asked Her Majesty's Government:

My Lords, NePAD has made good progress since its inception. It has established a broad base of support from African governments. We and others are committed in our support for NePAD, in particular through the G8 Africa Action Plan. NePAD needs time to make further progress and it needs the active support of the international community.

My Lords, I am sure that all noble Lords agree with the Government in their support of NePAD. However, on 31st March in Pretoria, did not the noble Baroness, Lady Amos, say that because of the situation in Zimbabwe,

"foreign investors … think NePAD is a lost cause"?

If the current visit by three African presidents to Zimbabwe is not successful in resolving the problems of that country, would it not be right to put Zimbabwe on to the agenda of the meeting of G8 leaders to be held in France in a month's time? Is it not astonishing that, at last year's meeting of the G8 in Canada, Zimbabwe was hardly mentioned, if at all? Should not the G8 leaders now be considering how they can persuade the leaders of other African nations to ensure, in their own interests, that human rights, good governance and the rule of law are observed in all African countries, as they are required to do by a number of treaties? Would not that be a great help to NePAD?

My Lords, it is clear that the noble Lord, Lord Blaker, feels strongly about the situation in Zimbabwe, as do all noble Lords. My right honourable friends the Prime Minister and the Foreign Secretary, and my noble friend Lady Amos in this House, have made clear on many occasions the Government's firm views on the dire situation in that country. We support the new sanctions now in place against Zimbabwe, which add to the Commonwealth sanctions already established. However, in regard to the noble Lord's questions about NePAD and its deficiencies, as he sees them, along with the threat posed to the partnership as a result of the circumstances quoted by the noble Lord, I would say that NePAD is a new way, an innovative way, of redeveloping Africa. It is much bigger than any one country. We must support the fact that the most important element of NePAD is that it is African countries themselves which have signed up to it. It is an African-led innovation and therefore we have to support it. So this is not a question of one thing or another; it is a question of supporting NePAD and also ensuring that we support any moves to help the people of Zimbabwe.

My Lords, as my noble friend remarked, it is early days for NePAD, but it is still the most hopeful development to have come out of Africa since the release of Nelson Mandela. Is it not the case that, however it is expressed, the principle of mutual accountability—I think that is the new buzzword leading up to the Evian summit—means that, both in the context of north/south and between African governments themselves, we shall see the development of peer group review which will be able to address precisely the kind of situation referred to by the noble Lord opposite?

My Lords, I very much agree with my noble friend. Through his robust leadership of the All-Party Parliamentary Group on Africa, he will know that the NePAD initiative has been brought into being by African leaders themselves. The goals and vision of the partnership are much more important than any one controversy. I would say to noble Lords that, in Africa, controversies and supreme difficulties have to be faced on any day of the week, but we have to look at NePAD's overarching goals, which seek to meet those difficulties not only now, but also in the future. As my noble friend knows, those overarching goals are to promote accelerated growth, to eradicate widespread severe poverty and to halt the marginalisation of Africa in the global process.

My Lords, further to the questions put by my noble friend Lord Blaker, does the noble Baroness agree that NePAD's failure is not surprising, given that the United Nations Commission on Human Rights, chaired by Libya, recently failed to pass a motion condemning Zimbabwe's human rights record? What are the Government doing to make the international response to the disaster in Zimbabwe more effective?

My Lords, I disagree completely with the noble Lord in one respect; the NePAD process has not failed. It has been going for under two years. As I said in my earlier remarks, NePAD marks a new way of thinking about Africa's problems. It signals a commitment made by African leaders themselves to ensure that they do not look at aid as just a distributive mechanism and that they do not look at just short-term solutions to conflict, but that they consider what is happening in each country as regards good governance, transparency in dealing with international companies and so forth. All those issues bring hope to NePAD and, for that reason, we should all support it. It is precisely because of problems like those posed by Zimbabwe that we should continue to support NePAD.

My Lords, while I agree with the noble Baroness that NePAD is much larger than any individual controversy in Africa, does she acknowledge that her noble friend not only made the remarks attributed to her by the noble Lord, Lord Blaker, but went on to say that the developed nations might lose their collective vigour for plans to revive Africa if the issue of Zimbabwe is not addressed? Can the Minister say whether the visit of the three presidents to Harare was part of the African peer review mechanism agreed in March? Where will it lead if Mugabe does not take the hint and step down? Will there be further moves by the African peer review mechanism to sort things out in Zimbabwe?

My Lords, the Government welcome the troika's visit to Zimbabwe this weekend and we look forward to hearing the outcome of those private discussions. We welcome the involvement of the African leaders and we hope that there will soon be unconditional inter-party dialogue in Zimbabwe.

asked Her Majesty's Government:

My Lords, we are currently developing a national service framework for children. Although it will not look at specific conditions, it has been agreed that asthma should be used as one of the exemplars that will accompany the main report. Delivering effective services for children will lead to better services for adults.

My Lords, I thank my noble friend for that reply. She will know that today is World Asthma Day and that the National Asthma Campaign has launched its charter—entitled A Charter for Fresh Air—today. First, does my noble friend endorse that campaign? Secondly, can she give the 5 million or so asthma sufferers in this country some hope that the Government will make all workplaces—including those in the hospitality industry—smoke free in the way in which Ireland, New Zealand and Norway are currently doing and most parts of North America have already done? Has my noble friend seen the latest evidence from the TUC which shows that if a ban on smoking in licensed premises were introduced the lives of 165 bar staff would be saved and, at the same time, the turnover in pubs would be increased as more people would be encouraged to eat and drink there because of the smoke-free environment?

My Lords, I am pleased to play a small part in World Asthma Day. The Government have been working extremely hard over the past 10 years to reduce the incidence of asthma. We welcome the charter, much of which matches what we are trying to do. We are always open to new ways of doing better with asthma and we listen to the National Asthma Campaign. As to smoke-free workplaces, we deplore the effect that secondary smoking has on people. That is one of the reasons why we are assessing the public places charter and considering an advisory code of practice to meet the needs of small and medium enterprises as well. We are doing a great deal to raise awareness of asthma and its links with smoking.

My Lords, is the Minister aware that her answers in regard to an approved code of practice are distressingly similar to those given six months ago, a year ago. 18 months ago? Is it not high time that the Government recognised that the rate of death from passive smoking is three times that from ordinary industrial injuries? Is it not high time that the Department of Health and the DTI got their act together and approved a code of practice?

My Lords, we are aware of the need to ensure that the code of practice meets the needs of the workplace. But, in addition to an advisory code of practice, we are doing a great deal to raise the profile of the dangers of passive smoking. For example, the new warnings on cigarette packets inform people that passive smoking affects and harms children and so on. The tobacco alliances are now prioritising passive smoking in order to drive better practice at a local level. So we are certainly doing a great deal.

My Lords, will the Government use their influence to persuade the authorities in the Palace of Westminster to help noble Lords who suffer from asthma by making this workplace smoke free?

My Lords, I know that a hotbed of contention surrounds this issue. As a very new stand-in Minister I fear to tread in that direction. However, I have witnessed the fact that sonic Members of the House have been directly affected not only by tobacco smoke but by accidental association with it. We have to be extremely careful. We should certainly consider referring the issue to the House authorities.

My Lords, I suffer from asthma. Does the Minister agree that education about asthma and its treatment should be delivered at a primary care level, thus reducing pressure on our hospitals?

My Lords, the noble Lord is right. Most of our care and treatment for asthma is delivered at the primary care level. The chronically sick management programme has been in place for 10 years and has been assisted hugely by the guidelines issued by the British Thoracic Society. These excellent guidelines were updated this year and are absolutely first rate. But it is in doctors' surgeries, with asthma nurses, where asthma patients are best identified and followed up.

My Lords, do the Government have plans to free those with severe asthma from the costs of their prescriptions?

No, my Lords. Eighty-five per cent of prescriptions are now free. Many of those with asthma, including young children and old people, receive free prescriptions. So we feel that people are being well treated.

My Lords, my noble friend knows that I am severely asthmatic. Is she aware of the study which indicated that very few GPs know how to use a puffer inhaler? Would not the education of GPs in this respect benefit asthmatics?

Yes, my Lords. I do not know the research the noble Lord is referring to; I am sure he is right that GPs, in the normal way, would and should receive updated training. I know that the British Thoracic Society gives this sort of advice. I will follow up what the noble Lord has said.

My Lords, my noble friend said that she would be using asthma as an exemplar in the national standards framework for children. How will this affect prevention and the treatment of children with asthma in the education system?

My Lords, asthma has a whole section in the guidance issued in 1996 on supporting pupils with medical needs in schools, which I understand is working very well. The guidance stresses that children with asthma must have instant access to reliever inhalers when they need them. The staff are informed what to do, what triggers an attack, what treatment and support they can give and when an attack is sufficiently urgent to bring in medical advice and the ambulance. The guidance also promotes the idea of an individual care plan for children, and we are content that it is working well in schools.

My Lords, can the Minister give the House an assurance that those who cannot in conscience accept pay for work done in a no-smoking environment will not be subjected to the penalty of voluntary unemployment?

My Lords, as I predicted, I find it difficult to answer the question. However, we might test this out in the Department of Health; it has just declared all its workplaces smoke-free, and we are hoping to promote that across government. That may be the way to go rather than the apocalyptic vision of the noble Earl, Lord Russell.

My Lords, will my noble friend reiterate the connection between asthma and smoking? Will she welcome the response given last week in another place by the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry, Patricia Hewitt, who said that women's health was being severely affected by smoking and that women's health should be taken as a priority? She welcomed the Secretary of State's consideration that smoking should be banned in all public places, which would benefit women and children.

My Lords, I certainly agree that smoking triggers asthma and makes it worse. There is no question about that. We also know that women tend to smoke more at different ages, so I certainly support my noble friend in that respect.

asked Her Majesty's Government:

My Lords, my department has not taken any specific actions with the packaging industry as a result of the 23rd HASS report. However, based on information from earlier editions of the report, during the 1990s my department published a number of research reports aimed at helping manufacturers improve the design of cans and make them easier for consumers to open safely. Statistics show dial the number of accidents from corned beef cans has been declining and they are not a major cause of accidents now. Packaging, as with many products, is covered by the provisions of the general product safety directive, which imposes a general safety duty on it.

My Lords, I thank my noble friend for that Answer, but does he understand that many of us still believe corned beef tins and, indeed, other varieties of pull-top cans, to be inherently unsafe? Will he ensure that his department pursues its interest in helping to have those redesigned by the food and packaging industry? Will he also note that the report shows that some 6 million of us each year attend accident and emergency units in hospital, and that some 90 children under the age of five die as a result of accidents at home? Is he satisfied that the Government's accident taskforce has sufficient resources and powers to reduce the incidence of these accidents at home?

My Lords, I am delighted that the noble Lord has asked me a Question about corned beef cans. I have been answering questions about them all my life and I regard them as one of my real areas of expertise.

There is a real problem about corned beef cans. They have a trapezoidal shape and a key kind of ring. The DTI has done much work on this issue in giving further instructions and also special coatings for the cans which enable the corned beef to be extracted more easily. There has in fact been a remarkable drop in accidents with corned beef cans. They have fallen from 8,720 per year out of 26,000 accidents caused by all tins to 3,091 out of 19,000. I should point out that the really dramatic decrease came after 1997.

My Lords, can the noble Lord say whether ring-pull cans are safer than ordinary cans which are opened with a tin-opener? Which is safest?

My Lords, I am not sure that I can give exact details between the different kinds of can, but the one which is used for corned beef is particularly disliked by people, mainly because they lose the keys and then attack the corned beef can with whatever is at hand. If the noble Baroness would like to pursue this point. I can probably find her some detailed statistics.

My Lords, will the Minister allow me to rescue him from his worldwide expertise on the topic of corned beef and ask a slightly wider question? Does he agree that, taking the nub of the Question of the noble Lord, Lord Harrison—working for a safer world—a reduction in the use of products which have an impact on the environment would be highly desirable? What steps are the Government taking to ensure that clear, verified information is available to consumers on the environmental impact of such products?

My Lords, that goes wider than my knowledge of corned beef; it strays into a completely different department and area—the impact on the environment. This report is very specifically about recording accidents which take place in accident and emergency departments of hospitals. The impact on the environment is a totally different question.

My Lords, is the Minister aware that if, having taken off one end of the corned beef can with the twisty thing provided—assuming that you have not lost it—you then take a common, ordinary, household tin-opener and take off the other end, it is very easy to push the corned beef out of the tin without any danger to yourself?

Yes, my Lords, I was aware of that, and I am very glad that that essential piece of information is passed round for the benefit of this House.

