House of Commons Hansard Debates for 15 Jun 1990

Mr. Forman : Before my hon. Friend gets carried away with his largesse in opening up the Community to all and sundry, does he realise that the Community has recently decided at Foreign Minister level not to enlarge itself until 1993? That must be wise when one considers the extent of the problems and opportunities that must be dealt with between now and then.

Mr. Bowis : I accept that 1993 may be a sensible date, but 1994 follows it. We want to ensure that we are developing a Community that enables us to look outwards and onward beyond short-term dates and the German reunification issue to how Europe's stability can be helped by that Community. It will be helped not by a closed door policy, but by being ready to be flexible and considering political structures.

If we are to have a representive from every country in the Community, the Council of Ministers' decision-making will begin to look unwieldy. Inevitably, the European Parliament, as the hon. Member for Hackney, South and Shorditch hinted, will become more important in the supra-national decisions and debates. At the same time, because many countries that would be joining and many countries in the Community are increasingly concerned about nationalist rights and identities, so it will become inevitable that the question, "What is a supra-national issue?" will become less clear than it was a few years ago. We must continue to consider that. Europe will find its equilibrium and future if its structures are not too rigid and we do not rush into making such structures permanent.

We must look for ways of increasing harmony and co-operation. Where it is sensible we should pool sovereignty, as we have been doing over the years. But we should not make the pooled sovereignty the goal in itself. If we bear that in mind, we shall be moving towards the right sort of equilibrium.

I am concerned about the Commission's powers. It is the civil service of Europe, and all too often it has turned out to be the policy initiator of Europe. I would much

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rather see policy initiation by the Council, while that is still the appropriate forum, and by the Parliaments, both of the national Governments and the European Community, rather than by the civil service--the Commission. I hope that we can consider that as we adjust the political structures.

I question whether some of the decisions that are emerging are realistic. The present issue of the eight-hour shift being the limit right across the Community is one such decision. An eight-hour shift may be perfectly sensible for some work, but those working in mines and on buses and those on night guard patrol all have different requirements--[ Hon. Members :- - "What about here?"] I think that some of my hon. Friends are suggesting there should perhaps be an eight-hour shift for hon. Members. Perhaps, in the light of that, I should withdraw all my opposition and say that there is something in the eight-hour shift. But, in reality, it is nonsense. We can laugh about that, but the public stop laughing when they see some of the harmonisation such as the height in hands for the export of ponies and horses. The sensitivities of people in this country mean that they do not want young horses or ponies from Exmoor and the New Forest disappearing off to the dinner tables of Europe. We must bear that in mind.

It has been suggested that there should be a veterinary check on every game bird and animal that is shot to ensure that it is fit for human consumption. The mind boggles. I believe that 3.5 million birds are shot each year--the idea of 3.5 million veterinary checks begins to make the suggestion look absurd.

Frontier checks are being challenged. The more we can remove frontiers the better. But we should remove them only when it makes sense. Certainly, Interpol, Dutch border controls and our own police and customs are worried. Recent figures from Customs and Excise for example show that 40 per cent. of the drugs seized are found at routine customs checks, not by spot checks. That shows the importance of greater national common sense coming into some of those decisions.

In the great debates on pollution we hear criticisms of Britain, British pollution in the North sea and the way we pollute, from people who are themselves polluters. We do not seem to have the power in our Community to adjust and sift the balance of criticism so that the countries through which the three great polluting rivers of Europe--the Rhine, the Elbe and the Meuse--flow, and which criticise Britain, are highlighted as the real polluters and that action is taken. That is largely because the Community is strong on rhetoric and weak on enforcement.

Britain can be proud of its commitment to European initiatives. The part of the motion that refers to Britain's narrow-mindedness and isolationism is wrong. After all, Britain has been moving forward. We were the last to be criticised for our water and we were the last bar Portugal to be criticised for our beaches. Of the 79 or so directives only one has not been completely fulfilled by Britain, compared with some 50 by Italy. Sometimes also the Commission should be told, "Physician, heal thyself". I understand that the Commission has been polluting a local river in Brussels and that it is now before the Belgian courts for a breach of safety and pollution because of the

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asbestos in its buildings, but that is not often publicised. So perhaps there should be some humility from that great building. Enforcement is ineffectual and we need to tighten up and make sanctions which can stick against countries that breach the agreed directives. The recent beef issue was a classic example. The only ultimate way in which Britain could achieve justice was through the European Court, but that would have been far too slow, so we had to resort to the old way of international political pressure to achieve that result. While we are on the subject of beef and the reactions of some of our colleagues in Europe, perhaps we should not be so slow to criticise some of their practices. If Italy wishes to stop our beef coming in, I suggest that we look most carefully at what goes into Italian salami. Recently it was revealed to me that at least some Italian salami contains donkey meat and the British housewife might want to know that before she dashes down the supermarket for some slices of donkey salami. Perhaps the beaches of Blackpool are threatened not only by pollution from the sea but by donkey rustlers who would collect the donkeys of Britain to put them on the dinner tables of Italy.

