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Business of the House

The right hon. Lady asked me first about the debate on the middle east. I am grateful to her for acknowledging that I have responded to concerns on both sides of the House that there should be a debate on Iraq and the middle east, and there will be. I should also tell the House that today my right hon. Friends the Foreign Secretary and the Defence Secretary are appearing jointly before a joint meeting of the Defence and Foreign Affairs Select Committees. That is a further opportunity for senior members of this House to question both those Secretaries of State on that important issue of foreign and defence policy. The right hon. Lady asked me about the Prime Minister and said that at no time has he come to this House to talk about Iraq or the middle east. That is not quite correct because, as everyone who was in the House for Prime Minister’s questions yesterday knows, the leader of the Liberal Democrats asked the Prime Minister two questions about Iraq and my hon. Friend responded in some detail. It is no good referring to the situation in the United States. The simple fact is that British Prime Ministers are more directly accountable to their Parliament than Heads of Government in almost any other state across the world. It is normal for debates on foreign policy to be opened by the Foreign Secretary. That was the arrangement during the 18 years of Conservative Government as well. My right hon. Friend has already intimated to the House—I think that he did so yesterday—that at an appropriate time he would be making a full statement about Iraq, but he wished to do so when what is known as Operation Sinbad has been completed. On the issue of the Home Office letters, the right hon. Lady asked whether I would have those placed in the Library. I will certainly communicate that request to the Home Secretary. She then made some rather wild insinuations from the fact that two prisoners escaped from Sudbury open prison a couple of days ago. I should just tell Conservative Members what they seem to forget with some ease: our record on prison escapes is fantastic compared with that of the previous Conservative Government. [Interruption.] Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Total escapes from prisons in the seven years up to 1997 were 1,339. In the nine years since then, the number is one tenth of that, at 137. The number of category A escapes has dropped from 18 to zero since 1997 and the number of absconds from closed prisons is the lowest for 10 years. That allows me to offer this warm advice to the Opposition. Of course the Home Office could always do better—that was true when I was Home Secretary, it is true today and it was true when the right hon. and learned Member for Folkestone and Hythe (Mr. Howard) was Home Secretary—but I advise the Conservatives against implying that if and when they get into government the Home Office will achieve a state of grace and perfection and there will be no occasion on which a Home Secretary will be required to come here to explain some difficulty. [Hon. Members: ““Of course not.””] I am offering the advice on that basis. Our record, in sharp contrast to that of the Conservatives, is one of falling crime, falling victimisation and rising police numbers. The reverse was the case under the Conservatives. I will pass the request for a debate on the single farm payment scheme to my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs. What I and my hon. Friend the Under-Secretary of State for Work and Pensions have said about the traffic light scheme is entirely consistent. On constituency boundaries, I regret the fact that there has been a short delay, but I see no reason why the order should not be in force well before the next general election.