surge to the fact that the law had changed, saying that the police had taken their eye off the ball and more people were taking cannabis. How does the Minister react to that?

That story was based on what was said by a single officer in the Metropolitan police. There is no evidence of a surge in imports. The Observer referred to one officer, but the Met and ACPO support the policy on reclassification. They changed policing on personal possession, but they did not affect policing on Customs, or Customs policy on importation and dealing. Penalties for those things have not changed at all: we still have a 14-year penalty for dealing. The police have been shown to be effective in targeting dealers and importers. Indeed, perhaps the 199,000 police hours to which I referred earlier have enabled the police to target mass importation of cannabis rather than spending their time arresting users who were smoking with their friends. Frankly, in my view, that is a better use of police time. That action is likely to reduce the harm that cannabis can cause more effectively than anything else.

Our public information campaign, including 600,000 leaflets and radio and television advertisements, has had a real impact on the young people who are the most vulnerable targets for cannabis.

The Minister says that 199,000 hours of police time have been saved. I presume that that would equate to just one policeman over 20 years, which is hardly an enormous saving in time. Following my intervention earlier this week on the Minister with responsibility for drugs, can the hon. Lady confirm that the amount of drugs seized in the latest crackdown is not as great as the quantities seized back in 1998 and 1999? Has she had the opportunity to study those figures and the reference sources that I gave? Can she give me figures that would disprove those that I cited? Admirable though it is that the police are seizing quantities of drugs, it does not seem that they are seizing as much as in 1998–99.

I do not have all the figures in front of me, but I will write to the hon. Lady.

We are determined to tackle effectively the importation of drugs and reduce the use of drugs in our communities. The British crime survey shows a slow but steady decline in cannabis use among young people. Under the present Government, the number of people entering and being retained in treatment has increased. We are tackling the supply of drugs in the UK. We are educating young people about the harm that drugs cause us all. We cannot be complacent. There is more to do to make our families and communities safer. However, the measures in the Bill will not contribute to that aim, so I cannot commend it to the House.

Question put, That the Bill be now read a Second time:—

On a point of order, Mr. Deputy Speaker, the rule of the House is that the vote must follow the voice, and on this occasion the Minister spoke and voted against this excellent measure. I seek your advice on the propriety of Government Whips blocking the No Lobby to prevent hon. Members voting in order to allow a procedural device to destroy this important measure, which obviously has the support of the House today.

I am not sure what the right hon. Gentleman means about obstruction. It is not unusual for persuasion to be used until the eleventh hour with regard to votes in this House, and that is not a matter for the Chair. The Chamber is not the only place in which persuasion takes place.

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

The Bill is about providing an environment and regime for healthy eating in schools to enable our children to have healthy eating habits for life. It is the Government's responsibility to protect future generations from obesity and bad health, and the Bill is part of that process.

Today, I shall briefly set out the background to the problem of obesity in terms of child and adult health, and mention my involvement with the issue in the run-up to the health White Paper and the recent statement on school meals, both of which represent excellent progress towards a comprehensive strategy on general nutrition and healthy choices in schools. Then I shall run through the elements of my Bill, which contains a menu of practical steps to tighten the school regime in favour of better children's nutrition. In the first place, a food-based approach will be used to screen out many bad meals, but the Bill heads towards a nutrient-based approach, where children will eventually face choices between healthy meals rather than between healthy and unhealthy meals, which is the case at the moment.

I have not completely got to grips with the Bill. When I dealt with school meals several years ago, it was suggested that I should try to ban—or at least reduce the amount of—chips in school meals. I took advice from schools, which said that when they banned chips or unhealthy food from the menu, private enterprise stepped in and parked a chip van down the road from the schools and the children patronised it daily. Will anything in the Bill prevent children from having that freedom?

Elements in the Bill confront that problem. The basic idea is to enable head teachers to keep children in school and not to institute a comprehensive ban on chips from all meals and all schools immediately, but to take a gradual approach to improving health. I welcomed the Government's reintroduction of nutritional standards after the Conservative Government had removed them altogether 20 years previously.

We want a realistic strategy for health through school meals, but there is a debate about the speed with which we can do that. Many people want an immediate nutritional approach so that, from day one, all school meals are healthy. That is difficult to sustain for reasons that have been given. The other approach is more gradualist but accelerates later, and I advocate that. I am all in favour of only healthy meal choices if that is practically possible. I believe that that will happen in the future, but it cannot happen on day one.

Let us consider the problem that confronts us. Two thirds of the population are overweight or obese. The figure has increased fourfold in the past 25 years. Obese people are expected to live nine years less than average-weight people, which means that the current generation of children are expected to have shorter lives than their parents. Obesity is therefore a public health issue that has taken on the same proportions as smoking, which is why it is important to grasp the nettle and confront it. The White Paper and my right hon. Friend the Health Secretary's recent statement show that the Government are moving towards a comprehensive approach to tackling the problem. The Bill would accelerate the changes to protect our children's health.

Some 30,000 people a year die from obesity-related conditions. The conditions include arthritis, heart problems, kidney problems, diabetes and various cancers. Since 1991, diabetes has increased by 65 per cent. in men and 25 per cent. in women, and cancer deaths that are specifically related to obesity have increased by 14 per cent. in men and 20 per cent. in women. The problems are therefore enormous.

The economy is also affected, not only by premature deaths but by the 11 million days of work that are lost through back pain, exacerbated or caused by obesity. The cost to the economy and the health service runs into billions of pounds. Our record on obesity is sadly the worst in Europe.

Children face diminished longevity. In the past 10 years, obesity in two to four-year-olds has doubled, and in six to 15-year-olds it has tripled to 16 per cent. Those children have a 50 per cent. likelihood of becoming obese adults and thus dying nine years earlier. Type 2 diabetes is emerging in children—it was previously found almost exclusively in adults. Obesity-related conditions are therefore affecting children. Overweight children suffer other disorders such as psychological problems, which are sometimes linked to bullying, low self-esteem or depression. That undermines their achievement and attainment.

An increasing number of studies show that better nutrients and meals lead to better concentration and attainment and less antisocial behaviour. Those issues are critical. The nutrient balance of children's food—whether it is impregnated with fats, salt and sugar or good and healthy, as well as the overall calorific intake—is going in the wrong direction. The House might be interested to learn that a king-sized Snickers bar contains more calories than a sirloin steak with potatoes and broccoli—I know which I would prefer. It is quite frightening to realise the amount of calories that we can take in without any valuable nutrients.

The national diet and nutrition survey revealed the obvious fact that too much of the wrong food—fat, sugar and salt—was being eaten by adults and, particularly, by children. We need to confront this problem, and it is not enough simply to say, "Oh, well, we'll give children a bit more exercise." Commentators in the industry have said that children's calorific intake is no more than it used to be, and that the problem is a lack of exercise. However, those studies conveniently omit to mention the intake of snacks between meals—chocolate, crisps, Coca Cola or whatever—so they should not be relied on.

I respect the fact that exercise has a role to play. The recommended amount of moderate exercise each day for children is 60 minutes. Some 30 per cent. of boys and 40 per cent. of girls do not achieve that, and people take less exercise as they grow older. The standard of physical education in our schools is lower than that of our European colleagues, and the Government are investigating that and tightening it up. There is also a trend towards people staying at home and watching television or playing on their computer, rather than being out and about. These are important issues to take into account as part of a comprehensive plan.

My focus, however, is on nutrition in schools. Today's schoolchildren represent the first generation in 100 years whose life expectancy is falling. A study in Leeds has shown that children now wear trousers two sizes larger than they did 20 years ago. The obesity rate is predicted to rise to 50 per cent. by 2020, although I am cautious about such extrapolations. In reality, however, the incidence of obesity is going up too fast, and to a dangerous level.

The Food Standards Agency has stated that children are now eating half the recommended amount of fruit and vegetables, and that the vast majority are consuming more than the maximum amount of fat, salt and sugar prescribed for adults. We also have a new generation of adults living on convenience foods rather than handing on food preparation skills to their children. This creates a new challenge for our schools to teach children to prepare food properly—and even to help parents to do so.

The advertising industry tends to focus on where the money is. If I were to say, "Here's a potato. How can I make some money out of it?", I would not be advised simply to sell it. I would probably be told to mash it up with fat, salt and sugar, shape it into a dinosaur and put it into a package, before composing a jingle that would sell it. Obviously, more money could be made that way. It is therefore not surprising that the top 10 food brands spend about £450 million a year on advertising. The top four are McDonald's, Coke, KFC—which used to be known as Kentucky Fried Chicken—and Burger King. They use toys to gain the loyalty of children and to try to build brand awareness among pre-school children so that they will become brand loyalists who will spend their lifetime consuming their products, which could possibly lead to an early death.

What is the hon. Gentleman's view of large corporations such as McDonald's sponsoring sports kits or donating money to schools? That clearly influences the choice of products that children will buy in the future.

That is an important point. I am not against large corporations per se sponsoring events in schools, but we must think carefully about which organisations do it. There would be a big difference between sponsorship in a school by McDonald's and by a non-food product such as a toothpaste brand, for example—perhaps I should not mention names—if one could show that the toothpaste helped to prevent decay. Head teachers and governors should be careful about this, but I certainly do not think that it is a good idea for corporations promoting a lifetime's loyalty to consuming high fat, salt and sugar products to be allowed to sponsor schools. My approach is therefore slightly mixed, but I hope that it is clear.

The issue of protecting children has been raised. Another issue is whether children should be protected from being bombarded in pre-school television schedules with imagery suggesting that eating unhealthy food is "cool". I am glad that the Government are now considering that.

These problems have been known, and the Government are beginning to address them through the health White Paper, to which I was pleased to contribute on issues of advertising, targets for salt, sugar and fat and controlling clarity of labelling so that consumers know what they are eating. A great deal of labelling lacks clarity, and the highest consumers of low-nutrient products are least likely to look at labels and make such judgments. We need to make it easy for people to know what is good or not good for them, or what should be eaten in moderation.

During the emergence of the health White Paper, I put forward a number of other ideas: making certain types of food, such as chips, unavailable in schools at certain times; controlling vending, which is a sort of Trojan horse of fat, sugar and salt to people who are trying to introduce a healthy food regime in schools; and keeping children in at lunchtime to increase participation in a healthy food regime. I have now compressed those ideas into the Bill, which I put out just before the Secretary of State made her welcome statement on raising school meal standards. I was also a supporter of the children's food Bill put forward by my hon. Friend the Member for Stourbridge (Ms Shipley).

