I am pleased to have secured this important debate, but I am extremely sorry that it will create criticism of the Government whom I have been delighted to support in so much of what they have been able to do. It coincides with two important reports, which both reinforce the dire need to review and turn round Government housing policy. New Labour might call this policy a failed or a failing one.

The report of the House of Commons council housing group puts the case straightforwardly for a fair allocation of funding, both for revenue and capital, for the provision of council housing. That refers to rented housing owned and managed by our local authorities. The report is based on the views of those much neglected people, the tenants of our local authorities.

My right hon. Friend the Prime Minister declared that he wants to listen to the voices of the people. This morning he has the perfect opportunity to do so. For if we use tenure as a surrogate for class, we can see that the mass of people—the C2s—who remained at home on 5 May came predominately from our council estates. They were baffled and bemused as to why a Labour Government should be so unashamedly trying to undermine perhaps the greatest of our post-war achievements in the provision of public housing—the greatest single measure that has produced good policies on public health in our country. They cannot understand why a Labour Governments would be withdrawing support from councils and their tenants.

The second report comes from the Audit Commission. It calls on the Government to review the housing subsidy system in the light of the commission's findings, the most important of which is the conclusion that council housing broadly pays for itself. That message should go out. The report further points out, as does the report by the Defend Council Housing group, that many councils more than meet their costs and that the Government then remove the surplus in order to meet the costs of those councils that have deficits. The reason some councils produce deficits on their rent account is simply that their tenants are too poor. So we have the disgraceful spectacle of the less well-off subsidising the least well-off in our society.

Does my hon. Friend agree that the second point to which he referred, that of the Audit Commission, has particular force? It does not come from the stance of the Defend Council Housing group or that of the House of Commons council housing group, which want to promote council housing. It takes an objective hard-eyed stance about where we are going on housing. Is that not the worrying factor from the Government's point of view?

My hon. Friend makes a good point. I have rarely come across people from the accountancy profession, particularly those who work at that level, who are national council house supporters. If they reach the conclusion that the review is necessary, we can take it that there might be something in it. That is what we hope to persuade the Government of this morning.

On subsidising the least well-off by the less well-off, I want to tell the Minister and the Government that a cardinal principle of socialism and also of every Labour Government since the war is that poverty is to be remitted from the centre by general taxation. Council housing finance at the moment is a throw back to the outdoor relief introduced by the Elizabeth I. We are in the reign of Elizabeth II and the daylight robbery of council tenants disgraces us all.

Let me offer a few statistics as a background to our debate. After successive assaults on housing shortages in the post-war period, by 1979 England had a crude housing surplus. By that, I mean that nationally there were more dwellings available than families wanting them. Regional variations still needed considerable attention, especially in areas such as London, and disrepair, especially in the private rented sector, was serious. At that point of crude surplus, there were more than 5 million homes under the ownership and management of local authorities. Today, after the sale of 2.8 million council homes, there are fewer than 2.5 million. That is by no means compensated for by a growth in either the housing association or private rented sectors. There are 1.3 million fewer homes available for rent now than in 1979. No wonder there is a problem.

Of course, it is true that owner-occupation has grown, but the truth is that many people have been pushed into buying houses that they can scarcely afford and, in years to come, we shall see that such marginally viable owner-occupation will produce levels of disrepair that will result in the need for a massive injection of funds, probably from the public purse and the taxpayer.

My hon. Friend makes an important point about people being forced into the marginally viable owner-occupied sector. With a slight downturn in the economy, some of those people become unemployed. Then they lose their homes, which are repossessed. Ten years ago, that factor destroyed a Conservative Government; it could seriously damage a Labour Government if we are not careful.

The point is well made. Many in this Chamber will have dealt with the tears of their constituents during that dreadful period when housing costs rose astronomically on the back of increasing—ever-rising, it seemed at the time—interest rates. That scenario will always threaten those pushed into what I call marginal home ownership.

Figures from the Library show that the number of people registered for council housing has increased by 40 per cent. since 1997. That means that more than 300,000 more families are waiting. According to the Library, the waiting list now stands at a staggering 1,434,000 families.

Does the hon. Gentleman accept that that figure is artificially low because it is difficult for many low-income families to get on the so-called waiting list?

Yes. It is my understanding that that problem exists. I will deal with that a little later. However, that is the figure provided by the Library and I think that it will bear scrutiny.

In Stoke-on-Trent, the council housing waiting list is 6,000 and there are 2,000 vacancies, so that means that there are about three people for every vacancy. The issue is not just the Library figures; we are talking about real people in real communities throughout the country and their need for there to be investment in council housing on a level playing field.

I am grateful for my hon. Friend's comments. I hope to deal with that very point in a moment.

The families accepted as homeless just last year numbered 30,000. I have written to my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister to tell him that that is unacceptable while a Labour Government are in power. Behind those cold statistics and the Audit Commission's report lie the stories of despair revealed in our Defend Council Housing report. My hon. Friend the Member for Stoke-on-Trent, North (Joan Walley) has just mentioned that in relation to her constituency. Members learn every week of greater and greater distress among their constituents. On Friday, at my advice session, I met a woman with three children—not uncommon, people might say. She lives—or should I say exists—in a run-down private let. One bedroom is in such disrepair that it is uninhabitable. The rent is £120 per week. Those responsible for housing benefit say that it should not be more than £100 a week, and that limits her entitlement. She cannot pay the landlord the other £20; she simply does not have it. Nevertheless, every week taxpayers pick up a bill for twice the amount that it would cost if my constituent could get a council house.

Nationally, unregulated tenancies attract a housing benefit subsidy of at least half as much again as council tenancies. In London, that subsidy can be three or four times greater. That additional subsidy is fast becoming worth £1 billion a year, and it is going straight into the pockets of private landlords, some no better than latter-day Rachmans. At least with housing benefit paid to council tenants, taxpayers' money remains in the public purse, albeit brokered through the housing revenue account.

The financial aspects of my constituent's plight, and indeed the national financial position, has a much worse dimension to it. My constituent's partner, who is the father of one of her children, wants to take up his responsibility as a father, and indeed wants to take on fatherly duties in respect of her other children, but there is a problem: he is working. He works hard for a relatively modest wage that would disqualify him and the mother of his child from housing benefit if he moved in with her. His wage does not allow him to pay £120 a week in rent and to do all that he wants for the children.

My constituent has applied for a council tenancy, which she and her partner could afford together, but she has been told that she is not homeless, notwithstanding the pit that she lives in. As she is not homeless, she has no priority for a council tenancy. This is the housing situation in England in the 21st century. For all that the Government trumpet their anti-poverty strategies and successes—I, for one, want to blow that trumpet as loud as my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister—I find that my trumpet is muted when confronted with a policy that keeps a decent family apart.

It is not coincidental that the rise in such sad situations is matched by the fall in the number of council houses. The case for keeping this greatest asset in good repair, and for beginning to rebuild what has been lost, is overwhelming in human terms and undeniable in financial terms. I have a few more statistics. The cost of transferring 44,500 dwellings in just two years under the stock transfer options was £488 million in central Government grants. It was needed to make up so-called negative values—the overhang, the gap funding, call it what you will. That is £488 million that is now not available to local authorities, although it is available to private concerns or housing associations. What is the big purpose behind all that? It can only be a visceral dislike of local authorities and perhaps their tenants.

Continuing council house sales produced £2 billion in cash in 2003–04, but councils were allowed to keep and spend just over a quarter of that amount. In essence, that is taxpayers' and ratepayers'—remember that term?—historical investment in local housing. Now it is being used for national purposes, and is robbing communities of the means to house those families in their midst in need of a roof over their head. The report of the council housing group makes recommendations that will help a Labour Government to start to win back its former well-deserved reputation as the true friend of the council tenant.

Tony Crosland once described housing finance as a dog's breakfast, and he set about reform. It resulted in a detailed proposal, the housing finance review of 1978–79. Alas, this plan, which would have encouraged both owner-occupation and a rational approach to investment in the council sector, both for revenue and capital, was taken over by the Thatcher Government. The mechanism that we had worked up, known as the housing investment and strategy programme, was rearranged to divert such funding as there was into housing associations and other agents. Councils were left to struggle with ever-growing disrepair of their stock. In 1999 the Government identified disrepair standing at £19 billion, and declared their honourable intention to introduce and fund a decent homes standard. However, by doing a Thatcher and cutting out local authorities from the plan, new Labour has made a fundamental error.

It is not too late to embrace the fourth option, but time is pressing in a deadly manner for the homeless and the badly housed in our constituencies. I urge the Government to accept the advice of the Audit Commission to review its housing finance policy in much the way that Crosland did and, above all, to pay attention to the tenants' representatives who have given their support to the fourth option.

Order. Before we proceed, many Members have asked to speak and a number of others who have joined us this morning without writing to Mr. Speaker are already rising. I urge all hon. Members to keep their remarks as brief as possible to enable me to accommodate the maximum number.

The occupants of the Front Benches have indicated that they are prepared to restrict their comments. Accordingly, I propose to start calling them at 10.40 am.

I congratulate the hon. Member for Wolverhampton, North-East (Mr. Purchase) on securing this important debate, which a number of Members were trying to secure.

May I recommend to the Minister that in his urgent bedtime reading tonight is the report of the Defend Council Housing group—of which I have the pleasure of being the vice-chairman—the Audit Commission report published last week that described the system of funding for council housing as perverse, the Public Accounts Committee report that criticised the inequitable funding system that the Government have introduced and the report of the Select Committee on the Office of the Deputy Prime Minister, which contained the same message.

A few weeks ago at the start of the Session, 45 Bills were introduced into Parliament, not one of which addressed the scandal of this Government's policies on council housing, which starve councils of the money and ability to build new social housing, rob councils of their tenants' rental income and try to force tenants into a shotgun divorce by saying, "You can exercise the right to choose to stay with the council as your landlord, but over the years that will mean that your houses and estates will decline as the Government withhold finance."

I shall use the borough council in my constituency as an example, but this example could be repeated in scores of councils throughout the country: in Birmingham, Camden, Southwark, North-East Derbyshire, Cambridge and Bolsover, and many other areas. The details will differ slightly, but the principles are exactly the same. A quarter of the houses in my constituency are still council houses—that is 10,000 houses, and would be 20,000 but for the right-to-buy policies over the past 15 years or so. It is therefore a major issue for almost one in four of my constituents. As council housing stock falls every year due to the right to buy, so the waiting list for family houses increases. Can the council build new family houses? Effectively, no. As the population ages so the waiting list for old age pensioners' bungalows increases, but can the council do anything to meet that demand? Effectively, no, because of Government policies.

Instead, the council in Chesterfield, like all other councils in the country, is required by Government diktat to have by the end of next month—July 2005— employed independent consultants to analyse the housing stock and the finances and to consult and survey tenant opinion prior to a possible stock transfer ballot. The cost of that process so far in Chesterfield is approaching £250,000 in payments to the independent consultants and the time of the staff in the council housing department. If the process went through to a full ballot by spring next year, the cost would be about £500,000, which is money that could far more effectively be invested in the council housing stock.

At the end of that process a choice may be offered to council tenants—a Hobson's choice—with them being told, "You can switch to a housing association or a private finance initiative landlord and there will be no financial problems in terms of improving and maintaining your houses and estates into the future. Now, there will be drawbacks. You will have less secure tenancies and you may have a remote landlord, because many of the housing associations that start off as very local are taking part in a wave of mergers across the country and becoming large national organisations. So your local housing association office might end up being somewhere else in the country." I know from housing associations in Chesterfield that some are very good and very local, but some are not very good, distant and hard to get hold of.

One difference with a housing association is that when a transfer has been made it cannot be changed. The housing association cannot be voted out for a new landlord.

Has the hon. Gentleman had the same experience as I have with housing associations in that many of their tenants tell me to tell council tenants not to vote for stock transfer, whatever they do?

That is not the experience in Chesterfield because we have not gone through that process yet, but when going around the country and talking to people, including housing association tenants, I have certainly heard that from people who have undergone the transfer process.

With this Government, tenants have the alternative choice of staying with the council, but they see the money run out over five, 10 or 15 years, and the quality of their houses, estates and management declines. A particular problem in Chesterfield is that a decent minimum housing standard can be achieved quite easily by 2010 because Chesterfield's standard is well above the Government's minimum. The problem will be retention because over the years our tenants will see a decline from the present high standards down to minimum levels due to the funding regime imposed by the Government.

Why should that happen and why can the council not provide the same level of repairs, modernisation and estate management as a housing association or private landlord? Is it because they are less well run? That is certainly not true in Chesterfield, although it may have been to 2002, when the housing department received a bad report from Government inspectors, but in May 2003 council tenants changed their landlord—they could not have done that if they had switched to a housing association or private finance initiative manager—when they elected a Liberal Democrat council and there were considerable changes. I am not making a party political point because other hon. Members will say the same in reverse based on their experience in other parts of the country.

The point is that tenants can change their management if their housing is run by the council. Satisfaction ratings of 58 per cent. back in 2002 are now 84 per cent. Repairs that took an average of six weeks to be carried out now take an average of four days. Appointments for repairs have been introduced, but none existed before. Re-let times have fallen from 45 days to 29 days. The number of voids are down and the level of rent collection has risen. There has been a range of increases using the same management and housing department staff as before. There was no need to bring in outside contractors and consultants, PFI, private expertise or housing associations. The new management on the council simply allowed the housing department staff to get on with their job. Management expertise exists and privatisation is not necessary to achieve it.

Is the reason financial? Many examples have been documented in the Public Accounts Committee's reports and the Defend Council Housing campaign's report that came out last week. There are many examples of debt write-off and so on. I shall give two small and simple examples.

In Chesterfield every year the Government claw back about 14 per cent. of the rent that council tenants pay in Chesterfield. That money is paid by Chesterfield council tenants to the council housing department and taken by the Government to spend elsewhere. During the past financial year that amounted to £3.2 million from an income of £22 million. If Chesterfield council were allowed to keep just half of that £3 million to £4 million that is taken away every year, it would have no problems whatever for the next 30 years in maintaining a high standard of council housing. However, because the money is taken away, over the next five, 10 or 15 years it will struggle and have to impose charges simply to raise £500,000 just to keep afloat on an even keel.

The same applies to the right to buy. Every year, money comes in from the right to buy. Last year, Chesterfield received £8 million, of which £6 million was taken by the Government to spend elsewhere. Only £2 million was retained in Chesterfield to reinvest in council property. Again, if just half of the money that was taken away was left with Chesterfield, it would make all the difference not only in maintaining the existing stock, but to building new housing, particularly old folks' bungalows.

Why do the Government pursue these policies? I asked that question at Prime Minister's questions on 8 December last year, but was simply told that we should celebrate choice. I do celebrate choice and if council tenants choose to leave the council, that is their choice and is fine. I would respect and support that because I have seen enough badly run council estates throughout the country. I grew up in a council flat.

Does my hon. Friend agree that the present housing crisis is predicted to become worse in terms of low-cost social housing for rent? The evidence is that the Government's policy is driven by them wanting to abdicate responsibility for housing.

I have much sympathy with that point of view. If I were to go off at a tangent, I could mention various other areas of Government policy—such as trying to help young couples to get on to the housing ladder through the private sector and a number of Government initiatives.

On the right to buy, I remember that when I was first elected as a councillor in Chesterfield in 1987, Labour councillors bitterly complained about that policy, which a Conservative Government had introduced. I said to them, "But surely if your party had introduced that policy, you would have welcomed it as a great method of socialist redistribution of wealth. The council uses public money to build houses; people rent those houses for a number of years; they then get a discount on buying their houses; and people who otherwise would never have been able to afford to get on to the housing ladder, or who would never have even thought of getting on to it, are able to do so if they so wish." Therefore, in principle, I have no objection to that policy either. The Government are now trying to encourage people in the private sector to get on to the housing ladder, at a time when the housing market is incredibly expensive. Is there a simpler way to address this issue than to allow proper provision of social housing through that tried-and-trusted method of the last century, council housing?

At Prime Minister's questions and through written questions, I have asked why the Government are pursuing this policy when all the reports, all the finances, all the logic and the democratic choice are against it. Time and again we get the answer that we should celebrate choice. Yes, there should be choice. Council tenants should be able to choose to leave council management, but it must be choice on a level playing field rather than the loaded system that the Government currently impose. Given that level playing field, most council tenants would choose not to leave the secure landlord who provides good housing and who they have known for a long time. Even in some areas—Birmingham and Camden, for example—where the council has recommended that the only way forward is for estates to leave the council, tenants have voted in huge numbers not to do so. Therefore, if there were choice on a level playing field, I have no doubt that most council estates would never choose to transfer.

The Government seem to be oblivious to that; I hope that the Minister can reassure us that that is not the case. The Government tell us time and again that no fourth option is being considered. They told us that most recently only a month ago, on 23 May, in answers I received to a series of questions that I had asked. One response was:

"The Office of the Deputy Prime Minister has no plans to change the funding mechanism for councils whose tenants vote for their housing to remain under both council ownership and direct management."

Another answer was:

"The Office of the Deputy Prime Minister has no plans to implement a 'fourth option'."

And yet another answer was:

"There are no current plans to change the housing revenue account subsidy system."—[Official Report, House of Commons, 23 May 2005; Vol. 434, c. 33–36.]

It seems that the Government are set on continuing their unfair, divisive and undemocratic policy.

The money is there if people stay with the council, if the Government give them equality. If by next autumn every council tenant had switched to a housing association or a private finance initiative landlord, the money would be made available. If they stay with the council, the money is denied. Therefore, the money is available; it is simply denied to certain tenants who choose what in the Government's eyes is the wrong option.

The necessary management skills are also there, as we have seen in Chesterfield in the past two years. The customer satisfaction is there, too; there is 84 per cent. satisfaction in Chesterfield. Council tenants in Chesterfield will not forgive a Labour Government who refuse to respect their democratic choice and treat them equally with private tenants, and they will never forgive the Labour party locally or nationally if it lets a Labour Government get away with this abuse of democratic choice.

I hope that the Minister will not repeat the platitudes that I have heard in the past year or so about celebrating choice when, in fact, the Government deny that very choice. I hope that the Government will heed the report of the Office of the Deputy Prime Minister Committee, the Public Accounts Committee, the Audit Commission and the Defend Council Housing group report, and rethink their policies.

Order. Once again, I urge Members to keep their speeches as brief as possible. If Members can curtail their remarks to five minutes in length, I can probably accommodate all Members who are rising. At the current rate of progress, only half the Members rising will be called.

Many hon. Members present served on housing committees—I did so for 21 years, with 10 years as chairman of the Bolton housing committee—so there is a lot of experience in the Chamber. It is clear that there are strong feelings about stock transfer. That was shown in a resolution at last year's Labour party conference, which was passed by a large majority and which has not been satisfactorily answered. Those strong feelings have been expressed by the Members who have spoken in this debate, who have a wealth of experience of serving on housing committees. I hope that the Minister takes that into account because, frankly, 90 minutes is not long enough to debate what is one of the most important subjects in the land. We need a full half-day debate on the future of council housing

Bolton council decided to form a unique regeneration arm's length management organisation—much to the reluctance of the tenants, I have to say. In 1988, the Conservatives brought in large-scale voluntary transfer after their right-to-buy policies were not as successful as they thought they should have been.

