House of Commons Hansard Debates for 30 Mar 1993

Mr. Rowlands : That is a pretty comprehensive list. I have identified the specific part of the treaty which says that the common foreign and security policy must be on the agenda. The agenda for the 1996 conference, set out in title VII, is enormous. Throughout our debates, the Government have tried to persuade us that the conference will be neutral and that it will perhaps claw back responsibility for each of the five aspects to the nation state or that it will further enhance the principle of subsidiarity.

The Minister nods his head as if that is the case, but the language describing the agenda of the conference is not the language of clawing back but that of proceeding from the bridgeheads established in the treaty towards a futher set of objectives.

No one can read article B, which sets out the objectives of the next conference, and believe anything other than that the intention is to build on the bridgeheads established in the treaty and to move to full monetary union, a single currency and a common foreign policy and a common defence policy. It is impossible to read the language of article B, which refers specifically to article N and the agenda for the 1996 conference, and then say, as the Minister has, that the conference will be neutral. It is a conference designed to carry forward the objectives outlined in article B.

Mr. Budgen : Does the hon. Gentleman agree that it is nonsense to suggest, as some of the most distinguished Government spokesmen have, that we should ratify the treaty and then rectify all the mistakes at the next conference? It is clear that the next conference will be merely a continuation of the defects of the present treaty.

Mr. Rowlands : The hon. Gentleman makes an important and valid point. One of the most forceful arguments put to us in the Select Committee was that we should close our eyes, hold our nose and sign the treaty because it is such a mess and so badly flawed that we shall have to unravel it. Presumably the 1996 conference can do that.

The person who said that in his evidence was Lord Lawson of Blaby, who made a remarkable analysis of the

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treaty. He destroyed almost all of it, with a rational and perceptive assessment of how the so-called ERM should never have been a glide path to full monetary union, and how it had collapsed because it was now being used for that purpose. He made a devastating indictment of the treaty's provisions for EMU. He also argued strenuously that, on political grounds, the only logical conclusion of the treaty was a fully fledged European state and Government, which was the only way to make sense of giving such powers to bankers and the only way in which the EMU provisions would work. In the end, the noble Lord said that we might as well ratify the treaty because it would be unravelled. No one believes that that is the objective of the 1996 conference as characterised throughout the treaty, particularly in article N.

Mr. Corbyn : Does my hon. Friend agree that this treaty hands power to bankers, bureaucrats and generals and that nowhere in article B, which is apparently to be the agenda for dealing, in three years' time, with the inadequacies of the treaty, is there any mention of the lack of accountability on the part of the people who are to decide policy in the Community ? Nowhere is there a reference to the question of the social policies of the Community as a whole, the condition of the people as a whole, or the state of the environment as a whole. We have only a proposal that all this might be dealt with in three years' time, with no thought whatsoever for the principal objection to the treaty--the complete lack of any democratic accountability in the case of the Community's institutions. 2 am

Mr. Rowlands : My hon. Friend's analysis of the totally undemocratic nature of the institutions that are being established is absolutely right. There is a notion, for example, that the 1996 conference will undertake a democratic revision of the statutes of the nascent European central bank. By that time, we shall be in the latter part of the stage 2 process, and heading very rapidly for the establishment of the central bank. The statutes will have been drafted in the most marvellously rational, but unaccountable and undemocratic, way. The notion that we shall sit down in 1996 and unravel the protocol defies belief, not just by hon. Members but by anybody who has read the treaty.

Mr. George Robertson : I fear that my hon. Friend may have left the entertaining subject of the ruminations of the Lord Lawson of Blaby. Why, when we did not believe a single word that Nigel Lawson said in this Chamber, should we believe everything he says now that he has moved to the House of Lords ?