The Secretary of State has issued minimum health specifications for processed foods such as burgers, sausages and cakes in terms of salt, fat and sugar, which I welcome, on the way towards tougher nutrient-based standards in 2006. She has introduced the idea of a schools food trust, giving independent support and advice for parents and schools, which the Bill specifically mentions. I shall refer later to my desire for a more pushy, comprehensive approach from that schools food trust to deliver standards rather than simply giving advice. She also mentioned the need for parents to have a greater role in terms of empowering parents to examine menus. I shall deal with that later in terms of the need to give parents the tools to bring about a healthy regime rather than talk about it without the knowledge needed to deliver that change.

In November 2004, the health White Paper introduced vocational qualifications for school caterers. In July, local education authorities were given specifications for catering contracts to help get nutrition on to the agenda, as previously many LEAs were simply buying to a price as low as 37p per child, so the nutrient value of those meals was increasingly small. There is an argument for including nutritional value as well as cost in that tendering process. From September 2006, tougher minimum standards for meals and nutrient-based standards will be considered, of which I am also in favour. In the first instance, my Bill mentions food-based standards, with the aim of not having chips or deep-fried products on certain days. I welcome the aspiration, however, to move to a more scientifically driven, nutrient-based analysis, which is implicit in clause 7 in terms of nutritional standards and my recommendation that Ofsted should play a role in nutritional standards and measurement.

Legislation is needed at some point, partly due to the extended school days. At the moment, education legislation does not cover the new breakfast clubs, after-school activities and so on. There is a new opportunity to make progress on some of these ideas. I hope that some of those contained in the Bill will be embraced in that process. Indeed, that is the Bill's purpose.

Vending, which the Government have been looking at, is also addressed. The health White Paper showed that there was a demand among parents for a whole-school approach to healthy eating, including vending. It is refreshing to learn when we ask the public that they are in many respects ahead of the Government in pushing for such an approach.

My proposals are about not a nanny state, but a public duty of care. In my view, the public agree with me that any Government should protect our children in the school environment in which they are educated and prepared for life. School is not a social club where people can choose whether to learn or to loaf about, so nor should they be able to choose to consume untold amounts of unhealthy food. A regime should be in place through which they can learn about eating healthily—and, hopefully, they in turn pass on that knowledge to their children.

The Government have made other progress, but I will not refer to it all because if I did we would be here all day. However, I welcome the provision of free fruit or vegetables for four to six-year-olds who attend nursery. I hope that that will be extended because children need four or five portions of fruit or vegetables a day. According to one standard, at least one of the starchy foods—bread, potato, rice and pasta—should not be cooked in oil or fat. That is a fairly minimalist standard to adopt, but only 83 per cent. of schools deliver on it. In other words, the remaining 17 per cent. do not offer an option that is not completely immersed in fat or oil.

One of the Bill's innovations is the concept of unavailability. Instead of simply requiring that a certain amount of healthy food be available, it requires that certain foods shall not be available on certain days, especially deep-fat fried vegetables and the like. It prescribes that, in the first instance, two days be fat-free, but the head or board of governors of a school could choose to provide healthy meals for the entire week, as Jamie Oliver wants. I support that idea as well, but this provision is a more modest approach to meeting that ambition.

The Bill requires the unavailability of food low in nutritional standards for a minimum of two days, but as I said, that can be extended. Interestingly, the Health Committee found that many schools offered a cafeteria-style approach, and the Consumers Association said that the majority of school lunch menus read like a fast-food menu. That is cause for alarm and a reason to make certain types of food unavailable.

The aim is to improve food standards with a move towards a nutrient-standard approach. I hope that the Government will accept such a system by September 2006; currently, they are prepared to look at doing so. I commend what Jamie Oliver is doing. He wants all meals to be healthy, which is the ideal, but as the Opposition mentioned earlier, a problem arose in a school in Hull in that regard. It provided healthy meals free to everybody, but unfortunately the children and/or their parents boycotted them. They simply did not consume them and took lunchboxes to school instead. That underlines that we must be realistic in making the transition from unhealthy to healthy food.There is also the question of how tasty healthy foods are. My guess is that the healthy food in Hull was not cooked by Jamie Oliver and that it was not as attractive as it might have been. We need support in that regard.

I understand that, initially, Jamie Oliver experienced a problem with take-up of his healthy food—until it poured with rain. The kids could not be bothered to leave the school and to go to the local chip shop, so they ate his food. After that, the participation rate started to improve.

That brings me to another central feature of the Bill: the power of head teachers to stop children leaving school at lunchtime. Obviously, I cannot impose rain—even I cannot do that—but children could be gated. If parents and governors allowed it, the school could keep the children in, which would make more of them eat school meals and would spread the fixed costs over more meals so that more could be invested in catering facilities and training. The Local Authorities Catering Association and its head Neil Porter have been going on about the need for more investment to raise nutritional standards. I do not for a moment rule out more investment, but by keeping children in we would cover the overheads in time.

Such a move would also be welcomed by local communities, as antisocial behaviour often takes place outside schools at lunchtime. It should be encouraged by the Government and local authorities and embraced by schools. It would be up to individual governors and heads to deliver it, but I am sure that it would be supported by parents and local communities.

Jamie Oliver says that he is spending just 37p per school meal. The average investment is 45p. The largest private sector provider, Compass, tenders for only 55p. If we add labour costs of about 65p, a margin of about 8p and administrative costs of about 15p, we end up with a price of £1.30 or £1.40 per meal. If raising the food cost from 40p to 50p would make a massive difference to the nutrient content, that would be an investment worth making. Incidentally, public schools spend twice as much on ingredients. I am not saying we should necessarily do the same, but Mr. Oliver is clearly finding it difficult to deliver on 37p, so we should consider such action if we want better nutrition.

We have a long way to go. A number of local education authorities, including Buckinghamshire, Hertfordshire and Kingston, do not even have facilities for preparing hot meals, which is disgraceful. We need more investment in training, equipment, eating space and better food. Local authorities that have "died" in terms of delivering any meals at all, let alone nutritious meals, may need support, but we should adopt a targeted approach rather than just saying, "Here's the money, chaps" and bailing them out. Over time, participation rates should pay for higher fixed costs.

I support the nutrition-based approach that is being considered for September 2006, and the Bill is consistent with that. I also support the children's food Bill, promoted by my hon. Friend the Member for Stourbridge, and I support what Jamie Oliver is aspiring to do—get junk food out of schools. As well as being consistent with those ideas, however, my Bill allows the gradual elimination of chips, although not necessarily an immediate ban in all schools, which could lead to boycotts and an exodus. It also provides for minimum standards accredited by Ofsted, so that parents know that those standards are being delivered rather than just seeing plates of food.

There has been a move towards power for parents and schools to choose to keep children in at lunchtime, and in some schools that is already happening. I think the Government should encourage it, although I realise that some schools will have limited space and a limited number of teachers available at lunchtime. However, we and parents should encourage that change. Local education authorities should facilitate it. Parents want it and we should encourage them to demand it.

The Secretary of State has pressed for greater parental control. I am all in favour of that. Under clause 7, Ofsted could provide parents with the objective reality of the nutritional standards being delivered at the school, so that they can put pressure on caterers to deliver better standards. Unless the parents have a clear measurement of nutritional standards in the Ofsted report, they cannot enforce better, healthier standards for their children.

I am sure that my hon. Friend is right. Many parents, myself included, would like to see higher standards of nutrition and healthy eating in schools, but does he agree that children, particularly if they can be attracted to the healthy eating habit, may expect higher standards of nutrition in the home? One of the problems is that, with too many parents, if they were handed a leek they would not know what to do with it. [Interruption.] Even though there are few Members in the House, I was sure that would provoke some interest. In educating schools and education authorities, we also need to educate parents as to the benefits of a healthy diet. A major task needs to be undertaken. I hope that that point will find some sympathy with my hon. Friend.

I agree—it is a key point. The delivery of nutritional standards at home is a central problem. Indeed, some parents call for the nutritional standards at home to be available in school. They think, "Why should Johnny not eat this pre-prepared convenience meal at school? That is what we eat at home." The question is, what should be done about that? My focus has been on delivering nutritious meals in school, but the Government should go further than that in their relationship with the parents. Now that Jamie Oliver has delivered this menu of nutritious meals at affordable prices, there are many opportunities for such menus to be available to everyday families, including mine and possibly my hon. Friend's.

A lot of families are on a budget and face time constraints. They think that the easiest thing to do is to bung the meal in the microwave. If they know that a tasty, nutritious and attractive meal within budget has been designed to be prepared on-site in a school and can be prepared in a limited time, say 20 minutes, they may want to offer that sort of menu option to their children and family over a period of weeks. There is hope. We can now begin to go to families to enable them to provide more nutrition, rather than to take the easy route of low cost, high salt, high fat and sugar impregnated convenience food. It is a great challenge and a central point. I agree with what has been said.

There is a role for the Government and schools to reach out in the community as well.That being said, this is not about a top-down nanny state—it is an empowerment of families, parents, pupils and governors to enable them to have the tools to deliver nutritional benefits which, down stream, will mean less obesity and fewer health problems associated with bad nutrients and bad meals.

The Secretary of State has announced the new school food trust, which is mentioned in the Bill. The idea of that is to provide independent support to schools and parents. It will comprise a collection of people from food industries, caterers and nutritionists. I agree that it is a valuable body to set up. The Bill, I hope, makes it clear that it should have some teeth. Clause 4 says that its purpose should be not just to provide advice, but to

"improve the standards of school meals."

There is an issue about delivery of standards, rather than hoping for the best. That organisation should be accountable and expected to deliver, alongside Ofsted, on school nutritional standards, with pressure coming from parents, too.

We have a duty to act to ensure that the changes that parents want take place. One of those relates to vending, which can be the Trojan horse that delivers products of bad nutritional value into schools. Obviously, many schools rely on vending machines—£10 million of revenue comes from them. A survey commissioned by The Guardian found that 70 per cent. of parents wanted vending machines taken out of schools. Vending is an important issue. The net calorific increase for children during the day is from in-between snacking, which is central to the problem.

