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Mr. Galloway: Will my right hon. Friend give way?
Mr. Fatchett: No, my hon. Friend has had 15 minutes.
My hon. Friend would also be serving the purpose if he pointed out that the way to remove sanctions, which is now accepted by the Arab League and by the Security Council unanimously, is through Iraq's co-operation. The Arab League statement and the Security Council statement said that the body of law that relates to Iraq
is from the Security Council resolutions. There must be co-operation. There must be compliance. Sanctions cannot be lifted without that.
Mr. Fatchett:
No, no, I cannot give way in a short debate.
On disarmament, there were those who said that the disarmament phase was finished in Iraq, and that there would be no further role for UNSCOM or for the International Atomic Energy Agency. Again, I suggest that hon. Members read the presidential statement. There is to be a role in the panel for UNSCOM and for the International Atomic Energy Agency.
I congratulate Jeremy Greenstock and his colleagues in the United Nations, and I pay tribute to all the work that has been done by the Foreign Office. That work has enabled us to build a new consensus, with which we are comfortable and which takes forward the issues of Iraq. We must put the onus on Baghdad: if Baghdad co-operates, there will be light at the end of the tunnel. Baghdad must listen not just to the Security Council but to its neighbours who are saying that co-operation is essential.
My hon. Friend criticised my right hon. Friend the Foreign Secretary. It is interesting to note that, in all his comments about Iraq, my hon. Friend did not refer to the missing Kuwaiti prisoners of war. He did not refer to Iraq's systematic human rights violations or to the Kurds who were killed, injured and maimed by exposure to chemical weapons. He did not mention how the Shia people of southern Iraq were the victims of torture and suffered death and injury at the hands of Saddam Hussein.
I shall relate for my hon. Friend a stark personal experience that I had last year. I regularly meet displaced Iraqis and, 12 months ago, I met at the Foreign Office a young Kurd who was the victim of chemical weapons. He told me privately that his health was so bad that he probably had only a short time to live. That was because, during his teenage years, he had been exposed to chemical weapons. That young man may not be alive today. When talking about Iraq, I hope that my hon. Friend will not forget that young man and the many tens of thousands of young men just like him.
There is a strong moral argument for acting, as we and the international community have sought to do over the years, to disarm Iraq and make it less of a threat to regional security and to its own people. I am confident that we have taken the right decisions and the moral ones. The best possible course of action for us all--whatever we might think about the short-term tactical issues--is to ensure that Iraq is given the green light to co-operate because, without co-operation, there can be no progress.
My hon. Friend mentioned Yemen and, characteristically, seems to have reached his own conclusions although the legal process has hardly begun. That is not--and cannot be--the position of the British Foreign Office. We will always--in Yemen or in any other circumstances--treat equally all those with British citizenship. We have a consular responsibility, which we will carry out. If my hon. Friend puts down a written parliamentary question on the subject, I shall set out the chronology of events in relation to the five men in Yemen and the action that the Foreign Office has taken. We have
sought to meet our responsibilities to those five individuals: we have tried to ensure that they have a fair trial and access to lawyers and consular staff. That is the action that we would normally take in similar circumstances.
While I serve as a Foreign Office Minister, I shall ensure that the consular service of the British Foreign Office works equally for every British citizen, regardless of colour, religion or background. That is what has occurred in this case, and I give a clear commitment that it will continue. We will not make judgments about people's guilt: people deserve a fair trial. We will not make judgments about any British citizens who are involved in a legal process. That is not our task; neither is it our task to represent British citizens in court. However, we must ensure that each and every British citizen has the same rights.
I take very seriously the issues to which my hon. Friend referred. I am the first Foreign Office Minister to initiate regular meetings with representatives of the United Kingdom Muslim community. I met them yesterday and heard a wide range of Muslim opinion. We meet once every two or three months, and the meetings are developing in an interesting direction. I am delighted that we can meet and that I can hear about the foreign affairs interests of the Muslim community. Yesterday we talked about Kosovo--in which the Muslim community has a real and genuine interest--Yemen and a little about Iraq. However, Kosovo and Yemen were the main issues of discussion during our two-hour meeting.
