House of Commons Hansard Debates for 21 Apr 1993

Mr. Austin Mitchell : Will the Secretary of State give way?

Mr. Hurd : I wish to get on, if I may.

It is sometimes said that we have put the decision into the hands of the Danes. That is completely erroneous. The decision for Britain lies where it belongs--in the hands of the British Parliament. We are preparing, in an admittedly untidy, imperfect but I think lively way, for that decision with a thoroughness of parliamentary debate.

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I want to deal with the nature of the debate. We need not be ashamed of it. The press has been much keener to report manoeuvres and excitements outside the Chamber than what has been said inside the Chamber. I have taken part admittedly in only two of the debates in the Committee. I suppose that they were two of the more interesting debates--on subsidiarity and on the common foreign and security policy. I have read the others.

Obviously, I believe that those of us who put our case on the two matters which I have mentioned, and on others, had the better of it. I believe that we showed that subsidiarity was a real concept and demonstrated the helpfulness of the common foreign and security policy based on co- operation. But I am sure that some right hon. and hon. Members who were critical of those parts of the treaty felt that they had the best of it. But no one who sat through at any rate those two debates--and I believe that the same is true of others which I have read--can deny that the debates were of high quality and that the informal coming and going of the Committee stage enabled it to be of high quality.

Ministers and, indeed, critics were exposed to a coming and going of discussion which I thought was considerably better than the reports of it allowed. The House was doing its job. The House is doing its job. It is preparing for the final decision which it will take on Third Reading.

Mr. John Wilkinson (Ruislip-Northwood) : Does my right hon. Friend think that the quality of our debates was enhanced by the virtually indiscriminate use of the closure? On occasions Front-Bench spokesmen, and in the case of the citizenship debate the Home Secretary himself, did not even answer the questions and points that were put in the debate.

Mr. Hurd : I think that, as always, many criticisms could be made about the way in which our debates have been conducted, but I do not think that one of them could be that the Committee has hustled through debates on the Bill. I do not think that that would be the general view of those who have assisted in the votes and I do not think that the accusation of undue speed could accurately be levelled. Ministers have done their job of replying to the points made in the debate.

It would be wrong and foolish to abandon or transfer the work. It would be a shirking of the responsibilities that we were given only a year ago, and it would be a blow to the standing of the House in years to come. We would be saying to our constituents, "We have examined the matter, but we do not intend to take a decision. We have spent hours, days and weeks examining the issues and now it is over to you. We are going to throw the treaty, with all its diverse controversies and complications, into your laps to make of it what you will." I agree with the principles set out by Lady Thatcher in 1975. It cannot be right to refuse to do our job, so it cannot be right to accept the new clauses.

Mr. George Robertson : Unusually for a debate in this Committee, I am seeking to catch your eye, Dame Janet, in order to participate. I say "unusually" because on only one previous occasion has a member of the Opposition Front Bench chosen to participate at the end of a debate as well as at the beginning. My right hon. Friend the Member for Copeland (Dr. Cunningham) made only brief introductory comments, and many comments have been made by other hon. Members, so it is right and proper

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that, as a member of the Opposition Front- Bench team which has come in for some attention during the debate, I should respond to some of the issues that have been raised in the interesting, wide-ranging and varied debate.

The issue is important for the Committee, which is why my right hon. Friend the Member for Copeland made the Labour party's position clear today. Our position should come as no surprise, as it was not adopted for the convenience of today or this stage of the Committee's debates. It was adopted after considerable consultation, and was finally decided on at the annual Labour party conference last October by an overwhelming majority.

In order to get the matter out of the way, I should first like to deal with the issues raised by the hon. Member for Banff and Buchan (Mr. Salmond) on behalf of the Scottish National party. If what I have to say seems arcane to hon. Members from south of the border, they should listen carefully. During the past few weeks only, the Scottish National party has been campaigning for a vote on the referendum and for the Labour party to join SNP Members in the Division Lobby to defeat the Government. The SNP has been advancing that argument on the basis of a thesis that to do so, and to defeat the Government and approve new clause 49, would bring down the Government--or, at the very least, force the resignation of the Prime Minister. The hon. Gentleman said that we would never be forgiven by the Scottish people for voting with the Government to keep the right hon. Member for Huntingdon (Mr. Major) in his position as Prime Minister.