Some vending can provide nutritious, tasty and healthy food. I spoke to the biggest non-branded vending caterer, Compass, which pointed out that its machines, which are healthy, would deliver as much revenue as branded and less healthy machines. In my view, nutritious products can be delivered through vending, but we should not have a free-for-all of chocolate, crisps and fizzy drinks impregnated with sugar freely available throughout the school day to our children. The Government have moved forward with the idea of best practice. The healthy schools programme will give accreditation to healthy schools, but not if the vending facilities are not appropriate. We can see how that goes, but we should ensure that there is no unhealthy vending in schools.

On the question of schools that provide breakfast, lunch and after-school meals—allowing parents to participate in the labour market—parents want an assurance that their children will be looked after under a regime of nutritious, healthy food, rather than what is provided now. That is why we need legislation to help to deliver nutritional standards. We await that and I hope that the Government will incorporate some of these ideas in that legislation. In the meantime, we must encourage and support parents in meeting the challenges and put pressure on schools to drive up participation in school meals and the nutritional standards thereof.

I have welcomed the changes that the Government have made so far in terms of exercise, the health White Paper and school meals. I am glad, like other hon. Members, to be part of that drive towards a healthy change. I believe fundamentally that we should keep our eye on the prize—that, over time, we can deliver better nutrition, health, behaviour, attainment and a better future for healthier children who live longer and achieve more. That is worth all our efforts. After all, Britain's future is our children's future; let us make that future a brighter and healthier future for all.

I congratulate the hon. Member for Croydon, Central (Geraint Davies) on his good fortune in gaining a high position in the ballot and on proposing this important debate and Bill. The Bill is laudable in its aims and Liberal Democrats would not oppose it at this stage, although we would like to see amendments tabled if it progresses. The subject is too often overlooked.

As a parent myself, I know that there is often a sense of frustration. We expect our children in school to receive the best quality education and the best quality food. Too often, as the hon. Gentleman said, one sees vending machines supplying some of the worst possible foods and clearly sub-standard food is provided in canteens—assuming the school has a canteen. He rightly pointed out that some schools cannot even serve hot food and I hope that the Minister will explain what is being done about that. We want schools and local education authorities to have autonomy to make their own decisions, but surely children in Britain in the 21st century should be able to look forward to hot, decent food.

The point is that, with the authorisation of the governors and the head, the children would be kept within the school perimeters during the lunchtime break. The idea is not to keep them indoors. Like the hon. Gentleman, I want exercise to be encouraged at lunchtime as part of a good health regime.

I am grateful for that clarification, but I stress that we must consider the matter in the round. The hon. Gentleman has been at the forefront of the campaign for better nutritional standards and it is to his great credit that what he is doing today and what he has previously done will, I hope, push it up the Government's agenda.

The standard of food available to children in schools is a postcode lottery. My two young sons attend a primary school in Shropshire and I sometimes wonder what they are being fed. Their meals cost £1.45 each with options that vary daily. I know that the catering staff do their level best with what is available, but the nutritional standards do not seem to be the highest. No doubt I shall receive letters after that comment, but I stand by it.

The hon. Gentleman made an important point about vending machines, to which clause 5 refers. It is significant that large corporations can have great power and influence. I am thinking particularly of McDonald's because, only a few weeks ago, my 6-year-old was running around during football training wearing a jacket with the McDonald's logo on it. McDonald's had obviously sponsored the kit and, afterwards, my son, perhaps coincidentally, asked to go to McDonald's. I worry about such creeping influence in schools. They want more resources and extra income and may be forced to accept sponsorship and donations from companies that I deem not to be totally responsible nor the best sponsors because they may have an unfavourable influence over children, particularly concerning food and its nutritional standard.

I, too, congratulate the hon. Member for Croydon, Central (Geraint Davies) on the Bill and for giving us the opportunity to discuss an important subject. I suppose that I should declare an interest as someone who visibly likes good food.

My mother was a school meals organiser for the late-lamented Middlesex county council at the end of the war and immediately afterwards when there was a lot of deprivation and difficulty in ensuring that children received proper nutrition.

The hon. Member for The Wrekin (Peter Bradley) made the important point that we need to foster a culture of good nutrition, not only at school but at home. I pay tribute to my wife who has worked hard so that our children now actually enjoy nutritious meals. That makes everything a lot easier.

As a parent, I am irritated when we go out somewhere to eat and the children's meals offered include some of the most ghastly options, such as chicken nuggets that have not seen a chicken for some years. We need to tackle the problem everywhere, and that is why it is difficult to achieve change only in schools. As other hon. Members have said, if it is only at school that nutritious meals are force-fed to children, they will be put off even more. Nor would that endear school to children.

The idea behind the Bill is to take one step at a time, and to do something rather than nothing. I could have introduced a Bill to ban chicken nuggets, but the idea is to take one step at a time—not to force feed anyone.

Well, I disagree with the hon. Gentleman in that I do not think that it is possible to legislate good intentions. I agree with the aspirations behind his Bill, but I have seen from other legislation that it is not always that easy just to say that things must be done.

My hon. Friend the Member for Chesham and Amersham (Mrs. Gillan) mentioned earlier the problem of children going down the road from school to the fish and chip shop, and the same applies to the vending machines. If children cannot get chocolate out of the vending machines in schools, they could go to the shop down the road, although I accept that the hon. Gentleman would try to restrict children's ability to leave school to do that. I have some sympathy with that view, but I am not sure how easy it would be to put into practice.

I, too, welcome some of the initiatives by the Government, especially the free fruit and vegetables for four to six-year-olds. That has been used effectively in my constituency and, if possible, I would like to see the scheme widened. It is a question of getting the children used to such items, because some of them have not come across some of the fruits and vegetables before. I also welcome the initiatives on physical activity in schools, although more could be done. I know that the issue is being considered.

I have an example from my constituency of the problems involved. At Longmead primary school in West Drayton, the caterers decided to try to follow the guidance on introducing more nutritious food. Unfortunately they found that the children did not find the meals as appetising. Demand fell, and the caterers faced insolvency. The then chairman of governors of the school, Mr. Frank Manning, requested some help from the local education authority, because the school was very keen to increase the nutritional value of the meals. The LEA thought about it for a while and came up with an inflatable broccoli, which was its answer to promoting nutritional values. If we are to take such matters seriously, we need a serious commitment to help those who are trying to increase the nutritional value of school meals.

Does the hon. Gentleman accept that what follows from that is not that we cannot deliver nutritional standards, but that we face a challenge to provide tasty meals that children will eat? That is the very challenge being confronted by Jamie Oliver. Surely it should be our ambition to square that circle, if it can be done.

I would agree with that, but my problem—it is probably connected with cynicism—is that I do not believe that the hon. Gentleman's Bill would achieve that because it is too prescriptive. In my seven or eight years in the House, I have seen many attempts to regulate people's lives through legislation. As in this case, the legislation may be well intentioned and have a desirable outcome, but it may not represent the best way forward. Conservative Members accept that there is a big problem with the nutritional value of school food and we are in favour of improving it. However, we believe that the best way to achieve that is to provide more money directly to schools and grant them the freedom to spend it themselves.

I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Croydon, Central (Geraint Davies) on his presentation of the Bill. It deals with an issue that has, quite rightly, aroused considerable attention from the press and elsewhere. It is the fourth private Member's Bill related to school food in just over a year. On Wednesday, we saw the start of a new TV series on school dinners presented by a famous chef and I understand that dinner ladies play a major role in the series. I realise what an outstanding job they do because my mother was a school dinner lady when I was at school in the 1970s. The press have been hot on this story, producing articles with titles such as "Cool dinners", "Please, sir, can I have some more?" and "Junk the fatty school dinners". Clearly, it is a high-profile issue at the moment.

While I welcome the debate and the interest generated in this topic, I believe that the legislation is unnecessary. The Government have a good record in taking steps to deal with the problem and we will continue to take action on it. Our approach is based on wide consultation to establish consensus on the best way forward, rather than issuing central directives. We are empowering schools, pupils, parents and communities to lead the way forward from the bottom up according to local circumstances, rather than through a top-down approach that tries to make one size fit all.

What are the Government doing at the moment? In association with the Department of Health, the Department for Education and Skills has invested £2.5 million in the food in schools programme. In the recently published White Paper "Choosing Health: Making Healthier Choices Easier", we made a commitment to improve the food and drink available in schools. As part of the food in schools programme, we have been running healthy eating and drinking pilots to look at good practice in terms of the food available in schools outside of school meals, such as drinking water, and that supplied by tuck shops and cooking clubs. The results of the pilots will be available very soon.

In 2001, the Government set minimum nutritional standards for school lunches for first time in 20 years. We monitored standards in secondary schools last year and the results were poor. Even where healthy options were available, pupils were not making healthy choices, so we placed a duty on local education authorities to provide guidance for parents on catering standards.

To address those shortcomings, we announced a raft of measures. Our aim is to make every school a healthy school by 2009. In April, a new vocational qualification for school catering staff was introduced to help them promote and deliver healthy food. Like teachers and classroom assistants, high-status school cooks are a fundamental part of the whole school team.

By July this year, we will have provided more help for schools and LEAs in drawing up catering contracts to provide healthy school meals services and offer healthy food in vending machines, tuck shops and breakfast clubs. From September 2005, healthy eating is to be part of the Ofsted school inspection process. There will also be a revision of primary and secondary school meals standards—focused on reducing fat, salt and sugar and increasing consumption of fruit and vegetables—leading towards tougher minimum standards from September 2006. We are developing standards relating to processed foods used in school lunches, and they will be implemented this year. We shall also extend school lunch standards to cover all the food on school premises.

The hon. Member for Shrewsbury and Atcham (Mr. Marsden) referred to hot food, but it is not necessarily more nutritious than cold food, and it is for LEAs to take the decision on the food supplied.

The Minister mentioned introducing a pilot on cooking in schools. Is he referring to teaching all youngsters in schools the skills required? I cannot cook for the life of me and never did cooking at school. It would be useful if skills were available to all children, irrespective of academic ability.

The hon. Gentleman is right to say that we should spread cooking skills in schools. I did not have any great cooking skills then and still do not. I do not know whether his have improved since then.

indicated dissent.

No.

