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Dr. George Turner (North-West Norfolk): When will we receive the performance and innovation unit report on post office access? My right hon. Friend will understand that, although the Government are going ahead with a modernisation programme for the Post Office and trying to secure the future of village post offices, sub-postmasters and the public are worried by the uncertainty before the fleshing out of the detail. My local press is campaigning for the retention of the rural post office and I support that campaign. When the unit reports, can we have an early debate in the House to get the view of hon. Members on appropriate access to rural post offices? That would end a dreadful period of uncertainty.
Mrs. Beckett: Members across the House acknowledge that sub-post offices do tremendously valuable work and that is particularly true in rural areas. I had no doubts, but I am glad that my hon. Friend supports the campaign in his locality. I also share the view, which lies behind his remarks, that it is wrong and unfair to those who shoulder that responsibility to raise ill-founded anxieties unnecessarily and wrongly, but he is right to say that it is
important for post offices to modernise the way in which they provide services and to look for fresh business and fresh opportunities that could revitalise the whole organisation, including smaller and rural post offices. The Government hope that they will take that course. I fear that I cannot undertake to find time for another special debate, but he knows that the Postal Services Bill is going through the House and I am confident that he and other hon. Members will find opportunities to raise those matters.
Mr. David Heath (Somerton and Frome): May I return the right hon. Lady to genetically modified crops, as that matter is rather more urgent than was suggested in the earlier exchange? Is she aware of the written answer given by the Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food yesterday to my hon. Friend the Member for Northavon (Mr. Webb)? It made it clear that GM maize is about to be added not to the European register, but to the United Kingdom national seed register. Can she confirm that an announcement is likely to be made on Wednesday--conveniently, the House will not be sitting--and does she appreciate that a coach and horses is being driven through the policy on GM crops enunciated by the Minister for the Environment? Will she promise an early debate on this important subject?
Mrs. Beckett: I cannot confirm the timing to which the hon. Gentleman refers, but I have undertaken to draw the remarks of my hon. Friend the Member for Nottingham, South (Mr. Simpson) to the attention of my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State and I shall certainly add the hon. Gentleman's remarks to them. I am not aware of either the decision that he suggests is due or whether it is likely to be made on Wednesday. However, I am sure that my right hon. Friend will communicate with him.
Mr. Huw Edwards (Monmouth): I thank my right hon. Friend for agreeing to hold the Welsh affairs debate on 2 March. That is greatly valued by Welsh Members, but does she agree that the Secretary of State's report on the Waterhouse inquiry into child abuse in north Wales merits its own debate, to which all Members of the House would want to contribute?
Mrs. Beckett: I am grateful for my hon. Friend's welcome for what we tend to call the St. David's day debate. I understand his feeling that hon. Members should have an opportunity to air the issues arising immediately from the Waterhouse report, and also his feeling that that important matter should not completely obscure the focus on Welsh events that normally feature in that traditional debate.
As I think I told the right hon. Member for North-West Hampshire (Sir G. Young), as we are to engage in a Welsh affairs debate in the near future, a debate in Westminster Hall may well be the most fruitful way of pursuing the other matter, at least initially. Obviously, hon. Members will want to consider the overall issues raised by the Waterhouse report in depth.
Mr. Stephen O'Brien (Eddisbury): In connection with the devastating and stinging report of the Transport Sub-Committee, the Leader of the House gave a
disappointing and fly-swatting reply to the hon. Member for North Cornwall (Mr. Tyler). May we have a full day's debate on the devastating effect that the report has had? It has undermined the whole of the Government's policy and approach, in relation not just to National Air Traffic Services and public-private partnerships but to infrastructure programmes and funding.
Mrs. Beckett: As I reminded the right hon. Member for North-West Hampshire (Sir G. Young), there will be time to discuss those matters. Indeed, they are being discussed in the Standing Committee on the Transport Bill even as we speak, and no doubt they will continue to be discussed. I fear that the hon. Gentleman will not find that any Leader of the House is keen to provide extra time for discussion of a matter that is already being discussed.
Mr. Nigel Evans (Ribble Valley): After business questions, will the Leader of the House and, perhaps, a few of her colleagues take a short stroll with me across the road to Parliament square to meet a number of pigmeat producers, and to see a pig in a makeshift sty? I fear that that is the closest that some of her colleagues will get to visiting a farm this year. The producers will be able to tell her about the deep crisis that the industry is experiencing, and about the number of producers who are going out of business in the current year. Perhaps that will encourage her to arrange a debate on the crisis.
Mrs. Beckett: I am aware of the demonstration across the road; indeed, one could hardly miss it. My hon. Friend the Parliamentary Secretary, Privy Council Office was good enough to visit it on my behalf.
The Government well understand the difficulties experienced by the pig industry, and have taken steps to give what assistance they can. The Government do not rule out consideration of further problems that may arise, but I fear that I cannot undertake to find extra time for yet another debate on a matter that--I say this without criticism--has, rightly, been thoroughly aired in the House.
Mr. John Bercow (Buckingham): May we have an urgent debate on the estimate by Chantrey Vellacott, a leading firm of chartered accountants in the City, that it would cost more than £36 billion for Britain to abolish the pound and join the euro? Does the right hon. Lady not agree that such a debate would afford the Chancellor of the Exchequer a fine opportunity to explain to the House and the country his own eccentric view that it is sensible to spend such a phenomenal sum of public money permanently to hand over the running of the British economy to the governing council of the European central bank, which comprises three Germans, two Dutchmen, two Finns, two Frenchmen, two Italians, two Spaniards, a Belgian, an Irishman, a Luxembourger and a Portuguese?
Mrs. Beckett: It can hardly contain any Britons, as we are not part of economic and monetary union--something that I would expect to have occurred to the hon. Gentleman.
I have not seen the estimate to which the hon. Gentleman referred, but I am aware that various estimates are made from time to time. The Chancellor has made clear from the beginning his view that it is not right to rule out membership of the euro for ever in principle, but
that it is right to make a preliminary decision on whether or not Britain should join when the economic tests that he has set are met, and that that decision will of course be in the hands of the British people.Whatever costs are identified in regard to any changeover plan, a large part of those costs will have to be incurred in any event, as, whatever we do in this country, the euro exists, although the Conservative party said that it never would. It is coming into circulation, and businesses here will have to prepare to handle it. That in itself will carry a cost.
Point of order
1.20 pm
Mr. Nigel Evans (Ribble Valley): On a point of order, Madam Speaker. As you will know, the Representation of the People Bill is before Parliament. The Local Government Association has issued a press release listing the number of areas that will be piloting some of the experiments at the May elections. The Home Office has not issued a statement; nor has a Minister come to the House to make a statement. Indeed, there has been no written answer to any parliamentary question on the list of pilot studies that will take place in May. Is it not appropriate that Parliament be told before newspapers, the Press Association and a number of other bodies about which pilots will take place in May?
Madam Speaker: The point that the hon. Gentleman makes is that a statement might have been made in the House. I hope that those on the Treasury Bench will have heard his comments.
Orders of the Day
Armed Forces Discipline Bill [Lords]
[Relevant document: The Fourth Report from the Defence Committee of Session 1999-2000, on the Armed Forces Discipline Bill (HC 253).]
Order for Second Reading read.
Madam Speaker: I must inform the House that I have selected the amendment in the name of the Leader of the Opposition.
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