My Lords, does the Minister agree, as the noble Baroness has demonstrated, that most home accidents are avoidable, arising out of carelessness, and that therefore paying attention is one of the best cures?

My Lords. I totally agree. These statistics on accidents are extremely fascinating: they prove that the British public can use practically anything in this world to hurt themselves with. It is understandable that there are an estimated 55 accidents a year from putty, while toothpaste accounts for 73. However, it is rather bizarre that 823 accidents are estimated to be the result of letters and envelopes. It is difficult to understand how they can be the cause of such serious plight. I agree with the noble Baroness that it would be helpful if people paid careful attention.

My Lords, does the Minister agree that sardine tins and anchovy tins are also very difficult to open with their tin-openers?

My Lords. I think I will just agree with the noble Baroness on that question.

asked Her Majesty's Government:

My Lords, I hope noble Lords will appreciate how I move seamlessly from corned beef to spam.

We aim to implement by the end of October this year the privacy and electronic communications directive. This includes requirements that unsolicited e-mails may be sent to individuals only for the purpose of direct marketing with their prior consent, except where there is existing customer relationship between the sender and the addressee. Consultation on the draft regulations started on 27th March and closes on 19th June.

My Lords, I thank my noble friend the Minister for that Answer. Unsolicited e-mails, known as "spam", now account for half of all e-mails in this country. In the United States, they account for 70 per cent. Spam, whether it is nuisance advertising or hardcore pornography is literally choking the Internet. Will the Minister expand on his Answer? Do the Government intend to follow the example of the United States Senate in introducing legislation specifically prohibiting unsolicited e-mails?

My Lords, we believe this to be a serious issue. The fact that a European regime has now been agreed opens the door to bilateral agreements between the EU and other countries, which is clearly very helpful. The European Commission is keen to pursue that.

There is now a big movement to stop spam in the United States. Twenty-six states have legislated and, although I do not believe that any action has been taken at the federal level, there has been a recent forum from the Federal Trade Commission on the subject.

We take the matter seriously. If measures are to be effective, it is vitally important that the international dimension is taken account of.

My Lords, will the Minister explain how it is that an inedible tinned food that lasted for ever and was supplied to those on active service can become an unsolicited e-mail, bearing in mind that some of us wish to be protected from having an e-mail?

My Lords, I am afraid that I have not been able to find out why the term "spam" is used, but that is the meaning it now has. It is a matter that should be taken very seriously because it not only clutters up computers but involves a great deal of very unpleasant advertising to do with easy credit, pornography and miracle diets. That is offensive to people, and we should try to reduce it.

My Lords, I can help the Minister with the origin of the word. It comes from aficionados of Monty Python, and the famous song, "Spam, spam, spam, spam". It has been picked up by the Internet community and is used as a description of rubbish on the Internet.

More seriously, is the Minister aware that up to 85,000 pieces of unsolicited e-mail are received by the Parliamentary Communications Directorate each month? Will he join me in congratulating the directorate on its valiant efforts to filter out that menace, given that a high proportion of it is rubbish advertising from the United States and that some of it consists of profane material? The directorate is battling against a rising tide; the Government's assistance is needed in combating it.

My Lords, I am happy to commend that course of action. As I say, it is a serious issue. We need to take all steps against it.

My Lords, given the Government's concern about voter turnout in elections and their commitment to increasing the use of Internet voting and campaigning, does the Minister consider that further restrictions on unsolicited e-mails would be contrary to that objective?

My Lords, no, not at all. I cannot see that it helps anyone in any activity, including voting, to have their computers flooded with this often quite distasteful material. It takes up a large capacity—some 40 per cent of e-mails around the world, according to my figures. It takes up a considerable amount of space for Internet service providers and is a very poor use of the infrastructure.

My Lords, do the Government have any plans to restrict unsolicited faxes? My fax paper is always being wasted by people who send me faxes I do not want. I do not know whether they could be called "corned beef' or something, but I have had enough of them.

My Lords, faxes are already covered, in exactly the same way, by the existing telecoms data protection directive. The essential nature of the privacy directive is to extend that into the question of e-mails.

My Lords, is my noble friend aware that modern fax machines are equipped to refuse faxes that have no return telephone number? In that way, many unsolicited faxes are filtered out. Is there any way in which the Internet system could operate similarly? For example, can the Internet service providers filter out e-mails that do not have a return address on them?

My Lords, there is a lot of action that Internet service providers can take to help customers to protect themselves. They can and indeed do offer spam filtering and blocking options. However, we do not want to specify what ISPs must do, because different people require different levels of protection. There is a strong commercial incentive to ISPs to offer a range of solutions, and they are keen to do so to cut costs.

My Lords, can the Minister think of a name for the enormous amount of unsolicited ordinary mail we receive?

My Lords, when I have a moment I shall bend my mind to that question.

asked Her Majesty's Government:

My Lords, the Government have recognised, since the Luxembourg European Council in 1997, that member states participating in the single currency will want to meet from time to time to discuss certain issues to do with sharing a currency, but it is important to remember that ECOFIN is the sole decision-making body on economic policy co-ordination. Whenever matters of common interest are discussed, all member states will be present. The UK is already playing an active role in helping to shape the European agenda; the leading part played by the UK in the Lisbon economic reform strategy is a case in point. The Government's positive approach to Europe means that we are able to play a full part in shaping EU policies.

My Lords, I am grateful to the Minister for that reply. However, would he accept that Britain is losing the opportunity to influence the development of a number of key economic and financial policies, not least the operations of the European Central Bank and the growth and stability pact, by not being a member of the Eurogroup? Although ECOFIN is technically the body that takes the decisions, in reality the Eurogroup, meeting on the day before ECOFIN, is where the real deals are hammered out. ECOFIN is increasingly becoming a rubber stamp.

My Lords, that is simply an assertion. The noble Lord, Lord Newby, has no evidence for it whatever. Decisions cannot be taken by the Eurogroup; they can be taken only by ECOFIN.

My Lords, is the Minister telling us that the Labour Party has not yet discovered the device of the pre-meeting?

My Lords, I have been in the Labour Party for more than 50 years, and I am well used to devices within the Labour Party to avoid democratic decision making. Fortunately, with the advent of one member one vote, nearly all those devices have become inoperative.

In the case that we are discussing, the reality is that no decisions can be taken other than by ECOFIN. If, for example, decisions have to be taken by qualified majority voting, they cannot be taken by the Eurogroup. They certainly will not be able to be taken by the Eurogroup after enlargement.

My Lords, can the Minister explain to the House why the decision was taken?

My Lords, the noble Lord, Lord Newby, was referring not to a decision but to an article in the Financial Times on 29th April in which it was reported that it was proposed that United Kingdom officials should no longer attend the working group of officials—not the Eurogroup itself, which Ministers have never attended. There are purely practical reasons for that, in that at the moment there are three member states outside the euro-zone and within a year there will be 13. Noble Lords can imagine, in such circumstances, what it would be like to do simultaneous translation in Estonian.

My Lords, will the Minister clarify one of the matters he mentioned? Will it be the ECOFIN group of Finance Ministers or the Eurogroup of Finance Ministers who decide on the future structure of funding the NHS?

Neither, my Lords; nor will publications by the European Central Bank.

My Lords, is the Minister really saying that the decisions that ECOFIN takes at its meetings are not affected by the fact that Ministers from the euro-zone countries will have met the night before and decided the position they will take at ECOFIN? Is he really saying that Britain's interests are not affected by the fact that we are currently outside the euro?

My Lords, there are two different questions there, the first of which is what happens at the meetings before ECOFIN. British officials have since the beginning seen the agenda for those meetings. So the answer that I give to the noble Lord, Lord Thomson, is that, yes, I can say that the decisions are taken by ECOFIN and not by any pre-meeting. The answer to the second question is the wider issue of the advantages and disadvantages of being in the euro-zone. The Chancellor will be making a Statement on that matter within the next month.

My Lords, given the Minister's reply, can he explain why, a short time ago, in the magazine the Business in this country and in the Economist there were specific references to the fact that, as a senior Danish diplomat said, the real decisions are taken not in ECOFIN but in the Eurogroup?

My Lords, journalists will report what they hear or what they think they hear. The Government are not responsible for newspaper reports.

My Lords, I beg leave to ask a Question of which I have given private notice, namely:

Whether Her Majesty's Government will repeat the Statement already given elsewhere by the Secretary of State for Transport on the decision not to proceed with the Crossrail project.

My Lords, the Government's decision remains as I stated in the Answer that I gave to the noble Lord, Lord Peyton, on 28th April. The Government continue to support Crossrail. There has been no decision not to proceed.

My Lords, one has to be very grateful for that reassurance—the noble Lord is really saying that there was absolutely nothing in the report in The Times which indicated that the project is likely to be postponed until 2020. I should just like to ask him whether he is aware of how grateful your Lordships were for the nugget of information that he released in the course of his Answer—that, after all the talk, reports, consultation and consultants, a final business plan will be available in July. However, what I should really like to know is this. Why was he not in a position to add something of what must have been in the Secretary of State's mind?

I should like, if I may, to introduce into this air of timelessness an air of topicality. In view of the report today that the Prime Minister is prepared to support the Olympic Gaines for 2012, he should be aware of the fact that although he can have Crossrail without the Olympics, he cannot have the Olympics without Crossrail.

My Lords, I repeat what I said to the noble Baroness, Lady Williams of Crosby. The Government cannot be responsible for the way in which journalists interpret what they hear or what they think they hear. Let me explain what happened. On the day after I answered a Question about Crossrail in this House, the Secretary of State was addressing the Social Market Foundation on a totally different subject. On the way out, he was waylaid by journalists, quite legitimately, and he made five points about Crossrail: that the Government supported it in principle; that it would cost £10 billion to £15 billion to build; that we would have to consider how to fund it; that if London and the South East continued to grow, we would need an east-west link; and that no decision had been made on whether a hybrid Bill was required.

Not a single thing that I said was in conflict with anything that the Secretary of State subsequently said. Even if something that the Secretary of State said was in conflict and I had known about it in advance, looking back at the time when the noble Lord, Lord Peyton, was Minister of Transport and then Minister of Transport Industries, would he have been happy to have his junior Ministers—the noble Lords, Lord Heseltine and Lord Kelvedon, or Lady Young and Lord Sandford—giving advance notice of things that he was going to say the next day as Secretary of State?

My Lords, does the Minister agree that the interesting thing about why the Secretary of State did not give advance notice is that he did not have the faintest idea that he was going to say it? As the Minister rightly says, the Secretary of State came out of a conference on a totally different subject, spoke to an experienced journalist and made the off-the-cuff comments which were picked up. Does the Minister agree that it is not surprising that such a statement on a £15 billion project—which is itself an integral part of a £110 billion project—had a degree of sensitivity about it? Perhaps the Minister could have a chat with his colleague about taking these matters a bit more seriously. Secondly, as I asked him on the previous occasion, is he still satisfied with the way in which the management of these interdependent, massive projects is being carried out?

My Lords, in his second question the noble Lord, Lord Marsh, is going way beyond the subject of the Private Notice Question. Perhaps—in order to be helpful to the House as always—I was being a little too helpful about what the Secretary of State said. The important point as regards this Private Notice Question is that, the day after I answered Questions in the House, the Secretary of State said nothing which was in conflict with what I said and made no new announcement of the kind which is not implied but stated in the Question.

My Lords, I think that I was the only Member of your Lordships' House who was at that conference and heard the Secretary of State. It might be helpful if I say that, although the subject was discussed, nothing that was said would contravene what my noble friend said in the House a day or two before. The only question was whether some finance could be raised from other sources such as gains in property value. I am very surprised to hear the Question from the noble Lord, Lord Peyton, which indicates that the Secretary of State is reported to have said something completely different after the conference.

Precisely, my Lords.

My Lords, is not the reason why my noble friend Lord Peyton gets so exercised about these matters that, time after time, particularly as regards the Department for Transport, we see announcements being made outside Parliament, very often when Ministers themselves have not been properly briefed? What is the noble Lord doing to ensure that this House is properly informed before statements are made in public outside?

My Lords, if the noble Lord, Lord Strathclyde, has any evidence of statements being made outside by the Department for Transport before Parliament has been informed and on which Ministers are not properly briefed. I have no doubt that he will let me know.

With permission, my Lords, I should like to make two brief announcements, the first about a Statement on Northern Ireland. It is likely that, later this evening, there will be a Statement in another place on Northern Ireland. It could be quite late this evening and it is impossible for me to say when. All I can say now is that it will be repeated by my noble and learned friend the Leader of the House as soon as convenient after it has been made in another place.

