House of Commons Hansard Debates for 4 May 1993

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will explain that it is due to the way in which his party abused power when it had it, to the extent that it had to be removed. Does not the right hon. Gentleman agree that, if there is a Committee of the Regions, it will be a good thing for the north of Ireland, in that whoever is appointed from local government might be subject to outside influences that could be reflected in the councils on which they serve--especially Belfast city council, which is dominated by the right hon. Gentleman's party?

Mr. Taylor : I am sure that you, Madam Deputy Speaker, would not want me to be tempted down that path. I shall stick to the facts. Major local government services in Northern Ireland are controlled by this Parliament and not by elected Northern Ireland councillors. Education, health, social services, roads, planning, housing, sewerage and water are all controlled by people who were not elected in Northern Ireland, yet who exercise total power in relation to those services.

The hon. Member for Newry and Armagh has no say in those matters and nor have his district councillors. Regrettably, the hon. Gentleman wants to keep the nationalist people of Northern Ireland in a position in which they have no say in the Province's local government affairs. We have local elections in Northern Ireland at the moment and I am sure that the people of Northern Ireland will have heard the hon. Member for Newry and Armagh remark that he does not want them to have real power.

Rev. Martin Smyth (Belfast, South) : Surely the right hon. Gentleman does not want to mislead the House and to go on record as saying that the Ulster Unionist party dominates the city hall, when it accounts for fewer than one third of the council's members. No party dominates the city hall. It is important to retrieve proper power and for the people of Northern Ireland to elect their own representatives.

Mr. Taylor : As I said earlier, I do not imagine that you, Madam Deputy Speaker, want me to go down that path. However, the hon. Member for Belfast, South (Rev. M. Smyth) is correct. I believe that the hon. Member for Newry and Armagh was being a little flippant in the way in which he made his case during his intervention. In Northern Ireland, the main government services that benefit from the European regional development fund are controlled not by elected councillors in Northern Ireland but by the Northern Ireland Office and its Ministers. Therefore, elected representatives from the district councils representing Northern Ireland on the Committee of the Regions will not have the same important role to play as elected councillors from elsewhere in the United Kingdom--in England, Scotland and Wales--unless we get real democratic local government powers in Northern Ireland.

We must transfer back to the locally elected representatives the real issues that benefit from European regional development funding--in other words, roads, sewerage and water must be transferred back to the elected councillors--so that they can represent the people on the Committee of the Regions in Brussels and can argue their corner to obtain European regional development funding for these major infrastructure projects.

Mr. Wigley : If I understand correctly, the right hon. Gentleman's argument is that representatives from Northern Ireland will not have as much clout as

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representatives from England, Scotland and Wales. Does the right hon. Gentleman accept the argument put forward in Brussels recently that the United Kingdom representatives will not have as much clout as representatives from Germany or Spain? The representatives of those countries are representing elected Governments ; our councillors must compete with, perhaps, former Prime Ministers of Bavaria in arguing the case that the right hon. Gentleman puts forward. Is not that a case for an elected assembly or parliament in Northern Ireland to give even stronger clout to those who go to Brussels to argue the case?

Mr. Taylor : That is an entirely different subject. We are talking about the Committee of the Regions and debating a proposal that the membership of that committee should be made up of elected councillors, elected members of local authorities. That is the issue. I am saying that those who are elected to district councils in Northern Ireland have very limited powers compared with those elected to councils elsewhere in the United Kingdom. The European regional development fund, to which the Committee of the Regions is related, gives major grants for structural and environmental projects in which district councils in Northern Ireland have little or no say. For example, a constituent came to me at the weekend to complain about a pothole on the Cairnshill road in Castlereagh borough. I cannot go to the district councillors to ask for the pothole to be filled, because they are not allowed to fill in the pothole. As the hon. Member for Newry and Armagh said, they would discriminate in how they filled it up. He said that they are not capable of filling up a pothole--that is his argument--so we are left with the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland as the only person with the right to decide whether that pothole is to be filled. That is a ludicrous situation which must be rectified. Until it is, the district councils who represent Northern Ireland on the Committee of the Regions will not have the same status and responsibilities as those from elsewhere in the United Kingdom.