The involvement of parents is important. They have a right to expect a good education for their child, but play a crucial role in that themselves. They must accept that they have responsibility for ensuring that a child behaves well and attends school, but parents can expect schools to promote healthy eating and living to complement what parents are increasingly emphasising at home. All that is part of increased parental involvement in ensuring the quality of everything that happens within the school gates. As my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State said a couple of weeks ago, parents will be in the front line of a new drive to improve the quality of school dinners.

On improving quality, one area has not been touched on. Local procurement of fresh produce is terribly important, but the mire of Government regulation on procurement, a lot of which comes from the European Union, makes it incredibly difficult for many schools to buy locally the produce that they want rather than having to go through lots of ridiculous tendering processes. Will the Government do anything to cut that red tape, allowing schools actively to discriminate in favour of fresh local produce?

I understand that there are examples in various parts of the country where local food is brought in. There is a good one in Gloucestershire.

Parents are demanding healthier food throughout the school day, not only at lunchtime but at breakfast clubs and breaks. That means vending machines and tuck shops, and schools are responding by limiting consumption of high-sugar carbonated drinks and high-sugar snacks with high levels of additives. The development of the parents' website, the toolkit and the school fund trust will give more information and help persuade parents that they can make a difference. Good schools already look to involve their parents as much as possible. That is a two-way relationship: parents can help the schools to drive up food standards, which will make it easier to make sure that their children eat healthily at school.

The process has to be two-way. A health visitor told me that she would be delighted if some parents in one part of my constituency, where coronary heart disease and cancer are extraordinarily high, not least because of the lack of a balanced diet, would, once a week, buy just a packet of frozen peas from their local food store. That tells us the challenge that is before us. It is not just about parents demanding higher standards at school but about all of us trying through public education, Sure Start and other initiatives to build a culture in which there is a place for convenience food but the link is properly established between a balanced healthy diet, which will support local growers and producers and contribute to the health of local communities, both among children and their parents.

I completely agree. It is important to promote healthier eating throughout the community and that is a two-way process in terms of the involvement of parents in schools. In my own constituency, good projects have brought in parents, particularly from disadvantaged communities, to get good advice that has been used to achieve better and healthier eating.

In that context, parents can also benefit from increased support and guidance. Children are more likely to be aware of the importance of healthy eating and living if their parents are. One strand of food in schools will provide advice on healthier packed lunches. According to the Food Standards Agency, three quarters of an estimated 5.5 billion packed lunches brought to school every year fail to meet basic nutritional standards.

What, if anything, is my hon. Friend going to do about the school lunchbox problem? He said when he began that he was against my Bill because it is a top-down approach, yet I agree with everything that he has said. What I am saying seems to be consistent with what he is saying, so will he say specifically what in the Bill is a top-down approach with which he does not agree? The Ofsted approach, to enable parents to have the power to measure the success of schools and put pressure on them through, for example, gating and participation, should be encouraged now by the Government under existing legislation.

My hon. Friend pre-empts me. I shall refer to those specific points later.

Our new policies on children's centres and extended schools have provided scope for schools to take a lead in helping families with children to prepare and cook better. The number of growing and cooking clubs is increasing. Together with increased visits to city farms and the countryside, those clubs are making a huge contribution to helping children to understand better where food comes from and the benefits of fresh or locally sourced food.

We welcome the debate because we want to engage the wider community. The food industry, caterers, nutritionists and food interest groups can have a major role to play in setting up a new independent school fund trust. That would enable the industry to make a valuable contribution to improving food and drink provision in schools. Working together in that way, we can set the agenda. The trust will be in an ideal position to give independent advice and support to schools and parents to improve the standards of school meals.

Yesterday, we issued a consultation letter to the food industry, caterers, nutritionists and many others who can make a difference to school food. The letter covered many of the issues that I have just described, but it also asked for their views on the new charitable school fund trust. We want the trust to drive through reform with the help and support of a full range of stakeholders as part of the drive to emphasise the key importance of consultation as we work together to set the future agenda, and I want to spend a little time talking about the importance of that to pupils.

Taken together, the measures will ensure what we all want: a better meal and a better deal for school children. We are already building on what is there. Every four to six-year-old—nearly 2 million children—is eligible for a free portion of fruit or vegetables every school day. Current minimum nutrition standards in secondary schools ensure that at least two items from food groups such as fruit and vegetables, and sources of protein, are always available during lunch service. There is education on healthy living and eating during personal, social and health education, science and sport lessons. Sport is particularly important to the overall improvement of the health of young people and children. The Government have allocated some £1.5 billion to improve sport and PE in school.

The aim is that schools will offer healthier food to their pupils throughout the school day. Parents will play a bigger part in ensuring the highest standards for school meals. The food industry will be able to play its part in setting a healthy food agenda. All in all, pupils will be able to choose healthier food and have the support that they need to make the right choices. The aim must be for them to be able to do that at any time, inside or outside the school gates.

I now come to the specifics of why the Government will oppose the Bill. I welcome the debate and the interest that my hon. Friend Bill has generated. We feel that, although we should of course back a lot of the issues that he wants to raise, we cannot back the Bill and the Government are already doing quite a lot. We are already moving forward with improvements to school food and nutrition and, at this stage, we do not need unnecessary legislation to sustain that progress.

I want to give a number of reasons why we should oppose the Bill. First, we are already considering ways to educate children in healthy eating habits and to help every school ensure the highest nutritional standards for the food that it serves up. There is a lively debate about whether we should adopt nutritional standards based on food groups, as the Bill advocates, or standards based on nutrient intake, as advocated by the Caroline Walker Trust and the Scottish Executive. We have commissioned an expert group to advise us on the way forward—a way that is nutritionally robust, but also manageable for schools. We hope that Members will agree that that aspect of the Bill is premature, as the expert group will not report until the end of the year. When it does, we already have legislation that we can and will use to introduce tougher standards that schools are willing and able to implement.

Introducing legislation that puts the onus on the local education authorities to ensure minimal standards is not the way to go. Two of the principles of the new relationship with schools are that we reduce bureaucracy and encourage both independence and collaboration where required, because each school is best placed to make the most appropriate decisions for its pupils.

I note that the Bill envisages putting the school food trust on a statutory footing. In my view, that is unnecessary. We are drawing up the necessary legal documents at present and believe that the trust can operate effectively in the normal framework of charitable and company law.

We cannot persist with a culture in which a central directive tells schools everything that they can and cannot do, such as exactly what a vending machine can and cannot sell. One size does not fit all. We are committed to giving schools the flexibility, autonomy and support that they need to make the day-to-day decisions for themselves. They know the needs, interests and attitudes of their pupils and what needs to be done to secure the best education for every child. Our role must be to provide a framework, guidance and support that they need to make those decisions. I want to make it clear that we do not support the sale of food and drink in vending machines if it has a poor nutritional content, particularly if it is high in salt, fat and sugar.

We are producing guidance for schools through the food in schools programme and that will be available soon. I know that major suppliers of vending products and catering services are re-examining their approach to vending, in consultation with schools. The important thing is that schools take a holistic view of the full range of provision to ensure that vending sits comfortably with that broader policy.

It is up to schools to determine the lunchtime policy that works best for them. That is not a matter for legislation. Schools that require learners to remain on site at lunchtime and offer constructive activities and appropriate supervision during the lunch hour find that learning behaviour and attendance are better as a result. Supporters of the Bill have a valid point in that too many secondary school pupils are consuming unhealthy food purchased from premises around the school at lunchtime and we know that some pupils eligible for free school meals opt to do that rather than eat in school. But lunchtime management is up to individual head teachers, and heads must consider cover arrangements carefully to keep them in line with the school work force agreement.

Lunchtime activities can be part of extended services, which are essential to the drive to give every pupil the opportunity, provision and support to fulfil their potential and make the best choices for themselves in school and beyond. School leaders know best where they have the capacity and resources to offer high quality and enjoyable activities in a secure and stimulating environment.

I understand that we do not want to introduce unnecessary regulation, but given the patchy and sometimes appalling quality of food in schools, how will the Government monitor the situation with the aim of improving it nationwide, without incurring extra bureaucracy for individual schools?

Send the Minister to taste it.

I am not sure about that.

We have a healthy eating project together with the Department of Health, we have issued strict guidance to schools and we are working with them to ensure that those standards are reached. We also have the schools food trust. Those measures should help to achieve the major improvement that we want to bring about.

We must have a smarter accountability system, where intervention is in inverse proportion to success. A key component of that smarter accountability system is greater emphasis on self-assessment, getting schools themselves to identify the areas where they need to improve.

On the point raised by my hon. Friend the Member for Croydon, Central, Ofsted inspections will be shorter and sharper. The new inspection regime that we are introducing will mean that Ofsted captures pupils' well-being and health in its reports. We are working out the detail and will announce in due course the approach that will be taken, but we are certain that it must be in the broader context of food in schools, not focused solely on school lunches. We cannot take unwanted bureaucracy away from schools with one hand, and give it back with the other.

We cannot rely on Ofsted alone. Children eat a meal at school each day. We need parents and schools together to ensure that there is good food every day and that food provision is kept under continuous review. After all, the school meal is only one aspect of provision and it is vital that we get vending, snacking policies and packed lunches right as well. Schools are accountable to parents. That is where real pressure can come from and we are empowering parents to exert that pressure.

We need to take action and we are already responding. We must maintain our confidence in our school leaders to make the right decisions. They are doing an excellent job. Heads and governors know what is best for their school. They see their pupils daily, know their backgrounds and are aware of local circumstances. We are giving them the appropriate framework, tools and support to make the necessary decisions. We have to remove unnecessary burdens, so that they have the time and space to make the key decisions that result in a good school. Unnecessary legislation makes everyone's job harder.

We are involving parents, because they have a key dual role to play, demanding and helping to provide high standards. We are engaging the food industry, because its experience and expertise can make a valuable and vital contribution. The result that we all want is to provide every child not just with the opportunity to eat well and live a healthy lifestyle, but with the support and self-knowledge to make healthy choices in school and for the rest of their life. I ask the House to oppose the Bill.

Question put, That the Bill be now read a Second time:—

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

This is an unexpected opportunity to promote my Bill. I extend a word of sympathy to the hon. Member for Brecon and Radnorshire (Mr. Williams), who cannot be here today. I believe that his wife is ill disposed. Not ill disposed—I mean indisposed. She may be ill disposed—[Interruption.] Yes, she may demand a right of reply and I should be pleased to give it to her. However, I make the point not only so that we can send her our best wishes but because, when my name was drawn out of the ballot, I received letters from all over the country from people who beseeched me to take up the Bill that the hon. Member for Brecon and Radnorshire adopted. I do not want those people to believe that the hon. Gentleman has gone on his holidays or is failing in his duty to promote that measure. It will be considered in the House in due course.

