I am pleased to have secured this debate, but I am angry that it should have been necessary. I have no party political points to make. The NHS has not been right for a long time. Given the limited NHS resources that are available, all I want to do today is to deal with how we can find the best possible health care for the area that is covered by St. Richard's, for my constituents and for those who use the hospital, a high proportion of whom are elderly and live in a rural area.

Before I go any further, I shall map out the scale of the problem, with the hard numbers. In the financial year 2003–04, the hospital went into significant deficit for the first time of £3.5 million. In the past year, 2004–05, that deficit increased to £13.8 million and it is forecast that, in the next financial year, it will increase to £28 million, on an income base of just over £100 million. As a result of this, the Audit Commission has issued a public interest report—a so-called section 8 report.

Those figures sound catastrophic, but the reality is that the lion's share of the deficit is purely a consequence of resource accounting and budgeting—the RAB system that is in use by the NHS. To put the whole matter into perspective, if the deficit were funded as if it were a commercial loan, before RAB cuts, and if a normal rate of interest were being paid, the total deficit would only be a few million pounds. The lion's share of the hospital's funding crisis has far more to do with the labyrinthine nature of NHS RAB than any financial mismanagement in which it might have been involved. During a five-year period in which a business would accumulate £1 of deficit, under RAB a hospital will be accumulating £3 of deficit. That is the scale of the problem caused by RAB.

The second crucial point that needs to be made concerns what people are saying about the hospital. Everyone says that it is a first-rate hospital. That is not only my conclusion, but that of the cohorts of experts, arbitration reviews and the Government's indicators. The catalogue is so long that I shall not do much more than refer to it. We are dealing with a top-class hospital.

The Government's reference cost index suggests that the trust is one of the most efficient in the country. It is currently in the top 15th percentile. As for the hospital's clinical performance, according to independent benchmarking, it has been among the top 40 in the country—out of more than 120 trusts—for each of the past five years. And in clinical outcomes, over the past two years the trust has had either the lowest or the second lowest mortality rate in the south-east, and that is after taking account of a difficult catchment area.

So far I have not mentioned patients. It is not only whether patients stay alive that we must consider, but whether they believe that they are being treated properly. The latest MORI satisfaction index for acute trusts, which is produced each year, shows that the trust has the highest level of patient satisfaction in the south-east. St. Richard's hospital is top out of 26 hospitals in the south-east for patient satisfaction.

Of course, if a hospital is delivering the goods on that scale on each and every one of the Government's indicators, we would expect the staff to be engaged, committed to delivering high-quality care and happy about working there. That is exactly what is happening at St. Richard's. Last year, the NHS's own national staff survey found that it was an extremely happy place in which to work. Furthermore, the senior management were judged to be in the best 20 per cent. for quality of leadership. So that is the judgment of people working in the hospital, assessing their own management.

All of those indicators that I have just described were further reflected in one general measure, which is that the hospital has held the charter mark for excellence for nearly a decade. Even the Healthcare Commission feels obliged to give the hospital two stars out of three, and it withholds the third star only because of the deficit. That takes us straight back to where we started.

No one is disputing the fact that the hospital is first rate; I do not think that the Minister will try to dispute the fact that the hospital is one of the best in the country, or that it is treating more patients every year at a lower cost per patient than almost any other hospital. However, the response of the strategic health authority and the Department of Health has been to restrain its income. They seem not to consider that, as a result, people will either go untreated or be treated at greater expense elsewhere.

Only in the NHS could an institution as successful as this be having its income cut. If it were a private sector institution it would be expanding rapidly and people would be saying, "Let's get this institution to grow as fast as possible. We have found a successful method of delivering what we want to deliver: better health care." The hospital would be the regional success story in health care if it were in the private sector, run according to private sector common-sense norms.

So why is the hospital being treated in this way? There are a number of detailed explanations, and I shall come to those in a moment. First, there is one general explanation that must be dealt with, which I hope the Minister will take on board. I worry that St. Richard's could be the victim of regional health politics. I have spoken to a large number of people about St. Richard's since I became a Member of Parliament, particularly over the last year. I often hear variations on the same theme: St. Richard's is the success story that should not happen. It is a small district general hospital which is outstandingly efficient. On all the planning boards and computer screens, taking into account all the theories and models that the NHS bureaucrats put together, hospitals of 500 or fewer beds are not supposed to be efficient, or to do that well. They are not supposed to be able to deliver cheap, efficient health care in the modern age.

Time and again I have been told—on the quiet—by senior NHS bureaucrats that the long-term future of St. Richard's must be as an outpost of Portsmouth or the Portsmouth hospitals. People say that we may, by all means, keep a campus in Chichester, and that there will need to be an accident and emergency department, but not a general hospital; super-hospitals are the future.

I am grateful to my hon. Friend for giving way in his excellent and informed speech. Is not the driving force behind the move towards super-hospitals the Royal College of Physicians more than any politicians? Is it not up to elected politicians and Ministers to resist such pressure from the profession?

I think that the drivers come from many sources. It is the job of Ministers not to allow such things to be decided entirely by their officials in discussions with various interest groups, but to try to think through the issues from first principles. The York study on economies of scale in hospital care—the most famous study, although it is a relatively old one—suggested that there were no economies of scale above about 200 or 250-bed hospitals. However, in numerous documents and in speeches it has been made clear over many years by Ministers that 500 beds is probably the cut-off point for the minimum size at which an all-singing, all-dancing general hospital can function efficiently. Incidentally, St. Richard's is a 500-bed hospital, so it is right on the cusp that I am describing.

I do hope that the Minister can reassure me today that the Government are fully committed to helping hospitals of the size of St. Richard's to flourish. Patients want that. They do not want super-hospitals; they want to be treated near where they live, if they can be. St. Richard's has proved that it is possible to do that efficiently. My constituents, and those of my hon. Friend who are affected, will be listening to the Minister's response on that point.

All that St. Richard's really needs—I will now get into the detail of how we have developed the huge deficit—is for the Government to implement their own health policy. St. Richard's does not need a handout; it needs reasonable payment for the treatment that it provides. As Ministers know, the hospital is being paid for its work at well below the cost of providing it, as shown by the Government's national tariff rate. If St. Richard's was paid at the national tariff rate, it would never have got into deficit. In fact, it would be in surplus and would be expanding, as common sense suggests that it should. Full implementation of the national tariff would yield an extra £15 million in 2006 and more in subsequent years, more than covering the deficit, even including the extraordinary RAB accounting, which has artificially inflated the financial crisis.

I have had a good look at the issue of the national tariff. The question that I have been wanting to clarify is by how much the hospital is paid under tariff. The short answer is about 20 per cent. In other words, it is getting only about 80 per cent. of what it should get, based on the national tariff. That is a key issue in understanding what has gone wrong with the hospital's finances.

I quite understand why the Government have decided to slow down implementation of the national tariff. It was originally intended to be phased in from April this year. However, a national tariff means winners and losers, and the Government do not yet have a plan for the losers. They do not have a plan for those inefficient hospitals that are receiving above-average tariff and which would have money taken away from them—those hospitals up and down the country that deliver the same treatment or less good treatment for more money than St. Richard's does. Those cuts will be painful and the Government will need to plan for them. I understand that.

I am concerned that St. Richard's, which will be one of the winners, should not be penalised in the meantime. What is more, a penalty is being built into the Government's current method of moving to the national tariff: the so-called payment by results scheme. That is because low-tariff hospitals are permitted increases in tariff in slugs of only 2 per cent. per annum. In St. Richard's case, starting 20 per cent. behind—or, to put it another way, starting from such an efficient base—it is a mathematical impossibility for the hospital ever to get up to the national tariff rate under the Government's payment by results scheme. That must be crazy. At least the Government have said that they will look again at payment by results; thank goodness. Penalise by results would be a better description of the current scheme.

Let us put the tariff point another way, which illustrates it even more clearly. Imagine that St. Richard's was shifted 12 miles due west to the other side of the county border, in Hampshire. The Hampshire and Isle of Wight strategic health authority prices the cost of treatment almost at tariff. If St. Richard's hospital was 12 miles due west it would be in surplus.

There has to be something amiss when a first-rate hospital, which would be a candidate for foundation status in one county, finds itself having to cut its budget under RAB in another. Something is seriously at fault with the internal financial arrangements of the local health economy.

Of course, in Hampshire a deficit is now mounting in the primary care trust instead of the hospital trust. What is their alternative? The only alternative to giving more money to the local health economy is to leave patients untreated. That is my second worry. I have frequently heard senior health bureaucrats talk about the need for "better demand management"; the public should know what that might mean. What it really means is that people would be left untreated. "Better demand management" means less demand: squeezing it out and rationing.

I hope that the Minister will be able to say categorically today that she rejects that approach to solving the problems at St. Richard's and in West Sussex. That approach is tantamount to saying to St. Richard's that, because it is successful, it is attracting too many patients, who are referred by GPs or come through in accident and emergency, and that it has become too well known as a centre of excellence. So it had better close its doors to some patients and force them to be treated elsewhere. I am sure that the Prime Minister did not mean that when he said that we need a health service fit for the 21st century; I am sure that it is not what successive Health Secretaries had in mind when they told us that the main constraint on more health care in Britain was not cash but capacity.

Coming along and moaning to a Minister about the fact that not enough cash is being provided in the health economy and that as a result a very good hospital is in trouble, is not enough. I have tried to think through what reasonable response the Minister might try to make. What has been sitting in her brief overnight?

The Minister could say, for example, that the PCT already receives more than its fair share of the national cake. I have no doubt that she will have a statistic that shows that. That, however, would not take full account of the demands in areas such as Chichester, which has such a large rural and elderly population.

The Minister may have been briefed that the primary care trust has the allocation of its own funding wrong and that it should allocate a higher proportion of its budget to secondary and tertiary, rather than primary, care. She might have a point if she said that. The PCT is spending only 45 per cent. of its budget on secondary and tertiary care, whereas the average for PCTs in Surrey and Sussex as a whole is nearer 50 per cent.

However, before alighting on that as the explanation, the Minister would need to remember the extra and growing amount that needs to be spent on mental health in the area, particularly in view of the history of nearby Graylingwell, which was the county asylum before it closed. Many former patients live in the local community and, understandably, they bring extra costs for the PCT. That is why the mental health element of the PCT's spending is higher than average and it is one of the causes of the fact that only 45 per cent. of its budget—a limited cake—can go to secondary and tertiary care.

Another line that the Minister might have up her sleeve might be to say that some of the hospital-based services should be borne by GPs or provided in the community, closer to where people live. This is the new line that a person gets when they talk to a large number of people in NHS senior management. However, I will wager that if the Minister probes her officials about that policy, she will discover that the savings claimed could turn out to be highly speculative. It is at least arguable that such community-based care could generate as much demand as it diverts, and it is the view of many experts that it will.

The Minister will definitely tell us that after intensive negotiations, the trust, the PCT and the strategic health authority are much nearer a solution. She will be right, at least in the very short run. The hospital has found an extra £5 million of savings and has also offered to raise a further £3.7 million by selling assets owned by the trust. We should all be pleased to hear that the negotiations are going a bit better and that they have moved forward a little. However, I worry about the deal that has been put together.

What will taking £5 million out of that trust really mean? It will mean fewer nurses per patient, but the hospital is already in the lowest quartile nationally in terms of the nurses-per-patient ratio. It will mean shortening the length of stay, but the hospital already has among the shortest stay lengths of any hospital trust for each main type of treatment. Among other things, it may also mean that rehabilitation services need to be cut. That is the real effect of the £5 million of savings. What about the £3.7 million of asset sales? Frankly, the proposed sale of land is nothing more than asset stripping; it is no more than a sticking-plaster solution because one cannot sell assets to pay for current expenditure for long.

Everybody will need to row together to make the current negotiations a success, but we also need to be clear that a few asset sales will not solve the growing health care crisis in West Sussex or Chichester. My constituents need a long-term solution to the problem, and that will require the Government to examine at least four issues. The first, to which I have alluded, is the need to ensure that there is a proper national tariff for the work that hospitals do. Are the Government committed to paying hospital trusts the full national tariff within four years? I hope that the Minister can answer that question. It is the current stated policy, but what is the strength of commitment to it? If a full commitment can be given, and we can get rid of the 2 per cent. cap on payment by results, St. Richard's will be out of the woods in a few years.

That brings me to the second point. We must have a basic principle in the NHS that we will reward success such as that shown by St. Richard's. In theory, the Government have already done that with foundation hospital status. Even if the hospital had foundation status, however, it would still be strapped for cash because of the 2 per cent. cap on payment by results.

The third issue is the capitation formula. The Government must look again at this. It has resulted in the transfer of health resources from the south to the north. The arguments involved are long and I do not intend to go into them in detail, but re-examining the formula is inescapable. The whole health economy of the south is developing similar problems. The recent National Audit Office report on the NHS nationally showed a steady deterioration in the south compared with the north. Not every hospital in the south can be getting things wrong, so something is clearly wrong with the capitation formula. I should be grateful if, today, the Minister would commit the Government to looking again at the formula.

There is a fourth point, which it is essential for the Government to consider if we are to get through this growing crisis: they need to shed some of their nostrums about the way in which health care is provided. The suggestion that St. Richard's is too small to survive as an independent hospital, and the funding treatment that it has received over the past few years, owe more to a communist state planning system than to a modern democracy. It is absurd. When one goes through the way in which the numbers have been calculated, one can scarcely believe that a major institution such as the NHS is being managed in this way in the 21st century. A group of serious, dedicated clinicians, health care professionals and managers are being pushed around as a result of the most extraordinary, byzantine rules.

If the Government really are committed to doing what they say—to letting success flourish in the NHS—they must think out of the box and more imaginatively. Specifically, I hope that the Minister will return to her Department and ask about economies of scale and super-hospitals and whether the Government should be giving much more encouragement to hospitals of 300, 400 and 500 beds, rather than having an idée fixe that a hospital of fewer than 500 beds cannot survive or be efficient in the modern age.

I have spoken to many constituents about this subject, including patients, staff, management and clinicians. They all say much the same thing:

"The hospital provides high-quality care at low prices. It is many levels above most other hospitals. Morale has been high and the hospital has been a very happy place to work. Management has a good working relationship with consultants, the trust and staff, unlike at so many other hospitals. The chief executive leads by example and has the complete confidence of the whole hospital. It is rare to find such high-quality management."

Actually, those are not my views—I have just been quoting a leading clinician, the medical director at St. Richard's hospital.

I have suggested a number of long-term solutions to the Minister. Best of all would be for her to come and see for herself. She should not believe everything that she has heard about the hospital from the regional health authority; she should just go down, take a look and discover for herself the gap between the numbers and reality. As another clinician who does not work at the hospital put it to me:

"You can tell when you walk into a hospital immediately whether the quality of care is good. St. Richard's is where I would most want to be treated."

rose—

Order. This is a debate of local interest and, according to the Speaker's ruling, contributions from the Opposition Front Bench may be limited to five minutes in order to allow local Members to have full opportunity to speak. If that becomes necessary, the first Opposition contribution will be called at 10.40 am.

I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Chichester (Mr. Tyrie) on securing this important and timely debate. He has an impressive track record on fighting for local hospitals sited in his constituency. He has the backing and support of all of us who represent constituencies in West Sussex because we share his concerns.

St. Richard's hospital is an excellent hospital that is used heavily and frequently by people in my constituency, as Bognor Regis is only six miles away from Chichester. The hospital is well loved and its medical proficiency well respected and understood by people in the Bognor Regis area. The Friends of St. Richard's is a widely supported group that has raised millions of pounds for the hospital in recent years. Volunteers from Bognor Regis can be seen throughout the hospital on any day of the week.

The hospital's reputation is supported by the raw data. As my hon. Friend said, it has a two-star Healthcare Commission rating, with only its financial position preventing it from receiving the top three-star rating. In a sense, the hospital is in a vicious circle because if it had a three-star rating it would have more independence, but it cannot have the third star because of the financial position that the current structure has put it in.

St. Richard's is a hugely efficient hospital and is in the 15th percentile of all NHS trusts. It has also been among the top 40 hospitals for each year from 2001 to 2005 for clinical performance, according to the CHKS Ltd. rating. St. Richard's also has the lowest and second lowest hospital mortality rate in the south-east in the past two years, as my hon. Friend said, as well as the highest patient satisfaction rating in the south-east.

We are talking about a well-loved and highly efficient hospital that is in trouble because of a deficit of £13.8 million last year, which, on an accumulated basis, now totals £20.5 million since 2001–02. St. Richard's hospital performs well on the cost side and is efficient by comparison with other hospitals. The problem must therefore be on the income side. That clearly is a problem, as the hospital is being paid significantly below the NHS tariff for its operations—as my hon. Friend has calculated, about 80 per cent. below the tariff in 2004–05 and 86 per cent. below in 2005–06. That is because payment by results has been only partially implemented, and merely includes elective care for 2005–06.

It is likely that, had full payment by results been implemented, the trust would have been in surplus in 2004–05. The sin that St. Richard's has committed has been to treat too many people. Those who know the area that the hospital serves will know that it has an elderly population, particularly in Bognor Regis, where 25 per cent. are over the age of 65—that is forecast to rise by a further 19 per cent. over the next 10 years. The population also contains a high proportion of the very elderly—those aged over 85—so of course there are severe demands on the hospital. I am glad that St. Richard's treats my constituents when they call on its services. I would be the first at the barricades if it started to turn patients away because it had breached its financial barriers.

Is there not something odd in the way in which the NHS is managed? Somebody sits in Whitehall and calculates what the area covered by Western Sussex primary care trust needs, based on its population, profile and other requirements, and we all sit and hope that that calculation is correct. Then, lo and behold, more patients than predicted by the formula turn up and are treated, so the costs accumulate and a deficit arises, and we all scurry around trying to plug the gap. Surely, if the hospital is efficient, which this one is, and it is engaged only in treatment that is accepted as appropriate for an NHS hospital to carry out, which it is, that should be the end of the matter; the funding should be given.

It might be that GPs are referring to the hospital people with particular medical conditions that in other areas are more usually dealt with without hospital admission. If that can be proved, it needs to be addressed. Perhaps we need more district nurses in the area so that the number of hospital admissions can be reduced. However, if it is not the cause or the whole cause of the problem and it is the case that more patients are becoming ill than the formula predicted, it is wrong for the hospital—or the PCT and the whole health economy of Western Sussex—to cut its level of service to match the funding. Cost cutting is a fine and proper way to deal with inefficiency, but we must not plug this deficit by cutting the level or quality of service to a very elderly population whose lives depend on this good, effective hospital.

The funding gap should not be plugged, either, by cutting other NHS services in the area. I understand that Western Sussex PCT intends to reduce the number of district nurses by 30 per cent., and to move them out of the GP practices, where they currently work, into five regional centres. In an area such as the one that I represent, that is entirely unacceptable. I have had a raft of letters from worried elderly constituents in response to the announcement about the changes for district nurses. One constituent, Miss Duncanson, who lives in Pagham, writes that she is appalled by the proposal by the PCT to reduce the number of district nurses. She goes on to state:

"There are many elderly people who rely on the friendly and efficient District Nurses. You will be aware that it is frightening to have a stranger coming into your home",

and that, under the new arrangements proposed by the PCT,

"the patients will not know the Nurses and the Nurses will not know the patients. This proposal confirms the suspicion among the elderly that they come very far down in the priorities of the Care System."

Another constituent from Pagham writes:

"This reduction of cover . . . will undoubtedly lead to a serious dilution in the quality of primary care in the home,"

and continues:

"These cuts will inevitably lead to a loss in patient carer confidence and the personal trust that has, up to now, been developed"—

I have been following my hon. Friend's points carefully. He acknowledges that his population of the very elderly is very high, as it is in other parts of West Sussex. The very elderly make the greatest demands on the health service, and if we are unable to look after them in their own homes through visiting nurses, it is likely that they will end up requiring more acute care, in hospitals, at a vastly greater price. The scheme is a false economy.

My hon. Friend is absolutely right; that is the madness of the system. It is likely that a reason for the deficit is that there may have been an excessive number of accident and emergency admissions because there is an elderly population. One of the best ways to reduce the number of admissions is to have more care in the home, but to plug the financial gap, the PCT health economy wants savings across the board and is proposing to cut the number of district nurses by 30 per cent., which, as my hon. Friend said, is likely to lead to more admissions to St. Richard's, exacerbating the problem in the long run.

