I beg to move, That the House sit in private.

Question put forthwith (Standing Order No. 163).

A Division was called.

Division off.

Question disagreed to.

On a point of order, Mr. Deputy Speaker. Before we get to the Bill, I would like to raise with you an issue arising from what the Leader of the House said at column 449 yesterday in answer to a question put by my right hon. and learned Friend the Member for Sleaford and North Hykeham (Mr. Hogg). The Leader of the House said:

“We obviously have to judge things by the rules and standards that obtained at the time; doing anything else would be arbitrary.”—[Official Report, 15 October 2009; Vol. 497, c. 449.]

In today’s edition of The Independent and on the BBC there are reports that Mr. Speaker is to say something different on “The Week at Westminster” tomorrow. I wondered whether you could ensure that Mr. Speaker shares with us on Monday his thoughts about the Legg report so that we can discuss the matter in the House rather than have it aired only on the media. As I made clear in a point of order in June, we in the House are insistent that we should hold Ministers of the Crown to account for their statements, and on something as sensitive as the Legg report, I believe that Mr. Speaker would wish to have questions put to him to answer.

That is not a matter that I can deal with this morning. No doubt all the parties concerned with these matters will have heard the hon. Gentleman’s points and take them into consideration when they decide on their courses of action.

On a point of order, Mr. Deputy Speaker. I would like your advice and guidance on whether you have received a request from the Home Secretary or, possibly, the Solicitor-General to make a statement about the Yvonne Fletcher case? It emerged last night that, two years ago, a senior lawyer carried out an independent review of the case for the Crown Prosecution Service in which he said that the two Libyans involved could be charged for conspiracy to cause death. Neither had diplomatic immunity; they escaped from the Libyan embassy. The report made it clear that both those men played an instrumental role in the murder of WPC Yvonne Fletcher.

Last night, as I said, it emerged that the Crown Prosecution Service had confirmed that, two years on, the police had still not provided it with the final case file containing the admissible evidence. Surely the Home Secretary should make a statement explaining why the Metropolitan police are sitting on that vital evidence, and to put our minds at rest by assuring us that Britain’s trade interests are not being put before the interests of bringing criminals to justice. I seek your guidance, Mr. Deputy Speaker.

I have not so far been given notice that any Minister is proposing to come to the House to make a statement, but, again, Ministers will have heard the points made by the hon. Gentleman and will, I am sure, take note of them.

I beg to move amendment 10, page 1, line 15, leave out

‘, is not causing or is not likely to cause’

and insert

‘and is not causing but is likely to cause’.

With this it will be convenient to discuss the following: amendment 11, page 1, line 21, leave out

‘, is causing or is likely to cause’

and insert ‘or is causing’.

Amendment 12, page 1, line 22, at end insert

‘if it is likely to cause such impairment’.

Amendment 13, in clause 3, page 2, line 10,  leave out

‘, is not causing or is not likely to cause’

and insert

‘and is not causing but is likely to cause’.

Amendment 10 would amend the Bill’s definition of the personal injury which would constitute actionable damage. Amendments 11, 12 and 13 would make similar changes to other parts of the Bill to ensure consistency.

I hope that I will not be thought to be critical of the Bill but, rather, will be considered to be a critical friend of the hon. Member for Hendon (Mr. Dismore). The subject of pleural plaques and whether they should be regarded as a condition amounting to an actionable personal injury is highly emotionally charged. As a former member of the Health and Safety Commission, I am well aware of the health and safety aspects of exposure to asbestos, and as a former Member for Southampton, Itchen—a constituency containing a disproportionately large number of people who had worked in the ship repair industry and related industries—I am well aware of the hardship caused to the families of those who have died or are suffering as a result of asbestos-related disease. I am therefore very sympathetic to the cause espoused by the hon. Member for Hendon. However, as a lawyer by training and background, I am also anxious that we should retain consistency in the application of legal principles, even when dealing with highly charged and emotional subject matter. Everyone is familiar with the dictum that hard cases make bad law. Indeed, I believe that some of us in the House are currently experiencing the application of that dictum in other contexts.

When clause 2 was discussed in Committee, the hon. Member for Cambridge (David Howarth)—I am sorry that he is not present today—argued that

“anyone who has been exposed to asbestos is in a similar position to someone with pleural plaques, asymptomatic pleural thickening or asymptomatic asbestosis, in that they are at risk of developing the serious diseases in the future.”––[Official Report, Damages (Asbestos-Related Conditions) Public Bill Committee, 1 July 2009; c. 12.]

In responding to his point, the Minister led us to believe that she was rather sympathetic to it and would wish to return to the issue on Report. It was with some amazement that I noted that the amendment paper contained no Government amendments, given that on two occasions in Committee the Minister had indicated that she would have to consider the issues and whether the Government might wish to table amendments.

What concerns me is that the Minister herself, having expressed reservations, seems still not to have pronounced on whether she wishes the Bill to proceed in its current form, whether she would like it to be amended, or whether she wishes that it was not there at all and wants to will it into the long grass. The position is made worse by the fact that on repeated occasions over the past 15 months or so the Government promised that the results of their consultation paper on this sensitive matter would be published shortly, very shortly or imminently, before the recess. In July, at the very end of the period when the House was sitting, no less a person than the Secretary of State for Justice said that he would respond after the recess. I have discussed the matter informally with the hon. Member for Hendon, and I believe that I am not alone in feeling surprised that we have not yet heard that statement from the Justice Secretary.

Does my hon. Friend agree that it is curious that the Government have not been more supportive of the Bill? As I understand it, the Bill would return to the position to the status quo ante, and would solve the problem caused by the House of Lords ruling, obviating the need for the Government to come up with a large amount of taxpayers’ money. It could be a win-win situation for everyone.

I am not sure I agree that if the Bill were passed in its current form it would bring back the status quo ante, because I think that what is in the Bill is slightly different from the status quo ante. That is one of my reasons for trying to draw out a response from the Minister. However, I share my hon. Friend’s scepticism and criticism of the extraordinary way in which the Government have been behaving.

I did a bit of research overnight, as one does, and noticed that when consultation was announced last year, no less a person than the Government Chief Whip—from whom we have already heard once today—expressed the view on his website, on behalf of his constituents, that it was very good news and that progress would be made as a result. I hope that he will return to the Chamber during the debate, and will let us know his present view of the way in which the Government have behaved since then.

The amendments are designed to try to find a middle way, and above all to provoke a response from the Government. As currently drafted, clause 2(1) would enable compensation to be paid even when the condition

“has not caused, is not causing or is not likely to cause impairment of a person’s physical condition”.

Even when there is no likelihood of future physical impairment, damages would be payable. How can such a proposition be consistent with the law of tort? I do not think that it can be, and, indeed, that is what the unanimous ruling of the House of Lords amounted to.

In February, during a debate in Westminster Hall—another signpost on the route march to what people hoped would be a declaration of the Government’s views on the matter—the hon. Member for Wansbeck (Mr. Murphy) said:

“People who have been diagnosed with pleural plaques can think of little else, and all that they can consider is that their next step could be a fatal one, so it is vital that compensation is paid.”—[Official Report, 11 February 2009; Vol. 487, c. 445WH.]

As he said, he was speaking as somebody who had worked in the mining industry for some 30 years during which he had been almost continuously exposed to asbestos. His own position is therefore almost identical to that of people with pleural plaques. They have had long exposure to asbestos, but do not yet have—and it is to be hoped will not get—pneumoconiosis as a result.

An issue to do with morbidity rears its ugly head at this point. We know that people who think that they are likely to get a serious, life-threatening or fatal disease sometimes become morose and morbid about that. The Government’s consultation process was designed in part to raise the issue of whether we should try to allay the fears of people who have been exposed to asbestos by stressing that mere exposure to it does not necessarily result in physical harm let alone loss of life, although we know that, sadly, in many cases that has been the consequence.

What I propose is a middle way. I have used the word “likely”. When we define something as likely to happen, we mean that there is more than a 50 per cent. chance or risk of a particular outcome. If we say something is as likely or not to happen we mean that there is a 50:50 chance, but if we say something is likely we mean that there is a greater than 50 per cent. chance of its happening. I think that if somebody has got a more than 50 per cent. chance of suffering a physical result from exposure to asbestos, a genuine argument can be put forward as to why they should be entitled to damages. However, I do not think that it is possible to put forward that argument with the same strength if it is said that there is a zero chance that a person will be subjected to some life-threatening disease as a consequence of such exposure. That highlights the challenge that the promoter of the Bill, the hon. Member for Hendon, must meet.

It is also a challenge that may have been causing some problems for the Government, but however difficult a legal issue might be, ducking it, running away from it, prevaricating or delaying is not helpful. The consequence of the Government’s failure to address this issue is that thousands, if not tens of thousands, of people are completely in limbo land in respect of their claims. They are in limbo land if their claims are before the courts at present and have been suspended pending the announcement of the outcome of the Government consultation and its being known whether they wish to legislate. People who might have to pay any bills as a result of a retrospective change in the law are also in limbo land.

It appears that there is a lot of activity in the Labour party, with one group of people or another being blamed. Lord Mandelson has come in for quite a lot of stick in the Daily Mirror, I read; I do not know whether that is fair. What I do know, however, is that a failure to reach a decision is oppressive for all those people who are affected in one way or another by this situation. I hope that the Minister will tell us today, in words of one syllable, exactly what the Government will do and when they will do it, and that she will explain and apologise for the fact that the Government have not faced up to this issue up until now.

The Government must realise that if the opportunity to legislate on the matter through this Bill is missed there would have to be emergency legislation at the tail-end of this Parliament, and that might not be at all easy to achieve. The Bill could be used as a vehicle for achieving the objective, and at one stage I thought the Government were using it as such, but their failure to table any amendments notwithstanding the concerns expressed in Committee makes me suspicious of their motives. I may be being unfair, but I judge things today on the basis of the record, and the current Government’s record of being open and forthcoming with the House is dismal and appalling in the extreme.

The amendments do not purport to provide a perfect solution. I believe that they are an improvement on the current draft, however, and I look forward to hearing what the Government have to say. I am sure that many Labour Members, as well as my hon. Friend the Member for Shipley (Philip Davies) who supports the amendments, are of a similar view. A few succinct words from the Minister—I am happy to give way to her if she wants to intervene on me now—could certainly allay a lot of concerns. Amendments 11 and 12 amend clause 2(3) and amendment 13 amends clause 3 to achieve the same objective.

We do not need to go into the alternatives possible should amendment 10 not be agreed—and, indeed, if the Bill is not passed—but perhaps the Minister will comment on the suggestion made in obiter dicta by some of the Lords in the House of Lords decision that those who are seemingly without a remedy in negligence may be able to get access to a remedy for breach of contract. If she were to share with the House any thoughts on that that she might have, it would inform the debate on future amendments and on Third Reading.

Question put, That the amendment be made.

I beg to move amendment 14, page 2, line 13, leave out paragraph (b).

With this it will be convenient to discuss the following: amendment 15, page 2, line 15, leave out subsection (2).

Amendment 16, page 2, line 20, leave out clause 4.

Amendment 17, in clause 5, page 2, line 31, leave out subsection (2).

The purpose and effect of amendment 14 are to remove a retrospective element from the Bill. In Committee, the Minister said that clause 3

“does not reflect the different legislation on limitation periods for Northern Ireland. We shall have to look at that at a later stage.”––[Official Report, Damages (Asbestos-Related Conditions) Public Bill Committee, 1 July 2009; c. 13.]

I am amazed that in the previous debate, notwithstanding the concern expressed in all parts of the House on this issue, the Minister did not have the courtesy to explain the Government’s position on the Bill. In private, during the Division, I asked her why she had not spoken and her reply was that it was because she was neutral on the Bill. If the Government are neutral on it, how come so many Ministers voted against the previous amendment? There seems to be some inconsistency.

Order. I am sure the hon. Gentleman realises that we cannot dwell on the previous amendment and the vote on it. We must move on to the amendments before us.

I fully accept that, Mr. Deputy Speaker, but I am hoping that as a result of what I am saying the Minister will earn her keep—her substantial salary—by making the effort to stand at the Dispatch Box after I have spoken to explain her views on amendment 14 and the associated amendments and explain what she meant by those comments in Committee. I know the frustration of so many Members—mainly, but not exclusively, Labour Members—who have been campaigning on this issue at the fact that the Government have not responded to the consultation and not yet said what they are going to do. I am surprised and disappointed that there was not greater participation in the previous debate—I hope that there will be more in this one.

The importance of these amendments is that they deal with retrospection and the consequences of changing the law. The promoter of the Bill, the hon. Member for Hendon (Mr. Dismore), said that if anyone wanted to take advantage of the law, they would still be able to do so on a retrospective basis. In my view, if anyone wishes to take advantage of the new law, they should have to commence proceedings for the remedies under it after the Bill comes into force—that would be the normal procedure. I do not believe that the Bill is an exact replication of what happened before the House of Lords judgment, so it would create a new legal framework. If people wish to take advantage of that framework, they would have to start proceedings under that framework. The Bill, as drafted, would mean that those who had begun their actions but had not brought them to a conclusion would be in a better position than those who had brought actions and had them determined for lesser sums or on a compromise basis under the old law, so some people would be at a severe disadvantage.

I am also concerned about the issue of retrospection, which is a hot topic. As my right hon. and learned Friend the Member for Sleaford and North Hykeham (Mr. Hogg) said yesterday, it goes to the root of what we mean by the rule of law. If we do not comply with the rule of law and if we start implementing retrospective legislation, we create—[Interruption.] So many sedentary comments are being made at the same time that I cannot hear them. If hon. Members wish to intervene one by one—seriatim, to put it in legal terms; I know that the hon. Member for Wolverhampton, South-West (Rob Marris) will understand that term, even if some of his colleagues do not—I shall do my best to respond to them.

I can understand in principle my hon. Friend’s antipathy to the whole concept of retrospection. With regard to asbestos, however, a problem emerges. A constituent of mine is suffering from lung cancer as a result of asbestos in schools; it has been established that her working environment caused her medical complaint. If the Bill were to be enacted, she would presumably not be able to claim any compensation. That is a bit unfair, given that after this Bill is enacted—if that is what happens—other people would be able to claim. Unfairness might be created purely because of the use of an arbitrary date.

My hon. Friend makes a good point. As soon as we start discussing retrospection, we are talking about arbitrariness. That is why most people deplore the principle of retrospection. Most written constitutions outlaw retrospective legislation, which means that if a Parliament seeks to introduce such legislation, it can be challenged successfully through the jurisdiction of the courts of the country in question, on the basis that it is contrary to the constitution. This country does not have a written constitution and we rely, in a sense, on this House to police the standards that we have traditionally held dear and the principles that we have traditionally held dear, which include being against retrospection. Yet this Bill would have the effect of changing the rules back to what its promoter thinks they were before. However, they would not return to what they were before, because what he is really saying is that the law would be changed back to what is contained in this Bill. That means using some indeterminate point in the past, the length of which backwards would be limited only by the operation of the limitation legislation. That would create all sorts of unintended consequences and manifest injustices, along the lines that my hon. Friend has outlined.

I do not know whether the Government are neutral about this matter, whether they are silent or whether they are just in contempt of Parliament. If we do not get an answer on this, it would be very sad indeed, because surely those outside this place should be able to know the Government’s response on this issue, which has been included in the Bill. I do not know whether there is a conspiracy of silence involving the Government and Labour Members, and I do not know the Government’s motive on this matter. I feel sad that a Bill that has progressed this far, through the ingenuity of the hon. Member for Hendon, is being looked at by the Government as if it were of no relevance whatever. The Minister will not account for herself. I shall give way to her if she wishes to indicate whether or not she will respond to this debate. Is she just going to sit there and not respond? She is smiling—perhaps she will say whether she will respond to this.

Later.

That is great; we are making some progress. If the Minister responds to this debate, I will have the chance to respond to her comments, and that will be helpful.

I absolutely agree with my hon. Friend’s point about the principle of retrospection, which is clearly arbitrary and unfair. Does he agree that it might well not be a good argument to use with this Government to try to persuade them of our case, since they have already introduced legislation retrospectively? In fact, they went even further than that and introduced taxes retrospectively in this Parliament.

My hon. Friend is right. We have had lots of complaints about those retrospective tax changes, but in fairness to the Government—although I am reluctant to be fair to them—there has always been an element of retrospection in relation to tax legislation. That is why at the beginning of the Budget debate certain of the measures in the orders on taxation are always deemed to have had retrospective effect even though they have not been passed by the House at that stage. There have always been arguments in very special circumstances for the use of retrospective legislation in relation to tax, but my hon. Friend is absolutely right to say that this Government have extended those conventions far in excess of what they used to be.