Mr. Rowlands : I did not intend to give the impression that I believed every word he says. I referred to his rather impressive analysis of what has gone wrong with the processes. In this debate, we find ourselves in strange company. Indeed, my hon. Friend has found himself in very strange company for most of the time. What I find convincing is Lord Lawson's very simple proposition to the Select Committee that a single currency could be made acceptable only through the establishment of a democratically elected European super-Government. But the noble Lord argued that we should carry on supporting the treaty.

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Sir Ivan Lawrence : I very much regret that I am no longer a colleague of the hon. Gentleman on the Select Committee which discusses these very important matters--more important than the funding of political parties, which my own Select Committee is about to address. Does the hon. Gentleman know that Lord Lawson of Blaby is not the only person who takes this view ? I have spent quite some time discussing Maastricht with my colleagues, and I have found that the overwhelming view is that the treaty will not work, that the whole thing is an utter mess and a complete failure.

The only purpose of voting for the ratification of Maastricht is to ensure that the French, the Germans and our other European colleagues will not point at us as the reason for the failure of the treaty. It seems to me that that is a totally unsatisfactory and immoral reason for supporting a treaty that will give the powers of the elected members of the Westminster Parliament to an unelected bureaucracy in Brussels. Does the hon. Gentleman agree ?

Mr. Rowlands : I shall vote as I have done throughout the Committee. I do not believe that there is anything democratic about the provisions in the treaty in relation to fundamental aspects of the issues that will affect my constituency.

I want to make one point on a matter of dispute between ourselves and the Minister. I hope that those on our Front Bench will support our view that the 1996 conference will not be neutral. The agenda will not allow us, as it were, to roll back further the powers of the central forces of the system. On any objective reading of parts of the text of the treaty, there can be only a one-way process in 1996. Having already identified the first two clearly defined objectives in article B, I will shortly draw attention to another objective which, by any stretch of the imagination and by any interpretation, can mean only one thing at the 1996 conference.

Mr. Budgen : Will the hon. Gentleman deal with the state of opinion within his party? My hon. and learned Friend the Member for Burton (Sir I. Lawrence) drew attention to the state of opinion in the Tory party. The hon. Member for Merthyr Tydfil and Rhymney (Mr. Rowlands) may have read the significant article in yesterday's Daily Telegraph by my right hon. Friend the Member for Mole Valley (Mr. Baker) in which he described the proposals for monetary union as having already failed and having already been a nonsense. Also, with all the dignity and importance of having been a successful chairman of the Tory party, he described the way in which trouble had been brewed between Tory Members of Parliament and their constituency associations with a very important word, "shameful"--

The Chairman of Ways and Means (Mr. Michael Morris) : Order. I do not recollect any reference to title VII in that article.

Mr. Rowlands : I do not want to cross you, Mr. Morris, so I will not pursue the issue raised by the hon. Member for Wolverhampton, South-West (Mr. Budgen). It is for us to discusss among ourselves how we relate within our parties.

I want to confine myself to the text of the treaty. We have had to deal with the Bill in a curious way. Normally in Committee one deals with the text of a Bill, but we have had to use the text of the treaty. The aim of the amendment moved by the hon. Member for Inverness, Nairn and

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Lochaber (Sir R. Johnston) is to incorporate part of the text of the treaty in the Bill. Therefore, we have to consider the text. The first part of the text concerned the proposal in title VII to hold a conference. My argument is that the conference will not be a neutral way to go forward. I was about to draw to the attention of hon. Members the fifth indent of article B, which relates not only to a general objective but specifically to article N(2) in title VII. So here we have a direct and clear linkage between title VII and article B. Let me remind the Committee of its terms :

"to maintain in full the acquis communautaire' and build on it with a view of considering, through the procedure referred to in Article N(2), to what extent the policies and forms of co-operation introduced by this Treaty may need to be revised with the aim of ensuring the effectiveness of the mechanisms and the institutions of the Community."

I think that we all, even including the Minister, agree that the "acquis communautaire" is the central core of the Community. The supra-society was intended to roll back the "acquis communautaire" in one way or another. The 1996 conference is designed not to roll it back, but to build upon it. The provision in article B is directly related to N(2) in article 7 and the Minister cannot interpret that as anything other than what the conference intends--to build heavily upon the "acquis communautaire" and the new bridgeheads that the treaty will establish.

