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Mr. Battle: I hope that the hon. Gentleman's remarks will not be treated as special pleading. When I came to the House in 1987, I was given a shelf on a corridor downstairs on the cloister. When I plugged my computer in directly--it happened to be a Mac, which causes even more difficulties in this place as the hon. Gentleman might well know--the authorities realised that my phone bill was larger than anyone else's because I was using computers to intranet before others did.

Let me put it this way: hon. Members coming to the House now have used computers in their daily lives and at work and need the access to be put in gear as quickly as practically possible. I hope that this debate is heard wider and further afield. It is not for the Department of Trade and Industry to tackle the matter, but I hope that the Committees that deal with information will handle it. I am delighted that under the Labour Government the hon. Gentleman at least has a room with a window.

Mr. Bruce: I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman, who started off on a shelf. Mine was special pleading on behalf of all hon. Members. There is no point in linking up those of us who have a special interest in the subject if we cannot e-mail the people we have to bully into taking an interest. We want it to be available to all. Is that not the problem? People who do not sign up to the electronic revolution and the information society cause problems because we have to re-engineer and have several different forms of information transmission.

We often discuss complicated matters and how we will provide services. This morning on television, it was noted that the centralised facility--it is called a call centre--that deals with the rail timetable is answering only 50 per cent. of calls. That is an example of the sort of simple information that we all want. That is all part of the information revolution. Years ago, the service worked well. Clearly, it is not working well now and that has to be put right. The Minister will say that he did not start that, but it is the trend throughout industry. I hope that when he talks to his colleagues in the Department of Transport, in its new bigger form, he will ensure that they are keeping a close eye on that problem, just as he will be ensuring that BT is doing its job properly in the service that it provides.

The National Association of Citizens Advice Bureaux has written to many hon. Members who have taken part in this debate about the information rich and the information poor. Those are all issues which hon. Members have to keep very much in mind. If I may offer the Minister some advice, one often hears people talking about universal service. BT is saying that universal service has a big cost, but it is the biggest selling benefit that it has. One should never subsidise BT to provide universal service because that is why the vast majority of people go to it for new and better services. That is important. Parliament must ensure that it is the watchdog and that it watches over that closely.

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Although this British Parliament is by no means perfect, it has a great deal to tell the world about how parliamentarians can push forward the information society.

I see that the Minister's parliamentary private secretary, the hon. Member for Cambridge (Mrs. Campbell), who was a distinguished Chairman of the Parliamentary and Scientific Committee, is here. The Parliamentary Information Technology Committee--PITCOM--is perhaps even more relevant; it is working to ensure that Members of Parliament understand what is happening. The great advantage of that Committee, and of many other Committees that we have in Parliament, is that we invite people from outside to see and understand what we are doing.

I should have declared an interest at the beginning of this speech. Hon. Members probably know that I am a paid adviser to the Telecommunication Managers Association, a user group which takes an active interest in all such matters. It is interesting to note how many industrialists, academics and others want to take advantage of the new technology.

An offshoot of PITCOM, doing a slightly different job, is that famous Committee, EURIM--the European Informatics Market group--which we must always refer to in a rather pronounced way, so that it is not thought of us as something else. It is amazing to consider the working parties that we have set up. We have drawn up about 18 draft reports so far, and there are probably more than 20 working parties in all, examining all the different elements of what is happening in the information society.

We were astounded when a deal was announced between BT and the Labour party. The hon. Member for Rotherham spoke about freedom of information. I am seriously worried, because nobody denies that the then Leader of Opposition, now the Prime Minister, had discussions with BT--he announced the results at the Labour party conference--but the deal was denied almost immediately by the chairman of BT.

What with the Nolan committee and all the rest of it, it is extremely important to find out exactly what is happening about people who have been influential in all those matters. The Oftel director general commented on the windfall tax and came out with an extraordinary figure of £2 billion that could come out of BT. It is interesting to note that a much smaller figure has been asked for by the Treasury. One has to ask whether some other deal was done in those negotiations.

Mr. Battle: I hope that the hon. Gentleman is not challenging the integrity of the regulator. I thought that I heard a hint of that from the hon. Member for Chesham and Amersham (Mrs. Gillan) before, but I did not rise to it. We support absolutely the independence of the regulator. The discussions are with Oftel, not between the Government and BT.

Mr. Bruce: The hon. Gentleman should read Hansard to see exactly what I said. The regulator, totally independently, came up with the view that £2 billion of windfall from BT was doable. I have made a serious allegation--that the amount that the Treasury has decided to take from BT is considerably less. One must ask whether a deal has been done between the Prime Minister and BT.

Mr. MacShane: On a point of order, Mr. Deputy Speaker. Is it in order to make allegations against the

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Prime Minister of doing a deal with BT involving £2 billion? That is scandalous and unacceptable, and I hope that, through your intervention, the allegation will be either quickly withdrawn or repeated outside.

Mr. Deputy Speaker (Sir Alan Haselhurst): As the hon. Gentleman knows, each hon. Member is responsible for the statements that he makes in the House. I did not hear any allegation against the Prime Minister.

Mr. Bruce: Thank you, Mr. Deputy Speaker. You are right to say that I did not make an allegation: I asked a question. I asked that question on radio and television, in the public domain, in the run-up to the general election. I would be happy to ask it again.

Mrs. Gillan: Did my hon. Friend happen to read an article entitled, "Labour dials a wrong number", published in The Independent in October 1995, which said:

"Labour is losing its competitive edge. Mr. Blair's British Telecom "deal", announced on Tuesday, was extremely ill advised. Whether an exchange of favours between a putative future Government and a monopolistic business, or simply a gimmicky spin for conference on a sensible regulatory change, Mr. Blair has sent a worrying signal to the British consumer"?

Mr. Bruce: My hon. Friend makes my point: clearly no writ has been served on the newspaper for asking exactly the same question. I have written to the Prime Minister--at least, I have dictated the letter although I have not signed it; it will be sent in the next day or so. That letter asks the Prime Minister to publish the list of donators to his so-called blind trust. I have checked with the Registrar of Members' Interests in the House to see what advice had been given on information that should be given by Members who took money from the blind trust. The advice that was given to the then Leader of the Opposition has now altered. The problem that the Registrar had already identified is that people who donate to a blind trust can promptly tell the world--

Mr. Deputy Speaker: Order. The hon. Gentleman is allowing himself to be diverted far too far from the subject matter of the debate. He should return to the main, broad stream of the argument to which the House has been listening all morning.

Mr. Bruce: I am grateful, Mr. Deputy Speaker. The subject of the debate is the information society and my remarks concern information coming out into society. They are relevant to the subject of the debate, which is so wide that one could almost talk about anything--although I am always guided by you, Mr. Deputy Speaker, and would not wish to defy you in any way.

I have asked for the information about the Prime Minister's office fund to be published in the public domain. I was asked a question by someone who is upset about the amount of money going to the millennium fund for that great dome--it will all be part of the information age and we shall be trying to promote it. The person asked whether the architect was one of those who had donated to the blind fund. I do not know; we need that information--it is important.

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