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4.57 pm
The Parliamentary Secretary, Privy Council Office (Mr. Paddy Tipping): This has been a useful and, as always, interesting debate. The right hon. Member for North-West Hampshire (Sir G. Young) spoke about the theme that came to him from the debate, which was the environment. There were strong environmental themes, but what struck me throughout the debate was the praise given from both sides of the House to voluntary and community organisations.
Governments are not good enough at saying thank you to people, and there are thousands and thousands of voluntary organisations and community groups across this country that raise the standard of our lives. We rarely have the opportunity to say thank you. This evening, I want to thank all of them for their efforts to increase the quality of civic society.
I was struck by the moving and inspiring speech by my hon. Friend the Member for Braintree (Mr. Hurst) about the Essex wildlife trust. I have not been to the site, but I will go and have a look. He was right to say that we must move away from our present means of support--support for production--to a system that allows for greater grants and input for conservation, lifting the landscape and enhancing the environment. There is a good moral there in Essex that is worth exploring.
I say to my hon. Friend the Member for Keighley (Mrs. Cryer) that I have done my bit for the Keighley and Worth Valley railway. It is an excellent railway that continues to develop and do well. As my hon. Friend said, it is run and managed by the stakeholders to whom it belongs. I am pleased that she is one of them, and I am delighted that the national lottery has been able to help, in a small way, with a heritage lottery grant of almost £600,000. There are hundreds of such railways around the country, and the people who run them also deserve our thanks.
We also need to say thanks to the Royal National Lifeboat Institution, and I too should like to put on record my appreciation for John Foster. The RNLI is not supported by the Government, because its members choose to be independent. They do an important and marvellous job, as do those who raise funds for the organisation.
My hon. Friend the Member for Harrow, West (Mr. Thomas) spoke about other work done by community groups. He described the campaigns by the Pinner Green residents association and the Montesole Court residents association in connection with mobile phone masts--a matter to which I shall return later.
My hon. Friend the Member for Hornchurch (Mr. Cryer) made a different point about community action. He said that, some decades ago, people used to organise around their places of work. That is where the Labour movement and the trade union tradition came from, and it is where the notion of solidarity was born. Perhaps I should draw to my hon. Friend's attention one or two of the papers that have crossed my desk recently, which have argued that the new place for solidarity is in the voluntary sector and in community groups. If we were organising now, that is the sector in which we would start.
The hon. Member for Hazel Grove (Mr. Stunell) spoke about a related point--the need to devolve decision making and to empower people. He said that local people should be allowed to find local solutions to local problems. I regard that not as a difficulty, but as something that we ought to celebrate and support. The growth of community groups will help to bring back respect for authority. My hon. Friend the Member for Gedling (Mr. Coaker) expressed strong concern about that, and his sentiments were of a piece with what the hon. Member for Uxbridge (Mr. Randall) said about the service given by shopkeepers. The hon. Gentleman said that the right to be served by a shopkeeper entailed a responsibility on the part of the customer.
I think that Members of Parliament are very good at arguing for rights--perhaps too good at it--and that we do not argue enough for responsibilities. In that connection, my hon. Friend the Member for Middlesbrough, South and Cleveland, East (Dr. Kumar) made a good and well-organised speech. He spoke of his constituent, Mr. Whittaker, who served in the Suez canal zone, and he made a very powerful case on behalf of all canal zone veterans--including those, such as my hon. Friend the Member for North-East Derbyshire (Mr. Barnes), who were there only for five days. I shall certainly press the matter, and draw it to the attention of colleagues in the Ministry of Defence.
Several hon. Members spoke about transport and road issues, which formed one of the themes of the debate. The hon. Members for Cheadle (Mr. Day) and for Hazel Grove made it clear that they wanted a road, not a study. From previous encounters, I know the strength of the Hazel Grove action group in that regard. I confess that I may be part of the problem: I am not an infrequent visitor to Manchester airport and can confirm that it is an extremely difficult place to get to. If we are to achieve an integrated transport structure, we must establish an appropriate structure for access to the airport. I shall, of course, pass on the hon. Gentlemen's comments on that subject.
