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Mr. Mike Wood (Batley and Spen) (Lab): The Leader of the House will no doubt be surprised to hear that ambulance drivers regularly receive speeding tickets as part of their life-saving work, and even more surprised that ambulance trusts around the country spend £1 million a year to resolve that issue. After a 37-year blemish-free career with the ambulance service, my constituent, Mick Ferguson, was under threat of prosecution for 10 months. On his behalf, and on that of his wife, Ann, and the GMB, his union, who supported him through that trauma, I warmly welcome last week's announcement by Department of Health Ministers that they intend to end that anomaly and to indemnify ambulance staff showing the blue light. We need a statement to the House so that we can unpick the detail of the announcement. When does it start, and does it apply to private ambulance companies as well as NHS—
Mr. Deputy Speaker (Sir Alan Haselhurst): Order. The hon. Gentleman must practise asking more concise questions. I think that the Leader of the House has the gist.
Mr. Hain:
I share my hon. Friend's frustration, as do the Government, which is why the Department of Health is working alongside the Home Office and the Association of Chief Police Officers to resolve the problem. Indeed, a new protocol is being drawn up by ACPO, as the Minister of State, Department of Health, my hon. Friend the Member for Doncaster, Central (Ms Winterton), announced when she spoke at the annual conference of the Ambulance Service Association on 2 July. She will have noted carefully what my hon. Friend said and will, I am sure, be able to clarify the position in due course.
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Mr. Graham Brady (Altrincham and Sale, West) (Con): Can we have an early statement on the Government's policy of allowing the destruction of green belt land in metropolitan areas where it really counts, and replacing it with green belt in areas where there is little pressure for development? I have been pursuing statistics on that policy since 2 March, when I received a reply from a Minister in the Office of the Deputy Prime Minister telling me that I would shortly receive a response with statistics. I tabled further written questions in May and June, only to be told that I would receive a reply as soon as possible. I could easily come to the conclusion that the Government have something to hide unless they make a statement in the near future.
Mr. Hain: It is nonsense to suggest that we have anything to hide. We have a great deal to be proud of, as we are making much more use of brownfield sites to construct more housing and developments. The suggestion that we are about to destroy the green belt is a fabrication, albeit unintentional, from the hon. Gentleman. However, he got caught up in his own rhetoric, and for the record, we reject it entirely.
Chris Bryant (Rhondda) (Lab): May we have a debate as soon as possible on an issue that is often hidden, but is probably the most significant one in many Welsh valley communities—incapacity benefit? There is considerable evidence to suggest that once people are on incapacity benefit for eight months, they are likely to be on it for at least eight years. Most people who start off with minor illnesses end up with serious ones. Can we have a thorough reform of incapacity benefit so that it is not a passport to poor health and low income but enables people to get back into work?
Mr. Hain: My hon. Friend is right to identify a central problem in valley communities such as the ones that he and I represent in south Wales. It is because a large proportion of people are on incapacity benefit that the Government have introduced a number of pilots, working with individuals on benefit to find ways of allowing them to get back into work. Those pilots have been hugely successful, and the Department for Work and Pensions intends to roll out a much bigger programme to encourage people on incapacity benefit to end their dependency on benefit, get jobs and enjoy better health, thus securing greater opportunities and prosperity.
Mr. Roy Beggs (East Antrim) (UUP):
Does the Leader of the House share my concern that self-employed men in the United Kingdom, with the exception of men on low incomes or those who are of a certain age, are not entitled to statutory paternity pay? In view of the discrimination against many of the 2.5 million self-employed men that prevents them from taking time off to assist with the care of their new-born children, could we have a debate in the House to consider the extension of statutory paternity pay and end that discrimination?
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Mr. Hain: The hon. Gentleman raises an interesting issue. I like to think of myself as a diligent constituency MP, as he undoubtedly is, but I have not come across the problem. I am sure that the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry will want to pay close attention to his remarks and write to him about the matter.
Paul Flynn (Newport, West) (Lab): Will my right hon. Friend arrange for the publication of what Butler called the "excellent quality papers" that were prepared for Cabinet Ministers but never seen by them, thus, the report said, reducing their scope for making political judgments? One Cabinet member has already said that, not only did he not see the papers but he was not aware of their existence. Can my right hon. Friend tell me whether he has seen them?
Mr. Hain: No, I have not, but I do not regard that as a problem. [Hon. Members: "Ah!] No, I do not, because other papers were produced. I referred earlier to 25 key meetings of Ministers and officials at which papers were considered.
Paul Flynn: That was uninformed discussion.
Mr. Hain: I respect my hon. Friend's disagreement with the Government's decision on Iraq. He has an honourable point of view, and has argued it consistently and honestly. Equally, he should respect the fact that the decision was taken after a great deal of serious and detailed consideration. There was more high-quality, probing discussion of that issue in Cabinet than of any issue in the first period in which I was a member of the Cabinet. The notion that Cabinet Ministers closed their eyes and followed the Prime Minister into war is nonsense and a fabrication. The Butler inquiry also found that the way in which the Cabinet and the Government worked on the matter was, as I said earlier, no less effective than on other issues and other policy decisions.
Mr. Andrew Turner (Isle of Wight) (Con): If they have not got the papers, they do not need to close their eyes.
Is the Leader of the House aware that our high commissioner to Kenya recently told business men about £188 million-worth of corruption under the new Government? He told them that their
"earnings were being looted by the servants of the state"
"practitioners now in government . . . causes them to vomit all over our shoes."
I raised that speech with the Chancellor in Treasury questions, but he did not appear to know that a Government spokesman made it. Can we have a debate on the use of overseas aid and how much of it is corruptly abused?
Mr. Hain: There was no suggestion, as I understand it, by the high commissioner that the allegation that the hon. Gentleman makes was the issue.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Transport (Mr. Tony McNulty): What about the Opposition's cuts?
Mr. Hain: As my hon. Friend reminds me, if we are debating overseas aid, there will be an opportunity to remind the public and the House of the massive cuts planned for overseas aid and development assistance by the shadow Chancellor and the Leader of the Opposition following their freeze on all non-school and health funding in the first two years of a Tory Government. As for Cabinet government, there is an obsession with processology, which was raised earlier in the House. People cannot live with, or accept, the fact that four independent inquiries headed by eminent people of the utmost integrity have now disproved all the allegations of disingenuousness and other criticisms levelled at the Government concerning their decision to go into Iraq. People should surely accept that we acted honestly, just as we accept the fact that critics of the Government have an honest difference of opinion with us.
Jon Trickett (Hemsworth) (Lab): Royal Mail deliveries in my constituency are increasingly erratic and recently 60-odd letters to businesses and companies were dumped in an empty shop. My right hon. Friend will share my admiration for Post Office workers who, day after day, whatever the weather, tramp through the streets of our constituencies. Will he organise time for a debate on the use by Royal Mail management of temporary staff and agency workers, which produces more erratic deliveries than we would want as constituency MPs?
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