In 1986, I took over the chairmanship of the housing committee and one of my first duties was to hold public meetings across Bolton to find out what the tenants wanted. I had 13 public meetings and all the halls around Bolton were packed. There was standing room only. People were even outside the door, unable to get into the hall, but straining to hear the debate between me and the Tory opposition spokesperson on large-scale voluntary transfer. The message from Bolton tenants was loud and clear: they did not want to transfer the stock according to the Tory plan of the day. In the end, they transferred to an ALMO, but with great reluctance.

I dedicated 10 years of my life to such things, along with my council colleagues and council officers. We made some excellent appointments; four of the appointees went on to chair leading housing departments in the rest of the country. Within a decade, we had turned around a department that had not been treating its customers well and whose housing direct labour organisation had been in danger of closing. Many were closing at that time; neighbouring Salford lost its HDLO. Within a decade, we had made Bolton's housing department one of the best in the land, and it remained so until the formation of the ALMO.

My first question to the Minister is why there is the same pressure on well performing housing departments to transfer their stock, when, frankly, that is not necessary. Of course, the preferred choice of the day is the ALMO. However, I cannot see any advantage in setting up an ALMO, especially if a housing department is performing well. Why do I think that? The stock stays in the ownership of the council and the financial transactions remain on the Treasury books. Where is the advantage? The Government say that the separation of strategic housing policy from the day-to-day maintenance and management of housing stock is an essential feature of Government policy. Why?

Successive reports have shown that that is not necessary and does not result in greater satisfaction for the tenants of the transferred stock. I ask the Minister to put on record why the Government are forcing councils to transfer their stock, even in the direction of an ALMO.

I now raise a matter of great concern among Members of Parliament. A review of ALMOs has been taking place. The report is about to come out—I hope that it will come out next month. Perhaps the Minister will tell us when that review of ALMO finances is due. We are getting whispers that the ALMOs may transfer completely out of council ownership; two models are being proposed. The tenants, certainly those in Bolton, have never voted even for the formation of an ALMO—they were merely consulted through tenants' groups, many of which do not represent the whole view of the tenants living in the council houses.

To my knowledge, there has been no democratic vote anywhere even for a transfer to an ALMO. If those whispers are true—I ask the Minister to confirm whether they are—and the ALMOs are now to be transferred out of council ownership, will he promise the House that all the tenants in ALMOs at the moment will be given a democratic choice about whether to transfer further? Many of us have argued on various platforms for a long time that the formation of ALMOs is only half of a longer journey. We believe that that longer journey is large-scale voluntary transfer, and many of us are against that.

I shall now pay some attention to how large-scale voluntary transfer votes are carried out. When we were taking evidence for the report that we are debating, we heard some astonishing stories. For example, on the Clapham Park estate in Lambeth, the Electoral Reform Society—yes, the Electoral Reform Society, of all organisations—carted a ballot box around door-to-door asking tenants whether they had voted. It had spare ballot papers. If the tenants had not voted, the society produced a ballot paper on the doorstep. That is the sort of vote for large-scale voluntary transfer that is being carried out.

The harassment that is going on is unacceptable in any democracy. At the meeting we held two weeks ago, when the report was launched, four Sefton council workers reported to us that they had been suspended—they are probably still under suspension—for standing outside the transfer shop in the shopping precinct where James Bulger was tragically abducted to tell people why Unison, their union, is and was objecting to stock transfer in Sefton borough. They were suspended for doing that in their own time and supporting Unison policy.

Those are only two examples of the things that are going on.

Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

Because of the time, I shall not take any interventions.

We want to know whether the Minister is aware of the harassment that has been going on in the large-scale voluntary transfer debates and votes. If he is aware of it, what are the Government doing to protect people from harassment?

That harassment may be done by chief officers of the council. Chief officers who transfer to an arm's length management organisation or to a large-scale voluntary transfer organisation, or who take the private finance initiative route get a great promotion. What is the attraction? It is that, when the chief officers transfer, their salaries go up.

Those are the people who are advising the tenants. They are the tenants' friends. Tenants trust their senior officers. They have worked with them for years through the tenant organisations. When the chief executive of a housing department says, "Your best option is to transfer", he or she has an ulterior motive. Some of the salaries that former directors of housing are now earning as chief executives of transferred authorities are exceptional. Some housing association and registered social landlord chief executives earn considerably more than what my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister earns—considerably more than £200,000. Many of them are on salaries of more than £100,000.

I shall finish with this point. I represent a party that I have loved all my life and shall continue to love till my dying day, but it hurts me to see that activity going on under a Labour banner.

I shall be brief. I sympathise with the Minister because I do not think that he has a single friend here. Nobody has yet suggested that they will oppose Labour party policy. They wish to support Labour party policy on housing. I certainly endorse the thrust of the Labour party's council housing policy, which has fluctuated over the years. I recall the days when real Labour rightly condemned the Thatcher Government for what they did with council housing. However, it must be recognised that, no matter how awful the Thatcher Government were, in their first eight years, they built 350,000 council houses. In their first eight years, new Labour has built about 3,000 council houses.

I ask the Minister and his officials to look back at the 90-minute housing debate that I introduced in this Chamber on 11 June 2003, which begins at column 237WH of the Official Report. Many of the things that I said then I have said subsequently in the House in questions directly to the Prime Minister, or to the Deputy Prime Minister. Is it not a shame that the Deputy Prime Minister will not come here to explain his housing policies? In 34 years of elected public office as a local councillor and as a Member of Parliament, I have never seen social housing in such a crisis as it is now.

There was a time when families in Colchester could apply to go on the council house waiting list and the question was how many months they would wait. Now, if they are lucky enough to get on the list at all, it is a question of how many years. In a way, debating stock transfer is almost an academic exercise if people cannot even get on the waiting list for a house.

I spoke to a young couple at my most recent advice surgery. The father is in work, the mother is at home and they have three children. His work involves helping with the massive programme of private house building in Colchester. His wage, along with that of about 35 per cent. of households in Colchester with two wage earners, is insufficient for him to buy the cheapest house on the market. He cannot even rent a decent house. He and his family are in a first-floor, two-bedroom maisonette. He said, "All I want, Mr. Russell, is a family house so that my wife can leave the kitchen door open while my three-year-old son plays in the back garden."

We live in the fourth richest economy in the world. In post-war Britain, Labour and Conservative Governments competed to build the most council houses, and it used to grate on Labour that, more often than not, the Conservatives built more council houses in towns, cities and villages. The massive sell-off of council houses by the Conservatives was opposed by Labour in opposition but is actually encouraged under new Labour. I believe that most, if not all, Labour Members were elected on a Labour party policy to promote social justice and equality, but, in my constituency alone, 4,000 children will go to bed tonight in housing that is deemed to be overcrowded by current standards. They are not homeless but they are living in substandard accommodation.

I invite the Minister to take this message seriously, and to take it back to his boss, who should be here to answer why he is not delivering Labour party policy on council housing.

There is an alternative. Carmarthenshire county council in Wales consulted its tenants on what future they wanted for their housing stock. The response was 90 per cent. in favour of keeping it in-house and keeping the county council as landlord. That was not because the tenant groups are compliant, as anyone who has been to their meetings will know. They are well aware of the shortcomings of the county and are not afraid to articulate their concerns, but they have seen good and bad in local housing associations. They have realised that prioritisation is not the panacea that it was once made out to be. They know that there is no pot of gold at the end of the rainbow. They prefer democratic accountability and know that they can harass their local councillors if they are unhappy. They know that privatisation could mean an absent landlord who absolutely does not care what happens to tenants.

Is Carmarthenshire county council an extremist council that can manipulate its voters and tenant groups? Certainly not. Its area includes the manufacturing town of Llanelli, the edge of a coalfield and a rural hinterland. The council consists of 30-plus independent councillors in alliance with 20-plus Labour councillors. That moderate alliance, which covers a broad spectrum of political opinion, believes firmly—100 per cent.—in keeping the council housing stock under council control. The political will is there.

Is the council's option an easy one? Certainly not. It has had to draw up a 30-year financial plan that will enable it to borrow the appropriate funds to improve to modern expectations and standards a housing stock of some 9,000 houses. Why is the council doing that? Because an overwhelming 90 per cent. of its tenants favour that option. They consider it a fundamental duty of any community, society or government—local government in this case—to provide homes for everyone, and many of them believe that councils have no right to sell off houses that were built with public money to house those in need in the community. Those houses were built with contributions, whether they were rates, rent or taxes, paid for by our parents and grandparents.

The right to buy—what a brilliant piece of political packaging. It puts the policy on a par with human rights. It makes it sound wrong to change the policy to suit changing times. Let us call it an option to buy or a possible option to buy—an option to buy if certain conditions are met.

Carmarthenshire county council is working on six different methods of tackling the lack of affordable housing. One method is to specify that some types of housing in certain shortage areas cannot be sold. We must have the courage of our convictions, and as circumstances change we should not be afraid to change policy and to remove that possible option to buy. We need to keep our remaining stock in council ownership and under council management.

This, my friends, is moderate country; this is chapel country. "When did we see you homeless, Lord?" The answer will be, "When you sold off council housing to line private pockets."

I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Wolverhampton, North-East (Mr. Purchase) on having secured this important debate. I hope that my hon. Friend the Minister represents a new regime in the Office of the Deputy Prime Minister, with new Ministers who will bring sensitivity, concern and intelligence to council housing. Those factors have been conspicuously lacking from the council house regime. The question is whether Ministers have the courage to change a policy that is essentially one of bullying, bribing and bamboozling councils and council tenants into getting rid of their council houses and privatising them.

Councils and tenants are told: "We, the Government, cannot provide the money to do the £19 billion of repairs that is the backlog of Tory disinvestment in council housing." Actually, £19 billion is the sum that the London School of Economics estimates the new identity card scheme will cost central Government. We cannot afford the decent homes standard, which had been improved in the manifesto, and we cannot afford to turn what had become dumping grounds into communities. We have to get the work from the private sector, and to choose between three options, none of which people particularly want. That is from a Government who encourage choice. They will not give the tenants the choice that they want to make, which is to stay with the council.

Our council house policy is essentially, "Choose between these three options, or rot in hell". It is a disgrace to the Labour party, and every dirty trick in the book is being used to pursue that policy. Ballots have been brought forward, and that trick was used in Sedgefield last week. The ballot was brought forward before an opposing pamphlet could be put out, so tenants voted in the first few days without reading the other side of the case. Appalling, is it not? It could be Iraq, but it is Sedgefield.

Council officers are persuading tenants to vote for privatisation, because the policy will enrich the officers. My council house department seems to have taken a year off handling council housing and repairs to persuade tenants, and some officials are saying, "Vote for privatisation, or we will lose our jobs." That is an appalling situation. In the face of that, only three quarters of those who vote are voting for privatisation.

The procedure is expensive and it is a waste of money. On the evidence of the National Audit Office, it costs £435 in propaganda, in legal fees and in consultants for every council house that is got rid of. That could be used for housing. It is £1,300 cheaper for councils to undertake repairs and renovations than for the private sector, because it pays higher interest rates and higher wages at the top. We are spending millions not to sell but to give away council housing in my area. There is no increase in tenant satisfaction, and the policy does not prove acceptable to one quarter of the ballots. Camden and Birmingham are classic examples where only 22 per cent. of council housing has been transferred by that method since 1988. The arm's length management organisations are under review. Many of us saw them as the halfway house to privatisation. Registered social landlords are not proving adequate. Indeed, many of them have had to be placed under supervision by the Housing Corporation, so inadequate is their administrative system. The Treasury is anxious that they should be combined into super-RSLs, larger ones, which will be out of touch with their localities.

The terms have been relaxed, without performance criteria that were necessary up until now. I notice that in north-east Lincolnshire the new social landlord was promised only £6 million of gap funding and has now been awarded £17 million because it does not have to fulfil any performance criteria. The policy is just not working, and I hope that the Minister takes this message back. It is dividing the Labour party and depriving councils of any real role. What are they going to do—in many cases—if they do not run council houses? The Labour party conference voted against the policy by a majority of eight to one, and all I heard in the Deputy Prime Minister's reply was two words—one of which was "off". It is, frankly, a shambles.

It is time for a change. This policy is alienating the council estates on which the Labour party depends and to which we owe a duty to repair, renovate, rebuild and give the best possible conditions. We are failing in that duty. It is time for a change, and time for courage and independence at the Office of the Deputy Prime Minister. We need to change the policy to offer councils a fourth option: investment in council housing. That is all that they want, and it has been obstinately refused. It will not be substantially more expensive.

We need to stop taking money out of housing revenue accounts. The Government have a degree in looting and pillaging that would do credit to a dictator in a banana republic. Taking money out of housing revenue—[Interruption.] The Minister shakes his head in disagreement, but they have already taken £13 billion out of housing revenue accounts to pay for daylight robbery—the housing benefit of other council tenants.

The right-to-buy revenues that were supposed to go back into housing do not always do so. Councils are asked to carry a burden of historic debt. We do not ask people going to hospital to pay the historic debts of the health service, but we ask council house tenants to pay the historic debts of councils. If we consider the average council house rent of £2,650, only £1,770 goes to back to council housing. The rest is extracted by Government. Much of it is redistributed from north to south, which is something that I resent.

All that the Government have to do is stop siphoning money out; allow councils to keep the right-to-buy revenues that amount to £0.5 billion; allow prudent borrowing on a revenue stream, such as management and maintenance or the major repairs allowance; and perhaps, in the most desperate situations, provide some of the money that has been wasted on privatisation endeavours. They should turn what they call their community housing task force—it is actually a front organisation for privatisation; a privatisation hit squad essentially—into a council house improvement task force. That is all we are asking. It is time for a change.

The Audit Commission report last week points in the direction of that change. It says:

"Both the capital and revenue funding systems are unsustainable. As more councils transfer their stock, there is less income to redistribute and there is an ongoing gap in capital funding, particularly where there are serious housing problems. Additional investment will be necessary in those areas."

It is crunch time and the Government must make a decision. That decision should be to allow those councils and tenants who want to stay with the council to do so and have their housing properly financed and have investment made in it. The Minister will guess from the anger shown today that there is a seething resentment in the country and in the Labour party, which I am delighted the Liberal party share, against what is being done to councils and council tenants. We need a more intelligent regime. It is time for a change; why do the Government not get on with it?

I was first elected a councillor in May 1979, on the same day, incidentally, that Margaret Thatcher became Prime Minister. Her achievement was greater than mine, but she is now consigned to the dustbin of history and I am still in Parliament.

I was surrounded by councillors from all sides of the political divide, who were absolutely committed to the provision of good quality housing accommodation. They were right to be immensely proud of the work that they had done in helping their constituents out of the slums and into decent accommodation. I became a member of the housing committee and we spent much of our time in those early days condemning and clearing terraced properties that were unfit for habitation and replacing them with homes fit for the bringing up of children.

I did not know it at the time, but Margaret Thatcher and 18 years of Conservative Government were about to change matters—and change them very much for the worse. It was thought there was something unsavoury about council houses, and it became fashionable to sell them as quickly as possible and not build any more. I am sad to say that the fashion has not changed very much. The proud record of councils throughout the country that had changed the living conditions of millions of people was rubbished overnight. As Labour people, we were completely committed to council housing in those days and, when I stood for Parliament for the first time in 1987, I campaigned on my council estates on the basis that a vote for a Conservative Government would be a vote to privatise and sell the council houses. What I did not realise at the time was that a future Labour Government would contemplate the same action, albeit in a more sophisticated and devious way.

I believed—and I still believe—that the provision of council housing was one of the concrete foundations on which councils stood, and if they are now to be considered unfit to provide housing, we must ask ourselves what they are fit for. Local authorities have, of course, made mistakes over the years and there has been far too much bureaucracy and too little tenant involvement. They certainly have lessons to learn and there is real room for improvement. However, a democratically elected council is surely the right and proper institution to deliver decent living standards. If we ask tenants to vote for the matter without prejudice in an open and fair ballot, they will vote overwhelmingly for the council to retain the ownership and management of their housing stock, but that cannot happen because that option is not on the ballot paper.

If the Office of the Deputy Prime Minister doubts my argument, we should set out the options, put them to the vote and find out. That is the way in which I was brought up in this great democratic country. If the only choice is death by drowning or death by starvation, we can perhaps understand why council tenants become a little disillusioned with the so-called democratic process.

In any event, the transfer of housing stock is an expensive process—and for what? We will still be left with tenants having only one supplier. Will the Minister explain why one privatised supplier is more efficient and effective than a public supplier? The Government have tried to justify transfers by arguing that they increase tenant satisfaction and provide a greater choice of landlords for tenants. Well, they should do—should they not?—considering all the money that they receive after transfer. Indeed, tenants should be considerably more satisfied with matters, but the reality is that they are not. They are not any more satisfied than if the available capital had been provided before transfer.

As my hon. Friend the Member for Bolton, South-East (Dr. Iddon) mentioned, the arm's length management organisation option has no legal requirement for the council to test tenant opinion with a vote. Many tenants' organisations have supported ALMOs as an alternative to privatisation. If the Government should renege on that by changing the rules to allow ALMOs to have complete ownership of council houses, it would be nothing short of a disgraceful betrayal. Those who have argued that the introduction of ALMOs was just a first stage in separating the stock from the council would be proven right.

Let us have no more of this nonsense, and let the tenants decide. They will put council housing where it belongs: in the hands of the locally elected council. The very least that they should expect is that the option should be theirs.

I take careful note of your encouragement to be brief, Mr. Gale; I shall be, because I will just make one simple point.

No one has said this, but to be fair to the Government we should congratulate them on the decent homes standard. I shall give the Minister some opportunity to feel that he has a friend in the Chamber. The trouble is that the Government have gone about achieving it in entirely the wrong way.

I shall make a narrow point about the options appraisal process, which in itself has nothing wrong with it because we should examine the condition of our council estates. Those of us who support the fourth option do so because we know that it is what our tenants really want. The saddest thing is when the tenants go through the appraisal process. My tenants decided not to go for stock transfer and that led to a number of interesting repercussions. Tenants should have the knowledge, when they choose their independent tenants advisers, that they are exactly that: that they are independent and that they advise tenants. My contention is that they are anything but. They are part and parcel of the entire wretched process.

Stroud is currently going through the options appraisal again and our current advisers are much better. I want the Government to go back and, if nothing else as a result of this debate, ensure that independent tenants advisers are independent and do give advice. They should not be part and parcel of the process of ensuring that the wretched consultants' reports, which we have all had done, are to be pursued in every letter of the law. I hope that the Minister will accept my friendly advice about what is rotten at the centre of the process. If it were an objective process, tenants would decide who is to advise them. Those of us who have been through this process know that that has not been happening. We need to put that right.

rose—

I call David Taylor.

Like scores of Members on the Labour Back Benches, I grew up in a council house.

You are doing this on purpose, aren't you?

Order.

You are thinking of that row.

Order.

You are using your authority to stop me speaking.

Order. I am not using my authority to stop anybody speaking.

I have been here since 9.20 am. It is all because of that row that we had last year.