Secondly, I am able to give some information on recess dates. The House will remember that I announced possible dates for the Whitsun Recess as long ago as 18th November 2002 and referred to them again in a short Statement on 5th March. I am now able to confirm that, subject as always to the progress of business, which includes the three Motions to be moved shortly, the House will rise for the Whitsun Recess on Thursday, 22nd May, and return on Monday, 2nd June. Starred Questions on Thursday 22nd May will be at 11 o'clock.

I now turn to the Summer Recess—a glorious thought! On 25th November last year the House resolved—I am sure that the House will remember this resolution—that,

"subject to the requirements of business, in 2003 the Summer Recess should begin not later than the middle of July and the House should sit for two weeks in September".—[Official Report, 25/11/02; col. 565.]

I am aware that since that time scholars and other learned people have debated what precisely is meant by the middle of July. The Whips Office has analysed the matter and has come to the conclusion that the middle of July and, therefore, the date on which the Summer Recess will begin, subject to the progress of business, will be Thursday, 17th July. As everyone in my post always adds, that is subject to the requirements of business. I am making exactly the same comment as all my predecessors in this post. However, to be slightly more specific, the date of 17th July in particular is dependent on the progress of Bills in Committee on the Floor of the House. The two Bills progressing—if I may use that word—in Committee on the Floor of the House at present are the Sexual Offences Bill and the Communications Bill. For completeness I repeat what I said on 5th March about the September sitting; that is, that we envisage that the House will sit from 8th to 18th September.

My Lords, I beg to move the Motion standing in my name on the Order Paper.

My Lords. I beg to move the Motion standing in my name on the Order Paper.

My Lords, I beg to move the Motion standing in my name on the Order Paper.

rose to move, That the Bill be committed to a Grand Committee.

rose to move, as a manuscript amendment to the Motion, at the end to insert—

", save for Part 1, which shall be committed to a Committee of the Whole House".

Oh!

My Lords, I do not use the word pejoratively. I suppose that it is perfectly legitimate to say that we will not get our holiday if we agree, but our duty is to scrutinise the Bill properly. If that costs us our holiday, I suppose that we will have to bite the bullet and face it, but I do not believe that it really will.

My Lords, has the noble Viscount ever heard the words "for the Recess" moved without the words "subject to the conduct of business"?

My Lords, the noble Earl is of course right, which is why I say that I doubt that it will make much difference. However, the Chief Whip did rather stress the inclusion of how noble Lords decided on the Motions today. I took that to be a slight nudge on the Bills. I am not complaining or criticising; I merely seek to anticipate the answers that I fear that I shall get.

I hope that noble Lords will take the matter as serious. Part 1 of the Bill ought to be considered on the Floor of the House, and the remainder can properly go to the Moses Room. I beg to move.

My Lords, I hope that my noble friends on the Front Bench will reconsider the suggestion that the Bill be referred to a Grand Committee. I listened with a great deal of interest at Second Reading last week. The Bill is not on my particular subject, but it was an excellent debate. A number of points made by noble Lords—the noble Lord, Lord Lamont, the noble and learned Lord, Lord Donaldson, and many others—led me to believe that the measure was very controversial indeed.

I speak from my experience of working on Bills in Grand Committee. I remember the then Employment Bill in particular, which it was felt was not controversial but later turned out to be very controversial. That meant that we spent an awful lot of time in Grand Committee when it would have been a great deal better had the points that we wanted to raise in amendments been debated in Committee on the Floor of the House.

I know that one can have votes in Grand Committee, but one does not, generally speaking. The assumption is that one will not do, which has a psychological effect on the way in which debate is conducted. Bills of such substance and controversy—the Bill really is very important, as has been said—would be much better debated by the House as a whole in Committee on the Floor of the House. I therefore hope that the Minister will give some consideration to what has been said this afternoon.

My Lords, we should be very grateful for the comments of the noble Baroness, who has not left me with very much to say. I appreciate that it is now well established that a number of' Bills should go to Grand Committee. However, the Bill, with its constitutional implications, its implications for the liberty of the subject, and all the controversy that it has attracted because of the European arrest warrant, is really the last sort of Bill to be treated in such a way.

Bills in Grand Committee do not get the same publicity as Bills taken on the Floor of the House. It is a sad commentary on how another place now deals with its business that this important Bill has arrived in the House having attracted very little attention from the press, or indeed from Members of Parliament in another place. If the Government are saying that no other Bills are available to go to Grand Committee, so the Bill must go there to allow them to complete their legislative programme, that is a sad commentary on the way in which they are managing our affairs.

The Government's programme is obviously overloaded. They should put their house in order and have a programme of a scale that can be dealt with properly. The Bill will not be dealt with properly if it is treated as a merely technical Bill that can, so far as its Committee stage is concerned, be safely dealt with in Grand Committee where no amendments can be carried to a vote.

The noble Viscount should be commended for approaching the matter in a spirit of compromise. I hope that the Government will either accept the amendment or, perhaps even better, withdraw their Motion so that there can be further discussions through the usual channels to try to sort something out.

My Lords, before the noble Viscount made his proposed amendment known, I wrote to the Minister to ask him not to press his Motion to send the Bill to a Grand Committee. I have three reasons that I would like to outline briefly to the House, and I hope that they will receive some support along with the amendment.

First, Part 1 of the Bill—I appreciate that the whole Bill might be involved as a matter of convenience, but Part 1 is picked out by the amendment—is controversial. For medical reasons, I was unable to be present in the House last Thursday at Second Reading, but no one who reads that debate can fail to notice that highly controversial individual human rights issues were raised from the Cross Benches, most particularly by the noble and learned Lord, Lord Donaldson of Lymington. If there is any ground on which the case should be supported, it is that I found myself in agreement with him.

The noble and learned Lord made a most powerful case, along with noble Lords from the Conservative Back Benches. The noble Lord, Lord Lamont, said that it would be a pity if the Bill were sent to the empty theatre of the Moses Room. Speeches were made on all sides of the House—including by the noble Lord, Lord Carlisle, and the noble Viscount, Lord Bledisloe, and from these Benches—on points overlapping controversial matters relating to human rights. We had previously received reports, not only from the Constitution Committee but from the Home Affairs Committee of another place and from your Lordships' European Union Committee; and there are outstanding issues from the speech made by the noble and learned Lord, Lord Scott of Foscote, on 23rd April last year.

My noble friend Lord Filkin, said at Second Reading that the Government intend to bring forward in Committee most important amendments on the principle of dual criminality as regards which there could be a no more fundamental issue than that of human rights. These matters need proper scrutiny—that means a proper Committee stage.

My second argument is that this proposal would lead to a Committee stage that would not be a proper Committee stage. That is not to say that I am in any sense opposed to the reforms of my noble and learned friend the Leader of the House—indeed, I warmly supported them. But to press matters such as this into Grand Committee could ruin those reforms. The Government should pay attention to that point.

My noble friend Lady Turner referred to the fact that some of us had long and unhappy experience of the remission of a controversial Bill—the Employment Bill 2002—to a Grand Committee, which was a mistake. Your Lordships will know that it is impossible to have Divisions in a Grand Committee. It is not held in the Chamber. Therefore, debate is inadequate. It is stultified. In the case of the Employment Bill, I found that the preparation of ministerial answers was not so good as it sometimes is in the Chamber.

More particularly, the Grand Committee is not attended by noble Lords whose minds are not made up. In 26 years of debating some very controversial legislation in Committee in this Chamber, I have found that people attend whose minds are not made up, who are not specialists in the subject. One often has to address one's arguments to them. In Grand Committee that simply does not happen.

I want to say immediately—because the point has been misrepresented in the past—that in making this comment I am not in any sense criticising Hansard, but it is a fact that the resources of Hansard in Grand Committee are not as full as they are in the Chamber. On one occasion, when dealing with the Employment Bill, we were asked to repeat our speeches because the recording tape had broken down during an earlier period and there was no record; therefore we had to make it up again.

It was said to us then—and mutterings from the prefects' room begin to indicate to us now—"What are you making a fuss about? You can have your Divisions on Report"—or even, these days, at Third Reading. Some noble Lords say "Hear, hear"; but the logic of that is not to have a proper Committee stage in the Chamber for most Bills.

One of the worst developments in the past 25 years is that Report and Third Reading have become yet another Committee stage. It is Committee stage in the Chamber which is the mark of this House. It is rare for me to think that, but it is the merit of this House that the Committee stage of Bills dealing with controversial human rights issues takes place in the Chamber.

That leads me to my third point. I hesitate to say this as I see heads nodding on the Opposition Front Bench, but this problem falls not only, indeed perhaps not mainly, from the hands of the Government. It is agreed in the usual channels, and that means, first of all, by those on the Front Bench of the Official Conservative Opposition. Yet at Second Reading last Thursday the Official Opposition made the hold—some would say extreme, as I think it is—proposal that in Committee the whole of Part 1 dealing with the European arrest warrant should be excised from the Bill. But having made that proposal they now appear to have agreed to a process in Grand Committee whereby no amendment on that or any other matter can be put to a Division.

That is a mystifyingly self-contradictory intellectual position which should not be allowed to control your Lordships' procedure. In a post-Freudian age it would be quite wrong for the Government to take advantage of the eruption in the usual channels of some self-emasculatory anxiety to determine the procedures of the House.

My submission is that in those circumstances it becomes the duty—and we should be grateful to the noble Viscount for expressing this in his amendment—of those of us who serve only as spear carriers in the shadows of the Back Benches to ask your Lordships' House to give a proper Committee stage to a Bill which manifestly involves controversial issues of human rights.

It is not a question of being for or against the European arrest warrant in principle. I am all in favour of bringing people to justice when they flee to the Costa del Sol, but there are issues in the Bill relating to the mechanisms of the European arrest warrant which require that Parliament properly debates them and properly decides them.

As my noble friend the Minister said at Second Reading, Parliament is sovereign, and Parliament can do what it wishes in this respect, and that includes your Lordships' House. In the light of those three submissions I earnestly ask my noble friend, the Minister not to press the Motion today but to take soundings in various corners of the House as to why these objections have arisen and how they should be dealt with, and to come hack with a consensual and agreed procedure which we can then follow.

My Lords, I hesitate to intervene at this point, but there are new points that can be made and I understand that the debate is open-ended.

As someone who has served much longer in another place than in this House, I should be properly bashful about arguing about the procedures of this House. But the arguments advanced by the noble Viscount seem enormously strong. I say that with some knowledge of how the conventions have operated in another place over 35 years in relation to the discussion of constitutional Bills. There was a convention that such matters should normally be considered by that House as a whole and not in Committee. It became latterly, when there was rather a lot of constitutional legislation, a convention more honoured in the breach than in the observance. That seemed to me at the time to be an unfortunate tendency. It would be unfortunate if one of the most attractive aspects of the procedure of this House were to follow in that direction.

The substance of the Bill before us is in a sense not important. I agree with those who have already said that whether or not they agree with the arrest warrant is not the issue. What is important is the manner in which the arrest warrant legislation was decided in the European Union—which, there too, was novel. That is a subject that merits further consideration, because it is a portent of more to come, and the Bill should be considered in the traditional manner in this House.

There is one aspect of the business of this House which is potentially superior to that of another place. In another place, whether a Bill is or is not constitutional is not decided by Erskine May, or indeed, I believe, by anyone other than the Government, relying on the support of their Members. In this place, an important step has been taken to determine whether or not a Bill is constitutional. I refer to the setting up of the Constitution Committee. We owe that committee considerable respect and should listen to its advice; that is, that there are significant constitutional issues in this regard that merit consideration. We should follow that advice and, acting on it, consider these matters in the way in which the noble Viscount suggests. I hope that his powerful arguments—I have rarely listened to a speech in which the points were more carefully marshalled—will be given full and deliberate weight.

My Lords, I support the noble Viscount's amendment. In view of what has already been said in support of the amendment, I confine myself to one matter of particular importance. No one doubts the constitutional importance of the Extradition Bill or the fact that one of the most important aspects of the Bill is the abolition of the safeguard of dual criminality in relation to extradition to category 1 countries—that is, by and large, member states of the European Union—over a whole raft of categories of offences, of which there are some 32 in all. A feature of the categories is that they cover matters in which there is no harmonisation between the criminal laws of the various member states.

Conduct falling within one or other of the categories may be criminal in one member state but not in another. An example involves the category of racism and xenophobia. I shall concentrate on the racism half of that composite expression because no one has provided any explanation of what xenophobia adds to racism. Within that category, there are relevant types of conduct in, for example, Germany, but not in this country. Holocaust denial is the obvious example.

