House of Commons
Wednesday 29 June 2005
The House met at half-past Eleven o'clock
Prayers
Mr Speaker in the Chair
Oral Answers to Questions
International Development
The Secretary of State was asked—
Ethiopia
The UK's position on the border question between Ethiopia and Eritrea remains that the boundary commission decision is final and binding and that both parties should discuss the issues that separate them. On the Ethiopian elections, we have made clear our view that the complaints investigation process should be completed as soon as possible, that the deaths resulting from civil disturbances should be investigated and that those detained should either be released or charged. Until the situation is clearer, I am putting on hold plans to increase budget support this year by £20 million.
I am grateful for the Secretary of State's answer, because those of us who are familiar with Ethiopia will know that the most progress that has been made in that country has come since the end of 21 years of conflict with Eritrea and a return to democratic processes of sorts, and yet 100,000 Ethiopian troops are posturing on the border, and almost two months after a general election there is no result, with many anticipating that it was won by the opposition. Can he tell me what steps he will take in the future to remind the Ethiopian Government that British and other aid is in part contingent on an avoidance of military conflict and a promotion of democratic processes in that country, which are most of all in the interests of the Ethiopian people?
I agree with the hon. Gentleman. When I was in Ethiopia two weeks ago I spent an hour with Prime Minister Meles discussing those issues. The decision that I have taken to hold for the time being the increase in budget support is in recognition of the real crisis there. Currently, there is no election result, with many claims and many complaints about the electoral process. The only way to resolve those, and to allow the voice of the Ethiopian people to be heard, is for the national election board to complete its work. In the meantime, we very much hope that the countries will not return to fighting each other, because the real issue in Ethiopia is fighting poverty.
As someone who has also been to Ethiopia and met Prime Minister Meles, as I understand it, the general election results will be made known on 8 July. Is the Secretary of State saying that, notwithstanding those results, he will give no further aid until he is satisfied in relation to those who are in prison?
A large number of people who were arrested have now been released—about 2,700 according to our best estimate—and about 1,500 people are still in detention. My hon. Friend is right that 8 July is the date by which the result is supposed to be declared, but given that 140 complaints have now been approved by the national election board for investigation, and that there is a full process to allow those investigations to take place, including rights to appeal, it is hard to see the results being declared by 8 July. What everyone wants is for the process to proceed to a successful conclusion—namely, the voice of the people being heard and the results being declared. In the circumstances, it is right to wait and watch and to see what the outcome is.
I would normally pay tribute to the Secretary of State's deep interest in Ethiopia, and he has carried out a great deal of useful work. I am concerned, however, that he has now put on hold the increase in assistance to Ethiopia. It is true that there has been an unfortunate incident, which is being investigated, but we need to recognise how far Ethiopia has come in the past few years, and we ought to encourage that country. Elections have recently taken place in Ethiopia, and yes, there are complaints, but we must recognise that for the first time those elections were open to international observers, many of whom were complimentary. Can I therefore suggest that the Secretary of State examine the situation closely? Can I also—[Interruption.]
I recognise the hon. Gentleman's close interest in Ethiopia and agree with him that until polling day and what happened afterwards, the election process was quite remarkable, with 1 million people demonstrating in Addis and the opposition winning every seat in the capital and having access to the media for the first time. In the context of the history of Ethiopia, that was an extraordinary change, which makes the violence and arrests, including of workers of the Coalition for Unity and Democracy, the main opposition party, who are needed to participate in the national election board process, a source of such concern. I can assure him, however, that I will keep a close eye on the situation and that we remain firmly committed to our development partnership with Ethiopia, as the challenges are enormous. Currently, through support to the safety net programme of £70 million over three years, we are helping to give food and money to people so that they can improve their lives.
Does the Secretary of State agree that irrespective of boundary disputes or elections, the overwhelming, underlying problem in Ethiopia is the starvation of ordinary people? When he was visiting the country two weeks ago, did he share the experience of some people from Northern Ireland, teachers and past pupils, who went there to build a village school? When they got there and saw young children falling by the wayside, suffering from malnutrition and blind from lack of nurturing, they decided that their role should instead be to come home and raise money to feed those people. On their way out of that village, mothers pleaded with them to take their children back to Ireland. Will the Minister make every endeavour at the G8 summit to ensure that, irrespective of Government interventions and misdeeds, ordinary people get food in their tummies?
I am happy to give my hon. Friend that assurance. According to the current estimate, about 10 million people need food aid. The number goes up or down each year, depending on the harvest and the rains.
The safety net programme that I mentioned in my last answer is a practical expression of our determination to work with the Ethiopian Government to provide support. I applaud all who are working in whatever way—whether helping to provide education or raising funds for relief and humanitarian support—because this is a country in which many people live on the margins of existence every single day of every single year. That is why the chance of development for Ethiopia is so important, and that is why a proper outcome of the democratic process would be the best way of helping the country to have a better future.
Good Governance
Good governance is essential to reducing poverty, and we take account of governance in allocating UK aid. DFID is supporting action against corruption, the reform of public financial management and improved accountability and transparency, through, for example, the extractive industries transparency initiative. We are also assisting the African peer review mechanism.
The Secretary of State's suspension of the increase in aid to Ethiopia is a mark of his concern about governance there. It contrasts markedly with the Home Secretary's failure to make a similar gesture in response to concern about Zimbabwe. But in the event of a major humanitarian crisis involving famine and homelessness in Zimbabwe, how will the Secretary of State achieve the difficult balance of supporting those in need while not indirectly rewarding the perpetrator of the original injustice?
We do that in Zimbabwe. In the past we have supported a programme of food aid, along with others in the international community. Following the disgraceful demolition of homes, which has cast people out on to the street in the cold, we have so far given $570,000 to the International Organisation for Migration and, most recently, to UNICEF, to provide practical assistance for those who have lost their homes. As the hon. Gentleman will know, we also have an HIV/AIDS programme in Zimbabwe, which we operate through non-governmental organisations and others. As he will also know, we do not give any financial assistance directly to the Zimbabwe Government.
May we have an absolute guarantee that in the case of a barbarous regime like Mugabe's in Zimbabwe, which is doing horrendous things to its people—as we see with the demolition of all those homes—all our financial aid goes only to NGOs, and nothing whatever is allowed to go to a Government who would politically manipulate aid to their own ends?
I am happy to give that assurance. We work through others. The case of Zimbabwe demonstrates that our concern for good governance is reflected in the decisions that we make through our aid programme about the way in which we give our support, but ultimately the fact that the people of a country have a rotten Government should not prevent them from receiving appropriate financial assistance, and we will continue to provide it.
Has my right hon. Friend had more time to consider last year's report from the International Development Committee, which referred to the Africa Commission's work on good government? In particular, has he noted the Committee's views on the Swedish model and its recommendation on systematic reporting to Parliament on these issues?
My right hon. Friend has raised an important point. This is one step that we are taking: our agreements with aid partners, in which each side undertakes to make commitments, will now be displayed on the DFID website. That is our own act of transparency, showing people the basis on which we make decisions about aid.
The report adopted by the Swedish Government also reflects the importance of ensuring that all the steps that we are taking, involving aid, debt relief and trade, are consistent so that we can support development, including good governance.
Whilst it is enormously important to support good governance in developing countries, along with the building of integrity structures, does my right hon. Friend agree that it is time that the rich countries in the developed world stopped poaching medial staff from the developing world? Does he further agree with the chairman of the British Medical Association that the G8 ought to support a commitment to ensuring that the developing world is self-sufficient in medical staff?
This is a very important issue, and my hon. Friend will be aware of the code of practice that the Department of Health has adopted, which has recently been extended, by agreement, to the private recruitment agencies. It is leading the world in saying that we will not recruit directly from developing countries, but we must recognise that the second step that we can take is to support developing countries in trying to address the causes of doctors, nurses and others leaving those countries and taking their skills elsewhere. As the House will know, those causes are principally poor pay, poor working conditions, and lack of opportunity for career and professional development. So what will really make a difference in the long term is the aid that we give to support developing countries in building their health services, paying their doctors and nurses more, and providing better working conditions, housing and the drugs with which to work.
I recently attended a presentation in Northern Ireland on the report of the Commission for Africa. Some of the non-governmental organisations represented at that meeting expressed concern about the failure of international Governments to address the issue of education, even though targets have been set. Last year, I, like many other Members, visited schools to promote the objectives that the international community has set to improve education in developing countries. Can the Minister give us an update on what our Government are doing to ensure that education is a priority in the effort to improve governance in the continent of Africa, and in other developing parts of the world?
The first thing that we are doing over the next three years is investing, bilaterally and through our contributions to multilateral development agencies, £1.4 billion in education. We are seeing some progress, including in Kenya, which has abolished school fees in the past couple of years. Kenya now has a million more children in school, and we helped to pay for that through our increased aid, with the support of other donors. That shows that such countries do want to make progress in tackling the obstacles that prevent children from attending school. But in Africa, more than 40 million children are not where they ought to be today—in a school classroom with a teacher and a desk. That makes the discussion in the run-up to the G8 and the increased aid to which Europe is now committed so important. It is a way in which—along with debt relief—we can provide very practical assistance, so that finance and education Ministers can be confident that they have the money they need to employ the teachers, build the classrooms and buy the textbooks, thereby getting those remaining children into school.
Can the Secretary of State explain a little more about the criteria for good governance, and can he name a few of the countries to which he will apply those criteria?
The criteria are first, that the money that we give in aid should go towards poverty reduction; secondly, that human rights and international obligations are upheld; and thirdly, that there is strong financial management and action on corruption. We write such conditions into our aid agreements. We have already discussed Ethiopia, and I have decided to hold back some of the budget support in respect of Uganda and Sierra Leone, because progress there has not been sufficiently great. We are also working in countries such as Nigeria, Malawi, Sierra Leone and Zambia to provide practical support for the anti-corruption commissions, because tacking corruption is fundamental to good governance.
Does the Secretary of State accept that while everyone at Live8 in Edinburgh on Saturday and around the country will be wishing the British agenda every success at the G8 summit in Gleneagles, hard-working British taxpayers will insist that extra money for aid be spent precisely in the way intended, rather than being siphoned off—as has happened all too often in the past—into the Swiss bank accounts of corrupt African leaders?
I do indeed accept that British taxpayers and those attending the concert will want to be reassured on that issue. As the hon. Gentleman knows, Britain has, in truth, a pretty good record in this regard. We take decisions on the way in which we give our aid according to our assessment of the circumstances, and we are very vigorous in monitoring how that money is used. The hon. Gentleman will also recognise that there has to be a strong lead from the developing countries themselves. That is why I welcome the steps that Nigeria, for example—a country that has suffered grievously from corruption in the past—is now taking to bring those who are acting corruptly to book, and to reform the running of public finances.
We all strongly agree with that. If we are to build on the good governance provisions first set up under the last Conservative Government by Chris Patten and Lynda Chalker, will the Secretary of State consider additional structural ways of promoting the audit, accountability and, above all, the transparency of aid spending so that taxpayers around the world, as well as poor people in Africa, can be reassured that aid funds are being well spent?
I agree: there is an obligation on all of us to be able to demonstrate to our constituencies and our own Parliaments, as we do in the UK, how our aid money is used. I am committed to transparency, but I am also committed to it on the part of our partners. That is why the UK launched the extractive industries transparency initiative, which is all about encouraging oil and mineral extracting companies to be open about the payments they make to developing country Governments, and encouraging those Governments subsequently to be open about the money that they receive. With that openness comes a better functioning democracy, because it means that people in developing countries can ask their Governments what they have done with the money.
Does my right hon. Friend agree that if we followed the advice of Conservative Members, we could end up removing aid from some of the most vulnerable people in the third world? If they really believe what they are telling us, perhaps they should appear in front of the conference centre housing the G8 conference with placards saying, "Make Poverty Permanent"!
I would say to my hon. Friend that we all want to make poverty reduction permanent. I believe that good governance is fundamental to making progress in reducing poverty. There is no question about that whatever, and we should all be in favour of transparency and openness about the way in which aid money is used. We are giving increased development assistance because we want to help developing countries, but progress will sometimes be fitful. In the end, we have to make a judgment about whether a country is moving in the right direction. That, in the end, should be the fundamental judgment that determines the aid that we give, and I hope that the Opposition will support that approach.
While hectoring others on governance, will the Secretary of State reassure the House that Britain will itself sign up, and will encourage other G8 nations to sign up, to the United Nations convention against corruption? Will he also assure us that the Government's practices on arms sales will ensure that—in future, unlike at present—we do not provide arms to regimes in developing countries that are persistently abusing human rights?
On arms sales, the hon. Gentleman will be aware that the Export Control Act 2002 provides a very strong framework, under which we take decisions based on the purpose for which the weapons will be used. If they are to be used for conflict or internal repression, we refuse licences. On the UN convention, we are committed to ratifying it, we have tightened up our money laundering legislation and we have given the UK courts jurisdiction over UK nationals who engage in bribery overseas. The Proceeds of Crime Act 2002 will allow for the speedier freezing of assets and we are now putting in place better arrangements to help developing countries to repatriate money that has been stolen from them. All those are indications of our commitment to act to tackle corruption.
Does my right hon. Friend accept, as I think he will, that the issue is extremely complex? To anticipate today's Question 6, tabled by my hon. Friend the Member for North-West Leicestershire (David Taylor), does the Secretary of State agree that we also have to avoid imposing unreasonable restrictions on how the Governments of developing countries perform? What we are trying to do is to make them honest while respecting their right to independence. Does my right hon. Friend agree?
Yes, I do. When it comes to economic policy conditionality, the new policy document which I published in March makes it very clear that it is inappropriate for us to enforce particular policy choices. However, when it comes to human rights and good governance, I believe that it is right and proper—to ensure that our money is used for the proper purposes—to attach appropriate conditions. In the end, it is about getting the balance right and finding the right type of conditionality.
Darfur
The humanitarian situation in Darfur remains one of grave concern. Just under 2 million people have been displaced from their homes, and 2.7 million need humanitarian assistance. The international effort has grown over the past year, and malnutrition in the camps has fallen below emergency levels, from over 30 per cent. a year ago to between 5 and 10 per cent. now. However, the situation could deteriorate during the forthcoming hungry season, when up to 3.5 million people will require food.
Do the Government recognise that there is now a need for peace enforcement action by the UN Security Council to provide for a substantive increase in the African Union presence in Darfur, and a stronger mandate? Without that, the situation there is so unstable and insecure that hundreds of thousands of refugees and internally displaced people will not feel safe and are unlikely to return.
The hon. Lady is absolutely right about the importance of civilian protection. I was in Darfur two weeks ago, and given what I saw and what people told me, that is the principal priority. She refers to the mandate, and I went to Darfur with an open mind about that. However, everyone to whom I spoke said that the AU was doing an outstanding job in providing civilian protection in those places where it is based. That is why Britain is providing strong support for the expansion of the AU force. Currently, it has 2,700 troops on the ground, but that number will increase to 7,500. When I was there, I announced an increase in our support. Britain will now provide £19 million to enable those forces to deploy and airlift extra vehicles and logistic support. The most important thing is to get more AU troops there. The people in the camps told me that they feel safest when the AU is close by.
I welcome the commitment shown by my right hon. Friends the Secretary of State and the Prime Minister to Darfur and to Africa, and the initiatives that they have undertaken. I urge them most strongly to continue their commitment to making poverty history in Africa. My Glenrothes constituent Ian McCaulay visited Darfur recently to make a voluntary contribution to education there, and he has suggested that training teachers in Sudan would be of particular benefit. Does my right hon. Friend agree that such assistance could play a large part in rebuilding Africa's educational structures? [Interruption.]
Order. Before the Secretary of State replies, I ask that the House come to order.
I very much welcome what my hon. Friend's constituent is doing to contribute to Sudan's development. Before I visited Darfur, I went to Rumbek in southern Sudan, where one child in four dies before the age of five, and three quarters of adults cannot read. The need for development in southern Sudan is therefore enormous. There is peace there now and refugees are beginning to return. That is why we are increasing our development assistance, to provide the basics to support the Government there in getting children into school and providing health care.
The terrible human suffering continues to intensify in Darfur and the Secretary of State has said already that up to 3.5 million people are likely to face food shortages between August and October. We welcome the Government's increased contribution to the AU mission in Darfur and fully support the expansion of the AU force. We are also encouraged by the decision of the International Criminal Court to investigate war crimes suspects. However, the Sudanese Government have responded by setting up a special criminal court that has met with huge international scepticism. Will the right hon. Gentleman confirm that that court will not deter or deflect the international community from bringing to justice the people who perpetrated such appalling atrocities in Darfur?
I am happy to give the hon. Gentleman that assurance. He will know that Britain was one of the first and strongest supporters of the ICC, and I pay tribute to the role played by my right hon. Friend the Foreign Secretary in getting the UN Security Council to agree to refer the Darfur atrocities to the ICC. By doing that, the world has sent the very clear message that those responsible for the atrocities will not be able to escape. We will press forward with our determination to ensure that they are brought to justice.
Is my right hon. Friend aware that the UN announced on Monday that it has only £3 million of the £31 million it needs for its protection work in Darfur? Is he further aware that rape is being used as a weapon of war in Darfur and that further protection measures are needed for children who experience extreme sexual and physical violence, as well as the psychological trauma of war? Can he reassure the House that during Britain's presidency of the G8 he will lead donor countries and ensure that Sudan does not become the forgotten conflict of Africa?
I am happy to say to my hon. Friend that we will indeed do that. There is a real problem of women in particular being attacked when they move outside the camps. It is highly regrettable that the response from the Government of Sudan was to arrest two people from Médecins sans Frontières who had published a report describing the women's experiences, instead of arresting the people responsible for the rape. The two people have now been released as a result of representations that I and others in the international community have made, but that demonstrates how far we have to go to provide effective protection to those who are now sheltering in the camps.
Prime Minister
The Prime Minister was asked—
Engagements
This morning, I had meetings with ministerial colleagues and others. In addition to my duties in the House, I shall have further such meetings later today.
Does the Prime Minister still regard Sir Richard Dearlove as having been a reliable source of information on Iraq? If so, is it safe to assume that Sir Richard's statement in the summer of 2002 that the intelligence and facts were being fixed around the policy was an accurate assessment of the intentions and actions of the Bush Administration?
As I am sure the hon. Gentleman knows, that memo and other documents of the time were covered by the Butler review. In addition, that was before we went to the United Nations and secured the second resolution, 1441, which had unanimous support. Contrary to the hon. Gentleman's view, when I stood next to the new Prime Minister of Iraq, who had five of his relatives assassinated by Saddam, and realised that he was in power because of the democratic votes of 8 million Iraqis, I was glad that we took the action that we did and ensured that Iraq was no longer governed by a dictatorship but by a democracy.
Many retired mineworkers from my constituency have had their photographs in the papers this week. Does my right hon. Friend agree with them and me that every retired miner with an industrial injury claim should receive every penny of their compensation?
It is important that people receive their compensation properly. That was one of the changes that this Government introduced when we came to office. Tens of thousands of miners had suffered as a result of having worked in the mines and, thanks to this Government, they received the compensation to which they were entitled. Of course, that compensation should go only to those who are entitled to get it, but billions of pounds has been paid out to people who desperately needed our help in some of our poorest constituencies.
The Prime Minister and I agree on the importance of both aid and trade in helping developing countries lift themselves out of poverty. The next session of world trade talks takes place in December. The UN Task Force on Trade has said:
"Developing countries are at a disadvantage in representing their interests and participating effectively in the negotiations due to resource constraints."
In other words, they do not have the money to hire the expertise they need to fight their corner at the talks.
Yesterday, I wrote to the Prime Minister giving him notice that I would raise today our proposal for an advocacy fund that would enable developing countries to pay for the expertise they need. Will he consider that proposal in advance of the G8 summit next week?
I thank the right hon. and learned Gentleman for advance notice of that question. The advocacy fund is something that he has raised before and I shall give him my answer to it. He is right to say that part of the problem of developing countries is that they do not have the capacity to argue their case on trade. Nor do they have the capacity within their Governments to make the best use of any opening up of the markets that the G8 and other forums may agree. That is one of the reasons why we have provided over the past few years some £200 million to countries specifically for building capacity in respect of trade. The European Union also provides several hundred million pounds for that task.
The advice that I have is that the trouble with the advocacy fund that the right hon. and learned Gentleman suggests is that countries would prefer to receive the aid in the way in which it is given to them at the moment. We have not received any representations from them for such a fund. Obviously, I will continue to look at the proposal closely, as is proper since he has asked me to do so, but the best advice that I have at the moment is that it is better to proceed as we are now.
Of course it is important that developing countries get help to build their own capacity, but the UN Task Force on Trade has said that there is a need for resources to be provided for the specific purpose that I have just identified. The Hong Kong talks are, after all, just months away and it is vital that developing countries should not be disadvantaged in those talks. Is it not the case that without the resources that an advocacy fund would provide, those countries risk going into those talks with one hand tied behind their back? Surely we need to take action now, and is not the setting up of an advocacy fund precisely the kind of action that would deal with that problem?
We must distinguish between the question of a separate fund and the need to give those countries help as well as make the case on trade and enable them to gear themselves up for the opening up of markets. On the latter point, we are in total agreement, and that is why we have been providing such help. For example, I understand that there was a trade ministerial meeting in Zambia a short time ago in which, together with the Swedes and the Canadians, we specifically gave help in order for developing countries to have the resource necessary to put their case effectively. The question is not whether we should give that help; the question is, is it best to establish a separate fund or are we best offering help as we do now, on the basis of our own bilateral links with individual countries and through the European Union? All I am saying is that judging from the representations that we have received, we are best to maintain our current arrangements, without setting up a separate fund. Indeed, I think the developing countries worry that such a fund would set bureaucratic hurdles in their way.
I totally agree with what the right hon. and learned Gentleman says and, in terms of the general point and what the UN Task Force on Trade says, we are providing that help now. I am asked whether it would be better to provide that help through a separate fund. The advice that I have is that it would not.
I am sorry that the Prime Minister continues to reject a proposal that, for a tiny fraction of the cost of the aid programmes that he is rightly championing, could make a real difference to the ability of developing countries to lift themselves out of poverty through fairer trade. But that, of course, is not the only issue that will be before the G8 next week.
On Monday, the Minister for Trade said that we should not allow Zimbabwe to get in the way of helping other countries of the G8. But is it not clear that the two go hand in hand, and that tackling head-on the issue of Zimbabwe would send the clearest possible signal that the west will not turn a blind eye to injustice and repression, there or anywhere else? So when President Mbeki comes to the G8 next week, will the Prime Minister undertake to leave him in no doubt of what the world expects of him in terms of action to help the suffering people of Zimbabwe?
I can assure the right hon. and learned Gentleman that I will certainly do that, as I have done constantly, and of course the G8 Foreign Ministers' meeting specifically referred to the desperate situation in Zimbabwe and the appalling cases of torture and abuse of human rights that occur there daily. We will continue to exert all the pressure that we can, but I think he would accept, as we must accept, that in the end the best pressure will come from those countries surrounding Zimbabwe. That is why he is right to say that we must ensure that African countries realise that they have a great responsibility to sort this out themselves.
I would like to make another point on this. We are going to the G8 to make the case for helping poverty in Africa. There is no doubt at all that it is harder to make that case while abuses of governance and corruption occur in African countries. I do not believe that what is happening in Zimbabwe should prevent us from still taking action on poverty in Africa; I think that would be wrong, but it is also right to say that we should draw attention not just to the abuses in Zimbabwe but to the urgent necessity to change what is happening in that country, for the benefit of its own citizens.
The Bridgend area in south Wales has for a long time been one of the leading places in Wales in terms of job creation, employment and economic growth. Today, however, we have had the devastating news that one of our large inward investors, Sony in Bridgend and Pencoed, which has employed hundreds of the work force over 30 years, has made the sad decision that, because of the decline in old-fashioned tube technology for colour television, it will be sacrificing up to 650 jobs.
Will the Prime Minister join me in extending his thanks to the work force of Sony Bridgend, who are very skilled and hard-working? Will he also use his good offices to work with the Secretary of State for Wales and the Welsh Assembly Government to do what this Government do well, which is to put in place a rescue package for that work force to provide the high-paid, high-skill jobs that will lead Bridgend into a good future for that work force and their families?
I am sorry that my hon. Friend's constituents have lost their jobs at Bridgend, and he is absolutely right in saying that it is our responsibility as a Government to put in place a proper package of support and help. I know that he will have meetings with Ministers, and I am happy to see him myself about and to ensure that we put in place every assistance that we possibly can. The situation is particularly tragic since it comes at a time when, yet again, this country has been designated No. 1 for foreign direct investment in the European Union—so we are drawing in jobs. Unfortunately, however, for the reasons to which he rightly draws attention, the changing way that the market is working means that it is very hard for people to remain secure in their jobs, even with excellent companies such as Sony. However, we will certainly do everything that we can to help people in that situation.
Given that we know from the Government's own figures that one in five people do not possess passports and that very many of them, obviously, are elderly people who are unlikely to require or seek passports in the future, will the Prime Minister just clarify for us how much people in that category will have to pay for their stand-alone identity cards?
As we have said on many occasions, there is no question of moving to a compulsory identity card before there is a proper vote in the House. [Interruption.] I am sorry, but I do not think that that is new; we have always said that. I have read yesterday's debate carefully and it is obvious that many hon. Members have a great many concerns, to which we will have to listen and respond. I hope that people also recognise, however, that with the advent of biometric technology, there is a real chance of getting, for the first time, a secure identity card that can yield many benefits for this country.
Following yesterday's debate and the Divisions at the end of it, there is disquiet in all sections of the House about many aspects of the legislation, as the Prime Minister properly recognises. Will he clarify one thing? If it proves to be the case in due course that the House of Lords rejects the legislation, based on his 35 per cent. of the vote—[Interruption.] If the House of Lords rejects the legislation, ultimately will the Prime Minister invoke the Parliament Act to force it through?
Let us wait and see what happens in the other place, but the legislation was a commitment of my party that we fought the election on, and we are the duly, democratically elected Government. However, more important is the point that the right hon. Gentleman is making: there are real concerns, expressed in different parts of the House. We will listen to those concerns and respond to them. I simply ask in turn that people also listen to the case that is being made, which is that the advent of the new technology and the fact that we must change our passport system, as the result of changes happening elsewhere in the world, mean that it makes sense to move to a secure identity card for today's world. That will help us not merely with things such as illegal immigration and fighting terrorism and organised crime, but by bringing direct benefits to the citizens. Okay, we are at the beginning of the debate. Let us have the debate and let us both listen to each other's points of view. I will listen to the points that the right hon. Gentleman is making, but I simply ask that people also assess the arguments on the other side of the ledger.
I am sure that my right hon. Friend will want to join me in congratulating my own trade union, Unison, on winning a political fund ballot. Does he not agree, though, that it is about time that we did away with them?
I assume that the question is not about doing away with either Unison or the political fund, but the ballot. It is always a question of balancing the bureaucracy with the need to ensure that the political fund has proper legitimacy. As my hon. Friend knows, we continue to keep that under review, although we have no pleasant, rather present—pleasant, or present—plans to change the law.
Of course, the Inland Revenue must not act unlawfully, but my understanding is that the code of practice makes it clear that if the error is on the part of the Government rather than the recipient, there is not a recovery. [Hon. Members: "No."] I will look carefully at the point that the hon. Gentleman makes and come back to him.
I understand that my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Defence has already made it clear that the Government will listen to hon. Members before making any decisions on replacing Trident. I also have to say to my hon. Friend that no decisions on replacing Trident have yet been taken, but these are likely to be necessary in the current Parliament. It is too early to rule in or to rule out any particular option. As we set out in our manifesto, we are committed to retaining the United Kingdom's independent nuclear deterrent, but I am sure that there will be plenty of opportunities to discuss that before the final decision is taken.
The Prime Minister told the European Parliament last week:
"I am a passionate pro-European. I always have been . . . In 1983, when I was the last candidate in the UK to be selected shortly before that election and when my party had a policy of withdrawing from Europe, I told the selection conference that I disagreed with the policy."
However, in his election address for that very same election—I have a copy here—he said:
"We'll negotiate a withdrawal from the E.E.C. which has drained our natural resources and destroyed jobs."
Which was his true opinion—the one he expressed in private or the one he expressed in public?
As I think I explained, it was, indeed, the party's policy to withdraw from Europe in 1983, and I stood on that policy. However, it is also true that I told the selection conference that I did not agree with that policy.
I was asking the right hon. Gentleman about his personal election address at that election and about two completely different views that he expressed within days of each other. He is doing the same now. On 8 June, he said that the UK rebate would remain and would not be negotiated away—"Period." Two days later, he said everything was open to debate as long as there was a fundamental review of the common agricultural policy. Now he talks of negotiating on the rebate in exchange for some promise of discussions on the CAP in 2008. On which of those shifting positions will he take a stand?
I can assure the right hon. and learned Gentleman that, as I have said before, the rebate remains because the reason for the rebate remains. Of course, if we get rid of the common agricultural policy and we change the reason why the rebate is there, the case for the rebate changes. [Interruption.] Well, that is obviously right. The rebate is there because the common agricultural policy distorts EU expenditure. Or is the right hon. and learned Gentleman saying that, even if we get rid of the common agricultural policy, we should still have the full rebate?
Does the Prime Minister not understand the difference between talking about reform of the CAP and getting rid of the CAP? On 8 June, he said that the UK rebate would remain and would not be negotiated away—"Period." Two weeks later he boasts to the European Parliament:
"I am the only British leader that has ever said I would put the rebate on the table."
Does it not all prove that, with this Prime Minister, old habits die hard?
No, no, no—I have not finished yet. In 1983, the Prime Minister told his selection committee in Sedgefield one thing and the electors the opposite. In 2005, he tells the House of Commons one thing and the European Parliament the opposite. When will he learn that he cannot carry on saying one thing to one audience and the opposite to another?
In my statement to the House after the European Council, I made clear our position on the rebate—that we were prepared to put the rebate on the table provided that reform of the common agricultural policy was carried out. So, I think that the right hon. and learned Gentleman has woken up a bit late, 10 days later, to that proposition. Let me say something else to him. It is of course important that we have a consistent position on Europe, but if we are trading inconsistencies on Europe, I think he is the man who voted for the Maastricht treaty, is he not? And I think he actually voted against a referendum on the Maastricht treaty, am I right? Something about glasshouses and stones comes to mind.
When my right hon. Friend meets the G8 leaders in Scotland, will he particularly impress on the President of the United States and the Prime Minister of Japan that their common agricultural policies are every bit as pernicious as the European ones? Their agri-protectionism and dumping of products on the third world cause great harm to the economic prospects of people in developing countries. Will my right hon. Friend tell them that without some movement, in particular from the United States, the chances of reaching a successful Doha round completion in December are, to put it mildly, quite thin? We need movement from Europe and my right hon. Friend is taking a lead on that, but can he ask President Bush to join him in moving American agricultural policy away from its ultra-protectionist position?
My hon. Friend is right; it is not just the European Union that has protectionist agricultural policies, and we need to get rid of that protectionism whether it is in Europe, the United States or Japan. Of course, the difference in terms of the US and Japan is that we are not paying for their agricultural policies; however, in respect of developing countries my hon. Friend is absolutely right. We need more open trade and an opening up of markets generally, and an end to trade-distorting subsidies that are the real problem faced by the poorest countries.
We are of course giving them the means. In fact, as opposed to a Conservative Government who cut defence spending by 30 per cent.—[Interruption.] Oh yes, and the hon. Gentleman supported those cuts of 30 per cent. We are actually increasing defence spending, including major new procurement of vessels for the Royal Navy, so we shall take no lessons about either Trafalgar or the Royal Navy from him.
Order. I think that the Prime Minister can answer now.
Well, I agree anyway. The work being done by Seb Coe, Keith Mills and the 2012 team is absolutely magnificent and we can be really proud of the bid that has been put forward by the UK for the Olympic Games. It will be a tremendous event not just for London but the whole of the country. I think there is tremendous enthusiasm. We have a strong technical bid and the most powerful part of it is the legacy that it would leave, not only for London but for sport in this country and for the spirit of the Olympic movement.
Sir Patrick Cormack.
Hear, hear.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. As every Member of this House, including the Prime Minister and, indeed, you Sir, Mr. Speaker, could have been faced with little local difficulties similar to my own, will the Prime Minister and his Government look with sympathy upon the ten-minute Bill that I will present to the House to address those difficulties?
First of all, I will always look with sympathy upon the hon. Gentleman—[Laughter.] Well, there are not many hon. Members who would get more of a welcome from most Members than the hon. Gentleman. I will certainly look carefully at what he says, although I honestly do not know the answer at the present time. I understand that he has found himself in a strange and difficult situation, but as his presence here today demonstrates, he has overcome it.
North-West Leicestershire
I have no current plans to do so, but may well in the future.
Residents of the council estates in North-West Leicestershire, such as the one on which I grew up, are very pleased with the progress made since 1997 in such areas as education, employment, health and pensions, but they are baffled by the direction of housing policy. Will the Prime Minister come with me to talk to those tenants and explain why they are facing a coerced stock transfer away from a good and successful local authority to a landlord that is likely to be less responsive, less affordable and much less accountable? Will he ask his deputy to come to the parliamentary council housing group in this place on a similar mission?
I thank my hon. Friend for his kind words about our achievements since 1997, but no one is coerced—[Interruption.] That is the case because there is a ballot for these transfers. Tenants benefit because housing associations are able to secure more investment than is usually available from the local council or Government grant. Actually, £6.5 billion has been levered in from the private sector through the stock transfer and the 61 schemes announced last week should deliver a further £3 billion of investment. We should celebrate the fact that by 2010, 2 million homes will have been brought up to the decent homes standard. However, that cannot be done simply through the old local authority route. There must be a mix of provision and, as I say, stock transfers occur only when tenants have actually voted for them—they take the final decision.
HIV/AIDS Treatment
As was made clear in our manifesto, we are pressing for universal access to AIDS treatment—in fact, by 2010. However, to make progress we need the international community to work together to help to ensure that there are enough health clinics, doctors, nurses and drugs to reach all people with AIDS in the poorest countries.
The Prime Minister is of course right, but does he realise that the UK is poaching thousands of doctors and nurses from sub-Saharan Africa without any form of restitution, such as specific funding or sending our own manpower back? Indeed, the Government are telling British doctors not to treat the very small number of African patients with HIV who have no status in this country and are forcing them to go back to countries in which they have very little chance of treatment, and thus, most likely, to their death. How can the Prime Minister claim moral leadership on the matter with G8 leaders when our current policy and practice appears to be to steal the doctors and reject the patients? Will he change his policy—
There is no policy to steal doctors and nurses from developing countries. There is a code of practice to which we adhere that ensures that we do not do such a thing. If many of the people who come to this country were not coming here, I am afraid that they would not be staying in their own countries—that is the problem—because they would simply be going elsewhere. On the hon. Gentleman's point about turning away some people with HIV/AIDS from the national health service here, he will know that there has been a lot of concern about people coming here to be treated, so we have to be careful about that as well.
It would be grossly unfair to imply, as the hon. Gentleman did, that this country has not been taking a lead on HIV/AIDS. We have made huge investment in the global health fund. Nearly 1 million people now receive AIDS treatment, in part as a result of the work done by this country, and we are leading the international commitment to get action on both drugs and health clinics and the staffing that the poorest countries need. However, that will not be helped, frankly, by refusing to take anyone from the continent of Africa in circumstances in which those people have already made the decision to leave their own countries.
Engagements
I congratulate my hon. Friend's constituents on raising the funds for seven fishing vessels for a Sri Lankan village, in particular those of her constituents who themselves face many problems because of changes in the fishing industry. It is an extraordinary example of how incredibly generous people in this country have been. I assure my hon. Friend that we will continue to work with others in the EU and elsewhere to achieve a sustainable fishing industry for our own country, but her constituents deserve the congratulations of us all for the magnificent charity that they have undertaken.
Point of Order
On a point of order, Mr. Speaker. We all accept that the difficult circumstances of terrorism that we now face lead to the Prime Minister requiring increased security: the happy days when Prime Ministers such as Sir John Major could occasionally walk from Downing street to the House of Commons have gone. However, the level of security now surrounding the Prime Minister's entourage making the journey here is now causing real inconvenience to the general public, as all access roads to Parliament square are closed for many minutes. Perhaps more relevant to you, Mr. Speaker, that means that Members of Parliament are also inhibited from making the journey to the House of Commons. Today, it was clear that the police officer who tried to stop me accessing the House had no idea of the Sessional Order that we passed on 23 November, as we do at the start of every Parliament, and he did not intend to allow me to pass. Can you examine this problem as a matter of some urgency, Mr. Speaker? I believe that other hon. Members were detained in their cars and were unable to reach the House.
The hon. Gentleman knows that I will not discuss security on the Floor of the House, but I shall consider the complaint that he has put on the record and get back to him privately.
Further to that point of order, Mr. Speaker. I do not know whether you are aware that Parliament square is now sealed off for 15 or 20 minutes before the Prime Minister is due to arrive here and that no traffic can get in or out of the square during that time. I was in a car in the square and was prevented from reaching Parliament. Although one is sympathetic in view of the security problems, the present arrangements are reminiscent of those that were enjoyed by members of the Politburo in the former Soviet Union.
I cannot comment on the latter point, but if Parliament square is sealed off for 20 minutes, that seems excessive. I shall look into the matter and I thank the hon. Gentlemen for raising it.
