House of Commons Hansard Debates for 2 Apr 1993

Hansard

House of Commons

Friday 2 April 1993

The House met at half-past Nine o'clock

PRAYERS

[Madam Speaker-- in the Chair ]

Iraq

Motion made, and Question proposed, That this House do now adjourn.-- [Mr. Robert G. Hughes.]

9.34 am

Miss Emma Nicholson (Torridge and Devon, West) : We have started our debate, as we always do, with Prayers, and as I said the Lord's Prayer this morning, the words, "deliver us from evil" struck hard in my heart because it is an evil upon which I ask the House to concentrate.

May I match that Christian prayer with the cry that is on the lips of the marsh Arabs and which echoes Allah's words revealed in the Koran 1500 years ago :

"He is Allah most gracious : we have believed in Him, and on Him we have put our trust, so soon will you know which of us it is that is in manifest error. Say, See you? If your stream be some morning lost who can then supply you with clear flowing water? ' "

The House has been kind to me in allowing me time for debate over the two years during which I have been working for the people of Iraq, and especially for the people of southern Iraq. It is their needs on which I ask the Minister to concentrate. I shall compare them a little with the needs of northern Iraq, which are large. Today I want to focus upon the forgotten people, the marsh Arabs, the Ma'dan, and the people who are sheltering in those marshes with them. In all, there are about 600,000 people.

The debate is timely, because it takes place in the wake of a special meeting that the Foreign Secretary and subsequently the Prime Minister held with the Iraqi National Congress. The Minister of State, my right hon. and learned Friend the Member for Grantham (Mr. Hogg), who is here for the debate, was also present. I should like to put on the record the keynote points that the delegation representing Iraqis from the north, the centre and the south through membership of the new Iraqi National Congress, which is fully representative of all the opposition bodies, raised with the Prime Minister and the Foreign Secretary on 30 March.

First, they called for a new United Nations Security Council resolution to enact resolution 688. Secondly, they asked for the full implementation of resolution 688, and they asked the Prime Minister and the Foreign Secretary to concentrate on discussing methods of reversing the current repressive measures instituted by Saddam's regime.

Thirdly, they asked for the removal of the extensive and ecologically destructive activities of the regime in the marshes, such as on the dams and drainage channels. I shall return to that. Fourthly, they asked for the removal of the economic blockage against Iraqi Kurdistan in the north, especially the denial of petroleum products, without which people there cannot keep warm. They also asked for the cessation of arbitrary executions in Baghdad, the

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release of all political prisoners and the return of the hundreds of thousands of Iraqi deportees to their homes all over Iraq. Manifestly, these last two right and proper requests are beyond us in the House just now, but the extension of the no-fly zones to include all of Iraq is a possibility. More important would be the adoption by the Security Council of the recommendation of the special rapporteur on human rights in Iraq to place human rights monitors all over Iraq. In the wake of that, the delegation requested a security zone, a safe haven, in southern Iraq. Finally, they asked for a war crimes trial for Saddam Hussein himself.

I know of the sympathetic hearing and the deep understanding which the Foreign Secretary, the Prime Minister, the Minister of State and Foreign Office officials extended to the Iraqi National Congress at the meeting. This morning gives me an opportunity to put on record in Hansard some of the reasons that lie behind the congress's requests. They are the sufferings of the people in the marshes ; the destruction of a wonderful historic part of the world that can never be re-created ; and the problems that face the United Nations in its legal tangle, which seemingly prohibits it from helping the Arabs who are locked into the marshes and facing destruction by Saddam Hussein's forces.

A little while ago, by courtesy of Iran, I and my colleagues in Tehran and in the south of Iran managed to arrange a 10-day visit by a very brave journalist from The Observer --its senior foreign reporter, Shyam Bhatia. His report was published in five pages of The Observer five days ago. Last week, the paper allowed me to describe my thoughts in an article. The situation is truly desperate. Most days, I get information from the marshes by fax, and sometimes by telephone, too. The people there report that things are terrible. The work that I have been carrying out has been to do with organising medical and food aid, so the medical needs of the area land on my desk each week. As I wrote in The Observer on Sunday, cholera has now started in the marshes--a terrible death, which we have not known in the west for many years. Hardly any food is available because of the blockade by Government forces. Skin and gut infections, diarrhoea, typhoid fever, food poisoning, eye diseases, conjunctivitis, gynaecological and pelvic inflammatory diseases, dental and gum diseases and sunstroke--all these are taking their toll. I have been in the marshes when the temperature exceeded 50 deg C, and there is no shelter, giving rise to sunstroke. All these diseases are widespread and largely untreated.

