On a point of order, Mr. Speaker. If the Under-Secretary of State for Constitutional Affairs, the hon. and learned Member for Redcar (Vera Baird) discovers that she did not consult the Law Centres Federation before ploughing ahead with the community legal aid and advice centres, will she be able to come to the House and correct the record? Would that not be the normal practice?

I am not going to continue Question Time, which is what is happening at the moment.

On a point of order, Mr Speaker. I am full of the Christmas spirit and have just left a Christmas card for Ministers on the Front Bench, but I would be grateful if you would rule that the Under-Secretary of State for Constitutional Affairs, the hon. and learned Member for Redcar (Vera Baird), was out of order both today and the other day in relation to a Adjournment debate secured by the hon. Member for Regent's Park and Kensington, North (Ms Buck) in Westminster Hall last week.

In respect of Adjournment debates, “Erskine May” says:

“An Opposition frontbench spokesman does not speak from the frontbench on such an occasion. Interventions from the Opposition front bench are not allowed; equally, because the debate is personal…no reference should be made to the absence of, for example, an Opposition frontbench spokesman.”

I was present throughout the whole of the debate, because it was on my subject, but I did not seek to intervene. I would be grateful, Mr. Speaker, if you would confirm that I behaved entirely properly, and that the Under-Secretary was out of order in suggesting that I should have intervened, given that I know that we will have a three-hour debate on the matter in Westminster Hall at the beginning of next term.

Perhaps the hon. Gentleman could write to the Under-Secretary on this matter, because I am being drawn into the argument. I think it would be best if he were careful about how he uses the term “Adjournment debate”. When we have Adjournment debates in Westminster Hall, there is usually an allocation of time for Front-Bench spokesmen, and that is different from an Adjournment debate on the Floor of the House, which is exclusively on a case that is being put by a constituency MP. If the hon. Gentleman could write to the Under-Secretary to put the record straight, that would be the best way to proceed.

On a point of order, Mr Speaker. Is there nothing that can be done about lawyers who are somewhat used to being paid by the hour and, as a consequence, take an inordinate amount of time to ask a question and even longer to answer one?

I have been giving some tutoring to the Under-Secretary, because I know that she came from the courts to Parliament. I would not say that she took too long today; it is just that she is improving, and there could be more improvement.

Further to the point of order raised by the hon. Member for North Southwark and Bermondsey (Simon Hughes), Mr. Speaker. I also attended the half-hour Westminster Hall debate on 13 December. Am I not right in saying that although my Conservative colleagues intervened, it would not have been in order for me, as a Front-Bench spokesman present in an observer capacity, to have done so?

That is what I said. We must be careful with our terms when we talk about half-hour debates. There are debates of an hour and a half or half an hour. As I said, these are matters that can be clarified by hon. Members with the Under-Secretary, so I have no need to be drawn in.

On a point of order, Mr Speaker. Have you had an application from the Ministry of Defence to make a statement on the widespread stories in the press of an attack on the professionalism and morale of airborne forces through a long-term suspension of parachute training? In view of the astonishing record of the Paras and units such as 7 Para Royal Horse Artillery and 9 Parachute Squadron Royal Engineers in doing the dirtiest, most difficult and most dangerous jobs in places ranging from the Falklands to Afghanistan, the House might wish to discuss this matter before it simply becomes a fact.

Every Member of the House has a high regard for the Parachute Regiment, but that is really not a matter for the Chair. The hon. Gentleman could table parliamentary questions on the matter.

BILL PRESENTED

Cluster Munitions (prohibition of Development and Acquisition)

Nick Harvey, supported by John Barrett, Willie Rennie, Susan Kramer, Mr. Michael Moore, Bob Russell, Lorely Burt, Mr. Adrian Sanders, Tim Farron and Malcolm Bruce, presented a Bill to prohibit the development, acquisition, possession, transfer and use of cluster munitions and their components; and for connected purposes: And the same was read the First time; and ordered to be read a Second time on Friday 26 January, and to be printed [Bill 42].

I would like to take this opportunity to raise a couple of issues of accountability that have arisen in two recent cases with which I have dealt. When this House discusses accountability it is often aimed at improving the accountability of Government and other public bodies, and rightly so. When it discusses the accountability of the private sector, it is usually in the context of failure, as has been shown in the recent case of Farepak and in many cases relating to pensions.

I want to focus on private sector accountability and the cases of two companies that are not failing—indeed, in many ways they are thriving. Each case raises a different aspect of accountability.

The first case concerns my constituents who live in and around Southwold close in North Swindon. They live near a site being developed by George Wimpey, and their lives are being blighted by the lack of consideration being shown by those developers. For example, the planning conditions state that work should not begin before 8 o’clock in the morning, but lorries arrive from 7.10 and sit just outside the site with their engines running. Families with young childrenare deeply concerned about the drivers’ practice of mounting the pavements and driving over roundabouts in their rush to get to the site. Building materials are dumped off-site by residents’ homes, raising profound concerns about health and safety. There is constant noise and disruption to the environment.

Some disruption in a development area is inevitable, but what makes this unacceptable is Wimpey’s response to complaints. It continually refuses my requests to sit down with me and residents to find a mutually satisfactory way to resolve the issues. Instead, the managing director of George Wimpey South West feels that the issues

“have been blown out of all proportion”.

That is not the view, incidentally, of Swindon borough council or the Health and Safety Executive, both of whom are responsibly and thoroughly investigating the complaints.

My constituents in the Oakhurst residents association, who seem to me to be decent, responsible people who quite reasonably want nothing other than to have their lives disturbed as little as possible by intrusive and disruptive development work, feel increasingly harassed and intimidated by Wimpey. Of course it is understandable that developers should want to get their site developed and sold off as quickly as possible. But that is no excuse for the basic lack of consideration shown to those local residents, whose money the developers have already pocketed for their own homes. The process of enforcement of planning conditions and health and safety regulations by both Swindon borough council and the HSE is under way, but the process is inevitably complex and lengthy, and in the meantime my constituents’ lives are being blighted.

I am very interested in what the hon. Gentleman is saying because I have had a similar experience in my constituency. Is Wimpey admitting some of these breaches or denying them? If it is denying them, let the argument run. If it is admitting some of them, frankly it is not for the company to say that the matter is being blown out of all proportion; it is for the community and the hon. Gentleman to make a judgment about whether its behaviour is so objectionable that the matter needs to be taken further. These private bullies must be tackled.

I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for his intervention and I entirely agree with his last sentiment. The company is in fact tacitly conceding the case, because it has made some minor adjustments to its practices. There are health and safety regulations that can be enforced, but the hon. Gentleman is well aware that that takes time, and in the meantime, every hour of the day, my constituents and, I am sure,those of the hon. Gentleman who are in similar circumstances are having their lives disrupted to an unacceptable extent. What is needed is some common sense and basic consideration. The company should sit down with the residents to talk frankly about the needs and obligations on both sides and come to a mutually satisfactory agreement.

We have had similar incidents in the village of Adlington, where a large housing company is showing total disregard for the area’s residents. It has yet to fulfil its agreements under section 106 of the Town and Country Planning Act 1990. I am worried about what will happen if the council does not take action, perhaps through the environment committee, to put the company under great pressure. What bonds are being held by the local authority in case the company is in breach of conditions? Perhaps some of those could be used. A company such as Wimpey, which belongs to a housing federation, ought to take responsibility. It should be talking about compensating the residents whom it has upset. Perhaps that is a way forward.

I am very grateful to my hon. Friend for that helpful intervention. I was going to conclude my remarks on this subject by inviting contributions from the House, so I am delighted that they are already being volunteered. This is clearly a widespread problem. I want to alert the House to some of the measures that we are taking locally to deal with the problem, because it is unacceptable.

I am immensely interested in the construction industry, as my hon. Friend may be aware, particularly its performance as regards the communities that it is supposed to be serving. Has Wimpey signed up to a corporate social responsibility charter? If not, it should be encouraged to do so. Is my hon. Friend aware that Wimpey has successfully tendered for a significant number of Government contracts? It should be reminded of that fact in its dealings with normal people.

I am grateful to my hon. Friend for that contribution, and I bow to her great experience and knowledge of such matters. Companies must exhibit basic consideration; that is my point. Many of us have been frustrated in our dealings with private companies. Recently, I had some frustrating correspondence with Euro Disney, which has refused to take appropriate action over the security of taxis operating just outside its gates. It has been rude, and it has been complacent about security, for which, strictly speaking, it has no legal liability. There is little that I can do about that, because until or unless a tragedy occurs outside the gates of Euro Disney, it will show no signs of budging.

In the case of George Wimpey, there is something that might cause developers to change their approach: anyone who buys a home next to a site being developed by Wimpey, or the other developers that hon. Friends and hon. Members have mentioned in the House, should be made aware of the sort of environment that they can expect those developers to create. That would be an example of the power of the market operating through better information. If that is done, it could well affect the marketability of the homes sold by those developers, and that, I hope, might encourage them to be more considerate. Their lack of consideration is driven, above all, by their desire to make as much money as quickly as possible, so if lack of consideration damages that outcome, they might discover the value of showing consideration.

I have set up a section on my website called “Developer Watch” to highlight bad cases of developer behaviour—and good cases, too, to reward those companies that show proper consideration to their neighbours. I am delighted that Swindon borough council, partly as a result of the case that I mentioned, will introduce a developers code of conduct, and will name and shame developers who do not follow it. I commend the council for that, and the scheme could be significant in the Swindon area. We are building about 2,000 new homes a year, and there is to be significant new development in the south of the town. In coming years, 30,000 or more houses, with a total current market value of £7 billion, are likely to be built in the east of the town. Over time, if proper information is made available about the behaviour of developers and the consideration, or lack of it, that they show, it might encourage them to demonstrate more consideration for residents. I welcome contributions from other hon. Members on the subject, and I should like to hear from hon. Members who have had similar problems on how best to encourage such developers to show more consideration for residents.

Secondly, I want to raise the issue of the accountability of utilities. As I intend to return to the subject in the near future, I shall merely outline the issue today. I am conscious that a number of other hon. Members want to make contributions, so I shall be brief. Over the past few years, I have received an increasing number of complaints about foul water flooding in my constituency, which has happened on repeated occasions in the same location. I have received complaints about the inadequacy of the response from Thames Water Utilities. Its failure to invest in the infrastructure seems to have been responsible for much of the flooding. Its last owner, RWE, extracted more than £825 million in dividends over the past five years, and it made a £500 million profit from its five-year ownership, before it sold Thames Water last month. Thames Water earned a 6.8 per cent. return on capital employed in 2005-06, but it still cannot invest adequately to prevent repeated foul water flooding, often in the same location, in my constituency.

It is only fair to note that there has been a distinct improvement in the tone and content of the response from Thames Water, since its recent takeover by Macquarie. I hope that that will lead to a more rapid resolution of the immediate problems faced by my constituents, such as those in Colebrook road. However, issues clearly remain. The obligations on water companies to deal with the consequences of such flooding are inadequate, and the problem is likely to increase, as a result of climate change and new housing developments.

On that point, I am immensely concerned about the way in which companies, particularly utility companies, normally respond to foul water flooding by saying that it would be far too expensive for them to do anything straight away, or by saying that it would be immensely inconvenient to do something at that time, and that any action would have to be part of a larger strategy. I urge my hon. Friend, in his discussions with Thames Water, to ask them for small, interim solutions. Those are normally much cheaper, and can alleviate the problem for residents while they wait for a much bigger solution. Interim solutions are normally about a tenth of the cost of the final scheme. The fact that companies are waiting to carry out a final scheme is not a good excuse, and the situation is intolerable for the domestic consumer.

Again, I am extremely grateful to my hon. Friend for her knowledgeable and wise contribution. I wish the situation were as she describes. Often in my experience of Thames Water, the company has relied on the strict letter of the Ofwat regulations, which it feels drive it to deal with problems in a particular way, which is often the way that is least helpful to my constituents. The problem could largely be allayed by a more rapid response, more comprehensive clean-up facilities and, again, consideration for the plight of those affected.

The issue is complex and I do not want to oversimplify it. In the landmark case of Marcic v. Thames Water recently, the House of Lords removed possible remedies in law under the Human Rights Act and through an action for nuisance. That creates a difficulty for many householders. Although Ofwat tightened its requirements in the 2004 periodic review, the situation faced by my constituents affected by the problem remains unacceptable.

There are difficult judgments to be made about who should fund improvements and compensation, how and when, but it cannot be right that a utility can choose to wait two full days after foul water flooding has subsided before cleaning up. What are families meant to do in the meantime, particularly low income families who have no relatives in the area and nowhere to go, and families with young children? I have constituents in that position, as no doubt do other hon. Members. What about the risks to health and safety?

It cannot be right that so much latitude is allowed to companies to delay investment to prevent such flooding. It cannot be acceptable that the obligation on utilities for compensation is so light—equivalent to a year’s sewerage charges—when the potential damage in terms not only of clean-up, replacement of furniture and so on, but to the marketability of homes is so great.

These are all serious concerns, which I hope my hon. Friend the Deputy Leader of the House will carry back to Ministers. I hope to return to the subject in the new year with a more detailed case for change. In the meantime, Mr. Speaker, may I take the opportunity to wish you and the House a happy and restful Christmas?

Having been upbraided by the Leader of the House on Thursday for not offering Christmas wishes, may I also take the opportunity, Mr. Speaker, of extending to you and the Deputy Speakers, the Clerks, the Officers of the House and all right hon. and hon. Friends and colleagues best wishes for Christmas and the new year?

The Christmas Adjournment debate is always an excellent opportunity to raise all manner of issues, some of which are parochial and of constituency interest, and others that are of great national and international importance. In my brief contribution I shall deal with two matters that tend towards the latter category. The first is a matter that we have not had the opportunity to discuss in a debate because it arose only on Thursday last week—that is, the al-Yamamah arms sale and the discontinuation of the investigation—and the second is the most important issue facing all hon. Members and the country: the ongoing conflict in Iraq.

I understand the reason for the timing of the Attorney-General’s statement last Thursday, in order to avoid market fluctuation. I am less forgiving of its timing in terms of the recess, and the fact that it offered no opportunity for debate will have astonished many people. It will be widely seen as the last nail in the coffin of the so-called ethical foreign policy. It is an extraordinary decision on the part of the Attorney-General to discontinue an investigation at the point that the investigation had reached, before he had had the opportunity to consider the findings of that investigation.

Of course, it is a matter for the Attorney-General alone to make that decision, which makes it all the more alarming that the following day the Prime Minister declared that he took full responsibility for it—a matter to which I shall return. It is also curious that the Attorney-General was able to come to a view that there was unlikely to be a prosecution, when the advice from Mr. Robert Wardle, the director of the Serious Fraud Office, was that the investigation was making good progress, but that it was too early in the process to determine the chances of success.

As we know, the Attorney-General couched his decision in terms of national security—a matter of national security that happened to coincide with the Serious Fraud Office obtaining access to certain Swiss bank accounts held by Saudi nationals. He stressed time and again that the decision was not based on commercial considerations. Indeed, he was required to do that because under the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development convention, article 5 states that investigation and prosecution of the bribery of a foreign public official

“shall not be influenced by considerations of national economic interest”.

That is why the Attorney-General made those points. However, article 5 goes on to state that the investigation and prosecution should not be influenced by

“the potential effect upon the relations with another state or the identity of the natural or legal persons involved”.

So, on the face of it, the Attorney-General’s decision seems curious and open to challenge.

I shall make three brief points in respect of the decision. First, I am concerned about the role of the Attorney-General. This is the most political of Attorneys-General. He has made a number of decisions that were very near to the fine distinction between legal and political decision making, but surely his first responsibility is the duty to uphold the law. The rule of law in this instance is subject to the statute that we passed so recently, the Anti-terrorism, Crime and SecurityAct 2001. No other consideration should have been at the forefront of his mind. It may be necessary to return at some stage to the role of the Attorney-General and the requirements placed upon him.

Would the hon. Gentleman have been happy to see the loss of 50,000 British jobs if the investigation had continued?

It is transparently the case that I would not have been happy to see the loss of those jobs, but nor am I happy to see the loss of the integrity of the legal system of this country and its international reputation. That is also of importance.

Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

No. I want to make progress.

The second consideration is the continuation of other prosecutions and investigations. As we know, BAE is being investigated in respect of events in Chile, Romania, South Africa, the Czech Republic and Tanzania. I am particularly concerned about Tanzania and the order for a £28 million air control system that is way beyond anything that Tanzania could reasonably need or want, as a result of a loan from a British bank on terms which are unclear and for purposes which are unclear. I have raised questions about the matter previously.

I want to be assured that sufficient resources will be applied to the Serious Fraud Office investigation to ensure a speedy and complete consideration of all aspects of the evidence associated with those cases. It is also in the interests of BAE that matters be swiftly brought to a head in respect of those countries. There is a great danger that we are seen as a country prepared to prosecute in the case of weak countries without oil or strategic interests, and not prepared to continue a case in the instance of a country which at present we have a strategic interest in protecting, although were the rather fragile Saudi regime to fall, we might find those arms in the hands of a very much more unfriendly regime.

Does my hon. Friend agree that it would be timely and would help to clear the air if the National Audit Office report, which is the only one that has never been released into the public domain, were so released? Does he further agree that this House has it in its gift to make that happen if it wants to?

My hon. Friend is absolutely right. He has pre-empted my third and last point on this subject, which is that it is unprecedented for the NAO to prepare a report for a Committee of this House and for it not to be published. If the House has any integrity, it will insist on the publication of that report. It is a matter that my right hon. and hon. Friends and I intend to pursue, and one that we hope will be brought to a conclusion.