We now have this Bill, which might or might not have been connived at by the Government—we will find out shortly—and which sets a dangerous precedent. It makes it much more difficult for those who compromise their principles about retrospection to argue against the retrospective elements of Sir Thomas Legg’s rulings, because it makes them look as though they are prepared to argue against retrospection only when it affects them personally rather than a matter of principle. My hon. Friend the Member for Shipley (Philip Davies) and I can openly say that we are against retrospection in all circumstances rather than just in circumstances where it might affect us. There is some commendable consistency on this issue coming from Conservative Members, and I hope that my hon. Friend the Member for North-West Norfolk (Mr. Bellingham), who sits on the Front Bench, will likewise be able to endorse that and say that he, as a shadow Justice Minister, supports the principle that we should not have retrospection. As a barrister by profession and training, he will understand and share my concerns about that.

I shall sit down now and listen to what the Minister has to say, so that I can respond to her points. Perhaps the promoter of the Bill might give the House the courtesy of a response on the issue, too, because it is too important a subject to be left uncommented on.

I do not wish to detain the House for long, but I wanted to make one or two points on the amendments introduced by my hon. Friend the Member for Christchurch (Mr. Chope).

In principle, I have considerable sympathy with what my hon. Friend seeks to do. If his amendments were to be successful, they would remove the retrospective nature of the Bill. Like him, I have concerns about retrospective legislation because it can be arbitrary and—in many unforeseen and foreseen circumstances—unfair. However, when one is considering retrospection, one has to judge it case by case. There are some circumstances in which retrospection is not so unfair, or in which it should be considered as an evil, as it might appear at first sight. There are cases—such as in any legislation that involves medical conditions—where it might actually be more unfair not to have a retrospective element. Medical conditions do not occur uniformly and some people might be affected by a new piece of legislation whereas others would not, which would cause unfairness.

As I said in my intervention, I have a constituent who spent all her working life as a dedicated teacher. Unfortunately—this is beyond dispute—she contracted lung cancer as a result of working in an environment where asbestos was present, which has had a life-changing and dramatic effect on her health. If this Bill were to become law and these amendments were accepted, she would not be eligible to seek compensation under the Bill. In theory, someone else who might have been working at the same time and on the same premises might at a later stage develop the same medical condition. Presumably, if the amended Bill became law, that second teacher could seek to claim compensation as it would not be a retrospective claim, but my constituent could not. That, to me, seems arbitrary, unfair and illogical.

That is why I have a misgiving about the intention of the amendments although I have considerable sympathy with the principle of what my hon. Friend is trying to do. When the Minister speaks, perhaps she can address this point and give us the benefit of her role as a Justice Minister and of the legal advice that she can receive by suggesting how we could get round this problem so that we do not have to take the all-or-nothing approach that my hon. Friend’s amendments would introduce.

I do not want to detain the House, but I would question whether this is a fully retrospective measure. As the hon. Member for Christchurch (Mr. Chope) conceded, the cases that have already been disposed of will not be reopened as a consequence of these changes. Earlier, the hon. Gentleman talked about the thousands of cases that were in limbo. The Bill will make provision for those thousands of cases and will ensure that those people can bring their cases forward rather than having them simply stay as they are. There is nothing, of course, that would stop new claims being brought.

The hon. Gentleman is overstating his case a little when he talks about the retrospectivity of the provisions. They are there to plug the gap in the law that was created by the House of Lords. Effectively they suspend the limitation period for the period since the decision in the House of Lords to the date when the Bill becomes an Act, and then the limitation period starts to run again. The arbitrary nature of retrospectivity was talked about, but this provision is not arbitrary—it is extremely circumscribed and will apply only to cases of pleural plaques.

The hon. Member for West Chelmsford (Mr. Burns) referred to his constituent’s case. As he will probably know, I was a personal injury lawyer before I came to the House. Once a lawyer, always a lawyer, and although I am not practising cases I still have a practising certificate and am a consultant with my firm. If he wants to have a word with me afterwards, I will discuss his constituent’s case with him and see whether I can come up with any ideas. It is not clear from what he said whether his constituent’s case failed because of the limitation defence under section 14 of the Limitation Act 1980, which concerns the date of knowledge, or because an application was made to extend under section 33 of the Act, or whether it failed for other reasons to do with liability.

I was not saying that my constituent’s case had failed. The point I was making was that if the amendments were accepted and the Bill become an Act and if my constituent now wanted to pursue a claim, she would presumably not be able to because her existing medical condition is known and she has known about it for some time, whereas if someone discovered after the Bill was enacted that they had the same medical condition, they would be able to make a claim. That would be an unfair difference between the two individuals.

The hon. Gentleman is comparing apples and oranges. As I said, I am happy to discuss his constituent’s case with him after the debate if he wants to do so, but that case would be dealt with under existing law.

The problem is that the House of Lords decision said that pleural plaques were not compensatable. Lung cancer attributable to asbestos is compensatable, although if the claim was left too long the three-year limitation period may have expired, and when the case was brought there may be arguments about the date when the claimant knew the cancer was attributable and about whether the judge should give discretion to disapply the limitation period under section 33. There may even be a defence on causation or failure to satisfy the burden of proof. There could be a series of reasons.

The Bill does nothing to affect existing law as it applies in the case of the hon. Gentleman’s constituent and she may indeed have other arguments to advance. On that basis, I hope he will withdraw his concerns about the Bill. It is a narrow, circumscribed provision to deal with a specific problem created by the House of Lords case.

I feel that I have nothing to withdraw. I am sorry if my comments were not clear enough, but my concerns were about the amendments, not the Bill.

The amendments would make no difference to the case of the hon. Gentleman’s constituent. There would be no benefit to her whether or not they were accepted, because the measure applies only to pleural plaques.

One of the amendments we propose would leave out clause 4. Subsection (2) states:

“Sections 1 and 2 are to be treated for all purposes as having always had effect.”

That is a retrospective change in the law, so does the hon. Gentleman accept that clauses 1 and 2 do not replicate exactly the law as it was before the House of Lords decision?

We could end up in a rather semantic jurisprudential argument about what was or was not the law before the House of Lords judgment. Theoretically, the House of Lords simply stated what the law always was, so to that extent I agree with the hon. Gentleman, but in practice the Bill turns back the law to what everybody thought it was before the House of Lords judgment. That may be a semantic point, but it is the thrust of the Bill—although only in so far as it relates to pleural plaques.

But with respect, the Bill does not change the law back to what people thought it was; it changes the law back to what the hon. Gentleman thought it should have been at that time. Surely that cannot be a basis for introducing legislation.

On many occasions, when there has been some weird and wonderful House of Lords decision, the House has passed legislation to put the law back to what people thought it always was. I remember that the decision on causation in the Fairchild case was corrected in the House—putting the law back to what people thought it was before the House of Lords messed around with it.

There is nothing particularly novel about the measure; it is very modest and circumscribed. To the minimal extent that it is retrospective, it is justified and I hope that the House will reject the amendment.

I am grateful to my hon. Friend the Member for Christchurch (Mr. Chope) for proposing and explaining his amendments. I have only a couple of comments and questions.

As I understand clauses 1 and 2, they put back the old common law, but one of my concerns is the possibility for parallel litigation. Indeed, the Association of British Insurers has talked of a flood of exposure-related cases relating to different types of toxic products. However, having studied the Bill carefully, I think the association is being overly alarmist, because it is tightly drawn.

I should certainly like to hear what the Minister has to say, because we are really going to the hub of the Bill in this debate. I agree with my hon. Friend about retrospection: in principle, it is not a good thing. It is extremely unsatisfactory when applied to tax law—indeed, to any law—to Executive actions or involvement in Members’ affairs. On the other hand, if we are to overturn a judgment of the highest court of the land, there must, by definition, be provisions for individuals who might mount an action in the period between a House of Lords judgment and new legislation coming into effect. That is why the hon. Member for Hendon (Mr. Dismore) has a strong case when he points out that the suspension of the limitation period relates only to pleural plaques.

Although my hon. Friend the Member for Christchurch is right about the principle, I should like to hear what the expert—who is of course the Minister—has to say. There is bound to be an element of retrospection but I agree with the hon. Member for Hendon that the Bill is absolutely focused and specific; it refers only to pleural plaques and cannot be extended as the ABI fears. I am comfortable with the clauses as they stand, although I share the concerns expressed by my hon. Friend. However, at this stage, it is important that we hear the view of the sponsoring Department.

I am listening to my hon. Friend with interest, but does he agree that it is important to defend the retrospection principle? Retrospection may apply only in narrow cases in relation to this Bill, but once the principle of retrospection is conceded on a regular basis it makes it easier to introduce in many other things.

My hon. Friend is absolutely right. He and I share opinions on many issues, including this one. The only point I put to him is that if one is to use legislation—albeit a private Member’s Bill in this case—to overrule a decision of the highest court in the land, there has to be an element of retrospection. Without it, I do not see how we could cope with people who would otherwise have mounted a claim in the intervening period. In my judgment, it is a fair and reasonable thing to do on an extremely defined basis, but I hope that the Minister will put our minds at rest and, above all, give us the opinion of the sponsoring Department, whose job it will be to ensure that if the legislation goes through it is carried out correctly.

I had not intended to speak in the debate on this amendment, but I shall raise a couple of points as a courtesy to the hon. Member for Christchurch (Mr. Chope), as I think he may have misunderstood me earlier. When I said that I would be speaking later, I meant later in the debate as a whole.

It is flattering of the hon. Member for North-West Norfolk (Mr. Bellingham) to describe me as the expert when I am surrounded by lawyers. It would be with some trepidation that I described myself as an expert in this subject.

I agree that retrospection is not always a good thing and that it should be avoided as much as possible, but the hon. Member for West Chelmsford (Mr. Burns) made the very good point that it can be appropriate in certain cases, such as the one he described. If the amendments proposed by the hon. Member for Christchurch were accepted, they would take the heart out of the Bill and although the decision is for my hon. Friend the Member for Hendon (Mr. Dismore), whose Bill it is, I caution against support for the amendments.

Can the Minister explain what she meant by her comments on clause 3 in Committee and the different arrangements for limitation periods in Northern Ireland? She said she would have to revisit them at a later stage, but surely we should be considering them at this point rather than on Third Reading.

Since I made that statement, the Northern Ireland Assembly has taken a view as to what it wants to do about the measure, which makes the matter slightly more complicated and is one of the reasons why, unfortunately, we are still looking at some of the detail. There are problems with different limitation periods and it is something we have to look at carefully, but we shall have to do that in co-ordination with the Assembly. On that basis—

Will the hon. Lady give way?

I have said as much as I need to say on the clauses, but I shall give way.

I am very grateful to the hon. Lady for her indulgence. Am I right to interpret what she just said as meaning she is unhappy with clause 3?

No, I am not saying that I am unhappy with clause 3; I am saying that we need to reflect further on it. If we are to go down this road at all, we want to ensure that we do so properly. I am perfectly happy for my hon. Friend the Member for Hendon to continue to press the issues, and I hope that we can then move on with the debate.

At least we have what I think is the beginning of a debate. The Minister has promised that if we reach Third Reading, we will have a lengthier debate—when she will perhaps elucidate on the opaque comments that she just made. She says that retrospection must be avoided as much as possible, but we should go much further, because, when the Select Committee on the Constitution in the other place reported on retrospective aspects of the Banking Act 2009, it drew the House’s attention to the need for a

“compelling reason in the public interest for a departure from the general principle that retrospective legislation is undesirable. There is therefore a heavy onus on the Government to justify to the House why a retrospective provision”—

it was referring to a provision in the then Banking Bill—

“of such breadth…is required in the particular context of this bill”.

The Minister did not discharge that heavy burden upon the Government to justify retrospective legislation, and I am very disappointed about that, because the retrospective element in the Bill before us tarnishes the whole thing.

My hon. Friend the Member for North-West Norfolk (Mr. Bellingham), speaking from the Opposition Front Bench, said that clauses 1 and 2 re-established the old common law, but, with the greatest respect to my hon. Friend, I must say that once the highest court in the land has pronounced upon the common law and Parliament has overturned that pronouncement, Parliament replaces with statutory law that part of the common law by repealing it through an Act of Parliament. The courts can interpret that, but I do not think it possible jurisprudentially to go back to the old common law by passing a statute saying that the old common law shall apply. However, if my hon. Friend has a different view about that, because in that area of jurisprudence he may be a greater expert than other Members, I shall gladly give way to him and defer to his better judgment. My understanding, however, has always been that there is common law, and that once statute law has been introduced to replace the common law, there is nothing that one can do about it.

I do not think that my hon. Friend really shares my concerns, but what concerns me is that the Bill makes a retrospective change in the law of negligence, which is applied only to one aspect of damage or personal injury, by defining that personal injury in much wider terms than it could be defined elsewhere in the common law of tort. No justification has been put forward for doing so, other than the justification of expediency. In a sense, that was the point that my hon. Friend the Member for West Chelmsford (Mr. Burns) made—that there are circumstances in which it is expedient to make such a change. However, as soon as we start talking about what is expedient and abandon the rule of law, we get into what is now colloquially called the court of public opinion. From the press cuttings that I have read, I have no doubt that the court of public opinion thinks that people from the mining and shipbuilding industries who suffer from pleural plaques need not only sympathy but compensation. However, this court, which is not subject to the rule of law, can be volatile and there is a thin dividing line between the court of public opinion and mob rule.

I hope that my hon. Friend will not miss out the amendments he tabled to clause 3 in his speech, and that he will also comment on the Minister’s rather extraordinary point. When he pressed her, she said that the Government were still considering the detail. Is not it slightly alarming that we are considering whether to amend a specific clause, yet the Government have not even considered the detail?

My hon. Friend makes a cogent comment, as he so often does in the House. We were told that we would get a full response from the Government to the consultation paper, which extends to 50 or so pages, before Christmas last year. We never got it. We were told that we would get it before the House rose for the summer recess—we never got it. We were told that we would get it at the end of the recess, and we do not have it even today. We have no indication from the Minister of when—if ever—we will get it. The Government are treating the House with contempt. More important—they regularly treat the House with contempt—they are treating all the victims who are affected by pleural plaques with contempt. That is unforgivable.

The Government say that they are still considering the detail. How long will that last? What are the likely conclusions? How can that be consistent with the Government’s approach—as so far revealed—of being benevolently disposed towards the Bill? Perhaps they are not—perhaps they are playing a double game, and if there is a Division on the Bill, they will withdraw their troops and leave the hon. Member for Hendon isolated so that they do not have to account for what happens on Third Reading. I hope that I am wrong because I would like a Third Reading debate. However, my hon. Friend the Member for Shipley is right that something odd is going on.

It is significant that the Minister did not respond to all my amendments. She did not respond to the amendment that would ensure that the Bill did not apply to the Crown. I tabled it to try to draw out some information about the extent to which the Government believed that the Crown would be affected by the change in the law that the Bill proposes. Her response on limitation of actions was simply to say that the change in law or what has been said in Northern Ireland made the matter even more complicated. Where does that leave us? It is the first time she has said that, but perhaps she can get some briefing about what she means by it. Does it mean that she thinks that the period that has elapsed since the end of the consultation—more than a year—justifies another year’s delay in reaching a consultation because of what has happened in Northern Ireland? Perhaps she is hoping for that.

The Government’s response has been wholly unsatisfactory. For the reasons that I have given, amendment 16 to remove clause 4 is the most important amendment. Without clause 4, the Bill would not have retrospective effect. We would respect that, at all material times, the common law is as enunciated by their lordships in the judgment that I mentioned, but that, from the time the measure got Royal Assent, the law in the narrow field of damages for pleural plaques would be different, as outlined in the Bill.

I would therefore like to withdraw amendment 14 and press amendment 16 to a Division. I beg to ask leave to withdraw the amendment.

Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.

Clause 4

Commencement and retrospective effect

Amendment proposed: 16, page 2, line 20, leave out clause 4.—(Mr. Chope.)

I beg to move, That the Bill be now read the Third time.

I am very pleased that the Bill has been able to get this far. Perhaps it is more than a coincidence that today is the 175th anniversary of the great fire of Westminster. If there had been asbestos in the building, we might all be suffering from pleural plaques, but it might not have burned down.

The normal thing to do on Third Reading is thank those who have helped with the Bill. I thank Ian McFall and Tom Jones of Thompsons solicitors, who have done a lot of research and drafting for me; the Association of Personal Injury Lawyers; and all hon. Members who have turned up today and on previous occasions to support the Bill and who have maintained the Trappist vow of silence as I asked. Many would have liked to have got their names on the ticket by speaking in the debate, and I am grateful that they have not done so to give time to ensure that we had a chance to get the Bill through.