I seek openness and something more than that: I want the British Foreign Office to reflect Britain; recruitment to the Foreign Office must reflect a modern Britain. Members of the Muslim faith must have every opportunity of being recruited to the Foreign Office and of progressing their careers within that Department. I look forward to the day when someone of the Muslim faith emerges, on merit, from the staff of the Foreign Office who is capable of representing Britain as an ambassador overseas. We have opened the door to the Muslim community, and we look forward to those changes.
It is known widely in the middle east that I am determined to avoid giving any credence to the argument that there will be an inevitable clash of civilisations: a
challenge between Christianity and Islam. I have always regarded that as dangerous and incredibly sloppy thinking, which fails to recognise the great divisions within Christianity and Islam. It is immensely dangerous to believe that Christianity versus Islam must replace the great cold war crusade of capitalism versus communism. We must avoid that trap. That is why, in my discussions in the middle east, I have told leaders that we must open a dialogue about Christian and Islamic values that recognises the interaction between civilisations and is sensitive to each set of beliefs and values.
We can do much more in that regard. That is one of the reasons why, during our European Union presidency, we called for regular meetings between the EU and the Organisation of the Islamic Conference. Such meetings might be governed by a very formal agenda, but it is one way of bringing together people of different faiths from different backgrounds who may have different agendas. We are keen to advance that process. However, I give a clear commitment to my hon. Friend that, when it comes to the standing and the status of Islam in the world, I shall always be on the side of those who seek to ensure that those beliefs are granted true legitimacy. We simply do not subscribe to the notion that Islam is a force for evil.
Furthermore, I wholly object to the labelling and stereotyping with regard to Islam that is often the product of lazy journalism. The British media often refer to "Muslim terrorists" but do not apply the same sort of labels to terrorists from other faiths. That sort of labelling must be stopped. We need to look at people in the round, taking account of their values and faiths.
I am delighted that my hon. Friend has provided this positive opportunity to talk about the activities of the Foreign Office and the way in which it is working with the Muslim world. My hon. Friend did not mention one possible forthcoming event of significance to the Muslim world. I hope that this year Indonesia will become a democracy comprising 200 million people, mostly of the Muslim faith. That will be a tremendous change and advance in the world.
My hon. Friend always paints a vivid picture--his school of art and his school of rhetoric are very close. Although I often admire his brushwork, I think that his concern with detail is not as good as his broader strokes. I do not recognise the picture that he painted of Britain's relations with the Arab world.
Mr. Tim Loughton (East Worthing and Shoreham):
In West Sussex we know something about the elderly, and we certainly value them. In 1996, 171,000 people out of a total county population of 727,000 were over pensionable age. That is 23.6 per cent.--almost a quarter--against 18.2 per cent. for the country as a whole. It is forecast that by 2016--twenty years on--that gap will have widened and more than 27 per cent. of the population of West Sussex will be of pensionable age against the national average of 21 per cent.
The constituencies on the coastal strip, which are represented by my hon. Friends who are in the Chamber today, all feature in the top 27 constituencies with the highest number of pensionable age residents. Top is Worthing, West with 42.6 per cent.; ninth is Bognor Regis and Littlehampton with 36.8 per cent.; Chichester is 17th with 33.2 per cent.; and my constituency of Worthing, East and Shoreham is 27th with 32 per cent.--almost a third--of residents of pensionable age.
Worthing borough has the highest number of pensioners in the entire country, but it is forecast that we will be overtaken by Clacton-on-Sea in 2000. Although the average age of people in Worthing is decreasing, we have twice the number of over-65s, and three times the number of over-85s, compared with the national average. Nationally, the number of over-85s is forecast to double to 2.2 million by 2040. That will impact on us most of all.
