To ask the Secretary of State for Health

(1) how many people are on the waiting list for an NHS dentist in (a) Cumbria, (b) the North West and (c) England;

(2) what estimate he has made of the average time spent on a waiting list for an NHS dentist in (a) Cumbria, (b) the North West and (c) England.

To ask the Secretary of State for Health what steps his Department is taking to maintain the number of NHS dentists.

To ask the Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government what steps his Department is taking to provide new social rented housing in (a) South Lakeland, (b) Cumbria and (c) England.

To ask the Secretary of State for Business, Innovation and Skills how many farm apprenticeships there were in each county in each of the last five years.

To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer what discussions he has had with the Secretary of State for (a) Health, (b) Communities and Local Government and (c) Work and Pensions on the potential for reform of the funding of social care to result in savings to the public purse across Government.

To ask the Secretary of State for Health how many people were added to the organ donor register in (a) England, (b) the north-west and (c) Cumbria in each of the last five years.

To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs what estimate she has made of the number of people aged between 16 and 25 entering employment in the farming industry in each of the last five years.

To ask the Secretary of State for Education what steps his Department is taking to increase awareness of mental health disorders in schools.

To ask the Secretary of State for Health

(1) what assessment he has made of the prospects for using increased resources for social care to reduce avoidable emergency admissions and NHS costs;

(2) what assessment he has made of the effect of the social care system on the financial sustainability of the NHS.

To ask the Minister for the Cabinet Office what the average cost is of a laptop purchased by the Government.

The Minister is right to say that there is not much in the way of new evidence, but there are two clear sides that were never really put together. He referred to Affray's dubious service and maintenance history, and the technical and mechanical problems that it experienced. It is the marrying together of sending the craft out in that state with a crew that was oversized and, probably crucially, under-experienced-25 trainees and a crew that was two thirds inexperienced in that ship-that makes Mrs Tower and me believe that those in charge were culpable. I accept that the argument about the inquiry is one thing, but an apology should be made for that poisonous cocktail of an inexperienced crew and an unfit vessel.

It is a great pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Streeter. I am extremely grateful to have the opportunity to raise such an important matter in this Chamber.

HMS Affray was an A-class submarine, which entered service in 1946. She left Gosport harbour at 4.30 pm on 16 April 1951 on a training exercise. She was due to resurface at 10 am the following day, but no signal was received. Within three hours of her failure to report, a major search began, in which the entire home flotilla and many foreign vessels took part. The search was scaled back on the evening of 19 April. Some weeks later, the wreck of the Affray was discovered on the sea bed north of Alderney in the Channel Islands, beneath 260 feet of water.

The tragedy took the lives of 75 men. It is clear that it could easily have been avoided and that those men lost their lives needlessly. The inquiry that took place at the time was a closed inquiry. When its details were made public under the 30-year rule in 1981, it became clear that it had been staggeringly inadequate. In the words of a widow of one of the men lost on the Affray, this was an inquiry of the admirals, by the admirals and for the admirals-it was not for those who died or for those they left behind.

The widow I have just quoted is Mrs June Tower. June is a constituent and, in 1951, she was married to 23-year-old John Treleaven. John was one of 25 trainees among the 75 crew who lost their lives. On 16 April- 61 years after the event-June will attend a ceremony on the island of Alderney, where a plaque will be unveiled to commemorate the 75 who died in the Affray tragedy. The event presents the perfect opportunity for our Government to make amends for six decades of obfuscation.

The closed inquiry in 1951 reported to James Callaghan, who was Parliamentary Secretary to the Admiralty. It reported that the loss of the Affray was most likely caused by metal fatigue and faulty welding on the Affray's snort-a long tube added to the vessel in 1950 to act like a large snorkel. When the wreck was discovered, it was reported that the snort had snapped and that the likely cause of the tragedy was the resulting influx of water into the ship.