Polluted water is all there is to drink. Last autumn, it appeared that Saddam Hussein was poisoning the waters, but knowledgeable people, scientists, tell me that it is not necessary to poison the marsh waters. Just draining them is enough ; the water level becomes so low that the salts and acids in the water become concentrated, and that poisons the people. There is nowhere to put sewage, human or animal, so everyone I know in the marhes has constant dysentery. Children cannot be immunised ; there is no cold chain of refrigeration to get the vaccines in, so there are no vaccines in the marshes. Polio, measles, whooping cough, mumps and other childhood diseases are rampant. The children are stunted because breast milk is in short supply owing to severe maternal malnutrition. Without even the most primitive obstetric services, mothers just die in labour.

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On top of all this, there is constant military bombardment. The famine has been caused not just by natural factors or a lack of water ; we are talking about a planned destruction of a people and of their wonderful environment. Now that the marshes have dried out, it is easy to use incendiary bombs. In January, February and March, telegrams from the marshes to me described villages, people and animals being burnt to death. The rice farms that supplied the staple diet for the marsh Arabs have been burnt out. The fish have died--they used to provide protein--and the water buffalo have just fled because of the bombardments.

The marshes are losing water fast. I do not know whether the latest suggestion by two American senators would be useful--bombing the dams to release the Tigris and the Euphrates again.

We are talking about an historic area. The House Library contains a book called "Ancient Iraq", written by Charles Roux and first published in 1964. Updated in 1992, it has gone through four reprints. It reminds us of the history of this part of Iraq, going right back to the Sumerians 6,000 years ago. After them came the Akkadians, and the Assyrians, and so we can recall the waters of Babylon, beside which people sat down and wept. Echos of the Old Testament are to be heard throughout the history of the Iraqi marshes, that unique part of the world where the Tigris and Euphrates have provided the great flow of water which has given these people a way of life.

I know that the Ma'dan pre-date the Arab invasion of Iraq. They are a unique and historic people. Their antique language pre-dates Arabic, which differs from it significantly.

This area contains a great deal of special wildlife. Hon. Members will recall Gavin Maxwell's wonderful book, "Ring of Bright Water", which was about an otter. Few will recall, however, that the otter, Mijbil, was discovered in and brought back from the marshes of Iraq. It was a unique variety of otter, common in the marsh areas. It is called lutrogale perspicillata maxwelli. It was a previously unknown species. The area also contains wild boar, various kinds of terrapin, some rare and threatened species of bird, such as the pigmy cormorant, dalmatian pelicans, marbled teal, red-breasted geese, lesser white-fronted geese, white-tailed and imperial eagles, Bara reed warblers, Iraqi babblers and grey hypercolius. Some of these birds are there all the year round and are specific to the area. We should look at the marshes of Iraq as a wetland of unique importance. It is half the size of Switzerland, and it has survived for a long time as an area rich in all kinds of fish, some of which are probably unique to it. The world conservation monitoring centre recently declared the marshes of Iraq a site of primary ecological interest.

As the House knows, I have been describing the sufferings of the people in Iraq for nearly two years. If I turn now to the destruction of this wonderful environmental area, it is not because I have any less concern for the sufferings of the people--the more I visit, the more I learn, the more appalled I am by how harsh their suffering has become. But the world tends to say that these are just another group of suffering people--what can we do about them ? So perhaps if we ask the world to think about the ecological impact, those who write letters about

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the destruction of the rain forest will bend their minds and hearts to the destruction of an area replicated nowhere else in the world and now being physically destroyed.

Last week, I received a fax from Ayatollah al-Hakim in Tehran. He told me of yet another new dam keeping the waters away from the marshes. In the west, we have become so used to reacting to television programmes and pictures that we may have forgotten to use our imaginations. Perhaps our imaginations are no longer vivid enough to understand the impact of this drainage on a people's heritage--a drainage so profound and so disgraceful that this land, above water for the first time in history, is becoming completely visible. Saddam Hussein says that this drainage, which he now admits is happening, is for agricultural purposes, but scientists tell me that the land is of such poor quality that it will not sustain even one meagre harvest. It is not the sort of land that can create the wealth that will feed people ; it is not land on which subsequent harvests will flourish. There will be just one meagre harvest and then no more.

In desperation, the Amar appeal, of which I am chairman, is conducting a major survey of the marshes. It will be spearheaded by the chairman of the wetlands committee of the International Union for the Conservation of Nature, of which the United Kingdom and most member states of the United Nations are members. It is an unusual body, as it covers private organisations such as the World Wild Fund for Nature.