The hon. Member for Southend, East (Sir T. Taylor) mentioned the question of expenses for the members of this new Committee of the Regions. I suspect that it is going to be a committee somewhat similar in its role to that of the Economic and Social Committee in Brussels. The members of that committee--which represents the social partners in the trade unions, business and industry--receive expenses, and rightly so ; they have to travel to Brussels and stay overnight there and it is an expensive city. The Minister should give the House some guidance on this--obviously he cannot tell us exactly what the allowances and expenses will be for members of the new Committee of the Regions--and tell us what the present levels of travelling expenses and attendance allowances are for members of the Economic and Social Committee ; we will then be able to draw our own conclusions because the allowances will be somewhat similar for the Committee of the Regions.

Finally, I come to the issue raised by the hon. Member for Southend, East-- that the Committee of the Regions is simply a consultative committee : powerless and, to a certain extent, a lot of nonsense. That is true. We already have an elected European assembly at Strasbourg--now

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renamed the European Parliament--with elected representatives from the 12 countries of the European Community. Within that Parliament, there is the European Regional Policy Committee, consisting of elected members of the European Parliament from all 12 Community countries, which meets on a regular basis at least once a month, and elected representatives from Northern Ireland, England, Scotland, Wales and elsewhere in the Community deal with regional policies. The committee is consulted by the European Commission and the Council of Ministers and expresses the views of the elected representatives of the regions on specific regional policies. Will the Minister explain adequately--he failed to do so in Committee--what gap the committee will fill in the consultative procedure, and in the whole evolution of regional policy in the Community, which is not already filled by elected representatives in the European Parliament who sit on the Regional Policy Committee?

6.15 pm

Sir Roger Moate : The right hon. Member for Strangford (Mr. Taylor) concluded on a very powerful note indeed. He demonstrated that there is no answer that the Minister can give. The answer is clear : this committee is unnecessary. The point that the right hon. Member made about the flaw in the logic of the argument as applied to Northern Ireland is equally a strong argument, but I think that we can apply that logic to many of the features of the argument about whether we have locally elected councillors and whether that is an appropriate qualification.

I disagreed with my hon. Friend the Member for Holland with Boston (Sir R. Body) when he congratulated the Government on having accepted the will of the House and suggested that we should support the new clause. I do not believe that the House should accept it. I find it extremely difficult. I have heard very few arguments from my right hon. Friend the Minister with which I have agreed, but when he argued against this proposition in Committee I agreed with him. He was very persuasive and powerful. Now I have great difficulty when he comes before the House and asks me to accept the opposite argument. I do not change as readily as that. He was persuasive before and I accepted his previous argument. I think that the House, too, should accept that logic.

Mr. Garel-Jones : What I was seeking to do in Committee, when my hon. Friend and other hon. Members intervened, was demonstrate the choices and dilemmas that lay before us. For example, I said that I thought that England ought to be entitled to 20 seats, but that, on the basis of some of the bids that we had received from other parts of the country, England would get none at all. I said that that was a ludicrous position, and that a balance had to be struck.

I see the point that my hon. Friend is heading towards. As an English Member, I would not want to see--anxious as I am to see that Northern Ireland, Wales and Scotland are properly represented--England squeezed down to the point where it would worry him and me.

Sir Roger Moate : I am not sure that I agree with my right hon. Friend on that point, or whether it matters terribly if England is squeezed down. I accepted the Government's powerful argument that there was no logic in having elected councillors appointed and that we should

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have worthy, powerful and influential people from all parts of the Community sitting on this committee--if there had to be such a committee. Now my right hon. Friend is asking the House to say that that argument no longer applies and that representatives have to be elected councillors.

Mr. Garel-Jones : Let me make it clear to my hon. Friend that the Government would still prefer to retain the flexibility for this and future Governments to allow representatives from the business community, as my hon. Friend and others have suggested, to be part of our team on the Committee of the Regions. That is the position which the Government would have preferred. The House chose to prefer a system relying entirely on elected councillors, and the Government must bow to the will of the House.

Sir Roger Moate : I understand that point, but I disagree with it. I challenge the suggestion that, somehow, the will of the House is expressed by a single vote in Committee. It is a novel proposition. Do the Government intend to accept it in future? If they are defeated in Committee upstairs or on the Floor of the House, will they say, "The House has spoken ; that is the will of the House ; we accept it."? Will they make no effort to overturn that decision on Report, or in another place?