Mr. Garel-Jones : The hon. Gentleman is giving his opinion, to which he is entitled. Let us look at the experience of the treaty. How many member states does the hon. Gentleman think entered the Maastricht negotiation in the belief and hope that the ensuing treaty would contain the intergovernmental structure? I shall tell him. One member state did that--the United Kingdom.

Mr. Rowlands : I pay tribute to the right hon. Gentleman and the Government if, single-handedly, they managed to create the intergovernmental pillar, of which I approve. However, I am reading the price that they paid for that. I spent four and a half years in the best drafting school that I have ever attended--the Foreign and Commonwealth Office. I do not know whether I was a good pupil, but I was certainly a willing one. I recognise drafting when I see it, and I also recognise compromises. The watermark of compromise runs through every article, provision and protocol of the treaty. One of the problems in the Committee has been the two-faced nature of the treaty. The intergovernmental pillar was a significant achievement for the Government, but the price they paid was having to leave language in the treaty that is capable of being interpreted as meaning the opposite. Title 1 has a paragraph that could be interpreted as relating to subsidiarity, while the next paragraph seems to favour centralising. I know all about the struggle and exhaustion of negotiations, because I was involved in extensive and tricky negotiations over the Falklands, Belize and southern Africa. One always remembers the watermark compromises in such negotiations. The treaty is a particularly gruesome example of watermark compromises. Those compromises show, because the text was not cleaned up after each compromise was agreed. Almost every article is capable of being interpreted in contradictory and diametrically opposed terms. The bridgeheads established in many of the articles

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and protocols to gain the intergovernmental pillar are aimed in the other direction. Article N.2 purposefully drives forward the other face of the treaty.

Mr. Garel-Jones : The hon. Gentleman is entitled to his opinion. He says that the centripetal thrust of the Community is irreversible. The lie to that case is in the Maastricht treaty itself.

First of all, he has accepted that the overwhelming majority of the states taking part in the negotiation would perhaps have wished to see a unitary structure of the kind that the hon. Member wants, and also the subsidiarity clause, article 3b, was principally pushed by the Federal Republic of Germany and the United Kingdom. Those two--I could list many more--are instances where the case that he is putting forward has been proven by the Maastricht negotiation not to be so.

Mr. Rowlands : All the Minister is saying is that it is my judgment versus his judgment. He has not challenged me on the text. Does he argue that indent 5--

"to maintain in full the acquis communautaire' and build on it"-- is anything but the language of furthering and developing the essentially centralising nature of the treaty ? Is he saying that that is neutral language ?

2.15 am

Mr. Garel-Jones : Indeed I am saying that. Building on the Maastricht acquis, as we interpret it, means consolidating the pillared structure of the union and ensuring that article 3b is rigorously applied right across every section of Community activity. That is what I regard as consolidating the existing treaty.

Mr. Rowlands : We are not going to make much progress if we can abuse or misinterpret language in that way.

Mr. Denzil Davies (Llanelli) : My hon. Friend refers to the fifth indent. The last sentence gives the lie to what the Minister of State was saying, because the aim is to ensure

"the effectiveness of the mechanisms and the institutions of the Community."

They are making absolutely sure that they are at this conference and that they will get more power as a result.

Mr. Rowlands : That is the case that I have been making, and my right hon. Friend has underlined it. I had not reached that last line, but I am very grateful to him for doing it for me. Does the Minister believe that those words are neutral? I think that we will not get very far if words can be used like that.

Mr. Davies : English is his second language. That is why I understand it.

