House of Commons Hansard Debates for 8 Nov 1990

Mr. Gerald Kaufman (Manchester, Gorton) : Since our previous foreign affairs debate on the Queen's Speech, the international outlook has been transformed. Following the opening of the Berlin wall, freedom has come to almost the whole of eastern Europe. The ending of the cold war has not only created opportunities for security arrangements to cover the whole of Europe and for increased and accelerated disarmament through negotiation, but has made possible a united approach by the five permanent

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members of the Security Council to the past year's other notable but grim and baneful development--the invasion by Iraq of Kuwait. From the moment of that invasion, we in the Labour party took the consistent view that the invasion was unacceptable and must be reversed unconditionally and that all hostages must be released unconditionally. The Foreign Secretary referred to Iraq's conduct within Kuwait. When I was in the Gulf recently, I heard about that from Ministers in the Kuwaiti Government in exile in Taif, members of whose families have endured and suffered greatly. When I stayed in Dhahran it was in a hotel that was otherwise completely occupied by refugees from Kuwait who had gone there after dreadful experiences. We remain completely clear, as we have from the start, that Saddam Hussein cannot be allowed to remain in Kuwait and that United Nations resolutions must be implemented.

We advocated a series of measures aimed at forcing Saddam Hussein out of Kuwait, including economic sanctions, a naval blockade and then an air blockade to enforce those sanctions, and the payment of reparations by Iraq to those who had suffered damage or loss from the invasion. All those steps have become United Nations policy embodied in a series of Security Council resolutions. We support those resolutions and will continue to support United Nations action. We hope for a peaceful resolution of the crisis through sanctions and believe that those sanctions should be given time to work. I see that Marjatta Rasi, the head of the United Nations committee monitoring sanctions, yesterday said that the embargo was effective and should soon begin to hurt Iraq. At the same time, we have always accepted that the international community might find it necessary to use force to dislodge Saddam Hussein from Kuwait. Throughout we have argued that if force is to be used, it should have the widest possible international support. Therefore, we welcome the report that Mr. James Baker is seeking support in Moscow and elsewhere for a Security Council resolution sanctioning the use of force. We do so not because we are eager for force, but because we believe that if it is to be used, it should have the clearest possible international backing.

In the same way, I welcome what the Foreign Secretary said in his interview on Monday in The Independent. The article, which quoted him, stated :

"There is much to be said for keeping the maximum support of the international coalition'. So as long as there is confidence that a further resolution will not be put at the mercy of a minority who have the capacity to delay', there is an argument for seeking one to reinforce that solidarity."

Those were wise words, which help the House to continue in unity on this matter.

Mr. Jonathan Sayeed (Bristol, East) : The right hon. Gentleman said that any military action should have the widest possible support. Can he remind me whether that was the form of words that he used in the two-day debate, or did he say that it should have the support of the United Nations? I cannot remember.

Mr. Kaufman : They are the same. We do not need to start picking and choosing over one word and another. We want to maintain a united attitude in this House and I have used the words that I have used. We are extremely keen

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that United Nations authority should be available for any action that is taken, if action by force should be taken. During the past three months, we have proceeded parallel to the Government and we hope that that will continue.

As I said willingly, the words of the Foreign Secretary earlier this week were wise and today he has said nothing to diminish that view. In so far as any sense is talked about foreign affairs, it tends to come from him. On domestic policy, he is as bad as the rest of them, but that is a different matter.

Despite the somewhat disorderly events that took place during the Foreign Secretary's visit to Israel, he has put forward sound arguments about the need for a settlement between Israel and her neighbours and for self- determination for the Palestinians, although he could, with advantage, be clearer and more forthright on that aspect. Slowly but perceptibly the right hon. Gentleman is jettisoning his predecessor's shoddy record on Cambodia and moving towards a more acceptable policy on that tormented country. Again, we should like quicker progress and a clearer objective. We should like the Government to combine direct Government-to-Government aid with a total rejection of the Khmer Rouge and its allies.