Opposition Day
[3rd Allotted Day]
NHS Dentistry and Primary Health Care
I have selected the amendment in the name of the Prime Minister.
I beg to move,
That this House notes with concern the crisis in NHS dentistry, together with problems in accessing other primary care services; recognises that many dentists chose to undertake more private practice as a consequence of the new contract introduced under the Conservatives in 1990 and the subsequent reduction in dentists' fees in 1992; notes that the Conservative government closed two dental schools; further notes that the number of adults registered with an NHS dentist fell by five million between 1994 and 1998; recalls the Prime Minister's pledge in 1999 that 'everyone within the next two years will be able once again to see an NHS dentist just by phoning NHS Direct', but notes that less than half the adult population is now registered with an NHS dentist; and calls on the Government to work with the dentistry profession to ensure that the new contract delivers more dentists spending more time working in the NHS.
As one who is relatively new to shadowing the Department of Health, it strikes me that NHS dentistry is a subject that I can get my teeth into—[Hon. Members: "Oh!"] I should add that it is good to have a Minister of the Crown responding to the debate. The Minister will know that all is not well in the world of dentistry. At oral questions—appropriately enough—a couple of weeks ago, the first question was about dentistry in south-west Devon, the seventh was about dentistry in Hertfordshire, the eighth about dentistry in the Isle of Wight, the 10th about dentistry in Milton Keynes and the 17th about dentistry in Leicestershire.
As the hon. Gentleman has just mentioned Milton Keynes, I thought that I would update him on the situation. After asking that question, I visited the brand-new practice that has opened by Milton Keynes station. Its wonderful facilities provide well over 7,500 new places for NHS patients through the personal dental services contract. I am immensely grateful to the Labour Government for providing that practice, as are my constituents. I am sure that Liberal Democrat Milton Keynes council will pass that news on to the hon. Gentleman.
I am delighted for the hon. Lady and her constituents, but I wonder whether she has read the Labour amendment. Being a reasonable man, I did so, thinking that if it was good, solid stuff I might vote for it. It includes a surprisingly long litany of all the good things that the Government have done for dentistry, but in the final sentence it congratulates
"the Government for this investment and programme of reform that has delivered a better quality of life for staff, and improved services for all patients".
I find that incredible. I read Government amendments with the aid of an "out-of-touchness" meter. Most Government amendments are only a little out of touch, but this one is completely off the scale, if the Government genuinely believe that over the past eight years they have improved dentistry for all patients.
As usual, the hon. Gentleman is making an excellent speech. Following the last intervention, is he aware that since I raised the lack of NHS dentistry in south Devon two weeks ago, we have not had any more NHS dentists? I am not pleased with the Labour Government, who have failed to deliver on a clear promise in 1999.
I can feel a Liberal Democrat survey coming on. [Interruption.] Indeed, and a petition—perhaps that will come later.
There is clearly a substantial problem with NHS dentistry, and I am grateful for the hon. Gentleman's friendly intervention.
I remind the House that the rot set in—if I can use that phrase—some years ago. It is widely accepted that the problem started in the early 1990s, when dentistry fees and contracts were changed. The change was well intentioned—instead of dentists simply receiving a set amount for every filling or treatment, there was a per patient element, which undermined the inducement to do more work just for the sake of it. The thinking was right, but the implementation failed because budgets spiralled. Only a couple of years later, dentists' fees were cut and, as a result, they started to leave the NHS. The National Audit Office says that
"in the early 1990s, many dentists reduced their commitment to the NHS".
A long-term problem has therefore developed under successive Governments of both larger parties.
Will the hon. Gentleman give way?
If the hon. Lady would allow me to develop my argument a little, I shall certainly give way.
The situation was probably not helped in 1992 by the previous Government's decision to close two dental schools. The Conservatives sometimes demand more NHS dentistry and more places in dental schools. I do not know whether dental treatment generates amnesia, but they display plenty of it on the subject. In 1997, a bright, shiny, new Government came to power, with all sorts of new ideas. Immediately, they introduced an Act of Parliament—if in doubt, legislate. The National Health Service (Primary Care) Act 1997 created personal dental services—so called because no person can access them—with the aim of trying to tackle the legacy of a decline in NHS dentistry. Two years later, we were given something that everyone fears—a promise from the Prime Minister, who said in 1999 that
"everyone within the next two years will be able . . . to see an NHS dentist just by phoning NHS direct".
It is not obvious how one could see a dentist by phoning NHS Direct, but we were promised that everyone would be able to do so two years after 2001. Six years later, however, NHS dental registrations are at low levels, and there is little sign of an upturn.
Does the hon. Gentleman agree with the hon. Member for Sutton and Cheam (Mr. Burstow) that there is not a magic solution to fix NHS dentistry? Is he likely to give us any magic solutions today, and are there any attempts by the Liberal Democrats to help solve the problems with dentistry? Are we likely to hear, for example, anything about the introduction of personal dental plans, as promised in their manifesto? I should be grateful to hear something positive from the Liberal Democrats for once.
I congratulate the hon. Lady on the way she read that out. One of the themes that we will be developing is the fact that the present problems are of long-term origin—
Indeed. Because of that, the Government on day 1 in 1997 should have been tackling those problems. For example, it takes five or six years to train a dentist, so if they had got on with it on day 1, we would not now have a shortage of dentists, but only now are they talking about expanding places for dentists. There are no quick fixes—I agree with my hon. Friend the Member for Sutton and Cheam (Mr. Burstow), who researched the matter thoroughly. It takes time to train dentists, which is why the Government's lack of effective action over eight years is all the more culpable.
We had the 1999 pledge and another set of proposals in 2002. Five years through the new Labour Government, we were still in trouble, so we got "Options for Change"—another set of
"radical reforms of NHS dental services".
The more one sees the word "radical", the less is substantively changing. We had had the Health and Social Care Act 2001, primary care trust commissioning and so on. The idea of a new dental contract, which is the key to the whole issue, was due to be implemented in April just gone, but that did not happen. It was postponed, first until October, then until next April. One of the reasons for that was the dental profession's lack of trust of the Government. The failure to negotiate a new dental contract was described by a dentist to whom I spoke recently as the best recruiting sergeant for Denplan that he has ever come across.
Is the hon. Gentleman aware that despite the Prime Minister's promises, hundreds of my constituents have no access to dentists? They are forced to go private and spend many hundreds of pounds to get treatment that the Government have a responsibility to provide. Is it not a bit rich for the hon. Gentleman to be lectured by the hon. Member for Islington, South and Finsbury (Ms Thornberry) about dentist provision, when you have failed miserably and we are facing yet another of the Prime Minister's—
Order. The Speaker never fails miserably at anything. I call Mr. Webb.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I echo that, but the hon. Gentleman makes a good point. We get the promises and the rhetoric. He may not have read the Labour manifesto of 2005, which promises:
"We will undertake a fundamental review of the scope and resourcing of NHS dentistry."
So here we are, eight years on, and what are we to get? A review. Am I missing something here? It has taken so long to get to the point of a review—yet another reform, yet another radical change. I hope Ministers will tell us what the plans are. Did they know in April, when they published that manifesto, what they had in mind?
I thank the hon. Gentleman, my constituency neighbour, for giving way. What obligation does he think there is on the dentistry profession to work in the NHS? Like him, I believe in the NHS, and it greatly saddens me how many dentists have willingly gone private. They ought to come back into the NHS. How does he think that will happen?
Many dentists share the hon. Gentleman's and my commitment to the NHS, and are moving out of it with great reluctance. I have come across many who have hung in there while many more have gone private, because they believe in the principle, but the Government have made it impossible for them to carry on.
My hon. Friend is making an incisive speech. Many members of the dental profession have, as he says, reluctantly moved out of the NHS, not because of the financial considerations, but because they are not able to provide the professional service to their patients that they believe they should be providing. That is why they have sought an alternative way of providing a service to their patients.
My hon. Friend is right. Many dentists who went into dentistry to provide a quality service are finding that they cannot do so within the constraints of the existing NHS arrangements.
What is the root problem? Clearly, the fact that there are not enough dentists. It is not a complex matter. The Government's work force review stated that there were 2,000 dentists short, but that that number would rise to 5,000 over the next few years. Given that it takes about six years to train a dentist, how will we bridge that gap? The work force review did not take account of the impact of the new contracts, which could make matters worse. How many dentists short do the Government believe that we are? What is the grand plan?
The Government said that they wanted 1,000 more dentists by October, but Lord Warner suggested in another place that they were only half way there, yet we are only a few months away. Will the Government hit that target of 1,000 new dentists? They speak of more training places, which are clearly welcome, but the number of people who teach dentists is falling. I hope that the Minister will tell us what she is doing to ensure that the clinical experts who teach the next generation of dentists are there. Like many parts of the NHS, dental schools are in financial deficit. If they have to cut corners and spend less clinical time with new dentists, can we be confident that dentists will be as well trained as they need to be?
The Government strategy is essentially a temporary filling. It is to employ overseas dentists—from Poland, Brazil, India and wherever they can get them.
In Shrewsbury, we are getting more dentists, but the vast majority are from Poland. As a Polish speaker, I was recently invited to meet them. They are highly qualified, hard-working people. However, the Government should do more to train people in this country to provide the service rather than poaching dentists from Poland.
The hon. Gentleman makes an interesting point. Dentists from this country say that dentists from other countries clearly have different practices and procedures. I think the phrase was, "Brazilians don't do root canal work." Different dentists with different levels of training and different practices are coming into the country. I mean no disrespect to many of the highly qualified dentists who come here, but it is only a short-term response to the problem.
Perhaps an obvious symptom of a system that is not working is what happens when a new NHS dentist service opens in an area. There are queues around the block. Hon. Members will know that I am a regular reader of The Sun, which on Monday printed a photograph of a queue around the block for a new dentist in Manchester. The article states:
"Hundreds of patients queue for four hours in the rain—to register at an NHS dentist.
People came from 50 miles away . . . Bill Woodman, 70 . . . said, 'I knew it would be busy—so I started queuing hours before it opened.'"
What does it say about us when pensioners have to queue for hours simply to get what should be a basic right: entitlement to NHS dentistry?
Will the hon. Gentleman give way?
No, I have already given way to the hon. Lady.
The Government amendment states that all patients have got a better deal. How can the Minister put her name to it? How has the 70-year-old gentleman from Prestwich got a better deal if he has to queue around the block even to get his name on the list? It is unacceptable, and redolent of what happens in a third-world country. I am embarrassed when British people have to queue around the block simply to register with a dentist.
Does the hon. Gentleman honestly expect hon. Members and people outside the House to take him seriously when he takes advice from a Conservative Member, whose party when in government closed at least two dental schools and cut fees, and from The Sun about queues for NHS dentists? Today, I found on the internet at least 10 dentists in Tooting who are willing to take NHS patients.
Even the Government would think that that was a long way to go to get a dentist.
Unlike in Shrewsbury, the number of dentists in Bournemouth has fallen. It is interesting to note that some hon. Members say that the number of dentists has fallen and others say that it has risen. The places where the number has risen appear to be Labour constituencies—I do not know whether that is significant. However, to revert to standards of dentistry and age, pensioners are especially affected by the number of dentists—that is certainly true of Bournemouth. They require more treatment because of their age and the state of their teeth. Does the hon. Gentleman agree that those people have been particularly affected by the lack of dentistry in this country?
The hon. Gentleman is right. I came across a startling statistic recently—it may or may not be true—which was that one in seven people in this country have no teeth of their own. That would predominantly involve older people, as the hon. Gentleman rightly says, and for those people, quality of access to dental services is not a luxury but an absolute necessity.
A 75-year-old constituent wrote to me recently to say that she had been quoted £3,000 for a pair of dentures, as she could not find a local dentist who would treat her on the NHS. These are the people who can least afford such costs. Is my hon. Friend aware of this happening in other parts of the country?
We have become increasingly aware of the patchy nature of dental coverage. In some places there have been improvements, but many people still face just the kind of problem that my hon. Friend has outlined.
Two in five children and more than half of all adults are not registered with an NHS dentist. I cannot believe the scale of this. There was a fall of 3 million in the number of people registered between 1997 and 1998.
Does my hon. Friend share my concern that, if the NHS Direct helpline provides a parent with young children with the name of a dentist 10 miles away—in my part of the world, that would probably involve two bus journeys, which can take a long time—the parent might not be motivated to register with that dentist?
My hon. Friend makes a good point, and I shall come in a moment to the issue of NHS Direct pointing people in the direction of dental services that are often not local.
Will the hon. Gentleman give way?
If the hon. Gentleman will forgive me, I want to make some progress.
There has been a dramatic fall in registrations, which is now at best levelling off. At oral questions recently, the Minister of State, Department of Health, the hon. Member for Doncaster, Central (Ms Winterton), said that
"there has been a levelling off. It is early days, so the extent to which it is sustainable is not yet clear".—[Official Report, 14 June 2005; Vol. 435, c. 143.]
So the Government's grand, vaulting ambition is to halt the decline and to hope that that is sustainable. But what is their long-term vision? What is their grand plan? What was their manifesto promise? What is their goal? Where do the Government want to end up?
Will the hon. Gentleman give way?
No, I have said that I want to make some progress.
One of the problems resulting from the lack of registration is a lack of preventive work being carried out. Surely if we believe in anything, we believe that the best thing of all is to prevent people from getting bad teeth in the first place. It is far cheaper, and far better for the individuals concerned.
Will the hon. Gentleman give way?
No, I have said that I want to make some progress.
The National Audit Office reports that the incidence of tooth decay among five-year-olds is now gradually starting to get worse. Long-term general improvements in public health are now starting to get worse at the margins, which is a symptom of the lack of registration, because if people are not registered with a dentist, they will not have routine check-ups and the problems will not be spotted early.
Will the hon. Gentleman give way?
No.
A consequence of the lack of preventive work is that the problems build up, and people then need emergency cover, which is far worse for everyone. Yet access to emergency cover is not brilliant either. A recent Which? report found that half of England's dentists were unable to see patients requiring urgent treatment for toothache, and that the majority of the rest would not see them on the NHS. So, half the dentists will not see such patients at all, and the other half will probably ask them to pay, if not through the nose, at least a substantial amount.
Will the hon. Gentleman give way?
No, I have said that I want to make some progress.
The conclusion of the Which? report on emergency access to dentistry is:
"At best, many people needing urgent care are forced to go private, often at considerable cost. At worst, serious problems could go untreated, at significant risk to the general health of individuals concerned."
We have a real problem with emergency access. The Prime Minister has said that the answer to the problem is NHS Direct. The number of calls to NHS Direct about dentistry has risen by three quarters over the past couple of years. That is clearly a symptom not, as the Government's amendment to the motion suggests, of everyone getting a better service, but of far more people having to turn to the hotline number because they cannot get the regular service that they used to have. I have another interesting statistic here, and I apologise if Members know it already: toothache is now the fourth most common reason for ringing NHS Direct. That, too, is a symptom of a system that is not working.
What does NHS Direct have to do to keep the Prime Minister's promise? It has to give the caller the name of a dentist, according to what are called "locally agreed standards", but what does that mean? In a rural area, that means a dentist within 50 miles. That could involve someone making a 100-mile round trip to see a dentist in a rural area, yet it gets a tick in the box for the Government's targets. How absurd! We also find that the data on the website might not be accurate or reliable, and that the Government are not checking whether people are getting the service that they need, because they are not following up the inquiries. A person might ring up NHS Direct and be given the name of a dentist, but the Government do not then monitor whether the person is able to access that dentist, whether they actually do so, or whether they register with them.
The Government have said that, because there is a struggle to get enough NHS dentists, they will introduce something called "dental access centres". There are already 40 or 50 of these in various cities, and anyone who does not have a dentist can turn up at one. But are they good value for money? Surely anyone who goes to one because there is nowhere else to go will think so, but is this as good as seeing a dentist regularly? A dentist I spoke to recently told me that, typically, it cost £50 to deal with one NHS patient, while the cost at one of these dental access centres is £160 per patient. So three regular NHS patients could be treated at a surgery for the price of treating one at an access centre. This is a very expensive sticking plaster solution to the underlying problem.
Will the hon. Gentleman give way?
No, I want to keep moving on.
One of the unspoken issues today has been charging for dental treatment. Charging is a central feature of NHS dentistry, unlike in most areas of the NHS, in that people are already paying very large sums of money for their treatment. The Government commissioned a review into charging, which was produced in March 2004. They are still thinking about it. They have had a year, and an election, since then, but they are still not telling us their conclusions. They have promised us a response shortly, and I hope that they will publish not only their response but the review itself.
The danger is that the Government will fill the gap with charges. In other words, they could say, "We've put some money into the NHS. It's not enough. Dentists are going to get less income because they are doing fewer of the unnecessary treatments that they used to be paid for. If their income falls, where is the filling going to come from? The answer is that it is going to come from charges." That is the danger. Will the Minister tell us whether that is the Government's strategy? Charges are not the answer to this problem. We are keen on prevention rather than cure, but charging people the earth will simply put them off.
The central issue now is the new contract for dentists. Current funding rules have resulted in dentists feeling that they are on a treadmill, trying to get through as many patients as they possibly can. If the new contracts are inflexible, however, more dentists will leave the NHS. This is not my scaremongering; the National Audit Office has said that
"given the scepticism of some dentists, compounded by a lack of detail on how the new system will operate, we consider that there is a risk that dentists will reduce their NHS commitments, as they did in the 1990s".
A recent British Dental Association survey found that six out of 10 of the dentists remaining in the NHS are thinking of leaving, and that only a tiny fraction think that, on the basis of the Government's proposals, they would do more NHS work.
The hon. Gentleman took an intervention earlier in which it was pointed out that many dentists would like to work in the national health service, but have moved out so that they can provide the full spectrum of care. Does he believe that NHS dentistry should provide the same full spectrum of care that a patient would receive from a private dentist?
My judgment is that the concept of the national health service that we apply elsewhere should also be the starting point for NHS dentistry. In other words, we need to get to the idea that people have a basic entitlement to it. For too many people, that entitlement exists in theory but not in practice, with only half of all adults being registered with an NHS dentist. At the moment, the right to an NHS dentist is like the right to eat at the Ritz; we all have such a right in theory, but in practice we cannot exercise it. If that entitlement were to cover the whole breadth of treatments—including, for example, cosmetic dentistry—it could result in a very expensive commitment, but there must be a basic right to core NHS dental services. That must be the principle.
In the light of the hon. Gentleman's last statement, will he confirm that the Liberal Democrats would give totally free dentistry to everyone on the NHS?
No, and as the hon. Gentleman will see if he reads the record, that is not what I said. One of the key principles is a foundation entitlement to NHS dentistry services, but as I made clear to his hon. Friend the Member for Mole Valley (Sir Paul Beresford), boundary lines will have to be drawn. As he should know, however, we do not currently have such a core entitlement to NHS dentistry.
When the National Audit Office examined Britain, it found that NHS dental coverage was worse in the north of England—we saw an example from Manchester in The Sun. I have therefore taken just one case study of a northern constituency, Cheadle. To find out the level of NHS dental coverage there, I typed "Cheadle" into the national health service website, as any resident might do. It came up with the names of 18 NHS dentists, which I thought was great. The first one, however, was not accepting any new NHS patients for treatment, while the second was offering an emergency dental service only, and accepting no new NHS patients for treatment. Nor was the third accepting any new NHS patients for treatment, and that was the case all the way through to the 18th on the list. So not one of the dentists that the Department's own website came up with was taking NHS patients. How can it be, therefore, that according to the Government amendment, all patients are getting better dental care under this Government?
To pursue the issue further, our campaigners in Cheadle, led by Mark Hunter, phoned 13 NHS dentists in Cheadle to find out what is behind those figures. The answers are revealing. Based on those calls, their impression is of
"a lot of NHS practices working full pelt and operating to what they consider their full capacity, which is why they are closing their books . . . to further NHS patients."
It is important that the Government Front-Bench team hear what dentists are saying about the current situation. One of those dentists said that they were "inundated". Another said that there were
"too many people and not enough money".
Another said:
"The situation is now hopeless—it's gone too far".
There was a sense of being beleaguered, and that the Government were not with them in providing a quality service. Another dentist said that the new contract was at the heart of the problem. Another said he was
"Not taking on any more because fees are fixed on existing patients."
Another said, "It's the sheer numbers". There is a sense that numbers are at the heart of the problem.
Has the local dental association in Cheadle taken steps to meet regularly the primary care trust to discuss the difficulties that they face? In very few areas of the country are local dental associations doing so.
The hon. Gentleman will be aware that primary care trusts are taking on the commissioning role for dentistry, so it seems implausible that they are not having such dialogue. When we talk to dentists, however, we get feedback that they feel beleaguered and cannot cope. It is not a lack of commitment to the NHS, but a feeling that they cannot do the right thing by their patients by staying in the NHS.
Will the hon. Gentleman give way?
I shall conclude my remarks in a moment.
One of the most worrying findings of the research undertaken by Mark Hunter and the team was that most of the dental practices to whom they spoke were taking on children only if their parents were existing patients. Given the drop in adult registrations, we are storing up trouble for our children.
rose—
I am about to conclude my remarks.
One of those dental practices would only take children under the age of three. We have therefore reached an extraordinary stage. What strikes me most is that dentists are telling us that they must turn away people who come to register, and who are in genuine need, because the provision and capacity are not there. The fact that the Government can table an amendment saying that everybody is getting a better service marks an extraordinary level of complacency and shows that they are not in touch.
In conclusion, this is a long-term problem that started under the previous Government but has been neglected for far too long under this Government. If it takes five or six years to train a dentist, action should have started years ago. Desperate measures are now being taken to fill the gap while dentists come on-stream. The normal understanding is that the NHS is based on two basic principles: that there is universal local access and that it is free at the point of use. That is not the experience of the majority of our constituents with regard to NHS dentistry, and this Government should be held to account for it.
I beg to move, To leave out from "House" to the end of the Question, and to add instead thereof:
"welcomes the Government's record levels of investment in the National Health Service, with expenditure set to rise to over £92 billion in 2007–08; congratulates the Government and NHS staff for improvements in primary care; notes that the Government's ambitions for NHS dentistry will deliver a modernised, high quality primary dental service; congratulates the Government on supporting this with a record level of investment, which has been increased by 19 per cent., or £250 million a year, over 2003–04 levels; further welcomes the increase in NHS primary care dentists from 16,700 in 1997 to 20,192 in April, the creation of 53 dental access centres across England treating some 400,000 patients a year and an NHS support team to improve access to dentistry in areas where there are problems, and the introduction of additional capital grants of £35 million to fund practice improvements; and further congratulates the Government for this investment and programme of reform that has delivered a better quality of life for staff, and improved services for all patients, regardless of their ability to pay, true to the founding principles of the NHS."
I know that NHS dentistry has been a key concern of many right hon. and hon. Members in recent years and I am glad of the opportunity to explain to the House the situation and what the Government are doing to reform and modernise NHS dentistry for the benefit of patients and dentists.
First, I want to set out some basic facts about dentistry. The number of dentists registered with the Dental Practice Board has risen from 16,700 in 1997 to more than 20,100 at the end of April 2005. Courses of NHS treatment have risen from 24.6 million to 32 million in 2004–05. In addition, the oral health of the UK population, which the hon. Member for Northavon (Steve Webb) mentioned, is improving. Dental decay for 12 to 15-year-olds, for example, is at its lowest levels since records began—levels that are lower than those in all European countries.
Is the Minister aware that my constituency is part of the North West London strategic health authority, which has among the lowest levels of children registering with an NHS dentist anywhere in the country, with more than half not registered with an NHS dentist?
Yes, I am aware that that is the situation in the hon. Lady's constituency. Interestingly, it is true that many parts of London do not have shortages of dentists, as my hon. Friend the Member for Tooting (Mr. Khan) pointed out. One problem is getting people to register, and encouraging people to register where they are not doing so is part of many of the oral health and public health strategies that we are considering.
At the height of NHS dentistry registration, 58 to 60 per cent. of people were registered. A certain number of people have always not registered and the task is to ensure that they do so in future. That must be combined with water fluoridation policies, because in areas where water is fluoridated, the number of children without tooth decay has risen by 15 per cent. As right hon. and hon. Members know, the Water Act 2003 allows fluoridation of the remaining water supply where there is local support, which will further improve the oral health of the nation.
Does my hon. Friend agree that local partnerships are crucial in delivering services? The quality of the local PCT is critical. In Shropshire, Mike Prendergast has done a tremendous job in developing a dental action plan, and new practices are opening up on the sites of regeneration projects. One very large new dental practice is opening in Telford in the next few months, with five of six new dental chairs providing thousands of new places for NHS patients. Can she therefore confirm that partnerships are important, and that we need to be positive about encouraging people to register? Some of the stories of doom and gloom are problematic.
My hon. Friend is right. When I visited his constituency, it was encouraging to see the action that the primary care trust was taking, in partnership with other agencies. There is no doubt that, for example, local authorities can be helpful in examining local action plans with primary care trusts to see what they can do, even in planning terms, to assist with registration. As he said, thousands of new places are coming on stream in his area, with encouragement from him. It makes a difference locally to know that Members of Parliament are working with primary care trusts.
Can the Minister give the figures behind the increased number of registered dentists? Do they confirm that the number of foreign-born or foreign-trained dentists is growing considerably as a proportion of the total? If, as I believe, that is the case, would the Minister be willing to go with me to talk to the dean of Guy's, King's and St Thomas's dental school, just across the road at London Bridge? The school wants to train more people, and more people want to be dentists, but we are still withholding opportunities from those who want to train here, work here and service the NHS here.
We have already increased the number of training places, as can be seen from the number of new dentists. There is no doubt that more are working for the private sector, and I shall say more about that shortly. As for international recruitment to the NHS, I hope that it is increasing, because part of our strategy is to provide better NHS care. Those people are very welcome. They are doing an excellent job in all parts of the country, and I hope that all Members of Parliament will encourage the trend.
The hon. Gentleman suggested that I meet the dean of the dental school. From next October, a further 170 places are being found at dental schools. As the hon. Gentleman knows, it takes about five years to train a dentist. That is the reason for our strategy.
Despite the changes in the number of dentists and the improvement in oral health, there are undoubtedly problems in the NHS. The Government are determined to implement a plan of action, which I shall describe. The speech of the hon. Member for Northavon was, I have to say, full of holes, but the crowning moment came when he set out the roots of the problem created by the Conservatives. As he said, the contract that they introduced was extremely unpopular with the dental profession. It gave dentists incentives to undertake invasive treatment rather than adopting a preventive approach—the drill-and-fill treadmill, as it is known. Dentists' fees were cut in 1992 and two dental schools were closed. The drift to the private sector began, and I am sorry to say that it has continued.
Is my hon. Friend as surprised as I am by the failure of the hon. Member for Northavon (Steve Webb) to tell us how many dentists the Liberal Democrats would employ, how many patients they would register, how much any of that would cost and how it would be paid for? Was that not the same menu without prices—the same list of uncosted commitments—with which the hon. Gentleman and his party always present us, and did it not provide further evidence of why no one will take anything that they say about this subject seriously?
My hon. Friend is right. As usual, the Liberal Democrats are quick to jump on the bandwagon but not so quick to come up with a solution. Perhaps they are following a new trend in making uncosted spending commitments. Their new habit is not having a policy at all. We were astonished by the so-called alternative programme that they presented to us.
There is no doubt that the drift of NHS dentists to the private sector has caused real problems in parts of the country. That is why in 2002, following wide consultation with the dental profession among others, we published the paper "Options for Change", which was implemented through the Health and Social Care Act 2003. I will explain how those measures will fundamentally reform and modernise our dentistry system.
My hon. Friend speaks of the drift to the private sector. I believe that there is more to it than that. In my area, Dumfries and Galloway NHS trust has employed salaried dentists. When they arrive in local communities, local NHS dentists move to the private sector. That development involves economics and the marketplace, and a strong dislike of salaried dentists who arrive on the scene to treat NHS patients only. The local dentists do not like the competition.
That is an interesting point. I hope that I shall be able to explain what we are doing to make the NHS more attractive to dentists. I hope that many dentists who have received five years of detailed training at the taxpayer's expense will feel that a commitment to the NHS should come at the end of that. I hope that they will not see salaried dentists as a threat and move to the private sector, because we are trying to build an NHS dentistry system that serves all our people.
Is it not worrying that where the NHS has provided capital funds to establish a new NHS practice, as it did in Swadlincote in 2002, three years later the practice should choose to go private and retain only its core NHS commitment despite substantial public funding? That is certainly of concern to my constituents. Does my hon. Friend share their concern?
My hon. Friend is right. I looked into that when a number of Members brought it to my attention. If an NHS dentist leaves the NHS completely rather than merely reducing the number of NHS patients, the primary care trust can reclaim some of the grant. It is important for the PCT to be able to do that. However, I think that our tightening of the arrangements will prevent the same thing from happening in future.
I realise that the debate is mostly about dentistry, but it is also about primary care. Perhaps I could briefly bridge to that. In my constituency, I have campaigned for several years for expansion of the small health clinic in the town of Southwood and Ferris. Maldon and South Chelmsford primary care trust is reviewing the possibility of expansion, but as yet there is no firm plan. May I write to the Minister next week with the full background to the proposal? I hope that the campaign can be brought to fruition, because it is very important to my constituents.
Of course the hon. Gentleman can write to me next week. I am sure that he is discussing the matter with the PCT, because he knows that that is where the decisions will be made, but he is more than welcome to write to me.
I was talking about the changes that resulted from "Options for Change" and the Health and Social Care Act. They have three key elements. First, funding and commissioning responsibility will be devolved to PCTs so that they can plan local dental provision. A problem often cited by Members is that, if an NHS dentist, under the current contract, decides to leave the NHS, the local PCT has no funds to fill the gap, so to speak. The money returns to the centre and is redistributed if another NHS dentist comes in. That is not a satisfactory arrangement. The key element of our proposals is to devolve that funding and decision making, so that local PCTs have the responsibility and the funding to plan properly for NHS dentistry.
rose—
Let me deal with the second element, which is the introduction of a new contract for dentists, so that, rather than being paid for each individual treatment—we have discussed the drill-and-fill treadmill—dentists are paid for looking after individual patients, with a particular emphasis on preventive oral health advice. Thirdly, we gave a commitment to simplifying the system of patient charges, to reducing bureaucracy for dentists—another of their key complaints—and to increasing transparency for patients.
NHS dentists need give no notice at all to PCTs before they go private. The PCT in my constituency, for example—it is responsible for NHS care in my area—was given no notice that the dental practice in Longton intended to go private and, as a result, had no time to prepare an alternative strategy. Surely there should be some mechanism that forces NHS dentists to give at least a minimum period of notice if they are going into the private sector, in order to allow PCTs to plan properly and to bring in alternative dentists.
I agree and, in fact, such dentists should give approximately three months' notice to the PCT, but in practice some avoid doing so, which makes it very difficult for the PCT to plan, as my hon. Friend says. The new contract and the new way of commissioning will ease that problem. Dental leads in PCTs have been discussing with dentists their commitment to the NHS and their future plans. That has eased the situation because, as a result, they have been able to secure more notice from dentists who are thinking of leaving.
Will the Minister give way?
I want first to make some progress.
We recognise that, in certain parts of the country, access is an increasing problem. That is why we announced in 2003 the establishment of the NHS support team, which works with specific PCTs, and backed that up with £9 million-worth of additional funding. In 2004, a further £50 million was allocated to strategic health authorities to help address access problems.
rose—
I will give way one more time, to the hon. Member for Gordon (Malcolm Bruce), and then I really must move on.
I am grateful to the Minister; I recognise that I am being persistent. Does she accept that getting the right contract is likely to be the key solution to the problem if we are to avoid having a two-tier dental service in the long term? Just after the election, a dental practice in the town of Inverurie sent letters out on the Friday, stating that patients could queue on the Monday to sign up for a private plan. Some 700 people queued all day to sign up because there was no alternative. We must ensure that we bring these dentists back into the NHS or we will finish up with no NHS dental service at all.
The hon. Gentleman is right and we should also bear in mind the point that the hon. Member for Northavon made about queuing. We have made it absolutely clear to PCTs that where new NHS dentists are opening, it is important to manage the situation properly. There is no reason why lists should not be kept of people who are waiting to gain access to an NHS dentist. We have made it very clear to PCTs that we expect them to put in place systems that prevent people from being put through the indignity of queuing. Obviously, that point does not apply in this case, as the hon. Member for Gordon is talking about a dentist who gave just three days' notice that he was quitting. He will doubtless take up that issue with Scottish Ministers.
In July 2004, the then Secretary of State announced that we intended to recruit the equivalent of an additional 1,000 dentists by October 2005, through a mixture of attracting back NHS dentists and international recruitment. We also said that we would train another 170 dentists per year, starting from this October, supported by additional investment of £80 million. We announced that we would increase funding for dentistry by 19.3 per cent.—an extra £250 million—from April 2005, and that we would encourage dentists who wished to do so to move to new ways of working under the personal dental services pilot schemes.
In January 2005, in response to representations and to the National Audit Office report, we agreed to postpone implementation of the full reform package until April 2006.
Can the Minister assure those of us in the southern part of the country, in particular, that regional circumstances are being taken into account, especially in areas where costs are clearly higher? Given the affecting story that we heard from the hon. Member for Telford (David Wright) about the impact of the Minister's recent visit to his constituency, perhaps I might invite her to visit mine, so that she can see for herself the substantial problems in registration for NHS dentistry. According to a recent survey by my local newspaper, the Southern Daily Echo, not a single dentist in my constituency was prepared to take on NHS patients. Will she put in her diary the need for an urgent visit, so that we, too, can benefit from the effects that appear to have been visited on the hon. Member for Telford?
Perhaps the hon. Gentleman would like to encourage his PCT to follow the example of that of my hon. Friend the Member for Telford (David Wright), with which my hon. Friend has clearly worked very closely. The hon. Gentleman could then invite me to visit his constituency, so that we can see what his PCT has learned from another area.
As a result of extra funding, recruitment initiatives and PCT activity, a quarter of dentists—5,800 in 2,100 practices—have moved to the new personal dental services contract. That shows that dentists are attracted to ending the treatment and paperwork treadmill. Patients are benefiting from a more preventive approach and, as new PDS dentists build up their patient base, access is increasing.
My hon. Friend is correct: the PDS is making a huge difference to the provision of, and the approaches taken by, NHS dentists. It has certainly given them the confidence to invest in the future. As a result of the PDS, Roman Melnyk of the Silverdale medical practice, in Dukinfield in my constituency, is investing £80,000 of his own money, together with funding from Tameside and Glossop primary care trust. He intends to take on two extra dentists and one orthodontist, which is surely good news for the people of Dukinfield. Is my hon. Friend aware, however, that there are some delays in getting the agreements in place to take on these extra staff? Will she do all that she can to ensure that in Roman Melnyk's case—I will pass on the details—we can secure the two extra dentists and the orthodontist?
I certainly will. I am sure that the people of Dukinfield are benefiting greatly from the changes that my hon. Friend outlined, and it is good to see local PCTs taking that sort of initiative. All PDS applications are processed through the Department. Sometimes there are delays if the Department wishes to get further information in order to ensure that good quality services and value for money are being offered. There may be some delays and I shall look carefully into the points that he raised. As I said earlier, from October this year, 170 extra undergraduates are starting their dental degree and we are considering applications for a new dental school.
Since last April, the equivalent of approximately 830 additional dentists are treating NHS patients through a mixture of domestic returners, international recruits and additional NHS commitment from existing dentists. Another 117 Polish recruits are due to take up posts in England between now and the end of October, so we are well on the way to meeting the 1,000 target.
May I raise a matter peripheral to the training of dentists, but nevertheless important for the dental profession—the training and regulation of dental technicians? Will she tell us more about her thoughts on ensuring quality among dental technicians, which is crucial to providing a good dental service?
The hon. Gentleman raises an important point and we want to look further into extending the roles of the whole dental team. He may be aware that, through the section 60 order laid before the House, we are seeking ways of ensuring high-quality standards. Over and above that, we want to increase training for all members of the dental team and ensure that there is greater provision as a result of the new roles.
As I have said to many hon. Members, primary care trusts have been asked to put together action plans to deal with any particular problems. Some have experienced success stories in their constituencies. For example, in Blackburn, five German dentists started work in April looking after 10,000 extra patients and in Newhaven, Sussex, a Polish dentist started work in April on a three-year PDS contract, providing NHS care to an area where access was particularly difficult. Indeed, I understand that the hon. Member for Lewes (Norman Baker) was photographed with the new recruit. I am sorry that he is not in his place today, as we have a nice picture of him with the new dentist. My hon. Friend the Member for Milton Keynes, South-West (Dr. Starkey) mentioned domestic recruitment and the importance of getting NHS dentists back to ensure increased access for NHS patients.
As well as recruiting from Europe, we have looked into how to speed the process for people waiting to take the international qualifying exam that enables dentists from non-EU countries to practise in England. We have been working with the General Dental Council to reduce waiting times and it now takes only 12 months, instead of two years as previously, to complete all stages of the exam.
As I said earlier, we have laid before the House a section 60 order that will allow reform of the dental team so that dental therapists, hygienists and nurses can take on new roles and, in some cases, undertake some routine dental work currently carried out by dentists, thereby freeing up their time for more complicated interventions. The order will also make it easier for patients to distinguish between what work a dentist has done on the NHS and what work has been charged for privately. I am sure that many right hon. and hon. Members will have heard complaints from their constituents about failures in respect of being properly informed beforehand about what work was done on the NHS and what was done privately.
