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Although the debate gives us a chance to recognise and debate the new era that German unification, more than any other single event, symbolises, I recognise that it is also about the pain that the transition will involve. The 320 pages of the document before the House are a blow-by-blow description of the complexities and problems that this one act of political progress will mean for our 12-nation Community.The Opposition endorse the general position that the Government have taken, reflecting, as it does, the collective position of the Council of Ministers, the Commission and the European Parliament. The pace of unification took everyone, including many Germans, by surprise. The measures that have been outlined are clearly necessary in the special circumstances, even though we all realise that more time, were it available, would make the transition easier and more digestible.
Before I deal with the Commission's document, I wish to refer to the important implications that the unification of Germany will have for our bilateral relations with Germany. Germany was and, in its larger form, will continue to be Britain's major European partner. The united Germany's eventual economic and political strength will make that relationship more and more important, so how we build our friendship and partnership with Germany will very largely determine what sort of role we ourselves play in the new Europe. That should be a self-evident and blindingly obvious truth. That it has to be said at all is a measure of just how hopelessly the Government of this country, and especially its Prime Minister, have managed their dealings with Germany in the past year.
The Prime Minister started with hostility to the very idea of unification ; then she obstructed it ; then she regretted it, even when it was inevitable ; then she harked back to former German sins to disparage it. When, at last, she accepted the inevitable and was forced into grudging acceptance of it, her lack of warmth for it and her absence of pleasure at its symbolism blighted and injured the crucial relationship between our two countries. The disaster that was the Ridley fiasco simply put the icing on an already-poisoned cake. After his humiliating and disgraced resignation the right hon. Member for Cirencester and Tewkesbury (Mr. Ridley) still boasted in the Sunday Express in August :
"I believe that what I have said to you is not very far away at all from the position of the British Government."
That came from a man who was sitting in the British Cabinet in July. When, as he said, he was
"still at the top of the political tree"
he was asked by Dominic Lawson :
"But surely Herr Kohl is preferable to Herr Hitler? He's not going to bomb us after all."
The right hon. Gentleman could not, however, reply with the word no. Instead he said :
"I'm not sure I wouldn't rather have the shelters and the chance to fight back, than simply being taken over by economics."
As the right hon. Member for Shropshire, North (Mr. Biffen) said, revealingly, in The Guardian shortly afterwards, the former Secretary of State for Trade and Industry had
"momentarily possessed a gift in communication that eludes most front benchers."
Some gift ; some Front Bench.
Mr. Hugh Dykes (Harrow, East) : After those remarks and the subsequent resignation of a certain person, did the
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hon. Gentleman regard it as a little bizarre that although a small number of people in this country said, slightly behind their hands, "Of course that person was correct ; the Germans are bombastic and arrogant and wish to seize the whole of Europe and tell the rest of us what to do", the same people, several weeks later, in respect of the Gulf crisis said, "Why aren't the Germans with us in the Gulf with their forces? Why are they so pathetic and timid?" Was not it a strange double act by the same set of people?Mr. Robertson : I could not have put it better myself. There are double standards. The hon. Gentleman points the finger unerringly in the direction that has probably kept him below the Gangway for much longer than he deserves.
At a time when bilateral relations really matter, if Britain's view and our special circumstances are to prevail at the European Community's intergovernmental conference in December, the Prime Minister's insensitivity and hooligan diplomacy have made us, first, a laughing stock and, secondly, a sadly ignored passenger in Europe. She may say, as she said in February :
"We dared to say the realities and talk the sense which other people are fearful to say, lest they be misinterpreted."
However, what grates with those who may even share her gut apprehensions is the crudely counter-productive effect of her ill-chosen words and her careless talk.
I ask the House to consider the Prime Minister's boastful approach last November at the Lord Mayor's banquet when she said : "We re-established respect for Britain abroad and more and more we found the ideas that we had rediscovered were spreading to other countries as they began to free up their economies and return to the values which across the years had made Europe one of the greatest civilisations of the world."
Contrast that with the words of Chancellor Kohl in October, who said :
"At the beginning of the last decade of this century we see new opportunities for a world which solves its problems through reconciliation and understanding, and remains committed to the principles of international law. Our country stands shoulder to shoulder with all of those who are committed to peace, respect for human rights and fundamental freedoms as well as individual well being."