My hon. Friend the Member for South Swindon (Ms Drown) talked about the importance of bus services. Buses are work horses, and they are dark horses too. They
can deliver the goods, but only if the transport service that they offer is of high quality. If we are to be proud to use buses, they must be clean and tidy, and their drivers and conductors--where they have them--should be polite and ready to supply passengers with information. One of the things that has fascinated me recently is the growth of computer-aided bus stops. We can stand at the bus stop and see the bus coming towards us on a graph. If we can bring bus services into the modern age, more people will switch to using them. I know that my hon. Friend has campaigned very hard for this in Swindon, and all power to her elbow.The hon. Member for Cheadle spoke about the problems of noise at Manchester airport. I am making inquiries about this. He is right to say that there is some kind of consultation exercise taking place. I confess that I cannot remember the details, but I will write to him about it.
A number of colleagues talked about job losses in their area. As always, it is extremely sad. However, what struck me from their comments was that out of decline is coming growth. My hon. Friend the Member for Stafford (Mr. Kidney) talked about the problems at ALSTOM, a world leader, but also the desire to move towards the cutting edge of technology, to get into the business of renewables and to ensure that ALSTOM and people who work in Staffordshire are at the forefront of the new technology.
That certainly seems to be the case with the great British kitchen. My hon. Friend asked what help could be given. Advantage West Midlands will be looking at the issue. I have in my possession a letter from the Prime Minister to Prue Leith. Armed with that supportive letter, I think that the project bodes well for the future. I commend my hon. Friend on his efforts in this regard. I know that within the last day or so he went to see my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry to pursue the issue on behalf of his community.
My hon. Friend the Member for Gedling was, as always, pressing the case for Netherfield. There is a case for doing better in areas of small-scale deprivation. Across Government, a whole range of initiatives to do with regeneration and reclamation are being brought together. They were sold initially as pilot schemes and experiments. We have not been as good as we might have been about learning the lessons from those experiments and making them a mainstream part of Government business.
The modernisation of the House of Commons was discussed at some length. What struck me, as always, was the amazing range of views that we heard. What also struck me is that politics is a circle. A party may be in government today and in opposition in, perhaps, 20 years' time--it might take about four elections. A sensible Government would always balance the needs of the Opposition.
There was no consensus about electronic voting or about the hours. Key members of the Modernisation Committee are in the Chamber this afternoon, and I have to say that it would be helpful to have some certainty about our hours. We can live with bad news, but we cannot live with the lack of certainty and the ability to make plans. If such a decision emerges from the Modernisation Committee, that would be a major improvement.
For my part, I would like us to experiment with electronic voting. The down side to that is that I frequently use the opportunity to lobby Ministers at the vote. As I said recently, in the Lobby Ministers may try to run but there is nowhere for them to hide. It is important to use our opportunities.
Several colleagues raised slightly smaller but more important points. My hon. Friend the Member for Harrow, West told us that he had taken part in an Industry and Parliament Trust placement with a voluntary organisation. That is a good initiative, which should be praised. My hon. Friend the Member for Gedling has also been involved with Age Concern under the same scheme.
My hon. Friend the Member for Harrow, West asked about the Government's alcohol strategy. We shall publish a consultation paper in the summer. I hope that that important document will help us to make progress on some of the issues that he raised.
The hon. Member for Cheadle referred to mobile homes--a subject that is close to my heart, too. They are an eccentricity in planning terms. Their tenants are in a difficult situation and have no real powers in law. He made a point, which had not occurred to me before, about their not being able to apply for compensation for traffic noise and the building of a new road. He will be pleased to learn that the mobile homes working party--which includes colleagues from the Department of the Environment, Transport and the Regions, mobile home owners and the parks' owners--has recently finished its work. Its report contains a range of recommendations. If we can make progress with them, we can make life much better for the occupants of mobile homes.