Beyond the donkey, there are many ways in which the Commission has been sensible, but all too often it has not been so sensible, and that gives Europe a bad name. However, that is the downside and I do not agree with the hon. Member for Hackney, South and Shoreditch that Britain is nit- picking when it challenges some of the absurdities. Britain, the Government and the Conservative party are dedicated to membership of Europe and to forwarding the concept of Europe in a way which is to the benefit of all European peoples. After all, we are leading the way on the single market and competition policy. Our Government are promoting the global and environmental protection policies. We are leading Europe on matters such as police co-operation and the war against drugs. We have more ecu bond initiatives than any other country in the Community, we are far ahead in financial services deregulation and, most recently, we established the European bank for development and reconstruction, looking outwards beyond our borders.

There is so much that Britain can contribute to the leadership of Europe. We need to do that in the knowledge that Europe is a dynamic community. It has not closed doors and there are opportunities for countries to join it and to develop within it. I believe in Europe as I believe in one nation. I believe in the community of nations and peoples which we have joined and are seeking to assist to develop. It is a Community which is creative, co- operative, harmonious and tolerant. If we get those concepts through, it will be a Europe that I will continue to support.

I conclude with a note of agreement with the hon. Member for Hackney, South and Shoreditch, not in terms of his criticisms of the Government which were unfair, or in terms of his support for his party's policies, as that would be irrational, but I agree with him that we are an island and we have never been and should never be insular. We are a community which must never be isolationist. On that concordat I congratulate the hon. Gentleman on his good fortune and his choice of debate and I support little bits of what he said.

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10.34 am

Mr. Nigel Spearing (Newham, South) : The hon. Member for Battersea (Mr. Bowis) has made a speech of generalisation and abstraction which will appeal to many in the House and in the country. It is typical of the case that we hear time and again. Let me immediately draw his attention to two bits of nitty-gritty which show that his aspirations are not always as helpful as they appear.

The right hon. Member for Old Bexley and Sidcup (Mr. Heath) told us that when we joined the Community the effects on our balance of payments would be substantial and positive. Of course, they have been substantial and negative to the extent of £15 billion in manufactured goods alone. The hon. Gentleman mentioned Dartmoor ponies. Is he aware that so far neither the Commission nor the Council has agreed to the maintenance of our minimum value export order? Therefore, all the fears which many of us have expressed on that humane instrument which the House passed may be swept aside.

I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Hackney South and Shoreditch (Mr. Sedgemore), a fellow London Member, on his choice ot topic, which demonstrates the extent to which the House is not properly dealing with these matters. My hon. Friend's motion advocates European monetary union, which is, in effect, a single currency. To my knowledge, the House has never approved such a proposal, yet when the Prime Minister went to Madrid she committed the Government, and, in effect, the House and all the citizens of the United Kingdom, to that very step. I congratulate my hon. Friend on bringing up the topic again.

Often attendance in the House is inversely proportional to the importance of the topic, and today is an example of that. One may ask why the House has never debated such a fundamental issue--perhaps one of the most important and fundamental issues that the House has neglected to debate this century. The answer lies in the inhibiting effects of free debate of the treaty of Rome. It could have been up to the official Opposition to initiate a debate, but they did not do so, although two Committees in the House suggested that they should raise the matter.

My hon. Friend has more in common with me than he might suppose. He referred to his father and the tragedy of the Rawalpindi. Rawalpindi house is in my constituency. It was established as a memorial to that sad event. Those of us who remember the events of 1935-36 and who survived, either in active service or as civilians, the bombardment of our towns and cities--I know that you are one, Mr. Deputy Speaker ; we are a diminishing number but we are still around--join with all who want to ensure that that never happens again.

My hon. Friend was kind enough to refer to my tenacity. I make no apology whatsoever for telling him that tenacity on this particular issue arises from an equal concern. After that terrible conflict I had the privilege of going to Hamburg and helping the Hamburg international club rebuild the Gestapo headquarters into a youth theatre. For 40 years I have had exchanges with a family in that city as a result of a school exchange.

I hope that no hon. Member will again accuse me of being a little Englander or of operating from the wrong motives. As I hope to demonstrate, I do not think that the treaty of Rome is the way to achieve the objectives about which we often hear from my hon. Friend the Member for

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Hackney, South and Shoreditch, the hon. Member for Battersea and even the right hon. Member for Old Bexley and Sidcup. It is not constructive in that mould.

My hon. Friend the Member for Hackney, South and Shoreditch spoke about matters in which we share tremendous unanimity, and then he suddenly talked about the exchange rate mechanism. He says that we shall not achieve security for Europe or for the rest of the world through weaponry or threats. That is absolutely right. He rejects the tools of war and adopts the tools of finance. He is an expert in financial matters in the City and I and my hon. Friends all look to him for facts, leadership and analysis in such matters.

