To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions what assessment he has made of the effectiveness of the Youth Contract in reducing youth unemployment.

To ask the Secretary of State for Transport what estimate she has made of the cost associated with (a) increasing the motorway speed limit to 80 mph and (b) maintaining the speed limit at 70 mph on stretches of the motorway network where 80 mph is not deemed to be appropriate on the grounds of safety.

The hon. Lady makes a fair point, and I have always argued that we should keep individual elections separate-whether local, general or European-so that we can at least try to focus people's attention on the issues on which they are being asked to have an opinion.

If elected mayors are so worth while-enough to hold a referendum on them-should not we have ensured that we could engage in proper debate, by putting the referendums on separate days? Then the community could have a real debate on the issues, and the merits or otherwise of an elected mayor, instead of seeing it as a bit of an afterthought, which is how it is being viewed in Manchester.

Having said that I am not a fan of elected mayors, I accept that they can be successful. A lot will depend on the calibre of the candidates and the person elected. Because there will be a mayor in Salford, if Manchester votes no that will be a great opportunity for Salford, which will be the only local authority in the area with a mayor. That mayor will be able to raise Salford's profile. I mean no disrespect to Salford, but it has for many years played second fiddle to Manchester, which is seen as the big city. The danger is that if Manchester votes yes, and we end up with a Manchester mayor, the Salford mayor will become peripheral to the Manchester mayor, who may be a famous person or celebrity, or a high-profile politician, and seem significantly more important than the mayor of Salford. I stress that I am not trying to show disrespect to Salford, but generally Manchester has a high profile and Salford does not.

In my view, if Manchester is going to hold a referendum on a mayor, it would be better if the question was on a mayor for Greater Manchester-a point that was made by the hon. Member for Nottingham South (Lilian Greenwood). There are two reasons for that: first, it would have fitted far better into the model of the joint authority between the 10 Manchester local authorities; secondly, it would have avoided the prospect of a Manchester mayor trumping the mayor of any other local authority, and being seen as more significant than the mayors of other local authorities. In future, if we are to have mayors, we should consider the most appropriate area that should be covered. We should not think of basic, single local authorities, but consider what would be best for the area. In Manchester that would probably be Greater Manchester; in the Coventry area it would be Coventry; but it would be different in different parts of the country, depending on the make-up of local authorities.

There are several reasons for lack of enthusiasm. I suspect that in Manchester it is partly to do with the fact that the political parties are concentrating more on the local elections than on trying to force people out to vote in the referendum. I shall come on to that, but I do not believe that we should have the referendum on the same day as the local election. I think that the crux of the problem is that we are not giving people the opportunity to debate the issue of the mayoral referendum, because there are other issues that they want to discuss. People are interested in who will be their local councillor-not in whether we shall have an elected mayor for the city of Manchester.

I understand the Government's argument for holding the referendum on the same day as the local elections, because clearly that saves an awful lot of money.

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mrs Main. I congratulate the hon. Member for Cleethorpes (Martin Vickers) on securing this important debate.

I wanted to take part in the debate mainly because my home city of Manchester is one of the local authorities that will hold a referendum on local election day next week. I should start by laying my cards on the table and saying that I have never been a supporter of elected mayors, but if the people of Manchester vote for a mayor next week, I will not lose any sleep over it, because the issue is not massively important to me or people in Manchester. Indeed, apathy has been the big winner so far.

I certainly do not object to holding a referendum on whether local people want an elected mayor, but the nature of mayoral elections means they always end up

being about personalities, rather than politics. London is a good example, and the debates going on at the moment clearly show that the issue is personalities, not politics. The debate is not about the merits or otherwise of the policies put forward by the two front-runners, but about whether people dislike the fact that Ken Livingstone has not paid his taxes or think that Boris Johnson should have come home early when the riots started. Transport and other issues that should be debated have fallen by the wayside while people look at the personalities of the two front-runners.

