House of Commons Hansard Debates for 18 Jan 1993

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tanker Braer in Shetland. I understand that the paper on the future development of a common transport policy says that the Community should, within and in support of the International Maritime Organisation, ensure that ships trading in Community waters respect common standards for the effective guarantee of safe operation. That is a worthy objective, and many of us would like to see much emphasis and urgency being placed on fulfilling it.

The United Kingdom Government take a number of measures unilaterally, such as the installation of radar at strategic points around the coast, while others need to be taken on an international basis. The Community should have the clout, particularly in matters affecting its own waters, to drive through some measures. Many of us who have been talking about shipping safety for some time are worried about the snail's pace at which the International Maritime Organisation moves at times.

For example, transponders could be fitted to vessels, allowing them to be tracked by satellite, as happens with international aircraft. Two years ago, when I took the matter up with the Department of Transport, I was told that this had been under discussion for some time in the IMO. Such measures should be given a push. The Community could act within the IMO to give some of them greater impetus.

Mr. Spearing : I share many of the hon. Gentleman's aspirations, but it is a matter of practicality. Does he agree that the problem with the IMO is that it is dominated by the owners and by the countries in which ships are notionally registered, whose standards we know all about? Would it not be possible for the United Kingdom Government, inside or free of the European Community, to make a multinational agreement on standards of ships that they allow into their ports, and get the north American states of Canada and the United States, and perhaps Japan as well, to agree to help to prevent problems? That would short-circuit the problem caused by the IMO, and would not confine the solution to the Community.

Mr. Wallace : I share many of the hon. Gentleman's reservations about the IMO. Its pace appears to be slowed by those who have an interest in not going forward as fast as that body should in promoting standards on the structure of vessels, the routing of vessels, navigational aids, and crewing arrangements. Those matters are best and most effectively sorted out internationally. The European Community can carry clout that Britain acting alone would not necessarily have, not least because of the decline of our merchant fleet. If the IMO is taking too long, the Community should be prepared to introduce measures on Community waters. That would be far more effective than dealing with solely British waters. In the aftermath of Exxon Valdez, the American Government were able to introduce measures for ships on US waters, including a stringent safety regime. The Community can do that on its own if it cannot get the wider international application.

The Community also has a role within the IMO and other international organisations to push the case for safety. I am pleased that article 75 gives a specific remit to promote measures to improve transport safety. I hope that, when the treaty is passed, as I am confident that it will be, the Government will be willing to activate other measures.

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Mr. Garel-Jones : I am grateful to the hon. Member for Cunninghame, North (Mr. Wilson) for telling the Committee that the amendment is a probing amendment tabled to allow the Committee a chance to debate important matters.

The networks articles 129b and 129c are new articles. Action could have taken under the transport articles of the treaty of Rome, as amended by the Single European Act. The new text circumscribes the actions in question-- for example, to ensure interoperability. No funding flows--that was the point that my hon. Friend the Member for Southend, East (Sir T. Taylor) rightly drew to our attention--directly from the articles, and no specific decision-making procedures are provided in them. If projects are to be funded by the cohesion fund, as they can be, such projects would be by unanimity.

That raised the question--it was taken up by the hon. Members for Western Isles (Mr. Macdonald) and for Orkney and Shetland (Mr. Wallace)--of the exclusion or otherwise of the outer regions and islands of the United Kingdom from the cohesion fund. My hon. Friend the Member for Southend, East was right to remind the Committee that the new cohesion fund is limited to the four cohesion countries. That limitation does not apply to structural funds, and the Government have been able to protect Northern Ireland as an objective 1 region for structural funds. We actively support the claim that is being advanced by the highlands and islands for objective 1 status. The future financing deal provides for increases in central funds both to objective 1 regions and elsewhere as well as the new cohesion fund spending. The United Kingdom regions will benefit, but under an overall settlement that we believe to be affordable. The United Kingdom received over £1 billion in 1992 from structural funds, the funds for which the constituents of the hon. Member for Western Isles would go.

Mr. Macdonald : How close is the United Kingdom now to qualifying for cohesion funds? How close are we to becoming 90 per cent. of the Community per capita average? Will the Minister of State confirm that, if we qualify according to official EC statistics in future, the Government will apply for the funds for which the United Kingdom has qualified?