I am grateful for the opportunity to introduce the Bill. We live in an information age. We have never had more access to information, and even information that we do not seek rushes towards us on the super-highway. In a democratic society, we rightly place great importance on citizens' participation in national and community affairs. We have more opportunity than ever to contribute to decisions about how our lives are governed and we base them on the information available to us. It is therefore important that the information on which we base our judgments is true. It is essential that a free flow of information should underpin our democratic way of life. However, when information is untrue or inaccurate, our opinions and decisions may be distorted, sometimes deliberately, to serve the interests of those who wield considerable power, including media corporations. That happens too frequently.

People need to believe that what they are told is true.

Ha!

The right hon. Gentleman guffaws—I believe that that is the right description.

Snorts.

I gave the right hon. Gentleman his right of reply and he corrected my inaccuracy. I do not know why he snorted—perhaps he will have an opportunity to explain later. However, people need to believe what they are told. That is my view as a Labour Member, but perhaps it is not shared by those on the Conservative Benches.

Does the hon. Gentleman agree that people should be able to believe what the Prime Minister tells them?

Let me develop my point, because I hope that we can agree on some principles without dividing on our political and tribal associations. People need to be able to believe that what they are told is true because our system of government—no matter which party forms the Administration—is based if not on consensus, then on consent. It is based on the premise that people can trust that the Government of the day make their decisions and act in good faith.

The hon. Member for Ribble Valley (Mr. Evans) mentioned the Prime Minister. Perhaps he had in mind the controversy over the so-called "dodgy dossier". We do not have access to the information that Prime Ministers and their advisers have. When decisions that affect all of our lives are made, we need to be able to place our faith in the good intentions of those who have such access precisely because we do not. That is why I attach huge importance to the principle of trust, although that trust must be based on a belief that what we are being told is true.

Would the Bill extend protection to those who are smeared by the Government? There have been many cases recently in which vulnerable individuals have suffered as a result of Ministers and those in their Departments saying the most disgraceful things about them. Would such people have a right of redress under the Bill?

The right hon. Gentleman makes an interesting point. He is a very experienced Member of the House, and he spends far more Fridays in the Chamber than I do. He must have seen the title of my Bill: it refers to a right of reply to material that is published in newspapers and other publications. It does not, for example, seek to replace the libel law. If someone is libelled, they have recourse through the courts, although it is not always easily available to them. Its limited scope is one of the merits of the Bill.

The important, and uncontroversial, principle that the Bill seeks to establish is that if we cannot trust the information that forms the basis on which we make judgments and form opinions, our form of government is critically undermined. I want to discuss the relationship between trust and truth, as that will explain why I want to promote the Bill.

I understand that we might not be too far away from a general election. Recent trends have shown falling turnouts, a phenomenon that should concern us all. The press frequently insist that the fact that people are becoming disengaged from politics is the fault of the politicians, who have forfeited their trust. It is interesting, however, to note that newspaper sales are also tumbling dramatically. Compared with five years ago, 1.75 million fewer newspapers are now being sold every day. Why should that be so?

Last year, the Committee on Standards in Public Life undertook an interesting survey—it sent its findings to hon. Members, so they might be familiar with them—and found that only 27 per cent. of the public trusted Members of Parliament. Even more revealing was the finding that only 7 per cent. trusted tabloid journalists. Another, more encouraging finding was that 47 per cent. trusted their own Member of Parliament. I am sure that we all feel reassured by that statistic, but what it tells me is that the closer people are to events and personalities, the more likely they are to place their trust, and the more remote they are, the more difficulty they have.

Despite the loss of trust in politicians as a class, however, and despite the decline in trust in journalists, 64 per cent. of people said that their opinions were shaped at least in part by what they read in newspapers. So, when citizens are invited to decide who runs the country in a few weeks' time, we could have the strange state of affairs in which their judgment of politicians they do not trust will be based on what they read in newspapers they do not believe. That is a problem for all of us—politicians, the press and the public—and we need to take action to arrest the downward spiral.

Politicians are accountable, and we will find out at the general election whether the people to whom we are accountable want to put their cross in our box. We are also accountable in other ways: Ministers are accountable to the scrutiny of the House, and each of us is accountable to the standards commissioner. The press is not accountable, however. Journalists are not accountable for what they write, and there is very little redress if what they write is wrong or untrue. My Bill does not propose in any way to curtail their freedom or infringe their rights. It is fundamental to our liberal democracy that politicians should not have the last word and that the press plays a central role as a check and balance against our excesses or our temptation to exceed acceptable limits. I want the press to continue to be free to publish without fear or favour, but I want the Bill to establish a new right for the public to correct inaccuracies that misrepresent, damage or mislead them. I do not wish to curtail press rights other than the right to misrepresent individuals and mislead the public. The press should not have an unfettered freedom to misinform or deceive.

We all understand that there are intense pressures these days on journalists. We live in a 24-hour news culture, with increasingly powerful global media corporations in competition with each other, and newspapers and publications forced to compete with the internet. All that imposes pressure on newspapers in particular to out-scoop, out-sensationalise and outsell their rivals. In those circumstances, it is inevitable that corners get cut.

We are all familiar with the problems that politicians encounter with the press—the ferreting out of facts has given way at least to some extent to creating perceptions about facts. It is so much easier to create a perception than to undertake the time-consuming and exhaustive research that is infinitely preferable. We see newspapers reflecting prejudices rather than presenting news to their readers. We see a blurring of the distinction between the reporting of events and the editorial line that the newspaper takes on those events. We see less room for proper debate in the pages of newspapers or for the reporting of debates, including debates in the House of Commons. We see a much keener appetite to denounce those who come forward with ideas rather than to explore and contribute to those ideas. We are also seeing an unhealthy phenomenon, particularly in Sunday papers, in which agenda-setting political stories are based on a series of unattributed and often fabricated quotes in order to generate controversies that otherwise would not exist. All that is very unhealthy.

Our response as politicians is frequently to spin our side of the story and to come forward with a soundbite that we believe might capture a headline. We see lobby groups and in particular single issue groups tempted to take up ever more extreme positions, and to think up ever more dramatic stunts to get themselves into the newspapers. As the standard of debate declines, people's faith in what they read in newspapers also diminishes. There has been little sign of change for the better. It is now 15 years since David Mellor famously warned journalists that they were drinking in the last chance saloon, and little has happened to stop the bingeing.

This is not just a question of values, principles and what underpins democratic life; inaccurate reporting has victims. It is interesting that 94 per cent. of those who complain to the Press Complaints Commission are what it classifies as "ordinary people"—not celebrities or politicians, but ordinary men and women, and some 56 per cent. of their complaints are about inaccuracy.

Inaccurate reporting, casual indifference to the reputation of others, and not having the time or inclination to check facts or to corroborate them destroys people's reputations, damages their livelihoods and turns their lives upside down. Legion case studies have been put together over many years, particularly by MediaWise, to illustrate the damage that can be done to the lives of individuals who are the subject of media attention that is less scrupulous than it ought to be. They have no adequate recourse or redress. As I suggested in my response to the hon. Member for Shrewsbury and Atcham (Mr. Marsden), they might be able to take their case to a libel court, but in doing so they have to be pretty confident of ultimate success. They also have to be wealthy and very patient. The risks are very high.

In fact, in such circumstances most people do not want monetary compensation; they simply want the record set straight, and quickly. The PCC is their only other means of achieving redress, if redress it is. Last year, it received more than 3,600 complaints—just under 40 per cent. more than in the previous year. It adjudicated only 23 of those complaints and upheld just 11, or 0.3 per cent.

Is it not true to say that some of the complaints were sorted out—in other words, mediated on—without recourse to judgment?

The hon. Gentleman anticipates the point that I was about to make and he is absolutely right: some of them were mediated on. It would be interesting to know how many of those cases were resolved to the satisfaction of the complainant. The hon. Gentleman knows as well as I, or anyone who has had dealings with the PCC, that the truth of the matter is that if and when a newspaper finally agrees to correct, apologise for or retract an inaccurate report, such an apology is featured several weeks after the offending article appeared and is probably lost somewhere in the acrostic crossword. In other words, it might satisfy the PCC's provisions, but it does not satisfy the complainant and it does not go very far towards redressing the wrong. It certainly is not a proportionate correction—if a correction is achieved at all.

For those reasons, in my view and that of many others, the PCC does not work. Frankly, I would suggest that it is not meant to work. It is, after all, a creature of the press. It is funded by the press and many of its board members are representatives of the press— another reason why it does not command the confidence that it should. I am not suggesting for one moment that those who work for the PCC do not try their best in difficult circumstances to serve the public, but I am afraid that the results achieved are not impressive.

The Bill is very limited in scope. It seeks only to establish in this country a citizen's right that is enjoyed in at least 10 other European democracies. The French have had a right to reply in statute since 1881, and the Finns have had such legislation since 1919. Both have a vibrant public domain and vigorous newspapers and journals that are free to comment as they see fit—free, in the great old tradition, to publish and be damned.

My Bill seeks simply to establish a right of reply for those who believe that they have been disadvantaged by what has been printed in a newspaper or periodical. The editor or his delegate has three days in which to respond to the complaint. I accept that that is a demanding time scale, but it is right that it be demanding. When somebody is—as they see it—maligned or disadvantaged in the press, they need redress quickly, on the basis that justice delayed is justice denied.

The Bill requires a newspaper that agrees to publish a correction to do so prominently, in an editorial or on the news pages. If an individual cannot reach agreement with a newspaper, he or she can take the complaint to an adjudicator, who will have 14 days in which to reach a conclusion. If the adjudicator rules against the newspaper, it will be obliged to publish a correction, but will have the right—as, indeed, will the complainant—to appeal against the adjudicator's decision to the press standards board. The board will have a relatively short time to reach its own conclusions, and it will have the right to enforce them if the publication refuses to co-operate.