The proposal is that dual criminality will not be necessary for the extradition of someone in this country to another member state, notwithstanding the fact that the conduct in question was not criminal according to the law of this country. That is justified—and can only be justified—by the proposition that all member states share common values and common respect for human rights, guaranteed by the European convention. Each therefore owes to the other mutual respect and recognition of the criminal laws and procedures in each country.

That justification works where the conduct of which one is speaking is conduct committed within the territory of the member state in question. However, some types of conduct cannot be so easily classified. Some types of conduct are committed partly in one country and partly in another, and the conduct as a whole may be said to constitute the offence in question. That is particularly so when one considers what constitutes various offences that some member states may have within the "racism and xenophobia" category.

Currently, the Bill's provisions do not cater satisfactorily for cases in which the conduct crosses borders in the way I have described. Let us suppose a case involving publication on the Internet by which there was publication in this country but downloading in another member state. We might consider the case of newspaper articles: an article may be written and published in this country but distributed in another member state. Let us suppose that the content of the article on the Internet would be regarded as criminal in the other member state because it contains, for example, holocaust denial. Is that a case in which we should have to extradite without the requirement of dual criminality to the foreign country in question, notwithstanding the fact that a substantial part of the conduct had taken place in this country?

My Lords, I am most grateful to the noble and learned Lord, Lord Scott, for giving way. I answered those important questions in the European Union Committee last week and did so a second time in the Second Reading debate. On the specific examples that he gave—they relate to the nature of the Bill rather than our current debate—I have already answered the point and put beyond doubt the fact that the concerns that he is raising will not be issues because we will move amendments to that effect.

My Lords, I am grateful to the noble Lord. I was trying to set the background before coming to the very careful and clear evidence that he gave only last Wednesday to the subcommittee of the European Union Committee of which I have the honour to be the current chairman. He made the position clear and gave assurances—no one doubts those assurances—that the Government will introduce amendments so that there will not be extradition where a substantial part of the conduct, albeit not all of it, took place in this country. However, that is the vice, as I understand the procedure, of sittings in Grand Committee. We have not yet seen this highly important amendment, but it must be considered by Members of this House. It may be necessary to suggest alternative wording to that important amendment; it may be thought that one could more satisfactorily achieve the aim the common aim of all—in that way rather than with the wording the Minister proposes.

I respectfully suggest that that is a reason why the Bill should continue to be considered in a Committee of this House and should not be sent to Grand Committee. I am grateful to the Minister for anticipating the point that I was going to make. That is the point of importance that I suggest justifies support for the amendment of the noble Viscount, Lord Bledisloe.

My Lords, when this issue came to the committee in November of the year before last, we were not able to conduct proper scrutiny; there was pressure of time and we were assured that that would be remedied by proper consideration in this House when it came to legislation. For that reason also—because scrutiny was not satisfactorily completed—it is vital that we handle this Bill on the Floor of the House. That is where it should be.

My Lords, there is no dispute about the significance of this Bill but I do not agree with the noble Viscount's amendment. Let me explain why.

Perhaps I should first declare an interest. I have attended, I believe, three Grand Committee sittings in their entirety on three different Bills. I do not know whether any other noble Lord has done so. I speak with a little experience of how Grand Committees work. I am satisfied that the process of scrutiny in Grand Committee is thorough: in many ways, it gives more opportunity for proper discussion and debate than does the more formal context of debates in a Committee of this House. It is not as if we are short of the opportunity to move amendments at later stages of the Bill. That contrasts with the situation in another place—I take issue with the noble Lord, Lord Maclennan, in this regard—where the opportunities on Report are limited by the Speaker's selection of amendments; we know that opportunities are few and far between there. There is also no opportunity to amend at Third Reading in another place. In contrast, we have a wonderful opportunity to debate and vote on amendments on Report and at Third Reading. We have adequate opportunities in this place.

We do not need a further Committee stage that is taken on the Floor of the House as a matter of course. Indeed, I believe that, as a matter of course, Bills should go to Grand Committee. That is a better way of debating the details and of testing the Government's view in order that amendments can be tabled at a later stage. We should not indulge ourselves in the luxury of being able to have the same debate three times on the Floor of the House. Twice is surely enough.

My Lords, there is only one fundamental reason—it is a short one—why the Bill and Part 1, which contains points of principle, should be taken on the Floor of the House. We are not concerned, if I may say so with respect to the noble Lord, Lord Dubs, with whether the scrutiny in Grand Committee in the Moses Room is first rate or not. In my opinion, it is first rate. However, that is not the issue. The issue is that on points of principle, and for the reasons given throughout the House, the Committee stage should be on the Floor of the House.

My Lords, I shall explain briefly why the noble Viscount's amendment, and a number of points made in this debate, are wrong. A Grand Committee is a Committee of the Whole House in exactly the same way as is a Committee in the Chamber. Every Peer who wishes to attend or speak may do so. I cannot believe that if noble Lords are so interested in the merits of this issue, they cannot walk to the Moses Room or a Committee Room upstairs to deal with the point that they want to raise. In my view, every point that has been made by the noble and learned Lord, Lord Scott, can be dealt with in a much better way in Grand Committee, where scrutiny is better.

For obvious reasons there is more time in Grand Committee than on the Floor of the House. The only difference is that your Lordships cannot vote, a point to which I shall return in a minute. If unsatisfactory government amendments are tabled, they cannot be inserted in a Bill in Grand Committee unless such a committee is unanimous. If one voice says "No", such an amendment has to be withdrawn and brought back at Report stage. If there are alternatives, a government amendment may be brought forward in Grand Committee and considered there.

The fallacy in the argument advanced by noble Lords is that if noble Lords wish to vote in Committee they will give the Government no chance to think again. We all know the rules of the House and once the House has made a decision noble Lords cannot return to the matter at a later stage of the Bill. If' the arguments are as strong, as I am sure that they are on the part of the Bill that is causing concern, they can be advanced in Grand Committee. Then the Government will have to realise that they will have to make concessions at Report stage if they wish those issues to go through. It seems to me that the argument of principle is fallacious.

It is easier—I say this as a former Chief Whip—between Committee stage and Report stage to get the Government to realise that they have to make concessions or they will be defeated on Report but if the decision has already been taken in Committee, the Government will have no chance to rethink. I ask your Lordships to realise that a Grand Committee is a Committee of the Whole House; all the points made there can be made again and explored; and there is not the same pressure of time as there is on the Floor of the House. But noble Lords must realise that if they force this part of the Bill onto the Floor of the House and insist on voting on it, noble Lords will give the Government no chance to make a concession.

My Lords, I want to refer to how we have reached this procedure. While I was a Chief Whip in opposition, the bane of my life was the ability, by virtue of our procedures, of noble Lords to have not one or two bites but three bites at the cherry. Colleagues in the House who felt passionately about an issue, whether they lost heavily or not at the first bite in Committee, would return to the matter at Report stage and at Third Reading. One can have too much of a good thing.

About a year ago when the decision was taken to modernise procedures I took the view that in general we wanted not just to speed up our procedures but to take account of a situation in which a small number of Members would keep a large number of Members about the House waiting for a vote. I am not as involved as other colleagues—I believe that the laughing noble Lord, Lord Wedderburn, is one of them—and I am not one who understands the issues passionately. I come completely fresh to this discussion.

However, I understand that the procedure that the noble Lord, Lord Filkin, suggests is one that has the approval of the usual channels. As someone who once was a member of the usual channels, I sometimes look aghast at the ability of people who, in general, are happy to be led by the usual channels but who reserve the right from time to time to go against that leadership. If the usual channels have recommended or agreed to or acquiesced to this procedure—I declare where I come from—that is almost good enough for me.

However, the noble Lord, Lord Filkin, when replying to the debate—I shall give way to my noble friend Lord Wedderburn when I am ready—will have the opportunity to tell the House that perhaps there are special issues in this case that deserve reconsideration. For my part I have heard nothing that justifies a change from a procedure that I and the whole House were happy to support less than 12 months ago.

My Lords, perhaps I may speak now that my noble friend is ready to give way. I was laughing not at him, but with him. Is he aware that one of the first things that was explained to me when I came to the House 26 years ago was that we did not debate issues at Report and Third Reading stages—especially at Third Reading—that had been decided in Committee. Therefore, the logic of his remarks, and unhappily the preference of the executive, is not to have Committee stage in the Chamber at all, but to send all Bills to a Grand Committee. That is the logic of the position. Therefore, my mirth was because I was sure that that was not his position, and that he too would be aware that the two or three bites at the cherry argument is non-existent.

My Lords, this Motion and those previous Motions on earlier Bills are the result of a decision that the House took last summer on the recommendation of the Procedure Committee that for a two-year trial period more Bills should go to Grand Committee and that, in consequence, the House should normally rise at about 10 p.m. For our part, we do not like any Bill being committed to a Grand Committee. I certainly do not agree with the over-glowing description made by the noble Lord, Lord Filkin, of the process by comparison with a Committee of the Whole House. However, we have done our best to implement the decision of the House taken last summer and we support the Motions today for that reason.

I am well aware, as I was before this debate, that there are many noble Lords in all parts of the House who are unhappy about this Bill and the important Local Government Bill—an earlier Motion—being committed to a Grand Committee. We also know that the Government have problems with the 10 o'clock arrangement and we continue to deplore the idea that the Government can have one half of last summer's deal, which the House accepted, and not the other half. Of course, the 10 o'clock finishing time means that a Bill that may have taken four days in Committee under the old system, may now take six days. For that decision to be implemented, more Bills must to go to Grand Committees. In many cases the process also means that Report stage is likely to take longer than it would have done.

The problem is compounded, as my noble friend Lord Waddington said earlier, by the weight of government legislation and by the fact that these days so little is reviewed in another place. The Government Chief Whip, when speaking about recess dates earlier, indicated the pressure that the Government's programme is under for all those reasons.

In the terms of his amendment the noble Viscount, Lord Bledisloe, calls for the consideration of the Extradition Bill in Committee to be split between the Floor of the House and a Grand Committee. Last summer the Procedure Committee considered the matter briefly, but did not accept in principle that Bills should be so split. I believe that it was right to take that view. If we split this Bill, why not split many other Bills? Frankly, I do not relish having to negotiate on every Bill which clauses should be discussed where. Different aspects of particular Bills are thought to be controversial by different groups of Peers. Furthermore, when there is controversy about an aspect of a Bill, the proposed changes often affect other parts of it as well as the immediate one that is under consideration. I also think that splitting Bills would make it even more difficult than at present for noble Lords and those outside the House to follow our proceedings from reading Hansard and so on.

On this matter we are, as always, in the hands of the House itself. Today, I think that it should stick to the experiment that was decided upon last summer. It should review the position as a whole, including the 10 o'clock arrangements, in due course when the experiment has run at least more of its course than it has so far.

My Lords, I shall try to be brief. I start by thanking the noble Lord, Lord Cope, for his honourable speech and position on the point, which is much appreciated. The Procedure Committee said in July 2002 that the Grand Committee is right for Bills of the kind considered suitable by the Rippon Group. The usual channels have agreed that this Bill passes that test. As to whether the Bill is constitutional, many Bills have elements in them which touch on the constitution, but that does not mean they are constitutional Bills. In the Commons, where constitutional Bills are normally committed to a Committee of the Whole House, this Bill was considered in Standing Committee in the usual way.

The noble Lord, Lord Cope, is exactly right that splitting the Bill in the way proposed by the amendment of the noble Viscount, Lord Bledisloe, would be extremely complicated and damaging. It is inappropriate because many of the same issues arise in Part 2 as in Part 1. Indeed, I note that the Official Opposition's Front Bench have tabled identical amendments to both Parts 1 and 2. If the amendments were to be made we should run the risk of having the same debate twice, once in Committee on the Floor of the House and once in Grand Committee.

I shall not respond in detail to the noble Viscount, Lord Bledisloe, on the substance of the Bill itself. This is not the place. It is not true that extradition is virtually automatic. If anything, as a country we extradite. Other countries in the European Union do not currently extradite to us, which is why there are great benefits in the Bill. The noble Viscount was right to say that I did not respond to all the points. We had about a three or four hour debate. I gave my usual commitment that every Member who speaks will have a full response in writing from me about any points that have not been fully handled on the Floor of the House before the first day of Committee. I repeat that undertaking. There can be a lot of serious amendments. In fact, it is important that there are many serious amendments in Grand Committee. That is when the process of testing starts.

The noble and learned Lord, Lord Scott, raised the amendment that I promised at the European Union scrutiny committee and again at Second Reading. I shall go further: I shall ensure that the House is aware of that amendment before we reach the first day of Committee so that all Members can see it. I can give the House the assurance that in general it will be well pleased with the amendment because it specifically addresses the issue that has been raised.