Mr. Garel-Jones : I hate to disappoint the hon. Gentleman. For some hon. Members it would be a matter of some joy to be able to proclaim that Britain had sunk beneath the per capita average. On purchasing power parity, which is the basis on which these matters are decided, we remain quite a long way away from the level to which the hon. Gentleman referred. I hope that Britain does not qualify for the funds, and that, in the course of the seven-year financial perspective that we are moving into, several countries that currently qualify for cohesion funds, will cease to be cohesion countries.

Mr. Salmond : When was the most recent calculation made of purchasing-power parities on which the Minister of State is basing his remarks?

Mr. Garel-Jones : I cannot give the hon. Gentleman that precise information. It was certainly some time in the past six or seven weeks. I have seen figures that lead me to believe--the hon. Gentleman may regret this--that we are a long way from being a cohesion country.

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The Community already has the power under the treaty of Rome to fund infrastructure projects through the provisions in the transport chapter and by use of structural funds. I was surprised that my hon. Friend the Member for Stafford (Mr. Cash) said that he could see no place for the Community in transport matters. He will recall that the fourth title of the treaty of Rome, as amended by the Single European Act, contains no fewer than six or seven articles that relate to this very subject.

Sir Teddy Taylor : Will my right hon. Friend explain the differences that will be experienced because of article 129 in the operation of the principle of additionality? We in the United Kingdom understood that the principle gave decisions on priorities to our Government and not to Brussels, the Council of Ministers or the Commission. It is confusing when almost every Opposition Member gives the impression that Brussels will make decisions now on the construction of roads and bridges. Are we to abandon the principle of additionality because of article 129? It would be helpful to the Committee to know whether decision-making is being transferred from the United Kingdom Government to Brussels.

Mr. Garel Jones : Article 129b and c allows the Council of Minsters to decide the framework within which any action would be taken. Then, if that action is agreed, applications might be made through the cohesion fund for cohesion countries and through the structural fund for other countries.

Mr. Cash : Will my right hon. Friend give way?

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Mr. Garel-Jones : No, I will not. My hon. Friend took one hour and 20 minutes of the time of the House. I want to be brief to allow other hon. Members to speak.

It is useful to clarify the purpose of such projects and the means by which they might be adopted in a clear treaty chapter, as agreed at Maastricht. That explicitly states, for example, that guidelines and projects of common interest that relate to the territory of a member state shall require the approval of the member state concerned. That is a useful safeguard, which the House will welcome. Of course, Community action must take place within the framework of an open, competitive market and must take account of the potential economic viability of any project. It is helpful that, where there is already European co-operation, the matter has been clarified and codified in that way. I am glad that most hon. Members who have spoken, with the exception of my hon. Friend the Member for Stafford have welcomed that provision.

Mr. Spearing : I have a good deal of sympathy with my hon. Friend the Member for Cunninghame, North (Mr. Wilson). I am sorry that he is about to leave the Chamber. I wanted to refer to him-- [Interruption.] I am glad to catch his ear before he leaves. He and his compatriot, the hon. Member for Orkney and Shetland (Mr. Wallace), have an intense and proper regard for local communities. We all do, but the local communities in Scotland are even more distinct than those in some parts of England. As an Englishman and a Londoner, I want firmly to register that fact. However, for reasons that I am about to give, I do not

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think that the benefits that my hon. Friend, the hon. Gentleman and their constituents want and deserve will, in the end, come from the source that they believe they will.

Of course, during the past 10 years there has been a marked disparity between the resources and the approach of two political centres. That caused the demonstration by 25,000 people in Edinburgh at the time of the summit. I well understand that. I have to say to Conservative Members, some of whom I agree with on the question of the constitution, that the Government have dealt disgracefully with some of our friends in Scotland-- [Interruption.] The hon. Member for St. Ives (Mr. Harris) appears to disagree. He should get up and say so because this House is about debate. The Government have transgressed one of the major features that we prize-- paying due regard to the minority.

As I understand it, Scotland is a country of high corporate sensitivities. It is a country with its own distinctive history, tradition and political and civic pride. Those have been trampled underfoot by forces which need not have done what they did. That has caused a great deal of bad feeling, as some of my friends in the TUC may have noticed.

Networks is, I suppose, an abstract word. It is more an adjective than a noun, in the context of this group of amendments. Networks permit exchanges of all sorts--a transfer in one direction or another. That can be a transfer of money, goods or persons, energy, or intelligence.