A constituent from Nyetimber in Bognor Regis writes:

"My elderly mother has needed visits from the district nurses in recent months due to a chronic illness . . . She has been treated with great respect and courtesy by the district nurses attached to the Grove House Surgery, who have performed excellently in reducing the ailment and containing it in the best possible way . . . In my opinion the District Nurses perform a great service to the community . . . The proposed changes to reduce the number of nurses by 30 per cent. shows a lack of foresight and will surely affect the health and morale of the very people who are entrusted to improve the wellbeing of their patient."

My constituent pleads with the Minister, via me, and urges her to think again.

Other constituents have written to me expressing huge concern about the proposal. One states:

"My parents live in Aldwick . . . and both have benefited from their excellent local health services in recent years . . . It is the reason they have decided to spend their remaining years in the Bognor area. I believe that a cross section of the locality would indicate that there are many others of their neighbours in the same situation. Basically this is a prime retirement residential area. To be planning to reduce the number of district nurses by 30 per cent. is little short of criminal. Any 'savings of cost' must be judged against the reduction of the level and quality of the service provided."

The letter concluded:

"What a way for the 'War Generation' to be treated towards the end of their lives."

That is what I hear from a number of constituents on this issue. And we are talking about the war generation because it is an area where the very elderly—people over the age of 85—live. I quote from a letter that exemplifies that point. It states:

"I am 81 years old, my wife is 79 and we have lived in Aldwick for the past 16 years. In recent years we have both had health problems and I have been most grateful for the excellent local health care, with my wife now requiring regular attention from the District Nursing Team. They are our lifeline . . . Please do all you can to oppose this awful plan."

The Minister has now heard first hand the consequences of trying to plug an artificial financial deficit, dealing with a formula drawn up in Whitehall that has proven to be inaccurate in the real-life circumstances of western Sussex.

I do not know how many hours of highly paid accountants' time has been consumed in pouring over the details of the hospital's deficit and in finding savings from the service provided, but I expect that it is excessive. Here we have an efficient hospital that is simply treating more patients than were predicted and for which it is being paid less than it should be. We need to implement payment by results immediately so this problem would be resolved, and so that we do not start cutting vitally needed medical services, which are keeping people alive.

This debate really is a matter of life and death. I trust the Minister will ensure that no decisions are taken that will result in a lower level of service than is currently being provided.

I too congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Chichester (Mr. Tyrie) on securing the debate and on taking such a close interest in St. Richard's hospital in his constituency.

The hospital also serves a large number of people in my constituency and my constituents share the concern that my hon. Friend succinctly expressed about the hospital's financial position and its future. I underline what he said about the way the hospital is perceived by the local community. According to the objective measures of performance indicators, it is a very efficient hospital, topping the league; also, on the crucial measure of patient satisfaction, The Sunday Times gave it a score of 82 per cent., which is the highest in the south-east. By all measures, this is an extremely good local hospital, and we should start from that position.

There are considerable and growing pressures on the hospital because of the nature of the local population, and we need to recognise that. Nearly 25 per cent. of the local population are over 65, and the number of over-65s is forecast to increase by nearly a fifth in the next decade. This is an area where the population has grown at twice the national rate for nearly a century. Controversial proposals to increase the number of houses in the area are being driven through, so the population pressures will increase. Furthermore, the area gets a large number of visitors because it is very popular with tourists. Chichester, my town of Arundel and the south downs receive a large number of visitors, adding to the pressures on the hospital. That underlines the need for a continuing local hospital to serve the needs of the growing and elderly population.

I should therefore like to question a view that I believe may be prevalent among senior NHS management, to which my hon. Friend alluded—that too many people in the area are being sent to hospital. In the first place, that view does not recognise the situation, the demographics, the growing pressures that the hospital will face and the continuing need for the hospital. Secondly, even if it were true that too many people were being sent to hospital, that certainly does not provide any kind of solution to the financial situation of the trust. If that was part of the problem, and I am not sure that I would accept that—I would like to know whether that is the Government's view—it would seem to suggest that there was no need for trust provision on such a scale, and that would concern me. I will come to that in a minute.

We have to recognise that the problem affects the whole health economy. In meetings with the chairman of the trust, I was encouraged to hear that he is working closely with the chairman of the PCT. We have to recognise that a solution for one of the bodies may produce problems for the other. Therefore it is necessary to recognise that there is an underlying deficit in the whole health economy. Once one recognises that, it is possible to view the short-term measures that the trust has been required to undertake with a certain amount of cynicism. Things like asset disposal and sale and leaseback schemes can only be short-term fixes for an underlying deficit and, in themselves, are very disruptive and problematic.

I agree with my hon. Friend's points about the RAB scheme. It is worth pointing out, as did the public interest report published last month, that under the RAB scheme, if the underlying deficit is not addressed, then because of the need under NHS accounting rules to roll forward deficits and meet them by penalising the amount of grant that the hospital receives, by the end of 2007–08—only a few years away—the accumulated deficit will be £142 million, a sum considerably in excess of the trust's income. That demonstrates the absurdity of the RAB rules and the need to address the structural, underlying deficit that affects the entire local economy, not only the trust.

The real problem, as my hon. Friends have clearly put it, is that activity is not being matched by income and that the trust is paid below tariff. The results are perverse, which is a great pity. All too often in the public sector, good, efficient local institutions do their job and increase activity, and are penalised for it rather than rewarded. We cannot have a system that produces such results.

My hon. Friend the Member for Chichester made a very good point about the tariff, and drew attention to the fact that if the hospital was simply relocated a few miles to the west and if it paid the same tariff as a neighbouring trust, these deficit problems would simply not exist on the same scale.

That point can also be made in another way. In its contribution to the strategic review, the trust has been forced to consider whether some sort of arrangement or even merger with Portsmouth would be a viable option. The trust pointed out that that would not produce the solution that was hoped for, because unless the tariff situation was dealt with, it would increase costs because the local PCT would have to send patients to Portsmouth trust, which has higher costs than Chichester. That demonstrates the absurdity of the tariff situation.

I view with particularly grave concern any suggestion that there might be a gradual transfer of activity to Portsmouth and away from St. Richard's. My constituents live to the east and north-east of St. Richard's and are currently served by the hospital. They would be furthest away from Portsmouth, and I am very aware, from debates happening on the east side of my constituency some 40 miles away, of the problems caused by a stealthy determination to downgrade local facilities in favour of placing them in a different hospital some miles away from a rural area. That has happened at the Princess Royal hospital in Haywards Heath, whose accident and emergency facilities are being downgraded in favour of sending people to the Royal Sussex hospital in Brighton.

Consultants are up in arms about these proposals, as are local people, who fear, with some justification, that there is an agenda to regionalise NHS provision. People in rural areas have grave concerns about that. They want local hospitals to continue to exist, particularly in rural areas with a population of elderly people who find it difficult to travel.

As well as addressing the deficit, I hope that the Minister will take on board the fact that the national, and certainly the local, mood is for the preservation of good local facilities, and that behind-the-scenes moves to rationalise facilities are very damaging to the entire political process, particularly when local people are not properly consulted or consulted in a way that does not meet with their approval.

There is also an urgency to the situation confronting St. Richard's. It is very unsatisfactory that the trust should be forced to take part in a series of crisis meetings with the strategic health authority and then be in an acute cash-strapped position. The public interest report last month described that position as extremely serious. At one point, payments were frozen to creditors, which is unacceptable, particularly when those creditors could be in the private sector. At another point, the trust was forced to freeze purchase orders, which could have had an effect on service delivery if essential supplies, such as food and drugs, were unavailable.

One of the ways in which the trust has dealt with its cash position is by renegotiating its payment schedule with the contractors who built the Chichester treatment centre. That may have been a sensible short-term measure to ameliorate its position, and I am sure that it was, but the irony is that it increases costs for the trust in the longer term. It is a good example of a measure being forced on the trust that does not deal with its short-term problem.

The trust has little local control over national costs. Generally, national health service managers who are confronted by problems of the kind in question have little control over their costs, which constrains their ability to deal with structural problems like the one that I mentioned. The public interest report pointed out that a substantial portion of the current deficit—about £3.2 million, which is about 25 per cent.—relates to national developments. It did not specify what they were. What can the trust do about them?

That matter points to a wider problem, which I hope that the Minister will take on board, if she does not respond to it immediately—the extent to which the large spending increases in the national health service are being absorbed in higher costs. The King's Fund—an independent health body, as the Minister knows—estimated at the time of the general election that 73 per cent. of NHS spending increases are being absorbed in higher costs.

The NHS overall faces year-on-year spending increases that are leading to stored up spending costs. The think tank of which I used to be director, Reform, has estimated that by 2010 the NHS will have to find an extra £10 billion just to stand still, because of meeting those stored up cost commitments: the new primary care contract, more staff, new IT and more expensive drugs.

I have already had a good innings, so I shall try to be brief. My hon. Friend is right to mention the £3.2 million extra costs from central initiatives. Is he also aware that funding was provided to the tune of £17 million for the Chichester treatment centre, which was recently opened, but that the running of it has not been funded? The running costs of about £4.2 million have come the trust's way, but the hospital is not getting the money. That is another extra, unexpected burden.

I am grateful to my hon. Friend for making that point. I was going to discuss the Chichester treatment centre. He is right about that.

The treatment centre is a good example of the trust doing what the Government would like it to do. The existence of the new treatment centre, which is just coming on stream, is a good example of one of the perceived successes of Government policy on health care. When a hospital trust is doing as the Government want and performing a good service for the community, whose demands will only increase, it is unfortunate that we should allow a structural deficit to go unaddressed and force the trust into a position in which it must take improbable and short-term measures.

I hope, on behalf of my constituents, who value the hospital greatly, that the Minister will be able to deal with the great concerns about the situation affecting this good trust.

I congratulate the hon. Member for Chichester (Mr. Tyrie) on securing the debate, which has been informative and illuminating. It has cast light on many issues that the Royal West Sussex NHS Trust faces, and it has raised wider questions about the financial management of NHS trusts, which I hope that the Minister will deal with later this morning—issues of financial management, the implications of payment by results, resource allocation and the funding formula.

We have heard today how the Royal West Sussex NHS Trust, like many other hospital trusts, now has a record deficit. We have heard that the recent PricewaterhouseCoopers report, published in June, reported an accumulated deficit of £20.5 million in 2004–05. Because current accounting rules dictate that any deficit recorded in one year must be recovered the next, the forecast deficit for 2005–06 will be £30 million, and £51 million by the end of that year. That represents over 60 per cent. of the trust's annual income.

In its current circumstances, the trust looks in danger of becoming trapped in a downward spiral of financial difficulties, but it is not the only NHS trust reporting such problems. In 2002–03, seven NHS trusts reported deficits; by 2003–04, that had grown to 12 trusts. In both years, the Royal Cornwall Hospitals NHS Trust's Trelisk hospital, which serves me and my constituents, was sadly represented in those figures, despite providing excellent care and efficiency in every other respect. There is a concern that not only is the number of trusts reporting deficits rising, but the size of those deficits is growing. That is worrying, not just because of the north-south divide that was reported by other hon. Members, but because it is a rural-urban divide. Cornwall is a lot further south, but there is a rural-urban divide issue. Real consideration must be made of what the actual health care needs in rural areas are, not only in terms of age, but in terms of the provision of health care services in many different ways. I would appreciate the Minister's comments on what she may be able to do about such problems.

This morning's discussions touched only briefly on what the contributory factors to those deficits may be, and we have heard a lot about the problems of St. Richard's. I should like to speak briefly about some other areas that have contributed to the problems that other trusts reporting deficits have experienced. One of the first areas is the lack of financial understanding of many board members of hospital trusts. That has been highlighted by the conclusions of the National Audit Office and the Audit Commission's report on financial management, which was published a few weeks ago. It stated that in many cases,

"the Boards and Chief Executives failed to understand fully their body's financial position and ensure that action is being taken to remedy any problems."

The report also asked for recognition of the fact that boards often do not have the financial skills to drive forward improvements in their financial position. Although that may not be the case with the NHS trusts about which we have heard today, it is certainly the case with many other trusts that are reporting deficits.

The report also made a series of recommendations for executive and non-executive board members as well as for management, and I hope that the Minister will confirm that the Department will accept those recommendations and ensure that they are taken up by the NHS trust boards. Many of the recommendations make eminent sense, and it seems amazing that they are not already being taken on. They include ensuring that the position given by the financial reports is understood by all the board members, and that non-recurrent income is clearly identified.

I am listening very carefully to the hon. Lady, but I must advise her that she must confine her remarks to the subject of the debate, which is funding for the Royal West Sussex NHS trust.

Thank you, Mr. O'Hara. I hope that more will be done to help to ensure that board members understand and can predict their financial situation. The resource accounting and budgeting may not help them to do that. The concern is not simply about financial mismanagement, but about whether that represents good value for money for the taxpayer, and about the impact that recovering those deficits will have on the quality of care that patients receive. That concern has been highlighted.

The Royal West Sussex NHS Trust has made the difficult decision to cut an operating theatre and two wards to help to recover some of its deficits. Some of the other deficit recovery mechanisms have already been discussed this morning. The cuts may help to recover costs, but I am not clear how such measures will do anything but impact negatively on the quality of care that patients receive. The hon. Members for Chichester and for Arundel and South Downs (Mr. Herbert) gave further examples. Given that the trust has met all its key targets apart from that of financial management, it is difficult to see how it can resolve the problem without having an impact on patient care.

I have already referred briefly to the fact that something has to be done with the funding formula. Again, that reflects my experiences with the Royal Cornwall Hospitals NHS Trust, which lost a star rating not because of the level of patient care or the efficiency and hard work of the staff but because of financial management problems. There is a widespread concern among Members who represent rural areas that the existing funding formula does not accurately represent need, and I hope that it will be reviewed.

I have one last question for the Minister. Financial difficulties prevent the Royal West Sussex NHS Trust from switching to foundation trust status, which would give it greater financial independence. However, I wonder whether financial independence automatically means greater financial stability. The Healthcare Commission's review of NHS foundation trusts, published yesterday, found that four foundation trusts have a projected financial deficit and that changes such as payment by results remain major risks. Although payment by results may help the West Sussex trust recover from its financial difficulties, for many others it will cause huge difficulties.

Given that the Government intend all NHS trusts ultimately to achieve foundation status, and given that some of those foundation trusts already face financial difficulties, will the Minister allow those trusts and hospitals to go bust if they encounter the sort of financial difficulties faced by St. Richard's? That is the logical extension of market-based reforms in the NHS, but the question has not yet been answered. Is it the Minister's view that continual changes such as payment by results are increasing those risks—

Order. I remind the hon. Lady once again not to stray too far from the specific subject of the debate.

I would appreciate hearing the Minister's views; her answers are important not only for the Royal West Sussex NHS Trust but more widely. Once again, I congratulate the hon. Member for Chichester on securing the debate.

I, too, congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Chichester (Mr. Tyrie) and my other hon. Friends who have spoken. I am responding with two hats, Mr. O'Hara—as the Opposition health spokesman and as a West Sussex Member whose constituency is covered by the neighbouring trust.

I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Chichester particularly because he has form; he is well known for taking up the cause of local health establishments. Indeed, I remember a debate held in this Chamber some years ago on the King Edward VII hospital at Midhurst, and it is due in no small part to my hon. Friend's efforts that that hospital has survived. He is now rightly taking up the cause of another centre of excellence in his constituency that benefits many thousands of people in West Sussex and Hampshire. I record my warm congratulations to him on that.

I know the trust well; as I said, it is one of my neighbouring trusts. It has problems because of its size; as my hon. Friend said, it serves 212,000 people in the local community in West Sussex and in Hampshire. However, it is a particularly elderly population—I hasten to add that it is not quite as elderly as the population of Worthing—with about 25 per cent. being over 65. As we heard, a higher proportion are over 85, with all the additional costs on health care that that involves. The trust serves a large rural area that is difficult to manage.

The hospital has been hit particularly badly by its financial deficits, despite having an excellent reputation. My hon. Friend the Member for Arundel and South Downs (Mr. Herbert) pointed out that, at the current rate of growth, the deficit will be £142 million some years ahead. The accumulative deficit is forecast to be about £51 million in 2005–06. That is a large percentage of the trust's income. However, the report that the trust gave to the board earlier in the financial year warned of the risk that the trust would not break even in the year 2004–05. There is a heck of a difference between not breaking even and forecasting a deficit in the past year of about £14 million. I wonder how those projections could have been so askew.

The hospital is, by all accounts, excellent. It was awarded two stars by the Healthcare Commission, the reference costs are 90 per cent. of the national average, putting it in the best—15th—percentile, and the trust has been in the CHKS Ltd. top 40 UK hospitals for clinical performance for each of the five years. The hospital is consistently good, with excellent clinical outcomes, excellent patient satisfaction, excellent staff satisfaction—it is in the top 20 per cent. for quality of senior management leadership according to the NHS national staff survey—and it has held a whole hospital charter mark for excellence in public service for three successive year terms since 1996.

The hospital is doing its job rather well in terms of the quality of its health care and its reputation among its customers and staff, and is financially efficient. It has a highly respected chief executive who would be prized at any other trust in the country. As my hon. Friend the Member for Chichester said, the hospital is largely doing what the Government want it to.

The real problem with the finances is the artificiality of the way in which accounting is done. My hon. Friend told us about resource accounting problems, and we have heard that the tariff system has been partially implemented for elective care only, which has yielded just over £1 million in extra income for the Royal West Sussex NHS Trust, whereas full implementation was expected to raise an extra £10 million in this financial year, and to reach £16 million in additional income by 2008–09, which would turn the deficit into surplus. Will the Minister explain why the brakes were applied in the tariff procedure applied to the trust?

Despite lengthy negotiations with the Western Sussex primary care trust and having sought strategic health authority arbitration over the past two years, the Royal West Sussex NHS Trust is paid significantly below the tariff—the assessment is 80 per cent. of the tariff in 2004–05. That explains why the trust can be efficient yet in deficit. The key issue is that of local price. The trust is clearly efficient, but is paid significantly below the national average.

The increase in trust activity is another issue. As was pointed out in the PricewaterhouseCoopers public interest report, the increase in trust activity has not been matched by an increase in income. The report also says:

"Boards are under . . . competing . . . pressures to achieve clinical targets set by the Department of Health and to achieve financial balance."

That is the problem that we face.

Where does the trust go from here? My hon. Friend told us that it has come up with total savings targets of £5.1 million for the coming financial year, including a cost reduction programme of £1.2 million. The trust is working closely with the local PCT; together they have identified 10 streams of service redesign, which are projected to yield savings of £9 million across the local economy over three years. It has really pulled out all the stops, but the trust has indicated that the current level of savings of £5.1 million is the maximum that could be achieved this year, and that the board does not feel able, on the grounds of governance, to agree to a business plan that cannot realistically be delivered. I am sure that that is what the Government would want it to do. We do not want trust boards to cut costs for the sake of meeting artificial targets that could seriously imperil the quality and level of health care offered by the trusts. That is what the board appears, rightly, to want to avoid.

How does the Royal West Sussex NHS Trust balance its financial position? As we have heard from my hon. Friends the Members for Bognor Regis and Littlehampton (Mr. Gibb) and for Arundel and South Downs, it could be forced to take a number of cost-cutting measures. However, the hospital already has a low nursing ratio, so would that mean even shorter stays in a hospital that is already efficient in its throughput of patients? That, in turn, would mean pressure on rehabilitation services. As I mentioned, there are already severe pressures on the PCT in dealing with an increasingly elderly population, and it would be a false economy not to continue its current work. The situation would come full circle as those people would end up back in hospital, with all the financial and personal misery that that would cause.

What will the hospital do? Will it reduce the number of operations? The sticking-plaster effect of the sale of assets is purely a short-term solution. Will it have a recruitment freeze? That would lead in the short term only to a reduction in the work that it could carry out. Will it have to cut the information technology budget, and what is the future of the £4.2 million running costs of the treatment centre?

As has been said, many of the measures that have contributed to a financial deficit are out of the hospital trust's hands: targets to reduce waiting times; a shortage of skilled staff; the new GP contract; "Agenda for Change"; the new consultant contract; the measures against MRSA; the European working time directive; implementation of electronic patient records; payment by results; and quality and outcome frameworks. All of these measures, rightly or wrongly, were imposed by the Government, and the hospital trust must comply with them. That is the problem.