The will of the House, as we understand it, is expressed ultimately in the legislation that we enact, which involves a number of stages. The will of the House is not expressed simply in Committee. What my right hon. Friend should have done was to say, "All right, we accept that we were defeated in Committee, but we shall reverse that decision on Report." We have such an opportunity now.

Mr. Garel-Jones : If my hon. Friend were able--I must admit that my efforts to do so failed--to persuade some of my right hon. and hon. Friends to reverse their view and support what I believe is my hon. Friend's view, which is also the Government's view, I am sure that the Government would seek to do what he suggests. I am afraid, however, that my advocacy failed. I do not know whether my hon. Friend has any good news for me.

Sir Roger Moate : I have seldom known my right hon. Friend to be in such a flexible mood : to be so anxious to accept a majority verdict and not to challenge it. Alas, I can offer my right hon. Friend no more than my own vote. No doubt he and I will be in the Lobby together to vote down the new clause. That, at least, is the logic of the argument. Further efforts should have been made to overturn the Committee's verdict.

I object in principle to the concept that appointment to the Committee of the Regions--its members will be appointed, for there is no new mechanism, as has been pointed out, for electing them--should be restricted to elected councillors. They do not even have to represent the region from which they come. Although I am delighted that there will be no regional elections, the horrible logic of all this is that if there is to be a Committee of the Regions and only locally elected councillors are to serve upon it, they ought to be elected to that committee. Such a proposition would be welcomed by the nationalist parties, or the minority parties, or the regional parties, however they may choose to be described. However, that is no part of the proposal, and I am pleased about that.

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What I object to, in all logic, is the idea that election to a local council is, somehow, a relevant and necessary qualification for service on an appointed committee, an advisory and consultative committee, of this sort. What magic divinity is conferred upon a district councillor from, shall we say, the excellent borough council of Swale in my constituency that justifies his appointment as the British representative for a region that is called, for the sake of argument, the south-east of England--Kent, Essex, Surrey, Sussex, and perhaps Greater London?

The appointment of a Conservative Swale borough councillor, no matter how superb he might be, will not be accepted by Labour councillors in Essex, just because that man has been elected to Swale borough council. It does not mean anything.

One is elected to represent one's parish council, district council or constituency. That confers some rights within the area, but it does no more than that. It confers neither the status nor the credibility to represent the United Kingdom, or a large region of the United Kingdom, in Brussels. There is no logic, there is no sense, in that argument.

Mr. Gallie : I agree with much of what my hon. Friend says. I agree also with the comments of the Minister, who has to deal with the practicalities of the issue. If I may add to my hon. Friend's argument, I find it difficult to understand how local authority representatives, who frequently complain of the burdens of their local authority involvement, will be able to take on their shoulders this weighty exercise of travelling regularly to Brussels to take part in the deliberations of the Committee of the Regions. Can my hon. Friend comment?

Sir Roger Moate : I understand my hon. Friend's point, but I suspect that it will not be difficult to find local authority representatives who will be willing to go to Brussels. It will be a sacrifice for them, but I suspect that there will be some compensation. Their expenses will not be too inadequate. The influence and the status that will be conferred on them will be considerable. People will listen to their words. I suspect that, somehow, they will manage to tear themselves away from their borough council duties in order to spend time elsewhere. I do not think that that will be a problem.

Mr. Garel-Jones : I apologise for interrupting my hon. Friend again, but his remarks provide me with the opportunity to respond to a question that my hon. Friend the Member for Southend, East (Sir T. Taylor) and other hon. Members asked regarding expenses and costs. Members of the Committee of the Regions receive no salary. They receive a per diem of approximately £100 a day, plus their travelling expenses. As for the costs of the Committee of the Regions, members of the committee will use the services of the existing secretariat. They will also use the buildings that the Economic and Social Committee occupies. There will be some additional administrative and personnel expenses, but we do not expect them to be too substantial.

Sir Roger Moate : I am sure that the House will be most grateful for what my right hon. Friend has said about the position at the beginning. Can he tell us that that state of affairs will continue for the next five, 10, 15 or 20 years ? I

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just wonder what the rewards might be in the years to come. The point is taken, however. I do not intend to labour the expenses point.

