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Mrs. Liddell: I am sorry, I only have a limited time.
Mrs. Liddell: All right, I cannot resist the hon. Gentleman.
Mr. Jenkin: I am grateful to the right hon. Lady. She has just given the game away. The Government are going
to raise an extra £10 billion from the hard-pressed motorist, over and above what a Conservative Government would endeavour to raise. That is clear blue water between her policy and mine and I am proud of it.
Mrs. Liddell: The hon. Gentleman obviously has a bad attack of collective amnesia again. He is forgetting who introduced the fuel duty escalator.
Under this Government, we have seen 1,000 more train services every day, 16 new train stations, 70 new freight terminals and 1,500 new and enhanced bus services in rural areas. Bus investment is 80 per cent. higher than it was five years ago and rail investment is 33 per cent. higher than two years ago. We have also seen 37 new road schemes--including real bypasses--rather than the fantasy wish list that we got from the previous Government.
Some important points were made during the debate.
Mrs. Liddell:
I am sorry, but I am under pressure of time and I want to answer some of the questions posed during the debate, so I will not give way.
My hon. Friend the Member for Crewe and Nantwich asked about security and enforcement on the public transport network, which the Government take very seriously. Indeed, we referred to it in our response to the report, both with the secure stations initiatives and also in our desire for much greater interchangeability, co-operation and co-ordination between all modes of transport--that extends to enforcement, too.
We have also issued guidelines for operators about personal security on public transport which offer advice on the role of staff. I am sure that my hon. Friend the Member for Crewe and Nantwich would accept that exact staffing levels are a matter for the individual companies. We are also providing £150 million over three years for closed circuit television and the infrastructure to enable it to operate successfully. This year, we shall commission research into improving personal security at bus stops and bus stations. That is very important to the travelling public, who understandably want a journey that is not only pleasant but safe.
My hon. Friend was very scathing, as she always is, in her remarks about Railtrack. She is aware that the Government share her view and the Committee's caution about Railtrack's 1999 network management statement. She referred to the establishment of the Strategic Rail Authority and the change that it will make to the fragmentation of the railway caused by the haphazard and ill-thought-out privatisation by the previous Government. We already have evidence from the National Audit Office which demonstrates what a giveaway Railtrack privatisation was.
We shall expect the new regulator, which will have new powers, to take appropriate action to ensure that Railtrack complies with all its obligations. That will be a considerable improvement, and we look forward to seeing the shadow Strategic Rail Authority--followed by the actual authority, when it is formally underpinned by statute--being able to implement more significant regulatory powers.
There is a sense of urgency in the Government about transport because it is a quality-of-life issue that affects the vast majority of people in this country. I am glad that my hon. Friend the Member for Crewe and Nantwich is proud of the report; she has every reason to be proud.
Several points have been made by hon. Members on both sides of the House. The hon. Member for Carshalton and Wallington (Mr. Brake) referred to the increase in asthma in the population. I thought it was interesting that the document published by the Conservative party made little reference to the impact on the environment of pollution. Each year, 23,000 people die prematurely from diseases that are directly related to pollution. Is it not interesting that one of the proposals in the Conservative party's document is to remove vehicle excise duty on cars that are more than 25 years old? Those are the very cars that cause the most pollution.
My hon. Friend the Member for Manchester, Blackley (Mr. Stringer) made several points, particularly about the Manchester metro. I am very interested in its development, and I look forward to further proposals for its extension. He also talked about the bus industry. I reiterate how anxious the Government are that there should be quality partnerships, leading to quality contracts that are underpinned to ensure that the general public get the best possible deal from the bus network. As my hon. Friend pointed out, the bus system must not become one that is used only by the poor. It is a key aspect of ensuring that we have an integrated, effective transport policy.
The hon. Member for North Wiltshire seemed, as usual, to be exhibiting his split personality. I was saddened by the snobbishness that he displayed about the Deputy Prime Minister. After all, the hon. Gentleman was a maritime broker who had never been on board a ship. As a son of the manse, it illbefits him to be so snobbish and to espouse the politics of envy, as he has done tonight. He pointedly has not listened to the proposals that the Government are developing.
This has been an interesting debate on a detailed report in response to the integrated transport White Paper. The Government have made a commitment to work in partnership to promote an integrated transport policy. I commend those who took part in the discussions and I look forward to the implementation of that policy by a Government who believe in integrated transport, public transport and a fair deal for the motorist.
It being Ten o' clock, Madam Speaker proceeded to put forthwith the deferred Questions which she was directed by paragraphs (4) and (5) of Standing Order No. 54 (Consideration of estimates) to put at that hour.
Resolved,
Resolved,
Motion made, and Question proposed, pursuant to Standing Order No. 52(1)(b),
Mr. James Paice (South-East Cambridgeshire):
I am sorry that the Government chose to move the motion formally.
The Minister of State, Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food has kindly written to me and the rest of the members of the Committee considering the Food Standards Bill to explain a series of amendments and a new clause that he has tabled, and which have given rise to the need for this Ways and Means motion.
I hope that the Minister will tell us some of the reasons why we are facing such a shambles in the financial aspects of the Bill. We are talking about very large sums of money--close to £300 million. Most of it, we have always been told, was to be met by the taxpayer. The £90 per business levy was to raise £41 million. We have said before and we say again that we very much welcome the Government's back-down as a result of the widespread anger at the imposition of that charge. The Minister and the Department have had to eat humble pie.