Order. I will have to ask the hon. Gentleman to leave in a minute.

Three Members who have been rising have not been called. I have endeavoured to call, and have succeeded in calling, everyone who wrote to Mr. Speaker.

A lot of my hon. Friends know why you have done it.

The private housing market into which our Government seem determined to decant residual council tenants is not generally concerned with providing affordable housing for young families or anyone else. It is critical that our Government—a Labour Government—pull back from the alarming precipice over which we are teetering and below which lies a full blown housing crisis.

I urge the Minister, whom I respect—he has had early successes in his role and has tackled the high hedges crisis on the middle-class estates—to tackle the landlord crisis on council estates. He could stop all housing transfers in progress and abandon future ballots of council tenants, who will be asked to choose between three forms of privatisation, none of which they have asked for.

Tenants in North West Leicestershire district council, the only Labour council in Leicestershire, and one with a good track record as a landlord—accountable, visible, affordable and with a reasonable repairs record—are being coerced down the stock transfer route. My hon. Friend the Member for Bolton, South-East (Dr. Iddon) referred to one or two of the undemocratic processes surrounding the balloting process. He did not get the chance to mention the one-sided material, the tearing down of posters that opposed the privatisation process and the refusal of local authorities and others to book halls for meetings that were to outline to tenants the real implications of what they were about to be asked to do.

It is clear that our Government have had a reasonable track record on affordable housing. However, we shall not meet the laudable decent homes target unless there is a change of policy. The Labour manifesto finished up on the front doorsteps of candidates about 36 hours before polling day. However, I welcome this commitment:

"By 2010 we will ensure that all social tenants benefit from a decent, warm home with modern facilities."

That was a clear and unequivocal commitment, and it does not say, as Ministers have previously said, that improvements are dependent on tenants voting the right way.

The only way that the Government have any chance of meeting the decent homes standard without more resources is by demolishing a great deal of houses that are not decent. We now have a crisis, not only because of the condition of homes, but because of homelessness: hundreds of families are now in temporary accommodation.

Last week's report by the House of Commons council housing group was an important document and I am sure that the Minister will return to his eerie on the 14th floor of some Government office block to read it as a matter of urgency, if he has not already done so. The key principles that our group urged on the Government were that there should be a level playing field of finance for council housing, a fair and balanced debate and acceptable safeguards and guarantees for the tenants affected.

There is no sign in our Government's social housing record so far that those principles have underpinned what they are planning to do. As my hon. Friend the Member for Wolverhampton, North-East (Mr. Purchase) said, my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister said that he wants to listen to people's voices; it is not too late to listen to those voices. In an hour and a half's time, at Prime Minister's questions, I shall ask my right hon. Friend to do just that in relation to option four. I hope that we find that the Minister has listened to us this morning.

I shall keep my remarks brief to ensure that the Minister has the maximum time to respond to the debate. First, I congratulate the hon. Member for Wolverhampton, North-East (Mr. Purchase) on securing this vital debate. The fact that the Chamber is so full and that Members have spoken with so much passion should give the Minister great cause for thought and make him realise the importance and value that is attached to council housing.

The Government are in a right old mess. They have made a pledge that all homes will be brought up to the decent homes standard by 2010. We know that that will cost billions. To deliver it, the Government thought that the best way would be to stock transfer everything that they had to registered social landlords to ensure that the cost of providing those improvements was taken off the Government's balance sheet. To do that, they forced councils to ballot tenants, and because they believe in choice, they gave councils a limited number of choices, as long as they chose exactly what the Government wanted them to do. As all hon. Members have said, those choices involved many bribes and incentives and some dubious electoral means.

It is not surprising that councils found themselves having to encourage tenants to accept the options provided. We can imagine what happens when beleaguered councils that have huge bills for housing repairs, and are constantly and quite rightly being complained at by tenants, are given the choice of making a transfer to somebody else who will provide those repairs or being left unable to promise any improvements. The choice is: "Stay with us and we can do nothing about the state of your home, or take one of the Government-prescribed options and things may improve."

In spite of that, tenants throughout the country have expressed their democratic right and have rejected the options that the Government have provided. So, what will the Minister do? He pledged that the Government will meet the decent homes standard, but the Chancellor has refused to extend borrowing rights to councils in order to borrow through housing finance. Many homes need an enormous amount of money spent to improve things. How will the Government meet the pledge? They cannot.

Endless reports have said that there are much more sensible ways to deal with the issue, through the fourth option. The Audit Commission has said that housing finance needs to be modified. We know that it is cheaper for local governments to borrow than RSLs. The Local Government Association supports the need for a fourth option. Even the Deputy Prime Minister has said that the current situation is unsustainable. So, why will the Government not move on this issue?

The truth, as other hon. Members have said, is that the Government do not trust local government. They do not even trust their own Labour councils to deliver services. That is the problem with this Labour Government. We have had capping, passporting, ring-fencing and now stock transfer. What is there left for local government to do? Why do the Government not just go the whole hog and abolish local government and let central Government interact with a private companies? I will tell the Minister why: if he did that, there would be nobody to blame.

I congratulate the hon. Member for Wolverhampton, North-East (Mr. Purchase) on securing the debate. The documents that have been produced—the fourth option report and the Audit Commission document—provide a good base for a genuine debate about an important subject. I hope that the usual channels take into account the remarks made earlier by the hon. Member for Bolton, South-East (Dr. Iddon). The Government should consider a debate on this subject on the Floor of the House, with sufficient time for Members to express their concerns.

Over the last century, the expansion of council housing has made a major difference to the material situation of many millions of people. Slum clearance programmes and, in many areas, the replacement of slums with council housing has certainly improved the general health and well-being of many of our citizens. There is much to celebrate about what Governments of all colours did throughout the last century.

I do not disagree with much of what the Government are doing. Most of the attacks have been because people think that the Government are being too right wing on this issue. Clearly, if 12 per cent. of all households in England still live in council housing, for the Government to meet their decent homes target by 2010, this area must be addressed.

If one is asking people to make a choice, however, it is responsible to give them a real choice. If a housing authority is good and the tenants do not wish to transfer or go for an arm's length management organisation, I see no real reason why they should not remain and why there should not be a fourth option. Not many members of the Conservative party put that idea forward, but my hon. Friend the Member for Macclesfield (Sir Nicholas Winterton) has made that point forcefully on occasions.

One of the benefits of having a fourth, fifth or sixth option is that it allows us to contrast the various ways in which an important service is delivered. If we read the document produced by the council housing group, we can see that contrasting and comparing housing associations with other social options helps to inform the debate.

It is important that the issue be addressed. Given that there has been major change in the social housing sector, there should be a review of how it is financed. We should not lose sight of the fact that the Government have an ambitious target for decent home standards. If we argue about who runs what and who does what, we lose sight of the fact that decent housing standards for many of our constituents is an objective worth working towards. Therefore, the fourth option should be considered.

Earlier, we heard the hon. Member for Colchester (Bob Russell) talk about respective records and house building. The Government said that the reason why they have not built much council housing is backlog, estimated at £19 billion in 2000. So there is a real task in respect of housing. We all know that in many local authorities there are too many voids. It is not necessarily a matter of building lots more houses; we should use and repair existing housing stock so that we can reduce waiting lists. According to the most recent figures that I saw, about 380,000 people are waiting for affordable housing, and about 61,000 throughout the country are in temporary accommodation. One consequence of the housing boom of the past several years is that many families have real difficulty in accessing affordable housing.

I hope that this important subject will be debated more fully. I am concerned about the allegations made about how even-handed or otherwise the Office of the Deputy Prime Minister's task force is, and about the accusations in respect of how some ballots are undertaken. I do not like it when ballot dates are changed. We are all democrats, and we all have concerns about how rules are observed. I hope that the Minister will take on board some of the genuine concerns about the process. Whatever a political district or borough agrees on, if there is concern about a process, it will, in the long term, lead to much hassle, argument and concern. I hope that the Minister will consider the matter. Perhaps the Electoral Commission might be a legitimate group to lay down a few more rules about the most legitimate way for the ballot to go ahead, so that people think that it is free and fair.

To give the Minister time to answer the strong points that have been made by hon. Members this morning, I shall bring my remarks to an end.

I begin by congratulating my hon. Friend the Member for Wolverhampton, North-East (Mr. Purchase) on securing this important debate on council housing and the fourth option. I congratulate him also on the eloquent and passionate way in which he introduced it. That tone has been carried all the way through it.

I assure hon. Members on both sides of the Chamber—they may represent different parties, but they are clearly on one side of the arguments—that I acknowledge the strength of feeling demonstrated both in this morning's contributions and in the number of Members present. In response to several requests, I will ensure that that feeling is communicated to my right hon. Friend the Deputy Prime Minister and to my colleagues at the Office of the Deputy Prime Minister.

Members will not be surprised to hear that my text, which was prepared beforehand and which responds to many of the points raised, does not announce any change of policy. However, I will put on record the Government's responses to some of the comments made.

First, I shall answer one or two questions asked by colleagues at the beginning of the debate. My hon. Friend asked about the disrepair in the private rented sector as a separate issue. We have set a target to increase the proportion of vulnerable householders living in decent homes in the private sector, and that percentage has increased from 57 per cent. in 2001 to 63 per cent. in 2003. The Housing Act 2004 included a number of measures to improve the condition of private rented homes. I shall give my hon. Friend details on that later.

My hon. Friend the Member for Bolton, South-East (Dr. Iddon) asked about the arm's length management organisation review group. I advise him that the proposed consultation paper on the long-term role of ALMOs will be published later in the summer. I do not have a definitive date, but that will be coming forward in due course.

I thank my hon. Friend for allowing me to speak in this debate, because it is pretty clear that Gale has no intention of calling me. This is the second time in this Chamber that he has done the same thing.

My question, among many that I would have raised in my contribution, is that if local authority housing is taken away from the small district councils, like Bolsover district and north-east district councils in Derbyshire, which I represent, those authorities, which do not have transport, social services or education responsibilities, will have very little left to do. Bear that in mind.

Carry the message back to my right hon. Friend the Deputy Prime Minister and tell him, above all, that what is happening here now—the campaign that started on a small basis a few years ago—is something that is growing every month, and that the Government should change their policy.

Thank you very much.

My hon. Friend has made his point and I am sure that it will reach my right hon. Friend the Deputy Prime Minister.

We have, as colleagues know, more than 4 million social homes that are worth around £400 billion, but decades of neglect and underinvestment meant that, as has been said this morning, in 1997 our assessment was that more than 2 million of those homes did not meet basic standards of decency. It was calculated that there was a staggering £19 billion backlog of repairs. To remedy that, the Government undertook a major review of the finance regime and took a number of steps to direct resources where we believed they were most needed. We also massively increased those resources. Past changes to funding systems are of little comfort to tenants in non-decent social housing. We remain committed to ensuring that all social tenants live in decent homes. With work already completed and plans in place, we are already 86 per cent. of the way towards meeting our target.

As hon. Members have said, where a local authority requires additional resources to deliver decent homes, there are three options: arm's length management organisations, transfer and PFI. In my constituency which covers the boroughs of Tower Hamlets and Newham, we have PFIs, transfers and an ALMO.

Will my hon. Friend give way?

If I have time at the end, I will return to my hon. Friend.

The House of Commons council housing group insists that the options are all about privatisation, and it will not be surprised to hear that we do not accept that definition. Councils that opt for PFI and ALMO still retain ownership of their stock and the transfer of the stock goes to a housing association—a not-for-profit organisation—that puts surpluses back into social housing.

Since 1997, 108 local authorities have transferred homes, making available £6.5 billion in direct capital investment to improve stock. Some 10 PFI schemes are fully signed off, with a further 14 in procurement. Both transfer and PFI schemes are enabling major regeneration of neighbourhoods far beyond the boundaries of just decent homes.

Determining the best option for the future of a council's housing stock is identified through the options appraisal process, as has already been mentioned. The majority of local authorities that were required to undertake an option appraisal have achieved sign-off or have submitted their appraisal for sign off. Our deadline for the completion of that process remains the end of July and no extensions have been granted.

The Government have always placed great emphasis on tenants being at the heart of the decent homes programme, which cannot be delivered without them. We recognise that it is fundamental to tenants' rights that they can access impartial information without bias towards one option or another, which is why we encourage councils to use an independent tenant adviser to ensure that tenants have a clear picture of the process and what each option could deliver. Without clear evidence of tenant involvement, an option appraisal will not achieve sign-off from the Government office.

Will my hon. Friend give way?

I will come back to colleagues if I can get through the majority of my text.

Tenant engagement does not stop once a decision has been made. In fact, tenants comprise about one third of the governing boards of transfer housing associations and ALMOs, broadening tenant participation to an estate and neighbourhood level. Tenants are also central to the PFI process and are consulted through the lifetime of the contract, having input into the choice of contracts or being asked what works they would like to see carried out and to what standard.

Increasingly, we are seeing the development of a number of innovative, community-led stock transfers that would not have been possible without the options appraisal process giving tenants a voice and an opportunity.

Tenants want to be involved and are involved. Since 1997, there have been 161 positive transfer ballots, with an average turnout of 72 per cent. and an average vote in favour of 73 per cent. ALMO ballots have had an average vote in favour of 84 per cent. Tenant participation has led to tenant satisfaction. Analysis done by HouseMark showed that the overall ALMO tenant satisfaction rate remains high—at 75 per cent.—while Kirklees ALMO reports that, under the ALMO's management, tenant satisfaction has increased steadily and is now 93 per cent.

As for RSLs, beyond a new name and culture, tenants enjoy better services and have greater satisfaction with their transfer landlord. The feedback database of tenant opinion showed for 2004 that 84 per cent. of transfer tenants surveyed were satisfied with their landlord, 88 per cent. were satisfied with their accommodation and 84 per cent. thought that their rent was good value for money.

That brings us to the fourth option. It is one that would allow local authorities who manage their own stock access to direct additional investment. As I know, the position of the all-party group that deals with council housing is that councils could meet the target through retention if we let them retain surplus rental income and capital receipts. However, the surpluses made by some local authorities are used to offset deficits in others. Surpluses rarely, if ever, occur where the need to spend is greatest. Allowing the authorities that make surpluses to retain those surpluses would, because total funding levels have been agreed, mean reduced subsidies—and, therefore, higher rents—for authorities with a deficit.

The pooling rates for capital receipts strike a sensible balance between local and national needs. We are under an obligation to ensure that, where we provide extra resources, we also drive up performance, allow tenants to have a say on how the extra resources should be spent and secure value for money.

Will the Minister give way?

Order. The Minister has made it plain that he is not going to give way.

We believe that our decent homes programme is the best way forward. It provides three innovative and flexible ways to support local authorities that need additional funding to ensure that their stock meets the decent homes standard.

It seems to me that the debate is more about democracy than about housing. What message should I take back to the 400 members of the GMB, Unison and Amicus who work for the repairs and maintenance department of Gateshead borough council? On Monday morning, they were told that their jobs will be privatised or they will have to go on the dole. They have no choice. Also, what message do I give to the councillors in Gateshead who were told that they have no vote on the matter?

I cannot say what the message should be because I am not familiar with what is happening in Gateshead and with the details of negotiations between trade unions and the local authority. I will look into the matter and write to my hon. Friend to let him know what my opinion is after I have had a chance to study the situation.

I would like to know whether there is anything in the Minister's text about the fourth option of the level playing field. All we want to see is a fourth option with a level playing field. If the Minister has come prepared for the debate this morning with a text about that option, can he give any comfort to those people who spoke so passionately about how the option could be considered through proper channels?

I thank my hon. Friend for her comment. It takes me back to the point that I made at the start of my comments. I am not in a position to change policy this morning. Nobody would expect that. I have said that I will report the strength of feeling from the debate. I do not say that it will change the mind of my right hon. Friend the Deputy Prime Minister's mind or Government policy, but I will communicate it. I assure her of that. If my text is not satisfactory for colleagues, I apologise, but I must get on record some of the points that the Government want to make in response to comments that were raised.

In conclusion, the timing of the debate could not be better, given the announcement last week made by my hon. Friend the Minister for Housing and Planning of a further 61 transfer PFI and ALMO schemes that will invest more than £3 billion to tackle another 125,000 non-decent homes and to create 1,400 socially rented homes. Since 1997, total housing capital investment has tripled. In 2007–08, £2 billion will be spent on social housing. That is double the level of 1997. As part of the Office of the Deputy Prime Minister's five-year plan, there is a £38 billion investment in sustainable communities. Our policies are bringing in hugely increased housing investment and vastly reducing the number of households living in non-decent homes. They are supported by many local authorities and valued by tenants.

I am grateful for the opportunity to introduce this short debate on the safety testing of gravestones. This matter is causing great distress and anger to many of my constituents and I understand that there are similar reactions in other parts of the country.

I have been inundated with calls from people who have visited the grave of a loved one only to find that it has been desecrated, not by a group of vandals but by a gang of contractors employed by the local authority. The gravestone may have been dislodged, staked and may have a sticker on it declaring it unsafe and requiring repair. In other areas, I understand that graves are cordoned off and the stones laid flat.

The scene in municipal cemeteries is of mass desecration, which is why it is so profoundly distressing to so many people. I understand that throughout the country gravestones are being tested for safety. That follows concern about injuries and accidents in recent years, including the death of a child, caused by unstable memorials. That has prompted burial authorities, in turn prompted by the Health and Safety Commission, to test gravestones for safety.

I am aware that in recent years attention has been paid to the wider issues concerning cemeteries and burial. The report of the Select Committee on Environment, Transport and Regional Affairs in 2001 drew attention to the lack of resources for cemetery maintenance that was preventing unsafe memorials from being tackled. That report prompted the Government to set up the burial and cemeteries advisory group in December 2001 and with it a memorial safety sub-group. The latter was to produce good practice advice with

"progress to be reported to the Burial and Cemeteries Advisory Group no later than November 2002 when the timetable for the completion of any outstanding work will be agreed."

I understand that the promised good practice advice has still not appeared.

In January 2003, in a parliamentary answer, the relevant Minister said:

"I expect to issue that advice later this year."—[Official Report, 27 January 2003; Vol. 398, c. 623W.]

It is now two and a half years later, but there is still no advice. In the meantime, in January 2004, the Home Office published a consultation paper "Burial Law and Policy in the 21st Century: the need for a sensitive and sustainable approach". That identified the deficiencies of existing burial legislation and on the issue of memorial safety said that

"recent experience of measures taken to address the dangers of unstable memorials has indicated that there may be a need to review owner notification arrangements and other aspects of responding to threats to public safety. These issues are currently subject to separate consideration."

That separate consideration is a reference to the advisory group and the closing date for responses to that consultation was 13 July 2004.

We have reports. We have advisory groups. We have sub-groups of advisory groups. We have consultation papers. What we do not have is policy or good practice guidance to inform the activities of burial authorities as they embark upon the safety testing of memorials.

We also have the Health and Safety Commission, whose chairman wrote to all local authority chief executives on 1 June 2004 asking them to take "a personal interest" in the safety of memorials in cemeteries. That letter stated:

"In very many cases the matter is already being well managed and you will quickly be able to confirm to your satisfaction that no additional local action is necessary. However, some recent incidents have re-emphasised that when memorial safety has, for a variety of reasons, not been handled very well the potential for considerable adverse publicity, and indeed public anger, is all too real. This has threatened public confidence in how we and the other relevant bodies manage a sensitive issue."

