—Took the Oath.

asked Her Majesty's Government:

Whether the switchover from analogue to digital television can be achieved within their proposed timetable.

My Lords, the Government are committed to ensuring that terrestrial analogue broadcasting signals are maintained until everyone who can currently get the main public service broadcasting channels can receive them in digital form and switching to digital is an affordable option. We believe that these criteria, although challenging, can be achieved and that switchover can take place within the timeframe of 2006–10.

My Lords, I thank the Minister for that Answer. Does she accept that the current take-up of digital television has been almost entirely among subscribers to pay television and not those wanting access to free-to-view television? Does she further accept that it is unlikely that more than 60 per cent of the population will ever take up pay television subscriptions and that before analogue can be switched off there must be a significant increase in the take-up of digital free-to-view television services? Does the Minister consider that that is highly unlikely to happen by 2010 in view of the existing constraints on digital terrestrial television and the limited free-to-view services available, not helped, of course, by Tessa Jowell's decision yesterday?

My Lords, I accept that at present the numbers of people buying sets with integrated digital facilities are quite small. However, I understand that cheap set-top boxes will be available in the shops before Easter. They are expected to cost less than £100. That will lead to a substantial increase in the numbers of people able to go digital. It is extremely hard to anticipate what will happen by 2010. I suspect that the noble Lord, Lord Razzall, is being a little pessimistic about the likely take-up.

My Lords, as the owner of one of the cheap boxes described by the Minister—and I must say how greatly my picture has improved—I understand that BBC 4 is now available as a free service. However, it is not easy to locate. Why is not more publicity given about how one can receive that free service?

My Lords, I was not aware that there was a problem in locating the new BBC 4 service. I shall certainly take up the issue. I understand that a lot of information has been provided about how it can be obtained. I shall check with the BBC whether that is the case and, if not, how the situation can be improved.

My Lords, is my noble friend aware that Ceefax services have been withdrawn from the digital service provided by the BBC through subscription television? That hardly helps the case for switching from analogue to digital television because the text service provided is very much inferior to Ceefax. Viewers are constantly referred to Ceefax numbers—where one can look up addresses and obtain information about programmes which are to be transmitted—but that facility is not available on the digital service. The BBC should be asked why it has done this.

My Lords, I am very interested to hear what my noble friend says. Again, it is not a matter of which I was aware. I shall be very happy to make sure that this issue also is taken up with the BBC. It is vital that viewers and potential viewers have all the information that they need to make choices.

My Lords, have the Government estimated the value of the re-engineered analogue channels? If so—and I cannot believe that they have not made some estimate—would that not justify the provision of financial incentives to viewers to ease the transition to digital?

My Lords, it is far too early to talk about subsidising individual viewers to shift to digital. This is an area where the market should be allowed to work. As I said, there will be opportunities in the near future for people to obtain digital boxes at relatively low prices. I suspect that the take-up will be very large. We should be optimistic rather than pessimistic about the likely take-up.

My Lords, is my noble friend aware that what you do—at least in my case—is switch on the television set, click on the relevant BBC 4 button—and finish up with the most indescribably boring programme you have ever watched in your life? You then wish that it was a good deal harder to get the programme.

My Lords, my noble friend has strong views about many issues, including television programmes. All I can say to him is that if he does not like it he can switch over to another channel. If he has digital facilities he will have a large number of channels available from which to plan an alternative.

My Lords, if the Government are keen for us to have access to channels such as BBC 4 from 2006, would they consider the pragmatic step of doing the switchover on a rolling out basis—possibly on a transmitter, regional or channel by channel basis—just to make sure that we do not all find ourselves without access to television on switchover day?

My Lords, the noble Baroness raises an interesting issue on how the transmission can be managed. It is a point that the Government may want to consider when the time comes. Again, it is a little early to anticipate exactly the best way of managing the transition, but that is certainly a matter we shall want to take into account.

My Lords, does the Minister share the view of the chairman of the BBC that the noble Lord, Lord Peston, being a privileged member of the middle classes, should not have asked the question he asked?

My Lords, my noble friend would be extremely put out if I suggested that he could not ask any question that he wanted to ask in this House, so long as it was put in an amusing and courteous way, as is his wont. Of course, we need to take into account the views of all potential viewers, whatever their social background, their region and their particular interest.

asked Her Majesty's Government:

In what circumstances the capital invested in the London Underground under the public private partnership scheme would count as public expenditure.

My Lords, the PPP saves £2 billion of public money over the first 15 years of the contracts, in comparison to funding the same projects through conventional public investment. The plans will mean £16 billion of investment over the next 15 years.

In accordance with generally accepted accounting practice, capital invested in London Underground under the PPP would count as public expenditure if London Underground Ltd's accountants and auditors judged that the assets should be on London Underground's balance sheet.

My Lords, will the noble Lord confirm that the Government have issued a letter of comfort for the funds that will be borrowed by the infrastructure companies from the banks? In that event, would this count as part of the public sector borrowing requirement, or would it count as part of the balance sheet of Transport for London? In either event, would it not mean that the whole of the risk for investment in the Underground would be borne ultimately by the public sector, thus negating what we thought was one of the objectives of the PPP?

My Lords, those are two slightly different questions. On the point about the letter of comfort, yes, it is true that a letter of comfort has been issued, underwriting 95 per cent of the third party debt, which is not the same as shareholder funds. London Underground Ltd is a public corporation. Therefore, what is on its balance sheet affects the public sector net borrowing, which does not have any effect on the targets under our fiscal rules. On the noble Lord's final point, it really does not make any difference to the benefits of the PPP as we see them. That depends on the saving of £2 billion of public money. That applies whether the capital invested is off balance sheet or on balance sheet.

My Lords, I wonder whether it is too late for the noble Lord to seek to persuade the Secretary of State for Transport—who is somewhat prone to error—to resile from yet another serious mistake in introducing the PPP. Will the noble Lord point out to him that the recent report from Ernst & Young on this matter seems to me to be one of the most Delphic communications ever to emerge from a firm of consultants?

My Lords, I have listened carefully to the exchanges in this Chamber on the issue of the Ernst & Young report. I have listened to what the noble Lord, Lord Peyton, has said previously, and to what my noble and learned friend Lord Falconer has said in reply. It has nothing whatever to do with "on balance sheet" or "off balance sheet". Nevertheless, I thought that my noble and learned friend gave rather effective replies to the questions raised.

My Lords, does not the Question reflect the growing concern that the dangerous practice that has been revealed recently in the private sector of hiding a build-up of debt off the balance sheet might now creep into the public accounts via the public/private partnerships? Is not full disclosure the answer? Will the Government publish an analysis of the full amount of public liability that is, or may be, involved in all the existing public/private partnerships?

My Lords, the noble Lord is in danger of drawing a false analogy between what is happening here and what happened, for example, with Enron, where, indeed, funds—or lack of funds—were kept off the balance sheet. The issue here is one for London Underground's auditors. They have to decide whether the amounts of money involved in the public/private partnership make a change to London Underground's assets as a whole. By " London Underground's assets as a whole" I do not mean merely the book value of the assets—which exclude all the written-down assets over more than 100 years—but the total assets. That is the consideration that will influence the auditors in making a decision as to whether the amounts are off balance sheet or on balance sheet.

My Lords, will the noble Lord give the House an undertaking that he will deal with these matters in greater and more pertinent detail, in relation to the Statement which I understand is to be made later?

My Lords, no; the Statement which will be made this afternoon is not even remotely on this subject. It is about audit and accountancy in the public sector. The Statement is about the Sharman report, which is not about London Underground. It would take some ingenuity to get me to respond later this afternoon to these matters.

My Lords, does the Minister accept that, wherever this particular expenditure is scored, the real test of whether it is effective to replace public with private funding is, first, whether there is transfer of risk from the public sector to the private sector; and, secondly, whether it achieves the introduction of effective private-sector management disciplines? Would he be prepared for the PPP, in this case, to be judged on those two criteria?

My Lords, yes; I entirely agree with the noble Lord, Lord Blackwell.

My Lords, would it have been cheaper or more expensive to finance the London Underground capital investment through Ken Livingstone's bond option rather than through the PPP?

My Lords, the answer is no—partly for the reason just given by the noble Lord, Lord Blackwell, with which I have just agreed. As he rightly said, the issue in this case is the transfer of risk. Although that could be done by issuing bonds, and the price of bonds would be lower than the rate of return on capital that the private partners will expect, the private partners will be taking very significant risks in return for that rate of return. When such risk has been taken by the public sector—as, for example, in the extension to the Jubilee Line or the improvements to the Central Line—it has been shown to be very poor value for money for taxpayers.

My Lords, perhaps I should already understand this—I am sure that I should—but, given that the noble Lord is telling us that sometimes these enormous figures will be on the balance sheet and sometimes they will not, according to what the accountants say, how will the public know what their total debt is?

My Lords, the figures will not be sometimes on and sometimes off the balance sheet. At some stage soon after 10th April, when it is expected that the agreement between the private partners and London Underground will be signed, KPMG, London Underground's accountants, will make a decision on the whole of the amount. It will either be on or off. It will not be partly on and partly off.

My Lords, without discussing the balance sheet, can the noble Lord say whether giving letters of comfort exposes the Government to the risk and liability of ultimately having to meet the balance that they have guaranteed?

My Lords, as I made clear in an earlier answer, the letters of comfort are confined to third-party debt. Public discussion on these matters tends to make the wrong assumption—that they relate to shareholder funds.

asked Her Majesty's Government:

What impact anti-smoking initiatives are having on the numbers of people giving up smoking and taking up smoking.

My Lords, in the first six months of 2001–02, about 104,800 people set a quit date using the NHS smoking cessation services, and 53,500 had successfully given up at the four-week follow-up stage.

My Lords, I thank the Minister for that encouraging reply. As today is National No Smoking Day, will he join me in congratulating all those noble Lords who in the past year have given up smoking—or indeed not started smoking? Will he also tell us what investigations NICE has conducted into the cost effectiveness of the antismoking strategies and how those strategies compare with strategies to combat other substance misuse?

My Lords, I am delighted to congratulate all noble Lords who have given up smoking in the past year. I stopped smoking on 28th July, and I am still going strong at the moment—

Hear, hear!

My Lords, both Zyban and nicotine replacement therapy have been referred to NICE, and my understanding is that it will soon reach a conclusion. Unless an appeal is made against its final appraisal determination, that advice will, we hope, be issued very shortly.

My Lords, in congratulating the noble Lord on giving up smoking successfully, may I ask him whether he believes that the Government's anti-smoking initiatives are sufficiently robust and shocking to have an impact on the many teenage girls who take up smoking round about the ages of 13 and 14?

My Lords, the noble Lord is right to suggest that teenage smoking, particularly among young girls, is a matter of concern. The Government have a strategy designed to focus particularly on teenage smokers which I believe is effective.

As for the substantive point, on the actual messages given out, I draw the noble Lord's attention to the Smokescreen Youth Initiative, launched last autumn, in which young people themselves produced a set of films that have been shown on television and will soon, we hope, be shown in cinemas. The films are very hard hitting and entail young people talking to young people, and I think that they will be very effective in getting the message over.

My Lords, does the Minister agree that the Chancellor of the Exchequer's action in increasing tobacco duties has led to increased incentives for illegal smuggling and illegal distribution? Does he also agree that that has worked against the other government measures designed to reduce smoking, particularly by increasing the availability of cigarettes to young people?

My Lords, I do not think that one should underestimate the impact of fiscal policy on smoking habits. As a general point, research has consistently shown that demand for cigarettes is undoubtedly affected by their price. However, the smuggling of cigarettes and hand-rolling tobacco is a matter of concern to the Government, and we are dealing with it through a tobacco-smuggling strategy. The indications are that Customs and Excise has had some very big successes in the first year of that strategy and has hit its key target of holding the market share of smuggled cigarettes. It has seized 2.8 billion cigarettes and broken up 56 major excise smuggling gangs.

I should add that European Union countries which may have lower duty levels also face smuggling issues. I therefore believe that it is right to have a fiscal policy of discouraging smoking alongside vigorous policies to reduce smuggling.

My Lords, as one who is approaching the second anniversary of having given up, may I express my huge relief at no longer being a slave to that horrible weed? May I also say how much fresher I feel, and that I am sure that everyone who approaches me feels the same? I now find that when I approach someone who smokes, I am very conscious of the fact that they do smoke. However, in their approaches to the European Union, what are the Government doing about the subsidies being paid to countries to grow the most filthy, disgusting tobacco that there ever was?

My Lords, we seem to be taking on the character of a revivalist meeting. However, I know that the matter of EU subsidies causes concern both to noble Lords and to the Government. We have taken up the matter a number of times with the European Union, and we shall continue to press the matter very vigorously.

My Lords, as one who has not smoked since the age of 13, may I ask my noble friend whether the Government are any closer to implementing an approved code of practice on passive smoking at work, as recommended by the Health and Safety Commission rather more than two years ago? Has he been following developments in the Irish Republic, where the Irish Government are giving active consideration to banning smoking completely in pubs?

My Lords, the Government do not seek to go down the route of banning smoking in pubs. We have, however, encouraged the development of a partnership with the hospitality industry which will ensure that non-smokers are protected and that there is a choice of places to eat and drink so that they will not be bothered by other people's smoke. I think that a voluntary approach is desirable.

My noble friend will know that the Government are giving careful consideration to the Health and Safety Commission's proposals in the approved code of practice on smoking in the workplace. As part of that process, the commission has been asked to consider the implications of the code of practice for the hospitality sector and small businesses generally.

My Lords, what is the most important step that the Government could take to reduce deaths from smoking?

My Lords, we continue to press on with our anti-smoking strategy of which the development of smoking cessation services is an important part. We cannot be complacent, but there are encouraging signs on which we need to build.

My Lords, does the Minister agree that prohibition in the United States did not stamp out drinking and, if anything, encouraged it? It became smart to go underground.

My Lords, I do not believe that the two matters can be pooled together in the same category. First, smoking is harmful under any circumstances. I believe that a different situation exists in regard to alcohol, particularly for sensible drinkers. Secondly, it is not the Government's intention to make smoking illegal. We seek to ensure that in public places non-smokers, as far as possible, are not subject to passive smoking and we seek to develop programmes to help those who want to give up smoking to do so as effectively as possible.

asked Her Majesty's Government:

What discussions they have had with investment fund managers relating to their investments in Railtrack plc.

My Lords, my right honourable friend the Secretary of State held a meeting with representatives of the Railtrack Shareholders' Action Group and the Institutional Shareholders' Committee on 20th November 2001. A separate meeting with members of the Railtrack Private Shareholders Group also took place on 20th November 2001.

My Lords, I thank my noble friend for that Answer, in view of the wide range of subjects with which he deals. Has he seen the letter in The Times of 6th March written by investment managers? Usually they are highly respected members of the community—some of them are probably middle class, although their investment advice is not always correct. I am not now talking about Railtrack, but about a point that was made in that letter that they believed—not "thought"—that there was a regulation that made sure that downside risk was limited. Does the Government believe that to be true? If it is, can my noble friend tell the House which other privatised companies have their downside risk limited by regulation? If he would care to let me have the names of the companies—I declare an interest—I would be happy to consider investing in them.

Yes, my Lords, I was aware of the letter, published on 6th March in The Times written by the investment fund managers. It referred to a range of matters, including privatised companies with a downside risk regulated. I do not know of any other. I cannot draw the attention of the noble Lord to them. An article in the Financial Times commented on that letter, saying that a number of other people, including Tim Stone, chairman of corporate finance at KPMG, said that the issues raised in that letter had no effect on PFI generally.

My Lords, can the Minister tell the House whether he is aware of any letter of comfort, similar to that given for London Underground in response to the Question posed by the noble Lord, Lord Ezra, for debt or equity that would lead those investment fund managers to consider that the Government would not allow Railtrack to go into administration or liquidation or anything else?

My Lords, I am aware of no such letter. It is worth reminding the House of the first point of the April 2001 statement of principle between the Government and Railtrack, which clearly stated:

"The Government stands behind the rail system but not behind individual rail companies and their shareholders who need to be fully aware of the projected liabilities of the companies in which they invest and the performance risks they face".

That statement was made in April 2001.

My Lords, I declare an interest as an investment fund manager. Does the Minister agree that, due to Railtrack receivership, the relationship of trust between investment fund managers and the Government has broken down, so making it more difficult for them to support, with confidence, future railway expenditure without firm government guarantees?

No, my Lords, I do not believe that the relationship of trust has broken down. I shall quote what David Metter, the chief executive of Innisfree, one of the largest PFI equity investors, said:

"We have absolutely no concern that the Government will not honour its obligations under PPPs and PFIs".

My Lords, does the Minister agree that the reality is that no major passenger railway system in the world has ever broken even, let alone made a true profit; that every government have found themselves subsidising our passenger railway system; and that any private bidder will assume that on the basis of all history the Government will pick up the tab because it has no realistic alternative? It was a mistake to privatise British Rail, but having done so would it not be sensible to recognise the reality?

My Lords, I agree with the basic proposition. I cannot say that every single passenger rail system, but the vast majority, require a public subsidy. That has always been known. It was known in relation to Railtrack, but that is not the same as saying that the Government were providing a guarantee that they would always provide to that particular vehicle whatever it asked for, irrespective of the quality of its management and irrespective of the quality of its asset management.

My Lords, can my noble friend tell the House what has happened to free-market capitalism if fund managers managing millions of pounds are under the impression that there are downside risk-free assets in which one can invest? Adam Smith and Karl Marx would turn in their graves.

My Lords, to answer what has happened to free-market capitalism would require a wide-ranging reply. The noble Lord, Lord Northbrook, is probably the man to ask.

My Lords, can the Minister confirm that, as a result of the errors of omission or commission that the Government may or may not have made in the case of Railtrack, we the taxpayers will have to pay an extra £1 billion in interest payments to banks to compensate them for the perceived decline in the Government's credit rating?

My Lords, I do not accept that proposition. The party that my noble friend represents may ask whether it was wise to privatise Railtrack in the way that it did in 1994.

My Lords, between the two short debates today, my noble friend Lord McIntosh of Haringey will, with the leave of the House, repeat a Statement being made in the other place on audit and accountability in central government.

It may be for the convenience of the House to know that the usual channels agree that the House will sit at 11 a.m. on Tuesday, 19th March for the debate on hunting with dogs.

rose to call attention to the case for raising public awareness of the work of Parliament; and to move for Papers.

The noble Lord said: My Lords, the institution of Parliament is fundamental to our political system. It is the vital link between citizen and government. People speak to government through Parliament. It is the authoritative public body for calling government to account. A healthy Parliament is central to the well being of the political system and central to the health of Parliament is public awareness of, and support for, the work that it does. A Parliament that is starved of public support is an isolated and, ultimately, vulnerable institution. In short, Parliament and the public need one another and each ideally needs to recognise the importance of the other. That recognition, I suggest, is lacking. There is declining public interest in what Parliament does and a failure on the part of Parliament to develop links with citizens.

Let me identify what I believe to be the causes of this poor relationship. They are several and are not confined to Parliament. I suggest that the problems are structural, attitudinal, behavioural, and societal. By structures, I refer to parliamentary structures. The two Houses are not structured, or rather are not as well structured as they could be, to facilitate public awareness of what goes on within Parliament. Much of the present debate about parliamentary reform focuses on the relationship between Parliament and the executive. That is of fundamental importance and I very much welcome the debate that is taking place. However, what tends to be neglected is the relationship between citizen and Parliament and, indeed, between Parliament and citizen. Although there is greater transparency in parliamentary proceedings than previously was the case, both Houses tend to stick with structures, as well as procedures and practices, that are not geared to encouraging public interest in, and access to, the work of Parliament.

By attitudes, I refer especially to the attitudes taken towards Parliament by government and the media. If government and the media take the attitude that Parliament is somehow peripheral, a body not to be taken seriously, then it is not surprising that citizens generally are not inclined to take much interest in Parliament. A dismissive attitude toward Parliament is not new but it is becoming more pronounced.

Successive Speakers have had to remind Ministers in another place that statements of new policy should be made first to Parliament and not to a press conference. Media interest is limited. The press galleries for most of the time resemble the "Marie Celeste". What coverage there is has shown a qualitative change. The sketch-writer has taken over from the parliamentary reporter. Television coverage has diminished since the cameras were first admitted. Coverage of the committee work of Parliament in particular attracts far less attention than it did a decade ago.

However, parliamentarians cannot be absolved from responsibility. Some Members do not always take Parliament seriously as a body for effectively scrutinising government. There is an inherent tension in the position of most MPs, being elected to support the party in government yet being Members of a body that is expected to subject to critical scrutiny that very same government. If the balance tips too far in favour of the government, then it is hardly surprising if the public take little interest in Parliament.

There is, in addition, a tendency on the part of some Members to be somewhat wary of the media. We criticise the media for not giving Parliament the attention that we believe it deserves, yet we tend to ignore how we might ensure that what we do is more attractive and more accessible to the media. We are too prone to make a virtue of economy at the expense of effectiveness.

Both Houses devote relatively few resources to public relations, to ensuring that what we do is promoted to the media and other bodies outside the House. Your Lordships' House has taken the lead in appointing an information officer. She does an excellent job. The other place has now followed suit. However, the resources we commit to public relations are minuscule compared to other parliaments. Indeed, the Scottish Parliament has more than three times the number of staff that this House has with responsibility for public relations.

By behaviour, I refer to the conduct of politicians. There is a problem at a collective as well as an individual level. The clash of beliefs represented by the political parties is healthy, indeed fundamental to our political system, but if the clash degenerates into mindless point scoring then it repels electors. Partisanship in the other House is a product of excessive party loyalty: MPs recognise that it does the reputation of the House no good but are unable to stop their party instincts from driving their behaviour.

At the individual level, if Ministers and parliamentarians behave in a way that falls below the standards expected of them by citizens, then their behaviour undermines popular support for and, consequently, interest in Parliament. Although we now have codes of conduct, a Parliamentary Commissioner in another place, and the Committee on Standards in Public Life, the public perception of the conduct of politicians remains a negative one. The perception is that politicians cannot be trusted to tell the truth and that they are out to further their own ends. That was made all too clear in the first report of the Committee on Standards in Public Life and it continues to be borne out by survey data.

Finally, and most important of all, there are changes in society itself. We have seen some significant shifts in the stance taken by citizens towards political institutions. In recent decades, according to some commentators, there had been a decline in the civic culture. Samuel Beer, the distinguished American political scientist, has argued that deference in Britain has given way to a new populism. Party leaders seek to tap that populism, to some extent directly. What has been termed "designer populism" has been a feature of the growth of presidentialism in British politics—the Prime Minister becoming detached from his own government as well as from party and Parliament and intervening in public policy as the champion of the people to address a particular problem. That development, as is implicit in what I have said, has been at the expense of parties and Parliament.

Not only has there been a more populist approach, but there has also been a change in participation. There has been a decline in support for political parties. People have found outlets for their political views through pressure groups—in some cases through direct action groups. Others have simply turned away from politics. Other attractions now absorb their energies.

A consequence of these developments is that there is limited and decreasing public interest in Parliament. People do not see Parliament as particularly relevant to their lives. It appears peripheral. That is reinforced by constitutional change, with powers passing to other bodies—the European Union, the courts and now elected assemblies in different parts of the United Kingdom. If there is an interest in political activity, then it is directed elsewhere.

We thus face a dilemma. Parliament is crucial to the health of the political system. It needs the support and interest of the people if it is to be a strong institution in fulfilling the tasks expected of it. That support and interest, on the whole, are not there. Parliament by itself cannot restore faith in political activity. We need to go wider than Parliament in order to achieve that. But it can go some way towards addressing the problem. It needs to adopt a more robust stance towards government, and especially towards the conduct of Ministers. It also, and crucially, needs to increase public awareness of what it is doing. That is a prerequisite for bolstering public support, although support will not necessarily flow from greater awareness. Parliament has to prove itself.

I turn to what needs to be done. We need to take a new approach to the media and, indeed, to citizens. The relationship between Parliament and citizen is, as I have argued, two way. We need to provide greater access for citizens to Parliament. We need to ensure that Parliament reaches out more to citizens. Furthermore, what people see, and what we tell people we are doing, has to be relevant.

What can we do to increase greater access? Interest groups send us a lot of material and constituents write to their MPs on an ever-increasing scale. But none of that gives us a clear view of what people think. We need to provide more structured means of ensuring that citizens have some input and are heard. One possibility is to make greater use of the Internet for on-line consultation. The Hansard Society—and I declare an interest as a member of the society's council—has already undertaken some on-line discussions for committees, including the Science and Technology Select Committee of this House. There are some problems associated with using the Internet for consultation, as the Commons Public Administration Select Committee has noted, but such techniques can help complement other means of contact.

Another important change would be to create, in another place, a petitions committee. Many citizens devote a great deal of time and effort to persuading people to sign petitions. Some petitions have many thousands of signatures. But the petitions go into a parliamentary black hole. Petitions committees, able to receive petitions, investigate them or pass them on to other committees, are features of many west European legislatures. The Scottish Parliament has one. The House of Commons used to have one. There is a powerful case for creating a new one.

The proposal for a petitions committee was advanced by the Conservative Party's Commission to Strengthen Parliament, which I had the honour to chair. Another proposal of the Commission was that your Lordships' House should regularly refer Bills to Select Committees before the usual Committee stage of a Bill. That would permit bodies outside Parliament to have some input into the legislative process and to do so in a highly transparent manner. A similar argument applies to the use of special standing committees in the other place.

I take these as examples of the kind of thing that we should be doing. What, then, of reaching out to citizens? I welcome the fact that the Parliament website has been re-designed and will soon come on-line, albeit far too late. I welcome the experiment with webcasting of parliamentary committees. But we must go further. As the modernisation committee in another place noted in its recent report,

"committee reports now look like documents from a previous era".

We need professionally designed documents. But that is just the beginning. We need a fundamental change of attitude towards the media and towards the dissemination of reports and information about what we do. We need more staff to promote our work to the media and to the wider public. Despite recent additions, we are grossly under-resourced. We need to push out material to anyone we think is interested in it. We should be disseminating reports, even Hansard, to groups, societies and any organisation with an interest in public policy. We need to bring the media in. Rather than politicians trooping over to 4 Millbank, we should be bringing 4 Millbank into the Palace of Westminster. We need to provide more space and facilities for the media. We need to make the Palace media-friendly. That involves a change of attitude and more resources. It also involves ensuring that what we do is relevant.

If citizens are to take an interest in what we do, we have to ensure not only that they see what we are doing but that what we do resonates with their interests and concerns. Here there is a problem, especially with the other place. Your Lordships' House does a good job in carrying out its functions. We could do better and we must ensure that what we do is better known and that there is greater input from people outside.

With the House of Commons, there is a more fundamental problem. Often, the issues that concern people outside are those that are discussed on free votes. Such occasions are rare and are generally squeezed out by the predictable debate that takes place between the parties. As a consequence, the House of Commons does not appear dreadfully relevant to the citizens who elected it. There needs to be reform of practices and procedures but also new thinking about the issues that Parliament discusses. The Commons Liaison Committee has recommended short debates on Select Committee reports, which I very much welcome. But what about short debates on grievances raised by petitions? That would be one way of re-connecting with the people.

I offer those as illustrations of what we should be thinking about and doing. The list is far from exhaustive. I hope that your Lordships will add to it during this debate. But I hope that I have shown the need for much more innovative thought about how Parliament connects with citizens. Some of my proposals may appear radical. My purpose in focusing on the wider context is to show that, relative to the problems we face, far from being radical, these are extremely modest proposals—modest, my Lords, and essential to the health of our parliamentary democracy. I beg to move for Papers.

My Lords, we are indeed grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Norton of Louth, for initiating this important debate. He made the case for Parliament. In all my years in the other place and in my brief time in this House, I never thought that I should ever have to rise to make the case for Parliament. That was almost inbred in us—part of our background and part of our history. We should not need to make that case. The sadness is that we need to do just that. That is a shameful situation.

Parliament must prove itself and, more importantly, Members of Parliament must prove themselves and assert themselves rather more. In the past few years, they have not done that and have been considered almost as part of the executive machinery, supporting the executive rather than questioning them and bringing them properly to account by asking them real questions. They should have been saying, "I am here to represent the people who sent me here, not to represent only my party. My party is important, but even more important than my party are my principles and this country". That should be the motivating force behind them all. Unfortunately, we have not seen that.

Let us get one thing out of the way at the outset: the standards of the conduct of Members of Parliament. I was the chairman of the Standards and Privileges Committee of the House of Commons. Of course there were one or two unpleasant cases, but they were a very small minority. If we consider the country as a whole. I would say that my colleagues on both sides of the House of Commons and on all sides of this House are honourable and decent men—men and women of much higher standards of probity and conduct than one would find in the population at large. So that is not the cause of the problems that we face. Naturally, it is a matter that we must deal with, but it has nothing to do with the decline of Parliament. Let us get that quite clear at the outset.

In fact, during the past few years we have seen the rapid decline in the reporting of Parliament. Part of that was due to the large government majority; part to a much greater consensus on a number of matters which made for fewer policy differences between the parties. Speeches in the House of Commons used to reflect strongly independent, personal views that made for comment in the newspapers and the media generally. However, speeches seemed no longer to have that force. Members of Parliament would say in private what they did not say on the Floor of the House. In the past, more of them were prepared to speak their mind even where they disagreed with their own party. So it was left to the parliamentary commentators in the press to interpret what they saw as the mood of Parliament, rather than the speeches in Parliament, which should have shown the greater division in reality as Members of Parliament saw it.

That allowed the sketch writers to whom the noble Lord, Lord Norton, referred greater opportunity to provide their own amusement amid their interpretation. Because it did not fully represent the views of dissenters on the Government Benches, and because the Opposition were reduced and demoralised, Parliament became more of a ritual of tit-for-tat as antagonistic views were thrown across the House of Commons. The House of Lords was much better in that respect, but as the House of Commons is the primary Chamber for commentators, the standing of Parliament was represented by what took place there.

Dissent by their own Back-Benchers is always inconvenient to government. We all know that. But such inconvenience did not prevent previous generations of Back-Benchers expressing their views openly and frequently—with courtesy, of course—as was the obligation of each Member of Parliament. In that respect, the role of the government Back-Bencher is crucial. It is that person who, speaking to others, can apply the pressure to alter policy. With such a large majority as we now have, that pressure is much reduced. Francis Pym, now the noble Lord, Lord Pym, had it quite right when in 1983 he pointed out the need for a modest majority. In such circumstances, Parliament can operate nearer to what the standard works on our constitution predict. It is in this situation that government can be held to account by their Back-Benchers when their voices and, occasionally, their votes cannot be overlooked. For that correct and honourable assessment, the noble Lord, Lord Pym, was sacked. That was sad.

Perhaps I may set out my personal position. As a member of the government party, like most other members, I have always believed that where I had no decided view opposing that of the Government, my responsibility was to support them. In the 1960s, I was chairman of a Back-Bench economic and finance committee, as was my noble friend Lord Barnett. I disagreed with the Government on two matters that the Prime Minister, Harold Wilson, put at the top of his political agenda. Those were the devaluation of the pound sterling, of which I was in favour, and the need as I saw it to withdraw our troops from East of Suez. The first subject, devaluation, was unmentionable; the second was also opposed by Harold Wilson who, in one memorable speech, said that our frontier was on the Himalayas.

My views, unorthodox at the time, aroused considerable interest. I set them out in Parliament. Parliament should not be an optional medium for setting out one's views; for a Member of Parliament, it should be the main one. So it was with Churchill, so it was with Lloyd George, so it was with Gladstone—so it was with all those great people of the past. We are only pale shadows of them, but in at least one respect, we should be able to do what they did and speak what we feel in this place. That is what we are here for.

Of course one supports government—frequently after argument, discussion and dissent—but one comes to one's own conclusions and one should express them here. That is what this place is about. Unfortunately, the other place has not been about that for some time. That is a great shame. People write their columns in the press, they give interviews of one kind or another, but if they have a view and want to express it, this is the place to do so. This is the heart of democracy. Unless we understand that and act on it, we are not doing anything about it.

