With permission, Mr. Deputy Speaker, I should like to make a statement in respect of today's publication of the first-ever comprehensive guide to the Government's support for British nationals in difficulty abroad.

It is obviously traumatic to be caught up in any emergency, to fall victim to crime or to have to go to hospital in an emergency. When that happens abroad, it can be worse still for those involved, who might be far from friends and family and unfamiliar with the local language, laws and procedures. It has therefore long been a central task of the Foreign and Commonwealth Office to assist British nationals who get into difficulty while travelling or living overseas.

Demand for such support has never been greater. People from the United Kingdom now make more than 65 million overseas trips a year—three times as many as 20 years ago—and a greater proportion of them are travelling independently and to more distant and sometimes more dangerous destinations. Meanwhile, some 13 million British nationals live overseas.

Our travel advice covers 217 countries and territories and the website receives nearly 5 million hits a year. Our consular staff now deal with nearly 3.5 million inquiries a year, including from the 860,000 people who visit our consulates in person, and we help around 85,000 people a year in need of more acute assistance. For example, last year, we supported 4,200 British nationals in hospital abroad, helped the families of 3,900 people who died overseas and dealt with the detention of 6,000 British nationals. Last year, we also assisted nationals affected by major crises, including the hurricanes in America and the Caribbean and the terrorist attacks in Egypt and Turkey, and we continue to provide support to the British victims of the tsunami and their families. In addition, we are the only western nation regularly to provide special consular services for Hajj pilgrims in Saudi Arabia.

We have responded to the growing and changing demand through a programme of major improvements to the consular support that we offer British nationals. After the Bali bombings in October 2002, we set up consular rapid deployment teams, which are on stand-by to travel quickly to the scenes of major emergencies. Today we have twice as many trained consular staff on 24-hour stand-by for those teams as before the tsunami. In addition, we also have a new team based in Hong Kong that covers the Asian region and we will launch another in north America before the hurricane season this year. Our teams now include staff from the police and the Red Cross and medical personnel when they are needed. We have raised the quality of training for our consular staff and made crisis management training obligatory for all our heads of mission overseas. We have set up specialist teams in specific areas, such as forced marriages and child abductions, and recruited specialist advisers in family law and police and social work. We have expanded our 24-hour response centre in London and have new call-handling arrangements with the police to allow us to deal with a very high volume of calls in a crisis.

We are determined to keep improving the support that the Foreign and Commonwealth Office provides. To that end, in the summer of 2004, we asked the National Audit Office to review our consular operations. Its report was published in November last year and I have accepted in full its recommendations—indeed, many have already been implemented. In the report, the NAO noted that the UK

"has a reputation among other countries' foreign ministries as world leaders in consular crisis management".

If we are to deliver consular assistance in the most effective and efficient manner possible, the public need to know what support the Foreign Office's staff overseas can provide to them in times of need, and, just as importantly, people need to be clear about what we cannot do. For example, we cannot get people out of jail and nor can we pay their hospital bills. Helping British travellers better to understand what support is available should encourage them to prepare thoroughly and minimise the risks that they take.

It was for those reasons that in the manifesto for the last general election, the Government said that they would

"consult widely before publishing a comprehensive statement"

on the support that they could offer British nationals in difficulty abroad. I launched the consultation process with a written statement to the House on 20 October last year. My noble Friend Lord Triesman, the Foreign Office Minister with responsibility for the matter, hosted a major consultative event on 27 October with representatives from the House, the travel industry, non-governmental organisations and consumer groups. The consultation period lasted until 30 November and produced an overwhelmingly positive response. The result is the document that I am launching today.

The fundamental responsibility in respect of the risks of travelling abroad must be met by travellers themselves through an appreciation of the risks and with comprehensive travel insurance that covers the loss of personal effects, medical care, accidents and criminal acts, and, if necessary, repatriation to the UK. The only alternative to the personal responsibility of the traveller is that the taxpayer should meet the cost, but since travel abroad is plainly a matter of choice, and those who do travel abroad tend to have more disposable income than many in this country, it cannot be right for the burden to fall on the taxpayer as a whole.

However, since the atrocities of 11 September 2001, we have accepted that there may be circumstances so grave and exceptional that it is appropriate for the Government, from public funds, to provide exceptional assistance. The available assistance is set out on page 29 of the guide. When we trigger such assistance must be a matter of judgment at the time, and its potential availability should never be seen as a substitute for good insurance cover.

Where there has been a major disaster and we have triggered an emergency package for victims abroad, there has often also been a need for comprehensive support for victims and/or their families on their return to the UK. My right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport has very kindly taken the lead on this. For victims of the tsunami and their families, for example, we worked with the Red Cross to help those worst affected to gain access to financial support on their return.

My right hon. Friend the Prime Minister has made it clear that we must examine the question of financial support for those caught up in terrorist attacks overseas. At present, neither our domestic criminal injuries compensation scheme nor any other victim compensation scheme covers those killed or injured abroad. We are now considering a range of options in that respect, and we will make an announcement when we have concluded that consideration.

I have sent copies of the new guide to all hon. Members, and we will also send copies to all libraries and citizens advice bureaux across the UK and to our partners in the travel industry and other associated industries and bodies. We are producing a summary document in leaflet form, which will be available at airports and our travel agency partners. Information based on the guide is being sent out in the form of a checklist for travellers, which will be included with every one of the more than 5 million British passports that we issue each year. We will place the guide on our travel website, from which hard copies can also be ordered. We are also translating it into Welsh, Bengali, Punjabi, Urdu, Gujurati, Arabic and Chinese, and those versions will be available on our website or in hard copy on request.

Within the Foreign Office, the new guide will provide our staff both overseas and in London with a clear statement of exactly what they can and should do for British nationals in difficulty, and it will therefore be an important tool for further improving the quality and consistency of support across our consular network. Next week, I shall launch an updated document setting out the Government's international strategic priorities for the next decade. For the first time, consular work will become a strategic priority in its own right, which means that every one of our heads of mission abroad will have personal responsibility for delivering support for British nationals in difficulty as set out in the new guide.

Almost a year ago to the day, I made a statement to the House on our response to the tsunami in the Indian ocean. I was struck then by the tributes from both sides of the House on the work of our consular staff around the world. Our staff deal face to face and on a regular basis with the kind of traumatic situations that most people rarely have to confront over a lifetime, and I pay tribute to them again today. I am proud that the consular support that we give British nationals abroad is among the very best in the world. I am determined and confident that it will stay that way, and the new guide will be an important tool to that end.

I welcome the Foreign Secretary's statement and the publication of the new booklet of advice. Our nationals are prolific travellers who, regrettably, will sometimes fall victim to crime, natural disasters or even kidnappings and terrorist incidents. It is absolutely right that they should know what help they can expect from their nearest embassy or consulate and that the common-sense responsibilities of travellers are also made clear. I join the Foreign Secretary in paying tribute to our consular staff around the world, who take on such trying tasks with such incredible dedication.

Within that general welcome, may I press the Foreign Secretary on a few points? First, have all possible lessons been learned from the handling of previous disasters affecting British citizens overseas? Foreign Office staff worked very hard and generally very successfully on the aftermath of the tsunami. However, the Foreign Secretary has referred to the action taken following the Bali bombings, after which, he will recall, the Foreign Office apologised for a lack of co-ordination on bringing home the bodies of British victims, which placed families under enormous pressure. Is he confident that such a lack of co-ordination is now a thing of the past? In looking at the range of options, he has referred to a victims' compensation scheme: what lessons is he learning from the reserve funds and other arrangements for this purpose already established by Australia, Spain, France and Italy?

