House of Commons Hansard Debates for 2 Jul 1992

Mr. Newton : In reply to the hon. Member for Roxburgh and Berwickshire (Mr. Kirkwood), who is no longer in his place, I drew attention to the opportunities for raising various matters next week. That was not intended to be a flat negative to his suggestion, but I cannot promise that a particular statement will be made at a particular time.

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Miss Joan Lestor (Eccles) : Bearing in mind the Prime Minister's instant dismissal of the definition of poverty given by the National Children's Home last month, although that definition reflected the experience of many of my constituents and, I am sure, the constituents of many of my hon. Friends, will the Leader of the House arrange for the Prime Minister to give us his definition of poverty and arrange for a debate on the matter at the earliest possible moment?

Mr. Newton : In a relatively recent incarnation, I had considerable experience of arguments about definitions of poverty. No Government of any colour have signed up to a definition of poverty. It was at least as much resisted by the right hon. Member for Salford, East (Mr. Orme) when he was Minister for Social Security as by anybody else. There are genuine difficulties, and that is the point that my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister was making.

Mr. Alistair Darling (Edinburgh, Central) : Further to the right hon. Gentleman's reply to my hon. Friend the Member for Bradford, West (Mr. Madden), is the Leader of the House aware that the European convention on frontier control is a classified document and that it will not become public until after it comes into force? There is no point in our purportedly holding Ministers to account if we cannot discuss treaties of that importance. Does he not understand that that matter goes to the heart of parliamentary democracy and that we should be able to discuss such matters before they come into force rather than when we face a fait accompli? Will the right hon. Gentleman urge the Home Secretary to come to the House to make a statement on what is in the draft treaty and let us have a debate so that we can discuss it properly?

Mr. Newton : As I have now said a couple of times, there has certainly been no attempt to conceal from anybody the points that are covered by the draft convention. It is, as I understand it, normal practice that draft conventions of that kind are laid before the House when they have been signed. I was making no more than that point.

Mr. Alun Michael (Cardiff, South and Penarth) : Will the Leader of the House give a firm assurance that he will

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make time available before the recess either for the Home Secretary to introduce the legislation that will be necessary to delay or cancel local government elections in Wales next year, or for a statement from the Home Secretary or the Secretary of State for Wales that there will be no such cancellation? Does he accept that it would be intolerable for us to go from the House for the summer recess without the question whether there will be local government elections next year answered firmly and once and for all?

Mr. Newton : I shall draw the hon. Gentleman's request to the attention of my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Wales, who is my appropriate right hon. Friend in that respect.

Mr. D. N. Campbell-Savours (Workington) : On a point of order, Madam Speaker. You will have heard the Leader of the House refer to a whisper from his right hon. Friend the Foreign Secretary about the fact that the Foreign Secretary was likely to make a statement on aid to Yugoslavia during his statement at the beginning of the next debate. Is not that a prime example of how development issues are being marginalised in the House of Commons? Because a Development Minister is not in the House of Commons but only in the other place, statements are now being grafted on the back--

Madam Speaker : Order. The hon. Gentleman had the privilege of making that point earlier and he was heard in good order by the House. I hear no whispers whatsoever in the House. We have to wait for the debate to see what statements are to be made.

Mr. Campbell-Savours : Further to my point of order, Madam Speaker. I am sorry to press it, but it is a very important issue of principle. I am not alluding to the question that I asked. I am simply saying that, historically, statements were made to the House of Commons by Aid Ministers on such matters. That is no longer the case. When an important statement has to be made on matters relating to aid and development, the Foreign Secretary makes them in the course of other statements that he is making to the House, as indeed is happening today.

Madam Speaker : That is not a matter for the Chair.

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Consolidated Fund (Appropriation) Bill

4.8 pm

Madam Speaker : I have a short statement to make about arrangements for the debate on the motion for the Adjourment which will follow the passing of the Consolidated Fund (Appropriation) Bill on Thursday 9 July.

Hon. Members should submit their subjects to my office not later than 10 pm on Tuesday 7 July. A list showing the subjects and times will be published the following day. Normally, the time allotted will not exceed one and a half hours, but I propose to exercise a little discretion to allow one or two debates to continue for rather longer, up to a maximum of three hours.

