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Mr. Dawson: Does the Minister not accept my point that what is missing is the empowerment of the users—the children, the parents and the people who work at the coal face of the system?

Dr. Ladyman: I am absolutely in agreement with my hon. Friend that empowering those people is vital. If he has listened to me making speeches not only on this agenda but on the other part of my portfolio, which involves responsibility for older people, he will have heard me saying time and again that we shall achieve real progress on improving these issues only when they are made into matters for local discussion, when they become local priorities at local elections and when people ask their local MP, their local councillors and others in positions of responsibility locally, including the primary care trusts, "What are you doing in my area?", rather than always looking to central Government to provide some grand answer that simply will not solve the problem.

Dr. Pugh: The Minister said that these are matters for local discussion. He did not say that they were matters for local decision. Is there any reason why not?

Dr. Ladyman: It was a simple slip of the tongue. These are matters for local discussion and local decision.

The other suggestion made by the right hon. Member for Charnwood was that children's trusts should have commissioning responsibility. Indeed, they will have commissioning responsibility. Therefore, we are embarking on the direction of travel that he has identified as one way of delivery. In addition, we will have the joint area reviews, in which Ofsted, the Healthcare Commission and the Commission for Social
 
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Care Inspection come together, to make sure that progress is being made. Public service agreements and the policy and planning framework will underpin all that.

Nothing is guaranteed in this life. Possibly, when I am sitting on this side of the Chamber in 2014, listening to one of my hon. Friends speaking from the Front Bench, we will not have seen the progress for which I hope. But I believe that with this national service framework, and the underpinning foundation of inspection processes and the measures put in place, we have a better opportunity to do that than we have ever had previously. Given the good will that came from all parts of the House today, perhaps this time we will get somewhere.

Another theme that ran through this debate was maternity services. My hon. Friend the Member for Braintree (Mr. Hurst) mentioned it, and my hon. Friend the Member for South Swindon (Ms Drown) spoke at great length on it. I agreed with much of what was said. I also agreed with the point made by the hon. Member for Romsey and others that the work force will be critical to delivering our agenda in respect of maternity services. We must start to examine why we are not making better progress on recruiting midwives. There is no question about that and we have put plans in place to try to address the problem.

The numbers are not as bleak as the hon. Lady suggested—we have recruited 1,500 midwives since 1997—but we need to put that in context, which is that we have managed to recruit 67,000 more nurses. Therefore, one of the questions that we must ask ourselves is: why is it proving far easier to recruit nurses than midwives? Why are many of those registered midwives to whom she referred choosing to come back as nurses rather than as midwives? Many issues are related to that: morale, leadership and flexibility of working practices. We must make sure that midwives have flexibility in their lives if they are to come back and
 
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work in maternity services. We must make sure that there is the leadership in the units in which they work to ensure that they have the morale that they seek.

Interestingly, when I ask midwives what is reducing their quality of life, I am told about half the time that it is having to work with doctors, and about half the time that it is having to work with other midwives. I am afraid that bullying and some slightly old-fashioned management practices within maternity services are among the reasons that many midwives find it difficult to continue to work in those services. We must address that. We have a range of strategies in place to make sure that we provide leadership training and try to adjust management practices.

There is not a simple solution, however, and I cannot wave a magic wand and suddenly produce another few thousand midwives. Until we have those midwives, we will not be able fully to deliver the range of choice that my hon. Friends the Members for Braintree and for South Swindon were advocating. That choice is important. We are committed to making sure that women have a real choice of birth environments. I want to see birth centres everywhere. Strangely enough, my hon. Friend the Member for Braintree mentioned Baroness Cumberlege, who was in my office today talking about this very issue. We are determined to see that range of choices everywhere.