It is on that basis that the Scottish National party has created its argument in the past few weeks. What evidence does that party have that, faced with the prospect of defeat this evening, the Foreign Secretary would say that it was a resigning matter for either him or the. I understand that the Foreign Secretary was out of the country at the time, and the Government were not forced to a humiliating defeat on his advice. Whatever happened, they learned their lesson, and on three subsequent occasions, facing defeat, they simply accepted our amendments. Ministers would have to accept the will of the House. If there were a referendum, they would have to ask the Scottish National party and its leader to help them in the campaign for the Maastricht treaty. That would be the effect. There is no evidence to suggest that the Prime Minister, the Foreign Secretary or anyone of note in the Government would resign if Parliament decided on a referendum, yet we are being told that it is critical and crucial and that the Government hang by a thread this evening, relying for their survival and the Prime Minister's future only on the votes of Labour Members.

Mr. Austin Mitchell Will my hon. Friend give way?

12.30 am

Mr. Robertson : Let me finish explaining the position.

We are then told that the Labour party and the SNP would not have to campaign with the Government for a

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Maastricht treaty that did not include the social chapter, because the hon. Member for Banff and Buchan has produced amendment (a) to new clause 49.

I have to tell right hon. and hon. Members who have just come in, and who may well be at their first debate of the Committee, that amendment (a) to which the hon. Member for Banff and Buchan gave so much attention this evening, the critical point that he says obliges the Labour party to vote for the referendum, was tabled last Thursday. However, the SNP has tabled its own new clause calling for a referendum.

I concede that the idea of a referendum is not a new SNP policy, because it tabled its own new clause 48, which does not contain any reference to the social chapter. It was not tabled last Thursday or starred this Monday ; it was tabled on 2 December 1992, 19 weeks ago.

For 18 weeks, the SNP has been campaigning for a referendum without any questions on the social chapter, a referendum on a treaty that specifically excludes Britain from the social chapter. However, last Thursday, SNP Members decided, realised or woke up to the fact that they could do something that could give them a momentary advantage. Why would they look for advantage? Why would the SNP want to criticise the Labour party for voting with the Government? They want to get off the hook.

This elaborate, noisy smokescreen has been put up for only one reason--to cover up the cynical way in which, only a few weeks ago, the gullible SNP teamed up with a desperate Government to stand against the principle of elected councillors representing Britain on the European Committee of the Regions. That is why they have made such a big issue of this and why last Thursday, opportunistically, they tabled an amendment (a) to each of those new clauses.

Mr. Salmond : Clearly, the hon. Gentleman has been shaken and stirred by the arguments that have been deployed. Can he have forgotten that only last week he sent me a letter saying that, "for one principal and good reason",

the Labour party would not help to defeat the Government this evening--it would not be possible to get the social chapter into the referendum argument? Now that the fig leaf has been removed, what excuse does the hon. Gentleman have for saving the Prime Minister's skin this evening?

Mr. Robertson : There we have it. This is the man who was trying to save the Prime Minister's skin only a few weeks ago--the very man who led his party into the Lobby to save the principle of Government appointees serving on the Committee of the Regions--and now he dares to lecture me on the subject.

One of the principal reasons why we are not interested in a referendum is that, almost inevitably, with a Conservative Government putting the question to the country, we would be obliged to campaign for a Maastricht treaty that did not contain the social chapter. That is not the only reason ; we have, after all, developed our policy on a referendum over the past year, not in the past five days. We all know why the hon. Member for Banff and Buchan is so desperate. Anyone who has read the Scottish press and learned what has happened in the SNP over the past few weeks knows perfectly well the reasons for this evening's burst of indignation. If the hon. Gentleman and

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his colleagues who are members of the SNP national executive had not voted for themselves on a motion of censure, they would indeed have been censured by the national executive committee of the SNP. Everyone knows that this is not a question of bringing down the Prime Minister. This SNP amendment has little or no chance of gaining the support of the Tory dissidents. Yet we are told to change the policy that we have adopted over the past year. That is a bogus and cynical attempt to wriggle off the hook that the Scottish people will never let the SNP wriggle off.

Mr. Austin Mitchell : Will my hon. Friend give way?

Mr. Robertson : I may eventually come to some of the points that my hon. Friend has raised. After all, I have been listening to them for the past nine years.

