House of Commons Hansard Debates for 1 Nov 1991

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variety of organisations with which Britain is involved while our European partners are not. We witnessed recently a singular event in Zaire when Belgian and French troops went in to protect their citizens. They, too, had colonies. They too, therefore, have difficulty in arriving at a foreign policy reached by means of a unanimous decision rather than a foreign policy based on a majority decision.

I was interested in the Foreign Secretary's definition of the Western European Union. I agree with him that it is important and significant to develop the Western European Union and to have a defence force, but if such a force existed now, would it have gone into Yugoslavia to separate the Serbs and the Croats? Is that what such a force would have done, acting at the behest of the Council of Ministers? Would we not have repeated the errors of 1914 by involving ourselves again in that region? The consequences of the 1914-18 war are only now being reversed. After that war we saw the rise of communism and fascism and of Hitler. All those events shaped the world after 1945. Only now are we returning to the age-old problem of nationalism to which my hon. Friend the Member for Liverpool, West Derby (Mr. Wareing) referred. That distortion of history is only now being reversed. The danger, however, is that by creating a western European defence force we may repeat the errors of old. We ought to take that serious danger into account.

Another difficulty of the last 11 or 12 years is that we have always faced west, towards the United States of America. During the war, Churchill quoted Longfellow to Roosevelt :

"And not by eastern windows only

When daylight comes, comes in the light.

Out front the sun climbs slow, how slowly,

But westward, look, the land is bright."

The fact that we were looking towards the United States might have been an acceptable concept during the war, but it has been an unacceptable concept for the past 12 years, during which Europe has been creating itself and showing an enthusiasm for a single European currency and a central bank and for increasing the powers of the European Community's institutions. The British Government have lagged in their support for events in Europe and have not been so enthusiastic as our European partners.

My hon. Friend the Member for Liverpool, West Derby was right to say that we are witnessing the creation not simply of a free market in Europe, but a free market which is linked to the Delors principles and will ensure proper working conditions and adequate social provision. The only way in which the European Community can work in the future is by linking the concept of the free market with that strong collective provision. There must not be an imbalance in Europe between those who work and those who do not, and between relative social and living conditions. That would make the European Community unworkable. We must link the free market with the provision of proper social and working conditions. In that way we shall have a Europe that is stronger, more sympathetic and a better one in which to live.

What are we seeking to do in Europe? Are we seeking to create a federal Europe or a new free trade area or a Europe that is neither federal nor based upon a free trade area? Are we seeking to create a totally different entity? That entity must be based on consensus and it must be one to which the British people will willingly belong because

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they appreciate the advantages to which the hon. Member for Chichester has already referred. It must be an entity that this Parliament can recognise.

I welcome the cautious approach that has been adopted towards the Maastricht negotiations. I do not believe that Maastricht will be the ultimate summit on such matters. I believe that it will be another stage towards reaching an agreement that will take us forward. Earlier I quoted Longfellow and I should like to conclude by quoting from Anton Chekhov. I know that the Foreign Secretary is a literary man and he may read this speech. Chekhov said :

"In search of truth a man takes two steps forward and one step back. Suffering mistakes and the weariness of life thrusts him back, but the search for truth drives him on and on. And who knows? Perhaps he will find the real truth at last."

As a result of the Maastricht conferences and the debates that we shall have in the House we shall create a real, true Europe--a new Europe that is neither federal nor based upon free trade alone. It will be something in which we all participate. We shall be able to reach conclusions on the current problems through debate, consensus and, at the end of the day, the unanimity of Parliament.

12.47 pm

Sir Michael McNair-Wilson (Newbury) : The Gracious Speech is that annual event when our Queen and her Government set out for this Parliament those national and international policies that are in the best interests of the United Kingdom, and only the United Kingdom, whether they relate to domestic legislation, to our defence commitments or to those foreign policy objectives which, to quote my right hon. Friend the Foreign Secretary, protect and promote the British interest. That is no more or less than a sovereign Parliament within a constitutional monarchy should be able to expect. I hope that it will continue.

Now, however, I have grave misgivings as we begin to hear from the European Community more and more talk about a federal Europe and closer political integration. Such talk might reasonably follow if the EC had achieved all its earlier aims, but, as we know, it has not. We also know that, in 1992, the 12 member states will prepare to open the single European market at the end of that year.

If the single European market can be established and made to work as that common market that has been talked about for the past 30 years, it will be a considerable achievement, but it will not be easy. It will have its costs. Even today, we are told that it would cost the Inland Revenue about £250 million, because of the reduction in customs barriers.

We already know that many of the existing members of the Community currently pay little more than lip service to EC directives. Despite the requirement to open contracts and business opportunities to all comers, somehow those countries manage to choose their own nationals. The recent decision by the French Government to give in to their farmers on the lamb war only underlines the position. At a moment like this, one might think that the single market should dominate the Community thinking, but that is not so.

