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Mr. Hain: I realise that the hon. Gentleman wants to make his point powerfully, and he has just done so. I do not quarrel with him for that. But we have seen the longest and most sustained fall in crime for a century. Antisocial behaviour is one of the areas that the Government have prioritised for tackling, seeing 11,000 more police officers recruited, more community support officers and more community wardens. We have taken legislation through the House and the other place on antisocial behaviour when, often, we have not had the support of either Conservative Members or Liberal Democrat Members, who have appeared to turn a blind eye to antisocial behaviour, when we all know that it is one of the curses of modern life.

Mr. David Amess (Southend, West) (Con): The Human Fertilisation and Embryology Authority has made a decision of enormous ethical significance to sanction designer babies, which goes against the spirit of the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Act 1990, and has pre-empted the outcome of studies by two Select Committees. Will the Leader of the House allow us to have a debate in Government time on the authority's future?

Mr. Hain: I shall obviously bear in mind the hon. Gentleman's request, but he has many opportunities to raise those matters with the Secretary of State for Health, and, indeed, he can apply for an Adjournment debate himself.
 
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Regional Assemblies

1.20 pm

The Minister for Local and Regional Government (Mr. Nick Raynsford): Earlier this week, the House approved orders specifying 4 November as the date for the referendums in the three northern regions.

Hon. Members: It approved them yesterday!

Mr. Speaker: Order. The Minister was accurate.

Mr. Raynsford: We introduced the orders to fulfil expectations in the regions of referendums in the autumn. Only if the orders are in place before the summer can we have a 4 November date. Yesterday, the House also approved three orders that provide for those referendums to be conducted as all-postal ballots and make provision about expense limits and referendum costs. Approval was given against the background of the Government's commitment to the House that we would not proceed with the all-postal referendums as planned if the Electoral Commission's evaluation report on last June's all-postal pilots produced convincing evidence leading to the conclusion that it would be unsafe to do so. The commission's report was expected by 13 September. We gave our commitment because we take its views very seriously—[Interruption.] We do.

In the debates this week, concerns were raised about all-postal ballots, following some experiences of postal voting in the recent pilots. There are differences of views on all-postal ballots across the House, with particular reservations being strongly voiced in certain localities. This week, the Electoral Commission has also announced that it intends to publish its evaluation report of the June pilots and its recommendations on the future use of all-postal ballots before Parliament returns in September. The debates demonstrated solid support for all-postal voting and the clear expectation of an early referendum in the north-east. None of the concerns raised about all-postal ballots relates to that region. On the contrary, the experience there of all-postal ballots, both in June and in earlier local election pilots, has been consistently positive. The north-east has had longer and more extensive experience of all-postal ballots than any other region, and the availability of all postal voting has been consistently welcomed by the voters.

We have reflected on those developments, and on the range of opinions expressed during the debates on the orders. Except where there is a pressing expectation and overwhelming support for an early all-postal referendum, we have concluded that the right course is not to proceed with the orders setting up referendums on 4 November but to await the Electoral Commission's report before confirming the arrangements. We have therefore decided not to proceed with the orders for the north-west and Yorkshire and the Humber. Our commitment to referendums in those regions remains unchanged, but the timetable for their referendums will be affected.

Once the House returns in September we will, with your permission, Mr. Speaker, make a statement on how we intend to proceed in those regions, having had the opportunity to consider carefully the commission's report. We are clear, however, that, as we are not
 
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proceeding now with the orders, there cannot be referendums on 4 November in those regions. By contrast, all that we have heard from the north-east confirms that it is right to proceed with the orders providing for all-postal referendums in the north-east on 4 November. That is what the people there want and expect, and that is what we are facilitating.

To help people in the north-east make their decision, I am today publishing the draft Regional Assemblies Bill, including explanatory notes and regulatory impact assessment (Cm 6285) and an accompanying policy statement. Those documents set out the purposes, powers and responsibilities that we envisage for elected regional assemblies. The draft Bill and policy statement also cover the establishment, election, constitution and funding of elected assemblies. The Bill is drafted to give each general purposes of economic development, social development and the improvement and protection of the environment, as well as wide-ranging power to take action to further those purposes. There will also be detailed powers relating to specific functions.

Since the publication of the White Paper, we have strengthened the powers of elected regional assemblies in crucial areas such as fire and rescue, stakeholder engagement and planning, and that is reflected in the Bill. We have also developed proposals on learning and skills and transport. Progress on the former is reflected in the policy statement. Under the Bill, decisions currently made by different sets of unelected bureaucrats would be taken by one democratic body elected by the people of the region. Its publication fulfils our commitment to Parliament to publish a draft Bill ahead of any referendum for an elected regional assembly. It demonstrates our commitment to establish elected assemblies where people want them, whether in the north-east, the north-west, Yorkshire and the Humber or, in the course of time, any other region.

The Bill will be an important tool to help the electorate in the north-east make an informed decision on whether to vote for or against an elected assembly in the referendum on 4 November. We intend to introduce a final version of the Bill in Parliament once a region has voted to establish an assembly.