During the debate, some hon. Members have put up arguments supposedly advanced by those who oppose a referendum and then easily shot those arguments down. That is the simplest and oldest debating trick in the book. We are told that some say that the issue is too difficult for the British people to decide. I have never heard anyone, anywhere, say that. If it were true, the House could not decide the matter either. It is a patronising argument, and I have never heard anyone advance it.

My hon. Friend the Member for Dagenham (Mr. Gould) claims that some people say that progress towards economic and monetary union does not matter anyway. I have never heard anyone say that either. Even those in favour of the treaty say that it matters. We have all, in fact, said that it matters.

We have been told that the nature of the treaty is so fundamental that Parliament must put it to a plebiscite. But the treaty does not concern only one issue. Some hon. Members have been honest enough to admit that not just one referendum is being asked for ; there would have to be another on stage 3 of economic and monetary union. That, too, is fundamental. If so, why not have another on progress towards a common foreign and security policy? What about the transition to a common asylum policy? Where do we stop? When should Parliament stop taking decisions and start holding referendums?

I was one of the few people here who were on the Labour Front Bench to discuss the Single European Act in 1976--[ Hon. Members :-- "Nineteen eighty-six."] It just seems that long ago. I was in a road accident in 1976.

Some Conservative Members and some of my hon. Friends will remember that there was rarely such a large attendance at debates in 1986. Of course, the Conservative party put through probably the most fundamental treaty not just without a referendum but on a guillotine. I am not surprised that my good old friend, the right hon. Member for Shropshire, North (Mr. Biffen), is not here tonight, although he has been a consistent attender at many of these debates. There may be a good reason for his absence, but I can think of one : he was the Leader of the House who moved the guillotine motion. I do not think that he likes to be reminded of that.

Is the treaty irrevocable? Is that the real reason why some people want a referendum? The original decision was on being in or out. If we are in the Community, we are all in the same boat--sharing sovereignty, sharing decisions, occasionally winning, occasionally losing. The decision is not irrevocable. The country can decide whether we are in

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or out of the European Community. That decision can be made and, if necessary, would be made by Parliament. Nothing is irrevocable.

Mr. Shore : It is the most extraordinary flight of fancy to pretend that, as we sign treaty after treaty with a European connection, we have the equal right that we had before we began this disastrous process to reverse it and pull out if we dislike something. My hon. Friend knows that that is not so. The real reason why we should have a referendum on this occasion is that, in spite of the fact that earlier treaties, all of which I have opposed, handed over great chunks of British power to decision- making in the European institutions, this treaty signs us up to a European union which carries the shape of a new state in Europe. If my hon. Friend cannot understand that, he is not fit to speak for my party.

Mr. Robertson : I do not think that my right hon. Friend ever thought that I was fit to speak on the issue for my party, so that does not come as news to me. I will not rehearse all my usual complimentary remarks about him. Although he has lost the argument and the vote in the Labour party consistently, the reality is that, if the representatives of this country want to come out of the Community and want to get out of the union that is being created--probably only in name--by the treaty, they can do it. I do not want to do that ; I do not see the same spectres in the night as so many others do. If the country wants to get out of the Community, it has the right to do so, and nobody can stop it.

Hon. Members have said that we must let the people have a direct say. On what? It is not a simple, straightforward treaty on one issue. On which issues would the people have a say? Would it be on economic and monetary union and a single currency? Would it be on more powers for the European Parliament, or on more new competences in the Community? A yes or no answer is not relevant in circumstances where there is a series of issues.

Parliament has been able to consider the Bill. The Opposition Front Bench has not sought to wreck the treaty on any individual amendment, nor should we. We never said that we would do that. Every socialist party in the European Community and in all the applicant countries wants the Maastricht treaty, so we will not wreck it for them on the basis of one amendment on one aspect. The Government wanted to make the Committee of the Regions some mini health board consisting of a handful of friendly Tory business men, Government appointees. We forced them to accept that it will be made up of locally elected representatives.

On Monday, the Government accepted new clause 1, which places an obligation on the Governor of the Bank of England to place a report before Parliament. New clause 2 and amendment No. 420 were accepted. Who knows what the Government will accept at the end of tonight's debate?

That all happened because Parliament went through the Bill. Without destroying the treaty, we have improved it for the whole of Europe. A yes or no referendum would not and could not do that.

Mr. Gill : Does the hon. Gentleman believe that the majority of Labour voters are in favour of this treaty on European union?