Mr. Rowlands : Let me ask the Minister of State whether the language is neutral throughout the treaty. What about this one? Is this neutral language? The protocol on the transition to the third stage of economic and monetary union says :

"THE HIGH CONTRACTING PARTIES declare the irreversible character of the Community's movement to the third stage of Economic and Monetary Union Therefore all Member States shall, whether they fulfil the necessary conditions for the adoption of a single currency or not, respect the will for the Community to enter swiftly into the third stage".

Is that the language of a neutral process that is going to go on until 1996 and beyond? I know that one

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Government can opt out of it, but that is the language of a treaty that we are endorsing. It is a protocol, incidentally, that will go into our domestic legislation. This protocol is not left out of the title--it is within titles II to IV. It will turn up in our domestic legislation under this Bill. I ask the Minister--I now invite him to interrupt--does he believe that that protocol should become part of our domestic legislation?

Mr. Garel-Jones : The hon. Member--this is a matter for the Chair-- is now discussing a part of the Bill that is not the subject of the amendment that we are talking about. I believe, Mr. Morris, that we are talking about the amendment. He is now referring to stage 3 of economic and monetary union, and he is well aware that the British Government have an opt-out to that part of the treaty.

Mr. Rowlands : Is not that protocol, under this Bill, going to become part of our domestic legislation? Yes or no?

Mr. Garel-Jones : Yes.

Mr. Rowlands : It is. So the language of this protocol will become part of our domestic legislation, and this is not some new bridgehead, this is not to be carried further to 1996 and beyond?

Sir Ivan Lawrence : Is not the real point that, although my right hon. Friend the Minister says that the proper interpretation of these measures is that consolidation will happen in 1996 and the Federal Chancellor of Germany, Herr Kohl, says that these measures are but a stepping stone to a united states of Europe, under title VII the decision as to what these measures mean lies not with my right hon. Friend the Minister or with Chancellor Kohl but with the European Court of Justice? The European Court of Justice has declared time and again that it is the instrument not of the nation state but of the union, whose objectives it intends to advance. That means that what will be brought to bear upon us in the end is not my right hon. Friend's reasonable intrepretation of those words, but that of Chancellor Kohl--that the measures are a stepping stone to the united states of Europe. That is what we have all been saying, from start to finish of our proceedings.

Mr. Rowlands : I understand the thrust of the hon. and learned Gentleman's intervention.

May I test the Minister on another form of words in the treaty, and find out whether he can again argue that the 1996 conference will be neutral, as he has suggested? I draw the right hon. Gentleman's attention to article J.4(6), which contains another specific reference to article N.2 and therefore to the agenda and the issues that will be before the conference :

"With a view to furthering the objective of this Treaty, and having in view the date of 1998 in the context of Article XII of the Brussels Treaty, the provisions of this Article may be revised as provided for in Article N.2 on the basis of a report to be presented in 1996."

What will be put on the agenda in 1996 under that provision in that article? We need to read back and find out what the previous paragraphs suggest, which is to elaborate and introduce

"the framing of a common defence policy, which might lead to a common defence."

The Minister has already admitted that the common foreign and security policy will be part and parcel of the agenda for 1996 ; that has been laid down. It is a treaty obligation that the conference will deal with those issues

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--and it is not merely a general obligation. Paragraph 6 of article J.4 specifically states that the objectives in the previous paragraphs of the article will be on that agenda, and the central objective in those paragraphs is the framing of a common defence policy leading to a common defence.

What does the Minister believe about that? He could, rightly, say that in 1996 we shall be there, and we shall veto, impede and obstruct any progress that might be made at the conference. I could understand that that might be the Government's position, but the Minister cannot deny that, if we accept title VII and a 1996 conference on those terms, we shall build into our processes a further bridgehead for negotiating towards the framing of a common defence policy and a common defence provision. That is included in article B as a general objective, and it is specifically included in article J.4, especially in paragraph 6, as part of the agenda for the 1996 conference.

