asked Her Majesty's Government:

My Lords, the Office of the Deputy Prime Minister and the Department for Education and Skills are working together closely on this very important issue of fire safety in schools. The ODPM will begin work on a major revision of the fire safety aspects of the building regulations early in 2004 and that will cover schools. The DfES issued the guide Fire Safety in 2000 and is currently working on new and more comprehensive fire safety guidance for schools. This covers risk assessment and will include advice on security and the prevention of arson.

My Lords, I thank my noble friend for that Answer. Given that school fires have doubled in the past 10 years, costing education authorities £96 million and losing us the opportunity of having 3,000 extra teachers, will the Government redouble their efforts by publishing the statistics for fires that are accidental and those started by arson; by better protection of buildings by the greater use of CCTV and non-flammable building materials; and by supporting initiatives such as that taken by Cheshire County Council to target schoolchildren who believe that schools are there more for torching than teaching?

My Lords, I think that the Government's record in recent years has been excellent. We have gone for stronger regulation, more effective guidance, significant investment in safety in schools and closer partnership. However, the noble Lord is correct—this is an important matter. Some 60 per cent of fires started in schools are thought to have been set deliberately. We are very keen to reduce that figure. As for CCTV and other intelligent alarm systems, the extra funding that has gone into capital investment—£3 billion as of this year—is making a big difference. Schools are certainly making use of those new systems. As for young people, it was very interesting to hear about the Cheshire initiative. We need far more of those sorts of initiative.

My Lords, can the Minister tell us whether schools have automatic sprinkler systems and, if so, how effective they are? If they are effective, are they being used wrongly, so that people deliberately light fires under them to drench the school?

My Lords, sprinkler systems are used by some schools. The fire safety advice given to schools suggests that if the school is at high risk, a sprinkler system is good value. However, they are extremely expensive; if we were to put them into all schools, it would cost about £3 billion. In some cases sprinklers would not be appropriate. When fires start in roof spaces—in the Tiffin Girls' School, for example—sprinklers make no difference. Ironically, sprinklers also become targets for vandalism.

My Lords, the Minister has not told us whether the Government have decided to install sprinklers in all new school buildings, where presumably the installation cost would be a good deal lower than it would be after the building has been built.

On a different subject, detection rates for arson are generally extremely low—about 8 per cent, compared with 23 per cent of crime in general. Presumably the very large proportion of fires that are started in schools by pupils can be detected more easily. Has the department issued guidance to head teachers on how they should deal with pupils who are thought to be, or prove to be, the culprits in these matters? When are they sent to the police, and are they brought before courts?

My Lords, we have not given, and we do not intend to give, general guidance on installing sprinklers in new schools. The building regulations do not require it and we do not intend to change them. As new schools are subject to building regulations, they have better compartmentation, for example, which makes a difference to safety overall. The figure which the noble Baroness cites is quite correct: arson detection rates are low. We know that about 65 per cent of fires in schools are started by pupils; so that detection rate is quite high. Although head teachers are the best possible people to deal with troublemakers, the DfES has recently issued guidance on dealing with troublemakers in schools. It is a fairly fat document and sets out a whole range of initiatives.

My Lords, does the Minister agree that matters of this kind lend weight to the importance of proper resourcing for the youth service in this country? In particular, young people, especially those in deprived areas, should have access to good sports facilities to occupy them in more constructive ways.

My Lords, I entirely agree with the noble Lord, but I would go further. By enabling schools to stay open longer and by developing sports and arts programmes after school, we are seeing a reduction in vandalism. It is a very cost-effective programme. We want to see more of that, and also more schemes such as the Splash Scheme, which the police have been actively and successfully promoting. I believe they have seen a significant drop in vandalism. So we want more of the same.

My Lords, does the Minister realise that one does not have to be in a deprived area to have arson? My husband was headmaster of University College School, which was burnt down through arson in 1976. The culprit was never caught.

Yes, my Lords; it is a very sad fact and absolutely true. So far as I know, the figures that we have do not break down the type of school that has been subject to an arson attack. There are also different types of arsonist. There are opportunists, for whom arson is another form of delinquency, and then there are pathological children for whom fire has a great attraction. It is difficult to deal with both of those types.

asked Her Majesty's Government:

My Lords, we have discussed this with the police, the Information Commissioner and the Internet Watch Foundation, all of whom are aware of these websites. It is important that the provisions of the Public Order Act 1986 and the Protection from Harassment Act 1997 be used when breaches occur. Anyone with concerns should make them known to the relevant authorities and to the Internet Watch Foundation. We are currently working on an e-crime strategy that will include consideration of issues such as these.

My Lords, I thank the Minister for that helpful reply. The website concerned, Red Watch, was set up about two years ago by Combat 18, a Nazi hit group. It is registered by the National Front and the White Nationalist Party. A great deal of the material upon the website appears to be posted on it and sent to it by active and leading members of the British National Party. The material consists of more than 1,000 photographs of anti-Nazi, anti-racist activists with their addresses, telephone numbers and, where applicable, car registration numbers. I believe that the Minister confirmed that the security and police forces are looking at the matter. Will she reconfirm that? Will she also tell us whether they are devoting sufficient resources to this particular problem which quite clearly involves breaches of the law, incitement to violence against individuals and their property and incitement to racial hatred? This is a serious matter. Just because the people concerned are on the Left does not mean that they deserve less protection than if they were businessmen or other people. Will the Minister confirm that?

My Lords, I confirm that all proper steps will be taken if any person is found to be in breach of the law. The difficulty that we have experienced is that operators of certain websites have sought to avoid overstepping the conduct that the legislation defines as criminal. They fly very close to the wind. I reassure the House that although we intend to keep the position under review we do not believe that the absence of charges so far against any particular website has yet established that we need new offences or safeguards. However, I confirm that the matter will be kept under close scrutiny.

My Lords, I am very grateful for the noble Lord's Question. The Chief Rabbi drew attention to the growing threat of racism on Radio 4 last November following the bombing of synagogues in Istanbul. It seems to me that the matter goes beyond present legislative abilities. Do the Government agree that the precious gift of freedom of speech is being abused and that action needs to be taken to protect very vulnerable people, including some young people, and to make clear to those who are just getting on the thither side of existing legislation, but not quite, that there are limits to the toleration that the rest of the community can extend to them?

My Lords, I certainly empathise with the thrust of what the right reverend Prelate said. However, the current legislation is fairly robust. The right reverend Prelate will know that the 1997 Act provides for victims of harassment to apply to the High Court for a civil restraining order. In the past such orders have successfully been obtained by victims of animal rights extremists. They include a requirement for the removal of information about individuals from websites. We shall reconsider the matter to see whether there is anything further that needs to be done although obviously I cannot guarantee what the outcome of that review will be.

My Lords, following what the right reverend Prelate said, with all of which I fully agree, are Her Majesty's Government taking positive steps to engage and bring together people of all faiths, whether they are Christians, Muslims, Jews, Hindus, Sikhs or other, to recognise the danger that is emerging from the far Right, the fascists and Nazis, and to fight against that growing racism?

My Lords, I certainly reassure my noble friend that there are many initiatives which seek to bring together people of different faiths to talk about issues of this kind. I refer not just to government initiatives but also to those instigated by non-governmental agencies. Opportunities to continue that process must be seized by us all as it is a matter of real importance. I certainly guarantee that this issue will continue to concern the Government and will be addressed.

My Lords, have the Government no intention of ensuring that websites should exist only for lawful purposes?

My Lords, we have. The whole point of what many people seek to do is to fly very close to the wind so that they keep just inside whichever barrier is set for them. As I say, we shall continue to consider what we can do to make it increasingly difficult for them to adopt those positions with the facility that applies at present.

My Lords—

My Lords, is the Minister aware of the study carried out by the chairman of the Internet Watch Foundation, Roger Darlington, into extremism on the Internet in which he draws attention to the fact that much of this poison comes from the United States where providers are protected by the First Amendment? As the Minister may be aware, Mr Darlington draws attention to the fact that the Council of Europe brought forward a convention on cyber-crime with which the United States and Japan were associated. However, a number of countries are now pressing for a protocol to the convention covering racism and xenophobia. Is that a matter that Her Majesty's Government would support and is it a matter that Her Majesty's Government would take up with the United States given that they want co-operation on other matters?

My Lords, we have initiated inquiries of the United States authorities to establish whether hosting such websites constitutes a breach of US law, regulations or industry good practice. We shall continue to work with all those who are engaged in this work in a positive way to create better security. I shall certainly consider what the noble Lord said about the convention. I cannot give the noble Lord an answer from the Dispatch Box; I do not think that he expected me so to do.

My Lords, is the Minister aware that in the early 1990s information similar to that now being put on the website we are discussing was produced in printed form and had to be stopped through criminal proceedings? As she says that the law is robust, why cannot the law now be used to inhibit similar material being produced on a website?

My Lords, noble Lords will know that it is for the CPS and the prosecution authorities to make a decision in any individual case, whether breaches of the law have or have not occurred. I cannot second guess the judgments. That is why I said earlier that although there have not been any prosecutions to date, that does not mean that the law is not efficacious. It may simply mean that, in the given case, there was insufficient evidence. There is nothing to indicate that what was unlawful before is lawful now.

My Lords, my noble friend mentioned the activities of animal rights terrorist groups in particular using the web. Will she give an assurance that, as part of her department's work in the area, efforts will be redoubled to protect lawful businesses, which necessarily undertake well regulated research using animals?

My Lords, I can certainly tell my noble friend that we have made huge efforts to protect lawful businesses. He will be very familiar with our work on abuse by animal rights extremists in relation to Huntingdon Life Sciences and others. Those efforts will continue. The amendments that we made in the Criminal Justice Act are helpful, and we hope that they will be used in future.

My Lords, what is the estimate of the number of people involved in this situation, both those who receive and send the threats?

My Lords, we do not have figures. The noble Lord outlined the nature of the site and the number of people put on it. We are not able to quantify how many are engaged in the activity. If we have the figures, I shall certainly write to the noble Baroness.

My Lords, would the noble Baroness care to comment on whether websites that publish personal data without consent could be in breach of the Data Protection Act and therefore prosecutable?

My Lords, the Data Protection Act may not precisely cover such issues. It has been very helpful that the UK ISPs have been robust in terms of together putting forward contracts that tend to exclude such data. We absolutely endorse that good practice and encourage all ISPs to continue to look at it.

asked Her Majesty's Government:

My Lords, acute public concern has been raised about prosecutions for homicide offences in relation to cases of sudden infant deaths, particularly in the light of three recent high profile cases. While the Lord Chancellor has regular discussions with the Lord Chief Justice about the proper administration of justice throughout the courts, he has no role in reviewing judicial decisions, whether generally or specifically in relation to cot deaths.

However, as Attorney-General, I have taken action to review the implications of the cases, with the support of the Director of Public Prosecutions. The action that I have taken includes establishing an interdepartmental group that is identifying and has already started to review relevant past cases.

My Lords, I thank the Attorney-General for that helpful reply. Does he agree that it is a poor reflection on British justice that Sally Clark, Trupti Patel and Angela Cannings should have gone through hell for child murders that they did not commit? They were put through hell on the basis of the evidence of the expert witness Sir Roy Meadows, and statistical evidence that the Royal Statistical Society wrote to the Lord Chancellor to say had no statistical basis.

How many cases are there of women in prison convicted in relation to cot deaths, and of women who have been through the family courts and been separated from their children, with both categories being based on evidence by Sir Roy Meadows or experts using similar methods? Some people have said that there could be up to 250 cases. Is it not vital that the review that the Attorney-General is undertaking happens very quickly? Does there not appear to be some need to advise the courts that convictions need to be based on hard evidence, not statistical probabilities or checklists of psychological symptoms?

My Lords, I of course entirely agree that the effects on mothers and their families of tragically losing children and then being accused or—worse still—convicted, in the event wrongly, of their murder are devastating. Obviously, it is the job of our police and child protection agencies to protect vulnerable children who are unable to protect themselves. The consequences of not acting or acting without due cause can be devastating, which is why it is so important to look very thoroughly at the implications of the cases.

That is why I moved swiftly after the Sally Clark verdict to establish the group. It is already reviewing 50 cases that concern the evidence of Dr Williams. We have not had the judgment yet in the Cannings case—it is expected shortly—but I have already asked the group to identify cases of sudden deaths of infants in the past 10 years. However, there is no central database.

There are different issues in relation to family cases, as the Crown is not a party to those. My interdepartmental review is concerned with criminal cases, and I cannot at the moment say how many cases there are. I shall try to write to the noble Lord when I can. However, I entirely agree that the issue is very important, which is why I have taken such action.

My Lords, will the noble and learned Lord look very seriously at the matter? He knows that I have raised it a number of times in the House. We estimate that about 5,000 parents have had their children removed from them, with accusations of Munchausen syndrome by proxy held over their heads. The noble Baroness, Lady Ashton, said that there was no connection between the death cases that came up in court and of which the mothers have been exonerated and the cases of Munchausen syndrome by proxy. However, there is: Professor Sir Roy Meadows invented Munchausen syndrome by proxy.

In view of the tenuous stickability of Professor Meadows's evidence, will the noble and learned Lord look at the cases and at the functioning of the family courts, which is behind closed doors with no appeal? The women are absolutely desperate, because they cannot get employment. That is what is so dreadful.

My Lords, I am very well aware of the close and important interest that the noble Countess has in the issue. We need to consider the findings of the interdepartmental review into the criminal cases, to which I have referred. The Ministers responsible for family cases—the Minister for Children and the Ministers from the Department for Constitutional Affairs—will look very carefully at that, too. They will look carefully at the judgment in the Cannings case, which will be very important when it comes out shortly. They will consider what, if anything, can and should be done in relation to any family cases, particularly those in which evidence from Professor Meadows was adduced.

The noble Countess said that there was no appeal in family cases. As I said a moment ago, the Crown is not usually a party, but a local authority might be. Evidence will normally have been called by a private party. Where a private party believes that evidence was given that was determinative and affected the outcome, it may very well be open to that person to bring an appeal even now against the order. However, I have noted the noble Countess's comments, and so have other Ministers.

My Lords—

My Lords, does the noble and learned Lord agree that the three criminal cases raised by the noble Lord, Lord Lamont, highlight particular issues about the quality, peer review and disclosure of evidence of pathologists and other medical scientists in criminal cases? In the light of that, will the noble and learned Lord assure the House that the Crown Prosecution Service is urgently reviewing its pre-trial scrutiny of the quality of such evidence? Will the Government consider inviting the judges to exercise stronger case-management disciplines in dealing with such evidence before it ever reaches a jury?

My Lords, the issues that the noble Lord raises are certainly very important. I can make three comments. First, the Home Office pathology advisory board will publish new codes of practice that will deal with the judicial comments made in the Sally Clark case. That relates particularly to the noble Lord's disclosure question. Secondly, I have asked my group to consider the general implications of the cases. Thirdly, noble Lords are aware of the intercollegiate working group on which the Department of Health sits, but which is chaired by my noble friend Lady Kennedy of The Shaws. It is also looking at the issues. Regarding the Crown Prosecution Service, it will of course continue to operate on the basis of looking for real evidence—that is the code that is required. Regarding case management, as a Government we are very much in favour of judicial case management. I assure the noble Lord that, in any event, where judges see evidence before them which they do not think is adequate, they are not slow to make that point.

My Lords, I beg leave to ask the Question standing in my name on the Order Paper. In doing so, I declare an interest as president of the British Air Line Pilots Association.

The Question was as follows:

To ask Her Majesty's Government what instructions have been given to United Kingdom airlines concerning sky marshals.

My Lords, sky marshals may be deployed on UK aircraft in response to the threat assessment where it is judged that their deployment will contribute to the overall security of a flight or flights. Deployment will be with the agreement of the airline or airlines concerned.

My Lords, I thank the noble Lord for that reply. What is being done to improve efficiency on the ground? Will he confirm that in the air the pilot must have ultimate responsibility? Finally, should there not be a debate in government time on the matter as soon as possible? It is very important.

My Lords, I confirm the point of principle that the pilot of the aircraft will remain in command at all times. Regarding my noble friend's request for a debate in government time, that is a matter for the usual channels. He will also be aware that there are numerous other opportunities that he might wish to take up with regard to a debate. I also bring to his attention—as he and all noble Lords are aware—that security issues are involved in the matter and, therefore, there are some difficulties in responding to certain questions.

My Lords, will the Minister tell us whether protocols on the deployment of sky marshals have been agreed with the pilots' union? Their original deployment was announced by the Secretary of State on 19 December 2002 and he made a further announcement in December last year. Is it not of public concern that the protocols have not yet been agreed, although I understand that the Secretary of State met the pilots' union yesterday? Will not UK airlines be put at a competitive disadvantage by the introduction of sky marshals because the United States Government are funding their cost?

My Lords, as the noble Viscount has recognised, there was a meeting yesterday with the Secretary of State after which BALPA expressed satisfaction with the broad outcome of the meeting, although there are some further details to be attended to. But since the announcement that we had the capacity to deploy sky marshals there have been discussions with the airlines and protocols have been agreed. There are some outstanding details and yesterday's meeting was an advance towards concluding those matters. The costs of sky marshals is borne by the Government.

My Lords, will my noble friend confirm that steps will be taken to consult passenger bodies? While I recognise that BALPA is important, as are those who represent cabin staff, there seems to be a body of people who are never consulted on any matter concerning aviation policy: the passengers. What steps are being taken to consult passenger bodies on the introduction of sky marshals, which I think would be welcomed by passengers?

My Lords, my noble friend will recognise that the issues that needed to be discussed were the protocols and the basis on which sky marshals would be deployed in aircraft—that has been the subject of the discussions in the past year. He is right that passengers have major interests in the matter and the Secretary of State is mightily concerned to ensure that they are reassured that the deployment of sky marshals obtains only in those circumstances where clear evidence of a threat is manifest. The airline still has the choice of not proceeding with the flight if it regards the threat to be of such dimensions. But the Government are pursuing the whole issue of sky marshals with the sole intent of guaranteeing the safety of the travelling public.

My Lords, have the Government decided that sky marshals should he armed? If so, will they insist on the use of special bullets to reduce the danger in pressurised interiors of aircraft?

My Lords, it is the case that sky marshals, or the British equivalent—which is armed police on aircraft—are armed with weapons and, of course, the intent is that those weapons should enable the sky marshal to deal with any emergency. But it is borne in mind that the discharge of firearms in an aircraft has great safety implications and the point to which the noble Lord alludes is important.

My Lords, can the Minister assure us—his Answer was partly reassuring—that the people who are chosen for this sensitive work have been suitably trained, including training with the air crew, and that they are using weapons that are safe within aircraft? Can he also say whether the Government have considered the danger that the knowledge that some flights may regularly have sky marshals will divert the attention of would-be terrorists to other lines and routes that are less rigorously monitored?