The letter also urged that there was a need for

"good communication and explanation with members of the public, particularly family members of the person being remembered",

and stated that

"in a very small minority of occasions there has been a perception of communication failure with indiscriminate behaviour by over-zealous authorities."

Faced with a local outcry, my own local authority, Cannock Chase district council, issued a press release on 2 June, which stated:

"The testing is not an individual Council policy, but a Health and Safety Commission decision that all cemeteries across the country should be surveyed and any defective headstones made safe."

In fact, that is not the case.

One of the questions in the frequently asked questions annexe to the HSC chairman's letter of 1 June 2004 is:

"Has HSE published any guidance?"

The answer given is a capitalised, "No." It goes on to refer to information given to Health and Safety Executive inspectors but says:

"This is not guidance to LAs"

—local authorities—

"as BAs"

—burial authorities—

"although it has been mis-interpreted as such."

Indeed, the HSE website states that the circular in question —"management of unstable memorials"—has been removed:

"This circular was originally issued to LAs in 2001 for information of inspectors. It was not intended to be used as guidance to burial authorities but, unfortunately, in a few cases, it has been misinterpreted as such. Understanding and guidance on the management of memorials has since moved on and in order to avoid any further possible confusion the circular was removed from the HSE's website . . . HSE will be issuing revised guidance for inspectors in the near future, but meanwhile, the Home Office Burial and Cemeteries Advisory Group . . . is developing good practice guidelines and LAs may wish to approach them for advice."

So, we come full circle. We have local authorities saying that they are only doing what the HSC has told them to do. We have the HSE saying that it has issued no instructions, and referring people to the Home Office burial and cemeteries advisory group, which has still not produced any good practice guidance. Meanwhile, in all this bureaucratic fog, people are finding the gravestones of their loved ones officially vandalised by contractors armed with their topple testers. They are then being told that they have to pay to have them repaired, even in some cases where they have only recently paid a considerable sum to have them installed, and without the courtesy of prior direct consultation, or the opportunity to be present when the testing is done. It is scarcely surprising that this makes people distressed and angry.

I have some questions for the Minister about what is happening, which my constituents want answers to. If she is unable to give the answers now, I would be grateful if she could write to me subsequently. Is the way in which the safety testing of gravestones is carried out a proportionate response to the safety problem that has been identified, or are we in a territory inhabited by sledgehammers and nuts? What assurance is there that the 35 kg topple test has not itself contributed to the problem?

If, in the words of the Health and Safety Commission,

"The cause of the toppling of memorials has in the great majority of cases been linked to inadequate cemetery upkeep and maintenance regimes",

why should the responsibility and cost for restoration of gravestones lie with individuals and not with burial authorities? Why has there been no effective British standard for the design and construction of memorials, so that even recently installed memorials have failed the safety test, while many older ones have passed it?

What is the responsibility of stone masons who have erected memorials that have failed the safety test and are now to be paid again to restore them? Why has the Government's burial and cemeteries advisory group still not produced its good practice advice on memorial safety? Why have local authorities taken their own action without official advice on good practice, relying only on the various approaches contained in existing industry guidance?

What is the cost to local authorities of undertaking the safety testing programme? Why have grave owners not been written to personally, as a matter of routine, when testing is to be carried out, and given the opportunity to be present? Why have advice and assistance not been provided as a matter of course to those whose gravestones have been judged to be unsafe?

Will the Minister confirm that a local authority has no powers in law to compel a grave owner to repair a memorial or to force the owner to reimburse the cost to the authority of making it safe, as no such power is contained in the Local Authorities Cemeteries Order 1977? Do local authorities have an obligation to maintain their cemeteries properly? In the event of an injury caused by an unstable headstone, is the council liable, the individual owner, or both?

When are we finally going to get new legislative proposals to deal with the issue of cemetery maintenance and safety? Finally, what avenues for complaint and redress are available to people who believe that their local authority has approached the issue in an over-zealous and insensitive manner? Those are the sort of questions that my constituents want answers to, which I address to the Minister today. It is a sensitive issue and it deserves to be dealt with sensitively. In too many cases, that seems not to be happening, giving rise to great distress and anguish in those who see the graves of their loved ones being violated by public authorities, which seem inattentive to the intense human sensitivities involved.

I am most grateful to the hon. Member for Cannock Chase (Dr. Wright) for his generosity in allowing me a few words, and I thank the Minister as well. Topple-testing sounds more like something from Ken Dodd, my former constituent in Liverpool, Wavertree, than something that has been seriously considered by a public body. I ask whether the Health and Safety Executive has too many officials with too much time on their hands. Otherwise, can one imagine why it is asking local authorities to analyse gravestones? Have the officials nothing better to do?

Bearing in mind that there are more deaths in the home and in the kitchen than on the roads, and that there was one death, sad though it was, when a gravestone collapsed on a young man who was playing with it, surely we as a nation should not be spending hundreds of thousands or millions of pounds without a risk assessment. That would determine whether we should be spending the amount of time that we are currently spending on gravestones and their stability.

In Torbay, which is part of my constituency, the Liberal Democrat council has already spent £20,000 on checking the stability of tombstones, and it has actually stuck warning signs, rather like parking tickets, on the stones. With those stickers everywhere, the graveyard looks more like a main street with cars on it. It is an absurd misuse of public moneys. Never mind the tombstones, the Torbay unitary authority needs its head examined as to the priority it is giving to that issue. There are 70 miles of unsafe cliffs along south Devon. Are the Government going to suggest that the Health and Safety Executive tests every stone to see whether they are unsafe? The risk assessment has totally failed to keep the problem in perspective.

I ask the Minister to put the matter in proportion. Many activities are dangerous. Crossing the road is dangerous. Do we need Health and Safety Executive officials to help us to cross the road? We are in an absurd situation. The hon. Gentleman made a formidable speech, and many other Members are appalled at the amount of public money that is spent on what appears to be trivia. What are the people supposed to do? Are the dead supposed to rise out of the ground and put the tombstones in a safer position? Many of the tombstones are hundreds of years old, but some houses that are hundreds of years old are unsafe. We are becoming an absurd nation, and when we have a topple-testing measurement, the Health and Safety Executive is perpetuating nonsense.

I thank the hon. Gentleman for giving me the opportunity to draw attention to that absurd situation. I hope that the Minister realises that many Members feel that it should be dealt with much more practically, and without so much public money being spent on such a trivial issue.

I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Cannock Chase (Dr. Wright) on securing the debate, and I thank the hon. Member for Totnes (Mr. Steen) for contributing to it. Although my hon. Friend asked 12 questions, I shall not answer them one through to 12. He may even have asked 13—I think that was slightly over-zealous. However, I hope that I shall be able to deal with most of the points that he made. If there are any with which I cannot deal in the short period that I have left, I shall confirm the position in writing to him.

I appreciate the comments from the hon. Member for Totnes that it almost seems bizarre that cemeteries can be a safety hazard. However, gravestones and memorials can become unstable over time. The issue is not always just about how long a gravestone has been in the ground. It can relate to the type of soil it is in. I am not sure what the soil is like in Totnes, but I know of some areas with sandy soil, where care must be taken in erecting tombstones and memorials. Gravestones may fall, but not always because of age. Even simple things such as mourners leaning on a gravestone when paying their respects can lead to instability and the monument falling on them at the graveside. Perhaps the hon. Gentleman does not need a helping hand up from a graveside, but some of us do.

I do not want to underestimate the impact of the injuries. They are small in number, but there have been 21 serious injuries, including three deaths, during the past six years. Obviously, it is necessary to deal with the issue, but I agree with the hon. Gentleman and my hon. Friend the Member for Cannock Chase that the risk must be managed sensibly. I believe that in the majority of cases that is what happens. I shall come on to the specific matters that my hon. Friend raised and the way in which his council dealt with them.

I share my hon. Friend's concern about the minority of instances in which an inflexible and insensitive approach means that little or no attempt has been made to consult the bereaved, or in which a blanket approach has been taken and all headstones have been laid down as a precautionary measure. Just to allay some of the fears that he and the hon. Gentleman raised, councils have been taken to the ombudsman in some instances. Indeed, there was an ombudsman's decision against Bromsgrove district council, which not only appeared to be over-zealous but did not take measures to consult people before it laid gravestones down on the ground.

All the indicators point to improvements in the situation since the intervention of the Health and Safety Commission and the Home Office, among others. For the past few years, there has been a greater understanding among burial authorities of the need for a balanced and sensitive approach.

We should not be complacent, as any over-reaction has the potential to cause great distress, but I recognise that it is often far from easy for burial authorities to deal with the issue. On the one hand, they must consider the feelings of the bereaved, who want the graves of their loved ones to be treated with dignity and respect. On the other hand, if someone is injured or even killed, there is an outcry—perhaps the mirror image of the outcry that my hon. Friend highlighted. Therefore, it is necessary to strike a sensible balance.

My hon. Friend highlighted ownership, which makes the management of risk even more complicated for the authorities involved. Responsibility for the maintenance of a memorial lies primarily with theowner who erected it, but many owners and descendants do not appreciate the problem, or even the fact of their responsibility. They may no longer visit the grave regularly. In that instance, the burial authorities are most likely to become aware of a possible danger, and it is incumbent on them to assess the memorial and to take action if it appears to present an imminent risk.

For the record, let me explain what the British standard test procedure involves. It is not about moving around a graveyard with strain gauges, trying to knock down gravestones. In a nutshell, under the British standard test procedure, there should be a visual inspection of the memorial followed by a hand test to determine its stability. If it wobbles, immediate steps must be taken to make it safe. If it does not wobble, a mechanical device called a strain gauge is applied to determine whether the memorial can withstand 35 kg of pressure. If it cannot, the gravestone owner is notified that they need to make it safe. The procedure should be that the gravestone owner is advised. It is not a case of wandering around graveyards vandalising or desecrating memorial stones with hammers, as my hon. Friend suggested.

Ideally, the owner of the memorial will always be consulted before any action is taken, but it may not always be possible to contact the memorial owners readily, particularly in relation to older graves. If that is the case, a reasonable first step might be for the burial authority to keep their employees and the public away from the dangerous memorials.

That might be followed by an appropriate procedure to give owners notice both of the problem and the action the authority intends to take if the owners do not come forward. I know of burial authorities across the country that have used all methods possible to try to contact the owners of memorial stones. I believe that consultation is vital, and only after it has been undertaken might it be proper to take corrective action.

My hon. Friend referred to a letter sent out by the Health and Safety Commission in June 2004. The issue had by then been around for some years. Guidance on memorial management and appropriate safety standards has been published over the years by relevant professional and representative bodies, including the Institute of Cemetery and Crematorium Management, the Association of Burial Authorities and the National Association of Memorial Masons. The guidance recommends regular inspections of headstones and practical measures to make dangerous memorials safe. Laying memorials down is not the only option, as I indicated. Memorials may also be supported, cordoned off, or repaired.

By 2004, there had been instances of blanket approaches to tackling the risk and poor communication with the bereaved. The Health and Safety Commission was concerned that in a minority of instances an overly risk-averse approach was being applied, and I concur with my hon. Friend on the point. The Health and Safety Commission therefore decided to intervene. It wrote to all local authority chief executives and urged them to ensure that a proportionate approach was taken. The letter noted that in most cases the issue was handled sensitively, but raised concern that

"in a very small minority of occasions there has been a perception of communication failure with indiscriminate behaviour by over-zealous authorities."

My hon. Friend read that extract out. There was also a question and answer brief covering the kind of issues that he raised. I hope that both he and the hon. Gentleman appreciate that the Health and Safety Commission's intervention was not the cause of the problem, but rather a step along the way to promoting a sense of balance.

I reassure my hon. Friend that other actions are in train. At present, as he indicated, there is no single source of guidance on memorial safety. The Home Office, as the Department then responsible for burial law, invited the various professional, technical and representative bodies in the burial industry to discuss and to make recommendations for an agreed code of practice. Much work has been done and much progress made.

I appreciate my hon. Friend's comments about the length of time that that has taken, but the diversity of the industry has made it difficult to reach universal agreement on the way forward. We have to deal with an enormous range of authorities, from large local authorities to small churches. Moving towards consensus has been very difficult and that is a matter of regret.

Responsibility for burial law recently transferred from the Home Office to the Department for Constitutional Affairs, which I understand is considering what guidance may now be given to local authorities and others on these issues, including the need to consult families where preventive action seems necessary. I hope that it will be able to clarify for gravestone owners their responsibilities and make provisions for addressing maintenance costs should they arise; my hon. Friend raised the apparent legal limbo between the gravestone owners and the burial authorities as a specific issue.

I said that I would highlight issues relating to Cannock and I do not want to finish without doing so. I know that my hon. Friend has received many representations on the matter. I highlight the fact that at least two people from Cannock said in the Cannock Chase Post that they consulted the local authority and that the bereavement service of the local authority was very supportive. It offered direct contact numbers of the organisation that was recruited to complete the difficult task at the cemetery. The two women asked people to seek more information and help, because the help is there for Cannock Chase.

I do not underestimate the difficulties and the sensitivity of the issues. I hope that I have addressed most of them. If I have not, I will write to my hon. Friend. Perhaps he would allow the hon. Gentleman to see the reply.

I welcome the opportunity to discuss the fallen livestock scheme introduced this year, given the experiences that I had in my constituency during lambing earlier this year. Sheep carcases that had been unburied for many days were being collected in odd corners of farms. Desperate farmers were waiting for the collector to arrive. Farmers who let converted farm buildings for holidays purposes, as they were advised to do, had to cope with badly decomposing carcasses being collected as they were waiting for holidaymakers to arrive.

Farmers throughout my constituency told me about collectors being unwilling or at least unhappy to collect carcasses because they were so badly decomposed. That was the experience of farmers throughout north-west Wales. Other hon. Members might recount such experiences from elsewhere in the United Kingdom. The new European Union regulations have effectively banned the previously acceptable practice of on-farm burial. There might have been problems in other parts of the UK, as I said, but they are acute in Gwynedd in north-west Wales.

My main worry concerns the problems that have arisen from the implementation of the scheme for the farming community in my country. My Caernarfon constituency is rural and has traditional family farms. They are the backbone of the rural community and provide a living for farming families, and employment for rural trades and industries. In Caernarfon, rural life is the backbone of the Welsh language and our culture. It is highly significant not only in local, but in national terms. Family farms in my constituency are concerned mainly with livestock rearing and sheep and cattle farming. There is little arable farming, as a result of which the impact of the regulations has been particularly marked throughout the livestock sector.

Historically, the livestock sector in Wales has been under great pressure. The number of holdings has reduced over a long time. We have not been immune to the amalgamations that have occurred elsewhere, with the consequent problem for young people who are trying to enter the industry with fewer holdings being available for them. Indeed, the figures that were published on 22 June by the National Assembly for Wales show that, between 1994 and 2004, there was a marked decrease, perhaps not in the number of active farmers, but in the number of holdings. Dairy holdings were down by 1,705 throughout Wales and beef holdings were down by 913. Sheep holdings declined by 1,843.

Indeed, over the past 10 years, holdings with sheep have decreased from more than 17,000 to just more than 15,000. That has put an historic pressure on the livestock industry in my constituency, which has been compounded by the effects of bovine spongiform encephalopathy, foot and mouth and the long-term effects of scrapie. Given that, the new problems associated with fallen stock are particularly burdensome.

The Minister might say that the scheme is working well elsewhere and is bedding in. However, the Farmers Union of Wales, the National Farmers Union Cymru and many individuals farmers have said there are severe problems. NFU Cymru told me that, during the lambing period, its office received many complaints every day, and the numbers were in double figures. It arranged regular meetings with the National Fallen Stock Company's director for Wales to good effect; I am happy to recognise that. NFU Cymru put its complaints directly to the company.

Only this morning, I had a positive meeting with Mr. Michael Seals of the National Fallen Stock Company, who assured me that, in general, progress is being made. I am happy to accept that. He told me that so far there have been 120,000 successful collections. That is fine, but there have been problems, and it is significant that half the 600 complaints that have been received in the UK come from my part of Wales.

Does the hon. Gentleman agree that the problems that the National Fallen Stock Company says it is overcoming are of the Government's own making? We on the Isle of Wight are fortunate to have negotiated a derogation from the provisions of the EU directive, something common to many parts of the EU. Does he think that the directive was necessary in the first place, or does it merely add burdens to farmers' businesses?

I can only agree with the hon. Gentleman, and the subject that he raises will be the burden of my remarks later. As for my constituency, I do not think that anyone has ever alleged that problems for animal or human health arose from the previous practice of burying on-farm. That, at least, is the opinion locally, and as far as I can see there has been no proof to the contrary.

As the water table is significantly lower in the United Kingdom than in parts of mainland Europe, is it not the case that there has never been a threat to biosecurity arising from on-farm burial? Given the picture that the hon. Gentleman painted of carcases rotting and awaiting collection, it seems that we now have the worst of all possible worlds, with much less biosecurity and significantly greater costs.

Again, I can only agree. We all recall the precautions taken with empty lorries going into farms for collection during the foot and mouth disease crisis, yet now half full or almost full lorries of decaying carcases are being taken from one farm to another. Clearly, there are concerns about biosecurity, but who knows whether they are well founded in every case?

Some 600 complaints were made across the UK, and half of them came from my part of north-west Wales. If the scheme is working so well across the UK—it very well might be—why is it not working so well in my constituency and others in the old county of Gwynedd, where it is clearly not working?

I welcome the hon. Gentleman's comments. One place where the scheme is working quite well is Monmouthshire, although I appreciate that his constituency has experienced problems. It is working well in Monmouthshire partly because we have two hunts—the Monmouthshire and the Curre and Llangibby—which are doing a great deal to solve many of the problems. Does he agree that the Government's short-sighted attempt to stamp out hunting and to destroy the hunts is having an impact not only on the countryside, but on the ability of organisations to deal with fallen stock?

My attitude, and that of my party, to hunting is well known. As it happens, the Eryri hunt operates in my constituency, but it gets its feed from elsewhere, so that is not a particular issue. In some respects, sheep carcases are hardly worth taking away for such purposes. However, I agree with the hon. Gentleman as far as his constituency is concerned, and that was a properly made point.

As I said, there are particular significant features of farming in north-west Wales. It is large-scale sheep farming country. In the past, we have not required the services of fallen stock collectors. Fallen animals were buried on the farm, of course, and as far as I have been able to discover, that has never been a threat to human or animal health.

One farmer in an area called Cwm Pennant, a remote Snowdonia valley, told me recently:

"All our land is on the mountain behind the farm. That's also where we get our water. Don't you think that we have been careful about where we bury stock. Careful for centuries!!"

They have farmed that land for centuries, they have been careful and there was no need to have the scheme there.

The lack of collection has never been a problem before, so was the historic and wholly unreasonable lack of a substantial collection service infrastructure taken into consideration when the Minister thought about the scheme for north-west Wales? We have a structural problem. Was that taken into account before the scheme was introduced? If not, why not?