That contrast of tone and content shows the true measure of those who constantly hark back to the sins of the past and those, including the majority of people in this country, who look forward to the opportunities and promises of the future. Let the Prime Minister reflect on how worried this world would be, and with some justification, if Germany were adopting her brand of know-all nationalism.
I should like to touch on one particular aspect of the unification process concerning the lessons that some secessionist elements in Scotland take from the entry of east Germany into the community. The Scottish National party is trying to make out that the accession of the eastern La"nder of Germany to the European Community proves its bogus prospectus on automatic membership of the Community for a separate Scotland. As usual, it deliberately misses the point. First, the constitution of the federal republic always allowed for the accession of East Germany, individually or collectively, to that state. Secondly, rapid unification was a economic imperative for the two Germanys, where, in effect, the German Democratic Republic was collapsing into the federal
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republic. Thirdly, and crucially, the European Commission has made it clear in the document before us that"It views the integration of the GDR into a united Germany, and hence into the Community, as a special case. It will have to be done by stages. However, it does not necessarily require any amendments to the Treaties."
The secession of a part of the United Kingdom and its application to join the European Community would also be a special case, but, in contrast, would necessitate a major treaty change. That would require messy negotiations with vetoes possible, indeed almost inevitable, from other countries naturally worried by similar secessionist aspirations. Once again, the Scottish National party seeks to twist the events alive in Europe today to camouflage a policy which sounds attractive, but which if embarked on would threaten Scotland with chilly isolation from the European family.
This amazing report is right to warn us of the sizeable consequences for the European economy of German unification. Those consequences will reach well beyond the borders of the new Federal Republic, and will, as hon. Members will show later in the debate, penetrate into many aspects of British life--for example, into agriculture, shipbuilding, the environment and, as my hon. Friend the Member for Greenock and Port Glasgow (Dr. Godman) will show if he catches your eye, Mr. Deputy Speaker, the fishing industry. I had the pleasure of attending the debate in the European Parliament in Strasbourg last month when its committee on unification was considering this issue. It was a spirited and informed debate, watched with vigilance and interest from beside me by the Soviet ambassador to the European Community as well as by members of the now disbanded Volkskammer of the German Democratic Republic. I pay tribute to the European Parliament for its thorough work on the subject, especially to my friend and colleague Alan Donnelly, the Member of the European Parliament for Tyne and Wear, who was a most able rapporteur to the committee. He carried out an onerous and prestigious task to plaudits from all sides of that assembly and most countries involved.
A German newspaper reporting the debate concluded with this sentiment :
"There was only one thing lacking, the European Members of parliament in Strasbourg had only a vague idea of the real situation in the GDR."
That was not a fair or accurate reservation. The MEPs appreciate, as the German people are slowly realising, the enormity of the problems being exposed in the former German Democratic Republic. It is an environmental nightmare, an economic basket case, an investment Eiger wall and a social disaster zone--
Mr. Robertson : --caused by 40 years of communism ; it has nothing whatsoever to do with socialism.
All those problems appear in the 320 pages of the report and much of it was predicted in the excellent report of the Select Committee on Foreign Affairs earlier this year and in the report on the monetary aspects from the Treasury and Civil Service Select Committee.
Mr. Andrew Rowe (Mid-Kent) : I have been listening to the hon. Gentleman's extremely generous praise of Chancellor Kohl and his recent remark that the former Democratic Republic's problems had nothing whatever to
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do with socialism. Do not the recent results of the German elections reveal that the Germans are not as positive about that as he is?Mr. Robertson : The real test of German opinion will be on 2 December. It remains to be seen how strong the Conservative elements will be in that country, but it does not come well from a member of a party that is 13 per cent. behind in the opinion polls in this country and which stunningly lost a safe Conservative seat last night to tell us about the success of the Labour party or of the German Social Democratic party.
The Conservative party is slipping into an era of desperation. When the Prime Minister clambers to the Dispatch Box to call the Leader of the Opposition "a crypto-communist" and a party political broadcast parades various eastern European luminaries across the screen to try to prop up the collapsing edifice of Thatcherism, people in this country will not be confused and will not be conned by the cheap propaganda or by the uncalculated desperation of the Prime Minister when she makes such accusations.