My Lords, no one has any intention of indicating when and where sky marshals are to be deployed. Therefore, there will not be evidence on which to base switching attention to less well guarded aircraft. Regarding training, I assure the noble Baroness that the Government's announcement that sky marshals were available for use when there were threats to particular flights was a reflection of the fact that we had put in place the necessary police training—these are armed police deployed to a different location.

My Lords, on behalf of my noble friend Lord Russell, and at his request, I beg leave to ask the Question standing in his name on the Order Paper. The Question was as follows:

Whether Her Majesty's Government will confirm that the levels of social security benefits will remain independent of any numeracy or literacy tests.

My Lords, one third of people on jobseeker's allowance, which is a benefit for those actively seeking work, are functionally illiterate—one third. Even the most modest jobs can be closed to them—for example, stacking shelves or cleaning public buildings—if they cannot read the safety instructions that protect both the worker and the customer.

We are planning to introduce mandatory training pilots to help jobseekers to overcome their lack of basic skills. Sanctions would be applicable, not, as the Question suggests, if someone fails the literacy or numeracy test, but to those who refuse to attend training courses to help to address their problems.

My Lords, I thank the Minister for her Answer. She will be aware that her own department has said that jobseekers will be sanctioned if they do not complete the training that it thinks they need to undertake to make them ready for work. Will there be any independent appeal against DWP judgments in those matters? What steps will the Government take to assess the sufficiency of income of anyone who fails to complete a course?

My Lords, in answer to the noble Baroness's first point, there is an appeal procedure and, following assessment, people will be entitled to hardship payments if they are eligible. However, perhaps I may go back a step to the substance of the question. How can we he confident that we are getting this right?

When those who receive the jobseeker's allowance have their work-focused interviews, they undergo a basic screening test. Essentially, they are shown an advertisement for an assistant caretaker's job setting out the pay rate or the minimum wage and they are asked whether they can read it and understand it and so on. If, as a result, they are shown to be functionally illiterate, they are then referred to professional, independent expert assessors, who screen for dyslexia and possibly refer people on to an educational psychologist. The psychologist can, for example, screen for a learning difficulty, which may suggest that individuals should not even be receiving the jobseeker's allowance but instead, say, incapacity benefit. Following that, those who the independent assessor considers would benefit go on to attend a training course. It is only if, following those interviews, people fail to complete the training course that the question of sanctions arises.

A third of people who receive JSA are functionally illiterate. Most are white males and a third are parents, who are therefore unable to read the prescription labels on medicine bottles for their children and cannot take their children to swimming pools and be sure about the safety rules. It is no kindness to allow people to conceal their illiteracy for 20 or 30 years and, indeed, to hand their illiteracy down to their children.

My Lords, do not the Government rather have this issue back to front? They are threatening to withdraw benefit from people because they are illiterate when illiterate people, like many others, do not receive benefit in the first place because they do not understand government forms. However, does the noble Baroness agree that the use of benefit withdrawal as a weapon to secure unrelated policy objectives is objectionable? If we go along with this proposal, where will she draw the line so far as concerns using withdrawal of benefits as a weapon to obtain other objectives?

My Lords, the noble Lord raised two points. First, clearly, ideally one tackles the problem at school. Already, compared with 1996, when only 57 per cent of children of the age of 11 had reached the appropriate standard, that figure is now 75 per cent. Therefore, I am sure we all hope that this is a declining problem and I am sure we all agree that a voluntary approach is desirable. However, for all kinds of reasons, many illiterate people—perhaps those with substance abuse problems or the like—will spend their lives concealing their problems rather than seeking help to address them, and we must overcome that.

The noble Lord then asked how far we would go in terms of unrelated issues. This is not an unrelated matter. We are not sanctioning people because they are illiterate, but we would sanction people if they consistently failed to attend a training course to overcome the illiteracy which is at the core of their unemployability. In Haringey only 28 per cent of people with basic literacy problems have jobs and the figure is 30 per cent for Hackney. Therefore, what kindness is it to say to those people, "You can live your lives on the margins, unemployed and unemployable and your children, in turn, will inherit that"?

My Lords, is the Minister in a position to give an undertaking that people suffering from myalgic encephalomyelitis—ME—will not be forced to undergo cognitive behaviour therapy and graded exercise programmes as a basis for obtaining benefit? There are rumours that that is about to happen and that those people's benefits will be reduced progressively while they refuse to undergo such therapy and programmes. Adequate information is also available to show that this is an organic and not a psychological illness.

My Lords, the noble Countess may well be right on the last point and I would not wish to challenge her statement on that. However, I am a little puzzled. My understanding is that someone who has ME—whatever the cause, the symptoms are clinically recognised—would normally be entitled to incapacity benefit. He would not be expected to claim the jobseeker's allowance, which is intended for those who actively seek work, and therefore this issue would not affect such a person at all.

My Lords, can my noble friend say what consultation over this policy area has taken place with disability organisations?

My Lords, again, this matter will not affect disabled people because disabled people in this policy area would not receive the jobseeker's allowance but would receive incapacity benefit, a severe disablement allowance or other appropriate disability benefits. These measures are for people who actively seek work but who cannot take the first step in holding down a job—that is, they lack functional literacy. You cannot even be a car park attendant if you cannot calculate the fee; you cannot clean a public building safely if you cannot read the word "bleach"; and you cannot stack shelves if you do not know whether what you are doing is safe for your customers. That is the matter with which we are dealing.

My Lords, will the Minister take this opportunity to dispel an unfortunate impression that she gave in her first Answer: that people with a moderate learning difficulty are incapable of work? I know of a number of such cases. I also know of a school for children with moderate learning difficulties which has a 100 per cent success rate in obtaining jobs for its children. On my daily rounds in my own home town, I meet several workers who clearly have learning difficulties.

My Lords, I said that a third of those on jobseeker's allowance—that is, those who do not have work; those are the people to whom the Baroness refers—are functionally illiterate. They may also have multiple problems but they are functionally illiterate. The question is: how can we bring them into the mainstream of society both as workers and as effective parents if they do not have the basic skills needed in today's society?

rose to call attention to the arrangements for cancer registration in England and their role in support of the National Health Service Cancer Plan; and to move for Papers.

My Lords, I congratulate the noble Baroness, Lady Finlay of Llandaff, on introducing an important topic in such an enlightening way. While I am in a congratulatory mood, I commend the Department of Health on setting up the NHS Cancer Plan, which has been so successful. It has developed a formal network of services, closely linked to a research network that incorporates the MRC and cancer research charities. It is a valuable model for other services and it is achieving results.

Of course, there is much to do, as the noble Baroness has described, but I shall focus on cancer registries and their role in research. There is no doubt that research using that type of information, collected over many years, has proved invaluable. One has only to remember the discovery by Sir Richard Doll of the link between smoking and lung cancer to recognise that. There are many other examples that I can quote. The suggestion that Gulf War syndrome predisposed veterans to cancer could be examined only by going back through cancer records and examining the incidence among Gulf War veterans and non-Gulf War veterans. Incidentally, that study disproved the relationship. Studies of whether cancer of the bowel has anything to do with diet could be carried out only on large populations of patients with cancer who could be questioned about their diet. The same could be said of the relationship between cancer of the bladder and the prostate and certain infections. Indeed, the relationship between any environmental hazard and cancer—from mobile phones to living near radio aerials—can be proven only by using the kind of data that cancer registries best provide.

How best can that type of research be conducted without betraying patients' confidences or invading their privacy? We have struggled with that question. Some would say that we have struggled far too hard. A few years ago, the Royal College of Physicians—I express an interest because I was its president at the time—published some recommendations about the ethical procedures for studies that use patients' personal data. It suggested that, given certain stringent conditions, research using medical records that did not require direct patient involvement should be possible without individual consent. Those robust conditions included the involvement of a senior clinician bound by professional codes of practice on confidentiality. There was a number of other important constraints, including ethics committees. All of that was thought to be reasonable at the time. The emphasis was on a duty to use information for the common good. The European directive of 1995 on the protection of individuals' personal data also relied heavily on professional codes of practice to guard against betrayals of confidence.

However, since then, we have accumulated such a confused and confusing mass of recommendations, guidance and regulation that many forms of epidemiological research are being inhibited, even though patients—especially those with cancer—are desperate to see more research carried out, particularly when it uses data that cannot possibly harm or embarrass them when treated confidentially. Such research is perfectly respectable, highly desirable and indeed essential.

Somewhat conflicting advice has been provided by the Caldicott Guardians, ethics committees, the Data Protection Act 1998, Section 60 of the Health and Social Care Act 2001, PIAG, the GMC and even the Medical Defence Union. Is it any wonder then that there is room for confusion, and that Caldicott Guardians and ethics committees may be forgiven at times for erring on the side of presumed safety by refusing research when they fear that they may get on the wrong side of the law? And is it any wonder that busy clinicians are fearful of being brought before the GMC if, when they are baffled, as they usually are, they decide that it is not worth their bother and time to report their cases of cancer? Clinicians do not know whether they are doing right or wrong.

There has never, to my knowledge, been a case of a patient being harmed, embarrassed or discomfited by the types of research that we are discussing; that is, using data about them in the confidential way that professional regulation has long required. It must be rare for a patient to say to a doctor, "I'm concerned that you are doing research about me that I know has been for the good of future patients. Please desist". However, we seem to have developed a series of sledgehammers to crack the particular nut of patient confidentiality. If ever a case needed a fresh look, this is it.

PIAG seems to be doing a good job in making the work of cancer registries possible, but out in the field, there is a sense of uncertainty because of all the other players in the field and because of uncertainty over whether GMC advice or the Data Protection Act 1998 conflict with what is allowed by PIAG. Of course, PIAG is supposed to be a temporary affair. It was supposed to disappear when it was possible to anonymise everything and everyone was able to give consent. However, it will never be possible to carry out all epidemiological research without knowing who the patients are, so that, for example, information from two or more sources of data can be linked. Nor will it ever be possible to seek consent for future, unknown types of research when patients have died or have moved on or are untraceable. We will therefore always need some kind of system to allow such research to be carried out.

Furthermore, when the Bill that set up PIAG was passed, the Department of Health agreed that it would be accompanied by a mass-education exercise, so that patients and the public would know for what purpose data about them were being used and how important that information was, not only for their own care, but also for future patients' care through research. Unfortunately, little or none of that has happened. There has been no public education exercise. Patients are becoming increasingly suspicious when they hear about the elaborate precautions that have been set up. "Set up against what?" they may ask; "It must be something serious".

It is therefore clear that we desperately need that publicity campaign. I know that the Department of Health has been sorely denuded of officials, as we heard from the Minister earlier this week, but I know many who would gladly lend a hand, including, I am sure, Cancer Research UK, the MRC, the colleges and so on. I see little point in delaying still further until it is decided what kind of advice will be given about the uses to which patients' data will be put in general. That information about the importance of cancer registries needs to go out now.

We then need much greater clarity not only for clinicians and researchers, but also for ethics committees and Caldicott Guardians, who have to deal with the requests for research on the ground. For that to happen, we must have an agreed set of ground rules to which PIAG. the GMC in particular, and data protection commissioners can all sign up. We must have clarity and common sense when neither seems to be in abundance.

We need also to think now about what should be put in place to succeed PIAG when it comes to the end of its life. It does a good job and it has proved helpful, but we cannot have a vacuum at the end. There is much work still to be done.

This is not a trivial business. The type of research that we are discussing has important implications for healthcare. We cannot let it continue to drift.

My Lords, I add my congratulations to my noble friend Lady Finlay on securing this important debate, which highlights the importance of comprehensive data about cancer in helping us to improve the treatment and care of patients and to continue to make the progress that is so clearly demonstrated in the NHS Cancer Plan.

I shall intervene briefly as a non-medic, mostly to support my noble friend in her call for action and to welcome the plan, because I found it excellent and informative in many ways. However, I highlight an apparent gap in certain gynaecological cancers, where much progress is still needed and draw attention to cancer of the prostate, as my noble friend did.

Although the cancer services collaborative improvement partnership project has implemented changes to improve care in gynaecological cancers, there are, sadly, still high mortality rates even for cervical cancer, despite improvements and the excellent work that has been done. We know that 22 per cent of women with endometrial cancer, for example, which often occurs after the menopause, have been estimated to have died from it. Globally, there are 10 million registered cancer cases, 1 million of which are gynaecological cancers, where the worldwide mortality rate is almost 50 per cent. Sadly, survival rates for those cancers demonstrate the least improvements of any cancers during the past 30 years.

As my noble friend said, the standardised registration rate of prostate cancer was 70 per cent higher in 2000 than in 1990. That is an enormous cause for concern. As the medical specialists here will know, Professor Ian Jacobs is co-ordinating important research into ovarian cancer involving 200,000 women to determine whether a national screening programme should be established. We need to know whether screening for that type of cancer could lead to early diagnosis and reduced death rates, as has fortunately happened with breast and cervical cancer.

The work of Professor Jacobs demonstrates the opportunities that are now available through the use of new technology, among other things, to improve the chances of so many women who are unfortunate enough to suffer from those types of cancer. I declare an interest as having pledged my support to the work of the Eve Appeal, designed to make work in those fields as well known and, I hope, successful as has been the case with breast cancer.

The problems and uncertainties of prostate cancer are also worrying. More public awareness and a drive to overcome the reticence of many men to come forward to seek early diagnosis need to be highlighted and publicised if we are to fulfil the United Kingdom's potential to lead the world in cancer treatment and care.

My Lords, the principle of medical confidentiality lies at the heart of the doctor/patient relationship. Indeed, in some societies, as in France under the Code Napoleon, medical confidentiality is absolute. But that is not the case in the United Kingdom. No privilege attaches in law to communication between doctors and patients, as it does between solicitors and clients. Indeed, a High Court judge can when he determines it right to do so compel a doctor to breach medical confidentiality and disclose information about an individual patient.

In the UK, the General Medical Council gives advice to members of the medical profession on the whole issue of confidentiality. Over the years, it has been well recognised by the GMC that confidential information may be disclosed for medical purposes when the patient concerned agrees by informed consent. A number of other exclusions have been accepted by the General Medical Council over the years. Thus, under the Police and Criminal Evidence Act 1984, it was made clear that in certain circumstances it was a doctor's duty to disclose to the police evidence relating to the medical condition of an individual accused of being involved in a serious crime.

Other exclusions have arisen over the years. For example, it was made clear that if a patient with epilepsy refused to give up driving a motor vehicle, despite being advised to do so by his or her doctor, if the doctor failed to persuade that individual to disclose his or her epilepsy to the licensing authority, the doctor had a duty so to report that individual patient.

From that, it may be assumed that the GMC would accept that breaching medical confidentiality may be appropriate when it is in the wider public interest, but, in the event, that is not the case. The GMC has over the years been specific in determining what information may or may not be disclosed and what exclusions there are to the principle of medical confidentiality. That is the problem at the core of the issues that are being considered in this debate. I, too, congratulate my noble friend Lady Finlay on initiating it.

Epidemiology is a science that involves the study of disease as it affects populations, not individuals. Epidemiological research in cancer and related fields has, for example, as the noble Lord, Lord Turnberg, said, identified the clear link between smoking and cancer of the lung and other organs. It has also over the years identified relationships between, for example, asbestos exposure and the incidence of a tumour called mesothelioma on the surface of the lung. There have been many other examples, such as, many years ago, the high incidence of nasopharyngeal cancer in certain individuals working in the furniture industry. Those are important developments.

Over the years, cancer registries have been extremely important in disclosing information of epidemiological importance that has been used to improve the lives of cancer patients. Indeed, such information has also been helpful in preventive medicine. Two thirds of cancers are preventable and data from registries have been especially important in identifying some of the factors that put people at risk of cancer in the first place. As my noble friend Lady Finlay said, those data are also important in uncovering trends in cancer, such as that skin cancer rates have been increasing year on year and that lymphoma and oral cancer rates are higher among ethnic minorities. Data from cancer registries are also used to track and assess variations in treatment that cancer patients receive around the country.

Cancer registries operate strict policies to protect patient confidentiality. Anonymised data may be invaluable in determining and accepting some such trends, but in many cases data can be useful only if they include information that could be used to identify an individual patient. That issue became a matter of great public and professional concern after the passage of the Data Protection Act 1998 and after the GMC issued its guidance in September 2000. That guidance, issued to all doctors, required that no identifiable information be transferred to cancer registries without the patient's explicit consent.

Epidemiologists expressed grave concern about that, because they felt that obtaining explicit patient consent in every case would be difficult—not least for the reasons referred to by my noble friend Lady Finlay in the case of individuals most recently diagnosed with cancer. Uncertainty about the legality of using patient-identifiable information without consent led at that time to a fall in data flow to cancer registries, which in turn had a negative impact on associated research.

Section 60 of the Health and Social Care Act of May 2001 was put in place as a short-term solution. The section empowered the Secretary of State for Health to enable the collection and processing of identifiable health data, including cancer registration, without patient consent. The responsibility for overseeing those regulations falls to the Patient Information Advisory Group, a body required to review its guidance annually. It is clear that a longer-term solution is necessary both for the proper functioning of cancer registries and associated research.

There is a particularly strong case for legally requiring the registration of every case of cancer, making it a statutorily reportable disease. Cancer registration is required by law in all or part of the USA, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, Israel, Finland, Denmark, Norway, Sweden and many other countries. In the Netherlands the president of the official privacy court acknowledged that written informed consent would make cancer registration impossible. In this country, the House of Commons Science and Technology Committee recommended in July 2000 that governments should introduce legislation to make the registration of cancer a legal requirement, to ensure both the completeness of cancer registry data and access to those data for legitimate research purposes. To date, Her Majesty's Government have been reluctant to follow the lead of many other countries in recommending that reporting of cancer cases becomes mandatory.

At present, in the absence of such legislation, doctors and healthcare professionals must be adequately informed of the current regulations by which data can be relayed to the registries without first having to obtain patient consent. Under Section 60, to use patient-identifiable data from cancer registries or other healthcare databases, researchers must apply for special approval from the Patient Information Advisory Group or be carrying out an activity governed by one of the class regulations of Section 60. That requirement is in addition to receiving ethics committee approval, and it imposes an additional administrative burden on researchers in gaining access to data.

The House of Commons Advisory Committee strongly recommended that cancer be made a notifiable disease and that it be compulsory to register every case, as happens at present with other notifiable diseases. Many years ago the legal requirement to notify an appropriate body about certain diseases was introduced, but largely that involved infectious diseases as a means of preventing the spread of epidemics. Since then every proposal that other diseases should be notifiable under law has been met with the response that cancer is not an infectious disease and is not therefore a danger to other members of the community.

