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Miss Melanie Johnson: I beg to move, That the Bill be read a Third time.

I thank hon. Members for their contribution to the scrutiny of this Bill. The debate has been wide-ranging and has given Opposition Members the opportunity, for which I am sure that they are profoundly grateful, to debate a whole range of different aspects of the Government's public health policy. That the Health Protection Agency is relevant to so many public health issues is testament to how important its work already is and will continue to be.

We have given the Bill a thorough examination during its legislative passage. Before today, the House had already spent some nine hours considering it: more than three and a half hours on Second Reading, and nearly five and a half in Committee. I appreciate that that might not seem like a long time compared with many other Bills, including most of the Bills that I have been involved with in my parliamentary career. None the less, generous time has been allowed for its consideration, given the degree of support from all parts of the House—I am happy to say—for its general principles and overall aims. Of course, it had already been considered for nine and a half hours in another place.

The Government have been responsive to the points raised in the House and in the other place and have amended the Bill accordingly. A total of 16 Government amendments, made in response to points raised in the Lords, were accepted. Some 33 other amendments were accepted in the other place, but the Bill was well
 
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prepared and those amendments did not raise new issues or set out new policies that were unforeseen at the time of its introduction.

Dr. Murrison : One issue, the review of arm's-length bodies, was severely glossed over. As I recall, the Minister repeatedly assured the Committee that the Bill would not be affected by that review. The Minister was either incorrect or she pre-judged the review's outcome; which was it?

Miss Johnson: I do not understand why the hon. Gentleman draws that conclusion. I was neither of the things that he says, and I stick exactly to what I have said on the record previously about the relationship between the Bill, the HPA and the arm's-length body review.

Six of the amendments accepted in another place affected the schedules, but they are concerned merely with tidying up.

As a result of this work, we have got right the statutory basis for the HPA. It is doing an important job and it will need to continue to do so, in conjunction with the National Radiological Protection Board; indeed, I have set out the advantages of bringing those bodies together. I am sure that Members will wish the HPA well in its future work. I therefore commend the Bill to the House.

Dr. Murrison: Generally speaking, we welcome the Bill. Our proceedings in Committee were conciliatory throughout and I hope that the Minister appreciated the constructive comments made by all members of the Committee.

I am a concerned about the review of arm's-length bodies. Clearly, that must affect the HPA; it would be extraordinary if it did not. Members raised education
 
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with the Minister on several occasions in Committee, encouraging her to include a reference to it in the Bill. Of course, education is a salient part of the terms of reference of several of the bodies that are likely to be abolished as a result of this review, so it is surely desirable that the Bill reflect that fact, at least in part. I appreciate that its terms of reference are broad; indeed, I strongly suspect that they were drawn up that way to allow for incorporation of the functions of other bodies, if and when they are abolished.

My hon. Friends the Members for Newark (Patrick Mercer) and for Rayleigh (Mr. Francois) made some important points on civil contingencies on Second Reading. I discerned in Committee that the Minister has perhaps not thought through that issue as well as she has other aspects of the Bill. She will of course have observed Operation Horizon, a very important exercise that took place in Birmingham over the weekend. I wonder what part the HPA played in it, and how that role might have differed if the HPA had been a non-departmental public body. It would be useful if the Minister commented on that issue or wrote to me about it, because it cuts to the heart of the transferring of this strategic health authority to the status of a non-departmental public body.

We face a whole raft of public health challenges, and I have to say that I am more concerned about public health outcomes than structures. That said, I of course wish the new body well—

It being two hours after the commencement of proceedings, Mr. Deputy Speaker put the Questions necessary to bring proceedings on the Bill to a conclusion, pursuant to Order [this day].

Question put and agreed to.

Bill accordingly read the Third time, and passed.
 
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Council Tax

6.39 pm

The Minister for Local and Regional Government (Mr. Nick Raynsford): I beg to move,

That the draft Council Tax Limitation (England) (Maximum Amounts) Order 2004, which was laid before this House on 8th July, be approved.

Mr. Deputy Speaker (Sir Michael Lord): I remind the House that this debate lasts for only one and a half hours, so it would be very helpful if Back Benchers and Front Benchers were mindful of the need to share the time with others.

Mr. Raynsford: I will try to confine my remarks to the minimum necessary to set out our decision in order to allow—as you suggested, Mr. Deputy Speaker—a good opportunity for other hon. Members to contribute to the debate.

The order that I am presenting for the approval of the House today will be made under section 52F(4) of the Local Government Finance Act 1992, which was inserted by the Local Government Act 1999. It sets out the amounts that the 2004–05 budget requirements of the authorities named in the order must not exceed—namely, caps on their budget requirements. In my view, the provisions of the order are compatible with the convention rights.

Six authorities are named in the order: Torbay borough council, Nottingham city council, Herefordshire district council, the Fenland and Shepway district councils and the Hereford and Worcester fire authority.

Mr. Anthony Steen (Totnes) (Con): Bearing in mind the facts that the Lib Dems have spent 11 out of the past 14 years running Torbay and that it has been rated as a poor performance council, why are the Government making it worse by capping the council from £139.4 million to £138.8 million—only £0.6 million? Why are the Government also causing £100,000 to be spent on sending out letters to all council tax payers, telling them that there is a reduction of about £11 a year? Would it not have been far wiser to give credit of that £11 to council tax payers next year, bearing in mind the Government's—

Mr. Deputy Speaker: Order. The hon. Member is launching on a speech.

Mr. Raynsford: I recall the hon. Gentleman's intervention in the debate on 29 April—I announced then our intention to designate specific authorities, including Torbay council—in which he welcomed our decision. We are simply proceeding with the decision that was announced on that occasion. I will explain the full circumstances in the course of my statement.

Subject to the approval of the House, I shall make the order and issue notices to those authorities advising them of the maximum amounts. They will then be required to recalculate their budget requirements and issue new council tax bills—or, in the case of the Hereford and Worcester fire authority, to issue new precepts. The effect is that the authorities will have had their budgets and council tax capped.
 
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I made a statement in the House on 29 April about authorities that had set excessive budgets for the current year. I welcomed the fact that the average increase in council tax in England this year was 5.9 per cent., which was less than half the previous year's increase and lower than many people had predicted. A large number of authorities set lower council tax increases in 2004–05 than they had originally proposed. That was in no small measure due to the Government's strong message that high council tax increases were both unacceptable and unnecessary.

Some authorities' budgets and council tax increases were still too high, however, and imposed unreasonable burdens on council tax payers. I said then that the Government were designating seven authorities for in-year capping and nominating a further seven authorities with a view to taking action to limit their budget requirement increases in 2005–06. The designated authorities then had 21 days in which to challenge the maximum budget requirements that we said we were proposing to set. Those were the levels at which they would need to calculate their budgets in order for them not to be defined as excessive according to principles determined by the Secretary of State.

As I said in the written statement that I made to the House on 8 July when the order was laid, all the designated authorities challenged the proposed maximum budgets. Ministerial colleagues and I met all seven of them as well as the seven nominated authorities. Having carefully considered the representations that they made, both orally and in writing, and having taken into account all relevant information, we have decided as follows.

We shall set maximum budgets at the levels originally proposed for five authorities—Herefordshire, Nottingham, Torbay, Fenland and Shepway—and set a maximum budget for the Hereford and Worcester fire authority that is £1.044 million higher than we had originally proposed to reflect the savings that we judged the authority can reasonably be required to make. We shall cancel the designation of Telford and Wrekin and nominate it instead. I have proposed a notional budget for the authority this year at the same level as we originally proposed for the maximum budget, had we capped it.

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