As the Minister amply displayed in his speech, we do not know the full facts. Years of statistical intervention and corruption in the GDR have left behind a wholly distorted picture. In their response to the Select Committee on Foreign Affairs, the Government say that unemployment in the former GDR in August was 1.75 million people, or 20 per cent. of the work force. On 4 October, the German federal labour office in Bonn put joblessness in the German Democratic Republic at 440,000, or 5 per cent. of the labour force. There is, therefore, a contradiction in the statistics that are being produced.
Even the costs of unification to the German taxpayer are obscured and perhaps will become public knowledge only after the all-German elections on 2 December. The Government's response to the Select Committee puts the cost at DM 100 billion per year, but on 4 October Chancellor Kohl put the overall cost at
"a four figure billion sum".
It would appear that these costs alone will eliminate the total external surplus of the Federal Republic of Germany--a matter which exercises my hon. Friend the Member for Bolsover (Mr. Skinner)--which is a major prop to the trade deficit in the United States of America. The knock-on effects of German unification will go well beyond the borders of that country.
There will be worrying costs to the European Community, as the lengthy financial memorandum outlines. Although the Minister expresses confidence, there is no real assurance that it is justified. The costs are calculated at DM 4 billion per year, with a net addition to the Community budget from Germany of DM 3 billion. We are told that the other DM 1 billion can be found without cost to the present budget, but there will inevitably be an increasing long-term budget for the European Community as a result of unification, which must be worrying to the German Government and other Governments. Germany is again one state and the symbolic importance of that to the German people should not be underestimated. In the short term, that state--saddled by the legacy of the past 40 wasted years in the east--will have problems aplenty and it will need our support, help and guidance to get through that period. Thereafter, we had better be in no doubt that the new Germany will be a
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formidable power--economically, politically, but certainly not militarily--in our continent. However, inside the embrace of the European Community and sharing and participating in the pooled sovereignty that the Community represents, it will and must be a power for good. It will, though, pose one threat to this country and to our economy, enfeebled by these past 11 years, and that is a threat that we and we alone can meet and counter if we want to do so. It is up to us, the fortunate generation which is alive and in public life as the continent unites again, to see that our people get the means to join equally in that formidable competition.10.41 am
Mr. David Howell (Guildford) : The recent report on German unification by the Foreign Affairs Select Committee, to which my hon. Friend the Minister and the hon. Member for Hamilton (Mr. Robertson) referred, began with these words :
"The re-emergence of a great unified German state is a development which alters the structure of world power. For Europe it is the most profound event since the division of the continent at the onset of the Cold War. Taken together, the decline of the Soviet empire' and dominance in Eastern Europe and the related coming together of the two German States are creating a new political map of Europe. The United Kingdom, as a prominent nation in Europe, as well as being one of the four occupying powers of post -war Germany, is fundamentally affected by these momentous and rapid changes."
Whether one looks on the reunification process with enthusiasm, as many do, or with mixed feelings, as many others do, the fact is that it became inevitable. The second the wall came down--perhaps some in the Federal Republic and elsewhere should have seen this more quickly than they did--it became inevitable that there would be a high-speed movement not merely towards monetary and economic unification but towards full political unification. With the perspective of last spring, we pointed out in our Select Committee report that, however fast the process already seemed then, it would be faster still and would become a top-speed operation. That has proved to be the case. The process has moved so quickly that, in a sense, it has gone ahead of the capacity of the European Community institutions and its members to make the necessary changes in time to admit the GDR to the Community. That is why we have this interregnum, about which my hon. Friend the Minister talked.
The reason for the speed lay in the fact that the disparities between the Federal Republic and East Germany were so vast that there was a possibility that, the moment the wall was down, millions of people would move across from East Germany to the west, unless there was a positive reassurance that East Germany would be quickly embraced in the West German economic system and in the values and support of the European Community. Even so, there was a colossal migratory movement and many thousands began to cross. That would have become an uncontrollable flood, utterly destabilising West Germany, unless there had been rapid acceleration of the timetable. Unification has taken place. It is now our task in the House and in this country, as it is in other legislatures throughout the world, to meet the considerable challenges with immense vigour and to understand and respond to them. In our report, we put those challenges into a number of groups. We said that, first, there were the problems of
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welcoming a vastly enlarged Germany--much the largest member--into the European Community, and of recognising the inevitable changes that would be imposed on West Germany and East Germany and on the Community's procedures and structures by the arrival of that large new member state. Secondly, we discussed external aspects--the effect of a united Germany on broader questions of security in Europe and in the post-cold war security order.On the first group of problems, we began in our Select Committee report to look at the issues which we are specifically considering today and which are raised by the proposals and documents before us--the cost to the European Community and individual members. There seems to be a little confusion as to whether a cost arises in 1990. It is clear from every document that a cost will arise in 1991 and 1992 for the whole Community and the United Kingdom. The documents state that the estimated cost to the United Kingdom could be about £50 million in 1991 and perhaps more in 1992.