I think that the Bill is appropriate for Grand Committee because of my experience of working with noble Lords on Opposition Benches in Grand Committee. I do not say that the procedure is easy for the Government, but it strikes me that it is a good process for scrutiny. The Government are able to listen more; are able not to resist for the sake of it; and are able to respond where appropriate.

My noble friend Lord Carter stated the situation correctly. He pre-empted what I was going to say should the House want to persuade the Government to think again and not send the Bill to Grand Committee. On the Crime (International Co-operation) Bill—and please ask of colleagues who worked through that process—in response to the debates we had in Grand Committee we brought back amendments on Report, which progressively narrowed down the nature of the Bill. We did not dig in. We were able to give way willingly when we thought it was sensible for us to do so.

By comparison, defeat us on the Floor of the House in Committee and noble Lords lock the Government in to conflict for no good reason. I give the House my assurance that the tone and style in which we handled the Crime (International Co-operation) Bill will be applied to this Bill. We shall listen seriously to the arguments without fear or favour. If we think that we should be persuaded, we will be persuaded and will adjust accordingly. The House will have a full opportunity to test those matters at later stages of the Bill.

My Lords, I am most grateful to those noble Lords who have spoken to the amendment. I am interested to note that—I may be wrong—the only noble Lords who have spoken against the amendment are all former Whips or operators in the Whips' department, which perhaps says something about the difference between those in favour and those against.

We have had a Whip round!

I was disappointed by the argument of the noble Lord, Lord Filkin. I had hoped that he would accept the invitation addressed to him by the noble Baroness, Lady Turner of Camden. Surely, if this procedure is to work, we should not send Bills to Grand Committee where a sizeable proportion of the opinion in the House does not agree. If the Grand Committee process is to work, the Bills that go there should be Bills that virtually everyone concerned with them agrees should be dealt with in that way. If the House is going to send Bills, by reason of Front Bench majorities, that the interested and concerned Back-Benchers think should be debated on the Floor of the House, the Grand Committee procedure will not work.

Perhaps I may say two other things. First, in answer to the noble Lord, Lord Carter—

My Lords, I thank the noble Viscount for giving way. The same arguments were used before we went into Grand Committee with the Police (Northern Ireland) Bill. I have to say that I am satisfied that everyone who took part in the Grand Committee sessions were satisfied that all the important criteria for proper Committee scrutiny was met by that procedure on that Bill. It was certainly a controversial Bill; it was certainly a Bill that had constitutional implications; it had serious human rights implications; and it was a satisfactory process.

My Lords, having not taken part in it, I cannot comment on whether the process was satisfactory. It was—this may not be a good point and I may regret making it—a Bill of specialist interest relating, presumably, only to Northern Ireland; whereas this Bill relates to the whole of the country.

In answer to the noble Lord, Lord Carter, he is of course right to say that if the Government indicate clearly that they will think again, the proposer of an amendment would be mad to press it to a Division when he may get something jolly good by negotiation. But that does not mean that where positions are really entrenched, it is not much better to put it to a Division in Committee so that the matter can be resolved.

Secondly, in answer to the noble Lord, Lord Cope, of course the Procedure Committee recommended that more Bills should be committed to Grand Committee; but that does not mean that everything should be, especially not Bills of such constitutional significance that have raised so much concern.

My proposal that only Part 1 should remain on the Floor of the House was advanced in a spirit of compromise. Of course I agree with the noble Lord, Lord Cope, that some Bills may be difficult to split and would require the usual channels to sit down with a microscope to study them to decide whether Clause 63(b) was appropriate. But it was clear from our debate on Second Reading—which I think that the noble Lord did not hear—that Part 1 concerns a totally separate matter and that almost all the points of criticism were raised about it.

If I am told that it is wrong to keep only Part 1 on the Floor of the House, I should be perfectly content to keep the whole Bill on the Floor of the House. I was trying to be co-operative; but this Bill is perfectly suitable for such treatment.

We submit that this is a battle between Whip convenience and principle; and I beg leave to test the opinion of the House.

My Lords, I beg to move that the House do now again resolve itself into Committee on this Bill.

moved Amendment No. 16:

Page 3, line 29, at end insert—

"( ) In subsection (2)(c) to (f), "television and radio services" includes all television and radio services transmitted directly to electronic communications devices via cable, satellite or dial-up modem."

I support my noble friend's amendment. Following in his footsteps and in those of my noble friends Lord Peyton of Yeovil and Lord Brooke of Sutton Mandeville and the noble Lord, Lord Thomson of Monifieth, I apologise for being unable to participate in the Second Reading debate.

I declare an interest as an amateur "fluffy"—in the parlance used by the noble Lord, Lord McIntosh of Haringey, at Second Reading—having recently become chairman of a fledgling independent film production company. I definitely consider myself to be an amateur "techie". As a general observation on the Committee stage so far, I must say that it is remarkable how the first day demonstrated that different sides of the House agreed on many of the amendments made.

Amendment No. 16 continues with the theme included in Amendment No. 12 and addresses the issue by a different route. It would require Ofcom to secure, in carrying out its functions, the same availability, plurality and protection of standards for satellite, cable and internet broadcasts. I know that the noble Lord, Lord McIntosh of Haringey, said, in reply to my noble friend's amendment, Amendment No. 12, and in reply to Amendment No. 10. moved by my noble friend Lady Buscombe, that there was a,

"framework of European directives that will govern regulation of communication networks and services".—[Official Report, 29/4/03; col. 631.]

The noble Lord stated:

"we intend to implement the directive in the UK by means of separate regulations under the European Communities Act 1972".

However, the noble Lord admitted, in reply to my noble friend Lord Northesk, that,

"We started consultation on 2701 March".

It seems that the whole European process could take a long time. The Minister also admitted, when referring to the consultation:

"we expect a large response".—[Official Report, 29/4/01 col. 647.]

Would it not, therefore, be better to have it all in the Bill, to ensure that there is a level playing field and to provide the consumer with protection for a period of up to two years or more? Why should those forms of communication be outside Ofcom's remit, particularly when they can be received in the UK and often repeat what is broadcast by television and radio services?

I support the amendment. There was an earlier amendment, to which I spoke, raising concerns about the Internet and other forms of electronic communication device. We heard earlier today about spam and various other forms of unpleasant e-mail and faxes that people receive. We have heard that the European directives in the making will be the means by which such things are dealt with. However, like the previous speaker, I am worried that it will take so long. In the mean time, Ofcom will be up and going.

Increasingly, it looks to me—and, perhaps, to other noble Lords—that we will need not just a European but an international directive to cope with some of the problems that we have seen already. Getting that would take even longer. At least with an overview, without total interference with the Internet and so on, Ofcom could have the duty and ability in the long term, if it became necessary—we are told that the Bill is flexible and can adapt to any circumstances—to make some codes of conduct. It is in that spirit that we ought to think seriously about the amendment and support it.

The noble Lord, Lord Dixon-Smith, explained the amendment well and clearly. If he continues in that vein, we shall not miss the noble Earl, Lord Northesk, as we will get the benefit of his advice indirectly, via the noble Lord.

The amendment would have a wider effect than the limited purposes that the noble Lord described. As I read it, the amendment would oblige Ofcom to secure that, whatever radio and TV services are provided, exactly the same variety should be on offer through the other media. An increasing number of people have broadband in their home, and, on the move, they will connect to the web through wireless LAN hotspots in pubs, airports, hotels, coffee bars and, now, in the whole of Soho, thanks to a bold scheme initiated by Councillor Wilder, of whom we have heard in another context, as the noble Baroness will realise. He has launched a plan for blanket coverage of central Soho, so that parking meter attendants, cleaners, noise inspectors and other officials will be able to link up to the council's IT system from anywhere in Soho. Among other benefits, the council will be able remotely to monitor noise levels around the clock with less expensive equipment and fewer staff.

The use of wireless LAN has been given a huge boost by the advent of integrated 802.11b in the Centrino processor, launched by Intel at the beginning of this year. That means that users who buy Centrino-powered laptops and ultimately, I suppose, an AMD equivalent will be able to connect to the Internet from any one of thousands of hotspots without the use of add-on cards. It would be possible for the whole of the Palace of Westminster to be enabled for wireless LAN, so that Members and staff with new laptops could log on wirelessly from anywhere on the premises.

Users of PCs and laptops will expect to be able to access TV and radio via their PCs or laptops, as they can to a certain extent already. With a broadband connection, one can get quite good video reception on a PC, and one can watch Colin Powell giving a press conference in Beirut or Damascus or listen to the wonderful programmes of the BBC World Service without having to tune in at the exact time of the broadcasts. In fact, one can do the same on the Internet with public service broadcasts from other countries, including US PBS, Canadian or Australian broadcasting or Spanish language webcasts live and on demand via Spanish TV, for instance. The breadth and variety of the material accessible via the Internet is already superior to what one gets on conventional TV or radio, and the disparity is likely to become greater as the bandwidth available to the public at large increases. All major broadcasters will have to have a presence on the net, and they would do so without the intervention of Ofcom, which, in any case, deals only with UK broadcasters, a small fraction of those accessible via computers.

I suggest that, although, as the noble Lord, Lord Dixon-Smith, said, the amendment has some logic—in so far as, if the clause endows Ofcom with powers over radio and TV services, the powers should extend to all means of delivery of those services—it is unnecessary to extend them to the dial-up modem. That would conflict with the principle that the regulator does not have any say on what is provided on the web. Content is dealt with in paragraphs (e) and (f), and what is provided on cable or satellite is presumably already covered in the same way as for terrestrial radio and TV, and the variety is taken care of by the "must carry" provisions that we shall discuss later in Committee.

I support the amendment tabled by my noble friend Lord Northesk and moved so ably by my noble friend Lord Dixon-Smith.

I am slightly surprised by that last intervention. I had thought that it was a typical Back-Bench amendment.

The regulatory regime that the Bill introduces gives Ofcom regulatory powers over licensed television and radio content services provided by cable and satellite delivery for reception by the general public. The noble Lord, Lord Avebury, is right. The Bill does not bring elements of information society services delivered by the Internet, such as webcast, into the regulatory regime. That would mean an enormous increase in regulation. If the Conservative Party wants to support that officially, it should justify that in other places.

The amendment would also mean that 3G mobile phone services, delivered by satellite, would fall within the scope of Ofcom regulation. That is not something that the Government want. Of all new services, mobile telephones are the most individualistic. The industry recognises the problems which can exist for minors, who are enthusiastic users of mobile telephone technology, and the industry is devising a code of practice and other protective measures, which we have talked about, or restrictions on sales to adults.

Contrary to what the noble Lord, Lord Dixon-Smith, said, legislative provision would not be needed to extend regulation. The Secretary of State can, by order, consider in the future whether regulation, as in the case of video on demand, is appropriate if these measures fail. But this is an industry in its infancy where self-regulation is the more important path.

Clauses 230(3) and 245(2) deliberately exclude from regulation any TV or radio services provided over the Internet or via a mobile telephone. For the viewer or listener, choosing to access content by these means, on individual request, is not like using conventional TV or radio. He expects to receive content which may go beyond that on conventional cable or satellite services. As these streamed services develop, it will be increasingly difficult to distinguish those which could be clearly categorised as television or radio.

The amendment would impose clearly inappropriate content standards, such as the availability throughout the United Kingdom of a wide range of TV and radio services which, taken as a whole, are both of high quality and calculated to appeal to a variety of tastes and interests. This is not the regulatory regime for these services.

Variety, even of a more dubious and tasteless kind provided it is not illegal in content, is the essence of information society services and can be provided by anyone. Some people might regret some of the content and we look to the industry to continue to develop blocking devices for the protection of minors. But there we should stop.

I am grateful to those who have spoken and, in particular, to my noble friend Lord Northbrook, who said that perhaps we should have some clarity on this matter on the face of the Bill. I have to tell the noble Baroness, Lady Howe, that, unfortunately, whether one is a lover of spam or not, this amendment was never intended to deal with that. Personally, I always found spam indigestible and indigestible it will remain. This is not an attempt to solve that particular problem.

I am fascinated that the implication of this amendment, as read, makes it a requirement that media, which already broadcast through conventional television or via satellite, would have to broadcast on the Internet. I did not think that that was the implication, although the noble Lord, Lord Avebury, seems to think that it is. That is not the intention. In his response, for which I am most grateful, the noble Lord, Lord McIntosh, made it clear that the Government do not want to go into this area. However, the purpose of the amendment simply is to give Ofcom a right to look at what media companies, who already are regulated, do when they use the Internet.