Where identical or similar subjects have been entered by different hon. Members whose names are drawn in the ballot, only the first name will be shown on the list. As some debates may not last the full time allotted to them, I remind hon. Members that it is their responsibility to keep in touch with developments if they are not to miss their turn.

Statutory Instruments, &c.

Madam Speaker : With permission, I shall put together the motions relating to Statutory Instruments.

Motion made, and Question put forthwith pursuant to Standing Order No. 101(3) (Standing Committees on Statutory Instruments &c.).

Data Protection

That the draft Data Protection (Regulation of Financial Services etc.) (Subject Access Exemption) (Amendment) Order 1992 be referred to a Standing Committee on Statutory Instruments, &c.

Rights of the subject

That the draft Access to Personal Files (Housing) (Scotland) Regulations 1992 be referred to a Standing Committee on Statutory Instruments, &c.-- [Mr. Wood.]

Question agreed to.

Mr. Bob Cryer (Bradford, South) : On a point of order, Madam Speaker. You will recall that earlier we had a discussion about "Erskine May". If we are to go into arguments about the use of words with which some of us will disagree, it might be helpful if copies of "Erskine May" were available to Members. There is no copy of "Erskine May" in either Lobby. That is extremely unusual. Some hon. Member may have taken it.

Mr. Tony Banks (Newham, North-West) : You cannot trust anyone.

Mr. Cryer : My hon. Friend may make fun, but the point is important because "Erskine May" is the document under which the proceedings of the Chamber are conducted. For some years, Mr. Maxwell-Hyslop, a former Member of Parliament, urged strongly that hon. Members should be provided with a copy of "Erskine May". This might be a good moment to consider that, because the document may become increasingly useful.

Madam Speaker : That is a matter which may well be looked into. I may tell the hon. Gentleman that there has not been a list of prohibited words in "Erskine May" for many years.

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European Community (United Kingdom Presidency)

Motion made, and Question proposed, That this House do now adjourn.-- [Mr. Boswell.]

[Relevant documents : European Community Documents Nos. 10962/89 ADD1, relating to Turkey's application for membership, 7867/91, relating to Austria's application for membership, 9497/91, relating to higher education in the Community, and the unnumbered Explanatory Memorandum submitted by the Foreign and Commonwealth Office on 28th February 1992, relating to the Commission's programme for 1992.] Madam Speaker There is a great deal of interest in the debate so I have to limit speeches to 10 minutes between 7 pm and 9 pm. Would those who speak outside that time please exercise voluntary restraint in fairness to others?

4.11 pm

The Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs (Mr. Douglas Hurd) : Before I turn to the internal affairs of the Community, perhaps I could say something about the tragedy outside the Community's borders which, on present showing, is likely to take up more of the time of the Foreign Office during our presidency than any other single matter.

I am not particularly optimistic about the next six months in Yugoslavia. The way in which the country has disintegrated is clearly a disaster for its people. The peoples of Yugoslavia could not be held together by force, and the attempt to keep something together by consent was wrecked. The result is the unleashing of destructive hatred on a scale which will not be easily or quickly checked. It certainly cannot be halted from outside.

However, we must go on trying. I shall discuss the means of doing so in a moment. It would be wrong in my experience to suppose that this would best be done in the old-fashioned way, with Britain, France, Germany, Italy and so on choosing their clients and backing them against each other. It must be right to work out, through discussion and argument, the most concerted approach possible of the Twelve. That task falls to the presidency.

Yugoslavia had been teetering on the brink of crisis for some years before the unilateral declarations of independence a year ago by Slovenia and Croatia. That brought tension to a new pitch. Before last summer, it was my hope that the republics could establish new patterns of co-operation--a Yugoslavia by consent.

The ethnic picture is too complicated to allow a neat division of the territory. Almost one in five marriages are across ethnic lines. The republics are a mosaic of different groups. Towns, villages and even apartment blocks are mixed. The economies of the six republics are too closely intertwined to allow for a quick divorce. Their main lines of communication lie through each other's territories. Although it was clearly right to hope for a Yugoslavia by consent, during last summer and autumn that hope faded. Still we sought a general settlement which dealt with the legitimate interests of all the peoples of Yugoslavia and did not single out particular cases. Then we said that, under certain conditions, we would recognise individual republics. In mid-January, the Twelve recognised Croatia and Slovenia. The timing will continue to be a matter of discussion. Some say that we acted too hastily. Most Opposition Members still hold that view. Some say that we

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did not act fast enough. Left to themselves, the Germans would have recognised them a good deal earlier than the British, and the French somewhat later.