The Scrutiny Committee, which does a superb job in keeping an eagle eye on these matters, reports in one of its papers the Commission's view that there will be no immediate cost impact in 1990, whereas the Foreign Office memorandum and explanatory note says that there will be an immediate cost. It is important for Ministers to clarify whether there is an immediate cost to the Community or United Kingdom budget. As hon. Members will recognise, there seems to be a flat contradiction between the Commission's view and statements by the Foreign and Commonwealth Office. Has the Commission just got it wrong? That seems probable.
The costs to the Federal Republic are enormous. I thank my hon. Friend the Minister and his colleagues for the unusually full reply by the Foreign and Commonwealth Office and the Government to the Select Committee's report. That useful reply went into interesting detail and recorded the staggering fact that the West Germans, who were expecting to pay about DM40 billion in 1990 out of their budget for the extra costs of unification, now face the prospect of paying DM100 billion--an overshoot of 150 per cent. in the current year. That is a staggering extra burden, even if it falls on one of the world's most powerful and richest economies, and it is bound to create enormous tensions not merely in that economy but in terms of funds being less available from Germany, one of the great capital engines of the 1980s.
Those funds will increasingly be diverted to East Germany and to internal matters, and the rest of the world will have to go without them. That will inevitably put new challenges in front of those who manage the deutschmark. It might not have worried us quite so much before we were in a fixed or semi-floating relationship to the deutschmark, but we are now within the ERM. It is important for us to be able to monitor closely the effect of the unification process on the deutschmark.
On the whole, I draw confidence from what the managers of the deutschmark in Frankfurt--the Bundesbank--are doing. They were overruled on many aspects of German monetary union and reunification. They argued, rightly, that the exchange rate was absurdly high and would inflict appalling and rapid damage on large swathes of East German industry. That has
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happened, but the bill has to be picked up in vastly increased welfare and unemployment benefits. That is where the extra DM60 billion has been generated.Nevertheless, at the Bundesbank, people are clearly determined, despite the huge extra impost on the budget, to put one aim above all else--to maintain the integrity of the deutschmark. It is an interesting aside--and we shall come back to this in our debate next week--to ask why we are so confident that, despite all the extra strains, the deutschmark will maintain its soundness as a currency. The answer is that it has behind it a well-tested, immensely reliable and proven structure--the Bundesbank. It is an independent, central monetary authority, which puts the soundness of the German currency first. If it did not, it would create chaos for the rest of us. If there is a lesson to be drawn for our own adventure into the exchange rate mechanism, it is that we shall not be able to operate effectively the disciplines in the ERM unless we, too, have a central monetary authority with the status and reputation in world currency markets that the Bundesbank has. That is a fundamental condition if we are to be part of the system as well. I have digressed slightly from our central concern about the effect on the deutschmark of the reunification process. As a result of the Bundesbank's commitment and the Germans' determination to put the soundness of their currency first, they will manage, although the strains will be great. There are costs for eastern Europe, which we tend to overlook in the excitement of looking at the unification process. We must remember that Czechoslovakia, Poland, Hungary and Bulgaria are going through the same liberalising, free market cold shower. However, they have no rich uncle, no West Germany to pour in billions to cushion the enormous effect of moving into market economics. One of the repercussions of the rapid integration process--which, on the whole, I welcome--is that the new democracies, which are just struggling to get out from their old, planned framework and into a free market environment and which are just dipping the first toe into that ice-cold water, are being hit by the most appalling series of problems, one of which is the rapidity with which they have lost their East German markets.
