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"for a considerable length of time."

I support the proposal, but I am afraid that it is dormant. A proposal on the equal treatment of men and women dealt with the burden of proof in sex discrimination cases. That is known to many hon. Members. The Government tell us that it is dormant and has been for several years, so we do not hold out much hope for that. Another directive, entitled "Parental leave", would have entitled workers to uniform conditions of parental leave, regardless of sex, in all member states. What has happened to that? It has been "dormant for several years." The Government are telling the Committee, "Forget it, you don't have to worry about that one."

The "labour clause proposal" concerns the introduction of a labour clause into all public contracts. That is what we used to call contract compliance and it is a good idea. What happened to it? The Government memorandum tells us :

"The Commission are now unlikely to produce a separate proposal on this subject."

So I think that we have to forget about that.

The only conclusion that I can draw from all that is that the expectations that marked the 1980s and found expression in the social charter are ebbing away. There is no life in the charter--it is running into the sands. The momentum has disappeared and the chance of most of the important proposals in the charter being implemented is becoming increasingly remote. Was the social charter a phantom? Was it only a slogan? Was it a smokescreen of verbiage to cover the 1992 competitive free-for-all and to keep the unions sweet and on board? Was it meant to drag the wool over their eyes?

I enthusiastically support the amendment tabled by my hon. Friend the Member for Copeland. We should demand a social dimension. Everything should have such a dimension, but it is not in the Bill. The business man's Europe is there, but the workers' Europe--the Europe of the people, the unions, the young and the elderly--is not. That is not what we are being sold. We must fight for the social dimension and the social charter. It would be outrageous if the Labour party voted for a Bill that resulted in the business man's Europe, without thinking of the people who work in it.

6.15 pm

Mr. Marlow : I have tabled two amendments in this group--Nos. 127 and 129--which deal with freedom of movement for workers, as that is obviously an important issue.

Whereas that matter was decided by qualified majority voting, it is to be decided under the procedures of article 189b. I do not want to go on at length about my amendments but article 189b seems very complicated. I should like my right hon. Friend the Minister of State to explain its implications when he replies to the debate-- [Interruption.] I am not sure what my right hon. Friend the Minister said. Does he want me to give way?

Mr. Garel-Jones : My hon. Friend moved a closure motion because he clearly thought that the debate should have come to an end last week and he tried to prevent me from intervening altogether.

Mr. Marlow : My right hon. Friend made a very good speech today--a speech that I enjoyed. It was informative

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and held together, although I did not agree with all of it. I am sorry that he has to make that sort of debating point by way of an intervention. He knows as well as I that there are such things as probing amendments--that was a probing closure.

When my right hon. Friend winds up the debate for a second time, can he tell the House the implications if freedom of movement of workers is decided under the procedures set down under article 189b rather than by qualified majority voting? I am sure that the House would be grateful if he could also explain, in words of one syllable and in a short time, how article 189b works, so that when we return to our constituencies we can inform our constituents.

Amendment No. 7, tabled by the Opposition, seeks to remove the social fund from the Bill. As I understand it, the social fund is a slush fund--a means of taking money from taxpayers in my constituency and in this country and giving it to taxpayers in other countries. It is a means whereby the Commission and European institutions can gain clients in other Community countries and thus gain support in those countries. I think that it is on page 31, is it not?

Mr. Ken Livingstone (Brent, East) : Does the hon. Gentleman not accept that it is the inevitable and honest logic of capitalism that if one wants to create a genuine single market one needs a mechanism to redistribute wealth from the more dynamic areas of the market to the poorest areas? Therefore, it follows, absolutely logically, that one needs some form of social chapter and fund and that that should grow inexorably year by year until Europe can replicate the situation in today's nation state, which redistributes about 40 per cent. of gross domestic product via central taxation and benefits. If that is not the logic, I should like to hear someone explain how one would create a genuine common market without redistributing wealth to relax the tensions between rich and poor areas.

Mr. Marlow : The hon. Gentleman sits on the Opposition side of the House, and I sit on the Government side. We have different philosophies. The hon. Gentleman makes no bones about the fact that he is a socialist and is in favour of redistribution. I do not share his views on redistribution, although we obviously have social obligations that we are very happy to meet. I do not know about the hon. Gentleman, but I want a single market. I want the Germans to be able to sell in our market, and the British to be able to sell in Spain. I want a level playing field in terms of the movement of goods, but each country in the European Community should be entitled to make its own decisions on social policy and, to a certain extent, on commercial policy and taxation, thereby encouraging its own prosperity so that it can deal with its own social problems.