At Maastricht next month, political, economic and monetary union will take pride of place. I find that surprising. Since the Community's inception under the treaty of Rome in 1957, mutual self-interest has been the driving force behind it. The Six each saw benefits to

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themselves from joining the Common Market and hence signed the treaty of Rome. In 1972, after our brief flirtation with the European Free Trade Association, we thought that our self-interest would be better served within the EC, so we joined, and I supported our membership in this House.

I do not believe that altruism, good neighbourliness or even the visions of Jean Monnet have been the motivation behind the EC but simply hard-headed self interest. Because that self-interest has continued, we have maintained our membership, even though we continue to run an imbalance on our trade. Last year it was £9.5 billion, and in the first nine months of this year it is £2 billion. We all know that the common agricultural policy has not given our farmers the return that their efficiency deserves or our housewives the food prices that they should be able to expect.

But, even if one accepts those difficulties, the balance of advantage has lain in our continuing membership and in arguing from our position within the Community--from the "heart of Europe" to use the words of the Prime Minister--as my right hon. Friend the Member for Finchley (Mrs. Thatcher) did so successfully over our budget contribution. I have never understood why she was criticised by the Opposition for speaking up for Britain, but I am not exactly clear about their present position, except that they seem to be claiming that they can negotiate better conditions than the Government, despite their failure when in government in 1975 to negotiate proper terms for our entry. Indeed, that negotiation was something of a farce and I have no reason to have any greater confidence in the present Opposition's ability to do any better.

If the balance of advantage has stayed with our continuing membership of the Community, we have paid a price for it. In publications as diverse as Pharmaceutical Marketing and Country Life, reference has recently been made to the arguments at Westminster seeming increasingly academic, as EC directives move us irrevocably towards the single market. Perhaps we should draw satisfaction from our willingness to accept such directives, unlike so many of our European colleagues, but if that is the situation now, when most Members of Parliament believe that we are still Members of a sovereign Parliament, what might it be like if we were to surrender the rest of our sovereignty to Brussels or to the European Parliament, in which we have only 16 per cent. of the seats, and to majority voting?

Mr. Delors has already warned us that, in a few years, 80 per cent. of the major economic and social decisions facing member states will be made in Brussels. If European political union comes about, he will undoubtedly be right. But why should it? Where is the self-interest that should make it attractive to us? We are told that, having lost an empire, we can have a new role in a European superstate, as if we were being asked to be its leader--which we are not.

I find nothing especially attractive about a European superstate. I do not want to be part of some supposedly dominant united states of Europe which, it is argued, would exert a similar influence to the United States of America and the now defunct USSR in world affairs. If that is the carrot to persuade this Parliament to give up such independence as it possesses and to move it on from the treaty of Rome, I would want a lot of persuading that that was in our best interests.

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I want the United Kingdom to live at peace with all its European neighbours--to trade and to co-operate with them but to retain control of its defences and of its foreign and economic policies. I want this Parliament to continue to be the forum of our nation and I believe that the vast majority of our people share my wish.

Where political union and sovereignty are concerned, I can see no natural political affinity between the United Kingdom and Luxembourg--a country with a population smaller than Berkshire--or with Belgium, with its divided population, Holland, with its total dependence on its neighbours, or Italy, which has so much difficulty in implementing EC directives, which moralises over other people's shortcomings and has a new Government roughly every 18 months. A former Minister of the Republic of Ireland told me recently that sovereignty did not mean the same for the people of Ireland as it did for us. They were so dependent on Britain for their trade and knew that they were accepted into the EC only because we had become a member that it was not a subject that exercised them overmuch. Thus, while a Luxembourger, an Irishman, a Dutchman or a Belgian may see a European superstate as giving them a much larger stage on which to perform and one that would cost them nothing in sovereignty since what they have is already so diluted, to us it would mean the end of that independence which has allowed us to play a unique and continuing role in world affairs and to have this Gracious Speech setting out our parliamentary programme.

It was that independence which enabled us to participate in the Gulf war and to initiate the Falklands conflict without having to secure the agreement of our 11 Community colleagues. All that we required was United Nations approval for the legality of our action. If, as I have suggested, the 12 members of the Community do not have much in common with us over sovereignty, what do we have in common over foreign affairs?

The failure of the 12 to act in concert does not give much ground for optimism. They could not agree on the Gulf conflict and seem to have no agreed middle east policy. They have made no impression on the Yugoslavian tragedy--so much so that I wish we had developed our own foreign policy towards the future of Yugoslavia in general and to the states of Slovenia and Croatia in particular. We could hardly have achieved less than the Community's observers.

