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Mr. Hogg : It was only a morsel and it was quickly eaten ; none the less, I apologise.
Both hon. Members, and others, dealt with reform of the Security Council. The Government are not seeking to
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change the composition of the Security Council, not least because it would require a change in the charter, which we do not want at the moment. I should be surprised--I speak now as a national politician rather than as a world statesman--if it were in the interests of France or the United Kingdom to promote such change. It is probably not in the interests of anybody else either, because for about the first time since the war the Security Council is working harmoniously together and the five permanent members have been constructive about the way in which the council has been using its power. We should not interrupt that which is going well. Moreover, there are many postulants, and whereas a Security Council of 15 may work extremely well I am far from sure that that would be true of a Security Council of 25 or 30.My hon. Friend the Member for Bexleyheath is right to say that the members of the Security Council have obligations. I hope that you, Madam Deputy Speaker, will feel that the Government are conscious of the obligations that they owe as a permanent member. It was with that consideration in mind, at least in part, that we deployed about 2,000 men to what was Yugoslavia, making us the second largest troop contributor to the region. It is why we have a large military presence in Cyprus and why we deployed military personnel to Cambodia. To answer the question of the hon. Member for Dundee, West (Mr. Ross), we do not plan to put troops into Somalia.
We have obligations in addition to the military ones that I have just described. We must keep our colleagues in the European Community closely informed. We must inform them of what is going on, must take and represent their views as appropriate and must be very sensitive to the aspirations and desires of other members of the European Community to have their interests fully reflected by us. We shall certainly do that.
Much of the debate has rightly focused on Bosnia. I echo and endorse what my hon. Friend the Member for Bexleyheath said. He told us to be cautious ; I agree. He said that we should concentrate on humanitarian work ; I agree. He said that we should not take sides ; I agree. I shall come to the question of the Cheshires in a moment, because I believe that that is the only source of disagreement between us.
It might be helpful to outline our policy in broad terms. It is a twofold policy : first, to do all that we can to promote a peace settlement by defining what seem to us to be the guiding principles and by excluding the things that are not acceptable. I have great respect for my hon. Friend the Member for Canterbury (Mr. Brazier), to whom I always listen with much attention, but I am bound to say that I wholly disagree with what he said about Bosnia. We will not allow Bosnia to be partitioned and we will not allow its frontiers to be disturbed by force. If we allowed that to happen, there would be anarchy in central and eastern Europe, so to those principles we will hold.
Lady Olga Maitland : Does not my right hon. and learned Friend agree that a political solution for Bosnia is the only answer at the end of the day, and that Milosevic's supporters must be made fully aware that if they continue to support him they will have to bear the consequences of any continuation of his expansionist programme ?
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Mr. Hogg : The present policies of the Serbian Government, which reinforce the warlike efforts of the Bosnian Serbs in Bosnia, will bring disaster on themselves and on the adjoining countries. The second part of our policy is to facilitate the delivery of humanitarian aid. That is why we thought it right and proper to deploy the Cheshire Regiment. I accept that that is a risky business, and that there are real hazards involved, but I tell my hon. Friend the Member for Bexleyheath that I believe the deployment of the Cheshire Regiment and the other members of UNPROFOR 2 has made a great contribution to the rest of the world's ability to deliver aid. I hope that we shall be able to continue that policy with the support of the House.
I say to the House--or rather, I say to this country, through you, Madam Deputy Speaker--that the House is greatly impressed by the courage and skill shown by the United Kingdom service men now in Bosnia and the rest of the former Yugoslavia. By that I mean the Cheshire Regiment, the field ambulance units in UNPROFOR 1 in Croatia, the RAF units flying sorties day on day into Sarajevo, and the RAF personnel who support them. What they are doing is worth doing, and the House thanks them for it.
Several specific points have been raised in that connection, including the no-fly zone for the Serbs. I should be very surprised if the Security Council felt it appropriate to allow grave breaches of the no-fly resolution to pass unpunished. Furthermore, if the Serbs used force in Kosovo that would introduce a new dimension to policy making ; it would be gravely contrary to the interests of Serbia to embark on such an exploit.