The Minister may say that we can turn up to the conference and try to throw as many spanners into the works as we can, and obstruct and create problems, drag our heels, shout, scream and even use our veto--we have the power of veto, although I shall have something to say about that in a moment--but all I ask him to admit is that, if we accept the 1996 conference in the terms described in the treaty, we shall have to defend and fight and scream against the process written into the treaty, which the 1996 conference and its agenda are designed to further.

Why do we not now say that we do not wish to go down those roads in that way, so we should not allow article N.2 of title VII to become part of our domestic legislation?

Mr. Winnick : Does my hon. Friend agree that the hon. Member for Inverness, Nairn and Lochaber(Sir R. Johnston) had little to complain about in terms of the British Government's attitude towards a federal Europe? The hon. Gentleman was perfectly honest, unlike many of those who are in favour of the treaty. He has made it clear that he is totally in favour of a federal Europe. My hon. Friend is confirming that the 1996 conference will take the member states along the very road that the hon. Member for Inverness, Nairn and Lochaber wants. It is the road that will ultimately lead to a federal Europe, whatever the Minister and Opposition spokesmen may say and however much the word "federal" is not included in the treaty. It will be a federal Europe in the sense in which we understand the word.

Mr. Rowlands : I also fear that that is the end game. It is openly admitted and fairly frequently embraced in one form or another by hon. Members. We should puncture the pretence of Ministers and of Opposition spokesmen that that is not the end game and that that is not the agenda of the 1996 conference, especially when many of the objectives and the detailed processes by which the end game will be achieved are written into the treaty.

I listened with great interest to the Foreign Secretary. Unfortunately, I did not have the opportunity to make the contribution that I should have liked to make in the debate on a common foreign and security policy. Again, I found the Foreign Secretary, quite rightly, trying to soothe us into believing that the words were little more than the words used before, and that the treaty went little further than the Single European Act did. The language is very different. We are apparently supposed to ignore the difference between "we should endeavour to agree and

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co-operate" and "thou shalt define a foreign policy". We are told that the change in language does not mean anything, or that, if it does, the change is minimal. We live by language ; it is our profession. We spend a lot of time with language. There are differences between the forms of words and that is why we should be sceptical.

One of the running themes among Conservative Members has been that they were conned in 1986 on the Single European Act. I confess I was, too. I played little or no part in the proceedings on the Single European Act. I did not think that it was a bridgehead. The hon. Member for Esher (Mr. Taylor), who wishes to embarrass the hon. Member for Stafford (Mr. Cash), leaps up every five minutes and says, "Ah, but you signed the Single European Act, and in doing so, you signed this, and this and this." That may be the lesson that we have learnt since the debates of 1985 and 1986, and that is the lesson that we are determined not to forget when we go through the treaty line by line. We must study the words, the provisions and the agenda for the 1996 conference.

Sir Trevor Skeet (Bedfordshire, North) : We are constantly construing Acts of Parliament and treaties. There is a body, to which my hon. and learned Friend the Member for Burton (Sir I. Lawrence) recently referred, that will interpret all the words. It is a question of judgment. The Court of Justice will apply to articles L to S. If it applies to those articles, it applies to article N. If a contentious matter comes up which the Court of Justice wants to challenge, whose judgment does it accept? It does not accept the Minister's judgment, but the European judgment.

Mr. Rowlands : The hon. Gentleman, as always, makes a pertinent point. The Foreign Secretary argued, as the Minister did on an intervention, that there was a veto over the common foreign policy. He said that because decisions had to be unanimous, there was a veto. The Minister leapt to his feet during the speech by my hon. Friend the Member for Islington, North (Mr. Corbyn) who said that the terms of article J.4 were that the "Union requests" the Western European Union. The word "request" means nothing more and is very gentle. It does not mean any further obligation. Article B, however, states : "The Union shall set itself objectives"--

to have a common defence policy. We could even accept such ambiguity of language, although I do not think that we should, if--to return to the observation that strikes me every time I read another paragraph of the treaty--it were not for the grubby watermark of compromise, and the way in which contradictory and rather deadly pieces were left in the treaty.