Secondly, what plans have been put in place to benefit from inter-departmental co-operation in the event of major catastrophes with, for instance, the Ministry of Defence and the Department for International Development? The Foreign Office is not the only arm of the British Government with a presence overseas, and the forced marriage unit run between the Foreign Office and the Home Office is a welcome example of such co-operation. Will the Foreign Secretary explain why the lead Department on looking after victims on their return to the United Kingdom is the Department for Culture, Media and Sport—there is presumably a good reason for that? The Foreign Secretary is smiling, but I am sure that there is a good reason for that.

Given that the security of our missions abroad is of paramount importance to deliver such services to British citizens, is he satisfied that all necessary and proportionate steps have been taken to ensure the safety of embassy and consular staff throughout the world? In considering the position of British nationals abroad, will he comment on US-UK extradition measures and their current operation? Does he accept that there is concern that British citizens have been extradited to the United States for non-terrorist offences without full reciprocity yet by the United States?

Given that the document asks British nationals to have confidence in what the Foreign Office can do for them, will the Foreign Secretary respond to the recent report by the Select Committee on Foreign Affairs, which commented on a

"woeful lack of professional skills and a disturbing series of failings in senior FCO management".

It said that

"the FCO needs to catch up with the rest of Whitehall, by recruiting professionally qualified, experienced people to . . . top . . . roles".

Is the Foreign Secretary satisfied that those criticisms are invalid? If not, are they being acted on?

Finally, what is the impact on the Foreign Office's ability to give appropriate help and advice of the closure of overseas posts and missions? Four posts have closed in Africa, five in the Asia Pacific region and three in the United States. Has any assessment been made of the impact on British travellers? Again, does the Foreign Secretary agree with the Foreign Affairs Committee report that the changes to overseas posts lacked a clear rationale? Does he accept its concern that

"a number of the affected Posts are in Commonwealth countries, with which the United Kingdom has had a long and particularly close association."

The initiative is welcome, but I hope that the Foreign Secretary can give us additional assurances on the matters that I have raised.

I am grateful for the right hon. Gentleman's welcome for the initiative and for the tribute that he paid to our staff.

He asked whether we have learned lessons from previous emergencies overseas. I believe so, but I am not at all complacent. We all learned from an unsatisfactory performance in Bali. The hon. Member for Bournemouth, East (Mr. Ellwood) is in the Chamber, and I know that he had a tragic and personal experience of that. We must continue to learn lessons. As for a victims' compensation scheme, we are looking at the examples provided by France, Spain, Australia and the other countries mentioned by the right hon. Member for Richmond, Yorks (Mr. Hague). On the question of whether there is sufficient interdepartmental co-operation abroad, I have never, in fact, seen any problems affecting the co-operation between representatives of different Government Departments abroad. When they are abroad, they represent the British Government and, as I saw in the aftermath of the tsunami and several other disasters including the Istanbul bombings, they do not stand on departmental loyalties—they get down to business. A bigger issue is the co-ordination between British Government Departments once people return home, and the right hon. Gentleman asked why the Department for Culture, Media and Sport has responsibility for co-ordination. In the aftermath of 11 September there was a need for a Department without parti pris to try to bring together other Departments. It was for that reason that my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister invited the Departments of Health, Social Security and others to co-ordinate their work, and I think that that arrangement has worked rather well. I accept that it appears slightly eccentric, but there is method.

The right hon. Gentleman asked whether necessary and proportionate steps have been taken to protect the security of our staff. Yes, I believe that we are taking such steps, and a very large amount of money has been spent on protecting staff. However, one can never guarantee staff security, as I saw on 20 November 2003. Moreover, we must ask our staff to take risks. I do not want reach the position in which some Governments have found themselves—their staff are in bunkers, unable to communicate with members of the public—and neither do our staff.

No. 10?

I was talking about other countries. Carbolic soap will be provided afterwards.

There is a balance to be struck, but sometimes, as the House knows from the announcement that I made last Tuesday, security becomes paramount.

I understand the concerns that have been expressed about extradition. It is sometimes the case, not only in respect of extradition treaties with the United States, that there is not symmetry when it comes to ratification of such treaties. That is my understanding, but I am happy to pass on the concerns of the House, if such they be, to my right hon. Friend the Home Secretary.

The right hon. Gentleman asked me about the criticism from the Foreign Affairs Committee about a skills shortage in the Foreign Office. I shall respond to that report in due course. I thought that the criticism was over-harsh, but I accept that we needed more professional skills, and a great deal of effort is going into recruiting higher levels of professionalism in the finance, human resources and information technology directorates.

The last question was in respect of the closure of posts. We do assess the effect on British travellers and British interests abroad. Some posts have closed; quite a number have opened as well. I hope there will not be any more closures for the foreseeable future. In any event, we never know where the next emergency will arise. We could pepper a country with posts. We might be lucky and the emergency arises close to a post, or we might be very unlucky and it occurs thousands of miles or thousands of kilometres away. We must ensure that we are flexible and can respond rapidly, wherever the emergency takes place.

I can assure the Foreign Secretary that what I am about to say is not over-harsh. I refer him to the aspects of his statement that take up what the Foreign Affairs Committee was calling for when we asked in our report for the Foreign and Commonwealth Office to make it clear to the public that there are limits to what can be done, and that people sometimes have unrealistic expectations about the support that might be available. The Committee praises and is very supportive of the work of our consular staff over the recent past in the case of the tsunami, Hurricane Katrina and other disasters.

I hope my right hon. Friend's statement is the first step towards implementing measures that we have called for. Will he look at the other recommendations in our second report and act on them in a similarly positive way?

Yes, I always look at the recommendations of the Foreign Affairs Committee and I respond to them recommendation by recommendation. I am grateful for the praise that the Chairman of the Committee has just offered the House. I endorse what the Committee stated at paragraph 107 of its report:

"We conclude that in recent years excessive and unrealistic expectations have arisen of what the FCO is able to do for people who get into difficulties abroad, including in circumstances such as natural disasters."

We sought to spell out what we think is among the best available assistance, and we also spelled out clearly what the limits are.

On the Liberal Democrat Benches we, too, welcome the statement and the publication of the new guide. I echo the tributes paid to consular staff, who have often in recent times been called upon to cope with unimaginable and traumatic situations, in addition to all the duties that they perform with professionalism and dedication day in, day out.

In responding to the lessons learned from those catastrophes and the criticisms from the recent National Audit Office and Select Committee reports, will the Foreign Secretary state what additional resources will be made available to the emergency disaster reserve in the future? Will he be more specific about the types of compensation measures he is considering for people who are injured or families who are bereaved as a result of terrorist attacks abroad? What is the time scale for his deliberations?

What level of resources does the right hon. Gentleman have in mind for the scheme? Will the FCO have to find the money from within existing budgets? Finally, what progress is being made in tackling all the identified shortcomings in the Foreign Affairs Committee report, and has he changed any of the targets for the coming year as a result?

I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for his welcome for this initiative.

On additional resources, the cost of consular services is met from the consular premium. That is included in the cost of a passport, so as demand rises the available resources also rise. We could not possibly have dealt with a threefold increase in the number of travellers abroad and the huge additional demand caused by changes in telecommunications and IT without that relative buoyancy of the income stream. Included in that is an element for the emergency response, which is held by the Treasury and triggered when we declare a full emergency. I can let the hon. Gentleman have full details of that.