However, in the light of the evidence put forward today by the noble Baroness and others, which will no doubt be amplified by other noble Lords, I strongly believe that compulsory registration of cancer cases will be, in the long term, the only satisfactory approach if research into the epidemiological causes of cancer and ways of preventing and treating it under the NHS Cancer Plan are to be feasible.

My Lords, I shall intervene only briefly, not least because of the quality of the previous contributions in making clear the past and potential value of cancer registries and registration, and the difficulties of researchers and public health doctors. I record my gratitude to the noble Baroness, Lady Finlay of Llandaff, for introducing the debate and giving us the opportunity to probe the Government on the reluctance to put cancer registration on a statutory basis, which the noble Lord, Lord Walton of Detchant, referred to at the end of his contribution. I have a non-financial interest as chairman of Cancer Research UK, many of whose activities are hugely supported by the public. It puts its money where its mouth is regarding the value of research, particularly research into cancer prevention, which depends mainly on epidemiological research, and on the importance of having good information.

Over the past two years, I have been privileged to visit cancer hospitals and doctors in four African countries. It was fascinating to see how frustrated they were at the lack of a firm information base on which to build policies for cancer prevention, treatment and control. Those countries are trying to set up that precious asset, which we have, even in the most rudimentary form. We should be very wary of anything that endangers the quality of information. For that reason, I would support a new regime that removed uncertainties. The noble Lords, Lord Turnberg and Lord Walton of Detchant, made clear how many layers of advice that is not absolutely congruent have been laid on top of each other, and the effect of that on individual over-pressed clinicians.

We need clarity, which could be achieved by making cancer a notifiable disease. I was fascinated by the observation by the noble Lord, Lord Walton of Detchant. that the reason that we drew the distinction was the argument that cancer was not an infectious disease and therefore no danger to the population. Cancer may not be an infectious danger, but notification has an overwhelming public health benefit for the whole population. Examples such as childhood leukaemia, and smoking and health are manifold.

Cancer statistics for 2000 were released today. It is fascinating information that will point us in particular directions, looking at services, the effectiveness of the cancer plan, the future for research and the areas in which we could make progress on prevention. Professor David Forman, the chairman of the UK Association of Cancer Registries, said today:

"Keeping track of cancer trends is vital for research on the causes of cancer and to help focus prevention strategies and treatment resources".

When my 21 year-old son caught whooping cough last year, it was deemed important enough in the public interest not to ask him whether he was willing to give his details and to have them recorded publicly so that other university students with bizarre symptoms might be diagnosed. It is absurd to say that registration of that case was somehow more important than the potential benefits of cancer registration, which are firmly based. It is an important tool for public health, research and cancer policy, and we should put it on a firm legal basis that gives stability and clarity for all involved. That will need some additional work from the Information Commissioner regarding the Data Protection Act after that. Perhaps the time has come to reassess some of the consequences of the rush towards data protection in a number of fields.

The noble Baroness, Lady O'Neill of Bengarve, is here today. She has spoken on many occasions, with great depth and analysis, on our reaction to problems and on a lack of trust, which create more and more complicated bureaucracy and regulatory systems that only hamper those who are sufficiently law-abiding to take part in them and make sure that they are absolutely scrupulous in every area, but do nothing for those who are badly motivated and wish to do wrong. Inadvertently, they cause much greater harm than the harm that they set out to prevent. In areas of data protection, in a number of fields—and we have seen a number of cases over the last few weeks—we must go back and reassess, in the round, the consequences of some of the things that we have done.

That is particularly true relating to consent. I first joined a research ethics committee in the early 1980s, and I was a member for nearly 10 years. At that time, attitudes towards patient information and patient consent left a great deal to be desired; they were rudimentary in many ways. We have seen vast improvements since that time, but I suspect that we have gone past the point where we are saving those involved from harm, and where we are often in fact causing them more problems and more difficulties. We are refusing to take responsibility, which as a society we should, for the public interest on issues like information on cancer registries. It is not possible to make all data anonymous if we are to do the sort of research that will save lives and underpin good policy for the future. Examples have been given of that already.

I spoke recently to a researcher, who told me about the difficulties that he had when trying to examine the thesis that there was a genetically based familial link in a particular site-specific cancer. Obviously, he wanted to look at names on cancer registries to try to make these connections. He had great difficulty, because there are different registries and different policies at different registries. I echo the noble Baroness in saying that this is a national resource that should be nationally resourced and have national standards. Because of these difficulties, he ended up having to go to individual clinicians at hospitals asking for a patient base and approaching the individual patients to track in to their family histories. In so doing, he discovered that the records of recorded deaths in the hospital were nothing like as up to date as the cancer registry. Therefore, he ended up contacting the widows of several men who had recently died of the disease where the hospital had no record of that information, and that caused great pain and distress to those people involved. Those are the sorts of things that happen when we look too much at process and too little at effect. Of course, we must have proper safeguards, but, as has been said, we have not, in nearly 40 years of cancer registration, seen any breaches of those safeguards.

It is within the wit of man to devise a system that provides comprehensive information that will be of long-lasting value to the health and well-being of the population of this country without breaching fundamental rights of privacy or taking away appropriate consent. It is time to step back and make sure that we are not throwing out several babies with the bathwater.

My Lords, I also congratulate my noble friend Lady Finlay of Llandaff on securing a debate on the arrangements for cancer registration and their role in supporting the NHS Cancer Plan launched in September 2000. The need for comprehensive cancer registration that will improve treatment and outcome has been demonstrated admirably by the cancer in children register that has been co-ordinated in Oxford for more than 50 years. Today, childhood leukaemia is curable in most children.

The NHS Cancer Plan set out four key aims: to save lives; to improve patients' experience of care; to reduce inequalities; and to build for the future. Without cancer registration, it would be exceedingly difficult, if not impossible, to measure progress towards the key aims over the past three years among the 200,000 people in England diagnosed with cancer and the 120,000 people who die every year from the disease. No plan to save lives and reduce health inequalities can succeed without knowledge of the types of cancer occurring in the local population and the fatality rates among men and women in different localities.

I shall therefore consider the importance of cancer registries in primary care. The information that I shall use comes from the Merseyside and Cheshire Cancer Registry, led by Dr Evelyn Williams, with whom I have worked since 1997. I am delighted to acknowledge her help. In the five years from 1996 to 2001,75, 600 cancers were registered in Merseyside and west Cheshire, an area with a population of 2 million. Of the 34,500 cancer deaths, 51 per cent—17,600—occurred in males. Of those, one third died from lung cancer. Lung cancer was also the main cause of death among women in the region, accounting for one in four deaths, compared with one in six due to breast cancer. Those figures reflect the high rate of cigarette smoking among residents of Merseyside and west Cheshire. Better screening and early detection of breast cancer in women have contributed to improved rates of survival.

Cancer statistics on incidence and mortality in English regions can be compared with figures from other parts of the UK and Europe, as was demonstrated by my noble friend Lady Finlay of Llandaff. The publication of such useful information assists doctors, nurses and support staff to improve access to care and the quality of the care provided by cancer services. In order to save lives, improve patients' experience and reduce inequalities in cancer care, details of patients with cancer must be collected, analysed and compared across geographical areas.

Primary care trusts require information on cancer incidence and mortality rates, in order to commission appropriate services and implement public health measures, as was said by other noble Lords, to reduce the number of new patients. The Merseyside and Cheshire Cancer Registry provides cancer information to all its 15 primary care trusts. The public health lead for cancer in every primary care trust uses the information to plan and to implement measures to reduce smoking among the population and to improve screening of breast and cervical cancer in women. In return, every primary care trust pays the cancer registry for that service. But that source of funding of cancer registries, although assured, is unlikely to increase proportionately with the needs of regional registries.

Cancer networks comprising specialist staff have been established in all regions to monitor the implementation of the national cancer action plan. The networks use data collected and analysed by cancer registries. Relevant information on cancer is also gathered by public health observatories and hospitals. Cancer registries are beginning to co-ordinate the analysis of all those sources of information on cancer and to make them available to primary care trusts, to hospitals, to strategic health authorities and to regional public health directorates.

To improve access to analysed data, a new computerised system of cancer registration across the north-west, called PRAXIS, funded by the national action plan, will be introduced this year. The system is being used in the Thames, the Trent and the Northern Ireland cancer registries and will soon be in use in the northern and Yorkshire registries. It will facilitate regional comparisons and will improve the monitoring of the national cancer action plan.

With the routine gathering of ethnic group data from NHS patients, cancer registries are able to analyse cancer prevalence among people from different ethnic backgrounds. For example, we have evidence, as quoted by my noble friend Lord Walton, that lymphoma and oral cancer rates are higher in ethnic minorities in England. In the 1980s, before hepatitis B vaccination became available for new-born babies, primary liver cancer in Chinese people from Hong Kong was common.

If cancer registration is fragmented, information on cancer in England will not be reliable and the national cancer action plan will not be monitored effectively. Vulnerable groups of people may not be identified and the key aims of the cancer plan will not be achieved. Regional cancer registries in England are therefore essential if the national cancer plan, with its long-term goals, is to be achieved. Therefore, if statutory legislation is the means for protecting the work of cancer registries, I would wholeheartedly support the proposals made by noble Lords and, in particular, the proposal made by my noble friend Lady Finlay.

My Lords, I congratulate my noble friend Lady Finlay of Llandaff on her very clear explanation and introduction of the need for up-to-date clear data for a cancer register in support of the National Health Service Cancer Plan. I can think of no better person than my noble friend, who is a professor of palliative care and works with real, living patients, to lead this important debate in your Lordships' House.

I hope that this debate will help make many people aware of the need for registration, which helps to show up the needs across the country of what treatment works best for cancer care. I am sure that your Lordships will agree that there should never be a postcode lottery for the treatment of cancer patients. A cancer register helps with research and better treatment when what works shows up in the data collected.

I live in North Yorkshire. In December, a friend of ours died of cancer, having continued with her life so well until the last few weeks. A few days before she died, I spoke to her partner who said that she was being looked after in a small hospital near her home. He told me that he could not have managed without that help. I take this opportunity to give a plug for small hospitals near patients' homes, which can give much needed help when everything else that could be done has been done.

Just before Christmas, a former Member of your Lordships' House, the Marquis of Downshire, died after a valiant fight over cancer. His memorial service is to be at Ripon Cathedral on 29 January. Last Friday, the wife of someone I know very well was told that she has cancer. She started treatment on Monday of this week. Her husband is devastated.

Another person who I know, who was about to go to work in Africa as a missionary with his wife, was delayed for a year when his wife was found to have breast cancer. The husband told me that having had the first part of her treatment in the north, near where I live, they moved to Birmingham. The dose of chemotherapy was changed. Different doses are used. If the data are collected and the patients monitored, the research will be useful for others when it is found which results are the most effective. I think that I live in a cancer cluster; there are many people who suffer from cancer in Masham.

I give these examples— I am sure that all your Lordships will have similar ones—to illustrate how important it is to find the best treatment and cure for these various cancers. With co-ordinated research and accurate data, it must be hoped for better results.

I attend various parliamentary groups. Lately, there have been some excellent presentations on different types of cancer. These groups are attended by Members from both Houses. Some years ago, an excellent presentation on a cancer overview was given by Professor Mike Richards. I was not at all surprised when he was made the cancer tsar and national cancer director of the NHS Cancer Plan. I congratulate the Government on his appointment. I am sure that his enthusiastic personality inspires others across the country and the world to do more for the fight against cancer.

On 2 December 2003, I attended a working dinner on prostate cancer with other Members of Parliament. Prostate cancer is now the most commonly diagnosed cancer in men in the UK due, in large part, to the increasing popularity of the PSA test. The epidemiological profile of the disease is changing rapidly, and it requires close monitoring. The increase in incidence in prostate cancer may represent an epidemic of diagnosis rather than a "genuine" epidemic of disease. But to the man with the disease, that is an academic argument. At diagnosis, there has to be enough capacity in the system to meet their needs.

Cancer registration data form the national picture to do this. Linking these changes in trends with data on outcomes, health services uptake and resources is most important. If cases are not registered efficiently, timely assessment of current and future demands for prostate cancer services is not achieved. Demand for health services for treatment of men with early prostate cancer, in particular, could quickly outstrip supply.

There is a delay in cancer registration and the annual figures being released. There will always be a need to modify entries, but is it possible to speed up the collation of cancer registry data? If the delay is due to inadequate funding, rather than any other logistic considerations, that must be addressed, otherwise assessment of future need will always mismatch demand as it is made on out-of-date data. Further, in the case of rapidly increasing diagnoses of prostate cancer there could be a considerable and rapidly increasing divergence between what is available and what is needed.

It is important that the public understand the value of epidemiological and cancer registries. There needs to be openness and a good PR strategy so that everyone involved knows that they are helping in this important research.

The Million Women Study, a confidential study on women's health concerned with hormone replacement therapy, recently came out. There is a balance to be found between the benefits and the risks involved. Women need to have understanding doctors who will help them reach their decisions. As the results of research present, there is more to he understood and people to be helped. Surely cancer prevention must be a top priority. I am sure that all your Lordships will listen with interest to the Minister's reply.

My Lords, as usual, my professional friend the noble Baroness, Lady Finlay, has chosen an important and topical problem for our consideration, one which is particularly relevant to her role as a palliative care physician. It also coincides with my own continuing interest in preventive medicine and epidemiology. My noble friend and other noble Lords who have spoken in the debate have described the important role played by the cancer registries in providing a complete and accurate database for the numerous studies that have thrown light on the incidence and prevalence of different cancers in the population, on possible causes of different cancers and on the effectiveness of different methods of treatment, all of which are essential to achieving the aims of the NHS Cancer Plan.

Many examples of how data from the cancer registries have advanced knowledge and thus helped patients have been cited throughout the debate. I shall not repeat them, although I was going to do so. I should like to say, however, that data derived from the registries are becoming increasingly important as more patients are treated successfully. That is because studies based on mortality rates, which would be our main source of data without the registries, become less and less representative of the complete picture of cancer incidence and are a crude measure of the effectiveness of treatment.

Perhaps we can take it as read that cancer registries are desirable and provide a vital database for the epidemiological and other research on which preventive medicine and effective treatment are based. However, as the noble Baroness pointed out, the work of the cancer registries, which relies on a complete list of their data to be effective, has been under something of a cloud since the pronouncement made in 2000 by the General Medical Council in response to the Data Protection Act 1998 and the Human Rights Act 1998 that, in principle, the consent of NHS patients should always be obtained before any details can be used for research purposes. Following the general approach of the GMC regarding patient confidentiality, proposals were put forward in the 2001 Health and Social Care Bill.

However, at Third Reading in May 2001, a government amendment tabled only after very prolonged debate led to what eventually became Section 60. The amendment modified the original stance and set up the Patient Information Advisory Group—PIAG—which has already been described by several noble Lords. The group's remit involves a monitoring and advisory role on the use of NHS patient data for research purposes, even without patient consent in certain circumstances if that is necessary for the needs of the NHS and public health purposes. However, Section 60 and the creation of PIAG were compromise, transitional solutions based on an amendment originally proposed at Report stage by the noble Baroness, Lady Northover. So the government amendment setting up PIAG put forward by the noble Lord, Lord Hunt, at Third Reading was, in effect, a takeover from Northover.

Perhaps we should ask how the cancer registries have fared under PIAG. The group meets every three months and considers applications from researchers for access to patient data where the patient's permission is difficult or impossible to obtain. PIAG also undertakes a number of other functions which are well described in its first annual report published last October. The cancer registries, along with several other organisations, including the Public Health Laboratory Service—now the Health Protection Agency—have been given "specific support arrangements" which give them permission on an annual basis to continue collecting information without specific patient consent.

This permission, which it is hoped will be reviewed and renewed each year, is dependent on certain conditions being fulfilled regarding, for example, consideration wherever possible of the anonymisation and pseudoanonymisation of data—employing two unpleasant neologisms that would rate high in any unpronounceability index. Thus a major part of PIAG's work is concerned with ensuring that the privacy of patients is still safeguarded even where the nature of the research concerned requires individual patients to be identified. During its first year, PIAG received 65 applications for support, of which 42—some two-thirds—were accepted.

As has already been explained, a patient's identity is necessary for research purposes where the effects of personal characteristics such as occupational history, place of residence, housing, diet or smoking habits on the incidence of cancer are being assessed, as well as when different treatment regimes are being compared. I gather that each research project arising from a cancer registry needs to be further individually assessed by PIAG. I am not sure why this is necessary when, for many years, every research proposal has had to be approved by a regional or local ethical committee. Perhaps my noble friend on the Front Bench will be able to help me on this point. It seems an unnecessary duplication of effort. However, I am informed that, under its current chair and members, PIAG has been extremely helpful and encouraging and so far has facilitated the work of the cancer registries.

But the price of this benign approach has been the submission of much paperwork justifying each and every aspect of data collection. That, too, seems an unfair bureaucratic burden given that, to my knowledge, the cancer registries have never been accused of breaches of confidentiality. However, according to the briefing produced by Cancer Research UK, some clinicians have withheld patient information from the cancer registries because they were uncertain about the legality of providing it, thus weakening the entire data-set. I would be grateful if my noble friend could tell us whether the Government have any information on this.

Initially the legislation and regulations setting up PIAG were regarded as interim measures. Can my noble friend say whether the Department of Health still regards PIAG as a temporary, transitional body? If it is eventually to be wound down, what criteria will inform the Government's decision to allow that? The organisation was set up largely to reassure public opinion that patient confidentiality would be respected in spite of some sensitive information being divulged. What is the evidence of incidents of past breaches of confidentiality on the part of, for example, the cancer registries, the Public Health Laboratory Service or the Health and Safety Executive, that made it necessary to create this benign but essentially bureaucratic organisation in the first place?

As the noble Baroness, Lady Hayman, and other noble Lords have said, Cancer Research UK is in favour of new diagnoses of cancer being notifiable. The importance of collecting this information is so great, it is implied, that considerations of confidentiality, while not being neglected, should take second place. If notification is made mandatory it is felt that few could then object. There would of course be a right for individuals to opt out, but under a mandatory framework these would perhaps be very few.

I am not sure that this is the right approach. Notification of diseases as at present practised is incomplete and imperfect. It also adds another layer of bureaucracy. The notifier receives a payment, at present so small as to be merely token. How this will be arranged—if it is ever arranged—when many different sources provide information to cancer registries, I do not know.

HIV/AIDS is an extremely serious disease. It is not statutorily notifiable but sexually transmitted disease practitioners are confident that the current statistics are quite accurate while collected through a system of voluntary confidential notification.

In conclusion, I ask my noble friend how successfully he feels that PIAG is working itself out of a job. If it reports that researchers using NHS patient information, with or without consent, are consistently doing so with discretion—as I am convinced they have been for many years—cannot the members of PIAG be congratulated on the careful work they have done in providing advice to the research community and then be allowed gracefully to step down?