What will the survey consider, and why is it so critical? We will examine the evidence for recent changes in hydrology and other environmental conditions in the marshlands complex of southern Iraq. We will describe the environmental, ecological and human conditions before the hydrological modification and other changes in environmental character. We will assess the effects of hydrological and other environmental conditions in terms of changes to the flow regime, water quality, soil, vegetation and land use, fisheries and the habitat for wildlife, especially for endangered, rare and threatened species.

We will then evaluate the likely impacts of the changes on the maintenance of the ecological character and environmental quality, on the character of agriculture in the region and on human communities within the region, with particular reference to food security, the local economy, transport, health and social welfare, culture, education and amenity. We will look at human communities outside the region, with particular reference to environmental impacts, resource implications and heritage values, and will make recommendations for restoration and rehabilitation, where appropriate, of the ecological and environmental integrity of the area.

We will also look at more human aspects, such as education, and we hope to match the ecological side of the report, which will be spearheaded by Dr. Ed Maltby of Exeter university, to whom I have already referred, with a report that will be conducted under Professor David Morley, the immediate past head of the Institute of Child Health. His chapters will be buttressed by those on education. It is vital that we carry out this work. The Iraqi environmental protection group, headed by Sayeed Jayfar and Ibrahim Uloom, pulled together and published in January this year all the known material on the destruction of the marshes and the drainage projects, and it makes disheartening reading. I know that, because the Security

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Council held a special meeting for me in December, as I told this place in January, where I was able to show all the captured maps showing the irrigation and its consequences. But since then, nothing has been done, so we have asked the International Union for Nature Conservation--that great body--whether it will conduct the survey under its umbrella, and it is considering doing so.

At the moment, the director-general says that the Amar appeal is an inappropriate body to ask it to do so. I have, therefore, asked our Government and the Governments of the United States and Holland to apply, but, most important, two days ago, through the good offices of the president, Prince Philip, I was able to contact the World Wildlife Fund International in Geneva, where I found a home for this thinking--the director, Claude Martin, who was interested and who understood at once.

It seems that ecologists and environmentalists have been watching and waiting for a trigger that would enable them to act. Their concern is shared by us, and it matches the concern of the Amar appeal friends and supporters about the human aspect of the matter. I am very hopeful that the survey will provide those in authority throughout the world with the material that they may care to use to stop the destruction of the marshes and of the people in the marshes.

We believe that the study is an important matter. Meanwhile, as it proceeds --it has begun even though nobody has invited us to do so, because the scientists recognise the need for haste--the people die. This week, therefore, I met Dr. James Grant, the executive director of UNICEF, and 10 days ago I went to New York and saw Mr. Eliasson, the Deputy Secretary- General of the United Nations, and begged for their help. I learned that the United Nations is not prepared to act. Resolution 688 covers the entirety of Iraq, and the member nation that proposed it, France, was firm and fierce in wording it, yet the United Nations has turned away from considering the marshes of Iraq and has thus condemned 600,000 people to certain death.

It is not just the starvation, illness or the lack of water which will result in human and wildlife extinction. Access routes run along the top of the dykes, which means that not only Land-Rovers but tanks can drive into the heart of the marshes. There is currently a brief cessation, because late March and early April always bring floods. Those floods are now hardly coming into the marshes, because the dykes have stopped the rivers, but none the less there is a little water. We believe that, when that water ceases, as it will in April and May, the killing fields will begin in earnest. The people inside are not armed to defend themselves. The ones whom I have seen on my own trips have just carried old rifles and few bullets.

I want to read only the last paragraph of a letter that I received yesterday from Mr. Eliasson from New York. He kindly says that it was a pleasure to meet me and that he admires my work, but that is not the point. He says :

"As I explained in New York, the United Nations, in the present situation, is not in a position to assist directly in support of your concrete programmes."

That means no aid for the marshes, as we are the only people who are giving aid. He goes on :

"I have, however, taken careful note of the proposed study of the marshes and will be consulting with my colleagues as to what we can do in this regard. The subject certainly deserves increased attention by potentially interested parties."

I know that the United Nations is the servant of its members, and that it is up to us to decide what we want to

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do. There is no shortage of material. The special rapporteur for human rights in Iraq, the former Foreign Minister of the Netherlands, delivered his report on 19 February. It made terrible reading. On 5 March, members voted on it and proposed a resolution, which was good. It was adopted by a vote of 46 for, one against and 16 abstentions. Again, they stated their deep concern about the grave violations of human rights by the Government of Iraq and said that these have led to a deterioration of the situation of the civilian population in southern Iraq, particularly in the southern marshes.