We are looking at compensation in respect of, for example, victims of terrorism who do not have insurance. I should say that it is quite complicated. The schemes that are run by countries abroad tend to be pretty restrictive, more so than people might believe. Of course, there is always a difficulty in ensuring that an evidential base for the injuries or trauma is satisfied. That is easier in respect of terrorist incidents than in respect of some others. That is one of the reasons why most countries have been reluctant to set up such schemes.

I should say, too, that as a result of discussions between our consular directorate and the insurance industry, insurance companies are now extending the insurance cover that they provide to include terrorist incidents. In my view, it must be a fundamental responsibility of travellers to ensure that they are covered for all potential risks.

It is wrong and inappropriate that we should conflate this with the report by the Foreign Affairs Committee, which has very much got my fingerprints on it. I hope that we will have a separate discussion on that on another occasion. I welcome the statement on this narrow issue. It is measured and appropriate and acknowledges, as I want to, the very harrowing circumstances that many of our diplomats have to deal with week after week in respect of bereavements around the world. Some people—I witnessed this myself when I was staying with a diplomat friend abroad—welcome the nanny state when they have the most minor hiccup in their travel arrangements, and test the patience and diligence of our diplomats by more or less expecting from them bed, breakfast and so on. That is inappropriate. I welcome this and hope that we will distinguish it from the discussion on the Foreign Affairs Committee report that we might have on another occasion.

I am grateful to my hon. Friend for his remarks and for his confession about his fingerprints. We hold good biometric data on him in any event, so we were able to work that one out for ourselves.

My hon. Friend is right that there can be terribly harrowing circumstances. I saw that during the tsunami, when the police and our own officials worked in the most atrocious and appalling circumstances in dealing with bereaved victims and with cadavers. We have to ensure that support from the British state is available when it is really needed. Of course, that is right—consular assistance has always been a principal function of the Foreign Office. At the same time, however, we have to say to people that they must accept responsibility for themselves.

I am grateful for the Foreign Secretary's comments. We met after Bali, and I am very pleased that he took on board many of the comments that were made. We also met, as he may remember, in Phuket directly after the tsunami; again, it is good to see that some changes have been made.

I welcome the Government's initiative, but I would like to see them go much further. More than £50 million was rightly given to those affected by the 7/7 bombings, but not one penny is available to any Briton who is caught up in a terrorist incident abroad. Will the Foreign Secretary allow us to catch up with Australia, Spain, the United States, France, Italy and all the other countries that have set up a reserve fund to help those who are caught up in such horrific incidents? Terrorism is not limited to national boundaries, and neither should be our support for British citizens.

As I have already acknowledged, the hon. Member for Bournemouth, East (Mr. Ellwood) has more acute experience of the harrowing nature of terrorist incidents than probably any other hon. Member. He was critical but generous about what British staff tried to do, and I hope that we have learned lessons post- October 2002 and from what, as I told the House at the time, was not a satisfactory response.

As is set out in page 29 of the document, we provide quite a lot of support for those who suffer in terrorist incidents abroad, including medical evacuation for those who have been injured; paying immediate medical expenses; transporting bodies back home; paying for return luggage costs; and paying for travel to the site of the attack, accommodation and travel insurance for two members of the victim's family. Those arrangements, which worked well after the tsunami, for example, were first put in place by us after 11 September.

I accept that there is a wider issue about victims abroad and compensation, which victims of terrorism at home would receive. We are currently studying that matter, including examples from other countries.

I thank my right hon. Friend for his comments, with which I agree, about the excellent work of the consular staff at the Islamabad high commission in rescuing mainly young girls from imprisonment and forced marriage. However, does he agree that we could avoid many of those traumatic situations if we introduced a specific criminal offence of forcing to marry or even conspiracy to force to marry?

I am grateful to my hon. Friend for her comments. I promise to give active consideration to her proposal.

The Foreign Secretary will recall the tragic murder of my constituent, Mr. Richard Collins, on 8 March last year in Thailand. The right hon. Gentleman kindly arranged for my constituent's mother, Yvonne Hart, and I to visit officials. He will remember that one of the most appalling aspects of the case was that Richard's body was not kept properly and, consequently, within days, it was not only unrecognisable but had deteriorated to such an extent that a proper investigation could not be conducted into the cause of death. Will he ensure that, in future, consul officials overseas have a standing instruction that, when British nationals are murdered, they should try to make sure that the body is properly maintained not only for investigation but identification purposes? Surely that is not an unrealistic expectation.

I am happy to give that standing instruction but with the caveat that it depends not only on consular staff but, above all, on the relevant local authorities.

I welcome the publication of the document, but I want to raise two issues that arise from a case with which I have been dealing for the past five years. The first concerns honorary British consulates. My constituent, Christopher Rochester, died in Rhodes in 2001, and the honorary British consul there at the time was frankly of little help to the family. It became clear in subsequent legal cases that he was closely connected to people who were involved in Christopher's death.

My second point is about access to legal support. Christopher Rochester's family have found it difficult to get independent legal advice even in Rhodes, which is part of the European Union. Will my right hon. Friend comment on what assistance can be given to families to ensure that they have access to good, local legal advice?

I do not know the details of the service that the honorary consul provided in the case that my hon. Friend raises, but I am happy to examine it on his behalf. We have increased the number of honorary consuls and we are trying to increase their training. However many paid staff we have, there will always be a need for honorary consuls so that we can spread the work even more widely. Overwhelmingly, they do a good job.

We cannot provide legal advice to British nationals overseas. That is a matter for insurance.

indicated dissent.

No, I am sorry. The House must make a judgment about that because the costs could be large. On the whole, people who travel overseas have higher disposable income than the average British taxpayer. I do not believe that an elderly lady in any constituency should pay tax towards covering a risk that should be met by insurance. However, we can provide lists of lawyers, whom we believe to be properly qualified to give advice. They may or may not be on the island of Rhodes but they could be elsewhere in Greece.

The Foreign Secretary might be aware that I have had correspondence with the Home Secretary on behalf of my constituent, Mr. Jocelyn Waller, who is chairperson of the UK Bali bombings victims group. I am disappointed that the Foreign Secretary has not been able to go beyond what was said on 7 December in "Rebuilding lives: supporting victims of crime", published by the Home Office. Will the Foreign Secretary at least tell the House what progress the Government have made in considering the option for a national charitable disaster fund, and for its retrospective application to the victims of Bali and Sharm el-Sheikh?

As I have said, we are giving active consideration to that matter, and we hope to make announcements as soon as we can. I apologise to the hon. Gentleman that I cannot say any more on that at this stage.

The Foreign Office and its career structure tend to favour the large, traditional embassies over the smaller, more far-flung posts, yet it is often in those more distant postings that the best work is done to promote British interests and to look after visitors, both personal and commercial. What systematic study is the Foreign Office carrying out to ensure that the deployment of resources and staff overseas is brought into line with the tasks that we expect of them?

