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Local Government Finance
7. Mr. Roy Hughes: To ask the Secretary of State for Wales what representations he has received from local authorities in respect of the level of settlement for rate support grant. [14447]
Mr. Hague: I met representatives of local government at a meeting of the Welsh Consultative Council on Local Government Finance on 16 December, and my hon. Friend the Under-Secretary of State met representatives of police authorities in Wales on 10 January. I received about 28 written representations and I took them all into account when making my final decisions, which were approved by the House on 4 February.
Mr. Hughes: Does the Secretary of State realise that the revenue support grant settlement is little short of a
disaster for local government in Wales? Is there not a contradiction between the Government's claims about a booming economy and the simultaneous cuts and skimping on essential services, such as education and social services, run by local authorities? Does he appreciate that the people will soon have an opportunity to give their verdict on the Government's sense of priorities? I have little doubt what their verdict will be.
Mr. Hague: It is no good the hon. Gentleman's criticising the local government settlement when Labour Front Benchers have committed the Labour party to maintaining the same expenditure in Wales for the next two years. Given that Opposition Members, including the hon. Gentleman, have said that the local government settlement is inadequate, that the hon. Member for Caerphilly (Mr. Davies) has said that the Welsh Development Agency budget would not be sufficient, and that Labour would have to pay for setting up an assembly, people are beginning to wonder how it is possible to spend more on those items without spending more in total.
Mr. Llew Smith: Does the Secretary of State appreciate the difficulty facing local authorities such as Blaenau Gwent, which has had to make cuts of more than £11 million in 12 months? That authority has the lowest income levels, some of the highest levels of male unemployment, and the worst health problems in Wales. Will he accept that those cuts have put the local authority in an impossible position and are hitting those people who can least afford to withstand that kind of attack?
Mr. Hague: No. I accept that local authorities must make difficult choices between priorities, but that is true of every level of government and it is true every year. Local authorities should be able to make those choices and deliver local services as efficiently as possible. Local residents should ask themselves whether every penny that is spent by a council is spent wisely and whether it is necessary to spend every pound that is spent before asking for more money from central Government.
Health Service Funding
8. Mr. Ainger: To ask the Secretary of State for Wales how many representations he has received on the funding of the health service in Wales in 1996-97 and on his proposals for 1997-98. [14448]
Mr. Gwilym Jones: Eleven letters and 27 parliamentary questions.
Mr. Ainger: Did those representations include the concerns expressed by many people throughout Wales about the rocketing costs of GP fundholding management and computers, which total £9.2 million this year alone? Is the Minister aware that, if half that amount were spent on addressing soaring waiting lists, an extra 1,570 hip replacements, 4,600 hernia operations or 5,700 cataract operations could be performed in Wales? Would that not be a far better way to spend scarce national health service resources--on patients--rather than on wasteful, unnecessary and dogma-driven bureaucracy?
Mr. Jones: We are addressing waiting lists. The hon. Gentleman's health authority of Dyfed Powys is making
very good use of that money to bring down its waiting lists. Its waiting list of more than 12 months is falling, and its waiting list of more than 18 months is falling significantly. That is better than the Welsh average. He knows full well that we will increase spending on the health service in the coming financial year by 4.1 per cent. Furthermore, we have pledged to increase it every year in the next Parliament by more than the rate of inflation. What is he doing about the ominous silence from his own Front Benchers, who will stick within the spending plans? In the light of their various other commitments, will a Welsh Assembly be paid for out of the national health service in Wales?
Mrs. Clwyd: Is the Minister aware that, 10 years ago, Cynon Valley council asked the Welsh Office to fund a survey into the link between health and the former furnacite plant in Abercwmboi? That request was refused at that time. Is he further aware that, 10 years on, in a four-hour period, 50 women in Abercwmboi consulted a medical solicitor because of their concerns about breast cancer, and that the incidence of cancer in that small community is very high compared with the average? Will he at last do something about that and make funds available so that we can conduct a proper survey into the link between that past industrial process and the health of people who live in Cynon Valley?
Mr. Jones: That is clearly a matter for local representation in Cynon Valley and, of course, for Bro Taf health authority. I do not in any way underestimate the importance of the local health authority giving the most careful consideration to that factor, but the formula seeks to distribute the available moneys between all the health authorities on the best and fairest basis available, with particular regard to mortality. I anticipate that we will review that formula to ensure that it remains up to date and the fairest and most appropriate basis for distributing the moneys.
Pupil Exclusions
9. Mr. Rowlands: To ask the Secretary of State for Wales how many children were excluded from schools in (a) 1990, (b) 1995 and (c) 1996; and if he will make a statement. [14449]
Mr. Jonathan Evans: Returns provided by local education authorities in Wales show that the number of permanent exclusions from maintained schools for the academic years 1994-95 and 1995-96 were 476 and 543 respectively. Figures for 1990 are not available.
Mr. Rowlands: Are not those figures, by any standards, extremely worrying? Do they not require some new initiatives to be taken, such as cities in schools? Will those figures be helped in any way by rising class sizes? Many local authorities now face the prospect of making teachers redundant and of increasing class sizes. Those figures will become worse, not better, unless we deal with these fundamental problems.
Mr. Evans: First, the hon. Gentleman will know of the support that the Welsh Office has consistently given to the cities in schools initiative. Secondly, in relation to exclusions, he will be aware that there are currently
measures before the House to increase the period for which a fixed-term exclusion can operate. We have to put these matters in perspective. Although he is right to identify the increase, it cannot be said to represent a trend--we are dealing with about one in 1,000 pupils. However, I recognise the importance of ensuring that there is a range of ways of dealing with school discipline, and such matters are very much addressed by measures that are currently before the House.Structural Funds
10. Mr. Ieuan Wyn Jones: To ask the Secretary of State for Wales if he will make a statement on the allocation of European Union structural funds in Wales during the current financial year. [14450]
Mr. Hague: During the current financial year, around £115 million has been committed to projects approved or conditionally approved under the European Union structural fund programmes that operate in Wales.