The board will have to maintain a database of corrections. We are all familiar with not just the damage that inaccurate reporting can cause, but the amplification of that damage when other newspapers or periodicals—or perhaps the same one—recycle the misinformation weeks, months or even many years later. The board will have powers to undertake research into trends in journalism, and to work with the press to develop a body of standards.

I am glad to say that many journalists support the Bill, recognising that it does no damage to their rights and freedoms. The Campaign for Press and Broadcasting Freedom says:

"The bill would introduce a very moderate measure of redress through a simple, quick and accountable system. It would also support journalists by encouraging and promoting the best traditions of journalism, thereby improving press standards."

MediaWise says:

"Having a Right of Reply on the statute book would keep editors on their toes. They have nothing to fear if they demand fairness and accuracy of their reporters, acknowledge when mistakes are made, and allow appropriate redress, swiftly and prominently . . . citizens who believe they have been wronged here, are regarded as supplicants rather than as equals. This Bill acknowledges that press freedom is a responsibility exercised by journalists on behalf of the public, which is one of our founding principles.

There would be no need for legislation if all newspapers were willing to set the record straight promptly and prominently when the inevitable, occasional mistakes occur."

Jeremy Dear, general secretary of the National Union of Journalists, says:

"it's not just about the individuals—it's about the whole readership. An inaccuracy in print misinforms the readers, and they have a right to be told the truth.

A simple measure requiring factual inaccuracies to be corrected would be a step in the right direction. The NUJ would not support anything that restricted press freedom or allowed the state to determine what gets into print. There is no attempt to correct opinions or even descriptions—just the facts."

I am very grateful to those organisations and many of their members for that important endorsement. I too think that if the Bill were enacted, standards in our newspapers and periodicals would rise very quickly. I believe that there would be not more but fewer complaints, and I hope that fewer cases would be taken to the courts.

Can the hon. Gentleman tell us why none of the Bill's sponsors has bothered to turn up to support him or it? He seems to be in a rather lonely position. Although he has cited support from people who are, no doubt, important and influential outside the House, we are legislating here today. Where are his friends?

I am grateful to the right hon. Gentleman for turning up himself, and indeed I am very glad that I am here. There was a possibility that I would not be: I was told that there was little prospect of my being able to make this speech. As the right hon. Gentleman may or may not know—I mentioned it at the beginning—another Bill was scheduled to occupy the House, but it had to be pulled in unfortunate circumstances.The right hon. Gentleman will know—if he does not, perhaps someone should tell him—that most MPs have constituency duties and obligations on Fridays, even if he may not attach much importance to serving his constituents in his constituency. If he thinks that I am lonely in not having my supporters here, he is even lonelier in the conviction that he apparently holds on that matter. Therefore, it is not extraordinary that my supporters are not here, but they include Conservative Members—

Where?

The right hon. Gentleman may want to look at the Bill itself. He will see the names of Conservative Members, Liberal Democrats as well as Labour Members of high standing in the House. The fact they are not here is not strictly relevant.

As we are on the subject and we have a little more time, the right hon. Gentleman may want to talk to some of his colleagues about Government legislation. Dare I mention the Clean Neighbourhoods and Environment Bill, which we debated in the House quite recently? I sat on the Committee that considered it. It was extraordinary that while 18 Labour Members wanted to debate measures that will have a direct and beneficial impact on the lives of their constituents, at times there was not a single Member on the Opposition Benches—for legislation that is likely to pass into law. Despite the best efforts of some of his colleagues to huff and puff about what they regarded as the limited time made available to debate the Bill, when it came to debating it they were nowhere to be seen. Before he reprimands the supporters of my Bill for being in their constituencies on a Friday, he may like to have a word with his Front Benchers and some of his colleagues. I am sorry that we have diverted somewhat from the Bill, but I am glad that I have had the opportunity to set the matter straight.

Newspapers have rights—and those rights must be protected—but so do the people whom they write about. As I said, individuals have a right not to be misrepresented and the public have an important right not to be misled. The Bill creates a new citizen's right of protection against the power of the press when that power is abused, either by design or, more often than not, by default.

I do not believe that any responsible journalist need fear the Bill. Only the worst, the least professional, the least scrupulous will be inconvenienced by it. Many will welcome it because they recognise that, in protecting the reputations of others, it will do much to restore their own. The press has a key role in keeping politicians honest but, if it expects high standards of us, it should meet those same standards. The Bill is a modest measure, but I believe that it makes an important contribution in rehabilitating the reputation of both press and politicians. Surely that is not just in our interest but in the general public interest.

Therefore, I hope for the support of other hon. Members, and in particular I hope for the support of the Government. As I say, this was an unexpected opportunity to speak to the Bill. I hope that I may be equally surprised by the response that I hear from the Minister.

I congratulate the hon. Member for The Wrekin (Peter Bradley). Following on from what the right hon. Member for Bromley and Chislehurst (Mr. Forth) said, I am quite happy to be counted as a supporter of the Bill. I may not be named on the back of it but I am happy to say that the Liberal Democrats support it. It is a modest measure but it is long overdue. In the same way that we have a free press, we should have a right of reply that is part of legislation. Everyone, including the humblest of citizens—not just the rich and famous, who are able to take journalists, newspapers and the media to task because they can afford it—should have that right of reply.

If this were in any way a measure to stifle the freedom of the press and its freedom of speech, obviously, I would oppose it. But it is clear that the Bill is trying to give back to citizens something that should be rightfully theirs.

In our democracy, it is essential that we have a free press that can unearth the facts and wrongdoing and can provide important scrutiny of the Government of the day, as well as of large corporations and organisations. But, as the hon. Gentleman said, the press must abide by the highest professional standards. The vast majority do, and the broadsheets—some are now compact editions—such as The Times, The Independent, The Daily Telegraph and The Guardian have exceptionally high standards of journalism. Likewise the BBC, Sky, CNN and many more organisations do us a great favour in providing quality news coverage for the British people.

However, there have been enormous abuses and I for one have been at the receiving end of them; I declare an interest. If the Government support the Bill, what will they do about further abuses that cannot be prevented by this specific and narrowly focused Bill? For instance, when journalists impersonate police officers and attempt illicitly to find information, as I came across, or if they take photographs of someone's children—

Presumably impersonating a police officer is an offence. Did not the hon. Gentleman report it to the police?

The News of the World employed a gentleman to impersonate a police officer. He gave a false name, and I reported that to the police who said that in the circumstances they could not prove the case. They added that impersonating a police officer was "a grey area." I thought that was appalling. The journalist was trying to find out personal information about myself which he wanted to use to ascertain where I was, causing an enormous security scare. That is the sort of level they will go down to—in the gutter—to try to smear people.

The Bill is a modest measure, proposing that when the press does such things and misreports the facts, people should have a right to reply. It is time to end the abuses, and I hope that the Government will not only support the Bill, but look at other ways of tackling the abuses committed by this tiny minority of journalists. The PCC is a pretty toothless being, which, while well meaning, does not do what it should be doing. Obviously the Liberal Democrats will support the Bill.

I congratulate the hon. Member for The Wrekin (Peter Bradley) on giving us the opportunity to discuss this matter. We have heard that it is a modest measure. If this Bill is modest, thank goodness it is only one measure. I am afraid that the Conservative party does not think this Bill necessary or desirable. In fact, it is a rather lengthy Bill, which will be a gift to lawyers.

The Bill would replace the Press Complaints Commission, which has been successful as a mediation service, with a rather complicated adversarial one to address a non-existent problem. The Conservative party supports the right of the press to regulate itself, which is a crucial part of our press freedom. Too many of our freedoms seem to be disappearing under this authoritarian Labour regime, which we hope will not continue to run for more than a few more weeks.

I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for The Wrekin (Peter Bradley) on his presentation of the Bill.

The Government strongly believe that a press that is free from state intervention is fundamental to our democracy. The history of a free press in this country dates back to 1695, when Parliament decided against renewing the Press Licencing Act 1662, which, earlier in the century, had suppressed all newspapers except official publications. We believe that no laws should specifically restrict press freedom. The Government should not intervene in any way in what a newspaper or magazine chooses to publish. We support self-regulation and the basis of the Government's relationship with the independent Press Complaints Commission is support for effective self-regulation. Newspapers may not publish whatever they like, but must abide by the law, as we all must, and that includes laws covering defamatory material.

We acknowledge that with freedom comes responsibility. In recognition of their responsibilities, newspapers chose to restrict their historic right of free speech, which is now guaranteed by the Human Rights Act 1998, by signing up to the voluntary code of practice, which is overseen by the PCC. The newspaper industry recognises that society has expectations of it that it does not place on individuals. Those expectations go beyond the industry's legal duties, which is why they must establish a code of practice. Consequently, newspapers already work under tighter restrictions that the rest of us.

What is the extent of the problem? It is important to note the context of this debate. Every week, the nation reads 162 million copies of newspapers. In 2003, the last year for which full statistics are available, a record number of 3,649 complaints were made to the PCC. That represents a rise of 39 per cent. from the previous year, but a large number of them were about matters for which the commission had no remit—for example, advertising standards, taste and decency. When those letters were sifted out, the actual increase was a more conservative 7 per cent. and 56 per cent. of complaints concerned accuracy. I do not want to diminish the importance of those complaints, but we must keep a sense of perspective. Bearing in mind the vast number of publications, the number of copies distributed and the articles that they contain, the number of complaints is relatively small.

In addition, the PCC continues to monitor customer satisfaction by asking all complainants whether they were satisfied with the way in which their complaint was handled. For example, in 2003 the PCC surveyed 800 people who had used its services and received 414 replies. Of those, 62 per cent. said that their complaint had been handled satisfactorily or very satisfactorily. That included cases in which the commission found no breach of the code and in which one might expect some hostility to the PCC.

The MediaWise figures quoted in support of the Bill suggest that 64 per cent. of people surveyed were unhappy with the PCC's performance. However, I gather that of the 230 questionnaires sent out by MediaWise, only 107 went to people who had used the PCC. Only 52 usable replies were received, and of those only 35 had made complaints within the PCC's remit. It is clear that the statistic of 64 per cent. is based on a very small, and not necessarily representative, sample.

It is important to have accuracy and I am not suggesting that everything in the garden is rosy. There is no room for complacency and I have great sympathy for those who suddenly find themselves in the media spotlight, particularly if that is not their choice, and it must be particularly difficult if they feel that information is inaccurate, or even defamatory.