The right hon. Gentleman has raised an important issue. There was a period, particularly during the cold war, when the most attractive posts were seen to be in the northern hemisphere, including those in America and the key posts in Europe, the Soviet Union and the Soviet bloc. Since I have been Foreign Secretary, post-11 September, I have been determined to shift that emphasis and to ensure not only that we honour the staff who work in very hard posts abroad—which numerically comprise the greatest number—but that they are given the best career opportunities. Yes, staff can go to the more attractive, and sometimes easier, posts but there is an expectation that, if they want a good career, they will have to serve in the harder posts as well. We are doing a great deal in that regard. For example, an exercise is now under way to reduce the staffing of the European directorates in London and of some of the western European embassies, because an awful lot of their traditional tasks are now carried out either on a capital-to-capital basis or in Brussels. We shall use those resources to train and improve the opportunities of the staff of posts elsewhere, including the Arab world.

I warmly commend the Foreign Secretary on his full apology to the families of the victims of the tsunami in Thailand who did not receive the help from our consular services that they should have done—in stark contrast, incidentally, to what happened in Sri Lanka, the Maldives and Indonesia. He says that he hopes that lessons have been learned, but does he not understand that many of the victims' families will wonder whether that can be the case when none of those responsible for the negligence in Thailand has been disciplined or sacked?

The situation in Thailand was much more complex than in those other posts. A very high level of service was provided in the Maldives, Indonesia and Sri Lanka, but the situation was very difficult in Thailand. I was there just a few days after the tsunami, and the problems did not arise because of incompetence, negligence or any culpable offence on the part of the staff concerned. In my judgment—this has also come out in some of the analyses of the events—it was due to the fact that some of the staff were exhausted, and that insufficient staff had been sent out with the rapid deployment teams. Those were organisational issues for which, ultimately, I take responsibility. I believe that the lessons have been learned. It does not follow that the only way to deal with the failure of a service is to sack people. If anyone commits a disciplinary offence, they should be—and are—disciplined. In this case, however, I know that some of the people concerned feel an intense personal responsibility for having let people down that will live with them for the rest of their careers. At the same time, many of the individual staff in Thailand who were criticised—there were not so many of them—have also received many bouquets from other members of the public for what they did. Overall, there were many more bouquets than there were brickbats. However, I accept that we let some families down, and I have unreservedly apologised. I am very sorry about that.

The Foreign Secretary referred to people going abroad by choice. That choice is limited for some people, however, because of their employment. I remind him of the case of Jason Pope, my constituent, who was working in Angola, was sadly abducted and is believed to be deceased. Under the section on missing people, can guidance be given to embassies in countries such as Angola, where there is no effective police force, to be a little more robust and proactive in investigating such missing people, as, I believe, the US would be? Can the Department be slightly more accurate in the information that it gives with regard to presumption of death certificates? On the latter, may I ask—

Order. We have limited time, and I think that the hon. Gentleman has had a good bite of the cherry.

I will follow up the specific points that the hon. Gentleman raised. Our staff are robust with local authorities. We also go to great lengths to ensure the accuracy of the travel advice that we put on our website. However, following a change in policy in respect of travel advice, which was endorsed by both sides of the House, I am extremely reluctant, except in very exceptional circumstances, to say to British subjects that they should not travel to particular countries. Our responsibility is to offer advice. It is then a matter for individual travellers to make their own decisions about whether it is safe for them to travel.

Is the Foreign Secretary aware that most travel insurers have specific exclusions for terrorist acts? Does not that make the case stronger for extending the current availability of compensation for UK nationals, a case made compellingly by people such as my constituents, Mr. and Mrs. Corke, who tragically lost their daughter Annalie in the Sharm el-Sheikh bombings?

I acknowledge that many insurance policies currently exclude terrorism. As I have said, discussions with our consular directorate suggest that insurers are ready and willing to extend their cover—some are doing so—and I encourage them to do so. Although it is terrible when terrorist incidents occur, the number of British citizens who are casualties of those is very much smaller than the number caught up in road accidents, for example, for which insurance is easily available. That is the responsibility of insurers. That said, we have recognised, as is made clear on page 29 of the report, that in certain circumstances of terrorist incidents and other emergencies active support ought to be put in place, at an appropriate cost to the taxpayer, for victims or their families. We are considering whether we should provide extended compensation similar to the criminal injuries compensation scheme.

Following the concerns expressed by my right hon. Friend the Member for Richmond, Yorks (Mr. Hague) about the UK-US extradition treaty, can the Foreign Secretary go one better than passing on his concern to the Home Secretary, perhaps by informing the American Secretary of State on her visit to Blackburn that if the United States Congress is not prepared to address this issue, the Government might be minded to bring the matter back to Parliament for us to come to our conclusion about the view of the US Congress? Will he confirm that the whole cost of the additional measures that he has presented to the House today is covered under the consular premium in the cost of passports?

On the hon. Gentleman's last question, the answer is yes. On the first question, my right hon. Friend the Home Secretary is in the lead on that matter, but I will go one better than waiting until Secretary Rice comes to the fine constituency of Blackburn and write to her in advance.

I want to raise the case of my constituent, Mr Potter, who is currently in a secure prison in the US pending appeal, while his US counterpart is in a low-security prison and able to see his family regularly. It seems to me that the primary duty of the Foreign Secretary, the Prime Minister and the Government is to defend British interests abroad. Can the Foreign Secretary tell the House why the Government unilaterally signed away rights of British citizens with the extradition treaty, and what representations he has made on behalf of Mr. Potter to the US authorities?

I understand the hon. Gentleman's concern about Mr. Potter. As I have explained, the general issue of principle regarding the extradition treaty is a matter for my right hon. Friend the Home Secretary, but I can say that Mr. Potter was last visited by British officials on 14 December, and we facilitated his wife's visit at the end of January. We were told in February that his lawyers would lodge an appeal at the beginning of March. The director of the consular department in the Foreign Office is going to see Mr. Potter's supporters, and perhaps the hon. Gentleman himself, on 30 March.

Following other questions and in the light of his welcome announcement that he will consider a compensation package, will the Foreign Secretary take account of the experience of some other people who have suffered recently? Their son, Jeremy Lakin, was killed at Sharm el-Sheikh, and they had a series of really unsatisfactory experiences with officialdom in the United Kingdom and our people in Egypt, as well as with the Egyptian authorities. Is the Foreign Secretary willing either to meet them personally or to look at the file, and to ensure that their experience is dealt with and taken into account in any final announcement that he makes in the coming months?

I shall be happy to examine the case, and I will write to the hon. Gentleman about it.

The Foreign Secretary said that he could not get people out of jail, but surely Her Majesty's Government can do their best to ensure that those who are incarcerated receive humane treatment. May I refer him to the case of Nicholas Baker, who is in Fuchu prison in Japan? Although he is not a constituent of mine, he has a number of relations in Norfolk. He has been systematically bullied by guards, deprived of food, proper clothing and bedding, and subjected to frostbite. I believed, somewhat naively, that such behaviour did not take place in modern Japan.

The hon. Gentleman is right: we have considerable responsibilities in respect of conditions in prisons. I do not know the details of that case, but I will look into them and follow them up, and I will write to the hon. Gentleman.

Along with other Members, I welcome the review. Probably hundreds, if not thousands, of my constituents are abroad at any one time, especially on a Tuesday such as this. However, my question concerns an event that will take place in about 10 weeks' or three months' time: the World cup. Many thousands of English fans will travel to Germany. Is the Foreign Secretary satisfied with the level of consular assistance that he has laid on for an event that will take place very soon?

Yes, I am satisfied with the level of consular assistance that will be available. We have built on a good deal of experience in respect of British fans abroad, not least following the riots of English fans in Charleroi in 2000 when I was Home Secretary. After those riots the House agreed on swift changes in the law, so that we could apply banning orders on known hooligans going abroad.