What was not included in the report to the Minister was the Affray's dubious history, the extraordinary lack of experience among the crew and the fact that the Affray was carrying a significantly larger crew than normal. The mechanical problems that beset the Affray included the fact that her battery flooded without warning during trials, defects she had experienced in a starboard supercharger on her way to Australia and the need for a partial refit when she was in Singapore.

By 1950, the Affray had done 51,000 miles and was not rated highly by seamen who knew her well. Chief Petty Officer David Bennington reported that

"she leaks like a sieve and when doing a deep dive the other day the water poured into the engine room faster than we could keep it out".

He also described an occasion when an engine broke down. After the same exercise, he stated that

"we limped in on one"-

one engine-

"and just as we arrived in the other went...I think that this boat is just about finished."

The snort was fitted in January 1950, but it developed defects very quickly. Mechanic William Day was responsible for raising and lowering the snort, and he detailed a number of defects with the device, adding that

"as soon as we surfaced from snorkelling there was always a lot of water in the engine room".

Lieutenant Commander Blackburn, who captained the Affray and died with his men, told the crew that they would be going on a short, five-day voyage because the Affray was booked to go into dock at the end of those five days due to trouble with her battery.

There is plenty of evidence that the Affray was bordering on unseaworthy, if not actually unseaworthy, and that the Admiralty was well aware of that. The Affray was an unfit vessel. Each of the 75 men who died was talented, dedicated and proud to serve their country, but as a collective unit, they were the wrong crew for the wrong ship-again, something the Admiralty was fully aware of.

The Affray carried 75 crew on that voyage, but she was meant to carry only 61 in peacetime. Even in wartime, which this was not, she was meant to take a crew of only 66. Worse, only 26 of those on board were part of the Affray's regular crew. A further 20 crew members had been moved out of barracks at the last minute to take part in the exercise, due to confusion over Easter leave. There were also four Royal Marines and 25 trainees. Among those trainees was John Treleaven, who, in the words of June, his widow,

"had spent 2 years on HMS vanguard but hadn't a clue about submarines and had never been out in the Affray".

This was, therefore, an unfit submarine, carrying a brave but unsuitable and oversized crew. Yet, the inquiry, which was hushed and rushed, reporting just three and a half months after the tragedy, concluded that the cause of the loss of 75 men was a snapped snort pipe. The snort was no doubt snapped, but was it the cause of the tragedy or the result of an explosion caused by the faulty battery? I have no idea, but the closed inquiry made no serious attempt to look at the issue.

When all is said and done, though, there are two failures for which the Admiralty must take responsibility. One was sending out a vessel with 75 men on board when it was clearly not fit for duty. The second was sending out an ill-prepared, inexperienced crew on such a ship. It is entirely possible that an accident happened that day and that it could have been mitigated had the crew been smaller or more experienced.

One of the other widows, Mary Henry, who was married to First Lieutenant Derek Foster, told June that she had found her husband in the garden on 15 April, the day before the Affray set sail. He was working unusually furiously at his garden, and his wife inquired what was upsetting him. He replied that

"we are taking a gash-or rubbish-crew and they'll all be sick and get in the way, it's dangerous".

June Tower talked to one of the men who was taken off the crew at the last minute due to double booking and the complications over Easter leave. He told June that

"it was incredible that they took those trainees out in the Affray, if there had been an emergency they wouldn't have known what to do"

He added that

"the affray leaked like a sieve, she was always turning turtle but nothing that an experienced crew couldn't deal with".

He explained that the 20 crew who were swapped over at the last minute to allow those in barracks to join the ship were later told by their superiors not to talk about the incident for fear of blackening the Navy's name.