I also thank the Chief Whip—he cannot speak in the House, but he has been extremely helpful with the Bill—and the Government. Whether they have been neutral or supportive, they have not sought to obstruct the Bill, to its great benefit.

The people who will benefit are the thousands who suffer from pleural plaques. Pleural plaques in themselves are not disabling, but they are a cause of great worry and they cause physiological changes. About 10 per cent. of people who have pleural plaques go on to develop something more serious.

The fact remains that cases brought in such circumstances are not only about compensation for pleural plaques but about establishing liability for possible future injury. Through the provisional damages system, liability can be established for pleural plaques, and if somebody went on to develop asbestosis or mesothelioma, they would already have the question of liability out of the way. That will shorten claims in future for those conditions, bearing in mind how rapidly they develop and how disabling they can be.

The Bill is modest. It seeks only to turn back the law to what we thought it was prior to the decisions in the courts. Any alternative scheme would cost taxpayers, but turning back the law to what we thought it was will mean that the insurers will have to pay out on the risk that they accepted through the premiums that they took, and that they will not get an unfair windfall.

The Bill is tightly drawn. It is not the thin end of the wedge and will not open the floodgates to any form of parallel litigation for other illnesses or injuries—it relates purely and simply to pleural plaques. It maintains the basic principles of negligence or breach of statutory duty as the tests for liability. The burden of proof that the claim exists and should be upheld will still be on the claimant.

As we have debated, the Bill provides for a suspension of the limitation period, not its disapplication, from the date of the House of Lords decision until the Bill comes into force. That is only fair, but it would not affect any cases that have already been settled or decided in the courts.

I commend the Bill to the House. I realise that there is little time left in this Session, but I hope that the House of Lords will look upon it favourably when it gets there and ensure that it can have a swift passage, so that it can become law and provide compensation for the many thousands of people who have been left in limbo as a consequence of the House of Lords judgment. It is a modest measure, but an extremely important one that will bring comfort and relief to many people up and down the country.

I congratulate the hon. Member for Hendon (Mr. Dismore) on having got his Bill this far and having exercised self-restraint in expressing the feelings of frustration that I know he has about the behaviour of the Government on this issue over the last 18 months. I also congratulate him on having found a sponsor for his Bill in the form of Thompsons solicitors, and I am sure that the hon. Member for Bolsover (Mr. Skinner) will also be pleased, as that firm would stand to benefit significantly—

I would hate for it to be thought that Thompsons had somehow sponsored this Bill, as that is not the case. The firm has given me some expert advice in the drafting and helped with some of the research on the cases. It has not sponsored the Bill, and to say so would give entirely the wrong impression. It is concerned for the victims of pleural plaques, as am I and as is most of the House.

I am happy that the hon. Gentleman has put that on the record. Obviously, any firm of solicitors is welcome to provide advice to Members of Parliament, but sometimes solicitors are not as forthcoming in their pro bono activities on behalf of Members. Perhaps they find it easier when they think that they will get more litigation work out of it. I am not saying that that applies to Thompsons, but it is an important point to place on the record.

The hon. Gentleman also said that he is grateful to his hon. Friends for exercising self-restraint and passing up the opportunity to get their names on the ticket. I hope that in that spirit he is also grateful to me and to my hon. Friend the Member for Shipley (Philip Davies) for ensuring that we have had some Divisions, so that the public can see who was present and voting for the Bill, and who was absent. We have enabled hon. Members to put their names on the ticket in terms of accountability.

The hon. Gentleman commended his Bill and repeated his claim that it would turn back the law to the original position. I have concerns about the Bill—specifically that the questions that the Minister raised in Committee remain unanswered. I hope that when she winds up this Third Reading debate, she will explain some of the things that she said in Committee. For instance, she said:

“As my right hon. Friend the Justice Secretary indicated recently, we are committed to publishing our response before the summer recess.”

What happened? Later in July the Justice Secretary said that the response would be published after the summer recess. When will that response be forthcoming? There is an enormous amount of interest in it. The Minister and the Justice Secretary have no doubt been working diligently over the summer recess, earning their substantial ministerial pay, so why have they not been able to come up with a conclusion so far? We know that yesterday a report that had been available to the Government since before the recess was published only an hour before a major defence debate. On this occasion, we have not even had the Government’s response. I hope that the Minister will give us an unequivocal statement on when we may expect the response to be published.

I hope also that the Minister will explain what she meant by saying that there were complications connected with the Bill and that the Government were unsure about whether to support or oppose it. In Committee, she said:

“The Bill represents one approach to the issue, but a number of other approaches could be appropriate and we want to assess the best response. It is therefore not possible at this stage to give a firm indication of the Government’s position on the Bill, pending those conclusions being reached. For that reason it has not been possible for me to table any amendments for consideration at this stage.

On that basis, if the Committee decides that this clause—and the others—should stand part of the Bill, it may be necessary for the Government to oppose it, or table amendments to it, at a later stage.”––[Official Report, Damages (Asbestos-Related Conditions) Public Bill Committee, 1 July 2009; c. 8.]

I hope that she will expand on those clear statements so that we are wiser about the Government’s intentions.

I hope that the Minister will also assure us that whatever the Government decide to do in terms of the law they will not be influenced by the cost to the public purse of any particular course of action. Justice should come without a price. It would be unconscionable if the reason for the Government’s delay is that suggested in an article by Paul Routledge in the Daily Mirror: that the Secretary of State for Business, Innovation and Skills is concerned about the cost to the Exchequer. If the Government think that, as a matter of law, it is right for people with pleural plaques to receive compensation, the logical consequences should be allowed to follow. Let not the decision be determined by the cost to the public purse. I would like an assurance from the Minister that that is the thinking.

My reservations about the Bill are on matters of principle, not about the costs flowing from it. I side with neither the Treasury nor the insurance companies. However, I would like the law of tort or negligence to remain the same for all classes of action. There should be a standard definition of what we mean by damage, and we should not try to change the law in a piecemeal way, which would be the consequence of the Bill.

As has been said, pleural plaques are asymptomatic. The hon. Member for Hendon said in Committee that they carry a 5 to 10 per cent. risk of developing into a more serious asbestos-related condition, although I think that just now he put the risk slightly higher. It is important, however, to keep the risk in context. Those with pleural plaques will be understandably worried, but they must remember that they have a 90 to 95 per cent. chance of not developing a serious asbestos-related condition. I agree with the Government about the importance of sending out that message: people should be encouraged to live their lives to the full, notwithstanding the fact that they have pleural plaques. They should not regard it as a death sentence or a means of getting what are, even under the Bill and the law as it stands, quite modest damages. Countless numbers of people have conditions that can become much worse, but if they allow them to dominate their lives, they will be the poorer for it. I hope that the Minister will spell that out. I want people in areas where they might be afflicted by pleural plaques, and those already afflicted by them, to get that clear health message about the need to put in context the risk of developing a more serious condition.

I hope, too, that the Minister will explain what she meant when she responded, in Committee, to comments by the hon. Member for Cambridge (David Howarth) about clause 2. He said:

“Arguably, anyone who has been exposed to asbestos is in a similar position to someone with pleural plaques, asymptomatic pleural thickening or asymptomatic asbestosis, in that they are at risk of developing the serious diseases in the future.”

He made the point that the Bill does not deal with those who have been exposed to asbestos, perhaps over many years, but who do not have pleural plaques. He argued that they are in exactly the same position as those with the condition. He continued:

“I hope that the Government will bear that in mind when they come forward with their proposals”,

because the class of people with whom we should be dealing is much larger than the cohort identified in the Bill.

The Minister responded:

“I take exactly what hon. Gentleman says. The clause extends the provisions in a way that was not included in our consultation exercise, so we would have to consider carefully, in light of our conclusions, whether that should be included in any legislation. I leave it at that, with the same caveat as I left at the end of clause 1, that we shall reflect further on whether we need to amend the clause at a later stage.”––[Official Report, Damages (Asbestos-Related Conditions) Public Bill Committee, 1 July 2009; c. 12.]

Having had the chance to reflect during the intervening period—it amounts to July, August, September and half of October—has she reached a conclusion on that point?

Obviously, if the Bill receives a Third Reading in this House, it will go to the other place. Little time remains in this Session, but I understand that the other place has an additional Friday sitting set for early November. I do not know whether that is to deal with Government business or private Members’ business, but there will be every opportunity for the other place to consider this Bill. If it is presented with a whole lot of Government amendments, the Bill is dead. I hope, therefore, that the Minister will say unequivocally when summing up whether she intends to table amendments when the Bill reaches the other place. Or will she give a guarantee not to do so? Does she support the Third Reading of the Bill in its current form, is she against it, or is she neutral? She owes it to those outside and inside this House who have been campaigning on this issue, to clarify, and to be open and transparent about, the Government’s intention.

A point came up earlier about complications arising through Northern Ireland. Will that be used as an excuse for further procrastination and delay, or do the Government, with their enormous army of civil servants, intend to sort it out pronto? I am a great believer in the concept, “Where there’s a will, there’s a way”, and the fact that the Government have been so slow to reach a conclusion, and have been seen to be leading people up the garden path, has done everyone a great disservice. That is why I think that, although I do not agree with the hon. Member for Hendon on all his legislative proposals, he has done this House and those who have been campaigning on this issue a great service in introducing the Bill. It is a good subject for a private Member’s Bill, and even if it does not get on the statute book, provided the Minister plays the game in the way that I have suggested, it should enable the Government to be held properly to account.

For my part, I must put on the record my concern about retrospective change in the law. It goes too far to define as conditions constituting actionable damage, for the purposes of negligence and tort, those that have not caused any impairment of physical condition or personal injury, are not doing so, and will never do so. Such a provision is centred around the fear that something might happen. An enormous number of other conditions could result in fear and so on. If that fear results in a proper psychiatric condition, it can be compensated for, but in normal situations it cannot. To pick out an asbestos-related condition in preference to all those other conditions—we could think of those individuals who are exposed to danger and physical or mental damage in Afghanistan at this time—is the wrong thing to do. That is why I am against the Bill and why I am concerned about its retrospective aspects.

Whatever else happens, people need to know where they stand, but at the moment everybody is in the dark. People hope that the Government’s intentions will be to have retrospective legislation, which will enable them to get their compensation, although if the Government do not act in that way, they will have to face up to the fact that they will not get compensation and live their lives accordingly. But they cannot be expected to put their lives on hold, waiting for the Government.

Although it might be convenient for the Government to say, “Well, this is something that we can hand over to an incoming Conservative Government next year,” that would be very irresponsible, because it would mean further delay. Although my hon. Friend the Member for North-West Norfolk (Mr. Bellingham) will probably argue strongly from the Front Bench that the issue should form a major part of any first Queen’s Speech of an incoming Conservative Government, that can never be guaranteed, because of the enormous legislative programme that will be necessary to put right the things that this Government have done wrong over many years.

I will not go down that route and set out the specifics. All I am saying is that to fail to act decisively on this Bill, at this stage in the Parliament, would be a gross dereliction of duty on the part of the Government. I hope that the Minister will be forthcoming in responding to those points.

I will be very brief. Let me once again congratulate the hon. Member for Hendon (Mr. Dismore) on bringing the Bill forward. My hon. Friend the Member for Christchurch (Mr. Chope) has scrutinised the Bill in his customary and inimitable way and has provoked a great deal of important debate.

We should not forget that we are talking about victims, albeit victims suffering mainly from a mental condition, although one that can obviously be pretty devastating. Imagine waking up every day knowing that you have a physical condition that could lead to an evil and wicked illness that is invariably fatal, Mr. Deputy Speaker. That is why we need to show compassion to those who are suffering and never forget that they are the only people who really matter in this debate.

The previous common-law situation was based on the case of the Church v. the Ministry of Defence, which established the principle of aggregation—in other words, that the fact of pleural plaques could be aggregated with the anxiety and distress caused. It has struck me over the years that that was a satisfactory state of affairs. Compensation was awarded, but we should remember that it was modest, varying from between £4,000 and £7,000 per victim. It was not a life-changing sum of money, but for people who were probably out of work or perhaps from families that had no prospect of getting work, it could bring some relief and happiness at a time when the individual would be suffering from a great deal of anxiety. Also, as the hon. Member for Hendon rightly pointed out, once liability had been established, if the condition developed into full-blown mesothelioma or asbestosis, there did not have to be another court action.

That was a perfectly satisfactory state of affairs, which did not cost the insurance industry a huge amount of money, but on the other hand, I can understand why the industry was determined to challenge it. We then had the case of Rothwell v. Chemical and Insulating Co. Ltd in the Court of Appeal, which was upheld by Johnston v. NEI International Combustion. That case in the House of Lords held that the pleural plaques per se were not compensatable. The result was extreme anger, and not just in those communities that were previously dependent on traditional heavy industries, mining or refining, but across the whole country.

It is interesting that when I first started to look into the issue in detail, I discovered that there were a number of victims in Norfolk, which is not exactly an area renowned for heavy industry. However, people come to Norfolk to retire and there are also people there who were exposed to asbestos in smaller companies and small and medium-sized enterprises. I would therefore not mind venturing to suggest that in every constituency in this land there will be a small number—and in many cases a significant number—of victims of pleural plaques.

There was huge anger after that House of Lords decision, and we then had a number of Adjournment debates. I spoke in a number of those debates, as did many hon. Members in the Chamber this morning. We kept hearing from the Government that they were concerned about the issue and were going to take action. Then Scotland introduced legislation. The Scottish Executive and Parliament are ahead of the game on this issue, having quickly introduced that legislation. One of the points made this morning, which was also made in those Adjournment debates, is that we will probably end up having one law for Scots and another for people south of the border. That would be an extremely unsatisfactory situation for victims of pleural plaques and could also give rise to many anomalies among people living in the border area of this kingdom.

The Secretary of State for Justice made a written statement—in July 2008, as I recall—in which the Ministry laid out various options for action. Since then, however, we have had procrastination and a lack of decisive leadership by the Government, as my hon. Friend the Member for Christchurch said. I would like the Minister to address that point, because the time has now come for action to be taken. The Government need to make it clear: will they support the Bill, which is a modest measure, or will they take action of their own?

The Government must tell us what is happening, because in the meantime tens of thousands of people are waiting in trepidation. My hon. Friend suggests that they should get on with their lives and look to the future. Perhaps some people will have the willpower to do that, but many others will not be able to, because their condition will have caused them such psychological distress, resulting in their not being able to rebuild their lives.

I am concerned about the prospect of parallel litigation and about what the Association of British Insurers has stated. In its briefing for hon. Members, it points out that the Bill would set a legal precedent with wide implications and that it

“would set a dangerous precedent that could lead to a flood of ‘exposure only’ claims”.

Frankly, however, that did not happen before; indeed, the common law was precise on that point. I congratulate the hon. Member for Hendon on how tightly he has worded his Bill. The ABI’s concerns are therefore misplaced. I would like the Minister to comment on that.

On retrospection, which we have discussed, I am as concerned as anyone about any Bill containing retrospective measures. However, voting in favour of the amendment tabled by my hon. Friend the Member for Christchurch would effectively have prevented the thousands of people with pleural plaques from taking any action because of the statute of limitations. In other words, they would have had to start their action within three years of physically discovering that they had pleural plaques, either through a scan or an X-ray. As we have discussed on many occasions, these symptoms often do not have a visible physical manifestation. I sympathise with what my hon. Friend said about retrospection, but his amendment would effectively have wrecked the entire Bill.

This is a modest measure, but we should bear in mind one further point. Health and safety standards have improved out of all recognition. I understand that the average age of pleural plaque victims is past retirement age. In other words, people of my age, and the age of the Minister and the hon. Member for Hendon—people in their 50s, approaching middle age—were not exposed to asbestos as people 10 or 15 years older were. Health and safety standards have improved immeasurably, which is very good news for business and industry. This problem is therefore not going to get worse. We are talking about a finite number of people in this country, and by definition the problem will eventually disappear.

In the meantime, however, there are very real victims in families up and down the country, and they expect action from their Government. We have now been waiting for nearly a year and a half since the Minister’s boss, the Secretary of State for Justice, made that written statement promising action, or at least a Government lead on this issue. So far, we have seen very little lead and absolutely no indication that the Government are prepared to grip the issue. There are perhaps seven months before the election, and I hope that the Government will now deal with this, so that all those people out there who are suffering because of this uncertainty will at least know where they stand.

My hon. Friend will know that in July the Secretary of State for Justice said:

“The Government will give further consideration to the issue of compensation for people diagnosed with pleural plaques before publishing a final response after the recess.”—[Official Report, 21 July 2009; Vol. 496, c. 741.]