The demand for the collection of fallen stock in my constituency is also variable: it lasts for about two months in the year, during lambing in the spring when there is a high peak of demand. At other times there is low demand. Evidently, during the high demand peak for those two months the collectors have found problems. That seems to be a classical structural problem rather than the fault of the individual collecting company or the National Fallen Stock Company. That is the nature of the demand: there is a high peak for two months. Was that considered before the regulations were applied? If so, what was the result? If those considerations were not taken into account, why not?

Another feature of the problem is the relatively high cost of the collection of single animals. That has led to some farmers waiting until several animals have died to reduce the relative cost. That is particularly significant because we are talking about sheep farming country.

My hon. Friend hits on an important point. It is not so much that the individual farmers are waiting until they have several fallen stock, but that they are having to club together with other farmers in the locality until they have a decent load to be taken away. In that regard, as he knows, I represent a neighbouring constituency, in which farmers wait five weeks with the animals rotting on their farmyards. We are talking about biosecurity, and, heavens above, that is the last thing that anybody wants.

Again, I agree with my hon. Friend. I know that the National Fallen Stock Company is aiming to increase the number of collection points for a number of members from the current position, which might alleviate some of the problem, but although I cannot name names, sheep carcases are left on the hills occasionally, because we have an efficient collection service called foxes, which sort the problem out for us.

Would the hon. Gentleman also agree that in terms of biodiversity, having some carrion about the mountains and hills is important for red kites? The reintroduction of that species in Wales, which was down to the last three or four in Great Britain, is a huge success story.

That is another telling point.

Any reasonable person putting these factors together would conclude that the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs or the Welsh Assembly Government did not adequately consider the particular features of livestock farming in north-west Wales—in my constituency, that of my hon. Friend the Member for Meirionnydd Nant Conwy (Mr. Llwyd) and elsewhere—before the scheme was introduced. However, there was and is a way out, which is a temporary or permanent derogation from the regulations for my part of Wales and perhaps elsewhere, and the re-establishing of the previous, entirely safe, practice of on-farm burial. I understand that that course is taken in other European countries in similar circumstances. Has DEFRA considered how other countries have dealt with the problem? Have they adopted such practices in any way?

I understand that a derogation might be possible on the basis of remoteness. Was a derogation sought for north-west Wales and other areas where the introduction of the scheme has been problematic? If a derogation was not sought, why not? We heard that the Isle of Wight has one, as do other parts of the UK. What about north-west Wales and elsewhere? There is a derogation for the highlands and islands of Scotland, the Isles of Scilly and the island of Lundy, with its huge farming industry.

I do not know how familiar the Minister is with north-west Wales, but much of my constituency can only be described as remote—thankfully remote, some might say. The nearest collector is in Wrexham, more than 100 miles away from many parts of my constituency and that of my hon. Friend. Travelling 20 miles along wide, straight roads elsewhere—for example, in the south of England—is a wholly different proposition from carting fallen stock along the narrow, meandering lanes of a thin peninsula for 20 miles. How is remoteness for these purposes defined and are such local considerations given proper attention? Is it "remoteness" as defined by DEFRA or as defined by the European Union and interpreted by DEFRA?

A memorandum from DEFRA of 14 May 2003 seems to implicate both parties when it says:

"'remote areas' will be interpreted as the Scilly Isles and Lundy Island in England and the Highlands and Islands of Scotland. This is because the definition of remote areas in the EU Regulation is 'where the animal population is so small and where facilities are so far away that the arrangements necessary for collection and disposal would be unacceptably onerous compared to local disposal'".

That explains the definition to some extent. Remoteness from collection facilities and a small animal population might be one thing, but it does not cover the circumstances in my constituency, where we have a large animal population but remote collection points.

There is a further question about whether other European countries apply the regulation in such a fashion. Significantly, the hon. Member for Aylesbury (Mr. Lidington) asked the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:

"what assessment she has made of the extent to which other EU member states have exempted parts of their countries from the ban on the on-farm burial of fallen stock."

What assessment had she made? Had she had a look? Her answer was revealingly insular. She replied:

"No such assessment has been made. It is for individual Member States to inform the Commission of the areas that they wish to categorise as being remote".—[Official Report, 28 March 2003; Vol. 402, c. 458W.]

If DEFRA was not looking to other parts of Europe, what consultation was undertaken with farming interests in north-west Wales? Was there proper consultation, as there was in Scotland? I have a copy of a letter from Pentland house. Its title is "Implementation in Scotland of the EU animal by-products regulation". Did DEFRA carry out a consultation with the Welsh farming unions and other farming interests?

Some would say that, given that there is no way in which farmers can conform to the requirements of the regulation because of how the scheme is set up, they are being driven to break the law. I accept that the regulations are being implemented with a light touch, but that is the quandary into which farmers are being put, through no fault of their own. Some have said that this mess can only create a wholly unwarranted image of Welsh livestock production, given that Wales produces some of the finest red meat in the world and the problem detracts from that.

What will the Minister do to ensure that the great work that Welsh farming interests and their partners —for example, in the Welsh Development Agency—have done for many years is not undermined by the thoughtless and insensitive application of the regulations in north-west Wales?

rose—

Order. I intend to call the wind-up speeches at 3.30 pm. A number of hon. Members have said that they wish to take part in the debate. If contributions are curtailed, we should be able to accommodate everybody.

I congratulate the hon. Member for Caernarfon (Hywel Williams) on securing the debate. I apologise to my hon. Friend the Minister because I may miss a few minutes of his concluding remarks, as I have to be somewhere else.

Given what the hon. Gentleman said in his introduction, I accept that there are problems with the scheme. I hope that the Minister is now alerted to those and will feel duty-bound at least to play a part in trying to overcome them. I will confine my remarks to my understanding of what is happening. I am grateful to the NFU for its briefing—other hon. Members will also have received a copy—saying that the scheme, which had a difficult birth, is working erratically across the country. That suggests that we need to pay attention to the regions where it is not working.

On the decision to ban on-farm burial, I pride myself on being somewhat sceptical about the European Union, and I would normally rail against any interference from outside. However, on this occasion, I think that the EU has done us a favour because on-farm burial was a problem and it would remain a problem were it to continue. If we are serious about tackling animal disease, we should have done something about it before the ban.

Is it not the case that on-farm burial may well have been a problem in areas of Belgium and the Netherlands, but it certainly was not a problem in the highland sheep farming areas of north Wales, or in many other parts of Wales, where, as the hon. Member for Caernarfon (Hywel Williams) said, it has been going on for centuries? Is it not also the case that the only reason why the ban was brought in across the EU was because there were powerful lobbying interests within the European Commission which did not want farmers in other parts of the EU, including Wales, to achieve a competitive advantage?

I do not agree. I take the stance that we do not take animal disease seriously enough. If there is evidence about the consequences of on-farm burial, we should heed it. As we all know, unless people are particularly knowledgeable, materials can get into the streams that pass beneath our wonderful landscape. We are fools to ourselves if we ignore that.

I know that the hon. Gentleman takes a close interest in rural matters and in agriculture. Surely he appreciates that farmers know the volatile nature of watercourses and what not to do near them. Does he know of any research pointing to evidence that there could be a health risk to humans or animals as a result of on-farm burial away from watercourses?

I would just look at our experience during the foot and mouth episode, when we used on-farm burial. With the benefit of hindsight, many of us would say that some of the methods used then were none too clever and will come back to haunt us. However, I agree that there is not enough research. We do not take animal disease seriously enough, and taking it more seriously will involve conducting research. However, it is better to take the preventive route than to look at some of the implications of what would happen if and when we find that the problem is growing. What has happened has happened, and I do not think that anyone will suggest that we should reverse this ban and consider alternative methods.

What about the derogation?

Well, the hon. Gentleman will need to look at the research on that. However, the most suitable way of dealing with the problem is to get fallen stock to the renderer via the current method.

I was involved in some of the early meetings on the current method and I had doubts because some farmers were sceptical about whether the scheme would get up and running, which it took a long time to do. However, the National Fallen Stock Company is now up and running. It is not working well in every region, but where it is working well—I am sure that the Minister will have a view on where that is—we should get behind it, support it, and make sure that it continues to work well.

First, I remind the hon. Gentleman that the on-farm burials that took place so catastrophically at the time of the foot and mouth outbreak were undertaken not by farmers but by DEFRA. Secondly, does he find it surprising—I am sorry to say that I do not—that the Government's reaction to on-farm burials is to adopt the precautionary principle, but their reaction in the case of the measles, mumps and rubella vaccine is to say, "Oh, don't worry. There has been no research," or, "We do not agree with the research and think that the vaccine is okay"? Is not that because the Government are in the pocket of the pharmaceutical industry?

The analogy with MMR is bizarre. I have a great deal of time for the hon. Gentleman, but his efforts to draw that simplistic link leave me speechless. I shall pass on quickly, as I cannot see the link.

We must understand that the only way to make the scheme work in those places where it is not working is for farmers, the Government, renderers, knackers yards and so on to work together to make it work. Perhaps hunt kennels would want to play a part. I have never been against that. They have a specific role to play in those parts of the country where they have collected dead stock. Working together should be the first consideration, and it may involve, dare I say it, the Treasury helping DEFRA out. Two tranches of £10 million—a not inconsiderable amount—have been put aside to help make the scheme work, but it must work as a partnership. The state cannot be the only funder. Some of us argued in the early days that the state had to be the substantial funder to get the scheme off the ground and to make it work, but it now must be seen as a genuine partnership.

We must consider carefully the biosecurity issues arising from lorries taking dead stock some distance to renderers plants. I would hope that such movements could be kept as local as possible. There are also problems with setting up a suitably equipped rendering plant. Again, the more local things are, the better. A careful reading of the animal by-products regulations seems to imply that. I urge a light-touch regulatory approach until the scheme is working properly so that we do not end up with ridiculous prosecutions of people who clearly have not had the means to dispose of animals. It is not that that has not happened. All the different agencies must ensure that the regions in which the scheme is not working properly are given the help that they need.

The lesson to be learned is that it is necessary to put in place the means for complying with a ban before introducing the ban. The European Union is not terribly good at that—it is good at putting forward ideas. Perhaps other parts of the EU that have dealt with the problem experience a degree of schadenfreude when they see that our problems are not being resolved as quickly as we might like. It would be interesting to hear about the pan-European situation. Those of us who are a bit less keen on Europe sometimes genuinely fear that other countries have been less stringent in introducing the ban. It does not help us to treat animal disease more seriously in this country if other parts of Europe do not adhere to the ban and use proper disposal methods. Sadly, because of the trade in animals, it is always possible for disease to spread. I would like the Minister to confirm that we should pay attention to those regions in which the fallen stock disposal scheme is not working properly.

Finally, let us congratulate those who set up the company—where it is working, it deserves commendation—and let us ensure that the resources are applied appropriately.

I congratulate the hon. Member for Caernarfon (Hywel Williams) on securing this most important debate, which is quite fitting, because, as I am sure Members will know, the all-party group on beef and lamb has a meeting today in the Houses of Parliament. I encourage colleagues to go along to it.

I am supposed to chair it.

That is excellent.

It is clear that concern about the current scheme is widespread. We have had contributions from Wales and from across England. I was intrigued by the comments of the hon. Member for Stroud (Mr. Drew) about not wanting to scrap the scheme. I hope that he agrees that at the very least it should be completely reviewed. I hope that the Minister will announce today that that will happen, not only as a result of comments made in this place, but because of representations that my constituents have made to his office over a long period and those made by others, including the NFU.

We have heard today that many farmers have had to wait long periods before their stock has been collected. I was going to mention that several farmers in my constituency in Shropshire had to wait about two weeks, so I was horrified to hear that in some areas the wait can be five weeks. I even overheard someone say that it can be up to eight weeks. The issue of biosecurity needs to be addressed when in the best case people wait a week and in the worst they wait up to eight weeks.

Sometimes there is nobody to collect the fallen stock. That particularly relates to intensive livestock farming of poultry and pigs. Farmers in my constituency have to travel out of the constituency and make a round trip of about 40 miles to take their stock to a slaughterhouse. Whether we are talking about somebody coming to collect the stock or about farmers going to another area many miles away and delivering it, there is an ongoing issue of biosecurity. Time is money when it comes to farming, and additional travel costs are involved. The environmental aspect of additional travel for farmers must be considered.

I hope that the Government will consider comments that I have received over the past few days from farmers in my constituency. They do not necessarily represent the view of the Conservative Front-Bench team, but they are views that have been expressed to me. I give that caveat. They are not necessarily my personal views. I hope that the Minister will ponder them and give a response.

The comments relate to the issue of extending derogation or exemptions for other parts of the United Kingdom. My hon. Friends and other Members have touched on that today. Is the situation not discrimination against Shropshire when there is derogation in the highlands and islands of Scotland? For example, a farmer in my constituency farms sheep above 700 ft, which is well above the water table. There may be an argument for the Government at least to consider examining the issue and assessing whether exemptions could be applied above a certain level.

If we could get that far, perhaps we could progress to a wider debate about further exemptions in different counties throughout England. Let us have a debate about what criteria may feed into any exemptions and about what grounds there may be for further derogation in different parts of the United Kingdom.

Farmers are being encouraged, where possible, to have their own incinerators. A local farmer rang me yesterday and told me that he had just purchased his own incinerator, but that it cost £7,000. That was the smallest incinerator he could purchase. I wonder whether the Government would consider tax breaks or grants for farmers who are prepared to take on that responsibility. Should they not be encouraged to increase biosecurity, which, by definition, they do if they incinerate stock on their own land? Should they not be encouraged to help the environment by incinerating stock on their own land? If we agree that they should, the Government should provide an incentive—a carrot.

If farmers were so encouraged by the Government, they could move towards co-operatives, which in Europe—it has been mentioned many times today—is the preferred model of farming in many countries. It is also a model that the Government are trying to encourage, so I hope that the Minister will encourage my constituents who are involved in rural industries to form co-operatives to use incinerators at joint cost. I hope that, with a grant, tax breaks, exemptions or rebates, farmers who are unable to purchase the smallest incinerator at £7,000 could be encouraged to come together. That may not be suitable for farms that are many miles apart, but for neighbouring farms there may be an argument for encouraging such co-operatives.

The other issue that has been brought to my attention is that of how incineration is carried out. Many farmers are concerned about fuel costs and the temperatures that DEFRA requires stock to be incinerated at. I hope that there will be a review of those temperatures. If there is a review, I hope that it will be linked to the cost of incineration because, as the Minister knows, the required temperatures are high, which requires more fuel. Double the temperature requires double the cost. Our hard-pressed rural communities and farmers need more, not less, help with additional costs.

I hope that, as a result of this important debate, the Minister will give a commitment to review the fallen stock scheme and an indication that the Government will at least investigate some of the remedial measures that farmers have suggested to me on the telephone and in my mailbag.

I remind hon. Members of my entry in the Register of Members' Interests showing that I am a partner in a livestock farming business and a member of the National Fallen Stock Company.

I congratulate the hon. Member for Caernarfon (Hywel Williams) on securing the debate. The subject is particularly important and, in rural areas, was one of the key issues during the general election campaign. The problems with dead stock collection in north Wales were particularly difficult during at least one period. Although the effectiveness and efficiency of the National Fallen Stock Company have improved, a number of issues should be considered and hon. Members have done that.

I want to get to the heart of the matter because the regulation is a European regulation too far and should be examined. Will the Minister use his office—

I am delighted to hear the hon. Gentleman say that and I fully agree with him. Does he agree that it is high time we stopped the practice of allowing regulations from Europe to be foisted on us by an unelectable and unaccountable elite?

I know the hon. Gentleman's view on the matter, but I do not believe that this is the time and place to debate it. I do not have time to address that problem. Nice try, though.

The hon. Member for New Forest, West (Mr. Swayne) said that this was a European practice that had become a European regulation. That is certainly the case. In a number of the countries that were mentioned, it was obviously unacceptable to bury stock on the farm not only because of water levels, hydrology and such issues but because those are heavily populated countries that use intensive livestock practices. It is obviously inappropriate to bury stock on a farm in those circumstances.

Of course, what triggered the issue was the outbreak of BSE. There was concern that the prion that causes spongiform encephalopathies could in some way enter either the human or the animal food chain. Indeed, before the regulation was made on 24 and 25 June 1999, the scientific steering committee produced an opinion on the risks of non-conventional transmissible agents. One of the key sentences to come out of that opinion was:

"The many scientific unknowns and uncertainties relating to TSEs and their inactivation by processing, justifies to consider that actually, suspected or potentially TSE-infected animals, materials and/or products derived therefrom carry a definite risk".

I think that that sentence is completely without logic. The move from

"many scientific unknowns and uncertainties"

to "carry a definite risk" does not have any logic.

Therefore, as the hon. Member for Isle of Wight (Mr. Turner), who has left the debate, said, the regulation was based on the principle of precaution and not on definite scientific knowledge. As time goes on, our knowledge of the infective agent increases. Our knowledge of how it may get into water courses and how it may go on into the animal or human food chain also increases. It seems that it is time for the Minister to stand up for British farming and farmers for once and say, "We must consider the regulation again to see whether it carries any substance at all." We are in the middle of the national fallen stock scheme, which may or may not work. The question is: should farmers be burdened with the scheme at all?

Notwithstanding what my hon. Friend said about derogation and the need for exemptions, he mentioned the implications for farm incomes. Does he agree that, while the National Fallen Stock Company's 50 per cent. discount is welcome as far as it goes, there is growing concern about what will happen to the £20 million budget once that runs out? Concerns have been articulated by the NFU and others that the full financial burden of the collection scheme will fall on the industry, in which incomes have reached critically low levels.

I thank my hon. Friend for making that point. Farming incomes, particularly in livestock and particularly in Wales and other remote regions, are very low. It is sometimes said that farmers do not even make the equivalent of the minimum wage that the Government have set.

Does the hon. Gentleman agree that of greater concern is the existence of a subsidy that is not being passed on to farmers but is benefiting the National Fallen Stock Company and its service providers? That is now of greater concern than the matter raised by the hon. Member for Ceredigion (Mark Williams).

Both my hon. Friend the Member for Ceredigion (Mark Williams) and the hon. Member for The Wrekin (Mark Pritchard) make good points. Some time ago, I did some research by tabling questions to DEFRA about what collection companies were charging before the scheme came into practice and what they are charging now. The cost to farmers does not seem hugely different, so we may ask where the money from DEFRA is going.

The Minister has a duty to use his influence to reconsider the regulation on the basis of whether it is necessary, because that is the great feeling developing in the countryside. Perhaps we could have a licensing system to ensure that the site picked by the farmer was appropriate and was not near any watercourses.

Several points have been made about derogations. According to the information that I received, the derogation did not extend to the Isle of Wight, but I am pleased to hear the hon. Member for Isle of Wight say that it now does.

indicated dissent.

The Minister shakes his head, but the hon. Member for Isle of Wight claimed it for his own constituency, so I would be pleased to get to the bottom of that.

The question of remoteness is one thing to consider, but another is the nature of the agricultural enterprises. Nobody would say that in intensive pig areas and intensive chicken areas on-farm burials should take place where there is little land available, but in areas where extensive agriculture takes place, is it such a problem? Is there a problem at all? The Minister should reconsider the criteria for derogation, and he should add in other factors that have not been taken into account.