Mr. Corbyn rose --

2.30 am

Mr. Rowlands : May I finish this point first, to keep the flow of the argument going? I am trying to produce a rry pieces of language. To add to the problem of deciding where the balance was struck, a mere declaration is included in the treaty on

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"voting in the field of the common foreign and security policy". That provision was not seriously dwelt upon--

The Chairman : Order. It was dwelt on during debate on the last but one group of amendments, and it is not particularly relevant to title VII. If it is, the hon. Gentleman is taking an awful long time to get to it.

Mr. Rowlands : I shall get to it promptly. As the Minister admitted, the central five points on the agenda of the next conference in 1996, which is mentioned in article N.2 of title VII, will include common foreign and security policy. I was about to observe, Mr. Morris, that the bridgeheads for the development of that common foreign and security policy have been established in the way that Ministers have tried to present the case to us and in the language of the "Declaration on voting in the field of the common foreign and security policy", which says that the Maastricht

"Conference agrees that, with regard to Council decisions requiring unanimity, Member States will, to the extent possible, avoid preventing a unanimous decision where a qualified majority exists in favour of that decision."

That is a mere declaration, but what a bridgehead to have established before further revision in 1996.

The Secretary of State said that there was no Luxembourg compromise around, but the declaration smacks of the language of that compromise. Although it says that we have a right to a veto, it also says that there will be ways to force us to abandon it, and, if there is a qualified majority, we will have to go along with it. That is the language of the Luxembourg compromise, and it has been written into issues of common foreign and security policy.

Article N.2 tells us that the new conference will have at its centre the question whither the common foreign and security policy goes. That declaration will not resile from the provision in article after article to establish the principle of a fully fledged common security and defence policy of the kind that many of us believe is the worrying feature which is being trailered and flagged in the treaty, ready for the conference.

Mr. Corbyn : I am reluctant to interrupt my hon. Friend's flow, which is considerable, and his analysis of the issues, but he mentioned article C, the "acquis communautaire", and how it fits in with the common defence policy. An important answer on the Danish compromise was given to my hon. Friend the Member for Newham, South (Mr. Spearing) earlier. In reality, the Danish people are being asked to vote in a second referendum on a press release put out after the Edinburgh summit. There is no fundamental change in the terms of the treaty.

What will the acquis communautaire about the common defence policy be in 1996? Is there to be a common defence policy? Is there to be a common defence policy minus Denmark on the basis of a press release, while the treaty is exactly the same? How on earth will such matters be resolved? Should not the Danish people be told that they are being conned?

Mr. Rowlands : From what I read, I understand that the Danish people are clearly observing the issues. One of the joys of having a referendum is that everybody, including politicians, has to concentrate and explain the terms of the treaty in language that members of the public can

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understand, and thereby appreciate the issues. As a passionate supporter of the referendum, I believe that that exercise would also do us a power of good.

Sir Russell Johnston : I agree, basically, with the hon. Gentleman's logic, and I know that the Welsh are attracted to occasional flourishes of oratory, but I did not greatly care for the expression, "the grubby watermark of compromise". I think that compromise is quite a good thing, and a necessary exercise in politics. We will never make any progress in Europe or the House unless there is a willingness to compromise.

Mr. Rowlands : Of course, we spend our lives compromising--in our personal and political lives, as well as every other part of our lives. But I think that we are now discussing a grubby compromise because it has been created in an unstable treaty. That is my fundamental worry.

I remember vividly that one of the earliest pieces of evidence that we received in the Select Committee on Foreign Affairs came from one of the constitutional experts, Mr. Vibert. I was struck forcibly when he said that the treaty was basically unstable. Our debates in Committee have exposed the nature of that instability

The Chairman : Order. The hon. Gentleman is now in full flow, and must return to the amendment.

Mr. Rowlands : I am sorry, Mr. Morris. I was provoked by the hon. Member for Inverness, Nairn and Lochaber and I shall resist that provocation.