I take issue with the Foreign Secretary's remarks this morning about it being expected that the EC would take the initiative. Expected by whom? To pretend that the 12 can beat out a constructive, flexible, foreign policy based on majority voting seems wholly unrealistic. Quite simply, not only do we and they not share common objectives, but we do not even make similar appraisals of world events, as the President of France demonstrated at the time of the coup in Moscow, when he seemed willing to negotiate with the coup's leaders.

Now we are told that there should also be a European defence force, to which the 12 members would contribute. It might have sounded relevant if the Community had become a unitary European state, but it has not. Each of our national defence forces has its own command structure and its own training methods, and chooses its own equipment with little or no standardisation. Some have

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conscript armies, others do not. True, even with those drawbacks, NATO functions well, but it has had the advantage of 350,000 American service men and ourselves, all of whom speak a common language. I suspect that the European defence force owes more to the French belief that, by merging German and French forces together, it effectively removes the threat of German militarism, while resurrecting the long-held French ambition to remove the immediate American influence from European defence, which is the case with NATO. I am glad the Government have set their face against that, and I welcome the further commitment to NATO in the Gracious Speech. On European monetary and economic union, I will say only that I wholeheartedly support the views expressed by my right hon. Friends the Prime Minister, the Foreign Secretary and the Chancellor of the Exchequer. The time is not right for us seriously to consider the proposition. Indeed, if I may build on what they have said and sum up my position on the future of the European Community, it is this : in the new Europe that has emerged from the ashes of the second world war and now from the grim shadows of the cold war, new possibilities for peace and prosperity across Europe exist which have probably never before been seen on that continent.

A huge amount of political and industrial restructuring will have to take place as the east European states shake themselves down into the national structures that most suit their individual aspirations. Those national structures cannot be enforced, because to do so would be self-defeating to the idea of a free Europe and to their struggles to break away from the Moscow-dominated communist monolith. By the same token, the treaty arrangements that these countries may individually wish to make with other states must be matters for them.

That seems implicit in the sentence in the Gracious Speech which states :

"My Government will further encourage the development of democratic institutions and market economies in central and eastern Europe." It would seem amazingly out of step for east European countries to be finding their national indentities after 40 years of being forced into artificial political groupings while the rest of Europe was seeking to impose federalism and political union on its member states at the same moment when they are starting down the road to a single European market--perhaps the acid test of how much one of us wants the Common Market to succeed.

A single market will not be easy to achieve. If it can be made to work--and time will show whether it can become a reality--that may be the moment to return to subjects such as political and economic union and the benefits of a different defence structure. Until then, let us seek to trade together, the Community with EFTA--I welcome the agreement to create a European economic area combining the two in 1993. We should trade with eastern Europe and, from mutual self-interest, which is essential to trading, see what new political alliances emerge. After all, the European Community of the 12 may already have been overtaken by the events of the past 18 months. As eastern Europe transforms its economies to a western pattern, Europe in terms of the Community need no longer stop at the Oder, because the Community, as we use that term, has now become the western European Community. It is no longer a counterbalance to the COMECON block of east European countries dominated

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by Moscow. That has disappeared and so, to some extent, has the European Community's reason for existence with it. Yet the EC continues to think politically in treaty of Rome and divided Europe terms.

To that extent, the EC does not seem to have accepted the ramifications of the post-communist years and has not decided whether it wants to consolidate itself as a rich man's club at the western end of the continent of Europe, to which the east Europeans can apply for associate membership, or to widen its institutions, starting with freer trade. That is surprising, for the future of the east European nations is now the most important issue involving Europe's mutual peace and prosperity.

Several hon. Members have spoken about the dangers of instability in the newly emerging eastern democracies. Surely this is the moment when the strong west should be able to offer a hand of assistance to those countries, rather than holding them at arm's length while it completes its own internal workings. The creation of a pan-European Community deserves the most serious consideration by the Twelve. It deserves to take pride of place at Maastricht, ahead of arguments about creating federal institutions, transfers of sovereignty and the powers of the west European Parliament. Sooner or later, someone in western Europe must take the lead in this matter. Perhaps that will be our task when we take over the presidency of the Community next July.

1.2 pm

Mr. Jeremy Corbyn (Islington, North) : I am glad to be able to participate in this debate. Having read what the Queen's Speech says on matters of foreign policy, I must say that I found it a bit of a mish-mash. In the past year the most horrific events have taken place in the middle east, with the Gulf war, and the most amazing changes have taken place in Europe, with the upheavals in the Soviet Union. It is important also to put on the record the serious growth of racism and neo-Nazi activity throughout much of western Europe and what was formerly termed eastern Europe. I was disappointed that in his opening speech the Foreign Secretary did not even mention the horrific growth in racial attacks and neo-Nazi bands that are now rampaging around the eastern part of what is now the unified Germany.