Will the Minister give way?
I want to move on, if the hon. Gentleman will forgive me.
I hope that the history and context that I have outlined make it clear that we recognise that there are problems, but that we have in place fundamental reforms to improve the system.
My hon. Friend the Member for Telford—and many hon. Members previously—asked about the Government response to Harry Cayton's report and about the details of the new contract. I shall announce next week our response to the Cayton report on patient charging and outline aspects of the new contract that we are introducing from April 2006. I hope that the House will understand that I cannot share all the details today, but I thought that it might help Members if I set out some of the principles underpinning the proposals that we will announce.
On the new dental contract to be introduced from next April, we want to encapsulate the new ways of working that are already apparent in personal dental services contracts—an end to the treatment and paperwork treadmill, more time with patients and creating the capacity for dentists to take on more NHS patients. We want to make dentistry more attractive to dentists, building on the success of PDS, which has already been enthusiastically taken up by about 29 per cent. of existing dentists. We also want to reform the system of monitoring NHS dentistry to ensure value for money, detailed information on the level of activity and high-quality service provision.
Dentists are already working with PCTs locally in many areas to make the reforms work and I certainly want that to continue. To make the contract work, we need a partnership between PCTs, local dentists and their representatives—locally and nationally—and the Department of Health. Other agencies, such as local authorities, are also relevant. I believe that the success of PDS last year shows the way forward and I am confident that the new contract will be successful.
On patient charges, the original remit of Harry Cayton's working group was to devise an improved system that would raise the same proportion of revenue and no more—approximately a third of the total expenditure—on primary care dentistry. Our response will enshrine a number of key principles. We want a system that is simpler and more transparent to both to dentists and, critically, their patients. There are currently more than 400 different items of service with associated charges, which is obviously not a straightforward system. Patients, their representatives and others tell us that dental charges are bureaucratic—a charge commonly made by dentists themselves—and not easy for patients to understand. It is often difficult to distinguish between private and NHS care.
We also want a system that reflects the new ways of working in respect of how dentists spend their time and that takes into account the National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence guidelines on recall intervals, which recommend fewer visits for regular recall and scale and polish. Dentists take the decision as to whether the patient needs to come back within three months, if the dentists are worried, extending up to 18 months if they feel that a recall is unnecessary. That represents a much more effective use of dentists' and patients' time. We also want a system that encourages preventive treatment to improve oral public health.
I am sure that many hon. Members will say, as did the hon. Member for Northavon, that it has taken a long time for the Government to respond to the report. However, it has been vital to reflect on the findings of this important report in the light of the changed patterns of treatment and ways of working that have emerged in many of the PDS pilot sites. We learned a lot from that and it has been extremely useful in shaping our response. We will discuss our proposals with the British Dental Association, as has happened in the past, and we will publish our final contractual regulations in the new few weeks. We are determined to get this right, and I believe that we will.
The principles that we will follow in the new system will make charges more transparent for patients and less bureaucratic for dentists. They will reflect new ways of working and, in particular, they will emphasise long-term oral health promotion.
The hon. Member for Northavon talked about the fundamental review. We are considering the terms of that review at present and will pay special attention to the changes that are in hand. We want to see how they are bedding down and whether they are succeeding in drawing dentists back into the NHS. Other aspects that we need to look at include increasing the commitment of dentists to the NHS during their training. We will announce other matters to be considered in due course, but we want to make sure that the reforms are welcomed by dentists and that they are attracting dentists back into the NHS. Given that the reforms have been the subject of long discussions with the dental profession, I am confident that they will be welcomed.
Will the Minister give way?
I will, as the hon. Gentleman is an expert in this area.
The Minister will have noted the points made earlier about the spectrum of NHS dentistry available for dentists to offer their patients. Are there any plans to broaden that spectrum, or are we going to stay with the core?
I am sorry, I did not catch all that question.
Earlier, there was a suggestion that one of the difficulties faced by dentists was that the broad spectrum of equipment, services, treatment and materials was not all available on the NHS. Is what the NHS offers going to be broadened or will the NHS stick to offering only a core service?
The NHS will continue to offer what is considered clinically necessary. The hon. Gentleman rightly distinguishes between the core service and some of the cosmetic treatments that are available, such as white fillings, teeth whitening and so on. We firmly believe that the NHS should continue to provide what is clinically necessary for good oral health, but it will not extend into cosmetic surgery, as that is for individuals to decide. Those services are available in the private sector, but we do not believe that they are suitable for NHS provision.
Earlier, I asked for a reassurance that the reforms would take account of the problems faced in different regions of the country, especially in respect of costs. I am told that the costs of dental provision are substantially higher in some parts of the country than in others. Will the Minister give the House the benefit of her analysis of those differences? Will they be taken into account in the reforms, and especially in the new contract? In my constituency, registration for NHS dentistry is very poor. The local newspaper found that not one dentist was prepared to take on any new NHS patients.
The hon. Gentleman needs to remember that, under the new system, commissioning is done at local level. There are always variations: for example, some dentists will be fully committed to the NHS, some will be 50 per cent. committed, while the commitment of some dentists will be lower still. The PDS system has involved negotiations with local PCTs to determine the historic amount paid to NHS dentists in that PCT area. In that sense, therefore, the new system reflects the income that dentists received previously, and we have guaranteed that that amount will continue to be paid for three years. In many cases, however, new ways of working mean that dentists' time can be freed up and that new patients can be taken on as a result.
The Government's proposed amendment makes clear our intention to improve the delivery of NHS dentistry. There is no doubt that access problems remain in parts of the country. I hope that the House will recognise that the drift away from NHS dentistry began some years ago under the previous Administration and that this Government have embarked on a programme of radical reform and modernisation backed by significant new investment.
Changes are taking place already. I am confident that, when the programme of reform is complete in April next year, we will have a service that promotes oral public health and tackles inequalities. The service will be better for both patients and dentists, and I urge the House to support the Government's amendment.
I begin by congratulating the Minister on her usual polished performance. [Hon. Members: "Oh!"] I assure the House that I have lots more like that. Unfortunately, I have to condemn the hon. Member for Northavon (Steve Webb) for scaling new heights in by-election opportunism.
In the debate, I have counted phrases such as "holes in the argument", "crowning moments", "bridging the gap" and "getting to the root" of problems. One I liked particularly, which I made up earlier on account of my recent root canal work, was "touching a raw nerve". If I may say so, that is particularly good.
I take it that the hon. Gentleman is referring to the raw nerves on the Opposition Benches. Will he apologise for his party being the root cause of the problem in the beginning?
I think that we will draw a line under that.
Reference has been made to what most Opposition Members regard as ancient history. Reports were produced in the 1970s suggesting that dental caries would decline dramatically for a number of reasons, including the fluoridation of various products, notably toothpaste. At that time, Governments of all parties had to base their plans on what the best available evidence suggested. It could not have been predicted that the incidence of dental caries would not improve as had been suggested, nor that the take-up of cosmetic surgery would increase to the point that it has characterised dentistry over the past 30 years.
The House must recognise that any party in government must base its plans for the NHS on the best available evidence. That is what both Conservative and Labour Governments in those far-off days did.
The hon. Gentleman mentioned the planning that went on in the 1970s and 1980s. Two dental schools were closed just before the 1997 general election: what planning went into that? What about the 7 per cent. cut in dentists' fees?
The fees were cut in the early 1990s, so the hon. Gentleman needs to get his facts right. The closure of the two dental schools was predicated on the predicted fall in the incidence of dental caries. I hope that when Labour Members are in opposition and looking back at the record of this Labour Government, they will be happy to say that decisions were based on the best evidence available at the time. It beggars belief that anybody would think that any party in government would be mendacious enough to close something down without evidence to support doing so. We all have to make decisions based on the finite resources available to us and in the best interests of patients. That was what was done at the time.
Does the hon. Gentleman accept that the wrong decision was taken at the time by the Conservatives? Is he willing to apologise for that decision, given the trend in the demand for dental care?
Governments must make decisions based on the best available evidence, and it would be extraordinary if they did not. At the time, that was precisely what was done. I hope that the Minister makes her decisions based on the best available evidence and advice from professionals and others.
I have spent some time cantering around the history of the issue, and I turn now to the history contained in the motion, because it consists largely of an attack on the Conservative record. That is extraordinary for a party that considers itself an effective Opposition, because any Opposition must examine the Government of the day. That is our job. I wondered why the Liberal Democrats should attack the Conservatives in that way—perish the thought that it might be due to the by-election that will sadly be held in Cheadle.
The hon. Member for Northavon did himself no credit by using a large chunk of time in illustrating his remarks with reference to Cheadle. As he did so, I think that I am at liberty to say that earlier today I spoke to our candidate there, Mr. Stephen Day. The difference between Stephen and Mr. Hunter, of course, is that Stephen lives in the constituency. He is living there and winning there, and therefore he knows well the needs of the local community, especially their dental needs. When I spoke to him this afternoon, he confirmed that NHS dentistry is practically non-existent in Cheadle, despite eight years of a Labour Government.
I listened carefully to the speech by the hon. Member for Northavon (Steve Webb). He spoke for more than half an hour in the parliamentary equivalent of a Liberal Democrat "Focus" leaflet. He criticised everybody else, but said barely a word about what the Liberal Democrats would do differently—
Order. Perhaps we can now return to the motion under discussion.
I shall certainly do so, Madam Deputy Speaker, but I must say that I agree entirely with my hon. Friend's remarks.
This is a serious matter and it deserves serious consideration. It is an issue that is raised weekly by our constituents. It is also raised with the citizens advice bureaux, which tell us that it is one of the most frequently raised issues. This morning, I met representatives of Which? magazine. I commend the magazine and its stop the rot campaign to the Minister. The hon. Member for Northavon mentioned that campaign, and it is extraordinary that half of England's dentists are unable to offer an emergency appointment to people in dental pain. I have had dental pain—I suspect that most hon. Members have—and it is a truly dreadful experience. The thought of having to put up with it for any length of time is frightful. The lack of emergency appointments also puts pressure on other parts of the health care system, such as accident and emergency departments and doctors. I have in the past been required to treat people in dental pain in an emergency because there was no access to a dentist—although admittedly that was in unusual circumstances.
Which? is holding a reception later today and the Minister could usefully attend to hear what is said. I am sure that she would be welcome—
I have not been invited to the reception and I would hate to gatecrash it. In his discussions, the hon. Gentleman might raise with Which? the fact that we have opened 53 dental access centres across the country to address the problem of providing emergency treatment.
Well, the Minister has received an invitation, but has failed to reply to it. Which? also mentioned to me that 4.1 million people have had difficulty in registering with an NHS dentist in the past two years in England, according to its survey, which is full of useful information. I recommend to the Minister that she attends the reception.
Unfortunately, the Minister did not attend the British Dental Association conference in Glasgow earlier this year, which was a serious omission given the state of negotiations between the BDA and the Government. I hope that the Government will repair the bruised relationship with the BDA, because that is essential if we are to achieve the sensible contract to which we all aspire.
I am pleased that the motion includes primary health care. I am not sure whether it was done by design or default—it was probably by default, as it is a Liberal Democrat motion. In either case, it was very sensible, because dentistry should be considered as part of the mainstream national health service. I fear that that concept may be withering on the vine, but I was encouraged by much of what I heard from the hon. Member for Northavon and the Minister. I hope that the Minister will not allow it to wither away, because dentistry is a fundamental part of the mainstream national health service and it certainly is not a bolt-on extra. I welcome in particular the Minister's commitment to oral public health.
I was interested in what the Minister said to my hon. Friend the Member for Mole Valley (Sir Paul Beresford) in connection with what might be on the list of appropriate treatment under the NHS, because that is important. What dentists say to us is that they want to do national health work, but it would mean working with inferior materials or doing procedures that are possible if done privately but not under the NHS. The Minister looks confused, but that is the case. I am surprised by her perplexity, because if she has been discussing the issue with the BDA and dentists that concern will have been raised. It is important that whatever we provide is of adequate quality, for the sake of patients and the professionals who are keen to provide the best possible service they can, within reason. Nobody would promise—we would not, and I imagine that the Liberal Democrats would not—to provide everybody with a perfect smile on the NHS. We cannot do that, but serious attention needs to be given to the quality of NHS dentistry that we can allow dentists to provide. I hope that the Minister will give that some thought, perhaps in connection with her report on Cayton.
I am disappointed that the hon. Gentleman did not start by congratulating the Government on the record investment delivered for the NHS and dentistry. It is up by 19 per cent. or £250 million more a year and some 3,500 more dentists are now working in the NHS. It is no use trying to explain away the mistakes of the past as based on the advice given at the time, because Labour Members told the then Government what the effect of the new contracts would be and the consequences of closing the two dental schools. If the hon. Gentleman accepts that the Conservatives were wrong then, why does he expect anybody to believe what he says about the NHS dental service now?
When the hon. Gentleman reads those remarks in Hansard, I suspect that he will be less than thrilled with his contribution, which sounded as if it were drafted by the Whips Office. It is all very well to say anything one likes in opposition, as the Liberal Democrats know full well. They are perpetually in opposition and can say whatever they like in the sure and certain knowledge that they will never be called on to carry out their promises, with one exception. That of course is in Scotland, where they are the coalition partners with the Labour party.
It would be interesting to know the situation north of the border. I am told that it is not 1,000 miles from where we are, despite the fact that Scotland has a far more generous settlement than this country. The hon. Member for Northavon did not mention that. Of course it is a devolved issue, but it would be interesting to hear from him how his party has managed dentistry where it is in a position to make a difference.
The hon. Gentleman seems to be failing to notice that the Scottish Executive has to live with the same contract, and that the closure of the same two dental schools is now denying the supply of dentists to the Scottish Executive.
I am very grateful to the right hon. Gentleman for that intervention. He is right that it is the same contract and that we all operate from the same pool of dentists, but I think it is reasonable to accept that dentistry is now focused around primary care trusts, or the equivalent thereof in Scotland presumably, so his party in coalition has some way of making an impact on dentistry. He must appreciate that it is not all down to the number of dental schools, or the contract; there is more to it than that. Nothing in the speech by the hon. Member for Northavon gave me any confidence that his party in office is able to make the difference that it constantly tells us it would make. I am sorry if I have missed something; I would be more than happy to allow an intervention from the hon. Gentleman.
I am concerned about the commodification of health care across the board, both in primary health care and in dental care; I would not want to make a distinction between the two. In recent weeks and months there have been announcements about dental access centres, walk-in centres and megasurgeries. We know about falling dental registration rates. We know about the threat to registration with GPs. We have heard about the 48-hours-in-advance conundrum that faces many practices, which are not permitted, apparently because of their fiscal settlement, to allow patients to book surgery appointments a long way in advance. All these things, and more, mean that there is far less personal one-to-one contact between practitioner and patient than there used to be.
The unique thing about health care in this country has always been that personal contact, be it in terms of general practice or general dental practice, and nothing in the Government's actions in the recent past has given me any confidence that they fully appreciate the importance of that personal service—that one to one. Arguably, it is far more important in general medical practice because one is dealing with long-term chronic disease, very often with life-threatening disease, and very often with elderly people who need that contact. I fully accept that very often in general dental practice contact tends to be a little more one-off, but most of our constituents would say that they value an ongoing relationship with an identifiable practitioner, and I fear very much that both in medical care and dental care the Government are moving away from that important model of registration and an ongoing relationship. I hope very much that the Minister will give us some idea in her remarks whether she associates with that and if not, why not, because it seems to me very much that we are indulging in the commodification of health care, in that less personal model, rather than the personal model that is so important for most of our patients.
The Minister is about to embark on a consultation exercise on health outside hospitals, and it will be interesting to learn to what extent that will involve dentistry. I have said that I very much welcome her enthusiasm for associating dental care with mainstream NHS care, so I assume that the consultation exercise will fully involve dentistry, because it really must do so. It is hailed as a major public engagement exercise. Being a bit of a cynic, I am concerned that this might be yet another tick-box exercise. I hope that that is not the case and I very much hope that the Minister will give some thought to the results. Recently we have had the results of referendums in France and the Netherlands in relation to the constitution, and it would appear that the results of those referendums are largely going to be finessed by the EU and by the countries involved. I hope very much that the Minister does not agree with such a model, and that she will truly reflect on the outcome of the consultation exercise, because I know full well that some of the messages that she will receive have to do with the value that people place on personal contact between practitioner and patient.
In terms of what needs to be done—[Interruption.] I hear the hon. Member for Northavon huffing and puffing, but as my hon. Friend the Member for Rayleigh (Mr. Francois) pointed out, we heard precious little about what the Liberal Democrats would do, and we have heard very little about what they are doing in Scotland. All I can do is refer to our discussions with the British Dental Association, which have been carried out in an extremely warm atmosphere. Our proposals are broadly welcomed by both the General Dental Practitioners Association and the BDA, and they appeared in our manifesto for the election just past.
We have proposals on capitation. We have proposals on the use of dental hygienists and nurses—which, incidentally, the Minister has not mentioned yet; I hope that she will. We have proposals on registration. Registration is a recurring theme and I am very pleased that there appears to be cross-party unity on its importance.
Finally—I know that the Minister did not mention this—we need to place an emphasis on child oral health because we know that good dental practice is established very early indeed.
I heard the hon. Gentleman use the word "finally", having devoted 19 of his 20 or so minutes to not saying what should be done. He obviously had the opportunity to table an amendment to our motion to say what should be done, and yet we have a blank sheet of paper from the Conservatives. What actually does he propose, other than saying that child oral health is a good thing, which we knew?
I have just been explaining what we would do. It was contained in our manifesto. I am sorry if the hon. Gentleman feels that child oral health is not important; as the father of five children, I can tell him that it is fundamental. If we establish good dental practice early on—that means regular check-ups early on, and if the hon. Gentleman had taken the trouble to read our manifesto he would have seen how we were going to do that—we stand a good chance of ensuring that the next generation has far better oral health than this one does.
I have never been to Cheadle in my life, so I cannot contribute to that aspect of our discussions, but I will try to convey a flavour of the situation across the Pennines, in Yorkshire, on this issue. It is a pleasure to follow the hon. Member for Westbury (Dr. Murrison) and I listened to both his speech and that of the hon. Member for Northavon (Steve Webb) with great care.
The hon. Member for Westbury made some interesting points. He said that Governments make decisions on the basis of the best available evidence. They certainly should, but that seems to me to be a rather technocratic approach to government. Decision making must be guided by a political will, a political vision and a political strategy. In response to some of the criticisms by the hon. Member for Northavon, I honestly do not think that as a Government we focused on dentistry soon enough, and it took a while to put the political strategy and the vision into place. But I think that we are there now, and the next year will be crucial. If I have one criticism of the hon. Gentleman's speech, it would be that he was a little bit easy on some of the practices of dentists down the years. At times he sounded like a spokesman for the British Dental Association, which has a long and proud record and many members who are committed to the NHS, but dentists, like Governments of all colours, have lessons to learn from the past 20 years. I intend to reflect on that in some of my remarks.
I promised to impart a little bit of the flavour of the situation in Yorkshire. To be very parochial for a minute if the House will allow me, I think that in Selby and York, my local primary care trust, the commissioning that the Government have brought in is making a difference and is working. That is one thing that has improved in the past seven or eight years. It does give a very local focus. It enables MPs, councillors and others to speak to the decision makers, to get down to the detail of where NHS dentists are, where there are gaps and where improvements could be made.
In Selby and York, for example, 15,000 extra places have been approved under personal dental schemes for the next three years. It appears that they will be delivered within the next year, and I understand that we will be up to about 56 per cent. coverage in Selby and York. We want to get a little higher than that, but that will not be bad in comparison with a lot of other areas in the country.
One dentist, Mr. Kelsey, made it on to the front page of the Yorkshire Post. The Minister and I discussed his case over tea and biscuits for no less than 45 minutes, and I bring her good news. He wants to retire. He could not find someone to buy his practice. He tells me that he is committed to that practice transferring to the NHS. A buyer has now been found, with two dentists in that practice, and the local PCT will propose a personal dental scheme to the Department that, I hope, will be approved, so that the 5,000 places that would have been lost in Selby can be replaced, possibly on a like-for-like basis.
If I have one criticism of some PCTs, it is that the local delivery of dentistry is important. It is not acceptable to have to take long journeys, perhaps on two or three buses, to get to a dentist. In rural areas, it is important that NHS dentistry is available in market towns, such as Selby, Sherburn and Tadcaster in my area.
I want to make two suggestions for improving the situation in Yorkshire. We have heard a lot about queues forming outside dentists' surgeries when they open up for additional NHS places. In some areas, PCTs have introduced waiting lists—Doncaster may be one of them, but there are certainly other examples throughout the country—whereby people who want an NHS dentist go on to a waiting list. Instead of having to queue or ring up every two or three weeks as the situation changes, those people will be informed—in a short period, we hope—when extra NHS places become available in the locality. I urge my own PCT in Selby and York to consider that development, which makes the system much more civilised and efficient. It allows a certain degree of preference to be given to local people to gain access to dentists in their own areas.
Clearly, the expansion of training places in dental schools is important. In both Leeds and Sheffield, expansion is occurring by a factor of about a third in the coming year. It would be remiss of me not to put in a plug for the merits of the very successful medical school at York and Hull. Indeed, one of the bids for a new dental school comes from York and Hull. I know that other hon. Members would advocate different areas, but that is a particularly good bid from God's own county.
I want to make a few comments about the nature of dentistry and dentists themselves. We are coming into an absolutely crucial period for the negotiations during the next few months. I remind the House that, despite the problems of the past few years, NHS dentists earn, on average, £75,000 or £76,000—considerably more than MPs—and most of them also do private work. We are talking about relatively highly paid people, many of whom are very much committed to the NHS, but it takes two to tango in negotiations, and there is a high expectation among Labour Back Benchers that if the Minister puts a reasonable offer to dentists, as I am sure she will, they should respond in kind. That will involve changes in working practices.
If we look back over the past eight years, another thing that has become apparent, for whatever reason, is drill-and-fill—I think that was the phrase mentioned by the Minister. Numerous reports, dating back to one in 2000 in the NHS prepared by Aubrey Sheiham, professor of public health at University college London, refer to practices such as dentists
"inflicting £200 million of extra scaling, X-rays and fillings on patients to boost earnings",
and an economic model encouraged them to do so. The report states:
"Studies show that dentists replace fillings far more than necessary, and that if they suffer a drop in income, they will replace their patients' fillings more frequently."
There were economic incentives for dentists to adopt such an approach, but that will not happen under the new contract, and nor should it. Perhaps some patients will be seen less frequently. If there is less dental need for them to be seen every six months, perhaps a check-up every year or so will be sufficient, and a lot of dentists who are committed to the NHS realise that.
It is interesting that perhaps one of the better puns that has been coined in this respect appeared in the Yorkshire Post headline "Dentists set to bare their teeth". The Yorkshire Post has been running quite an effective campaign called stop the rot—a rather more hackneyed phrase—but nevertheless it has been pointing out some of the things that hon. Members on both sides of the House have mentioned today: the expansion of dental places, the need for a new contract and so on.
A few weeks ago, the front page of that paper commented on an attempt by the leadership of the British Dental Association to get its members to go on strike for a day and not to do routine NHS treatment. Rather less prominently, it reported the following day that that attempt had been rejected by two to one. The dentists themselves decided that a much better approach would be to lobby Members of Parliament, and they will do so in July.
The Yorkshire Post and, indeed, most people in Yorkshire would agree that we want value for money, that it is not a question of writing a blank cheque to dentists, as I am sure the hon. Member for Northavon would agree, and that those negotiations depend on a responsible attitude on both sides. Where that responsible attitude is not shown—I hope that that will not be countrywide, but there may be PCTs with particular problems—it is well worth reminding dentists that there is another model: a directly salaried model.
Many dentists from overseas are coming in on that model and are directly salaried by the PCT. If that is what is takes to fill the gaps in NHS provision, that approach will receive a great deal of support among Labour Members. Dentists cannot have the NHS over a barrel. They have earned reasonable amounts of money from the NHS in previous years, and I think that they will be offered that in the future. Many of them are committed to the values of the NHS. However, if it is a question of taking on local dentists in certain areas and ensuring that NHS dental provision is maintained and expanded, that is what Ministers must do.
Incidentally, we have an almost all-female team in the Department of Health, with a solitary male Minister. We have a number of strong female Ministers and I am sure that my hon. Friend the Member for Doncaster, Central (Ms Rosie Winterton) will, if necessary, show a good deal of Yorkshire grit and determination in those negotiations and ensure that, by the next election, we have a very good story to tell on NHS dentistry.
As dentists have been gently attacked, it is rather appropriate to get an opportunity to return that gently. I clearly have an interest, although my dentistry aspect is such that my income does not reach anywhere near that suggested by the hon. Member for Selby (Mr. Grogan)—would that it did.
I want to touch in particular on the point that was raised during the Liberal Democrat presentation—if we can call it that—and I refer to the fact that dentists feel that they are highly trained for five or six years. They have a broad spectrum of facilities that they wish for and a broad spectrum of opportunities to provide a wide range of treatments, but the NHS does not allow them to do that if they keep strictly to the NHS. The key thing—the Minister seems to be moving in this direction and it will be interesting to find out whether it happens—is that the NHS must work in partnership with the dentists providing a mixed service. Using that method, we can attract dentists back into the NHS, as well as providing an opportunity for those who leave the dental schools, move straight into the NHS and suddenly realise that they cannot do much of the work for which they have been trained. We hope that that method will thus prevent them from moving into the private sector, with the consequent loss to the NHS.
It is vital that we have NHS dentistry. One need only walk into an old people's home to see a lady with a broken denture to recognise that that is her means of eating and that she has no opportunity of having her denture repaired, particularly in the south and south-east, as she does not have an NHS dentist, and especially not one who would provide dentures or who would come out to provide dentures because she cannot travel to him. What does she do—live through a straw? We must consider those patients.
There is a crisis, but it is possibly not quite as bad as the Liberal Democrats say, and I do not intend to go through the figures. When I first came to this country, dentistry in Britain was seen by much of the western world as being absolutely appalling and, to a fair degree, the NHS was the cause. The hon. Member for Selby touched on that fact, calling it "drill-and-fill". The Australians used to call it "bash the gnash". They used to come here and fill anything and everything. I remember taking on two Australian dentists from Queensland—they will remain nameless—and the figures that they produced at the end of the week for the NHS work that they had done stunned me. I asked them how they had managed it and they said that they got the patients in the chair, filled them with local anaesthetics until they were grey with the stuff, turned up the air rotor and drove round. I saw one or two of their patients and I was absolutely appalled by what I saw. We sacked those dentists, but it took weeks to put right what they had done.
There have been dramatic changes since them. The first change is the addition of fluoride to the water supply, which must be the cheapest, simplest and most sensible way of dealing with dental decay. That is done in many other western nations such as Australia, New Zealand, Canada and the United States and it has got to come here. Fluoride in toothpaste has also made a dramatic difference. My recently deceased father was a dentist in New Zealand and he said that until fluoride in the toothpaste and in the water supply came along, trying to deal with dental decay was like trying to fill the bath with the plug out. He said that the changes it produced were dramatic. We will see that here—indeed, we are already seeing it to some degree.
The second issue that changed the system in the NHS was the introduction of patient charges. To a fair degree, that stopped the Australian-type practice that I have just described. I am not being particularly anti-Australian, because dentists of many nationalities, including English ones, engaged in "bash the gnash". However, when charges were introduced patients started to look at what they were paying for and they used to ask why work was being done again. They did not want the work done again, so they moved to other dentists and a few dentists actually went bankrupt as a result.
When patients realised that they had to pay, they started to ask whether they could pay for something different—whether they could have white fillings, crowns or whatever was available at the time. I know that dentists complained when the fees were cut, but that made them concentrate on what they were providing and look at whether they could provide a better and fuller service. Some of the bad dentists who I know—again, I mention no names—went bankrupt. The technicians carrying out crown and bridge work and making dentures often commented that the standard of dentistry demanded by patients went up as dentists moved into the private service. The standards of NHS dentistry then went up as well. The technicians were stunned because the change happened so quickly.
In the past 10 or 15 years, there have been dramatic changes in dental techniques. The changes have made different approaches available to patients, but they have also brought with them enormous costs. We now have new restorative materials, tooth-coloured composites, techniques of bonding, new ceramic to metal crowns and bridges, new all-porcelain crowns and bridges, inlays, inlay overlays, overlays, veneers and bleaching.
The Minister said that the NHS should not provide bleaching and, in many circumstances, that is right. However, the NHS needs to think again. If a teenager has badly stained teeth—perhaps as a result of tetracycline, which may, by then, have gone—the NHS's answer is for the dentist to pick up a high-powered drill, scream round and take all the enamel off and put on crowns that will have to be replaced again and again. Bleaching will stop that. Patients will have their own teeth that are properly bleached and looking right, and the process can be topped up every three to five years. This brings me to what I am after—a radical rethink.
Techniques have changed. We now have the new nickel titanium endodontic root canal instruments, digital x-rays, various hot seal endodontic filling materials—and many dentists use loupes and microscopes as well as new impression materials. We also have new and reliable dental implants, and orthodontics and oral surgery have also leapt ahead. I deliberately ignore those dentists who use Botox.
Those and many other improvements have meant that the dental treatment available offers the cosmetic approach to dental health care that is wanted by patients. That does not mean that patients are not being looked after, but that they are being looked after differently and that they are choosing, when they can, to pay. Over the past few years, the reactions of patients have been dramatic. It might be basic in some cases as in when they ask for a white filling rather than a black one, but it goes right through to requests in the full American style for a Hollywood smile makeover. The effect of television and magazines on demand over the past few years has been dramatic. Patients have started to get a better understanding of what they want. Sometimes that makes it difficult for the dentist. I remember a 5 ft 2 in lady coming in with a picture of Farrah Fawcett-Majors and asking whether she could have a smile just like that. I suggested to her that she would be more likely to win the Derby if I could manage it. [Interruption.] Sweetness and light.
The NHS has not kept up with the treatments that are available, and I do not think that it should. That is not its realm. However, I was a little surprised when, I think, the first Labour Secretary of State for Health said something along the lines that the NHS could compete with the private sector. It should not. According to a recent estimate, that would cost about £6 billion. There are better things that we can do with the money. The NHS's target should be health, although there are variations on that—I referred to bleaching a moment ago.
The new contract offers an opportunity to look at the issue again. Before the contract is set in stone, I hope that the close discussions with the dental profession will bring some changes. I have spoken about endodontics and root canal treatment, but such work is poorly paid in an item-based payments system. However, it is vital for many patients.
To give another silly dental example, an elderly patient with a few teeth left may have a tooth that is heavily filled and that has suddenly blown up because there is an abscess underneath it. The patient suffers the pain that my hon. Friend the Member for Westbury (Dr. Murrison) mentioned, and the dentist has several options. The first is to take the tooth out, and that is quick and cheap, but the patient's denture will not work anywhere near as well as it did. The other option is root canal treatment, but that is exceptionally difficult for a molar in an elderly patient. It takes one, two, three or possibly four hours and requires loupes, microscopes, nickel titanium reamers and so on. That is just the endodontics but, after that, the tooth then needs to be built up. The recompense for the capital outlay for the equipment—I have not touched on digital x-rays, for example—is pitiful. It should be possible to rethink our approach to try to slant the money towards such preventive treatment as well as towards the prevention involved in teaching children how to look after their teeth better, in improving their diet and in adding fluoride to toothpaste and to the water supply.
I am not attacking the Minister, but I am ignoring much of what the Liberal party has said in its classic approach of attacking everyone but not coming forward with solutions. We have an opportunity to move forward and my hon. Friend the Member for Westbury has described some of the options. The only part of the Liberal motion that has any credibility is the request for Ministers to discuss the issue with the profession. Let us take this opportunity, but without setting things in stone.
We must bear in mind two key issues: the fact that the nature of dentistry has changed dramatically, even though we often look at it in a stone-age way; and the fact that dentists must be encouraged to return to the NHS to provide a basic core service, but be allowed to offer private dentistry because patients demand that. I hope that the opportunity is taken.
It is a great pleasure to follow the hon. Member for Mole Valley (Sir Paul Beresford) on one of the rare occasions in an Opposition day debate when someone brings a lifetime of experience to his contribution. The House is a great deal better off as a result of such a contribution than from the petty political point scoring that goes on.
I certainly welcome the Government's record levels of investment, and it is perhaps not surprising that those on the Opposition Front Benches did not refer to that. One reason why the Conservatives ran into difficulties on under-investment in so many public services was that by the end of their time in government they were having to spend 45p in every pound of new taxation on the economics of failure, paying for the national debt, which had risen to unsustainable levels, and financing the high level of unemployment. It is largely thanks to the Chancellor of the Exchequer and our stable economy that we are talking about making some progress in dental care, albeit somewhat belatedly from the point of view of many of us.
The Liberal Democrats rarely try to make even their own sums add up. They pay no tribute to the Government and take no cognisance of how hard it is to get government right, not simply on individual policies, but across the board in running the economy and making sure that money is available for all the necessary investment.
All Members can give examples of the sort that have been given at length today. The problems go back to the early 1990s. Even last year, when I spoke in an Adjournment debate in Westminster Hall on 20 May, I told my hon. Friend the Minister that the problems seemed to be escalating, although we could see the first signs that there might be light at the end of the tunnel in the work that was going on locally, beginning in the primary care trusts and reflected in the work of scrutiny committees from local authorities across Devon and Cornwall. I congratulate those local authorities on their work in bringing people and PCTs together locally, regionally and nationally to consider what we can do to tackle the extremely difficult problems in the far south-west.
We seem to have been indulging in fanciful word plays today. One idea from Plymouth city council's scrutiny committee was that we might bring the tooth fairy to the rescue. I am not sure what the committee had in mind—perhaps it was to bring a ferry full of dentists across the channel to tackle the problem.
At my Adjournment debate, I spoke about the work going on in the primary care trusts in Plymouth, which was an "options for change" field site, and a year later it is fair to say that steady progress is being made. Of course, it would be nice to report that everything in the garden is rosy—although perhaps I should refrain from using that phrase—but given the context in which we are working, where we have to come to an agreement with people who are independent contractors, the fact that we are making steady progress is something on which the Government should be congratulated.
Plymouth, in common with other hot spots, is receiving support from the Department's dental team. I understand from James Short of the PCT, who is doing a splendid job with his team, that the departmental team visited recently and that they are in the process of agreeing a dental plan for the PCT. That will secure the position of people who already have an NHS dentist, and slowly but surely the PCT is negotiating new NHS contracts to treat new patients.
The south-west peninsula and Plymouth have both achieved the target of 25 per cent. of dentists on local contracts, with the PCT's personal dental services contract. Again, I thank my hon. Friend the Minister for the urgent and immediate attention she gives me and the trust whenever we seek it in dealing with the fine details that can stand in the way of concluding an agreement. Dentists have signed up for three years, which has secured services for more NHS patients in Plymouth. That is not yet enough, but we are in the right direction of travel and, although it will be more difficult over the next year to achieve another 25 per cent. of dentists signing up to NHS contracts, if we succeed we shall be travelling at a speed that should make a difference in some of the difficult situations that my constituents experience.
The picture that the hon. Lady paints of Plymouth is much more encouraging than the picture in my constituency, where the direction of travel, far from being positive, is the reverse. To pick up on the comments of my hon. Friend the Member for Mole Valley (Sir Paul Beresford), there is a brain drain to Australia rather than to the UK. When I was knocking on doors just before the election, I met a young dentist who had young children and could no longer make a living from his private practice in Bridgnorth, so he was planning to emigrate to Australia—perhaps to indulge in some of the practices to which my hon. Friend referred. That illustrates the problems of providing dentistry, whether private or NHS, in rural areas, which are compounded by the lack of NHS dental facilities. When a new practice opened in Ludlow earlier this year, the local PCT refused to provide details of its telephone number or address for fear of being inundated with applicants for registration, because there were so few available places. That problem in rural areas does not seem to be reflected as much in cities.
As I shall explain in a moment, the far south-west has some of the most difficult problems in the country. It is far from the situation that the hon. Gentleman describes, but I and many of my Labour colleagues work hard with our local PCTs. My PCT has my pager number and I have its mobile number. When there are issues to be sorted out my hon. Friend the Minister is always ready to help. Such things are a top priority for all of us.
It is difficult to achieve change. Plymouth and the south-west remain hot spots. There are difficulties everywhere, but especially at our end of the region: for example, in Devon and Cornwall the ratio of dentists per head of population is 1:3,549; at the other end of our region it is 1:3,081, but in Hampshire the ratio is 1:2,821. There are even more favourable ratios in other parts of the country.
A study by Rabinowitz showed that significant proportions of clinical graduates tend to stay on at the place where they studied. Given the above ratios, I hope that my hon. Friend and her colleagues in the Department of Health, especially the Secretary of State—she knows this is coming—will give serious consideration to the expression of interest from the Peninsula medical school in establishing a new dental school alongside its successful training for doctors. Apart from the good socio-demographic reasons that I mentioned, there are strong clinical arguments for a dental school in Plymouth. My hon. Friend the Member for Selby (Mr. Grogan) asked where we would get the academics to train new dentists. Many academics are practising dentistry in the south-west and are not currently deploying their teaching skills. They could easily be brought back in if there were a local dental school in Plymouth, thereby avoiding the poaching of academics, which could be a problem as we expand our dental schools.