An effective opposition sitting across the House of Commons Chamber is essential to the proper functioning of Parliament. Dissent on the government Benches—not opposition—is inconvenient but is essential for Parliament. Such are the aspects of Parliament that make it the centre of political ideas and action. The situation today may be much easier. The Opposition may be settling down now, after a long time, for the long haul. Many Labour Members who feared that they might be one-term MPs are beginning to use their position to assert themselves. Parliament as a whole may now be well on the road to re-asserting itself. If that proves to be the case, the press and the media generally may become more interested in the day-to-day work of Parliament.

A further cause for the lack of interest in Parliament is the increasing power of special advisers and the growing disillusionment with their role. As my noble friend Lord Hattersley reminded the House on Monday, the special advisers whom he used to know were different. They owed much of their legitimacy to the Fulton committee on the Civil Service. That committee, on which I served, agreed that there was a role for special advisers who were expert in their field but had political allegiances. That enabled them to fit in with the Civil Service and with the views and aspirations of the Minister whom they served. Such were Nikki Kaldor and Tommy Balogh. Another was Jack Straw, whose salary I happen to have confirmed while I was a Minister in the Civil Service Department.

Such people caused no problems. They were not grit in the machine; they were an asset to the Civil Service and to the Government. They were experts without executive power and acted as an expert link between the Minister and the higher Civil Service. They were valued in Whitehall, and there would have been no difficulty getting them to appear before Select Committees. Advisers now are rather more than the name suggests and are not even permitted to be questioned by the relevant Select Committees about their role and operations. If they are there, what are they doing? If we have to ask what they are doing, who should be asking that question? The relevant Select Committee should ask it, but Select Committees are not allowed to see them. They are not allowed to call them before them. Such people are taking on a role beyond that of special adviser; they are almost political appointees, in some senses.

The Select Committees need to examine the role and operation of such advisers. Some of them, without question, are very good, but why should they not be questioned? Why should we not know what they do, day by day, whom they see and how they handle themselves? The consequence of all that is increasing cynicism and lack of concern about the work of Parliament. I see that there is expected to be a new Civil Service Act in the next Session of Parliament. I hope that that will be confirmed by my noble and learned friend the Minister. It would be a valuable contribution, and the House could add quite a bit to it.

There is one important change that must be made. The Committee Office of the House has done much to promote public understanding of the activities of committees. In the other place, when I was chairman of the Liaison Committee, minutes of evidence were available fairly promptly. I argued for them to be made available overnight on the Internet. That made it possible for such information to form part of the following day's political news, so people could see what was going on, even if they were not present. If there was a matter of concern or interest to someone, they would be able to find out something about it.

The Liaison Committee went further and argued for uncorrected evidence to be made available overnight, with the proviso that it be clearly labelled on each page that it was uncorrected. Corrected evidence could, of course, be published later. The delay in publication allowed witnesses to correct any mistakes that they may have made in giving evidence. The evidence was available to journalists present, but was only partial. We argued that it should be complete. It was eventually agreed that the new arrangements should apply to Ministers, with further discussions to be held on extending the arrangements. As far as I know, the argument continues.

The position in your Lordships' House is that even corrected evidence is not available. For example, there have been no minutes on the Internet of the Economic Affairs Committee since last July. I have kindly been given draft minutes because of my interest, but such information should be freely available. I had some difficulty in achieving the widespread dissemination of minutes of evidence in the other place. I hope that I will not have long to wait for it here.

My Lords, I also thank the noble Lord, Lord Norton of Louth, for introducing the debate and for the powerful speech that he made. It will repay much careful study. It was densely packed with insight and suggestions. He was right to pay tribute to the parliamentary information services. They do a good job on a small budget. I imagine that it is common ground among your Lordships that a great deal more must be done. It is to that that I shall address myself.

As chairman of the Hansard Society—to which the noble Lord, Lord Norton of Louth, referred—I speak with particular conviction that more must be done. Over the years the Hansard Society has done much to try to bridge the growing gap about which we have heard between Parliament and the public. We are now poised to take a step up in our activity, in partnership with the Citizenship Foundation—I am glad to see my noble friend Lord Phillips of Sudbury, the president of the Citizenship Foundation, in his place—and the Electoral Commission. Our activity is designed to increase understanding of and respect for Parliament, especially among young people. Most of what I have to say will, indeed, be about young people.

Sadly, it is not the case that young people in this country respect and understand Parliament. Yet it is imperative for our democratic health that those people—the next generation—grow up with a good grasp of what Parliament does, how it does it and why it does it. In that respect, one need only compare this country with countries such as the Federal Republic of Germany or the United States. There, whatever the defects of the political system, no child grows up without a healthy and well developed respect for the constitution and the Bundestag or the United States Congress. Such respect does not exist today among our young people. In fact, the reverse is true. We see the negative and reverse image of that respect and understanding—ignorance and alienation.

MORI research carried out recently for the Hansard Society showed that there was a perception among 18 year-olds that Parliament is incomprehensible and irrelevant. As we know, turnout among first-time voters hit an all-time low at the last election. There is a massive job to be done. The citizenship curriculum, which I welcome—I think that it is one of the Government's most constructive educational innovations—gives us an opportunity to do that job. However, I would like an assurance from the Minister, when he responds to the debate, that, in a citizenship curriculum crowded with all sorts of worthy issues, the key issue of understanding Parliament will be a fundamental building block.

The aim of the Hansard Society-led consortium to which I have just referred is to give every student, during his or her school career, a taste of Parliament. We want to work with schools to take Parliament to students and bring them to Parliament. We want to do that virtually, creating a virtual Parliament on the web, and physically. We must connect better with young people.

Of course, when we say that they are ignorant of Parliament, we do not mean that they are not interested in issues. They are intensely interested in issues, but they do not see the connection between this House, the other place and our procedures, and the issues that interest them. Many issues interest young people, among which are public policy issues and the environment, including conservation issues. Student grants have been a controversial subject in Parliament. Young people are interested in issues such as—if I dare to say it from these Benches—the decriminalisation of cannabis. All those matters have particular salience for young people today, but they do not see Parliament as the place in which they are dealt with; nor do they know how they are dealt with. They do not see the connection between their interest in issues and the way in which they are dealt with in the public sphere.

As I listen to young people being conducted around this place by our admirable staff and others, I have to say that very often the lens through which they are invited to see Parliament is a historical one. They are invited to view this great institution as though it were a historic monument or house, with wonderful history attached. That is important but it is as nothing compared to our working institution which is designed to protect, guard and advance the interests of the public.

We need a feasibility study on whether there should be a large visitor centre to increase the carrying capacity of this House which, at present, is scarce. Your Lordships cannot abuse the carrying capacity of this House if we are to do our job, but such a centre would give people a chance to understand what they were about to see before they came into the Houses of Parliament. We need to examine that proposal very carefully.

I should like to move on to the issue of the media—always a popular dog to kick in your Lordships' House—and in particular to the role of television. We shall shortly discuss the communications Bill—although it seems to be indefinitely postponed—and in that Bill the issue of public service broadcasting will loom large. Only in Britain would we spend hundreds of millions of pounds of taxpayers' money through the licence fee to secure the vital good of the public interest and not be prepared to define exactly what that interest is and how it is to be safeguarded by the broadcasters. If public service does not include communicating the role, activities and value of our national democratic institutions, what else can it possibly include? That must be fundamental to any definition of public service broadcasting.

Today, the coverage of Parliament is wholly inadequate, not only by the BBC but by other terrestrial broadcasters who have public service obligations. I know that many of the talented and well-motivated people who work in news and current affairs would agree with my criticism. The problem is that parliamentary coverage is confused with political coverage. We all understand very well how they relate to each other, but it sometimes seems that some of the pier-end entertainment managers who appear to have taken over the direction of British television think that there is no difference between parliamentary coverage and political coverage.

They can just about get their minds around adversarial politics because that is good knockabout stuff. They quite enjoy elections because they treat them almost as a sporting event, though not as entertaining as the Cheltenham Gold Cup. When they think about Parliament, they can barely stifle their yawns. The idea that Parliament could be interesting or important is a peripheral issue within political coverage, which is seen to be primarily about adversarial fun and games.

As a result of the communications Bill, I hope that we shall see a firm commitment, as part of the public service remit, that the activities of Parliament be properly covered by television and radio. I should like the Minister to draw to his colleagues' attention at the DCMS that this is a fundamental matter of public interest which must be protected and not be treated, as it so often is by broadcasters, as an ego-driven whinge from party politicians wanting their speeches covered. I should be grateful if he can pass on the public interest argument to his colleagues.

Finally, having criticised others, we must, as the noble Lord, Lord Norton, says, be open to the possibility, that the fault lies not just in the stars, but in ourselves. Does Parliament work sensible hours in a workmanlike way? Is it accessible and accountable?—values much rated in contemporary society. Are its procedures arcane and archaic or straightforward and understandable? Does it have joined-up legislation between both Houses? There is a massive challenge for Parliament to make itself effective and the Government accountable. The Hansard Commission, chaired by the noble Lord, Lord Newton, made some very sensible recommendations, some of which were taken up in the report of the modernisation committee last month.

There is a tide for parliamentary reform which comes probably once in a generation, but it is running very strongly. There are now 237 members—Peers and MPs—of the All-Party Group for Parliamentary Reform. The Leader of the House in another place, is open to and, we hope, committed to reform. Will he be remembered like Richard Crossman and Norman St John-Stevas as a parliamentary reformer? There is a mood in Parliament to address this issue, not only in your Lordships' House but at the other end of the corridor. The noble Lord was right to refer to the merits of web consultation. We should use the web to consult with experts and the general public on a regular basis, not just occasionally.

I conclude by asking the noble Lord to add his considerable weight to that of his colleague, the Leader of another place, in trying to move the agenda on from what often seems too much manipulation and populism in Parliament to one of modernisation and participation. That is something for which the Government would be remembered with gratitude for generations.

My Lords, I welcome this opportunity to discuss the case for raising public awareness of the work of Parliament, particularly at a time when we are facing a complex and rapidly changing environment and when the degree to which it functions effectively, its relationship with government and its success in representing the public, are being increasingly questioned. I congratulate my noble friend Lord Norton on his success in this ballot and the choice of subject.

The work and role of Parliament and the associated issues of parliamentary reform merit far greater discussion. It is a vitally important subject and one to which we do not devote enough time—to the detriment both of democracy and society. Good government and an effective Parliament are intrinsically linked. If we do not have an effective Parliament, not only do we not have good government, we do not have a healthy political system or a vigorous democracy.

In my remarks, I wish to range wider than the current work of Parliament and to look to its future shape and role in national life. I have spoken before of the disconnection between the people and their democratic institutions in this country. While civic life is prized in new societies, in established democracies a growing number of citizens are increasingly questioning the effectiveness of their public institutions. Most developed societies are experiencing a collapse of confidence in traditional methods and models of democratic governance. Our last general election certainly proved this, in contrast to Zimbabwe where people queued for 50 hours or more to vote in the presidential elections, because, deprived of true democracy, they know its worth.

Last year's general election here produced the lowest voter turnout since 1918. Millions of British people were prepared to forgo the opportunity to participate in the democratic process. Some 41 per cent of the population did not vote, and of those who did fewer than a quarter voted for the Government. That underlines the need for a strong Parliament, able to scrutinise legislation and contain the executive, of whichever political hue.

Since the general election, confidence in politicians and political institutions has continued to wane. Many of your Lordships will be all too aware that more people voted in the final of the television programme "Pop Idol" this year than voted for the Liberal Democrats in the last general election.

My Lords, I understand that more people voted in that event than voted for the Liberal Democrats and the Conservatives in the last election.

My Lords, I cannot agree with that. My calculation was that 8.7 million people voted in "Pop Idol" and the collective number would have been greater. However, I may stand corrected once I have checked the arithmetic.

In those circumstances, there is little cause for optimism in the future. Levels of disengagement are likely only to increase, because—and here I totally agree with the comments of the noble Lord, Lord Holme, about the importance of engaging young people—the problem is most acute with the young. Some 61 per cent of the 18 to 25 age group did not vote in the last election. I ask the Minister to pick up on the point that disconnection on that scale among young people poses a significant threat to the long-term health of our democratic institutions.

Voter participation is an essential part of a healthy democracy. While to some extent I understand the argument that we are living in what has been called a post-political age, in which the blurring of the old sharp ideological divides between Left and Right and the crowding of politics on the centre ground mean that people perceive little difference between the political parties and feel that voting one way or the other will make little difference to their lives, the malaise goes deeper than that. As the noble Baroness, Lady Boothroyd, said in her farewell address in another place:

"The level of cynicism about Parliament, and the accompanying alienation of many of the young from the democratic process, is troubling. It is an issue on which every Member of the House should wish to reflect. It is our responsibility, each and every one of us, to do what we can to develop and build public trust and confidence".—[Official Report, Commons, 26/7/01; col. 1114.]

I do not believe that the public are more apathetic now than a generation ago, but I believe that there is a misalignment between national politics and local activism. There is no longer a perception that social, economic or environmental problems will necessarily have a political solution. As a result, our political institutions are no longer seen to be the key focus for change.

In many ways, activism is growing, but respect for the political process and the traditional institutions through which politics used to function is collapsing. Today, the targeting of the business world by NGOs and pressure groups is often seen as more likely to be an effective vehicle for change than elective politics. Yet if voters choose to sideline Parliament because they see politics as unfashionable and irrelevant to their lives, there will be grave consequences for society.

Democracy is only as good as its citizens. Good citizenship requires knowledge and participation. We know too much about the perils of dictatorship to indulge in the myth that democracy is simply a designer accessory. Democracy is by no means a perfect system. It has faults, flaws and deficiencies, but after 2,500 years it is still the best and fairest system of government known to man. The commitment to democratic accountability and legitimacy underpins the most successful governments and states in the world.

Representative democracy is critical if competing interests are to be reconciled not only peacefully, but in a coherent way. The collective will of the people must be manifested in our democratically elected Parliament, from which the Government are formed. If our elected representatives lose their authority because their mandate comes from ever fewer voters, the unelected and unaccountable activists will step into that vacuum, claiming that, on a given issue, it is they, not Parliament, who truly represent the people. Mob rule is not far from that scenario—witness the case of the anti-paedophile protests on the Paulsgrove estate in Portsmouth in 2000.

The way in which Parliament and politics are presented through the lens of the media is clearly influential in forming public attitudes. Ironically, the overall effect of increased media access to Parliament has been to make the political system seem more distant and less relevant to everyday life. The media have been criticised for dumbing down their coverage of politics. In part that is due to the dog-eat-dog fight for audience share, which means that entertainment is likely to win at the expense of information. That contributes hugely to the current soundbite culture of our political life. This language drives the public away, because they perceive a departure from the politics of conviction towards the politics of expediency.

Yet it is difficult to expect the media or the public to take Parliament seriously when the Government so often sideline it. The relationship between Parliament and the Government is one of the most fundamental in our democracy. The Government are elected through Parliament and deserve and derive their political authority from that fact. It should be a salutary lesson for governments that if Parliament is undermined, eventually so too will be the authority of the Government. To neglect Parliament is to neglect the body that confers the legitimacy necessary for a government to act and the body that ensures that the views of the public, whom it represents, are taken into account. Parliament is integral to public policy making, not separate from it or inferior to it. Yet we are increasingly drifting towards an executive approach to government, with executive announcements and action taking the place of decision-making through parliamentary debate.

In that context, Parliament must be able to regulate and police itself effectively. The resignation of the Parliamentary Commissioner for Standards, Elizabeth Filkin, her complaints of undue pressure and whispering campaigns and her criticism of the lack of independence and resources to be offered to her successor were highly damaging to the reputation of Parliament. It is vital that Parliament maintains high standards of probity and good conduct, for if it does not, how can it deserve its rightful place at the centre of our national life?

In closing, I place on record my thanks and admiration for the work done by the House of Lords administration, which has greatly improved public accessibility to your Lordships' House and plays a great role in facilitating understanding of its work as part of Parliament. The challenge that we face—this is a challenge for the Government, for political parties of all complexions and for Parliament—is how to deliver politics in an accessible way and to kindle political interest by ensuring that all people, young and old, are made aware of the relevance of politics to their lives. Voter disconnection from formal politics is not the inevitable outcome of a post-political, information age world. Without a 21st century Parliament for a 21st century Britain, efforts to re-engage the public will meet with only limited success.

My Lords, like others, I thank the noble Lord, Lord Norton of Louth, for introducing this debate. Judging by the numbers who have attended it, it has struck a chord with the House—and so it should. As my noble friend Lord Holme of Cheltenham said, I am president of the Citizenship Foundation, which I founded in 1988. As long ago as 1969, I persuaded a headmaster to allow me into his school for one lesson a week for a year, to see whether I could interest apathetic 15 year-olds in politics and the law. That was a lesson more for me than them and one that I have never forgotten. It was heart-lifting to discover that so-called apathetic, disenchanted and disconnected young people were hugely interested in the moral issues debated in this Chamber from month to month. But they lacked confidence that anyone was interested in their opinions and the belief that their views were worth developing and expressing.

In the intervening 30 years, those problems have grown substantially. I refer particularly to the sense of powerlessness and civic insignificance of the vast majority of our fellow citizens. We—by which I mean this House and another place—do not understand just how disaffected people feel. I did my stint of canvassing at the last general election. Never before did I hear the constant refrains, "What is the point of voting? Nobody really cares or notices what we think. They only take any interest in us when an election comes around. Our MP is a decent enough person but utterly insignificant. MPs say one thing to your face and vote for something else in the House. They are powerless, so what does that make me?"

Sheep-like Back-Benchers are shoved through the Lobby night after night, often voting uneasily and sometimes directly against what they feel and believe.

There is a schism between the values that people hold dear in their own lives and the values that they see characterised by Westminster. In their own lives, people value integrity, independence and moral courage. There is a great deal of all that in the Palace of Westminster but the public do not see much of it. Among the most difficult of the thorny issues with which we have to contend is that on which the noble Lord, Lord Sheldon, concentrated—the relationship between party discipline and the activities of Members—particularly of another place. Even in this House the situation in that regard is getting worse, not better.

Until we re-establish in the minds of the public a sense that their Members of Parliament are independent agents—albeit governed by party discipline and having to sign up to an election manifesto—with infinitely more freedom to be what the electorate want MPs to be, a great deal else will not succeed.

The predicament in which we find ourselves is even worse than many may think. It is not just that only 39 per cent of the electorate under 25 voted at the last general election, a point to which the noble Lord, Lord Moynihan, referred. One third of those under-25s are not registered to vote. If one subtracts them from the 39 per cent, only one in four of under-25s voted at the last election. In the elections for the European Parliament, only one in 10 of under-25s voted. What does that say about politics?

Party membership is also rapidly declining, which raises a serious problem of the authenticity of government. No longer can governments make the claims that they could when more than 60 per cent of young people and more than 70 per cent to 80 per cent of the total electorate voted in general elections. It is no longer adequate for governments to say, "We have the authority of the ballot box". They do not.

Politics are not in a box but are intimately bound up with the whole of our social and communal strength or weakness. Of the under-30s in this country, more than 30 per cent have convictions for crimes of dishonesty or violence. In 1999–2000, the direct costs of crime—not the psychological damage—totalled more than £60 billion. The majority and rising element of that crime was committed by people under 30. Make no bones about it—we have on our hands a sick society. The violent aspect of antisocial behaviour is rising faster than any other. It is simplistic and futile to lay all the blame at the door of Parliament, but our country more than any on earth, except perhaps America, has an intimate connection between politics and its general health.

The Citizenship Foundation has active connections with more than half of all state primary and secondary schools. The gap between the relevance of this place to the so-called ordinary citizen and its actual relevance is enormous and growing, so I totally endorse everything that has been said about increasing the information output. The tiny band of people in our Information Office do wonderful work but there are fewer of them than in a medium-sized public company. We need to reach out.

One thing that we could do is have a speaking list, with each one of us offering to speak—not just to schools but to anyone who wants to hear about the work of Parliament. I do not imagine that any Member of this House would refuse to give half a dozen evenings a year for that purpose. Think what a transformation that would represent—3,000 or 4,000 occasions a year when we would be going out to the public. There could be no more effective sign of our interest.

I was infinitely depressed when, during our debate on the Nice treaty, I moved an amendment requiring the Government to circularise every household with an unbiased, plain English guide to the main issues vis-à-vis the governance of the kingdom. I was depressed by the lack of interest shown by government speakers, who seemed to think that everything was more or less all right because the White Paper that was published last year, price £10.40, was on a website; another pamphlet could be read in libraries; and Peter Hain had made a few public speeches.

We need to do infinitely more. We must get on our horses and go, like Wesley, into the highways and byways to sell our wares. Unless we do, the problems that we confront now will grow worse and worse.

We live in a disconnected, fast-moving world in any event. There is less informal communication than before and a decline in communality and local life. Volunteering and giving are not increasing. The latest statistics show that among the under-30s, there is a radical decline in the giving of both time and money. Even at the seminar at Church House yesterday, the BBC complained that it can no longer connect effectively with the young adult age group. We have a real problem in the form of communal, social and national disconnectedness. There is no easy answer to that. However, some of the suggestions made today will undoubtedly help.

In the final minute allotted to me I shall make a few specific suggestions. First, I suggest that we should have a post-legislative audit or impact assessment. That is because I believe that the volume of legislation is ludicrous and that the complexity of legislation is utterly self-defeating; and I would like to see a duty imposed on the Law Commission to keep track of those matters. We should have more limited-life legislation. We may need to consider carefully a common law approach to statute law, which broadly deals with principles and values rather than the minutiae of our traditional legislation.

We also need to consider the system of elections for Europe. The closed-list system was an affront to democracy. We need to contemplate open primaries because, even with open lists, there is still a gross excess of party membership influence on those lists.

We need to give advance warning of our debates and Bills—an active outreach that will allow us to contact every organisation relevant to our debates and Bills and let them know what subjects are to be debated and the results of those debates. I also believe that the Schools Unit—God bless it—needs 100 times more resources.

My Lords, I, too, am most grateful to my noble friend Lord Norton of Louth for introducing a subject of very great importance. I am also grateful to the House of Lords information officer. She has produced an excellent brief of the work that she and her team are doing to try to promote a greater awareness of the role of Parliament.

I suggest that any debate must start with the government of the day, no matter what their colour. Governments can help to promote greater awareness by treating Parliament with more respect. We need to reverse the growing tendency of Ministers to bypass Parliament and to make statements first to the media. That undermines the authority of Parliament and partly explains why people, particularly young people, do not bother to vote—a point impressively made by the noble Lord, Lord Holme of Cheltenham. We need to remind ourselves repeatedly that Parliament is supreme. Parliament makes and very occasionally dismisses governments. A strong government needs a strong Parliament. It is in the interests of the government of the day to help restore the authority of Parliament and promote public awareness.

Today we hear much about the modernisation of Parliament. I have now had the privilege of sitting in one House or the other for over 30 years. I am always suspicious of modernisation, which usually means that the government of the day can more easily get their business. I am glad to see the noble Lord, Lord Norton, with his enormous experience in these matters, nodding in assent.

I give one example of what worries me. There is a suggestion that it may be possible to carry over Bills from one Session to the next. I believe that that would be extremely dangerous and unparliamentary. One of the main disciplines of government—any government—is to persuade Parliament to accept a Bill by the end of a Session—otherwise, that Bill falls. Equally, of course, it is important for the Opposition of the day. There are occasions on which the only effective weapon available to the Opposition of the day is to talk. They can delay the passage of a Bill if they feel that it is not in the national interest that the Bill should pass. Provided it is done within the Rules of Order of the two Houses, that is perfectly legitimate.

I suggest that to allow the carry-over of Bills would tempt the Government of the day to overload the legislative programme, which they already do, and would deprive the Opposition of the day of a legitimate parliamentary weapon. We need fewer and better Bills, not more and worse Bills. I believe that the bad effect of carrying over Bills from one Session to another would blunt public awareness and respect for Parliament.

We have also heard about the possibility of a Civil Service Bill. Recent events have made it clear that we need to define more precisely the relationship between Ministers, civil servants and special advisers. For years there has existed in our system of government a key principle of trust between Ministers and civil servants who are devoted to the cause but are wholly non-party political and will loyally serve whichever government are in office. The waters are now muddied. I do not suggest that we should not have special advisers. We are now in that age, and I am very glad that the Committee on Standards in Public Life is now studying those problems.

There is a rumour—I am sure that the noble and learned Lord who is to respond to the debate will be able to comment on it—that Downing Street is trying to hold up the possibility of a Civil Service Bill. I do not expect the noble and learned Lord to tell us what will be contained in the next Queen's Speech. However, I hope that he will be able to scotch that rumour, thus allowing us to say that a Civil Service Bill will have high priority in the Government's programme.

I turn to executive agencies and quangos, which were mentioned by the noble Lord, Lord Sheldon, whose enormous experience in the other House we greatly respect. This is another area where there are disturbing developments. Oppositions are always rather cautious and suspicious of quangos. The minute they come into government, of course, they realise how handy they are and tend to increase the number of them.

In executive agencies and quangos, there is now a huge power of patronage, supported by vast sums. The effect that they have on individuals and businesses is very considerable. They are not effectively answerable to Parliament. I am not against executive agencies. Much is to be said for the Government laying down the broad policy and allowing the details to be dealt with by executive agencies. In recent years such agencies have grown enormously, but parliamentary scrutiny of them has not grown to anything like the same extent. That point was made very clearly in a distinguished report from the Hansard Society, The Challenge for Parliament, chaired by my noble friend Lord Newton of Braintree.

Equally, I am not against quangos. In a modern age, we possibly need quangos. However, they are often created without any reference to Parliament; for the most part, they are not required to report to Parliament; and they are outside the direct scrutiny of the Comptroller and Auditor General. Consequently, it is very difficult for Select Committees in either House to scrutinise their work effectively, even if they had the resources to do so.

I suggest that there is a growing gap in effective scrutiny of bodies that have a major role to play in Parliament. This partly explains the lack of public interest and awareness. People will, understandably, ask, "If Parliament cannot do this job, what is the point of us trying to take an interest?" I believe that to be one of the reasons for the decline in the prestige of both Houses of Parliament.

In conclusion, I shall mention very briefly four disturbing developments that seem to me to be important for Parliament. The first development is Ministers bypassing Parliament. I am not making a party-political point here because parties of both colours have done it. Secondly, there are the modernisation proposals that make it easier for the Government and more difficult for the Opposition. Thirdly, there is the confusion as regards relationships between Ministers, civil servants and advisers. Fourthly, while methods of government have moved on, Parliament has been overtaken, in its attempt to scrutinise these developments. This insidious combination is, I suggest, largely responsible for public apathy and lack of awareness. Only Westminster and Whitehall can put this right.

My Lords, I agree with the noble Lord, Lord Norton, that there is a strong case why we in Parliament should see a big rise in the public awareness of our work. After all, we are here on behalf of the public. I congratulate the noble Lord on moving this Motion. As I see it, the problem is that the public may not really want to be aware of the work that we carry out in Parliament. Many people believe that our work here is far removed from their day-to-day lives. It seems to me that what they are really interested in is the politics that goes on in Parliament, rather than the work. They are interested in the differences of opinion; they are interested in the personal rivalries; and they are interested in the political ambitions. I am not being cynical. I am just trying to be realistic.

The noble Lord, Lord Holme, said that the work of Parliament and the politics of Parliament are inextricably linked. I agree. You cannot just raise awareness of our work without acknowledging the public's interest in our politics. It would be naive to think that we will be judged purely on the quality of our work. We shall also be judged on how we handle the politics. The openness, the honesty and the transparency with which we deal with the country's politics will also affect the interest that the public have in our work. The two are indeed linked.

What should we do about the situation? Let us look at it from the point of view of the public. Perhaps our parliamentary system is not as admired and appreciated by the public as much as we parliamentarians would like to suppose. What we see as useful and helpful procedures, perhaps the public see as fudge and secrecy. Let us take, for example, the decisions reached by the usual channels. This happens every day. We see it as a helpful way of reaching compromises, but it must be pretty mysterious to outsiders. To the outsider, this could be rather like the activities of a secret organisation. Anyway, the public now know that work is done better when it is openly discussed. That is why we should open up our procedures and let people see who takes decisions in Parliament.

The noble Lord, Lord Norton, says that our committee work is reported less; I am not sure why, but I believe that this openness is a special feature of our committee work, especially in your Lordships' House. That is why it is much admired. The committees consider things broadly from the public interest point of view. The European Union committees, the economics committee, the Science and Technology Committee and the ad hoc committees all try to make their work relevant to the public interest rather than to the political interest. Like the noble Lord, Lord Norton, I believe that our reporting ought to be a lot more user friendly and better presented, but I know that that work is in hand. I hope that we shall achieve that aim very shortly.

However, we have been slow and late in our attempts to inform the public about our work. An information office in your Lordships' House was established only five years ago—and, more recently, in the other place. The money and staff devoted to it are minuscule. I agree with the noble Lords, Lord Norton, and Lord Phillips. The resources devoted to the press and information office of a government department, a business, or, indeed, of other parliaments are much larger than those that we supply. I do not wish to detract from the work of Mary Morgan and her staff. They deal with 2,000 telephone calls a month when the House is sitting, and ensure that the press is informed about our current work and future business. I also happen to know that it was their initiative that the parliamentary website should be redesigned to make it easier to use and more attractive to the public. I hope that my noble and learned friend the Minister will join me and other noble Lords in congratulating that department on its work.

The noble Lord, Lord Norton, asked if our behaviour is one reason why the public are less interested in our work. My noble friend Lord Sheldon, with his vast experience, thinks that that may be exaggerated. I rather agree with the noble Lord, Lord Moynihan. The public should expect high standards of personal behaviour from parliamentarians. After all, parliamentarians are law makers. The public expect law makers to stick to the law, to set standards and to be honest. I agree that exaggerated reporting sometimes leads to unnecessary public anxiety. But if you talk to reporters, they will say that they are responding only to what they feel to be public interest and concern.

Instead of responding to the narrow accusations and political rivalries about which my noble friend Lord Sheldon spoke, it seems to me that we could do far better using these opportunities to break out of the low ground that is currently permeating politics. By regaining the high ground, we could shift the agenda back to the political direction of the country and so create a better understanding of the work that we accomplish in Parliament. Yes, sometimes this kind of action injures its originator. We in the Labour Party are perhaps victims of its rules about disclosure of political donations, but that does not detract from its merits.

I agree with the noble Lords, Lord Moynihan and Lord Phillips, that the real worry about all this is falling participation at elections. There is a danger that the turn-out at the next general election could fall below 50 per cent. Are those who stay away saying that they want to vote for none of the candidates? Are they staying away because they just do not care? The noble Lord, Lord Norton, asks: is it that the public's influence on decisions is getting more and more distant as we join international organisations? Decisions that affect people's lives are becoming more distant. Yet, paradoxically, the world is coming closer together. We may not be sharing the same currency as others in Europe, but it is becoming apparent that we share many of the same values and ideals.

Perhaps to stimulate us we need a campaigning organisation like Greenpeace. In the same way that it stimulated concern about the environment, perhaps we need a similar campaigning organisation to stimulate us to face up to the concerns of the public and to tell us where it believes we have failed. The noble Lord, Lord Holme, is the president of the Hansard Society and the noble Lord, Lord Norton, is on the council. Perhaps they could persuade the society to turn itself into such a campaigning organisation. The Hansard Society seems to be saying to us that we parliamentarians indulge too much in politics and management and too little in governance—not government, governance.