My hon. Friend knows that we have similar concerns about this matter. Given what the Prime Minister said on Friday, and given that the Shawcross doctrine set out here by Hartley Shawcross in 1951 made it clear that it would be entirely improper for any part of such a decision to be taken by anybody other than the Law Officers, does my hon. Friend agree that it is time to consider whether the Law Officers, though nominated by the Government, should be subject to the approval of Parliament and that Parliament should be entitled to withdraw that approval if it does not believe that they are doing their job properly and independently?

My hon. Friend makes an important point. The constitutional position of the Attorney-General and the Solicitor-General needs to be considered with the greatest care. They have a responsibility not only to the Government but to this House and to the country. Too often, the Attorney-General has been brought into political debate on matters where it would be far better if a greater degree of independence were demonstrated.

I want to move on to the biggest issue faced by any of us—Iraq. I make no apologies for doing so. On the last count, I have in the lifetime of this Parliament asked for debates on Iraq 14 times during business questions and six times on other occasions. I cannot understand why the House has been prepared to accept not being given the opportunity to debate Iraq properly.

From the outset, I pay tribute to the forces who are working so hard and under such difficult circumstances both in Iraq and in Afghanistan. I have a particular constituency interest in the air crew associated with RNAS Yeovilton. I also have 3 Commando Royal Marines—40 Commando—stationed very near to my constituency. Last year, I spent some time with the Royal Marines under the armed forces parliamentary scheme, and finer, more professional fighting men I have never met. I have huge admiration for what they have done in Iraq and in Afghanistan. I include in that the men of the Assault Boat Squadron whom I had the privilege of meeting.

We need to accept the scale and the awfulness of the situation in Iraq, where we have lost about 3,000 coalition troops and countless numbers of civilians—literally countless, because no one has authoritative figures—have lost their lives. It is increasingly recognised in the United States, with the publication of the Baker review. Colin Powell, of all people, is today reported as saying that the United States—and by virtue of our association with the United States, ourselves too—is losing the conflict and that it is a “grave and deteriorating situation”. Even the new US Defence Secretary, Robert Gates, has said that failure in Iraq would be a “calamity” that would haunt the United States for many years. There is a general realisation that the Pandora’s box that we have opened in Iraq will be very difficult to close.

There is also mounting criticism in this country, notably from the armed forces themselves, withSir Mike Jackson and Sir Richard Dannatt commenting on the exposed and extended position that the armed forces are now in. As a House, we should have as one of our prime responsibilities the care and support of the young men and women whom we send to war on behalf of this country. We should ensure that they have the equipment and support that they need to do their job not only effectively but safely.

Does the hon. Gentleman accept that the demand for a dedicated debate and for regular statements on this subject does not come only from the original opponents of the war? I voted for the war and would do so again. Nevertheless, the Government must accept that whatever their view of the current situation, they have a basic responsibility either to defend their record or to explain their errors. The responsibility to debate is an absolute responsibility, irrespective of what Ministers think of our opinions or those of the public.

The hon. Gentleman is absolutely right. I respect those who took a different view at the time of the war; they did so for a variety of reasons. As he knows, I was against the war and explained why in the debate that took place on, I think, 18 March. Having recently looked at that speech, I see no reason to resile from any of the comments or opinions that I expressed. I accept that others have taken a contrary view. That does not absolve any Member of this House from their responsibility to scrutinise Government policy in this area properly, nor does it absolve the Government from being fully accountable to the House on the most important foreign and defence policy issue in recent memory. The unwillingness of the Prime Minister and the Foreign Secretary to come before the House to answer for that policy should be deplored.

Without wishing to reopen the sores of that debate or our current difficulties in looking back at some of the matters that were put before the House, I cannot allow one issue to go without comment. As we know, the weapons of mass destruction on which so much of the Government’s initial case was based were not found. I said in my speech that I did not doubt the Prime Minister’s sincerity in saying that he believed that they were there. However, that sincerity has been brought into doubt by the evidence of Carne Ross, former First Secretary at the United Nations, who said in his evidence to the Foreign Affairs Committee:

“During my posting, at no time did”—

the Government—

“assess that Iraq’s WMD (or any other capability) posed a threat to the UK or its interests. On the contrary, it was the commonly-held view among officials that any threat had been effectively contained.”

That was not the complexion of the evidence laid before the House by the Prime Minister or by other Ministers at the time.

We have also heard from Professor Bulmer-Thomas at Chatham House. Again, it may be a retrospective view, but it is nevertheless an important contribution. He talks of the “disaster” in Iraq and the damage to the United Kingdom’s international influence. I cannot indulge myself by taking too much of the House’s time, but I have to say that the United Kingdom’s authority in foreign affairs has been enormously damaged by Iraq. We are seeing the evidence of that not only in the Prime Minister’s lack of influence with the President on Capitol Hill, which has been the subject of blunt assessments, but in the region itself, where the Prime Minister is making belated but well-intentioned attempts to secure some sort of coalition around further progress on middle east talks. The fact is, however, that his association with the war in Iraq means that he is unable to play the pivotal role that we would want for this country.

On the original decision to go to war in Iraq, does my hon. Friend agree that the Prime Minister needs to answer to this House as to why he rejected proposals from the Supreme Council for the Islamic Revolution in Iraq for a change to the rules of engagement in the southern no-fly zone that would have obviated the need to invade Iraq to remove the Ba’ath regime?

There are a great number of things for which the Prime Minister needs to be accountable. A full inquiry into the circumstances surrounding the onset of the conflict will be necessary in due course; however, there are also matters in the here and now that require our immediate attention. I have already indicated that the safety of UK forces is of paramount importance.

We now need a properly based strategic review of our position, but not one that is identical to that of the United States. We cannot piggyback on the Baker review. We should look at the implications of the current situation for British foreign and defence policy. That cannot happen soon enough. The outcome of that should be a phased withdrawal, which should come sooner rather than later, although I do not make the mistake of assuming that we could immediately withdraw forces. Nobody sensible would say that, but we have to make speedy progress towards that end.

Lastly, there is the issue of the machinery of government. One of the things that was displayed throughout the decision-making process on Iraq was the Prime Minister’s presidential style, and the lack of consensual arrangements in Cabinet and the wider Government. It was recently proposed that this country should perhaps have a national security council, as the United States has. There is much to commend in that proposition. A standing committee that looked at all sides of our foreign and strategic policies would be of great benefit and if nothing else, might put a brake on the ambitions of a Prime Minister who is influenced too much by forces outwith the United Kingdom and who is tempted along roads that are not in our national interest.

I do not expect the Deputy Leader of the House to be able to answer all the points that I have raised. It is no disrespect to him to say that some of those matters are beyond his terms of reference as Deputy Leader of the House. It is for the Prime Minister, the Foreign Secretary and the Secretary of State for Defence to answer on those points, to come to the House at regular intervals and to make reports to the House, but it is for the Leader of the House and the Deputy Leader of the House to provide the opportunities to debate what is the most important matter before us today.

I join others in wishing everybody—the staff of the House and you, Mr. Speaker—a happy Christmas and a good new year. At Christmas, it is appropriate to reflect on those people who strive day and night in one’s constituency to make their local communities better places. The Government can provide money and capacity, but they cannot substitute for the efforts, enthusiasm, vision and drive of local people, armed with extra resources and determined to make their local communities better.

Nowhere is that more important than in a constituency such as mine, which is traditionally a manufacturing constituency. It was devastated in the ’70s, ’80s and early ’90s, when it lost a large chunk of its manufacturing and the jobs that went with that. It is a constituency with historically low aspirations and low educational achievement, because for generations young people left school at the earliest opportunity and went into work in local factories. Above all, it is a constituency in which it was necessary for the Government in 1997—with their priority of education, education, education—to deliver.

Before I come to some of the local achievements, I should stress that although the major manufacturers have disappeared from my constituency, there are still a large number of enterprising small companies that compete successfully in the highly competitive global market. Unusually, we had the reopening of a foundry last year—the first opening of a foundry for many years—at Hercunite, which is an investment by Hitachi that specialises in a high-quality eco-friendly car exhaust system. That is a clear demonstration that where entrepreneurial expertise and investment are allied to national and global ecological priorities, it is possible to carve out a niche market and be successful. Only last Friday I had the privilege of opening a bed and mattress factory, Dreams. That is another demonstration that an enterprising business, committed to working in this country and to using the pool of dedicated labour that has historically been found in my constituency, can be successful and create jobs.

However, I want to focus on education in particular, because there is an issue concerning investment and delivery. In my constituency, education funding has increased in real terms by some 48.7 per cent. per pupil since 1997. There have been reductions in class sizes, more teachers and more support staff. All too often, people look at the league tables and say that an authority is not delivering, but the statistics demonstrate that our authority is delivering. In 1997, 48 per cent. of pupils in my constituency reached reading level 4 in English at key stage 2. In 2006, the figure was 71 per cent. In maths, the relative figures are 45 per cent. and 69 per cent. Those figures are still lower than the national average but, significantly, they are above what was the national average in 1997. Moreover, the gap between my constituency and the national average has halved. Those figures can be reflected at key stage 3—children’s achievement at the age of 14—and in GCSE performance.

I should like to mention two schools in particular that have reached a level of excellence. The first is Round’s Green primary school, which serves one of the most underprivileged and multicultural areas in my constituency, and is one of the top 100 performing primary schools in the country. The other is Wood Green sports college in Wednesbury, which serves a multicultural community and where one third of the children are on free school meals. The school has demonstrated that sporting achievement and excellence can go hand in hand with academic achievement. It is the top performing school in the borough. Last year it sent 70 pupils to university and it recently wonThe Daily Telegraph top sports college award. Wood Green sports college has demonstrated that involving children in sport and raising their self-confidence and self-esteem has a crossover to academic achievement, and that sporting excellence and academic excellence can go hand in hand.

Building on that experience, the local authority is promoting the academy programme. Sandwell academy, in a neighbouring constituency, is already recruiting and will soon be followed by Willingsworth school in my constituency. Willingsworth school is sponsored by the Royal Society for the Encouragement of Arts, Manufactures and Commerce, which is a clear demonstration that there are bodies outside the area that are committed to and confident in investing in schools there. I hope that—the Deputy Leader of the House might make a note of this—Willingsworth school will get a fair wind from the Government as it jumps through the necessary hoops to become an academy.

One problem in my constituency was the number of bright young students who left at 16 to go to either neighbouring selective colleges or colleges outside the area. The purpose of promoting the academy programme and schools such as Wood Green school is to keep those young people within the borough in order to demonstrate its rising educational achievement and to provide an incentive to the younger students as they go through the same process.

To sound a cautionary note, the building schools for the future funding is welcome and has the potential to transform schools in my constituency, but I hope that those schools that are already performing do not lose out in the funding allocation and subsequent tranches. It is important that we continue to invest in those flagship schools that meet the Government’s objectives.

Sections of the local community have missed out on the educational investment provided since 1997. Hon. Members who have read the social exclusion action plan will have noted that, although there has been a general improvement in levels of affluence, education, opportunity and achievement, it highlights the problem of a hard core of people who were hitherto caught in a cycle of deprivation and non-achievement.

It is difficult for established Government agencies to change such people’s lack of lifestyle opportunities, but a project in my constituency is doing just that. The Murray Hall community trust, funded by the safer stronger communities fund, has targeted the Tibbington estate in Tipton—the Tibby, as it is known locally—which historically has had high unemployment, low educational achievement and a family cycle of low aspiration and low achievement. It uses people from the estate—Jennifer Bryan, Janet Burbridge, Suzanne Cornick, Charlene Cotton and Stephen Walker—to act as mentors in the community to encourage people to go into training programmes and subsequently into jobs. The things for which it has recruited in the space of eight months include child care, construction, carpentry, flower arranging and, above all, family projects, in which families and children work together in schools on healthy eating programmes. So far, 78 adults have been recruited to training courses. I emphasise that those adults had rejected the educational process earlier in their lives, and this is their first taste of participating in formal training. Sixteen have gained qualifications to date, but the trust hopes to do more. By establishing a local community facility and analysing a local community problem, it hopes to build a business with considerable educational spin-offs.

I am interested in my hon. Friend’s comments because I have a similar experience in parts of my constituency. Does he agree that locally based centres for learning, such as the Penhill information and communications technology learning centre in my constituency, often achieve tremendous results with people who have never had learning opportunities before, because they are closest to the local communities?

I agree entirely. This is a matter of people who have never felt comfortable with the delivery of public services being able to relate to local people and go to a familiar locality where they feel at ease and are confident enough to begin to engage with the educational process without feeling threatened by it, which they could never do when they were younger.

In the middle of Tipton, there is a large area of natural land called the Cracker. It is so called because it is where the crack—the effluent—from local foundries and companies was dumped for more than 100 years. It has just been developed as a green space and Tipton people like to tether their horses on it. Contrary to public perception, there is a high horse population in Tipton. It is almost entirely unregulated and often a nuisance, so much so that the local authority employed a horse ranger, which a national newspaper criticised a few years ago because it was inconceivable that such an urban area should need that service. However, it is necessary.

With the aid of business in the community, the Murray Hall community trust hopes to set up a stabling and horse management centre on that area, bringing in local people and, first, using it as a community facility for those who love their horses and want to keep them, and, secondly, developing an educational process on it which will enable people to learn about business practices, horse grooming, maintenance and care and so on, thereby allying a long-standing local cultural tradition with the educational process and opportunities that we need in the future. It is a clear demonstration of money being successfully invested in the community so that work is carried out with people who hitherto have been unable to engage in the educational process.

It is important that the Government recognise that investment in a local community must be followed by adequate monitoring and robust assessment procedures to justify more investment. If they look at what is taking place in one of the most deprived communities in my constituency, they will see that that is money well spent and that it will have a profound long-term impact. I ask the Minister to note that and take the thought away with him, and I look forward to further investment so that we do greater work in that local community in my constituency.

I wish you, Mr. Speaker, and all members of staff of the House a very happy Christmas. I thought that I would put the festive greetings in at the beginning because last time I had a bit of a rant, and when I said “Happy Christmas” at the end, everybody burst out laughing. I am not sure why.

I want to raise one thing. On 8 November The Daily Telegraph carried a story as a result of information that the Conservatives had obtained under the Freedom of Information Act 2000 about proposed closures in small hospitals around the country. When I read the article I was surprised, because it listed the Mid Devon primary care trust in my constituency as one of the PCTs that was likely to suffer closures, in our hospital at Tiverton.

The Daily Telegraph said that the Secretary of State had drawn up maps with something that she called “hot spots” to ensure that closures did not occur in marginal Labour seats. There is no way my seat is a marginal Labour seat, I am pleased to say, but I kept the cutting. Although I was unaware of any proposed closures, lo and behold, in the past three weeks they have been announced, not only at the Tiverton hospital in what was the old Mid Devon PCT, but at the Honiton hospital, which serves a large catchment area of the east Devon part of my constituency.

It was obvious some time ago that the Government anticipated the closures, and the form that they have taken means that the minor injuries units at both hospitals are closed to the public between 11 pm and8 am. In addition, beds have been closed, albeit on a temporary basis until the end of next March.

Small hospitals, serving sparsely populated rural communities, which is what I have in my Tiverton and Honiton seat, rely very much on local services. In particular, I want to consider the implications of the closure of minor injuries units. It is important to flag up why that has happened. As a result of Government policy, what were six primary care trusts have been brought together as a pan-Devon primary care trust. Collectively, by the end of the current financial year they must claw back some £7.6 million. As we all know, according to the bizarre formula that the Government apply to the NHS, if PCTs overspend they must recoup not just the amount overspent but twice that amount, thus making cuts even deeper than they would otherwise have been.

The two hospitals also serve local general practices, in that GPs often make referrals to them. If my constituents could not have access to the minor injuries units at night, they would be forced to go to the casualty department in Exeter, quite some distance away. Obviously, in some cases they would depend on an ambulance service. Devon PCT tells me that the minor injuries units are little used at night, but a father from Tiverton wrote to me:

“as a worried parent whose 3 year old son has benefited from the immediate treatment he has received”—

from the local minor injuries unit—

“three times for serious attacks of croup, all occurring overnight …the worst attack…was treated by a doctor within15 minutes”.

What worried that father was that if the unit closed—as it now has—the delay involved in taking the child to the larger casualty unit a long way away could have a devastating effect.

Even if we accept that minor injuries units have less throughput at night than during the daylight hours, we must ask what the consequences of closure will be for the patients who present there. It worries me that although the closures were flagged up in The Daily Telegraph on 8 November, there has been no proper consultation. There are no contingency plans to deal with the possible knock-on effects on the general hospital, on the ambulance service or on referrals through NHS Direct. It looks as if the decision was made in order to tick some boxes and save some money.

I have some sympathy for those who must administer the health service and balance the books accordingto the formula that they are required to employ. However, the people of whom no account seems to have been taken are patients—and, for that matter, professionals. One might have expected the doctors who service the hospital at least to have been consulted, but that has not happened. I was told by a GP in my constituency this morning that a meeting had been called for tonight, long after the closure of the units.

Apparently, a bizarre process will now operate when people turn up at Honiton hospital after 11 pm thinking that they can receive treatment at the minor injuries unit, as may happen. A nurse—and there is sometimes only one trained nurse—will have to come to the casualty department from one of the wards, fill in a form stating that he or she has received the patient, and then redirect the patient elsewhere with the form. Nurses on night duty, particularly those on medical wards, are kept pretty busy. The proposal to divert them to perform an administrative function and, if a patient has a serious problem, to cope with that as well, shows a lack of forethought and also a lack of knowledge of what goes on in a hospital, especially at night.