Mr. Livingstone : I think the hon. Gentleman misunderstood me. What I am suggesting is not being put forward as socialism. In fact, the mechanism for the redistribution of wealth began here long before there was a Labour party. Some historians estimate that about 1.5 per cent. of local wealth was redistributed under Queen Boudicca. This is not new ; it has grown inevitably, Government by Government, until we are now absorbing about 40 per cent. In a genuinely common market a substantial proportion of wealth will be funnelled in this

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way by capitalists, corporations and conservative politicians across Europe. I wish this were socialism so that we could claim it.

Mr. Marlow : The hon. Gentleman has his view of Europe, and I have mine. The Europe that I want--by being competitive, by having competitive rates of taxation, by including countries which do not embrace the social charter and, therefore, have competitive labour forces--will generate more wealth. Wealth that is generated in individual countries enables those countries better to look after pensioners, hospitals and other social needs that all Members of this House, in their different ways, want to provide for. My view of Europe is different from the hon. Gentleman's.

Mr. Duncan-Smith : Does my hon. Friend agree that the reality lies in the difference between the two approaches? On the one hand, there is the socialist approach, which seeks, through political manoeuvring, to engineer the distribution or redistribution of wealth ; on the other hand, there is the true free market capitalist philosophy, which seeks to operate in a naturally competitive environment where trade is drawn to more competitive areas, which distribute their own wealth. The question is whether one sees Europe as a nation with a national obligation to redistribute or as a collection of individual nations with no obligation to redistribute.

Mr. Marlow : My hon. Friend made the definitive speech of this debate, and he has just made a definitive intervention. Indeed, he makes much better than I the point that I am trying to put across--that by competing within Europe we all generate wealth. That is what we must do. If we are forced into the same mould, if we are directed from the centre by the inevitably bureaucratic institutions that Europe has at present, enterprise and therefore the generation of wealth will be discouraged. In those circumstances, we shall not have the resources to do the best for the people for whom we all, including Opposition Members, want the best.

Mr. Lord : Bearing in mind the point made by my hon. Friend the Member for Chingford (Mr. Duncan-Smith), may I put it to my hon. Friend the Member for Northampton, North (Mr. Marlow) that, in all of this, the basic conundrum is that we are being urged to co-operate and to compete at the same time. The two are incompatible.

Mr. Marlow : My hon. Friend makes his point very well indeed, and I am grateful to him.

Mr. Thomas Graham (Renfrew, West and Inverclyde) : The hon. Gentleman speaks about the distribution of wealth. That is what we all want ; yet after 14 years of the magnificent free enterprise Tory Government there are 5,000 homeless people from Scotland sleeping on the streets of London. Does the hon. Gentleman want that situation to continue? The social charter would at least give those folk some hope.

Mr. Marlow : No hon. Member in any part of the Committee will deny that we have social problems, but neither will any hon. Member deny that there were social problems in 1979. However, I put it to the hon. Gentleman that if he looks at the general level of prosperity--if he looks into people's houses, at people's cars, and so on--he will see that it is far higher than it was previously. Let him

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consider the resources that we in this country are applying to social security, hospitals and education. The amount being spent on these social services is several times greater than it was when there was last a Labour Government. If the hon. Gentleman looks fairly at the situation, he will see that that is the case.

The Opposition's amendment seeks to apply the social fund more widely. The new article 123 says :

"In order to improve employment opportunities for workers in the internal market and to contribute thereby to raising the standard of living, a European Social Fund is hereby established in accordance with the provisions set out below ; it shall aim to render the employment of workers easier and to increase their geographical and occupational mobility within the Community".

That was all there already, but there are added the words : "and to facilitate their adaptation to industrial changes and to changes in production systems, in particular through vocational training and retraining."

In particular, yes, but not only. It seems that ever more resources will be applied to this fund and that it will be used to facilitate adaptation to industrial change and to changes in production systems. It seems to me that that means direct investment in other people's industries and factories. How can I go to my constituents and say, "Some of the money that is being taken from you by way of tax is to be sent to Spain, Portugal, Italy or Greece so that people there may improve the productivity of their factories, produce goods more cheaply than you can and, therefore, close your factories and put you out of work"?

Mr. John Fraser (Norwood) : We are recipients from the fund to a substantial extent.

Mr. Marlow : That may be the case, but the hon. Gentleman knows perfectly well why. Under the original provisions of the Community budget and the common agricultural policy, there was such a deficiency of Community resources coming to this country that some funds have been diverted, by device through the social fund, into the United Kingdom. Does the hon. Gentleman really believe that, as things develop, with the stated need for cohesion in the Community, we shall be able to keep that share of the social fund? If he does, he is very much in the minority. As things develop, increasing amounts of that money will be moved from the United Kingdom to other parts of Europe, from my constituents to people in other European countries.