The Peninsula medical school makes extensive use of distributive clinical outreach facilities, which enable students to become familiar with current community morbidity patterns, to which the Minister referred in her speech. Plymouth has established a track record in high quality clinical teaching and one of its four centres of excellence in teaching and learning—there are only five such centres in the country—relates specifically to clinical placement learning. For those and a number of other reasons, which I should be happy to outline to my hon. Friends in the Health team, I hope that we shall be shortlisted for further consideration in the near future. I know that Devon and Cornwall Members from all parties will be approaching my hon. Friend on that subject, too.
While my hon. Friend is securing and steadily building NHS dentistry, we can look forward to that programme continuing year on year into the future. We shall look back on the difficult years and be proud of what we achieved to save and secure an NHS dentistry service for our constituents.
Does the hon. Lady agree that it is important for the Minister to tell us whether she intends to establish a new dental school, or whether we will in fact have dental outreach centres from existing dental schools, or satellite institutions, because that is obviously important in the context of Plymouth?
I certainly agree with the hon. Gentleman.
Perhaps it would help if I clarified the current situation. The 170 graduates who are starting from this year will be spread among existing dental schools, but we have invited applications for a new dental school, which will be considered over the next few months.
I thank my hon. Friend for that clarification. One of the problems with setting up a new dental school is that it could mean that it takes longer to bring dentists forward into clinic practice. A further advantage of establishing a dental school in Plymouth would be that we already have shorter learning models in the medical school, so by using a four-year learning model we could bring dentists on stream at the same time as if the increase in the number of dentists was achieved by expanding places in existing schools. Indeed, we could bring dentists on sooner in years to come.
I conclude by welcoming what my hon. Friend the Minister said and the fact that she will make an announcement next week on Harry Cayton's report, to build on the work that the Department has already undertaken to repair the damage that was done to NHS dentistry and to make charging simpler and more transparent for patients and dentists, which will be welcomed by both groups in my constituency.
I am grateful for the opportunity to take part in the debate and thank my hon. Friend the Member for Northavon (Steve Webb) for giving us a timely breakdown of the serious crisis in the dental health service. Had I listened to the Minister's speech without knowing about some of the realities in my constituency, I would have thought that everything in the garden was rosy, but unfortunately that is not the case. Over the past eight years, the situation in Rochdale has got worse. Fewer people in Rochdale are now registered with an NHS dentist and there are fewer NHS dentists. Although palliatives have been put in place, the walk-in centre is no longer a walk-in centre because people have a two-day wait before they can be seen there.
The Minister spoke about some of the issues that must be addressed. I agree with the hon. Member for Mole Valley (Sir Paul Beresford) about fluoridation. Yet another debate is going on in the north-west about whether we should have water fluoridation and I have met one of the officers employed by the regional primary care trust who is involved in that. I believe that fluoridation should happen, so it would help if the Government gave clear advice and instructions so that it is not left up to individual areas and authorities to decide whether such a simple and cost-effective way of improving dental health could be implemented.
Just for clarification, guidance will be issued in the summer on the processes that should be followed when engaging in public consultation.
I welcome that.
I shall use an example from my constituency to demonstrate the problem with dentist numbers. I have received figures from my primary care trust showing that Rochdale needed 65 registered NHS dentists. We actually have 38, which is why the number of people registered with an NHS dentist has gone down. One of my constituents told me the other week that if people do not regularly attend for check ups, they get dropped off the list, which made my constituent less than happy. We need to change some working practices, such as drill and fill and the requirement for people to attend their dentist every three months if that is not necessary. I welcomed the comments made by the hon. Member for Mole Valley about that matter, of which he has a lot of experience.
There is also a problem with conditions of service and the contracts under which people work. A report appeared recently in the local paper about three young Rochdale-born dentists who wished to establish a new surgery in the town. They could get a grant if they joined an existing practice, but they could not get a grant to open their own surgery. As a result, the three dentists moved 10 miles down the road and now provide a service in Radcliffe in Bury, rather than in Rochdale, which was where they wanted to work.
Many dentists have moved out of the NHS because of the contracts under which they have worked. The Minister will face a big problem when trying to convince them that they will benefit both financially and in terms of their working practice by returning to the NHS. They are currently able to provide services at a cost that they would be unable to offer under the NHS. When the hon. Lady enters into the new contract discussions, she will need fresh thinking about what NHS dentists can offer, otherwise dentists who have got used to private practice and different working conditions will not move back to the NHS. We all want a viable NHS dentistry service, so we want the negotiations brought to fruition in a meaningful way, as the motion makes clear. I look forward to the Minister's statement next week and hope that she will think about what she can do to improve the situation in the north in general, and in Rochdale in particular.
Thank you, Madam Deputy Speaker, for calling me to speak. I have enjoyed the contributions made by hon. Members on both sides of the House. I pay tribute to the hon. Member for Mole Valley (Sir Paul Beresford), who has sadly left the Chamber, because his speech was extremely eloquent and interesting.
I am pleased to have the opportunity to describe to the House the successes of NHS dentistry in South Swindon and to inform my hon. Friend the Minister of the challenges that we still face. Happily, those challenges are by no means the mountains that they were in 1997 and I am sure that they will be resolved simply by her plans for NHS dentistry.
In 1997, one could not get an NHS dentist for love nor money in Swindon, but the Labour Government's commitment to, and investment in, dentistry, and especially their commitment to training more dentists, has dramatically changed the situation. Our financial investment would be stymied without an increase in the number of dentists, but of course it takes time to train people. It is easy to pass judgment when in opposition. If the training programme were circumvented, the Opposition would accuse the Government of endangering people's dental health. However, because the training programme takes time, Opposition Members complain that the Government are not acting fast enough. They are having their cake and eating it, and they might find that that leads to dental caries, if they are not careful.
I am pleased to say that Wiltshire is involved in the Government's initiative to train overseas dentists. Earlier this year, the primary care trust, the community dental service and the personal dental service investigated training overseas dentists who already lived nearby, but could not practise because they did not have the IQE—the international qualifying exam. The training will allow them to gain clinical experience here in the UK while they study for the IQE. Individuals on the programme fund themselves, but all the partners involved are seeking innovative ways to fund the training—for example, by getting those involved to practise as dental nurses first.
The Government's initiative to increase the number of places for undergraduates is also being supported in the south-west. Bristol dentistry school is, I am pleased to say, developing outreach teaching. The consultant dental manager at our PCT—a difficult phrase to say; I am glad that I still have my own teeth—met with Swindon medical academy and Bristol dentistry school earlier this year to discuss the possibility of outreach teaching at the medical academy. All the parties are keen, but, as always, resources are an issue. I hope that my hon. Friend the Minister of State will be able to reassure me that the enthusiasm of Swindon practitioners will be matched by the funding needed to realise their plans.
Swindon has already benefited from dental access grants to the tune of £170,000. Six applications for funding were made, five of which were successful. The PCT has allocated £95,500 to the successful applicants, which translates into 10,000 new registrations. The money is enabling the five existing services to expand and modernise by providing new equipment and, crucially, four more dental chairs. The PCT is using the remaining money to set up two new dental chairs at one of Swindon's medical centres. By the end of 2005, therefore, Swindon will have a total of six new dental chairs.
I am fascinated by the dental chairs and I wonder who will fill them, given that we have lost 100 dental academics since 2000 and that the research assessment exercise appears to be sounding the death knell of dental academia.
I thank the hon. Gentleman for enabling me to take my maiden intervention. I think that the Government's plans to increase the number of dentists by increasing the number of undergraduates and by employing people from overseas under strict licensing controls are the right way to proceed. I am sure that we will be able to fill the places.
I was pleased to visit one of the NHS dentists in my constituency a few weeks ago. Ambience dental practice opened in 1998 as a direct result of Government funding, and it has seen 32,000 patients since then. Ambience is one of the pilots in the Government's personal dental services scheme, which began in January 2005. The practice is strongly in favour of the scheme, because it releases capacity and gives the practice a steady monthly income, which helps financial planning.
Under the old general dental services scheme, which is still running in many practices and in many Conservative Members' constituencies, Ambience's maximum capacity was 13,500 patients. If a patient did not attend within a fifteen-month period, that patient dropped off the list—a problem described by the hon. Member for Rochdale (Paul Rowen). If a patient who had once been on the list rang up in pain for emergency 24-hour treatment, Ambience was normally unable to help them and directed them to our local access centre, which we are lucky to have. Under the new scheme, the period in which patients may remain on the list without attending the practice is 30 months, the effect of which is to increase Ambience's capacity to 17,500 patients. That is one of the reasons why I welcome the new contract: the Minister is right to say that it points the way ahead. Because of the new contract, instead of turning patients away, Ambience is taking on an average of 10 new patients a week, which is extremely good news for my constituents.
Under the old budgeting system, a dental practice's income was based on the earnings of the practice in the previous year; in addition, fluctuating payments were made based on how much work was achieved by the practice each month, so when a dentist was on holiday, income fell. Under the pilot scheme, Ambience is given approximately £13,000 per treatment room—it has five—of which 50 per cent. represents salary and 50 per cent. costs. That gives Ambience a stable income and helps it to cater for the ebbs and flows of the dental practice.
With extra Government funding, Ambience could increase the number of treatment rooms available: it has the space to do so in the building in which the practice is located. The building is in the centre of town and would make an excellent extended practice. Each treatment room has the capacity for 2,000 to 2,300 patients per annum, so with two new treatment rooms Ambience could increase practice capacity by 4,600, which would greatly help South Swindon. Ambience dental practice is just one example of successful development by dental practices in Swindon: there are other NHS dental practices which I am sure are equally successful, and I look forward to visiting them.
In addition to the increase in capacity and in the number of patients being treated that I have described, Swindon has a dental access centre for emergency treatment. Sadly, I have had to use it myself, but I cannot speak highly enough of the prompt, efficient service that I received. As the hon. Member for Westbury (Dr. Murrison) has reminded us, toothache is a dreadful thing. It was a relief to me to be seen within 24 hours—something that most NHS patients could only dream of before the Labour Government's investment in dental services.
I am pleased to inform the Minister that, earlier this year, I registered with an NHS dentist in Swindon. It was not difficult, as some would have us believe. I have received excellent service from my NHS dentist, including treatment for an abscess at 9 am on 6 May, which was not how I anticipated celebrating my election, especially given that the course of antibiotics prescribed forbad the consumption of alcohol.
There are two issues to which I wish to draw the Minister's attention. First, not enough of my constituents are aware of the availability of NHS dentists and they sometimes make erroneous value judgments about the quality of treatment. For example, a constituent attending my advice surgery last week—she did not come to discuss NHS dentistry, but she said, "Oh, and another thing," and launched in on the subject—complained that she and her husband had paid approximately £1,000 for private dental treatment, including root canal treatment. Not only did she think that there were no NHS dentists with open lists in Swindon, which is not the case, but she believed that complex treatment could be offered only by private practices. Nothing could be further from the truth. Expert root canal treatment is offered on the NHS—I paid approximately £60 for mine. Incidentally, I was cheered by the comment of the hon. Member for Mole Valley that root canal treatment on elderly patients takes three to four hours: given that mine took less than half an hour, the hon. Gentleman has knocked a few years off me, which alone makes getting elected worth while. We clearly need to publicise the treatments available to an excellent standard on the NHS.
Secondly, I am sad to say that some dentists are charging an initial registration fee before taking on NHS patients. Initial charges can be as much as £40 to £50 and apply to children as well as adults. For those on low incomes, that is a daunting sum to find, so I ask my hon. Friend the Minister of State to look into the issue. One of my constituents recently contacted me about her 10-year-old son, who had severe toothache. He was treated at the dental access centre, but could not be given follow-up treatment there. When my constituent, who is on income support, tried to register her son with a local NHS dentist, she was asked to pay £45, which she could not afford. I understand that there is some dispute about whether that charging practice is allowable within NHS dentists' terms of reference; in my opinion, it should not be, because it places an unacceptable barrier in the way of many who are most in need of treatment. Such charges might explain why the registration of children in Swindon as a whole has decreased slightly, whereas adult registration has increased. Despite that, 69 per cent. of children are registered, which is 6 per cent. above the national average. I do not want Opposition Members to run away with the idea that the situation is dreadful.
As I said at the start of my speech, the issues I have described are ones that the Minister can easily help us to overcome. We in Swindon have seen great investment in dental services and we look forward to it continuing. In addition, I look forward with great interest to hearing about my hon. Friend's plans for the continuing development of dentistry. There is more to be done, as she has acknowledged, but we have made great progress in this important area of health.
I am grateful for the opportunity to contribute to our debate on NHS dentistry, which is a serious concern for a number of residents in my constituency and for people across south Manchester.
I support the proposals tabled by right hon. and hon. Friends, who have called on the Government
"to work with the dentistry profession to ensure that the new contract delivers more dentists spending more time working in the NHS."
I regularly receive correspondence from constituents—I am sure that hon. Members on both sides of the Chamber do so too—whose dentists have sent them letters telling them without prior warning that they are going to stop doing NHS work. Those patients are left to their own devices to find an alternative NHS dentist, which is a far cry from the Prime Minister's pledge in 1999 that everyone would
"be able . . . to see an NHS dentist just by phoning NHS Direct".
Figures showing that less than 50 per cent. of people are now registered with an NHS dentist demonstrate the lack of success of the Government's policy on dentistry. One of my constituents in Didsbury is in the unfortunate position of losing two successive dentists. After his local dentist in Didsbury stopped carrying out NHS work, the nearest NHS dentist that he could find was over the border in Cheadle. Not one local dentist in my constituency was able to accept him as an NHS patient. Now he has been told by Cheadle dental practice that it will stop doing NHS work from 1 September. I wonder how many hundreds of residents in Manchester, Withington and will be in the same position?
Who is to blame? Some people might argue that it is the dentists themselves, who not interested in working in the NHS. At least one hon. Member asked why dentists should do NHS work when they can make much more money in the private sector. I do not believe that that is the case. Dentists are not to blame—it is the policies of successive Governments that have failed NHS dentistry. Speaking to dentists in my constituency, it is clear that the majority want to work in the NHS. They want NHS dentistry to be available to all, but it has become impossible for them to carry on working in the NHS. I have already written to Cheadle dental practice more in hope than expectation, urging it to reconsider its decision to end NHS treatment.
I have little reason to be optimistic. This is not about dentists just wanting to make money but about them being unable to deliver a decent service under the NHS contract. In a letter to patients, Dr. Campaigne—I apologise if I have mispronounced his name—of Cheadle dental practice wrote:
"You may well have seen on the television or read in the press that providing quality dentistry has become very difficult within the NHS. I have a loyalty to and from my patients and although I have been prepared to support the NHS in the past I find it increasingly difficult to provide the quality of care to which you have become accustomed and which I feel you deserve."
That sums up the situation. Dentists tell us time and time again that the pricing structure means that dentists are unable to spend time with their NHS patients, give advice on preventive care or carry out good-quality work. Without a complete renegotiation of the contract to give dentists time with their patients and put in place effective plans the situation will become worse, not better.
It was the Conservative Government who were responsible for the decline in NHS dentistry in places such as Manchester Withington and Cheadle. A new contract and reductions in fees in the early 1990s started the trend, but it is the failure of the Labour Government to do anything about it that has brought the NHS to a crisis point.
I would like to ask the hon. Gentleman a question that I tried to put to his hon. Friend the Member for Northavon (Steve Webb). We have heard a great deal from the Liberal Democrats about the shortage of NHS dentists, but the only proposal in their manifesto on dentistry was for personal dental plans. How many extra dentists would personal dental plans require to be trained, recruited and employed, and how would they be paid for?
The hon. Gentleman has been in government for eight years. [Interruption.] Perhaps he has not been in power for eight years, but the Labour Government certainly have, and they have done nothing to deal with the decline started by the Conservative Government.
In conclusion, the Prime Minister's amendment is typical of a Government with their head in the clouds. I am happy to congratulate NHS staff on their efforts, but in dentistry, their work is made harder by a Government policy that appears determined to end NHS dentistry rather provide than NHS dentistry for all. I noted with interest that the amendment says that
"the Government's ambitions for NHS dentistry will deliver a modernised, high quality primary dental service".
The amendment fails to mention that most people will not be able to access that service, and that fewer individuals will benefit from it unless there is a radical shake-up of NHS dentistry.
It has been interesting to listen to today's debate. The hon. Member for Mole Valley (Sir Paul Beresford) in particular made an interesting contribution. I will not focus on the ins and outs of what goes on in a dentist's room but on the wider issues in my Hackney constituency.
First, I shall comment on the opening speech by the hon. Member for Northavon (Steve Webb). In another life, I was a young journalist in the world of housing. When the hon. Gentleman was first elected we were all excited, because he knew a great deal about his subject and could make good, positive policy suggestions on improving the benefits system. When I sat down on the green Benches today, I thought that I would hear something interesting about dentistry, an issue that is important to my constituents and me, as well as to everyone in the Chamber. However, we were disappointed by the fluff and nonsense that we heard. There were no facts of any merit and no positive suggestions about what the Liberal Democrats would do. It was simply blatant electioneering, which is sad, because the issue is important for people in my constituency and the rest of Hackney.
The problems with dentistry in Hackney are very different from the problems experienced elsewhere. We have plenty of NHS dentists, but we lack the patients. The startling fact is that less than a third of residents are registered with a dentist. Just over 61,000 people are registered in a population of 222,000, according to the figures produced by the primary care trust. Locally, the PCT is working with dentists. Thanks to the Government's policies, the priorities are to register more children and to promote preventive work. Eight dental practices have already signed up to the new personal dental services contract. The PCT, particularly its visionary and highly effective chief executive, Laura Sharpe, has made a good start in tackling the problems in partnership with the Government. It is easy for people to carp about things they think the Government have not done, so let us remind ourselves of what they have done. There has been an extra £250 million in this financial year alone—an increase of 19 per cent. in investment in dentistry—and a new dental contract has been introduced.
I am delighted that my hon. Friend the Minister of State is willing to listen to points made in our debate, as there is not a simple answer to some of the problems in NHS dentistry. We do not live in the Liberal Democrat world of easy solutions but in the real world of government. I am delighted that under her stewardship we are working on long-term, sustainable solutions to problems. An extra £9 million has been provided by the Government to PCTs for training to help dentists to prepare for the introduction of the new ways of working from October this year.
While all that Government investment is much appreciated, is it not the case that much of it is lost on the public, because they would like more dentists in their community and the chance to get on to dental lists and receive treatment?
As I said, in my constituency there is no shortage of dentists in the community, but I accept that we must consider the need for information about the availability of dentists. As my hon. Friend the Member for South Swindon (Anne Snelgrove) said, dentists are available, but people are not always aware that they can register with them. I hope that my hon. Friend the Minister will focus on the positive side of the question rather than the negative and untrue points made by the Opposition.
To return to Hackney issues, I am sure that my hon. Friend the Minister and others would agree that the low registration rate is a serious issue for the health of Hackney residents across the board. Hackney has the second highest proportion of 0 to 4-year-olds in London—just over 8 per cent. It also has a high population turnover—about 20 per cent. a year. That is well illustrated by a primary school that I visited a few weeks ago in Hoxton in the heart of a large number of council estates in my constituency. In year 6 of that primary school, just under 20 per cent. of the pupils have been there since reception. That is an indication of the challenges facing the promotion of registration and access to dental health in populations such as mine in Hackney, South and Shoreditch.
My hon. Friend outlined the Government's approach to increasing the registration of children, and I am delighted about that, but we have only just over 14,000 children registered in Hackney and we need to increase that. I would be keen to work with her and the primary care trust to ensure that boost. I am delighted that the primary care trust has taken the matter up with such vigour, but it is a challenge nevertheless.
Personally, I support fluoridation. In a previous existence, when I was a member of another Assembly, we discovered that, in London, it is particularly difficult to achieve because of the number of water companies and their geographical spread and cover, which makes it difficult under the new legislation to get an agreement to provide fluoridation across London. That leaves many of London's young people vulnerable to decay, especially in parts of east London, including Hackney, where literacy is not so high, population turnover is high and we have a number of migrant communities.
The hon. Lady makes a valid point. Does she think that more education needs to be targeted at parents of young children about the importance of providing dental care for young people in her constituency and mine?
The Government's excellent Sure Start programme could embrace education in that regard, as well as the many other excellent things that it delivers in my constituency and elsewhere. Parents have an important role, as do nurseries and schools. We cannot provide the necessary education top-down from Government and I would not suggest that. There needs to be an awareness that dental health in children is a good indicator of general health and well-being. I thank the hon. Gentleman for his helpful intervention.
The Labour Government are making a difference in a positive way. Before I finish, I wish to pick up on a point made from the Opposition Benches. The hon. Member for North Southwark and Bermondsey (Simon Hughes) expressed concern about foreign-born dentists. It is a shame that the hon. Member for Mole Valley (Sir Paul Beresford) has already left. I am delighted to have foreign-born dentists working in London and in my constituency, and I was rather shocked that a London Member should raise that as an issue of concern. Clearly, we also need to secure places at home to train dentists, wherever they were born, which the Government are doing.
I hope that my hon. Friend the Minister will address some of the points that I have raised and that we can look forward to a greater emphasis on dental health care, for children particularly, in east London.
I have listened with interest to the contributions from both sides of the House. Like many other hon. Members, I am disappointed by the way in which the Cheadle by-election seems to have hung over so much of the debate. That has done the subject a grave disservice. Every time the Liberal Democrats have been asked to provide details of their policy with regard to dental provision, they have offered nothing but evasion and dissemblance.
Dental provision in my constituency, Copeland, is a problem, but there can no doubt that the Government's approach to tackling the problem is the right one. I am grateful for that. The West Cumbria primary care trust, within which Copeland falls, has seen some 2,600 new registrations in the past year alone. That is to be welcomed. In addition, the number of children being registered is 64 per cent. throughout the primary care trust, which is excellent.
In my experience, many dentists in my constituency are committed to the principles of the health service and everything that goes with that. However, it is clear that comprehensive dental provision, not only in my constituency but throughout the UK, cannot rely on the unique professionalism and philanthropy found by my hon. Friend the Member for Denton and Reddish (Andrew Gwynne) in his constituency. There needs to be some kind of compulsion in any new contract for dentists with regard to NHS provision. Would the Minister consider a golden handcuffs clause in any new contract, such as that commonly found in business, whereby a large investment in training individuals requires them to repay the organisation that provides that training?
Is the hon. Gentleman suggesting that, when dentists graduate from dental school, they should be required to spend perhaps five years providing dental services in the NHS before they start taking on private patients?
An element of compulsion should be considered. It is reasonable and realistic to expect that any organisation which invests so much time and taxpayers' money in the provision of a public service should expect some recognition and repayment of that service when it is required.
I should like to tell the House about one family in my constituency who contacted me during the general election campaign. The son had had persistent toothache for months. The family was on a relatively low income, although not on benefit, so they found the typical charges of a private dentist unaffordable. The son's toothache persisted and eventually they were able to get NHS treatment by being referred for emergency dental treatment. By that stage, and after months of discomfort and pain, the son was recommended to have three teeth removed. That is the state of NHS dentistry for some people in my constituency.
The hon. Member for South Swindon (Anne Snelgrove) said that, a few years ago, one could not get an NHS dentist for love nor money in South Swindon. That is still the case in Cheltenham. This morning, I looked at the primary care trust website, which lists all the dental practices not only in my constituency, but in the whole PCT area. There is page after page of dental practices not accepting any new NHS patients for treatment. Out of 30 practices in the PCT area, 27 are not accepting any new NHS patients at all, two are registering only children up to the age of 18, and only one is also accepting some adults, but only charge-exempt adults.
Has my hon. Friend had the same experience as I have had in my constituency? Although there are a few NHS dentists who will accept adult patients, there are virtually none who will do the more sophisticated treatments, such as dentures, porcelain veneers, bridges and crowns. That is an aspect of the failure of dentistry that is seldom discussed but is an acute problem for my constituents.
I thank my hon. Friend for highlighting that additional complication. In Cheltenham, apart from charge-exempt adults who qualify for that single dental practice, there are no NHS dental practices that will accept adult patients.
Does the hon. Gentleman recall that in questions on the subject on 14 June, my hon. Friend the Member for North-East Milton Keynes (Mr. Lancaster) referred to children being accepted on NHS lists only on condition that their parents agreed to go private with the same dentist? Has he had that experience in Cheltenham?
I have not had that specific experience but I am alarmed to hear about it. It shows the extent to which NHS dentistry has collapsed, although as my hon. Friends pointed out, it was the last Conservative Government who were at the root of the problem when they changed the NHS contract in the first place.
The primary care trust is struggling hard to redress the situation. It increased funding for the number of dental chairs and the St. Paul's dental practice will consequently have more chairs. It has recruited two Polish dentists to start work in Cheltenham.
The problem is not the number of dentists. A recent study in The International Journal of Health Geographics revealed that Cheltenham and Tewkesbury primary care trust had one of the highest densities of dentists per head of the population in the country. The problem is the NHS contract. Unless those two Polish dentists are bad either at dentistry or economics, they will find the same position as in all other dental practices: if they try to pursue the NHS contract, they will ultimately face overdrafts and insolvency. That happened to dental practices in the early 1990s, when the previous Conservative Government first made the changes. The problem was not dentists being greedy, inefficient or trying to charge too much, but the increasingly large overdrafts that they built up as businesses. They simply could not sustain themselves.
If the hon. Gentleman is considering the international recruits that the primary care trust has brought in, I suspect that they will work under the new system of contracts rather than the old one. I cannot understand his contention that they will be in the same position as they would have been in the early 1990s.
It would be nice to know when the new contract will be introduced. This morning, I spoke to the chair of my local dental committee, who has waited for eight years under a Labour Government for something to be done about the NHS contract. It was promised two years ago.
If the new dentists are being brought in by the primary care trust through international recruitment, I suspect that they will work under the new personal dental services pilot contract, not the traditional general dental services contract. I hope that they find it reassuring that they are likely to work in that new way and will not therefore face the problems that the hon. Gentleman mentioned.
I am somewhat reassured but the proof of the pudding will be in the eating, if that is not yet another dentistry joke.
We have one of the highest densities of dentists per head in the country. The hon. Member for Hackney, South and Shoreditch (Meg Hillier) said that we should accentuate the positive, but there is little positive to be found. NHS registrations in the Cheltenham and Tewkesbury PCT have fallen below 40 per cent. That is a fall of some 30 per cent. since 1992, when the Conservative Government made the changes. The position under the Labour Government has got increasingly worse.
Moreover, according to the chair of my local dental committee this morning, the situation is set to deteriorate because Gloucestershire dentists are threatening to start deregistering NHS patients. Even if the two Polish dentists provide some NHS registrations, the increase is likely to be offset by other dentists in Gloucestershire deregistering NHS patients. The overview and scrutiny committee in Gloucestershire recently said that there was a genuine risk of NHS registrations deceasing even more unless something is done about the fundamental problem of the NHS contract. It was introduced by the Conservatives, but the Labour Government have done nothing about it for eight years. We have waited two years for a new NHS contract but it has not been provided. The time has come for something to be done.
I thank everyone who spoke for their contributions and for exhausting all the puns that can be made about teeth and dentistry. As a new Member, I fear that I might bite off more than I can chew if I attempt any more.
Many concerns have been expressed about a shortage of access to NHS dentists. We must remember that the problems began under the Conservatives with changes in contracts and a reduction in fees, which forced many dentists to take on more private work. That was not helped by the closure of two dental schools. I do not know what persuaded the Conservative Government that that was a good idea.
However, after eight years of a Labour Government, it is no exaggeration to say that NHS dentistry remains in crisis. As the Minister agreed, more than half the population are not registered with an NHS dentist. As she also conceded, dentists continue to drift away to the private sector. Given her words and the underlying problems, the evidence that has been provided here today is not reflected in the wording of the amendment. I welcome the fact that the Department will publish its response to the charging review, but I ask the Minister to publish the report so that we can see to what exactly the Department is responding. I was interested to learn that the Department is scoping the fundamental review of dentistry, which was promised in the Labour manifesto. The fact that such a review is necessary contradicts the words of the amendment.
What measures will the Liberal Democrats take to improve dentistry? I fear that I have been out of the Chamber doing other things and I should like my memory to be refreshed.
I shall deal with that in due course.
The necessity for the fundamental review and the fact that it will be scoped before it happens suggest that the Government are rowing away as quickly as possible from their general election manifesto pledge.
The access problems have been shown by contributions from hon. Members of all parties. I should like to add my experience to that of other hon. Members. Like my hon. Friend the Member for Cheltenham (Mr. Horwood), I tried to find a dentist in my area who could offer me treatment under the NHS. I thought that I would ascertain whether the Prime Minister's pledge held up and whether I would be referred to an NHS dentist if I phoned NHS Direct. I gave NHS Direct a call and looked at the NHS website. Of a total of 15 practices in my constituency, only four are accepting new NHS patients. None offers occasional or emergency treatment for non-registered patients. Three were ruled out because they accepted new NHS patients from only their immediate area, where I do not live. I live in Camborne and there was only one option for me. I rang that practice directly and was told that I would have to wait between two and eight months. The person to whom I spoke said that they were very sorry, but they could not tell me how long I might have to wait to be registered. If I put my name down, they would try to get back to me. That would depend on what vacancies came up and when they were advised by the primary care trust to register more people.
Does the hon. Lady agree that if one had a massive toothache it would be disastrous to be told that one had to wait four or eight months?
Yes, it is worrying. When I spoke to NHS Direct, I asked about the provision for emergency treatment. I was told that there was one dental access centre 11 miles away and that I would not be given a contact number because I would have to be triaged over the telephone to determine whether it was appropriate to give me access even to try to book an appointment. I am not sure how it is possible to triage over the telephone.
That shows the difference between different areas. I turned up at my dental access surgery and was given an appointment in 24 hours, in which time I was treated. I advise the hon. Lady to speak to her primary care trust.
Unfortunately, I do not think that I shall be able to move to Swindon to receive such treatment. However, the Government have a responsibility to provide a minimum standard across the entire country. I hope that the example that I have given will highlight the fact that there are many access problems, as we have already heard today.
Like the hon. Member for South Swindon (Anne Snelgrove), I too had an abscess, two weeks earlier in the election campaign. My dentist actually got out of bed on a Sunday morning and treated me so that I could continue to work. My agent had an abscess just after the election, however, and was told that she would have to wait two weeks for treatment on the NHS. She ended up having to go private because no relief was available through the national health service.
Fortunately, I have not had an abscess in the past few months.
The Government's amendment to the motion states that there has been extra investment and that the head count of dentists has increased. I would be interested to know how those dentists are splitting their time between NHS and private work, and what the full-time equivalent is of NHS dentistry provision. I am concerned that there appear to be mismatches between the Government's figures and people's real experiences on the ground, such as those highlighted by my hon. Friend the Member for Manchester, Withington (Mr. Leech).
My hon. Friend the Member for Harrogate and Knaresborough (Mr. Willis) has helpfully passed on to me a written answer to a parliamentary question, which gives a very healthy head count of dentists in North Yorkshire. In contrast, the reality that my hon. Friend has experienced on the ground is completely different. He has been contacted by a practice in Ripon that has had to take 1,000 registered patients off its books because the PCT cannot provide the additional funding that it needs to recruit another dentist. So the Government's figures might appear warm and encouraging on paper, but they bear no relation to people's experiences on the ground.
I am worried about the many unknown factors that need to be investigated before these problems can properly be addressed. At present, the problems are not properly understood. For example, we do not yet know when all the dentists will be switching over to the personal dental services contracts, as negotiations with the British Dental Association have broken down once before. Furthermore, it is not yet clear whether the switch over to the new contracts will result in improved capacity for dental services, or whether the dentists who have already moved over to the PDS contracts have increased their ratios of NHS patients and treatments. Surely it will be vital to know whether the new contracts will help to address the problems that I have outlined.
Fears have also been expressed by the National Audit Office that there will be a reduction in NHS services as a result of the introduction of the new contracts, similar to that of the early 1990s. A further unknown factor relates to the recruitment of overseas dentists. While they are indeed filling a cavity in dental provision, we do not know how well PCTs are absorbing the cost of recruiting and inducting them. With so many PCTs already in deficit, this issue needs to be investigated further.
It is great news that the Government are planning to increase the number of new dentists by increasing the number of students being trained, but how will those extra places be filled when many dental schools are already in financial deficit and having huge problems recruiting academic dental staff?
I am interested in the point that the hon. Lady has just made about dentists being recruited from overseas to provide dental services in the UK. Is she suggesting that there should be an embargo on such recruitment?
Of course I am not saying that. I am saying that we do not have enough information about the factors that could be affecting this problem. I am worried that there is a lack of understanding among patients as to what they are entitled to. This is reflected in the number of calls that have been made to NHS Direct. As my hon. Friend the Member for Northavon (Steve Webb) pointed out earlier, toothache is the fourth most popular reason for calling the service, yet one in 11 people who call for that reason are not given a nearby treatment centre for their problem.
Another concern is that the information that callers are given by NHS Direct is simply not correct. To return to the example of the number of dentists in Cheadle—
I am grateful to the hon. Lady for giving way. She might not be aware that Cheadle is in Stockport, as is part of my constituency. The picture that has been painted by Opposition Members, in a blatant electioneering exercise, does not necessarily correspond with my experience, or with the conversations that I have had with health officials in Stockport. Is the hon. Lady aware that 60 per cent. of adults and 70 per cent. of children in Stockport are now registered, which represents a real improvement, contrary to what the hon. Member for Manchester, Withington (Mr. Leech) suggested? That is way above the national average, which is to be welcomed—
Order. One question is enough.
I am not sure whether the hon. Gentleman will be reassured by the information that I am about to give him. The point that I am making is that the help that the NHS is trying to give is based on factors that may not reflect reality. The NHS website states that none of the 18 practices registered in Cheadle is accepting new NHS patients, yet a ring-around revealed that two of them actually are. The concern is that the facts are not right. How many patients looking to register with a dentist will go to the trouble of ringing dozens of practices to see whether, on the off chance, the facts might not be right? That needs to be addressed.
Concerns about access have also been illustrated by Members such as the hon. Member for Plymouth, Sutton (Linda Gilroy), who is lobbying for a new dental school in Plymouth, which I wholly support, and that reflects a need to get as many dentists as possible into the area because registrations are currently so low. Urgent action is required to rebuild NHS dentistry so that more people know what access they might have to services, as the hon. Member for South Swindon (Anne Snelgrove) pointed out, and so that they can access the services that they need. Will the Minister promise to investigate further how to fill in the current gaps in knowledge so that real and immediate progress can be made?
I have listened carefully to the hon. Lady's comments, as I listened to the opening speech of her hon. Friend the Member for Northavon (Steve Webb), and I have yet to hear her welcome any of the investment, including that which will help the dental school, for which we in Plymouth hope, to materialise. Will she now do so?
Of course I would welcome that, if it makes a positive impact on the serious problems that I hope the hon. Lady will concede that we currently have.
I also want to draw the Minister's attention to the contents of the Liberal Democrat manifesto for the previous election, which called for closer work with the dental profession to ensure that it is on board with reforms that will deliver more dentists working for the NHS.
Does the hon. Lady agree that the Lib Dem manifesto was slightly short of specifics on that point?
Had the Tories submitted an amendment to our motion, we would have been pleased to see the specifics of their proposals.
Does my hon. Friend agree that it is pleasant to see that at least one party in the House is committed to consulting with professions before imposing things on them?
Certainly. As the hon. Member for Selby (Mr. Grogan) pointed out, the Government and dentists need to work together to resolve such issues.
The drill-and-fill payment system, which has caused so many problems, should be scrapped as soon as possible and free dental check-ups should be introduced to help promote good dental health, as they will pick up more than just cavities.
The hon. Lady refers blithely to scrapping the drill-and-fill fees system, as she called it. With what would the Liberal Democrats replace it?
The promotion of oral health, as I was saying.
Is my hon. Friend aware that free eye and dental check-ups are to be introduced in Scotland as a result of the influence of Liberal Democrats in coalition government? The contrast between what is occurring in Scotland and what is occurring in England is testament to the influence that Liberal Democrats can have when we get into government.
The Government cannot expect to make adequate progress, no matter how much they invest, unless they understand the scale and nature of the problems that they face. I commend our motion to the House.
We have had an excellent debate this afternoon, which has forensically deconstructed the motion tabled by the Liberal Democrats via a survey of the battle lines of the Cheadle by-election. Some of us also caught at least an inkling of what the Liberal Democrat alternative is.
The Minister of State, my hon. Friend the Member for Doncaster, Central (Ms Winterton), set out some inescapable points that helpfully framed our debate and illuminated the background to many of the excellent contributions that we have heard. She reminded us that dental decay is at the lowest level among children since records began, and that the figures for 12 to 15-year-olds are the best in Europe. She also reminded us that the number of dentists is up 20 per cent. since 1997 to more than 20,000, and that courses of treatment are up by 7 million a year.
One of my hon. Friend's many great strengths, however, is her frankness, and she was frank with the House when she said that our ambition is to go further still. The Government amendment encapsulates that way forward. It sets out an ambition to meet the challenges and build on the progress about which we have heard. Most importantly, however, it addresses seriously the fundamental question: where do we go from here?
Among the contributions that we heard was the opening speech of the hon. Member for Northavon (Steve Webb), which boiled down to two points: the progress made and how to put in place capacity for the future.