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12.45 am

Mr. Robertson : Yes, I do. [Interruption.] I cannot prove that they do, any more than the hon. Gentleman can prove that they do not. When the Labour party conference debated it last year after the election and after debate in the party on the treaty as a whole, an overwhelming majority said that, although it was not perfect, it was the best that was obtainable in the circumstances.

My hon. Friend the Member for Dagenham advanced an argument that is not confined to Opposition Members. He said that Parliament was not really reliable to carry out such scrutiny. He said that, after all, we are all subject to the Whips and that, when both Front Benches agreed on the basic thesis that the Maastricht treaty should go through, Parliament was not reliable. My hon. Friend was in the shadow Cabinet for years telling people what the whipping would be for the following week. Now he tells me that Parliament has no right to a say and cannot make decisions on its own, that it is precluded from doing so because the party leaderships, through their decision-making machinery, some of which is democratic and some of which is certainly not democratic, have decided. That does not stand any scrutiny.

Mr. Allason : Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

Mr. Robertson : No. I wish to make progress.

It was said that, during the election campaign, there was a cover-up conspiracy by the two Front Benches. It was said that the issue was not raised in the election and people did not know about it, and that therefore there must be a referendum. The Foreign Secretary said that, for party political advantage, he tried to raise it. That comes as a surprise, because I thought that the right hon. Gentleman was above that. I and my right hon. Friend the Member for Manchester, Gorton (Mr. Kaufman) also tried, and we can produce the press releases that we put out. We can produce journalists who were briefed to the point of tedium, but, of course, little was heard about that.

I spent much time repeatedly telling the electorate that the Government were proud of opting out of one of the significant advantages of the Maastricht treaty. During that election campaign, my hon. Friend the Member for Dagenham was quite properly drawing attention to other matters. People were listening to him and, sad to say for my political future, they were not listening to me. The topic was there all the time and has not been suppressed in any way.

Mr. Gould : Will my hon. Friend refresh our memories about how people might have voted if they had taken a view contrary to the view of the leaders of both the major parties? Does he recall people having any option to vote for or against the Maastricht treaty, or were they simply presented with a monolithic position, agreed to by the leadership of all the major parties? For that reason, the matter was never an issue in the general election campaign.

Mr. Robertson : My hon. Friend was in the leadership of the Labour party during that campaign, and that leadership told the people that, if we were returned to power we would ratify the Maastricht treaty. My right hon. Friend the Member for Gorton made that absolutely plain. We would have ratified it, with the social chapter included in it.

The leaderships of the parties were united on a number of other issues. I dare say that that, in a clinical, technical

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way, denied people the right to vote against such issues. However, as my right hon. Friend the Member for Copeland said, the British people must have drawn some conclusion from the fact that the leaderships of all the parties standing in the election, with the exception of the Ulster Unionists, were in favour of the Maastricht treaty, however imperfect they may have thought it in the detail. They would have drawn a conclusion from that, but to suggest that there was a conspiracy is nonsense.

We are told that public opinion must be the criterion. I agree that pubic opinion is extremely important. However, hardly a single politician in the Committee, if asked to comment on an opinion poll, would not say, if it were on a matter that he thought was contrary to his party's interest, "Ah well, it is only a snapshot, I am interested only in trends, I don't rely on one opinion poll." A significant number of people want a referendum on Maastricht, but a similar majority would want a referendum on the return of capital punishment, perhaps on the abortion laws, almost certainly on the Sunday trading laws. On a whole series of issues, if people were asked whether they would like a referendum, they would say in almost the same proportion that they would like a referendum. However, if that is to be the principle on which we base the judgments we take, what will there be left for us to do?

I make the point that many others have made in the debate. Those who cry loudest about Parliament handing over sovereignty to Brussels--when we are sharing power with 12 other countries at Brussels, building on that share of sovereignty, making sure that we participate in, and get advantage from, that shared

sovereignty--happen also to be those who are most keen to hand over sovereignty, on this and probably many other issues, to the rule of the plebiscite.

Several hon. Members rose --

Mr. Robertson : No, I shall not give way. I have tried to answer many points, but time is moving on.

Sir Roger Moate : Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

Mr. Robertson : The hon. Gentleman has had his chance, and a fairly lengthy chance at that, but I should like to conclude so that others may speak in the debate.