My final point is about scapegoating—who is being blamed for the problems. We have already seen the resignation of the trust's chairman, which in part was down to the defence of the chief executive, on whom pressure was put to resign. However, he has an excellent reputation, and the chairman fell on her sword in his place. That is happening all over the place. In the same strategic health authority—Surrey and Sussex—we lost the chairman, the chief executive and three non-executive directors, who left the trust board in May in the light of a £30 million deficit. The chairman of the Bradford Teaching Hospitals foundation trust was sacked, and the Royal Wolverhampton Hospitals NHS Trust non-executive board was ordered to stand down. The story goes on and on. There is a real fear that people in both executive and non-executive roles are being scapegoated throughout the country, but particularly in the Surrey and Sussex strategic health authority area, where we seem to have had a disproportionate number of dismissals in the past couple of years.

That problem has been pointed out in the Health Service Journal, not least by the person responsible for the Monitor report and the head of the NHS Appointments Commission. The latter has acknowledged that under current arrangements non-executives can be left vulnerable:

"The huge number of committees is disastrous. It removes things from the board's agenda and means the board cannot get a grip on what's going on."

The journal article continues:

"A similar point is made by Jan Filochowski, NHS Fellow at the Judge Institute of Management at Cambridge University. He has seen more than his fair share of struggling NHS organisations in his role as a management troubleshooter . . . He says: 'In my experience of going round the country, I find that boards, chairs and non-executives are sometimes afraid of being challenging enough or do not know how to be challenging enough in order to unearth problems and deal with them.'

There is a balance to be struck between supportiveness and scrutiny. 'Boards need to have both.'"

My point is that there are serious financial pressures, and in many cases, as with the Royal West Sussex NHS Trust, those pressures are on hospitals that are delivering what the Government want and doing a good job.

I finish with some questions for the Minister. What help will be forthcoming from the Government? Her Department has said that it is prepared to consider sympathetically the financial plight of some indebted trusts. We are looking not for bail-outs but, as my hon. Friend the Member for Chichester has said, for the trusts that are doing a good job to be paid what they are due. What is the full extent of the problem? Reports have suggested that deficits of hospital trusts amount to at least £1 billion and that they are getting worse. Where has the money gone? Are the Government really prepared to let an excellent hospital and hospital trust like St. Richard's go to the wall simply by doing their bidding and by having to work within a very artificial financial situation?

I congratulate the hon. Member for Chichester (Mr. Tyrie) on securing today's debate on funding for the Royal West Sussex NHS Trust. I also thank the hon. Members for Bognor Regis and Littlehampton (Mr. Gibb) and for Arundel and South Downs (Mr. Herbert) and the Opposition Front-Bench speakers, the hon. Members for Falmouth and Camborne (Julia Goldsworthy) and for East Worthing and Shoreham (Tim Loughton), for their contributions.

There have been some thoughtful contributions today, reflecting the complexity of issues in terms of the demands on the health service. Every day it seems that there is a discovery—a new drug or a new way of helping people. In my primary role as the Public Health Minister I am interested in what we can do at the prevention end of health services to reduce the number of people who need treatment for cancer or coronary heart disease, which are our two major killers. Excellent work is going on in our hospitals, but there is also recognition by those working in the NHS that we could do more to reduce the number of patients presenting in the first place. That demonstrates the complexity of the health service and how it is run.

Local needs vary around the country. For example, I represent Don Valley in Doncaster in South Yorkshire, which may differ greatly on a number of health indices from Surrey and Sussex, although there will be some commonalities in other areas. It was for those reasons that we felt that we could not micro-manage hospitals and services from the centre and that it was right and proper, while having a national framework, to ensure that decisions about health service needs were made at a more local level.

A number of concerns have been expressed today about St. Richard's and its financial situation. I agree that the trust and other local NHS organisations in Surrey and Sussex are facing significant financial challenges, but I am assured that people are trying to address them. There is no easy solution in some of these areas. I will try to respond to the specifics today and if I do not cover everything in the time that I have left I will write to hon. Members.

First, as has been pointed out, performance at the trust has been consistently good, and I pay tribute to all the staff who are dedicated to the process of delivering good quality services. The trust has achieved and continues to achieve the national standards set out in the NHS plan. Published figures for May 2005 show that no patients are waiting more than nine months for in-patient treatment. Published figures for March 2005 show that no patients are waiting more than 17 weeks for out-patient treatment. Latest published figures for accident and emergency waits show that 98.8 per cent. of patients spent less than four hours in the accident and emergency department, and the trust qualified for all incentive payments. One hundred per cent. of urgent referrals for suspected cancer were seen by a specialist within two weeks.

Given those results and that efficiency, it has been asked why the trust finds itself in this difficult financial situation. Again, that demonstrates the complexities of running hospitals. It is not beyond our comprehension that, even while there are efficiencies and good clinical service, there can still be underlying problems of financial management. That is one issue that the discussions between the strategic health authority, the primary care trusts and the hospital are covering. Under the payment by results regime, the trust has a reference cost index of 90, as the hon. Member for Chichester said. That is indicative of costs efficiency and there is no doubt that under payment by results, over the next few years the hospital will benefit.

Could the Minister say categorically when the hospital will be able to benefit from obtaining the full national tariff under payment by results?

The roll-out is expected over the next three to four years, so I cannot give a specific answer about that hospital, but we have identified a problem in the system that has meant that hospitals such as St. Richard's have not been receiving the payment that they deserve, and that is why we have introduced the new system. I hope that the hon. Gentleman can understand that it is a national system whose roll-out must be handled carefully. However, payment by results is not the only answer to the problems faced by the trust in trying to overcome its forecast deficit of £33,843,000 for 2005–06. We know through the independent review that in October 2004 the trust reported a forecast deficit of just over £9 million. That was a significant increase on the figure in the report of the previous month. I think that the hon. Member for East Worthing and Shoreham asked how the figures could change so substantially within a month.

In October 2004, the SHA board agreed to commission an independent review to advise the SHA, among others, on whether the trust had a viable and robust plan to deliver financial balance in the current financial year and on a long-term sustainable basis. The review found that the trust had not taken decisive action early enough and had relied on the availability of non-recurrent funding and the prospect of a lasting solution. In addition, the financial recovery plans and contingency plans were not considered deliverable. The independent review was presented to the trust and in December it accepted all the recommendations, including the recommendations to consider a more focused approach to recovery planning and to examine critically all the areas for cost savings advocated in the SHA's "improving financial health" guidance. So the hospital has acknowledged that it is not just a question of how payment by results will help it in future and that it has to consider the problems of financial management overall.

In March the trust's auditors, PricewaterhouseCoopers, wrote to the trust board expressing concern about the financial standing of the trust and issued a public interest report. The report advised that arrangements should be put in place to support the trust's cash position while it recovers, that the trust needs to put in place a cash management strategy that enables it to return to normal supply and payment practices, that that should be done in partnership with the Western Sussex PCT and the SHA and that the Department of Health should be involved if necessary to ensure that the needs of the local health economy are addressed. It is a complex situation.

By far the most important single sentence in the PWC report to which the Minister refers is the one that states that an increase in the trust's activity level

"has not been matched by a similar increase in income."

The Minister has said that the hospital has not been receiving the payment that it deserves for its treatments, but at the same time she seems to be suggesting that even if it had been, it would still have a financial problem. All the people who have considered this matter extremely carefully have concluded that that is not the case. If the hospital were properly paid for the treatment that it was providing, there would not be a deficit at St. Richard's; there would be a surplus. That is the nub of the problem.

I am not convinced that that is the only part of the problem. There are other areas of deficiency in which the hospital has to address how it runs the organisation and how it can improve. For example, there have been difficulties and work has been done on reducing the length of stays in emergency admissions. A number of other issues are included in the discussions with the SHA and the Department of Health on improving the way in which the hospital's finances and services are managed. The issue is about much more than just how payment by result will help to ease the situation.

Rationing was mentioned earlier in the debate. The local NHS must ensure that it uses its resources to commission appropriate levels of service. Over the next two years, PCT income will increase by some 17 per cent. PCTs can commission for required levels of activity and service, but there must be local discussion about what services and activity the commissioning trust wants.

But how will issues such as the length of stay in hospitals be dealt with if the number of district nurses is simultaneously cut by 30 per cent.?

I note the hon. Gentleman's point about district nurses. I do not have full details about that situation, but PCTs, SHAs and trusts have responsibility for assessing capacity and work force requirements for the services that they are to deliver. In doing that, they must consider the issues surrounding services in the community and in the hospitals. There must be some synergy in determining when people leave hospital and the services that would be needed in the community to shorten a hospital stay, if that is appropriate, but I cannot comment in detail on the case mentioned by the hon. Gentleman.

As I said, the local NHS must ensure that it uses its resources to commission appropriate levels of service. Although the Royal West Sussex NHS Trust is efficient in several areas and is rated highly, there is an understanding that more needs to be done in respect of its overall financial accountability. Every year, it has failed to break even or to recover its position, so the debt problem has accumulated. I give the example of a neighbouring trust, the Worthing and Southlands Hospitals NHS Trust, which is in circumstances similar to those of the Royal West Sussex. It has a relatively low reference cost. It is funded at a similar tariff, yet it broke even in the financial year 2004–05. I am not saying that every trust's situation is exactly the same, but we must look more deeply into why another trust in similar circumstances seems to be doing better in certain areas.

The Minister said that we need to look more deeply, but she has failed to provide anything of substance when she does that. As far as I can tell, the only thing that she has come up with so far is the suggestion that, despite the fact that the hospital is more efficient than almost any other and despite the fact that it does extremely well on almost every indicator, it needs to shorten the length of stay in hospital. However, it already has among the shortest stay lengths of any hospital trust.

That was just one example. The fact is that the hospital has failed to deliver robust recovery plans—that is part of the discussions at present. [Interruption.] It is one of the reasons why the public interest report was published and why the SHA and others are working very hard with the trust to deal with the situation and to resolve some of its problems. I am sure that the SHA would be happy to speak with hon. Members in more detail, should they require it, about some of the other issues around recovering the situation—it is not just a straightforward matter of cutting services. Improving services and making them more efficient is not always about more money; it may be about making better use of resources.

In the time left, I wish to say something about super-hospitals. As I have said before, we have no plans to dictate on super-hospitals. It is for local commissioners to decide, in the interest of their local communities, what services are needed. The fact is that more money has gone into the NHS under this Government than ever before. PCTs will receive large increases during the next two years. Financial management accountability is absolutely right and proper, and that means that we must analyse clearly the small number of organisations that are going into deficit.

The Minister may find, as I did, that this issue is immensely complicated; but he will know that on-course bookmaking on an approved race course is rendered legal by reason of the provisions of section 1(5)(a) of the Betting, Gaming and Lotteries Act 1963. As well as responsibility for the administration and conduct of on-course betting rings, the National Joint Pitch Council—NJPC—has a stated aim of encouraging the continuing development of on-course betting markets for the benefit of racegoers, bookmakers, race courses and, through a strong starting price, off-course punters.

Prior to 1998, most in the industry recognised that there was some need to modify the structure of on-course betting. That is why it was recommended by the Horserace Betting Levy Board review committee and agreed by all interested parties that the seniority system used by the old regime to determine pitch positions be maintained in principle, but amended to provide greater flexibility. A system of transferring seniority by auction was then introduced by the expiry date of 7 October 1998. The old regime lists of bookmakers at each racecourse were to be merged into a new methodology for determining the various pitch positions. The NJPC was meant to design this methodology, which had at its heart the existing seniority of bookmakers.

I am concerned, however, because what I have seen and what I have heard from several people suggests that the NJPC utterly failed to implement the methodology fairly, impartially and reasonably.

I thank the right hon. Member for Chingford and Woodford Green (Mr. Duncan Smith) for giving way, and I should like to support his raising of the issue by highlighting the case of my constituents Donald and Garry Morrill, who have been adversely affected by the changes introduced by the NJPC. At their home racecourse of Brighton, they had a seniority position of No. 6 in 1998; however, after the changes, they were allocated position No. 14. Such changes have been reflected at race courses throughout Britain, and it has caused my constituents a great deal of financial hardship.

The hon. Lady will find that we have become one family, because one member of that family lives in my constituency. We may be looking across the Chamber at each other, but perhaps we have just joined hands. I hope that in doing so I do not ruin her future career.

I became concerned about this matter, because the more I looked into it, the more I realised that the process had been skewed at the outset. I rarely apply for Westminster Hall debates or for Adjournment debates in the House unless I think that a genuine injustice is taking place, and I really believe that that is the case.

I have become interested in the matter, much like the hon. Member for Hove (Ms Barlow), because my constituent John Morrill, from the same family, and all his other relations to whom she referred, have all been involved historically in the industry. Their livelihoods have been damaged as a result of the NJPC's failure to do as it was meant to. However, the Morrill family are not alone. Many more have suffered as well, but they have been unable for various reasons to take up the issue. Part of the problem is that when bookmakers have challenged the process, the NJPC and the Horserace Betting Levy Board have failed to provide any clarity or define why there were discrepancies and why the methodology was not evenly applied to national, consistent criteria, as agreed by all parties.

My constituents and those of the hon. Lady trade under the name H. Murrel and Taffy, and between them they have many years' experience of trading as on-course bookmakers. In 1963, Mr. Don Morrill was granted a bookmaker's permit under the provisions of the 1963 Act. The family business of bookmakers has been conducted by John Morrill's family, Don Morrill's family and now Garry's family since 1929, when their grandfather started the business in his own right. The business has strong family links.

A seniority listing means everything to a bookmaker, so the start date when they commenced trading is crucial. It is vital, and I say to the Minister that until one gets one's head around that point, it is difficult to understand these matters. My constituents and those of the hon. Lady, like all other bookmakers, guard their start dates as most of us would guard our birth certificates. Ultimately, they are the only asset that a bookmaker has.

At the heart of the present failure lies a discrepancy. Although the NJPC agreed that it would incorporate the existing seniority lists from the different bookmakers' protection associations, it has admitted—in part and rather grudgingly—that it did not do that as per the agreement. After it contrived the methodology, it now seems to be blaming everyone else for why that did not take place. For example, I have a letter that was sent by the then chief executive of the NJPC on 6 November 2001 to a constituent of mine. The letter states: "The Southern BPA lists"—the seniority lists—

"were not complete and as such continuity of the information on dates was not available. However, this had no effect on the determination of the Bookmakers List."

That is utter nonsense. As I understand it, he is backed up by Mr. Brack—I want to come back to this—who states quite a lot that there is no connection between the bodies and talks about their being independent, yet the words used almost seem like they were drafted by the same person.

In a statement in 2004, Mr. Brack said: "The affiliated associations"—I have referred to them already—

"for the Southern . . . and Welsh . . . areas were unable or unwilling to supply their own lists."

One would think that the process could not be undertaken if they did not supply their lists, yet my constituent wrote to those same groups and received a letter stating that

"at a meeting held at Brighton racecourse, Richard Marriott (NJPC) did congratulate the Southern BPA in supplying the allocation, seniority and waiting lists to the NJPC in a prompt and efficient manner, as witnessed by Mr. A. H. Styles."

Another letter went on to say that

"the seniority lists of the southern BPA were in order at the time the NJPC took over in October"

of the same year.

Let us take the version from the levy board and the NJPC and compare it with yet another document, which is a letter that was written almost at the same time, in 2001. It was from the same person, Mr. Reams, who was the chief executive who made the previous statement, and was written to a Mr. Overton, who was involved in the industry. Mr. Reams answered a question from Mr. Overton by stating:

"I can confirm that the methodology used to determine commensurate seniority was based on commencement dates in the ring either of you personally or you as an inheritor."

That completely knocks the first view on the head. How can there be any seniority if apparently the lists were never received and if they were not in order? Yet, somehow, in that letter, Mr. Reams is able to assure the individual concerned of his seniority. That is utter nonsense.

My constituent and others have been involved in this dispute with the NJPC for nearly six years and are no closer to an agreement. Even a cursory glance at this process suggests that the NJPC is engaged in a protracted attempt to grind down my constituent and the hon. Lady's constituents in the hope that they have a limit to their resources that is less than that of the NJPC.

Perhaps there is a need to explain why this argument over seniority matters so much. I will attempt to do that. From October 1998, the NJPC introduced a new system of seniority whereby the seniority positions held by bookmakers became seniority positions on what is essentially a picking list. That resulted in a modification to the seniority system in that those on the bookmakers' list for a ring became entitled, in order of number on the picking list, to choose their pitch in order of seniority, instead of simply being allocated the next highest numbered pitch available after allocation to more senior bookmakers in the ring.

The 1998 rules also enabled and permitted trading in seniority positions so that a seniority position now had a realisable capital value—I want to return to that later. For my constituent and others, we are talking about something that is significantly less than was the case with the equivalent positions that they held in 1998—the hon. Lady has alluded to this—because they have been given an improper allocation pick from which to choose a pitch. The position of the pitch is all-important. It helps to determine market price and the access of would-be punters.

The relationship between the NJPC and the levy board is well worth considering. I advise the Minister to think carefully about this. We hear constant assurances that they are separated. I know that the levy board is due to be wound up, but I do not think that that has a bearing on the matter because the history of this is part of the injustice. I am concerned about the peculiar nature of the relationship.

The NJPC derives its powers from the certificate of approval granted to racecourses by the levy board. Recently Mr Brack, chief executive of the levy board, said in an interesting statement that it is not

"part of the HBLB's role to ensure or guarantee the correctness of each and every decision of the NJPC."

He goes on to say:

"The NJPC is an independent body whose presence, role and continued effectiveness the HBLB insists upon as part of its approval for racecourse betting."

That is interesting, but if it is so independent, how is it that the levy board has the final say on the rules governing the operation of the NJPC? If it is so independent, how is it that the levy board also contributed about £50,000 towards the costs incurred by the NJPC in dealing with Office of Fair Trading investigation?

The NJPC is part of the levy board's pension fund, and when I examined its accounts I was staggered to find it is in deficit by £29 million. How is it that the levy board, which is involved with the NJPC, has decided to sort out, resolve and pay off that deficit with no reference to the fact that the NJPC is a partner and should also make some contribution? It is also a matter of some concern that this money should be used for that purpose in the first place. That is the most peculiar independence I have ever heard of. It is certainly is not the definition of the independence applied to a nation state, and it does not apply here. Those bodies are not independent: they are one and the same.

I am concerned that the NJPC, under that guise, has gone on to create further confusion because it has said that it is not contractually bound or obliged to the bookmakers. Oh really? I thought that was what it was set up for in the first place. Every day, as I understand it, if a licensed bookmaker wishes to operate from the ring, they have to sign the official badge box list and attendance register and pay £11 to the NJPC. One might ask, "What for?" I would like to read what is written on that list that must be signed every day, and on the badge that the racecourse supplies:

"The issue of a betting badge is conditional upon the Bookmaker, his Authorised Representatives and employers agreeing to be bound by the provisions of the National Pitch Rules and the Rules of Racing."

It also states that the rules are

"promulgated by the National Joint Pitch Council".

On the badge from the racecourse it states categorically that the racecourse

"reserves the right at its discretion to expel anyone who fails to comply with the above"—

that is, the rules of the NJPC. If it has no obligation or contractual obligation, what is the money for? Why are the bookmakers forced to sign some sort of contract, and what is the point of it all? One might ask what the point of the NJPC is in the first place if it discharges all of its responsibilities by a series of denials.

I turn to another area of real concern about the operation of the NJPC. There seem to be many concerns about the way in which some of the earlier—perhaps even current—transactions and sales of pitches were conducted. That leads me to concerns about the possibility of fraud. As we know, the NJPC retained a monopoly on the sale of pitch auctions: from 1998 to December 1999 it had a sales hammer turnover of £22 million which earned it a commission at 12 per cent.—before it was forced to reduce it—of £2 million in that year. However, I am concerned about how those matters were accounted for, which has led to suggestions of insider trading.

I shall draw the attention of the Minister to some documents that I have. When the NJPC conducted its business the rules were very clear. It was not supposed to deal with people who did not have a bookmaker's licence. However, I have a letter from the NJPC to a Mr. Nickels and an invoice that shows that the sale of what was essentially a bookmaking business took place to a Mr. Hyman. The NJPC confirms that:the sale of what was essentially a bookmaking business took place to a Mr. Hyman. The NJPC confirms that. It states:

"Mr. Hyman's first permit was registered with Basildon Magistrates Court on 13 July 1999."