I support new clause 30, which states :

"The Secretary of State shall, whenever proposals are made, or are to be made under Article B in Title 1 for revision of the policies and forms of co-operation introduced by the Treaty-- (a) lay before Parliament a report setting out the nature of the proposals and their potential effect on the interests".

Due to the treaty's instability and its potential negative consequences on the communities that I represent, I support new clause 30. I am worried : we cannot even get a

lowest-common-denominator type agreement in Committee about what simple language means, so heaven help us when the policies in article B start to be implemented. What will happen when we start moving closer towards economic and monetary union and begin to frame a common defence policy? If, as I fear, the words contain a clear drift towards a Europe of a sort that I do not believe in, that policy should be subject to continuous scrutiny as proposed in new clause 30.

Mr. Cash : New clause 30 stands in my name, and I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for giving way. Due to the carte blanche provided by so much of the treaty, it is essential that, when the nitty-gritty is being worked out within, for example, the citizenship provisions--and

"the rights and duties to be imposed thereby"--

we should know what they are. The new clause would provide the opportunity for us to obtain a definition and receive Parliament's opinion. If we did not have that opportunity, we would be handing the whole lot over to an authoritarian Government.

Mr. Rowlands : We ought to have a running commentary, as suggested in new clause 30, to ensure that we know the effect of any changes in the citizens provisions. But I am worried about another central aspect--the drive towards monetary union by monetarist means, which is written into article B and all the articles that

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follow it. At least, if we passed new clause 30, the Government would have to present the House with proposals stage by stage, on a regular, methodical basis, to find out where we stood and how far we had got.

The people I represent and my predecessors represented know the effects of monetarism on communities such as mine. Unemployment is rocketing in my area, even as a result of our membership of the exchange rate mechanism. Let us consider the consequences of returning to a fixed gold standard of the kind that we suffered in the 1920s and early 1930s : that led to male unemployment of 69 per cent. in my constituency in the 1930s.

Fortunately, the Chamberlains of this world were driven off the gold standard--driven out of the ERM of the 1930s and away from the nonsense of monetarism, although they believed in it. The consequences of moving towards such a process, however, led to devastation--to the destruction of jobs, and to suffering and hardship in my community.

My predecessors stood where I am standing, and argued passionately against such policies and processes. I have not come here 30 or 40 years later to endorse the proposal that others should act for us without our even knowing the effect. That is why I cannot support aspects of the treaty, and why I support the amendment. I want to ensure that, however difficult it is, we are able to hold on by our fingertips to some control over the processes that affect the lives, jobs and prospects of the people whom we represent.

Mr. Bill Walker : I welcome the opportunity to speak in this important debate. First, let me say to the hon. Member for Inverness, Nairn and Lochaber (Sir R. Johnston) that his credentials, and his support for federalism, have never been in doubt. It will give him no satisfaction to hear it, but I agree heartily with his definition of federalism, and with his definition of what the people of Scotland believe it to be. Whatever Ministers think, the hon. Gentleman has reflected the views of everyone I know in Scotland, and their interpretation of the word "federal"--and that includes members of the Government.

Last Friday, I attended my constituency annual general meeting. Before and after the meeting, people came up to me and said, "Bill, why are you so worried ? We have been assured by almost everyone we have talked to that the treaty is unworkable." I replied, "Well, for the first time in my life it has been suggested to me that I should support something that is unworkable." That strikes me as an illogical position.

One reason for the amendments--particularly the new clause--is our belief that the matters concerned should be properly debated, so that the people of this country can at least be certain that our Parliament is examining all aspects of the treaty to find out whether it is unworkable, as I believe it is.

Mr. George Robertson : The hon. Gentleman says that he explained to his constituency association--no doubt in Blairgowrie--that he was being asked to vote for something that was unworkable and that he does not believe in voting for something that is unworkable. However, he went through the Division Lobby to impose the poll tax, first on Scotland and then on England and Wales. He knew then that that was unworkable, and he

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