Looking back, we see that there was never an ideal moment in the crisis when such action could have had a decisive influence on bringing about a painless peace. That has taught us a lesson that we must remember : we have to recognise the limits of what outsiders can do. Such developments do not yield too easily to external influences or logic, because history, hatred and revenge remain powerful. Local leaders do not respond readily, even to neighbours who are their nominal superiors. The brokering of agreements entails showing several awkward and reluctant people simultaneously that their interests will be best served by compromise.

We can have a part in trying to achieve such compromises. The two previous presidencies, the Dutch and the Portuguese, have followed a twin-track policy that we shall continue. The United Nations is responsible for peacekeeping. The Community has a general remit from the conference on security and co-operation in Europe to try to make peace.

We have a dual role as president of the Council of Ministers and a permanent member of the Security Council. I hope that that will make it a little easier to co-ordinate action between the United Nations and the EC-- I was covering such matters at lunch with the Secretary-General of the United Nations in an attempt to do just that.

Mr. Tony Banks (Newham, North-West) : Is it not a great tragedy that it has taken the United States to send forces into the region, when that should have been a matter for the European Community? Surely, if the Serbian irregulars in the hills around Sarajevo start lobbing bombs and mortars into that city, we should give those irregulars an ultimatum : if they do not cease their action, Western European Union military forces under United Nations jurisdiction should be used to destroy the batteries in the hills around Sarajevo.

Mr. Hurd : I shall come to that issue, but it is much easier to propose such an operation than to carry it out, and a great deal easier to start it than to bring it to a successful end.

The Community has two main pieces of machinery available. The first is Lord Carrington's conference and its sub-committees, which we shall reinforce during our presidency. We owe a considerable debt to Lord Carrington, who has no personal motive in taking on the thankless task towards the end of his distinguished public career. He is flying to Sarajevo again tomorrow in another attempt to bring together and suggest solutions to leaders in that country. The second piece of machinery, which is much less well know, is the EC monitoring mission. In the coming weeks, I shall try to ensure that what it does is better understood, as its staff, who operate locally, are in many ways the unsung heroes of the conflict. They are young men and women who defuse local tensions and keep peace between villages in Croatia. The conference deals with large-scale political problems, and the monitors deal with the local, but potentially just as explosive, issues.

There has been considerable investment in both equipment and manpower. We now have 55 staff at the mission, and 15 rank-and-file monitors who are retired

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service officers are on contract to the Foreign Office. There is also a 40-strong headquarters staff, of whom 10 are FCO officials and 30 are service officers. We have just appointed Mr. Ramsay Melhuish, formerly our ambassador in Bangkok, to lead the mission, supported by General David Cranston. I hope that, as the House learns more of what those at the mission are doing on behalf of peace in Yugoslavia, it will give them increasing recognition and support in their difficult and dangerous work.

Mr. Robert N. Wareing (Liverpool, West Derby) : I accept what the Foreign Secretary says about Lord Carrington and the work of the monitors, some of whom I met in Croatia. I am disturbed that, during the six months of our presidency, there may well be a recurrence of violence in Croatia, not only in Bosnia-Herzegovina. It is essential that great pressure should be exerted on President Tudjman, as he does not have a good reputation, and the human rights record in Croatia is not strong. The people who live in Krajina, who are mainly Serbs, are denied Croatian citizenship. Although it is right to sanction Serbia, it is equally right to put the utmost possible pressure on the Croatians.

Mr. Hurd : I agree that it is certainly important to keep up the positive pressure on President Tudjman in Croatia.

Mr. David Winnick (Walsall, North) rose --

Mr. Hurd : I shall give way to the hon. Gentleman, but then I should like to get on.

