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Mrs. Beckett: I am grateful to the hon. Lady for her comments and I will try to deal with most of the issues that she has raised.
Further testing is continuing on the Cabinet Office intranet. I am not certain whether it has been completed, so I shall write to the hon. Lady about the matter. I think she will find that NHS work and testing is now complete. The hon. Lady asked also about the Passport Agency. Its work is well under way and the Home Office announced recently that, after encountering some problems, the Passport Agency is now meeting its normal targets. Much of its work using older systems has dealt with post-2000 dates for a considerable period.
The hon. Lady raised concerns about some November and December completion dates. She will know that I share her concern in that regard, and have long done so.
We have nagged Departments ruthlessly to bring those dates forward as far as they can. The hon. Lady will be aware--the available information will confirm this--that in all cases, not just the vast majority, we are talking about finalising testing and the independent assessment of contingency planning. A feature of our assessment process is that we are not prepared to sign off people until all the work is completed.
The hon. Lady expressed particular concern about the work of the MOD, which she said seemed not to have improved in the past year. That is certainly not the case: the MOD has improved enormously. I suppose that it appears, to some extent, to be in the same parish because some work remains to be completed. However, the Royal Air Force and the Royal Navy, for example, have finished all work on their business-critical systems. Although a small amount of work on MOD programmes remains to be done, it is on systems that provide support--for example, logistics support and equipment maintenance. The vast majority of the remaining work is awaiting the completion of testing and assessment certification. Although I share the hon. Lady's regret that the work was not finished earlier, we are talking about the final stages of completion, not about work that has barely begun.
The hon. Lady also asked me about the international situation and how information will be collected and disseminated. As was announced yesterday, over the millennium period information will come to the information centre, primarily from Foreign and Commonwealth Office posts, which are charged with that responsibility. That information will be monitored. Media representatives will be in the information centre, so information that gives cause for concern can, if it is of considerable impact, be disseminated immediately. However, the Foreign Office will, of course, continue to update and assess the information that it has.
The information centre will remain open until 4 or 5 January at the least, because that is when many people will return to work and when some minor problems may be discovered. Similarly, as information comes in about other countries, we shall continue to update it. I anticipate that that will be done through the FCO website. If there is more that I can say about that, I shall write to the hon. Lady.
Mrs. Gwyneth Dunwoody (Crewe and Nantwich):
Is my right hon. Friend aware that one of the issues that worries us is that some foreign countries do not have the same access to skilled support systems and may still be lagging behind, particularly in aviation? Will she assure me that the Civil Aviation Authority and the Foreign Office have carried out all possible checks to ensure that other nations' airlines that fly over London into Heathrow are absolutely certain that their systems are capable of dealing with any problems that might arise?
Mrs. Beckett:
My hon. Friend is entirely right to express that concern. That assessment and monitoring is continuing. I assure her that the air transport authorities, which are independent of Government, have made it absolutely clear that should there be any dubiety about the safety of aircraft or of airlines that would normally fly
Mr. Richard Allan (Sheffield, Hallam):
The Leader of the House will be aware of the problems that can be caused to the telecommunications network by peaks in demand, as we saw recently when the simple operation of selling tickets for an England v. Scotland game caused major disruption, and callers--whether Scottish or English--were left being offered glazing services instead of tickets. Will she assure the House that business continuity planning covers the possible cumulative effect of panic calling resulting from systems going down or simply from human concerns?
On a more parochial level, will the right hon. Lady endorse and support efforts by the Information Committee and Officers of the House to ensure that all Members upgrade their systems and their staff's systems so that we are all ready to serve our constituents from the morning of 1 January 2000?
Mrs. Beckett:
I shall deal first with the hon. Gentleman's second question. I fear that I cannot take responsibility for all Members and their offices. However, the House authorities are on the case and we are doing everything that we can to ensure that the services provided by the House to Members will be available in the ordinary way. We certainly encourage all Members to be aware of the impact on their own activities.
On the hon. Gentleman's initial question, everyone has been very mindful--there has been much discussion and in-depth consideration--of the problems that could occur, including those that result from human behaviour and from peaks of demand. All the telecommunications agencies have prepared for exceptional demand. Equally, one feature of the Government's approach to the matter--I commend this to Members--is that we encourage human behaviour that is less likely to exacerbate the difficulties. For example, we urge everyone not to pick up the phone and test it to see whether it is working immediately after midnight. That is the one thing that might mean that it does not work when one wants it to. I assure the hon. Gentleman, however, that special work and special committees have dealt with the general operation of telecommunications and, in particular, emergency communications. They are addressing issues such as demand as well as any problems that might arise from the millennium bug.
Mr. Gerald Bermingham (St. Helens, South):
Will my right hon. Friend the Leader of the House reassure me that, in the event of people suffering loss or damage because of a non-compliance fault, they will be compensated with speed and efficiency, so that the state will set an example of best practice to those who will undoubtedly be hurt by the private sector's non-compliance in some cases?
Mrs. Beckett:
I cannot give my hon. Friend the blanket assurance that he seeks. We cannot undertake to remove completely the ordinary, day-to-day problems that occur in the natural course of life. That is one of the features of handling the issue. I shall give him a simple example that I always find quite compelling: every day, an average of 40,000 people are without electricity supply for about
Mr. Ian Bruce (South Dorset):
Are there any instances in reports that the right hon. Lady has received from different Departments of the other dates about which we were all warned--9.9.99, the beginning of the financial year and the beginning of 1999--causing problems for Government computers? Has she any indication of the cost to all Departments of preparing for 2000? Have the Government provided additional funds for organisations such as the health service, which might have had to take money from patient care to deal with the problem?
Mrs. Beckett:
I am indeed aware of such implications. There was some worry about 1 September and, for obvious reasons, about 9 September. There has been no adverse impact, that we can discover, on any of those dates. Indeed, there have been few confirmed reports of adverse impact even in the private sector or in other countries.
The anticipated cost to Departments has been pretty stable for some considerable time at around £420 million or £430 million. One of the reasons for that, which the hon. Gentleman will readily appreciate, is that, in the national health service, for example, to which he referred, work, albeit on a smallish scale, began as long ago as 1995. We are talking about work in many key areas that has not been confined to one critical period, but has been spread over time.
Mr. Andrew Miller (Ellesmere Port and Neston):
From my discussions with people in other countries, it is clear that, on international comparisons, the Government and the nation have so far done a superb job--about that there is no doubt.
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