I noted that when referring to progress, the hon. Gentleman again used figures relating to the key year—1998—in which the registration rules changed, and the registration period was reduced from 24 to 15 months. The figures for the succeeding years show a very different pattern. They show an increase of 180,000 in the number of registrations, compared with a 2.1 million drop under the last Conservative Administration.
The hon. Gentleman also spoke of establishing capacity for the future. I hope he agrees that the Government's approach—investment coupled with devolution of commissioning to local health professionals, international recruitment coupled with investment in training places for the future, and, most important, the creation of new contractual arrangements allowing NHS and private dentists to increase the capacity that they offer the NHS—represents the way ahead.
Let me ask the Minister a serious question about accountability. He mentioned the devolution of commissioning to PCTs. On a number of occasions during the debate when we criticised Government action, the reply was "It's the PCTs". We do not elect the PCTs; we elect Ministers. Where will the democratic accountability in dentistry be when commissioning is decentralised?
We need only remind ourselves of what was said by my hon. Friend the Member for South Swindon (Anne Snelgrove) to understand the impact that can be made by working in partnership with PCTs. My hon. Friend the Member for Plymouth, Sutton (Linda Gilroy) made a similar point.
The hon. Member for Mole Valley (Sir Paul Beresford) made an extremely well-informed speech, characterised by an enduring commitment to the principles of NHS dentistry. He was right to emphasise the importance of fluoridation: areas with fluoridated water have experienced declines of around 15 per cent. in tooth decay among children. He also emphasised the importance of the new contract, recognising the opportunity that it represents. I hope that during the consultation and the affirmative resolution procedure in both Houses, he will do his best to make his views known.
The hon. Members for Rochdale (Paul Rowen) and for Cheltenham (Mr. Horwood) described some of the access problems in their constituencies. I think that their speeches implied the same conclusion that the hon. Member for Manchester, Withington (Mr. Leech) appeared to reach. I think that they were all arguing in favour of the new contractual arrangements that my hon. Friend the Minister of State will announce next week. I take issue only with the allegation by the hon. Gentleman that the Government had done nothing to address the inheritance of 1997. An extra £250 million is not an empty promise; the recruitment of 1,000 extra dentists is not an empty promise; a 20 per cent. increase in the number of training places is not an empty promise. All those things make a difference, not just in the country generally but in the hon. Gentleman's constituency. For a start, he will have an extra £144,000 in access money.
Cotswold and Vale primary care trust says that the new contract
"does not however increase the amount dentists are paid per patient, so will not 'buy back' the shift to Private dentistry that has occurred."
Does the Minister agree with that?
The hon. Gentleman must wait for the new arrangements that my hon. Friend the Minister of State will announce next week.
Members on both sides of the House spoke of the differences made to access throughout the country. My hon. Friend the Member for Hackney, North and Stoke Newington (Ms Abbott) explained how our reforms would benefit urban areas. I thank her for her recognition of the record investment in the NHS and NHS dentistry. I join her in celebrating the availability of dentists in Hackney. She, too, mentioned the important issue of fluoridation, to which I will alert my hon. Friend the Member for Don Valley (Caroline Flint), the Under-Secretary of State for Health.
My hon. Friend the Member for Selby (Mr. Grogan) has not been to Cheadle for some reason, but I welcome his endorsement of our strategy. As he said, his constituency is benefiting from the changes. His local PCT has eight new recruits, and registration has increased by more than 8,000. That is a good example of the difference that can be made—not least in the widening of access—by transferring commissioning to PCTs, which are now in control of £1.6 billion. He concluded with some sage advice on contract consultations in the months to come, which will doubtless be of great benefit to my hon. Friend the Minister of State. My hon. Friend the Member for Copeland (Mr. Reed) added to those thoughts with a helpful contribution of his own.
My hon. Friend the Member for Plymouth, Sutton also congratulated the Government on the progress that has been made. I thank her for that, and in turn congratulate her on engaging with her local PCT. I am sure that its hitting its targets is not unrelated to the strong interest that she takes in local matters. She underlined the strength of her city's claim to be host to a new dental school; I am sure that my hon. Friend the Minister of State will have listened very carefully to what she had to say. What a welcome change to be debating where to open dental schools, rather than mourning their closure.
My hon. Friend the Member for South Swindon highlighted the sharp contrast in her constituency between the situation now and before 1997. Some of the innovation that she highlighted was especially useful. Her constituency has indeed benefited considerably. Her PCT has a growth in registrations of 4,500 coming its way. Her strategic health authority has nearly £2 million extra in capital and revenue resources, as well as an access centre. I must congratulate her on taking a close interest in dental matters in her constituency—so close that she was drawn into a little personal research in what sounded like the most pressing of circumstances. She highlighted the need to publicise the new dentistry services that are available, and I can only agree. She also raised a specific case, on which I shall write to her.
I want to conclude my survey of this afternoon's contributions with that of the hon. Member for Westbury (Dr. Murrison), who opened with some excellent jokes and then proceeded to tell some that were slightly less amusing. I was especially intrigued by his idea that, on the basis of evidence, dental schools will close. I was not sure which evidence he meant. Was it the number of registrations falling by 2.1 million or treatments falling by 600,000? He did not say. He did, however, underline the need for an NHS commitment to dentistry, with which I can only concur.
The hon. Gentleman also underlined the importance of a personal touch, but he said that he was unsure about our commitment to delivering it. Well, the best way to guarantee it is by recruiting more dentists, not by encouraging them to drift away. The best way to guarantee it is by training new dentists for the future, not by closing down dental schools. He emphasised the importance of registration, which intrigued me slightly. The hon. Member for South Cambridgeshire (Mr. Lansley), who is not in his place, has said that the Conservatives' plans do not guarantee patients' ability to register, even in cases where they have secured insurance.
In conclusion, I celebrate the House's resolve time and again to address itself to the vital issue of the nation's oral health. This is our third debate on this issue in the past 12 months. Once again, we have spent an afternoon counting the cost of clearing up the Conservatives' legacy. Once again, we have heard of the damage done by their calamitous contract of 1990. Once again, we have heard of the price paid for their decision to close dental schools. And once again, we have heard from the Liberal Democrats a solution—
After eight years, is it not about time that Labour started taking responsibility for this issue?
Let us look at the figures. The number of dentists is up by 20 per cent.; the number of adult registrations is up by 180,000 since 1998; the number of treatments is up by 6 million. So I have absolutely no apologies to make for this Government's record in office. It is a record of which we are proud.
A little earlier, I mentioned that one issue that the Conservatives perhaps have difficulty in getting their heads round is that in 1997 we inherited a situation in which some 42p in every new pound of taxation was being spent on the cost of economic failure, unemployment and the national debt, which had got out of control. I did not mention that that figure has now dropped to some 11p in the pound, which means that we have the money to invest in a sustainable way. Does my hon. Friend agree that that is a key point and that it should give us confidence in future?
I agree entirely with my hon. Friend. We can be very proud of the fact that investment in NHS dentistry is increasing by 19 per cent. over the next year.
That leads me to the question of finance. Once again, we heard from the Liberal Democrats a solution, the delicate foundation of which appears to rest on spending money spent once or twice before. The right hon. Member for Ross, Skye and Lochaber (Mr. Kennedy) has told the newspapers that his party is embarked on a great adventure. It is embarked on a policy review without precondition or presupposition, a clean sheet and a move away from
"a brief, desultory debate in a largely empty hall",
which I can only assume is a reference to the Liberal Democrat annual conference. I hope that what the Liberal Democrats have heard this afternoon has put them off writing on that blank sheet a break-up of the national health service, as proposed by some of their number in "The Orange Book". What this country wants is NHS dentistry rejuvenated by the reforms outlined by the Minister of State earlier this afternoon. These are the most ambitious reforms since 1948, which promise to accelerate the increased number of dentists, increased number of treatments and increased number of registrations already delivered in the last Parliament.
Before he finishes, will the Minister confirm whether it is his intention to publish Harry Cayton's report next week in part or in full?
We will publish it in full, even though it is unusual to publish the full details of reports constructed by external working groups. The principles and the details set out next week will be extremely important and I hope that both sides of the House will join in a constructive debate on them. The Minister of State has set out a strategy this afternoon and the next steps will be set out next week. I commend the Government amendment to the House.
Question put, That the original words stand part of the Question:—
The House divided: Ayes 65, Noes 467. Division No. 23 ] [ 3.51 pm AYES Baker, Norman Barrett, John Beith, rh Mr. Alan Brake, Tom Breed, Mr. Colin Brooke, Annette Browne, Mr. Jeremy Bruce, Malcolm Burstow, Mr. Paul Burt, Lorely Cable, Dr. Vincent Campbell, Mr. Gregory Campbell, rh Sir Menzies Carmichael, Mr. Alistair Clegg, Mr. Nick Davey, Mr. Edward Dodds, Mr. Nigel Featherstone, Lynne George, Andrew Gidley, Sandra Goldsworthy, Julia Hancock, Mr. Mike Harris, Dr. Evan Harvey, Nick Heath, Mr. David Hemming, John Hermon, Lady Holmes, Paul Horwood, Mr. Martin Howarth, David Hughes, Simon Huhne, Chris Keetch, Mr. Paul Kennedy, rh Mr. Charles Kramer, Susan Lamb, Norman Laws, Mr. David Leech, Mr. John Llwyd, Mr. Elfyn Moore, Mr. Michael Mulholland, Greg Oaten, Mr. Mark Öpik, Lembit Paisley, Rev. Ian Pugh, Dr. John Reid, Mr. Alan Robinson, Mrs. Iris Robinson, Mr. Peter Rogerson, Mr. Dan Rowen, Paul Russell, Bob Sanders, Mr. Adrian Smith, Sir Robert Stunell, Andrew Swinson, Jo Taylor, Dr. Richard Teather, Sarah Thurso, John Webb, Steve Williams, Hywel Williams, Mark Williams, Mr. Roger Williams, Stephen Willis, Mr. Phil Wilson, Sammy Tellers for the Ayes: Richard Younger-Ross and Danny Alexander NOES Abbott, Ms Diane Afriyie, Adam Ainger, Nick Ainsworth, rh Mr. Bob Allen, Mr. Graham Amess, Mr. David Ancram, rh Mr. Michael Anderson, Mr. David Anderson, Janet Armstrong, rh Hilary Atkins, Charlotte Austin, Mr. Ian Austin, John Bacon, Mr. Richard Bailey, Mr. Adrian Baird, Vera Baldry, Tony Banks, Gordon Barker, Gregory Barlow, Ms Celia Baron, Mr. John Barron, rh Mr. Kevin Battle, rh John Bayley, Hugh Beckett, rh Margaret Begg, Miss Anne Bell, Sir Stuart Bellingham, Mr. Henry Benn, rh Hilary Benton, Mr. Joe Benyon, Mr. Richard Beresford, Sir Paul Berry, Roger Betts, Mr. Clive Binley, Mr. Brian Blackman, Liz Blears, rh Hazel Blizzard, Mr. Bob Blunkett, rh Mr. David Blunt, Mr. Crispin Bone, Mr. Peter Borrow, Mr. David S. Boswell, Mr. Tim Bottomley, Peter Bradshaw, Mr. Ben Brady, Mr. Graham Brazier, Mr. Julian Brennan, Kevin Brokenshire, James Brown, Lyn Brown, rh Mr. Nicholas Brown, Mr. Russell Browne, rh Mr. Des Browning, Angela Bryant, Chris Buck, Ms Karen Burden, Richard Burns, Mr. Simon Burt, Alistair Butler, Ms Dawn Butterfill, Sir John Byrne, Mr. Liam Cairns, David Cameron, Mr. David Campbell, Mr. Alan Campbell, Mr. Ronnie Carswell, Mr. Douglas Cash, Mr. William Caton, Mr. Martin Cawsey, Mr. Ian Challen, Colin Chaytor, Mr. David Chope, Mr. Christopher Clapham, Mr. Michael Clappison, Mr. James Clark, Greg Clark, Ms Katy Clark, Paul Clarke, rh Mr. Charles Clarke, rh Mr. Kenneth Clelland, Mr. David Clwyd, rh Ann Coaker, Mr. Vernon Coffey, Ann Cohen, Harry Connarty, Michael Cook, Frank Cook, rh Mr. Robin Cooper, Rosie Corbyn, Jeremy Cormack, Sir Patrick Cousins, Jim Crabb, Mr. Stephen Crausby, Mr. David Creagh, Mary Cruddas, Jon Cryer, Mrs. Ann Cummings, John Cunningham, Mr. Jim Curry, rh Mr. David Curtis-Thomas, Mrs. Claire Davidson, Mr. Ian Davies, David T.C. (Monmouth) Davies, Philip Davis, rh David (Haltemprice and Howden) Dean, Mrs. Janet Denham, rh Mr. John Dhanda, Mr. Parmjit Dismore, Mr. Andrew Djanogly, Mr. Jonathan Dobbin, Jim Dobson, rh Frank Donohoe, Mr. Brian H. Doran, Mr. Frank Dorries, Mrs. Nadine Drew, Mr. David Duddridge, James Duncan, Mr. Alan Duncan Smith, rh Mr. Iain Dunwoody, Mrs. Gwyneth Durkan, Mark Eagle, Angela Eagle, Maria Efford, Clive Ellman, Mrs. Louise Ellwood, Mr. Tobias Ennis, Jeff Etherington, Bill Evans, Mr. Nigel Evennett, Mr. David Fabricant, Michael Fallon, Mr. Michael Farrelly, Paul Field, rh Mr. Frank Field, Mr. Mark Fisher, Mark Fitzpatrick, Jim Flello, Mr. Robert Flint, Caroline Flynn, Paul Follett, Barbara Forth, rh Mr. Eric Foster, Mr. Michael (Worcester) Foster, Michael Jabez (Hastings and Rye) Fox, Dr. Liam Francis, Dr. Hywel Francois, Mr. Mark Fraser, Mr. Christopher Gale, Mr. Roger Gapes, Mike Gardiner, Barry Garnier, Mr. Edward Gauke, Mr. David George, rh Mr. Bruce Gerrard, Mr. Neil Gibb, Mr. Nick Gibson, Dr. Ian Gillan, Mrs. Cheryl Gilroy, Linda Godsiff, Mr. Roger Goggins, Paul Goodman, Helen Gove, Michael Gray, Mr. James Grayling, Chris Green, Damian Greening, Justine Greenway, Mr. John Grieve, Mr. Dominic Griffith, Nia Grogan, Mr. John Gwynne, Andrew Hague, rh Mr. William Hall, Mr. Mike Hall, Patrick Hamilton, Mr. David Hammond, Stephen Harman, rh Ms Harriet Harper, Mr. Mark Harris, Mr. Tom Havard, Mr. Dai Hayes, Mr. John Heald, Mr. Oliver Healey, John Henderson, Mr. Doug Hendrick, Mr. Mark Hendry, Charles Hepburn, Mr. Stephen Herbert, Mr. Nick Hesford, Stephen Hewitt, rh Ms Patricia Heyes, David Hill, rh Keith Hillier, Meg Hoban, Mr. Mark Hodge, rh Margaret Hodgson, Mrs. Sharon Hoey, Kate Hollobone, Mr. Philip Holloway, Mr. Adam Hood, Mr. Jimmy Hoon, rh Mr. Geoffrey Hope, Phil Hopkins, Kelvin Horam, Mr. John Howarth, Mr. George Howarth, Mr. Gerald Howells, Dr. Kim Hoyle, Mr. Lindsay Humble, Mrs. Joan Hunt, Mr. Jeremy Hurd, Mr. Nick Hutton, rh Mr. John Iddon, Dr. Brian Illsley, Mr. Eric Irranca-Davies, Huw Jack, rh Mr. Michael Jackson, Glenda Jackson, Mr. Stewart James, Mrs. Siân C. Jenkins, Mr. Brian Johnson, Mr. Boris Johnson, Ms Diana R. Jones, Mr. David Jones, Helen Jones, Mr. Kevan Jones, Lynne Jones, Mr. Martyn Jowell, rh Tessa Joyce, Mr. Eric Kaufman, rh Sir Gerald Kawczynski, Daniel Keeble, Ms Sally Keeley, Ms Barbara Keen, Alan Keen, Ann Kelly, rh Ruth Kemp, Mr. Fraser Kennedy, rh Jane Khabra, Mr. Piara S. Khan, Mr. Sadiq Kidney, Mr. David Kilfoyle, Mr. Peter Knight, rh Mr. Greg Knight, Jim Kumar, Dr. Ashok Ladyman, Dr. Stephen Lait, Mrs. Jacqui Lammy, Mr. David Laxton, Mr. Bob Lazarowicz, Mark Lepper, David Letwin, rh Mr. Oliver Levitt, Tom Lewis, Dr. Julian Liddell-Grainger, Mr. Ian Lidington, Mr. David Linton, Martin Lloyd, Tony Loughton, Tim Love, Mr. Andrew Lucas, Ian Luff, Peter MacDougall, Mr. John Mackay, rh Mr. Andrew Mackinlay, Andrew MacShane, Mr. Denis Mahmood, Mr. Khalid Main, Anne Malik, Mr. Shahid Malins, Mr. Humfrey Mallaber, Judy Mann, John Marris, Rob Marsden, Mr. Gordon Marshall, Mr. David Martlew, Mr. Eric May, rh Mrs. Theresa McAvoy, rh Mr. Thomas McCabe, Steve McCafferty, Chris McCarthy, Kerry McCarthy-Fry, Sarah McCartney, rh Mr. Ian McDonagh, Siobhain McDonnell, Dr. Alasdair McDonnell, John McFadden, Mr. Pat McFall, rh Mr. John McGovern, Mr. Jim McGrady, Mr. Eddie McIntosh, Miss Anne McIsaac, Shona McKechin, Ann McKenna, Rosemary McLoughlin, Mr. Patrick McNulty, Mr. Tony Meacher, rh Mr. Michael Merron, Gillian Michael, rh Alun Miliband, rh Mr. David Miliband, Edward Miller, Andrew Miller, Mrs. Maria Milton, Anne Mitchell, Mr. Andrew Mitchell, Mr. Austin Moffat, Anne Mole, Chris Moon, Mrs. Madeleine Moran, Margaret Morden, Jessica Morgan, Julie Morley, Mr. Elliot Moss, Mr. Malcolm Mountford, Kali Mudie, Mr. George Mullin, Mr. Chris Mundell, David Munn, Meg Murphy, Mr. Denis Murphy, Mr. Jim Murphy, rh Mr. Paul Murrison, Dr. Andrew Naysmith, Dr. Doug Newmark, Mr. Brooks Norris, Dan O'Brien, Mr. Mike O'Brien, Mr. Stephen O'Hara, Mr. Edward Olner, Mr. Bill Osborne, Mr. George Osborne, Sandra Ottaway, Richard Owen, Albert Paice, Mr. James Palmer, Dr. Nick Paterson, Mr. Owen Pelling, Mr. Andrew Penning, Mike Penrose, John Pickles, Mr. Eric Plaskitt, Mr. James Pope, Mr. Greg Pound, Stephen Prentice, Bridget Prentice, Mr. Gordon Primarolo, rh Dawn Prisk, Mr. Mark Pritchard, Mark Prosser, Gwyn Purchase, Mr. Ken Purnell, James Redwood, rh Mr. John Reed, Mr. Andy Reed, Mr. Jamie Reid, rh John Rifkind, rh Sir Malcolm Riordan, Mrs. Linda Robathan, Mr. Andrew Robertson, Hugh Robertson, John Robertson, Mr. Laurence Robinson, Mr. Geoffrey Rooney, Mr. Terry Rosindell, Andrew Roy, Mr. Frank Ruane, Chris Ruddock, Joan Ruffley, Mr. David Russell, Christine Ryan, Joan Salter, Martin Sarwar, Mr. Mohammad Scott, Mr. Lee Seabeck, Alison Shapps, Grant Shaw, Jonathan Sheerman, Mr. Barry Shepherd, Mr. Richard Sheridan, Jim Simmonds, Mark Simon, Mr. Siôn Simpson, Alan Singh, Mr. Marsha Skinner, Mr. Dennis Slaughter, Mr. Andrew Smith, rh Mr. Andrew Smith, Ms Angela C. (Sheffield, Hillsborough) Smith, Angela E. (Basildon) Smith, Geraldine Smith, rh Jacqui Smith, John Snelgrove, Anne Soames, Mr. Nicholas Soulsby, Sir Peter Southworth, Helen Spellar, rh Mr. John Spicer, Sir Michael Spink, Bob Spring, Mr. Richard Stanley, rh Sir John Starkey, Dr. Phyllis Steen, Mr. Anthony Stewart, Ian Stoate, Dr. Howard Strang, rh Dr. Gavin Streeter, Mr. Gary Stringer, Graham Stuart, Ms Gisela Stuart, Mr. Graham Swayne, Mr. Desmond Swire, Mr. Hugo Syms, Mr. Robert Tami, Mark Tapsell, Sir Peter Taylor, Ms Dari Taylor, David Thornberry, Ms Emily Timms, Mr. Stephen Tipping, Paddy Todd, Mr. Mark Trickett, Jon Truswell, Mr. Paul Turner, Mr. Andrew Turner, Dr. Desmond Turner, Mr. Neil Twigg, Derek Tyrie, Mr. Andrew Vaizey, Mr. Edward Vaz, Keith Viggers, Peter Villiers, Mrs. Theresa Vis, Dr. Rudi Walker, Mr. Charles Wallace, Mr. Ben Walley, Joan Waltho, Lynda Ward, Claire Wareing, Mr. Robert N. Waterson, Mr. Nigel Watkinson, Angela Watson, Mr. Tom Whitehead, Dr. Alan Whittingdale, Mr. John Wicks, Malcolm Wiggin, Bill Williams, rh Mr. Alan Williams, Mrs. Betty Wills, Mr. Michael Wilshire, Mr. David Wilson, Mr. Rob Winnick, Mr. David Winterton, Ann Winterton, Sir Nicholas Winterton, Ms Rosie Wood, Mike Woodward, Mr. Shaun Woolas, Mr. Phil Wright, Mr. Anthony Wright, David Wright, Mr. Iain Wright, Jeremy Wright, Dr. Tony Wyatt, Derek Yeo, Mr. Tim Young, rh Sir George Tellers for the Noes: Tony Cunningham and Mr. Dave Watts Question accordingly negatived.
Question, That the proposed words be there added, put forthwith, pursuant to Standing Order No. 31 (Questions on amendments), and agreed to.
Mr. Deputy Speaker forthwith declared the main Question, as amended, to be agreed to.
Resolved,
That this House welcomes the Government's record levels of investment in the National Health Service, with expenditure set to rise to over £92 billion in 2007–08; congratulates the Government and NHS staff for improvements in primary care; notes that the Government's ambitions for NHS dentistry will deliver a modernised, high quality primary dental service; congratulates the Government on supporting this with a record level of investment, which has been increased by 19 per cent., or £250 million a year, over 2003–04 levels; further welcomes the increase in NHS primary care dentists from 16,700 in 1997 to 20,192 in April, the creation of 53 dental access centres across England treating some 400,000 patients a year and an NHS support team to improve access to dentistry in areas where there are problems, and the introduction of additional capital grants of £35 million to fund practice improvements; and further congratulates the Government for this investment and programme of reform that has delivered a better quality of life for staff, and improved services for all patients, regardless of their ability to pay, true to the founding principles of the NHS.
Climate Change (G8 Summit)
I have to announce to the House that Mr. Speaker has selected the amendment in the name of the Prime Minister.
I beg to move,
That this House recognises the serious threat posed to the planet by climate change; welcomes the decision of the Prime Minister to make this a priority for the UK presidency of the G8; notes with concern however the lack of progress being made to secure effective international agreement on the way forward and in particular the wrecking tactics of the present US Administration and the total lack of leverage on this issue by the Prime Minister over President Bush, who is still in public denial of even the basic science; believes that carbon emissions need to be cut by at least 60 per cent. by 2050; further believes that without such action, measures to reduce poverty in developing countries will be severely undermined; calls on the Prime Minister to use the G8 to win support for a successor regime to Kyoto based upon the principle of contraction and convergence, engaging the participation of both developed and developing nations; further believes that he will be in a stronger position to give an international lead if he now tackles his failures in domestic climate change policy, which mean that the UK is now virtually certain to miss its 2010 carbon emissions reduction target and is now in danger of missing even its Kyoto target; and urges him in particular to adopt effective policies to conserve energy within the domestic sector, and to cut emissions within the transport and energy sectors.
I am very pleased that we are able to have this opportune debate, initiated by the Liberal Democrats, on climate change in the run-up to the G8 summit. It is only a pity that, yet again, we have to rely on our Opposition day time for these major debates, rather than having Government time allocated. For the record, in the past four years there have been four Liberal Democrat debates on climate change in our limited Opposition time, only one Government debate on climate change and none at all from the Conservatives. I hope that the right hon. Member for West Dorset (Mr. Letwin) will attempt to rectify that—provided that he is on the Front Bench long enough, given the quick succession of spokesmen representing the environmental interest for the Conservatives.
The right hon. Member for West Dorset made an interesting contribution on beauty, sunlight and daffodils, to which I listened with great interest. It was the sort of debate that I would have been delighted to take part in, perhaps in a study overlooking an Oxford quadrangle. I hope that he will be able to move on to climate change and other more serious issues before very long—which is not to say that beauty is not important, but climate change is perhaps more important still.
The priorities that the Prime Minister has set for the G8 are, as we know, Africa and climate change. Liberal Democrat Members certainly very much welcome those two priorities. They are completely correct, and the Prime Minister is right to consider what he can do through his presidencies of the G8 and the European Union to take those matters forward.
Although Africa is not the prime subject of the motion, my colleagues feel that significant progress has been made there. The Commission for Africa is a welcome development—a good first step—and we very much welcome the obvious progress that has been made on debt and aid, but I am afraid that the same cannot be said for climate change. It may be no coincidence that the Prime Minister has been rather more keen to talk about Africa and aid, where progress has been made, than about climate change, where it has not.
It a common view among hon. Members on both sides of the House that climate change is the greatest threat facing the planet, especially Africa. In January 2004, Sir David King, the Government's chief scientist, said:
"In my view, climate change is the most severe problem we are facing today, more serious even than the threat of terrorism."
Yet, shortly afterwards, the Prime Minister said:
"It's the single biggest long-term problem we face."
He appears to be at odds with his chief scientist about the urgency of the matter.
I make it very clear that the Liberal Democrats regard climate change as a problem today, not one for the long term. It is a problem that requires action now, both internationally and domestically. Everyone knows that climate change is kicking in. I do not need to rehearse the science—it is all very well documented—and people need only look at the weather in this country to see how it has changed in the past 20 years to know that climate change is here and is having an increasing effect on our country and the planet.
We believe that combating climate change and helping Africa are two inextricably linked goals. Indeed, we go so far as to say that we could sort out Africa's debt problems if only we could sort out the aid problems and even the trade problems. Unless we deal with climate change, the good work on the Africa agenda will be significantly undermined because Africa is in the front line when facing problems from climate change, desertification, extra flooding and changes to crop harvests.
Archbishop Desmond Tutu said:
"It is important to understand that Africa and climate change are intrinsically linked, as climate change will affect the welfare of Africans for years to come."
Andrew Simms, the New Economics Foundation policy director, said:
"You cannot make poverty history unless you stop runaway climate change."
If the Prime Minister wants to make progress on Africa, that is good, but he must make progress on climate change as well, otherwise he undermines his own case.
I commend to the House and the Minister the recent report, "Africa: Up in Smoke", which looked at some of those issues in detail. The report made it plain for us all to see that the G8 nations have failed to join the dots between climate change and Africa. It made it clear that unless global warming is checked, development gains will disappear. Fourteen African countries are already subject to water stress or water scarcity, and they will be joined by a further 11 in the next 25 years. Rainfall is predicted to decline in the Horn of Africa and some parts of the south by as much as 10 per cent. by 2050. The land in Africa may warm by as much as 1.6°C, which can affect crop harvests for hundreds of millions of people. Aid policy for Africa needs to be recast to take account of climate change. Greater resources need to be given to adaptation, so that Africa is capable of withstanding some of the effects that are coming down the track towards it very quickly.
Sadly, most G8 nations, including the United Kingdom, are dragging their feet in paying aid to the third world for climate change. The UK has pledged £10 million to a special climate change fund, but so far has paid nothing. Japan, the United States and Russia, which ostensibly signed up to some degree to the aid agenda, have refused to offer any cash at all. Germany has so far paid nothing to the special fund.
I am pleased to say that the hon. Gentleman was one of the Members who came to the launch today of the parliamentary all-party group on climate change. Many Members from both sides were present. The hon. Gentleman referred to the contribution of other countries. Does he think that during our presidency of the G8, those countries will take the Prime Minister's view that climate change is as important as it is?
I will come to the other G8 members and climate change shortly, but the quick answer is that there is a commonality of view among many countries on the need to act. Unfortunately, that view is not shared by the United States Administration, and we need to overcome that problem if we are to make progress. The hon. Gentleman leads me on to the strategy for the G8 presidency but, first, may I congratulate him on his efforts this morning to set up the all-party group? I hope that it will do good work.
The Government's diplomatic strategy has been sensible. As far as I can tell, it has been based on four prongs. The first is to persuade President Bush and his acolytes of the scientific case for action on climate change; the second is to tie down the rhetoric on new technologies so that something actually materialises, rather than simply talking in a vacuum about what might be done; the third is to aim towards a communiqué that signs up everyone to a successor regime for Kyoto in some shape or form; and the fourth is to find a way realistically and fairly to bring China, India and other such countries on board. Those are sensible diplomatic objectives for the arrangements that the Prime Minister is entering into.
If Kyoto is to be at the heart of our interest in climate change, will it not be very difficult to address the issues that climate change presents until we get the United States to come on board with Kyoto?
Undoubtedly, and I shall devote part of my speech to what we should do in that eventuality.
The United States is the world's major polluter. It has 4 per cent. of the world's population, but produces 25 per cent. of its carbon emissions. However, President Bush still denies the basic science that everyone else in the world accepts. His spokesman, Harlan Watson, said a couple of months ago:
"We are still not convinced of the need to move forward quite so quickly . . . There is general agreement that there is a lot known, but there is also a lot to be known."
In other words, that is being used as an excuse to do nothing and to justify the status quo and business as usual.
We have reached the stage at which the only people who do not appear to believe that climate change is with us are President Bush and Lee R. Raymond, the chairman and chief executive of ExxonMobil. They could fit into a telephone box and discuss the subject. That reminds me of the old adage about Liberal Members of Parliament back in the 1960s, who, it was said, would all be able to fit into a taxi. Fortunately, those days are now long gone, and I imagine that they went when Cyril Smith won a by-election in Rochdale. We have moved on, so let us hope that President Bush can move on with his best buddy the chief executive of ExxonMobil.
Does the hon. Gentleman agree that it is hard for us to apply the moral pressure on the United States that we all seek to apply when our Government talk tough about climate change and carbon dioxide emissions, set an ambitious target of 20 per cent. and then cut it to 13 per cent? They are failing to deliver. Does he agree with the recent report that suggests that this country now has a worse environmental record than that of the United States, which everyone seems to want to criticise? We all need to change.
I do not agree that we have a worse environmental record than the United States, but I accept that we need to ensure that our house is in order before we attempt to lecture others. There is a lot of work to be done on the domestic scene, to which I will come later. One of the joys of these debates is that Members are always keen to anticipate the comments that I shall make. I busily scribble them out as I go through my contribution.
We have to ask why President Bush takes the view that he does. Does he genuinely not believe that the science is proven—in which case, he is in a very small minority—or is there some other reason? We need to look at other elements of the US Administration to answer that question, and I look no further than Phillip Cooney, who was a chief of staff for the White House council on environmental quality. Leaked memos that have appeared in the press show that he consistently watered down official scientific warnings and intervened to blur the conclusions of Government scientists before they were published so as to minimise, as far as possible, their views on the threat from climate change.
Phillip Cooney is not a scientist; he is a politician working for President Bush. He was formerly a lobbyist for the American Petroleum Institute, the oil industry's largest trade group and a lobby group vocal in denying that climate change results from man-made emissions. He resigned over the weekend 11–12 June, having taken a job with ExxonMobil that he will start shortly. I can do no better than quote Henry Waxman, a Democratic Congressman who sits on the committee on government reform, who said:
"At a minimum it creates a terrible appearance . . . This is one of the fastest revolving doors I have seen."
That is not a unique example of an individual in the US putting forward views based purportedly on science but actually on their interests or the interests of those they represent. The director of the International Policy Network, Julian Morris, described the Prime Minister's plans to use his G8 tenure to halt global warming as "offensive". Interestingly, ExxonMobil gave the IPN $50,000.
The leading spokesman for the Competitive Enterprise Institute, Myron Ebell, attacked David King as an
"alarmist with ridiculous views who knows nothing about climate change".
Interestingly, ExxonMobil gave that organisation $280,000. Tech Central Station has also been leading the charge against the science of climate change. It received $95,000 from ExxonMobil. Can Members detect a pattern emerging among those US spokesmen?
Where does that leave the Prime Minister at the G8 summit? What should he do? I feel genuinely sorry for him. He has tried to move things forward with President Bush and the United States through that international forum, but he has been completely rebuffed. All the favours that the Prime Minister has given over Iraq and everything else count as nothing with President Bush. They have been contemptuously swept aside in the one-way street that is our special relationship. It looks as though the Prime Minister will return empty handed from the G8 summit as regards the American Administration. That will of course be only the latest in a long line of rebuffs from best friend President Bush. Whether it is the International Criminal Court, debt relief or Iraq—the list is endless—President Bush says no, no, no.
It is important to realise, however, that when we talk about President Bush we are not talking of the American people—those in America who understand climate change and are arguing strongly for real action. Evidence of a sensible and understanding approach in the US is becoming common.In the Senate, there were the efforts of the Republican Senator McCain to set up an emissions trading scheme by 2010, in a reasonably close vote on 21 June, only a few days ago. There are the actions of US states such as California, where Arnold Schwarzenegger said that the debate on climate change "is over". He has announced a climate change plan with targets to reduce emissions of greenhouse gases to 2000 levels by 2010. As a Republican, he is taking action in the fifth or sixth biggest economy in the world, and he is moving Republican opinion in the US behind the need to take action on climate change.
Just as President Bush is not the USA, nor too is the G8. Does the hon. Gentleman support some of the initiatives from France and Germany, especially the idea for an airline tax, which would contribute towards tackling climate change and provide extra assistance for Africa? Does his party support that?
There is no question about the need to deal with aviation emissions. All the projections show that they will rise hugely in the next 20 or 30 years. Obviously, an aviation fuel tax would require international agreement and, as the hon. Gentleman will realise, that may not be forthcoming. However, there is the EU emissions trading scheme and my party—and, indeed, the Government, support the inclusion of aviation in that scheme. It is important that that takes place as quickly as possible and at a level that really generates reductions in emissions from aircraft, rather than simply allowing business as usual. It is not a perfect solution and we need collectively to consider others, but there is a major problem that must be dealt with, so we should listen carefully to well-intentioned proposals from other countries that want reductions in climate change gases.
I was talking about California, but other US states and cities have taken action. A pan-US initiative has been founded by Seattle's mayor, Greg Nickels, and dozens of cities have signed up to taking action on climate change. Most, but not all, are Democrat and each has the tough target of cutting its emissions by 7 per cent. Each mayor wants to take a different path, which is fair enough because of local circumstances, but they are all taking the problem seriously and doing something. The EU emissions trading scheme is being mirrored, or shadowed, by nine north-east states, so when the US Administration in Washington come to their senses, they will be able to plug into the scheme. A lot of good things are happening in the US, so the attitude that President Bush takes on the world stage does his country no good whatsoever.
So, how should the Prime Minister approach the impasse that is President Bush? Let me make it clear that getting the US into an agreement would be infinitely preferable to having it outside an agreement. It is a major polluter and a major world player, so we want it signed up as part of a deal to tackle climate change. The Government are right to try to push the button and see whether we can get there, but unfortunately I do not think that we will be able to achieve it. Given the diplomatic objectives that I mentioned earlier, perhaps we can make progress with President Bush on technology. There is investment in the US in areas such as the hydrogen economy, renewables and carbon sequestration.
I understand that one of the objections of the Bush Administration to Kyoto is that it does not cover the emerging economies of China and India. Given that it will be necessary to deal with them as part of any overall attack on climate change, will agreement among the G8 be enough? Surely we need a wider agreement over and above the G8 to deal with the problem. Will not the Prime Minister have to move the matter forward in other spheres after the G8 summit?
Absolutely. The G8 is only a start, but it is an important start. We will also be able to use the EU presidency, but ultimately we need a system that is seen to be fair and equitable throughout the world, which means that we must get not only the US but developing countries on board. Perhaps a system based on contraction and convergence, which would be attractive to all countries due to its fairness, is the way in which we will get agreement in the longer term. However, China and India will not come on board if the biggest polluter in the world is outside any agreement, which is another reason why it is important to sign up the US. The sad reality is that President Bush will not even accept the science, so there is no likelihood of him accepting Kyoto or its successor. The Minister for Climate Change and the Environment said on 27 June:
"Americans are not going to sign up to Kyoto. You're just wasting your time if you think they are, so it's about how we can engage with the US".
Sadly, that is right.