Has he received any indication of when that response is likely to be published?

My hon. Friend assumes that I have a direct line to the Secretary of State and to his junior Minister, or that I have their mobile numbers and am on the telephone to them the whole time. Alas, although we have a good relationship, it is not that close. I have been pushing them, but I have to use written parliamentary questions to do so. However, we now have an ideal opportunity to hear from the Minister exactly what the position is and what action Her Majesty’s Government intend to take.

I, too, congratulate the hon. Member for Hendon (Mr. Dismore) on his Bill, and on the fact that it looks as though it will actually be given a Third Reading this morning. I hope that when the Minister responds to the debate we shall hear that the Government are to make some time available this Session for the Bill to complete its stages in the Lords.

It is a fact that people who have pleural plaques have been exposed to asbestos. When the Law Lords sought to clarify the law on 17 October 2007, it was made clear that people cannot get pleural plaques without such exposure. It is also true, as the hon. Member for North-West Norfolk (Mr. Bellingham) said, that the victims have received small sums of money in recognition of that exposure. It is therefore disappointing that the Law Lords stopped that in November 2007, but I am afraid that it is not untypical of the way in which victims of asbestos—whether suffering from mesothelioma, asbestosis or another industry-related disease—have had to fight for their just rights and compensation.

In that context, I pay tribute to a lady who, sadly, died yesterday. Diane Willmore did not have pleural plaques; she suffered from mesothelioma. The day before yesterday, in the Court of Appeal, she finally heard that her compensation for exposure to asbestos while a school pupil had been agreed to by the Law Lords. She sadly died yesterday having just heard that news. Her fight and her courage are typical of the actions that victims of asbestos have had to take. I hope that the Bill will put an end to that situation in regard to pleural plaques.

I agree with the hon. Member for North-West Norfolk that, given that it is more than 12 months since the consultation closed and that the Secretary of State promised on 21 July that the response would be published early in the recess, it is disappointing that the Government have not yet published it. It is disgraceful that we should be here today discussing the Bill without having received any indication of the Government’s stance. I make a strong plea to the Minister to clarify the Government’s position today. Like most other hon. Members present, I hope that she will support the Bill and give us a guarantee that it will move forward in this Session and complete its stages in the House of Lords. If that does not happen, people with pleural plaques will face yet another year of not knowing what the situation is.

As the hon. Member for Hendon said, the Bill is simple, tight and clear in its purpose. It restores the law to what we all thought it was before the Law Lords’ ruling. In that sense, it will impose no additional costs on the insurance industry, as the industry had already budgeted for those costs. The costs had already been included when insurers were charging companies their premiums. There will obviously be small additional costs to the Government because of the retrospective element of the legislation, but they will only increase if the Government prevaricate further.

I have been asked to inquire, on behalf of representatives of the asbestos victims support groups, whether the Minister or the Secretary of State will meet them, following the deliberations on the Bill today, to discuss the situation and other asbestos-related issues.

I should like to probe the hon. Gentleman a little further on his point about public expenditure. It is my understanding that the only possible trigger for extra public expenditure would be in relation to those victims who had been exposed to asbestos while employed by Government Departments or agencies—the Ministry of Defence, or a related agency, for example. It is my understanding that the Bill will not lead directly to any public expenditure on the part of the Ministry of Justice. Will the hon. Gentleman clarify his point?

Yes, I am happy to do that. Perhaps I did not make my point very well. There will be expenditure involved, but it will be directly associated with Departments such as the Ministry of Defence.

I hope that the Minister or the Secretary of State will agree to meet representatives of the asbestos victims support groups, following today’s debate, to discuss what is going to happen. It would be helpful if the Minister were able to give us a categorical assurance today that the Bill will become law before the end of this Session. She could use Government offices to do that. I see that the Chief Whip is here; perhaps he will be able to tell her that that can happen, and that the Bill will be able to complete its passage through the House of Lords. That will right a wrong and restore rights that people enjoyed prior to the Law Lords’ ruling. We have now waited more than two years for this to happen, and I hope that we will today receive a clear, unequivocal yes from the Government that this wrong will be righted and that we can move forward.

I begin by offering my condolences—and, I am sure, those of the whole House—to the family of the constituent of the hon. Member for Rochdale (Paul Rowen) who sadly died of mesothelioma yesterday. Later in my speech, I hope to say something that might be of some comfort—if not to that family at least to other victims of mesothelioma, which is a dreadful, horrendously painful and nasty disease.

I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Hendon (Mr. Dismore) not just on pursuing this issue, but on getting this first Bill of its kind on the agenda today. He has been assiduous in pursuing the matter, as have many other hon. Friends who have supported him today and raised similar issues in the many Adjournment debates over the past year and a half or so to which I have replied. I take only a little advice from Opposition Members in respect of my own frustration that we have not yet reached a conclusion. I completely understand the frustration of my hon. Friends and other honourable colleagues who have campaigned on this issue on behalf of their constituents for a very long time.

I confirm for the hon. Member for Rochdale that I will, of course, meet representatives of the asbestos victims support groups. I have met many such groups, trade unions and others who have campaigned on this issue, just as I have met those, including the Association of British Insurers, who are opposed to our doing anything at all about it.

I shall not go through the history of the Bill or the legal position resulting from the House of Lords judgment, as I believe the hon. Member for North-West Norfolk (Mr. Bellingham) has already outlined that fairly comprehensively.

We said that there would be consultation on action to improve the understanding of pleural plaques and provide support and reassurance to those diagnosed with it in order to alleviate their concerns. I accept the point made by the hon. Member for Christchurch (Mr. Chope) that there is still a big job to be done on giving further support to people diagnosed with pleural plaques and on explaining the consequences that are or are not likely to result from having them. That is part of the reason why we have not yet given our full response to the consultation.

It is only right at this point that I should apologise to my hon. Friends, to all hon. Members who have campaigned on this issue for some time and, indeed, to the House as a whole for the fact that the Government have not yet responded. That is very frustrating for everyone concerned. I apologise absolutely for that, but it is not through want of trying. We have consulted different groups and only yesterday met a number of medical experts who argued both sides of the case—so there is still further consideration to be taken. I cannot therefore give a categorical date for when the Government response will be made, although I can give my personal commitment to continue to go back to my colleagues in order to reach a conclusion as quickly as possible. As a number of hon. Members have said, time is moving on—not only in a parliamentary sense, but in respect of the lives of the individuals affected.

I am sure that the whole House will accept the Minister’s apology in the spirit in which it was given, but we are being invited today to support the Third Reading of a Bill, so will she explain how on earth we can possibly do so when there has been no Government response to the consultation? The Minister admitted in response to an intervention from my hon. Friend the Member for Christchurch (Mr. Chope) that the Government were still looking at some aspects of the Bill’s detail. How can the Government ask us to support the Third Reading of a Bill whose details they have not thought through themselves?

The hon. Gentleman will know that many a Bill goes through this House or the other place whose details have yet to be hammered out. Our bicameral system provides an opportunity for amendments to be proposed at a later stage, so I am quite relaxed about the Bill going through today, as I expect it will, because if further amendments are necessary, they can be tabled elsewhere.

We have made it clear throughout that it is important to ensure that any decisions are taken on the basis of the best available medical evidence on pleural plaques. That is why we commissioned and have already published the reviews of the medical evidence that were carried out by the chief medical officer and by the Industrial Injuries Advisory Council. They will help to inform our consideration.

I am very interested in what the Minister has had to say so far. She has indicated that there is a possibility that amendments will be introduced in the other place. Of course we accept that, but obviously it would be necessary for this place to consider those Lords amendments. Is the Minister guaranteeing that the Government will provide the necessary time if such circumstances arise during the remains of the current Session?

In the course of my life in Parliament I have been in the Whips Office, and I know better than to make a claim about parliamentary time while the Chief Whip is sitting to my right. However, I think that he has heard what the hon. Gentleman has said, and I am sure that he will take it into account when the business managers consider future business.

I met medical experts yesterday in response to representations from asbestos campaigners and, in particular, to a request from my hon. Friend the Member for Barnsley, West and Penistone (Mr. Clapham). My right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Justice had said that he would facilitate a meeting. I had a very helpful and informative discussion with those experts, and as a result further issues were identified. We must consider those issues and the views that are expressed before we finally publish our response.

Will the Minister give way?

I will give way one more time.

The Minister is being very generous. Can we take it from what she has said that the last word from the Justice Secretary about a final response after the recess is redundant, and that we are now talking about a final response in the next Session of Parliament rather than before the Queen's Speech?

The hon. Gentleman has mentioned “a final response after the recess” a number of times, but we are only four or five days into “after the recess”. I think, to be fair, that the Justice Secretary is still capable of ensuring that we give a response as soon as we possibly can.

What I can say in response to the hon. Member for Rochdale and, indeed, the hon. Member for Christchurch is that it is important for us to consider how much more support we can give to people who have been exposed to asbestos. We have been absolutely consistent in our commitment to giving people who are suffering from mesothelioma and other serious asbestos-related diseases the help that they deserve.

I was a Minister at the time when we introduced in another Bill compensation for mesothelioma victims, and I think that those people recognise that the changed arrangements are thanks to a Labour Government who took speedy action. We will continue to consider how we can speed up compensation so that others, such as the constituent of the hon. Member for Rochdale, can receive it at a more appropriate time.

We are actively considering measures to make the United Kingdom the global leader in research on the alleviation, prevention and cure of asbestos-related diseases and, as I said, to help to speed up the meeting of compensation claims. That will include examination of the process of tracing employment and insurance records, some of which are very difficult to track down, as well as considering what support we can give individuals who are unable to trace such records. As I said during my meeting with the medical experts, nine times out of 10 exposure to asbestos is due to the negligence of employers. If an employer has been negligent in that respect, he may well also have been negligent in the keeping of records. We will publish our plans shortly.

I am very pleased to hear the Minister’s announcement. Does that mean that the Queen’s Speech will provide for the establishment of a compulsory employers’ liability insurance bureau to deal with the problems to which she has referred?

Opposition Members are again asking me to go down a road that it would not be appropriate to go down. It is not for me to say what will be in the Queen’s Speech; we must leave that for later.

My hon. Friend need not wait for the Queen’s Speech. There could be an alternative Queen’s Speech with my 12 Bills. Bill No. 39 on today’s Order Paper provides for such a bureau, so perhaps she will support it and give it a fair wind later today.

If we reach Bill No. 39 today that will be something of a record, and my hon. Friend will deserve to get his Bill through on that basis alone.

The Bill before us has to be considered in the context that I have outlined. It represents a possible approach to the issue of pleural plaques—there may be others, too—as well as to the wider issues to do with asbestos-related diseases. We want to ensure that these are considered fully and the best response is identified.

As we are still in the process of assessing that response, it is not possible for me to give a firm indication today of what our ultimate position on the Bill will be. However, I can confirm that I am content for it to proceed today, and I congratulate my hon. Friend on promoting it.

I do not want to detain the House for long, but I wish to thank every Member who has spoken in this debate.

The Bill had no priority whatever. It was a presentation Bill, the product of my spending an uncomfortable night on the floor of the Public Bill Office to make sure I had the first place in the queue—made a little more uncomfortable by the hon. Member for Christchurch (Mr. Chope) turning up at midnight and waking me by turning the lights on in order to make sure I was there.

Today’s speeches from all the Front Benches have been good, and I am grateful for the support that has been given from them. The Northern Ireland point can be dealt with easily: ultimately, that would be a matter for the Northern Ireland Assembly to legislate on, instead of it being incorporated into the Bill.

My hon. Friend the Minister has laid out the position in relation to the consultation and I accept her apology of course, but we could get bogged down in medical issues. This is ultimately a legal issue not a medical question, so it has to be dealt with in terms of legal results. The context of the medical experts may affect how much a claim is worth or the causation question, but we know beyond a shadow of a doubt that pleural plaques are caused by asbestos, so ultimately this has to be a legal issue, as addressed by the Bill.

On how the Bill proceeds, the commencement date is in the gift of the Secretary of State, although he cannot prevaricate for too long because it is a “shall” rather than a “may” requirement. If, as I hope, the Bill is passed and moves to another place today, I am sure that my right hon. Friend the Member for Newcastle upon Tyne, East and Wallsend (Mr. Brown), the Chief Whip, will use his good offices to ensure that it gets a fair reading in the Lords, and that if amendments are made there Government time can be found at the end of the Session to deal with them. I say that as he has been very helpful throughout, and if he wants something done he always gets it done.

The question of the employers’ liability insurance bureau is another issue, of course. It is, however, a very important issue, and offers yet another example of how this House should deal with matters relating to asbestos.

I commend the Bill to the House.

Question put, That the Bill be now read the Third time.

I beg to move amendment 1, page 1, line 4, after ‘practicable’, insert ‘and no later than six months’.

With this it will be convenient to discuss the following:

Amendment 2, page 1, line 16, leave out from second ‘year’ to ‘and’ in line 17 and insert ‘ended 31 March 2010’.

Amendment 3, page 1, line 19, leave out subsection (4).

Amendment 11, page 1, line 23, leave out ‘(in whole or in part)’.

Amendments 1 and 2 try to introduce a better and tighter definition of when the Bill will take effect and, in particular, of when the production of the first of the reports called for in clause 1 will be required. At the moment, clause 1 is very vague, because it uses the words:

“As soon as practicable after the end of each reporting year”.

It suggests that the first reporting year would begin on the day that this statute came into force. That would mean that if the Bill obtained Royal Assent this week, the first reporting year would not start until this week and would expire this time next year. By October next year, the time that was “as soon as practicable” after the end of that period would probably be January 2011, perhaps March 2011—in fact, knowing the Government, it might even be December 2011—and that would be the first time that one of these reports would have to be produced on the basis of the definition in clause one. By contrast, the amendments that I and my hon. Friend the Member for Shipley (Philip Davies) have tabled would require that the first reporting year end on 31 March 2010, and on the same date in each year thereafter. That would mean that the first report would be produced on 31 March next year, nine months or a year ahead of the date proposed in the Bill.

Bearing in mind the fact that the Law Commission’s most recent annual report for the year 2008-09 covers the year that ended on 31 March, I cannot understand why we cannot have the first of these reports by March 2010 and on that date thereafter every year. That is the proposal and if the Government are true to their word, as they have suggested they are, and if they support the Bill, they should be ready to accept that the reports should be produced sooner than is proposed and that there should be more clarification of when they should be produced. To say that they should be produced “as soon as practicable” is not satisfactory. The previous debate illustrated the extent to which such vague phrases can be exploited by the Government to the detriment of Parliament.

My hon. Friend raises an important point, which, as he is aware, is the nub of the Bill. One thing that puzzles me about all this reporting and designation is that the Bill says throughout that it should be done by the Lord Chancellor. If a future Government—or this Government for that matter—were to abolish the position of Lord Chancellor, as Tony Blair sought to do three years ago, would that totally invalidate the Bill if it had become an Act?

As an experienced parliamentarian, my hon. Friend will know that the title of Lord Chancellor is incorporated in statute, so the post cannot be abolished without legislation, as the Government found to their great embarrassment. That is why they got themselves into difficulty and decided that rather than test the will of both Houses they would climb down and retain the position of Lord Chancellor. Were they to want to do away with the post of Lord Chancellor, or if a future Conservative Government wanted to do so, which is unlikely, there would have to be legislation. One of the consequential amendments to such legislation would be to change the provisions of the Bill if it had by then become an Act of Parliament. I hope that clarifies the position for my hon. Friend. Ultimately, of course, the person who knows most about the Bill is its promoter, and I am delighted that she is in the Chamber eagerly awaiting the opportunity to respond to this brief debate on the amendments.

Amendments 1 and 2 are straightforward. They introduce clarity and modest expedition. Amendment 3 would remove subsection (4) of clause 1, which states:

“If a decision not to implement a Law Commission proposal (in whole or in part) is taken in a reporting year, subsection (1)(b) does not require a report for a later reporting year to deal with the proposal so far as it is covered by that decision.”

If the subsection remained in the Bill, it would mean that once the Government—any Government—had decided not to implement a Law Commission recommendation, that would be the end of the matter. However, the significance of Law Commission recommendations is that often their wisdom becomes more apparent with the passage of time. We can see from the commission’s most recent annual report that some of the recommendations that are still to be implemented date back many years, including on topics that have assumed new public concern and importance—for example, from the commission’s report on cohabitation.

I think the proposed process is rather bureaucratic, but if we are to have reports on the implementation of Law Commission proposals, we should deal with all the outstanding reports, including those on which no action has hitherto been taken. The reports should contain a useful compendium for members of the public, covering Law Commission recommendations that have not yet been implemented in law, in whole or in part. That would strengthen the purported purpose of the Bill.