I was also disappointed that no mention was made in the Queen's Speech of one of the major consequences of the Gulf war--the plight of the Kurdish people throughout the region. Kurdish people are hanging on in the northern part of Iraq, desperately in need of support and aid that must come to them before a harsh winter sets in. The situation is desperate. Many have been homeless, not just for the past six months but for several years and they have been pushed from pillar to post within that area. Across the border, the Turkish army is continuing vigorous armed raids against Kurdish placements throughout south-eastern Turkey and is crossing the border and bombing Kurdish villages in Iraq. As there is supposed to be a degree of coalition forces air control in that region, the British and American forces must know about the aerial bombardments. They have access to the villages that have been bombed and can see that civilian targets have been hit by Turkish air force planes that are bombing northern Iraq. Their plight has vanished from the

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headlines, other stories have taken its place, but the killing continues and the loss of life continues. I hope that the Minister will say something about it this afternoon.

A great deal has changed in the world recently. As I said to the Foreign Secretary in an intervention, I was never one to support the idea of the cold war--the idea that there was an imminent threat of a Soviet invasion of western Europe. NATO, created in 1948, was the major bulwark of the cold war. The Warsaw pact was created in 1955. For some time my party held the perfectly logical view that NATO and the Warsaw pact should both be dissolved. Now the Warsaw pact has completely dissolved itself, so the experts in SHAPE headquarters at NATO are left looking for a role for NATO to perform. Increasingly, they use phrases such as "out-of-area activities". They maintain a significant degree of nuclear strength. This country is building three Trident submarines and there is increasing pressure to build a fourth.

Where is the external threat to Europe? How can nuclear weapons possibly be used except to destroy many lives--the lives of those on whom they are targeted and of those who fired the weapons in the first place? A report published last week on the consequences of the Chernobyl explosion--a minor explosion compared with that of a series of nuclear warheads--showed that there were several thousand deaths from cancer in the Soviet Union and in northern and western Europe as a result.

The idea that nuclear weapons deter anyone is laughable and horrific. We have the greatest chance ever to rid the world of nuclear weapons now, yet the consensus in this country is apparently that we need to maintain three Trident systems and possibly build a fourth at a total cost of more than £23 billion.

Mr. Tony Banks : A waste of money.

Mr. Corbyn : My hon. Friend is correct.

My next point develops a point made by my right hon. Friend the Member for Manchester, Gorton (Mr. Kaufman) this morning. He said that last year the World bank derived a greater income from interest payments and debt repayments than it paid out in development aid and investment in the poorest countries. That is an horrific statistic. We live in a world that is not developing uniformly. Most of the world's population have no expectation of rising living standards. They cannot be sure that their children will be able to go to school or that they will receive medical treatment throughout their lives. They cannot even be certain that they will have jobs in the future. The lives of a large proportion of the world's population are nasty, brutish and short. Increasingly they live in giant slums centred on the world's major cities and their countries' limited social services and education and health systems are being ravaged by the market economy.

History will decry our time as a period of market soothsaying when it was believed that the market could provide everything and solve all problems. The lives of the people in Africa and Latin America prove that that is not so. The countries in which they live labour under a massive debt burden-- £784 billion of it. Repayments by the sub-Saharan countries alone amount to 500 per cent. of their export earnings.

This debt is unpayable, as is the interest on it. We do not need to look far back to find the origins of the crisis--the oil crisis of the early 1970s and the proliferation of large loans at low interest rates to third world countries.

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Between 1980 and 1985 interest payments by third world countries more than doubled from 9 to 20 per cent., at the same time as average prices for their commodities fell by an average of more than 25 per cent. The gap between the two has resulted in the debt burden, in the loss of national sovereignty and in the loss of so many of the nascent social services in those countries.

We must face the issue seriously and not in the way in which the Prime Minister faced the issue at Harare when he said that he would write off some of the debts in return for the acceptance of an economic model imposed by the International Monetary Fund, and say that there has to be a write- off of debt. The current round of talks on the general agreement on tariffs and trade should not emphasise so much the free market in food, which will be very much to the detriment of the economies and the environments of third world countries. Instead, the talks should examine seriously the problem of underpayment for the major commodities that the third world countries produce, which would be a step forward. However, I fear that the GATT talks will go in the opposite direction. The GATT talks are motivated by a desire for a world free market which will give greater power to multinational corporations and less power to national Governments. It is a desire which will continue to impoverish many of the poorest parts of the world.

The situation has not arisen overnight. All the development aid that has gone to many third world countries comes back twofold and threefold through interest payments on the debt, underpayment for commodities and the over- profitability of multinational corporations. We live in a desperately and grossly unfair world. I hoped that in the Queen's Speech the Government would set out a programme that showed that we were prepared to play our part in removing the scourge of poverty, of short life and of environmental destruction which is the lot of so many people in the world. Instead, there is a narrow vision of a world dominated by market forces. We require a change in vision and in direction.