My right hon. Friend will find that locally elected councillors feel that they have gained considerable influence and stature as a result of going to Brussels to sit on the Committee of the Regions--influence and stature which, I suggest, is far beyond what is justified by the powers that they exercise. The real danger is that this committee has no responsibility but great influence. Its position is one of total irresponsibility--the prerogative of the harlot throughout the ages. The committee will have no responsibility, but, due to its great status, it will be able to lecture the Strasbourg assembly, Brussels and us and urge us to spend, spend and spend.

Mr. Marlow : My hon. Friend talks about the committee's status. Will its members have some title or designation? Will they be known as regional councillors? Will they have initials after their name? A more substantial point is that we have got it the wrong way round. We ought to know what this organisation is doing before we establish it. If it is not doing housing, education, social services and those things that are done by locally elected councillors, what on earth is the point of sending locally elected councillors to sit on that committee?

Sir Roger Moate : My hon. Friend makes his point in his own way. It was dealt with effectively by the right hon. Member for Strangford, who asked the same fundamental question : what on earth will this body be doing that is not already being done by properly elected Parliaments? I have, with regret, to include the Strasbourg Parliament, which I wish was not directly elected. The direct election factor to the Strasbourg Parliament conferred legitimacy on that body. It is a dangerous trend. It was the conferment of democratically elected status on the European Parliament that enhanced that concept of the European federal state. Therefore, I worry about the thin end of the wedge in this case--the conferment of legitimacy on the Committee of the Regions representatives. My final point is linked to the one that I have just made. I object strongly to the Committee of the Regions being there at all. I accept that we are debating the qualifications of the people who are to be appointed to the committee, but the status of the Committee of the Regions will be deliberately enhanced by the fact that its representatives are elected. The two arguments are inseparable. It is right, therefore, to argue in this debate strongly against the Committee of the Regions and to vote down the new clause. I am surprised that a Conservative Government and Conservative Back Benchers should argue in favour of something called a Committee of the Regions. I never believed that I would hear such an argument. Why? First, because the Conservative party and this Government have always fundamentally opposed the concept of regional government. I am not talking about Scotland or Wales, but I am certainly talking about England. We have opposed the proposals, especially those made by the Liberal party, for elected regions. We have opposed them for a variety of good reasons, but we are now accepting, almost automatically as a good thing, the Committee of

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the Regions for the whole of the European Community and for our country. That is very dangerous, so why are we accepting it? 6.30 pm

Secondly, is it not the case that we are opposed to other bodies bypassing Westminster? Without a shadow of a doubt, the Committee of the Regions is designed to do just that. It is in its very nature. [ Hon. Members :-- "Hear, hear."] The Scottish nationalists say, "Hear, hear"--we do not have to prove the point because their support does that. The committee is designed to bypass Westminster, yet the Conservative Government are going along with it. Perhaps the committee will be merely an empty talking shop and we are setting up an empty consultative body. Even so, we should still oppose it, but we are apparently saying that it is a good thing and such a good thing that only elected councillors should sit on it.

It could be argued that we do not believe in the committee at all and that it is merely the price that we have to pay for the Maastricht treaty. When I suggested that to the Minister of State in Committee, he said that that was not so and that we believe in it. He said that it was a good thing and that we welcome it. Perhaps it is something in which my right hon. Friend believes, which the rest of the party does not like very much, but with which it has to go along for the sake of the deal in Europe. That would at least be consistent with the rest of the argument over Maastricht : most of the party does not like it, but it is the price that we have to pay to settle the big deal for which the Minister of State is waging a valiant and powerful intellectual fight by himself.

The Committee of the Regions is alien to the Conservative party's usual philosophy, and I object to it strongly. It is not a matter of doing things for the regions--there are other mechanisms for that through national parliaments and elected bodies. The committee is nonsense and rubbish. The new clause may tidy it up, but that merely makes it tidier rubbish which we should not accept.

I should dearly like to believe that we could have cut the committee out of the treaty. We cannot, but we can reject the new clause and eliminate the pretensions that the committee might gain by having elected councillors. We shall not then confer on this consultative body a legitimacy which, as my hon. Friend the Member for Holland with Boston said, would represent the thin edge of the wedge, which would ultimately lead to regional government underpinning the federalist ambitions of many hon. Members and many in Europe.