Mr. Phil Gallie (Ayr) : The hon. Gentleman suggested that I, as a Scot, have been trampled on in recent times. I submit that Scotland's network systems are second to none. We have very good systems. The hon. Gentleman referred to energy. We have over-provision, with excellent networks which are ready to transfer south. Our road systems are reasonably good, as are our interchanges between cities. I do not feel trampled on. Perhaps the hon. Gentleman will expand on that observation.

Mr. Spearing : I was not speaking of network but, as the hon. Gentleman and other hon. Members in all parts of the Committee who represent Scottish constituencies make plain from time to time, of the poll tax, for example--on which, in Scotland, the views of the people were clearly made known.

The networks in Scotland of which the hon. Member for Ayr (Mr. Gallie) speaks probably serve many of the people well. I stand to be corrected by hon. Members who represent Scottish constituencies and who know Scotland better than I do.

I intervened on the hon. Member for Orkney and Shetland to make the point that an electricity network--whether it covers the Scottish highlands, and whether it is based on hydropower, generated power in the lowlands, or is part of a national grid for the United Kingdom--is of general benefit to all.

The electricity network was pioneered by the House 50 or 60 years ago. The idea was that those who benefited from being part of a tightly-knit population would contribute to those living in the peripheral areas. Is that not one of the characteristics of many networks created by the House, which may be permitted--though, I suggest, for another purpose--by the other political body that the treaty sustains and enhances?

Although we are not debating agriculture, I will mention the milk network in passing. The economics of

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transporting and distributing milk were poor, and the milk network has worked to the benefit of both the peripheral farmer and the peripheral consumer.

The postal services also are a form of transport--the transport of intelligence, by way of letters, and of parcels. We know how important are the economic activities of certain peripheral areas--I refer in particular to the production of delicacies and high-value goods--and of the reliance that they place on postal services. I am happy that there should be a transfer of resources, which the Post Office often advertises in a romantic way, between those of us who live in the cities, where letters and parcels can be conveyed within a tightly integrated network, and peripheral areas all over the place. I include the south-west peninsula--and I see the hon. Member for St. Ives nodding his head.

Such benign networks are under the control of the community as a whole. They are created for the benefit of the community, and generally they work well. I understand the feelings of the people of the Scottish highlands and islands. In the past hour or so we have heard only one Welsh and one English speaker. All the others were Scottish. I understand why they are so concerned about bridges, ferries, roads, and tolls. In transport terms, geographical distance often coincides with economic distance ; but it does not always do so. Economic distance in terms of actual movement, leaving aside the time factor--although that is sometimes an important commodity, within limits--is not necessarily geographical distance.

If market forces are introduced into the equation, geographical distance-- say, between London and Paris, or between London and Brussels--will often be reduced in terms of economic time, because of the volume of traffic. The peripheral areas will tend to be at a disadvantage if we allow market forces free rein. It would be possible to run train services from Glasgow, Edinburgh and Aberdeen, but no doubt some areas in the rural regions west of Aberdeen would regard themselves as peripheral. That is true of areas other than Scotland.

I am trying to prove the point that I put to the hon. Member for Orkney and Shetland. It is not a question of networks themselves or even, necessarily, how they are funded ; I am talking about the purpose for which they are designed. All the examples that I have given recently are of benign networks, although one has been the subject of some humour in Scotland. There is a very old joke, or rather a paraphrase of a psalm : "The earth is the Lord's and the fulness thereof, but the Highlands and Islands are MacBrayne's." The network run by that firm and its modern counterpart, Caledonian MacBrayne, which has been mentioned today, could be run at a loss. It could be run with some subsidy, as are some British Rail branch lines. What is the difference, in absolute economic terms, between that and a closed railway or a railway which is given some form of subsidy for its infrastructure, or for viaducts or tunnels--on a national network, that is? I am glad to see that the Minister for Public Transport, the right hon. Member for Kettering (Mr. Freeman), is here. In economic or network terms, in terms of service to the community--the British community, rather than the European Community--clear principles link all these matters. In terms of infrastructure and the expensive replacement of capital resources, the Caledonian MacBrayne network, for instance, is surely similar to that of a railway.