I entirely agree with the hon. Member for Dundee, West that the proper enforcement of the sanctions regime is the key to our policy. That is right. The House may not fully understand the success of the sanctions regime now in place. For example, industrial output in Serbia has fallen by 75 per cent. since December 1989, and trade is down by between 50 and 70 per cent. However, I concede that oil and petroleum products are crossing the frontiers into Bosnia in very much larger quantities than we would wish. It is possible that to some extent supplies may have been released by Milosevic from military stores. Nevertheless, supplies are getting across, and that is not good enough.
That is why resolution 787, which prohibits transhipment across Serbia of certain strategic products, was passed, about 14 days ago. As the House knows well, we have already put in place what are laughingly, or friendlily, called the SAMs--sanctions assistance missions. We are in the business of tightening sanctions enforcement and making sanctions bite. That is the policy of the Government, which we shall drive forward.
The hon. Member for Dundee, West also asked another question about Bosnia. The Muslim peoples are right to be concerned about what is happening in Bosnia. It is a crime. It is the worst tragedy in Europe since the end of the second world war. We are extraordinarily sensitive to the plight of the Bosnians in Bosnia. That is why I have to say, as robustly as I did to my hon. Friend the Member for Canterbury, that I cannot support his policy on partition and the forcible changing of frontiers. That is not our view of what is right. We believe that we need to achieve a settlement that respects people's religious, ethnic and civil rights within the frontiers of existing Bosnia.
Lord Owen and Cyrus Vance have come forward with a range of constitutional proposals which we back. We will
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not allow that country to be fragmented, occupied by others, eaten up by aggressors or partitioned. Anybody who supposes that the western world will accept that is making a grave error.The question of the budget was rightly fixed on by my hon. Friend the Member for Bexleyheath and by others as being of great concern to us. There has been a dispute about figures. I am always cautious when I come to figures because I normally get them wrong. I am especially cautious when the hon. Member for Linlithgow is in the House. I believe that the arrears at the moment are of the order--weasel words if I ever heard them--of $1.25 billion.
It is true that the United States is the largest debtor. The second largest debtor is the Russian Federation. We are deeply concerned about that. It is for that reason, at least in part, that we welcome the Secretary-General's decision to establish the international advisory group to advise on United Nations funding. The House will know that Sir David Scholey is the United Kingdom representative on that body.
There are some encouraging signs. President Bush has made it plain that he plans to pay off the outstanding arrears within a five-year term. Congress has appropriated $376 million for peacekeeping operations in 1993. The United States recently paid $229 million to the regular budget and $100 million to the peacekeeping amounts. There may be further payments. I understand that the Russian Government intend to pay off $130 million of arrears by 31 March 1993. Although the point was not raised, it is worth saying that we strongly support the peacekeeping reserve fund and we shall find ways, if we can, to fund that.
The hon. Member for Dundee, West and my hon. Friend the Member for Bexleyheath raised the important subject of the middle east which was also touched on by my hon. Friend the Member for Torridge and Devon, West (Miss Nicholson). Politicians, especially before elections, always talk about unique opportunities, so we should always be cautious about uttering or believing such a phrase. However, I actually believe that there is an opportunity to be grasped. If we do not secure peace within the foreseeable future, there is likely to be war in the middle east within a decade.
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All one can do at this stage is state principles. There are three principles worth stating. First, I believe that the security of Israel is of paramount importance and must be assured. Any scheme that does not provide for that will not be acceptable. Secondly and closely related to the first principle, the Palestinians are a people with a right to self-determination and with a right to land to make a reality of that self-determination. The hon. Member for Dundee, West is right ; negotiations must proceed on the basis of resolutions 242 and 338 because that is the only sensible way in which they can go forward.Thirdly, it would be a mistake for the Government of Israel to suppose that they can achieve a free-standing peace with any Arab state. In the end, the thing must be comprehensive, by which I mean separate peace with the an Arab states and an acceptable arrangement with the Palestinian people. One cannot get one without the other. The process has gone on for 13 months and it has been a grind. People have despaired from time to time. I say to those who are participating in the negotiations that they must grind on. The thing is worth the doing. I very much hope that everyone party to it will keep that fact well in mind and show the kind of flexibility and compromise that is necessary if we are to bring the thing to a necessary conclusion.
