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John Cryer (Hornchurch) (Lab): Like most hon. Members this afternoon, I shall raise a few constituency issues. I talked about school closures on the Floor of the House some time ago. The Conservative-run authority of my borough of Havering has recently had a fairly shambolic run during which it has put various primary schools under the threat of closure. First, it threatened the R. J. Mitchell primary school. It then threatened Ayloff primary school and Suttons primary school, while the closure threat to R. J. Mitchell was withdrawn. It then withdrew the closure threat to Ayloff primary school and put R. J. Mitchell back under threat once again. It has now withdrawn any closure threat in my constituency or elsewhere in the borough, yet it has managed to create concern and worry—verging on panic—among staff, governors, teachers and everyone connected to the schools, especially parents and children.

At the end of that process, what has changed? Absolutely nothing. There was no change whatsoever, so there was no need for the authority to introduce the panic measure. All the schools remain open, but although the closure threats have been withdrawn, those three schools and others in the borough are left with the worry that the Tory council might come back with further threats of closure. I do not think that that will happen—partly because the authority will not be allowed to get away with it—but we should introduce a measure into education legislation that would allow the Department for Education and Skills at least to call for inquiries into local education authorities that behave as irresponsibly as Havering. I blame not the officers but the political leadership, which handled the situation ineptly and started a process that created, at best, worry among almost all people connected with the schools.

The second issue that I wish to raise arises from my regular discussions with local groups that represent disabled people, especially the Havering association for people with disabilities and Havcare, which is a borough-wide group. Two key questions arise from those discussions, the first of which relates to the introduction of the Mental Capacity Bill, which was the draft Mental Incapacity Bill—the title has changed during its consideration in Parliament. The Bill has been widely welcomed by almost all relevant organisations. One of the key aspects of the Bill is that it will allow people who do not have the capacity to advocate their own cause or case to appoint advocates on their behalf. The Government have not yet answered a question that has been put to me, although I am sure that they will:
 
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how will advocacy be accessed by those people who need it? For instance, will any costs be incurred, especially by close relatives? A Mencap press release of 28 June states:

"Millions of people with dementia, autism, a learning disability and mental health problems will be better off under the new Mental Capacity Bill, but the Bill will be 'toothless' unless it ensures the availability of advocates, a coalition of 39 charities has warned."

That coalition is the Making Decisions Alliance, which represents 39 charities and voluntary groups.

My second question relates to the requirement for a proportion of carers in homes to have a qualification at, or equivalent to, national vocational qualification level 2. That is probably a desirable change, recently introduced by the Government, but are grants available to achieve that? As far as I know, they are not, but they probably should be. In this context, I am talking about small care homes, some of which face genuine difficulties and have done so for the past few years, although those have been exaggerated by press reports to some extent. If a grant is available to those people who have to attain NVQ level 2, it will help smaller care homes to deal with their problems.

The third issue that concerns me is the use of fireworks and recent legislation on fireworks. I pay tribute to my hon. Friend the Member for Hamilton, South (Mr. Tynan) for piloting the Fireworks Bill through Parliament. It is much needed. I get reams of complaints every year because of the antisocial use of fireworks. The Bill answered many of the pleas that I get in my mailbag, and I am sure that other hon. Members receive the same pleas.

I refer the Deputy Leader of the House to early-day motion 1513 in my name. Although many of the Bill's provisions are welcome, it appears that the original proposal to license all premises that sell fireworks at any time of year is being watered down. That is a central plank of the legislation. I have discussed the matter with my hon. Friend the Member for Hamilton, South and he agrees, and it was his Bill, after all.

If, as seems likely, the Government are going to abandon that licensing system, it could neuter the Bill. Many of its other elements are commendable and badly needed, but if we abandon that licensing system, we are abandoning a main plank of the Bill. The provision is necessary during October, November and December, when fireworks become a particular nuisance—although these days they are a nuisance almost the whole year around. I have a pile of letters in my office from various constituents, including one from the Rev. Bob Love, the vicar of St. John's in my constituency, whom I know well because I have surgeries at his church. He highlights the importance of licensing premises.