Mr. Maclennan : The contributions of the hon. Members for Faversham (Sir R. Moate) and for Holland with Boston (Sir R. Body) have revealed a number of inconsistencies among the Adullamites of the Conservative Members below the Gangway. It has been interesting to hear them contradict each other about the potential importance of the Committee of the Regions.

I ha for parts of that continent-wide political organisation to find common interests being expressed by different parts of Europe which are not always reflected in the historic national communities which are represented directly through the Council of Ministers. Indeed, there is already more in common, for

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example, between the fishermen of Brittany and Jutland and of my constituency in the north of Scotland than between the fishing interests expressed by national Governments represented in Brussels in the Council of Ministers when they have sought to determine the common fisheries policy.

Mr. Gallie : Will the hon. Gentleman clarify how the Committee of the Regions could assist the fishermen to whom he refers, given the powers that it has?

Mr. Maclennan : I believe that it will help to focus on the practical consequences of proposals that are being made by, for example, the European Commission for regulations or directives which may affect their interests and which are not necessarily priorities for national Governments but which are priorities for the affected sectoral and local interests.

One has only to consider the debate about whether the highlands and islands of Scotland should be included in the objective 1 status for the purposes of assistance with structural development to recognise that there are, even now, issues of the greatest importance which it is difficult to get on to the agenda of the Council of Ministers because they are of regional but not national interest. Where there are allies to be found at regional level, the case for getting them on to the agenda of the Council of Ministers can be enormously strengthened. I hope that the Committee of the Regions will grow not only in influence but in authority and real power.

Mr. Bill Walker : I thank the hon. Gentleman for giving way. He is always courteous.

If Scotland, for example, is to be treated as a region, does he accept that its representatives would not necessarily agree that the highlands should be the only part of Scotland to fall into the category to which he referred? Other parts of Scotland may be just as disadvantaged as the highlands, so that there may not be a unanimous view among the Scottish group.

Mr. Maclennan : It would be presumptious of me to look into that crystal ball, although I believe that the highlands and islands' special needs and problems have, on the whole, been recognised across the political parties and throughout Scotland, if not always by central Government at Westminster. I think it probable--I go no further than that--that elected representatives drawn from local authorities would always understand the peculiar needs of the geographical half of Scotland which is the highlands and islands. That is only speculative, and I am dealing with a more institutional point.

Should the committee have an important role? The Adullamite's view is that anything which enhances the effectiveness of the Community is not to be welcomed. Clearly, a body that draws its legitimacy in part from the fact that its membership, although appointed by the Government, has legitimate democratic roots is to that extent strengthened. Indeed, it is entirely consistent with the view of the hon. Member for Faversham who, although he has not exercised power over these matters in two decades, has nevertheless sought to exercise influence and is listened to with respect because his principles have been shining clearly during that time.

I hope that the committee will derive benefit from having a membership drawn from people who have subjected themselves to the arbitrament of election. That

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gives people a degree of authority in affairs of state, a right to be listened to with some respect, which those who have simply been plucked out of the list of the great and the good by the Government of the day cannot possibly hope to enjoy.

Let me draw an example from close to home. At the general election I was opposed in Caithness and Sutherland by a Conservative candidate who had not stood for election before, certainly not to Parliament, and, if my memory does not mislead me, had not stood in a local government election either. Within a matter of months the Secretary of State for Scotland announced that if the northern unit of the Highland health board was to be established by the wish of those currently involved in running it, he had it in mind to appoint my Conservative opponent as its chairman ; no doubt he was on the Secretary of State's list of the great and the good.

That is an issue of patronage. That is how the Government have proceeded for more than 12 years, and it causes some resentment. I have a great regard for my Conservative opponent, who is a man of sense in many matters, and a man of high public spirit--but he has not succeeded in being elected. Many people who have been involved in running hospital affairs in my constituency and in the rest of Scotland have stood for election and have been elected. It seems to me perverse that those people should all have been bypassed in favour of somebody who has not been elected, and it also undermines that person's authority. It does not strengthen the unit that is being set up.

I cite that local example in support of the case for appointing representatives from among those who have been elected, as the new clause specifies. The right hon. Member for Strangford (Mr. Taylor)--

Sir Roger Moate : May I take the hon. Gentleman back to his example of the health authority? We can all think of similar arguments from other parts of the United Kingdom. Is the hon. Gentleman saying that he would not object so strongly to someone's being appointed to such a post if that person had been officially elected to any body? Would he prefer such a person to be a business man, for example, or to be someone else who had been taken from the community and appointed to chair the health authority? Rather than drawing an analogy with a defeated candidate, is it not fairer to compare an elected councillor with another leading, but non-elected, person in the community?