Seven beds have been closed at Honiton hospital. Beds in small hospitals, particularly during the winter months, are an important facility for elderly people with respiratory problems. Respiratory problems can develop quickly and turn into something serious very quickly, so getting those people into hospital beds is very important. However, no thought seems to have been given to the fact that we are approaching the months of the year in which demand due to flu, or just among the elderly, is likely to increase rather than decreasing.

When I spoke to someone at the hospital this morning, I was told that yesterday it had discharged two patients, and both beds were filled within half an hour. It is not that there are empty beds sitting about, or that there is a lack of demand even now. The fact is that none of these matters seem to have been discussed or considered from the point of view of patients.

The closure of hospital beds usually means a reduction in staff, especially nursing staff. I am told by the nurses’ union representative that there has been no consultation with professional staff about the impact on nurses. I always understood that employers had a statutory obligation to consult union representatives, and to take account of the views of professional staff. On so many counts, the way in which information has come into the public domain suggests that these decisions were made with only one purpose: to reduce the budget by cutting services—we are told—at the end of the financial year, which means the end of March. Meanwhile, none of the procedures that might have been expected to take place have taken place.

Let us consider what has happened to the health service in recent years. I picked up, literally at random, a couple of the documents that have arrived on my desk, most of them from the Government. In 2002 we all received copies of “Delivering the NHS Plan”. Paragraph 5.9 states

“For some services, for example emergency care, however, choice will have a more limited role to play. Here most patients will only want fast access to their nearest local hospital.”

I do not think any of us would disagree with that, but if it is part of the national health service plan, what has happened to that plan?

I know from raising matters with Ministers that they often pray in aid the idea that “It’s the trusts out there that must make the day-to-day decisions. Nothing to do with us, guv; we provide the money, they decide what to spend it on.” That is all well and good, but we know that the trusts are not free to make the decisions that they want to make at local level. They must constantly work within a framework in which finances are controlled from the centre, and all the boxes that must be ticked if financial penalties are to be avoided are imposed from the centre. There is no real freedom of choice for trusts, or for the professionals managing local services in our NHS hospitals around the country. Everything is predicated on the priorities of the centre, despite the fine words in the documents that we find on our desks every day.

When the Government decided to abolish those primary care trusts and group them together, South West Peninsula strategic health authority invited consultation, which ended in March this year. The consultation document talks of “working closely with partners” and others to ensure integrated services, and providing “appropriate clinical leadership.” When I asked the chief executive of Devon primary care trust what clinical advice he had received or taken in deciding to make changes and cuts, I was assured that there were clinicians on the PCT’s board. The clinicians who were out in the field delivering the service were clearly not part of the consultation.

Is not an additional problem a lack of co-ordination and a ready preference for unproductive ping-pong between the different agencies responsible for the delivery of public services? Has my hon.Friend encountered in her constituency—as I have in mine—parents of children with statements of special educational needs and an entitlement to speech therapy who find that they cannot enforce that entitlementon primary care trusts that are reneging on theirduties?

My hon. Friend is absolutely right, and I know that he takes a special interest in the subject. The only advice I would give him is that if something has been written into a statement of special educational needs and it has been signed by the parent and the due authority, it is a legal document and there is recourse to ensure that it is enforced. I encourage Members to ensure that when statements of special educational needs are signed they are enforced, and if people are reluctant to act on them, to take matters a step further. I am informed by some local authorities that when people reach the point in the process when they threaten legal action, they more often than not settle out of court. That is not how the process should be, and it is a dire process for parents to have to go through, particularly if they are not supported. However, if that is what it takes, the answer is to cut to the chase, and to get to that point as quickly as possible. That is my philosophy.

My hon. Friend alluded to an issue that I have already identified: joined-up government. I am sick of hearing and reading language to do with partnerships, consultations and working together—documents on such matters cross our desks all the time—when that is not what is happening in practice. My constituents have certainly experienced that in the past two or three weeks.

What is important is the people at the sharp end. The new patient and public involvement—PPI—forums, which the Government themselves set up, have written about the closures that I have described. They were not consulted. They wrote to the primary care trust to say that the cuts had been made too soon—that it has come straight in and made the cuts—but although we would expect them to have been consulted, they were not consulted.

Across the piece, we face a winter with services cut and professional members of staff—nursing staff and doctors—uncertain about what “temporary” means when they are told that the measures will be temporary. It is not said that the service will be re-established at the end of March, but it is stated that the closures are meant to be temporary. However, there is no guarantee of what that actually means.

The Government have had much to say about the NHS and all the people who do such a fantastic job in it and who built it up, but the Government are now knocking it down piece by piece. Patients, and the people who live in my constituency and in other parts of the country, deserve better.

I have to notify the House, in accordance with the Royal Assent Act 1967, that the Queen has signified her Royal Assent to the following Acts:

Consolidated Fund Act 2006

Investment Exchanges and Clearing Houses Act 2006

I wish you, Madam Deputy Speaker, and Mr. Heal a very happy Christmas, and I extend the season’s greetings to all Members and all servants of the House.

The local government pension scheme is close to the hearts of many of my constituents, and because I want to be certain to get what I have to say about it absolutely right I shall be very dull and read out my speech.

Previous difficulties regarding the well-being of the individual local government pension schemes were in large part due to employers of all political complexions, but particularly Tories, taking “contribution holidays”. In many cases, those pension contribution holidays meant that for long periods—10 years or more in some instances—many local government employers paid little or nothing into their local pension fund. Those contribution holidays, together with the downturn in the markets several years ago, have directly led to the fund deficits that have caused problems in recent times. The local government pension scheme needs to be improved and brought into line with other public service pension schemes, not downgraded to the extent that employees pay more for a worse scheme to pay for their employers’ past mistakes, while their employers share neither the responsibility nor the pain of remedying matters.

The employers and the recognised trade unions are currently engaged in detailed negotiations and they need to be allowed a reasonable period of time to reach agreement on the terms of any revised scheme. If those negotiations fail to lead to an agreement being reached, the Government will need to amend the current draft regulations so that the trade unions can consult their membership on revised proposals that they have at least a possibility of being able to recommend.

On employer contribution, does my hon. Friend agree that one of the added pressures on many local authorities that fought hard to protect jobs and to keep them in-house is the additional burden that they have to carry in respect of single status?

I agree with my hon. Friend.

The amendments that should be made in the circumstances that I have mentioned are as follows. First, there should be an increase in the protection period for existing scheme members from 2016, as is currently proposed, to 2020, which is what has been agreed in Scotland, or even 2025, as proposed in Northern Ireland. Secondly, there should be no cap or limit on the employers’ contribution rates; to limit the employers’ contribution rate would, in many cases, be a reward for poor management and past mistakes. Thirdly, the employees’ contribution rates should be determined after the draft regulations are laid and the formal consultation period has expired; however, a number of options could, and should, be proposed and consulted upon. Fourthly, the ill health retirement provisions should be improved in line with provisions of other public service schemes.

The vast majority of the amendments that the recognised trade unions are seeking are not costly items. However, even if they were costly items, by allowing more of the savings from the proposed changes to be used, they could be made on a cost-neutral basis at the very least. Unlike other public sector pension schemes and the LGPS in Scotland, the LGPS in England and Wales has provided for only 50 per cent. of the significant savings—achieved by extending the normal retirement age to 65 and so forth—to be used to improve the scheme or provide protections. In the other public sector schemes and in Scotland, the full 100 per cent. of the savings is being used to improve the scheme or provide protections.

I have made most of the points that I wanted to make. Reading out that part of my speech might have made it fairly dull, but a lot of my constituents will be very pleased to know that I am taking an interest in matters to do with retirement and ill health insurance that are close to their hearts.

The hon. Member for Tiverton and Honiton (Angela Browning) talked about her local hospital, and I shall now briefly talk about my own, Airedale general hospital. It lies in the heart of my constituency—in the Aire valley near Eastburn—and it is an institution that is much loved by all my constituents. It is the biggest employer in my constituency, employing 1,000 people, and it is well regarded, and I am happy for it to continue as it has thus far.

I do not like ideas about, and talk of, modernisations; when I hear about modernisations, I start to get a bit worried. I do not want services to flow away from Airedale hospital to centres such as Bradford and Leeds. I am sure that Bradford and Leeds have excellent hospitals. However, I like to think that I have an excellent district general hospital that can provide for my constituents in accident and emergency situations—and many forms of chemotherapy are also carried out there, and many sorts of surgical operations. As I have said, my constituents are very pleased with the hospital. The people who work there do an excellent job. I do not want any of the services at my hospital to be moved away. I want to put on record my support for the hospital and its staff.

In June 2001, Sir Herman Ouseley, now Lord Ouseley, produced a report on Bradford—of course, my constituency forms one fifth of the Bradford district—in which he talked about the problems arising from a lack of integration and cohesion in the Bradford district. He put a great deal of the blame for that on the fact that only 50 per cent. of the Pakistani and Bangladeshi community in the Bradford district spoke any English at all, let alone excellent English.

That was a difficult issue to touch on at that time, but because of Lord Ouseley’s comments I felt brave enough to raise then the subject of the need for English speaking within my Asian community. I talked about the need for Pakistanis and Bangladeshis to use English in the home, which is a rare thing in Bradford. I suggested that, although that would not necessarily lead to their children speaking English, it would at least make them aware that such a language existed and enable them to go to school with some knowledge of it. When I raised this issue, I was called “a linguistic imperialist”. I was quite impressed by that title, which is an excellent one to have.

Thanks to the comments of just one or two of the louder-mouthed members of my Asian community, the point was reached whereby some councillors suggested to the then general secretary of the Labour party that I should be expelled from it because I was little more than a racist. Of course, that was quite wrong. I have three half-Indian grandchildren and one half-African step-granddaughter, so I am hardly a racist. As I said, this was a very difficult subject to raise at that time, and I am pleased to say that the then Home Secretary, my right hon. Friend the Member for Sheffield, Brightside (Mr. Blunkett), supported me by virtually repeating what I had said on the Floor of the House. That support was needed, because it was a frightening time for me. I was very worried and felt quite intimidated by comments about expelling me from the Labour party and my being a racist.

Five years on, the problem remains that very little English is spoken in Asian households in Bradford. Two weeks ago, I visited a school in my constituency that is 95 per cent. Muslim, and I was told that 95 per cent. of its children enter school at three or four not just with no English, but with no knowledge of the language. In many cases, they have never even heard it being spoken. When I made those comments five years ago, most Muslim children were at least watching various BBC children’s programmes, so they had an idea of what English sounded like. Now, in these modern times, most members of my Muslim community have satellite dishes and get the majority of their television programmes from Pakistan, so the children go to school at three or four having heard no English.

I do not often say flattering things about the Prime Minister on the Floor of the House, but two weeks ago, he made a speech from No. 10 Downing street in which he mentioned many of the things that I am talking about today. He said that there was a great need for a move away from segregation, and toward integration and cohesion. He was also brave enough to say that there was a need for English, and that, in order to follow that through, we will establish a requirement for English before a person can gain indefinite leave to remain. I hope that that comment will indeed be followed through. At the moment, a person can obtain indefinite leave to remain without having any English whatsoever, so they do not bother to learn it. In fact, many young Asian girls who have come to Keighley as wives are actively discouraged by their in-laws from learning English, because once they know English, they know their rights and have the wherewithal to look after themselves. So many Asian in-laws in Keighley do not want their girls to learn English.

I am therefore very pleased that the Prime Minister suggested that, in order to get indefinite leave to remain, incomers will have to have English. I should point out that at the moment, people have to have English in order to obtain citizenship, so the situation will not be that different; this is not a great breakthrough. People have to have been here for five years before they can obtain citizenship. However, many people in my constituency are not all that bothered about getting citizenship, so they are not all that bothered about learning English. What they are bothered about is getting indefinite leave to remain.

I thank the Prime Minister for raising this issue. I hope that we will go through with the proposal and that people will need to have English in order to obtain indefinite leave to remain, and that more money will be put into our further education colleges, so that we can enable those people to learn English as a second language. I am afraid that FE is the poor relation of education, so if we are going to make this change and be fair to people coming to this country, we will have to put a great deal more money into teaching English as a second language in our FE colleges. I look forward to that happening.

It is always a great pleasure to listen to and follow the hon. Member for Keighley (Mrs. Cryer), whom many Opposition Members find always speaks a great deal of sense. I particularly agree with her concluding remarks about the search for what binds and unites us as a country. As someone whose own brother is a teacher of English as a foreign language, I can say that English is of course a fundamental component in that regard. What the hon. Lady said was tremendously welcome; it needs to be said more often and I commend her for saying it.

I want to raise—briefly, as a number of Members want to get in—four issues brought to me by my constituents and two of wider interest. First, I want to put on the record my support for Bedfordshire primary care trust’s revised bid for a community hospital in Leighton Buzzard, in my constituency. Various Members have expressed concern today about the scaling back of health services such as community hospitals in the areas that they represent. Leighton Buzzard is one of the largest towns in the whole country without any form of hospital facility—if not the largest—so I am very pleased that Bedfordshire PCT is putting forward a bid for a community hospital there. I was with the PCT on1 December—the day on which it had a meeting with the East of England strategic health authority. The bid will have to be finalised by next summer, and if the community hospital is deemed needed and affordable, it could be built within some 18 months, particularly if NHS capital is used, so we could have it by 2009. The proposal is for a new main facility in the town, but also for more and better services on existing health sites in the town. We can expect facilities such as diabetes treatment, wound care, consultant out-patient clinics, extended primary care, social care and various diagnostic facilities.

My constituents have waited a very long time for some form of community hospital in Leighton Buzzard, and we are naturally cautious—seeing will be believing. When we see bricks going on other bricks, we will know that we have reason to celebrate. I am heartened by my last meeting with the primary care trust and wish to put on record my full support for bringing the project to fruition.

My next point is about transport and especially the journeys faced by constituents who live in Leighton Buzzard and the wider commuter hinterland around it. The capacity of the railways was much touched on in Transport questions earlier. Leighton Buzzard is growing fast and is scheduled to grow much faster still, but it has nothing like enough jobs to support its working population. Indeed, that is a feature of the whole of my constituency and at least 55 per cent. of my constituents commute out of the area to work. I was therefore very concerned recently to receive a letter from Silverlink, the train operator, dated 22 November, in which it said that it was not possible to put on any more fast trains from Leighton Buzzard into London and that the existing fast trains cannot be made any longer. The commuter services are already very full and if we see the increase in Leighton Buzzard’s population that is anticipated under the Government’s sustainable communities plan, I wonder how people in the town will be able to get to work and back again. I do notsee joined-up thinking between the Department for Transport and the Department for Communities and Local Government, and I wish to put my concern about that matter firmly on the record.

I also have reason to believe—it has been said to me by several senior local authority figures in Bedfordshire—that since the announcement about the Olympics those of us in other areas of the country have sensed a movement of money towards ensuring that we can put the games on successfully in 2012. I wonder whether large parts of the Government’s sustainable communities plan are not fully feasible because of how much money will have to be spent on building the Olympic facilities.

The third issue that I wish to raise is the exclusion of children from lessons, which can be quite an emotional subject. I have mentioned before—not least recently in the excellent Adjournment debate instigated by my hon. Friend the Member for Buckingham (John Bercow) in Westminster Hall on children with speech and language difficulties—my concerns about children who are physically restrained by teachers or learning support staff in schools without their parents being made aware that it is happening. Parents have a fundamental right to know what is happening to their children in schools, certainly as far as physical restraint is concerned. I see parents as part of the solution, not part of the problem.

In my surgery last week, I had a mother and father who told me about the experiences of their young child, who was being regularly excluded from a substantial part, or the whole, of periods in the school day. The parents were not being told that that was happening. I look at such issues instinctively. I do not reach for a party handbook and see what the line to take is, but instead react as a human being and father. I think about how I would feel if that happened to my own children. Frankly, if a child is excluded from a whole or substantial part of a lesson, the parents should be told that that has happened at the end of the school day. I am not saying that the parents should be told immediately, but they should be told by the end of the day, because—I repeat—parents are part of the solution. Education is not a linear relationship between the school and the children, but a triangular relationship in which the parents are fundamental.

I was surprised to find that such exclusions were happening. I know that the situation varies in different schools and local education authorities, but I am concerned about it and wish to place my views on the record.

The next issue I wish to raise is training, especially for those no longer in the first flush of youth. A constituent came to see me recently who is 44, as I am, and is on incapacity benefit. He wanted to train as a plasterer—an excellent idea, as we have a shortage of plasterers in the area. However, the plastering course that he was considering lasted three years. For young people who live with their parents and so do not have expensive accommodation costs it may be fine to go on a training course for three or four years. However, for people in their 30s or 40s, perhaps with a family, a training course of that length is impossible to complete. I suggest that such courses should be held, to the same standard and as rigorously, on a much more intensive basis. Students would work for longer during the day and perhaps over weekends so that the courses could be completed in six months or so. More people on low incomes or benefits would then be able to complete a course and gain a skill with which to earn their living. The plastering course was three years, as was the plumbing course. A qualification in health and safety took four years, and the electrician course took three years with one year of on the job training. We need to consider the duration of such courses and I have raised the issue with Ministers in the Department for Education and Skills.