The sale took place in December 1998—one year before that. So, the NJPC broke its own rules. It also broke its rules because it is supposed to sell not to an individual but to a registered company, which did not happen in this case. Furthermore, I have seen documents relating to much of the same process that show that the amount that the business was sold for did not go through the books properly. We are talking about a private sale—not the sale of a company—for £25,000, yet the invoice received from the NJPC, which includes its commission, demonstrates that the business was sold for a lower price.

I do not have reams of evidence, but I suggest that there are real problems and issues concerning what took place in the early years. There is a general undercurrent of feeling that if such things were happening in the City of London, we would not tolerate them. We would have looked into the problem. It would be referred to as insider dealing, which is not acceptable. However, because it is affecting racing, nobody really cares.

My last concern, which I want to explain to the Minister clearly, is about the way in which the new process for selling pitches opens the door to abuse, without proper checks and balances in the form of an organisation that we have respect for and believe has responsibility. I do not believe that the organisation has responsibility. Criminal money, possibly from outside the country, may be used. We hear stories abounding about Russian money and about others intent on perverting processes for their own ends. There is lots of money available. We have seen money travelling in a way that was not seen previously.

If an organisation gets control of certain pitches by the rails, it can begin to control the starting price. Controlling the starting price can lead to a skewing of what is, essentially, a marketplace. There are no checks and balances in which I have confidence. I have confidence in the organisation that is meant to be looking after the issue, but what I have read so far demonstrates that it is an organisation in which we can have little or no respect or trust. That is what my concern is about. Opening the door to large sums of money and possible future control without real checks and balances could be an absolute disaster.

The view of punters is much the same. They believe that the reduction in the number of those doing business in the ring leads to lack of real competition. The OFT agrees with that. Michael Singer, the former chairman of the National Association for the Protection of Punters, has said that

"choice is now very limited for punters. They cannot bet small amounts easily anymore, which is a shame. The big boys take over and the long established bookies get pushed aside".

There is no other course but for a proper investigation of what is going on. The running and control of betting should be of serious concern to us. The concerns are that the industry is not under control. I understand why the NJPC is doing its level best to draw a veil over its early operations. It knows that once those operations are opened up to scrutiny, many bookmakers will apply to have their damaged careers rectified by the NJPC. It is blocking that.

The concerns about possible criminal involvement in the sale and purchase of pitches will grow. We need to do something about it now. Newspapers—the News of the World and others—are full of such stories. That is why I say to the Minister that an inquiry is required. The running of an important industry cannot continue without proper checks and balances. Were this any other important industry in Britain, that point would be accepted.

More particularly, those in my constituency, the constituents of the hon. Member for Hove and others demand natural justice. If the House stands for anything, it is to ensure that people such as those constituents, who are not big individuals in the business world, cannot be crushed by others and have their access to justice swept aside by those who refuse to give them proper redress. Those responsible for the issue are also responsible for decency, fairness and ensuring that the industry deals with such cases in a proper and reasonable manner. My constituents, those of the hon. Lady and many others demand that they get a proper hearing. I believe that we, and the people of Britain who take an interest in the matter, have the right to demand that an inquiry should take place before things get out of hand.

In initiating this debate the right hon. Member for Chingford and Woodford Green (Mr. Duncan Smith) has usefully drawn attention to a subject that is of tremendous interest to his constituents and to the constituents of my hon. Friend the Member for Hove (Ms Barlow), who made an intervention earlier. Some serious allegations have been made, and it is right and proper that I use the 10 minutes available to me to address them.

The issue is sensitive, and it would be inappropriate for me, as the right hon. Gentleman knows, to comment on the particular allegations that he made, particularly because those allegations are currently before the courts. There is a strict rule in the House that Ministers do not refer to matters that are currently before the courts.

I could not agree more with the right hon. Gentleman, however, that on-course bookmakers must, like all other sectors of the gambling industry, be properly regulated. In particular, I agree that it is essential that gambling should be crime-free, and carried out in a fair and open way. Those were the key objectives of the Gambling Act 2005, on which there was cross-party consensus. The Act will, for the first time, bring bookmakers within the jurisdiction of a new national regulator, the Gambling Commission. I want to return to that point but, given what the right hon. Gentleman has said, it would be useful for me to start my response by outlining the history of the establishment of the National Joint Pitch Council, the involvement of the Horserace Betting Levy Board and the Government's association with those bodies.

As the right hon. Gentleman will know, the levy board is a non-departmental public body established by the Betting, Gaming and Lotteries Act 1963. Its main functions are to collect payments from bookmakers and to use them for the three statutory purposes set out in the 1963 Act: the improvement of breeds of horses; the advancement and encouragement of veterinary science or veterinary education; and the improvement of horse racing. Since 1972, the board has also had the responsibility for issuing certificates of approval to race courses, and providing for the location of betting rings for on-course bookmakers at those race courses.

At that time, the National Association of Bookmakers had responsibility for the administration of betting rings, under agreement with the Racecourse Association. However, in 1997, after seven years of disputes, that agreement was terminated by the Racecourse Association. In order to ensure that the betting rings were properly administered, the levy board instigated a review. Following an extensive consultation with all parties, it recommended that a new administrative body, to be known as the National Joint Pitch Council, should be established. It is a condition of the levy board's certificates of approval that race courses observe the national pitch rules that the board has endorsed. There are extensive rules on the conduct of those races—I do not know whether the right hon. Gentleman has studied them.

It is important to say that the NJPC is not a public body. Its functions are essentially administrative, and relate to the conduct of bookmakers on the race course. In a sense, it replaced an old perceived evil of the system being dead men's shoes—that is someone has something for life, passes on and someone else comes in. It was an administrative commercial arrangement between bookmakers on the race course. The NJPC introduced modernisation into betting.

I appreciate the Minister's explanation of matters, but I do not agree. I pay tribute to the right hon. Member for Chingford and Woodford Green (Mr. Duncan Smith). He made a marvellous introductory speech. The changes were less about new administrative rules and more about race courses selling pitches to the highest bidder. The fear that was expressed about the opportunity for people to move into racing to launder money is a real threat. Indeed, some one-day pitches were sold for enormous sums, such as £50,000, £60,000 or £70,000. My hon. Friend the Minister cannot slip aside such matters by saying that such practice was the result of new administrative measures. That was not the truth; it was about getting large sums to race courses.

Such a practice was clearly used to change the old arrangement, which was dead men's shoes. It established an auction and is a commercial administrative arrangement. Of course, it is important to bear in mind that all bookmakers are licensed by magistrates throughout the country. The right hon. Member for Chingford and Woodford Green will know that, whenever there is a commercial arrangement, there is money behind that arrangement.

The right hon. Gentleman made serious allegations about the nature of the money. Of course, the Government are concerned about money laundering and bad money, but there has been an Office of Fair Trading inquiry. As for the particular case referred to by the right hon. Gentleman, two court cases have been lost or dismissed. In that sense, it is important that the Government deal with matters on the basis of the material that is available to us. He suggested that the introduction of the open auction of on-course betting pitches has allowed potential fraud or crime to infiltrate the market. He further implied that the NJPC is complicit in that infiltration.

It is important, as the intervention of my hon. Friend the Member for Mansfield (Mr. Meale) indicated by, to say that the auctions are open auctions for pitches that have been implemented by the NJPC at the request of the levy board to ensure greater freedom and transparency.

The auctions are not all open auctions. There are now private sales. The document to which I referred earlier covered unofficial private sales that no one has checked. It is that failure to keep a proper check and balance to which I draw attention.

I am grateful that the right hon. Gentleman made clear the nature of the matter that he has introduced today. I took the opportunity to study the existing auction rules. They are extensive and they are available. I also contacted the levy board and asked whether the matter had been raised by the right hon. Gentleman in the past year with its chairman, Robert Hughes, former chief executive of the Local Government Association, and its deputy chair, Sir John Robb. There has been no such relationship in the past year, but the rules stand as they are; they are there to be interpreted.

The right hon. Gentleman will know that the Government have brought forward legislation and have said that they want to regulate gambling with the Gambling Commission, which will take over from the Gaming Board. An allegation of fraud or corruption must rightly be considered by the courts, the police and others and, to date, that has not led to a prosecution or conviction. When rules exist, individuals will choose to challenge them to say that they are unfair.

As this is a debate of local interest and a number of hon. Members wish to make a contribution, it is likely that, in accordance with Mr. Speaker's ruling, the Front-Bench Opposition spokespersons will be limited to five minutes each.

I am grateful that so many colleagues are present today to debate neighbourhood policing in West Mercia, particularly when they could be in Trafalgar square celebrating with what seemed to be a lot of other people. I welcome the opportunity to have this debate. Policing was an issue on the doorsteps of pretty much every local housing estate and local community that I visited during the recent election campaign. It is good so soon after it to have the opportunity to talk about policing, primarily in west Worcester, but focusing on South Worcestershire division and, importantly, Worcester city itself.

I shall begin by outlining a few facts about West Mercia constabulary. The Minister will be aware of them, but it is useful to put into context what I want to say about neighbourhood policing. West Mercia is the largest land-locked force: it covers an area of 7,429 sq km. It is the fourth largest police area in England and Wales, with a population of just over 1.1 million people. There are the equivalent of 483 people to every police officer in West Mercia, compared with an average for English non-metropolitan forces of 461, so just to reach the average, West Mercia would need an extra 100 police officers.

The constabulary works with 13 crime and disorder partnerships, two two-tier county authorities and two unitary authorities. It covers 652 parishes and 298 council wards, and it holds the Investors in People standard and the charter mark. It has 2,422 police officers, 1,657 staff, 300 special constables and 83 community support officers. The net budget of West Mercia is £172.8 million, and it has a cost base of some 95 per cent. of the average police force per head of population. It is one of the least well-resourced authorities in the country. Its spend of £141.97 per head compares with £151 for the average shire force. It would need an extra £9 million to become average in terms of its funding.

Having said that, West Mercia has consistently met, indeed exceeded, its 2 per cent. efficiency targets for each of the last five years. Since 1999–2000 it has produced £19.8 million in efficiency savings. It is a low-spend police force, but there is real concern on the doorstep about the balance of funding for the police between Government grant, on the one hand, and local council tax. Government grant, at £92.24 per head, compares with £107.16 for the average shire force, whereas the local council tax precept for a band D property is £143.17, compared with £83.68 for neighbouring authorities.

Having outlined the issues about resources, I wish to focus on performance. West Mercia has improved tremendously during the last 12 months. Recorded crime is down by 11 per cent.; the sanctioned detection rate is up by 5.4 per cent.; domestic burglary is down by 19 per cent. in volume and the detection rate has gone up by 6 per cent.; for vehicle crime, there has been a 10 per cent. reduction in volume and a 4 per cent. increase in detection; and for violent crime, a 15 per cent. reduction in volume and a 4 per cent. increase in detection. I shall repeat that figure, Mr. O'Hara, because it cropped up a lot during the election campaign: violent crime has gone down in West Mercia by 15 per cent. Perhaps next time accurate statistics will be used in local election material in the West Mercia area.

The constabulary has developed four tracks of policing: responsive policing; targeted policing; local policing; and partnership policing. In doing so, it has laid effective foundations for neighbourhood policing, especially in establishing the role of local beat managers and realigning boundaries with those of local partners. West Mercia did that at a time when many other police services were structured almost entirely around a demand-led, reactive police model.

West Mercia's chief constable, Paul West, has identified four local neighbourhood policing principles, which support and complement those that the Home Office is developing nationally. They form the basis of the minimum standard of service that he would like to ensure is delivered to all local communities in the force area. First, members of the public should be provided with up-to-date and easily accessible information concerning their local beat police officer, including details of the geographic area for which they are responsible, their name and contact details.

Secondly, local beat officers should work as part of a team and be able to draw on generalist colleagues to provide cover when they are unavailable and on specialist support to deal with more complex problems. The team should also include at least one community support officer available to provide high-profile foot patrol deployment in response to local need.

I congratulate my hon. Friend on securing the debate. Does he agree that community support officers have been invaluable in recent years in West Mercia? We have a scheme in Telford whereby a number of community support officers are allocated to key wards that require regeneration and they often patrol in partnership with police officers so that they have all the powers at their disposal. That increases the number of visible uniformed officers in communities when they are needed and in the right places.

I absolutely agree with my hon. Friend—community support officers are vital. Later in my speech I will talk about a CSO on my patch to demonstrate the high visibility nature of his police work as well as the active community work that goes on, which is often unsung and helps to build up trust in the police force.

The third part of the neighbourhood policing model laid out by Paul West is that local policing teams should be led by nominated supervisors and should have well-established and formal links with other public and voluntary sector agencies that also provide daily services, such as the local authority, the housing association and social services.

The fourth element of the model is that schools, both primary and secondary, should be considered integral features of local communities and be served by local officers and local policing teams. My right hon. Friend the Minister for Schools is unable to be here today, but when I asked her about neighbourhood policing in West Mercia, she told me about PC Dave Wilkins from Redditch, who is heavily committed to the community that he serves. His work extends from surgeries to work with schools, which includes doing assemblies, issuing newsletters and raising issues such as fireworks in the autumn, or parking and antisocial behaviour. Outside those general duties he meets local residents to try to resolve minor difficulties and disputes—the sort that we often get involved with as Members of Parliament.

PC Wilkins is often on the beat, but he also spends a lot of time developing and organising community events such as the annual Redditch fun run, a community theatre group or even local environmental projects. His work means that he touches a lot of people's lives but, crucially, his contacts are not always about crime. His community knowledge, his contacts and his early intervention in problems are actually vital in his work to tackle crime and the fear of crime. My right hon. Friend said that Redditch is lucky to have officers like him.

To colleagues, supervisors and, more important, the public in Worcester, Giuseppe—Joe—Facciano, a CSO from the Barbourne beat, is a round peg in a round hole. He willingly goes the extra mile. Joe cares passionately about his beat and is genuinely upset by damage, litter and antisocial behaviour. In his professional time and his own time he contributes to community well-being. His ready rapport with elderly residents, a group who often feel vulnerable in today's world, helps enormously and, along with his accordion playing at community events, is an example of the voluntary commitment that he makes to the people of Barbourne.

Beat manager Paul Green says that the drop in crime since Joe's arrival is not coincidental. Joe's relationship with local people is impossible to quantify accurately, but it raises the community's perception of the importance and value of community support officers and perhaps refutes some of the scepticism that can be seen in the claim that CSOs are a poor substitute for "the real thing".

The South Worcester division of West Mercia was restructured in 2000, to create local policing units that are coterminous with the local government boundaries, at parish, town, ward and district level, in order to accommodate the requirements of the Crime and Disorder Act 1998 for police to reduce crime and disorder by working in partnership with people in the districts. The arrangement was completed when West Mercia restructured the basic command unit in Worcestershire to bring all of Malvern hills into the south Worcester division in 2003. That division is headed by chief superintendent Simon Adams.

There are three district commands within south Worcestershire, each commanded by an inspector, who is the point of contact for the local council. The concept of beat management is established across the community, with the principle that every member of the community can identify with a named constable in the area in which he or she lives, works or attends school. That constable's remit is essentially about problem solving and facilitating partnership solutions. The area of a beat manager's responsibility is arranged around parish, town or wall boundaries and the size of the area is determined by the work load and the geography.

In rural areas of the division, parishes are typically clustered into a single area, whereas Warndon parish in my constituency is served by two officers because of its sheer size and the amount of work involved.

Does my hon. Friend agree that it is important, wherever possible, that we get officers out of motor vehicles and back on to the streets? For example, in Madeley we have an excellent project in which police use bicycles to get around the town. Obviously, that cannot be done in large rural areas, where there will always be a need for motor vehicles. However, in smaller towns and villages, and in urban areas, we need to encourage police officers and community support officers to make sure that they are not in motor vehicles, but are seen on the street, using bicycles and Shanks's pony.

I do not disagree with my hon. Friend. I suspect that a new town such as his has modern estates with many paths and alleyways that cars cannot get through, but to which people who want to cause trouble have ready access, and where the most suitable ways of chasing criminals are on a bike and on foot.

I congratulate the hon. Gentleman on having brought this debate to Westminster Hall. Does he agree that, while the hon. Member for Telford (David Wright) is correct that police officers need to get out of their cars more, they need to get out of them and on to the streets, not into council offices, which seem to attract endless meetings? Clearly, there is an argument for working together to reduce crime in all our communities, but there seems to be an epidemic of meetings. Finally, in this brief intervention—

Order. The hon. Gentleman has made his point well.

I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for his intervention, and I am glad that it was brief. In my experience, the result of some of the meetings that police officers attend, working in partnership with local community leaders, is to stop crime right at the beginning. That has got to be better than having a responsive police force. It is far better to prevent things at source than to wait for them to happen and then chase criminals on foot, by bike or in a car. However, I accept the general thrust that police have to be more visible out and about in their local communities.

The hon. Gentleman was generous and correct enough to name a number of beat officers in Worcester city who do a first-rate job. He rather skipped over the divisional commander, Simon Adams, and the individual inspectors of the command units in south Worcestershire. Does he agree that one of the reasons why neighbourhood policing is working so well in the area that we both represent in Parliament is that the individuals concerned, Simon Adams and, in my case, Steve Brooker, are reaching out to the community and making themselves accessible to organisations and individuals? They deserve to be praised.

Towards the end of my speech, I was going to give huge plaudits to Chief Superintendent Adams, who is in charge of the whole division. Certainly, the inspectors at district level are fundamental to the leadership in the police force. In each district the team of managers is supervised by a dedicated sergeant, whose remit is to support the inspector for the patch in crime and disorder reduction, and the beat managers are supported by community support officers, special constables, district council wardens, outreach workers and neighbourhood watch. They are all part of the local policing team. On top of that, police officers patrol the hot spots and areas that the local policing team sometimes cannot get to. We have to acknowledge that beat managers also have the support of specialist units, including the antisocial behaviour team, crime prevention officers, school officers, intelligence analysts and the county council's joined-up information system, all of which helps to target police resources where they are needed and particularly in local communities.

Does the hon. Gentleman agree that probably one of the nastiest and toughest jobs that the specialist officers and, indeed, all police officers have to do is to deal with people who have been injured or killed in road traffic accidents and their families? Does he further agree that a great tragedy is taking place on the A49, particularly at Ashton, where there has been another accident in the same black spot and again the Highways Agency has failed to act?

I was just about to respond to the hon. Gentleman. Ashton is a small village about 5 miles north of Leominster. The A49 has some quite severe turns there and it has a known accident record. I hope that the Highways Agency has taken note of what he said and will do something that will satisfy the hon. Gentleman and the residents of Ashton.

Beat managers have been tasked in south Worcestershire, through the national intelligence model process, to assist in other areas of policing, such as gathering intelligence and assisting in managing potentially dangerous offenders and those identified as prolific or persistent offenders. The south Worcestershire crime and disorder reduction partnership was formed from a merger of the three district partnerships.

The resulting single partnership works better with other bodies such as the health service and the fire service. The key role that is now played by youth outreach workers in tackling antisocial behaviour, which was first piloted in Worcester, has now been deployed across the whole of the south Worcestershire division. Key rural safety initiatives have been set up under West Mercia constabulary. I am sure that hon. Members who know more about rural policing matters may mention them too.

I should like to spend some time talking about the antisocial behaviour strategy in south Worcestershire, particular Worcester, because it is key to what local communities understand by neighbourhood policing. It is how the low level crimes and disorder that go on in their local communities are tackled.

The hon. Gentleman mentioned the antisocial behaviour unit. Does he have any comment on the alleged remarks of Ms Louise Casey, whom we heard on our radios this morning complaining about the relationship between the Home Office and No. 10 and expressing her personal views about antisocial behaviour. They are views that I suspect he and the Minister would not share.

I have not heard the full details of the recording that was made of Louise Casey's speech, but in my dealings with her I have been nothing but impressed with her as an individual and with the ability and life that she brings to her job in the antisocial behaviour unit, as she did in the homelessness unit before that.

Initially the antisocial behaviour strategy in south Worcestershire was led by the police, but it is now firmly established as a partnership approach to dealing with behaviour. It is based on the principle of social inclusion, achieved through diversion and behavioural change before enforcement so that longer-term benefits can be won for the community and the individuals themselves. The division has also maximised opportunities provided by legislation so that they can reduce the demand that antisocial behaviour places on the responding nature of the police service.