One issue on which I regret to say that the right hon. Gentleman has made no progress, if he has even tried, is South Africa. This year has been notable for another great event--the release of Nelson Mandela--yet next to no progress has been made with the dismantling of apartheid. The right hon. Gentleman will have heard Nelson Mandela insisting that international economic sanctions against South Africa shall be maintained, yet the right hon. Gentleman has been a party to their being diluted unilaterally by the Government at the personal instigation of the Prime Minister. No Conservative Member seeking to ingratiate himself with the Prime Minister even in her absence need quote Mr. Mandela's generous reference to the Prime Minister when he met her recently. As anyone who has met Nelson Mandela knows, he is extraordinarily courteous. When my right hon. Friend the Leader of the Opposition and I had lunch with him in Stockholm earlier this year, he spoke in an equally kindly way not only of Mike Gatting but of Arthur Scargill. The Prime Minister is just one of a number to bask in his benevolence.

The Prime Minister's policy on South Africa is in clear violation of both Commonwealth and United Nations policy. She is alone in other international forums as well. I listened with nostalgia to the Foreign Secretary's reference to the Prime Minister's plan for a new Magna Carta. It seems much longer than three months since she launched it with such fanfares in Colorado. It was almost forgotten until yesterday when the press provided us with a report about the latest attitudes towards it. The report said :

"Mrs. Thatcher's plan for a new Magna Carta for Europe received no support at the two-day conference of the 24-member Council of Europe, which ended in Rome yesterday.

Other European ministers believed the plan could undermine the work of the European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg."

It was nice of the Foreign Secretary to make a token reference to that notion of the Prime Minister's. However, he has more to do with her day by day than most of the rest of us and will know that she has a tendency to launch an idea, play with it a little and then throw it into the corner of the nursery while waiting to find something else to pick up.

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The Prime Minister's isolation in other international gatherings is as nothing compared with her antics at NATO and European Community summits. It was interesting to hear the Foreign Secretary's sensible, measured and sober approach to the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation. At the summits the Prime Minister had done her damnedest to prevent progress that has been advocated by our partners.

We all recollect the forlorn parade at the Conservative party conference last month of a bevy of right-wing leaders from eastern Europe. They were decent and brave people, too innocent in the ways of democracy to understand how they were being manipulated. One such leader who understood what the Government were up to was Mr. Vaclav Havel, the President of Czechoslovakia. I hear that he wisely resisted the blandishments of the chairman of the Conservative party that he should turn up at Bournemouth. The Conservative party leadership felt that that event was so valuable to them that they repeated it in a live action replay in a recent party political broadcast on television. There they all were, Dr. Antall of Hungary, Mr. Carnogursky of Czechoslovakia, Professor Zawislak of Poland, the Rev. Negrut of Romania and Frau Pohl of East Germany, whom I hasten to reassure the House is not related to the president of the Bundesbank. If the Prime Minister had her way, every one of those people would be targeted with short-range nuclear weapons for which she has such an appetite.

Fortunately, NATO has steadily rejected the Prime Minister's cold war notions and I am glad that the Foreign Secretary reported approvingly on negotiations that will shortly begin to reduce those weapons. However, we remember that when the Prime Minister reported from NATO last year she adamantly said that she was against such negotiations and that nuclear disarmament in Europe had gone far enough. We are glad that progress has been made and that the Foreign Secretary can report it to the House.

It is strange that the Gracious Speech declares that the Government

"will give full support to NATO"

and

"will play a full part in adapting NATO strategy".

NATO has indeed adapted its strategy. In London in July the NATO leaders issued a declaration adopting what they call

"A new NATO strategy making nuclear forces truly weapons of last resort."

The Prime Minister was one of the leaders there and duly signed that declaration, but seven weeks later in Helsinki she said : "Our first task is to preserve the essentials of the present order. That means continuing to station nuclear weapons in Europe, without putting new constraints on them such as ... weapons of last resort."

Far from playing her full part in adapting NATO strategy, the Prime Minister has repudiated the new strategy to which she had so recently personally committed herself. The NATO allies must be perplexed if not outraged at the Prime Minister's repudiation of commitments to which they believed that she had in honour signed up. Of course, they do not have the experience of members of the Cabinet. The right hon. Members for Henley (Mr. Heseltine) and for Blaby (Mr. Lawson) and the right hon. and learned Member for Surrey, East (Sir G. Howe) as well as Sir Leon Brittan could explain that such things are

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a regular experience in the Cabinet and are one of the reasons why they have been unable to continue to serve in it under the Prime Minister.