We need to find out what we can get from the US. We might be able to make progress on technology, but we will not be able to get an agreement on Kyoto and we may not get an agreement to have something after Kyoto. Under those circumstances, the Prime Minister and other G8 members will have a difficult decision to make. Will they water down the agreement available to such a degree that the US signs up to it, in which case the agreement will not be worth having because it will be so weak, or will an agreement be signed among willing partners to allow them to plough ahead, even though the US is not on board at that stage? I make it clear that my preference is the second of those options because that is what we have done already by going ahead with Kyoto without the US Administration.
We cannot wait for the US Administration to catch up because we need action now to cut carbon emissions. Signing a robust agreement with other willing countries would strengthen the hand of those in the US—mayors, states, individuals and scientists—who want the country to join in. If, however, an agreement is signed that is not worth having in the end, where will that leave Arnold Schwarzenegger in California and others who think that drastic action is needed? I hope that the Prime Minister will reflect on my message that we need a robust agreement and that the Americans cannot be allowed to veto that agreement. However, I also make it clear that the US must be part of the long-term solution.
We need a target-based, country-based successor to Kyoto and we need support for such a successor regime from the G8. Ideally, we would base the scheme on the principle of contraction and convergence. We need to engage the participation of both developed and developing nations, so I am pleased with the progress that has been made in China and the seriousness with which it is approaching the issue. However, it will not be worth having an agreement if it is a lowest common denominator agreement.
I understand that representatives of China and India are to attend the Gleneagles G8 summit, which is an encouraging step. The message needs to be heard that climate change will affect developing countries first and that taking action on the environment is not a cost, but a benefit to the economy, because the cost of doing nothing in this country and elsewhere will be greater than the cost of doing something. There are good reasons for China and India to be present at the summit. We need to find a way to bring them on board that is not threatening and that ensures that we, as developed countries, acknowledge our role in creating the carbon emissions mess on our planet.
The Prime Minister needs to do one more thing: put his own house in order. With respect to the Prime Minister, it is not sufficient to make grandiose speeches on the world stage while carbon emissions increase at home and our chances of winning the battle against climate change are slipping away from us on our own doorstep. Stephen Tindale said:
"So far Blair's record on climate change is almost entirely a record of fine words and no action. His repeated failure on this issue is undermining his diplomatic efforts."
The public are crying out for action and are ready to take action. A poll published in The Observer on Sunday showed that 90 per cent. of the population believe that the effects of climate change are becoming increasingly apparent, 79 per cent. believe that humans are responsible, and 48 per cent. say that Governments should take responsibility. The public are prepared to accept some pretty radical policy choices to move matters forward.
Does the hon. Gentleman agree with me and with the Liberal Democrat parliamentary candidate for Wantage that one of the measures to combat climate change on which the Government have to make a rapid decision is nuclear power and whether to go ahead with the building of new nuclear power stations?
I believe that a decision is needed, but not for the reasons that the hon. Gentleman implies. A decision—a decision to say no—is needed quickly because while the debate and therefore the uncertainty continue, people are not investing in renewables and energy efficiency. While they are waiting to see what the Government will do, that investment, which is certain to bring benefits in terms of tackling climate change, is not happening.
Will the hon. Gentleman give way?
Yes, although I do not want to turn this into a nuclear debate.
I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for saying that, because I do not want it to be turned into a nuclear debate either. He referred to the recent ICM poll that showed that a great number of people are aware of climate change and that almost as great a number think that human activity is to blame. However, somewhat fewer think that the Government are omnipotent and can sort everything out themselves. Does he not think that that shifts some of the blame from our shoulders? Does he agree that we should all accept a personal challenge and will he sign up to reducing his own carbon emissions by 25 per cent. by no later than 2010?
Yes, I will, although I have already taken action in the past few years, so that is a tougher target for me than it might be for some others. None the less, I am happy to sign up and I congratulate the hon. Gentleman on his initiative. I have never regarded the Government as omnipotent. We have to take responsibility for our own actions.
I welcome the hon. Gentleman's personal commitment to setting targets and taking action. Why, in their manifesto, did the Liberal Democrats not match the Government's commitment to reduce carbon emissions by 20 per cent. by 2020?
That is our policy. As I recall, it appeared in the environment mini-manifesto and it remains our policy. I am glad that the hon. Gentleman has given me the opportunity to state that firmly this afternoon.
Does my hon. Friend agree that the Government must revisit their plans for growth in air travel? A second runway proposed for Birmingham airport in my constituency is blighting many residents of Sheldon, but the runway is necessary only because the Government think that air transport will increase by more than a factor of three. Does he agree that it is not possible both to manage climate change and to have massive growth in air transport?
I agree. We cannot continue with the predict-and-provide aviation policy pursued by the Department for Transport. The aviation White Paper should be binned and the Government should make a rapid start on something far more sustainable.
Last week, in fact, the Sustainable Development Commission, which is chaired by Sir Jonathan Porritt, said:
"The Government's current aviation strategy is entirely unsustainable".
That is a big problem, but the Government are not paying any attention to it. It is the elephant in the room. They need to get to grips with transport policy and do something with it. The SDC report also said:
"Carbon emissions from road transport account for 24 per cent. of the total emissions, and are expected to rise by a further 9 per cent. by 2010. The SDC believes this sector needs radical solutions, and must be tackled urgently."
There is no sign that that is happening or that transport policy is anything other than a matter of waiting to see what happens. The handbrake is off and the car is rolling downhill.
Does the hon. Gentleman agree that if the growth in aviation and its impact on climate change are to be rectified we need to bring aviation within the emissions trading system across Europe? Such market mechanisms are the best and most efficient way of tackling this critical problem.
I think that I have already answered that, but I agree that market mechanisms are the best way of dealing with many, but not all, environmental problems. Regulation has its place and occasionally complete bans are required. Market mechanisms work, and the inclusion of aviation in the emissions trading scheme in Europe is one way forward. It may not be enough, however, to deal with the projected rise in emissions from that sector.
Does the hon. Gentleman agree that a vital tool in changing transport policy is the use of fuel duty combined with congestion charging? Will he remind us what his manifesto said about that?
As the hon. Gentleman is keen on our manifesto, I hope that he accepts that my party was the first to propose congestion charging. We are ahead of the game on road user charging, and we were the first party to suggest differential duty rates on vehicles. I am grateful for the opportunity to make those sensible points.
The Government's record shows that greenhouse gas and carbon emissions are on the way up. There is no chance at all that they will meet the 20 per cent. reduction target for carbon dioxide by 2010—that possibility has gone out of the window. The Kyoto target may not even be met. The Government keep saying that it has been met, but we have not yet reached the date when it kicks in. We are going backwards and we may yet miss it. The Government are complacent and are not keen to do very much. Power station emissions have risen by 9 per cent., and energy use has gone up by 7 per cent. since 1997. According to the latest projections, car usage will increase by 25 per cent. by 2010 and aviation emission by 83 per cent. by 2020. Carbon emissions are out of control, but the Government are not doing enough about the problem.
I, too, have had an opportunity to look at the Liberal Democrat manifesto—there has clearly been a run in the Library on that best-selling work. The Liberal Democrats are in favour of national road user charging, but I am puzzled as such a scheme would presumably require a central Government register to show where every single driver had been and whom they had been to visit. That record would be much more intrusive than, for example, an identity cards scheme. Can Liberal Democrat support for the "spy in the sky" national road user charging scheme be considered consistent with the party's policy on ID cards?
I note the hon. Gentleman's enthusiasm for ID cards and his Government's keenness for schemes of state control. I am an animal welfare spokesman, so I will not say that there is more than one way to skin a cat, but there are different ways of introducing road user charging, and I certainly would not want to go down the route that he suggested.
A revised climate change programme will shortly be introduced. It has been delayed, as the Minister surreptitiously announced on 16 June. The Government are in disarray and the legendary arguments between the Department of the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs and the Department of Trade and Industry continue. The Government are way off target, and they do not want to take a hard decision to get back on target. We need cross-party initiatives and agreement, so I welcome the creation today of the useful all-party group on climate change.
Before the election, my right hon. Friend the Member for Ross, Skye and Lochaber (Mr. Kennedy) wrote to the leaders of the Conservative and Labour parties inviting some measure of cross-party agreement on climate change, welcoming the fact that some progress had been made and suggesting a common platform on which to go forward. We finally received a reply from the Prime Minister about three months late, saying nothing. We are still waiting for a reply from the right hon. and learned Member for Folkestone and Hythe (Mr. Howard). It seems that the enthusiasm to deal with the matter on a non-partisan basis is limited to the Liberal Democrats. We look forward to a more sensible response from the Conservative and Labour parties than we have had so far to that sensible initiative from my right hon. Friend.
Climate change is here. According to reports last night, Italy believes that 20,000 people died in the heat waves in Italy in 2003. Emergency measures are being taken in France and Spain to deal with the summer heat. In some places in Spain the temperature is over 40°C and it is only June. If the situation is that bad in Europe, what is it like in Africa? There is an urgent need to take drastic action, and to sell the need to take action to the British people more than has been done so far. There is a need to take action for this country, for Africa and for the world. We are willing to be part of that campaign. We look forward to a constructive and positive response from the other two parties to that challenge.
I beg to move, To leave out from "House" to the end of the Question, and to add instead thereof:
"welcomes the UK's global leadership on climate change and in particular the Prime Minister's decision to make climate change one of the top two priorities for the G8 Presidency and a priority for the EU Presidency; recognises that UK initiatives in 2005 have already made important contributions to the international debate on future climate change policy, in particular the scientific conference on stabilisation in February 2005 and the Energy and Environment Ministerial Roundtable in March 2005; looks forward to the Gleneagles Summit and provides its full support to the Prime Minister's continuing efforts to secure a successful outcome; commends the UK's plans to continue to strive for further international action following Gleneagles through both the G8 and EU; further commends the Labour Party for being the only party to commit in its manifesto to a national goal to reduce emissions by 20 per cent. by 2010; celebrates the UK's achievement in already reducing emissions to 13.4 per cent. between the base year and 2003, beyond that required by the Kyoto Protocol; further welcomes the introduction of policies such as the climate change levy and renewables obligation that have been so important in achieving this; and looks forward to the publication of the climate change programme later this year which will set out further policies to deliver the goal of a 20 per cent. reduction in emissions by 2010."
I welcome the opportunity for this debate and I hope there will be further opportunities in the not-too-distant future to discuss sustainability and climate change. If it is possible for the Government to facilitate such discussion, I am sure that we will.
I begin by correcting the hon. Member for Lewes (Norman Baker), who gets very enthusiastic about his argument. On the UK Government's commitment to overseas aid and the £10 million to assist developing countries with mitigation of climate change and adaptation, we are committed to that money, but the details of the scheme and how the money will be spent have not yet been satisfactorily resolved. We are confident that they will be resolved and that the money will be released. It is allocated and the commitment stands.
As a country we contribute more than we are obliged to contribute to the global environment fund, which is important for tackling climate change globally. We are one of the biggest contributors. The United Nations environment programme is a voluntary fund. It is not an indicative scale, though many of us feel that it should be. We are the largest single contributor to that fund. Let us be clear about our commitment to dealing with climate change internationally.
That does not take into account the assistance that we give through science. The Hadley centre has developed a regional software programme for predicting climatic change called PRECIS, which can be applied to subcontinents. I have had the opportunity to talk to international scientists from India and Brazil, for example, who are using that software, supported by UK scientists, to try and understand the implications of climatic change on subcontinents such as India. That is an important contribution from the UK and our assistance to developing countries in that way is much appreciated internationally.
Does the Minister accept that although our money may go to some use abroad and may be welcomed there, our lead on the subject is poor at home? The root of the problem is that the Government have a record of telling others what they need to do, while at home you set a target of 20 per cent. by 2010 and you promptly drop it. So you are saying one thing abroad and another in the House. That is what the Government consistently do.
Order. The hon. Gentleman should mind his parliamentary language. He should refer to a colleague in the third person. Good habits should start early.
There is more enthusiasm than factual accuracy in the comment from the hon. Member for Beverley and Holderness. It is ludicrous to suggest that the UK is not recognised internationally as one of the countries giving the strongest lead on climatic change. Everywhere I go—as a DEFRA Minister, I attend many conferences and meet many people from all over the world—the importance of the lead that the UK has given is constantly raised and admiration is expressed for our Prime Minister's work and the steps that we have taken.
I shall outline those steps to the hon. Member for Beverley and Holderness—I am sure that he will enjoy that—during the debate. Energy underpins our approach to climatic change. The energy White Paper, which sets out our energy policies for the longer term, is held up as a model internationally for what countries should do when defining a long-term energy strategy. I shall give a few examples of what we have done in the UK shortly.
If the hon. Gentleman wants to discuss a lead, perhaps he will tell me what other G8 country is on target to meet its Kyoto commitments, let alone to have reached it. He is welcome to intervene if he knows the answer. Apart from the UK and Sweden, what other European country is on track to achieve its Kyoto target?
Are we going in the right or the wrong direction for meeting that target?
We are going in the right direction to meet the Kyoto target and are well on track for achieving it. The hon. Gentleman should not lead with his chin in interventions.
Have not the Opposition opposed every Government proposal for moving us towards the 12.5 per cent. target and subsequently the 20 per cent. target?
They have. I was intrigued by the Conservative manifesto and wondered how abolishing the climate change levy and the funds for the Carbon Trust would help to fulfil our commitments on energy efficiency and our targets.
Does the Minister recognise the role that the dash for gas, led by a Conservative Government, played in our ability to meet the Kyoto targets? Will he acknowledge that CO 2 emissions have risen under the Government since 1997?
Emissions have increased only marginally since 1997. I shall explain the reasons for that shortly. It is true that the dash for gas contributed to the fall in CO 2 emissions and I would not pretend otherwise. However, the measures that we have introduced over the years mean that the percentage contribution of the dash for gas has fallen from 40 per cent. to 30 per cent. It will fall further to around 25 per cent. as other measures kick in. One of the other contributions was the destruction of jobs and industry under the Conservative Government. Perhaps the hon. Gentleman does not like to be reminded of that.
The UK has demonstrated clear leadership in tackling climate change by reducing greenhouse gas emissions and showing that that need not affect our economic competitiveness. Although there has been a small increase in CO 2 —generally due to increased coal burn—we have had the strongest economic growth in the EU, yet CO 2 emissions have risen in every other mainstream EU country by a much greater rate than in the UK. I say that to put matters in perspective. It is not an excuse because we intend to tackle the problem. However, it is wrong to suggest that the UK is out of sync with other industrialised nations. Our record remains one of the best.
Does the Minister agree that there has been uneven development in that pattern of growth? Does he know how many manufacturing jobs have been lost during the Government's tenure? Does he agree that, if manufacturing is declining, CO 2 emissions should decline with it?
Manufacturing jobs have declined in the UK, as has been well documented, although not as much as previously. They have also declined in other European countries.
There are a number of reasons for the increase in CO 2 emissions—transport and energy are the biggest contributors. I shall return to that point in a moment. The 2003 figures show that the UK has reduced its greenhouse gas emissions by 13.6 per cent. since 1990, while the UK economy has grown over the same period by more than 36 per cent. I do not think that any other country could demonstrate such a record of economic growth while keeping emissions down.
Will the Minister give way?
I will make some progress, if the hon. Gentleman does not mind.
In 2000, the Government introduced the UK climate change programme, which focused on policies and measures to achieve our Kyoto target. The Kyoto target is important and we are one of the very few industrial countries that are well on track to meet it, but we want to do more. We therefore set ourselves our own domestic target of reducing carbon dioxide emissions by 20 per cent., as the hon. Member for Lewes rightly stated. We also want to do more by reducing CO 2 emissions by 60 per cent. by about 2050.
I heard what the hon. Member for Lewes said about his party's manifesto. He will know that, before the election, the non-governmental organisations asked for four key commitments from all the parties. We made all those commitments and put them in our manifesto; we were the only party to do so. One of those commitments was that we would recognise the fact that, if we did not take further action, we would not reach our target in 2010. We conceded that. We also reaffirmed our commitment to reaching the target of a 20 per cent. reduction by 2010, and that commitment remains. I shall explain how we intend to achieve that.
We accept that if we take no action from now, we will not achieve a 20 per cent. reduction. However, that is not the position that we are going to take. We have put in place the climate change review, which will come out in November. It is looking at all methods and options that can be used to achieve our target. Without the measures introduced in the climate change programme in 2000, involving energy efficiency, domestic targets, changes in company car taxation, the climate change levy and the UK carbon trading scheme—the first national scheme of its kind in the world—we would probably now be producing about 15 per cent. more than the 1990 level of greenhouse gas emissions, rather than producing about 14 per cent. below that level, as we were in 2003. That is the kind of impact that our domestic measures have had. There are, however, still pressures that have resulted in a rise in CO 2 , and I shall address those issues in a moment.
Will the Minister give way?
I should like to make some progress. Perhaps the hon. Lady could intervene later.
We have to consider what we can do to achieve our domestic goals, and that work is under way. We have no illusions about the challenge that we face. We have deliberately set ourselves ambitious targets because we want to demonstrate that we are serious about what we are doing in our own country to reduce greenhouse gasses. I accept the point made by the hon. Member for Lewes that, if we are to give global leadership—as we are doing—we must demonstrate our commitment in our own country. We are absolutely committed to doing that. We cannot tackle climate change unilaterally. We must give a clear lead in our own country and face our own responsibilities, but we must also take action in conjunction with our international partners. That means being successful in our own domestic programmes.
The Prime Minister has made tackling climate change a central theme in the UK's G8 presidency this year, as the hon. Member for Lewes rightly pointed out. The Government's primary objective is to raise the profile of climate change as a matter that deserves the attention of the Heads of Government in the G8 and beyond, so as to promote international consensus on the need for further action to control emissions. It is fair to say that some people still need to be convinced of the need for further action, although I am glad to say that their number is declining. Nevertheless, we need to make that case.
We have set ourselves some more detailed, and no less ambitious, objectives. First, it is important that at the Gleneagles conference we come to a better understanding of the science involved, which means addressing some of the doubts that have been raised. We very much welcomed the statement from the national scientific bodies of all G8 countries, including the American Academy of Sciences, which was important.
Secondly, we want to ensure that the G8 agrees to a package of practical measures focused on technologies with significantly lower greenhouse gas emissions than traditional technologies—such as clean fuels and the hydrogen economy, as has been pointed out—on which a great deal of work is taking place within the G8 and which requires co-operation. There is also a need for technology transfer to emerging economies and developing countries.
Thirdly, we need to work in partnership with the major emerging economies to reach a new consensus on how to deal with the future challenge. That is why I am pleased that China, Brazil, South Africa, Mexico and India have deliberately been involved in the G8 process, as we must bring those major economies on side. Incidentally, China emits more greenhouse gases than the whole European Union put together and is now the world's second biggest emitter. I was pleased at the positive response from the Chinese when we discussed those issues in the environment and energy round table meeting as part of our G8 process, which 20 Ministers from around the world attended, including Chinese and Indian Ministers, which was useful.
I should emphasise that the Gleneagles aspect is but one part of our G8 process. The science conference, which we hosted at the Hadley centre in February, was successful in attracting the world's leading scientists. Its outcome suggested that the risks identified with climate change are probably more serious than was previously thought, which makes the need for action even more important. The statement on 7 June from all the science academies backs that up. The science academies also called on G8 nations to
"identify cost-effective steps that can be taken now to contribute to substantial and long-term reduction in net global greenhouse gas emissions".
That supports our objectives under the UK's presidency.
We also want to consider practical measures on technology, and specific proposals are being prepared in collaboration with our G8 partners on cleaning up fossil fuels and improving energy performance. The G8 has already agreed, under the Evian action plan on science and technology for sustainable development, to accelerate the research, development and diffusion of energy technologies, and we hope that the G8 can build on that by agreeing to turn what is currently political agreement into real action.
In the course of the discussions at Gleneagles, can my hon. Friend examine closely new environmental technologies? In terms of the further research that is needed and the action plan, will he examine what opportunities might exist for collaboration between companies and Government in this country and in China and India? For example, new kilns in the ceramics industry, which are currently being fitted, do not receive full tax concessions, but a collaborative exercise could make a huge difference in terms of combating global warming.
My hon. Friend makes a good point. There is scope not just for collaboration with some of the emerging economies, which will reduce emissions, but for collaboration that will be beneficial to our industries, improve innovation and help companies that have new technologies and new ideas. We should not forget that environmental technologies will create jobs, and that dealing with climate change also provides opportunities—it is not all about restrictions and costs. I shall make that point as well.
On the subject of partnership with emerging economies, the Minister will be well aware of the importance of rain forest and forest vegetation in terms of storing carbon. He will also be aware that Brazil is the major steward in the world of such forest vegetation, and that forest stripping has returned to 1995 levels, despite the best efforts of President Lula. Does he expect that the G8 agenda will include discussions on the role that the international community can play in helping Brazil combat that problem, possibly by giving it some financial credit for the assets on which it sits?
I am sure that those issues will be discussed. They have already been discussed in the United Nations forum on climate change and the United Nations forestry forum. There are serious questions to be asked about how forests can be used as carbon sinks, and the possibility of carbon credits. I think that the appropriate forum is the climate change forum, because this is a global, international issue. Some people believe that the G8 should set targets, but it would be very arrogant for just eight of the world's richest countries to decide what everyone else in the world must do. The G8 countries must give a lead and give encouragement, but the commitments must involve the international community as a whole, and that must take place in the UN framework. The G8 cannot short-circuit the process.
My hon. Friend speaks of costs and opportunities. When the price of oil was $30 a barrel, it was understandable that business should think costs were involved in adapting to climate change. As the oil price reaches $60 a barrel and moves inexorably to $100 a barrel, that—more than anything that we could do—will concentrate minds on the opportunities and benefits.
That is a good point. Moreover, with prices at those levels, some technologies and developments that were not viable when the price was $30 a barrel are viable now, when the price is unlikely to return to the lower levels of the past. There are many reasons for seeking non-fossil fuel alternatives, but now there is that additional incentive.
We expect economic development to continue in the developing countries, which means an increase in greenhouse gases. We in the G8 have a role in helping emerging economies to move towards a low-carbon future. That means thinking about clean coal technology, energy efficiency, renewable energy and what we can provide in terms of capacity-building, technical assistance and extra finance. We have been keen to involve the developing countries and key emerging economies in discussing the possibilities.
As well as those emerging economies—Brazil, Mexico and South Africa—we should consider the vulnerable developing countries. We must help them respond to the challenges of climate variability and climate change in the context of our overseas development budgets and the aid that we provide, not least in the context of the UN millennium goals. We are off track with those, particularly in relation to water and sanitation, and the impact of climate change does not help.
We must ensure that developing countries have adequate regional and national data, and the capacity to interpret them. That will involve our role in engaging with the United States. I accept that, as has been said, the United States—as the biggest single emitter—needs to do more, but many states, cities and companies want to do more than the current Government allow, and we are engaging with them as well. I attended a meeting of the climate group in Canada, where a number of American states were represented, including California. It is necessary to move faster and further with the coalition of the willing, and we intend to do that. In the G8, however, we must look for common commitment to energy security, local air quality and efficiency savings, as well as to tackling climate change. We expect a robust debate on climate change with our G8 partners at Gleneagles.
The hon. Member for Lewes loves to read what is written in newspapers, but he should reserve his judgment until the final outcome of the G8. A great deal of negotiation is going on, and it will continue to the final minute of the G8 meeting.
The Prime Minister is looking for a meaningful outcome. He did not have to do that; he could have gone for the traditional, well-meaning statement that comes out of the G8. Following such a statement, everyone slaps each other on the back, returns to their respective countries and nothing happens. The Prime Minister wants more than that, but of course, there is a risk involved. We might not be able to persuade people to go as far and as fast as we would like, and we have to accept that. But I ask the hon. Member for Lewes and the House, is it better to go for the soft option or to take a risk, even though there is the possibility of failure? I think that we should go as far and as fast as the agreement that we get will allow us.
If the current US Administration decide not to sign up, do we go with a coalition of the willing, or do we opt for a piece of paper signed by everybody, which is less worthy?
We are already going with a coalition of the willing. As I pointed out to the hon. Gentleman, the action that we are taking domestically is unilateral, and in that respect we are going far beyond any international agreement. The climate group, to which I have already referred, is also going beyond any international agreement and, of course, what has been agreed by the G8. We want to find a consensus and to make progress where we can, but that does not mean that we will not go further in other areas; nor does it mean that Gleneagles is the end of the story, a point to which I shall return.
As I have said, we want the actions taken at Gleneagles to complement the United Nations framework convention on climate change. That is the proper forum for such matters and we must work with it. This process also involves looking at new international frameworks. The hon. Member for Lewes referred to contraction and convergence, and I want to make it clear that the UK remains open to any new international framework, so long as it is realistic, relevant to countries with different national circumstances, robust, capable of being adjusted in the light of experience, and durable. Such a framework should not become irrelevant within a few years.
I am quite interested in contraction and convergence, particularly the social equity aspect, which is its great strength. There are potential problems, however. For countries with very large populations—or for those that have done little to empower women on issues such as birth-control choices or school education—such an approach could involve some negatives. It could give certain countries a huge carbon allocation, which would remove any incentive for carbon efficiency. I recommend to the hon. Member for Lewes an extremely good pamphlet on global climate change, produced by the Pew Centre, which lists more than 40 different approaches, including contraction and convergence. They are all worth looking at, and we have an open mind on this issue.
We are also engaging with international businesses in order to hear their views. The views expressed in the poll in The Observer were very interesting and we should take note of them. That said, nearly a third of those questioned felt that businesses should take the lead in tackling climate change. It is clear that the business community has a critical role to play, and many individual businesses have already taken major steps to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.
I hope that the rural economy, farming and their relationship with the environment will be discussed at the summit. I should be interested to hear the Minister's views on bioethanol production and sugar beet production, particularly in my Shropshire constituency.
The Government have set up a taskforce, chaired by Sir Ben Gill, to look at biofuels. His report will be coming out very soon. The hon. Gentleman might also like to know that we recently set up a rural climate change forum, the first meeting of which took place this week. It is examining the entire range of rural issues, including the very one that the hon. Gentleman raised: the contribution that agriculture can make in dealing with climate change. I am glad that we are fortunate enough to have prominent people on that forum, who can give us the benefit of their experience.
Will that taskforce also look at using biomass as a renewable heat substitute, and can a renewable heat obligation finally be introduced, in order to allow our rural areas to make their contribution to reducing carbon emissions?
I have not seen the report of Sir Ben Gill's working group. I know that it is looking at biomass, but I am not sure how that fits in with the heat obligation. I am well aware of these arguments and I have some sympathy with them. It is perfectly reasonable that we look at them in the context of the climate change review.
The Prime Minister gave a keynote speech to the World Economic Forum annual conference at Davros. He asked 25 international businesses, including Swiss Re, BP, Hewlett Packard, E.ON and Ford, to look into the issue of climate change and to produce a message that he could take to the other G8 leaders at Gleneagles. It brings us back to the point that some people internationally still believe that taking action on the climate will damage their economies, but that is not necessarily the case, so we must emphasise the opportunities. The message from those companies proved to be a strong one: they said that we must take action now and that Governments must send a strong policy signal to the markets to take into account the long periods over which investments in infrastructure are made. They highlighted the need for rapid commercialisation of new technologies, many of which are already developed; they dismissed the notion that climate change causes harm; and they pointed out the economic benefits, on which we should all focus.
We must also ensure that we feed in from the G8 into the forthcoming Montreal conference. I am pleased to say that a seminar of Government experts held in Bonn this year saw very constructive discussions on the future action of the COP—conference of the parties—that went beyond the original remit of that seminar and exceeded expectations in the positive nature of its tone. There would have been no meeting of Government experts in Bonn had it not been for the work of the EU group at the conference at Buenos Aires—the last COP. I pay tribute to the Dutch presidency and the Dutch Minister Peter van Geel and his team. We also played an active role in respect of bilateral negotiations with the US and others, bringing about agreement to have the seminar, which paves the way for looking at future commitments post-2012. Without the EU, there would have been no agreement at all in Buenos Aires.
Will the Minister explain what might happen at the G8 in respect of international flights? My understanding is that Kyoto ignores international flights. The UK emits perhaps 1 million tonnes of carbon a year that is domestic and 8 million tonnes that is international. Is it possible at Montreal, in the climate change review, or at the G8 summit to bring international flights into the calculations?
The G8 is not the forum for that because international agreement is required. The appropriate forum would be the United Nations framework convention on climate change. I believe that we should take action on global aviation and we have raised the issue. In all honesty, I would have to say that, at the moment, a majority of the international community is against taking global action. I greatly regret that, but that is where we are. That does not mean, however, that we cannot take action on aviation in the EU. Indeed, as mentioned in the debate, one of our objectives for the UK presidency is to bring forward proposals on how best to include EU aviation within the EU carbon trading scheme. I am optimistic that we will be able to do that, but we will not be able to complete the negotiation process under our presidency, because the time scale is longer than six months. We can get it on the table, start the process and build support for our approach, which is very important.
I conclude by returning to the point that Gleneagles, the G8 presidency and the process are all important, but that Gleneagles is but one part of the process. There are some key new summits scheduled for the autumn—the EU-India summit, the EU-China summit and the EU-Russia summit, for which the UK will be in the chair as president. We have already discussed with those countries, in connection with the ministerial round table discussions, the issue of climatic change and we expect it to be a feature of those summits. That will represent an important step forward.
On 5 and 6 October, we will host an international business conference on climatic change. The purpose is again to stress the point that taking action on climatic change is not necessarily bad for the economy and that there can be advantages in it. Furthermore, on 10 and 11 November we will host a joint EU-G8 conference on environmentally friendly vehicles, which will be held in Birmingham. Those are all steps towards building consensus, raising the issues, getting support internationally and moving forward to the crucial next COP in Montreal of the United Nations framework convention on climate change. That is where we have to aim to achieve global agreement. At Montreal, we will press for the conference to agree to start negotiations on the framework beyond 2012, which we hope will produce a regime capable of tackling this most pressing challenge.
I have spelled out the Government's proposals in some detail and what we are doing both nationally and globally. I have also set out what we have done to tackle climate change and what we are doing for the future review. I do not believe that any other major industrial nation has a record that can rival the UK's.
I begin with an observation about the character of the debate that the hon. Member for Lewes (Norman Baker) may find surprising. More than is the case with any other matter, we are all in this together. There is not a scintilla of difference between the three main parties—and I suspect that the same is true for the minority parties, too—about our objectives.
For that reason, we all ought to make a solemn and binding agreement that we will not introduce into the debate any unnecessary crypto-partisanship. On the whole, I absolve the two main speakers, and I do not propose to make remarks about the contents of the Liberal Democrat election manifesto. That party has been seriously committed to trying to do something about climate change for as long as I can remember. That is clearly the Liberal Democrat position, and it is also the Government's as the Minister has been committed to the same goal, also for as long as I can remember.
Of course, there are shades of opinion and commitment within the Government, as there are in the Conservative party. The Minister is aided and abetted by quite a powerful Minister—the Prime Minister—and we should do the Government the credit of recognising that they aim to do the right thing.
The Conservative party is also committed, and that has been the case for a very long time. Indeed, my right hon. and learned Friend the Leader of the Opposition persuaded the US to join the framework convention by means of a piece of shuttle diplomacy that is one of the most important elements in the evolution of this debate. Therefore, this is not one of those issues that divide the three main parties. However, I happen to agree with the motion and I shall ask Opposition Members to vote with the Liberal Democrats this evening.
The real problem is not about intention, but delivery. It has two dimensions, both of which the hon. Member for Lewes explained clearly. I agree with his observations about one of those dimensions, but my slant on the other is rather different.
I agree with the hon. Gentleman about the Government's delivery on the domestic agenda. The Minister made a typically mellifluous, comprehensive and knowledgeable contribution, in which he sketched many of the steps that the Government have taken. Although the Government have taken a great many such steps, various hon. Members pointed out that they have not proved sufficient to achieve a persistent reduction in carbon dioxide emissions.
Indeed, I stood at this Dispatch Box recently and said that there had been a serendipitous fall in the nitrous oxide emitted as a result of the use of adipic acid in nylon production, and that farmers had done very well in reducing methane emissions and the use of nitrous oxide in fertilisers. Without those factors, the Government would not merely be in danger of not meeting their Kyoto targets but, as the hon. Member for Lewes correctly pointed out, nowhere near fulfilling them. There is therefore an underlying problem.
Leaving aside the fact that Ministers must always present a good front, I am sure that this Minister is perfectly aware of the difficulties facing the Government in meeting the Kyoto objectives. That is not unique to this Administration: all British Governments face the same problems, as this is a very difficult matter. The nation—and Government Departments—must be led to adopt policies that consciously reduce national income. We have to admit to ourselves that a cost is involved. Most of the things that the Government—like most Governments before them—wish to do are aimed at increasing national income. Therefore, having a set of policies that are consciously designed to reduce national income—in some respects—is a difficult proposition and it is no surprise that the Government have encountered some difficulties. However, it is also unhelpful if Ministers pretend to themselves, perhaps through fear of political partisanship from the Opposition, that they can continue to persuade the public that we are going to make progress on—not present policy, because I accept the Minister's point that the review is imminent—what is likely to be policy.
All parties will have to admit that not only for the next four or five years, but for the next 40 or 50 years, the nation will need a framework for the approach to the reduction of carbon dioxide emissions and thus the prevention of rapid global warming, or at least our contribution to it, that is parallel to the process that the Chancellor successfully achieved through the transfer of monetary policy to the Bank of England and the establishment of fiscal rules. The Chancellor created an external discipline. It is not perfect and, in previous roles, I have proposed amendments to it, but it has been on the whole successful in creating fiscal discipline that would otherwise be lacking. We do not, as yet, have an analogous external discipline on the behaviour of this and future Governments in relation to climate change. Until we have such a framework, I am convinced that no Government—not this one nor, as I hope, a Conservative Government in due course—will be able to resist the pressure from many quarters to diminish the speed with which we address the problem, because of the economic costs. I hope that we will reach the point when we agree about that.
Is not the right hon. Gentleman confusing the costs of tackling climate change and making the investment to become more efficient with the notion that those costs will reduce national output? Tackling climate change will not necessarily be a dampener on the rate of growth of the economy. Indeed, it could be an economic opportunity.
To a degree, the hon. Lady is right. Parts of the wide portfolio of measures that need to be taken to get anywhere near the 60 per cent. target by 2050 have present value advantages and, almost certainly, long-term economic gain attached to them. A classic example is home insulation with fibreglass. There is no doubt that, for most householders, that is already an economic proposition. Part of my case against the Government is not that they have not sought to promote such insulation, but that they have not found an effective means of doing so. Most of our countrymen do not know how they can insulate their lofts, do not know what the economics look like and therefore do not recognise or realise that economic advantage.
We should not delude ourselves. The number of cases in which early economic gains would be made as well as climate change gains is limited. In many other cases, there would be social and economic costs, many of which would last for a long time as well as having a short-term impact. If we were to run the electricity supply industry as cheaply as possible, it would persistently fail to contribute to climate change goals. There is a contrast between what the economics of the situation would dictate and the dictates of climate change. Of course, those relationships alter from time to time, sometimes adversely and sometimes favourably. At the moment, gas prices are rising and coal prices are falling, and that has an adverse effect on a climate change strategy. At other times, technology and other changes will have a different effect.
My point is that we must not delude ourselves. If we are serious about the issue, as opposed to merely playing with it, we need a range of measures over the next 50 years that will have economic costs. We should not think that we can get away without such costs and we have to recognise that, in a democracy, considerable pressure will be felt against such measures. There will also be social costs, such as people having to live next to things that they may not want to live next to, or people having to see things in the countryside that they might not want to see. Those costs also have to be overcome. We therefore need a clear-minded, effective external framework that constrains democratic politics where there is a consensus, in order that we can make real progress over a sustained period.
Will the right hon. Gentleman clarify exactly what that would be called? Only the other day, I heard a proposal for a carbon policy committee, analogous to the Monetary Policy Committee, that would set an annual carbon budget independently, outside the control of the Government. Is that the kind of proposal that the right hon. Gentleman is making this afternoon?
The hon. Gentleman asks a good question and the honest answer is that I do not yet know. I am in discussion with my hon. Friends to come up with a view about this. Friends of the Earth is promoting a climate change Bill that will advance a view that may or may not be similar. I believe that there is considerable interest in the idea on the Liberal Benches and I suspect that we may be able to persuade many Labour Members to share that.
I hope that we can reach the point where, no doubt with variants for discussion, we can all agree that there needs to be some form of framework. It may involve a proposal of the sort that the hon. Gentleman mentioned, or other mechanisms. But what is clear to my mind is that we cannot simply rely on constantly hoping that the Government of the day will do everything that needs to be done, hang the democratic effects, because we live in a democracy and there are democratic pressures and we would be asking our population to take present pain for future benefit, which is a difficult thing to achieve, so we shall need a very special mechanism if we are to do it over the sustained period that is required in as consistent a way as is required.
I want to ask the right hon. Gentleman a serious question in response to the serious points that he is making. I accept that it is sometimes difficult for a Government of whatever complexion to take decisions that may be deemed necessary but have short-term political disadvantage, even if they are necessary in the long term. I refer to the letter sent by my right hon. Friend the leader of the Liberal Democrats to the leaders of the other two parties, seeking a common agreement—at least a baseline agreement on which we could all build our different structures. Is the right hon. Gentleman minded to give a positive response to that initiative, so that we can genuinely find a common platform, at least at a baseline level, that takes us slightly further forward in a non-partisan way?