The process to deal with antisocial behaviour goes through four levels. At level 1 there would be a letter to the offender and their parents. At level 2 there would be a personal visit to the offender and the parents by the beat manager and perhaps an outreach worker. Level 3 would be a multi-agency meeting to discuss and address the issues with the offender and their parents, a plan of action, restorative justice and perhaps even mediation. Level 4 would be the application for the antisocial behaviour order.

The results for 2005 have been most encouraging. The antisocial behaviour team received 1,906 referrals at level 1. Of those, 328 went to level 2, 57 to level 3 and 26 to level 4. Having been successfully dealt with at level 1, 81 per cent. of offenders did not come to police notice again. That also means that there will be a reduction in demand for further police time. Only 1 per cent.—26—were the subject of an ASBO application. That has to be a good sign in terms of how antisocial behaviour is dealt with in local neighbourhoods.

The use of legislation has been paramount to south Worcestershire in trying to problem-solve. We believe that we are the first in our area to implement a dispersal section 30 order under the Anti-social Behaviour Act 2003. Warndon villages were subject to the order to provide the local community with immediate relief from a long-term problem. Last year, 34 notices were issued under section 59 of the Police Reform Act 2002 to tackle the boy racer syndrome in our area.

The antisocial behaviour team is led by Sergeant Chris Allen and served by Constable Tina Dodd, MBE, a police staff investigator, an analyst, clerical support, an employee on secondment from the county council, and council outreach youth workers. Interestingly, the chief constable has now directed West Mercia constabulary to implement that approach throughout the force, so what started in Worcester was implemented in south Worcestershire and will be implemented everywhere else in the force. Importantly, the process is now being used to shape the division's response to providing a process to manage the prevent tier of the prevent and deter strand of the PPO scheme.

The Elgar project is a joint project between the division and the local probation service to enhance support to offenders serving drug treatment and testing orders. Support is being provided by a police staff employee, a retired detective called Rocky Hudson. The project has been evaluated, and is seen to be more successful than DTTOs without support. Anecdotal evidence also suggests that the scheme has contributed to a reduction in vehicle crime in the area.

The division is also involved in planning for real projects in local communities, which is another important interaction. It has introduced an unmarked vehicle fitted with an automatic number plate recognition device, which was bought under the devolved financial management regime at West Mercia.

The division also engages with the voluntary sector. There is a counter service at Broadway, Evesham community contact centre is open, and the police are in negotiation at Upton upon Severn to allow the community access to a wide range of local services, including the police, all at one centre.

The hon. Gentleman just referred to the Evesham community contact centre. It is worth putting on record what a phenomenal success that innovation has been. I have stood behind the counter at the centre and seen the way in which police staff interact with district council and county council staff and provide a completely seamless service, performing sometimes unpleasant duties, such as recording incidents, getting people to fill in forms and pay fines, and sometimes providing advice. It really is a first-rate initiative that deserves to be rolled out throughout West Mercia.

I am glad that the hon. Gentleman went into detail about the Evesham community contact centre, because I was hoping that colleagues who had those facilities in their patch would make the point for the record that south Worcestershire division is a leading light in taking forward the constabulary and the rest of the police force in general.

Class A drug dealing is of particular concern to neighbourhoods and communities in Worcester and elsewhere in south Worcestershire. The division has made particular efforts to focus on street dealing of class A drugs, and has co-ordinated that activity with the work of the county substance misuse team. Chief Superintendent Adams is a member of the board, whose aim is to disrupt the distribution and supply of drugs, and to increase the number of people who receive treatment.

In Worcester city, most police time is spent on the Warndon area, which is typically the area in greatest need. The police team aims to support the city council in its responsibilities under the new Clean Neighbourhoods and Environment Act 2005. New provisions in Worcester city include youth shelters in open spaces in Old Warndon and Warndon villages, surgeries held by community support officers, the shopwatch scheme, retail club and pub radio, and the city centre policing team, which works with partners from the retail forum and the city council to monitor CCTV, among other things. Two section 30 orders are in force in the city of Worcester. One covers the St. Peters estate and Tesco, and the other covers County hall.

The division also gets involved in community focus groups. My right hon. Friend the Minister will associate those with big conversation events that I have held. Those events have been held without publicity and involve local people, but the police and community support officers have come along and, importantly, action has followed, so that elements of antisocial behaviour around the Co-op on the Ronkswood estate have been dealt with to everyone's satisfaction.

The city police force has been involved in the dragon project, which targets young offenders who have been convicted of vehicle crime, with a view to achieving rehabilitation through training and vehicle maintenance programmes. The beat management team has been involved in the streets ahead project in Dines green in the west part of Worcester.

What has all that meant? We Members of Parliament want to focus on police performance and the effect on crime in certain areas, so I shall give the Chamber some detail about performance on crime in south Worcestershire and Worcester city. Comparing 2003–04 with 2004–05, South Worcestershire division has seen a 15 per cent. reduction in all crimes—that is 3,531 fewer offences—and Worcester city a 16 per cent. reduction. In South Worcestershire, there has been a 15 per cent. reduction for burglary and an 18 per cent. reduction in vehicle crime, for which there has been a 22 per cent. reduction in Worcester city. In violent crime, there have been reductions of 9 per cent. in south Worcestershire division and 10 per cent. in Worcester city. According to British crime survey comparators, the division has already achieved its three-year stretch target of a 16 per cent. reduction in all crime. It has seen a reduction of 19 per cent., and Worcester city one of 23 per cent.

On crime detection, data is available only for the south Worcestershire division, but the sanction detection rate for all crime is up by 7.7 per cent. to 31.1 per cent., which puts it in the basic command unit family position of second out of 15. Detection rates are up by 2.2 per cent. for burglary, giving a BCU family position of sixth out of 15; up by 21.3 per cent. for violent crime, giving a family position of third; up by 8.5 per cent. for vehicle crime, giving a family position of first; and up by 40.6 per cent. for racially aggravated crime, again giving the family position of first.

That brings me to the issue of race and race relations. The National Front threatened to conduct a march in Worcester city last Saturday, so Chief Superintendent Adams set up an independent advisory group that included key members of the local ethnic minority community to discuss police responses to various scenarios. The group was involved with the police's decisions and was happy. In the end, there was no march and no disorder, but members of the local community felt that they had been listened to and that their voices had been heard. That is essential if we are to deal with the sensitive issue of marches by far-right extremist groups such as the National Front.

I have some things to ask of the Minister and the Government on behalf of West Mercia. Will the Minister take a closer look at the police grant formula to reduce the variation between police forces? What action has she taken to tackle the problem of police pension funding to avoid instability in the system, particularly for those involved in the budgetary process? Will she assure me that the rural sparsity grant will continue and will be index-linked in future to protect its real-term value?

Will the Minister increase the resources available to forces such as West Mercia, which have a low cost base, to afford systems to support the identification of signal crimes and disorder? They will require new capital and revenue investment. Will she allocate extra community support officers to West Mercia? The police have set a target of at least one CSO for every local beat manager. There are 114 local beat managers and 83 CSOs, so we want a minimum increase of 31 CSOs.

The Home Office antisocial behaviour unit should fund research into visible policing—I welcome that being done in Worcester—and what is meant by that term. When we speak to people on their doorsteps, they say, "We never see a person on the beat," but if they are at work in the day and locked away in their houses at night, they will never see bobbies on the beat. So, the unit should fund a project to find out what people mean by visible policing: is it actually seeing police, or is it having some other form of contact with them?

Will the Minister consider what further back-office roles could be undertaken by non-police officers to free up officers to be active in their local communities and neighbourhoods? Given the success of local initiatives, will the Home Office seek to devolve further responsibilities to BCUs and beat commanders? If so, what will they be and when will that happen?

Finally, I pay tribute to the chief constable, Paul West, and the chief superintendent, Simon Adams, for their superb work. It is groundbreaking and inspired leadership in local neighbourhoods that makes a big difference, and I hope that through my contribution and others the people in West Mercia will be more confident about the local policing that they receive.

I thank the hon. Member for Worcester (Mr. Foster) for securing the debate.

I represent The Wrekin in Shropshire and I have travelled far and wide throughout my large constituency in the past three years. The message that I pick up from the people I meet is that they want neighbourhood and community policing. That has many manifestations, but the greatest demand is for regular officers on the beat. There are different ways of delivering local neighbourhood policing, such as through police specials, parish officers—which have been used successfully in Moreton-on-Lugg in the constituency of my hon. Friend the Member for Leominster (Bill Wiggin)—and community support officers.

However, although community support officers are welcome and doing a good job, many people are still concerned, first, that we do not have enough of them; secondly, that they do not work enough hours—many knock off at 10 o'clock, when many of the troubles in our market towns are just beginning and many do not work weekends, when there are a lot of problems around the leisure facilities in those towns—and, thirdly and most important, they do not have the power of arrest. I know from speaking to people in Leegomery in my constituency that many people—not just young people; young people are not the only ones involved in antisocial behaviour and crime—know more about the powers of community support officers than some Members of Parliament. They are very switched on to their human rights—more than to their responsibilities. I welcome community support officers, but, through you, Mr. O'Hara, I ask, "Please, Minister, can we have some more, and can we ensure that CSOs are not used as a back-door way of replacing regular officers with real powers of arrest?"

That leads me on to the important role of police specials. They have the power of arrest and a lot of the people involved in antisocial behaviour and crime know that. West Mercia police has been involved in the national campaign run by the Home Office to recruit more police specials. Will the Minister tell us whether the advertising has been regional and local? I have seen only national advertising, and when I recently met a senior police officer I was not furnished with the facts in response to my question about whether we had recruited from local advertising. We need local people who have expressed an interest in being a police special in their local community rather than in other places.

Has my hon. Friend seen worrying figures that suggest a sharp reduction in the number of special constables serving in West Mercia? There were 280 last year, down from a high point of 613 in 1996. That sharp reduction has caused great concern.

Yes, it is of great concern, particularly in Albrighton and Shifnal in my constituency, where we have seen a halving of the number of police specials. Many people are asking how they are supposed to have a relationship with the police if they are remote, and I believe that the more remote the local police are, or are seen to be, the harder it is for them to have a role in community policing. There needs to be a process of reciprocation. That helps the police in the form of human intelligence and gathering information on what is happening in the community, and it helps the community by allowing the police to show that they are interested, engaged and involved in a day-to-day dialogue with their communities.

Parish officers perhaps have a role. As part of the new model pioneered by West Mercia, parish councils can pay for parish officers. I am quite relaxed about that, unless those officers replace the ones that we already have or we pay twice for the same thing. Local parish councils that do not have the budget or the manpower should not have to say that the only way to deliver the neighbourhood policing suggested by the hon. Member for Worcester and to protect the streets from antisocial behaviour is to pay for it again by having a parish officer. That proposition would not be acceptable to taxpayers in my constituency, who take the view that they have already paid for policing.

Pontesbury parish council in my constituency has been told by West Mercia that if it wants a parish community support officer, it will have to pay for one. That is unacceptable to the council, which feels that the cost would massively increase the parish precept for the village, which simply cannot afford it. It is simply not acceptable for rural communities to be discriminated against in that way.

My hon. Friend makes the point very well. There is great concern that, although the new role of parish officer provides an opportunity, it should not replace that of regular officers, police specials or community support officers or be a way of paying for the same thing twice.

Funding has rightly been raised as an issue, and all colleagues in the House from West Mercia know that the region has the third worst funded police service in England and Wales. The problem continues year after year, and year after year we hear platitudes from the Government, but we want action from the Government. Perhaps I can put forward a proposition today. At a recent meeting with senior police officers, they suggested that we consider using the proceeds from crime. Why are proceeds from crime sent to the Treasury, where a lot of them are creamed off, before the remainder is redistributed to forces such as West Mercia police? Why cannot individual police forces keep the money that they retrieve through their hard work from people involved in criminal activity whom they capture? That would incentivise local police officers and detectives, and it would be fair and equitable. The Government say that they support performance-related pay and performance by results—that is their claim at least. I think that rewarding hard-working police forces by allowing them to keep the money that they retrieve through their excellent detection work might be a good example of that.

I shall make just a couple more points, because others hon. Members want to speak. One relates to the important role of youth work. The hon. Member for Worcester rightly highlighted the innovative work carried out by West Mercia police, on which the force should be complimented. It is rolling out youth outreach workers in south Worcestershire, and we want to see more of that, because many constituents ask me, "What about youth work?" Some weeks ago, at Prime Minister's Question Time, the Prime Minister referred to youth work, and I hope that the Government will consider the issue nationally, as well as in West Mercia and my constituency. A lot of funding is being put into ASBOs and dispersal orders, but those are ways of reacting to a problem rather than dealing with its root cause. Although, as I said, not everything is to do with young people or with boredom, there is definitely an argument for saying that we should invest as much in dealing with the causes of problems as we do in dealing with the effects. I hope that the Minister will comment on that.

The displacement of problems is an ongoing issue. Dispersal orders appeared to deal with a problem in Shifnal and Leegomery in my constituency, but the solution proved to be temporary; in fact, the problem had been displaced to other parts of the community, and subsequently it came back. I shall be interested to hear what the Minister has to say about that.

The British police police by consent; their relationship with the community is the most important relationship—perhaps more important than the relationship with Members of Parliament and Government. That is why the Association of Chief Police Officers, which is reviewing the funding matrix of community policing, must bear in mind the important role of the police in policing key community events, such as Shifnal carnival, which has been going since the 13th century. The police have said for the last few years, "We do not have the money, you will have to pay for the policing yourselves," so volunteers from the community have had to police the carnival. That caused great concern in Shifnal. People ask, "Why is our precept going up every year? Why is our national taxation going up every year? Why are the police getting more and more money, yet they are no longer policing the most important community event in the area?" I hope that the Minister will give an undertaking that senior officers and chief constables will be encouraged to look through the calendar of events and say, "Although budgets are tight and there are scarce resources, there is a strong argument for policing key community events in order to be a good corporate citizen."

I conclude by saying that, yes, West Mercia needs to be better funded, but it also has a continuing role to spend its budget better. The answer is not one or the other, but a mixture of both.

I congratulate the hon. Member for Worcester (Mr. Foster) on securing the debate. I also thank him because it gives me a rather unusual chance not to attack the Minister, but to welcome the suggestions and plans that have been made.

The complaints that I receive from constituents—I am sure that it is the same for other hon. Members—are not about major crime but about the minor problems that bother ordinary people. For example, a little old lady of 84 has a greenhouse at the bottom of her garden which, more than once a year for the past four years, has been smashed by bricks lobbed over from an estate behind her property. She is now frightened to go into her greenhouse, but all she gets is a crime number.

A couple who live next door to a slightly notorious pub, which I will not name, have a sad story to tell. Every night at chucking-out time, and later when the local nightclub closes, young people who are rather the worse for wear prance over the top of cars, so much so that people try not to park their cars outside the pub and club. My constituents set up a camera to take pictures of the car—not their own—that the young people usually pranced over, but that night they pranced over the couple's own car, so they were not able to photograph the incident.

There is great dissatisfaction with the call centre in my area. Serious vandalism in a recently constructed play area was blamed on the delay caused by having to contact the call centre, which meant that the response was too late. I welcome neighbourhood policing and I congratulate the North Worcestershire basic command unit on being selected as the pathfinder for a pilot trial of the proposal. Chief Superintendent Suzette Davenport has recently moved on, but Chief Superintendent Mark Howard is following her splendid example. I will not mention all the beat managers, but like every other MP, I have a raft of superb beat managers in my constituency. The hon. Member for Worcester read out the local pathfinder principles, and the first one is crucial. It is that

"Members of the public should be provided with up-to-date and easily accessible information concerning their local beat police officer, including details of the . . . area . . . their name and details of how to contact them".

No longer is it necessary to go to the call centre about something that happens locally. It is possible to call the beat manager, who, it is to be hoped, will be reasonably close, and someone will be dispatched to help.

That gives me an opportunity to praise some things that are happening in Wyre Forest. A few months ago one could drive around various beauty spots and find derelict and burnt-out cars; there is now an initiative to get rid of those quickly, and it is working. There is now a police base at one of the schools in a most deprived part of Wyre Forest—and we have one of the most deprived areas in the county. That is neighbourhood policing in the best way.

The subject of special constables matter has been raised by the hon. Members for The Wrekin (Mark Pritchard) and for Mid-Worcestershire (Peter Luff). At a recent specials weekend, I met some of the specials from my constituency, whom I know well in their other occupations. They are very disappointed about the local reduction in the number of specials. I wrote to the Minister, and, although I do not mean particularly to get at her, the response was an example of how figures can be made to show what one wants. Figures for 1996 to 2004 already quoted in the debate show a reduction in the number of specials from 613 to 280, but the Minister quoted the figures for 2004, showing an increase from 231 to 269. I am delighted about that increase, but overall a serious loss has taken place in the past few years.

The reasons for the decline are not hard to find. Specials, rightly, now require extensive training, which must happen at weekends and in the evenings and which is, of course, unpaid. The increase in the number of community support officers, who are paid, leads to a certain resentment. Very few constabularies have enough funds to remunerate the specials at all. Many of the specials like their voluntary status, but I gather that some constabularies give honorariums of between £900 and £1,500 a year.

That brings me to the subject of funding. West Mercia police force is under-funded. The briefing paper that we were given states:

"West Mercia Constabulary recognises that its resources are limited and that it cannot deliver Neighbourhood Policing on its own."

A generous grant is being made for the pathfinder studies. One can only hope that if they are successful, the money will be forthcoming to spread them. I believe that the aim is that they should be county-wide, if not country-wide, by 2008. I hope that that will happen.

I am sufficiently elderly to have been brought up during the war, when there was desperate food rationing. Families were allowed half a pig, so they had to decide with whom to share it. With whom did we share? The local bobby. I remember the days when there was a local bobby whom people knew and could contact. What is happening now is a huge step forward.

I congratulate the hon. Member for Worcester (Mr. Foster) on landing yet another debate on West Mercia. The previous debate was on 12 October. I cannot resist pointing out that on that occasion I was the only Conservative Member representing Shropshire, but today we are four. It is now lonely on the Labour Back Benches for my near neighbour, the hon. Member for Telford (David Wright). Perhaps the Minister contributed to that, as she visited The Wrekin the day before the election.

I turn to neighbourhood policing. I shall give two examples. The first may sound a little like Beatrix Potter and Peter Rabbit. In the village of St. Martin's a few years ago, a community police officer was embedded in Stan's, the local supermarket. He has an office there and a police car is parked outside. He is a proper community presence and he knows the village. My anecdote shows his value to the community. A break-in took place one afternoon, so he went to the house, where he noticed some large footprints in a newly hoed part of the garden. He thought he had a pretty fair idea who might have committed the break-in. He went to that gentleman's house and found some muddy boots. He took them to the house where the break-in took place and found that the boots fitted the footprints. It may sound trite, as if it were a Beatrix Potter story, but it shows the value of having a real police officer on the ground—above all, one with powers of arrest, because he then arrested the guy.

I compare that with Shawbury, another village in my constituency of a similar size. It has a wonderful new village hall, costing several hundred thousand pounds, that was partially paid for with lottery funds. I have received correspondence from two constituents, Mr. John Chadwick from Wem, who goes there to play bridge, and Mr. Tony Herbert from High Hatton near Shawbury, about the appallingly bad behaviour that has resulted in several thousands of pounds worth of damage to the village hall. Why? It happens because there is no policeman in Shawbury. The local inspector has to cover an area of about 720 square miles. In fairness, West Mercia has done its best—it has sent some community support officers there—and I have not received any letters recently.

The lesson is that St. Martin's has a police constable with powers of arrest and Shawbury does not. That is a graphic contrast. What concerns me is that, because of the way the grants have been slanted, the Government are deliberately forcing police authorities to take on only community support officers. The briefing from West Mercia said that 66 per cent. of CSOs are funded from specific central grants, so although they are welcome—anything is better than nothing—I am concerned that the Government are deliberately attempting to push police authorities into taking on more CSOs. It is interesting to talk to the inspectors who employ them. They tell me that they sometimes prefer CSOs because it allows them time to go out on to the streets, and that, if they are given police constables, the resulting torrent of paperwork and regulation ties them to their desks.