My Lords, it has been an interesting and useful debate. I congratulate the noble Baroness, Lady Finlay, on initiating it and on setting the scene so well in her introduction.

All the relevant points have been made during the course of the debate. The common ground throughout has been the importance of cancer registries and cancer research. It is important that we deal not only with the issue of cancer registries but also with the wider issue referred to by a number of noble Lords.

Many noble Lords referred to the crucial nature of registry data in defining causal relationships between products, substances and cancer; environmental and geographical links in uncovering trends; in assessing variations in treatment; and, indeed, in the broad sense, in building prevention strategies. So there is absolutely no argument about the importance of cancer registries.

A number of noble Lords referred to the history of the cancer registration system and to the fact that it was more or less voluntary up until 1993 before the establishment of a cancer registration minimum data set. There then followed the Gillis review.

I do not believe that anyone has accused the Government of being unsupportive towards cancer registries—the nature of the debate is much more important than that. It relates to what is almost a cultural issue about the treatment of personal information and an organisational issue about the funding of cancer registries. Those are the crucial points that have emerged during the course of the debate.

As to the establishment of the National Cancer Registration Advisory Group, I share the admiration of the noble Baroness, Lady Masham, for Professor Richards, the cancer tsar and chairman of the group. The Government's actions in this regard are welcome. Indeed, the national Cancer Plan itself is of course welcome.

As a number of noble Lords have said, the first fly in the ointment was the GMC's guidance issued in September 2000. As we discovered after some considerable confusion and debate, effectively that guidance was not so much built on the Data Protection Act—I take the point made by the noble Baroness, Lady Hayman, of the need to review that Act—but on the common law duty of confidentiality. The guidance gave rise to considerable confusion surrounding cancer registration and the protection of personal information.

At that time, the GMC guidance issued to doctors appeared to require that no identifiable information could be transferred to cancer registries without the patient's explicit consent. It is no wonder that the cancer registries became extremely concerned. Uncertainty about the legality of using patient-identifiable information without consent led, as the noble Lord, Lord Walton, said, to a direct fall in data flow to the cancer registries.

As a result—it was fortuitous that the Health and Social Care Bill was in the making at that time — Section 60 came into being. I was delighted when the noble Lord, Lord Rea, paid tribute to my noble friend Lady Northover because the establishment of PIAG was the crucial element which enabled that particular clause to pass through the House. It was the debate and discussion started by an amendment from these Benches that enabled that to happen.

The section empowered the Secretary of State to enable the collection and processing of identifiable health data. That was absolutely crucial for the cancer registries and for the establishment of PIAG, which is required to review the guidance on an annual basis. Thereafter the Health Service (Control of Patient Information) Regulations 2002 were debated in the House.

In consequence, the GMC is publishing new guidance in February which builds on the Section 60 regulations as regards the national and regional disease registries. But, again, the regulations do not adequately cover local research and review of data. They may cover adequately the national disease registries on a temporary basis—I shall come to that later—but, as the noble Baroness, Lady Hayman, and the noble Lord, Lord Turnberg, pointed out, they do not cover local research.

So, despite the GMC guidance, there will still be a good deal of uncertainty, which may well be perpetuated. It is not the GMC's fault that the guidance is as it is; it builds basically on the provisions as they stand.

It is even more complicated because when Section 60 was passed Ministers explicitly stated—a number of noble Lords have mentioned this—that it was regarded only as a temporary interim solution. Indeed, the GMC explicitly referred to it as a temporary solution. So today's debate about what should form the basis of a longer-term solution is very timely.

A number of noble Lords referred to the impracticability—"impossibility" is perhaps the word that one might use—of being required to obtain the specific consent of all patients to their data being transferred. Certainly none of us is as unrealistic as to suggest that that is a long-term possibility or practicability.

The second option, the anonymisation—or, as the noble Lord, Lord Rea, referred to it, the "pseudoanonymisation"—using NHS numbers is put forward as another possibility. Certainly at the time we debated the Section 60 provisions and the regulations it was proposed as a possible way forward. From talking to those who know about these matters—indeed, we have heard from noble Lords who do know about them—it is clear that very few people believe it is a realistic possibility for all purposes in the future.

Of course registries are currently making efforts to reduce the processing and availability of names and addresses and so on, and of course postcodes are used to a huge extent, but it seems to most of those in the field that personal identifiers will always be needed for verification purposes. There is the need to link records from different sources, which requires cancer registries to hold patient information in a form that identifies individuals. People may have put their faith, when discussing these matters, in electronic systems, but even those are not currently available, and, even if they were, it is unlikely that they would achieve the purpose that is being sought.

Many noble Lords have referred to the third major solution, recognising the problems of obtaining consent, problems with anonymisation and, crucially, the overwhelming public interest in a complete, high quality and timely cancer register which includes patient identifiers. In those circumstances, the arguments in favour of a solution which requires cancers to be notifiable seems overwhelming. I was a little surprised at what the noble Lord, Lord Rea, had to say. It seems to me that with the experience of notification of infectious diseases, that was a perfectly decent basis on which to build. Having it notifiable would mean that we would avoid these confidential data protection issues, since those constraints would not apply where there is a statutory requirement to collect the data. It would provide the right degree of permanence, settling the debate of whether cancer registration data should be collected. It seems to me that that is a very straightforward way forward.

If we do not have a permanent solution in place, we will have major problems. There is already a case against the Thames Cancer Registry, the outcome of which would be uncertain. That seems to be a distraction that the cancer registries need not at all.

The Alberman report, back in 1990, suggested that the Department of Health consider urgently whether legislative or contractual means should be utilised to ensure its cancer registration data. That has been a live issue for quite some time, and it is time that the department took a view on it. We have heard about other jurisdictions such as the USA, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, Israel and all the Nordic countries. We have heard about the recommendations of the Commons Select Committee on Science and Technology in July 2000.

I am at one with the noble Lord, Lord Turnberg, and the noble Lord, Lord Rea, on local research and review of data. We are building a massive bureaucracy—indeed, the noble Lord, Lord Turnberg, added further layers of bureaucracy which I was unaware of in terms of Caldicott, and so on. I very much support the Cancer Research UK in asking PIAG to endorse a statement allowing, even in the absence of consent, the use of data from noncommercial medical research which has no effect on the individuals being studied and which has been approved by an accredited research ethics committee. We need a solution like that, and it is high time we came up with one, otherwise we will simply not have the research we need.

The noble Baroness, Lady Finlay, raised the extremely important issue of funding. The noble Earl, Lord Howe, made some very pertinent points in Monday's debate about public health and the fact that we need a more broadly based organisation and system of funding for public health. The same arguments apply to cancer registries, where we are talking about the surveillance and monitoring of disease. If the department is, as the indications seem to suggest, adopting a more centralised model for resourcing the cancer registries, this must be welcome. I very much hope that the Minister will indicate whether that is the case.

The noble Baroness, Lady Hayman, struck a great chord with me. If we are not careful, we will see the result of the law of unintended consequences in the area of cancer registries or cancer research if we restrict the imparting of personal information. That may be a virtuous idea, but it could give rise to problems.

Our system needs clarification and legal recognition to ensure that we can continue to collate the data that underpin ongoing research. If we are to make sure that the national Cancer Plan is implemented, that is what we need to do.

My Lords, it is my habit, in starting my remarks in debates such as this, to use the words, "The House will be grateful to the noble Lord, Lord X, for calling our attention to" whatever the subject of the debate may be. This is not a flip comment. After all, the major part of the value of this House is to research and comment on the problems and successes of the day and, by doing so, offer advice to government, from people with practical experience in a whole range of fields. I hope your Lordships will not object to being called "people"—the reason will become clear in a minute. And who better to introduce a debate on cancer registration and its role in support of the Government's NHS cancer plan than the noble Baroness, Lady Finlay, an expert in palliative medicine?

On this occasion, however. it is not only the House that should be grateful. It was, I recall, a Member of another place—the Prime Minister, no less—who, in answer to an interruption by one of my honourable friends in a debate on the Queen's Speech, responded, I thought rather sharply:

"I suggest that the hon. Gentleman and other Opposition Members talk to people in cancer services, who will tell them that they are improving as a result of the extra investment". —[Official Report, Commons, 26/11/03; col.25.]

Well, my Lords, what is sauce for the goose is sauce for the gander. Will the noble Lord, Lord Warner, refer the Hansard report of this debate to his right honourable friend? Will he be brave enough to tell him what the all-important cancer registers reveal? He probably will want to tell him that cancer survival in children has improved dramatically over the past 30 years. It will come in handy, perhaps, for a bit of selective spin. But what about skin melanoma rates increasing year on year? What about lymphoma and oral cancer rates being higher in ethnic minorities? What about cancer survival for patients living in poor areas being lower than for those living in richer areas? What about survival rates from all cancers being the lowest in Europe outside Poland and Slovenia? Last but not least, there is a wide variation in how cancer is treated around the country—the postcode lottery referred to by the noble Baroness, Lady Masham.

Much of this debate has centred on compulsory cancer registration to make cancer a statutorily reportable disease, where every case must be recorded. This would indeed remove the ambiguity about the legal status of cancer registration. It would also provide legal stability to the national cancer registration system and would reflect its national importance as a tool for public health cancer research and, of course, the NHS cancer policy. Legislation would be required.

Like other noble Lords, I ask the Minister what is the Government's current thinking on this proposal? As has been pointed out, in the absence of such legislation, it is essential that doctors and healthcare professionals are adequately informed about the current regulations by which data can be relayed to the registries without first having to obtain patient consent. It is important that people reporting data to registries are confident that in doing so they are acting entirely within the law and, of course, within the circumscription of medical ethics.

As the noble Lord, Lord Turnberg, said, it is almost impossible for clinicians to cut through the myriad guidelines. But if there is one message to come out of this debate, it is that the Gordian knot must be cut. I agree with the noble Lord, Lord Clement-Jones, that it is time to bite the bullet.

To be fair, what the registers currently show is indeed known to the department, which is presumably why it produced the NHS Cancer Plan in September 2000. Surprisingly, we have not heard as much about the Cancer Plan as we have about the cancer registries. In launching the plan, the then Secretary of State said:

"The plan will develop cancer services in this country that compare with the best in Europe. By 2010, our five-year survival rates for cancer will compare with the best in Europe".

I got that from the Guardian of 9 November 2000.

The plan says that now,

"for the first time, there is a comprehensive strategy bringing together: research; prevention; screening; diagnosis: treatment; and care for cancer as well as the investment needed to deliver real improvements in all of these".

Those are worthy aims, but three years into the 10-year plan, what are the results?

An interim report, called Securing Good Health for the Whole Population, published by Derek Wanless last month, said that England,

"performs less well than comparator countries, particularly on those outcome measures most affected by healthcare expenditure. For example, it performs badly on the few specific measures of quality medical intervention that are available, such as survival rates for cancers".

In my 10 years as chairman of the Stroke Association—which are now finished, so I feel able to talk about it—if I learned nothing else it was that, however good the intervention may be, speed was of the essence. So it is with cancer. However, a careful look at the latest statistics from the Department of Health on hospital episodes reveals that there has been no improvement in waiting times for cancer treatment, with delays actually getting worse. Waiting times for prostate and skin cancer are the longest, while the treatment of brain cancer has witnessed the largest growth in delays since 2000. I, for one, would like to see the correlation between waiting times and survival rates, and I challenge the department to publish them.

One reason for the delays is, no doubt, radiography. The plan promised another 500 radiographers by 2005. How far have we got in achieving that? It also calls for 4.2 linear accelerators for every million of the population. Considering all the hype, that is a surprisingly modest target, as France already has 6.1 machines per million and the Netherlands 7.1. Where do we stand today? On top of that, we have the problem of ageing and out of date machines. In 1997, according to the BBC, 25 per cent of linear accelerators were 10 years old. That proportion had increased to 38 per cent by 2002. Was the BBC correct in its analysis? The plan says that over the next three years there will be more scanners and other equipment to treat cancers. What is the figure today?

To sum up, 10-year plans have one great weakness: they raise hope over expectancy. Furthermore, the Cancer Plan could never have been envisaged without the cancer registers. Without them, we shall not know whether the plan is achievable. Most importantly, without them we would not be able to judge its success or failure. I am, and the Prime Minister should be, grateful to the noble Baroness, Lady Finlay, for raising this subject today.

My Lords, as noble Lords have said, we are all grateful to the noble Baroness, Lady Finlay, for raising this important issue and giving us a chance to debate it. I am grateful, too, for her fair-minded description of the improvements made in cancer services under this Government.

I was mildly surprised to hear the noble Lord, Lord Skelmersdale, trotting back in history, given the situation that we inherited. I can give him some reassurance. For example, he raised the subject of radiotherapy waits and radiographers. We know that there are difficulties in that area, and the Royal College of Radiologists is considering ways in which to increase the workforce, along with the Society of Radiographers. However, it is worth putting on record that we have increased the number of therapy radiographers by 10 per cent since 1997. To ensure future growth, we have more than doubled the number of training places at university—so we have taken some practical action in those areas, which contrasts occasionally with the situation before 1997.

I shall outline briefly the context in which cancer registries work, before turning to many of the points raised, and responding to many of them. It is easy to overlook the scale of the challenge that the NHS has to face on cancer. In England alone, around 225,000 people are diagnosed with the disease every year. Cancer covers around 200 different diseases, requiring different treatments delivered by different groups of skilled staff, in almost every specialty.

Years of underfunding meant that, at the end of the 1990s, the NHS had too few staff and inadequate facilities. Cancer services in England lagged behind those in the rest of Europe. The 2000 NHS Cancer Plan, to which a number of noble Lords referred, provides for the first time a national strategy to prevent, diagnose and treat cancer; to reform the way cancer services are delivered; to standardise care and improve patient experience; to co-ordinate research; and to invest in equipment and the cancer workforce. It is a long-term strategy but, as the three-year progress report published by my right honourable friend the Secretary of State for Health in October last year shows, implementation of that plan is already delivering real improvements that affect the lives of many of our fellow citizens.

Thanks to a clear set of priorities, extra investment and the superb efforts of staff, including doctors, nurses, managers—yes, managers as well—allied health professionals, scientific staff, pharmacists, social workers, and a wide range of other administrative and support staff throughout the country, patients are benefiting from the good progress that is being made, as the noble Baroness, Lady Finlay, and others acknowledged.

The noble Lord, Lord Skelmersdale, wants some indicators of progress. The death rate from cancer is falling. Britain has the world's sharpest decrease in premature deaths from breast cancer and a substantial decrease in lung cancer deaths, especially in men. We are committed to reducing the mortality rate from cancer by at least 20 per cent in people under 75 by 2010, against a 1995–97 baseline. The most recent figures, for 2000–02, show that the death rate has fallen by 10.3 per cent, so we are well on track.

The noble Baroness, Lady Greengross, mentioned screening. The NHS Cancer Plan made a commitment to extend screening and to introduce new programmes when it is clear that that will save lives. The noble Lords, Lord Chan and Lord Walton, drew attention to the evidence that there are higher rates of lymphoma and oral cancers in ethnic minorities. We are committed to combating those inequalities. We share the wish of the noble Lord, Lord Chan, to strengthen regional comparisons in that area. Information is not always collected consistently on a national basis by ethnic minority groups. However, with the development of the national programme for IT, to which I shall return, registries will be in a position to collect data on ethnicity of patients. Once the IT is available, registries will be in a much better position to help to facilitate effective research in this area.

In recognising the progress that has been made, none of us is complacent. We still have a long way to go. In order to achieve our objective of being among the best in Europe, we must continue the good work on smoking cessation and reducing waiting times. We must fully implement national guidance on cancer services and drugs. We must prepare for the implementation of a national bowel screening programme, further develop cancer services in the community and ensure that patients are given good information about treatment and services. We must also ensure that patients who are dying from cancer are given the best care possible at the end of their lives.

A number of noble Lords have raised the issue of palliative care, and I should like to draw attention to the work undertaken by the national partnership group for palliative care, which is an excellent example of partnership working between the voluntary sector, the NHS and the Department of Health. Last year we allocated an extra £50 million to ensure consistently high standards nationally. That has enabled cancer networks to invest in 70 additional consultants in palliative care, 162 more nurse specialists and extra Marie Curie nurses to provide practical care to patients.

The investment is making a difference, and the NHS Cancer Plan has accelerated improvements in cancer services across the country by delivering faster treatment, higher standards and a better patient experience. Three years on, cancer remains a top priority for the Government and the NHS. I know that the noble Baroness, Lady Finlay, has concerns about whether the additional resources that the Government are allocating to cancer are reaching the parts that it should reach—to cite an advertisement. In the Government's view, ring fencing a specific programme for cancer or any other disease is not the way forward. Our overall approach is to devolve greater freedom to front-line staff and organisations and to give them the freedom to innovate and improve care for patients, based on local needs and circumstances. The NHS is receiving £12.7 billion extra over the next three years. It is for primary care trusts, in partnership with their strategic health authorities and other local stakeholders, to determine how best to use their funds to meet national priorities, including cancer.

Like other noble Lords, I pay tribute to the work done by the National Cancer Director, Professor Mike Richards. He published a report last May showing that. after some initial problems, the new money for cancer services that was announced as part of the NHS Cancer Plan is now reaching those services. We will repeat that exercise to ensure that the extra £570 million promised in the Cancer Plan for 2003–04 reaches front-line services. From that experience, we know that good quality national data are essential for monitoring delivery of the NHS Cancer Plan and identifying where performance needs to improve. As my noble friend Lady Hayman said, keeping track of trends is critical for focusing our effort on prevention and treatment and determining where we direct our research effort. That is why the work of the cancer registries is so critical.

We welcome the work undertaken by the regional cancer registries since they started collecting population-based data on cancer more than 40 years ago. They have come a long way, most particularly in recent years. They now operate within a national core contract, work to common standards and will shortly be subjecting their work to scrutiny by a process of peer review. We now have a national co-ordinator for cancer registries, working directly to Mike Richards, in supporting the cancer registries as they continue to develop. Professor Richards personally chairs the National Cancer Registry Advisory Group to oversee their development.

In particular, we have been pleased with the action taken by the registries in England to modernise the ways in which they collect data on cancer incidence and to ensure that those data are fit for purpose. Over the past three years, we have invested £6 million in the cancer registries to enable them to deliver action plans for new technology and new ways of working, which they developed in line with the recommendations made by Professor Charles Gillis in 2001 in his review of cancer registration, to which a number of noble Lords have referred.