As the hon. Gentleman has offered a serious question I am going to make an admission. By the sound of it, when that letter was sent I was shadow Chancellor, not shadow Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs and, until he mentioned it an hour ago, I had not the slightest knowledge of its existence. I shall try to trace it, but let me offer him something that it is within my power to offer him: wholehearted consent to discussions with him and with the Minister or the Secretary of State about these matters, in an effort to discover the extent to which we can agree on methods, as we are already agreed on goals.
Let me turn to the main point that the Liberals are making in their motion, and with which I also agree. This is not in the spirit of criticism of the Government but in the spirit of offering a constructive way forward. [Laughter.] That is not an ironic remark. I mean that genuinely. The spokesman for the Liberals said, and I understand his motivation in saying it, that the Prime Minister was right to go into the G8 saying that his two priorities were global poverty and climate change. I agree with the hon. Gentleman that, as an objective assessment of the problems facing the world, the Prime Minister was right. Given that we are reasonably prosperous and reasonably at peace, those are the two great issues facing the world that probably most need tackling. I am not so convinced that the Prime Minister was necessarily wise to include climate change if he could not achieve more than it currently looks—I take the Minister's point that we do not yet know the outcome—as though he may emerge with. I want to explain why, and then I want to make a proposal about what the Minister and the Secretary of State might recommend to the Prime Minister that he might entertain as a possible way out of the impasse as he participates in the negotiations in the next few days.
I accept that the Minister is right to describe the international negotiations as a long-running process that will run through to the Montreal meeting and beyond. Indeed, it dates back many years to the formation of the original framework convention. I agree that that process exists, but the business of those negotiations is best described, roughly speaking, by the analogy of a large boulder being pushed up a steep hill. It needs a constant effort to go up.
Like everything.
It is not quite like everything, because if we stop moving forward with some cases of public policy, we just stay stationary. This process is not like that. If the boulder if not being pushed up, it will roll down. In fact, if the G8 summit is seen as a reverse, it will be a reverse. As I found when I was negotiating the Intelsat agreement, there is a terrible tendency in international negotiations for the parties to decide that, if the thing is too difficult, they will turn their attention elsewhere. There is a real risk that, by elevating climate change as a major component of the G8 negotiations, the Prime Minister will have created the basis for a negative impact from the G8 summit that might not have occurred if he had not originally so elevated it.
The Minister was engaged in a subtle and rather elegant manoeuvre to persuade us that, after all, the G8 summit was no more than a small part. That may be a useful part of the rhetoric of avoiding the problem, but I fear that there is great expectation not just in the UK press, but in the world's media, and if the G8 summit does not produce a noticeable step forward, it will be difficult, even with the massive presentational skills of the Prime Minister and the Government, to persuade the media not to regard it as a significant setback. Certainly, the Minister and the Liberal spokesman will be as aware as I am from meeting the non-governmental organisations that there is widespread scepticism and concern among the NGO community, which will be reflected into the media.
How then can the Prime Minister and the Secretary of State, even at this late stage, hope to make some significant progress from the G8 summit? In answering that question we must admit, of course, that it is not the case the US will sign up suddenly or, indeed, at any time to the current Kyoto agreement. Nor is it the case—I very much take this point—that the US will sign up until and unless it believes that China, India and probably Brazil will also come into the fold.
I accept therefore that this is a jigsaw puzzle and it is a mighty difficult jigsaw puzzle to get right. It is difficult to find the pieces that lock together in the right way. I also accept that that will not occur at the G8 meeting. That need not be fatal if—this is what the Prime Minister ought to try to negotiate—what comes from the G8 summit is not just, for example, a commitment to a nugatory investment in certain kinds of technology or warm words, but rather a definitive process, with a timetable attached, so that people can see that—between the G8 summit and what happens at Montreal and, indeed, beyond—the US, together with China and India, has been brought into a process that stands the chance of creating a new agreement within the framework convention. In principle, that seems an achievable goal.
I am not so close to the negotiations as the Minister—still less, obviously, than the Prime Minister and the Secretary of State—but I have the sense that if the ambition is made sufficiently restricted, it will be achievable to gain progress, and be seen to gain it, which would mean that the boulder was pushed up the hill, even if only by an inch or two, rather than rolling back down.
I have listened carefully to the right hon. Gentleman's speech. He is making a good case in a typically thoughtful way. He is right in some aspects of what he is saying, but he is not right to say that timetables should be agreed during a process such as that of the G8. A process could well be agreed—that is not unreasonable—but it would be arrogant for the eight richest countries to start to agree timetables on a global issue without involving the rest of the world community. The place for the engagement of the world community is within the UN process. That is where that must take place and the G8 cannot short-circuit that. I would also say that the Prime Minister is right to be bold—
Order. That is supposed to be an intervention. Perhaps those points might be made in the winding-up speeches or some other time. I call Oliver Heald [Hon. Members: "Letwin."] I think that that is the second time that I have done that, so I do apologise.
Some of us are not blessed with surnames that have a relationship to the peerage so, Mr. Deputy Speaker, I forgive you entirely.
I am perfectly willing to accept what the Minister says. If he is telling us that it is conceivable to negotiate a process and to have a communiqué that establishes a process to which the US and, because they are offline participants, China, India and Brazil are signatories, but that it is not possible to have a timetable without offending much of the rest of the word, that is fine. Let us have a process, and not a timetable. What is important is that we make the shift between not achieving a substantive goal that cannot be achieved at the G8 to achieving a process goal that, in principle, can be achieved at the G8. That is extraordinarily important.
There is a matter of perception that will become a matter of reality. If the G8 is seen to produce a process and that process is then followed, it will be seen that the US has moved into the mainstream. If the G8 is seen not to produce anything, because it has not produced any serious substance other than a few beans for investment, it will be seen as a reverse. As the Liberal spokesman pointed out, that, if anything, will give comfort to the opponents of taking the issue seriously within the US Administration and discomfort to people such as the governor of California, who has done so much good work.
I would like to bring my right hon. Friend back to the important point that he made about accountability. At the time, he seemed to restrict his comments to the UK's performance but, in the context of what he has just said about the international process, does he agree that part of the failing of Kyoto was the lack of international accountability for hitting the targets? Would he support a greater role for an organisation such as the United Nations Commission on Sustainable Development in monitoring and publishing national CO 2 reduction targets?
There will inevitably have to be a role not just for more conspicuous national mechanics to constrain democratic Governments into behaving in the long-term interest of their nations but more conspicuous international mechanics for constraining those Governments who do not have sufficient domestic mechanics to achieve that goal. Whether it is the commission that my hon. Friend refers to or another is a matter that must be negotiated and considered, but I am clear that there needs to be a multilateral framework and a unilateral framework within each country. That means that, together, progress is regularly and sustainably made.
In effect, we are talking about a curve and it is not the curve itself but the area under it that matters. People sometimes talk as though CO 2 emissions were a matter of how much is being emitted 50 years from now, but it is not. It is a matter of how much is emitted between now and 50 years from now, and it is important that the area under the curve is right over that period. That will certainly not be achieved unless there is international monitoring of some kind and a seriously enforceable series of mechanisms.
I wish to make a final point. There is no doubt that there are sceptics about climate change. The Liberal spokesman referred to the fact that the governor of California recently said that the debate is over. Many people regard it as a test of sanity, mainstream political allegiance or whatever that people sign up to the science. The Minister referred to the fact that the Prime Minister and Secretary of State have been keen to promote more agreement on the science, and I have no objection to that. But I think there is a severe danger that most of us—I include myself—who have no scientific expertise will try to persuade ourselves that what really matters is whether we buy into the science. It does not matter two hoots whether I buy into the science. I know nothing about the matter, so my adherence to it is of no more interest than whether my 12-year-old son believes that two and two equal four. They do equal four and if he does not know that fact his education is in trouble, but it tells us nothing about the truth or otherwise of the matter, and my adherence or otherwise to the science is equally irrelevant to the truth of that science.
Moreover, there are plenty of examples in history of establishment views about science proving in the long run to be wholly fallacious. There are cases in which 99 per cent. of all the then scientists took a view and turned out to be wrong. I do not base my absolute belief that we must take the problem seriously, to the extent of actually doing something about it, on an adherence to a view of the science, but on a kind of Pascalian wager. It seems clear to me that if the great bulk of the scientific community who believe that a terrible problem is about to inflict us turn out to be wrong and— notwithstanding the costs that I was debating with the hon. Member for Bishop Auckland (Helen Goodman)—we have invested in a number of harmless and, in many cases, for other reasons, positively useful devices, we shall have wasted a little of our national income. To take her point, even then not all of it would be a waste in economic terms. We could probably organise things so that, in the meanwhile, the place is a little nicer to live in as a result. I do not think that anybody in the world would suffer dramatically from that. If, on the contrary, we do not take the problem seriously—even if we go around saying that we believe in it—and we do not actually do anything about it, and what the great bulk of scientists is telling us is about to occur begins to occur, the costs in social and economic disruption will be immense. That is a risk not worth taking.
We no longer need to debate the science, not because scientific debate among scientists is ever over and not because we who are not scientists know the truth, but because we would have to be lunatic not to try to do that which has a relatively slight cost if done early and face the possible consequence of a disaster that would have an enormous cost later. I hope that in my party, and more generally across the nation, we quit that debate and get on with the business, in which we have been engaging—usually constructively—this evening, of trying to work out how we make things happen across the globe and in this country. In that endeavour, I hope we can join.
rose—
Order. The time for debate is short and at least five Members are seeking to catch my eye, so if contributions can be reasonably short I hope that we can get everybody in.
I shall take note of your guidance, Mr. Deputy Speaker, although many issues have been raised in the debate and I want to comment on some of them.
The right hon. Member for West Dorset (Mr. Letwin), at the beginning of his thoughtful speech, called on Members not to engage in crypto-partisan comments. I am not quite sure what those are, but I have observed that when people ask other Members not to engage in partisan debate it tends to mean that their own arguments are rather weak and that they do not want too much focus on them.
I shall take the right hon. Gentleman's advice in the spirit in which it was given, although I intend to begin with a few comments that may be seen as partisan, because it is important to examine some of the Liberal Democrat policies and their record on this matter; it is after all a Liberal Democrat day. In tackling climate change, it is important that the rhetoric of politicians is matched by their actions and I have to say that, on too many occasions, Liberal Democrat rhetoric is not matched by action. That needs to be emphasised. The headline policies are good, but the specifics on how they are to be implemented are not so good. Indeed, there are occasions when it would appear that Liberal Democrats would happily run a mile if any of their environmental policies might run the slightest risk of scaring voters.
Earlier, there was a short exchange of views about national road user charging and the hon. Member for Lewes (Norman Baker) confirmed that his party supports such a scheme. Earlier today, I noticed that my constituency neighbour, the hon. Member for Edinburgh, West (John Barrett), bravely confirmed that in the Scottish Liberal Democrats manifesto for the recent election it was Liberal Democrat policy to
"scrap petrol duties and car tax altogether replacing them with a national system of road user charging based on location, congestion and pollution."
I commend him on his bravery in saying that, especially because he represents Edinburgh, which is an urban area with plenty of congestion, so the policy would probably cost those of his constituents who drive into the centre of Edinburgh perhaps £100 a week in road user charges.
I mention road user charging because the Liberal Democrats support a national road user charging scheme, but when we had a debate and referendum in Edinburgh earlier this year on the introduction of a congestion charging scheme in the city, which was recommended by an independent report and supported by most independent transport exports, the campaign against the scheme was led by the Liberal Democrats in Edinburgh. Of course, they were not against congestion charging per se—they were in favour of it in principle—but they said that that particular scheme was not quite right and had not come forward at the right time. The Liberal Democrats had the perfect opportunity to promote their green credentials, but when it came to actual nitty-gritty politics, their policy had the opposite effect on the environment to the headline policies that they proclaim in debates such as this.
Perhaps the hon. Gentleman will tell us the details of what happened in Edinburgh. The Labour authority's incompetent proposal on road user charging went out to a referendum in which it was wholeheartedly rejected by the citizens of Edinburgh. Will he tell us where he stands on road user charging? He is criticising the Liberal Democrats for their brave stand, so does he oppose the policy?
The hon. Gentleman described the scheme as incompetent, but as I said, it was endorsed by an independent report following a comprehensive inquiry, so clearly many people did not think that. Yes, the scheme was rejected by the electorate in Edinburgh, but I was making the point that the Liberal Democrats were at the forefront of the campaign against it. This is an example of how politicians must talk the talk and walk the walk. They must deliver on both what they do locally and their national headline policies if they want to build a consensus on such an important issue.
I intervened on the hon. Member for Lewes to make the point that a national road user charging scheme would undoubtedly require a system to monitor the time at which drivers made their journeys and every journey made. A national system of information collection would be required so that people could be sent bills that reflected the number of miles that they had driven. I then contrasted that with the views of the Liberal Democrats on what would be a much less intrusive national identity register. I make that point because if we ever get to a stage at which we legislate for a national road user charging scheme, I suspect that the Liberal Democrats will be the first to find reasons to oppose it, just as they found reasons to oppose the congestion charging scheme in Edinburgh.
That is precisely what I think would happen in practice, so I have a lot of reservations about going down the road of thinking that national road user charging would be a panacea. If we were to follow that policy in the immediate five or 10 years, there would be a risk that measures that could otherwise be introduced to try to tackle the growth in vehicle traffic would not be implemented because we would be putting all our eggs in the basket of national road user charging. We have not been able to get consensus on policies such as motorway tolling and urban congesting charges, so I wonder whether we would get consensus on national road user charging. I have reservations about the policy; not perhaps because of the scheme itself, but because I wonder whether we would ever obtain the political consensus to make it possible.
We are listening to a non-stop attack on the Liberal Democrats. Has that been triggered by the massive fall in the hon. Gentleman's majority and the fact that he now has a very marginal seat?
My comments are not motivated in that way. The hon. Gentleman knows full well that I have taken this line of argument on many occasions in the past few months. I am sorry if he feels that I am engaged in a non-stop attack on the Liberal Democrats, because there is more to come before I move on to the wider political agenda.
I have some sympathy with the hon. Member for Lewes, whose record demonstrates some principle in these matters. Like me, he recognises that we cannot simply wait until national road user charging is introduced, as though it will be the panacea for all our transport problems and the environmental problems caused by excessive transport growth. In fact, the hon. Gentleman is in favour of motorway tolling—a controversial policy in many quarters.
As well as examining the Liberal Democrat manifesto earlier today, I took a quick look at an interesting website—the hon. Gentleman's. The section entitled "Norman's Views" is interesting—and pretty long; he has lots of views on many subjects. On transport, he says:
"on our roads we need to do what we can to persuade people out of their cars and onto public transport, without penalising those who have no alternative. That could for example mean road tolls on some of our motorways where a rail or air alternative exists. Someone driving from London to Edinburgh has a choice to use public transport."
I take it that he is suggesting introducing a toll on the roads from London to Edinburgh. It could not be a motorway toll, because we do not have motorways going all the way from London to Edinburgh; obviously he is not aware of that fact. None the less, it is an interesting policy. I am not sure that it is supported by the Liberal Democrat Transport Minister in the Scottish Executive, or even by his hon. Friend the Member for Edinburgh, West. I do not know whether motorway tolling between London and Edinburgh is Liberal Democrat policy, but I pay tribute to the hon. Member for Lewes for his bravery in suggesting it. He is, however, not so brave as to suggest road tolls in his own constituency—in fact, on his website he says that road tolling would not be possible there. Perhaps that speaks for itself.
In an intervention, I raised the proposal emanating from the French and German Governments, and now being taken forward in the G8, for a tax on air travel. I should have thought that the Liberal Democrats would support that proposal. In view of the criticism that they have levelled at the Bush Administration—much of which I support—surely we must seek other ways of advancing the international agenda. I expected to hear positive support for—or at least interest in—the German and French proposal from the hon. Gentleman, but as hon. Members who were present for his speech will have noticed, he quickly skipped over my invitation to discuss emissions trading and did not endorse the proposal for an aviation tax.
Let me correct the hon. Gentleman. I am sympathetic to the aims of the French and the Germans. He is concerned that road user charging might mean that nothing else is done in the years leading up to such a scheme being introduced—which is not our policy, by the way. Equally, if we put all our eggs in the aviation kerosene tax basket, regardless of whether that is the right environmental policy, nothing will happen in aviation until that is achieved—and it is highly unlikely that we will get international agreement on aviation fuel tax. We have to find measures that, in the short-term at least, will be more effective.
I am glad to hear that the hon. Gentleman regards the airline tax proposal with some sympathy, but that sympathy does not appear to be shared by some of his Scottish colleagues. A headline in the Member for Orkney and Shetland (Mr. Carmichael) appears to be leading the charge against the proposal, which would both tackle climate change and raise money for Africa.The Scotsman a couple of weeks ago read "Scots MPs hit out at airline tax for Africa aid plan", and his hon. Friend
Interesting though it is to go through their websites, I do not intend to spend all of the limited time available to me attacking the Liberal Democrats. I shall not refer in detail to the website of the hon. Member for South-East Cornwall (Mr. Breed), which mentioned the £700 million investment programme in new roads in the south-west by the Department for Transport. I thought that he would oppose such a programme, but he appears to congratulate the Government on that major new road programme. The Liberal Democrats may have one headline policy, but there are different policies on the ground.
I am making those points to emphasise that everyone, if we are to tackle climate change, must recognise that the environment is not just a headline policy. We must be prepared to follow through and accept the consequences of policy choices. I accept some of the arguments for differential changing on air routes to the Scottish islands. There is a case on certain occasions for new roads. I am not against all road development, but as politicians we must be more consistent in our approach to those issues if we wish to try to change public opinion and achieve the consensus for which the hon. Member for Lewes and the right hon. Member for West Dorset called. If the Liberal Democrats genuinely want to achieve consensus with the Government they must do more to achieve the conditions in which it will be possible to develop it.
Having done all that party political stuff, I was going to adopt a less partisan approach but, in view of the time, I shall have to skip that part of my speech. Hon. Members will be relieved to hear that, but unless they would like to hear it, I shall simply make one point. The environment is an unsung success of European policy. Undoubtedly, the European project is under attack from various quarters, but we should not forget that a combined European approach on environmental issues has enabled the 25 countries to reach an agreement on targets for CO 2 emissions. That would have been unthinkable without the European Union as it has developed in recent decades. Everyone in the Chamber broadly supports the same policy direction on climate change, and most of us support a more effective Europe, so that agreement is one of Europe's most encouraging achievements in the past few years. It emphasises the fact that there are alternatives to following in the wake of whatever decision is made by the US Administration. The Government have a good international record on providing leadership on climate change, which is recognised in Europe and beyond.
My hon. Friend the Member for Morley and Rothwell (Colin Challen) said that individuals need to make choices about what they can do to try to tackle climate change. The Government must show leadership, but as politicians we must show leadership both locally and nationally. My earlier excursion on the failings of the Liberal Democrats was a little longer than I intended, but I wanted to make the point that we must be consistent in what we say and do locally and nationally if we are to bring about consensus.
Finally, I remind hon. Members that they will have an excellent opportunity to display consensus on practical measures to tackle climate change, monitor this country's performance in controlling greenhouse gas emissions and advance practical measures to promote renewable energy, microgeneration and renewable heat when the private Members' Bills promoted by my hon. Friend the Member for Southampton, Test (Dr. Whitehead) and myself receive a Second Reading on 11 November. I hope that across the House there is support for my Climate Change and Sustainable Energy Bill and my hon. Friend's Management of Energy in Buildings Bill. Notwithstanding my criticism of the Liberal Democrats, I hope we will have their support. I hope that we will have support from the Conservatives and from the Government for those measures, which will give us an opportunity to take forward in a constructive way the agenda upon which, at heart, all Members who have spoken in the debate today agree.
I am grateful for the chance to make a brief and, I hope, constructive contribution to the debate. I congratulate the hon. Member for Lewes (Norman Baker) on securing it.
On the issue of climate change, we are discussing arguably the most demanding test of political leadership that the world faces. As my right hon. Friend the Member for West Dorset (Mr. Letwin) mentioned, the science has moved on to the point where every science agency that matters is telling its Government that action is required. It is time to move the debate on.
The imperative is to understand better the likely impacts of climate change and to focus on the response. Do we try and control it, or do we focus on adapting to it? The political difficulties are immense. There remains huge uncertainty about the impact of climate change and the acceptable limits of greenhouse gas concentrations. The need to take out an insurance policy is clear. All insurance policies carry a cost. For that cost to be acceptable, there needs to be acceptance of the risk, not just by the scientists and the politicians who "get it", but by the public out there who tend still to see the problem as being "out there". They may be increasingly aware that the climate is less stable, but they are less clear about the link with the choices that they make in their day-to-day lives.
To be effective, any insurance policy on climate change needs to be global, requiring a degree of international co-operation that has never been achieved. Given these difficulties, it is perhaps not surprising that there is a vacuum of leadership on this key global challenge, a sense of drift reinforced by a lack of accountability. The superpower is clearly not engaged, at least at the federal level and at least until 2008. I shall argue today that there is an extraordinary opportunity for the European Union to fill that void, to leverage the power of the single market, to play a constructive and possibly decisive role in building the coalition of the willing that the hon. Member for Lewes mentioned, and to find a path beyond the first, very small step that was Kyoto.
It must be for Britain to goad the EU into that role. We are uniquely placed to do so given our relationship with the United States, given that we are one of the few countries likely to meet the Kyoto targets, courtesy of the dash for gas led by a Conservative Government, and because we should see it as the right response to the current crisis in the EU. At the heart of the crisis is the need to redefine the relevance of the EU and to prove its value to a new generation. I would argue that that means giving priority to two things: first, re-establishing the EU's credentials as a force for prosperity, and secondly, proving that the EU can take an effective lead on some of the issues that we cannot tackle on our own. Climate change should be at the top of that list as an issue of growing salience to the people of Europe.
What the world lacks, as my right hon. Friend the Member for West Dorset eloquently pointed out, is a framework that takes us beyond 2012. The EU can take a lead in shaping and selling that framework. There is considerable merit in the contract-and-converge principle, but there are difficulties with it and it requires serious consideration. What is clear is that any agreement needs to be acceptable to the United States and the emerging giants.
To be successful, we need to win the argument that lower CO 2 emissions need not come at the expense of growth if we act now. In policy terms, that means focusing intensely on more efficient use of energy and the development of technology that cleans up the supply side. It means bringing the world of business and its customers with us, which in turn means talking less about cost and more about opportunity. We must build into any framework much greater accountability and transparency at individual country level and at the international level.
In building that coalition, there is a great deal that the EU could do to set a lead. I shall give three brief examples. The first is emissions trading. As a Conservative, I believe that emissions trading should be at the heart of a global market-led solution to the problem. The EU emissions trading scheme should be seen as an opportunity to develop a model for a global scheme. It needs to be robust and it needs to be seen to be robust. Critically, it should include aviation. The Minister sounded optimistic about that, but early signs are not encouraging on either front. Real political will needs to be applied to make an emissions trading scheme work and be seen to work.
The second example is the Prime Minister's favourite topic, the common agricultural policy. If the taxpayer is to subsidise farming, let us ensure that we get more bang for our buck. The link has been made with protecting the environment. Why not use the subsidies to incentivise the production of crops for biofuels, which have the capacity to transform the environmental impact of road traffic?
The third matter on which the EU could take a lead is developing technology, for example, clean coal. I congratulate the Government on their recent carbon capture and storage initiative, but we must acknowledge that its impact on the global problem will be marginal. Let us consider the huge coal reserves in the United States and China and face the fact that coal is here to stay. The challenge is to develop clean coal. Rather than mucking around with small, unilateral initiatives, it is time for the EU to take a bold step and gather international support for a large-scale demonstration project of a clean-coal power plant in India or China.
The Prime Minister rightly identified climate change as a priority. He is in a position to show the same leadership as Mrs. Thatcher when she put the issue on the political agenda. Britain can be a role model in showing the world that emissions can be cut at little or no cost to economic growth. However, before anyone listens to us we must set our house in order.
The Government have rightly set ambitious targets, but carbon emissions have risen on the Prime Minister's watch and that stark fact undermines our credibility and makes it unlikely that we shall hit future targets. We need a coherent policy framework, which is supported by a process that is more robust in making the Government accountable. Politicians arguably talk too much about processes, but we need a credible road map to reach the long-term targets. It is sensible to break down the targets into shorter-term milestones, backed with a more transparent plan for achieving them.
I should like humbly to recommend three priorities for domestic policy. First, energy efficiency appears the least controversial aspect on which to focus. Who could argue with the proposition of saving money and the planet at the same time? There is huge scope for improving the energy efficiency of our relatively old and inefficient housing stock, out of which seeps approximately 25 per cent. of our emissions. The Government can play a crucial role in breaking through consumer apathy, which is genuine, by a combination of education and compelling incentives to invest in making our homes and offices more energy efficient. Ideally, those incentives should extend to landlords in the private rented sector and small businesses, for which the climate change levy appears to be an ineffective stick.
Many people were disappointed by the Treasury's failure in the previous Parliament to devise new economic instruments to promote energy efficiency. Conservative Members tried to be creative by proposing a reform and extension of the energy efficiency commitment. It is imperative that we find common ground in this Parliament on the way forward on that crucial policy.
My second priority would be to send stronger signals to businesses, whose attitudes are critical. They need to understand that the environmental agenda can bring opportunities as well as costs. For example, let us consider the motor car. I am convinced that new technology provides the solution to road transport emissions. Rather than trying to force people off the road, the right long-term approach for the Government is to go with the grain of public preference and encourage British motorists to make greener choices by making the least polluting cars cheaper to own through the tax and grant system and establishing a coherent long-term framework of fuel differentials to support the greenest fuels.
The current market share for the greenest cars and the greenest fuel remains below 0.5 per cent. and that must be too low. It is imperative that we accelerate technology and incentivise the key manufacturers to recognise a global market opportunity, not least when China is on track to be the largest car market in the world in a generation. Britain has a role to play in that process and we are not meeting that challenge.
The third priority must be to educate consumers and bring them with us. Their day-to-day decisions will make the difference. In that context, I congratulate The Independent, which has been especially effective, not least in its recent exposé of the way in which our standby culture contributes to emissions.
The link between aviation and climate change presents another opportunity to educate. In 2002, a Department for Transport survey showed that only one in eight people make a connection between flying and climate change. That must cause concern, given the growth in aviation emissions. The motor industry showed a positive example by giving consumers more information on emissions from the cars that they buy. Is not it time to put pressure on the aviation industry to follow that example, perhaps by putting information about emissions per journey on all relevant travel documentation? I stress the importance of consumer education because if we are forced in future down the route of a more aggressive tax regime, which the Liberal Democrats favour, to affect behaviour, it can be sustained only if hearts and minds are won first.
It is time for Britain to put its house in order and the issue that we are considering should cross party lines. It is time for Britain to lead the EU in seizing an historic leadership opportunity. If it takes the opportunity, the EU will take a critical step in redefining its relevance to the people that it serves.
I have listened intently to this afternoon's debate. The forum in which it is taking place—the parliamentary Chamber of the House of Commons—is usually completely unsuited to the topic that we are discussing, yet it has been striking that speaker after speaker—with the possible exception of my hon. Friend the Member for Edinburgh, North and Leith (Mark Lazarowicz)—has stressed the importance of consensus and the building of coalitions. I do not criticise my hon. Friend for taking the opportunity to expose some of the political inconsistencies in one part of the Opposition, however.
In my view, climate change is of such overwhelming significance—in the opinion of the chief scientific adviser, it represents the most significant threat that we face and a far greater threat than terrorism—that the conventional forms of debate and parliamentary procedures to which we are all accustomed are increasingly irrelevant if we are to rise to the challenge of formulating policy on the matter. It is striking, too, that I should follow a Conservative speaker, the hon. Member for Ruislip-Northwood (Mr. Hurd), who could have delivered his speech from the Labour Benches. With the exception of the three words "as a Conservative", everything that he said could have been delivered by one of my colleagues or, conceivably, by anyone on the Liberal Democrat Benches.
I want to dwell a little on how we can do more to build such consensus. I entered the House in 1997, when climate change was still a marginal issue that was poorly understood, if it was understood at all, by most Members. If we continue along the path that we have taken since 1997, with each party remaining nervous of the risks of setting out the radical options that are needed, we shall never make progress; we shall continue the drive towards the precipice. We must construct a new way of operating, and build new alliances between the parties.
I was very taken by the remarks of the right hon. Member for West Dorset (Mr. Letwin) about the need for an external framework within which to operate, and which had public support. His analogy of the sub-contracting of responsibility for interest rates to the Bank of England was an interesting one. I do not know whether we could get an independent body to establish a national carbon budget or achieve all-party agreement on such a budget or some other framework, but the right hon. Gentleman made exactly the right analogy and pointed us in the right direction.
There are already good examples of cross-party agreement and working on this issue. Only this morning, several of us here attended the inaugural meeting of the all-party group on climate change, whose chairman is my hon. Friend the Member for Morley and Rothwell (Colin Challen). We launched the 25-5 challenge, in which Members are urged personally to commit to an annual 5 per cent. reduction in their own CO 2 emissions. I think that that is imaginative, that it will take off and that it will gain an increasing measure of public support.
In addition, the all-party globe group, of which I am the secretary and the hon. Member for Gordon (Malcolm Bruce) is the chairman, will hold an important conference here this weekend that will bring in parliamentarians from all across the globe, including China, India, Russia and south America, and which will be addressed by my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State. The guest of honour on Sunday evening will be Senator John McCain, a potential presidential candidate. These coalitions and alliances are forming and a huge amount of work is being done to reach consensus.
If, however, we are to continue to build consensus, we have to redefine the nature of the problem. To date, it has been defined as a conventional domestic political issue of redistribution. The whole argument is about who will gain and who will lose, and what are the consequences of any change of policy or redistribution. Hence, when the issue of the role of fuel duty arises, the problem is defined as one of hitting the long-suffering motorist; when the question of the climate change levy arises, the problem is defined as yet another burden on business. We must move away from that.
To support my argument, I want to introduce the other issue of fossil fuels apart from the science of climate change. The right hon. Member for West Dorset made the point that it did not really matter whether the science was 100 per cent. accurate, as it made sense in its own right to start to make the move to renewable energy sources and a renewable energy system—whether the transfer is from a carbon economy to a hydrogen economy remains to be seen. However, there is another problem that is hardly discussed at all—the whole question of the finite nature of fossil fuels. The purpose of making the shift away from fossil fuels is not merely because of the threat of climate change, although that is the primary reason at the moment, but because we all know that fossil fuels are finite and will one day be exhausted.
It is remarkably interesting to see in the press in the last two, three or four weeks the increasing number of articles not only about the rising price of oil, but about the onset of peak oil—the concept of the peak of global oil production, after which oil production will inevitably decrease. Many Members will be familiar with the work of various scientists on peak oil. There is now an Association for the Study of Peak Oil, and that Colin Campbell is the leading exponent of the theory. The argument put forward by that association is that the peak will be reached in 2010—far earlier than was previously thought. That does not mean that oil will be exhausted by 2010, but it does mean that from 2010 onwards oil will inevitably be in shorter supply, and as current consumption increases new discoveries of oil will decline and the price of oil will continuously increase.
Both on the ground of responding to climate change and the ground of increasing scarcity of fossil fuels as each year goes by, we must redefine the nature of the problem as not an issue of sharing the pain within each nation, but as an issue of national security.
It seems to me that perhaps this year the public throughout the United Kingdom will start to understand those problems as they have not done previously. That is partly because of the impact of the recent hot weather, partly because of stories about drought, partly because of the experience of the drought in France two years ago, partly because of the recent assessment given by the Italian Government of the excess mortality through drought in that country, and partly because of my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister's lead in placing the issue at the top of the agenda for the G8 meeting. As a result, the public mood is now far more receptive than ever before to more radical policies to respond to the threats of climate change and the finite nature of fossil fuels.
To do that, however, we cannot argue among ourselves about punishing motorists or putting more burdens on business—we have to identify the problem as one of national security, and we therefore need a framework that will work in the national interest and help to move us towards self-sufficiency in energy.
I agree with much of what the hon. Gentleman is saying, and especially with what he is saying about the need for consensus. He mentioned the need for fuel security. Given the shift in the public mood, is this not the time for the Government to make a decisive move on the biofuels obligation?
I can only agree. Later I will specify aspects of domestic policy about which more could be done. It has been argued that biofuels are not the whole solution and that the acreage of land required to generate the amount currently consumed by our transport fleet would be enormous and unsustainable, but biofuels make an important contribution. It is regrettable that in my part of the country, the north-west of England, there does not seem to be a single filling station that sells biodiesel. I have raised that with the Minister more than once.
I have said that we need to develop a new way of working in Parliament. That can succeed only if there is consensus. We also need to redefine the problem as an external threat and we need to respond to what the public are saying. I think that in many areas of environmental policy the public have moved ahead of the Government. There is an analogy with waste issues. There is now a general understanding of the waste crisis: ordinary citizens recognise that it is impossible to go on putting more and more waste into the ground and they seek a lead from the Government on recycling. We are moving in the right direction in that regard. I believe that the public are ready to accept a lead on climate change and fossil fuel production as well, and we must respond to that readiness. The difficulty arises with the question of costs and benefits. We must redefine the problem. If we define it as something that will simply impose more costs on individual households, businesses and motorists, we cannot win the argument.
That brings me to areas of policy in which the Government have made great progress, but could do more. Arguably, the most controversial area of domestic policy related to climate change in which progress is needed is transport, and aviation is central to that. The aviation lobby is mounting a huge campaign to resist duty on aviation fuel. It supports emissions trading, but emissions trading is not the solution. The Government have committed themselves to including aviation in the EU emissions trading scheme that will begin by 2008. I do not think that any Minister believes that aviation will be part of the scheme by then. I suspect that it will not happen until many years later.
According to the Environmental Audit Committee report published earlier this year, or perhaps late last year, if we do nothing aviation will contribute 60 per cent. of our carbon dioxide emissions by 2030. The situation cannot continue and the public know that. While benefiting from and enjoying the amazing increase in the number of cheap, sometimes free, airline tickets, the public understand that the situation is unsustainable. From experience, I would say that they are prepared for the Government to take a stronger fiscal line.
Biofuels were mentioned earlier in connection with transport. In the Budget, the Government took important steps on the taxation of alternative fuels. They reduced duty on liquefied petroleum gas and also on biofuels, which brings it down to the level of duty on conventional diesel. Again, however, there is much more to be done. The Government have tried to introduce a banded system for vehicle exercise duty. I am not sure how many bands there are now, but the system is designed to encourage people to use more fuel-efficient vehicles.
The reality is that the existing fiscal incentives to trade down to a more fuel-efficient vehicle are derisory. For anyone currently running a larger-engined, more inefficient vehicle, a saving of £80 to £90 a year in vehicle excise duty is an insufficient incentive to encourage them to trade down. The public understand the principle behind that idea; they are waiting to be given a lead in terms of greater fiscal incentives to trade down. Exactly the same analogy applies to domestic energy efficiency. Grant schemes exist that provide incentives for making greater use of insulation, but those incentives do not yet send sufficiently strong signals to encourage people to make the change.
There is more that I would like to say, but I hope that my contribution has built on the lead given by my hon. Friend the Minister and that it has been reasonably consensual. I should stress that if we continue with the conventional parliamentary modus operandi, we will not rise to the challenge of climate change.
I want to join the consensus that was building—with one notable exception—in the Chamber. The exception in question has clearly spent many hours surfing Liberal Democrat websites, and long may he continue to do so.
The G8 summit in Gleneagles will focus on two themes: climate change and Africa. This time, the public are more involved than ever before, partly because of the celebrities involved, but also because of what happened 20 years ago, when we saw—for many people it was the first time—the drought in Ethiopia on our television screens. When Michael Buerk brought those images into our homes, we saw the harsh reality of life on the edge: men, women and children suffering from malnutrition, with those who managed to survive the journey trekking miles to camps for a meagre food supply. These events triggered Live Aid, which connected many people, through television and music, to this vital issue. Twenty years on, we have to ask, what has changed?
To coincide with the G8 we have the Live8 concert in Edinburgh, which is taking place at the Murrayfield stadium in my constituency. The Make Poverty History march will also take place in Edinburgh, on 2 July. We are expecting in excess of 100,000 people to march through the city centre, and to make a "white band" of people to send a message to the leaders at Gleneagles. I invite others to join that march.
When we saw those images in Ethiopia 20 years ago, a drought was expected once every 10 years; now, a drought is expected approximately once every three years. Fewer Ethiopians are dying from malnutrition, but more are on permanent food aid. We now see humanitarian disasters unfolding elsewhere in Africa. Many factors are contributing to the disaster in Darfur, in Sudan: tribal conflict, Government corruption, too many guns in the country and no clean water supply. But one vital factor that is directly linked to the troubles is the increasing size of the deserts and the battle for scarce resources such as water and fertile land. We in this country think that we are witnessing extreme changes in our weather, but those who will suffer most are the most vulnerable, who live in the world's poorest countries. Many young children in such countries will never see adulthood.
At the other extreme end of the scale, approximately 100 million people in the United States are overweight. Interestingly, Paul Higgins, an earth systems scientist from the university of California, reckoned that if the food energy used to feed excessively those 100 million Americans were turned into an exercise regime, and if the basic resources spent on producing that food were spent differently, that in itself would impact on the climate.