I believe that about 80 British police officers will be deployed, along with many consular officials, and we are already providing a great deal of consular advice on the website and through the Football Association's England supporters club. I think that we shall be providing the maximum help, and that we shall be seen to be doing so. However, if there is disorder involving English fans, or others from the United Kingdom, the responsibility for that disorder is not a matter for the United Kingdom Government. Responsibility will lie with those individuals, who ought to be well-behaved abroad as they ought to be in this country.

On a point of order, Mr. Deputy Speaker. Yesterday the Minister of State, Department of Health, the right hon. Member for Liverpool, Wavertree (Jane Kennedy), said in respect of NHS operations

"no one waits more than six months". —[Official Report, 20 March 2006; Vol. 444, c. 120.]

Yet on 13 March, in reply to a parliamentary question, the same Minister stated that 74 people were waiting more than six months for their operations. Has the Minister of State given any indication that she will come to the House to make it clear which statement is correct?

I have been given no such notice, but I am sure that the hon. Gentleman will be able to pursue the argument that is clearly involved in some other way.

I beg to move,

That leave be given to bring in a Bill to amend the Priests (Ordination of Women) Measure 1993 so as to remove the bar on the consecration of women as bishops; and for connected purposes.

It is not often that we get to debate such matters as the consecration of women bishops in this House; indeed, many colleagues have asked why on earth we are involved in such a decision in the first place. During my speech, I hope to explain how this Bill argues for Parliament's sending a clear signal to the General Synod about women bishops, and why it might provoke a discussion about our role in such matters in future.

First, I want to pay tribute to my hon. Friend the Member for Rhondda (Chris Bryant), who initially proposed this Bill. At that stage, I, along with other colleagues, was a humble sponsor of it. Unfortunately, his parliamentary role in the Department for Constitutional Affairs does not allow him to move such a measure, so I am delighted to pick up where he left off.

It is a full 13 years since we were last asked to debate the ministry of women in the Church, and I am delighted to say that the vote then was overwhelmingly in favour of allowing the Church to ordain women priests. I hope that the House will be overwhelmingly in favour of women bishops today. However, 13 years ago we agreed to a compromise that left open the question of women bishops.

As St. Paul said, in Christ there is neither Jew nor Gentile,

"neither bond nor free . . . neither male nor female: for all . . . are one in Christ Jesus."

Well, not everyone agrees, of course. A former Bishop of London, Graham Leonard, once said that a woman was no more ordainable than a potato. I am not sure where he learned his interpersonal skills, but his theology seems horribly awry, too. Indeed, since studying this matter further for today, I have been overwhelmed by the number of spurious arguments against women bishops and priests masquerading as theology. I prefer the words of the Roman Catholic Cardinal Martini, who, when asked whether the Catholic Church would ever ordain women, said, with the wink of an eye, "Not in this millennium." That, of course, was in 1999.

Despite the few who have campaigned vociferously against women's ministry, the truth is that the vast majority of ordinary members of the Church of England—and, for that matter, of the nation that it serves—agree that there should be no impediment to women in the Church. The Church's compromise Measures in 1993 allowed parishes to declare themselves women priest-free zones, yet fewer than one in 10 have done so. It is not just in Dibley that women priests are burying the dead, baptising the new-born, celebrating communion, counselling the sick and supporting the dying. In every one of our constituencies there are women clergy, many of whom are the most able of their generation.

Half of those in training for ordination in each of the last three years have been women. Yet a full 13 years after they were allowed to enter the priesthood, women—who can be curates, vicars, rectors, chaplains and deans, and even rural deans and archdeacons—are still barred from being bishops. That is simply wrong. How can the Church preach equality when it institutionalises discrimination? Can anybody imagine the Church's refusing to have black or disabled bishops? Some 14 other provinces of the Anglican communion already allow women bishops, including Scotland. The Bench of Bishops supports the consecration of women, as do both Archbishops. Indeed, the Archbishop of Canterbury mentioned only last night that Sudan already has women bishops. However, the earliest date that the Church is contemplating change is 2012. We can build for an Olympics in that time, yet the Church cannot move forward on this simple issue.

Of course, there are Members who feel that it is none of our business whom the Church of England does or does not consecrate. Understandably, perhaps, they argue that the Church should govern itself. They probably also think that parliamentary questions to my hon. Friend the Member for Middlesbrough (Sir Stuart Bell) on behalf of the Church Commissioners is a quaint and irritating anachronism. However, my hon. Friend the Member for Vauxhall (Kate Hoey) has found it useful to quiz the commissioners on their outrageous sale to the highest bidder of the Octavia hill estate in her constituency. But I accept that there is an argument that Parliament should not be able to tell the Church what to do on this issue; Indeed, I agree. We should not force the Church to consecrate women bishops; nor should we be able to do so through this Bill.

However, while the relationship between Church and state remains as it is, we should use the mechanism before us to make our views known in full. We should be able to express our support for the role of women in every field of British life—to express our view, in the broadest terms, that women and men are equal, albeit different. We should be able to give voice to the many men and women in the Church who have been clamouring for this development for decades, and to declare our direct and personal support for the many women clergy in the Church. Many women clergy have called my hon. Friend the Member for Rhondda in tears of gratitude. They believe that the Church is dragging its heels and listening far too attentively to its ultra-conservative wing, rather than to the mainstream. That certainly smacks of the ultra-conservative tail wagging the mainstream dog.

So why are we in Parliament involved? From the outset, I want to make it clear that I am fully signed up to the principle of disestablishment between Church and state, but at present we are part of the decision-making process and, at some stage, will have to consider and vote on this issue. The problem for me is that the Church recently decided that the earliest date for that vote would be 2012. It is highly likely that those opposed to women bishops will use every tactic to fudge and delay any decision from Synod and that they will plead with hon. Members to block any such proposal. This Bill is a useful device for sending the clear message to Synod that we are here and that we have been waiting for further instruction since 1993. If the House approves the Bill, it will demonstrate that we are willing to consecrate women bishops as soon as we can.

In a nutshell, that is all that I am asking for today—the clearest possible sign from Parliament that this end of the legislative food chain is ready to act. All we need is the chance to do so.

Church of England Measures are the instruments by which changes are made to the governance and organisation of the Church. Once a Measure has been approved by the General Synod, the Ecclesiastical Committee—a Committee of both Houses of Parliament—considers whether it is expedient. If a Measure is considered expedient, both Houses are required to approve it before it can receive Royal Assent.

Generally, motions to present any Measure for Royal Assent are debated in each House as soon as the Ecclesiastical Committee report is laid. Neither the motion itself nor the report can be amended, which means that the House of Commons cannot amend Measures as it can other Bills.

There have been times in the past when this House has rejected such Measures. It happened with the Prayer Book Measure in 1927—which I hope that no one present today can remember—and as recently as 1989, when we rejected the Clergy (Ordination) Measure. The House may not be aware that, since 1992, we have passed 17 Church of England Measures. We rarely invoke the right to reject a Measure although, if a number of hon. Members feel strongly about its substance, a Measure will have no automatic right to proceed unhindered.

Other hon. Members before me have rightly made the point that, although the House naturally does not wish unduly to interfere in the Church's self-governance, its agreement cannot be taken for granted. It has been said that the House

"is not here simply to rubber-stamp anything the General Synod may lay before it".