My hon. Friend makes an extremely powerful point. Given that, in this day and age, people rightly believe that there should be far more transparency within our Government and among our politicians, does he agree that it is incredible that his amendment is not already in the Bill?

I hear my hon. Friend, and in a sense it is incredible that the provision is not already in the Bill. On the other hand, we are talking about something that is technical and bureaucratic, because the Law Commission is ultimately a creature set up by and accountable to the Government. So why do we need new legislation to set up a protocol whereby the commission and the Government can operate and a system that is designed to bring pressure to bear on the Government, to whom the commission is already accountable, to implement and take action on commission reports? If we had proper, joined-up government that was not so bureaucratic and really got on with things, we would not need all that.

The Bill emanates from a proposal by the Lord Chancellor in early discussions on the draft Constitutional Renewal Bill. He is an expert, as are many members of the Government, on producing vessels that appear to be full but are in fact empty. People get really excited and think, “This is a really radical change for the better,” but when they look at the vessel they see that it contains nothing. The Law Commission decided that the vessel was—to carry on the metaphor—beached, following the Government’s decision not to go ahead with the draft Constitutional Renewal Bill, and after I and the hon. Member for Islington, South and Finsbury (Emily Thornberry), the promoter of the Bill before us, had spent long hours on the Joint Committee considering the draft Bill. The Government did not do anything about it, so the commission thought, “Let’s pick this gem out of the draft Bill and make it the subject of separate legislation.”

The Bill before us therefore started with Law Commission supporters in the other place. They proposed it, saying, “Let’s take this nugget forward.” Little did they realise that, far from being a diamond, that nugget was totally worthless—not even as valuable as a piece of costume jewellery. Now that we have the Bill, I am trying with my amendments to give it a little value—at auction probably not much, but a bit. It certainly does not have any value at the moment.

I have spoken to people who are involved with the Law Commission, and I know that some, the more excitable ones, are really excited about the Bill.

Name them!

Perhaps the hon. Member for Islington, South and Finsbury is really excited about it.

I told them that the Bill contains nothing that any Member could not do by asking the Lord Chancellor/Secretary of State for Justice, “Why haven’t the Government implemented this proposal from the Law Commission; and when do they intend to implement it?” We do not need a report some 18 months after the event, saying, “These are the outstanding proposals, what are we going to do about them?”

I have said to senior people in the Law Commission that they need to engage with the House, and perhaps the other House, to carry forward their proposals, to persuade colleagues to take them up in private Members’ Bills, or to put pressure on the Government to find parliamentary time to implement them.

I absolutely agree. Does my hon. Friend agree, therefore, that the thrust of his argument is that the Bill is a solution looking for a problem?

I am not sure that I do, because there is a problem: the Government treat most Law Commission proposals with near contempt. That is sad, because the commission was set up by Lord Gerald Gardiner, who was in the chambers of which I was privileged to be a member and who had the good sense to appoint my father to the circuit bench. I therefore have a lot of time for the work of Lord Gardiner, and the Law Commission is one of his great legacies.

Will she respond this time?

Mr. Deputy Speaker, your predecessor in the Chair was here for a previous debate, to which the Minister did not respond. In fairness, she responded to the next two, and we hope that she will keep up her record of responding, perhaps after—[Interruption.] The Minister is making some signs to me, perhaps indicating that the promoter will respond first or that she will respond instead of the Minister. I hope that we will hear from both on this important group of amendments, which goes to the heart of whether the Bill has any substance and is worthy of a place among our great statutes, or does not warrant being even a minor statutory instrument because it basically deals with interaction between Departments and the Law Commission.

I am grateful for the support that has been shown both for the Bill and for the Law Commission. The Law Commission was established in the 1960s to ensure that citizens were the subject of clear, accessible and up-to-date law. Although a considerable number of its reports have been implemented over the years, there is great frustration that too many have had to wait too long to be implemented and that they have lain mouldering away on Government shelves, and that some have failed to be implemented at all.

I gave some examples in Committee on 8 July. For the sake of brevity, I shall repeat only my favourite now. Hon. Members may remember a homo-erotic poem about Christ published in the Gay Times to which Mary Whitehouse took exception. As a result, a prosecution for blasphemous libel was taken out. The whole team at Gay Times were prosecuted. The editor was fined and given a nine-month suspended prison sentence. The case went all the way up to the House of Lords and failed, but the House of Lords made it perfectly clear that it felt that the law was very unsatisfactory. As a result, in 1985, the Law Commission was charged with reporting back on the issue, but its recommendations failed to be implemented until 23 years later, in the Criminal Justice and Immigration Act 2008. The purpose of the Bill is to address that problem.

We need to find more ways of increasing the momentum for reform, so there are two main provisions in the Bill. The first is the hair shirt clause, which requires the Lord Chancellor to report to Parliament on why reports have not been implemented and what plans he has for doing so. Opposition Members suggest that that kind of accountability can be achieved by early-day motions or parliamentary questions, but we need a systematic approach. It is never comfortable to write such reports and that annual discomfort should bring the Government to heel on the matter. They would need to go on record and say why they have not implemented a report or why they are still considering one. The Lord Chancellor, the Minister responsible for the Law Commission, would come to this place to do that.

The second major provision in the Bill would give statutory support to the protocol. Opposition Members state that that is “trendy”, but I make no apology if it is. The protocol is being devised by the Law Commission and the Government, with the intention to provide a more effective collaborative approach to desirable law reform, and to increase the likelihood of the commission’s work being relevant and appropriately implemented.

The hon. Members for Christchurch (Mr. Chope) and for Shipley (Philip Davies) tabled amendments aimed at tightening my proposals. I have some sympathy with those amendments and certainly agree with the spirit in which they have been tabled, which is one of support for the Law Commission—an attempt is being made to ensure that the power and authority of the commission is increased.

It is important for the commission to succeed in its statutory task of keeping the law accessible and up-to-date, but there is a risk of losing the entire Bill if the proposals are tightened. The Bill started in the other place. Therefore, any amendments at this stage will mean that the Bill will have to return there. The risk is that it will fail because of timetable considerations. Passing the Bill without amendment today will mean that it can go on to receive Royal Assent and become law.

The hon. Lady was in the Chamber during the debate on the Damages (Asbestos-Related Conditions) Bill, which went to Third Reading and which is going to the other place. A hint was given that it will get Government time there and that any subsequent amendments would be considered here in Government time.

My understanding is that the other place will have an additional Friday sitting at the beginning of November. The hon. Lady’s Bill is much more advanced than the Bill we considered earlier, because it has already been through the other place. Therefore, any amendments to make the Bill stronger would no doubt be accepted in the other place. They could be dealt with on the extra sitting Friday that their lordships have allocated. I do not think that her fears are well grounded in such circumstances. I agree that they may have been in some years, but surely not this year.

Those matters have been considered and the Bill has been carefully looked after through both places. I hope that we are about to make it law, and we do not wish to risk all at this stage. The amendments might be attractive, but the Bill is not, as it has been described, costume jewellery. It has authority and it will make a difference. Those at the Law Commission have considered this matter carefully, and it is their view that this Bill is suited to their purposes and provides a useful addition to the statutory provisions relating to the commission. The allegation has been made that the idea for these changes came from the Ministry of Justice, but the Law Commission might wish to claim the original idea, which was then subject to negotiation between the two.

The Law Commission believes that the Bill is suited to its purposes and it supports it. It is certainly concerned that we might lose all at this very late stage—

The hon. Lady’s objections to my amendments seem to be procedural rather than substantive. Why does she oppose the idea of a clearer reporting requirement or of the reporting requirement coming into effect earlier than the Bill currently proposes?

I am a pragmatist, and I wish to improve the law. We are all here to make improvements to the law. We may all have ideas about the ideal law that we would wish to pass, but politics is about compromise and we do what we can. I am doing what I can to ensure that the powers of the Law Commission are improved and that we get better law as a result. It is my judgment that we should proceed with what we have rather than risk all by accepting any further amendments.

I am also interested in the assurances that the Minister may be able to give us, as it is clear that the Government are acting in good faith on this matter. I salute the spirit in which Opposition Members have tabled the amendments, but I ask them to withdraw them and join me in ensuring that the Bill makes its way securely on to the statute book.

In support of my hon. Friend’s attempt to persuade Opposition Members to withdraw their amendments, I have a couple of points to make. First, the hon. Member for Christchurch (Mr. Chope) has talked, in this debate and in a previous one, about Government time in the other place. The other place does not work in quite the same way as we do, and I would not want anyone to think that we can manipulate the programme there. We cannot do so in the sense that the hon. Gentleman suggests.

Secondly, I hope that the hon. Gentleman will withdraw the amendments for various reasons. Amendment 1 covers the timing of the report, but in fact it would be prepared very quickly after the end of the reporting year—indeed, it would be started before the end of the reporting year. I expect that it would be laid before Parliament well before the six-month requirement in amendment 1. Amendment 2 is flawed because it is not clear which year is meant. The effect of amendment 3 would be that whenever the Government decided not to implement a Law Commission proposal, they would have to report on that decision every year. That does not make sense. Once the Government have said that they do not wish to implement a proposal—and have reported that with their reasons—that should be the end of the matter. The drafting of amendment 11 would mean that the report would deal not just with the pending tray of issues that must be decided, but with historical issues, and that would lead to some confusion over the position of an historic decision to implement only part of a proposal from the Law Commission.

I understand and sympathise with the hon. Gentleman’s belief that we should be as upfront as possible about when the reports will be laid and what will be in them, but the amendments are not sufficiently clear and would add to confusion rather than achieve the transparency that he desires.

I am grateful to the hon. Member for Islington, South and Finsbury (Emily Thornberry) for her remarks, but I am disappointed that she feels that she cannot accept amendments that would strengthen the Bill.

The hon. Lady talks about the powers of compromise and the possibility that the Bill might not get on to the statute book. As she knows, however, the Bill began as a proposal to form part of the Constitutional Renewal Bill, the Second Reading of which is scheduled for next Tuesday. If, as a consequence of strengthening the Bill before us along the lines that we all want, the legislation does not reach the statute book this Session, it will make no difference, because it can be incorporated into the Constitutional Renewal Bill. It could be introduced as a new clause, which no doubt the Government themselves would table or accept, because, as we understand, it is a Government proposal.

Under the Bill, the reporting year would not start until after Royal Assent—so the year would run from October 2009 to October 2010—and the report would be introduced as soon as practicable after that. Realistically, therefore, we would not get the first report until late 2010 or early to mid-2011. If my amendment were incorporated, we could have the first report by next spring. It is a risk worth taking. If, as a result of being incorporated, the Bill does not pass through the other place—because the Government are too reluctant to accept even this modest amendment and to find the time to agree it—we would revert to consideration of the Constitutional Renewal Bill, and I could propose a similar amendment that could be implemented probably on exactly the same time scale.

The hon. Gentleman refers to time scales. I am sure that he is aware, as a result of conversations, that some within the Law Commission have wanted the power in the Bill to be on the statute book for more than a decade. This is our chance.

The hon. Lady is trying to hold a gun to my head by saying, “Because you are sympathetic to the Law Commission, you should be sympathetic to not producing the best legislation in this House.” If those within the Law Commission have been waiting for 10 years, why has a Bill been drafted that will not enable the first report to be issued for 16 to 18 months, or even two years?

On the point about the timing of the Bill, and the mechanism used—a private Member’s Bill—had the Government really wanted to put this on the statute book, surely they could have used one of the Bills already before Parliament, such as the Coroners and Justice Bill, which covers a number of different responsibilities and could easily have accommodated another one covering this Bill. That way we could have spent time in Committee debating it. That might have been a more satisfactory procedure. I agree with my hon. Friend, and I want the Bill passed, but, if Members have concerns, they should be properly discussed.

I am grateful to my hon. Friend. We are almost in danger of finding ourselves in a similar situation to that which we face in Committees on statutory instruments, when those instruments cannot be amended. We are nearly accepting, in the main Chamber on a Friday, a self-denying ordinance. We are not sure whether the Government will accept our ostensibly very sensible amendment, which everyone supports, and so we are almost in danger of not pushing it to a decision. That is a ludicrous situation. Sometimes we should call the Government’s bluff. I have every confidence that if the amendment is accepted, it will eventually be incorporated on to the statute book. [Interruption.] Does the hon. Member for Oxford, West and Abingdon (Dr. Harris) want to intervene?

indicated dissent.

The hon. Gentleman leant forward, and I was wondering what he was going to do next. However, he does not want to intervene so I shall not take the matter any further.

The Minister said that the amendments make matters less clear, but I think that they make them much clearer. At the moment, the Bill simply reads: “As soon as practicable”. That is much less precise than

“no later than six months”.

I do not understand why the Minister thinks that my proposal would make things worse.

I am afraid to say that the Government’s response makes me suspicious, and not for the first time. I am not sure that their heart is really in this Bill. They may say that it is, but if it was, they would accept our amendments instead of quibbling about them. Most importantly, they would have dealt with the substance of clause 1 and done something about the Law Commission’s outstanding proposals, on which the Government have taken no decisions. Those proposals are still being considered, thanks to a logjam or some ghastly disease of incompatibility between Departments, leading to paralysis, which is a function of the increased bureaucracy of recent years.

All I am saying is that this is a case where the best and the good go together. At the moment the Bill is less than good. We are putting forward a sensible proposal to amend it. I therefore take pleasure in promoting and supporting amendment 1.

Question put, That the amendment be made.

I beg to move amendment 4, page 2, line 12, leave out ‘may’ and insert ‘shall’.

With this it will be convenient to discuss the following:

Amendment 5, page 2, line 12, after ‘(1)’, insert

‘no later than six months after the coming into force of this Act’.

Amendment 6, page 2, line 15, leave out ‘may’ and insert ‘shall’.

Amendment 7, page 2, line 23, at end insert—

‘(d) the way in which any breaches of the protocol shall be publicised and remedied.’.

Amendment 8, page 2, line 24, leave out ‘must’ and insert ‘may’.

Amendment 9, page 2, line 28, leave out ‘have regard to’ and insert ‘comply with’.

The amendments have the same intention for clause 2 as the previous amendments relating to clause 1. Amendment 4 is there because “shall” requires that something should be done rather than making it merely permissive as “may” does. I hope that the amendment will be accepted, not least because I know that discussions are already taking place between the Lord Chancellor and the Law Commission on the contents of the protocol.

Because those discussions are already taking place in anticipation of the implementation of clause 2, I hope that amendment 5, which would require the protocol to be in place

“no later than six months after the coming into force of this Act”

will also find favour with the Bill’s promoter and the Government.

Amendment 6 would leave out “may” and insert “shall” again, so that the protocol must rather than may include, among other things, various provisions about principles and methods of working. What is the point of putting “may” on the statute book? Obviously a protocol can include anything, and no statutory backing is needed for it in the first place. In that sense the whole of clause 2 is redundant: it is mere window-dressing. However, if we are to take it at face value and accept that it makes an improvement that would not have been made otherwise, we need to give the protocol some teeth by, as a House of Commons, setting out what we think it should contain—not preventing additions from being made to it, but establishing what we believe should be its minimum content. The amendment would ensure that its content was appropriate, rather than our having simply to hope that it would be.

Amendment 7 would add a new part to the protocol. If amendment 6 is accepted, it would be a mandatory requirement; if amendment 6 is not accepted but amendment 7 is, it would be a possibility. I tabled the amendment because I do not see any point in requirements such as this without sanctions. So often we say “This shall happen” or “this may happen”, but if it does not happen, what are the consequences? I see the Government Whip, the hon. Member for Leeds, East (Mr. Mudie) nodding in agreement, and I hope that the Government will support the proposal.

The whole purpose of the Bill is, in effect, to name and shame the Government, on behalf of the Law Commission, if they do not behave properly and do not show the commission sufficient respect in recognition of its hard work and endeavour. But the naming and shaming will be no good without proper publicity, which is why the amendment requires any breaches of the protocol to be publicised. We would also need to find a way in which such breaches could be remedied. As Dicey used to say, there is no point in a command without a sanction. I am sure that that principle applies to the Bill and that the Law Commission holds it dear, and I hope that the Government do as well.

Amendment 8 provides that the Lord Chancellor and the Law Commission may, rather than must,

“from time to time review the protocol”.

Oddly enough, the position in this instance is the other way around. I do not see any need to require the protocol to be reviewed unless the Lord Chancellor and the commission want to review it. Requiring it to be reviewed would be pointless if both parties took the view that no benefit would result from such a review, and that it would necessarily be a bureaucratic and expensive exercise. I think that this is a case in which the draftsmen have got the “musts” and the “mays” the wrong way around. Requiring a review when no one wanted it would be absurd.