The reality is that the media and information services now use the same medium. There is no distinction between a BBC broadcast in digital form and a digital message technically going down the Internet. At some point, and somehow, we must bridge that gap. One way to do that would be the highly delightful way of deregulating media services completely. That might be the more intellectually sustainable way to do it. But I see a lot of frowns at such an anarchic thought. At least that would present a consistent position.

We have had an interesting debate, which has not taken the position much further forward. The Committee is examining the Bill in great detail. It would be entirely superfluous to divide the Committee on this issue, although I had some pressure from my noble friend to do so. I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.

moved Amendment No. 20:

Page 4, line 9, after "Kingdom" insert "of people of different ethnic origins and communities"

I support the amendment moved by the noble Baroness, Lady Howe. In making this contribution I declare an interest in that I was a non-executive director of Channel 4 for about seven years in the 1990s. As the Committee knows, the Government have declared their vision of developing an equal, inclusive society where everyone is treated with respect and within which there are opportunities for all.

The amendment seeks to instil that desire into the Bill, allowing an important and influential regulator the basis upon which to act to ensure that those objectives are achieved. It is also designed to ensure that Ofcom's decisions and the regulatory structure comply with the requirements of the Race Relations Act 1976 and the Race Relations (Amendment) Act 2000.

After some considerable thought, I decided to support the amendment. Some would argue that it is unnecessary. In an ideal world one could argue that such a provision is unnecessary. However, as we have heard, progress thus far has been patchy. Therefore, it is essential that such wording should be included in the Bill. As the noble Baroness, Lady Howe, said, for the past six months I have been chairing the review that has been looking at diversity in the context of the Bill. The review, which was established by the Broadcasting Standards Commission, with the support of the ITC, will be published in due course.

After considering the detail on progress, the review concluded that this amendment is necessary because it will take the burden off the individuals of goodwill and commitment within the organisation, who, of course, will come and go, and require everyone within the new regime to share responsibility for ensuring compliance, especially in those areas already mentioned: namely, content, portrayal, and, in particular. employment. It will also focus the minds of those running such organisations to ensure that we continue to make progress, which, as I said, has been patchy to date. I very much hope that the Government will support the amendment.

I support the amendment. I declare an interest as the deputy chair of the ITC, which also supports the amendment. As the noble Baroness, Lady Howe, said, it is also supported by Channel 4, as well as the trade union BECTU. Briefly, the United Kingdom is multi-cultural: that is a fact. However, it could become fragmented along cultural lines, or even polarised. That could happen. It has happened in many countries but not yet here in a general way, although there are gaps here and there in social cohesion.

We need to foster inclusion. Television and radio are uniquely powerful in creating culture and in reflecting society. Failures in catering for all groups have been recorded, not only as the noble Baroness mentioned but also in research carried out jointly by the BBC, the BSC, the ITC, and the Radio Authority. For that reason, Ofcom must have regard to the concerns for the interest of the full range of communities in our society—nations and regions, as the Bill says—and also the other communities that stretch across our geographical divisions.

In supporting the amendment, I must begin by declaring an interest as chair of the Broadcasting Standards Commission. As my noble friend Lady Whitaker said, the BSC, together with the ITC and other bodies, has carried out a good deal of research in the area, some of which, I hope, will be published shortly. It is because I believe in the good sense of government Ministers—at least of this Government—that I cannot help feeling that the amendment seeks to put right an obvious omission. It is my charitable view that the failure to include this provision must have been an oversight on the part of the Government.

It is perfectly clear that the amendment is both sensible and appropriate for this part of the Bill. Channel 4 supports it. Earlier this year, I noticed that ITV published a cultural diversity guide that also embodies at least some elements of what the amendment seeks to achieve. After all, the functions of Ofcom under this clause refer to those with "disabilities",

"the elderly and … those on low incomes",

people from different parts of the country and the difference between urban and rural dwellers. A whole range of concerns is covered, so it is surprising that cultural diversity and ethnic minority concerns are not mentioned.

After the tragic events in New York on 11th September, I was asked to convene a meeting at the office of the Broadcasting Standards Commission comprising many broadcasters and leading members of the Muslim community in this country. We had two meetings to discuss such matters and to listen to the concerns of Muslims about the way in which the broadcasting media were covering certain events dealing with their community. They felt that the media were stereotyping their community and from time to time doing so in a pejorative manner. It was a very useful exchange of views which, among other things, convinced me that this amendment is appropriate.

When dealing with an amendment about public service broadcasting during the first day of Committee, my noble friend Lord McIntosh suggested that such an amendment was not in the right part of the Bill but that it should appear later in the legislation in the section that deals with television and radio. Taking that point to heart, I argue that the amendment is absolutely in the right place. Not only does it put ethnic minority concerns on a par with disability, and so on, but, with the convergence of media, surely we shall find that such matters cover not simply broadcasting but also a range of other electronic media, especially the Internet.

Indeed, research evidence suggests that some members of the Asian community use the Internet as a source of information more than is the case with other people in this country. They do so because they feel that through the Internet, more than through broadcasting, they can find matters of concern to them and their community. I argue that the amendment is proper; that it was omitted by oversight; that it is fully in keeping with the spirit of the Bill; and that it is in the right part of the Bill in order to be fully effective.

My speech could scarcely be briefer. I support the noble Baroness, Lady Howe, in terms of what she is seeking to achieve by way of this amendment. I apologise to her for the fact that I was not present in the Chamber at the beginning of her introductory remarks. I do not propose to add to any of the comments made by previous speakers, but I have a serious question for the noble Baroness. In terms of the sense of the amendment, does she agree that there ought to be a comma after the word "Kingdom"?

Following the remarks made by the noble Lord, Lord Dubs, this is obviously a sensible and appropriate amendment. The noble Baroness, Lady Prashar, said that we had come a long way; that is certainly true. The broadcasting environment in which I grew up probably did not reflect my cultural background. The programmes broadcast on children's television were "Billy Bunter" and "Just William". Indeed, my mother listened to "Mrs Dale's Diary" on the radio. It was very much a white, middle-class, southern England view. We had to wait for John Osborne to change things with his kitchen-sink dramas before we heard northern accents and all about working-class life—

Has the noble Lord forgotten "The Clitheroe Kid"?

Indeed, my Lords. It is interesting that the one outpost of regional culture was music hall and light entertainment. I concede that to the noble Baroness. But I remember the BBC radio broadcasters had to change into dinner jackets in order to read the news, never mind the television news readers. We have come a long way since then.

Although I suspect that it abandoned the idea out of sheer embarrassment, one of the cable television channels recently broadcast a re-run of the 1970s "comedy" series, "Love Thy Neighbour". The basic premise was that of a black man who had moved in next door. It is absolutely excruciating to watch that series today, reflecting as it does a picture of racism. prejudice and stereotyping. Fortunately, however, it does highlight the sheer boorishness of the racist white neighbour, while the black neighbour is now safely ensconced as a character in "Eastenders".

Programmes have changed profoundly and our current affairs output reflects that. However, evidence is still being produced, not only from the usual suspects, to show that our communications industry tends to centre on London and the area encircled by the M25, and that it is still extremely difficult for ethnic and other minority communities to get into the system. The noble Lord, Lord Alli, who is not with us today, is probably the exception that proves the rule.

I was worried to learn that the noble Lord. Lord Northbrook, is seeking to become a film producer. I should warn him that the noble Lord, Lord Puttnam, has advised me that the way to make a small fortune out of film production is to start with a large fortune. However, that subject may be for another debate.

I hope that this will be the first occasion on which the noble Lord. Lord McIntosh, will leap to his feet and declare that the Government accept the amendment—hook, line and sinker.

There is a strong tradition of support from these Benches for those who belong to the different ethnic communities that increasingly make up this nation and add to its rich cultural heritage. It is in that spirit that I wish to add my support to the amendment tabled by the noble Baroness, Lady Howe.

I do so also because I am the bishop of a diocese which has within it the largest ethnic communities outside London both in terms of individual size, in the cases of the Jewish and Chinese communities, and in terms of their mix. Over the past few months I have been aware, when meeting people from those different communities, how very vulnerable many of them still feel, in spite of the efforts that have been made in this country to include them far more in all our doings.

So while I am aware that the Minister may well feel that the points which have properly been raised during our debate are covered by the clause, I hope that he will recognise that it is extremely important to spell out this matter so that there can be no doubt whatsoever as regards our good will and concern for people of the different ethnic communities.

We are all grateful to the noble Baroness, Lady Howe, for tabling this amendment. It has sparked a most interesting and constructive debate during which several substantial points were made. As has been so eloquently illustrated, we live in a richly diverse country and our media must reflect that. We believe that we have made provision in the Bill to ensure that it does.

The Government recognise the importance of the diversity agenda, and Ofcom will want to embrace it fully. However, while we are totally in accord with the sentiments behind the amendment that have been expressed so graphically in the debate, it is our view that the Bill already adequately provides for the needs of all members of the community, and we are not yet convinced that we need to add a specific reference to people of different ethnic origins and communities to the general duties clause.

Ofcom's general duties are fully inclusive. In carrying out its functions it must,

"further the interests of the community as a whole".

Provision already exists in the Bill in Clause 260, the public service remit, to ensure that what we see on television properly reflects the cultural diversity of the United Kingdom. Furthermore, because we believe that the diversity of content is supported and enhanced through equality of opportunity and fairness in recruitment and employment, Clauses 24 and 330 ensure that the broadcasting industry is fully signed up to this agenda.

In addition to these provisions, the Race Relations (Amendment) Act 2000 will apply to Ofcom. The Act will require Ofcom to consider the specific needs and requirements of people from diverse backgrounds, both in terms of its own internal processes and as Ofcom deals with the external world. Ofcom will also be subject to Northern Ireland equality legislation and a Welsh language scheme.

Therefore, despite the persuasive arguments that have been advanced in support of the amendment, it is difficult to see what additional positive impact the amendment would have on broadcasting and what, if any, impact it would have on the networks and services provisions in the Bill. My concern is that it could, in effect, open the way for a degree of potentially rather heavy-handed intervention in the form of box ticking and quota setting, which we do not need.

I share the view of noble Lords that we need to ensure that broadcasting in this country embraces diversity. The case for that has been made splendidly this afternoon. However, I believe that the Bill as constructed already achieves this because we have provided for precisely those objectives. Having said that, however, I have listened carefully to the debate and I shall consider the amendment further in the light of the comments that have been made.

I thank the Minister for his reply. He ended on a positive note so I am not quite as depressed by his answer as I might otherwise have been. I wish to thank all those Members of the Committee who have joined in the debate. I was most heartened to listen to what noble Lords had to say in support of the amendment. Perhaps I should apologise for not having declared earlier my now somewhat elderly interest, in that I am a former chairman of the Broadcasting Standards Commission.

I shall swiftly reaffirm my own view, having worked for so long in the field of equal opportunities. It is necessary to spell out these areas. It was necessary to do so again and again on women's issues, even though women comprise 50 per cent of the population. It is just as necessary now in regard to race issues, and to do so until the time comes when the message is completely absorbed. Where better than to spell it out as proposed on the face of the Bill?

For the moment I shall withdraw the amendment. I shall read carefully what all noble Lords have had to say and wait to see what may emerge from our discussions.

moved Amendment No. 21:

Page 4, line 9, at end insert—

"( ) the need to promote good practice in relation to the security of electronic communications networks;"

I wonder if it would help the Committee if I said that the noble Lord, Lord Dixon-Smith, has answered his own amendment. The answer is indeed that Clause 4 places Ofcom under certain further duties in order to fulfil certain Community obligations under the framework directive. That includes, among those obligations, a duty to promote the interests of' the citizens of the European Union by, among other things, ensuring that the integrity and security of public communications networks are maintained. There is nothing in the amendment that is not done already in the Bill.

I support Amendment No. 21 which says that Ofcom must have regard in particular, where relevant, to the need to promote good practice in relation to the security of electronic communications networks.

I am aware of the work being carried out by the European Union with its comprehensive strategy on network security, cybercrime and the forthcoming data protection directive on electronic communications. But, as with Amendment No. 16, I am worried about the speed of progress. Can I ask the Minister—

I am sorry to interrupt, but there is nothing that can be done more quickly by this amendment than is already being done in the Bill.

With great respect to the Minister, I wonder if I could carry on with some points.

What progress has been made in the proposals made in the Council resolution of 28th January 2002, and on the more recent Commission proposal for a Council framework decision on attacks against information systems? In particular, is the cybersecurity taskforce, promised by mid-2003, running to timetable? This force is very important, since it is promised that it will become a centre of competence on security questions—that is, to develop with member states a concept for a European computer attack alert system and to improve cross-border co-operation.

In summary, I believe, as with Amendment No. 16, that this matter should be on the face of the Bill as the whole European process, however well intentioned, could take many years to implement.