The society calls for more governance by Parliament through scrutiny. The noble Lord, Lord Dean of Harptree, spoke about scrutiny, which would have to be more systematic and better-resourced, not only with more money and people but with more time devoted to it. As the Hansard Society suggests, perhaps Parliament should devote one day a week to scrutinising the work of government instead of simply debating it. I know that we parliamentarians prefer to debate the work and effectiveness of government, but that is largely political. Scrutiny by committees, whose Members have a career in Parliament devoted to scrutiny, would be better understood by the public as a means of scrutinising the work of government. The Public Accounts Committee and the Audit Commission are showing the way in that regard. Such scrutiny would be better understood by the public and would raise their awareness of our work.

I realise that governments like to be judged by results; after all, what could be clearer? As many noble Lords have said, we live in a democracy. A democracy must be concerned about how those results were achieved. So, how can we have a democracy without those systems being open to scrutiny? That effective scrutiny combined with proper information is the key to raising people's awareness of the work of Parliament. In short, if Parliament wants the public to take more interest, it must become more public-friendly in every respect.

My Lords, I too to congratulate my noble friend Lord Norton of Louth on initiating this important debate. I agree with his concerns. However, it is worth putting the matter in perspective: in 1949 Christopher Hollis, a Conservative MP of independent inclinations, published a book, Can Parliament Survive?. Three years later, George Keeton, a professor of law, brought out The Passing of Parliament. The issues are not new, but they have intensified in recent years.

I begin by disagreeing slightly with the remarks of my noble friend Lord Norton of Louth. I shall set the record straight: the problem is not that Parliament does not address the issues of public concern. That point is usually made in connection with such matters as the environment, drugs and social issues, which are of great concern to young people. In fact, Parliament does debate those issues frequently. Contrary to the suggestion that health, education, transport and welfare issues are not debated in Parliament, any week's analysis of Hansard would show that Parliament is deeply concerned about those matters and that they are the stuff of parliamentary debate.

Every day in the other place there are pages of Written Questions on health, education, transport and welfare issues of direct local concern to constituents. That is not the problem; rather it is how the matters are conveyed and perceived. Nor is there insufficient contact with the electorate. All Members of Parliament now spend more time than ever contacting their electorate throughout the week and every weekend. They now use every means of doing so—not public meetings, because the public does not attend those, as their lifestyle offers them so many attractive alternatives. Not least because the parliamentary allowances have been increased greatly, various means are now used to communicate with the electorate, including professional public relations agents and all forms of technology. That means that one can make direct contact with doctors, nurses, pensioners and every interest group to survey their opinions. That happens all the time and on a larger scale than before, so it is not the real problem.

I am in favour of the work of the Information Office here. Until this debate, I was largely unaware of its work, which is perhaps a problem in itself. I am in favour of the work of the Citizenship Foundation, and I pay tribute to the noble Lord, Lord Phillips of Sudbury, for his leadership of that body. When I was Secretary of State for Education, I was keen on the foundation's work with schools, and since then I have participated in many of its activities. I know how good and important the foundation is. I therefore support all those measures. However, any such activity can he like pushing a small stone uphill against a rushing downward torrent.

We must analyse the underlying reasons why we are not projecting ourselves well to the public as was done in the past and why Parliament is apparently held in such low regard. First, as was mentioned by the noble Lord, Lord Haskel, and others, outside influences have greatly weakened the supremacy and power of Parliament. Globalisation and the need for global and regional solutions, immediate information technology and instant global communication, and the shift of power to Brussels and Edinburgh have rendered other institutions of significant, but perhaps not equal, importance in relation to Parliament. Changing cultures and attitudes are important factors. We live in a non-deferential era—and it is different from 15 years ago—in which instant gratification can prevail. The ambition of many is to earn a good deal of money so that they can retire earlier, rather than to contribute to public life and service. The noble Lord, Lord Phillips of Sudbury, made that point also. There is a problem with engaging young people in public life, partly because of their lifestyles, their busy working lives and the increase in two-income households where people wish to devote their free time to their family. Those changes have reduced participation not only in politics but also in church, social and voluntary activities, as noble Lords know.

People will not vote if they feel comfortable and do not think that their vote will affect their lives. That point is highlighted by the contrast between the events surrounding the British election and that in Zimbabwe, where a vote really matters. People will not lobby unless they feel threatened. The lobby today outside both Houses indicates how Parliament still matters, because people feel threatened about a matter on which it will take the ultimate decision. It is disturbing that pressure groups such as Greenpeace sometimes feel that is more important to lobby bodies other than Parliament and the Government to get their way. When the Committee on Standards in Public Life was examining lobbying issues, I was struck when a prominent member of Greenpeace who was asked about parliamentary lobbying replied that supermarkets and consumer targeting matter more than Parliament.

When discussing the influence and power of Parliament, we cannot avoid mentioning the role of the media—although it is a hackneyed issue. Robin Oakley, the distinguished BBC correspondent, wrote in a farewell article in The House Magazine:

"newspaper reports of what goes on in the Commons chamber are confined these days to the waspish efforts of a talented band of sketch-writers who largely see the Commons as a vehicle of entertainment, a backcloth to a string of witticisms".

I fear that that is true. That is often the only communication from Parliament that many read in their daily newspaper. It is a sad reflection of how the media now feel that they must respond to what they regard as public demand and the competition in the media to attract the public's attention. They regard it as more important to report what they think people want to hear and read about, which is so often the negative and the so-called sensational, rather than what we think they should report. All occupations are suffering from the combination of the non-deferential attitude and how they are reported in the media. That applies not only to politics, but also to the Church, the professions—it is beginning to apply to doctors—the business community and many others. Respect must now be earned, while it is often the transgressions of the minority that get all the media attention. I wish that we could change the media in that regard, because it greatly influences how Parliament and its work are perceived, but I fear that it would be extremely difficult to do so. An additional problem is soundbites and confrontation. Soundbites are no substitute for arguments, and two-minute interviews give no opportunity for analysis, as every politician who has been frequently engaged in them knows only too well.

I could talk much more about the media, but we are all aware of the difficulties that it creates for us. So I now turn to Parliament itself. First, composition is a factor in the other place. It is disappointing that such a heavy element of the modern Parliament is composed of people who have known nothing other than politics since their student days. The necessary width of experience is no longer being brought to Parliament. That is partly a function of salary, partly a function of sleaze—if I have the time, I shall comment on that—and partly a function of work pressures.

There is also the apparent irrelevance of Parliament. That too partly comes back to the media. Is Parliament any longer the forum of the nation or is it the media? If it is the media, the sadness is that the interviewers and producers have the power without the responsibility. They have the ability to ask questions but never to find the answers.

That is partly due to the bypassing of Parliament by government, not only by regarding the "Today" programme as more important than making a Statement to Parliament—I deeply regret that—but also because, with a large majority—this is more fundamental—government can be pretty brutal in saying that they can get anything through Parliament whenever they wish to do so, and that neither parliamentary debate nor proper parliamentary scrutiny of legislation matters. Regrettably, that too often seems to be the impression that is created today. Indeed, it is the impression that the Government often give by the way in which they currently bypass Parliament.

Something I feel strongly about is the parliamentary atmosphere of confrontation and—if I may put it this way—"yah boo" politics. It is out of tune with the spirit of the time. We all know that it is only a small part of what actually takes place in Parliament—at Prime Minister's Question Time and other Question Times—but it is the part that gets all the attention. I was much struck when judging the final of one of the Citizenship Foundation's school debates when every single school participating thought that, in order to copy Parliament and show the proper parliamentary process, they spent all their time shouting, jumping up and intervening as happens at the worst moments of Prime Minister's Questions. They clearly thought that that was typical of what happens in Parliament. There is far too much of the confrontation element in the other place, with point-scoring rather than sustained argument. Happily, that is not present in your Lordships' House.

Much more attention needs to be paid to committee work and Select Committees. Governments need to take much more note of what they do. Select Committee chairmen should be paid, and I am glad to see that we are moving in that direction, and Select Committee work should be seen as an alternative career structure for a Member of Parliament. There is too much other workload pressure on MPs so that they cannot participate, or only a few do, in Select Committee work and in parliamentary scrutiny of legislation, and they do not do it effectively.

On the question of sleaze—I declare an interest in serving on the Committee on Standards in Public Life—what I regret most about the past five years is that, at a time when sleaze (if I may use that shorthand word due to shortness of time) is actually a small part of parliamentary life, and when most of the aspects being examined are trivial in the extreme, it receives so much public attention that it has the opposite effect to that intended. It gives the public the impression that sleaze is prevalent in Parliament when it is not.

Above all, we need to make sure that Parliament matters. I was saddened to note Peter Riddell, who I greatly respect as a columnist, writing in The House Magazine the other day, that, as a result of Stephen Byers's Statement to Parliament, when it appeared that his ministerial life was secured, Parliament still mattered. It is a rather trivial reason for thinking that Parliament still matters. But one of the problems that exists at the moment is that we have a government who have ignored Parliament too often because they have too large a majority. With smaller majorities, as I well recall in the last years of the Conservative government, Parliament really did matter. Members of the Government have to pay a great deal of attention to what Parliament thinks. When that happens, Parliament is clearly the focus of the nation and the media pay much more attention.

I conclude by saying that I wholly agree with the general analysis of my noble friend Lord Norton, and it is important that we all pay attention to putting this situation right.

My Lords, with the permission of the House I should like to say a few words in the gap, having listened to the debate.

Many of the comments we have heard this evening turned on people's concerns about a reduction in the reputation of this House and the other place. Indeed, the noble Lords, Lord MacGregor of Pulham Market and Lord Dean of Harptree, referred specifically to the declining reputation. I should like, in the next few minutes, to point to something that we can do and which will influence judgments of people outside. I refer to the way we conduct ourselves in the Chamber.

Next week there is a debate on hunting. It is a controversial debate. I shall take a view and Members of this House will take differing views. Members of the press, stirred by Members of the other place, will pore through the Division List in the House of Lords to look for those Members of this place who have perhaps just signed in, just taken the Oath, not spoken this Session or perhaps not voted on any issue this Session, and who it is quite clear have turned up specifically to vote on the issue of hunting with self-interest in mind.

We can safely predict that some noble Lords will fall into that bracket. They discredit this place. Self-interest will have determined what they do. It will be exploited by the press. The will of the House of Commons may well be undermined because of Members taking such a position.

If there are to be reforms—there have been many which I support and which have been referred to today—let us start by running a House which does not operate on the basis of self-interest and where people cannot simply cannot walk in and vote, as they did in 1989 if I remember rightly on the community charge legislation. We used to laugh about it in the other place. We were told how the Division Lobbies were filled in this place with some who had not voted or seen the place for years, but who turned up because they had an interest in that legislation in so far as they were going to save a substantial amount of money.

That is what creates public cynicism. That is why people become angry at the Houses of Parliament when they see those things happening. I rest my case. Next week, when we look at the Division List, I am sure it will be upheld.

My Lords, the noble Lord, Lord Norton of Louth, is a distinguished expert on the constitution. He does great service for your Lordships' House. He is the chairman of our Select Committee on the Constitution and performed another service today by introducing this debate with a speech full of interesting and valuable ideas.

This Motion raises two questions. The first is whether the case for raising public awareness of the work of Parliament is made out. I am sure we all agree that it is. The second question is: if so, how do we do it?

It is clear that interest in politics at all levels has declined, not just an interest in Parliament. That decline is partly for reasons which are acceptable and perhaps even welcome. Politics is certainly less ideological than it used to be. The failure of socialism as an economic system means that there is now much less difference in substance between the main parties. Class consciousness, in my experience, is a good deal less than it was 40 or 50 years ago.

Those changes are certainly acceptable and I believe welcome. But there are also less welcome reasons why interest in the political system and in Parliament has decreased. For example, there is less interest in local government because so much of it has been centralised. Central government now tells local authorities what they are to do and how they are to do it. Indeed, we have two Bills before the House—the Education Bill and the Police Reform Bill—which increase the directive powers of central government. And nowadays local authorities raise only a small proportion of their own funds.

We have moved too far from what I suppose was the golden age of local government, which was probably the late 19th century; the age of powerful city corporations in our great industrial cities like Birmingham and Manchester, and the era of the foundation of the London County Council. Indeed, I remember one of the characters who used to inhabit the Peter Simple column in the Daily Telegraph with the ghost of Alderman Foodbottom, who had been the chairman of the Tramways and Fine Arts Committee of Bradford in the great days. I am afraid nowadays even the ghost of Alderman Foodbottom has given up the ghost.

We need to hand powers back to local authorities, including fund-raising powers. That would create more interest in local government. It would also mean that local elections would cease to be no more than glorified opinion polls on the popularity of the current central government. There has never been enough interest in the European Parliament even though it now has significant powers—but that issue is for another debate.

The decline in public interest extends to the whole of the political process, not only to Parliament itself. We cannot separate the lack of interest in the working of Parliament from the lack of interest in the process. Nothing is more irritating when campaigning than finding a voter on the doorstep saying, "You lot are all the same. You're all in it for what you can get out of it". I, as a campaigner, would much rather find someone saying, "Well, we are all staunch Tories in this house", or even, as once happened when I was campaigning on entry phones in Kensington, a voter who said, "You can stuff yourself up your own soft centre".

The people who say, "You are all in it for what you can get out of it", usually mean that they are too lazy themselves to take an interest or vote. But, in a sense, they are right—we are all in it for what we can get out of it. But what we get out of it is usually not money. Most of us, I am sure, are financially worse off for our involvement in politics. We are in it, in some cases, because we want office. That is not an ignoble reason for taking part in politics; it is certainly what inspired Winston Churchill for most of his career. We are in it for the excitement and interest of a political career; we are in it for the satisfaction of taking part in an essential function in a democratic society. We need to get those reasons across to the public.

The decline in interest in and respect for Parliament is blamed on the media. There is less coverage of Parliament than there used to be, but that is largely a symptom, not a cause, of the problem. We cannot force newspapers to print what the public do not want to read, although I agree very strongly with my noble friend Lord Holme of Cheltenham about the duty of public service broadcasters to keep the public informed about the work of Parliament.

I do not believe that satirists such as parliamentary sketch writers and Rory Bremner are doing damage because they appeal only to people who are already interested in politics. I do not entirely agree on this issue with the noble Lord, Lord MacGregor of Pulham Market—not "Pulman Market" as his name appears on the List of Speakers.

We need to consider whether Parliament itself could do more to raise awareness. I am reluctant to suggest what the House of Commons could do because, unlike a number of previous speakers, I have never served there. But the sight of an empty Chamber for important debates and excessive party points scoring is not likely to increase the viewing figures for the parliamentary channel. Speeches on busy occasions are too often directed towards raising a cheer from party supporters rather than persuading a wider public—and I very much agree with the noble Lord, Lord MacGregor, on that issue.

In your Lordships' House the Information Office does a very good job of telling people what we do. I have been impressed by the briefing papers it has produced for this debate.

Respect for your Lordships' House is high, perhaps particularly now that the Conservatives no longer have a permanent majority among Members who take a party whip and most of the hereditary Peers have left. But there is still a danger that we will be seen—I have to watch my language here to ensure that it is parliamentary—as a group of "boring old flatulences". "Old", I must confess, we are. At the age of 69 I have reached the average age of Members of the House.

We have to keep an eye on our public image. On one day a few weeks ago, the media coverage of your Lordships' House concentrated entirely on a Parliamentary Question about the House Christmas card—not because of any intrinsic public interest in the House Christmas card; clearly there was none whatever—but because it reinforced the misleading image of ourselves as "boring old flatulences". I do not believe that there will be a real interest in your Lordships' House until most of us are elected and the public feel that, in a sense, we belong to them.

The most important thing for improving awareness and interest in Parliament is education. I agree absolutely with my noble friends Lord Holme and Lord Phillips on this issue. We heard a passionate speech from my noble friend Lord Phillips, who has perhaps campaigned more than anyone else in your Lordships' House to ensure that the public, and particularly young people, get proper instruction in how the political system works. No one, least of all those of us on these Benches, would accuse my noble friend of being a slavish follower of the party line.

I strongly welcome the developments in citizenship education. It is essential that all pupils, not only those studying politics, should get a basic instruction on the constitutional and political system of this country. We should seriously look at reducing the voting age from 18 to 16. That is now the policy of my party. It is a policy about which I have been in the past distinctly sceptical, but I find my mind changing on this issue.

When I was a parliamentary candidate—as I was on four occasions—I found that school sixth forms, as they were then called, were the most acute and interested audiences I had to face. But, of course, very few of those pupils were eligible to vote. If pupils became eligible to vote while they were learning about the political system instead of a year or two later, they would be much more likely to vote. Voting would then become a part of the rite of passage into adulthood and, having voted once, young people would be more likely to do so again.

I am delighted to see that the sum which the Electoral Commission is authorised to spend on encouraging public awareness of our political and democratic systems is being increased under a statutory instrument which has recently been laid before your Lordships' House, from £1.5 million per year to £7.5 million. That is certainly a welcome step forward.

There is no single cause of the decline of interest in politics—and in Parliament in particular—and there is therefore no single answer to that problem. The best answer, to borrow a phrase from a right honourable member of another place, is "Education, education, education".

My Lords, on this occasion, as on several others when my noble friend Lord Norton has initiated debates in your Lordships' House on the constitution and related matters, we are most grateful to him for highlighting and so expertly analysing a major problem—that is, that the glorious idea of representation, which is perhaps the essence of our political system, has somehow been lost.

I always feel that debates such as this show your Lordships' House at its best. I remember that on one occasion the noble Lord, Lord Desai, said that the reports of the Select Committees of your Lordships' House should be made compulsory reading in schools, and the noble Lord, Lord Haskel, made similar remarks about our reports. Perhaps it is true that the best and simplest cure for the problems to which many noble Lords have referred is to open up your Lordships' House to visitors.

It is very striking that the public galleries are almost empty. Perhaps we should aim to fill them. For that reason I echo the remarks of my noble friends Lord Dean and Lord Moynihan, and those of the noble Lord, Lord Haskel, in praising Mary Morgan and the work of the House of Lords Information Office and the new visitor centre. I hope that we follow up some of the suggestions of the noble Lord, Lord Phillips, as to how we can help her with her work.

My noble friend Lord Norton dissected some of the key causes of the problem that is the subject of the debate and applied innovative thought to them. I hope that, when he comes to reply, the noble and learned Lord the Leader of the House will give a positive response to the brilliant analysis given by the noble Lord, Lord Sheldon, and my noble friend Lord Dean of the problems that exist in our own parliamentary procedure— particularly the "insidious combination" of the four procedural elements described by my noble friend.

Many noble Lords analysed the symptom of the problem as being low turnout, especially among young people. Some alarming and depressing statistics were given to us. The noble Lord, Lord Phillips, said that he was so concerned about low turnout among young people that he wondered whether the mandate was not being called into question, which is very serious indeed.

Other speakers concentrated on the diagnosis—on what the underlying causes might be. For adherents of post-materialism, I believe the root of the problem is widespread affluence leading to general contentment—the point was not taken up by previous speakers, but we read a great deal about it. Most speakers took the opposite point of view; namely, that the cause of the problem is widespread discontentment, disillusion and disrespect—the "deep cynicism" of which my noble friend Lord Moynihan and the noble Lord, Lord Phillips, spoke.

Many speakers were worried about the media. I refer in particular to the noble Lords, Lord Holme and Lord MacGregor. It will take a major act of will on the part of government to solve this problem. Simon Jenkins once explained to the Nolan committee why, as editor of The Times, he abandoned the full-page parliamentary report. He said that people,

"who want to read … what goes on in Parliament can subscribe to Hansard".

That statement is the precursor of the thinking that now dominates broadcasting in our country, both in the commercial ITV companies and in the BBC. It is the thinking that leads to the concept of the "themed" channel, which now dominates broadcasting. Echoing what Mr Jenkins said, the ITV companies say: "If people want to watch news, we have a very nice 24-hour news channel". That is the new conventional wisdom in commercial television. The BBC says much same; namely, that it has conducted research among young people in "digital" homes—it takes this group to be the best predictor of the future shape of society—and that such persons are not interested in politics, and that, therefore, it is inappropriate to provide such programming, other than on a themed channel.

One issue that arises in regard to the BBC—I was grateful to have the opportunity earlier to mention this to the noble and learned Lord the Leader of the House—is why the BBC parliamentary channel is, incredibly, available only on audio on the ITV digital terrestrial channels which are free, and is available with a normal picture on Sky, which is paid for. In other words, the position we seem to have reached in regard to the BBC parliamentary channel is that a rich man gets a picture and a poor man gets a blank screen. This is hardly the New Jerusalem! I hope that the noble and learned Lord the Leader of the House will use his influence to stop such complete nonsense.

Many noble Lords focused on the possible cure for the problem being "Education, education, education", a phrase employed by the noble Lord, Lord Goodhart. I am not sure that he was not closer to the mark in the earlier part of his speech, when he seemed to be getting at the important point that low turnout was not altogether a bad thing.

In reading around this subject before the debate, I found that it is a common view that the problem arises from a low opinion of the public—the suggestion being that they are either ill-informed or dim. The noble Lord, Lord Phillips, said that we live in a sick society. The implication is that, if only the public knew more, all would be well.

Instead, I ask your Lordships to consider for a moment that the reverse may be true; namely, that the public are very intelligent. Is it not a striking feature of our age that we live in a new enlightenment—it has been described as a "democracy of information."—in which the need to know has been replaced by the right to know. Is it not true that the public know everything? Like the natural philosophers that they are, they know the great changes that have taken place in modern politics. The noble Lord, Lord Goodhart, touched on that point.

The public see two historic forces at work, which may have led them rationally to conclude that their participation in politics is not as urgent and necessary as it once was. The first of these could have been revealed to them through their knowledge of the game of chess. Wilhelm Steinitz, the first official world chess champion on whose scientific principles chess is now based, said that it was always good, on principle, to take an opponent's centre pawn.

So it is that, today, the public see that both main parties, chess grandmasters, want their King near the centre of the chessboard. That is why, as the noble Lord, Lord Goodhart, mentioned, all research now shows that the public say that "all politicians are much of a muchness these days".

Until recently, the position of the parties on the political chessboard has been very different. For example, the Conservative Party has spent the 20th century successfully depicting our Socialist opponents as totalitarian wolves in the clothing of constitutional sheep. Winston Churchill described the Socialist Party as:

"Evil, odious and repellent to every friend of freedom".

The Conservative Party developed all the winning arguments of our time. We were proud of Conservtive economics and what it could do. We said that "a rising tide lifts all ships". We said that lower tax was good—for moral reasons, because it meant more freedom and choice for individuals; and for economic reasons because, ironically, lower tax rates meant higher tax revenues and more wealth creation in the long run. As my noble friend Lady Thatcher brilliantly summed it up at the end of the 20th century,

"The facts of life do invariably turn out to be Tory".

But then, of all things, after a victorious century-long battle against Socialism, the facts of life turned out to be Labour too. Under Prime Minister Blair's direction—and who can deny him credit for this?—Labour's Berlin Wall came down. He embraced free enterprise capitalism. He welcomed low tax. He respected work. He admired wealth creation. He said that "the polarities of Left and Right of the 20th century would prove an aberration". He would consign the old Left/Right divide to what Engels called "the museum of antiquities". When Mr Blair went on to offer his beguiling synthesis of capitalism and socialism, the great divide in British politics came to an abrupt end.

I am putting forward the notion that the British public are intelligent enough to see all this in exactly the way that I have just described it. So is it any wonder that the passion for politics has declined? That is the first great force at work which the public see.

Secondly, people are aware of what is perhaps the most monumental change in our lifetime; namely, globalisation—which has shaken up all our institutions and produced an entirely new form of capitalism, which the public can see is beyond the reach of the national governments for whom they are asked to vote with such urgency.

Perhaps I may expand on what my noble friend Lord Norton said about this subject. The public have been told, and have understood, that no man is an island, not even this one; and that it is not the case, as my noble friend Lord Dean hoped it would be, that Parliament is supreme. They have been reminded that, for example, the rule of law requires a compulsory jurisdiction. They have already accepted the degradation of their own sovereignty, because foreign judges already make decisions which they have to accept as a necessary result of the international rule of law. They have been shown how, with global financial markets, economies are interdependent; how environmental problems—the ozone layer, climate change, biodiversity, and so on—cannot he solved at the national level; how the World Trade Organisation cannot allow contravention of rules by one country in pursuit of its own sovereignty.

So, as usual, a shrewd public see it all. They see mega-mergers, global alliances and jobs moving to where it suits global corporations to employ people, and they conclude that fighting globalisation is like fighting Darwinism. So, if we are depressed to discover that the public believe that the globalisation of companies and economics means that the globalisation of countries cannot be far behind, and if we are concerned—as every speaker has been—to hear people express doubts about the relevance of our Westminster Parliament to their lives, perhaps it is because the public are excellent students of economics. They can see the economic power of globalisation, and they know that politics follows economics. So, our politics here at Westminster may end up with the same weight as local elections enjoy. We know what has happened to turnouts in local elections.

I want to end on a positive note. It would be wrong to despair—as I think the noble Lord, Lord Phillips, did at one point—that things are getting worse and worse. I am not sure that that is true. It is certainly not happening because people are too dim, uninterested or apathetic. I hope that noble Lords will agree with that, for some of the reasons that I have outlined. The noble Lord, Lord Haskel, said that the key point is that people like to see differences of opinion, and I agree. All they need to be "heart uplifted"—as the noble Lord, Lord Phillips, said—is to see and hear the clash of real ideas presented by political parties that have a clear and distinct sense of purpose, a certain idealism, and a marching tune to which they can respond. Those are the essential preconditions for the future health and happiness of our great democratic system.

My Lords, I thank the noble Lord, Lord Norton of Louth, and all noble Lords who have spoken, for a debate that has gone a good deal wider than the parameters set down in its title. For my part, I think that that was a useful widening.

All the speeches seemed to demonstrate one point: we all have a common purpose in this House that unites our thinking even if we do not always come to identical conclusions—which is that all governments require effective scrutiny. Governments therefore require this House to run as effectively as possible, so that scrutiny can be diligent, continuous and informed. A number of noble Lords have spoken about what we do. What we do is important; how we do it is critical. It is interesting—indeed amusing—for someone who has never been a Member of the House of Commons to note that, on an occasion like this, the most swingeing criticism of the House of Commons has come from the recently and dearly departed who had formerly sat there. So all the sinners begin to repent when they enter a more civilised Chamber.

I thought—if I may say so without offence—that the analysis from the noble Lords, Lord Dean of Harptree and Lord MacGregor of Pulham Market, was extremely interesting. The criticisms of the noble Lord, Lord Dean, included—if I have them noted correctly in my mind— first, criticism of Ministers bypassing Parliament; secondly, concern about modernisation proposals; thirdly, the relationship between Ministers, civil servants and political advisers; and, finally, his feeling that, in some ways, Parliament has perhaps been overtaken in its true scrutiny role. He specifically mentioned the question of carry-over.

As your Lordships know, there is a Leader's group composed of a few of us who are working on trying to achieve a consensus on changing, and I hope improving, the way in which we work. The noble Lord, Lord Waddington, has been in the Chamber for much of the debate, and the noble Lord, Lord Roper, has been here throughout. We are working together on that. What I hope we shall be able to show to your Lordships is the possibility of being more effective in the duties that we should carry out. Some of your Lordships have said on many occasions that what we really need is an improved method of legislating. That would imply no longer seeing 1,000 or 2,000 government amendments. I think that it is fair to say that, in the past nine months or so, that sad history has been expunged or at least significantly improved. I have no doubt that the real answer to that is to have proper pre-legislative scrutiny. Although that will make life harder for the Government, I can bear it with some fortitude.

We all have the common desire to get the best possible legislation. It seems to me that the House's current Committee scrutiny is not satisfactory and ought to be divided conceptually into two. The first aspect is the Bill's policy, on which there may he no agreement between the Government and the Opposition parties. Secondly, however—even if there is disagreement about policy and the concepts—we ought at least to deliver proper, effective and workmanlike legislative product. If we could achieve a situation in which most significant government Bills were subject to pre-legislative scrutiny, and the co-relative benefit was—as I know that the noble Lord, Lord Dean, suspects—a likely carry-over, it seen-is that we would then he able to work together to get good legislation even if we disagreed on the policy content.

There are the questions of public perception to which the noble Lord, Lord Phillips, referred. As he knows, I pay tribute to his work with the Citizenship Foundation—to which he introduced me long ago when I was at the Bar and was able to join in on his mock trial projects, which were extremely successful. I suggest to your Lordships that it is no longer tolerable that it should be assumed that attendance in Committee, on Report or at Second Reading is somehow an optional extra in which one may indulge or not as the case may be. The fact is that this is and ought to be a full-time House, even if it is currently staffed by part-timers. I should be grateful if your Lordships could assist me in explaining to the public why we do not work in the mornings and have two and a half months off in the summer, but at the same time say that we cannot introduce important—I take the point made by the noble Lord, Lord Phillips—Law Commission Bills. I have never been able to explain that to the public.

I suggest that we shall have to have a sea-change in the way in which we work. We should not be sitting after 10 o'clock at night, and we should be doing our work of bringing the government to account much more effectively. One of the effective weapons in this Chamber is not the yahoo antics—as some of your Lordships have described them; I could not possibly agree with that—practised elsewhere, but the daily Question Time. That is one of the most effective occasions in this place, if your Lordships wish to make it effective. It will be for your Lordships to decide whether, as I have suggested, we should expand that. At least to start off, on an experimental basis, we could have perhaps five Questions per day. I have offered this change, and I hope that your Lordships will wish at least to consider it as an experiment. Question, Time is a ready, continuing, daily weapon for Opposition parties to challenge Ministers, who have to be briefed and able to explain themselves.

There are many other devices by way of modernisation—or improvement, if modernisation is too jarring a word for our activities—and other proposals that we could consider. If we have the unity of purpose that we have demonstrated this afternoon, I have no doubt that, even if it is on an experimental basis, we shall be able to improve our practices. It is right that we are regarded as arcane by many of those whom I have almost described as voters—the gloomy feature is that they are not voters; some of them are not even registered. We have to bear in mind, of course, that turnout in the American presidential election was even worse. Fewer than 50 per cent of those who are registered—and registration there is not good, at about 48 per cent, if my memory is correct— vote in those elections.

Some of those who might be interested in politics plainly are not interested because of the extraordinary divorce between our experience, as we believe it to be, and their knowledge of their existence. When we spend day after day after day arguing about Section 28—still unresolved—and day after day on the age of consent, they simply come to their conclusion, with which I entirely sympathise, that we inhabit not a different world but a different planet and insult them by our lack of knowledge about how they live their lives and wish to construct their futures.

It was said by the noble Lord, Lord MacGregor, that the media have a responsibility. That is true. However—I am sorry that the noble Lord, Lord Baker, is not in the Chamber; as a collector of political cartoons he would have the knowledge to respond to this fully—if one thinks of Rowlandson, Gilray and Hogarth, to take but three examples, one might think that the media are not entirely devastating at the moment.

The noble Lord, Lord Saatchi, raised a particular aspect of the media which is important. I am grateful to him for his courtesy in warning me about the BBC. I believe that we are entitled to say that if the BBC, uniquely constituted and funded as it is, is to continue, those who fund it on a compulsory basis are entitled to say that part of the public service interest ethos must be to give a full and proper review of parliamentary procedure—not an uncritical one. It seems to me—I am speaking personally and heading for, I expect, immediate dismissal—that the purpose of the BBC is not only to be described as aiming for the highest possible ratings and possibly going hand-in-hand with the lowest common denominator.

The noble Lord, Lord Saatchi, asked questions about video on which I have had research conducted. It is right that the Government allocated digital terrestrial television capacity to the BBC. There is not sufficient capacity on the BBC's multiplex for it to broadcast "BBC Parliament" on digital terrestrial television in full video, but I am able to reassure your Lordships that the BBC is actively exploring options to enable that service to be provided in full video, which is welcomed by DCMS. I am grateful to the noble Lord for raising the matter.