Amendment 9 would replace “have regard to” with “comply with”. What does

“Ministers of the Crown and the Law Commission must have regard to the protocol”

mean? It is an empty gesture. It is possible to have regard to something without taking any notice of it. Requiring Ministers and the Law Commission to have regard to the protocol is very different from requiring them to comply with it.

I know from conversations that I have had that the Law Commission sets great store by the protocol that is being drawn up. I am sure it will be expecting that once it has been drawn up and agreed the Lord Chancellor will “comply with” it, rather than just “have regard to” it. Therefore, this amendment would strengthen the Bill and make the protocol more worth while than it is at present, and I hope it receives the Government’s support.

None of these amendments would do anything other than strengthen and improve the Bill. They would make it tighter, and they are in keeping with the spirit of what the Law Commission wants. If the hon. Member for Islington, South and Finsbury tells the House that she is worried that they are not supported by the Government, I hope the Minister will put her right on that. The argument that if this amendment were carried the whole Bill would be threatened is even more ludicrous than the argument deployed in respect of the first group of amendments, because the protocol will be drawn up anyway. It is being drawn up at present; its contents are being agreed between the Law Commission and the Lord Chancellor. It does not need any legislative cover, so it would not be threatened by the failure of the Bill to get on to the statute book.

Does my hon. Friend not find it somewhat peculiar and disconcerting that this draft protocol has not been made available to Members? After all, this Bill has been around for a while; its gestation goes back many years. As I understand it, over the years a number of members of the Law Commission have been calling for such a Bill. Therefore, we could have been given a draft protocol to look at as part of our deliberations on this Bill this morning and this afternoon.

My hon. Friend makes a very good point, which draws out of me a few comments on a letter sent to me by e-mail yesterday by Mark Ormerod, the chief executive of the Law Commission. I asked him to send me some information on the proposed protocol, and he writes:

“This is in an advanced stage of drafting and we are hoping it will be finally agreed soon. On current plans it will cover:

(a) the process by which projects will be initiated, including scope and resource considerations;

(b) guidance on handling for the currency of the project, with the emphasis on regular communication and co-operation; and

(c) action upon completion of the project, to ensure that interim and final responses are completed within their timescales”.

That is what it will cover, as far as he can tell me at present. Basically, that only sets out the headings, but it is the best result I have been able to achieve. My hon. Friend will immediately be making comparisons between those headings and the contents of clause 2(2) and wondering how they fit in together. I must say that I find it extraordinary that at present it is necessary to have a protocol to ensure regular communication and co-operation between the Lord Chancellor and the Law Commission, as I would have thought that that should go without saying in any well-organised Government.

The Law Commissions Act 1965 makes it precisely clear what is the relationship between the Law Commission and the Lord Chancellor, and the relationship with Parliament as well. It seems to me that this part of the Bill is completely unnecessary. It lays down in legislation something that should be taken as normal in any sensible, constructive relationship that is already itself based on statute. All it does is complicate the Bill, as well as throw into it a bit of extra new Labour jargon, so it is completely unnecessary.

I am grateful to my hon. Friend for those observations. During my conversation with Mr. Ormerod, he said that he hoped that the protocol would require other Government Departments to take the Law Commission more seriously. Again, that suggests that we have a dysfunctional Government with no discipline and no proper co-operation between Departments. That the Law Commission feels that the Government do not take it seriously is a reflection on the Government, and I am sure that when we have a Conservative Government, my hon. Friend will ensure that that failing is remedied. I look forward to that prospect eagerly.

If the amendments were accepted, the protocol would have some teeth, which it certainly lacks at the moment. I should be interested to hear why the promoter and the Minister are against these sensible amendments, as I anticipate will be their position.

For the reasons that I gave in my speech on earlier amendments, I do not support these ones and I ask that they be withdrawn.

We have almost got dialogue of the deaf—except that I am speaking and nobody seems to want to engage with me. The hon. Lady who is promoting the Bill suggests that she does not want to debate the amendments, and she has given no reasons for what she sees as flaws in my argument on tightening up the protocol. The Minister sits there silent, not explaining why the Government find fault with these amendments. I suppose that, if the Bill gets on the statute book, it will be left to some of us to table similar amendments to the Constitutional Renewal Bill, to try to tighten things up if necessary. [Interruption.] The Minister is speaking—I do not know whether she wishes to intervene, because I could not hear her sedentary intervention. I am quite prepared to give way to her so that I can hear it; but again, neither you nor I, Mr. Deputy Speaker, can force the Minister to speak if she chooses to remain silent, irrespective of how much that might be regarded as being in breach of the conventions of this House.

The Minister was saying informally that at one stage she was minded to offer me a concession. I am still waiting for a concession to be offered across the Floor of the House, and I hope that in due course it may be and it will not be left until after the House has risen. If it was, my wife might get a bit worried, but leaving that to one side, I think it a pity that none of these amendments, which would give some teeth to the protocol, have found favour with the Government, so I hope the House will reverse the decision that it took during the last Division and support me in proposing them.

Question put, That the amendment be made.

I beg to move, That the Bill be now read the Third time.

I feel remarkably tired but I am very pleased to have reached this stage. I thank all Members on both sides of the House for their support today and for the time they spent in Committee. I thank also, the large number of Members who have given me advice and shared their wisdom—the numbers are far too embarrassing to mention.

The Ministry of Justice was entirely helpful and entirely non-Sir Humphrey-like. The Minister of State, my right hon. Friend the Member for North Swindon (Mr. Wills), has been pragmatic throughout. I thank the Law Commission, including the assistance given to us by Mark Ormerod, the tenacity of the previous chair, Lord Justice Sir Terence Etherton, and the help we received this week from Lord Justice Sir James Munby. I am also thankful for the cool head of a young lady called Miss Chloe Wright.

The Bill is small but important. The most important thing about it is that it will ensure that we make better law, which in the end is what we are here to do. I commend the Bill to the House.

As is apparent from the debates on the amendments, I am not against the Bill; I just feel that it is far weaker than it need be and is only necessary because the Government have failed to take the Law Commission as seriously as they should. We have a Law Commission that comprises some of the best legal brains in the country. They produce detailed reports on problem areas of the law, either where a fresh approach is needed for simplification or clarification, or to deal with a mischief that is causing problems for the public at large and is not being addressed by the courts, leading to frustration and correspondence—for example, with Members of Parliament. It is disappointing when the Law Commission proposes reforms and the Government disregard or ignore them. If I were a member of the Law Commission, I might find it quite humiliating to see so little regard for all that work.

I have been looking at the commission’s annual report for 2008-09, which was printed on 7 July and is available in the Vote Office. It is the final annual report by the outgoing chairman, Sir Terence Etherton, and it addresses the Lord Chancellor, reminding him that, in Sir Terence’s view:

“The establishment of the Law Commission was an inspired act of Government, born of the belief that accessible, intelligible, fair and modern law is the constitutional right of every citizen.”

Sir Terence also refers to the fact that

“the Commission has produced 180 final reports, recommending reforms that affect citizens every day”,

and he notes:

“The Government has accepted and implemented”—

only

“135 of those reports.”

In other words, 45 of the 180 reports that have been produced over that 40-year period have not been actioned. Sir Terence refers also to the fact that “12 await a decision”—in addition to the reports to which I have already referred—and says that

“the speed of implementation has been a cause of concern.”

The purpose of the Bill is to try to remedy that concern, but, as I have already said, I am highly sceptical about whether it will make any difference, because it is not clear to me how a report that will be produced sometime between October next year and, let us be optimistic, the spring of 2011 will change anything that could not be changed now if we had a Government and a Justice Secretary who were prepared to implement the decisions that are outstanding. It is disappointing that Sir Terence’s success as commission chairman is praised on the basis that he has managed to bring forward the Bill. He describes as a

“significant development…the Lord Chancellor’s statement to Parliament, introducing the Constitutional Renewal White Paper on 25 March 2008”—

where—

“he announced his intention to bring forward proposals to place a statutory duty on the Lord Chancellor to report annually to Parliament on the Government’s intentions regarding outstanding Law Commission recommendations”—

and—

“statutory backing to a protocol.”

But that was in March 2008.

Is it too cynical to say that, although the Lord Chancellor supposedly wanted legislation and made an announcement in 2008, nothing will happen until spring 2011? In the meantime, he could have been looking at all the reports—seriatim, to use that word again—and saying to different Departments, “What about this? Isn’t this a good idea? Isn’t that a good idea? Why don’t we get on and implement these very important reports or at least come to some conclusions about them?” What is almost worse than that apparent lack of implementation is the fact that the Government are so slow and tardy at reaching conclusions on the commission’s reports.

Sir Terence goes on to say how grateful he is to Lord Lloyd of Berwick for introducing the Bill to give effect to the Lord Chancellor’s statement. Again, I can understand his excitement and enthusiasm. However, having heard the debate and the concerns expressed, I hope that, notwithstanding the Bill’s contents, Members of this House and the other place will use them to put more pressure on the Government to implement Law Commission proposals that are waiting on the shelf for somebody to take them up.

The promoter, the hon. Member for Islington, South and Finsbury (Emily Thornberry), has already referred to one or two proposals. I do not want to mention many, but cohabitation affects an enormous number of our constituents, and the Law Commission carried out a project on the subject in 2007, focusing on the financial hardship suffered by cohabitants or their children on the termination of a relationship by separation or death. The Law Commission published its report to Parliament on 31 July 2007—more than two years ago. It contained final recommendations on the law affecting cohabitants’ property and finances when relationships end, whether by separation or death. It was for the Government to decide what to do with it.

All that has happened is that the Government produced an interim response and issued a statement. I refer to that to illustrate the problem, which, I accept, the hon. Member for Islington, South and Finsbury believes that the Bill will address. The “Response to paper on cohabitation and relationship breakdown” came from the Ministry of Justice on 6 March 2008—nine months after the report was produced. The press release states:

“The report has been carefully considered and the government has decided it wishes to seek research findings on the Family Law (Scotland) Act 2006, which came into effect last year. This Act has provisions which are similar in many respects to those which the Commission recommends… The government propose to await the outcome of this research and extrapolate from it the likely cost to this jurisdiction of bringing into effect the scheme proposed by the Law Commission and the likely benefits it will bring. For the time being, therefore, the government will take no further action.”

That was a poor show.

If such a statement is made in an annual report—all we will get out of the Bill—how will life be any different? That concerns me. What pressure will be put on the Government to legislate on cohabitation when they have said that they have put the project on hold? Law commissioner Stuart Bridge said:

“We welcome the Government’s view that the report is very thorough and of very high quality.”

I am sure that it is, but they are easy words for the Government to offer. Stuart Bridge continues:

“The Government has indicated to us that it is postponing the decision…because it is concerned to establish estimates of the costs and financial benefits…We look forward to receiving the Government’s final response.”

The Law Commission still has not received that final response and, if the Bill gets on the statute book, we will not have a report for another 18 months or so on the Government’s reason for not responding. That is only one example.

Another example, which is important and features in the newspapers almost every day, is intoxication and criminal liability, about which the Law Commission has made proposals for reform. Commission report No. 134 states that its

“recommendations for reform would render the law…logically sound as a matter of policy…more comprehensive and therefore more accessible; and…internally consistent.”

There is a big history to this matter, because the commission undertook a thorough review of the law on intoxication prior to publishing a report in 1992 on intoxication and criminal liability. That went out to consultation, and the commission’s recommendations were set out in its 1995 report. However, the draft criminal law intoxication Bill, appended to the 1995 report—the relevance of this example is that it shows that the problem has not occurred only under this Government, but under the previous Conservative Government—has never been implemented.

In 1998, after the present Government came to office, they produced a consultation paper entitled, “Violence: Reforming the Offences Against the Person Act 1861”, about which people were quite optimistic. However, the Government concluded that the commission’s recommendations were

“unnecessarily complex for the purposes of this Bill”.

More than a decade later, the commission is extremely frustrated at the lack of progress. It wants to make the law more efficient and easier to apply. It produced a draft Bill, and perhaps the hon. Member for Hendon (Mr. Dismore) will take it up as a private Member’s Bill in the next Session. That is another example of the sort of frustration that exists on all sides.

The final example—I could go on for a long time, but I do not wish to do so—is that of assisting and encouraging crime. Report No. 305, from 2007, deals with secondary liability. The consultation paper went back to 1993. The Serious Crime Act 2007 incorporated some of the commission’s suggestions, but the implementation of the commission’s recommendations is hit and miss. The hon. Member for Oxford, West and Abingdon (Dr. Harris) said earlier that the announcement that the Government were going to legislate on sedition came about 20 or 30 years after the commission pronounced on it.

There are an enormous number of unnecessary Acts on our statute book. At the same time, our constituents face an enormous number of problems for which there is no proper, clear legal remedy. That could be put right if the commission’s work were taken seriously and put into practice.

I am an enthusiast for the commission’s work. I hope that the House will do more to put pressure on the Government to get that work incorporated into statute when appropriate, and that we will be less relaxed in future about letting the Government get away with not doing so. In so far as the Bill will do anything to assist in that process, I wish it well, but I fear that it might be being used as an excuse for further inaction. I hope that I am wrong.

The hon. Member for Islington, South and Finsbury told me that she does not have the largest majority in the House. Whatever happens at the next election, if she succeeds in getting a private Member’s Bill on to the statute book, she will have achieved a great success, on which I would congratulate her. It may not be the hot news topic in the part of London that she has the privilege of representing, but that does not matter, because in this legislature, people will recognise that she has addressed a serious issue effectively, in her modest way.

I congratulate the hon. Member for Islington, South and Finsbury (Emily Thornberry) on seeming to get this Bill through, and I suspect, knowing her part of the world as I do, that this is a hot topic there. It is important that there is some parliamentary accountability for the Government’s response to the Law Commission. We are spending money on the work of the Law Commission and, far too often, its excellent reports lie idle. As the hon. Member for Christchurch (Mr. Chope) mentioned that issue, I just wish to draw attention to some reports that have taken a long time even to look as though they will reach the statute book.

The hon. Lady mentioned the report on blasphemy. I had a small hand in getting that on to the statute book by tabling amendments to the Criminal Justice and Immigration Act 2008. The 1975 report on sedition has taken 34 years to approach statutory form, as the Government have tabled amendments to the Coroners and Justice Bill in the other place, following the amendments tabled in Committee by Lord Lester and on Report here by me. Criminal defamation was dealt with in the 1985 Law Commission report, which recommended—possibly wrongly by today’s standards—abolition and replacement with a slightly less draconian criminal provision, and that is covered by the welcome Government amendments tabled this week. Those are two examples of it having taken decades for anything to be done, and they are important issues even though the laws in question are not in use here. Other countries use them in an anti-human rights way and point to the fact that we retain them on our statute book against the advice of the Law Commission as a justification for repressing journalists and freedom of speech.

The only other example that I wish to give is that of the way the Law Commission report on homicide has been handled. It was not satisfactory—my hon. Friend the Member for Cambridge (David Howarth) is more of an expert than I am and, as he pointed out during the passage of the Coroners and Justice Bill through this House, the Government only half legislated for the Law Commission’s provisions, therefore undermining them because they need to be taken as a whole. Further, we did not get a chance to debate revisions to the law of murder on Report stage.

The situation is even worse than the one that my hon. Friend describes. The Government gave the Law Commission a very restricted brief, and then failed to debate what it came up with in this House.

Exactly, and I hope that, as the hon. Member for Islington, South and Finsbury said, the report that the Government will have to produce will cause them to hesitate before agreeing the non-implementation of Law Commission reports without debate in this House or ignoring them completely. It is good that we are having this debate now.

There is a question of procedure, because it cannot be right that otherwise reasonable amendments to this Bill are defeated by the argument that we should not amend this Bill because it might run out of time, even though it has general support. I hope that the Reform of the House of Commons Committee, of which I am a member, will address itself to ensuring that any private Member’s Bill—I congratulate the hon. Lady and her colleagues in the other place on getting this one this far—is not faced with the threat of running out of time, whether it has Government support or not. I am delighted that it looks as though this Bill will get its Third Reading unamended and will not have to go back to the Lords, but the prime objective is that this House should not be fettered by such concerns when considering amendments.

I congratulate the hon. Lady because it looks as though the Bill will get its Third Reading.

I congratulate the hon. Member for Islington, South and Finsbury (Emily Thornberry) on introducing the Bill. The Opposition support it. We think it is long overdue, but are disappointed that the Government have not used an existing Bill over the past couple of years or so to accommodate its contents. As the hon. Lady pointed out, Lord Gardiner, who was Lord Chancellor in the mid-1960s, was the architect of the Law Commission. Its key functions were to update the law, to advise on repealing old laws and to make recommendations for new ones.