The motion states that the members express their

"strong condemnation of the massive violations of human rights, of the gravest nature, for which the Government of Iraq is responsible, resulting in an all-pervasive order of repression and oppression which is sustained by broad-based discrimination and widespread terror, in particular :

Summary and arbitrary executions, orchestrated mass executions and mass graves throughout Iraq, extrajudicial killings, including political killings, in particular in the northern region of Iraq, in southern Shiah centres and in the southern marsh area ;

The widespread routine practice of systematic torture in its most cruel forms ;

Enforced or involuntary disappearances, routinely practised arbitrary arrests and detention, including of women, the elderly and children and consistent and routine failure to respect due process and the rule of law ;

Suppression of freedom of thought, expression and association and violations of property rights ;

The unwillingness of the Government of Iraq to honour its responsibilities in respect of the economic rights of the population."

The motion goes on and on and on. It requests the Secretary-General

"to take the necessary measures in order to send human rights monitors to such locations as would facilitate improved information flows and assessment and would help in the independent verification of reports on the situation of human rights within Iraq."

Knowledge, knowledge and more knowledge is what we are asked to provide. I am happy to give the United Nations the knowledge that it is not gaining for itself from the marshes. However, while the knowledge flows, people are dying and no aid will be given to the marshes in case that jeopardises the northern aid or creates other political tensions. The toehold in Basra recently achieved by UNICEF is the Deputy Secretary-General's sop to Cerberus. The marshes are surely the hell beyond the jaws of Cerberus.

I will end with a thought that came to me as I listened to Ayatollah Al- Hakim in Tehran. At the end of a meeting at 3 am, we were all very tired. I had just come from a four-hour meeting with a wonderful man--an Iranian appointed by the President of Iran to take responsibility for all Iran's relationships within Iraq--Mr. Agamohamadi. He was a former Member of Parliament before he was appointed by the President to his new task. He is a large ray of light on the horizon. He spent a month inside Iraq during the uprising under the care of Mr. Talabani. He saw the horrors. Some of the things he told me were indeed horrific. He said that we had seen nothing yet.

Mr. Agamohamadi went there and brought out some of the people who had been injured by the chemical bombs in the attack. He saw thousands of people being killed, running here and there, not knowing what to do or where to go. He saw many mothers killed with their babies held to their chests. He saw families of five or six killed together. He saw all that with his own eyes. He said that if a person

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opposes Saddam's regime today, all his family will be in danger and under threat. It is impossible to calculate the number of missing people, because the number is unlimited. That short statement encapsulates the reason for my four-hour meeting with Mr. Agamohamadi.

Later, I spoke to Ayatollah Al-Hakim about that meeting. It was very late, and somehow his attention was drawn back to the early 1980s, when he was captured and imprisoned. He was placed in a deep cell with no light. It was damp and he had no water or food. He was taken out only to be tortured. He was tortured ferociously for weeks on end and after each torture session thrown back into the cell. The man who was in the cell before him had gone completely mad. Ayatollah Al-Hakim held on, and he said nothing. In the end, his torturers gave up on him after three months. They said that he must have had something rather curious wrong with him which meant that his flesh could not feel pain. He had not cried once, but their perception was not true : he felt it all.

After Ayatollah Al-Hakim had told me this, he turned to Sheik Mahmoodi and said, "I don't know why I'm talking like this. Sheik Mahmoodi had a much worse time than me." Sheik Mahmoodi told me what had happened to him and then said, "But that is little compared to what some people went through."

As we spoke, 300 people were entering Tehran from Iraq. They had been released from prison, which was astonishing. They had served 10, 11 or 12 years--we must remember that Saddam Hussein took control in 1979. Later in the week, they began to die because, as they left prison, they had been given thallium injections. To have hope dashed so cruelly is unbelievable.

I say to my right hon. and learned Friend the Minister, to the House and to anyone who will listen that this is a tyrant whose evil is unbelievable. If we fail to help, what right have we to say the Lord's Prayer, to seek delivery from evil for ourselves, so readily and happily each day? What right have we to look the Iraqi victims in the eye?

10.5 am

The Minister of State, Foreign and Commonwealth Office (Mr. Douglas Hogg) : I am very glad that my hon. Friend the Member for Torridge and Devon, West (Miss Nicholson) has chosen the issue of south Iraq to feature in this Adjournment debate. She has rightly characterised the regime of Saddam Hussein as evil. As she has made so clear, the conditions in Iraq generally, and the conditions in south Iraq in particular, are dire and are brought about, at least in part, by the deliberate policy of an evil man.