This has been an extremely instructive and helpful debate and there has been an extraordinary amount of consensus on both sides of the House. There is no doubt that the Security Council and the United Nations will be at the core of British foreign policy in future. I am glad to think that the House will rally behind that proposition. Question put and agreed to.
Resolved,
That this House pays tribute to the work of the United Nations and its agencies ; congratulates the Government on the success of the Summit Meeting of the Security Council on 31st January ; welcomes the Report of the Secretary-General Dr. Boutros Boutros-Ghali, An Agenda for Peace, that flowed from it ; considers that a speedy return by the United Kingdom to UNESCO is in the national interest ; and seeks further action from the Government to improve the ability of the United Nations to secure justice and human rights and to maintain international peace and security.
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Orders of the Day
Private Members' Bills
HOSPITAL SECURITY BILL
Order for Second Reading read.
To be read a Second time on Friday 11 December.
AIRPORTS (TOWN AND COUNTRY PLANNING) BILL
Order for Second Reading read.
To be read a Second time on Friday 11 December.
MISUSE OF DRUGS (ANABOLIC STEROIDS) BILL
Order for Second Reading read.
Second Reading deferred till Friday 5 February.
OBSCENE PUBLICATIONS (AMENDMENT) BILL
Order for Second Reading read.
Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Janet Fookes) : Objection taken. Second Reading what day? No day named.
EUROPEAN UNION (PUBLIC INFORMATION) BILL
Order for Second Reading read.
To be read a Second time on Friday 15 January.
PROCEDURE
Ordered,
That a Select Committee of not more than seventeen Members he appointed to consider the practice and procedure of the House in the conduct of public business, and to make recommendations.
That five be the quorum of the Committee.
That the Committee have power to send for persons, papers and records, to sit notwithstanding any Adjournment of the House, to adjourn from place to place and to report from time to time.
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That Mr. Tony Banks, Mr. Paul Channon, Sir Peter Emery, Sir John Hannam, Mr. Charles Hendry, Mr. James Hill, Mr. Eric Illsley, Mr. Gordon McMaster, Lady Olga Maitland, Mr. Raymond S. Robertson, Ms. Rachel Squire, Mr. Paul Tyler and Mr. David Winnick be members of the Committee.That these Orders be Standing Orders of the House until the end of this Parliament-- [Mr. MacKay.]
STATUTORY INSTRUMENTS (JOINT COMMITTEE)
Ordered,
That Mr. Edward Garnier and Mr. Patrick Thompson be discharged from the Select Committee appointed to join with a Committee of the Lords as the Joint Committee on Statutory Instruments and Mr. Roy Thomason and Mr. Nigel Waterson be added to the Committee.-- [Mr. MacKay.]
EUROPEAN STANDING COMMITTEES
Ordered,
That European Community Document No. 9697/92, relating to guide prices for fishing products for 1993, shall not stand referred to European Standing Committee A.-- [Mr. MacKay.]
BUSINESS OF THE HOUSE
Ordered,
That, at the sitting on Wednesday 9th December, notwithstanding the provisions of Standing Order No. 14 (Exempted business), the Speaker shall put the Questions necessary to dispose of proceedings on the Motion in the name of the Prime Minister relating to Fisheries not later than Ten o'clock.-- [Mr. MacKay.]
BUSINESS OF THE HOUSE
Ordered,
That, at the sitting on Thursday, 10th December, notwithstanding the provisions of Standing Order No. 14 (Exempted business), the Speaker shall- -
(1) put the Questions necessary to dispose of proceedings on the Motion in the name of Mr. Anthony Nelson relating to Banking not later than one and a half hours after the Motion has been entered upon ; and
(2) put the Questions necessary to dispose of proceedings on the Motion in the name of Mr. Secretary Heseltine relating to Consumer Protection not later than one and a half hours after the Motion has been entered upon ;
and the aforesaid Motions may be proceeded with after the expiry of the time for opposed business.-- [Mr. MacKay.]