The rest of the media have been criticised partly because of parliamentary sketches. But parliamentary sketch writers can be amusing and critical—I see the noble Lord, Lord MacGregor, shaking his head in disagreement—only if on occasions the performance offered justifies such descriptions. Sometimes the descriptions are over-harsh and sometimes they are over-obsessive, but if we have a good debate in your Lordships' House we generally receive good credit for it. Sadly, for our families, not all of our speeches are reported in full, even in the broadsheets, but if we have a good debate we normally receive a decent response.

My Lords, the quotation from Robin Oakley was not critical of the satirists—I am certainly not, as they raise parliamentary awareness. The point was that they concentrated so much on those aspects that insufficient attention was given to reporting more serious matters.

My Lords, I agree with the noble Lord. Of course, the sketch writers are part of a wider spectrum which includes those aspects of the media referred to by the noble Lord, Lord Saatchi. Taken as a whole, we should be entitled to look to the broadcast media, which is probably the way that the majority of young voters receive information about politics. I do not believe that most of them scrabble for the parliamentary sketches, whatever paper they happen to read, because I am sorry to say that most young people do not read newspapers. Most of them take such information from the television or the video.

Mary Morgan and her colleagues carry out an extraordinarily good job of work and they are thinly resourced. The noble Lord, Lord MacGregor, said something that struck a chord in my mind. Other noble Lords hinted at it, sometimes more brutally in the case of the noble Lord, Lord Phillips of Sudbury, who said that we are a sick society. I do not believe that we are. I believe that we remain a generous-hearted country which could do better. Fundamentally I believe it is a decent, good and tolerant society, civilised in its accommodation of other people's different views. The noble Lord, Lord MacGregor, pointed to the fact that we are now a less deferential society, which is undoubtedly true. The juries of my youth, which was not pre-flood, were always dressed in a collar and tie and a suit. Now people sit there in T-shirts.

The world has not become worse, but it has changed and our experience is different. Non-deference is quite good in a society that has been over-obsessed with secrecy and the proposition that those set in authority over us are necessarily always right on every conceivable occasion. My experience shows that not to be a universal truth.

Part of the remedy must lie in our own hands. We need a visitors' centre. Comparing the workings of our Chamber with other chambers in other parts of the world, I visited the Basque Parliament in Vitoria and the Scottish Parliament in Edinburgh. I went unannounced so they were not doing me a great favour. On entering the Scottish Parliament one is immediately made welcome and made to feel that they want to see you. The information is readily available; the facilities for the broadcast media and the print media are in place.

I believe that little is required for our two Chambers except a modest amount of thought. The necessary resource would be limited. If one considers other quite new chambers—our colleagues in Spain post the Franco regime and those in Belfast, Edinburgh and Cardiff—one sees that they have the advantage of not being encumbered with the wrappings of tradition.

My Lords, I suspect the Minister saw that the visitor centre in the Scottish Parliament is constantly full of children, particularly primary school children, who visit in school time. They are very interested in the interactive arrangements that they can enjoy.

My Lords, I did notice that. It struck me that that is a useful device. That is a young Parliament, using imagination and a certain amount of resource, but it is not vastly extravagant. In Belfast children visit the Chamber, which faces difficult circumstances, to act out the roles of Speaker and so on. Those are small steps, but incrementally they are capable of bringing about good consequences.

How do we raise public awareness of the work of Parliament? I hear in mind one noble Lord's cautionary note, that if we do not do very well and people know more about us the conclusion will not be entirely gratifying. I believe that we should try to focus on scrutiny of the Government, general revision of legislation and debates of this kind. There are many parts of every notional parliamentary week when we are not using the time: in the mornings, except for committee work, often on Fridays and for a large period in the summer.

I hope that noble Lords will join with me in what I believe to be our common purpose and I shall seek their support when we try to improve ourselves. If we make improvements to the work that we should carry out, undoubtedly those improvements will resonate with the public; and the public, whom we try to serve, will benefit as will this House, which I believe we all respect and want to serve in the best possible way.

I repeat my thanks to the noble Lord, Lord Norton. In 16 or 17 minutes I have not been able to deal with all the points that have been raised. I simply refer back to my original proposition. There is a common theme: we believe that this House is of substantial quality. I do not have the curse of the noble Lord, Lord Pym, in having any kind of majority, being 21 short of the main Opposition party. There may be a moral there, but if there is I shall not attempt to draw it.

My Lords, I have great pleasure in thanking all noble Lords who have taken part in the debate. It has been an extremely worth while debate. I take on board the points that have been made. There has been a common theme and a recognition of a common problem, which is the disconnection between people—especially young people— and Parliament. Affluent young people with access to the Internet are not interested in politics, but at the last election the lowest turnout was among those from the areas of greatest social deprivation. We face that very real problem. The problem of disconnection is not situ ply confined to Parliament; nor as my noble friend Lord Moynihan mentioned, is it necessarily confined to this country. Other countries face similar problems.

A major task to be undertaken is almost a recreation of civic society. I agree that a large part of the route is through education. I declare an interest, as I spend all my time in education. There is great progress to be made. My experience of talking to schools throughout the country is that one can gauge that people are interested in issues. I take the point raised by my noble friend Lord MacGregor that those issues are variously debated, but not in a way that resonates outside and not necessarily to the extent that I would like. Although it is true that more and more constituents go to see MPs, they are still in the minority. There is a great deal more to be done to connect with the people in this country to make them more aware of the work of Parliament.

A central point that has been made is that Parliament is part of the problem. It must also be seen as part of the solution. I beg leave to withdraw the Motion for Papers.

My Lords, with the leave of the House, I shall now repeat a Statement made in another place by the Chief Secretary to the Treasury on audit and accountability in central government: government response to the Sharman report Holding to Account. The Statement is as follows:

"With permission, Mr Speaker, I should like to make a Statement on the Government's response to Lord Sharman's report Holding to Account which made recommendations about audit and accountability in central government. Copies of the Government's response, Audit and Accountability in central Government are available in the Vote Office [the Printed Paper Office].

"The structure of audit and accountability, springing from the Gladstonian reforms, is an important matter. This House, and the country, have benefited enormously from the work of the Comptroller and Auditor General and the National Audit Office, which—while accountable to this House—have a remit that is independent of both Government and Parliament.

"Over the years, Members of this House—and particularly the Committee of Public Accounts—have expressed concern that the remit of the Comptroller and Auditor General had become artificially restricted.

"It has been the general practice of this Government to appoint the Comptroller and Auditor General to audit each non-departmental public body set up since 1997 under our control.

"But despite this commitment to openness, there are still significant areas of central government where the Comptroller and Auditor General is not the auditor—including around 50 non-departmental public bodies that had been established previously with auditors appointed by individual Secretaries of State. And in a number of areas, he is also dependent on negotiated administrative access.

"In debates on the Government Resources and Accounts Bill the subject of the Comptroller and Auditor General's remit was raised and I undertook to review the position.

"Accordingly, I set up an independent review of audit and accountability in central government to look at all areas of the accountability framework, and to take evidence from a wide range of interested parties.

"I am grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Sharman, for leading that review, and to all members of the steering committee, including the right honourable Member for Haltemprice and Howden (David Davis), the right honourable Member for Swansea West (Alan Williams) and the honourable Member for Newbury (David Rendel).

"The noble Lord, Lord Sharman, reached independent conclusions and made recommendations that were addressed to the Government, the Comptroller and Auditor General, the Committee of Public Accounts and the Public Accounts Commission. The response I am publishing today sets out the Government's position in relation to Lord Sharman's report.

"In considering Lord Sharman's recommendations and how to carry them forward I have been very mindful that reforms need to command confidence on all sides of this House. They also need to be workable. I am very grateful for the constructive discussions that have taken place with the Comptroller and Auditor General and his staff which are reflected in the response.

"I am pleased to inform the House that the Government have accepted the main recommendations that the noble Lord, Lord Sharman, directed to the Government and that we support those addressed to others.

"There are five central recommendations: first, the Government agree that the Comptroller and Auditor General should audit all non departmental public bodies. This will make him the auditor of bodies such as the Environment Agency, English Partnerships, English Heritage and the Housing Corporation.

"Secondly, subject to legislation, this extension to non-departmental public bodies will include those that are established as companies; for example, the Student Loans Company, the Film Council, the National Consumer Council and the National Forestry Company.

"Thirdly, the Government agree that the Comptroller and Auditor General should have statutory access to the documents needed for his audit work in place of the current non-statutory arrangements. We welcome arrangements proposed by the Comptroller and Auditor General to ensure that this right of access is exercised so as to minimise any additional burdens on either public or private sector bodies.

"His access to documents in completing value for money studies will be extended by right, for example, to registered social landlords, train operating companies and contractors, including those in PFI contracts.

"Fourthly, the Government's response makes clear our commitment to ensuring the information that underpins the reporting of progress against PSA targets is reliable, and accepts that there should be an extension of external validation of departmental data systems that relate to these targets. The Government intend to invite the Comptroller and Auditor General to take responsibility under his existing powers for the validation of such data systems, usually on the basis of a three-yearly review.

"Finally, the Government welcome Lord Sharman's acknowledgement of the steps being taken to promote strong management and innovation across government in the delivery of public service.

"Before implementing these proposals, the Government will consult bodies affected by the changes.

"I am confident that the proposals we are setting out today will strengthen audit and accountability and improve transparency, in the interests of this House and all those we represent.

"I commend these new arrangements to the House".

My Lords, that concludes the Statement.

My Lords, I am grateful to the Minister for letting me have an earlyish copy of the Statement this morning.

It is a splendid aim, shared on all sides of the House, to give the public sector a proper balance sheet and proper accounts, based on clear, simple and rigorously defined rules. We all owe a debt of gratitude to the noble Lord, Lord Sharman—I am sorry to see that he is not in his place—for leading the way with his report last year which has stimulated this belated response from the Government today.

There is much need for improvement in the compilation and presentation of government accounts; for better rules which show us what the taxpayer owns; how it is being used; and what it is being spent on. We are agreed that we need better information on that. Therefore, we welcome the Government's acceptance of the attempts of the noble Lord, Lord Sharman, and the Public Accounts Select Committee in another place by including in the remit of the Comptroller and Auditor General the over 1,000 non-departmental public bodies which currently employ 30,000 people and spend £25 billion of taxpayers' money a year.

I wish that I could stop there because if ever there was an issue that deserves to be dealt with on a cross-party consensus basis, that must surely be it. But I am afraid that the current situation, even after the worthy attempt with the Government Resources and Accounts Bill and this response today, is that unfettered discretion still resides in the Treasury so far as concerns the compilation of accounts; there are no clear principles for the accounting of income or expenditure, and we still permit the Treasury to continue to omit large public assets and liabilities from the national balance sheet.

There are at least three areas of major concern which the Government did not address in their response today. First, the accounting treatment of billions of pounds a year of tax credits is not in conformity with generally accepted accounting principles. By breaching OECD guidelines the present accounting treatment allows the Treasury to paint a more flattering picture of a key issue, which is government spending, by excluding their amount—now heading with the new Tax Credits Bill to perhaps £15 billion of public expenditure a year—from the total.

Secondly, let us consider the question of liability, which is not mentioned in the response. We are desperately lacking in that regard. We have no proper account of the great and growing liabilities of the public sector in relation to, for example, pensions. The public state pension represents an enormous and ballooning liability not just in this country but in many others. We need clarity in regard to the scope and scale of that liability. We have just seen the impact on private company accounts of the new FRS 17 accounting rule, but we have no idea what would be the impact on the public accounts of applying that accounting treatment to final salary schemes in the public sector.

Thirdly—we discussed this matter at Question Time today—we need to understand far better than we do at present what are the real liabilities that arise each time a project is implemented in the public/private sector under PPP, where the public sector establishes a contract that effectively enforces on it a series of payments over a long period of time that currently do not appear in the public accounts at all. We have seen with Enron the dangerous practice of allowing a buildup of debt to be hidden off the balance sheet. Despite what the Minister said at Question Time, there is widespread concern that that is what is happening with public/private partnerships.

It was concerns such as those that led the noble Lord, Lord Sharman, to press for new measures to create greater scrutiny of audit and accountability in government organisations. We shared many of the views that he expressed. We both suggested a wider role for the NAO and the C&AG. For example, during the passage of the Government Resources and Accounts Bill we both asked for the statutory right of the NAO and C&AG to be extended to all non-departmental public bodies, including the BBC.

As the Minister will well remember, during the passage of the Financial Services and Markets Act 2000 we, together with the Liberal Democrats, moved amendments to provide for the NAO to audit the Financial Services Authority, but they were refused by the Government. I am therefore deeply disappointed that today's Statement continues to exclude two of the most important public bodies in the land—the BBC and the Financial Services Authority—from NAO scrutiny. Perhaps the Minister will explain why that vital exclusion continues.

We need a clear, complete and comprehensive set of accounts. They must be composed under standards of accounting practice so that people have at least a chance of doing the detective work to find out what is really happening. That is democratically proper and a matter of common sense; we do not have that after this Statement.

My Lords, in rising to respond to the Minister's Statement, perhaps I may say on behalf of my noble friend Lord Sharman how sorry he is that he cannot be in his place today. Having spoken to him in the light of the Government's response, I know that I speak for him when I say that he very much welcomes their response to his report. Indeed, those of your Lordships who have had the chance rapidly to digest the 55 pages of the Government's response in the available time will be aware that 98.5 per cent of my noble friend's recommendations have been adopted by the Government. Obviously, we welcome that.

I cannot comment on the criticisms made by the noble Lord, Lord Saatchi, which appeared to have little to do with the Statement. Had he given me advance notice of the extra items that he proposed to raise, I should have said whether I agreed with them. I had the advantage of an hour's notice of the Government Statement, but not of the noble Lord's separate statement on another topic.

Having broadly welcomed the fact that 98.5 per cent of my noble friend's recommendations have been adopted, I shall cavil with two of the Government's responses and then finish with a general comment. Recommendation 2 states:

"All departments should have a formally constituted audit committee. Some basic principles for audit committees include that they should".

There follow seven or eight requirements that recognise that the bodies to be subject to audit committees are not corporate bodies, but that several of the requirements of audit committees of corporate bodies should be adopted.

I am concerned by the Government response in paragraph 2.5 on page 12 of the report, which states:

"However, central government is a wide and diverse field, and central government bodies are not identical to companies. In particular, unlike companies, government departments do not have a corporate board structure from which informed non-executives with statutory responsibilities … can be appointed to the audit committee".

The report continues:

"Existing Treasury guidance will continue to be developed in the light of the above considerations, Lord Sharman's recommendations, and other factors as appropriate".

Well, if ever I have heard the Civil Service preparing itself for not doing very much with a recommendation, that is it. I am concerned that the recommendation will be lost in the realm of Whitehall and that the principles for audit committees developed in the private sector will not be satisfactorily adopted as my noble friend recommends.

My second cavil, which I share with the noble Lord, Lord Saatchi, is with regard to the BBC. In recommendation 7, my noble friend's committee said clearly that the BBC should be brought within the ambit of the Comptroller and Auditor General. His report points out that the 1999 Davies review of the BBC recommended the same thing. I am not persuaded by paragraph 2.33 of the Government's response that the BBC should be excluded. No satisfactory reason is given why the Government reject that recommendation.

Those are two points of substantial detail. In concluding my remarks, I should tell the Minister and the noble Lord, Lord Saatchi, that I well remember that in the private sector—probably following the Maxwell affair—an enormous industry was created with regard to audit and audit control. The private sector now recognises that in many cases the baby was thrown out with the bath water—to use an unfortunate pun. I refer noble Lords to recommendation 17 of the Sharman report, which the Government should bear continuously in mind. It states:

"Accountability mechanisms are perceived by some in government as a discouragement to innovate and change, but this appears to be only one of a number of complex factors … Whilst acknowledging this, it is important that auditors recognise the dangers of being perceived as discouraging well managed risk taking, and ensure that their work lives up to the spirit of statements made on attitudes to innovation".

If every audit committee and every auditor in both the private sector and the public sector lived up to that, the world would be a better place.

My Lords, I am grateful to both noble Lords for their response to the Statement—rather more grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Razzall, because he addressed both the Sharman report and the Government's response to it, whereas the noble Lord, Lord Saatchi, referred to them only towards the end of a, shall I say, wide-ranging speech. The issues raised by the noble Lord, Lord Saatchi—his accusation about the unfettered discretion of the Treasury, for example—need to be examined. I should be happy to have an opportunity to respond to them. Issues about tax credits, long-term pension liabilities and liabilities under public-private partnerships all deserve to be debated—perhaps it would be appropriate for that to be in Conservative time—but not today.

The Sharman committee was set up to,

"consider suitable arrangements for the audit and accountability of central government in the 21st century on behalf of Parliament".

It was especially concerned with the role and power of the Comptroller and Auditor General. That is what the noble Lord, Lord Sharman, did and I congratulate him on an excellent job.

In so far as the noble Lord, Lord Saatchi, referred to the report and our response to it, he made valid points. It is true that we did not accept the recommendation of either the noble Lord, Lord Sharman, or, earlier, Gavyn Davies, for the BBC. In view of Gavyn Davies' subsequent appointment as chairman of the BBC, we seriously considered his recommendation again. But the important point is that we want to avoid not only the reality but also the appearance of any interference with the editorial independence of the BBC. It was on that basis that we decided not to take action or to agree with the recommendation.

The BBC is, after all, set up by Royal Charter. The Royal Charter requires that it should be audited by a company regulated by private audit standards and with membership of the appropriate professional body. It would require an amendment to the Royal Charter of the BBC to change the audit arrangements and bring them under the National Audit Office. Although the National Audit Office is, of course, independent, we are reluctant to run any risk that the internal finances of the BBC could become issues for political debate. That is why, after much consideration, we rejected that amendment.

The noble Lord, Lord Saatchi, referred to the Financial Services Authority. He knows that the noble Lord, Lord Sharman, made no recommendations about the FSA. He said that the arrangements should be left alone. The FSA is a company limited by guarantee; we would need primary legislation to have it audited by the National Audit Office. There is some reassurance in the fact that the Treasury can commission value for money inquiries within the work of the Financial Services Authority, and there is no reason why those should not be carried out by the National Audit Office.

The noble Lord, Lord Razzall, spoke about audit committees. The difficulty with the public sector and particularly with central government is that we do not have non-executive directors responsible to departments in the way in which companies do: perhaps we should. It is a legitimate point. But, having said that, we think that the points made by the noble Lord, Lord Sharman, in recommendation 2 are valid.

I can confirm, as the noble Lord, Lord Razzall, said, that the response to virtually all of the report is positive. I repeat my thanks to the noble Lord, Lord Sharman, and all his colleagues for the report.

My Lords, I congratulate my noble friend the Minister. The report is a valuable contribution to the work of the Public Accounts Committee and the National Audit Office. For years, the Public Accounts Committee and the National Audit Office wanted to be able to audit all non-departmental public bodies. What we got was an agreement that all the new ones would be audited, and that practice was maintained. It is good to know that all the others will now be given that treatment.

The Housing Corporation was a particularly difficult case; we were given it only on sufferance. It was a concession to the National Audit Office to allow it to investigate the billions of pounds that was spent. That was an outrage. My noble friend has spoken about the valuable agreement that he was able to obtain on that issue.

With regard to the value for money aspects, I was pleased to hear that the issue of social landlords would be dealt with. I shall also say a word about the BBC. The BBC, of course, has a Royal Charter, as my noble friend said. However, we discussed the World Service, and we took evidence from John Tusa, who came before the Public Accounts Committee. We were able to get those accounts audited.

All in all, it has been a good job. I congratulate my noble friend.

My Lords, I have little to say about that, as it is entirely congratulatory, except to thank my noble friend.

The difference between the World Service and the rest of the BBC is that the World Service is, of course, funded by the Foreign and Commonwealth Office, whereas the rest of the BBC is funded by grant under the licence fee.

My Lords, the noble Lord, Lord Sharman, is certainly to be congratulated on his report, and the Government's acceptance of a number of his recommendations is welcome. However, as the Minister knows, the issues were debated in connection with the Government Resources and Accounts Bill. After a considerable time lag, we are now doing what we originally debated, which the Government should have accepted in that Bill. The problem with all such matters is that it takes an enormous number of years for government time to be found for legislation. Now that we are making some progress, apparently, can the Minister say whether we are likely to need further legislation? Will there be a further Bill?

My second point is that no amount of improved arrangements for government scrutiny will help if the accounts themselves are defective. With great respect, I say to the Minister that he cannot suggest that that is a separate issue. There is a huge register of government assets and a totally deficient attempt to estimate the Government's liabilities and create a proper balance sheet, particularly with regard to departments and the whole of government accounts. That must be done right, particularly with regard to the long-term liabilities relating to national insurance pensions. In many ways, we are going through a pensions crisis, and we need to know what the situation is relating to intergenerational transfers. We can do that only if the Government make the effort to provide us with a proper balance sheet. Only if that is done and the accounts are generally improved will the kind of improvement that the noble Lord, Lord Sharman, proposes and which the Government have accepted operate efficiently in practice.

My Lords, I accept that it is legitimate to ask why it took a year to respond to the noble Lord, Lord Sharman. There may be an element of administrative delay; I do not know, and I do not think so.

I can give two answers that, I hope, will be helpful. The first is that the response is a full response. It covers all the matters. We could have dealt only with the easy ones and said that we would deal with the others later. We could have responded in a couple of months and got some cheap plaudits for that, but we would not really have been any further forward.

The second answer is that the issue of audit following the money where it has gone is a difficult one, as the noble Lord, Lord Higgins, remembers from the Government Resources and Accounts Act 2000. There are issues relating not only to the effectiveness of audit but to intrusion on private companies and individuals who may be in receipt of government money. In some cases —for example, those relating to value for money in the expenditure of government money—it may be legitimate to pursue audit; in other cases—for example, if people are receiving money as pensioners—it may not be.

Much of the time between the publication of the report and the response has been used in the preparation of protocols between the Comptroller and Auditor General and the Government on access to contractors, companies receiving government money, grant recipients and so on. Those protocols have been prepared. There is still a necessity for consultation, so the process is not complete, but that is a significant reason for the delay. I hope that the noble Lord, Lord Higgins, will agree that it is a legitimate reason.

The noble Lord also asked me to say when we are likely to bring forward legislation following the review of company law. The document was produced last summer, and it was almost too heavy to lift. As I have said in the House, drafting is going on, but there will have to be some form of consultation, either on a draft Bill or on draft clauses. It is well known that I cannot commit the Government to legislation in a particular Session, but I can assure the noble Lord that the matter is, for obvious reasons, not being neglected.

The noble Lord made a third point about defective accounts. I would be happy to listen to and respond to the arguments in due course. I am as interested when he makes the point about long-term pensions liability as I am when the noble Lord, Lord Saatchi, makes it. But it is not an issue covered by the Sharman report. It is a matter of enormous concern, not only to this Government but to all governments and it is a matter which deserves debate in Parliament.

My Lords, as one who had the honour of being a Member of the Public Accounts Committee in another place during my brief sojourn there, I should like to thank the noble lord for his presentation this afternoon and the Government for making some progress towards a reorganisation of the accountancy profession to give greater public accountability.

This problem of organisation is a good step to have taken but it begs the whole question: accountability means what it says. It means that people are informed exactly what is happening. These measures do not advance accountability at all. I am an old-fashioned accountant. I have been connected with the Institute of Chartered Accountants since 1930 and have, played an active part in it. I can remember the time when the purpose of an audit was to arrive at a true and fair view. All that has gone out of the window.

We now have a situation which will he endlessly enlarged upon in the course of the Enron investigations, to find out whether vie know anything about our accounting standards at all and whether accounting standards meet the requirements of democracy for accountability. My respectful suggestion is that they do not.

Moreover, although there are many ways in which the Government are responding to a desire for greater responsibility, regrettably it is a fact that when the Government try to answer Members of Parliament and your Lordships, they are already reluctant to come forward with facts in their possession. They will make it more difficult for questioners to put down Questions than they have done for a number of years.

Accountability and accounting standards require our urgent attention if democracy is to survive in its parliamentary form in the United Kingdom. I am quite sure that events will justify the prophecy that I have just ventured to make.

My Lords, there are two points that I need to make in response to my noble friend.

First, the report and the response are about audit and accountability in central government. Broadly speaking, what the report and the response say is that we have in the National Audit Office and the Public Accounts Committee a system for achieving independence and accountability which has stood the test of many years and is no longer an issue of party debate.

The independence of the National Audit Office from government, the fact that it reports to Parliament rather than to government and is still, to a large extent, independent of Parliament, is something which has been confirmed and recognised by both the report and the government response.

On the second point about audit standards, again it is nothing strictly to do with the Sharman report, but my noble friend will know that my noble friend Lord Brennan has a Motion down for debate next Wednesday in Labour Party time, precisely on these issues. I shall have the privilege of responding to that debate and shall look forward to the points raised from all parts of the House.

My Lords, the Minister may know, that having served on the Public Accounts Committee for 18 years, the bulk of them under the distinguished chairmanship of the noble Lord, Lord Sheldon. I welcome the Government's Statement today which goes far to implement recommendations made over many years.

I hope that in his reply to the noble Lord, Lord Higgins, the Minister was not cutting down on the principle that used to be expressed so eloquently by the noble Lord, Lord Sheldon, that it was the proper responsibility of the National Audit Office to follow public money wherever it went.

The Minister appeared to be erecting a countervailing principle of the right to some commercial confidentiality in certain circumstances which could be invoked in defeasance of that broader public principle. I hope the Minister will be clearer about that. The Government's rejection of the recommendation of the Sharman report, and indeed of the Davies report with respect to the BBC, seems to fly in the face of that broad principle of following public funds.

In admitting that the Public Accounts Committee has investigated the spending on a report of the NAO on the World Service, he does not seem to have recognised that it is perfectly possible to do that without threatening the editorial independence of the BBC in respect of the World Service. The same is true of its domestic broadcasting function.

In view of the fact that the matter is still under discussion in the context of the BBC's future and the future of broadcasting, I hope that the Government will reconsider this and listen to the first opinion of Mr Gavyn Davies. That was clearly expressed and carried great weight with all of those who were concerned about the responsibilities of that public service broadcaster.

My Lords, I should like to make two points. The first relates to following the money wherever it goes. Perhaps I did not make myself clear to the noble Lord, Lord Higgins. The important point I wished to make was that the Government's response goes further than Sharman asked. Sharman said that we should follow the money for PFI contractors. The Government believe we should follow the money for all contractors. The distinction I made was not about commercial confidentiality—I do not think I used that phrase—but applies where government money has to be returned to government or to the people of this country. In that case, we do need to follow the money. However, it would be an intrusion to follow and audit money where it goes as a right—a pension, for example. That is the basis on which the protocols between the Government and the Comptroller and Auditor General are being made up. Those who are interested both in accounting efficiency and in civil liberties will respect those differences.

I hear what the noble Lord, Lord Maclennan, says about the BBC. From time to time there is a review of the BBC Charter and no doubt representations can be made on that matter then. The view that we have taken is that the editorial independence of the BBC is of primary importance and we do not wish to put that at risk.

My Lords, as someone who spent 12 years on the Public Accounts Committee and who participated in the debates on the Bill three years ago when it went through the other place, I should like to congratulate the Government. They have actually provided more than we vigorously argued for on the Floor of the House of Commons. May I ask my noble friend about the accounting arrangements to the Public Accounts Committee in the other place? Under the present arrangements, the permanent secretaries effectively give evidence to the Public Accounts Committee. The Government's response refers to access orders on documents held by the bodies listed in the Sharman report. Can we presume from that that accounting officers, for want of a better term, or people who would be held responsible for accounts within those organisations—which include the train operating companies. the PFI contractors and bodies with undertakings in receipt of grant—may well find themselves giving evidence to the Public Accounts Committee in future, following the access orders to be introduced under these arrangements?

My Lords, I do not think that I know the answer to that question. As far as I know, the issue was not covered by Sharman. It is a matter for the relationships between the National Audit Office and the Public Accounts Committee. No doubt there are people in the House of Commons who are much better informed than I am who could answer that point. I do not think that it is intrinsic to the issues raised by Sharman, although I acknowledge its importance.

My Lords, will the Minister clarify the position on PFI contracts? We seem to be entering a new and different relationship for those contracts, which will play an increasingly important part in government funding. I think that the Minister will agree that the key to the PFI contract is a transfer of risk to the contractor. Some of the contractors will do well, some will do badly, some will do very well and some will do very badly. That is the nature of the market risk that the contractor is undertaking. While there is clearly a public interest in a degree of transparency, the contractor who is taking the risk is entitled to a degree of commercial confidentiality. If he has a successful contract and he is to be the subject of adverse comment at all times, as is the nature of these things, surely that will have the effect of shutting off contractors prepared to undertake PFI projects, who have freely entered into a commercial risk and accepted to take the rough with the smooth. The way that the Minister has explained the situation makes it seem as though the contractors may have to take the rough with the rough.

My Lords, the noble Lord raises further important matters that are not covered by Sharman. The report recommended that PFI contractors should be subject to audit by the National Audit Office and to value for money studies. The Government accepted that view. Clearly, those who undertake contracts in public/private partnerships will take that risk. The principle that the Government have a responsibility to continue their investigations on where the money goes has been expounded all round the House this afternoon. That was the broad consensus expressed by the Sharman report, by the response to the report and by this House this afternoon.

rose to call attention to trafficking in human beings, especially children; and to move for Papers.

The noble Lord said: My Lords, 1,500 years ago the Emperor Justinian commented on the phenomenon of human trafficking, which he said was spreading as profiteers took

"advantage of poverty and inexperienced young girls".

Justinian recorded practices that are used by traffickers even in our own times—debt bondage, confiscation of earnings and denial of food and sleep.

In the 19th century, abolitionists such as Josephine Butler and W.T. Stead, who edited the Pall Mall Gazette, were at the forefront of campaigns to expose the false promises of jobs abroad, which too often concealed lives of servitude.

However, it would be wrong to think that trafficking in human beings is merely a thing of the past. In reality, the trade is a rapidly growing scourge that affects countries and families on every continent. On Monday this week I addressed a UK Anti-Trafficking Network conference, which was organised by WomenAid International. Organisations such as WomenAid International, Anti-Slavery International and the Jubilee Campaign are to be congratulated on the work that they have undertaken in drawing our attention to this most pressing and growing issue.

Today's pre-legislative debate gives your Lordships a chance to consider the scale and nature of contemporary trafficking and what we might do about it. The Foreign Office, as well as the Home Office., will need to address some of the questions raised.

By way of background, last December, in answer to Questions that I tabled, the noble Lord, Lord Rooker, set out the Government's constructive approach to reducing levels of trafficking in human beings, especially children. His absence today is because of family circumstances. We all regret that he is unable to be with us and we understand the reasons. I was also grateful for his promise to distinguish between trafficking and smuggling. To their credit, the Government have signed the trafficking protocol of the United Nations Convention against Transnational Organised Crime and have negotiated a European Union framework decision requiring criminalisation of trafficking where people are exploited for their labour and services or for sexual exploitation.

As the UK will be required to implement this instrument within two years of its adoption, I should be grateful if the Minister could confirm whether it has been formally adopted. In their recent White Paper, Secure Borders, Safe Haven, the Government indicated that they will use the forthcoming immigration Bill to introduce an offence of trafficking for sexual exploitation with a maximum penalty of 14 years' imprisonment. This will be a stopgap pending major legislative reform that will cover those being trafficked for both sexual and labour exploitation. The debate is therefore a timely opportunity to influence future legislation, but we shall need to do much more beyond our own shores.

Let me outline the sheer scale of the problem and why trafficking in human beings, particularly women and children, necessitates urgent and decisive action. Speaking at the conference earlier this week, Dr Radhika Coomaraswamy, the UN Special Rapporteur on Violence Against Women, described traffickers as,

"fishing in the stream of migration".

The catch in that stream has been growing inexorably. Research by ECPAT UK—an organisation devoted to ending child prostitution, pornography and trafficking—into the trafficking of children and research for the Home Office by the University of North London on the trafficking of women both provide conclusive evidence that, at an absolute minimum, hundreds of women and children are being trafficked into the UK each year.