Two years ago from the Dispatch Box I warned the right hon. and learned Member for Surrey, East that the Prime Minister was determined to have him out of the Cabinet. I remember that he sat scoffing and chortling with the Minister for Overseas Development. Within a year he had been kicked out of the Foreign Office and now he is out of the Government altogether and on the Back Benches. The Foreign Secretary is rightly basking in the golden words which he is garnering and which he has thoroughly earned by the way in which he is conducting himself, but not for a moment should he think that he is any more secure than were all the others who are now on the Back Benches. The Prime Minister disposes of senior Cabinet Ministers as if they were worn-out garments and she never seems to understand why some Ministers resign.

After the resignation of the right hon. Member for Blaby, Mr. Brian Walden asked the Prime Minister why he had gone. She explained : "I don't know. I don't know I that is not I don't know I have nothing further, I don't know of course I don't know." Yesterday my hon. Friend the Member for Motherwell, North (Dr. Reid) asked why the right hon. and learned Member for Surrey, East had resigned. The Prime Minister explained :

"That question should be addressed to my right hon. and learned Friend."-- [ Official Report, 7 November 1990 ; Vol. 180, c. 32.] Do not blame her, she is only the Prime Minister of a Cabinet whose members gradually seep to the Back Benches.

The Foreign Secretary has nothing to lose by starting a trend in the Cabinet and standing up to the Prime Minister. Despite his attempts to paper over the cracks during the past few days, I recommend that he sort out the Government's European policy because no one else seems capable of doing so. On that issue, as on NATO, the Prime Minister has retreated into a private world of her own, rather like Alice who, told by the March Hare that she should say what she means, replied :

"I do : at least--at least I mean what I say--that's the same thing you know."

It is not the same thing for the Prime Minister.

The Foreign Secretary spoke about the enlargement of the European Community. Eight months ago when speaking about possible East German membership of the European Community in an interview for The Sunday Times the Prime Minister said :

"For the Germans to expect East Germany automatically to join the EC would be like taking in Belgium, Denmark and Ireland combined. Much worse than that,' the Prime Minister added, This would mean taking a state that has been either communist or Nazi since the 1930s.'"

That was her view at the end of February about East Germany joining the Community as part of a united Germany. Six months later in Helsinki the Prime Minister stood that statement on its head. She said :

"The most effective way to overcome divisions between east and west in Europe is to give the east European countries the clear prospect of Community membership."

How can we possibly take her seriously on such issues when within months she totally reverses her position? That is why our partners in the Community now refrain from

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bothering to argue with her at Community summits. They know that her most adamantly stated positions will shortly be abandoned and will probably be reversed.

Mr. Ray Whitney (Wycombe) : While the right hon. Gentleman is on the subject of reversing positions, would he like to educate the House on some of his party's reversals? For example, this morning in a radio interview the deputy Leader of the Opposition was taking pride in swift reversal. Does the right hon. Gentleman take the same pride?

Mr. Kaufman : The deputy Leader--

Mr. Kinnock : At least we still have one.

Mr. Kaufman : As my right hon. Friend says, we still have a deputy Leader of the Opposition. The great difference between the Opposition and the Government is that we progress, while they regress. They are falling behind on things that they have promised to do, as I shall point out in some considerable detail before I have done. The positions that the Prime Minister is most likely to reverse are those that she most vehemently adopts. She often contradicts herself, the Foreign Secretary, the Chancellor, or all three. So, no one knows what she stands for. Such confusion makes it difficult for anyone to negotiate meaningfully on behalf of Britain. Having examined what the Foreign Secretary and the Prime Minister say, I have some questions to put to the right hon. Gentleman. I shall be glad to give way as and when he feels able to answer any of them.

First, could he kindly explain the Government's view on environmental policy in the Community? In the Queen's Speech we read that the

"Government will promote further international co-operation on environmental issues."

At the second world climate conference in Geneva on Tuesday, the Prime Minister appeared to endorse that when she said :

"There should not be an excuse for delaying much needed action we must not waste time."

She was referring to dealing with environmental issues. She made specific reference to European Community policy, saying : "The European Community has also reached a very good agreement to stabilise emissions".

carbon dioxide emissions--

"I hope that Europe's example will help the task of securing world-wide agreement."