Future generations will not thank us for spending our energies and money on nuclear weapons, and on the unseemly attraction of enormous wealth to a tiny minority in north America and western Europe while the majority of the population of the world sees nothing but environmental destruction and the continuing decline in living standards. We live in short-sighted times. Future generations will condemn us for inaction in the face of what is obviously happening in the world at present.

1.11 pm

Mr. Jim Lester (Broxtowe) : It is inevitable that much of the debate has been on the European Community and on what my right hon. Friend the Foreign Secretary said in his opening speech. I do not intend to follow that, because we shall have an opportunity to do so on another occasion. I say simply that I support the views of my hon. Friend the Member for Chichester (Mr. Nelson) and of the hon. Member for Middlesbrough (Mr. Bell) rather than other views that have been expressed today.

This is the last occasion on which we shall have the opportunity to debate foreign affairs and the Gracious Speech in this Parliament. I may share with others the sense of wonder that none of us could have believed in

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1987 that the most significant international changes would take place. Those of us who have been here since 1987 have a sense of fortune in being involved in the tremendous and dramatic changes in the world scene, which are reflected in the Gracious Speech. My right hon. Friend the Member for Worcester (Mr. Walker) mentioned the two largest --the changes in the former Soviet Union and in South Africa. However, none of us should forget the relief of misery and the ending of conflict which have come about through the changes in Ethiopia, in Angola and in Cambodia, and we should not forget the changes in Vietnam, in Mozambique and in the western Sahara. Apart from the big changes, the populations of many other countries have had tremendous relief.

The changes represent diplomatic outlay by and diplomatic ability in this country. Although we may recognise that, those involved are often not thanked. Successive Foreign Secretaries, the ambassadorial input, the input of the Foreign and Commonwealth Office and especially the input of those who beaver away at the top of the Foreign and Commonwealth Office in dim Victorian rooms have made a tremendous contribution to the unique catalytic role which my right hon. Friend the Foreign Secretary mentioned.

We have invented new forms of assistance to match the overall situation. The know-how funds, for example, are widely appreciated in the newly emerging countries in eastern Europe. I mention especially the way in which we distributed aid in South Africa through the ambassadorial fund. We found a way in which we could help the black community directly and in the most positive way with considerable sums. We should repeat that in other countries and in other forms. I should like to see both that and the use of know-how funds extended. I recently saw a delegation from the new regime in Ethiopia, and it is obvious that that country needs know-how as much as anything. I hope that the Foreign Secretary will consider the extension of know-how to a much wider range of countries.

The authority of the United Nations is mentioned in the Queen's Speech and the Foreign Secretary spoke of what we are trying to do and of the involvement of the United Nations in Yugoslavia. The Queen's Speech also mentions the importance of making sure that Iraq complies with United Nations resolutions. It is equally important that the authority of the United Nations is upheld and supported wherever it is necessary. The Minister of State, Foreign and Commonwealth Office said today in an answer that we are giving £2 million or £3 million to assist with the repatriation of refugees in camps in Thailand. It is essential that the United Nations should be in there and that, having made this contribution, we should be in there supporting it, to make sure that the inhabitants of these camps, whether they are Khmer Rouge camps, Prince Sihanouk or Son Sann camps, are properly protected against being forced, against their will, across borders. I agree with the right hon. Member for Manchester, Gorton (Mr. Kaufman) that the same thing applies in the western Sahara. It is essential that the United Nations operation there is properly supported and that everything is done fairly. If we want to support the United Nations in its role and in the reorganisations that we have suggested, it is essential that we vote the means for that as well as talking about it. Those of us who work with refugees recognise how stretched are the resources of the United Nations,

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particularly those for the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, and those who have responsibility for coping with the enormous problems about which the hon. Member for Islington, North (Mr. Corbyn) has just spoken. We should be looking not just at what we give, but to ensuring that the United States and others pay their back dues. It is no good giving the United Nations a role and wanting it to carry out these measures on our behalf but not giving it the means to do so.

The same principle applies to the Foreign Office. We have seen significant changes world wide and that means that we should reappraise the amount of money that we devote to the diplomatic corps and to our aid budget. It is nonsense to close missions so that we can meet the new and welcome demand from the Baltic states and, for example, Phnom Penh. This applies also to the British Council, our arm of cultural diplomacy, which is facing unprecedented demands from the newly liberated countries which are looking out for English language teachers. I often say that if we thought as much about the English language and teaching it and all that that means as the French do about their language and the Alliance Francaise, we would back the British Council to the hilt. Wherever one goes in the world there is a constant demand for the teaching of the English language. I was interested to see that the first thing for which the Cambodians and Vietnamese asked-- even before getting rid of mines in Cambodia--was English language training. I am delighted that the Government have responded to that and are providing English language training as part of our aid.