That gives us a clue as to what happened in the hushed and rushed inquiry. Britain was, and remains, rightly proud of her Navy. In 1951, we were in the early and fevered days of the cold war, and out in Korea, it was getting decidedly heated. The foolhardy decision to allow an unfit ship, crewed by the inexperienced and the untrained, to take part in a challenging exercise, which led to such a dreadful tragedy, must have been a matter of huge embarrassment to the Admiralty and the Navy as a whole. The need to present a picture of an invincible Navy must have overridden the need to ensure justice for the families of the dead. However, that was 61 years ago. Do we need to allow those considerations to haunt us today, while June and other relatives are still yearning for answers? I am sure the answer is that we do not, of course, need to allow those considerations to hold us back.

June Tower is an incredible woman. For 61 years she has sought justice for John. Now, she is a widow for a second time. Like the other relatives of those who died, she is delighted by the decision to unveil the plaque to them. She is hugely grateful to the Essex Submariners Association, which has led the work in raising the funds for, and organising, this important memorial. When John died, she was overwhelmed by the gifts of condolence sent to her and the rest of the bereaved families from right across the Commonwealth. Happily, she remarried in December 1954. She married a GP, Julian Tower, with whom she spent more than 50 wonderful years. When she and Dr Tower married, the Affray fund provided her with a generous dowry. She says that she has much to be grateful for and many to be grateful to.

The great shame is that the Navy and the country to whom June's first husband was so dedicated, and for which he gave his life, have acted quite differently. We have had a hushed and rushed inquiry, a lack of truth and no contrition, no admission of fault and no apology. I hope my hon. Friend the Minister agrees that that is a dishonourable position for us to be in. I hope he will do all in his power to put that right.

June is clear that the wreck of the Affray is a grave and that it should remain undisturbed. She does not want it lifting to the surface, and she does not want divers to risk their lives to investigate it, because it lies on the bottom of the English channel. However, there is sufficient evidence above the water for there to be a reinvestigation of the evidence, and I formally ask the Government to do just that. Secondly, June and the other relatives of the crew deserve an apology from the Royal Navy and Her Majesty's Government for the mistakes made in sending out an unfit submarine with an inexperienced crew. Thirdly, I would be grateful if moneys remaining in the Affray fund could be utilised to pay for the maintenance of the bronze plaque on Alderney, so that it will remain a fitting and proud tribute to the 75 who lost their lives.

June wrote a delightful and extremely moving book about her relationship with her husband John, culminating in the Affray tragedy. She wrote the book, "Maritime Mail", because she wanted to provide a memorial for those brave men. The plaque and June's book are tremendous memorials and outstanding tributes to a brave crew who died needlessly. The most important tribute that we can pay them today is to agree that a reinvestigation should take place and that an apology should be made.

To ask the Secretary of State for Health if he will meet the hon. Member for Westmorland and Lonsdale, local clinicians and patients to discuss (a) the lessons learned from the investigation of the University Hospitals of Morecambe Bay NHS Foundation Trust into emergency care and (b) ensuring that patients treated by the trust are safe.

To ask the Secretary of State for Education what plans his Department has to change the process by which grandparents can gain access to any of their grandchildren to whom they have no access.

Does the Minister share my concern that Cumbria county council is planning to close household waste recycling centres in Ambleside and Grange-over-Sands, given that that will increase the amount of waste that goes to landfill?

To ask the Secretary of State for Defence if his Department will re-open a full inquiry into the causes of the sinking of HMS Affray on 16 April 1951.

To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs whether she plans to take steps to block products containing eggs from import from countries that are not compliant with the welfare of laying hens directive.

To ask the Secretary of State for International Development if he will consider the importance of population stabilisation for sustainable development in his preparations for the Rio+20 UN Conference on Sustainable Development.

To ask the Secretary of State for Energy and Climate Change if he will take steps to encourage EU and African groups at the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change to (a) consider the links between population growth, carbon emissions and adaptation problems and (b) invest climate funds in family planning and women's education and empowerment programmes.

To ask the Secretary of State for International Development if he will take steps to encourage his EU counterparts to increase aid for family planning above 0.4 per cent. of the total EU aid budget.