Like every other hon. Member I have been shocked and appalled by the events in Ipswich in the past few days. I read the biographies of the five women who were so brutally and horrifically murdered and I cannot have been the only one to be struck by the fact that they were all heroin addicts. It is a problem that affects all our constituencies—there will not be a single Member of Parliament who does not have a heroin problem in their constituency. Given that we know that 90 per cent. of the heroin on UK streets comes from Afghanistan and that we have a major military presence there, it is extraordinary that we cannot do more to stop the poppy crop ending up here. I know that right hon. and hon. Members have raised that issue with Ministers. I recall that the right hon. Member for Birkenhead (Mr. Field) and the hon. Member for Bassetlaw (John Mann), to name but two, have done so. Not so long ago under the common agricultural policy we were able to buy up crops in the European Union, although the regime has since changed. The Minister looks at me quizzically, but my question is: why, given that heroin can have legitimate medical uses, cannot we buy up the Afghan heroin crop and use it around the world for pain relief? That would stop it flooding into this country illegally. We need more serious thought about that issue. The UK was charged with overall responsibility for the opium issue in Afghanistan and it is a subject that has been raised with Ministers by my Front-Bench colleagues recently.

Finally, I wish everyone a happy Christmas, as is traditional for hon. Members speaking in this debate. We have had a healthy debate about the very words “Happy Christmas” this year, with a satisfactory outcome. I am pleased by the work of the Christian Muslim Forum, which involves Muslims and Christians working together. Many Muslims have said that they are not offended by the celebration of Christmas in this country or by people wishing them a happy Christmas, just as I as a Christian am not remotely offended if someone wishes me a happy Diwali or happy Eid. A few days ago, I saw an e-mail from the Hindu Council of Britain saying that this country’s Hindu community was absolutely happy with the celebration of Christmas in this Christian country. I was also especially struck and impressed by the card from the hon. Member for Dewsbury (Mr. Malik). He is a Muslim, but his card to me and the other hon. Members on his extensive Christmas list very clearly wishes us a merry Christmas. That is an excellent example, and one worth raising in this debate.

I have been keeping a little list of the people who have sent me cards with the message “Season’s Greetings”. There are far too many such cards from people in Bedfordshire who should know better. I agree with the hon. Member for Dewsbury, who made it clear that, as a Muslim, he was wishing us a happy Christmas. In that spirit, Madam Deputy Speaker, I wish you, the staff of the House and other hon. Members a very happy Christmas.

I have a cunning plan, Madam Deputy Speaker, that might appeal to the rest of the House. I suggest that, at the last minute, we should decide not to adjourn today. If we did that, then we could creep up to the Press Gallery tomorrow and see whether it was like the Mary Celeste. If so, we could telephone the news editors and inquire where folk were. They would probably say, “Well, they told me they were down the Commons, clearing their desks and so on.” Given how often our friends and brethren in the Gallery write about MPs going on holiday, we should try to spring a trick like that on them sometimes. However, I hope that we will keep the plan secret.

Another good reason not to adjourn is the fact that many hon. Members have a lot of unfinished business. I want to pursue the many parliamentary questions that I have put down that so far have not received a reply, even though a response from the Government is long overdue. One such question, to the Home Office, arose from press reports that the Government had abandoned defending the Prison Service against compensation claims from prisoners taken off illegal drugs in prison and offered detoxification programmes as an alternative. To my astonishment—and that of constituents who have raised the matter with me—the Prison Service is being sued by those prisoners. That is incredible, but my parliamentary questions on the matter have received no reply. I cannot understand why the Home Office has not been able to give me a swift response.

Similarly, the National Audit Office has been investigating the handling of grievance procedures involving Foreign Office staff. The Foreign Office has stonewalled scrutiny for months, but the NAO adjudication has now been received. Under pressure from me, the Foreign Office promised that the report would be made available on its own intranet, and that a copy would be placed in the House of Commons Library.

I have not yet seen the NAO report, but I expect it to be highly critical. As far as I can ascertain, it is not yet available to be read by Foreign Office staff or Members of Parliament. In my view, the Foreign Office has a record of very poor stewardship in matters to do with what is now termed human resources, and the present position is very unsatisfactory. I hope that it will make sure that a copy of the report is available in the Library tomorrow, as I shall be there looking for it.

This debate allows us to raise various matters to do with our constituencies. I want to remind my area’s train operator, c2c, and Network Rail about Tilbury Town station and the parlous state of access to it for disabled people, mums with prams and the semi-ambulant. The station has the town of Tilbury on one side, but no residences on the other, southern, side, so people who want to travel to London must negotiate an appalling footbridge.

Earlier this year, money was made available under the Access for All programme to improve access to railway stations nationally but, to our disappointment and irritation, Tilbury Town station lost out. That is unacceptable: Ministers at the Department for Transport and those with responsibility for disabled people must work with representatives of the bodies to which I referred and revisit the problem. Indeed, the same accessibility problem at Tilbury Town is also familiar to people in South Ockenden and elsewhere along the same line and, as a matter of fairness and equality, it needs to be addressed with some expedition.

I am very proud of the Thurrock marshes in my constituency; it is a site of special scientific interest that is of critical importance to wildlife and to bird migration. However, it is threatened by the motorbike fraternity and the extensive use of quad bikes. People are entitled to have a place in which to pursue their sport or enthusiasm, but the marshes are the scene ofa clash of two legitimate interests. I want the Environment Agency and Natural England to review the matter with some urgency, to see whether they can work with the local planning authority to protect what is an invaluable site of national importance. The threat is continuing as we speak, and I have no doubt that it will increase over the holiday period.

One of the flagship elements of the current Labour manifesto is the promise to make the Thames Gateway area a nice place to live and work, where people can have all sorts of recreational opportunities and where commerce can expand. I wholeheartedly supported the establishment of the Thurrock urban development corporation and, although I have been disappointed that the development has been slower than planned, there has been some movement lately that I welcome very much.

Ministers often talk about joined-up government. The objectives of the Thurrock urban development corporation include providing both relatively low-cost homes for rent or purchase and some very valuable properties that will enhance the area and add to the social mix. If those objectives are to be achieved, the development corporation needs to be able to offer employment to people moving into the area, and to those who live there already. In addition, proper skills training will be needed in the development to the west that includes the Olympic site.

That is the policy that I espouse, and I guess that it is shared by those Ministers who are responsible for the Thames Gateway. However, there is a quango—I forget its name—that is the Government organisation for the east of England. I do not know the names of the people who are its members, but I am sure that they are very busy. They claim that the Lakeside basin retail area should not be allowed to expand, on the grounds that it is not a regional shopping centre. That is an incredible and fantastic thing to suggest, but apparently that designation is critical to the area’s ability to expand. Clearly, people and interests across this east of England, of which by accident we are members, are frustrating the Government’s policy. I want to see joined-up government, and I want Ministers to tell these people to get real. We need this development to pump-prime all the other worthwhile initiatives that are planned by Thurrock urban development corporation.

In parenthesis, anyone who knows Thurrock knows that, but for a decision taken at 3 o’clock in the morning in the Committee stage in the House of Lords in 1963 on the London Government Act, we could have been in London. We are London people; we have London’s river, we have London’s port; we work in London. To put us in the same pot as Norwich and Yarmouth is bonkers, but that is what is happening. I just ask for some common sense to prevail in the corridors of Whitehall.

To rub salt in the wound, my constituency is still required to absorb London’s waste. You see these wonderful barges, Madam Deputy Speaker, passing the House on the river. They are about the only bit of river traffic there is. They are heading for Thurrock with London’s rubbish, and with it we will not put up much longer. We are not having it. It is unacceptable that my constituency should take London’s waste.

I refer in particular to a place called the Mucking site, which is situated on the borders of my constituency and that of my hon. Friend the Member for Basildon (Angela E. Smith). Our constituents have had to put up with the tipping of waste for decades. We have been promised time and time again that the life of the Mucking site would come to an end, but recently Cory waste management company sought planning permission to extend even further the life of the tip so that more barges can go down the river and deposit London’s waste. It is unfair, it is unacceptable, it is bad environmental policy and we have had enough.

A planning permission was granted and then snatched back by Thurrock UDC, which is now the planning authority for these matters. It granted permission about a week ago, only to find that one of the persons who sat on the planning committee was disqualified from so sitting. I welcome that, because it allows a rethink on the approval. It should not have been granted, first from an environmental point of view and, secondly, from a statutory point of view, because one of the people who voted— voted in favour, I am told—should not have been there at all.

I do not know whether the offending waste management company knew when it hatched its plan that it would be violating the boundaries of the hon. Gentleman’s constituency, but if it did not, it certainly knows now. Would it not be wise to recognise that it has met its match and should give up the unequal struggle?

It is kind of the hon. Gentleman to say that. I have been pursuing the question of the tipping of waste in my constituency and elsewhere for the almost 15 years that I have been a Member of Parliament. The tipping of waste is particularly offensive, and I will do everything that I can to frustrate it, especially now that, almost by accident, this irregularity has arisen. I should make it clear that I do not think that there was any intended malevolence in the irregularity, but serious irregularity it was. Now it has been discovered, it allows the people who make the decisions to think again and reject the application.

I know that many other hon. Members want to speak so I will conclude on a seasonal point. Hon. Members will have coming to their constituencies every week people who have genuinely faced some of the most traumatic personal experiences. They may have seen loved ones murdered or experienced other atrocities against loved ones or themselves. It is not adequately conveyed in the press that there are large numbers of people who have rushed here having endured the most awful and real persecution.

It occurred to me when I was at a church service this weekend that we should remind ourselves that 2,000 years ago a little Jewish boy with his mummy and daddy fled mass genocide and went to Egypt. We do not know whether the tabloid press of Egypt of the day said, “All these Jewish carpenters coming and taking our jobs,” and so forth. It is just possible that the good people of Egypt were a shade more compassionate than some people here are today. As we are in the period of Christmas, it is important that we as legislators—who are probably sensitive to the matter, whatever our views about immigration, asylum and refugees; there are some genuine debates—should state that we have been confronted in our constituency surgeries with the stark reality of persecution. We need to remind others that that is so. While there may be arguments and debate, this country has a proud tradition of harbouring people who have endured persecution, and we must not ever give that up.

It is always useful to be able to raise one’s own constituency items in such debates, and there are a few of those to which I particularly want the attention of the House to be drawn before the House rises for its Christmas Adjournment.

In October I secured an Adjournment debate in Westminster Hall on Backdale quarry and Longstone Edge. In my opening remarks I pointed out that this was the second debate that I had had on the subject. The first was some nine years earlier, when we wanted the Government to explain why one of the sites on Longstone Edge was being quarried without the new planning procedure having been followed. It was causing great concern in the Peak District national park.

When I first raised the matter with the Minister, I was told that it was a local matter—but the quarry is in a national park. This is not a local issue; it is a matter of national importance. In the light of various planning decisions that have been changed in the courts, I emphasise yet again to the Government the importance of this area.

Longstone Edge is a spectacularly beautiful area at the moment, but with the amount of quarrying going on in unregulated circumstances, it is in grave danger. I received a letter just the other day from the British Mountaineering Council, which says:

“The anomaly that at Backdale and Wagers Flat the activity proceeds unabated prior to any decision—

by the planning inspectorate—

“is in itself bizarre: that such action could take place in a National Park which relies for its economic well being on recreation, tourism and the opportunity for quiet enjoyment is frankly mind boggling. There must surely be scope for a moratorium on all irreversible destruction until the forthcoming Planning Enquiry has determined the meaning of the disputed 1952 planning permission 1898/9/69. The material value of the asset in question would in no way deteriorate since it would remain to be extracted if that were deemed to be legal. And if the current activity is found to be outwith the remit of the permission further infringement would have been avoided.

I have been grappling with Ruth Kelly’s letter to you of31 October 2006 which you were kind enough to copy to me, and have completely failed to comprehend how she could have put her name to it. Here we have a permanent and destructive assault on the landscape, biodiversity, recreation, public rights of way and community of a National Park excused by disputed interpretation of a vaguely worded 1952 minerals permission which was imposed on the National Park Authority (it is not a local park authority)”.

This is continuing to cause great upset in a national park, which has some 20 million visitors each year to explore the natural beauty of the area. The controversy surrounding the planning permission has been going on for more than nine years, which is simply not acceptable. I think that the Government should take urgent action on what I believe is a national issue.

I want to raise another concern. Over the past10 years, the Government have told us about their commitment to education—to “education, education, education” as we heard the Prime Minister say before he was elected to office. That rings fairly poorly at the moment in the area of Stony Middleton. Its school, which serves an important local community, is threatened with closure. It used to be the case that if a school were threatened with closure, an MP would be able to take a delegation to see a Minister to make the case for the school not to close. That has changed, as the Government have removed that right. I very much regret the lack of access to the Secretary of State, as I would like to explain why we believe that the local education authority decision is wrong. It is a retrograde step made by the Government, who have removed the final right of appeal of MPs to Ministers. As I said, I very much regret that. I hope that the local community, which is trying so hard to save the local school, will be successful and manage to save it.

As Members of Parliament, we should have the right to appeal directly to the Secretary of State when schools in our constituencies are threatened with closure. I was able to do that about 15 years ago when Muddington school in another part of my constituency was being threatened with closure, but since the Government have changed the law, we are no longer able to do so.

I have also raised on a number of occasions the issue of the resurfacing of the A50, which is a brand new link road—linking the M1 and M6 and passing through a village called Doveridge. When it was constructed, it was built on a concrete base and I had assurances from the then Secretary of State for Transport—now the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry—that the road would be resurfaced. That assurance has now been reversed: we are told that it will no longer be the case and it will not be resurfaced. Quality of life and the environment are important to people, and the amount of noise coming from the concrete surface is unacceptable. I still try to hold the Government to account for their original promise to resurface that particular section of roadway—a promise given from the Dispatch Box by the Secretary of State, which the Government have, I am afraid, gone back on. Perhaps it does not surprise me that much, as we have had so many Government promises on these issues and so many of them have not come to fruition and not been fulfilled.

We have heard a lot about the national health service over the last few months. The Whitworth hospital in Darley Dale in my constituency has a maternity unit operated by the Chesterfield Royal hospital. It has been a vital source of community care in the area, particularly in the rural parts of my constituency. It provides a very important local community service. At the moment, because of an incident that happened a few months ago, it is closed. Coinciding with that closure is a review by the trust of the whole future of maternity services in north Derbyshire. I personally believe that the current closure will actually lead to a permanent closure, which would be a terrible loss of a very good local service.

Let me tell the Minister that it is no good for the Government to keep telling us how much extra money they are putting into the health service, when so many people are seeing services in their communities withdrawn. If we lose the maternity unit service at the Whitworth hospital, my constituents will not say, “Isn’t it wonderful that the Government are putting extra money into the health service?”; rather, they will ask, “Where is all this money going, when we see such a reduction in the services that we value so much in our local areas?” I very much hope that the Deputy Leader of the House will be able to reassure us today that the consultation will not lead to a reduction in service. If the Darley Dale maternity unit closes down, that is exactly what will happen.

A constituent, Nicola Smith, came to see me at my surgery on Friday. She wrote to me, saying:

“I am currently training as a midwife at University of Huddersfield, and due to qualify in March 2007…The Government is paying a fortune each year to train many midwives on both the 3 year direct entry course and the18 month conversion course from nurse to midwifery (which I am currently undertaking). If newly qualified midwives do not get jobs on qualification, then all that money has effectively been wasted. It saddens me to think that all my hard work and effort over the last 4 and a half years may have been for nothing. I have worked for 4 and a half years to pursue my one passion, a career in midwifery, to be able to provide the standard of quality of care that every woman and her family deserves, in a safe, secure woman centred environment where women can be properly supported by midwives to birth their babies.”

She is coming to the end of her course, but she is concerned that she will not be able to get a job. It is ridiculous for the Government to spend huge amounts of money on training people if the jobs are not there for them to pursue at the end of the training. We all heard this morning about the case of physiotherapy nurses who, after a long period of training, also face the possibility of being unable to secure a job.

I am very concerned about the future of the Darley Dale maternity unit, which is why I have raised these concerns today. I very much hope that my fears of closure are premature and that it will not happen.

Last week, we heard a statement from the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry on the future of the Post Office. I have already seen a number of post offices close in my constituency, and I fear from his statement last week that we are going to see many more close, including some in my constituency. The Government say that that has nothing to do with them at all. We are told that the Government have supported the Post Office and the problem, as the Prime Minister tells us, is all to do with people deciding not to use post offices. I find that to be an insensitive and insulting comment from a Prime Minister who has taken vast amounts of work away from the Post Office so that post offices cannot survive.

The Government say that they have to respond to the problem, but they forget to say that part of the reason for the problem is the Government’s deliberate desire for people not to use the Post Office. Ministers tell us that the BBC’s decision was taken independently, but we are often told that we have joined-up government in which different Departments talk to one another. I greatly fear for the future of the rural structure of the Post Office in my constituency. We have already seen approximately 17 to 18 closures over the past 10 years and I think that, as a result of the Government’s decisions, we are going to see many more.

I have read much about the next issue that I want to raise, and I have met many people who are worried about it, although it may not have had the airing in the House that it should have done. I refer to the future of the rural economy. People often pay more for a bottle of water than they pay for a bottle of milk now, so milk producers now face serious problems.

When people go my constituency to enjoy the beauty of the countryside, the landscape that they see does not exist because of nature, but because farmers look after and maintain it—because farmers love the countryside in which they work and operate. More than 1,000 milk producers are going out of business each year, and we will see more of that. At the end of the day, this country will be much sadder and less attractive if our agriculture is not looked after and supported. The very fact that farmers get less for milk today than they did 10 years ago, and that the wholesales are making a lot more profit on milk, is very bad news indeed. I do not believe that the Government really care about the countryside or agriculture at all, but they ignore them at great cost to the natural environment of this country.

I wish every hon. Member, all the staff and all those who provide us with our security and food in the House a very happy Christmas and restful new year.