There is a question about whether we should force local authorities to have a referendum against their will, given that plenty are considering going down that route or have already gone down it. In Salford, for instance, local residents triggered a referendum, and an election is taking place next week for a mayor. That said, only 18.1% of the 171,000 eligible voters took part in the referendum. None the less, there was a comfortable majority in support of having a mayor. I rather suspect that the turnout in Manchester will be significantly higher than 18.1%, but only because the vote will be on the same day as the local elections. People will want to participate in the local election, rather than the referendum for an elected mayor, so I seriously doubt whether the higher turnout will mean there is more interest in the mayoral referendum or the idea of having an elected mayor; that will not be what pushes people to take part in next Thursday's election. Certainly, in my experience of knocking on many doors during the election campaign of the past few weeks, I have not seen massive enthusiasm for the referendum. In fact, only one person has raised the issue with me on the doorstep, and that was someone who simply wanted to know my view. She had no particular view, and was not even sure whether she would vote in the referendum.

Does the right hon. Gentleman agree that support for local government, and more interest in local politics, would be helped by never having local elections on the same day as a general election?

In the past couple of weeks, I have read in leaflets that pensioners have been hit by the Government axing free bus passes, free prescriptions and free television licences. Did I miss something in the Budget, or are those simply lies from the Labour party?

During Transport questions the Secretary of State confirmed that the Department has no idea of the cost of increasing the motorway speed limit and its impact on road casualties. Given that the Opposition have already come out in favour of a policy that will cost millions and cost lives, may we have a debate in the House on the financial implications and the cost in human life of an increase in the speed limit?

Has the Secretary of State now calculated the cost associated with increasing the motorway speed limit to 80 mph and the increased number of casualties expected as a result of such a measure?

Will my right hon. Friend tell the House what progress he and the cities Minister-the Minister of State, Department for Communities and Local Government, the right hon. Member for Tunbridge Wells (Greg Clark)-have made in negotiating the city deals with the eight largest cities outside London?

To ask the Deputy Prime Minister what recent discussions he has had on the introduction of a bill on war powers.

To ask the Secretary of State for Health

(1) what progress his Department has made on a national breast cancer audit as part of the National Clinical Audit and Patient Outcome Programme;

(2) whether he plans to hold a specification development meeting for a national breast cancer audit;

(3) when he plans to announce further details of the funding arrangements for a national clinical audit for breast cancer as part of the National Clinical Audit and Patient Outcome Programme.

To ask the Secretary of State for Health what (a) pharmacological treatments and (b) associated indications for a patient access scheme have been recommended by the National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence since it was established.

To ask the Secretary of State for Health

(1) what (a) pharmacological treatments and (b) associated indications which the National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence (NICE) has recommended for cancer treatment through either single of multiple technology appraisals since NICE was established;

(2) what (a) pharmacological treatments and (b) associated indications the National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence has recommended for cancer treatment under the end of life criteria since the criteria was introduced in 2009;

(3) what (a) pharmacological treatments and (b) associated indications the National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence has not recommended for cancer treatment since it was established;

(4) what (a) pharmacological treatments and (b) associated indications the National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence has recommended for (a) prostate cancer, (b) lung cancer, (c) bowel cancer, (d) breast cancer and (e) kidney cancer through (i) single or multiple technology appraisals and (ii) under the end of life criteria since it was established;

(5) if he will publish the final calculated cost per quality adjusted life year of each pharmacological treatment and associated indications which the National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence (NICE) has not recommended for cancer treatment since NICE was established;

(6) if he will publish the final calculated cost per quality adjusted life year of each pharmacological treatment and associated indications which the National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence (NICE) has recommended for cancer treatments; and which such treatment and indications have been recommended for cancer treatment under the end of life criteria since NICE was established;

(7) if he will publish the determined population size for each pharmacological treatment and associated indications which the National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence (NICE) has recommended for cancer treatment under the end of life criteria since NICE was established;

(8) if he will publish the determined population size for each pharmacological treatment and associated indications which the National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence has recommended for cancer treatment since it was established.