A report in the Financial Times on 20th February stated that, according to the UN's Office for Drug Control and Crime Prevention in Vienna, human trafficking has become the fastest growing facet of organised crime. It is also incredibly lucrative. Powerful criminal organisations are estimated to earn a staggering £4.3 billion a year from economic and sexual slavery. The trafficking of people is considered to be the third largest source of profits for organised crime, after the trafficking of drugs and firearms. Asian prostitutes in the United States can sell for 20,000 dollars, while Russian women working in the brothels of Belgium are reported to bring in as much as 7,500 dollars a month, 7,000 dollars of which goes to their handler. On a visit to Moscow on behalf of Partners in Hope, of which I am a trustee, I heard a first-hand account of a boy who was sold for the price of a bottle of vodka.

Rebecca Bryan, the director of IREX, the United States-based International Research and Exchanges Board, estimates that 1.2 million people are trafficked each year worldwide, of whom at least 700,000 are women and children. The largest source of women for prostitution and the sex industry is Eastern Europe. According to the US State Department, more than 175,000 women are trafficked annually from the former eastern bloc countries, including Russia. The CIA reports that a least 50,000 of these women go to the US and that their average age is just 20. Victims come from Albania, Kosovo, Russia, Lithuania, Romania, Bulgaria, China, South-East Asia and West Africa.

Why are people trafficked? Some may be forcibly abducted and brought into the UK, but many victims put themselves or their children in the hands of traffickers to escape poverty and discrimination. That is particularly true in the case of women and children trafficked from the new independent states of the former Soviet Union and central and eastern Europe. They are promised well-paid jobs, education and marriage. Many women believe that they will be able to send money back to their families. In reality, they often end up exploited andabused in London and in our other major cities.

Escape is impossible. Traffickers often pay for the cost of their victims' passage into the UK. Travel costs are then inflated by charges for food, accommodation and interest on money borrowed from their traffickers. Burdened with debt and unable to secure legitimate employment, the victims are extremely vulnerable. If they refuse to submit to the traffickers' demands or attempt to escape, they may have their passports confiscated or be subjected to intimidation, violence, torture or rape. Traffickers also make threats of violence against friends and family as a way of ensuring that their victims keep working and do not try to escape.

Two years ago I visited the West African country of Benin and heard at first hand accounts of what was described to me as a modern slave trade. As Peter Brannen of the International Labour Office explained at Monday's conference, West African countries such as Benin and Nigeria are sending countries, receiving countries and transit countries. Ian Pannell of the BBC programme "PM" visited Nigeria and Turin to investigate how traffickers use the UK as a staging post—a transit country—for child prostitution to Italy.

The BBC says that many of the hundreds of girls sold into sexual slavery in Europe each year are trafficked through England. Ian Pannell interviewed Jane Osagie, who has worked with a number of Nigerian girls who have been trafficked. In a shocking interview—only part of which I will quote in your Lordships' House—she told the BBC:

"A lot of them die … A lot don't come back. There were two girls who were trafficked and because they refused to go into the trade, they were banned from eating".

Others were refused drink. Clearly, that trade does not respect people or national borders and will require concerted international action to eliminate.

Girls from countries where trafficking is common arrive in the UK unaccompanied. Told to apply for asylum at the port of entry, the girls are placed into the care of the local social services department. Those girls subsequently disappear when their traffickers make contact with them and are never seen again by the authorities or their families.

Since 1995, 66 children who arrived unaccompanied in the UK have gone missing from West Sussex social services alone—the majority in the past two years. In addition, last month two more girls went missing from West Sussex social services—after the matter had been raised in your Lordships' House. Those children were supposed to be receiving care and protection. That is truly shocking and graphically illustrates the need for action.

In drawing attention to the problems in West Sussex—where Gatwick airport provides the port of entry—it is not my intention to single out that authority for particular criticism because at least it has tried to make some provision for victims and potential victims. It is probably because West Sussex has introduced a protocol and has proper victim profiling that its problems have come to light. One can only imagine the horrors that have yet to be unearthed in local authorities where no such protocol or provision is in place.

Government should require all area child protection committees to develop a protocol on trafficking. Social services and police authorities might then see a child as the victim of trafficking rather than as a 'lost asylum seeker' and act accordingly. The need for government to take a lead was underlined by the head of London's vice squad, Chief Superintendent Simon Humphrey. He complains that officers are unable to act effectively because of a lack of guidance and legislation. In the Evening Standard on 4th December 2001 he said:

"Quite frankly we are getting our priorities wrong in this country. We care more about catching car criminals and people involved in consumer crime but we are doing nothing to help children who are being sexually exploited".

Carol Howlett, Deputy Assistant Commissioner of the Metropolitan Police, recently argued that the prosecution of traffickers should became a key performance indicator target for chief constables in regions where trafficking is thought to be in place. I agree and hope that the Government will put that to chief constables.

It is incredible that the UK has no legislation that prohibits human trafficking. Police are using outdated legislation such as the Sexual Offences Act 1956. Even in the unlikely event of traffickers being caught, they receive prison sentences of not more than two years.

Although the Government now recognise the need to legislate, for which I thank them, sadly the promised new Bill will not end labour exploitation. It should. The noble Lord, Lord Brett, who has considerable experience of the ILO, will doubtless have something to say about that aspect. I hope that the Government will give a clear assurance that the legislation will use the same definition of trafficking as adopted for both the 2001 European Union framework decision on trafficking and the 2000 United Nations protocol on trafficking. That will ensure international consistency in the definition of what constitutes an offence and that anyone involved in trafficking can be prosecuted regardless of whether they were involved in recruitment, transport or directly in the exploitation of that individual. That is a crucial point on which I shall welcome the Minister's response.

Having suggested how I would like to see the law on trafficking strengthened and internationalised, I want to put forward proposals for the treatment of victims. The White Paper states that victims of trafficking should be offered care and support—but how is that to be clone in practical terms? Care and support are crucial from the humanitarian perspective but without them, it will be impossible successfully to prosecute traffickers and disrupt their networks.

I have four proposals covering victim support, the prosecution of traffickers, protection and international co-operation. First, support services should be provided both to child and adult victims of trafficking. They should be referred to specialised services that can offer secure accommodation, information in a language they understand, medical or psychological assistance, legal assistance and the means to communicate with family back home. That is in line with the measures contained in Article 6 of the UN protocol on trafficking, to which the UK is a signatory.

Children need more truly safe houses. Funding will he needed for that and out-of-hours services—particularly in areas where there are ports of entry. We should learn the lessons of West Sussex, good and bad. Adult victims should benefit from centrally funded specialised support services to which police, immigration and local authorities can make referrals.

Secondly, victims of trafficking should have a breathing space or "reflection delay", which would be in accordance with the European Commission's proposal for a short-term residence permit to victims of trafficking who assist the authorities in securing prosecutions. In Holland "reflection delay" lasts for three months. Six months would certainly be more appropriate in the case of children.

Thirdly, thought must be given to victim protection. Victims of trafficking who are returned home may be subject to violence, including torture and rape. Their families may also be threatened or attacked. Fear often silences victims. The Government will want to recognise their obligations under Articles 2, 3, 4, and 5 of the European Convention on Human Rights and under Article 3 of the 1984 UN Convention Against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment—under which no state party can expel, return or extradite a person where there are substantial grounds for believing that he or she would be subjected to torture.

In looking at individual cases, I hope that the Government will consult with Anti-Slavery and others with expertise in trafficking and safety issues and will look at the American model for dealing with such cases, which I commend to the House.

Fourthly, we need to tackle the issue at source—working with governments and non-governmental organisations in countries where trafficking occurs. Trafficking is a global problem that requires a global response. Doubtless we will hear from noble Lords about Sudan and other parts of the world where international leadership is desperately needed and the problem needs to be dealt with at source. Civil war, conflict, discrimination and poverty all play their part as people leave their homes and families to seek employment elsewhere. Rebecca Bryan from IREX declared:

"At the most basic level … trafficking can be effectively combated only by generating employment at home and providing a viable alternative to girls and women desperately seeking a better life for themselves and their families".

Later in this debate we will hear from my noble friend Lord Wilberforce. His family name is synonymous with the enlightened humanitarian spirit that broke the slave trade in Britain and beyond. We will hear also from the noble Baroness, Lady Howells of St Davids—whose family was caught up in the misery of that same trade. What is human trafficking but a contemporary form of that age-old curse—causing misery for the victims and their families and generating vast sums of money for the traffickers? It is an affront to human dignity and it is our duty to confront it. My Lords, I beg to move for Papers.

My Lords, I am sure that I speak for all noble Lords in congratulating the noble Lord, Lord Alton, on the timely introduction of this important debate, which, almost uniquely, provides us with an opportunity for some scrutiny prior to the enactment of legislation.

The noble Lord referred to my involvement. That has been at international level, with the International Labour Organisation. The growth of trafficking and exploitation of children for labour and other purposes captured international imagination to such an extent that in 1999—the only time in its 80-year history of adopting conventions—the ILO unanimously adopted a convention on extreme forms of child labour. At the top of the list of those forms of extreme child labour, of course, was child prostitution. There is, therefore, the political good will to see action take place.

That convention was accompanied by a well-established programme for the eradication of child labour, the IPEC programme, which has donated funds in excess of £150 million over the past five to 10 years and which does sterling work in many parts of the world. Therefore, at international level we have a global report to the annual ILO conference on the fundamental rights of work, including freedom from forced labour and freedom from discrimination.

I have, therefore, observed with interest the record of our own Government over the past four years, with which I am very pleased. We were one of the earliest signatories to Convention 182 on extreme forms of child labour; we are, through DfID, a substantial financial supporter of the IPEC programme; and, with others, we welcome the White Paper to which reference was made earlier. The question is how we put into effect the international good will that we have. In my 10 years at the ILO I have noticed several deficiencies that appear to have permeated the international community and the UN system.

We have many good treaties. However, we often do not have coherence between them. We have many good intentions at national level. What we do not have at regional level—in our case Europe—is good coordination between member states. We quite often have good intentions, but do we have in place effective methods for prosecuting the perpetrators of these crimes? Finally, do we adequately understand the problems of the victims and do we know how to support them?

I certainly endorse all four points referred to by the noble Lord, Lord Alton, particularly his reference to the need for victim support. It is a fact that victims who return to the member states from which they originated are again victimised, in many cases as a deterrent to others, in some cases out of sheer vindictiveness and in other cases to re-apply the same methods previously used as a commodity of labour, for sexual or other purposes, and to reintroduce those people to the illegal labour market.

The White Paper therefore provides us with a good opportunity to see what is present in outline and what we may want to see in detail, and I would urge on the Government the need to move forward this measure at the earliest opportunity for inclusion in the Queen's Speech. The international convention has now been in existence for three years. In this country, and in many others, we need adequately to translate into law effective methods to prosecute the perpetrators of trafficking.

The noble Lord, Lord Rooker, said on 17th July that the Government were considering what needed to be done to form a non-governmental organisation to provide support and advice to the victims of trafficking—a point referred to in the White Paper. Noble Lords will be pleased to know that that is an active consideration. However, it will, of course, need financial support. There is no point in creating an expectation unless we fully understand the problem and the need to deliver. I should therefore be grateful if the Government could confirm that they intend to provide financial support for the creation of such an organisation.

The noble Lord, Lord Alton, made an excellent point about a period of reflection for those who have been rescued from trafficking. People who find themselves in those difficult, isolated situations may experience great relief from the degradation that they have suffered, but they are not always able to make the wisest decisions at the time. Therefore, a period of reflection would appear to be in the best interests of the victims and something that can quite easily be achieved.

With regard to the question of non-sexual exploitation, child labour—I am not referring to children delivering newspapers or to my daughters working part-time as waitresses in a golf club at 16—it is true that there is in this country exploitation of children in full-time employment. It is well hymned. Many people will be shocked by the statistics quoted by the noble Lord, Lord Alton, that 66 children in one county—admittedly that which contains Gatwick Airport—have disappeared in five years. That is one of our problems.

Despite your Lordships' knowledge of the subject and the best efforts of all those who are involved—I pay tribute particularly to Anti-Slavery for bringing forward this issue—we in this country believe that this is a problem that happens elsewhere. We get some publicity for child prostitutes in Leeds or Manchester but we do not think that that is the same problem. We always find the excuse that it is a migration issue and therefore does not affect us. If this debate does nothing else, it should give us an opportunity to place on record that we in this country have a problem that we cannot wish away. Action has to be taken. I believe that the Government's intentions and efforts to date have been excellent. However, we now need speedy, carefully considered legislation, which hopefully will take account of your Lordships' contributions today.

I shall sit down two-thirds of the way through my allotted eight minutes, not only because of the excellent presentation by the noble Lord, Lord Alton, but in the sure knowledge that far more expert views than mine are to be expressed in the remainder of this debate.

My Lords, I warmly congratulate the noble Lord on initiating this debate, on introducing it so comprehensively and on his tireless endeavours on behalf of those suffering from violations of human rights in many parts of the world.

It was suggested that I should focus on Sudan. I appreciate the opportunity to highlight the human trafficking in the form of slavery there today. It is often said that abduction and trafficking in women and children in parts of Africa is not new. It has long been associated with inter-tribal conflict. But in Sudan a more systematic policy of abduction and enslavement of African women and children by Arabs from the north began in the 1980s. Then the Islamist National Islamic Front regime took power by military coup in 1989 and declared jihad in its most militaristic form against all who opposed it, including Muslims, traditional believers and Christians.

The objectives of the jihad include the forcible Islamisation of those not already Muslims and the Arabisation of the African peoples of the south and Nuba Mountains. The weapons of jihad include military offensives against innocent civilians and the manipulation of aid. The regime declared large areas as no-go zones for Operation Lifeline Sudan and associated aid organisations, so that its victims are left to suffer and die unreached, unhelped, unheard.

The third weapon of jihad is slavery, particularly in the borderlands such as northern and parts of southern Sudan, as in Bahr-el-Ghazal. In the early 1990s NIF leaders went to the borderlands to mobilise the local Arab tribesmen (murahaleen), to arm them and to encourage them to participate alongside government soldiers and jihad warriors in the raids on African communities in the south. They were told that they could keep the booty of war, including the human booty of women and children. That has been confirmed by Arabs from those areas who have spoken to us. The abducted women and children are used as slaves, boys as cattleherds, girls and women for domestic work and sexual exploitation, which results in irreversible genetic change for dignified Dinka people.

Abductions have been documented by the few aid organisations that defy the NIF's no-go ban and by independent media, including television programmes from "Dateline" in the mid-1990s to the BBC's "Everyman" last year, and newspapers ranging from Corriere Della Sera to the Ottawa Citizen. Reporters come, profoundly sceptical, and return convinced by the reality of slavery.

I and colleagues from Christian Solidarity Worldwide have been there, with the raids going on around us. We have seen communities decimated by the abduction of women and children and by a scorched earth policy. We have walked through miles of recently attacked villages, with countless human and cattle corpses, burnt homes, churches, mosques, animist shrines, schools, clinics—total devastation.

However, there are peaceable Arabs from the north, who are friends of the African Dinka people, who come south in the dry season to graze their cattle and to trade. At considerable risk, they identify, buy back and bring back slaves, for, if identified, they face penalties for undermining the jihad. They need money. They cannot just abduct slaves. Many local African communities can provide the necessary funds but others cannot because they have lost everything in the raids.

Therefore, we have provided resources for some communities to redeem slaves, for which we have been criticised. For example, it is said that we encourage the slave trade; that is not true. This trafficking is not economic—the abduction is an act of war and will continue whether or not any slave is redeemed. Moreover, it has been said that we have been conned and that those whose freedom we buy are not slaves. But we meticulously check case histories of random samples of those returned. We also take other measures, such as double checking the translations of Dinka and Arabic interpreters.

Obviously, slave redemption is not the solution: the solution is to stop the slavery. International protest brought down apartheid, so why is there so much reluctance to protest against slavery? Perhaps because David Hoile's well-funded organisation, the European-Sudanese Public Affairs Council, which acts as a mouthpiece for the NIF, widely disseminates publications full of misleading half-truths and references taken out of context, trying to discredit the evidence.

Moreover, the NIF does not allow independent organisations to visit the affected areas. Therefore, it is hard to obtain the evidence or to rescue those who have been abducted. The NIF's own face-saving mechanism, the Committee for the Eradication of the Abduction of Women and Children, has been extremely limited in its effectiveness. It does not rescue—indeed, it cannot; they have gone beyond rescue—those who have already been sold into slavery in other parts of Sudan or abroad; or boys, sent to the jihad training schools to be trained to fight against their own people. We have met some of those who have escaped and they have given us details.

Examples speak louder than generalizations. Kabissa Ayak, aged 28, was captured in a surprise attack on her village near Wonruk. The people ran in disarray. Her husband was killed. She tried to hide in a bush but was caught. In her own words:

"One of my sons aged 18 months was pounded to death in a pounding block, before my eyes. When I saw my husband dead and my child killed I tried to kill myself, so they bound me and dragged me along. We were taken to Muglad [in the North] … my owner's name is Hassan Hussein. I was enslaved for about 4 years, kept in a cattle compound and never given enough food. An Arab raped me and I became pregnant. I gave birth in a cattle compound with no help. I called the baby"—

whom we saw—

"''Mam' which means 'suffering' or 'difficulties' … I am a Christian and they tried to force me to become a Muslim … I thought about suicide because I had lost my loved ones and didn't want to go to the mosque. Then I heard rumours of traders who would return slaves and I managed to come out to meet them. I am still suffering because I lost my loved ones. But I want to say `Thank you' for rescuing me from slavery".

In conclusion, I invite noble Lords to meet little Deng aged 10. He has just returned with a trader after spending two years as a slave. He is highly traumatised because he learnt that, in the raid during which he was captured, both his parents were killed. So he has returned to discover that he is an orphan. However, towards the end of our conversation, I got a wistful little smile from Deng. He said, "Well, at least I am home again now. I'm called by my own name Deng", which is Dinka for "rain", and rain is precious. It also means, "someone to be cherished" and a gift from God. He added, "I'm no longer called `Abit', or slave".

Everyone in your Lordships' House agrees that no child in the world today should be called "slave". I therefore ask the Minister what precisely Her Majesty's Government are doing to put more pressure on the National Islamic Front regime in the Sudan to change its policy so that no child will continue to be called "Abit" in the Sudan today.

My Lords, as the noble Lord, Lord Alton, said, trafficking is not a new crime.

However, it is acquiring a salience that demands urgent response. We are grateful to the noble Lord for introducing this debate at this time, in advance of legislation by the Government. I am also grateful to the Government for showing, domestically, a degree of urgency and sensitivity to concerns that have properly been expressed about the inadequacy of our domestic law.

However, because I can only endorse and underline what the noble Lord, Lord Alton, so eloquently said about the position within the United Kingdom, I shall focus my remarks on the efforts that might be made and, I believe, are being made by other countries in Europe, particularly in that part of Europe that has been afflicted by the fall-out from the conflicts in south eastern Europe and the ending of the regimes behind the Iron Curtain. In those areas the problems are transnational and complex. They require international co-operation and multi-agency approaches.

There is a very marked rise in the number of victims of trafficking coming to western Europe from eastern Europe. A great deal of evidence, not just anecdotal, shows that there is an enormous increase in the involvement of organised crime with substantial profits being made from trafficking. The Stability Pact Task Force on trafficking has sought to co-ordinate activities and to facilitate communication between all the relevant organisations. This has been achieved with practical consequences on the ground—sometimes operating with bodies like the International Organisation for Migration, as in Albania—by providing safe houses, witness protection programmes, and strengthening co-operation with the police to enhance victim protection.

When the matter was the subject of an exchange between the noble Lord, Lord Alton, and the noble Lord, Lord Rooker, I detected some indication that there is a lack of certainty about the full scale of the problem. It is impossible to argue that the problem is not growing, and doing so at an alarming rate. It may be impossible to produce accurate statistics for very obvious reasons: those who are victims are very unwilling to come forward to provide information. But the illustrative estimates that have been produced by Europol are, I believe, helpful. On the basis of submissions from member countries, they indicate that, for example, one group operating in the Netherlands with control over 10 women was earning about 3,500 euros a day.

Attention has also been drawn to the estimate from the Institute of Migration that 500,000 women have illegally been moved from the Ukraine to western Europe in the 10 years since independence. It is estimated that one in five of those women is trapped, or has been trapped, in the illegal sex industry.

It is right to consider what are called the "push and pull" factors—the origins in economic and social deprivation—and to recognise that some of those who are involved are coming to the West willingly because they imagine that their lives will be better as a result. In order to deal with that fact, we have to look at our own immigration policies and acknowledge with cool and calculating judgment that this country could accept many more skilled and, indeed, unskilled immigrants. If others were to follow that lead, some of the pressure in those countries on exposed and endangered women could be substantially reduced.

The other main cause of the problem is the conflict in those parts of the world and the subsequent fall-out. However, I believe that the international community is responding to that, notably through the work of the Office for Democratic Institutions and Human Rights based in Warsaw under the OSCE. The organisation has done much to advance the debate about the nature of the requirements of proper legislation against trafficking in all the member countries. It has produced invaluable work, which we should seek to disseminate and follow up.

The ODIHR has promoted important fieldwork, in which the Government have played a useful role. The Government not only contributed to the anti-trafficking fund, they were an originator of it. In addition, the ODHIR has provided anti-trafficking hotlines offering information and counselling in the Ukraine and Belarus, and raising awareness through, for example, a five-part programme in Russia to highlight the risks posed to women by traffickers. It has also set up programmes for the return to Poland and re-integration there of victims of trafficking, which were supported by the anti-trafficking fund. Those useful measures, which have practical consequences, must be considered with at least as much urgency as the need to change the law.

The political determination by member governments of OSCE not to tolerate such activity is as important as the adherence to anti-trafficking conventions. Pressure in regard to those points can produce results. For example, there is evidence that when, during the negotiation of a stability pact with Albania, the Albanian government were taken up on the matter, they appointed a co-ordinator to take account of trafficking in human beings.

The Government are doing valuable work in such forums. We in western Europe must take responsibility for the matter, and, notwithstanding the complexity of delivering the results, make a serious commitment to deal with it. When we view the Government's domestic legislation on trafficking, we shall bear in mind that it must deal not only with the repression of the offences but, in particular, with the protection of the human rights of the victims.

My Lords, I join other contributors in thanking the noble Lord, Lord Alton of Liverpool, for introducing this timely debate.

We are slowly waking up to the seriousness of the challenge posed by the trafficking in human beings. In Bristol we have in recent years begun to work through the history of slavery, often painfully. We discovered that slavery took place not only in the 17th and 18th centuries on the North Atlantic triangular route, but also that it was present in the 11th century, when young men and pregnant maidens from Wiltshire were sold to the Viking Irish. We asked, sometimes with incredulity, how it was possible for human beings to act in that way, treating their brothers and sisters as commodities to be bought and sold when the price was right. How, especially, could children be born into slavery and grow up knowing no other life? We need to he clear that the issue is not a racial one; it has to do with the value of human beings and human dignity, and it is therefore for the consideration of us all.

We have recognised only recently that a new form of that evil trade continues and is growing rapidly. In the nature of the case, precise numbers are not known with certainty. I hope that the Minister will be able to indicate the Government's assessment of the numbers involved and the measures that recently they said they were taking to improve levels of information. I am sure that nobody will publicly defend this vile trade. The question is: what is to be done to address the problem? There is, as noble Lords said, no shortage of conventions, protocols and agreements, prepared by the United Nations and its agencies or agreed by the European Union. Trafficking and commercial sexual exploitation are recognised internationally as significant problems with transnational dimensions. Member states have been urged to address the problem as a matter of urgency.

I therefore welcome the steps that the Government have already taken to show their awareness of the need for action. The Church of England Board for Social Responsibility noted in its response last year to Setting the Boundaries, the sex offences review, that the Josephine Butler Society had asked for its support on the issue of trafficking and sexual exploitation. The society hoped that an organisation would be established to help the victims of trafficking with a multi-agency approach. We need to deal with the matter in the spirit of Josephine Butler, with her fearless unmasking of hypocrisy, her energy and her concern for some of the most vulnerable and wretched people in society.

I welcome also the Government's statement in the asylum and immigration White Paper, Secure Borders, Safe Haven, of their intention to implement recommendation 49 of the sex offences review by introducing a specific offence of trafficking, with powers given to trace assets overseas. The noble Lord, Lord Alton of Liverpool, has drawn particular attention to children. I hope that the Minister will also be able to assure us that the legislation will reflect the seriousness of those crimes against children. I support the Children's Society and other children's organisations in their calls for action on Recommendations 50 and 51 of the sex offences review, which proposed the introduction of specific offences relating to the commercial exploitation of children. As I said, that will require a multi-agency approach, and resources will be needed. That means that we must decide whether we think that the matter is important enough.

The noble Lord, Lord Alton of Liverpool, said in his fourth point that the issue is an international one. Perhaps, therefore, we must tackle it at source. I am grateful to the noble Baroness, Lady Cox, for the way in which she introduced the issues relating to Africa, not least the Sudan. I shall underline what she said: Mauritania and the Sudan are the places in Africa where the greatest numbers are involved in the modern, 21st century slave trade. I have been much indebted to Ronald Segal, who wrote a book on the Atlantic slave trade and his latest, in 2001, on Islamic black slaves. He supports greatly the points made by the noble Baroness, Lady Cox. It is a country divided, north and south, Christian and Muslim. It is about Arabisation, and it continues in that way. I shall support the point with figures: in December 1999 alone, 5,514 slaves were redeemed at the cost of £35 each. It is interesting that in the 2nd century AD the Christian Church in Europe decided that it too had to be involved in the remitting of slaves, and this is a continuation.

We are right to condemn this evil trade and to do all that is possible in our own country to wipe it out. However, it is about globalisation and our responsibility to challenge and tackle countries where the trade originates. So perhaps we have to send to the Sudans of this world, and maybe to other nations as well, a challenge to Islam, as we were challenged as Christians in the 17th and 18th century about the values, and the name, in which slavery is undertaken; to challenge democratic governments, ourselves included, that our own values are neither safe nor sound if we deal with these matters in isolation; to challenge the Universal Declaration of Human Rights which is so blatantly flouted; and to challenge ourselves that the situation is redeemable.

If we are to call to mind a memory, let us think of what happened in South Africa. The evil of apartheid continued despite the words of the United Nations and of governments. It was only when popular pressure, when human beings recognised that the issue was about their brothers and sisters, when enforced measures were introduced banning arms, oil and financial credit, that the retreat from apartheid began; and in 1994 a non-racial democracy in South Africa began.

It is right for the Government and your Lordships' House to take action. But we must raise the consciousness of the people not only of this country, but also of other countries, to the belief that these issues have to be tackled because it is an affront to our human dignity that this trade continues. Only then will governments begin to listen, and things be changed.

My Lords, I too thank the noble Lord, Lord Alton of Liverpool, for introducing this debate and offer a few words of support for what he said in his opening remarks. This indeed is a very worrying trend which seems to be escalating despite the many efforts to discourage such a disgraceful trade.

I am not sure whether I should declare an interest since I have in the past alluded to the fact that I am the descendant of an enslaved African, and I will be emotional about what I have to say.

The purpose of the slave trading of my ancestors and now is for gain, greed and gratification. Let me explain. Centuries ago there were, here in Europe, many nations with varying systems of government and they were made up of farmers, craftsmen, artists, musicians, priests, soldiers, teachers, kings and queens. They were people who were husbands and wives, daughters and sons, nephews, nieces, grandparents and grandchildren. They were human.

At the same time there were in Africa many nations with varying systems of government made up of farmers, craftsmen, and so forth. They too were husbands and wives, daughters and sons, nephews, nieces, grandparents and grandchildren. They were human. It was not a case of "nations" in Europe and "tribes" in Africa. Both could be described as either nations or tribes.

But Europeans travelled to Africa. They violently assaulted the Africans in their own homes. They shackled them in leg irons and transported them in insanitary conditions of disease and malnutrition thousands of miles across the sea to the Caribbean and the Americas. There they were sold by auction to other Europeans for whom they had to work without payment on sugar and cotton plantations and at any task or in any conditions inflicted upon them. That was not enough. They also had to gratify the slave owners in their beds.

The Africans who rebelled against that treatment were beaten, humiliated and sometimes killed. Rebellions were put down with the utmost savagery while the European plantation owners became richer and richer from the unpaid labour of Africans.

The primary driving force behind the European dehumanising of Africans was the acquisition of wealth. There was money to be made from buying and selling Africans and from their unpaid labour—wealth for individuals and families in Britain. Cities in Britain and the British economy benefited greatly from that trade. Years later Sir Winston Churchill said,

"The West Indies, two hundred years ago, ranked very largely in the minds of all people who were making Britain and the British by the wealth they supplied to Britain".

As more and more weapons of mass destruction become available to more and more people, the search for peaceful co-existence among the peoples of this shrinking planet becomes even more urgent. Feelings of superiority, inferiority and resentment can slide into aggression and violence, and that threatens the only basis there is for peaceful co-existence; namely, a mutual respect in which we see everyone else as our equal. Without that there is no hope for any of us. It is therefore imperative that we identify whatever might give rise to mistaken ideas of superiority and inferiority in order to destroy their poison.

Although Africans had always resisted their enslavement and their rebellions were making the plantations less profitable and increasingly unmanageable, there was still great opposition in Britain to any change. However, in 1793 a small but determined group mounted a campaign which finally achieved the abolition of slavery and the slave trade. I understand that at the heart of that movement were a group of Christians gathered around the Reverend John Venner, Rector of Holy Trinity, Clapham, and they included persons prominent in public life such as Wilberforce, Clarkson, Sharpe, Buxton, Thornton, Stephen, Macauley and others.

They drew upon evidence and experiences supplied by a remarkable African who had himself been sold into slavery. Oluadah Equiano was that slave. Eventually their efforts were rewarded when the British Parliament outlawed the slave trade in 1807 and slavery itself in 1833. A sad note in all of that was that, whereas compensation of more than £1 million was paid to plantation owners for the loss of their slaves, nothing was paid to the survivors of the 20 million Africans who had been enslaved by them. Great changes can be brought about by small beginnings when a cause is just.

A paradox of this despicable epoch of human history is that it has also been the occasion for an almost superhuman act of forgiveness. The rape and pillage of Africa have so far not been followed by any vengeful atrocities against vulnerable Europeans. On the contrary, the recent peaceful transition from apartheid South Africa to democratic South Africa is but a particular example of a general African sense of generosity and forgiveness. Similarly, the modern Caribbean is a microcosm of what the world could be like where, in the aftermath of slavery and colonialism, people of every ethnic group can have the freedom to be who they are.

I have been trying to impress upon noble Lords that the appalling act of enslavement must never be forgotten and needs to be recorded so that trade in humans should never be tolerated again. Poets like Homer recognised that need, and the horror that descendants have felt at the thought of the annihilation of Africans should give us courage to carry on with the quest lest it be said by the spirits of our ancestors, "We lost heart and we forgot the task".

Today, as I remind your Lordships' House of our combined history—when the continent of Africa saw its children abused, treated as less than human, degraded and humiliated in ways which led the African, in his chains and being whipped, to ask the question, "Am I not a brother?"—I should like to join other noble Lords in the task of not only highlighting the plight of the victims of present-day slavery but of ensuring that human rights are at the core of any anti-trafficking strategy.

I realise that I have gone past my time; I shall hurry. We do not often recognise it, but some of the problems that we deal with daily in Britain arise from that legacy, which has been described by other noble Lords as "degrading". The traumas of slavery run deep and could blight future generations. I therefore ask Her Majesty's Government to support the four proposals outlined by the noble Lord, Lord Alton. A memorial to the unknown slave would not go amiss in our country as it would highlight the fact that we are against slavery.

My Lords, it is a privilege to follow the noble Baroness, Lady Howells of St Davids, and her moving historical survey.