On 22 April, the Minister said:
After Second Reading, there was a money resolution. Now that the Bill has been in Committee for two weeks, the Minister proposes to remove an entire clause that deals with the financial basis of the Bill and to replace it with another, which has given rise to the need for this motion.
The justification for that shambles, given in the letter that the Minister has sent to the Committee, is:
However, devolution was legislated for a year ago. The White Paper was produced about 18 months ago. The draft Bill appeared six months ago, yet now, near the end of the Committee's consideration of the Bill, we are being asked to pass a Ways and Means resolution to sort out yet
another bit of shambles because a few weeks ago, when the Government introduced the Bill, they could not sort out what the financial implications of devolution were going to be.
Now we are told in the Minister's letter to us all--an amazing couple of sentences--that part of the amended provisions
Before the Opposition help the Minister out of his muddle, I hope that he can give us some answers. It appears from his letter to us that the Scottish, Welsh and national insurance moneys will effectively be top-sliced off the amount of money going to those authorities. That is the opposite of devolution. But if that is the case, what will happen about England? How much money will come from England and how much will come from Scotland, from Wales and from Northern Ireland? Will the amount of money that each pays be calculated on a per capita basis? If not, how does the Minister justify any alternative approach to dividing the money?
Where is the English money coming from--not just the large sum that is already allowed for in public expenditure, but the extra £41 million that was due to come from the levy? What will be the impact on the planned spending limits for the Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food and the Department of Health? Now that the agency is to be funded directly from the Treasury, can the Minister assure the House that neither MAFF nor the Department of Health is to have its plans cut in order to find the money? Do the £1.207 billion allocated to MAFF next year and the £43.271 billion allocated to health still stand? Or are we going to find those sums cut in order to pay that money? How many of our hospitals may go unbuilt or how many operations may not be carried out in order to find that money? The House deserves to know where the Government are finding that money.
We already know that ministerial largesse--or, indeed, extravagance--means that cuts will be made elsewhere. Very recently, the ever rising cost of the BSE inquiry led to cuts in research and the grants to various aspects of the fishing industry.
Equally, the Minister should explain what the impact would be if Scotland decided to go it alone. He has told us in Committee that the Scots and the Welsh have debated the matter and accepted that the agency is to be a UK-wide agency. That is fine. But part of devolution means that--as I am sure the Minister will accept--they could decide to change their mind at some stage. When they took those decisions recently, were they told what the cost to them would be? If they were, why is not the House being told? Will we be told tonight?
That a further sum not exceeding £59,500,000 be granted to Her Majesty out of the Consolidated Fund to complete or defray the charges which will come in course of payment during the year ending on 31st March 2000 for expenditure by the Office of Her Majesty's Chief Inspector of Schools in England on administration and inspection, including the inspection of schools and other educational institutions, funded nursery providers and local education authorities.
Resolved,
That a further revised sum not exceeding £25,917,026,000 be granted to Her Majesty out of the Consolidated Fund to complete or defray the charges which will come in course of payment during the year ending on 31st March 2000 for expenditure by the Department of the Environment, Transport and the Regions.
It being after Ten o'clock, Madam Speaker proceeded to put forthwith the Question required to be put by Standing Order No. 55 (Questions on voting of estimates, etc.).
That a further sum not exceeding £97,900,070,000 be granted to Her Majesty out of the Consolidated Fund to complete or defray the charges for Defence and Civil Services for the year ending on 31st March 2000, as set out in HC336, 337, 338, 520 and 684.
Ordered,
That a Bill be brought in upon the foregoing resolutions: And that the Chairman of Ways and Means, Mr. Chancellor of the Exchequer, Mr. Alan Milburn, Dawn Primarolo, Mrs. Barbara Roche and Ms Patricia Hewitt do prepare and bring it in.
Mrs. Barbara Roche accordingly presented a Bill to apply certain sums out of the Consolidated Fund to the service of the years ending on 31st March 1999 and 2000: And the same was read the First time; and ordered to be read a Second time tomorrow, and to be printed [Bill 135.]
That, for the purposes of any Act resulting from the Food Standards Bill, it is expedient to authorise the payment of sums into the Consolidated Fund.--[Mr. Betts.]
10.2 pm
"We seek an accommodation and a method of charging that is seen to be fair and acceptable to the industry and to the wider public . . . some new money must be raised, otherwise there will be no Food Standards Agency. The question is how we collect that extra money"--[Official Report, 22 April 1999; Vol. 329, c. 1037-38.]
On 20 May, he said:
"Unless the levy raises some £40 million we will not have a Food Standards Agency. Therefore, we have to raise that sum".--[Official Report, 20 May 1999; Vol. 331, c. 1206.]
We have seen how the Government have had to back down--they are not raising that money, they are taking it, too, from central public expenditure. Of course, that was not the first time the Minister has found that speaking straight, for which he is renowned and for which we normally show our appreciation, causes him some difficulty.
"we are entering into new territory post-devolution".
Well, any witness to the Committee's proceedings will understand that. There is total and absolute confusion over the impact of devolution on the Food Standards Agency relating to the issues of accountability, advice and ministerial power.
"does not however require"
the devolved Administrations
"to pay money to the Agency . . . though if they fail to pay an appropriate share, there are arrangements in the devolution Acts whereby the Treasury could recover money from them to make up the short-fall."
Advocates of devolution and those who believe, for example, that the powers of the Food Standards Agency in Scotland now fall to the Scottish Parliament would be very surprised to read that they are going to pay for the agency, like it or not.
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