My hon. Friend has visited the area frequently and she probably knows more about it than anyone else in the House. Her contribution to the relief of suffering in south Iraq has been very great. I am glad that she welcomed our meeting with representatives of the Iraqi National Congress. I met them, but, more important, so did my right hon. Friends the Foreign Secretary and the Prime Minister. We very much welcomed the statements of the Iraqi National Congress to the effect that it looks forward to the introduction of a democratic and pluralistic system of government in Iraq and, more important perhaps, that it believes that Iraq should exist within her current frontiers and that the problems of minorities such as the Kurds in

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north Iraq should be addressed by way of autonomy rather than by creating an independent Kurdistan. We strongly supported that approach. I was glad that the Iraqi National Congress made it plain to us that it was not seeking the creation of an independent Kurdistan.

My hon. Friend has spoken about Iraq in general and about south Iraq in particular. It would be helpful if I were first to outline the general nature of our policy and then consider south Iraq. In setting our general policy towards Iraq, we are governed by three major considerations : first, that Iraq should not be in a position to threaten the security and stability of the region ; secondly, that Iraq must respect the sovereignty of Kuwait ; and thirdly, that we must do what we can to bring an end to the repression by Saddam Hussein of the peoples of Iraq.

Those three general propositions are reflected in the detail of the Security Council resolutions. As my hon. Friend has made plain, there has been substantial non-compliance with the particular mandatory terms of the resolution. It may be helpful if I remind the House of the respects in which Saddam Hussein has fallen short of what is asked of him.

To start with, with regard to the frontier with Kuwait, Saddam Hussein has failed to participate in the last four meetings of the boundary demarcation commission. Police posts on Kuwaiti territory were removed only under pressure and there have been repeated statements by Iraqi officials implying that Kuwait is part of Iraq. I now turn to the question of mass destruction. Iraq has not accepted Security Council resolution 707 or provided for final and complete disclosure of all aspects of weapons of mass destruction. It has not accepted Security Council resolution 715 or agreed to the long-term monitoring of its weapons of mass destruction. Saddam Hussein has not complied with the resolutions on the return of detainees from Kuwait. Perhaps most important of all--this is the issue on which my hon. Friend dwelt--he has continued his policy of repression. Repression continues in southern Iraq. The internal embargo of the three northern Governments also continues. There is a complete denial of human rights throughout Iraq.

For those reasons and others, the Security Council has decided to continue with the policy of sanctions, and it will continue to do so for as long as we are justified in that policy by non-compliance with relevant resolutions. It is untrue to suggest that there has been any softening in the policy of western or coalition powers towards Iraq. We are determined to ensure compliance with all the relevant terms of the resolutions.

Much has been said about the condition of Iraqis in general. The condition of the Iraqi people is serious. However, it is important to remind the House that it is serious because of the deliberate policy of Saddam Hussein. The sanctions regime does not impose a prohibition on the importation of either food or medicines, and there is a provision for the approval of other humanitarian requirements. Many people say that the Iraqis do not have the money to pay for food and medicines. That is because Saddam Hussein has not agreed to the procedure laid down under Security Council resolutions 706 and 712. He is entitled to sell oil to the value of US $1.6 billion from which there will be moneys available to purchase food and medicines if that is what he chooses to do. For political reasons, he has determined not

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to agree to the procedures laid down under those resolutions and, to that extent, he is wholly responsible for the plight of his own population.

I now turn specifically to south Iraq. My hon. Friend has highlighted in graphic terms the situation in the marshes and the abuse to which Saddam Hussein is subjecting the people of south Iraq as a deliberate policy. I accept the broad picture that she draws. There is a grave infringement of human rights. It is not entirely right to say that western and coalition powers or the United Nations have entirely disregarded what is going on.

Most dramatically, we have established a no-fly zone in which we participate. The object of the zone is to prevent Iraqi aircraft from being used in attacks against the population of south Iraq. That has been successful to the limited extent possible, in the sense that Iraqi aircraft no longer participate in attacks on people in south Iraq generally or in the marshes, and they cannot assist ground forces to that end. I make it plain that the coalition countries will not accept any interference by Iraq with the overflight of coalition aircraft over the marshes, and that a right of self-defence exists. I also accept that the no-fly zone is not a total solution to the problem. Substantial Iraqi ground forces are involved in the marshes and the no-fly zone does not prevent their military action. The question that arises is whether we would be able or willing to create a safe haven in the way in which a safe haven was created in north Iraq. The answer to that is no, although I do not say that with any pleasure. There are substantial deployments of Iraqi troops in south Iraq and it is not plausible to suppose that they would voluntarily leave that area. If they left the area, it could be only as a result of the deployment of substantial coalition military power, probably ground forces. I cannot say to the House that the United Nations can do that.