We constantly hear about the Government's attempts to reduce the burden of paperwork. The Minister should hear what was said by two senior police officers in my patch who know what is going on. The first says,

"Paperwork is an absolute nightmare. It is being controlled by bodies who are outside the police."

The other says,

"The Government always shout about reducing paperwork but all they do is produce more not less."

They were referring to the encounter forms. Whenever a policeman bumps into someone and interviews them, he is tied down for 10 minutes with paperwork.

indicated dissent.

It is no good the Minister shaking her head. I am speaking about telephone calls that I received this week from real police officers on my patch.

Secondly, there is the nonsense of shadow charging introduced by the Crown Prosecution Service, under which a whole file has to be drawn up before it is decided whether a charge should go ahead. Instead of talking about paperwork, the Minister should come to North Shropshire. I give her an open invitation. I am sure that she will be welcomed at The Wrekin, Shrewsbury, Atcham and Ludlow. She should come to see the police in action. It is ludicrous that, although the public know the value of having a police constable with the power of arrest, senior officers are saying, "Hang on, if we have them we cannot use them properly because they will be bogged down with paperwork."

Another example of ludicrous regulation is that which resulted in the closure of cells. I had a major disagreement on the subject with the outgoing chief constable. I am delighted that Chief Constable West takes a much more open view. It is ridiculous that the cells were shut in Oswestry and Market Drayton, with the result that low-tech cases, such as people who are taken in electively—those who go in with their solicitor—or who are just drunk have to go in a police van, accompanied by one or sometimes two policemen, from Oswestry to Shrewsbury. Shrewsbury is frequently full, so they then go to Telford, and if Telford is full, they go to Worcester. In one ludicrous case, they went to Kidderminster and two police officers were taken out of action.

I am delighted that the new chief constable has taken a more open-minded view of the matter. There have been 337 cases processed in Oswestry police station this year, and 55 so far in Market Drayton. Both local inspectors would like to have full use of those cells. If those 337 journeys were not made, one or two police constables could then be on the beat in Oswestry and Market Drayton. The situation is absurd. The Minister could take action to ensure that those cells were opened up. It is partly a question of the regulations that insist on staffing levels in the cells.

I hate the way in which these debates always descend into a rant about money, but it is impossible not to comment, as the hon. Member for Worcester did, on the unfairness of the current system. It is all wrong that West Mercia has been penalised for being one of the most efficient police authorities from the very beginning. It was one of the first authorities to switch jobs from police constables to civilians. However, when the formula started, it nailed West Mercia like a steel trap, and it is stuck.

It is wrong that £92.24 per head is the Government grant in West Mercia. Down the bottom of the hill where I live, where the North Wales police area starts, it is £117.48. In another rural force, it is £103.88. If the area cost adjustment were applied as it is in Cheshire, Warwickshire or the West Midlands police forces, it would be worth another £1.7 million. The grant per head in Cheshire, another neighbouring force and a rural force, is £108.76. In another neighbouring force, Dyfed Powys, it is £105.09. Compare that with West Mercia, where it is £92.24. I am not asking for a single penny more. I am asking for a fair formula and recognition of the issue by the Minister.

My hon. Friend has understandably not mentioned the urban force near us—West Midlands police force—which has a grant per head of £155.01. It benefits from all kinds of extra money, including the area cost adjustment. The strange thing is that huge numbers of its officers live in my constituency in Worcestershire and commute to the West Midlands police authority area. That destroys entirely the argument for the area cost adjustment that we receive.

My hon. Friend makes an excellent point. I shall wind up briefly so that he has the chance to expand on it. In a letter to me last year, the Minister said:

"I recognise that formula changes implemented in 2003–04 did shift resources in favour of more urban areas."

Will she recognise that that was a brutal shift by the Labour Government from rural areas to urban areas? It is wrong that the cake is sliced in such a way that it discriminates against an efficient force such as West Mercia, which would benefit from more community policemen.

rose—

Order. I remind hon. Members present that, with injury time for the Division, the winding-up speeches must now start not later than 3.55 pm.

I shall be brief, and I shall not do all the consensus stuff that has been done before. I agree with almost everything that has been said. I shall therefore strike a slightly more discordant note, but I hope that the Minister will understand that I associate myself with much of what the hon. Member for Worcester (Mr. Foster) said in his opening speech, and I again congratulate him on securing the debate.

The funding question lies at the heart of the debate. The welcome move from intelligence-led policing to neighbourhood policing is something that, as constituency MPs, we must be pleased about. However, it requires additional resources. I hasten to add that that should be achieved through a fairer share of the cake, not a total increased spend.

We have 300 extra police officers in West Mercia, paid for almost entirely by increases in council tax. Of course, the Government claim the credit for the extra police officers and then threaten to cap the police authority for having the temerity to raise the money to pay for them. That is the bizarre situation in which we find ourselves. The recipe put forward by the hon. Member for Worcester for improving funding is exactly the recipe that I put to the Deputy Prime Minister in a letter in September last year. I entirely agree with what the hon. Gentleman said.

I am concerned that the police authority seemed to think that it could increase the council tax again—that there was popular will in favour of that increase. I caution it against that move. It is not right that the council tax payers of our area should pay for the shortcomings imposed on us by central Government. Although people can always be asked to pay an extra 5p for this or £1 for that, all the fivepences and pounds add up, and hard-pressed pensioners, in particular, and low-income families in my constituency cannot afford further increases in council tax, full stop. I would caution the authority not to go down that route.

I am also concerned that there is the beginning of declining consent for the police in my constituency—a point that was made by my hon. Friend the Member for The Wrekin (Mark Pritchard). High council tax payments are one of my worries. Constituents are saying, "We've paid the money. Where are the police officers?" I have a high regard for the West Mercia constabulary; it is extremely well led at local level, at basic commander unit level, and at constabulary level by the chief constable. However, there is the beginning of a concern. Controversially, the police have been asked to do things of which my constituents do not approve, such as enforce the hunting ban. There is a concern among my middle-class constituents—I know that it is controversial, but it happens to be true—about what is seen as a war on the motorist, or the soft target of the middle classes. That perception is growing. I say that because during the election campaign, I went round my constituency saying that we could promise people more police. The response every time was, "I'm not sure that we want more police." People feel that the police are unable to deal with the issues that concern them. Quite often, there is some confusion about the relationship between local authorities and the police about Traveller incursions, for example, but a feeling that such incursions are not being dealt with. That is, in my view, unfair, because members of the West Mercia police are doing a good job in the circumstances that they face.

People are concerned about slow shows in the more rural areas of my constituency. It takes a long time for the police to arrive, if they arrive at all. One local sports club never saw a police officer after reports of serious vandalism. There has also been the loss of police cells, such as in Evesham. My hon. Friend the Member for North Shropshire (Mr. Paterson) made a point about the loss of police cells in his constituency. We have lost them in Evesham, leading to a loss of the ability of the police to respond to incidences of lawlessness in Evesham.

There is a perception that the police now have their hands tied behind their back. What people would like is more police officers with real powers. I have some caution about community support officers, which I have expressed in this Chamber before. If they are the only way we can obtain extra police strength, I shall take them—better them than nothing. However, I would prefer to see real police officers—full police officers and increased numbers of special constables, who have declined shamefully in number over recent years in our area.

We know that there is no problem recruiting real police officers. The police authority recently advertised for new constables and received some 900 applications—so many that it could not even look at 150 of them. They were sent back unopened, asking applicants to apply for another police force. Perhaps they were the best 150 going; we do not know, but there is no problem recruiting. It is a bit odd to return applications unopened but that is what happened, and it seriously concerned the Worcester News.

I have been controversial, Mr. O'Hara, in my brief contribution, because I agreed with the opening remarks of the hon. Member for Worcester, who said that there is a lot to praise and celebrate. There is a lot of efficiency and modernisation of the best possible kind, which has made our force one to be proud of. However, it needs a bit more help than it has had from the Government if it is to achieve what it is capable of achieving.

I, too, congratulate the hon. Member for Worcester (Mr. Foster) on securing the debate, although I did not understand what he said about the statistics involved. The Government claim that crime is going down and things are getting better, but to be honest, a lot of my constituents say to me that the reason why the figures are going down is that they are not reporting crime. They simply do not have confidence that the police will intervene on some of the problems that villages in rural areas face. They simply do not report crimes.

Recently, there have been a lot of problems in Shrewsbury with the Government allowing later licences in pubs. It has caused tremendous problems. Very early in the morning in Shrewsbury, all sorts of vandalism is going on. One gentleman from Shrewsbury, Mr. Bamber, had his garden shed set alight this week. I met him in his garden and he was just sitting there crying, because his whole garden had been destroyed at 2 am by vandals. I am absolutely appalled that the Government want to grant licences to pubs up to 2 am or 3 am. Why on earth does anyone want to be drinking at 3 am or 4 am? I simply do not understand how that is possible and why people want to do that. I want the Minister to know that it is leading to many antisocial behaviour problems in Shrewsbury.

The police in Shropshire are extremely hard-working. They make tremendous efforts in policing the Shrewsbury flower show, the Shrewsbury carnival and all the sporting activities. I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for The Wrekin (Mark Pritchard) on raising the fact that those major events are not policed through money from the Government; the organisations have to raise the money themselves. That is resulting in some organisations deciding not to hold those annual events because they simply cannot afford to do so, which is a tremendous shame.

There is clearly some inconsistency across the force area. I was at Dawley day on Saturday and there was a police presence there coupled with a CSO presence. Perhaps we have to raise the protocol for events such as Shifnal carnival, the Shrewsbury flower show and Dawley day with Ministers or with the force itself. There seems to be some difference across communities. Perhaps we need to work together as Members of Parliament to raise the issue with the force.

That is a fair point. I wanted to stress the point to the Minister so that she was aware of the position. Like my hon. Friend the Member for North Shropshire (Mr. Paterson), I feel passionately that the police have to deal with too much red tape and paperwork. I have been to Monkmoor police station and met many police officers there. There is a feeling that police officers do not dare to talk about the problems that they face because the state will come down on them like a ton of bricks. That feeling is also found among people working in the hospital. People are petrified of being quoted because under this Government if someone has the temerity to challenge the processes they will be sacked, as has happened over and over again. That is the case whether we are talking about the council in Bucharest highlighting illegal immigration or people highlighting local issues.

Monkmoor police station in Shrewsbury is the regional headquarters in Shropshire. The building was constructed in the late 1960s. Going into the station is like going in a time machine back to 1965: it is so old, outdated and dirty. Our hard-working police officers should not have to tolerate such conditions. I notice that the Palace of Westminster has had a lot of money spent on it recently. I wish that the Minister would look at Monkmoor police station and ensure that our regional headquarters in Shropshire has proper funding for proper facilities for our police officers.

I shall pick up on the remarks of my neighbour and hon. Friend the Member for Shrewsbury and Atcham (Daniel Kawczynski). I, too, have visited Monkmoor police station—last week, in fact—and I was told that some refurbishment work will shortly be done on the cells there, but the number of cells in Shropshire as a whole is lamentably low. I think that the building in question is a former secondary school; it was not built to be a police station. It needs to have proper cells put in and I welcome the refurbishment work. That is relevant to my constituents because there are no cells in the Ludlow constituency, which, for those who do not know the geography, is 40 miles by 20 miles. People who are to be held in custody overnight have to be taken to Shrewsbury, to Telford or, occasionally, to Hereford.

Just before Christmas, I went out with police officers in Bridgnorth, thanks to Inspector Andy Thomas, and I saw for myself the problems caused by drunkenness— which I am aware also happens in other towns. Generally speaking, the police on the spot have to take a tough decision. They have to ask themselves whether to arrest the person. That is the appropriate policing response, but it takes two officers to deal with an individual who is drunk. They have to be driven 25 miles to Shrewsbury or 15 or so to Telford, which takes the officers out of the local district for two hours at a time. There are usually four people on duty in Bridgnorth in the evening. If they make two arrests of drunks, the decision will be to have no cover in the town of Bridgnorth. It is a very tough call and it comes about entirely because of the points that many hon. Members have raised to do with the police numbers and the resources in our area and particularly in the rural areas. Ludlow has a brand-new police station, which is very welcome. The station has been built with no cells because, as other hon. Members have said, the level of manning to justify cells cannot be supported within the budgets of the division. That is wrong.

Although we have one of the lowest crime rates, not only in the county of Shropshire but in the West Mercia division, that does not mean that we have no crime. Far from it. To give one example, the village of Highley saw the second ASBO issued in the entire country. As of two weeks ago, Highley has had its first policeman for six months. It is an area with noted crime problems—it had the second-largest drugs bust in the county last autumn—and it has been without police cover because the police division does not have to man to 100 per cent. of its capacity. The beat duty officer took maternity leave and there was not any surplus capacity to provide cover to Highley. That should not be repeated.

I, too, congratulate the hon. Member for Worcester (Mr. Foster) on securing the debate. He has a long and honourable record of securing debates on West Mercia funding and policing. I remind colleagues that the debate is about neighbourhood policing, and I want to concentrate on some of those areas.

The hon. Gentleman was right to mention funding, particularly the sparsity factor, which was also raised by the hon. Member for Mid-Worcestershire (Peter Luff). The hon. Member for Worcester was also right to raise the issue of the statistics bandied about in the run-up to the general election. I remind colleagues that when we criticise and try to make political points about statistics—whether about the health service, dirty hospitals or police levels—we are often criticising the people who work in those public services. Police officers said to me that they did not recognise the story that was being put about; I heard the same from members of the health service.

I also join the hon. Gentleman in his tribute to Paul West, the chief constable.

I was thanking the hon. Member for Worcester for having, rightly, paid tribute to the chief constable, Paul West, and wanted to put on record my thanks to the divisional commander in Herefordshire, Kevin Bentley, and his team, which does such excellent work.

The hon. Gentleman was very generous in taking a number of interventions, including one by the hon. Member for Leominster (Bill Wiggin), who continued his campaign for a bypass for the A49 at Ashton. We then heard a very good speech from the hon. Member for The Wrekin (Mark Pritchard), who highlighted the issue of specials. They are an important element of rural forces, and we must not forget that. The hon. Member for North Shropshire (Mr. Paterson) also, rightly, issued warnings about paperwork. Attending to that does affect the amount of time that our police officers spend on the streets and, although the situation has improved since the O'Dowd report—many things have changed—I hope that the Government will continue to look at the issue all the time. It is something about which police officers speak to us regularly.

The hon. Member for Mid-Worcestershire (Peter Luff) also mentioned funding, and we heard generous interventions in the speeches by the new hon. Members for Shrewsbury and Atcham (Daniel Kawczynski) and for Ludlow (Mr. Dunne). Again, they spoke about local issues. The hon. Member for Ludlow was right to point out that crime happens even in the most remote and beautiful areas. Crime is a 100 per cent. statistic for each household affected by it.

This debate is about neighbourhood policing, so I asked a number of police officers from Herefordshire what issues they would want to raise if they were here. I will focus not on what my constituents have said—of course, my police officers are also constituents—but on the issues that the police officers really want to get across. Four came up constantly. The first was their inability to deal with matters such as Travellers. They are hugely frustrated that they cannot do enough on such issues, which affect our rural communities. It is the same with neighbourhood disputes: local bobbies feel unable to do what they want to do when faced with problem families on estates. Another issue is traffic. Again, the police feel hamstrung when trying to keep traffic moving in a city such as Hereford.

Most important were the issues relating to alcohol-related disorder. We all enjoy going out with our friends and family, but the cost of alcohol-related disorder is now huge. Recently, a very good study was done in Hereford. It looked at the cost of alcohol-related disorder to the accident and emergency department of our local hospital. It was calculated that in one month, February 2004, alcohol disruption cost the Hereford A and E department more than £32,000. I daresay that figure would be repeated in Worcester or Shrewsbury or other units. The cost of trouble in the evenings, on the Friday and Saturday night, is not just the disorder on the streets. During that period there were assaults on members of our A and E staff; the police were called 18 times to Hereford A and E department in that one month alone. That makes the reported comments of Louise Casey even more difficult to explain.

We must take this seriously. The Government are trying to do this. They will not be helped by noises off by senior civil servants after drinks parties. The people on the streets of West Mercia and our other cities and towns expect something to be done. I always supported the liberalisation of the licensing laws. I felt instinctively, as a Liberal, that that was the right thing to do. We have yet to see what the result will be, but the Government must ensure that the police have the opportunity to control the streets in our market towns and in our cities when these changes take place.

I begin, as always, by declaring an interest as a Crown court recorder and an acting district judge, and move straight away to congratulate the hon. Member for Worcester (Mr. Foster) on securing the debate and on the way in which he introduced an important subject to us all. It is a great pleasure to see no fewer than four colleagues from Shropshire here today. All my hon. Friends have spoken with a great deal of knowledge of their constituencies and of the problems. I thank them all.

My hon. Friends the Members for Mid-Worcestershire (Peter Luff) and for The Wrekin (Mark Pritchard) both spoke about the need for more specials and with great knowledge of their own constituencies. My hon. Friend the Member for North Shropshire (Mr. Paterson) raised the importance of having a real police officer on the ground with power of arrest and referred to the ever-troubling issue of paperwork. My hon. Friend the Member for Ludlow (Mr. Dunne) spoke of the time that police have to take in relation to their duties which can sometimes involve difficult judgments as to their priorities.

My hon. Friend the Member for Shrewsbury and Atcham (Daniel Kawczynski) talked about antisocial behaviour in Shrewsbury. He, in common with others, including my hon. Friend the Member for The Wrekin, spoke of the need for local police to police local events in order to secure the confidence of their communities. All my hon. Friends were supported in the debate by the presence of my hon. Friends the Members for Leominster (Bill Wiggin) and for West Worcestershire (Sir Michael Spicer).

In the short time available to me I shall mention one or two matters. The issue of specials cropped up throughout the debate. The Opposition believe that it is important for the Government to initiate a drive to get more specials, particularly in the west Mercia area. Reference was made to drug and alcohol crime. My understanding is that Worcester, along with many other towns and cities in this country, faces a great deal of crime that is based on alcohol and drug taking.

Frankly, binge drinking and the ready supply of hard drugs on the streets are two of the greatest problems affecting people today, particularly young people. I imagine that that is the same in the cities and towns in the west Mercia area. I hope that the courts are alive to the fact that these are twin issues. Certainly, I hope that the courts and the police in the west Mercia area take a tough line with licensed premises that sell to drunks. It is a regular activity in the south of England. Much stronger enforcement is needed, and in relation to drug crime, too.

My final points—it is amazing how quickly five minutes pass when one is enjoying oneself—concern the problems that we can all identify. It is a great shame if the time of the police in west Mercia, as elsewhere, is over-dominated by paperwork and having to reach targets. What really encourages the public to have confidence in the police force is their visibility on the streets of the towns and, particularly in the west Mercia area, the villages. The public want to see their local policeman, talk to him and get results from someone who is knowledgeable about the sort of people who offend in the locality.

Finally I make a personal plea. If I could see many more police, not in police cars but wandering around having a chat with the public whose confidence they need, I, for one, would be delighted.

I, too, join hon. Members in congratulating my hon. Friend the Member for Worcester (Mr. Foster) on having yet another excellent debate about west Mercia. He is an assiduous champion for his community and, as well as these debates, he has asked me a number of parliamentary questions, particularly about antisocial behaviour. I know that that is of great concern to his constituents.

I am also delighted that despite some of the contributions from Opposition Members, there has been a broad welcome for the move towards neighbourhood policing. For once, the policy thrust that we are trying to put in place has support, not only cross-party but from police forces. The fact that one basic command unit in every force has volunteered to be a pathfinder for this new form of neighbourhood policing is encouraging. I say "a new form of neighbourhood policing" because this is not about going back to the bobby on the beat. It is about having neighbourhood policing that builds relationships with local communities, local people tasking the police on their priorities, and using intelligence to direct those resources into the places that matter. It is not simply a matter of having a cup of tea with people, important though that is to build those relationships. It is also about hard-edged policing, which will work only if the police officers involved are catching, arresting and convicting criminals, tackling drug problems—

Will the Minister give way?

I will not give way because I have about eight minutes left and I want to deal with questions that hon. Members have raised.

The new form of neighbourhood policing is about both building relationships and hard-edged policing. It is a hard task for our police service to build relationships and to be close to the public, who set the priorities and need feedback, at the same time as carrying out hard-edged proper modern policing as part of the force. That is a considerable challenge, but I am delighted that police forces throughout the country are taking it on and making things happen.