When it comes to world security, partnership and real internationalism, we should not look primarily to the tools of finance or the market. That is the flaw in the treaty of Rome. It is an economic treaty which moves into political realms and places its faith in mechanisms, first in finance and the market, and automatically calls for an expansion of political institutions based on those flawed and transient foundations. That is why I oppose the treaty. It seeks international results on a foundation of sand. It is not international at all : it is supranational, and always wanted to be.

Hon. Members who speak as individals have a great privilege. Those on the Front Bench who are constrained by corporate teamwork often have to speak in other capacities. Politicians, commentators and party members often forget that a person speaking as an individual and, quite properly, as a citizen can feel relatively unconstrained. An hon. Member who holds office or shadow office or who is the Chairman of a Committee speaks with another label. My right hon. Friend the Member for Chesterfield (Mr. Benn) often accuses people of reneging, but he should remember that people often have to speak in a corporate capacity.

I am Chairman of the Select Committee on European Legislation and in that corporate capacity I should like to put in a footnote about the recently published White Paper dealing with scrutiny by the House of EEC legislation. That is universally criticised, and it always will be, because our debates on it are advisory only whereas many of our other debates, thank goodness, are still definitive and we have power. That automatically puts them in a different category. Yesterday the Leader of the House was asked whether the debate that we are expecting on this very important topic would be subject to a single vote to approve the Government's proposals en bloc. I suggested that that would not be a good procedure because Government proposals are many and varied : some are excellent and some are questionable. We should have an opportunity to debate them at large so that the Leader of the House can reflect on them. If we cannot do that, we are not proceeding in a proper and democratic manner, even when debating how to deal with advisory matters.

I shall give a couple of examples. There is a proposal for a number of special Committees to replace the occasional Committees that now examine European documents. There are 10 motions on the remaining Order of the Day. In the proposed Committees Members should be able to question Ministers ; I do not think that anybody would disagree with that principle. More questionable is the fact that the power to decide whether to have a debate on the

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Floor of the House at a convenient hour or upstairs is to be removed from the House where Standing Orders presently place it. I shall now revert to my persona as an individual Member and speak on the subject that is before me. I agree with my hon. Friend the Member for Hackney, South and Shoreditch about the approach of some Conservative Members, some of whom he named. The Prime Minister's approach to international matters is to be regretted. In the right hon. Lady's past performances in defending the rights of Parliament I did not detect a great deal of concern about parliamentary democracy. I know that she was catapulted to the Front Bench at a relatively early age and perhaps that has something to do with it. However, the right hon. Lady is not the first person to come to mind when one thinks about the champions of parliamentary democracy and especially of its procedures.

One might think differently about the right hon. Member for Old Bexley and Sidcup, and in a sense that illustrates the other side of the polarity of the Conservative party. However, even the right hon. Gentleman exhibits flaws or illogicalities when dealing with this matter. When we debated the referendum in 1975 the right hon. Gentleman assured the nation on a number of occasions that the Queen would not be affected. I had some correspondence wth the right hon. Gentleman a few months ago and dropped him a line to say that I would mention the matter again this morning. I thought that he would be here. We hear him a great deal on radio and television, and he makes great statements, but he does not always come here for debates on this topic.

The Queen is affected, but not personally or physically. Any legislation passed in Brussels by the Council of Ministers as a directive requires this House, and perhaps another place and therefore the Queen in Parliament-- because Parliament takes the powers of the monarch through our revolutions- -to comply, thereby passing legislation at the behest of another legislative body. That affects the power of the monarch which resides in the Mace in this place. The regulation does not even come before us as such. It is self-enacting and does not need to be translated into a statutory instrument or an Act, although consequential legislation may be necessary. Therefore, the power of the Crown in Parliament--which is a better term than the King or Queen in Parliament--is entirely bypassed.

For a Prime Minister of the United Kingdom to claim, albeit 15 years ago, that the position of the Queen is not affected is quite wrong. I do not know how the right hon. Gentleman gets out of that. In his reply to me, he said something about matters coming before the House in the usual way. As I have illustrated, the documents that come before us for discussion prior to decision in Brussels are for discussion only.

In the context of the treaty of Rome and the European Community, we are talking not about co-operation, which we all want, but about the constitution and rules or order. We have to go back to the rites of any state to see how such things work. We all know that the four features of legislation, taxation, administration and adjudication are to be found in any modern state in some form or another, even in dictatorships. In our tradition we have said that representative parliamentary democracy, which was

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achieved as recently as 1928, shall provide the House with power over all matters in statute and power to call any Government to account. Such power comes from votes and from the free citizens of this country to those of us who are here. The way in which the EEC works and some of the proposals that are now before us do not follow in that tradition.