I also felt that my constituents would have a happy Christmas—I attended a celebration last Thursday evening of a Eid, Hanukka, Diwali and Christmas joint event in the integrationist-minded Muslim community centre at Eton road in my constituency—but on Friday morning, I attended a meeting, also in my constituency, with the local health bosses of the four primary care trusts, two acute hospital trusts and mental health trusts and representatives of the London region of the NHS to discuss a programme called “fit for the future”. That was referred to in passing during last night’s Adjournment debate on the fantastic new Queen’s hospital in Romford, which is a great tribute to the record investment, which has increased from 7 to 9 per cent. of gross domestic product under this Labour Government. But plans are now afoot that will make health and hospital provision in my constituency seriously worse for many of the poorest people if the plans that are envisaged for the “fit for the future” team are not stopped.

I want to spend some time dealing with that issue because I am very conscious that people all over the country raise their concerns about changes in the health service, but I am doing so in a context where we do not have static population in east London and we do not have changes in technology that can be used alone to justify changes in provision. A massive increase in population could take place just when significant reductions in hospital provision are planned in my constituency and across Ilford.

The four PCTs in outer north-east London—Barking and Dagenham, Havering, Redbridge and Waltham Forest, each of which is borough-based—plus the Barking, Havering and Redbridge acute hospital trust, which has two hospitals, the new Queen’s hospital in Romford, which has taken over the work of the old Oldchurch and Harold Wood hospitals, which have been closed, and the King George hospital in Ilford, which was a new hospital, built and opened in 1993 in my constituency to replace an old 1920s facility, plus the Whips Cross university hospital, which is based in Leytonstone and is principally a collection of 1920s and 1930s buildings, and the North East London mental health trust, which covers the whole of those east London boroughs, are discussing those proposals in detail.

Those involved have come up with five options. Given what I was told on Friday, it is clear that they favour what they call option 4, under which the accident and emergency department at King George hospital, Ilford, and the children’s accident and emergency department will be closed and all elective work in the hospital will be ended. Although a new independent sector treatment centre is just about to open, it has a five-year contract for a minimum number of operations. It will be there for five years, but not necessarily for much longer.

Over recent months, we have had a series of what the local NHS bosses call stakeholder workshops, run by a firm of management consultants called Finnamore. They have taken the circumstances of a few dozen local people supposedly to model various options with various weightings, which are then supposed to give an objective outcome of choice. They have had problems with their process. They were supposed to make the proposals public by the end of the year. They now intend to put them to the boards of the four PCTs in January. If they are approved, they will then go to the London NHS in February. A public consultation exercise to rubber-stamp the process will then be run for three months, presumably from March until the end of June or July.

But in my opinion, on the information that I have, that whole exercise is rigged, flawed and unacceptable. Why do I say that it is rigged? I do so because London NHS is not asking every area in London to undertake similar exercises; only four areas in London are doing so, and neither of the neighbouring boroughs, Newham and Hackney, nor the areas of Essex—where, for example, Harlow hospital is located—is undertaking a similar exercise. The exercise is constructed simply to look at patient flows and the local health economy of outer north-east London.

What is very interesting is that those involved have come up with proposals designed to reduce the services in some hospitals in my area, while no consideration is given to the neighbouring boroughs. We have discovered that there is, in effect, a preconceived agenda: as the new hospital is built up and established at Romford, it is a fixed point, and they are trying to create a situation where either the Whipps Cross hospital in Leytonstone or the King George hospital in Ilford is significantly downgraded.

The whole basis of the process is designed, of course, to create rivalry between neighbouring Members of Parliament and neighbouring communities. In those circumstances, it is very difficult to take an objective look at the overall situation. Those involved are failing to take account of the facts. I got these figures from the Library last week, and the facts are that the population of my borough, Redbridge, based on natural factors—fertility, demographics and the movement of people in, not additional house building—will increase over the next 25 years, from 2004 to 2029, by a total of 46,300. Havering’s population will go up by 14,700, and Barking and Dagenham’s by 12,000. Yet there is no provision for any new hospital facilities; on the contrary, there is a reduction.

At the same time, let us take account of proposed house building. My hon. Friend the Member for Thurrock (Andrew Mackinlay) referred to the Thames Gateway. At present, 1.5 million people live in the whole of that area, from east London to the south of Essex and north Kent on the other side of the Thames. Over the next 10 years, until 2016, something like 128,500 new homes are going to be built in that area. In just 10 years, the population is going to increase by15 per cent. That will mean 275,000 additional people in the Thames Gateway area. A large proportion of that increase is in the Thames Gateway area of the east London boroughs and alongside the Essex part of the River Thames.

In 2004, before the North East London strategic health authority was abolished and merged into the new London NHS, it said that, in the 10 years, there would be increases in population of 100,000 or 51 per cent. in Tower Hamlets; 99,000 or 40 per cent. in Newham; 7,000 or 3 per cent. in Havering; 17,000 or 8 per cent. in Waltham Forest—although that is outside the Thames Gateway area—and 21,000 or 9 per cent. in Redbridge. Most significantly, it said that in Barking and Dagenham, which is where people go from to King George hospital in Ilford, there will be 44,000 additional people—a27 per cent. increase in the population—in the next10 years.

There are no plans to build any new hospitals in the Thames Gateway whatsoever. From the Newham general hospital and the Royal London hospital right the way through to Basildon there are no new hospitals. Yes, there is the fantastic new state-of-the-art Queen’s hospital in Romford. However, it is proposed to take out of the equation several hundred beds from either the King George hospital in Ilford, or the Whipps Cross university hospital in Leytonstone. The way that decision is pointing is that the beds will be taken out of the hospital in Ilford, in my constituency. That is being done because it is argued that there are financial deficits, which is true. The Barking, Havering and Redbridge Hospitals NHS Trust has a 4.8 per cent. deficit of £16 million on a turnover of more than£334 million. The neighbouring Whipps Cross university hospital has a deficit of £15.8 million on a turnover of £182 million, which is 8.7 per cent.—one of the largest in the country.

I am concerned, however, that if facilities in my constituency are closed, there is no guarantee that there will be improved primary care facilities proportionate to the closures that will be announced. The ongoing deficit at Whipps Cross will have to be financed. In answer to questions at the meeting on Friday, it was admitted that that deficit would take at least five years to eliminate. The Waltham Forest primary care trust has a deficit of £1.884 million to cover as well. We are facing a situation in which there is disinvestment in some services in Waltham Forest and disinvestment by Waltham Forest council in some of its social services spending. We in Ilford will presumably make a contribution in the form of the savings that the primary care trust will make overall by reducing services in Ilford.

I am conscious of time. I do not wish to go on too long, but I want to make an even more serious point. There is something bizarre about the process. On11 December, the chief executive of the NHS London region, Ruth Carnell, sent a letter to all London Members of Parliament in which she said that the NHS London region was commissioning a major document from Professor Sir Ara Darzi setting out a framework for

“radical thinking about how to deliver services”

across London. That is to be published in spring 2007 and a final health strategy for London will be published in the summer. That seems bizarre and absurd: one starts the process to carry out cuts in services in one part of London and then one decides the strategy for the whole of London. It is bonkers. That is the wrong way round. I cannot understand why the NHS does not say, “In view of the decision to set up this work by Professor Ara Darzi, we need to look at London as a whole and then look at the sub-parts of London—the particular boroughs, outer London north-east, south-east London and west London,” rather than doing things this crazy way round. There is something seriously wrong with the way in which the matter is being approached.

The other thing that worries me is that the local “fit for the future” team seem to have given only cursory consideration to the impact of the changes that they are making on the neighbouring areas. I have already referred to Newham and Hackney, but there is also the possibility of movement of some patients to other hospitals in London, such as the North Middlesex university hospital. We were told at the meeting on Friday, which was attended by five Members of Parliament, that those involved had written in October to ask for information from those neighbouring hospitals, but the people had not got any detailed information to give us. It does not seem that there is any sense of co-ordination, particularly given the massive increases in population that are going to take place in Newham and Tower Hamlets as a result of development in the Thames Gateway.

Those involved have also done an odd exercise with regard to consideration of travelling to hospitals. I asked, “Have you done detailed studies of how a woman with four young children and a pram, who does not have access to a car, will get to the hospital in Romford or Whipps Cross university hospital from the south of Ilford or even from Barking and Dagenham?” I was told, “Well, we’ve done some simulation exercises of journey times.” However, the information is not public and I suspect that, as with everything else in this case, there is a preconceived outcome and a rigged process.

I asked the Library of the Commons for some data on travel times and the number of households that do not have access to a car. Interestingly, the wards in my constituency furthest from the hospitals are the ones with a higher number of people who do not have cars. It is odd, because the document produced by the “fit for the future” team says that “fit for the future” is supposed to be “addressing local health inequalities”. Yes, it is true: it does address local health inequalities—it addresses them and makes them worse. Some 38 per cent. of households in Loxford in my constituency do not have access to a car. In Valentines the figure is also 38 per cent. and in Clementswood it is 35 per cent. The figures are slightly higher in the wards in the neighbouring borough of Barking and Dagenham. However, in leafy Monkhams, in the constituency of the right hon. Member for Chingford and Woodford Green (Mr. Duncan Smith), which is up near Whipps Cross university hospital, only 16 per cent. of households do not have access to a car.

If services at King George hospital are run down and decimated to make it available for ambulatory care—as it is called—only, people may well have to amble there, travelling several miles, and then find that they have a more serious ailment and be rushed by ambulance to another hospital several miles away. It is a ridiculous situation. We need to stop the process. Either the London NHS should stop the whole process now or the boards of the primary care trusts—particularly Redbridge—should vote down the proposals so that they cannot go through and are referred back. Alternatively, if we go through this exercise, I hope that tens of thousands of local people throughout Redbridge, Barking, Dagenham and elsewhere will come out and say loudly, “No, we do not want King George hospital to be closed.” If that does not work, Redbridge council’s scrutiny committee should refer the matter to the Secretary of State so that we can deal with this nonsense.

I believe passionately that the Government have done a lot of good things to improve investment in the NHS, but we have a set of self-serving, bureaucratic, accountant-minded managers who are coming up with proposals that are not in the interests of the poorest people in the poorest communities, including those in my constituency. These mad proposals have to be stopped.

I would have thought that the passionate pleas of the hon. Member for Ilford, South (Mike Gapes) for proper health care in his constituency do not sit very easily with the Secretary of State for Health saying that this is the best year yet for the national health service. The hon. Gentleman might want to read yesterday’s Hansard and reflect on the totally inadequate response of the Under-Secretary of State for Health, the hon. Member for Bury, South (Mr. Lewis), to the Adjournment debate secured by my hon. Friend the Member for Romford (Andrew Rosindell). I wish the Chairman of the Foreign Affairs Committee well in his endeavours, but I think that he will have a lot of persuading of his ministerial colleagues to do.

We will today adjourn for the Christmas recess and go back home to be with our loved ones and families. That is very different from what will happen to a large number of young men and women serving in our armed forces, especially those in Iraq and Afghanistan.

I want to draw the House’s attention to yesterday’s inquest into the death of Sergeant Steve Roberts, at which the coroner, Andrew Walker, said:

“To send soldiers into a combat zone without the appropriate basic equipment is, in my view, unforgivable and inexcusable and represents a breach of trust that the soldiers have in those in Government”.

You will recall, Madam Deputy Speaker, that back in March 2003, Sergeant Steve Roberts died because he did not have lifesaving body armour, which had been denied him by the then Secretary of State for Defence. Mr. Walker went on to say:

“Sergeant Roberts’ death was as a result of delay and serious failures in the acquisition and support chain that resulted in a significant shortage within his fighting unit of enhanced combat body armour, none being available for him to wear.”

The coroner had requested that the then Secretary of State for Defence, the right hon. Member for Ashfield (Mr. Hoon), come to give evidence at the inquest. That did not happen. Instead, the Ministry of Defence sent David Williams, who is its director of capability, resources and scrutiny. Mr. Williams said that buying large numbers of body armour sets would have

“obviously indicated the department was pressing ahead with preparations for war when negotiations were still firmly at the diplomatic stage”.

What an unbelievably cynical and outrageous remark to make. Does that mean that if we ever order more bullets and guns, we are telling our enemies that we might be about to engage in conflict? That was a totally inadequate response.

I found it amazing that the current Secretary of State for Defence did not come to the Dispatch Box today to make a statement in light of the coroner’s remarks. It was quite unacceptable that the right hon. Member for Ashfield delayed for eight weeks before agreeing to the request that the body armour be made available. The right hon. Gentleman should be seriously considering his position. Frankly, having spent 25 years in this House, I do not see how he can remain as a Minister—you will be aware, Madam Deputy Speaker, that the right hon. Gentleman still serves in a non-Cabinet capacity as Minister for Europe.

The other place is considering the Government’s Corporate Manslaughter and Corporate Homicide Bill. I would suggest that if this was the real world and the private sector, the right hon. Gentleman could well be up on a charge of corporate manslaughter. Part of the Bill, which will soon return to this House, says clearly that a person who has left their job and moved to another position has no excuse—that person can still be prosecuted. When the Deputy Leader of the House makes his winding-up speech, I hope that he will, at the very least, give us some assurance that the current Secretary of State for Defence will report back to the House when we return in January and that he will convey the concerns of many right hon. and hon. Members to the right hon. Member for Ashfield and ask him to consider his position.

The situation in both Afghanistan and Iraq is grave. Many of us have been deeply uncomfortable with the fact that the Prime Minister and the Foreign Secretary have not been prepared to come to the House to brief us adequately in recent weeks. I am sure that you would agree, Madam Deputy Speaker, that the first duty of the House is to ensure that the people in this country have confidence in us and that we reflect people’s real concerns in our debates, questions and proceedings on statements in the House.

You will be aware, Madam Deputy Speaker, that the Prime Minister immediately flew to Washington—quite rightly, in my view—to be with President Bush straight after Secretary Baker published the Iraq Study Group report. The report is hugely significant. It could change the way in which we are conducting war in Iraq and it might have grave implications for our fighting men and women in Iraq. The Prime Minister saw fit to take questions at the press conference in Washington, but after returning to this country on the Friday, he made a speech in Birmingham on a completely unrelated subject. He was not prepared to come to the House to make a statement on developments following the publication of Secretary Baker’s report. That is quite unacceptable.

Although I have huge respect for the Leader of the House—I realise that he was in a difficult position earlier in the week—I gently suggest to him, through his deputy, that to say rather vaguely that there will be a debate on Iraq some time before the end of January is just not good enough. When hon. Members questioned him about that debate and said, “Presumably, of course, the Prime Minister will open that debate,” the Leader of the House gave the clear impression that the debate would be opened merely by the Foreign Secretary. Again, I would suggest that that is not good enough. I hope that the Deputy Leader of the House will convey that to both the Leader of the House and the Prime Minister.

This is an extremely awkward time in Iraq and Afghanistan, as I have already mentioned. I do not think that the House can ignore today’s Chatham House report, which says not only that it was a terrible mistake for us to go into Iraq, but that the Prime Minister was woefully negligent to take so long to realise that the Taliban were resurging in Afghanistan. Most of us accept that the redeployment of allied troops from Afghanistan to Iraq at the time of the invasion of Iraq gave the Taliban a wonderful opportunity, which it has exploited to the full, to the huge detriment of the people of Afghanistan and our brave men and women who are fighting out there.

I conclude by suggesting to the Deputy Leader of the House that he, the Foreign Secretary and the Prime Minister take a long, cool look at the report thatDame Pauline Neville-Jones and her team published yesterday, which is a constructive critique of foreign and security policy in this country. Their conclusion was that it was high time that with our foreign policy and diplomacy there was a little humility and patience. That has been sadly lacking. It was particularly lacking in the characteristically arrogant remarks of the Foreign Secretary, who dismissed the Chatham House report of Victor Bulmer-Thomas as

“threadbare, insubstantial and just plain wrong”.

Chatham House is a hugely influential and respected institution, which is totally non-political and unbiased. To have its report dismissed in such petulant, damning terms by the Foreign Secretary frankly says more about the Foreign Secretary than it does about Chatham House.

I start by wishing a merry Christmas to you, Madam Deputy Speaker, the Speaker, the staff and the Members, particularly those who have stopped here for the graveyard shift this afternoon. I especially want to wish a merry Christmas to my hon. Friend the Member for Thurrock (Andrew Mackinlay). I hope that he has a nice day here tomorrow; I certainly intend to be getting off a train in Durham before 10 o’clock tonight.

I want to return to a matter that I first raised in the House in the summer recess Adjournment debate in 2005. I expressed genuine concerns about plans that had been put to Gateshead borough council to allow a local contractor to mine open-cast coal from a site in my constituency known as Skons Park. I do not intend to recall all the points that I made on that occasion, but I want to state on the record that the issues raised that day are at least as relevant now as they were then. To some extent, this is an update, but for the vast majority of people in my area, it is an update that they would rather not have.

Following my debate and with the support of thousands of people in the area, the local council, in unanimous agreement, threw out the application in March 2006. The relief and joy at that decision was shared not only by thousands of people living in and around the Derwent valley, but by the National Trust, which owns the nearby Gibside estate, of which more later. Gateshead council, Derwentside council, Durham county council, English Heritage, local political parties, the Campaign to Protect Rural England, the Wildlife Trust, the Woodland Trust and Friends of the Earth were all opposed to the application.

Special mention should also be made of the campaign run by the group DRAMA, Derwentside Residents Against Mining Application, led by local man Eddie Stringer, and the Derwent Valley Preservation Society, led by Alderman Pitch Wilson, a man with a hugely impressive track record in defending our corner of this green and pleasant land going back well over 30 years and, coincidentally, in that time seeing off nine open-cast applications.