EUROPEAN LEGISLATION
Ordered,
That Mr. Hartley Booth be discharged from the Select Committee on European Legislation and Mr. Peter Atkinson be added to the Committee.-- [Mr. MacKay.]
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Point of Order
2.32 pm
Mr. Tam Dalyell (Linlithgow) : On a point of order, Madam Deputy Speaker. Will you draw to the attention of Madam Speaker for reflection a question of what I might call Friday behaviour in the House? I do not doubt that the hon. Members for Romsey and Waterside (Mr. Colvin), for Bromsgrove (Mr. Thomason) and for Canterbury (Mr. Brazier) had pressing and important engagements in their constituencies or elsewhere. However, we all have important engagements and we have to make a choice.
If they have, we have, I have or any other hon. Member has important engagements, we had better decide not to speak in Friday debates. It used to be the case that whenever an hon. Member spoke, unless there were quite exceptional circumstances, at least he or she waited for the winding-up speeches.
Frankly, my hon. Friend the Member for Dundee, West (Mr. Ross) and I spoke for a long time. However, I would certainly not have done so had I not known that my hon. Friend the Member for Rother Valley (Mr. Barron), whose motion is the second on the Order Paper, had had it made quite clear to him that there was no chance of his motion being reached.
If, as the Minister said, I asked a number of detailed questions, when is there an opportunity, other than in a Friday debate, to ask serious questions against a background of evidence about what a--
Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Janet Fookes) : Order. The hon. Gentleman is going rather wide of his original point of order. He asked whether I would pass on his views to Madam Speaker, which I readily undertake to do ; but the matter cannot be taken further at present.
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Employment (Leavesden)
Motion made, and Question proposed, That this House do now adjourn.-- [Mr. MacKay.]
2.34 pm
Mr. Richard Page (Hertfordshire, South-West) : I wish to raise, more in sorrow than in anger, the subject of employment for the skilled workers at Rolls-Royce. I regret that I have had to come to the House to criticise the position taken by the Ministry of Defence. In essence, the reason behind the Adjournment debate is to ask the Minister why the Ministry is not giving British workers at Rolls-Royce in Leavesden the opportunity to quote for a Ministry of Defence contract but is instead handing the work on a plate to a French company. To reinforce that message, last night I presented to the House a petition on the subject of jobs and skill losses at Leavesden.
The background to this sad affair is that Rolls-Royce has operated on the Leavesden site for decades. Quite understandably, it is consolidating its activities on fewer sites. While it is moving many of its present operations to other sites, which is commercially understandable in difficult economic times both here and abroad, it is not moving every activity from Leavesden. That is the nub of the problem.
Because of the change, the repair and maintenance of the MOD-owned Turbo and Astazou 3N and 16D French helicopter engines, which takes place on the Leavesden site, will be not transferred but terminated. The 70-plus workers --who have more than 1,000 years' experience between them--who do the work would like to bid for it and to have the contract. To put it bluntly, the Ministry will not even give them the opportunity to quote, which effectively means that a skilled and technically qualified team of specialists will be broken up and its use and value lost to the nation.
The Ministry of Defence wishes to give the work on a plate to the original engine manufacturer Turbomeca, and thus at a stroke increase United Kingdom unemployment and our already sad balance of payments deficit. I argue that as those British workers have been doing the work for decades and have been providing repair and engine support work for the facilities at Leavesden, they should be given the chance to quote, to find out whether the work could remain in the United Kingdom.
That is the background to, and the reason for, this debate. As the House may imagine, there has been correspondence on the matter between myself, the Ministry of Defence and the Minister. As the replies to those letters rolled in, the words of a fellow Conservative Member of Parliament came to mind. About four years ago he was in a dispute about monopolistic practices concerning supplies to the MOD and he wrote :
"If we cannot get the assurances which my constituents seek then I shall feel obliged to embark on a parliamentary campaign until the matter is resolved."