It is right that, in support of the PCC code, we remind the industry from time to time that accuracy is of the utmost importance to its standing among the public. The importance that the PCC accords to accuracy is reflected in the fact that the need for accuracy is enshrined in the first clause of the code.

That is the background against which we considered the Bill. As I said, we cannot countenance any restriction of the freedom of the press. My hon. Friend the Member for The Wrekin and others have argued that the proposed new board would not interfere with the principle of press freedom. However, I disagree, not least because, under paragraph 2 of schedule 1 of the Bill, the members of the board would be appointed by the Government. Is it right, as a matter of principle, that a board comprising Government appointees should be able to decide appeals made against the actions of the press? I do not think so.

Can my hon. Friend name a handful of boards of national quangos that are not appointed by the Government? Is that not the accepted principle? If he is suggesting that the integrity and independence of the board would be doubted, the conclusion is that one should doubt the independence and integrity of members of other boards.

The majority of PCC members are lay members, and I shall return to that point later.

Clause 24 would place a duty on the board to prepare and issue codes of practice to editors and others responsible for editorial material. Although the Bill specifies that those codes should address matters relating to the right of reply in particular, the board would not be constrained from addressing any other issues. That could lead to great confusion. Which codes of practice should editors follow—those issued by the board or by the PCC? The Bill also states that such codes of practice would have to be subject to consultation with the Secretary of State. The prospect is of a board appointed by the Secretary of State, with a duty to issue codes of practice regulating the press's behaviour, the contents of which would have to be the subject of consultation with the Secretary of State. However, we are told by my hon. Friend that the Bill would not constitute interference with a free press.

We now have a panoply of safeguards, such as the appointments commissioner and the Nolan principles. I am concerned that my hon. Friend should suggest that because the Secretary of State would appoint the members of the board, they would not be seen to be independent. However, my hon. Friend would not make the same judgment on hundreds of other national, regional and local boards that are also directly or indirectly appointed by the Secretary of State.

The issue is whether one favours self-regulation or not, and the Government do, as I shall explain in more detail.

The Bill calls for the creation of a new, publicly funded quango. Given the duties included in the Bill, a significant sum would be needed each year for its running costs, let alone the funding of reviews, the collection and maintenance of databases and the research that would be necessary. However, the Bill does not say to what purpose the research would be put. The industry is hugely successful and profitable, so can it be right to ask the taxpayer to fund a body to consider complaints when an industry-funded, independent body already exists for that purpose? That is especially pertinent given that the figures I have cited show that most people are happy with the present arrangements.

We are all familiar with the present concerns about Sudan 1. Does my hon. Friend think that the Food Standards Agency should be funded by the food industry alone, or is it properly funded by the public purse to ensure that the public can have confidence in it?

There is a specific argument on that point, which I wish to continue to explore.

A survey of 2,058 adults conducted by MORI in 2002 found that 64 per cent. of those interviewed believed that the industry should continue to fund the regulatory body, and only 12 per cent. thought that the cost should be met by the taxpayer. Moreover, the proposals in the Bill are more complex than the present system and would be less equitable to complainants. For example, complaints would have to be made within 14 days of publication. The present arrangements allow a month, but a significant number of people do not manage to meet that deadline. It is likely that more would be excluded by a shorter deadline. The Bill would require publications to respond within three days, but that allows inadequate time for investigation should any dispute be involved. Another layer of bureaucracy would be imposed in front of the adjudicator who would determine whether a right of reply should be granted.

If either the publication or the complainant disagreed with the adjudicator's decision, they could appeal to the board, but as the board would be responsible for the appointment of the adjudicator, its ability to hear appeals independently would be in doubt.

My hon. Friend makes the same point repeatedly without responding to my interventions. Who funds Ofcom, for example? Is it the media corporations or the public purse?

I suggest to my hon. Friend that there is a particular issue about press freedom and the way in which we monitor and manage it, and use the code of practice. That is why this issue is different and I shall continue to explain that as I proceed with my speech.

The fact is that, in the Government's view, the PCC's code of practice already provides a satisfactory means of redress for those who feel they have been misrepresented in the press. Clause 1 of the code requires that

"a significant inaccuracy, misleading statement or distortion once recognised must be corrected, promptly and with due prominence."

A failure to do that would be a breach of the code. The PCC already fulfils the role of an adjudicator. Its independence is guaranteed by a lay majority of 10 to seven, its chairman is independent of the industry, and its staff have no connection to the industry. When the code has been breached and no satisfactory remedial action offered, the PCC will require a newspaper to publish, in full and with due prominence, a critical adjudication of the editor. That does not require a lengthy and costly legal battle.

It is significant that no editor has ever refused to publish the PCC adjudication and adherence to the PCC code is written into many editors' contracts. Furthermore, the complainants have the right to appeal on procedural grounds to an independent chartered commissioner, who can ask for the matter to be reconsidered.

As far as the maintenance of a database is concerned, the PCC currently publishes details of all its adjudications on its website, and it contains summaries of all resolved complaints, including details offered by the newspaper in each case. The PCC also publishes an annual report that provides an analysis of its work over the preceding year, as well as a bi-annual report providing a summary of its cases.

To conclude, I am afraid that the Bill would establish statutory regulation by the back door and I suspect that, once a board was established, there would inevitably be calls to extend the scope of its remit. After all, the need for accuracy is only one part of a larger range of issues considered by the PCC, and there will be others who argue with a passion equal to that of my hon. Friend the Member for The Wrekin and his supporters, that their particular concern can be addressed only through statutory means. Once we have breached the principle of press freedom—let us be clear about this—we will find ourselves on a very slippery slope.

We do not currently allow an unfettered right for the press to write whatever they want. Law and regulation is already in place, so the idea that this is the first time since the 17th century that our precious freedom of speech has been compromised is utter rubbish—and the Minister knows it. He is squirming around, trying to find tentative reasons to justify his position. For goodness' sake, why cannot he actually answer the specific questions put to him by the hon. Member for The Wrekin (Peter Bradley) about the appointment and running of the board? Can we have a little more openness and honesty from this Minister?

I have already made it clear to the hon. Gentleman that there is a fundamental disagreement here over the regulation of the press and press freedom. I have set out my and the Government's position on the issue. There will be disagreements, but we believe that the current procedure and regulations in place—I am sure that things can always be improved—provide the best way forward.

rose—

rose—

To conclude, the Government have no intention of presiding over the end of more than 300 years of press freedom.

Will the Minister give way?

No, I am drawing to my conclusion and I ask the House to oppose the Bill.

Question put, That the Bill be read a Second time.

It is now established without a shadow of a doubt that the 2001 census was a total shambles. The Public Accounts Committee, the Treasury Committee, the Office of the Deputy Prime Minister Committee and a large number of academic studies have shown that the 2001 census was not carried out accurately. After receiving a number of reports, the Office for National Statistics had to adjust the figures upwards by almost a million people—a million men who, it had claimed, had gone to the Balearic islands at the time of the count. That was one of the ONS's ludicrous suggestions.

The million people who had been missed as a result of the census being maladministered were not evenly distributed around the country. It is worth noting that the enumerators were not paid, helplines were not set up accurately and there was evidence that some enumerators had dumped the follow-up forms in waste paper bins, where they were found afterwards. The whole process was chaotic. The areas where people were missed were, by and large, poorer areas, inner-city areas and areas that had high numbers of students or ethnic minorities.

When we in Manchester looked at the list, we realised almost immediately that the census was inaccurate because there were more people paying council tax in the city than Mr. Cook from the Office for National Statistics, who ran the census, believed lived in Manchester. That would lead one to the ludicrous proposition that people were volunteering to pay council tax even though they did not live in Manchester. It was an absurd situation. When we checked accurate lists for the number of children of school age in Manchester, the lists accounted for many more children than were counted in the census, and likewise when GP lists were checked. It was obvious that there were fundamental flaws.

After much argument with Mr. Cook of the ONS, it was agreed that there would be a property matching exercise. That exercise showed that at least 26,200 people had been missed. One can only establish a minimum. My personal belief is that the figure should have been even higher, but the figure of 26,200 was agreed by the Office for National Statistics and Manchester city council.

I understand that Mr. Len Cook has now left his job and is going back to New Zealand, presumably to practise counting the numerous sheep there. It was not a happy time for Mr. Cook at the ONS. He had sectors of the economy shrinking when, in fact, they were growing. He made fundamental errors in the calculation of pension funds and carried out the most inaccurate census in 200 years, so I am very pleased that he is on his way out of the public sector payroll. There are lessons for Ministers, particularly Treasury Ministers, about how, when something goes wrong, they deal with an obviously incompetent official.

Once the figures had been established, it was clear that there were two areas of direct impact where Government funding streams are directly related to population. One is local government, administered by the Office of the Deputy Prime Minister, and the other is health. After some discussion with the Minister of State at the Office of the Deputy Prime Minister, it was agreed that there would be an adjustment to the revenue support grant settlement. It was agreed that the money that would have been paid relating to those 26,000 or so people in Manchester would be paid. I think that 16 or 17 other councils, including Westminster, most prominently, as well as Derby, Plymouth and others, were similarly affected.

I thoroughly expected similar treatment from the Department of Health, because the funding of the health service is also simply and directly related to population. Before I deal with that point, however—I have had a number of discussions with Health Ministers about the issue, for which I thank them—I want to mention another issue that I do not think has been thoroughly understood in respect of the census and health funding. I refer to the part of the census form that asked about self-diagnosed disability. People could say on the form that they were suffering from allergies or that their children suffered learning disabilities or behavioural problems, and some of the health funding follows that self-diagnosed illness.

Where people were missed by the census, there could be no self-diagnosis, so the funding will never come to them, even if they had allergies or their children had other problems. There is also some evidence that those in more affluent areas and better-educated people filled in the forms in more detail. When we look now at the funding flows in respect of allergies and similar self-diagnosed conditions, we find that areas such as Surrey and Barking are getting more money than poorer areas such as inner-city Leeds or inner-city Manchester. I do not think that that issue has been thoroughly discussed, but it is important and it arises directly from the way in which the census was handled.