Mr. Winnick : To avoid any misunderstanding arising from the intervention by my hon. Friend the Member for Newham, North-West (Mr. Banks), is the Foreign Secretary aware that there is bound to be considerable support for the humanitarian measures that he mentioned, such as the airlift and monitoring, but there is no support in the House or in the country for military intervention on a large scale, or of any kind, with the possible repercussions of getting bogged down in a civil war? Can the Foreign Secretary assure the House that, if there is any question of such intervention during the long summer recess, the House will be recalled? The Government would need the authority of the House to follow that course, and I hope that they will not embark on it.

Mr. Hurd : The hon. Member's point has general support in the House. I have certainly found that to be the case in all the questions and supplementary questions that I have answered on the subject. I have no plans for, and I do not think that there is any likelihood of our wishing to propose, the intervention of British ground troops in a hostile situation.

The UN protection force is nearly fully deployed in its three areas of responsibility in Croatia, and, as the hon. Member for Walsall, North (Mr. Winnick) knows, it includes a British field ambulance team of nearly 300 men--which is why I chose my words carefully--who are deployed there for medical help. UNPROFOR will shortly have a Canadian battalion at Sarajevo airport. It has done a good job of partially reopening the airport for relief supplies.

I have just checked and the latest situation gives some grounds for optimism. President Mitterrand's brave flight to the city has helped to create a chance, and the

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international community must now establish itself in charge of Sarajevo airport. Obviously control of the airport is vital if relief supplies are to get in.

I am sorry that the hon. Member for Workington (Mr.

Campbell-Savours) should think that it is demeaning to the House if, as the Secretary of State responsible for overseas aid, I give the Government's views on such matters rather than my noble Friend Baroness Chalker, who is in charge of the Overseas Development Administration. Despite his disapproval, let me do so.

The humanitarian situation is our first concern. The UN High Commissioner for Refugees is establishing the needs of the Bosnians quickly and accurately. Now that the airport is temporarily open and in the hands of the UN, experts will be able to assess exactly what is needed and to order supplies such as baby foods, basic foodstuffs and medicines and distribute them through the four depots which have already been identified in the city centre.

As from today, our aircraft are taking part in the international effort under UN auspices. They held back at the specific request of the UN, which did not want a flow of unco-ordinated aircraft into the airport which was imperfectly controlled. For the moment that has been resolved and our Hercules planes are beginning to fly, first to Zagreb and then, as part of the co-ordinated effort, to Sarajevo. This is in addition to the £9.7 million that we British have provided, in different ways, for humanitarian relief in Yugoslavia.

Mr. D. N. Campbell-Savours (Workington) : May I clarify the position? None of us wants military intervention. Is the Foreign Secretary ruling out air cover for supplies provided to Sarajevo in Hercules transport planes which might be at risk?

Mr. Hurd : There are no plans for that, but that was not covered by my remarks, which were in answer to a question about ground troops. There is no plan for that because the humanitarian effort is unresisted. There is a certain amount of firing, but there are clearly no attacks on those bringing relief supplies or on the Canadians guarding the airport.

If that situation were to change, I am sure that the Security Council would want to consider the matter and perhaps consider a new resolution--but that is all ifs. At the moment the situation is as I have said.

What can we realistically hope to achieve in six months? In the best case, we could succeed during our presidency in bringing about a ceasefire which lasts in Bosnia, keeping the ceasefire in Croatia, reducing the tension in Kosovo, which I have not talked about but which one of my hon. Friends asked me about yesterday, brokering a settlement between the former Yugoslavia republic of Macedonia and Greece, and getting all the main parties closer to a general settlement. But, as I have said, I am not optimistic, because one can see further tragedies waiting to happen : renewed fighting in Croatia and Bosnia or an outbreak in Kosovo and continued deadlock elsewhere.

I do not believe--this is a point that I was going to make anyway--that the House would readily accept that it was right to send British troops to seek to settle by force any of these problems. The risk of that would be greater than the likely benefits. But, short of that, I am clear that we must do everything we can, and we will use all sensible

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means, to deal with this linked chain of crises, which is a nightmare to the peoples of Yugoslavia and a continuing reproach to Europe as a whole.

Mr. Tony Banks : Will the right hon. Gentleman give way ?

Mr. Hurd : No, I will not give way to the hon. Gentleman again. Mr. Banks rose--

Madam Speaker : Order. The Foreign Secretary has said that he is not giving way.