There is net immigration into West Sussex, which we welcome; it is a nice place to live, and also to die. Part of the character of Sussex is represented by its elderly population. None of us in the Chamber would want it any other way, but, contrary to popular myth, not everyone in Sussex--and on the coastal strip, in particular--lives in a castle. There are many areas of deprivation.
Under the index of local deprivation drawn up for judging single regeneration budget challenge fund criteria, Central ward in Worthing, for example, was ranked among the 10 per cent. of wards in England that are most deprived. Areas of Adur, in my constituency, suffer high unemployment, which leads to poorer pensioners living in rented accommodation. The same is true in parts of Littlehampton, in the constituency of my hon. Friend the Member for Bognor Regis and Littlehampton (Mr. Gibb).
The high preponderance of elderly people in our county means that very great demands are placed on the health budget and on social services spending, which is what I want to discuss today. The national health service survey produced by The Times last November revealed that West Sussex has the longest delays for hospital treatment in the whole of England: one patient in seven on the waiting list--14.9 per cent. of that list--waits for more than a year for hospital treatment. Lambeth is next, with 12.7 per cent.
At the opposite end of the scale, northern authorities such as Sunderland and Northumberland have less than 0.5 per cent. of patients on waiting lists waiting for over a year. There are 30 times more patients waiting over a year on West Sussex waiting lists than on those of the best performing hospitals in England.
Only West Sussex last year recorded a bigger rise in the number of patients waiting for over a year. The figure increased from 902 to 3,634, which is a very large
increase. Typically some of the longest lists are for age-related operations, such as hip replacements and cataract operations. Problems are widespread, extending particularly to mental health. There is a dire shortage of acute mental health beds.
It is no surprise that the largest branch of the Alzheimer's Disease Society is in Worthing. The priority care trust responsible for those services has overspent by £550,000, with two months of the financial year to go, despite having made savings of £450,000 already. For the first time ever, it will not be able to balance its books. Worthing also has the largest branch of the Parkinson's Disease Society, and I pay tribute to the work that it has done.
West Sussex health authority overall is £5.5 million over budget, despite the best efforts of all its staff. We are desperately trying to reduce the waiting lists, but Worthing and Southlands Hospitals NHS trust, for example, has 90 nurse vacancies and a severe problem with nurse recruitment. A high level of emergency admissions compounds that problem.
We need special help for special age-related problems, but, despite the extra money last year, our funding remains under capitation. The health authority is the worst funded in the whole of the South Thames region, after the accumulation of years of being funded well below capitation. Now we are threatened with unbearable pressure to reduce waiting lists by the end of March. For example, if Worthing and Southlands Hospitals NHS trust does not reduce its waiting list from 7,500 to a target of 5,000, it will be penalised to the tune of £450 for each patient over that target figure at the end of March. The largest reduction target for any hospital in the country has been given to Worthing and Southlands. It is trying its best, but it will be hard pressed to meet the target.
In social services, the county council has radically overhauled its policy towards care for the elderly. Shortage of funds has regrettably forced the closure of four residential homes in the county, two of which were in my constituency, but at least the funds raised are being recycled into the social services budget, with significant reinvestment in preventive home care. That will enable more people to be looked after in their own homes, but other schemes cannot be funded because of the shortfall. I pay tribute to the sensitive way in which West Sussex county council social services department has handled those closures, which have been forced upon it.
An increasing number of elderly people are looking for residential or nursing care in our county. There are 5,000 nursing home beds in West Sussex, which is 0.64 per cent. per head of the population compared with a national average of only 0.3 per cent. Again, the figure is double. The problem is worsening. A man aged 65 has a 9 per cent. probability of requiring residential care for the rest of his life, or a 5 per cent. probability of requiring nursing home care. The figures for a woman aged 65 are 13 and 37 per cent.
12.59 pm
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