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The hon. Member for Orkney and Shetland cited the Government's parsimony in replacing some capital ships owned by P and O to service Orkney and Shetland. I was thinking of such instances when the hon. Member for Ayr intervened a few moments ago. I will give an extreme example. One of the dependencies still left to this country is St. Helena. Not long ago, a Select Committee of the House had a lengthy discussion about a replacement ship for St. Helena. That is an example of this country's providing a dependency with a capital sum for a super- peripheral area. If a map of the world were drawn, showing how difficult it was to travel to certain places by public means, St. Helena would probably feature prominently : I believe that it takes about a fortnight to get there if the boat connects, and about two months if the connection is missed. I am glad to see that the Foreign Secretary, too, is present. The purpose of the networks, including that for St. Helena, and the shipping which might be subsidised, but probably is not by this Government, is to serve people and communities. Not too much concern is expressed about how to assist the peripheries. We may, however, want to assist them. 3 am

The articles of this treaty and those of the treaty of Rome make it clear that competition, the free movement of capital and people, and maximum protection can be achieved by free market forces. Therefore, the assistance that the networks can give will increase competition and allow the strong to become stronger. The disadvantaged will therefore become weaker. They are often at the peripheries. Those hon. Members who represent peripheral areas are being misled into thinking that the networks will be their salvation.

Article 129c states that the Community

"may support the financial efforts made by the Member States for projects of common interest".

What is the common interest? I hope that the Minister will tell the Committee what that phrase means. Does it mean the common interest of the Community and not the common interest of the member state? If so, it qualifies the purposes for which European Community money can be used.

If no state money is provided for any network project, I understand that the project is ruled out by the European Community. I take it that the phrase "financed by Member States" means some form of public assistance from the Government of the member state concerned. That brings me to last week's topic : the railways and the Government's proposed link from the United Kingdom to the rest of the Community. In an intervention on the fast channel link, the Minister said that the bulk of the investment for the link will come from private funds. There will be some Government money, no doubt. Without it, there would be no Community contribution. I suppose that there could be some justification for such a contribution, though I do not imagine that the fact that £X million was to be spent improving yet another railway link from Dover to London would be welcomed in the highlands and islands.

Mr. Gallie : Is the hon. Gentleman aware that the direct link from the highlands and islands via the south coast to the channel tunnel is just as important to Scotland as it is to other areas of the United Kingdom?

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Mr. Spearing : I rather hope that it is. I have taken a great interest in this matter and was in the House when we were discussing it 20 years ago. Is the hon. Member aware that, at least for the time being, day trains will not run north of Waterloo? Apparently, because of market forces, which he supports, the cost of the trains is so high, with all the safety measures necessary for the tunnel, that they will have to be used intensively between Paris and London or Brussels and London. They are much too expensive to go up to Manchester, let alone Scotland. If I have got that wrong, I am sure that I shall be corrected. I think that there may be plans to deal with that later.

Mr. Freeman : My hon. Friend the Member for Ayr (Mr. Gallie) is right. The construction of a new rail link between Folkestone and London will benefit the whole of the country, and trains will run during the day and night north of London on the existing link. The Government expect those trains to be in service in 1995.

Mr. Spearing : I am grateful to the Minister ; I wanted to be absolutely accurate. I take it that trains will run from Paris, Brussels or other capitals perhaps to Manchester and, we hope, as far as Glasgow or Edinburgh.

The only advantage of a link for continental freight--I suggested this 20 years ago, but nobody took much notice--would be if it were cheaper or more convenient than road transport. Let us suppose that a toll is charged to travel through the tunnel. If we instituted a standard charge, as we do for parcels, for every tonne of traffic going to a depot in Cardiff, Swansea, York, Manchester, or perhaps Aberdeen, Inverness or Fort William, that would benefit the whole country without overheating the south-east and would provide a lower cost the further north freight travelled. I do not think that anybody has suggested that, but if he had I do not think that the Government would adopt it. It is perhaps looking too far ahead, but that would surely be a benign use of a rail network.

We have been told nothing about a possible tapering of tariffs. The Union Railways line will presumably stop in London and another railway will continue northwards. I remind hon. Members that the tariff for traffic coming in will surely be the same as that for traffic going out. Britain's retail marketing efficiency has been sharply honed by Messrs Tesco, Sainsbury et al, and our retail market would be a much easier way of distributing consumer durables and a wide range of materials than anything going the other way. That is another example of what I described to my hon. Friend the Member for Cunninghame, North : if one builds a technical link for transport, it allows competition to come in as easily as it goes out unless there is a different tariff for traffic in each direction.