As I said, I expected the Department of Health to say, "Yes, you can have the money", which amounts over the funding period 2003 to 2006 to about £21 million for the three primary care trusts in Manchester. In my meetings and correspondence with Health Ministers, they have said no. I think that they have done so for two reasons, which I can summarise from that very long correspondence. The first reason, which is undoubtedly true, is that the Department had used the best known figures in coming to the settlement. I cannot dispute that, but I do not think that it is a reason for not making changes when the figures are known to be in error. Secondly, it was pointed out that there had been large increases in funding over the period and that, since that time, there has been an even larger increase in funding, while the proportion involved is relatively small. That is true, but I do not think that it is an answer to the basic point about equity: why that £21 million should not come to Manchester and other primary care trusts that have been similarly affected.

Virtually all the affected primary care trusts are in the poorest parts of the country. Just after his appointment in February 2004, the Secretary of State for Health said:

"One of the facts I heard when I became Secretary of State has truly shocked me. The fact that a boy born in Manchester lives eight and a half years less than a boy born in East Dorset is a staggering failure and a disgrace and is palpably unequal."

I can only wholeheartedly agree. In Manchester, the areas that have lost the £21 million—I am not proud of this, but it is a fact—are top of the list in terms of cancer, heart disease and heart attacks, and their mortality and morbidity rates are among the worst in the country. Similarly, the other primary care trusts affected tend to come from the poorest areas.

It would be fair for the Department of Health to pay that money, because those people exist and have not received funding through the system and because the areas affected are poor. It is strange that one major Department replaces lost funding while another does not. Replacing the lost funding would also help achieve the Government's targets on health inequalities, to which the Secretary of State is completely committed.

It is true that the Secretary of State's settlement to primary care trusts on 9 February was generous. It brought every PCT in the country to within 3.5 per cent. of target, and I have no doubt that it was the best settlement in the history of the NHS. In his statement, the Secretary of State said:

"A key factor in distributing funding fairly is the count of the number of people served by each primary care trust."—[Official Report, 9 February 2005; Vol. 430, c. 1503.]

Who could disagree with that? If it is true from 2006, however, it is absolutely true from 2003 to 2006.

I will finish with two points. First, It could be argued that, because every PCT has been taken to within 3.5 per cent. of target from 2006, the money from the census is there. In many cases, however, PCTs are in deficit because of underfunding, so some of the money from that generous settlement in 2006 will not go directly to the care of patients and into the health service, but be used to pay for a deficit caused by underfunding, because the Office for National Statistics did not do its job as accurately as it might have done.

Secondly, I and the Health Ministers to whom I have spoken do not disagree about the facts of the case. What is the intellectual or political justification for continuing to withhold £21 million from the health care budgets of those three PCTs in Manchester when it has been established that, had the ONS done its job properly, the money would have followed?

I can think of no precedent for one Department saying that it will adjust figures because it got the facts wrong and another Department saying that it will not. That is not fair. It is not good administration but arbitrary administration. The Secretary of State said that the settlement is generous, and I agree with him, but this money is not allocated personally like an elderly aunt giving her own money. The money is public money that people in Manchester are entitled to see in their services, but they have not received it. If the ODPM has recognised the situation, it must be an arbitrary and unfair judgment not to replace the money. Not only will the impact be felt over the three years but, because the extra money will pay for deficits, it will be felt for five or six years. I therefore appeal to my hon. Friend the Minister to be as positive as possible in responding to the debate. Although £21 million is not a huge percentage of the primary care trust budget, it represents a significant amount of health care anywhere in the country.

I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Manchester, Blackley (Mr. Stringer) on securing the debate and I acknowledge the considerable interest that he and hon. Friends in his area have in issues that affect the national health service, including the subject of today's debate. They have raised them with Ministers on several occasions, both recently and over a longer period.

I want briefly to deal with some specific issues, but I am sure that my hon. Friend agrees that we should first acknowledge the good work that is being undertaken in the city of Manchester and in the Greater Manchester area generally, and pay tribute to all the staff who are involved in providing health services in the city and the wider conurbation. Several colleagues in the health team had the pleasure of visiting them at the end of January and seeing the wide range of facilities and projects in the Greater Manchester area.

My hon. Friend raised concerns about the impact of the 2001 census on health funding in Manchester. As he rightly said, I cannot respond on some of the issues to which he refers as they are matters for the Treasury and the Office for National Statistics. However, I am aware that several colleagues have raised the issues on a number of other occasions.

The key to distributing funding fairly is the count of the number of people that each PCT serves. It is important that the best available population data are used for PCTs to meet the health needs of their populations. The aim is to enable each PCT to commission similar levels of health services for populations in similar need.

For the 2003 to 2006 round of allocations, which was announced in December 2002, the decision was made to use population estimates based on the 2001 census. Those were the most robust population data available at the time of announcing the allocations, if we bear it in mind that the alternative was updated figures from the previous decade or so. The Advisory Committee on Resource Allocation, which oversees issues relating to equity and the allocation of resources to the NHS, supported the decision to use the population estimates.

Since the announcement of the 2003 to 2006 allocations, the Office for National Statistics has made a series of revisions to the initial 2001 population estimates. The biggest change to the figures, to which my hon. Friend referred, were to those for Manchester, which has experienced an increase in population of some 26,200. I appreciate that it will come as a disappointment to my hon. Friends, but the decision has been made not to revisit the 2003 to 2006 allocations. We do not make retrospective changes to revenue allocations because of the uncertainty that that would introduce into PCT funding in general.

My hon. Friend asked about the intellectual rationale for that. It would create considerable uncertainty if the goal posts were moved retrospectively at the same time as future figures were presented to the PCT for planning. It would make life difficult. Money has to come out of a finite budget and when it has already been spent and allocated, finding the retrospective money could cause problems. I fear that my hon. Friend is wrong to say that other areas would not have similar claims, albeit sometimes on grounds other than the ONS statistics and the census figures, such as, data lag when there is a rapid increase in populations. We therefore have to make the best estimates that we can at the time. We may well have made different decisions about pace of change and movement to targets had different data been provided. The changes that my hon. Friend assumes might not therefore have happened.

We are confident that using the data in the 2003 to 2006 allocation was the right thing to do because they were the best data that we had at the time. For the latest round of allocations covering 2006–07 to 2007–08, the Advisory Committee on Resource Allocation recommended using 2003-based population projections as a basis. Although these population data are again based on the 2001 census, the census has been revised to correct the earlier undercounting in areas such as Manchester. This means that we now have a more accurate count of the population. In addition, these figures take account of the challenges faced in areas with growing populations. We are therefore using the best available population data, which take account of the undercount and of changing trends in population.

I want to describe the picture of the health services in the Greater Manchester area, so as to set this issue in context. Waiting times are falling. No patient now has to wait more than nine months for in-patient treatment. That compares well with 1997, when more than 8,000 patients were waiting for in-patient treatment. In March 1998, more than 23,000 patients were waiting over 13 weeks for an out-patient appointment. Our latest data show this figure to have fallen to 3,536 patients. Furthermore, 99.8 per cent. of urgent referrals for suspected cancer are now seen by a specialist in two weeks in Greater Manchester. We have also seen a large increase in the numbers of consultants, GPs, nurses and health care assistants since 1997, and the list of capital developments and improvements to the equipment of the major services is too long to go through in the time available to us today.

My hon. Friend mentioned health inequalities. He will realise that the Secretary of State and I—in my capacity as the Minister responsible for the northern region and for the public health agenda, including health inequalities—are keen to see that such inequalities are addressed. He is right to cite the different figures for life expectancy in Manchester and in those areas in which people are better off. The main causes of death in Greater Manchester are cancer and coronary heart disease, and the death rates involved are significantly higher than the rate in England as a whole.

I am sure, however, that my hon. Friend will be content that, overall, we are making massive improvements in driving down deaths from cancer, with a 12 per cent. cut in such deaths across the country since we have been in Government, and a 27 per cent. reduction in deaths from coronary heart disease across the country over the same period. However, inequalities such as those that my hon. Friend outlined are unacceptable, which is why we have established the biggest programme to tackle health inequalities ever seen in this country. I want to put it up in lights that it is very important for us to make progress on this issue. Indeed, our performance targets reflect the need to address inequalities. We have identified the areas most at risk from health inequalities, and the Manchester area is one of them. The three Manchester PCTs are part of the so-called spearhead group of 88 PCTs in which we are focusing on driving that progress forward.

My hon. Friend has been generous enough to acknowledge that the latest round of allocations represents a record level of extra investment. In the Manchester area, this equates to an average increase of 9 per cent. for 2006–07 and 9.4 per cent. for 2007–08—an average of 19.5 per cent. over the two years. As a result, there will be record increases in funding in the Manchester area. The Central Manchester PCT will receive an increase of £62 million; North Manchester PCT will receive an increase of £50 million; and for South Manchester PCT, the increase will be £51 million. So considerable increases are going into the Manchester area.

We have ensured, however, that we reflect the fact that there has been some discrepancy in regard to what has been done. The Minister of State, Department of Health, my right hon. Friend the Member for Barrow and Furness (Mr. Hutton), has had correspondence with my hon. Friend the Member for Manchester, Blackley, and I believe that he has also met him to discuss these subjects on a number of occasions. My right hon. Friend wrote to my hon. Friend recently to explain that we had done something on what is called the capacity adjustment for the two years, 2006–07 and 2007–08, which has led to an additional £20 million a year going to the Manchester PCTs. That adjustment would previously have ended with 2006, and has been extended and made recurrent for 2006–07 and 2007–08. We have reflected that as far as possible in terms of additional money, and a sizeable additional amount is going into the Manchester area. In addition, both the 26,000 extra people and the capacity adjustment have been reflected, and full account has been taken of the deprivation and health inequalities needs of the Manchester area, which, as my hon. Friend rightly says, are enormously important and need to be addressed.

The current position is that we use the best available data to make revenue allocations. For the reasons that I have given, we cannot revisit the allocations for 2003 to 2006. We have now used the updated population data for 2006–07 and 2007–08, and correct revisions for the undercounting in areas such as Manchester. Allocations for 2006–07 include projected increases in populations, which means that we have included the best available population data. As my hon. Friend rightly acknowledged, we have also made a record additional investment in the health service. We know that the Manchester health service does a fantastic job generally on a number of fronts, and my right hon. and hon. Friends were very impressed on their recent visit. I trust that the primary care trusts and other partners will work together with local MPs to use this record amount of money to continue to improve the health of the Manchester population in the next few years.

Question put and agreed to.

Adjourned accordingly at three minutes to Three o'clock.