I should like to make life better for those who live in Bournemouth. It is especially sad that an area that people have cared about has suddenly and dramatically gone downhill and that an area of civic pride has become one of seediness and squalor. The Government are concerned about asylum. The Immigration and Asylum Act 1999 began to bite on 4 April, and I hope that it will make a difference. The hon. Member for Bournemouth, East (Mr. Atkinson) talked about membership of the Council of Europe and asked whether we could have a different regime. Those matters are governed by the 1951 United Nations charter on refugees and the change that he recommends would not be possible at present, but I know that the issue has been on the agenda of my colleagues in the Home Office. We shall certainly take his point very seriously.
My hon. Friend the Member for South Swindon said that the working families tax credit does not apply to nannies. That issue is on Ministers' desks at the moment. I make no commitment that it will be resolved, but I noticed that, as she spoke, there was a lot of nodding around the Chamber so it is clearly a problem.
I, too, am keen to discuss waste management strategy, which is a big and pressing issue. Landfill sites are ticking time bombs. We must do better; we cannot go on filling holes in the ground with waste as we do now. We all have a responsibility as householders and consumers to recycle, to make compost in our gardens and to choose goods that are not over-packaged. If we behave better, we will make the difference for our children and their children.
The hon. Member for Southend, West (Mr. Amess) mentioned some hard cases, which seemed to involve bureaucracy and a lack of appropriate response from
Government services. I will not comment on them now, but he can be sure that I will take them up in the relevant quarters.My hon. Friend the Member for North-East Derbyshire wanted me to take him and his black plastic bag to Victoria street to talk to Ministers about junk mail. I shall try to deliver that bag for him. I like the notion of his walking down Victoria street with a black plastic bag over his shoulder. There appears to be a problem, and we should try to make progress with the Department of Trade and Industry and the Royal Mail.
My hon. Friend the Member for Gedling raised matters close to my heart--a better funding deal for schools. My. hon. Friend the Member for Stafford has also been involved in that campaign. I remind them that a consultation paper on the problem is to be issued this summer and I remind all hon. Members that schools throughout the country will receive cheques in the next few days, which will vary from £4,000 for the smallest primary school to £60,000 for the largest secondary school, so that they can do better. Labour colleagues are particularly proud of that initiative.
After I leave this place, my first appointment in the morning will be with the organisation that deals with compensation for chronic bronchitis and emphysema. I am delighted that my hon. Friend the Member for Bolsover (Mr. Skinner) has joined us. We have campaigned hard for two decades to get such compensation. When we started, we were told that there was no chance, but we all worked together. We campaigned together and we won in the High Court--the biggest civil compensation case in history. We will pay out on 100,000 claims to former miners. We have £2 billion to put in people's pockets. What peeves us all is that we are not doing the job more quickly-- £70 million has already been paid out, but much more remains to be done. Tomorrow, I will see the chief executive of IRISC, which is the body that is running that. I will have a full and frank discussion with him, as my hon. Friend the Member for Bolsover would put it. I will poke the organisation in the eye a little on the matter because I want us to achieve the target that we set ourselves--to pay out to 2,500 people a month. These miners have given their health--in some cases, their lives--to keep us warm and we must do better.
I am conscious that I have been asked to pass on many messages and to ensure that ministerial colleagues are aware of a range of issues. I will do so. I will write to those colleagues who have raised matters that I have not answered.
The right hon. Member for North-West Hampshire said that we were going away for a few days of rest. What struck me was not that colleagues needed a rest, but that they would be going back to their constituencies full of vigour to deal with various problems and initiatives--the things that need to be done. I am conscious of a matter raised by my hon. Friend the Member for Gedling. He was putting pressure on me to put pressure on Ministers to ensure that we get change. This debate shows that a lot has been achieved, but much more remains to be done.
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