That is exactly how I feel. I have a suspicion that my hon. Friend the Minister will closely identify with the position, the words and the person who uttered them.
In the same vein, I confess that I am at a loss to understand the Ministry's reaction to the request by my constituents to be allowed to quote. What they are asking for is directly in line with what I understand to be the Ministry's policy.
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I should like to refer to an article in The Guardian on 18 November concerning the programme that my hon. Friend the Minister of State for Defence Procurement announced to allow British firms to quote for MOD work. The article reported that my hon. Friend "emphasised that he did not want foreign companies to win the work. Any suggestion, say, that the Italians or the Germans might win work to service our ships and planes is remote.' He also threatened to use articles under the Treaty of Rome to ensure that foreign competitors do not win the work."Those were strong words and I would not want to go as far as that, but I could go along with the sentiments that my hon. Friend expressed in an article in the Financial Times when it reported that
"he envisaged the companies which won the contracts using the staff who currently carry out the work."
The Daily Telegraph reported that my hon. Friend had explained that
"the aim was to invite bids from private contractors and in-house MoD workforce. Areas will include helicopter maintenance". I stress that my hon. Friend said that that work would include "helicopter maintenance".
It seems to me that what I am asking for sits neatly and squarely inside my hon. Friend's policy. Instead, I received a letter from my hon. Friend, dated 21 November, which said--I shall not read out the entire letter, only the appropriate part :
"In line with our policy to widen our competitive base for the repair of all helicopter components, including engines, we are holding discussions with Turbomeca with a view to offering the work for competition in the future. Although progress is being made, we have no alternative at the present time but to place the new contracts with Turbomeca for a period of up to three years" That letter is extraordinarily insensitive. It was probably drawn up by a civil servant with an inflation-proof pension to whom the scythe of unemployment is virtually unknown. It is insensitive to say to men who will lose their jobs in about three months, "No chance this time, lads, but come back in three years' time." What chance will they have to compete then? My hon. Friend knows the answer, and so do I--absolutely zero. The team will be broken up, the opportunity lost and my constituents will be out of work.
It is not as though the work force are going along blind. They have got together with a company, Strongfield International, the managing director of which also lives in my constituency. That company is not a newcomer to the scene. It is an engineering support service company with worldwide interests. The mainstream business of the company is the provision of engineering services to the aviation industry. I understand that, among its major projects, it provides support services to MBB for the Tornado. It is also helping with an aircraft-build programme in Indonesia. In fact, the managing director is in Indonesia today to meet with Baroness Thatcher, who is inspecting that plant.
I am just a Back-Bench Member doing my level best to promote my constituents' cause, which I believe to be just. I am not pleading for subsidies or handouts. All I am asking is that my constituents, who, under the Rolls-Royce banner, have done such work for decades, be allowed to quote. They should be allowed to see whether they can
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continue in work. If their quote is too high and the work goes to France, so be it. All I am asking for is an even break.2.45 pm
The Minister of State for Defence Procurement (Mr. Jonathan Aitken) : I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Hertfordshire, South- West (Mr. Page) on securing the debate, and it has been entirely appropriate for him to use our Adjournment debate procedure to voice the concerns and fears of his constituents. He adduced a forceful and lucid case.
I also congratulate him on the interesting nature of his research. He attempted, in a subtle way, to pin on me the charge of inconsistency between my previous correspondence as a Back Bencher and now my ministerial speeches and letters. Far from indulging in monopolistic practices, about which I was complaining in the correspondence from which he quoted, I shall later in my remarks hope to persuade him that we at the Ministry of Defence intend to follow our declared policy of full and fair competition. I shall go into that at some length later.
I share his understandable concern for the plight of those who are being made redundant by Rolls-Royce at Leavesden, and he presented their case admirably. He was right to call it a sad affair, but it is much more complicated than he suggests and, before coming to the issue of those jobs at Leavesden, I shall explain the background to the situation.