I shall deal with some of the specific issues raised by hon. Members because that is more useful than simply reading out my brief. My hon. Friend the Member for Worcester referred to the budget, as did several other hon. Members. I know that he is exercised by the issue of fairness and area cost adjustment, which he has raised before. Throughout the police service we have had a 30 per cent. increase during the past few years—a 21 per cent. real-terms increase after inflation. That applies to West Mercia police as to other forces.

The second important issue is that we have never funded police forces on a per head or per capita basis. The formula works on the basis of what the policing need is in a community and allocating funds for policing need. Hon. Members are right: when we last reviewed the formula there was a big shift to high-crime areas with vulnerable communities that need help. We recognised that areas such as west Mercia would be significant losers if that formula were implemented in full, so we had a damping mechanism through floors and ceilings that have helped West Mercia police over the past few years not to lose the amount of funding that would otherwise have been the case. In fact, last year it received an increase of 3.75 per cent. and if the formula had been implemented in full it would have lost another £2.5 million, so it was better off because we put in place floors to ensure that we took account of the needs of the area.

In addition to the extra general funding, West Mercia police has had significant extra investment for specific funds. It receives £2.34 million from the rural policing fund and is one of the biggest beneficiaries from that fund, which is not ring-fenced. The force can spend the money on priorities that it identifies in the local community.

Is not part of the problem that very point? There are pockets of money here, there and everywhere and chief constables are asked to apply for different pockets of money when they really want a proper budget and to have the independence to spend it to meet the needs of their local community, rather than having to run around chasing the latest Home Office partnership fund or whatever.

I hope that the hon. Gentleman recognises that the force has had a 30 per cent. increase in general grant during the past few years, which was not ring-fenced and which it could spend as it wanted on operational policing. Indeed, he will know that the rural policing fund is not ring-fenced to any specific project and the force has the freedom to spend it to meet local community needs. It is important to get the balance right.

My hon. Friend the Member for Telford (David Wright) made some telling interventions to highlight the improvements that are taking place in his community. He recognised that there are still pressures on the service and he wishes to keep pressing me to ensure that we provide proper resources and facilities for his community. However, I was pleased to hear about the improvements.

I was delighted to hear of police and community support officers who are making a significant contribution. They were named by several hon. Members. In West Mercia, there are 262 more police officers than we had in 1997. Hon. Members who pressed for extra officers—[Interruption.] There are 262 more officers and 82 community support officers. Over the next three years, as we develop neighbourhood policing, we will have a total of 24,000 community support officers in addition to the record numbers of police officers—not in substitution for police officers but in addition to the record numbers. The extra 13,000 police officers now in place throughout the country, with the 24,000 community support officers, will give us the capacity to have mixed teams in communities.

Are Opposition Members really telling me that they want fully warranted officers to do every single job in the police service? That would be a very backward step, because we need mixed teams of police officers, special constables, wardens and community support officers in the wider security area. In that way we can ensure that we direct the right people to the right place with the right skills at the right time. That is what neighbourhood policing is really about; it is about working smarter and getting the most out of the resources available. If the policies proposed by hon. Gentlemen were implemented, communities would have far fewer resources to tackle the very real problems that exist.

What illustrates the point for me is the success of the multi-agency antisocial behaviour team in Worcestershire, which has police officers, a housing officer, a civilian investigator and an analyst. That is the sort of modern policing that will be successful, not simply a one-size-fits-all model but one that puts the right people with the right skills in the right place. That is incredibly important to us.

My hon. Friend the Member for Worcester also raised the matter of resources for identifying signal crimes, and BCU Pathfinder wants to see whether we can put in some more support. There is support to develop the neighbourhood policing model; it is a genuine point. My hon. Friend also wanted some research on visible policing and what it means. That is an interesting point about whether it is simply seeing police officers or about the quality of the interaction.

Further back-office roles for staff were mentioned and we are trying to engage more civilians. I add to that the possibility of local authorities and police forces coming together to do some of those back-office roles in call centres and pay roll administration, which would give us even more efficiencies.

The hon. Member for The Wrekin (Mark Pritchard) and other hon. Members mentioned specials. I am delighted to be able to say that in the last year nationally there has been an increase of 1,000 specials, and 2,500 more are waiting to go through the process of recruitment. For the first time, we put significant amounts of money into national advertising and I want to see whether we can do some more focused advertising this year. Local advertising is a matter for the forces; the numbers are beginning to increase in West Mercia, as they are nationally. One of the reasons why they have decreased in recent years is that there have been more opportunities for people to join the police service, because we have been increasing numbers. Many people who would have been specials have joined as community support officers. That is one reason why we have not been able to increase the numbers, but this year, for the first time, those numbers are increasing dramatically.

The hon. Member for Wyre Forest (Dr. Taylor) said that response, as well as neighbourhood policing, was important. He is right. If we are to get the model to work we need response policing, investigation and neighbourhood policing as an integral part of doing our business. Again, it means getting the right people in the right place.

The hon. Member for North Shropshire (Mr. Paterson) talked about having real policemen with powers of arrest, and about the need to get people out on the beat on patrol. If community support officers are to be involved in arresting they will have to give evidence and go to court, which will take them off the front line of policing, which is where we want them to be.

Hon. Gentlemen raised issues around "stop and account", and what they said was a travesty of the truth. "Stop and account" does not simply mean that every encounter has to be recorded; it is clear that there are many circumstances in which, if people are not being asked to account for themselves in detail, the encounter will not have to be recorded. I ask hon. Members not to keep repeating such misinterpretations of the process.

Finally, on custody facilities, I understand that some new facilities are being introduced in Leominster, which is very near to Ludlow.

Order. We must now turn our attentions to Dr. Ghosh and the Northumberland primary care trust.

It is difficult dealing with doctors. I have been a coal miner all my life and have always been in trade unions, and dealing with miners is a lot better than dealing with doctors, I can tell you, Mr. O'Hara. They are always at each other's throats, that is for sure. I will demonstrate that later.

Basically, the argument between Dr. Ghosh and Northumberland primary care trust has been going on for some time. To give the background of how the situation developed, Dr. Ghosh was accused of sexual harassment last year. He was taken to the Crown court by the girl in question, an employee of his who had worked for him for six months, and he was tried by judge and jury. The jury unanimously found him not guilty. Of course, I recognise that the Crown court is, in some people's eyes, just a Mickey Mouse court.

The girl in question had done something similar to her previous boyfriend. She said that he had raped her. Again, that case went to the Crown court, but there was not enough evidence, so the judge threw it out. That was a few years ago, and the girl later did the same thing to Dr. Ghosh. Then, she decided to take the matter to an industrial tribunal. As hon. Members will know, in a tribunal, three sit on the panel and a solicitor is always one of them. The tribunal decided to err on the side of probability—it might have happened, so he lost the case.

Dr. Ghosh was suspended from the time he was charged until he was found not guilty by the Crown court. When the industrial tribunal's verdict was reached, he was immediately suspended again. The primary care trust decided to have an investigation into the matter. That has gone on for a long time. In the meantime, we have had trouble with locums who were not turning up for patients. Patients had to be turned away and came to my constituency surgery saying, "It's not good enough. What's happening with Dr. Ghosh?"

Dr. Ghosh believes that he has lost about 100 patients. People just got fed up. At this moment, and after a lot of pressure from me, we have a locum who is doing a fairly good job. I think that we are talking about a deliberate act by the primary care trust systematically to destroy Dr. Ghosh's practice.

So, Dr. Ghosh was suspended and there is an investigation, which has been going on for a long time. I accompanied Dr. Ghosh to an inquiry once. They brought in someone from Newcastle, a Pauline Fryer, head of corporate affairs at Newcastle primary care trust. I do not know what experience she has of investigations, but, if I have time, I might read some of the questions that Dr. Ghosh was asked. They are absolutely appalling. I do not know what they have to do with the charge. Quite honestly, I do not know which was the higher court—the tribunal, or the Crown court. He was not guilty in one, guilty in the other. In the eyes of the trust, he was guilty in any case.

Whatever happens here today, and whatever the Minister says to me, Dr. Ghosh will be sacked. His contract will be determined, and he will go, because we have it on good authority that the doctor who has taken over one of the practices is being told that he will get Dr. Ghosh's practice in due course. I did not know this before, but every doctor who practises has a code number. This new doctor is not even sitting in that practice yet, but I was told yesterday morning that he has Dr. Ghosh's code number. If that does not tell us something, what does? It seems to be game, set and match.

The solicitors who deal with doctors have, like me, been trying to get through to the trust. I have asked for meeting after meeting, until I had to write to the Under-Secretary of State for Health, my hon. Friend the Member for Don Valley (Caroline Flint) and say, "Look, these people won't see me, but I want to talk about this case." That went on for a long time, but only last week did Jim McKay, the chief executive, come to see me on the Friday morning. He came into my office and, lo and behold, said, "I can't talk about the case." "But I need to know," I replied, "I've got an Adjournment debate and I want to know your take on it." "I'm sorry," he said, "I can't talk about it." "So what are you doing here? If you can't talk about it, you'd better leave", I replied. So, it was a useless meeting. He came to see me only because he was forced to by the Minister, but he would not talk about the case. I thought, "Is this a court of law? Is there a law thing with these people in the trust? Is there something they can't discuss?" Why can they not discuss the case with a Member of Parliament and instead ignore him when he is trying to get to the bottom of it?

Dr. Ghosh's solicitor has written that she remains concerned about the interpretation of the regulations governing suspension post-Shipman, which I understand are complex. The solicitor has interpreted those regulations and the nature of the advice given. In other words, she has questioned the PCT's interpretation of the rule under which Dr. Ghosh was suspended. She wrote letter after letter to the PCT and never received an answer.

Dr. Ghosh is up on the 19th, but he has been told that he cannot have legal representation. I do not know whether that is true, so perhaps the Minister can tell me. Can a doctor bring a lawyer or solicitor in such cases? Apparently not. Dr. Ghosh can bring a friend or someone from the British Medical Association, but he cannot bring his solicitor. Some 20 people from his ex-staff will be interviewed, all of whom have made allegations—very poor allegations, I might add, which I have here—but he is not allowed to question or to cross-examine them. If that is the case, anyone could say, "Well, if I'm not going to be cross-examined, I'll stick one on him—not a problem." That is disgraceful and unfair. Dr. Ghosh has a right to cross-examine those people and what they say about him.

One of the people in the investigation has claimed that Dr. Ghosh was having an affair with one of his staff. Dr. Ghosh was shocked at that. The girl in question has not been interviewed. What happens if I pick the phone up and say to that girl, "Look, you're in a report saying you had an affair with Dr. Ghosh. I would go and see your solicitor and sue"? There is no proof—the allegation came from a third party. Pauline Fryer, the head of corporate affairs at Newcastle PCT, alleged that Dr. Ghosh paid his staff money when he took them places. Well of course he paid them money—he had to pay them subsistence allowance, which was in their contracts. If they went anywhere with him, he paid them their subsistence allowance. What is the investigator suggesting he paid them for? Sex?

I do not know what is going on. The Minister should have an inquiry and consider the matter seriously to see exactly what has been happening. Who is right in their interpretation of the law? The solicitor has said that Dr. Ghosh should be entitled to legal representation, but the PCT says that he is not. Who is right? They go on to say that there is a similar case pending in the administrative court. They suggest that Dr. Ghosh's case should be put off until it has been heard. I know nothing about the pending case; that is what the solicitors say. However, doing that will mean that Dr. Ghosh will be suspended for a lengthy period, unable to practise and to care for his patients as he wants to. That is the state of affairs at the moment, but it gets worse.

I want to challenge the committee. It is supposed to be independent. There is only one independent doctor on it, whom I do not know. I know everyone else on the committee, and they have been involved in the case from the beginning. It is as if a detective were the prosecutor, a chief constable the judge, or a policeman the jury. Dr. Ghosh does not have a chance in hell of getting a decent decision. The same people who wanted the investigation and started the suspension will make sure that he does not practise again.

On what grounds is that happening? Because someone won a tribunal. People might want to say that, but Dr. Ghosh can equally say, "Wait a minute. I was found not guilty by a unanimous jury in the Crown court." There are balances. However, they want rid of him. As I said, they have already given his practice away to another doctor. We must wait to see what happens when they get rid of him—because they will; the decision has already been taken. I was told that on the grapevine by some members of the primary care trust, who told me "You are wasting your time, Ronnie. They are going to go for him."

In the end Dr. Ghosh will have to take the matter to court; he will have to sue. That is the only answer that I can see. The allegations are grave, but none of them can be defended. If the girl who worked for him is supposed to have had an affair with him, which is what they have claimed, in writing, she should take the matter to the High Court, too; she should sue.

There are other aspects to the case. A doctor—he has gone now—called Dr. McCullen made a racist remark to Dr. Ghosh, about which Dr. Ghosh obviously complained to Mrs. Frazer, who is chairman of the trust. She made some investigations. There was evidence and there were witnesses. To this day, Dr. Ghosh has never received an apology for the racist remarks.

Another case came to light of Mr. Sayeed, a Pakistani who has shops in Blyth. His daughter went to see Dr. McCullen because Dr. Ghosh was suspended and Dr. McCullen was seeing some of his patients. A racist remark was made to her. Her father made a complaint to Dr. Frazer, who is chairman of what I call the kangaroo court. Nothing happened. There was no letter of apology. Two proven racist remarks by a doctor were swept under the carpet by Dr. Frazer.

I sent Dr. Frazer a letter, asking what was going on, why the complaints were not being investigated, and why there were no letters of apology. I am still waiting for a reply from the primary care trust. I never received a reply, so I do not know what they are trying to hide.

I talked to another doctor, who I have known for some time, who said, "There was a lot of trouble in north London a few years back, when Peter Mitford was in charge of the committee"—the kangaroo committee. "Dr. Mitford was the chairman and he hounded Dr. Aman and Dr. Khan." Dr. Aman was interviewed in a general medical magazine about how he was hounded out. I have been trying to get a copy of the magazine, but it was published a few years ago. He cited racial abuse in the relevant primary care trust in north London at that time.

Dr. Khan left the area. I think that he is now practising somewhere in Newcastle. I have been trying to trace him. He had the same problem. He was harassed out by Dr. Peter Mitford. I suddenly found out that Dr. Mitford and Dr. Frazer were in the same practice in Morpeth. I am not making any suggestions, but I am drawing a comparison. Two complaints about racist comments were made about which nothing was done. Those two doctors worked in the same practice, and they have now left to take up big jobs in the PCT.

It is difficult to get any information on this matter at the PCT because the people concerned will not talk to me. They will not meet me—well, I did manage to arrange a brief meeting with someone, but they would not talk to me. I cannot get anywhere with them. That is why I have had to have this Adjournment debate. I thought about meeting the Minister, and perhaps I should have done that first, but I got very upset because I was told by a good friend on the health authority that what would happen to Dr. Ghosh was signed, sealed and delivered.

If Dr. Ghosh has done wrong, he should be sacked—doctors should get sacked if they do wrong. However, I must repeat this because it vexes me: he has not been found guilty in a court of law—in a Crown court of law, before a judge and jury. He has been found guilty at a tribunal, with a solicitor and two lay people deciding. I do not know why one route has been taken rather than another. It is as if such decisions are plucked out of the sky—"Well, we'll do that, because it seems like a good idea." I have now been told that Dr. Ghosh's clinical record will be examined. They are not satisfied with the questions asked so far. They want to take a look at other matters. They are having a go at him, and I do not know why. If Dr. Ghosh is a serial abuser, he must pay the penalty, but people who have known Dr. Ghosh for years do not believe that he is a serial abuser.

I wrote down some of the questions that were asked. "Did Dr. Ghosh comment to the staff that he liked them to wear short skirts?" Dr. Ghosh paid a lot of money for uniforms for his staff. He took that money from the budget. They all wear the same uniform. So why did the investigator ask about that? "Did you ask one of your staff to marry you?" He is a single man, so I suppose that he can propose to anyone he wishes to marry. It is funny that Dr. Frazer, who chairs this kangaroo committee, married a practice manager. I wonder whether he asked her to marry him in the surgery.

Those questions show what that investigation is really like—when a man's livelihood is on the line. Another question was asked about a named employee, but I will not mention her name because I do not think that names should be mentioned. Dr. Ghosh was asked if he had touched her neck. Who is making these allegations? "Did you touch her neck?" What does that mean? Another question was, "Did you stand close to your employees?" I have been in the practice and it is not very large. I hope that the Minister does not stand too close to me at the bar this evening, because she might get into trouble over it.

Some of those questions are not worthy of comment. That is the sort of stuff that this doctor has to endure, and he now sees his livelihood and practice disappearing. If what has been predicted comes true, he does get the heave-ho, and his practice does go down the Swannee, I will return to this Chamber to remind the Minister that I told her that that would happen, and she might be able to reply then as well.

First, I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Blyth Valley (Mr. Campbell) on securing the debate. This matter is clearly of great concern to him and, as he said, he has made representations to Ministers about it in the past.

I hope that my hon. Friend will understand that it is difficult for me to comment on individual cases, but I thought that it would help if I set out the procedures by which general practitioners in the NHS are regulated. GPs are covered by the Health and Social Care Act 2001, which requires them to be registered on primary care trust lists to provide or to assist in providing general medical services. That enables PCTs to refuse to admit doctors to, or to remove them from, the lists on grounds of unsuitability, inefficiency or fraud, and to suspend GPs to protect patients or act in the public interest. The Act also abolished the NHS tribunal and established the Family Health Services Appeals Authority as an independent tribunal.

Under the National Health Service (Performers List) Regulations 2004, which came into force last year, a PCT is expected to investigate any concerns about any aspect of a doctor's performance. Those concerns can be based on information from any source. In the most serious cases, the sanction can be dismissal—removal from the PCT's performers list. As I have said, the grounds for removal from the list are unsuitability, inefficiency and fraud. The PCT can also consider suspension from NHS practice as an interim measure to protect patients or to act in the public interest while an investigation is under way. When considering a suspension—which is not considered punitive, but a neutral act—PCTs are free to consider any information brought to their attention by a patient or other person or body, information obtained through the PCT's management of primary care in its locality, or any combination of the two. The suspension must be reviewed regularly.

Each primary care trust is responsible for carrying out its responsibility for maintaining its performers list, and the regulations set out the decisions that the PCT can make and the notifications and time frames with which it must comply. Each PCT is responsible for drawing up its own procedures for carrying out the process, including the composition of the panel if there is to be a hearing. Panel proceedings are for the PCT to determine, but they have to be in line with guidance produced by my Department. If a PCT decides to remove a doctor, there is a right of appeal to the FHSAA, which, as I have said, is an independent tribunal. There is not a right of appeal against suspension, because that is considered to be a neutral act designed to protect patients or the public. Given that framework, I hope that I can assure my hon. Friend that the Northumberland care trust has followed due process in their treatment of Dr. Ghosh.

Once the trust was made aware of the serious allegations against Dr. Ghosh and the serious nature of the employment tribunal's findings in January, there was a duty to investigate.

I referred to the committee: basically, it was the judge, jury and hangman. It had one independent doctor on it. I do not know who he is, but I know the others who sat on it. They should not be involved at that stage. The committee should hear the case but remain independent. Why are those people sitting listening to the case? They should be independent.

I will come to the composition of the panel and to the options that will be available to Dr. Ghosh in the light of the outcome of any hearing.

A formal complaint was made to the trust about Dr. Ghosh and, in a sense, that can run separately from the employment tribunal. The investigation was not dependent on it. If allegations had been made, the PCT had a duty to investigate.

Under the regulations, an internal investigation was set up at the end of January, chaired by a non-executive director of the trust, which included the acting chief executive of the trust and an independent member. The investigation was conducted, as my hon. Friend said, by the head of corporate affairs of a neighbouring PCT in order to ensure independence from the panel.

Was she—Mrs. Fryer, the head of corporate affairs—sitting on the committee?

The head of corporate affairs carried out the investigation and reported to the tribunal. That was in accordance with the regulations. A number of current and former members of Dr. Ghosh's staff were interviewed. The interim findings led to the extension of Dr Ghosh's suspension until the investigation is complete and any decisions dependent on it are reached.