Most of the people--I concede, not all--who are seeking a referendum do so because they want a "no" majority. If they were frank, as some are, they would admit that what drives and motivates them is not just opposition to Maastricht but opposition to the European Community as a whole. So be it : they are entitled to that view. They failed in Parliament in 1972 and in 1976 and in the referendum of 1975, but they are entitled to keep on their campaigning.

The Labour party believes that Britain is in the European Community and should remain there. We believe that Parliament is the place where the issues can be debated, and the scrutiny that the British people expect and deserve can be given to the treaty and all the serious issues that are in it. For that reason, and many of the other reasons that I have enunciated and that have been enunciated by my right hon. and hon. Friends here and elsewhere, we shall oppose new clause 49.

Mr. Michael Lord (Suffolk, Central) : It is significant that, as we near the end of the Committee, the previous two speakers--from the Front Benches--addressed us in a

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way that showed clearly the cosy relationship that the two Front Benches have had throughout the Committee proceedings.

I am not sure what impact my words will have, but it is vital to me to be able to tell the Committee how strongly I feel about this issue. I feel certain that, however well or badly I put my thoughts, this will be my most important contribution in my 10 years in the House and, together with my vote at the end of the debate, it may be the most important thing that I do for as long as I am a Member of Parliament.

The debate is not simply about whether this great House of Commons continues to govern our nation ; it is also about how it is governing today and how in touch it is with the people it governs.

The whole sorry tale of the Maastricht treaty began at an intergovernmental conference in Rome in December 1990. As I was one of the delegation from the House at that conference, I suppose that I must, to some extent, bear some responsibility for what resulted from it. What a farce that first intergovernmental conference was! The delegates were supposed to attend as representatives of their countries, not of their political parties, and with reasonably open minds. On arrival, however, we were all placed in party-political groupings and it quickly became clear to me that few open minds were to be seen. It also became clear to me almost as soon as I arrived that the final proposals that the conference would put forward had been decided before it even started. If one asks what influence that conference had on the final proposals, the answer is absolutely none.

Europe can sometimes be very colourful. On the final morning of the conference, we voted for hours on 220 different amendments, all produced on purple paper. I have them with me and I will keep them for ever to remind me of that day. The voting finally finished, one or two of us having voted against the amendments while hundreds voted for them. Everyone seemed very happy, glasses clinked and we departed homewards. If ever the slogan, "Is your journey really necessary?" was applicable, it was to the 1990 intergovernmental conference in Rome.

The purple amendments gave way to the yellow treaty. Of course when we ask, "Why a referendum?" we must remember that the people of this country were not consulted about the drafting of that treaty. They never have been properly consulted since.

Under normal circumstances, I would not advocate a referendum because I believe that it is the duty of Members of Parliament to take decisions on behalf of their constituents and not to thrust those decisions back on their constituents' shoulders. But this is different. The Maastricht treaty will take away from Members of Parliament the right and the ability, fought for and cherished for centuries, to represent and stand up for their constituents in the House. If that power is to be given away or greatly diluted, as it is under the Maastricht treaty, only the British people, individually, can agree to it. The House of Commons cannot give away power, rights and responsibilities which belong not to it, but to the people. The constant refrain from Ministers has been that some people are in favour of the Maastricht treaty, while others would like to come out of Europe altogether. That statement is one of those quarter truths that have clouded the entire debate. Most people do not fall into one of those two groups ; they lie exactly between those two extremes.

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During the general election, in common with many other hon. Members, I knocked on many doors. I must confess that the Maastricht treaty was not on the lips of everyone to whom I spoke. When it came up, however, the message I always received, loud and clear, was that people believed in the need for a common market, for which they clearly understood the nation voted in a referendum some years ago. They believed that a common market, or a free trade area, in Europe made a great deal of sense, but they did not want to go beyond that. There are many good reasons for a referendum on this issue which I will not rehearse because many of them were given earlier.

Mr. Nicholas Winterton : My hon. Friend will accept that our right hon. Friend the Foreign Secretary made repeated reference to the 1972 treaty of Rome. He said firmly to the Committee that it not only had an economic content but a political one. Is not the reality that the House misled the people into believing that the common market and the treaty of Rome were primarily, if not exclusively, about trade and economic matters and would not in any way impugn or undermine the sovereignty of the country and our Parliament?

1 am

Mr. Lord : My hon. Friend makes a good point. The debate has teased out many truths about what has happened over the years in respect of agreements and treaties. If those truths had been made known to the people at the time, I believe that they would have reacted differently.