This Bill transposes the framework directive—that is what it does. The third Community requirement specified by Clause 4 is to promote the interests of citizens of the European Union. Clause 4(2) ensures that the Community requirements are to be read in accordance with article 8 of the framework directive. The directive cites the need to ensure that the integrity and security of public communications networks are maintained as one aspect of the objective of promoting the interests of citizens of the Union. Therefore, although the words do not appear on the face of the Bill, the obligation applies to Ofcom just as if they did. This amendment is not necessary.

I am grateful to the Minister for his explanation. Whether my noble friend is as satisfied with it as I am at the present time remains to be seen, but I shall draw it to my noble friend's attention. I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.

moved Amendment No. 22:

Page 4, line 12, at end insert—

"( ) the impact of developments in relevant markets upon creators and performers"

In supporting the amendment, I remind Members of the Committee that a similar amendment, put before the House of Commons, was judged to be over-specific. The argument was that accepting the amendment would compromise the flexibility of Ofcom on the grounds that it would place in balance the interests of creators in relation to other interests—the general public interest in particular. One could argue, and I would argue on this occasion, that that is not the purpose or thrust of this amendment. Rather, the amendment would provide an assurance that the regulatory body, Ofcom, took into account the interests of the creators, but not that those interests would be in any way pre-eminent.

I imagine the Minister will say that it is the purpose of the content board to ensure that those creative interests are considered. May one suggest that there should be a statutory duty for the regulator to take account of those important forces in broadcasting who create the content that we all, by and large, enjoy? That would be preferable to referring the responsibility to a sub-board entirely composed of non-creative people or, to use the word in the amendment, without creators on it.

The House will explore the issue of the content board later in the progress of the Committee. It may be appropriate to suggest that it would be pertinent for Ofcom to consider the establishment of a creator's panel, the chair of which would sit on the content board for relevant purposes. I am sure that positive action in the area to which the amendment indicates that the Government may go would provide a great deal of assurance to the music-creating industry, which the noble Baroness, Lady Buscombe, mentioned. That industry's concerns about regulation and market developments would be properly considered.

In the meantime, we support the amendment, as it clearly attempts to enshrine the interests of creators in the legislation.

I make a brief contribution as the footnote of a scholiast to what my noble friend Lady Buscombe said at the beginning of her speech.

My experience of audiences addressed by Ministers is that they much enjoy their own textual analysis of what is said. I remember, when I was a Minister, someone who is now a noble Lord in this House saying that he always enjoyed after-dinner speeches by Ministers. He sought to detect the bits written in the department before the Minister set out and those hits that the Minister added during the drive to the dinner to add a personal touch. It is sometimes perfectly clear that the Minister has not actually read the speech at all before delivering it. I have been in the audience when that has happened. One can see him distancing himself from the text as he utters it.

I do not doubt for a moment that the Secretary of State had read whichever speech it was that she read out to the Westminster Media Forum, but it is just possible that she had not read it quite as carefully in advance of delivering it as she would have liked. In the course of the speech, as my noble friend Lady Buscombe said, she chose to distance herself from and to amend the speech orally. She may have realised that the speech had some downside in terms of its potential consequences. If the potential consequence was to give the impression that the Department for Culture, Media and Sport had given up on the scrutiny of your Lordships' House and was taking your Lordships' House for granted, I cannot help feeling that the Secretary of State might have been making a mistake.

Let me straightaway deal with the question of my right honourable friend the Secretary of State's speech. I was not there, so I did not hear what she said, but I can give all Members of the Committee who have raised the question the assurance that my right honourable friend is absolutely clear about the importance of scrutiny in this House.

My right honourable friend is also fully aware that there are some contentious issues. I believe that she was saying that many of the provisions in the Bill are the subject of general agreement. After all, the Bill has around 450 clauses. I am sure that the noble Baroness, Lady Buscombe, and the noble Lord, Lord Brooke, would accept that much of what is in the Bill is a matter of agreement throughout the House. That does not mean to say that there should not be very careful scrutiny—

I am listening to the Minister, but this reminds me of a problem that came up on day one. When Ministers go to conferences, where there are various vested interests, they get carried away by the event and start giving assurances. They tell people not to worry because those troublesome meddlesome Peers are not going to do anything to the Bill. "Rest at night, lads", the Minister says, "because we will deliver the Bill".

The problem is that noble Lords read. They read these speeches and get mad about them. I urge the Minister to tell them down the corridor, in another place, that a little deference in this case could go a long way. I refer not only to Tessa Jowell but also to Mr Kim Howells. They give the impression that we are just a rubber stamp. They are going to be wrong.

I have had numerous conversations with both Mr Kim Howells and with Tessa Jowell. Neither of them has ever given me the impression that they think this House is just a rubber-stamping body. I do not know where the noble Lord, Lord McNally, gets that from. I am also sure that Tessa Jowell would not have referred in her speech only to "lads"; she would have talked about "lasses" as well.

I give this Chamber an absolute assurance that neither I nor my ministerial friends on the Front Bench, nor the Secretary of State nor the Parliamentary Under-Secretary responsible for broadcasting believes the House of Lords to be somehow irrelevant. I might remind Members of the Committee that my noble friend Lord Davies has just conceded that the amendment moved by the noble Baroness, Lady Howe, was something that we should take back and consider. There will be other examples where we shall want to do that.

I turn to the amendment we are discussing. The creative industries in this country, including the music industry. are essential to deliver the quality that we want in our broadcasting services. Their success contributes enormously to our economic well being. Developments in electronic communication services bring with them a whole range of extra scope for creativity. Important as that is, however, I do not believe that it is appropriate to single out that group as one of the matters to which Ofcom must have regard when undertaking its duties. We have emphasised from the outset of the legislative process, both in the White Paper and in the Bill, that it is the public interest that really counts in the regulation of communication services.

The noble Viscount, Lord Falkland, mentioned the content board. As we will talk later about the content board, I think that it would be wrong for me to engage now in what the board will or will not do except to say that the content board is part of Ofcom and any panels that it might set up will be a matter for Ofcom. As I said, I do not think that that should be put on the face of the Bill.

Where the work of creative performers has an impact on the public, we have focused on ensuring that Ofcom has the necessary responsibilities, notably in relation to the provision of high-quality and diverse services in the public service broadcasting remit and in the provisions for original production. In that way, we are creating real opportunities for creativity to flourish. I attach a great deal of importance to that.

There is already a fairly long list of matters to which Ofcom is to have regard and it is difficult to see what impact Amendment No. 22 would have on any particular Ofcom decision. It is to the public interest that Ofcom should look, and that is what the Bill provides for. I hope that in the light of what I have said the noble Baroness will withdraw her amendment.

I thank the Minister for her response. If I may, I should like to respond briefly in relation to my comments on the Secretary of State. I thank my noble friend Lord Brooke for his intervention. It was actually the Secretary of State's personal touch that was so damaging. The speech written by the civil servants was damaging enough, but I think that the Secretary of State made matters worse. It is a lesson for all of us.

I also thank the noble Lord, Lord McNally, for his interest in the matter. There were, of course, vested interests at the forum. Although the issue is particularly important to them, they were equally concerned that all the lobbying which they are continuing to undertake with all of us—and quite rightly so, as this is an important Bill—is not a waste of their time. I think that I was on the right side of the debate as it was I who received the applause.

I thank the noble Viscount, Lord Falkland, for his support for Amendment No. 22. He used the word "reassurance", which as much as anything else is what the music industry is looking for. It is tremendously important to show support for the music industry particularly now when it feels that it is being completely hammered by the Government in the Licensing Bill. We are speaking about an important part of the industry. Our music creators not only contribute significantly to our cultural life but are a commercial asset. I therefore think it right to urge the Government to urge Ofcom to take on board the interests of UK creators and performers and the impact on them of developments in relevant markets. For now, however, I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.

moved Amendment No. 24:

Page 4, line 14, after "consumers" insert ", including disabled, elderly and low income consumers,"

I declare an interest. I appear on the letterhead of PHAB—Physically Handicapped and Able Bodied—but I do not do so in any executive capacity. Nor do I think that that particular disability is one that is particularly affected by Amendment No. 24. However, I recall from being a Member of another place for the best part of a quarter of a century the series of occasions when Members of Parliament were subjected to very considerable lobbying by correspondents on issues relating to the disabled and their reaction to the media. No one who has not experienced that should be in any doubt that it is an issue that resonates within those who have such disabilities. I cannot help feeling that it is desirable that it should be on the face of the Bill.

I speak to Amendment No 79, which is grouped with Amendments Nos. 24, 41, 62 and 81, which I support. The purpose of Amendment No. 79 is to ensure that the statutory representation of disabled and older people is continued in the new regulatory framework laid out in the Bill, enabling the consumer panel to give informed advice on all issues affecting disabled and older people to Ofcom and the service providers. Without that, the Bill will signify a severely retrograde step in meeting disabled and older people's needs and one which can only get worse over time.

Currently, there is a statutory advisory committee in telecommunications, called DIEL, which provides the regulator with invaluable advice on the interests and access requirements of disabled and older consumers. The DI EL committee has 11 members, which enables it to reflect the wide range of impairments among disabled people alongside the interests of older people.

The Communications Bill makes no comparable provision. It removes both the statutory representation and the comprehensive breadth of advice. Instead it offers possibly one person appointed to the consumer panel to represent disabled and older people. Even if the Minister could give the Committee the assurance that one person with disability expertise would definitely be appointed to the panel, that person could not possibly represent the needs of all disabled people, such is our diversity. This proposal would turn hack the clock about 30 years to the time when disabled people were grateful for any representation.

The current advisory committee, DIEL. has ensured that the telecommunications industry has avoided many pitfalls in relation to disabled and older people during its existence. In a letter to its chair, Bob Twitchin, the national manager of BT's Age and Disability Action section stated:

"I am most keen to see an advisory committee like DIEL in the new OFCOM structure with the specific remit of looking after the interests of older and disabled people. Consulting with a group like DIEL can be of more benefit than consulting with organisations representing people with a specific impairment as the committee is able to provide a balanced view without over emphasis on one disability over another".

She added:

"I know that BT Payphones has also found the relationship highly valuable over the years and it would be a retrograde step for disabled customers if an advisory committee like DIEL were not to continue in the new Ofcom structure".

There is a danger, which will be voiced many times during this Committee stage, that disabled people will be increasingly excluded in the information society unless their needs are fully protected by measures in the Bill. It is hard to see how Ofcom will be able to receive informed advice in this crucial area unless an advisory committee akin to DIEL is established under the auspices of the consumer panel.

Similarly telecom companies will be required to consult the panel on improving services for disabled people. How is the panel to give informed advice without the sort of depth and breadth of expertise and the legitimacy that DIEL could marshal? As the Disability Rights Commission has made clear in its briefing, on the Bill, equal access to communications services for disabled people is a matter of civil rights not social policy and an essential prerequisite of equal citizenship. If we are to achieve full social inclusion of disabled people, the building blocks have to be put in place in all aspects of society's structure. The ways in which we receive information and the ways in which we communicate are obviously basic to our functioning in society.

The Bill will lay down the framework for years to come so it is imperative that the needs of disabled and older people are fully protected on the face of the Bill. Providing for their statutory representation through an advisory committee which is composed of a majority of disabled people is one of the essential building blocks for ensuring that disabled people will not be left behind and shut out of the information society.

My name is added to Amendment No. 79 in the group of amendments that we are discussing. I wish to speak in support of that amendment and, indeed, the entire group. If I did not recognise all the words that the noble Baroness used, I definitely recognised the tune. If we carry on at this rate we shall be able to come up with something we can all hum happily together.

As the noble Baroness, Lady Wilkins, has just said, Amendment No. 79 is concerned with retaining what we have. I refer to a situation where one person is bombarded by dozens of different people saying that they do not understand the position. As a disability spokesman I know exactly what will happen to such a person as it happens to me. Dozens of people say to me, "You do not understand my specific needs". One has to say, "Wait a minute; there are other people involved. I need to get a balance. I need to find out what is going on". It is incredibly difficult to get such a balanced view. One needs to consider many views. One needs a consensus view. I hope that Members of the Committee will adopt such a course throughout the Committee stage. We need to represent the views of all groups involved in the matter. I commend Amendment No. 79 in particular but also the entire group we are discussing.

I commend Amendment No. 79 to which the names of the noble Baroness, Lady Wilkins, and the noble Lord, Lord Addington, are added. I support very much all that they said, in particular what the noble Lord, Lord Addington, said about one person not being beleaguered. The noble Baroness, Lady Wilkins, mentioned that communications service providers benefit greatly from the practical advice that they get from committees such as the one we are discussing. That is ably demonstrated by DIEL. It is vital that such provision should continue.