In the Commission documents there is some provision to ensure that at least over the interregnum of a few weeks ahead, the absence of tariffs governing the exports from Czechoslovakia, Hungary and Poland into East Germany continues, but thereafter--and the Czechs take this view--those countries will have to say goodbye to many of their East German markets. That is happening at a moment when they are also saying goodbye to many of their markets in the Soviet Union, which is about to break up and disappear down a black hole. It comes at a time when their oil costs are soaring to the skies, although oil prices, I am glad to see, are at last beginning to return to sanity. It comes at a time when they are still not sure what access they will have to the rest of the European Community.
That change also comes at a time--and this is very much a matter for the United Kingdom--when there is a definite push to expand the use of the German language. The dominance of German business arrangements runs right through eastern Europe. We already have a true inner deutschmark zone, not only in the countries in the ERM, but in the countries that have said publicly that they will link their currencies absolutely at fixed rates to the deutschmark. Among those countries are Austria,
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Switzerland, Holland, Belgium, Luxembourg and, of course, the former German Democratic Republic. I know that the German authorities hope that, in due course, Czechoslovakia will join the deutschmark zone and that a convertible currency can somehow be achieved. Our eyes would be tightly shut if we did not realise how the reunification process is changing all the balances and trade relationships in eastern Europe, and creating the most colossal challenges for the new democracies there. We must respond to that and, in my personal view, far more vigorously than we have so far, not least because the success or failure of the other bits of eastern Europe, apart from eastern Germany, will be our success or failure. We cannot merely watch and assume that everything will be taken care of by the invisible hand and by market forces now that communism has been destroyed. It will not necessarily happen that way unless there is vigorous and active western intervention and support on a scale higher than we have envisaged so far. If that does not happen, the opportunity for open and free economies to stretch from this side of Europe into Soviet Asia will be thrown over and history will judge us unkindly on that score.When we studied these matters earlier in the year, we were worried that the Soviets might be a little difficult and that there would be arguments about the pace at which the Red Army of the west, encircling Berlin with its 350,000 soldiers and 200,000 dependants, would go and when it would go. To the great credit of all those involved in the two-plus-four process, of the Bonn Government and of those in Moscow, those problems have broadly been sorted out. They have been sorted out partly by the simple process of the Red Army of the west, like the East German army, beginning to disintegrate. Desertions have increased and it is becoming harder for the armies to be held together at all. The East German army has gone through an amazing process of self-shrinking as more and more of its members have simply failed to turn up for work. That is one way of carrying out the disarmament and weapons control process.
The Soviet army is also suffering huge desertions. That will become a major social problem, and will cost West Germany DM12 billion. It will have to spend money in keeping the troops round Berlin for a while, then shipping them home to Russia and then providing them with housing there. The housing will be built by German construction firms with German money. The problem of the armies has resolved itself by a melting process and the difficulties that might have arisen and the possibility of the Soviet army's presence being used as a bargaining counter by Mr. Gorbachev have gone away.
The reunification will change NATO. The two Germanies are fully in NATO, although on several conditions, such as a limit to the size of the Bundeswehr and how operations are carried out in what was formerly East German territory. There are also unspoken conditions in the minds of the Germans.
This is not the end of the process, but the beginning. We must ask ourselves to what extent Germany, like the other great defeated, but now super-economic power, Japan, will be a positive, active and willing member of the international security community. There is a danger, and there may have been a sign of this over the Gulf issue. The Germans failed to rally as quickly as some had hoped to an obvious threat to European and world interests. Some people felt that we might have been seeing a sign of another sort of Germany--not a militarist Germany, but
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an anti-militarist Germany, which would be inward looking and uninterested in playing its part in world affairs. I do not think that that is in the minds of the present leaders in Bonn, who have been sturdy and solid in their commitment, but it is silly to pretend that that is not a possibility and that we must not keep on our guard. There is a fear that the huge new Germany may become so preoccupied with itself that it may become increasingly reluctant to have nuclear weapons on its soil--a matter that has yet to be fully worked out--and that it may begin to drift not to the neutralism that we feared in the past--which meant anti-western neutralism--but to a passive non-commitment to world affairs that we could ill afford, bearing in mind the fact that it is such a huge country at the centre of European and world affairs. That is a word of warning only.Mr. John Browne (Winchester) : Does not my right hon. Friend think that the German idea at which he hinted in his speech--that Germany sees its future in terms of economic rather than military growth--could be the seed of that theory?