Mr. Hurd : It follows from that that at all kinds of meetings in the next six months my colleagues and I will have to take the chair in discussions on Yugoslav matters. I would not be happy to do that unless I had been to the area. I have met, I suppose, most of the main protagonists in one way or another, but never in the country itself. So I intend--

Mr. Banks : On a point of order, Madam Speaker. The Secretary of State is in danger of misleading the House in respect of my comments.

Madam Speaker : Order. I do not think that we need to have any more of this this afternoon. What is the point of order for me ?

Mr. Banks : The point of order is this, Madam Speaker. It has been suggested subsequently that I suggested that ground troops should be sent to that part of the old Yugoslavia around Sarajevo. I never suggested that. I referred to military forces--

Madam Speaker : Order. It seems to me that by using a point of order the hon. Gentleman has made it absolutely clear now what he did say.

Mr. Hurd : If I misunderstood what the hon. Gentleman was suggesting, I certainly apologise to him. His intervention enabled me to make the point that I wanted to make in any case.

As I was saying, because I feel that I need to have first-hand knowledge and feeling of what is going on, I plan to visit the area the week after next to get a first-hand impression of what is happening. I hope to go to as many of the Yugoslav republics as I can and also to Tirana, the capital of Albania.

There is one other international matter which will take up a good deal of time, I hope, in the first weeks of our presidency. It is the search for agreement in the Uruguay round of the general agreement on tariffs and trade. This is not just because the Uruguay round affects our own prosperity, but because it affects our ability and the ability of others to help the developing world, and it affects also their ability to help themselves.

We discuss so often in this House and in international meetings all kinds of schemes, often quite minor, to help the less well-off countries, but an agreement in the Uruguay round would dwarf all the other schemes which I have heard discussed this past year. There is an opportunity. If it is let slip, we do our own interests a disservice, but equally we do a disservice to the interests of those in the poorer parts of the world. We want to conclude the round quickly ; we want to get to the finishing post, which I believe is within our reach.

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We are to have a summit next week with the Group of Seven leaders at Munich. That offers us a chance to cover the last few yards. The key, as those who follow the matter know, is agreement between the European Community and the United States on a number of agriculture matters. The Community's agreement to reform the CAP may provide--could provide--the means of breakthrough. I am convinced that the remaining differences on agriculture between the EC and the United States could be resolved quickly. They are narrow in substance, because progress has been made, but they are of great political importance. That is the difficulty. But the difficulties are outweighed by the huge advantages to the whole trading world of an agreement.

At Lisbon last weekend the European Council instructed the Commission negotiators to reach an early agreement on agriculture with the United States. We welcome that. We are doing all that we can to support the Commission's efforts. We are in close touch with all our main GATT partners, including the United States.

Sir Teddy Taylor (Southend, East) : To avoid any misunderstanding, because the Government must know, are the CAP reforms likely to increase or decrease total public expenditure on agriculture within the EC?

Mr. Hurd : I do not think that they will yield any savings, but, by shifting the way in which agriculture is helped, they make it easier to reach a settlement in the GATT round, and that is the point that I am on at the moment.

Mr. Robert Hughes (Aberdeen, North) : I understand perfectly well why the Foreign Secretary has devoted a lengthy passage of his speech to Yugoslavia and I accept the importance of the GATT round, but he will not be surprised to hear that I am gravely disturbed that on external matters he has said not one word about the way in which the EC and the Foreign Ministers seek to deal with the situation in South Africa, which is equally grave. I hope that the right hon. Gentleman will say something on that before he sits down.

Mr. Hurd : I cannot deal with everything. I answered a question on South Africa at some length yesterday and the hon. Gentleman will have opportunities to press me on it if he so wishes. I would rather not be diverted on to that at present.

Mr. Tam Dalyell (Linlithgow) : Will the Foreign Secretary give way?

Mr. Hurd : No ; I must get on.

Mr. Dalyell : It is not on Libya.

Mr. Hurd : I dare say that there are a number of other things that it is not on, but I shall still not give way to the hon. Gentleman, at least not for a bit. I shall give way later.