I am grateful to my noble friend Lord Alton for the comprehensive way in which he introduced the debate. He will know that I come to it from the experience of working to prevent, first, the exploitation of domestic workers coming to Britain from overseas; and, secondly, the exploitation of children in poor countries for the purposes of sex tourism.

Both kinds of exploitation stem from extreme poverty in certain countries and, in particular, from rural poverty. Trafficking in people usually involves deception in the country of origin and coercion or debt bondage in the country of destination. This abuse would be less widespread without the poverty of those being trafficked.

It is well known that Russian, Ukrainian and Albanian organised crime gangs are exploiting both young women and street children. The Republics of Moldova and Romania are countries of origin and also countries of transit. I have visited both and I know that between half a million and a million Moldovans are obliged by economic poverty to seek work abroad. Some end up trapped in prostitution, in Italy and elsewhere.

In Romania, a journalist friend of mine plans a thorough study of trafficking. He confirms that poverty and unemployment are its root causes. People lack solid information and are easily seduced by stories about the glamour of the rich west. In Romania, the legislation on trafficking is not very effective, although there is sonic police co-operation with Interpol.

I thank successive governments for what they have done to improve the situation of domestic workers from overseas now in Britain. Their efforts to curb sex tourism and paedophilia by British residents are good and have had notable support from the Thompson travel organisation.

There are several practical steps that the Government could take to prevent trafficking. They could, for instance, remove reservations from the 1989 UN Convention on the Rights of the Child. This would benefit children who have reached this country and then been taken into care by local authorities. They should ratify the 1990 International Convention on the Protection of the Rights of All Migrant Workers and Members of Their Families. They should ensure that trafficking is defined in future legislation, as the noble Lord, Lord Alton, said, in the same way as in the protocol to the UN Convention on Transnational Organised Crime and the EU framework decision on trafficking.

A new Bill was promised last May. When will the Government publish it? When will it he introduced? I trust that the minimum penalty for trafficking will be no less than six or seven years' imprisonment, with a much higher maximum for cases involving prostitution and child abuse, together with the confiscation of the proceeds of trafficking.

Much also should be done without legislation. Will the Government propose that the European Union and the ODIHR should provide full information, in Eastern Europe and other countries of origin, on the policy against trafficking; on the dangers of deception and bogus job offers; and also on bona fide work opportunities that exist or could be created in Western Europe?

At home, will the Government allow victims of trafficking to remain here if they are willing to give evidence? I believe that that is already the intention, but it may need better witness protection. Exceptional leave to remain may also be needed in some cases to protect both the victims and their relatives in the country of origin. A delay for reflection to allow victims to decide calmly on their next steps can be critically important. I believe that the Netherlands allows three months in such cases. Can we do the same here? I hope so.

Secure accommodation for victims of trafficking has been mentioned. In my view, it is urgently needed. Medical and legal help should go along with this. Will the Government fund a specialist NGO to fill this gap? The noble Lord, Lord Rooker, who is not in his place, spoke about this issue on 17th July, as did the noble Lord, Lord Brett, and the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Bristol today. What is being done now?

The problems we are discussing reinforce the importance of dealing with poverty at source. In Europe, this means European Union enlargement, the South-East Europe Stability Pact, the PHAR and TACIS programmes, and micro-finance in generating additional works and jobs in countries of origin. In Britain, the corollary is ever-increasing co-operation between departments—for example, Immigration, Customs and Excise, Inland Revenue, police and social services. I know that the Foreign Office is well aware of this, is encouraging it and is spreading the word abroad. But has the message of co-operation been fully received at home?

To end on a positive note, I congratulate the Government on the successes attained through Project Reflex. I believe that there have been 37 arrests and 13 convictions of traffickers.

My Lords, I, too, congratulate the noble Lord, Lord Alton, on securing this timely debate which highlights a widespread and persistent horror—the trafficking in human life. This abhorrent practice is no less than a modern form of slavery.

From children trafficked to work as forced labour in the cocoa industry of west Africa to child camel jockeys as young as four trafficked from the Sudan to the Gulf states and girls trafficked across Asia into sexual servitude, this is a boom trade which we are nowhere near to eradicating.

We may like to think that this is not an evil which stains European soil. As we have heard today, we would be wrong. Inconceivable though it is in the 21st century, trafficking in human beings is taking place all over the world, in developed and developing countries alike, in countries where human rights are routinely violated and in countries where human rights are respected. This is a truly global plague, the victims of which can find themselves in London or Paris as well as Bangkok or Manila. The OSCE has warned that trafficking affects all its member states, either as countries of origin, countries of transit or countries of destination.

To pick up on the point made by the right reverend Prelate, globalisation has had a mixed effect on the invidious practice of trafficking. On the one hand, it has a beneficial effect. New communication technologies are enabling information to flow more and more freely. As a result, there are now fewer dark corners in the world in which the perpetrators of this evil crime can hide.

However, the wider availability of information is proving to be a double-edged sword. The Internet is being misused for the purpose of promoting sexual exploitation; and a sinister triangle has developed between globalisation, cross-border trafficking in human life and weaknesses in national immigration policies. The net result is that this trade is allowed not only to exist but to flourish and expand.

Faced with a growing body of evidence, the spotlight of international attention is now beginning to focus more sharply on trafficking. The UN Protocol to Prevent, Suppress and Punish Trafficking in Persons, Especially Women and Children, which supplements the UN Convention Against Transnational Organised crime, was adopted by the UN General Assembly in November 2000. This is an important new tool to facilitate international co-operation. Last month, the European Union adopted a comprehensive action plan to combat illegal immigration and trafficking in human beings in the European Union.

NGOs have also sought to turn up the heat on traffickers. In November 2001, Anti-Slavery launched a two-year campaign against human trafficking: to draw attention to it; and to lobby for national and international policy changes to penalise traffickers, protect trafficked people's rights and address the root causes. It should be praised in this work.

Individually and collectively, states hear primary responsibility for the implementation of measures to combat trafficking; but this is a trans-national problem which no country alone can tackle. Trafficking is a complicated and multifaceted problem which requires a co-ordinated, interdisciplinary and international response.

Current legal frameworks, policies and strategies have to date proved inadequate either to prevent trafficking and prosecute traffickers or to protect the human rights of the trafficked. Co-ordination, at both national and international level, has been the exception rather than the rule. As a result, the victims of trafficking are often treated as criminals, while the traffickers go unpunished.

We have heard evidence of how hundreds of women and children, from China to Kosovo, from Africa to Asia, and from Lithuania to Nigeria, are being trafficked through and into the United Kingdom. We have heard how these girls are told to apply for asylum at the ports, and are then referred to social services but disappear when the traffickers make contact with them. We have heard how, since 1995, 66 children have gone missing from West Sussex social services in this way.

For some time it has been clear that there is an urgent need to adopt legislation which concretely criminalises trafficking in human beings and to give priority to combating this pernicious and odious form of slavery. The UK has no specific legislation prohibiting human trafficking, and law enforcement bodies are hampered in their efforts to tackle this scourge because of lack of guidance.

As the noble Lord, Lord Alton, said, legislation that is nearly 50 years old, such as the Sexual Offences Act 1956, is being applied which provides for maximum sentences of only two years. While the UK is a signatory to the UN protocol on the prevention and suppression of trafficking and the EU framework decision on trafficking for the purposes of sexual and labour exploitation, domestic legislation is needed to give effect to them. I therefore welcome the Government's recent immigration and asylum White Paper, which includes a commitment to legislate in this area and to increase the penalties for those involved in trafficking. As the noble Lord, Lord Alton, remarked, it is rare to have such an opportunity in advance of legislation to make constructive suggestions on the framing of new laws, and that is most welcome.

This is an important opportunity for the Government to send a strong message world-wide that they are serious about fighting traffickers; and secondly, to ensure statutory protection for victims of trafficking in the United Kingdom. I hope that any new legislation will form the backbone to a tripartite approach—policies and programmes aimed at the prevention of trafficking, the protection of the victims and the prosecution of the perpetrators.

It is important, as the noble Lord, Lord Brett, pointed out, that the new legislation clearly distinguishes trafficking from smuggling. Will the Minister give an assurance that the legislation will use the same definition of trafficking as has been adopted in both the EU framework decision on trafficking and the UN protocol on trafficking, so that there is much-needed consistency in the definition of the offence of trafficking? If the state intervenes at all, it is usually the victims who are arrested and deported, while the traffickers continue to operate with near impunity.

Few victims—in the destination countries or upon return to their country of origin—receive any assistance, protection or legal remedy against their traffickers. As the noble Lord, Lord Brett, mentioned, the victims of trafficking who are returned home may face torture, rape, detention or even death at the hands of the traffickers.

When we treat the symptoms, we must at the same time look to the root causes; namely, poverty and corruption. International action to address slavery and trafficking will not be successful unless it tackles these root causes. Poverty breeds abusive labour practices. Poverty and the exploitation of desperation is at the heart of bonded labour. Poverty, which particularly affects women, is at the heart of the exploitation of women. The poverty of parents is at the heart of their decision to sell their children. The victims of slavery-like abuses are generally from the poorest and the most vulnerable social groups. The cancer of slavery is a symptom of the malignancy of poverty, and the two must be treated together.

My Lords, let us make no mistake. This debate is, literally and firmly, about slavery, as many speakers have said. It is true, if perhaps a little facile, to say that slavery has not been abolished; it has simply been modernised by the demographic changes that have taken place and by economic forces. France—a wise and logical country—has recognised this by setting up a committee under the appropriate name, Le Comité Contre L'Esclavage Moderne—the committee against modern slavery. We ought to recognise trafficking for what it is.

We have been given a great many estimates of the numbers involved. I endorse the comments of the noble Lord, Lord Maclennan, and venture to agree with him that evidence as to the scale of the problem is uncontested. It is not confined to a number of well-known groups or a number of well-known countries as the old slave trade was. It is perhaps more difficult, therefore, to get to grips with it. Nor is it limited to a definite and recognisable status in terms of the persons concerned. Anyone can recognise a slave; it is not so easy to recognise a victim of trafficking. As a consequence, the organisation Anti-Slavery International, of which I have the honour to be president, has taken the matter very seriously. It has conducted inquiries, attended meetings and is working very actively indeed on the basis that trafficking is a modern form of slavery.

I want to make two preliminary points before coming to my argument. First, there are plenty of case notes, some of which we have heard in the debate. I shall not add to them, except to recall a rather moving occasion at which I was present, with the noble Earl, Lord Sandwich, when an award was made by Anti-Slavery International. Two young Bangladeshi girls, Roushan and Golan, aged about 13, spoke to the meeting about their experiences. They recounted how they were trafficked at the age of about 12 or younger for sums of six US dollars in one case and 13 US dollars in the other. They recounted their experiences, and they were able to say what has happened to them since then and since they have been taken in for rehabilitation by the Association for Community Development. It was therefore moving in two respects: first, the fact of the trafficking; and, secondly, the equally important fact that something can be done and—as I think we all agree—must be done to rehabilitate those who have been through the process.

The second preliminary point is very short. It is simply to endorse what has been said: there are plenty of international instruments dealing with this matter. They have been listed by the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Bristol and others, and they include the United Nations, the International Labour Organisation, and now the European Community. I am glad to say that this country has a good record of joining in with those instruments, and no doubt we will be active in carrying into effect the European Union framework communication.

I shall concentrate on three points which are perhaps relevant to the practical implementation of those many international instruments. The first, of course, is the question of definition. It sounds like a dry legal point, but I think that it is rather more important than that. Trafficking is a vague word. Although it has become a term of art which everyone involved in the affair knows and understands, it is not so easy when one tries to analyse it and see what it includes. The United Nations protocol has therefore given a much more elaborate definition focusing on the word exploitation, which is said to include as a minimum sexual exploitation, forced labour and so on. The definition brings out some interesting and important points. This trafficking is not limited to sexual exploitation, although those cases catch the headlines, but involves all sorts of forced labour, exposure to hazardous work and even the involuntary enlistment of soldiers in military service. There are said to be 300,000 such soldiers.

We now have this rather comprehensive definition, although the noble Lord, Lord Rooker, has twice given a rather cautious reply about its incorporation in British law. I completely understand that, and the noble Lord, Lord Brennan, may do the same. It is a rather wide definition and perhaps needs to be refined. However, I understood from the noble Lord, Lord Rooker—perhaps the Minister who is to reply to this debate will be able to confirm it—that this definition is acceptable and must be made part of the law in the interests of police trying to enforce it and welfare organisations trying to implement it, and of the general public who need to understand what it involves.

The second point is police reinforcement, about which much has been said. There is a low rate of conviction. Very often as a rule, victims will not give evidence. There is also big money on the other side. Moreover, the area is a very difficult one and includes a great number of countries in eastern Europe, West Africa and elsewhere. There are problems with language, and problems about visas and passports which are falsified and may enable people to come in illegally. The ambassador in the Cote d'Ivoire has said that there is evidence there of many children's visas being false. That brings us to what has already been described as the difficult case of unaccompanied children, of whom there are said to be 10,000 in this country.

Additionally, when one is considering how to deal with a particular problem, one is faced with human rights problems. Mrs Mary Robinson, the United Nations High Commissioner, is on record as saying that human rights should be at the centre of this problem, and that this problem should be at the centre of human rights. However, one still has to ask who is to take up the human rights aspect of the problem and see to it that effect is given to human rights. Then we have the final problem. When one has identified a case and brought about a prosecution, what is one to do with the victims? It is not enough to send someone to prison; that is the least important and interesting side of it. What is one to do with the victims, who very often are women and children with all sorts of problems of their own at home?

All of this is very much beyond the resources of the ordinary police force which is not used to doing this sort of work. It has probably never heard of trafficking. We have the evidence of Kelly and Regan, researchers who have given excellent help to the Home Office. They say that the majority of police forces have little knowledge of the problem. So, there must be a specialised unit, either a police force or mixed force, which is expert at dealing with it. It is not enough to have even a sufficient number of policemen expert in it. We had a meeting with ECPAT the other day, and we were told that there were only 12 trained policemen capable of dealing with this problem. That is a serious figure that we have to bear in mind.

So there is a problem of police enforcement. I was going to go on to say something about the problem of rehabilitation, but I see that my time has expired. Other speakers have spoken of it. I think that we are behind other countries in what we do in the way of rehabilitation. We need money to enable refuges to be set up, to which victims, particularly young children, can be sent before they are sent back. We also have the problem of giving evidence about their condition, and the Dutch experiment of three-months' respite before action is taken.

I cannot do more now than conclude by heartily endorsing and thanking the noble Lord, Lord Alton, for the splendid way in which he has brought this subject to our attention.

My Lords, I, too, thank the noble Lord, Lord Alton, for tabling this debate. It is a very timely debate. Only last week, the Government produced a very interesting video on forced marriages and abduction. I commend the video to noble Lords and urge them to watch it.

In the past few years, I have travelled to various European countries and to various parts of the Middle East and Africa. Trafficking in women and children is a common factor affecting many of those countries. My own involvement with the Save the Children Fund has confirmed the alarming scale of the problem in the Far East as well. The problem has an international dimension and is literally out of control.

While I was in Zanzibar, I was able to see at first hand the remnants of the slave trade there, including chains and shackles. People who protested against that trade were beheaded. No one could fail to be moved by the comments of the noble Baroness, Lady Howells of St Davids. What we have done is to move from chains and shackles to blackmail and corruption, which are some of the factors now oppressing women and children who are least able to defend themselves.

Although no accurate statistics are available on the number of people being trafficked internationally, it is clear that this contemporary form of slavery is affecting hundreds of thousands of people each year. I contacted Anti-Slavery International, and it believes that, every year, at an absolute minimum, hundreds of women and children are being trafficked to the United Kingdom for sexual exploitation. It also believes that the situation is getting worse. That view is shared by the deputy director of Europol, who recently said that human trafficking to EU member states for sexual exploitation and illicit labour is increasing significantly.

The noble Lord, Lord Alton, provided statistics on the number of foreign nationals, including children, who have been lost from the system. That is a frightening thought. Many of these young people have escaped from care and into the hands of those who exploit them. They face frightening consequences. Not only are they blackmailed to perform various tasks, but their families abroad are being blackmailed to ensure that they do not complain about their treatment here or elsewhere in the European Union. Evidence from law enforcement officials indicates two new and worrying trends. First, the victims of trafficking for sexual exploitation are getting younger and more children are involved. Secondly, there are increasing links with organised crime, with those responsible for trafficking in people also being involved with drugs and arms trafficking. Those factors make tackling trafficking an even greater priority for governments everywhere.

The right reverend Prelate was right to draw attention to the UK Government's proposal in the White Paper, Secure Borders, Safe, Haven, to bring forward a stopgap measure in the Bill dealing with immigration to introduce an offence of trafficking with a maximum penalty of 14 years. That is a positive step to end the current situation where no offence for trafficking exists, thereby making it a high-profit and low-risk crime. The commitment in the White Paper to bring in detailed legislation to cover people trafficking for both sexual and labour exploitation "as soon as possible" is also welcome. I hope that the Government will hasten that legislation. I believe that the next Queen's Speech should bring forward a definition of "trafficking" to be used in domestic legislation. Such a definition should mirror that used in the UN protocol on trafficking and the EU framework decision on trafficking which is currently still under discussion. Using the same definition will ensure consistency in terms of what constitutes an offence of trafficking in people, both within the European Union and internationally.

I also welcome the acknowledgement in the White Paper that victims of trafficking should be offered the care and support that many noble Lords have mentioned. But the Government need to go further and detail the specific measures that they will take to ensure the protection and support of victims of trafficking in the United Kingdom. Victims' protection should be at the centre of an anti-trafficking policy and the system in the UK is clearly inadequate. Currently, for example, there is no agency to which the police, immigration, local authorities or nongovernmental agencies can refer adult victims of trafficking where they can receive specialised support services and advice, including secure accommodation. My own authority, West Sussex social services, is the only body to provide such services for children. It is absolutely essential that the Government fund the provision of secure accommodation and assistance for victims of trafficking as a matter of urgent priority.

It is also important that victims of trafficking should have a breathing space that will give them the opportunity to receive assistance from such a specialised agency and to make an informed decision about whether they wish to co-operate with authorities in prosecuting the traffickers. Such a system already exists in other European countries like Holland, Belgium and Italy, as has been pointed out. That breathing space will give support workers the chance to gain victims' confidence and to assist them to recover from their traumatic experiences. During that process, information regarding how they were recruited and transported will come to light, so that even if the victim decides not to testify against the traffickers, the authorities will still have vital information about the traffickers' modus operandi that will allow them to profile possible victims and to disrupt the traffickers' networks.

In that context, I draw your Lordships' attention to the model that has been used in Italy, which has much to recommend it. Under Italian law a special permit to stay can be issued when,

"situations of violence or grave exploitation towards a foreigner have been identified, and concrete dangers for his or her safety emerged as a result of the intent to withdraw from the circle".

The permit is valid for six months and is renewable for one year, with the possibility that victims may be allowed to remain permanently. Both the police and non-governmental organisations can apply for the permit and the issuing of permits is not made contingent on the victim collaborating in a prosecution.

According to a senior expert for social policy in the Italian ministry of manpower, that system has helped to ensure more co-operation with the authorities because victims feel more secure and, therefore, prosecutors support the use of the special residency permits. According to information supplied by the National Anti-Mafia Directorate, currently there are 1,682 investigations or prosecutions under way against traffickers in Italy. Given that that system has proved effective in terms of protecting and supporting the victims and in ensuring effective prosecutions of the traffickers, I hope that the Minister will assure the House that the Government will give serious consideration to operating such a system in the United Kingdom.

My Lords, human trafficking is human suffering of the most extreme kind. On my journeys abroad I have seen a 12 year-old girl, carrying a baby, sold into prostitution; six, seven and eight year-old children in labour conditions that are appalling, working 12 or 14 hours a day; and in Columbia a 10 year-old taken from his family by guerrillas to be trained as one of their soldiers. Such suffering, which is the product of the crime of trafficking, demands a message of clarity from this House.

The trafficked must be given sanctuary. Those who traffic must be the subject of firm law and condign punishment. The problem of trafficking must be recognised in our society as being of the highest significance and demanding action by us all. First, those who are enslaved look for refuge, somewhere to go to escape. I ask rhetorically, in our society do we have a system that provides such refuge? I regret that the answer is no.

If there is refuge, the trafficked want security against those who exploit them. The blackmail of which we have heard is not financial in essence, but fear against the person—woman or child, or their families in the country from which they have been trafficked. Without that reassurance, that security, they will not look for refuge. If given refuge, if reassured, they want to know that those from whom they have sought help will not treat them as an asylum cipher, a problem to be disposed of in the most rapid and cost-effective way. They need to know whether they will be given—in that terribly insensitive phrase—reflection time, whether they will be allowed to stay in the country, and whether they will be able to go home to whatever they may face there. I put sanctuary first. It is the aspect of Christian compassion, which I am sure is common to other religions, that we should first mark in analysing this problem.

The trafficker must be the subject of firm law and condign punishment. I fully endorse the remarks of the noble and learned Lord, Lord Wilberforce, about the difficulties of creating a plain, straightforward offence of trafficking that can easily be enforced. We lawyers will solve the problem once given the problem to solve. Given the offence, it is much more important to ensure enforcement of the law. I suggest three ways. The first may offend my libertarian spirit, but I propose very powerful rights of search by the police in brothels or similar places where women and children are being kept for trafficking purposes. That will instil fear into the traffickers and their systems; the fear of being caught. Secondly, once caught there will be a ruthless search to obtain the assets they have acquired from this crime, both here and abroad, through international co-operation if necessary. Thirdly, once convicted they go to gaol for a very long time. Trafficking demands tough law.

This is a problem of the highest social and moral importance. This country's citizens—like any other country's citizens—will think to themselves, "This problem cannot possibly exist in the United Kingdom. It is a problem from abroad. Let someone else solve it. I refuse to accept that my nation is part of it". That I suspect is the thinking of many people in many countries. How wrong it is.

We need to establish the scale of this problem in our own community by public debate, research and, if necessary, annual reports and what is being done about it. In addition—here again I endorse what the noble and learned Lord, Lord Wilberforce, said—we cannot simply pass a tough law and expect a police force that is inexperience not only in detecting this type of crime but in handling the victims of it to cope with it. Once training has been given, this crime should be a key performance indicator in major police forces in this country.

In raising the size of this problem in the community, let it be put on the basis that the problem must be solved. In Bleak House Charles Dickens made the following statement which I adopt, because of my concerns for children's charities, and which I connect to this problem:

"In the little world in which children live, nothing is more keenly felt, nothing more finely perceived than injustice".

What a terrible injustice it is for a child to be treated as sexual merchandise, cheap labour or a second-rate soldier. It is appalling. It demands action. I have no doubt that those speaking for the Government today will explain to us what can be done.

My Lords, I join others in thanking my noble friend Lord Alton for giving us a chance to discuss this very distressing topic today. His timing is impeccable, at least I hope that it is, because the Government have promised to legislate on the matter. I hope that that promise can be spelt out tonight with rather more specific timing. It is quite unacceptable that police forces and prosecutors have to rely on two clauses in a 46 year-old statute which was not designed for the purposes of human trafficking and which offers penalties wholly inappropriate for that trade.

Other countries are ahead of us both in legislation and in care. Therefore, it behoves the Government to treat this matter with great urgency. We cannot drag our feet. I know that the Minister will tell us that he cannot forecast future legislative programmes. But I hope that he will be a little more constructive than that. I look forward to his stretching the bounds of ministerial responsibility in a positive direction.

I strongly support the notion of a reflection break. However, I want to sound a note of caution which I hope will not be regarded as unduly timid. We are dealing here with children who have been abused in a dreadful way and who have systematically been stripped of all sense of dignity, self-confidence and trust in others. So they must have time to consider their position and have support to regain some of those qualities. It may take some decades, if ever. But they need some months for that.

I differ from some of the action groups in the notion that, if at the end of that time they conclude that they cannot give evidence, they should not thereby be debarred from long-term asylum. That sounds harsh. But we must deal with a dreadful trade. It is one which is growing and is driven by traffickers. It would be a Faustian bargain indeed if we were to lean so hard to help the present victims that we allowed that trade to grow and endanger future generations of children. So one needs to have a balanced situation. That is not an easy stage to reach. It sounds very unfeeling, but certainly on my part it is not meant to be.

I have greatly enjoyed today's debate. I agree with everything that has been said. It is not in my character or nature to repeat those things, so I propose to terminate my contribution here.

My Lords, I join all other noble Lords who have expressed their thanks and congratulations to the noble Lord, Lord Alton, on initiating a notable debate which I hope will be influential on the Government's thinking when they frame the legislation.

There are no statistics, as has been said, on people trafficking, because the majority of the victims are not recorded. Most of the victims suffer in silence in their brothels and sweatshops, terrified into submission by threats, blackmail and violence. But various figures have been given. Among other commentators, the Home Office Minister, Angela Eagle, has said that the scale of the problem is almost as great as that of drugs. There is no doubt that we are looking at what the noble Lord, Lord Moynihan, has called a huge global plague.

There are two aspects to this menace, both of which have been touched on by your Lordships this evening. There is the need for domestic and European legislation and policing, which is dealt with in the White Paper, Secure Borders, Safe Haven. The second is the much harder question of how we cope with the social and economic factors which give rise to the phenomenon in the countries of origin. The White Paper says that we are determined to address the overseas component of organised immigration crime. It acknowledges that we have to,

"address the factors which make people vulnerable to exploitation such as poverty, war and repression".

Much of that has been echoed in your Lordships' speeches today.

The White Paper makes a distinction between people smuggling, which is the facilitation of illegal entry with the consent of the immigrant, and people trafficking, where the agent plans to exploit the immigrant by coercing that person into low paid work or sexual servitude. The Home Office believes that the majority of illegal immigrants fully consent to the transaction although there is a grey area between the two categories, where the person first agrees to certain conditions but later wants to escape from the illegal bargain.

With others, we fully support the Government in their intention to make human trafficking a specific offence in accordance with the UN Convention against Transnational Organised Crime and the EU Framework Decision on trafficking. I take it that, as many noble Lords have already said, the definition is bound to follow that which is contained in these two instruments. I cannot see how any other solution would be possible.

However, I am not sure that increasing the maximum sentence for the offence of being concerned with arrangements for bringing illegal entrants into the UK to 14 years is likely to have much of a deterrent effect on the traffickers. I agree that the sentence should be long one, as the noble Lord, Lord Brennan, said. But the money that these people make is enormous, so the deterrent effect of the possibility of conviction is quite small. We have no accurate information about the scale of the crime, but the White Paper calculates that some 35,000 people who tried to evade border controls in 2000 were assisted by the criminal gangs. If one compares that with the number found guilty of offences equivalent to trafficking, which has varied between 115 and 150 over the past five years, one can see that the number of people detected is a minute fraction of those who commit the crime.

The only way to increase the conviction rate would be to put more police and Immigration Service resources into catching the offenders. That would be the most effective deterrent. Perhaps, as the noble Lord, Lord Brennan, suggested, we need to give police more powers to search brothels and other sexual establishments to enable them to catch such criminals. Where they have done such work, they have been effective. There have been several major police raids on sex establishments, and each trawl has netted quite a few people. I do not know why they do not undertake more, but perhaps it is because so few officers are engaged in such work.

Since it was established in March 2000, we have heard much about Project Reflex—although the noble Lord, Lord Hylton, was the only one to mention it today—but it is not clear whether it is simply a label for doing things that we should have been doing anyway. The Government say that they have brought together all the key agencies involved in the interception and prosecution of traffickers, such as the Immigration Service, NCIS, the security agencies and the police, and have co-operated with law enforcement agencies in the European Union and further afield. In a Written Answer, the Minister, Bob Ainsworth, said that NCIS had been a major contributor to a project managed by Interpol in Lyons to improve the collection and sharing of information on organised crime groups involved in illegal immigration and trafficking.

Again, the question is whether any of the agencies concerned have been given extra resources, or whether they are expected to manage those tasks on the same budget. I should be grateful if the Minister would comment on that. I note that some additional funding was provided by the EU's STOP II Programme to, for example, NCIS and the Crown Prosecution Service, and it would be useful if the Minister said something about the projects that they have undertaken.

One highly visible initiative has been secondment of immigration liaison officers to the key countries where the gangs are operating—especially the Balkans, I understand—and we are supporting an EU initiative in Bosnia and an International Organisation for Migration initiative in Kosovo. Unfortunately, where a large number of international personnel is present, as in the Balkans, there is a ready market for the trafficking of women into prostitution.

Helga Konrad, head of the Stability Pact for South-eastern Europe's new Task Force on Trafficking of Women and Children, which was mentioned by my noble friend Lord Maclennan, said that:

"the influx of men in uniforms creates a market for sex work".

The International Organisation for Migration, which published a study on trafficking in the Balkans, states that the region is particularly vulnerable to trafficking, being in a post-conflict situation and adjacent to both rich and poor countries.

The UN protocol on trafficking requires state parties to consider measures for the physical, psychological and social recovery of victims, as has been mentioned several times during this debate, and it is good to see that the south-eastern Europe task force will support the development of shelters offering security, medical care, legal and psychological counselling and repatriation assistance. Ms Konrad says that it is not enough merely to provide places to store people until they can be sent home.

In Britain, only one local authority, West Sussex, is providing any support. What support will the Government offer West Sussex, and are they concerned about the 66 children who have gone missing while in the care of social services? Several noble Lords asked whether the Government have any further thoughts about the assurance given by the noble Lord, Lord Rooker, last July that they were considering how an NGO could provide support and advice for victims of trafficking. Will they request bids in the near future so that the arrangements can be in place before the legislation, which I assume will be in the next Queen's Speech—although I do not expect the Minister to answer that question this evening?

Anti-Slavery International, which has done so much to call attention to the problem of trafficking, calling it a modern-day slave trade, cited Mary Robinson as saying that human rights must be at the core of a credible anti-trafficking strategy. The UN Secretary-General, in a note to the sub-commission last July, said that trafficking and related practices such as debt bondage, forced prostitution and forced labour constitute violations of the most basic human rights. He also said that special attention should be given to the needs of trafficked children, including their health and educational needs.

The issue of trafficking has been discussed by several UN agencies, especially by the rapporteurs on the sale of children and on the human rights of migrants. The question is: how can the work of those UN agencies and other human rights bodies be dovetailed into the policies of Britain and the European Union so that, as the Secretary-General put it, those issues are,

"not simply reduced to problems of migration, problems of public order, or problems of organised crime"?

With the Human Rights Commission's annual meeting about to start in Geneva, will the Government consider what can be done there to focus international attention on the victims of trafficking and to ensure that the work of the special rapporteurs is facilitated by adequate funding and support personnel?

Perhaps I may give one example from last year's report by the rapporteur on the rights of the child. She expressed concern about the extent to which Nigerian women and girls are falling victim to trafficking gangs. They are lured to Europe, mainly to Italy, apparently, by promises of a better life—in the same way as my noble friend Lord Maclennan described happening in the Ukraine—but end up owing 50,000 dollars to the pimps to pay for their passage, which they can hope to redeem only by years of squalid servitude. If they are caught, they are dumped unceremoniously back in Nigeria—500 of them in 1999 alone—but the traffickers are rarely brought to justice. We must do something to persuade the victims of such offences to give evidence. It will not be enough, as the noble Lord, Lord Brennan, suggested, merely to offer victim protection programmes here. There must be protection against victimisation of their families in their countries of origin.

The wicked trade in human beings—largely women and children—is a global menace on the scale of drugs. We fully support the measures that the Government have taken so far, and we will co-operate with them on the promised legislation. We appeal to them not to forget the victims and to use their best endeavours in the European Union to see that the human rights dimension of this dreadful phenomenon is high on the agenda.

My Lords, I found it profoundly disturbing when I began to consider this problem to realise that trafficking in human beings is probably as old as mankind. It existed as a normal condition of life in all communities, including our own, until relatively recently. That gives me no satisfaction, but we must recognise that fact.