I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Caernarfon (Hywel Williams) on securing this important debate. In so describing the debate, it is noteworthy that the only person who has appeared in the Chamber on behalf of the Labour Back Benches is the hon. Member for Stroud (Mr. Drew). He is knowledgeable about these matters, and it is pleasing to see him here. It shows, however, that the debate may not be a priority in other parts of the House.

We are led to believe that the animal by-products regulation came about not because of a scientific threat, but because of a lack of scientific information about how persistent the prions that cause BSE and scrapie are in the soil. The hon. Gentleman drew the Minister's attention to the fact that the collection system is not working well everywhere. He quite fairly put it that way. I would put it slightly differently. We are a long way down the road now, and the fact that there are remote areas within Wales could have been foreseen.

Whatever definition we use, whether it be the DEFRA definition or the EU definition, common sense determines that there are remote areas in Wales. Much of Wales is designated "less favoured" because it is remote, because the country has highlands and because of the nature of the industry in those areas. I commend an idea to the Minister. He might like to consider the operation of the scheme in all less-favoured areas, starting with north-west Wales, which I have the honour to represent together with my hon. Friend, where the scheme is nothing short of an unmitigated disaster.

On 1 April, the president of the Farmers Union of Wales said:

"We have examples of farmers who have been waiting up to five weeks for dead animals to be collected, and the situation in huge parts of Wales is untenable."

That is true and quite different from the agreed 48 hours for collection that was promised to the farming community. Anyone could live with that, but it has not happened in large parts of Wales and certainly not, as I have stressed, in north-west Wales.

I should declare that I have an interest in a farming partnership in my constituency. I echo the hon. Gentleman's comments about collection times in remote rural areas. My constituency borders that of the hon. Member for Brecon and Radnorshire (Mr. Williams). During the election, I stood across the valley looking into his beautiful constituency and discussed with farmers during the lambing period the unacceptable amount of time that it was taking to collect fallen stock, as well as to collect stillborn lambs. The biosecurity risks are far greater as a result of the regulation than they were when burial was permitted.

I draw the Minister's attention to a particular problem that happens in another part of my constituency where intensive poultry production takes place. Poultry carcases decay much faster than those of larger mammals. The process begins after 24 hours and after 48 hours the liquefaction begins. At such a point, it becomes possible for carcases to enter the water course if they are in an appropriate place—

Order. I remind all hon. Members that interventions must be brief.

That was a lengthy but very useful intervention. One of the key problems across the UK is that there is obviously insufficient collection coverage for farmers. They face huge delays and, as I mentioned in my brief intervention, farmers in my constituency wait five weeks despite the fact that they ring people throughout the valley to try to get a decent load—to put it crudely—for the collectors to collect.

My hon. Friend rightly said that it is 100 miles from Wrexham to the west of Wales. The situation is totally unacceptable. One has to consider whether the proper and responsible issue of biosecurity is best served by taking carcases across the whole of north Wales to dispose of them. There have been recent isolated reports of lorries that have not been sufficiently cleaned, or perhaps improperly sealed, allowing the escape of fluids. That is contrary to regulations and, as such, I would imagine it is a matter for prosecution by the proper authorities.

Alternative methods have been referred to, such as farm incineration and so on. Of course these are all to the good but there are cost implications. Tax breaks are an excellent idea, and there is also the matter of biodigesters. The Welsh Assembly Government have investigated biodigesters, and have been trying to make inroads into the idea. Both farming unions have been helping the cause of Welsh farming in that regard and within the past few days the Welsh Assembly reported that the European Commission has found that biodigesters are unacceptable as a disposal method because it is not satisfied that the prions are degraded by the method.

In the light of that concern, the Assembly returned to the Commission, advising that the prions could be emptied out periodically by vacuum tanker and then incinerated or rendered. The Assembly is now awaiting a formal response from the Commission. I do not speak as a Eurosceptic—I have never been one and I never will be—but I understand that the whole of Italy has been exempted. I may be wrong, and if I am no doubt the Minister will correct me. I am advised that large parts of Italy have exempted themselves from that regulation. Perhaps he will tell us how much of Italy has been exempted.

Despite the fact that there is a subsidy, there is concern about what will happen in the next 24 months. The collection companies are saying that their costs are increasing and the subsidy will be gone in 24 months. That is a worrying fact for farmers in Wales and throughout the UK. The question of peaks and troughs has been mentioned, but attention will have to be paid to the peak periods when exceptional pressure will fall on the collectors by virtue of the very nature of agriculture. I hope that there will be further research to identify where peak collection is necessary and to consider the corollary of those areas where there is weak collection and the disposal infrastructure is not up to the task in hand.

I echo what other hon. Members said: we should call for a derogation. I have heard the arguments from the hon. Member for Brecon and Radnorshire (Mr. Williams), who is very knowledgeable about the subject. At the end of the day, there may well be no scientific basis for the ban and that may be revealed. However, knowing the European Commission as I do, that will not happen tomorrow, the day after or perhaps even during the next decade. I stress that I am not a Eurosceptic, but I am something of a realist—perhaps I am a Eurorealist.

On the question of permitting burial in remote areas in Wales, I stress that, as has been mentioned, the farming community is intelligent. Well before the regulations that came in 10 or 12 years ago, it learned that we do not put fuel tanks next to streams and understands that we do not put slurry in a stream. Equally, and importantly, it realises that we do not bury animals next to a stream or in proximity to one. That is as plain as can be. I hope that the Minister will accept that, in calling for a derogation, nobody is calling for the wholesale desecration of any part of Wales or the UK as a whole. I am confident, as I always have been, that the farming community will act responsibly. I live in its midst and know how the industry works. I know the regard that the community has for the landscape and for animal and, crucially, human health.

My hon. Friend mentioned the definition of "remote". With great respect to the hon. Member for The Wrekin (Mark Pritchard), I find it difficult to think of Shropshire as remote. It is probably remote from somewhere, but I am not sure where. Being more serious, my understanding is that there is a UK DEFRA definition of "remote" and an EU European definition. What are the definitions and which is applied to the question of whether there can be a derogation? My hon. Friend says that there are lots of sheep and cattle in north-west Wales, but they are relatively sparse in many parts.

Will the Minister consider enabling a derogation application to proceed? He knows that the Minister in the National Assembly, Carwyn Jones, is in favour of that and is making efforts to secure it for parts of Wales. I ask him to consider the issue carefully. If there is some confusion between one definition and t'other, perhaps that needs to be addressed.

I return to my initial point: I hope that other factors will be taken into account. There is the classical idea—if not the definition—of remoteness and also of sparsity and the nature of farming in the uplands. I return to the idea of there being lots of areas—my area included—that are less favoured traditionally for the purposes of agriculture.

This has been a useful debate. I congratulate my hon. Friend again on raising the subject. I appreciate that this is one of those rare occasions on which there is—virtually—unanimity throughout the Chamber. That occasionally arises when there is a true crisis and, believe you me, Mr. Gale, this is a crisis.

I appreciate that the time available to me is brief. I want to target the question of remoteness, which has been mentioned. Geographical remoteness should be considered in terms of the capacity of the renderers to serve the areas that they are supposed to serve. I represent a famous agricultural constituency in north Wales. It cannot be said in geographical terms to be remote, because it has a four-lane highway passing straight through it, but I was told only this morning by a farming constituent of mine that he had had to wait some two months for one carcase to be removed earlier this spring.

The capacity of the renderer to cope with the volume of carcases that need to be removed is insufficient. In assessing the definition of remoteness, perhaps the Minister will consider whether it should not simply be a geographical consideration, but also a consideration of the capacity of the local renderer to deal with the agricultural community that he serves.

I could make many more points, but time is against me. The most important point is that significant biosecurity and public health issues need to be addressed. When we hear, as we did earlier this year, that several thousand carcases are waiting to be incinerated at the local renderers, we know that there is a significant public health problem and the Minister should address it urgently.

This has been a useful and interesting debate. There is considerable unanimity on the matter across the House, and I congratulate the hon. Member for Caernarfon (Hywel Williams) on bringing it before us.

Fallen stock has been a cause of concern for a little while in Cornwall. Four weeks is fairly normal and eight weeks is not unusual for farmers to wait for animals to be collected. There are real problems of implementation and, as has been said, small family farms seem to be suffering particularly, because they often have rather small numbers of animals to be collected.

The Minister will undoubtedly say that the scheme has not been going for long—I accept that, although it was introduced somewhat later than all of us expected, and later than the Government announced—but it has been long enough to recognise some of the issues, which are now being exposed and must be addressed. I am not certain how much longer we want to allow for bedding in before we accept that the issues must be addressed.

To deal briefly with issues such as on-farm burials, water tables and biosecurity, it was right following the disasters of BSE and foot and mouth to follow a precautionary principle, as I think all hon. Members present would agree. We needed to take care and ensure that the general public had confidence in the agricultural industry. However, that does not mean that when new evidence comes along, reassessments and new risk-assessments cannot be made against research done since that precautionary principle was adopted. There is a case for saying that we understand some of these things somewhat better, so a reassessment should be made.

I also agree that farmers are careful with burying their stock, as they were for many years before the new regulations were introduced. Even where there are derogations, farmers always take great care in deciding where to bury any of their fallen stock.

Demand is clearly variable, which is part of the problem with collections. When demand is low and we need to collect a larger number of animals to make the operation sensible economically, timing goes out and farmers wait longer; when there is higher demand, time scales tend to diminish. Sparsity is just as much a part of that problem as remoteness. Remoteness from abattoirs affects the ability to keep costs sensible, but the sparsity of farms and animals is also a problem. Farmers generally co-operate if they can. If they know that they have fallen stock, they try to club together with neighbours to get animals collected as quickly as possible. That is in their best interests. I know farmers who have been on the telephone day after day, trying to get a collection sorted out.

I am not certain whether we can increase derogations. There is a possibility, but perhaps clearer criteria are needed on that. However, I have no doubt that there are farmers who feel very guilty about having to break the law, in the sense that they believe—probably quite rightly—that, in terms of biosecurity, burying an animal is far better than leaving it to be collected five, six, seven or eight weeks later.

I am not certain whether the regulations were imposed on us with some sort of gold-plating, or whether they were forced on us because of some potential competitive advantage. I think that sometimes such measures are a result of an obsession with uniformity. The whole idea of subsidiarity seems not to have been taken on board at all. Sometimes, we get the feeling from the European Union that we must get uniformity, even though quite clearly there are different circumstances in different parts of Europe. Of course, even if the regulations were foisted on us, our Ministers were part of the decision-making process. I am sure that our Minister was there when the decision was made, agreeing that the regulations would be introduced in this country. Therefore, it is very much the Government who are in the dock.

I was taken with some of the points raised by the hon. Member for The Wrekin (Mark Pritchard); he made some useful points about examining the scheme and about helping farmers with the purchase of incinerators. We should look into the co-operative side of the issue. Perhaps the Government can help the matter along in some way, through grants or some sort of tax break. Perhaps they could encourage the process, so as to provide support in those areas where things are difficult because of the relatively small numbers involved and because the farmers are too far from abattoirs and collection points.

As for whether the legislation is a regulation too far, as my hon. Friend the Member for Brecon and Radnorshire (Mr. Williams) suggested, I am not sure. We do need proper assessment, but there is a need to look again at how the regulation works in this country, and at whether our farmers should be burdened with it at all. Also, there are concerns, certainly in Cornwall, about the continuation of the 50 per cent. discount scheme and what will happen in a little while, when charging might well rocket.

To sum up, does the Minister agree with the great majority of us here that DEFRA should undertake a review, even at this stage? We do not need to wait any longer for bedding in. DEFRA should review the scheme and ask how it has worked so far. It could consider new scientific evidence and determine the real need. Could we consider at least a partial return to on-farm burials? If so, could they be authorised in some way, perhaps by extending derogations under certain clear criteria of remoteness, sparsity and so on? However, if DEFRA says that collection has to continue, there must be a much better organised, better funded collection scheme, and more of the innovative thinking discussed today.

What is the network of available abattoirs like? I suspect that it will not be drastically increased or improved in coming years. What about seasonal demands? How will we address seasonality? How are the costs working out, and how will they be allocated in future? It would be sensible to review all those matters, and to look at where the Government's role might be in providing a little additional support for some of the new initiatives.

We are looking to the Government to recognise that there are real problems in many areas with the scheme, which has been implemented for quite some while. Those problems should be addressed. They need to be considered in a full review, and then action should be taken. Farmers need to know where they are. Are we to continue with the scheme and, if so, will the problems be sorted out? Or will the Government consider some changes to the scheme, such as increasing derogations, so that farmers have a clear idea of the situation? At present, many farmers are extremely worried about how they will deal with fallen stock in future.

I heartily congratulate the hon. Member for Caernarfon (Hywel Williams) on securing the debate, which concerns what is a huge problem across the country. As hon. Members have said, the problem is patchy, but I know that it is especially appalling in Wales and, despite what the hon. Member for Meirionnydd Nant Conwy (Mr. Llwyd) said, particularly bad in Shropshire.

Regretfully, I have to say that I hold the record on this issue in that, last week, I met Mr. Ifor Lloyd from Nantmawr, who had to wait seven and a half weeks for 10 ewes and a bag of lambs to be collected. However, they were not collected and, in the end, his son had to put them on a tipper trailer and take the rotting carcasses about 20 miles to Cluttons in Wrexham. It gives me no pleasure to say that we win the stakes for the longest collection time.

As has been pointed out, this is a family farm, which has grandchildren and visitors on it. It is not an isolated case. As Members representing Welsh constituencies and my hon. Friend the Member for The Wrekin (Mark Pritchard) have said, the problem occurs throughout the country, and the blame must with lie with several directives.

I must declare an interest. I used to be in the leather trade, and for 25 years I was a tanner. I was in the business of disposing of the by-product of the meat and livestock industry. That used to be called the fifth quarter: the hides, the bones, the meat and the offal were disposed of commercially in an environmentally friendly manner. Now, thanks to a succession of directives, there is a huge mess, which is symptomatic of our new system of government. The animal by-products regulation 2001, waste incineration directive 2000, the framework directive on waste, the 1999 landfill of waste directive from the Council of the European Union, the groundwater directive and the manual handling of loads directive are contradictory.

I put it to the House that it is no longer possible to farm legally. It is ridiculous that we are putting some of the most law-abiding, hard-working people in the country in such a position because we do not make law in a transparent manner in this place, where all interests can express their views and the law can be scrutinised thoroughly. If we get it wrong, the law can be amended; if we get it really wrong, as we have in this example, it can be repealed.

I commend to the Minister my private Member's Bill, the European Communities Act 1972 (Disapplication) Bill, which is supported by my hon. Friend the Member for New Forest, West (Mr. Swayne). It would allow us to override European legislation if we thought it to concern a matter of interest here. As has been said, it is ridiculous to say that one size fits all in many areas. That is especially not the case in relation to water tables. It is perfectly sensible not to bury stock in low countries such as the Netherlands or Belgium, or in the Rhineland, but in north Wales, where the collection point cited by the hon. Member for Caernarfon is 5 miles from my house and 100 miles from his, it is ridiculous to impose such a regulation.

Despite heroic attempts and large sums of Government money being spent to prove a connection, will the Minister explain what evidence says that there is any danger from burying sheep? There has been a real push to blame the sheep industry in this matter, but I have yet to see any scientific evidence. Does he have any? If he does, why does he not show interest in digesters, to which the hon. Member for Meirionnydd Nant Conwy referred? I received a good letter from Mr. Huw Thomas of NFU Cymru, which suggests that bio-digesters, which are sealed, could contain all the bacteria and that, if there was any dangerous material, it could be sucked up by what, colloquially, are called sludge gulpers and taken away for incineration.

Let us consider those who are handling this material. As we have heard, a company called Cluttons is involved. It is situated 5 miles from Shropshire, 6 from Cheshire and 100 from the hon. Member for Caernarfon. It used to take in 80,000 sheep in a season. Last week, I met Sam Clutton, the director of the company, who made the point that knackering is a salvage operation. He belongs to the Licensed Animal Slaughterers and Salvage Association, whose members sell skins and hides, as well as the meat for dog meat and the bones and offal for meal. Tallow is burnt.

Mr. Clutton said that every bit of the dead animal had a value, but now it is all cost and we know that we are not protecting the environment as well as we were before. In brutal terms, if the Government and the Commission have had any discussions on these matters, and if the Commission had any sort of clue about what goes on in places such as north Wales, Shropshire and Cornwall, they would have looked at the numbers. They did not work out the logistics of a problem involving 80,000 sheep, about 2,000 cattle and sending small vehicles across from Wrexham all the way to Caernarfon. They did not take into account the problem of bulking-up or that of getting staff. Such material is pretty unattractive to handle.

My next question to the Minister is about what work is being done to look at Dolavs. "Dolav" is an Israeli word to describe large plastic fruit boxes that can be sealed. There is a chance that we could restore the practice of bulking up. We need to get Cluttons to re-establish its base in Bangor, and Dolavs might be a solution. I am trying to be constructive. Those bins can be handled by people and they are not off-putting. If material begins to break down within them, the smell can be contained. Above all, they can be stacked and piled. Will the Minister answer that question? Work needs to be done urgently. If we are not to go down the digester route, we would like to know why. Will the Government consider Dolavs?

There are other worries: not only is a very small number of people now involved in this exercise, but it is ludicrous that we have only one operation for the whole of north Wales, and right on the periphery. That operation is struggling to get staff and wondering whether it is worth investing for the future. What are the Minister's predictions for this scheme? Some 50,000 members were being sought from across the UK, but I understand that there are only about 30,000 and that a taper is planned on the investment—or subsidy, if we want to call it that—from the Government. What measures are being taken to ensure that the scheme is viable and that companies such as Cluttons invest in new trucks and new bulking-up areas?

My hon. Friend the Member for Monmouth (David T.C. Davies) touched on the question of hunts. In March 2005, 143 of the 360 recognised fallen stock disposal outlets were hunt kennels. According to Produce Studies Ltd., which contributed to the Burns inquiry, hunt kennels subsidised the collection service to the tune of £3,370,000 in 2000 and they took in 500,000 carcases in 2003. One of the directives that I mentioned introduced a change to the temperature at which incinerators burn off. I am afraid that most hunts are now going to drop out, because the £15,000 for an afterburner that takes the exhaust gases up to 850° C for two seconds, as required, represents a huge cost. For example, Wynnstay hunt kennels, which collects from within my constituency, used to take in 2,000 calves a season and several hundred cattle, but it has run its operation right down to the minimum.

Again, what the kennels did was environmentally sustainable, but where I live we are seeing a huge increase in the number of ravens and buzzards, because, as we know perfectly well, the stock is being left out there. Farmers may well be signed up to the scheme, but I think the majority of the material is being left out.

It is possible that I contributed to the re-election of the hon. Member for Brecon and Radnorshire (Mr. Williams). I went to Brecon and met the members of the Farmers Union of Wales and some of his other NFU friends. They made the very good case that, in certain areas, one simply cannot get at animals when they die. Mr. Morris mentioned a case of a beast that injured itself and died near a railway. People could not get any machinery near it and the public authority said, "You can break the law and bury that beast there."

