Christmas Adjournment

As it happens, I shall come to that issue, but I do indeed see a theme emerging. My constituents are concerned about police pay, like everybody else. That is not to say that policing could not be improved or reformed, but I am astonished by the Government's behaviour. The Home Secretary should change her mind even now, because doing so would be for the benefit of the police force and the country. The second issue is that of post offices, which has been mentioned by, among others, my right hon. Friend the Member for West Derbyshire (Mr. McLoughlin), who is sadly no longer in his place to keep me in my place. The Government have got the whole issue wrong. I used to shadow the post office portfolio. Every post office, apart from a Crown post office, is a small business, run by a small business person. Instead of treating that network as a business opportunity that could be used in many different ways, the Government have consistently—they have done so from the urban reinvention programme onwards—treated it as a problem. Frankly, they would like to get rid of it completely. I am fortunate in that only one post office my constituency will be closed under the latest programme. It is at Arnesby, and I know it well, as I used to live there. The village is not especially big. It has a pub, a church and a school, but it does not have a shop or great community facilities. The post office is therefore much valued. My colleagues on the Front Bench share my view that the rural post office provides a service that should be married with the business opportunity that it represents. That is not to say that none should ever be closed, but the number of rural post offices around my constituency that have closed in the past 10 years is staggering. That has been to the detriment of my constituents' lives, and I know that the same thing has happened all over the country. The Government and the Post Office need to look again at what they are doing. Thirdly, I want to raise the question of pensions, and especially of those private pension schemes that have gone bust. People who know Leicestershire will know that many former workers at British United Shoe Machinery were affected by the problem, so I was delighted by the Government's announcement yesterday that they intend to reimburse the pensioners involved. I applaud the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions for finally making that decision, and although I have been here long enough to know that the Government are not absolutely accurate about everything that they put in the public domain, I hope that pensioners will receive 90 per cent. of the pension that they lost. I have two questions about the Government's actions in this matter. First, how was it that they were prepared to go to court to fight the pensioners' action groups, given that they have just about met the pensioners' demands? Secondly, how much will the deal cost? When we started arguing about this matter in the previous Parliament, we were told categorically that the burden would be huge. The Government said that reimbursing the pensioners could come to as much £15 billion, and that that was unacceptable. We did not agree, so I was puzzled yesterday to hear that the total cost would be between £2.7 billion and £2.9 billion. Both are large sums, but I understand that the Exchequer has already received £1.7 billion, as it had a claim on the pension funds when they collapsed. Therefore, the cost to the public purse is not £15 billion, but £1 billion. That is still an enormous amount, but the Government accept what most hon. Members have said for some time—that they have a moral responsibility to assist people who saved for retirement and lost their pensions through no fault of their own. The fourth issue that I wish raise—farming—also has local as well as national resonance. I should declare an interest, in that I have a farm, although I should also declare that I do not make any money out of it. The state of farming remains dire. There have been some improvements, such as in the price of wheat, but we all know that that will cause the cost of food to rise dramatically. Tesco has made some movement in respect of the farm-gate milk price, but the dairy sector remains in crisis. My constituency used to have a great many dairy farmers, but a huge number of farms have gone out of business. They have either given up farming completely, or they have left the dairy sector because they cannot make a living out of it. They are just about breaking even now, but at one stage they were producing milk at a loss—and one does not need to be a very clever business man to realise that that cannot go on for very long. We need to look at the whole question of how farming is supported. The fiasco of the single farm payment goes on and on, and the Government should be ashamed of it. Other important questions have to do with how foot and mouth disease escaped from the Pirbright facility, and whether that resulted from the cuts made by the previous Chancellor of Exchequer in the funding for the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs and especially for the animal hygiene service, I think, which was in overall control of the Pirbright site. I want especially to raise the issue of nitrate-vulnerable zones. A huge amount of money will have to be spent on installing slurry pits or bunds on every farm in the country. At best, their efficacy is dubious, but at worst they could have an unfortunate environmental impact on land that we want to improve. The House will know that the current system of single farm payments requires that land is kept in good agricultural and environmental condition—GAEC, for short. Farmers are encouraged to leave vegetation uncut, and especially to leave stubble over winter, as that is good for birds. However, the proposals for nitrate-vulnerable zones insist that stubble is ploughed over the winter so that slurry can be spread on the land. That is a case of the left hand not knowing what the right is doing, so the Government should look closely at the proposals and consider whether there might be better ways to reduce nitrates in ground and drinking water to improve the environment. The current proposals look like a disaster waiting to happen, and I counsel Labour Members that there will be disaster in every constituency that has farms unless there is change. Finally, I turn to the issue raised by my hon. Friend the Member for Ribble Valley (Mr. Evans). It involves every Member from the three main parties and probably has the support of the two minority parties represented in the Chamber today. At the last election, every Member elected from one of the three main parties stood on the platform that we would hold a referendum on the EU constitution; yet notwithstanding the fact that Giscard d'Estaing, who wrote the constitution, and everybody else on the continent, says that the reform treaty is exactly the same as a constitution, the Government, aided and abetted by the Liberal Democrat running dogs and their new leader, are reneging. They say, ““Oh, we didn't mean it””. Politicians are told that they lack integrity. I deny that—I hope I have some integrity; indeed, almost all Members of this place have integrity and want to stand by their word. That is important. What will the British public think of those who stand on a manifesto that states, ““We will have a referendum on the EU constitution”” and then change their mind? It is not acceptable. I believe in parliamentary democracy and am not a great fan of referendums. However, I stood on that manifesto, and I demand that the Government stick by their promise and that the Prime Minister, who is in charge of the manifesto, sticks by his promise and that we hold a referendum. I hope that every hon. Member who stood on such a manifesto will support a referendum on the EU constitutional treaty.