My final concern relates to antisocial behaviour and drunkenness. Although my borough recently had a substantial increase in the number of police officers and police community support officers—the PCSOs were introduced in the past few months—the big problem is that daft decisions by the local council in the past have meant that Romford has a nightclub capacity of between 12,000 and 14,000. That is the biggest nightclub capacity in the whole of the south-east outside London's
 
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west end. It is an enormous capacity and draws in people from all over east London, Essex and further afield across the south-east. It has obvious law and order implications that were not thought through when planning permission was sought and granted for various nightclubs, which were then issued with licences.

What tends to happen is that on Friday and Saturday nights police strength is drawn from other parts of the borough. The increase in police strength means that the problem is not as bad as it used to be and has been mitigated to some extent. However, we still need to draw some police officers from other parts of the borough. The Government could help by introducing a regulation to control the practice of happy hours, which sometimes go on for two or three hours, in nightclubs. Drinks are very cheap and, as a result, there is widespread, and sometimes serious, intoxication.

I go out on patrol with the police on a fairly regular basis and see the result of those happy hours around Romford, especially late at night. Happy hours reflect the irresponsible behaviour of certain breweries and nightclub owners. If we cannot regulate happy hours, I have another solution. It is a bit of an old Labour solution. If it were up to me, I would nationalise the breweries. Bringing the breweries into public ownership worked in the first world war, why can it not work now? We sorted them out then and we can sort them out again. We could regulate, control and ensure that the problem does not arise in the future. Of course, it would have the added advantage that we would not have to tax the breweries because all the money would come to us anyway.

Mr. Heald: It would also give us an opportunity to test out the theory, which we have always had, that the Government could not organise a **** in a brewery.

John Cryer: I will ignore that.

Nationalising the breweries would be advantageous. All the money would come into the Treasury. My right hon. Friend the Chancellor of the Exchequer could use it to invest in schools, hospitals, police and so on, and antisocial behaviour would be controlled as a result.

3.26 pm

Mr. John Wilkinson (Ruislip-Northwood) (Con): It is a great pleasure to endorse everything that my hon. Friend the Member for North-East Bedfordshire (Alistair Burt) said in tribute to the maiden speech of the newly elected hon. Member for Birmingham, Hodge Hill (Mr. Byrne). I am sure that he has a promising career in the House.

It was good that the hon. Gentleman spoke so warmly of his predecessors, most notably the late Roy Jenkins, my right hon. Friend the Member for Bracknell (Mr. Mackay) and, of course, Terry Davis, who, like my hon. Friend the Member for Bournemouth, East (Mr. Atkinson), has given most distinguished service to the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe. This country and its delegation can be proud that he is now its Secretary-General.

The hon. Member for Birmingham, Hodge Hill wound up his speech with reminiscences about happy walks to the Fox and Goose—no doubt many of us empathised with him at that point—and talked about
 
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the industrial performance in Birmingham, the great city's commitment to manufacturing, and what it did in world war two by providing Spitfires and Hurricanes for the front line of the Royal Air Force. His remarks and those of the Secretary of State for Defence yesterday lead me to follow my right hon. Friend the Member for North-West Hampshire (Sir George Young) in referring to the mini White Paper on defence, inappropriately named "Delivering Security in a Changing World: Future Capabilities". That is a misnomer if ever there was one. I do not believe that it would be doing justice to our servicemen and women for the House to wait several months before delivering a considered verdict on it. It was based on false assumptions.

The Secretary of State said yesterday:

"We measured numbers of people and platforms in the cold war because we were preparing for an essentially attritional campaign, holding back Soviet forces."—[Official Report, 21 July 2004; Vol. 424, c. 343.]

We were doing nothing of the kind. Throughout the cold war we maintained forces vastly inferior in number to those of the Warsaw pact countries. We had enough troops in place to hold the line for 48 hours or, at the very most, 72 hours, at which point we were bound to give way or to invoke nuclear retaliation. The fear of nuclear retaliation provided the deterrent that kept the peace. It is false logic to suggest that we do not need adequate numbers now on the basis of the argument that during the cold war we needed large numbers of forces. We need, of course, a balance between numbers of well-equipped forces, capabilities, mobility, flexibility and firepower, which in part the Secretary of State is delivering, but which is not fully achieved because of the dictates of Her Majesty's Treasury.