Sadly, the relief and joy that we felt was short-lived. I wrote to contractors asking them to accept the unanimous decision of Gateshead council, to reflect on the massive public outcry backed by the various bodies I have mentioned and not to pursue their application. But there is coal in them thar hills, and the contractors want to get their hands on it. More worryingly, local campaigners are convinced that Skons Park is nothing less than the thin end of a very thick wedge—a wedge that would see the exploitation of the land in the valley and open-cast pits popping up the length and breadth of one of the most important green areas in the north of England.

The Derwent valley is one of the green lungs of an area that has at one end the foothills of the north Pennines and at the other the A1 western bypass, the biggest shopping mall in Europe and the whole Tyneside conurbation. It is a genuinely green lung, feeding our region in a way that all the promises from the contractors of successful reclamation will never achieve. We are convinced that if the planning inspectorate in its wisdom overturns Gateshead’s decisions, and if the Secretary of State accepts that position, our valley will become a Klondike for open-cast coal operators.

I believe that if the inspectorate and/or the Secretary of State applied in full the principles of sustainable development as laid out in minerals planning guidance note 3 regarding national land use policy considerations, they could not overturn Gateshead’s decision. From the so-called evidence put forward so far by the contractors, I do not see that they can show, as the document states, that their proposal is environmentally sound or that it can ever be made so. Likewise, hardly anyone in the local community believes that the proposals would in any way outweigh the detrimental impacts inherent in the scheme.

Further, we have as yet seen no acknowledgement from the contractors of the very existence of a site of special scientific interest, let alone any details of how they would intend to meet their obligations in regard to the SSSI at Leap Mill burn. However, this is the main lesson of my steep learning curve in trying to make sense of planning policy in this country: any organisation can make an application to exploit a piece of land which would have a drastic impact on the environment, on the rapidly developing tourist industry, on an intricate web of interlinking wildlife areas and on one of the great historical treasures of our nation, and it can do so without putting forward real evidence to deal with the genuine concerns expressed by local people and organisations committed to the region.

Companies go through the initial stages of the process, and I cannot for the life of me begin to understand why we allow them to make such serious applications without having full and detailed evidence to back up their claims at the local council level. The fact that companies effectively view the application process at council level as little more than an inconvenience that has to be put up with before they give the real story at a national level is an insult to local people, a massive burden on already overstretched public sector workers and a massive waste of public money.

Let me be clear: if contractors cannot produce high-quality evidence at a local level, they should not be allowed to proceed further. If it is good enough for the inspectorate, it should be good enough for the council and local people. The situation also means that any persons or organisations wanting to resist the application are playing catch-up in their attempts to find and challenge the applicant’s evidence.

I use as an example the submission of a case put forward by the National Trust. As the National Trust states:

“It is our duty to protect our holdings for ever, for everyone.”

That is a very strong remit. I firmly believe that no organisation or contractor should hold back facts or evidence or be slow in coming forward to give information in relation to any planning application that may impact on National Trust property, but the following quotations about the Gibside estate and the hassle that the National Trust experiences in meeting its commitments show that, sadly, that is not the case.

The National Trust says:

“The information the Trust has been provided with by the appellant to date has been an initial Scoping Report, which did not refer to the impact of the proposal on Gibside Estate; The planning application was accompanied by an Environmental Statement…However, the Environmental Statement did not provide sufficient information to satisfy the Trust that there would not be an adverse impact on the Gibside Estate. Nor did it provide enough information for the Trust to be able to assess the possibilities for mitigation, since no adverse impact was identified.

The appellants then submitted supplementary information documents, which did not provide evidence to clarify any of our initial concerns.

At the time of preparing this statement, no further information has been provided to the Trust by”

the contractors

“despite the fact that we have, from the outset, asked for proper, detailed information to enable us to fully assess the impacts of this proposal.

Our case at present, in some areas (in particular, hydrology, noise, vibration and dust) is difficult to clarify due to continued lack of information.

We are unable to make a sound judgement on a proposal which provides insufficient information on impacts and mitigation.

The Trust will demonstrate that due to lack of information provided by the appellant, it is impossible to judge the impact of the proposal…on site, and therefore off site.

The Trust will demonstrate that there is not enough information to ascertain the impact on hydro morphology of the area, and therefore, not enough information to judge the impact on the surrounding ecology on the Gibside Estate, including the SSSI, the Leap Mill Burn, and other spring fed and groundwater systems.

The Trust will refer to (given the lack of information provided) the detrimental impact the restoration scheme would have on the Gibside Estate”.

On noise, the trust had to report that

“The information supplied by the appellant…has, to date, been insufficient to allay our concerns”

and it said:

“The Trust do not have enough evidence to satisfy ourselves that there would not be a detrimental impact to…Gibside Estate”.

That was the position as of the date on which the National Trust had to make its statement of case. Surely that is not on—the system is supposed to be an open, democratic, accountable way to make serious decisions about the future of our country. There should not be any last-minute gamesmanship, in which contractors pull rabbits out of the hat, and evidence should not be produced so late in the process that there is no time to evaluate it properly.

To reiterate, if in relation to the evidence supporting the claim the application is not strong enough at the initial stage, the application should not go further.We will continue to campaign against the proposal, because it is the wrong thing in the wrong place at the wrong time. It is the wrong thing because it will havea detrimental impact on people who live in the surrounding area. It will produce much heavier traffic on already overburdened roads, and it will lead to disruption to people’s daily lives. It is in the wrong place, because it is very close to one of our glorious historical treasures. The place has undergone a transformation, and it currently has record numbers of both visitors and employees. The company has so far failed to give evidence that assures the National Trust that its land and property will be safe, especially from flooding, vibration and noise.

Finally, it is the wrong time, because the north-east is redefining its natural areas, as that is the key to developing its economy for the future. After centuries of putting up with the negative impacts of coal exploitation, both human and environmental, we have turned things around, and we are attracting young people and modern businesses to the area. At long last, we are developing a sustainable tourist industry. For example, in my constituency, red kites have been reintroduced after an absence of 160 years. That is a concrete commitment to preserving our heritage, and we are using our heritage to develop our future. We do not need to destroy our land and way of life for a capful of coal. The project would produce less than 500,000 tonnes of coal in three years.

My hon. Friend is absolutely correct, and the sympathy of the House is with him on the issue, because everything in the system is geared for people who wish to rape the countryside—that is what we are talking about—and it works at the expense of the people who live there. Does he agree that there oughtto be a better balance, so that local people and organisations are listened to, and does he agree that the power of appeal should be taken away from people who only want to make money from the application?

I certainly agree. As a result of the process, I have learned that, month after month, the contractors got away with not having the information. They could have done the necessary work beforehand; they should have the information when they come before the inspectorate, and when they come before the council. That way, local people could make decisions with all the information before them.

As I say, the project would produce 500,000 tonnes of coal in three years, which is a pittance when we consider collieries in the USA, which now produce1 million tonnes of coal a month. People will accuse me of nimbyism, and I plead guilty. Our backyard led the world in the industrial revolution, and we are plagued with the scars of sand quarries, steel mills, landfill sites and pit heaps, dating as far back as Elizabethan times. We want to move forward, and the development of the biggest shopping centre in Europe, the opening of world-class concert venues and art galleries, the siting of the icon that is the angel of the north and the planting and expansion of the Great North forest are a testament to our new way forward.

I fervently hope that the inspectorate will see the sense in our case, and will not give in. We will lobbythe Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government if the inspectorate does not rule against the decision, and we hope that she shows the same grit as her predecessor in the 1970s, when he overruled the inspectorate’s decision on the application that was the first foray by coal speculators in the Derwent valley. I hope that we can expose the charade that is being acted out in the name of planning in this country. Local people have to live with the outcome of the decisions, and applicants should be forced by law, if necessary, to produce real evidence at the local stage of the process.

May I start by wishing you a happy Christmas, and season’s greetings, Madam Deputy Speaker? I should like to put on record a brief Christmas reflection on recent events, particularly those affecting our relationship with Saudi Arabia. Let me say at the start that I am not an expert on international relations or the middle east, and I am not gifted with any special insight into foreign affairs. The issue of our relationship with the Saudis has followed me, not vice versa.

I first became aware of the problematic character of that relationship when I was contacted by a constituent who had been blinded in a terrorist outrage in Saudi Arabia, and was then charged with blowing himself up. Although released, he asked me to intercede on behalf of other Britons similarly charged, at a time when Saudi Arabia was frankly in denial about the extent of al-Qaeda activity in that country. I believed that Britons were wrongly charged and were forced to confess to crimes such as causing explosions, which were committed by others, probably terrorists. The Britons were convenient and unfortunate fall-guys.

However, the moment that I began to ask questions, I was seen by officials at the Foreign Office—the hon. and learned Member for North Warwickshire (Mr. O'Brien), now the Solicitor-General, went out of his way to see me—and they warned me off pursuing the matter. However, I did pursue it, as did other hon. Members and the press. We are critical of the press from time to time, but in connection with this affair they did precisely the right thing. The Government refused to criticise the Saudis, and the relatives of those concerned remained unhappy with the performance of the Government. After further bombings, it became manifest that al-Qaeda was indeed alive, organised, and well-equipped in the kingdom. By then, the British prisoners were no longer a cover, and were instead an embarrassment. A delegation of MPs went to the Saudi Arabian embassy, and met Turki al-Faisal. I left the meeting with a positive impression of the depth of Arab pride and civilisation. The prisoners, thankfully, were released as an act of clemency. No view was formed on their guilt or otherwise, or on whether the charges against them had been wrongly placed.

The Foreign Office tried to mute criticism, but when a former British prisoner, Ron Jones, tried to take action through the British courts, the Foreign Office intervened against him and for the Saudis. The case yo-yoed its way up to the House of Lords, and on the day when the verdict was delivered, I watched, together with Saudi observers, as British justice was delivered. Ron Jones lost his case, unfortunately—his case was that he had been tortured in the kingdom while wrongfully arrested—but the verdict was probably right on the point of law.

A year on, I joined the Public Accounts Committee and was approached by a journalist inquiring about the National Audit Office report on the al-Yamamah deal. I was puzzled by its non-publication and its immunity from scrutiny, and I raised the issue of its publication—its unique non-publication. There then followed a confidential meeting of the PAC attended by some eminent people whom I am not allowed to name. It was made clear, first, that only a vote of the full House could end the report’s secret status; secondly, that no living MP has or can have access to it currently; and thirdly, that only the author of it may now read it. Completely blocked out, one waited none the less for the Serious Fraud Office investigation to conclude. That might have brought some matters to light, except that it has not and it will not.

There is only one conclusion that can be fairly drawn: what the Saudi Government do not like, we generally do not do. There is only one rational explanation for that: we fear the loss of their trade, or of their strategic support, or both. At this point, people divide into two camps. There are the pragmatists, some of whom are present. They argue in a utilitarian fashion that the harm caused to trade on balance outweighs compromises that we make over human rights, judicial process, transparency and ethical trading. Then there are the absolutists, and some of them are present as well. They condemn any such compromise as wrong in principle and disastrous in the long term. The pragmatists are accused of being unprincipled, and the absolutists are accused of being unworldly and holier than thou.

I have to accept that both are serious moral positions. Neither side takes the view that the world of international relations should simply be left to moral anarchy, or that pure realpolitik should prevail. But whether one is a pragmatist or an absolutist, one must be consistent. What worries me about the Government’s current position is that it is not that. One cannot drop principles to serve one’s understanding of the national interest, and then object when other regimes do precisely the same.

That was the point ably made in the Chamber by my hon. Friend the Member for North Norfolk (Norman Lamb) and on Monday in a well-thought-out article in The Guardian by its economics editor. That approach does not work. It harms the pursuit of good governance world wide; it gives succour to the Mugabes and the Burmas about whom we constantly complain and gives credibility to their offensive rhetoric; and, like the illegal invasion of Iraq, it renders hostile propaganda plausible and thereby weakens us.

Just as in an individual’s life there may be no conflict between the path of virtue and the road to happiness, there may be no ultimate conflict between the national interest and true internationalism. After all, it is the countries that are dominated by the rule of law with which, by and large, we wish to do business. Sadly, and perhaps briefly, the pursuits of international virtue and national interest have diverged a little lately. Perhaps we should accept that we have too narrow a concept ofthe former, and possibly an insensitivity to cultural circumstances elsewhere. Perhaps we have too narrow a concept of national interest. However, just as our predecessors in this place made the risky idea of democracy plausible, workable and sought after, we should try, with all the attendant risks and hazards, to make true internationalism similarly attractive.

It is a pleasure to follow the hon. Member for Southport (Dr. Pugh) and also the hon. Member for Blaydon (Mr. Anderson), whose speech showed the passion with which he represents his constituency. I, too, could speak with passion for mine, but I shall focus on one challenge among many facing my constituency in the London borough of Hillingdon—the task of caring for and funding asylum seekers who have recently arrived in the UK.

The hon. Member for Thurrock (Andrew Mackinlay) is right. We must think long and hard about that, especially at this time of year. I know the subject is of interest to many hon. Members, but it particularly interests us in Hillingdon because of the strategic location of Heathrow within the borough. Having spoken to the officers of the London borough of Hillingdon, I know that they do not resent in any way the responsibility that we have to look after those people. The local authority provides crucial support services for some extremely vulnerable people, some of whom are fleeing persecution and others who have been forced to travel to the UK for illegal purposes.

Our particular problem with Heathrow relates to the unaccompanied children coming in, whose care involves schooling, accommodation and disability support. The children arriving in Hillingdon have suffered traumatic experiences. Many have travelled to Britain to become involved in drug trafficking, prostitution, domestic service and so on. Hillingdon social services receives dozens of calls each week from the airport authorities, asking them to come and collect unaccompanied children from the airport. I take this opportunity to pay tribute to the local authority and its staff, who are doing tremendous work in caring for these vulnerable people.

The Government’s new mantra for children is “Every Child Matters”, and I applaud those sentiments. However, it is time to remind Ministers that that includes asylum-seeking children in Hillingdon. It has become apparent that despite providing those vital services, Hillingdon council receives inadequate funding support from central Government. That is placing a huge financial burden on us. The council is effectively being punished for implementing the Government’s own policies on asylum. As I said, I know that this is common to many areas, but Hillingdon’s situation is unique because no other local authority has a comparable gateway, particularly for the children.

The budgetary pressures have been caused by recent Government decisions. Most worrying to the local authority are cuts in funding for post-18 asylum seekers who are leaving care but require ongoing support. Previously, boroughs supporting more than44 asylum-seeking care leavers aged between 18 and24 received between £100 and £140 a week from the Department for Education and Skills to provide support services, with the first 44 being provided for entirely by the local authority. However, in October last year and January this year the Government issued circulars stating that that would fall to £100 a week for boroughs with more than 25 asylum-seeking care leavers. Certain local authorities with a handful of asylum-seeking care leavers might benefit from that move, but for Hillingdon it has caused acute budgetary challenges. The problem was compounded by the fact that the cuts were to apply retrospectively. This was announced at a time when Hillingdon had already set its budgets and planned council tax levels. It must be incredibly unsound and unjust to set out grant rules that significantly change practice some 10 months after the financial year has started.

The impact of those Government cuts was substantial and unplanned for. Hillingdon had to find an extra £1.6 million for the financial year 2004-05 and £3.7 million for the financial year 2005-06, and there will be an estimated ongoing future annual impact of £4.8 million. I must stress that that money was already set aside for other services. As a result, earlier this year the council was forced to set its budget and council tax levels for 2006-07 with the above deficiencies in its budget, and it is now having to do exactly the samefor the forthcoming year. The council faces several unpalatable options, including a significant number of staff redundancies, all of which are being caused by the disingenuous approach of the DFES. Interestingly, and rather worryingly, the Minister formerly responsible for the matter refused to meet council officials to discuss it.

I am pleased to say that the council is not taking this lying down, and has successfully applied to the High Court for permission to proceed with a judicial review, which we hope will take place in January. The issue attracts cross-party support locally, with the leader of the Labour group and both Liberal Democrats supporting the Conservative administration’s stance. The hon. Member for Hayes and Harlington (John McDonnell) and my hon. Friend the Member for Ruislip-Northwood (Mr. Hurd), who is in his place now, share my concerns. They, like me, will have heard from their constituents about the strain that the underfunding is placing on local support services.

A significant number of people living in Hillingdon have been through the official asylum process but were rejected and have subsequently exhausted all appeals. The Government have decreed that such people should no longer be living in the UK. However, arrangements for their removal lie in the hands of the Home Office, and until it undertakes its responsibility in that regard, the burden of financial support remains with thelocal authority. The London borough of Hillingdon currently supports, at an annual cost of £1.2 million, some 155 asylum seekers who have exhausted all appeals. Officers have told me that as a result, pressure is already being placed on services such as refuse collection, libraries, parks, street cleaning and housing. Ultimately, it is the local council tax payers who are having to pay, because the Home Office is not doingits job.

What galls me particularly is learning that officialsin the Home Office contacted council offices in Hillingdon in September asking for a full list of those asylum seekers who had exhausted all appeals. It seems incredible that the Home Office did not know who those people were or where they lived. Three months down the line, no action has been taken. The fact that the Home Office had to come and ask the local authority who those people were, and where they were, gives me little faith that it has any idea at all what itis doing. It is just incredible. I want Ministers to understand and recognise the unfairness of the situation. As long as the Home Office has problems dealing with that group of people, Hillingdon should be reimbursed for the full cost of providing support services.

The most worrying aspect of the issue is the threat to community cohesion. I have lived in Hillingdon all my life, and we have a proud tradition of good community relations, which everyone is keen to retain. However, if we see council tax rises or service cuts in Hillingdon, I am afraid that certain people may try to attribute them to the cost of those asylum seekers. Underfunding from central Government is to blame, but extremist parties may wish to exploit the situation. The dangers of walking blindly into such a situation have already been seen in Barking and Dagenham, with the election of 12 British National party councillors. I do not want to see the BNP or the National Front doing anything in Hillingdon.