What is new today? We have had centuries to grow and develop out of that problem, while other parts of the world have, sadly, perhaps not yet had time to get away from it. That is one problem. We see such problems in a light different from that of other places. My noble friend Lord Moynihan mentioned information systems in the modern era, but the engine of change that is driving this appalling trade is the ease of international travel.

Trafficking in human beings when they had to be walked 200 miles perhaps may not have been serious. Today, when they can be flown around the globe in hours, we have a very different scale of problem. This is a most desperate and difficult problem. We must also realise that we will not remove the problem if we merely cure it within our own boundaries. We shall still have on our conscience what is happening elsewhere. That is a profound difficulty.

Like the noble Lord, Lord Tombs, I do not intend to go over ground that has been extremely well covered, but two or three things stand out. First, at present we do not have adequate machinery in this country to deal with the problem. We need a multidisciplinary agency to deal with it. We must involve the Immigration Service, Customs and Excise, the police and the social services. That can be put together in a co-operative way, and I am sure that all those people can be brought together. However, the most important point about bringing them together is that, if we can begin to get evidence of the scale of the problem and, more importantly, get some of the victims of that appalling trade into respite care where they can be properly looked after, we have some prospect—only some—of getting adequate intelligence to begin to take action against the perpetrators of that desperate, awful trade.

Intelligence is everything, which takes us back to the international nature of the problem. We desperately need international intelligence. It will take strong international co-operation to begin to tackle the problem. It will require co-operation between agencies that can supervise the transport business. We are not just talking about air transport. Although air transport is quick, road transport comes into the business as well. We must be able to work through the ports. As we have seen in a limited way, if the supervision at ports is inadequate—I refer to the appalling situation at Sangatte in France, where failure adequately to protect the transport depot has stopped freight traffic through the Channel Tunnel—we will have a real difficulty. We must work hard to make sure that there is international co-operation. I am sure that the Minister will cover that in his reply. It is agreed in the international bodies, but I am not convinced that the necessary work is being done.

We must also consider seriously the point that it does not really matter what the victims of trafficking are tied into. They are victims, whether it happens to be the child sex trade, cheap child labour in an unregulated and often dangerous environment or domestic work in conditions of virtual slavery, which is not unknown. The offence is the same—the destruction of that person's freedom and right to live the kind of life that we would consider right and proper. The offence of trafficking, whatever the end-product, is the same.

It is not a question of handing down a severe sentence if the people are caught. I suspect that, at this end of the line—we are, so to speak, importers of trafficked people—we will not get the people who initiate the trade and create the market. We will probably get relatively small players, but they certainly need to be stopped. The other side of the matter, about which the Government are taking action, is the need to be able to deprive people of their profits from the enterprise. I take my hat off to the Government about that: the Proceeds of Crime Bill, when it eventually goes through, should be a strong weapon in that regard. The Bill has had its First Reading in this House, and most Members who saw it took one look and nearly panicked at its scale. However, once it is on the statute book it will be enormously helpful.

I suspect that the trade is part of the global economy. It may be that we cannot stamp it out absolutely, but we can certainly go a long way towards removing it from within our own boundaries. I support any government action to achieve that. It is an appalling trade, and we should use all our international influence to diminish it elsewhere in so far as it is possible for us to do so.

My Lords, I congratulate the noble Lord, Lord Alton of Liverpool, on introducing such an important and timely debate and on his graphic description and analysis of the problem. It set the tone for a debate that, we all recognise, has included many contributions of high quality and proper emotional content. The heinous crime of trafficking and its appalling consequences for the victims is a profoundly emotional issue.

My noble friend Lady Howells of St Davids offered an important historical perspective on the issue. I may not be able to describe the debate as historic, but my noble friend will recognise that the city of Liverpool has been represented in the debate by the noble Lord who introduced it and the city of Bristol by the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Bristol. She will also have noticed that the noble and learned Lord, Lord Wilberforce, was present and contributed to the debate.

As has been graphically and accurately described, in people trafficking we see the modern manifestation of the worst aspects of enslavement and the subjection of people to terrible privations. People trafficking differs from people smuggling, which is the facilitation of illegal entry, and should not be viewed in the same light. People trafficking is transporting people in order to exploit them through forced prostitution or bonded labour. As such, it is a serious, organised international criminal activity and an evil trade on which we are determined to crack down. Because of the ongoing exploitation involved in trafficking, it is not primarily an immigration offence, although it can, of course, involve crossing a border. It can occur within a country, as well as between states.

Trafficking is a largely hidden crime, and it is difficult to form an accurate estimate of its extent. A Home Office research study Stopping Traffic, published two years ago estimated that between 140 and 1,400 women were trafficked to the UK each year for the purposes of sexual exploitation. However, we must all recognise that that is a rough estimate. Although the number of people trafficked into the UK may be small, when compared to the number smuggled in, the seriousness of the problem demands an appropriate response. Our debate emphasised the range of questions that must be answered.

I might add that I wish that my noble friend Lord Rooker were in position to provide the definitive answers required. As noble Lords will have recognised, Lady Rooker is seriously ill, and Lord Rooker is at her side, where he should be. I am sure that we all wish Lady Rooker well.

The debate has done a great deal to highlight the scale and complexity of the problem and the devastating effects that the crime has on its victims. I shall do what I can to highlight the measures that the Government have set in train to address the problem. As the noble Lord, Lord Maclennan of Rogart, said, the fact that the victims are, in the first instance, willing parties to the crime adds an extra dimension to the difficulty. As we know, however, many victims, having been grievously misled, seek to get themselves out of the situation in which they find themselves.

The noble Lord, Lord Dixon-Smith, properly asked that the UK should be at the forefront of an international effort. The noble Lord, Lord Alton, gave the Government credit for adopting this position. I should like to emphasise that fact. The Government were instrumental in negotiating the UN protocol on the prevention and suppression of trafficking, which has become the basis of international action to combat the crime. I thank the noble Lord, Lord Avebury, who also reflected on this point.

The Government followed that up with a negotiation of an EU framework decision on trafficking for the purposes of sexual and labour exploitation that has just been adopted by member states. I wish to assure the noble Lord, Lord Alton, that this is now in place.

The Government set out a comprehensive strategy for addressing trafficking in the recently published White Paper, Secure Borders, Safe Havens. This strategy recognises the need for a multi-faceted response and is a four-pronged approach, covering the introduction of legislation, enforcement, prevention and protection for victims, and international cooperation to combat human trafficking.

The noble Lord, Lord Tombs, asked where legislation fits in. We have acted in response to concern about the inadequacy of current legislation and available penalties by introducing a new offence of trafficking for prostitution in the forthcoming nationality, immigration and asylum Bill which will be brought before your Lordships' House shortly. The new offence will carry a severe maximum penalty of 14 years' imprisonment.

The noble Lord, Lord Hylton, indicated that such punishments should be severe. My noble friend Lord Brennan used the word condign. Fourteen years may not entirely meet his definition of that but it expresses the Government's view that these are very serious crimes. It is the same as for many drugs trafficking offences.

The new offence is a stopgap measure to close a current loophole. The Government intend to create new wide-ranging offences for trafficking for both sexual and labour exploitation, using future criminal justice legislation that will implement the reform of sex offences.

The noble Lord, Lord Tombs, invited me to foresee the next Queen's Speech. From my lowly position, I dare not do that but I can indicate to the House that I would not be talking in such assertive terms about this legislation unless I believed it was about to happen.

I assure my noble friend Lord Brett that these measures will also take into account our international obligations under the trafficking protocol to the UN Convention against Transnational Organised Crime and the EU framework decision on trafficking for the purpose of sexual and labour exploitation. It has been estimated that the profits from people trafficking are equal to those from drug trafficking and the effects on the lives of those involved can be just as damaging.

In recognising this, we also intend to use the Proceeds of Crime Bill, currently making its way through Parliament—of which the noble Lord, Lord Dixon-Smith, gave favourable notice—to seize and confiscate the criminal assets of those involved in crime. It will provide another way of dismantling and disrupting traffickers and we shall, of course, have an early opportunity to debate that legislation.

We are determined to ensure there is an effective enforcement response to people trafficking. That is why we set up Project Reflex in 2000 to focus on combating wider organised immigration crime, including trafficking. Reflex brings together key agencies—the National Crime Squad, NCIS, the Immigration Service, the security and intelligence services, FCO, the Metropolitan, Kent and other police forces—in a co-ordinated strategy to tackle the problem. Reflex has been working to develop intelligence in the UK and overseas and to co-ordinate national and international investigations against organised immigration crime.

I can assure the noble and learned Lord, Lord Wilberforce, and the noble Lord, Lord Avebury, that additional resources in the last spending round led to the creation of a joint operational unit involving the National Crime Squad and Immigration Service that has recently become operational. It will significantly enhance the available capability to tackle people trafficking. It will be able to carry out an investigation into organised crime syndicates which several noble Lords have indicated are responsible for so much of this activity.

In committing ourselves to the UN protocol and EU framework decision on trafficking, we recognise that effective action must be conducted with our international partners. That point was emphasised by the noble Lord, Lord Maclennan. The noble Lord, Lord Moynihan, stressed the international dimensions of this issue as did the noble Lord, Lord Hylton.

The European Council at Tampere set out an agenda for tackling illegal immigration, especially human trafficking. The UK welcomes the progress already made there, as well as some successful returns programmes with a range of countries. Bilateral and multilateral collaborative operations are equally important, such as the EU high impact operation in 2001. That was a joint initiative with EU applicant countries to tackle illegal immigration across the eastern borders of the EU. The noble Lord, Lord Hylton, accurately described some of the problems which occur in countries on the borders of the EU where a good deal of this activity is generated.

The UK is developing a network of immigration liaison officers, working with other governments to encourage and support action to disrupt criminal gangs and create a joint intelligence structure across Europe and beyond. Across the EU and elsewhere, other liaison officers have proved very valuable. In the light of this, we are considering extending this network into other source and transit countries.

We also support EU member state organisations responsible for action against the trade in human beings and the sexual exploitation of women and children in particular. This is done via the UK contribution to the EU STOP Programme, to which the noble Lord, Lord Avebury, referred. That was established by the European Council in 1996. A second phase, STOP II, got underway last year and the UK currently takes the lead with five projects through NCIS, the NGO Change and other organisations. We are active on this front, although, of course, it will take time for the results to show.

The noble and learned Lord, Lord Wilberforce, and the noble Lord, Lord Dholakia, emphasised the need to offer support to the victims. Other noble Lords emphasised the distressing aspect of this trade in terms of its victims. They may need particular support to help them escape their circumstances and in certain cases, help law enforcement tackle organised criminal gangs through their testimonies. The Government will make special arrangements for the protection of victims, where they are willing to come forward to help us deal with the criminals, a point emphasised by the noble Lord, Lord Hylton.

The Government will also consider whether it is appropriate to allow victims to remain in this country. As the noble Lord, Lord Dholakia, suggested, we will look at the Italian and Dutch models on this issue, but there already exist provisions for victims of trafficking to be granted exceptional leave to remain in this country. What all noble Lords will also recognise is that we need to strike a balance between that and ensuring that we put as strong a limit as we possibly can on the opportunities for this trade and the rewards derived from it by criminals.

Where the victims wish to return home, we shall help them to do so. That will provide initial counselling for victims, ensure that they have suitable accommodation at their destination and provide help to enable them to reintegrate into their own community. The noble Lord, Lord Moynihan, emphasised that we will need to be assured that they are not returning to an environment in which they are under threat from those who perpetrated the original crimes against them.

Over the coming months, we shall discuss how to take that work forward with statutory and voluntary organisations. My noble friend Lord Brett asked about that point. The White Paper also sets out our intention to develop a best practice guide on victims of trafficking, which will act as an A to Z manual for immigration officers, police and others who may deal with trafficking victims.

Having outlined the Home Office's response to trafficking, I should also mention that other departments of government are active. I feel less than qualified to speak on behalf of the Home Office, but it would be remiss of me if I did not also mention the responsibilities of the Foreign Office and DIID in combating the trade. Both are committed to tackling trafficking on a global scale. As the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Bristol emphasised, this is an international problem that can be tackled only through international co-operation. We are seeking to raise awareness in source and transit countries through bilateral and multilateral development programmes targeted at the issue.

The noble Baroness, Lady Cox, referred to Sudan. I am not able to spend the amount of time on that that she deserves, given her great interest in the issue, but I think she will be reassured that our ambassador in Khartoum continues to work closely with the Committee for the Eradication of Abduction of Women and Children and with UNICEF and Save the Children on these issues. The Sudanese Government recently agreed to the US proposal for an international team to investigate the problem in Sudan. The team will include members of British NGOs, such as Save the Children. We look forward to the outcome of that activity with some optimism.

We have also given £3 million to the International Labour Organisation programme in the greater Mecon region, covering parts of Cambodia, China, Laos, Thailand and Vietnam. I am sure that that commends itself to my noble friend Lord Brett, given his close relationship with that organisation.

In conclusion, we are committed to tackling people trafficking. We are conscious that we cannot do that alone. To have a significant impact on people trafficking, in particular the trafficking of women, we need to work together internationally. We must work with our partners in the EU and with source and transit countries, as well as voluntary and international agencies, to ensure co-ordinated and effective action worldwide. In the UK, we must make certain that the enforcement agencies, the police and the intelligence agencies have an effective response to ensure that traffickers cannot profit from their crimes and that victims are afforded necessary protection and support.

We have made a start on setting up the necessary arrangements. There is a great deal more to be done, but I hope that I can assure the House that the Government are addressing the problem with the seriousness that it merits. That seriousness and the sense of urgency in this evening's emotional pleas— based on rationality, but appealing to our common humanity—drive the Government towards ensuring that we tackle one of the most heinous problems that beset our fellow human beings.

My Lords, the whole House will join the Minister in wishing the noble Lord, Lord Rooker, and Lady Rooker our best at this time. We hope that Lady Rooker will quickly return to good health. We particularly understand that to have to step into the breach and deal with tonight's debate required a considerable effort on the part of the noble Lord, Lord Davies, to master the details of the brief, which he has done magnificently. We are all indebted to him for the way in which he has dealt with all the contributions this evening.

It is not part of the tradition of your Lordships' House for the mover of the Motion to speak at any length. I shall abide by that tradition, but I should like to summarise the three themes that have run through our debate: the desire for protection, for prosecution and for international co-operation. This has been a pre-legislative debate in every respect. We shall have the chance to bring forward proposals when we debate the immigration Bill and to hold the Government to the promises that they have made. I was particularly struck by what the noble Lord, Lord Davies, said about the opportunity to deal with the confiscation of the assets of those involved in trafficking when we consider the Proceeds of Crime Bill. Taken together with the punitive sentences that the Minister referred to, that may well be one of the best ways of tackling the problem.

I thank all those who have spoken with such power and such passion and from such a well informed basis. I beg leave to withdraw the Motion for Papers.

Motion for Papers, by leave, withdrawn.

My Lords, I beg to move that this Bill be now read a second time.

I am grateful to those who have indicated that they intend to speak this evening and I look forward very much to what each of them has to say. I have received a kind letter from the noble Lord, Lord Lester of Herne Hill, who apologises that he cannot be here this evening, but is happy for me to say that he supports the Bill. He reminds me that he resigned from the Garrick Club some years ago because he and others failed to persuade it to change the rules to admit women as members.

The Bill follows precisely the terms of a Private Member's Bill that has twice been introduced in another place by Robert Walter, the Conservative MP for North Dorset, with all-party support. I thank him for the guidance and support that he has given me, together with his wife, Barbara Gorna, and the Fawcett Society for the work that they have done in drafting the Bill. The Bill is also supported by the Equal Opportunities Commission, which proposed in November 1998 that there should be a new sex equality Act to update the Sex Discrimination and Equal Pay Acts. The EOC said then:

"The new statute should cover all private members' clubs which have admitted both sexes to a membership category, and where some club facilities and services have been open to both men and women".

The EOC's report Equality in the 21st Century—A new sex equality law for Britain says:

"The evidence available to the EOC indicates very little voluntary change in the sector and complaints reinforce the views that the exclusion of such clubs results in a variety of discriminatory rules and arrangements which seek to perpetuate stereotypical images of men and women; and which limit women's participation in club activities in a number of ways".

The Bill would amend the Sex Discrimination Act 1975 to bring it broadly into line with the Race Relations Acts 1968 and 1976, which prohibit race discrimination in private clubs with 25 or more members. The Bill does not make single-sex clubs unlawful. Nor does it outlaw single-sex sporting events or single-sex changing rooms, saunas, gyms or lavatories. It applies equally to discrimination against men.

The Bill has nothing to do with political correctness. It is about decent, civilised behaviour. The aim is to say clearly and unambiguously to private member clubs that if they have membership categories for men and for women, those categories must be open equally to both sexes. If a golf club, for example, wished to offer a cheaper associate membership that restricted the hours of play or limited the rooms in the clubhouse to which that category of member had access, or perhaps did not grant full voting rights, that arrangement would be lawful as long as one category of membership were not restricted to men and another category to women.

The Bill also says that a single-sex club that admits male and female guests must do so on equal terms and provide them with equal access to club facilities. That would put an end to women guests being excluded from men-only bars or being prevented from walking up a club's main staircase.

The Bill is very simple, with only one substantive clause. That clause introduces new sections to the Sex Discrimination Act 1975, which would follow the existing Section 29 of that Act. New Section 29A makes it unlawful for a private member club to discriminate against a woman or man in its terms of membership. It provides also that facilities offered to male members must be offered on equal terms to female members. New Section 29B provides for single-sex clubs to remain so and new Section 29C allows clubs to continue offering sporting events and competitions on a single-sex basis but provides that where there is sufficient demand from female members for an equivalent competition, one must be provided. That new section also provides that if prize money of less than £1,000 is offered in such an event, equal prize money must be offered in the female competition.

When considering whether to introduce the Bill, I sought to establish the extent of the problem that women face in private member clubs. I was shocked by the number of reports that I received—particularly those relating to golf and working men's clubs. The highest-profile case in the gentlemen's club category is the Carlton, which was founded in 1832 by Tories opposed to the Reform Act. I can do no better than quote the words of Robert Walter, MP, speaking in another place on 11th December 2001:

"I had personal experience of the injustice of a club that offered membership to both men and women but which discriminated against women by offering them only inferior membership. They had second-class status with no access to the governance of that club … I had been part of a campaign to remedy that injustice. On two separate occasions, the club narrowly missed the opportunity to move itself into the modern world".—[Official Report, Commons, 11/12/2002; col. 736.]

He resigned in November 1999. I understand that a number of other prominent Conservative supporters have also resigned.

Mr. Iain Duncan Smith has, to his great credit, refused to join—becoming the first leader of his party since the mid-19th century not to do so. In an interview in the Spectator, Mr. Duncan Smith said:

"As the leader of a Conservative Party that believes that there should be no `no-go' areas for women, I will have to say that I can't do it while it is different for many of my colleagues here who would like to become members but cannot".

Good for him—and well done those members of your Lordships' House who have resigned or declined to join the Carlton because of its policy towards women.

Mrs. Wendy Lea is the licensee of the Red Lion pub in Crown Passage, just across the road from the Carlton. She was quoted in the Daily Telegraph on 29th December as saying of Mr. Duncan Smith:

"He's just gone up in my estimation. Fair play to the man. He is standing up for women's rights".

Mrs. Lea was asked whether she would like to be a member of the Carlton and replied:

"I am not necessarily saying that I'd like to be but I would like the chance to be. I just think women should have the right. I could understand if they was running around naked and they didn't want women in for that reason. But you would no longer be able to run a club that's whites only but you're still allowed to exclude women because of their sex. You're not allowed to be racist but you can still be sexist".

The Carlton is clearly different from the Athenaeum, which admitted women as full members without restrictions from 2nd January. I offer my congratulations to the noble Baroness, Lady Greenfield, on being among the first distinguished women members.

In the interests of political balance, I will refer to the problems in working men's clubs. There are about 5,500 such clubs on the register of the Committee of Registered Clubs Association—known as CORCA. There are eight main groups, including political clubs and service clubs such as those of the Royal British Legion, RAF and Royal Navy. The principal group is the CIU—the working men's Club and Institute Union, which represents 2,700 of the total.

Of those clubs, 1,080 or 40 per cent grant women full membership rights. Of the remaining 1,620 clubs, eight are single sex. They will not be affected by my Bill unless they discriminate against women as visitors. That leaves 1,612 clubs—60 per cent of the total— where women join as a different class of member, generally at a lower subscription. They are likely to find some parts of the club barred to them and will be prevented from attending the AGM or standing for election.

An example of the sort of problem that women face is that of Sunnybank Social Club in Silsden, near Skipton, where a group of young women were caught playing snooker and told they had no business there. Two men who came to their aid were charged with bringing the club into disrepute. One of the women members said about the men to the Independent:

"They have a Victorian attitude. They'd rather have women at the kitchen sink, on a ball and chain".

The CIU, to its credit, is trying to do something. At its conference on 6th April, a motion to move the infamous rule 12(e) will be proposed. That rule states:

"Associate pass cards cannot be purchased by women".

Those cards are a means of identification and allow a member of one CIU club to visit another and enjoy as a guest almost the same level of membership. If rule 12(e) were abolished, women who are full members of a non-discriminating club would be able to visit a club that does discriminate and insist on equal treatment. That would do nothing for women who are members of clubs that discriminate but would help. But your Lordships should not hold their breath. The CIU has tried three times previously to abolish rule 12(e) and failed each time to get the necessary two thirds majority. I suspect that it will be necessary for the Bill to be on the statute book before the CIU scraps rule 12(e), even though many members believe that clubs must change just to survive.

The Penlan Social Club in Swansea voted to give women full membership two years ago. Its general secretary, John Morgan, commented:

"It's simple: female unfriendly clubs will close. Giving women full membership has made a big difference in terms of the dynamism of our club. We have a lot more going on. We need to persuade that flat-cap element who don't like change".

That is wholly in line with the official view of the CIU. Its general secretary, Kevin Smyth, is happy for me to quote him:

"The union's National Executive firmly believes that the future of clubs in our organisation is tied up with giving women full equality".

Probably the thorniest problem of all is golf clubs. Just one year ago, Golf World published a survey of social attitudes. The findings, as reported in the Independent on Sunday, were that golf clubs were

"the final bastions of British snobbery, discrimination and prejudice".

Nearly one quarter of British clubs were found to be preventing women becoming elected captains and more than two thirds operated under rules that discriminate against 140,000 regular women golfers. Half the clubs admitted that men and women were charged different fees for full membership and that there was a restriction on the hours that women can play.

A couple of years ago, a survey in Women in Golf magazine showed that only 56 per cent of women could stand for election to the main committee, 21 per cent had men-only access in parts of the clubs and 35 per cent did not provide women with full voting rights.

The descriptions of some of the practices followed and the attitudes displayed beggar belief. There are scores of examples of sexist, humiliating treatment. According to the Daily Telegraph, at Gay Hill Golf Club at Wythall in Worcestershire, a white line was painted across the floor of the bar to mark the territory that women could not enter. The Royal Liverpool Golf Club imposed a 30 per cent levy on subscriptions for men and women members alike but denied women any vote on whether the levy should be raised.

Progress is to be found here and there. The noble Baroness, Lady Anelay, informs me that Woking Golf Club granted full membership rights to women at its 2001 AGM and that other clubs have extended the hours that women may play. The most accurate comment on the state of women's golf generally is from Tim Howland, chief executive of the Ladies European tour. He is quoted in the March 2001 edition of Golf World as saying,

"It's mainly men who laugh about signs like 'No dogs, no women'. It's not something that women find funny. This sort of behaviour doesn't happen on the continent, only in Britain, and it's a sad indictment of how golf treats women and children".

That comment applies with varying degrees of force across private clubs generally. I hope that the House agrees that it is time we did something and will give the Bill a Second Reading. I beg to move.

Moved, That the Bill be now read a second time.—(Lord Faulkner of Worcester.)

My Lords, may I be the first to congratulate the noble Lord on introducing a most sensible Bill and doing so with great élan and panache. He has both amused and horrified us with the various stories he has told.

I very much welcome this sensible approach which fills a gap left by the Anti-Discrimination Act 1975. I can remember being a young MP at that time and warmly welcoming and assisting in the passage of that Act. It was very much a landmark at the time. Although it could not deal with everything, one of its most sensible provisions was the setting up of the Equal Opportunities Commission, which provided a permanent watching brief; but it did leave that particular gap.

I was reminded by the noble Lord's reference to the staircase of an experience that I had in a gentlemen's club. I was astonished, astounded and infuriated at being hustled up a back staircase, as though I were being surreptitiously smuggled in as an illegal entrant. At that time I swore that I would never again enter that club until I could sweep up and down its main grand staircase. That was many years ago and still the position is not altogether satisfactory, as the noble Lord has clearly indicated.

That kind of example applies not only to grand gentlemen's clubs. It certainly applies to sporting clubs. My late mother would have been absolutely thrilled by this Bill. She was a keen sportswoman and also very keen on equality for men and women. I remember her being irritated intensely by the second-rate treatment of women in golf clubs and even, I am sorry to say, in the bowls world of that time. I remember one indoor bowls club that contained both men's and women's clubs. The men and women had to share the various indoor rinks, which had to be rationed because there were more people who wanted to play than rinks available. Surprise, surprise! Who got the lion's share of both the rinks and the time allocated? Always the men. To some extent, that also applied outdoors, where there were several clubs, some for men and some for women—none mixed at that time—which used the same outdoor greens. It was common practice that the women always made do with the poorer greens and the poorest times.

My mother was not one to take things lying down. She always fought a fierce battle on these matters. But there was no legislation to back it up and at that time too many were prepared to be submissive. So my mother's preaching rebellion did not always work, but she did her damnedest, and had she been alive today she would have been particularly pleased with the provisions of this Bill.

I have only one reservation—absolutely nothing to do with the noble Lord, Lord Faulkner—which is that the Bill amends the existing legislation. It seems to me a great pity that we cannot have one new Bill that would bring together the anti-discrimination legislation and the equal pay legislation, updated to fill the gaps, so that we could have one Act of Parliament to which we could all refer on this subject. One of my constant beefs is that nowadays one can never read a Bill without having to read another in order to make full sense of it, and that is a distressing trend.

However, having got that beef off my chest, I welcome this sensible Bill which takes a moderate but firm path. I wish it well; I hope that it has a speedy passage and quickly becomes law.

My Lords, I thank my noble friend Lord Faulkner for introducing this extremely important Bill, which I fully support. It represents yet another attempt to end discrimination and prejudice against women.

Only a short time ago we were debating the Sex Discrimination (Election Candidates) Act 2002, which has now received Royal Assent. That Act allows political parties to have all-women shortlists when selecting candidates. It came about in recognition of the fact that women of all political parties experienced great difficulties in getting selected without special measures being in place.

Over the years many Acts of Parliament have been designed to break down barriers that prevent women from taking part in activities that they wish to pursue—the 1918 Act, which allowed women to vote and to be elected to the House of Commons, the Equal Pay Act 1970, the Sex Discrimination Act 1975 and the establishment of the Equal Opportunities Commission—a raft of measures assisting women at work, women in politics, enabling women to play their part in the democracy of the country, as well as laws to protect women from domestic violence. In those heady days of the 1970s, many of us believed that the battle for women's rights had been won. Only later did we realise that still many battles lay ahead of us.

Today we have before us another Bill that will be of great assistance in eradicating discrimination against women. But why do we have such a Bill before us? Why, at the beginning of the 21st century, should it be necessary to have legislation to ensure that women will be treated as equal citizens? Surely, we should by now have a much more enlightened approach to the rights of women. There should not be a need for legislation. Unfortunately, however, there is.

I am sure that a number of noble Baronesses in your Lordships' House today could, like the noble Baroness, Lady Fookes, could give examples of discrimination encountered when entering private clubs.

Perhaps I can give one experience that I had several years ago when I was working in a by-election in a constituency in Wales, which I shall not name. After canvassing one evening, the people I was with invited me to a club to take a drink with them. I happily went along. Approaching the club, the men walked ahead and I followed them. When I got to the door, the door steward stopped me. He said, "You can't go in this way". I asked, "Why not?", because my male colleagues had just gone through the door ahead of me. He said, "This is a male-only bar and you will have to walk down the back lane to get to the lounge bar". Instead of using the back stairs, I had to go down a back lane to reach the bar. As I did so, I had never felt such a sense of total humiliation. The only reason I could not go through the main door was that I was a woman. That is one example of discrimination that I have experienced. There are others, such as being refused a drink when I inadvertently entered a male-only bar. Unfortunately, still too many private clubs operate in that discriminatory way.

Based in the heart of Cardiff is the Cardiff and County Club. Several prominent women in Wales have tried to join that club. Glenys Kinnock and Eluned Morgan, Members of the European Parliament representing Wales, applied to join but were rejected. The Welsh electorate thought that they were good enough to serve Wales in the European Parliament but not good enough, because they were women, for the Cardiff and County Club. Apparently, there are no application forms in that club. One has to be invited to join. If one does not receive an invitation, one does not have an opportunity to join, and if one is a woman, one never gets an invitation.

In Cardiff, the capital city of Wales—one of the most exciting and innovative young capitals in Europe—we still find, in 2002, that women are rejected in this type of club. Carolyn Hitt, a journalist for the Western Mail, commented on Monday about this very club. She wrote:

"This exclusive clique is the last bastion of sexual inequality in Wales".

But even with this club there are occasions when women can enter. They can go there for Saturday lunch, provided they are the guests of a member. However, male guests can attend any day of the week. Women can also go to the club if a member has hired a room for a private function such as a birthday party. Carolyn Hitt also said:

"An establishment that includes women may seem a straightforward case for the Equal Opportunities Commission, but there is nothing illegal about the Cardiff and County. The Sex Discrimination Act does not apply to private clubs".

Can my noble friend Lord Faulkner say whether his Bill covers the actions of the Cardiff and County Club and other clubs that operate in a similar manner? Will this Bill make their actions illegal? I hope that that is the case. However, if it is not, perhaps we can amend the Bill to ensure that it is.

I am sorry to say that there are many clubs in Wales and in the rest of the country that operate men-only bars, as well as other forms of restrictive measures towards women. It is a grave insult to women that this type of gender apartheid should have any place in today's society. I believe that the Bill will be a great step forward. I very much look forward to the day when it becomes an Act of Parliament.

My Lords, I should like, first, to add my congratulations to those already expressed to the noble Lord, Lord Faulkner, on bringing forward this Bill to get rid of sex discrimination in clubs. When I was at the Equal Opportunities Commission, almost from day one we received complaints from those who felt that they had been discriminated against in all sorts of clubs. Those complaints ranged from ones where, quite literally, women were allowed in free—although, perhaps, for rather different purposes—and men had to pay a rather high subscription, to all the other sorts of clubs that have been so well outlined tonight.

It is a great pleasure to be participating in such a debate and to note that the recommendations are being accepted by the other side of your Lordships' House. I well remember the noble Baroness, Lady Fookes, who was so supportive when the Sex Discrimination Act was going through Parliament. We should never forget that that legislation was passed by a huge majority of both Houses. Indeed, only one or two people, who shall be nameless, took a different line. We must not overlook the fact that much has been achieved.

I have to confess to being, as it were, the "partner in crime" of the noble Lord, Lord Lester. After having had lunch with him one day at the Garrick Club, we walked up the stairs—contrary to what was allowed— as a form of protest. I have to say that they were rather clever about it: they took not the slightest bit of notice of us, which rather deflated the action that we had taken.

I find it rather depressing that this is the second time within two months that I find myself supporting a Bill that it really should not have been necessary to bring forward. The first, of course, was the Sex Discrimination (Election Candidates) Bill. Frankly, determined and effective action by all political parties from 1975 onwards to ensure a balanced representation of both sexes in Parliament—based, of course, on merit—could easily have prevented the need for that legislation. More importantly, over the past 25 years it would have provided an enriched and far more representative Chamber against which the priorities for legislation of both sexes (both 50 per cents of the population) would have been debated and become law.