Ministers often say that the people are not happy about the Maastricht treaty and the present position in Europe because they do not understand the treaty. When the people come to understand fully what has already been given away in their name, we shall see the strongest possible reaction.

There are many good reasons why a referendum should be held. For example, as all the major parties were in favour of the treaty during the general election campaign, the electorate was unable to register its vote against it. The text of the treaty was not available to the general public until some time after the election.

This is too important a matter to be bulldozed through the House of Commons as a face-saving exercise for the Government so as not to upset our European colleagues. Nothing annoys me more than to hear many hon. Members on both sides of the Chamber who are voting for the Bill saying behind the scenes that they want only to get the Bill out of the way and then start negotiations to get the Europe that we want. What humbug! What family, business or organisation would sign a contract in which it did not believe on the basis that on the next day it could enter into new negotiations for a better deal? Let no one fool himself about the reaction of Delors or others in Europe to the ratification of the treaty. We think that Europe is slowing down and that our voice is being heard, but once the treaty is ratified, Jacques Delors and his colleagues will have seen the process as a minor hiccup on the grand march towards the Europe in which they believe.

A referendum would not undermine parliamentary sovereignty. After all, previous referendums have not done so. If a referendum is properly carried out, it can supplement and enrich democracy and restore people's

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faith in the system. An excellent editorial in The Times on 25 February showed how a referendum is far from alien to the Conservative tradition. Various leaders have been referred to, including Balfour, Baldwin and Churchill. They all considered and advocated referendums at various times. Parliament is undermined not by the idea of a referendum but by the squalid tactics that have been and are being employed to get the Bill through the House of Commons. The Europe to which the Maastricht treaty is taking us is a dream of an out-of-touch, elitist group of civil servants and some senior, not to say in other parts of Europe, elderly politicians. It is not a Europe which makes any sense to the people of the United Kingdom. Jacques Delors said after the French referendum that Europe was an elitist venture and only the decision makers needed to be convinced. At the end of March, Willy de Clerc, the leader of the committee that produced an appalling report on rebuilding the Community's image, said that Governments and the Community should stop trying to explain the treaty. To use his words, "It is inexplainable'." He added that treaty decisions were far too technical and removed from daily life for people to understand. Should any laws be so incomprehensible? We are faced with a civil servant's dream and an ordinary person's nightmare.

Civil servants and politicians involved in European legislation seem to suffer from schizophrenia. Views depend entirely on which side of the channel an individual is sitting. Directives that seem sensible and communautaire when agreed in the neutral, rarefied and utopian atmosphere of a Brussels committee room or a Strasbourg restaurant become nonsensical when applied to the local factory, the corner shop or the women's institute. It would be funny if they were not doing so much damage.

A referendum campaign would initiate the debate that the nation has so far been denied and would widen the understanding of the treaty. The Danish people seem to manage it, so why cannot we?

Mr. Nicholas Winterton : Will my hon. Friend give way on that very point?

Mr. Lord : With respect, I must press on. The hour is late. There is a little more that I want to say and I have waited a long time to say it.

Are we really going to say that our people cannot have a referendum--that their fate must hang on the decision made by the people of Denmark in their referendum? The Irish and French have now held referendums. Are they so much more intelligent and politically aware than our people? I do not think so.

I am one of the Conservative Members who, throughout our debates on the Bill, have been called rebels. It is a label of which I am neither proud nor ashamed. I have never voted against the Government before in the 10 years in which I have been in the House, but this matter is much more important to me than any of the labels that are bandied about. If "rebel" is the correct term for a Member of Parliament who does what he believes to be right in regard to a great issue of the day, I am happy to be associated with former rebels in the Conservative party who also stuck to their guns.

In the 1843 Session of Parliament, Disraeli voted against the Government 10 times. In 1844, he did so seven

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times. During the passage of the Government of India Bill in the 1930s, Winston Churchill voted against the Bill 30 times in Committee and once on Report. It is interesting to note that, on at least two occasions, Churchill moved motions to report progress.

Macmillan joined the rebellion against the Government's appeasement policy ; and, after a foreign affairs debate in June 1936, he was one of two Tory Members who voted against the Government. A week later, he resigned the Whip. When Anthony Eden resigned in February 1938, he said at the start of his resignation statement :

"there are occasions when strong political convictions must override all other considerations. Of such occasions only the individual himself can be the judge. No man can be the keeper of another man's conscience".