The repair and overhaul of United Kingdom-owned French helicopter and Jetstream engines, with a number of other engines, has been undertaken by Rolls-Royce at its Leavesden site for many years. As part of its business rationalisation plans--which my hon. Friend thought were justified--the company has advised us that it intends to withdraw from the support of the three types of French engines currently in service. They are the Astazou 3N for the Gazelle ; the Astazou 16D for the Jetstream ; and the Turmo 3C4 for the Puma. I understand that Rolls-Royce intends to transfer the repair of its other engines elsewhere.
I should stress that all of those French engines are proprietary to Turbomeca, the French engine company based in Bordes, southern France, which is the original equipment manufacturer. Neither the French nor the United Kingdom Ministries of Defence have any user rights in the design. That is what the phrase "proprietary to" means. That sort of arrangment is common to most engine manufacturers, which in that way retain full responsibility for the quality and, above all, safety of their engines.
Clearly, any manufacturer would have to be satisfied that an incoming prospective repair company was fully competent to meet the extremely exacting safety and other standards before granting it a licence. Rolls- Royce is at present licensed in that way by the French company to conduct repair and overhaul of the United Kingdom-owned engines, and it is the only British company so licensed.
The present maintenance contracts are due to expire at the end of this year. To put its closure plans into action, while still maintaining support for our helicopter fleet, Rolls-Royce has successively sub-contracted more of that repair and overhaul work to Turbomeca.
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That situation left us with a difficult decision. Plainly, to hold an immediate competition for the requirement would be fraught with difficulties. Competitors would have to meet Turbomeca's standards as well as ours : if Turbomeca wished to compete, how could a level playing field be maintained ; and how could we ensure that Turbomeca would grant a licence to the winning contractor?The easy option would have been to award a non-competitive contract to a company which we knew well and with which we felt comfortable. But that would have been a monopolistic practice, it would have been bad for defence, bad for the industry and, worse still, bad for the taxpayer, apart from the fact that there was only one company, apart from Rolls-Royce, with the qualifications necessary to take it on now. That was Turbomeca. So the House will not be surprised to learn that we wished to avoid that option.
We shall have a competition, and I shall give the details. It will be apparent to the House that a competition that is to surmount the obstacles that I have described will be a complicated affair, but the arrangements for it are being put in hand.
We intend to advertise our requirement in the contracts bulletin to ensure that every company that feels that it has the necessary capacity and capability to undertake the work has an opportunity to bid, whether for prime contractorship or as a sub-contractor. A number of companies will rightly expect that opportunity. Many suitable qualified companies are hungry for business. We shall select a short list of suitably qualified bidders, from among those companies.
It will be for the bidders to enter into negotiations with Turbomeca for a suitable licensing agreement, and Turbomeca has given us satisfactory assurances that it will co-operate fully in that. We intend to seek competitive tenders as quickly as we can, but, given the amount of work involved in that critical flight safety area, it is likely to be towards the end of 1993, with contracts placed by the end of the following year. That will allow a minimum of 15 months for a new contractor to begin to tackle the tasks concerned while Turbomeca starts to relinquish its responsibilities.
It is vital, for both operational and safety reasons, that there be no break in the repair chain. Therefore, in the meantime, to ensure continued support beyond the end of the year when our contract with Rolls-Royce expires, we have little choice--indeed we have no choice--but to turn to the manufacturer for an interim arrangement. That is why we have placed a contract for the repair and overhaul of the engines with Turbomeca. It will commence on 1 January next year and will last for up to three years.
We intend to ensure that the interim contracts with Turbomeca contain the flexibility to allow the contractor that we eventually select to take on the work as soon as possible. That may well be within the three-year deadline that we have set ourselves. It may be before that three-year time limit expires, but we could not realistically have set the time limit at less and, for the time being, there is simply no company other than Turbomeca capable of taking on the work.
My hon. Friend's principal complaint was that Strongfield International should have been awarded the interim contract. That is not a realistic opportunity for us.
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