In May, National Front candidates stood in two wards and received considerable support. Thankfully, they were beaten convincingly by the Conservatives, but in Harefield ward, the National Front came second to the Conservatives, beating the Labour candidates, who had held the ward in previous years, and the Liberal Democrats. I do not want to overplay the threat of extremism, nor should we understate it. It is one of the reasons why we have a strong cross-party consensus in Hillingdon. I hope that Ministers will recognise and understand those concerns.

Government cuts are not the only pressures onour budgets in Hillingdon. The financial crisis in Hillingdon primary care trust, which has had a staggering five executives in 18 months, is putting health and social care services in the borough at risk. The Government’s insistence that the PCT balanceits books within a short time scale is making it increasingly likely that the recovery plan will impact on the extent and quality of local health and social care services. In addition, it is clear that the PCT is attempting to shunt a lot of the NHS costs on to the local authority, on the highly questionable basis that the support being provided to extremely vulnerable service users could be regarded as social rather than health care. That course of action is being followed despite the fact that those costs have been met by the NHS for many years.

Given the huge scale of the problem at Hillingdon PCT, it is clear that the cost shunt being sought by the PCT will run into many millions of pounds. That impression is confirmed by our contact with the PCT, which has stated that a PCT cut of at least £3 million per annum is required in jointly commissioned services for people with learning disabilities. A similar cost reduction appears to be the aim for a range of other patients with continuing care assessments, as the means of transferring historical NHS costs to the local authority.

The PCT has also cut £500,000 from its grants and voluntary agencies, which provide essential support to people with significant health problems. As many of those services are preventive and supportive in nature, the council will have to pick up some of that funding liability, thereby avoiding further demand on primary health and care services.

All that represents a considerable cost pressure, which could amount to between £5 million and£10 million per annum if simply transferred to the local authority. That would be completely unacceptable to council tax payers in the borough and to the local authority, which cannot afford to meet a cost pressure of such magnitude.

I am sorry to bring such a tale of woe from Hillingdon when we should be looking forward to Christmas and the new year. However, because at heart I am basically an avuncular and jolly person, I have some good news, too. The council’s excellent record of sticking up for some of the most vulnerable members of our community was proved again only last week when Hillingdon became the first London borough to announce a council tax discount scheme for pensioners. The proposal, for a 2 per cent. reduction in next year’s council tax increase for pensioners, was approved by the council’s cabinet at its meeting last week. Those aged 65 and over will be eligible for the discount, and there are approximately 18,500 such households in my borough. My admiration for the scheme is only increased by the fact that it was achieved when the council faces the budgetary challenges that I described.

It cannot be right that the London borough of Hillingdon—my rate payers and my fellow residents—are being penalised for implementing the Government’s asylum policy. I am sure that Hillingdon and the Government can work together on that. I ask the Deputy Leader of the House to take note of my points and pass them on to the appropriate Ministers. I can assure them that I and my fellow MPs in the London borough of Hillingdon, with a cross-party consensus, will not give up our campaign to get fairness for my fellow Hillingdon residents.

On that note, as a retailer who has mixed views about Christmas, I wish everyone a very happy Christmas and a prosperous new year.

It is always a privilege to follow the hon. Member for Uxbridge (Mr. Randall) because we share a great love—that is, of course, a love of rugby league, as there is no better sport.

We received the sad news that late last night, Lord Carter, a Member of another place, died. Denis was a great friend to all political parties. He was Chief Whip in the Lords. May I say how saddened we all are to hear of his death? I had the privilege of knowing Denis over many years. My father was a Whip in the Lords—well, that was my father’s decision—and I got to know Denis very well. He was a farmer with a great reputation within the farming industry for knowledge. He brought that to the Lords. Most people say that not many Labour Members know about farming, but Denis Carter was an exception. He also knew everyone. He will be missed as a friend, and our sympathies and prayers go to his wife, Teresa, who is left because, tragically, they lost their daughter not many years ago and their son as well. We all extend our heartfelt sympathies to her.

It is a privilege to speak in Adjournment debates and I want to touch on some issues that affect our constituencies, none more so than post offices. We all have deep concerns about what is happening to them. I represent an urban and rural constituency, and I fear the announcement on closures. I understand that something will come out on Thursday. Tragically, it might have been better had that announcement been made while the House was sitting so that we could have debated where those closures are taking place and who will be affected by them.

There is great speculation about that announcement. Unfortunately, a local councillor, Councillor Malpas, has gone about telling us that we are going to lose swathes of post offices in Chorley. That is sad because it puts post offices under pressure and it is silly to speculate. I hope that he learns the lessons from his earlier mistakes. At the last general election, he campaigned to tell us all that the general post office in Chorley was closing. I must remind hon. Members that it is still open.

I worry about post offices. My hon. Friend the Deputy Leader of the House should be aware that hon. Members on both sides of the House share my deep concerns. We all respect post offices. They ensure that pensioners or younger people who use them are guaranteed a quality service. Those people also know that by speaking to someone who runs a sub-post office, they are dealing with someone whom they can trust. It would be wrong for huge swathes—thousands upon thousands—to disappear. They are at the heart of the community. We must support post offices, both rural and urban.

I thank the hon. Gentleman for giving way with characteristic generosity. He is making some excellent points. Does he agree, in a cross-party spirit, that while the Government have devoted tremendous financial support to maintaining the post offices as far as they can and should continue to do so, they should also reconsider their policy of removing public business from post offices, which is the root cause of their failure? Should they not consider reversing the decision on the Post Office card account, and put public business back into post offices?

Of course I agree. I cannot disagree. I do not shy away from the fact that when television licences were taken away, post offices lost good business. There is talk of Driver and Vehicle Licensing Agency business being taken away from post offices as well, although I remind the hon. Gentleman that that does not affect all rural and urban post offices, as only a select few can deal with road tax.

I recognise that part of the problem has been caused by business being moved away without new business going in. The question mark over the post offices means that those in charge of them must decide whether to pack up and retire when they reach the age at which they would like to do so. No one will buy a business when there is uncertainty. That uncertainty must be lifted, so that new business can go into post offices and they can be revitalised.

We should not think solely in terms of closures. We should think about new post offices in new areas, because we have seen new growth. In my constituency a new village with up to 3,000 houses is being built in Buckshaw, a former Royal Ordnance site, but there is no talk of a post office. We should be saying to the Government “It may be reasonable to close a post office in an area where no one is using it, but please think about areas where there is no post office footprint”. We must think more seriously about placing a clear footprint across the country, so that post offices serve the people whom they should be serving.

My constituency is one of those with large rural hinterlands, and I feel that we must deal with the problems of farmers. It is not just the turkeys that are being stuffed this Christmas; it is the farming industry in general. How on earth can people produce a litre of milk for 16p or 17p? They need a dairy industry that is sustainable and will be there in the long term. Dairy farmers need to receive at least 21p per litre to ensure the long-term viability of dairy farming. It is important for us as a Government to defend the rights of the farmer against the supermarkets and the producers, and for all sides to unite to that end. All that supermarkets and producers want to do is continually to force down the price. There is no benefit in that. Those who shop in supermarkets do not receive the benefit; the profits go to the shareholders. They are the only people who gain from attempts to drive down prices in the farming industry, and that is not good. We must guarantee a minimum farm-gate price. We must see that the countryside is looked after, and the people who do that job are those in the farming industry.

As if all that were not enough, we learn today that in France there is another question mark—over avian flu. Some dead birds are to be tested and scientists are examining the situation, which places a question mark over the poultry industry. The viability of poultry farming is in deep trouble; meanwhile, European legislation is bringing more red tape and burdens to the industry. Quite rightly, the industry—including the egg industry—and the National Farmers Union are saying that imposing new legislation is one thing, but imposing the cost directly on poultry farms is unacceptable. The industry has asked for a three-year deferment to allow it to recover without that extra burden of cost. I think it only right to ask the Government not to impose the burden now, but to decide in four years’ time whether it needs to be imposed.

Other European Union countries accept the legislation, but do not pass the burden to the poultry industry. Far from it: their Governments soak up the cost. We are putting our poultry industry at a huge disadvantage. We must recognise that we must look after people when they are in trouble, and these people are in trouble. We need the farming industry to get back on a proper footing. It has suffered so much from one crisis to another. We must let it put those crises behind it, and allow the industry to create a sustainable future. Those who can help are those who can put pressure on supermarkets and producers by guaranteeing a fair price.

I move on to the subject of overseas territories. I chair the all-party group on Gibraltar. It is rightly one of the biggest groups in Parliament, and it has had a strong voice. We have a Government who recognise that they got things wrong in the past. It took them quite a while, and we have had many disagreements with Secretaries of State and other Ministers—they seemed to come and go, but the Gibraltar problem continued. However, it has at last been recognised that Gibraltar should be given a clear future—that it should be allowed to become a grown-up overseas territory. That is right, and I am pleased that the Government have recognised that. The endorsement of the people of Gibraltar ensured that there is now a new treaty; we are devolving more powers to the people and Government of Gibraltar and they will be responsible for themselves. That is good.

Other overseas territories will face similar challenges. Bermuda has almost got complete powers. It is not independent—it is one of the overseas territories—but it has huge powers. Gibraltar also has huge powers. Rightly, other overseas territories, such as the British Virgin Islands, are looking to such examples. The British Virgin Islands are saying, “What is good for Bermuda and Gibraltar must be good for us.” The Turks and Caicos Islands are asking for more powers, as are Montserrat and the Cayman Islands.

Who are we to deny democracy? Who are we to deny such powers? We cannot have it both ways. Our Government say to people in Iraq, “You must have democracy,” and at the same time they try to say to those in the overseas territories, “No, you cannot have that; that’s far too much democracy for you.” Instead, we say that we will give them a choice: “No more democracy, but you can be independent.” They know, however, that they cannot be independent, so that is unfair. We must allow the skills of democracy to be developed in overseas territories. The Falklands also want more powers, and they should have them. If their people wish for independence, it should be up to them to choose that. We ought not to restrict them by stopping them making their own decisions. There is much more that we can do in respect of overseas territories, and I hope that we will take things forward.

Transport questions were debated today, but as I was unable to attend I thought that I would raise the following matter now. The Manchester to Blackpool line has overcrowded trains; many Members know about overcrowded trains. We need more trains. More importantly, we talk a lot about the environment, and the electrification of the Blackpool to Manchester line will clean up the environment. We need investment in that. We need more trains, but I plead with the Secretary of State for Transport to look at putting more investment not into more rolling stock, but into more electrification, which is also better for the environment. It is a plus that we can do that, and it is great that I can raise the issue in this debate.

In Chorley—this is also to do with the Manchester to Blackpool line—I hope that we will get a new railway station. I was talking about sustainable villages. The fact is that villages such as Buckshaw in Chorley should have a new railway station, and a post office. That village has been built on some of the 1,000 acres of brownfield site that used to be part of a Royal Ordnance factory; tragically, it has almost gone. We need that new railway station on the Blackpool line, and we might as well have electrification as well. I hope that the Government will take that point on board.

On Buckshaw village, the factory that used to be on that site was a main source of supply for the Ministry of Defence; it produced initiator caps and boxer caps for all explosives. I have said before that nothing goes bang without Chorley; tragically, things will now have to go bang without Chorley, because BAE Systems made the cowardly decision to close that site. A lot of empty gestures were made, as were promises of engineering jobs remaining; none of them has been kept because BAE wants to realise the land value. Decisions have been made purely on money grounds. Unfortunately, MOD Ministers, including Secretaries of State, have allowed that to happen. We are now incapable of producing a single bullet or a single shell in this country without the help of either France, the United States of America, Germany or Switzerland. We no longer have security of supply in this country in producing our own ammunition. That is a very sad state of affairs, and I hope that somebody will take this issue seriously, before the machinery is stripped out of Chorley. There still time for BAE Systems to change its mind.

Worse still, not only does BAE Systems want to close the site down and to produce ammunition elsewhere; it wants to store the ammunition in Chorley without providing a single job for the people of Chorley. Talk about wanting to have your cake and eat it, Mr. Deputy Speaker! So BAE is taking all the jobs away from Chorley and producing the ammunition elsewhere, yet it wants to store it all in Chorley’s facility because we still have an explosives licence. In other words, we are to be exposed to the entire risk, but given no jobs. BAE Systems should get its act together and start listening to public opinion. It should recognise that, just as the Government have a duty to this country, it has a duty to produce ammunition in this country alone, and not to be dependent on components from abroad.

I turn to Home Office issues. As we all recognise, closed circuit television has made a real difference. I would like more grants to be provided for CCTV, so that we can all benefit from that important technology. I am also fully behind the introduction of police community support officers. We have provided a huge amount of funding for CSOs, who are making a real difference, but we should not allow local authorities to cut back on community wardens. They are saying, “As you’re providing more CSOs, we will reduce the number of wardens,” when in fact, we should be seeing a bigger uniformed presence. People recognise that if more officers are visible on the streets, our streets will be safer. I hope that the Government will ensure that the provision of CSOs will not lead to a reduction in wardens, which appears to be happening at the moment.

Members have touched on Iraq, and it would be wrong of me not to mention the Duke of Lancaster’s Regiment, which is a new regiment. Unfortunately, the Queen’s Lancashire Regiment was merged with the King’s Regiment and the King’s Own Royal Border Regiment, so the QLR has now become the Duke of Lancaster’s Regiment. The second battalion is serving in Iraq, and I wish them well for Christmas. They are putting their lives at risk, along with all our other people serving in such places overseas—be it the Royal Army Medical Corps or the Royal Marines. Indeed, I had the privilege of meeting the latter through the armed forces parliamentary scheme. They are risking their lives on the basis of decisions taken in this House, and I wish them all well for Christmas. They go beyond what we ask of them, and their capability is secondto none. However, we must recognise that troop overstretch is an issue; there is a question mark over how much they can deliver. This is a real problem, and we must recognise that, if they are short of equipment, it should not be lacking. If they need more, we should meet their requirements. I know that my hon. Friend the Minister recognises the importance of the role that our troops play overseas.

Chorley and Royal Preston hospitals are great hospitals that serve the people in our area well. I do not shy away from the fact that it was a Conservative Government who decided to spend money on a new hospital in Chorley; it is important that we recognise that. It has been a tremendous facility for the people of Chorley, and this Labour Government have built on that by providing huge amounts of funding, which is good to see. We now have a dialysis unit and a renal centre of excellence, from which home renal services can be provided. Many other services have been added to the Chorley site, which is a great facility, working alongside the Royal Preston hospital.

However, all that has been put at risk. We now have clinical assessment, treatment and support centres, as they are known, which can refer people to independent treatment centres. Of course, bringing down waiting lists makes sense, but I do not like the idea of taking work out of hospitals, because doing so will put them at risk. We must recognise that training is done within the health service and in those hospitals. The training of our future doctors, consultants and nurses will not take place if those hospitals do not exist. We cannot take the basics away from hospitals, because people have to be trained in the basics before becoming specialists. The problem with these independent treatment centres is that, through their use, we are in danger of throwing the baby out with the bath water.

If these centres are to be guaranteed 60 per cent. of such work, and if general practitioners are going to be instructed that everybody must be referred to the private sector, there will not be a national health service and there will be no hospitals left such as Chorley and Royal Preston, which are doing an excellent job. Yes, I recognise that the private sector has a role to play, but it ought not to be taking work away from hospitals, thereby reducing their future training capability. There is a big question mark over that, and I hope that my hon. Friend the Minister will take note of what I have said. I notice that he is scribbling quickly. We should not shy away from that issue. I believe that we have got it wrong and I hope that my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State is listening, because we need to review our policy and ensure that our hospitals are safe under this Government. I will campaign to ensure that nothing is taken away from Chorley hospital and that it has a strong future. I am sure that Ministers will listen and ensure that that hospital has a bright and rosy future.

It is always a pleasure to follow the hon. Member for Chorley (Mr. Hoyle), who always makes a wide-ranging contribution to our debates. I join him in his tribute to the late Lord Carter, whom I found to be a courteous and thoroughly decent man to deal with when I was Parliamentary Private Secretary to Lord Strathclyde, the Leader of the Opposition in the House of Lords during the difficult time of Lords reform. I send my condolences to his family given the news that we have heard today.

The hon. Gentleman spoke with passion about the issues affecting rural communities and I join him in expressing some of the sentiments of those rural communities, because the issues affect communities represented by Conservative Members as much as they do Labour ones.

In the spirit of the occasion, I also wish to extend a hand of friendship to the hon. Member for Thurrock (Andrew Mackinlay) who, alas, is not in his place. He made reference to being bundled with Norwich, so I extend an invitation to him and his delightful wife, whom I know extremely well, to come and sample the pleasures of Norfolk, so that when he next mentions that great county in this House he is better informed. If that invitation could be passed on to the hon. Gentleman, I would be most grateful.

Nothing evokes the spirit of Christmas more than the music of the season. As well as the traditional carols and hymns, there are more contemporary songs that have become as much of a Christmas tradition as mince pies and Christmas trees. In many cases, the voices that bring us the songs are as unique and important as the lyrics themselves. Who could forget Bing Crosby singing “White Christmas”, Nat King Cole singing

“Chestnuts roasting on an open fire”—

Sing it!

No, no. Who could forget, either, Judy Garland’s extraordinary rendition of “Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas”? However, had those songs been issued in the UK, the vocal artists would long since have ceased to receive any royalties for their efforts.