Mr. Howell : My hon. Friend touches on a point that is understandable from the German point of view. The Germans have had two military adventures in this century and one in the 1870s, which appeared marvellous at the time but have all ended in the most miserable deprivation, and in total disaster and catastrophe for their society. Many of them are immunised and inoculated against engaging in any kind of military activity ever again. However, the process can go too far the other way, and become detachment and non-responsibility rather than proper commitment to the world security order.
Finally, I should like to refer to the other external change that the reunification process is bringing about--a change that affects the whole architecture of Europe, and especially the development of the European Community in the broader sense. There is a phrase that one hears in Paris a lot : it is said that the whole aim of Community policy must now be to "lock in" the new united Germany. That phrase is, I feel mistaken : it implies somehow that that huge power is a sort of dangerous bear that must be kept on a chain by the rest of the European Community, which will teach it a thing or two about balance and democracy. Such a line of thought is insulting to the Germans, who have shown--as was emphasised by the hon. Member for Hamilton--that they are some of the best practitioners of democracy in the post-war world. They do not need "locking in" ; they need to find their place--a central and important place--in the new European structure. Whatever some people in western Europe may say about "locking in", and about the need to concentrate on developing and deepening the existing Community structure, the plain fact is that Europe's centre of gravity has moved eastwards as a result of the GDR's joining the Federal Republic and creating the new Germany. By accepting East Germany into the Community, we have also brought into our perspective the affairs and problems of the other European states of eastern Europe in a most intimate way ; unless we recognise that, we shall lead ourselves into many errors. That is why I disagree with those who argue that, for the time being, we should think of European Community development as excluding the eastern European countries--that they should come along later, but should not be a priority now. If we are
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truly set on the process of European construction and development, that process must embrace as soon as possible not just the GDR--as it has done with amazing speed in a matter of a few weeks--but the neighbouring powers east of East Germany. If we do not do that, we shall be sowing dragons' teeth : the instability and chaos, the social pressures and the defeat of all western aims and policies will be very great.It must be understood that the success of the new democracies--like the success of East Germany--is our success, and their failure is our failure. That is the spirit in which we must act if we wish to see open societies develop from here deep into Russian Asia--which, after all, is what we fought the second world war to do and failed, and what we persisted through a 40-year cold war to do and succeeded. That is the way in which to consolidate our earlier success. 11.3 am
Mr. Nigel Spearing (Newham, South) : I am pleased to follow the Chairman of the Foreign Affairs Committee, to whom we are indebted for a forward look on German unification--which, as he says, has now almost been overtaken by events. His was a useful contribution : he mentioned one aspect that might otherwise have been forgotten--the effect of the change in the status of the La"nder of the GDR in relation to other emerging eastern European democracies.
The documents that we are considering contain the treaty arrangements and derogations that allow trade between those eastern European countries. I almost referred to them as "formerly members of COMECON" ; I suppose that they are still formally members, although "formerly", with an "er", is pretty appropriate, too. The documents define in legislation the relationship between eastern Germany--indeed, the whole of the federal republic, and perhaps even the EEC--and the members of COMECON that are now changing their political arrangements.
Clearly, 1990 will go down in history--in the lifetime of all of us--as something of a political Clapham Junction, and this very month may mark both an end and a beginning. We are seeing the end of the post-war era in the peace treaty that will at last come as a result of German unification ; the entry of Britain into the European exchange rate mechanism, which is the subject of controversy on both sides of the House and cannot be seen as a party matter ; and the specific EEC legislation that we are considering this morning. Before I deal with those topics, let me return to something that had been said about the European exchange rate mechanism--for all these mattters have been mentioned in Parliament this week. A reference was made to drivers' cabs. Surely, if we use the Clapham Junction theory of history, the comparison is not entirely accurate : on a railway the driver can go only where the lines are laid, and the route that he can choose-- there is usually only one, not 12--will depend on the route set by the signalman, and on the speed of the signals. There is not the element of choice that some people might infer from such an analogy. But--if we are not talking about the driver--who, we must ask, will be the person or persons in
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the signal box? That is merely a passing comment--which I hope and trust is objectively correct--on the announcements made by the Government last week.What we are debating today is the legislation consequent on political unification. Ours is a formidable agenda ; an hon. Member whom I met earlier in the week asked, "Why a whole day on this?", but I fear that he may not have understood the total conspectus of history.
