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Business of the House

I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for raising those matters. This is probably the last day on which I will be able to comment on his prospects of becoming the leader of the Liberal Democrats. There does not seem to be any sign of a write-in vote, but we live in hope. We have yet to see the result of that magnificent contest. I was intrigued to discover the other day that the party committed to proportional representation seems to have failed to persuade its own Members of Parliament to cast their second preference votes. Since the party constantly, at business questions and on other occasions, encourages the Government to consider the benefits of proportional representation, which presumably involves second, third and other preference votes, it is surprising that members of the Liberal Democrat party in the House do not seem to have followed their own advice. I was intrigued to see comments by various Members, including the hon. Member for Twickenham (Dr. Cable), who apparently said:"““I filled it in the other day after it came. I honestly can’t remember whether I just went for Ming and not the other two, or voted for Chris second. It wasn’t something I regarded as being a terribly important decision at the time.””" I wonder whether the hon. Member for Somerton and Frome (Mr. Heath) was adopting the same approach as the hon. Member for Montgomeryshire (Lembit Öpik), who said:"““I have not declared, basically because””—" I entirely agree, Mr. Deputy Speaker. With reference to the questions raised by the hon. Member for Somerton and Frome, I have already dealt with climate change. The Government would always be delighted to debate the matter. The United Kingdom is on course to meet and exceed its Kyoto target—one of only two of the EU 15 to do so. We have an outstanding record in this regard, of which the Government are extraordinarily proud. On higher education, there is a clear explanation for the adjustment in the figures for this year. Last year, there was a significant increase in the number of university applications. Not surprisingly, that has been adjusted. It is impossible to keep up that level of increase, but overall there is a significant increase in the number of people applying for university places, which the Government strongly support. On the admissibility of intercept evidence, anyone responsible for trying to bring terrorists and other significant criminals to justice wants as much evidence as possible to be made available to the court. That is not the issue. I hope the hon. Gentleman will think about this carefully. The issue is the extent to which making intercept evidence available jeopardises the way in which that evidence is secured. Frankly, that is a difficult balance to strike. I have seen the product of such intercepts, and it would be extremely dangerous for the future of our security services and the means that they adopt if we were to allow such evidence to be adduced in court and challenged in cross-examination. He must think through those important issues. The Government are undertaking a number of important pieces of work on local government. I anticipate that a White Paper will be produced in due course, as a result of which there will be lots of opportunities for hon. Members to debate the matter.