In an intervention today, the hon. Member for Copeland (Dr. Cunningham) said that there was overwhelming support in Europe for the social chapter, that all the other 11 countries were in favour of it and wanted us to join. It is easy to understand why they want us to join. Recently I talked to a major business man in Northampton. He had just come back from Germany, where he had talked to business men, including someone running a company with a turnover of £300 million a year. The Northampton man asked the German how he saw himself as he would be in four years' time. The German said, "I think I'll be out of business."

He said that, in addition to the problems caused by eastern Germany, his country suffered because wages were too high and social costs were much greater than in the United Kingdom.

It is because of the high wages and social costs and the burden imposed on other European countries by many aspects of the social chapter that those countries want to place the same obligations on us. They realise that the

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burdens are increasingly making them less competitive, whereas the United Kingdom is becoming increasingly competitive. How can it be in our interests to have to shoulder those burdens? I am perplexed and puzzled. Why does the Labour party--which every day claims that it is concerned about unemployment, which it describes as the biggest problem confronting this country--want to impose on this country the burdens that other European countries have imposed on themselves and, through the social chapter, want to impose on us?

I must say categorically that I and most of my colleagues deplore and dislike the Maastricht treaty, although we congratulate my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister on making the best of a difficult job, but the one thing about it that we dislike above all else is the potential damage threatened by the social chapter.

Mr. Nicholas Baker (Lords Commissioner to the Treasury) rose in his place and claimed to move, That the Question be now put. Question put, That the Question be now put :

The House divided : Ayes 306, Noes 290.

Division No. 127] [6.30 pm

AYES

Adley, Robert

Ainsworth, Peter (East Surrey)

Alexander, Richard

Alison, Rt Hon Michael (Selby)

Alton, David

Amess, David

Ancram, Michael

Arbuthnot, James

Arnold, Jacques (Gravesham)

Ashby, David

Ashdown, Rt Hon Paddy

Aspinwall, Jack

Atkinson, David (Bour'mouth E)

Atkinson, Peter (Hexham)

Baker, Rt Hon K. (Mole Valley)

Baker, Nicholas (Dorset North)

Baldry, Tony

Banks, Matthew (Southport)

Banks, Robert (Harrogate)

Bates, Michael

Batiste, Spencer

Beith, Rt Hon A. J.

Bellingham, Henry

Beresford, Sir Paul

Blackburn, Dr John G.

Booth, Hartley

Boswell, Tim

Bottomley, Peter (Eltham)

Bottomley, Rt Hon Virginia

Bowden, Andrew

Bowis, John

Boyson, Rt Hon Sir Rhodes

Brandreth, Gyles

Brazier, Julian

Brooke, Rt Hon Peter

Brown, M. (Brigg & Cl'thorpes)

Browning, Mrs. Angela

Bruce, Ian (S Dorset)

Bruce, Malcolm (Gordon)

Burns, Simon

Burt, Alistair

Butler, Peter

Butterfill, John

Campbell, Menzies (Fife NE)

Carlile, Alexander (Montgomry)

Carlisle, Kenneth (Lincoln)

Carrington, Matthew

Channon, Rt Hon Paul

Chaplin, Mrs Judith

Churchill, Mr

Clappison, James

Clark, Dr Michael (Rochford)

Clarke, Rt Hon Kenneth (Ruclif)

Clifton-Brown, Geoffrey

Coe, Sebastian

Colvin, Michael

Congdon, David

Conway, Derek

Coombs, Anthony (Wyre For'st)

Coombs, Simon (Swindon)

Cope, Rt Hon Sir John

Cormack, Patrick

Couchman, James

Critchley, Julian

Currie, Mrs Edwina (S D'by'ire)

Curry, David (Skipton & Ripon)

Davies, Quentin (Stamford)

Davis, David (Boothferry)

Day, Stephen

Deva, Nirj Joseph

Devlin, Tim

Dickens, Geoffrey

Dicks, Terry

Dorrell, Stephen

Douglas-Hamilton, Lord James

Dover, Den

Duncan, Alan

Dunn, Bob

Durant, Sir Anthony

Dykes, Hugh

Eggar, Tim

Elletson, Harold

Emery, Rt Hon Sir Peter

Evans, David (Welwyn Hatfield)

Evans, Jonathan (Brecon)

Evans, Nigel (Ribble Valley)

Evans, Roger (Monmouth)

Evennett, David

Faber, David

Fabricant, Michael

Faulds, Andrew

Fenner, Dame Peggy

Field, Barry (Isle of Wight)

Fishburn, Dudley

Forman, Nigel

Forsyth, Michael (Stirling)

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