We are confronting a substantial legislative and documentary "meal". First, we have the four documents that we might regard as the hors d'oeuvres : the report of the Select Committee on Foreign Affairs, HC 335 ; the report of the Select Committee on Trade and Industry,HC 431 ; and the replies from the Government to those reports, in Cmnd 1246 and HC 645. We could engage in a whole day's debate on those documents alone. Next, we have the main meal--the vast COM(90)400, which, in the Minister's words, "banged on to his desk" during the recess : it is in three volumes, and contains 300-odd pages. That is the necessary legislation that the Select Committee on European Legislation has considered and attempted to summarise ; our report is in the Vote Office, and will be printed as the 32nd report of our Committee this Session.
If we continue the meal analogy, we find ourselves faced with the bill--in the form of EEC document 8782/90, which is also being considered today. The total cost is probably prospective, and has been the subject of dispute between my hon. Friend the Member for Bolsover (Mr. Skinner) and the Minister. Ultimately--as with all financial matters--we shall have to wait and see.
The central document, COM(90)400, has three elements, which the Minister has in part described. On 17 September the Council of Ministers decided to adopt parts of the documents. The problem with this document is that, although it has one number--COM(90)400--there are about 34 elements within it, each of which, in more normal circumstances, might have been a single document. Two of the prime elements are procedural and constitutional. The document gave the Commission authority, as from 3 October, to produce documents which, until they were amended, became the law of the EEC and, therefore, the law of the United Kingdom. As the Minister has described, subsequent to that date they have been looked at one by one, and most of them have been either adjusted or agreed as acceptable to the United Kingdom.
Many of the documents would have been subject to majority voting or qualified majority voting anyway, even if they had not been accepted. However, it is reassuring to know that no substantial changes are envisaged at the moment, although, of course, we may discover that some things in the documents may have effects that we did not anticipate. I shall refer to that matter in a moment.
The 32 legislative documents--the Government have deposited in the Vote Office an explanatory memorandum on each--are in the process of being agreed. If agreed, they will last until the end of 1992 when the transitional period will come to an end. It will be assumed that, unless further transitional arrangements are made, the La"nder of the former GDR will be fully integrated into the Community.
The third element in the document is volume 3, which outlines the financial considerations that are further followed up in document 8782/90. The Minister said that the net cost would be about 1,000 million ecu and that the net cost to this country will probably be about £30 million. Perhaps the Minister will confirm that the gross cost, as estimated in that document is about £3,000 million, and
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that the outcome will depend, of course, on what expenditure is made and what income is collected under the formula. Although the Government may be a little optimistic in their figures, the actual net cost to this country may not be as great as it looks at the moment.The next aspect to which I draw attention is the unprecedented nature of the documents. I make no complaint about the necessity for them. Such legislation had to be in place by 3 October or there would have been a legislative vacuum. There can be no doubt about that. By agreement in Germany, unification was brought forward by about three months, and Her Majesty's Government had to act.
The legislation that had to fill the gap is not the sort to which we are used in this House, to which the nation as a whole has got used, and which we perhaps take for granted--certainly in the United Kingdom. When a Bill comes before us, certainly now in respect of private legislation and in procedural terms for public legislation, we hear of a petition for a Bill. The idea is that if we are to have a statute, or if the state is to invade common law or the freedom of the individual--that matter is very dear to the hearts of Conservative Members--there must be a petition stating why we need the legislation, why the monarch should do one thing and why Parliament should do the other. The purpose of the legislation is enshrined in the short and long titles. We then look at it and ask, "Are these powers necessary? Is this the right method? Is it the right policy?" After a long period of digestion, the legislation is agreed.
Legislation may give powers to the Executive of the day to exercise power in execution of the purposes of the necessary Act. As a result of that, regulations come before Parliament in statutory instruments. A Select Committee looks at them to ensure that they come within the scope of the powers given. In this House they are occasionally looked at on their merits when they are affirmative.
However, in this instance--again I make no complaint ; the Government had no choice whatsoever--as the Minister properly said, the use of the prerogative, which has been habitually used by this Government and agreed by the House in respect of foreign affairs, was used in the Council of Ministers, again constitutionally properly, initially to validate legislation produced by the Commission, and subsequently, after a certain second look by the Council of Ministers, to become the new law of the Community. It fixes the relationship of businesses, firms and multitudinous matters in the United Kingdom with the new emerging Germany, and indeed with all our colleagues in the EEC.