This national service framework provides a real opportunity to put an end to what I have called, in many speeches, the bag ladies—the ladies who come into our constituency offices with packing cases full of letters that they have had to write to get the services that their children need. When services are properly joined up, when they are delivered to a high standard and quality and when we have implemented the step change in improvement of services that this national service framework demands, we will have put an end to the bag ladies, and we will have got real quality of care for all children in our society—

It being Seven o'clock, the motion for the Adjournment of the House lapsed, without Question put.
 
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Gaelic Broadcasting

Motion made, and Question proposed, That this House do now adjourn.—[Gillian Merron.]

7 pm

Mr. Calum MacDonald (Western Isles) (Lab): Broadcasting includes both television and radio, and I want to begin by paying tribute to all who work in Gaelic radio. The importance of radio is often overlooked: it is not as high-profile, and perhaps not as open to controversy, as television, but there is no doubt that radio has been the backbone of Gaelic broadcasting for many decades and that continues to this day. Radio goes into every home like no other medium, and all who work in Gaelic radio should be very proud of the role that they play in the life of the language.

Despite the importance of radio, however, I shall concentrate on Gaelic television. Television today is a window on the world and it is the mirror we hold up to ourselves in any and every language. That is why it is so critical for the Gaelic community—as with the other two indigenous language communities of Britain—to secure its own television service in the digital age.

The announcement three weeks ago by the Scottish Executive, made in Scotland, that the Gaelic Media Service would have yet another budget standstill next year and a mere £200,000 increase the following year—and, I think, something similar the year after that—falls far sort of the Gaelic community's aspiration; and, in the context of people's aspirations for an independent channel, it is seen and felt to be an insult to the language and, indeed, to the whole Gaelic community.

Announcing such a small and, for all practical purposes, useless increase was almost worse than announcing no increase at all. It is unbelievable that this is the end product of years of consultation, discussion and debate within Government, going all the way back to 1998 and the appointment of Alasdair Milne—the former director-general of the BBC—to chair the Gaelic broadcasting taskforce. I was involved in that appointment when I was responsible for Gaelic in the Scottish Office under the late Donald Dewar, when he was Secretary of State for Scotland. It is sad for me to have to admit that following the subsequent six years of consultation and deliberation, Gaelic television is not simply no nearer meeting that aspiration for a television service, but instead in the worst funding position it has known since the Gaelic television fund was created in 1990.

To understand how bad the position is we need to compare the current funding with where it ought to be in order to meet the community's aspirations, and also with where it has been in the past. Where Gaelic television ought to be, of course, is where Welsh television has been for many years now—providing a dedicated channel with a balanced mix of entertainment, documentary, news and children's programmes, transmitted at times when it is convenient for people to watch.

We now have an opportunity to deliver that dedicated channel at a reasonable cost, thanks to the advent of digital technology. The Milne report calculated that it would cost more than £40 million a year to deliver a Gaelic channel, but new work by the Gaelic Media
 
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Service—taking advantage of developments in technology—has shown that the channel could be delivered for much less: about £30 million. I pay tribute to the work of the service, which has demonstrated beyond doubt that a Gaelic channel is both affordable and deliverable.

There is now a unique opportunity, one that the Government have recognised and, I believe, signed up to in sections 208 and 210 of the Communications Act 2003. The Government have acknowledged that Gaelic needs to move on and that there is a need to create a new channel that is organised, shaped and broadcast by, and for, the Gaelic community. Unfortunately, having willed the end through the 2003 Act, the Government now appear incapable of willing the means. Substantial new funding is required if they are to breathe life into their own legislation. Despite the Gaelic community showing a great deal of patience, there is still no sign of the Government getting to grips with what they need to do. Hence there was the 1998 Fraser report, which was followed by the Milne taskforce in 1999. Our discussions in Committee on the Communications Bill in 2002 were likewise followed by 2003's joint working group, which involved the Scottish Executive, the Scotland Office and the Department for Culture, Media and Sport. So there were lots of warm words and reports full of good intentions, but still no cash on the table to make things happen.

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