The same thing goes for the World Service of the BBC. It is all part of our input into the world. I welcome the opening of the World Service television broadcast, which will have a tremendous impact throughout eastern Asia and places such as Burma and the middle east. The impact of the visual world, which cannot be kept out by undemocratic and dogmatic regimes, will have a tremendous effect on many communities.

Furthermore, it applies to the aid and trade provision. As countries become more prosperous, they will want to improve their infrastructure, but the aid and trade provision is exhausted because not enough money has been allocated, so even schemes that are within the rules are not approved. In all those sectors, we need a reappraisal, because this is the defence of the future--our information, our ability to influence, our use of the English language.

Refugee asylum is also mentioned in the Queen's Speech. I am chairman of the Africa committee of the British Refugee Council, so I have worked closely with refugees for a long time. I understood what my right hon. Friend the Foreign Secretary said about economic migration and refugees under the 1951 convention. Whether we see the Hong Kong boat people as economic migrants or refugees, and irrespective of how we see the hapless millions in Africa who move across boundaries, we must understand that these people need protection and help, even in the short term.

It is no good closing our eyes to asylum and the pressures on our European borders--the borders of affluent countries--if we do nothing to resolve economic problems that cause people to become economic migrants. The two factors go hand in hand. Unless there is a transfer of resources of the dimension that is necessary in terms of trade agreements and aid, we are not beginning to tackle the problem of economic migration, which I forecast will

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be the greatest problem that Europe and other parts of the world will face over the next 50 years. It will be a growing problem. There will be enormous pressure from the poorer peoples of the world as they seek to improve their situations by moving into more affluent countries.

With any changes to any rules about asylum or about dealing with short-term refugees, we must consider the essential element of the transfer of resources in a meaningful way. I believe that my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister has the necessary vision. When he was Chancellor of the Exchequer he started the orginal debt initiatives. He has gone it alone at Harare and I am sure that we all support that in every possible way. I hope that he will put forward this essential consideration in his various roles.

One of the ways in which that can be done--again, this is mentioned in the Queen's Speech--is by our support for the conference that will take place in Buenos Aires in June 1992 on the environment and on aid. It might be the opportunity of a world summit, or an earth summit, at which we can involve the public in Britain and throughout Europe in understanding that we have a common environment throughout the world. We all share that. We have a common economic future in this world and we all share that, too. The summit may be an opportunity--I know that my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister is encouraging other Heads of State to attend it--that will enable us to put over to the British population the need to recognise that there is a balance, an interdependence and a need for the transfer of resources.

1.22 pm

Mr. Tony Banks (Newham, North-West) : The hon. Member for Broxtowe (Mr. Lester) holds the attention of the House when he speaks on foreign affairs, and rightly so. He has such expertise and a liberal attitude to such matters. His speech was both thoughtful and exceedingly interesting. I wish to underline his support for the United Nations in the new world order that everyone talks so much about these days, and especially his comments about the British Council, the work of the council, and the BBC World Service. All Governments have failed in many respects in not giving to the British Council and the BBC World Service the resources that they merit. People throughout the world seem to admire these institutions, and far more than we appear to do in Britain. That is strange. I hope that the hon. Gentleman's words will fall on sympathetic ears when the Minister of State replies.

I listen to the BBC World Service all the time. I like to think that I share a love of the World Service and an interest in it with Mr. Gorbachev, who gave it one of the best unsolicited testaments that anyone could when he said that while being held prisoner he heard about what was going on in the world by listening to the World Service. I do not think that anything could have a higher commendation.

I shall be brief because I realise that at least two other hon. Members wish to take part in the debate. I shall refer to two subjects, neither of which will meet with the accord of my very good friend, my hon. Friend the Member for Bolsover (Mr. Skinner). I shall not, however, let my hon. Friend hold me back during the few minutes that I shall use to unbridle myself.

I shall refer first to Yugoslavia. I listened with great interest to my hon. Friend the Member for Liverpool,

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West Derby (Mr. Wareing) when he recounted all the difficulties that one experiences in that unhappy country, or what is left of it at the moment. I do not claim to have my hon. Friend's detailed knowledge, but I remember my attitude when the Council of Europe recently passed a resolution calling for an armed intervention force in Yugoslavia under the aegis of the United Nations. I supported it as someone who opposed armed intervention in Iraq. I have the feeling that if oil supplies were somehow caught up in the Yugoslavian position, an armed intervention force would already be in that country.

I was pleased to note that the Gracious Speech referred to the Queen attending the European Parliament and the Council of Europe. That is excellent.