I shall take a little further the question of Union Railways and the link with the continent. I am glad that the Minister for Public Transport is here because he has always dealt objectively with matters as far as he can. I want to express the disappointment of, I am sure, everyone in the country that that particular network railway link which the Government are contemplating will be not a decent but an indecent railway.

I cannot contemplate how anyone looking to the future--as the Government should do, and as they often claim to do--can plan a two-line railway from London to Shorne cliff, which is to be suitable for freight and

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passengers, international and commuting. The Government plan to reduce the cost by making it a two-line railway with freight loops--the same technique which Victorian railway constructors used and which we thought we had got rid of.

As I understand it--the Minister will correct me if I am wrong--the Government are not even reserving sufficient land in the cuttings and tunnels for acquisition or for later construction and eventual enlargement into a four-track railway. That sometimes happens on roads where one side is dualled at a time or on bypasses where one side is developed before the other.

I am sure that the hon. Member for Christchurch (Mr. Adley)--the Chairman of the Select Committee on Transport--or any rail operator would assure the House that to run an intensive, 24-hour service properly one needs a four- track main line in order to deal reasonably with breakdowns and maintenance. There is ample proof of that on the railways on Saturday nights and Sundays. A two-line main track means less flexibility. Although I concede that it may be economical for the Government to initially lay down a two-line track in this instance, it is bad planning not to provide for later expenditure on enlargement when required.

The Government have not acted efficiently and certainly not speedily. Since Lady Thatcher signed the document in Canterbury in 1985 or 1986--certainly some time ago--there have been so many changes of plan and so much delay that we have already lost any advantages that we might have gained. I say that as one who, as hon. Members will know from the case that I have been advancing, believes that such links will not necessarily be the great boon or blessing that many people believe them to be. They may be a blessing for surface traffic as opposed to air traffic. I hope that some people, including the Ministers, are looking forward to going to Brussels by surface transport instead of experiencing the difficulties of going by air. That is probably a great convenience for people, but whether it will be a great advantage in terms of trade remains to be seen. I now turn to the whole process of obtaining moneys from the EC not only for the rail network, but for anything to do with the networks generally. I referred earlier to a report by the Select Committee on European Legislation on obtaining money. I shall quote from it more extensively because it sets out the fact that the matter is not so straightforward as people suppose. The projects in Scotland which hon. Members mentioned earlier--I have no doubt that the placards on the projects said, "Contributed to by the EC fund"--do not drop suddenly from heaven, as Ministers and some hon. Members will know. There is quite a lot to be done first.

3.15 am

Paragraph 42 of the bumper report published on 17 June 1992 summarises "Trans-European Networks". The Committee studied a Commission communication with three draft regulations

"introducing declarations of European Interest to facilitate the establishment of trans-European networks."

I referred a few moments ago to the requirement of European interest rather than of local interest. The report says that the Government

"comments that the Commission envisages granting a Declaration only to well -defined initiatives : a project must have passed the design stage and have reached a sufficient

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level of maturity for a relatively detailed assessment of its impact to be made, but the implementation stage proper must not yet have started."

If that is the Commission's proposal, there will be many problems. There must be an assessment of the project's impact, and of whether it is good value for money. We can argue a great deal about the impact of a new bridge, a new ferry, a new bypass or a new ship. It will be difficult to assess projects. The next criterion is that the project must

"have reached a sufficient level of maturity"

for a judgment to be made. I am not sure what that means. Does it mean a level of paper planning, or does it mean initial works? I should have thought that it was a question of paper planning rather than of initial works.

The next criterion is that

"the implementation stage proper must not yet have started." We then have the proposal, the animal to which I have referred : "The Commission proposes to allocate the declaration for transport projects following consultation with the existing Transport Infrastructure Committee."

The Minister will have much to reply to, but we should know whether the committee is a committee of Ministers, of officials or of the Commission. I suspect that it may be a combination of all three. No doubt the committee will have its consultants as well.

I quote again from this very important report, which consolidates three or four other documents. It says :

"At this stage, the Government sees the main question as being the roles of the Commission and Member States in awarding Declarations." If the declaration is being gained, does the money come with it, or is the declaration only a qualifying stage before the funds available are shared out?

What lies behind the articles is a whole group of

bureaucratic--perhaps that is a pejorative word--a whole group of processes which will certainly not take place in public. They should not necessarily take place in public, but it should be known that they exist.