There is nothing worse than arguments being repeated in this Chamber ad nauseum. Therefore, I propose to speak briefly. I endorse what the noble Baroness, Lady Wilkins, said about Amendment No. 79. The name that she mentioned, DIEL, is an odd one. I am not particularly keen on that name. It is to be abolished. The letters "DI" stood for disability and "EL" for elderly. However, the body has an admirable function. It has campaigned actively, aggressively and persuasively for disabled and elderly people. It has done a good job. That provision will be lost under the Bill. There is no similar provision. It is entirely wrong that the Government should omit that provision. This is a very simple amendment. I am sure that my noble friend will consider it sympathetically. As I say, it is a very simple and modest amendment but I hope that the Government will give a categoric assurance that they will take it away and consider it.

It is of paramount importance that the committee we are discussing should include a majority of disabled or elderly people. There is absolutely no point in having people with no experience of the matters they are to discuss. If the disabled and elderly are not represented on the committee they will be excluded. On the question of exclusion I commend the speeches that have been made on other amendments in the group we are discussing. I warmly accept the principles behind the amendments. The noble Baroness, Lady Wilcox, mentioned numbers that are too small to be read easily by elderly or disabled people who have sight impairment. It is not just a matter of not being able to press buttons or to read tiny text. What that really means is that they are completely excluded from television as a method of communication. No thought has gone into that matter. If accepted, these amendments would go a long way to including disabled and elderly people in the matter we are discussing. It is a simple but profoundly important point.

Amendment No. 25, which stands in my name, tackles this problem in a different way. I shall make my main argument when speaking to that amendment. However. I want to pick up one point that the noble Baroness, Lady Wilcox, made. I believe that she referred to Clause 3(3)(i). However, I believe that Clause 330 refers to the employment of disabled persons. It does not refer to access for disabled persons. If I read it correctly, Clause 330 deals only with the employment of disabled persons. We shall certainly want to discuss that matter when we reach that clause.

I wish to speak briefly in support of what the noble Baroness, Lady Wilkins, and the noble Lord, Lord Addington, said. I remind the Committee that disabled people comprise a very diverse group but that another group must be considered within that; namely, those who have a temporary disability. Many hospital patients and people who are recovering from episodes are severely disabled. They also need to be considered. I do not think that it is possible for one representative with a disability remit adequately to represent the breadth of people who may be affected by the provisions in the Bill. Therefore, I support the wording of and the sentiments behind the amendments.

It would be strange if there were no support from these Benches for the amendments that we are discussing. The Committee will be well aware that as bishops and, indeed, clergy we come constantly into pastoral contact with those who are elderly, disabled and financially disadvantaged.

Many of the interventions that have been made have echoed points that would happily have been made from these Benches and I shall not repeat them. I gladly give my support to the amendments but not simply for professional reasons, as clergy from my own diocese would certainly endorse. During many years of my upbringing, my mother was confined to a wheelchair. I know very well the issues about access with which the amendments seek to deal, so I support them.

I am not at all surprised that there has been unanimity of support for the amendments around the Committee, not only for the reasons given by the noble Lord, Lord Brooke, on the efficiency of the lobbying, but because of the genuine feeling in favour of the issues raised. We are all united in our desire to see improved access to communications services for people with disabilities. We are anxious to see that the digital divide, as it is called, does not exclude disabled or elderly people, or people on low incomes.

The noble Baroness, Lady Wilcox, is right: we are concerned that there is a risk that the problem could get worse as existing and future services are delivered by electronic means rather than more conventional ones. That cannot be allowed to happen. We cannot be denied a fully inclusive society simply because of technological advances.

What is the government response to the issues? Let me come back to the general duties of Ofcom, which have been a common theme of our consideration of the Bill for a day and a half of Committee time now, as is quite right. Those general duties are the key. We have to consider the amendments against the requirement in Clause 3(3)(i) that, where relevant in carrying out its functions, Ofcom must have regard to the needs of persons with disabilities, the elderly and those on low incomes.

We must also consider the amendments in the light of the role that the consumer panel will play. A number of speakers have dealt with that subject. Formally, people with disabilities, the elderly and those on low incomes are named constituents of the panel. It is true that the formal requirement is for only one person on the panel to represent those interests, but I hope that I can convince the Committee that the actual commitment goes a good deal further. The panel has to provide Ofcom with informed advice about their interests, and Ofcom will have to have regard to their interests in carrying out all its functions.

We have looked at whether the amendments will add anything real and tangible to what Ofcom will do. As well as the fully inclusive general duties to which I referred, the specific "have regard to" and the remit of the consumer panel have included specific provisions where most needed to ensure that everyone has access.

Let us consider the universal service provisions set out in the universal service order. By virtue of the provisions in Clause 3(3)(i), Ofcom will have to take into account the needs of people with disabilities, the elderly and those with low incomes. The current draft, which is out for consultation, aims to safeguard the interests of disabled end-users and to ensure access to, and affordability of, publicly available telephone services equivalent to those available to other end-users. It requires Ofcom to take specific measures to ensure availability of directory inquiry services, text relay services, priority fault repair services, specially adapted public call boxes, and the provision of contracts and bills in suitably adapted formats.

It is very important to have access to broadcasting for people with sensory impairments. That is why the Bill requires Ofcom to draw up, publish and ensure compliance with a code giving guidance on the extent to which television services should promote understanding and enjoyment by deaf and visually impaired people. The Bill also sets targets for the proportion of programmes to be subtitled, audio-described, and presented in or translated into sign language. Clearly, later amendments are relevant to that. In drawing up and regulating under the code, Ofcom would have to consider the specific needs of deaf and visually impaired people.

I turn to the amendments. Amendment No. 24, spoken to by the noble Baroness, Lady Wilcox, seeks to ensure that people with disabilities, elderly people and those on low incomes are treated as consumers for the purposes of Clause 3(4). However, the definition of "consumer" is set out in Clause 398(5). People, including people with disabilities, elderly people and people with low incomes who meet the very inclusive criteria set out there are "consumers" and will benefit from Ofcom's duty to consumers. When people do not meet the criteria, they will not be consumers, so adding the definition to Clause 3(4), as the amendment proposes, would not make them consumers. Therefore, it would make no difference to the Bill.

Amendment No. 41 has to be seen in the same way. We have to weigh it against the general provision in Clause 3. The amendment seeks to prescribe more specifically to whom Ofcom should direct its attention when exercising its duty in relation to media literacy. Ofcom will exercise that duty in the interests of the public as a whole. The general provision in Clause 3(3)(i) ensures that Ofcom will take into account the needs of persons with disabilities, the elderly and those on low incomes.

I referred earlier to the work of the consumer panel in representing people with disabilities, the elderly and people with low incomes. We are sympathetic to the intention of Amendment No. 62 hut, because of Clause 3(3)(i), it would result in duplication of work carried out by the consumer panel. We are creating the consumer panel specifically to give Ofcom informed advice about the range of consumer interests in respect of provision of electronic communications networks and services. We have expressly provided in Clause 16(4) that disadvantaged persons, persons with low incomes and persons with disabilities are among the groups on which the panel must be able to advise.

The panel will have the power to carry out research, a point made by the noble Baroness, Lady Wilcox. Ofcom must give reasons when it chooses to ignore the panel's advice. We do not want to undermine the important and independent work of the panel, and we do not want to duplicate the effort. Of course, Ofcom may want to carry out or commission research itself into the particular needs of the groups. Under Clause 13, it is not prevented from doing so.

Amendment No. 79 was spoken to by the noble Baroness. Lady Wilkins, and a number of other Members of the Committee. Let me make it clear that the consumer panel must have members who have been appointed specifically to ensure that the panel is able to provide advice on the interests of, among others, persons with disabilities or the elderly.

I am not suggesting, nor are the Government, that one person on the consumer panel would be able to provide Ofcom with the advice on disability and the elderly. I say that particularly to the noble Baronesses, Lady Wilkins and Lady Finlay, and the noble Lord, Lord Addington. Consultation by Ofcom is going on at the moment on the general conditions, which includes a discussion of all the issues. However, the point is that the responsibility on Ofcom is to ensure that the panel as a whole—not only one person—is able to give informed advice about the interests of persons with disabilities and of the elderly.

I listened to what was said about DIEL. It is certainly true, literally, that DIEL is being abolished. However. DIEL was giving advice to Oftel only, and only on telecommunications matters. The panel has the power to carry out research—it will do so—and set up such committees as it thinks right to ensure that it can do that. Ofcom has an obligation to ensure that it has the resources that it needs to do its job.

People with disabilities are named constituents of the panel. Their interest will form an important part of the panel's work. The panel cannot choose to ignore them in the face of competing pressures; it has a statutory duty to have regard to the interests of people with disabilities in carrying out all of its functions—these are listed in paragraphs (a) to (k) of Clause 15(3)—and to be able to give Ofcom informed advice on matters that impact on them.

We believe that disabled people, the elderly and those on low incomes will be better served by a consumer panel that can make its own choices about the best way to address their needs. There are plenty of options open to such a panel. It could set up working groups on particular topics. I have been very impressed by what has been said about the diversity of the needs of different groups of people with disabilities. That is why it would be inappropriate to force a framework on Ofcom and on the panel at this time. How it is done is a matter for Ofcom and the panel—rather than such a provision being on the face of the Bill. The working groups could be on particular topics rather than on marginalising the disabled viewpoint. However such an approach is organised, it is not essential for us to consider it now. The panel will have to make sure that it meets its objectives of providing Ofcom with informed advice and having regard to the interests of disabled people and the elderly in carrying out all of its functions. I do not think it would be right to constrain the independence of the panel by placing a requirement on it now. All of what is asked for in the amendments, particularly in Amendment No. 79, can and should be done by Ofcom and the panel.

The last of the amendments, Amendment No. 81, seeks to ensure, by including such a requirement on the face of the Bill, that in publishing information or advice in accordance with Clause 23 Ofcom must have,

"regard to the need to make the information or advice accessible to persons with disabilities".

Of course that is right; and that is exactly what is provided for in Clause 3(3)(i).

The fact that we believe that our intentions are so close to the views expressed today, and the fact that I have taken so much time to reply—for which in a sense I apologise—is, I hope, evidence that we do agree with and understand the needs that have been expressed in this debate. To employ a phrase used by the noble Lord, Lord Addington, I would rather use an example from a song by the electric string band. I shall not sing it in the presence of the noble Lord, Lord Colwyn, but it said: "You know all the words and you sing all the notes, but you never quite learnt the song they sang". I hope that we are singing the same song.

I thank the Minister for taking the time to respond to the amendments—the importance of whichhe recognised. I thank my noble friend Lord Brooke for his support. I am delighted to know that his name still appears on the letterhead of PHAB. In speaking to her own amendment, the noble Baroness, Lady Wilkins, also supported the other amendments in the group. The noble Lord, Lord Addington, indicated that he did not recognise all the words but recognised the tune. I thank the noble Baroness, Lady Darcy de Knayth, and the noble Lords, Lord Ashley of Stoke and Lord Carter, the noble Baroness, Lady Finlay, and the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Manchester for their support.

I am disappointed. I was quite encouraged when the Minister began his response, but ended up feeling again that an aspiration rather than a fact is being expressed. The experience of disadvantaged consumers is that, unless they are mentioned early on the face of a Bill, they have an uphill fight all the way. When I was chairman of the National Consumer Council—set up by the noble Baroness, Lady Williams, 28 years ago, continued by the Conservative government, and continued to this day by the Labour Government—its mandate was to be the voice of the consumer, with a special brief for the disadvantaged consumer. That made an enormous difference to the way in which we approached our work. Every time we examined an issue, we did so for the able-bodied consumer and for all of those who did not have a big enough voice; but because that requirement was on the face of our mandate, every time we examined matters we did so in relation to the disadvantaged.

I shall not press the amendments, particularly Amendment No. 24, at this stage. However, I ask the Minister to note the support expressed for them—not by people who do not understand how to read a Bill: they can read "must have regard to" and they can hear the wonderful aspirations expressed in the Minister's comments. But these are aspirations. My experience teaches me that that is not good enough. I ask the Minister to reconsider this matter. I know that we shall discuss other amendments tabled by the noble Lord, Lord Carter, and others who can speak personally of issues, even within their own families, who have great expertise and who always speak for the disadvantaged. But if I have any expertise to bring to bear here, it is based on the fact that for 10 years I spoke for the consumer, particularly the disadvantaged consumer. I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.

moved Amendment No. 25:

Page 4, line 15, after "choice," insert "accessibility and usability of services,"