Let us take the question of a common currency, which should be at the centre of the debate and of economic and monetary union, to which we are apparently now committed. The power of currency is an ancient one, as it authenticates the unit of account--the head on the coin, as my hon. Friend said. In modern economies, it goes much further--for example, to the authentication of banks. I was recently talking to some City gentlemen and I asked them who decides what is a bank. They said, "The Bank of England." So, I asked, "If we get European monetary union, who will it be?", and their faces dropped. There are other matters, such as the control of credit institutions and the laws relating to that, the rules of exchange and the management of the currency through inflation. In other words, when one has a currency, whether it be a coinage or authentication of credit, there must be some form of central authority. In the United Kingdom, such control is, by statute, in the hands of the Bank of England, which is publicly owned, although it may not be publicly controlled. If we expand our currency into an international or supranational currency, we must transfer that authority with it. That includes authority not only for the nitty-gritty of economic exchange and the authentication of institutions and currency, but the control and management of the economy of which that currency is part. That is the two halves of the job of the Treasury, and if I am wrong, the Minister will correct me. There is much debate about both aspects, and often the Budget debates are not as good as they might be because the two get mixed up.

On Monday, my right hon. Friend the Member for Bethnal Green and Stepney (Mr. Shore) made a powerful speech about a Eurofed, because a Eurofed is on the cards and in the documents. Mr. Christophersen, the Finance Commissioner, has issued a document that should be more publicly known in which he advocates that step, which will probably be debated in the intergovernmental conference in the autumn. If there is to be a Eurofed that fulfils that regulatory and management function, as it must, to whom is it to be accountable?

My hon. Friend the Member for Hamilton (Mr. Robertson) who is the Front- Bench spokesman responsible for these matters, said in reply to my right hon. Friend the Member for Bethnal Green and Stepney that the majority of the Labour party would be in favour of a Eurofed provided that it was accountable. But it cannot be accountable to the House, so is it to be accountable to the Commissioner, to the Council or to the European Parliament? The latter was one of Mr. Christophersen's suggestions. What does "accountable" mean? Does it mean only that one can ask questions and get a reply, good or bad, or can one be dissatisfied with those answers and do something about it? Accountability means a whole range of things.

It might be thought that this is all rather theoretical, but it is not because these are the questions being debated inside the Council of Ministers and the working parties and they will surely arise when those conferences become semi-public, at least in Italy in the autumn. Whether we

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like it or not--the hon. Member for Battersea and my hon. Friend the Member for Hackney, South and Shoreditch appeared to like it--we are in the middle of a basic change in the management of our currency and economy. I agree with my hon. Friend that, even if these formal mechanisms do not come into play, there is the informal fact of the deutschmark and our £20,000 million deficit.

The Prime Minister, in advocating the single market, 1992 Cockfield version, to which the hon. Member for Battersea alluded, has unknowingly added another and vital dimension. When she advocated the single market and the primacy of competition, which is part of her political philosphy and, paradoxically, the philosophy of Tory Members who most object to the treaty of Rome and who would prefer a treaty of Bruges, she forgot that the free market does not mean complete freedom. Indeed, it means almost the opposite. The concept of a market includes rules. It is like a version of a football game. It is competition within given rules--the level playing field, the flat table. Somebody has to decide what those rules are--the specifications, what happens and so on. If the rules about commerce, money and markets are to be harmonised over the whole of the European Community, one has to go into many nitty-gritty matters.

We are concerned here not just with the money market but with specifications for many matters, from the design of a bus to the speed limits on our road and how much alcohol one is allowed to consume before driving, because without that there cannot be complete and perfect competition. So, rather than the state not being interventionist--a concept in which many Tory Members believe, as they would not have been elected as Tory Members of Parliament without that basic belief--the 1992 package, which will become more and more difficult as we go along, provides an enormous amount of intervention just to create the theoretical markets to which the Prime Minister is so much attached.

Like the right hon. Member for Old Bexley and Sidcup, who signed the treaty of accession, the Prime Minister and her friends took us through the Single European Act into the single market and the 1992 package under majority voting without any mandate. How is that for parliamentary democracy, which she claims to defend? Can any Tory Member who was elected in 1983 say that he had a mandate for the Single European Act and majority voting on this mass of legislation? I asked the Attorney-General to tell me what the limit on majority voting on article 101A was, and he told me that we do not know. Who is the authority to decide that limit? It is not this Parliament but the Court of the European Community, so the function of adjudication is therefore of fundamental importance.