The noble Baroness, Lady Masham, raised the issue of the speed of registration of cancer patients. At present, registration is a highly manually intensive process. A wide-ranging process of technical reform is now being undertaken to try to make the UK system a much more sophisticated one. This process is closely aligned with the NHS national programme for information technology. A common system of automated electronic messages will contain all the relevant information about cancer patients to be sent from NHS trusts to cancer registries. These messages will allow the cancer registry data set to be constructed and available almost in real time, tracking events during the patient's journey. That will in time ensure greater consistency, accuracy and timeliness in the data they collect and publish. It will allow further developments in their ability to support local and national health communities in monitoring cancer trends; to evaluate the success of, for example, prevention and screening programmes; and to inform planning of services.

I recognise that there is still some way to go to ensure that the data which registries collect are uniform and consistent across the country. Things will improve as cancer registries modernise and as the national programme for information technology rolls out, incorporating collection of the national cancer data set.

Registries themselves are becoming more focused on monitoring information for local health economies, looking at inequalities and influencing local and national service planning. Through more timely information collected through the national system, cancer registries will provide better support for health service research, genetic counselling, evaluation of screening programmes, and national and local clinical audits.

Each regional registry currently works closely with a regional director for public health. In order to provide a more strategic surveillance and information service at a regional level, which will enable the regional directors of public health to obtain a broader picture of disease trends across their areas, the regional cancer registries and the public health observatories will develop protocols for joint working over the next year. To achieve that, the next stage of modernisation for cancer registries will be to review their boundaries, where some realignment may be necessary in some places, and their funding arrangements with the Department of Health's Chief Medical Officer and the regional directors of public health. I hope that that is of interest and some reassurance. I will develop it a bit more for the noble Lord, Lord Clement-Jones, and other noble Lords who touched on the issue.

At a national level, it is important that cancer registries continue to provide data, which enable the UK to compare its position on cancer survival over time within Europe and with the rest of the world.

Before moving on to funding, I take this opportunity to commend the work of the UK Association of Cancer Registries and the Office for National Statistics, which both play key roles in the development of data collection systems and the processing and analysis of the data from the nine cancer registries.

A number of noble Lords mentioned the issue of funding for cancer registries, which has been included in the overall expenditure on cancer services through local commissioning arrangements. We are aware that the nine cancer registries in England have been providing a range of different services for their local health communities and have been funded by local commissioners of those services through local agreements. Consequently, there are differences across the country in the funding received by cancer registries. When I was briefed for this debate, I discovered a rather complex system for getting money to the registries, which the noble Baroness, Lady Finlay, and others have identified.

The registries also provide national data. We need a funding system for the future that will be more equitable and also support their regional and national roles. This new funding arrangement will be consistent with the moves towards providing a regional and national cancer intelligence service that works with other disease surveillance done by the public health observatories. We intend to implement a new funding system for cancer registries in the coming year.

I well understand the concern about the potential impact of patient confidentiality on the ability of cancer registries to collect scientifically valid data. The noble Baroness, Lady Finlay, and others have drawn attention to the need to link records from different sources. That requires cancer registries to hold patient information in a form that identifies individuals—information which is held in confidence by the NHS. Information is provided to them by many sources. It would not be practicable at the present time to ask each and every patient whether they consent to this important use of their information, as confidentiality law might require. This system has operated successfully for many years, and has led to the UK having one of the best cancer registration databases in the world, with 100 per cent national coverage, as the noble Baroness, Lady Finlay, recognised. We need to continue to make strenuous efforts to protect patient confidentiality wherever possible. We believe that it is necessary to explore all available avenues before seeking to introduce legislation that would, in effect, make cancer a notifiable disease.

As noble Lords have acknowledged, Section 60 of the Health and Social Care Act 2001 provides cancer registries with interim arrangements that allow them to collect patient-identifiable data without consent, while we seek to implement technologies through the national programme for IT in the NHS that would allow the registries to process anonymised information. Those arrangements are overseen by an independent statutory body, the Patient Information Advisory Group, as noble Lords have indicated. It will review the powers available under Section 60 on an annual basis and will advise the Secretary of State for Health if and when it is appropriate to reduce the support available to cancer registries or, indeed, recommend that it is appropriate to give registers a permanent statutory basis. At present the body is not working itself out of a job, as I think my noble friend Lord Rea seemed to suggest, or certainly inquired about. I share his and other noble Lords' view that PIAG has done a very good job in maintaining public confidence.

According to the advice I have been given, eventually electronic systems will support the linkage of anonymised records so that cancer registries no longer need to hold information that identifies individuals. As my noble friend Lord Turnberg suggested, it remains to be seen whether the wonders of IT will ultimately remove the need for identifiable data for the purposes of epidemiology. I share some of his scepticism about whether that is achievable. We shall have to see. But certainly for the next few years while the technology is not available to achieve that, cancer registries are permitted to collect and hold the data by regulations made under Section 60, so they have a secure statutory basis on which to do their work. It is aggregated before any publication to ensure that patients cannot be identified from the data.

The good practice required of those supported by Section 60 has actually improved the level of safeguards for patients. The support provided under Section 60 to the cancer registries has been through an annual review by PIAG, and the registries were commended on their progress in developing new practices and meeting the requirements set by PIAG. At this stage we see no need for further legislation to protect the confidentiality of patient information held by cancer registries at this time.

I am aware of the argument expressed by a number of noble Lords that cancer should have similar legal status for reporting purposes as infectious diseases. I am sure that my ministerial colleagues in the Department of Health will want to consider the very authoritative remarks made by noble Lords in the debate, particularly those of my noble friends Lady Hayman and Lord Turnberg and the noble Lord, Lord Walton. I believe that my noble friend Lord Rea touched on the following matter. It is well known from the infectious diseases field that simply making returns statutory does not necessarily guarantee 100 per cent ascertainment, or good quality, or acceptable timeliness.

The question of the effect on research was raised by my noble friend Lord Turnberg and others. Researchers can apply for PIAG support. We accept that there has been a degree of confusion within the clinical community regarding the legality of data submission to cancer registries. The Department of Health and the UK Association of Cancer Registries have worked hard with PIAG and bodies such as the GMC to provide a clearer statement of legality. Clear guidance is provided on the DH website and at the UK Association of Cancer Registries site. We understand that further guidance is shortly to be issued by the GMC.

A number of noble Lords referred to the need to clear applications with PIAG. My understanding is that the majority of applications—as I believe my noble friend Lord Rea said—have been approved. I understand that PIAG approved the cancer registries' application to collect and hold patient-identifiable data but that researchers need to apply to PIAG to use identifiable data collected elsewhere for specific research, so there is a certain bind in that area. We are not altogether aware that that has been an insuperable problem but I should be glad to consider any evidence that my noble friends Lord Turnberg and Lord Rea and any others have in that regard.

I hope that the cancer registries will continue to undertake their important function, and continue to develop and extend the services they provide, to ensure that we can all deliver the improvements in cancer services needed to reduce the number of deaths from cancer, and to improve the care of cancer patients.

This has been an important debate with impressive contributions. I am sure that my ministerial colleagues in the Department of Health who have responsibility in this area will study the debate very carefully in view of the authority of the contributions to it. I shall certainly study Hansard and if I have overlooked any points I shall write to the relevant noble Lords.

My Lords, I thank all noble Lords who contributed to this very interesting debate. It has felt a little like a rich kaleidoscope—we have all been looking in the same direction but each from a slightly different angle.

I thank the Minister for his reply regarding funding of the important national resource of our registries. Unlike the Minister, I believe that we shall soon need clarification through legislation to enable secure data supply to cancer registries and to foster crucial research in the long term. In the mean time, I beg leave to withdraw the Motion for Papers.

rose to call attention to the possibility of power interruptions in the electricity supply industry; and to move for Papers.

My Lords, it is a very great pleasure to support the noble Lord, Lord Tombs, who, this year as well as last, has placed this House in his debt. He has spent a great deal of his life in the industry; he knows what he is talking about; and he tells the truth. I suggest—I have no hope of this sensible suggestion being taken up—that Ministers have that speech before them as compulsory reading because it is clear to me that they have not yet understood what this matter is all about.

Unhappily, as the noble Lord, Lord Tombs, himself said, his reward for last year's speech was to be virtually ignored. I am of a slightly less kind disposition than he is and therefore I shall read out a section of the bromide-studded reply of the noble Lord, Lord Sainsbury, which was obviously decorated for him by the department:

"I hope that, overall, noble Lords will take comfort from the fact that we continue to address the strategic issues that face the electricity industry. Strategic analysis continues to be carried out, and the Government, the regulators and the industry are all fully engaged"

What a terrible prospect.

"We also need to prepare policies for the coming century".

There is an original thought for your Lordships!

"The Government's energy White Paper will outline the key energy policy issues for the future. It will be published in the spring"— [Official Report 8/1/03; col.1050.]

I have absolutely no doubt that it left the noble Lord, Lord Tombs, full of hope that an enlightening White Paper would follow. Imagine his despair, which we all shared, when a glossy, colour-printed but bromide paper appeared telling us nothing of what the Government intended.

The debate has centred around two anxieties. The first is the insufficient margin of generating capacity. The noble Lord, Lord Tombs, dealt with that issue at length and I shall not enlarge upon it, but it is a desperately serious matter. It seems to me that, at present, any suggestion that the margins are inadequate is met with something approaching ridicule or just bare-faced surprise.

The other problem is one of totally muddled organisation. Overall responsibility for ensuring the security of electricity supply is of absolutely paramount importance. Such is the organisation that no one—no body, no Minister, no one—is responsible for this extremely important matter.

I fear that Ministers have entrenched themselves behind ill conceived policies and, from that position, they are not good listeners. They have pinned some hopes on renewables, but I believe that those hopes, if realised at all, will not come in time. I certainly share the belief that Ministers have made a cardinal error in disregarding the need to keep the nuclear option open. They shelter behind the phrase "keeping the nuclear option open". One asks them what they mean, and I have twice asked the noble Lord opposite that question. Of course, I recognise that he is not a Minister in the Department of Trade and Industry, which I imagine he will take as a blessing rather than a misfortune. Nevertheless, he was not privileged to be the bearer of anything like an answer from his department. It was a very disappointing exchange—so disappointing, in fact, that a week or so later I renewed the attempt with equally little success.

I do not wish to go on at length. However, my conclusion is that Ministers have entrenched themselves behind a thoroughly wrong-headed policy and that they have not understood the catastrophic consequences of a breakdown of supply. I recall a speech made by the noble Lord, Lord Stoddart, in last year's debate. It showed that he very clearly understood, as I do not believe Ministers do, how such a breakdown would affect every individual and every home in this land and how it would threaten business and the economy and do untold harm. I hope that the Minister who is to reply to the debate will try to drum into such audience as he can find in the Department of Trade and Industry some measure of the concern that we, here, feel about those catastrophic consequences and our fear that the department has not yet seen fit to acquaint Ministers with them.

What I fear most is that the speech made today by the noble Lord, Lord Tombs, will receive the same degree of attention from Ministers as did his equally meritorious speech last year. That is an uncomfortable position for the noble Lord, Lord Tombs, but it is a disastrous position for us all. I hope that the noble Lord will not take this as a measure of party stance or an indication that we are anxious to stick a knife into the Government. It is a measure of deep concern about a problem which we feel the Government are skating round and neglecting almost totally. I am happy to support the noble Lord.

My Lords, we are all very indebted to the noble Lord, Lord Tombs, for deciding once again to bring this important issue before the House. Our acquaintance goes back a great many years. I have never forgotten the time when he and I crawled up between the inner and outer skins of the Hunterston nuclear power station so that he could demonstrate to me the effects on stainless steel of carbon dioxide at, I believe if I remember correctly, 600 degrees centigrade. It was not a pretty picture. Our paths have crossed on a number of occasions since then and, as my noble friend Lord Peyton said, we are very much indebted to him for again bringing this important issue before the House.

The debate is very well timed in some respects, although I believe that it puts some of us under some constraint because we are already deeply involved in the Energy Bill. No doubt some of these issues will be aired when we reach Grand Committee on that Bill. However, I believe that there is a distinction here between the short term and the long term, and the Energy Bill will address principally the longer-term issues. It is therefore appropriate that I confine my remarks today to the relatively short-term issue of the immediate dangers to the security of our electricity supply.

Noble Lords will recollect that in 2003 there were several major power interruptions in this country and also across the world and several minor blackouts in more limited areas. That brought home to many people that it is all very well placing huge emphasis on reducing carbon emissions for the benefit of the environment, or increasing output from renewable sources, or seeking to maintain low electricity prices in order to protect the fuel-poor. But in fact these events have reinforced my view that security of supply in an advanced industrial country such as ours must now be seen as a—or possibly the—primary policy objective.

We are today an electricity-dependent society. It will be no answer for the authorities, when confronted with major blackouts—and after all last year was but a foretaste of what might come—to argue that they are cutting carbon emissions, promoting wind farms and phasing down nuclear plants, because in fact maintaining the security of supply will increasingly be seen by people as being the highest priority.

I should like to draw the attention of the House to two documents which bear directly on the subject matter of the debate. The first has already been referred to by the noble Lord, Lord Tombs; it is the Winter Operations Report of National Grid Transco, which was published on 14 October last year. It is the latest in a whole series of annual reports covering last winter—2002–03—and an overview of this winter,

"covering both electricity and gas transmission systems".

It also contains analyses of wider supply security. It is a technical document, produced by skilled professional people and aimed at the main professional players in this field—the Government, the regulators, the generators, the distributors and the suppliers.

Despite a number of apparently bland assurances that we shall be okay in all but one in 50 cases, a careful reading of the document indicates that the real situation is a good deal less reassuring than appears at first sight. There are all kinds of things that may go wrong. It starts with a comfortable 6-gigawatt margin of capacity above average peak winter demand for electricity. A number of scenarios are postulated which could in prolonged cold conditions—and after all these are not unusual in this country—reduce this margin of 6 gigawatts,

"to between a deficit of 0. I GW and a surplus of 0.7 GW".

It is true that that is a "worst case" scenario, but it is, for goodness' sake, the job of the authorities to plan for the worst case.

The authors put forward a number of changes to existing arrangements to provide for what they call,

"an added level of security in such worst case scenarios".

There are nine specific proposals put forward in the document. They are all technical and not easy to summarise within a limited period such as we have. However, I think that I can give the House the essence of what the report recommends. It states:

"National Grid Transco remains strongly committed to supporting market processes"—

in general one supports that—

"that will facilitate an appropriate level of energy security".

But it recommends that electricity supply security would be enhanced if a number of market changes were to be introduced. The changes are then numbered one to nine. They commend:

"NGT's proposals to strengthen the Electricity Market Imbalance Price…This should encourage a further return",

to activity of what they call,

"mothballed generation and encourage increased availability of generation and interconnector imports.

That is only the first change. The second change sees a need for the,

"proposed new Maximum Generation Service for this winter. This would give NGT access to"—

what they call—

"'reasonable endeavours' generating capability of the order of a further 0.6 GW".

The report continues in similar vein: there are a number of quite specific, very technical improvements on how the generating market works in order to provide enhanced security for the supply of electricity to this country.

The report points out that there should be a new process to enable,

"trading of interruptible rights, allowing shippers to substitute interruption sites with other shippers and hence…when the electricity market is tight [to] enable some market priority to be given to sustaining gas fuelled generation".

I have only reached the first seven and I have not mentioned them all.

"However"—

the report states—

"we remain concerned that there may be circumstances in which security of supply cannot be maintained by market mechanisms alone".

I have always been a supporter of markets as an effective way of ensuring the supply and distribution of goods and services, but, as the noble Lord, Lord Tombs, pointed out, one is dealing here with very long timescales. The time needed to bring a new power station from design to generating can sometimes be as long as 20 years. In these circumstances, the normal market mechanisms find it difficult to work properly. The report therefore proposes a number of other solutions for the problems of interruptible combined cycle gas turbines over the peak electricity demand period, where market mechanisms have not already achieved this, and so on.

These are all minor and technical changes. I am sure that the Minister will be aware of the report, but I hope that he will be able to answer the question: how many of the nine measures listed in the report are currently being taken? If not all of them, why not? This report has been on the Minister's desk since October when it was published. I do not believe that National Grid Transco would have put this document into the public domain if it had not intended it to be taken very seriously by the authorities. That is the first issue about which we need answers from the Government.

The second document is the recently prepared report for the Adam Smith Institute, written by Professor M A Laughton, a Fellow of the Royal Academy of Engineering. He is a leading authority in the field of energy in general and electricity in particular and is a key adviser to the Government on these matters. That report looks a little further ahead than the NGT report. But it contains some quite disturbing messages. Perhaps I may read to the House one or two of those which have caused me concern as to where we are going in the future.

The heading in the Executive Summary is "Prioritising Security of Supply". It states:

"According to the International Chamber of Commerce (ICC) security of supply will be the biggest energy challenge for EU and OECD industries during this century. Therefore, to build a strong energy policy around this premise, it must be recognised that security means both security of primary energy supplies (from oil, gas, coal, nuclear and renewable resources) as well as of power supplies to the final consumers".

The report points out that the one does not necessarily guarantee the other. If one runs out of generating capacity, regardless of how much fuel one has, one cannot supply people with electricity.

The report turns to the way forward. It states:

"A rethink regarding investment in generating plant is also required. Britain is facing a shortage of generating capacity in the next few years as unfavorable market conditions see mothballing of much existing plant and discourage new investment".

The report goes on to discuss the longer term. In light of his analysis of the situation, Professor Laughton's recommendation should not surprise us; namely, "a balanced mixed energy policy".

The House will remember that the Government's policy during the next 20 to 30 years may result in up to 80 per cent of our electricity supplies being met by imported gas, much of it from very unstable countries. Professor Laughton therefore states:

"It is essential that Britain's energy policy is reviewed as a matter of urgency with the primary remit of ensuring security of power supplies".

He continues,

"significant questions are raised concerning the increasing vulnerability of the UK electricity supply industry".

I do not want to risk straying into the area of the Energy Bill, but Her Majesty's Ministers will fail in their duty to the country if they do not pay heed to these authoritative and compelling judgments of Professor Laughton. His warnings are clear. The consequences of failing to heed them could lead to disaster. In the end, it is the responsibility of government to see that the lights stay on. I would welcome assurances from the noble Lord, Lord Davies of Oldham, that the Power to the People paper will he treated with the utmost seriousness that it certainly deserves.

Our people will not lightly forgive the Government if, in the face of the warnings that are implicit in the National Grid Transco report and explicit in the Laughton report, large areas of the UK are repeatedly plunged into darkness.

My Lords, I join the noble Lords, Lord Peyton and Lord Jen kin, in congratulating the noble Lord, Lord Tombs, on once again introducing this subject. As all those who have spoken so far have pointed out, it is vital to the interests of this country.