If that is so for parliamentary candidates, the case for clubs—which are not genuinely single-sex clubs—to have put their house voluntarily in order over the past 25 years is, frankly, even more glaring. As early as one year after the Sex Discrimination Act was passed, we know that the Race Relations Act actually included discrimination as regards clubs. Even as late as last year, a question on this very subject from the noble Lord, Lord Faulkner, was put to the noble Baroness, Lady Blackstone. She replied that she felt that clubs would really like to be given time—yet more time——-to do this voluntarily. I am a patient person. When I took over as deputy chairman of the EOC, I said that I thought it would be at least 20 years before we saw any real action in many areas. But 25 years on—indeed, nearly 26 years—from that Act, I believe that the time has come for this very clear and specific Bill. It certainly has my support.

This also illustrates the point of the 1974 government, who said that,

"any exception weakens the principle of non-discrimination".

I am afraid that that has proved to be all too correct. It is interesting that a number of organisations have adjusted themselves as regards exceptions. I have in mind, for example, some aspects of retirement and the height of police officers. I used to tease the miners' union leaders about the fact that women were not allowed down the mines— indeed, it might be a rather better paid job these days than it was in the past—but we know that there were reasons for that exception. Many of those exceptions have been ironed out, but, although it is another matter, much remains to be done on pensions.

What should the rules be for clubs, given not only that the concept of sex discrimination in employment, in education and in the provision of goods, facilities and services is illegal but also that, over the past 25 years, non-discrimination has become the generally accepted standard of behaviour in all areas covered by the Act? Of course, that is not always followed, but it is the generally accepted standard of behaviour. I will refer back to the famous case of the well-known men-only Fleet Street pub, "E1 Vino's", at which journalists made contacts and swapped stories. Women journalists were relegated to a different bar and therefore missed out on important professional relationships. Admittedly, that was a pub, not a club, but the economic and social disadvantage of being unable to mix with one's professional peers was firmly established when the complainant in that case won.

Certain men-only clubs recruit from specific groups; for example, the Garrick Club, which admits clergymen, actors, politicians and lawyers, and the Carlton Club, which is for Conservative politicians. Not only do those clubs discriminate on the grounds of sex, they deny women the opportunity to mix with their colleagues and to advance professionally. It is not too early to make that final breakthrough. All clubs have membership rules. Most select new members on the agreement of existing members, and the most popular clubs have considerable waiting lists. The Bill does not affect those aspects; it deals solely with sex discrimination in the selection of members and the granting of second-class membership to females, without their being given the right to influence change.

I am especially irritated by sex discrimination in sports clubs, although I am glad that the population's enthusiasm for sport is growing. Membership should be granted on the basis of such criteria as the applicant's sporting ability, enthusiasm or knowledge, regardless of sex. Golf clubs and others have not woken up to the fact that huge numbers of women earn a good deal of money. In addition, many women have the financial and professional expertise to contribute a great deal to the running of the club and to take into account women's needs. Certain golf clubs have rules that women cannot play at weekends as if only men work during the week. A much fairer way to allocate weekend playing time would be to appeal to those who can play during the week to give way voluntarily at weekends.

Working men's clubs, which have huge numbers of members, are crucial. Many are located in remote areas, so it is important that the whole community, including both sexes, can meet there.

There have been heroic battles about the opening of club membership to women. In the case of the Oxford and Cambridge Club, it was the heads of colleges who won the battle. Rather like lain Duncan Smith, they said that they would resign unless changes were made. In addition, I congratulate the Reform Club, which was among the pioneers of those changes. However, I once attended that club for lunch, after which my host was embarrassed to be told that, because I was among his guests, we would have to have our coffee in a tiny hidden room. Thank goodness that has all gone and the Reform Club was ahead of the game. I am glad that the Atheneum—the natural haunt for top academics, scientists, medics and so forth—after many debates has finally made the change, although it took a little time. The change happened only this year

This Bill should not be necessary. However, given that legal requirement is now needed, I guess that within a very short time the fuss will die down. Given the rather different experience of life that women have, and what they can bring to the party as well as their economic input, power and influence which is growing everywhere, clubs will soon see that they are on to a good thing. The pity is that they were made to do it.

My Lords, it gives me great pleasure to follow the noble Baroness, Lady Howe of Idlicote. In 1975 she and I were founder members of the Equal Opportunities Commission. I was an ordinary member and she was the deputy chairman.

I need to declare interests in that I am a member of both the Reform Club, to which reference has just been made and which has admitted women on equal terms for 20 years, and of the Garrick Club, which does not admit women at all.

In many ways I know the Reform Club better because I have been a member for nearly 30 years and was chairman for two years in the early 1990s. I checked with the current secretary and understand that at the monthly election of new members at the present time, women come in as a proportion of the total new membership at around 25 to 30 per cent, as against 65 to 70 per cent of men. They come in on equal terms though it will take some time before the total membership is anywhere near equal. In fact at the present time, even after 20 years of equality with women, 85 per cent of the membership are men.

I believe the club has benefited immensely from taking women members and in my experience women often play a bigger role in the governance of the club than their share of the membership would suggest. The club currently has its second woman chairman.

On the other hand, the Garrick Club voted some years ago to continue to exclude women totally from membership. One of the major reasons was that, unlike many clubs such as the Atheneum, the Oxford and Cambridge and the Reform, the Garrick was never a purpose-built club. I have never understood that women were excluded from the main staircase, but those who have been there will agree that it is a relatively small club. It has an enormous waiting list. I waited for around seven years to be a member and the waiting list at the moment is still seven or eight years. One of the problems would be that if women were admitted to the club, it could only be meaningful if there was a positive discrimination admissions policy over a number of years, with the result that the men still on the waiting list would have to wait much longer.

I enjoy both my clubs. One is mixed and one is not. I am glad—I hope that the noble Lord, Lord Faulkner, will agree—that this Bill does not seek to legislate out of existence such few men-only clubs as still remain. I am of course sympathetic to the idea that where women are in membership of a club, be it gentlemen's clubs, golf clubs or working men's clubs, they should have equal rights to the facilities and to a proper share of the governance, membership of the committees and so forth. But unlike other Members who have spoken so far, including the noble Lord, Lord Faulkner, I am not at all keen on using the law to achieve that end.

Some clubs in practice—examples have already been given—have moved from being exclusively male to the other end of the spectrum, completely unisex by way of women being admitted with certain restrictions. Indeed, I recall that the Reform Club, for a short period 20-odd years ago after it admitted women, kept its smoking room, one of the main public rooms, for the exclusive use of male members. As will be appreciated, that was a sop to the old guard. Possibly it was necessary in order to get the vote for women members. The policy did not last very long.

Women who are associate members of the Oxford and Cambridge Club enjoy restricted use of certain facilities and pay a lower subscription, and they do not necessarily wish to alter that situation. That club may therefore move to a different set-up where it is completely mixed—it may not—but if the Bill is passed, certain clubs may prefer to remain exclusively male if they are not permitted to admit women on a limited or restricted basis, at least for the time being. So, if the Bill is passed in its present form, the law may perhaps be counter-productive.

Indeed, it may be counter-productive in another respect. If a club that already allows women members on an associated or restricted basis does not wish to be forced by the new law to give women completely equal rights, it might instead decide to revert to being exclusively male, which, as I understand it, the new Bill will permit. Many noble Lords who have spoken would not think that that was a positive and useful step forward but rather a step backwards.

Without law, clubs—and I am talking about the types of clubs that I know best; the gentlemen's clubs, so-called—have come a long way over the past 20 or 30 years. The noble Baroness, Lady Howe, referred to some of the changes that have come about through social and other pressures, where perhaps a modest cluster of women eager to become members of clubs have managed to secure admission to and policy changes in the clubs concerned.

I doubt the value of a new law to cover what, after all, in 1975 was carefully determined as a distinction between private facilities, which are extensions of one's home and so on, and the provision of facilities and services which are publicly and/or commercially available. As I suggested, the law may be counter-productive and invite antagonisms that are otherwise gradually—it may appear only gradually—in the process of being reduced.

My Lords, I thank my noble friend Lord Faulkner for introducing the Bill. It is clearly a very important contribution to an on-going debate about the various ways in which women continue to be excluded from certain networks. I do not wish to make a long contribution because a great deal of what I wished to say has already been said.

Many people would feel that we in this Chamber are members of one of the most exclusive clubs in the world, with recruitment processes and membership rules as arcane as anything the Bill is designed to address. Some might say that the Palace as a whole still retains at least some of the physical characteristics of the gentlemen's home from home that once it was. A brief glance into the Library after lunch will often bear that out.

However, that would be a superficial assessment, as we all know, because slowly but inexorably the building and its customs have changed, bowing to the recognition that men and women work and rest here together on equal terms and that the wishes of one group cannot be assumed to take precedence over the needs of another. If the House of Lords has been able to meet this challenge, surely it cannot be too much for others to contemplate.

Occasionally I visit the Garrick Club, which has been very much mentioned in the debate. I suspect in fact I believe I know for sure—that the Garrick Club will not be caught by the terms of the Bill. I do not agree with my noble friend Lord Bonne that this is a good thing—it is not. In common with my noble friend Lady Gale, I wish that clubs such as the Garrick were caught under this legislation. I hope that influence will be brought to bear on such clubs—ultimately through the application of this legislation, but by other forms of pressure—and will result in their no longer being able to act as they do.

I want to explain why I feel that way. It is germane to the debate. I am not a member of the Garrick Club because I cannot be a member—which is odd. It has a very fine collection of paintings, as Members of this House who have attended the club—and I am sure there are many—will know. They are mostly paintings of people, several of whom are women who have been prominent in one of the professions with which this club has been especially associated—the theatre—which is also my profession. The club is named after an actor.

Women have had the freedom to be actors (if freedom it be—only on the "equal misery for all" principle perhaps) since the end of the 17th century. That was long before they were allowed to be doctors, lawyers or Members of either House of Parliament. Of course, being an actor was for centuries regarded as only one step up from vagrancy or prostitution—indeed, in some minds it still is—but the theatre has always been an inclusive community, and women have long been honoured in it, as often as they have been reviled. How curious then that none of the string of eminent actresses from Sarah Siddons and Dora Jordan in the 18th century to Dame Judi Dench and Dame Maggie Smith in our own time could have been, or can now be, members of a club that bears the name of one of their own kind.

A couple of years ago, one of my dearest friends had her birthday party at this same club. It was a lovely occasion, of course—but my friend was in effect a guest at her own table. The fact that she was, and is, a senior member of the Government makes no difference—she cannot be any kind of member of this club. Curiouser and curiouser, as Alice would say.

The Bill does not, as I understand it, seek to prevent clubs or associations from choosing to recruit members exclusively from one gender group, provided that the benefits of membership are,

"to be enjoyed wholly by men or wholly by women".

But that condition is clearly not met in the case of clubs such as the one I have mentioned, where the benefits are frequently enjoyed by both men and women, often together. Women are welcome guests, at least in my experience. They are treated with courtesy, sometimes even deference, by staff and members alike.

I have heard no complaints about this establishment, or about any of the several other clubs applying similar rules, from those fortunate enough to enjoy their hospitality from time to time. But being a guest, however hospitable the host, is very different from being at home. Apart from the necessity to be on one's best behaviour and not put elbows (or feet) on the table or fall asleep in front of the television and so on, as one might if one were at home, there is the constant awareness of being on the outside, excluded from the codes and discourses that come with belonging, whether to a club, a family or a profession, as the noble Baroness, Lady Howe, eloquently pointed out in respect of El Vino's. The way in which women were treated in that particular establishment was an issue of professional exclusion.

Knowing that one cannot aspire to anything other than guest status simply because one is a women is a singular and piquant kind of humiliation. I should be misleading your Lordships were I to suggest that it is at the top of the list of things that keep me awake at night; but periodically I wonder what it is that makes me a fit person, allegedly, to be a Member of this House but unfit for membership of the Garrick Club.

The Bill seeks to prevent the kind of discrimination which, however subtly or elegantly it manifests itself, perpetuates the notion that women can legitimately be sidelined or excluded from positions of influence. I am sure that many members of organisations applying such restrictions would regard these words as at best silly and at worst offensive. They would say that they have no such intentions—that they are merely continuing in time-honoured fashion to do what has always been done. Along with my noble friend Lord Faulkner of Worcester and many other speakers, I believe that this will no longer do. It is, as they say, the principle of the thing.

Although I recognise that what most irritates me about the way in which such clubs operate is not caught by the Bill, I none the less support it in the hope and belief that, if it is passed, it will begin to exert the kind of influence that will eventually mean that clubs such as the ones we have been discussing no longer operate the policies that they currently operate.

My Lords, I, too, should like to give a round of applause to my noble friend Lord Faulkner of Worcester for introducing this most welcome and long overdue amendment to the Sex Discrimination Act 1975. In doing so, I acknowledge the excellent work of Robert Walter MP on this issue.

As chair of the Women's National Commission, I am only too aware of the frustration, bewilderment and downright astonishment that many of our partner organisations feel at the current situation of women's second-class membership and third-rate treatment in a significant number of Britain's private clubs. They are clubs that allow women through the door, but do so with such grudging acceptance that an open-door policy actually means restricted membership—restricted club times, restricted voting rights, restricted use of facilities, and more restrictions if one is a female guest.

A glance back at the past 24 months' of press coverage and surveys conducted on discrimination against women in private clubs reveals even to me a surprisingly strong and persistent set of prejudices against women in modern Britain. In April 2001, in the Daily Telegraph, Liz Khan stated:

"At Royal Troon Golf Club women visitors can only play with a member of the club and women may not normally enter the clubhouse".

She went on to say:

"The Royal and Ancient club house, home of golf, is barred to women and a few years ago, the Royal and Ancient, who offer all former male presidents of the United States Golf Association, honorary Royal and Ancient membership, gave Judy Bell, the first woman president of the United States Golf Association, not honorary membership, but a diamond brooch instead".

In that instance, diamonds rather than men seemed to be a girl's best friend.

In March 2000, in the Daily Telegraph, Maurice Weaver reminded us that,

"Recently during refurbishment at a golf club in Worcestershire women were temporarily admitted to the men's bar and snooker room on condition that they did not cross a white line specially drawn on the floor. Men drank on one side of the white line/women on the other".

In normal times women would not have been allowed into the men's bar even to sell charity tickets. As other speakers have said, women are also barred from playing the course before noon on Sundays, 3 p.m. on summer Saturdays and 1 p.m. on winter Saturdays. As one woman said in the article,

"It takes 3½ hours to get round the 18 holes, so on dark winter weekends it is practically impossible for women to get in a full round. The rule is so strictly enforced that women players are kept waiting for their start time, even though the tees are totally empty".

As we have heard, however, not all clubs are as stone age in their thinking, and some have heeded the call by the Government and—in earlier days—by the EOC to reform their practices voluntarily. We welcome those more enlightened boards and echo John Morgan, General Secretary of the Penlan Social Club, in Swansea, whose 3,000 members—as my noble friend Lord Faulkner reminds us—voted two years ago to give women full membership. John Morgan said:

"Giving women full membership has made a big difference in terms of the dynamism of our club, we have a lot more going on now".

Yet too few clubs have taken the voluntary route to equality. In 1999, about three quarters of all private golf clubs retained extra privileges for male members, such as men's bars and banning women from playing the course at certain times. That is why the Bill is so timely in forcing through change and why we need the Government's support.

We live in times when diversity and equality should add up to a modern, forward-looking society. It is a great insult to today's modern women that so many private clubs operate on rules that are based on totally outmoded views of men's and women's lives, as the noble Baroness, Lady Howe of Idlicote, has said. There is the idea that women do not go out to work and, therefore, can use the golf course when men are out earning bread; that only men need the business, social and political networks that form the culture of many clubhouses; and that women must be kept away from the voting and decision-making machinery of a club at all costs—perhaps in case they run them better.

A successful passage of this Bill will mean that if a club chooses to admit women it must admit them as equal members. That does not go far enough for my noble friend Lady McIntosh of Hudnall, whose concerns I understand, but it is a terrific start and one that I believe we must support. The Bill does not say that a club or an organisation cannot remain a single sex club. We do not expect to see, in the near future, muscle-bound men muscling in on the WI's next calendar.

The Bill applies to private member clubs of 25 or more members and it applies equally to discrimination against men. Like several noble Baronesses, I recently spoke on a Bill dealing with the need for political parties positively to encourage women to become members. In preparing for our debate I read that a pre-selection meeting was held at the Carlton Club for the 2001 general election. As we have heard, that club does not admit women as full members. The messages that many such clubs send out about their strong belief in women's inequality, not only damages the leisure and the sporting lives of many women, but also their working and political lives and ambitions. I wish my noble friend Lord Faulkner every success in his endeavours.

My Lords, like other speakers, I welcome the appearance of this excellent little Bill. I congratulate the noble Lord, Lord Faulkner of Worcester, on the extremely thorough way in which he introduced it.

I have never sympathised with the determination of some women, including noble Baronesses who have spoken in the debate, to close down all single-sex clubs. I have a sneaking suspicion that one day I may want to belong to a club that admits only women. From time to time there is a certain comfort in not having to get oneself dolled up because one is public, of being with other women and not having to make allowances for anyone else. I know that different views have been expressed.

If both men and women are members of a club I support the idea that they should both have equal rights. That is the thesis at the heart of the Bill. I want to quote from a letter sent to my noble friend Lady Williams. The writer says:

"Many of the reasons for offering women different membership conditions are based on outdated views of men and women's lives such as assuming that women may be able to use club facilities during the day as they do not work, or that women will not want to use a club bar. At present the second class membership which women are offered excludes them from the business, political and social networks that the clubs offer. Women are also often prevented from being able to take part in the running of the clubs, meaning that they are not able to effect change from within".

That final point is particularly effective. Other noble Lords have mentioned one or other of those points.

The key to this situation is that if one is to have associate members of a club with lesser access to the facilities, then those members should do a deal. They will presumably get fewer facilities for less money. But that should apply equally to men and women. The discrimination results from the fact that in general because full memberships are for the men and associate memberships are offered to women.

I have not been as hardworking as the noble Lord, Lord Faulkner. However, following a random sample of London's glamorous club land, I can now exclusively reveal that the Bill is causing different reactions in different clubs depending on their current position with respect to women members. We have already heard that for a long time clubs such as the Reform Club and the Liberal Club have had men and women on equal status. They are unconcerned because they are unaffected. One of the people with whom we spoke wondered whether in fact the equal status membership might have the effect—this point was mentioned by the noble Lord, Lord Borrie—of forcing some clubs back into not offering any type of women's membership at all. Someone wondered whether men would dare to put women forward as full members of a man's club. It is a curious assumption that men are more lacking in courage than women.

This club—the House of Lords—let me in, but only because at the time when Paddy Ashdown was offered two peerages, after a very long period when he had not been offered any, he decided that he would choose one woman and one man. That is what he did. I hope that does not put me into a situation of not wanting to be a member of a club that would allow me to join.

Clubs that do not accept women as members differed in their approach when we talked to them. One interesting comment that we received was that it was,

"not right to prevent men or women from enjoying the full benefits of club membership, but equally not right to prevent men or women from enjoying the company of their own sex".

That is the view I expressed at the beginning of my speech.

There was an interesting arrangement at the Army and Navy Club which responds very much to the point made by the noble Baroness, Lady McIntosh of Hudnall. That club was originally all male. Men and women now have equal access to membership if they have been officers in the armed services. Many women are now officers in the armed services. Even more interestingly, their spouses, whatever their sex, have equal rights to associate membership. As a result of taking a practical view of life, as the armed services so often do, the club has come up with precisely the result that the Bill seeks to achieve.

Several noble Lords referred to the Sex Discrimination Act 1975. This is the second small Bill that we have considered in this Session to modify that original and very breakthrough Act. It is a pity that we must go about it in this kind of "take a clause here and take a clause there" way, a point made by the noble Baroness, Lady Howe.

I do not know how many noble Lords share my view that if there is no rational explanation of why women are not paid enough or do not have the same access to employment or any kind of right, the explanation is prejudice. It is as simple as that. I have fought that prejudice in my party—someone spoke about party selection processes. The Act did not assist us in that, as we discovered when the Labour Party decided to go for all-women shortlists and was prosecuted under the Act. The most recent Act that we passed was directed precisely towards removing that danger. It does not remove all the dangers of positive action to promote women candidates, but it gets rid of that one. One could be prosecuted in a different way, if one were unlucky.

We cannot solve all of the world's problems or all women's problems with the Bill. It is to be hoped that we can make a good stab at solving the particular problems that the Bill addresses. I wish it well and hope that we will shortly hear from the Government Front Bench that they support it.

My Lords, it is late, so I will be brief. I begin by thanking the noble Lord, Lord Faulkner of Worcester, for introducing the Bill, which gives us the opportunity to debate sex discrimination in private members' clubs. Let me also congratulate him on an excellent speech that illustrated by poignant examples the almost irresistible arguments in favour of the Bill. Let me also say that we are reticent about succumbing to legislation on the issue—not because we do not believe in its aims but because the law can be a blunt instrument when used in such a way. We are therefore somewhat sceptical about inflicting legislation on how people choose to behave in private.

That said, we recognise that there is a serious need for a cultural change within some of our private institutions: a cultural change that is essentially about confronting closed minds. We recognise that the Bill is intended to meet that objective.

It is important, albeit at the risk of repetition, to make clear to all those beyond your Lordships' House who may not have read the Bill, what measures it would introduce. First and foremost, if a club chooses to admit women, it must admit them as equal members. Further, a single-sex club does not lose its status as a single-sex club if women are admitted to club functions on an occasional basis. Indeed, only if all the circumstances are such that the club cannot be genuinely described as single-sex does the Bill apply. Further, any club can choose to be or remain a single-sex club and the Bill applies only to private clubs with 25 or more members.

The Bill would outlaw, for example, single-sex bars where women were admitted to other bars in the club, golf clubs allowing women only at certain times and men-only enclosures. It would not outlaw, for example, single-sex changing rooms, gyms and lavatories. It would not outlaw single-sex sporting events—thank goodness for that. Importantly, the Bill applies equally to discrimination against men.

In truth, I am not entirely convinced that the Bill as drafted will achieve those objectives in practice. Further consideration of its clauses in Committee will be essential before we decide whether it should reach the statute book. I agree with my noble friend Lady Fookes that the Bill is sensible in its approach and deserves serious consideration.

The noble Lord, Lord Faulkner, referred to the public stance taken by some of us in the Conservative Party, including me, who decided with a heavy heart to resign from the Carlton Club because it continues to exclude women members from full membership simply on grounds of sex. While it is a private club, the Carlton Club holds itself out to be a leading club of the Conservative Party—a very public institution.

I was interested to learn that the noble Lord, Lord Lester of Herne Hill, resigned from the Garrick Club some years ago because he and others failed to persuade it to change the rules to admit women as members. I am somewhat surprised that the noble and learned Lord the Lord Chancellor has failed to do likewise. I was also interested to hear the noble Lord, Lord Borrie, seeking perhaps to defend the Garrick on the grounds of physical capacity. It reminded me of a biography of the Mitford girls that I read recently. The first Baron Redesdale, their father, argued in your Lordships' House that women should not be admitted as Members as there was no ladies' water closet close to the Chamber, in which case they would be inconvenienced. They are matters of principle.

I recall how in a debate in your Lordships' House last year on the lamentable lack of elected women Members of Parliament I felt that it was depressing that in the 21st century we should even be discussing the need to address issues concerning irrefutable discriminatory behaviour on grounds of sex. This evening, like the noble Baroness, Lady Howe of Idlicote, I feel equally depressed, although this Bill may at least cause some to re-think their attitudes. That said, we must tread carefully, as there is surely a limit to how much we should interfere with the rights of individuals acting in a private capacity.

I look forward to hearing what the Minister has to say this evening. In particular, I would like to know whether the Bill will, as some newspaper reports have suggested, become a government Bill when it reaches another place. In that case, will it be taken out of Private Member's Bill procedures and given proper government time or will it have to take its chances like any other Private Member's Bill? That is an important question.

My Lords, it gives me great pleasure to respond to this Second Reading debate and to join noble Lords in thanking my noble friend Lord Faulkner of Worcester for introducing the Bill and helping us to have this important debate.

During the debate I was particularly reminded of the sad case of private clubs covered by the Race Relations Act 1976. One of my former constituents in Preston was banned from entering the dockers' club on grounds of race. Occasionally, I thought, on the one hand, "Why are we debating this? Why don't we give up? It's all taking so long", but I do not think that a case of the kind that I have mentioned could occur now. Perhaps change will happen to the benefit of women.

The Government are firmly committed to equality of opportunity. Not only is it inherently right, but it is essential to Britain's future economic and social success. My honourable friend Barbara Roche, the Minister for Women, also welcomes the Bill in principle. Although the Government support the principles of the Bill, we must also consider the impact that it will have, as we do with all legislation.

Like the noble Baroness, Lady Howe of Idlicote, I believe that the background to what has happened is extremely important. I was very taken by the thought of any conspiracy to cause mayhem and overthrow the rules that could bind together the noble Baroness and the noble Lord, Lord Lester of Herne Hill. I would have thought that they could privately conduct a conspiracy to deal with some of the issues that would not be covered by the Bill, were it to become law.

The SDA does not currently cover private clubs because it does not extend to the provision of goods, facilities and services that are private and of a personal nature. Private clubs fall within that category. The law was framed that way in the 1970s because it was felt that genuinely private members' clubs should be able to reflect their members' requirements and preferences and because of concerns about the impact that it might have on freedom of association. Over 25 years later, many private clubs now have both men and women as members but can lawfully restrict access to some or all facilities in that club to members of one sex. The noble Baroness, Lady Fookes, raised that point with reference to golf clubs. Other noble Lords referred to the assumption that women could play only during the week and the difficulty that that presented for working women who could play only during peak hours at weekends.

Many working men's and constitutional clubs deny full membership benefits or refuse access by making the position impossible, uncomfortable or unpleasant, as my noble friend Lady Gale described. This kind of sex discrimination by private clubs is not acceptable. If clubs allow both sexes access to membership and some facilities and benefits, there can be no justification for them doing so in a discriminatory way.

My noble friends Lord Faulkner and Lady Crawley referred to the previous calls for the Government to change sex discrimination legislation. Many women have also written in individually. As my noble friend said, in 1998 the EOC proposed that the SDA should be extended to apply to clubs which have men and women members. The Government responded then by indicating a preference for voluntary action to be taken by clubs to eliminate discriminatory practices before imposing a legislative duty.

Several years later, very little has been done to rectify this inequality. Our expectation that clubs with both male and female members would want voluntarily to make sure that their arrangements were not discriminatory was, sadly, not borne out. I understood some reservations put forward by my noble friend Lord Borrie, but how long do we have to wait for voluntary action to provide that equality within the membership of clubs?

My noble friend Lady Crawley referred to the fact that many clubs have less equal memberships available—usually offered solely to women. Noble Lords have questioned whether there is any possibility of such clubs changing their minds. I suspect that in some cases the decision to allow women to become associate members may be associated with the fact that associate membership often involves a payment of money to help to support the club. I suspect that a club's finances might be quite severely affected were it suddenly to try—even if legally it could—to revert back to being male only. I know that that would be the case with some of the clubs in the CIU. I say to my noble friend Lady Gale that there may be hope of change.

I join my noble friend Lady Crawley in paying tribute to the work done in the past by Robert Walter and his attempt to amend the Sex Discrimination Act. There was a spate of misleading articles which said that the Government wanted to ban men-only clubs. I can give an assurance that my noble friend does not have this intention. The Government have made no criticism of genuine single-sex clubs.

As my noble friend Lady Gale said, we do not hear complaints about single-sex clubs such as the Women's Institute, the Girl Guides or Business and Professional Women UK. Nor would one expect to hear complaints about support groups for male single parents or for men who are the primary carers of preschool children within a family. We know that the general public would not want such groups banned, as the noble Baroness, Lady Thomas, recognised.

To respond to the noble Baroness, Lady Fookes, we are focusing on new legislation to combat discrimination in employment on the grounds of age, sexual orientation and religion. We do not believe that the important issue is the introduction of a single equality Bill. We are committed to eradicating discrimination and to providing clarity and coherence. We do not believe that this is the time for a fundamental review of the legislation.

My noble friend Lady McIntosh spoke of hope and belief. We hope that the Bill, with some amendments, would in principle lead to an improvement in the situation. As virtually all those who have spoken have recognised, it would require members' rights to be equal if men and women were both in membership of the same club.

There is no question that the inequalities that persist among mixed-sex clubs are out of date and contrary to the Government's principles of equal opportunity for all. My noble friend Lady Gale and the noble Baronesses, Lady Thomas and Lady Buscombe, know that we were all delighted by the passing of the Sex Discrimination (Election Candidates) Act 2002. Virtually all those who have taken part tonight recognise that that is the beginning of securing equality for women in consideration for candidature. It is enabling legislation that does not impose anything on the political parties. We all need to go away and start undermining the system again. Perhaps we could get advice from the noble Baroness, Lady Howe, and be prevented from being taken to court by the noble Lord, Lord Lester of Herne Hill, working with her.

I assure the noble Baroness, Lady Buscombe, that we support the principles that the Bill embodies. There is some important work to be done to ensure that it does what it is intended to do—and only what it is intended to do. As the noble Baroness said, addressing discrimination by private clubs raises some sensitive issues and requires a delicate balance between the rights and wishes of one group against those of another. The Government will welcome the views of noble Lords at later stages.

Finally, I was asked by the noble Baroness, Lady Buscombe, about government time for the Bill. There are established procedures and time available for Private Members' Bills to progress. I have set out that the Government's support for the Bill is qualified and some changes will need to be made to allow the Government to give their full support. That said, we shall of course listen to representations at the appropriate time, should the Bill pass this House and be picked up in another place. However, we have a packed legislative programme, so I cannot give assurances. Perhaps I should conclude by quoting again my noble friend Lady McIntosh—we must all have hope.

My Lords, I am most appreciative of every contribution, I hoped that my Bill would receive some support but the overwhelming support in all parts of the House is most touching and I appreciate it.

As the hour is late, I will not pick up every point. If the Bill receives a Second Reading, we will have the opportunity to consider such matters in Committee.

My noble friend Lady Gale told the horror story of the Welsh club in the by-election, then referred to the Cardiff and County Club and asked whether the Bill would cover the way that guests are treated there. The answer is yes. Clause 1(4), (5) and (6) deal with exactly that situation. If guests are admitted to a single-sex club, they are to be treated on an equal basis.

My noble friend Lady Farrington, in a contribution that I particularly appreciated, picked up my point about how long we should wait. The noble Baroness, Lady Howe of Idlicote, made the same point and was modest enough not to refer to a quote of her own in the Daily Telegraph piece on 2nd April 2001 to which my noble friend Lady Crawley referred:

"In 1978, Lady Howe,"

—as she then was—

"deputy chairman of the Equal Opportunities Commission, said that golf clubs restricting women at the weekends should change their rules".

That was 24 years ago and is the answer to my noble friend Lord Borrie. Perhaps the time for waiting is over and the time for legislating is here. I appreciated my noble friend's contribution. His was the odd one out and I hope that he will argue his points in Committee. I am afraid that I disagreed with much of what he said—and believe that many of your Lordships did as well.

We had a good tour of most London clubs and visited some golf clubs and working men's clubs. The general picture that emerged was that it is time for the law to be changed. I am happy to listen to my noble friend Lady Farrington, as I always am, when she suggests change and amendment. I hope that we will be able to agree on a raft of amendments that will make the Bill entirely acceptable to the Government and to the Opposition. I appreciated also the comments of the noble Baroness, Lady Buscombe, and was pleased that she referred to her own brave experience with the Carlton Club—which I am sure was appreciated in all parts of the House.

On Question, Bill read a second time, and committed to a Committee of the Whole House.