Mr. Morris also made the telling comment that his brother works at the council and is not allowed to lift anything weighing more than 25 kg. A Bobcat has to be brought in to lift a paving slab, for example, but he is expected to lift carcasses weighing well over 25 kg—a big lamb could weigh 40 kg and a big, wet ewe in winter 100 kg. I ask the Minister for his comments on the manual handling directive, which relates to that issue.

Further problems are coming along. A directive is to decree that tallow is waste. At the moment, 265,000 tonnes of tallow are produced a year and 100,000 tonnes are produced as fuel. That will now have to be dumped. Mr. Paul Foxcroft, of Prosper De Mulder, which is a big rendering company, said:

"If we go back to burning heavy fuel oil, who'll benefit? Our particulate emissions will be four times higher and our NOx emissions ten times higher."

He says that the estimated cost to farming and animal by-products industries will be £30 million a year. Is he right? What measures is the Minister taking to ascertain the impact on the rendering industry? What will be the real cost to farmers?

There is a further nightmare down the road. The derogation on meat products in supermarket packaging that are past their sell-by date is up this year. That will be a further cost on the rendering industry, because rendering meat products that are still in their packaging—sandwiches, for example—will no longer be allowed. The big supermarkets have got away with the derogation until this year, but what will happen at the end of this year and what impact will it have on fallen stock?

I leave the last word to Mr. Peredur Hughes, president of NFU Wales, who said that the current position is "totally, totally unacceptable." He also said, "None of us wanted to see this legislation. We have been burying sheep for years, and we bury pets, dogs, horses and humans."

I leave the Minister with a final thought: 530,000 humans die every year and we bury 126,000 of them. Many of them die of diseases that are considerably nastier than diseases in sheep. Why are those people allowed to be buried when sheep are not?

I congratulate the hon. Member for Caernarfon (Hywel Williams) on securing this debate. I shall try to respond to as many of his points as possible in the limited time left to me. If I fail to respond to everything, I will write to him and to other hon. Members on their specific points.

I shall deal directly with the concerns raised by the hon. Gentleman about the situation in north Wales, but it may be helpful to put the debate into context and say a little about the setting up of the national fallen stock scheme last November.

Despite its teething problems, we now have a voluntary scheme with 30,000 members, and it works effectively throughout most of the UK. At the last count, there had been 100,000 collections, complaints had been received on less than 1 per cent. of those collections and a survey of members had illustrated a 90 per cent. approval rating for the service provided.

What planet is the Minister on?

I was prefacing my detailed remarks in response to the debate with an outline of the background to the fallen stock scheme. I stress that the scheme was set up jointly by the Government and the industry with the help of £20 million of public subsidy over three years. Farming interests have a majority on the board and, for DEFRA, that is an important model for our future animal health and welfare strategy.

Before we were interrupted, the hon. Member for New Forest, West (Mr. Swayne), who is no longer here, suggested from a sedentary position that I was not living on the same planet as him. However, the scheme has the full support of the major farming unions and livestock organisations in the UK. When the proposals were implemented, the president of the National Farmers Union, Tim Bennett, stated:

"The National Fallen Stock Company has presented a fairer and more equitable scheme for the entire livestock industry",

and the National Beef Association has said that

"no sensible farmer will turn their back on this option."

Let me turn to some of the specific difficulties raised by hon. Members, particularly the hon. Member for Caernarfon. I want to make it absolutely clear that neither I nor the National Fallen Stock Company consider the service provided earlier this year in north Wales as satisfactory. The situation arose from two factors. First, there was an upsurge in demand during the lambing season in sheep-producing areas for fallen stock collection services—not a surprise, one might think, but one must remember that in the past most such stock was buried. Therefore, the expected demand this year was unclear.

The second factor was that in parts of north Wales there was only one fallen stock collector covering the main sheep-producing areas, again due to the fact that historically there has been limited demand for such a service. That collector did his best to gear up to deal with the extra demand but found that he was overwhelmed during the peak period. We must learn from that experience, and I believe that the National Fallen Stock Company has learned how to avoid the same problems next year.

Will the Minister give way?

No, I am sorry, but I will not give way. I have been left eight minutes in total to respond to a debate in which many points have been made. If the hon. Gentleman wants me to be more generous in giving way, he should leave me more time.

I am pleased that the farming unions in Wales and the collection industry have met National Fallen Stock Company personnel to discuss potential solutions, and some interesting ideas are already emerging. I am also pleased that the hon. Member for Caernarfon said that he had had a constructive meeting with the chairman of the company, Michael Seals, and I urge other Members who have described problems in their areas to get in contact with the company, if they have not already done so. They may find that there is a solution to their problems too.

On the proposed solutions for north Wales, first, there is considerable interest in introducing bulk collection arrangements. Bulk containers have the potential to improve biosecurity, make collection times less critical and improve logistics for the collector as more sheep can be collected each day. Secondly, the collector in north Wales is considering opening an intermediate collection premises in the area so that he is not dependent on taking all stock collected back to his main operation in Wrexham each day. The talks are ongoing. I do not want to prejudge their outcome, but the willingness of all sides to find a solution augurs well for next year. With demand for such services now evident, we can look forward to more competition being introduced in due course.

I turn to the more general criticisms and suggestions made by hon. Members. The first was on the question of derogations. I tell hon. Members that the issue was considered closely and with great care at the time that the regulations came into force. I am aware of no evidence that the regulations are being implemented in different ways in other parts of Europe. I will look into the case that was made about Italy. I am told by officials that some of the Mediterranean islands might have applied for derogations based on the remote criteria. The criterion was read out by the hon. Gentleman. I say to hon. Members that the only regions in the UK that are likely to qualify for it are the ones that already have done so—the highlands and islands of Scotland.

The Isle of Wight.

The Isle of Wight has not qualified for a derogation. I put that on the record. The hon. Member for Isle of Wight (Mr. Turner) may be labouring under a misapprehension. The Isle of Wight is enjoying exactly the same approach as is the north of Wales—light-touch implementation of the regulations. We have made it clear that, because of the problems particular to those areas, we are being understanding about farmers' ability to comply with the regulations.

There are other interesting potential solutions to the Isle of Wight situation, which I will not go into great length, as the hon. Member for New Forest, West is not here. They may be of interest to the hon. Member for The Wrekin (Mark Pritchard), as he mentioned the potential for farmers to set up co-operatives on incineration. That is already happening in Cumbria. It has the potential to attract public funding and help, although probably not for individual farmers who are doing what the hon. Gentleman's constituent did. It sounds to me as though that constituent spent a lot on an incinerator when it might have been better value, and cheaper in the long run, for him to join the fallen stock scheme. There are possibilities in that direction. That is one of the options being pursued to tackle the problem in the Isle of Wight.

I will deal with the other issue raised by hon. Members. I am afraid that it is not realistic to think that there is likely to be a reversal or review of the regulation. Hon. Members will be aware of the origins of the regulation. It came from the definite scientific advice that there was a risk that had to be taken into account, albeit an uncertain risk. My hon. Friend the Member for Stroud (Mr. Drew), who is no longer in his place, was absolutely right. The likelihood that scientists will reverse that advice and say that we can be more lax about biosecurity and other measures to protect both animal and human health is not high.

If Members are aware of new scientific evidence that will support them in making such a case, they should by all means provide it to me. I am not aware of any. I ask all the time whether any is available, as is my responsibility as a Minister.

I am intrigued by the Minister's comments about biosecurity. Today I heard comments throughout Wales and England arguing for a review of the scheme to protect biosecurity. He is arguing against a review of the scheme to protect biosecurity.

The hon. Gentleman is right: if carcases are left lying around for long periods the scheme is not working. He has a valid point. I am making the point that the ban on land burials of animals is not going to be reversed unless new and convincing scientific evidence comes forward. That evidence is not available. I challenge any hon. Member to provide, if they have it, the evidence that is likely to change the scientists' minds.

What is the evidence?

I say to the hon. Gentleman that it was his Government that gave the country BSE because it ignored the scientific evidence. Is he suggesting that, were he in my place, he would ignore the advice of scientists, risk both animal and human health and risk inflicting a disaster on our farming community similar to that inflicted by his Government?

Will the Minister give way?

No, I will not. The hon. Gentleman is advocating that we do exactly the same thing that his Government did. That was what gave us the problem in the first place. A little humility and rationality from the hon. Gentleman is in order.

On a point of order, Mr. Gale. Is it right for the Minister to make direct accusations against me, the shadow Minister, without giving way?

As the hon. Gentleman well knows, because he has been here long enough, the Minister is responsible for his own remarks. That was not a point of order for the Chair.

Yes, particularly when I am being heckled from a sedentary position.

I am pleased to say that there are solutions that will help us to address the serious problem in north Wales. If hon. Members still have concerns about how the scheme is being implemented in their areas, I urge them to contact Michael Seals. They can do that easily immediately after this debate.

The national fallen stock scheme has been created in partnership with industry. It will continue to operate on that basis.

I am delighted to secure this debate. It gives me an opportunity to congratulate again all the emergency services involved in the floods on their swift response, particularly the fire service, the councils, the Environment Agency, the internal drainage board, Yorkshire Water and, last but not least, the insurers.

On the afternoon of 19 June, we were faced with unprecedented conditions, with rainfall over a three-hour period of 2.5 inches per hour. That was against the background of a high water table and very hard ground.

I shall use this opportunity to put a series of questions to the Minister. However, I say at the outset that, although I am delighted that he is present, I am extremely disappointed, following a commitment that I received from the Prime Minister at last week's Question Time that the relevant Minister, the Minister for Climate Change and the Environment, would meet me, that that has not happened. I would like to take up that offer on another occasion.

Before I come on to my questions and call for action from the Minister, there are a number of issues that I wish to bring to his attention, and I invite him to make representations to other Departments, in particular the Office of the Deputy Prime Minister.

Although I recognise that what happened was an act of God, I am disappointed because I called for action in two Adjournment debates that I was fortunate enough to secure in 2000 and 2001, in which I rehearsed many of the arguments that I will put to the Minister today—that too many bodies are involved, that there is not a single agency with overall control, and that even more properties might be uninsurable. I am also disappointed that the flood alleviation scheme for which I called for Thirsk is not in place. That would certainly have helped prevent this type of flooding, against the unprecedented background of flash floods, in Thirsk itself, although it might not have helped outlying villages.

The Bellwin formula covers a number of situations, but Hambleton district council draws attention to the fact that, with regard to the recovery of personal items and possessions, the Bellwin scheme does not apply. For example, if Hambleton district council were to remove a car from the river, it would need to pursue the owner so that its costs could be recovered from that person's insurance claim. That is harsh when dealing with the restoration of a village community. If Hambleton or any other district council were to find a car in the river, they would of course remove it, but I hope that the Minister will make representations for that to be recompensed out of the Bellwin formula.

As on other occasions, North Yorkshire county council is hoping to join Hambleton and other district councils in this regard to make sure that the Bellwin scheme, which is only claimable after the threshold has been reached within the current year, pays the first £1.1 million. The timing for the claim is within one month of the incident, which is extremely difficult to achieve. Will the Government allow the county council to incorporate its qualifying expenditure into the Bellwin claim of district councils, and will they see fit to extend the timing for the claim?

The Environment Agency has confirmed that it has no powers to intervene to undertake works on a non-main river. Following the 2000 floods, I was promised by the Minister's predecessor that Cod beck would be enmained, but there has been no progress. The EA commissioned a section 105 watercourse investigation study, which was passed to the internal drainage board and the local authority, Hambleton district council, and a further feasibility study. However, the EA has not used its powers to promote a scheme. Under the present arrangement, Cod beck is managed by Cod beck internal drainage board with a budget of a mere £20,000 a year. Hambleton district council also has residual responsibility.

The Minister will be aware that Hambleton district council is due to be capped in this financial year. That represents a double whammy and the Government must look favourably on the requests from me, my right hon. Friend the Member for Richmond, Yorks (Mr. Hague) and Hambleton district council for it not to be capped. This is the wrong year in which to seek to cap it. It would impose additional expenditure of £50,000 to send out further bills. I hope that the Minister will make representations, as I will, to the Deputy Prime Minister.

The watercourse at Cod beck is due to be enmained in April 2006, which is six years after the original decision was taken and the floods in 2000. The funding of any scheme by the Environment Agency will depend on confirmed priority scoring for 2006–07. At the moment, the points are almost being reached. However, I urge the Minister to look favourably on removing that mandatory and inflexible point-scoring system.

I want to take the opportunity to call for the action that has been requested by the Association of British Insurers and others. They are asking for the expenditure on flood defences to meet or to exceed that set out in the 2002 spending review; the implementation of the improvements in the system of flood defence planning set out in DEFRA's consultation paper "Flood and coastal defence funding review"; the full implementation of PPG25—planning policy guidance on development and flood risk—with full reporting of the level of compliance by local authorities; and consideration of administrative processes in the review of PPG25 in 2004.

There was an initial request for the Environment Agency's flood asset database to be made available to insurers by the beginning of 2003. It should be made as publicly available as possible. There need to be early improvements in the flood warning system, which broke down woefully. In the case of commercial properties in Finkle street, the flood warning was given at 10.45 pm on the Sunday evening, although the properties were flooded at 7 pm. I ask the Minister to investigate why there was no flood warning in that instance.

Full and detailed consideration, including a cost-benefit analysis, should be given to integrated drainage management for England and Wales, similar to that in operation in Scotland. There should also be implementation of realistic solutions to sewer flooding, including increased investment in improvement programmes.

As for farming, there has been loss of livestock—cattle and sheep—and fences have been destroyed, many of which were paid for by DEFRA through the countryside stewardship scheme. Will DEFRA be able to fund the replacement of that fencing? The situation has led to many animals being displaced.

I have in front of me a letter from Harry Woodhead of Piperhill, Felixkirk. He is not just a leading member of the Thirsk auction mart and a leading local farmer, but chairman of the local parish council. He makes a plea to DEFRA to be "sensible" over the losses of stock. A farmer is expected to notify cattle movements within three days. He heard at the mart that a calf turned up nearly 3 miles from where it should have been.

I hope that the Minister and his Department will relax the animal movement reporting schemes. Crops have been ruined. There are uninsured losses. Houses, including farmhouses, have been flooded. There is structural damage, flooding and loss of livestock accommodation. Dead livestock needs to be discovered and removed. There are added complicating factors for farmers in the clear-up operation, in particular the implications of the recent regulations relating to agricultural waste. I hope that the Minister will look favourably on that request, particularly in relation to animal movement restrictions where animals have been displaced.

I should like to put a series of requests to the Minister. Will DEFRA please be sensible about the losses of stock and relax the three-day notice period on movements, given the nature of the problems that farmers are facing, and given the lack of clarity in some cases? In one case, a calf turned up three miles from where it should have been, which was on the owner's farm. Many of the deceased animals are in inaccessible places, and they will take time to remove, at an additional cost to the Environment Agency. Furthermore, will DEFRA please guarantee that the collection of animal carcases, such as the removal of dead sheep from river beds, will be free of cost to the farmers, who are already facing a high financial burden?

Of the fences destroyed, will the Minister be able to fund their repair and replacement? Where crops that have been lost were uninsured, will the farmers be compensated for such uninsured losses, and will the Minister find the funds from DEFRA, and, if necessary, ask the Deputy Prime Minister and the Prime Minister for emergency funds to be made available for the clean-up of the countryside and the carriageways of people in possession of debris? The clean-up operation alone is running at hundreds of thousands of pounds.

Will the Minister please speed up the proposed enmaining of Cod beck, and the placing of it under the main rivers category and under the authority of the Environment Agency, instead of waiting for the expected enforcement date of April 2006? Will he also relax the point-scoring scheme in the regulation to ensure that the flood alleviation scheme for Thirsk, which has been flooded dramatically twice in the past five years and less dramatically more frequently than that, qualifies? Will he agree to expedite the flood alleviation scheme and ensure that the scheme for Thirsk and other suggested flood defence projects in the area are agreed to, and will he relax the point scoring?

Will the Minister make representations on my behalf to the Deputy Prime Minister for extra funding for the repairs and the clear-up under the Bellwin scheme, and will he ensure that such payments are made swiftly? Will the Minister please ask the Deputy Prime Minister to consider relaxing the restrictions on the Bellwin scheme payments, which exclude payments for personal items such as cars? Will he ask the Deputy Prime Minister to reconsider the proposed tax capping for Hambleton district council this year? Capping has already posed serious problems for future budgetary arrangements, and now, in light of the inevitable additional costs faced by the council, it would be extremely punitive for the local taxpayer.

Will the Minister ask the Deputy Prime Minister and the Prime Minister to make emergency funds available to North Yorkshire county council to repair the damage to roads, estimated in excess of £1.8 million, and to bridges, estimated in excess of £1 million? Will he please ask them to pledge to have a moratorium on any planning applications for effective and functional flood plains? In particular, will he call for the turning down of the planning application for the construction of buildings adjacent to the recent flooding and bang next door to the Todd's court development?

Will the Minister make representations to Yorkshire Water to ensure regular maintenance is carried out on pipes, drains and waterways to reduce the risk of flooding? Will he ensure that there is an effective flood warning system in place, and that there is adequate sewage maintenance and drainage by Yorkshire Water and the Environment Agency? Will he make representations to the ABI to ensure that everyone is eligible for insurance, that the dentists and other commercial properties in Finkle street will not be uninsurable, that for residential properties in riverside mews the excess will not be greater than the current £1,000, and that all properties will be considered insurable?

Will the Minister investigate why there was no flood warning, and why in some cases people have been told that there will be no insurance? Does he accept that there are too many agencies involved, and that there is not one agency in charge? Will the Government dig deep in their pockets to help the people of North Yorkshire in their hour of need?

I congratulate the hon. Member for Vale of York (Miss McIntosh) on securing this debate on the important subject of the flooding in North Yorkshire. She has rightly asked a number of questions on behalf of her constituents, and has done a good job in representing the problems that the event created.

My hon. Friend the Minister for Climate Change and the Environment is unfortunately in the main Chamber at the moment. He is due to speak on climate change once the hon. Member for Lewes (Norman Baker) has finished talking, as he leads for the Government on that subject. That explains his absence from this debate.

The hon. Lady asked a series of questions; sometimes it felt as though she were peppering me with them faster than I could write them down. I am aware of the commitment made by the Prime Minister in the House last week.

I understand that the Minister will not have every answer at his fingertips, but I should be grateful for the opportunity to follow up with the relevant Minister any questions that he does not answer today.

I was about to say that when I see my hon. Friend the Minister for Climate Change and the Environment I will remind him of the commitment that the Prime Minister made and of what the hon. Lady has just said, so if there are questions that I cannot answer to her satisfaction, she will have another opportunity to raise them with the Minister and the Department.

I visited North Yorkshire over Whitsun. I went to Ribblesdale for the launch of the open access scheme in the north of England, so when the flooding happened, not long after I returned, I was very concerned. I am pleased that we have an opportunity to respond to the flooding of 19 June. I join the hon. Lady in offering my sympathy to those affected by what was to them a catastrophic event, and I pass on my congratulations to the emergency services, which did such a fine job in responding.