Mr. Maclennan : I do not think that people have to be either councillors or business men. Many of the most effective councillors I know are extremely effective business men in their own right. The field would not be seriously narrowed.

Mr. Garel-Jones : May I reinforce the point made by my hon. Friend the Member for Faversham (Sir R. Moate)? The option that the Government would have preferred would have allowed for a substantial number of elected local government representatives, but we should not have been alone in the Community in our wish to keep a proportion of the representation so as to enable business men and environmentalists, for example, and representatives of other interests to serve on the Committee of the Regions. Other countries have so ordered their affairs.

I do not believe that there is a great issue of principle at stake here ; it is a matter of judgment. Our judgment was

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that it was not the wisest course to tie down future British Governments and restrict them solely to elected local government representatives.

6.45 pm

Mr. Maclennan : I simply disagree with the Government's initial analysis. I may be revealing my hand when I say that I want the Committee of the Regions to develop, and that if it developed into a second chamber of the European Parliament I should not find that unwelcome. I have always taken the view that a Committee of the Regions could well develop into a senate of the European Parliament. That idea is in the back of my mind, and that is the direction in which I wish to see the committee develop, so naturally I should like it to start its life on something as close as possible to a democratic basis. Clearly it will not start on a wholly democratic basis because the Government will choose this country's representatives, so the democratic element could be introduced only at a second stage.

If we could start to invent a constitution for the United Kingdom, few people would dream up anything like the House of Lords, an upper House in which people who have not been subject to election legislate for us. In Europe we are at the beginning of that process and we have the opportunity to avoid creating unaccountable, unelected institutions which inevitably speak with less authority than they would enjoy if they had been elected.

Notwithstanding the rather peculiar way in which the Government have been led to introduce new clause 42, and the strange deals that they struck in Committee with the most unlikely people, I freely admit that I think that some progress has been made. I should like to think that we shall move towards a system whereby the Committee of the Regions will be established by either direct or indirect elections, to give it authority, so that the highlands and islands of Scotland can speak directly to, say, Sicily about the problems of remoteness and how the European Community's legislative process should take those problems into account in reaching its conclusions. It is no use saying that that can all be ironed out at national level. No doubt Sicily will find Rome as unresponsive to its problems of remoteness from the centre as the highlands and islands find London.

Mr. John D. Taylor : I find it difficult to follow what the hon. Gentleman is saying about the highlands and islands of Scotland speaking directly within the context of the European Community to people from the island of Sicily. Surely that already happens. Elected members from Sicily and from Scotland--including Scottish nationalists--serve on the regional policy committee of the European Parliament. Why is it wrong that elected representatives from Sicily and from Scotland should speak together on the regional committee of the European Parliament yet right that they should do so on the Committee of the Regions?

Sir Roger Moate : Because that would be the hon. Gentleman's second chamber.

Mr. Maclennan : Exactly. It would reinforce the effectiveness of those representatives' voice. I do not see the issue as an either/or choice. It is certainly desirable that members of the European Parliament from the highlands

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should talk to members of the European Parliament from Sicily, but how much more effective it would be if those interests were reinforced at another level of the Community legislative process, by the direct contact that I foresee in the new development. I believe that there is considerable enthusiasm for the idea, at least in the highlands and islands of Scotland. There had already been contact between elected councillors, who had meetings with their opposite numbers long before the Committee of the Regions was dreamt up, and sought to promote within the European Community the interests of what were called the peripheral regions.

That is entirely welcome to me, because most of the tendencies of the Community in its first few years--possibly for its first decade--were centralising. There was a failure to recognise that the needs of those beyond the golden triangle must be consciously protected by the legislative processes of the Community and that something more than mere lip service to those interests was required if the Community was not to be seen as a malign influence on the development of our country.

The new clause is a welcome measure. It does not go anything like far enough towards the establishment of a powerful part of a legislative process, but it will be useful.