I have tried to make some small contribution myself. My hon. Friend the Member for Lewes (Norman Baker) will be pleased to hear that I gave up my four-wheel drive car and went instead for a fuel-efficient model. We cannot just pass the buck and blame this problem on the Government; we all have to accept responsibility for the results of our actions. However, the Government are in a unique position because of their presidency of the G8.
Global warming is not an abstract or distant threat. It is real and current, and must be dealt with as a matter of urgency. The G8 nations at Gleneagles account for 47 per cent. of global CO 2 emissions, so it goes without saying that the G8 nations themselves, acting globally, can make a real difference. Tougher international action is crucial to combat climate change and it is time to wake up to the threat before it is too late.
Climate variation is now an accepted part of the natural cycle of our planet. We know that, historically, temperatures have been both higher and lower than they are now. However, what makes the current pattern of climate change so worrying is the pace of change. Projections predict an increase in the average surface temperature of between 1.5o and 6o over the period from 1990 to 2100. That is between two and 10 times larger than the value of observed warming over the 20th century and it is without precedent during the last 10,000 years. Global warming will affect us at home and abroad and it will have social and environmental impacts. Indeed, it will impact on almost every aspect of our lives. It is not surprising that our own chief scientific adviser said that the threat from climate change was greater than that from global terror.
The Kyoto agreement was a good and positive first step towards tackling the issue, but even if the US signed up to it tomorrow, it would not solve many of the problems. We have to remember that the agreement is very much a first step—and a modest one at that. For example, it does not include many developing countries and the largest polluter of all has not signed up to it. Furthermore, many scientists believe that even if the countries producing CO 2 emissions signed up and kept to the limits, it would still not be enough to tackle the problem. The agreement aims to reduce emissions from industrialised countries only by about 5 per cent., whereas the consensus of many climate scientists is that in order to avoid the worst consequences of global warming emissions may have to be cut up to the order of 60 per cent. across the board. That is why we should not put all our eggs in the Kyoto basket.
With that in mind, it is disappointing that so many countries have still failed to meet even those most modest targets. Indeed, it seems increasingly likely that the UK will miss its own Kyoto targets. It does not give the Prime Minister the strongest platform from which to argue for greater efforts from others to combat climate change when we seem unable to put our own house in order. I very much hope, though, that our own failings will not have an adverse effect on the Prime Minister's chances of brokering an agreement on climate change at the summit.
I am sure that Members from across the House will have shared my disappointment and concern at the news that documents on climate change for the G8 have been watered down. It seems that the US is still failing to concede that climate change exists as a problem at all. I find it extraordinary that doubt is being cast on the notion that the world is getting hotter.
My hon. Friend the Member for Lewes has branded George W. Bush the environment's "public enemy No. 1", and I am inclined to agree with him. It is unacceptable that the US—the world's largest polluter, responsible for more than a third of the world's pollution—refuses to take its responsibilities seriously. It is unacceptable that the US President, George W. Bush, simply ignores the advice of his own scientists and continues to refuse to take action to deal with pollution or to accept his responsibility under the Kyoto treaty. There is a serious risk that the US President will prevent the summit from agreeing to realistic and timely actions on climate change and that the rest of the G8 will let him get away with it. While the Prime Minister likes to believe that he can sway the President's judgment on these matters, I believe that when it comes to climate change, he may have little or no influence at all.
A leaked draft document on climate change for the G8 summit spells out as good as any other the danger of inaction. It says:
"If we miss this opportunity and fail to give a clear sense of direction, then we will be locked into an unsustainable future that will threaten our long-term security and prosperity."
I could not agree more. The G8 summit must reach a positive agreement on climate change. It is too important an issue to be lost among international squabbles and petty transatlantic rivalries. I urge the Prime Minister not to let that happen. We must move towards consensus in the House. If the parties in this Parliament cannot agree, how can we expect the leaders at Gleneagles to agree?
I will be brief, and I begin by commending the right hon. Member for West Dorset (Mr. Letwin) on his approach to this matter. He illustrates precisely the attitude that we must adopt if we are to make progress on what may be the most important issue of our age.
A fresh approach is indeed called for and, in searching for ways to combat and solve the problem of climate change, we must cast off much of the ancient dogma that tends to characterise the debate. There has been much discussion of the consensus, to which I am committed and which I hope to extend. However—I address this comment to both sides of the House—it is intellectually dishonest to recognise the reality and speed of climate change, and its social and economic consequences, but then fail to recognise the contribution that nuclear power makes to solving the problem.
It may please some hon. Members to segregate the nuclear debate from the climate change debate, but that is both impossible and misleading to the British people. Failure to recognise the benefits of nuclear power in the context of climate change is little more than a prejudiced conceit. Throughout the debate, hon. Members have been urged to put their own houses in order in respect of climate change, but the same is true of their attitudes to the nuclear industry.
If we are serious about the problem, we must embrace every available solution.
I am grateful for the opportunity to make a brief contribution to the debate—and it will be brief, especially as the hon. Member for Copeland (Mr. Reed) has spoken about one of my major points.
I wanted to dwell on the Government's record in this area, which has been one of lamentable failure. I apologise to my right hon. Friend the Member for West Dorset (Mr. Letwin) for breaking the consensus, but my generation cares passionately about climate change and we feel that this Government have missed a golden opportunity to make the changes that are so desperately needed in the fight against it. This country is still woefully behind the rest of Europe in our attitude to energy conservation and recycling.
I want to make four brief points. First, I support my hon. Friend the Member for Ruislip-Northwood (Mr. Hurd), who said that it is essential, when we debate climate change, to work with the grain of human nature rather than against it. People will always want to use their cars and go on cheap holidays, and we must be aware that great scientific strides will be made as technology develops. Many fuel-efficient, low-emission cars are already available, and they will get better; British Airways has already given up some of its carbon allowance because it uses more fuel-efficient planes; and people are already changing their lifestyles by working at home using the internet. Energy use will change and be reduced through the use of technology. Mention has also been made in the debate of the use of biofuels. Science will find a way.
Every type of major energy source is available in my constituency. Harwell is the site of the first nuclear reactor to be built in Britain, and Didcot is dominated by the large power station that supplies most of the energy for the south-east. Recently, our community was divided by a vigorous debate about the siting of a wind turbine in an area of outstanding natural beauty.
However, I want to speak about nuclear power. I support what the hon. Member for Copeland said. I am fully aware of the risks, such as the difficulties involved in dealing with nuclear waste and in ensuring security.
Is the hon. Gentleman fully aware of the costs associated with nuclear power?
The hon. Gentleman must be telepathic, as I was just about to say that the costs of nuclear power—
What are they?
The costs are incurred by the construction and running of power stations and by the disposal of nuclear waste. Nevertheless, two of the chandeliers above us in this Chamber are powered by electricity from nuclear power, either our own or bought from France—
Which ones?
That one and that one. Nuclear power is a proven technology. Nuclear stations can supply carbon-free energy for the nation in the sort of amounts that cannot be matched by renewables.
If the hon. Gentleman will not answer the question of costs, may I supply it instead? Building a new-generation nuclear power station costs £30 billion: would not it be better at least to try the possibilities offered by micro-generation, which could provide as much energy at half the cost?
Nuclear power for the whole country at the cost of 40 domes is cheap at the price.
The vital aspect and the Cinderella of this debate is energy conservation. As my hon. Friend the Member for Ruislip-Northwood pointed out, 25 per cent. of CO 2 emissions comes from our homes. I hope that the Government will seriously consider reforming stamp duty laws to reward energy-efficient homes and reforming building regulations so that new homes are built with energy-efficient methods.
It is a pleasure to follow the hon. Member for Wantage (Mr. Vaizey), who rightly emphasised the fact that science and technology have a role to play, although we have not today fully explored the issue of nuclear power. It is too late now for me to run through the issues, but perhaps the House will have an opportunity in the future to debate them.
My hon. Friend the Member for Edinburgh, West (John Barrett) rightly reminded the House that the headline issue for the G8 in Gleneagles next week is addressing the problem of global poverty, especially in the poorest countries. I have some misgivings, however, about the way in which the G8 agenda has been set. The eight richest countries—we might call them the R8—will discuss the problems of the poorest. We should apply the maxim "Never about them without them". In other words, we should not talk about the poorest countries—perhaps we could call them the P8—without inviting them to be present. The R8 should not discuss the P8 without eyeballing them at the same time, to ensure that the R8 fully understand and speak to the countries that will be affected by the decisions that come from the top table.
In the lead-up to the summit—of grey-suited men discussing complex issues—it has been encouraging to see many members of the public drawn into the debate through Live8 and the Make Poverty History campaign. Now that their passions have been aroused, I hope that those people will not feel only a momentary compassion on arguably the most serious issue facing the globe at present—the poverty of those in developing countries—but that their compassion will continue in the weeks and months ahead. As people leave the rallies in Edinburgh and the concerts in London, at the Eden project in Cornwall and elsewhere, I hope that they will carry on the campaign. I hope that they will go to supermarkets and ask, "Where does the food come from? Can you reassure me that my purchase of this product will not damage the very people I have been campaigning about, who are the reason why I am wearing this wristband?" People need to apply the principles of that compassion to their activities. They want information and reassurance, and I hope that such continuing interest will be one of the outcomes of the campaign.
My hon. Friend the Member for Lewes (Norman Baker) was, as ever, forensic and passionate on the issue of climate change and spoke strongly for the motion. As the right hon. Member for West Dorset (Mr. Letwin) explained, the debate as a whole has demonstrated the difficulty of persuading others as well as ourselves of the consequences of our actions. When we bring a hammer down on our finger we can see the connection between the hammer, the finger and pain. We learn from that and we make future judgments on that clear relationship. However, when we turn on the ignition of our car or decide to go on holiday, we do not necessarily see the immediate connection between that choice and some meteorological catastrophe elsewhere in the world or some unwelcome climate change that undermines our efforts to eradicate poverty in developing countries. But, as the right hon. Member for West Dorset argued—I think fairly—we need to apply a precautionary principle to this matter before it is too late. If we are wrong, at least we will have achieved some improvements in the way that we live. On the balance of scientific opinion, however, I feel comfortable with the line that we are taking, and it is clear from the Government's line and the policies of all parties that we are going in the right direction in tackling this issue, about which, to be fair, there is still some uncertainty.
I shall try to skirt over the Minister's selective quotations from manifestos and so on, and his failure to acknowledge the fact that when non-governmental organisations requested political parties to sign up to their four key commitments at the time of the last general election, we signed up to them too. Perhaps he did not surf the websites that the hon. Member for Edinburgh, North and Leith (Mark Lazarowicz) did, otherwise he would have uncovered that.
One of the main points that the Minister made in response to my hon. Friend the Member for Lewes was that Britain is leading the world in the action that it is taking on climate change. He asked what other G8 country was on track to meet the Kyoto target. What other European country is on track to meet the Kyoto target? I look for reassurance from the Under-Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, the hon. Member for Exeter (Mr. Bradshaw), who will wind up the debate in a moment, that those words are not a sign that we are going to see the politics of the lowest common denominator. That would be most unwelcome and I hope that the Government will continue to be sincere in their language and ensure that we are attempting at least to set the highest possible standards.
The Minister said that there had been a decline in the number of people who need to be converted to understand the consequences of our lifestyles and their impact on climate change. I think we know where to find those on whom we primarily need to concentrate; they are some rather large and difficult nuts to crack, mostly across the other side of the pond. We might argue that we are—I hope that we are—witnessing the last days of the modern-day equivalent of the Flat Earth Society as far as that is concerned. I urge the Minister and the Prime Minister to do all that they can to ensure that the United States is seen to be isolated in its unwillingness to act in the way that the UK and other countries are prepared to act.
The Minister said that the G8 should not set targets for the rest of the world and I agree that it should not take a patronising approach, although the General Secretary of the United Nations has written to the G8, encouraging it to ensure that it at least sets an agenda that can be pursued still further.
The right hon. Member for West Dorset attempted to pour oil on troubled waters, to be conciliatory and to offer to adopt the role of peacemaker in the rather more fiery exchanges that we witnessed between my hon. Friend the Member for Lewes and the Minister. He applied his intellect and principles to the issue rather than, if he does not mind my saying so, his expertise. I think that, on balance, he made a significant contribution to our debate. I do not say that simply because he announced that Conservative Members would support the Liberal Democrats in the Division Lobby this evening, although on that basis I shall resist attacking some of the past Conservative policies and what they have achieved.
The right hon. Gentleman made a significant point: we in all three parties, as well as other parties, agree that we must face up to some very difficult economic challenges in persuading our electorates that we must make progress. In fact, we need to sell such messages to our electorates. I hope that we can stick together and help each other to sell these difficult decisions and conclusions. Having gone from the sunlit uplands of conciliatory debate, we went to the depths of partisanship with the hon. Member for Edinburgh, North and Leith. However, it is a pity to end on that point and I look forward to the Under-Secretary of State's response, but I urge the House to support the Liberal Democrat motion this evening.
This has been an excellent debate. I cannot recall a debate on an issue of such importance that has commanded such consensus across the House. We heard good contributions from my hon. Friends the Members for Bury, North (Mr. Chaytor) and for Edinburgh, North and Leith (Mark Lazarowicz)—perhaps his speech was not so consensual as others, but he can claim as an excuse provocation by the Liberal Democrats in Edinburgh about the congestion charge there.
We heard a good contribution from the hon. Member for Edinburgh, West (John Barrett), who should be commended for his action in getting rid of his 4x4 vehicle. He might like to know that my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs often refers to me, only half in jest, as a one-man Government carbon-offsetting scheme, because I gave up my car 12 years ago and now rely mainly on my bicycle.
There was a good contribution from my hon. Friend the Member for Copeland (Mr. Reed), who set an example to the House in his brevity. I am sure that the debate will continue and he may wish to make a longer speech in future on the issue that he mentioned. We also heard a good contribution from the hon. Member for Wantage (Mr. Vaizey).
It is invidious to single out a Member for praise in such debates, and I do so at the risk of ruining what otherwise I suspect would be a promising career, but the contribution from the hon. Member for Ruislip- Northwood (Mr. Hurd) was particularly impressive. It was most refreshing to hear a Conservative Member say that the European Union could play a positive leadership role in a major policy issue. [Interruption.] I apologise to the hon. Gentleman if that has damaged him, but it was not meant in that spirit.
Let me bring the House back to the focus of the debate: next week's very important summit at Gleneagles. The House recognises that that meeting in itself has stimulated debate and provided a boost to the vital work that is happening at regional, national and international levels. Indeed, the hon. Member for Lewes (Norman Baker) acknowledged that in what he said about the real progress that is being made at state level in the United States, partly as a result of the British Government giving the issue such a high profile.
We always knew that addressing climate change during our G8 presidency would be tough. There are real differences of opinion about the best way to respond to the challenge. That is why the summit is so important and shows how the G8 functions best when taking on the big issues of the day and reaching out to other key nations.
Our aims for the summit are threefold: first, to secure agreement about the importance of the issue and the need to cut greenhouse gas emissions and to take urgent action; secondly, to find practical ways to speed up the development and deployment of new technologies, both in the G8 and in developing countries, using a comprehensive Gleneagles plan of action, covering energy efficiency, power generation, research and development, investment and financing, as well as adaptation to climate change; and thirdly, to reach an agreement to continue dialogue on climate change, clean energy and sustainable development that will complement the existing UN process.
There has been much debate this afternoon about the position of the United States and whether we should try to persuade the US to sign up to the Kyoto protocol. That has never been our aim. We remain committed to the Kyoto protocol, as do the other signatories. The US, at national level, takes a different line—that is a matter of fact—but there are significant areas of common ground. Just because we have different views on the Kyoto protocol, it does not mean that the US cannot work with Europe and the emerging economies on measures to tackle climate change. The G8 summit provides an opportunity to discuss with the US and those emerging economies what we can do to bring together energy, environment and development policies to create the political will necessary to succeed.
On this issue, some of the consensus that built up in the rest of the debate was challenged. Although stressing the importance, as he saw it, of getting the United States on board for an agreement, the hon. Member for Lewes seemed to suggest that he would rather have a better agreement without the US than a weak one with it. However, he acknowledged that we can continue to do the good work that we have been doing on the basis of a coalition of the willing. We will continue to do that.
The right hon. Member for West Dorset (Mr. Letwin) used his vivid analogy of pushing a heavy boulder up a steep slope to suggest that it was important that Gleneagles results in our going an inch up the slope. He appeared to say that he was worried that we were being too ambitious. I do not accept that we are being too ambitious and therefore face the risk of failing, which would be seen as a defeat. We have charted a wise and careful course and, by and large in the debate, hon. Members resisted the temptation, based on misleading press reports that appeared a few days ago, to prejudge what is likely to be achieved at Gleneagles.
There was also not the degree of consensus that I would have liked on what the UK Government have achieved in terms of showing the leadership at home that we can deploy internationally. It is important to remind the House that, as my hon. Friend the Minister for Climate Change and the Environment said in his opening remarks, we are the only country apart from Sweden that is on course to meet our Kyoto obligations—and not just to meet them, but to exceed them. We are not on course to meet our own much more ambitious domestic targets for CO 2 emissions, but we are reviewing our climate change programme with the specific aim of getting back on track to meet those targets. As my hon. Friend also pointed out, Labour was the only political party at the last general election to have a specific pledge in our manifesto to that 20 per cent. cut by 2020.
The right hon. Member for West Dorset made an interesting contribution to the debate about environmental gain and economic growth. This is an important debate to develop further even though we do not have the time to do so now. I urge him to look at the speech made by the hon. Member for Ruislip-Northwood, who said that he wished that we would talk more about opportunities and not costs. As my hon. Friend the Member for Bury, North pointed out, this country has achieved cuts in our emissions while having robust economic growth, and we are now beginning to achieve a similar situation on waste. We are cutting waste production while growing our economy. It is no accident that the two countries that have done best on climate change—Sweden and the United Kingdom—have strong records on economic growth. I do not think that environmental gain and economic growth are incompatible; the opposite is true. It is only through sustainable development that we will protect the environment and achieve the sustainable economic growth that we all want.
My hon. Friend the Member for Bury, North made several constructive suggestions about potential fiscal incentives. Many of us on both sides of the House agree that more fiscal incentives have a positive role to play in helping us to get our own and international targets back on track.
Hon. Members understandably concentrated on Gleneagles but, as several pointed out, this issue is not just about the G8. It is also about the EU, and its leaders are already showing leadership and setting objectives based on the need to limit temperature increases to 2° C. We want to lead the international debate. We also recognise that the EU cannot do it alone. The international effort to tackle climate change will not succeed unless we get the US and the emerging economies talking. That is why we want Gleneagles to be the start of a new dialogue complementary to the UN process.
I regret the fact that in spite of the consensual nature of this debate, it looks as though the House is going to divide on the Liberal Democrat motion—
rose in his place and claimed to move, That the Question be now put.
Question, That the Question be now put, put and agreed to.
Question put accordingly, That the original words stand part of the Question:—
Question, That the proposed words be there added, put forthwith, pursuant to Standing Order No. 31 (Questions on amendments), and agreed to.
Mr. Deputy Speaker forthwith declared the main Question, as amended, to be agreed to.
Resolved,
That this House welcomes the UK's global leadership on climate change and in particular the Prime Minister's decision to make climate change one of the top two priorities for the G8 Presidency and a priority for the EU Presidency; recognises that UK initiatives in 2005 have already made important contributions to the international debate on future climate change policy, in particular the scientific conference on stabilisation in February 2005 and the Energy and Environment Ministerial Roundtable in March 2005; looks forward to the Gleneagles Summit and provides its full support to the Prime Minister's continuing efforts to secure a successful outcome; commends the UK's plans to continue to strive for further international action following Gleneagles through both the G8 and EU; further commends the Labour Party for being the only party to commit in its manifesto to a national goal to reduce emissions by 20 per cent. by 2010; celebrates the UK's achievement in already reducing emissions to 13.4 per cent. between the base year and 2003, beyond that required by the Kyoto Protocol; further welcomes the introduction of policies such as the climate change levy and renewables obligation that have been so important in achieving this; and looks forward to the publication of the climate change programme later this year which will set out further policies to deliver the goal of a 20 per cent. reduction in emissions by 2010.
Liverpool City Council
Motion made, and Question proposed, That this House do now adjourn.—[Mr. Heppell.]
Mr. Peter Kilfoyle (Liverpool, Walton) (Lab) rose—<em>[Interruption.]</em>
Order. We have business to get on with. When the Adjournment is announced, will hon. Members please leave the Chamber quietly and perhaps not in their usual numbers?
As you know, Mr. Deputy Speaker, I have long been a strong advocate of the city of Liverpool, and tonight will be no exception. Even though I take issue with the conduct and procedures of Liverpool city council, I wish to place on the record the fact that Liverpool as a city is making tremendous progress in its regeneration, which is due in no small measure to initiatives emanating from this House and the present Government. That is to its credit. I also give credit—[Interruption.]
Order. I am sorry to interrupt the hon. Gentleman, but will all hon. Members who are not taking part in the debate please leave the Chamber now, quickly and quietly? We must listen to the debate.
I pay credit to the many local businesses and organisations that have taken advantage of the opportunities presented by Government initiatives and our status as an objective 1 area to reinvent themselves and turn the city's image and substance around over the past 20 years so that it is now a 21st century city that, to use a cliché, is meeting all the challenges of a modern economy. The House may therefore wish to know why I have taken issue with the city council. I have many reasons for doing so, but I am particularly concerned about the way in which it conducts itself. While it is doing very good work in some areas—no one can take that away from it—it is manifestly failing the people of Liverpool in other areas. I shall give a few examples, focusing on people who most need the city council's help, including the poor, the homeless, council tenants, and voluntary sector organisations that depend on the council's assistance.
There is a litany of mismanagement so that, in local eyes, the city has changed from a city of culture—a role that Liverpool will officially play under the present Administration in 2008—into a city about which the council could not care less. That tendency is particularly marked in the areas that I have the privilege to represent. I wish to put it on the record that two of the most deprived SOAs—super output areas—in the matrix of indices of deprivation produced by the Office of the Deputy Prime Minister are in my constituency. The whole constituency is in the top 1 per cent. of combined deprivation indicators, and it relies extremely heavily on council intervention and Government initiatives to ensure that the people there can share in the opportunities enjoyed by many people in Liverpool and on Merseyside as a whole.
The council continues to treat shabbily the people who most need its help. I shall give a few categories of people it ought to target, and pick out one or two recent examples to demonstrate the way in which they have been treated. This week, we learned of the classic case of Mrs. Janet Whalley, a badly disabled lady who dropped off her severely disabled son outside an after-school club—an initiative that the Government are rightly promoting. Because of a technical dispute over her blue-badge entitlement to disabled parking she was hauled before the courts. The magistrates were outraged and threw the case out, saying that it should never have been brought. Mrs. Whalley was awarded £500 costs. That was not good enough for the council, which sacked her for gross misconduct—behaviour which no one in their right mind would attribute to a fair-minded employer.
I came across the even better example of Nicola Foster, whose case falls into the homeless category. The homeless are always under pressure, but they are under particular pressure in Liverpool because of the city's regeneration, including new build and the Pathfinder project. The city is going through a period of transition, so we need to deal sensitively with cases at the margins or at the extremes that deserve help. Nicola Foster, unbelievably in modern times, has nine children. For two and a half years, she lived in a hostel near Sefton park. The council offered to rehouse the family in a hostel in Inverness. It wanted to deport a father, a mother and nine children to Inverness, because for two and a half years it had failed miserably to fulfil its duty of care towards those children. By the way, one of the children was offered a place at a local school where my wife used to teach, St. Finbar's, but because of the domestic situation the child has not been to school for two years. We should not be surprised at the indifference of Liverpool city council towards the child's schooling.
Another area in which the council abuses the sensible procedures set up by central Government is in the statementing of children with special needs. Each Liverpool MP has a caseload that would stretch from one side of the Chamber to the other concerning people who cannot get a statement of their child's special needs. What makes the situation even more pernicious is that the council argues that there is no demand for special needs places in special schools, and closes down special schools so that it can realise the capital assets. The Government's policy has always been that children with special needs ought to be catered for in a setting appropriate to them. If inclusion is appropriate, that option should be chosen and we would not dissent from it. But if a special needs place in a special school is the appropriate setting, that is what should be offered.
Many of our children are not getting that. I am dealing with the case of the child of a drug addict brought up by the grandmother, who got him into a secondary school. Because of his special needs, the school could not handle him—not that he was a bad kid, but he was hyperactive. That kid is now in a pupil referral unit for two hours a day, so not only is he not getting help from the very people to whom he ought to look for help, but his condition is being worsened daily by their neglect.
I mentioned council tenants when I referred to Nicola Foster's case. Sometimes I despair of a city council that fails lamentably to look after its own stock and fiddles its figures by transferring the stock out and then claiming great success in upgrading the homes in its council stock. Government policies were designed to encourage more tenant involvement. No doubt the Minister would agree that we all want tenants to have—metaphorically, if not literally—a sense of ownership of the changes going on around them. We had a long-standing Liverpool Federation of Council Tenants and Residents Associations, which sent out a letter—I assume to my colleagues, as well as to me—on 17 June. The letter announces the closure of the federation and states:
"This is a serious decision taken by our tenant members and tenant management board as it considered that tenant participation is currently so gravely undervalued by our city council that it severely impacts upon the wellbeing and functioning of a vibrant, independent tenant federation."
The letter goes on to list the manifold problems that the federation has faced. It continues:
"A strong, vibrant, informed and independent tenants movement is an asset to any city"—
I say amen to that. However, the letter goes on:
"The climate in this city does not foster a spirit of empowerment but relies upon a culture of repeated rhetoric of 'intentions' without ever considering the means by which 'intentions' are merely the first step of the organic process of change".
That is eloquently put. That ought to be the case but, sadly, it is not so under Liverpool city council.
The council has done some good things and there have been some good investments. There have also been some terrible failures, from the millennium centre on Chavasse park to the King's dock project to the Fourth Grace. Everywhere that the dead hand of the Liberal Democrat city council rests itself, one can guarantee that there will be confusion leading to failure. My great fear, which is shared by people in Liverpool, including business leaders, is that that will bring about the stagnation of ongoing projects.
Indeed, only today a newspaper headline read "Paradise 'Delayed'". It refers to the Paradise street project, which is the biggest of its kind in the country. It is a regeneration scheme into which Grosvenor—no mean operator in its own right—is putting £920 million. However, the man in charge of Grosvenor is now asking, "How can you deal with a council that repeatedly obfuscates and delays?" Those are the sentiments of a developer who has put a massive amount of money into the city.
To show how far the city has come, I say in passing that I recall the Duke of Westminster commenting that he was happy for his daughters to go on a night out in Liverpool because he felt that they were safe there. That is another nail in the coffin of the myths about Liverpool that prevailed for many years. Happily, we have disposed of them. Liverpool is a relatively safe city. It is a good city for business to invest in and it is a prosperous city, which is evolving rapidly. However, the council is acting as a brake on such progress.
That brake is felt most keenly in the areas where the good citizens of Liverpool who are least able to look after themselves could, in the past, turn to the council for succour. I wanted to be objective about the matter and I examined Liverpool city council's document "Improving performance—leading to excellence". It is subtitled "Achievements in 2004/05 against the corporate plan published in June 2004".
I do not want to say that none of the objectives was met. Many of the council's objectives—not mine or the Government's—have been achieved. However, I have been through page after page headed "Well services, safe and sustainable neighbourhoods with optimum local accountability and influence over service management". That is the interface between council services and an efficient, well run council.
The first example reads:
"We did not achieve our target."
The second example states:
"We did not achieve our target."
The third example contains a little bit of spin:
"We have shown significant improvements in delays and narrowly missed our target."
The fourth example reads:
"We did not achieve our target".
The fifth example states:
"We marginally failed our target".
The sixth example also involves spin:
"Although we have significantly improved the actual numbers of carers who received a carer's assessment . . . the improvement has not been as pronounced."
In other words, they failed. The final example reads:
"We have not increased the take-up in the short-term break schemes."
Social services had damning reports on the sort of social provision that they should make as opposed to the provision that they make.
Alone, that might simply be another record of a poor council, whose position should be resolved at the ballot box. The citizens of Liverpool will have the opportunity to turn those people out—as they undoubtedly will—for their ineptitude in many aspects of their alleged competence. However, there is another phenomenon, on which the Minister, I hope, can throw some light.
There was an extraordinary turn of events, involving the publication of a dossier, which the chief executive compiled on the manoeuvrings of the leader of the council and one of his spin doctors to force out the chief executive. It is an extraordinary document. In all my long time in politics, I have never known such an obvious conspiracy to force somebody out. The leader of the council made a de facto admission by reporting to the Standards Board. His actions were completely out of order.
In the past week, the chief executive and the leader of the council have publicly kissed and made up. However, anyone who thinks that that is more than an Elastoplast on a rupture at the top of the council is much mistaken. My concern is not about those two people falling out but about the outcomes for the people and city of Liverpool. How can the matter be resolved? How can we ensure that the city council is operating according to the rules, and according to expectations, not only of the people as citizens, but those that the Government rightly hold of a council?
I am mindful of the fact that, more than 20 years ago—I never thought I would hear myself say this—49 councillors were debarred and surcharged for the notional loss of £106,000. That became something of a cause célèbre at the time. Yet here we have a council wasting money by the bucketload on a daily basis, and whose two leading lights cannot agree on anything in the public arena. This is letting down the people of Liverpool, and I want to find out from the Minister what redress we have, through central Government, to ensure that it stops.
Listening to this sad catalogue of events in Liverpool city council reminds me of the problems that I have with my council in the Vale of Glamorgan, where we are seeing not only a deterioration in services but the inability of the citizens of my constituency to make proper representations to the council. The problem has reached such an extent that hon. Members' correspondence to the chief executive of the Vale of Glamorgan council, containing sensitive information given to them in writing by their constituents, is routinely passed on to local councillors. Does my hon. Friend agree that it is totally unacceptable that such sensitive, personal, confidential information should be divulged in that way?
It is totally unacceptable. However, in Liverpool's case, I would love there to be an ability for issues to be referred on. MPs' inquiries to the Lib Dems in the city of Liverpool go into a veritable black hole, and if they reappear, they do so in transmuted form either in the legal services department or on the outer limits of the chief executive's department. I can guarantee that no one ever gets a straight answer to a straight question.
Will the Minister tell me what, if anything, can be done about this? What powers do Ministers have to ensure that people at the very top of local government do not inhibit what is otherwise a record of success? How, if at all, can Ministers intervene—and are they willing to do so?—to ensure not only that the city council is properly run in an open, transparent and accountable way but that Government moneys on which policies are predicated are being spent for the purposes that they were set out, on a value-for-money basis?
May I start by congratulating my hon. Friend the Member for Liverpool, Walton (Mr. Kilfoyle) on securing today's debate? I know that he and my other hon. Friends who represent the city of Liverpool in the House rightly feel very strongly indeed about this issue. I also want to acknowledge the successes of the city of Liverpool, to which my hon. Friend rightly drew our attention, and to add to the story of Liverpool in recent years.
It is true that the city has the highest concentration of deprivation of any local authority in the country, with 26 of its 33 wards in the worst 10 per cent. nationally. However, regeneration schemes—particularly those involving European objective 1 funding—are helping to revive the economy and to bring a new optimism for the future. That is evident to anyone who has visited the city recently. Tourism, in particular, is now a major industry on Merseyside and has grown by 5 per cent. a year since the mid-1990s. It now supports some 22,000 jobs in the city.
Most recently, in addition to the neighbourhood regeneration funds and other money that central Government have made available, Liverpool's successful European capital of culture bid for 2008 will add further impetus to the regeneration process. Indeed, it is already doing so. It is expected to generate some 14,000 jobs and lever in an additional £200 million in tourism in the run-up to the European capital of culture year. There is therefore a success story in Liverpool, as my hon. Friend rightly said.
In December 2004, the Audit Commission—which is of course independent of Government, and rightly so—awarded a grading of good on its comprehensive performance assessment rating, which was no change from the 2003 rating. The Audit Commission acknowledged, as my hon. Friend has done, that the council had made some improvements, which it identified in education, libraries and the use of resources. Other improvements are expected in those areas, based on the Audit Commission assessment, in the next 12 months.
In other areas, however, such as social care services—which my hon. Friend has highlighted—housing and the environment, the council's performance is much more mixed. A number of underperforming areas remain, such as housing, recycling, highways, supporting people and social care. Investments in services are showing some signs of improved outcomes, however. The Audit Commission's assessment is that the council should be well placed to continue to improve in those areas, in the way it works and in the services that it provides to local people—generally, that backs up the points made by my hon. Friend.
Let me briefly indicate to the House how far Liverpool has to go in its regeneration strategy by examining the floor targets for neighbourhood renewal funding that the Office of the Deputy Prime Minister makes available. On education targets—the percentage of pupils achieving five or more GCSEs or GNVQs at grades A to C—Liverpool's most recent figure is 41.4 per cent., whereas the figure for the north-west as a whole is 49.4 per cent. and for the UK overall it is 52.9 per cent. Liverpool is therefore some 10 per cent. behind. If we compare the health floor targets, the life expectancy of the male population of Liverpool is 72.5 years, whereas the national average is 75.9 years. By accident of birth, therefore, the people of Liverpool have a shorter life expectancy from the outset. Those are statistics and real-life facts that we cannot afford to ignore.
The crime figures show, for example, that burglary dwelling offences per 1,000 households in Liverpool in 2003–04 were at around 30, as opposed to the national average of 18.5. Those are the sorts of problems that we are addressing through neighbourhood renewal and regeneration. Perhaps most tellingly, my hon. Friends who represent the city of Liverpool have constantly referred over the last few years to the target of achieving full employment. The 2002–03 overall employment rate in Liverpool was 59.7 per cent., compared with 74.5 per cent. for the UK as a whole. On education, health, crime and employment, Liverpool's performance was below the neighbourhood renewal fund floor targets. The situation is therefore serious, and the Government are right to monitor it, as my hon. Friend has asked us to do.
Let me address directly the question that my hon. Friend has asked me in correspondence and in this debate relating to the reports of the dispute between the council leader and the chief executive of the city council. Two key factors can be considered: either it is an employment matter in which the Government have no jurisdiction and which should be dealt with internally by the council as part of its responsibility for staff management issues, or it is an issue of political ethics and conduct for which the local government Standards Board for England is responsible. It was with such situations in mind that the Government established the board in the first place. As my hon. Friend will know, we are still trying to ensure that it works as effectively as possible. We are working closely with the Graham committee and the Office of the Deputy Prime Minister Committee, which has reported on the matter.
I understand my hon. Friend's concern and his desire for Government to be seen to intervene in what is a worrying situation for him, for other Members with an interest in Liverpool and, no doubt, for the people of his city. I must tell him, however, that the Government do not intervene in the affairs of democratically elected councils lightly. The intervention powers that we have are under the best-value regime. They are a weapon of last resort, to be used in the worst cases of performance failure when problems are deep-seated and endemic. As my hon. Friend will know, in the six years for which the powers have been in the statute book, we have used them only twice: in Hackney and, more recently, in Hull. When we do use them, we do so in accordance with a protocol that we have agreed with the Local Government Association.
In the two cases in which the powers were used, there was strong evidence of failure in service quality and governance. Even then, the Government explored a number of options before using their legislative powers. When they use the powers, they must be certain that they have strong evidence to support intervention and that they are behaving reasonably; otherwise, they are at risk of judicial challenge.
The Liverpool case now throws itself into the limelight. As I have said, the Audit Commission has rated the council as good. Although its services are not uniformly excellent—far from it, as I hope my statistics have made clear and as we have heard from my hon. Friend—they have achieved a good rating in some respects, and the Audit Commission's latest statements about its overall direction have been positive. There are currently no performance grounds on which any reasonable Minister could act under the legislation.
That is not to say that we will not be taking a close interest in how Liverpool fares. My officials and their colleagues from the Government office for the north-west have been monitoring the situation to determine what effect, if any, it has had on the council and in the city. In the immediate future, we will keep a close eye on the council's performance on key services and the governance that it offers local people.
There is no doubt that the events that precipitated the debate are worrying. As has been said, they may well damage the council's image—the way that it is seen by its partners and potential investors in Liverpool. Like my hon. Friend, I greatly regret what has happened, but it seems to me that the most sensible thing for the Government to do in the short term is give the key players a chance to sort out the problems. I welcome the appointment of Sir Michael Lyons to facilitate arbitration between the leader and chief executive of the council, but we must watch the situation carefully.
As I have said, our powers of intervention rest on best-value legislation. The Minister can insist on some relatively minor procedures, but the four main powers are to direct the council to take specified action in respect of specified functions, to direct that specified functions be exercised on behalf of the council by the Secretary of State or his nominee, to hold a local inquiry into the way in which a council is carrying out its functions—I think that my hon. Friend referred to that in the correspondence—and to allow the Secretary of State to direct the Audit Commission to carry out a best-value inspection.
As the main issues highlighted recently appear to be related to leadership generally, and to relationships within the council leadership, I doubt at this stage whether a satisfactory case could be made for use of either of the first two powers. The third—
The motion having been made after Seven o'clock, and the debate having continued for half an hour, Mr. Deputy Speaker adjourned the House without Question put, pursuant to the Standing Order.
Adjourned at sixteen minutes to Eight o'clock.