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Adjournment (Summer Recess)

I shall follow the hon. Member for North Swindon (Mr. Wills) by raising several issues of concern before we rise for the summer recess. I hope that he will forgive me if I do not address issues of science, technology and mathematics, except perhaps as they apply to the terrible weaponry that is being used at the moment in the middle east. I do not envy those people who have to try to reach some solution to that extraordinarily complex problem. It is too simple to say that all we need is a ceasefire between Hezbollah and Israel. Hezbollah is a state within the state of Lebanon, which suggests that Lebanon—like so many other weak states—needs the help of the world to gain strength to resist the existence of organisations such as Hezbollah. I was pleased to note that it was not just me being a conspiracy theorist, but that others think that Hezbollah’s actions were purely a proxy for Iran and a way to distract the world’s eyes from the offer by the US to discuss Iran’s nuclear technology and capability—an offer that Tehran probably did not expect to receive from the US. While the world’s attention is distracted by the aggression between Hezbollah and Israel, Iran can get on with what it is trying to do with its nuclear capability. Those who will be involved in trying to sort out the problem for the long term have all my good wishes. The problem is much more intractable than my hon. Friend suggests, although I hope that those people who hope to make some sustainable arrangements will take his points into account. I also wish to raise a domestic terrorist issue, which is that of the animal rights terrorist movement. Unusually, I wish to congratulate the Government on what they have done to try to curb the activities of a few, very aggressive people. I was pleased that we were able to send down those appalling people who behaved so badly in the guinea pig farm case. I was pleased to note that the Companies Bill contains provisions to make it more difficult for such organisations, although they are unfortunately fairly shrewd and clever, to gain access to shareholders’ names and addresses from the registers of companies. Because Wellcome used to be based in Beckenham, I have a disproportionate number of constituents who hold shares in some pharmaceutical companies, and they have suffered not only from the latest outrage but from the phone calls at 4 am and the posters stuck on their gates and their neighbours’ gates calling them murderers. That is not the sort of treatment that should be suffered by retired, older people. I urge the Minister to ensure that all the reorganisation in the Home Office does not cause the Government to take their eye off this particular ball. We have to maintain a high level of policing against animal terrorists, and make sure that the animal terrorist unit is able to continue its work. We must also use all possible legislative means to curb the terrorists’ activities. The people who are involved in animal terrorism believe that direct action works, and they have set out to train a younger generation to continue what is an outrageous attack on one of this country’s key industries. Everyone in this Chamber has benefited from its work, and I suspect that the same is true of the animal terrorists. If they are allowed to continue to take action against the industry, investors will make their decisions accordingly and facilities will close. That will happen quietly and gradually—there will be no announcement that it is due to the industry being targeted by the animal terrorists, but investors will decide that they can invest more profitably elsewhere. As a result, one of our leading industries will simply trickle away to countries that offer a more supportive environment. Finally, I turn to a matter raised by the hon. Member for Sutton and Cheam (Mr. Burstow). The question of back gardens being treated as brownfield sites is of great importance to people in London’s outer suburbs, and throughout the country. The hon. Gentleman gave various reasons why blocks of flats should no longer be built in back gardens, a problem that affects my constituency as much as his, but he slightly glossed over the way that a suburb’s character can change because of increased population density. People move to a new location as a positive choice. They come to my Beckenham constituency because they want its open spaces, large gardens and wide roads, with all the biodiversity that that implies. They want to bring up their children in leafy areas and they do not want to discover that they are faced with inner-city population densities. I raised this matter in a Westminster Hall debate, but the Minister who responded seemed to be proud that housing in the outer suburbs was approaching inner-city densities. I hope that the Government can be persuaded to look again—and hard—at the question of population density, and at the way that the planning function is becoming increasingly centralised. That centralisation is evident in the proposed transfer of power to the London Mayor, and in the planning guidance announced in a written statement yesterday. That guidance, which is being consulted on, will make it much easier for central Government to dictate how many houses, and of what type, should go where. I have long believed that the people who know best what should happen in a locality are the ones who live there. They know that their children need houses, and that older people need different accommodation as they grow older and are no longer able to manage so easily. Local people should be able to decide that their environment will remain as they like it. It is not up to central Government to dictate what should happen.