Under the treaty of Rome, power in the European Community descends from on high. My hon. Friend the Member for Hackney, South and Shoreditch said that Jacques Delors was the greatest living European. In some curious way, he is. He bestrides the Community like a prince and his Commissioners around him are something of a court. One has only to read the speeches made in the debate on this subject last week in the other place to understand that. There is a gaggle of retired princes along the Corridor. They act out of patronage. Last week I was speaking to a senior industrialist--I shall not mention the industry or his company, which is a well-known household name that represents about 10 per cent. of our gross national product--and he asked me whether I was familiar with what the Commission was

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doing about such and such, and I said, "Yes, it is drafting regulations." He told me that he had tried to see the Commissioner but that he saw only the chap who is writing it out, who is the equivalent of a senior principal--my hon. Friend the hon. Member for Hackney, South and Shoreditch will understand what that is. He said "I am not listening to you--you must wait for the draft regulations." That is almost unbelievable, but it is how the Community works. The right hon. Member for Old Bexley and Sidcup has said that the Commission is less important than the Scottish civil service, but the Commission alone has the power to promote legislation. We can promote legislation in the House as individuals, but even the Prime Minister cannot write a proposition for legislation in the European Community.

Not only is the structure mistaken in terms of putting our faith primarily in financial mechanisms and, secondly, in the markets, but most of the characteristics of the political machine work not upwards from the citizen, but downwards from an emperor-like position of superiority. We are told that if we are good boys we can engage in discussion late at night, but the European Parliament may take the view that ultimately the Commission and the Council must decide. It is through Ministers alone that we have the last remaining channel of accountability to the Council of Ministers--hence the importance of both the House and the Council.

The treaty of Rome is a unique constitution. Although at first sight it does not resemble a super-state, it expands its competence bit by bit, and becomes a unitary state stage by stage. Its powers over the economy, legislation, taxation and administration expand to match.

My hon. Friend the Member for Hackney, South and Shoreditch described our shared wartime experiences, and he was right to do so. I, too, had relatives who were killed in the war, although they were not such close relatives as my hon. Friend's ; indeed, my hon. Friend and I could also have been killed. My right hon. Friend the Member for Bethnal Green and Stepney has encapsulated today's debate in an early-day motion. What better vehicle could there be than the Order Paper of the House? The motion was tabled in a truly international spirit, recognising that the rest of the world does not stop at Europe. There is now talk of a world economy and a world society. We want to end in the rest of the world what the French and Germans between them--thank God--have largely ended in Europe.

I shall close on a constitutional note by reading early-day motion 1052, which states

"That this House believes that the most effective method of obtaining success in transnational endeavours is through co-operation between governments, parliaments and peoples, whether such be within the European Community, in wider Europe, or the rest of the world ; and therefore calls on Her Majesty's Government to support and initiate actions that promote higher standards of environmental protection, improved standards of health and safety of employed persons and their conditions of employment by treaties and agreements that achieve their objectives without further prejudice to the rights of the House of Commons in respect of jurisdiction, legislation, and taxation which are the foundations of representative democracy in the United Kingdom."

I do not believe that any hon. Member can dissent from such a motion without telling us why, especially my hon. Friends, because our party was formed to fulfil its objectives in, by and through the House of Commons.

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11.3 am

Sir Richard Body (Holland with Boston) : The hon. Member for Newham, South (Mr. Spearing) was right to emphasise that the question is not whether we should play a part in Europe, but whether we should do so supranationally or internationally.

The hon. Member for Hackney, South and Shoreditch (Mr. Sedgemore) made a magnificent speech. All hon. Members who heard it enjoyed it enormously, but I warn my hon. Friends that I have known the hon. Gentleman for a long time--we were friends before we came into the House. There is only one thing wrong with him : he is a full-blooded socialist. On any issue, we can be sure that his objective is to ensure that this country becomes socialist. Although he argued attractively and persuasively for a common currency and more power for the European Parliament, my hon. Friends can be sure what his reasons were. Now that the socialist party is the largest in the European Parliament, he believes that there is a chance that power will be transferred from the House of Commons to Strasbourg. He wishes Britain to be locked inside a socialist union, and I fear that he will have his way unless my hon. Friends pay heed to what he is about.

The hon. Member for Hackney, South and Shoreditch began his speech movingly by referring to his father. I thought then that we should prepare ourselves for an idealistic speech, but he galloped off to talk about tatty monetary matters--there is socialism for you. He spoke for some time about the exchange rate mechanism : of course, he wants monetary union. Let me remind him what Ralf Dahrendorf said a few weeks ago. No one can argue that he is not a good

European--although perhaps not as good as Mr. Delors, the Prince of Europe- -as he worked industriously to bring together 12 countries. He said that we should pause a while before considering monetary union in the 12--that we should wait to see how it works between East and West Germany. If it works there, he said, perhaps we can go on to consider something more ambitious. He reminded his audience that monetary unions have come and gone many times in Europe and that most have collapsed in crisis, causing great hardship to many people. On the question of a common currency, we are merely dealing with intrinsically worthless bits of paper until whoever creates the currency gives it authority and makes it worth something. How can that be done in a monetary union embracing 12 countries--or, indeed, 13, as Austria is in the European monetary system--unless there is a supranational authority to decide the quantity of paper to bear the symbol, that makes it the currency of the European union? It has been recognised for a long time that there must be something far superior to our own Treasury or Bank of England to make the decision. I suspect that the hon. Member for Hackney, South and Shoreditch has dipped into a book that came out in 1962. I recommend that all hon. Members read it during the current debates on monetary union. It is called "Britain and the New Europe", and was written by two distinguished federalists in this country. Although the book was written almost 30 years ago, the argument is still valid. They explain that we shall never achieve a united states of Europe except by stealth. They did not use that word, but that is what they mean when they went on to say that it would be necessary to take four steps. We have already taken three of them. The fourth step is a common

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currency. As the authors of the book explain, once there is a common currency there must be a common form of government which is responsible for every decision of any consequence that is taken throughout the member states of the monetary union.