The forces' morale will be gravely affected by the cuts that the Defence Secretary has introduced, and they are cuts. No one can suggest that reductions in the Royal Air Force of 7,500, the Army of 1,500 and the Navy of a similar number do not constitute cuts—they most certainly do. To withdraw the whole of the RAF's Jaguar force, its offensive support aircraft, currently based at Coltishall, before the tranche 2 Typhoon is even ordered, let alone available, is highly irresponsible because the capability that they provide ensures that our forces on the ground can do their job effectively, with the minimum of loss. It is, however, in line with what the Government have done before: the withdrawal of the Sea Harriers from service with the Fleet Air Arm, some eight years, at best, before the new F-35 JSF aircraft come into service.

The Government are happy to allow our armed forces to be vulnerable; indeed, they accentuate that vulnerability, as they are doing by reducing the Nimrod force from 12 to eight maritime patrol aeroplanes, just when the Dutch are completely abandoning their maritime patrol aircraft. For us to reduce this capability is most irresponsible.

It is irresponsible also to conjecture about reductions in the helicopter force. We need the mobility that the helicopter force provides now more than ever in this age of uncertain threats and global terrorism. Likewise, it is most unwise for the Government not to have placed an order for the new tanker aircraft, the A330–200, which
 
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the RAF is banking on. It is also irresponsible to eliminate the air defence capability of the RAF Regiment at a time when protecting from attack the few aircraft that we do possess is crucial. I also find absolutely extraordinary the idea that, when terrorism is all too rife, one can put all one's transport and tanker assets on one base, by closing RAF Lyneham and putting everything at RAF Brize Norton.

The Government are letting the country down and they are letting the armed forces down. What a way to celebrate the 200th anniversary of Trafalgar next year—by cutting the fleet by about a quarter and happily allowing the French to have a much larger navy than us. The United Kingdom should have the biggest navy in Europe; we should be proud of the fact, because it is concomitant with our interests as a global trading nation.

It is also unwise to leave totally sacrosanct a quarter of the British Army in Germany. No one wants to see a reduction of the infantry battalions—they are overstretched already, and they are rotated on to operational tours all too frequently—but that the Army should maintain about a quarter of its strength, static, in Germany, expending vast sums to the benefit of the German economy when it is the British economy that we should be sustaining, I find decidedly odd, especially when, in the second Gulf war, it did not appear that the Germans were even on our side. They seemed to be militating against our efforts rather than supporting us as good NATO allies should.

Our Government are embarked on a European security and defence policy, and we all wish that well because it is in the interests of our continent and our nation that it should succeed. The European Union is to take over NATO's peacekeeping role in Bosnia at the end of this year. However, I wonder whether, in the event of a major commitment such as Iraq and a serious crisis, not just peacekeeping, in the Balkans or Northern Ireland, with the reductions that the Defence Secretary has outlined we will be able to meet both, or other multiple, obligations. I doubt it very much.

I return to the theme of irresponsibility, which is at the heart of the defence White Paper that the Government have put before us. We can play a role, not only here, but collectively with parliamentarians of like mind on the continent. I am pleased that the French are maintaining increased defence spending and I admire the way in which they are cocking a snook at the stability pact, which many of us thought was ridiculous and voted against at the time that the Maastricht treaty was going through the House.

The European security and defence policy needs to be scrutinised. Collectively, we must ensure that we in Europe make the best use of our common resources for defence, and to do that national parliamentarians need to engage together. I suggest that we do so through the Parliamentary Assembly of the Western European Union, whose 50 years of existence we shall celebrate in October. The assembly has done its job magnificently because national parliamentarians provide the Defence Ministers and the defence budgets which make the European security and defence policy possible. However, the latest defence review ensures that making the European security and defence policy possible for the United Kingdom will be much harder. For this reason, I believe the White Paper to be irresponsible.
 
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3.36 pm

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