At the time, Lord Gardiner’s vision was considered fairly radical, imaginative and almost revolutionary. In the early years, the Law Commission was afforded great respect by the Government. However, as hon. Members have pointed out, one problem was that too many reports were simply parked on shelves and left to gather dust. Some good examples have been given. I shall not repeat them all, but I remember feeling quite strongly about the recommendations on mental capacity, which took 10 years to reach fruition in the Mental Capacity Act 2005, the inauguration of the Office of the Public Guardian and other new arrangements.

The hon. Member for Cambridge (David Howarth) and I were members of the Public Bill Committee that considered the Coroners and Justice Bill, and we dealt at length with its provisions on homicide. I agree entirely with what he just said about that. Cohabitation, on which the Law Commission also produced a report, has been mentioned. The commission believes strongly that legislation is needed to afford new rights to cohabitees in certain circumstances, yet the Government have not moved on that at all—extraordinarily, they have not even produced a consultation paper. All too often, therefore, the Government ignore the Law Commission.

Under the Law Commissions Act 1965, the Lord Chancellor must lay before Parliament programmes prepared by the Law Commission that he has approved, as well as proposals for reform. The Law Commission must make an annual report to the Lord Chancellor, who must then lay it before Parliament. However, under existing rules, the Lord Chancellor is not required to lay before Parliament his own report on the implementation of Law Commission proposals. He does not have to set out plans for dealing with any such proposals that are not implemented, nor provide the necessary reasoning behind his decision. That was a serious flaw in the Law Commission’s armoury and is why we support the first part of the Bill.

Hon. Members have asked whether that is necessary, because colleagues can table parliamentary questions and hold Ministers to account. I agree that hon. Members can use written parliamentary questions to mine data and information from the Government, but that presupposes that Ministers are prepared to co-operate and enter into the spirit of the exercise. All too often, we might feel very strongly about something one day, but events move on quickly and things are easily forgotten. In terms of the equality of arms, therefore, all the power is on the side of Ministers, and it requires very tenacious Back-Bench Members to push them to give the right information. The new arrangements in the Bill would therefore be an important and welcome step forward.

I agree very much with my hon. Friend, but can he assure the House that the Opposition are already actively looking at the Law Commission’s outstanding recommendations with a view to deciding which of those pearls of wisdom should be implemented early under an incoming Conservative Government?

I assure my hon. Friend that those of us on the Front Bench, watched over with eagle eyes by those in the Whips Office, use virtually every spare moment of our time to prepare for government. Our team is looking at the Law Commission’s recommendations and preparing Bills for the first Queen’s Speech, in the event of our winning the election—we are not allowed to say “when”; we are saying “if”, because we need to win the public’s confidence and people’s trust.

Clause 2 would insert a new section 3B into the Law Commissions Act 1965, which would introduce a protocol designed to provide a framework for the relationship between HMG and the Law Commission. Clause 2 also says:

“The Lord Chancellor must lay the protocol…before Parliament.”

I would simply ask whether the clause is really necessary. It cannot cover any new powers or functions; rather, it relates only to existing powers and functions. It creates neither new powers in respect of the Lord Chancellor or the Government, nor any directly enforceable rights and obligations. I would therefore ask whether such a protocol is necessary. If we can get Departments working with each other more closely and taking the Law Commission’s work more seriously, the protocol will probably be a waste of time. Indeed, it is a bit of an insult to what should already be a close and positive relationship between the Law Commission and the Lord Chancellor.

We welcome some of the recent changes introduced by the Government, particularly the recent internal reorganisation of the Ministry of Justice into five divisions, including one covering democracy, the constitution and law. The Law Commission now sits within that pillar, rather than coming under the courts division. That definitely makes sense, and the Government need a pat on the back for making that change. In April the House of Lords finally approved a special procedure for non-controversial Law Commission Bills, which was also a good step forward.

Recently the Ministry of Justice belatedly upgraded the ministerial committee for the Law Commission, which always used to comprise junior Ministers from different Departments. I believe that the intention now is for the committee to have much a wider reach than over the past, say, 10 or 12 years. I hope that that will address the disconnect between Departments and the Law Commission, as well as the problem that we are all so concerned about, which is that numerous excellent reports are simply sitting on shelves gathering dust and no one is taking them seriously.

Today’s Bill is a small step forward. We wish it well and hope that it gets through as quickly as possible, because although it is modest, it is an important step in the right direction.

I, too, welcome the Bill on behalf of my party and congratulate the hon. Member for Islington, South and Finsbury (Emily Thornberry) on getting it this far and, I hope, to its final destination in a few moments.

However, I would not want people to think that because a lot of Law Commission reports are about technical law they just do not have political or policy consequences. Every one of them has some political or policy content. There are gainers and losers in almost every proposal, even if they are simply in the legal profession. Therefore, non-implementation of a Law Commission report is not automatically a bad thing. There might be a genuine political difference between the assumptions made by the Law Commission and the Government of the day. However, the Bill does something important: it forces the Government to give their reasons.

Hon. Members might remember the attempt when the Legislative and Regulatory Reform Act 2006 was going through to reform how Law Commission reports come forward. The Government insisted that they would never obstruct a non-controversial proposal—they said that they would use the powers in that legislation only for non-controversial proposals and would not put through controversial ones—but could never offer a definition of what was controversial.

This Bill does something much more reasonable, which is simply to say to the Government: “If you’re not going to implement this proposal, you’ll have to say why.” That might involve financial reasons, or a disagreement with the moral basis of a Law Commission report—that might well be the problem with the report on cohabitation. The Government will not, however, be allowed not to give a reason. It is possible that the Government’s real reason may not be a proper reason. For example, they may fear the way in which a matter could be reported in the Daily Mail. They would not give that as their reason, of course; they would be forced to give a different one.

I believe that there will be occasions when the Government, faced with the choice of either giving a reason other than their real reason or simply getting on with it, will choose simply to get on with it. For that reason, the Bill, even though it looks modest, might have some real-world effects. Some Law Commission reports might go through because the Government decide that it is not worth giving a false reason for not implementing them. I welcome the Bill. I do not think it is quite so modest as the hon. Member for North-West Norfolk (Mr. Bellingham) thinks it is. I believe that it will have good effects in the long term and I wish it well.

I should like to add my congratulations to my hon. Friend the Member for Islington, South and Finsbury (Emily Thornberry) on getting her Bill to this stage. I hope that, within the next few minutes, it will receive its Third Reading. These are important issues. As the hon. Member for Cambridge (David Howarth) said, they might look technical, but they will have a real effect on our constituents’ lives.

It is a great privilege for my Department to be associated with the Law Commission. The Commission has made a significant contribution to law reform since it was founded in 1965, and that contribution is much valued by the Government and those in the legal and judicial world. Contrary to what people might infer from earlier contributions to the debate, many Government Bills have originated with the Law Commission. I can cite two current examples in my Department. The first is the Perpetuities and Accumulations Bill, which is nearing the end of its parliamentary stages. I hope that, by the end of Monday, it will have completed most of its Commons stages. The second is the bribery Bill, which is included in the draft legislative programme for 2009-10.

As my hon. Friend the Member for Islington, South and Finsbury has said, the task of the Law Commission is fundamentally important because its aim is to make the statute book fairer, more appropriate to the circumstances of the time, simpler, more easily comprehensible and more cost-effective. The good health of our statute book is fundamental to the good health of our democracy.

As my right hon. Friend the Lord Chancellor has previously said to the House, we are committed to strengthening the role of the Law Commission. I should like to give the House two recent developments as evidence of this. First, as the hon. Member for North-West Norfolk (Mr. Bellingham) mentioned, we have introduced a new procedure in the House of Lords for the consideration of politically non-controversial Law Commission Bills that are strongly supported by the Government. The Perpetuities and Accumulations Bill is the first Bill to go through this procedure, and, as I have already said, we hope it will achieve Royal Assent very soon. I hope that many more Bills will use this system, leading to even higher levels of implementation of the more technical Law Commission Bills.

Secondly, we have amended the Law Commissions Act 1965 to provide that the chair of the Commission must be a High Court or Court of Appeal judge. We believe that that will enhance the standing of the Commission as a whole, and that it will provide a symbol of its independence and political neutrality, both of which are extremely important to it. The newly appointed chairman of the Law Commission, Sir James Munby, is a Court of Appeal judge, and we wish him and his team well in the course of the next few years.

During the debate, allusions have been made to the length of time it has taken for some Law Commission reports to be implemented, and I agree that, in some cases, that has been shockingly long. There has also been a suggestion that very few such reports make it to the statute book. I have to say that the facts do not bear that out. Currently, we have implemented 67 per cent. of Law Commission reports, or two out of three. We obviously want to improve on that, but it is not such a bad figure; it is a testament to the commission’s impact on our law. All that has been achieved with the Government’s support, and we support this important Bill because it is a mark of our commitment to the commission.

I had the opportunity to speak to Sir James Munby since his appointment and I know that he takes this issue very seriously. I wonder whether the Minister is able to give him a piece of news today about what the Government are going to do in respect of each of the reports on which the Government’s decision remains outstanding. If she cannot answer me across the Dispatch Box now, will she write to hon. Members and place her answer in the Library for us?

I will certainly raise it with the Minister within whose portfolio the Law Commission sits, and I will ensure that either he or I write to hon. Members or put in the Library a response to the question that the hon. Gentleman rightly asks.

We see the Bill as a key mechanism for delivering higher implementation rates of Law Commission reports, which will benefit both law reform and the taxpayer. The requirement on the Lord Chancellor to report on the extent of implementation of Law Commission reports each year will keep up the pressure on us, the Government, to account for decisions on implementation. Of equal or perhaps more importance is the protocol that will set out best practice in terms of working relationships between the Law Commission and Departments on individual projects. That is what should assist in developing the collaborative relationship between the Law Commission and Departments that experience teaches us is the key to successful implementation.

Finally, I want to stress our commitment to the work of the Law Commission. The more effective the Law Commission is in having its reports on reform accepted and then implemented, the more successful it will be in achieving its overall objective of making the law fairer, more modern, simpler and as cost-effective as possible, which I believe the whole House would want to support. I am thus very pleased indeed to support the Bill. My hon. Friend the Member for Islington, South and Finsbury can go back to her constituency, having shown herself to be a true parliamentarian in taking through a private Member’s Bill. That is not an easy thing to do and it does not happen very often. My hon. Friend has every reason to be proud of her achievements today.

rose—

Order. I am about to put the question. We do not want any obstacles at this late stage.

Question put and agreed to.

Bill accordingly read the Third time and passed, with an amendment.

I beg to move, That the clause be read a Second time.

With this it will be convenient to discuss the following: Amendment 1, page 1, clause 2, leave out lines 13 to 16 and insert

‘in a reserved post.

(1A) A post is a reserved post if—

(a) it is a post in any of the security and intelligence services, or

(b) it is within subsection (1B) or (1C), and a Minister of the Crown has determined that it is necessary for requirements as to nationality to be satisfied in relation to the post.

(1B) The posts within this subsection are—

(a) posts in Her Majesty’s Diplomatic Service and posts in the Foreign and Commonwealth Office, and

(b) posts in the Defence Intelligence Staff.

(1C) The posts within this subsection are posts whose functions are concerned with—

(a) access to intelligence information received directly or indirectly from any of the security and intelligence services,

(b) access to other information which, if disclosed without authority or otherwise misused, might damage the interests of national security,

(c) access to other information which, if disclosed without authority or otherwise misused, might be prejudicial to the interests of the United Kingdom or the safety of its citizens, or

(d) border control or decisions about immigration.

(1D) A determination under subsection (1A)(b) may relate to a particular post or posts, or to posts falling within a description specified in the determination.

(1E) In this section “the security and intelligence services” means—

(a) the Security Service,

(b) the Secret Intelligence Service, and

(c) the Government Communications Headquarters.’.

Amendment (a) to amendment 1, line 3, after ‘services’, insert ‘, or the Home Office’.

Amendment 2, page 2, line 9, at end insert—

‘(e) any brother or sister of a person within paragraphs (b) or (c).’.

Amendment 3, page 2, line 37, leave out from ‘section’ to ‘House’ in line 38 and insert

‘may not be made unless a draft of the instrument has been laid before, and approved by a resolution of, each’.

Amendment 4, page 3, line 3, clause 4, leave out subsection (2).

I feel as though we have discussed the subject of Crown employment and nationality before. When I looked at my records, I found that I was not wrong. Indeed, new clause 1 has been put forward in similar terms on previous occasions, using the iterative process. That concept is well known to the hon. Member for Hendon (Mr. Dismore), as I cannot recall how many times this Bill has been before the House. Each time, the Bill has been an improvement on its previous incarnation, but it still lacks that extra ingredient of new clause 1, which would improve the Bill enormously.

My hon. Friend mentions the Dorset police, but is he aware that the Devon and Cornwall police are also considering the problems for Torbay, should the tall ships be racing there during the Olympics? Would that situation not be similar to that which he talks about in Dorset?

Similar but probably different in scale, because the ships are bigger in Torbay but there are more of them in Weymouth. My hon. Friend—it is wonderful that he is in the Chamber assiduously dealing with these matters on a Friday, as is so often the case—has drawn attention to the fact that my example of the Dorset constabulary is not unique and is replicated in a lot of other constabularies. However, it is an example of a Home Office activity that makes Home Office posts wholly relevant for consideration as additions to those already listed in Government amendment 1, which in general I support because it brings more detail into the Bill.

I want to speak briefly to amendment 2, which would insert into clause 2 the phrase

“any brother or sister of a person within paragraphs (b) or (c)”.

Why should parents and spouses, deceased parents, civil partners or people living together as though they were spouses or civil partners be the only groups of people deemed connected, such that they might have a relationship that could involve undue influence? I should have thought that siblings come into that category as well, which is why we have tabled amendment 2.

Amendment 3 would ensure that we have to use the affirmative procedure for any draft instrument instead of the negative procedure, so at least we could ensure its being debated in this House. We could not of course ensure that it could be amended if we did not like it, but at least we would have the chance to debate it. For all I know, the hon. Member for Hendon, the Bill’s promoter, may well have wanted to include an affirmative resolution but was dissuaded by the Government, who, as we know, want as little legislation as possible to be subject to scrutiny in this House, and therefore prefer the negative resolution procedure. However, that is as may be and we will no doubt hear from the Bill’s promoter in due course about why the affirmative resolution was not in the Bill to start with.

That brings me conveniently to amendment 4, which would leave out subsection (2) of clause 4. I tabled it because I thought it would concentrate the minds of the Government on the whole Bill. I got the impression when it was last discussed in Committee that they were getting rather lukewarm about it because of the change in the employment situation, the rapid rise in unemployment and the conflict that could be caused by opening up posts in the Government service to aliens who are currently unable to qualify for those posts. The Government could see that there might be—

Object.

Bill to be read a Second time on Friday 6 November.

armenian genocide remembrance day bill

Motion made, That the Bill be now read a Second time.

Object.

Bill to be read a Second time on Thursday 22 October.

safety of medicines (evaluation) bill

Motion made, That the Bill be now read a Second time.

Object.

Bill to be read a Second time on Friday 23 October.

royal marriages and succession to the crown (prevention of discrimination) bill

Resumption of adjourned debate on Question (27 March), That the Bill be now read a Second time.

Object.

Debate to be resumed on Friday 23 October.

sale of mobile homes (interviews) bill

Motion made, That the Bill be now read a Second time.

Object.

Bill to be read a Second time on Friday 23 October.

school bus (safety) bill

Motion made, That the Bill be now read a Second time.

Object.

Bill to be read a Second time on Friday 23 October.

broadcasting (public service content) bill

Resumption of adjourned debate on Question (12 June), That the Bill be now read a Second time.

Object.

Debate to be resumed on Friday 6 November.

employment opportunities bill

Motion made, That the Bill be now read a Second time.

Object.

Bill to be read a Second time on Friday 6 November.

fuel poverty bill

Resumption of adjourned debate on Question (20 March), That the Bill be now read a Second time.

Object.

Debate to be resumed on Friday 23 October.

broadcasting (television licence fee abolition) bill

Motion made, That the Bill be now read a Second time.

Object.

Bill to be read a Second time on Friday 6 November.

european union (audit of benefits and costs of uk membership) bill

Motion made, That the Bill be now read a Second time.

Object.

Bill to be read a Second time on Friday 6 November.

human rights act 1998 (meaning of public authority) bill

Resumption of adjourned debate on Question (3 July), That the Bill be now read a Second time.

Object.