Mr. Bernard Jenkin (North Essex) (Con) rose—

The Deputy Prime Minister (Mr. John Prescott): You've got the junior doing it!

Hon. Members: You got your junior to do it!

Mr. Speaker: Order. We should have some calm in the Chamber.

Mr. Jenkin: The right hon. Gentleman knows full well that if he had made the statement my right hon. Friend the Member for Haltemprice and Howden (David Davis) would have replied.

The statement just delivered by the Minister for Local and Regional Government is quite incredible, completely unbelievable and utterly cynical. Only yesterday, he urged the House to support the principle of three referendums, but he has the gall and temerity to return within 24 hours to say that he has changed his
 
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mind. Only yesterday, he denied that he would do what I predicted. He said that

"we shall . . . be prepared not to proceed with an all-postal referendum. However, we must obviously wait to see the evidence."—[Official Report, 21 July 2004; Vol. 424, c. 379.]

The evidence will appear in the Electoral Commission report, which will not be published until 27 August, so why has he suddenly changed his mind and decided not to wait for it? Is he as astonished as we are about what he has been sent here to do? Can he assure us that when he addressed the House yesterday, he was speaking, to use a well worn phrase, "in good faith"?

Can anyone remember any Government treating the people of this country—in this case, the people of the north-west and of Yorkshire and the Humber—with such utter contempt and cynicism? It is awesomely ruthless politics suddenly to cut horrendous losses under the cover of a Cabinet reshuffle. This is what new Labour calls "a good day to bury bad news". Talking of reshuffles—

The Deputy Prime Minister: There is no reshuffle.

Mr. Jenkin: None? I wondered whether that was why the right hon. Gentleman did not make the statement himself. I thought today might be his last day on the Front Bench. Are not regional assemblies his life's work? Did he refuse to make the statement because he did not want to trash 20 or more years of commitment to his regional dreams?

This whole episode shows more clearly than ever that the Government have nothing but contempt for Parliament. Hon. Members may have differing opinions about the merits of elected regional assemblies, but we can all agree on one thing—this is no way to run our constitution, our democracy or our country. How much public money has been wasted in those two regions on consultation, the information campaign and the boundary committee review?How many hours of civil service time has been wasted and how much goodwill from the few members of the business community who supported the Government's proposals has been lost? Pity the poor "yes" campaigners, who were led a merry dance for a year or more only to be defeated before a single vote is cast in the referendums.

Will the right hon. Gentleman be straight with the House? When he uses the word "postpone", what he really means is cancel, scrap, finish with, delete, forget about, consign to the dustbin of failed ideas, because the truth is that nobody wants an extra layer of professional politicians leeching more tax out of the pockets of honest, hard-working people.

May I press the Minister on the reason he gives for scrapping only two out of three referendums? Does he not realise how utterly illogical he is being? If an all-postal referendum is unsafe in Yorkshire, how can it be safe in Northumberland? If it is a bad system for Bradford, how can the identical system be okay in Newcastle? If it is prone to corruption in Liverpool, why is it not prone to corruption in Durham or Middlesbrough? If the issue is all-postal voting, why does he not switch to a tried and tested system that we have had running in this country for a couple of hundred years? It is called the polling station and the ballot box.
 
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The reasons the Minister has given for pulling the referendums are a fig leaf—chaff to disguise the real reason. The fact is that a majority of Labour MPs were in covert or open rebellion in the north-west and Yorkshire this week because they know what Ministers have been denying. They know their voters do not want an extra layer of placemen, politicians and bureaucrats. They do not want a costly and wasteful reorganisation of local government. They do not want powers stripped away from local councils, which represent real communities, and placed in the hands of a remote bureaucracy under politicians with virtually no power at all.

Where would just one elected regional assembly leave the British constitution? What started out as a so-called grand plan for comprehensive constitutional settlement in England is today left in tatters. First there were eight regions, then there were three, and now there is one.

As for the Bill, for the Government to announce the draft Bill today just adds to the atmosphere of cynicism. I am grateful to the Minister for sending me an advance copy of his statement, but unfortunately I got the revised copy only after he was on his feet, so I cannot comment on what he means by "the policy statement" that goes with the Bill. It obviously does not have legislative authority. The policy statement will not be included in the Bill.

If the information published today is so significant, why did the Minister deliberately withhold it from the House yesterday, when we had much better time and occasion to debate it? He is still holding the Bill in the Vote Office. He has still not released it for us to look at. If there are so-called new powers in the Bill, how can that be, when hardly more than a few weeks ago the Under-Secretary of State, Office of the Deputy Prime Minister, the hon. Member for Corby (Phil Hope) told us in a letter that the White Paper set out all the powers proposed for the assemblies. The Deputy Prime Minister told a meeting in the north of England earlier this year that he was fighting "battles" with his Cabinet colleagues about the powers he wanted for the Bill. His absence from the Dispatch Box today is clear indication that he has lost all his battles.

Few in the Government are committed to the Deputy Prime Minister's pathetic pipe dream, because they can see that elected regional assemblies are unwanted and would become unpopular and expensive tax-raising talking shops that would not create one extra teacher in the classroom, one extra nurse or doctor for the NHS, or one extra policeman on our streets.

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