Mr. Marlow : Local councillors are responsible for various functions, such as education, social services, housing and planning. They are responsible for others, but those are the most important. Europe is not responsible for housing, education, social services or planning. If the detested Committee of the Regions is to exist, why send councillors to it?

Mr. Maclennan : That is a good question to address to the Government. Why not send directly elected people to it? That would be the preferable route. We should have a Committee of the Regions with members directly elected by a fair and proportional system. That would secure a more suitable form of legislature.

Mr. Garel-Jones : The hon. Gentleman might find it helpful to throw that question back to my hon. Friend the Member for Northampton, North (Mr. Marlow) because when we debated an amendment in the same terms in Committee, he voted for the proposition that he is now questioning.

Mr. Maclennan : I am grateful to the Minister for prodding my memory. It is unusual to invite the hon. Member who has the Floor to ask another hon. Member to intervene in the way the Minister suggests, and I am not sure how the Chair would react to such a request by me. But the hon. Member for Northampton, North (Mr. Marlow) is not usually slow to intervene if he sees an opportunity to get himself out of a hole that the Minister has dug for him.

I am satisfied that, so far as it goes, the new clause is to be welcomed. It is a modest step towards democratic accountability, to strengthening the authority of the Committee of the Regions and to giving it some influence, albeit modest, over the legislative process of the Community. To that, at this stage in its development, is perhaps as far as we can aspire.

Mr. Marlow : The Minister of State made, towards the end of the speech of the hon. Member for Caithness and Sutherland (Mr. Maclennan), an uncharacteristically ungenerous intervention. I did indeed vote for the

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amendment in Committee, and I should have thought that my right hon. Friend would have been grateful to see a sinner turn to repentance. But I have not turned to repentance, because I knew precisely what I was doing when I voted in Committee.

I do not like the Committee of the Regions, and I do not like the Bill. I thought that we should have further debate about the Committee of the Regions and that we should certainly debate the Bill on Report. My right hon. Friend and I have discussed these issues before. On one occasion, we spoke about a tactical or probing closure. On that occasion, it was a probing vote.

Mr. Garel-Jones : I am grateful to my hon. Friend for that clarification. I am seeking to establish, not just for the group of amendments now before the House but perhaps for others, that the votes that my hon. Friend casts are cast primarily for tactical reasons rather than for any attachment to a cause. He seems to be suggesting that, although I do not wish to lead him down a route that he does not intend to take.

Mr. Marlow : In common with my right hon. Friend, one votes in this place for a variety of reasons on a variety of occasions. On that occasion, rather than a tactical it was a strategic decision to vote for the amendment. We now have an opportunity to put the matter right.

Hon. Members may be aware that my name is attached to two amendments in the group now being discussed. Both are concerned with representation on the Committee of the Regions. I am in very august company on one, because the first name, after which mine appears, is that of the Foreign Secretary. That amendment would withdraw from the amended Bill the amendment to which the House agreed in Committee, and hurrah for that.

Sir Roger Moate : Would my hon. Friend vote for that?

Mr. Marlow : Most certainly. I would vote for it for strategic and tactical reasons, and with pleasure. It is my intention to vote for it should an opportunity arise at a later stage.

I have tabled another amendment about how and from where--from which parts of the United Kingdom--the members of the committee should be selected. I understand that the Committee of the Regions is basically a body that has been established for reasons that we have not been given. But we know, if we read the treaty in detail, that the committee will be consulted about the allocation of structural funds and regional development funds. In other words, where there is money to be spent, members of the Committee of the Regions will be guiding and directing, as far as they can, where that money should be spent. That brings me to the important issue of who should be on the committee. I asked the hon. Member for Caithness and Sutherland what the organisation would do. One reads the treaty from beginning to end and one reads in Hansard, among other things, the remarks that the Minister of State made on previous occasions about the remit and role of the committee, but nothing can one find.

But one knows, having had a certain amount of exposure to European legislation, having read the treaty in some detail and knowing where European legislation will go in the future, that Europe does not have responsibility for education or local planning--

Sir Roger Moate : Or for social services.