That procedure has not been done by the due processes of the legislation to which we are habitually used. It has come about as a result of a prerogative act not only by the Government but by the Commission itself, for the Council of Ministers was incapable of producing that legislation. There was no petition and no consultation by the Council. It has to reject or accept the Commission's proposals. Therefore, to this extent it is fair to say that this set of regulations and directives, although inevitable, marks the most extensive example yet of a different sort of legislation being looked at by the House.
What, then, of the role of scrutiny? That will be discussed on Wednesday of next week, and I hope that many hon. Members will be present. Until now, scrutiny in this House has been of matters in which powers have been given by the House when the effects have been known and
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the merits have been debated. But scrutiny of EEC legislation is not quite of the same character. On this occasion we have a problem through speed, which is almost inevitable arising out of this political situation.If a future problem were to arise--of course it is unlikely to be of the same nature--or if there were an economic problem of great significance to the work of the Community, perhaps arising out of the Gulf situation--let us hope that it would be solved--or some other world cataclysm, similar types of legislation, but perhaps not on such a grand scale, relating to energy or some other matter, could be put before us in a similar way.
I now refer to the problem that was highlighted by my hon. Friend the Member for Hamiliton (Mr. Robertson). We did our best with the documents and had our report out late on Tuesday evening or early on Wednesday for the debate today. If we are to have proper scrutiny and fulfil our part of what is sometimes called the democratic deficit there must be sufficient time. Almost as important, if not more important, is sufficient publicity of the proposals. My hon. Friend referred to our report, which we released as fast as we could, but there is sometimes a lack of distribution of reports of the Select Committee on European Legislation to the nation as a whole. If firms, organisations and interests are to be aware of what is proposed, they must have access to reports to the House which are publicly available from Her Majesty's Stationery Office. People often complain about the secrecy of official matters. A great deal of information about that kind of legislation is publicly available in reports of the Select Committee on European Legislation.
Unfortunately, events have not allowed time for the normal digestion of the meal that I have outlined on this occasion. That has been inevitable. However, having drawn the attention of the House to the ambit of the proposals and their context, I hope that I have been able to advertise the work of the Select Committee on European Legislation and the reports which its members and staff produce. 11.19 am
Sir Geoffrey Finsberg (Hampstead and Highgate) : I want to make two or three points about the broader aspects rather than concentrate on the detailed regulations. I am not sure what contacts the hon. Member for Hamilton (Mr. Robertson) has had. I can only say that over the past four years I have mixed with West German politicians of all parties, I have visited Poland and I have had discussions with Bulgarians and Yugoslavs who are part of the new democratic process. They paid tribute to the work of this country and this Government. If the hon. Member for Hamilton had spoken to people on the spot, he would realise that his comments about my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister bear no relation to reality. The hon. Gentleman may mix in strange circles comprising crypto-socialists. I can assure him that people from behind the iron curtain say that they defeated socialism in action and not just communism and that comes from the people who live in the area, some of whom have been in prison for 20 years. Listening to those people moved me greatly and I realised how lucky we are to live in a democratic institution such as this.
Mr. Robertson : I do not deny that the hon. Gentleman is entitled to his opinion. However, in most of those communist countries, if someone was a democratic
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socialist like many Opposition Members of this House, that person could have been imprisoned just like a Thatcherite right-winger. The rejection of communism does not mean a rejection of democratic socialism in any of those countries or in western Europe as a whole.Sir Geoffrey Finsberg : I fear that that view is not shared by many people who live in those countries. However, I do not deny that socialists and trade unionists as well as Church people were imprisoned, but the basic fact is that socialism was put into action. I thought that the hon. Member for Hamilton spoilt a very good speech by his unnecessary attacks on my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister and he moved away from reality. That was a great pity.
Sir Geoffrey Finsberg : If the hon. Member for Newham, North-West (Mr. Banks) wants to intervene, he can, but he will isolate himself as he has done so often in the Council of Europe in the company of one other of his colleagues.
Sir Alan Glyn (Windsor and Maidenhead) : Does my hon. Friend agree that the beginning of the process of democratisation occurred when my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister visited Poland and set alight the torch for freedom?
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