As was widely reported in the media, parts of Yorkshire, Durham and Northumberland were subjected to heavy thunderstorms on the Sunday. One month's rain fell in two to three hours in heavily localised thunderstorms over the moors. That concentration of rainfall, falling in so short a time, travelled down the valley and into the villages at the bottom. That led to flooding of the River Rye, the Cod beck—as we heard—and other minor watercourses. Together with surface water run-off, that caused flooding in Thirsk, Helmsley and other villages along those watercourses. In addition, other locations in Yorkshire, Durham and Northumberland experienced flooding resulting from surface water run-off.

Flooding is a natural event, and such storms have always happened. People need to be aware that flooding can happen at any time, and often in unexpected places. My house is on the edge of a flood-plain, and I subscribe to the Environment Agency's flood watch scheme, so I am acutely aware of the risk. The Met Office did predict the weather conditions over the north of the country, but it is difficult to predict exactly where and when rain will fall, and in what amounts. That makes the provision of timely warnings extremely difficult, although the agency did issue flood watch warnings across the region, and issued specific warnings for Thirsk and Butterwick, which are covered by the full flood warning system.

I heard what the hon. Lady said about failings that may have occurred in particular locations, and I will certainly look into that with the Environment Agency on her behalf. I will let her know what response I get from the agency about the reported incidents of failure of the system, and what it will do to rectify any problems.

So far, the full warning system has not been extended beyond Thirsk and Butterwick because there was no recent history of river flooding. It must be understood that the full warning system is subject to technical feasibility and cost-effectiveness. To provide a service, the agency requires equipment to be installed to feed data into the forecasting and warning system, and it is very difficult to provide a satisfactory service to communities in the upper reaches of catchments, such as those in North Yorkshire, where small water courses respond rapidly to rainfall. Nevertheless, the agency will review whether any improvements are viable.

I understand that about 100 properties in all were flooded from all sources, and a number of people were evacuated from a caravan site in Duncombe park. Some people who left their homes have now been able to return and I hope that others who left their homes will be able to return there quickly. As we have heard, local roads and bridges have been affected and some local minor roads were closed, but access to the village is being restored. There has also been flood damage to sewage works, which is now being made good. As yet unconfirmed numbers of livestock were lost, but the total will certainly run into the hundreds.

I would like to respond to what the hon. Lady said about fencing works, animal reporting schemes and the collection of carcases. Certainly, if local landowners and farmers are making applications to the Rural Development Service or other sources, I would be keen to see copies of those applications so that I can follow them from my end in the Department. I am mindful of the need to help those affected as best we can within the parameters we have.

Even after the debate, we need to pursue some of the issues with the Minister. He mentioned Duncombe park in my constituency, and it is a miracle that no loss of life occurred there. There had been a major motorcycle rally in Duncombe park that weekend and an entire tented village flooded. Thankfully, most of the motorcyclists had gone home.

There are two issues that the Minister has already mentioned, but I would like to stress the importance of having support and help from Government. There is at least 60 miles of fencing in the Snilesworth and Arden moor area, which is where the boundary lies between my constituency and that of my hon. Friend the Member for Vale of York (Miss McIntosh). The fencing is well over 1,000 ft high and more than 40 farmers are affected. Many of those fences were funded by DEFRA grants.

Order. The hon. Gentleman knows the difference between a speech and an intervention.

I have heard the hon. Gentleman reiterate the points that were made so well by the hon. Member for Vale of York. There were also cuts to power supplies in East Yorkshire as a result of lightning strikes, which have been repaired, at least on a temporary basis. The efforts of the emergency services, to which I paid tribute earlier, included airlifting one lady who seemed to have suffered a heart attack. The staff of the power companies have been working hard to restore the power, and we should also not forget the public-spirited residents themselves but praise them for helping their neighbours and others in difficulty in the community.

Regarding the clear-up operation, the flood waters have now subsided and the job of clearing up continues. As part the process, the Environment Agency has been clearing water courses of debris and animal carcases, which we have heard about. The Government stand ready to consider any applications from local authorities under the Bellwin scheme, which is administered in the Office of the Deputy Prime Minister.

I heard what the hon. Lady said about the scheme, such as whether we can extend the period in which people can make a claim. I shall pass on her comments to the ODPM along with those relating to capping. She asked whether this was the time to stop all further development on flood plains. Planning policy guidance 25 governs planning decisions and says that development should be based on a full appreciation of risks balanced against other community needs which may well result in some further development of currently protected areas. Developers should continue to have primary responsibility for any new or improved defences required for their development on flood plains. Long-term flood and coastal defence planning through shoreline management plans and catchment flood management plans should take account of the likely location of future developments and should provide information on long-term risks that can guide future development decisions. I know the strength of feeling the hon. Lady has on this issue and I shall certainly pass that on to my colleagues in the ODPM.

The Bellwin report provides for help from Government with the exceptional costs incurred in responding to such flooding events. However, it is too early for the local authorities involved to assess whether an application under the scheme should be made. That is the point that the hon. Lady made in respect of timing. Local authorities have been put in touch with the ODPM and that dialogue is ongoing.

We must learn the lessons from events like this. In the first place we will ask the Environment Agency, with others, to report on the causes of the flooding in each locality, as it is clear that flooding came from a number of sources, including rivers and other watercourses and drainage systems. Under "Making Space for Water", our new strategy for flood-risk management, we are advancing the complex issues of flooding from all sources in urban areas through urban drainage pilots. That approach may not always be appropriate for outlying and rural areas. As Minister responsible for rural affairs, I will consider that.

The hon. Lady mentioned insurance. The Association of British Insurers says that its members will adhere to the statement of principles, provided certain actions are carried out by the Government to reduce flood risk. The Government and the ABI agreed success measures in November 2003 to evaluate the progress of actions by Government, and the aim of insurers in conjunction with DEFRA and the Environment Agency will be to ensure that premium levels more closely reflect flood risk. It is for the ABI and its members to assess the availability of cover, but we shall continue to work closely with it to ensure that there is a full understanding of that risk in the light of decisions on funding that have been increasing markedly over the past few years. That and current developments in improved flood-risk mapping will enable the industry to continue to provide cover in most areas.

I shall say a few words about the flood defences in the relevant communities. The hon. Lady has raised the matter of Thirsk on many occasions and has been a champion of it in the House. Thirsk has a history of flooding and I understand that Hambleton district council has commissioned feasibility studies to assess potential options for a flood alleviation scheme there. Early indications are that proposals involving town defences and upstream storage capacity may be considered.

The statutory powers to undertake those works currently rests with the district council, which is also in discussions with the Environment Agency about a transfer of responsibility for the watercourse involved—the Cod beck—to the agency. No decision has yet been taken on whether the council or the agency will promote a scheme, but in response to the hon. Lady's comments I will write to the Environment Agency and the council to encourage them to make more rapid progress. I have heard her frustration with the slowness of that progress.

Be that as it may, to attract Government funding any scheme must meet technical, economic and environmental criteria and come within the system for prioritising investment. At this early stage indications are that the proposals for Thirsk should meet those priorities.

I understand that the Minister will not have every answer at his fingertips, but I should be grateful for the opportunity to follow up with the relevant Minister any questions that he has not answered.

I was about to say that when I see my hon. Friend the Minister for Climate Change and the Environment I will remind him of the commitment that the Prime Minister has made and what the hon. Lady has said, so that if there are issues that I have not been able to answer to her satisfaction, she will have another opportunity to raise them with him and the Department. In respect of Helmsley, the need for a watercourse investigation study has been identified. The Environment Agency will be taking that forward as a matter of urgency.

DEFRA's system of prioritising investment for improvement projects attempts to ensure that those proposals that will provide most benefit per unit cost are funded regardless of location. There is no doubt that significant sums are being invested, both inland and in coastal areas like mine.

I shall highlight the Government's continuing commitment to fund flooding and coastal erosion risk management. Funding has increased steeply from £310 million in 1996–97 to £478 million in 2004–05, and it is set to rise to £570 million this year and for each of the following two years.

I hope that my comments have been helpful to the hon. Lady, but if there are other significant issues that I have not been able to cover, I hope that she will have an opportunity to raise them with my hon. Friend. In addition, I can write to the hon. Lady to deal with anything else she would like covered.

Obviously, there are far more important subjects than this one, such as the very important one that we debated yesterday in the main Chamber, but that is no reason why it should not occasionally be debated. I want to make it clear that anything that I say should not be taken as a criticism of any individual officer or official, as what is done or worn in the Chamber is certainly not decided by such people.

In the bundle of background papers that I requested from the Library was a copy of an exchange that I had with the then Leader of the House on 22 June 1966, when I raised the subject of Black Rod interrupting the Chamber's proceedings to request or command our presence in the House of Lords so that Royal Assent could be given to Bills. Those who know me will not be surprised to hear that following my election that year, I was not altogether enthusiastic about the procedure.

Records show that in a 12-month period at that time, Black Rod, who was, of course, carrying out his duties, had interrupted Members in that way no fewer than 11 times. As we know, that practice was abolished by the Royal Assent Act 1967, and the current practice is for the Speaker to notify the House of Royal Assent. One might ask why that was not done before. Even those who favour carrying on traditions and who oppose change, do not, as far as I can see, argue that changes to such practices should be reversed. No doubt some argued, "Why should there be any change? It has gone on for years," and so on, but once that common-sense change was made and the Speaker began to notify the House without our proceedings being interrupted, the change was accepted.

There is one practice that I find very odd indeed, although I reiterate that I do not criticise the person concerned, who is one of my hon. Friends. Sometimes, the Government Whip who also holds the title of Vice-Chamberlain of Her Majesty's Household enters the Chamber in a morning coat carrying a long stick—or wand, as it may be called—to inform Members of a message from the Queen, and in carrying out that duty, he does a lot of bowing and so on. It is all done in a good-humoured way and takes a short time—I do not say that it should be discontinued because it takes up a lot of time—but I see no necessity for it. I see it as pantomime and do not believe that it shows great respect for the Queen, to whom I always want great respect to be given, as do all hon. Members.

Again, the inevitable question is: why is the practice necessary? What is the point of it and what justification is there for it? Surely, the remedy would be for the Speaker to notify the House when there is a message from the Queen. As with the end of the other practice I mentioned, I very much doubt whether, when this unnecessary practice ends, anyone will argue for its reintroduction.

Take, for example, the way in which the House of Commons is involved in the state opening of Parliament. We all know from long experience that on that occasion we sit in the Chamber—there are added frills here and there—and wait for Black Rod to arrive and command our attendance in the House of Peers for the Queen's Speech, which he does in due course. I hope that this question is not too revolutionary, but is that really necessary in the 21st century? Those who are familiar with the story of "The Prisoner of Zenda"— I suppose one has to be of a certain age even to know about Anthony Hope's novel—and particularly those who have seen one of the film versions, of which there have been at least two, will compare what happens in the scene involving all the ceremonies in Ruritania with what happens here.

I find it very odd that it is necessary, at the beginning of the 21st century, to have such pomp and ceremony. For example, could not the speech simply be read? That is one skill that we all have: the ability to read. Again, I am making no criticism whatever of the Head of State—obviously not—but if there is to be a state opening, why can that not be confined simply to the opening of Parliament after the general election? During that particular Parliament, the Government could outline their policy in a modern way. After all, even pupils of 15 or so who study politics at GCSE and A-level know that the Queen's Speech is, as it must be in a democracy, simply the Government's policy for the next 12 or 18 months. That is obvious. So why not simply have a document in which the Government state that they are going to do this, that and the other? Why not have less ceremony and pomp and just get on with things?

In the Chamber itself, there is a lot of dressing up. I have emphasised that I am not criticising anyone, because if there is to be a change a decision must be made by the House. When we look around the Chamber—unlike in Westminster Hall—we see wigs, knee breeches and silver-buckled shoes. It is interesting that Betty Boothroyd decided that she would not wear a wig. The present Speaker does not wear a wig. Parliamentary democracy has not been undermined as a result. It could be argued that it is possible for the occupant of the Chair in the main Chamber to wear the same sort of clothes as you are wearing, Mr. Gale. In Committee, the authority of the Chair is such that it must be accepted by us all. It is certainly not a question of someone having to dress up in order for us to recognise their authority. Likewise, the Clerk in Westminster Hall does not dress up, unlike in the main Chamber.

Up until the end of the 18th century, there was basically no difference between the dress of Members and that of officials. Anyone coming into Parliament up until then would not have seen any difference at all. Then came trousers. As a result of Members' increasingly wearing trousers instead of knee breeches, a difference arose. That grew more marked during the 19th and 20th centuries.

There is also a totally harmless practice that goes on at the end of the parliamentary day. I sometimes wonder whether even Members who have been here some time are aware of the fact that at the end of the parliamentary day, the senior Doorkeeper, carrying out his duty, shouts out, "Who goes home?" No one responds. As I am sure you are perfectly aware, Mr. Gale, that custom arose during the mid-19th century. It was unsafe in those days—a lot remains the same—for Members to go up Whitehall individually. After the cry of, "Who goes home?", Members gathered in the Members' Lobby and were duly escorted by a police officer. If I responded to that cry and came into the Members' Lobby to wait to be escorted, the senior Doorkeeper would start to wonder. Again, the tradition is totally harmless, so we could say, "Why worry?", but why continue with a tradition that has absolutely no purpose?

I hope that, since some modernisation has undoubtedly occurred since 1997, we will consider some of the practices that I have mentioned: the dress, the code and the state opening. It is more likely that change will occur as a result of a Labour Government than otherwise. As I said, it took the Labour Government in 1967 to make the change that allowed Royal Assent to be given by the Speaker.

Finally, what goes on in the Chamber—we cover many important issues, as we did yesterday—does not make any difference. Of course, it does not make a difference if Officers of the House wear wigs; I agree that it is totally irrelevant. I do not suggest otherwise. However, if we want to give the impression that we are a modern institution—if we are so keen as to lecture other places about modernisation, ending restrictive practices and the rest—should we not look at ourselves, and bring ourselves more into the modern age? Would not it help Parliament?

If I may be so bold, I suggest that we can learn one or two lessons from the devolved institutions. I am sure that the Minister is enthusiastic about the Scottish Parliament. If he is not, he certainly will not say so.

I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Walsall, North (Mr. Winnick) on securing this debate. I am sure that many hon. Members will want to pay tribute to the work that he has done over the 39 years since he took up the cause. He and others persuaded the House to accept some of the numerous changes that have brought our practices up to date, and they have undoubtedly made the House a better place.

My hon. Friend raised the matter more recently than 22 June 1966. During the Foreign Affairs debate on the previous Queen's Speech on 24 November, he took some time out to inform the House of his views. Today, he has brought us up to date. Of course, he does more than talk. He gave written evidence on his views to the Modernisation Committee the year before last so that it could reach a considered view and make recommendations. He also raised the subject at business questions.

I am pleased that during those years, right hon. and hon. Members decided to act on some of the issues raised. My hon. Friend mentioned the steps taken to ensure that the ceremonies surrounding Black Rod were improved and modernised better to facilitate the business of the House, which ensured more time for debate and less time for ceremony. He has been knocking at an open door—perhaps the same door that is ritually slammed in Black Rod's face. I know that that ritual has given many hon. Members some satisfaction, but others, probably including my hon. Friend, feel that the time has come to put such vicarious pleasures aside.

My hon. Friend and I remember well that on points of order during Divisions it was necessary for the hon. Member raising the point of order to don a top hat. A pantomime top hat was kept handy by the Speaker's Office, and the Clerks would pass it to the Member making the point of order. I remember Eric Heffer, our late colleague, who was a rather large man, donning a small but high top hat, which probably caused some ribaldry on a rather serious point of order. Again, right hon. and hon. Members were persuaded that the days of the top hat were over, and raising a point of order has been more formalised and brought up to date with modern practice.

My hon. Friend and I were strong objectors to the use of the word "strangers" in the House to describe the general public who elect us and pay our salaries. Again, the House authorities listened to our representations and phased out the use of the word "strangers", replacing it with more acceptable terms for the 21st century, such as public gallery and public entrance. The cause that he has taken up has not been without fruit.

My hon. Friend's recommendations are less significant to the workings of the House than some of the more tangible changes that he and others have campaigned for and that have been delivered—I think that he used the word "frippery", but if he did not, I hope he will not mind my putting that word in his mouth. The strengthening of the Select Committees, for instance, has done more to bring the Executive to account and scrutinise their workings. The twice-yearly questioning of the Prime Minister before the Liaison Committee is another important innovation that has helped to strengthen the democratic accountability of the person at the pinnacle of the Government.

We have introduced other helpful mechanisms both for Members and for the wider public, such as explanatory notes on Bills and memorandums on statutory instruments. We have introduced regulatory impact assessments to help us better understand the cost and other impacts of measures proposed by the Government. In the time that we have been in Parliament, we have ensured that our proceedings are televised, and the proceedings of the Parliament and its Committees are now webcast too. That general extension of accountability and information has proceeded, and my hon. Friend should be thanked for his strong support, along with other hon. Members from all parties.

My hon. Friend put this Adjournment debate—which is on a not insignificant subject—in some proportion when he mentioned that he did not seek to set it alongside some of the major Bills and weighty matters that we have to discuss and that the public are interested in. If he does not mind my saying so, that showed in him a great sense of balance and perspective. I am glad that I have had a chance to hear his views first hand, and I thank him for his courtesy in informing us of his most recent ideas. I know that those views will be studied by other right hon. and hon. Members, and like him, I know that it is in the hands of those Members as to which of the recommendations are introduced.

If my hon. Friend takes up one of my points, it should be the Vice-Chamberlain of Her Majesty's Household—the Government Whip—delivering messages. Could we try within the next few months to see what could be done to discontinue that practice, so that Queen's messages are instead notified to the House by the Speaker? That should not be too controversial, certainly among Labour Members, who are in the majority.

My hon. Friend mentioned majorities, and his idea could become a party political issue as Labour has a majority in the House of Commons. I would be loth to go down that route, as my view is that the House should reach a consensus. He rightly pointed out that the use of a rod—which as a young MP I mistook for a billiard cue—may seem inappropriate to some hon. Members, and that is certainly his point of view. However, the correspondence that I have received in the short time that I have been Deputy Leader of the House of Commons has covered a number of issues, but ceremonial practices is not one of them. However, now that my hon. Friend has raised it, his views will be widely circulated in the House through Hansard, and an early-day motion—I hope that it would be an all-party early-day motion—would allow the strength of feeling to be assessed and judged. He knows that the strength of feeling reflected in early-day motions can move things forward in the House.

By raising the subject, my hon. Friend has ensured that the fresh approach that he brought to the House when he was first elected in 1966 continues to this day, as does his concern for ensuring that this place is not hidebound or left behind in the general trend of other institutions to embrace more up-to-date ways of operating. He ensures that such matters are still at the forefront of MPs' minds. With the setting up of the new Select Committees he may feel that the Modernisation Committee should put a high priority on considering such matters and he may want to write to those Committees to ask them to put those things on their agenda. We will be delighted to consider them carefully and respond accordingly.

Question put and agreed to.

Adjourned accordingly at six minutes past Five o'clock.