There was much debate on the 1993 Measure and Bill for the ordination of women. However, the Ecclesiastical Committee simply summarised the arguments on both sides and, unfortunately, seems to have given them equal weight. As hon. Members will know, there are nearly always two sides to most arguments, but muddle and compromise are not always the best option, as they prolong the agony and do not tackle the issue adequately. Compromise is good sometimes, but not always.

The 1993 legislation legalised a muddled compromise to please a vociferous minority. The House of Bishops working party has recognised that that compromise is a continuing problem and has restarted the debate, but it is still at a preliminary stage only. This Bill represents a great opportunity to send the House of Bishops a message while its deliberations continue. That message is: we in this House are ready to change. As soon as the working party gets the Measure to the Ecclesiastical Committee, and that Committee produces its report, we are ready to endorse it for Royal Assent.

That is not my view alone, as it shared by senior bishops. For example, one senior cleric wrote:

"Although the House of Commons may not pre-empt decisions of the General Synod of the Church of England, the success of this Bill would be an important indicator of the support for the change as the Church's own decision making proceeds."

Another bishop has written:

"It is an excellent idea to have this particular debate, which seems to be a useful way of testing opinion in Westminster",

and the Bishop of Worcester has said:

"The fact is that those opposed will certainly take their fight to the Ecclesiastical Committee if they don't like the Measure that comes from General Synod, and it is therefore very important that the Commons should have indicated its view for the Committee's guidance".

Some have even argued that this Bill could trigger "a church-state crisis", as one media headline put it. I had not realised that I could achieve so much in 10 minutes but, if that is one of the outcomes, it will be a useful contribution to the debate. The truth is that the House will not be legislating this afternoon, but it has an opportunity to send a simple message and declare its support for women's ministry at every level of the Church.

I hope that all hon. Members—regardless of the state of their souls or, for that matter, of whether they believe that they have one—will seize that opportunity, vote in favour of the Bill and put and end to the stained-glass ceiling for women in the Church.

Last week, I received a letter from the Bishop of Fulham, who is chairman of the very respected Anglican organisation, Forward in Faith. I am not a member, but I respect his point of view and those of his members. He wrote:

"On behalf of my several thousand members—bishops, priests, lay women and lay men—all of whom find themselves unable for purely theological reasons to consent to the ordination of women, I write to ask you to find the time to be present in the Chamber and vote 'no' to"

what he then thought was the Bill of the hon. Member for Rhondda (Chris Bryant). He continues:

"I am certain that I do not need to point out that his initiative in this matter is contrary to the long-standing constitutional convention that Parliament does not initiate legislation on such matters. Further, as you will know, the Church, through its democratically elected General Synod, is already engaged in a careful consultation process which seeks to ensure that all views on this important issue are heard and respected."

I ask the House to take the bishop's remarks seriously and to recognise that, although a large majority in the Church of England are in favour of what the hon. Member for Loughborough (Mr. Reed) proposes, an honourable and significant minority take a different view. I was on the General Synod until last year. My hon. Friend the Member for Salisbury (Robert Key) now sits on it. He and I take different views on this issue, but I respect him very much and I hope that the respect is reciprocated.

I do not want to make a great issue of this. If the Church of England does move to consecrate women as bishops, I will probably be one of those who feel obliged to go elsewhere. We should remember that both the Roman Catholic Church and the Orthodox Church, which contain far the greatest majority of Christians in the world, take a different line on this—[Interruption.] Perhaps they will change in the fullness of time—I do not know. Nor do I say that I am right. I may be wrong—I do not know. I do not wish to divide the House. It is premature to have brought the measure forward. Indeed, the hon. Member for Rhondda, in a kind and courteous letter that he wrote to me last week, admitted as much, in that it probably pre-empts Synod. We should leave Synod to decide whether it wishes to bring a Measure and then we will have ample and proper opportunity to debate it.

All that I would say to those present and particularly to women Members is that, as far as the Bishop of Fulham and his colleagues are concerned, this is not a matter of equality. It may be perceived as such by many, but this is a theological matter. He may be wrong. I may be wrong. It is just conceivable that the hon. Member for Loughborough may be wrong and I am glad that he acknowledges that. I hope that, in that spirit, we can move on to other business without dividing the House.

Question put, pursuant to Standing Order No. 23 (Motions for leave to bring in Bills and nomination of Select Committees at commencement of public business), and agreed to.

Bill ordered to be brought in by Mr. Andy Reed, Robert Key, Mr. Tim Boswell, Simon Hughes, John Bercow, Mrs. Sharon Hodgson, Julie Morgan, Bob Russell, Susan Kramer, Stephen Hammond, Mrs. Ann Cryer and Barbara Keeley.

Bishops (Consecration of Women)

Mr. Andy Reed accordingly presented a Bill to amend the Priests (Ordination of Women) Measure 1993 so as to remove the bar on the consecration of women as bishops; and for connected purposes: And the same was read the First time; and ordered to be read a Second time on Friday 20 October, and to be printed [Bill 151].

I beg to move,

That, for the purposes of any Act resulting from the Armed Forces Bill, it is expedient to authorise the payment out of money provided by Parliament of any expenditure incurred by the Secretary of State in connection with the establishment of a body whose primary function is to investigate matters relating to the mental or physical wellbeing of members of the armed forces or the operation of that body.

The purpose of bringing forward the money resolution at this stage is to enable the Select Committee on the Armed Forces Bill to consider any amendment that might be tabled seeking to create a statutory body or an ombudsman to investigate certain complaints made by service personnel.

This is a very important subject, and one on which the Defence Committee made a recommendation in its report on the duty of care, which was published on 14 March last year. The Government are not persuaded that that is the right way forward for our armed forces, and the Bill makes no provision for it. But we are keen to have an open debate about the issue. We have therefore tabled this resolution in the spirit of constructive engagement, and to enable proper debate in the Committee. Without the money resolution, we would not be able to debate the matter fully.

The money resolution makes clear the proposed primary function of the independent ombudsman, and I think that it is drafted sufficiently widely for a full and informed debate in Committee. If it were agreed, the creation of such a body or ombudsman would give rise to additional costs from public funds. It is too early at this stage to estimate what those costs might be. None the less, we need this motion to allow a full debate. If it were agreed, the creation of such a body or ombudsman would give rise to additional costs from public funds. It is too early at this stage to estimate what those costs might be. None the less, we need this motion to allow a full debate in Committee, and I commend it to the House.

I am grateful to the Minister for proposing the motion. What he has said about the enabling nature of the motion is sensible, and very much in the spirit of the manner in which the Bill is being considered, which could well be applied to the consideration of other Bills. After Second Reading the Bill went not straight to a Standing Committee but to a special Select Committee, which has enabled us to take evidence from a wide range of people, including those who are in favour of the establishment of the kind of grievance redress arrangements to which the Minister referred. Like him, we are not persuaded that that is the best way to proceed for our armed forces, but the motion—if passed—will enable the Committee to examine the proposition publicly and in detail, which will add further to the authority of the Committee and the professional way in which the House has approached the Bill. It is therefore right that we should debate the matter, and that the motion should have been tabled.

I would be keen to learn from the Minister whether the costs that might arise out of the arrangement have been quantified by the Department, given that he is not in favour of the establishment of an ombudsman—

Are you?

I am not in favour of an ombudsman, to answer my right hon. Friend who is chuntering from a sedentary position—

To great benefit, too!

It is of course of great benefit to the House, as my hon. Friend points out.