If we on the Conservative side are honest about it, we know why our party became enthusiastic about entering the Community some 20 years ago. It was born almost entirely of fear of the Soviet Union. We feared the invasion politically, if not militarily, of western Europe. It was important, therefore, that the countries of Europe should be knitted together in some kind of union of self-protection. Nobody, mercifully, can advance that argument now. The events of the last 12 months have been exciting and have put our minds at rest. Although that threat has gone, another has taken its place. The threat that Europe as a whole now faces is potentially greater than any threat that Europe has known in the past.

The term "environmental security" has entered the political lexicon. Our continent, and the planet as a whole, is a less secure place than it was. In the 21st century it will become a very insecure place unless this generation does something about it. We must take action now if we are to prevent the catastrophes that most certainly threaten us. Individual European countries cannot act alone to overcome the problems that face us-- global warming, acid rain, pollution or any of the other issues that add up to environmental insecurity.

We have to ask ourselves how the countries of Europe can deal with these problems. We need urgently some kind of institutional structure that will enable the countries of Europe to work together on environmental issues. We need to ask ourselves whether the European Community as it is is now constituted is sufficiently well equipped to fulfil that task. There are three reasons why I fear that the Community as it is now constituted is ill -equipped to fulfil it. First, the European Community has decided to admit no new members until 1993. Even then, only Austria and Turkey may be admitted ; the others will have a long and tedious wait before they can be admitted. We cannot refer just to 12 countries as, by themselves, constituting Europe and able to cope with issues of staggering importance for future generations. We can no longer speak of the European Community as Europe. Some of us like to call it Europe. Even the hon. Member for Hackney, South and Shoreditch made a slip when he referred to the European Community as Europe. The European Community consists of only 12 out of some 35 European countries. Therefore it is too small, too narrow, too isolationist even, to fulfil that task.

Secondly, the European Community insists upon regarding the Twelve as a homogeneous entity, yet the environmental problems that we face are not one and the same throughout the Community. My hon. Friend the Member for Battersea (Mr. Bovis) referred to the pollution of the rivers. He will agree that the Rhine flows through one country that is not a member of the European Community. No one, I hope would suggest that Greece or Portugal should make a financial contribution towards the cost of cleaning up the pollution of the Rhine. Why should the countries of southern Europe be called upon to pay the vast sums of money that will be needed to deal with the problem caused by acid rain? The European Community, consisting of 12 countries, is the wrong shape and the wrong size to cope on its own with the environmental

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problems. There is not just one circle of interest ; there are a number of overlapping interests. It would be harsh and unfair to expect each Community country to make a financial conribution towards solving the problems within each of those circles of interest and therefore to be part of the same common policy and the same common programme of action.

The third defect--

Mr. Ivan Lawrence (Burton) : My hon. Friend speaks with enormous authority on these matters. He referred, tantalisingly, to the federalising effect of taking monetary union to its logical conclusion. Then he moved on to talk about other matters. He is now about to go even further away, and out of orbit. Is not monetary union the central problem that we ought to be addressing? How does one stop the de facto centralisaton of monetary control around the most powerful monetary force in Europe, the Federal Republic of Germany, from slipping into a formalised structure of monetary union that will lead to the federalising effects against which my hon. Friend so rightly warns? What is my hon. Friend's solution to that problem? I am interested in his answers because I share his anti-federalist feelings.

We need to come to grips with the alternative of formalisation along monetary union lines when we are faced with the stark reality that when the Bundesbank says today that interest rates must go up by 1 per cent. we have to fall overselves and follow, or our own monetary systems fall into decline.

Sir Richard Body : As Nye Bevan said, why ask the monkey when the organ grinder himself is here? The Financial Secretary to the Treasury is to reply to the debate. He, I suspect, will give a valid, coherent and persuasive explanation in answer to my hon. and learned Friend's question.

Mr. Lawrence : No, he will not.

Sir Richard Body : Oh yes, he will. He gave us a little soupcon of it earlier this morning.

Mr. Lawrence : All he will say is that monetary union is not federalisation.

Sir Richard Body : Despite being tempted by my hon. and learned Friend, I repeat what Ralf Dahrendorf said--that is wise advice which this country ought to take.