I want now to consider the treaty. One of the amendments in the group that we are discussing would delete new article 75, which replaces an existing article in the treaty of Rome. That process involves tracing through the terms of the treaties and I want to do that now for reasons that I will make clear towards the end of my remarks.

Article 75 states :

"For the purpose of implementing Article 74, and taking into account the distinctive features of transport, the Council shall,". The article 74 referred to is not article 74 of the treaty of European union. It is article 74 of the treaty of Rome, which the union treaty amends. Article 74 of the treaty of Rome, which is not going to change, states :

"The objectives of this Treaty shall, with regard to the subject covered by this Title, be pursued by the Member States within the framework of a common transport policy."

New article 75, and all that follows from it, refers to implementation of a common transport policy. That implies that the networks are to be part of a single policy. One of the lesser known facts of the treaty of Rome is that article 3(e) states : "The objectives of the treaty shall include the adoption of a common policy in the sphere of transport."

I am suggesting that, contrary to what some people suppose, there is almost unlimited competence in the role of transport.

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If new article 75 is to implement a single policy for transport, under the existing treaty of Rome, into what detail and to what specifications can the Commission go? Subject to correction from the Minister, I would guess that most, if not all, the policies will apply by a qualified majority vote. There cannot be anything other than qualified majority vote--there is no unanimity--in respect of transport.

Hon. Members may be surprised to know that not too long ago a series of regulations came before the House about a common transport policy in respect of safety. Safety was referred to earlier and it was felt to be a good thing to have in the treaty. That might be so with regard to a concern for safety, but the safety measures must be harmonised to ensure that there are no rigidities and that one country is not penalised in relation to another.

Hon. Members may also have forgotten that a regulation came before the Select Committee on European Legislation not very long ago about the harmonisation of speed limits based on the single transport policy and on the need for safety without prejudicing the single market. Matters went further than that. There was also a draft regulation, which I believe has now been dropped, for the adoption of common blood alcohol limits. A third rather different regulation, which formed the final part of that tripartite arrangement, dealt with the harmonisation of regulations about the depths of tyre treads. It is very sensible to have regulations about the depth of tyre treads for obvious safety reasons. They were to be harmonised throughout the EC.

The Select Committee on European Legislation felt that there was something to the tyre tread proposal. At that time, we could not understand why speed limits and blood alcohol limits could not be dealt with under subsidiarity. We had some gentlemen along from the Commission to question in public. They stuck to the principle that because, as I have just read, a common transport policy was in article 3e of the treaty of Rome, so anything to do with transport was fair game. The draft recommendation on alcohol and speed limits has almost certainly been dropped. Clearly, as we have pointed out, social matters, social acceptability, the design of roads, changes in the acceptability of limits and enforcement vary from country to country. Even if the directives were introduced, they probably would not work.

If the Commission could introduce matters of relative detail of that nature under the existing treaty of Rome, of course the same could happen under this treaty. I wish to advert to one of the nine networks that I mentioned- -the common postal service in which we have an equalisation of costs over parcels. Let us not forget that there is now a proposal for the harmonisation of postal services. The harmonisation of postal rates is very much on tap. No doubt that, too, would come under competition, the single market criteria, or transport.

In matters relating to networks, the purpose of transport networks is not the benign purpose of which I have given some examples, but something which might result in disadvantage to those who are already diadvantaged.

I wanted to concentrate on transport but I shall make a few quick remarks on some other networks because they might not be mentioned by other hon. Members. A common energy policy is in the treaty, is it not? I tabled a question on how that energy network would affect the national grid. The Official Report states :

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" Mr. Spearing : To ask the President of the Board of Trade what are the changes necessary to the national grid for electricity consequent on the current text of the treaty on European union, articles 129 b, c and d.

Mr. Eggar : None."--[ Official Report, 8 July 1992 ; Vol. 211, c. 207. ]

I am not sure whether that is so. If we are to have a common energy policy, if we are to have a European electricity grid, as distinct from a national grid--I am not sure whether that has yet been put forward--if there is to be a common price for energy, and if we could have perfect competition which one assumes might be on the way, how likely is it that there will be a European grid network such as that which we pioneered in this country?