That being so, we have to rely on the humanitarian policies of the United Nations and of other agencies. I pay tribute to my hon. Friend and to the organisation with which she works, which has been by far the most active in the area. The memorandum of understanding negotiated by the United Nations is, we hope, being rolled forward and it will cover a further year. We hope very much that the United Nations will be able to establish a presence in south Iraq. I accept that the contribution made by that policy is not sufficient to meet the grave needs in south Iraq. I know that I have come to the end of the allotted time, so, although there is much more that I should say, I must end. I do so by congratulating my hon. Friend, first, on highlighting the issue and, secondly, on her personal contribution.

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Mid Cheshi maintenance of free speech is the basis of everything we do in the House, and the use of Adjournment debates or debates generally to raise matters that are of great concern to our constituents is strongly cherished by hon. Members, especially with the growing habit of Ministers creating agencies or commercial units that remove responsibilities from them to a third party on the basis of a commercial interest.

When the national health service trusts were set up, many of us warned that the theory that one could bring about a major change in health care without first explaining and exploring the ways in which it could be done would lead to a considerable set of problems. I am sorry to say--I make it clear that I take no pleasure in this--that in my constituency, the Mid Cheshire hospital trust, which was one of the first trusts to be set up, has proved conclusively that, far from working, as the Secretary of State delights in telling us, national health service trusts are now running into considerable problems. The problems are becoming obvious to patients and to their families, and they are also having direct effects on health care.

When the Mid Cheshire trust was set up, the then Secretary of State for Health sent me a warm and reassuring letter. It is important to quote his words exactly :

"that establishment of a Trust will give clear benefits and improved quality of service to patients ; that management has the skills and capacity--including strong, effective leadership, sufficient financial and personal management expertise and adequate information systems--to run the unit effectively ; that senior professional staff, especially consultants, are involved in the management of the unit ; that the Trust will be financially viable." I should make it clear that that letter was written not by the present Secretary of State, but by the male who preceded her. The style of English does not change although Secretaries of State may change from time to time

I was then told :

"I am now writing to tell you that I have decided to establish The Mid Cheshire Hospitals as an NHS Trust, to become operational from 1 April 1991."

It is important to understand that Leighton hospital, which was the centre of the Mid Cheshire hospital trust, has consistently been underfunded. Physically, it is at the bottom of the Mersey region and, before the creation of the trust, it never received sufficient cash to deal with the real health care problems of the Crewe and Nantwich area.

When the move towards a trust was mooted, I asked general practitioners in the area whether they foresaw any great inward movement of patients which would somehow transform the trust's financial situation, having been assured that that was what was intended. Unfortunately, far from the hospital suddenly becoming magically viable--even with the extra sums of money donated by the region to set up the political stalking horse-- although more patients were certainly treated, there was an overspend every year, and we are now approaching the second major crisis.

Initially--I suspect because it was an election year--it was somehow possible for the region to find an extra sum of money to assist the Mid Cheshire trust last year when

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it had financial difficulties. We all knew what was happening ; we knew that the trust was overspent and was madly trying to take money from its reserves and from other sources to try to balance the books. The executives were not especially secretive about it, although I received large numbers of reassuring letters telling me that they could not understand why I did not trust their financial doings, and that they were dealing with the problems more than adequately. The chief executive wrote to me on 20 March 1992 :

"You will be pleased to know that the Trust will meet all its financial obligations at the end of the financial year, including a virtual break- even position against budget. This is a result of the tight financial management of the Trust's affairs, which has prevented the potential for financial problems which was identified earlier in the financial year."

Anyone who deals with that district hospital knows that, whatever else is happening, the standard of health care is becoming a matter of considerable worry. That is due not to members of staff but to difficulties in specific areas. First, there is a problem with closed wards. Whatever the Department of Health says, the reality is that, before the trust was created, wards were open and, after its creation, a number of wards were closed. Before the trust was created, we had full use of all the wards ; now, several are only partially used. I am perfectly happy for the Minister to tell me that that is because we are so much more efficient ; we wheel people in and out with such speed that they do not need wards or beds. That is a medical argument which can be defended in general medical terms, but the increasing evidence that this year we have reached a financial crunch cannot be defended.