The third reason why I believe that the European Community, as it is constituted now, is ill-equipped to deal with these environmental issues that are of such huge and growing importance for the whole of Europe is its supranational nature. Every common policy or programme of action that it adopts is supported by laws and taxation--because invariably, both are required--that are supranationally decided. We know that they are decided in accordance with a democratic deficit, as it is commonly called, by the Council of Ministers. If all the countries of Europe are to accept and enforce the laws that will be required to make the necessary environmental changes, those laws must be welcomed, understood and wholeheartedly supported.

Unfortunately, some parts of the Community take a rather cavalier view of Community legislation. A friend of mine, the editor of the New European, was recently in Italy and found himself talking to a distinguished Italian politician. My friend asked, "Why do you like so many of

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your laws being made in Brussels?" The politician replied, "It's excellent. The further away from Italy our Government is, the better it is for us." That is the attitude taken by a large part of Europe. Other countries do not take the Community's laws quite so seriously as we do.

The sad part is that if laws are made supranationally and not by national Parliaments, they will not be taken so seriously. When laws are made by national Parliaments, the Governments of those countries have a direct interest in making sure that they are enforced, because they have the imprimatur of the people concerned and are supported by their will. Sadly, that is not the case in the Community, and that is why there is a desperate need to reconstitute it.

I believe, as I am sure does the hon. Member for Newham, South, that all laws should be made by national Parliaments, and taxes likewise levied by them and not supranationally. As long as we hold fast to the supranational approach, we cannot have democracy. The hon. Member for Hackney, South and Shoreditch had a vision of western Europe embracing central and eastern Europe, as we would want to see the Community do--but how can he then argue that that will be democratic?

I do not know whether the hon. Member for Hackney, South and Shoreditch agrees with Abraham Lincoln's three elements of democracy, but I have no doubt that he tries very hard to understand the hopes and fears of the people in Hackney. I do not doubt either that he does that very well--up to a point, anyway. But how on earth can any man or woman represent half a million people? How can any man or women be accountable to half a million people? If one imagines a European Parliament as a supranational authority over some 500 million people throughout all Europe, how many Members of Parliament would it have? It would have one Member of Parliament for every 1 million people. How could that be democratic? How could there be any sense of accountability? How could there be any real communion between a Member and an electorate as vast as that? We talk of a democratic deficit, but that would be the real democratic deficit--a European Parliment making 80 per cent. of our laws, yet with representation as inadequate as that.

Sir Russell Johnston : Does the hon. Gentleman agree that the President of the United States is democratically accountable?

Sir Richard Body : I wish that the hon. Gentleman would have a word with someone who knows rather a lot about that matter, who is seated only a few feet behind him. I refer to the hon. Member for Newham, South. I must try not to be patronising, but I must explain that we are moving towards a unitary megastate, not a federal union. The United States has a constitution with numerous checks and balances, but even then, how many people vote when there is a presidential election? It is less than half the electorate. Even in the United States there is a feeling among millions of people that it does not matter very much whom they vote for. It is sad that in a great democracy such as the United States, with all its checks and balances, and with a welll thought-out and constructed constitution, there is a feeling that it does not matter much who is elected to the White House.

Those are the reasons why I believe we must urgently reconstitute the European Community, to make it an international not supranational body.

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Assuming that we are concerned about environmental issues, why is not greater use made of the one institution of Europe that was the first by many years to raise the important issues that concern us all now? As long ago as 1957, the Economic Commission for Europe, which now has 35 member states, was bringing together the countries of eastern and western Europe to deal with issues such as the environment, trade, agriculture, and so on. It dealt with some 14 different issues. It is sad that our Government have for some years not put their weight behind the commission. It is well-equipped to formulate common policies and programmes of action for the nations of Europe that feel that they have a problem in common and want to act together to overcome it.

The Economic Commission has proved its ability to fulfil that role. A long list of conventions has been prepared as a result of intergovernmental conferences and have been put into effect in this country, as in others throughout Europe. They have not necessarily been implemented in every country, because even if one supports the Economic Commission, one is not bound by every convention but can choose to adopt or not adopt according to whether one's interests coincide with those of one's neighbours. That is a more sensible approach to some of the issues that confront us.

I am all in favour of the European Community dealing with a wide range of issues, provided that it drops its supranational pretensions. The lesson of the past 30 years is that there have been very few occasions when agreements have been reached without friction and disharmony. Those of us who have studied the machinations of the common agricultural policy over many years know that a great deal of fraud has also been involved. In any event, I hope that the hon. Member for Hackney, South and Shoreditch will yet come round to the view that the supranational approach is undesirable. He should be a good internationalist like the hon. Member for Newham, South and help to make progress towards genuine co-operation throughout the whole of Europe, not just with part of it.