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Mr. Marlow : Exactly : as my hon. Friend points out, it does not have responsibility for social services. It does not have any responsibility for those activities for which local government is responsible. So if we are to send people to the committee, and if the Committee of the Regions is to exist, the last people on earth we should send at this stage are local councillors, because they will be talking about issues that have nothing to do with local councils. It is clear that we must have another think about the matter. That is one reason why I am delighted to have voted as I did in Committee, because the House now has another opportunity to look carefully at that important organisation, the Committee of the Regions. My hon. Friend the Member for Faversham (Sir R. Moate) said that he saw it as a potential second chamber, a sort of senate- -

Sir Roger Moate : I did not say that.

Mr. Marlow : I apologise if I have misinterpreted my hon. Friend.

Sir Roger Moate : I hope that my hon. Friend will not credit me with such ambitions or fears. The hon. Member for Caithness and Sutherland (Mr. Maclennan), speaking for the Liberals, saw it, frankly and honestly, as a potential second chamber. Perish the thought. One has that very fear, for it could go in all sorts of directions and I do not for a moment want to think of it going in that direction.

Mr. Marlow : If I credited my hon. Friend with an interpretation that was not correct, I immediately discredit him with that interpretation. As the hon. Member for Caithness and Sutherland said, it is pregnant with potential--with great powers and potential damage--so we must be careful whom we send, and the last people we should send are local councillors.

Whom should we send? If there is to be local representation from the United Kingdom, we must look at the different parts of the country, at the different interests and think of the different sorts of people who should go. If London is a region, the best people to send are active professionals and financiers from London who know how the City of London and the guilds work and about the wealth-creating activities of the capital. They are best able to represent London, because they generate its wealth.

If we are to send people from the midlands region--the black country and Birmingham--where much manufacturing takes place, perhaps we should send representatives from the wealth-creating community there. In other contexts, we should send arts and heritage people and those concerned with culture and the environment. Consider the broad open spaces of Lincolnshire and the west country, where there is a great deal of agricultural activity. The best person to send from there might be a representative of the National Farmers Union or the National Union of Agricultural and Allied Workers. Councillors are the last people we should send.

Mr. Maclennan : Does not the hon. Gentleman remember that Lord Plumb, who was elected to the European Parliament, was the president of the National Farmers Union? Election to an organisation does not preclude someone from having a knowledge of what he or she is talking about.

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7 pm

Mr. Marlow : That is a statement of the blindingly obvious. If we leave the Bill as it is at present, it means that members of the Committee of the Regions should be, first and foremost, local councillors. It is my view--after mature consideration I expect that it will be the view of Conservative Members, and possibly of the House--that those people are the least able to fulfil the role, particularly if it becomes an important one.

We want people from the regions who represent the most important things which are happening there, for which Europe has

responsibility. Europe has responsibility for trade and agriculture, and growing responsibilities in other spheres, many of which I would resist. Europe certainly has responsibility in matters of trade and agriculture. Therefore, surely, if regional views are to be represented at the European level, it is vital to send

representatives of the regional views who are members of the corporate state--the great and the good, trade unionists, manufacturers, those with commercial and agricultural interests, and industrialists. Of course, there is a European dimension to our cultural and environmental affairs.

As my right hon. Friend the Minister of State said in a previous debate-- [Interruption.] He does not have to listen to what I am saying, it is not particularly important. There are organisations within our body politic where people with different interests and from different parties can come together, consult and decide on the most appropriate people to fulfil the functions. I am sure that that process could be put into action through the usual channels. However, I stress that the important factor is to send those people who will make the most impact on the policies decided at European level, and those people should not be councillors.

The amendment in my name--I think, amendment No. 32--covers how the positions should be allocated within the United Kingdom, which is to have 24 seats. I understand that the Scots and the Welsh have their eye on the lion's share of the seats, and I can understand why. They have always looked upon themselves as different and specific regions, and having done so, they expect to be treated better, pro rata, than the rest of the kingdom.

Even my right hon. Friend the Minister said on 25 February that he recognised that there would need to be

"some tilting towards Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland."--[ Official Report , 25 February 1993 ; Vol. 219, c. 1064.]

I do not recognise that, and I do not think that my constituents do. It has nothing to do with the states, principalities and nations that make up the United Kingdom, but with the fact that equal representation is available to all

We know that, for historical reasons, Scottish Members of the House represent fewer constituents than English Members. As I understand it, that was contained in the treaty of Union, and we cannot do a great deal about it--perhaps we should not. However, we do not have to extend that principle to the Committee of the Regions. Nobody has given any justification or reason why we should do so.

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