It would be helpful if the Minister would indicate whether any consideration has been given to the likely costs. As this is a money resolution, and as the Bill has implications for additional expenditure by the Department in the establishment of standing courts martial, and there is the possibility of increased litigation that might entail increased costs for the legal representation of members of the armed forces who end up in the dock, I wonder whether the Minister can give us any estimate today of the likely increases in the defence budget that might arise. That would be helpful, but if he cannot give us that information today, we quite understand that a letter may follow, as has been his custom on other occasions.

We welcome the fact that the motion will facilitate further debate, and I look forward to joining the Minister in resisting a grievance procedure that would not be appropriate for Her Majesty's armed forces. I am delighted that in the spirit of co-operation between both sides of the House in areas on which we agree, I shall be able to make the Minister's task that much easier and perhaps make common cause against some of his Back Benchers, which may be developing into a bit of a habit—

Order. I remind the hon. Gentleman and others that at this stage we are debating only the costs of the proposal rather than its merits.

Indeed, Madam Deputy Speaker. It was for the further elucidation of the House that I was seeking an undertaking from the Minister that he will provide us with some indication of what those costs might be. However, I have nothing further to add to the questions I have posed.

I welcome both the motion and the words of my hon. Friend the Under-Secretary of State for Defence about the importance of the issue to which it relates.

The motion refers to

"the establishment of a body whose primary function is to investigate matters relating to the mental or physical wellbeing of members of the armed forces or the operation of that body".

The well-being of members of our armed forces is absolutely vital. They undertake a hugely important task in countries across the world, and we need to ensure that their well-being is properly safeguarded.

The Armed Forces Bill, to which the motion relates, will give us all a valuable opportunity to address the vital issue of accountability and to ensure that when, sadly, deaths occur in the armed forces, they can be properly investigated. The Deepcut and Beyond families group will be looking for answers about the deaths of their children, and I hope that the money resolution will result in the setting up of an independent scrutiny body.I hear the Minister's remarks about his views on the possibility of an ombudsman, but I hope that he will listen to the voices of parents and families and take them into account.

The hon. Lady's speech follows that of my hon. Friend the Member for Aldershot (Mr. Howarth), who was sounding dangerously like a consensus politician a moment ago. The hon. Lady is obviously sympathetic to the establishment of an independent body. Has she any idea, in ball-park terms, of the capital and running costs that might be envisaged?

There are such bodies in other countries. Canada has an independent ombudsman, and Germany and Australia are looking into the idea. There would be opportunities for the Ministry of Defence to look at the expenses in other countries. The important thing is to get this right. We have an opportunity once every five years to consider the armed forces and, in this Bill, issues relating to the operation of courts martial and inquiries. Our armed forces need the best possible focus for such things.

On the sad occasions when something goes wrong, that needs proper investigation. I welcome the money resolution, and the fact that members of the Select Committee on Defence will have the opportunity to examine a vital issue in more detail. When it comes back to the Floor of the House, other Members, too, can engage in that important debate.

This is a very narrow debate. I welcome the money resolution, as it will enable the Committee to use evidence from other countries to find out how such a proposal could be implemented in this country if that was the will of Parliament. However, it would be inappropriate for any member of the Committee to prejudge and pass personal comment before we have heard the evidence. Having served on the Committee, I am aware how important it is to maintain the ethos and the culture of the three armed forces alongside the need to harmonise the disciplinary procedures, but the money resolution will enable the Committee to widen the debate to find out whether other measures could assist Her Majesty's armed forces with those procedures. If the evidence that we find suggests that that is the way forward, so be it—but equally, if the evidence states that it would not be beneficial, we should not proceed. It would be inappropriate for any member of the Committee to pass judgment before the evidence has been heard.

I too welcome the money resolution, which will give the Committee the opportunity to discuss the very important issue that has just been highlighted by my hon. Friend the Member for Blackpool, North and Fleetwood (Mrs. Humble). Having dealt with the Ministry of Defence over the past five years as a member of the Defence Committee, I find what the Minister refers to as constructive engagement rather strange; usually we just get a "No" from the MOD—so I thank him for proposing the money resolution.

I am rather saddened by the comments of the hon. Member for Aldershot (Mr. Howarth), who clearly seems to have prejudged any debate that might take place in Committee. I thought that these days, he was a new Conservative, looking for consensus on issues about which people are clearly concerned in the wider community.

Any such ombudsman or commission needs a narrow remit. It need not be a large organisation that will cost millions of pounds. We must remember that this is not the first time that such a recommendation has been made. The Defence Committee called for something similar in its report on the duty of care during the last Parliament. The independent review of armed forces manpower and career remuneration—the Bett report—recommended extending the terms of reference of the Parliamentary Commissioner for Administration to allow the ombudsman to deal with complaints from service personnel about administration issues. That is important, and I hope that hon. Members will not say that such a proposal threatens the armed forces. Frankly, I think that it will help them to try to repair the damage to their reputation that has clearly been inflicted by some of the press coverage over the past few years.

With permission, I should like to comment on the remarks that have been made today. I have already said that this is an unusual procedure. The hon. Member for Aldershot (Mr. Howarth) asks how much the procedures that the money resolution will allow the Committee to consider would cost. We have not calculated any of the costs at this time, but as a guide it might be helpful to know that, although on a rather larger scale, the annual operating cost of the Police Ombudsman for Northern Ireland is about £70 million.

The hon. Gentleman spoke of the consensual way in which we have approached the Bill in Committee. I commend all members of the Committee for their work. He also mentioned that he might get another letter from me. When the Bill is finished with, my goodness me, I do not know what I will do—but I will not be writing any more letters to the hon. Gentleman. It will be gap in my life—and, no doubt, a gap in his—but I am sure that we will find other things on which to have exchanges.

Of course, as my hon. Friend the Member for Blackpool, North and Fleetwood (Mrs. Humble) says, the Bill addresses issues of accountability, but I am not tempted down the road that she suggests at the moment, because that is a matter for the Committee to debate. However, I am glad that she welcomes the provision that the money resolution will allow, and I share the view of the hon. Member for Colchester (Bob Russell) that we must await the debate in Committee.

My hon. Friend the Member for North Durham (Mr. Jones), too, welcomed the money resolution. I make it clear to him that, as I said in my opening remarks, the Government are not persuaded of the need for an ombudsman or anything similar, but we are convinced of the need for a debate, and the money resolution will allow us to have that debate.

A number of references have been made to the special Committee, and within the space of a few minutes it has already become clear that in the Chamber are senior, important, very respected, influential and busy people who probably have many commitments and full diaries, who are sitting on that important Committee. I confess that I am not one of them; I was not asked. However, I am uncomfortable about the idea of a cosy private correspondence between the Minister and my hon. Friend the Member for Aldershot (Mr. Howarth), so I simply ask the Minister whether he will allow other Members to be party to those exchanges. Can we have a copy of all such correspondence between him and my hon. Friend placed in the Library?

We would need to extend the Library. However, I will ensure that my correspondence with the hon. Member for Aldershot is copied to members of the Committee, and I am sure that it can be made available to anyone else who needs it.

The Government are responding to a formal request from the Chairman of the Select Committee to which the Armed Forces Bill has been committed to facilitate deliberations on one aspect of the Bill—the redress of complaints process. We are happy to do that, because we think that it is an important Bill for our armed forces and we are keen to have the debate on this issue. The Select Committee is appointed solely for the task of examining the Bill, and this approach has been used for considering successive Armed Forces Bills since 1955. We are engaged in that process now, and I trust the House will feel that there is merit in the resolution. I again commend it to the House, so that we can have the debate in Committee.