11.29 am

Sir Russell Johnston (Inverness, Nairn and Lochaber) : The hon. Member for Holland with Boston (Sir R. Body) is a decent and fair-minded man, but my disagreement with him is so wide that if I were to attempt a rebuttal I would not have time to say anything else.

Mr. Spearing : Have a little go.

Sir Russell Johnston : I will have a little go on the way. Like other hon. Members, I welcome the initiative of the hon. Member for Hackney, South and Shoreditch (Mr. Sedgemore) in introducing the motion, and I very much welcome the way in which he did so. If I am too fulsome about it, he may regard it as an unfriendly act. As a Liberal, I found many of his words and phrases old familiar friends. Nevertheless, it was pleasing to hear them falling from his lips.

When I joined the Liberal party in 1954--it was not exactly a high time ; in fact, there have not been many high times--the party's commitment to developing European integration was a major factor in my decision. I thought that liberalism was an individually based philosophical

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concept and that one's responsibilities did not stop at the national borders. I remember being proud when the small parliamentary Liberal party divided this House in 1959 on whether Britain should apply forthwith for membership of the European Community. Strangely and sadly, the arguments against such a course of action that were paraded 31 years ago are still to be heard. It was most welcome to hear them so effectively and fluently debunked from the left of the Labour party. Many of them are atavistic and emotional and have little to do with economic disputation. Although we are supposed to be talking about economics and alternative economic theories, many of the views come much more from the guts than the head. They rest on a complex of beliefs which are held, I say to the hon. Member for Holland with Boston, almost as a matter of religious faith by many in the United Kingdom. They believe that we are better and more efficient and that we have better laws. The hon. Member for Holland with Boston said that the Italians are good at making ice cream but not at keeping the law.

Mr. John Marshall (Hendon, South) : Does the hon. Gentleman agree that Italy has had to be taken to the European Court more frequently than the United Kingdom and that it is not particularly good at implementing its judgments? The record shows that the United Kingdom is speedy in implementing judgments that are adverse to it.

Sir Russell Johnston : There are differences between one country and another in the European Community, but I would not generalise about that.

I do not accept the idea we are better than everybody else, but nor do I say that we are worse than everybody else. [Interruption.] The Minister is muttering into his non-existent beard ; I did not catch what he said.

Listening to the right hon. Member for Bethnal Green and Stepney (Mr. Shore) on Monday, when he spoke of exchange control as though it were a holy object, one realised that his basic objections were not economic objections but were based on the belief that we can do things better within our own borders. I no longer accept that argument. The hon. Member for Hackney, South and Shoreditch dispensed with part of it when he talked simply of the plain fact that so many economic matters cannot be confined within borders.

The hon. Member for Newham, South (Mr. Spearing) delivered a passionate defence of the Bank of England, the the Treasury, my God, as if they were the last bastions of civilisation about to be overwhelmed by the visigoths of Brussles and Frankfurt.

Mr. Spearing : Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

Sir Russell Johnston : I thought that might excite him.

Mr. Spearing : It is not accurate or fair to attribute words to me that I did not utter. I was not endorsing the attitudes, policies or habits of the Bank of England and the Treasury but illustrating the fact that, because of Ministers' accountability to the House, we have some influence or control over what they do, right or wrong, wise or unwise.

Mr. Sedgemore : Over the Bank of England?

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Mr. Spearing : I said attitudes. If my hon. Friend becomes Chancellor of the Exchequer, he may have a good go at that. The transfer of powers and responsibility to Eurofed would diminish or extinguish the House's powers.

Sir Russell Johnston : The hon. Gentleman's intervention was effectively dealt with from a sedentary position by the hon. Member for Hackney, South and Shoreditch. I shall deal with Eurofed in a minute and say how in practice--although democratic control of such matters is somewhat attenuated--we can exercise as much, if not more, control over it as we currently exercise over the Bank of England. The Community was established in 1957. It is most interesting to read the discussions that took place at that time at the top of the Conservative party and within the Foreign Office. They were profoundly wrong because they believed that the European Community would not last a year or two. Since that time, Britain has not prospered comparatively. We have improved many things, but comparing the indicators with countries such as France Germany and even Italy, whose individual gross national product now exceeds ours, shows that we have not done well. I was too young to be in the war, but I was not too young for national service. In Berlin in 1958 I was getting DM12.5 to the pound. What is the rate now? That is a comparative example. The Government took office dedicated to conquering inflation, and 10 years later they are still dedicated to doing so. The comparative decline makes me doubt whether we have the capacity to conquer the problems, and I am quite prepared to consider other ways of doing so.

Mr. James Hill (Southampton, Test) : The hon. Gentleman has noticed that the mere rumour that we may be joining the European regulatory mechanism has not only boosted the pound but has been welcomed by the City- -the engine room of the economy--because it redirects investment, which is what we all want to see. From my understanding, by the end of the year we may be a member of the European monetary system and the regulatory system. That will help to deal with the problem of inflation and perhaps will help interest rates.

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