I wish the Government would take notice of people such as the noble Lord, Lord Tombs, who has wide experience not only of the electricity industry, but of other industries as well. When he worked in the electricity supply industry, particularly when he was the chairman of the Electricity Council, he was not only well respected, but also well liked and admired. I can also say from personal experience that he was a livewire and a dynamo in that role. He and I used to negotiate across the table when he was chairman of the Electricity Council and I was a member of the national joint council, representing NALGO. I know he thinks that I was a bit of a pest then, because I was always demanding more money than he and his colleagues were prepared to grant to us, but, nevertheless, we were very good friends and always finished our meetings with a good lunch just along the road in Millbank. Therefore, the noble Lord really must he listened to and I wish the Government would do so.

After our previous debate on the matter on 8 January 2003, I had some correspondence with the noble Lord, Lord Sainsbury. He wrote that spare capacity amounted to 17.5 per cent. The total available plant was 64.9 gigawatts, of which 17.5 per cent was spare capacity. The predicted peak winter demand was 55.3 gigawatts. That was roughly confirmed in a letter from the noble Lord, Lord Davies of Oldham, to the noble Lord, Lord Jenkin, on 23 October when the July update of the plant margin was 16.5 per cent for the coming winter rising to 18.1 per cent when the Isle of Grain and Deeside power plants came on stream.

The noble Lord, Lord Tombs, said that those figures are overstated and that, far from having 17.5 per cent spare capacity, we have far less. That is very worrying indeed. My view remains that those figures—not those of the noble Lord, Lord Tombs, but those that were given to me and to the noble Lord, Lord Jenkin of Roding, by the Minister—represent the barest minimum to ensure security of supply. Security of supply means the absence of power interruptions or significant voltage reductions.

I worry also about whether the National Grid is completely up to scratch in dealing with abnormal loads or serious breakdowns in the network. Recent experience has shown that that is perhaps not so. That is another matter to which the Government should give their attention.

I reiterate what I said previously about maximum demand. The noble Lord, Lord Jenkin, also touched on that matter. It is some years since we suffered a severe and prolonged winter, with low temperatures over an extended period of time. Last winter's maximum demand figure of 55.3 gigawatts could well be significantly exceeded, since people have added to their stock of electrical appliances over the years. The Government and the electricity supply industry seem not to have taken due note of that fact. People keep on buying appliances and adding to the potential load. That potential load has not been tested for a very long time. That is why the Government and the electricity supply industry should be wary. Under those circumstances, the plant margin could be quite inadequate. The plant itself—I know about it because I worked at a power station—would be under greater mechanical strain, resulting in a greater number of outages than anticipated. That is another risk that has not been tested in the past few years.

I am aware that working power stations and plant are supplemented by mothballed capacity. It mainly consists of oil and, as the noble Lord, Lord Tombs, said, old-fashioned and outdated plant, which could not in fact be brought in to use at short notice. Indeed, to put it in working order and on-stream would take at least weeks; and probably many months before it could deliver power to the grid. It would be useful to hear the comments of the noble Lord, Lord Davies, on those points.

Can the Minister also tell us whether renewable energy—mainly wind turbines—is or will be included in the total plant availability and taken into account when calculating the plant margin? That is an important question that should be answered. I sincerely hope that it is not, as the vagaries of wind, even at sea, are well known. All too often, when icy conditions prevail, wind speeds are at their lowest. If that capacity is taken into account, that is dangerous for security of supply. If not, it shows the futility of relying on windmills to supply 10 per cent of electricity, as back-up capacity will have to be provided. That makes wind power unreliable and expensive as well as environmentally damaging.

Finally, I must reiterate my regret that we no longer have a department of energy to oversee what is a vital service to the health, safety and wellbeing of our people and to industry and commerce. I hope that the Government will reconsider their attitude. I am sure that I and other noble Lords could suggest some departments that could be slimmed down or even abolished to pay for a new department of energy. That department could give leadership to the industry, which, as everyone knows, is too fragmented and lacks a proper co-ordinated way to provide electricity supply and, above all, security of supply.

My Lords, I join other noble Lords in thanking the noble Lord, Lord Tombs, for giving us the opportunity to discuss this subject. We are extremely fortunate to have in this House someone with the noble Lord's vast experience and knowledge of the whole energy industry. Indeed, as I listened to his address, it emphasised to me how important it is to have Members of his calibre. We would be deprived of many such contributions were we ever to change into a House that consisted of directly elected and only elected Members.

Electricity is the lifeblood of the country and safe and sound security of supply is of paramount importance. It is, after all, a vital part of ensuring the very existence of our transport system and all our industries are dependent on it. Our homes and offices without electricity become miserable to say the least. Little wonder then that the public has become alarmed, not to mention irritated, at any suggestion of power cuts.

The Institution of Civil Engineers recently produced a short but useful assessment of the state of the UK infrastructure which contained a passage on power generation. That drew attention to the fact that no country has achieved significant reductions in energy demand through conservation and that renewables can make only a limited contribution. Yet the Government hope to increase the contribution from renewables to 20 per cent by 2020.

Our current mix for electricity generation is 32 per cent coal, which will disappear by 2016 if emission constraints are enforced; 23 per cent from nuclear power—by 2020 only one nuclear power station will be operating—and 38 per cent from gas. However, after 2006, we shall become a net importer of gas, while by 2013 our dependency on imported gas will have risen to almost 70 per cent. Those imports will come initially from Norway and later from West Africa, the Middle East, and former Soviet republics—hardly encouraging in terms of security of supply. The present mix is completed by 4 per cent from oil and 3 per cent from renewables.

So, after 100 years of self-sufficiency in energy resources, we are facing the future in a cavalier fashion, producing a White Paper that makes hopelessly over-optimistic forecasts and places an unrealistic reliance on renewables, especially wind power. All the renewables are dependent to varying degrees on weather, but as so much is expected of wind power, it is the adverse effect of high pressure and flat calms that cause most concern. To place such faith in a source of energy subject to intermittency is highly irresponsible.

I recall expressing disappointment when a Conservative Government decided to discontinue research into the fast breeder reactor. I remember well being told then that the need for the fast reactor was still 40 years away. Almost 20 of those years have already passed. What a wonderful opportunity has been missed in the White Paper. Renewables could still have been given a role to play—no one denies that they have a useful role—but the real challenge was ignored. The White Paper should have proclaimed wholehearted support for nuclear power now, with a positive declaration that existing nuclear power stations would be replaced.

Keeping the nuclear option open is simply not good enough. Nuclear power's carbon-free qualities should have been built on in the White Paper. Global warming is a threat to the world that has been played down for far too long. The resolution of disposal of nuclear waste is not insurmountable: it has been resolved in other parts of the world, most recently in Finland. The White Paper should have highlighted the advantages of nuclear power as recognised in so many countries worldwide. There are 27 nuclear reactors under construction in nine different countries and the total number of reactors now approaches 450. Are we to be left behind yet again?

The White Paper pays only lip service to the nuclear industry, instead of using it as the centrepiece of our energy policy for the future. It is still not too late, but the present Government show little sign of accepting the challenge.

My Lords, I beg the leave of the House to speak briefly during the gap. Earlier, I was at a meeting that I could not avoid. I wish to follow the theme covered by the noble Lord, Lord Gray, as it is the most crucial question of energy policy introduced by the noble Lord, Lord Tombs, today. The problem is that electricity is unlike any other commodity; you cannot store it. There is a system in north Wales to take water to the top of a hill so that it can come down again, but that cannot be done in any other part of the country.

That brings us to the problem of measuring base load. In my first question I shall paraphrase the remarks of the noble Lord, Lord Stoddart:are we supposed to be counting renewables in the base-load requirement? If so, it is a very odd definition of base-load requirement, because it is not reliable. If we are not counting renewables, we need a margin—15 per cent or whatever—on top of the current customary margins for a set of stations where we are asking investors to believe that there is a rate of return on investment for capacity that is used only occasionally. That will not be nuclear capacity, as it is not technically possible to use nuclear energy as compensating capacity. I will be corrected if I am wrong, but I understand that one cannot use it as compensating capacity relative to wind energy.

That means that the whole base-load capacity that we have to rely on must include even more imported gas capacity, in which people will have to invest. Where is the incentive to invest in that capacity if it will be used only intermittently? It is not therefore a question of being against wind power, but about reminding ourselves of the nature of wind power and its unreliability, which leads to greater difficulty in security of supply than we already have. It is perhaps useful to consider security of supply in two separate senses of the term: the first is relying on Azerbaijan, the Middle East or elsewhere, and the second is technical security.

I conclude by echoing many other speakers. Not only must we pay lip service to keeping open the nuclear option, we must ask our friends in the Government to think seriously about the timescale. It is a bit like joining the euro, on which I shall not be echoed by the noble Lord, Lord Stoddart. Do we not need to make clearer the timescales and ensure that the arithmetic adds up to a greater extent than in the White Paper?

My Lords, I declare that I have been actively involved in the energy sector for some years and am currently chairman of Micropower. which promotes the small-scale generation of electricity.

Together with all noble Lords who have spoken, pay tribute to the noble Lord, Lord Tombs, for initiating, yet again after a year's interval, a debate on this important issue, and for repeating what he said before—it bears repetition. Like the noble Lord, Lord Stoddart, I had dealings with the noble Lord, Lord Tombs, when he was chairman of the Electricity Council. But whereas the noble Lord, Lord Stoddart, was trying to extract from him the maximum amount of money possible for the members of his union, I was trying to get a fair price for the excellent coal that we supplied to the power stations. The noble Lord, Lord Tombs, and his colleagues stood up to that twin onslaught with much fortitude.

The current energy position calls for very careful thought. We have had the White Paper, but it was basically an aspirational document. To pay it a tribute, it set out the problems fairly clearly. But many of the actions are still to come.

As other noble Lords have said, the question of interruptions in the electricity supply sector divides itself into two parts—the short and longer term. In the short term, attention has been focused on two issues: first, the reliability of the transmission and distribution network, and, secondly, the reserve capacity of electricity generation to meet untoward conditions, both of which have caused concern. The DTI and Ofgem have claimed that there is no real risk of power interruptions this winter, apart from exceptional circumstances. Nevertheless, as the noble Lords, Lord Tombs, Lord Jenkin of Roding and Lord Stoddart, have pointed out, the reserve of generating capacity is now at a lower level than it has been for many years. What is stated to be the reserve could well be lower in the event because of outages at the time, to which the noble Lord, Lord Stoddart, referred from his great experience of operating power stations.

The short-term problem of possible interruptions of energy supply is serious, but the longer-term issue is even more serious. As matters now stand, over the next 10 to 15 years, a large part of the present nuclear and coal-fired capacity is likely to be closed down. That will start to happen in the intermediate term, not in the distant future. At the same time, as the noble Lord, Lord Tombs, pointed out so clearly, there is doubt about new investment in gas-fired generation. That is due to major increases in gas prices compared with wholesale electricity prices. The future trend in gas prices will undoubtedly go upwards as increasingly we become importers and put pressure on supplies.

The energy White Paper sets out four objectives of energy policy: competitiveness, security, diversity and sustainability. It is not possible to keep those four balls in the air at the same time. It has emerged clearly, and was emphasised in today's debate, particularly by the noble Lord, Lord Jenkin, and others, that security of supply is undoubtedly the most important energy issue that we now face. The reason is that for the first time in our economic history we shall become increasingly dependent on imports. Coal supplied us with all our energy needs for centuries; then we found gas and oil in the North Sea and we developed our nuclear capacity. Although we have had to import a certain amount of oil, we have never been in the situation that is likely to arise in the next decade or so. That is one risk. It has been emphasised in this debate, and it is well known, that we stand at the end of the European transmission line for gas. The specific problem that we are addressing today is that there will be an increasing gap in the availability of electricity capacity.

The Government have emphasised renewables and energy efficiency as the principal means of achieving their energy objectives, that is of making good the possible shortages in electricity supply and in meeting their Kyoto objectives. The trouble is that under neither of these headings has the headway been made that would give us reason to think that the Government will achieve their aims. Renewables' performance so far has been much less than anticipated, and the prospects are uncertain. However, as far as energy efficiency is concerned—particularly in the domestic sector, where the biggest savings remain to be made—while the Treasury has carried out two consultations, little has been done to bring about the great surge in saving that is required. We are left with the prospect of an impending electricity generation gap of substantial magnitude.

As I understand it, next year the Government hope to produce proposals to deal with hazardous nuclear waste. It may be that in the light of the proposals made then, they will finally decide on the future of nuclear capacity, the great uncertainty emerging from the White Paper. Even if they did decide—which is uncertain—to go ahead with new nuclear capacity, we are still left with a major problem, because it would take at least 10 years before new nuclear could come on stream, allowing for consultation, planning and safety procedures. It could be even longer if it was decided to adopt new technologies that are in the process of development. Whatever decision is taken on nuclear, the prospect of a generation gap in the intermediate term remains. It calls for urgent action. The Government must now review their policy of exclusively concentrating on renewables as the means of filling that gap. This is just not feasible, as has been pointed out by previous speakers.

I will mention other steps that could be taken. I have pointed out that the White Paper was pretty good at analysing the problem, and all these steps are indicated in the White Paper. What is lacking is the policy to carry them out. Coal remains our most important indigenous energy resource. We still have substantial reserves, but if we go on as we are, in the next 10 to 15 years there will be virtually no coal-fired stations in operation because of increasingly stringent emission standards, as well as the age of the stations. Clean coal technology offers a means of replacing existing coal-fired operations and together with carbon extraction can compete environmentally with renewables.

What should the Government do about this? There is a simple measure that they could take. An extension of the equivalent of the renewable obligation to clean coal technology could mean that the two or three projects that are now on the drawing board for such plants could start being constructed. In the United States, they have devoted 1 billion dollars to the development of clean coal technology. This compares with the few million pounds that are being spent in this country.

We must consider ways in which we can get good dividends from acting as they do in Germany on the recovery and treatment of methane from coal mines. If the methane escapes in the atmosphere, as the noble Lord, Lord Jenkin of Roding, and other Peers have frequently mentioned in debates, it can cause untold damage. Converting it to electricity by treating it can be extremely beneficial in comparison. It remains a mystery why the Government consider that methane from landfill sites is a renewable source of energy, but the same methane from coal mines is not. Yesterday, the noble Lord, Lord McIntosh of Haringey, referred to this as a nonsensical situation. In Germany, both are considered to be renewable, and there is support for both. The sooner we do that here, the better.

Perhaps the most important development in electricity generation would be to have a more decentralised system, with localised or distributed generation. It creates substantial advantages by reducing pressure on the National Grid and avoiding transmission losses, and by enabling waste heat to be used, virtually doubling the fuel conversion efficiency and thereby reducing the rate of emissions. The trouble is that the most effective way of doing it—through combined heat and power—is now in the doldrums because of the substantial increase in gas prices. In the case of CHP, as in the case of clean coal technology, there is a way out of the problem that is quite simple: extending a type of renewable obligation to support CHP. Such measures are within the compass of government, and I am sure that we shall propose relevant amendments to the current Energy Bill. The Government should consider such measures very seriously.

A new technology for micro-CHP or micropower has been developed, and I have declared my interest. It takes the form of a domestic boiler capable of producing heat and electricity, bringing all the advantages that I described to domestic users. The first such appliances are likely to be marketed during the next 12 months, but, if the full benefit is to be derived from this exciting new technology, we will need help during the build-up period. We should not repeat the mistake made over the condensing boiler, which has advantages over conventional boilers, just as micropower boilers mark an advance on condensing boilers. As the energy White Paper demonstrated, in Britain, in 2002, condensing boilers accounted for 12 per cent of the market, whereas, in the Netherlands, as a result of concerted and determined efforts, the figure was 75 per cent. That shows what can be done, if the will is there.

In conclusion, we face a major electricity generating gap in the next 10 to 15 years, due to the likely closure of nuclear and coal-fired stations, coupled with a slow rate of investment in new gas-fired stations. Even if the Government decided to go ahead with further nuclear stations, the inevitable time lag would necessitate other measures. The technology is available and was fully identified in the energy White Paper. Aspiration must be converted into action. A first step would be an urgent review of electricity generating prospects and a list of actions to be taken to safeguard the future security of supply.

My Lords, I too am grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Tombs, for introducing this timely debate. We have been concerned about such matters for some time. The noble Lord paints an alarming picture of capacity shortfalls.

It is easy to forget how severe are the effects of power cuts of any duration or frequency. It is easy to forget what happened in the 1970s with the three-day week. The result was severe damage to the economy in the short term, and, in the longer term, many factories and organisations felt that they ought to have their own generating capability. That was a complete waste of resources, as the generators were rarely used.

I saw for myself the effect of power shortages in war-torn Bosnia in the 1990s. There, high-density urban housing was heated by coal or electricity, and it probably needed both for the systems to work. Because of the conflict, there was neither, but there was misery and suffering. The Bosnians installed an improvised stove in each apartment and burnt the wood that they collected from the forests round about. That would hardly be practical for the centre of Birmingham or Manchester.

My noble friend Lord Jenkin spoke about the need to have security of supply as a priority over other very desirable considerations, such as carbon emissions and low energy prices. The people of Birmingham or Manchester would be very unforgiving in the event of substantive power cuts. Our high-density urban housing is heated almost exclusively by gas. There will be no alternative fuel to be used by those households. The Government's White Paper rightly talks about fuel poverty. However, on these Benches, we believe that they are complacent about fuel famine.

As for industry, it would be the first victim of power allocation. We have always had interruptible power contracts for major industrial users, but in the event of a power famine we might have to return to the nightmare of regular brownouts, and not just for electricity.

We have seen the significant effects of power cuts on the public transport system. When I pursued the Minister on that, his body language was very revealing. There seemed to be something with which the Minister was not comfortable. With the demise of the Lots Road facility, is the Minister confident that there is no risk of disaster on the Underground or elsewhere on the rail system in the event of a significant failure of the electricity supply system?

The good news is that my information is that we are unlikely to see power cuts this winter unless the conditions are exceptional. I expect that the Minister will say something similar when he responds. But I think that your Lordships would feel even more comfortable if he put some flesh on his caveat when he calmly tells us not to worry ourselves.

What weather conditions does the Minister think constitute exceptional circumstances? For instance, how many days with a daytime temperature at however many degrees below zero would he exceptional? We have had several exceptionally mild winters; we do not want to be caught out by an average winter. The noble Lord, Lord Tombs, talked about a false sense of security. The noble Lord, Lord Stoddart, talked about the possibility that demand might be higher this winter than last winter. He also pointed out the difficulties of bringing plant out of mothballs quickly.

Your Lordships seem to have three strands of concern about power supplies. The first is the sources of primary fuel and the mix—or, rather, the lack of it. It seems that a large proportion eventually will be gas, as observed by many noble Lords. As a net exporter, we do not need to have much gas storage capacity. But, as an importer, we will be obliged to store gas under the EU energy directive. My understanding is that the French store 70 days worth of gas. How many days of gas supply does the Minister think that we should store? Are there the regulatory levers in place to make that happen? We also use vast amounts of oil for transport, but that is not relevant to today's debate.