Not for the first time, the trust is badly overspent ; it is £2 million short of the amount required. It has held a number of talks with the regions and with other financial controllers within the NHS, according to evidence given to me by the Minister. The trust was then told that it must rapidly find £700,000--there was some suggestion that it was required to find it within two weeks. It could only meet that enormous overspend by shutting down facilities and beginning to sack staff, which has happened. That makes nonsense of all the information that has been handed out officially by the Mid Cheshire hospitals.

My constituents have found that there is enormous pressure on hospital services. The staff have had considerable and constant worries about their jobs. Although we were told that front-line staff would not go, there were already instances of re-evaluation--a nice word for moving people around-- of nurses' jobs, which meant that many had lost their existing status and been moved to other jobs. During the year, I received a number of statements, such as that the trust must carry over to subsequent financial years any over or underspending against its budget. I was also told that the likely outturn for Mid Cheshire hospital trust would be in the range of £100,000 either side of a break-even position against the budget. Frankly, that has not been our experience.

As a result, when the chief executive asked the regional hospital authority for extra money he was told, somewhat sharply, that it would not be forthcoming. I can only assume that his naivety had not made it clear to him that the money made available at the time of the general

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election will not be made available when there are four years to go before the Government have to put their health policies to the test of the local populace.

The role of the regional hospital authority ought to be considered in great detail. There is no independent way for the actions of anyone within the national health service to be monitored properly. Luckily, there are forms of monitoring for the care given by medical professionals. If we are to believe the Conservative Government's theories, the running of trusts ought to be transparent, but they are far from clear.

Within our region, the chairman, Sir Donald Wilson, has taken some major decisions, which have led to considerable questioning from elected members. He decided, with his colleagues, that it would be a good idea if the regional hospital trust authority bought a very expensive flat and furnished it, because it would somehow save money when visiting firemen needed to be put up for the night. I want to see the figures on which such decisions were based before deciding that they were sensible financial decisions. That example demonstrates the level of management in the regional hospital authority.

When the continuing underfunding of Crewe became clear, it was obvious that the regional health authority had decided that one way to solve the difficulty would be by amalgamating the Crewe district, which was underfunded, with the Macclesfield district, which in theory was overfunded --if that is possible. It therefore began to moot the question of a reorganisation. It was not merely a reorganisation. When the authority advertised the jobs concerned, there was such a poor response that the young lady drawing up the short list suddenly decided, after the closing date, to put her name on the list. She was appointed to the job--I am sure that it was on the basis of her brilliance.

In case there are any doubts about the reasons for mooting the reorganisation, a consultation document--a laughable title--was produced entitled, "A new district health authority for the people of Crewe and Macclesfield." That gave the game away. It said : "Crewe District Health Authority is presently £8.1 million short of its full weighted capitation position"--

that refers to the new form of calculation that the Department intends to use--

"and is moving towards its target as resources are allocated each year. Macclesfield District Health Authority is £5.4 million above its weighted capitation and must therefore lose this amount over future years."

In other words, the region's answer is not to examine the needs of Crewe district health authority but to say, "If we jam these two awkward health authorities together, we can somehow balance the books at the end of three or four years, because no one will notice that what we are doing is taking money from Macclesfield and losing it in Crewe."

Not surprisingly, that news did not delight the hon. Member for Macclesfield (Mr. Winterton) or me. One might have thought, Mr. Deputy Speaker, that that combination of hon. Members would be designed to make even the present Health Minister think twice, but apparently we are having no effect whatever. So impressed are Ministers with the quality of management of Sir Donald Wilson that, when the east midlands got into real problems, they did not look outside or advertise from some brilliant brain to come in, but went instead to the Mersey region and asked Sir Donald Wilson to take over. That was astonishing to those of us in the Crewe area, who had already seen the effects of decisions that were being

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taken by Sir Donald and his cronies in our area and who had considerable reservations about the quality of those decisions. We have been told in a short space of time not only that Crewe must find £700,000, because it is £2 million overspent, and lose a number of jobs, some of them by compulsory redundancy--the figure given in the original assessment was 50--but that the £700,000 is just the first step to reducing the gap of £2 million that has been identified.

Then, surprise surprise, this chief executive gentleman who has been so lauded and who is apparently so active in the defence of the extraordinary finances of the department, resigns at very short notice--because, we are told, he has been headhunted. The joke on the wards goes : "They've had the head. When will they come and collect the rest of the body?" We have considerable doubts about whether that gentleman's expertise is what has recommended him to the region. One might have thought that, even under the present Government, anyone who gets more than £2 million overspent on two years would find himself in some considerable difficulty.