Mr. David Atkinson (Bournemouth, East) : My understanding is that Her Majesty the Queen is visiting the Council of Europe because its headquarters are also the seat of the European Parliament. However, I regret that it does not appear that she is to address the Council of Europe, of which the hon. Gentleman and I are Assembly members.

Mr. Banks : I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman because that point was not made clear in the Gracious Speech. Perhaps someone should point it out to the Queen, who may think that she will be addressing the Assembly of the Council of Europe. I believe that she should address that Assembly. As the hon. Gentleman and I know, it is usual to ask questions of visiting heads of state, but I suspect that we would not be allowed to ask the Queen any questions. I should like to ask her a few questions, such as what she really feels about the right hon. Member for Finchley (Mrs. Thatcher).

Perhaps the Prime Minister, in the few months left to him in that position, will think about visiting the Council of Europe Assembly so that we can determine whether the British Government actually envisage a role for the Council of Europe. I hope that the Government will provide time for a proper debate on Council of Europe affairs. I attend the Assembly as a Member of this House and I should like the opportunity to report back to the House, during a proper debate, on what I am doing in the Council of Europe.

I want to return to the question of an armed intervention force in Yugoslavia under the aegis of the United Nations Security Council. That seems to be an appropriate way to proceed. It is a European problem that must have a European solution. We cannot sit idly by and watch Yugoslavia tear itself to pieces, watch people being killed in vast numbers, and watch the wonderful archaeological and architectural gems being destroyed, while saying that there is nothing that we can do. We cannot even get the Government to say that they will fully support oil sanctions against Yugoslavia. The Minister of State said that the Greeks would not be too happy about imposing oil sanctions. That is not acceptable. It is no good doing one thing in Iraq and something completely different in Yugoslavia. We should intervene and it is something that the Western European Union could undertake. I understand the problems, but an armed intervention force would give everyone the opportunity to seek a political solution.

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As my hon. Friend the Member for Bolsover said, the answer does not lie in a permanent military force in Yugoslavia, because that would not lead to a political resolution of the problem--as is the case in Northern Ireland. However, we now have an opportunity to show that Europe can address European problems and that we will intervene in a way that will give the people of Yugoslavia the opportunity to sit down together and find a peaceful solution to the problems. My other point relates to developments in Europe, and especially the run-up to the Maastricht intergovernmental conference. When there was a change of leadership in the Conservative party, many European leaders--and, indeed, hon. Members--felt that that would lead to a dramatic change of attitude on Britain's position within the EEC. There have been some changes, but they have not been dramatic. It is clear once again, Britain is in a minority of one within the EEC, especially on monetary union. The opt-out clause is a fig leaf that the Prime Minister is clutching to his private parts to cover the serious disagreements in his party, and especially the objections from its right wing.-- [Interruption.] The right hon. Gentleman does not need a fig leaf to protect himself against my hon. Friend the Member for Bolsover, he needs a suit of armour.

Mr. Skinner : He wears his pants outside his shirt as well.

Mr. Banks : That is probably why he needs to hold a general election, to get his clothes on the right way.

We know that ultimately there will be a single European currency and that Britain will go along with it. The right hon. Member for Finchley used to stand on the sidelines wringing her hands, carping and whingeing, but in the end she went along with things. Unfortunately, she was never able really to influence developments in the way that Britain should, by being right in the middle of events, and being seen as a joint, willing partner in Europe--not a country that is always ducking and diving and looking for ways of putting party and even narrow national interests before those of the wider European concept.

As my hon. Friend the Member for Bolsover knows, I changed my position on Europe. Yesterday, the Prime Minister had a go at my right hon. Friend the Leader of the Opposition for having changed his position. The world has changed so dramatically, as speech after speech has emphasised. Who could have believed, when we debated the Queen's Speech two or three years ago, that such changes would occur? And so, too, must the positions adopted by political leaders and other politicians change.

I used to view the European Community as being an economic and political bloc confronting the East and COMECON, and that is why I did not believe that it was uniting Europe. It seemed to be dividing it. However, when I heard Mr. Gorbachev speaking at the Council of Europe in Strasbourg in 1989, about a common European home, I could perceive an image of Europe that made me feel far more European than I had ever done before. I felt that there was nothing to fear from a united states of Europe with a single currency. We must look forward to such developments. They are historically inevitable.

As I have told the House before on numerous occasions, the days of the nation state are coming to an end. What does parliamentary sovereignty mean? We lost

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ours a long time ago, but some people are still clinging to it, as they would to a piece of wreckage, in the hope that it will remain afloat. It is nonsense to think in those terms.