The noble Lord, Lord Ezra, talked about coal and clean coal technology. I have no romantic ideas about UK deep-mined coal, but we should maintain a significant coal burn. The Minister will need to respond to the points made by the noble Lord. However, the EU large combustion plant directive clearly will have a big impact. I understand that a noncompliant plant can be used for a short while during a year. That would be useful if there was no wind for the UK wind farms. However, does the Minister have any plans to avoid non-complaint but fully serviceable plant being scrapped and to have it put in mothballs instead? If he did so, it would be available in the event of a crisis, but there would be a cost of maintaining it.

Many noble Lords, including my noble friends Lord Peyton and Lord Gray of Contin have talked today or recently about new nuclear build. I think that the people of the country are relaxed about nuclear power, but they have been convinced that the problems of nuclear waste are insurmountable. My noble friend Lord Gray briefly talked about the Finnish experience. My noble friend Lord Peyton talked about the cardinal errors being made regarding the Government's nuclear policy—or, perhaps, a lack of nuclear policy. I think that my noble friend is right.

The Select Committee of your Lordships' House has shown the way towards establishing a deep geological depository for the waste. As I observed at Second Reading of the Energy Bill, the Government have put that issue itself into a deep geological depository. I have asked the next question before, but I have not received a satisfactory answer. What possible conclusion could CoWRM come to other than to build a deep geological depository, as outlined in the Select Committee report?

Many noble Lords, including the noble Lord, Lord Stoddart, have identified the folly of relying on renewables when only wind seems to be effective, if expensive, and with its own difficulties. My noble friend Lord Gray said that the reliance on wind was "highly irresponsible" and that this was because there might be no wind due to meteorological conditions just at the point of maximum electricity demand.

The second strand is the transmission and distribution infrastructure, the failure of which caused the August 2003 blackout. It is to be hoped that that was a wake-up call for the Government. Can the Minister assure the House that the regulatory mechanisms that will be in place after the implementation of the Energy Bill will be sufficient to ensure that major failure cannot occur again?

The third and final strand is that of generating capacity, which is the excess of supply over demand rather than the mix, or lack of it, both now and in the future. Many noble Lords have focused on that, including my noble friend Lord Jenkin. He pointed out that the market mechanisms have many benefits, but they are not a panacea, especially in the long term. I hope that the Minister can respond to his questions.

I can see how market signals can motivate generators to take plant out of mothballs and into service. What I do not understand is how the market can signal the need to build new plant. Even if those signals are received, the market might respond with the shortest lead-time solution, which would be gas fuelled, as mentioned by the noble Lord, Lord Tombs. That could be despite increasing pressure on gas supplies and prices.

I cannot see how the market could stimulate new nuclear or any other build given the long lead time, and the determination of the Government not to make progress on nuclear waste management. It may be that the Government are relaxed about the lack of a UK nuclear science base on the grounds that we can always import the necessary technology under licence, if necessary.

The problem is that in the future we may be struggling to find enough nuclear scientists and engineers to decommission our current nuclear infrastructure, let alone examine even the safety case of a new plant from a position of skill and experience. I share the concern of many noble Lords about the split in energy responsibilities between the two departments of state; namely, the DTI and Defra. Who is responsible for keeping the lights on? Which Secretary of State? In conclusion, we are not convinced that we have secure electricity supplies for the foreseeable future.

My Lords, we are all grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Tombs, for introducing the debate. This time last year, he sent out signals to which the Government reacted at the time. I shall seek to identify areas in which action has been taken during the intervening 12 months in response to some of the short-term issues, also identified by the noble Lord, Lord Jenkin. Noble Lords will recognise that in this debate I have both to respond to short-term issues—anxieties have been expressed about last winter and the margins at that time and how well we will get through this winter—and, at the same time, to address intermediate and longer-term issues in terms of how we provide energy for the country in this decade and for decades to come.

I want to emphasise that I regard the noble Lord's introduction as most thought-provoking. We take the points that he made very seriously. I completely disavow any intention that the noble Lord, Lord Peyton, thought that I might have of engaging in party-political banter over such an issue. Far from it; this is an issue on which we are all united in recognising that the need of power for our country is as significant as any requirement could be. As the Government, it is our job to address ourselves to issues both in the short term where there have been one or two problem areas identified, and, of course, in the longer term.

In the international context, we are aware that in recent months others have suffered some severe shortages of electricity, which have brought home to us what, in advanced economies, a shortage of power supply really represents. We all recall the colossal problems in North America a few months ago. Of course, we have had minor problems ourselves. I say "minor" because the numbers of people affected have been relatively few or, if a large number of people have been affected. it has been for a very short period of time and in a very particular way.

Nevertheless, any shortage in our electricity supplies has a marked impact on the way people conduct their lives and that is why we need to set out to guarantee that power failures will not occur in this country. While we may not be able to give a 100 per cent guarantee—no system known to man can achieve perfection in such a complex area—we want a transmission system that meets the standards we have set in the past and want to see in the future, one that delivers power 99.9999 per cent of the time. When a failure occurs, we shall address the causes of that failure and learn lessons from it.

The noble Lord referred to the difficulties caused by the storms last winter and the breakdown in power supplies that occurred in certain areas. The then Minister for Energy immediately instigated a review by the consultants British Power International of how companies performed during that difficult period. The report indicated that some companies had performed better than others and the recommendations made were conveyed to each of the companies involved, asking them to take steps to improve their performance in the event of future storms.

In August 2003, my honourable friend the Minister for Energy, Stephen Timms, wrote to all the companies concerned inquiring about progress on implementation of the BPI recommendations. It is apparent that all of the companies have responded to the findings of the BPI report by implementing numerous initiatives aimed at better performance in the aftermath or future storms. Such initiatives include dedicated emergency planning managers, better facilities to predict resource requirements in view of weather forecasts, more rigorous testing of management contingency plans and better communications with local authorities and the media. While we cannot predict storms, we can ensure that reactive mechanisms are in place which are sufficiently robust to guarantee that the impact on people from any potential difficulties is reduced to the absolute minimum.

The BPI report also made certain generic recommendations. To consider these and further to encourage the distribution network operators towards best practice in storm performance, representatives from the DTI, Ofgem and the DNOs established the Network Resilience Working Group. Energywatch was subsequently invited to participate. That structure has been put in place to improve as best we can the response to the impact of these kinds of short-term problems. Although over recent years we have enjoyed mild winters, storms can have a devastating effect in certain areas, so we need to have in place robust measures in order to be able to respond in an effective manner.

The noble Earl, Lord Attlee, referred to another short-term event; that is, the power cut on 28 August last year which affected the London Underground system. Let me assure the noble Earl that the Government acted quickly to meet concerns over the power cut. The Minister for Energy wrote to National Grid Transco registering his concerns and asked it to provide him with full reports on the nature of the breakdown. The reports outlined that the power failure appeared to be the result of isolated equipment problems rather than a general fault in the net work or a shortage of generation. However, I agree with the noble Earl that when a system as significant as the London Tube network is out of action for even a short period, it has a devastating effect on many hundreds of thousands of our fellow citizens. That is why we need to be as robust as possible in our response to such events.

Much of the debate has pursued an argument which has been presented to the House at Question Time, and in which I have been privileged to play a small and humble part; that is, operating margins. The noble Lord, Lord Peyton, addressed the matter with great eloquence and, at certain points, with a measure of dolefulness that I do not fully share with him as regards what the present operating margin represents.

Let me emphasise one point. Last October I wrote to the noble Lord, Lord Jenkin of Roding, and indicated that at that point there had been an improvement in the generating margin from 16 per cent to 18 per cent and that I hoped that the margin would improve further over the next few months. That has proved to be the case. We now have an operating margin of 20.9 per cent. While I recognise that that is a very different margin from those sustained in the mid-1980s, I thought that noble Lords opposite in particular had then engaged in a transformation of our energy supply industries on the basis that those margins were too wide and often concealed an uneconomic approach to energy supply. Today we have a system that is more market sensitive and works to more realistic operating margins.

The noble Lord, Lord Tombs, may disagree with the assessment of the position, but let me point out that it is clear that the market is responding to the signals being sent out and is increasing the necessary margin for this winter. I imagine that, for the foreseeable future, there will be considerable dispute about what the margin should be, but that should be set against the background of our assertion that, on recent experience, the margin has held up well enough to guarantee supplies to our people. If it is contended that we have been extraordinarily fortunate, that the weather has been particularly benign or that people have not been switching on their new-fangled technology and consumer goods to the same extent and that all these factors have to be taken into account, let me say that of course we recognise that increasing demands will be made for power supplies. The noble Lord, Lord Stoddart, identified the point. We are concerned to ensure that, in the longer term, those needs are met. However, in the context of the Kyoto agreements, we are quite properly addressing the ways in which energy production will shift over time.

I recognise that some noble Lords such as the noble Lord, Lord Gray of Contin, who expressed himself in gentle but stringent terms, believe that the generating margin can be met only in terms of nuclear generation. The Government do not have a closed mind on this issue. We recognise that if a gap was to emerge in our ability to sustain the necessary energy margins which could be filled only by increased nuclear generation, then that option is being kept open. That is why resources are being devoted to ensuring that we continue to produce people with the necessary research background and technical skills to sustain our nuclear industry—not only in the management of the run-down of the industry as projected in the White Paper, but also, if necessary, in order to enhance nuclear production. That was expressed quite clearly last year as government policy.

However, we do not foresee that nuclear generation will be necessary because we have several other strings to our bow. One of those is our commitment to renewable energy, which I do not think has been given as warm-hearted a response this evening as it might deserve. Derisive references were made to "windmills", suggesting Don Quixote and the 16th century. However, we are talking about sophisticated wind turbines. It has also been suggested that they will all fail at the same time because the wind is intermittent. The whole concept of wind turbine power generation is predicated on their very wide dispersal right across the United Kingdom. Only a brave person would attest that because it is calm in one part of the country, it would be calm in all parts. Obviously that is not the case.

There is of course an intermittency factor—I do not seek to underestimate that—and that is why we are devoting resources to the storage of electricity from such production units. We have not made the progress we would have wanted to make by this point but we have to recognise that if a resource has within it a factor of intermittency, a storage element is of importance. We cannot discount that factor.

Let me reassure the noble Lord, Lord Stoddart, that the contribution of renewables will be a part of the equation of the margin of capacity. Equally, it is not as certain a source of supply as various other energy sources. We will need to build in a greater unreliability and uncertainty factor because of the nature of the resource. But anyone who contends that, if we evaluated these figures over a certain number of days per year we could not guarantee that under most climatic circumstances the wind would blow sufficiently in order to guarantee that the turbines will produce a certain percentage of our electricity, underestimates the analysis undertaken when we seek to advance the contribution of renewables to the overall position.

If we fail to reach the target—which is not a modest one—of obtaining 10 per cent of our resources from renewables by 2010 we shall have to address the issue of filling that gap from other sources. It was indicated that "other sources" could be exceedingly unreliable. It is of course the case that the only safe and reliable energy resource is one which lies utterly and totally within one's boundaries, exploitable only by companies totally committed to selling only within the United Kingdom. That is the blessed state which was the basis of our glorious days of industrial revolution in the 19th century, and more recently to a degree.

However, in the 21st century, such a luxury is not vouchsafed to us or to any other country in the world. At the present time, with the exception of Canada, all G7 countries import energy. Noble Lords will be aware that one of the most significant economies—the Japanese economy—has had a bumpy ride of late, but I do not believe that any of your Lordships attributes that to a particular energy problem even though the Japanese economy is dependent totally upon the import of energy.

When we say that we will have a reliance upon gas imports and that the indications have been that these will be from unreliable sources, that will be true for every country in Europe. We will be dependent upon the supply lines that the rest of Europe is dependent upon. It is inconceivable that the Government would construct an energy policy without taking into account the huge amount of natural resources that have been developed in parts of the world distant from Europe. Efforts have been directed towards producing an adequate and successful pipeline capacity to deliver, and Germany, the Netherlands, Italy, central Europe, Poland and the United Kingdom are all in the same position. We are part of an economic framework which will be dependent upon the successful transmission of these resources.

When noble Lords indicate their anxieties about these resources, it is of course accurate to say that they are less reliable than indigenous resources. But if that had been the overwhelming case that ought to have obtained in regard to energy supplies, the history of the coal industry in this country would have been very different over the past three or four decades and we would not be in the position we are in today.

I recognise the properly articulated anxieties of noble Lords. The Government cannot be complacent about the issue of the electricity supply of a country and society which is totally dependent upon its effective distribution from the networks for its essential energy. I emphasise that the Government have learnt the lessons from last winter and from the issues introduced by the noble Lord in his contribution to the House. It is almost 12 months to the day since he first introduced them.

We shall consider the debate very seriously. The noble Lord, Lord Peyton, sometimes casts slight doubt on my effectiveness in the Department of Trade and Industry. I pay due regard to the fact that I am not there 90 per cent of the time as I have other obligations in the House. Nevertheless, an important debate has taken place in the House to which I am obliged to respond. In that context, the issues raised need to be addressed in a serious way.

My Lords, I understand that in the time available the Minister may not be able to deal with all the points that have been raised. But I asked him a specific question about the nine-point recommendation in the National Grid Transco report. Perhaps he will be kind enough to write to me on how many of those nine points are being implemented.

My Lords, I intended to refer to that issue in my general response to the question about the lessons we are learning from developments over the past few months. The noble Lord will recognise the constraints of time. A number of specific questions have been asked but I have not been able to do justice to all of them. I shall write to the noble Lord on that point. I know the importance he attaches to it. If I am not effective in that respect, I suspect that he will use the forum of the Committee stage of the Energy Bill to address the issue. I am not neglecting the point. The noble Lord will recognise that in such a wide-ranging debate I am not able to respond to every particular point.

I hope that I have indicated to the House that the Government have acted promptly in areas where particular problems were identified last winter in regard to short-term factors. We have addressed those issues and they have been a part of the burden of the debate.

As to the more general issues in regard to energy policy, I can only state that the Government's policy has been well defined in recent months. Noble Lords have identified their anxieties about particular parts of that policy. I hope—I suspect it may be a forlorn hope—-that I have set parts of some minds at rest on these issues. I have no doubt that, either under the guidance of the noble Lord, Lord Tombs, or others, we shall return to these fundamental issues, which are basic to our society and our economy.

My Lords, I thank noble Lords who have taken part in the debate for their contributions both this year and last in the case of those other patient souls.

Perhaps I may make some general remarks and then turn to the Minister's helpful reply. The common theme of all contributions is security of supply. I chose to make my speech about that today to try to highlight the fact that there is no reliable information available. That comes clearly through the seven-year statement. Because of the formation of the industry, there is no one able to collect reliable data—and unreliable data do not lead to reliable conclusions. This is a warning for the Government, as much as anything—I am trying very hard to be constructive. The collection of this data is not the National Grid/Transco's job. That is not its field of expertise, and never was. But it fills a vacuum which arises from the structure of the industry.

I spend a fair amount of time talking to people who used to work for me in the industry. Some are still employed, some are retired. I find among all of them a great concern about the lack of clear direction in the industry. Morale is low.

There are problems, too, in the investment community. The Minister may know that the Carbon Trust recently commissioned a consultants' report on the attitude of investors to investing in renewable energy. The investors said that they had so far lost £4.5 billion on what they describe as conventional power stations, by which I think they mean non-renewable source power stations, probably including nuclear. That is a big hangover, and it does not fill them with enthusiasm when it comes to trusting the Government. Much of this arose, of course, from that unfortunate regulator error of NETA, which we discussed last year and which will haunt us for a long time.

On the general question of procrastination, I chaired a Select Committee inquiry into the disposal of nuclear waste almost exactly five years ago. For four and a half years, that gathered dust steadily in a number of departments. It has recently surfaced with the Nuclear Decommissioning Authority, but it still has made no progress on the construction of a long-term disposal facility. The problems are not real; the problems faced by other countries are just being kicked around by various departments, I fear.

Let me turn to a few points made by the Minister. First, I did not in fact refer to winter storms, although he was kind enough to say that I did. I excluded the question of distribution and transmission interruptions, and said that I wanted to concentrate on plant margin. If I have made my note correctly, I think he may have cause to regret his claim that the plant margin has improved to the point where we can guarantee supplies. I stand to be corrected, but I shall look at Hansard with more than usual interest.

My other point is a minor correction. Interconnected trading goes on all the time. Electricity is bought and sold. The point I sought to make is that it cannot be relied upon at peak by any country because there is no contract for exports at peak between countries. That is just a common thing.

I cannot expect—indeed, I did not expect—a detailed response to all my points because of course the Minister had no notice of those points and he cannot come here briefed about every possibility. But I hope that he has taken what I have said seriously and that the Government will realise the fragile ground on which they are standing in the seven-year statement. It is prepared with the best of intentions and done in the best way possible, but the information is duff and the results are duff. I do not know whether the Hansard reporter can spell that—it is D-U-F-F.

I have enjoyed the debate. I cannot guarantee not to raise the subject again in a year's time. If I had more faith in governments listening hard and looking at the facts, I might, but I will not guarantee it. I beg leave to withdraw the Motion.

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

I can tell your Lordships that the Bill has the support of the ports industry, which has identified an anomaly in the Harbours Act 1964. This Bill is intended to remove that anomaly and is essentially a Bill to achieve a much needed degree of deregulation for the ports industry by applying the same rules to the maritime sector as are applied successfully to other transport modes.

I should remind your Lordships that I introduced a similar Bill into this House in the last Session. That Bill was debated and passed through all its stages in this House. During the passage of the earlier Bill through this House, the Government expressed their support for it, and so did the Opposition, the Liberal Democrats and some Cross-Benchers, for which I am very grateful.

Amendments were moved on behalf of the Government in Committee. Those amendments were made. They were drafted by parliamentary counsel. They did not alter the principle of the Bill but put it into a form which ensured that it would be fit to be enacted. I can assure your Lordships that the Bill before us is in the form of the earlier Bill as it was amended on behalf of the Government.

After the earlier Bill passed through all its stages in this House, it was introduced into another place where it was read a second time and referred to a Standing Committee. Unfortunately, there was insufficient time for that Bill to proceed any further in that Session. However, this Bill has made a much earlier start and, if it passes through all its stages in this House, I would expect it to arrive in another place in good time to be fully considered there.

The background of the Bill requires some technical explanation. Sections 14 to 16 of the Harbours Act 1964 empower the Secretary of State to make harbour orders. Such orders are required, for example, to establish or reconstitute harbour authorities or to confer on existing harbour authorities additional powers to construct harbour works or to manage their harbours.