One could argue that none of those artists lived long enough to benefit from a copyright term in excess of50 years, or indeed, needed the money that an extension would bring. Perhaps more recent examples of songs that are not yet out of copyright might be more appropriate, such as “I Wish It Could Be Christmas Every Day”, which—as we all remember—was a terrific hit for Wizzard, a pop group that otherwise had limited success. I shall not sing that one either. Why should they not receive remuneration for their efforts after the passage of an arbitrary term of50 years after publication?

An extension of the copyright term would not, as some have argued, simply make rich artists richer. For every Cliff Richard and Paul McCartney, there are a host of less well known singers, so-called one-hit wonders and backing singers for whom the revenue derived from their copyright royalties is essential. People buy records at this time of year for the singers. Why should those who have had enduring success not receive adequate remuneration for their efforts?

Artists such as Dame Vera Lynn, whose songs have endured the test of time, are also deeply affected. Should not she, and others like her, at least for the course of their natural lives, be entitled to benefit from their talent and phenomenal success? Why should others grow rich from the sound of their singing while they are left with nothing? Because of an EU decree, British vocal artists are not entitled to the same protection as those producing similar material elsewhere in the world or those in other creative industries. They even cease to enjoy the fruits of their labour long before the protection given to composers—currently set at life plus 70 years—expires. I submit that the creative talent that gives us some of our best-loved music, and the voices that are synonymous with the songs that they sing, are as unique as the lyrics and tunes of those songs. They deserve equitable protection under the law.

So let us spare a thought for those artists at this time of year. I urge the Government and the Minister to support the campaign “Fair Play for Musicians”, whose petition I have here. It is supported by 3,500 record companies—

Order. I am loth to intervene on the hon. Gentleman’s lyrical remarks, but visual aids are not encouraged in the Chamber, as the Official Report cannot really report them.

Thank you, Mr. Deputy Speaker. May I say, without lifting the petition again—[Interruption.]

Order. Even though it is nearly Christmas, if the hon. Gentleman does lift it again, that may seriously prejudice the length of his remarks.

It may also prejudice any repeat performance—although I assure you, Mr. Deputy Speaker, that the petition got stuck on my finger when I responded to your advice just now.

However, the petition has been signed by 3,500 record companies and 40,000 performers. If a few of the performers in this House could support it, many more people around the world would benefit from the wonderful music of our great artists. They would also be assured that their future was secure, because they would be getting the royalties that they deserve.

In this important debate, I want to concentrate on the role of communities in international development programmes. My recent experience in that regard has had a profound effect on me and on my constituents.

In November 2003, I travelled to Sierra Leone as part of the Commonwealth Parliamentary Association delegation, at the behest of Win Griffiths, who was then MP for Bridgend. He said that it was absolutely vital to have a woman in the delegation, because there had been so many problems with the development of women in Sierra Leone. At the time, I knew nothing about the country, but I agreed to go—probably one of the best decisions that I have ever made.

Sierra Leone is the second most deprived country in the world, as became evident to us as soon as we arrived. Most of us are accustomed to airports that are well lit and reasonably equipped, so Lungi airport is quite an education. One is entirely focused on ensuring that one still has one’s bags on leaving, but that is understandable in a country where 90 per cent. unemployment means that everyone is seeking any opportunity to make money. Moreover, that figure hides the fact that nearly 100 per cent. of young people are unemployed, which may explain why the country found itself in the grip of a civil war, with rebels in control for 13 years.

Many of those who fought in the war were child soldiers, who saw the war as a ready source of income. Who knows what any of us would do when there is no money to be had anywhere? Finally, Sierra Leone took advantage of its colonial past and called on the British Government to help bring that terrible war to an end.

In this debate, much time has been spent talking about the British Army’s intervention in Iraq and Afghanistan, but it is present in at least 120 locations around the world and it undertakes all sorts of different roles. If I were able to take hon. Members to Sierra Leone today, everyone in that country would want to express their thanks, from the bottom of their hearts, for the work that the British Army did in bringing that terrible civil war to an end. They are immensely grateful, given the unique nature of the conflict that they endured. Apart from bringing the war to an end in 2002, the British Government set up a special court with the American Government. It is now taking testimony and has ordered the arrest of eight of the worst perpetrators of war crimes in Sierra Leone. Six of them are currently being held there.

Hon. Members may be aware of an individual called Charles Taylor, a notorious man who perpetrated the most appalling abuses. He was given sanctuary in Nigeria, but when the new President was introduced in Liberia last year, her first request, much to her credit, was to ask Nigeria to return Charles Taylor to be tried in a special court. There was a small problem in Nigeria when he escaped, but he was captured on the border and subsequently brought back to Sierra Leone. When the helicopter carrying Charles Taylor was circling over Freetown, people were crying in the streets.

The nature of the war crimes that Charles Taylor committed is unprecedented in the view of the advisers to the special court, who have knowledge of the trials in Nuremberg and elsewhere in Europe, and in Rwanda. It goes beyond my imagination and the words that I possess to describe the type of torture that the people of Sierra Leone have been exposed to as a result of the fighting rebel factions. Taylor’s penchant was skinning people alive. He was not unique in that. There was much work done in amputating people’s limbs. The common question asked was, “Do you want long trousers or short trousers. Would you like long sleeves or short sleeves?” When we remember that most of the people involved in the war were children under 12, it is an horrific experience not just for them but for humanity that in this day and age such activity is still undertaken.

So I found my visit to Sierra Leone debilitating. I understood quite well how little effort by our Army could bring about a revolutionary change in people’s lives. The country has been rescued from a terrible civil war, but it is now economically moribund. It was originally designated one of the most corrupt countries in the world, but with assistance from the British Government procedures are being put in place to allow the finances of the Sierra Leone Parliament to be more transparent. That is vital if the country is to benefit from third-world debt relief. At present it is not the beneficiary of debt relief and it needs to be. It needs currency to develop its services and facilities for its people.

As I said, Sierra Leone is economically almost moribund so it depends on aid agencies and Governments such as ours to intervene. However, we all know here that aid agencies and Governments come and go. As others have said today, the organisations that stay for ever are voluntary. They are groups of people who get together for common purpose and do not recognise political cycles or budgets. They do it because they believe that they have a role to play and they are passionate about the interest of a particular group.

When I came back from Sierra Leone, I went to my constituency and asked whether it would be possible for us to twin with a town in Sierra Leone called Waterloo. I have a Waterloo in my constituency. The general consensus was yes; that we would like to do this. I took home films and photographs and everyone was moved by what they saw. I represent by and large an affluent constituency. When constituencies were giving in response to the tsunami, mine was one of the biggest providers per head in the country.

I am immensely proud that I represent a Liverpool constituency, as we are known for our philanthropy and our charitable giving. It was no surprise to find that my constituents had given a great deal. Quite frankly, many of them want to give more than money, as they want to give of themselves, so how do we release the need to give? How do the Government harness that great desire to give of self? Most people know that money is transient, but friendships endure. Many of my constituents wanted to give of themselves, go to Sierra Leone and actually help.

That sounds absolutely great in principle and we would all commend people who did that, but, in reality, it is immensely difficult, particularly in respect of countries like Sierra Leone that are either in a conflict or post-conflict. I am immensely proud of the people I represent because they had the courage to go to a country that had just come out of a civil war—some tanks were still running round the streets—and they felt that they had a role to play.

Our first visit would not have been possible without the support of our high commission and the British Council. High commissions and the British Council in different countries do a great job generally, but they are not normally used to dealing with voluntary groups. They are more used to dealing with businesses and schools, but not with groups of people who want to come and do good. I shall expand on that comment later.

Members of my community wanted to twin all our schools, all our churches and faith groups, our Scouts and our Brownies, and they wanted to send business people over to Sierra Leone. More importantly, they wanted to underpin the relationship with a 20-year commitment, as they wanted to tell the people of Sierra Leone that they would not be involved only for the short term. The Government have already agreed that they have to stay in Sierra Leone until 2012. Quite frankly, they need to be there. Anyone familiar with this particular region of west Africa will know that Sierra Leone is flanked by Liberia on one side, Côte d’Ivoire on the other and Guinea to the north—all very unstable countries, all at a tipping point almost all of the time. Getting one country stable and keeping it stable is therefore very important in that region. I am delighted that the Government have made it clear that they are going to stay there: they need to; if they withdraw, further problems will quickly arise in that area of the world.

Following our first visit, I took with me four members of our community, who came back and made the commitments that I have just outlined to the House. We decided that we had to make all that a reality and we had to work with a number of agencies to deliver a programme of twinning. The British Council has a fantastic scheme for facilitating links between British schools and schools all over the world. If hon. Members are not aware of it, I encourage them to have a look at it and advertise it in their constituency’s schools.

My constituency has a population of 99.8 per cent. white people. This scheme has meant that, for the first time, we have been able to partner with people from an entirely different culture, which is immensely important to us. It is a fantastic privilege for us to have developed an association with a country in another part of the world and to learn at first hand about that community’s experiences. The first programme of learning between our two schools will concentrate on conflict prevention. Conflict is an issue that many people in Liverpool will know intimately through relationships in Ireland, but they will find it immensely beneficial to have the opportunity to work with and learn from a country that is just coming out of a conflict process.

The school twinning programme starts in great earnest next February when I take 10 teachers from my constituency on their first ever visit to Africa. They are going to Sierra Leone. I am very nervous about that because I just do not know how I will explain the absence of water in four-star hotels, or the absence of food or roads, or the sewage flowing through the streets, or the fact that the mortality rate of the under-fives is the highest in the world. It will be a great shock for them. However, they are trail-blazers for many other people in my community.

Next year, we will take out a group of engineers, because the people of Waterloo in Sierra Leone have said that they want a library and my engineering colleagues have said, “Yes, we’re interested in that. We will go and help build a library in Sierra Leone.” We did not know when we agreed to do so that it would be the biggest library in Africa, but it will be and it will contain 100,000 books.

The British Council was founded in a library and has proselytised about the use of libraries and the development of economic activity. When we asked the people of Waterloo in Sierra Leone what they wanted, they did not say, “Clean water”—unfortunately for me, because I am an engineer, and clean water would be easy to deliver—they said, “We would like a library.” I find it remarkable that people with truly absolutely nothing at all could ask for a library. When we asked, “Why a library and not clean water?” they said, “A generation of our children have never known school, and school is all. Education is all in allowing our country to come to the fore again.”

Getting the involvement of companies in such projects is also very difficult. Our Government could play quite a role in encouraging British companies to outreach into countries such as those in Africa. I have raised a tremendous amount of money for the library, but money will not build the library; intellectual capacity and experience will do so, and Sierra Leone is very short of that. I have approached many British companies to talk to them about where Africa fits into their corporate social responsibility programmes, and I have been told very clearly that Africa does not fit. There is no money in Africa, so it does not fit into the psyche of British companies. I find that deeply regrettable.

I am very proud of the engineers who have agreed to help us with the library project, but there are very few of them, and they are all very young people under the age of 26. It is a credit to our young people that they want to be involved with that project, but they have not got access to the money or the technology to realise such projects in Africa.

I said earlier that I want to touch briefly on developing the role of the British Council and the high commission. It strikes me that the high commission is geared to deal with companies that want to carry out inward investment. It is looking for companies to invest in countries, or it is looking for export opportunities for companies that exist in-country. However, in developing countries, inward investment will not be on the agenda for many years, and it might not be on the agenda simply because there is no stability in the country to allow companies to have the confidence that, if they make an investment, it will be secure.

In the absence of inward investment programmes because of the lack of stability of the country, I ask that we consider finding ways to support the voluntary sector and its engagement in the development of the country. If we could replicate across the UK the work in which my very small community in Waterloo has been able to engage, we would change so many of Africa’s communities. If we were to convert their time, effort, knowledge and commitment into pounds, it would be worth an inordinate amount of money, and they need the high commission to help them to gain access to the very people whom they can help. That is also true of the British Council, which is offering huge opportunities to young people to leave a country and to take on an excellent education here. That is desperately required, because technical knowledge is almost negligible in some of those countries. However, I would like to see the remit of the British Council extended so that not only are people sent to our country, but people are brought from our country to other countries that desperately need expert support, because, although we may bring one person out, if we bring a lecturer from this country to another country, the number of people who can benefit is obviously far greater.

Countries such as Sierra Leone have benefited enormously from our intervention, but they will slide again into civil war unless there is economic resurgence. Economic resurgence cannot happen when there is no technical capacity in place. We have to address issues about developing technical capacity in third-world countries. I am quite sure that there is a body of people in this country, outwith Government, who would very much want to be part of that exercise if our Government were to facilitate that relationship.

The hon. Member for Crosby (Mrs. Curtis-Thomas) highlighted in her speech one of the roles that perhaps we overlook sometimes. The Army plays a role not just in high- profile areas such as Afghanistan and Iraq, but in many other parts of the world, bringing peace and stability to those areas. Unlike the hon. Member for Thurrock (Andrew Mackinlay), I do not have a cunning plan. He seemed to have adopted the role of a parliamentary Baldrick. I listened to what he said about having been joined to Norfolk and wishing that his area had been part of London instead. I do not know whether that would be a cunning plan: he would be under the domain of Commissar Livingstone, whereas he could stay with my hon. Friend the Member for South-West Norfolk (Mr. Fraser).

I want to raise a couple of issues. As a party, we support the calls that many Members have made for a debate during this Session or the next Session about the situation in Iraq. At a time when there are complaints about the lack of equipment and when it appears that the Government are looking for new supporters in Iraq—including two of the countries that appearto have been supporting the insurgency—and are prepared to give evidence to the Baker committee in America, but not to bring those issues before the House, thus diminishing the role of Parliament, it is important that there be a debate. That does not mean that we are undermining those who have gone out to do a difficult job. If anything, it would show the people who are doing a difficult job that those of us who represent the constituencies in which they live across the United Kingdom are concerned about the conduct of the war, the equipment that is available and the direction in which the Government are going.

People in Northern Ireland feel that parliamentary vacuum even more, because much of our business is carried out in this House in a way that does not offer a proper opportunity to scrutinise Government. So sloppy have the Government now become in Northern Ireland affairs that over the past month the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland has been in court three times—or he will have been by the end of this week. In fact, somebody back home remarked that the Secretary of State is in court more often than Tim Henman. He has been in court over lack of consultation, the way in which the Government have handled legislation and the way in which major decisions have been made. Whether in relation to the sexual orientation legislation, water charges or public appointments, we find that some of the Secretary of State’s decisions—and the way in which business is being handled—are, increasingly, subject to judicial review.

Although we are working towards devolving to Northern Ireland many of the issues that are currently dealt with here, nevertheless there is a requirement that, if devolution does not come about, Northern Ireland business be dealt with in a much more democratic and accountable way in this House. However, that will not stop people in Northern Ireland working to try to resolve their difficulties and to get devolution. Given the attitude of Sinn Fein towards the policing issue, many of us despair of the deadlines and the requirements set by this House for devolution in Northern Ireland being met by 26 March. If they are not met, I do not believe that we can go on with the form of direct rule that we have had for so long. There must be ways of dealing with Northern Ireland business in a much more accountable way in this House.

I want to raise two or three issues, but I shall try to keep my contribution to 10 minutes because I know that many other hon. Members want to speak—[Hon. Members: “Hear, hear.”] I knew that that would get applause, because it was a populist thing to say.

The first issue concerns teacher training in Northern Ireland. Over the past few years, the number of people leaving teacher training colleges and finding a job has diminished rapidly from 82 per cent. in 2001 to 22 per cent. this year, if the teaching unions’ figures are to be believed. The most recent Government figure we have relates to the year before—it was 62 per cent.

We are talking about people who have invested in their own education, paid their fees and put themselves through teacher training college. They have acquired the necessary skills, yet they find themselves coming out at the end without any prospect of employment. If they do not find employment in the first year, many of them find themselves barred from jobs in subsequent years, because they do not have the necessary experience.

That is taking place against the background of an increasing number of people taking early retirement in the teaching profession and then walking back into supply teaching or part-time teaching jobs, perhaps the very next term. Such jobs may not be on a full-time or permanent basis, but they could have been made available to trainee teachers to give them the opportunity, at least, to gain some experience.

The Department of Education in Northern Ireland knows about the situation, which has taken place against a background of fewer teachers being required because of falling rolls. The teacher training intake has been kept the same, but schools have been given no firm direction to give opportunities to young trainee teachers, rather than bringing back those who have taken early retirement. The relevant Minister needs to address the issue urgently, otherwise many people will become cynical about the opportunities available and the outcome for those who obtain a teacher training degree.

The second issue that I want to raise concerns health. Ministers here tell me almost every week that waiting lists have been falling in England and on the mainland, but in Northern Ireland they have remained stubbornly high. The length of time taken to get care in hospitals has not fallen there, despite huge sums being poured into the health service. While those who get through the process of seeing a consultant can quickly get into hospital, a back-loading has taken place, whereby, in order to ration places, operations and so on, the period taken to get to a consultant to find out what work is required has been lengthened. Rather than taking account of all the experience that a patient goes through, things appear to have been divided into little chunks, so that targets can be met in one place by delaying things in another. That problem must be addressed.

The other big recent health issue in my constituency has been the decision to close Inver House, all that remains of a local hospital in Larne. The situation affects two wards where people could go for palliative care and where people who were recovering from operations could be looked after locally. All of that has been centralised, and the argument is that the care will take place in the community. However, no evidence has been provided that resources will be placed there.

There are many other issues that I could raise, but I promised that I would keep to 10 minutes. I will keep that promise because the DUP always keeps its promises. I will not, therefore, deal with those issues, other than to say—

Get a haircut.

I got my hair cut. I will cut my speech as short as my hair, and I now conclude.