Mr. Jones: Does the Secretary of State agree that Wales, compared with, say, Ireland, fared badly in the negotiations for structural funds for the period 1994-99? Does he agree with my assessment that the Government's failure to provide a proper settlement for Wales has cost us about £1 billion in funds in that five-year period? Is that not the clearest example of Wales's lack of clout in Brussels? What we need is a Parliament with a real voice in Europe. Does the Secretary of State accept that, given such a clear example, the people of Wales will vote in increasing numbers for a party that is dedicated to ensuring that we have that proper Parliament? Nothing will stop us, not even the yapping noises from the Prime Minister's poodles on the Government Front Bench.
Mr. Hague: No direct comparisons can be made with Ireland, which is an objective 1 area. To obtain objective 1 status, an area must comply with the strict socio-economic criteria that are set by the European Union. If it is the aspiration of the hon. Gentleman's party to reduce Wales to meeting the criteria for objective 1 status, it is a pretty pitiful ambition.
ATTORNEY-GENERAL
Crown Prosecution Service
22. Mr. Jim Cunningham: To ask the Attorney-General what assessment he has made of the workings of the Crown Prosecution Service; and what were the number and proportion of successful prosecutions in each of the past two years for which figures are available.[14432]
The Attorney-General (Sir Nicholas Lyell): In both years, around 900,000, or 98 per cent., of defendants were convicted in magistrates courts, and around 80,000, or 90 per cent., in the Crown court. In relation to contested cases in the Crown court, 12,705, or 59.6 per cent., of defendants were convicted in 1995, and 12,185, or 59.8 per cent., of defendants were convicted in 1996.
Mr. Cunningham: Is the Attorney-General aware that victims of crime are extremely concerned about the way
in which the Crown Prosecution Service either drops or alters charges without informing or consulting them? Would it not be far better if he adopted Labour's policy, which is to reform the CPS?
The Attorney-General: I think that the hon. Gentleman is misinformed. I look forward to receiving from him--I mean that--details of examples of dropped charges, of charges not proceeded with or of charges being altered by the CPS. As I have said in the House time and again, that complaint is frequently made but very seldom substantiated. I invite him to substantiate it, and then to consider whether that is the right problem on which to focus.
Sir Sydney Chapman: When the Crown Prosecution Service has brought successful prosecutions and my right hon. and learned Friend has felt that the sentences passed were unduly lenient, what success has he had when he has referred them to the Court of Appeal? Has it been the rule or the exception for the Court of Appeal to impose heavier sentences?
The Attorney-General: My hon. Friend makes an important point of relevance to victims. It is right that offenders should not only be brought to justice, but be properly punished in accordance with law. The power to refer what seems to me to be an unduly lenient sentence has given the Court of Appeal the opportunity to redress that, and to lay down guidelines for the future. In the years since the power has been in force, the court has increased approximately 87 per cent.--seven out of eight--of the sentences that the Attorney-General has referred to it.
Mr. John Morris: Is it because of the Home Secretary's aim or hope to achieve a higher number of convictions that we are told to expect proposals to deny the right to trial by jury to a large number of offences triable either way? Was the Attorney-General consulted, and is it his professional view that if that came to pass there would be a higher number of convictions?
The Attorney-General: The right hon. and learned Gentleman will have noted that that was one of the recommendations made by the Runciman royal commission some years ago. It has not been implemented. The Government are considering proposals on the matter and will make their position clear in the near future.
23. Mr. Sweeney: To ask the Attorney-General what steps he is taking to improve the efficiency of the Crown Prosecution Service through the use of information technology. [14433]
The Solicitor-General (Sir Derek Spencer): Current proposals are designed to increase the speed and efficiency of internal communications, make the case-tracking and management system easier to use and, through a private finance initiative contract, provide an infrastructure for links with other agencies in the criminal justice system.
Mr. Sweeney: I welcome my hon. and learned Friend's reply. Does he agree that information technology has enormous potential to improve communications between the Crown Prosecution Service, the courts, the police,
defence lawyers and the probation service, and that effective use of it may enable us to avoid many unnecessary adjournments and improve the efficiency of justice?
The Solicitor-General: My hon. Friend is right. I understand that he had the advantage of seeing a system in operation in South Glamorgan on a recent visit to his local CPS office. He will have seen the speed with which communication can take place when e-mail links are in operation. Apart from that example, where the police have provided the system, two other systems are being piloted at the moment: one in Suffolk and one in Southampton, which I have seen. My hon. Friend may be interested to know that there is co-ordination of computerisation under the criminal justice system initiative, in which the CPS, along with other agencies in the criminal justice system, is playing a full part. There is obviously great potential to speed up the flow of information throughout the whole of the criminal justice system.
Mrs. Dunwoody: But is the hon. and learned Gentleman aware that there is great urgency in this matter because sometimes simply bringing a case to court can take up to five years? That damages the justice system and is impossible for victims to understand. In addition, is he sure that any private initiative will be totally confidential and secure?
The Solicitor-General: I can give the hon. Lady that undertaking. She speaks of delays of up to five years; that is another example of the type of complaint to which my right hon. and learned Friend the Attorney-General just referred--vague and unsubstantiated generalisations--[Interruption.] If she will give us chapter and verse, we will follow it up, but it does not help the CPS, the victims or anyone else to make vague generalised complaints of that nature in public.
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