The procedure for the making of harbour orders is set out in Schedule 3 to the 1964 Act. It provides for objections to the making of a proposed harbour order to be sent to the Secretary of State within a six-week period from the time the proposal is advertised. Where such an objection is made and not withdrawn, the Secretary of State must—and I emphasise "must"—hold a public inquiry to consider the proposal, unless he determines that the objection is trivial or frivolous. The result is that a public inquiry must be held even if there is only one outstanding objection, unless the Secretary of State determines that the objection is trivial or frivolous. The Secretary of State, quite rightly and properly, rarely categorises an objection as such; and an objection made by a local resident who expresses a concern is in practice very unlikely to be determined to be trivial or frivolous.

There have been a number of cases in which a single outstanding objection to an order has necessitated the holding of a public inquiry giving rise to considerable expense and delay. These cases include two examples which I will briefly summarise. The first is the Felixstowe Dock and Railway Harbour Revision Order. The port of Felixstowe is the largest container port in the UK and the fourth largest in Europe. It applied in October 2000 for a harbour revision order to authorise major new harbour works of considerable local and national significance. By November 2001, all but one of several objections had been withdrawn following the provision of appropriate assurances and undertakings to bodies such as the Environment Agency and the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds.

However, as a result of the single outstanding objection—lodged and maintained by a local resident—a public inquiry took place over seven sitting days, resulting in the making of the order being delayed until October 2002. In his decision, the Secretary of State stated:

The project should proceed for imperative reasons of overriding public interest".

It is the industry's view—and mine, too—that if the Secretary of State had been able to deal with the objection by written representations, as provided for in this Bill, it is likely that the order could have been made in or about February 2002, a saving of about seven months, and considerable delay and substantial costs would have been avoided.

My second example is the Whitehaven Harbour Revision Order 1996. Whitehaven, at the other end of the country, is a completely different, smaller harbour. In 1995, the Whitehaven Harbour Commissioners applied for a harbour revision order to authorise the construction of a lock and other harbour works as a key part of an urgently needed scheme for the regeneration of Whitehaven town and the local area.

Objections were made by holders of harbours bonds which had been issued in the 19th century to finance port expansion. The bonds had virtually no market value and Whitehaven harbour was, by the time of the order, very little used and heading towards insolvency. However, the bond holders objected to the order on the grounds that the effect of the works would be to undermine the commercial value of their bonds.

Following discussions with the Whitehaven Harbour Commissioners, three bond holders refused to withdraw their objections in the knowledge that their action would lead to a public inquiry, thereby resulting in a delay which could have led to the loss of European Community funding. As a condition of withdrawing their objections, they required that their bonds should be purchased at considerably more than their minimal market value. To resolve the issue, a number of private individuals contributed money to purchase the bonds—which is an interesting thing to do—and the order was eventually made in June 1996. In this example, the current system was used to hold to ransom a public project of considerable local economic significance. The situation would not have arisen if the Secretary of State had had the power to consider those objections by means of written representations.

The ports industry feels strongly that the present position is unsatisfactory and that the Harbours Act 1964 requires amendment. I understand that there is no proposal to include in the next parliamentary Session a transport Bill that could be a suitable vehicle for such an amendment, and officials have given no indication about when parliamentary time could be found for a government Bill. Hence, I have introduced this Bill.

The effect of the Bill would be to bring the procedure for the making of harbour orders into line with the procedures for making highways or transport and works orders. The Secretary of State would retain a discretion to hold a public inquiry in all cases. When an objection is made by a relevant local authority or by a person whose land is proposed to be compulsorily acquired and who requests a hearing, the Secretary of State would be required either to hold a public inquiry or a public hearing. In other cases, the Secretary of State would have the discretion, instead of holding a public inquiry or hearing, to deal with the objection by written representations.

Neither the Highways Act 1980 nor the Transport and Works Act 1992 expressly provides that, when objections have been made and sustained and the Secretary of State has decided to proceed without an inquiry or hearing, he must deal with those objections by means of written representations. However, both those Acts provide that, in such circumstances, the Secretary of State must consider those objections and, as a matter of practice, consider any further written representations made by the objectors and the applicant to the order when those representations are volunteered or made at his invitation A similar procedure for written representations would follow on the enactment of the Bill when read with paragraph 19(1)(d) of Schedule 3 to the Harbours Act 1964, which provides that the Secretary of State must consider any objections which are made and not withdrawn.

Before closing, there are two matters which I should mention. First, I believe that the Bill is consistent with the provisions of the Human Rights Act. In particular, in the case of a landowner whose land is to be subject to compulsory acquisition by means of a harbour order, his right to require a public inquiry will be retained.

Secondly, there have been consultations between the British Ports Association, the Department for Transport and stakeholder bodies such as the Environment Agency and the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds. The Department and those bodies have expressed support for the Bill. However, the RSPB feels that, to ensure that wildlife interests are fully protected, the Bill should be amended to provide that the Secretary of State would be required to hold an inquiry to consider objections when English Nature or the Countryside Council for Wales objects to an application for an order and informs the Secretary of State that the agency or the council wish their objection to be referred to a local inquiry. I am pleased to say that the ports industry welcomes the constructive approach of the RSPB and, if the Bill is given a Second Reading, I shall propose an amendment at Committee stage to meet the points raised by, and agreed with, the RSPB.

In conclusion, if the Bill is enacted it will enable the Secretary of State to exercise his discretion in appropriate circumstances to speed up the process for making orders under the Harbours Act. It will reduce red tape and be welcomed by the ports industry and many others. I ask your Lordships to give the Bill a Second Reading.

My Lords, I rise to give the Bill a hearty welcome as it simplifies and curtails the procedures necessary in the case of harbour revision orders. As your Lordships know, shipping is a highly competitive industry, not only in terms of ships themselves but in terms of ports and the facilities provided through ports, or in the context of ports. Furthermore, the competition between ports is international, except perhaps in Australia, where there is no alternative but to go to an Australian port.

In north-west Europe, the international competition is fierce—and I might single out a particular part of north-west Europe, along the shores of the English Channel and just beyond. Therefore, it is of national importance that we do not lose out. Time is money, not only in the sense that vast capital sums have to be spent in setting up new ports or altering ports, but also because the money is all up front. The sooner that income can be brought in to support that effort, the better.

I know that it does not normally follow but. as my name implies, I actually live in Lymington, so I have a distinct local interest in the port of Southampton and the efforts to establish a new terminal at Dibden Bay. I have no financial interest, but a considerable local interest. It seems to me that it has an unfortunate history compared to its rival, which is the port of Le Havre. The Dibden Bay application was made in October 2000, but it took more than a year for a public inquiry to be started. It began on 22 November 2001 and wound its weary way—and I read a great deal about it in the local papers—until 12 December 2002. That is 13 months. I do not know for certain, but rumour has it that the inquiry report was handed to the Secretary of State in October 2003, but still we do not know the answer.

Let us compare that to the situation in Le Havre. In that case, a public inquiry, or some form of inquiry, was held between 24 November and 23 March 2001, which is four months as compared with our 13 months. Dredging began in the following year, and the new container terminal is expected to open in the middle of this year.

There are undoubtedly major issues involved. For example, there is an issue about the need for the terminal in Dibden Bay. Personally—although I do not have any technical knowledge of the matter—I would be a bit surprised if ABP, the owners of the port, would be prepared to pour vast sums of money into the project if there was no need. However, that was one of the matters that was bandied about at the inquiry. There are also considerations of whether there are adequate communications into the hinterland. By that I do not mean the immediate hinterland, but rail communications up to the north and the Midlands. They are important issues. There are also issues of marine safety.

All those issues can be considered without a public inquiry, because they are technical in nature. However, they were being bandied about by people who, with the greatest respect to the objectors—if one really strips the matter down—were simply battening on to the issues on the general proposition, "Not in my back yard". That proposition was not actually put forward, but that is what it amounted to. As a nation, we cannot afford to have the nimbys of the world holding up economic progress. It may be that there is no case for Dibden Bay; I do not know, and that is not a matter for me. However, whether there is or is not, the time spent inquiring into it is something that we should curtail.

With those words of support, I express the hope that the Bill will go through virtually unamended. I should like to look at the amendment about the birds, mentioned by the noble Lord, Lord Berkeley. If the birds can force a public inquiry at any time, I am not sure how far we are down the road of improvement.

My Lords, for the second time in under a year I rise to support the noble Lord, Lord Berkeley, on the Harbours Bill. I must declare an interest at the outset. I have been a consultant in the ports business for more than a dozen years, although I have not actually worked for any British port for three or four years.

As a result of my experience in the business, I am only too well aware of the frustration of those in the ports and the shipping industries concerning delays to harbour revision plans as a result of objections to orders, some of which, to put it politely, seem to lack any common sense at all.

I very much welcome this modest Bill's aim of simplifying the objection procedures in relation to port orders. This will not only bring ports into line with highways and other transport works but will, more importantly, save both time and money. I need hardly add that I fully concur with everything that the noble and learned Lord, Lord Donaldson, said about the competitiveness of the ports business, particularly in relation to Southampton and Le Havre, both of which I worked with some years ago. I know full well how frustrated the people in Southampton are. I wish the noble Lord, Lord Berkeley, well with this Bill and I hope his problems with the birds are sorted out.

My Lords, like the two previous speakers, I was here less than a year ago to offer my support to the Bill. I should add a word of warning. I was present at a meeting this morning which was seeking a Transport and Works Act order. I was told that English Nature—not the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds; I believe that English Nature was mentioned—with which consultants have spent considerable time exploring different ways of meeting their objections, said that whatever is done, it is obliged by its constitution to object.

I fear—the Minister may care to take account of this—that we may be making a rod for our own backs by giving certain objectors extremely strong grounds for objecting. We may even be saying that they must object to a proposal even if the promoters have done their damnedest to employ consultants to meet the objections. Whatever scheme is being proposed, whether it is a port, a railway or a road, one is bound to do some damage while building it. There is a great case for restitution afterwards or for improving things, but you cannot make the proverbial omelette without cracking a few eggs at the outset. I wish the Bill good speed. We were discussing planning yesterday, and the noble Lord, Lord Rooker, was at pains to tell us that the Government's aim is to do everything possible to streamline planning. While I defend the right of a genuine objector, I recognise what the noble and learned Lord, Lord Donaldson, said. Some people become objectors—I would dismiss many of them as absolutely frivolous and trivial objectors—simply because, in many cases, they have nothing better to do than to stand in front of an inquiry talking absolute rubbish. We want to avoid that whenever we can.

I certainly support the Bill's aim, which is to promote an efficient ports industry. I wish the Bill all speed. I hope that the Government will ensure that when it goes to another place this year, it receives sufficient time to be passed.

My Lords, we support the Bill in principle. I suppose that the big question is whether it has the Government's support and whether the Minister will back it and indeed encourage its passage through another place. Perhaps he can also confirm the statement by the noble Lord, Lord Berkeley, that it complies with the Human Rights Act.

The noble Lord, Lord Berkeley, raised an important point about the one amendment he proposes making after his conversations with the RSPB. I believe he said that if there were an objection from English Nature, the Government should consider holding a public inquiry. I agree with the comments of the noble Lord, Lord Bradshaw. The noble Lord, Lord Berkeley, may have fashioned a rod with which he could be beaten. I suspect that the RSPB will encourage English Nature to object on principle to every single proposal regardless of whether it is good or bad. Because of that pressure, English Nature also will feel obliged to object to every proposal on principle, so that a public inquiry is held. English Nature will feel that unless it does so, someone could come along and say, "There is an amendment to the Bill which says that if there is an objection, there should be a public inquiry; and if you do not object on principle, we will ask you to go to judicial review".

The noble Lord, Lord Bradshaw, is absolutely right about that. From my side, I advise the noble Lord, Lord Berkeley, to consider very carefully the terms of his amendment. I should be interested to hear what the Minister says about it. If the amendment has such consequences, I suspect that the noble Lord will have defeated the Bill's core aim. I see the noble and learned Lord nodding. for which I am grateful. I am grateful also for his support for the Bill. His comments on Southampton and Le Havre were very interesting.

I think we all agree that although we want local representation to be paramount in major planning issues, we also want—and I believe that this is the Government's aim—to ensure that major projects are not delayed as they have been. The Terminal 5 inquiry has been a testament to the failure of government on both sides. I am not being partisan by saying that the system has taken such a long time to come to a conclusion. That is not satisfactory from anyone's point of view, whether of the promoters or the objectors to the scheme. We certainly support the Government's intention of making make the planning system simpler and more effective. I noted the support of the noble Lord, Lord Greenway, who has expertise in these matters. We support the Bill. As I said, we are concerned about the amendment proposed by the noble Lord, Lord Berkeley. I hope that he and the Government will consider it carefully.

My Lords, the Government's intervention in this debate will be brief for two reasons. First, there is a large element of déjà vu in this debate; it is the second time that my noble friend Lord Berkeley has brought the measure before the House. Everyone has expressed support for the Bill. Perhaps we should all congratulate him on his persistence in pressing the measure.

The Bill also had the benefit of advice from parliamentary counsel during its previous passage. The Government make plain our support for its objective. I n the circumstances, as I am sure noble Lords will understand, my comments will be very similar to those relayed by my noble friend Lord McIntosh in the Second Reading debate in the previous Session.

As all speakers have averred, the Bill's objective is essentially to streamline—one could say to deregulate to a small degree—the procedure for handling objections to harbour orders. As my noble friend Lord Berkeley said, it is a simple technical measure which will bring harbour order procedures into line with more recent arrangements, for example, under the planning system. The noble Lord, Lord Berkeley, gave some interesting examples. I add one in the Brighton context, oddly enough, where moves towards the restoration of the West Pier have been held up by a commercial objector, in part using the harbour orders procedures to provoke a delay. We are all well aware of the potential adverse conditions that currently pertain and want to move on from that.

The House will know that harbours in this count ry are managed by harbour authorities, which act as statutory undertakers with powers conferred originally by private Act of Parliament. These powers have been used to authorise the original construction of the port and to enable the harbour authority to regulate the safe and efficient use of those facilities. Harbour authorities are, of course, also subject to a body of general legislation, but their local powers remain centrally important to the operation of our ports.

Harbour authorities need to be able to revise their powers from time to time to keep them up to date and to meet new needs, new pressures and new demands. It may be appropriate, for example, to change the constitution of a harbour authority, or to move the harbour limit, or to update the powers it has to make by-laws and other local regulations.

New powers are also needed to authorise harbour works, mainly because works in tidal waters interfere with rights of navigation, and because the authority's regulatory powers have to be statutorily extended to any new facilities. A harbour empowerment order is also occasionally proposed to create a new harbour authority.

As is well known, until 1964, a harbour authority's statutory powers could be revised only by private Act. The Harbours Act 1964 created a procedure to make harbour orders. These are statutory instruments made by the Department for Transport. The 1964 Act may have seemed modern in its day but it has been overtaken by procedural practice, notably by the Transport and Works Act 1992. This Bill would bring it back up to date.

The procedure for making a harbour order begins with an application from the harbour authority, or would-be harbour authority in the case of an empowerment order. Applications are advertised so that people have a chance to object or make representations. I emphasise that this is very important. It is entirely right that there should be this opportunity, and that it should be accessible. It should not be used mischievously. As we have heard, it can on occasion fall into that trap.

The 1964 Act makes provision for a public inquiry instead, and it says that one has to be held if there is just one outstanding objection—as a number of noble Lords have said— unless that objection is frivolous or too trivial.

As many noble Lords have said, inquiries are disproportionate in some cases. Harbour authorities can be deterred from making highly desirable changes by the delay, uncertainty and, as many noble Lords have said, cost. It is hard to plan a proposal without knowing if just one objection might lead to an inquiry.

Inquiries can be inaccessible to some objectors, especially ordinary members of the public, who would often find a hearing or written representations far less daunting. I believe that is part of the appeal of the Bill. Only highly organised and well resourced objectors can afford expert representation although that is not always a good use of their funds. If the promoter is a large enterprise, there is a risk of lack of balance in the way in which opposing cases are presented. Even when an objector is well resourced and able to afford representation, it is not necessarily a good use of their money.

The Town and Country Planning Act and the Transport and Works Act allow hearings and written representations as an alternative to an inquiry. As has been argued in this case, this simply brings the harbours and ports legislation into line. Importantly, these more modern procedures still give objectors a full right to be properly heard, but without the formality and expense of an inquiry where this is not appropriate. I am pleased to see that this Bill preserves the right to an inquiry where one's land is compulsorily acquired or the objector is a local authority. The Transport and Works Act does exactly the same. This is very important in relation to satisfying the Human Rights Act. That point was raised in today's debate.

I have also noted—the noble Viscount, Lord Astor, raised this point—that the noble Lord intends to move an amendment at a later stage to add the Government's statutory advisers on nature conservation issues to the list of those with a right to an inquiry. For reasons that have been expressed we shall have to reserve our position on the proposal until the time for its consideration. It has been brought forward understandably to ameliorate the concerns of nature conservation bodies but there may be an issue of consistency with other legislation to be taken into account.

The regulatory impact assessment shows that the change would cost nothing and would benefit ports—and objectors—of all sizes. I assure the House that appropriate use only would be made of the new discretion. The Secretary of State would not use it to avoid inquiries where they need to be held. We have plenty of precedents from the planning system to guide us on when discretion should he exercised. The Bill, if enacted, would make a useful contribution to the Government's overall policy of streamlining planning and related procedures. For all those reasons we give it our support and wish it well

My Lords, I am extremely grateful to noble Lords on all sides of the House who contributed so positively to the debate. I start by addressing the remarks of the noble and learned Lord, Lord Donaldson, who made an excellent point when comparing the timing of the Dibden Bay development with that of the Le Havre development. I did not give an example in that context but I shall mention one that may be relevant. I worked for 15 years on the Channel Tunnel. Permission was sought to construct it on this side of the Channel through a hybrid Bill. That process took over two years and cost heaven knows how many millions. The equivalent process in France took six weeks. It was said that if you want to build in a swamp, you do not consult the frogs and so on. However, the French people were consulted and the French authorities had a national policy.

I am not suggesting that we should introduce such dramatic changes here, but it is encouraging that the Government are now looking at the planning process as a whole and trying to speed it up. That is greatly to be welcomed, as the noble Lord, Lord Bradshaw, indicated.

It is clear that any Bill such as this will help harbours with developments on which general agreement is reached. As we heard in a debate just before Christmas, there is demand for extra port capacity. Several noble Lords referred to that. It is a question of providing that capacity in an acceptable fashion which costs as little as possible. I hope that the Bill will constitute a small contribution towards that.

Many noble Lords said that we need to reconsider the discussions we have had with the RSPB and others regarding their role in a public inquiry. I take on board comments made by many noble Lords that that may have other consequences that need to be looked at. I am sure that we can do that in the forthcoming stages of the Bill.

I again thank all noble Lords who have given the Bill such positive support.