Question put and agreed to.

On a point of order, Madam Deputy Speaker. May I seek your guidance on how I may make a correction to the hon. Member for Merthyr Tydfil and Rhymney (Mr. Havard) made light of my role as a bomb disposal officer and suggested that I had an interest in kinetics. However, Hansard even though is not in my speech? I understand that Members have an obligation to check their own speeches. At column 48 yesterday, in response to an intervention, Hansard reports this as though I have an interest in Qinetiq, the defence procurement company. I want to make it clear that I do not.

Further to that point of order, Madam Deputy Speaker. My intention was to make a humorous remark because the hon. Gentleman has family and business interests in fireworks companies. The lesson, I suppose, is that humour is explosive and can backfire. I have asked Hansard to make the correction; we discussed it this morning. I apologise to the House and to the hon. Gentleman for any unintentional consequences or inconvenience.

It sounds as though the correction will be made. I should inform hon. Members that they can always write to the editor of Hansard to make sure that such corrections are made.

I beg to move, That this House does not insist on its Amendments 22E and 22F but disagrees with the Lords in their Amendments 22G and 22H.

I should say, first, that I am very pleased that their lordships have now dropped their outright opposition to the designation power in the Bill by dropping their previous amendments Nos. 16 and 22. That is very good news and an important development. However, the amendments in lieu are not a real compromise as they would simply delay the power to link the issue of identity cards to designated documents, such as passports, until 2012. That is unacceptable and it would not be right to allow the other place to delay the implementation of legislation that it dislikes until five years have passed. That is a deliberate plan for delay and destruction of the process in the Identity Cards Bill.

This is the fourth time that this issue has come back to us from the other place and I submit that this really should be the last time. Although we might not expect to phase in the introduction of identity cards to all categories of passport applicants straight away, any constraint on designation would create uncertainties in our planning and a risk of additional costs. In line with other European Union countries, we expect to start the issuing of biometric British passports, including fingerprints, by 2009.

Without the requirement for recipients of designated documents, such as biometric passports, to register on the national identity register, to be issued with an identity card and to get the protections that the national identity register offers, we would have to provide for two alternative processes with separate records for those who choose to register and those who choose not to register. Such a purely artificial deadline would create real problems for the phasing of the scheme, which would be bound to have an impact on costs. The real intention behind the amendments is to make the scheme unworkable by fuelling uncertainty about its implementation.

We are also likely to start issuing biometric residence permits to foreign nationals who are temporarily resident here at about the same time—in 2008 or 2009. Again, without the requirement for designation and registration on the national identity register, foreign nationals could opt out of the scheme and we would be forced to maintain separate records for those who opted in and those who opted out of the register. The plans for the ID cards process are predicated on the introduction of a single, seamless process for issuing passports and identity cards as a single package.

Parliament has spent many hours debating the Bill. Leaving aside the discussion on the draft Bill and the substantial debate on the earlier Bill that was introduced before the election, we spent some 39 hours discussing this Bill on the Floor of the House and in Committee before passing it to the other place in October. The Committee stage involved 11 sittings over seven days. The other place scrutinised the Bill over all its stages for a total of 61 hours, including six days in Committee and three days on Report. Since then, a further 15 hours of parliamentary time have been taken up as each House has considered the other's amendments and reasons. I suggest that it would be inappropriate, and a waste of parliamentary time, for the Opposition in the other place to try to force the Government to use the Parliament Act. Moreover, to suggest that we should wait six years before we are able to implement the Bill is not a compromise in any respect.

I welcomed the helpful intervention that was made during yesterday's debate in the other place by Lord Armstrong of Ilminster. He suggested that it might be a compromise between the positions of the Government and the Opposition if the Bill provided for an opt-out, rather than an opt-in, for people applying for a designated document such as a passport. I understand the reasoning behind Lord Armstrong's proposal and am very grateful to him for his efforts to help to resolve the impasse. However, I have to say that while I agree that an opt-out might well make more sense than an opt-in, the reality would be the same. We would still be introducing a large degree of uncertainty into the plans for rolling out identity cards linked to passports.

Perhaps I can also emphasise the fact that, as I have already made clear in debates in the House, anyone who feels strongly enough about the linkage not to want to be issued with an ID card in the initial phase will be free to surrender their existing passport and apply for a new passport before the designation order takes effect. Although I doubt whether many people would want to avoid the opportunity of obtaining an ID card when renewing their passport, the facility will be available. I hope that Lord Armstrong will consider those points before deciding whether to table further amendments in another place.

In fact, I believe that the moment for such a suggestion has passed because it appears that the Opposition have moved beyond their outright resistance to the designation powers in the Bill—the latest Lords amendments accept the principle of designation. The argument now is simply about whether the powers should be available straight away, or whether an artificial delay should be imposed.

I understand the position of the Liberal Democrats. Indeed, the Liberal Democrat spokesman in the other place, Lord Phillips of Sudbury, has at least been consistent in opposing the Bill because of his party's avowed dislike of identity cards in principle.

The position of the Conservative Opposition, both here and in the other place, is more complicated. When the right hon. and learned Member for Folkestone and Hythe (Mr. Howard) was leading his party, he said in an article in The Daily Telegraph on 20 December 2004, which was less than six months before the general election:

"We must protect our citizens in every way we can and in my judgement that includes ID cards".

On Second Reading of the original Bill on 20 December 2004—again, less than six months before the general election was called—the right hon. Member for Haltemprice and Howden (David Davis) said that

"it is incumbent on all of us to examine carefully any measures which might enhance the nation's security. Identity cards introduced properly and effectively may help to do that."—[Official Report, 20 December 2004; Vol. 428, c. 1953.]

The Conservative Opposition have since flip-flopped this way and that on identity cards. They have voted for identity cards, abstained and voted against them. They decided not to mention identity cards at all in their election manifesto. However, it now appears—I welcome this—that they accept the principle of linking the issue of identity cards to designated documents such as passports.

On 18 March, The Times reported Conservative party sources as saying that they wanted the delay added to the designation powers, so that if the Conservatives were to win the next election they would have time to repeal the legislation. That report may have been inaccurate, and I am sure that the hon. and learned Member for Harborough (Mr. Garnier) will have something to say about that.

Notwithstanding the advice from my right hon. and learned Friend the Member for Folkestone and Hythe (Mr. Howard), a number of my hon. Friends and I have been very consistent in opposing the introduction of identity cards. We voted against the original Second Reading on 20 December 2004 and on each and every subsequent occasion. Our position is explicit, clear and unmistakable, and it will not change.

The hon. Gentleman is right to point out that that has been his position and that of a number of Conservative Members. However, it has not been the position adopted by Conservative Front Benchers, which is what I was pointing out. The country judges the position of Conservative Front Benchers in elections and at other times, and I am glad that the hon. Gentleman has confirmed that while some Conservative Members have been consistent, Conservative Front Benchers have displayed no consistency whatsoever.

Does the Home Secretary agree that it was apparent on Second Reading that the policy advocated by my right hon. and learned Friend the Member for Folkestone and Hythe (Mr. Howard) was geared to the question of compulsion? When my right hon. and learned Friend was Home Secretary, he adopted a policy on a voluntary scheme, so our current policy is entirely consistent with the views that he originally adopted.