Does my parliamentary neighbour accept that not only Councillor David Acton has been making that case? Before him, Councillor Paul Shannon, who led the fire authority for two or three years, made the exact same case to Ministers.

He has described the unfairness of the grant allocation as scandalous and unjustifiable. He put the case very strongly to Government.

To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer what assessment he has made of the potential effects on low and middle income earners of raising the income tax threshold to £10,000.

I thank the hon. Lady for that intervention. I will not stand here and defend the ills of the Conservative Government pre-1997. However, the previous Labour Government could have done more at a time when the economy was doing well. As my right hon. Friend the Member for Bermondsey and Old Southwark said, the coalition Government have come to office at a time when there is not a lot of cash available.

Although I welcome the additional social housing that will be built over the next three to four years, I emphasise to my hon. Friend the Minister that we need to do more. I point him in the direction of the Department for Transport, where there has been significant capital investment in railway schemes at a time of significant budget cuts. Some capital investment in social housing schemes would be yet another way of helping to boost the construction industry and to deal with the massive shortage of social housing.

Governments cannot, however, be expected to do everything. Local authorities must play their part, and I want to make a few brief comments about that. My hon. Friend the Minister is aware of my concern about the changes to housing benefit regulations, and the prospect of tenants who under-occupy homes in my constituency losing housing benefit unless they choose to move to smaller properties. That policy has been widely criticised by housing associations and local authorities, including my own in Manchester, because of a lack of available smaller properties for tenants to move into. The hon. Member for Lewisham East mentioned a massive shortage of larger homes in London, but the problem in other parts of the country-certainly in Manchester, but also in other areas of the north of England-is a shortage of smaller properties for people to move into.

Manchester city council criticised that change in housing benefit regulations, but when it was given the opportunity to help to provide some additional, smaller social housing accommodation, it chose not to do so. Many local authorities-although London is an exception-have available land, which has been earmarked for housing development, and my constituency is no exception to that. In Chorlton, the former Oakwood high school site on Darley avenue has been earmarked for housing. However, Manchester city council says that there is already plenty of social housing in the area, so there is no need for more. It says so despite having argued that there are not enough available properties to allow under-occupying tenants to move to smaller accommodation. That seems to be a bit of a contradiction.

The council also argues that some homes will, by definition, be affordable, because some property will be available to buy on a shared ownership scheme. That is certainly true-and welcome-for people who are able to get on the housing ladder, but the harsh reality is that many people cannot get a mortgage in any circumstances; therefore, by definition, those homes are unaffordable for those people.

I return, therefore, to the point I made at the beginning, about local authorities taking on some of the responsibility. It cannot just be left to the Government to throw

billions of pounds at housing development. Local authorities need to make land available-where they have it, because I recognise that some do not-for social housing.

I am pleased to speak under your chairmanship for the first time, Ms Clark. I, too, congratulate the hon. Member for Great Grimsby (Austin Mitchell) on securing the debate.

The contribution of the hon. Member for Lewisham East (Heidi Alexander) was somewhat unfair on the Government. I would just point her in the direction of the comments made by my right hon. Friend the Member for Bermondsey and Old Southwark (Simon Hughes), who noted the massive under-investment in social housing during the years of the previous Labour Government, when the economy was doing well. Throughout the previous Parliament, I, along with colleagues not only in the Liberal Democrat party but across the House, argued for substantially more investment in social housing. Indeed, my hon. Friend the Member for Colchester (Sir Bob Russell) was arguing for that from 1997.

On that point, two-bedroom flats sold off in London should be replaced by larger properties to deal with the shortage of such properties in London. In the same way, there is a shortage of smaller properties in other parts of the country.

Does the hon. Lady agree that people might have more confidence in the Government's decision to move to CPI if we were to use CPI for all other calculations, such as train fare increases?