One would never guess from those words that the European Community agreement to which she refers was reached last week only by allowing a specific exception for the United Kingdom. The United Kingdom will be allowed to stabilise carbon dioxide emissions five years after the rest of Europe--that totally belies the Prime Minister's urgings in Geneva that we should not waste time and her condemnation of delay. The United Kingdom is to be allowed to stabilise carbon dioxide emissions in 2005 compared with 2000 for the Community as a whole. The Financial Times says that electricity privatisation is one reason why the United Kingdom is lagging behind its partners. I ask the Foreign Secretary to tell us how many more agreements he will be a party to that can be reached only if the United Kingdom is "isolated", to use the Financial Times' word, and ignored. Does he support what

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the Prime Minister says or what she does, because he cannot support both? Her words and her actions are so self- contradictory. What is the Foreign Secretary's attitude towards majority voting in the ministerial Council? Last week, the Prime Minister said : "we should be very slow to add any majority competence on the part of the Community."

The Foreign Secretary told the Confederation of British Industry on Tuesday that he merely opposed

"significantly extending qualified majority voting".

He used those words again in his speech this afternoon, so he does not oppose all extensions of majority voting. We should like to know what majority voting he would extend. I think that the House has a right--

Mr. Tony Marlow (Northampton, North) : Will the right hon. Gentleman give way?

Mr. Kaufman : I am asking questions of the Foreign Secretary. At the present rate of change it may well be that the hon. Gentleman will get there soon but at present I am questioning the right hon. Member for Witney (Mr. Hurd).

What is the Foreign Secretary's attitude to Mr. Delors? The Prime Minister has no time for him at all. At the Conservative party conference last month she spoke of

"socialism through the back Delors".

That was a characteristic example of her wit--fortunately inimitable. On the other hand, the right hon. Gentleman recently described Mr. Delors as "a very able Commissioner". Is he a very able Commissioner despite his wish to foist socialism on this country or because of it? Quoting Shakespeare,

"I pause for a reply".

Mr. Hurd : That is easy. I have to admit that there are some able socialists--misguided, wrong in every respect, intellectually in the dark, but one or two of them have a trace of ability.

Mr. Kaufman : That measured diplomatic response will certainly compensate for a few more insults from the Prime Minister. We must stay with the Commission for a moment because what about the Commission itself? My right hon. Friend the Leader of the Opposition intervened in the Foreign Secretary's speech, mentioning that the Prime Minister told the House last week that the Commission is "striving to extinguish democracy". The Foreign Secretary told the CBI in Glasgow the day before yesterday that

"We have a natural alliance with the Commission".

Is that an alliance to extinguish democracy? Can the Foreign Secretary please explain? He dodged my right hon. Friend's question about whether he agrees with the Prime Minister that the Commission is "striving to extinguish democracy". If he dodges my question, his silence will be taken as dissociation from the Prime Minister.

Mr. Hurd : This is the last of the right hon. Gentleman's rhetorical questions that I propose to answer. Once again, it is an easy one. He is at his old business--I have had to rebuke him about it recently--of selective quotations. The passage that he quoted referred to the single market and there is, and has been for a long time, a convergence of interest between the British and the Commission. On many occasions, we are both allied against the protectionist nature of some other member states.

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Mr. Kaufman : I have more questions for the right hon. Gentleman, I can assure him.

The Prime Minister said the Commission is

"striving to extinguish democracy and to put more and more power in its own hands".--[ Official Report, 30 October 1990 ; Vol. 178, c.876.]

The Foreign Secretary said that the Government had

"a natural alliance with the Commission".

Is that an alliance to strive "to extinguish democracy" and put more power into its own hands?

Let us move on. There are more matters that the Foreign Secretary can explain--usefully, I hope. Yesterday, the Prime Minister praised the Minister for Agriculture, Fisheries and Food--the right hon. Gentleman echoed that praise today--for his role in the solution to the row over farming subsidies. The right hon. Gentleman knows full well that the solution was proposed not by the Minister but by the Commission. It was put forward by the same accursed Commission that was denounced by the Prime Minister. This afternoon, the Foreign Secretary said :

"The European Commission and this Government held together." Is that the same Commission that is striving to extinguish democracy? That is all that I want to know.

The Foreign Secretary today wisely sidestepped the issue of economic and monetary union. Let us ask him about the role of the CBI, as he was at its conference on Tuesday. Yesterday, the Prime Minister quoted the CBI with great approval. She called it "the people who know how to run industry."-- [ Official Report, 7 November 1990 ; Vol. 180, c. 23.]