I am told that the investigation has now reached its conclusions and that a panel meeting is to be held on 19 July to discuss the results of the investigation and to reach a decision. My hon. Friend asked whether a solicitor could be present. Under the guidance issued by the Department, neither the PCT nor Dr. Ghosh can have at the panel meeting a solicitor who comments directly. However, his solicitor can certainly attend the meeting with him to observe.

Ministers are not empowered to intervene between a trust and a doctor on the matter of the performers list, because primary care trusts are independent organisations. However, Dr. Ghosh will have a right of appeal to an independent tribunal if he is not satisfied with the outcome of the hearing on 19 July. In addition, if he chooses to go to appeal and that appeal fails, he will be able to go to judicial review.

My hon. Friend made it clear that he was dissatisfied with the locum provision. I have been informed that locum cover arrangements were put in place and that those involve the use of a locum previously approved by Dr Ghosh. The arrangements have meant that it has been possible to cover his practice on all but a small number of occasions.

I understand that Dr. Ghosh was contacted about the allegations of racism that were investigated by the trust. That is obviously a difficult situation and I understand my hon. Friend's concerns. However, I think that the trust has followed procedure as laid down in NHS guidance. I hope that I have been able to outline the alternatives that Dr. Ghosh will have if he is not satisfied with the outcome of the investigation and the hearing on 19 July.

I am grateful for the opportunity to have this short debate, and I welcome the Minister to her new responsibilities. I hope that she enjoys her new job.

Will you allow me 30 seconds of indulgence, Mr. O'Hara? It would be odd to start a debate about the future for our young people without sharing the excitement that many of us feel at the announcement that we have won the bid for the 2012 Olympic games. I say to the Minister—and therefore to the Government—that all of us can only sincerely congratulate the Prime Minister, the Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport and the Minister for Sport and Tourism.

I also add without reservation my congratulations to the Mayor of London. I wish that I had been doing that job at this time, but one cannot win all the prizes. I also congratulate Seb Coe, Craig Reedie and their teams. It has been a really encouraging day for the country as a whole, but for young people especially. I was delighted to be in Trafalgar square at a quarter to 1 with many, many others.

I have called this debate on this momentous day, knowing that—hopefully, within days—we shall get the Government Green Paper on the future of youth services. I shall press the Minister on that in a second or two. I want to make sure that at the beginning of this new Parliament the case for a really well resourced, developed, growing youth service is put again. That would serve England well. A good youth service with more qualified, competent and good youth workers can do phenomenal good for young people in their development from children into adults.

From all my political and pre-political experience, I am clear that such things are as important for fit, healthy and safe communities as are good homes and schools. Together with sport, if youth services can be well developed we shall have a much happier and healthier society.

I am patron of various constituency organisations, as are other hon. Members in their patches, but my only formal interest is that I am one of the parliamentary vice-chairs of the Commonwealth Youth Exchange council, which does good work that it wants to expand—with, I hope, a bit of encouragement from the Foreign Office. I put that on record, because the bid keeps going in.

I shall make a couple of general remarks, given the comments from the press and other sources in recent weeks. There is a regular clamour, particularly in much of the local and tabloid press, about how young people do not have respect and are not what they used to be. Of course, a minority behaves badly and that behaviour is rightly to be condemned, as are the failures of their families, which, in many cases, are equally responsible.

Young people often say that if they are given respect, they will reciprocate—and they deserve that presumption. The youth service deserves that respect too, because there is some really good work and practice in every single local authority up and down the country. If we can develop the youth service in the statutory and voluntary sectors—sometimes through faith groups, sometimes through other organisations; uniformed and non-uniformed, traditional and modern—there will be much less bad and antisocial behaviour from that age group in our cities, towns and villages. Bluntly, we would probably end up with far fewer calls for an end to hoods in shopping centres, including at the Elephant and Castle in my own constituency, just over the bridge.

If we work on this agenda well, I am sure that young people will respond well, get less of a bad press and begin to get out of that cycle of criticism. I hope that collectively in this Parliament we will stand up for young people and not run them down, and that the Minister will see that as one of the items on her agenda.

I shall give a few undisputed facts. The last figure that I had was that there are about 4.3 million youngsters between the ages of 13 and 19 in England. In ball-park figures, local education authorities spend between £300 million and £400 million on youth services in England, from core funding, as it were; I think that that is the right figure. Some £100 million comes from other funding, and some money—about a quarter of that: £25 million—is given to the voluntary sector. Those are the ball-park figures; we are talking about £500 million a year. About a quarter of young people of the relevant age range are in contact with formal youth services. About half that group are involved intensively, the other half less frequently.

Of the 8,000 members of staff, about half are full-time, and the other half are the equivalent of full-time. There are also 16,000 or 17,000 who do what used to be called part-time hours and who are now called support workers. The latest statistic suggests, although averages are always misleading, that there is roughly one youth worker for every 500 young people up and down the country. The Minister will know, however, that the amount spent locally varies hugely. I do not criticise that or argue that a similar amount should be spent, because local variation sometimes results in better value for money, but the amount does vary significantly.

At the bottom end of the range for that age group, the average amount is £71 a head, the lowest is as little as £40 a head, and the largest goes up to £200 a head. A question that people always ask is why there are such different priorities in different parts of the country, many of which are not hugely different from each other. Some regions are much lower spenders than others. The two midlands regions, the south, the south-west and the eastern regions spend less, while London, the north-west, the north-east and Yorkshire and Humberside spend more. My borough, which my colleagues have run for three years, spends about £141 per young person on its youth services. Inner London tends to spend more than many other local authorities elsewhere in the country.

When I first came to Southwark to settle permanently after college, I was a youth leader with the Greenhouse trust in Camberwell in my spare time. The trust still exists, and I shall talk about it in a moment. I learned about the level of need, which I shall illustrate briefly, and about the continuing need for support in order to do the work that everyone accepts needs to be done.

I have five figures, which I know have been given to the Minister, so there is no dispute; I merely place them on the record so that we can agree about the basis of the need. More than one in 10 of the children—just under 6,000—have parents who are never at work, are long-term unemployed, or have never worked. That is twice the national average. Just under 25,000 dependent children, which is half of all Southwark children, are living in overcrowded accommodation, and have all the more need to get out and do stimulating things such as exercise away from home. That is one in two and is much greater than the national average, which is not much more than one in 10.

Almost half of dependent children—some 23,000—are in one-parent families, which is double the national average. In addition, some 3 per cent.—some 1,500—are not in a family at all, which is three times the national average, and about 650 children are in foster care or local authority care, which is more than double the national average. Those are the special needs children.

There are also other children who do not have special criteria but who are simply young people who want to escape their parents and school and do other things. The very well respected head of youth services, Karl Murray, whom I have known over the years, and his predecessors make the same point that they have always made, which is that they want more youth workers because there is much more demand for youth work.

Some very good initiatives came out of the tragedy of Damilola Taylor's death. There is a new centre in the neighbouring constituency of the Minister of State, Department for Constitutional Affairs, the right hon. and learned Member for Camberwell and Peckham (Ms Harman). It is now used very actively, and I give all due credit to those who use it. There is also a young people's magazine project, which is what it says it is, and a detached youth work team in Nunhead.

So there is very good practice, but I shall give four examples of where parts of the system are struggling for lack of resources and support. This morning, I visited the Geoffrey Chaucer school in my constituency with XLP—a Christian youth work organisation that won the Queen's award for volunteering in, I believe, 2002, and has been going for nine years.

XLP provides counselling and support in schools and helps with arts, reading and other education. It did a presentation at the school this morning, and it was simply brilliant, engaging a raft of kids at 8.50 am. I must say that Geoffrey Chaucer school does not have a tradition of children sitting quietly in rows and listening, but they were in really good form.

We were there because I had a meeting with the school and with someone who might help it with funding because it is struggling to find funding that will continue. One of its key funders, the Church, cannot fund it as it used to, yet it has huge demands on its time. The local authority gave it a bus, which it uses two days a week on the estate. It wants to use it five days a week but does not have the resources to do so.

The Scouts in Southwark were on to me recently because there is a risk that one of the places to which they go in the Thames valley for canoeing will not be available anymore and because, in some of the voluntary community premises, they do not have places to do their scouting.

The Salmon youth centre, which is in Bermondsey, has a brilliantly planned new building and is a really good new project with which I have been involved for a long time. However, it is 20 per cent. short of what it needs to get back up and running. The Greenhouse Trust, at which I started my Southwark life, is struggling to expand special work with younger children with particular needs.

That is happening in a borough in which the talent is unarguable. The Minister may not know this, but last weekend the London youth games were held at Crystal palace. Not only did Southwark, for the first time, become the best inner-London borough, but it got the best result of any inner-London borough in the history of the London youth games. So the energy, talent and willingness to do well and succeed is there.

When Southwark young people are asked what they want, their answers are unsurprising. They want three things. First, they say what nearly every adult throughout the country says: "We want more things for young people to do." Secondly, they say, "We have problems with other people hanging around." Thirdly, young people say, "We have problems with crime"—being attacked, harassed, and so on. The issues are no different.

Really good youth work—from rural youth work in villages in Dorset to inner-city youth work in London—is vital as a bridge between school life and home life. It often produces role models who do things that parents and teachers can never do. Often, youth clubs are the places that young people go to in their most difficult periods.

My hon. Friend is probably not aware that in south Manchester the police have been instrumental in raising thousands of pounds to buy a youth bus for my constituency and those south of the Mersey. Unfortunately, the use of that bus is dependent on the availability of youth workers to staff it. Having raised all that money and provided a facility that is good for young people, and well tended when in use, the problem is having the resources available to staff those buses on a regular basis so that it is in use all the time rather than a couple of nights a week or a couple of afternoons at the weekend.

I did not know that, but I know my hon. Friend's part of Manchester. My hon. Friend the Member for Solihull (Lorely Burt) is also here. I bet that, in the west midlands and the north-west, including in the Minister's constituency in the Wirral—

My constituency is in Liverpool.

I beg the Minister's pardon. I was thinking of her sister's constituency.

There is a difference.

I know. Those constituencies face the same issues as does London.

I end with my policy questions. First, when will we get the Green Paper? Will it come before the summer? It was due last September, but got deferred. It was coming before the election, but somehow did not come and everyone is waiting.

Secondly, will the Government consider having the same sort of campaign for recruitment and retention of youth workers as was successful in increasing the number of nurses and police officers some years ago when we were short of them? It would benefit us and I am sure that it would be taken up if we did it properly.

Thirdly, will the Minister confirm that it is Government policy that youth services should be available not just for those with special needs but as a universal service accessible for all young people? Youth services should not just be targeted on those who are thought to be particularly needy.

My fourth question is the most controversial and topical. It would not have been a question a month ago. Although we can understand why private owners of shopping centres such as Bluewater say that they will ban hoodies, does the Minister agree that that response is not helpful? It starts to demonise young people who are wearing something fashionable. If we said that they could not come in wearing trainers or certain sorts of jeans, it would become nonsensical. We must try to respond positively to young people's needs rather than saying that they cannot go somewhere and are not accepted.

Fifthly, will the Minister be clear that youth work is principally best outside school? I am in favour of wrap-round school provision. I chair a school governing body and we will do it in my school. However, that is a different issue. It is important that we do not just think about 8 till 6 provision but about evenings and weekends.

On that point, I wonder whether my hon. Friend is aware of some excellent provision that is being made in my constituency, where there is an innovative scheme called teen spirit, of which hon. Members might have heard. However, the amount of funding for youth services in my constituency is very small, and I know that my hon. Friend will point out that there is equally little funding in other constituencies. Solihull was 138th out of 148 English local authorities in terms of provision in 2001. That situation has improved, but we are still near the bottom of the fourth quartile for funding. Will my hon. Friend ask the Minister to give us an assurance that the necessary funding will be forthcoming, so that we can continue to grow such excellent services for our young people?

I hope that the Minister will be very positive, although she will probably say that it is partly the responsibility of the local authority. One of the problems for all of us is that I have never known funding for the youth service to be a core local election issue. We need to do more to ensure that it is on everybody's agenda, whatever their political party, so that it is not something that the local authority can ignore. The needs of young people in Solihull are fundamentally no different from those of young people in Withington, Southwark or Liverpool.

On the hon. Gentleman's fifth point, about the balance between schools and services outside school, would he agree that part of the key is to find ways of discovering what the young people themselves want? We might think that we know what young people want, but it would be far better to find innovative ways of asking them, and for that to be at the core of any youth strategy.

Absolutely. I have not yet welcomed the hon. Gentleman to Parliament, and I do so now. The next point on my list was to ask whether the Government will give encouragement and support to young people who want to set up their own youth clubs—that is, to go and ask what they want. It is a slightly different, but connected, point. A couple of years ago, I went to south Wales. There had been problems in a very poor area of the valleys, and young people said that they wanted a shelter. That was all; a shelter to hang around in. They got the wood and built the shelter, and solved half of their problems in that town.

I have three questions to go: I draw the Minister's attention to Tom Wiley's speech in which he used the mnemonic "respect" to set out what was important for a good youth service—relevance, entitlements, sustainability, participation, evidence, community, transitions. I respect him greatly—he has done hugely good work—but I am not sure that there could not have been a better version of that phrase. The basic message is, "show respect for young people". It is all about a set of things that are available to them.

Last but one: is it a principle that we will grow the youth service, its funding and its participants? That must be the right thing to do. The inevitable last question is—I expect that the Minister always has it on the list when she is given a brief—is it a possibility that at last, after 60 years, we can have a statutory youth service rather than a non-statutory one? I know that it is not the answer to everything, but if there were an obligation to provide education and services for adults, services for old people and services for young people, at least everybody's mind would be focused. I hope that we can have a very positive dialogue in this Parliament, and that it will be all to the advantage of young people. I would like to see a coalition for building support across the parties in their interests.

First, I congratulate the hon. Member for North Southwark and Bermondsey (Simon Hughes) on securing the debate, which has necessitated his coming back from the celebrations in Trafalgar square. I am happy to join him in the congratulations that he was liberally spreading around at the beginning of his speech in response to the fantastic news that London is to host the 2012 Olympic games. That announcement went down as well in the House of Commons Tea Room—where I watched it, and a wonderful moment it was—as it did in Trafalgar square.

I hesitate to say that we will take the Green Paper away in order to incorporate the fact that the 2012 bid has succeeded; as the hon. Gentleman said, we have been waiting a little while for it. To put him out of his misery and answer his first question, it will be soon. He will not have to wait much longer. I cannot spill the beans any more than that, but he ought to realise that that is a positive thing for a Minister to say in reply to any debate.

I am particularly glad that the hon. Gentleman raised this subject. It is characteristic of him to have done so; it is well known in the House that he has an interest in this field relating back to his work before he came here. It would be wise of Ministers to listen to his opinions on this issue. I have enjoyed listening to him, and am glad that he appealed for some cross-party consensus on the issue, as that could only be a positive thing.

I assure the hon. Gentleman that we have been working together across Government to improve the life chances of children, young people and their families. It is particularly important that that work does not stop when children reach 13, and that we do not then say that we have sent them off and that they can make the rest of the way themselves. It would not be sensible policy making not to have good youth policies, which can have a direct impact on the lives of young people and on society more widely. As he said, this issue is not only about children in need, although it is important that youth service work should focus on children in need.

It is tremendously important that youth work should be more accessible to a wider range of young people, because of the impact that it can have on their lives. It can play a critical role in young people's personal and social development by helping them to aspire to the future, develop themselves, stay in good relationships, understand and appreciate our rich and diverse cultural heritage, have fun, learn how to take calculated risks, build their confidence and make informed choices, thus helping them to turn into thoughtful, mature, well-rounded, responsible and caring adults. Youth work at its best can make sure that people reach that level of development who might have had more difficulty in doing so without youth work intervention.

Good youth work can also challenge young people's perceptions, attitudes and behaviour. The hon. Gentleman mentioned several times the fact that the behaviour of some young people gets a disproportionate amount of attention. It is important that young people become a part of society, rather than see themselves as being outside it, or rebel against it to too great a degree. We want to ensure that our young people will turn into the responsible adults that we know they can be. They are the future of the country. I do not complain about the focus on behaviour, but it sometimes distorts the many good stories about how fantastic many of our young people are, and the great things that many of them do for our society and their communities.

If all young people are to fulfil the potential that we want them to, it is important that they grow up in communities in which they feel safe. The hon. Gentleman told us that young people say that feeling safe and not that they are about to be the victims of crime is as important to them as anyone else in society. That puts the debate about hoodies into context. Feeling safe and secure in one's community is a concern to people of all ages, so we need to have a proper balance on that.

The hon. Gentleman asked about making sure that there is more and better youth work, and more youth workers. He will know that the Government recognised that point in 2001 in their transforming youth work agenda, the intention of which was to raise the quality and quantity of youth work throughout England. That recognised that youth work had been something of a Cinderella, perhaps underfunded, service in the past. That is an important part of our policy agenda.

The hon. Gentleman referred to local authority youth services and the active and thriving voluntary and community sector, which many communities have, particularly in Southwark. I know that his authority spends a higher percentage than some on supporting local community groups and voluntary organisations. That is important. He gave some examples from his own experience and from his constituency, particularly that of the Salmon youth centre, which is a fantastic example of local initiative. It is gathering a dauntingly large sum of money in one place and is on the point of doing something incredible in what he has described as quite a deprived community—a point which I accept. That kind of service and such facilities would be well used and welcome and can only have a positive impact. We support that.

We have developed a clear specification for an excellent youth service through the publication of "Transforming Youth Work: Resourcing Excellent Youth Services". We are trying to ensure that local authorities know what translates into such services. We have provided extra resources targeted at service improvement. I am talking about an extra £11 million this year. We have also tried to ensure that management training and development are improved, to ensure that we can draw more people into youth work. As the hon. Gentleman will know, it is a rewarding and important career for those who have an interest in the field.

The hon. Gentleman asked some questions and perhaps I ought to get on to answering some of them. I have said all that I am going to about when the Green Paper will arrive. He will not have to hold his breath too much longer. He asked whether we intend to grow the youth service. There is a commitment through "Transforming Youth Work: Resourcing Excellent Youth Services", the support we are putting into enabling local authorities to understand what a good youth service is and the Ofsted inspections that are taking place. I know that his authority has not been inspected since 1995, but I suspect that it would do rather well. It will be inspected at some point before 2008.

All those things, combined with the extra resources, focus the minds of local authorities, which is where this action has to be led and implemented in a given local area, on ensuring that they can make the improvements and give this service a higher priority. The Green Paper, which is not too far in the future, will provide a further boost to that process. We want to stress to local authorities what they can do to show the positive impact of young people being in charge of things that are going on in their area.

The hon. Gentleman made references to places to go and things to do. We will consult on a number of issues that we think are important in reforming the delivery of services to young people. Those will include access to exciting, enjoyable activities in and out of school or college. They should enhance young people's personal, social and educational development and give them the opportunity to have the achievements that they make in those areas recognised. Another issue will be easier access to personal advice and the support that they might need to fulfil and raise their aspirations, which will include high quality and personalised careers education advice and guidance and some more targeted interventions where children need that. Better and earlier support for young people who demonstrate risk factors associated with poor school attendance, poor behaviour or poor attainment will be included, to try to ensure that people do not go off at a tangent and then find it more difficult later in life to get back to where they would have wanted to be.

There will be consultation on greater access to specialist services, and opportunities for volunteering and mentoring, which will build on the proposals in the Russell commission and the successful millennium volunteers programme, for example.

We know that young people are ready and willing to support others when they are given the chance, but they just need an opportunity. We want to ensure that young people can have more of a say in developing local support and activities. There will be some exciting proposals on that in the Green Paper. I shall be interested to hear what the hon. Gentleman has to say about those when he gets to see it. My hon. Friend the Member for Doncaster, North (Edward Miliband) mentioned the issue as well.

The youth Green Paper will launch an exciting change agenda for young people's services. It will put young people at the centre of those developments. Good youth work will also be at the heart of it. That fits in well with our entire "Every Child Matters" agenda. It applies a little further up the age range, but none the less it is an important part of the way in which services for children and young people will be transformed in every local area in this country. I hope that when the Green Paper arrives shortly, the hon. Gentleman will respond to it. I look forward to seeing what he has to say, and I hope that it will set off a debate about the future, which will be tremendously helpful in all our communities, whether it be in Liverpool, Southwark, Solihull or even Manchester.

Question put and agreed to.

Adjourned accordingly at half-past Five o'clock.