We have already heard about the French link across the channel. What about television? Telecommunication is the communication not only of intelligence but of pictures, noise or codes. Yesterday, the hon. Member for Southend, East (Sir T. Taylor) referred to an article in Saturday's issue of The Independent magazine which drew attention to aspects of freedom of television and television networks and the consequences of certain regulations which were passed in the late 1980s. When I read that article, I thought, "The lady who wrote this article has not realised that anything to do with the single market commercial is by qualified majority." She was blaming Ministers for letting something through at Brussels. I suspect that they would have been outvoted. We have a common network of television programmes and material.

The treaty is extraordinarily complex, and is only an amending treaty. The Minister of State, Foreign and Commonwealth Office, who is present, has declined on two or three occasions to print the consolidated treaty as it would be were the treaty on European union to be ratified.

3.30 am

None of the volumes that we study constitutes the working constitution of the European Community as it will be if the treaty is ratified. I think that a commercial version may have been produced, but we are using HMSO's version. We would have to try out the treaty for some months and years before we understood how it worked. There are also odd bits of the European single market treaty hanging around. There is a constellation--a library-- of treaties that will form the written constitution of the Community if the treaty is ratified. We have a network not only of various communications, but of articles of fearsome complexity. I understand that people can make out all sorts of cases for money, powers or reference to European Court. The treaties contain something for everyone. They contain hopes, promises, possibilities of grants here, something there, and something else for every region, interest group, development and research. If we search in every nook and cranny, we can find something in the treaty to benefit our own interests, regions or towns, through the use of public funds.

I fear that the motivation for the treaty is not international co-operation and understanding, as many hon. Members would wish, but the creation of a large pork barrel or honey pot into which various interest groups and Governments think that they can dip. When they do so, they come up with a plum and a prize which is well publicised, particularly in peripheral regions. The money for the transport and communications networks and for

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research is being silently withdrawn from our national economies without the knowledge of the taxpayers who produce it.

Mr. Knapman : The hon. Gentleman mentioned the money that is necessary to implement all the provisions. Who will be paying? Will it be Britain and Germany yet again?

Mr. Spearing : Britain and Germany will probably continue to be net contributors in some measure. The financing of the Community is an extraordinarily complex business. The accounts are not made up until the end of the year--due, in particular, to the British rebate. Even with the British rebate, we receive only about two thirds of what we contribute. If the Fontainebleau arrangement did not exist, we would probably receive only about half of what the taxpayer contributes. The answer to the hon. Member for Stroud (Mr. Knapman) is that it is the taxpayer--someone for whom many Conservative Members have a soft spot--who pays.

One example to quote to inquiring minds is the extent of the contribution supposedly made via VAT. For many years I thought that the VAT-linked contribution to the Community was 1 per cent. That was the ceiling which the erstwhile right hon. Member for Finchley came up against at Fontainebleau. It turns out that that was not the true figure at all. There are three or four main elements in the own-resources budgets, including a GNP element and apart from a common Community tariff, but the VAT one is linked not to the rates in this country but to a notional VAT assessment, rather like the old rates on property. We pay a percentage of that assessment. When I asked the Chancellor of the Exchequer a few years ago for the equivalent amount as a percentage of the VAT take, I was told that it varied between 10 and 15 per cent., depending on movement in the basket of currencies. Conservative Members know only too well that VAT is a highly effective tax, the more so since it was increased. It works invisibly on the whole, and the squillions of pounds that it raises are beyond our comprehension. The equivalent of about 10 per cent. of it goes to the EC automatically--plus the gross national product increases, plus all the customs duties which accrue to the Exchequer. If the alcohol tax is harmonised and the money that the Exchequer receives decreases, the shortfall will have to be made up by other taxes paid into the British Exchequer.

To pay for all those networks, which I do not think will have the benign effect that we associate with those known to us at home, we shall have to spend large sums of money of a size that we do not yet know.

Mr. Harris : Because I intend to be brief I shall not give way to anyone except my hon. Friend the Member for Stafford (Mr. Cash). I say that in the sure knowledge that he caught a taxi two hours ago, having made a long speech at the start of the debate.

I have always held that an hon. Member's opinion of regional assistance will almost certainly depend on the constituency that he represents. I admit that, as I have the honour to represent one of the most peripheral areas of the United Kingdom, a part of the country which includes a group of islands, my view of support for transport is probably different from what it would be if I represented a constituency in Greater London or the home counties. I represent the Isles of Scilly, and I notice that article 129b refers not just to peripheral regions but to islands and

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