The House has had many opportunities recently, as I well know, to question Ministers about the consequences of the Danish referendum, on which I have nothing new to add today. We are in a period of pause. One uncertainty was removed by the Irish referendum and another will be settled one way or another by the French vote on 20 September. The third uncertainty is the position of the Danes.

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The Danish Government cannot ratify the treaty because of the referendum result in Denmark, but neither have they told us that they will not ratify in future. Instead they haved asked for time to consider their options. They have said that all options are open, and that is fair enough. We need to know in the autumn how they intend to proceed and how the rest of us might help. Denmark clearly cannot be coerced, nor can she be excluded. She is a member of the Community in good standing and she will take over the presidency from us on new year's day. When we know in the autumn how Denmark intends to proceed we can judge when it would be right to ask the House to proceed with the legislation needed to ratify the treaty here.

The Prime Minister has repeatedly stressed our support for the treaty that we negotiated in good faith. I am clear myself that our efforts to achieve the Community that we want, to which I am coming in a minute, need to build on ratification of the treaty rather than on its destruction.

Mrs. Margaret Ewing (Moray) : This is one of the fundamental points of how we progress post-Maastricht and post the Danish referendum. Is there any possibility whatever that the Government will be dropping the idea that there should be unanimity among all member states for the ratification process? Is the right hon. Gentleman setting a clear deadline for the middle of the autumn whereby Denmark will have to say whether it will remain a member of the Community?

Mr. Hurd : To answer the hon. Lady's second point, I am not going to be precise about timing. As to her first question, it is neither our wish not within our means to drop the requirement for unanimity in ratifying the Maastricht treaty.

The interest in Maastricht will not distract us from the rest of our programme. The completion of the single European market has long been the Government's objective, and we are nearly there. It is important to get the right single market. It must be liberal and open. Our future wealth depends on our manufacturing industries and services remaining internationally competitive. It must be right to build a home market for European firms that is larger than America and twice as large as Japan and Australasia.

The first task of our presidency is to complete as best we can the necessary legislation. There has been recent progress. The air liberalisation package agreed last week by my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Transport is a good one, but as one reaches the end of a process and tackles the last 10 per cent. of the single market, one reaches the most difficult issues.

We want agreement especially on road transport, energy, and medicines. We want to help to set the agenda for after 1992. The single market, once agreed, must work efficiently, and there must be effective enforcement. The key legislation must be implemented and enforced. That is why, at our suggestion, the Maastricht treaty gave the European Court of Justice the power, for the first time, to fine member states if they fail to implement the rules that they agreed. The single market is something on which all 12 member states have basically agreed for years. The work has been in the detail. In the end there was a treaty which we all

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signed and which we have all, throughout the presidencies of all 12 member states, worked meticulously to implement.

In the next six months, three other matters will arise on which, in the past, Britain has pressed the Community particularly hard. At first, it was uphill on all three, but we now have strong allies. The flow of ideas is in our favour, and we can give each of the three a further push.

We want to enlarge the Community, we want the Community to practise the same self-restraint in spending that most national Governments how have to exercise, and we want to restrain the Commission's intrusiveness.

Britain has long stood for a wider Europe, starting with the EFTA countries --which will in any case be economically linked to the Community from the start of next year because of the successful negotiation of the European Economic Area. At Lisbon last weekend, we agreed that preparations for negotiations for the accession of the EFTA countries should go ahead under the British presidency. Austria, Sweden, Finalnd, and Switzerland have already applied, and Norway may follow in November. Those countries are applying to join the union set out in the Maastricht treaty.

Much preparation is needed. We must complete the mandates for the Commission to negotiate with those applicants. By the time of the European Council meeting in Edinburgh in December, we aim to have all those preparations in place--we were working that out with the Commissioner yesterday--so that negotiations can be launched as soon as future financing is settled and the Maastricht treaty is ratified. The aim is to complete negotiations during 1993 with a view to the countries that I named joining by 1995. That has for a long time been our preferred timetable. I agree that it is ambitious, but it is still realistic.

Mr. Dalyell : Has the right hon. Gentleman had time to consider the document published by the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds, "Greening Europe : the First Steps"? In particular, what consideration has been given to the EC's fifth environment action programme, "Towards Sustainability", and what progress is being made on reaching agreement and implementing it?

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