Mr. Skinner : My hon. Friend is right to talk about nation states in some respects, but today we are seeing the dismantling of conglomerations. The Soviet Union now has 17 different nation states. My hon. Friend spoke earlier of his desire to see armed intervention in Yugoslavia on behalf of the Pope. I remind him that there are examples of states coming together-- as they have done in the Common Market--but then having to co-exist so closely that they cannot stand the sight of one another and begin to fall apart. In another 10 or 12 years, history will show that it is more likely that nation states will look after themselves to a greater extent than hitherto. That is my view of what will happen in the Common Market, especially now that there are 5 million homeless people in the Community and on its borders. It is not the great economic miracle that we have heard about.

Mr. Banks : I have been accused of many things, but never of being a papal legate. I am not taking sides in respect of Croatia and Serbia. There probably is no future for a united Yugoslavia, and Marshal Tito's ability to hold that federation together was a marvellous testimony to his abilities. I always disagree with my hon. Friend the Member for Bolsover with great reluctance, but I do not think that he is right on this occasion. In the case of the Soviet Union, we are witnessing the break-up of an empire, but in the EEC, mature countries are voluntarily coming together. It is not that a military force is telling them, "You will do this."

In the aftermath of an empire, there will inevitably be an upsurge of nationalism in Europe, but gravity will bring states back together as we move towards that common European home to which Mr. Gorbachev referred--a Europe that stretches from the Atlantic to the Urals. On this occasion my hon. Friend's great vision has deserted him. What he sees is the reverse of what is actually happening. This is one of the few occasions on which I have disagreed with my hon. Friend either in the House or outside.

Lastly, I must mention the European social charter. There was an interesting article in The Independent yesterday, containing an interview with the European Social Affairs Commissioner, Mrs. Papandreou, who said that the British Government

"is against anything called social. They want to create an internal market for enterprises, but not take care of workers".

That is true both in this country and in a wider European context. Mrs. Papandreou can see that clearly, as we can too. In the interview she also attacked the rather imaginative use of statistics by the Secretary of State for Employment, who uses statistics as an art form rather than a precise science. Mrs. Papandreou wanted to know where he obtained the peculiar figures, with an error factor of anything up to 100 per cent., that he uses to discuss the social charter, a limit on the number of hours worked, maternity leave for pregnant women, and so on. The Prime Minister went along for another photo opportunity the other day, to talk about opportunities for women as we approach the year 2000. Yet again he makes sure that something decent coming out of Europe will be opposed by the Government. That is a scandal which we shall continue to expose.

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One of the things that the people of this country can look forward to in a wider Europe is a fairer social regime-- that is the other side of the Single European Act. If the Government are not prepared to render it, my right hon. Friend the Leader of the Opposition, when he is Prime Minister, will ensure that we get all the benefits of the European Community.

1.37 pm

Mr. David Atkinson (Bournemouth, East) : I welcome all the proposals in the Queen's Speech, as, no doubt, do the vast majority of my constituents. Before commenting on foreign affairs, I shall refer to two proposals affecting local government and higher education.

I have always believed that it was a great mistake to abolish the county boroughs in 1973. They were the finest units of local government in the world. I do not believe that schools, social services, roads, libraries, public protection and traffic management in my constituency have been better served by the remote control from county hall, given the conflicting priorities of a mainly rural county, without the benefit of the personal local knowledge and accountability that borough councillors can provide. We in Bournemouth welcome the review and the prospect of a return to a unitary authority.

As for higher education, Bournemouth, having only recently attained polytechnic status for its college, never dreamed that the opportunity for it to become a university would arise quite so soon. However, I have two reservations. First, the dramatic increase that has already taken place in student numbers has not always been matched by a similar increase in the quality of teaching, in the number of tutors, or in equipment and facilities. As a result, students are having to wait too long to use computers and borrow books, and for space to work in libraries and access to their tutors. So the dream of higher education becomes a nightmare.

My second reservation concerns the implications of the proposals for research funding for the private sector of higher education. An illustration is provided by the pioneering research into the diagnosis and treatment of spinal pain undertaken by the Anglo-European College of Chiropractic in my constituency. Back pain is one of the most costly health care problems in the western industrial world today, and a recent report from the Medical Research Council has demostrated the superiority of chiropractic over national health service treatment. The potential savings are enormous. The demise of the Council for National Academic Awards and the denial of funding threatens private research and institutions of excellence such as that college.

The proposals to deal with asylum seekers relate to the broader issues that arise concerning what should be done in today's new world order to end the abuses of human and minority rights which cause such people to become refugees. There can be no doubt, as several Members have said, that one of the principal problems facing western Europe in the next decade will be the massive demand for a better life in the west before the new market economies of eastern Europe can deliver jobs and prosperity.

We must never allow our procedures to deny asylum to genuine refugees in fear for their lives ; nor must we be as hostile or unsympathetic as I fear many of our consulates in eastern Europe are towards those seeking visas merely to enable them to visit this country as tourists or to explore

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