Crewe has always faced problems of underfunding. It needed considerable injections of money for staff, and faces a £4 million bill for building work. The roof of the hospital built by a gentleman called Poulson is now collapsing, even though the building has not been there for very long. I am no great architect, but I suspect that, in a hospital, a roof is quite useful. I do not know how many things can be done without, but doing without a roof could be mildly embarrassing.

Crewe will now have to find the money not only from health care but from jobs. These days, people in hospitals do not carry normal titles ; for example, we have people responsible for "hotel services"--a laughable title. I suppose that hospitals may bear some resemblance to British hotels, but that simply tells us something about the problems of the tourist industry. Such was the level of expertise within the trust that, at the very moment when the person responsible for hotel services was being told that the job no longer existed, management were seeking to appoint someone from the commercial sector to run the laundry and other so-called services. That is extraordinary and cannot in any way be defended.

The Minister may say that I am not giving an accurate picture. His own Department engaged Price Waterhouse to do a survey of the hospital recently and, in the past three months, Price Waterhouse has reported--for some reason, the Government seem to be keeping quiet about it--that the hospital is not only efficient but very efficient. It is not the staff who are the problem--nor is it the delivery of health care, even in the extraordinarily difficult conditions under which staff are operating, with wards closed at weekends and people being moved around. Quality of care is not the problem.

I should have thought that the Minister would now think to himself, "Price Waterhouse says that the place is efficient ; there is an overspend of £2 million for the second year running ; the money can no longer be taken out of the reserves, so the business of sacking staff has to be considered" and ask himself--or better still, the Secretary of State should ask herself--"What is really wrong? Is it the fact that we do not allow enough money to the district hospital to provide the services that we demand of it?"

The Secretary of State has frequently told me, in letters and in the House, that I should be proud of the hospital,

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because it is treating more people. I have no doubt that the Minister has the figures today and will be saying, "Look how clever we are. More people are being treated." But if Leighton hospital is overtrading and if the Secretary of State demands that that level of care is kept up--and she has given the instructions that it should not only continue to give that level of care but increase the rate at which it is treating patients--how does the Minister explain the gap between the resources needed for the jobs and the amount of money that is available for the trust?

Perhaps the Minister will say that that is a matter for the trust itself. He must know that the staff are now at risk and that morale at the hospital is dangerously and unacceptably low--and I have lived in hospitals for much of my life. People are deeply worried about the future of their jobs. It is important to understand that the lessons of Crewe trust and its problems have not been lost on the surrounding areas. Halton trust, which became a trust yesterday, learned its first lesson from Crewe, closing one of its best and most well-equipped wards on the very first day. Crewe is offering an example to people in the north-west region of how not to run a hospital.

There is also the problem of community care. So far, no one has worked out that, whereas hospital treatment is free at the point of use, once the social services act as a filter between elderly and mentally handicapped people and the services they require, a larger part of the cost will inevitably be paid by the patients themselves. That has not been sufficiently highlighted in the run-up to community care.

I have a number of questions to ask the Minister, but I must tell him that the recitation of a series of very spurious statistics will not be a sufficient response to my points of concern. Does the Minister accept that there are such severe problems in the Mid Cheshire hospital trust that it requires an independent investigation into the financial management, into staff and patient care and, above all, into the amount of money available to the trust from the regional hospital authority?

Will the Minister also instigate an urgent inquiry into what is happening at regional level? How does he justify the decisions being taken, such as the purchase of flats, at a time when health authorities are being told to cut the level of services they provide?

How on earth can the Minister justify the arbitrary and outrageous decision to force the two health authorities--Crewe and

Macclesfield--to combine in order to save money? After all, that is what it is all about. There is no suggestion that there will be a better level of health care ; there is simply the suggestion in the so-called consultation document that it is a way to make the two budgets balance.

The experiment has failed--the creation of trusts has not provided better care and the money has not followed the patient. All it means is that the Government are increasingly able to run down our hospitals on the very weak pretext that somehow or other the decision is being made by local people, who, the Government say, are now able to decide their own health care priorities.

That is a manifest farce. Local people have no say in what happens in their hospitals ; they have no say in what happens with staffing levels ; they have no say in what wards are closed ; they have no say in the decision on which people are moved around on weekends ; they have no say in who should be sacked--they have absolutely no say in what happens either in the regional hospital authority or in their local hospital trust.

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