On the very day that the Foreign Secretary addressed the CBI in Glasgow, the director-general, Mr. Banham, condemned the Government's European policy saying that ERM entry was

"too late and at an uncomfortably high level."

Does the Foreign Secretary agree with the CBI, which the Prime Minister praises so highly?

Another matter that the Foreign Secretary has dealt with recently is Switzerland and European economic policy. The Prime Minister last week praised Switzerland for its marvellous record on currency and she applauded it for staying outside EMU. However, the Foreign Secretary must be aware that the Swiss franc shadows the deutschmark, so it is effectively part of the exchange rate mechanism. He pointed out on Sunday that

"Switzerland is now becoming very interested in joining the Community."

How does a communautaire Switzerland fit in with the Prime Minister's statement that Switzerland prospers by being completely independent of the Community?

What about the ecu? The Prime Minister told the House last week that the hard ecu would not become widely used throughout the Community and that possibly it would be most widely used for commercial transactions. Does the Foreign Secretary recall that when the Chancellor of the Exchequer launched the hard ecu in June he envisaged that

"ecu bank notes could provide a natural currency for tourists and business travellers. The idea could catch the popular imagination ; and as notes came to be used more frequently it could help the development of large- scale markets in ecu deposits."

Does the Foreign Secretary agree with the Prime Minister that the hard ecu will not become widely used or with the Chancellor of the Exchequer that the hard ecu will catch the popular imagination?

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One reason for the Prime Minister's opposition to the single currency is, she said yesterday, that it would be administered by an unelected body. However, an integral part of the Government's hard ecu policy that the Foreign Secretary has consistently praised is that the hard ecu would be administered by the European monetary fund. When the Chancellor of the Exchequer launched the hard ecu he said that the European monetary fund would issue ecu deposits or notes in exchange for national currencies and would set interest rates on the hard ecu. He said :

"Let me explain why I have no qualms about such an institutional development. We are not opposed to new institutions where there are new jobs that genuinely need to be done. That is certainly the case here. Not only would we be looking at the job of managing the ecu ; there are other important roles that such an institution might usefully take on. They might include the tasks involved in managing the exchange rate mechanism and its financing facilities, including the functions of the central bank governors committee and the existing European monetary co-operation fund in that area." That would be a powerful body. Would it be an elected, democratically accountable body, or would it be appointed and, as the Prime Minister puts it, undemocratic? If the latter is the case, why are the Government proposing the setting up of such a monstrously undemocratic organisation with such wide powers over the monetary and economic policies of domestic Governments, especially as the Foreign Secretary, the Chancellor of the Exchequer and even the Prime Minister, on her good days, see the hard ecu evolving into a single currency?

On the question of the single currency, the Prime Minister scoffed yesterday at my right hon. Friend the Leader of the Opposition. She alleged that his view was

"that the issue can be solved by having the Queen's head on an ecu whose value is determined elsewhere."--[ Official Report, 7 November 1990 ; Vol. 180, c. 30.]

The hard ecu, which may evolve into a single currency, would certainly have its value determined elsewhere, not here. Would it have the Queen's head on it, or would it not? Could the Foreign Secretary enlighten us? Will he also say what he thinks of the remarks at the weekend of Sir Leon Brittan who, of the single currency, said this :

"it is possible to have a single currency but to have the pounds and the coins with the Queen's head on one side and their value denominated in pounds--but with the ecu equivalent on the other side. It has been agreed that this would be possible."

I should be interested to know whether the Foreign Secretary endorses Sir Leon Brittan's statement.

Mrs. Currie : Will the right hon. Gentleman give way?

Mr. Kaufman : No. The hon. Lady has left the Government. She may return at some stage, but it is the Foreign Secretary to whom I am putting the question.

Mrs. Currie rose --

Mr. Deputy Speaker (Mr. Harold Walker) : Order.

Mr. Kaufman : Above all, can the Foreign Secretary say what he thinks of economic and monetary union? The Prime Minister said last week that :

"What is being proposed now--economic and monetary union--is the back door to a federal Europe".--[ Official Report, 30 October 1990 ; Vol. 178, c. 877.]

The Foreign Secretary was present at the Dublin meeting in June. He will remember the Council's conclusions at the Dublin summit. It said :

"The European Council decided that the Intergovernmental conference will open on December 13th

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