Debate to be resumed on Thursday 22 October.

illegally logged timber (prohibition of sale) Bill

Resumption of adjourned debate on Question (26 June), That the Bill be now read a Second time.

Object.

Debate to be resumed on Thursday 22 October.

home repossession (protection) bill

Motion made, That the Bill be read a Second time.

Object.

Bill to be read a Second time on Thursday 22 October.

employers’ liability insurance bureau bill

Motion made, That the Bill be read a Second time.

Object.

Debate to be resumed on Thursday 22 October.

pharmaceutical labelling (warning of cognitive function impairment) Bill

Motion made, That the Bill be now read a Second time.

Object.

Bill to be read a Second time on Thursday 22 October.

land use (gardens protection etc) Bill

Resumption of adjourned debate on Question (8 May), That the Bill be now read a Second time.

Object.

Debate to be resumed on Thursday 22 October.

road signs (tourist destinations and facilities) bill

Motion made, That the Bill be now read a Second time.

Object.

Debate to be resumed on Friday 23 October.

protection of garden land (development control) Bill

Motion made, That the Bill be now read a Second time.

Object.

Bill to be read a Second time on Friday 23 October.

airport expansion (parliamentary approval) Bill

Motion made, That the Bill be now read a Second time.

Object.

Bill to be read a Second time on Friday 23 October.

british museum act 1963 (amendment) bill

Resumption of adjourned debate on Question (15 May), That the Bill be now read a Second time.

Object.

Debate to be resumed on Thursday 22 October.

torture (damages) (nO. 2) bill

Motion made, That the Bill be now read a Second time.

Object.

Bill to be read a Second time on Thursday 22 October.

online purchasing of goods and services (age verification) bill [lords]

Motion made, That the Bill be now read a Second time.

Object.

Bill to be read a Second time on Thursday 22 October.

government of cornwall bill

Motion made, That the Bill be now read a Second time.

Object.

Bill to be read a Second time on Friday 23 October.

Object.

On a point of order, Mr. Deputy Speaker. As you know, motion 52 excludes Members of the European Parliament from gaining access to the House through passes, which would of course mean that the newly elected British National party Members would not be allowed to get into this place. Most Members are of the view that that should be the case. Is there any way of recording—

Order. That is not a point of order but a point of debate, so bad luck.

rose—

I have ruled. That is not a point of order so I will not take it as a point of order.

On a point of order, Mr. Deputy Speaker. Is there any way of recording in Hansard that it was the hon. Member for Christchurch (Mr. Chope) who objected to motion 52?

I am sure that Hansard will merely record that an objection has been taken.

Further to that point of order, Mr. Deputy Speaker. Will you confirm that the only way in which one can ensure that there is a debate on the issue, irrespective of whether one supports or objects to the motion, is to object to motion 52, which is what I have done? I have done that so we can have a debate and I reserve my position on how I might vote—

Order. The hon. Gentleman is also getting into debate. I think that sufficient detail is now on the record for everyone to be clear.

Object.

Object.

Object.

As I have just had my tonsils removed, I intend to make an equally truncated introduction to this very important debate. The Minister has had a copy of my full speech since Monday, and it also appears on my website.

In essence, I should like the Minister to comment on how we can improve NHS dentistry in my constituency. The state of children’s dental health in Nottingham is the second worst in the country—it is at the average level found in England 35 years ago. Half the under-fives have never been to a dentist. A local teacher told me about primary school children who had dirty or black teeth or who had lost their second teeth, and described the excitement of a six-year-old girl at having a toothbrush—she had never had one before.

Children in the most deprived fifth of schools, typical of my constituency, have four times as many decayed, missing and filled teeth as those in the top fifth. Local dentists, the local NHS and the Government have worked hard on the problems but it seems that recent reforms, including changes to the dentist contract and payments, may even have made the situation worse. Quick extractions are up, time-consuming repair work is down.

Three simple steps would help to put things right: first, registering every child and every adult with their local dentist; secondly, ensuring that the dentist contract rewards prevention, and not only extraction; and thirdly, giving every child and adult a free dental check-up every year. That dental MOT for everyone could be paid for through a reformed charging scale and revised dental contracts. Nothing less than that ambition will meet the scale of the problem in constituencies such as mine. Incidentally, Nottingham would be the perfect place to hold the pilot. I should like the Minister to comment on that.

I hope the Minister agrees that never again should the House hear of a girl in my constituency or anywhere else who only gets her first toothbrush when she is six years old.

I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Nottingham, North (Mr. Allen) on securing the debate. He takes a keen interest in the challenges faced by commissioners of primary care dental services for Nottingham. I offer him my sympathy on his tonsillectomy, which comes at a most frustrating time, and means he is not able to make as detailed a contribution to the debate as he might like, but I certainly admire his fortitude in speaking when his throat is somewhat raw.

Before I deal with some of the issues relating to dental services in Nottingham, I shall set out the national context for dentistry. I certainly share my hon. Friend’s view that children throughout the country should regularly be using toothbrushes and toothpaste well before they are six years old. Children should be taught at an early age how to clean their teeth, and I hope that we can reach a level of improved dental care.

We have increased spending on dentistry; it was up 11 per cent. in 2008-09 and 8.5 per cent. this year. Funding is running at a record £2.25 billion, net of patient charges. Since 2004, funding for dentistry has gone up by 70 per cent., which is an additional £900 million.

As a result of the increased investment that we have made since then, 850 dental students are expected to graduate next summer—an increase of 25 per cent. As part of our expansion programme, two new dental schools opened in 2007, in the south-west and in central Lancashire, thereby reversing the Conservative closure of two dental schools in 1991. The number of dentists working in the NHS rose last year by 528, on top of an increase of 655 in the previous year. More dentists in the NHS meant that last year an extra 1.4 million courses of treatment were delivered.

We believe that the best decisions are made as close to those affected by them as possible, so in 2006, in line with the rest of the health service, we reformed NHS dentistry. The new system gave power to primary care trusts to commission the right dentistry services for their communities. PCTs have provided incentives to encourage prevention and improve quality, but in some areas—I suspect Nottingham is among them—progress has been slow and sometimes much too patchy, so in December 2008, the then Secretary of State asked Professor Jimmy Steele to conduct a review of the new contract, and that was published in June. I am delighted that the review has joined the Select Committee on Health in supporting the principle of local commissioning and providing a firm basis for the future of NHS dentistry.

The review also showed the range of services that are needed; that different generations need different types of dental care; that simply drilling and filling is no longer acceptable; that we need to improve oral health; and that preventing decay and disease must become a real priority for NHS dentistry. We wholeheartedly welcome Professor Steele’s review, and we will rigorously test its recommendations in a series of pilots throughout England over the coming months. I am very pleased that the British Dental Association, patient groups and other stakeholders have welcomed the review.

In the years since the foundation of the NHS, we have seen substantial improvements in our dental health. Half of adults in 1948 had no teeth at all; now, we are about to carry out the latest national adult dental health survey and we expect the figure to have fallen to about 6 per cent. Whereas 35 years ago more than 90 per cent. of all 12-year-olds in England had tooth decay, today the figure is less than 40 per cent. We are making substantial improvements, and it is arguable that our children have the lowest rate of tooth decay in Europe and are comparable with the best in the world, including countries such as America.

The association between social deprivation and tooth decay is clear, and we know that the link can be broken. Sandwell in the west midlands has only a slightly better socio-economic profile than Nottingham city; however, according to the most recent British Association for the Study of Community Dentistry survey of dental decay in the milk teeth of five-year-old children, from 2005-06 the average number of decayed, missing and filled teeth among such children in Sandwell was about one third of that in Nottingham. My hon. Friend may be interested to know that the North West Public Health Observatory will publish the latest figures, for 2007-08, next week.

Apart from rates of tooth decay, what are the differences between Sandwell and Nottingham? For a start, fluoride is added to Sandwell’s water supply to bring it up to the 1 part per million level at which it can help to protect people’s teeth. I realise that fluoridation is controversial, which is why no new schemes can be introduced until a strategic health authority has consulted the local population, but it offers one way of reducing inequalities in oral health which does not require individual parents and families to take action, because fluoride is in the water supply.

In addition to population-wide measures such as fluoridation, dentists and members of their team can intervene to improve oral health. For example, we have developed the Brushing for Life scheme, which targets young children in areas with the highest levels of tooth decay. When their families visit child health clinics or Sure Start centres, they get a free pack of fluoride toothpaste, a toothbrush and a leaflet containing advice on oral hygiene. Many such interventions will take place before children are six years old, and we need to ensure that at an early age they are able to get the benefits of fluoride toothpaste, a toothbrush and an explanation of the best way to protect their teeth and ensure that their full adult set of teeth is healthy. Parents or carers are also given a demonstration of how to brush their children’s teeth, or of how to teach their children how to brush their teeth—obviously far better.

In June last year, Nottingham city primary care trust started the City Smiles programme to combat poor oral health in children. Its main objectives were to reduce tooth decay; to ensure that children received appropriate dental care; and to increase knowledge about oral health. The three principal messages were to improve diet, for example, by limiting sugars to meal times; to improve oral hygiene habits, for example, by brushing teeth twice a day; and to promote better access to dental care so that children saw a dentist at least once a year. Those messages are being given to all pregnant women and pre-school and school-age children in the Nottingham area.

In similar places to those where Brushing for Life applies, families with young children are given the opportunity to have their children’s teeth treated with fluoride varnish, as recommended by the Department of Health. Then, because the varnish needs to be reapplied at six-monthly intervals, the families are advised about how they can access a high street dentist for their continuing dental care needs. That provides the initial contact with a dentist that some families need to ensure that they are subsequently in regular contact.

The regular application of fluoride varnish is one of the most effective ways in which to deal with dental health and prevent future dental problems. Where that has happened, it has reduced tooth decay in young children’s primary or milk teeth by a third, and by 46 per cent. in adult, permanent teeth. We know that if children have healthy milk teeth, the chances are that they will have healthy adult teeth. If they have decayed milk teeth, that may well lead to problems with their adult teeth. Getting to children early—certainly well before they are six—is an important part of improving oral health in this country.

Does the Minister agree that early intervention is the key? If a child is registered with a dentist, that dentist can call the child in for a pain-free experience of understanding how the surgery works, and how to brush and look after teeth, well before the fear sets in and the feeling of, “Whenever I go to the dentist, it’s going to be a painful experience.”

I was going to come to registration, but given that my hon. Friend has raised it, let me deal with it now. There is a demand from some dentists to reintroduce registration. If we look back at the history of that, dentists when my hon. Friend and I were young did not have registration as it existed after 1990, when dentists were paid to keep a register. That practice was ended, mainly because it did not seem to make much of a difference. Before 1990, and by and large—though not in all cases—since then, dentists have kept a list of patients. That enables dentists to keep their customers—dentistry is a business, albeit contracted to the NHS. It enables them to keep in contact with their customers—their patients—and ensure that they send regular notices to those patients to get them to come in for check-ups. Then the dentists can make the appropriate claim under the NHS dentistry contract.

Whether we should pay dentists for doing what the vast majority currently do without payment is debated. Some people say that we should reintroduce registration, which would mean that dentists were paid a fee for doing what most of them already do, because some dentists do not keep a list. It appears, though, that the vast majority still do, and the evidence suggests that the numbers on the lists are similar to those when people were registered. It is difficult, because we do not have regular records, to be entirely sure about how many keep a full and proper list.

Of course, because it is in some sense voluntary to do so, dentists who are anxious to run an efficient business for their patients keep in regular contact with them, but those who are less efficient or who have enough patients without lists may well not do so. However, I am not convinced at the moment that reintroducing a system of registration would be the best way of using NHS funding. We will look at the evidence—my mind is not entirely closed on the matter. The position is that the vast majority of dentists try to keep in contact with their patients, which is how they generate income under the NHS contracts.

Nottingham City PCT has been paying dentists to apply fluoride varnish to children, in line with Department of Health guidance. There is a great deal more that we can do to prevent tooth decay in communities, but I accept that we also need to improve access to dental practices. As I said, access to NHS dentistry is already improving across the country. A recent Which? survey published in June showed that nine out of 10 people who tried to find an NHS dentist in the past two years were able to get one, but we need to go further to ensure that every person who wants an NHS dentist can have one. The 10 SHAs in England, with the 152 PCTs, have set themselves the task of delivering access for all who seek it by March 2011.

In the year to June 2009, just over 64 per cent. of people in the Nottingham PCT area saw a dentist. Unfortunately, that figure represents a fall on preceding years. Nottingham City PCT is aware of that. We have been assured that it is carefully monitoring the situation. I think that it needs to do a bit more than that and to be proactive in dealing with the situation.

The PCT has, however, conducted extensive research and consultation, including through focus groups and questionnaires, to understand why people in Nottingham are not going to the dentist and to find out which services they would use. As a result of the consultation, the PCT is opening two new dental practices, in Bulwell and Bilborough, with a mobile dental service to work flexibly across the city. In addition, it will be initiating a targeted communications campaign to promote uptake of dental services. Those initiatives will be backed by increased funding for dental services in Nottingham City, with £16.2 million allocated for the current financial year.

The expanded national dental access programme is helping Nottingham City PCT to implement its dental strategy. The programme, led by Dr. Mike Warburton, supports the NHS to expand dental services rapidly where they are needed. It will work closely with Professor Jimmy Steele’s independent review of NHS dentistry. Professor Steele’s review is helping us to understand how dentists can deliver consistently high quality care while providing the right level of preventive work, as well as looking at how we can go further to reduce inequalities in oral health.

The core of our dentistry reforms—that the dental budget is held locally and that PCTs commission dentists directly to deliver NHS care—is here to stay. We need to ensure that PCTs such as Nottingham City increase the work that they are doing to ensure that we get much more effective responses regarding dental care. Demonstrating that and echoing the national picture, the number of dentists in Nottingham City PCT increased from 138 in March 2007 to 143 in March 2009.

The NHS is confident that it can achieve its aim of delivering access to a dentist for all who seek it within the next 18 months. We strongly welcome the level of commitment from SHAs and PCTs to tackle dental access while we have that ambitious time frame in place. It is going to take quite a lot of work to ensure that we hit the targets; we do not underestimate the challenge. The problems of access are considerable and they have grown over time, so they will not be turned around overnight or without significant effort. I assure my hon. Friend that the NHS in general and Nottingham City PCT in particular are committed to improving oral health and that the development of dental services in Nottingham is an integral part of the PCT’s priorities for local health services.

My hon. Friend raised a couple of other issues. First, he asked about an annual adult and child check for tooth decay and other oral health issues. He will know that there used to be a system of annual checks of children’s teeth, which was done by the school dentist. It cost some £17 million, but an independent review found that it did not have any effect on improving oral health in deprived areas. What happened was that children would be looked at by the school dentist and be told that they had some decay, but they would not be taken to the dentist. That is a problem, because it is in deprived areas in particular that we need to ensure that we improve oral health. The question is what is the best way to spend that £17 million. The view is that a better approach is to target areas of significant deprivation and ensure that effective resources are put into a real programme to teach children and adults about the importance of dental health.

The British Dental Association has considered whether we should have children’s dentists, and it takes the view that that is not the best way to spend such resources. We have acted on independent advice, but I hear what my hon. Friend says and, in principle, the idea that both adults and children should have an annual check for decay or any other problems is a good one. I shall discuss it with my hon. Friend the Under-Secretary of State for Health, who has responsibility for dental service issues.

My hon. Friend the Member for Nottingham, North also talked about the 2006 contract and how it has developed. Professor Steele’s review of that contract is important and bears close examination. Issues did arise with the contract. It was not piloted, and we have lessons to learn from that. Indeed, in looking at Professor Steele’s review we have decided that we do need to pilot his proposals so that we have a process for the introduction of changes to the contract that is broadly acceptable to dentists, the Government and the taxpayer. That process will also ensure that we do not create an over-complex contract by which we reward dental practices in a vast variety of ways. One of the problems with the old contract was its complexity, so we have tried to simplify it. We now need to examine the results of the independent review carried out by the team led by Jimmy Steele, and to ensure that the proposals in the document are considered carefully and properly piloted. If the pilots show that they are the best way of making changes, we should implement them as soon as possible.

Nottingham City PCT and East Midlands SHA are committed to ensuring improved oral health for the residents of Nottingham and to improving NHS dental services in the area. The increasing number of dentists demonstrates a real commitment. I applaud my hon. Friend’s presence today, despite his operation just a couple of days ago. It demonstrates his level of commitment to, and determination to serve, his constituents. His contribution today might have been painful for him, but I hope that it will at least prove worth while in raising the concerns of parents and children in Nottingham about the future of children’s oral health.

Question put and agreed to.