It is interesting to note how little things have changed in the last half century. During the Committee stage of the Government of India Bill in 1935, Winston Churchill wrote to his wife : "we do very well in the debate but the Government have mobilised 250 of their followers who do not trouble to listen to the debates but march in solidly and vote us down with large majorities usually swelled by the Socialists and always by the Liberals. It is going to be a long weary business".

On 2 March, he wrote to her again :

"The Government's supporters are cowed, resentful and sullen. They keep 250 waiting about in the Libraries and Smoking Rooms to vote us down on every amendment and we have a fighting force of about 50 which holds together with increasing loyalty and conviction." His letter ended :

"The Divisions go the other way, but we mock at them for being lackeys and slaves".

During this Committee stage, I have heard the best speeches that I have heard since becoming a Member of Parliament. How sad it is that they have all too frequently been made to almost empty Galleries. I believe that the speeches havPerhaps the most important point for me so far was raised by my hon. Friend the Member for East Lindsey (Sir P. Tapsell). In a wonderful speech on 24 March, he comprehensively destroyed any credible case for a central bank. His remarks were given added authority by the fact that--I suspect--he knows more about international banking than any other Member of Parliament. However, it is not my hon. Friend's remarks about banking that I shall remember for many years to come ; it is his description of how a colleague of his in the House many years ago, Walter Elliot, had told him that voting for Munich--out of loyalty to Neville Chamberlain--had not only eventually wrecked his political career, but, more important, permanently damaged his self-esteem. He never ceased to reproach himself for his vote as events unfolded. My hon. Friend predicted that, 10 years from now, very few Conservative Members would admit that they had ever supported the Maastricht treaty. Churchill said, "Trust the people." We have heard that phrase several times today. On this issue, we must not only trust the people ; we must explain to them what is at stake and seek their views. We keep talking about open government, but if people really do not understand what

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we are doing in the House of Commons, they are shut out of the affairs of our nation just as effectively as if a door had been slammed in their face.

Many recent decisions by the Government have raised serious questions about how in touch with the people we are. How tragic it would be if this estrangement were to reach its peak on a matter of such magnitude. It is essential for any Government to keep in touch with the people. We may not think that they need to be consulted, but what happens if they think that they ought to be and they are not? If their views are not sought and if events in Europe go the way that I suspect they will, they will feel cheated and angry.

What, then, will be the repercussions, not just on European issues but on the whole relationship between the nation and its Government? We want more open and more honest government. Why do we not start now? A referendum on this issue could be the turning point, giving back to the people their involvement and rekindling their trust. I particularly urge the Prime Minister not to allow the responsibility for forcing this dubious treaty on our country to rest entirely on his own shoulders. He has done all that anyone possibly could to keep his word on the Maastricht treaty and to honour his commitment, but it is now almost a year and a half since that commitment was given and so much has changed in the Community and the wider Europe. The world has moved on significantly. The Danes have voted no. There is great anxiety throughout Europe about this treaty and a growing belief in all countries that on this issue leaders are out of touch with their people. Our Prime Minister is entitled to say, "I have done my best, but the whole European scene is now so changed that I feel obliged to recognise the concerns of the British people about this issue and to put the matter to them in a referendum." The Prime Minister wants a nation at ease with itself. Our nation is not at the moment at ease with itself. It is a nation hypnotised by Europe and frustrated by its inability to act decisively, not just in its own best interests but in the best interests of the other nations of Europe. For a nation to be at ease with itself, it needs to be at ease with its neighbours, and we are not.

There should be no need to enforce co-operation between European allies in a treaty. If they agree on policies, they can act together freely and in their own mutual interest. Forced co-operation and co-ordination, as in the exchange rate mechanism, creates unnecessary pressures which eventually have to be released, one way or the other.

I believe that very few Members of this House of Commons really have their hearts in the Maastricht treaty any more. If that is true, how wrong it would be to foist it on the British people without their consent. I am prepared to admit that I want to see a referendum, not just for the reasons that I gave earlier but because I very much hope and believe that the British people do not want the Maastricht treaty and would vote against it.

I hope that hon. Members who vote against a referendum tonight will at least admit to themselves that they may be voting against a referendum on the Maastricht treaty partly on principle but also because they know that a referendum, if granted, would result in a resounding no.

The House of Commons, established and maintained by sacrifices and traditions for centuries, has to make a

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